The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Among the ideas advanced by Spiritual Science, that of Reincarnation occupies a foremost place. The idea that the human individuality has to manifest over and over again in a single personality in the course of the development of mankind on the Earth is at present but little understood, and, moreover, it is generally unpopular. As we have seen and shall still see, many questions arise in Spiritual Science, among them that of the meaning of repeated earthly lives.

When we study the evolution of human life on Earth in the light of Spiritual Science, we find that there is a very deep meaning behind the fact that the human individuality passes, not only once, but many times through earthly life. Every epoch and every age has its special content, its special characteristics, and all the varied possibilities which it offers have to be assimilated over and over again by the individual life-germs of man. This is possible because man, with all that composes his being, is connected not once and for all, but over and over again with the living stream of evolution. Looking upon this evolution as a rational progress into which new contents, new qualities are poured, we begin to realise the true significance of those Great Ones who have been the leading and guiding spirits of the different epochs. From each of these Great Ones, new qualities, new impulses for the progressive evolution of humanity have emanated and in the course of these lectures we shall be considering important questions connected with such leaders of mankind.

To-day our attention is turned to an individuality who, so far as historical investigation goes, is shrouded in mystery—an individuality lost in dim prehistoric ages, of whom no documentary records exist. I refer to the personality of Zarathustra.

A personality such as that of Zarathustra, whose gifts to humanity, in so far as they are preserved for us, seem so strange to the present age, makes us realise what great differences arise in the sum total of human nature during the various epochs. Superficial opinion may state that ever since man has been man, he has thought, felt and conceived ideas of morality exactly as he does to-day. But Spiritual Science shows us that the life of the human soul and the nature of man's thought, feeling and will, have undergone great changes in the course of human evolution. Human consciousness in olden times was of quite a different nature and we have reason to believe that, in the future, other stages of consciousness will be reached, again very different from the normal consciousness of to-day.

When we turn our attention to Zarathustra, we must look back over an infinitely long period of time. It is true that certain modern investigators have fixed the date of Zarathustra as contemporary with that of Buddha, which would mean that he lived some five or six centuries before the Christian era. It is however significant that our modern historians, after careful investigation of the traditions referring to Zarathustra, have been obliged to indicate that the personality hidden beneath the name of “Zarathustra,” the original founder of the Persian religion, must be placed a great many centuries before Buddha. Greek historians have repeatedly pointed out that Zarathustra must have lived about five or six thousand years before the Trojan War. We are prepared to state that historical research will, however unwillingly, eventually be forced to admit that the Greek tradition is correct in regard to the epoch in which Zarathustra lived. Spiritual Science, which is based on inner knowledge, agrees with the Greek tradition and it is therefore reasonable to indicate that Zarathustra, living as he did thousands of years before the birth of Christianity, was confronted by a consciousness entirely different from that of the present day.

I have often pointed out, and I shall explain it further, that human consciousness in ancient times was bound up with certain dream states, or rather clairvoyant states, in normal human life. Primeval man did not contemplate the world with the strong, clearly-defined sense perceptions of to-day. We shall best understand the way in which man of those primeval times took his environment into his consciousness, if we think of a last remnant of the ancient consciousness, still left to us in dreams. Everybody knows how dream images appear and disappear, how they emerge and fade away. To our present consciousness they are for the most part dream pictures, meaningless reminiscences of the outer world. Interwoven though they are with higher states of consciousness, they are incomprehensible to people of our time. Images, ever-changing pictures, symbols—of these our dream consciousness consists. Everyone has experienced how a fire, for instance, is symbolised in a dream. Think of the difference between a dream and ordinary waking consciousness. Such as it is, this dream state represents the remnant of a primeval consciousness of man. Man then lived in a world of images—images not vague or empty but proceeding from a real external world. In this ancient consciousness there were intermediate states between waking and sleep and in these states man was face to face with the spiritual world. The spiritual world actually entered into his consciousness. Nowadays the door into the spiritual world is locked against the normal consciousness of man, but this was not the case in olden times; for he then entered into those intermediate states between waking and sleep when the spiritual world appeared before him in dreamlike images. In these dreamlike images he saw the working and the weaving of the spirit behind the physical world of sense. He had direct experience of the spiritual world, although by the time of Zarathustra this was already indistinct and dim. A man of antiquity could say to himself: “I behold the outer physical world and the life of sense, but I also have experiences and perceptions in a different state of consciousness; I know that there is another world behind the world of sense—a spiritual world.”

Evolution consists in one faculty being acquired at the expense of another, and thus as the epochs took their course, the faculty which man once possessed of understanding the spiritual world became less and less. Our clear reasoning and cognitional faculties, our present logical thinking which we regard as the most important feature of modern culture—these did not exist in those early times. They had to be developed by man in the epoch to which we now belong, at the expense of the old clairvoyant consciousness. Clairvoyant consciousness will have to be cultivated again in the future evolution of mankind, but in a different way. It has to be added to the purely physical consciousness that is bound up with the faculty of intellectual logic. A rising and a falling can be traced in the evolution of human consciousness and we see therein a deep purpose in man's development.

The old consciousness described above dates back to a prehistoric age of which there is no documentary evidence. Zarathustra himself belongs to this age of which, as yet, no historical traditions have reached us. He was one of those leading personalities who gave a stimulus for great steps forward in the civilisation of mankind. Whatever the level of human consciousness at the time, these leading personalities must always draw from the source which we may call Illumination, Initiation into the higher mysteries of the universe. Among such personalities were Hermes, Buddha and Moses, as well as Zarathustra, whom we are to study in the course of these lectures.

Zarathustra lived at least eight thousand years before our present era, and the gifts to civilisation which poured from his enlightened spirit shine forth clearly across the centuries. Those who penetrate into the inner currents of human evolution can detect them even after this lapse of time. Zarathustra was one of those whose soul had experienced Truth, Wisdom and Intuition to an extent far transcending the normal consciousness of the age. In that part of the Earth which later on was known as the Persian Empire, Zarathustra proclaimed mighty truths from the super-sensible worlds—regions lying far above the normal consciousness of the men of that time.

If we would understand the significance of Zarathustra's teaching, we must realise that his mission was to communicate a certain conception of the universe to one particular section of humanity, while other streams had, as it were, a different mission in human culture. The personality of Zarathustra is all the more interesting to us in that he lived in a part of the world directly adjoining on its South side another land whose people transmitted an entirely different order of spirituality to mankind. I refer to the peoples of India, from whom arose the Vedic poets. The region permeated with the mighty impulse of Zarathustra lies to the North of the land from which the great teaching of Brahma went forth. Zarathustra's message to the world was fundamentally different from the Brahministic teachings of the great leaders of ancient Indian thought. These Indian teachings have come down to us in the Vedas, and in the profound philosophy of the Vedanta, of which the revelations of Buddha represent, as it were, the final splendour.

We shall understand the difference between the two thought currents—the one proceeding from Zarathustra and the other from the ancient Indian teachings—when we consider that man can reach the spiritual world along two paths of approach. There are two ways by which we may raise the inner powers of the soul above their normal level so that we may pass from the world of the senses into the super-sensible world. One way is to penetrate deeply into our own souls, to immerse ourselves, as it were, in our inner being. The other way leads behind the veils spread around us by the physical world. Both ways lead into the super-sensible world. If in the intimate experiences of soul life we so deepen our feelings, ideas, and impulses that the powers of soul grow stronger and stronger, we can descend mystically into the “Self.” Passing through that part of our being which belongs to the physical world, we may indeed find our real spiritual essence—the imperishable essence that passes from incarnation to incarnation. When we pierce through the veil of the inner being with all the desires, passions and inner experiences of soul (which are only one part of us in so far as we live in a physical body) we then reach our eternal essence and enter a world of spirit. On the other hand, if we develop powers which not only perceive the physical world with its sounds, colours, sensations of warmth and cold—if we so strengthen our spiritual powers that they can penetrate behind the encircling veil of colour, sound, warmth, cold and other physical phenomena—then our strengthened spiritual forces will reach the super-sensible worlds, stretching before us into boundless distances, into infinity. The first way is that of the Mystic; the second the way of Spiritual Science. It was along one of these two ways that the great teachers attained to the revelations of truth which they had to inculcate into mankind as the basis of culture.

In primeval times the evolution of humanity was such that only one of the two ways was open to a particular people. Only later, in the Greek epoch (coinciding with the beginning of the Christian era) did these two currents mingle and gradually become a single current of culture. When we speak to-day of the ascent into higher worlds, it is right to state that the man who would make the ascent must to a certain extent develop both kinds of spiritual powers within his soul—the mystical powers on the path into the inner self and the powers developed by Spiritual Science as it penetrates the outer world. To-day these two paths are no longer strictly separate from one another, for it is part of the purpose of human evolution that the two currents should meet. Before the Greek and Christian eras these two methods of development were practised by different peoples living in regions not very far apart in space. We find traces of them in ancient Indian culture, in the Vedic songs and in the Zarathustrian civilisation to the North. All that we so greatly admire in the old Indian culture—which later on found expression in Buddhism—all this was attained through inner contemplation, by turning away from the outer world. The eye had to become insensitive to physical colour, the ear to physical sound, the senses to turn away from outer impressions, and finally, with his inner powers of soul made strong, man attained to Brahma. In Brahma, he felt himself united with the inner being of the Cosmos, moving and creative. And so there arose the teaching of the Holy Rishis which flowed into the Vedas and lived on in the Vedantic philosophy and in Buddhism.

The other path springs from the teachings of Zarathustra. Zarathustra handed down to his disciples the secret of how to strengthen the powers of understanding in order to penetrate the veil of the outer world of sense. Zarathustra did not teach as did the Indian mystics: “Turn away from colours, sounds and all the outer impressions of the senses, and seek the way into the spiritual worlds entirely by means of inner contemplation, in your own soul life.” On the contrary, Zarathustra taught: “Strengthen the powers of knowledge and understanding for everything that lives, be it plant or animal; understand all living things in air and water, on the mountain heights or in the valleys. Look upon this world!” We know that for the Indian mystic, this world was Maya—illusion; he turned from it in order to find Brahman; but Zarathustra taught his disciples rather to penetrate the world with understanding and to feel, behind the outer realm of physical phenomena, the reality of a spiritual power, active and creative. This is the other path.

It is remarkable how these two paths converge in the Greek age, where the understanding of things spiritual was far deeper than it is in our time. This understanding was expressed in symbolical imagery, in mythology. The two thought currents, the mystic path into the inner self and the other leading into the outer Cosmos, blended in Greek culture. One current derived its name from the mystical God Dionysus, the mysterious being who was to be found when a man descended more and more deeply into his inner being and there discovered the sub-human element which formerly he did not know, and from which he evolved into full manhood. This element, still unpurified, still partly animal, was known by the name of Dionysus. The other element, in which the eyes of spirit beheld the phenomena of the physical world, was expressed by the name of Apollo.¹ Thus we find the teachings of Zarathustra expressed in the cult of Apollo and the mystic doctrine of contemplation in the cult of Dionysus in Greece. In ancient times, these two currents arose separately, but in the Apollonian and Dionysian cults they were united and blended. If we, in our modern culture, undergo a true spiritual training, we can re-experience them both in one.

Nietzsche had an inkling of the significant difference between the cults of Apollo and Dionysus. True, he did not enter very deeply into the matter, but in his first Essay, “The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music,” he shows that the Apollonian and Dionysian cults of ancient Greece are represented on the one hand in the mystic current, and on the other in the current which is now expressed by Spiritual Science.

Zarathustra taught his disciples to see the Spirit behind every physical phenomenon. The whole civilisation inspired by him was based on this principle. Now it is not enough to say that behind the world of the senses there is the Divine-Spiritual. Man may think he has discovered a great truth here, but it leads to nothing but a vague Pantheism. We may think we express a truth when we say: “God is at work behind every physical phenomenon”—but this is merely a conception of a nebulous spiritual power behind all things physical. A teacher like Zarathustra, who had actually ascended to the spiritual world, did not speak in this abstract and vague terminology to his disciples and his people. He showed that just as individual physical phenomena are different, so the spiritual essence behind them is at one time more evident, at another less. He taught how behind the physical Sun—the origin of all life and activity—there is the centre of spiritual life.

Let us try to condense into simple language the doctrines which Zarathustra tried to inculcate into his disciples. He spoke thus: “Man, as we perceive him, is not merely composed of a physical body, for this physical body is but the outer manifestation of the Spirit. Just as the physical body is nothing but the manifested crystallisation of the Spiritual in man, so the Sun, in so far as it is a body of luminous matter, is nothing but the external body of a spiritual Sun.” The spiritual part of man is spoken of as the “Aura”—or “Ahura,” to use the old expression—in distinction to his physical body and in the same sense the spiritual part of the physical Sun may be called the “Great Aura,” for it is all-embracing. Zarathustra called that which lies behind the physical Sun, Aura Mazda or Ahura Mazdao—the Great Aura. With this spiritual essence behind the Sun, all spiritual experiences and conditions are bound up, just as the existence and well-being of plants, animals and all that lives on Earth are bound up with the physical Sun. Behind the physical Sun lives the spiritual Lord and Creator, Ahura Mazdao. This is the derivation of the name “Ormuzd,” Spirit of Light. While the Indians searched mystically in the inner self to find Brahma, the Eternal, shining like a luminous centre in man, Zarathustra pointed his disciples to the great periphery, showing them that the mighty Spirit of the Sun, Ahura Mazdao, the Spirit of Light, dwelt in the physical body of the Sun. Ahura Mazdao has to face his enemy—Ahriman, the Spirit of Darkness—just as man, who bears within himself the enemies of his good impulses, strives to raise his real spiritual being to perfection and has to battle against his lower passions, desires, and the delusive images of lying and falsehood.

Zarathustra was able to transmute his conception of the universe from mere doctrine into real feeling, real vision. And so he was able to teach his disciples that within them was an active principle of perfection. Whatever their development might be at the time, they were taught to realise that this principle of perfection could raise them to higher and higher stages of existence. They were taught that passions and desires, lying and deceit within the soul lead to imperfection. Zarathustra taught of the attacks made upon Ahura Mazdao in the outer world by the principle of imperfection, by the evil which casts shadow into the light, by Angra Mainyus—Ahriman.

Zarathustra's disciples were thus enabled to realise that the great universe is reflected in each individual. The real significance of this doctrine lay, not in its theoretical concepts and ideas but in the feeling it called forth in man—a feeling which taught him of his relationship to the universe and made him able to say: “Here I stand—a little world, but a little world which is a replica of the great world. In human beings, the principle of perfection is opposed by evil; in the great universe, Ormuzd and Ahriman face one another. The whole universe is, as it were, a man grown immeasurably great and the highest human forces are Ahura Mazdao—their enemy, Ahriman.”

If man directs his attention truly to the physical world he must finally discover that all phenomena are part of the great cosmic process; he is filled with awe when spectro-analysis reveals the fact that the same substances which exist on Earth exist also on the farthest stars. In the light of Zarathustra's teaching, man felt himself in his spiritual being, part of the Spirit of the whole Cosmos; he felt himself emanating from this Spirit. Herein lies the great significance of the doctrine.

The teaching was not abstract but very concrete. Even when people of our time have a certain feeling for the Spiritual behind the physical world it is very difficult to make them realise that there must necessarily be more than one central spiritual power. But just as there are different natural phenomena—heat, light, chemical forces and the like—so there are different orders of lower spiritual Powers, subordinate forces whose realm of activity is more limited than that of the One All-Embracing Power. Zarathustra made a distinction between Ormuzd and other lower spiritual beings, who were his servants. Before we turn to consider these lower spiritual beings, let us realise that the doctrine of Zarathustra is not mere dualism, a teaching of the two worlds of Ormuzd and of Ahriman. He taught that underlying these two currents in the universe there is one power whence both the realm of light (Ormuzd) and the realm of darkness (Ahriman) proceed. Old Greek writers tell us that the unity behind Ormuzd and Ahriman was worshipped by the ancient Persians as the LIVING UNITY, but it is difficult to re-create this idea nowadays. Zarathustra calls this Zervane Akarene—that which lies behind the light. To get at some conception of the meaning of this, let us think of the course of evolution. We must conceive of all creation as travelling towards greater and greater perfection, so that if we look towards the future, the Ahura of Ormuzd grows clearer and clearer. Looking into the past, we see the Ahrimanic powers in opposition to Ormuzd; in course of time, however, their existence must cease. In all these things we must understand that a survey of the future and of the past leads to the same point. It is very difficult for the man of to-day to realise this. Let us think of a circle, by way of illustration. If we start at the lowest point and pass along one side, we arrive at the opposite, the highest point. If we pass along the other side, we also arrive at the same point. If we enlarge the circle, we have further to go, and the curve of the arc becomes flatter and flatter. Draw the circle larger and larger, and the arc eventually becomes a straight line; thereafter both lines lead to infinity. But before this, with a smaller circle, we arrive at the same point along both sides. Why should we not assume that the same result obtains when the sides of the circle are flat and its fines straight? In infinity, the point must then remain the same on the one side as on the other. Therefore to conceive of infinity, we may imagine a line continuing indefinitely on both sides—in effect, a circle.

This is an abstract conception of what underlies the Zarathustrian doctrine of Zervane Akarene—Zaruana Akarana. Taking the concept of Time, we look into the future on the one side and into the past on the other. Time, however, is welded into a circle; the completion takes place in infinity. This is symbolically represented as the serpent biting its own tail; into the serpent the Power of Light which grows brighter and brighter, is woven on the one side, and on the other the Power of Darkness, which appears to grow deeper and deeper. While we ourselves remain in the centre, Ormuzd and Ahriman, Light and Shadow, are intermingled, and into all this is woven the self-contained, mysterious “Zaruana Akarana”—Time.

This ancient conception of the universe did not merely state vaguely: Outside and behind the world of the senses which works upon eyes and ears, there is “Spirit.” A kind of alphabet, records of the spiritual world were revealed. Suppose we to-day take a page of a book. We see letters on it and we build up words from these letters, but we must first have learnt to read. Those who have not learnt to read in the spiritual sense, cannot understand Zarathustra; they cannot read the sense of his teaching but merely see signs and symbols. Only those who know how to build up these signs into a doctrine to which their souls respond can understand Zarathustra.

Now behind the world of the senses, in the ordered grouping of the stars, Zarathustra perceived a symbolic writing in cosmic space. Just as we have a written alphabet, so Zarathustra saw in the starry worlds of space, a kind of Alphabet of the spiritual worlds, a language through which they became articulate. Thus arose the science of penetrating into the spiritual world and of reading and interpreting the constellations. He knew too, how to decipher the signs in which the Cosmic Spirits inscribe their activities into space. Their language is the grouping and movement of the stars. Zarathustra and his disciples saw that Ahura Mazdao creates and manifests by describing an apparent circle in the heavens, in the sense of our Astronomy, and this circle was for them the outward sign of the way in which Ormuzd manifested his activity to man. Zarathustra showed—and this is a most important point—that the Zodiac is a line which returns on itself, forming a circle as the expression of the rotation of Time. In the highest sense, he taught that while one branch of Time goes forward into the future, the other turns backwards into the past. Zaruana Akarana, the self-contained line of Time, the circle described by Ormuzd, the Spirit of Light, is what was later called the Zodiac. This is the expression of the spiritual activity of Ormuzd. The course of the Sun through the Zodiac is the expression of the activity of Ormuzd. The Zodiac is the expression of Zaruana Akarana. Zaruana Akarana and Zodiac are one and the same word, like Ormuzd and Ahura Mazdao. Two things must here be remembered.

When the Sun passes in summer through the light, his full powers fall upon the Earth; they are the forces of spiritual light sent forth by Ormuzd from his realm of light. The signs of the Zodiac through which Ormuzd passes in the summer or in the daytime reveal his activity unhampered by Ahriman. The signs of the Zodiac below the horizon are symbolical of the realm of shadow through which Ahriman passes. What, then, are the expressions of Ormuzd (who represents the light part of the Zodiac) and of Ahriman (the dark part), in their activity on Earth? Now there is a difference between the influence of the Sun in the morning and at noon time. When Ormuzd ascends from Aries to Taurus, the effect of his rays is not the same as when he is descending. His rays differ in summer and in winter and they differ with every sign through which the Sun passes. The course of the Sun through the signs of the Zodiac revealed to Zarathustra the many sides of the activity of Ormuzd, and he beheld here the expressions of spiritual beings who are, as it were, the servants, the “sons” of Ormuzd, who execute his commands. These subservient powers, each having their own special activity, are the “Amschaspands” or “Ameschas Pentas.” While Ormuzd represents the collective activity of the Zodiac, the Amschaspands have to perform the specialised activities expressed in the raying forth of the Sun from Aries, Taurus, Cancer, and so forth. The activity of Ormuzd is expressed in the raying of the Sun through all the light signs of the Zodiac—from Aries to Libra or Scorpio. According to Zarathustra, Ahriman works from the centre of the Earth, from the darkness where his servants, the Amschaspands, dwell; they are the opponents of the good genii surrounding Ormuzd. Zarathustra distinguished twelve orders of spiritual beings, six or rather seven, on the side of Ormuzd; six, or rather five, on the side of Ahriman. They are symbolised as good and evil genii, or subservient spirits, according to whether the Sun's course runs through the light or the dark signs of the Zodiac. Goethe was thinking of these helpers of Ormuzd when he wrote at the beginning of Faust, in the Prologue in Heaven:—

“But ye, pure
Children of God, enjoy eternal beauty:—
Let that which ever operates and lives
Clasp you within the limits of its love;
And seize with sweet and melancholy thoughts
The fronting phantoms of its loveliness.” (Shelley's translation).

