The Rudolf Steiner Archive

[ 1 ] In reading discussions of anthroposophy such as appear nowadays there is something painful in having to meet again and again such thoughts, for instance, as “that the World War has been the cause of moods in men's souls fitted to set up all sorts of ‘mystical’ and similar spiritual currents”; and then to have anthroposophy included among these currents.

[ 2 ] Against this stands the fact that the anthroposophic movement was founded at the beginning of the century, and that nothing essential has been done within this movement since its foundation that has not been derived from the inner life of the spirit. Twenty-five years ago I had a content of spiritual impressions within me. I gave the substance of these in lectures, treatises, and books. What I did was done from spiritual impulses. In its essence every theme was drawn from the spirit. During the war I discussed also topics which were suggested by the events of the times. But in these there was nothing basic due to any intention of taking advantage of the mood of the time for propagation of anthroposophy. These discussions occurred because men desired to have certain events illuminated by the knowledge which comes from the spiritual world.

[ 3 ] On behalf of anthroposophy no endeavour has ever been made for anything except that it should take that course of development made possible by its own inner force bestowed upon it from the spirit. It is as far as possible out of harmony with anthroposophy to imagine that it would desire to win something from the dark abysses of the soul during the World War. That the number of those interested in anthroposophy increased after the war, that the Anthroposophical Society increased in its membership – these things are true; only one ought to note that all these facts have never changed anything in the development of the anthroposophical reality in the sense in which this took its full form at the beginning of the century.

[ 4 ] The form which was to be given to anthroposophy from inner spiritual being had at first to struggle against all sorts of opposition from the theosophists in Germany.

[ 5 ] There was, first of all, the justification of spiritual knowledge before the “scientific” mode of thought of the time. That this justification is necessary I have stated frequently in this story of my life. I took that mode of thought which rightly passes as “scientific” in natural knowledge and extended this into spiritual knowledge. Through this means, the mode of knowledge of nature became, to be sure, something different for the observation of spirit from what it is for the observation of nature, but the character which causes it to be looked upon as “scientific” was maintained.

[ 6 ] For this mode of scientific shaping of spiritual knowledge, those persons who considered themselves representatives of the theosophical movement at the beginning of the century never had any feeling or interest.

[ 7 ] These were the persons grouped about Dr. Hübbe-Schleiden. He, as a personal friend of H. P. Blavatsky, had established a theosophical society as early as the 'eighties, beginning at Elberfeld. In this foundation H. P. Blavatsky herself participated. Dr. Hübbe-Schleiden then published a journal, Die Sphinx, in which the theosophical world-conception should be upheld. The whole movement failed; and, when the German section of the Theosophical Society was founded, there was nothing existing except a number of persons, who looked upon me, however, as a sort of trespasser in their territory. These persons awaited the “scientific founding” of theosophy by Dr. Hübbe-Schleiden. They held the opinion that, until this should occur, nothing was to be done in this matter within German territory. What I began to do appeared to them as a disturbance of their “waiting,” as something utterly blameworthy. Yet they did not at once withdraw; for theosophy was their affair, and, if anything should happen in this, they did not wish to be absent.

[ 8 ] What did they understand of the “science” that Dr. Hübbe-Schleiden was to establish, whereby theosophy would be “proven”? To anthroposophy they conceded nothing.

[ 9 ] They understood by this term the atomistic bases of natural scientific theorizing. The phenomena of nature were “explained” when one conceived the “primal parts” of the world-substance as grouping into atoms and these into molecules. A substance was there by reason of the fact that it represented a certain structure of atoms in molecules.

This mode of thought was supposed to be figurative. Complicated molecules were constructed which were also to be the basis for spiritual effects. Chemical processes were supposed to be the results of processes within the molecular structure; for spiritual processes something similar must be found.

[ 10 ] For me this atomic theory, in the significance given to it in natural science, was something quite impossible even within that science; to wish to carry this over into the spiritual seemed to me a confusion of thought that one could not even seriously discuss.

[ 11 ] In this field there have always been difficulties for my way of establishing anthroposophy. People have been assured from certain sides for a long time that materialism was overcome. To those who incline to this view, anthroposophy seems to be attacking windmills when it discusses materialism in science. To me, on the contrary, it was always clear that what people call a way of overcoming materialism is just the way unconsciously to maintain it.

[ 12 ] It was never a matter of moment to me that atoms should be conceived either in a purely mechanical or other activity in connection with processes in matter. What was important to me was that the thoughtful consideration of the atom – the smallest image of the world – should go forward and seek for an issue into the organic, into the spiritual. I saw the necessity of proceeding from the whole. Atoms, or atomic structure, can only be the results of spiritual action or organic action. From the perceived primal phenomena, and not from an intellectual construction, would I take the way leading out into the spirit of Goethe's view of nature. Profoundly impressive to me was the meaning of Goethe's words that the factual is in itself theoretical, and that one should seek for nothing behind this. But this demands that one must receive in the presence of nature that which the senses give, and must employ thought solely in order to go past the complicated derivative phenomena (appearances), which cannot be surveyed, and arrive at the simple, the primal phenomena. Then it will be noted that in nature one has to do with colour and other sense-qualities within which spirit is actually at work; but one does not arrive at an atomic world behind the sense-world.

[ 13 ] That in this direction progress has occurred in the conception of nature the anthroposophic mode of thinking cannot admit. What appears in such views as those of Mach, or what has recently appeared in this sphere, is really the beginning of an abandonment of the atomic and molecular constructions; yet all this shows that this construction is so deeply rooted in the mode of thought that abandoning it means losing all reality. Mach has spoken now of concepts only as if they were economical generalizations of sense-perceptions, not something which lives in a spiritual reality; and it is the same with recent writers.

[ 14 ] Therefore what now appears as a battle within theoretical materialism is no less remote from the spiritual being in which anthroposophy lives than from the materialism of the last third of the nineteenth century. What has been brought forward, therefore, by anthroposophy against the customary thinking of the physical sciences holds good to-day, not in lesser but in greater measure.

[ 15 ] The setting forth of these things may appear to be theoretical obtrusions in this story of my life. To me they are not; for what is contained in these analyses was for me an experience, the strongest sort of experience, far more significant even than what came to me from without.

[ 16 ] Immediately upon the foundation of the German section of the Theosophical Society, it seemed to me a matter of necessity to have a publication of our own. So Marie von Sievers and I established the monthly Luzifer. The name was naturally in no way associated at that time with the spiritual Power whom I later designated as Lucifer, the opposite of Ahriman. The content of anthroposophy had not then been developed to such an extent that these Powers could have been discussed. The name was intended to signify only “The Light-bearer.”

[ 17 ] Although it was at first my intention to work in harmony with the leadership of the Theosophical Society, yet from the beginning I had the feeling that something must originate in anthroposophy which evolves out of its own germ without making itself in any way dependent upon what theosophy causes to be taught. This I could accomplish only by means of such a publication. And what anthroposophy is to-day has really grown out of what I then wrote in that monthly.

[ 18 ] It was thus that the German section was established under the patronage and in the presence of Mrs. Besant. At that time Mrs. Besant delivered a lecture in Berlin on the goal and the principles of theosophy. Somewhat later we requested her to deliver Lectures in a number of German cities. Such was the case in Hamburg, Berlin, Weimar, Munich, Stuttgart, Cologne. In spite of all this – and not by reason of any measures taken by me, but because of the inner necessities of the thing – theosophy failed, and anthroposophy went through an evolution determined by inner requirements.

[ 19 ] Marie von Sievers made all this possible, not only because she made material sacrifices according to her ability, but because she devoted her entire effort to anthroposophy. At first we had to work under conditions truly the most primitive. I wrote the greater part of Luzifer. Marie von Sievers carried on the correspondence. When an issue was ready, we ourselves attended to the wrapping, addressing, stamping, and personally carried the copies to the post office in a laundry basket.

[ 20 ] Very soon Luzifer had so far increased its circulation that a Herr Rappaport, of Vienna, who published a journal called Gnosis, made an agreement with me to combine this with mine into a single publication. Then Luzifer appeared under the title Luzifer-Gnosis. For a long time also Herr Rappaport had a share in the undertaking.

Luzifer-Gnosis made the most satisfactory progress. The publication increased its circulation in a highly satisfactory fashion. Numbers which had been exhausted had to be printed a second time. Nor did it “fail.” But the spread of anthroposophy in a relatively short time took such a form that I was called upon to deliver lectures in many cities. From the single lectures there grew in many cases cycles of lectures. At first I tried to maintain the editorship of Luzifer-Gnosis along with this lecturing; but the numbers could not be issued any longer at the right time – often coming out months later. And so there came about the remarkable fact that a periodical which was gaining new subscribers with every number could no longer be published, solely because of the overburdening of the editor.

[ 21 ] In Lucifer-Gnosis I was able for the first time to publish what became the foundation of anthroposophic work. There first appeared what I had to say about the strivings that the human mind must make in order to attain to its own perceptual grasp upon spiritual knowledge. Wie erlangt man Erkenntnisse der höheren Welten¹ came out in serial form from number to number. In the same way was the basis laid for anthroposophic cosmology in serial articles entitled Aus der Akasha-Chronik.²

[ 22 ] It was from what was thus given, and not from anything borrowed from the Theosophical Movement, that the Anthroposophical Movement had its growth. If I gave any attention to the teachings carried on in the Society when I composed my own writings on spiritual knowledge, it was only for the purpose of correcting by a contrasting statement one thing or another in those teachings which I considered erroneous.

[ 23 ] In this connection I must mention something which is constantly brought forward by our opponents, wrapped in a fog of misunderstandings. I need say nothing whatever about this on any inner ground, for it has had no influence whatever on my evolution or on my public activities. As regards all that I have to describe here the matter has remained a purely “private” affair. I refer to my forming “esoteric schools” within the Theosophical Society.

[ 24 ] The “esoteric schools” date back to H. P. Blavatsky. She had created for a small inner circle of the Society a place in which she gave out what she did not wish to say to the Society in general. She, like others who know the spiritual world, did not consider it possible to impart to the generality of persons certain profound teachings.

[ 25 ] All this is bound up with the way in which H. P. Blavatsky came to give her teachings. There has always been a tradition in regard to such teachings which goes back to the ancient mysteries. This tradition was cherished in all sorts of societies, which took strict care to prevent any teaching from permeating outside each society.

[ 26 ] But, for some reason or other, it was considered proper to impart such teaching to H. P. Blavatsky. She then united what she had thus received with revelations which came to her personally from within. For she was a human personality in whom, by reason of a remarkable atavism, the spiritual worked as it had once worked in the leaders of the mysteries, in a state of consciousness which – in contrast with the modern state illuminated by the consciousness-soul – was dreamlike in character. Thus, in the human being, “Blavatsky,” was renewed that which in primitive times was kept secret in the mysteries.

[ 27 ] For modern men there is an infallible method for deciding what portion of the content of spiritual perception can be imparted to wider circles. This can be done with everything which the investigator can clothe in such ideas as are current both in the consciousness-soul itself and also in appropriate form in acknowledged science.

[ 28 ] Such is not the case when the spiritual knowledge does not live in the mind, but in forces lying rather in the subconsciousness. These are not sufficiently independent of the forces active in the body. Therefore the imparting of such teachings drawn from the subconscious may be dangerous; for such teachings can in like manner be taken in only by the subconscious. Thus both teacher and learner are then moving in a region where that which is wholesome for man and that which is harmful must be handled with the utmost care.

[ 29 ] All this, therefore, does not concern anthroposophy, because this lifts all its teachings entirely above the subconscious.

[ 30 ] The inner circle of Blavatsky continued to live in the “esoteric schools.” I had set up my anthroposophic activity within the Theosophical Society. I had therefore to be informed as to all that occurred in the latter. For the sake of this information, and also because I considered a smaller circle necessary for those advanced in anthroposophical spiritual knowledge, I caused myself to be admitted as a member into the “esoteric school.” My smaller circle was, of course, to have a different meaning from this school. It was to represent a higher participation, a higher class, for those who had absorbed enough of the elementary knowledge of anthroposophy. Now I intended everywhere to link up with what was already in existence, with what history had already provided. Just as I did this in regard to the Theosophical Society, I wished to do likewise in reference to the esoteric school. For this reason my “more restricted circle” arose at first in connection with this school. But the connection consisted solely in the plan and not in that which I imparted from the spiritual world. So in the first years I selected as my more restricted circle a section of the esoteric school of Mrs. Besant. Inwardly it was not by any means whatever the same as this. And in 1907, when Mrs. Besant was with us at the theosophical congress in Munich, even the external connection came to an end according to an agreement between Mrs. Besant and myself.

[ 31 ] That I could have learned anything special in the esoteric school of Mrs. Besant is beyond the bounds of possibility, since from the beginning I never participated in the exercises of this school except in a few instances in which my participation was for the sole purpose of informing myself as to what went on there.

There was at that time no other real content in the school except that which was derived from H. P. Blavatsky and which was already in print. In addition to these printed exercises, Mrs. Besant gave all sorts of Indian exercises for progress in knowledge, to which I was opposed.

[ 32 ] Until 1907, then, my more restricted circle was connected, as to its plan, with that which Mrs. Besant fostered as such a circle. But to make of these facts what has been made of them by opponents is wholly unjustifiable. Even the absurd idea that I was introduced to spiritual knowledge entirely by the esoteric school of Mrs. Besant has been asserted.

[ 33 ] In 1903 Marie von Sievers and I again took part in the theosophical congress in London. Colonel Olcott, president of the Theosophical Society, was also present, having come from India. A lovable personality, as to whom, however, it was easy to see how he could become the partner of Blavatsky in the founding, planning, and guiding of the Theosophical Society. For within a brief time the Society had in an external sense become a large body possessing an impressive organization.

[ 34 ] Marie von Sievers and I came closer to Mrs. Besant by reason of the fact that she lived with Mrs. Bright in London and we also were invited for our second London visit to this lovable home. Mrs. Bright and her daughter, Miss Esther Bright, constituted the family; persons who were like an embodiment of lovableness. I look back with inner joy upon the time I was privileged to spend in this home. The Brights were loyal friends of Mrs. Besant. Their endeavour was to knit a closer tie between us and the latter. Since it was then impossible that I should stand with Mrs. Besant in certain things – of which some have already been mentioned here – this gave pain to the Brights, who were bound with bands of steel – utterly uncritical they were – to the leader of the Theosophical Society.

[ 35 ] Mrs. Besant was an interesting person to me because of certain of her characteristics. I observed that she had a certain right to speak from her own inner experiences of the spiritual world. The inner entrance of soul into the spiritual world she did possess. Only this was later stifled by certain external objectives that she set herself.

[ 36 ] To me a person who could speak of the spirit from the spirit was necessarily interesting. But, on the other hand, I was strongly of the opinion that in our age the insight into the spiritual world must live within the consciousness-soul.

[ 37 ] I looked into an ancient spiritual knowledge of humanity. It was dreamlike in character. Men saw in pictures through which the spiritual world revealed itself. But these pictures were not evolved by the will-to-knowledge in full clarity of mind. They appeared in the soul, given to it like dreams from the cosmos. This ancient spiritual knowledge came to an end in the Middle Ages. Man came into possession of the consciousness-soul. He no longer had dream-knowledge. He drew ideas in full clarity of mind by his will-to-knowledge into the soul. This capacity first became a living reality in the sense-world. It reached its climax as sense-knowledge in natural science.

[ 38 ] The present task of spirit-knowledge is to carry the experience of ideas in full clarity of mind into the spiritual world by means of the will-to-knowledge. The knower then has a content of mind which is experienced like that of mathematics. One thinks like a mathematician; but one does not think in numbers or in geometrical figures. One thinks in pictures of the spiritual world. In contrast to the ancient waking dream knowledge of the spirit, it is the fully conscious standing within the spiritual world.

[ 39 ] Within the Theosophical Society one could gain no true relationship to this new knowledge of the spirit. One became suspicious as soon as full consciousness sought to enter the spiritual world. One knew a full consciousness solely for the sense-world. There was no true feeling for the evolving of this to the point of experiencing the spirit. The process was only to the point of a return to the ancient dream consciousness with the suppression of full consciousness. And this turning back was true of Mrs. Besant also. She has scarcely any capacity for grasping the modern form of knowledge of the spirit. But what she said of the world of spirit was, nevertheless, from that world. So she was to me an interesting person.

[ 40 ] Since among the other leaders of the Society also there was present this opposition to fully conscious knowledge of the spirit, my mind could never feel at home in the Society as regards the spiritual. Socially I enjoyed being in these circles; but their temper of mind in reference to the spiritual remained alien to me.

[ 41 ] For this reason I was also hindered from founding my lectures upon my own experience of the spirit. I delivered lectures which anyone could have delivered even though he might have no perception of spirit. This perception found expression in the lectures which I delivered, not at the meetings of branches of the Society, but before those which grew out of what Marie von Sievers and I arranged from Berlin.

[ 42 ] Then arose the Berlin, Munich, and Stuttgart work. Other places joined. Later the content of the Theosophical Society gradually disappeared; and there came into existence that which was congenial to the inner force living in anthroposophy.

