The Rudolf Steiner Archive

From the lecture in Stuttgart, June 14, 1921

If we consider the outstanding position of the human being in the universe, several important lines emerge above all. Firstly, the line parallel to the earth's surface, the horizontal. Secondly, that which distinguishes the human being from the animal, namely that the spinal column is vertical to the horizontal. Thus you have drawn two figures; first the horizontal line, and second the right angle. If you are aware of the significance of the horizontal line, which basically creates animality, and the significance of the right angle for man's place in the universe, then you associate certain mental images with the horizontal line and the right angle, which can therefore become symbols.

Freemasonry, which seeks to characterize the essence of man, has the spirit level and the right angle among its symbols. The other symbols are also modeled on the forces of the universe. How they are modeled on the forces of the universe will become clear from the following consideration.

You see, if we imagine the earth here: man moves on the earth, let us say so – I will therefore draw it radically – then it is the case that man has his direction here in the vertical and that the way he connects with the center of the earth is a triangle.

You have the triangle again as a symbol in the Freemasons' cult. Everything in this Freemasonry is taken from the configuration of the human being in the first degree. There you see the formation of symbolism. Symbolism is there where it appears in its essence, not arbitrarily invented. You only arrive at symbolism when you study it in reality. Symbolism is grounded in the universe, it is there somewhere. It is the same with the cult.

Instruction Lesson, Berlin, October 2, 1910

Ahriman prevents us from seeing anything other than how we see it today. For example, we see only the exterior of plants, the leaves, the cells and so on, but not the life force within. What is given in the lodge is intended to help overcome this veil of Ahriman.

There is no point in space where there are no forces at work in man. Now something grotesque must be said, which can only be said in a community like this one, where everything is considered sacred: There is nothing that varies so much from person to person as the brain. It is said that there are no two leaves on a tree that are the same. The brains of human beings are even more diverse. Seen clairvoyantly, the etheric brain contains many, many luminous spots, and these are different in all people. If one could photograph these luminous spots, which of course is not possible because they are in the etheric, one would recognize in the picture thus obtained the starry sky - without the planets. The brain is shaped like a hemisphere. If you could get close enough, you would find each of these constellations of glowing dots in the starry sky in different people.

The human brain is its most distinguished part. It is connected by spiritual forces with the uppermost part, so to speak, of the universe. Further down we come to the signs of the zodiac. These are connected with the twelve nerve cords of the sense organs. The higher the origin of the forces, the more varied is their effect; the nearer to the earth their starting-point, the more uniform is their effect. With the sun, it does not matter to us whether it is stationary or moving; for us human beings it matters that it sends us its forces from the east, then from the south, and then from the west. And we saw yesterday, when we discussed the altars, how it affects us. From the east: wisdom, which created us; from the south: beauty, in which everything reveals itself; from the west: the power, the strength with which we are now to continue to work in life.

All parts of our physical body are formed out of the higher forces. One of the most wonderful parts is the human eye (the eye is drawn on the board). Atma, Budhi and Manas have worked on it. We must know that their forces lie hidden in the eye. (These three forces are represented in the triangle.) What can we do with the eye? We can move it to the right, to the left, up, down. We can do this with our I. It works from the outside on the eye. This is indicated in these rays that go out from the triangle. But what does it fall on? On the veil that Ahriman has spread over everything. This is represented in the cloud lines. We have incorporated the astral body on the moon, behind which Ahriman is at work. So these cloud lines signify the astral body. In the etheric body, work has already been done on the sun so that the eye could one day become such a tool. The further away from the spiritual, the denser the body. The dense clouds indicate the etheric body. And in the physical body, too, work has already been done on Saturn to make it into an eye. The physical body is the densest, darkest part of the human being; here in the drawing, the dark black of the board.

If we often bring this picture before our soul, it will awaken soul forces. The human eye actually looks like this drawing (eye with the triangle). It has only become somewhat different through the skeleton. The form has grown somewhat.

We should allow everything we receive in the lodge in terms of symbols and teachings to take effect on our soul. But we cannot do this if we do not feel that we have become a different person through our initiation into the Temple. We must face life differently. This picture, the triangle with the eye, has an effect on us at night, but so does everything we see in the colorful chaos around us, for example, all the objects in a department store, the hideous posters on the advertising pillars, and so on. And if we let all this have the same effect on us as before, the effect of the symbols is simply lost.

When we absorb all these symbols and teachings with enthusiasm, it is the best in us that speaks. When we return to our external life and let the chaos of impressions rush in on us as before, then a discord arises in us. It will then seem to us as if it had been blind faith in authority that we had submitted to in the temple, while it was the best in us that felt that way – we just don't know that then. And so the conflicts arise to which many are subject.

The lady of the world should not remain a lady of the world in the same sense. If she has to live the life of a lady because of her social position or for other reasons, then she must do it. But she should not do it in the same way, with the same feelings. If she has to take part in coffee klatches, then she should do it out of conviction that she has an obligation to do so, of course. Theosophy should not turn us away from life, but should make us suitable for it – but she should do it with different feelings.

This is not the place for a moralizing lecture, but what I want to get at is this: everyone must make it their duty not to talk about Theosophy at such gatherings and so on and so on. Not at meals, not on ordinary occasions - and eating is an ordinary occupation - talk about Theosophy. In a word: do not gossip about Theosophy everywhere you meet, because then it becomes gossip. If you want to talk about it, then only when you come together specially for that purpose. Theosophy should be a sacred thing to us, and that is how it should be treated, and not in passing.

The ceremonies that have been performed so far, with the exception of the two columns, can be understood by those of the first degree. What follows now, the conclusion, can only be understood after a long time.

From a lesson in Cologne, May 7, 1912

In esoteric lectures, inspiration from the spiritual world and the means to inspire us to ascend into the spiritual world are given, and these are communicated to us in the M.E.

One such means is the right angle in its deep significance.

What the gods of the past did in their lodges and what everything present has become, we should now do in our rooms for the creations of the future.

From the teaching in Hanover, December 31, 1911

“Circles and standards” means: We adopt your customs.

From a teaching session, Munich, December 12, 1906.

Let us consider the Rose Cross: the wood of the cross is the dead, the roses are the life that springs from it.

From the instruction session in Berlin on February 8, 1913.¹

When the esotericist regularly performs his exercises and delves into the temple legend or the great cosmic images given to us in Theosophy, or into Jakob Böhme's “Morgenröte” and the other symbols as given in this temple, he will notice that it may seem as if at a certain moment his brain were incapable of thinking, as if a limit had been set to his thinking. This is how the esotericist should feel and inwardly experience. The average person sometimes has the same feelings, that his brain is refusing to work, but he does not come to the experience and awareness of this fact. People actually oversleep their whole lives; not only by sleeping at night, but also during the day they oversleep the most important events because they are completely absorbed by the impressions they receive from the senses. All those who, in an important time such as our own, have turned against what they could have attained as a spiritual current, who, however clever they were in and of themselves, refused to take in the spiritual, who therefore devoted themselves entirely to materialism, have likewise turned against everything spiritual after their death and developed a certain hatred there, which they then, as a power (or powers), hurled back into the physical world. Basically, this has always been the case since the 16th century, and these feelings of hatred make themselves felt in the physical world and have their effect there. The worlds are not separate from each other, they permeate each other.