The Amschaspands of Zarathustra are the same beings to whom Goethe refers as the “pure children of God,” who serve the highest Divine Power.

There are twelve Amschaspands or genii; below, there are other spiritual powers of which the teaching of Zarathustra distinguished twenty-eight grades. The number is approximate, for it varies between twenty- four, twenty-eight, and thirty-one. These subordinate powers are called Izerads or Izods. What class of beings are these? If we think of the Amschaspands as the twelve great powers in Space, then the Izods are the subordinate forces behind the lower activities of Nature, and of these, there are from twenty-four to thirty-one. There is yet a third group of spiritual powers—powers which, in our sense, are not really active in the physical world as such. They are called by Zarathustra, Ferruhars or Frawashars. The twelve forces behind which the Amschaspands live are active in all the physical activities of light upon the Earth: behind the Izods we must imagine the forces affecting the animal kingdom. The Frawashars are to be thought of as the spiritual beings guiding the group-souls of the animals.

Thus Zarathustra saw a real super-sensible world behind the world of sense: Ormuzd and Ahriman, behind them Zaruana Akarana, below them the Amschaspands, good and bad. Now what are the Izods and Frawashars? According to Zarathustra they are the spiritual essence pervading the macrocosm, the living essence² of the external physical phenomena we perceive with our senses. Man, as he stands in the world, is a replica of this greater world; therefore he contains within himself all the powers which ensoul the greater world. Just as we have recognised Ormuzd in the struggle of man towards perfection, and Ahriman in man's impure instincts and impulses, so we can also find in man the imprint of the other spiritual beings, the lesser genii.

And now I have to speak of something which may appear extraordinary to-day to the usual conceptions of the Cosmos held by man. The time, however, is not far distant when even external science will discover that there is super-sensible element behind all physical phenomena, a spiritual world behind the world of the senses. It will then be realised that the physical body of man in all its parts, is an image of the whole Cosmos The Cosmos pours itself into, and densifies within the physical body of man. Thus, according to the conception of Zarathustra—which much resembles that of Spiritual Science—we can say that both Ormuzd and Ahriman work upon man: Ormuzd as the impulse towards perfection, and Ahriman as the impulse in opposition to this. But the spiritual activities of the Amschaspands are also at work in man. We must think of these beings as so far densified in man that they are physically manifest.

In the time of Zarathustra there was, of course, no science of anatomy in our sense of the word, but he and his disciples, with their spiritual conception of the world, saw the twelve currents of the Amschaspands as a reality. They saw these currents flowing towards man and working in him. The human head was to them the visible expression of the activities of the seven good and five evil currents of the Amschaspands. How is this truth expressed at the present time? To-day, the anatomist has discovered the existence of twelve pairs of cerebral nerves which are repeated in the body. These are the physical counterparts, the frozen currents, as it were, of the Amschaspands. There are twelve pairs of nerves and by their means man can either attain the highest perfection or sink to the greatest evil. Thus the spiritual teaching given by Zarathustra to his disciples appears again, materialised, in our own age. People may regard it as so much fancy on the part of Spiritual Science to say that Zarathustra was referring to the twelve pairs of cerebral nerves when he taught of the Amschaspands, but the world will have much to learn besides this, for it will be found that all the moving and weaving Cosmos works on further in man. The ancient teachings of Zarathustra are indeed revived in modern physiology. The twenty-eight to thirty-one Izods occupy the same subordinate position to the Amschaspands as do the twenty-eight nerves of the spine to the nerves of the brain. The spinal nerves which stimulate the soul life of man are created by the spiritual currents of the Izods outside; they work into us and crystallise, as it were, into the spinal nerves. And in that which is not of the nature of the nerves but which makes us individuals, which does not now pour in from outside, but lives within—there dwell the Frawashars or Ferruhars. They live in those thoughts which transcend the merely physical activity of the brain and nerves.

There is a remarkable connection between the tendencies of our own time and the doctrines which Zarathustra gave in spiritual pictures flowing behind the veil of the world of sense. There is, however, one significant thing to be remembered. The teachings of Zarathustra influenced the thought of the people for a very long time and then for a while they receded into the background. Sometimes it was the mystical way of thought which predominated, sometimes the occult, after Greek thought had in a measure united the two currents. Nowadays there seems to be a tendency to the mystical way. Many feel drawn towards Indian occultism with its tendency towards introspection and this explains the fact that little heed is paid to the essential features of the doctrines of Zarathustra in the spiritual life of to-day. There is a great deal of ancient Persian thought in our own spiritual life, yet in a sense, its most essential features, the very core of the doctrine of Zarathustra, is lost to our age. When we realise once more that the teachings of Zarathustra are the spiritual prototypes of countless examples of physical research, then the key-note of our present day culture will be replaced by another. Now one important feature in almost all other mystical currents of culture is missing in the religion of Zarathustra. The reason for this is its entire preoccupation with macrocosmic phenomena. Other religious systems have accentuated the contrasts presented by the division of the sexes. In most old religious systems, Goddesses and Gods are contrasting symbols of the two streams active in the world. The religion of Zarathustra rises above this conception in the symbols of Goodness as Light and Evil as Darkness. Hence the sublime purity of this religion and the nobility which lifts it above ideas which play an ugly part in any endeavour to deepen the thought life of our time. Even the Greek writers stated that the highest Godhead had perforce to create Ahriman as well as Ormuzd in order that there might be the necessary contrast. This implies that one Primal Power was set over against another. In the Hebrew religion, woman, Eve, is the symbol for the evil which came into this world. In the religion of Zarathustra there is no element of sex antagonism. The ugly things which nowadays enter so largely into our daily literature, pour into our thoughts and feelings and so unpleasantly accentuate the chief causes of health and disease without touching upon the essentials of life—all these will disappear when the “heroic” conception of Ormuzd and Ahriman is understood, when the true Zarathustrian influence spreads in present-day culture, clothed in the words of its great founder. These things pursue their own course in the world and nothing can arrest the progress of the truth inherent in the culture of Zarathustra. If we follow the progress of culture in Asia Minor, down to later times among the Assyrians, Babylonians, Egyptians, and even up to the Christian era, we find traces of concepts derived from the illumination of the great Zarathustra. And we shall not wonder at the view expressed by a Greek writer, that the great spiritual leaders of the races imparted to the people part of a future culture of which they stood in need. This Greek writer pointed to Pythagoras, showing what he had learned from his great predecessors—Geometry from the Egyptians, Arithmetic from the Phoenicians, Astronomy from the Chaldeans—and how he had turned to Zarathustra's doctrines to learn from them the sacred teaching of the relations of man to the spiritual world and the true conduct of life. The same writer asserts that the conduct of life laid down by Zarathustra leads man above all minor conflicts, that they all culminate in the one great conflict between Good and Evil, where victory can only be gained by purification from evil, lying and falsehood. The worst enemy of Ormuzd bears the name of “Calumny”—one of the chief qualities of Ahriman. The Greek writer tells us that Pythagoras could not find the highest moral idea (the moral purification of man) among the Egyptians from whom he learnt Geometry, nor among the Phoenicians from whom he learnt Arithmetic, nor among the Chaldeans from whom he learnt Astronomy; but that he had to turn to the followers of Zarathustra to understand the heroic conception of the universe, since purification alone can vanquish evil. This shows the high value placed upon the noble teachings of Zarathustra in olden times.

What I have said may be illustrated by quotations from historical documents. Plutarch, for instance, says that Zarathustra teaches the worship of Light because Light is the greatest factor for the well-being of the Earth and the highest spiritual factor is Truth. This is in complete agreement with what has been said.

Let us now return again to the ancient Vedic conceptions. They were the result of a mystic descent into the inner being. Before man can penetrate to the inner light of Brahma, he meets with his own passions, his wild and semi-human impulses. These oppose his entry into the true life of spirit and soul. The Indian mystics realised that the mystic union with Brahma could only be attained by the elimination of all the impressions of the physical world, that the sensuous appeals of colours and sounds must cease. So long as these elements enter into meditation, the opponents of the attainment of perfection are there. The Indian mystic would have said: “Cast away all that may enter the soul from the outer powers; deepen yourself in the innermost core of your own soul; descend into the realm of the Devas, and when you have vanquished the lower Devas you will find the kingdom of Brahman. But shun the world of the Asuras, those beings who would fain penetrate into you from the world of Maya, the outer world. These must on no account be allowed to enter.”

And now listen to what Zarathustra taught his disciples: “The peoples of the South are differently constituted and they seek the spiritual world in another way. Their way would not help a nation whose mission is not only to dream and meditate in this wonderful world, but to teach mankind the art of Agriculture and the conquest of savagery. Do not look upon external things merely as Maya; you must penetrate behind this veil of colour and sound around you. Shun all that threatens to keep your soul within the bonds of egoism, shun all that bears the stamp of the Deva qualities! Make your way through the realm of the lower Asuras and ascend to the higher. Your nature is such that you can do this if you will!” In India the Rishis had taught that man was not so organised as to enable him to seek what lies in the realm of the Asuras, and that he should therefore shun their world and enter that of the Devas.

This is the difference between the Indian and Persian cultures. The Indian peoples were taught that the Asuras are evil spirits and must be avoided, for the organisation of the Indians was such that they only could know the lower Asuras. The Persian peoples, on the other hand, knew only the lower Devas and were therefore taught: ‘Penetrate to the realm of the Asuras and you will be able to rise from there to the realm of the higher Asuras.’

The impulse which Zarathustra gave to the men of his epoch lay in the fact that he had a gift for mankind which could work on through all the ages—a gift which would make clear the upward path and conquer all the false doctrines deceiving man on his path to perfection. Zarathustra therefore looked upon himself as the servant of Ahura Mazdao, and as such, he personally knew the opposition of Ahriman. His teaching was intended to aid mankind to a heroic conquest of the Ahriman principle. We find his words recorded in the documents of a later era. Inspired by the inner impulse of his mission, and fired by the passion with which he felt himself the antagonist of Ahriman, he said: “I will speak! Harken, ye who journey from afar, and ye that come from near at hand, with longing to hear. Mark well my words! No longer shall the Evil One, the false leader, conquer the Spirit of Good. Too long has his evil breath permeated human speech. I will refute him with the speech which the Highest, the Primal One has put into my mouth. I will speak what Ahura Mazdao says to me. And he who hears not my words nor understands their meaning as I speak them will experience much evil ere the end of the world-cycles!” Thus spake Zarathustra.

May we realise from these words that Zarathustra's message to mankind can be felt and experienced through all later epochs of culture. Those of us who have ears to hear the dim echoes still living in our time, will, if they listen with spiritual ears, hear the faint tones of Zarathustra's words to mankind thousands of years ago. For those who have ears to hear, the message of Zarathustra and other great Leaders of whom we shall speak in these lectures, may be summed up in the following words: “These God-sent Spirits shine as stars in the heavens of Life Eternal. May it be vouchsafed to every soul to behold their radiance in the realms of earthly life.”

• 1. See Chapter VI. of “The East in the Light of the West” by Rudolf Steiner. Anthroposophical Publishing Company
• 2. das Wesenhafte

The spiritual science movement has not developed in our time as the wilful action of an individual or of someone or other. It has to do with the whole of human evolution and as such must be considered to be one of the most important cultural impulses. To gain insight into this mission of the spiritual science movement we need to enter into the past and future life of humanity. Individuals have gone through a process of evolution from the time when they first came down out of the keeping of the godhead and became individual souls, and humanity as a whole has also gone through a process of evolution.

Just consider the differences, the changes and development to be seen in the earth's surface through the millennia—how thoroughly everything has changed. ‘Humanity’, as we are wont to call it, is only the outcome of the ‘fifth root race’, as it is called. A different, earlier humanity preceding it was the fourth root race whose continent, Atlantis, lay somewhere between present-day Europe and America. Our forebears on Atlantis looked very different. They also had a completely different civilization. The ancient Atlanteans did not have a fully developed rational mind and way of thinking but were instead provided with subtle, somnambulant clairvoyant powers. Logic, rational thinking capable of making connections, science and art as we know them today did not exist in ancient Atlantis, for human beings then had a very different way of forming ideas, thinking and feeling. They would not have been able to make connections, calculate, count or read the way we do today. But somnambulant clairvoyant powers of the spirit lived in them. They were able to understand the language of nature, what God said to them in the lapping of the waves, what the woods were murmuring, and what the subtle scents of flowers brought to expression. They understood this language of nature and were in harmony with all nature. No legislation, no jurisdiction then served to make neighbour communicate with neighbour. No, the Atlanteans would go outside and listen to the sounds of the trees and the wind and they would tell them what they should do.

The memory of ancient Atlantis or Niflheim [home of mists] has survived most beautifully in folk legends such as the Nibelungenlied¹⁰⁵ which have never been works of fiction produced at random. The word Nibel or Nifl indicates that the Rhine and all the rivers in the area are waters remaining from the masses of mists in ancient Atlantis. The wisdom that has survived from Atlantis is referred to as the treasure that lies hidden in the waters. We must also look for the nursery of the ancient adepts in that continent. Individuals went there who had the abilities needed to become pupils of the great minds we now call the ‘masters of wisdom and of the harmony of inner feelings’.¹⁰⁶

The location of the adept school, which had its flowering during the fourth sub-race on ancient Atlantis, must be sought in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Pupils were taught in a very different way there than they are today. It was then possible to have a tremendous influence go from one human being to the other with the power that still lay in words at that time. Today, a little bit of feeling for the inner, spiritual, occult power of words still survives among the people. You simply cannot compare the power words have today with the power they had at that time. It was something quite tremendous. The word in itself would awaken powers in the pupil's soul. A mantra such as we have it today does not have anything like the power which words had at that time, when they were not so full of thoughts. Powers of soul would arise in the pupil under the influence of those words. We might call it human initiation through the language of nature, with tremendous power. A definite language was then also spoken by burning substances such as incense.

The connection between the teacher's and the pupil's soul was much more direct in that place. Any written signs existing at the adept school of ancient Atlantis imitated natural processes. They were drawn in the air with the hand, and had an effect, also a lasting effect, on the mind and spirit of the people at that time. They would awaken powers in the soul.

Every race thus has its mission in human evolution. The mission of our own, the fifth main or root race, is to bring the manas element into the four elements of human nature, that is to awaken insight and understanding by means of concepts and ideas. Every race has its mission. The mission of the Atlantean race was to develop the I. Our own, the fifth root race of the post- Atlantean period, has to develop manas, the spirit self.

The achievements of Atlantis did not perish with it. The most important elements of everything that existed in the adepts' nursery was kept by a small core group of people when they left. This small group, guided by Manu, went into the area where the Gobi desert is today. There they recreated the earlier civilization and teaching, but now more for the thinking mind. The earlier powers of spirit were transformed into thoughts and signs. From there, from this centre, the different lines of civilization then went out like radii, like rays. First of all the wonderful, most ancient pre-Vedic civilization, where the wisdom that came streaming in was for the first time transformed into thoughts.

The second civilization to arise from the ancient adept school was the most ancient Persian civilization. The third was the Chaldean and Babylonian civilization with its wonderful star wisdom, the magnificent knowledge its priests had. The fourth civilization to come into flower was the Graeco-Latin with its personal colouring, and finally our own developed as the fifth. We are moving towards the sixth and seventh. I have thus identified our mission in human evolution. It is to transform into thoughts, to bring right down to the physical plane, the cosmic wisdom which has existed as such until now.

When an ancient Atlantean listened for the note that lay between the sounds he could hear around him, he would hear the name of something he had perceived to be the divine: Tao. In the Egyptian mysteries this note was transformed into thoughts, writings, signs—the Tao sign, the Tao books. Everything that exists as knowledge, writings, thought only came into the world in post-Atlantean times. It could not have been written down before, for it would have been beyond human understanding. We are now in the middle of manas development. Our race works to take cultivation of the intellect, and at the same time also of egotism, to its extremes. We may certainly say, even if it does sound grotesque: ‘There has never been so much power of understanding and so little inner vision in the world as there is now.’ Thought is furthest away from the inner essence of things, far removed from inner spiritual vision.

When a priest on Atlantis wrote signs in the air, the effect of this would above all be an inner experience in the pupil's soul. In the fourth, the GraecoLatin period, the personal aspect was more to the fore. The Greeks developed personal art. In Rome, the personal element came into government affairs and so on. In our time we live with egotism, a dry personal element, a dry intellect. It is, however, our mission to grasp the occult in the purest thought element. Grasping the spiritual in this, the finest distillate of the brain, is the true mission of our age. To make this thought so powerful that it will have something of an occult power—that is the task we have been given so that we may do what is needed for the future.

Massive fires destroyed ancient Lemuria, massive floods ancient Atlantis. Our own civilization will also perish, and this will be through the war of all against all—this lies before us. Our fifth root race will perish because of egotism taken to its extreme. But a small group of people will out of the power of thought develop the power of buddhi, life spirit, and take it on into the new civilization. Everything that is productive in the human being will grow and grow until his individual nature has risen far enough to reach the summit of freedom. Every individual will have to find a kind of guiding spirit in his inmost soul in our time, buddhi, the power of the life spirit. If we were to go into the future being able to take in civilization impulses only the way it has been done in earlier times, we would move towards humanity shattering into fragments.

What is it that we have in our present age? Each wants to be his own master. Egotism, selfishness is going to extremes. A time is coming when no authority will be accepted other than authority people are able to accept of their own free will, so that its power will base on freely given trust. The mysteries based on the power of the spirit are called ‘mysteries of the spirit’. The future mysteries built on a basis of trust, on the power of trust, are called ‘mysteries of the father’. We bring our civilization to its conclusion with them. This new impulse, the power of trust, must come, otherwise we shall shatter into fragments and shall have a general ego-based and egotistical civilization.

In the times of the mystery of the spirit, based on a power, authority and might of the spirit that did have its justification, individual great sages had wisdom in their possession. They could only initiate people who had gone through severe trials. We are now moving towards a future that will hold the mysteries of the father and have to make every effort to see that every individual is wise. Will this help against egotism and being shattered? Yes! For human beings can only be united if they gain the greatest wisdom, a wisdom in which there are no personal vagaries, opinions or standpoints but one common view. If people were to continue in the way of being different, having points of view, and so on, they would again and again go their separate ways. The most sublime wisdom, however, always creates the same view for all people. True wisdom is one wisdom that brings all people together again in the greatest possible freedom, with no coercion or authority. As the members of the great white brotherhood¹⁰⁷ are always in harmony among themselves and with humanity, so will all human beings be united in this wisdom at a future time. This wisdom alone will create the true idea of brotherhood. The mission of the science of the spirit therefore need be no more than to guide humanity towards this idea, now in the unfolding of the spirit self, later of the life spirit. The great goal of the spiritual science movement is to make it possible for human beings to be free and truly wise. Its mission is to let this truth and wisdom flow into human beings.

In the modern movement for a science of the spirit, one began with the most elementary teaching. Much that is important has been unveiled in the years since the movement started, and even more important things will be gradually unveiled. The work of the movement is therefore to let the wisdom of the great white brotherhood that had its origin in Atlantis flow out gradually. Such work has always been preceded by a long period of preparation. The great and unique event of the coming of Christ Jesus was thus prepared for by all the work of the founders of religions—Zarathustra, Hermes, Moses, Orpheus, Pythagoras. All their teaching had the same goal—to let wisdom come to human beings, though always in the form most appropriate for the people concerned. And it is not what the Christ said that was really new. The really new thing that came with the coming and teaching of Christ Jesus was that Christ Jesus had the power to bring to life everything which until then had only been teaching.

Through Christianity, humanity has gained the power that all may be united in acknowledging the authority of Christ Jesus and yet be utterly individual, and that human beings can unite and be brothers in their faith in Christ Jesus, his coming, his divinity. Between the mysteries of the spirit and those of the father we thus have the mysteries of the son, with the school of St Paul its planting site, the school put in the care of Dionysius the Areopagite. The school had its flowering under him, for Dionysius taught those mysteries in a very special way, whilst Paul spread the teaching exoterically.

Let us now provide an explanation from another direction, so that we may understand what it means to say: the mysteries of the father are coming. The teachers of the ancient Atlantean adept school were not human beings but spirits higher than man. They had completed their development on earlier planets. And these teachers, coming from ancient planetary evolutions, taught the mysteries of the spirit to a small select band. In the mysteries of the son, Christ Jesus himself would appear as the teacher on special occasions. He, too, was a teacher who was not human but a god. It will not be until we have the mysteries of the father that the teachers will be humans. Individuals who have developed faster than the rest of humanity will be the true masters of wisdom and of harmony. They will be called the fathers. In the mysteries of the father, therefore, the guidance of humanity will be no longer in the hands of spirits who have come down from other worlds, but in the hands of human beings themselves. This is the important point.

