The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Charlottenburg, February 9 [1913]

Dear Miss Arnold,

Thank you very much for sending me the Esoteric Lessons, and please do not be angry that the small enclosed package did not reach you before the general assembly. With the best will in the world, it was not possible for me, firstly because I wanted to look through the lectures again and add a few words; above all, I would have given myself both, but for a third reason, it could not be done: the accompanying Esoteric Lesson, which I was happy to enclose, could not be found; only yesterday did I discover it in an old envelope. Do you also find (in parentheses) that the Theosophical material is growing to such an extent that you have trouble accommodating it? Well, now that the annual meeting is over, I am sending you the promised five lectures with warm greetings. Please keep them for about four weeks, they need to be read several times; I would just like to have the Esoteric Lesson, intended for Miss Scholl, back after a week. Of course, everyone pays postage, we are Theosophists after all, and you can see that I am already asking you to send them twice.

Thank you very much for your kind inquiry after my return. It went quite well – in general, as exhausted as I felt in Cologne, here it was all over, I felt like a new person, very fresh and cheerful, and I also got through the lecture labyrinth of the last week excellently, although I had had the little Countess Hamilton as a guest since the 30th [January 1913], we went to bed late every night, and I also had school as a tiresome secondary occupation. Admittedly, I have to say that – unlike in previous years – I practiced resignation, which you will hear about in Lecture Three. From the outset, I reckoned that I would not be able to hear much, but perhaps that is why it turned out favorably. At an esoteric hour on Saturday, the doctor waited for me; he had told me to buy a car. I also heard most of the very delightful description of his life, which provoked more than one hearty laugh; [the lecture] will be published very soon, though I fear it will be abridged, omitting some art passages. It lasted about two and a half hours.

I heard two of Mrs. Wandrey's three lectures on “Faust.” She spoke very intimately, to many, I think, too highly, but she came across very well in her calmness and refinement. Otherwise she is no longer there for one personally, and that is difficult for me, since I used to have a very different relationship with her. I ask myself: must it be like this? And doesn't the doctor, who is a hundred times higher, condescend to everyone? Didn't Christ Jesus come especially for the lost sheep? Everything would have been fine in Cologne if I could have spoken to her once, as she promised me. I was tormented by something that had happened at home. Mrs. Wandrey knows my family very well and it would have been easy for her to help me calm down. It's all about being left to deal with it all on your own. I no longer have anyone, not in the exoteric or the esoteric, but maybe in a year or so I'll be ready to take that for granted.

To complete the picture I have given you of the annual conference, I would like to tell you that the cycle of four lectures was very beautiful. Number two delivered exactly what was said in an esoteric hour a year or two ago. Really, at the pace at which the doctor is now proceeding, one's breath can be taken away. Should I come to work out, they are happy to help you at times.

The conclusion was magnificent: as I said elsewhere, they said that we would be hated in the future, not only out in the world, but also among the pseudo-theosophists, so vigilance would be in order. And if one could understand our striving in the spiritual world as prayer, then one should not forget to precede the “pray” with the “watch”: “Watch and pray!”

What he achieved during those days, and how he achieved it – it is beyond me. You have to bear in mind that there were lectures every day from ten or half past ten until two o'clock and from a quarter to four or four until about six o'clock, and then his lecture was at eight o'clock.

I also heard a good lecture by Arenson; I don't know about all the others – Johannes-Bau Verein, Unger, Schröder, Peipers – but compared to the doctor, everything else seems so awful.

It just occurred to me that we might see each other as early as Easter. The writer of this intends to go to The Hague. The cycle begins on the 18th [March 1913] with two public lectures. On the 20th [March] the actual cycle begins; the theme is something like: Occult Effects on the Etheric and Astral Bodies and the I, and lasts until the 29th [March]. This suits me quite well, as I get vacation from March 19th until April 3rd. The trip costs 23 marks from here and takes twelve hours; the place is a bit expensive.

Vreedes are putting us up in a guesthouse where lodging including breakfast costs three marks. There is a good vegetarian restaurant. It would be very nice if you came.

I was very happy to hear that you, dear Miss Lina, have now also been accepted to the Esoteric School. The whole thing now makes sense.

I hope that your interview went as planned. I wish all three of you a good time and hope to see you again on Dutch soil!

With warm regards,

Your faithful Elisabeth Winkler

Dear Miss Johanna,

I will add for you that these days are now the Masonic [services]. Yesterday at five and eight o'clock for all degrees, separated due to lack of space, very serious, today only first degree initiations, tomorrow higher degrees.

Can the mind not stand still there? And now think of what the doctor said: people who are particularly committed to a belief and are therefore materialists feel absolutely uncomfortable in the life between death and new birth, they find no connection in the spiritual world, are angry and full of rage against the spiritual world.

Now we know that since the Mystery of Golgotha, the etheric body of Christ has been increasingly united with the Earth; it is visible in the vicinity of the Earth in luminous waves of light. These furious materialists of the nineteenth century launched an attack on this etheric body of Christ from the astral plane, so that a second Golgotha, a second crucifixion of Christ, took place, so to speak.

Isn't that terrible, moving? Finally, the doctor said: Since the sacred mysteries have been betrayed and desecrated by those pseudo-theosophists, a complete change of the ritual must be carried out on behalf of the wise masters of the East.