[ 43 ] While carrying out the plans together with Marie von Sievers, for the external activities, I elaborated the results of my spiritual perception. On the one hand I had, of course, a fully developed standing – within the spiritual world; but I had in about 1902 – and in the succeeding years also as regards many things – “imaginations, inspirations, and intuitions.” These gradually shaped themselves into what I then gave out publicly in my writings.

[ 44 ] Through the activity developed by Marie von Sievers there came about from a small beginning the philosophical anthroposophical publication business. A small pamphlet based upon notes of a lecture I delivered before the Berlin Free Higher Institute to which I have referred was the first matter thus published. The necessity of getting possession of my Philosophy of Spiritual Activity – which could no longer be distributed by the former publisher – and of attending personally to its distribution gave the second task. We bought the remaining copies and the publisher's rights for this book.

[ 45 ] All this was not easy for us. For we were without any considerable means. But the work progressed, for the very reason that it could not rely upon anything external but solely upon inner spiritual circumstances.

• 1. Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment. The content of this book appeared in English at first in two volumes: The Way of Initiation, and Initiation and Its Results.
• 2. From the Akashic Record.

The Etheric Body

[ 1 ] When higher members of man's nature are observed by supersensible perception, the perception is never exactly similar to one that is given by the outer senses. When by the touch of an object we have a sensation of heat or warmth, a distinction must surely be made between what comes from the object—streaming from it, so to speak—and what our soul experiences. The inner experience of the sensation of heat is not the same thing as the heat emitted by the object. Now think of this actual experience in the soul, without the object; think of the soul's experience of the sensation of warmth, without any outer physical object being there to cause it. If such an experience arose without any cause, it would be mere fancy. The student of spiritual science has such inner perceptions for which there is no physical cause, above all no cause attributable to his own body. But at a certain stage of development, from the way in which these perceptions appear, he can know by the very nature of the experience (as was explained in an earlier chapter) that the inner perception is no mere fancy but is due to a being of soul and spirit belonging to a supersensible outer world, just as the ordinary sensation of heat, for example, is due to some physical object.

It is the same with a perception of color. A distinction must be made between the color of the object and the soul's inner experience of the color. Now think of what the soul experiences when perceiving a red object in the physical world. Let us picture to ourselves that we retain a vivid memory of the impression but look away from the object. The memory-picture of the color is an inner experience; we can distinguish between the inner experience evoked by the color and the external color as such. These inner experiences are substantially different from the immediate outer sense-impressions. They bear much more the stamp of feelings of pain or joy than do our normal and immediate sensations. We have to picture an inner experience of this kind arising in the soul without being caused either by an outer, physical object, or by the memory of such an object. Such an experience may come to someone who is on the way to attaining supersensible knowledge. Moreover he will be able to know in a given case that it is no mere figment of the mind, but that a real being of soul and spirit finds expression in it. And if evoking the same impression as a red object of the physical world, the being may be said to be “red.” With a physical object, however, the outer impression will always come first and be followed by the inner experience. In true supersensible vision, for a human being of the present epoch, the process must be the reverse; first the inner experience—shadowy, like a mere memory of color—and then a living picture, growing ever more vivid. Unless it is realized that such must be the sequence, it will be hard to distinguish between genuine spiritual perception and the delusions of fancy (hallucinations, and the like.)

Whether in a spiritual perception of this kind, the picture becomes truly vivid and alive—whether it remains shadowy, like a dim inkling, or its effect grows as intensely real as that of an outer object—depends upon the stage of development which the aspirant has reached.

The general impression which the seer has of the ether-body of man may now be described as follows. If the aspirant for supersensible knowledge has developed such strength of will that even when a physical man is standing in front of him he can turn his attention right away from what is seen by the physical eyes, he will be able to look with supersensible consciousness into the space occupied by the physical man. Naturally, will-power must e greatly enhanced before it is possible to divert attention not only from what is in one's own mind but from something with which one is actually confronted, so that the physical impression is entirely obliterated. But such enhancement of the will is possible and is achieved by means of the exercises for the attainment of supersensible cognition. It is then possible for the student to have, to begin with, a general impression of the ether-body. There arises in his soul the same inner experience which he has at the sight, let us say, of the color of a peach-blossom; this experience then becomes vividly alive, and he can say: the ether-body has a “peach-blossom” color. Then he perceives the several organs and currents of the ether-body. But the ether-body can also be described in terms of other experiences of the soul—experiences which correspond to sensations of warmth, impressions of sound, and so on, for it is not only a color-phenomenon. Moreover the astral body and other members of man's being can be described in like manner. Bearing in mind what has here been said, it will be realized how the descriptions of spiritual science are to be understood. (Compare Chapter II.)

The Astral World

[ 2 ] As long as the physical world alone is being observed, the Earth—man's dwelling place—appears as a separate heavenly body. When supersensible cognition rises to other spheres, there is no longer this separation. Hence it was possible to say that together with the Earth, Imaginative consciousness perceives the Old Moon condition, such as it has become up to the present time. The world thus entered is one to which not only the supersensible nature of the Earth belongs; other heavenly bodies, physically separated from the Earth, are part of it as well. In that realm the knower of supersensible worlds observes the supersensible nature not only of the Earth but of other heavenly bodies too. (It is, once more, the supersensible nature of other heavenly bodies which he observes to begin with. This should be borne in mind by those who feel impelled to ask why the seer does not tell us what it looks like on Mars, and so on. In putting questions of this kind they think of physical and sense-perceptible conditions.) Hence in the course of this book it was also possible to speak of relationships obtaining between the evolution taking place on Earth and simultaneous evolutions on Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, and so on. When man's astral body is drawn away in sleep it belongs not only to the Earth and earthly conditions, but to worlds in which other cosmic realms—stellar worlds—participate. Moreover, these worlds permeate into man's astral body even in the waking state. Therefore the term “astral body” appears justified.

Man's Life After Death

[ 3 ] Reference has been made in the course of this book to the period of time during which the astral body remains united with the ether-body after a man's death. A gradually fading memory of the whole of the life just ended is present throughout this time (see Chapter III.) It varies in duration with different individuals, depending upon the tenacity with which the astral body holds the ether-body to itself—in other words, the power which the astral body has over the etheric. Supersensible cognition can get an impression of this power by observing a human being who, by the state of his soul and body, ought really to be sleeping but keeps himself awake by sheer inner strength. It becomes evident that different people can, if need be, remain awake without being overcome by sleep for different periods of time. The memory of the life just ended—which means that the connection with the etheric body is still maintained—lasts for about as long after death as the extreme length of time for which, if compelled to do so, the individual would have been able to stay awake.

When the ether-body is detached from the human being after death (see Chapter III,) something that may be described as a kind of extract or quintessence of it remains for the whole of his future evolution. This extract contains the fruits of the past life. It is the bearer of the “seed” of his coming life—the seed which is developing throughout man's spiritual evolution between death and a new birth.

[ 4 ] The length of time between death and a new birth is determined by the fact that as a rule the I of man returns into the physical world only when this world has been so transformed as to give opportunity for new experiences. While the Ego is in the spiritual worlds, man's earthly dwelling-place is changing. In one respect this change is connected with the changes that are taking place in the great Universe—changes for example, in the relative position of the Earth to the Sun. Periodic changes involving cosmic repetitions are connected with the development of new conditions on the Earth. They find expression, for example, in the fact that the region of the heavens where the Sun rises at the vernal equinox makes an entire circuit in about 26,000 years. Throughout this period of the vernal point has therefore been moving from one region of the heavens to another, and in a twelfth of this period of time—that is to say, in about 2,100 years—conditions on the Earth will have altered sufficiently for the soul to be able to have essentially new experiences upon Earth. Moreover as these experiences differ according to whether one is incarnating as a woman or as a man, two incarnations will as a rule take place during this time—one as a man, one as a woman. However, these things also depend upon the forces gathered during earthly life—forces the individual takes with him through the gate of death. Therefore all such indications as have been given here are only valid in the most general sense; there will be many and manifold individual variations.

Thus it is only in one respect that the length of the human Ego's sojourn in the spiritual world between death and new birth depends upon the above-mentioned cosmic data. In another respect it will depend upon the stages of the evolution through which the human being passes in the spiritual world. After a time this very evolution brings the I of man into a spiritual condition where he no longer finds sufficiency in the inner experiences of the Spirit. He beings to long for that altered consciousness which is reflected in physical experience and derives satisfaction from this reflection. The re-entry of the human being into earthly life is an outcome of these two factors: the inner thirst of the soul for incarnation, and the cosmically given possibility of finding a suitable bodily nature. Two factors therefore have to work in conjunction. Hence in one instance incarnation may result even before the “thirst” has reached its full intensity, a well-adapted incarnation being within reach; while in another it may have to wait till the thirst has outlived its normal culmination, since at the proper time no opportunity to incarnate was given. In so far as it is due to the whole character and quality of his bodily constitution, a man's prevailing mood and attunement to life will also be the outcome of these conditions.

The Stages of Man's Life

[ 5 ] Fully to understand the life of man and its successive stages between birth and death, it is not enough to consider only the physical body as seen by the outer senses. It is essential also to take into account the changes undergone by the supersensible members of man's nature. They are as follows. At physical birth man is released from the physical integument of the maternal womb. Forces hitherto shared by the human embryo with the mother's body must from now on be functioning independently in the body of the little child. Now the fact is that for supersensible perception other events of this kind are undergone in the further course of life—supersensible events, analogous to that of physical birth as seen by the outer senses. For his etheric body man is enveloped by an ethereal sheath—an etheric integument—until about the change of teeth, the sixth or seventh year, when the etheric integument falls away. This event represents the “birth” of the etheric body. After it man is still enveloped by an astral sheath, which falls away at the age of puberty—between the 12^th and 16^th year. The astral body in its turn is “born.” Then at an even later point of time the I is born. (The very helpful educational points of view arising from these supersensible realities are set forth in my booklet The Education of the Child in the Light of Spiritual Science, where the facts briefly indicated here are described in greater detail.)

With the birth of the I, man's adult life begins. With the three members of the soul (Sentient Soul, Intellectual or Mind-Soul and Spiritual Soul) progressively awakened and activated by the I, he finds his proper place in life amid the prevailing world-conditions, to which he makes his own active contribution. At length however there comes a time when the etheric body begins to decline, reversing the development it enjoyed from the seventh year onward. There is a change in the functioning of the astral body. To start with it unfolded the potentialities brought with it from the spiritual world at birth. After the birth of the Ego it was enriched by all the experiences coming to it from the outer world. But now the moment comes when in a spiritual sense the astral body begins to feed on its own etheric body. It draws on the etheric body and consumes it. And in the further course of life the etheric body in its turn begins to draw upon the physical body and consume it. There facts are closely related to the physical body's degeneration in old age.

The life of man is thereby naturally divided into three epochs. First is the time during which the physical and etheric bodies grow and develop. In the middle period the astral body and the I come into their own. The third and last is the period of bodily decline when the youthful development of the etheric and physical bodies is in a sense reversed. Now in all these events—from birth until death—the astral body is concerned. Moreover inasmuch as it is not spiritually born until the 12^th to 16^th year, and in the final epoch is obliged to draw upon the forces of the etheric and physical bodies, what the astral body has to achieve by virtue of its own faculties and forces unfolds at a slower rate than it would do if it were not inhabiting a physical and etheric body. Hence after death (as explained in Chapter III,) when the physical and etheric bodies have been cast off, the evolution of the astral body through the “time of purification” takes about a third as long as the past life between birth and death.

Higher Regions of the Spiritual World

[ 6 ] Through Imagination, Inspiration and Intuition supersensible cognition gradually reaches up into the regions of the spiritual world where it can apprehend the Beings who participate in the evolution of the World and Man. There too it can perceive and, in perceiving, find intelligible the life of man between death and a new birth. Now there are even higher regions of existence, though we can do no more than briefly allude to them here.

>Having once risen to the stage of Intuition, supersensible cognition lives and moves amid a world of spiritual Beings. But the spiritual Beings too are evolving. The concerns of present-day mankind reach up, as it were, into the spiritual realm accessible to Intuition. True, in the course of his development between death and a new birth man receives influences from yet higher worlds, but he does not experience them directly; the Beings of the spiritual world convey them to him. In the Intuitive contemplation of these Beings we perceive all that they are doing in and on behalf of man. Their own concerns however—what they require for themselves to enable them to guide human evolution—can only be apprehended by forms of cognition higher than Intuition.

In saying this we refer to worlds among those lower functions are the highest that are known to us on Earth. Reasoned resolves for example are among the highest things on Earth; the actions and reactions of the mineral kingdom among the lowest. For the sublime worlds to which we are now referring, reasoned resolves have approximately the same value as have the mineral reactions on Earth. Beyond the realm of Intuition is the region where the great cosmic plan is being woven out of purely spiritual causes.

The Members of Man's Being

[ 7 ] Toward the end of Chapter II it was described how the I or Ego works upon the members of man's being to transform them—the astral body into Spirit-Self, the etheric body into Life-Spirit, the physical body into Spirit-Man. This was in reference to the working of the Go on man's nature by virtue of the highest faculties—faculties, the development of which has only been beginning during the successive stages of Earthly evolution. Now there is also a preliminary transformation on a lower level, whereby the Sentient Soul, the Intellectual or Mind-Soul and the Spiritual Soul are developed. AS in the course of man's evolution the Sentient Soul comes into being, far-reaching changes are going on in the astral body. So too the development of the Intellectual Soul and of the Spiritual Soul involves a transmutation of the ether-body and of the physical body respectively. Much of this was incidentally described in the chapter on the evolution of the Earth.

Thus in a sense it is true to day that the Sentient Soul is due to a transmuted astral body, the Intellectual Soul to a transmuted ether-body, and the Spiritual Soul to a transmuted physical body. But it may equally well be said that all three members of the soul are part and parcel of the astral body. The Spiritual Soul, for example, can only come into being as an astral entity in an appropriate physical body. It lives an astral life in a physical body molded and worked upon to be its proper habitation.

The State of Consciousness In Dreaming

[ 8 ] In some respects the dream has been described in the third chapter of this book. Dream-consciousness is on the one hand a relic of the picture-consciousness which man enjoyed on the Old Moon, and -for a long time too—in former periods of Earth evolution. Earlier conditions generally go on working even while evolution is advancing to fresh stages. Dreaming is thus a relic of the normal state of consciousness of former times. And yet the dream-condition of today differs essentially from the old picture-consciousness, for the Ego, which has since developed, influences what goes on in the astral body during sleep while we are dreaming. It is therefore a picture-consciousness transmuted by the presence of the Ego. Yet inasmuch as the Ego's influence on the dreaming astral body is unconscious, nothing deriving from the dream-life can be a direct source of spiritual-scientific knowledge of higher worlds. The same applied to what is often spoken of as visions, premonitions and second sight. In all of these the Ego is more or less eliminated, in consequence of which, relics of earlier states of consciousness can supervene. They have no direct spiritual-scientific application; what man perceives in such conditions cannot be included among the valid researches of true spiritual science.

The Way to Supersensible Cognition

[ 9 ] The way to the attainment of knowledge of higher worlds, of which a fairly detailed account has been given in this book, may be described as the “direct path” of knowledge. There is also another way, known as “the path of feeling.” Not that the former way leaves feeling undeveloped; quite on the contrary, it leads to an immeasurable deepening of the life of feeling. But the other path—the “path of feeling”—appeals to the feeling-life directly, seeking to rise from thence to detailed spiritual knowledge. The fact is that a feeling to which a man unreservedly devotes his inner life for a sufficient length of time becomes transformed of its own accord into cognition—into Imaginative vision. If, for example, the soul is deliberately steeped for weeks and months or even longer in feelings of humility, the feeling-content is transformed into spiritual perception. A gradual ascent through this and other feelings of this kind can thus become a pathway into the supersensible. But it is very difficult to carry out in ordinary present-day surroundings. Seclusion—withdrawal from the prevailing conditions especially of modern life—is well-nigh indispensable for this spiritual pathway. For above all in the initial stages, the impressions one is constantly receiving from everyday life in our time disturb and interfere with what the soul would otherwise achieve by dwelling on deliberately chosen feelings. The path of knowledge here described is different; it can be carried through no matter what one's situation is amid the typical conditions of our time.

The Observation of Particular Events and Beings

[ 10 ] It may be asked whether by meditation, contemplation and kindred methods of attaining supersensible cognition described in this book, we arrive at the general realities—say, of the life between death and rebirth, and other spiritual facts—or whether we are also enabled to perceive particular events and beings, for example an individual human soul after death. The answer is that one who has thus acquired the ability to see into the spiritual world also becomes able to perceive in detail what is going on there. He does indeed become capable of communication with individuals living in the spiritual world between death and new birth. But in accordance with true spiritual science it can only be done after a regular and proper training has been undergone, for this alone makes it possible to distinguish truth from illusion as to the several beings and events. Those who would claim to recognize the spiritual details, without have undergone a proper training are liable to countless illusions. Even the most elementary requirement, namely the true interpretation of the impressions one receives, presupposes spiritual training—training the more advanced where the impressions relate to detailed facts and individual beings.

