The Rudolf Steiner Archive

My dear friends! We have been studying the position of the human being in relation to the Guardian of the Threshold, and have led the soul in progressive steps into an understanding of the relationship a person has with the Guardian of the Threshold along the path of knowledge. Today we will initially focus our attention on the situation before Guardian of the Threshold, bringing it once again fully alive before our souls, in order to progress a bit forward by means of this esoteric consideration.

A person must forsake, and here I repeat what is appropriate for today and has been covered in prior lessons, a person must forsake the physical world, in which his customary awareness is in force. He comes to know that the sensory-physical world can be grand and joyful, but also full of sorrow and pain, that it can in fact be majestic, and that he has every reason in the world to remain within it, in his awareness. But he also comes to know that he cannot ever get to know himself if he only directs his contemplative eye and sensitive soul out upon this physical world. And he must say to himself, that it is quite grand, arrayed color upon color and arranged form on form, but that just what he himself springs from and is patterned after cannot be found in the encircling wide reaches around.

Yet even at this moment there rings forth from all sides unto a person, as the most noteworthy challenge in one’s life, the word of self-awareness: O man, know yourself!

And in this way, a person will become clearly aware that in customary life he is certainly safeguarded from entering unprepared into what in certainty is the world of his own essential being. Moreover, the Guardian of the Threshold is the same high being who shelters a person as he enters the spiritual world every night in sleep, who shelters the person from consciously experiencing what in sleep is all around him, for otherwise he would be terribly upset in experiencing all this in sleep, if he experienced it unprepared, so much so that he would not be able to continue on in waking life as a human being with strength intact. But at the same time, the Guardian of the Threshold makes it clear to a person that he, the Guardian himself, is the only portal to true, to authentic knowledge.

At this point, a person notices that he comes to an abyss, before entering the realm of knowledge, an abyss displayed as a bottomless chasm. The supporting pillars, that one stands on in the physical world, are gone. One cannot simply march over it. One can only carry himself across when freed of the physical, expressed symbolically, when one “grows wings”, so that one journeys over the abyss as a being of spirit and soul.

But first the Guardian of the Threshold calls out for you to be mindful in regard to the abyss, particularly in regard to the beasts that emerge as spirit-formations from the abyss, for these beasts are the external reflections of impure willing, feeling, and thinking, and these beasts must first be overcome. And in vivid pictures displayed before one’s eyes, willing, feeling, and thinking are revealed in the three beasts, one shown as spectral, one ghoulish, and so forth.

Then the Guardian of the Threshold shows us in greater depth how, in and of themselves, thinking, feeling, and willing can be strengthened, according to whether one has resolved in full awareness to overcome the beasts. And then, before someone actually enters the spiritual world, it is necessary to engage in situational meditations in perceiving the spiritual world, within which to discover how the cosmos speaks to a person, how the hierarchies speak to him, how at first all the things are proclaimed that await him there in the spiritual world.

And we will become progressively more aware, through what is played out before our souls in the mantras, that a person must become something else, if he would stride over the abyss, if he would live within what is on the other side of the abyss. Ever more and more, we will become aware that here on the earth, we are in the company of the beings of the three realms of nature and in the company of people, but over there we are in the company of disembodied souls and in the company of the spirits of the higher hierarchies. A different sort of acquaintanceship is present there. Quite a different constitution of soul is required there for this quite different acquaintanceship.

Once again, it is the business of the Guardian of the Threshold there to forcefully advise a person about how to comport himself, specifically about how to comport himself when striding across the Threshold and actually confronting the things of the spiritual world in their reality, about how in arriving there he must come to possess a wholly different soul-constitution.

There, a person will be aware that within himself two conditions of soul can become a reality, the soul-condition of customary awareness on this side of the abyss, and the soul-condition outside of the physical and etheric bodies on the other side of the abyss, which is the soul-condition of the purely spiritual world.

There, where the difference in these soul-conditions appear, great dangers await a person, dangers however, that initially present themselves in such a way that we have to characterize them as minor departures from normal conditions of soul, but that remain always within the soul when we characterize them properly, for they involve an extreme sickly soul-deformation. It must of course always be said, that when one’s path in the higher worlds is undertaken in the way so painstakingly delineated in the book How to Know Higher Worlds, in many smaller published anthroposophical works, and in the second part of my Outline of Occult Science, then straying from a normal soul-constitution should not happen, at least not easily. A person passing over into the spiritual world through healthy human understanding should be as fully aware of knowledge, initially, as one is through initiation. But a person must know that he may emerge in two different ways from the daily condition of soul-life that he is immersed in, if he does not pay attention to the proper sign-posts along the spiritual world’s pathway.

Here on this side of the Threshold we stand upon the earth, upon the fixed elements of earth. The ground is under our feet. The ground supports us. The watery element is around us, that also takes part in the formation of our own body. This watery element cannot support us in normal life, but infuses throughout us, attaching itself to our blood. It is contained within our forces of growth, within our forces of nourishment. The air is what we breathe. The aeriform, the gaseous element is all around us. Warmth is also all around us, the warmth-ether, the fourth element.

They are disconnected from one another in normal life. Where there is solid earth, there is no water. Where there is water, there is no air. Where there is air, there is no water. Only the fiery warmth presses into and throughout it all, for it is the only one that begins to press itself into everything.

But the moment we take leave, even the first time, my dear friends, the moment we take leave of our physical body, these differentiations cease. The different elements cease to have individual borders. We ourselves enlarge, we extend ourselves out, and we are simultaneously in earth, water, fire, and air. We can no longer differentiate one from another. The attributes held individually by the four elements cease. The earth no longer supports us, for its fixed solidity ceases. Water no longer forms us, for its formative forces cease. In other words, when we plunge into water, it is not as in swimming, where we are separated from the water, but rather it is as if we dissolve into it, as ice dissolves into warm water, as if in becoming one with the water, then we no longer carry, when we pass over into the spiritual world, we no longer carry our blood as a separate element in our vascular circulation, but rather our blood becomes one with the ever-moving watery element of the universe. And just so, air ceases to be a formative breathing-force in us. And warmth ceases to engender our ego-force, ceases to inflame us in warmth to the feeling of individuality. It all ceases. This must be confronted, it must be confronted in the proper manner, this cessation of the differentiation of earth, water, air, and fire.

To do this we may engage, in thought, in having already flown over the abyss. We have arrived on the other side, my dear brothers and sisters. There the Guardian of the Threshold calls out to us, that we should turn, lift our gaze, and face him.

Now think, my dear brothers and sisters, have a lively imagination, imagine a person’s arrival there on the other side, where in certainty the knowledge of the spiritual world is revealed to him. He is there. The Guardian of the Threshold prompts him to look about, to take up the admonitions that he now needs, that in a certain fashion he has now become accustomed to, in the soul-condition that is present there, on the other side of the Threshold, within the spiritual world, there where he lives pressed into the four elements themselves, into earth, water, air, and fire.

Just there a great danger appears, and please forgive the seeming triviality of the expression, my dear brothers and sisters, but if the person has possibly fallen in love with the illusion of disconnectedness of the solid earth, from the formative forces of water, from the creative forces of air, from the ego-awakening forces of warmth, then he may feel delighted merely in spiritual bliss, in giving himself over to the wonder of the spirit, and so he might remain within this spirit-bliss.

A person may be overwhelmed, as the alluring power of Lucifer musters up against him. It depends on his karma, whether a person is more or less susceptible to the alluring power of Lucifer. If he is susceptible, so that he simply totally and completely falls in love with dissolving into earth, water, air, and fire, then the Luciferic attaches itself to him, and he will no longer be able to emerge from this demeanor of soul. He runs the risk, when he once again returns to daily life, of remaining within this soul-demeanor. And so the Guardian of the Threshold must and does call out to him, “You may not do it. You may not fall under the sway of Lucifer. In the dissolution in earth, water, fire, and air you may not simply feel the solitary wonder of bliss. You must take yourself firmly in hand, or else, when you again return to the physical world, as a person in the physical world, when you take up the soul-condition of customary awareness of the physical world, then from then on you will be a person quite confused.”

That is the Luciferic danger, that on the return from the spiritual world, from the other side of the Threshold, a person may be bewildered and no longer have his senses about him, but would be an enthusiastic dreamer, an enthusiastic adherent of idealism, disdainful of customary awareness. That one may not do. And the Guardian of the Threshold admonishes, insistently, that one should be resolutely determined to live in the way corresponding to whatever world one is in, be it earthly or transcendental.

But the Guardian of the Threshold sets down a second admonition. The second admonition is this, that one should take care, when one has arrived on the other side with his thinking, feeling, and willing split apart, one should take care of how much of his thinking, feeling, and willing at hand is still connected to the earthly, is still inclined to the earthly.

There a person can once again be predisposed to remain in what has given him the experiences on this side in the fixed support of earth, to hold on tightly and cross over to the other side of the Threshold with a materialistic soul-constitution, to cross over with the formative forces of water frozen, solidified. Then he can become afflicted with an overweening earthly pride, and can say to himself, “In life on earth I have breathed in, have drawn into myself the very breath, out of which in times past the Father-God has formed human souls, human lives, which I can do also, when freed from earthly life’s confines.”

But if a person carries over into the spiritual world what he perceives in his breath as the creative force of God, then he falls under the sway of the Ahrimanic alluring power. In this condition he cannot return, because before he would return, there in the spiritual world he is enfolded in powerlessness. He would be non-sentient, more or less. His awareness would be disabled, crippled. In this manner, his awareness having been stunted, he would more or less be a sort of tool or implement of the Ahrimanic powers there in the spiritual world.

It is certainly so today since the beginning of the age of Michael, that the spiritual life of human beings, which today is crass and crude, frozen in materialism, is for the most part carried over as such into the spiritual world. And what this means, what it entails, is that the Ahrimanic powers enfold the human being in their grasp whenever his awareness has been stunted into something other than the condition of full wakefulness, and yes, my friends, this has been in evidence everywhere energetically ever since the outbreak of the great World War.

As I have most certainly said many times since the outbreak of the World War, the history of this war cannot be written about from the physical plane’s standpoint alone. Documents by themselves do not reveal the truth, that of the thirty or forty people who were most certainly engaged in the production of the war, a great number at various times were in a state of clouded awareness, and were therefore implements of the Ahrimanic powers. In this way much of what transpired in the World War was a legacy of Ahrimanic powers. This World War can only be written about in an occult manner. Whatever one has seen after a fashion, in his wanderings on this side of the Threshold, of various leading personalities immediately before the outbreak of the World War, all that can be taken truly to be indicative of the habits of soul that are carried over to the other side of the Threshold, and over there then become stunted, become stunted in awareness, and become, therefore, a working force of the Ahrimanic powers.

A person must be clear and fully self-possessed about this, that he may not carry back to this side, the soul-constitution of the other side of the Threshold. He may not carry the soul-constitution of this side of the Threshold to the other side, but rather, for every domain, this side and the other side of the abyss, a strongly stark human inner awareness must be developed.

It arises in this manner for all four elements in the admonition of the Guardian of the Threshold. And again, we should delve into this admonition meditatively.

Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, imagine that you are standing there on the other side of the Threshold. The Guardian has beckoned. You look straight at him. First, he calls out to you, admonishing.

Where is earth’s firmness, that supported you?

One no longer has it. But your heart moves, deep within, and would give an answer. But the heart can be moved inwardly in a three-fold manner, an answer emerging by means of and from the cosmos. It can be moved, this heart, by Christ and his force. Then it answers:

I leave its solid ground,

meaning, the earth’s firmness,

as long¹ as the spirit carries me.

That is the right demeanor of soul. I relinquish the pillars of earth, as long as the spirit carries me within the spirit-domain, as long as I am outside of the body. But the heart can also be moved by Lucifer. Then it answers:

I feel delight, that I no longer need the support.

So speaks the person in his lofty pride, in his self-satisfaction, as if he also would not need the support, when he traverses back into the physical world. Or the heart can be moved by Ahriman. Then it answers:

I will hammer it still harder by the spirit’s might.

The support is referred to here, and carrying the hammered support out and over.

No one should shrink back in fear from meditative soul-consideration of all three answers again and again, in order in this way to be able to choose and align with the first answer in freedom. For one must feel the inherent inward vacillation, the alignment with Lucifer, then with Ahriman. One must place this in meditation firmly within one’s vision. The meditation in this manner must embody the earthen element. [The first part of the mantra was now written on the board.] First the Guardian speaks:

I) Guardian: Where is earth’s firmness, that supported you?

The human heart must give answer. When moved by Christ, it answers:

Christ: I leave its solid ground, as long as the spirit carries me.

If the soul has been moved by Lucifer, it answers in this way:

Lucifer: I feel delight, that I no longer need the support.

The phrase “as long as” [The words “as long as” were underlined.] emerges from the heart, draws the eternal into temporality, and so transforms the sentence. If the heart has been moved by Ahriman, it answers in this way:

Ahriman: I will hammer it still harder by the spirit’s might.

And then, progressing further, so that the soul can fully devote itself to what stands there before it, the second admonition of the Guardian of the Threshold appears, pointing to the formative force of water. This formative force of water is what builds the fixed organs in us, drawing them out of the fluid elements. All that we take in as nourishment must first become fluid, and then the organs are formed out of it. All of a person’s sharply contoured organs have been cast out of fluid elements. This formative force ceases as soon as a person enters the domain on the other side of the Threshold. The Guardian warns, that this is the case. He calls out to us, when we stand there on the other side of the Threshold, our gaze directed onto his stern face. [The second part of the mantra was now written on the board.]

II) Guardian: Where is water’s forming force, that permeated you?

The person answers, if he has been moved in his heart by Christ, “My life extinguishes it, quenches it, as long as the spirit forms me.” The spirit begins to work on you over there, half out of your body.

Christ: My life extinguishes it,

in the sense of quenching it, putting it out, and by “it” is meant the forming force,

as long as the spirit forms me.

Again appears “as long as”, again unobtrusively. [The words “as long as” were underlined.] If the soul has been moved by Lucifer, however, then the phrase “as long as” is left out, and the sentence emerges with haughty arrogance:

Lucifer: My life expunges it, in the sense of melting it away,

Well, what has been extinguished can be rekindled, but what has been melted away, expunged, remains expunged. “My life expunges it”

that I may be released from it.

If the soul has been moved by Ahriman, then it answers:

Ahriman: My life affixes it, in the sense of holding it fast, that I may carry it to spirit realms.

Please take note, my dear brothers and sisters, how everything in mantric verse is fashioned inwardly, meaningfully, and with confident certainty. Here [The first verse was indicated.] we see, “I leave”, “I feel”, “I will.” The ego speaks in the answer. In the second verse the ego speaks, but not so egocentrically, but rather says, “My life”, as in “My life extinguishes it”, “My life expunges it”, “My life affixes it.” Any entry into all reality is only spoken about properly, if it is spoken about accurately in every aspect. Lassitude in the formation of sentences, which is appropriate for people in the physical domain, may not be carried forward into the spirit-domain. In the spirit-domain speaking must be exact and accurate.

You should also most certainly keep in mind, my dear friends, that it all corresponds to a reality, that this esoteric school has not been constituted out of human intentions, but rather out of those of the spiritual world, as was said at the outset, that all that comes to the fore here in the esoteric school of the Goetheanum, even though it is said through my mouth, is nevertheless a dictum of the spiritual world. This must be so in every rightfully constituted esoteric school, certainly in the present and in times to come, just as it was in the ancient holy mysteries. And this esoteric school is the true Michael School, the institution of those high spiritual beings partaking immediately of the inspiration of the cosmic will of Michael.

Concerning the domain of air, the Guardian of the Threshold once again speaks in admonition,

Where is air’s stimulation,² that waked³ you?

waking you into existence. As Jehovah, by means of his infusion of the breath of life into humans, transformed simple living beings, by means of the stimulus inherent in his breath, into beings that can perceive, so a person, through sensing, through the stimulus that the external world brings to bear on the senses, becomes a being who perceives. But what exactly are the senses?

My dear brothers and sisters, the senses are most certainly just refined organs of breathing. The breath broadens itself out into all the senses. As it lives in the lungs, so it lives in the eyes. Only that in the lungs it is bound up with carbon, but in the eyes with the more refined silica. In one’s organism carbonic acid is produced. [It was drawn in red and the word carbonic acid⁴ was written down.] In the senses silicic acid is produced in a much more refined state. [Drawn in yellow, silicic acid⁵ was written down.] A person lives in his lower pole where oxygen combines with carbonic acid, and in his upper pole, in the domain of his nerve-sense system, where oxygen combines with silicon, with silica, and forms refined silicic acid [green]. A human being lives in such a way, that when the breath forms up in the blood, he produces carbonic acid, and when the breath forms up in the senses, he produces silicic acid [yellow arrows], below and outwardly through the breath carbonic acid, in the senses and returning from the senses within the breathing-process silicic acid in a totally more refined dose.

The Guardian of the Threshold calls out to us concerning what is in the air:

Where is air’s stimulation, that waked you?

He who is moved by Christ in his heart answers:

My soul breathes heaven’s air,

no longer earth’s air, but heaven’s air,

as long as the spirit is about me.

The heart moved by Lucifer answers:

My soul cares not for it in spirit blissfulness.

The heart moved by Ahriman answers:

My soul absorbs it, that I may learn godlike to create.

As Jehovah once created with his breath, so those swayed by Ahriman absorb the air, in order to carry it along while crossing over into the spiritual world.

III) Guardian: Where is air’s stimulation, that waked you?

The heart moved by Christ speaks:

Christ: My soul breathes heaven’s air, as long as the spirit is about me

The heart moved by Lucifer speaks:

Lucifer: My soul cares not for it in spirit blissfulness.

The air’s power to stimulate is not noticed at all.

The heart moved by Ahriman speaks:

Ahriman: My soul absorbs it, that I may learn godlike to create.

