The Rudolf Steiner Archive

by the Translator

Odin

Odin's sacrifice of higher rank becomes transformed into a higher power—he becomes lord of the runes, the creator of language. In the language of the Mysteries this renunciation is described as the sacrifice of Odin's eye at the fount of Mimir. This eye is the clairvoyant eye which, as pineal gland, lost its function in the course of evolution. At the same time this sacrifice prepares the development of independence and freedom, for only by serving his intimate relationship with the Gods is man able to stand foursquare upon the Earth and become self-reliant.

Odin and the Fenris Wolf

(a) The prose Edda recounts the destiny of the three children of Loki: the Midgard Snake, the Fenris Wolf and Hel. Odin flung the Midgard Snake into the ocean, consigned Hel to Niflheim and kept the Fenris Wolf to himself. At the Twilight of the Gods the Wolf was destined ultimately to destroy him. The Ahrimanic forces which feed upon the living substance of the etheric body are portrayed in the figure of the Fenris Wolf. And because it threatened danger to the Aesir they bound it with a silken ribbon to a rock. (They were unwilling to kill the Wolf in order to avoid polluting the sanctuary with blood.)

(b) The original language of Atlantis was a unity. It was the creation of Odin with the formative forces of the laryngeal organism. Through the alliance of Odin and Loki, Ahrimanic forces entered into the etheric body and the organism of speech. The power of Ahriman (present in the undivided, primal language of Atlantis) perished after the Atlantean catastrophe—this is the Fenris Wolf of Nordic tradition. Wherever human speech or language becomes a means of concealing the spiritual world or denying its reality, we find the influence of the Fenris Wolf. Where the word describes only sensible phenomena or physical facts to the exclusion of supersensible or spiritual facts, Odin has succumbed to the Fenris Wolf. Ahrimanic influences gradually blunt the response of the etheric body. It loses its former receptivity to life processes: this is reflected in the shifting of consonants in the Indo-European languages (Grimm's Law). On the one hand, new elements are added, on the other, articulation becomes more indefinite, more insensitive; symptoms of paralysis set in—amalgamations, loss or disappearance of certain vowels and consonants. The original language which was a unity is split up into diverse tongues, into dialects. Here is seen the influence of the Fenris Wolf. Through the Fenris Wolf death enters into the organism of language—dead languages, e.g. Latin, have therefore become victims of the Fenris Wolf.

Odin and Thor

Thor is the son of Odin. Whilst the power of Odin is present in respiration and language, Thor works in the blood, in the rhythmic pulse-beat. Blood is the physical expression of the ego in the metabolic system. Thor is portrayed in the sagas as a choleric with red blood, quick to anger, ever ready to wield his hammer Mjolnir and endowed with a powerful will. Odin's sphere of activity is the astral body, that of Thor the etheric body.

The alliterative verse of Old Norse (the poetic Edda), Old English (Beowulf), Old Saxon (Heliand) and Old High German (Hildebrandslied) is based on two rhythmic laws—the rhythm of respiration and the rhythm of blood. A single breath corresponds to four pulse beats (eighteen and seventy-two to the minute respectively). This ratio of 1:4 is found in the long line which consisted of two half verses separated by a caesura. Each hemistich had two strongly accented syllables. Thus in the form and law of alliterative verse is reflected the relationship of Odin and Thor. The Voluspa was written in this metre known as Fornyrthislag.

This whole subject is treated in detail in Chapters IX and X of Ernst Uehli's Nordisch-Germanische Mythologie als Mysteriengeschichte (Rudolf Geering Verlag, Basel 1926) to which I am indebted for many of the above suggestions.

We get an increase in spiritual knowledge and forces through hard work at esoteric exercises such as the ones described in How Does One Attain Knowledge of Higher Worlds? and in other books. But we must heed certain practical hints that help us to get ahead.

A healthy condition of tiredness doesn't have to prevent us from carrying out concentration and mediation with great willpower. On the contrary. Nature does one part of the work for us, since it dulls the outer sense organs and lessens our ability to take in sense impressions. For the goal is to see without physical eyes, to hear without physical ears and to think without a physical brain. It's precisely when we are tired that we can illumine and warm our being with the luminous thoughts of meditation.

Abstention from alcohol is necessary, for this works on the ego that lives and works in the blood. Meditation pulls the spirit up and loosens its connection with the physical body; alcohol pulls it down and consolidates it in the same. Eating meat makes the spirit heavy. Eating plants makes greater demands on the physical body so that it's busy and can't hinder the spirit's work. But what else is brought about by abstention of fish and meat? The bad about eating meat is the lasting effect of hurting and killing animals. These martyred animals return in the form of creatures who turn their forces against the bodies of the descendents of those who once killed them. Bacteria are re-embodied tortured, killed and eaten animals.

Exercises bring about changes in an esoteric that he must pay attention to if he is to avoid injuries. Firstly, the intellect changes; the guidance of thought becomes different and so does judgment and memory. It becomes difficult for an esoteric to give logical and readily understandable reasons for his actions to an ordinary man. Such grounds aren't at all necessary, for at the decisive moment a real esoteric knows the right thing to do. But if he doesn't pull himself together and lazily avoids doing thought-control exercises, his thoughts may get confused.

Some immature people force their esoteric development and gain a certain power over others; but at the decisive moment they're stopped before they can do greater damage.

Secondly the way one speaks and makes gestures changes. A man must have himself under control so that his nervous system doesn't take over and he does all kinds of impermissible things.

Thirdly the physical body must not become injured by a forced, greedy tempo in esoteric development, otherwise an acute disease may set in, which however is curable and that warns the one who get it.

In the Hebrew mysteries, they spoke of four men who tried to go through the temple's portal—but only one got to it. Only one developed normally through particularly patient and consequent methods and reached the goal. The others who forced their esoteric development were harmed. This shows how necessary a rigorous execution of the accessory exercises is for the harmonizing and consolidating effect on man's whole being.

There are many powerful meditation materials, especially in the Bible. For instance, there's a description of creation's six days, the words at the beginning of John's Gospel, the appearance of Yahweh to Moses in the burning bush, the Gospel stories, “I am the light of the world,” and a particularly effective meditation is 1 Timothy 3:16 in the following translation: The mystery of God's path can be known. He who revealed himself through flesh, although in itself his being is spiritual, who is only fully knowable by angels, but could nevertheless be preached to heathens, who is alive in the faith of the world; he is raised to the Wisdom Spirits' sphere.

What bodhisattvas could give to men was inspired by Spirits of Movement. The lowest things that radiated from the Christ came from the sphere of the hierarchy of the Spirits of Movement. The Christ is above all hierarchies—he belongs to the Trinity.

Appearances of the modern mind and the nature of man. By Robert Schellwien

Leipzig 1892, C. E. M. Pfeffer

Few publications in contemporary philosophical literature can compare with this book in terms of profundity, sharp conceptualization and scientific thoroughness. We are dealing with a very important publication. The author has what so many lack today: the courage of thought that dares to tackle the central problems of the world, and also the necessary confidence in our human power of thought that is needed to solve the highest tasks. Schellwien is an idealist. He considers the phenomena given by experience to be a content lifted out of the dark sea of the unconscious into the sphere of the conscious by the human "I". The "I" is only a post-creator, but insofar as the force living and working in it is identical with the primordial force of the universe, it is at the same time the creator of the world content given to us. For Schellwien, the real task of philosophy is to understand the latter as a birth from the unconscious, which comes about through the "I". For Schellwien, the laws that constitute the world are only the laws of our own "I", which confront us as an object. The author aptly explains how the mechanical explanation of nature arises from the fact that man perceives the laws of the object, but is not aware that these laws are ultimately those of his own spiritual organism. In this way he arrives at the view that in every appearance of the world he recognizes a twofold aspect: the given, objective side, and the subjective, the concept or idea of the thing. Both together are equally important to him for grasping the full reality. This brings him closer to the view that the writer of these lines himself holds and has repeatedly expressed. Most recently in his writing: "Wahrheit und Wissenschaft" (Weimar, Herm. Weißbach, 1892) p. 34 with the words: "Cognition is thus based on the fact that the content of the world is originally given to us in a form that does not completely reveal it, but which has a second essential side in addition to what it directly presents. This second, originally not given side of the content of the world is revealed through cognition. What appears separate to us in thinking is therefore not empty forms, but a sum of determinations (categories), which, however, are form for the world content. Only the form of the world content gained through cognition, in which both sides of the world content are united, can be called reality." Schellwien also does not believe in the dull Philistine view that the law of the world exists only in space and time, and that the human spirit is thrown into a corner as an empty vessel to stand there until some drop of experiential knowledge happens to fall into it. He does not think of the mind as being so oblivious to the world, but full of content, so that something comes out when it brings the treasures lying in its depths to the surface. The author does not want to deny the importance of experience: but he knows that we can only enlighten ourselves about the actual nature of the world by seeking the solution to the actual riddle in the courageous unrolling of our own "I". Schellwien attributes this development of our spiritual content to this will. We cannot agree with him on this. This will is superfluous. The spiritual content is the power in itself that unfolds from itself. On this point the author has not yet sufficiently freed himself from the Schopenhauerianism from which he evidently started. Only when he completely discards this crutch can he clearly recognize the original light of the absolute spirit based on its own content. He will then realize that the idea does not need the aid of the will in order to be, but that the phenomena of the will themselves lead back to the idea in their depths. On the whole, Schellwien shows himself to be a philosopher who wants to draw the content of his science from the essence of human individuality. However, it is not the ego as an individual, arbitrary entity that is his foundation, but the concrete-personal, which has the advantage over all other world entities that it contains the general, the abstract as something concrete and full of content. In this, he rises above Stirner and Nietzsche, of whom he gives an excellent characterization in the first two chapters of his book.