Thus the same training which enables one to see the facts of higher worlds described in this work on Occult Science, also enables one to perceive an individual human soul during his life after death, or severally to observe and understand the diverse spiritual beings who influence the manifest from hidden worlds. Yet the reliable observation of the particular is only possible against the background of a more universal knowledge—namely a spiritual knowledge of the great facts of the Universe and Man, facts which relate to all mankind in common. Craving the former without the latter, one will go astray. In observation of the spiritual world it is an unavoidable experience. Into the very regions for which a man is most apt to long, entry is only granted when he has gone along the stern and exacting path of knowledge, where interest is focused upon universal questions and he gains insight into the deeper meaning of all life.

When he has walked along these paths in the sincere and unselfish quest of knowledge, then and then only is a man fit to observe the details, the premature exploration of which would but have satisfied in him a hidden egoism. For in the longing to see into the spiritual world it is only too easy to persuade oneself that one is actuated by pure love—such as the love of an individual friend who has died. Unalloyed insight into the single facts and beings is only possible for those whose sincere interest in the universal truths of spiritual science enables them to receive the detailed revelations too in a scientific spirit and without selfish longing.

The Stages of Evolution of the Human Form The Expulsion of the Animal Beings. The Four Human Types.

We have become acquainted with significant events in the evolution of the human organism. We have followed the organism from its beginning to the point of time when the moon departed from the earth. When we say “point of time”, we are not speaking literally, for these events occupied long periods. From the first moment when the moon began to show signs of withdrawing, until its departure had been completely accomplished, long stretches of time passed and many things occurred in evolution. But we have observed man until about the departure of the moon. We have understood man's form which, as its lower part, approximately from the middle of the trunk to the height of the hips, manifested a configuration not entirely unlike his present shape. This body, although soft, could have been seen with modern eyes, whereas the upper parts were visible only to clairvoyant consciousness. We have already pointed out how something of man's nature at that time has been preserved by myth, religion, and art in the centaur. The various parts of the body, the members that gradually evolved into feet, shanks, knees, thighs, represent the animal forms of our earth at that time. These animal forms, however, remained stuck at certain stages of evolution, beyond which man was able to progress. Let us try to understand this thoroughly.

In the earliest times, when the sun departed, no animal forms had yet appeared. After the sun had left, the highest form of animal was a type that stood at the level of our present fish. When we say that the human feet corresponded to this fish-form, when we look at the feet in connection with fish, what does this mean? It means that the feet were the only part of man that was physically perceptible at the time when certain forms were left behind which swam about like fish in the water-earth. The remaining parts were present only in a finer etheric form. What we have described as the chalice or blossom form, the light-organ, was entirely etheric, an illuminated air-form. Only the lowest part of man was able really to wade through the water-earth like the fish that had remained behind.

Thereafter there were higher animals, which are depicted in the image of the Water-man, the man whose body was visible as high as the shanks. Man has been formed in such a way as to leave behind him, at every stage of his existence, certain animal forms, beyond which he slowly progressed. When the moon began to withdraw, man was so far along that he had given his lower half, his lower nature, a physical shape, whereas the upper half remained entirely pliable. Then, we see taking hold, from the moon, that influence of the moonlight which the Egyptians called Osiris, which can work upon man through the different aspects of the moon. We see how the most important formations of the upper body, i.e., the nerves that bring about the present upper body, are worked into man from the moon. The nerves, going out from the spine, formed the upper body. At first, through the tones that Osiris-Apollo played on the human lyre, the mid-part, the hip-region, comes into form. All that had to remain stuck at this point, beyond which man progressed, appears in later evolution in the forms of the amphibians.

As long as the moon was connected with the earth, it more or less pushed man's evolution down. The fish form was still connected with the sun, which is the reason for the feeling that every healthy person today has toward fish. Think of the pleasure of seeing a beautiful glittering fish, a shining water-animal, and then think of the antipathy one feels toward a frog, toad, or snake, although these stand higher than the fish. The forms of that time appear in their decadence as the present amphibians, but man once had such forms in his lower corporeality. As long as man had only a lower corporeality to the hips, he was a sort of dragon. It was only later, when the upper body assumed solid form, that by use of this he transformed the lower. We may say that the fish reflects the form that man possessed through the forces he received while the sun was still united with the earth. Until the sun departed, man stood at the level of the fish.

Now the great beings, the leaders of evolution, departed as they shaped their sun, to reunite with the earth only at a much later time. One of the Spirits, one who went out with the sun, the highest of the guiding Sun Spirits, was the Christ. We feel a deep reverence when we realize that up to this time man was united with this Being who, as the noblest spirit, once departed from the earth with the sun. One felt that through the form of the fish one could characterize the time of the sun's departure from the earth, and also the forms given through the Christ himself. Earlier, man on earth was united with the sun, and as the latter departed he saw, preserved in the fish-shape, the form that he owed to the sun spirits. As he progressed further, the sun spirits were no longer with him. The Christ departed from the earth when man still had the fish-shape. The initiates of the first Christian period preserved this form. In the Roman catacombs the fish appeared as the symbol of Christ, to remind men of the great cosmic event in evolution when the Christ was still united with them in the earth. Man had progressed to the fish-form when the sun split off, and the first Christians felt a reference to the Man-Christ-form in the fish symbol as something of great profundity. Such a significant sign, which we view as a symbol of an epoch of cosmic evolution, is far removed from the external explanations that are often given. The true symbols refer to higher spiritual realities. They did not merely “mean” something to the early Christians. Such a symbol is a picture of this or that which one can really see in the spiritual world, and no symbol is rightly interpreted unless one can point to what can be seen in the spiritual world in connection with it. All speculation is at most preparatory, and the expression “it means” does not touch the point; for one first really understands the symbol when one shows how a spiritual fact is portrayed in it.

Now let us proceed further with the evolution of humanity. Man took on the most diverse forms, and when he had developed upward to the hip-level he was at his ugliest in his physical form. The shape he then had is preserved in a decadent form in the snake. The time when man had reached the amphibian form, when the moon was still in the earth, is the time of shame and degeneracy in the evolution of mankind. Had the moon not then departed from the earth, the race of men would have succumbed to a horrible fate, failing increasingly into evil forms. Hence the feeling that the naive and unspoiled person has toward the snake, which retains the form that man had at his lowest point, is entirely justified. Precisely the unspoiled soul-attitude, which does not assert that there is nothing ugly in nature, feels a revulsion before the snake, because it is the document of human shame. This is not meant in a moral sense, but points to the lowest stage in human evolution.

Man had now to pass beyond this low point. He could do this only by abandoning the animal form and beginning to condense his spiritual upper part. We have seen that all the nobler parts could develop only through the intervention of the Isis and Osiris forces. In order for the Osiris forces to work in him, in order for the nobler part to develop, something important was necessary. Man's upper part had to find the possibility of bringing the spine out of the horizontal into the vertical. All this occurred through the influence of Isis and Osiris. Man was led from stage to stage by sun and moon, which kept themselves in balance. When half of man had become physical, sun and moon were in balance; therefore the hip region is designated as the Balance. At that time the sun was in the sign of the Balance.

Now we must not imagine—and this must be emphasized—that after the sun had stood in the sign of the Scorpion, and then in the sign of the Balance, the hips immediately developed. This would show the tempo of evolution as proceeding much too rapidly. The sun travels through the whole zodiac in a period of 25,920 years. At one time the sun rose in spring in the Ram, earlier in the sign of the Bull. The vernal point was always moving, going through the sign of the Bull, and so on. About 747 BC the sun again entered into the Ram; in our time it rises in the sign of the Fish. The time during which the sun traverses a sign has some significance, but such a period would not suffice for the change that had to take place in order for man to progress from sexuality under the sign of the Scorpion to the evolving of his hips under the sign of the Balance. We should have a false picture of this, if we thought that it could have occurred in one transit of the sun. The sun goes once through the zodiac, and only after this complete circuit does the forward step occur. In earlier times it had to make the transit oftener before the forward step could take place. Therefore we cannot apply to more ancient epochs the familiar time-reckonings of post-Atlantean times. The sun had first to go completely around—in earlier ages even several times—before evolution could progress a step. For those members that required a stronger molding, the time lasted even longer.

Man rises ever higher through this evolution. The next stage, during which the lower parts of the human trunk were formed, is designated by the sign of the Virgin.

We shall best understand evolution if we make it quite clear that, while man was becoming ever more human, animal beings remained stuck at certain stages. We have already said that man developed lungs, heart, and larynx through the influence of the moon forces. We have also shown to what extent Osiris and Isis participated in this. Now we must be quite clear that the higher organs, such as heart, lungs, larynx, and others, could develop only through the fact that the higher members of man—etheric body, astral body, and also the ego—cooperated in a definite way as the really spiritual members of man. After the point that was reached under the Balance, these higher members cooperated much more than in the preceding epochs. Thus the most manifold forms could appear. For example, the etheric body, or the astral, or the ego, could work especially strongly. It could even happen that the physical body might predominate over the other three members. Through this four human types developed. A number of men appeared who had worked out the physical body especially. Then there were men who had received their stamp from the etheric body, others whose astral nature predominated, and also ego-men, strongly marked ego-men. Each man showed what predominated in him. In the ancient times when these four forms originated, one could meet grotesque shapes, and the clairvoyant discovers what is present in the different types. There are representations, although these are not well known, in which the memory of this has been preserved. For example, those men in whom the physical nature became especially strong and worked on the upper parts, bore the mark of this in their upper part. Something was formed that was entirely suited to the baser form, and through what was thus active there appeared the shape that we see retained in the apocalyptic picture of the Bull, although not the bull of today, which is a decadent form. What was governed principally by the physical body at a certain time, remained stuck at the stage of the bull. This is represented by the bull and all that belongs to this genus, such as cows, oxen and so on. The human group in whom the etheric rather than the physical body was strongly marked, in whom the heart region was especially powerful, is also preserved in the animal kingdom. This stage, beyond which man has progressed, is preserved in the lion. The lion preserves the type that was worked out in the group of men in whom the etheric body was intensely active. The human stage in which the astral body overpowered the physical and etheric is preserved for us, although degenerated, in the mobile bird-kingdom, and is portrayed in the Apocalypse in the picture of the Eagle. The predominating astrality is here repelled; it raised itself from the earth as the race of birds. Where the ego grew strong, a being evolved that should actually be called a union of the three other natures, for the ego harmonizes all three members. In this group the clairvoyant actually has before him what has been preserved in the Sphinx, for the Sphinx has the lion-body, the eagle-wings, something of the bull form—and in the oldest portrayals there was even a reptilian tail, pointing to the ancient reptile form—and then at the front there is the human face, which harmonizes the other parts.

These are the four types. But in the Atlantean time the man-form predominated, as the human shape gradually constructed itself out of the eagle, lion, and bull natures. These transmuted themselves into the full human form, and this gradually transmuted itself into the shape that was present in the middle of Atlantis. Something else occurred through all these events. Four different elements, four forms, merged harmoniously in man. One is present in the physical body, in the bull nature; these are the predominating forces that evolved up to the evolutionary period of the Balance. Then we have the lion nature in the etheric body; in the astral body, in the predominating forces of the astral, the eagle or vulture nature; finally, the predominating forces of the ego, the true human nature. In single beings, one or another of these members had the upper hand. Through this the four types arose. But one could meet still other combinations. For example, the physical, astral, and ego might be equal, while the etheric predominated; that is a particular type of mankind. Then there were beings in whom the etheric, astral, and ego had the upper hand, while the physical was less developed, so that we have men in whom the higher members prevail over the physical body. Those human beings in whom the physical, astral, and ego predominated, are the physical ancestors of the males of today, while those in whom the etheric, astral, and ego predominated, are the physical ancestors of the females of today. The other types disappeared more and more; only these two remained, and evolved into the male and female forms.

How was it possible that gradually just these two forms evolved? This occurred through the differing effects of the working of the Isis and Osiris forces.

We have seen that in the phases of the new moon, when the moon is dark, Isis is characterized, but that Osiris is characterized in the shining phases of the full moon. Isis and Osiris are spiritual beings on the moon, but we find their deeds on the earth. We find them on the earth because it is through these deeds that the human race divided into two sexes. The female ancestors of human beings were formed through the influence of Osiris; the ancestors of men were formed through the workings of Isis. The influence of Isis and Osiris on mankind occurs through the nerve filaments, through the working of which mankind is developed into male and female. In the myth this is shown through Isis's seeking Osiris; the male and the female seek each other on the earth. Over and over again we see that wonderful events of cosmic evolution are hidden in these myths.

When the stage of the Balance had been passed, there gradually evolved in the upper members of the human being the differentiations we describe as male and female. Man remained unisexual much longer than the animals. What had long since occurred in the other animals now for the first time took place in man. There was a time when there was a unified human form, containing nothing of the method of propagation that later developed. During this time the nature of man contained both sexes in one being. “And God created man male-female,” is the way it stands in the Bible, not “Male and female created he them.”¹ He created both in one. It is the worst possible translation when we say, “Male and female created he them.” This has no sense in face of the real facts.

Thus we look into a time when human nature was still a unity, when every person was virginally reproductive. This stage of evolution is portrayed in Egyptian traditions drawn from the vision of the initiates. I have already pointed out that the older representations of Isis were as follows: Isis is suckling Horus; but behind her stands a second Isis with vulture wings, who holds out the Ankh to Horus to indicate that man stems from a time when these types were still separate and that later the other astral being also sank down into man. This second Isis points to how the astral element predominated at one time. What was later united with the human form is here portrayed behind the mother, as the astral form that would have had vulture wings if it had followed only the astrality. But the time when the etheric body predominated is portrayed in a third Isis, lion-headed, behind the others. This threefold Isis is thus presented out of a deep vision.

From this point of view we shall also understand something else. There must have been a period of transition between unisexuality and the division into two sexes; there could have been an interim condition between the virginal propagation in which fructification occurred as a result of the forces living in the earth—which at the same time were fertilizing substances—and the other method of bisexual propagation. This bisexual propagation emerged completely only in the middle of the Atlantean epoch. Earlier there was an intermediate stage. At a certain epoch in this intermediate stage, a change of consciousness took place. Man then required much longer spans of time than today to go through an alternation of consciousness. That was a time in which consciousness was especially strong when, at night, man experienced himself as a spiritual being among his spiritual companions. Day-consciousness, on the other hand, was weak. This condition of consciousness changed in another period, when man's consciousness while in the physical body became strong, while his soul life became weaker upon leaving the physical plane at night.

Now there were times in human evolution in which we must recognize a transitional stage. Man's consciousness for the physical world was still damped down, and it was in this damped-down state that fructification occurred. In the periods of subdued consciousness, when man rose out of the physical world into the spiritual, fructification took place, and man noticed this only through a symbolical dream-act. In tender, noble fashion he felt that fertilization had occurred in his sleep, and in his consciousness there was only a delicate and wonderful dream; for example, that he threw a stone, that the stone fell into the earth, and that a flower rose out of the earth.

It is of special interest that in this time we have also to take into account those who had achieved this stage earlier. When we say that certain beings remained at the Bull stage, others at the Lion, others at the Eagle, and so on, what does this mean? It means that if these beings had been able to wait, if they could have developed their full love for the physical world only at a much later time, they would have become human beings. If the lion had not willed to enter into the earthly sphere too early, it would have become a man; the same is true of the other animals that had split off up till then. Let us repeat it in this way: All that was human at the time when the lion formed itself said either, “No, I will not yet take up the lower substances; I will not go down into physical humanity,” or, “I will go down; I wish what has evolved to come into existence.” Thus we must think of two beings. The one remains above in the etheric realm of the air and only in its earthly parts reaches down to earth, while the other strives to descend completely to the earth. The latter might become a lion; the former became a man. Just as the animals remained fixed at a certain stage, so now certain men remained fixed. It was not the best men who became human too early. The better ones were able to wait; they remained for a long time without descending to the earth and there carrying out the act of fructification consciously. They remained in that state of cognition in which this act of fructification was a dream.

One may say that these men lived in Paradise. We find that the men who descended earliest to earth had especially strongly formed bodies, with crude and brutal countenances; while the men who wished first to mold the nobler parts had a much more human form. What is here described was preserved in a wonderful myth and rite. The rite is mentioned by Tacitus² and is well known as the myth of the goddess Nerthus (Hertha), who descended every year into the sea in a boat. But those who drew the boat had to be killed. Nerthus is thought of (as is often done today) as a phantom of the imagination, as some kind of goddess to whom a cult had been dedicated on some island. It has been believed that the Nerthus shrine could be found in Lake Hertha on Rügen. It was thought that the place where the chariot sank might be found there. This is a remarkable fantasy. The name of Lake Hertha is a new invention. Earlier it was called the Black Lake because of its color, and it never occurred to anyone to call it Lake Hertha and relate it to the goddess.