Concerning the fiery or warmth elements, the Guardian now speaks his last elementary word, admonishing that a person should not lose himself in the element of warmth, but also not carry over into the spiritual world the warmth-element as it is in physical existence, as displayed on earth.

Just before I do this, however, my dear brothers and sisters, I would like to call your attention to this progression along the ascent:

“I” is spoken by the person first.
“My life” is spoken next by the person.
“My soul” is then spoken by the person.

Now the Guardian speaks in warning concerning the fiery elements: [The fourth part of the mantra was written on the board, and at the same time in the Christ-line “as long as” was underlined.]

IV) Guardian: Where is fire’s cleansing,

or cleansing catharsis

that inflamed in you the I?

Our ego lives in warmth, in what presses into and throughout us as warmth. I have often, my dear brothers and sisters, remarked on this in the esoteric school, that the fixed elements remain unconscious within, and also the fluid elements, even though in one’s feeling of satisfaction, one already feels the perfusion of the fluid elements. In satiety or in hunger one experiences the essential nature of the fluid element. The aeriform element is experienced soulfully. A person becomes breathless when not connecting properly with air, and fear comes with breathlessness. This already enters the realm of soul. Warmth is something in which one feels wholly at home. He participates in his condition of warmth or of cold with the whole of his ego. Fire inflames his ego.

The heart moved by Christ answers:

Christ: My “I” blazes in God-Fire, as long as the spirit kindles me.

A person does not need the material warmth of earth when the spirit supplies the spark and ignites his ego. For the ego blazes there not in earthly warmth, not in earthly fire, but within the fire of God.

But the heart moved by Lucifer answers:

Lucifer: My “I” has flaming power through spirit sun-craft.

The heart moved by Ahriman answers, as if the fire begun upon the earth is taken as his own and carried over into the spiritual world, to master the spiritual world with the ego-fire of the physical world.

Ahriman: My “I” has its own fire, that flames purely through self-unfolding.

The ego will not blaze up except by deploying its own fire.

Once again, the progression arising in the formulation first appears in the person speaking “I”.

I leave
I feel
I will

It then becomes more objective, in that the person addresses the things pertaining to himself as “Mine”.

My life extinguishes it
My life expunges it
My life affixes it

It then goes more inwardly, so inner nature becomes objective.

My soul breathes
My soul cares not
My soul absorbs

Now he climbs somewhat further into himself. And take note of the difference, my dear brothers and sisters. Early on is said merely “I”. Then “I” becomes objective, “my I”, as if it were another’s, as one would speak of another’s property. One is externalized even more, one is externalized out of the physical body, even to the extent initially of allowing one to speak fully egoistically of the ego, and one says:

My “I”

as if it were an object. That is the proper way to render it here.

One becomes acquainted with this rendering, my dear brothers and sisters, in all its depth and intensity, when one speaks with souls who have gone through the portal of death and have been in the spiritual world awhile. They do not say “I”, but rather they always say “my I”. I have not yet heard of one departed after death who has said “I”, except at most for a very brief time after death. So some time after death, the dead one says “my I”, because he gazes upon the ego with the eyes of the gods. It becomes objective for him, characteristically objective. Therefore, an account, from someone who has been dead for a somewhat longer time, cannot be accurate if the departed says “I”, if he does not say “my I”. So here in the fourth progressive section, before the Guardian of the Threshold, the soul says “my I”.

And that, my dear friends, is the wonderful spoken exchange at the Threshold, between the Guardian of the Threshold and the human personality, that actually takes place when one stands there before the Guardian of the Threshold, as illustrated here, which must be attended to, in order to catch the feeling in its essential actuality when deploying and immersing oneself in this dialogue properly in meditation. So you form the words up in meditation properly, my dear brothers and sisters, the mantric words coming to you here today, when in a certain sense you hear the words that you yourself are speaking, but only in the course of the Guardian having been heard to be speaking before us first in a manner of soul. Therefore this is how one meditates, as if hearing four times over the Guardian of the Threshold at the start of each section, concerning earth, water, air, and fire, and then allowing one’s own true soul to answer, but in such a manner that one immediately hears the first answer as if inwardly ensouled by Christ, the second answer in the voice of the tempter, and the third answer in the voice of the pompous materialistic Ahriman-Spirit, who approaches a person with the desire to carry over into the spirit the manner of being of the mineralized human.

Now, in closing today’s esoteric lesson, we will allow the characteristic way this is to be meditated to sound forth with firm effect.

Where is earth’s firmness, that supported you?
I leave its solid ground, as long as the spirit carries me.
I feel delight, that I no longer need the support.
I will hammer it still harder by the spirit’s might.

Where is water’s forming force, that permeated you?
My life extinguishes it, as long as the spirit forms me.
My life expunges it, that I may be released from it.
My life affixes it, that I may carry it to spirit realms.

Where is air’s stimulation, that waked you?
My soul breathes heaven’s air, as long as the spirit is about me.
My soul cares not for it in spirit blissfulness.
My soul absorbs it, that I may learn godlike to create.

Where is fire’s cleansing, that inflamed in you the I?
My “I” blazes in God-Fire, as long as the spirit kindles me.
My “I” has flaming power through spirit sun-craft.
My “I” has its own fire, that flames purely through self-unfolding.

• 1. so lang: Translating so lang as "so long as" carries a hint of inevitability that this condition is bound to end sooner or later, whereas translating it more correctly as "as long as" still has the same sense of contingency, but additionally carries the sense that in choosing this condition it can carry on forever.
• 2. Reizgewalt means alluring, stimulating power
• 3. erwechte: The verb in this line is not erwachte, which translates as the intransitive awakened, but rather the transitive erweckte, which translates as waked (inspired, excited, aroused).
• 4. Kohlensäure
• 5. Kieselsäure

Today I want to speak about the workings of the law of karma through individual human lives. Any such explanation is bound to be incomplete, for I shall not be putting before you any speculations or theories. I shall limit myself, as occultism always should, to facts and experiences. I shall therefore tell you of a karmic influence of one kind or another only when I have observed a person in that particular situation. In speaking of karmic relationships I shall draw only on real experiences.

We touched yesterday on the fact that for most people the really burning question is: How does our destiny come about and why are we born with talents and circumstances that vary so widely? In order to understand these karmic relationships, we shall have to look back again at what has been said about man's four bodies—the physical, the etheric, the astral, and within them the Ego-body, in which the higher part of the human being is enclosed. In considering karmic relationships we shall be concerned chiefly with how causes and effects are connected with these different bodies.

Let us consider first the physical body, in so far as it bears on the law of karma. All our actions take place in the physical world; if we are to cause anyone pleasure or pain we have to be—of course not literally—in the same place as he is. What we do results from the movements of our physical body and on everything connected with it. Our external destiny in a later life depends upon what we do in this physical life. This external destiny is, as it were, the environment into which we are born. Anyone who has done bad deeds prepares for himself a bad environment, and vice versa. That is the first important karmic law: what we did in a former life determines our external destiny.

There is a second fundamental law. If we look at the way a man develops, we see that in the course of his life he learns an extraordinary amount. He absorbs concepts, ideas, experiences, feelings, and all this produces great changes in him. Think of yourselves as you were a few years ago before you knew anything about Theosophy; think of the new ideas you have acquired and how they have changed your life. All this has produced a corresponding change in the astral body, for it is the most subtle and delicate and responds most quickly to change.

Temperament, character and inclinations change much more slowly. A passionate child, for example, changes very slowly. Temperament, character and inclinations often persist all through life. Ideas and experiences change quickly; it is just the opposite with temperament, character and inclinations. These attributes are very tenacious; they do change, but slowly. Their relation to quickly changing ideas is somewhat like the relation of the hour-hand of a clock to the quick-moving minute-hand. This is because they depend on the etheric body, which consists of substance much less open to change than is the substance of the astral body. Slowest of all to change is the physical body. It is laid down once for all, so to speak, and retains more or less the same character throughout life. We shall see later how the Initiate can work upon his etheric body and can change even his physical body. For the moment we must consider how all this extends beyond a single life.

The ideas, feelings and so on which transform the astral body during a long life will produce a marked change in the etheric body only in the next life. Thus if someone wants to be born. in his next life with good habits and inclinations, he must try-to prepare these as much as possible in his astral body. If he makes the effort to do good, he will be born in his next life with the tendency to do good and that will be a characteristic of his etheric body. If he wants to be born with a good memory, he must exercise his memory as much as he can; he must practise looking back over the separate years of his life and over his life as a whole. In this way he will engender in his astral body something which will become a characteristic of his etheric body in his next life—the foundation for a good memory. A man who simply hurries through the world will find in his next life that he cannot stick at anything. But if anyone lives in intimate sympathy with a particular environment, he will be born with a special predilection for everything that reminds him of it.

We can trace the various temperaments, also, back to a previous life, for they are qualities of the etheric body.

The choleric man has a strong will, is bold, courageous, with an urge to action. Alexander the Great, Hannibal, Caesar, Napoleon, for example, were cholerics. This type of character shows itself even in childhood, and a child with this temperament will take the lead in childhood games.

The melancholic man is very much occupied with himself and hence is apt to keep himself to himself. He does a lot of thinking, particularly about the way in which his environment affects him. He withdraws into himself, tends to be suspicious. This temperament, too, is apparent in childhood: a child of this type does not like to display his toys; he is afraid something will be taken away from him and would like to keep everything under lock and key.

The phlegmatic man has no real interest in anything; he is dreamy, inactive, lazy, and seeks sensuous enjoyment.

The sanguine man, on the other hand, gets easily interested in anything but he does not stick to it; his interest quickly fades; he is continually changing his hobbies.

These are the four basic types. Generally a man is a mixture of all four, but we can usually discover the fundamental one. These four temperaments express themselves in the etheric body, and so there are four main types of etheric body. They have differing currents and movements, and these impart a particular basic colour to the astral body. This does not depend on the astral body; it only reveals itself there.

The melancholic temperament is karmically determined if a man in his previous life was compelled to lead a narrow, restricted existence and to be much alone; if he was always preoccupied only with himself and unable to Make much interest in anything else. If, however, a man has learnt a great deal from experience but has also had something of a hard struggle, if he has encountered many things and has not merely looked on at them, he will become a choleric. If, again, he has had a pleasant life without much struggle or toil, or if he saw and passed by many things, but only as an onlooker, all this will work karmically into the etheric body of his next life: he will become a phlegmatic or a sanguine type.

From this we can see how we can work for our next life: and in occult schools this is done with conscious intention. In former times it was done more often than it is today because of the changes in human evolution. Five thousand years ago the occult teacher had a quite different task. He had to concern himself with people in groups; human beings had not reached the stage where each man has to take responsibility for himself. The deliberate purpose was to enable whole classes and groups of people to work together harmoniously in their next lives. But human beings are becoming more and more individual and independent; the occult teacher can no longer use anyone as a means to an end but has to treat everyone as an end in himself, and to help him to develop as far as is possible for him. In the oldest civilisations, in India for example, the entire population was divided into four castes, and the training given was intended to fit everyone for a particular caste in the next life. The development of human beings, together with the picture of the world they were to have, was deliberately planned for thousands of years ahead, and it was this that gave occult leaders their great power.

How, then, should we try to influence our etheric body for the next life? Everything done to develop the etheric body produces a result, however slowly, and education can take pains to instil quite specific habits. Whatever the etheric body acquires during one life comes to expression in the physical body in the next life. All the habits and inclinations of the present etheric body will create a predisposition to good or bad health. Good habits will produce good health; bad ones will create a tendency to some specific illness in the next life. A strong determination to rid oneself of a bad habit will work down into the physical body and produce a tendency to good health. How a disposition to infectious diseases arises in the physical body has been particularly well observed. Whether we actually get a disease will depend on what we do; but whether we are specially liable to contract it is the result of the inclinations we had in a previous life. Infectious diseases, strangely enough, can be traced back to a highly developed selfish acquisitiveness in a previous life.

If we want really to understand health and illness, we must bear in mind how complicated the circumstances are. Illness need not be a matter of individual karma only; the karma of a whole people has to be taken into account.

An interesting example of how things in the spiritual life are inter-related can be seen in the migration of the Huns and Mongols who poured from Asia into the West. The Mongols were stragglers of the Atlanteans. While the Indians, the German and other peoples were progressing, the Mongols had remained behind. Just as the animaLs have separated off from the evolutionary path of mankind, so have certain lower peoples and races fallen behind. The Mongols were Atlanteans whose physical development had taken a downward course. In the astral bodies of such decadent people an abundance of decaying astral substance can be seen. When the Mongols fell upon the Germans and other Central European peoples, they created a wave of fear and panic. These emotions belong to the astral body, and under such conditions decaying astral substances will flourish. Thus the astral bodies of Europeans became infected and in later generations the infection came out in the physical body, affecting not merely individuals but whole groups of peoples. It emerged as leprosy, that terrible disease which wrought such devastation in the Middle Ages. It was the physical consequence of an influence on the astral body.

Philology will not help you in finding evidence for this, because it knows nothing of astral influences. But you will at least find some evidence for the descent of the Mongols from the Atlanteans in the names: thus Attila, the leader of the Huns, is called in the Nordic language, Atli—meaning someone descended from the Atlanteans.

This then is how diseases affecting whole peoples have originated, and in ancient times some knowledge of it survived. The Bible has a true saying, very often misunderstood, when it speaks of God visiting the sins of the fathers on the children, even to the third and fourth generations. This does not refer to the successive incarnations of individuals, but to a karma affecting whole generations. We have to take the saying literally, as indeed many such statements have to be taken more literally than is usually thought.

The fact is that we must first learn to read the religious sources properly. In ancient times simple-minded people took them literally. As people became more sophisticated, this way of reading became increasingly rare. Then the clever liberal theologians began to expound the sources, each in his own way; and this meant that many passages were not expounded but undermined. Then there was a third stage: that of the people who took everything—old myths and legends and even the life of Christ—as a series of symbols. All this depends on the ingenuity of individuals; some will always be cleverer at it than others. But there is also a fourth stage: that of the occultist, who can once more understand everything literally because through his spiritual knowledge he can see how things are interconnected.

From what has been said you will realise that habits and feelings, which first belong to the spiritual life, can later express themselves in physical life. There is an important principle here: if care is taken to inculcate good habits, not only will the moral life of subsequent generations be improved, but also the health of a whole people, and vice versa. This is then their collective karma.

There is a form of illness, very widespread today, which was hardly known a hundred years ago—nerves or neuroticism—not because it was unrecognised, but because it was so uncommon. This characteristic illness springs from the materialistic outlook of the eighteenth century. Without that, the illness would never have appeared. The occult teacher knows that if this materialism were to continue for a few decades more, it would have a devastating effect on the general health of mankind. If these materialistic habits of thought were to remain unchecked, people would not only be neurotic in the ordinary sense but children would be born trembling; they would not merely be sensitive to their environment but would receive from everything around them a sensation of pain. Above all, mental ailments would spread very rapidly; epidemics of insanity would occur during the following decade. This was the danger—epidemic insanity—that faced mankind, and the possibility of it in the future was why the leaders of humanity, the Masters of Wisdom, saw the necessity of allowing some spiritual wisdom to be diffused among mankind at large. Nothing short of a spiritual picture of the world could restore to coming generations a tendency to good health. Theosophy, you will realise, is thus a profound movement which has been given out to meet the needs of humanity. A hundred years ago a “nervous” man meant one with iron nerves. Simply from the change in the meaning of the word you can see that something quite new has come into the world.

How is the law of karma related to physical heredity? Physical heredity plays a great role; we know that some of the characteristics of a father and his ancestors may be found again in the son. In the Bach²⁵ family, for instance, there were twenty-eight highly gifted musicians in a period of 250 years. Again, Bernoulli²⁶ was a great mathematician, and eight other gifted mathematicians came after him in his family. This is all a matter of heredity, we are told; but that is only partially true. In order to be a good musician you need more than a musical predisposition in your soul; you need also a good ear in the physical sense. This good ear is a physical quality to be found in a family of musicians, and is passed on from one generation to the next. In a family, then, where a great deal of music is performed, you will find good musical ears, and so when a soul with a strongly developed musical talent is to be incarnated, it will naturally not choose a family with no interest in music—where it would languish—but one which has suitable physical organs. This fits in very well with the law of karma.

The same thing applies to moral courage. If a soul with that predisposition cannot find a suitable heredity, the characteristic will fade out. You can see that you have to be very careful in your choice of parents! The fact is not that the child resembles his parents, but that he is born into a family where the parents most resemble him.

You might ask: Does not this devalue a mother's love? Not at all. Just because the deepest sympathy already exists before birth, a particular child seeks out a particular mother; the love between them has its source much further back, and after birth it continues. The child loved its mother before it was born: no wonder then that the mother returns the love. Thus the significance of a mother's love is not falsely explained away; rather is its true source made clear. Of this, more tomorrow.

• 25. Bach. Among the children of Johann Sebastian Bach, 1685–1750, were three sons, all well-known musicians: Friedemann Bach, 1710–1784; Philip Emanuel Bach, 1714–1788; Johann Christian Bach, 1735–1782.
• 26. Bernoulli, a family of mathematicians, Basle. Jacob Bernoulli, 16J4–1705; Nicholas Bernoulli, 16871759; Daniel Bernoulli, 1700–1782.

The yearly celebration of the physical birth of the Being Who entered earth-evolution in order to give that evolution its meaning, has for many people become a matter of habit. But if, conformably with the task of our spiritual-scientific movement, we are not content with celebrating a festival of mere custom—as is so general nowadays—it will be opportune at this grave time to turn our minds to many things that are connected with the physical birth of Christ Jesus.

