The Rudolf Steiner Archive

The medieval mystics speak of a so-called deification of man. It is an extraordinarily apt expression for an inner process, for certain spiritual experiences. It is based on the fact that man can develop more and more through his inner core, can let the spiritual man shine through the outer shell more and more.

That is the essence of divinization. Those who speak of it have in mind that the human being also originated from the spiritual. As it were, descending from the spiritual to the physical existence, in order to move up again to its starting point. Why did it have to take the path away from divinity, if the path back must be taken again? A prominent mystic of the present day has said that those who have gained even a little experience no longer ask this question so easily, and basically Greek mysticism has given the answer by calling the soul a bee. Just as the bee leaves the beehive, flies out into the fields and collects honey, the extract, the noblest, from the plant and brings it back – the soul does the same in the world, sets out into the fields, collects wisdom treasures for examination, which can only be experienced here for the souls, in order to enrich the dwelling place of God again. We could learn more from such simple images than the sober mind is able to grasp.

Yesterday I was able to speak about the three arts and their development by presenting them as a reflection of those worlds that preceded our present one. The three elemental realms are reflected in architecture, sculpture and painting. Everything in the three elemental realms is, in some respect, the still uncompacted starting point of our world, slumbering as if buried, and which man brings out again. That is why they have been compared to a slumbering place of God, where they rest in order to be resurrected again through man. We can no longer see the realm of fluctuating images with our outer eyes. Man seeks to revive it within himself through the three arts, to resurrect it.

The great task of art is that through its creation, our being is a release of the God that sleeps in nature, that in our soul, God awakens again and flows into our creations, so that in the designs of human works, divinity can live.

And by doing this, man deifies himself and thereby becomes the being who has to bring the honey of the world back to the altar of God.

Let us let our eyes wander over the works of the great painters. What Raphael and Michelangelo conjure up on the canvas, what elevates thousands of souls, is a creation of the spirit, great and powerful, but it will pass away, the works of the great geniuses will scatter into tiny atoms. But connected with this human creation is something that is imperishable, that which the human soul has worked for. They have acquired something that is everlasting; they will carry into eternity what they have brought into their spirit, what they have worked into it. When the globe is blown apart, the beings will take with them what the souls have learned and experienced here. They bring this back to the altar of God as the bees of life. This is what mysticism called deification. Time and again, humanity redeems the hidden God. Then it becomes clear what so few understand today: that what man ultimately creates as the divine world was already there in the beginning. So that the highest that man ultimately comes to is the lowest. So that in knowledge we ultimately have what God has put into the world. Hellscherische insight is communion with the divine world.

We have spoken of a special training of the dream-filled sleep consciousness, which leads to the knowledge of the three elemental realms, to the world of floating images, the formations of formless forces, and that of the world-forming clay. Now there are other experiences. It is the dream that has surrounded us with symbolic representations that can rise to a perception of the formative forces. Now there is the awakened consciousness during dreamless sleep.

When the continuity of consciousness occurs, the human being perceives the sounding world: the spiritual world begins to resound. What Pythagoras described as the music of the spheres is real truth. The inner essence of the world is expressed in sound: “The sun resounds in the ancient way.” This would be a complete phrase, for the sun does not resound in physical life, but it does when we recognize it as the body of a spiritual being. Out of the chaos of the world, we hear it ordering itself, chaos as sound, as spiritual harmony: “Sounds arise for new ears... Unheard-of things do not resound.”

But the spiritual hears. Spirits who have theosophical wisdom have therefore spoken of sound as the form of the world. In Schopenhauer's spirit lived the presentiment of an enormously significant fact. For the clairvoyant, the essential being of the world is a world of sounds. If we penetrate into the inner being of things, it is through the musical essence, through the world of sounds, and that is true.

Formations push outwards, and even the formative forces penetrate into space, and their mirror images are external announcements of inner beings. What we perceive in the three arts is the most spiritualized form. With music, we do not penetrate through the surface, but directly into the essence of things. When the bell rings, its innermost being floods into the world. The sound is the outward-reaching beauty of the innermost being. That is why it is also an external reflection of that in which the Hellseher immerses himself in his innermost being.

We also speak of three realms in the inner realm. When we speak of the innermost being of the world spirit, we will have to perceive it as a feeling of the trinity. Just as the human being has emerged from the mineral that pulsates in the physical body, so life pulsates in the physical in the highest being. Will, wisdom, activity. In this, the will emerges again, of which Schopenhauer speaks as the essence that rises from the abyss. It lives in us, constitutes our being.

The idea becomes an image, and then the connection with the outside world takes place; most of all where there is action and activity. In them we embody ourselves and are present as the Godhead is in its kingdom. Thus we have abysmal will in wisdom, which establishes connection with the world, and we have activity, in which it is hidden. If will is the deepest thing in us, then it is also in nature. When will awakens in the soul of man, God celebrates his resurrection – likewise in wisdom and in the actions of man. As music leads us into the essence of things, so it is the deepest essence of things themselves that lives in the tones of music. Tone is the spiritual body of will. The most original essence of the spirit is in the will of the musical. A beautiful thought of Schopenhauer's philosophy is that the riddle of the world is solved in music.

Nietzsche, who wanted to search for such connections of thoughts with an unparalleled yearning spirit, came to a confused inkling of the most beautiful kind: in the “Birth of Tragedy out of the Spirit of Music”. What did he want to achieve in this book? Nietzsche tried to describe the path of the spirit to its inner life. He sought to penetrate to the point where man feels the world will pulsating within him. In music, man transforms will into a spiritual body. Man is most intensely united with his God when music resounds from his soul. Thus, for Nietzsche, too, music is placed in the universe.

From a higher perspective, Goethe allows Faust to advance to “In the beginning was the deed.” 'Deed' is the outflow of will, and if man wants to create an image of the deed in a work of art, he must give birth to it out of the musical. And then we shall find the cosmic position of the speaking arts in the spirit of the world.

Wisdom is the power of the spirit, half of which penetrates outwards and allows the other half to be provided by the world: the penetration of the spirit with the essence from outside. The harmony of inside and outside - that is wisdom. It is true wisdom when man finds the harmonization of his inner being with the outside. And true wisdom includes the good. It is a wisdom of feeling.

Just as the will finds expression in sound, so too does the soul find its way to the word through meaning. Like wisdom, the word has a part that comes from outside and a part that comes from within. In its meaning, it announces something external to us. Just as the original will is expressed in the art of pure sound, so too is the wisdom of the soul expressed to the soul in the rhythm of the word.

Lyric poetry – sound steeped in meaning.

Song – wisdom poured out and embodied.

The third is where the spirit withdraws and embodies itself in action. Man's action is his creation; the third realm of the spiritual draws the dramatic arts. The drama is the image of the third realm, of activity.

Thus man leaves behind the phases of his being in what he creates as an image. Music, lyric poetry, drama.

As long as the beings around us announce themselves through sound, we remain outside of them to a certain extent. They express their meaning through the inner word, when they not only sound but also speak. This is something that is envisioned as an ideal in the very distant future, but it is also something that stands at the starting point of the world. And the artist presents it as prophecy.

The musician, the lyricist and the playwright are the prophets of what is to come. The other three arts represent the past; these three represent the future. In this way, the artist creates a paradise for us, whereby past, present and future are connected. This is what Goethe is talking about:

But you, the true sons of the gods,
Rejoice in the living, rich beauties!
That which is becoming, that which is eternally working and living,
Embrace with the sweet barriers of love,
And what floats in a wavering appearance,
Strengthen with lasting thoughts! [Faust I, verses 344-349]

[Thus speaks the Lord to the three archangels Gabriel, Michael and Raphael in the prologue to Heaven in Goethe's “Faust” I.] What lives in fluctuating appearance, thought affixes.

There is no more beautiful way to describe the cosmic mission of art. The eternal itself is in this world. And if we are able to look at beauty with devotion, to embrace it with our love, to feel the eternal in the image, then we are strengthening beauty with lasting thoughts. When the entire globe has disintegrated into millions of atoms, the eternal will be carried over into new worlds. Art certainly has a part in this. In a work of art, man can create a limited reflection of the beauty of the world, a limited reflection of divine perfection is art.

In the arts, we also get a taste of that blissful freedom that flows from knowledge. Art appears to be the surest guarantee of our ability to achieve freedom. Thus, the beautiful appearance becomes the great educator to the highest, to freedom. The German who does not know Schiller's Letters on Aesthetic Education does not know an important piece of German spirit. They are full of theosophical sentiment; the experience of the divine essence is what theosophy wants; that is why enjoying art elevates one to a state of selflessness, because it creates disinterested pleasure in the highest spirituality. One must penetrate through matter to the spiritual, then the highest is achieved through the spiritualization of the material; then beauty becomes education to the spiritual, and through the aesthetic perception of beauty, man penetrates to wisdom.

With the Apocalypse we enter into the deepest depths of the Christian world view. Every great religion has had its secret teachers, and so has Christianity. Above all, we must be clear about the nature of the secret teaching. The Apocalypse is nothing other than the Christian secret teaching. We only have to understand the key words: “Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.” This is the core of Christianity. Believing and seeing are two opposites. Christianity should also bring bliss to those who believe even if they do not see. The great mystery at Golgotha had its harbingers in the earlier human races. Even in the ancient mysteries, as long as our root race is on earth, something was celebrated in secret temple sites, something was shown to people that was nothing other than the mystery of God's deeds in the world.

We accompany our ancestors to the places that were most sacred to them. There they were shown how the God Himself descends to Earth, how He merges with material existence. This is called the crucifixion of the deity in the earthly. This was depicted in such a way that a human form was placed in a kind of coffin; this meant that the deity entered matter. It was then shown that the human being must perfect himself; then he would find God within himself. This is the same power that is crucified in matter and can therefore be reborn out of matter.

Everything that has become religion, art and science has emerged from the mysteries. The mysteries were a pictorial representation of what later took place at Golgotha. The drama of God developed more and more in its details. If one could follow what the temple priest said to the temple student, one would hear roughly the same thing that is written in the Gospel of John. It had condensed into a canon. The Christian gospels are ancient temple records. The teaching was taken from the depths of the temples. It is nothing new. This is hinted at in the gospels, especially in John. What the disciple saw in the temple was intended to depict what had happened in the world. This was depicted in this one testament. What was depicted in the temple site is expressed by John:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not.

The student who was admitted to the mysteries could see in them an image of the great mystery of the world. What had been presented in the mysteries had actually taken place in Palestine. Christianity is a fulfillment. It has emerged onto the historical stage; the temple documents were kept secret. Those who were admitted to the mysteries had to take a sacred oath not to reveal any of it to the uninitiated. Today, any science can appropriate knowledge, but the ancients said: Only a pure heart may know, in an impure heart knowledge becomes an evil power. Only those who could communicate the word of knowledge from a worthy heart and feeling to others were allowed to know. Only the word of knowledge that was warmed through by good, pure and noble feeling was respected. The temple records were the secret revelation for the disciples of the mysteries.

Now Christ had truly been revealed. Through this, Christianity was brought out of the temples and onto the world stage for the whole world. Those who believed without looking into the temples were also to be blessed. For thousands of years, a secret teaching was proclaimed in the temples; this was revealed through the appearance of Christ.

The initiates were to work in such a way that people would be prepared for the future. The prophets were initiated into the mysteries. Every content of initiation is revealed later. At that same moment, new content is given for a new future. Christ himself performed such an initiation in the miracle of Lazarus. The Gospel had been revealed through Christianity, it had become a message. A new secret teaching now developed in early Christianity. Outside, the content of the Gospels was proclaimed, the suffering, the resurrection. But in the mysteries, events of the future were presented. Even today there are still Christian mysteries. They depict what is to happen in the distant future.

Christ is what is called in Theosophy the second entity of the divine Trinity. This consists of the three entities: God the Father, the Word and the Holy Spirit. The Father is that towards which everything strives, the entity towards which the whole unknown universe is moving. The Word is the guide to the Father. It was seen in all worlds as that which leads to the Father. 'Veda' means 'the Word'. The most ancient records of the Indians were called the 'Vedas'. The Indian knew that his Rishis - his teachers - were inspired; they imparted the 'Vedas', the 'Word', which was inspired by the Deity, the Word from which the world originated. In ancient India the Word was not something external. It reflected the essence of the object.

The ancient Germans had a runic writing system; in ancient times, when a person pronounced the name of a thing, he knew that the thing had come into being from the word. That is why we find the unpronounceable name of God among the Jews, because it was the essence itself. That is why the actual name of God - Yahweh - was only used on the most solemn occasions and for the most solemn actions.

The ancient peoples said to themselves: The world was created by the word, the Logos. The word once excited world vibrations, rhythmic movements from which the world emerged. The third divine essence is that which the word can grasp, which gives strength to strive up to the Father. The Word, the divine power of creation, the second link in the divine trinity, has taken on human form.

