The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Comedy in four acts by Ludwig Fulda
Performance at the Deutsches Theater, Berlin

The few hisses that made themselves felt on Saturday after each performance of Fulda's play "Jugendfreunde" seem to me to stand on a position of judgment that the critic must not take towards the amusing, amiable work. Nothing makes the critic more boring, superfluous and ridiculous than applying standards which are excluded by the nature of a work and by the author's intentions with it. Certainly there is a point of view from which one can criticize the drawing of the characters and the course of the plot in "Jugendfreunde". I believe, however, that the best refutation of such criticism is the fact that the critic, if he indulges in unbiased and naïve enjoyment, must smile and laugh heartily for two hours at these "friends of youth" and that the contradictions in which they become entangled through the contrast between their views and their real lives are quite true to nature and wittily portrayed by the author.

Four companions stick together faithfully and spend their lives as they please. Three of them get engaged in the first elevator. They believe that their wives will fall into each other's arms just as the men did when they were bachelors. Instead, the women quarrel at the first opportunity that brings them together and say the worst things to each other. The friends soon convince themselves that they must continue their merry life without the women. This seems easy enough, as the fourth man behaves for three acts as a vigorous opponent of marriage. Why shouldn't the three friends meet twice a week in his "bachelor pad" for cozy get-togethers without their wives? The three married men are already in agreement when the fourth surprises them by deciding to marry his stenographer. And since he has obviously made a luckier catch than the three companions, he is not at all inclined to grant his companions, blessed by fate with troublesome marital halves, a rendezvous through which they can happily dream themselves back to their bachelor days again and again.

Fulda lets the opposites collide in an amusing way. It is not his style to use situational jokes to create entanglements and solutions. Everything emerges from the characters with a certain necessity. This necessity, however, is not one that is drawn from the deep, psychological depths of the soul, but it seems to me that Fulda is not at all wrong in the easy way he takes people and things. In life, we are no more interested in people like those in Fulda's play than the author shows us. Fulda tells us just as much about them as we wish to know about them. A greater deepening of the characters and intricacies would, in my opinion, give the impression of ponderousness. I consider the witty, light way of playing with the characters and plots to be an excellent quality of the author of "The Friends of Youth".

However, I believe that only such an excellent performance can help the play to achieve the effect I have described, as the German Theater did on Saturday. In Mr. Nissen, Mr. Rittner, Mr. Sauer and Mr. Thielscher, the four youthful friends found four actors who expressed the author's intentions magnificently. And the female troublemakers were well characterized by the ladies Trenner, Schneider and Eberty. If Miss Lehmann had been able to portray the stenographer so gracefully that one could have believed in the conversion of Martens, the opponent of the marriage, there would not have been the slightest objection to the performance.

Rudolf Steiner's notebook entries, notebook archive number 281. Some of this may also have been given in the esoteric lesson in Kristiania (Oslo) on 18 or 20 May.

May 27, 1923, Dornach, the Wachsmuth-Lerchenfeld group:

First enjoyment of the Esot. Then forgetting the Esot.

1.) Examination of the seriousness =

2.) Hatred, ambition, denied love, astral light
3.) The legend
4.) The intentions<
today = one has lost the word and the
thoughts to the I.

Thought-feeling

Melas

speak rightly, s l m ch
so that the word Salem
works

“Lord
over thyself

”Brethren of the... (another version)

According to Rudolf Steiner's manuscript from notebook archive number 281

Divine Sculptors of the Universe
Feel the soul-sacrifice smoke
Which we in your light heights
Worshipping would like to let flow.

Divine thinkers of the universe
Take into your thinking the sacrificial word
That we entrust to the air circles
Which meet you when your forces
worlds through space.

Divine creators of the universe
Take into your being our own being
So that we may flourish under your protection
When you lift up from the depths of the earth
a world growing towards the heights of light.

Meditation from the esoteric hour Dornach, May 27, 1723

The Indian mantram

The wording has not been handed down. Among Rudolf Steiner's handwritten notes on these esoteric hours are two Indian mantras:

Yasmāt jātam jagat sarvam, yasminn eva praliyate
yenedam dhriyate caiva, tasmai jnānātmane namah.
From whom the whole world originates, to whom it
returns,
through whom it is securely supported,
To Him the Self who knows, be all honor.

The other Indian mantram is recorded in the notebook as follows:

Satyam gnanam anantam Brahma
ananda rupam amritam vibharti
Shantam Shivam advaitam
Shanti Shanti Shanti.

Wording of the two subsequent manuscripts by Rudolf Steiner

The two manuscripts, obviously written down together, come from the estate of the English sculptor Edith Maryon, who was Rudolf Steiner's colleague in the sculptural wood group and fell ill after the building fire. Rudolf Steiner, who visited her repeatedly during her illness, apparently told her about the esoteric lesson of May 27, 1923 and wrote down the two mantras for her.

Note sheet archive number 5852

J A O U E (preparation)

Catch the butterfly
Send it to the icy heights (3 1/2 years)
Where the world dreams (memory)
It becomes a bird for you
Then you have done half the work (-I now)
(Forgetting)
Dip the bird
In the depths of the sea
Where the will of the world is at work
The bird drowns
Then you still have to do
To burn the bird's corpse
Purifying in the fire
Then consume the ashes
And you are
The light in the darkness of the world. - (Tragedy)

(Above the vowels:)

J still within,
A one opens to the world that says a lot
O the angels come, give hands
U the second hierarchy comes, flows around one with light
E the first hierarchy comes and burns one in fire.

First, the Indian mantram was given for the first time, the translation for the first time. After this Indian mantram, the regular invocation was made:

"Brothers of the past: Your work will become our
wisdom, we take the perimeter and the
plumb line of the height from your hands; your
work done by you shall be strength to our souls, strength to our hands.

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

Brothers of the future: If you bear the plan of the world's construction
in your will, let your strength flow
into our limbs, so that we may
become the body for the great souls.

True esotericism is initially incomprehensible. As an example, imagine a living person who expresses absolutely no spiritual life on the outside. His spiritual life is directed entirely inwards, yet it is an intense inner life.

About the vowels: hierarchies are involved:

J A O Seraphim, Cherubim and partly Thrones are involved.
U Kyriotetes, Exusiai, Dynamis
E Archai, Archangeloi, Angeloi.

The whole together means the ancient-holy word of Yahweh instead of the ego-I-am. To create this word out of the hierarchies means an act. The execution of this act on earth: the butterfly meditation.

Catch the moth
Send it to icy heights
Where the world's dreams prevail.
It becomes a bird
Then you have done half the work
Halfway there.
Dip the bird
In the depths of the sea J A O U E
Where the will of the world works.
the bird drowns,
then you still have to do,
the bird's corpse
purifying in the fire to burn.
Then consume the ashes
and you are
the light in the darkness of the world.

The imagination of this butterfly meditation has an ethereal effect. Just a simple interpretation. Searching in the memory with the three and a half years following the butterfly meditation. The ethereal effect is connected with the fact that it causes one to occupy oneself with one's own will, and in the retrospective examination of one's own will, one can find a point in one's life where this will has had a very specific impulse for certain tasks. It is often the case that when searching for such moments of volition, the non-fulfillment of which has caused dissatisfaction, one comes to a point about three and a half years ago. (Prevention by external circumstances, for example, threefolding.)

Once this point has been reached, the task is to cultivate the content of this longing, not to try to carry out the deed, but to cultivate the content as much as possible, in the highest way. Then, three and a half years after the moment of realization, the opportunity to act will present itself again. And then it will be a matter of performing a selfless act that has nothing to do with the starting point seven years ago. This can also be a very inconspicuous act outwardly.

Description of the time, the situation, the abyss.

The present lectures and this hour are, in comparison to the prevailing fanaticism and the culmination of democracy outside, just the opposite; they signify the culmination of aristocracy and hierarchy. An enormous abyss that development must leap across in order to overcome these contradictions. Descriptions of this abyss, over which some leap courageously, others are dragged, others are torn. The whole is a heroic tragedy in the history of humanity.

Faltering Meditation
Invocation
Indian Mantram

When one wants to meditate, one must order oneself to exclude all thoughts and to only have the soul content of the mediation in one's soul. After that, soul quiet must set in, emptiness must begin, and then wait to see whether something flows in from the spiritual world, wait with patience and perseverance. Then one may have an experience that's like a dream that flits by. Then one has the feeling: “Something is thinking in me,” “An angel touched me,” “I raise myself into his kingdom.”

Our relation to our thoughts is like that of an angel to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit doesn't think like we do—he lets his angels rush through the world as his messengers.

Such an experience is the first step into the spiritual world, and one should watch for it.

One should feel and experience: It thinks me with piety.

One can now raise oneself further to the divine principle that vitalizes and weaves through the world and to which we owe our existence. Then one has an experience such as: It weaves me.

Thereby, we touch the hem of the clothes of beings whom we call Spirits of Movement.

Even in ordinary life, we must dive down or bump into something in order to develop consciousness. We bump into our physical body and wake up. We also bump into something after death, into Christ-substance. We must wake up in it, dive down in it to become aware of the spiritual world, so that we're not asleep there.

But having consciousness doesn't mean that one has ego-consciousness yet. We also have consciousness in the experience that something thought in us, but it's only when we remember that something has thought in us that we connect the experience with our ego.

So we lose our ego at death, and we dive down dead as a soul to find ourselves and to gradually become conscious in the Christ-substance.

Then we come to sublime beings whom we feel we should call Thrones or Spirits of Will, and the mantra for this is: It works me. Here one should feel reverence and devotion.

If we have a luminous moment in the spiritual world we see our body down below, but it takes a high stage of vision to see it as in a mirror. At the beginning of such experiences we see an image of a coffin with a man in it, or a bathtub filled with hot water, or we stand before a door that doesn't open. All of these images are in the physical body that doesn't let us in.