We have often pictured how in Christ Jesus, so far as human comprehension goes, two Beings merge as it were into one: the Christ Being and the human Jesus Being. In the evolution of Christianity there has been much conflict, much conflict of dogma, about the meaning of the union of Christ with Jesus, in the Being whose physical birth is celebrated at the Christmas Festival. We ourselves, of course, recognise in the Christ a cosmic, super-earthly Being, a Being Who descended from spiritual worlds in order, through His birth in a physical man, to impart meaning to earth-evolution. And in Jesus we recognise the one who, as man, was predestined after thirty years of preparation, to unite the Christ Being with himself, to receive the Christ Being into himself.

Not only has there been much strife, much conflict of dogma, about the nature of the union of Christ with Jesus, but the relationship of Christ to Jesus contains a hint of significant secrets of the earthly evolution of mankind. If, in the endeavour to understand something of the union of Christ with Jesus, we follow events up to the present day and reflect upon what has still to take place in the evolution of humanity before this relationship can be rightly understood, then we touch upon one of the deepest secrets of human knowledge and human life.

At the time when Christ was about to enter the evolution of humanity, it was possible, through faculties that were a heritage from the days of the old clairvoyant wisdom, to form certain conceptions of the sublimity of the Christ Being. And at that time there existed a wisdom of which people often speak nowadays in a way that is almost blasphemous, but of which they are scarcely able to form any true idea. There existed something which up to this day has been completely exterminated from human evolution, rooted out by certain currents running counter to the deeper Christian revelation: this was the Gnosis, a wisdom into which had flowed much of the ancient knowledge revealed to men in atavistic clairvoyance. Every trace of the Gnosis, whether in script or oral tradition, was exterminated root and branch by the dogmatic Christianity of the West—after this Gnosis had striven to find an answer to the question: Who is the Christ?

There can be no question to-day of reverting to the Gnosis—for the Gnosis belongs to an age that is past and over. True, its extermination was caused by malice, ignorance, enmity towards knowledge and wisdom ... but for all that it happened out of an underlying necessity. When anthroposophical spiritual science is accused of wanting to revive the ancient Gnosis, that is only one of the many expressions of ill-will directed towards it to-day. The accusation is, of course, made by people whose ignorance of the Gnosis is on a par with their ignorance of Anthroposophy. There is no question of reviving the Gnosis, but of recognising it as something great and mighty, something that endeavoured, in the time now lying nineteen hundred years behind us, to give an answer to the question: Who is the Christ?

Before the inner eye of the Gnostic lay a glorious vista of spiritual worlds, with the Hierarchies ranged in their order, one above the other. How the Christ had descended through the worlds of the spiritual Hierarchies to enter into the sheaths of a mortal man—all this stood before the soul of the Gnostic. And he tried to envisage how the Christ had come from heights of spirit, how He had been conceived on earth. The best way to get some idea of the knowledge then existing is to reflect that everything produced by the world after the extermination of the Gnosis was paltry in comparison with the grandeur of the Gnostic idea of the Christ. The Mystery-wisdom behind the Gospels is infinitely great—greater by far than anything which later theology has been able to discover from them. To realise how paltry and insignificant compared with the Gnosis is the current conception of the Christ Being, we have but to steep ourselves in the ancient Gnostic idea of Him. Picturing this, one is filled with humility by the grandeur of the conception of the Christ Being entering into a human body from cosmic heights, from far distant cosmic worlds.

This majestic, sublime concept of Christ has fallen into the background, but all the dogmatic definitions handed down to us as Arian or Athanasian principles of faith are meagre in comparison with the Gnostic conception, in which vision of the Christ Being was combined with wisdom relating to the universe.¹ Only the merest fragments of this great Gnostic conception of Christ have survived.

This, then, is one aspect of the relationship of Christ to Jesus: that Christ came into the world at a time when the wisdom capable of understanding Him, yearning to understand Him, had already been rooted out. People who speak of the ancient Gnosis as oriental phantasy that had to be exterminated for the good of Western humanity, have always believed themselves to be good Christians, but the real cause was that the mind of the age lacked the strength to unite earthly with heavenly concepts. One must have a feeling for the tragic if human evolution is to be understood.

How long after the Mystery of Golgotha was the Temple at Jerusalem, the sanctuary of peace, destroyed? The Temple of Solomon was within the precincts of the city of Jerusalem. What the Gnosis contained in the form of wisdom, Solomon's Temple contained in the form of symbolism. Cosmic secrets were presented in symbols and pictures. And it was intended that those who entered the Temple, where the pictures all around them were reflected in their souls, should receive something through which alone they became truly man. The purpose of the Temple of Solomon was to inculcate the meaning of worlds into the souls of those who were permitted to enter it. What the Temple revealed was something that the earth as such did not reveal, namely, all the cosmic secrets that ray into the earth from the cosmic expanse.

If one of the old Initiates possessing real knowledge of the Temple of Solomon had been asked: Why was the Temple of Solomon built?—the answer would have been somewhat as follows: ‘In order that here on the earth there shall be a beacon light for those Powers who accompany the souls seeking their way into earthly bodies.’ Let us try to grasp what this means, realising that these old Initiates of the Temple of Solomon knew that when men were being accompanied into earthly bodies in conformity with all the signs of the stars, then particular souls must be guided to bodies in which the great symbols of Solomon's Temple could be mirrored.

This, in the nature of things, might give rise to arrogance. If the knowledge was not received with humility, with the humility of the Essenes, it led men into Pharisaism! But at all events, this was the situation: The eye of earth looked up to the heavens, beholding the stars; the spiritual eyes of those who were guiding souls from cosmic worlds to the earth gazed downwards and beheld the Temple of Solomon with its symbols. The Temple was like a star whose light enabled them to guide the souls into bodies which would be capable of understanding its meaning. It was the central star of the earth, shining out with special brightness into the spiritual heights.

When Christ Jesus had come to the earth, when the Mystery of Golgotha had taken place, the great secret that was intended to be mirrored in every single human soul was this: "My kingdom is not of this world!" It was then that the external, physical Temple of Solomon lost its significance and its destiny was tragically fulfilled. Moreover at that time there was no living person who would have been capable of apprehending the full compass of the Christ Being from the reflections of the symbols in Solomon's Temple. But the Christ Himself had now entered earth-evolution, had become part of it. That is the all-important fact. The Gnostics were the last survivors of the bearers of that ancient, atavistic earth-wisdom which was comprehensive and powerful enough to make some understanding of the Christ possible.

That, then, is one aspect of the relation of Christ to Jesus. In those days the Christ Being could have been understood through the Gnosis. But according to the world-plan it was not to be—although the Gnosis teemed with wisdom concerning the Christ. And it may truly be said that the path now taken by Christianity through the countries of the South, through Greece, Italy, Spain and so on, led more and more to the obliteration of insight into the essential nature of Christ. And Rome, sinking into decline, was destined to bring about the final extinction of understanding.

In regard to this relation of the Christ to Jesus it is strange that on the one hand we find lighting up in the Gnosis a sublime conception of the Christ which died away as Christianity passed through the Roman system, while on the other hand, when Christianity encountered the peoples from the North, the concept of Jesus came to the fore. In the South, the concept of Christ flickered out. The form in which the concept of Jesus emerged was by no means very sublime, but it gripped men's hearts and feelings in such a way that something wonderfully absorbing stirred in their souls at the thought of how the Child who receives the Christ is born in the Holy Night. Just as in the South the concept of Christ was inadequate, so in the North was man's feeling for Jesus. But for all that it was a feeling that stirred the very depths of the human heart. Yet in itself it is not quite comprehensible. For if we contrast the immeasurable significance of Christ Jesus for the evolution of humanity with all the sentimental trivialities about the ‘dear little Jesus’ contained in many poems and hymns commonly used to move the human heart—for in their egoism men believe that these trivialities kindle emotions capable of storming the heavens—then we have a direct impression that something is striving to make its home but is not fully able to do so, that one element is mingling with another in such a way that the deeper meaning, the far deeper significance, remains in the subconsciousness.

What actually is it that remains in the subconsciousness while the Jesus-thought, the Jesus-feeling, the Jesus-experience, is coming to the surface? The process takes a strange and remarkable course. The understanding for Christ sank into the subconsciousness and there, in the subconsciousness, the understanding for Jesus began to glow. In the subconsciousness—not in the consciousness, which was dim—the consciousness of Christ that was flickering out and the consciousness of Jesus that was beginning to stir were destined to meet and counter-balance each other. Why was it, then, that the peoples who came down from Scandinavia, from the North of present-day Russia, received Christianity without the Christ-idea which, to begin with, was wholly foreign to them? Why was it that they received Christianity with the Jesus-idea? Why was Christmas the festival which above all others spoke to the human heart, awakened in the human heart feelings of holy bliss? Why was it? What was present in this Europe which in truth received from the South a completely distorted Christianity? What was it that kindled in men's hearts the idea which then, in the Christmas Festival, created such a deep, deep fount of experience?

Men had been prepared—but had largely forgotten by what they had been prepared. They had been prepared by the old Northern Mysteries. But they had forgotten the import and meaning of these ancient Mysteries. And we have to go very far back into the past to discover from the source and content of the Northern Mysteries the deep secret of the penetration of the Jesus-feeling into the soul-life of the European peoples.

The principles underlying the Northern Mysteries were quite different from those underlying the Mysteries of Asia Minor and of the South. The experiences underlying the Northern Mysteries were more intimately and directly connected with the existence of the stars, with nature, with earthly fertility, than with the wisdom represented in symbols within a Temple. The Mystery-truths are not the childish trifles presented by certain mystic sects to-day; the Mystery-truths are great and potent impulses in the evolution of mankind. Present-day Anthroposophy can no more revert to the Gnosis than mankind can revert to what the ancient Mysteries of the North, for example, signified for human evolution. And to believe that such Mystery-truths are now being revealed because of some kind of hankering to go back to what was once alive in them, would be a foolish misunderstanding. It is for the sake of deepening self-recollection, self-knowledge, that mankind to-day must be made aware of the content of such Mysteries. For what linked the Northern Mysteries with the whole evolution of the universe, arose from the earth, just as the Gnostic wisdom, inspired from the cosmos, was connected with happenings in the far distances of the universe. How the secret of man, linked as it is with all the secrets of the cosmos, comes into operation when a human being enters physical existence on the earth—it was this that, with greater depth than anywhere else at a certain period of earth-evolution, lay at the root of these ancient Northern Mysteries.

But we have to go very far back—to about three thousand years before Christ, perhaps even earlier—to understand what was alive in the hearts of those in whom, later on, the feeling for Jesus arose. Somewhere in the region of the peninsula of Jutland, in present-day Denmark, was the centre from which, in those ancient times, important impulses went out from the Mysteries. And—let the modern intellect judge of this as it will—these impulses were connected with the fact that in the third millennium before Christ, in certain Northern tribes, he alone was regarded as a worthy citizen of the earth who was born in certain weeks of the winter season. The reason for this was that from those places of the Mysteries on the peninsula of Jutland, among the tribes which at that time called themselves the Ingaevones, or were so called by the Romans—by Tacitus²—the Temple Priest gave the sign for sexual union to take place at a definite time during the first quarter of the year. Any sexual union outside the period ordained by this Mystery-centre was taboo; and in this tribe of the Ingaevones a man who was not born in the period of the darkest nights, at the time of greatest cold, towards our New Year, was regarded as an inferior being. For the impulse went out from that Mystery-centre at the time of the first full moon after the vernal equinox. Only then, among those who might believe themselves united with the spiritual world as became the dignity of man, was sexual union permissible. The characteristic virility—even in its aftermath—marvelled at by Tacitus, writing a century after the Mystery of Golgotha, was due to the fact that the forces which enter into such sexual union were preserved through the whole of the rest of the year.

And so those who belonged to the tribe of the Ingaevones (and in a lesser degree this was also true of the other Germanic tribes) experienced the process of conception with particular intensity at the time of the first full moon after the vernal equinox. They experienced it, not in wide-awake consciousness, but as it were heralded in dream. Yet they were aware of its significance in regard to the connection between the secret of man and the secrets of the heavens. A spiritual being appeared to the woman who was to conceive and in a kind of vision announced to her the human being who, through her, was to come to the earth. There was no clear consciousness, but only semi-consciousness, in the sphere experienced by souls when the entry of a human being into the physical world is taking place; subconsciously men knew that they were under the direction of the Gods, who then received the name of the Wanen, connected with wähnen, that is to say with what takes its course, not in clear, intellectual, waking consciousness, but in cognitive dream-consciousness.

What was once in existence and fitting for its own epoch, is often preserved in later times in symbols. Thus the fact that in those ancient times the holy mystery of the generation of a human being was wrapped in subconsciousness, and led to all births being concentrated in a particular period of the winter season, so that it was regarded as sinful for a man to be born at another time—this was preserved in fragments which passed over to a later consciousness as the Hertha or Erda or Nertus Saga. No erudition, as scholars themselves openly admit, has hitherto been able to interpret these fragments, for actually all that is known externally of the Nertus Saga, with the exception of a few brief notes, comes from Tacitus, who writes as follows about the Nertus or Hertha cult:

"The Reudigni, Aviones, Anglii, Varini, Eudoses, Saurini and Nuitones—Germanic peoples living amidst rivers and woods" (that is, roughly the several tribes who belong to the Ingaevones) " specially revere Nertus, that is, Mother Earth, and they believe that she intervenes in human affairs, makes journeys to the peoples." (Germania 40).

In the ancient cult of the Wanen it became known in dream-consciousness to every woman who was to give a citizen to the earth that the Goddess worshipped later on as Nertus would appear to her. The Divinity was, however, represented not exactly as female, but as male-female. It was not until later, through a corruption, that Nertus became an entirely feminine principle. Just as the Archangel Gabriel drew near to Mary, Nertus on her chariot drew near to the woman who was about to give a citizen to the earth. The woman concerned saw this in the spirit. Later, when the Mystery-impulse in this form had long since died out, echoes of the happening were celebrated in symbolic rites which Tacitus was still able to witness and of which he says the following:—

"On an island of the ocean is a sacred grove and in it there is a consecrated chariot covered with a veil. Only the priest may approach it."—This priest was taken to represent the ‘Initiate’ of the Hertha-Mystery—"He knows when the Goddess appears in the sacred chariot. He becomes aware of the presence of the Goddess in her holy place, and in deep reverence accompanies her chariot drawn by cows. Then there are days of joy and feasting in all the places which the Goddess honours with a visit. Then there are joyous days and wedding feasts. At those times no war is waged, no weapons are handled, the sword is sheathed. Only peace and quiet are at those times known or desired, until the Goddess, tired of her sojourn among mortals, is led back into her shrine by the same priest." (—This was actually the form taken by the vision—

"Then there are joyous days and wedding feasts." In such ancient records the descriptions are accurate and exact, only men do not understand them. "Then there are joyous days and wedding feasts. At those times no war is waged, no weapons are handled, the sword is sheathed." And so it was in very truth at the time which is now our Easter, when human beings believed in their inmost soul that the time of earthly fruitfulness had come for them too; it was then that the souls who were born at the time that is now our Christmas, were conceived. Easter was the time of conception. The experience was regarded as a holy, cosmic mystery, and it was this that was symbolised later on by the Nertus cult. The whole experience was veiled in the subconscious region of the soul, might not rise up into consciousness. This is hinted at in the description of the cult given by Tacitus: "Only peace and quiet are at those times known or desired—until the Goddess, tired of her sojourn among mortals, is led back into her shrine by the same priest. Then the chariot and the veil and even the Goddess herself are bathed in a hidden lake. Slaves perform the cult, slaves who are at once swallowed up as forfeit by the lake, so that all knowledge of these things sinks into the night of unconsciousness. A secret horror and a sacred darkness hold sway over a being who is able to behold only the sacrifice of death."

Everything that comes into the world calls forth a Luciferic and an Ahrimanic counterpart. The event which—as experienced by the Ingaevones—was part of the regular, ordained evolution of mankind was connected with the time of the first full moon after the vernal equinox. But owing to the precession of the equinox, what had remained from olden days as a dream-experience was transferred to a later date and therefore became Ahrimanic. When the experience that had arisen in ancient times in the true Hertha cult was advanced about four weeks, it became Ahrimanic. This meant that the union of the woman with the spiritual world was sought in an irregular way—at the wrong time. Here lies the explanation of the institution of the Walpurgis Night—between the 30th April and the 1st May. It is nothing but an Ahrimanic transposition of time. Luciferic transposition of time goes backward; Ahrimanic transposition of time runs in the opposite direction, being connected with the precession of the equinox. Thus the Ahrimanic, Mephistophelean form of the Hertha cult, the perversion into the diabolic, later became the Walpurgis Night; it is connected with the most ancient Mysteries of which only faint echoes remained.

Much of the content of the ancient Northern Mysteries lived on—if the matter is rightly understood—in the Scandinavian Mysteries. There, instead of Nertus, we find Friggo, a god who, according to the symbolism associated with him—but this can become intelligible only through spiritual science—turns into the very betrayer of what lies at the root of this Mystery.

One more thing must be mentioned in regard to these Mystery-practices. You can see that if the human seed was ripening from the time of the vernal full moon to winter time, one such human being would be the first to be born in the ‘Holy Night.’ Among the Ingaevones the first to be born in the Holy Night—the Holy Night of every third year in the most ancient times—was chosen as their leader when he reached the age of thirty, and he remained leader for three years, for three years only. What happened to him then I may perhaps be able to tell you on another occasion.

Careful investigation reveals that not only are Frigg, Frei, Freiga, merely additional designations for Nertus, as is the Scandinavian ‘Nört,’ but the name ‘Ing’ itself, whence Ingaevones, is another name for Nertus. Those who were connected with the Mystery called themselves "Men belonging to the God or the Goddess Ing"—Ingaevones. Only fragments of what really lived in this Mystery survived in the external world. One such fragment consists of the words of Tacitus already quoted. Another fragment is the well-known Anglo-Saxon rune of a few lines only. These famous lines are known to every philologist of the Germanic languages, but no one understands their meaning. They are approximately as follows:

"Ing was first seen among the East Danes. Later he went towards the East. He walked over the waves, followed by his chariot."