And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

Man will not always appear in this coarse material form; the development of man in the flesh is the fourth round or cycle. Before that, man was in a freer material form and remained in a completely different kind of existence for three cycles. But the abilities he now has, he could only acquire in the flesh. He must now develop upwards again through finer materials.

The sixth cycle will be special. He will then be in a more refined matter. Today we can only embody the word in physical air vibrations. Only insofar as I express my being in the word does it come to another. But in the sixth cycle we will consist of a finer substance, so that we will reproduce our whole being outwardly in vibrations and reveal our whole being to all people. Today, the human being can hide much through gross materiality. But then, in the sixth round, we will be entirely vibration, entirely sound, beings that communicate with the environment in rhythmic or non-rhythmic waves. Then the word, the name of the human being, is external physicality. Now the human being cannot communicate his entire being to the outside world. But there have always been beings who are superhuman, like the word itself; these can be in the flesh in the fourth cycle, which the others will be in the sixth cycle. The word has already become flesh in Christ. What can take place for human beings in the sixth cycle has been realized in the fourth cycle through Christ in humanity. This is the mystery of the Incarnation of the Logos.

The goal of man is: You shall develop to such an extent that you can turn your whole being outwards. That is the following of Christ. In the sixth cycle, man is to become what Christ exemplified in the fourth cycle. Clement Alexandrinus, Origen, were Christian initiates and imbued with the full significance of the goal, that a millennium, a cycle, must come when man will have the opportunity to be an outward seal imprint of Christ living in the flesh. Thus, a dormant Christ principle is hidden in man. In order for this to become manifest, the human being must pass through various states. This was presented in the first Christian mysteries. We find this in the first chapters of the Apocalypse. The “firstborn from the dead” means that he was the model in the fourth round of what it means to live the whole word in such a way that it will be revealed.

Human development is much older than history. Our present root race - [the Aryan,] the fifth - developed in its first sub-race in present-day India. The Indian religious books were written only in much later times. In the beginning, nothing external about the development of humanity was entrusted to man. This was guided by the old Rishis to a religious belief that was wonderfully monotheistic. The second sub-race - the Persians - developed a religion based on the principle of duality; however, this was not written down until much later. In the third sub-race, a three-part deity was recognized, especially in Egypt. This had an effect on the preceding races. Only now were the Vedas written down. The mysteries were shown in the Egyptian pyramid temples, and the gospels were taken from there. The flight to Egypt indicates this.

The third sub-race is followed by the fourth, the Greco-Roman sub-race, in which Christianity developed; then the scientific world view developed in place of the religious one; the culture of the intellect developed from the eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Like a swan song, something of the old world view still lies in that time, with which the new world view was linked at that time.

The emergence of the innermost being of man before other people is what the creed of Christ must become. Those who can fully understand that Christ belongs to the world will be the twenty-four elders who worship the Lamb, Christ. In the future, in the sixth root race, some will be able to worship the Lamb in all its significance. Then man can mingle with those who worship the Lamb. This is represented by the symbol of the four beasts – lion, cow, man and eagle – who worship among the elders.

In addition to the physical body, man also has an astral body. This is not as developed as the physical body. In relation to the physical body, man is similar to God; the human race will only become more beautiful. The further perfection will be that he will perfect the astral body. Sensation, feeling and the like will become more perfect. This happens in the fifth cycle. We are still facing this cycle. Now the human being's astral body is not yet so far developed. Only the physical body is developed now. In the astral body, he only becomes a human being in the fifth cycle. There, where the human being lies before the Lamb, adoring, he does not yet stand as a complete human being. There he has one of the forms of animality. He has gained this astral form of man through earlier stages of development. Certain qualities of animality are expressed in the races. Courage is represented by the lion, sensual creativity by the ox, the cow; man represents the lower man, the Kama-Manas man, who rises above the earthly. These are not yet god-like. Men mingle with the god-like and are symbolized by the four animals; that is the point at which man will have arrived in the sixth root race, after a destruction has once more swept over the earth.

Now John describes more distant, later conditions. The messages are sent to the seven churches. The races not only live one after the other, but also next to each other. They also all have leading personalities, of whom history tells nothing.

The various schools that have fulfilled their task and now still rigidly and conservatively adhere to their task, but which must hand over their mission to humanity, are the seven communities. These receive the seven letters. The apocalypticism first clears away the old secret teachings to make way for the new secret teaching. The message to the seven churches is: You can no longer be guides, now a new revelation must come, a new church.

The apocalyptic also described the three subsequent rounds. These rounds cannot be seen with astral clairvoyance, but only when a person enters the world of Devachan, the mental world. When a person has reached that stage, he sees in spirit. When a person enters this world of Devachan, he does not see, but he hears. He is clairaudient there. 'Clairaudient' is the term we use for the spiritual world. There he hears the music of the spheres, which was spoken of in the schools of the Pythagoreans. Goethe also alludes to the sounds when he speaks of the spirit. 'The sun resounds', says Goethe. This indicates the audible state, as it is in Devachan. “The sight of it gives strength to the angels.” The angels are the spiritual beings who preside over the planets. If you want to see how a cycle unfolds, you have to recognize in the world that which resounds; the apocalypticist indicates these world cycles in the trumpets of the angels.

In the sixth round, the whole being will now be clearly revealed before everyone. But even before the sixth round begins, man can develop the Christ principle out of himself. What used to be external has become an ability in man through internalization, involution. Externalization, the evolution in the great world laws, and internalization, involution, are related to each other as exhalation and inhalation. As man passes through the races, he assimilates that which lives around him. All have passed through the ancient Indian period, then through all the other sub-races, and so they will live in the time when they will lie in adoration at the feet of the Lamb. The seven seals will be broken when man has come to the knowledge of himself, to the worship of Christ. Then the book will be unsealed. Because John indicates that this is still before the seventh race, he first has six seals opened; only later the seventh seal, when man has progressed even further in his development.

Initially, people became acquainted with their religion through the scriptures, which they understood literally. Today, it is considered enlightened to have outgrown religious documents. Regarding the Old Testament, it has always been said that it is impossible to reconcile the biblical concepts with an enlightened consciousness. People started to understand the scriptures figuratively; they still held on to the symbols. This understanding of biblical symbolism then led people to still take the biblical spirit with a certain seriousness. But even theologians today can hardly decide on anything other than to take the first chapters of the Old Testament only as a figurative representation. A rather cozy view can arise from it, but as man progresses, he cannot remain with this view. It is a kind of path of development: first to move away from the orthodox view, then from the figurative view and to move on to another, again in a sense literal view.

But for this we must learn to understand the language of the old wisdom teachings and recognize that the old teachers did not invent stories, did not create fantasies, but that they had a different conception of the truth than we have today. They wrote down the eternal truth in their teachings. This cannot be brought directly to every person, while the sensual truth can be brought to everyone.

The great teachers of old had themselves undergone an inner development. Their vision was a spiritual one. They knew that what they saw in the spirit could not be seen by everyone around them. The nations were still childlike in their perception. Accordingly, the great truths had to be given to them in a special form suitable for their understanding. Now all great teachers approached people with the awareness that the soul is immortal. It must be developed towards the truth. Moses, for example, knew that when he linked to the ideas of the people, he was planting something lasting in the soul, in the causal body. The materialistic thinker believes that the soul perishes at death. But Moses said to himself: If I communicate the truth to man today in a certain form, it will have an effect in his soul. Later he will be ripe to recognize the truth in its true form. Moses knew that later others would come who would interpret what he taught. He prepared the form. That which he prepared has gone through the incarnations of the souls. He did not consider it right to tell people the final form of the truth right away.

He himself had the truth in the background. He expressed this in the seven days of creation. He brought the truth into the form that corresponded to people's childlike understanding at the time. If he had spoken of the “round” days, he would not have been understood. He therefore spoke of days, as in ancient India one speaks of the days and nights of Brahma.

On the moon, man had a dream-like consciousness. There he had developed dream consciousness to its highest level. Each of us had come there in a kind of germinal state; there he had perceived in a dream-like way, absorbed it and developed it into a germ. These germs slept over from the moon to the earth. A spiritual germ was the human being who came to earth. He had slept through a [pralaya] into the earthly state.

Now his destiny is to come to clear consciousness. He has to go through a long series of states. In the first three rounds, what he had gone through on earlier planets was repeated. Moses speaks of the rounds. During the first round, man is in the first elementary realm. The dream state gently transitions into a state that man has now reached. The moon man did not distinguish between himself and the other objects. For him there was a dream-like pictorial reality in the way the external world is there for us in a dream. He did not perceive through the senses. The contrast between himself and his world was to be developed by man in the first round on earth. Moses calls it the difference between heaven and earth. He was to recognize himself as an earthling next to heaven. That is what happens in the first cycle of development.

In the beginning God created heaven and earth. The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep.

Man did not distinguish between himself and the individual objects. It was all still chaos. Then, after the first round, man went through an intermediate state again and then came to the second round. There the objects already got more definite boundaries. He can already distinguish what is around him. It is no longer desolate and confused. He can distinguish between what is spiritual and what is an external object. Before that it was dark on the face of the deep; the Spirit of God hovered over the waters. All that was human was water. The human germs together formed the waters. The Spirit of God brooded over the human germs, which He called forth into forms. There was light.

As soon as we see the outside world, when the entities confront us, only then can they reveal themselves to us. There was light.

God divided the light from the darkness; he made day and night. [Genesis 1:5]

Man perceived the objects. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

Now followed the Rupic round, the formative round, in which one could perceive existence. There shall be a difference between the waters; each should have its own Kama. Every single human being was set apart by God setting a boundary and dividing the waters above and below the firmament. He implanted in the individual human germ the ability to distinguish between the spiritual and the physical. The two souls were laid in the human being; the soul that looks up and the soul that looks into the earthly, that lives in the earthly.

In the third round, man enters the third elementary realm. The individual astral bodies of human beings became more and more distinct. Now man becomes independent. He steps out of the mother soil of the earth. He reaches the plant existence. These are not our present plants. Man was in the plant existence himself. All the separated astral bodies gained the ability to bring forth astral beings like the plant. During the third round, man was called to the animal existence, but in a plant-like nature, because the animal had not yet developed the body of passion. He had no warm blood yet. This was formed in the third round of the third elementary realm. The insemination indicates that fertilization has not yet taken place.

God said: Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together to one place, and let the dry land appear.

In the beginning, the astral body was not visible. Now it is becoming distinct. The dry land is only the special, more solid form that forms a boundary around itself. The gathering of the waters signifies the general astral world in its entirety.

And God said, “Let the earth bring forth grass and herbs.” [Genesis 1:11]

This was man. The ancient Germans also believed that man emerged from ash and elm, and the ancient Persians also believed that man emerged from a tree.

And have his own seed with himself [...] [Genesis 1:11]

means that each species carried its own seeds within itself and that there was no sexual reproduction.

The fourth round is the one in which the physical human being prepares himself as he is now. Man entered the mineral kingdom, he took on a body that was subject to chemical and physical laws. In the next round, he will no longer have that, but will then control his astral body just as he now controls his physical body. He will then have astral organs, he will be able to develop his organs himself when he needs them, when the astral body will control everything physical. But now, in the fourth round, man can only act with regard to the laws of the mineral world. In the physical, mineral body we are enclosed as in a house. It was only through our becoming physical ourselves that the whole world became physical. Previously, he gained knowledge of the world around him through a kind of clairvoyance. With the fourth round, the whole world of sensual objects has emerged around him. Moses could therefore say:

There are lights in the firmament of the heaven, which divide the day and the night, and give signs, times, days, and years. [Genesis 1:14]

Kant says that space and time come from man himself. Moses said that even then. Everything that can be perceived by the senses only came into being when man became physical, mineral. Through the physical round, we make the mineral body more and more perfect and also develop our astral body. In the next round, it will be developed in the same way as the physical body is today. Man will then float as if in an airy realm. Then man will have become a free being, then he will truly have become an animal being. Only then will animality be expressed in man. The astral body of man is meant here in the image of animals because the astral man moves freely in the astral world, like whales in the water, birds in the air and so on. - That is the fifth round or the fifth day.

In the sixth round, the human Kama-Manas body is formed, the lower mind body, which we now wear hidden in the physical shell. In the sixth round, man will stand as a human being in the true sense of the word, no longer enclosed in a shell. At the same time, the higher animals are formed with man. The Kama-Manas body then reaches the higher level of animal life.

And God said, “Let us make man in our image, in the likeness of ourselves: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

Only then will man become what he is meant to become.

So God created man in his own image, in the likeness of himself; male and female he created them.