When we experience the image that we're looking at our physical body down there, and that we're born out of the divine-spiritual world, then we express this in the words:

Ex Deo nascimur.

When we imagine how we dive down into the Christ-substance to die, then this is:

In Christo morimur.

And how we reemerge from the trickling water in a fine body and move up into the spiritual world:

Per Spiritum Santum reviviscimus.

Notes from memory of 120 [123] esoteric lessons that Rudolf Steiner gave in 1904-1912 and meditation texts and exercises he wrote down in Aus den Inhalten der esoterischen Stunden, bibl. No. 266, vols. 1 and 2.

The library and study of Caaesius. Prevailing colour brown. Evening. First Capesius, then the Spirit Forms who are powers of soul later Benedictus.

Capesius (reading in a book):
‘By inward gazing on the Beingless,
And dreaming through the shadowy picture realm
Of thought, conformably to self-made laws:—
Thus erring human nature often seeks
To find the meaning and the goal of life:
The soul from its own depths would draw replies
To questions that concern the universe.
Yet such attempts are vain, illusory
E'en at the outset, and they lead at last
To feeble visions which destroy themselves.’

(Speaking as follows.)

Thus is portrayed in words of import grave
Through Benedictus' noble spirit-sight,
The inward life of many human souls.
Each phrase goes home destructive to my heart—
Unfolding truly mine own way and life
Until this day, with cruel vividness.
And should a god this very hour appear
Descending on me in a raging storm
And clad in wrath, yet could his threatening might
Not torture me with more appalling fears
Than do the Master's words, as strong as fate.
Long hath my life been, but its web displays
Nothing but pictures shadowy and dim
Which haunt my dreaming soul and fondly strive
To mirror truths of nature and of mind.
With this dream-fabric hath my thought essayed
To solve the riddles of the universe.
Down many a path my restless soul I turned.
Yet do I clearly see that I myself,
Was not the active master of my soul
When threads of thought along illusion's path
Spun themselves out to cosmic distances.

So that which I in my content beheld
In pictures, left me empty, led to naught.
Then came across my path Thomasius,
The youthful painter. He indeed strode on,
Upheld by truest energies of soul
To that exalted spiritual way
Which transforms human life, and makes to rise
From hidden gulfs of soul the energy
Which feeds the springs of life within ourselves.
That which awoke from out his inmost soul
Abides in every man. And since from him
I gained this revelation, I do count
As chief amongst the many sins of life
To let the spirit's treasure grow corrupt.

I know henceforth that I must search and seek
And nevermore allow myself to doubt.
In days gone by my vanity of thought
Could have enticed me to the false belief
That unto knowledge man aspires in vain;
And only failure and despair belong
To those who would lay bare the springs of life,

And were all wisdom to unite in this,
And were I powerless to reject the claim
That human destiny demands of man
That he shall lose his individual self
And sink into the gulf of nothingness,
Yet would I make the venture unafraid.

Such thoughts would be a sacrilege to-day,
Since I have learned I cannot win repose
Until the spirit treasure in my soul
Hath been unveiled to the light of day.

The fruits of work of lofty spirit-beings
Have been implanted in the human soul,
And whoso leaves the spirit seed to lie
Unheeded and decay, he brings to naught
The work divine committed unto man.
Thus do I recognize life's highest task;
Yet when I try to take one single step
Across the threshold that I dare not shun,
I feel my strength desert me, which of yore
Did pride itself on elevated thought,
And sought the goals of life in time and space.
Once did I reckon it an easy thing
To set the brain in action and to grasp
The nature of reality by thought.
But now, when I would search the fount of life
And comprehend it as in truth it is,
My thought appears as some blunt instrument;
I have no power, no matter how I strive,
To form a clear thought-image from the words of
Benedictus, though his earnest speech
Should now direct me to the spirit's path.

(Resuming his reading.)

‘In silence sound the depths of thine own soul,
And ever let strong courage be thy guide.
Thy former ways of thinking cast away
What time thou dost withdraw into thyself;
For only when thine own light is put out
Will spirit-radiance show itself to thee.’

(Resuming his soliloquy.)

It seems as though I could not draw my breath
When I attempt to understand. these words.
And ere I feel the thoughts that I must think,
Fear and misgiving have beset my soul.
It is borne in on me that everything
Which hitherto was my environment
Is crumbling into ruin, and therewith
I too am crumbling into nothingness:
An hundred times at least have I perused
The words which follow, and each several time
Darkness enfolds me deeper than before.

(Resuming his reading.)

‘Within thy thinking cosmic thought doth live,
Within thy feeling cosmic forces play,
Within thy will do cosmic beings work;
Abandon thou thyself to cosmic thought,
Experience thyself through cosmic force,
Create thyself anew from cosmic will.
End not at last in cosmic distances
By fantasies of dreamy thought beguiled.
Do thou begin in farthest spirit-realms
And end in the recesses of thy soul.
The plan divine then shalt thou recognize
When thou hast realized thy Self in thee.’

(Becomes entranced by a vision, then comes to himself and speaks.)

What was this?

(Three Figures, representing soul forces, float round him.)

Luna:
Abundant power is thine
For lofty spirit-flight;
Its sure foundation rests
Upon the human will.
Its temper hath been tried
By sure and certain hope.
It hath grown strong as steel
By sight of future times.
Thou dost but courage lack
To pour into thy will
Thy confidence in life.
Into the vast Unknown
Dare but to venture forth!

Astrid:
From cosmic distances
And from the sun's glad light,
From utmost realms of stars
And magic might of worlds,
From heaven's ethereal blue
And spirit's lofty power,
Win mightiness of soul;
And send its radiant beams
Deep down within thine heart;
That knowledge glowing warm
May thus be born in thee.

The Other Philia:
They are deceiving thee
This evil sisterhood;
They seek but to ensnare
By trickery and guile.
Thy gifts so seeming fair
Which they have offered thee
Will vanish into air
When thou wouldst hold them fast
With all thy human strength.
They lead thee on to worlds
Inhabited by gods,
Where thou wilt be destroyed
If thou mak'st bold to rise
Into their cosmic realm
With thy humanity.

Capesius:
It was quite plain that here some beings spake—
And yet it is most sure that no one else—
Beside myself—is present in this place.

So have I but held converse with myself
And yet that too seems quite impossible
For ne'er could I imagine such discourse
As here I listened to—

Am I still he was before?

(From his gestures it is plain he feels unable to reply ‘yes.’)

Oh! I am—I am not.

The Spirit-Voice of Conscience:
Thy thoughts do now descend
To depths of human life
And what as soul doth compass thee around
And what as spirit is enchained in thee,
Expands in cosmic depth,
From whose fulness quaffing
Mankind doth live in thought
From whose fulness living
Mankind illusion weaves.

Capesius:
Enough ... Enough ... Where is Capesius?
You I implore ... ye forces all unknown ...
Where is Capesius? Where is ... myself?

(Once more he relapses into a reverie.)

(Enter Benedictus. Capesius does not notice him at first. Benedictus touches him on the shoulder.)

Benedictus:
I learned that thou didst wish to speak with me,
And so I came to seek thee in thy home.

Capesius:
Right good it is of thee to grant my wish.
Yet it had scarce been possible that thou
Shouldst find me in worse case than now I am.
That I am not this moment on the ground
Prostrate before thy feet, after such pain
As even now hath racked my soul, I owe
To thy kind glance alone which sought mine own,
So soon as thou didst with thy gentle touch
Arouse me from the horrors of my dream.

Benedictus:
I am aware that I have found thee now
Fighting a battle for thy very life.
Since I have known full well this long time past
That thus it was appointed us to meet.
Prepare to change the sense of many words
If thou wouldst understand my speech aright,
And do not marvel that thy present pain
Bears in my language quite another name—
I call thy state good fortune.

Capesius:
Then indeed
Thou dost but heap the measure of the woe
Which casts me into gloom's abysmal deeps.
Just now I felt as if my real self
Had flown afar to cosmic distances,
And unfamiliar beings through its sheaths
Were speaking here. But this I took to be
Hallucination, spirit mockery,
And mourned that thus my soul could be deceived:
This thought alone kept me from breaking down.
Take not away my right thus to believe,
The only prop I lean on; tell me not
My fevered dreaming was good fortune; else
I shall be lost indeed.

Benedictus:
A man can lose
Nought else but that which keeps him separate
From cosmic being. When he seems to lose
That which in dreamy fantasies of thought
He misapplied to labours purposeless,
Then let him seek for what has gone from him.
For he will surely find it, and withal
The proper use to which it should be put
In human life. Mere words of comfort now
Were nothing more than clever play on words.

Capesius:
Nay—teachings that by intellect alone
Are comprehended, thou dost not impart.
Bitter experience has shown me this.
Like deeds which lead one on to lofty heights
And also cast one to abysmal depth,
Thy counsels pour a stream of fiery life
And also deathly chill into men's souls.
They work at once e'en as the nod of fate
And also as the storms of life and love.
Much had I sought and thought in earlier days
Before I met thee; yet the spirit's powers,
Creative and destructive, I have learned
Only since I have followed in thy steps.
The turmoil and confusion of my soul,
Caused by thy words, was evident when thou
Didst come within my chamber. Oft I felt
Much pain whilst reading in thy book of life,
Until to-day my cup of woe was full.
And so my agony of soul o'erflowed,
Spilled by thy fateful words. Their meaning swept.
O'er all my soul unrecognized, and yet
Like some elixir they revived my heart.
In such wise wrought they in the magic worlds
That all my clarity of sense was lost.
Then ghostly phantoms made a mock of me,
And words of import dark I seemed to hear
Issue from my distraught tormented soul.
I know that all the secrets thou dost guard
For human souls may not be written down,
But that the answer to men's doubts may be
Revealed to each according to his need.
So grant me that of which I stand in need;
For verily I must indeed be told
What robbed me of my senses and my wits
And compassed me with magic's airy spells.