Undated report by Helga Geelmuyden

During the doctor's visit to Oslo – the last one – in May 1923, the doctor held an M.E. meeting. First, a few new members were admitted to the M.E. (Mr. Ingero and Christian [Smit]). A few days later (I think) he gathered the brothers and sisters at Oskarsgate 10. The meeting took place at Reitan.

At the meeting at Oskarsgate, he continued to tell the temple legend in a very impressive way. And he went on to talk about how the sons of Abel had found their way to the sons of Cain, in that the theologians had asked him for the new cult. This aroused increased hostility on the part of the sons of Abel and the sons of Cain in the outer world, who did not want to join forces in this way. (This referred to the Jesuits and the occult brotherhoods, at least that's how I understood it.)

And further he spoke about the fact that in the same hall where the new cult was given to the theologians, the fire was ignited that destroyed the Goetheanum.

Following the temple legend, it was further said that it would be necessary to rebuild the Goetheanum. It was said something like this: the temple of Solomon would never have existed physically. But it would have to be there on earth one day.

The doctor once told me that the sons of Abel could not be accepted into the Medical Section. This was said in relation to the fact that someone wanted to bring in a woman with atavistic clairvoyance.

The things the doctor said about the reconstruction of the Goetheanum made a strong impression on me. Later that summer I was present at the Annual General Meeting of the Goetheanum Association, where the question of the reconstruction was discussed. I then asked the doctor if he would like to say what he told us in Norway. He shook his head and said briefly: “Absolutely impossible.

Now I must confess: the new Goetheanum has never been able to satisfy me in the context of this impressive memory. In particular, it pains me to see the Christ Group completely isolated. In 1916, when I spoke to the doctor in Berlin on my way to Dornach, he said to me: Now, when you visit the building, you must imagine the Group in its place the whole time. I did so, and a living movement arose through the entire row of columns and architraves, and the moving element was the Christ-I, as it presented itself in the group. The old Goetheanum died, as it were, without having fully embodied this I — it was still outside. In the new Goetheanum there is no possibility of an organic connection.

The union of the sons of Abel and the sons of Cain has never been fully realized.

Notes by Ita Wegman, Munich

Paracelsus, who was murdered. However, his etheric and astral bodies were not lost. His astral body passed into Goethe in [1797]. In the meantime, from Paracelsus' death until [1797], the astral body was in the devachan, in order to gain strength there. This astral body of Paracelsus, which was developed to such a high degree, had to enter into a human being again, so that it could continue to intuit from this human being. In “Faust” one notices the influence of Paracelsus.

In life, we often do not understand many things if we do not know the context. So there are now two directions in the outer world:

1) Rationalism or, as it is also called, modern monism. Here, everything is to be grasped by reason; everything spiritual is tried to be grasped by the intellect. It is the male principle that prevails here.

2) the direction, which carries the name spiritualism and related branches, modern occultism mysticism. Here the intellect is eliminated and things are grasped only with the mind. It is the female principle that rules here.

Now there is a saying in esotericism: Just as a man cannot have a child without a woman, so a woman cannot have a child without a man. According to this saying, it would not be possible for the two directions, which have only one-sided principles, to produce spiritual children; these directions would have to die out gradually.

Now this is not the case. What has happened now? There has been spiritual fornication.

In earlier times, preserved in myths, the sons of the gods sometimes connected with the daughters of the earth, they took a liking to these daughters of the brutalized people, connected with them and committed moral fornication with them. It was a very unfortunate generation that grew out of it. The goddess Hera did the same, allowing herself to be led to slaves and committing moral fornication with them.

Fornication has also been committed in the directions mentioned, in that entities from the spiritual world embodied themselves in the two currents and thereby furthered them; these are retarding forces in the host of Lucifer that do this.

There's a nice remark by Hegel: The deepest thought is united with the figure of Christ, with the historical and outer one, and that's the great thing about the Christian religion, that for all of its profundity it's easy to understand in an outer way, and yet also challenges one to get into it more deeply. Thus it's for every stage of development and also satisfies the highest demands.

The fact that the Christian religion is understandable to every stage of consciousness is clear through the history of its development. It must be the task of spiritual science in general to show that this religion invites one to penetrate the deepest teachings of wisdom that mankind has. Theosophy is not a religion but an instrument for understanding religions. It's related to religion in about the same way that our mathematical theory is related to ancient math books. One can understand mathematics out of one's own intellectual forces and the laws of space without referring to Euclid's geometry book. But when one has taken in geometric teachings one will treasure that old book all the more, that first placed these laws before the human spirit. That's the way it is with theosophy. Its sources are not in documents and aren't based on tradition. Its sources are in the real spiritual worlds; that's where one must find them and grasp them in that one develops one's spiritual forces, whereas one grasps mathematics as one tries to develop one's intellectual forces. The intellect that enables us to grasp the laws of the sense world is carried by an organ, the grain. We also need corresponding organs to grasp the laws of spiritual worlds. How did our physical organs develop? When outer forces worked on them, sun forces, sound forces. That's how the eyes and ears developed out of neutral, dull organs that did not permit a penetration of the sense world at first and only opened slowly. Our spiritual organs will also open when the right forces work on them.