Through sexuality, the human being develops into a being that will be male and female. The original text reads: He created man male-female. Only now does man truly gain dominion over the animals. He only acquires power, magic, when the actual human being is liberated on the sixth day. - On the seventh day, man had become God-like. In the seventh round, man is in the aupa state again; he has become creative himself, has become God himself, hence it says:

God rested on the seventh day. [Genesis 2:2]

The fourth round is the most important for human life. Man used to be less dense. Moses says:

He took the solid substances of the earth. [corresponds to Genesis 2:7]

He was surrounded by dust. He adopted the mineral laws. He was formed from the dust of the earth, and the living soul was formed in him. When the human being in the Lemurian race acquired solid forms — a skeleton — sexuality also arose. The solidification went hand in hand with the division into the sexes. In the second chapter, Moses describes the human being who later emerged in the Lemurian race, in the two-sexedness. This was taught in all mysteries. It was only in the fourth round that the plant and animal forms emerged as they are today. During the development of man, the plants and animals split off from him. The lower animals had arisen before. Warm-blooded animals only arose with humans. The animals developed as a result of retarded humans splitting off. The animals are the decadent human nature. They no longer fit into today's conditions. They are creatures that have remained at earlier stages. The original animal forms split off first, only then did the two sexes of humans arise.

In the beginning, man used his entire productive power externally. In the beginning, man reproduced from within himself. When he had lost the ability to penetrate dense matter, he used half of his productive power as a thinking organ.

On the one hand, man became a sexual being, while on the other, he developed half of his productive power internally into a thinking organ. He now acquired the ability to process the spirit with his brain. The spirit now fertilized him. At the same time as the division into two sexes, the thinking human being emerged. He recognized good and evil. During this period, the spinal cord and the brain also developed.

This is the snake that originated in man himself. He went through the amphibian stage. This being was his own seducer. It began to develop with the beginning of its passage through sexuality. Spinal cord and brain first developed in amphibians, and in man in the amphibious state.

When asked about the concept of God, an Indian faces a completely different situation than a European. He designates the Supreme as “Brahman” or does not speak about it at all. We have cultivated less mystical experience over the centuries, but more abstract thinking.

Today's humanity is so little accustomed to thinking of the intermediate stages between humans and the supreme God that modern man cannot easily imagine these intermediate stages. The mystics recognized intermediate beings between humans and the supreme deity: seraphim, cherubim, thrones, wisdoms, powers, authorities, principalities, archangels and angels. In the past, people tried to recognize such beings. First of all, they wanted to get to know the beings that are above humans.

Even on earth, we enter into relationships with beings that do not live on the physical plane, but on the astral or mental plane. Man lives on these three planes; but there are beings that do not descend to the physical plane, and there are others that do not even descend to the astral plane, but only dwell on the mental plane, such as the devas, the gods of the Indians. The mystic who has gained an insight into these beings will not be satisfied with an idea of the supreme and sole God if it is not based on a gradual ascent. The modern European is no longer familiar with this concept.

What is the relationship between God and man? How is it that the deity created man and that the world has only developed little by little? Such questions occupy European thought. These questions are extremely difficult to answer. In order to be able to shed some light on them, one needs at least some knowledge of what is called yoga: inner development. In the ancient mysteries, one had to go through catharsis for this purpose. The student was told: You can only educate yourself about the immortality of the soul when you no longer have any desire for immortality. This was taught in the ancient mysteries.

Man must face these questions as he does mathematical questions. In doing so, passion and feeling do not come into it; that is why man makes a very objective distinction. We must cultivate dispassion for all questions, even the highest ones. If desire did not have a say in these questions, then there would be agreement, even on such questions as the concept of God. The Pythagorean demanded that his disciple undergo catharsis first. This was also the case with gnosticism. The gnostics called their teaching on these questions 'mathesis'. The gnostic teaching on these questions was called mathesis because it was dispassionate like mathematics.

The more passion must fade, the more calm the soul must become in order to properly address these questions. Then, above all, man asks: What is the relationship between the divine and the world itself?

If we go back in time, from our point of view, we want to see if we encounter divine beings. Before us, three realms arose: the mineral, plant and animal realms. Man has all the properties of these three realms within him. He has the laws of the mineral realm within him; he is a physical-chemical laboratory; that is his mineral nature. He has life and the power to reproduce. Furthermore, he has an animal nature because he has sensation. He can, for example, feel an external impact within himself. How did man come to include the four realms within himself? He has developed to his present position at the expense of the other realms.

Before man became human, he had the three other realms within him. All minerals, all plants, all animals were even more perfect than they are today. We can illustrate this with an example: a liquid that is composed of four different liquids has certain properties as a result; we now extract a liquid as an essence. In this way, the human being has been extracted from the other realms as essence. His ascent is bought at the cost of the other realms sinking lower.

If we go back even further, the animal kingdom has not yet been extracted, but the mineral and plant kingdoms are even more perfect than later on. The animal kingdom had not yet been extracted as essence; it only developed at the expense of the mineral and plant kingdoms. It goes further back in time to the moment when the mineral kingdom still contained the plant, animal and human kingdoms as the mineral kingdom. One must also recognize this emotionally, only then does one understand compassion for all beings. The theosophist says to himself: I left that animal behind on my own path so that I could develop; I developed at the expense of other beings, so compassion must arise from such insights.

The same applies to the human realm. If the sacred is to develop, then so many must be pushed down into decadence. For every saint, there are several criminals in the world. If there were only one intermediate state, there would be no development. Development is a drawing out of the finer elements from the earlier state.

Our present development consists in man working the world with his mind. Everything he does serves to work the mineral kingdom, whether it is through mechanical engineering or by digging a mine, and so on. New forces are constantly being discovered to work the mineral kingdom. The artist works the spirit into the mineral kingdom. He brings together what lives in the mineral kingdom to form new structures. We cannot yet incorporate life into any being through the spirit, but man works in the mineral kingdom through his spirit. He used to reject the mineral kingdom so that he would later have material to work with. Now he permeates the whole mineral kingdom with his spirit; he will thereby redeem it. In this way he makes amends for what he did wrong in the past. Gradually the whole mineral kingdom will be dissolved in the spirit, processed. An absorption of the mineral kingdom by the spirit will be brought about.

Thus, in the first cycle, a realm is rejected that will be processed again in the fourth cycle: the mineral realm. In the second cycle, the plant realm is rejected, which will be processed in the fifth cycle. The animal realm was rejected in the third cycle and will be taken up again in the sixth cycle. In the seventh cycle, the human being will redeem the human realm. In this way, development also takes place on a smaller scale.

When a saint develops, other people are pushed down. But by hurrying ahead, he can later help the others to catch up on what they have missed, to redeem them. This is how life and development come about.

This awareness must fill people with an all-embracing compassion for the world. They should never want to acquire a higher level of development without wanting to help others in the process. We must redeem the subordinate beings. We are obliged to live to redeem these beings, because we have made our whole development at the expense of the rest of the world. Everything has emerged, repelled from another, so that the other could develop higher.

If we go back in development before the different realms were repelled, we find spiritual entities. The mineral kingdom, as it was in the beginning, before the plant, animal and human kingdoms developed out of it, was also repelled from something else before. So we have an opposition between the physical world and the spiritual world, which, by developing higher, has pushed away the mineral kingdom. The spiritual entities have pushed away the mineral, plant, animal and human kingdoms so that they could develop higher. Then they became our guides and creative spirits. This is the Arupic opposition between the physical and the spiritual world, or between the earthly and the divine world.

If we go back [even further], we come to a God who was all-perfect. We here in Europe ask ourselves: Why did this deity create the world, separate something from himself? If we were to make the decision to make every single thought as perfect as we are, that would mean that we make a first free decision, namely: to transfer our perfection to each of our thoughts. The beginning of the work of the Godhead was similar. The Godhead made the decision to make each member perfect in its own content, as it itself is. It can only do this by giving some of the members the opportunity for development. These can only become perfect by gradually making themselves as perfect as the Godhead itself is. But this necessarily requires that some develop at the expense of other members. If a single member of the Godhead were to make itself as perfect as the Godhead itself is, then that member would fill the whole Godhead. Should this happen suddenly in an instant, it could only achieve this at the expense of the destruction of all other members. Only slow development makes it possible for the individual member to gradually emerge in perfection.

This can also be observed in the life of the soul. When we grasp a thought, all other thoughts recede into the realm of the unconscious. Real development is only possible over time. When a single link emerged from the bosom of the Godhead, another had to recede and become less perfect than it had been in the bosom of the Godhead itself. This is how the difference between good and evil came about. It is not possible for good to arise without its opposite, evil, also arising. Good has developed at the expense of evil. One part of the Godhead was to develop to perfection, so another part had to be repelled. The advanced must continually urge the backward to catch up. Originally, the emergence of individuals took place and, accordingly, the repulsion of others, who then had to catch up. Above humanity were higher spiritual entities that had developed at the expense of others. These entities, which are higher, catch up with the entities that are lower. This is how evil came into the world, which is precisely what gives us the opportunity to attain higher perfection. By transforming evil into good, we create development.

There is no other way to make every single link of the Godhead similar to the Godhead itself. It must not occur to us, with any power we have now, to want to embrace the Godhead. Our human mind is not the highest thing in us; it has been eliminated so that other, higher faculties can develop. It has been eliminated from above and should be replaced by other faculties. It will rise again and again.

We live in the Godhead and develop into the Godhead. Beings are always being replaced and led to higher levels. We do not want to grasp the divinity with our minds. Our opinion of the divinity must develop into an ever more beautiful opinion. Truth cannot be grasped as a limited concept. Truth is alive. I live in the divinity, but I can only grasp the divinity to the extent that my experiences reach. I can only recognize the divinity to the extent that I can perceive it, not beyond what I perceive.

The development should take place because God, in his infinite love, wanted to make all his individual members as perfect as he himself is. It was a free decision, not a necessity. It was a sacrifice. As a result, we have a development of the individual members of the Godhead towards Godlikeness. Through their work, what lies as a possibility of perfection in them comes to light.

In order to lead the right spiritual life, we need to consider two aspects: our own perfection and our work in the service of humanity. It may seem as if our own perfection promotes selfishness. To a certain extent it does. But the theosophist must constantly try to help his fellow human beings. It is not for nothing that it is said: “When the rose adorns itself, it also adorns the garden.” - Self-perfection should not be undertaken in an egotistical sense. Our motto must be: “Take nothing without having the will to give for it.” You will receive all the more from the world the more you are willing to give to the world. - People who want to get ahead in life may find that they make the most progress by living by these words. Usually, one believes that one can only get ahead through study. But one advances by the slightest act of compassion. When people can bring themselves to do a kindness, then what they previously sought in vain through study comes to them. You have to make life a lesson.

People form their principles based on judgments. However, one must unlearn the views that have been formed out of likes and dislikes. One must form one's judgment on the basis of experience. A somewhat advanced occultist systematically gets rid of his sympathies and antipathies. With each new person, he lets himself be told what he sees in that person. The theosophist will express as few opinions as possible, but will let facts speak that he has experienced on the physical plane or on other planes. More and more, he will unlearn to have opinions and learn to have experiences. When we progress in knowledge in this way, our whole being is transformed. The spiritual seeker tries to train his thinking so that life speaks to him from it. He does not say to himself, “This is a criminal, this is a saint,” or, “This is a good deed, this is a bad deed.” Rather, when he thinks of the criminal, he considers how the criminal may have come to his deed, whether he himself may be partly to blame. The criminal may have been related to him in a past life, for example, he may have been his student whom he did not educate properly.

The undeveloped person uses his or her powers of thought to criticize, while the developed person seeks out different perspectives. He seeks out the connections between cause and effect.

Before the masters the voice can speak, the wound must unlearn.

In this way we not only create the possibility for ourselves to behave quite objectively, but we also create a firm core for ourselves. A person who is unsympathetic to me, to him I lose myself. If I suppress my feeling of antipathy, I allow him to stand by his point of view and remain by my own point of view. In this way one gains an absolutely firm support. If you give in to your likes and dislikes, you become unloving precisely because of that; but not through the objective relationship – then self-observation can begin in a fruitful way. Then we can learn an enormous amount from the world if we let things stand in their place.

Even the wisest can learn a lot from a child if things are left in their place. Usually, the one who wants to become more perfect says of some things: I cannot do that, because one must do the perfect thing. It is not always right to follow one's perfection as a first principle, for example, not if it greatly hurts others. Resignation is also part of the pursuit of perfection, for example, all killing hinders occult development. But with regard to our present culture, one often has to renounce a degree of perfection. By isolating oneself, one can become more perfect, but perhaps one inflicts suffering on others in the process. It is a rather dangerous way to look at one's own perfection only in an abstract sense. We should work in the cultural environment in which we live and not fall out of our culture. We only gain inner freedom by walking through the world with composure, becoming objective. We should strive for spiritual progress coupled with resignation in the right way. You gain a lot of mental strength, for example, by not asking about something you would like to know. Then you must firmly resolve not to ask. In the same way, you can suppress the urge to communicate or break a habit. Pay attention to the smallest details of life, for in the contemplation of the small things lies the right means of development. We must never bother the world just for our own sake, but only for the sake of others. The more you listen to others, the freer you become. The ability to form a first judgment is connected with this. One must not simply allow one's previous experiences to determine what happens afterwards. This is the 'belief' in the theosophical writings, which clears the way for objective action in the outer world. One must, as it were, perfect oneself between the lines of life. What furthers the development of the human being the most is that of which the other person is least aware.