There are much deeper things in this myth. Nerthus is the transitional stage between the virginal fructification and the later propagation. Nerthus, who dives down into a shadowy consciousness, perceives her immersion in the sea of passion only in a tender, symbolic act; she perceives only a reflection of it. But although the higher humanity still felt things in this way, those who had already descended at that time had lost their original naïveté. They already saw this act; they were lost for the higher human consciousness, and were worthy of death. The memory of this event of primeval times was preserved in rites in countless regions of Europe. A ceremony was carried out at certain times in commemorative festivals. This was the chariot of the Nerthus image, which dived down into the sea of passion, and it was the gruesome custom that those who had to serve, who drew the chariot and could see what went on, had to be slaves and were killed during the rite, as a sign that these were mortals who saw the act. Only the initiated priests could remain present during the ceremony without being harmed. From this example we see that in the time when what is here described was known in certain regions, the Nerthus cult existed. In these regions there was a consciousness that shaped this myth and the rite.

Thus mankind evolved through the most manifold forms, and thus what are real facts were presented in pictures. It has already been said that such pictures should not be regarded as allegories, that their content has a relation to the real facts. Such pictures arose like dreams. So the Osiris myth also was dreamed before the pupil could actually see the facts of human evolution, and only what prepares the way for real seeing is a symbol in the occult sense. A symbol is a description of real events in pictures. In the next lecture we shall discuss the effect of these descriptions.

• 1. Most texts are silent on this question, but the International Critical Commentary (New York, Scribner's,1895), in discussing Genesis I:27, at least shows that others have entertained the male-female hypothesis. See also the curious remarks in the speech of Aristophanes in Plato's Symposium.
• 2. Tacitus's Germania, Section 40, reads in part as follows:
  “On an island of the ocean is a holy grove, and in it a consecrated chariot, covered with robes. A single priest is permitted to touch it. He interprets the presence of the goddess in her shrine, and follows with deep reverence as she rides away drawn by cows. Then come days of rejoicing and all places keep holiday, as many as she thinks worthy to receive and entertain her. They make no war, take no arms; every weapon is put away; peace and quiet are then, and then only, known and loved, until the same priest returns the goddess to her temple, when she has her fill of the society of mortals. After this the chariot and the robes—if you are willing to credit it, the deity in person—are washed in a sequestered lake: slaves are the ministrants and are straightway swallowed by the same lake: hence a mysterious terror and an ignorance full of piety as to what that may be which men behold, only to die.”

Today I want to clarify certain deep world-mysteries, the knowledge of which has been lost in modern civilization. To realize some of what has been lost, think of the modern conception of the planetary system, that it originated in some kind of rotating, primeval nebula, from which the various planetary bodies coalesced. From this picture we can easily speculate that there are no fundamental differences between these heavenly bodies. This in fact is the prevailing attitude towards them. If the whole planetary system is viewed as a rotating nebula, out of which the heavenly bodies gradually separated, what essential difference is there between, for example, the Moon and Saturn? It is of course true that important research in the last century into earthly substances, particularly into minerals, has led to knowledge about the material composition of the heavenly bodies, and even a certain kind of physics and chemistry for them. This has made it possible for ordinary text-books to give specific details about Venus, Saturn, the Moon, and so on. But all this amounts to no more than making an image of, let us say, the physical organism of man, leaving out of account altogether the fact that he is a being of soul and spirit. With the help of Initiation-science we must again learn to realize that our planetary system, too, is permeated with soul and spirit. And today I want to speak of the various planetary individualities and of their individual characteristics.

Let’s begin with the planet nearest the Earth, the planet with whose history is bound up with the Earth's history, though only in a certain sense, and which once played an entirely different part in earthly life from the part it plays today. You know from my book Outline of Occult Science that there was once a cosmic age, relatively speaking not in a very remote past, when the Moon was still united with the Earth. The Moon then separated from the Earth and now circles around it.

When we speak of the Moon as a physical body in the heavens, its physical nature is only the most external revelation of the spirit behind it. To those who have knowledge of both its outer and its inner nature, the Moon in our universe presents itself initially as a gathering of spiritual beings living in great seclusion. Outwardly, the Moon acts as a mirror of the universe, and its reflection of the light of the Sun is evident to the most superficial observation. We can say that what comes from the Moon is sunlight, shining upon the Moon and then reflected. First and foremost, then, the Moon is a mirror of sunlight. Now, as you all know, we see what is outside or in front of a mirror but we do not see what is behind it.

The Moon not only mirrors sunlight, but also reflects everything that radiates upon it, although sunlight is by far the strongest. All the heavenly bodies in the universe send their rays toward the Moon, and the Moon, as a mirror of the universe, then radiates it all back in every direction. It can be said, therefore, that the universe is before us in a twofold aspect. It reveals itself directly on Earth, but also in what is radiated back by the Moon. The Sun's rays work with tremendous power in themselves, but also in their reflection from the Moon. Every other radiation in cosmic space is also reflected by the Moon. There is the manifest universe, and there is also its reflection from the Moon.

Anyone capable of observing the mirror-pictures thrown back in all directions by the Moon would have the whole universe before him in reflection. Only that which is within the Moon, that and that alone remains, if I may so express it, the Moon's secret. It remains hidden, just as what is behind a mirror remains hidden. What is behind the outer surface of the Moon, in the innermost sphere of the Moon, is significant above all in its spiritual aspect.

The high spiritual beings peopling this innermost sphere of the Moon are high beings who shut themselves off in strict seclusion from the rest of the universe. They live in their Moon “fortress”. A person can develop certain heart qualities in relation to sunlight to such an extent that he does not see the reflection from the Moon, and only for such a person does the Moon become as it were inwardly transparent, and only then can the person penetrate into th universe’s Moon-fortress. He then makes the significant discovery, that through the utterances, the teachings of those high beings who have withdrawn into seclusion in this Moon-fortress, certain secrets can be revealed that were once in the possession of the most advanced spirits on Earth, secrets which have long since been lost.

The farther we go back in the evolution of the Earth, the less do we find the abstract truths that pride present-day humanity. More and more we find pictures, truths expressed in pictures. We can wrestle our way through to glimpse some of these deeply significant truths by studying what is still preserved, as a last echo of oriental wisdom, in the Vedas and the Vedanta. We can press on to the primal revelations hidden behind the myths and sagas, and we can realize with wonder and awe that a glorious wisdom was once possessed by men who received it without intellectual effort, as grace from the spiritual world. And finally, we can come to all that was once taught to primeval humanity on Earth by the high beings who have now withdrawn into the universe’s Moon-fortress, after leaving the Earth together with the Moon. A certain memory has been preserved of what these high beings once revealed to the peoples of a remote past, to human beings whose nature was quite different from human nature as it is today. If we succeed in fathoming this mystery, which I will call it the universe’s Moon-mystery, we realize that these high beings now entrenched in the Moon-fortress were once the great teachers of earthly humanity, but that all consciousness of the realities of spirit and soul hidden in this fortress has been lost. What is still transmitted to the Earth from the heavens represents only what the outer surface, the walls, as it were, of the Moon-fortress, what the outer surface radiates back from the rest of the universe.

This Moon-mystery was one of the deepest secrets in the ancient Mysteries, for it is primal wisdom that the Moon enshrines within itself. What the Moon is able to reflect from the whole universe forms the sum-total of the forces which sustain the animal world of the Earth now, especially the forces that are connected with the sexual nature of animals. These forces also sustain the animal element in man and are connected with his sexual nature in its physical aspect, so we see that the lower nature of man is a product of what radiates from the Moon, while the highest wisdom once possessed by the Earth lies concealed within the Moon-fortress.

In this way one gradually comes to a knowledge of the “individuality” of the Moon, to an understanding of what the Moon is in reality. All other knowledge of the Moon is only like information we could glean about a human being from a pasteboard image of him displayed in some exhibition. Such an image would tell us nothing whatever about the man's individuality. Equally it is not possible for a science that refuses any approach towards initiation to know anything about the individuality of the Moon.

We turn now to Saturn. In earlier times Saturn was regarded as the outermost planet of our system, Uranus and Neptune having been added much later. We will leave them out of consideration now and think of Saturn as a kind of antithesis to the Moon. The nature of Saturn is to receive many diverse impulses from the universe but not allow them to stream back, at all events not to the Earth. Saturn too, of course, is irradiated by the Sun, but what Saturn reflects of the solar rays has no significance for earthly life. Saturn is an entirely self-engrossed heavenly body in our planetary system, raying his own being into the universe. When we contemplate Saturn, he tells us always what he is. Whereas the Moon, contemplated in its external aspect, tells us about everything else in the universe, Saturn tells us nothing at all about the impulses he receives from the universe. He speaks only of himself, tells us only what he himself is. And just what he is, that reveals itself gradually as a kind of memory of the planetary system.

Saturn presents himself to us as the world body who has steadfastly participated in whatever has come to pass in our planetary system and has faithfully preserved it in memory, in his cosmic memory. He is silent about the cosmic-present. He receives the things of the cosmic-present into himself and works upon them in his life of spirit and soul. True, the hosts of high beings dwelling in Saturn lend their attention to the outer universe, but mutely and silently they receive the happenings in the universe into their realm of soul, and they speak only of past cosmic events. That is why Saturn is like a kaleidoscopic memory of our planetary system. He holds faithfully and silently what has already come to pass in the planetary system. He holds its secrets within himself.

In trying to fathom the mysteries of the universe we normally turn to the Moon, although normally in vain, for we must win the confidence of the Moon beings if we are to learn anything from them about cosmic mysteries, but this is not necessary with Saturn. With Saturn, all that is necessary is to be open to receive the spiritual. And then, to the eyes of spirit and soul, Saturn becomes a living historian of the planetary system. Nor does he withhold the stories he can tell of what has come to pass in the planetary system. In this respect Saturn is the exact opposite of the Moon. Saturn speaks unceasingly of the planetary system’s past with such inner warmth and zest that intimate acquaintance with what he says can be dangerous, for the devotion with which he tells of past happenings in the universe arouses in us an overwhelming love for the cosmic-past. Saturn is the constant tempter of those who listen to his secrets. He tempts them to give little heed to today’s earthly affairs and to immerse themselves in what the Earth once was. Above all, Saturn speaks graphically about what the Earth was before it became Earth, and for this reason he is the planet who makes the past unendingly dear to us. Those who have a particular inclination towards Saturn in earthly existence are people who like to be gazing always into the past, who are opposed to progress, who ever-and-again want to bring back the past. These indications give some idea of the individuality, the individual character of Saturn.

Jupiter is a planet with a different character. Jupiter is the thinker in our planetary system, and thinking is the activity cultivated by all the high beings in his world-domain. Creative thoughts received from the universe radiate to us from Jupiter. Jupiter contains, in the form of thoughts, all the educational-craft of the different beings of the universe. Whereas Saturn tells of the past, Jupiter gives a living portrayal of what is congruent, what is present now in the universe. It is necessary, however, for a person to earnestly, intimately take in what he presents to the eyes of the spirit. If a person does not unfurl his own thinking, then he comes for example, how can I say it, not as a clairvoyant, then he comes upon the secret mysteries of Jupiter, which he finds reveal themselves only in thoughtforms, and only when the person himself thinks, only then he comes upon the secret mysteries of Jupiter, who is the thinker of the universe.

When a person attempts to fathom any of the significant enigmatic questions concerning the possibilities of his own being, and then comes up against human physical and etheric obstacles, and especially when he comes up against human astral obstacles, and he is on the wrong tack, then the beings of Jupiter step in and help him. The beings of Jupiter are really the helpers of human nature for the unfolding of human wisdom. And whomever has properly tried to work out in clear thinking an enigmatic question of the possibilities of his own being, and cannot come to a groundbreaking insight, if the person patiently keeps it in mind and continues to work on it, he finds that the Jupiter beings actually help him during the night. And many who have come to a better understanding of a day-riddle at night, as if out of a dream, many would have to admit, if they were really to look at the truth, that the Jupiter-powers bring spirited animated impetus into human thinking, if I may so depict it. As therefore Saturn is the guardian of memory of the universe, Jupiter is the thinker of the universe. To Jupiter the human being owes all that he really knows of the universe’s present spiritual state. To Saturn the human being owes all that he has of the universe’s soul-spiritual past. It was due to intuition that it was normal in ancient Greece, where people lived intimately with the presence of spirit, it was normal then to hold Jupiter in high honor.

A stimulus to the whole development of the human being is given also through the part played by Jupiter in the cycle of the year. You all know that as far as his apparent movement is concerned, Saturn moves slowly, very slowly, round his orbit, taking some 30 years. Jupiter moves faster, taking about 12 years. Because of this quicker movement Jupiter is able to bring satisfaction to man's need for wisdom more quickly. And when in a certain sense a person’s destiny is expressed in the World-All, when at that very time there exists a special relationship between Jupiter and Saturn, then there may come into a person’s destiny a wonderful illuminated glimpse, in which, with thinking, much will be revealed in the present concerning the past. And if we look in humanity’s world-history, into the epoch of the Renaissance, where a resurgence of old impulses entered in, especially in the last phases of the Renaissance, this renewal of old impulses is associated with a specific planetary configuration between Jupiter and Saturn.

But, as already said, Jupiter is in a certain respect impenetrable and his revelations remain in the unconscious if a man does not bring to them clear and active light-filled thinking of his own. And that is why in ancient times, when active thinking was still at a very early stage of development, the progress of humanity was in truth always dependent upon the relation between Jupiter and Saturn. When Jupiter and Saturn together formed a certain planetary configuration, many things were revealed to our ancestors in those days. Modern man is more dependent on things removed from their development, which means, Saturn-memory and Jupiter-wisdom are disconnected in a modern person’s soul-spiritual development.

We now come to Mars. It is difficult to find appropriate expressions for these things, but Mars may be called the great “Talker” in the planetary system. Unlike Jupiter, who translates his wisdom in thought-forms, Mars always smothers the souls beholden to him with chatter about virtually everything accessible to him in the universe, which for him is not everything. Mars is the most talkative chatterbox planet in our system, and he is particularly active when sleeping human beings talk during dreaming. Mars has a great longing to be talking always, and whenever some quality in human nature enables him to make a man loquacious, he stimulates this tendency.

Mars does little thinking. He has few thinkers, but many talkers, in his sphere. His spirits are always on the watch for what arises here or there in the universe and then they talk about it with great zest and fervor. In humanity’s evolutionary course, Mars is the planetary individuality who in manifold ways instigates human beings to make statements about world-mysteries. Mars has his good and his less-good sides; he has his genius and his daemon. His genius works in such a way that men receive from the universe the impulses for speech. The influence of his daemon results in speech being misused in many and various ways. In a certain sense Mars may be called the Agitator in our universe. He is always out to cajole whereas Jupiter wants only to convince.

The planet Venus is again different. In a certain way, I could say, Venus repels, wards off the whole universe. She is demure, prudish, aloof concerning the universe; she does not wish to know anything about the universe. She regards any submission to the universe, I might say, any external universal exposure and submission, as if it would cause her maiden purity, her virginity, to be lost. She is deeply shocked when any impression from the external universe attempts to approach her. She has no desire for the universe and rejects every dancing- partner – it is very difficult to express these things, because the circumstances and conditions have to be described in terms of earthly language –. On the other hand, Venus is highly responsive to everything that comes from the Earth. The Earth is, so to speak, her lover. Whereas the Moon reflects the whole surrounding universe, Venus reflects nothing at all of the universe, and wants to know nothing of it, but she lovingly reflects whatever comes from the Earth. If we are able to glimpse the mysteries of Venus with the eyes of soul, the whole Earth with all of her soulful secrets is there before us once again.

The truth is that human beings on Earth can do nothing in the secrecy of their souls without it being reflected back again by Venus. Venus gazes deeply into the hearts of human beings, for that is what interests her, that is what she will allow to approach her, so that the most intimate experiences of earthly life are reflected again from Venus, in a mysterious and wonderful way. In the reflection she transforms everything, just as a dream transforms the happenings of physical existence. Venus transforms the occurrences of earthly life into dream-pictures. In reality, therefore, the whole sphere of Venus is a world of dreaming. The secrets of human beings in their earthly existence are transformed by Venus into dream-pictures of infinite diversity. She has a very great deal to do with poets, although they are not aware of it.

I said before that Venus wards off the rest of the universe. She does not, however, repel everything in the same way. In her heart, Venus repels what approaches her from the universe but not what comes from the Earth. As I said before, she declines every would-be suitor, but for all that she listens attentively to the utterances of Mars. She transforms and illuminates her dreamlike experiences of earthly things with what is communicated to her from the universe through Mars.

All these things have their physical side as well. Impulses go out from these sources into what is done and into what comes into existence in the world. Venus receives into herself everything that comes from the Earth and she listens always to Mars, without wanting him to know it. And from this process, although the Sun is there in between to regulate it, spring the forces which underlie the organs connected with the formation of human speech.

If a person wants to become familiar with the impulses in the cosmos connected with the formation of human speech, then the person must turn his gaze to this noteworthy living and weaving that plays out between Venus and Mars. And when destiny happens to play out just so in how Venus stands in relationship to Mars, that there may be a tremendous significance for the development of the speech of a folk-soul group, the speech of the folk will be inwardly deepened when Venus for instance stands in quadrature, 90 degrees from Mars. On the other hand, a language tends to become superficial, poor in qualities of soul, when Venus and Mars are in conjunction, and this in turn has an influence upon the people or nation concerned. In this manner impulses are portrayed as they form in the World-All and have their effect on the folk they pertain to.