Benedictus:
Another meaning hides within my words
Than that of the ideas which they convey;
They guide the natural forces of the soul
To spirit-verities their inward sense
Cannot be understood until the day
On which they waken vision in the soul
That yields itself to their compelling power.
They are not fruitage of mine own research;
But spirits have entrusted them to me,
Spirits well skilled to read the signs in which
The Karma of the world doth stand revealed.
The special virtue of these words is this,
Unto the source of knowledge they can guide.
Yet none the less it must be each man's task,
Who understands them in their truest sense,
To drink the spirit-waters from that source.
Nor are my words designed to hinder thee
From being swept away to worlds that seem
To thee fantastic. Thou. hast seen a realm
Which must remain illusion just as long
As thou dost lose thyself on entering it.
But wisdom's outer portal will be found
Unsealed to thine advancing soul so soon
As thou dost near it with self-consciousness.

Capesius:
And how can I maintain self-consciousness?

Benedictus:
The answer to this riddle thou shalt find
When, with awakened inner eye, thou dost
Perceive before thee many wondrous things,
Which shortly will be found to cross thy path.
Know that a test path been ordained for thee
By lords of fate and by the spirit-powers.

(Exit.)

Capesius:
Although their meaning is not clear to me
I feel his words at work within myself.
He hath appointed me a goal; and I
Am ready to obey. He doth not ask
For stress of thought; it seems that he desires
I should press forward with exploring feet
To find the spirit-verities myself.

I cannot tell how he was sent to me;
And yet his actions, have compelled my trust;
He hath restored me to myself once more.
So though at present I may not divine
The nature of the spell that shook me so,
I will not shrink from facing these events
Which his prophetic vision hath foretold.

Curtain whilst Capesius remains standing

As in Scene 7. An Egyptian woman is seen crouching by the wall. She is a previous incarnation of Johannes Thomasius.

Egyptian woman:
This is the hour in which he dedicates
Himself to serve the ancient holy laws
Of sacred wisdom,—and in doing this
He must forever tear himself from me.
From out those heights of light to which his soul
Progresses there must flash into mine own
The ray of death. When I am torn from him—
Naught doth remain for me in life on earth
But mourning—resignation—sorrow—death.

(Clinging to the wall.)

Yet though in this hour he abandons me
I, none the less, will stay close to the spot
Where he unto the spirit gives himself.
And if mine eyes are not allowed to see
How he loth tear himself away from earth,
Perchance 'twill be now granted in a dream
To linger disembodied by his side.

Part II

Inside the temple. The hall of initiation. The ceremony is performed on a broad flight of steps descending from the back to the front of the stage. The characters stand in groups below one another and on different steps. The drop-curtain goes up, disclosing everything in readiness for the initiation of the Neophyte, who is to be thought of as an earlier in-carnation of Maria; behind the altar and to the left of it stands the Chief Hierophant who is to be thought of as an earlier incarnation of Benedictus; on the other side the Recorder, an earlier incarnation of Hilary True-to-God; a little in front of the altar the Keeper of the Seals, an earlier incarnation of Theodora; in front, on the right side of the altar, the Impersonator of the Earth Element, an earlier in-carnation of Romanus, and with him the Impersonator of the Air Element, an earlier incarnation of Magnus Bellicosus; quite close to the Chief Hierophant, stands the Hierophant, an earlier incarnation of Capesius; on the left side of the altar the Impersonator of the Fire Element, an earlier incarnation of Doctor Strader, with the Impersonator of the Water Element, an earlier incarnation of Torquatus. In front of them Philia, Astrid, Luna and ‘the Other Philia.’ Four other priests stand in front of them. In front of all Lucifer to the left of altar and Ahriman to the right in the guise of sphinxes, with the cherubim emphasized in the case of Lucifer and the bull in the case of Ahriman. Dead silence for a while after the interior of the temple with its grouped mystics has become visible. The Keeper of the Temple, an earlier incarnation of Felix Balde, and the Mystic, an earlier incarnation of Dame Betide, lead the Neophyte in through a doorway on the right of stage. They place him in the inner circle near the altar, and remain standing near him.

The Keeper of the Temple:
From out that web of unreality
Which thou, in error's darkness named'st world,
The mystic hath conducted thee to us.
From being and from naught the world was made
Which to a semblance wove itself for thee.
Semblance¹ is good, when from existence viewed;
Thou didst but dream it in thy sembled life;
And semblance known by semblance disappears.
Learn, semblance of a semblance, what thou art.

The Mystic:
Thus speaks the guardian of this temple's door.
Feel in thyself the sore weight of his words.

The Impersonator of the Earth Element:
Beneath the weight of earth-life seize upon
The semblance of your being without fear.
That thou mayst sink into the cosmic depths
In darksome cosmic depths thy being seek.
Bind to thy semblance that which thou dost find;
Its weight will give thy being unto thee.

The Recorder:
Thou wilt not understand, as thou dost sink,
Whereto we lead, till thou hast heard his call.
We forge for thee the form of thy real self;
Perceive our work; else must thou lose thyself
As semblance in the cosmic nothingness.

The Mystic:
So speaks the guardian of this temple's words.
Feel in thyself the sore weight of his words.

The Impersonator of the Air Element:
Fly from the weight of earth-life which would kill
The being of thyself, as thou dost sink.
Fly from it on the lightness of the air.
In light of cosmic space thy being seek.
Bind to thy semblance that which thou dost find
Its flight will give thy being unto thee.

The Recorder:
Thou wilt not understand, as thou dost fly,
Whereto we lead, till thou hast heard his call.
We light for thee the life of thy real self;
Perceive our work; else must thou lose thyself
As semblance in the cosmic weightiness.

The Mystic:
So speaks the guardian of this temple's words.
Feel in thyself the uplift of his words.

The Chief Hierophant:
My son, thou wilt on wisdom's noble road
The mystic's counsel carefully obey.
Thou canst not see the answer in thyself;
For error's darkness still doth weigh thee down
And folly strives in thee for distant things.
Gaze therefore—on this flame which is more close

(The bright, quivering sacred flame flares up on the altar in the middle of the stage.)

To thee than is the life of thine own self,
And read thine answer hidden in its fire.

The Mystic:
So speaks the leader of this temple's rites.
Feel in thyself the ritual's holy power.

The Impersonator of the Fire Element:
Let all the errors of thine own ideas
Be burned in fire that this rite lights for thee.
Let, with thine errors, thyself also burn.
As flame of cosmic fire thy being seek;
Bind to thy semblance that which thou dost find;
Its fire will give thy being unto thee.

The Keeper of the Seals:
Thou wilt not understand why to a flame
We fashion thee till thou hast heard his call.
We cleanse for thee the form of thine own self
Perceive our work; else must thou lose thyself
As formless being in the cosmic sea.

The Mystic:
So speaks the guardian of this temple's seals.
Feel in thyself the power of wisdom's light.

The Impersonator of the Water Element:
Resist the flame-powers of the world of fire
That they may not devour thy being's might.
From semblance, being will not rise in thee
Unless the wave-beat of the cosmic sea
Can fill thee with the music of the spheres.
As wave in cosmic sea thy being seek;
Bind to thy semblance that which thou dost find;
Its waves will give thy being unto thee.

The Keeper of the Seals:
Thou wilt not understand why to a wave
We fashion thee till thou hast heard his call.
We build for thee the form of thine own self;
Perceive our work; else must thou lose thyself
A formless being in the cosmic fire.

The Chief Hierophant:
My son, by powerful exercise of will
These mystic counsels too thou must obey.
Thou canst not see the answer in thyself;
By cowardly fear thy power is still congealed;
Thou canst not fashion weakness to a wave
That lets thy note ring out amongst the spheres.
So listen to thy soul-powers when they speak;
And thine own voice within their words perceive.

Philia:
In fire cleanse thou thyself;—and lose thyself
As cosmic wave in music of the spheres.

Astrid:
Build thou thyself in music of the spheres;
In cosmic distances fly light as air.

Luna:
Sink with thy weight of earth to cosmic depths;
Take courage as a self in thy sore weight.

The Other Philia:
From thine own separateness withdraw; unite thyself
With all the forces of the elements.

The Mystic:
Thine own soul speaks thus in these temple halls;
Feel thou therein the guidance of the powers.

The Chief Hierophant (addressing the Hierophant):
My brother hierophant, explore this soul,
Which we are to direct to wisdom's path,
Down to its depths; tell us what thou dost find
Its present state of consciousness to be.

The Hierophant:
All hath been done that our rite doth demand.
The soul no more remembers what it was.
The web of semblance, spun on error's loom,
Opposing elements have swept away;
In elemental strife it doth live on;
Naught save its being hath the soul retained.
Now of this being it shall read the life
In cosmic words, that speaks from out the flame.

The Chief Hierophant:
O human soul, read now what through the flame
The cosmic word declares within thyself.

(A pause of considerable length ensues, during which the stage is darkened till only the flame and indistinct outlines of the characters are visible; at the conclusion of the pause the Chief Hierophant continues.)

And now from out the cosmic vision wake!
Declare what can be read from cosmic words!

(The Neophyte is silent. The Chief Hierophant, much alarmed, continues):
He speaks not. Doth the vision leave thee? Speak!

The Neophyte:
Obedient to thy strict and sacred rite
I sank into the being of this flame
To wait the sound of lofty cosmic words.

(The assembled mystics, the Hierophant excepted, show an ever-increasing alarm during the speech of the Neophyte.)