If one wants to understand the deeper meaning of such significant works as the Apocalypse, then one must gain a deep insight into the structure of the world and the entire development of the world. Therefore, for the time when I could not be present, I asked Miss von Sivers to discuss the theory of evolution, the theory of the development of the various worlds that are somehow related to our Earth, here for a few hours. It has become clear that the way in which the development has been presented here has been seen as something individual. (It has happened entirely in line with my intentions, in which I have conducted research into it myself.)

Before we can make any kind of useful progress in the Apocalypse - which we may approach again soon, where you will see what depths are contained in it, in esoteric Christianity in general - we must first become clear about certain concepts of our solar and planetary system. Therefore, I myself will make some insertions about the development of our planet and our solar system. We are now going to tackle some very difficult parts of theosophical or mystical teachings, and so I have to say a few words in advance about how you should approach such material.

Above all, be aware that the Apocalypse is one of the most important and profound works in the world, containing the greatest of secrets. And also be aware that explaining the Apocalypse is an extremely difficult task, because there can be so little preparation for such an understanding at the present time. Hardly any explanation of the Apocalypse was given in Europe during the nineteenth century. Only now, after a long time, are we able to speak of the Apocalypse again. Be aware that the explanation of the Apocalypse as we give it is related to the very deepest secrets, and that you are hearing something in our time that was closed to man through the course of spiritual development and through the general course of the world. One must be lenient with oneself if not everything can be clear and transparent from the beginning. It is not possible for the difficult to be clear from the start.

The final explanation of the Apocalypse is one of the deepest secrets of initiation, and the veil that can be lifted today is already extraordinarily deep. We could not move on if we did not include some information about the world system with which our Earth is connected.

In connection with the matters that have been discussed in my absence, I would like to send some advance information. Miss von Sivers has presented the development of the earth and the sun in a way that I am able to present. However, the views of the various occult researchers in this field are only seemingly opposed. You must not believe that if something seems to contradict itself, that is a real contradiction. So if Mr. Schouten believes he has found a contradiction between what has been presented here and what he knows from our esteemed comrade Leadbeater, then of course it requires a kind of illumination on the whole, how to understand such things; we will discuss this in detail. Above all, please note that no practical mystic claims to be presenting a universally valid dogma. Neither Leadbeater nor I make such a claim. Each presents what he is able to present as the results of his observations. And please do not interpret what is presented here as anything other than a story that someone tells about what he has experienced. It can be discussed, it makes no claim to dogmatic value, they are not tenets. At first one might object: If different researchers in this field contradict each other, how can one ever arrive at clarity? But that is not the case. If you read travel descriptions of the most diverse regions, you will see how different even these descriptions are. And the observations of occult researchers are just as varied as these observations. With some understanding, which is difficult in this area, one always, without exception, comes to exactly the same results. There is never any real contradiction between two occult researchers if they both proceed in the necessary objective manner, really working with all the means of occult research.

However, one might not even realize the way in which research in this field comes about at all. I would like to speak here first of all about the case that has been discussed here, namely the case that constitutes a point of difference - not in the rest of esotericism, but in the younger current that has found expression in the Theosophical movement [as in Sinnett, Leadbeater and Blavatsky]. The theosophical movement is actually a very young movement compared to the occult movement. It was founded in 1875. But occultism is thousands of years old. In Europe, there were the same teachings as those brought by Theosophy; Theosophy also existed in Europe, only in the eighteenth century it receded somewhat because materialism did not allow these things to be spoken of. Materialism is something that has a scaring effect on the sacred science of occultism.

Within the theosophical movement itself, an apparent contradiction arises with regard to this teaching of the development of our earth. When the great teachers of the theosophical movement, whom we call the masters, first shared some of the secret knowledge with European students, so-called lay chelas, it was actually this European lay student, our revered friend Sinnett, who wrote the first effective book, Esoteric Buddhism, based on the master's teachings. There was a great deal that was unclear to this lay disciple. This was to be expected, for all European thinking differs quite significantly from the way an actual occultist, an actual esoteric, thinks. A person who is equipped with European cultural concepts - and you must not forget that the modern human being grows up entirely in the prejudices of the present day - easily misunderstands what the esotericist is saying because he translates it into his concepts, which are derived from materialism. Thus there was a certain initial disparity when the exalted master gave the first teachings to Sinnett through the mediation of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky about the development of our earth.

Our Earth has reached our present state after having passed through a very different state, and it will change again into a different state when it has gone through this present state. We can express this by saying that the Earth is undergoing transformations. The first Theosophists illustrated these three metamorphoses - the state of our earth that preceded the present one, the present state and the one that follows - by drawing three spheres, which were also called globes.

The esotericist does not refer to what rock and metal complexes are as “earth”, but rather he also refers to what belongs to the earth: the mineral world, the plant world, the animal and human world. Then we have to imagine this earth as emerging from an earlier state. You don't have to imagine it like the present earth either, but rather imagine the earth at that time in a much finer matter, not at all in a physical matter, but in a matter that can be imagined something like what we call the human astral body, which envelops and permeates the human being in the form of a cloud. The Earth at that time consisted of such matter. This state has condensed to our present physical state. That is why it was called the astral globe preceding our Earth. The following one, into which our Earth will transform, is again similar to this state in terms of matter; it is also astral. In contrast to the astral globe, the third globe is called the plastic globe, because if you look at the earth in this astral state, it appears undifferentiated to you, a mass in which you can distinguish many fewer entities than in the third globe.

Above all, you will see the difference when you look at people. People are present on all three globes. On the first globe, people were in such a state that they were completely dependent on the external forces acting on them. People in our time, on our physical earth, have their hands, their legs, they can walk, can move, can move their mouths - today, all of this is at their own discretion. This was not yet present to the same extent on the astral globe; at that time, man was still much more of an automaton. He reproduced what external forces stimulated in him. He moved his hands because external stimuli affected him. He was at the mercy of external stimuli. This has changed, man has become more independent on the globe we call our earth. And that will be even more different when we will be on the third, the plastic globe. The physical body has disappeared, the earth is in dissolution, darkness has fallen. Then the human being will not only be able to move his limbs, but he will be able to shape his own form at will, so that the human being – while he has a permanent physiognomy today – will not be able to hide his feelings through his physiognomy. In his outer appearance, he will give an immediate impression of what lives within him. We will be able to extend our hands, not just move them. Man will be able to form himself plastically from within. His form will be the result of what lives within him. Life will express itself more in form.

These three stages of development are not the only ones that our earth goes through. This astral globe was preceded by another, and the plastic one will be followed by another. While here [on the astral globe] the entities we are dealing with – including human beings – are in a substance that is equivalent to our astral body, here [on the globe that preceded the astral one] the human being and all entities, in fact the whole earth, are in a matter that is equivalent to the mental aura, the thinking body of the human being. On this globe, everything is dependent on external stimuli. But that does not appear in our astral matter. What lives here can never be seen, not even with the senses of a clairvoyant. There is only sound, which the 'clairaudient' can perceive. Everything is spiritual sound. The spiritual sounds buzz around on this globe in confusion and are the same as the intermingling colors on the astral globe. It is a globe that is called the Rupa globe. This is the form that we know on our Earth in the physical state in the air waves. So is the infinitely fine matter of which our thoughts are formed. Only thought-matter was present on earth at that time when it was in that state. This globe gradually passed into the astral globe through condensation. 'Rupa' means form.

Man will be in a similar state again when he has gone through the plastic state. On the plastic globe, passions and feelings express themselves extremely vividly, while here [on the intellectual globe] in the higher state, everything is expressed in tones. This sound world in which the person will live will be quite different from the sound world of the descending line of the Rupa globe. When the clairvoyant moves within this globe and perceives the entire sound world, he perceives something similar to what you hear when you are sitting in a hall in which a symphony is being played, but it is purely spiritual and is not heard with physical ears. While you perceive something like a symphony descending [on the rupa globe], you perceive words ascending [on the intellectual globe], an articulated sound world with the expression of the world of thoughts and ideas living in man.

These two globes are each preceded by another – one descending, one ascending. These are the Arupa globes. They are formless. The people in those days were such that in this whole world, which is even finer than the Rupa world, nothing lived except individual sounds, with a very specific timbre. These individual tones, which did not yet harmonize, which did not yet form into melodies, but lived as individual tones, were very substantial. Among these beings were individual basic essences of plants and animals, and above all, every human being, as he is today, was already present as a tone. Each person at that time had a different tone. This makes the human being a being that is different from all others. This tone, with a very specific coloration, is the human being again when he arrives at the globe, which we will call the archetypal globe. There the human being is again a tone, but from this tone everything that he has experienced resounds. It is a tone [of great abundance] from which the whole rich experience of the human being resounds. It is difficult to visualize this, but as I said, it can be imagined in such a way that this [on the Rupa globe] is a poor tone, while [on the archetypal globe] this is a tone that speaks of everything that a person has gone through at the various stages of development.

If you follow this, you will have an idea of how the earth transforms into its various states. A group of related metamorphoses is called a planetary chain. The term is not entirely accurate because it is a schematic drawing. If I were to design the drawing in such a way that it better reflected the facts, I would have to draw all the spheres in a single place. We do not have a succession of new spheres appearing one after the other, but a transformation.

This first Arupa sphere condenses, and out of it arises the state of the Rupa sphere. From this arises the astral sphere, and this then condenses to such an extent that the earth is formed from it. And then the following would come, but in such a way that I would have to draw all of this on top of each other. You may only understand the drawing as a schematic one. So we are dealing with seven successive transformations that the planet undergoes.

Initially, it was mistakenly imagined that transformations do not take place, but that there are seven spheres distributed in space and that life passes from one globe to the next.

This is not a problem if that is how you imagine it at first, because it is difficult to get the ideas right at such a high level anyway. And so it does no harm to speak of a wave of life flowing from globe to globe.

It is different that the following idea has been created by the master's first message. It has been thought that the wave of life flows from one globe to the other. In relation to the globes - at least in relation to two of them - ideas have crept in as if the first and third globes correspond to Mars and Mercury.

The master explained after further inquiry that Mars and Mercury have nothing to do with the development of humanity on Earth. For the occultist, this is an absolute impossibility, because Mars and Mercury are physical globes, but the others are not physical. Mars and Mercury are in the same physical state as the Earth, so they also have the physical form of a planetary chain like the Earth.

So Mars is the physical representative of a planetary chain just like our Earth. It is the same with Mercury. Later, more and more researchers came to us who were not only able to follow these things from what the masters told them, but who also learned from their own observations. They learned the methods. This view can be somewhat misleading about the facts.

There are methods by which the clairvoyant can transport themselves back to the astral globe and also forward to the plastic globe, the globe “Three”. When you place yourself in the state of astral clairvoyance and direct your thoughts to the point where the astral globe must be found, then you can see what it was like when our animals, plants and minerals were in this position. You can see it clearly before you. When you place yourself in such a state, in the state of an astral clairvoyant, you are not only united with, not only in the astral world you have visited, but you are also in the astral worlds that are related to the one you have visited, that are therefore in the same state. One is present in all cosmic bodies that are in the same state. In this respect, clairvoyants perceive space and time in exactly the same way. They make no distinction at all. When one projects oneself back to the globe that preceded our Earth, when one is on the planet, one is also on all planets that resemble the state of the Earth at that time. The clairvoyant is then actually on those planets that today belong to the planets of our solar system and are in this state. Not all planets are in the same state. Mars is physically today, but it is only at the stage of development at which our Earth was at the time when it was going through the astral state. The Earth was then able to solidify, to become physical. Today's Mars is in this position. It is at the stage of the third globe, but not astral, but physical. Now one can perceive what is present in this state. If you place yourself in this state of Mars, then you are not only on our Earth, but also on Mars.

So now you can study the present state of Mars clairvoyantly, and you may make an interesting discovery. What you could otherwise only observe astrally, in cloud formations, you can observe on Mars today. It is as if it had suddenly turned to stone. So when we examine Mars, we may feel almost as if we had left this Mars some time ago. [A person today, here on our Earth, has never lived on Mars.] We were, however, in an astral form when we left it. Today's Mars looks as if man had left it and come over to Earth. This is the interesting problem, which can lead one to believe that one once lived on Mars. This astral globe “One” should not be confused with Mars.