We have also spoken of how, at the death of Christ Jesus at Golgotha, the physical body penetrated into the physical substances of the earth and how, from this, the strength arose for individuals to undergo martyrdom in the first post-Christian times. In his time, the etheric body of Christ also dissolved into the earth as an etheric substance, and this opened up the possibility for individual personalities to absorb this etheric substance, and thus certain tasks could be accomplished by these individualities here on earth.

The astral body of Christ also entered the astral substance (aura) of the earth at a certain time, and with that, human astral shells could be clothed again, which produced certain events on earth. And now the ego substance can be imparted to people. For even though Jesus of Nazareth left his three covers at baptism, part of the ego substance remained with the covers, and so this power of the earth was also added. ²

The new thing that is now gradually being revealed to people is a remembrance or repetition of what Paul experienced near Damascus. He saw the etheric form of Christ. But the fact that this is now to become visible to us is due to the fact that a new mystery of Golgotha has taken place in the etheric world, as it were. What took place here in the physical world at the crucifixion as a result of the hatred of people who did not understand, has now been repeated on the etheric plane through the hatred of people who, as materialists, entered the etheric world after death.

Consider once more how, in the Mystery of Golgotha, a cross was erected from dead wood, on which the body of Christ hung. And then we see that wood of the cross in the etheric world as sprouting, sprouting wood, green, living wood, charred by the flames of hatred, with only the seven blooming roses appearing on it, representing the sevenfold nature of Christ. And through this dying, this second dying of the Christ, it has become possible for us to behold that etheric body. Men will behold the densification, the dead part of the etheric body of Christ Jesus.

From the Berlin Instruction Conference, February 8, 1913, notes in another hand

The rose cross is the symbol for the second death of the Christ in the 19th century, for the death of the etheric body at the hands of the materialists. The consequence of this is that the Christ can be seen in the 20th century as I have often described to you, namely in the etheric body.

Notes from an instruction session without place or date

In Atlantis, everything that people had around them in nature had a perceptible language. The wisdom (contained in the waters) spoke to them of their Tao. In the dewdrop we have in our language the same term as the word Tao is for what the waters of wisdom revealed to man. Dew in Latin is ros, and cross is crux. Ros-crux denotes the same thing: the Tao-cross, the cross and the dew on the plants. This is the esoteric meaning of the Rosicrucian. ³

• 1. Cf. the lectures “Preliminaries to the Mystery of Golgotha”, GA 152.
• 2. See the lectures “The principle of spiritual economy in connection with questions of re-embodiment”, CW 109/111.
• 3. Cf. the remarks on pages 250f. and 323, and the esoteric lecture in Munich on June 1, 1907 in “The History and Content of the First Section of the Esoteric School 1904 to 1914”, CW 264.

Text based on a template with no indication of place or date with the handwritten note by Rudolf Steiner “Esoterikers. It is probably a transcription by Rudolf Steiner, but the original is not available.

Four mighty, exalted figures stand in space, one in each of the four directions. Thus they form the cosmic cross. They direct and guide the processes of the world and are the servants of the One who is the life of the sun. During each cosmic day, they are inspired in turn by the spirit of the sun. They are the primal forces that are mirrored in the three forces of thinking, feeling and willing in the cosmos and in the human soul. The one that is most powerful contains within itself the forces of the other three; it is the most perfect, and it is through it that the others can be seen and understood. He is the direct servant of the great spirit of the Sun and guides the future so that it becomes the present. The rays of his light bring knowledge to human souls. As if announcing a new day, his light shines from the east.

Each of these four figures is particularly in charge of one of the planetary developmental states of the earth. The three, which are the primal forces that are reflected in will, thinking and feeling, guided the past planetary states of the earth, which are referred to as old Saturn, old sun and old moon. The fourth particularly guides the state that is called the state of the earth itself. Therefore, it contains within itself the forces of the other three, repeating their effect on earth, and balances them by adding its own power. On its right side, in a northerly direction, stands the one that is particularly associated with Saturn's evolution. Its light shines in a bluish glow, weaker than that of the others. A lofty, stern figure, he is called by the name of Uriel. In the direction of the west stands he who is related to the evolution of the sun. His light shines in a golden radiance. A lofty, powerful figure, he is designated by the name of Raphael. In the direction of the south stands the one who is connected with the development of the old moon. His being shines in silvery white light. A sublime, loving figure, he is called by the name of Gabriel. The fourth, who contains within himself the powers of the others and adds his own power, radiates his light from the east in a pinkish hue and golden splendor. He guides and directs the evolution of the earth and therefore works into the future. A lofty, victorious figure, who bears the qualities of the other three, he is named after Michael. Thus the four mighty archangels stand and guide the processes of the world. Each of them is connected with one of the four limbs in man, for in each of the planetary conditions one of these limbs has been developed in the disposition. The fourth guides the development of the human ego. He is most intimately connected with humanity and is the direct servant of the mighty spirit of the sun. During the evolution of the earth, this mighty being descended to the earth in an earthly incarnation and connected himself with the earth and its further evolution. Three planetary stages of development have been, the fourth is, and in the future three more will follow. During these, at higher levels, that which was developed in the three first stages will be fully realized. With the powers of his ego, which man has acquired in the evolution on earth under the influence of the powerful Archangel Michael and through the power of Christ, which has been placed in him, he will be able to develop higher members within himself during these three following planetary conditions. He will be able to develop three higher members, but he will develop them within himself. Out of the four members he will grow three as a higher trinity. Outside of man, in the cosmos, this higher trinity is already there, but man must gradually draw it near so that it becomes internalized in him.

Just as the four limbs of man are related to the four archangels under whose influence they were predisposed, so there are cosmic powers associated with the three higher limbs of human nature. The future planetary states of development will be similarly directed and guided by exalted spiritual entities. They do not stand in the four directions of space like the four archangels, who form the cosmic cross, as if they had moved away from a common center, but they are connected to one another in such a way that they form a triangle, radiant with golden splendor. In the “I am that which was, is, and shall be,” they connect the three points of time: past, present, and future, weaving them into a unity. Into the four they will pour their power, not standing beside the four, but above the four.