We come next to Mercury. In contrast to the other planets, Mercury is not interested in things of a physical, material nature as such, but in whatever is capable of combining, of coordinating. Mercury is the domain of the masters of combining concepts and ideas in thinking, whereas Jupiter is the habitation of the masters of wisdom-filled thinking. When a human being comes down from pre-earthly life into a contemplation of the possibilities of his existence on earth, the Moon impulse provides the forces for his physical existence, Venus provides the forces for his basic qualities of heart and temperament, but Mercury provides the impetus for his capacity of reasoning about things, of making sense of them, especially for his intellect. The high master-crafters of coordinative inner knowing have their habitation in Mercury.

There is a remarkable connection between these planets and the life and being of a human being. The Moon, which enshrines beings living in strict seclusion, and reflects only what is first radiated to it from the universe, builds and fashions the outer form, the body of man. It is therefore by the Moon that the forces of heredity are incorporated in bodily constitution. Within the Moon sit those high spiritual beings, who in complete seclusion cosmically muse upon what is fostered and transmitted in the stream of heredity flowing from generation to generation by way of the physical.

It is because the Moon beings remain so firmly entrenched in their fortress that modern scientists know nothing essential about heredity. From a deeper insight, and in terms of cosmic language, at the present time when heredity is discussed in one or another forum of science, these forums may be said to be “Moon-forsaken” and “Mars-bewitched”. For science speaks under the influence of the daemonic Mars-forces and has not even begun to approach the real mysteries of heredity.

Venus and Mercury, on the other hand, bring into the human being the karmic element that is connected more with the life of soul and spirit and comes to expression in his qualities of heart and in his temperament. And then Mars, and especially Jupiter and Saturn, when a man has a right relationship with them, act as liberating factors. They wrest man away from what is determined by destiny and make him into a free being. Biblical words in a somewhat changed form might be used as follows. Saturn, the faithful custodian of cosmic memory, says, “Let us make man free in the realm of his own memory”. This influence of Saturn is forced into unconsciousness as a human being’s memory becomes his own possession, as he thereby acquires the sure foundation of his personal freedom. The inner will-impulse contained in acts of free thinking, however, is due to grace bestowed by Jupiter. It would be in Jupiter's power to rule over and control all the thoughts of men. He is the one in whom we find the thoughts of the whole universe if we are capable of gaining access to them. But Jupiter too has withdrawn, leaving men to think as free beings.

The element of freedom in speech is due to the fact that Mars too has been gracious. Because Mars was obliged as it were to acquiesce in the resolution made by the other outer planets and could not exercise any greater coercion, man is free, in a certain respect, in the realm of speech too, not entirely, but in a certain respect free. From another point of view therefore, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn may also be called the liberating planets, for they give man freedom. On the other hand, Venus, Mercury and the Moon may be called the destiny-determining planets.

In the midst of all these deeds and impulses of the planetary individualities stands the Sun, creating harmony between the liberating and the destiny-determining planets. The Sun is the individuality in whom the elements of destiny-necessity and human freedom interweave in a most wonderful way. And no-one can understand what is contained in the flaming brilliance of the Sun unless he is able to behold this interweaving life of destiny and freedom in the light which spreads out into the universe and concentrates again in solar warmth.

Nor can we grasp anything essential about the nature of the Sun as long as we take in only what the physicists know of it. We can grasp the nature of the Sun only when we know something of its nature of soul and spirit. In that realm, it is the power which imbues warmth in the element of necessity in destiny, which transmutes destiny into freedom in its flame, and if freedom is misused, which condenses it once more into its own active substance. The Sun is, as it were, is the flame in which freedom becomes a luminous reality in the World-All, and at the same time the Sun is the substance, as condensed ashes, in which misused freedom is molded into destiny, until destiny itself can become luminous and pass over into the flame of freedom.

To begin with, dear friends, I want to show you the drawings done by this boy here, of whom we shall be speaking later on. He makes very good pictures. He has a feeling for detail; the drawings give evidence of a clear grasp of detail. Notice in this one, for instance, how accurately he has perceived everything. Here is another, where you can see how he plans and arranges his picture. Evidently he likes to do things in the way he learns to do them at school. And this is how it is done in our school here; and then each child is left free to fill in the picture in his own way. As you will see, we are economical and always use both sides of the paper. (Turning to the boy) Allow me now to draw you on the blackboard. There, that is what I wanted you for!

(Another child is brought in.) Bring the little one over here; that will be best—so.

Just look how tremendously large the head can become in a hydrocephalic child! We will discuss presently how that happens. The head actually measures 64 cm. When we first admitted the child, the measurement was 44 cm.¹ On the 25th February it was nearly 54 cm, by the 7th April it had increased to 56 cm, and between the 7th and 11th it grew still bigger. On the 19th April the measurement was more than 58 cm, on the 28th May it had risen to nearly 61 cm and on the 1st July to 64 cm. Otherwise, the child's bodily development has not been at all abnormal; he is just like any other child. He takes hold of things, he has a very good appetite, and with the exception of one crisis he has been cheerful and happy.

You can get an idea of the size of the head by looking at the little ears which are of course of ordinary size; you will at the same time notice just where the enlargement begins. It begins, you see, here, and then continues in this direction. The face is not affected; it is a little swollen and puffy, but not enlarged. As you look at the child, you will very likely think that he is perceiving things with his eyes. As a matter of fact, he has no more than a general impression of light—no precise impressions at all.

And now we have to take note of the tragic fact that just before I came here to give these lectures I received a telegram to say that the father of the child has died of a heart attack.

If you look at the child as a whole, and compare it with the form and proportions of an embryo, you will find that you have in this child nothing else than a giant embryo! You can see quite plainly that he has remained at the embryo stage, his growth in the post-embryo stage continuing to accord with the laws of growth of the embryo stage. That we have not up to now succeeded in achieving any reduction in the size of the head must be attributed to the extraordinary strength with which the internal tendencies that make for enlargement are working. I am however quite hopeful that after a certain point has been reached, we shall be able definitely to bring the head more nearly into harmony with the rest of the body. The child is in all other respects quite a jolly little fellow.

A striking fact that comes home to us when studying the riddles of human nature is that abnormalities of this kind throw great light upon the life of man as a whole—not only upon the life of man, but upon the life of the entire universe.

(Some extracts from the history of the case are read out.) The child was six months old when he came to us. He was born in August last year, and received from me his name; it was just in the time when I was away in England. The birth was normal. The mother was strong and healthy throughout the time of pregnancy. Please note these facts carefully; later on we shall have to find their interpretation. And let me ask for your special attention to what I said last—that the mother felt particularly well during the pregnancy. In this time she did a great deal of typing. There was nothing strange or unusual to be seen in the child at birth. Mark that well: at birth—that is to say, immediately on his being let go, as it were, from the embryo condition—the child showed nothing unusual. The embryo condition had, you see, been normal throughout; not until after the child started breathing with the lungs did abnormality begin. The umbilical cord was wound round the neck; the amniotic fluid contained meconium. The baby weighed 5 ¾ lb. Two weeks after birth he had convulsions—a solitary attack; an important fact to note, for it provides the first clear evidence that the ego organisation and the astral body are finding it impossible to make their way into the physical and the ether body. The child hit out around him with his arms and got blue in the face. Blueness is always a sign of inability to dive down into the physical body. If it is very marked, it has a more individual significance. It may mean nothing else than that the astral body had at birth a strong and pronounced configuration. For this, you know, can happen; as it did with Goethe, who was born quite blue and could only after some time be induced to receive into him the astral body and ego organisation. In the child now before us, the convulsions (and blueness) occurred of course later. Development is said to have been entirely normal during the first half year. It was not entirely normal; but the lack of right relationship between head and limbs escaped observation in the earliest months, and was noticed only later on. The child was breast-fed. The head was at birth noticeably small, which goes to show that the causes of the trouble are not to be sought in any weakness of the nerves-and-senses organisation. From September onwards, we are told, the size of the head began very gradually to increase. It began of course earlier than this. The mother did not yet consider the head abnormal at a time when it must already have grown to a considerable size. The enlargement of the head was noticed only when the discovery was made that in one week the child had put on weight to the extent of nearly 1 lb. In the middle of December the head measured 19 inches. The child was quiet, and did not cry much; he was apathetic. The fontanels were taut. Appetite was good. Blisters filled with pus began to form on the skin of the head. Appetite and evacuation of the bowels were good. And then the child was brought to us.

What we have to do, when such a case is brought to us, is to take the facts as they lie there before us—and among them the most important of all are of course whatever we can observe for ourselves by simply looking at the child—and then, working from these, win our way through to where we can “behold” also the spiritual in the child. Following this line of investigation we were able to see that the child carries in him an astral body which bears clearly and unmistakably the characteristic features of the astral body of the mother. The mother was of course present at the time. Seldom indeed does one come upon such a striking resemblance as here stood revealed! The same cannot be said of the ego organisation. The ego is still no more than rudimentary; it reminds one of an ego organisation such as children have in the sixth or seventh month of pregnancy. The child has in fact remained at that stage. Owing to the astral body being so extraordinarily strongly developed, the ego organisation seems to have missed sharing in the life and development of the last months of pregnancy. And now, after birth, the child retains within him, thanks to this powerful astral body, all the forces he had in the embryo time.

Let me at this point remind you that in the first few months after birth, the orientation of the embryo time virtually continues, with the result that in these first months the development of a child outside the body of the mother still bears a strong resemblance to its development in the embryo time. How are we to account for this? The radical change which the bodily nature of the child undergoes at birth is concerned, first or all, with the breathing system. The child comes into connection with the outside air. But now this connection with the air does not establish itself all at once, but only slowly; a considerable time has to go by before it is extended over the whole organism. The connection with the air has its influence upon the organism from the beginning, as we very well know. Nevertheless, the complete establishment of the connection throughout the organism is a gradual process. Consequently, in the earliest months, since the embryonic forces continue to work as before, there may frequently be no sign of any such devastation as can show itself in the organism later on, if infantilism goes so far as it does in the child before us; for we have in him an extreme instance of infantilism, where the embryo organisation is simply retained and continued.

Now, the characteristic feature of the embryo organisation is, as you know, that we have there to do with an immense head organisation and a small body. The head organisation owes its origin entirely to the co-operation of cosmic forces. Almost everything that takes place with the head organisation in the embryo condition is to be regarded as a work of cosmic forces. The mother's womb provides the place where the work that is going on can be protected from the intrusion of earthly forces. You must think of the mother's womb as a bodily organ that encloses a space, shutting away this space from earthly influences, so that it can be reserved for cosmic influences alone. Thus we have in the womb of the mother a space that stands in immediate connection with the cosmos, a space within which cosmic influences have free play. And there, in that enclosed space, the development of the head organisation goes forward.

When the time comes for the human forces of the mother's womb, in so far as these do receive the child at all—when the time comes for these human forces of the womb to work upon the child, then the metabolism-and-limbs organisation begins to let itself be orientated into these forces. In this child, the cosmic forces have simply continued their working into the post-embryo condition. The cosmic forces have had here the ascendancy over what should have been provided for by the strength and forces that normally a child receives in addition for his earthly development, notably for the development of the system of metabolism and limbs. What follows from this is obvious. For suppose the child had remained longer in the womb of the mother. It is of course an absurd hypothesis, but suppose the child had remained there beyond the ten months, what would have happened? The head would have gone on growing, and the limbs would not have been able to develop. For there, in the mother's womb, it is the extra-earthly, the cosmic, in the human being, that alone is given opportunity to grow.

And now we have to ask ourselves the question: What has led to this condition? And here I must say, it is most significant, it is indeed quite startling, that in the very moment when we are going to speak together about this whole strange case, a telegram is handed in, telling that the father has died of a heart attack. The following became clear to me and I confirmed it afterwards from the mother's memory. For I felt it necessary to ask her: “Did you not have a rather special feeling in your soul during pregnancy?” I even worded the question as follows: “Were you not sorry that the child did not remain within you instead of coming into the world?” The mother assented to this. She had founded her whole connection with the child upon the close association of the embryo period; as far as her feeling was concerned, the situation was that she was sorry she could not keep the child with her in the womb, she was sorry when it was torn away from her by the event of birth. This feeling on the part of the mother points on the one hand to an extraordinarily strong karmic connection between her and the child; on the other hand it has provided the conditions under which the forces that are active in the embryo time have been able to remain in the child. The abnormality of soul begins, you see, in the mother, and as one would naturally expect with such a deep karmic connection, transfers itself to the child.

The relationships of life are very complicated, and it is not at all easy always to see everything in its right connection. Many a time, however, the facts themselves will place the things together for our perception; and they do so here. Look at what has happened! Not a year has gone by since the child was born, and the father dies of a heart attack. There is always some connection to be found in such events; they don't just “happen”. The father had for a long time been suffering from a diseased heart. Now, you know what a strong connection there is between heart disease and the condition of the limbs. Under the influence of certain kinds of heart disease, the organisation of the legs will grow weak at once; for just the most important and essential part of the limbs, namely the tissues of the joints and the synovial fluid, suffer in consequence of heart disease. And then you must remember that, in the relationships of heredity, it is the limb organisation that is more strongly influenced by the father, and the head organisation by the mother. Now imagine, conception takes place. In certain circumstances it can happen that an incapacity on the part of the father to bring the forces of his organisation into the limbs is transferred to the child; in which case the head organisation, which is under the influence of the mother, is bound to undergo an inordinate development. And now you have the explanation of the fact that the mother loved to have the child in her womb. It was because the child received but little of heredity forces from the father, and the mother was accordingly able to make the main contribution.

There you have then a description of the case that is before us. And you must know that such a case is typical of a great number of children suffering from abnormality. For what you have observed in this child is an extreme instance of infantilism—an infantilism, namely, that goes back to the embryo condition; and you will find infantilism in all possible forms throughout the stages of child development. Here it is the embryo condition which, like an overgrown plant, spreads itself out over the later development; but the first epoch of life may do the same, extending its working beyond the change of teeth. Or again, just as there can be this failure to grow and develop rightly into the post-embryo condition, so can it also happen that a boy or girl does not grow into the third epoch of life in the right way. There are children who attain puberty in the outward sense, but do not with their full and entire constitution grow into the epoch that lies between puberty and the beginning of the twenties; such children retain instead during that epoch the orientation of the forces that work between the seventh and fourteenth year. Actually a whole succession of infantilisms can be met with. We have here the absolutely radical example; and it is fortunate from a medical and educational point of view that you should have opportunity to observe in this extreme case what you will be able to detect, to a lesser extent and in less pronounced form, in a vast number of backward children.

Our purpose in today's lecture is to make adequate preparation for passing on tomorrow to the therapy and pathology of the cases in question; I will accordingly confine myself to giving descriptions of the cases, and then tomorrow we will carry our consideration of the same to a conclusion and speak also of their pedagogical aspect.

You saw, at the beginning of the lecture, the boy of whom you may well be inclined to ask: Why ever is he brought forward for demonstration? A sensible question, for when you make his acquaintance in an ordinary superficial way, you can hardly do otherwise than find him a kindly disposed and friendly little boy, who learns painting just as other children do, who answers you quite properly and with perfect friendliness when you speak to him, a little boy, in fact, with whom you could quite happily converse by the hour. Is it not so? Those who have to do with him will tell you that it is as I have said. You would not be able to notice anything abnormal about the child, and would perhaps say to yourself: “Strange people these Anthroposophists! They put their children in a clinic for treatment, when all the time they are children who might well be held up as an example to other children!” The fact is, the boy is a kleptomaniac. You would never think it! But that is due to a characteristic feature of kleptomania—namely, its almost complete isolation from the rest of the soul life. And in this boy you will find that consciousness—which should, generally speaking, send its light into all the events and doings that occur in the life of man—is simply shut out from his kleptomaniac actions. You will have the distinct feeling that he himself has very little knowledge of what he is doing, in spite of the fact that he carries it out—and please note this!—in a most clever and crafty manner. He had to be expelled when he went to school in Berne, and again also when he attended a school in another town; and he had arranged everything so slyly, that the authorities had to go to no end of trouble before they could establish grounds for his expulsion.

The boy is not at all egoistic in the matter. He is quite capable of making presents to his friends of the things that he steals in this wily manner, or of spending it all on some jollification in order to give them pleasure. The whole situation leads to the development of a special form of not altogether conscious lying; for he does not himself know exactly what has happened, the details of the event not being shone upon by the light of consciousness. He will relate the most incredible stories to explain how he has come by some object, which he has of course simply stolen. He will show you, with real shyness, just how he found the things and just where they all were, making a long story of how it all came about. There is really something impish about the way these thefts take place. If I understood Frau Dr. Wegman aright, quite a long time can elapse during which it seems as though the boy has become a perfectly well-behaved little fellow, and then suddenly one day, without our knowing that he has taken anything it will transpire that something is missing out of someone's pocket. In a curious way different people will begin to make the discovery that things of theirs are simply disappearing. So then we would be confronted with these two facts side by side. On the one hand, the strange report of the dematerialisation of things in the Clinic, and on the other hand the knowledge that the boy had been compelled to leave one school after another. For that was known to us from his past history. These two facts stood there together, side by side.