According to his physical body, man has three elementary kingdoms and the mineral kingdom within him. Now today we want to place man in the midst of nature. The physical body has had its first emergence on Saturn. This substance of the physical body was poured out by higher powers. So there was something there before Saturn. This divine poured out the matter which is the densest today. What we call "earth" is simply the densest matter for the occultist speaking. "Earth" is outside and inside the human body. Earth includes everything solid, so also a crystal. Matter is the sum of everything solid. In man there is little earth, that which remains when you burn the corpse. If you think of the ashes in the urn for you, you have that from man which was poured out on Saturn in the first elemental realm.

How is it that the earth outside looks different from that which forms the human body? Because on the sun the etheric body was added, and, as far as it belongs to the human being, it transformed the earth. On the Saturn earth was not loose, but through and through used to the incarnation to the people and to the beings which incarnated beside him and which still have a Saturn existence today. They are the gnomes, the spirits of the earth. On Saturn there has been no water; that came on the Sun, and man formed his etheric body, which was able to absorb his former earth body and to form it according to the etheric body.

In the nodes of the net lay the individual grains. This net body was suitable to draw water out and in. In the water the actual sun beings - undines incarnated. By the fact that the earth, which could live, was taken away from the people to the gnomes, these are given a certain influence on the physical body of the human being; they are pushed out from it into the astral realm. On the moon the astral body is added to the etheric body; thus man intersperses the whole body with water. A mixture of earth with water is formed, something resembling albumen, jelly mass, like jellyfish, in it dissolved the former earth grains in the water; and in and out man could now draw the air. In the air the sylphs incarnated.

Now the entity came over to the earth, added to it was the fire. Man, besides his astral body, received his ego. This means for the human being that he organizes his three bodies even higher. Today the body consists of earth, water, air. By absorbing air, into which one [can] incarnate, man has withdrawn it from the sylphs and pushed them out. Fire he breathed until the Lemurian time. Fire is warmth. Man had the warmth of his environment, and outside lived the salamanders as those actually incarnated in fire. They are the last beings of this kind whose matter man appropriated.

In the Middle Ages, this theory still lies within. By appropriating the fire, it was that man's I rose into the KamaManas.

We have now formed the body with a fifth plant, hence the pentagram.

It consists first of the solid; the ash components form the basis of its bone system. Then on the Sun the aqueous, which forms the soft parts of man, cartilage and muscular system. Third, on the moon, the respiratory system with the lungs. Fourth, the cardiac system, generating heat through the heart, and since Lemurian times nervous system, senses.

When a new limb joins beyond this fourth, a tremendous change takes place. Since Lemurian times, man has been doubly dependent on the earth: first, built up; second, sustained by the food he takes in and gives out. The body is overripe; it cannot be sustained by itself and must be renewed every seven years. So the human body goes through an incarnation every seven years.

These are the things that show you how man stands inside in a great universal world, surrounded not only by the animal, plant, mineral kingdoms, [but also by] the beings he has pushed out into higher realms. The physicist calls them forces. One must recognize the beings that belong to them. The greater superstition is not to give anything to mythology. It is an ancient science, the expression of ancient spiritual experiences.

Paracelsus knew that if this sap is sick in man, the sap belongs to this plant to bring about the balance.

One who understands the working of these numbers

When something was supposed to be given to a Rosicrucian pupil through which he could elevate himself, then the above verse and figures were placed before his soul. These figures are nothing abstract but must be permeated with one's feeling and intellect if one wants to understand them. If this happens in the right way the pupil experiences truths that are of the greatest importance for his further development. The point is the point of life from which all evolution proceeds. All life proceeds from a unity and goes over into manifoldness. Plurality springs from unity.

Everything that's around us on earth comes from man. Nature is a spread out, dismantled man. Mineral, plant and animal are found in him. All qualities that a man has are found scattered in the kingdoms of nature. Man is the crown of creation. All existing things come from man.

In the second row we see how evolution proceeds in large numbers. But plurality must bring it about that a unity arises again from it. This happened in the middle of the Atlantean race when man acquired his I. Man was still relatively simple then. Today he's already much more complicated.

In the third row we see symbols for earth, water, air and fire. The first element is contained most purely in carbon today. Man exhales carbon dioxide; this is taken in by plants and is found solidified in coal and diamonds.

The second element, water, isn't found on earth in its original condition—it's what we call oxygen. People used to drink oxygen like we drink water today. If we only had carbon and oxygen on earth we'd get old very fast. Oxygen has the ability to let everything live very rapidly and to constantly renew things.

That's why the third element, air, had to be added. It's the present nitrogen, which dampens life. Without nitrogen's influence there would be no consciousness; astrality couldn't become manifest.

The fourth element is fire. Fire plays a big role in occultism. It's the warmth element. All four elements intermingle. We maintain our own warmth with the help of fire. Self-consciousness wouldn't be possible without it. We have the physical expression of our I, blood, through it. A combustion process takes place. Thereby man has become a being with self-consciousness, as can be seen from the first symbol in the fourth row: the sulfur process. The second symbol consists of the moon, sun and the ego as an appendix. The third symbol signifies the division of the physical and etheric bodies that were originally similar; then the physical body condenses and the finer etheric body remains outside, surrounding it. This is similar to what happens when salt is dissolved: first there's a milky fluid from which salt precipitates, leaving the finer water above: the salt process. The hexagram in the fifth row represents the double nature of man that is intertwined, and the last upside down Venus is man's “I” that surpasses all other creatures.

[ 1 ] An intimation that the student has arrived at the stage of evolution described in the foregoing chapter is the change which comes over his dream-life. Hitherto his dreams were confused and haphazard, but now they begin to assume a more regular character. Their pictures begin to arrange themselves in an orderly way, like the phenomena of daily life. He can discern in them laws, causes, and effects. The contents of his dreams will likewise change. While hitherto he discerned only the reverberations of daily life, mixed impressions of his surroundings or of his physical condition, there now appear before him pictures of a world with which he had no acquaintance. At first, indeed, the general nature of his dreams will remain as of old in so far as the dream differentiates itself from waking phenomena by presenting in emblematical form whatever it wishes to express. This dramatization cannot have escaped the notice of any attentive observer of dream-life. For instance, you may dream that you are catching some horrible creature and experiencing an unpleasant sensation in your hand. You wake up to discover that you are tightly holding a piece of the bed-clothes. The perception does not express itself plainly, but only through the allegorical image. Or you may dream that you are flying from some pursuer and in consequence you experience fear. On waking up you find that during sleep you had been suffering from palpitation of the heart. The stomach which is replete with indigestible food will cause uneasy dream-pictures. Occurrences in the neighborhood of the sleeping person may also reflect themselves allegorically in dreams. The striking of a clock may evoke the picture of soldiers marching by to the sound of their drums. Or a falling chair can become the origin of a complete dream-drama in which the sound of falling is translated into a gun report, and so forth. The more regulated dreams of the person whose etheric body has begun its development have also this allegorical method of expression, but they will cease to repeat merely the facts of the physical environment or of the sense-body. As these dreams which owe their origin to such things become orderly they are mixed up with similar dream-pictures which are the expression of things and events in another world. Here one has experiences that lie beyond the range of one's waking consciousness. Now it must never be fancied that any true mystic will then make the things which in this manner he experiences in dreams the basis of any authoritative account of the higher world. One must only consider such dream-experiences as hints of a higher development. Very soon, as a further result of this, we find that the pictures of the dreaming student are no longer, as hitherto, withdrawn by the guidance of a careful intellect, but are regulated thereby, and methodically considered like the conceptions and impressions of the waking consciousness. The difference between this dream-consciousness and the waking state grows ever smaller and smaller. The dreamer becomes, in the fullest meaning of the word, awake in his dream-life : that is to say, he can feel himself to be the master and leader of the pictures which then appear.

[ 2 ] During his dreams the individual actually finds himself in a world which is other than that of his physical senses. But if he possesses only unevolved spiritual organs, he can receive from that world only the confused dramatizations already mentioned. It would only be as much at his disposal as would be the sense-world to a being equipped with nothing but the most rudimentary of eyes. In consequence he could only discern in this world the reflections and reverberations of ordinary life. Yet in dreams he can see these, because his soul interweaves its daily perceptions as pictures into the stuff of which that other world consists. It must here be clearly understood that in addition to the workaday conscious life, one leads in this world a second and unconscious existence. Everything that one perceives or thinks becomes impressed upon this other world. Only if the lotus-flowers are evolved can one perceive these impressions. Now certain minute beginnings of the lotus-flowers are always at the disposal of anyone. During daily consciousness he cannot perceive with them, because the impressions made on him are very faint. It is for similar reasons that during the daytime one cannot see the stars. They cannot strike our perceptions when opposed by the fierce and active sunlight, and it is just in this way that faint spiritual impressions cannot make themselves felt in opposition to the masterful impressions of the physical senses. When the door of outward sense is closed in sleep, these impressions can emerge confusedly, and then the dreamer remembers what he has experienced in another world. Yet, as already remarked, at first these experiences are nothing more than that which conceptions related to the physical senses have impressed on the spiritual world. Only the developed lotus-flowers make it possible for manifestations which are unconnected with the physical world to show themselves. Out of the development of the etheric body arises a full knowledge concerning the impressions that are conveyed from one world to another. With this the student's communication with a new world has begun. He must now—by means of the instructions given in his occult training—first of all acquire a twofold nature. It must become possible for him during waking hours to recall quite consciously the beings he has observed in dreams. If he has acquired this faculty he will then become able to make these observations during his ordinary waking state. His attention will have become so concentrated upon spiritual impressions that these impressions need no longer vanish in the light of those which come through the senses, but are, as it were, always at hand.