In this Anglo-Saxon rune there is an echo of what lay behind the old Mystery-customs of the Easter conception with a view to the Christmas birth. What happened then in the spiritual world was known best on the Danish peninsula. Hence the rune correctly says: "Ing was first seen among the East Danes."

Then came the time when this ancient knowledge fell more and more into corruption, when it was to be found only in echoes, in symbolism. This was the time in the evolution of humanity when what originated in the warm countries spread abroad. And what comes from the warm countries is something that is not connected—as is the case in the cold countries—with the intimate relation between the seasons and man's own inner experiences. From the warm countries came the impulse which resulted in the distribution of conceptions and births over the whole year; this of course had already happened in the South even in the days of the old, atavistic clairvoyance, although it was still to some extent pervaded by the old principles, the principles which prevailed in the times when in the cold regions the Women held sway and in the South the Temple Mysteries had long since superseded the old Nature-Mysteries. The Southern practice spread towards the North, although an intermixture of the old still remained at the time when the Wanen gods were superseded by the Asen gods. Just as the Wanen are connected with wähnen, so are the Asen connected with the German sein (being)—that is to say, being or existence in the material world which the mind tries to grasp externally. And when the men of the North had entered into an age when individual intelligence began to assert itself, when the Asen had supplanted the Wanen, the old Mystery-customs fell into decay. They passed over into isolated, scattered Mystery-communities of the East. And one Being only—he in whom the whole meaning of the earth was to be made new, he in whom the Christ was to dwell—he alone was destined to unite within himself what had once been the essence and content of the Northern Mysteries.

Hence the origin of the account in St. Luke's Gospel of the appearance of the Archangel Gabriel to Mary, is to be sought in the visions of spiritual realities once reflected in the Nertus-symbol of the ancient Northern Mysteries. The symbol had moved eastward. Spiritual science discloses this to-day and this alone explains the meaning of the Anglo-Saxon rune. For Nertus and Ing are the same. Of Ing it is said: "Ing was first seen among the East Danes. Later he went towards the East. He walked over the waves, followed by his chariot,"—over the waves of the clouds, that is, just as Nertus moved over the waves of the clouds.

What had once been general in the colder regions, here became singular, individual. It occurred as a single, unique event, and we find it again in the descriptions given in the Gospel of St. Luke.

But whatever has once existed in the world and has taken root, whatever is anchored in the heart's understanding, remains a possession of the soul. And when knowledge of Christianity was received in the North from the Roman South, men felt—not in clear consciousness but in the subconsciousness—it had some connection with an ancient Mystery-custom. Hence in the North, men were able to develop a particularly intense feeling for Jesus. The reality that had lived in the old Nertus Mystery had already sunk into the subconsciousness, yet in the subconsciousness it was present, it was sensed and dimly experienced.

When in those long past times in the far North, when the earth was still covered with forests that were the home of the bison and the elk, families came together in their snowcovered huts and under their lantern-lights gathered around the new-born child, they spoke of how with this new life there had been brought to them the new light announced by the heavens in the previous spring. Such was the ancient Christmas. To these people, who were one day to receive the tidings of Christendom, it was said: In the hour that is especially holy, one destined for greatness is born. It is the child who is the first to be born after midnight in the night designated as holy. And although men no longer possessed the ancient knowledge, when the tidings came that such a one had been born in far-off Asia, one in whom lived the Christ Who had come down from the world of the stars to the earth, something of the old feeling came alive in them.

It is incumbent upon the present age to understand such things more and more deeply and thereby grasp in concrete reality the meaning of the evolution of earthly humanity. Truths of mighty, awe-inspiring significance are contained in the Holy Scriptures, not just the trivialities of which we so often hear in religious teachings to-day, but sacred truths which thrill through the very fibres of our being, stirring our hearts to the depths. These are truths which flow through the whole evolution of humanity and resound in the Gospels. And as spiritual science reveals their deep, deep source, the Gospels will one day become a precious treasure, prized at their true worth. Men will know, then, why it is recounted in the Gospel of St. Luke:

"And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed. (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria).

And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city.

And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David).

To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child.

And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered.

And she brought forth her first-born son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for him in the inn."

It was for Him, the first-born among men in whose souls true ego-hood was to awaken, that the holy Mystery-power of ancient days had passed over from the Danish peninsula to the distant East.

"And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.

And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid."

Nerta too, moving across the land, had announced to the old Wanen-consciousness, that is to say, in the subconsciousness of atavistic clairvoyance, the arrival of human beings on the earth.

"And the angel said unto them, Fear not; for behold I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.

And this shall be a sign unto you: Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying ..."

And now the heavenly Powers proclaimed what the Nerta-Priest in the old Northern Mystery-cult had proclaimed to the woman about to conceive.

"The revelation of the Divine from the Heights takes place at the time when there is peace among men who are of good-will."

As Tacitus narrates: "Then there are joyous days and wedding feasts. At those times no war is waged, no weapons are handled, the sword is sheathed."

The great goal for which man must strive is the attainment of the power to gaze into the course of the evolution of humanity. For the Mystery of Golgotha, too, through which earth-evolution received its deeper meaning, will become fully comprehensible when its place in the whole evolution of humanity is understood. In future times, when, with the disappearance of materialism, man will know, not in abstract theory but as a concretely real experience, that he is of divine origin, the ancient, holy Mystery-truths will again be understood; then the intervening time will be over, a time in which the Christ, it is true, lives on earth, but can be understood only by the awakened consciousness. For the Gnostic conception of Christ faded away; understanding for Jesus developed in connection with the old Nertus cult, but in unconsciousness. In the future, however, humanity will have to bring both the unconscious streams to consciousness, and unite them. And then an ever greater understanding of the Christ will take foothold on earth, an understanding that will unite the Mystery-knowledge with a great and renewed Gnosis.

Those who take the anthroposophical view of the world seriously, and the movement associated with it, will see in what it has to say to mankind no child's play but great and earnest, soul-shaking truths. And our souls must submit to this because it is right that we should be shaken by greatness.

Not only is the earth a mighty living being; the earth is an exalted spirit-being. And just as the greatest human genius could not stand at the height he reaches in later life if he had not first developed through childhood and adolescence, so the Mystery of Golgotha could not have taken place, the Divine would not have been able to unite with earth-evolution, if at the beginning of earthly days the Divine—in a different manner but in a manner still divine—had not descended to the earth. The form taken by the revelation of the Divine from the heavenly heights was not the same in the ancient Nertus cult as it was at a later time, but for all that it was a true revelation.

The knowledge contained in this ancient wisdom was, it is true, atavistic in character, but for all that it was infinitely more exalted than the materialistic view of the world which, in the sphere of knowledge, so brutally reduces humanity to the level of the animal.

In Christianity we have to do with a Fact, not with a theory. The theory is a necessary consequence and of importance for the consciousness that has had to develop in the further course of human evolution. But the essence of Christianity as such, the Mystery of Golgotha, is an accomplished Fact. The impulse entered, to begin with, into subconscious currents, as was still possible in Asia Minor at the time when the union of Christ with the earth took place.

Shepherds, men bearing a similarity with those among whom the Nertus cult flourished, are also described in the Gospel of St. Luke. I can give only very brief indications of these things. If we were able to speak of them at greater length you would find that there are deep foundations for what I have told you to-day. The human being has descended from spiritual heights ... hence the revelation of the Divine from the heavenly heights ... The revelation had to be expressed in this form to those who out of the ancient wisdom knew the destiny of man to be united with the secrets of the stars of heaven. But what must live on earth as the result of Christ's union with a man of earth—that can be understood only very gradually. The message is twofold: ‘Revelation of the Divine from the heights’—‘Peace in the souls on earth who are of good-will.’ Without this second part, Christmas, the Festival of the birth of Christ, has no meaning!

Not only was Christ born for men; men have also crucified Him. Even behind this lies necessity. But it is none the less true that men have crucified the Christ! And it may dawn upon us that the crucifixion on the wooden Cross on Golgotha was not the only crucifixion. A time must come when the second part of the Christmas proclamation becomes reality: ‘Peace to the men on earth who are of good-will.’ For the negative side too is discernible. Men are very far indeed from a true understanding of Christ and of the Mystery of Golgotha.

Does it not cut to the very heart that we ourselves should be living at a time when men's longing for peace is shouted down?³ It seems almost a mockery to celebrate Christmas in days when voices are raised in outcry against the desire for peace. To-day, when the worst has not actually befallen, we can but fervently hope that a change will take place in the souls of men, and a Christian feeling, a will for peace supersede these demonstrations against the desire for it. Otherwise it may not be those who are struggling in Europe to-day, but those coming over from Asia, who will one day wreak vengeance on this rejection of the desire for peace; it may be they who will have to preach Christianity and the Mystery of Golgotha to humanity on the ruins of European spiritual life. And then the indelible record will remain: that at Christmas time, nineteen hundred and sixteen years after the tidings of peace on earth to men of good-will, humanity came to shout down the desire for peace.

May it not succeed! May the good Spirits who are at work in the Christmas impulses protect luckless European humanity from such a fate!

• 1. Arius: "The Son was once created out of nothing by the Divine Will, was the first creature and the creator of the Universe, hence to be called God, though subject to the Father," This was declared heretical by the Council of Nicea in A.D. 325, and replaced by the Athanasian principle of faith. "The Son of God is from eternity, not created, but begotten out of the Being of the Father, and is of like nature to the Father.
  
  Streams of blood were shed in consequence of these doctrines, impenetrable as they are by the human mind (Weber: Lehrbuch der Weltgeschichte, 1875).
• 2. Mannus had three sons, after whom the people nearest the North Sea are called Ingaevones, those of the centre, Hermiones, the remainder Istae. (Germania 2).
• 3. A reference to the agitation against the German proposal in December, 1916 for peace negotiations.

All of our medieval stories—Parsifal, the Round Table, Hartmann von Aue—reveal mystical truths in esoteric form, even though they are usually only understood in their outward aspect. Where do we search for their origin? We must look to a time before the spread of Christianity. Into Christianity was blended what had lived in Ireland, Scotland ... [Gap in the notes.] We are led to a particular centre whence this spiritual life was disseminated. The spiritual life [of Europe] emanated from a mother lodge in Scandinavia, ‘Drottes’ Lodge. Druids = Oak. For this reason the Germanic peoples were said to receive their instructions beneath oak trees.

‘Drottes’, or Druids, were ancient Germanic initiates. They still existed in England till Elizabethan times. All that we read in the Edda or can find in the ancient German sagas refers back to the temples of the ‘Drottes’ or Druids. The author of these tales was always an initiate. The sagas not only have a symbolical or allegorical meaning, but something else as well.

Example: We know the saga of Baldur. We know that he is the hope of the gods, that he is killed by the god Loki with a branch of mistletoe. The God of Light is killed. This whole story has a deep mystery content which all who underwent initiation not only had to learn, but had to experience.

The Mysteries. Initiation: the first deed was called the search for the body of Baldur. It was supposed that Baldur was always alive. The search consisted of a complete enlightenment about the nature of man. For Baldur was the human being who has gone astray. Once upon a time the human being was not as he is today, he was undifferentiated, not bowed down by passionate experiences, but composed of finer ephemeral substance. Baldur, the radiant human being. When truly understood, all things which appear to us in the form of symbols must be understood in a higher sense. This human being who has not descended into what today we call matter, is Baldur. He lives in each one of us. The Druid priest had to search for the higher self within him. He had to become clear about where this differentiation took place, between the higher and the lower ... [Gap]

The secret of all initiation is to give birth to the higher human being within oneself. What the priest accomplishes more quickly, the rest of mankind must undergo in long stages of development. To become leaders of the rest of mankind, the Druids had to receive this initiation.

Man who had descended deeper now had to overcome matter and regain his former higher level. This birth of the higher human being takes place in all the Mysteries in a similar sort of way. The man who had become submerged in matter had to be reawakened. One had to make a series of experiences—real experiences—which were unlike any sense experiences one can have on the physical plane.

The stages. The first step was that one was led before the ‘Throne of Necessity’. One stood in front of the abyss: really experienced through one's own body what lived in the lower kingdoms of nature. Man is both mineral and plant, but the man of today is unable to experience what is undergone by the elementary substances and yet the enduring, the constraining things in the world are due to the fact that we are also mineral and plant in our nature.

The next step led the human being to all that lived in the animal kingdom. Everything which existed in the form of passions and desires was beheld in swirling and interweaving movement- All this had to be observed by the candidate for initiation so that his eyes would be opened to what lay behind the veil of the senses. Man is not aware that what swirls around in astral space is hidden behind the physical sheath. The veil of maya is really a sheath which must be penetrated by him who is to be initiated—the sheaths drop away, the human being sees clearly. That is a very special moment: the priest becomes aware that the sheaths had dammed back the impulses which would have been frightful if they had been let loose.

The third step led to a vision of the elemental nature forces. That is a step which man finds difficult to comprehend without previous preparation. That powerful occult forces are residing in these nature forces and through them express elemental passions, is something which makes man aware that there are powers quite outside the scope of anything he can experience as his own suffering.

The next trial is called the ‘Handing over of the Serpent’ by the hierophant. One can only explain it by means of the effects which it brings about. It is elucidated in the Tantalus saga. The privilege of being allowed to sit in the Council of the Gods can be abused. It signifies a reality which certainly raises man above himself, but dangers accompany it which are not exaggerated in the story of the Tantalus curse. As a rule man says he is powerless in face of the laws of nature. These are thoughts. With that kind of thinking, which is only a shadowy brain-thinking, nothing can be achieved. In creative thinking, which builds and constructs things of the world, which is productive and fruitful, the passive kind of thinking is replaced by a thinking permeated by spiritual force. The blown skin of a caterpillar is the empty sheath of the caterpillar; when filled with [productive] thinking it is the living caterpillar. Into the sheath-thoughts, living active power is poured so that the priest is enabled, not only to see the world in vision, but to work in it through magic. The danger is that this power can be abused. He can ... [Gap]

At this stage the occultist acquires a certain power, whereby he is enabled to deceive even the higher beings. He must not only repeat truths but experience them and decide whether a thing is true or false. That is what is called ‘The Handing over of the Serpent by the Hierophant’. [it denotes the same thing on a spiritual level that the rudimentary stages in the formation of the spinal cord signify on the physical level. In the animal kingdom we pass through the fishes, amphibians and so on till we reach the brain of the vertebrates and man. See notes.] We have a spiritual backbone, too, which determines whether we are to develop a spiritual brain. Man goes through this process at this stage of his development. He is lifted out of Kama (feelings, passions, desires) and endowed with a spiritual backbone so that he can be raised up into the spiraling of the spiritual brain. On a spiritual level, the windings of the labyrinth are the same as the convolutions of the brain on the physical level. Man gains access to the labyrinth, to the windings within the spiritual realm.

Then he had to take the oath of silence. A naked sword was presented to him and he was obliged to swear the most binding oath. This was that he would henceforth keep silence about his experiences where it concerned people who had not been initiated as he had. It is quite impossible to reveal the true content of these secrets without preparation. He, [the initiate] however, could create these sagas so that they became the expression of the eternal. One who could give utterance to things in this way of course had great power over his fellow men. The creator of a saga of this kind imprinted something into the human spirit. What is thus spoken is then forgotten and only the merest vestige of it survives death. Eternal truths remain longest after death. Of less elevated scientific thought hardly anything remains. The eternal does so and appears again in a new incarnation.

The Druid priest spoke out of the higher plane. His words, though simple, being the expression of higher truths, sank into the souls of his hearers. He spoke to simple folk but the truth sank into their souls and something was incorporated into them which would be reborn in a new incarnation. At that time men experienced the truth through fairy stories; thus today our spirit bodies have been prepared and if we are able to grasp higher truths today it is because we have been prepared.

Thus this time, which came to an end in 60 A.D., had prepared the spiritual life of Europe, had provided the soil on which Christianity could build. These teachings have been preserved and whoever searches will be able to find access to what was taught in these Lodges.

After he [the Druid] had given his oath on the sword he had to drink a certain draught—and this he did from a human skull. The meaning of this was that he had transcended what was human. That was the feeling which the Druid priest had to develop concerning his lower bodily nature. He had to look upon all that lived within his body with the same objective, cool attitude as he felt towards a containing vessel. Then he was initiated into the higher secrets and shown the path to higher worlds. Baldur ... [Gap] He was led into an immense palace which was roofed by flashing shields. He encountered a man who cast forth seven flowers. Cosmic Space, Cherubim, Demi-urge [Maker of the World]. Thus he became truly a Priest of the Sun.

Many people read the Edda and are unaware that it is an account of what really took place in the ancient ‘Drottes’ mysteries. An immense power lay at the disposal of the ancient ‘Drottes’ priests, a power over life and death. It is true that everything becomes corrupt in time. It was once the highest, the holiest of things. At the time when Christianity was spreading, much had degenerated and there were many black magicians, so that Christianity came as a redemption.

The study of these old truths alone is able to give an almost complete survey of the whole of occultism.

Unlike our present practice, not one stone was laid upon another in the building of a Druid temple without the use of exact astronomical measurement. Doorways were built according to astronomical measurement. The Druid priests were the builders of humanity. A faint reflection of this is preserved today in the views which the Freemasons hold.

Learning to penetrate astral substance, viewing the sun at midnight: First initiation.

Handing over of the Serpent by the Hierophant: Second Initiation.

The journey into the Labyrinth: Third Initiation.

Note on Lecture III

The only source for this lecture was the short notes of Marie Steiner von Sivers. Sentences enclosed in square brackets are the amendments of the editor, where the text seemed insufficiently clear.