I felt that I could shake off from myself
The weight of earth and be as light as air.
I felt the loving tide of cosmic fire
Did bear me up on streaming spirit-waves.
I saw the body that I wear on earth
As other being stand outside myself.
Though wrapt in bliss, and conscious of the light
Of spirit round me, yet I could regard
Mine earthly sheath with longing and desire.

(Consternation all around.)

Spirits rayed light thereon from lofty worlds;
Like shining butterflies there hovered near
The beings who attend its active life;
The body by these beings hathed in light
Reflected sparkling colours manifold;
They shone close by, grew fainter further off,
And then were scattered and dispersed in space.
Within the being of my spirit soul
There lurked the wish that weight of earth should sink
Me down into my sheath, that I might feel
And learn the sense of joy within life's warmth.
So, diving gladly down into my sheath,
I heeded thy stern summons to awake.

The Chief Hierophant (himself alarmed, to the alarmed Mystics):
This is no spirit-vision; earth's desires
Escaped the mystic and as offering rose
To radiant spirit-heights;—O sacrilege!

The Recorder (angrily to the Hierophant):
This could not have occurred, hadst thou performed
The office granted thee as hierophant
As ancient holy duty did demand.

The Hierophant:
I did the duty in this solemn hour
Which those from higher realms did lay on me.
I did not think that which it is my place
To think, according to the ritual,
And which, proceeding from me, should appear
In spirit-working in the neophyte.
The young man therefore path declared to us
None other's thoughts but his own being's self.
The truth hath conquered. Ye may punish me
I had to do what ye perceived with fear.
I feel the times approach which will set free
The ego from the group-soul and let loose
Its own true individual powers of thought.
What if the youth escapes your mystic path
At present?—Later lives on earth will show
With clearest signs the kind of mystic way
Which destiny hath foreordained for him.

The Mystics:
O sacrilege;—thou must atone—and pay

(The sphinxes begin to speak one after the other as Ahriman and Lucifer; hitherto they have been as statues motionless; what they say is heard only by the hierophant, the chief hierophant, and the neophyte;—the others are full of excitement over the preceding events.)

Ahriman as Sphinx:
For my realm I must lay my hands upon
What here doth wrongly seek the way to light,
And in the darkness further foster it;
That it may bring forth spirit-qualities
Which later on will let it weave itself
With rightful meaning into human life.
But till it gains these spirit-qualities,
What in this holy service did appear
As earthly burden, this will serve my work.

Lucifer as Sphinx:
For my realm I will bear away what here
As spirit-wish in semblance doth rejoice;
T'will gladly shine as semblance in the light,
And thus in spirit dedicate itself
To beauty from which it is kept apart
At present by the burden of earth's weight.
In beauty, semblance into being turns,
Which later shall illuminate the earth,
Descending as the light which flies from here.

The Chief Hierophant:
The sphinxes speak—who were but images
Since e'er this rite by sages was performed.
Upon dead form the spirit now hath seized.
O Fate, thou dost sound forth as cosmic word!

(The other mystics, with the exception of the Hierophant and the Neophyte, are amazed at the words of the Chief Hierophant.)

The Hierophant (to the Chief Hierophant):
This holy mystic rite which we perform
Rath not importance for ourselves alone.
Fate's stream of cosmic evolution pours
Through word and deed of sacred priestly rites.

Curtain

• 1. N.B.—Dr. Steiner has also translated the word ‘schein’ by ‘glory’ in an old English sense; we have here adopted the word semblance.

There is no moment when one is not in the most excited suspense while reading Albert Steffen's drama “The Quadruped”. The tension has its nuances, but it is always there.

For those who approach drama artistically, the tension does not arise from the external plot in the naturalistic sense. It comes from a higher spirituality that permeates the entire drama. It touches on the unfolding of the secrets of the human soul, which cuts deep into the heart of anyone to whom they are presented in the way Albert Steffen does.

Albert Steffen is the most earnest artistic seeker of these secrets. But he is also their born connoisseur. He shapes them as an artist by allowing his own essence to prevail in the dramatic action that life gives him, an essence that does not live where the action takes place, but in a more spiritual world, which, however, is directly adjacent to the ordinary world everywhere. In this more spiritual world, people are rooted with their souls. If you do not see this world of “soul roots,” then what people accomplish in the life between birth and death basically remains an incomprehensible activity.

When people meet Albert Steffen, they get the impression that it is second nature to his soul to look into this hidden world when they meet him. He does not just take what people say at face value. For him, everything spoken is, in addition to “expressing” something, still a gesture of the soul, a movement of the spirit. If a person expresses what he thinks, feels and wills through what he says, then his speech reveals what he is, as a being that is spiritually inspired and filled with spirit. And Albert Steffen understands not only human speech in this way, but everything through which a person reveals himself.

And so what the characters in the drama do appears against the background of a spiritual world in which this action has its roots. It remains incomprehensible to the ordinary mind; and it is raised into a world in which the question of such comprehensibility loses all meaning, because in this world one does not “understand” but “behold”.

It is against this background that the “four-legged creature” appears. The being into which ancient dream-knowledge has placed the origin of man. The bull, which in its organization is close to the forces of the earth. Not to the actually earthly forces, but to those which the earth, as part of the cosmos, lays claim to for itself. — The lion, which is less earthy in its organization. In its entire structure, it is emancipated from the earthly, like the human soul itself. It is in the flesh what the soul is in a soul-like way. - The eagle, which represents the human “I” in its corporeality. What is spiritually revealed in the “I” is material in the eagle. But because the spirituality in its nature cannot be directly represented materially, the physicality appears dried up and horny in the formation of the head, plumage, feet and so on. These three beings, seen as spirit forms, work together and yet are independent again in a spiritual world that directly borders on the physical world of man. Their interaction conveys a fourth entity, which is to be understood as a kind of angel.

When the spiritual gaze turns to this “Quadruped”, it simultaneously sees the world's time before there were humans and before there were animals in their present form. There were beings of the same kind as the “Quadruped”. They had no physical existence; they lived in a spiritual-ethereal form of existence. From this form of existence, man developed upwards, the animal downwards. They look over from the most distant past, the Quadruped animals. They were there before man and physical animals came into being. But they are still there. They have not yet died out. They have only changed their inner form. They have become even more spiritual than they were. This has made them very far removed from the animal world. All the closer to the human. Behind this is the 'Quadruped'. Through the course of the world, the physical body has attained its present form. It has reached human stature. It cannot be essentially changed by misconduct or aberration. But the soul can. It can be seized at any time by the “Quadruped” and transformed into something subhuman. Then the person develops instinctual impulses that are inferior to those of animals because they are borne by the higher humanity that has been cultivated.

This “Quadruped”, magnificent, as a sphinx, created by the unerring ancient dream-knowledge; it stands again as a truth before the scientific demands of today's researcher of the spiritual world. But it also stands before the artistic human being who really gets life into the creative imagination. Albert Steffen is this artistic person, with a fantasy that, radiating brightness of its own, finds the reflection of true spirituality in poetic creation and brings it to life.

In his drama, the “Quadruped” is just as much an “active person” as the others who live in the physical body; but it does not appear as a “symbolic entity”, as a “spirit” or the like. You cannot see it in the physical world because it does not have the conditions to be seen there. But it is always there when the state of mind of the “acting persons” takes on a form through which the supersensible world, immediately adjacent to the ordinary one, can be perceived.

And in the perception of the state of mind of his dramatic persons in this direction, Albert Steffen is a master. He feels with absolute certainty for a person: now there is a feeling, a passion, a will in him that breaks through the thin walls of the spiritual world and causes spiritual events to appear behind the physical.

Thus the “Quadruped”, in the usual sense “invisible”, is nevertheless, in keeping with the nature of its own activity, an active person in Steffens' drama.

The two main characters are: Großmann, a human monster, and Christine, an angel of good will, but justified only in relation to the spiritual world. For her will must break at the conditions of the physical world.

Behind Großmann rules the “Quadruped”. Intellectually, he is a well-educated person. But everything that lives in his soul and can be experienced by him is subhuman. Christine, under the influence of the “Quadruped”, falls in love with this subhuman. Brutality is almost the first thing he shows towards her ever tender love. This does not prevent her in her love. Yes, it strengthens her in it. When she recognizes him as “evil”, she wants to release him from “evil” through the power of her love. Just as he seems to have fallen prey to “evil” for this physical world, so she is incapable of being dragged into “evil” by the nature of her soul. For in her lives just as much as the “Quadruped” from one side, so does “Christ” from the other. And Christ is the essence that transforms the influence of the “four-beast” so that it is not something subhuman that comes into effect in the human being, but something that lifts the soul above what the human being can otherwise reveal through physical descent, education, social context, etc.

Christine's father, Professor Sibelius, lives off the fortune that actually belongs to Christine. Her mother had a marriage with the professor that was arranged by fate but did not bring her happiness, and she left her physical existence mentally destroyed. Christine feels fully justified in leading her father to give Großmann part of the fortune that actually belongs to her, so that the man she wants to redeem in love can do something business-related with his great talent. Then, she feels, the rest will fall into place in the right way. Through the influence of her Christ-devoted heart, Großmann will be led up the path of genuine humanity.

It is achieved that Großmann can have an interview with Sibelius. Despite the fact that Sibelius has the strongest antipathy towards his daughter's fiancé, despite the fact that he must consider him to be a very bad person based on what he has heard about Großmann from others, it comes about that he gives him money at the end of the interview.

But the further consequence is that during this first visit, Grossmann prepares for the second visit, which takes place that same evening, during which he shoots the father in order to take possession of Christine's entire fortune.

In the man whom Christine wants to lead up the paths of good humanity through her love, she must see the murderer of her father. She only feels that he must experience this case in the inner life of a murderer; and his soul would rise precisely through this from the deep ruin in which it is interwoven.