[ 3 ] If the student is able to do this, there then arises before his spiritual eyes something of the picture which has been described in a former chapter. He can now discern that what exists in the spiritual world is the origin of that which corresponds to it in the physical world, and, above all things, can he learn in this world to know his own higher self. The task that now confronts him is to grow, as it were, into this higher self, or, in other words, to regard it as his only true self, and also to conduct himself accordingly. He now retains, more and more, the conception and the vital realization that his physical body and what hitherto he designated “himself ” is only an instrument of the higher self. He takes an attitude toward his lower self, such as might be taken by some one limited to the world of sense with regard to some instrument or vehicle which serves him. Just as such a person would not consider the carriage in which he travelled to be himself, though he says “I travel,” or “I go,” so, too, the developed person, when he says “I go through the door,” retains in his mind the conception, “I take my body through the door.” This must become for him such an habitual idea that he never for a moment loses the firm ground of the physical world, that never a feeling of estrangement in the world of sense arises. If the student does not wish to become a mere fantastic or vain enthusiast, he must work with the higher consciousness, so that he does not impoverish his life in the physical world, but enriches it, even as the person who makes use of a railway instead of his own legs may enrich himself by going for a journey.

[ 4 ] If the student has raised himself to such a life in the higher Ego, then—or still more probably during the acquisition of the higher consciousness—it will be revealed to him how he may stir into life what is called the fire of Kundalini which lies in the organ at the heart, and, further, how he may direct the currents described in a previous chapter.

This fire of Kundalini is an element of finer material which flows outward from this organ and streams in luminous loveliness through the self-moving lotus-flowers and the other canals of the evolved etheric body. Thence it radiates outward an the surrounding spiritual world and makes it spiritually visible, just as the sunshine falling upon the surrounding objects makes visible the physical world.

[ 5 ] How this fire of Kundalini in the organ at the heart is fanned into life may only form the subject of actual occult training. Nothing can be said of it openly.

[ 6 ] The spiritual world becomes plainly perceptible as composed of objects and beings only for the individual who in such a way can send the fire of Kundalini through his etheric body and into the outer world, so that its objects are illumined by it. From this it will be seen that a complete consciousness of an object in the spiritual world is entirely dependent upon the condition that the person himself has cast upon it the spiritual light. In reality the Ego, who has drawn forth this fire, no longer dwells in the physical human body at all, but (as has been already shown) apart from it. The organ at the heart is only the spot where the individual from without enkindles that fire. If he wished to do this, not here but elsewhere, then the spiritual perceptions produced by means of the fire would have no connection with the physical world. Yet one should relate all the higher spiritual things to the physical world itself, and through oneself should let them work in the latter. The organ at the heart is precisely the one through which the higher self makes use of the lower self as his instrument and whence the latter is directed.

[ 7 ] The feeling which the developed person now bears toward the things of the spiritual world is quite other than that which is characteristic of ordinary people in relation to the physical world. The latter feel themselves to be in a certain part of the world of sense, and the objects they perceive are external to them. The spiritually evolved person feels himself to be united with the spiritual objects that he perceives, as if, indeed, he were within them. In spiritual space he veritably moves from place to place, and is therefore spoken of in the language of occult science as “the wanderer.” He is practically without a home. Should he continue in this mere wandering, he would be unable to define clearly any object in spiritual space. Just as one defines an object or a locality in physical space by starting from a certain point, so must it also be in regard to the other world. He must seek for a place there which Dream-Life

he practically completely explores—a place of which he spiritually takes possession. This he must make his spiritual home and set everything in relation to it. The person who is living in the physical world sees everything in a like manner, as if he carried the ideas of his physical home wherever he went. Involuntarily a man from Berlin will describe London quite otherwise than a Parisian. Only there is a difference between the spiritual and the physical home. Into the latter you are born without your own cooperation, and from it in youth you have acquired a number of ideas which will henceforth involuntarily give color to everything. The spiritual home, an the contrary, you have formed for yourself with full consciousness. You therefore shape your opinions when going out from it in the full, unprejudiced light of freedom. This formation of a spiritual home is known in the speech of occult science as “the building of the hut.”

[ 8 ] The spiritual outlook at this point extends at first to the spiritual counterparts of the physical world, so far as these lie in what we call the astral world. In this world is found everything which in its nature is akin to human impulse, feeling, desire, or passion. For in every sense-object that surrounds a person there are forces which are related to these human forces. A crystal, for instance, is formed by powers which, when seen from the higher standpoint, are perceptible as akin to the impulse which acts in the human being. By similar forces the sap is drawn through the vessels of the plant, the blossoms unfold, the seed-cases are made to burst. All these powers acquire form and color for the developed spiritual perceptions, just as the objects of the physical world have color and form for physical eyes. At the stage of development here described the student no longer sees merely the crystal or the plant, but likewise the spiritual forces behind them, even as he does not now see the impulses of animal or human being only through their external manifestations, but also directly as veritable objects, as in the physical world he can see chairs and tables. The entire world of instinct, impulse, wish or passion, whether of a person or of an animal, is there in the astral cloud, in the aura with which the subject is enwrapt.

[ 9 ] Besides this, the clairvoyant at this stage of his evolution perceives things that are almost or entirely withdrawn from the perceptions of sense. For example, he can observe the astral difference between a place which is for the most part filled with persons of low development and another which is inhabited by high-minded people. In a hospital it is not only the physical but also the astral atmosphere which is other than that of the ball-room. A commercial town has a different astral air from that of a university town. At first the powers of perceiving such things will be but weak in the person who has become clairvoyant. At first it will seem to be connected with the objects concerned, very much as is the dream-consciousness of the ordinary person in relation to his waking consciousness, but gradually he will completely awaken on this plane also.

[ 10 ] The highest acquisition that comes to the clairvoyant, when he has reached this degree of sight, is that by which the astral reaction of animal or human impulses or passions is revealed to him. A loving action has quite a different astral appearance from one which proceeds out of hatred. The sensual appetite gives rise to a horrible astral image, and the feeling that is based on lofty things to one that is beautiful. These correspondences or astral pictures are only to be seen faintly during physical human life, for their strength is much lessened by existence in the physical world. A wish for any object displays itself, for instance, as a reflection of the object itself, in addition to that which the wish appears to be in the astral world. If, however, that wish is satisfied by the attainment of the physical object, or if at least the possibility of such satisfaction is present, the corresponding image would only make a very faint appearance. It first comes into its full power after the death of a person, when the soul, according to its nature, continues to foster such desires, but cannot any longer satisfy them because the object and its own physical organs are both lacking. Thus the gourmet will still have the desire to tickle his palate; but the possibility of satisfaction is absent, since he no longer possesses a palate. As a result of this the desire is displayed as an exceptionally powerful image by which the soul is tormented. These experiences after death among the images of the lower soul-nature are known as the period in “Kamaloka,” that is to say, in the region of desire. They only vanish away when the soul has cleansed itself from all appetites which are directed towards the physical world. Then does the soul mount up into a loftier region which is called “Devachan.” Although these images are thus weak in the person who is yet alive, they still exist and follow him as his own environment in Kamaloka, just as the comet is followed by its tail, and they can be seen by the clairvoyant who has arrived at this stage of development.

[ 11 ] Among such experiences and all that are akin to them the occult student lives in the world that has been described. He cannot as yet bring himself into touch with still loftier spiritual adventures. From this point he must climb upward still higher.

[ 1 ] Only a few personalities in the second half of the nineteenth century attempted to find a firm foundation for the relation of a conception of the self-conscious ego toward the general world picture by going deeply into Hegel's mode of thought. One of the best thinkers along these lines was Paul Asmus (1842–1876), who died as a young man. In 1873 he published a book entitled, The Ego and the Thing in Itself. In it he shows how it is possible, through Hegel's approach to thinking and the world of ideas, to obtain a relation of man toward the essence of things. He explains in an ingenious way that we have in man's thinking an element that is not alien to reality but full of life and fundamentally real, an element on which we only have to concentrate in order to arrive at the essence of existence. In a most illuminating way he describes the course of the evolution of world conception that began with Kant, who had seen in the “thing in itself” an element that was alien and inaccessible to man, and led to Hegel, who was of the opinion that thought comprised not only itself as an ideal entity but also the “thing in itself.” Voices like this found scarcely a hearing. This became most poignantly clear in the slogan, “Back to Kant,” which became popular in a certain current of philosophical life after Eduard Zeller's speech at the University of Heidelberg, On the Significance and Task of the Theory of Knowledge.

The conceptions, partly conscious and partly unconscious, which led to this slogan, are approximately as follows. Natural science has shaken the confidence in spontaneous thinking that means to penetrate by itself to the highest questions of existence, but we cannot be satisfied with the mere results of natural science for they do not lead beyond the external view of things. There must be grounds of existence concealed behind this external aspect. Even natural science itself has shown that the world of colors, tones, etc., surrounding us is not a reality outside in the objective world but that it is produced through the function of our senses and our brain (compare above, to Part II Chapter III). For this reason, it is necessary to ask these questions: In what respect do the results of natural science point beyond their own limits toward the higher problems: What is the nature of our knowledge? Can this knowledge lead to a solution of that higher task? Kant has asked such questions with great emphasis. In order to find one's own position, one wanted to study how he had approached them. One wanted to think over with the greatest possible precision Kant's line of thought, attempting to avoid his errors and to find in the continuation of his ideas a way that led out of the general perplexity.