Now which forces storm in our spiritual organs that are still dull? During the day forces press into a modern's astral body that work against his development, and that even kill organs he had before he got his bright day consciousness. A man used to perceive astral impressions indirectly. The surrounding world spoke to him through pictures, through the astral world's form of expression. Living, differentiated pictures, colors float around free in space as an expression of pleasure and displeasure, sympathy and antipathy. Then thee colors laid themselves around the surface of things and objects received firm contours. This happened when man's physical body became even firmer and more differentiated. When his eyes opened completely to physical light, when maya's veil placed itself before the spiritual world, man's astral body received impressions from the surroundings via the physical and etheric bodies and transmitted them to the ego, from where they entered men's consciousness. Thereby he became continuously active. But what worked on him in this way wasn't plastic, formative forces that corresponded to his own nature; it was forces that consumed and killed him to awaken his ego-consciousness. Only at night when he dived down into the rhythmic spiritual world that was homogeneous to him did he strengthen himself anew so that he could send forces to the etheric and physical bodies again. The life of the single ego, ego-consciousness arose from the conflict of impressions, from the killing of the astral organs that worked unconsciously in man before. Death out of life, life out of death. The snake's circle was closed. Now the forces that rekindled life in the dead remnants of previous astral organs and molded them plastically had to come out of this awakened ego-consciousness.

Mankind moves toward this goal, it's guided towards it by its teachers, leaders and great initiates, whose symbol is the snake. It's an education towards spiritual activity, and therefore it's a long and difficult one. Great initiates could make the task easier for themselves and men if they would elaborate the astral body when it's free at night, so that they imprinted astral organs into them, worked on them from outside. But that would be a working within the dream consciousness of a man, an intervention into his sphere of freedom. Man's highest principle, the will, would never develop. Man is led step by step. There was an initiation in wisdom, one in feeling, and one in willing. Real Christianity is the integration of all initiation stages. The initiation of antiquity was the annunciation, the preparation. Man slowly and gradually emancipated himself from gurus. Initiation at first took place in a complete trance consciousness, but there was a way to imprint a memory of what had happened outside the physical body, into the latter. That's why it was necessary to separate the etheric body, the carrier of memory, and also the astral body. Both of them dived down into the sea of wisdom, into mahadeva, into the light of Osiris. This initiation took place in the deepest secrecy and seclusion. No breath of the outer world was permitted to push in between. The man was as if dead to the outer world, the delicate seeds were cultivated away from blinding daylight.

Then initiation stepped out of the darkness of the mysteries into the brightest daylight. The initiation of all mankind took place historically—symbolically to begin with—at the stage of feeling in a great, mighty personality, the carrier of the highest unifying principle, of the Word, that expresses the hidden Father, that is his manifestation, that since it took on human form it became the son of man and could be the representative for all mankind, the unifying band for all I's: In Christ, the spirit of life, the eternal unifying one. This event was so powerful that it could go on working in every human being who lived by it, right into the appearance of stigmata, right into the most excruciating pains. Feeling was shaken to its depths. An intensity of feeling arose that had never flooded the world in such mighty waves before. The sacrifice of the I had taken place for all in the initiation on the cross of divine love. The physical expression of the I, the blood, had flowed in love for mankind and it worked in such a way that thousands pressed to this initiation, to this death and let their blood stream out in love, in enthusiasm for mankind. How much blood flowed out in this way was never sufficiently emphasized, people are no longer aware of it, not even in theosophical circles. But the waves of enthusiasm that flowed down in this blood and ascended have fulfilled their task. They've become mighty impulse givers. They have made men ripe for an initiation of will.

And this is Christ's legacy.

There's a nice remark by Hegel: The deepest thought is united with the figure of Christ, with the historical and outer one, and that's the great thing about the Christian religion, that for all of its profundity it's easy to understand in an outer way, and yet also challenges one to get into it more deeply. Thus it's for every stage of development and also satisfies the highest demands.

The fact that the Christian religion is understandable to every stage of consciousness is clear through the history of its development. It must be the task of spiritual science in general to show that this religion invites one to penetrate the deepest teachings of wisdom that mankind has. Theosophy is not a religion but an instrument for understanding religions. It's related to religion in about the same way that our mathematical theory is related to ancient math books. One can understand mathematics out of one's own intellectual forces and the laws of space without referring to Euclid's geometry book. But when one has taken in geometric teachings one will treasure that old book all the more, that first placed these laws before the human spirit. That's the way it is with theosophy. Its sources are not in documents and aren't based on tradition. Its sources are in the real spiritual worlds; that's where one must find them and grasp them in that one develops one's spiritual forces, whereas one grasps mathematics as one tries to develop one's intellectual forces. The intellect that enables us to grasp the laws of the sense world is carried by an organ, the brain. We also need corresponding organs to grasp the laws of spiritual worlds. How did our physical organs develop? When outer forces worked on them, sun forces, sound forces. That's how the eyes and ears developed out of neutral, dull organs that did not permit a penetration of the sense world at first and only opened slowly. Our spiritual organs will also open when the right forces work on them.

