The Rudolf Steiner Archive

You have heard of the spirits that reveal themselves to man: “Will, Wisdom, Form”. I would like to say a few more things about these entities.

You must familiarize yourself with them. Those who only consider the physical part know only a little.

All teachings are based on observations with higher organs that do not belong to the physical body, that belong to the higher bodies and are not yet developed in the ordinary human being either. Familiarize yourself with the fact that higher insights are gained.

The names of the [four] stages of perception [are]:

1. Material recognition: It is the subordinate one, only used for everyday life [recognition].

2. Imaginative cognition – recognizing spiritual beings in images: the images of the dream world, surging up and down, are chaotic and disorderly, without meaning. However, the meaning can be developed in the soul. Imago image, with which man surrounds himself. There is the fabric from which knowledge is composed [...]

Through the reality that one recognizes imaginatively, one can grasp and pass through.

3. Voluntaristic - volitional - cognition: We are no longer dealing with images. All image-knowledge belongs to the astral worlds, all volitional knowledge belongs to the mental world.

Beings that are perceived have the same substance as our human will. Volitional expressions.

4. Intuition: Will particularly developed sensitively. The will stirs. When the will becomes sentient, that is the highest kind of knowledge that man can have on the third plan. The highest plan is intuition; the stages lead up to the three worlds, where we have arrived at the limit of what

concerns man.

Intuition is the world of knowledge of the disciple who has attained the third degree.

The third degree, or swan, is the degree that connects the intercourse of ordinary people with the masters - Lohengrin.

Intuition enables a person to perceive objects within. We must learn to understand the meaning of the name “I”. Through meditation, the distinction of the I from other names becomes clear. Then you distinguish the basics of the royal yoga school.

There is an unspeakable difference between the “I” and other names. There is no thing that would have a name that anyone could attach to it, but there is a name that everyone knows, that only one can say to himself, the meaningful I. The “I” must resound from within the person, then the person enters the realm that is supersensible and the path by which he comes only from within. There, man first enters the realm that has no [gap in the transcript]

That is why, in Jewish secret doctrine, the unspeakable name [Yahweh], which means “I am,” is God, who announces himself in the innermost part of the soul, the first of intuition. If you now learn to recognize all things in the same way, if you also elicit the names of things as you do for yourself, if you crawl into things through self-abandonment, through the dissolution of the self, then you will learn all secrets, then every object will say its own ego, then all things will become eloquent. All illusions of one's own self will then have vanished. All things will then proclaim the words within them. [...]

What I am saying to you now is a symbolization of what has been said in all schools. I speak to you, you hear me through the fact that I am able to make the air vibrate in very specific forms, which are a true reflection of my words and sounds. Now you know that all things in the form of air can be liquefied. Now you think that if someone could solidify the air at the moment I utter something, then my words would fall like snow crystals. That is how man, who looked deeper, rightly imagined the world in the first place. Thus the world soul once spoke the primal words into an infinitely fine substance, into the Akasha matter. Everything here on earth is Akasha matter that has fallen down. The crystal is the condensed word of the Primordial Soul. Everything around us is the word of the Primordial Soul that has become rigid. When man ascends to intuitive knowledge, he hears the words that the Primordial Soul once spoke.

The four steps of knowledge lead to the mental plane. These four steps are taught in all Rosicrucian schools and form the content of the first seven degrees of initiation. Freemasonry also had these seven steps before it descended to the three St. John's degrees.

One comes to an understanding of the higher worlds through feeling and through calm, clear research. Trust is necessary and faith, evoked by intuitive feeling. Man is inclined towards truth and clarity; when the occultist tells him something, he finds that there is something right about it.

First of all, I will give a skeleton of the higher world and will proceed quite logically and elementarily. If you consider human development, you will become aware of the four-fold nature of man as he stands before you.

Firstly: the physical body has something in common with the mineral kingdom. When a person stands before us, they are a mixture of the physical and the higher bodies. The eye is a physical apparatus without sensation, but it is animated, endowed with sensation. Outside in the world, the realm of the inanimate is spread out, and man has taken possession of it.

1. The realm of the inanimate: physical body
2. The realm of the plant-like: etheric body
3. The realm of the animal-like: astral body I Manas Budhi [Atma]

Secondly: the etheric body: You can cut a piece of the mineral kingdom and lay it down, and it will be just the same after a year. It is different with plants: if you cut off a leaf, it will wither after a short time.

Thirdly: the astral body or the sentient body.

These three kingdoms of nature are also in man. Then there is the fourth link, the I. The I holds together the essence of the whole world in the human body. Schiller expressed it quite theosophically in what he describes as Goethe's view of nature: “You seek to know nature, but on a difficult path, by combining all three kingdoms to understand the human being.”