[ 2 ] A number of thinkers endeavored to arrive at a tenable goal, starting from Kantian points of departure. The most important among them were Hermann Cohen (1842–1916), Otto Liebmann (1840 – 1912), Wilhelm Windelband (1848–1916), Johannes Volkelt (1842–1930) and Benno Erdmann (1851–1921). Much perspicacity can be found in the writings of these men. A great deal of work was done inquiring into the nature and extent of the human faculty of knowledge. Johannes Volkelt who, insofar as he was active as an epistomologist, lives entirely within this current, also contributed a thorough work on Kant's Theory of Knowledge (1879) in which all problems characterizing this trend of thought are discussed. In 1884 he gave the inaugural address for his professorship in Basel in which he made the statement that all thinking that goes beyond the results of the special empirical sciences of facts must have “the restless character of seeking and searching, of cautious trial, defensive reserve and deliberate admission.” It should be an “advance in which one must partly withdraw again, a yielding in which one nevertheless holds on to a certain degree” (On the Possibility of Metaphysics, Hamburg & Leipzig, 1884).

This new attempt to start from Kant appears in a special light in Otto Liebmann. His writings, Contributions Toward the Analysis of Reality (1876), Thoughts and Facts (1882), Climax of Theories (1884), are veritable models of philosophical criticism. Here a caustic mind ingeniously discovers contradictions in the worlds of thought, reveals as half truths what appear as safe judgments, and shows what unsatisfactory elements the individual sciences contain when their results appear before the highest tribunals of thought. Liebmann enumerates the contradictions of Darwinism. He reveals its insufficiently founded assumptions and its defective thought connections, maintaining that something is needed to fill in the gaps to support the assumptions. On one occasion he ends an exposition he gives of the nature of living organisms with the words:

Plant seeds do not lose their ability to germinate after lying dry for ages, and grains of wheat found in Egyptian mummy cases, after having been hermetically sealed and buried for thousands of years, when sowed in a moist soil, thrive excellently. Wheel animalcules (rotatoria) and other infusoria that have been gathered completely dried up from a gutter pipe are newly revived by rain water. Even frogs and fishes that have turned into ice cakes in freezing water revive when carefully thawed out. All these facts are capable of completely opposite interpretations. . . . In short, every form of categorical denial in this matter would be crude dogmatism. Therefore, we discontinue our argument.

This phrase, “We discontinue our argument,” really expresses, even if it does not do so literally, every final thought of Liebmann's reflection. It is, indeed, the final conclusion of many recent followers and elaborators of Kantianism. They do not succeed in doing more than emphasize that they receive the things into their consciousness. Therefore, everything that they see, hear, etc., is not outside in the world but within themselves and they are incapable of deciding anything concerning the outside. A table stands before me, argues the Neo-Kantian, but, really, this only seems to be so. Only a person who is naively concerned with problems of philosophy can say, “Outside myself is a table.” A person who has overcome that naïveté says, “An unknown something produces an impression within my eye; this eye and my brain make out of the impression the sensation brown. As I have this sensation brown not merely at an isolated point but can let my eye run over a plane surface and four columnar forms, so the brownness takes the shape of an object that is this table. When I touch this table, it offers resistance. It makes an impression on my sense of touch, which I express by attributing hardness to the picture that has been produced by the eye. At the suggestion of some “thing in itself” that I do not know, I have therefore created this table out of myself. The table is my mental content. It is only in my consciousness.

Volkelt presents this view at the beginning of his book on Kant's Theory of Knowledge:

The first fundamental condition that the philosopher must clearly realize is the insight that, to begin with, our knowledge extends to nothing more than our conceptions. Our conceptions are the only things that we immediately and directly experience, and for just that reason that we experience them immediately, even the most radical doubt cannot deprive us of the knowledge of them. But the knowledge that goes beyond my faculty of conception is not protected from doubt. (I use this expression here always in its most comprehensive sense so that all physical events are included in the term.) Therefore, all knowledge that goes beyond the conceptions must be marked as doubtful at the outset of the philosophical reflection.

Otto Liebmann also uses this thought to defend the statement: Man can no more know that the things he conceives are not, than he can know positively that they are. “For the very reason that no conceiving subject can escape the sphere of its subjective imagination, because it can never grasp and observe what may exist or not exist outside its subjectivity, leaping thereby over its own consciousness and emancipating itself from itself. For this reason it would also be absurd to maintain that the object does not exist outside the subjective conception” (O. Liebmann, Contributions toward the Analysis of Reality).

[ 3 ] Both Volkelt and Liebmann nevertheless endeavor to prove that man finds something in the world of his conceptions that is not merely observed or perceived, but that is added to the perception by thought—something that at least points toward the essence of things. Volkelt is of the opinion that there is a fact within the conceptual life that points to something that lies outside the life of conception. This fact consists in the logical necessity with which certain conceptions suggest themselves to man. In his book, The Sources of Human Certainty that appeared in 1906, we read Volkelt's view:

If one seeks the basis of the certainty of our knowledge, one finds two points of origin, two sources of certainty. Even if an intimate cooperation of both sources of certainty is necessary if real knowledge is to result, it is nevertheless impossible to reduce one source to the other. The one source of certainty is the self-assurance of consciousness, the awareness of the facts of my consciousness. That I am consciousness is just as true as the fact that my consciousness testifies to the existence of certain processes and states, certain contents and forms. Without this source of certainty there would be no cognitive process; it supplies the material through the elaboration of which all knowledge is produced. The other source of certainty is the necessity of thought, the certainty of logical compulsion, the objective consciousness of necessity. With it something absolutely new is given that cannot possibly be derived from the certainty of our self-awareness in consciousness.

Concerning this second source of certainty, Volkelt expresses himself in his book mentioned above as follows:

The immediate experience allows us to become aware of the fact that certain combinations of concepts show a peculiar form of compulsion to be inherent in them that is essentially different from all other kinds of compulsion that are associated with conceptions. This compulsion forces us to think certain concepts as belonging together, not merely in the conscious process in which we are aware of them but also in a corresponding objective interconnection, independent of the conscious conceptions. Furthermore, this compulsion does not force us in a manner to suggest that we should forfeit our moral satisfaction or our inner happiness, our salvation and so forth, but it contains the suggestion that objective reality would have to annihilate itself in itself, would have to lose its possibility of existence if the opposite of what it prescribes as a necessity were to take place. What distinguishes this compulsion then is that the very thought of the opposite of that necessity forcing itself upon us, would be experienced as a call that reality should revolt against the conditions of its existence. This peculiar, immediately experienced compulsion is generally called logical compulsion or thought necessity. The logically necessary reveals itself directly as an announcement of the object itself. It is the peculiarly meaningful significance, the reason-guided illumination that is contained in everything logical, that bears witness with immediate evidence of the objective, real validity of the logical connections of concepts. (Kant's Theory of Knowledge, pp. 208 ff.)

Otto Liebmann confesses toward the end of his essay, The Climax of Theories, that in his opinion the whole thought structure of human knowledge, from the ground floor of the science of observation up to the most airy regions of the highest hypotheses of world conception, is permeated by thoughts that point beyond perception. “Fragments of percepts must first be supplemented by an extraordinary amount of non-observed elements linked together and connected in a definite order according to certain operations of the mind.” But how can one deny that human thinking has the ability to know something through its own activity as long as it is necessary to resort to this activity even if one merely wants to obtain order among the facts of the observed precepts? Neo-Kantianism is in a curious position. It would like to confine itself within the boundaries of consciousness and within the life of conception, but it is forced to confess that it is impossible to take a step “within” these boundaries that does not lead in all directions beyond those limits. Otto Liebmann ends the second booklet of his Thought and Facts as follows:

If, on the one hand, seen from the viewpoint of natural science, man were nothing but animated dust, then, on the other, all nature, as it appears in space and time, when seen from the only viewpoint that is immediately accessible and given to us, is an anthropocentric phenomenon.

[ 4 ] There are many who hold the view that the world of observation is merely human conception in spite of the fact that it must extinguish itself if it is correctly understood. It is repeated again and again in the course of the last decades in many variations. Ernst Laas (1837–1885) forcefully defended the point of view that only positive facts of perception should be wrought into knowledge. Alois Riehl (1849–1924), proceeding from the same fundamental view, declares that there could be no general world conception at all, and that everything that goes beyond the various special sciences should only be a critique of knowledge. Knowledge is obtained only in the special sciences; philosophy has the task of showing how this knowledge comes about and of taking care that thought should not add any element that can not be justified by the facts. Richard Wahle in his book, The Whole of Philosophy and Its End (1894), eliminates with utmost scrutiny everything that the mind has added to the “occurrences” of the world until finally the mind stands in the ocean of occurrences that stream by, seeing itself in this ocean as one such occurrence, nowhere finding a point capable of providing a meaningful enlightenment concerning them. This mind would have to exert its own energy to produce order in the occurrences. But then it would be the mind itself that had introduced that order into nature. If the mind makes a statement about the essence of the occurrences, it derives this not from the things but from itself. This it could only do if it admitted that in its own activity something essential could go on. The assumption would have to be made that the mind's judgment could have significance also for things. But in its own judgment this confidence is something that, according to Wahle's world conception, the mind is not entitled to have. It must stand idly by and watch what flows past, around and inside itself, and it would only contribute to its own deception if it were to put any credence in a conception that it formed itself about the occurrences.