Now which forces storm in our spiritual organs that are still dull? During the day forces press into a modern's astral body that work against his development, and that even kill organs he had before he got his bright day consciousness. A man used to perceive astral impressions indirectly. The surrounding world spoke to him through pictures, through the astral world's form of expression. Living, differentiated pictures, colors float around free in space as an expression of pleasure and displeasure, sympathy and antipathy. Then these colors laid themselves around the surface of things and objects received firm contours. This happened when man's physical body became even firmer and more differentiated. When his eyes opened completely to physical light, when maya's veil placed itself before the spiritual world, man's astral body received impressions from the surroundings via the physical and etheric bodies and transmitted them to the ego, from where they entered men's consciousness. Thereby he became continuously active. But what worked on him in this way wasn't plastic, formative forces that corresponded to his own nature; it was forces that consumed and killed him to awaken his ego-consciousness. Only at night when he dived down into the rhythmic spiritual world that was homogeneous to him did he strengthen himself anew so that he could send forces to the etheric and physical bodies again. The life of the single ego, ego-consciousness arose from the conflict of impressions, from the killing of the astral organs that worked unconsciously in man before. Death out of life, life out of death. The snake's circle was closed. Now the forces that rekindled life in the dead remnants of previous astral organs and molded them plastically had to come out of this awakened ego-consciousness.

Mankind moves toward this goal, it's guided towards it by its teachers, leaders and great initiates, whose symbol is the snake. It's an education towards spiritual activity, and therefore it's a long and difficult one. Great initiates could make the task easier for themselves and men if they would elaborate the astral body when it's free at night, so that they imprinted astral organs into them, worked on them from outside. But that would be a working within the dream consciousness of a man, an intervention into his sphere of freedom. Man's highest principle, the will, would never develop. Man is led step by step. There was an initiation in wisdom, one in feeling, and one in willing. Real Christianity is the integration of all initiation stages. The initiation of antiquity was the annunciation, the preparation. Man slowly and gradually emancipated himself from gurus. Initiation at first took place in a complete trance consciousness, but there was a way to imprint a memory of what had happened outside the physical body, into the latter. That's why it was necessary to separate the etheric body, the carrier of memory, and also the astral body. Both of them dived down into the sea of wisdom, into mahadeva, into the light of Osiris. This initiation took place in the deepest secrecy and seclusion. No breath of the outer world was permitted to push in between. The man was as if dead to the outer world, the delicate seeds were cultivated away from blinding daylight.

Then initiation stepped out of the darkness of the mysteries into the brightest daylight. The initiation of all mankind took place historically—symbolically to begin with—at the stage of feeling in a great, mighty personality, the carrier of the highest unifying principle, of the Word, that expresses the hidden Father, that is his manifestation, that since it took on human form it became the son of man and could be the representative for all mankind, the unifying band for all I's: In Christ, the spirit of life, the eternal unifying one. This event was so powerful that it could go on working in every human being who lived by it, right into the appearance of stigmata, right into the most excruciating pains. Feeling was shaken to its depths. An intensity of feeling arose that had never flooded the world in such mighty waves before. The sacrifice of the I had taken place for all in the initiation on the cross of divine love. The physical expression of the I, the blood, had flowed in love for mankind and it worked in such a way that thousands pressed to this initiation, to this death and let their blood stream out in love, in enthusiasm for mankind. How much blood flowed out in this way was never sufficiently emphasized, people are no longer aware of it, not even in theosophical circles. But the waves of enthusiasm that flowed down in this blood and ascended have fulfilled their task. They've become mighty impulse givers. They have made men ripe for an initiation of will.

And this is Christ's legacy.

Anyone who wants to become an esoteric in the theosophical sense must train his thought life so that every thought is thought through sufficiently. Short thinking is the sign of a materialist. Theosophical esoterics must not fall into comfortable thinking. Take the thought of social democracy: Change the circumstances and a man will have better living and working conditions—that's a belief of materialism, short and deceiving. This belief is very paralyzing for every study of social life. Now how can a theosophist free himself from this materialistic belief that existence and even morality would improve if one would just improve outer conditions? Let's begin with the reflection that every change has to be made by human beings and that therefore every condition that's brought about for the social order arises from human thoughts and feelings. Once one has this thought firmly in mind one can free oneself from the materialistic view that everything is brought about by external conditions.

A budding esoteric should gather proofs that no improvement of the world occurs through the creation of better outer conditions. Theosophy tells us that the social order is created by men and that it's the result of human thoughts and feelings. So one should cultivate thoughts and feelings and not change the social order. An esoteric asks: Where does this condition that's worthy of being changed come from? And if the condition is not veiled by nature he sees that the condition was brought about by the thoughts and will impulses of men who lived before him. So conditions are the way they are now because men made them that way through their inadequate thoughts and feelings. Spiritual science wants to implement a mighty education of our innermost soul forces so that the social life will shape itself out of other thoughts and feelings. What this means is that spiritual science has no patented recipe about how this or that is supposed to be done on this or that post, it doesn't judge anyone, but it's very confident that everyone will arrive at a right judgment if he's permeated by the fundamental truths. One such truth is that poverty, misery and suffering are nothing but the result of egoism. One should look upon this as a law of nature. A man is egotistical as soon as he lives in accordance with the principle: I must be remunerated personally, I must be paid for the work that I do. An esoteric must ask himself whether work is really what sustains life. Work is of no importance if it isn't directed wisely. What serves men can only be produced and made through the wisdom that men put into it. One who doesn't understand this and who sins against it even slightly, sins against the social thinking of the present time.