Großmann, through his subhuman impulses, has such an effect on the police officers pursuing him that, instead of arresting him as the murderer, they apologize to him for the disturbance they caused by appearing at his home after the murder.

And Großmann has already managed, while this is happening, to divert all suspicion of the murder onto Christine herself. She is arrested as the murderer on his say-so.

Christine has also been following her Christ-devoted path since the murder. The depth of her experience leads her mind, which has become clairvoyant, in spirit to the place on earth where Christ's grave is still today, and where Christ still “rises” today for everyone who, by taking him into their heart, performs Christ's deeds in the world.

This is where Christina's soul comes together; this is also where the soul of the murdered Sibelius comes together. Through the resurrected Christ, the power to transform Großmann's soul is to be found.

What Albert Steffen presents here in the most vivid drama is of unspeakable depth. The ascent of the father's soul in understanding the spiritual world; the terrible struggle of what the beast with four legs can do in the human being, with the true, thoroughly Christianized humanity before the soul's eye of Christina; all of this breathes true spirituality and allows one to touchingly feel the connection of humanity with this spirituality.

And while Christine is doing her best to save Großmann's soul, which she can no longer save as an earthly man, Großmann's bicycle whizzes by. He is making off with everything he has brought with him. Sitting behind on the bike is the chambermaid from the hotel where Großmann was staying, who he persuaded to go with him after he had already brought her there, to help him divert the police's suspicions away from him.

Christine now has to go through everything that a daughter can face who is suspected of being her father's murderer and who, moreover, makes an incomprehensible impression on the doctor, prison director and prison chaplain due to her particular state of mind and her connection to the spiritual world.

The plot is resolved in terms of life on earth by Grossmann's descent into the realm of subhumanity. His jealousy of the hotel chambermaid has led him to maltreat her in the truest sense of the word. She is delivered to the hospital with the skin peeled off at the front of her head, and is dying. Christine is also in the hospital, since it is likely that her mental state will be determined.

Now Großmann stands revealed in all his wickedness; he has reached the pinnacle of what a person can achieve when driven into subhumanity by the demonic power of the beast, whose secret essence is profound. For whatever radiates from him can make a man a devil; it can also, spiritualized by the light of truth, lead him up to the noblest heights of humanity.

Grossmann hangs himself in his prison cell. He wants nothing to do with the salvation of his soul. He wants this soul to dissolve into the nothingness of the universe through his will, which has been seized by the devilish.

Once again we find ourselves before the earthly place where Christ rises for the hearts that seek him in the right truth, but where the Quadruped also manifests its devastating power. “From the cruciform crack emerges the primeval beast: from the beam on the right a lion's head, from the beam on the left a bull's head, from the upper beam an eagle's face. From the trunk a dragon body.” – The dragon body is seen when the ‘beast’ turns into the path of destruction; otherwise, when it walks the paths of humanity, one has the angelic form before one.

The soul of Großmann is sought by the “Quadruped” with great thirst. The soul of Christine's father appears again. She is asked to “judge”. But Christine, asked by her father to judge, says: “Not I, but Christ in me.” Then the lion's head disappears from the full form of the Quadruped. And the father continues to ask to “heal”. Christine calls the Christ in her heart again. The bull's head disappears. And so the eagle's face disappears as Christine calls upon the Christ to “liberate”, and so the dragon's body when she does the same, as the Father's spirit speaks of “love”.

Christ Himself is spiritually present where the spiritual battle is finally brought to a decision. And when the news comes that Grossmann has hanged himself in his cell, then as the last word of the drama, Christine, through whose invincible power of soul in the good the Christ is present, says: “He (Grossmann) has risen in my heart.”

I have often had to think about what Ibsen was trying to achieve in some of his plays. A number of his characters are surrounded by an undefined, ghostly presence. This is deeply moving in “When We Dead Awaken”. But there it all remains in an incomprehensible “mysticism”. Ibsen does not find the moment in the human soul when vision breaks through into the real spiritual world. Therefore, the spiritual in his dramas does not arise dramatically.

Albert Steffen has found this moment in his “Viergetier”. He has thus brought the drama back to where it once was when it had just escaped the mystery story.

Steffen's very spiritually concrete imagination has achieved this. No matter how much one may penetrate into spiritual worlds through spiritual vision, nothing comes before one's soul like Steffen's “Viergetier”; one becomes aware that there are still places in the universe where the imagination, born of pure spirit, can penetrate. For it is from such places that the earth-human figures that Steffen forms come. What is full of light in these places, that is what Albert Steffen shapes. But from such places also come the real spiritual beings that move so realistically between the earthly beings in Steffen's drama. What Ibsen reached for with his mind, but grasped at nothingness; Albert Steffen's imagination and spiritualized artistic sense has grasped it. And in the face of this feeling, anything that wants to criticize the imperfections of this work of literature must remain silent. What stands before us is so full of life in intention and design that Albert Steffen's dramatic creation appears in such perfection in the reader's imagination, which is responsive to the poet, that all other things, such as critical judgment, are brought to a self-evident silence. Where such merits are present, the opposite faults weigh as lightly as a feather. For these merits fill the soul completely. — And everything that I receive as an impression while reading will emerge in a particularly vivid way in the stage production. For the drama carries the substance of reality within it, which proves its truth in the stage setting. —

There are three elements in evolution which must be differentiated: form, life and consciousness. Today we will speak about the different kinds of consciousness.

We can regard plants and lower animals as the means whereby higher beings extend their senses into the world in order to behold this world through them. Let us take our start from the sense organs of the plants. When we speak of these we must be clear that we are not only dealing with the sense organs of the single plants, but with beings in higher worlds. The plants are, as it were, only the feelers which are extended by the higher beings; they gain information through the plants.

All plants have cells, more especially at the root-tip but also in other places, in which granules of starch are to be found. Even in otherwise non-starch-containing plants, these starch granules appear at the root-tips. Members of the lily family, for instance, which otherwise contain no starch, possess these starch granules in the cells attached to the roots. These starch granules are loose and movable, and the important point is whether they are situated in one place or another.

[IMAGE REMOVED FROM PREVIEW]

Whenever a plant turns even slightly, one starch granule falls towards the other side. This the plant cannot stand. It then turns again in such a way that the granules come back to their right position. And these starch granules actually lie in a symmetrical relationship to the direction of the gravity of the earth. The plant grows upwards because it senses the direction of gravity. By observing the starch granules at the root-tips, we learn to recognise a kind of sense organ. This is for a plant the sense of gravity. This sense belongs not only to the plant, but to the soul of the whole earth, which orders the growth of the plant in accordance with this sense.

This is of primary importance. The plant takes its direction in accordance with gravity. Now if one takes a wheel, for instance a water-wheel, into which plants can be inserted, and turns the wheel together with the plants, another force is added to the force of gravity: a revolving force. This is now in every part of the plant, and its roots and stalks grow in the direction of the tangent of the wheel, in the direction of the tangential force, not the force of gravity. In accordance with this, the starch granules adjust their position.

[IMAGE REMOVED FROM PREVIEW]

Let us now consider the human ear. At first we have the outer auditory passage, then the tympanum, and in the inner ear the little auditory bones: hammer, anvil and stirrup—quite minute bones. Hearing depends upon these little bones bringing the other organs into vibration. Further in we find three semicircular membranous canals arranged according to the three dimensions. These are filled with fluid. Then we find, further within the ear, the labyrinth, a structure in the form of a snail shell, filled with very fine little hairs. Each of these is tuned, like the strings of a piano, to a particular pitch. The labyrinth is connected with the auditory nerve that goes to the brain.

The three semicircular canals are especially interesting. They stand in relation to one another in the three directions of space. They are filled with little otoliths, similar to the starch granules of the plant. When these are disturbed a person cannot hold himself erect or walk in an upright position. In the case of fainting the rush of blood to the head can cause a disturbance in the three canals. The sense of direction in man depends on these three semicircular canals. This is the same sense which in the plant, as sense of balance, is localised in the root-tips. What occurs in the root-tips is, in the human being, developed up above in the head.

In surveying the whole evolution: plant, animal, man, one discovers definite relationships between them. The plant is reversed in man. The direction of the animal lies midway between them. The plant has sunk its roots into the earth and directs its sexual organs upward towards the sun. If we turn the plant halfway round we have the animal. If we turn it right round we have man. That is the original significance of the cross;¹¹ plant kingdom, animal kingdom, human kingdom. The plant sinks its roots into the earth. The animal is the half-reversed plant. Man is the completely reversed plant. This is why Plato says: ‘The World Soul is stretched on the Cross of the World Body.’¹²

[IMAGE REMOVED FROM PREVIEW]

In the plant the organ of direction lies in the root-tips. In man it is in the head. What in man is the head, is the root in the case of the plant. The reason, why in man the sense of direction is connected with the sense of hearing, is that hearing is the sense which raises man into a higher kingdom. The last faculty to be attained by man is the faculty of speech. Again, speech is connected with the upright carriage, which without the sense of direction or balance would not be possible. The sound which man produces through speech is the active complement to the passive sense of hearing. What in the plant is simply a sense of orientation has become in man the sense of hearing, which bears within itself the old sense of orientation in the three semicircular canals, which are arranged in accordance with the three dimensions of space.

Every being possesses consciousness. This is also true of the plant, but its consciousness lies on the devachanic plane, on the mental plane. A diagram of the consciousness of the plant would have to be done in the following way:

[IMAGE REMOVED FROM PREVIEW]

The plants can also speak and answer us, only we must learn to observe them on the mental plane. There they tell us their own names.

Man's consciousness reaches down to the physical plane. Here his consciousness depends upon the same organ with which the plant is made fast to the earth. We first learn to know man in a true sense when we see how he produces speech and in speech the word ‘Ich’ (I). This ‘I’ has its roots in the mental plane. Without the faculty of uttering the little word ‘I’ we might regard the human form also as that of an animal.

