The Rudolf Steiner Archive

The Gospel of Mark was around centuries before Christianity was founded. It is nothing more than an ancient initiation document about how one was initiated in India, Central Asia and the Iranian regions, how one ascended to occult knowledge, acquired the highest knowledge, how one became an initiate, a sun worshipper, where one was initiated up to what is called the ascension. That was written in these initiation documents.

They were not written in this or that language, they were even very rarely written at all. But they were kept in an imperishable language, in the common language of all occultists, in a symbolic language. To understand them, occult studies must be done. These initiation documents were kept top secret through the millennia. They were kept secret by both the priests of Egypt and the Druid priests in Europe. This was also because they could not be of any use to anyone. They could only be of use to those who could understand them.

Now, a historical fact took place on the stage of history that we call the baptism, suffering, death, and resurrection of Christ Jesus. This outwardly expressed fact is also a mystical fact. It is something that can only be understood as a historical fact if one understands what this particular initiation is, which was in the initiation document I spoke of. In other words, what took place in the years 30 to 33 as the suffering and death of Christ has taken place countless times within the temples. The process became a typical image for all of them after someone had applied the stages of development to an external event.

The first teachers of Christianity therefore approached their students in something like the following manner: “For you and for the sake of you, a great historical process has taken place. But you can only understand this if we tell you about life inside the temples.” And so they preached to them about how one becomes initiated. What had otherwise taken place symbolically inside the temples was now being told so that those who could not see could now believe.

Documents such as the Gospel of Mark are records of this. Now I have explained to you how the Gospel of John relates to all this. John presented himself as the actual executor of Christ's will. The words that Jesus spoke on the cross are not without significance. He hands over to the mother the disciple whom he loves. And the disciple whom Jesus loved was, according to the records of the Akasha Chronicle, Lazarus, who had been initiated by Jesus. Thus the miracle of Lazarus presents itself as an initiation process. This means nothing other than that he was the disciple who had been initiated, who could therefore say the most profound thing that can be said. That is why the Gospel of John is the deepest and why it has also become a message whose explanation can never end. One penetrates deeper and deeper, one finds ever new points, even the scholar.

We find there the transformation of the water of the old covenant into the wine of the new covenant. The “mother” signifies the Jewish people, to whom Jesus transforms the water into the wine of the new Christianity. This is also the reason why the Gospel of John has been regarded as the most occult of the Gospels. From the thirteenth chapter onwards, it is not only intellectually comprehensible, but every sentence that is written is also imbued with occult power.

The Gospel of John has been regarded as an elixir of life, particularly by the disciples of the Rosicrucians. From the washing of the feet onwards, the entire content can be experienced mystically. Anyone who applies it to the whole human being and permeates it with life will experience something within themselves and then understand that much of the Gospel cannot be understood at all without this experience. Every person can mystically go through and live through every single sentence. This is how we should understand the position of the great teacher at the dawn of Christianity. What was new about Christianity was that it revealed what had previously been the wisdom of the mysteries.

A fundamental experience of the theosophist is devotion. The fact that the disciple of Jesus enters the grave to see if he is there or not is not the important thing. What is important is being carried by devotion. There is no path that is not permeated by devotion. And the further one advances on the path of knowledge, the more one will have to acquire devotion. One will become more and more devoted. From this devotion, the power for the highest realizations then flows. Those who manage to refrain from connecting their thoughts will attain the reading of the scriptures in the Akasha Chronicle. But one thing is necessary: to have eliminated the personal ego to such an extent that it no longer claims to connect thoughts itself. It is not so easy to understand this, because man claims the right to connect the predicate with the subject. But as long as he does this, it is impossible for him to really study occult history. If he allows thoughts to arise in selflessness, but also in awareness and clarity, then an event occurs that every occultist knows from a certain point of view, namely the event that the ideas, the thoughts, which he previously formed into sentences and insights from his personal point of view, are now formed by the spiritual world itself, so that he does not judge, but that judgment is made in him. It is then the case that he has sacrificed himself so that a higher self speaks spiritually through his ideas. This is – understood occultly – what was called the sacrifice of the intellect in the Middle Ages. It means giving up my own opinion, my own conviction. As long as I connect my thoughts myself and do not make my thoughts available to higher powers, which then, as it were, write on the tablet of the intellect, I cannot study occult history. It is a contradiction to the higher powers, it is what is usually considered in our time to be particularly remarkable. The theosophist describes what is needed as devotional devotion. This devotion flows from facts such as those related in the Gospel of John.

Questions and Answers

Since a question has been asked here about the brotherhood, I have to say that it is not good to talk about such occult communities because occult powers stand behind them. We are dealing with occult traditions and occult knowledge in more places than we usually realize. There are occult forces and truths in this or that that is really there. And these occult currents have a very specific reason. No one can be drawn into such currents by their own power. It is a matter of how they were introduced, what role they play in it and what and who speaks through them. This is related to the fact that in the whole world it is always ensured that the rivers of divine wisdom never dry up completely. Even if all occultism were to disappear from educated circles, there will always be places where occultism can flow out.

In the fall, I will speak about what are called the apocalypses. First, the Revelation of John; second, the future of thought; third, the future of pneuma; and fourth, the future of harmony.

John, Lazarus, the disciple whom the Lord loved, and the disciple at the cross are one and the same person.

Whether the Christ can only apply to an initiate can be taught by the writing, which can be read in four ways. The first level is where it is read according to the simple naive word, the second level is where one doubts, the third level is where one reads it symbolically, the fourth level is where one recognizes the real meaning of the symbols and thus reaches the real literal meaning of the scriptures.

The descent of the Holy Spirit at the baptism of Jesus in the form of a dove is an important event in the life of Jesus. The parts before and after the baptism can be distinguished as higher and highest. Mark and John therefore tell us only about the highest forms in which the Christ appears to us. The three degrees of discipleship can be distinguished up to the baptism. But then a real transmutation of the being of Jesus takes place through the Christ. This Christ nature is identical with that which is called God in all religions and is often also called the Father Nature. Up to the age of thirty, we have to understand Jesus as every other initiate. But from that point on, the Christ-entity enters into him, and from that point on, the Jesus-Christ personality acquires a cosmological significance. This divine entity was before Abraham was.

If you ask me about the Judas problem, I have to say that Judas was, in a sense, a sacrifice. Someone had to sacrifice themselves so that the main sacrifice could take place. The same person who played the traitor at the time of Jesus of Nazareth was later active in Christianity. It is of great importance to know in which personality Judas has re-embodied himself. But this is a rather complicated and involved problem.

The 'Mother of Jesus' characterizes the Jews as a nation, the Jews who lived in the land and were subject to Jewish law, and those who were scattered throughout the world.

'Galilean' means something like 'heathen mouth'. There was a lot of travel in the place where Jesus was born. A great many foreign people passed through there. You can find the answer to the question regarding Jesus' ascension in the Gospel of John. Jesus' bones were not broken, while the bones of the other robbers were broken. If you understand what the skeletal system is, then you will also understand what it means: resurrection in a glorified body.

Today I would like to give an overview of a certain period of our development and in doing so I will have to repeat some things that I have already said in these hours. But we will see it in a larger context and also find some things that we already know illuminated from a new side. In fact, one must realize that one can only recognize the basic fact of world evolution if it is illuminated from the most diverse points of view, and only then can one gradually form an idea of how the context is actually to be imagined.

Today I would like to briefly touch on some questions that are often discussed in theosophical teachings, but which usually remain somewhat obscure because it is not mentioned how the questions in question are related to direct human experience.

Above all, this is the question of the so-called Trinity. It is emphasized over and over again that the idea of the Trinity can be found in all religions and that it is one of the oldest religious teachings. Above all, it is emphasized that, regardless of whether we go to India, Persia or Egypt, to the Germans, Germanic peoples or Celts, we find three aspects of the deity everywhere, endowed with roughly the same characteristics. You can find the Indian trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva again and again.

I would now like to show you how this trinity arose from a human experience, albeit an experience of a very different nature from our usual experiences today. This experience is one of the oldest components of human wisdom, and teachers of the Lemurian era have already taught this doctrine. But if we go back and examine the actual occult traditions, we find that these three aspects of the Godhead also refer to three distinct stages of development of man himself, in addition to everything else. The man of the third root race, the man of the middle of the Lemurian period, was more aware than has come again in a later time, that his innermost self is one and the same with the great divine self.

More than it became knowledge again in a later time, at that time it was an immediate intuitive conviction. It was clear to those who had reached a certain level of development that as man develops, the Godhead itself develops. And so let us consider the three most important stages of human evolution today.

But how could these stages be viewed in the past? In the past, knowledge was gained in a completely different way. Knowledge that is gained by observing things and then forming ideas about them has only existed since the middle of the third root race. Before the middle of the third root race, no one had acquired knowledge in this way, by looking at things, observing them. This knowledge through external observation, experience, only begins in the middle of the Lemurian race. Everything is in a certain state of flux, and so this knowledge begins for the two most exquisite senses, preferably in the middle of the Lemurian race. The other senses, smell and taste, already had sensation before that. But hearing and sight only began in the middle of the Lemurian race. Before that, knowledge arose as if a kind of water gushed up from the earth. It was as if the human being brought across the midpoint of the Lemurian race, showing in particular his previous states himself, his states during the first, second and first half of the third human race. This was a kind of intuitive memory knowledge, and it was the case that man at that time, when he became outwardly seeing, hearing and perceiving, remembered three important conditions.