Reflection on this in all of its possible phases strengthens thinking. A social democrat who reflects on how to create work to get rid of joblessness is thinking antisocially in the highest degree. Instead the main thing is that work should only be used for human beings, to create valuable produce. In a social community the work impulse must lie in devotion for the whole, and never in a man's personality. It follows from this that real social progress is only possible if I work for the good of the whole. In other words: The work I do mustn't be for myself. Social progress is completely dependent on the acceptance of this statement, that one doesn't want to get paid personally for one's work. A man owes work to the social community. Conversely, a man must restrict his existence to what the social community gives him. The counterpart to such social thinking must also be followed exactly. You know the example that a seamstress works for little pay and that social democrats tell the workers: You're being exploited. But now the seamstress goes out and buys a cheap dress to go dancing on Sunday. She asks for a cheap dress. But why is the dress cheap? Because another worker was exploited. So in the end, who's exploiting the worker? Certainly the seamstress who wears a cheap dress to go dancing on Sunday. One who can think clearly here already gets away from the distinction between rich and poor, for this has nothing to do with wealth and poverty. Therefore the foundations must first be created so that in future men will work hard and devotedly without thinking of personal advantage.

Suppose that someone invents a remedy and wants to patent it right away. This shows that he was thinking of a personal advantage and that he isn't filled with love for all mankind. For if men's health was the most important thing for him he would be anxious to report what's in the remedy and how it's made. And something else would happen—he'd be convinced that the remedy that was made with his sentiments was the better one.

Here we've come to a statement that's very important in esotericism: Ways of ennobling the soul must be arrived at. One who uses his thinking to attain beneficial progress must first see to it that human souls are ennobled.

Therewith we'll place the Rosicrucian verse at the end:

Today we'll try to get a little closer to the nature of the three Logoi. Many Theosophists speak about these things before they know much theosophy. This can only bring confusion and harm. If the higher consciousness isn't awakened in a man, he can't really form an idea about the three Logoi. And yet one can prepare the soul for right vision in the future by making the right pictures. All spiritual things make an imprint on the physical world also. So we'll look at the things in the physical world that correspond to these high forces.

People usually say that a man has five senses. Occultism only names three, namely smell, sight and hearing. Taste and the warmth sense lie between these. When I smell something I take very fine particles of the particular substance into my nose. Therefore in smell I perceive matter itself. But when I see with my eyes I only perceive an image of the object that's produced by a chemical process in the eye. Taste is a sense in between smell and sight. Although I take parts of the object into myself when I taste it, I don't perceive these parts directly as in smell, for I must first subject them to a chemical process to taste them. In hearing I perceive air vibrations and no objects. I also perceive particular oscillations when I feel warmth, but then my whole body perceives, whereas in hearing the perception of oscillations takes place in an organ that's especially developed for this.

The three Logoi are related to these three senses. The third Logos is so selfless that he lets his being resound through the world. The second streams himself out in pictures. The first Logos lets his own body stream out. That is the highest grade of selflessness, when one can let one's own essence flow out.

At the beginning of the world the first Logos began to let his being stream out; a fragrance filled world space. Let the world aroma be the first Logos. All material things originated from his body. He is the aroma of the world. Then the second Logos began to stream out and he wove pictures and forms into the world aroma. The world began to take on form; light and colors lit up. Then the third Logos sounded through the developing world. World aroma flowed in space, wonderful forms lit up, and the sounds of the third Logos surged through this shimmering, fragrant world.

Thus we can look upon the whole world around us as an outflow of the three Logoi and thereby gradually press forward to their true nature. Now a Logos does not work by himself—the three live and weave completely in each other so that each of the three also expresses himself in the other two. But we can't perceive the effects of the three equally well, because they stream out at different times.

When our chain of planets first saw the light the streaming out of the third Logos began. And his sound will only die out when our planet chain will have reached the end of its development. But the waves of the two other Logoi didn't first stream out at the beginning of our world chain, they came over to us from previous world evolutions. The flow waves of these two have a longer duration than those of the third Logos. But before our planetary chain reached its goal on the Sun, the streaming of the second had ended, and a new outstreaming began. This new outstreaming is what really belongs to our planetary system at which we too are working. Long before the new radiation of the second Logos had fully streamed out it prepared itself. It was such preparatory streams that brought Buddha, Zoroaster, Hermes and other founders of religion into the world. When the light of the second Logos shone in a preparatory way for the last time, it shone the brightest, and that was in Christ Jesus. When it shines again now it's the second Logos himself who radiates out his being anew.

The flow wave of the first Logos is even longer than that of the second one. When the second Logos has already been flowing along for some time, the first one's radiation is just dying away and begins his new outraying, that then only really belongs to our planetary chain. Thus the third Logos becomes the most clearly perceptible to us. He sounds loud and clear, and if we want to characterize his nature we say that he has a clear, vocalic sound: A.