Here we have arrived at the point where man is today. We have what the forces of nature have made of him. The physical body is what the deities have made, it is the cleverest. The physical body is constructed wisely, the other bodies are still imperfect. The astral body commits follies against the heart, it intervenes in the wise construction in an unrhythmic and chaotic way.

The ego is the real baby, it is at the very beginning. Through these imperfections, man must first develop upwards. The European knows how to distinguish between 'good' and 'bad', 'true' and 'false'. As much as the ego has of impeccable truth, so much manas is in the ego. There is no need to vote on anything that is manasic. However much a person achieves, together with everyone else, he must recognize the truth for himself.

Becoming dispassionate. The more dispassionate feeling there is in a person, the more Budhi there is in him. As the I develops, it also becomes as rhythmic as the physical body. Two worlds.

The human being lives in three realms, but a new world is opening up for the human being, into which he must learn to live. Just as the baby “I” has risen above the animal kingdom, so it rises into higher realms. All religions have striven to lead the “I” upwards. As we ascend, we gain an overview.

The old Christian secret doctrine calls the moon beings angels. The asuras are the origin of all kinds of selfishness, otherwise we would not have independence. Selfhood, but also selfishness. The gods of form are the constructive architectural ones. The spirits of form have worked on the physical body. Jehovah is the spirit of form. The moon gods have been particularly active in the etheric body, which is why Helena Petrovna Blavatsky calls Jehovah the moon god. The occultist approaches these beings and says that they did not develop out of nothing.

Supplement from the notes of Alfred Reebstein

The human being, the I, has taken possession of the other realms, formed an extract from them, which it now rules. The physical body is the most perfectly developed in its way; the higher limbs, etheric body and astral body, are much less developed in their way and the I only reach greater perfection in later stages.

The part of man that is completely flawless truth is called: Manas.

Budhi is what is completely independent of sensations and passions. The following are developing simultaneously with the human kingdom:

- Mineral kingdom
- Plant kingdom
- Animal kingdom
- Human kingdom – kingdom of the egos
- Angelic kingdom, lunar Pitris, moon beings, people of the moon
- Archangels, fire spirits, sun beings, people of the sun
- Archai, spirits of time, spirits of personality; Asuras, humans of Saturn
- Spirits of form, Exusiai
- Spirits of movement - activity - Dynamis
- Spirits of wisdom
- [Throne]
- Cherubim
- Seraphim

Today I would like to continue our examination of the things we began eight days ago. Not long ago, one of our Theosophical friends showed me a letter written in response to an invitation from a southern German pastor to the Theosophical friend. Our friend thought it might be a good idea to invite the gentleman in question to the lecture on the wisdom teachings of Christianity because he believed that the gentleman was actually preaching Theosophy and that a connection could be made between Theosophy and the pastor's understanding of Christianity. The answer given by the person concerned was interesting. He refused to come that evening. He was prevented by external circumstances. But he said that he had studied Theosophy and had also tried to read some issues of “Lucifer - Gnosis” and that he could see from them that the purpose of Theosophy is to renew certain old Gnostic ideas. He could not really see anything special in all these efforts, because he preferred to gain a direct relationship with his God and not to be satisfied with a relationship with divinity that was mediated by many intermediate beings. This is a very characteristic answer, which I mention because it is given by so many people today. A great many people say this, and I say this not as a criticism of our contemporaries, but simply as an observation, for the phenomenon is as justified as can be. It arises entirely from our sense of the times. I say that this answer is given frequently today. People think that one is actually doing something that does not quite correspond to today's consciousness and feelings if one assumes, in addition to the sensual world in which we live and the divinity that permeates the world, a whole series of intermediate beings, let us say gods or spiritual entities. For four centuries, humanity has been educated in this view. It is therefore not surprising that such a feeling has become general today, and that people believe that Theosophy has a little too much to do with all the different spirits and spiritual entities, with a whole hierarchy of spiritual entities between people, and of which one can have no consciousness, but only an inkling.