The plant has its roots in the mental plane and man by means of his organ of hearing is an inhabitant of the mental plane. This is why we connect the ‘Es denkt’ (‘it thinks’) with speech. The ear is a higher development of the sense of direction. Because man in relation to the plant has reversed his position and turned again to the spirit, he has in the organ of hearing the old residue of the sense of direction. He gives himself his direction. These are therefore two opposite kinds of consciousness: the plant's consciousness on the mental plane and here the consciousness of man, who carries his being down from the mental world into the physical world. This earthly consciousness of man is called Kama-manas.

Each of the sense organs has a consciousness of its own. These different forms of consciousness, the consciousness of the visible, the audible, the sense of smell and so on, are brought together in the soul. The consciousness only becomes ‘manasic’ when its separate forms are gathered together in the centre of the soul. Without this integration man would fall apart into the consciousness of his organs. These were originally fashioned through the solar plexus, through the sympathetic nervous system. When man himself was a sort of plant, he too was not yet conscious on the physical plane. At that time the higher consciousness first developed the organs.

In a condition of deep trance the central consciousness is silenced. Then the separate organs are conscious and the person begins to see with the pit of the stomach and the solar plexus. Such a consciousness was possessed by the Seeress of Prevost.¹³ She describes correctly light forms which are however only to be observed by the consciousness of the organs. The lowest consciousness is that of the minerals. A somewhat more centralised consciousness, one more like the consciousness of present day man, is the astral consciousness. The development of consciousness in the whole astral body finds its expression in the spinal cord. Then a person perceives the world in pictures. Only those people whose physical brain does not operate have such a consciousness. Idiots, for instance, see the world in pictures; their soul life is analogous to dream life. They can only say that they know nothing of what is going on around them. Other beings in the world have a similar consciousness.

When someone develops astral consciousness, so that he experiences dreams consciously, he can undertake the following: Let us assume that we are in a position to develop this consciousness and imagine ourselves standing before the flower called Venus Fly Trap. If we gaze at it long enough and let it work upon us quite exclusively there comes the moment when we have the feeling that the centre of consciousness sinks down from the head and creeps into the plant.¹⁴ One is then conscious in the plant and sees the world through it. One must transfer one's consciousness, into the plant. Then one becomes aware of how things appear to the astral perception of this being. One then experiences this soul. A sensitive plant's consciousness is quite similar to that of an idiot; not a purely mental consciousness. Such a plant has brought consciousness down to the astral plane. Thus there are two kinds of plants; those which only have their consciousness on the mental plane, and those which have it also on the astral plane.

Certain kinds of animals also have a consciousness on the astral plane, which is likewise the plane of idiot consciousness. Helena Petrovna Blavatsky mentions especially certain Indian night insects, nocturnal moths. Spiders also have an astral consciousness;¹⁵ the delicate spider webs are actually spun out of the astral plane. The spiders are merely the instruments of astral activity. The ants too, like the spiders have a consciousness on the astral plane. There the ant heaps have their soul. This is why the behaviour of the ants is so precisely regulated.¹⁶

The minerals also have consciousness. This lies on the higher mental plane, in higher regions than that of the plant. Blavatsky calls it Kama-prana consciousness. Man too can later achieve this consciousness while retaining his present state of consciousness undisturbed. He then no longer needs to enter into a physical body, no longer needs to be incarnated. The stones are below on the physical plane and their consciousness is in the higher regions of the mental plane. The crystals are ordered from above. When a man is able to raise his consciousness to this level he then forms his physical body for himself out of the minerals of the world.

The three parts of the brain (thinking, feeling, willing) must later become completely separated. Then man's consciousness must be master of his brain, as in an ant heap a higher consciousness rules. But as in the ant heap, one can separate the workers, the males and females from one another, so, later, a complete separation into three parts can also take place in the brain. Then man becomes a planetary spirit, a creator who brings things into being. As the Earth Spirit builds the crust of the earth, so at that stage man also will build a planet. For this he must have a Kama-pranasic consciousness. Today he has only a Kama-manasic consciousness. This consists in the consciousness of the organs being saturated, impregnated with understanding (Manas). The consciousness becomes, as Blavatsky says, rationalised. The process of rationalisation is brought about during the ascent from animal to man. Organ-consciousness by itself can recognise the objective, but does not know the means whereby it can be achieved. Rationalised consciousness can direct the means. Blavatsky says quite rightly: ‘A dog, for instance, which is shut into a room has the instinct to get out, but he cannot do this because his instinct is not as yet sufficiently imbued with understanding to enable him to take the necessary steps; whereas man immediately grasps the situation and frees himself.’ We therefore differentiate with Blavatsky:

1. The organic consciousness possessed by the organs.
2. The astral consciousness possessed by animals, certain plants and idiots.
3. The kama-pranasic consciousness of the stones, also to be achieved later by man.
4. The kama-manasic consciousness, dependent on understanding.

In this way one must differentiate the members of the cross of world-existence.

The real meaning of the cross is infinitely deep. The old sagas also are pictures, drawn out of such depths. A great service was bestowed on the human soul by the sagas, as long as man in earlier times could understand their truths in his feeling life. An example of this is the old saga of the sphinx.¹⁷ The sphinx propounded the riddle: In the morning it goes on four, at mid-day on two and in the evening on three. What is that? It is man. To begin with, in the morning of the earth, man in his animal state went on fours. The front limbs were at that time organs of movement. He then raised himself to the upright position. The limb system separated off into two categories and the organs divided into the physical-sensible and the spiritual organs. He then went on two. In the distant future the lower organs will fall away and also the right hand. Only the left hand and the two petalled lotus flower will remain. Then he goes on three. That is why the Vulcan human being limps.¹⁸ His legs are in retrogression; they cease to have significance. At the end of evolution, in the Vulcan metamorphosis of the Earth, man will be the three-membered being that the saga indicates as the ideal.

• 11. This is described in more detail in a lecture 22.11.1907. ‘The plant is drawn with its direction vertically towards the earth, the human being also vertically directed away from the earth, the animal horizontal.’ St. John, Notes on 8 lectures. Lecture 7. (Typescript).
• 12. Plato, Timaeus Chapter 8.
• 13. Notes published by Justinus Kerner. Stuttgart 1828.
• 14. This is more clearly dealt with in lecture 4.
• 15. Described by H.P. Blavatsky in The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 3.
• 16. See further in lecture 4.
• 17. The Sphinx (daughter of Chimaera and her son the hound Orthus)—a monster with the body of a hound, a woman's head, lion's claws, dragon's tail and wings—was sent to Thebes where she dealt out death and destruction by means of a riddle. She asked the unfortunate ones who confronted her: What creature goes on four legs in the morning, on two at midday and on three in the evening? Oedipus was the fortunate one who found the answer—man. Upon which she threw herself down from her rock. In the painting in the large cupola of the first Goetheanum the motif representing Greece also includes this Sphinx-Oedipus theme.
• 18. (In Latin Vulcanus, in Greek Hephaistos.) The god of fire and the forger of metals. He limped because twice Zeus, in anger, threw him out of Olympus. According to the original myth his smithy was in Olympus, but in later versions in volcanic regions.

If we wish to obtain a more exact knowledge of how Karma comes about, we must go back a certain way in the development of humanity. If we transpose ourselves back some thousands of years we find Europe covered with ice. At that time, the glaciers of the Alps forced their way right down into the low-lying plain of Northern Germany. The districts in which we now live were then cold and raw. Here dwelt a race of human beings who made use of extremely simple and primitive tools. If we go back about a million years we find in the same territory a tropical climate such as today is only to be found in the hottest districts of Africa. In some parts there were huge primeval forests in which lived parrots, monkeys, especially the gibbon, and elephants. We should however hardly have met in our wanderings in these forests anything approximating to present day human beings and not even to those of periods some thousands of years later. Natural science can prove from certain strata of the earth which arose between these two epochs the existence of a type of human being in whom the front part of the brain was not yet as developed as it is today and whose brow receded far back. Only the back part of the brain was developed. We go back further to times in which people did not yet know the use of fire and made their weapons by grinding pieces of stone. The natural scientist likes to compare this stage of humanity with that of savages or of a clumsy child. Remains of such human beings have been found in the Neandertal and Croatia. They have a skull similar to that of the ape and the finds in Croatia reveal that before their death they were roasted, thus proving that cannibals lived there.

Now the materialistic thinker says: We trace man back into the times in which he was still undeveloped and clumsy and assume that the human being has developed from this childish stage of existence up to the present stage of human culture and that this primitive man has evolved from animals bearing a similarity to man. In this theory of evolution therefore he simply makes a leap from primitive human beings to animals similar to man. The natural scientist takes for granted that the more perfect has always evolved from the less perfect. This however is not always the case. If for example we trace the human being back to childhood we do not come to greater imperfection for the child is descended from father and mother. That is to say we come to a primitive condition deriving from a higher condition. This is important, for it is connected with the fact that already at birth the child has the predisposition to a later stage of perfection, whereas the animal remains at the lower stage.

When the natural scientist has gone back to the stage at which man had no frontal brain and no intellect he should say to himself: I must assume that the origin of man is to be sought elsewhere.

Just as a child is descended from his parents, so all those primitive human beings are descended from others who had already attained a high degree of development. We call these human beings Atlanteans. They lived on that part of the earth which is now covered with the waves of the Atlantic Ocean. The Atlanteans had even less frontal brain, an even farther-receding brow, nevertheless they still possessed something which differed from later human beings. They still had a much stronger, more vigorous etheric body. The etheric body of the Atlanteans had not yet developed certain connections with the brain; these arose later. Thus over the head there was still an immense etheric head. The physical head was comparatively small and embedded in an etheric head of immense size.