The first and second Logoi also sound along in the third one, the first and third radiate as pictures in the second Logos, and the second and third Logoi stream out their aroma in the first Logos. But to begin with only the interactions of the first and second are discernable in the third Logos for us. Now if we can hear the clear, loud A of the third Logos, the sound of the second Logos can also be heard in there.

Since our second Logos is still developing, his tone still sounds dull and yet vocalically full, like U. Our first Logos who only arises in the future sounds along like a quiet, humming undertone as a dully consonantic M. Thus we have the sound of the most sublime powers expressed in AUM. That's the goal towards which we are all striving: to participate in the essence of these very sacred world forces. A human soul only has value for world evolution to the extent that it participates in these powers: AUM

The third Logos, sound, is entirely on the physical plane. We can generate sounds and take them in. Later on a man will be able to place the pictures of the outer world he receives via his eyes outside again as forms via his pineal gland and blood that he'll then have under control. He'll generate oxygen himself and convert the blue blood that goes to the heart into red blood without the use of outside air. And he'll give it for the creation of pictures and forms. When he's become still more selfless he'll be able to give out his own substances and create beings out of it by means of the pituitary gland and place them outside.

Let's make it clear to ourselves what's really brought about by meditation. Streams of spiritual life are always flowing through the world. These streams can't flow into us when we're thinking about everyday things. But our meditation words are like portals that are to lead us into the spiritual world. They have the strength to open up our soul so that the thoughts of our great leaders, the masters of wisdom and of the harmony of feelings can stream into us. For this to happen the deepest quiet must reign in us. We must realize that meditation is a very intimate soul activity. So we should let the meditation words given to us by our teacher live in our soul right after we wake up and before other thoughts have gone through our soul. But we shouldn't look upon them as stuff to speculate on and philosophize about; we should think as little as possible about their meaning and significance. We have enough time for reflection the rest of the day. We should hold that off completely while meditating. We shouldn't repeat the words meaninglessly but should be clear that the words open our soul to the instreaming of divine beings, just as a flower opens and lets in sunlight. High spiritual beings whom we call masters stream down to us. We should realize that it's mainly they who guide us and are near to us in meditation. We should also know that they walk on earth incarnated in a physical body. Thus we should let the meditation words live in our soul without pondering about them; rather we should try to grasp the words' spiritual content with our feelings and to permeate ourselves completely with it. The power of these words doesn't just lie in the thoughts, but also in their rhythm and sound. We should listen to this, and if we shut out all sensorial things we can say that we should revel in the sound of the words. Then the spiritual world sounds into us. Since so much depends on the sound of the words one can't translate a meditation formula into a foreign language without further ado. The mediation formulas we received in the German language were brought down from the spiritual world directly for us. Every formula has the greatest effect in the original language. When an East Indian wants to give the highest expression to his reverence for the Godhead who reveals himself in three Logoi, he summarizes his feeling in three times three words that describe the activity of the three Logoi:

But the whole wealth of spiritual strength is only reproduced if the words are said in Sanskrit, the original language. Then one hears how even the air resonates:

The same applies to the Lord's Prayer. Spoken in German, practically the only thing that's effective is the underlying thought. The Latin Pater noster has a better effect, but the whole power and fullness only come to expression in the original Aramaic.

So we should hear our way entirely into the sound of the words. With the word schoepfen (create, also means to scoop, drink) we should have an idea that's as graphic as possible, as if one were dipping out of one vessel into another. All of our thoughts should be as pictorial and as full of content as possible. While meditating the meditation words should receive inner life, but we should exclude all spatial ideas and cling entirely to our senses. For there's spatial perception on the physical plane but not in the astral world. But the color, light, sound, aroma and so on that are connected with the senses are also present in the astral world. That's why in meditation we should try to awaken a sensory idea that's as clear and full of content as possible. Spiritual beings express their nature in colors, sounds, aromas and everything that the senses perceive, and they flow into us when we connect ourselves with sensations. The first Logos streams on as a directly perceptible aroma. A being of a higher or lower nature lives in every odor. Very high, god beings live in incense; they draw us up directly to God. The lowest kind of beings are incarnated in musk scent. People who know about such things use musk for sensual attraction. Spiritual beings also live in sounds and colors, “In pure rays of light ...” One should get a bright, luminous mental image, one should see and feel how luminous streams flow down to one. Every meditation formula is equipped with strength to awaken slumbering forces. But if one always longs for new exercises one destroys the exercise's force and doesn't get its fruit.

In some elementary esoteric schools a pupil is told to think nothing but glass, glass, glass for 15 minutes every day, for instance. If he succeeds in really keeping all other thoughts out of his soul during this time, then his soul becomes quite empty and pure, and the forces slumbering in it awaken, if other influences aren't too strong. But our meditation formulas contain great spiritual forces; they are portals to the spiritual world. The exercises get ever simpler the more a pupil progresses.