During the evolution of the earth, the power of the fourth is added to the three that have gone before, and through this fourth the three are endowed with higher powers. And this fourth will be the mediator through which the higher trinity can reveal itself in its activities; through him it can shine into the four the new spiritual light, which is life, just as in man the fourth member, the I, has the powers within it which the three higher members, spirit self, spirit of life, spiritual man, will develop and set them in motion.

At the turning-point of planetary evolution, in the fourth, the earth state, the first impulse was given so that the forces of the higher trinity could continue to work in the three that followed. The same power that lived on earth in Jesus Christ and united with the earth when the Word was made flesh will continue to work in a threefold way in the three following planetary conditions, the fifth, sixth and seventh, which are designated as the Jupiter, Venus and Vulcan conditions. The three higher members of man are connected with these three powers. On earth, the power of Christ has given the human ego the possibility of developing these limbs within itself in the future. In the next planetary state, the Jupiter state, the human being will connect with the forces that reveal themselves in the cosmos as the “Holy Spirit” by developing the spirit self. He will partake of this Holy Spirit through his spirit self. In the subsequent planetary state, the Venus state, he will unite with the forces that reveal themselves cosmically as the 'Son' through the development of the spirit of life. Through the development of the spirit of life, he will be the son himself. And in the last planetary state, the Vulcan state, he will connect with the cosmic forces that are referred to as the “Father” through the evolvement of the spiritual man. As a spiritual man, he will become one with the Father; he will be in the Father and the Father will be in him.

Thus man has developed within himself the powers of the golden triangle. Then it will reveal itself in him by the sounding within him of the divine creative Word, which has poured its power into this triangle. This divine Word was the beginning of all things; it had put its power, its life, into all things. In the evolution of the world, it had gradually been lost to people, for fewer and fewer people were able to hear it resound within themselves and in the outer world. It seemed to have been scattered into many individual syllables and letters, and at first no one could understand the connection between these letters. It was impossible for anyone to put together a word from the syllables that was a living, creative sound in itself. Hidden in the deepest sources of existence rested the golden triangle on which this word had been preserved. There it was inscribed. At first it was inaccessible to man. But once, when the sound of the word seemed to have faded away completely, when the darkness was at its deepest, it revealed itself again to mankind and showed its power. Since then, there has remained within man an echo like a memory of its sound. This has made it possible for man to one day rediscover it within himself and in the outside world. Every human being becomes a seeker of the word when he begins to develop the higher limbs within himself, to build the golden triangle within himself. Then he will find it one day. And just as he gradually develops the higher trinity within himself until it can reveal itself in a unity, so he will learn to spell syllable by syllable until it resounds vividly in his own soul and he comprehends the divine creative word in his being.

The meaning of the two columns was always explained through the Golden Legend or the Legend of the Wood of the Cross (first mentioned in the lecture Berlin, 29 May 1905). For this reason, the Golden Legend and the explanations given about it are included here.

The Golden Legend

Text from Rudolf Steiner's original manuscript
Note sheet Archive number 6954

Adam had two sons

Cain = the self-seeking human

Abel = the revelation-seeking human

Abel fell because of Cain's actions. Abel's inheritance went to Seth. Seth reached the entrance to Paradise. There he was not held back by the cherub with the flaming sword.

This is the symbol that Seth was the progenitor of the initiated priesthood. The cherub now gave him three seeds (the higher man = atma - budhi - manas). After Adam had died, Seth placed the three seeds in Adam's mouth as instructed by the cherub.

The bush that grew from it had within itself the writing in fire.

Ehjeh - ascher - Ehjeh (I-am-I)

Moses took from it the three-part branch from which he formed his staff.

David planted this rod in the ground on Mount Zion. Solomon took the wood from it to make the entrance gate of the temple

Only the pure could pass through there.

The Levites, in their folly, immersed these three pieces in the pool of Bethesda.

At the time of Christ, the Jews laid the wood as beams across the Kidron Valley.

Christ walked across this after his nocturnal arrest on the Mount of Olives.

And the cross was also made from this wood.

Text from Marie Steiner's original manuscript

Adam had two sons:

Cain, the representative of humanity that works in self-awareness, and Abel, the representative of that humanity that receives all its gifts as a higher gift and revelation.

Self-awareness must pass through guilt. Cain kills Abel. Abel's gifts pass to Seth.

When Seth had re-entered paradise after the double fall of man (Eve and Cain), he saw how the

tree of knowledge and the tree of life

had united.

The tree of knowledge means human knowledge.

The tree of life means God-revealed wisdom.

The cherub with the flaming sword now gave Seth three seeds; in them were all the seeds of the united trees.

After Adam's death, Seth placed the three seeds in his mouth; a bush grew from them and in the middle of it was the “name of God”:

Ehjeh ascher ehjeh = I am I.

Moses formed his staff from the bush. This rod was eternally greening and was later kept in the Ark of the Covenant.

David planted the rod in the ground near Zion;

Solomon made

three columns

from its wood.

These are: Jakin, Boaz and M.

The Levites took the columns and threw them into the pool of Bethesda.

At the time of Christ, the columns were removed from the pool and laid in the form of a bridge over the Kedron stream.

Jesus crossed this bridge to the Mount of Olives.

Then his cross was made out of it.

Notes on the Golden Legend

Since only a few notes from instruction hours have been handed down, those given during the Munich Congress at Pentecost 1907 on the two columns set up there will be reproduced first.

From a lecture in Munich, May 21, 1907.

What do the two columns mean to the Rosicrucians? If one wants to explain these two columns, which are standing here before us, one must start from the so-called Golden Legend. This says:

When Seth, the son of Adam - who had taken the place of Abel - was ready, he was allowed to gain an insight into Paradise, he was allowed to pass the angel with the sword whirling in the fire, into the place from which man had been expelled. Then Seth saw something very special. He saw how the two trees, the tree of life and the tree of knowledge, entwined each other. From these two entwined trees, Seth got three seeds, took them with him and put them in the mouth of his father Adam when he had died. From the grave of Adam then grew a mighty tree. This tree appeared to some who had psychic senses, as if it were aglow with fire, and this fire coiled itself for him who could see into the letters B, the first letters of two words that I am not authorized to pronounce here, but the meaning of which is: “I am who was there; I am who is there; I am who will be there.” This tree divided into three parts. Seth took wood from it, and it was used in many ways in the evolution of the world. A staff was made from it; the magic wand of Moses, legend says. It was the same wood that was used to form the beams of Solomon's Temple. There they remained as long as men comprehended the ancient secrets. Then the wood was thrown into a pool wherein, at certain seasons, the lame were made whole, and the blind received their sight. After it was taken out again, it formed the bridge over which the Redeemer passed as he made his way to the cross. And at last, so the legend goes, the cross itself, on which the Savior hung, was fashioned out of the wood of this tree, which had grown out of Adam's mouth after the seeds of the entwined trees of life and knowledge had been placed in his mouth.