The doctrine of such a large number of spiritual beings is not new, but as old as humanity itself. The time in which one believes one can ignore this feeling of the spiritual is actually short in relation to the great time of development. Where there was an awareness of the real significance and depth of the spiritual world, there was never the widespread opinion that one can disregard spiritual beings and their knowledge. I have often mentioned here that Theosophy as such is nothing particularly new, that it only represents the popularization, the generally understandable proclamation of teachings, which have always been cultivated in the so-called brotherhoods. Only the way in which people came by these teachings was different in the past centuries than it is today. Fifty years ago, one could not have spoken of all the things we are talking about today. At that time, anyone who wanted to know something like that was definitely required to seek admission to a so-called occult school, and no one was introduced to such significant and far-reaching ideas as can be found today in every little manual of Theosophy. You had to acquire the ability to become acquainted with such things slowly and gradually, you had to complete and study degree after degree. Each new degree one acquired first entitled one to take in certain higher views. And the education within such a degree consisted in one getting the feeling that what one received in the ascending development of mankind from the teachers of occult schools was the true, correct and essential. This was not because it was forbidden - no criticism of the occult teacher - but because one gradually became convinced that it would be nonsense to criticize the occult teachers, just as it would be absurd for a child to criticize the multiplication table before he could do so, or for a student of geometry if he was not yet ready to understand it. In the same way, in the past one would never say, “I don't like that, it doesn't suit me,” and so on. One took it for granted because one was prepared for it.

Today we are obliged to introduce a further circle without such preparation and to speak of the elementary teachings of occultism. I have often explained the reasons why spiritual teaching is proclaimed before all people. Do not think that what we are allowed to proclaim of these occult teachings is the whole teaching of occultism. It is the very first. And the times will not come for a long time yet when the deeper teachings can be communicated. But these too will come, when it will also be possible to open up higher spiritual worlds. Today it is only necessary to proclaim and introduce people to as much as the course of time requires of us. Those who are sitting here have, for the most part, been here often, and for this reason assertions and communications can be made here all the time, which appear grotesque and paradoxical to those on the outside, to those who come to a public lecture, fantastic, if not crazy. But the deeper truths, especially those that constitute the very nerve of life, the deepest laws of world knowledge, these teachings appear at first to those who are only captivated by external sensuality and to what is otherwise said to them about the spiritual world as illusory, as paradoxical. For those who penetrate deeper and deeper into today's world, it is precisely what our senses teach us in our ordinary lives and what our minds can convey to us that appears as an illusion. Now, for centuries, humanity has lost the power to truly distinguish between spiritual things, and that, my esteemed audience, is something you consider to be essential in the introduction to today's lecture, that humanity's powers of discernment have somewhat diminished over the last four centuries.

This is why objections can be made as in the letter mentioned. Imagine what such an objection means. It is exactly the same as if you wanted to make someone a suggestion that they should come to a lecture on botany and they wrote back: I have read a little about botany, read that it distinguishes between different plants - orchids, oaks, palms and so on - but it does not interest me further. I don't want to distinguish between individual plants, I want to be content with a general, direct feeling of plant life as such. I know that the world has plants: oaks, lilies, tulips, poplars - these are plants; but it is an exaggerated gnosis for me to first have to distinguish between lilies, firs, tulips, poplars. I am content with the fact that in general there is something spiritual, something divine that permeates the world. What are people talking about with such entities? Such a person is in the same situation as the one who objects to the distinction in botany. Humanity has lost some of this discernment over the centuries. But this discernment must be awakened again today. That is precisely the purpose of the theosophical worldview. For one who knows the spiritual connections, it is really not an easy decision to go before the world and speak of the great connections between the great spiritual beings, because he knows how hard it is to achieve understanding in this time and how man can be misled by such discussions about the spiritual beings. But at the same time, one must look into the course of the spiritual world.

It is little known that the phenomena of the world occur in so-called cycles. Today, in materialistic times, the regular, rhythmic course of even fatal phenomena in the world is overlooked. But he who looks into the hustle and bustle of the great human spiritual life sees something approaching, something that is revealing itself more and more to humanity. What I am about to say is also paradoxical, but it will only be recognized all too clearly in some time, perhaps in the not too distant future. What is in store for humanity, must be in store simply because of the materialism that has been preparing itself for four centuries, that is a certain loss of spiritual life, a confusion in spiritual life, which would most certainly develop into a kind of spiritual disease, into a kind of epidemic, if the teachers of spiritual life did not work to counteract this spiritual epidemic through their teachings. We would be facing that today. It is slowly preparing itself. Those who do not have eyes do not see, and those who do not have ears do not hear, even if they are in psychiatry. But those who can observe spiritually know the danger that man is in. This danger need not come, but it would come if the human spirit is not strengthened again through life, that is, if it does not receive a true center. The purpose of Theosophy is to produce firm, strong character in the depths of the soul, and not to allow any spiritually vacillating nature to arise. He who scurries about with his knowledge, flitting like a will-o'-the-wisp through the outer material phenomena of existence, today inclined to this person and tomorrow to that, is exposed to the great danger of losing his spiritual center. And it does not help if we imbue this scurrying with general ideas of divinity and spirituality. Just as the only ruler and safe in the plant kingdom is he who has learned botany, so only he can be sure of the spiritual beings — which are there after all — who has knowledge of the spiritual world.