To prepare people to be a core group for this goal, to prepare them for a common wisdom, for authority based on trust, and to develop understanding, initially for a small core group of people—that is the mission of the science of the spirit. The evolution of material civilization reached its high point in the 19th century. This was the time when the science of the spirit first came into the world. A counter impulse to materialism, going in the opposite direction, toward the spirit, was created by this means and therefore existed. The science of the spirit is nothing new, nor the spiritual scientific movement—it merely continues what was there before. Materialism, egotism cause humanity to shatter into fragments, with individuals seeing only their own interests. Wisdom must bring human beings together again who have been separated by this. In utter freedom, with no coercion, people are brought together in wisdom. That is the mission of the spiritual scientific movement in our time. We must clearly understand that we need to gain wisdom in very real terms. We all know the story of the stove whose mission it is to get the room warm. We may present this to the stove in the most moving words, asking it to get the room warm, but it will not do so. It is only if we turn it on that it can fulfil its mission. And so there is little point in just talking about brotherhood and love of one another. Insight alone will take us closer to our goal. For every individual and for humanity as a whole, the road to wisdom, to brotherhood, can only be found through insight.

We have now considered this road, going through three kinds of mysteries. Science of the spirit must make it possible for a small core group of people to understand what has been said, so that understanding may come alive in the masses in the sixth race. This is the mission which the science of the spirit must accomplish. A small part of the fifth root race will anticipate evolution; it will spiritualize manas and unfold the spirit self. The greater part, however, will reach the summit of selfishness. The core group which develops the spirit self will be the seed for the sixth root race, and the ones who are most advanced among them, the masters who have come from the ranks of humanity, as we call them, will then guide the human race. This is the goal of the movement for spiritual insight.

• 105. Middle High German epic poem from the early 13th century, based on the legends of Siegfried and the Burgundian kings.
• 106. Rudolf Steiner was referring to highly evolved individuals who are of the greatest possible importance to humanity. 'These sublime entities have already followed the path which the rest of humanity still has before it. They now work as the great 'teachers of wisdom and of the harmony of man's inner feelings/ (From a letter to a member, Berlin 2 January 1905). See also Rudolf Steiner/Marie von Sivers Correspondence and Documents 1901–1925 (GA 262). Tr. C. von Arnim. London and New York: AP & RSP 1988.
• 107. In one set of lecture notes it says ‘of the white lodge’.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What do we see now at the present time?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Only those who view mythologies superficially can overlook the profound wisdom that is expressed in them, and only they can fail to recognize that something much deeper is hidden there than mere poetic fantasy, popular fantasy. Real spiritual research knows that there have always been select personalities who stood higher than other people. Such superior personalities were, for example, Buddha, Pythagoras, Moses and the greatest initiate, Christ Jesus. These are individuals who are far ahead of other people; it is such individuals who know the higher worlds from their own experience, who have knowledge of what lies hidden behind the physical world. They know the spiritual world themselves. They have brought a part of the truth to the nations to which they came. The wisdom is the same at all times. But it must be brought differently to different peoples at different times. That which is true is preserved by the great leaders, the initiates of humanity, and they clothe it in those concepts that any people can understand at a particular time. The various religions are the one truth, adapted to different peoples according to their aptitude and their character.

The collective wisdom, which we also call the secret doctrine, expresses itself in the most diverse religious beliefs. To understand why one people have these ideas and another people have different ideas, we must get to know the nature of the people. We must examine the nature of the ancient Germans and the Indian peoples.

First, we will give a brief sketch of the secret doctrine, which is preserved by the initiated leaders of humanity. The basic tenet of the common secret doctrine of all these different peoples is that man is a dual being, that he consists of a spiritual-soul part and a physical-corporeal part, and that the spiritual-soul part is called upon to uplift, ennoble, purify and bless the physical-corporeal part. Schiller speaks of the purification of the lower parts of man in the letters on the aesthetic education of the human race. There he speaks of how the whole development of man consists in purifying and refining the lower nature. The whole development of man consists in his ascending to ever higher and higher levels in this purification. This view connects the Secret Doctrine with a very specific idea about the relationship between man and the world. All mysticism calls man the microcosm in comparison to the macrocosm, to the great world. If you now go through the natural kingdoms and then examine the powers, abilities and qualities of man, it turns out that man is a confluence of all the powers that are out there in the world. Paracelsus said: “When you look out into nature, you see the letters everywhere, and man is the word that is composed of these letters.” Schiller wrote to Goethe about his conception of man: “I see how you take all of nature to explain man. You look for the parts everywhere to explain man from the totality of appearances.” All the essences of the individual forces of nature have merged in the essence of man; this is how the Secret Doctrine presents man.

Man's foundation is also an image of that cosmos. The battle between the lower and higher nature in man is an image of the great cosmos. Man is a battleground of the spiritual against the physical. This is also the case in nature. But man is still in the middle of the battle. He looks back to a time when he was still in the midst of the battle and to a future when he will have overcome the struggle. The spiritual, the physically invisible forces, are fighting against the physically visible world. This struggle is presented in various ways to the most diverse peoples in the Secret Doctrine. The story of the battle of spiritual forces of nature can be found among all peoples. Out in the world, the battle has already been decided. There the lower nature kingdoms have been left behind. When man in the future has cast off his lower nature, he will have achieved what the gods have already achieved. The nature kingdoms are the traces left behind by the gods. Man looks up to the divine beings, who give a picture of what man will one day be. The gods are the elder brothers of man. Man is on the way to becoming a god. Outside in the world, man also sees the conquest of the lower nature by a higher one. This is expressed in the old legends and myths in some images common to them. In ancient India we find the god Dhyans, in new India the god Indra. He conquers the serpent. In Germanic mythology we find the god Dhin or Dhinz. It is said that he overcame a dragon in ancient times. The gods Wotan, Wille and Weh overcame the giant Ymir and formed the microcosm out of him. The old gods Wotan, Wille and Weh emerged from what remained in nature. Another concept of the Secret Doctrine is that man is the younger brother of the gods and that he who is an initiate comes closer to the gods. He has passed through certain stages to become divine. The various mythologies have regarded nature as the traces left behind by the gods. This secret doctrine found different expressions depending on the different dispositions of the peoples. The Germanic peoples had a very special expression for it.

To understand how the ancient Germans arrived at their ideas, one must delve deeper into their way of thinking. The ancient Germans did not simply make up their sagas as scholars have believed. German scholarship could have provided a good basis for a correct understanding. There is a work that presents a thorough study of legends: Das Rätsel der Sphinx (The Riddle of the Sphinx) by Ludwig Laistner. He used to take the same view as the old German scholars of legends that people have symbolized natural phenomena. In his work, Die Rätsel der Sphinx, he has succeeded in getting to the bottom of the legends that still live in the people today. There is a widespread legend, the legend of the Noon-Day Woman. If a farmer stays out in the fields instead of going home at noon, the Noon-Day Woman appears and asks him three questions. Those who cannot answer these questions will be killed by the Noon-Day Woman. In some areas, it is said that you can only ward her off by reciting the Lord's Prayer. Ludwig Laistner has shown that this legend is nothing more than a reflection of what a person actually encounters when they stay out in the fields at midday. They fall asleep and enter a state in which they perceive their surroundings as the symbol of the witch of noon.

Dreams are symbolic. The ticking of the clock next to our bed is perhaps symbolized as the clatter of horses. Dreams are symbolic, even when they are about external sensory events. That is the peculiarity of dream experiences: they are symbolic.

Everything in the world has developed, including consciousness. The present day consciousness has developed from a kind of somnambulistic consciousness. Everything has gradually come into being. Thus, from a certain clairvoyant consciousness, today's consciousness has emerged. Some organs that used to serve a purpose are now only present as rudiments. The dream is also a rudimentary state. It is the last remnant of an earlier so-called astral consciousness. In the clairvoyant, out of the dream consciousness, the clairvoyant consciousness is developed. He attains a consciousness that is not only the physical consciousness, but also a spiritual consciousness. The somnambulists seek to tune down the ordinary physical consciousness in order to induce the so-called trance consciousness. With the advent of the day consciousness, people have lost the astral trance consciousness. In the past, people needed a somnambulistic, clairvoyant consciousness. In the future, the earlier clairvoyant consciousness will return and will be developed alongside the daytime consciousness. People who have less developed intellect often still have traces of the old clairvoyant consciousness. It is not uncommon for people in the countryside to have a clairvoyant consciousness.

If we go back in time, we would find people who use their senses very little but still have the old Atlantean clairvoyant consciousness. They knew that the gods are nothing more than creations of the old astral consciousness. The soul of the people has retained remnants of the astral consciousness. Germanic mythology is an expression of spiritual experiences. Our ancestors still had spiritual consciousness. The ancient Germans preserved their astral experiences in their mythology. The ancient German saw the gods fighting with the lower forces of nature in the astral world. The whole of Germanic mythology comprises tales of experiences within the astral world. The sagas describe how ancient clairvoyant humanity moved downwards. Baldur once dreamt that he would soon die. All creatures swore an oath not to harm him. But Loki used mistletoe, which had been forgotten, to make Hödur, the blind Hödur, kill Baldur. Humanity, which has become blind to the spiritual world, is Hödur. His ancestor with the old somnambulistic consciousness is Baldur. Only that which belongs to him can kill him: mistletoe, which dates back to an earlier epoch of development. At that time there was a mineral kingdom on earth that was half plant-like; plants grew in it as if in a living being. Mistletoe is a remnant of that plant kingdom that can only grow on another living plant.

The ancient Germans realized that the spiritual world is also a world of light, but that humans cannot perceive it. Baldur is a man of light from this spiritual world. He can perceive the astral world. Hödur, however, is the new man who does not see the astral world. Germanic mythology also expresses that man is a younger brother of the gods. In Germanic mythology, we are told how Wotan hung on the gallows of the cross for nine days and nine nights and that Mimir gave him a drink. This is reminiscent of Christ Jesus. Here, too, the crucifixion is presented as a symbol. Wotan is portrayed here as an initiate. It is then said that Wotan crawls through the crevices of the earth as a snake and that he reaches Gunnlöd, the Valkyrie. He stays there for three days and three nights. She hands him the potion of wisdom. The initiate remained in the cave in lethargy for three days and three nights. There he was to unite with his higher soul. The higher consciousness of man has always been represented as something feminine. The feminine is the higher consciousness that man attains when he enters the realms of the spiritual world.

The story of Wotan is adapted to the abilities of the human race at that time, which is told by all initiates. Gunnlöd is the Valkyrie. She is the higher consciousness. This is also referred to as the Valkyrie in other Germanic legends. Siegfried also reaches the Valkyrie when he attains his higher consciousness. — This portrayal of the Valkyrie Gunnlöd takes us deep into Germanic mythology. The Germanic peoples were a warlike people who placed the greatest value on bravery. A warrior who fell on the battlefield was led to Valhalla by the Valkyrie. Those who fell on the battlefield reached their higher soul part. This came to meet him as the Valkyrie. The human being who passed through the gate of death had to unite with the Valkyrie. That is why Wotan stayed with Gunnlöd. In Germanic mythology, every initiate was thought of as being connected to the Valkyrie.

Siegfried is said to have worn the magic hood of invisibility. The initiate is hidden in a certain way. People do not recognize the initiate. The hood of invisibility hides him from people. Siegfried is an initiate; he unites with the Valkyrie Brunhild. He becomes invulnerable like all initiates. He remains vulnerable only where he carries the cross, between the shoulder blades. A greater initiate is promised, who will also be invulnerable there. Because the ancient Germans had retained their astral beliefs for a long time, the secret teachers were able to give them the teachings in the astral consciousness.

Almost all Asian peoples are descended from the ancient Atlanteans. Their ancestors came from Atlantis. The ancestors of the ancient Germans had also come from Atlantis. They had remained in Europe, while another part had continued to migrate as far as Asia. Those who had advanced further had first developed sensory consciousness and intellectual consciousness. They were already living with advanced spiritual ideas. Hence the urge arose in India to take an artificial path to penetrate into the other worlds. For this, the Indian needed an artificial path. This is what is called yoga, a certain training that leads from the sensual world to the spiritual world. A yogi is a person who seeks to find his way back to the spiritual world. In India, the intellect found expressions for the artificial clairvoyance that was developed through the practice of yoga. The ancient Germans also had astral vision. In India, on the one hand, artificial clairvoyance developed, and on the other hand, intellectual philosophy. Those who no longer have astral vision need external symbols and rituals, as found in Indian symbolism. These are sensual expressions for the spiritual worlds. In India, what had now developed in its most glorious form was also in Christianity. Germania had also been pointed to Christianity. In Siegfried, one saw an initiate who was invulnerable except for the one spot. Kriemhild pinned the cross to that spot. This is a picture that prophetically points to the future of Germania. Here is the place where the cross will lie, making it invulnerable. Thus the old saga points here to Christianity, which made this place invulnerable.

Because the Germanic world felt so close to what came over through Christianity, that is why Christianity found such an entrance there. Within Europe, there was no need for Indian philosophy. We could do without it altogether. What is gained from the correct immersion in the Germanic sagas of the gods must appear even more profoundly.

These concepts will come to life again when that which is still alive, albeit veiled, in the soul of the people is awakened to life. This treasure will be unearthed; then we will understand in a unique way what our European ancestors have to say to their descendants.

Theosophy is intended to create a brotherhood across all of humanity, causing people to carry into the future what they understand from the past.

When speaking of the paths and goals of spiritual man, the question will arise again and again: Why should one think of going such special ways? Why are we being pointed to the fact that we should set ourselves such goals through spiritual science? - What we have to give as an answer must be transformed into feeling and sentiment for us. It has been pointed out time and again that forces lie dormant in the human being and in nature, striving to develop, which can be unfolded. In addition to the human being who sees and hears in the physical world, every human being has a higher human being within him. This is present as a kind of seed, germinating. Spiritual science brings this to our attention more and more urgently. It is a human being of whom ordinary consciousness does not know much.

We must be clear about the following: what we can see now is our ordinary everyday human being. But the one who slumbers in us, who is in us as a seed, is a spiritual human being. Whether this seed develops or not depends on our ordinary human being. We can prepare the ground with the powers of our ordinary self, but we can also leave it uncultivated and not take care of it. Then we fail in our duty to our spiritual self. Through spiritual science itself, through what it can give us as teachings and messages, we can prepare the ground for this higher self. If we transform this insight into feeling and sentiment, it will give us the answer to the question: Is it not a higher selfishness to occupy ourselves with ourselves in this way? — As long as we have not learned anything from spiritual science, it is our karma to wait. But once we have heard about the higher human being slumbering within us, it is our duty to do what can develop its powers in order to better fulfill our tasks in the world. We cannot speak of selfishness here, but only of our obligation to our spiritual self.

This is the right point of view for a Theosophist to take in relation to the outer life. Theosophy gives us a number of communications that have been obtained through spiritual research. However, not everyone who wants to live theosophy needs to be a spiritual researcher. The more we are able to follow the path of our inner development, the better. But before we ourselves can achieve results in the field of spiritual research, we must have its contents related to us by others. When we have presented the question to ourselves long enough, the outer life will confirm the communications of the spiritual researchers. If we have grasped these communications through sound logic, we are given the opportunity to ascend to higher worlds. Reason and logic are the surest guides for this.

The question may arise: How should we use these messages? How should we relate to them? — Let us take the truth that we call the law of karma. It states that in later lives on earth we find events that point back to previous incarnations. The more we apply such a law of spiritual research in life, the more we will see how true it is. Just as we never find a triangle in the sense world whose angles do not add up to 180 degrees, so the circumstances of life must always confirm what is recognized as a law in spiritual research. And if the karmic effects do not appear to us to be consistent, this will at most correspond to the slight deviation that may occur when measuring a circle with the help of the planimeter. The result may be 361 degrees one time and 359 the next, but that does not negate the law itself. Nor is the law of gravity overthrown because a push causes the plumb line of a falling machine to swing to the side. This only proves that a different result is achieved when a new force is added.

Spiritual research also shows how we encounter repetitions of previous periods of time within our lives between birth and death. For example, what we acquire between the ages of three and seven in our first childhood will come back to us in its karmic effect in our old age. If you examine how someone was allowed to spend their first childhood, you will discover a remarkable connection with those childhood years in their old age. If, instead of being subject to the external constraints of certain rules, he has developed healthy needs, his old age will take a different shape. In many cases, however, what is considered right is implanted and crammed into the child's soul. However, it is not what is implanted that matters, but that the child must have the need to do this or that of his own free will. It turns out that people can maintain their health in old age, that they retain freshness and inner strength until the last stage of their lives.

However, there are even more significant connections. From people's writing, you can learn a lot about how their past has shaped them.

During the age of seven to fourteen years, it is necessary that man not be educated to premature use of his reason. Authority must cause truth to appear to us as such. If we can admire the people who surround us during this period of our lives, it will serve us well in the penultimate stage of our lives. Devoutly looking up at natural wonders and being in the mood for prayer are beneficial factors for later on. Happy recognition of authority comes back, transformed in a way that makes it self-evident that such a person has authority. The devotion that children are able to develop during this period results in them becoming people who, without having to do anything, merely need to be in the company of others to have a blessing effect. The hand that has never been able to fold in devotion with the other will never be able to bless. Those who have never learned to bend their knees will never be able to bless. If you have penetrated such a law, you will find it confirmed. In this way, the effect of the law of karma can be seen in the course of a single human life. Thus, life everywhere provides us with evidence of a lawfulness that is effective in all fields.

Of course, circumstances can arise that conceal the law. In physics, for example, we know the law of gravity. Imagine an object that is moving through space at any given moment without support, completely left to its own devices. According to the law of gravity, this object will approach the earth with increasing speed until it hits the earth. The object will move in the direction of the center of the earth according to very definite laws; it will fall. Let us further imagine that the falling object is suddenly hit by a horizontally directed blow. The naive observer, who expects the object, falling vertically due to the law of gravity, to arrive at the relevant point on the earth, will in this case wait in vain. The object stays away. Does that mean that the law of fall is repealed? Not at all. Through the horizontally guided blow, only a new force has been added, and the object now moves under its effect in a curve that corresponds quite lawfully to the result of gravity and the later added force, towards the earth. At the point where the object hits the ground under these circumstances, its fall will be seen by any observer as something quite random and unpredictable. But this is not the case. The lawfulness is complete and incorruptible.

The same applies in full to the law of karma, although we can rarely follow it in all its composite and intricate effects. That is why man is always inclined to doubt his karma. But however confused we may be by the outer Maja, we should only let ourselves be guided by what has become law in our soul. Many who wish to develop the powers of the spirit within themselves will not find it easy, for the physical life is always intruding. There but for the grace of something in our existence, how easily we are carried away by wrong judgment, for instance, to insults, without thinking of the consequences of our actions. We strike a blow at a person and do not know that we have raised our hand against ourselves, because this blow will strike us again in our own hour. The law of karma is at work everywhere. Everything that happens to us in life happens under the law of karma. But merely considering this law as a doctrine, as a theory, does not make us theosophists.

There are two feelings that we must acquire if we want to work on our spiritual development. On the one hand, we must say to ourselves: There is nothing about us that can be perfected, nowhere is there a limit to our ascent. At every moment, the feeling of imperfection should urge us to climb higher and higher on the ladder of perfection, which knows no highest rung. We must keep reminding ourselves of this, otherwise we will not make any progress in our work on our spiritual self. On the other hand, we should say to ourselves: a second step is necessary. In every moment we must feel that there is an infinite possibility for perfection within us. We must make our hidden self as great as possible. This is an apparent contradiction, and the human being must feel it as such. Between these two points, the feeling of one's own imperfection and the striving to make the hidden self as great as possible, development is included.

The one who strives as a mystic, who descends into his own inner being, who wants to advance through an inner deepening, must pass through the first point. He must acquire humility. The best rule a mystic can set for himself is this: to think of everything that arises within him as imperfect as possible, to detach himself completely from his own personality. For anyone who enters into his own inner being must be prepared to experience terrible things. Stories of tragic experiences take place in the inner world of the person who dares to venture into the depths of his own being. A Tauler, a Eckhart, a Paulus can tell of it. And how was the help that these sought against the dangers? Paul says: Not I, but the Christ in me wants to act. Take with you the Master, the Ideal, but feel with it that the ego must be driven out. Not from your own ego should all feeling, all willing, all thinking be done. Your unworthy ego had to be driven out. This feeling is very similar to the sense of shame in the ordinary man. Wanting to be another, wanting to organize another into your own soul, that is the way of mysticism.

And what belongs to the path of occultism? The path of the occultists leads into the outer world. If a person wants to follow the occult path, he must live in such a way that he gradually learns to bear the higher world when he has left his body during sleep. He must develop a feeling for perfecting himself in the Infinite. But here too a danger lies in wait for him, as it does for the mystic when he descends into his own inner being. We have been permitted to mention the dangers that beset the mystic; the mystic himself reports about them. The dangers that beset the occultist are not mentioned. Each one must acquaint himself with this danger.

When we look into our own inner being, it would be bad if we had not learned to feel ourselves as a unity that is poured out over our entire being. This ability to hold on to a unity is disrupted by every passion that overcomes us. Anger, envy, hatred destroy our power to focus on unity. And worst of all is when we have not learned to concentrate, when we are driven hither and thither. Firm and uninfluenced, we must learn to feel as one.

But if we, as occultists, seek the way into the outer world, we must eliminate our personality, as it has just been characterized. Here one must not seek a unity underlying the whole outer world. For when we turn to the spiritual world, we encounter an infinite variety of beings and conditions. If the occultist were to attempt to penetrate the unity that underlies the entire manifested world, he would perish. Imagine a drop of red liquid being poured into a large basin of water. Liquid as the drop is, it would immediately dissolve in the mass of water, it would melt away. This is what happens to the unstable ego when it wants to enter the world of the All-One. We dare not venture to penetrate there alone, for we will lose ourselves as the red drop loses itself in the mass of water. If we want to enter the astral realm, we are pointed to a multiplicity. We must ask about the multiplicity, from the beings who stand higher than we do, from those who have themselves gradually gone through a higher development, from the hierarchies of that world. We must not want to skip anything, for it would be presumptuous to want to go straight to the highest. We must gradually learn to study with the help of the higher beings if we want to grasp the unity. The arrogance of wanting to reach the highest level will surely lead to failure. We must not let ourselves be tempted by our monotheistic ideas into believing that when the veil that separates us from the spiritual world slides aside, we will see only a single divine oneness. It is the multiplicity that we look into, and it is on the multiplicity that we must focus our gaze.