What final answer could a mind find that looked into the world structure, tossing about within itself problems concerning the nature and purpose of events? As it seemed to occupy a firm stand in opposition to the surrounding world, it has had to experience that it dissolved into a flight of occurrences and flowed together with other occurrences. The mind did no longer “know” the world. It had to admit: I am not certain that there are “knowers,” but there are simply occurrences. They do, to be sure, make their appearance in a manner that the concept of knowledge could emerge prematurely and without justification. . . . and “concepts” emerged and flitted by to bring light into the occurrences, but they were will-o'-the-wisps, specters of wishful thinking, miserable postulates whose evidence meant nothing, empty forms of knowledge. Unknown factors must rule the change. Darkness was spread over nature, occurrences are the veil of the true . . . (The Whole of Philosophy and Its End ).

Wahle closes his book, which is to represent the “gifts” of philosophy to the individual sciences, theology, physiology, esthetics and civic education, with these words, “May the age begin when people will say: once was philosophy.”

[ 5 ] In the above mentioned book by Wahle, as well as in his other books, Historical Survey of the Development of Philosophy (1895) and On the Mechanism of the Mental Life (1906), we have one of the most significant symptoms of the evolution of world conception in the nineteenth century. The lack of confidence with respect to knowledge begins with Kant and leads, finally, as it appears in Wahle, to a complete disbelief in any philosophical world conception.

My honored listeners!

The Gospel of John differs from the other three gospels in that it is attributed to a direct disciple of Christ Jesus, while the other three are attributed by name to disciples who were not direct disciples of Christ. One consequence of this is that we have to seek the deepest wisdom of Christianity in the Gospel of John.

Now the question arises for us: How should Theosophy relate to the Gospels and their authenticity? Theosophy cannot recognize as true anything that is not confirmed by occult research. We would not be able to extract any truth from a document. Theosophy can only be built on its own foundations, it can only build on the experiences gained by looking into the spiritual sources of the present and the past. The only truly historical document for Theosophy is what we call the Akasha Chronicle, that is, the spiritual record that the seer is able to see. So when we have gathered information from this spiritual record, we can compare it with what the historical records, that is, the Gospels, can provide. And no tenet is accepted by the occult researcher because it has been written in some written record, but because it has been found to be correct from our own research.

Yesterday it was mentioned in the introduction that the spiritual currents of the pre-Christian era converged in the event of Palestine - and, as we now want to see, in a higher form through the personality of Christ Jesus. This personality is incredibly complicated. How is such a personality possible, one that is able to absorb everything that came before into its personality and merge it into a higher unity?

In the Gospel of John, Christ is presented as the embodied, the incarnate Word of the World, as the incarnate Logos. To understand this to some extent, we have to go back a long way to the time of the emergence of the first cultural trends on our Earth. 600 years before the Palestine event, the mighty spiritual current that we call the Indian current had reached its high point and conclusion in the person of Gautama Buddha. But the same Buddha who worked in India was present in a certain form in Palestine at the time of Christ Jesus. What spiritual science means by the word 'Buddha' is not a specific person, but a dignity. Just as the individual human being develops more and more during his earthly life and is given ever higher offices, so an individuality can, through various incarnations, ascend to the Buddha office, to the Buddha dignity.

Before that, through many incarnations, the same individuality was not a Buddha, but a Bodhisattva. What is that? The Bodhisattvas have very specific tasks. They are the teachers and guides of humanity. All of humanity has passed through various stages.

The consciousness of today has been acquired by man in the course of time. Before that, our soul possessed different qualities. Reason, etc. have been acquired by man in the course of time; formerly man was endowed with different qualities. If we look back to the Lemurian period, we find a certain dull, clairvoyant realization in people. The whole of human life was not a spiritual self-awareness. Vague images arose in the soul in ancient times. Therefore, people could not be influenced in the same way as they are today, but only in a way that can be compared to inspiration or suggestion. And what they were told was not grasped by the intellect. The guides and teachers of humanity worked through suggestion, through inspiration, through their immediate presence, through the student's looking up to the great teacher.

The Bodhisattva taught in this way as long as he was not Buddha. Before his Buddha existence, he had repeatedly incarnated on earth in humanity, but he did not work in a physical body, only in his etheric body, and he could only have taught by not fully entering the human personality with his being, with his actual self. The disciple had clairvoyant consciousness and saw behind the personality of the teacher something like a mighty aura, which had no place in the human personality. The Bodhisattva allowed mighty images to flow into the soul of the disciple, as it were.

But not always should people unconsciously absorb this as an image, but should recognize from their own judgment what a person's goal was. What human beings had to conquer through their own efforts, namely love and compassion, was present in the human soul as forces, but was not consciously absorbed. Now the time had come for people to let love and compassion emerge from within themselves as something that arises from the human soul. In the past, these qualities were an emanation of the bodhisattva, but now they were to arise from the human soul itself.

Nowadays, there are many people who say: It is human to show love and compassion; but that was not the case before the appearance of the bodhisattva. Although love was present even then, it was more like an urge in the blood and was limited to the family and the tribe. The liberating, spiritual love, which is independent of all blood ties, was to become a reality only with Christ Jesus. In order to bring people to consciously develop love and compassion from within themselves, it had to be experienced first in a human body that love and compassion arise from the human soul. Then this can be passed on to other people. For this purpose, the Bodhisattva had to descend into the physical world, take on a physical body and, in the person of Gautama Buddha, work among people. This Gautama was not a Buddha at the time of his birth, but in the twenty-ninth year of his life he became a Buddha after leaving his royal palace and encountering grief and suffering outside the palace.

That is when love and compassion were awakened in him. It is said that a clarity arose in him and he understood that the human body could become an instrument of love and compassion. No individual had had this experience before. Through this experience, he attained a higher dignity of being, and thus the bodhisattva became a Buddha. He felt the inner impulse of compassion and love. This opened up the possibility for more and more people to experience the same thing and to feel it as their own impulse from their own soul. Everything must first be present in an outstanding personality.

When a Bodhisattva ascends to Buddha-hood, he receives a successor. Legend says: When he descended, he gave his successor the heavenly crown – 3000 years will pass before that Bodhisattva, who is such a one today, will ascend to Buddha-hood. The Eastern teaching calls the new Buddha Maitreya-Buddha. When can this happen? When a sufficiently large number of people have come to understand as their inner truth what Gautama Buddha experienced of love and compassion when he sat under the bodhi tree. Then a new mission will come to Earth through a new Buddha – the Maitreya Buddha.

This is how the wonderful Eastern legend about the mission of Gautama Buddha ends.

What became of Buddha after he left his earthly body? [Answering this question is important for Christianity.] When a Bodhisattva becomes a Buddha, he no longer needs to descend into a physical body. Legend also has it that Buddha took seven steps immediately after his birth and said that this would be his last incarnation. He can work in the etheric or life body. So he embodied himself in an etheric body. I ask my listeners to note how different such an embodiment is from the embodiment in a physical body.

To understand this, we need to take a look at the initiated person. What is initiation based on? On the fact that in ordinary human life one can make observations not only through the organs belonging to the physical body – eyes, ears, brain, heart and so on – but that one can already become independent of the physical tools in physical life. The initiate does not need his physical body to make observations in the world. He develops higher organs of perception in his etheric body when he trains himself to perceive supersensible things. While in the physical life man thinks, wills and feels, and holds these faculties together through the physical body, in the initiated man thinking, feeling and willing appear as three independent beings, and he has to do not with three powers but with three souls. When Buddha died and his physical body no longer held together the etheric body through its elasticity, it disintegrated into three independent beings and later, through their division, into four more, together seven souls, seven independently developed soul beings, over which he had to rule.

During life on earth, the physical body, through its elasticity, holds together the etheric body and with it the soul forces of the human being. After death, the ego is the only cohesive element. But if this ego is poorly developed, the person often runs a great risk of losing himself after death.

When such an individuality incarnates as a Buddha, it does not incarnate into a single spiritual being, but into a group of spiritual beings - the Nirmanakaya of the Buddha. This means that it does not incarnate into the physical world, but into a body that cannot be defined by anything in the physical world.

When there is talk of seven or twelve “disciples of Buddha,” this is often symbolic of the soul powers that emanate from Buddha's etheric body.

In this way Buddha lived when the event in Palestine occurred. That means: If a person who had become clairvoyant had been there, he would have found the Buddha leading a group of seven soul beings; but this Nirmanakaya of the Buddha, which was in Palestine at the time of Jesus and worked there was no longer the Gautama who had worked in India, but this individuality, as it had developed during the 600 years that had passed since his death, and had acquired even higher qualities. The Buddhism that we find in Christianity is also not the one preached in India 600 years before Christ Jesus, but the one that the Buddha, who had been taken to a higher level of development at the time of Jesus Christ, allowed to flow into Christianity from his etheric body. What Buddha had to give to Christianity will be described later.

[If standing still means death even for the ordinary person, then we must find even more plausible reasons why a being like the Buddha does not remain static in his development.

The second trend is Zoroastrianism.

What Zoroaster had to give at the time when Christ Jesus walked the earth was not what was imparted to the ancient Persian people under this name, not what is referred to in the history of the teachings of Zoroaster, and is not what we mean by it. Just as the name Buddha was borne by many teachers who proclaimed his teaching, so the name Zarathustra has passed over to his proclaimers. Five thousand years before Christ, he was the great teacher of the ancient Persian people. He was an outstanding personality of the highest degree, highly developed and a deeply initiated individuality. He not only had the teaching that we discussed yesterday, but also produced great disciples who could continue to plant what he had taught.