In the past, no one ever said anything about higher spiritual entities. Those who were mature enough sought and found it. They came to people who could initiate them by no mere coincidence. It was the great spiritual human magnetism that necessarily draws the student to the teacher. They may seemingly encounter an innocent person, in the waiting room or on the train, where they may have to sit for hours. Then you will enter into conversation with such a person. It seems to be by chance, but in reality it is a necessity for you. You may find in such a person the one who has the most significant influence on you, who may be your occult teacher. So it has come about that this inner psychic magnetism has diminished to such an extent that this power no longer plays. You no longer find it so easy to connect with the actual spiritual teachers.

Therefore, it has become necessary to develop the occult teachings in an elementary way through the spoken word to the larger masses of our contemporaries, so that everyone can say to themselves, there and there is a center; if I want, I can join. Actually, no one should be asked to join any secret science current. How far the individual goes must be his absolutely free decision. One should never act under the sign of occultism, as is the view today. Such agitation brings about what should not be in this field. Those who join without actually being seekers say, “I like this and I don't like that – and this is not the right thing.” Actually, the principle of social union is not the right one, as in Buddhism. It is only a surrogate today because people join together socially for everything. What is right in occultism is the grouping.

Nor is there any sense in joining a society for the purpose of occultism, just as there is no sense in joining in relation to geometry. You can learn geometry from someone who knows geometry, but you cannot discern the truth of geometry in a society. The occult is a small circle within our society. The Theosophical Society is an administrative matter. But the occult life cannot be cultivated in any other way than the one I have tried to explain. Those who have settled into the occult life know that the great security of the inner soul character can only be achieved if one has the power of discernment within the spiritual world.

I had to presuppose this because, with teachings such as we will now develop, we will encounter the same contradictions over and over again.

Now I would like to expand on what we discussed last time. I have already indicated that there are four levels of knowledge. These four steps have always been cultivated wherever there have been occultists. Not arbitrarily, my esteemed audience, through deliberation, through reasoning, through speculation, has humanity gained knowledge of the higher spiritual worlds and their beings, but by forming the spiritual organs through which one can gain experience in these higher worlds.

Now let us briefly bring these stages of higher life before our soul. The ordinary knowledge that is peculiar to all people in the world is called material knowledge. This material knowledge is almost the only thing that people today know. Almost no other form of knowledge is known today than this material knowledge. You seek it in everyday life, whether you are dancing, cooking or doing something else, and you recognize in this way. But even in the anatomical dissecting room, in the laboratory and in all of science, there is nothing but material knowledge. It is the first step of knowledge. It is not the case that the occultist wants to criticize material knowledge. Material knowledge has its full justification in life. It must be said, however, that there are higher levels of knowledge. You have to be aware of this material knowledge in its individual parts.

There are four elements involved in material cognition. Now, please follow me closely. What belongs to ordinary material cognition? Imagine that you are to look at this flower from the point of view of material cognition. Four things are necessary for this material cognition to come about. First, the flower, which is the object. Secondly, the image of the object. If you want to appreciate something like this at all, you have to engage in such subtle things. Thirdly, the concept. This is something different from the image. The concept is attained through inner spiritual work. The image remains as an impression of the object on your soul. But the concept is something else. I will make it even clearer.

Imagine: many people have looked at the starry sky. They either had the image without the concept or the concept and also the image. The astronomer has a concept of the starry sky and the image; the farmer has an image of it, but no concept. You can see here that the concept and the image are different. Let's take the concept of a circle. The circle is a line that extends equally from the center.

The fourth is the I, yourself. If you consider these four things, you have the components of ordinary material knowledge. That by which the image comes about in material cognition is called sensation.

The second level of knowledge, which also exists, differs from the first in that the external object is absent, and with it the sensation. That which gives you the stimulus for the image is gone. All that you recognize in this way, that an object has an effect on you, is precisely not the second level of knowledge. You have to imagine that the whole world is gone. Now, the materialistic person says that there is nothing left at all. But that is what matters, that you still have something. Indeed, the one who does not undergo development has nothing left when he closes his eyes. He has the empty, dark space around him. The second stage of realization is developed through so-called meditation. The external object has gone. What is still present is the image, the concept and the I. These three are still there. The fact that there is no external object, only the image, tempts many to say: this is fantasy.