This legend has a deep symbolic meaning. Remember the process, the transformation that the disciple must think of when he goes through the fourth stage of the Rosicrucian training: the production of the Philosopher's Stone. We remember that it has to do with a certain treatment of our red blood. Let us think of the significance of this red blood, not only because Goethe's saying “Blood is a very special juice” points this out to us, but because occultism has taught it at all times. The way this red blood appears is a result of breathing oxygen. We can only briefly point this out. When we are now referred to such an important moment in the legend and in the Bible, to the re-entry of Seth into Paradise, we must remember how man was brought out of Paradise. Man was driven out of Paradise, his ancient state in the bosom of the higher spiritual world, by the following event, which is already hinted at in the Bible as the physical process that goes hand in hand with the descent. Those who want to understand the Bible must learn to take it literally. It says: “God breathed into the man the breath of life, and he became a living soul.” This breathing of the breath was a process that is expressed here in pictorial terms and that extended over millions of years. What does it mean?

In the development of mankind, in the formation of the physical body, there were times when there were no lungs in the human body, so that oxygen could not yet be inhaled. There were times when man more or less floated in liquid elements, when he had an organ, a kind of swim bladder, from which the lungs later developed. This swim bladder from the past has been transformed into the lungs, and we can follow the process of transformation. When we do this, it shows itself to be the process that the Bible expresses with the image: “And God breathed into the man the breath of life, and the man became a living soul.” It was only with this breathing in of the breath that the production of red blood became possible. Thus, the descent of man is connected with the production of the red blood tree in his interior.

Imagine a man standing before you, and you could only follow the trickling of the red blood: you would have before you a living red tree. Of this the Christian esoteric says: It is the Tree of Knowledge. Man has usurped it, he has enjoyed the red blood tree. The establishment of the red blood tree, which is the true tree of knowledge: that is sin. And God drove man out of the Garden of Eden, lest he should enjoy also of the Tree of Life. We have another tree in us, which you can just as easily imagine as the former. But it has red-blue blood. This blood is a substance of death. The red-blue tree was implanted in man at the same time as the other. When man rested in the bosom of the Godhead, the Deity in him was capable of intertwining what his life and knowledge mean. And in the future lies the point in time when man, through his expanded consciousness, will be able to transform the blue blood into the red; then within himself will be the source for the blue blood tree to be a tree of life. Today it is a tree of death. Thus in this picture there is a looking back and a looking forward!

You see that in man a red blood tree and a red-blue blood tree are entwined. The red blood expresses the I, it is the lower part of the knowledge of the I. The blue blood expresses death. As a punishment, the blue blood tree, the tree of death, was added to the red tree of knowledge. In the distant future, this Tree of Death will be transformed into the Tree of Life, just as it was originally a Tree of Life. If you form a mental image of the human being standing before you, you will see that their entire life is based on the interaction of these two trees. ¹

The fact that Seth was allowed to enter Paradise again means that he was an initiate and was allowed to look back to the divine-spiritual state where the two trees were entwined. And he put three seeds of the entwined trees into Adam's mouth, from which a tree divided into three arose. This means that the tree that grows out of man, Manas, Budhi, Atma, these three parts that make up the upper part of man, are found in him by nature. The legend thus indicates how the trinity of the divine is already in Adam in his human nature, how it grows out of him and how it is initially seen only by the initiate. Man must go his path of development. All the things that have taken place in the development of mankind and that lead to initiation are further expressed to us in the legend.

From the realization that the threefold tree rests within us, the tree of the eternal, which expresses itself in the words: “I am that was – I am that is – I am that will be!” we gain the power that moves us forward and gives us the magic wand. Hence Moses' magic wand; hence the wood of the tree growing out of the seed is taken to the temple of wisdom; hence the cross is hewn out of it, that sign of initiation which signifies the overcoming of the lower limbs in man by the three higher ones.

Thus this legend shows how the initiate looks forward to a future state in which the tree of knowledge - the red blood tree - and the tree of life - the blue-red blood tree - will be entwined, where they will intertwine in man himself. Now, he who wishes to develop inscribes in his heart what the two columns - the red column on the one hand, suggesting the red blood column; the blue-red, suggesting the blue blood column - want to tell us. Today, both are separate. Therefore, in the hall, the red column stands on the left and the blue-red column on the right. They want to challenge us to overcome the present state of humanity, to direct our path to the point where, through our expanded consciousness, they will intertwine in a way that is called: J-B. The red column is designated J, the blue-red column B.

The sayings on the columns will help you to visualize the connection between the individual columns. The words on the red column are:

In pure thoughts you will find
the self that can sustain itself.

When you shape your thoughts,
you experience the creative wisdom.

Those who meditate on this instill into their red pillar of blood, through the power of their thought, the power that leads to the goal: the pillar of wisdom.

The power needed for the pillar of life is implanted by surrendering to the thought that stands on the other, the blue column:

If you condense feeling into light,
you reveal the creative power.

If you reify will into being,
So you create in the world being.

Some words lead to knowledge, others to life. The formative power first “reveals” itself in the sense of the first saying; it only becomes “magical” in the sense of the second saying. The transition from mere power of knowledge to magical working lies in the transition from the power of the saying on the first column to that of the saying on the second.

Thus you see how what these symbols, the two columns, mean, is directly related to the ideals and goals of the Rosicrucian student. In some esoteric societies, these two columns are also erected. The esotericist will always associate the meaning that has been attached to them. ²

From a teaching session in Munich, December 12, 1906

The Second Master Legend ³tells us of Seth, the son of Adam, who is initiated into the priestly wisdom, is allowed to enter Paradise again, takes three seeds from there, places them in the mouth of his father Adam when he died, and from which the fresh bush then grows. The rod with which Moses performs his miracles is made from its wood; it is the burning bush in which the Lord appears to Moses. The gate of Solomon's Temple is made from its wood: two columns with the beam above, which was thrown into the pool of Bethesda, generating its healing power. This wood was laid across the Kidron Valley, which Christ crossed after the betrayal on the Mount of Olives. And from this beam, Christ's cross was then made.

The red blood and the blue blood mean the Pillar of Wisdom and the Pillar of Strength. Man must be able to stand on these two pillars. The tree of life and the tree of knowledge were entwined in paradise to form one tree. And the tree of life and the tree of knowledge will become one tree again for the wise, for the initiate; it had to be separated into two trees for man.

The writing that appeared to Moses in the burning bush: “Ejeh asher ejeh!” is translated as: “I am that I am; I was that I will be!”

With birth and death, man has paid for his knowledge. The angel Gabriel is the one who guards the threshold of paradise with a fiery sword as the guardian of paradise.

Instruction session for the 2nd Berlin, December 1911 without date

Thus the angel appeared to Adam in Paradise under the fig tree. Adam saw this sign as the angel's image and Adam vowed that he would never stray from the power that is documented in J-B.