Zarathustra had two great disciples. He taught them the great secret. He taught one of them everything that can be known about that which is simultaneously spread out in space, that is, all the secrets of the cosmos as already present in space. He taught the other everything that can be known about the secrets of world evolution over the course of time. He went back to the primeval times of development and showed how the earth was formed. These two great disciples were re-embodied. The one to whom Zarathustra had taught all spiritual knowledge about space was re-embodied in that personality who had the mission to found the great Egyptian culture. He was thus reborn as the Egyptian Hermes.

A personality as lofty as that of Zarathustra acquires the ability to transfer the limbs that a human being has to others. This is symbolized in the Old Testament story of Shem. In this way, Zarathustra transferred his astral and etheric bodies, which were so highly developed, to others. These bodies were preserved in secret ways. He gave his astral body to the Egyptian Hermes, the founder of the Egyptian-Chaldean culture, so that it took on the perfect form of Zarathustra. This is how Zarathustra's first partial sacrifice occurred.

Zarathustra gave his etheric body to the disciple Moses, to whom he had revealed the successive stages of the development of the earth. How could this happen?

[The religious documents always tell in powerful images. For the spiritual researcher, these become clear when light from spiritual research falls on these images.

When a child develops, it is dull to its surroundings; only later do instincts, desires and passions emerge. The child, who was to take in Zarathustra's etheric body, therefore had to be protected from external impressions until his astral life woke up, until his life of desire woke up. Therefore, the child Moses was placed in a box and set in the water. Here everything that the etheric body of Zarathustra contained shone in him.

[Thus, through the sacrifice of his bodies, Zarathustra has helped to found Egyptian and Hebrew culture, these two significant spiritual currents.

Thus Zarathustra - the messenger of the spiritual sun-deity, of Ahura-Mazdao - worked through Hermes and Moses into Egyptian and ancient Hebrew culture.

And what has become of Zarathustra or Zoroaster's self? This self has reappeared as a human being. Through his brilliant initiation, he was able to create his new astral and etheric bodies. He was reborn several times as a leader of Persian culture and finally appeared, as Zaratas-Nazaratos, as a teacher in the ancient Chaldean secret schools. At that time he was simultaneously with Buddha and the teacher of Pythagoras; and when the Jews were led into Babylonian captivity, many of them became his disciples in Babylonia.

Thus, thanks to spiritual scientific research, we have traced the paths by which the teachings of Zarathustra - or Zoroaster - entered into Egyptian and ancient Hebrew cultures. The spiritual current emanating from him can be found in Palestine at the time of Jesus, side by side with the current emanating from Buddha.

All this had to happen for the event in Palestine. The gospels tell again what spiritual science has taught us. In Palestine, 600 years after the death of Buddha, two boys were born at the same time from different parents, both belonging to the House of David. These two children became important for the further development of humanity.

The House of David of the Hebrews had two lines: one through Solomon, the royal line; the other through Nathan, the Levitical line of the House of David. From the Solomonic line was one parental couple, and from the Nathanic line was the other parental couple. One child, the son of Joseph and Mary, was born of the Solomon line of the House of David. He was born in Bethlehem and was given the name Jesus. All three names were very common in Palestine at that time. Another child, Jesus, traces his origin to the Nathanic line of the House of David and was born in Nazareth. His parents were also named Joseph and Mary. Today we will focus primarily on the “Bethlehem Jesus”.

The individuality that was the founder of the ancient Persian culture was embodied in this boy, and which 600 years before had been the teacher of Pythagoras and many of the Jews who were taken into Babylonian captivity in the Chaldean secret schools. This I-ness appeared embodied in the boy Jesus, who had his origin in the Solomonic line of the house of David. This Jesus was thus the adolescent Zarathustra.

Alongside him, the other Jesus-child also grew. The two boys developed differently. The Solomon-Jesus developed all the qualities through which one attains clear and distinct concepts and insights into the surrounding world. How could it be otherwise? He grew to the highest abilities of human culture in a body from a royal lineage. He was a precocious child, capable of learning everything that had been accumulated over centuries and millennia.

The other boy, the Nathanian Jesus, showed very strange characteristics. He cared little about what surrounded us in the outer world. He had the highest inner development of mind and heart. Never has there been such a lovely child. His gaze went beyond this world into a completely different world, which had nothing to do with what the outer world had gone through for centuries. He was the delight of those around him.

These two children grew up side by side in the small town of Nazareth, where the parents of the Solomon Child had moved some time after the child's birth.

The two children were together until the age of twelve. To understand the nature of the Nathanian Jesus Child, we must try to understand the nature of his etheric body and, with the help of spiritual scientific research, find the hidden sources of his origin. We will come back to this tomorrow.

The spiritual-scientific movement has arisen in our time not because of the arbitrary act of this or of that individual, of this or of that society, but because it is connected with the whole evolution of humanity and, as such, it should be considered as one of the most important of cultural impulses. If we would penetrate into the mission of the spiritual-scientific movement, we must transfer ourselves into the past and future of mankind.

Just as the individual human beings have evolved, from the moment when they first descended as individual souls from the bosom of the Godhead, so mankind as a whole has also evolved. Consider the differences, the changes and the development which may be observed upon the surface of the earth in the course of thousands of years! Consider how entirely things have changed during that time! Generally speaking, this is difficult to realise and to grasp quite clearly.

We should first explain that what we are accustomed to name “mankind” is only the product of the so-called fifth root-race. This was preceded by another human race, the fourth root-race, which lived on a continent that should be thought of as lying between present-day Europe and America. This continent was Atlantis. Here our ancestors had quite a different form and an entirely different civilisation. The ancient Atlantean did not possess a developed intellect and mind, but he was equipped with fine somnambulistic-clairvoyant forces. Logical power, a combining intellect, science and art, such as they exist now, did not exist in ancient Atlantis, for man's faculties of thought and feeling were quite different. At that time, he could not have combined thoughts, nor could he have reckoned, counted, or read; as men do now; yet certain somnambulistic-clairvoyant spiritual forces lived in him. He could understand the language of Nature and could hear God speak to him in the murmuring waves; he could understand the rolling thunder, the rustling forest, the delicate aromas of the flowers; he could understand this language of Nature and was in the whole of Nature. At that time, no law or jurisprudence were needed to come to an understanding with one's neighbour; the Atlantean just went out and listened to the sounds of the trees and of the wind and these told him what he had to do.

Folk-lore, which never contains anything haphazard or thought-out, has preserved the memory of ancient Atlantis in a beautiful way, when it speaks of “Nibelheim”, for instance, in the Nibelung Poem. In a delightful way it speaks of the Rhine and all these rivers as waters which have remained behind from the mists of ancient Atlantis. And the wisdom of Atlantis is referred to in the treasure which lies buried below their waves, On this continent, which was situated between America and Europe, we must seek the seminary of the ancient adepts, Those who were suited to be the pupils of the great individualities whom we call the Masters of Wisdom and of the Harmony-Feelings, were trained in these schools.

The seminary which flourished during the fourth Atlantean sub-race, this first school of adepts, would now be in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. There, the pupils were taught in quite a different way from now. At that time, a powerful, influence could pass from man to man, through the force which still lay in the spoken word.

Simple folks of to-day still possess a fine feeling for the inner, spiritual and occult power of words. But it is impossible to compare the present power of words with that of the past. For in the past, this was something tremendous, and the word alone awakened forces in the soul of the pupil. A mantram of to-day has no longer the force of earlier times, when words were not so permeated by thoughts, as is the case to-day. The influence which went out from these words awakened the soul-forces of the pupil; one might call this a human initiation through the powerful effect of the language of Nature. ... A clear language was also spoken there by the smoke from substances such as incense, etc.

There was then a far more direct connection between the souls of teacher and pupil. The written signs in the Adept-School of ancient Atlantis were imitations of the phenomena of Nature, written by the hand in the air, these signs had their effect and also influenced the spirit of the population, arousing forces in the soul.

Thus every race has its task in the evolution of humanity. The task of our race, the fifth root-race, consists in adding Manas to the four members of the human being. That is to say, the understanding must be awakened through concepts and ideas. Every race has its own task: the Atlantean race had the task of developing the Ego. Our race, the fifth root-race, or the post-Atlantean era, must develop Manas, the Spirit-Self.

But the achievements of Atlantis did not die, when Atlantis was submerged, for the essence of everything that existed in the Atlantean School of Adepts was rescued by a small group of men. Under the guidance of the Manu, this small group journeyed into a region now known as the Desert of Gobi. And this small number of men then prepared copies of the former culture and teachings, but in a more intellectual form; the earlier spiritual forces were transformed into thoughts and signs. The various streams of culture then journeyed out from this centre like rays, or beams. First came the pre-Vedic Indian culture, which transformed for the first time the in-streaming wisdom into thoughts.

The second culture which went out from this ancient School of Adepts was the old Persian culture; the third one, the Chaldean-Babylonian culture with its wonderful star-wisdom, its lofty sacerdotal wisdom. The fourth culture to flourish was the Graeco-Latin one, with its personal colouring, and finally the fifth culture, which is our present one. The sixth and seventh lie in the future.

I have now characterised our task in the evolution of humanity: What once existed in the form of cosmic wisdom, must be transformed into thoughts and brought down to the physical plane.

When the old Atlantean listened, between the tones sounding round him, he could hear the NAME of what he recognised as divine: “TAO”, In the Egyptian Mysteries this sound was transformed into thoughts, script and signs—the Tao-sign, the Tao-books. Everything in the form of knowledge, writing and thought first came into the world during the post-Atlantean age. Before that time, nothing could have been written down, for the understanding for it would not have been there.