It can be, and it will always be fantastic if it is not systematically developed. To regard it as fantastic just because one has only an image would be foolishness. If someone could invent the dirigible balloon in a dream and then realize it, it does not matter whether he made the discovery while dreaming or while awake. If you can become convinced that what appears to you in dreams is true, then it is right – and that is what it is about. The object that otherwise causes sensation must be replaced. What occurs is what in occultism is called illumination. And this whole cognition, which again has four parts – namely image, concept, I and illumination – is now called imaginative cognition. This imaginative cognition is trained through meditation. I have often described how this is done. One cannot meditate without the guidance of someone who has experience in this field. Meditation proceeds in such a way that the meditator really loses sight of the objects around him, that he makes himself blind and deaf and then also loses his memory, so that the soul is completely empty of external objects. You have to be able to fire a cannon without paying attention, then you have achieved the stillness of the soul.

Then, through practice, illumination must be stimulated. You can recognize that you have achieved something by noticing that your dreams no longer have a chaotic character. You have to pay attention to the fact that the dream world is calm and steady. In the case of ordinary people, their dream world is usually one in which they have reminiscences or in which they experience the moods of their external lives in their dreams. So when he meditates, the dream world begins to take on a regular character. He then gets to know things he does not know. Dreams speak in symbols first. This must be felt. But that is where people usually go too far. They try to interpret these dream images. But they should not be interpreted intellectually. The legend of digging for treasure also refers to this fact. It says that when you dig a treasure, you must not speak, otherwise it cannot come out. Even if you say something inwardly, that is, quibble, that is already a danger. You can only speak to someone who has precise experience of this matter. But if you quibble, then the intellect begins to act like a scorching, burning fire on the fine spiritual life.

One should experience dreams very intimately, treat them like very delicate things to which one surrenders with intuition, and not interpret things in sharp, rough lines of the mind. One must do this for the reason that the dream images, when they occur with a reality value, then have such a rich and comprehensive reality value that the ordinary powers of the mind are not sufficient to grasp them. They destroy their inner life when they approach the cobweb-like inner structures with the outer mind. This is how this wonderful life begins, how the inner illuminations begin, and soon you become aware that a new world is opening up in them. Through them you get to know something that is quite different from this ordinary, material world around you.

I would like to understand how it is structured in terms of a way of perceiving within the illumination. Take this flower, for example. It is yellow and has green leaves. Let's look at the colors first. These colors are spread over the surface of the object, so to speak. Think about the fact that you usually perceive color as appearing spread over the surface of the body. Try to consider how seldom it happens that you see colors separate from objects. At most, you have this with a rainbow. You can roughly imagine this when you see a sunbeam entering a dusty room. You have a rough sense of a color. Now imagine that the yellow is not attached to the object, but is free like flakes of color floating through space. Now imagine a room like this, filled in all directions with these color flakes and color formations, and you will have something approximating what you will see when you visualize the world of illumination in terms of colors.

Occult students with a softer nature than Westerners do very special exercises. Westerners are much too compact for that. But because of their soft nature, the Orientals have the opportunity to do these exercises. The Oriental yogi sits down and looks at the color of such a flower, turns all his attention to that color, lives in that color so that he is able to withdraw his attention completely from the object and fix it only on the color, then he acquires the ability to hold the color even when the object is gone. Then it becomes possible for him to gradually bring this floating world of color into consciousness.

The same can be said for the world of sound and for other forms of the world. You see: Man conquers a whole new field of perception. This world and these color flakes are always and everywhere there. These color flakes are not irregular, they are not just clouds flying around, but just as objects on the physical earth plane are not just blocks, but also entities, so too do entities reveal themselves in this flaky world of colors. They have no bones and no flesh, they are incarnated in the substance that I have just described.

So these are the bodies of certain entities. The forms of the entities that you can get to know, once you have generated the illumination so that you can perceive them in this space, are mostly the bodies of the spirits of the twilight. So you can perceive them as the outstanding spirits of this sphere: the spirits of the twilight, the lunar or moon Pitris. Such beings people themselves once were on the planet preceding our Earth. They have only attained their present form through their condensation. Those beings who have not attained human condensation, who have remained at that level, stand today in that world as Lunar Pitris, as spirits of the twilight.

Just as one has to become familiar with each realm in turn, ascending from the mineral realm to the plant realm to the animal realm, and one must not lump all three realms together, so too can we now ascend further to the realm of the lunar Pitris, who can manifest themselves in this so-called elemental realm. This is the first elemental realm - actually the third.

We have not been talking in vague terms, but have indicated a path that leads to the perception of a type of being that you will get to know in planetary development. These twilight spirits play a very special role in this. These are the beings that are closest to man in the spiritual world. Next time I will share something about the relationship between man and these spiritual beings. These entities are present around you and influence you continuously.