Mercury is further advanced in its development than our Earth. It has already reached the state that people will have reached when we have astral plasticity. The beings of Mercury can endure the physical state. Earth people will undergo this state on an astral plastic globe. But Mercury gives us an idea of what man will become when he is on a plastic globe. For them, plasticity is compatible with the physical state. [So there is a relationship]. But the planets themselves have their chains, and only through their stages of evolution can it appear as if the development on Earth has something to do with them. The beings that live on Mercury and Mars are not human-like. They undergo completely different evolutions. People can only be physical on the physical Earth, while the Martians can be physical with the qualities of the astral human, and the Mercury beings are plastic on the physical globe, which people can only be on the plastic globe.

Thus we have completed what we call the planetary chain, namely the planetary chain of our earth. This planetary chain emerged from another planetary chain. Next time I will show how our earth developed out of another planet, just as we had the lunar epoch in the past. What remained of that epoch is contained in our present moon. Our present moon is not the earth's predecessor, it is only a condensed physical piece of it, a slag, so to speak. When we say that the beings of the earth developed from the moon, it is not entirely accurate, but within the limits of what I have said, it is quite correct. We will get to know a somewhat similar seven-part chain during this lunar epoch, so that we can say: Before the earth came into its sevenfold structure, it developed in the sevenfold structure of the lunar epoch. This sevenfold lunar epoch is characterized by the fact that people at that time did not yet have the bright consciousness of the mind that people have today, but rather a consciousness similar to a dream trance. This is the echo of the earlier dull consciousness.

Furthermore, we are dealing with a planet that can no longer be found in our space. This planet has become what the sun is today, through various intermediate phases. That is why the sun is a planet in the old esotericism. Esotericism does not mean the physical sun, but the father of our physical sun. Next time I will explain the sun predecessor of the earth.

Our Earth has therefore passed through one, two, three globes of seven links each and is now in the fourth globe of the chain, which also has seven links, making 28 links in total. In the future, it will pass through three more links that will be similar to Jupiter and Venus and so on. The next link in the chain, which will contain highly developed human beings, a planet that is not in a physical state, we will still get to know, and finally we will be able to pursue the actual goal of our earth development.

So there are still three globes to come, each with seven members, equal to 21 members, so that we have 7 x 7 members, that is 49 metamorphoses that we have to go through. These 49 metamorphoses are not written down by the esotericist in the same way as by the modern man. [Esotericism does not use the decimal system, but the system of seven.] 66 does not mean 66 to the esotericist, but [6 x 6 =] 36; according to the system of seven, that makes: 7 x 7 = 49. Thus you can understand what it means when the esoteric writes 77. For him, this does not mean 77, but 7 x 7 = 49 metamorphoses. On each planet there are seven root races. So we have seven chains, each with seven planets or globes, and each globe with seven root races, which makes a total of 343 states. This number plays a certain role in the Secret Doctrine. In the early days, the matter was very poorly understood. The relationship with the master is such that one solves the problem oneself, and then receives the answer from the master, whether it is right or not.

Further notes, presumably on a question-and-answer session regarding the lecture of January 30, 1905

When you look at the Earth from the outside, it appears to be a sphere with a green undertone. [The Earth has a green base color.] While it is relatively easy to examine the earlier stages, it is difficult to see the later ones. The Akashic Records do not speak to this, they only provide the intentions. In science, there are similar methods for looking back and for looking ahead. If a scientist has hydrogen and oxygen and an electric current, he knows that water will result.

The astral globe of our Earth is completely re-materialized astral globe – only more elaborate. The astral world has already prepared birth and death.

The Moon has a very dense physical body. It also has something similar to an astral body. It relates to the Earth as the negative photographic plate relates to the positive. Everything that appears joyful on Earth is a very sad thing when it appears on the Moon. Everything there means just the opposite. It is impossible for the psychic vision to see the astral matter. With the psychic power of the Earth, one does not see the astral sphere of the Moon. When one studies the operations performed during karmic investigations into the karma of people, one enters the region where one can perceive something of this moon itself.

The number 666 means 216 - 6x6x6. The most perfect state, the seventh, is missing from the Apocalypse.

[666 is the number of the beast, and this number is obtained by crossing out the two upper globes of each chain. These two upper globes are those of the deity. A chain is a round.]

It is difficult to say anything about the time of the next catastrophe, because the one who knows about it cannot say anything. Our fifth race will perish through the struggle of everyone against everyone. One cannot say anything about the timing. One must also not talk about numbers. Perhaps something can be said about this in the course of the lecture series. We are, after all, in a time when things are developing extremely quickly. The nineteenth century in the astral means as much as the previous millennium. It is progressing at an ever faster pace. This can also be observed in the root races. Towards the end of the cycles, life is greatly accelerated.

The Bible calls the seventh state on the intellectual globe bliss. In India it is called Devachan. The seventh state is always a state of bliss, only in quite different degrees on the different planets.

Last time I tried to give an overview of the processes in the earthly system that are closest to us. I tried this insertion about cosmic processes because we need it to better understand the Apocalypse. Last time, I pointed out that before the beings that populate our Earth today were formed – above all, humans and the other three natural kingdoms that belong to them: the animal kingdom, the plant kingdom, and the mineral kingdom – before these beings were on Earth, they were on other planets.

Now I ask you to understand what I am going to say today in the sense in which I already indicated it for the last lesson, and to take it even more so today. We are entering particularly high realms of supersensible vision, realms about which we are only able to make suggestions. They are not only difficult to understand, but the observation itself and what we can know about it is so subtle that it is quite difficult for those whose thoughts and especially their feelings are still rooted in the materialistic views of our time to get beyond the word “fantastic” when they hear about the things that are to be discussed today. It is not so easy for people in a materialistic age to get away from materialistic ideas. Thoughts can be freed more easily, but feelings still say too much: this is something that I cannot grasp, that is something that lies so far beyond what we call reality. Precisely because our feelings lag slightly behind what our thoughts rise to, I would like to point out that we are dealing with times that lie far behind us and that are very different from what we are accustomed to calling reality today.

To give you an idea of what I want to say, I have to start at the beginning. I have to start from a planet from which, so to speak, man first developed, from a planet from which he actually originated. Before man came into existence on this earth, he passed through three such planets. The last planet we passed through as human beings is called the Moon in the esoteric language. This is not the present Moon; the present Moon is only a cinder. The Moon we are talking about here is the predecessor of our earth, on which, in primitive conditions, what man has today developed. This was preceded by another planet, which we call the “sun” in esoteric language. This old sun is therefore also to be counted among the planets. Today and next time, I will be able to say more about this. We will return to the times when man left the moon again to undergo stages of development on Earth, which we will still get to know.

But now we have to go back to the third or the last - or even the first - planet where man first appeared, so that we have three planets that come into question for us humans, that were really our residences before we came to this earth. I will give you, as far as possible, a description of this first planet. This first planet differs fundamentally not only in terms of its physical nature but in terms of all its nature from everything that today's man is accustomed to imagine. What we are accustomed to seeing today, even what we are accustomed to thinking, did not yet exist at that time. All of this has only developed from that. Therefore, I will only be able to give a figurative and approximate description of this first planetary state in which man was.

Let us take a look at man himself during this first state. During the first state, man had a consciousness that was very different from the consciousness that man has on earth. The consciousness that man had at that time was dull. It was the same consciousness that a stone has today. But you must not compare it with what lives consciously in a stone today. Although it was dull, what lived in consciousness as in the stone at that time, it was all-encompassing at the same time. The whole sphere of development that man recognized as his dwelling place, and also everything around it in the stars that was in contact with this sphere of development, all this could be surveyed by this consciousness. This consciousness can still be produced in certain circumstances in humans today, albeit in very abnormal conditions, when the other states of consciousness of dream consciousness and deep trance are no longer present, but when very abnormal conditions occur. Medicine is also familiar with these conditions. Then a very deep trance occurs, and this deep trance is linked to the fact that these people begin to draw entire planetary systems in a chaotic and disorderly fashion. You can experience, for example, that in sanatoriums where people with such pathological conditions are housed, these patients record entire planetary systems. However, they only vaguely resemble what we speak of in theosophy. But one thing emerges from the state: people have a dull consciousness, and this consciousness not only spreads around the planet on which they live, but also over the neighboring world areas. It can be called all-consciousness. And such an all-consciousness was present in the people who were on the first planet.

All life on this first planet was such that it can only be compared to what you would experience if you were able to imagine the inanimate earth as it is today not only as permeated with stone and rock, but if you could imagine the earth itself as animated , as an animated ball – and, in addition, this entire animated ball is imbued with feeling; so that you would have had a feeling from an impression that someone had made on the planet at that time – for example, if someone had kicked the earth with their foot.

The planet at that time also had the most diverse conditions of growth and life. A mountain arose there, a valley there, and everything was surging with life and was all sensation. The shapes on it can only be compared to successive waves of the sea, with elements that spurt out and then splash back in the most diverse shapes. The whole is a wonderful surge and life. The whole grows and passes away in itself. The planet was in this state in its middle stages. It is difficult to characterize it with expressions taken from present-day things. But the planet was not the same in its first stages either. If you had transferred yourself with eyes, with physical sense organs into space, you would not have been able to see the first state of this planet. In its first state, this planet was in the Arupa state. It is there in a material condition that could not be perceived by the senses, even if such senses had been present. So it was in a highly refined state. In this state, only the highly developed clairaudient could perceive it. The highly developed clairvoyant would see nothing; even the psychic eyes, the clairvoyant eyes, cannot see anything in these first stages. You can only hear the planet. Only a fine clairaudience can perceive it. And all that you hear is a single fundamental tone, which is, however, developed in the most diverse ways. But a single fundamental tone is present; this varies and becomes manifold in itself.

When the planet then enters its second state, you cannot see it yet either, not even with clairvoyant eyes. But then it enters the third state, the astral state, and you can see it. But it is not the astral matter of the earth, it is a higher state, but I can call it that comparatively. In any case, you can already see an interweaving here. Everything that I described earlier as a swirling and surging can be seen here with the mind's eye. You can see billowing and swirling formations, but you cannot see them in a matter that you could grasp, but only in a matter that you see with the psychic eye in masses of colors and plays of colors of extraordinary subtlety - and in a formation that is distinguished by colors that cannot be compared to any of these earthly colors. That is a color picture.

Then we come to the fourth state. There we have a state that we can approximately call the physical state, the physical state. If there were an eye present, it could already see this physical state.

This is the state that I have described as sentient and living – but at the same time also in mineral formation, but not yet even, not yet flat. You have shell-like formations there, and everything is in a perpetual state of formation, as I have described. That is the fourth state. This is actually the first time that what we can call the very first ancestors of man are present. Such is man. He is an indeterminate being, taking on a different form at every moment, metamorphosing at every moment. Then the whole thing regresses again or, through the same states, also ascends again, similar to what I described last time: through the astral, the rupic, to the arupic. We have seen the development go from the arupic through the physical and back to the arupic. Down there in the fourth state, man has become physical for the first time.

We call this process the very first round of our human development. It is this first round that is the most important one that comes into consideration. This brings man on the planet as far as man can go on this first planet at all. The following rounds have no further significance for the further development of man to his perfection. Now, after going through a kind of sleep state, the whole thing starts all over again. The conditions are experienced two, three, four, five, six times. But during these six subsequent rounds or cycles, the actual human being, that which we now call a human being, does not make much further progress. Because what he achieves further is later lost and has no significance for further development. In contrast, higher beings, more exalted beings, who have come from earlier stages of development, develop and reach their perfection. In these following six rounds they reach their significance.

When the person is here, he is in the so-called elementary realm. And by being there, he becomes physical for the first time as a human being. The first elementary realm becomes physical there. It is important to note that we call this the 'first elemental realm'. And the state of consciousness in which he had a kind of omniscience, but in a dull way, is called 'tamas'. This is one of the so-called gunas. There the human being is at the first stage of evolution.

The whole thing is repeated seven times. So that these whole planets have taken on seven different forms seven times. So you could say that we are dealing with 7x7 states, equal to 49 states. These 49 states are referred to as the system of the first planet. These seven states are usually referred to as a planetary chain - but that is a poor description. The planet that I have described in this way is called Saturn in esoteric language - and for a very specific reason.

Anyone who wants to reach this planet at all must be capable of the following. The ordinary person at today's stage of his development has his bright day consciousness. He is with his consciousness on the physical plane, he is in sense consciousness. He ceases to have his consciousness when he sleeps. He either dreams or sleeps dreamlessly.

The dreamer may remember his dreams. During his dream, however, he usually has no consciousness. Now there is a possibility by which man is just as conscious during the dream as he is during his daily physical life. This is another state of consciousness. He is not just dreaming, he is consciously in a world in which he would otherwise only have dreamed, and that is the so-called astral world.

This world makes it possible for him to go back to what we call the development on the moon. There, the person can relive what happened during the lunar epoch.