And Adam always found strength and fulfillment when he sought out the place where the apparition was possible.

But in the Lemurian time he had done just that and strayed from the power of J.B. through Lucifer, who brought temptation. And when Adam sought out the place of the angel's appearance again, he now felt terror over his own being there. The pentagram was fallen, open on one side (and thus) turned upside down. It was in this sign that the angel now appeared to Adam, threatening him with the fiery sword, and Adam fled.

Participant records without location or date

Adam had two sons, Abel and Cain.
Abel means wisdom
Cain means strength. Cain killed Abel.
Another son was born to Adam: Seth.
Seth means piety, which connects wisdom
with strength.

Adam died, and Seth put three seeds in his mouth. From these seeds three branches sprouted from one trunk. This grew. The thorn bush in which Jehovah appeared to Moses had grown from this trunk. The two columns of the temple of Solomon were made from this wood. But it turned out that there was no place for the third trunk to join the two columns, it did not fit anywhere. So they threw it into the pool of Bethesda. When the Lord came, he gave a power to the pond, and the trunk came up again. It was lifted up and laid as a bridge over the Kidron brook. Now over this bridge the Lord went on the way to Golgotha. The cross, which he carried, was also carved out of wood and he broke down under the load.

The crossbeam, which is to connect wisdom and strength, is the principle of piety, love, beauty. In pre-Christian times there was no place for it in the world. When Christ Jesus came, as the bearer of Budhi, his power could lift this beam out of the water - the astral plane - in which it rested. A river was bridged with it (the way to the higher worlds). He crossed it on his way of suffering when He offered Himself as a sacrifice for humanity. This could only be done through love, purified, refined love; hence the way over this beam.

The cross was also cut from this wood. He had to bear and suffer under His love for humanity. But in Him love and knowledge were united. Therefore his sacrifice was a perfect and eternal one, and the three tribes of wisdom, beauty, and strength were united, for beauty had found its place. In the future, the three tribes, which had flowed apart like three streams, would grow together like three streams that then flow together again, and come to full effect in unity.

Seth connects the hostile brothers Abel and Cain.

The connection between wisdom and strength is piety or love or beauty.

For the meaning of the name of the column, see “Signs, Handles and Words” on pages 272f.

An historical aspect of the significance of the two columns was developed in the lecture Berlin, June 20, 1916 (third lecture of the cycle “Weltwesen und Ichheit”, CW 169) as follows:

It is truly the case that we move through the whole of life as the sun moves through the twelve constellations. We enter our life with our consciousness for the senses, as it were, rising at one column of the world and setting at the other. We pass between these columns when we enter the starry sky, as it were, from the night side into the day side. These occult or symbolic societies also always sought to point this out by calling the column of birth, which a person passes through when they enter the life of the day side, Jakim. They have to look for this column in the sky in the end. And what is outside during the time between death and a new birth is the perception of the sense of touch spread over the whole world, where we do not touch but are touched, where we feel how spiritual beings touch us everywhere, while we touch the other. During the life between death and a new birth, we live in motion within it, so that we feel this motion as if a blood corpuscle or a muscle here within us were feeling its own motion. In the macrocosm, we feel ourselves moving between death and a new birth, we feel the balance, and in the life of the whole we feel ourselves within it. Here our life is closed in our skin, but there we feel ourselves inside the total, the All-life and in every situation we give ourselves our balance. Here the gravity of the earth and our particular body constitution give us balance, and we actually know nothing about it. At all times we feel the balance in the life between death and a new birth. This is an immediate sensation, the other side of the soul life. Man enters into earthly life through Jakim, and he affirms through Jakim: That which is outside in the macrocosm now lives in you; you are now a microcosm, because the word 'Jakim' means: In you the divine poured out over the world.

Boaz, the other column: entering the spiritual world through death. What is summarized in the word Boaz means something like: What I have been seeking in myself so far, the strength, I will find poured out over the whole world, in it I will live. But one can only understand such things by penetrating into them through spiritual knowledge. In the symbolic brotherhoods they are symbolically hinted at. They are hinted at more in our fifth post-Atlantic period for the reason that they may not be lost to humanity altogether, so that later on there may be people who will understand what has been preserved in the Word.

But you see, everything that takes place outwardly in our world is also a reflection of what exists outside in the macrocosm. Just as our soul life is a microcosm, in the sense that I have indicated to you, so too is the soul life of humanity, in a sense, formed from the macrocosm. And for our time, it is very significant to have the two images of the two columns that I have spoken of delivered in our history. These columns represent life one-sidedly, because life is only in a state of equilibrium between the two. Neither is Jakim the life, because it is the transition from the spiritual to the body, nor is Boas the life, because it is the transition from the body to the spirit. It is the balance that is important. And that is what people find so difficult to understand. People always look for one side, always the extreme, they do not look for the balance. That is why, in a sense, two pillars really do stand for our time, but if we understand our time correctly, we must go right through the middle of them, not fantasize either the one pillar or the other into being the fundamental force of humanity, but go right through the middle of them! We must really grasp what is present in reality, not brood over it in the thoughtless life in which today's materialism broods. If you look for the Jakim column today, you will find it in our present time. The Jakim column exists in a very important man who is no longer alive, who has already died, but it exists: it is present in Tolstoyism.

Consider that in Tolstoy a man appeared who basically wanted to distract all people from the outer life, wanted to refer entirely to the inner life - I spoke about Tolstoy in the early days of our anthroposophical movement - who wanted to refer entirely to what is going on inside the human being. Tolstoy did not see the spirit in outer activity, a one-sidedness that struck me as particularly characteristic when I spoke about Tolstoy back then – it was one of the very first lectures of the very first years that were held here. At the time, Tolstoy could still be shown through a friend of ours. Tolstoy understood the first two-thirds, but not the last third, because it was about reincarnation and karma; he did not understand that. He described the one-sidedness, the complete suppression of the outer life. And how endlessly painful it is to realize that he is describing such one-sidedness! Just imagine the tremendous contrast between the Tolstoyan views, which dominate a large part of Russia's intellectuals, and what is now once again rolling over from there in these days. Oh, it is one of the most terrible contrasts imaginable! That is one-sidedness.

The other, the Boaz column, also finds expression in our time in historical terms. It likewise represents a one-sidedness. It is the search for spirituality in the outer world alone. A few decades ago, it appeared in America, where I would say the antipode of Tolstoy emerged in Keely, before whose soul stood the ideal of constructing an engine that is not driven by steam or electricity, but by those waves that a person themselves excites in their tone and in their speech. Imagine an engine that is designed to be set in motion by the vibrations that you create when you speak, or that you can create as a human being with your soul. It was still an ideal, thank God, that it was an ideal back then, because what would this war have become if Keely's ideal had actually been realized back then! If it is ever realized, only then will we see what the attunement of vibrations in external motor power means. That is the other one-sidedness. That is the Boaz column. We must pass between the two. The symbols that have been preserved contain much, much. Our time is called upon to understand these things, to penetrate into them. The contrast that will one day be felt between all that is truly spiritual and that which will arise from the West when the Keely engine becomes a reality will be quite different from the contrast that exists between Tolstoy's views and that which is emerging from the East. Oh, there is no need to talk about that!