But how are we to find our way? Pythagoras said: “Seek not the manifold with your eyes, ears and senses, seek it through number!” Equipped with number, we are to approach the manifold. Just as the mystic must pour the ideal of higher perfection into his inner being, so the occultist must appeal to number. And here one quality is absolutely essential, namely certainty. We must feel secure. For if man wavers, what is he? A will-o'-the-wisp, a flickering light, and the world is a labyrinth. We need an Ariadne's thread to find our way back. The number makes us firm, we must keep it in mind. If you want to enter the spiritual world, you have to step out of yourself, you have to enter the chaos of the many first. How do we find this factor? Where is the organizing principle? We find it through the number, through the lawfulness of the number. We have to penetrate into the essence of the number and get to know its real value. The number alone can become our guide in the labyrinth. The number can teach us a great deal, and certain numbers are based on profound secrets.

Take the number two, for example. Everything that comes into being manifests itself in twos. There is no right without left, no light without darkness. Everything that manifests itself outwardly is subject to the number two. The number two is the number of revelation, the number of manifestation.

The number three is the number of the conformity to law of the soul: thinking, feeling and willing. Insofar as something is organized and structured in the soul, it is subject to the number three. Where the number three reveals itself as a conformity to law, something soul-like underlies it. We can find the number three in countless relationships. In the three logoi we have the three fundamental powers, which point back to something divinely soul-impregnated.

In relation to all that is temporal, the number seven applies: Saturn, Sun, Moon, Earth, Jupiter, Venus and Vulcan, which denote the seven successive states of evolution.

Where we see something interacting simultaneously, we get the number twelve: the twelve gods, the twelve apostles, and so on. The reduction of the fixed stars to the twelve signs of the zodiac is also connected with this. The number twelve teaches us yet another law. Let us think of materialism. Is materialism wrong? It does not have to be, as long as man does not carry it into the soul. If one wants to be a materialist, then one must pay homage to vitalism, then one learns to understand material life. But one must choose a different point of view for the soul and for the spiritual. If we want to understand the world in its fullness, then we must be able to place ourselves in different points of view. We must take the practical spiritual path.

Now one may well hear a person express the principle: You must make a certain system for yourself if you want to penetrate into the higher worlds. But that is the worst way to go. Instead, one should first step out of one's own personality: from the center that this personality occupies in its existence, to the horizon of our physical existence. Only here in the horizon should we place ourselves on a certain point of view, first the materialistic one, and look at it from the inside out, from the one point of view through which, as already mentioned, we get to know the material life. Only then can we walk around the horizon and choose twelve different points of view. This is the only way that can lead to real knowledge. The practical occultist must become very selfless before he can walk around the horizon in a circle. By having to forget his personal self twelve times, he maintains uniformity in both the external and the internal.

If I may indicate in a few words the point at which yesterday's considerations culminated, I would like to say that out of them the possibility should come to light for every man, through a deepening of his being, through a trust in the spiritual worlds, of causing to rise within him a soul-mood, a soul-disposition, which will say to him: “Into man flow not only the things which are in the periphery of the earth, not only those things which stem from the evolution of the earth itself, but it is possible for man to tune his soul in such a way that he receives out of the spiritual worlds helping forces which flow into him, which produce an equilibrium between the single egoistic I and the totality of his organization—if that possibility offers itself which has flowed into the earth-mission.” Whoever can attain this trust in this inflow from the spiritual worlds, no matter what he calls this inner event, this inner experience, has lived through the personal Christ-experience inwardly. The remainder of this matter will reveal itself to us if today we start by considering the third path to Christ, the path of initiation.

With the path through the Gospels, and the path through inner experience, we have the two paths to Christ which are accessible to every man: I say expressly—to every man. But to the path of initiation there belongs a certain preparation, as should be understandable to everyone. In our time this requires us to go deeply, in a real and not merely theoretical way, into the true, genuine spiritual science which, at least in our present time, must always be the point of departure, if we wish to understand what the way of initiation is. Regarding the essence of initiation it would be well to give a few introductory remarks in a certain direction. You see, initiation is the highest which man can achieve in the course of the Earth-evolution, for it leads man to a certain understanding, to a real insight into the secrets of the spiritual world. What occurs in the spiritual worlds is really the content, the object, of initiation, and a real knowledge, an immediate perception, of events in the spiritual worlds is attained on the path of initiation. When initiation is characterized in this way, something very special must strike everyone who lets this characterization work on his soul. This is really to say, fundamentally, that initiation is—allow me the expression—a super-religious way. The religions which in the course of human epochs have spread over the surface of the earth, and which still prevail among men, all of these, in so far as they are great religions, and in so far as we study them at their points of origin, were originally founded upon initiation, by initiates. They have flowed out of what great initiates have been able to give to men. But the religions were given in such a form that, in their contents, men received what was suitable to the time in which they lived, to the race to which they belonged, even to the region of the earth in which they lived.

Now today we live in a very special epoch of human evolution, and it is just the task of spiritual science to understand that we live in a special time. The way in which among our contemporaries spiritual science can be brought forth and spread, this was nowhere possible in past times. Anthroposophy as such could not be publicly taught. Only in our time do we begin to teach anthroposophy. The religions were once the channels through which the secrets of initiation were to be allowed to flow into mankind; to be allowed to flow in a manner suitable at a given time to a given group of men. But today we are in a position to give through anthroposophy something which is not adapted to a single race, to a single region, to a single group of men, but which can bring to every man, no matter where he finds himself on earth, something of those secrets of existence, for knowledge of which souls are yearning and which souls must have if hearts are to be strong for work on earth. But this already shows that through anthroposophy something is to be given which takes a standpoint higher than the religious standpoints were, or still are where these religious standpoints continue to be accepted. In a certain way anthroposophy is that which must propagate the secrets of initiation in a universal human way, whereas in the various ancient religious systems of the earth the secrets of initiation were always announced in a special manner, in a different way, adapted to the particular human group.

What follows from this? It follows that we find the most varied religions spread out over the earth, all of which point back to this or that founder. We find first the Krishna religion, leading back to Krishna; second, the Buddha religion, leading back to Buddha; third, the ancient Hebrew religion, leading back to Moses; and we find Christianity, leading back to Jesus of Nazareth. The religions having all flowed out of initiation, we must be quite clear that we cannot today take the position taken by the philosophers of religion who consider themselves “enlightened.” The philosophers of comparative religion have a secret outlook on religions; they regard them all either as false or as childish stages of human development. But we, as anthroposophists, since we learn to know that the religions are only different formulations of the truths of initiation, are in a position to grasp the true and not the false in the various religious systems. We do justice to all the religious systems in comparison with one another. We regard them as equally justified revelations of the great truths of initiation.

And from this follows something terribly important for practical feeling and practical activity. What is this important thing? That out of the anthroposophical mood will proceed complete understanding, hearty respect, and full recognition of the core of truth in all religions; and that those who, out of an anthroposophical attitude, reflect on the world and its course of development, will respect the truths of the various religious systems. There will be the highest esteem and respect. Yes, my dear friends, from the anthroposophical spiritual stream will result the following for the various religious confessions on earth: A man will go to the adherents of any religious system, and he will not think himself able to graft on to them, or inoculate them with, other confessions. Much rather will we go to them and, out of our own religious faith, discern what there is of truth in their faith. And a man who is born in a region where a particular religion holds sway will not, on account of this religion, intolerantly reject all other religions, but he will be able to approach them on the basis of what, as truth, is contained in the different religions. Let us take an example. Such an example can be grasped only by those who, in the depths of their soul, take seriously the anthroposophical attitude and all that must follow from a knowledge of the fundamental conditions of initiation. Let us assume that an Occidental has grown up within Christianity. He will perhaps have learned to know Christianity through having taken into himself the great truths of the Gospels. Perhaps he has already attained also to what is called the path to Christ Jesus through inner experience; perhaps in his inner experience he has already experienced the Christ. Let us assume that he now becomes acquainted with another religion, Buddhism for example. From those who stand within the sacred truths and knowledge of Buddhism, he learns to know something which is an annoyance to the materialistic Occidental but which we anthroposophists can understand: He learns to know that the founder of this religion, after having lived through many incarnations on earth as a Bodhisatva, was reborn as the son of King Sudhodana; he learns to know that in the twenty-ninth year of his life as Bodhisatva he rose to Buddha, and that with this rising to Buddha there is given in this religion—since it stems from initiation—the one great truth which is valid not only for Buddhism but for all men, and which is acknowledged by every initiate and by all men who understand Buddhism; he learns to know that the adherent of Buddhism says justly: “When the Bodhisatva becomes Buddha in a human incarnation, then this incarnation which the Buddha has to go through on earth is the last. Then he does not come back again in a human body.”

To one who stands within Buddhism it would be acutely painful, if it were asserted that the Buddha would return again in a fleshly body. Such an adherent of the Buddha would be deeply distressed, if anyone were to dispute this truth, saying that the Bodhisatva who became a Buddha could again at some time appear upon the earth in a physical body. But we anthroposophists recognize the truth in the religions; we take the position of seeking the truth of the various religions and not their error. So we go to those who understand Buddhism and we learn to know—or learn out of initiation to know—that it is true that that individuality who lived as Bodhisatva on earth and became a Buddha has since that time reached spiritual heights from which he need not again descend to this physical globe. From that moment on, if we stand on the ground of the doctrine of reincarnation, we shall no longer thrust upon the Buddhist the assertion that the Buddha could reappear in a physical body. Genuine knowledge will create an understanding for every form of religion proceeding out of initiation. We respect the religious forms which have been developed on earth, in that we recognize the truth which they have to give. Yes, my dear friends, I acknowledge as frankly and honestly as the strictest Buddhist this truth, that the Bodhisatva who was on earth and rose to Buddha reached therewith a height of human development which made it possible for him no longer to descend to earth. This is what we call having an understanding for the various forms of religion on the earth.

Let us take the opposite case: That an adherent of Buddhism should make his way to anthroposophical knowledge. Either out of a real knowledge of Christianity or out of the principle of initiation, he would allow it to become clear to him that in another region of the earth there is another form of religion, and that those who understand this religion are quite clear about the following: That there once lived a personality who really belonged to no nation, least of all to the Occident, and that from his thirtieth to his thirty-third year there lived in this personality that impulse, that force of the spiritual life, to which we pointed yesterday; to which, in their Vishvakarman, the seven holy Rishis also pointed; to which, in his Ahura-Mazdao, Zarathustra also pointed; to which, as their Osiris, the Egyptians also pointed; and which the fourth post-Atlantean cultural period named Christ. But that is not the point: The point is to recognize in Christ that which lived as an impulse for three years in the personality of Jesus of Nazareth, that which was not previously present on earth, that which descended from spiritual heights into the personality of Jesus of Nazareth, that which in this personality went through the Mystery of Golgotha, and that which as such a Christ-impulse is a once-appearing impulse for the earth and is not connected with any ordinary incarnation of mankind; that which was thus once present as Christ and can never return in any man, but will come, as the Bible says, in the clouds of heaven—meaning that as a spiritual revelation it will show itself to men. This is a Christian avowal.

Now, one who stands within Buddhism, imbued with theosophical earnestness and theosophical dignity, will have to recognize that he must pay attention to and respect this Christian avowal just as the Christian must respect his. The Buddhist who has risen to theosophy and takes it seriously will say: “Just as you as a Christian approach with trust the teaching that the Bodhisatva who became a Buddha will no more return to the earth, just as it seems to me fitting that you know that the Buddha cannot return, so I as a Buddhist acknowledge that what you call Christ cannot return in a physical incarnation, but as a once-appearing impulse lived only for three years in a physical human body.”—If in anthroposophy we find the reciprocal understanding of the religions in such a way that the initiation-principle can penetrate into man's heart in such a way that one man shall not impose an alien opinion on others, then we produce an understanding which unites men over the whole earth, we establish peace between the single religions on earth.

In Christianity the founder of the religion is Jesus of Nazareth. The Christian initiation-principle is concerned with the religion's founder, Jesus of Nazareth, only as with a fact, as with a fact which can be examined by occultists as a fact. With the same love, with the same care, as are used in examining the life of Buddha or of another founder of a religion, the life of Jesus of Nazareth is examined by those who are acquainted with the principle of religion. How this life of Jesus of Nazareth appears from the standpoint of pure occultism you will find described in my pamphlet: The Spiritual Guidance of Mankind. But the true Christian initiation-principle concerns itself with recognizing Christ, with the way to Christ. And this Christian religious principle was preparing for many years what was just now described as a principle of peace for the whole earth, in that it clearly does not proceed from the founder of a religion as such, but from a fact which occurred once in the world.

That is the basic difference between Christianity and the other religions. What the initiation-principle which leads to Christ has as a task in the world is different from the cultures which have proceeded from the other religious principles. What the Christian initiation-principle has as a task within the world-mission proceeded from a fact, from an event, not from a personality. This will be understandable if we mention first some preliminary conditions. We can put forward a single sentence, a single statement, and we have then characterized, although externally, the starting point of esoteric Christianity, of Christian initiation: It is the death which was experienced in the uniting of Christ with Jesus of Nazareth. The fact of this death, which we call the Mystery of Golgotha, is what should be understood through the principle of Christian initiation. Now, a true understanding of this death can be won only if we make quite clear to ourselves the mission of death within our earth-evolution. Yesterday we pointed out that frailty, infirmity, illness, and death are connected with the lack of harmony between our Ego, permeated by the Luciferic principle, and our organization. Death, after all, is connected with the Luciferic principle, and that in a very special way. It would be an entirely false idea if we were to assume that Lucifer brought death. Lucifer did not bring death, he brought what we can call the possibility of error (also of moral error), the differentiation of men into races, and the possibility of freedom. Lucifer brought these things. If only what Lucifer brought had been efficacious in mankind, if nothing had been opposed to him, then this Luciferic principle would have led to the point where mankind would have fallen out, would have broken out, of the progressive divine evolution. Man would indeed have spiritualized himself, but in an entirely different direction from that to which the progressive divine evolution led. To retain mankind within this divine evolution, to prevent mankind's being lost for the divine evolution, a particular arrangement had to be set up: Man had to be continually reminded of what the consequences are if he misuses the possibility of error and of freedom. All illness, frailty, infirmity, and death are reminders that man would have to estrange himself from the progressive divine evolution if, in addition to having the Luciferic freedom, he were healthy and full of energy. Thus illness, infirmity, and death are not gifts of Lucifer, but gifts of the good, wisdom-filled divine powers, who have therewith set up a dike against the influences of Lucifer.

Thus we must say that all that confronts us in the world as continuous human tribulation coming from outside, as illness and death, is there in order that we men may remain fettered to earth-existence until we have an opportunity to make amends; in order that we may have an education which will adapt us to our organization. We suffer in order that out of our suffering we may gain experience and find an equilibrium between our Lucifer-permeated Ego and our divinely-permeated organization. Our organization falls away from us repeatedly, until we have completely imbued ourselves, in our Ego, with the laws of the evolution which is progressive in a divine sense. Every death is therefore a point of departure for something else. Man cannot die without taking with him that which gives him the possibility of sometime overcoming death in his successive incarnations. All our pains are there in order that out of suffering we may gain the experience of how we must adapt ourselves to our progressing divine organization. This question, however, cannot be discussed apart from its connection with all of evolution.

We can study such a thing especially well if we examine occultly the connections between man and the next lower kingdom, the animal kingdom. We know that in the course of evolution man has always inflicted pain on the animals, that he has killed the animals. One who learns to know the Karma of human life often finds it highly unjust that the animal, which does not reincarnate, should suffer, should bear pain, and even, in the case of the higher animals, should go through death with a certain consciousness. Should no Karmic compensation take place here? Naturally, the human being has to make a Karmic compensation in Kamaloka for the pain which he inflicts on animals, but I am not speaking of this now; I am speaking of the compensation for the animals. Let us make one thought clear: If we consider human evolution, we see how much pain man has strewn over the animal kingdom and how many animals he has killed. What do these pains and these deaths mean in the course of evolution?

Occult study shows us that every pain which is inflicted on a pain-feeling being other than man, every death, is a seed for the future. Animals, as they are willed by the progressive divine evolution, are not destined to have incarnations like man. But, if a change comes into this wisdom-filled world-plan, if man intervenes and does not leave the evolution of the animals to be as it would have been without man, what happens then? Now, you see, occult research teaches us that every pain, every death, inflicted by man on the animals, will return and arise again, not through reincarnation, but because pain and death have been inflicted on the animals. This pain and suffering call up animality again. These animals on which pain has been inflicted will arise again, though not in the same form; but that which feels pain in them, that comes again. It comes again in such a way that the sufferings of the animals are compensated, so that to every pain its complementary feeling is added. These pains, these sufferings, this death, these are the seed which man has sown; they return in such a way that to every pain its contrary feeling is added in the future. To use a concrete example: When Earth is replaced by Jupiter, the animals will not appear in their present form, but their pains and sufferings will awaken the forces for the feeling of pain. They will live in men, and will embody themselves as parasitic animals in men. Out of the sensations and feelings of these men, out of their pains, the compensation will be created. This is the occult truth, which can be stated objectively and unadorned even if it is not pleasant to the man of today. Man will one day suffer this, and the animals will have, in a certain well-being, in a pleasant feeling, the compensation for their pains. This already happens slowly and gradually in the course of present-day earth-life, no matter how strange this seems. Why are men plagued by beings which are really neither animals nor plants, but stand between the two, by bacilli and similar creatures, which feel a well-being when man suffers? They have brought this upon themselves in earlier incarnations through inflicting pain and death on animals. For the being, though not appearing in the same form, feels this across time and feels the compensation for its pains in the suffering which man must undergo. Thus all the pain and suffering in the world are positively not without consequences. It is a seed from which proceeds what is caused by pain, suffering, and death. There can be no suffering, no pain, no death, without causing something which springs up later on.

Let us consider in this light the death on Golgotha, which followed from the uniting of Christ with Jesus of Nazareth. The first thing which becomes clear to anyone who goes through the requisite initiation is that this death on Golgotha was no ordinary death on earth, no ordinary human or other death. Persons who do not yet believe in the super-sensible can form no conception of this death on Golgotha. For even externally this Mystery of Golgotha has something very strange, something from which man has much to learn. This is that no historical writings tell of the Mystery of Golgotha, and the critics of the Gospels assert that the Gospels are in no way authoritative as historical documents. Principles of initiation are applied to that which was not written out of historical observation. What happened on Golgotha can still be perceived today by initiates, can still be seen today in the Akashic Record by people who undergo initiation. The writers of the Gospels also wrote only out of the Akashic Record; an event is described for which the original writers of the Gospels never thought of calling in the aid of perceptions on the physical plane. So strong was then the consciousness that one had to do here with something which stood in relation to the super-sensible worlds, and that the most important thing was to gain a relation to the super-sensible worlds. Out of the sense-world no right relation to these events can be won. What happened becomes clear through initiation. One could say that at the beginning of our era there lived a man, Jesus of Nazareth; that in the 30th year of his life he experienced a certain change through the reception of the Christ, and that after three years he was crucified. This would signify an event for the progressive history of mankind. If this were said, it would be the opposite of what the initiate learns to know; it would be an affair of men on earth, no matter how spiritualized it might become. With the initiation-principle, this is not the point.

Fundamentally, it might be said—but you must not misunderstand me—radically, it might be said that, at first glance, what happened on Golgotha was not an event which concerned men in so far as they are on the physical plane. At first glance! Not in the way in which it is related: A man once lived, Jesus of Nazareth, at the beginning of our era, who in the 30th year of his life experienced a certain change through the reception of the Christ, and was then crucified in his 33rd year—not so is the initiation-truth of Christianity told. It must be stated entirely differently.

It must be stated approximately thus: One who is to be initiated into the Christian principle learns the following: Before this Earth there was a Moon-condition. During this Moon-condition the Luciferic beings remained behind. These Luciferic beings developed further, alongside the progressive divine spiritual beings. In the Lemurian time Lucifer drew near to men, injected himself into the human earth-evolution, and brought about what was characterized yesterday. Thus Lucifer was inside the whole human development. Had human evolution continued in this way with Lucifer, it would gradually have happened that the mission of the Earth would not have reached its goal; man would have dried up, the human Ego would have separated from, would have broken out of, the divine spiritual evolution. On the old Moon a series, so to speak, of beings belonging to the super-sensible worlds learned that Lucifer had become rebellious, that he had taken up a position hostile to them. Thus the gods were compelled to see that Lucifer had become the adversary of the progressive divine development.—One can at first completely ignore all that concerns man in this. Let us consider all this as the affair of the gods and of their adversaries, the Luciferic beings, and let us consider mankind as a creation of the gods. This was the situation.