An even deeper state is when the human being is conscious in dreamless sleep. Then a so-called continuity of consciousness occurs. The person is conscious while sleeping. Consciousness never stops; only the body sleeps, the spirit is awake.

This state of consciousness, when it is attained – that is to say, when a person, even when he falls asleep, nevertheless continues to be conscious, and when he wakes up, likewise consciously enters again into the bright day consciousness – makes it possible for him to transport himself back into the still preceding period. Then the person is able to carry out a real unification with that which is today the sun. He lives on the present sun. For those who have no real conception of the nature of clairvoyance, it is difficult to understand what I am saying. But I must share some experiences here.

Now there is an even higher state that elevates consciousness to yet another level. This is the state that extends beyond what is called the continuity of consciousness. It is a state of special enlightenment of consciousness itself, of this deep dreamless sleep consciousness. This makes it possible to have the experiences of the first planet during this life, and at the same time, when the clairvoyant focuses on the first planet, the fact occurs that he is united with what is currently the physical planet Saturn. But this has nothing to do with the Saturn of that time. So we have transported ourselves back to the 49 states through which man has developed.

Now I would like to continue by showing you how the development continues. I can continue to use the same drawing and can now simply say that a somewhat longer intermediate period, a kind of unconscious state, a state of sleep, now occurs for all beings that were in this planetary state, and then the whole game starts all over again.

Again we have these seven successive states, which means we have another round. This round now has a very specific task, it has the task of repeating everything that happened during the previous 49 states, so that during the first state of the seven states, in short, with sevenfold speed, what happened during the first 49 states is repeated, so that the person changes insignificantly, but now reappears here physically. Only in the second cycle is there a reorganization. And this second round is what matters now.

In this second round, after the Rupa and Arupa spheres have been experienced and we have entered the physical state, we no longer have a living, growing earth, but we have split off one realm and built a second one above it, and in this realm man is embodied. We now have a realm that is not so very unlike our mineral realm; we have a realm that is mineral, but we have growing minerals in it, just like our plants. These are living minerals. But this also gives rise to something dead. Man cannot use this. He would not be able to develop further if he did not excrete this. And he leaves behind the excreted matter as a special mineral kingdom. Man has then developed upwards into a kingdom that rises above the mineral kingdom, the nature of which could be described as plant animals. There are no such beings today. But we can compare them to animals that resemble today's jellyfish. These are very low-level animals, and even they are quite different. The beings that lived here had a much greater density and a completely different kind of substance that cannot even be compared to

what human substance is. You have to imagine these as refined, etherized, not less noble, but more noble than human substance. All the entities have the most diverse forms of stars. They were polyform stars, multifaceted and polygonal figures. All this is connected in a mobile way, structured according to numbers.

It is very important – you must remember this – that human consciousness has developed to a higher degree, to a consciousness that is no longer all-seeing, but has become brighter instead. The whole of the second planet, which we call the Sun, no longer knows everything, but has become brighter instead. This state of consciousness is called rajas. It is a consciousness that permeates all the higher realms. This consciousness is not limited to individuals, for the beings are not yet so strictly separated from each other, they still continually merge into each other. But beings are continually arising and continually passing away. They dissolve and form themselves again. In the first state, we only had to deal with the arising and passing away of dull forms; here we only had to deal with beings in this dull consciousness.

Man does develop further in the next cycles, but this is not particularly relevant for the upward development. What has lasting value for his development is the state he had reached during the second round.

The whole thing now begins again, after going through the same thing seven times – that is, a second time after a kind of sleep state.

Now, in the first cycle, we are dealing with a brief repetition of what happened on Saturn. Man appears once again as a kind of mineral sentient being, except that the sentience is no longer expressed in the same way. The sentience is gone; only growth and life remain. In the second round, man then repeats what happened on the sun. And in the third round, a further development of the human being takes place. There the human being first goes through the old conditions again and then appears in this third round in a physical state. This is the moon state, which we know as the predecessor of our present earth state. As a result, three realms have now formed, which differ from each other to a certain extent.

These three kingdoms are not similar to our three kingdoms, the animal, plant and mineral kingdoms, but they are something else. The mineral kingdom is one that still has traces of growth and life, of mobile and growing minerals. The plants are those that still have traces of animality in them. And above that is a third kingdom, one that is higher than even our highest present animal kingdom, but not yet as high as the present human kingdom. But that was all at the same time.

When I say that this third realm was not as highly developed, I am referring to the consciousness and spiritual qualities. Matter is much finer than the matter of the present-day human being. The human being is in an ether-like state, which bears a certain resemblance to that of a jellyfish. The shape of the human being is not very similar to the present-day human shape, especially in these conditions. If you wanted to describe it, you could say that it was a kind of quadruped, but of a special kind. There are four feet and they are all used for some kind of locomotion. They are not used like the feet of today's monkeys, but all four are used for locomotion. The use of the hands was not yet necessary.

These are the three realms that exist here. The consciousness that man has attained is the dream consciousness. Man has lost the ability to see the whole earth, but he still has the ability to perceive astral states. He has a psychic consciousness in the lunar epoch. He sees the people who live with him at the same time, not only in their physical form, but also in their passions and in their emotional life. Man can put himself in their place and perceive it. That is during the third cycle. But now man develops further in the states he goes through in the fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh cycles. These are not of such particular importance for his further progress. He does change, but these changes are not so important for man's progress.

So we have added another 49 states to the previous ones and have arrived at the last state that man enters when he has gone through the moon epoch. Now there is another kind of sleepover, and then we come to the development of the earth. There the beginning is made in the same way again. We have another round in which seven states are passed through. In this first round, the human being repeats what was experienced on the first planet. The human being is now in the state of the mineral. The mineral kingdom has now become lifeless, and in this state the earth appears in the first round. In the second round we are dealing with the repetition of the sun existence, in the third round with the repetition of the moon existence, and only in the fourth round does the actual new formation occur, to which our earth development belongs.

This new formation is characterized by the fact that when physical development occurs, a fourth realm is added to the three previous ones. The physical human being appears. Now man on earth becomes physical, and we have the present mineral kingdom, the present plant kingdom, the present animal kingdom and the human kingdom. This is the middle of physical development.

And now the following cycles begin to have a meaning for the further development of the human being. They are no longer shells that are shed, but they begin to have a meaning for the following cycles of the human being. In the middle of this round, where we speak of the Lemurian time, something very special occurs with the human being. A new beginning occurs. Until then, we have observed man, so to speak, developing from an imperfect state to his present human form. Here in the middle of the Lemurian period, he is endowed with what we call spirit, thinking, and later with even higher abilities that we will develop. The spirit begins to move man. This spirit is now undergoing its development, so that the next rounds, the fourth and fifth, are intended to lead this spirit to higher levels. The sixth round then leads even higher, and the seventh even higher.

You can see that from now on we are dealing with something completely new in humanity. Something is entering into man that was not present in him before. Next time we will talk about where this comes from. Today we want to be clear about the fact that man has become physical during this fourth round. I have spoken about how man has developed up to this physical state. Man would have been unable to progress if he had not been endowed with the spark of the spirit in the middle of the development of the earth. This forms a new influence, a seed, a leaven, through which man has been inspired to a new development. Otherwise man would have become only an external form. If the spirit had not reached him, there would have been no upward development of the physical man. Only through the spiritual impact on man has further development become possible. We shall see how this is connected with the whole development. Man would have become more and more external, the soul would have been lost in the external, and man would gradually have become his own petrification. He would have been only a mere outer form, he would have completely passed over into the eighth sphere. He would have ceased to be a being that can develop further. When something ceases to be able to develop further, we say that it has passed over into the eighth sphere. In order to prevent this, the impact with the spirit was intended.

So today we have learned about the fourfold planetary development. We have learned about the development that took place on what we call Saturn - a state that bears a certain similarity to what is happening on Saturn today. But it is not the same as what happened back then.

Seven times seven metamorphoses have taken place. The most important of these is the first round or cycle. During this, the human being developed into a dull consciousness and a kind of living, growing mineral existence. The following states belong to higher beings, which concern us less now. The second planetary state of development begins on the sun. This again goes through seven times seven states of development. We have seven rounds and seven planets or globes – the term 'globe' is rather inappropriate. The second round is the most important one to be considered here. Man develops into a kind of plant animal.

On the third planet, or during the lunar epoch, the first two rounds are repetitions. The third round brings new conditions. It develops and is permeated by a kind of dream consciousness. This is called the Sattva state. This is what the human being goes through. The following four rounds bring further development, but it is not significant. Then, after an intermediate state, the earth epoch begins. In the fourth round of the earth epoch, what is around us develops in the four kingdoms known to us: the mineral kingdom, the plant kingdom, the animal kingdom and the human kingdom.

That is what I have to say about the development so far. We must be aware that such things, which are so very different from what man sees around him today, can only be described approximately. It is not possible to describe these things exactly; one has to use auxiliary concepts. Nevertheless, I would prefer to describe them vividly rather than schematically. If you only have the names and a diagram, you will have a certain satisfaction for the mind, but it seems to me that it is more appropriate to describe the things vividly as they really happened in the various metamorphoses. I know that this is difficult, but I hope I have given you an idea of it.

Spiritual consciousness enables perception of the highest tone. Hyperpsychic consciousness enables perception of the lowest tone, and psychic consciousness enables perception of the world of colors. The physical part of the earth does not completely merge into the astral part.

Next time I will talk about Mars and Mercury. What I have told you is written in ordinary documents. You have described the seven conditions in the days of the week: Saturn-Day, Sunday, Monday, Mardi, Mercredi, Jeudi, Vendredi. These things have been given by the old sages. Our weekdays are modeled on the planetary system. You have written down in the weekdays what the ancient sages knew. What is written in the sky, they have written in the weekdays.

Answering questions

Do you think that the present moon preceded the physical earth?

The present moon is matter from the earlier earth. The moon [of the lunar epoch] goes into the eighth sphere. Those who look at the moon with the “eye of Dangma” can see that the moon mountains have crystallized and solidified the state of that time.

Was the sun already there then?

It was not present as it is today. It was already luminous itself, but at the same time the light was sounding. Goethe describes the state of the heavens at that time in the 'Prologue in Heaven, Faust, Part One', where he describes the state of the sun, which corresponds to the lower mental plane, as sounding: 'The sun sounds in the brother spheres in the old manner of song-contests...' and so on. Our present sun belonged to the solar body of that time.

What is the difference between astral vision and mental vision?

The astral seer can spread his consciousness to the whole race, to the root race. But the mental seer can spread his consciousness over seven races, thus to the beginning of the first, the polar race. All secret schools initially have 49 degrees.

How do these theosophical findings relate to modern geology?

The periods that are relevant to us here would be the Alluvium, then the Diluvium, and then we come to the Tertiary State, which roughly corresponds to the age of the Atlantic period, so that in essence the surface of the earth in this Tertiary state forms the floor of the Atlantic Ocean. If you were to look for people from that time, you would have to look for them on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. This Tertiary period is preceded by the Secondary period; this roughly corresponds to the Lemurian period. In the middle of this period, today's form of man emerged. Even earlier, we are dealing with beings of such “thin” matter that it is impossible to obtain imprints of them. The animals that developed at the same time in the Lemurian period were reptiles, saurian-like creatures and the like. Then, in parallel with the Atlanteans, mammals developed. This would be more or less parallel to the geological periods. Then you also have to parallelize with the remains in question. You will then be able to see that palaeontology is also correct in certain respects. Many of the areas that we are considering are now covered by the sea. That is one reason why we cannot have accurate pictures of them. The Sons of Fire Nebula – the oldest entities – lived in the fiery state. If we go back to the Tertiary Period, we still have reptiles, and in the Primary Period we still have fish. These beings were already present as such at that time, only they were in a different material state. They were such that they have the same imprints. The essential was present. The state of fire gave them plasticity. Through further synthesis, folding was created – that is the state of accumulation.

Anyone who deals with these things occultly should be careful not to start from external things. In a second volume of my book 'Theosophy', I will give hints and references to the relevant parallelization of science. There must be no contradiction between modern science and theosophy. Science has arisen through a necessary evolution and must be brought into absolute agreement with all things that are facts, in all things, with what theosophy is.

How should we visualize the condensation, the solidification of matter?

A good image for this is pieces of ice floating in water. However, it is better not to say that water has the ability to become ice, but to content ourselves with the expression of ice floating in water. It is similar with the matter in space. They are solidified finer matters. The interesting formation of the world nebulae we have to understand as the descent of the lowest astral states. A human astral body looks similar to the Orion Nebula, to a world nebula, to a vortex. An elementary astral body can only be found in the vicinity of the human being, but the developed ones can move further away from him.

Would you like to tell us something else about the chakrams?