At the next level of realization, the image also disappears. So only the concept and the ego remain. This state is achieved through concentration. This consists of the person associating certain parts with certain parts of the organism. That which prevents him from blindly fantasizing, from inventing concepts, is something similar to the illumination of the previous level and the sensation of the level before that. So we have sensation, illumination and now, at the third stage, inspiration. Here, the object and the image are absent, and the concept acquires content through the inspiration that occurs. So here you are dealing with the I, the concept and inspiration.

Illumination has something light-like about it, which is why it is also called illumination. Inspiration is completely free of all these pictorial representations. Here the human being floats in the purely spiritual world. That is why it is also said that his ideas take on a content without the need for them to be images first. It is the word 'imageless' that can be used to compare it to. That is why it is also said that at this stage, a person receives the inner word, that is, he is able to find truths through inspiration, in that the spiritual world works into his understanding in such a way that it is not the image that affects him, but that the spirit speaks directly to him. The language of the spiritual world itself flows into his concepts. That is inspiration. It is the conversation with the beings of a spiritual world. The person is quietly closed in on himself, rejects everything visionary, everything pictorial, keeps quiet and still, and the spirits tell him the truth. That is the level of inspiration, the inner word. This level of inspiration makes it possible for a person to not only see objects wherever he goes, but for them to tell him something everywhere, so that he can hear everywhere what is buzzing around in a new space. This level of knowledge is what Goethe means when he speaks the words at the beginning of the prologue in heaven: “The sun resounds in the old way in the brother spheres of value singing.” This is not a phrase, it is reality. He speaks of the spiritual sun that resounds. The whole world becomes a resounding world that teaches us significantly about the inner core of our being. In this world, we then make acquaintance with a higher group of spiritual beings, which we call the sun spirits or also the fire spirits. Just as we got to know the spirits of twilight there, we get to know the spirits of fire here.

So we have: mineral kingdom, plant kingdom, animal kingdom, spirits of twilight, spirits of fire. The realization at this level is a volitional realization, because the power that one must particularly develop is the will. A special training of the will through concentration, through inner willpower and will education. One then makes the acquaintance of the beings that are growth-producing power, power of reproduction and so on. We get to know this in this way. That which exists everywhere of these fire spirits lives in all growing entities. The one who rises to an inspired realization is one who 'hears the grass growing'. The proverbs are often tremendous words of wisdom. At this level, all growth is heard. That which makes the beings grow is the power that lives in the fire beings.

Finally, there is still the [fourth] stage. The concept is still missing. Then there is only the I. There is no more recognition in the concept, there is a recognition without concept, a pure life in the spiritual. You creep into the beings you want to recognize. The coarsest form of recognition is in the material. Think how little you are able to penetrate a flower. You have to stay outside. In imaginative cognition, you have the images around you. In inspired cognition, the sounds from the outside world come to you. But now you enter into the beings. You are every being you recognize. Space and time cease to exist. You are where you recognize the corresponding being. You are no longer different from that being. Your ego has submerged in that being. And that is the realization through intuition – intuitive realization.

These are the four stages of realization. Through this intuitive realization, you get to know not only the outer appearance of the beings, but the beings in their inner being. The I expands to include the whole environment. The person who has attained this higher realization is called the “swan”. Lohengrin is led from a spiritual world into the physical world by a swan. Through this gift, one attains a knowledge that is only accessible to those who have the gift of transformation into these beings. If you want to rise to the level at which intuitive recognition stands, you must present yourself in such a way that intuitive recognition can transform into you. That is why Zeus had to transform himself into a swan so that he could be grasped. The legends all have a great relationship to this world existence.

Through this intuitive knowledge, you rise to the level of entities called the spirits of personality or the spirits of selfishness. Everything that lives in us as a principle, as an essence of selfishness, comes from this spiritual realm, the realm of the spirits of selfishness or personality. The spirits of selfishness have always been at work. First, the physical body is worked on by the spirits of selfishness, then the etheric body, and then the astral body. Therefore, as a kama-manasic being, man is an egoist. What he thinks is what is independent and also what is selfish. What these beings are can only be recognized when one stands at the stage that one can crawl into the being, into the ego of the beings. There you get to know the spirits of the personality.

So you see that it is not just talk when you find something like this in my 'Lucifer' or in Mrs. Besant's books, even if perhaps not under the same names. The spirits are not invented, but gained through the stages of knowledge. Therefore, we distinguish: mineral kingdom, plant kingdom, animal kingdom, human, lunar Pitris or spirits of twilight, fire spirits or solar Pitris, spirits of egoism or spirits of personality - Suras and Asuras. Then the higher realms: spirits of form, spirits of movement and spirits of wisdom. We will talk about these four spiritual levels next time.