Firstly, his experiences in the first human race, then his experiences in the second human race and thirdly, the experiences of the first half of the third human race. He named these three states as follows: the state of the first human race corresponded to Brahma, the state of the second human race to Vishnu, and the state of the first half of the third human race to Shiva.

In Brahma, we see the evolution of the God developing in humanity in the state in which man was during the first human race. At that time, man lived in pure ethereal matter. He was luminous like the etheric body. So the body that man had at that time was a mere etheric body. But it was similar to the astral body. When the ancient Indians wanted to visualize this etheric body of the first race, they imagined it under the name Brahma. Brahma was therefore also seen as the god of the ether-illuminating light.

This state was replaced by the so-called air state. The second race lived in this. If you wanted to get an idea of it according to our present concepts, it would be very unclear, because the second human race incarnated in a body that was denser than today's air, but which was still air-shaped. It was something of which one could say that the divine being sends its angels like winds. It was no longer an etheric genus, but a condensed aerial genus. Therefore, when naturalists try to find prehistoric man and are surprised that they no longer find any remains above a certain level, we need not be surprised, since man at that time could not provide stone imprints. That is Vishnu.

The third is Shiva, called the 'Destroyer' on the one hand and on the other the 'Rebuilder'. Adam-Kadmon was the sexless man. He was destroyed by the god Shiva. But another was created in return, hence Shiva is also called the god of rebirth, the god of procreation. Wherever Siva or the deity corresponding to Siva is depicted, he is depicted as the god of procreation.

These are the three aspects of the deity that man took from experience. These are states that he himself has gone through.

Then we speak of the “Sons of the Fire Mist.” The Lemurian continent was destroyed by fire, not by water, like the Atlantic continent. I ask you to keep this in mind, it is not easy to grasp. During the second human race, that is, during the so-called Hyperborean time, people were air beings. They were beings incarnated in air and they were completely in swinging, vibrating motion. They already brought the predisposition for organs with them. However, they had not yet developed. What developed first was the predisposition for the ear. At that time, man was a resounding being. He was as if one could have heard him. This has been preserved in the Vishnu teachings. Vishnu found wisdom in the conch shell. This is an indication that mankind was already predisposed to hearing at that time. During the development of the third race, in the Lemurian period, the ability to see forms and to distinguish objects was formed. The inner life was already present earlier. But what approached us from the outside could not yet be distinguished at that time. The eye could not yet perceive forms. The ability to see spatially was only just being developed. As a result, man grew into the physical world. This development was completed in the middle of the Lemurian period.

Now what is primarily the task of the human race occurs: Manas was to be developed in all directions. One could not speak of Manas at all before. Before that, one could only speak of Mahat. The human being of the Hyperborean time, when he has seen the stars, will have seen them moving according to laws. But that was not one of the abilities of Manas. Manas was not an innate ability in us.

Mahat was there as a grand world tableau. Manas is basically something that has only entered into man since the middle of the Lemurian period. Since that time, human development has been an education of the previously acquired qualities and abilities through the manas that has now entered into man. So manas has to educate the various abilities that were previously developed in man.

During each epoch that now follows, Manas has a very specific task. The first epoch we encounter is that of the middle to the end of the Lemurian period. There Manas educates the outer perception that man had to acquire in the Lemurian race. Then, in addition, man has to connect perceptions with what he sees. But what man does not yet have is memory and the power of thought. Memory and logic do not yet exist. Man can see something and connect an idea with what he has seen, but he is incapable of holding on to this idea by means of memory. However, his imagination is all the more intense. It is tremendously intense and of tremendous vividness, so that it does not pass him by without having left behind a very specific feeling. These feelings are not retained by memory, because the Lemurian man does not yet have such a memory. But he retains it in feeling. Remnants of the Lemurian race can be found in the decadent tribes of Australia. They also have no memory that extends beyond twenty-four hours.

The deep feeling that arises from perception has a very special effect. This second race has an intuitive knowledge of reincarnation. And that comes from the following. There were not very many who incarnated at that time. They had a vivid feeling because they retained a deep feeling for every experience. And this feeling remained incorporated in the causal body, which it took over into the following incarnation.

This is to be recorded as a fact from the second epoch of the Lemurian period. The interaction with the environment was so vivid that man was already aware of an outside world and that he was connected to things. When he came into this world again, he sensed his kinship with things. It was then as with people who have a particularly keen sense of smell and can then say to themselves, I have smelled that before. It was something like that with these Lemurians of the second half of the Lemurian period.

The Lemurian continent formed approximately the ground of southern India and south of India. This continent was destroyed by fire. But there were still tribes left in the neighboring areas. They lived through the entire Atlantean period. In part, they mixed with the Atlanteans. So there were people here with an extremely intense sense of reincarnation.

Let us now note: Lemuria had perished, and we come to the next, to the Atlantean race of men. They had the task of further developing their inner life. What emerged as a new human faculty was memory, which was not yet present in the Lemurians, but was present in the Atlanteans. They had an extremely well-developed memory. Logical thinking did not yet exist at that time. Arithmetic, multiplication tables and so on did not yet exist. They formed an objective picture of, let us say, seventeen or twenty beans, in heaps of such and such a size. The first faculty was therefore imagination. The second was memory.

In the Toltec sub-race, this memory was joined in the middle by the first rudiments of the ability to think. A fairly crude ability to think was now slowly developing. An ability that not only made it possible to memorize, but also to combine. This was still very crude in the Toltecs, and it was still crude in the Turanians. But it reached a certain high level among the Proto-Semites. Therefore, the Jews were called upon to further educate the following race, precisely because they had best cultivated thinking. This combinatorial thinking developed in a schematic way. [...]

The pre-Semitic race provided the basis for our Aryan race. Now I will show what was to be developed in the Aryan race. In the Lemurian race it was the imagination, in the Atlantean race it was memory. Now in the Aryan race it is what is called the faculty of thinking. Every race in the world, every stage, every step of development has a specific task. The earlier principle is always further developed with the help of a later one. What was there earlier is now further developed with Manas. In the fifth root race, Manas now developed further. This thinking ability is the most inward thing we can behold. It therefore has a very personal character. While the Lemurians had an immediate consciousness of reincarnation, the Atlanteans had a very weakened memory of reincarnation in their inner life. He could, if something had been developed, refresh the consciousness of the Lemurian race within himself, and then people remembered events in their past lives. But on the whole, in the Atlanteans, in whom the combinatorial ability developed, the feeling for reincarnation was completely dead. And it was even more natural that within the fifth root race this feeling could not be there. Thinking is an innermost personal matter. The personality of man mainly pursues the life between birth and death. Therefore, in the power that the fifth root race had to develop, there is little that could have led to professing reincarnation. Then the leaders of the fifth root race have in the most diverse ways a very sensible network spanned over the world.

I hardly need to repeat that this root race started from the Gobi Desert, where a number of selected people were placed by the so-called Manu. From the Ursemites, people were sent to the most diverse parts of the world. The first cultural current therefore went out from the Gobi Desert and fertilized India. Here the work was done by the initiates, and I expressly note that initiates are always in possession of wisdom and that there has never been an initiates' lodge in which the knowledge of reincarnation was not present. So the current goes down to India. There a culture is founded, as is generally the case with initiates, by adding a new impetus with full tolerance of what is encountered there.

So the thinking power is instilled in this lively feeling that the Lemurians still have of reincarnation. The marriage of the best that remained from the Lemurian period with the best that the Aryan race had to give. That is the union. Therefore you will also understand why you will find no mention of reincarnation in the ancient scriptures of the Vedas. The knowledge of reincarnation arose through the union of the feeling of the Lemurians with the power of thought of the Aryans. This high wisdom of the original human races, based on direct certainty, had been united here with the pure spiritual life of the people of the fifth root race. This is the original Indian wisdom. A branch of it was sent down to Egypt. That is why there is also a similarity to this cultural layer. This is the first great cultural current to have taken place within the fifth, the Aryan race. It was initiated by the initiates with the admirable purpose of achieving the highest by using what was already there.

Remnants of the Atlantean race were present in all other areas of the Earth, especially around the shores of the Mediterranean and into Asia. Only in our regions, in Germany, did they still live. You have to imagine this with the corresponding aggregate states – something of the Hyperborean type still lived. You must not imagine that this ancient Hyperborean type lived in the blood; that would be too gross. In its entire way of thinking, it lived in such a way that here, too, it was possible to establish a very spiritual way of looking at things. In Europe, therefore, almost exactly the same thing happened with the original Indian teaching: a spiritual teaching was established, which later appeared somewhat diluted in the old Druid culture. Here one could still tie in with the old.

But at the same time, if you compare this old Druid culture with the old Vedic culture, you will see that there is a difference again. What the old Druid culture has is an absolute belief in the immortality of the soul, in the eternity of the soul. But it is not that it is an explicit doctrine of reincarnation, and that will be understandable to you. Just as the remains of the Lemurians were found in the south, so there are, so to speak, here present peoples who, because they were remnants of the Atlanteans, knew little of reincarnation. And from the other side, they came from the Hyperborean race. They were parts of the second race. During the second human race, during the Hyperborean race, there was still no reincarnation. That is why the Druids had such an intensive doctrine of immortality. This was the remnant of the old Hyperborean knowledge.