The chakrams are also called lotus flowers for comparison. There are sixteen-, twelve-, ten-, six-, four- and two-leaved chakrams or lotus flowers. The two-leaved lotus flower cannot perceive itself, but the sixteen-, twelve-, ten- and six-leaved lotus flowers can perceive themselves, just as the eye can perceive the tip of the nose.

The astral body is only human-like in highly developed people; otherwise it is quite different.

[The two-petalled lotus flower in less developed people:

The inner lotus flower is the twelve-petalled lotus flower in the more highly developed human being. This inner tube is as if the fingers of both hands were intertwined.

“Lotus flower is an expression similar to how we speak of lungs in the physical body.”

We still have one question: What is the relationship between Earth and the other planets? Mars and Mercury can shed some light on this, but because erroneous ideas have been formed about them, it is a difficult subject. From the very beginning, the Masters of the Wisdom have not willingly answered questions.

Some words of a great master, which are found in the Secret Doctrine: “Do not give the great wisdom!” And so on. They express a clear warning. There are reasons why it is not allowed to talk about this until man is mature enough.

The relations of the earth to Mars and Mercury.

Before they inhabited this Earth, people lived on the moon. The moon that can be seen today is only a piece of it. Before that, they were on the sun, and before that on Saturn. Three planets in a row. The days of the week are named after them. Colorless: Saturday.

Now to Earth: a globe in metamorphosis, which it completes in seven times seven cycles.

Moon orange, then darker, then green - Earth - colored, then over to the next state darker again, so the successive states.

So after the moon – which had turned orange – had completed its 49 metamorphoses and man had developed as far as the goal set for him here on the third round, all life contracted into the germinal state in order to flourish again on earth. The earth had to go through the Saturn state in seven cycles, then the sun state, then the moon state, and is now becoming physical in its fourth round, which is where we are now in the most solid matter and have the color green, the previous phase was orange.

The moon was only astral at the beginning, then it became dense ether. The earth was first ether and then solid, then astral and so on.

We will only truly understand our Earth when we familiarize ourselves with what has happened on our Earth. The Earth goes through seven stages of development, which are the seven races.

I. The polar root race. Etheric substance. Then denser, not like our air, the
II. root race, the Hyperboreans. The
III. Race, the Lemurians, air-fire nebula, not yet dense. Up to the Lemurians, humans were bisexual, but from then on they became unisexual. IV. Race, the Atlanteans, who perished in the flood. V. The Aryan race, our present race.

Then the sixth and seventh races, whose names will be given later. From the seventh race, then, over to the next cycle. Here in this fourth round, the earth has come to its full development. In the Lemurian race, man has come to his full destiny. If man cannot reach another level, he descends from the moon, because he was in a high level of dream consciousness.

He came down from the moon because he was in a highly dream-conscious state.

The Lemurians are similar to the state of the moon people. The most mature fruit of the moon development was bisexual. When he had then gone through all the rounds of the earth to become a Lemurian (gap in the transcript).

The soul of the Lemurians was different from our present one. He also had only two senses. Hearing and touch. But it was not the sense of touch as we have it, to touch solid objects, but it was a feeling of warmth and cold, of air. Man was like a soundboard. The air was denser, the water thinner. A mass of fog was the air.

Man lived in the fire fog. Everything around him resounded, he heard as if clairaudient. He heard the air crackle like the rumble of a thunderstorm. He could then arrange his life and activities accordingly. Through the sense of touch he could feel his way to the food. There were not images that were like pictures, but like dream images, but regularly in colors, it was an inner seething and weaving. When he felt red, it was his life itself and was not directed towards external objects, but it had a magnetizing effect, for example: when he felt fear, it was ugly images. These had been brought by people from the moon. The human of the Lemurian race would not have been able to progress if the other impact had not occurred.

The facility for this further training was not available. But in addition to these average people, higher beings were already there. For example, there were beings who had already risen to such a high level on the sun; they no longer needed to go through the moon phases. These are the solar Pitris. On the sun, they had already attained this superhuman nature. This nature is also much further advanced and more perfect in its soul life. While the average human being only saw images in his surroundings, these Pitris saw true revelations in the images, a higher kind of images. This was the expression of a high spiritual entity. It was a different kind of knowledge than our present-day knowledge, it was like intuition. They did not study natural laws, but perceived nature. Such entities had to reveal themselves to people.

Before the Lemurians, man would have become a statue, a cinder – he now needed a new influence. He would not have been able to develop the life of thought. These guides were there, they had a lot of power, quite unlike the masters today. They could intervene in development – just as chemists use substances. They formed the astral-inserted human body, which was taken from somewhere else. These high guides were never connected to the earth, these solar beings could come together with other planets. The first three races - earth - were important, where that could be supplied; and that had to be studied on [other] celestial bodies. The leaders have studied it, they have brought it from Mars, which was just about to darken. Mars has different inhabitants than the earth. The earth is physical in nature, but Mars is astral, but frozen, and in this state it is in the same low sphere as our earth. Mars has two higher planets. This astral one is in the same sphere as the earth is now in the physical. Mars is astral, but the Martians have become physically tangible directly from the astral state. And this astral covering has been brought down from Mars and incorporated into the human being, thereby enabling the human being to develop further.

A second impact of the highest spirituality has become the earth through correspondence with Venus, since the ingredients are fetched, which man still needed. Through studies of the beings of Venus. These sons of Venus have come down to bring to earth what they - the sons of Venus - have studied on other planets.

A third impact was now coming. Man, who now had the spark of the spirit, had to be led further. First he had to go through fear and striving, through passion, through desires and wishes, but now he had to be led to a desireless spirituality. Mercury is in the stage of brightening, which shows a highly developed astral being, from where the manasic bodies were fetched.

The first race on our Earth had the development of Mars and Mercury. Actually, we owe our properties to the moon and the sun, but then to Mars and Mercury.

Saturn stage = Saturday
Moon stage = Monday
Mars impact = Tuesday
Mercury impact = Mercury day

So much for the present, but they point to the future. The Mercury stage is attained by our Earth in the next planet. The Earth is not designated by the days of the week because it is itself, it lies in between.

Today, man already has the beginning of the higher purest wisdom within him, on the next devachan; but will only become physical in the future.

If we observe Jupiter, we learn how people, how the beings of Jupiter become. There is a relationship with Jupiter. The beings are an example to us.

Jupiter = Zeus state. Minerva = Pallas Athene, who sprang from the head of Jupiter.

The beings are no longer connected to the Kama-Rupa, but are beings of the highest spirituality.

Then finally with Venus. This planet is so far away from us that the beings only have an indirect effect on us. These planets also have their own chains. With Venus, one speaks of Kronos - Uranus - Jupiter - Jeudi, Venus - Friday - Freya - Vendredi.

The days of the week are written down, the wise men have taken them down from the sky. We have learned a secret here, how the great leaders descended to inspire us.

That is why it is said: God Jupiter descended to marry human women.

Zeus and Dionysus. Mercury in Greek. Myth = Mercury, son of Zeus and Maya, a Hellenic nymph. But esoterically connected to Mercury.

Hellenic nymphs. Ares has descendants who have dragon teeth.

German myth Wotan = Mercury = Wednesday

Mercury connects with Erda, she is clairvoyant, she can see the future. Brunhilde was born of her - of Erda. Brunhilde = wish girl, passion.

The initiated sages therefore went to remind people of their current situation. Time had to be given a name to remind them. Thursday will now be a holiday for people because they are developing into a Jupiter being.

The Earth from Mercury and Mars.

The lower beings are abandoned and pushed back into animality to further the development of man, and with the next race the lower ones are eliminated again, so with the Lemurians the reptiles were rejected.

With the Atlanteans, the mammals were split off. Our savages today are degenerated beings.

Man has been pushed down, but the guilt will be redeemed once again. Karma has come about because man had to descend and become physical.

Such a solar being is embodied in Hermes; the hermaphroditic time. When we were on the sun, the sun was spatially another sun; so today's sun is in a different place. But the clairvoyant sees the sun in the place where it was then. The old place is still on the mental plan. The moon has also suffered a shift.

In the Middle Ages, the Ptolemaic system was still known. According to astronomical observations, the earth was at the center, and esoterically this is indeed the case.

Copernicus only showed the sky externally, physically.

The fifth race begins in the twelfth century.

Additional information from a typewritten transcription of Camilla Wandrey's notes:

The Solarpitris were superhuman beings, they had a fundamentally different disposition, especially in their spiritual life, than humans. These exalted beings took young humanity under their protection. They were able to experience revelations of higher spiritual powers and beings, they perceived the gods, they possessed a knowledge that lived into the gods through intuition, they perceived the living divine beings directly.

Man needed a new impetus to keep him from ossifying; he could not develop a spiritual and soul life of his own accord. These mighty Solarpitris had the vision that could truly connect them with other planets. They studied the other beings on the other planets in order to utilize the fruits of their studies for human beings. Thus they observed the development of beings on Mars. Mars now has the astral state, not the physical state, as its deepest. They studied the sheaths of the beings on Mars, and a kind of 'downward pulling' of the astral sheaths of the Martian beings took place. That was the impact. Through this impact from Mars, people were able to receive the passions, the desires, the sexual - KamaRupa.

The second impact, that which as spirituality, as pure, virginal spirituality, can also underlie the passionate, the covetous, the spiritual-covetous, became possible for these Solarpitris through the same study taking place in relation to Venus.

Then man received the third impact, which came a little later. Man now had the spark of the spirit on the one hand, and the passions on the other. He now had to be led further. He had to be given something so that he would not sink into the depths of the Kama-Rupa brought from Mars.

The more delicate Kama-Rupa, which serves the thought life and enables man to pacify his passions, was brought by the Solarpitris from Mercury. Thus mankind received spiritual impregnation through the Solarpitris from Mercury, Mars and Venus: the two Kama-Rupa and that which is to establish the balance between the two.

From Jupiter, the Solarpitris then brought what we now want to develop, the spiritual essence of man, which can attain wisdom, manas. Jupiter gave man the opportunity to attain wisdom, while from Venus flow the virgin heights of the spirit, which we can only sense, which are still far from our reach, even if we have the potential, the ability to accept this divine inheritance from the Solar Pitris within us.

The esoteric week, which we as true esotericists should relive again and again in our thoughts and feelings, is an earthly reflection of the effectiveness of the Solarpitris for humanity.

We have listed Saturn, Sun, Moon-day. Then comes Mars-day - Tuesday. Here Mars is thought of as identical with the first half of the earth's development. Then Mercury. Mercury or Wotanstag, Wednesday - Wednesday, Wotan is the same as Mercury. Then Donars-day. Donar is Jupiter. There should always be Jupiter Day, Thursday, the day of the future, a festival and a holy day for every esoteric and also for everyone who wants to become an esoteric. And finally, the day of Venus, of Freya. Venerdi in Italian, Vendredi in French, these words evoke the ancient knowledge of the future secret of humanity, which is commemorated by the day of Venus, Friday.

Today I would like to say a few words about the development of the future. We must be clear about earthly human development because it is necessary for the apocalypse, because doubts are very easily possible.

If one can come to look back by means of certain methods that one must apply, it can still be doubtful to look into the future.

But being prophetic is less doubtful now because everything in nature has laws, but only those who see through the laws can say something.

Whoever knows the laws of chemistry knows exactly how to mix the substances, so the one who recognizes the spiritual laws can draw the right conclusions.

So we use methods to see into the future. I would like to explain in detail what the stages of the past are and what the circumstances are under which one can see and see clearly. There are levels of clairvoyance. The development before our earthly state was the astral, before that the rupa and before that the arupa. The earthly state is perceived through the physical senses. Everyone can see that. The preceding as well as the future state cannot be seen with physical senses, but it is still possible to perceive them. In addition to his waking state, a person also has two sleeping states: dreamless and dream.

Those who have not undergone any development will only have confused dreams, but those who are trained can bring regularity into their dream life.

The dreams of the purely materialistic person will only deal with material things. But for those who live by the principle of Goethe's saying, “Transience is only a parable,” dreams become symbols.

Of course, this is not yet clairvoyance; a clairvoyant is someone who, during their waking day consciousness, can continually leap into the astral vision; they must be awake and look into the astral world. The clairvoyant sees the aura of the person. The aura surrounds the person like a cloud. In undeveloped people, this cloud is confused; the clearer the thoughts, the more ordered and structured the aura.

How does one develop the sense organs for seeing?

These sense organs are located at different points in the aura. One sees an elongated structure from the brain to the chest, embedded in this body structure are the “sacred wheels”, called “lotuses”. There are actually six lotuses in this body. These are the astral sense organs. Between the two eyebrows is the two-leaved lotus flower, which turns from right to left. The one who is now able to see, the lotus flower begins to turn in him.

A second lotus flower is located in the larynx, it is the sixteen-petalled one, turning from right to left. In the past, the dream-like person was gifted with it, he did not contribute to it, it was given to him by nature. It was lost again during the development of the mind. Eight petals were fully developed in bright, shiny colors, but later this flower darkened because the person matured into bright consciousness.