The functions which people now carry out with the help of the frontal brain were carried out in the case of the Atlanteans, with the help of organs in the etheric body. By this means they could enter into connection with beings to whom today access is barred to us, just because our frontal brain has been developed. With the Atlanteans a kind of fiery coloured formation was visible, which streamed out from the opening of the physical head towards the etheric head. He had access to all sorts of psychic influences. A head of this kind, which thinks as an etheric head, has power over the etheric, whereas a head which thinks in the physical brain only has power over the physical, over the putting together of purely mechanical things. He can make physical tools, while someone who still thinks in the etheric can cause a seed to grow and bloom.

The Atlantean civilisation was still in close connection with the growth forces of nature, of the vegetation, a power which present day man has lost. For instance, the Atlantean made no use of steam power to bring vehicles into motion, but used the seed power (samenkraft) of the plants. With this he propelled his vehicles. Only from the last third of the Atlantean epoch, from the time of the original Semites until the time when Atlantis was covered with the waters of the Atlantic Ocean, did the frontal etheric head develop the frontal brain. Through this man lost the power of influencing the growth of plants and gained only the capacity of the physical brain, of intellect. With many things he now had to make a new beginning. He had to begin to learn mechanical work. In this he was like a child, clumsy and awkward, whereas before in developing the vegetable kingdom he had achieved great skill. It is necessary for man to pass through the stage of intelligence and then to regain what he could do earlier. At that time, higher spiritual beings had an influence on the unfree will; through the open etheric head they worked through the intellect.

Going still further back we reach the Lemurian Epoch. Here we come to a stage in human development at which the union of the maternal and paternal principles takes place for the first time. This etheric head naturally branches out into the astral body which surrounds the human beings with its rays ... [Gap in text ...]. If one had found the means of lifting the head with the astral body out of such a human being something quite peculiar would have occurred. He would thereby have lost the possibility of holding himself upright; he would have folded up. Just the opposite procedure was taken with man at that time and through this he gradually raised himself to the upright posture.

In the Lemurian Epoch, however, man was still at a stage at which he did not yet possess what we are assuming could be lifted out of him. In this earlier period he did not yet possess this etheric head with the astral body. At that time, they were not yet there. Man as he wandered over the earth was then really a being folded together. The two organs now used for work, the hands, were then turned backwards and formed additional organs of movement, so that he went on four legs. One must picture two people of the present day, man and woman, entwined in one another, think away the upper half of the body, leaving only the lower half there. The human being was actually male-female. He also had at that time an astral and etheric body, but not the one which he had later. This was a different astral body, that is, such a one as had reached its highest perfection on the Old Moon. There, on the Old Moon, the astral body together with the etheric body had acquired the capacity of developing a physical body which then had a crab-like form. The human being could stand on one pair of legs and make a kind of leaping movement.

This astral body with the etheric body was then of quite another nature. It had a form which was not entirely egg-shaped, but more like a bell which descended like a dome over the human being who went on all fours. The etheric body provided for all the life functions of this Lemurian human being. In his astral body he had a dull twilight consciousness similar to that of our dreams. His consciousness was however unlike the reminiscences inherent in our dreams, for he dreamt of realities. When he was approached by another human being unsympathetic to him, there arose in him a sensation of light which indicated what was unsympathetic.

Already on the Old Moon man had some slight power of using both his front limbs for the purpose of grasping, so that now the time came for assuming the upright posture. His other living companions were, in the Lemurian Age, of the nature of reptiles; animals of grotesque shapes who have left no traces behind them. The ichthyosaurs and so on are descendants of these animals. It is a fact that at that time the earth was inhabited by beings reptilian in character; human bodies too were reptile-like. When eventually this reptilian human being assumed the upright posture, the formation of the head, quite open in front, out of which gushed a fiery cloud, became visible. This gave rise to the tales about the winged serpent, about the dragon. Such was man's grotesque form at that time, reptile-like. The Guardian of the Threshold, the lower nature of man, frequently appears in a form of this kind. It represents the lower nature with the open formation of the head. At that time, the union took place between these forms on the earth and the other beings already described. The astral body with the head formation united with the winged-serpent body with its fiery opening. It was the fructification of the maternal earth with the paternal spirit.

In this way there proceeded the fructification with the Manas forces. The lower astral body merged with the higher astral body. A great part of the astral body, as it then was, fell away. One portion formed the lower parts of the human astral body, and the other newly acquired astral body, connected with the head, united with the upper parts of the human being. What was then peeled off abandoned this astral body which was bound up with the form of the winged-serpent; it could no longer have any further development on the Earth. It formed, as a conglomerate substance, the astral sphere of the moon, the so-called eighth sphere. The moon actually provides shelter for astral beings which have come into existence through the fact that man has thrown something off.

This union of the paternal spirit with the maternal substance was described in Egypt as the union of Osiris and Isis. From it came forth Horus. The merging of the serpent form with the etheric head, with the newly acquired astral body and head formation, led to the conception of the form of the sphinx. The sphinx is the expression of this thought in sculpture.

There were seven kinds or classes of such forms, all of which differed somewhat from each other, from the finest, approximating to the highly developed formation of the human form down to those which were utterly grotesque. These seven kinds of human forms had all to be fructified. One must conceive the descent of the ‘Sons of Manas’ in this pictorial way. Only then can one understand how the astral body of man came into existence. It is composed of two different members.

If we consider human development we shall find that the one part of the astral body is continually endeavouring to overcome the other half, the lower nature, and transform it. In so far as man today consists of astral body with etheric body and physical body, it is in fact only the physical body which in its present state is a product which has reached completion. In the case of the etheric body also there are two parts that seek to merge into one another.

Now when man dies he gives over to the forces of the earth his whole physical body, but the etheric body divides itself into two members. The one member is derived from the upper formation and this man takes with him. The remainder falls away, for over this he can exert no mastery; it came to him from outside. He can only exert mastery over it when he has become an occult pupil. This part of the etheric body therefore in the case of the ordinary person is given over to the etheric forces of cosmic space.

What clings to the person from that astral body which came with him from the Old Moon compels him to spend a period of time in Kamaloka until he has freed himself from this point as regards that particular life. Then he still has that part of the astral body which has found a state of balance; with this he makes his journey through Devachan and back to physical life. This is why one sees bell-like formations in astral space rushing about with terrific speed. These are the human souls again seeking incarnation. When here with us such a bell-like human being darts through astral space and an embryo in South America is karmically connected with it, this human bell must immediately be there. So these returning souls rush through astral space. This bell formation is reminiscent of those which appeared in the Lemurian Age, only it has already found its state of balance with the higher astral body. We know that the human being develops by working from the ego upon the three other bodies. The ego is nothing other than what worked at that time in a fructifying way; the upper auric part with the etheric head. The members which the human being has developed are the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body.

Upper Etheric or Mental body
Astral body as Buddhi
Astral body
Lower Etheric body
Physical body

The physical body has arisen through a transformation and ennobling of that serpent-like body which we meet with in the Lemurian Age. This was male-female. The present day human being is also male-female. In the case of a man the basis of the upper members is female, with a woman the basis of the upper etheric body is of male formation. So actually the physical nature of the human being is also male-female.

The etheric body consists of two members, that part of human nature which originally came over from the Old Moon and its opposite pole. They were at first not yet joined together; later they approached one another and became united. The one is the pole of animality, the other the pole of the spiritual. The pole of animality is called ‘etheric body’, the pole of the spiritual, ‘mental-body’. The mental body is materialised ether.

Between them is the astral body and this too has arisen out of the union of a duality. Fundamentally it is also a two-fold formation. We have to differentiate in it a lower and a higher nature. The higher nature was originally connected with the mental body. This part of the astral body which has its seat in the mental body—what therefore has come into it from above—is the other pole of the lower astral body. One of the characteristics of the lower astral body is that it has desires. The upper part has instead of these, devotion, love, the giving virtue. This part of the astral body is called Buddhi. The description here given of the human being is as seen in this way in the Cosmic Light. When man himself works into his sheathes it is different. The one portrays his cosmic structure, the other how he himself works into it.

Thus Buddhi is the ennobled astral, the Mental the ennobled etheric and the Physical has its opposite pole in Atma.

I wanted to say a few more words about the significance of the oldest parts of the Old Testament before moving on to other things. I have often told you that in interpreting the Old Testament, you come to a point where you can begin to take it more or less literally. Now, in the nineteenth century, we experienced an age that was as ill-suited as possible to comprehend something like the five books of Moses. Anyone who understands these five books of Moses will not only see an increase in their insight into the world, but also an increase in their inner appreciation and reverence for all the writings that speak to us, as something that is not only a human voice, but - let us leave this for the time being in an unspecified way - something that resonates down to us from higher spheres than the human spheres.

In fact, we could and perhaps will be able to go back to the origin, to the actual theories of such writings, to the first inspirers. But we do not want to do that today. We want to touch on a question that goes back to an historical fact, which admittedly cannot be established by the external means of literature today, but which will become quite clear once the theosophical movement has taken root. So, I would like to consider an historical fact first. At the time when Christianity had its first starting point, when Jesus of Nazareth lived, there was the school of Philo in the famous Alexandria. Among the manifold teachings that Philo gave, the most outstanding were those that he gave his students about the five books of Moses.

I note that one of these students was the evangelist who wrote the Gospel of John. So the spirit that lived in the Egyptian schools also lives in the Fourth Gospel. This interpretation required a very special spiritual quality, and Philo began by telling his students that the five books of Moses were not written to express what is told in them, but that this was only an outer garment to express deep inner human truths. Line by line, the Old Testament is to be understood as allegorical, symbolic of human inner processes, of such processes that also took place in time at the same time, that is, the processes took place in the hearts of the people for many hundreds of years, from the time when Abraham wandered in the Canaanite land until the time when the Jews were led into Babylonian captivity. There events took place that did not happen outwardly, but in the souls, which were, however, connected with historical events. But one does not understand the historical events if one does not bring them into connection with the inner happenings. Above all, the students entered into a mood in which the whole of the Old Testament appeared to them as a revelation of the inner human self.