Further source material has been appended below, gleaned from the writings of Charles William Heckethorn on the subject of the Druids and the Scandinavian Mysteries. A copy of Heckethorn's book in German translation was in Rudolf Steiner's private library, and from marginal notes in Rudolf Steiner's handwriting it appears to have been used by him in connection with this lecture and other lectures included in this volume. (Charles William Heckethorn Geheime Gesellschaften, Geheimbünde und Geheimlehren, Leipzig, 1900. Original English edition: The Secret Societies of all Ages and Countries, London,1875.)

From Charles William Heckethorn
The Secret Societies of all Ages and Countries
Chapter VIII. The Druids.

The Druids, the Magi of the West.
The secret doctrines of the Druids were much the same as those of the Gymnosophists and Brahmins of India, the Magi of Persia, the priests of Egypt, and of all other priests of antiquity. Like them they had two sets of religious doctrines, exoteric and esoteric. Their rites were practised in Britain and Gaul, though they were brought to a much greater perfection in the former country, where the Isle of Anglesey was considered their chief seat. The word Druid is generally supposed to be derived from “an oak,” which tree was particularly sacred among them, though its etymology may also be found in the Gaelic word Druidh, “a wise man” or “magician.”

Temples.
Their temples, wherein the sacred fire was preserved, were generally situate on eminences and in dense groves of oaks, and assumed various forms—circular, because a circle was an emblem of the universe; oval, in allusion to the mundane egg, from which, according to the traditions of many nations, the universe, or according to others, our first parents, issued; serpentine, because a serpent was the symbol of Hu, the Druidic Osiris; cruciform, because a cross is an emblem of regeneration; or winged, to represent the motion of the divine spirit. Their only canopy was the sky, and they were constructed of unhewn stones, their numbers having reference to astronomical calculations. In the centre was placed a stone of larger dimensions than the others, and worshipped as the representative of the Deity. The three principal temples of this description in Britain were undoubtedly those of Stonehenge and Avebury in the south, and that of Shap in Cumbria. Where stone was scarce, rude banks of earth were substituted, and the temple was formed of a high vallum and ditch. The most Herculean labours were performed in their construction; Stukeley says that it would cost, at the present time, £20,000 to throw up such a mound as Silbury Hill.

Places of Initiation.
The adytum or ark of the mysteries was called a cromlech, and was used as the sacred pastos, or place of regeneration. It consisted of three upright stones, as supporters of a broad, flat stone laid across them on the top, so as to form a small cell. Kit Cotey's House, in Kent, was such a pastos. Considerable space, however, was necessary for the machinery of initiation in its largest and most comprehensive scale. Therefore, the Coer Sidi, where the mysteries of Druidism were performed, consisted of a range of buildings, adjoining the temple, containing apartments of all sizes, cells, vaults, baths, and long and artfully contrived passages, with all the apparatus of terror used on these occasions. Most frequently these places were subterranean; and many of the caverns in this country were the scenes of Druidical initiation. The stupendous grotto at Castleton, in Derbyshire [Peak Cavern], called by Stukeley the Stygian Cave, as well as the “Giants Caves” between Luckington and Badminton [in Wilts.], certainly were used for this purpose.

Rites.
The system of Druidism embraced every religious and philosophical pursuit then known in these islands. The rites bore an undoubted reference to astronomical facts. Their chief deities are reducible to two,—a male and a female, the great father and mother, Hu and Ceridwen, distinguished by the same characteristics as belonged to Osiris and Isis, Bacchus and Ceres, or any other supreme god and goddess representing the two principles of all being. The grand periods of initiation were quarterly, and determined by the course of the sun, and his arrival at the equinoctial and solstitial points. But the time of annual celebration was May-eve, when fires were kindled on all the cairns and cromlechs throughout the island, which burned all night to introduce the sports of May-day, whence all the national sports formerly or still practised date their origin. Round these fires choral dances were performed in honour of the sun, who, at this season was figuratively said to rise from his tomb. The festival was licentious, and continued till the luminary had attained his meridian height, when priests and attendants retired to the woods, where the most disgraceful orgies were perpetrated. But the solemn initiations were performed at midnight, and contained three degrees, the first or lowest being the Eubates, the second the Bards, and the third the Druids. The candidate was first placed in the pastos bed, or coffin, where his symbolical death represented the death of Hu, or the sun; and his restoration in the third degree symbolized the resurrection of the sun. He had to undergo trials and tests of courage similar to those practised in the mysteries of other countries, and which therefore need not be detailed here.

The festival of the 25th of December was celebrated with great fires lighted on the tops of the hills, to announce the birth-day of the god Sol. This was the moment when, after the supposed winter solstice, he began to increase, and gradually to ascend. This festival indeed was kept not by the Druids only, but throughout the ancient world, from India to Ultima Thule. The fires, of course, were typical of the power and ardour of the sun, whilst the evergreens used on the occasion foreshadowed the results of the sun's renewed action on vegetation. The festival of the summer solstice was kept on the 24th of June. Both days are still kept as festivals in the Christian church, the former as Christmas, the latter as St. John's Day; because the early Christians judiciously adopted not only the festival days of the pagans, but also, so far as this could be done with propriety, their mode of keeping them; substituting, however, a theological meaning for astronomical allusions. The use of evergreens in churches at Christmas time is the Christian perpetuation of an ancient Druidic custom.

Doctrines.
The Druids taught the doctrine of one supreme being, a future state of rewards and punishments, the immortality of the soul and a metempsychosis. It was a maxim with them that water was the first principle of all things, and existed before the creation in unsullied purity, which seems a contradiction to their other doctrine that day was the offspring of night, because night or chaos was in existence before day was created. They taught that time was only an intercepted fragment of eternity, and that there was an endless succession of worlds. In fact, their doctrines were chiefly those of Pythagoras. They entertained great veneration for the numbers three, seven, nineteen (the Metonic cycle), and one hundred and forty-seven, produced by multiplying the square of seven by three. They also practised vaticination [prophecy], pretending to predict future events from the flights of birds, human sacrifices, by white horses, the agitation of water, and lots. They seem, however, to have possessed considerable scientific knowledge.

Political and Judicial Power.
Their authority in many cases exceeded that of the monarch. They were, of course, the sole interpreters of religion, and consequently superintended all sacrifices; for no private person was allowed to offer a sacrifice without their sanction. They possessed the power of excommunication, which was the most horrible punishment that could be inflicted next to that of death, and from the effects of which the highest magistrate was not exempt. The great council of the realm was not competent to declare war or conclude peace without their concurrence. They determined all disputes by a final and unalterable decision, and had the power of inflicting the punishment of death. And, indeed, their altars streamed with the blood of human victims. Holocausts of men, women, and children, inclosed in large towers of wicker-work, were sometimes sacrificed as a burnt offering to their superstitions, which were, at the same time, intended to enhance the consideration of the priests, who were an ambitious race delighting in blood. The Druids, it is said, preferred such as had been guilty of theft, robbery, or other crimes, as most acceptable to their gods; but when there was a scarcity of criminals, they made no scruple to supply their place with innocent persons. These dreadful sacrifices were offered by the Druids, for the public, on the eve of a dangerous war, or in the time of any national calamity; and also for particular persons of high rank, when they were afflicted with any dangerous disease.

Priestesses.
The priestesses, clothed in white, and wearing a metal girdle, foretold the future from the observation of natural phenomena, but more especially from human sacrifices. For them was reserved the frightful task of putting to death the prisoners taken in war, and individuals condemned by the Druids; and their auguries were drawn from the manner in which the blood issued from the many wounds inflicted, and also from the smoking entrails. Many of these priestesses maintained a perpetual virginity, others gave themselves up to the most luxurious excesses. They dwelt on lonely rocks, beaten by the waves of the ocean which the mariners looked upon as temples surrounded with unspeakable prodigies. Thus the island of Sena or Liambis, The Saints, near Ushant, was the residence of certain of these priestesses, who delivered oracles to sailors; and there was no power that was not attributed to them. Others, living near the mouth of the Loire, once a year destroyed their temple, scattered its materials, and, having collected others, built a new one—of course a symbolical ceremony; and if one of the priestesses dropped any of the sacred materials, the others fell upon her with fierce yells, tore her to pieces, and scattered her bleeding limbs.

Abolition.
As the Romans gained ground in these islands the power of the Druids gradually declined; and the were finally assailed by Suetonius Paulinus, governor of Britain under Nero, A.D. 61, in their stronghold, the Isle of Anglesey, and entirely defeated, the conqueror consuming many of them in the fires which they had kindled for burning the Roman prisoners they had expected to make—a very just retaliation upon these sanguinary priests. But though their dominion was thus destroyed, many of their religious practices continued much longer; and so late as the eleventh century, in the reign of Canute, it was necessary to forbid the people to worship the sun, moon, fires, etc. Certainly many of the practices of the Druids are still adhered to in Freemasonry; and some writers on this Order endeavour to show that it was established soon after the edict of Canute, and that as thereby the Druidical worship was prohibited in toto, the strongest oaths were required to bind the initiated to secrecy.

Chapter IX. Scandinavian Mysteries

Drottes.
The priests of Scandinavia were named Drottes, and instituted by Sigge, a Scythian prince, who is said afterwards to have assumed the name of Odin. Their number was twelve, who were alike priests and judges; and from this order proceeded the establishment of British juries. Their power was extended to its utmost limits, by being allowed a discretionary privilege of determining on the choice of human victims for sacrifice, from which even the monarch was not exempt—hence arose the necessity of cultivating the goodwill of these sovereign pontiffs; and as this order, like the Israelitish priesthood, was restricted to one family, they became possessed of unbounded wealth, and at last became so tyrannical as to be objects of terror to the whole community. Christianity, promising to relieve it from this yoke, was hailed with enthusiasm; and the inhabitants of Scandinavia, inspired with a thirst for vengeance on account of accumulated and long-continued suffering, retaliated with dreadful severity on their persecutors, overthrowing the palaces and temples, the statues of their gods, and all the paraphernalia of Gothic superstition. Of this nothing remains but a few cromlechs; some stupendous monuments of rough stone, which human fury could not destroy; certain ranges of caverns hewn out of the solid rock; and some natural grottos used for the purpose of initiation.

Rituals.
The whole ritual had an astronomical bearing. The places of initiation, as in other mysteries, were in caverns, natural or artificial, and the candidate had to undergo trials as frightful as the priests could render them. But instead of having to pass through seven caves or passages, as in the Mithraic and other mysteries, he descended through nine—the square of the mystic number three—subterranean passages, and he was instructed to search for the body of Baldur, the Scandinavian Osiris, slain by Loki, the principle of darkness, and to use his utmost endeavours to raise him to life. To enter into particulars of the process of initiation would involve the repetition of what has been said before; it may therefore suffice to observe that the candidate on arriving at the sacellum had a solemn oath administered to him on a naked sword, and ratified it by drinking mead out of a human skull. The sacred sign of the cross was impressed upon him, and a ring of magic virtues, the gift of Baldur the Good, delivered to him.

Astronomical Meaning Demonstrated.
The first canto of the Edda, which apparently contains a description of the ceremonies performed on the initiation of an aspirant, says that he seeks to know the sciences possessed by the Aesas or gods. He discovers a palace, whose roof of boundless dimensions is covered with golden shields. He encounters a man engaged in launching upwards seven flowers. Here we easily discover the astronomical meaning: the palace is the world, the roof the sky; the golden shields are the stars, the seven flowers the seven planets. The candidate is asked what is his name, and replies Gangler, that is, the wanderer, he that performs a revolution, distributing necessaries to mankind; for the candidate personates the sun. The palace is that of the king, the epithet the ancient Mystagogues gave to the head of the planetary system. Then he discovers three seats; on the lowest is the king called Har, sublime; on the central one, Jafuhar, the equal of the sublime; on the highest Tredie, the number three. These personages are those the neophyte beheld in the Eleusinian initiation, the hierophant, the daduchus or torchbearer, and the epibomite or attendant on the altar; those he sees in Freemasonry, the master, and the senior and junior wardens, symbolical personifications of the sun, moon, and Demiurgus, or grand architect of the universe. But the Scandinavian triad is usually represented by Odin, the chief deity; Thor, his first-born, the reputed mediator between god and man, possessing unlimited power over the universe, wherefore his head was surrounded by a circle of twelve stars; and Freya, a hermaphrodite, adorned with a variety of symbols significant of dominion over love and marriage. In the instructions given to the neophyte, he is told that the greatest and most ancient of gods is called Alfader (the father of all), and has twelve epithets, which recall the twelve attributes of the sun, the twelve constellations, the twelve superior gods of Egypt, Greece, and Rome. Among the gods of the Scandinavian theogony there is Baldur the Good, whose story, as already hinted above, formed the object of the initiatory ceremonies. Baldur is Mithras, the sun's love. He foresees the danger that threatens him; he dreams of it at night. The other gods of Valhalla, the Scandinavian Olympus, to whom he reveals his sad fore-bodings, reassure him, and to guard against any harm befalling him, exact an oath from every thing in nature on his behalf, except from the mistletoe, which was omitted on account of its apparently inoffensive qualities. For an experiment, and in sport, the gods cast at Baldur all kinds of missiles, without wounding him. Hoder the blind [that is, Fate], takes no part in the diversion; but Loki [the principle of evil, darkness, the season of winter] places a sprig in the hands of Hoder, and persuades him to cast it at the devoted victim, who falls pierced with mortal wounds. For this reason it was that this plant was gathered at the winter solstice by the Druids of Scandinavia, Gaul, and Britain, with a curved knife, whose form symbolised the segment of the zodiacal circle during which the murder of Baldur took place. In the Edda of Snorro we have another legend of Odin and Freya, the Scandinavian Isis or Venus, giving an account of the wanderings of the latter in search of the former, which, of course, have the same astronomical meaning as the search of Isis for Osiris, of Ceres for Proserpine, etc. One of the chief festivals in the year, as with the Druids, was the winter solstice; and this being the longest night in the year, the Scandinavians assigned to it the formation of the world from primeval darkness, and called it “Mother Night.” This festival was denominated “Yule,” and was a season of universal festivity.

We are dealing with a progressive development of our planet. The purpose of our Earth is to develop this consciousness within us. Each planet goes through metamorphoses of seven successive levels of consciousness:

[1. Trance consciousness
2. Deep sleep consciousness
3. Dream consciousness
4. Wakefulness consciousness]
5. Soul consciousness
6. Oversoul consciousness
7. Spiritual consciousness

We have now established the [seven] metamorphoses of the father principle. Each of these seven metamorphoses of the father principle now undergoes seven principles in itself. Seven times seven.

Now we come to the son principle:

1. Elemental kingdom
2. Elemental kingdom
3. Elemental kingdom
4. mineral kingdom
5. plant kingdom
6. animal kingdom
7. human kingdom = 49 metamorphoses

Each of these 49 metamorphoses undergoes seven transformations, and the transformations through the spirit principle.

Each realm undergoes the seven powers once. For example, plant consciousness undergoes the seven powers once through the seven realms and seven times seven – each realm seven times the powers.

su>run The father metamorphoses seven times in seven levels of consciousness. All – plant – animal – human [gap in the transcript]

Puruscha: The Father metamorphoses seven times in seven stages of consciousness: All-consciousness - plant consciousness - animal consciousness - human consciousness - soul consciousness - oversoul consciousness - spirit consciousness.

Pakriti: The son metamorphoses seven times at each of these levels: first elemental realm, second elemental realm, third elemental realm, mineral realm, plant realm, animal realm, human realm.

Mahat: The mind metamorphoses seven times in each realm: Divine Spirit, Fire Spirit, Warmth Spirit, Light Spirit, Power Spirit, Creative Spirit, Blissful Spirit.

The way the realms are arranged in the individual levels of consciousness, however, makes us think as we describe them.

On the first planetary chain, the forces of light rule the first elemental realm in the fourth round. That is a fixed point. On the second chain or level of consciousness, the forces of light mainly rule the second elemental realm in the fourth round. On the third chain or level of consciousness, the forces of light rule the third elemental realm, and on the fourth, our level of consciousness, the forces of light rule the mineral realm. This is important because the rulers are not always the same. During each round, all seven forces are experienced, but not in the same way. On the moon, the mineral kingdom was ruled by the forces of warmth, -— previously by the forces of fire, on the first / gap in the transcript] by the forces of life. When Mars completed its fourth stage, its mineral state, its angel of orbital period was the divine spirit. Consciousness was an all-consciousness. When the beings arrived in the mineral kingdom, they were ruled by divine spirits.

On the first globe (arupa), the power spirit rules.
On the second globe (rupa), the creator spirit rules.
On the third globe, the blessed spirit rules.
On the fourth globe, the divine spirit rules.
On the fifth globe, the fire spirit rules.
On the sixth globe, the warmth spirit rules.
On the seventh globe rules the spirit of light.

Because this goes in a circle, Mars concludes with the highest development of light. Now he has developed light to the highest degree; the second planet begins. And what he has conquered in the previous one, he carries over. Now he shines and is called esoterically: the sun. Now he has during his

the creator spirit,

the blessed spirit,

the divine spirit. Now the sun reveals itself during its mineral state as fire, the plants are cooked. - Now it continues:

Fire
Warmth
Light
Strength

and hands over the power to the moon, and the power becomes that which permeates the moon, therefore it organizes [gap in the transcript] the moon period begins with creative spirit, develops arbitrariness, man arises as pleasure and pain.

Arupa stage – blissful mind
Rupa stage – divine mind
Astral stage – fire mind
Mineral stage – warmth

Warmth is revealed on the moon while it is physical.

The earth begins with

Arupa stage – Divine spirit
Rupa stage – Fire spirit
Astral stage – Warmth spirit
Physical stage – Light spirit

We are ruled by the light spirit, which is why the sun shines for us.