Now, a fertilization takes place here, and different currents arise. The second current, which pours forth first, sent initiates into colonies everywhere - as in ancient Persia, in the ancient Iranian culture. Then, a culture is created around the Mediterranean that is similar everywhere, by peoples who are remnants of the different races. This is most pronounced in the Iranians, who developed into what is called the Zoroastrian doctrine. It is an absolute doctrine of immortality. For the reasons that have been indicated, it is not based on a doctrine of reincarnation here. And that will explain to you why you cannot find a real doctrine of reincarnation in Persian teaching. The initiated have always used what was there and developed it a little further.

Then came the second cultural current. This found expression in Europe in such a way that the memory of it has remained, especially of the initiates of the second cultural current. They have remained present everywhere in the memory of the various European peoples. These initiates have been preserved here in the north as Wodan, Wili, Loki and so on, in Greece as the gods, as Zeus and so on. The various circles of gods are the initiates who spread this culture throughout the world.

Now comes the third impact of initiates. This resulted primarily in what we see in Egypt, which is Egyptian historical culture. That is the third impact. And what is heroic culture in Greece. All the initiates of the third current have been preserved as heroic names, such as Hercules and so on. They have been preserved in our culture. These are the German heroes, the German initiates - as for example in the saga of Dietrich of Bern, which has very similar traits to the Greek saga of Hercules. This is the culture preserved from the heroic age. This is the third sub-race of the fifth root race. It produced what is called artistic culture in the various fields, both in terms of myth-making and in terms of plastic art in Asia, Greece and here as well.

Now a new race formation begins. Greek culture spreads to Italy. The new race formation begins a few centuries before the birth of Christ, again with the Semitic peoples moving around the shores of the Mediterranean. There are always Semitic influences, as I have described. Now we have the foundation of the Latin race, which is fertilized by Christianity. This develops until the ninth or tenth century. Then everything depends on the Latin race.

Then, more recently, a fertilization takes place through the westward movement of the Arabs. This again comes from dark sources. Mohamed is only a forward post. Behind him stands the great secret lodge.

And now comes the Germanic race in which we currently live. This is the development of the races that spread out across the world in a radiating pattern. The Initiate Colonies have never worked in any other way than with full consideration of what was already present in the areas in question.

This is what I wanted to give as a broad overview of the evolution from the Hyperboreans to our present time. From the question and answer session

During the Hyperborean period, things were prepared that were in the vibrations. People then had different ears, so to speak. Yes, they were distinguished by different vibrations. The similarity of the vibrations constituted the relationship. The Atlanteans had long since begun to develop, while Hyperborean development was still present, so that actual intercourse did indeed take place between the Atlanteans, who lived in Europe, and the air people.

1. Do you know how the soul came into the world?
2. Do you know how the soul leaves the world?
3. Do you know the difference between the path of the fathers and the path of the gods?
4. Do you know why that world is not full?
5. Do you know why, at the fifth revelation, the waters begin to speak with the voice of man?

The three lower principles of man are held together and enclosed by the etheric sheath in the same way as the three upper principles are held together and enclosed by the auric sheath. It is the etheric body that prevents the physical cells from falling apart.

Prana is only a part of Shiva, enclosed and thereby separated, existing in its own right. Kama and Kama-Manas lie in the template of the etheric body, which, on the way back to an incarnation, is formed by the soul by drawing from the general Rupa-Manas and Kama-Stoff precisely those components that made up its Kama and Rupa body before its Arupa stay. Every soul has an arupa stay, because only through this it is soul, that is, a causal body, that the foundation for unselfish mental life is laid. Even the savage has the germ for this, and however small this germ is, it provides him with the passage through the arupa sphere, through Devachan. Our thoughts, building themselves into mental matter, usually still have undefined, imprecise forms because they have so many shells to break through, to push against.

We only take their essence, their germ, with us into the Arupa sphere, where they swell up and only then live their own life. Before each new incarnation, the human being must pass through the state of semen, that is, through the Arupa sphere of Devachan. On the way back, the seed must, through the magnetic power of its own previous formations, that is, actions, feelings and thoughts, clothe itself again with the substance of which they were composed. In the astral sphere, the thought image, which has become precise, finds the forms and templates that have been created by itself and assigned to it by Lipika, the Lord of Karma, according to eternal laws. The Maharajas supply the etheric substance to these templates, as it were, and they carry it from all four winds. This is how the lower personal covering, the etheric double body, is created, which then sinks into the physical body.

We understand the world of our desires as the 'fathers' path', which still chains us to enjoyment; only when we have become accustomed to regarding the three lower realms merely as a hall of learning and no longer demand anything from them, are we ready for the 'gods' path', which opens up life in the spirit.

Devajani, Pitrijani. As long as we still strive for selfish happiness, that world, Devajani, cannot be full. Only when we renounce the fruits of our deeds are we not bound to the world of the fathers, the world of Kama. The deed alone does not bind us.

The first sacrifice: the division of unity into trinity. The second and third: the outpourings of the third Logos; the fourth: the ensoulment by the second Logos; the fifth: the material world is spiritually fertilized by the first Logos, man arises, the Word becomes flesh.

Ultimately, all knowledge serves to prepare our future. Other beings are guided; the law of crystallization is prescribed for the crystal; it does not need to be prefigured. This is how it is with plants and animals. Only in the middle of the Lemurian period did man begin to set goals for himself. Effective knowledge of the future is only possible if one knows the past. Thus, all human knowledge is destined to preserve the ideal for the future.

To understand how the earlier and the present round went, one must understand that the highest realm, the mineral realm, has reached its highest perfection, which is why it ends at the end of the fourth round. We must not confuse the mineral with the physical realm. If we could look ahead to the fifth round, we would see that there is no longer a mineral realm. This does not exclude the physical. Imagine intertwined plants, with man in the midst of them; everything in the lower world will have been transformed into plants. At the end of the fourth round, man will have reached the highest perfection of his mineral foundation. In the fifth, he will no longer have it, he will not produce anything mineral from himself.

He cannot enter this plant life immediately, but must go through three previous stages. His astral-mental body would not fit this plant body. Therefore, he must prepare himself and go through the three stages, which are called globes. Then they fit into the new physical stage. What has ceased is only what is connected with the mineral kingdom.

Birth and death are the same; they only come about in the fourth round because two different things, higher individuality and lower nature of man, come into contact with each other.

When you think of your individuality, it comes from much higher realms, while the body is made up of air, water and earth. Only a part of what the individuality is capable of can be expressed in the body. It is like a tent that is outlasted by the human being. He must change again and again because he is more. During the fifth round, we are dealing with the emergence of ever new human beings from the others.

Nothing dies, it is always all life. What arises in a certain respect from the shadow side is that the astral human being will have reached his actual organization. Today he is unorganized, not yet a bearer of the image of God; only the physical will become the image of God at the end of the fourth round. In the fifth round, man will have astral organs of action and sense. The sense organs will be the so-called chakras – five. They are named according to their form:

- the six-petalled lotus flower, in the center of the body, indicated in certain people, rotating in clairvoyants,
- a little further on is a ten-petalled organ,
- in the heart a twelve-petalled one,
- sixteen-petalled at the throat,
- between the eyebrows eighteen-petalled.

The outer body will form itself according to these organs. This has a specific consequence. Now the outer body is given by the outer nature, by the animal kingdom. Now it comes from what flows from the astral body; it is constructed from the astral realm and is therefore a reflection of what lives in the astral nature of the individual in question. So that Christian esotericism expressed it in such a way that it made it clear to the priests that <«Cain's» and «Abel's» will be the outward signs in people.

During the sixth round, the plant kingdom will have been completed and only the animal kingdom will exist, brought to its highest peak; only sentient life will exist. The whole earth will be sensation and movement. While in the fifth round the astral expressed itself as an outer body, in the sixth round thought will express itself in the animal body, in which the whole body moves rhythmically. That which lives in the soul will be expression, thought will be expression, a world communicating itself in sound. This is why Christian esotericism says: in the sixth round, all is sounding word.

Man's thinking life becomes direct expression. The previous proclamation of the walking word was the Word made flesh. The reference to this in the fourth round was Christ.

In the seventh round, the entire inner being of man will be turned outwards. Man can only stammer about that which lives on the Arupa plane. Then the “I am” will flow out. It is not confined in a body that separates it from the other “I”; all “I's” will be tones in a great symphony. In Christian esotericism, this is called “divinity”. This is what man must achieve in order to pass over to Mercury, just as he came from the moon before. To do this, we must have placed all our powers at the service of our ego in such a way that we are just as willing to receive as to give. This blessedness also means resting in oneself. For all previous states are striving; here there is a looking back on all that has been gathered.

In this image of God there will be no further work; the Godhead rests, looks back and rejoices in its works. “Thus the heavens and the earth were completed, and all the host of them...”

Holy – is absolutely healthy, as
blessed – is completely imbued with soul.

What the original state of what is called “ancient wisdom” was and how it came to earth is today's topic.

There are two kinds of knowledge and realization. Let us imagine the inventor of a clock: he makes one, two, three clocks according to the plan that was originally present in his mind. First there was the thought, then the actual reality. This is one way of knowing something.