We should never let a feeling of regret arise when we let the pictures of the day pass by us in reverse order. We shouldn't wish that we had been better, we should want to get better. We should think: I couldn't do otherwise back then, but now I can do it better and I will do it better in future. With every experience we should ask: Did I do it right; couldn't I have done it better? We should look at ourselves as a stranger, as if we looked at and criticized ourselves from outside. It's very important to be able to remember little details in our daily life. A general who won a big battle has a picture of it before his eyes that evening. But he forgot how he put his boots on and took them off again. If we see ourselves walking down a street we should try to remember how the rows of house ran, which store windows we passed, the people we met, how they and we looked. Then we see ourself going into a store and we recall which sales lady came towards us, what she had on, how she spoke, moved, etc. We must make a big effort to recall such details, and this strengthens the soul's forces.

With practice one can get to the point where the whole day's life runs through the soul, clear as wall paintings with all details in five minutes. This exercise is useless for someone who runs through the day superficially and just registers the events colorlessly. If a man walks a stretch and wants to bring this back he can stand still and try to remember what's behind him. Or he can turn around and look at where he's gone. If a period of time has passed we can initially only recall this with our memory and can't look back at the period of time that has elapsed. But this looking back that we only know in connection with space is also possible in time, and we learn to do it by trying to let the last day pass before us as clearly as possible in perceptible pictures. No event of the past is entirely gone, they're all there in the Akashic record. This is the only way one learns to read it. Initially one only sees things that concern oneself from this, and gradually also other things. That's why the evening retrospect is such an important, indispensable exercise.

An esoteric will gradually notice that his memory is worsening, until it disappears, but it will be replaced by the ability to see the past directly.

The subsidiary exercises strengthen the pupil's soul character, bring it into the right form, and make the results of meditation good. If one chooses a match for the first exercise one has to make a real effort to think about this at least five times every day. It's this effort that awakens the soul's forces. What does a match look like? What kinds of matches exist? How are they made? For what are they used? Where are they stored? What harm can they do? etc. After awhile one will get a feeling of inner certainty and firmness after the exercise. One should pour this into one's head and spinal cord, as if it were water.

Initiative in actions is the second exercise. One chooses actions that one wouldn't have done otherwise and one does them every day at a particular time. Simple exercises that one has to force oneself to do are the most effective to start with. Here again one soon notices a feeling of firmness and the urge to be active. One should pour this feeling like water down from the head to the heart to incorporate it completely.

In the third period one begins to put an end to all fluctuations in one's soul life. All rejoicing up to heaven—saddened to death must disappear. No pain should depress one, no joy should bring one outside of oneself. Fear, excitement and lack of composure must disappear. Thereby a feeling of quiet equanimity becomes noticeable like an inner warmth. One concentrates this feeling in the heart and lets it radiate from there into hands and feet, and then towards the head. After the third period one develops what one calls positivity in one's soul. One also tries to see the good and beautiful in the worst, ugliest and most terrible things, as the Persian legend about Christ tells us. One day one will have a feeling of inner bliss. One concentrates this in the heart, lets it radiate to the head and then out through the eyes.

In the fifth period one practices never letting one's future be determined by the past. One must become entirely unbiased, take in everything, open one's soul. If someone says to one: The church steeple turned last night, one shouldn't laugh at him but should think: Maybe there's a law of nature that I don't know yet. Then one will soon get the feeling that something is streaming into one from the space outside. One sucks this in through eyes, ears and the whole skin, as it were. Then in the sixth period all five exercises should be done at once, to give a harmonious blend. One should also try not to take too much time in doing the morning meditation and the evening review.

One who wants to become a real esoteric should realize that he attains something now that all men will attain later. And he must be clearly aware that great tasks will be given him someday, that he'll be used for the further development of mankind in the future. This thought, this goal must live in him entirely, otherwise he's not an esoteric in the true sense. And if he develops himself into the future like this his eyes will also be opened about the past, and then the present becomes understandable out of the future and past. Thereby past, present and future become harmoniously united. The great masters put this into the sacred syllable AUM. That's one of many interpretations that can be given to this syllable. When we speak this syllable the great masters are here with us and the air resounds with the spiritual power of these sounds: AUM

From notes B: Mercury staff/snake of evil and of good that guides man in the overcoming of evil through his own power through knowledge (Mercury).

Asuras are spirits of the very greatest egoism who remained behind during Saturn evolution. They want to condense matter and compress it ever more so that it can't be spiritualized and brought back to its original condition. They're the dregs of the planetary evolution that goes form Saturn to Vulcan. The asuras inhabit the moon and from there they work on the men whom they want to drag down into the eighth sphere and thereby tear away from progressive evolution and its goal—the Christ. All those who strive towards the eighth sphere will eventually live on a moon.

AUM. One wards off bad influences when one says it in the right way; it connects man with the creating Godhead, the three Logoi. The evil beings who want to tear men away from the Godhead can't stand it. AUM must be spoken with the awareness:

A is atma, U is buddhi, M is the wisdom that directs the higher self to AUM.

Most people don't know much more about the word Logos than that it consists of five letters. What they say about these high beings, the three Logoi is often just dilettantish talk. A comprehensive, preparatory understanding is necessary to look into the world of the three Logoi. But men often think that they can understand the very highest things right away. “In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was a God. Everything was made by the same, and without it nothing that was made came into being.” If we let this opening of John's Gospel reverberate in our soul, we get an inkling that something very high is being referred to.