Now it depends on when a certain stage of Pitri is reached. Imagine you remain behind, a certain constellation of the stars comes, in which violence has a different relationship to the realm; the spirit to the son in another relationship, and that is decisive, as we are in our state of development. That is esoteric astrology. He must know at which level the Pitri stands and what the relationship between father and son is.

This is also the danger of the higher development of man: he comes out and into other cosmic influences. - He practices black magic by being carried away and coming into another sphere of influence. - Look at the diagram:

Each time we have seven kingdoms that go through certain stages of development. These are the son principle; hence 343 states, but only after every 49 states - so that every time a person has gone through 49 states, they have a particular turning point in their development. Something special is revealed to them. They enter a new series of 49. The Son reveals Himself. The human being becomes more inward-looking. The kingdom principle is evoked through the Son, and so the Son, Christ, reveals Himself. So Christ appears each time.

Our Christ is the one. And when the experience of Christ is fully realized within a person, they have undergone the 172nd metamorphosis. After the 343rd metamorphosis, they have returned to the Father. This is why Christ can say: “No one comes to the Father except through me.”

There are
343 human stages
49 Christs
7 Fathers.

Our Christ was the twenty-fifth; in every kingdom the Son reveals Himself once. 49 times in a planetary development. The Father reveals Himself in the constellation.

On our Earth it is the fourth, on the planetary chain the twenty-fifth.

7 x 49 = 343. The Son reveals Himself every 49th time.

49
49
49
343
21
172 stages of development
3
171 171

The following communications refer to the transition of the fourth (Atlantean) Root-Race into the fifth (Âryan), to which belongs civilised mankind of the present day. He only will estimate them correctly who is able to grasp the idea of evolution in its fullest meaning. Everything that comes to the notice of man in his surroundings is in a condition of development. And it must also be remembered that the peculiar characteristic of men of our fifth Root-Race, consisting in the use of thought, has but just been developed. Indeed, it is this Root-Race that slowly and gradually brings the power of thought to maturity. The man of the present makes up his mind and carries out his decision on the strength of his own thought. With the Atlanteans this capacity was only in preparation. Not their own thoughts, but those which flowed in upon them from Beings of a higher kind, influenced their will, which was thus guided, in a sense, from without. He who makes himself familiar with this conception of evolution in regard to man, and who learns to admit that he was, in prehistoric times and as an inhabitant of the earth, of an altogether different constitution, will also be able to advance to the conception of those wholly different Beings to whom reference is made in these communications. The development which is under consideration occupied enormous periods of time. Details of this will be shown more circumstantially in the following communications.

What has previously been said about the fourth Root-Race, the Atlantean, refers to the great general mass of mankind. But the latter found themselves under leaders who towered high above them in ability. The wisdom possessed by these leaders, and the powers of which they were masters, could not be obtained through any earthly education, but were imparted to them by entities of a high rank, and not pertaining directly to the earth. It was, therefore, quite natural that the great mass of mankind regarded these, their leaders, as Beings of a higher kind, as “messengers” of the gods. For that which these leaders knew and were able to achieve could not have been accomplished by means of human sense-organs or human understanding. They were worshipped as “Divine Messengers,” and their precepts, commands, and instructions were accepted. By such Beings mankind was instructed in sciences, arts, and the construction of tools. And such “Divine Messengers” either directed the communities themselves, or instructed such men as were sufficiently developed in the arts of governing. These leaders were said “to hold intercourse with gods,” and to be initiated by these themselves in the laws according to which mankind was to develop. And this was in accordance with fact. This initiation, this intercourse with the gods, occurred at places quite unknown to the populace. “Temples of Mysteries” was the name given to these places of initiation, and it was from their midst that mankind was governed.

That which took place in the Temples of Mysteries was, accordingly, incomprehensible to the populace, and only very slightly did the latter understand the purposes of their great leaders. The people could, indeed, understand with their senses only what happened immediately on the earth, not what was revealed from higher worlds. Consequently the teachings of the leaders had also to be clad in a form which was unlike the form used in the communication of earthly matters. The language used in the mysteries between the gods and their messengers was, indeed, no earthly tongue, nor were the forms assumed by the gods in their manifestations of an earthly kind. “In fiery clouds” did they, the higher spirits, appear to their messengers, in order to instruct them how men were to be guided. Only a man can appear in human form; entities whose faculties surpass the human level must manifest under forms which are not to be found among those of earth.

The fact that the “Messengers of the Gods” could receive the revelations was owing to their attainment of the highest degree of development among their human brothers. They had already, in earlier stages of evolution, gone through what the majority of men have yet to experience. Only in a special way did they belong to this contemporaneous mankind. They could assume the human form, but their psycho-spiritual faculties were superhuman in character. They were, therefore, divine-human, double entities. Hence they might also be described as higher spirits who had assumed human bodies, in order to help mankind further along its earthly path. Their true home was not on the earth. These entities guided man without being able to communicate to him the principles according to which they were leading him. For up to the fifth sub-race of the Atlanteans, the Original Semites, men had absolutely no capacity whatever wherewith to grasp these principles. Not till the power of thought began to develop in this sub-race did such capacity exist. But this faculty developed slowly and gradually. Even the last sub-races of the Atlanteans could as yet understand very little of the principles of their divine leaders. They began by having a very vague presentiment of such principles. Consequently, their conceptions and also the laws mentioned in connection with their civic institutions were intuitive rather than definitely thought out.

The chief leader of the fifth Atlantean sub-race had for his object to bring it gradually to such a point that it could, later on, and after the disappearance of the Atlantean mode of living, initiate a new one, such as would be completely regulated by the power of thought.

Now we must realise that the end of the Atlantean era is characterized by these groups of human entities. There are, firstly, the so-called “Messengers of the Gods,” who were advanced far beyond the great mass of people, teaching Divine Wisdom and performing divine deeds. Secondly, there was the great mass itself, in which the power of thought was in a state of torpor, although it possessed other natural faculties which have since been lost. Thirdly, there was a smaller number of such as developed the thinking capacity. These, it is true, gradually lost the primeval faculties of the Atlanteans; but they developed instead the capacity to grasp in thought the principles of the “Messengers of the Gods.” The second group of human entities was destined to die out gradually. The third, however, admitted of such an education by the entities of the first group that it could henceforward take over its own guidance.

From the midst of this third group selection was made by the aforesaid chief leader (who is known in Theosophical literature by the name of the Manu) of those most capable of forming the nucleus of a new mankind. These fittest people were to be found in the fifth sub-race. The thought-power of the sixth and seventh sub-races was in a certain way already on the downward path, and no longer fit for further development. The best qualities of the best men were to be developed. This was achieved by the leader sequestering the elect in a particular spot of the earth—in Central Asia—and freeing them from every influence of those left behind or gone astray. The task undertaken by the leader was to conduct his disciples so far on that they could grasp in their own souls and through their own thought the principles according to which they were previously directed and which they faintly understood. Men were now meant to understand the divine powers which they had formerly followed blindly. So far, the gods had led men through their messengers; henceforth men should know of these divine Beings. They were to consider themselves as the executive organs of divine Providence.

This isolated group had to face an important change. The divine leader was in their midst in human form. From such divine messengers mankind had previously received directions or commands as to what was to be done or left undone. It had been taught in sciences which referred to what could be observed by the senses. Men suspected the fact of a divine government of the world, they felt as much in their own actions, but they had no clear knowledge of this fact. Their leader now spoke to them quite differently. He taught them that invisible powers governed what was visibly before them; and that they themselves were servants of these invisible powers; that, with their thoughts, they had to execute the laws of these powers; and that the invisible spiritual element was the Creator and Preserver of the visible material world. Hitherto they had looked up to their visible messengers of the gods, to those superhuman Initiates of whom he who talked to them thus was himself one, and by whom they were directed as to what to do or to avoid. Now however they were found worthy of being instructed by the divine messenger of the gods. Powerful was the injunction impressed again and again on his followers: “Hitherto ye have seen those who were your leaders, but there are higher Leaders whom ye see not, and ye are subject to these Leaders. Fulfil the commands of the God whom ye see not, and obey Him of whom ye can make to yourselves no image.” Thus sounded, from the lips of the great Leader, the new and highest commandment, prescribing the worship of a God whom no image, visible to the senses, could resemble, of whom, therefore, none such should be made. An echo of this great primary commandment of the fifth race is heard in the well-known phrase: “Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.” (gods before me.
20:4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:
20:5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;
20:6 And showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.

Assisting the chief leader (Manu), there were other messengers of the gods who executed his designs with regard to particular branches of life, and helped in the development of the new race. For the object was to arrange the whole of life conformably with the new conception of a divine government of the world. The thoughts of men were to be turned in every respect from the visible to the invisible. Life is determined by natural forces. The course of this human life depends on day and night, winter and summer, sunshine and rain. How these momentous visible facts are connected with the invisible (divine) forces, and how man should act so as to live in accordance with these invisible powers—all this was shown to him. All knowledge and all work were to be pursued in this sense. In the course of the stars and in atmospheric conditions, man was to see the decrees of Providence, the expression of divine Wisdom. Astronomy and meteorology were taught in this sense. And man was to bring his work, his moral life, into harmony with the laws of the divine, that are so rich in wisdom. Life was ordered according to divine commandments, since in the course of the stars, in meteorological conditions, etc., divine thoughts were fathomed. Man was to bring his works into harmony with dispositions of the gods through sacrificial deeds.

It was the intention of the Manu to direct everything in human life towards the higher worlds. All human action, all arrangements were to bear a religious character. In this way the Manu wished to lead the way to that which constitutes the special task of the fifth Root-Race. This Race was to learn to guide itself onward through its own thoughts. Such self-determination, however, can lead to salvation only when man gives his own self also to the service of the higher powers. Man should make use of his thinking capacity; but this power of thought should be uplifted by mindfulness of the Divine.

To grasp completely what happened at that time, it is also necessary to know that the development of the thinking capacity, beginning with the fifth sub-race of the Atlanteans, brought about a still further consequence. In a certain direction men acquired branches of knowledge and performed acts which were in no immediate connection with what the Manu had to consider as his proper task. These acquirements and arts lacked, first of all, the religious character. They dawned on man at a time when his only thought was to exploit them for his own advantage, for his personal wants.—To such acquirements belongs, for instance, that of Fire in its application to human industry. At the beginning of the Atlantean era man had no need of fire, as the vital force was still at his disposal. With this decrease of his ability to avail himself of this force, he was obliged to learn how to fashion his tools and implements from so-called lifeless things. Here the use of fire became most advantageous, and it was the same with regard to other natural forces. Man had also learned to make use of these forces without being conscious of their divine origin. This, indeed, was inevitable. Man was not to be forced to link these things, which assisted his own mentality, with the divine order of things. This he was rather meant to do voluntarily in his thoughts. The intention of the Manu was, then, to evoke in men a spontaneous need to establish a connection between such things and the higher order of the world. Men could, as it were, choose whether they would exploit the acquired knowledge for purely personal benefit, or use it in the religious service of a higher world. Just as man had previously been forced to consider himself as a part of the divine ruling of the world, from which there flowed in on him, for instance, the mastery of the vital force without any need of mental effort, so now he could also make use of natural forces without giving thought to the divine. Of those whom the Manu had gathered round himself, all were not ripe for the change. Indeed, very few of them were so. And only from these could the nucleus of the new race be actually formed by the Manu. It was, then, only with this small number that the Manu retired, in order to further their development, while the rest became merged in the general mass of mankind. It was then from this small number of men, thus finally grouped round the Manu, that all the true germs of progress in the fifth Root-Race up to the present time were derived. Thus, however, it becomes plain that the whole development of this fifth Root-Race displays two characteristic features. One of these distinguishes those who are animated by higher ideals, and who consider themselves as children of a divine universal power; the other appears in those who make everything subservient only to personal interests, to selfish ends.

This little band remained with the Manu until it had become strong enough to act in the new spirit, and until its members could set forth to impart this new spirit to that portion of mankind which remained over from the preceding races. This new spirit naturally assumed a different character with various nations, according to the different phases of their development. The old surviving characteristics became mixed with what the messengers of the Manu brought into the various parts of the world, and in this way manifold new cultures and civilizations arose.

The fittest personalities of those surrounding the Manu were chosen to become initiated little by little into his divine wisdom, so that they might become teachers to the rest. Thus it was that along with the old messengers of the gods there now arose a new kind of Initiates. These were they who developed their mentality in exactly the same manner as the rest of their fellow-men. The divine messengers of old—and the Manu—had not done so. Their development belongs to higher worlds. They brought their higher wisdom into earthly relations. What they gave to mankind was “a gift from on high.” Before the middle of the Atlantean era men were not advanced far enough to grasp with their own faculties the import of divine decrees. Now, in the period indicated, they were to reach this stage. Their earthly thought was to rise to the conception of the divine. Human Initiates united themselves with those who were superhuman. This signifies an important change in the development of humanity. The first Atlanteans had not yet the choice of viewing their leaders as divine messengers, or of not doing so. For what these accomplished appeared, perforce, as a deed of the higher worlds. A divine origin was stamped on it. On account of their power, the divine messengers of the Atlantean era were therefore sanctified Beings, surrounded by the lustre conferred on them by this power. The human Initiates of the subsequent era, if considered externally, are men among men. To be sure, they remained in touch with the higher worlds, receptive of the revelations and appearances of the messengers of the gods. Only on exceptional occasions, in the case of a higher necessity, they made use of certain powers, conferred on them from that source. Then did they perform feats which men failed to interpret in terms of the known laws and therefore rightly viewed as miracles. Nevertheless it is the higher purpose of all this to place men on their own feet, to develop perfectly their mentality. The human Initiates are now the mediators between the people and the higher powers; and Initiation alone qualifies one for intercourse with the messengers of the gods.

The human Initiates, the holy teachers, became, then, in the beginning of the fifth Root-Race, the leaders of the rest of mankind. The great priest-kings of prehistoric times—attested to, if not historically, at least mythologically—belong to this class of Initiates. The higher messengers of the gods gradually withdrew from this earth, handing over the leadership to these human Initiates, but still assisting them by deed and word. Were this not so, man would not attain to a free use of his mentality. The world stands under divine guidance; but man should not be forced to acknowledge this fact, but should do so in consequence of the free exercise of his mental capacity. Only when he has attained to this do the Initiates gradually unveil to him their secrets. But this cannot be attained suddenly. Rather is the whole development of the fifth Root-Race a slow path to this goal. At first the Manu himself still led his flock like children, but afterwards the leadership was gradually transferred to human Initiates. And, to-day, the progress still continues to consist in a mingling of conscious and unconscious acting and thinking on the part of men. Only at the end of the fifth Root-Race, when, after the progress made in the course of the sixth and seventh sub-races, a sufficiently large number of men will be ready to receive knowledge, the greatest Initiate will be able to reveal himself to them publicly. And this human Initiate will then be able to take over the further general leadership, just as the Manu had done at the end of the fourth Root-Race. The education of the fifth Root-Race has therefore as its aim the production of a larger portion of mankind who shall attain so far as to follow freely a human Manu, just as was done by the nucleus of this fifth race with regard to the divine Manu.

I would like to continue today with my reflections on the Apocalypse. Anyone who wants to understand the full meaning and spirit of a work of writing such as the Apocalypse must, above all, realize how religions work and how Christianity worked in its early days, that is, what forces made it possible for Christianity and other religious systems to pour out this mighty and magnificent life of the spirit over humanity.

Today, the belief is all too widespread that the simple, plain word that everyone can understand must actually contain the truth, and there is a certain “tendency” today against the elevation of the spirit to the heights of thought, to the heights of supersensible vision - thus a “dislike”. We often hear even theologians say: anything that cannot be clothed in the simplest words that every person can understand without fail, that cannot be of much use to the truth. Those who think this way will not be able to understand the full meaning and spirit of a work of writing such as the Apocalypse is, and as the mystical Gospel of John already is. Admittedly, nothing should be said against the correctness of the saying that the truth must be proclaimed in simple words, because whoever wants to proclaim the truth must find the ways to be able to speak to the simplest hearts. He must find the words to speak to those who stand on the heights of science, culture and education, as well as to those who are referred to by the expression “simple man from the people”. But the power, the inner power, cannot find expression in the simple, plain word. This power comes from the highest heights of spiritual life. In its early centuries, Christianity also had mystery initiation sites where not only simple words, not only generally understandable things were proclaimed, but where the revelation of the highest spiritual vision was proclaimed, which in the Gospel of John reaches up to the regions where space and time have no meaning. Not every outsider could then speak of these revelations of the highest regions. The church fathers and teachers of the first centuries then found the very popular, simple word through which they found access to the uneducated. They themselves had the power, the authority of spiritual proclamation from the highest heights of spiritual life. And something like that is also implied in the Apocalypse as if by itself. You only need to read the most important passages in the Apocalypse with understanding and you will find that what has been brought down from the heights of the spirit is set in a world picture, that a world picture has been designed from it.

I, John, who am also your brother and companion in tribulation and in the kingdom and power of Jesus Christ, was on the island called Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ. I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day. [Rev 1,9-10]

With this he expressed that he was on the “island of Patmos” - he meant a mystery place - and had received this revelation. And in the Spirit he had received it. And in other places he speaks differently. At the beginning of chapter four, he says:

After this I looked, and behold, a door was opened in heaven; and the first voice that I had heard speaking like a trumpet said, 'Come up here, and I will show you what-after this shall take place.

The first three chapters contain what I have already tried to outline in the last lesson. But then the fate of the root race that will replace ours is described. Therefore, the Apocalypse distinguishes precisely between the two types of vision, inspiration and intuition. This is necessary if one wants to proclaim the one and the other. A low intuition is enough to reveal the destinies of a root race, but a higher intuition is needed to see what happens after this root race of ours, for example, when the sixth and seventh root races have emerged. This cannot be seen in the way of seeing that underlies the first three chapters; it can only be seen when one ascends to devachan. The destiny of a root race can never be revealed to us in the realm of highly developed astral vision. That is why John says that he heard the voice in spirit. Until the end of the third chapter of the Apocalypse, we are dealing with higher astral vision; from the fourth chapter on, we are dealing with devachanic vision. The initiates of all times speak as the apocalypticist speaks.