Now we are living in the middle of the Manas-development. It is the task of our race to develop intellectual culture, and at the same time to develop egoism in its extremest form. Though it sounds grotesque, we may say that never before was there so much intellectual power in the world, and yet so little capacity of inner vision as at the present time. Thought is at the greatest distance from the inner essence of things; it is far away from inner spiritual vision.

When the Atlantean priest wrote a sign in the air, its chief effect was on the pupil's inner soul-experience.

The personal element came more to the fore during the fourth, the Graeco-Latin epoch. In Greece, the personal element developed in art, and in Rome we find it in the structure of the government, etc. In our time, we experience egoism, the dry personal, intellectual element. But our task to-day is to grasp the occult truths in Manas, in the purest element of thought. The comprehension of the spiritual in this finest distillation of the brain is the true mission of our age. To render thought so forceful that it acquires something of an occult power is the task which has been given us. This task must be fulfilled, so that we may be able to take our place in the future.

Mighty flames of fire destroyed ancient Lemuria, and mighty floods ancient Atlantis. Our civilisation will also perish, through the war of all against all. This is what we must face. Our fifth root-race will perish, because egoism will reach its highest pitch. But at the same time, a small group of men will develop the power of Budhi, of the Life-Spirit, through the force of thought, in order to carry over Budhi into the new civilisation. Everything that is productive in the striving human being will grow stronger and stronger, until his personality reaches the summit of freedom. At present, every individual must discover in himself a kind of guiding spirit in the soul's inner depths:—This is Budhi, the power of the Life spirit. Were we to approach the future by taking up the cultural impulses as in earlier epochs, we should face the disintegration of humanity.

What do we see now at the present time?

Everyone wants to be his own master: Egoism, selfishness have been pushed to the extreme. A time will come when no other authority will be recognised except one which men recognise freely, whose power is based upon free confidence. The Mysteries which were founded upon the power of the spirit, are called the MYSTERIES OF THE SPIRIT; the Mysteries of the future, which will have trust as their foundation, are called the MYSTERIES OF THE FATHER. These will mark the end of our civilisation. The new impulse of the power of confidence must come, otherwise we approach human disintegration, a universal cult of the Ego and of egoism.

In the times of the Mysteries of the Spirit, which were founded upon the rightful power, authority and might of the Spirit, there were certain wise men who possessed wisdom, and only the soul who passed through difficult probations could be initiated by them. In future, we approach the Mysteries of the Father, and we must strive more and more that each single human being should attain wisdom.

Will this counter-act egoism and the threatening disintegration? Yes! For only when we reach the highest wisdom, in which there are no differences, no personal opinion and no personal standpoint, but ONE VIEW only, will men agree. If they were to remain as they are at present, following their different standpoints, they would become more and more disunited. The highest wisdom always produces a unanimous view among all men. Real wisdom is ONE, and it unites men again, whilst leaving them as free as possible, without any coercive authority. Just as the members of the great WHITE Brotherhood are always in harmony with one another and with humanity, so all men will one day be one, through this wisdom. Only this wisdom can establish the true idea of brotherhood. Spiritual science therefore has only one task: to bring this idea to men, by developing now the Spirit-Self and later on the Life-Spirit. The great goal of the spiritual-scientific movement is to make it possible for man to attain freedom and true wisdom; its mission is to let this truth and wisdom flow into men.

The modern movement of spiritual science began with the most elementary teachings. Many important things have been revealed in the years which have passed since the founding of this movement, and much that is even more important will be revealed. The work of the spiritual-scientific movement, is therefore to allow a gradual flowing out of wisdom of the great white brotherhood that had its origin in Atlantis. Such work has always been prepared for through long periods of time. The whole activity of the great founders of religions was a preparation for the ONE great event, for the appearance of Christ-Jesus.

Spiritual science seeks to be the testamentary executor of Christianity. And so it will be. When the Mysteries of the Father have been fulfilled, that is, when the development of Budhi is accomplished in every individual human being, then each one will discover within himself his own deepest being—ATMAN, the Spirit-Man.

The coming of Christ-Jesus was prepared for by the sequence of the founders of religions, by Zarathustra, Hermes, Moses, Orpheus, Pythagoras. All their teachings pursue the same aim: To let wisdom flow into humanity, but in every case, in the form most suited to each people respectively. The essentially new element is not found in what Christ said; the new element in the appearance and teaching of Christ-Jesus is the force that lay in Him to awaken into LIFE all that, formerly was only teaching.

Christianity has brought men the power to be united in free-willed recognition of the authority of Christ-Jesus, whilst maintaining the greatest possible individualisation, so that they are able to join together in brotherly union through faith in Him, in His manifestation and in His divinity.

Between the Mysteries of the SPIRIT and those of the FATHER, stand the MYSTERIES OF THE SON. Their seminary was the School of St. Paul, who had appointed Dionysios as its leader. This school flourished under him, for Dionysios taught these Mysteries in a very special way, whereas St. Paul propagated the teaching exoterically.

Let us now seek an explanation from another side, so as to understand the meaning of the words: The MYSTERIES OF THE FATHER will come. In the old Atlantean schools for adepts the teachers were not men, but beings higher than man, They had completed their development upon earlier planets, and these beings, who had come down to the earth from other planetary developments, instructed a group of chosen men in the MYSTERIES OF THE SPIRIT. In the MYSTERIES OF THE SON, Christ Himself appeared as a teacher in the most solemn celebrations and was therefore also a teacher who was not a man, but God. But in the MYSTERIES OF THE FATHER, those who will become teachers will be men, These men, who develop more quickly than the others, will be the true Masters of Wisdom and of Harmony; they are called “The Fathers”, in the Mysteries of the Father, the guidance of mankind passes from beings who have descended from other worlds into the hands of men themselves. This is significant.

It is the task of spiritual science to prepare men to form a centre for this end, to prepare them for a universal wisdom, for an authority built only on trust and confidence, and to develop an understanding for this, to begin with, in a small nucleus of humanity.

The development of the materialistic civilisation reached its climax in the nineteenth century, and that is why the impulse of spiritual science entered the world at that time. Through spiritual science, something was called into life—and now exists—which counter-acts materialism: It is the counter-movement in the direction of spirituality. Spiritual science is nothing new, and even the spiritual-scientific movement is not new; it is only the continuation of what has already existed.

Materialism and egoism bring disintegration to humanity, for the individual human being only regards his own interests. Wisdom must therefore reunite the human beings who have thus become separated. Wisdom brings them together in fullest freedom and exercises no coercion whatever. This is the task of the spiritual-scientific movement in our time.

We must realise that wisdom must be acquired quite concretely. We all know the example of the stove which was given the task of heating a room. If we explain this to the stove in words as moving as possible, and entreat it to warm the room, it will not obey us unless we heat it; only then will it be able to fulfil its task. Similarly, all talk of brotherhood and of brotherly love is useless; only through KNOWLEDGE we draw nigh to the goal. Individual human beings, and mankind as a whole, can only reach the path of wisdom and of brotherhood through knowledge.

We have now followed this path by considering three kinds of Mysteries. Spiritual science must be able to awaken an understanding for such things in a small nucleus of humanity, so that when the sixth race appears this understanding can be awakened in all men. This is the task which spiritual science must fulfil.

A small part of the fifth root-race will forestall the course of evolution, it will spiritualise Manas and unfold the Spirit-Self. The majority, however, will reach the summit of selfishness. Only this nucleus of humanity, that develops the Spirit-Self, will become the seed of the sixth root-race, and the most advanced of these, the Masters, as we call them, who have grown out of mankind, will then be the leaders of humanity. The movement for spiritual knowledge strives towards this goal.

Record A (with additions from Cycle 20) from the estate of Elisabeth Vreede

First degree

It has been said many times that the symbols and rituals of our temple are not created arbitrarily, but have a deep connection with cosmic constellations and correspond to laws that can only be revealed to us slowly and gradually. They are handed down from century to century from the mysteries of the most ancient times, so that they may serve as the right channels for the spiritual currents that the wise masters of the East pour over us. They cannot, therefore, possibly be explained or understood in an esoteric way.

One of the most important symbols is the three flames that stand on the altars of the East, South and West, and to which our attention should be drawn first of all. In these we should see the symbols of wisdom, beauty and strength. First, let us examine whether we can find these symbols in the human being itself.

Where, we ask, is wisdom to be found in the human form? Outwardly it is not to be found there, but hidden very deeply within the form, and in such a way that it is not adapted to this form at the present stage of development. It does not form a unified whole in it. This form was first conceived entirely spiritually, and everything that arose during the Saturn, Sun and Moon states was permeated by that perfect wisdom in which we feel the high hierarchies, the creators of our being, are at work. But we already know that during the evolution of the earth, entities penetrated our bodies and disturbed their connection, so that the various elements of our being do not fit together as they should have done according to the intention of the gods. What is meant by this disorder is brilliantly expressed in the words that Lucifer speaks to man when he wants to seduce him: “Your eyes will be opened, and you will distinguish good from evil.” The “eyes” here stand only as representatives of the sense organs in general, for it was never intended that the senses should be active as they are now. Under Lucifer's influence, the senses work differently than they would otherwise. Yes, outwardly they would not be there at all, however strange that may sound. The eye that we use today to see the external world was originally not designed to see at all. Vision and hearing were placed in man, but these powers were not meant to go out through the eye or the ear, but were to remain within. Every time they used their eyes, people would have become aware of their eyes, but would not have seen things externally. Man should become aware of the activity of seeing; he should, as it were, catch himself earlier in his seeing than only outside with the objects.