How is the present sun related to the Sun condition that preceded the Moon condition? An advancement has taken place. The present fixed-star sun was previously the planet Sun. The best forces and beings separated from the planet sun, and those that were less highly developed went on with the Moon and then with our earth. Every planet eventually becomes a fixed star.

Our earth is an ensouled being with lower and higher beings on it. When a planet develops into a fixed star the beings who are embodied on it also go higher. The best forces and beings of old Sun became the fixed-star sun. When our earth has gone through the Jupiter condition, and as Venus is almost a sun, the human being will be similar to the sublime beings who now live on the sun. And then what does a sun become? When a sun has attained maturity a zodiac forms. Zodiacs also arise and perish. Even more mighty and sublime beings work down from a zodiac than from a sun. The sun that shines down on us now will someday shine down as the stars of a new zodiac. The spirit beings of this new zodiac will be creative souls, creative beings at the highest stage of development. If we look at human development we also see organs that are standing at the end of their development and are withering, and others like the heart will be a voluntary muscle in future, and the larynx will creatively speak out human descendents with the word. This will begin when the earth planet becomes a fixed star and then a zodiac. Beings who went through worlds before the earth was Saturn sounded down the creative word when the earth was at the beginning of its evolution. “In the beginning was the word” should be taken quite literally. At the end of evolution man will be a being who creates through the word. He arose from a creative Logos and he'll later be a creative logos himself.

The creative word is the third Logos of the Trinity. He's the world sound that resounds through the world. A higher, more sublime power is the creative light. Man will also be a shining light later. Warmth that's raised to a higher level becomes light. In the future man won't just be sound—he'll become a radiant, shining being that is light. The creative light is creative for our world as the second Logos. The world aroma goes through the cosmos as the highest revelation; it's a higher principle of creation than world sound and world light. World sound is the third Logos, world light is the second Logos and the universe's aroma is the first, most creative and highest Logos. In folk sagas we have the opposite, bad aroma of the devil, that indicates that he's the destructive being of the world. In occultism one calls the eternal part of man that goes through all evolutions his personal, spirit aroma.

It's very important for moderns to get a strong dose of esoteric life. Plagues, epidemics and wars would rage among men in a terrible way if the wise masters hadn't decided to give mankind a deepening in the spiritual realm.

There have always been three kinds of esoterics who were developed in initiation schools: initiates, clairvoyants and adepts. In ancient times it often happened that initiates had a full understanding of spiritual truths and laws, although they weren't clairvoyant. Others in the same brotherhood were clairvoyant but couldn't understand what they saw, so the initiates explained it to them. Today there's less of a separation between clairvoyance and initiation. Whereas adepts were able to put what the clairvoyant saw and initiates explained to practical use. Adeptship must retreat almost entirely today. Our egotistical age can't make proper use of such high capacities. The highest adepts often only work into peoples' fates twice in two hundred years. Their strength is saved for special occasions. For men aren't yet mature enough for certain things. It would only have a harmful effect if one wanted to give them out. Even you, my brothers and sisters, couldn't receive some of the highest truths. If I would tell you such a truth this room would be empty in a few minutes. Even people who have reached a certain stage in esoteric training can't stand certain truths. And yet these are the very highest truths, and your training will eventually enable to you to receive them. But one who receives them too soon loses all support in life. Imagine that a narrow plank is laid over a deep abyss. How many of you would be able to walk over it without getting dizzy? Certainly not all. But if someone painted a path as wide as this plank on the floor of a room it would be easy to walk along the strip without going off to the left or right. And yet he's doing the same thing he'd have to do to walk the plank or strip on the ground. The strip's continuation is the physical world, the world of the senses. It gives men certainty, since it continually corrects wrong thoughts, feelings, etc. Now imagine that the physical world's barriers had fallen so that a man really floats in air without outer support. This is an experience that everyone must go through at some point.

You all know that the heart is just at the beginning of its development and that it will later be a very important organ One doesn't have to accept this on faith for simple observation and reflection lets one see this. It's the greatest riddle for modern scientists that the involuntary heart muscle is transversely striped just like the voluntary muscles this tells us that the heart will be a voluntary muscle in the future.

We speak of reincarnation and the law of karma. One can tell oneself: I don't believe in reincarnation, but I can assume that it exists. I'll act as if my assumption is true and wait to see what comes of it. A man who thinks and acts like this will make amazing discoveries. In everything that happens to him he'll think: I caused this in a past life and now bear the consequences of my own deeds. If such a man unconsciously did something foolish and he's punished for it, he'll think: I'll make myself aware of this foolishness, so that I can see that I was the one who brought on these ugly consequences. This is the real meaning of: Whoever hits you on the right cheek, turn the other one to him also.

Anyone who succeeds in looking for the cause of everything that hits him in himself has accomplished a great deal. One who does this will soon notice that it brings him forward, that he begins to loosen karmic chains and increasingly gets control of his life. Such a man treads his life's path freely and surely. One can verify all theosophical teachings in the same way. So let's all try to bring ever more spirituality into life and make the light and life that the great masters stream into us alive. You should all realize that the battles theosophy and especially esotericism will have to fight with the outer world will get ever bigger. There it's a matter of standing fast and being silent, my sisters and brothers, and stand fast, as you look at your goal and at the great masters who stand by us.