I will give you a few examples in a moment. What I have told you was regarded by nineteenth-century scholars as mere myth, especially the explanations given by Philo. He still gave these in a very forceful manner in oral discourse. Everything that has come down to posterity from this has been regarded as an allegorical interpretation, to which nothing more can be added. In the nineteenth century, the aim was to remain on the physical plane and to examine the facts that arise for the historian. Even if the Bible was doubted in its chronology, even if it was no longer believed that the world was created 4000 years before the birth of Christ, at the beginning of the nineteenth century the Bible was still taken as a kind of historical document, as something that gave us information about historical events. The events that were narrated - even if they were inaccurately narrated - were taken as if they mattered. I am now talking from the point of view of external scholarly research. The other things that occurred in the occult realm were not noticed at all.

But something did result from the achievement of deciphering the cuneiform script. It turned out that what can be found in the stories of the Old Testament can also be found in the Babylonian legends and myths. In particular, they tell us of a creation of the world that is very similar to the biblical creation of the world. The story of the Fall of Man is also told in a very similar way in the Babylonian myth. The content of the significant seal impressions is significant. It is the impression that shows two people sitting under a tree with a snake. We have the Fall of Man depicted on a seal impression that is much older than the writings themselves. So in cuneiform writing we have the story of the Fall of Man, the salvation of humanity in a similar way to Noah and so on, so that it became clear that the view that the Old Testament was based on divine revelation, given directly to Moses by God, could no longer be maintained. It is self-evident that secular scholarship has concluded from this that the Jews did not receive these legends by revelation, but that they brought them down with them from their ancestral homeland at the time when they came down, and that they were then influenced from outside.

The further you get into the Old Testament, the clearer it becomes. You have to assume that what we are told about Joseph, who lived around the time of the pharaohs and who helped the Jews achieve a respected position in Egypt, is true. And it must also be assumed that there was also such a Moses.

At least you could feel that there would be a story together. In later times, historical records have again undermined the ground for purely historical research. We have documents that testify that in the time in which the story of Joseph took place, peoples whom we cannot describe otherwise than as Hebrews lived in the land of Canaan and that they turned to Pharaoh for support in a famine. These letters are written in the Babylonian language and addressed to the Egyptian pharaoh. From this it can be seen that the Babylonian language must have been highly regarded. The language of the educated at that time was the Babylonian language, as in earlier centuries with us it was the French language.

But something else has emerged. The person of Joseph has become highly doubtful. History has gradually eroded this figure. It has been established that a personality who was governor in a Jewish land is identical to Joseph, so that the story in the Bible corresponds to a governor who could not have experienced the story. At the court of the Pharaoh, he advocated for the Jews' petitions to the Pharaoh. So we would not have a Joseph who spoke for his people in the way it is written in the Bible, but who, as governor, took care of the Jews, and that they also made the Egyptian journey back then. Today it seems more questionable than ever that the Israelites' journey to Egypt really took place. It is quite impossible that the retreat under Moses could have taken place as it is told. It is said that the Jews went into the desert, and it is said as if no other peoples were there. But at that time, this area must have been inhabited by other peoples who would have fiercely resisted. If we understand all this literally, then everything is in the air.

Secular [historiography] has contributed to the dismemberment of the Bible. If the critic begins with his criticism, he sees himself standing before nothingness. The critic must end up saying, “I can't say anything.” It may be so, but it may also be otherwise – this is the conclusion that the secular critic must necessarily come to.

In this regard, I can only provide a sketch. However, if you were to go through the matter and look at it, you would find – as I have indicated – that the result can only be what I have indicated: higher criticism and absolute lack of results. This probably has the effect that one will ask oneself: Are the interpretations that Philo of Alexandria gave, that it is just a play on words, correct, or are the old documents perhaps written in the sense that Philo of Alexandria could still know, but which was later forgotten?

Not only in the first book of Moses, but also in the later books, an answer can be found if one examines it esoterically and if one asks oneself: Did it literally happen as it seems to be written there, or were the writers such who championed esotericism, were they spirits who, with what they outwardly presented, connected an inner meaning? The whole area that is involved and about which it is said that Abraham passed through it, that Abraham must have lived in it at the time that preceded a great invasion of the people, the area north of the Euphrates; Persia, India, but also Egypt, all these areas were full of occult schools. They were more or less left alone, especially until 2005 BC. But in the middle of the third millennium BC, great migrations of peoples took place. What is referred to as the Babylonian people also settled there around that time. In the past, there were even more peoples who knew what priestly rule meant.

In all these areas there were seven degrees of initiation. The first degree was the degree of the “ravens”. Initiates of this degree were those who ensured the connection between the outside world and the secret places. Hence the ravens are the scouts who bring news of the outside world to those inside the temple, from which they can find the opportunity to work. When the old Barbarossa asks from century to century whether the ravens are still flying around the mountain, this is nothing more than the occult interpretation of whether the connection with the outside world still exists.

In the second degree of initiation, those who could use the word were those who had learned so much that they were inspired by spiritual life. They were called the champions.

In the third degree of initiation were those who could work through action, who stood firm through their power. They were called the “lions”. A warrior is one who works through the word; he is also called a prophet. But those who have become lions work through action. Sometimes, however, their work remains more or less unnoticed. They are often not recognized at all.

Those initiated in the fourth degree were called the “occult” [those working inside the temple].

Those initiated in the fifth degree were called in each country according to the name of the [people] in question. In India they were called: “Man” - . He was only truly a man when he had risen to Manas. The Persians called them “Persians”; the ancient Chaldeans called them “Chaldeans.” The entire nation was called Chaldeans, but the initiated of the fifth degree were especially called that. That is why they were always confused, when the people and when the initiated priests were designated. The initiates of this degree were priests who studied astronomy and astrology.

The initiates of the sixth degree were universally called the “sun-runners”. Their life had become so rhythmic that it ran as regularly as the course of the sun. He would have caused confusion if he had deviated from his path, just as the sun would cause confusion if it ever stepped out of its orbit. The sun-runners were the ones who were called upon to rule the nations. The kings of Western Asia, Southern Asia and Egypt were prepared for this by being initiated in the sixth degree. In the governors of Egypt, we therefore find sun-walkers who had reached a high degree of development, who understood the secret language of the world, and who also understood how to live out the spiritual secrets. It was said of such people that they led a life like the sun and that the sun, moon and stars bowed down before them, just as the moon and stars bow down before the sun.

These solar walkers or solar heroes are told in the most diverse legends and myths. Hercules is nothing other than a solar hero. The twelve labors are the passage through the twelve signs of the zodiac. Jason is also such a solar walker who set out to bring the golden fleece from the rough land of the barbarians. Thus, you can find myths with solar heroes among different peoples. Scholars have often wondered why the heroes of the myths are so often depicted in similar ways. They have been surprised that the lives of Buddha, Hercules and Zarathustra, Osiris and Christ are so similar. If they had known that these were initiates of the sixth degree and that the life of a sun-runner was simply being told, then they would not have needed to wonder. Even the story of Christ is part of it, and it shows that these were real events in their lives, but that they were predetermined by their fellow brothers. Their course of life was mapped out thousands of years before. The life of a sun-runner was described before, because through thousands of years the life of such a hero has taken the same course.

I would like to draw your attention to the story of Joseph. Read it and listen to my suggestions for how you might teach it. Joseph's father, Israel, made him a colorful coat. Among the Persians, those initiated at the fifth degree were called “Persians,” while among the Israelites they were called “Israeb.” It was a real event that those initiated at the fifth degree bowed to those initiated at the sixth degree on a certain day. Joseph told his brothers about his dream in which the sheaves bowed down to him, whereupon the brothers said to him: “Should you become our king and rule over us?” But they did not understand everything. Now he spoke even more clearly by telling his brothers another dream: “Behold, the sun and the moon and eleven stars bowed down to me.” Here Joseph spoke of the fact that he wants to be initiated in the sixth degree. - Let us throw him into a pit, said the brothers. The “pit” is the place of initiation. A “wild beast” has torn Joseph apart. The tearing of the earthly garments is the dying of the lowly. The story shows us that Joseph has grown up to become a sun-runner, a sun-hero.

Egypt was the place of those temples where the most highly initiated were. The seventh degree is the degree of the “fathers.” Abraham belonged to the fathers only in Chaldea. Moses could then also be initiated into the Egyptian mysteries through Joseph, and from this emerged what Moses spoke to his people.

This is a brief example of the kind of instruction that Philo gave his students. The scholars had no idea that these were spiritual processes, but believed that real historical events were being described. But now we also understand why there is nothing left for biblical criticism. It does not stick to the real content, which it lets slip through its fingers.

The Jews of the first Christian communities told the story of Jesus' initiation in a similar way. The key to this lies in the old commentaries that exist for the Bible and the Vedas.

[Spiritual processes that must be read esoterically are also the fairy tales, for example, “The Seven Little Goats.” - The outer criticism always lets the real content slip through; it takes the symbols as deeds. - The keys are not available to external scholarship; it does not know how to read such things.)

Next time, I will discuss one of the most significant stories that you have often heard, but whose inner meaning is as infinitely deep as hardly anything else – the story of Cain and Abel. On the one hand, we have Cain's murder, and on the other hand, the whole human race is derived from Cain. The great secret lies in Abel, who sacrificed the animals of the forest, and Cain, who sacrificed the fruits of the field.