It is, moreover, you will agree, an unpleasant situation suddenly to be placed under the necessity of supposing that it might also be some adult who had taken the things! We have in the Clinic at present fifty-two persons, and it might be this one or that one, one simply did not know. What one did know was that a spiritualist would have had here a grand opportunity to make a full and thorough explanation of how things dematerialise! A whole theory of the dematerialisation of objects could have been built up.

We have the child here with us in the Clinic, and I would like you to observe him and notice how firmly the head organisation is compressed here (at the temples) and how it goes apart here (towards the back of the head). As to the spiritual findings, they are to the effect that the parts of the astral body belonging to the several organs are extraordinarily strongly developed, particularly here on the left side. Externally, you will not find much else to note about the boy.

And now be so good as to bring in the other child. We will speak about methods of treatment tomorrow.

(The next child is brought in.) Look at her! A dear little girl! Charming, is she not? Look at her lovely fair hair. An interesting incident has taken place with this little girl. One day the children were left alone together for a short time. They were on very friendly terms with one another; and presently the boy whom you saw the day before yesterday got the idea that he must go and find some scissors. It was this little girl of course who made him fetch the scissors. Being a polite and obedient little gentleman, he brought them to her. What did she do, but cut off all her hair! As you see, not at all a conventional young lady! And now I would especially draw your attention to her lovely blue eyes, and then to her fair hair with its beautiful lustre. You can see at once, the child is very sulphurous. And she is so in her behaviour too—extraordinarily sulphurous. A dear child, but with this strongly marked sulphurous quality. She is always on the go and full of vigour. (The girl bites at Dr. Steiner's arm.) She is only biting my sleeve. She weighed at birth a little under 4 ¼ lb., but had been carried in the womb for the full nine months. Thus the embryo period had been gone through in the regular manner. The child was breast-fed for seven months, and when a year old learned to walk. That is a comparatively early age to learn to walk, but not abnormal. She learned also to talk at the right time. Development continued to give the appearance of being normal. By the time she was a year and a half the child had ceased to wet the bed, although she still wet herself during the day, but never any more at night. Here, you see, is already an abnormality, in the fact that this weakness in the child's organisation makes itself evident only when the astral body is present, and not when the astral body has been removed.

A year and a half ago, when she was three and a half years old—note that this is exactly half-way through the epoch of the first seven years and is a moment of great importance, as is also the corresponding moment in the second epoch, half-way between the seventh and fourteenth years—when three and a half years old, the child had headaches with high fever, and immediately afterwards measles. She was a child who readily caught illnesses. Since that time, she has been particularly restless and excitable. The mother too was ill at the same time with influenza and has also been restless since, and easily upset. You see the parallelism between mother and child. The child's appetite is always poor. And yet she is a fine, sturdy little girl, with powerful limbs. As you know, however, the organisation of the limbs is not built up, so far as substance is concerned, from food, but from the cosmos via the breathing and the activity of the senses. It is in the head that you will find the results of this poorness of appetite. A poor appetite, which means then of course impaired nutrition, affects the activity of the child's head. The little girl is lively and imaginative; she is restless, not merely in her body, but in her thoughts too. It can plainly be seen in her that her imagination and fantasy come not from the head but from the limbs. Her head organisation is very weak, her limb organisation particularly strong. Clearly, her life of fantasy comes from her limbs.

The child often has restless dreams. Now, it is important to take careful note of how she dreams—in particular, whether the dreams occur just after falling asleep or before waking up. Up to now, according to this report of her case, it is the former alone that have been observed. But the waking-up dreams must also come under observation. If we can bring her now and then to relate these, they will be found to reveal much that is of very great interest for us when they are in this way recalled to memory. We must get her to tell them to us.

These then are the three cases I wanted to put before you. Tomorrow we will meet again at 8:30 and speak about methods of treatment.

• 1. If accurately reported, this must refer to the earlier time when the child was first brought to the Clinic for advice.

On February 11, 1903, Mathilde Scholl had written to Rudolf Steiner:

...In connection with our conversation, I would now like to ask the following. On plate XXVI of Leadbeater's book [“Man visible & invisible”] is the aura of one of Buddha's disciples, a disciple who has reached the fourth stage on the path, the stage of an arhat. The aura is concentrically arranged, the color sequence from the center:

1) yellow = intelligence
2) pink = love
3) light blue = devotion
4) green = compassion (sympathy)
5) violet = spirituality

all this surrounded by a rainbow-colored or rather mother-of-pearl-colored halo and permeated by living rays of light emanating from the body of the Arhat. - Leadbeater says that the order of the colors can be used to identify the type of Arhat or Master.

To which species or hierarchy could a being belong whose aura, starting from the center, first shows 1) light blue = devotion and then 2) pink = love. The arrangement is also concentric, just like the aura shown - but no colors other than light blue and pink were visible. [In a dream experience.] However, the physical body appeared only in outline and transparent, not three-dimensional, and in it appeared centers (like the swastika or like wheels) that turned in the fastest motion around themselves and emitted light. The face had the features and expression of Master M.

If you can or may tell me who this being is or how I can find an explanation myself, I would be happy.

Should a merger of the E.S. in Germany be possible at a later date, I would be delighted. Some external things are still of help to me. For example, I would love to have proper instructions for my studies. At the beginning, that is, two and a half years ago, the instruction was given as to which verses I should memorize each evening. But since no further instructions were given, I went through the Bhagavad Gita in this way and then the “Voice of Silence,” which I have now reached at the end of the second book. It would be a help for me not to study without guidance and to know, for example, in the morning during meditation that many are focusing their thoughts on the same thing as me – to know that others are studying the same book as me, and many other things.

Rudolf Steiner replied as follows:

Dearest Miss Scholl!

I should have written to you long ago. However, my obligations regarding “Lucifer” ¹ had a somewhat oppressive effect on everything else. Now it will finally come out in a few days; and then I will hopefully also get down to quite regular work. In any case, I will not wait so long to answer in the future as has unfortunately been the case up to now.

First, let me address your main question. The aura you describe is not clear enough for me to be able to say anything substantial about it. You say nothing about rays emanating from the being described. Now, in a more advanced human being, rays are always present in the causal body. These rays are namely the expression of the active forces that the person inflicts on his advancing karma. It seems that what you describe is not a causal body image. However, I do not want to say that we are not dealing with a highly developed being in your case. But then it could only be the projection of the causal body in mental matter. And in this case, I do not understand the swastikas, which again point to an astral element. I therefore request that you write to me with more details about this matter. I would like us to be clear about this.²

It would be quite nice if the newer members of the E.S. in Germany would in some way join together more closely. We need this in Germany in particular. For the E.S. must become the soul of the Theosophical Society. In Germany it must do so even more so because for a long time to come we can only hope for deeper, inner cooperation among individuals, and larger circles will only join externally. But the individuals will form a more loyal, secure and powerful base. And we need that, because we have come so far astray.

In Weimar, everything went quite well. We now also have a lodge there. The lectures were extremely well attended. I would like to come to Cologne for a variety of reasons, to give a lecture there as well. Please, maybe you can prepare the ground there a little. Much, very much depends on us creating new centers. Up to now almost all German Theosophists have sought a connection with the English mother movement that was much too loose. And only from this, in the most intimate connection with it, must we now work. There was too much of a tendency towards dogmatics in Germany, towards the mere intellectual grasp of doctrines, while there is no real understanding of living spirituality. Only when we awaken this latter, when we open our eyes to the fact that for the progress of the theosophical current it is not enough to learn the dogmas (Hartmann), but to belong spiritually to the central individualities from whom wisdom originates and in whom it has its continuous source: - only then can we move forward. We must make it clear, not through words but through imponderables, that it is a matter of the continuous fertilization of the bearers of the T.S. by central individualities. Only those who work esoterically will fully understand all these things; but for that, they must also stand together in a clearly conscious and forceful way, awakening the others.

It was deeply satisfying for me to be able to spend a few hours with you in Düsseldorf. It is the kind of satisfaction we feel when we see others on the road where the mile markers always point forward. For the Theosophist, there is only one gate through which one should pass only once, and which one should not enter a second time, to go back.

In Germany, we have only four or five very secure personalities. And that is why we have to work intensively. If we do that, we will find the ways and means to move forward. If we do not find these ways and means in Germany, then we would be neglecting something now that cannot be remedied so quickly.

My next exoteric task is to spread the teaching as much as I can. I hope, my dearest and most esteemed Miss Scholl, that you are settling in well in Cologne and are able to work there for our cause and to your satisfaction. How are the people in your care?

Hoping to hear from you soon, I remain sincerely yours

Rudolf Steiner

• 1. The journal founded and edited by R. Steiner. See GA 34.
• 2. In response, Mathilde Scholl wrote the following on May 7, 1903: “...Thank you very much for answering my question. The vision I described to you did indeed radiate light, and this light seemed to bubble up from the swastikas located on the head and upper body. In fact, only the head and upper body were visible, and only in outline. The being did not appear corporeal, but seemed to be only a luminous apparition. But the impression was so strong that I believed in the dream that I threw myself at the feet of this being and lost consciousness. Upon awakening, everything was vividly before my eyes and I felt the inner emotion for a long time afterwards. At first I did not look for an explanation at all. It was only through Leadbeater's book that I understood how it is possible to see such an arrangement of colors. But I would like to know who this being was, because even if it seemed to have the features of Master M., it may just as well have been based on my individual mood as on reality.” [The answer to this question is not known.]

Fairy tale play by Hermann Sudermann
Performance at the Deutsches Theater, Berlin

"I raise my head boldly to the threatening rocky mountains and to the raging torrent of water and to the crashing clouds swimming in a sea of fire and say: I am eternal and defy your power! Break all down upon me, and you earth and you heaven, mingle in wild tumult, and all you elements, - froth and rage and in wild battle tear apart the last little sun-dust of the body which I call mine: - my will alone with its firm plan shall hover boldly and coldly over the ruins of the universe; for I have seized my destiny, and it is more permanent than you; it is eternal, and I am eternal like it." Fichte uttered these sentences in a speech that dealt with the highest goals of the human spirit. Anyone who knows them can recall them when they get to know Sudermann's latest dramatic poem "The Three Heron Feathers". For the tragedy of man, who is driven as far away as possible from the proud consciousness expressed in these sentences by an unfortunate fate, affects us in this thoughtful drama in the shattering way that we always feel when the greatest problems of life are unrolled before us with the playwright's gripping means.

A Hamlet's nature, faced not only with the problem of avenging his criminally murdered father, but with the greater problem of coming to terms with life itself, in all its mysteriousness: that is Sudermann's main character, Prince Witte. Widwolf's nefarious deed has robbed him of his fathers' ancestral heritage, the Duchy of Gorhland. He seems equipped with all his gifts to acquire what he has inherited from his fathers. But like Hamlet's will, his is paralyzed. Fate itself prevents him from earning his freedom and life by having to conquer them every day. The reason for his tragedy is that this fate throws happiness at him without struggle, without striving. But such happiness can never be pious to man.

Prince Witte has gone to a people on a northern island, where a heron is worshipped as a divine being. He has captured three feathers from it. They can bring him the three stages of development of the happiness that can only be bestowed on man. But such happiness could only belong to transient life. The life with which death is inseparably linked. The life that becomes bitter when we think of death. Yes, whose only, futile meaning is death. Sudermann has given symbolic expression to death, which alone can shed light on such transient happiness in life, in "Begräbnisfrau". She interprets the prince's fate in terms of the three heron feathers. If he lets the first one burn in the fire, the woman who makes him happy appears to him as a misty figure in the clouds. If he burns the second, she will stand before him in a dream. He will hold her in his hands and yet strive in vain to possess her. And if the third finally becomes the nourishment of the flame, the woman who represents his happiness will die before his eyes.

Like the will that is paralyzed in the prince himself, his faithful servant Hans Lorbass stands beside him. He tries to lift him up again and again. He is the strength and the fire in Prince White's life. In the first scene of the drama, he reveals his entire life's destiny to us:

"For in every great work,
That is accomplished on earth,
Strength alone shall reign,
He alone shall reign who laughs,
Never shall sorrow reign,
Never he who foams at the mouth in anger,
Never he who needs women to slumber,
And least of all he who dreams,
Therefore how I sweat and steel him
To what he can become,
I sit firmly in his soul -
I, the fighter - I, the man."

Prince Witte embarks on the path of life marked out for him by fate with his servant Lorbass, whom he has found again after capturing the heron feathers. He goes to the court of the Amber Queen of Samland, who is a widow and has a six-year-old son. She wants to give her hand to whoever wins the tournament. Widwolf, who has usurped Witte's throne, meets the robbed man here. Although Witte does not win, the loyal Lorbass stands by his side and drives Widwolf and his men away. Nevertheless, the queen gives Witte her love. She is a woman full of kindness and devotion, but she must give her love away. She can only consider the one who has conquered her heart to be the victor, and that is Prince Witte. He becomes king, even though the Samland Queen's people have grave qualms of conscience because Witte has not won an honest victory - and even though he does not feel happy because he is not keeping and defending the throne for himself, but for the young king from his wife's first marriage. But fate, which decides on the happiness of transient life, has assigned this wife to the prince as his happiness. He cannot understand this fate. The wife he has been given remains a stranger to him, and his longing yearns for the supposed stranger who is to appear to him walking in the night when he burns the second heron feather. Lorbass sees his master gradually withering away at the queen's side. He therefore gives him the idea of burning the second heron feather. And when this becomes a flame, the Amber Queen, his wife, appears "walking in the night". Even now, he cannot recognize her as the wife destined for him. Instead, he sees her as a troublemaker. He thinks that by appearing, she has driven away the unknown woman out of jealousy, who should have appeared when the heron's feather was burned. At this moment, the deeply moving spirit of this drama takes effect from the stage: we do not understand a happiness that we receive effortlessly, as if by magic, as a gift; we can only recognize the happiness we have acquired as the happiness that is due to us. Sudermann conveys this general truth to us through a purely human motif. Witte cannot find the way to his wife's heart because his son, who does not bear the mark of his blood, stands between them. He even gives Lorbass a hint to get this son out of the way. The robber Widwolf appears for the second time to covet the queen. Witte is to fight for himself and his own. He believes he cannot do this as long as he is defending not his own throne, but that of his stepchild. When Lorbass gets to know the boy king in all his excellence, he cannot kill him. And Witte is also glad that this time the faithful servant has broken faith. With all the strength in him, he rushes against the enemy Widwolf and - now really conquers the kingdom, but - to renounce it and move on to seek the woman who is supposed to be destined for him by the firepower of the heron's feathers. He does not find her, of course, but returns fifteen years later to burn the third of the feathers in the presence of the Amber Queen. At this moment, the woman destined for him falls to her death. Only now, as his happiness escapes him, does he realize that it was meant for him. He dies after his wife. Death, in the form of the funeral wife, has had no trouble in capturing the two of them for himself, for it was easy for him to give them a fleeting happiness that neither of them can recognize as their own. He receives happiness as a gift and cannot recognize it because he does not conquer it; and she gives happiness away and cannot be happy about it because she gives it away indiscriminately.

There is no dead end in this Sudermann drama. One sits there and waits for each coming moment with rapt attention. Always the background to a great thought and always a captivating image on the stage. One has the feeling that a serious person wants to communicate with serious people about an important matter in life. Full of gratitude to have seen a piece of life in a poem, we leave the theater, which today is mostly devoid of ideology.

The performance in Berlin's Deutsches Theater was such that it can be described as a dramatic phenomenon of the first rank. Kainz as Prince Witte: one may give the highest praise; Teresina Geßner was an Amber Queen who made the soul tremble, and Nissen's Lorbass should be incorporated into German stage history as soon as possible. The Deutsches Theater has much to make up for after the utterly unsuccessful Cyrano performance; but it knows how to make up for it. And only where there are strong advantages does one make such mistakes as the one severely criticized here.

[ 1 ] We shall now describe the state of man before his division into male and female. At that time the body consisted of a soft malleable mass. The will had a much greater power over this mass than later. When man separated from his parent entity he appeared as a truly articulated organism, but as an incomplete one. The further development of the organs took place outside the parent entity. Much of what later matured inside the mother organism was at that time brought to completion outside of it by a force which was akin to our will power. In order to bring about such an external maturation the care of the parent being was necessary. Man brought certain organs into the world which he later cast off. Others, which were quite incomplete at his first appearance, developed more fully. The whole process had something which can be compared with the emergence from an egg-form and the casting off of an eggshell, but here one must not think of a firm eggshell.