To get to know the other way, let us imagine that the watchmaker has died; the watches are there and someone else studies them, figures out the plan and makes other watches. He has the same knowledge but has obtained it in a different way; for him, the sensory perception was first, then the idea; for the other man, the idea was first.

These two ways of acquiring knowledge also exist in the great universe. Such a thought, which corresponds to the laws of reality and is there before the sensory object, is called “intuitive thought”. It is born of the spirit itself, a child of the mental world. The other is a child of the sensory world, it is called “inductive thought.

Now let us see how the difference between the above and the disciples would manifest itself. The inventor will be able to communicate his thoughts because he is the shaper, the creator, because he was there when the sensual arose from the mental. The one who has imitated will also / gap in the transcript /

The same difference is between the first teachers of humanity and all later ones. For the first teachers of humanity were involved in creation, were among those who formed, they participated when the world was still a cosmic thought. They [gap in the transcript]

The first Arhat or Maha were involved in the creation of the world. In the middle of the third root race, when the human kingdom came into being, A also embodied himself.

They brought knowledge from the workshop with them, and that is “ancient wisdom”; they brought with them what they had experienced.

The knowledge that one gains afterwards is the same as that which the original great spirits have from the laws of creation themselves. [Gap in the transcript] If you really know something, then you also have the laws by which the world is created. Manas and Mahat are therefore the same in content. Only Manas is in us: I. And Mahat is spread out as a tableau over the whole world. Only the way they are is different, the content is the same. The more we increase in knowledge, the more /gap in the transcript]

What was taught at that time from the creative activity of the sculptors was the first wisdom, and it is therefore more than all science can acquire. This occult sentence, that the world has its origin in cosmic thoughts and that knowledge culminates in human thought formation.

The I enters into the formation of the world; outside of the I - Mahat. The I, the creator, encompasses Mahat. The development consists in the I expanding its sphere over the whole of Mahat, and in the end Mahat itself is within the I. What is the difference? Beginning: Mahat is outside of the I, end: Mahat is in the I.

The only difference between the beginning and the end is that the ego sacrificed itself as a special being and, as a result of this sacrifice, acquired Mahat as its content.

The process of world formation consists in the fact that the I, which was previously excluded from Mahat, afterwards has Mahat as its content. Not Mahat, but the I has undergone a development. Meaningful sentence: The world is enclosed in cosmic thought formation [gap in the transcript], the I is outside.

This is only partly true, because in reality the ego is a part of Mahat. With us, every thought is a part of Mahat; let us try to symbolize one as content. Let us take the sentence: Evolution consists in the fact that each part of Mahat grows to such an extent that it becomes identical with the whole Mahat. The assimilation of all individuals to the whole Mahat takes place. The great sacrifice takes place. The whole Mahat gives its essence to all parts, that is development. The purpose of the world is that the whole gives its essence to each of its parts. It is certain that the whole was perfect at the beginning; but if it had no parts, it would remain as it is. Since it has them, it has given each of the parts its whole being, so that its own perfection is ultimately contained in each of its parts.

Beginning: Mahat is outside the “I”

End: Mahat is in the “I”

The only difference between the beginning and the end is that the “I” sacrificed itself as a separate being and, as the result of this sacrifice, received Mahat as its content.

Evolution consists of each part of Mahat growing to such an extent that it becomes identical with the whole Mahat. The “great sacrifice” takes place: the whole Mahat gives its essence to all its parts. This is development.

We must distinguish between the essence as such and between the perceptions and actions of the essence. These depend not only on the essence, but also on the world in which it is placed. The human being is in different worlds at different times, going through planets and globes. We have become acquainted with four of the three worlds. If he is to perceive and be active, he must form organs out of the world in question. In order to be able to work on the physical earth, he must form organs of perception out of the earth's materials. Thus we must distinguish between the being, which belongs to the world of the eternal, and the organs that it has formed out of the materials of the worlds it passes through.

If we did not have a physical hand, we would not be able to move an object, but would pass through matter. The hand must be impenetrable. [Gap in the transcript] It is the same with the sense organs. [Gap in the transcript] eyes. These organs are called Indriyas, and a distinction is made between Indriyas of the senses or perception and Indriyas of action. Every being forms organs of action and sense from the materials of the world through which it passes. Man belongs to the eternal world with his being, but with his organs to the world through which he passes. When he has traversed these worlds, he takes something from the worlds through his organs, which remains his possession. You had eyes when you emerged from the bosom of the Eternal, but they had no [gap in the transcript]

What you perceived remains. The eyes as organs of the physical world fade.

We see from this that people are wrong about what they call real. What appears as the effect of the processes is precisely what is real, lasting. Thus, through its organs, which it receives from time to time, the being draws the fruits from the different worlds, which it then takes with it. That is why the Greeks had beautiful symbols in the mysteries: They called the soul bees because the soul gathers the honey from the worlds and lays it down at the altar of the Eternal.

Why do the initiates use such images for the people? Does it have any value? Everything that is a myth is an outer garment for deeply inner truths.

How will we work on the statues more easily? Will we first work on the rough image in the block of stone or start with the finest execution? I think the first. The priests of different times acted according to this principle. They said [gap in transcript]

I instill in this soul a figurative idea that people do not understand at all. But it prepares his mind so that he can perceive the pure truth later. This had value as long as the priests were so imbued with reincarnation.

Back to the main idea: the beings take from the worlds what they need for their organs. For us: the physical, soul and spiritual worlds, of which we are composed. Man lives in these three worlds, the physical, astral and mental, and is therefore a threefold being.

Above the spiritual and below the physical, there are other worlds in which humans do not live directly, but other beings do. Let us imagine that these beings, which are only soul and spirit, are two-tiered for us. Such beings are called devas, who are not incarnated in the physical world, whose lowest form of existence is the astral. Myths have treated the knowledge of such beings allegorically, either by making them appear in fiery clouds. But we also find in myths that they appear in the form of animals - Zeus.

The animal often represents an astral being because it expresses the passionate more clearly than the human. This therefore corresponds to an astral reality, but is not to be thought of in the physical sense in the ordinary sense; rather, the people to whom it appeared were in a trance for the moment.

Besides these, there are other entities that are only physical-spiritual, lacking the spiritual. They are not animals, because with their generic character they belong to the spiritual; their generic soul belongs to the devachan. There are such entities that have no spiritual expression at all. It is only possible to reach them if you are not dependent on spiritual expression. I would have to be clairvoyant in the astral plane to perceive their astral essence. The earth is much more populated than one would think. A being lives in every rock and tree, but they do not express themselves because they have no spiritual expression. They are called elemental beings.

Man only perceives their effects when they manifest themselves to him, as it seems, by chance.

There are devas that have natures that are above the spiritual, and elemental beings that are below the physical. But they are none of our concern. These have organs that belong to the same worlds as we do. The devas do not perform acts that directly belong to the sensual world, so we do not perceive them; the elementary beings have no organs that can express themselves spiritually, so they are not there for humans.

In every church window, in every saga, in every folk building, in the ideas of everyday life in the Middle Ages, we can find the expression of deep truths. Poems that are not understood today are born out of the spirit of deepest wisdom. The material of “Heinrich von der Aue” was also taken from the circle of European initiates. The “Poor Henry”. Nowhere is it indicated that one is dealing with theosophical poetry; least of all did G. von H. know.

Heinrich von der Aue is a noble servant on the large estate of Aue in Swabia. He is an exceptionally capable knight in all worldly matters, but does not care much about things that go beyond the worldly. Therefore, he was punished with an illness called: Miselsucht - a leprosy that was considered incurable. All German doctors – and in those days they were doctors who healed with the help of spiritual powers – had given up on Heinrich von der Aue; only a master in Salerno had offered the prospect of salvation. A pure maiden must sacrifice her life. But he does not believe this; he realizes that it is the punishment for his worldly knighthood. He gives away his possessions and withdraws to a farm, where he is cared for by the daughter. She decides to sacrifice herself for him; he travels with her to Salerno. Then he realizes that it must not be, and would rather remain ill. But the sufficient sacrifice is not physical death, but the will, the joyful, spiritual will.

One principle was adopted by all poets. One should keep the measure, the harmony. 'Diumaasze'. A theosophical principle often expresses it: It does not depend on the external success, but on the right will. 'Who' - says the poet - 'in the mind strives for purity and nobility and wants the right, finds balance and honor.' – the bliss that emanates from the sixth principle. Through such words, Heinrich von der Aue implies that he has striven for something deeper. Everything he has written breathes the same spirit.

“Erek and Enita” describes how the search is on for moderation, how love arises from uniqueness and harmony from disharmony. Erek marries Enita. He is a bold knight who stipulates that his wife never warns him of danger. But harmony arises from the trials.

Iwein marries the daughter of a giant, but leaves her a year after the wedding because Gawain advises him not to 'get lost', not to become lazy and careless. He goes away for a year to pass tests, promises to come back, but does not, and loses the favor of his wife and his mind. He is saved by fighting lions and dragons. Seventeen years of wandering.

Only through spiritual knighthood can one attain the ability to exercise spiritual rule. In the legends, the higher, purer soul is always symbolized by a female soul; the higher consciousness is represented as the virgin feminine. Through his pure higher soul, which knows what love actually is, through the Master of Salerno, who points out to him how the higher spiritual connects with him through sacrifice.