There is only one thing in the Apocalypse that is different from the other profound initiation texts. In the Apocalypse, the point of view is different. The theologian John speaks in the Apocalypse as a Christian, from a Christian point of view. Therefore, anyone who wants to read the Apocalypse with the right sentiment, with the right feeling, must completely identify with the confession, and above all with the very human confession, not just with the theologian's confession. They must identify with the feeling of a highly initiated Christian, with the feeling that a Christian has when the full power of Christian revelation has taken hold of him. One must know this.

A significant word can be found in the first letter of John:

There are three witnesses on earth: blood, water and the Spirit.

And there are three witnesses in heaven: the Father, the Word and the Holy Spirit. [1 John 5:7-8]

To the theosophist, these three principles that give birth in heaven are known as Atma, Buddhi and Manas. The Christian calls the principles that underlie the world: Father, Word and Holy Ghost. To speak about the Father would have been rejected by the Christian of the first centuries, because

No one comes to the Father except through me. [John 14:6]

And the one who spoke these words is the great Christian Master himself, the one through whom Christianity itself came into the world. I now speak entirely in the spirit of an initiated Christian of the first period. He believed in the Father, and he believed that he could not get to know him other than through the word.

And what was the word? Only a weak idea can be given to the uninitiated of what the initiated Christian of the first time calls the word, and that is through a comparison. The highest that man can rise to is the thought, the mental. Man always rises through the thought to the life in Devachan. He lives in Devachan, he is just not aware of it. That is the characteristic of the earthly human being that he lives in three worlds at the same time: in the physical world, in the astral world and in the devachanic world. But he is only conscious in the physical world. The highest expression that exists in the world was, for all religions, including the first Christian religion, the world-creative will. And if the Christian says anything at all about the Father, it is solely that the Father is the world-creative universal will. When man wants to express the highest that lives in him, the Devachanic, the thought, through the will, that is, through the world-creative principle, it happens first through language. In man, the word is the enunciator of the spirit through the will. And so the first Christian said: Everything that our world is is conceived in the highest sense through the word - but now through the word that came into being through the highest world-creative will. Just as man expresses his highest through the power of the will to the word, so the Christian says: The Father expressed His Spirit, the Holy Spirit, through the power of the word. That is why it also says in the Gospel: “All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made.

The Third Person is the Holy Spirit. He is to the universe what the spirit of the individual human being is to that human being. This Spirit descends in the Word of the world. If a Christian wanted to visualize this, he would say to himself: Just as a person speaks, how his word resounds into the air, setting the air in motion in waves, and how his thought thus lives on in the waves of the air, and the word is the embodiment of the human spirit, so the world is the embodiment of the word of God.

Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. [John 1:3]

This also means that the actual fundamental principle is the highest that man can embody in the world, that is the word. And this word is referred to as the second divine person or as the Son of God, as the highest being, not as an abstract, pantheistic image of the world soul, but as a being much more personal and individual than the human personality, the human individuality. It must be firmly held that we are dealing with a supreme being and that the word is an expression of the supreme being through which the whole universe, like man, can see with eyes, hear with ears, and comprehend with the mind. For the first Christian, this has become man in the one whom he recognizes as the proclaimer of the gospel.

Thus, for the first Christians, the event in Palestine had a cosmic value. He who walked in Palestine was not a man like the other men for the first Christians. He was for them the Word made flesh, that which can see with eyes, hear with ears, and comprehend with the mind in the whole universe, and this infinite being in the form of a human being. Those who do not understand it this way, who want to quibble about the incarnate God, about this Word of the incarnate God, who do not see it as the incarnation of God in Jesus, cannot put themselves in the shoes of the first Christians.

He was a unique personality. The gospel expresses this in a magnificent, wonderful, and powerful way. That the Christ ascended to the devachanic vision is clearly expressed in the gospel for those who can read these things.

But in order to fully understand Christianity, I ask you to consider one thing. We have a great similarity in what we call the narrative of the life of Jesus and in what we call the narrative of the Buddha's life. This similarity in the proclamation, this similarity of the years of apprenticeship and so on has been emphasized in many ways. Where this similarity comes from is known to the mystic, because he knows that such a life is repeated at certain periods of humanity. But the Christ-life has something else, something essentially different from the Buddha-life, and that was understood by the first Christian initiates. If you follow the Jesus-life, you come to a point that is described as the Transfiguration. Jesus went with his disciples Peter, John and James to the mountain and was transfigured, he became radiant from within, and Moses and Elijah hovered on either side of him. The disciples then received significant revelations. This indicates an extremely important moment. Moses and Elijah appear at the side of Christ Jesus. Time is suspended, the past is present. This is how it is in devachan. Here in the physical world we have space and time. In the astral world we have only time. But the devachanic world is without time and space. Moses and Elijah, who have long since passed away, are immediately present. This means that at the transfiguration the three disciples Peter, James and John were raised to devachanic vision.

Starting from this transfiguration, we can see what is important: it is the actual sacrificial death, the suffering, dying and sacrificial death, that is, what you do not have in the Buddha-life. Buddha went out with his disciple Ananda and became radiant. When you see this scene depicted in the Buddha-Life, you see it in a different form; that depends on popular opinion. But in the last moment we have the transfiguration. Buddha's Life concludes with the transfiguration. The Jesus-Life begins its really significant epoch only with this fact. This indicates what the Christ wanted to say about all the old religious systems of the preceding sub-races of the fifth root race. The Christ wanted to say: We do understand the prediction of what came through the Gospels in the preceding religious systems, we do recognize that in the old mysteries the Word of Truth was taught and given. But there is one thing that has come into existence only through Christianity, and that is expressed by the key-word: “Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.” – That is the great, the world-historic significance of Christianity in its Gospel.

What was once accomplished in the mystery temples, closed off from the world, for a select few through initiation, through beholding the great truths of the world in the interior of the mystery crypts, should also be able to become and become so inwardly free and elevated in soul, even those who do not go so far as beholding, but who can only believe. Therefore, in Christianity, what used to take place in the secrecy of the mysteries, the highest, the mystery in which man himself passes through the gate of death to rise again in a higher life, this deepest mystery secret, which an uninitiated person cannot understand in its true meaning, was moved to the great horizon of world existence. What took place in Palestine took place as a historical, real fact, which occurred in all its details as previously the mystery acts inside the mystery sites. In the mysteries, sacrifices and sacrificial deaths were repeatedly performed. The ancient mystery teachings had to be brought to the world in a popular form. But with that, a further step has been taken through Christianity, a step in the conception of an initiate of the first Christianity, a step that leads people beyond the stage that the old religions could have given them.

Who were the teachers of the old religions? They were the teachers of humanity. What they taught was what mattered. The teachings of Buddha, Zoroaster, Confucius, Hermes, Pythagoras, Laotse, [Socrates, Plato] - it was the words themselves that mattered. They stood, as it were, on a high mountain, and from there they proclaimed the highest, the holy word. But something else was possible. It was possible for this word itself to descend and take on human form, and for once it was not what was proclaimed that mattered, but what was lived, lived in the deepest sense of the word. The goal was there. In ancient times, the path was indicated to our fifth root race. In addition, there were the teachings and commandments of the old religious founders, of Laotse, Confucius, Moses, and Buddha – their truths. But then the Word itself came down in the form of flesh and lived among us. And the threefold Word became true:

I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

And so the Christian disciple and the initiate saw in his founder the 'way', the 'truth' and the 'life'. In a profound saying the Christian disciple has indicated what I have said. All the founders of ancient religions were regarded as embodied angels, messengers of the Godhead. 'Angel' means nothing other than messenger of the Godhead. But now there came One before Whom the angels covered their faces in reverence and lay down at the feet of the Mystic Lamb, the feet of God made flesh. That is the mystery, that in the incarnate Lamb a deeper descent to men, a life with men, can be seen. From the mountain the ancients proclaimed the Word. But Christ descended into the valley and lived as a human being among humans. He did not command what should be done, he did not say what is true, but he showed by the way he lived that the word had been realized. In this, the Christian saw his religion distinguished from the other religions. This also placed him at the center of what the Christian initiate has to proclaim as an apocalypse or secret revelation. Why the Incarnate Word is also called the “Lamb” is what we will discuss next time.

It will have become clear to us that we must place this Lamb at the center of the Apocalypse, and that through this Lamb alone the future of humanity can be proclaimed. In the fourth chapter of the Apocalypse, when man is led up, when heaven is open, the truths of the beyond are proclaimed to him. This is the mystical Lamb who breaks the seals of the world. There the transfigured flesh meets. Hence the question: What revealed itself to you when you stepped beyond the mere height of Christian vision? Then the mystical Lamb revealed itself to him. The devachanic world opened up to him, and with it the possibility of revealing the actual secret that must be revealed when the time is fulfilled, when the seventh sub-race of our fifth root race is over and a new race of humanity with a new stage of development is about to begin.

Thus we have described in the Apocalypse the fate of the fifth sub-race and the beginnings of a new world order, which is described with three key words: 'pneumatology', 'community life' built on love, and 'moral teaching'. This world announces itself in the world secret, which is revealed through the seven seals that are opened by the one who, by going among men, made this secret possible in the first place, and who will fulfill it when the time has come for our root race to mature, to pass over into that world and reach that stage of evolution that is designated by these three words. The content of the Apocalypse must be drawn from such depths. This is not to say that true Christianity can only be drawn from these heights. But it must be imbued with fire, and this fire can only be won by man if he draws strength from higher vision, and the result of higher vision in the Christian sphere is precisely the Apocalypse.

We can only understand the Apocalypse if we accept the fundamental nature of Christianity as a mystical fact. This fundamental nature is contained in the words: “Blessed are they that have believed, not seen.” What once took place in the interior of the crypts has now been carried out into the arena of world history itself. The old mystery was revealed in Christianity: that which is a mystery at one time becomes manifest at another. The content of ancient mystery books is reproduced in the Gospels; the record of future events is contained in the Apocalypse of John.

Anyone who wants to understand the spirit of such writings must, above all, know how religions work.

Today, there is a widespread belief that the simple word contains the truth, and there is an aversion to elevating the spirit. Nothing should be said against the simplicity of the word: but the inner strength from which such speech flows springs from the highest heights of the spirit. Not everyone could speak of the revelations of the highest regions. The church father had the strength, the power of the [gap in the text]

A destiny seen in mystery is described to us in the apocalypse. A lower initiation is enough to see beyond one root race, a higher one is necessary to see beyond many. To create an apocalypse, the third degree of chelaship is necessary. In the realm of highly developed astral vision, the destiny of a root race unfolds before us. From the fourth chapter on, the Apocalypse is devachanic vision. He who wrote the Apocalypse overlooked the period up to the middle of the Lemurian race and the future until sexuality ceased. The higher experiences are no different from each other. Never do two initiates report in different ways. The initiates of all times spoke as the apocalyptic did. In the Apocalypse, the author speaks from the Christian point of view.

Let us look back at the formation of the races.

Before the Lemurian race, there was a development of humanity that was quite different. The etheric body had not yet solidified; it did not walk on the ground, but floated through the etheric earth itself. Its organs were luminous. Man incarnated in fiery clouds at the beginning of the Lemurian race. The esotericist describes that transition from fine to physical matter, those beings that developed into physical density, as the eagle state of man. The eagle is therefore the human being who has developed from the ether to physical matter.

In the Atlanteans, man had a strengthened life force, he could control prana, use the seed power. During the present race, for about thirteen million years, he has only mastered physics. Later he will regain control over the etheric body and the astral body.

This second stage, in which man still has control over the etheric body, is symbolized by the lion man.

For the Aryan, who has descended completely into the physical, the symbol is the bull.

Three very definite successive stages of humanity are thus designated.

The symbolic language is understood by everyone who has learned it; they know what is meant by the special signs.

A frequently used character is two interlocking triangles: an eagle at the top, a lion on the left, a bull on the right; in the middle, a human face. This means that there is a triangle below that characterizes past conditions. The three angles therefore remain initially [gap in the text]

In the middle is the inner man, the actual permanent essence. These are the four natures, through which man is actually human, can be seen in the two intertwined triangles.

These three animals appear wherever the development of the human being is discussed. But in the Apocalypse of John, there is still another way of speaking. The apocalyptic overcomes the veils that separate him from the earlier stages. In order to be able to see himself back, the earlier organs must be enlivened. He must draw animals that see and look. Eye, all eye.

The future stages can only be grasped by someone who has an eye for the ascent, the use of the higher bodies. Now we are in the stage of the purely physical mind. This mind requires a certain moral teaching and a certain religion. In essence, the individual must seek his fortune at the expense of the other. Those who strive for the higher must already rise above the rest. In the occult school, there are three words that describe the new age. These are:

Brotherly love: the love of community as a moral ideal.

Pneumatology: the doctrine of the spirit and the spiritual as the decisive thing: scientific ideal.

Free religious principle: self-authority in religious matters.

This will be the sixth race.

A well-known occult law is that in certain time cycles, what has happened before will be repeated. The eagle, bull and lion were repeated in the first three sub-races. The fourth sub-race is referred to as “human”. In it, Christianity emerged.

The people of the first sub-race, the Indian people, had expressed the culture of thought, the highest deification of thought. They had to repeat in brief what the Lemurians had experienced. The Lemurians were people of feeling; the Indians thought in feelings; what thought radiates in feelings we find in the old Vedic culture - thought takes hold of feelings in the Indian. In cultures where thought is served more by memory, we have the culture of heroes, the long catalogs that have led to memory. Much was noted. And from the notes of the ancient Persians, the Magi, the Chaldeans, the calendar books were created. From them developed astronomy, astrology, technology, mathematics, and so on.

Thus man came to the race where he understood what it means: in man himself, the god has come to life.

The first race could fall away most easily. The feeling is not yet strong enough for the thought to really internalize.

Every day that one delves deeper into Vedanta-Alchry is a source of new admiration. On the other hand, the most abject idolatry that the people have fallen into confronts us. But the great virtues of people always have the greatest dark sides as well. The Apocalypticist seeks to make us understand this phenomenon by using the example of the community of Ephesus, symbolized by the sect of the Nicolaitans; it is intended to show us how, in the fifth root race, the most external lives alongside the highest.

Let us visualize how the early Christians viewed their Christianity.

“There are three that begat it on earth, and three in heaven.” Atma, Buddhi, Manas. Father, Son and Spirit.

To speak of the Father would have been rejected by the early Christian. He believed he could only recognize the Father through the Son, through the Word: “No one comes to the Father except through me.”

The highest that man can aspire to is thought, the mental. It is characteristic of man on earth that he lives in three worlds at once: the spiritual, the soul and the physical - but only in the physical consciously.

The highest for all religions was the world-creative will. When man, through the will, wants to express the thought, then it is first through the word. The word is the expression of the spirit through the will. Thus the Christian said: The Father expressed his spirit in the world through the power of the word. This is the second person of the Trinity, the third is the Holy Spirit, and He is expressed in the Word. The world is the embodiment of the Spirit and came into being through the Word of God, as the vibration of air comes through human speech. This Word is to be thought of as the Second Person, as the highest Being, much more personal than a human individuality. This highest being became man for the first Christians in the one whom they recognized as the proclaimer of the Gospel. He who does not understand this, he who wants to dispute the Word made Flesh, cannot place himself in the frame of mind of the first Christians. That the Christian has risen to devachanic vision is clear to him who knows how to read the Gospel.

The Christ-life has something essentially different from the Buddha-life, and this was understood by the first initiates. Time is suspended, the past is present: such is devachan. At the transfiguration of Christ the three disciples are uplifted to devachanic vision.

Here we have something that we do not have in the Buddha life. Buddha became luminous... here it concludes. The Christ life begins its most significant epoch with this fact. Thus the first Christians said: “We well understand the pre-announcement of this, which is fulfilled in the present, through the old religions... But blessed are those who believe, not see.

What had previously been achieved by beholding the great truths of the world in the interior of the crypts could now be experienced by those who merely believed. The mystery was brought out into the open world arena. The cross of Golgotha is the same act, erected before all eyes. The ancient mystery doctrine had to be brought to the world in a popular form. A step has been taken that leads further than the old religions.

Let us call to mind the point of time when, in the middle of the Lemurian Race, man raised himself up to spirituality. Now for the first time fructification with the Spirit, with the Monad became possible. Gradually, out of the chaotic Earth, through what had been separated off from man, the other beings had been formed which lived on the Earth as his companions. Man had developed a physical body, an etheric body and an astral body. The astral body had become purified and was just at that time adapted to receive Manas, Buddhi, Atma.

On the Earth everything developed quite gradually, so that mankind, still without intellect or possibility of speech, arose out of the uncoordinated Earth mass. Now we ask: How did this come about? A plant too does not grow out of nothing. A seed must be planted into the Earth. This was also the case with the people who were there at that time. The human being too had grown up out of the Earth and for this a seed had to be there on the Earth. Once a similar being had already existed. This seed-man had arisen on the Old Moon. From there he passed over in the seed condition, went through a Pralaya and then appeared once more on the Earth.

The development of the Earth had three preliminary stages: (Old Saturn, Sun and Moon). In the first three Earth Rounds these stages had a short recapitulation. In the First Earth Epoch the Saturn existence was repeated, in the Second Epoch the Sun existence and in the Third Epoch the Moon existence. It was only in the Fourth Round that the actual Earth existence emerged and then man had reached a somewhat higher stage than on the Old Moon. There he had not yet reached separate development, he had not yet become sufficiently purified to receive the Monad. On the Moon the astral body was still wild and passionate. On the Earth he had still to purify himself in order to be able to receive the higher principles. This purification was completed in the middle of the Lemurian Age.