But it is necessary that we gradually delve a little into the secrets of the development of humanity, that we recognize how, in the wisdom of man, what once becomes reality in different stages is expressed throughout the millennia, either symbolically or in some other way.

The Golden Legend

This legend was also told and explained in various ways in the lectures given by members during the preparation of the working group on the cult of knowledge. See the lectures Berlin, May 29, 1905; Leipzig, December 15, 1906; Berlin, December 17, 1906; Munich, May 21, 1907; Kassel, June 29, 1907; Basel, November 25, 1907; Dornach, December 19, 1915. When it was first presented in the lecture in Berlin on May 29, 1905, it was called the Legend of the Cross of the Middle Ages, but from then on it was always referred to as the “Golden Legend”. This naming was certainly not done after the name of the collection of legends “Legenda aurea” by Jacobus de Voragine from the 13th century, but is likely to be more esoterically based. Because according to the explanations, the images of the legend are an expression of the fourth stage of the Rosicrucian initiation, which is referred to as the finding of the Philosopher's Stone, which is also called the “golden” one.

In the collection “Legenda aurea”, the legend can be found under the title “Of the Finding of the Holy Cross”. The corresponding part reads as follows: “When Adam was sick, his son Seth went to the gate of earthly paradise and desired oil from the tree of compassion to anoint his father Adam's body and make him healthy. Then the archangel Michael appeared to him and said: “Do not seek to obtain the oil of the Tree of Compassion and do not weep for it, for this shall not be yours until five thousand and five hundred years have passed.” Yet it is believed that no more than five thousand one hundred and ninety-nine years have passed between Adam and Christ's suffering. We also read that the angel gave Seth a little twig and told him to plant it on Mount Lebanon. In a Greek story, which is apocryphal, we find that the angel gave Seth of the wood where Adam had sinned, saying, “When this twig bears fruit, your father will be healed.” When Seth returned home, his father had already died; so he planted the branch on his grave, and the branch grew and became a great tree, lasting until the time of Solomon. Whether this is true or not, we leave to the reader's judgment, for we find it written in no proven history or chronicle. When Solomon saw how beautiful the tree was, he had it cut down and gave it to build the forest house. But the wood did not fit into any place of the house, as Johannes Beleth writes to us, for it was always too long or too short; because if you had shortened it according to the right measure for a place, it was so short that it never fit into it. The builders were angry and rejected the wood; and they laid it over a lake so that it could be used as a footbridge for those who wanted to cross. But when the Queen of Sheba had heard of Solomon's wisdom and was on her way to him across the lake, she saw in a vision that the Savior of the world would one day be suspended from this wood; so she did not want to walk across the wood, but knelt down and worshiped it. But in the Historia Scholastica it is said that the Queen of Sheba saw the wood in the forest house, and when she returned home to her country, she commanded Solomon that a man would be hanged on that wood, through whose death the kingdom of the Jews would be destroyed. So Solomon took the wood and had it buried deep in the bosom of the earth. After a long time, the Sheep Pond was built over the same place, where the Nathinäer washed the sacrificial animals; and so the movement of the water and the healing of the sick happened not only through the coming of the angel, but also through the power of the wood. Danun approached the suffering of Christ, when the wood floated up; when the Jews saw it, they took it and prepared the cross of the Lord from it.” The oldest literary-historical basis is considered to be the tradition, cited by the Alexandrian church teacher Origines in the 2nd century, of Adam's burial at Golgotha, to which the tradition of Nicodemus's gospel of Seth's mission to paradise is added in the 3rd century; originally with the version that Seth fetched the oil of mercy from the tree of life for his sick father Adam. It was only in later centuries that the genealogical connection between the wood of the tree of paradise and the cross of Christ appeared in various versions. The legend of the three grains of wheat forms a separate group within the “extremely complicated tangle of legends”, which emerged from the 12th century onwards. (See the religious historical studies by Otto Zöckler “The Cross of Christ”, chapter “The Legends of the Cross of Wood in the Middle Ages.” Gütersloh 1875).

Rudolf Steiner, who freely uses these and other elements in his various renditions, but above all has Seth retrieve the three seeds from the two paradise trees entwined into one, traces the origin of the legend back much further, to the pre-Christian mysteries. When he was asked about the legend for the first time in the lecture Berlin, May 29, 1905, he was asked whether it was very old. He replied that although it only appears in the literature of the Middle Ages, it was already part of the mysteries and had simply not been written down. It ties in with the Antiochian Adonis Mysteries, in which the crucifixion, entombment and resurrection were celebrated as an outward reflection of the inner initiation. The mourning women at the cross, who appear in Christianity in Mary and Mary Magdalene, also appeared in the Adonis Mysteries. Similar things happened in the Apis, Mithras and Osiris Mysteries. What was then still apocalyptic was fulfilled in Christianity. Just as John presents the future in his Apocalypse, so similarly the old apocalypses were transformed into new legends. The Queen of Sheba is the one who looked deeper and recognized the actual wisdom. In the lecture Kassel, June 29, 1907, the legend is also characterized as the teaching content of occultism since “ancient times.” It says there about Seth that “his mission” was always understood to be that he sees what “is at the end of time: the balancing of the two principles in man himself.” The two principles here refer to the red and red-blue blood trees, symbolized by the two columns.

These not only figured in the cult of knowledge, but also formed an essential element in the design of the Munich Congress at Pentecost 1907. They were set up in front of the stage and also depicted pictorially in the fourth mural of the seven apocalyptic seals, connected by a seven-colored rainbow. Since the premiere of the third mystery drama, “The Guardian of the Threshold” (1912), they have been part of the scenery of the last scene (temple) due to Rudolf Steiner's stage direction.

In the lecture on the design of the congress hall in Munich, May 21, 1907, it says that the red column (to the left of the spectator) is designated by J, and the blue one (to the right of the spectator) by B, and that these letters are the initials of two words which he is not authorized to pronounce here, he certainly did not mean the names Jakin and Boas, known from the Bible (1 Kings 7:21), which were taken over by Freemasonry. This is evident from the report on the congress for the magazine “Lucifer-Gnosis”, according to which these letters on the columns point to the secret of development associated with them, which Rudolf Steiner presented in a modern, spiritual-scientific way, in a way “known only to the initiated”. All the interpretations given in public writings or in certain societies remain only a superficial exoteric interpretation.