What is misery for someone who knows what the spiritual and the physical actually are? We know that in earlier developments, man was a higher animal, only earthly development is there to put manas into kama. Basically, all beings in our development partake of this kama-manasic nature. In the animal, manas is not in the head, it is directed by manas. In the various kingdoms, the laws of wisdom come to light. This was not yet the case on the moon, which was only enveloped in an atmosphere of wisdom.

It would be an irregularity on earth if a new kama were grafted directly onto kama itself. If a being lived on kama, it would be the life relationship of the moon. There are such things on earth: they are parasites, insects that live on other creatures. And in the plant world there is mistletoe, a parasite that draws nourishment from already existing life. What the Kama root needs to live is what remained from the moon epoch. Mistletoe remained behind, only stunted, and must live parasitically to complete its development.

Hence the construction of insects, which are often in a horn shell, came into earthly development unfinished and [gap in the transcript]. Animals with an exoskeleton are those that are latecomers from the lunar epoch. It is therefore understandable that mistletoe plays such a role in ancient myths and legends. It is associated with those [...] and who are therefore still attached to the moon, to the Kamic, which was justified in the past.

In the saga, the beings that cause evil, connect their urges with the Kamic, are associated with mistletoe in the most spiritual way. [Baldur] is killed by mistletoe, which stems from an earlier epoch. If it extends into our epoch, it will bring about destruction. Earthly Kama must be ruled by Manas. Life on Earth is being destroyed by the lunar parasites. This is why the devil is called the lord of the flies.

If man himself abandons himself too much to Kama in earthly development, he grafts Kama onto Kama onto Kama and then becomes disharmonious within himself. This disharmony can be seen in the disease that breaks the measure. He is afflicted by the addiction that underlies this plant. Those who abandon themselves to the passions remain stuck in what belongs to the lunar. This damming up of the wave of life produces the disease of misery.

Those who do not strive for spiritual enlightenment experience a stagnation in their whole life. This cannot be understood by a physical doctor, only by someone who knows the connection between all planes. When the dammed up wave of life is lifted, when selfishness is truly sacrificed, then healing occurs.

Iwein is also a deeply symbolic piece of writing. Here again a female being represents the higher self. In this case it is the daughter of a giant, a race preceding humanity. The fusion of man with nature, as well as with [gap in transcript], was the gigantism. At the beginning of his development, Iwein is still close to this original development. He must now awaken Manas within himself. Manas was originally a gift of the gods, connected with the soul. Now he loses the higher gift in order to regain it as inner human intellect. When he reconciles with the higher self, he gains it, but by freeing the lion from the dragon, that is, from selfishness, from the wisdom that is directed towards the worldly.

It is wonderful when we consider the Mithras mysteries: their seven degrees. The fourth degree is the lion. When the fourth principle – lion – awakens in the higher sense, it strives towards the fifth and wants to be freed from the third, the dragon.

These poems arose from tremendous depths; it takes until the sixteenth century for them to surface. With the Copernican revolution, poetry becomes more secularized. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, there is tremendous esoteric depth.

These Monday gatherings are intended to develop into truly intimate gatherings of our Theosophical community. Those present should speak as much as possible. I believe that this is the best way to enable a real discussion, with questions and answers from the group.

I would like to talk about apocalypses because this topic is suitable for leading more and more into the whole current that we call theosophical. When we talk about apocalypses, we will have to discuss all kinds of deeper, theosophical questions. Today, only a brief introduction will be given. We will then also have the opportunity to talk about a wide range of topics.

Of all the apocalypses, the best known is the secret revelation of John, which can be found at the end of the New Testament. There are a great many interpretations of this apocalypse. If you delve a little deeper into these interpretations, you will find that they often go very deeply into theology; but some are also very shallow. I myself will try to introduce you to the Apocalypse of John from a mystical point of view and then also to other apocalypses.

You might wonder why I am touching on this topic. However, the audience should be aware that we will be delving deeply into theosophy, touching on profound theosophical questions, and we would hardly find words if, in connection with this topic, the basic questions and basic goals were to be discussed in detail.

When speaking about such a lofty topic as the Apocalypse, it must be assumed that the main basic concepts of theosophical knowledge and theosophical goals are in place, and that you are convinced that Theosophy has a place in the world and that it not only has a general human but also a good scientific basis. You cannot talk about apocalypses if you still doubt whether Theosophy is superstition or real knowledge. We need to be clear about this fundamental question. The questions that are part of preparing the ground for Theosophy will all be touched upon. I will not only give the basic concepts of Theosophy, but the related questions will also be discussed. So, by talking about apocalypses, I would like to assume that the basis of the Theosophical worldview is generally given.

What does it mean to talk about apocalypses? First of all, I would just like to note that an apocalypse is a very specific way of looking at the world. You see the world in the form of an apocalypse. The one who can express an apocalypse himself has reached a certain point of view. You can read the apocalypse of others and you will learn very deep truths from it. But one cannot, without having reached a certain level of realization, utter what is contained in an apocalypse. There have been apocalypses among all peoples and at all times. We too, in Theosophy, have apocalypses.

Who can now speak in terms of apocalypses? I will answer this question, and that will lead us deeper into the essence of the apocalypses than a definition. The path of knowledge is prescribed for us; we are told how to come to knowledge and thereby to real spiritual effectiveness. Perhaps you have followed the stages one has to go through to enter and follow the path. You know that one has to develop very specific qualities in order to gain the freedom of vision that takes us away from what is merely sensually perceived and allows us to glimpse into the spiritual world. To do this, it is necessary for the human being to learn to distinguish between the 'eternal' and the 'temporal', to direct their gaze not at the temporal, not at the passing, but at the eternal, at what remains, so that they can then change their whole perception of the world around them, namely that certain things that are extremely important to the everyday person become unimportant to them, and other things gain in importance. What the everyday person finds important, such as the satisfaction of desires and everything that our self-interest dictates to us, must become unimportant. What must become important is what we have in mind as the eternal goal of humanity. We must have a sense of the ideal, of that which cannot be determined according to all possible advantages, but from the insight that it is about the human being, for the sake of the human being. If we have a sense of the ideal, we must also develop the sense that we learn to love it. The ideal is tremendously valuable. How many can sincerely look into their hearts and say that they truly love the ideal as one loves a child or a loved one? The ideal is far too intangible for people to grasp. But we must learn to love the intangible, that which exists only in the mind.

Then another quality we have to develop is “thought control”. We must not let our thoughts drift to and fro, but must practice controlling them so that we are able to hold on to a thought for as long as necessary to gain very specific knowledge through it and to become clear in a certain way through it. Man must realize that thoughts usually control him. To control thoughts means to master thoughts. We must not let ourselves be carried away by this or that urge to do this or that action. We must be given a sure direction. We must control ourselves only through the center within ourselves.

The third thing is that we acquire a certain even-tempered attitude towards the events of everyday life, which usually make people either euphoric or sad. We must have a certain “even-temperedness” both towards events that lift us up to heaven and towards those that plunge us into the deepest sorrow. Only by maintaining our composure throughout events can we find the way to judge things perceptively.

Then we must develop what we call 'tolerance'. This is a word that is easy to pronounce but means much more than is usually thought. How often in life do we condemn without asking why this or that person has come to this or that action. We must always ask: how and why? We must not be carried away to criticize. We must understand, understand everything in the broadest sense. If we develop this attitude, we will enter into the state of mind that kindles the life of knowledge in us. Do not think that the mind has no influence on the life of knowledge. Today, people overestimate the one-sided intellect and underestimate the qualities that lie deeper in the soul. They do not believe at all that these are the things that lead to knowledge. You can be a great scholar, you can have great knowledge and still not have free judgment. It would be quite easy for a wise man to feel superior to a child in his simplicity. But it would be quite wrong for him to give in to this sentiment. The wise man rejects the thought of being wiser than a child. Those who insist that they are more understanding and clever than others can never become wise. Those who accept the judgment of others with equanimity can become wise, can learn to understand by stepping back and judging from the perspective of the other. The fact that they understand the simple – even the simplest – is uplifting and useful for real progress and is a result of their tremendous tolerance.

A further quality must then be developed, which in Theosophy is called “faith”. Those who believe that they have come to a conclusion with their knowledge will not progress. The wise man must always be in the mood to realize that he actually knows very little and that every moment can teach him something completely new, that every expression of life can be a revelation to him. The one who truly walks the path of knowledge takes it so far that he says to himself: I may experience something in the next minute that throws everything I have believed and assumed so far overboard. In ordinary life, one will not take this to the extreme, but in the moment when one approaches anything in search of knowledge, one must really take it so far as to give up belief in one's previous knowledge. The wise man will never say: 'That cannot be', but will say: 'Everything is possible'. Through what I already know, I must never allow a judgment to arise about the possibility or impossibility of anything. The belief in the possibility of progressing to ever new revelations is a quality that the pathfinder must develop.

Then there is a quality that comes by itself, a quality that is called 'objectivity' or 'balance'. This helps us to avoid the pitfalls of life that condemn us to proclaim an apparent truth everywhere. This balance is not just a sum of everything else. Those who want to become wise must remain in balance; they must not let themselves be driven off course.