But you can already apply what I have said today in practice, namely that if you know something about this nature, even if you do not yet rise to the level of direct experience in this way, you will gain inner strength if you know even just a little. Man would completely lose his center in the coming decades if the knowledge of these things did not come. These entities do not exist in cloud-cuckoo-land, but surround us continually. The person standing in front of me is not just a human being, but interrelated with him is the Lunar-Pitri, the Solar-Pitri, the spirits of selfishness and so on. And they are constantly active in this person. I recognize something incompletely when I only have the outer person in front of me. Just imagine how insecure you would become if you were to go blind. Orientation in the new world is only made possible by new senses. In the same way, knowledge in the world is only made possible by knowing what is there. It makes us feel secure to know that such things exist, that such things are there. It is therefore necessary for humanity to know such things. In the fourth century, higher spiritual beings still led man, unconsciously. That is the higher development. The meaning of the materialistic time is that the spirits have fled to reappear in his consciousness. Man has descended into darkness to consciously ascend to the light again. That would be the greatest harm if man remained down here in darkness and did not find his way back to the light. The theosophical doctrine has not been brought out of mere caprice, but because it is a necessity for humanity. There have always been individuals in secret societies who had the realization. But it must become much more general. That is why the popular way in which these teachings are spread in theosophy.

I would like to briefly sketch again what we started last time, in order to build on it further. You will recall that I tried to explain the various degrees of higher vision to you, and to break them down into the activities that lead us up into the higher realms, into the realms of the higher beings, which we must consider if we really want to go through the entire human history of development through the various planets. I ask you to bear in mind that such a consideration must necessarily remain quite sketchy, that one has to discuss many things that are really quite difficult to express in ordinary everyday terms, because one is dealing with things for which ordinary language is not really created. Ordinary language is there to describe what is real to the senses, what surrounds us. It is therefore quite inadequate for all the things for which we want to evoke an idea today.

In schools in Europe where, for centuries – or more precisely, since the fourteenth century – ideas such as we are now allowed to discuss publicly in elementary terms have been developed in the same way, it was certainly not the case – especially in the higher grades – that the words of ordinary language were spoken, but rather in a so-called symbolic language. First, a certain language was acquired. First one acquired a certain way of expressing oneself, which then offered the possibility of characterizing in that peculiar way that is necessary if one wants to penetrate into such supersensible realms.

Now let me briefly repeat what I hinted at last time. I told you that at first our ordinary, everyday way of looking at things - and that is also the one that our science has - is the so-called material knowledge. This has its object outside of ourselves. It has its object in the sense world, and it then builds up knowledge with the help of the image, then goes from the image to the concept and from the concept to the I. So in our material knowledge we are dealing with: object, image, concept and I. These four things are to be considered.

When we now have to move on to the first stage of higher knowledge, the object must remain away, the external sensual object must fall away. So of what we have within our ordinary knowledge, only image, concept, I remain. The fact that external objects no longer stimulate us, that external objects no longer affect our sensuality, that the sensation is no longer there, is replaced by illumination, which forms images from within for our ordinary images, so that they are not visions, not illusions, but become what mystics of all times have called imaginations. If one wants to form a correct concept of what is meant here by imagination, then one must already be able to see, to see correctly, everything that still demands a connection to an external object. I think I mentioned last time that this often causes great disappointment to students who are to be trained in this kind of knowledge. Man expects that when a higher knowledge is to present itself, which appears to be the case in ordinary life, that it will approach him from the outside. That was also the mistake with spiritualism. I do not want to say anything against spiritualism. The mistake lay only in the method. The mistake is that the spiritualist has the things in front of him like an earthly object that stimulates his senses. That is why it is basically not a good preparation for a higher desire for knowledge if one goes through spiritualism, although I know very well that many of our best Theosophists have gone through spiritualism. But in the times before the Theosophical Society popularized these higher insights in their elementary stages, there were no schools. They did not build on the spiritualist method at all. They set out directly to reeducate people so that they would be able to truly rise into the supersensible world without external inducement. The spiritist tries to bring the supersensible world down to his ordinary capacity for perception. He says to himself: I can recognize that external objects stimulate me; if the higher world is to have reality, then the essence of a higher world must appear to me in the same way as ordinary things. They have to adapt to my capacity for perception. But the occultist says: No, the objects and beings of a higher world do not descend here, not where one sees with the eyes and reaches with the hands, but one must ascend to them, one must develop within oneself the organs necessary to see in the higher world. Therefore, for today's humanity, a much better training than any external event to come to the higher vision is the passage - as strange as it may seem to those who expect something different - the passage through the arts. What man should make use of, if he does not go directly through the school of clairvoyance, in order to come again to a deeper vision, to an imagination, that is the deepening in what art can give him, and that is art in all fields. We must be clear about the role that art has played for a long time in the development of our humanity. Through such things, many things also become clear to us that would otherwise be extremely difficult to understand.