Now, there is a certain peculiarity in the spiritual, in the super-sensible, worlds. One thing is not present there which is present on the earth; death, in all its forms, is not found there. In the super-sensible worlds one transforms oneself, but one does not die. Metamorphoses, not birth and death, are present there. For example, the group-souls which are in the super-sensible worlds do not die; they transform, metamorphose themselves. Birth and death do not exist there, where the effects of the physical world have never reached. Only where the traits of the physical world have already been transmitted to a certain extent to the beings of the spiritual world, there is something which may be regarded as analogous to death, as with the spirits of nature; but we cannot go into this today. In the real super-sensible world there is no birth or death, only transformation, metamorphosis.

For the divine spiritual beings who may be designated the creators of men, birth and death do not come into consideration. Lucifer also does not incarnate himself as a human being in the physical world. He works in man through man; uses men as his vehicle, as it were. Thus we have to do with the gods and with the Luciferic beings, who look down, so to speak, upon their creations. Had evolution continued in this way, had nothing happened in the world of the gods, then the intention of the gods for men would never have been fulfilled; Lucifer would have thwarted the plan of the gods. The gods had to make a sacrifice—that was their concern—they had to experience something which was related to their sphere in such a way that it really could not be experienced by gods if they remained in their own sphere: They had to send from their own ranks down to the physical plane a being who experienced something which otherwise gods in the spiritual worlds cannot experience. The gods had to send the Christ down to earth to do battle with the Luciferic principle. In the course of time, when the time was fulfilled, the gods, whom we group together under the name of the divine Father-world, sent down the Christ in order that he should learn to know the unending pains of men, which mean something entirely different for a god from what they mean for a man. Therewith the gods entered the earth-sphere to do battle with the Luciferic spirits. A god had to suffer death on the cross, the most disgraceful human death, as Paul especially emphasizes.

We were allowed, once in the Earth's development, to be witnesses—because we looked as through a window into the spiritual worlds—of an affair of the gods.

Previously—so says the initiation-principle—man was compelled under all circumstances to rise into the divine-spiritual worlds in order to take part in the initiation-principle. The initiation-principle stands before the whole of mankind in the Mystery of Golgotha, an event which is at the same time sensible on the physical plane (if men would only see it) and super-sensible, a true affair of the gods. This is the essential thing, that a god once went through death, as a counterpoise to Lucifer, and that men were allowed to look on. This is what the initiation-principle gives as Christian wisdom, and this is the real origin of the faith that to men, as men, something can flow as a force which can take them beyond the earth-sphere and beyond death; because once the gods settled their affair on earth and allowed men to look on. Therefore that which streams out from the Mystery of Golgotha is something universally human. And if every pain, every suffering, every death has its effect (even those inflicted by men on animals) so does this death also have its effect. This death was a seed sown by the gods; it was something which remained bound up with the earth, and has remained bound up with it ever since, remained bound up with it in such a way that every man, through trust, through love for the spiritual worlds, will find it. He does find it!

The initiate knows that this is so; the believing-trusting man feels that from the spiritual worlds help can come to him for his striving, if he can only develop enough belief and trust. This will develop itself in a very definite way.

There were those who were contemporaries of the Egyptian initiates. Through initiation these initiates had made quite clear to their pupils the whole tragedy of the conflict of the gods with Lucifer, by setting before men symbolically in their mysteries the Osiris-Set myth. Just yesterday we considered what feelings the Osiris-Set myth called forth in the Egyptians. There lived the divine-spiritual to which men wished to attain; this was called Osiris. But on earth the human being cannot unite himself with Osiris; he must first go through the gate of death. On earth Osiris could not live; he was immediately dismembered; this was not the place for what was incarnated in Osiris. The last culture epoch before the Graeco-Latin looked up to Christ, to the Osiris-principle, as to a Beyond. Then came the Greek time, which was so deeply imbued with the feeling that it was better to be a beggar on earth than a king in the realm of shades. In the time in which this was still felt in Greece, in the time of the old heroes, men felt the whole discrepancy between the Ego, permeated by the Luciferic principle, and the progressive human organization. Men felt then that the fourth post-Atlantean culture period ran its course in such a way that they had to crowd in a great deal of what man can experience just here on earth. Thence the abnormal, the singular, in this period. In no other time do so many remarkable series of incarnations occur as in this fourth period. Men had to do a great deal here on earth, because they now looked more on this world than on the worlds beyond, as the third culture epoch had still done. The Greeks did not prize this incorporation into Osiris; they were more occupied with cramming as much as possible into the human incarnations, they wanted to get as much as possible out of the incarnation. Thence the remarkable fact that Pythagoras, the great initiator of a certain line of Greek culture, in an earlier incarnation had fought as a Trojan hero on the side of the Trojans. He himself says that he was a Trojan hero, mentioned in Homer, and that he recognized himself as an enemy of the Greeks because he recognized his shield. When Pythagoras says that he had been Euphorbos, anthroposophy teaches a full understanding of this assertion. The Greeks, even the greatest among them, laid especial value on what the single physical incarnations meant for them.

But the fourth post-Atlantean period had also to lead men to feel the spiritual worlds in their full significance, for in that time fell the Mystery of Golgotha. At the time when men in Greece were prizing the outer world most, there occurred in an unknown corner of the world the Mystery of Golgotha; on the earthly stage, where otherwise men carry out their human affairs, the gods carried out their own affairs.

Just as the Egyptian learned to look up to death when he thought of his Osiris, so man learned to know, in the fourth post-Atlantean period, how a contemporary religious form was present, in which lived the impulse which could bring to men the feeling that in this physical world something takes place which is really an affair of the gods; that there takes place the living refutation of that which the Greeks had until then believed—“Better to be a beggar on earth than a king in the realm of shades.” For now the Greeks learned to know him who, as a king, had descended from the realm of the gods, and, as a beggar, had lived out his destiny on earth among men. That was the answer to the feeling of the fourth past-Atlantean period. But this is also that complex of feelings from which the rays for the future earth-development can proceed. The Egyptian had looked up to Osiris, who for him was the Christ, in order to unite himself with him after death; in the fourth post-Atlantean period man looked upon the Mystery of Golgotha as the contemporary act which taught men that in the physical world an event had taken place which was an affair of the gods.

We are living in the fifth post-Atlantean period. In our fifth post-Atlantean period men will add the great teachings of Karma to the other teaching, they will learn to understand their karma. In our fifth post-Atlantean period, human beings are experiencing the third act which follows consistently after the Osiris act and the act of the Mystery of Golgotha. They will learn to grasp the idea: “I am placed on earth through birth; my destiny is on earth; I experience joy and sorrow; I must understand that what I experience as joy and sorrow does not approach me in vain, that it is my Karma, and that it comes to me because it is my Karma, my great educator. I look upon that which was before my birth, which placed me in this incarnation, because this, my destiny, is necessary for my further development. Who sent me hither? Who will continue to place me on this earth, into my destiny, until I have discharged my Karma? I shall owe this to the Christ that men can ever more be called to suffer their destinies, until they have discharged their Karma on earth.” Therefore Jesus of Nazareth, out of whom Christ spoke, could not say to men; “Try to escape as fast as possible out of the physical body”...but he had to say to men: “I will place you into your destinies on this earth so long as you have not discharged your Karma. You must discharge your Karma.” Men will learn as we approach the future that they were united with Christ before birth, that they have received from him the grace of discharging their old Karma in the incarnations.

Thus did the men of the fourth post-Atlantean period look up to Jesus of Nazareth as the bearer of the Christ. Thus will the men of our time learn that the Christ will reveal himself ever more supersensibly, and will govern more and more the threads of Karma in the affairs of the earth. They will learn to know that spiritual power as that destiny which the Greeks could not yet recognize, which will bring men to the point of discharging their Karma in the most fitting way in the successive incarnations. As to a judge, as to a lord of Karma, men will look up to the Christ in the succession of incarnations, when they experience their destiny. Thus men will stand in such a relation to their destiny that they will be stimulated increasingly to deepen their souls, until they can say to themselves: “This destiny is not allotted to me through an impersonal power, this destiny is allotted to me through that with which I feel myself related in my inmost being. In Karma itself I perceive what is related to my being. My Karma is dear to me because it makes me better and better.” Thus one learns to love Karma, and then this is the impulse to know the Christ. Men first learned to love their Karma through the Mystery of Golgotha. And this will continue further and further, and men will learn more and more that under Lucifer's influence alone the earth would never have been able to reach its goal, that the evolution of mankind would have had to become more and more corrupt without the Christ.

But Christianity does not look upon the Christ as a personality, as the founder of an abstract religious system. In our present time the founder of a religion, in accordance with the demands of our time, only brings about discords. Not from a personality does the Christian initiation proceed, but from a fact, from an impersonal act of the gods which took place before the eyes of men. That is why this secret of Golgotha, this event which took place at the beginning of our era and from which went forth the seed of this unique death, the seed from which now grows man's love for his destiny, for his Karma, has been transmitted to mankind in a special way.

We have seen that the death which man inflicts on animals has a certain consequence. The death on Golgotha works as a seed in the human soul which feels its relation to the Christ. So was it with the Mystery of Golgotha: The One died, and just as a single seed is laid in the earth, in order that it die and spring up in the field, and that there be an increase of that which proceeded from the one seed, so the death of a god was realized on the cross. The seed was strewn on Golgotha, the soil was the human soul; what springs up are the relations of man to the super-sensible Christ, who will never more disappear from the evolution of the earth, who will always appear to men in the most varied ways. As men were able to see him physically in the time of the Mystery of Golgotha, so will they be able to raise themselves to see in the near future an etheric Christ-image; they will see the Christ as Paul saw him.

That which is contained in the Christian initiation was preserved in the symbol of the Holy Grail; it was brought into that community which imparts the Christian initiation. For those who receive the Christian initiation what is said here is not an abstract theory, not an hypothesis, but a fact of the super-sensible worlds. The cultivation of the Christian initiation was entrusted to those who were the guardians of the Holy Grail, and later to the fosterers of the community of the Rose Cross. What proceeds from the Christian initiation should, according to its whole nature, work impersonally. Everything personal should be excluded therefrom; for the personal has brought only quarrels and strife into humanity, and will do this increasingly in the future. Therefore it is a strict rule for those who, symbolically speaking, serve the Holy Grail or, speaking literally, serve the cultivation of the Christian initiation, that none of those who have a leading part of the first order to play within the brotherhood of the Holy Grail or the community of the Rose Cross—neither they nor those who live in their surroundings—may speak of the secrets which they know and which work in them, before the passage of one hundred years after their deaths. There is no possibility of learning the complete truth about a leading personality of the first order until one hundred years have passed after his death.

This has been a strict law within the Rosicrucian community since its foundation. Exoterically, no one knows who is a leader in the Rosicrucian community until one hundred years have passed after his death. Then what he has given has already passed over into humanity, has become the objective property of mankind. Thus everything personal is excluded. Never will it be possible to point to a personality in an earthly body as a carrier of the Christian mystery. Only a hundred years after the death of such a personality would this be possible. This is a law which all the brothers of the Rose-Cross well observe. Never will a Rosicrucian brother point to a living personality as a leader of the first order in relation to that which, as Christian initiation, should flow into humanity. In ancient times one could point prophetically to those who would come: The prophets were preceded by their forerunners, their prophets, and these prophets pointed to the founders of religions who should come later; in the time of Jesus of Nazareth the contemporaries, for example the Baptist, pointed to him who was their contemporary; but the spiritual organization of mankind, after the Mystery of Golgotha, of necessity became altered in such wise that it can no longer be the prophet's way to point to a personality who will come or who is already present. On the contrary, a person who was a bearer of the Christian mystery, of that spiritual fact which is tested by the hearts of men, will first be pointed out a hundred years after he has passed from the physical plane through the gates of death.

All these things do not happen out of human caprice, but because they must happen. They must happen because humanity now stands before a time when love, peace, and understanding must spread in the process of the development of mankind. But they will spread only if we learn to take impersonally what is present, if we learn to champion the truth-containing element which has been given to mankind in the course of human evolution. Never more shall we, if as Occidentals we meet a Buddhist, seek to make him a Christian through persuasion or compulsion; for we believe that what has been given to him, and is the deepest thing in his religion, will surely lead him to the Christ. We believe above all things in his own truth; we will not injure the feelings of the Buddhist by saying it is not true that the founder of his religion, after he had lived among men as a Bodhisattva, has as a Buddha no expectation of further physical incarnations. Thereby we establish peace between the religious confessions. In this way, in the future the Christian will understand the Buddhist, and the Buddhist will understand the Christian. The Buddhist who will understand Christianity will say: “I understand that the Christian makes his religious principle something impersonal, an impersonal fact, the fact of the Mystery of Golgotha, an affair of the gods which man may watch and through which he may receive what can connect him with the divine.” No reasonable Buddhist will come to the Christian and say that the Christ can be incarnated in a physical body. On the contrary he would see in this a transgression of the true religious principle. And so no new discord-producing confession with a religious leader of a personal sort will be brought into the world, but the initiation principle itself with its peace, its harmony, its way of producing understanding, will meet all religions with vivifying understanding, and will not wish to force the truth of one religion upon another. As the Oriental Buddhist would answer to the Occidental who said to him that the Buddha could appear in a fleshly body: “Then you do not understand the matter, you do not know what a Buddha is” so would the Buddhist who had grasped the true heart of Christianity, and who stood for spiritual knowledge in earnestness and dignity, reply to one who should speak to him of a Christ incarnated in the flesh: “You do not understand Christianity if you believe that the Christ comes again in a physical body; you understand Christianity just as little as one understands Buddhism who believes that the Buddha would appear in a fleshly body.” What the Christian, if he is an anthroposophist, will always grant to the Buddhist; this will the Buddhist, if he is an anthroposophist, always grant also to the Christian. And so with every adherent of every religious confession of the earth. Thus will anthroposophy bring the great and understanding union, the synthesis of the religious confessions on the earth.

I would like to announce once again that I will take the liberty of giving a lecture tomorrow morning on certain current occult issues related to Freemasonry. And this will be done according to old occult custom, separately for gentlemen and ladies. The lecture for gentlemen will take place at ten o'clock, and for ladies at half past eleven. You may ask why this custom exists, which will only be overcome in the Theosophical worldview. This will become clear from the content of the lectures, and I would also like to take the liberty of noting that the Besant Branch will have its regular meeting tomorrow evening at eight o'clock.

So I would like to talk about the relationship between occultism and the theosophical movement and some other related questions. It has been discussed many times whether the theosophical movement, especially as it is expressed in the Theosophical Society, is an occult movement, or whether one should disregard all occultism in the theosophical movement. The Theosophical movement as such, insofar as it expresses itself in the Theosophical Society, cannot be an occult movement. An occult movement has different prerequisites from those that may be expressed in the Theosophical Society. There have been occult societies at all times. Above all, these had one essential requirement: namely, that they were a kind of hierarchical structure by the very nature of their aspirations. This means that the members of such a society, brotherhood, were organized in degrees. Each degree, from the first up to the ninetieth degree, had its own specific task. Within each degree there were very specific tasks. No one could be promoted to a higher degree until they had fulfilled the tasks of the lower degree.

I can only give a very general indication of why this is so. In fact, we have to talk in general terms about the tasks of such occult brotherhoods. Those revered friends who have heard me speak about such things before will understand me all the better today. Occult brotherhoods are brotherhoods of guides for humanity. Their task is to prepare the things of the future. Everything that is to happen in the future is already being prepared in the present, finding its expression in the present as an idea, as a plan, and is then realized in the future. Even if you look at the development of the human race on the external physical plane, you will still find that things that were later realized first germinated as ideas in the minds and souls of leading personalities and individuals, striving for expression. Take the steam engine, for example. If you trace the matter back, you will find how the steam engine developed from the simplest facts; how even the cooking pot filled with boiling water contains the idea of the steam engine, which then progresses from this simplest form to the most complicated mechanism. But these are trivialities compared to the great structure of humanity that we have before us. The most important things presuppose much larger and much more meaningful perspectives. They presuppose that what is to happen in the distant future is, in a sense, already being prepared today. How can such a thing happen?

By the fact that it is in our hands to lay the forces into the world today that are to take effect in the future. Everything that will happen in the future here on the physical plane is already preparing much earlier on the astral and devachan planes; so that in fact distant future events can be traced in the higher planes and worlds, according to their power. But man cannot work well into the future if he does not prepare this effect from the knowledge of the acting forces. Man is a self-conscious creature and must take his fate into his own hands. Therefore, there have always been advanced brothers of our human race who can see not only on the physical plane, but also on higher planes.

Let us try to understand what it means to foresee on higher planes. Suppose you have a pond of water. You can foresee that when the temperature drops, the pond will be frozen, that there may be skaters on it and so on. Similarly, we are dealing with the relationship between the so-called astral plane and the physical plane, that is, with our world. If one follows the events on the astral plane, then one can indeed see with the help of the astral event what will be there in later time, as it were, as a condensation of it. And so one can see from the astral events what will later appear in condensed form on the physical plane. Physical events are nothing other than such condensed happenings that previously occurred in the higher worlds.

An example: Throughout antiquity there were mysteries. These had the task of accepting individual people and initiating them into the secrets of existence, or - as John the Revelator says - to show what is to happen in the future in brief. When we enter such a temple, we find that instruction is taking place there for those students who are accepted into the first degree. We also find instruction for students who are more highly developed and ever more highly developed. The first step was for the students to purify their astral body. This consisted of them not merely adopting the usual bourgeois ethics. The bourgeois ethic was presupposed; what is considered here had to be followed in strict fulfillment of duty. When the student then ascended more and more to higher ideals, rising from the passions and drives of ordinary life to desires that are above all pettiness of man, and purified his pleasure and displeasure so that the great world-embracing affairs of the human race became his own, when he felt and sympathized with others, then he was on the way to accomplishing what was called the “purification of the astral body.

Then he was allowed to intervene in the denser bodies; he was allowed to work on his etheric body, he was not only allowed to reshape the soft, pliable and flexible astral matter in his spirit and soul bodies, but he was allowed to work into his etheric body. Then he was what is called a chela.

Such a chela is one who not only recognizes higher duties, who has not only purified himself to the point of making human duties his own, but has grown beyond the lower and higher concerns of individual peoples, even of individual creeds. His gaze is directed towards the life of all humanity. And through the more thoroughly organized etheric body, he becomes a participant in the great affairs of the building of the earth. For this to happen, the following had to occur.

The chela had to paralyze all the forces that prevented him from working on his etheric body. When you have a person in front of you, he has a physical body, an etheric body and an astral body. The chela has purified his astral body and can now work on his ether body. You will understand why a person must purify his astral body. What happens when the astral body is purified? What enters the ether body? That which is in the astral body.

The things that live in the astral body are imprinted on the etheric body. As long as you work on the astral body, you can rework the mistakes over and over again: the astral matter is thin and soft. You can always bring that into balance. But once a person has begun to develop the etheric body as a chela, these qualities are imprinted on the etheric body, and it is much more enduring. By making what is defective in the earthly permanent, the person would become a dangerous member of humanity. Hence the constant emphasis on the need for purification. This etheric body is impressed by the forces that act on it. Think of it as separate from the physical body, and it has a completely different elasticity. When it is within, it holds the physical body in shape; but as long as it remains within, it is initially too weak to hold that which has passed through the catharsis as astrality. Therefore, throughout antiquity, one had to do the following.

One had to first remove the forces that prevented the elasticity of the etheric body. This was done by bringing the whole physical body into a state of lethargy. The person lay there, and the etheric body was taken out of the physical body. The physical body then remained as if dead, and the etheric body was formed according to its own forces. This is the 'burial'. The person concerned was put into a state of lethargy for three to three and a half days. And then he could work on the etheric body. And then, after he had shaped the etheric body according to the astral body, he returned to the physical body. Then he had awakened the inner life in himself, then he was a resurrected one, and he was given a new name. This was an act on the astral plane. Everything I have described took place in the astral plane; the physical body had nothing to do with it.

This event was repeated in all the ancient mysteries. Every initiate knew it. Now imagine it in a condensed form, brought down to the physical plane, so that something has happened with this event that used to take place only in the astral. Comparatively speaking, it is as if you now have a piece of ice where you used to have water. Many such astral events must coincide, merge, so that physical condensation will one day be possible. Through the appearance of Christ on the physical plane, that which had so often and repeatedly taken place in the mystery centres on the astral plane, the Mystery of Golgotha has become historically possible. It could be brought down to the physical plane. From this example we learn to understand how the future is actually prepared in occult brotherhoods.

If we now ask ourselves: “What is actually happening there?” the answer is: Certainly, in thoughts, in the idea, one can grasp a great deal. But the idea has no reality. The idea is nothing more than what is brought down from the higher planes to the physical plane. But what man thinks about it is the most ineffective thing, because it is only present on the physical plane. It is different when something is added to this idea that also comes from the higher spheres.

Take, for example, Pythagoras' teaching of the music of the spheres, as he taught it to his students. Philosophers seek to present Pythagoras' occult music as a very simple system. The intellect can grasp this quickly. But for him, it was important that the student only came to it when his mind, his mood, was prepared for it. It is also impossible for someone who has no sense for images that originate in the astral to want to explain the deeper meaning of Raphael's Sistine Madonna: the feeling, the mind, must climb up to it. What otherwise leaves the idea cold appears here in the picture artistically full of life as the divine world thought, as that which the divine forces have created the world after - and a simple line becomes something sacred! By entwining thoughts around the element of the divine, thought is brought to divine influence.