Once these qualities have been developed within us, the highest that can be attained at the preliminary stage of development comes, namely that man has the 'longing' to be truly free.

The theosophical movement wants to liberate people by speaking with universal tolerance of that which can apply to all people at all times.

This is what the pathfinder develops. When he has developed these qualities to a certain degree, then he is ready for what is called discipleship.

Then comes the moment when he has a great experience of tremendous significance: from this point on, he receives impressions from the spiritual world, from a completely different world, from a world that lies behind our world and of which our world is only the effect. He enters the world of the spiritual. He then looks at the world from the other side. What we call space and time no longer apply to him. It makes no difference to him that he is living in this particular incarnation. He could just as easily be living in a different incarnation. He could have lived thousands of years ago – when he looks at what he is now seeing, he would see it in the same way. He could even be living in the future and would still experience everything in the same way.

This is the first level of discipleship. Such a person is called a homeless person; he is removed from the Heimav. In return, he also says things that no longer refer to this or that place, to this or that people, to this or that race, but he says things that refer to all races, to all times and all peoples.

The first stage enables him to see only what is nearest. At this stage, he only sees what belongs to a so-called “root race”. The disciple, then, sees what relates to our present root race, back to the time when the Atlanteans disappeared.

Then the second stage of discipleship begins, which is not attained through theory, not through concepts and ideas, but through a real insight. The Theosophical worldview teaches that man does not live only once in the world, but many times, that he embodies himself again and again and that his actions are related. The individual lives are connected by cause and effect. This can be seen by observing life. It is also possible to understand this concept in theory. Many followers of Theosophy are still at the stage of believing reincarnation and karma to be true only as a conceptual and intellectual realization. However, the second stage of discipleship has the knowledge of the truth of reincarnation and karma. The disciple does not suspect the truth of reincarnation and karma – he knows it.

Now comes the third stage of discipleship. Re-embodiment is not an eternal thing. Before the middle of the Lemurian period, there was not yet what we call reincarnation, and after the middle of the sixth root race, this kind of reincarnation will cease again. Another kind of life and re-embodiment will then be there. Up to the middle of the sixth root race, man will be reincarnated. Reincarnation will then depend on the will of the person; today it is independent of it. We can say there is a first moment before reincarnation and a last moment after it. Before that, man was one who did not incarnate, and after that he will be one who no longer reincarnates. To see beyond the realm of reincarnation is the attribute of the third level of discipleship. This disciple, this chela at the third level, is called “swan”. When he looks at the first and the last, that is, at that which is higher than all reincarnation, then he is able to write and speak of apocalypses. What is contained in any apocalypse initially comes from those initiates who not only overlook the time of reincarnation, but see from the first to the last. To show how man has come into this reincarnation and how he comes out of it again, that is the task of every apocalypse. It has to describe a distant past and a distant future, and in doing so it also encompasses the present. In the Apocalypse of John you will find a description of the seven sub-races of our fifth root race, because what is said of the seven churches refers to the seven sub-races of the fifth root race. The admonitions that the apocalyptic John addresses to the churches are the admonitions that the chela John calls out to the individual sub-races. Each sub-race is connected with a very specific constellation in heaven. Therefore, there are seven stars that represent the seven angels: they guide the genii of the seven sub-races. Then one is led to the first and to the last. The first is the human being who stands before reincarnation, and the last is he who still stands after having overcome reincarnation.

John was in a so-called initiation shell. He also says that he was in spirit. And what is revealed there is nothing other than the inspiration of a chela in the third degree of discipleship; it is an apocalypse of the swan. The swan is the one who establishes the connection between the most highly inspired and man. This is expressed in the most important legends.

So the disciple becomes homeless at the first level. Those who have become swans can attain the higher revelations. They are those who come into our world, but you are not allowed to ask them their name because they come from a world beyond. This is expressed in a great, powerful allegory that also has a deeply mystical meaning. It is a very profound truth that is expressed in the Lohengrin saga; through Lohengrin, who comes with the swan, who was thus a disciple - a chela - of the third degree. Great truths are found with him. Only he who understands the saga of Lohengrin understands world history from the eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth century.

Now I have explained to you the origin of who can speak apocalyptically, who can create a picture of the world, independent of space and time. We will also talk about the distant past, the present, but also the future. This will become clear when we talk about the apocalypse revealed by Theosophy. There we will see what man can set as a great goal, because it really is a great goal.

From the question and answer session

The materialist says that we follow animality to the stage where it has become human, and now we follow the urge present in man at a certain higher level.

But this is not based on knowledge, it is based on materialistic dogma. You do not follow the laws of nature by dogmatically limiting these laws of nature to a very specific point and saying: so far and no further. You can only follow the laws if you recognize them. You have to combine the knowledge of the laws with following them.

An example of this: the religious person will not merely rely on the fact that he says: I do not lie because it puts me at a disadvantage or makes me contemptible in the eyes of my fellow human beings. He is much more convinced that lying has a broader meaning, that it is something that goes against the divine order of the world and that it brings its punishment, its effects, with it. If you support the truth, you are supporting the advancement of a certain development. If you describe events differently than they are, you do the same as if you were to suppress a plant germ: you withhold a very specific direction of development. This does not seem so bad as long as you are not aware that you can also withhold something in spiritual growth. But the occultist says: a lie is a murder. What would have developed as a living being is killed by the lie.

The division of the sexes is related to birth and death.

The second stage of discipleship resolves doubt and makes superstition impossible.

The investigation of the reincarnation of another human being must be completely impersonal. If the researcher is asked, he can get involved.

In answer to the question of which student would be able to read in the Akasha Chronicle, I would like to reply: anyone who is ready to become a disciple can read in the Akasha Chronicle. There are two types of reading in the Akasha Chronicle: the actual reading is possible as soon as one becomes a disciple at all. But one must first learn to spell. The Akasha Chronicle throws mirror images into the astral plane. It is located at the boundary between the rupa and arupa levels. But you can, for example, find Caesar's war campaign in the astral plane as a reflection of the records in the Akasha Chronicle.

Last time, I spoke about the stage of human development at which one is able to speak of an apocalypse. I showed that one should look at the world in such a way that one's gaze extends over such long periods of time that one can see the time before man began to undergo his individual incarnations, and one can also see the time that lies after these wanderings through birth and death. I have also said that it is necessary for the so-called chela to have attained the third degree of chelaship.

The Apocalypse of John also emerged from such a school. He who thus surveys the world does not see it differently from how other initiates see it. You must realize, above all, that the 'visions', the 'higher experiences' or whatever you want to call it, are no different from one another, and that, however strange it may seem to the uninitiated, when, for example, the four animals are mentioned, it will never sound different from the mouth of one than from the mouth of the other. Two initiates will not report the same thing in different ways.

To give you an idea, I would like to speak of what every such initiate experiences about the development of humanity. The one who made the statements contained in the Apocalypse surveyed the period of time that lies before our present root race, he surveyed the two races that preceded our race, he surveyed the time when man first took on his present form in the middle of the Lemurian period, and he surveyed life beyond birth and death. Now, before the point in time that we call the point of human incarnation in the middle of the Lemurian period, there is a very specific form of humanity that is different from what we now call human. I will start from a very specific point.

The present man, as you know, consists of seven bodies. We have the physical body first, then the etheric double body, thirdly the astral body and four more. First of all, we are only interested in the three lower bodies: the physical body, which can be perceived with the ordinary senses, then the so-called etheric double body, which cannot be perceived with ordinary senses. This etheric double can be seen by those who have acquired the ability to do so when they subtract the physical body. They then see in space a double of the person, which has approximately the color of a peach blossom. Embedded in this is, so to speak, the astral body, a luminous oval. When a person dies, the event of death initially means that the sum total of the higher bodies, the etheric body, is released from the physical body. In the first period after death, the astral body is united with the etheric double. Later, in a few days, the astral body leaves the etheric double. The astral body then goes through the experiences it has to undergo between death and a new birth. Today, the etheric double body has only an intermediary position. It mediates the activity of the astral body with the physical body. While man walks on the earth today, the physical body has the greatest significance for him. The physical brain is the instrument of man's highest spiritual activity. The etheric double body acts as a link, mediating the activity of the physical body with the higher bodies. The dissolution [of the etheric body] did not yet take place in the time of the first races and also not yet in the first time of the third race. This was not yet the case in the first time of the third root race. In the so-called polaric race, the etheric body was the most significant. The whole body was a fine, thin etheric matter. Only later did the etheric body become denser by becoming imbued with physical matter. At the end of the first root race, human beings on our earth were not yet tied to the ground in the same way as they are today; they floated through the etheric earth, and their organs were also etheric. Man was an etheric being. Gradually, he became denser until, in the middle of the Lemurian period, he had become so dense that he was able to take on a physical body. But even in the middle of the Lemurian period, man was not yet as dense as he is today. The matter at the beginning of our third root race was somewhat denser than the matter that you can see today in the clouds of fog that drift over the mountains. These people would appear to us today like fiery clouds. That is why those who came to Earth from other regions as the highest intelligences to teach people are called “Sons of Fire Nebula.