We can now take a look at the secrets of the initiate and understand when Buddha speaks of the eight-limbed path in his teaching.

There are eight virtues that the secret disciple must acquire:

1. Faith and understanding of karma
II. Clear thinking
III. Clear speech
IV. Right action
V. Right livelihood
VI. Fulfilling one's duties
VII. Memory control
VIII. Concentration of thought.

Whoever moves on this path, the other eight leaves begin to move, the first eight are pulled along. So the sixteen leaves turn from right to left. Buddha did not speak of the eightfold path in vain.

A third organ is near the heart, it is the twelve-petalled lotus flower. To develop these senses, other methods are needed. Every theosophist knows of six virtues that need to be developed.

I. Tolerance
II. Serenity, patience
III. Belief, trust
IV. Love of freedom
V. Control of thoughts, control of actions
VI. Concentration of thought.

Six of these twelve have been developed in humans before. Here, too, the next six will begin to rotate, and then move the first six along with them. This is how one acquires the ability of astral vision. Through diligent meditation one attains these virtues, through these virtues one attains astral vision. Meditation is healthy, it leads to moral health. Then, a little lower, is the ten-petalled lotus flower, a little lower still the six-petalled lotus flower and then, lower still, the four-petalled lotus flower.

Those who have developed the astral sense of the sixteen-petalled lotus flower can see into the thoughts of other people. Those who have developed the sense of the twelve-petalled flower can see into the sensory world of others, but those who have developed the sense of the two-petalled flower, the upper one between the eyes, can see into the karma of others. I can only discuss the development of this sense in very intimate circles.

The ability of a person to perceive the two globes before and after the earthly - physical - occurs when he is able to perceive something in deep sleep, dreamless. He then experiences what is going on in the mental world or in Devachan and can look at it here. But not only in sleep, but in clairvoyance he can perceive the two higher globes.

It is important to put all your energy into the first two sentences of “Light on the Path”, but not just in thought; they must be felt. And in the same way, the other two sentences

Before the masters the voice can speak,
it must unlearn the woundings.
Before them the soul can stand,
its heart's blood must water the feet.

Once the light has been absorbed, the senses are awakened in order to be able to see the higher spheres. “Light on the Path” is written in such a high symbolic language and dictated by a higher being.

But there are other methods, which will be discussed another time.

The manas is awakened precisely through diligent meditation.

He who can see the higher state is an adept. Only the adept is capable of this.

Let us place ourselves in the development of our earth. Our earth is becoming thinner and thinner, finer and finer, ultimately only astral and then only spiritual. In the future, all people will perceive it. So the earth goes through seven times seven states.

Let us consider what is happening today. Man can only perceive in a mineral way, he cannot perceive the life of an animal or a plant directly; it must first be made known to him through the senses. Man cannot prepare a plant germ, but he can make machines because he is attuned to the inanimate; it is the lowest form of his spirit.

Once upon a time there were no machines, but later on there will be a perfect processing of the inanimate stone, of the crystal - the stone also has a dull consciousness. At the end of the second round, man had transformed all the soil, and then he worked his mind into the physical world. He imposes his laws on the mineral, the inanimate, by reworking the mineral world. He has then worked his mind into it. The earth is then a product of the human mind.

The clairvoyant can experience beforehand what all people are going through today. He can develop the lotus flowers as an astral sense organ in himself earlier than the average person has them; when the beings are in the astral state, they will also have them. The lotus flower plays in beautiful colors, regularly.

So man achieves the transformation of natural products into artificial products with his mind. The astral world is an imprint of the minds of people. The movements of the flowers then match what he has worked into them.

What was previously worked in the inanimate is now being brought to life by the turning lotus flower. He transforms the earth into a living astral being.

Thus, on the later globe, the spirit will move the bodies. [Form states]

Just as today the word emerges from the human larynx, so then he himself will be the word. He is a spiritual being that vibrates himself, that sonorously sounds his manasic self. Now that he has become spiritual, he animates everything around him, he then fills the globe with his being; he will permeate with his own consciousness what he has done with his lotus flower. After us, plant life will be the lowest realm, it will then disappear, and the animal kingdom is the lowest; then the animal kingdom will also disappear, then the whole earth will be a creation that man himself has prepared for himself. Then comes a pralaya. Then comes the next cycle of the earth - round -, everything is repeated again. Then in the fifth round the earth is so developed that it has the state as physical, which will be the next of our present round - round four, similar to the astral plant nature. Man will then be on an earth whose lowest kingdom is plant; so our next metamorphosis will be denser – that which will become our next state will be denser. The lotus flower will then truly bloom. Man is today at the stage of his mineral development. In the fifth round, he will be in his plant development; what is now “mechanized” will then be “organized”.

When he has worked through the physical earth, he will animate it himself. What he has done by technical means, he will find; there are forms - entelechies - that he makes today, which he will then animate.

These are the higher stages of human development. It is not foolishness when we speak of the future. Initiates can put themselves into certain states of consciousness in order to see what are now ideals of the mind.

The elevated human being rises to the level of prophecy, which is why the term “prophet” is used in Jewish secret language when the divinely endowed receive the impulse to see the future.

Today I want to develop something of the human future. We have to understand the perspective in such a way that we do it in the sense of a natural law, because the initiate looks at the laws of the world. One must not imagine that these goals will be achieved without human intervention. For if we look back into the past, we find that humanity in its rounds and races has developed quite lawfully.

People were guided by divine beings. But now we are living in a time in which the guidance is transferred to humanity itself, whereas in the past humanity was guided by great beings who did not need to incarnate.

That is the task of our root race, that people should come to the point where they have to take on the role of God. In those days, the masters were the great guides who were beyond the Ma/gap in the transcript], who cooperated; they knew the laws of Kama-Manas, which they had brought down from Mars.

But now more human entities are involved when our fifth root race is developed to the seventh. Humanity will come to the point where it will itself perform divine functions. Then people will know the laws of effectiveness.

We can only vaguely grasp it: we live in the development of the intellect. All we have is something that extends into us from the past; or something that already extends into us from the future is what we already use. The masses use the intellect. What can this intellect do? It can describe what is in front of it as an object, what the senses perceive; but there can be no intellectual science [of the spirit], there must be an object. It imprints its intellect on nature, but it needs raw material. Artistic ability already shines out of the future. The intellect, however, needs material; the intellect needs combining, it will not be able to do more as long as the earth is physical.

But now a new state is approaching, a new metamorphosis of the earth, first ethereal, but then astral; at first there is no resistance facing us. Man will then no longer build machines out of wood and iron, piece by piece. The world will then be pliable and flexible. The clairvoyant sees it in colors, comparable to our feeling. Then he will be able to create freely in the astral realm; there is no external matter, he will create from the astral substance.

Manas - German 'wisdom', more than knowledge; wisdom creates from intuition. How to create a picture from intuition to put it into the substance.

Man then creates out of the astral substance, he then has the ability to shape with wisdom; and that is because man has been on the physical globe - fourth round - and has acquired the ability on it.

Freemasonry - Architecture

When he builds a church on this fourth round in the physical, he masters the material; he acquires abilities; because the church disappears, but the ability is not lost. This ability arises on the astral globe, rising in astral images. There it takes on a strange character. Man then does not build stone on stone - form and material are not needed. Just as the plant brings forth a new form out of its own power, so is this kind of creating, with real bringing forth out of oneself. There is no difference between human creation and vegetable form. His work will sprout and flourish like that of the plant. Then there will be the human, animal and plant kingdoms; but then he will create alive — which happens today in the organic — but only in the astral.

In the next metamorphosis, the astral will disperse, and man will then be only a pure spiritual being. He can then create even higher than the plant does; the plant feels nothing in doing so, but then man will create as a spiritual being. Everything he creates physically here will happen there with full consciousness. There is a sense of pleasure in what is being created, he no longer distinguishes himself from what he is doing today with the animal [gap in the transcript]

He will not only bring forth life, he will bring forth everything with feeling. He will become a being that feels itself. Man will not only build churches, as he does today, but the buildings will have life in them. He will no longer create form, he will create thought itself. His works of art will be living beings – animality in the realm of the spiritual. Everything will flow together with animality.

Then there will only be two kingdoms, humanity itself and the animal kingdom.

Now we come to the next metamorphosis: here man has reached the highest level –

Animalism has disappeared here. Everything he has separated out during his descent into matter, he will have to absorb back into himself.

The mineral kingdom was once united with us, permeated with us. The lion's fury, the fox's cunning, man had all this within himself; he descended into animalism, which was once his brothers.

When he had cast off the mineral kingdom, he became softer, then he cast off the plants, he was able to refine himself step by step. He created the kingdoms. For every saint there is a criminal, otherwise the saint would not have progressed. Man must push the others down, but he must also bring them up again. One may develop, but not for one's own sake, only to develop in order to pull the others up with oneself again. He must balance everything again. Then our round is over. This thought is in the mind of the master, no other thought, and if such a thought is our ideal, we will develop in the following way.

A twilight state now sets in.

In the fifth round we do not need to apply the laws of chemistry and minerals, because man then works in the astral as in the next astral state of the fourth round, but this astral will then be physical again in the lowest globe.

The earth will then be seen with physical eyes again, but it will be the lowest realm, the plant kingdom. There will be no chemical law or substance, but an intertwined plant kingdom.

Man is all growth, plant-like. Just as he feeds on mineral substances in the physical world of the fourth round - today - he will then only feed on plants.

Man [is] then a large plant.

Through his activity will emerge

Churches – everything [will] then only grow. He will sink the seed for a church or a building, and it will grow. Then the earth will receive an even higher ability, a higher realm will be added. Today he lives in the mineral, plant and animal kingdoms, he only feels mind. But above the mind, a new realm will be established in the fifth round.

Today there is blood relationship, physical coexistence, but that will no longer exist, it will cease. It would then seem completely unthinkable to us to belong to a community if it did not belong to all of humanity.

The moral - [gap in the transcript]

Today we speak of races and peoples, that would be nonsense there. Man will create his kingdom, his community, but according to the principles of reason. Moral communities.

One thing will be their basic principle. Life will be organized according to the principles of fulfilled karma. Karma is only conditioned by birth and death, but that already stops in our sixth root race in the fourth round; already on the astral plane there are no more embodiments, no birth and death.

Fifth round no karma. Man goes over with a certain karma, and then people will be divided according to their karma.

This explains something that is inexplicable in Europe: the caste spirit. In India this was already the case with the Brahmins. They came with a certain karma, they were higher beings.

One should not criticize the caste spirit, because one must know the matter. Our next globe - of the fourth round - is the model for the physical globe of the fifth round, and here man appears in his highest state, 'glory'.

Then a state of slumber sets in and the sixth round begins. Here the beings live in such a way that the animal kingdom is the lowest realm. The animal kingdom has the same mind in itself. Now an even higher realm is added - the spiritual ability to go beyond mere morality. That was the realm of Zarathustra, Christ, Buddha, which is why they are called artificial six-rounders. Plato was an artificial five-rounder.

Therefore, such beings lead a double life, they tower far above humanity with their spirituality. We do not have to address the great strangers and donors of our goal right away, there are countless degrees - an artist is in the sense of development. If there had only been Christ and Plato, there would be no evolution, but that is why some have to stand out in order to catch up with the others.

It seems unfair at first, but only time does that, but he who is exalted above time finds the great harmonies. Otherwise it would be meaningless - like Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. The harmonies must arise through disharmony. Therefore some must hasten ahead of the multitude.

From the discussion

Mercury is now in a state of becoming lighter between the fourth and fifth metamorphosis.

Martian beings Kama-Manas in their lowest form, they are now entering the astral state from the third to the fourth round. With our solar system, a whole host of planets are in different stages; what we see with our physical eyes can be thought of as seven or eight times greater in the astral.

The fifth round will develop manas.
The sixth round will develop buddhi manas
The seventh round will develop atma.

On the moon, for example, beings have descended so low that they appear on earth as enemies of humanity.

Steadfastness, equanimity, patience, trust, control, concentration of thoughts and actions –

the two-petalled lotus flower between the eyes develops insight into karma and one's own incarnations. All people today are reincarnated Atlanteans.

In the sixth round, the destruction of souls that have lagged so far behind that they are considered black magicians; they fall away. This is to be seen as a punishment because people already have a higher consciousness; they will then be banished in a shell in order to be carried away again later; but they have to wait so long and remain preserved in a thick shell; however, this is a terrible state, there is nothing more difficult than standing still. Then they enter a development in order to work their way through it again under terrible torments. Fate is already decided in the fifth round, but the Atma still has to be developed. So that from the sixth on, the Atma would not have been able to develop its deepest self. But fate is decided. - The “Laue in the Apocalypse. But whoever is imbued with real knowledge today, from what we have heard today, one cannot become a black magician with this thought.