Thus, the aim of such training is to prepare man step by step to approach the great world thoughts, to receive them. Then, by gradually penetrating into these great world thoughts, he connects that effective but otherwise occult power which, in the astral, already prepares the future for the physical plan. If the leading human brother has students who are attached to such spirit-imbued ideas, then these are a force that also helps him to advance in his work for the outer world; the great spiritual centers of spiritual work arise.

So you can see that what I have called occultism actually has a great deal to do with the progress of humanity. And in our time we have a particularly important task. Let us try to hint at how we have come to this task of ours with just a few words.

We are part of the great root race of humanity that has populated this earth. Since the ground we live on today emerged from the depths of the sea, since the Atlantean race gradually began to disappear, the great Aryan root race has been the one that has ruled the earth. If we look at ourselves, we here in Europe are the fifth sub-race of the great Aryan root race. The first sub-race lived in ancient India in the distant past. And today's Indians are descendants of that first sub-race, whose spiritual life is still present in the ancient Vedas of the Indians. The Vedas, however, are only echoes of the ancient Rishi culture. At that time there was no writing; there was only tradition. Then came the second, the third and the fourth sub-races. The fourth sub-race adopted Christianity. Then we see that around the middle of the Middle Ages the fifth sub-race had formed, to which we and the neighboring peoples belong. The ancient Indians of the first sub-race lived under different conditions than we did and were basically organized differently. Even their present-day descendants, the present-day Indians, are organized quite differently from our European peoples. The occultist who studies the differences finds that in the ancient Indian people, the etheric body is much less bound to the physical body, is not as deeply embedded in the physical body, but is much more easily influenced by the astral body.

This is why the Indian race can easily transfer something from the astral body to the etheric body, and why this Indian race can easily work into the etheric body. This means nothing other than that through occult training, it is easier for Indians to arrive at certain higher insights. The more easily the etheric body can be influenced by the astral body, the easier it is to influence the etheric body with pictures, without abstract concepts. It is all the easier for someone who undergoes the yoga training in the astral to relate to the higher realms through pictorial representations. These act on the etheric body, which is still soft. There is no need to work in strict concepts, but with the simplest of images one can work on the soul of an Indian person, and he will be able to reach very high levels of development.

Throughout the various sub-races, the human race has changed. Our etheric body is now much more influenced by the physical body than it was in the case of the ancient Indians. And so it is that we have to work much more strongly and inwardly to influence the etheric body. We cannot resort to half-dreamlike images. We must subject everything to a sharp concentration, work on our inner being through strong soul concentration into the pure supersensible, not merely through pictorial concepts. Such a conception, which brings about a strong concentration of our inner being, can then have a much stronger effect on the etheric body, which is tied to the physical body. In order for the astral body to be able to influence the etheric body, it used to have to be outside the etheric body. But now the etheric body can also be influenced from within the physical body by the astral body. If we were to perform the same experiment that was common in the ancient mystery centers, and induce lethargy, we would be able to act on the etheric body. But when the consciousness of the earth and the mobility of thinking return, these would immediately extinguish what the astral body has impressed in the ether body. We have to strongly influence the ether body if we want it to retain what we have imprinted on it. The occult task today has become a different one, it is now more inward.

And so you can also see how, over time, great differences arise in the occult schools that follow one another. The yoga system of the Indians is different from the schooling of the Rosicrucians. The Rosicrucian schooling is calculated on what I have now explained to you. Furthermore, something else occurs: in order for such progress to occur at all, the power of the intellect had to be influenced. The mind was strained much more than before, and then, through the power of inner concentration, it was able to develop its ability to grasp the supersensible. So in modern times, it had to be taught much more conceptually; emphasis had to be placed on developing the intellect and on abstract imagination. Compare the changes in culture from ancient India to our own time. In ancient India, there was a high level of intuition and little external impact of civilization. Now, in our time, it is the other way around. This means that the position of occultism is also gradually changing. Much of what used to be kept secret has now become common knowledge. Many, many such insights and concepts were formerly kept within the occult brotherhoods, and a person could only gain access to these things if they had completely transformed their hearts. Today, the occultist no longer has this in their hands. Much of what used to be kept for later stages of training must now be recognized as having already been revealed by the culture of the outside world. The mystery initiate must take this into account. And so many truths that were taught in the occult schools had to be gradually brought out onto the physical plane.

Even what is taught in today's elementary schools would lead us away from the spiritual if it were not for the occult background that comes from another side. In earlier times, the student knew that there was something higher behind what he received as teaching material in school and in the world of scholars, and that he himself might one day be able to access this higher knowledge. He knew that he was a link within a spiritual organism; today, in the democratic world, many concepts are adopted that do not lead to such insight. The top of the pyramid had to be added to the structure of external democratic knowledge, as it were. The elementary knowledge of the hidden forces in the world had now been given. The top, leading to a spiritual world view, was still missing. To provide this, a world-embracing movement had to be founded. The theosophical movement was conceived as such. Therefore, in certain brotherhoods, when the popularization of the previously hidden wisdom had gone on and on, it was decided to reveal to the world as much of the secrets behind it as was necessary to harmonize the knowledge of the outer world with the comprehensive occult knowledge of the brotherhoods.

Here we are at the point where we can see the connection between the Theosophical Society and the Theosophical movement and occultism. The Theosophical Society is not an occult movement or an occult brotherhood; it is built on a democratic foundation in which each person is an equal member with the others. However, it is another matter entirely to grasp the task of the Theosophical Society. The task of the Society is on the physical plane. If one wants to grasp this fully, one must be able to see up into the higher worlds. But it is not a matter of the Theosophist already being able to see up into the higher worlds, but rather of the fact that occult powers are also being developed within the movement, so that the Theosophical Society can be a place from which occultism can radiate and be expressed. It is one thing for a society to be an occult brotherhood, and quite another for it to say: We are not an occult brotherhood, but occultism is being discussed again in our society.

Today, when basically all of humanity is looking longingly to the higher worlds, without finding the ways to get there, today an even greater part of occult knowledge must be popularized accordingly. And this task has been given to occultism within the Theosophical Society. Spiritual movements have always had a fruitful effect on the development of culture on the physical plane as well. Their external expression is nothing other than the earthly realization of what has been prepared spiritually. What is it, then, when we consider the works of Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, for example? In these works, they have conjured up something spiritual on the wall in colors and forms: the picture is permeated by that which first lived in the soul of the artist as a spiritual being. The spiritual precedes that which later appears as its expression in the material world.

And materialistic external culture is only the imprint of people's inner attitudes that have become materialistic. Since 1850, purely materialistic city culture has been spreading in civilized countries. We see the great things it has achieved on the physical plane, but we also see what it has not been able to achieve. In the artistic field, for example, it has not produced any real new style, except for one: and that is the style of the department store. This is something that is inwardly true in relation to our outer civilization. Everything else that is taken over from ancient times has no relation to the present time. Only when we have formed a society whose members are seized by a spiritual power, as it used to live in Christianity, and as it still lives in the best Christian souls as a longing and can be regained, then we will have a spiritual culture again. And such a culture will again produce artists in all areas of life.

Let Theosophy live in the souls of people, then it will flow out of the souls again as style, as art, it will be there for our eyes and ears. The outer world will be able to express the spiritual again, which is already being experienced in such a society today. In this sense, the Theosophical Society could serve the shaping of the more distant culture.

When we are together, we must realize that we are like cells that must join together to shape a future culture. In our souls, those forces are being prepared which will in future transform the world in such a way that it will become a physical expression of our present-day moods and views of life. Everything that is revealed and manifested today was once occult. Just as electricity is a manifest force today, it was once an occult force. And what is still occult today is destined to become a driving force for the future. Just as millions of years ago our present human body was prepared from forces that are in our environment, so today a higher body is preparing in us, a body of the future; but only in a distant time will this body of the future be ours.

Let us retrace our path of development a little. What was there once? A dull human consciousness. The world around us looked different and was a dreamlike mirror. People had a dreaming consciousness. And even as the development of their community progressed, they had no parliaments based on the exchange of opinions, nothing of the kind. Everything was merely reflected in the consciousness that arose in the human being. And today's bodily organs: how did they come about? Through the fact that those forces worked on human beings. Just as the animals in the dark caves of Kentucky lost their eyesight because they did not need it, so the external forces also organized what we have as eyes and ears. These have been developed and evolved out of our organism by the forces of sound and light. In the future, our spiritual organism will develop out of what is now living in us. The things that stand before us as expressions of our spiritual culture – the churches and so on, the cultural works that convey beauty and truth to us – will imprint themselves on our higher being. And when these will one day unfold into a life of their own, then what lives as beauty and truth in the outer culture will arise within us. What the eyes and ears perceive now are the building blocks for the organization of a higher future. If we look at the world from this point of view, the human inner life takes on a completely different meaning.

We are thus confronted with a fact that can easily make understandable what is called yoga training or inner occult training. From the words I have spoken, you will be able to see that what once created in the world, what worked and strengthened in the world, has been taken up by our inner being. What is in me today was once outside of me: this is the basic idea of occult training. Before our physical body existed, our etheric body was already present. Our etheric body, in turn, is a structure that was formed by our astral body. And this is the starting point of yoga training. Those who engage in yoga training descend into their etheric body and know that in the etheric body they will find the power that once built them up millions of years ago. The physical body has slowly emerged from the basis of the etheric body.

I can only give a rough description of how the descent into the etheric body takes place. There are certain currents in the etheric body that are the forerunners of the physical body organs. The nervous system, the nerve cords, the sympathetic system that runs up the back, the nerve ganglia of the sympathetic nervous system, these are parts that were formed out of etheric matter in the distant past. This is a process that took place in the dim and distant past. Then, after man had progressed further and further, there was a time when the structure developed within this body, which now had the potential for the physical nervous system, which enables us to develop internal body heat and to prepare warm blood. This is again a later structure of the etheric body, which was then already strongly influenced by the forces of the astral body. And from what we subsequently find as the basis of the brain, the spinal cord has developed - again from the etheric body, as the other pole of the etheric body, which on the one hand developed into the brain, and on the other hand into the inner warmth of the blood. This happened in the past. Not only the forces of nature have worked on this formation of the human being, but also higher spiritual beings.

When the yogi now descends step by step into this etheric body, he penetrates into the times of the past, where his spiritual form of origin was influenced by these forces and beings and brought forth what lives in us today. When man has descended into life in this way, he can reach that point again during the descent. He descends from the head down into the lower regions, which were built up in the most ancient times, and then back again into his head. This is a description of the occult path of knowledge, albeit a scant description. More can be given in the occult schools.

Thus the student of mystery wisdom developed the ability to look into the past; then the time comes when he can undertake the occult pilgrimage. He achieves this by means of a certain practice, through which he overcomes his personal self and thereby ceases to be the small, bound ego. Only then can he make the ascent into the universe. Once more he descends, taking the world power with him, into the sea of the past, in an ascending line. He can then gradually follow the path he has taken. Slowly and gradually, the human being learns to descend into the sea of his formative forces, and finally he arrives at a point near the origin. This must have been the experience of those human beings to whom the eye was first given to direct their gaze into the universe.

Then the disciple realizes the confluence of the I with the great world I. And now he must learn to say to the small I: “I am not you.” It is an important moment when he realizes what this means: “I am not you.” This is a moment when one begins to realize that there are higher forces at work in nature than thinking, that there is something beyond oneself that cannot be expressed in the words of the present, but which has the effect that when two people who can speak about the same thing, the speech of one is clear but dull, while that of the other is pulsating with the warm light that will create the future.

When the student has reached this stage, they can learn in yet another way than they have been able to learn until now. They experience something very special. They encounter a spiritual being in the supersensible world. They meet the individuality that was once connected to them. It is a great and important mystery that certain stages of our existence are repeated. We consciously ascend from the manas to the higher forces. We once descended from spiritual worlds, and at that time the same being descended into us something that we now meet again at the stage corresponding to that point in the past when it was with us then. It is the teacher, the so-called guru. We met him for the first time then; now we meet him again when we can consciously grasp what he has sunk into our souls and we have unconsciously received.

And if we descend further, we meet the spirits who helped to build us eons ago. We meet the twelve spirits: the spirits of will, the spirits of wisdom, the spirits of form, the spirits of movement, the spirits of personality or egoism, the spirits of fire or warmth, the spirits of dawn or twilight, and so on. All this presents itself to our mind's eye on this descent into the universe, on this pilgrimage. And that alone makes it possible for us to glimpse the future, to anticipate what is to happen “in the near future,” as the apostle says.

This is the task of occultism. It is to be solved because this solution is necessary. There are enough movements that are idealistic and ethical. But the movement called Theosophy differs from others in that occultism consciously comes into its own in this movement. This clarifies the relationship between occultism and Theosophy. The Theosophical Society can never aspire to be an occult brotherhood. The strength it needs to fulfill its task, the life it needs, can only come from the currents of occultism. Therefore, the Theosophical Society will flourish when there is an understanding for the cultivation of occult teachings and occult life. This does not mean that the members themselves should be occultists. But if Theosophy forgets that this blood pulsates within it, then it may be an interesting society, but it will not fulfill what was intended by the exalted powers that stood at its starting point.

Anyone who understands this will never want to take away the occult character of the Theosophical Society. But anyone who stands in Theosophical Society in this way is put in a conflicting position. He will have to turn his ear to the side from which the occult truths flow to us, and on the other hand, turn his attention to the outer exoteric life of the Society. These things must be strictly separated; they must never be mixed. But one must not, when speaking of the outer Theosophical Society, speak of the occult personalities who are at the starting point. The Powers that live on the higher plane and those who live outside the physical body for the sake of human development never interfere in these matters. They never give anything but impulses. When we work objectively for the spread of the Theosophical Society, the great individualities we call Masters are always at our side; we may turn to them and let them speak through us. When the subject is the expansion of occult life, the Masters speak. When it is only a matter of organizing the Society, they leave it to those who live in the physical plane. That is the difference between the occult current and the framework of the Theosophical Organization.

Let me express the difference between what goes as an inner spiritual current and what is lived out through the individual personalities in the way that it can perhaps best be expressed: When it is a matter of spiritual life, then the Masters speak. When it is a matter of mere organization, then error is possible, because then the Masters are silent.

From the question and answer session

What is the significance of memory in occult training?

Memory is one of the things that have to be sacrificed in occult training. However, everything that was lost on the descent is reclaimed on the ascent. When you develop occultly, you no longer have any memory at all. The memory has developed into something else. You can read about this in Lucifer issues 14 and 15. This is where real reading in the past occurs. First on the astral plane and then in the Akasha Chronicle. The student's lost memory is replaced by reading power. He will no longer know when Caesar was born, but he will be able to trace back the whole process up to that time.

How are the Beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount to be understood?

The Sermon on the Mount is a teaching by Christ to his disciples. First of all, one must know what it means to be “on the mountain.” There Christ Jesus explained the great world connections to the disciples. It is extremely interesting from the occult point of view. In the occult world, everything appears to us in a mirror image. They see their own passions wrongly. As a wild animal, the animal in him meets the human being. It is the outpouring of one's own passion that comes back to him in the mirror image. Therefore, we may say that man necessarily evokes the reflection of his actions on the higher plane through himself. The number 126 appears as 621. That this is so, the Christ said to his disciples in the Beatitudes. “To be blessed” means to approach the soul. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit that heals. The first sentence, if translated correctly, would read something like:

Blessed are those who beg for the Spirit, for they find within themselves the Kingdoms of Heaven.

And further:

Whoever is persecuted for My sake finds the kingdom of heaven within himself. [Matt. 5:6]

Then something emerges from the inner being into the outer world, and in the outer world it meets him again in the mirror image. All this can be seen beautifully in a good Greek translation. But the correct meaning can only be understood with occult knowledge.

What is the difference between a highly developed and a less developed person in the occult?

The difference is only a matter of time. Why did the highly developed reach spiritual greatness earlier? Because they traced their origin back to earlier world creations. The occultist speaks from experience, and beyond a certain point, one cannot say anything. After that, there is only speculation. Only after the end of all things will it be possible to speak about those things that go beyond the end of all things.

Are there also dangers in occult striving?

Yes, there are dangers in occult striving. Above all, you have to be alert, awake. Not mediumistic. The occultist does not enter any area of the higher life other than with a clear consciousness, so that he is present, similar to the way he walks in the physical world. I must not lose my physical consciousness. If I do that, then the danger begins. I may not absorb anything in a dull state of consciousness, but only in a completely clear state of consciousness. Persons who enter into twilight states, trance and mediumistic states must beware of approaching their teachers other than in complete freedom. On the whole, the development is not such that the student turns to the astral, but the methods lead to the fact that one only comes to the astral plane when one can have higher experiences on the astral plane, when one is no longer exposed to all the confusing impressions.

The person who is on the physical plane lives in his or her self on the devachan plane. What must be striven for is that the person retains this life, which he has on the devachan plane, just as he retains the physical one, so that the following must not occur.

Suppose the person suddenly gains sight on the astral plane. Then he will go astray because he is accustomed to the outside world entering him. His ego cannot be there because it is unaccustomed to living on the astral plane, because it is only accustomed to having contact with the world through the physical senses. If you put a person unprepared into the astral world, he is exposed to all kinds of dangers. He must be able to reconnect with the world, he must have a base from which to move on. To gain this foothold is called “building a hut”. In the Transfiguration scene, Christ introduced the disciples to the Devachan plain, and there the disciples said, “Let us build huts here”.

If the astral power is developed before the mental center, then it is possible that the disciple exposes himself to all sorts of urges and passions. This should be avoided by the new method.

The question is raised about the occult side of Christianity and whether black magic is possible in this way.

It is true: what is called Christian development is not identical with occultism and also not identical with Eastern philosophies. The matter appears even deeper when one looks at the occult side of Christianity. Christianity emerged in the fourth sub-race. There is a deep significance to the fact that it came into the world in the form it is. But it need not remain so. This Christianity, like every spiritual current, takes on a special form in the dawn of the fourth subrace.

I will only briefly characterize how it emerges there. Imagine yourself back in ancient India and among the people who were the bearers of the ancient Zarathustra culture. Then to the time of the culture of the Semites, Jews, Hebrews, and then we see the fourth race of men coming up. It was the Greek-Latin culture that developed in Southern Europe. The coming up of the Greek-Latin race is expressed in ancient art, for example in the Laocoon group. If you look at this Laocoön Group, you will see Laocoön fighting the snakes. Laocoön was an old priest in Troy. And the culture of ancient Troy was still a priestly culture. As is well known, Anchises fled after the capture of Troy. Then a priestly colony was founded in Italy: Alba longa. Alba longa also means the long chasuble, the garment for a priestly culture. Alba Longa was founded for a new priestly culture, as a branch of the old Trojan one. The snake winds around the priest. This is a symbol for the overcoming of priesthood, which has nothing to do with cunning, but only with spirituality. This is what we see in the Laocoön Group. It is a great document for the transition from the third to the fourth sub-race.

There is a law in the occult that expresses itself in the fact that in a race - I cannot prove this today - in which the leading individuals nourish their organism, that is, the instrument of the spirit, with alcoholic or similar drinks, it is simply impossible to arrive at a knowledge of the higher members of the human being. There are only two possibilities: either knowledge of the higher worlds and no alcohol, or alcohol and development on the physical plane with the prospect that there may be other planes, but that we cannot see into them ourselves. This is why all ancient cultures were influenced by the idea of reincarnation. Even the slave who worked on the Egyptian pyramids knew the truth of reincarnation. He knew that he would also one day take the place from which orders were given, just as he had to obey now. Christianity was an education of humanity for the importance of the physical plane. The fifth sub-race with the culture of authority was then prepared. How does this fifth sub-race prepare itself externally? By taking a completely different direction in the mysteries. Before Dionysus, there is no trace of the later sacrifice. There are ablutions, and the water is the sacrifice. With Dionysus, the god of becoming takes effect. The culture of the ram or lamb appears. Homer. Christ is the individuality that descends from the highest regions. Today, it already contains in its physical being what the other human beings will also contain in the very distant future. If you want to contemplate Christ, he is best described in the Gospel of the intimate disciple John. The Word became flesh, it says there. Man will one day become the Word, and this Word lives in the flesh in Christ. When you contemplate this Christ in the fourth sub-race, then he could say one thing: “In a certain way, I am deeply related to this sub-race, this fourth, but at the same time I am also growing out of this fourth sub-race. I represent that which will appear again and again in the future. This is how he is connected to the development of humanity, to the earthly wave of evolution that makes up the fourth and fifth sub-races and will then make up the sixth sub-race. In this way, he looks at everything that develops as material life on earth.

The life of Christ belongs to this; and how did this body become a member of the fourth sub-race? Because a culture emerged that rejected the teaching of reincarnation. After all, the Christ also taught his disciples about reincarnation. For they themselves asked him: “That should not happen until Elijah has reappeared.” Then he said: “He has reappeared. John was Elijah, but they did not recognize him.

We therefore understand Theosophy as the realization of Christianity. It teaches what Christianity has only hinted at. The ancient sacrifices were water sacrifices. The sacrifices of the fourth sub-race are wine sacrifices. And Christ turns the water into wine. This is to be understood physically and materially. The Christian monks are allowed to drink wine. They are not forbidden to drink wine. This makes Christianity a different kind of development. The Christian development must completely entrust itself to the leader. The disciple is not allowed to see for himself, not allowed because he has drunk wine. This also takes place at the Lord's Supper.