When the geologist takes us back to the specific point on Earth where the physical remains of humans first end, the physical trace is lost. Man was simply made of such fine matter at a certain time that no physical imprints of it can be found in the early layers of the earth. That transition from finer matter to physical matter, those beings that have developed up to physical density, the esotericist designates - to have a word for it in our language - as the “eagle” stage of man. He described the physical human being of that time as the eagle. In esoteric language, the eagle is the human being of the Lemurian race, the human being who works his way up out of ethereal matter into dense matter.

Then comes the Atlantean race. Initially, they were only endowed with a denser etheric body. At that time, the human being was still able to master the seed life forces in plants. They heated their ships with the prana of the plants, as described in the book 'Atlantis' by Scott-Elliot. This shows us that in those days man had greater control over his etheric double than he has today. Later man will gain control over the higher bodies. The details of this process, which is a real, actual process, are described by the apocalypticist.

The second stage, in which man still has control over the etheric body, is referred to in the esoteric art term as the stage of the “Lion Man”. This is a technical term for the Atlantean.

Then comes the man of the fifth, the Aryan race, who is referred to by the word “bull”, because physical strength is the predominant expression.

If you take these three designations, you have three very specific successive stages of human development. Those who are initiated into certain mystery schools learn a very specific language and writing in which those who learn the comprehensive truths know how to express themselves in their experiences. It is a language that all initiates around the world write and speak. It is a symbolic language. Anyone who has learned it understands it and knows when they find a certain sign in old documents that it refers to something very specific.

I will mention some of these characters, the most elementary ones, in the course of these lectures. A frequently used symbol to characterize this stage of humanity is two interlocking triangles that together form a hexagonal figure. These two triangles always have something else in them when they appear in occult works. [Here - see drawing - in the angles filled with A, L and St are the images of the eagle, lion and bull. And here below is a triangle that symbolizes the previous states. The three angles remain unfilled. They represent the original three states of humanity. In the middle is always the actual human being. This constant element, which runs through all incarnations, remains through all stages. This is what is meant by the human being.

Here you have the four natures through which man has become human in the course of his development. You have indicated these in the two interlocking triangles. If you look at this sign, you will understand why these animals appear wherever an apocalyptic speaks about these three stages of development. They also appear with the prophet Ezekiel. With John they are described in a very special way.

The apocalypticists overcome that shell that separates people from the areas where they can see those earlier stages. For people to really be able to see what has taken place on earth, other organs must develop for them. Those stages of development that humanity has gone through and that have become imperceptible and unconscious to it must be revived. So the etheric body of the apocalyptic must be revived, he must begin to really see, to become an eye, a real eye.

Therefore, the chela must not only be able to project himself back to the stage of the eagle, to the stage of the lion and the bull, but he must also be able to project himself back to the stage of the seer. It is only in the third stage that the chela truly attains this vision.

What I have described here is what you will find in the fourth chapter of the Apocalypse [of John]. The Apocalypse not only describes the past stages of humanity, but also the future stages of human development. Only he can grasp this future who has an eye for the ascent to the use of the etheric body and the higher bodies, which, so to speak, have fallen out of use in the course of development. The human being of the fifth race can only move freely, can only become aware of himself in the physical body. But now he is developing in such a way that he can later become aware of himself again in the higher bodies.

We have developed and achieved a very deep development, the development of the purely physical mind, in the present sub-race of the fifth root race. Our present sub-race will be followed by the sixth and this by the seventh. This marks the end of our root race. Then comes a new, higher root race and then another one. This development consists of man finding his way more and more into the use of his higher bodies.

We are heading towards a very specific goal, because we are, after all, on the way from the fifth to the sixth race. In everything, the human being uses the physical mind, he uses a very specific moral code and a religion. This dominates him for the reason that the physical mind rules. The individual must essentially seek his fortune at the expense of others. The individual who strives for the higher already strives beyond what is required by general life. In occult schools, there are three words that describe the new age, the age of a new, later humanity. In the realm of social life, it is

That is why the Theosophical Society has included universal brotherhood as the most important item on its agenda, because it wants to prepare for life in the sixth root race. Man will only feel happy there if happiness is not attained at the expense of others. That is morality. Our science is materialistic. This will be different in the next sub-race. We are striving for a different scientific state. That is to say, “pneumatology, the doctrine of the spirit and of spiritual things, will be decisive in the new race. And especially in the sphere of religion, something will be decisive that is not possible today because the intellect is in the way: ‘self-authority’. Man will himself hear the tidings of the existence of a divine world spirit. That is the free religious principle of the next race. Brotherhood, pneumatology and self-authority in religious matters characterize the race that is gradually and slowly preparing itself, and which will shape the future. A seventh race will take on completely different forms, which we will deal with another time.

The race in which Christianity developed is the fourth. This was preceded by the third race. In certain periods of time, what has already taken place is repeated. The first three sub-races briefly repeated the eagle, lion and bull stages. These were preparatory races, while what the following race had to accomplish emerged within the fourth sub-race, which is essentially characterized by man or by God incarnate. Christianity arose within the fourth sub-race. Around the middle of the Middle Ages, it was replaced by the fifth, our present sub-race, which we broadly characterize as the “Germanic” one. It replaced the so-called “Latin race”; by this was understood everything that had slowly absorbed the stream of Christianity and also slowly developed in a spiritual sense in Europe. Before that, three other races went through it, which essentially briefly repeated the earlier conditions.

Within the Apocalypse, these seven conditions are expressed as the seven churches. The churches represent the seven sub-races. What is spoken to the church of Ephesus, to the church of Smyrna and so on, are the words that are addressed to the different sub-races. There are still members of the various races living in the world today, and there are still members of the first sub-race of the fifth root race. The Indian people essentially belong to this. The Indian people have expressed the culture of thought in the highest sense. The highest deification of thought was expressed in ancient India. This had to briefly repeat what Lemurian man had developed. The Lemurians were sentient beings. The members of our race are thinking beings. Memory only developed in the Atlantean race. The Lemurians had no memory. Although people in the first sub-race thought, they thought in sensations, and you can find an account of their thoughts in the ancient Vedic culture. You will read these works correctly if you read them with the thought that the thought revels in a wonderful world of feeling. In the cultures that serve thought more with memory, in which external custom then holds the culture of memory in the service of heroes, because the memory of a great inventor or discoverer or king is fixed in morality and in which the long catalogs are created that then led to the calendar. Much was noted in the first races by the ancient Indians and Persian magicians. And from these notes the first beginnings of the calendar emerged. From these first sub-races emerged the present-day humans. Man has advanced to the fifth race because he has understood: within himself is the God; because he has understood the apocalyptic advance.

But the first race, which expresses itself in the Vedas, could also most easily fall into error. The feeling is not yet strong enough for the thought to internalize itself. So it has come about that the Indian cultural epoch has two sides next to each other. On the one hand, we have the wonderful, lofty conceptions of spiritual deities, as we find them in the ancient Vedic culture, that wonderful religion of which those who do not know it cannot form a conception of the depth of the Vedanta. This is a purely spiritual teaching of such clarity that it is said in Europe – but this is more or less true: Every day that one penetrates anew into these wonderful depths is, for those who have already become accustomed to remaining silent and calm, yet another source of new admiration. Compared to what the ancient Vedic culture of India offers, the admiration that applies to our present-day life cannot be lasting. There is nothing that can be compared to what this ancient Indian culture offers. On the other hand, the people have fallen into the most abject idolatry. What is usually found in books about Indian culture is a colorful jumble of idolatrous and religious ideas that gives no real picture. The idolatry of the people must be distinguished from the great and powerful spiritual world of the Brahmins. The great bright sides of humanity always have great dark sides as well. People who often have members within their nation, within their tribe, who have attained the highest spiritual perfection, have themselves often remained attached to the most external things. The Apocalypse seeks to illustrate these phenomena that I have described to you in the church of Ephesus, on the one hand in those who have kept their first love, and on the other hand in those who have abandoned the works of their first love and have sunk back. The Nicolaitans are mentioned, who only see in outward appearances what man should strive for. A monumental word is to be directed to those who live in such a community.

I just wanted to show how world-important events are addressed by such a passage, as directed to the community of Ephesus, as a representative of these conditions:

I know your works, labor and patience; and how you cannot bear those who are evil, and you have tested those who say they are apostles, and they are not, and you found them false; and you have tolerance and patience, and for my name's sake you labor, and you have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Remember therefore from whence you are fallen, and repent. And do the first works. Otherwise I will come unto you quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent. But this you have, that you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. He who has ears, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. He who overcomes, to him I will give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God. [Rev 2,2-7]

If you want to understand the beginning of the Bible, you have to know what things refer to. We have spoken of the Hyperboreans. That was not a race so dense that it could not have been reached. - Air beings. Therefore, we need not be surprised if they have left no signs of remembrance, no bones and so on. Only what was physically hardy could leave remains. What takes place in the first chapter of Genesis is even higher than the Hyperborean time. Only up to the astral, above all physical.

Let us review the seven rounds: only the fourth round has produced people like the present ones; the archetype of such a human being was created who could realize himself within the mineral kingdom. Before that, he had gone through the elemental realms.

5. Round plant kingdom
6. Round animal kingdom
7. Round human kingdom

So that one cannot actually say of the present round that man is in the image of God. It is only in the seventh round that he will be God-like in his human nature. Only the physical body has attained perfection. Further development is again the attainment of earlier stages, but in a higher form. Man became physical as he is today when he got warm blood.