Nevertheless, such an interpretation will be used here because it sheds light on the significance of the columns in cultural history. In the “Comparative Handbook of the Symbolism of Freemasonry with Special Consideration of the Mythologies and Mysteries of Antiquity” by Joseph Schauberg, Schaffhausen 1861 (in Rudolf Steiner's library), it says in volume I, pages 205f., that in the masonic lodge, the ascending sun and the descending moon are not without significance, standing opposite the two columns. Their significance as the eternal change of “day and night, light and darkness, becoming and passing away, life and death, good and evil, pure and impure, true and false” belonged to the most ancient times of the Egyptians and Semites and “presumably the two towers of the cathedrals and churches of the Christian Germanic peoples of the Middle Ages also emerged from this... In Egypt, two tall obelisks were often erected in front of the entrance to the temple, and in Egyptian these obelisks are called the sun's rays... Among the Semitic peoples, especially among the Syrian tribes and the Phoenicians, two columns of wood, bronze or stone appear in the sanctuaries of the gods as divine symbols. Thus in the ancient temple of Melkarth at Tyre, which shone with gold as the symbol of the splendor of sunlight, i.e. the city king, there stood two famous columns, one of pure gold, which King Hiram, the contemporary and friend of King Solomon, had erected; the other of emerald stone, which shone gloriously at night. In the temple of Melkarth at Gades there were also two columns of brass, eight cubits high, on which the costs of the temple's construction were recorded. But the greatest columns were said to have been erected by the god himself at the end of the earth, the rock mountains Calpe and Abylyx on the Strait of Gibraltar. According to coins found, two trees, especially two cypresses, also appear to have stood at the entrance of some temples in Syria as symbols of the sun and moon. In front of the eastern side of Solomon's Temple stood the two columns Jakin and Boaz, whose names were transferred to the two columns of the masons' lodges. Movers explains Jakin from the Phoenician as the fixed, the upright, Boaz as the moving or progressing...

The columns are also called Sets or Seth's columns of the sun god, since Set - according to Bunsen, Egypt's place in world history V, $. 291 - is the oldest documented name of the sun god... Incidentally, in Hebrew, as in Egyptian, Set also means the column itself, in fact, anything upright, raised, or tall...»

In volume II, page 203, the following passage is quoted from the Masonic Constitutional Charter of York from the year 926: «Cain's son, Enoch, was especially a great builder and astrologer. He foresaw in the stars that the world would one day be destroyed by water and another time by fire, and therefore set up two great pillars, one of stone and the other of clay, on which he wrote the basic principles of the arts, so that the sciences of Adam and his descendants might not be lost.

"These are therefore the Pillars of Seth or Enoch, as the two columns Jakin and Boaz are also called, without, however, this Jewish-Masonic myth being given much use in today's Freemasonry... ”

An explanation of the columns as “world columns”, as columns of birth and death and the names Jakin and Boas, is given by Rudolf Steiner in the lecture Berlin, June 20, 1916: “Man enters into earthly life through Jakin, affirming through Jakin: that which is outside in the macrocosm, that now lives in you, you are now a microcosm, because that is what the word “Yakin” means: in you the divine poured out over the world.” ”Boaz, the other column: the entry through death into the spiritual world. What is summarized in the word Boaz means something like this: What I have been seeking in myself, the strength, I will find poured out over the whole world, and I will live in it.

This characterization is followed by the essential indication that the columns, however, represent life only one-sidedly, because life is only in the state of equilibrium between the two: “Neither is Jakin the life, because it is the transition from the spiritual to the body, nor is Boas the life, because it is the transition from the body to the spiritual. Equilibrium is what matters.” This balance was pictorially represented by Rudolf Steiner on the fourth apocalyptic seal - as a new element compared to the traditional tradition - by the rainbow connecting the two columns."

• 1. A description of the connection between the two columns and birth and death can be found in the lecture Kassel, 7 July 1909; the pictorial representation in the great dome of the first Goetheanum (in the triple motif “I-A-O” above the stage arch) also points to this aspect. See “Twelve Sketches for the Painting of the Great Dome of the First Goetheanum”, an art portfolio, Dornach 1930, and Hilde Raske “Das Farbenwort”, Stuttgart 1983.
• 2. In the lecture in Dornach on December 29, 1918, it is pointed out that the columns in today's secret societies can no longer be set up in the right way, nor should they be set up, because the right way to set them up only becomes apparent in a truly inwardly experienced initiation. Furthermore, they cannot be set up in the way they actually appear when man leaves his body in death or in initiation.
• 3. The first master legend is the legend of the temple.

From an instruction session without place or date. ¹

When a person sees his reflection, he does not see himself in truth. For what he sees is not the truth about the person. Spiritually, the person is outside of his physical being. What he sees are the spiritually reflected rays that fall on him from the spiritual world. A person reflects spiritual light just as an object reflects sunlight. What a person sees of himself in the mirror is a reflection of his true being. Everything around us is a reflection of the spiritual world. In primeval times, before the so-called Fall of Man, man did not look outward as he does now. Then he saw inwardly, spiritually. This happened as follows: He breathed in a spiritual substance that was around him. Then he had within him what was previously outside: the spiritual substance. This was then reflected in him. For example, where the eye later developed, there was a small spiritual light, and so on. In this way he received inner knowledge. Outwardly he saw nothing. And so it was with all later senses. That was the paradise-like state of man. He lost this inner paradise through the influence of Lucifer. Only then did he begin to see himself as a physical being, from the outside, when his eyes were opened to the outside. And he was ashamed of this before God, in whom he had dwelt before. He was as if spiritually naked before the Deity.

• 1. Figured in the ritual for promotion to the 2nd degree.

Munich, December 12, 1906 ¹

The four elementary natures that permeate the universe are called:

1. Gnomes, who live in the earth.
2. Undines, who embody themselves in water.
3. Sylphs, who we imagine living in the air, and
4. salamanders, which we have to imagine living in fire.

Instructional session, Basel, September 24, 1912

It goes without saying that if we have devoted ourselves to our occult development for a long time, in the sense that we have done our exercises and meditations in the right spirit, we must also reach the point where we are granted an insight into the spiritual world. This moment will come for every human being at some time or other if we allow everything we are presented with here as rituals and symbols to take effect on us with true earnestness and devotion in connection with our daily exercises. For some it will come sooner, for others later, but for every human being it will come at some point.

Between the 16th and 19th centuries, it was very difficult to enter the spiritual worlds. At that time, one could not go much further than to certain imaginations, which, although they gave a sense, a feeling for higher worlds of existence, did not convey direct revelations from the spiritual world. In our time, since the last third of the 19th century, it was even more difficult to make the leap that brings a person out of their physical body and into the spiritual world. But once they have managed to ascend, it is easier today than it was in the past to experience many things in the spiritual world.