What is present then? The body of the whole earth is present in the Christ. He can say: “This is my body.” And what is the blood? That is what immediately brings forth the passions in the time to come. That is the lifeblood of the Dionysian culture. The wine is the astral element. In its all-encompassing individuality in concentrated physical form. I can only hint at all this now. Take the individualities that have grown out of the Christian life: for them this can apply. They surrender to the one who guides them because they are only walking on the physical plane for a while. This is Christian occult development.

But then there is also a Christian black magic. It really exists and plays a certain role. In conversation, it may be possible to provide specific information about this as well. Take a fully developed occultist of the old world, one in whom the light originally shines from the beginning, and then the modern occultist, who starts from the Rosicrucians and is now developing. That is the one where the light is where one develops with a certain awareness and entrusts oneself to the leader. It is being awake when one wants to develop occultly.

Can you tell us more about Noah and the Flood?

The question about Noah is connected with my very latest occult research. No one will find anything in 'Lucifer' that I did not know at the time I wrote the articles. But now I know a little more about it. Now the climatic conditions have become clear and vivid to me. I have come to understand something that I would have mentioned at the time if I had understood it at the time. I took the position of Noah allegorically at the time. It was a picture for the deep spiritual meaning. But now I know that this rainbow in the Bible corresponds to a literal fact. On the old Atlantis, the climatic conditions were different. The distribution of air and water was different. It is not without reason that German legend speaks of the 'Fogheim'. There is no rain there yet. There is a different distribution in the cycle of water in the air, and different cloud formations are present, so that one finds that on the old Atlantis the formation of a rainbow is not yet possible. Such conditions only became possible when Atlantis was flooded and the new continents rose.

Now we are given a hint as to how the rainbow emerges from the flood. Noah is the biblical representative of a certain tribe that originally came from Atlantis. We speak of the Proto-Semites. All sub-races descend from them in a certain way. This is well known to us from theosophical literature. So it is in a sense correct to say that all descend from the Proto-Semitic race. The fourth sub-race, which developed from the then existing one, is predisposed in the Proto-Semites, so that one tribe, which is presented to us biblically as Noah's, is particularly characterized by its wine drinking.

How is race formation related to Germanic mythology?

There was a center in the Gobi Desert. From there, the northern cultural current flowed, which had a tragic course. It is contained in the Nibelungen, in the twilight of the gods. Druid means oak. The arrival of Christianity forms one of the expectations in all Nordic mysteries. This is expressed in a symbolum. Certain truths are indicated to the initiated by certain symbols. What was it that had to be brought, that was predicted by the old Druid priests? It was the cross.

Now there is a Nordic initiate to whom all these things go back. He is called Sieg. All the names like Siegfried, Sieglinde, Siegmund and so on go back to this Sieg. This Nordic initiate found expression in the later Siegfried. He is described as an initiate. It is stated that he was invulnerable through the dragon blood, but that he was still vulnerable at a certain point on his shoulder blade. And it was taught: There will come another who will overcome this vulnerable spot. From the fertilization of the fourth sub-race with what had remained behind and came over from earlier, the fifth sub-race developed. This provided the impetus for the founding of the fifth sub-race.

Today we will continue our study of the Apocalypse. Anyone who desires to understand the whole meaning and spirit of a work like the Apocalypse must, above all, have a clear idea of how the religions work, and of how Christianity too worked at the beginning, that is to say, what forces made it possible for Christianity, like the other religious systems, to pour the life of the Spirit in might and glory over mankind.

The belief is all too widespread today that plain, simple words, comprehensible to everybody, must contain the truth, and there is a certain disinclination to raise the spirit to the heights of thought, to the heights of super-sensible vision. People are averse to this. We often hear it said, even by theologians, that whatever cannot be clothed in the simplest words which everyone can understand, can be of little service to truth. Anyone who holds this view will be incapable of understanding the meaning and spirit of a work like the Apocalypse or the mystical Gospel of St. John. There is nothing to be said against the justness of the saying that truth must be made known in simple words, for one who would proclaim truth must find ways to speak to the simplest hearts, they must find words in which to speak to those who stand at the heights of science, culture and education, as well as to those who go by the name of the “simple” folk. But the power, the inner force cannot find expression in homely, simple words. This power issues from the supreme heights of spiritual life.

Christianity, too, in the early centuries, had Mystery Centers, places of Initiation, where not only simple words, universally comprehensible teachings were given, but the revelations of spiritual vision at its highest level were made known. In the Gospel of St. John this spiritual vision extends to the realms where space and time no longer mean anything. Those who did not participate in the Mysteries were not all of them capable of speaking of these revelations of the highest realms of the spiritual world. Therefore the Church Father or Teacher of the first Christian centuries found popular, simple words through which to find access to the hearts of the unlearned folk. He himself had within him the power, the force belonging to the proclamation from the heights of spiritual life. There is some indication of this in the Apocalypse itself. You only need to read with understanding the most significant passages in the Apocalypse and you will find that what is drawn down from the heights of spirit has been gathered into a great, all-embracing picture of the world. Quotation from Rev. 1:9: “I John, who also am your brother and companion in tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was in the isle that is called Patmos, for the word of God and for the testimony of Jesus Christ. I was in the Spirit on the Lord's Day ...” He says that he was on the island of Patmos, meaning a place of initiation, and received this revelation. And he had received it “in the spirit.” In other places he speaks a little differently. At the beginning of the fourth chapter, he says, “After this I looked, and behold a door was opened in heaven, and the first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me, which said, “Come up hither and I will show thee things which must be hereafter ...”

The first three chapters contain the gist of what I tried to convey briefly in the last lecture. But then comes a description of the destiny of the Root Race which will follow our own. That is why the Apocalypse makes a clear distinction between the two kinds of vision, Inspiration and Intuition. A lower form of Intuition suffices when it is a matter of making known the destiny of a former Root Race, but a higher form of Intuition is necessary in order to see what will come to pass after our own Root Race, for example, during the sixth and seventh Root Races. This lies beyond the range of the vision upon which the first three chapters are based and can only be revealed to the seer when he ascends to Devachan. The destiny of a Root Race never unrolls before us in the region of astral vision, however highly developed. Therefore the Apocalyptist says that he heard the voice “in the spirit.” Up to the end of the third chapter of the Apocalypse, we have to do with higher astral vision; from the fourth chapter onwards, with Devachanic vision.

The Initiates of all epochs speak as St. John, the writer of the Apocalypse speaks. But the Apocalypse of St. John differs in one respect from other profound writings of Initiates. The standpoint is different. The theologian, John, speaks in the Apocalypse as a Christian, from the Christian standpoint. Therefore anyone who desires to read the Apocalypse with true insight, with right feeling, must steep himself not merely in the theological but in the human attitude and feeling of a deeply initiated Christian who has himself experienced the full power of the Christian revelation.

A significant saying is to be found in the first Epistle of St. John. Quotation from I John 5:7,8: “For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the word and the Holy Ghost ... And there are three that bear witness in earth, the spirit, the water and the blood ...”

The three principles that “bear record in heaven” are known to the theosophist as Atma, Buddhi and Manas. The Christian calls the three principles which underlie the world: Father, Word and Holy Spirit.

A Christian of the first centuries would have refrained from speaking of the Father. “No one cometh to the Father save through Me.” These words were uttered by the great Christian Master Himself, by Him through Whom Christianity itself came into the world. I am now speaking entirely in the sense in which an initiated Christian of the first period of Christianity would have spoken. He believed in the Father and he believed that he could come to know the Father only through the Word.

And what was the Word? It is only possible to convey to the non-initiate a feeble idea of what an initiated Christian of the first centuries called the “Word” and even then, it can be done only by means of a comparison. The highest to which man can raise himself, is the Thought. Man raises himself through Thoughts to life in Devachan. He lives in Devachan. Only, he is not conscious of it. The characteristic of earthly man is that he lives simultaneously in three worlds: the physical world, the astral world, and the Devachanic world. But he is conscious of himself only in the physical world. The highest manifestation which can exist in the world was for all religions, and also for Christianity in its earliest form, the world-creative Will. And when the Christian says anything at all about the Father, It is always in the sense that the Father is the world-creative, universal Will. When man desires to bring the highest that is in him, the Devachanic, the Thought, to expression through the Will, that is, through the world-creative principle, then this is done, in the first place, through Speech. The Word is, in man, the announcer of the Spirit through the Will. And so the early Christian said: everything that constitutes our world is apprehended in the highest sense through the Word, but now through the Word that has come into being through the Highest, world-creative Will, just as man brings the highest that is in him to expression in the words, through the power of will. And so the Christian said, “The Father brought His Spirit, the Holy Spirit, to expression through the power of the WORD.” Hence it is written in the Gospel, “All things were made by the Word, and without the Word was not anything made that was made.”

The Third Person is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the same for the Cosmic All as the spirit of the individual man is for man. The Spirit descends in the Cosmic Word. If the Christian wanted to picture this to himself, he said, “Just as when a man speaks, his words sound forth into the air setting the air into wave-movement, and his thought lives further in the waves of the air, just as the word is the embodiment of the human spirit, so is the world the embodiment of the Divine Word.” Everything was made through the Word and without the Word nothing was made that was made. Therewith it is affirmed that the essential, basic principle is the highest that man can see embodied in the world. This is the Word, and this Word is designated as the Second Divine Person, or as the Son of God, as the Highest Being, not as an abstract image of the World-soul conceived in a pantheistic sense, but as a Being far more personal and individual than the human personality, the human individuality. It must be firmly held in mind that “the Word” is an expression for the Highest Being, through Whom the entire universe works, just as man can see with eyes, hear with ears, apprehend with the intellect. That Being, for the early Christians, became Man, in Him Whom they recognised as the Proclaimer of the Gospel.

Thus for the early Christians, the Event in Palestine was of cosmic significance. He Who walked in Palestine was, for the first Christians, not a man as other men. For them He was the Word made Flesh, the One Who in the great Universe can be seen with eyes, heard with ears, grasped with the understanding, and this infinite Being had come in the form of a man. Whoever does not apprehend this, whoever tries to twist the meaning of the God made Flesh, this Word which is the God become Flesh, whoever does not hold the view that here was the Incarnation of God in Jesus, cannot really understand the mind and thought of the first Christians. He was in very truth a unique Personality. The Gospel expresses this, too, in a glorious, most powerful way. For those who can read aright, the Gospel clearly indicates the fact that the Christian Initiate ascended to Devachanic vision. In order fully to understand Christianity, however, I beg you to consider the following.

In the narrative of the life of Jesus and of the life of Buddha there is great similarity. This similarity in the Annunciation, in the years of teaching, and so forth, has often been stressed. The mystic understands the reason for this similarity because he knows that such a life repeats itself in certain epochs of human evolution. But in the Christ life there is something else something essentially different from the Buddha-life, and the first Christian Initiates understood this. If you follow the life of Jesus, you come to the event described as the Transfiguration. Jesus went with His disciples Peter, John and James to the mountain and was transfigured; He was illumined from within, and Moses and Elias appeared on either side of Him. The disciples then received significant revelations. This is an indication of a moment of supreme importance. Moses and Elias appear on either side of Christ Jesus. Time is transcended, the Past has become Present. So it is in Devachan. In the physical world we have space and time. In the astral world we have only time. In the Devachanic world, however, there is no time, no space. Moses and Elias, long since passed away, are immediately present. This means, therefore, that at the Transfiguration the three disciples, Peter, James and John were transported into the state of Devachanic vision. Following the Transfiguration we first come to what is significant. It is the actual sacrificial death, the suffering, the dying, which do not occur in the life of Buddha. Buddha went out with his disciple Ananda and became Illumined. When the scene is described in the life of Buddha it is given a different form, adapted to the understanding of the people. The Transfiguration, however, comes at the end of Buddha's life, whereas the really significant epoch in the life of Jesus begins with this event. Therewith is indicated Christ's teaching concerning all the old religious systems of the previous sub-races of the Fifth Root Race. Christ wished to say, “We understand the prophecies, the previous proclamations in the old religious systems of what the Gospel now proclaims, we recognise that in the ancient Mysteries the word of truth was taught and revealed.” But one thing has become reality through Christianity. And that is expressed by the words: Blessed are they who do not see and yet believe. This epitomizes the great, world-historic significance of Christianity in its Gospel. What was formerly attained through Initiation by a few chosen ones in the seclusion of the Mystery-Temples, attained through vision of the great cosmic truths within the hidden crypts of the Mystery-Centers, could now be attained by those who had not actual vision but who were able to believe with inner freedom of soul. Therefore, what formerly took place in concealment, in the seclusion of the Mysteries, the supreme Mystery wherein man himself goes through the gate of death in order to rise again in a higher life, this deepest of all Mystery-secrets which a non-initiate cannot understand in its true significance, this was enacted on the great stage of outer world-existence. What came to pass in Palestine, came to pass as actual, historic fact, following in every detail the sacred acts which had formerly taken place in Mystery-rites. The rites of sacrifice and the sacrificial death were constantly repeated, in the Mysteries. But the old Mystery-teachings had to be presented to the world, in a more popular form. Therewith a further step was achieved through Christianity, a step forward, in the understanding of an early Christian Initiate, a step which leads man beyond the stage to which the old religions could have led him.

Who were the old religious Teachers? They were Teachers of mankind. What they taught, that was the important thing. It was the actual teachings of Buddha, Zoroaster, Confucius, Hermes, Pythagoras, Lao-tze, it was the words themselves that were all important. These Teachers stood as it were on high mountain and from there proclaimed the Most Holy Word. But something else was possible. The WORD Itself descended and took on human form. Henceforward it was not a question of what was proclaimed, but what was lived, lived in the very deepest sense. The goal was fulfilled. In ancient times the path for our Fifth Root Race was outlined. The teachings and commandments, the truths given by the old founders of religions, Lao-tze, Confucius, Moses, Buddha, were given for this purpose. But the WORD Itself came down in fleshly form and lived among us. The Threefold utterance became reality: I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. The Christian Initiate indicated what I have said in words of great profundity. All the Founders of ancient religions were regarded as embodied Angels, messengers of the Godhead. “Angel” means the Messenger of the Godhead. But now there came One before Whom the Angels veiled their countenances in veneration and laid themselves at the feet of the Mystical Lamb, at the feet of the God made Flesh. The Mystery is that the Lamb Who became flesh denoted a deeper descent into humanity, a life among men. The earlier Teachers had proclaimed the Word from the mountain top. But Christ came down into the valley, lived as Man among men. He did not command what is to be done; He did not merely proclaim truths but in his very life He made manifest the Word. For the Christians, this was what distinguished his religion from the other religions. This was what brought him to the core and center of what the Christian Initiate proclaims as the Apocalypse, or the secret revelation. We will speak next time of why the Word made Flesh was also called the Lamb.

It will have become clear to us that the Lamb must be regarded as the central figure in the Apocalypse, and that only through the Lamb can the future of Humanity be made known. In the 4th chapter of the Apocalypse, where the man is led out, where the heaven opens, the truths of the higher world are announced to him. It is the Mystical Lamb Who opens the Seals of the World. Here is encountered the now transfigured Flesh. Hence the question: What is revealed to a man who has passed beyond the heights of Christian astral vision? The Mystical Lamb is revealed to him. The Devachanic world lies open before him and then he is able to unveil the innermost secret which must be revealed when the time is fulfilled, i. e., when the 7th sub-race of our Fifth Root Race is completed and a new race of mankind, together with a new stage of evolution is at hand.

Thus we have in the Apocalypse a description of the Destiny of the 5th sub-race and of the beginnings of a new configuration of the world, characterised by the words: Pneumatology, Communal life based on love, Morality.

This world is announced in the secret that is revealed through the opening of the seven seals, revealed through Him Who made the fulfilment of this secret possible, in that He came among men. And He will fulfil it when the time is ripe, when our Root Race has become ready to pass over into that world and to attain the stage of evolution designated by these three words: Pneumatology, Communal life based on love, Morality.

Such are the depths from which the content of the Apocalypse must be drawn. This does not imply that true Christianity can be drawn only from these depths. But true Christianity must be permeated by fire, and man can only kindle this fire in himself when he draws its force from higher vision. In Christianity, the fruit of this higher vision is the Apocalypse.

It is of the greatest interest to delve into the way in which this remarkable document, the Bible, has been received by people of all times, and what reflection this book of books has evoked in the minds and souls of people. You can learn so much about the developmental history of human souls from the impressions that this book has evoked.

The impression that the writing makes on the human individualities of different periods of time is quite different. Of course, these different stages can only be touched on very briefly, because the material is too vast, and it is done because it is important to recall it to the soul. For example, how the Jewish people at that time had something of the Scriptures from which they learned about their own origin and ancestry, astronomy, the justification of the social order, the legislation, regulations for everyday life. The whole life of the soul and its wisdom were in it. The scholars of late Judaism applied all their ingenuity and all their mental power to understanding this book. And so it was in those times that the highest knowledge was applied to achieve understanding. And with the utmost respect, the Kabbalists can even be mentioned, who sought to interpret it down to the letter. And then later, the New Testament in connection with the Old Testament: In the first Christian century, we again find this deep, sacred earnestness in the search for understanding. In mystical and other communities, everything is geared towards understanding the Bible. The Gnostics and others of that time immersed themselves with the greatest effort in what is given in the Bible in the person of Christ Jesus. We find profound thought in this Bible study. Let's say the 9th century, John, the great Scot — Scotus Erigena. There is no doubt in this man's mind about the truth of the Bible, about the truth of the written word, that it is inspired; man has no choice but to seek to understand. From Thomas Aquinas and John Tauler to Jakob Böhme, a bold philosophy was applied to understanding what is written in the Bible.

Now, however, something very remarkable is happening with regard to the Bible. Whereas everything before – even in the eighteenth century – was explanation, a feeling of the deepest reverence for the Bible, in the nineteenth century what is called Bible criticism emerged. One could almost call the nineteenth century the century of Bible criticism. This sentiment would not have been understood at all in the past. In the past, it was always a case of looking up to the Bible and feeling down about oneself. It was only now that a feeling arose that man felt towards the Bible as he would towards any other book and that he could look down on the Bible. Critics dare to question the Bible, its individual documents and writings, doubt later appearances and so on, and finally even dare to question the person of Christ Jesus.

David Friedrich Strauß is one of those; he resolves everything in the Bible into legends and myths. He says that the facts of Jesus' life are not important; these feelings and ideas were simply in the people and so it was gradually put together. Other criticism and all that today's science has to say about it should be mentioned. Specifically, the seven-day work of creation is widely criticized, as is the narrative of the creation of man in it, how man emerged from the great cosmos. And then his creation is retold a second time. From this, it is concluded that there are two accounts of creation. All the many and incalculable things that have been achieved in it could be mentioned.

The Bible is the book of life for mankind, but all this has changed people's attitude towards it, and those in authority felt compelled to take their present position. And much, much more than one suspects and can know, people's attitude towards the Bible has changed. Only the soul researcher can gauge that. Even the most religious person of today has no idea of the deep fervor and inner bliss that one once had towards the Bible. Anyone who tries to observe the times and the psychology of the soul knows that since materialism has permeated all popular thinking, this is no longer possible. Since then, a change, a fundamental metamorphosis of intimate feelings can be observed. Many noble people among us look back on the days of their youth with a certain wistfulness, conflict or satisfaction, thinking of how they absorbed the stories from the Bible back then. The inner conflict between then and now is in many a soul.

But what violence, what significance this book of books has, emerges from the fact that scholars and scientists are constantly trying to bring the seven-day work into line with it. One must come to terms with the way the creation of the world is presented in the Bible. The power that the content of the Bible has repeatedly had over people is proven by the fact that, for example, in the early days of the Christian era, people turned to Plato for answers to such questions, and gave him the certainly strange name of the Attic-speaking Moses. So Plato's teachings are related to the Old Testament.

The same is said of Pythagoras and other great philosophers. Even Apollo has a very beautiful oracle that proves this: “Steep is the path to the / gap]” — “Steep is the path / gap]”

But there were mortals who did climb this path. The most significant of these were those who lived in Chaldea and those who were called Judean men.

Paracelsus, the great medieval physician, also made a very strange statement about the Bible: “All medicine, all healing can be learned from the Bible.” Of course, this must be thought of in the right way in Paracelsus' sense. He meant how he thought of the relationship of man and his position to the Bible. You must not just open it, read it and retell it, no, the words that are in the Bible are not only to be taken literally, but there are magical powers in them. If you let the words live in your soul, they will fertilize it; the soul will become wise and knowledgeable by letting not the content but the power of the Bible word live in you. No science can or should dissuade you from the Bible.

Take Darwinism, for example. Charles Darwin says: “So we would have fathomed” and so on, - “those whom the Creator once breathed life into.” And a second saying of his, that language is something higher than the animal inarticulate sound: “Language can never have come about through mere natural causes and could never develop in this way. One must assume an intelligent creator who has wisely ordered everything.”

Many sayings of great scholars who, in this respect, do recognize the Creator, could still be cited. Jean Baptiste Biot, who rendered outstanding services to the science of light, said: Moses either knew as much as we do or he was inspired! — All that has been said is not meant as any criticism on our part, but only as an explanation that it had to come in the materialistically thinking present. Even in our time, many great men have honestly endeavored to understand the Bible by interpreting it, but who knows about it? Example: Fabre d'Olivet: “The Mystery of the First Books of Moses”.