This is just one example of the disorder that has been wreaked by Lucifer in the outer form of the physical body. Not a single one of the other bodies or sheaths is properly arranged (integrated) either. The bodies have not completely penetrated each other, and as a result, each limb has a part that is, as it were, left to its own devices and that has its own inner life that is not grasped by consciousness. That part, for example, of the physical body that is not properly penetrated by the etheric body is where the sense organs are located, and that is where they have their present form. Without this part, not permeated by the etheric, the whole sensual world, which now lies spread out before us, would not exist. Man would only feel active, weaving will; he would actively experience the sensory world. The etheric body has, as it were, been pushed back from the sense organs, and thus something has entered into them that belongs only to the sensory world.

The astral body does not penetrate the etheric body in the right way either, and in our physical body, for example, this results in crying. As soon as a person cries so that this strange salty liquid comes out of his eyes, there is an predominance of the etheric body (over the astral body). The same is the case with all glandular secretions; the secretions are the expression of the preponderance, the disturbed equilibrium. Thus one experiences how powerfully the consequences of the temptations of Lucifer reveal themselves to the clairvoyant.

Only when we, as human beings, have transformed our bodies over time, through the power of our inner will, into what they were originally intended for, only then will we be imbued with the wisdom that will create us as perfect and at the same time self-confident instruments of divine deeds.

It is different with beauty, which finds its full expression in the outer human form. In the hands one finds the symbol of beauty, and indeed completely there, where they rise as outstretched hands, so that the head forms the center. If you immerse yourself in the feeling of hands reaching towards the sky and follow the line from hand to arm, you will experience beauty radiating from the hands themselves.

The purpose of the hand is to be beautiful, not to be strong. The arm may be strong and muscular, but towards the bottom it tapers into the hand, which strives for beauty. When we consider the many ways in which we can call hands “beautiful”, whether they are folded in prayer or stretched out one by one, raised up in prayer as if to the high beings above us, imploring help - we always find beauty in them, the hand as a symbol of beauty. With every hand movement, we should be aware that it should symbolize beauty, that it should never serve any other purpose than to express the inner beauty of our being.

Strength is symbolized in what is opposite of the hands, namely the feet. People may have a mental image of the foot as a “beautiful” appendage of their body. They may be proud of having small, delicate feet; the occultist will never find anything “beautiful” in the feet; for him, they are the symbol of strength. The feet must be able to carry the whole body; and if you look at them from this point of view, you will realize the strength that must rest in the foot, in this tiny, narrow part of the body, on which the whole body must find its support.

Thus we find in the human form these three important symbols, which are mentioned in occultism as “the three world mothers”, as Goethe also calls them in his “Faust”.

Note B

We see here the flames on the altars, which represent wisdom, beauty and strength. These are very deep symbols that we can also find in people.

Where can wisdom be found in the human form? It cannot be found on the outside, it is hidden within the form, and in such a way that it is not adapted to today's stage of development, so that the form does not form a cohesive whole. Wisdom can be depicted as follows:

It is different with beauty, which finds its full expression in human hands when they are raised in an outstretched position, with the head forming the center. In the hands one finds the symbol of beauty, and this is represented as follows:

The purpose of the hand is to be beautiful, not to be strong. The arm may be strong and muscular, but at the bottom it tapers into the beauty-tending form of the human hand.

Strength is found in the opposite of the hands, in the feet. No one who is an occultist will see anything beautiful in the feet, and anyone who wants to see something beautiful in them in their ordinary lives will see nothing but a caricature of beauty. The feet represent power or strength, and they must be able to carry the whole body. This is represented as follows:

Thus we find in the human form these three important symbols, which are mentioned in occultism, the “three world mothers,” which Goethe also mentions in his “Faust.”

In earlier meetings, we emphasized the greater importance of spiritual activity compared to acting in the world. It is of importance for the whole world when a person processes a lot spiritually, because this shows after death. We can go further in this and ask ourselves how we relate to the hierarchies in the future, especially in relation to our relationship with them after death. When we pass through the gate of death after our physical life, after we have worked on our progress here on earth and on the transformation of our bodies, we give the part of our etheric body that we have transformed to an angelic being as his tribute, which he waits for and to which he is entitled. This tribute, this part, is radiated by the angel and made subservient to the succeeding generations of men, whereby the thoughts of inventions and progress in general are propagated and can come to light. If this did not happen, if people did not work on the transformation of their etheric bodies, but instead occupied themselves exclusively with the vanities of the physical plane, then the world would become very lonely and ultimately perish.

The results achieved in the transformation of the astral body are handed over to an archangel after death, who in turn radiates them to other people. These transferred powers of our astral bodies are so delicate and hidden that only from the occult can one point out how this happens. For example, Paracelsus lived from 1493 to 1541 and died, after having worked tremendously hard on his astral body through the many experiences he had undergone, in the prime of life in his forty-eighth year. The processed power of his astral body was transferred to Goethe by the archangels in what was for him such a significant forty-eighth year of life, when a whole new period of life began for him, when, for example, he reworked Faust and fathomed many secrets.

He added “Prologue to Heaven” to his “Faust”, whereby “Faust”, instead of being just the story of an individual, is linked to the whole of human development.

Now only the ego remains to be considered. Its inherent power, especially in very strong individualities, is also transferred to one of the archai, who uses it after long periods of time to allow new powers to descend into humanity. This is what happens in the spiritual realm after death.

But in the line of inheritance that passes through the generations from father to son, grandson and so on, the hierarchies also work, and it is the spirits of form that form the physical body, the spirits of movement that bring about the etheric body, and the spirits of wisdom that give shape to the astral body. But through these effects alone, no bodies would be possible, only the possibilities for the formation of the bodies. To shape these, there must be a collaboration between the thrones and the spirits of form, whereby the nascent body is given strength. Likewise, the cherubim must work together with the spirits of movement and the seraphim with the spirits of wisdom for the realization of the etheric and astral bodies: form and power must work together. Now only the I remains; this descends from the spiritual world when its bodies or sheaths have been prepared by the higher hierarchies, which have to work with the lower matter so that it serves the I as a temple.

The three flames of the candles are expressed in the following symbolic signs (these are also incorporated into the human body):

(The flame of the East represents wisdom.) The human body looks like this because it is not yet fully formed.

Beauty

Man has beauty expressed in hands raised up, head centered, this symbol.

Strength human feet

Jachin: He strengthens me.
Boaz: In him is my strength.

1. This figure is a meditation aid.

2. The three?

3. The sign for the three mothers

The three worlds in the microcosm are represented by the three signs.

1. The symbol of wisdom is invisibly present in every human being.

2. Hands, the head in the middle – beauty.

3. Feet – strength

Record E by Alice Kinkel

The most important thing for a person is to work on themselves so that they can then give what they have acquired to the beings of the hierarchies, who enable their development through sacrifice. The hierarchy of angels, archangels, and archai comes first in this regard, the hierarchy that gives to us continually.

Everything that a person has worked into his etheric body, he can give to the angel. The gift of angels is given so that inventions, spiritual things, and so on, can occur to people for posterity.

To the archangels, the human being hands over everything that he has worked into his astral body. This then works for an entire nation.

What he has worked out in his ego, he hands over to the Zeitgeist or to the archai.

The physical form of the human being, he hands it over to the spirits of form.

The form of the etheric body goes to the spirits of movement.

The form of the astral body goes to the spirits of wisdom.

The I itself, soon after it has given up its part to the spirit of time, unites with the spirits of will, so that it could integrate itself into everything.

The etheric body belongs to the cherubim, the astral body to the seraphim, and the I descends itself as J.CH., as Jesus Christ!

Paracelsus was an individuality who could give in this way. Everything he had worked into his astral body up to the age of forty-eight, up to his death, he gave to the archangel, and then he (through the archangel) had an effect on Goethe. He has so tremendously changed and advanced Goethe from the age of forty-eight. (Much more was said about Paracelsus and his life on earth.)

What was given here in Berlin in December 1911 was given in Munich in 1911.

This last drawing was given in Munich like this:

After the I has surrendered its acquisitions to the Zeitgeist, the I has fulfilled its mission, done its duty.

Record F

Three flames on our three altars: that on the altar of the East signifies wisdom, that on the altar of the South, beauty, and that on the altar of the West, strength.

All progress is based on the three principles. Where do we find them in the microcosm? There is little of wisdom in man - there is no limb that man has not corrupted - but it is invisibly present. Where is the symbol of beauty? The hand, and the symbol of occultism has always been the raised hands, with the head in between.

The foot cannot be the symbol of beauty. If someone wanted to elevate the foot to something beautiful, it would be comical in the context of occultism. The foot is the symbol of strength. A weakly formed foot arouses pity.

There are, so to speak, two lines that determine the human being: a material line, which is the line of inheritance, and a spiritual line. Through the material line the form is imparted, the spirits of form work on it. So that this form does not become rigid, the spirits of movement are needed; so that the limbs have the right measure and relationship to one another: the spirits of wisdom.

Only that has value that one has acquired for oneself. After death, angels take that which the etheric body has acquired and distribute the spirit-matter contained therein to others in need. The archangels take possession of the work of the astral body, the archai of the work of the I. It is the task of the thrones, cherubim, and seraphim to shape the substance in the right way. – What Paracelsus had acquired in his astral body when he died at the age of forty-eight was handed over to Goethe by an archangel. This is why we find in the latter, at this age, the desire to present “Faust” to the world.