In the course of the twentieth century, people will begin to develop their dormant organs, and through these they will first of all be revealed that which lies immediately above the physical-sensual world, that which is announced to us through nature. You will find yourself, for example, at the seaside or anywhere else near water; then you will look at the water and no longer describe it only externally as a composition of hydrogen and oxygen, but you will feel the nature of the water quite differently. You will recognize in it a huge number of elemental beings that permeate the water and are basically the water. For water is the arena, the soul element of these elemental beings. This is also where the word “element” comes from.

These elemental beings have their existence in water and they also perish in it, namely when another element, fire, enters. The heat causes a drying process and causes the water to rise in the form of fog or moisture or even clouds. During this process, the clairvoyant notices how the elemental beings are paralyzed, even killed, as it were. But when the water cools down again or the rising mist forms dense clouds again, from which lightning strikes and rain falls to the ground, he sees how these beings come to life again, and even arise anew. In the process of evaporation and dying that takes place when water is heated and vaporized, these elemental beings release seeds, as it were, that in turn sprout when the water cools and condenses. Countless numbers of elemental beings are born when rain pours down on the earth, and we can experience the beneficial influence of these newly emerging beings.

The beneficial and life-giving effect of water on the human organism has been well demonstrated by the healing arts in recent decades, but they have also had to learn that this power, when used in the wrong way or in excess, can cause harm. Where warm (hot) water is used, there is the need to numb or to nullify the effect of the elemental beings. When cold water is used, there is the need to feel the life-irritating power of all these emerging beings.

The clairvoyant will notice many other things. To him, the clouds that are there for the ordinary eye during a thunderstorm as black, ominous, compressed clouds, will appear as luminous, bright clouds. And when lightning strikes the rain cloud and the rain pours down, he sees it as light pouring down on the earth. This is what the ancients experienced when they drank the soma. They had a connection with the elemental world, and for them, with the rain, light came down on the earth.

The clairvoyant sees other elemental spirits, beings that are at yet another stage of development. These beings fill the air that we inhale with every breath and that we exhale (without being defined in chemical terms) as a dead thing when it is consumed by us. To the ordinary perception, the inhaled air is the living air and the exhaled air is the air of death or the killing air. Seen spiritually, however, the inhalation is the death of the elemental beings of the air, and with the exhalation they come to life again. Thus, these beings permeate our entire organism and have been working from the very beginning to build it.

Now let us consider the question of what particular role these elemental beings of water play in evolution, and what role those of the air element play. In long-gone evolutionary epochs, when the human being still had a very different composition of his higher limbs than he does now, these elemental beings also worked quite differently. At that time, man did not yet have what we call language. The speech organs are integrated into the respiratory organs, which enable us to speak. Man uses language to express his soul or just for conversation, but that is only the case in the materialistic age we are living in now. In the age that preceded our materialistic one, the speech organs were also organs of perception. Language arose from the fact that the water elementals, while penetrating the germinal organs (germinal formation) of the larynx, slowly and gradually transformed them into the speech organ as it is today.

The people of that time did not yet make themselves understood through words, as we now communicate with each other. Since they still had the old clairvoyance, they looked into the spiritual world, into the world of the elements. And they experienced the whirring elemental beings around them while pronouncing sounds like our vowels A, I, U, by letting sound from within them what they experienced in images. In this way they also expressed their feelings and emotions when, for example, what they saw inspired sympathy or antipathy in them. This was also the case when they pronounced the word Tao, which resonated throughout nature; then they knew of the Great Spirit, the cause of all being. This word, which was thus also a spiritual perception, has been lost since the respiratory and speech organs became more independent of each other than they were in the past.

[This postscript ends here. In another, the following is added:]

Not only in the lungs do we have a breathing process, but also in the eyes. Only that there is no air inhaled and exhaled, but warmth. When we see a red color, warmth is exhaled (red, orange, yellow). If a cold color such as blue, indigo, violet is perceived, then the eye inhales. That which underlies the eyes in the etheric, just as air underlies the physical lungs, is warmth, and this is inhaled and exhaled. Fundamentally, every sense organ is a respiratory organ.

Higher beings, those who stand directly above man, have neither eyes such as these nor speech such as man's. They direct warmth somewhere and a color lights up at that point. This is how they express their essence and how they communicate with each other. Anyone who has ever perceived colors in this vivid form feels pain when they see the solid colors that adhere to physical objects – just as the whole physical world initially pains them. The pain only stops when one learns to perceive colors morally. Then one perceives punishment for egoism in red and the reward for overcoming egoism in blue. Then the colors begin to speak a language that will also be the future language of people.

As humans approach the Jupiter existence, their speech will increasingly become a form of perception; then the organs of breathing and speech will no longer be as separate as they are today. Vision and the sensation of warmth will also merge. It was necessary for the development of the independent self that these processes were separate for a time. If this had not happened, then man would indeed always have perceived what was happening in his environment, but would not have come to self-awareness. In the future, one will begin to feel a connection between the spoken word and colors. One will feel green when talking about unimportant things; yellow will arise when speaking selfishly; red will be there when fighting egoism.²

This unification of the organs can basically only be achieved by understanding the mystery of Golgotha. Only that can enable us to feel the whole of nature morally. If you then look up at the clouds and see lightning shooting out of them, you will be able to see Christ in his etheric form. With the “clouds”, that is, with the elements, he comes in his spiritual form. This vision will one day occur to every human being, sooner or later. Only the Father knows the day and the hour, as the Gospel says.³

• 1. It is not known which symbols were used to express these.
• 2. In notes from a different hand, it says: The red color will be felt as the punishment for the evil that is to be overcome; the yellow indicates the selfishness of man, the blue the heavenly that we envision.
• 3. In the same notes from another hand, it says at the end: “Sacred service or esotericism gradually leads to vision. Only a few are called by grace, as elect, to see through the Christ; the others must develop to this through meditation and through sacred service. Only the Father knows the day and hour for each one, but it will come for everyone. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

From the instruction session in Munich, December 12, 1906,¹

The Book of Thoth of the Egyptians consisted of 78 cards containing the secrets of the world. This was well known in Egyptian initiation. The cards for the card game come from this. The terms king, knight, tower guard, general are occult terms.

From a lecture in Berlin, December 17, 1906

Those who were initiated into the Egyptian mysteries understood the sign

They also knew how to read the Book of Thoth, which consisted of 78 card decks in which all world events from the beginning to the end, from Alpha to Omega, were recorded and which could be read when they were connected and put together in the correct order. It contained in pictures the life that dies to death and sprouts again to new life. Those who could combine the right numbers and the right images could read in it. And this wisdom of numbers and images has been taught since ancient times. It still played an important role in the Middle Ages, for example with Raimundus Lullus, but today not much of it remains.

• 1. The way in which the Tarot cards were used has not been handed down.