We must make a clear distinction between warm- and cold-blooded animals. Fish have no passions. Man has also gone through the state of cold-bloodedness. The Lemurian race were cold-blooded until the appearance of sexuality. We must reach this state again in a higher form. Christianity strives to regain this state of cold-bloodedness. It wants to curb and ennoble the passions. The esotericist says that Christians are Pisces, who overcome everything that comes from warm-bloodedness.

The astral body will only be complete in the next round. When our fourth round has passed, the mineral will no longer be there. Man will not be tied to the ground; he has also developed out of the form of moving in the air: hence the symbol of the eagle. During the sixth round, he absorbs the plant world. Humans and animals will divide in the absorption of the plant world. Animals will process the tendrils; humans the seed power.

In the seventh round, man is then present as the image of God.

So in the first round, only the first elementary realm is present; the mineral kingdom begins.

What makes an object perceptible is the mineral kingdom; man needs higher organs to see beyond the physical; he must develop new senses. During the first four rounds, the world was visible because it gradually developed the mineral. The moment the mineral kingdom flashes, the world shines. Before that, it would have been completely lightless. At first, this light was dark red; everything that is to develop later is still present in the darkness. Everything that was preparing to become mineral earth was light. Everything else that came over from the moon was darkness, with the exception of the mineral. Everything that is light is now the sun, everything that is darkness is the moon.

Heaven is all spiritual. Waters are that from which the earth was formed, its astral basic germ. When we now look at the mineral kingdom, we cannot distinguish one stone from another; nothing is separate. It was only in the second round that individual beings were singled out; this is indicated by the fact that the spiritual was separated from the physical. If the image of the spiritual did not remain, a plant could not be recreated. The stone remains, needs no separation. The

plant needs it; this is the task of the second round. “Waters are the beings, the unified. The division lies in the separation of the spiritual from the physical.

They were plants that we would call sponges or algae today; not what we would call herbs today. They have a different nature, but they are plant-like beings. Especially those that do not yet have the correct green color.

During the third round, everything that not only takes life from the ground but also carries life forward is created. The difference between seed-bearing plants and sponges. The sponge still takes life from the general nature. When we look at the animal's astral body during the third round, it is something quite unfinished, it is merely the mineral ground that is being prepared. The animal has a plant nature, it reproduces and has an astral nature of feeling, it feels. But what concerns us here is only the mineral imprint. So what is created during the third round is the mineral imprint, and it consists of the fact that it has a plant body that carries seeds. The Genesis writer describes only what has remained of plants and animals, the solid shell; he omits the ethereal and astral. – Snail in its shell as an example. He describes what carries seeds.

During the fourth round, the mineral continues to develop to the point where it can become a shell for plants, animals and humans. In the third round, animals could not see the moon and stars because they were not yet mineral; now they will.

What has come from the lunar condenses as a moon body; the sun is condensed light.

We have not yet come to the end of the fourth day, because the round has not expired. What happens later? The birds are the future astral bodies of humans; winged animals are cherubs and angels. This multiplication is not a sexual multiplication.

The sixth round: one must think of the process as having been elevated into the mental realm, where everything becomes pure. God gives plants to man for food: absorption of the plant kingdom. Everything that is now an animal will then, as it were, be summoned into its astral body. The lion first strives towards his kind, he is not yet in his kind. Only in the sixth round will each animal be in its kind; then their earthly development will cease and a higher one will begin. Only now is man the ruler: he must be able to rule magically. Then man will be male-female again. All herbs and tendrils to the animals.

Heaven, the highest spiritual realm, is also completed. God can only rest when man is also complete. The later states are always repetitions of the earlier ones. For our fourth state, we can also imagine that we find the future hinted at in the present. A derived sense is possible because each following one on a higher level repeats the previous one: the first three days of creation correspond to the first three rounds. The four last days of creation on the Arupa-, Rupa-, astral and etheric-physical phase of the earth up to the time in the Lemurian race.

The real original meaning: seven rounds and taken in the most spiritual sense. But then a derived one [gap in the transcript]

because each following one at a higher level repeats the previous one.

Very few knew what the Genesis meant; the point in time when it was first set down in writing coincides with the beginnings of Christianity. Philon Judaeus of Alexandria was the first to give something as we have taken it today. The time when an esoteric teaching was first entrusted to a book coincides with the time when the mystery was overcome. Those who were initiated experienced the sacrificial death of the god in the mysteries, and if they were initiated higher, their own sacrificial death. What had previously been experienced by the individual in the crypt was carried out into the world arena. What was previously only experienced by those who saw was now to be shared with those who believed. While Philo, as far as possible, published the esoteric for the first time, Christianity presents it as a mystical fact. History is made of what was previously experienced only in the mysteries.

This is the central cosmic significance of Christianity and its founder. Everything that came before points to it, everything that came after rejects it. What happened earlier in the mysteries was like a prophecy. Therefore, Christianity is a fulfillment. “I have not come to destroy, but to fulfill.”

The second chapter of Genesis begins where, in our present round, the physical state occurs. In the etheric state, animals and plants did not yet exist, because man is actually the first. The polar race is still etheric, but already physical. As man develops from the etheric human being, who is still male-female, animals and plants arise as waste products. In the beginning, man had all the qualities that are now distributed among the other plants and the animals: the rage of the lion, the cunning of the fox. So the middle of the Lemurian period is an important point in time for all beings. Beings with warm blood did not exist earlier.

Now, the seven days of creation are the seven rounds; the conditions that preceded our physical ones can also / gap in transcript ]

the fourth round begins / gap in transcript ]

In the Egyptian mysteries it was recorded that the seven days are seven rounds. Our own physical development is described in the second chapter. Now the seventh day is meant only with regard to mineral-physical development.

The etheric was there, and in the etheric, like fog figures, people separated out – etheric double bodies.

The lower Indian yogi tries to achieve psychic experiences by changing the breathing process. A body in which the carbonic acid is active is not capable of harboring spiritual things, but it can harbor psychic things. Those who hold the carbonic acid in them longer than is the case in the normal process become more plant-like as a result. The psyche and soul have passed over and now take possession of the etheric body they find, shaped by the gods of form; union of the soul with the dust of the earth, physical mineral etheric body. All matter that is today separated into two celestial spheres is united in the etheric sea. In the center between the present Earth and the Moon was the ether sphere; in it was united what later separated, daughter spheres are from the mother sphere, which is referred to as “Paradiso”. Only through this did the Earth become ripe to attain physical density, through which man has become so. So indeed Paradise existed, from which man was expelled.

Only now, after the separation, do plants develop. Man could not develop further if he did not give up certain parts that became plants. “If they had not chosen a lower existence, I would not have developed higher,” man must tell himself.

The whole of evolution arises from taking and giving. Evil also arises from this, which only lies in time and must be balanced out later. The corresponding good is created for the evil in later time; this is how development comes about.

Now everything that man needs was available on earth. All the life force that man does not need is in the plants; in the middle of the tree of life, what he needs, the life force. It is man's own prana, purified for him by giving up some of it.

The sympathetic nervous system spreads like a tree in his body. Nothing can arise in the universe without its counterpart appearing. Man must now find his complement in the other tree, in the polaric: spinal cord and brain. In addition to mere prana, his organs for knowledge are developing. The human spirits were able to connect with him and take up residence in the tree of knowledge. We will skip the four currents this time.

[Gap in the transcript] you will die. All life that existed until now did not know what we call birth and death today. What was physical was immortal. In order to create an organ for the spirit, [gap in the transcript] a duality was created. The abundance of the human spirit was like a large amount of liquid in relation to a vessel that cannot hold it; the series of lives are the various vessels. It is natural that man, when faced with the choice, should either retain his immortality in the lower realms or purchase it through many lives.

In order for man to turn to the spiritual, it is necessary that birth and death arise. Because the spirit has many facets, it is important that man comes into different situations. The diversity of characteristics would not be achieved and different destinies would not arise if the mother only gave birth to a daughter without the means of sexuality; only now did the mixture come and with it the diversity: the diversity among people and thus the possibility of creating the most diverse destinies. Sexual reproduction is a necessary counterpart to birth and death.

In hermaphrodites, only the characteristics of the ancestor can be inherited; for entirely new characteristics to arise, the mixture of two must be added. Amphimixis is the necessary correlate of birth and death. In the period when humans acquired bones, that is, a mineral basic structure, humans divided into men and women; the Persian Genesis still contains the meaning well.

At this moment, with the physical evolution of man, all warm-blooded creatures arise - “hm entsprechend” means “of the same nature”. In the wake of man, the animals arose.

The sleep into which Adam falls: Before that, man was a physical being into which the spirit was driven from the outside; now what used to come from the outside must sprout within, must break out. Consciousness from the outside can only become inner by man crossing a threshold. He sleeps over.

With the becoming male and female of the human being, the work on the physical plane begins at the same time. Now he is dependent on himself. He used to be connected to higher matter and the spirit.

And now they realize that they are naked. What has now come is matter, because before that it was finer matter in which the sense organs had not yet been formed. Seeing was only possible once eyes had been formed. The moment when the spiritual organs of prehistoric times became sense organs was the moment when man became a special being. He saw himself in his selfhood.