[ 2 ] The body of man was warm-blooded. This must be stated explicitly, for in even earlier times it was different, as will be shown later. The maturation which took place outside the mother organism occurred under the influence of an increased warmth which also was supplied from the outside. But one must by no means think that the egg-man—as he will be called for the sake of brevity—was brooded. The conditions of heat and fire on the earth of that time were different from those of later times. By means of his powers man could confine fire, or respectively, heat, to a certain space. He could, so to speak, contract, (concentrate) heat. He was thus in a position to supply the young organism with the warmth which it needed for its maturation.

[ 3 ] The most highly developed organs of man at that time were the organs of motion. The sense organs of today were as yet quite undeveloped. The most advanced among them were the organs of hearing and of perception of cold and hot, the sense of touch; the perception of light lagged far behind. Man came into the world with the senses of hearing and touch; the perception of light developed somewhat later.

[ 4 ] Everything which is said here applies to the last periods before the division into sexes. This division took place slowly and gradually. Long before its actual occurrence, human beings were already developing in such a way that one individual would be born with more male, another with more female characteristics. Each human being however also possessed the opposite sexual characteristics, so that self-impregnation was possible. But the latter could not always take place, because it depended on the influences of external conditions in certain seasons. With respect to many things and to a great extent, man was generally dependent on such outer conditions. Therefore he had to regulate all his institutions in accordance with such external conditions, for example, in accordance with the course of the sun and the moon. But his regulation did not take place consciously in the modern sense, but was accomplished in a manner which one must call instinctive. With this we already indicate the soul life of man of that time.

[ 5 ] This soul life cannot be described as a true inner life. Physical and soul activities and qualities were not yet strictly separated. The outer life of nature was still experienced by the soul. Each single disturbance in the environment acted powerfully on the sense of hearing especially. Every disturbance of the air, every movement was “heard.” In their movements wind and water spoke an “eloquent language” to man. In this manner a perception of the mysterious activity of nature penetrated into him. This activity reverberated in his soul. His own activity was an echo of these impressions. He transformed the perceptions of sound into his own activity. He lived among such tonal movements and expressed them by his will. In this way he was impelled to all his daily labors.

He was influenced in a somewhat lesser degree by the influences which act upon the touch. But they also played an important role. He “felt” the environment in his body and acted accordingly. From such influences upon the touch he could tell when and how he had to work. He knew from them where he should rest. In them he recognized and avoided dangers which threatened his life. In accordance with these influences he regulated his food intake.

[ 6 ] The remainder of the soul life took its course in a manner quite different from that of later periods. In the soul lived images of external objects, not conceptions of them. For instance, when man entered a warmer space from a colder one, a certain colored image arose in his soul. But this colored image had nothing to do with any external object. It originated in an inner force which was akin to the will. Such images continuously filled the soul. One can compare this only with the flowing dream impressions of man. At that time the images were not completely irregular, but proceeded according to law. Therefore, in relation to this stage of mankind, one should speak of an image consciousness rather than of a dream consciousness. For the most part, colored images filled this consciousness. But these were not the only kind. Thus man wandered through the world, and through his hearing and touch participated in the events of this world: but in his soul life this world was mirrored in images which were very unlike what existed in the external world. Joy and sorrow were associated with the images of the soul to a much lesser degree than is the case today with the ideas of men which reflect their perceptions of the external world. It is true that one image awakened happiness, another displeasure, one hate, another love; but these feelings had a much paler character.

On the other hand, strong feelings were aroused by something else. At that time man was much more active than later. Everything in his environment as well as the images in his soul, stimulated him to activity, to movement. When his activity could proceed without hindrance, he experienced pleasure, but when this activity was hindered in any way, he felt displeasure and discomfort. It was the absence or presence of hindrances to his will which determined the content of his sensations, his joy and his pain. This joy, or this pain were again released in his soul in a world of living images. Light, clear, beautiful images lived in him when he could be completely free in his actions; dark, misshapen images arose in his soul when his movements were hindered.

[ 7 ] Until now the average man has been described. Among those who had developed into a kind of superhuman beings, (cf. page 96) soul life was different. Their soul life did not have this instinctive character. Through their senses of hearing and touch they perceived deeper mysteries of nature, which they could interpret consciously. In the rushing of the wind, in the rustling of the trees, the laws, the wisdom of nature were unveiled to them. The images in their souls did not merely represent reflections of the external world, but were likenesses of the spiritual powers of the world. They did not perceive sensory objects, but spiritual entities. For example, the average man experienced fear, and an ugly, dark image arose in his soul. By means of such images the superhuman being received information and revelation about the spiritual entities of the world. The processes of nature did not appear to him as dependent on lifeless natural laws, as they do to the scientist of today, but rather as the actions of spiritual beings. External reality did not yet exist, for there were no external senses. But spiritual reality was accessible to the higher beings. The spirit shone into them as the sun shines into the physical eye of man today. In these beings, cognition was what one may call intuitive knowledge in the fullest sense of the word. For them there was no combining and speculating, but an immediate perception of the activity of spiritual beings. Therefore, these superhuman individuals could receive communications from the spiritual world directly into their will. They consciously directed the other men. They received their mission from the world of spirits and acted accordingly.

[ 8 ] When the time came in which the sexes separated, these beings considered it their task to act upon the new life in accordance with their mission. The regulation of sexual life emanated from them. Everything which relates to the reproduction of mankind originated with them. In this they acted quite consciously, but the other men could only feel this influence as an instinct implanted in them. Sexual love was implanted in man by immediate transference of thought. At first all its manifestations were of the noblest character. Everything in this area which has taken on an ugly character comes from later times, when men became more independent and when they corrupted an originally pure impulse. In these older times there was no satisfaction of the sexual impulse for its own sake. Then, everything was a sacrificial service for the continuation of human existence. Reproduction was regarded as a sacred matter, as a service which man owes to the world. Sacrificial priests were the directors and regulators in this field.

[ 9 ] Of a different kind were the influences of the half superhuman beings (cf. page 96/97). The latter were not developed to the point of being able to receive the revelations of the spiritual world in an entirely pure form. Along with these impressions of the spiritual world, the effects of the sensible earth also arose among the images of their souls. The truly superhuman beings received no impressions of joy and pain through the external world. They were wholly given over to the revelations of the spiritual powers. Wisdom flowed to them as light does to sensory beings; their will was directed toward nothing but acting in accordance with this wisdom. In this acting lay their highest joy. Wisdom, will, and activity constituted their nature. This was different among the half superhuman entities. They felt the impulse to receive impressions from the outside, and with the satisfaction of this impulse they connected joy, with its frustration, displeasure. Through this they differed from the superhuman entities. To these entities, external impressions were nothing but confirmations of spiritual revelations They could look out into the world without receiving anything more than a reflection of what they had already received from the spirit. The half-superhuman beings learned something new, and therefore they could become leaders of men when in human souls mere images changed into likenesses and conceptions of external objects. This happened when a portion of the previous reproductive energy of man turned inward, at the time when entities with brains were developed. With the brain man also received the capacity to transform external sensory impressions into conceptions.

[ 10 ] It must therefore be said that by half-superhuman beings man was brought to the point of directing his inner nature toward the sensuous external world. He was not permitted to open the images of his soul directly to pure spiritual influences. The capacity of perpetuating the existence of his kind was implanted in him as an instinctive impulse by superhuman beings. Spiritually, he would at first have had to continue a sort of dream existence if the half-superhuman beings had not intervened. Through their influence the images of his soul were directed toward the sensuous, external world. He became a being which was conscious of itself in the world of the senses. Thereby it came about that man could consciously direct his actions in accordance with his perceptions of the world of the senses. Before this he had acted from a kind of instinct. He had been under the spell of his external environment and of the powers of higher individualities, which acted on him. Now he began to follow the impulses and enticements of his conceptions. Therewith free choice became possible for man. This was the beginning of “good and evil.”

[ 11 ] Before we continue in this direction, something will be said concerning the environment of man on earth. In addition to man there existed animals, which, for their kind, were at the same stage of development as he. According to current ideas one would include them among the reptiles. Apart from them, lower forms of animal life existed. Between man and the animals there was an essential difference. Because of his still malleable body, man could live only in those regions of the earth which had not yet passed over into the most solid material form. And in these regions animal organisms which had a similarly plastic body lived with him. But in other regions lived animals which already had dense bodies and also had developed separate sexedness and the senses. Where they had come from, will be explained later. These animals could not develop further because their bodies had taken on this denser materiality too soon. Some species of these became extinct, others have perpetuated their kind to the point of contemporary forms. Man could attain higher forms because he remained in the regions which corresponded to his state at that time. Thereby his body remained so pliant and soft that he could develop the organs which were to be fructified by the spirit. With this development his external body had reached the point where it could pass over into denser materiality and become a protective envelope for the more delicate spiritual organs.

Not all human bodies, however, had reached this point. There were few advanced ones. These were first animated by spirit. Others were not animated. If the spirit had penetrated into them it could have developed only in a defective manner because of the as yet incomplete inner organs. Therefore, at first these human beings were compelled to develop further without spirit. A third kind had reached the point where weak spiritual impulses could act in them. They stood between the two other kinds. Their mental activity remained dull. They had to be led by higher spiritual powers. All possible transitions existed between these three kinds. Further development was now possible only in that a portion of the human beings attained higher forms at the expense of the others. First, the completely mindless ones had to be abandoned. A mingling with them for the purpose of reproduction would have pulled the more highly developed down to their level. Everything which had been given a mind was therefore separated from them. Thereby the latter descended more and more to the level of animalism. Thus, alongside man there developed manlike animals. Man left a portion of his brothers behind on his road in order that he himself might ascend higher. This process had by no means come to an end. Among the men with a dull mental life those who stood somewhat higher could advance only if they were raised to an association with higher ones, and separated themselves from those less endowed with spirit. Only thus could they develop bodies which would be fit to receive the full human spirit. After a certain time the physical development had come to a kind of stopping-point, in that everything which lay above a certain boundary remained human. Meanwhile, the conditions of life on earth had changed in such a way that a further thrusting down would no longer produce animal-like creatures, but such as were no longer capable of living. That which had been thrust down into the animal world has either become extinct or survives in the different higher animals. Therefore, one must consider these animals as beings which had to stop at an earlier stage of human development. They have not retained the form which they had at the time of their separation, however, but have gone from a higher to a lower level. Thus the apes are men of a past epoch who have regressed. As man was once less perfect than he is at present, they were once more perfect than they are now.

That which has remained in the field of the human, has gone through a similar process, but within these human limits. Many savage tribes must be considered to be the degenerated descendants of human forms which were once more highly developed. They did not sink to the level of animalism, but only to that of savagery.

[ 12 ] The immortal part of man is the spirit. It has been shown when the spirit entered the body. Before this, the spirit belonged to other regions. It could only associate itself with the body when the latter had attained a certain level of development. Only when one understands completely how this association came about, can one recognize the significance of birth and death, and can understand the nature of the eternal spirit.

A description of the constitution of man before the division into male and female sexes must now be given. The body consisted then of a soft, plastic mass. Over it the will-power was far more potent than was the case with mankind subsequently. On his separation from the parent being, man appeared, it is true, as an organism with members, but incomplete. His organs continued their further development apart from the parent body. Much of that which at a later period ripened within the maternal organism was then brought to perfection by an external force akin to our will-power. The parent's fostering care was necessary to promote such a ripening from without. Man brought with him into the world certain organs which he afterwards discarded. Others, still quite imperfect at his first appearance, completed their development. The whole process permits of a comparison with liberation from an egg-form and the casting off of an outer covering; but we must here not think of a hard and egg-like shell.

Man's body was warm-blooded. This must be distinctly stated, for in former times it was otherwise, as will afterwards be shown. The process of maturing apart from the mother-entity was accomplished under the influence of increased warmth, conveyed in like manner from without. But by no means must we imagine a hatching-out of the egg-shaped man—so named for the sake of brevity. The conditions of warmth and fire on the earth were different then from those of later times. By means of his own force a man could constrain and confine within a certain space fire or warmth. In short, he could concentrate heat. He was thus in a position to supply warmth to the young creature that required it for his development.

The organs of motion were at that time man's most highly developed organs. The sense-organs of to-day were then quite unevolved. The most advanced were the organ of hearing and the organs for the perception of cold and heat (the sense of feeling); still far behind was the perception of light. Man was born with the senses of hearing and of touch, and then, somewhat later, the light-perception was evolved.

All that is stated here refers to the latest period before the separation of the sexes. The latter proceeded slowly and gradually. For a long time before its actual appearance, mankind began to develop in such a way that one individual was born with more of the masculine, the other with more of the feminine character. Nevertheless, the characteristics of the opposite sex were present in every individual, so that spontaneous generation was possible, though not at all times, for it was dependent upon the influences of external conditions at certain seasons of the year. In diverse matters mankind as a whole depended to a large extent on such external circumstances. For that reason he had to regulate all his undertakings in accordance with such outer conditions; in accordance, for example, with the course of sun and moon. This regulation did not, however, take place consciously, in the present sense of the term, but was carried out in a manner which must rather be called instinctive, a term indicating the mental life of the man of that time.

This mental life cannot be described as an actual inner life. Bodily and mental activities and qualities were not as yet rigidly separated from one another. The outer life of Nature was still experienced by the soul. It was above all on the sense of hearing that every single vibration from without made a powerful impression. Every quiver in the air, every movement in his surroundings was “heard.” The wind and the water expressed in their motions what to man was an “eloquent language.” It was a perception of the mysterious weaving and working in Nature which thus penetrated man. And this weaving and working resounded again in his soul. His activity was an echo of these influences. He transformed the perception of sound into his own activity. He lived amid those surgings of sound, and brought them into expression by means of his own will. In like manner was he impelled to accomplish all his daily work. To a somewhat less degree, indeed, he was affected by the energy playing upon his feelings. Nevertheless these too acted an important part. The surroundings were sensed by him within his own body and he acted accordingly. By the activities of his feelings he knew when and how he ought to work. By these he knew where to settle, or recognised the dangers threatening his life, and so avoided them. He regulated the taking of sustenance accordingly.

Altogether different from that of later times was the course taken by the rest of his mental life. Pictures lived in his soul, but not as representations of external things. When, for example, the man moved from a colder into a warmer place, there arose in his soul a definite colour-picture, but this colour-picture had nothing to do with any external object. It sprang from an inner force akin to the will. Pictures like these continually filled the soul. The whole can only be compared with the rising and falling dream-visions of man. Only at that time the pictures were not unregulated, but in conformity with laws; and for that reason we must not speak, at this stage of humanity, of a dream-consciousness, but rather of a picture-consciousness. In the main it was colour-pictures with which this consciousness was filled, but these were not the only kind. Thus man wandered through the world, experiencing its events by means of his senses of hearing and feeling, but in his inner life this world was reflected in pictures, very unlike those existing in the outer world. Pleasure and pain were bound up with these soul-pictures in a much smaller degree than is the case with man's ideas to-day, which reflect his perceptions in the world outside. Doubtless one picture caused him pleasure, another disgust; the one hatred, and the other love; but these sensations bore a much fainter character. On the other hand strong feelings were produced by something else. Man was then much more agile, much more active than later. Everything in his surroundings, as well as the pictures in his soul, stirred him to activity, to movement. Now when his activity, unhindered, had free play, he experienced a sensation of well-being; when, however, this activity was checked in any direction, he was overcome by unhappiness and discomfort. The absence or presence of opposition to his will determined the content of his life of feeling, his pleasure and his pain. And this pleasure or this pain discharged itself again in his own soul as a living world of pictures. Clear, bright, beautiful pictures lived within him when he was able to expand unhindered; gloomy and misshapen were those which appeared in his soul when his movements were hampered.

So far the average man has been described. In the case of those who had developed into a kind of superhuman state, the inner life was different. With them the soul-life was not of this instinctive character. What they perceived through their senses of hearing and of feeling were Nature's deeper secrets, and these they could consciously interpret. In the roaring of the wind, in the rustling of the trees, the laws and the wisdom of Nature were disclosed; and in their soul-pictures these were not mere reflections of an outer world, but images of the spiritual powers in the world. It was not the things of sense which they perceived, but spiritual intelligences. If the average man, for example, experienced a sensation of fear, a hideous sinister picture would arise in his soul. The superhuman being received by means of such pictures information, revelation from the spiritual beings of the world. The processes of Nature did not appear to him as they do to the naturalist of to-day, dependent on lifeless natural laws, but rather as the deeds of spiritual beings. The outer reality did not as yet exist, for there were no outer senses, but to the higher beings the inner reality revealed itself. The spirit poured its rays into them as the sunlight streams into the physical eye of the man of to-day. In these beings was knowledge in its fullest sense, that which is called intuitive knowledge. There was no such thing as combining and speculating among them, but a direct contemplation of the working of spiritual beings. These superhuman individualities could thus absorb directly, into their wills, communications coming from the spiritual world. Consciously they led the others. They received their mission from the spiritual world and acted in accordance with it.