In the face of biblical criticism, spiritual research or theosophy yields a different point of view. Theosophy never criticizes, never tears down, but only seeks to understand. One thing is characteristic of theosophy: it is not a thought, not a concept, but an attitude. Everything in theosophy must be imbued with this attitude. We have this attitude towards all of nature. We see regularities and monstrosities in nature, we know that it would be nonsense to criticize nature, we do not do that, we seek to understand it. Understanding is the basic attitude we must have; we must pursue everything in the spiritual life with understanding, pursue everything with love, not with the yardstick of sympathy and antipathy. Understanding everything and everyone – you cannot define it intellectually, it has to be an attitude. If you have this attitude, you will have an experience: that the Bible is a book in the face of which criticism begins to fall silent. What you may have criticized in the past is now seen in a completely different light, it becomes clear.

One must rediscover the key to the Bible through spiritual research, and then biblical criticism will be replaced by an ever deeper interpretation of the Bible. The development of humanity is not considered if one considers only the external aspects of it. What science has brought, theosophy does not question; but it does not only pursue the external material phenomena, which are only the expression of a spiritual phenomenon of the underlying spiritual development. The task of theosophy is to explore the nature of today's man and his position in the universe. It must therefore say something about the creation report. Theosophy regards the whole human being, not just his physical body. Where natural science has to stop, theosophy begins. When it comes to the words “I smell the scent of roses, I hear the sound of an organ”, the natural scientist sees only the movement of atoms in the brain; but he cannot explain what must take place to produce the idea “I smell the scent of roses” and so on. The task of Theosophy is now a completely different one. Du Bois-Reymond ties in with Leibniz's saying: the idea of the soul, why it is that the scent of roses is smelled, you – [the] natural scientists – would not be able to explore.

Du Bois-Reymond ties in with the word: natural science is actually only capable of observing and fathoming the sleeping human being because the soul experience has been extinguished. Precisely that which the natural scientist cannot explain is there in waking. But can we then recognize what is not there in sleep and what is there in waking? Yes, I will give you a comparison that will make it clear to you how spiritual science relates to the other sciences. An example: Imagine a piano being played, with a deaf person sitting next to it. He cannot hear the notes, but there is a way to make them understandable to him if he is otherwise of sound mind. Open the piano and scatter so-called paper riders on the strings. By the jumping of the paper riders, the deaf person can see that something is going on; he can get an idea of the strings and their trembling. But there is a difference between his idea and the real objective, the sense is missing, the open ear.

This is how Theosophy relates to the so-called science of facts. The latter conducts research in the way we have described here the perception of the deaf. To perceive what is going on in the soul, one must have the sense for it. What Haeckel and others, in fact modern science in general, has brought is all true for Theosophy, but there is an awakening of the higher senses to follow the material processes, and to look back with one's higher spiritual organs and follow the spiritual facts of the higher spiritual organs that Theosophy teaches to develop. Thus Theosophy perceives what is present in the sleeping and waking human being. To do this, one must have spiritual eyes and spiritual ears.

What does the sleeping person do at night, what does he work on? He repairs the physical body to remove the fatigue substances from the outside. The other type of activity of the astral body is present in the so-called initiate or initiate.

What is an initiate? We must first realize that we can perceive as much as we have organs. There are as many worlds around man as he has organs, and each time he acquires new organs, he perceives a new world. And there are methods in the secret schools where this is taught, whereby such new organs are formed. An initiate is someone who has developed abilities within himself through which the higher worlds can be perceived.

We divide the human being into four parts: physical body, etheric body, astral body or soul, and I. Now, in the initiate, the astral body is equipped with organs of perception. The initiate sees into other worlds. He feels the need to express himself in a different way. For ordinary language is created only for our physical life, and even the words that have been used for the supersensible are taken from the world of sense perception. The initiates must therefore follow Goethe's dictum:

All that is transitory Is but a parable.

What the initiates see in the higher worlds, they can only express in images from the sensual world in order to be understood by people. Every student of the Rosicrucian school of thought, which has existed in Germany since the 14th century and is the most suitable for modern man, must therefore also learn to express himself in such images. What you find in books about the Rosicrucians is unclear and incorrect; for their secrets were not entrusted to books. He must acquire the so-called imaginative knowledge, that is, the knowledge of how to express in a parable what one beholds in the spiritual world. The initiate feels quite differently about a parable. He sees the immortality of the soul in the parable — doll and butterfly — the permanent in the transitory, which is always behind it. The initiate sees the great connection between all facts, the highest spiritual and the lowest physical facts, he sees the high in all this. And if he tells such a parable to a child, for example, he tries to make it clear to him, then he himself firmly believes in this parable, and feeling flows from him to the child. So he also looks at these little ones with the same fervor of heart.

It is the task of theosophy to make it clear that everything spiritual finds its expression in a material way. Not those who deny matter will penetrate to the spirit, but those who learn to grasp the truth that all matter is condensed spirit. If we recognize this, then we will also understand why the Bible gives instructions about the simplest things in life. With heartfelt love we must then enter into these simplest of processes, into something that goes with the phenomena of everyday life. Such knowledge should spiritualize life, not remove people from it. He is not a true theosophist who claims: Oh, what do I care about the brain molecules and their movements, the spirit is in him, that's enough for me! No, he must learn to understand that the brain is the expression of the spirit. Our goal is not to rise above the appearance to the so-called being, but to understand what lives in the appearance of being. This must be brought home to people again in images, in parables.

The spiritual was there earlier than the physical. The astral body has built up the physical body, structured it out of itself. All material substance has been structured out of the spiritual, and the spirit is the older, the earlier. Before the physical there was the astral; it formed, it created this body — in the likeness of water and ice. The naturalist sees only the time when the ice had already formed in the stream, the theosophist the time when there was no ice yet in the stream, and the one with the ice. The material — the ice — separates from the water, which still comes from something higher. The Bible expresses this process very beautifully: “The Spirit of God moved over the waters.” (Genesis 1:2) Water is the image of all secret schools.

The wisdom in the Bible is given in images and parables, in comparisons. The seven-day work is no different. We are not dealing with external facts here, but with long, long periods of time. There is no document in the world that contains theosophical truths in a more magnificent way than the Bible. Theosophy will offer an explanation of the Bible, an understanding of it again. Even something like the splitting of the creation account will bring it closer to human understanding again. The spiritual man is already contained in the stream of water, when the spirit of God still hovered over the waters. “Male and female” is the literal translation, not ‘a little man and a little woman’ (Gen. 1,27); this is the spiritual man. And then a condensation of the spiritual, asexual man to the physical man - to the egg - takes place, and thus a second creation, a sexual-physical.

“The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life” (2 Cor 3:6); we must understand this saying as Goethe means it when he says, “And as long as you do not have this dying and becoming, you are only a gloomy guest on the dark earth.” That is, the becoming of a higher soul that slumbers in man, but which can be awakened and developed through schooling. You must give birth to a higher human being out of the physical body, so that this physical body becomes a tool for the spiritual human being, but the physical body should not be the one that rules us. When man is free from the physical, the physical body becomes such a tool. Thus one should explore the spirit from the letter. Theosophy wants to build up from what is there; because even the smallest, the most material, is condensed spirit. Therefore, a theosophical attitude also understands that, as in the Bible, there may be rules that relate to simple daily life.

Those who fight the Bible do not understand it; they are fighting their own delusion, which they have created for themselves. It is only in the last four hundred years that this materialistic view of the seven-day cycle, an apparent reproduction of it, has developed. Even today, believers often interpret the Bible too materialistically. The Bible is to be taken literally; but one must learn to understand the letter and grasp the spirit through the letter. Theosophy does not want to found a confession, but to understand what is there; and that, what wisdom has poured into the souls through the millennia. The truths change; but a common original truth runs through all of them, for past, present and future. We find it in the Bible and its effect; it contains words that come from the divine wisdom of the world. Thus the readers found themselves imbued with the magical powers of the Bible, which live in the words. Religious documents and especially ones like the Bible, which in its two parts even points to our division of time, cannot be taken deeply enough. Only by delving deeply into them will people be led to spiritualization again.

My dear Theosophical friends!

In the course of yesterday's lecture, we saw how complicated the event in Palestine is for spiritual scientific research. We have seen that clairvoyant consciousness has shown us two infant Jesus, one belonging to the Solomonic line of the House of David, and the other to the Nathanic line of the House of David, and that in the pure physical body of the child of the Solomonic line, that individuality incarnated again which we know under the name Zoroaster or Zarathustra.

Today we will deal with the other of the two children, with the one from the Nathanic or priestly line. The etheric body of this child was of a peculiar purity. To understand this, we have to go back far in the evolution of mankind. Never before has a being been born with a similar etheric body. We have to go back to the beginning of human development on earth, to the so-called Lemurian age.

We know that humanity has developed only gradually and slowly into what it is now. Jesus lived in the fourth post-Atlantic age. It was only during this cultural period that the I came into full possession of its powers.

This time marked the descent of the personality to Earth. Before this period was the Chaldean-Egyptian age, the third post-Atlantean; before that the Ur-Persian, the second post-Atlantean; and before that the first post-Atlantean age, the ancient Indian, whose culture came directly from the Atlantean period. Before this period was the event that we call the great Atlantic catastrophe, since our ancestors, that is, our own souls, which were embodied on the Atlantic continent, Atlantis, were washed away from the earth.

The continent inhabited by our ancestors was located between present-day Europe, Africa and America. The Atlanteans saw spiritual entities as a misty aura surrounding all beings. They also saw all the soul and spiritual energies that flow in and out through the person. Just as our finger, if it were conscious, would see the blood pulsating in it and feel itself as a limb in the organism, so the Atlantean felt himself to be part of the environment; he knew that, cut off from the environment, he would wither away. On the other hand, he could not distinguish himself from the environment; he felt himself cast into the whole external world.

Enormous natural revolutions, which completely changed the world map, put an end to the Atlantic cultural period, during which people had lived together in sharply distinct groups and races. The same individualities that had been active in the Atlantides continued their development - although under completely different circumstances - in other parts of our earth, where their first steps were guided by the high Rishis.

But we have to go back even further if we want to get to know the conditions that [gap in the transcript].

Before the Atlantic catastrophe, humanity – that is, we, our souls – lived in very different bodies on the Lemurian continent, which was located roughly between present-day southern Asia, Africa and Australia. Going back even further, we see beings with forms that would seem quite fantastic to present-day humans. What does this mean? Yes, during this Lemurian period, large areas of this earth were abandoned by human souls. Before this time, human souls had inhabited the earth in completely different forms; but now they went in great flocks to completely different regions of the world [incarnated themselves on other planets]; only very few people remained behind to survive the most difficult and barren period of development on our earth. It was the time when the first germ appeared that we call self-awareness.

In this world, beings asserted themselves that we describe as Luciferic beings. At that time, people had clairvoyance. These Luciferic beings approached the astral bodies of people and penetrated the astral bodies of people who were on earth. Since that time, the Luciferic element has been in the soul of man. Man owes his freedom to this Luciferic element. What would have become of people if these Luciferic beings had not come? Through them, man developed into an ego, but slowly; and man would never have been able to develop this out of his own nature, what is called the inner impulse to freedom. Man had to pay for the possibility of evil, in other words, he had to be confronted with the possibility of choosing between good and evil.

But a counterweight also had to be created, otherwise man would not be able to maintain his connection with good. So that the luciferic element would not become too strong, a counterweight was created in that part of the etheric body of the few people remaining on the devastated earth was withdrawn from their bodies and sunk into the spiritual world. This part remained during the Lemurian and Atlantean ages. The descendants of the Lemurian people thus lacked a part of their etheric body, which remained in the spiritual world. That part of the human etheric body, which no human being had been part of until the Palestine event, and which had thus remained untouched by all Luciferic influence, became the etheric body of the Nathanic Child Jesus; and so there was a sum of forces present in this child that had never existed before in the etheric body of a human being. The religious documents that are really based on clairvoyant knowledge, and which are always right about human physical research, speak of this if we understand them correctly.

The effect of the luciferic forces on people is described in the story of the Fall of Man. The astral body had been corrupted by the luciferic influence. The snake of the Garden of Eden is a symbol of the Luciferic influence, through which human beings acquired the ability to distinguish between good and evil by their own judgment. Jehovah's words to man that they should not eat from the tree of life indicate that a part of the etheric body remained until it was taken up into the Nathanic boy Jesus. In this boy were united the purest heart feelings and the greatest powers of love as never before in a human being; the pure soul qualities that man had before the Fall, that is, before the Luciferic influence, were present in him in the richest measure.

There is something else to be said, namely about the astral body of the Nathanian Jesus Child. There was an important power in it, over which nothing less than the Nirmanakaya of the Buddha exercised its influence. After Buddha had completed his incarnation as Buddha, he no longer needed a physical incarnation, but could only embody himself in an etheric body. As such a being, Buddha descended - attracted by the pure etheric body to which Buddha had risen - and united with the astral body of the Nathanian child Jesus. Anyone who could have observed the process with clairvoyant eyes at that moment would have seen the Nirmanakaya of the Buddha floating in the aura of the child. This is hinted at in the Gospel of Luke in the account of the vision of the shepherds. Due to special circumstances, the shepherds had become clairvoyant. They saw a host of angels, that is, the Nirmanakaya of the Buddha, the etheric body of the Buddha. Thus, a wonderful etheric body was at work in this Nathanic Jesus child, which had never before been used by a human being. In the same way, Gautama Buddha worked through the Nathanic Jesus Child, and through him he let flow the contribution that he, as Buddha, had to give after six hundred years of development.

In a wonderful way, the Evangelist Luke describes a blending of oriental legend with religious document. This merging of the Buddha with the spiritual body of the Nathanian Jesus child, which Luke saw with clairvoyant eyes, is confirmed by legend. Legend tells us that when the son of King Suddhodana was born, the old seer Asita saw a host of angels descending from heaven. At this sight, he began to weep. When asked if something had happened to make him weep, he replied, “No, I weep because my eyes will no longer see my Bodhisattva.” In a clairvoyant way, he had recognized his master in the newborn prince and wept because he was too old to see him grow into a Buddha.

When the Nathanian Jesus child was born, Asita was also there. The Simeon of the Gospel of Luke is none other than the reincarnation of Asita from Indian legend. He was now standing before his Buddha again, and saw the Nirmanakaya of the Buddha floating in the aura of the child. Therefore he added to his testimony and said: “Now, God, thou lettest thy servant depart in peace, for now he has seen his Lord.” Thus the oriental legend winds itself into the religious document in the great images which have become real events of the physical world.

Now we must turn back for a few words to the other Child Jesus, in whose physical body was enclosed the ego of Zarathustra, the Zarathustra who was once a contemporary of Buddha and, as Zaratas-Nazaratos, taught Pythagoras during the Babylonian captivity.

So we know the ego of this Solomon-like baby Jesus, but now we have to look at that physical body. This body originated from the ancient Hebrew people, and this body had to be able to develop organs that Zarathustra could use at that particular time. That is to say, they had to be built up through inheritance from generation to generation within a specially selected people. This was the mission of the ancient Hebrew people.

[In order for the ego to emerge, ancient clairvoyance had to be abandoned. Instead of the old consciousness, which consisted of dark dream images, brain-bound thought power now had to be developed. In the year 3101 BC, the old clairvoyance began to fade... Kali yuga]

Here we come back to an area where we have to turn to spiritual science to gain reliable insights. This teaches us that the Hebrew people can be traced back to a patriarch who had been specially selected: Abraham. He was entrusted with a very special mission. We can best understand this if we realize that the further we go back in the development of the earth, the more varied the soul forces in man were. Before Abraham, people still had a vague dream-like consciousness. Those old clairvoyant abilities had to be sacrificed. Now, from the entire mass of ancient peoples, the individuality was selected that was best suited in its physical makeup, not to be a tool for the old clairvoyance, but for intellectual combination, suitable only to direct the eyes and ears to the outer world in order to develop reason or intellect. That individuality was Abraham.

All the old qualities of dreamy clairvoyance were closed to him. Mathematical calculation was his tool. That is why he could become the progenitor of a nation that was geared to deduction, to rational, intellectual thinking, but was alien to all forms of clairvoyance. While all other people tried to grasp the spiritual world by closing their outer eyes and letting inspiration flow into them, Abraham looked out, saw everything and tried to grasp the spiritual by combining the outer appearances. This required a particularly developed brain.

Abraham received everything from the outside, and because this ability, which became a physical property, was inherited from generation to generation. So the characteristic of the ancient Hebrew people is

to take nothing from within, but everything from without. The consciousness of the people should also be given from the outside. Everything [should be] received from the outside, even one's own nationality. The sacrifice of Isaac is a symbol of this, in that Abraham is induced to sacrifice Isaac and then gets him back as a gift from God. What was sacrificed with this? Yes, the whole nation, its own mission. Israel received its own nationality as a gift from outside.

What is significant is what is handed down to us in the promise of Jehovah to Abraham regarding the descendants of Abraham, namely that his descendants should be structured according to the number of stars in the sky: “Numerous as the stars in the sky” is an incorrect translation, it should be “corresponding to the numerical proportions of the stars in the sky”. The order of his descendants should correspond to the actual order of the stars in the sky. Twelve is a basic number in all things esoteric. They were to be organized according to the twelve constellations of the zodiac; hence the twelve tribes, which thus correspond to the number of stars in the sky and have a spiritual connection with them. Here that which is otherwise spiritual-soul should express itself in the physical descendants. We now see the mission of the ancient Hebrew people gradually developing physically in such a way that ultimately the body for Zarathustra could emerge.

But something that had happened to Abraham could not be completed immediately. Some of the old clairvoyance remained; Joseph's dreams point to this. Therefore, he had to be excluded from the ancient Hebrew people. At first, this people developed without Joseph, who was sent to Egypt; then it was limited entirely to external combinations. Now the ancient Hebrew people had to receive from Egypt, from the outside, what the other peoples received from within. Moses gave the Hebrews Egyptian wisdom as something external. Thus, this people had to receive clairvoyant wisdom from the outside. So it was to develop under constant external influences until, as its most mature fruit, it could produce the physical body for the re-embodied Zarathustra.

When an individual develops, the physical body is born first. Up to the seventh year, when the teeth change, the human being is enclosed in an etheric mother-shell; this is an etheric birth. At fourteen years of age, the astral shell is shed: astral birth. At twenty-one years of age, the human ego is fully born. We see, then:

1. From birth to the change of teeth, seven years.
2. From the change of teeth to the fourteenth year, the development of the etheric body follows.
3. From there, the astral body develops until the twenty-first year.

From the age of twenty-one, the ego develops after the veils have been discarded.

Likewise, there had to be three epochs in the development of the ancient Hebrew people:

1. From Abraham to the Davidic era.
2. From David to the Babylonian captivity.
3. From the Babylonian captivity to the birth of the Solomonic child Jesus. This is so that a lofty ego like the Zarathustra ego may receive a worthy shell. The people had to be developed from generation to generation so that the physical shell would become more and more suitable. Seven years correspond to seven generations in each epoch. But seven generations were not enough; one generation is always skipped in inheritance, because children do not inherit their predispositions from their parents, but from their grandparents. There had to be 3 x 14 = 42 generations before the physical body was developed in which the ego of Zarathustra had a worthy shell. The Gospel of Matthew, which describes the Palestine event from the physical aspect, gives the list of generations for the Solomon Jesus child and goes back to Abraham, that is, to the time when the physical body began to be developed. Luke, who describes the Palestine event from the astral point of view, gives the generation list of the Nathanian Jesus child and goes back to Abraham and to God. Luke goes even further back than Abraham, because the etheric body must be sensed even earlier. In the Nazarene of Nathan there was something present that did not come from people, but from the very beginning, before the Luciferic influence. It is therefore good that these records differ from each other. In the three wise men of the Orient we find three disciples of Zaratas-Nazaratos. These Chaldean disciples knew that the star they were following contained the ego of Zarathustra. The three disciples followed the star to Bethlehem, and when the star stopped over the manger in Bethlehem, they understood that Zarathustra descended there to incarnate.

Both boys grew up to the age of twelve. By then, the Solomon-like boy had developed the Zarathustra qualities; he had developed the qualities that belonged to his physical body. He had come so far that he was able to make a great sacrifice. The Nathanian boy had in particular those abilities that originated from the pure etheric body and on the other side from the Nirmanakaya of the Buddha. This Nathanian Jesus boy did not have an ordinary ego in the human sense. He had preferably the three higher covers.

The Zarathustra embodied in the Solomon Jesus Child made a great sacrifice in his twelfth year. A spirit as high as his can leave his body and take on another body. The ego of the Solomon Jesus Child, that is, that of Zarathustra, left the body of the Solomon Jesus Child and entered the body of the Nathan Jesus Child. This happened when the Nathanian Jesus child was allowed to accompany his parents to Jerusalem at the age of twelve. His parents lost sight of him, and when they found him again in the temple three days later, they did not recognize his speech: Zarathustra had inspired the Nathanian Jesus child.

The Solomon-like Jesus child died after he had lived an “automatic” life for a time. The mother of the Nathanian Jesus child also died. Soon after the birth of the Solomonic Jesus child, his parents had moved to Nazareth, where not long after, the Solomonic father died. In Nazareth, the boys grew up, side by side. After the Nathanian mother had died, the father of the Nathanian child took the Solomonic mother to live with him, and so she became the stepmother of the Nathanian Jesus child.

For the period from the age of twelve to thirty, the Gospels tell us nothing about the life of Jesus. At the age of thirty, he had matured for the great event.

We see how complicated the starting point of Christianity is, and how the most significant spiritual currents of the preceding time, through Zarathustra and Buddha, have flowed into the Nathanian Jesus child.