The last human beings during the Old Moon existence are our physical forefathers. On the Earth they now developed somewhat further. The Earth-men of the pre-Lemurian Age are the actual descendants of the inhabitants of the Moon. This is why we call the inhabitants of the Moon the Fathers or Pitris of Earth-Men. These Earth-Men were as yet unable to use their front limbs for work. They were of animal-like form having a certain great beauty. Their substance was much softer than the physical matter of today: it was very much softer than what we now find with the lower animals. They were irradiated and an inner fire shone through them. When human beings were going through an earlier stage of evolution, they were still more beautiful and nobler in their form.

During the Age which preceded the Lemurian Age, we have the Hyperborean Age on the Earth, that of the Sun Men, of the Apollo-Men. They were formed out of a still nobler and even more delicate substance. Then we go still further back to the very first Race, to the Polarian men. At that time they lived in the tropical polar climate, a Race which was able to attain to special heights through the fact that a remarkable and great help had been granted them. The most beautiful of the Moon Pitris descended to the Earth. The Polarian human beings were very similar to four-footed animals, but they were formed out of a soft, pliant substance similar to a jellyfish, but much warmer. The human beings with the best forms, consisting of the noblest components, received at that time help of a special nature, for beings were still connected with the Earth who had earlier reached a higher stage.

All esotericism recognises that the Sun was first a planet; it only later became a fixed star. The sequence of stages that the Earth has passed through is: Old Saturn, Old Sun, Old Moon, Earth. When the Sun was itself a planet, then everything which is now on the Moon and Earth was still in the Sun. Later Sun and Moon separated themselves from the Earth.

Let us think back to the time of the Old Sun. Then everything which now lives on the Earth, dwelt on the Sun. The beings were then quite differently formed, having only a physical body, much less dense than it is now, and an etheric body. Man's whole way of life was plant-like. The beings lived in the light of the Sun. Light came to them from the centre of their own planet. They were totally different from present-day man. In comparison with present-day man the Sun-man stood upside down and the Sun shone upon his head. Everything connected with reproduction developed freely on the other side. Man at that time stretched his legs, so to say, into the air. The plant has remained at this stage, its roots are in the earth and it stretches its organs of reproduction, stamens and pistil, into the air (plant). This Sun-man developed in seven different stages. His direction on the planet is the same as the growth of the plant on the Earth. Then, with the third incarnation of the Earth he became a Moon-man. He bent over, the vertical becoming the horizontal (animal). The tendency towards a spine developed. The symbol for this is the Tau = T. On the Earth he turns completely round. For this the symbol is the Cross. The symbolism of the Cross depicts the development from the Sun, through the Moon to the Earth. On the Earth the symbol of the Cross was attained by the addition of the upper vertical member above the T. This developed further in the bearing of the Cross on the shoulders.

The Sun-men too had attained a certain high development. There were also Sun Adepts, who had progressed further than the other Sun-men. They passed over to the Moon. There also they had the possibility of being on a higher level than the Moon-men, and they developed to quite special heights. They were the forefathers of the Earth-men, but had hastened much further ahead. When now in the second Epoch of the Fourth Round the Hyperboreans lived in their soft forms, these Sons of the Sun were in position to incarnate and they formed a particularly beautiful Race. They were the Solar Pitris. Already in the Hyperborean Epoch they created for themselves an upright form, completely transforming the Hyperborean bodies. This the other human beings were unable to do. In the Hyperborean Epoch the Solar Pitris became the beautiful Apollo-men, who in the Second Race had already attained the upright posture.

In the Old Sun everything was contained which was later extrapolated as Moon and Earth. All life and all warmth streamed up from the centre of the Sun. Then, in the next Manvantara (the Old Moon) the following took place: Out of the darkness of Pralaya the Sun emerged. A part of the Sun substance had the urge to detach itself. At first a kind of biscuit formation developed.

Then the one part severed itself completely and the two bodies continued side by side as Sun and Old Moon. The Sun retained the possibility of emitting light and warmth. The Old Moon retained the power of reproduction. It was able to bring forth again the beings who had been on the Sun, but they had to be dependent on the Sun for light and warmth. Because the Old Moon itself possessed no light, the beings had to orientate themselves towards the Sun. All plants therefore completely reversed their position on the Old Moon. The animals turned half round and human beings also only turned halfway; but to compensate for this they received on the Moon the astral body, Kama, and thereby, developed warmth from within outwards.

The Kama was at that time still an essentially warming force. This is why the human beings did not already then turn themselves completely towards the Sun. Life was in the darkness. The Old Moon also circled round the Sun, but not as our Earth does today. The Moon rotated around the Sun, in such a way that only one side was turned towards it. A Moon-day therefore lasted as long as a half year does today. Thus on the one side there was an intense heat and on the other side an intense cold.

On the Old Moon the predecessors of man again went through a certain normal development. But there were also Moon Adepts who hastened on in advance of the rest of mankind. At the end of the Old Moon evolution these Pitri beings were much more advanced than the rest of humanity, just as the Adepts are today.

Now for the first time we reach the actual Earth evolution. In the next Pralaya which followed the Moon evolution, the Moon fell back into the Sun. As one body they went through Pralaya. When the Earth eventually emerged out of the darkness the whole Sun-mass was united with it. In that epoch the first or Polarian Race began. Then the previous Sun-Men, in accordance with conditions at that time, were able to form this specially favoured species, the Sons of the Sun, because the Sun was still united with the Earth.

During the Hyperborean Period the whole again divided. One part severed itself and the Earth emerged out of the Sun. It is at this point that the Kant-Laplace theory is relevant. The earth was in a nebulous condition coinciding with the Kant-Laplace theory. The outer appearance seemed like the rings around Saturn. Now the second or Hyperborean Race evolved. Gradually the seeds of the Moon-Men appeared on the Earth, the Pitris in various degrees of perfection. They all still had the possibility of reproducing themselves through self-fertilisation.

A second severance followed. With the Moon everything connected with self-reproduction departed from the Earth, so that there were now three bodies: Sun, Earth, Moon. Then the possibility of self-fertilisation ceased; the Moon had drawn out what made this possible. Then the Moon was outside and there were beings who were no longer able to reproduce themselves; thus in the Lemurian Age the two sexes originated.

Such forms of evolution take their course only under the special guidance of higher beings, the Devas, in order to further evolution in a certain way. The leader of this whole progression is the God who in the Hebraic tradition is called Jahve; Jehovah. He was a Moon-God. He possessed in the highest sense of the word, the power that had developed on the Moon and accordingly he endeavoured to develop mankind further in this direction. In the earthly world Jahve represents that God who endows beings with the possibility of physical reproduction. Everything else (intellect) did not lie in the Jahve-Intention. If Jahve's intention alone had continued to develop, the human being would eventually have ceased to be able to reproduce himself, for the power of reproduction would have become exhausted. He would then only have been concerned with the creation of beautiful forms, for he was indifferent to what is inward, intellectual. Jehovah wished to produce beautifully formed human beings, like beautiful statues. His intention was that the power of reproduction should be continued until it had expended itself. He wanted to have a planet that only bore upon it beautiful but completely motionless forms. If the Earth had continued its evolution with the Moon within it, it would have developed into a completely rigid, frozen form. Jehovah would have immortalised his planet as a monument to his intention. This would doubtless have come about had not those Adepts, who had hastened beyond the Moon evolution now come forward. It was just at this time that they made their appearance. They had already developed on the Moon intelligence and the Spirit which we first developed on the Earth. They now took the rest of humanity into their charge and rescued them from the fate which otherwise would have befallen them. A new spark was kindled in the human astral body. Just at that time they gave to the human astral body the impetus to develop beyond this critical point. Jahve could now save the situation only by altering his manner of working. He created man and woman. What could no longer be contained in one sex was divided between the two sexes.

Two streams now existed, that of Jahve and that of the Moon Adepts. The interest of the Moon Adepts lay in spiritualising mankind. Jahve, however, wished to make of them beautiful statues. At that time these two powers contested with one another.

Thus on the Earth we have to do with a force having the power of self-reproduction; Kriya-shakti. This power is only present on the Earth today in the very highest Mysteries. At that time everyone possessed it. Through this power man could reproduce himself; he then became divided into two halves with the result that two sexes came into being on the Earth.

Jehovah withdrew the entire power of self-reproduction from the Earth and placed it in the Moon side by side with the Earth. Through this arose the connection between the power of reproduction and the Moon beings. Now we have human beings with a weakened power of reproduction, but not yet having the possibility of spiritualising themselves. These were the predecessors of present-day man. The Moon Adepts came to them and said: You must not follow Jehovah. He will not allow you to attain to knowledge but you should. That is the Snake. The Snake approached the woman, because she had the power to produce offspring out of herself. Now Jehovah said: Man has become like unto ourselves, and brings death into the world and everything connected with it.

‘Lucifer’ is the name given to the Moon Adepts; they are the bestowers of human intellectuality. This they gave to the astral and physical bodies; had it been otherwise the Monads would not have been able to enter into them and the Earth would have become a planetary monument to Jehovah's greatness. By the intervention of the Luciferic principle human independence and spirituality were saved. Then Jehovah, so that man should not be completely spiritualised, divided the self-reproduction process into two parts. What would have been lost however if Jehovah had continued his work alone will reappear in the Sixth Root-Race, when man will have become so spiritualised that he will regain Kriya-shakti, the creative power of reproduction. He will be in the position to bring forth his own kind. In this way mankind was rescued from downfall.

Through Jehovah's power man carries within himself the possibility of rigidifying. When one observes the three lower bodies we find that these bear within them the possibility of returning to the physical condition of the Earth. The upper parts: Atma, Buddhi, Manas, were only able to enter into human beings because the influence of the Snake was added. This gave man new life and the power to remain with the earthly planet. Reproduction however became bisexual and thereby birth and death entered into the world. Previously this had not happened.

When man, by working out of the spirit, transmutes the physical body, he conquers death. The separate forces exhaust themselves when they take on special forms. The force enters into the form with ever increasing density and hence life in the Lemurian Age had to receive a new impulse, which was brought about by the turning around of the Earth Globe. The axis of the Earth was gradually turned. Previously there was a tropical climate at the North Pole; later through the turning around of the Earth axis the tropical climate came into the middle region. This change proceeded with comparative rapidity but lasted nevertheless for perhaps four million years. [Rudolf Steiner later revised his time scale of earthly evolution to much shorter periods. Ed.] Four million years were needed by the Moon Pitris in order to turn the axis of the Earth. At that time the Moon Pitris development was already much further on than that of present day man.

Thus at that time the two sexes developed from the unisexual human being. In the beginning among the unisexual human beings there were very retarded individuals, but also those who were very far advanced. Only a small part of the Earth was a fitting dwelling place for the descending Monads. Then it was that human beings divided into two sexes. This had taken place earlier with the animals. Side by side with human beings there existed male and female animals. Very grotesque forms were able to live on the quite differently constituted Earth. They were also able to fly. They bore within them the future promise of what human beings possess today. Esoteric religions call human beings able to bring forth their own kind Bulls. (Certain animal symbols are related to this.) The Bull is a symbol of fertility; previously came the Lion, the symbol of courage, and before this the Eagle. In the vision of Ezekiel,⁶¹ referring to those earlier times, the animals have wings because they could raise themselves above the earth. Man only appeared later.

Thus we have the human being as he evolved from the unisexual into the bisexual state, and together with him bisexual animals, male and female. It was only through the Lunar Pitris that man became mature enough to have a body capable of receiving the Monads. The latter however selected only the most highly developed examples and evolved a noble human form; only these had to be withdrawn completely from intercourse with anything around them, otherwise the beautiful bodies would have been lost. It was only then that the body formed itself in accordance with the Monad. The other forms which were less advanced failed to satisfy the descending Monad; hence they poured only a part of their spiritual force into the imperfect human bodies and the third stream utterly refused to incarnate. Because of this there existed very poorly endowed human bodies and also others quite devoid of spirit.

In the middle of the Lemurian Age we find the first Sons of the Fire Mist; these incarnate in the fiery element, which at that time surrounded the Earth. The Sons of the Fire Mist were the first Arhats.⁶² Then there arose the other two kinds. In the first Lemurian human race those who had received only a small spark were little adapted to forming a civilisation and soon went under. On the other hand those who had received absolutely nothing found full expression for their lower nature. They mingled with the animals. From them proceeded the last Lemurian races. The wild, animal instincts lived in wild animal-like human forms. This brought about a degeneration of the entire human substance.

Had all human beings been fructified with Monads, the whole human race would have greatly improved. The first evil arose through the fact that certain Monads refused to incarnate. From this, through intermingling, deterioration set in. In this way the human being suffered an essentially physical degradation. Only in the Atlantean Age did the Monads regret their previous refusal; they came down and populated all mankind. In this way arose the various Atlantean races.

We have now reached a time when something happened to bring about the deterioration of the Earth. The wholesale deterioration of the races brought this about. It was then that the seed of Karma was planted. Everything that came later is the result of this original Karma; for had the Monads all entered into human forms at the right time, human beings would have possessed the certainty of animals, they could not have been subject to error, but they would not have been able to develop freedom. The original Arhats could not go astray; they are angels in human form. The Moon Adepts however had so brought things about that certain Monads waited before incarnating. Through this the principle of asceticism entered into the world—reluctance to inhabit the Earth. This discrepancy between higher and lower Nature arose at this time. Because of it man became uncertain; he must now try things out, oscillating from one experience to another, in an attempt to find his way in the world. Because he had original Karma, his own further Karma came about. Now he could fall into error.

The intention was that man should attain knowledge. This could only be brought about through the original Karma. The Luciferic Principle, the Moon Adepts, wanted to develop freedom and independence to an ever-greater degree. This is very beautifully expressed in the saga of Prometheus:⁶³ Zeus will not allow human beings to get fire. Prometheus however gives them fire, the faculty of developing ever higher and higher. By so doing he condemns man to suffering. Man must now wait for the coming of a Sun Hero, until the Principle of the Sun Hero in the Sixth Race will make him able to develop further without Luciferic knowledge. Those endowed with this higher degree of advancement are like Prometheus, they are Sun Heroes.

We have thus learned to know a two-fold order of human beings: those who succumbed to the Jehovah Principle, the bringing of perfection to the physical Earth, and also spiritual human beings who were becoming more highly developed. Jehovah and Lucifer are engaged in an unceasing battle. It is the intention of Lucifer to develop everything upwards, towards knowledge, towards the light. In Devachan the human being can bring a certain degree of advancement to the Luciferic Principle. The longer he remains in Devachan the more of this can he develop. He must pass through as many incarnations as are necessary in order to bring this Principle fully to perfection.

Thus there exists in the world a Jehovah Principle and a Lucifer Principle. If the Jehovah Principle alone were to be taught, man would succumb to the Earth. If the teaching of reincarnation and karma were allowed to disappear entirely from the Earth we should win back for Jehovah all the Monads and physical man would be given over to the Earth, to a petrified planet. If however one teaches reincarnation and karma, man is led upwards to spiritualisation. Christianity therefore made the absolutely right compromise, and for a period of time did not teach reincarnation and karma, but the importance of the single human existence, in order that man should learn to love the Earth, waiting until he is mature enough for a new Christianity, with the teaching of reincarnation and karma, which is the saving of the Earth and brings the whole of what has been sown into Devachan. As a result, in Christianity itself there is conflict between the two Principles: the one without reincarnation and karma, the other with this teaching. In the former case, everything which Lucifer could bring about would be taken from human beings. They would actually drop out of reincarnation and turn their backs on the Earth, becoming degenerate angels. In that case the Earth would be going towards its downfall. Were the hosts of Jehovah to be victorious on the Earth, the Earth would remain behind as a kind of Moon, as a rigidified body. The possibility of spiritualisation would then be a missed opportunity. The battle in the Bhagavad Gita⁶⁴ describes the conflict between Jehovah and Lucifer and their hosts.

It might still be possible today for the teaching of Christianity without reincarnation and karma to prevail. Then the Earth would be lost for the Principle of Lucifer. The whole earth is still a battlefield of these two principles. The principle that leads the earth towards spirituality is Lucifer. In order to live in accordance with this Principle one must first love the Earth, one must descend on to the Earth. Lucifer is the Prince who reigns in the kingdom of science and art, but he cannot descend altogether on to the Earth: for this, his power does not suffice. Quite alone, it would be impossible for Lucifer to lead upwards what is on the Earth. For this, not only is the power of a Moon Adept necessary, but of a Sun Adept, who embraces the universality of human life, not manifesting only in science and art. Lucifer is represented as the Winged Form of the Dragon; Ezekiel describes him as the Winged Bull.

Now there came a Sun Hero, similar to those who appeared in the Hyperborean Epoch, represented by Ezekiel as the Winged Lion. This Hero, Who gave the second impulse, is the Christ, the Lion out of the tribe of Judah. The representative of the Eagle will come only later; he represents the Father Principle. Christ is a Solar Hero, a Lion-Nature, a Sun Pitri.

The third impulse will be represented by an Adept who was already an Adept on Saturn. Such a one cannot as yet incarnate on the Earth. When man is not only able to develop his higher nature upwards, but working creatively is able to renounce completely his lower nature, then will this highest Adept, the Saturn Adept, the Father Principle, the Hidden God, be able to incarnate.

• 61. See Note 51.
• 62. ... given as explanation of the 7th Stanza of Dyzan in Blavatsky's Secret Doctrine.
• 63. See lecture 7.10.1904 in Greek and Germanic Mythology (Typescript).
• 64. In 1912 – 13 Rudolf Steiner gave two lecture cycles on this subject: ‘The Bhagavad Gita and the Epistles of St. Paul’ and ‘The Occult Significance of the Bhagavad Gita’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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