Now when the time arrived at which the sexes separated, these beings naturally considered it their task to influence the new life in conformity with their mission. The regulation of sexual life originated with them. All arrangements which had to do with the generation of mankind had their source in them. In this they acted with perfect consciousness, but the other human beings were sensible of the impulse only as an instinct implanted in them. Sexual love was implanted in man by direct thought-transference; and all its expressions were at first of the noblest kind. Everything in this domain which has taken on an ugly character dates from a later period, when man had become more independent, and when he had sullied a desire originally pure. In these early times there was no such thing as a satisfaction of sexual desire for its own sake. Everything then was a service of sacrifice for the continuance of human existence. Generation was regarded as a sacred thing, as a service which man owed to the world, and sacrificial priests were the leaders and rulers in this domain.

Of another kind were the influences of the semi-superhuman beings. The latter were not developed to the stage at which they could receive the revelations of the spiritual world in all their purity. In their soul-pictures there arose besides the impressions of the spiritual world the activities also of the world of sense. Those who were in the fullest sense superhuman beings had no sensation of either pleasure or pain from the external world. They abandoned themselves entirely to the revelations of the spiritual powers. Wisdom flowed into them as light flows into the creatures of sense. Their will was directed towards nothing else but to action in accordance with this wisdom, and in action of this kind lay their highest pleasure. Wisdom, Will, and Activity composed their very being. It was otherwise with the semi-superhuman beings. They felt the desire to receive impressions from without, and connected pleasure with the satisfaction of this desire, disappointment with its lack. They were thus distinguishable from the superhuman beings. For the latter, impressions from without were nothing more than confirmation of spiritual revelations. They might behold the outer world and receive nothing more than a reflection of that which they had already received through the spirit. The semi-superhuman beings experienced something new to them, and on that account they were able to be the leaders of mankind, when the latter began to change the mere pictures in the soul into images, into representations of outer objects. This happened when a part of the earlier human generative force turned inwards and when beings possessing a brain were evolved. For with the brain man also developed the capacity to change external sense-impressions into mind-conceptions. It must be said, therefore, that man was impelled by semi-superhuman beings to turn his soul towards the external world of sense. It was, indeed, denied him to expose his own soul-pictures directly to pure spiritual influences. The ability to generate his kind was implanted in him as an instinctive impulse by the superhuman beings. Mentally he would have had to lead a sort of dream-existence at first, had not the semi-superhuman beings interfered. Swayed by them, his soul-pictures were directed to the world outside. He became a being self-conscious in the world of sense. And thus man achieved the ability to guide his actions consciously and according to his perceptions in the world of sense. Once he had acted from a kind of instinct, under the sway of his external surroundings and the energizing forces playing upon him from higher individualities. Now he began to follow the urgings, the allurements, of his own conceptions. And with this the free will of mankind appeared in the world. That was the beginning of “Good and Evil.”

Before advancing further in this direction something must be said about man's environment on the earth. Side by side with man there existed animals as well, which according to their kind were at the same stage of development as he was. In accordance with our present conceptions they would be counted as reptiles. Besides these there were lower forms of the animal world. Now there was an essential difference between man and the animals. On account of his still plastic body, man could only live in those regions of the earth which had not as yet reached the densest material form, and in these regions animals possessing a like plastic body lived with him. In other regions, however, animals lived which had already dense bodies and which had also already developed unisexuality and their sense organs. Whence they came will be shown later. They could develop no farther because their bodies had taken on the denser matter too soon. Some species among them have disappeared, some have developed further after their kind into the present forms. Man was able to reach higher forms because he remained in those regions which at that time suited his structure. On that account his body remained so flexible and soft that he was able to single out of himself those organs which were capable of fructification by the mind. His external body had then advanced so far that it could densify and become a protecting sheath for the finer mental organs. But all human bodies were not so far developed. Those that were so advanced were few. These were first of all vivified by the mind. Others were not vivified. Had the mind entered the latter as well, it would only have been able partially to evolve, because of the imperfect inner organs. And so these human personalities had for the time being to continue their development as a kind of mindless creature. A third kind had proceeded so far that feeble mental impulses could make themselves felt. These stood between the other two kinds. Their mental activity remained dull. They had to be led by higher mental powers. Between these three kinds were all possible grades of transition. Further development was now only possible if one part of mankind should educate itself more highly at the cost of another part. First of all, the absolutely mindless had to be sacrificed. An intermingling with them for the purpose of propagation would only have dragged the more advanced down to their level. And so all who had received the mind principle were singled out from among them. Therefore they fell more and more to the level of animality. Thus, side by side with mankind, animals resembling man evolved themselves further.

Man left, as it were, a portion of his brothers behind him on the path, so that he might himself mount higher. This process was, however, by no means at an end here. Those men also of dull mentality, who stood rather higher, could only advance further by being drawn into association with higher beings and by separating themselves from the less mentally gifted. Only by these means could they develop bodies afterwards suited for the reception of the entire human intelligence. Not until after the lapse of a certain time had physical evolution advanced so far that, in this direction, a sort of pause set in, during which all lying beyond a fixed limit belonged to the human domain. The conditions of life on the earth had meantime so changed that a further rejection would have resulted in the production, not of animal-like beings, but of such as were not even fit to live. But what was thrust down into a state of animality has either died out or lives on in the various higher animals. In such therefore we must recognize creatures which had to remain behind, at an earlier stage of human development. Only they have not retained the same form which they had at the time of their separation, but have degenerated from a higher to a lower type. Thus monkeys are retrograde human beings of a bygone age. Just as man was at one time less perfect than he is to-day, so were these at one time more perfect than at present. And that which remained within the domain of man has undergone a like process, within its own limits. In many a savage tribe we may see the degraded descendants of human forms which were at one time more exalted. These have not sunk to the level of the brute, but only to that of the savage.

That which in man is eternal is the mind. It has been shown at what period the mind entered the body. Before that time the mind belonged to other regions. It could not unite itself with the body till the latter had attained a certain stage of development. Only when there is a perfect comprehension of the way in which this union took place can the meaning of birth and death be understood, or the character of the everlasting mind become known.

The woodland meadow, as in Scene 6. Joseph Keane, Dame Keane, their daughter Bertha; afterwards, Countryfolk, later the Monk; finally Keane's foster-daughter Cecilia and Thomas.

Bertha:
Dear mother, I so long to hear the tale
Cecilia often spake of years ago.
Thou dost know all those fairy-tales to tell
Which father brings back with him from the knights
When he comes home, and which with greatest joy
So many friends are always glad to hear.

Keane:
The soul can find real treasure in those tales.
The gifts which on the spirit they confer
Decay not with the body in the grave,
But bear their fruits in later lives on earth.
Darkly, as through a glass, we glimpse their truth;
And from such darkened sight, our souls can win
Knowledge to serve our needs in daily life.
If only folk could realize the store
Of precious gifts our knights have to bestow
Cecilia and Thomas have, alas,
Deaf ears at present for such things as these;
Since they draw wisdom from another source.

Bertha:
To-day I fain would listen to that tale
Which tells about the Evil and the Good.

Dame Keane:
Right gladly will I tell it thee; attend.
Once on a time there lived a man who spent
Much time in puzzling over cosmic truths.
That which tormented his poor brain the most
Was, how to learn of Evil's origin;
And to that question he could not reply.
The world was made by God, so he would say,
And God can only have in him the Good.
How then doth Evil spring from out the Good?
Time and again he puzzled over this,
But could not find the answer that he sought.
Now it befell that on a certain day
This seeker on his travels passed a tree
That was engaged in converse with an axe.
Unto the tree the axe did speak these words:
‘That which thou canst not do I can achieve,
I can fell thee; but thou canst not fell me.’
Unto the vain axe thus the tree replied:
‘'Twas but a year ago a man did cleave
The very wood of which thine haft is made
Out of my body with another axe.’
And when the man had listened to these words
A thought was straightway born within his soul
Which he could not set clearly down in words,
But which completely answered his demand:
How Evil could originate from Good.

Keane:
Think on this story, daughter, and thou'lt see,
How contemplating nature's mysteries
May form fresh knowledge in a human head.
I know how many things I can make clear
Unto myself by spinning out in thought
The tales by which the knights enlighten us.

Bertha:
I know I am a simple little thing,
Without ability to understand
The learned words which clever people use
In setting forth the science they profess.
I have no taste for matters of that kind.
Whenever Thomas tells us of his work
I nearly fall asleep. But I could spend
Unnumbered hours in listening to the tales
Which father brings back home on his return
From visiting the castle, and wherewith
He often weaves a story of his own
As he recounts them to us hour on hour.

(Exeunt.)

(After an interval, the Country folk come across the meadow.)

First Countryman:
My uncle yesterday came home again.
He dwelt a long time in Bohemia,
And earned an honest living in the mines.
Full many a bit of news he hath to tell
Picked up by him upon his journeyings;
Excitement and unrest are everywhere;
Attacks are made upon the Spirit-Knights.
Our local brotherhood cannot escape;
Already preparations have been made
And ere long will this castle be besieged.

Second Countryman:
I hope 'twill not be long 'ere they attack.
Many amongst us will most certainly
Gladly enlist among the fighting-men;
I mean to be among the first myself.

First Countrywoman:
Thou wilt but hurry headlong to thy doom!
How can a man be such a witless fool!
Hast thou forgot how strongly fortified
The castle is? The battle will be grim.

Second Countrywoman:
It is no business of the countryfolk
To mix with things they do not understand.
Yet there are many hereabouts to-day
Who do naught else but go from place to place
And fan the embers of revolt and strife.
Things have already come to such a pass
That sick folk have to cry in vain for aid.
The good man who in former days was wont
To help so many in sore need, can now
No more pass out beyond the castle gates,
So cruelly have folk belaboured him.

Third Countrywoman:
Of course! For many people were enraged
On hearing from what source the sickness came
That broke out, all at once, among our cows.
The Jew brought this upon them by his spells.
He only seems to make sick people well
In order, by the use of hellish arts,
Better to serve the ends of evil powers.

Third Countryman:
This empty prattle about heresy
Little availed. Truth is, our countryfolk
Had what they needed. Nought else came of it
Save that with dark mysterious sayings they beguiled
The idle hour; till, with cunning skill
A clever judge of human frailty
Devised this silly tale about the Jew,
How he had laid a spell upon our stock—
And then indeed the storm. began to rise.

Fourth Countryman:
I think that every one of you might know
What wars do mean, with all their misery.
Have not our fathers told us all that they
Must needs endure, when all the countryside
Was overrun by bands of soldiery?

Fourth Countrywoman:
I always said that it would come to pass:
Their lordships' rule must shortly fade away.
Already hath a dream revealed to me
How we can be of service to the troops
When they arrive to carry out the siege,
And take good care of all their creature needs.

Fifth Countryman:
If dreams to-day are still to be believed,
That is a matter we need not discuss.
The knights have tried to make us cleverer
Than were our fathers. Now they have to learn
How much our cleverness hath been increased.
Our fathers let them in; in our turn we.
Shall drive them out. I know the secret tracks
That yield an entrance to the fortalice.
I used to work within it until rage,
Drove me away; now will I show the knights
How we can make their science serve our ends.

Fifth Countrywoman:
He surely hath no good thought in his heart;
I trembled as I listened to his words.

Sixth Countryman:
In spirit-vision I have lately seen
A traitor leading hostile soldiery
By secret ways into the castle's keep.

Sixth Countrywoman:
Such visions are destructive, I should say.
No one who thinks as Christians ought to think
But is aware that honesty alone,
Not treason, can from evil set us free.

Sixth Countryman:
I let folk talk, and help as best I can.
How often do we hear a thing called wrong
By those who lack the courage in themselves
To do that very thing. Let's go our ways;
I see the father coming down the road;
We will not interrupt his train of thought.
I found no difficulty up till now
In understanding everything he taught;
But in the sermon which he preached to-day
He said much that one could not understand.

(The Countryfolk go away towards the forest.)

(After an interval the Monk comes along the meadow path.)

Monk:
It must be that a soul is led astray
In striving to pursue her natural course.
The weakness of my heart alone allowed
Such visions to appear before mine eyes
As those which I beheld within those walls.
That they must Show themselves to me in strife
Is proof enough how little yet in me
The psychic forces work in harmony.
Therefore will I address myself anew
To kindle in myself those potent words
Which bring me light from out the Spirit-heights.
That man alone prefers another road,
Whom personal illusions have made blind.
The soul can only triumph over lies
By proving herself worthy of the grace
Which Spirit-light, outpoured from founts of love,
In words of wisdom doth reveal to her.
I know that I shall find the greatest strength
Which can throw light on what the Fathers taught,
When from the gloom of self's imaginings
With lowly heart submissive I can flee.

(Exit.)

(After an interval there appear on the meadow Cecilia and Thomas.)

Cecilia:
Dear brother, when in fervent ecstasy
Of silent prayer my soul did bow herself
Unto the Fountain of the World, and yearn
Whole-heartedly to be made one therewith,
A light before my spirit would appear—
With gentle warmth and radiancy aglow;
This then transformed itself into a man
Who looked into my face with tender eyes,
And spoke to me. These were the vision's words:
‘Human delusion left thee once forlorn,
And now thou art upborne by human love
Wait therefore until longing finds a way
To bring the seeker safely to thy side.’
Thus spake this human figure oft to me
Nor could I fathom what the words might mean;
And yet a dim foreboding made me glad,
That some time they should be fulfilled for me.
And then, beloved brother, thou didst come,
And when I first set eyes upon thy face,
I felt my senses leave me; for thou vast
That human figure's very counterpart.

Thomas:
Dream and foreboding told thee but the truth,
Indeed 'twas longing guided me to thee.

Cecilia:
And when thou didst request me as thy wife
I thought the Spirit had ordained it so.

Thomas:
That in good truth the Spirit's purpose was
To re-unite us, clearly may be seen,
Although we read it not aright at first.
As wife and helpmeet, sent me from above,
So didst thou seem to me, when first we met.
And then my long-lost sister did I find.

Cecilia:
And henceforth nothing shall divide us twain.

Thomas:
Yet many obstacles between us rise.
Thy foster-parents by close ties are bound
Unto the brotherhood which I must spurn.

Cecilia:
They are incarnate love and kindness both;
And loyal friendship will they give to thee.

Thomas:
My creed will separate me from their love.

Cecilia:
Through me you will find out the way to them.

Thomas:
Keane is a kindly man, but he is stubborn;
He never will see aught but darkness there
Where I perceive the very fount of light.
In riper years it was first granted me
To turn my steps toward this light of truth,
Since all I learned of it in childhood's days
Upon my spirit made but little mark;
Whilst later on, my every thought was bent
On scientific knowledge as a means
To gain a livelihood. When I came here
At last I found the teacher and the guide
Who had the power to liberate my soul.
The teaching he path let me listen to
Doth bear the very stamp of truth itself.
Such is his speech that heart and head alike
Must yield themselves as captives to his words,
So full at once of gentleness and good.
I took the greatest trouble heretofore
To understand the other spirit type
And found it could but unto error lead.
Since it clings only to those spirit-powers
Which may be faithful guides in earthly ways
But cannot lift one up to higher worlds.
Row shall I therefore ever find the way
Into the hearts of people who believe
That from this error all salvation springs?

Cecilia:
I hear thy words, dear brother, and they seem
The product of no peaceful frame of mind.
Yet 'tis a peaceful scene of former days
Which they have reawakened in my soul.
'Twas one Good Friday, many years ago,
I saw the scene of which I speak to thee.
It happened that upon that day the man
Who wore my brother's features, said to me:
‘From source divine hath sprung the human soul
It can in death dive down to nature's depths;
In time it will set spirit free from death.’
Not until afterwards was I aware
That these words are the motto of our knights.

Thomas:
Alas! my sister, that thy lips should speak
Those evil words, which our opponents take
As revelation of the highest truth.

Cecilia:
I have at heart no sympathy at all
With outward acts committed by the knights
I truly serve the creed that nourished thee.
But never could I make myself believe
That men who guide the footsteps of the soul
By such instruction toward so high a goal
Walk not themselves the path that Christ hath trod.
The Spirit's pupil am I, staunch and true,
And I confess that it is my belief
That on that day, my brother's spirit strove
To speak of aims that lead the soul to peace.

Thomas:
The powers of destiny have not ordained
Peace for the soul, it seems, for thee and me;
They take our father from us that same hour
That sees him once again restored to us.

Cecilia:
My faculties are clouded o'er with pain
When of our father thus I hear thee speak.
Thy heart would draw thee to his side in love,
And yet thou tremblest at the very thought
Of union with him whilst he is alive.
Thou followest our leader in good faith,
Yet canst not hear the messages of love
Which his commands so tenderly convey.
A dark enigma faceth me; I see
The goodness of thy heart, and thy strong faith,
And yet must shudder at the deep abyss
That yawns so terribly between them.
And did not hope live on to comfort me,
And tell me love is never overcome,
I should lack courage to endure this pain.

Thomas:
Dear sister, thou hast yet to learn the power
Of thought, once it hath gripped a human soul.
This is no case of son opposing sire;
But one thought from another turns away.
Thought is the sovereign whom my soul obeys
Did I refuse her homage I should be
In very truth my spirit's murderer.

Curtain; Thomas and Cecilia still standing in the meadow

(This closes the vision into the fourteenth century. The following is the sequel of the events described in the first five scenes.)