Follow the advice for the purpose of getting a vivid idea of what I have to say. Follow me into what are called the Greek mysteries, the Greek mysteries, in the time before Homer wrote his poems. Those times when this Greek spirit and seer performed long primal dramas that the best minds sought. But because they were not able to look back clairvoyantly, did not find any positive science in it, what they achieved appears more like a hunch than real knowledge. But if we go back to these earlier times, into which Nietzsche, for example, wanted to look when he conceptually grasped the Dionysian in contrast to the Apollonian, if we go back to these times, we see how teachers led their students to hidden cultural sites and prepared them to see the primal drama there. What did they see there? They saw the secret of the existence and development of the world. What we endeavor to explain in many words, these pupils experienced in astral vision, in real vision: the descending deity that descended into the material, that has descended into the material before time began. And then the transformation of this original formation of matter into the forms that surround us today — into minerals, plants and animals. It was shown how the invisible, supersensible Deity was once creative in the universe, and how it formed and condensed those fruits from which our creation proceeded, how, as it were, the physical emerged from the spiritual as from cloud formations, and how the initial formations gradually developed into the complicated and ultimately into the microcosmic human being. The entire process of the evolution of the world was presented to the student. This was called “the great world tragedy.” First, the great living divinity that descended into matter, was buried in it, and then resurrected in man. And now it was made clear to the student: this process takes place within yourself, it has taken place within you and continues to take place within you. You were already involved in those formations that took place before time began. In those formations you were in the beginning of becoming, and they changed and changed until your present form was reached. Today you feel how that which lives in you as soul, as spirit, rises up again, how that which has sunk into matter, the divinity, rises again as if from a grave, from which the divinity rises, and that when you then say 'I', the divinity speaks within you. All this was explained in complete vividness. And in this way, things were united that have long since been lost to today's humanity. This was possible by placing these students in a completely different state of consciousness than the one in which people find themselves in everyday life, so that they were surrounded by the living images of the whole process of world-becoming. It is therefore a matter of the students, so to speak, feeling the consciousness shining within them, making the objects of everyday life visible to them. The external objects passed around them, but what they were trying to show them appeared in them in much more vivid colors than the objects of nature would ever be able to present themselves. The fire of the deity stood before their soul. And the fire that metamorphosed so that everything else emerged from it, that was there in a way similar to how the dreamer has a superficial knowledge of the dream.

If you translate this dream into something that has regularity and harmony and largely as what surrounds us in the outside world, then you have a weak idea of what was going on in the soul of such a student of the primal drama. It was said of such a student that he had seen the world in the twilight. The world event, this whole world becoming, then sounded into these images. The visible arts are an imprint of such imagination, of such images around us. They relate to this imagination, to this vision, as a silhouette relates to the real object. They are thus related to clairvoyant imagination, while our material vision has no relation to clairvoyant imagination.

The artistic imagination is a shadow of the true imagination. This is not to say that I consider artistic imagination to be of lesser value than clairvoyance. Back in the days when people could still awaken their clairvoyant abilities, when they could see into ancient times, there was no art. What was experienced was religion and art and science at the same time. Everything that led people to the higher worlds was offered in it. Later these three separated. Mankind had to go through this state. And since that time, art has been an external shadow image. External art is an internal imaginative vision. It is part of the process of development that humanity has lost this original vision for a while. What was awakened as a result is another state of consciousness. And in a later present, this introduces art in a tangible, visible form. That is why artistic vision is so beneficial for imaginative vision. That is the first stage: illumination.

The second stage was the one where the image also disappears, where we are only dealing with concepts and the ego, and where inspiration occurs [in place of the image]. Inspiration is there for the person when the so-called continuity of consciousness occurs. Continuity of consciousness means: the person not only has consciousness during everyday life, but also continues this consciousness into sleep. As you know, one partial brightening of sleep is the dream consciousness. The ordinary person has this dream consciousness only in a chaotic way. In the one who develops to clairvoyance, to illumination, the dream images begin to become regular, lawful. He sees truths in dreams that he would not see without developing this dream life into regularity. In such undeveloped people, there is always the dreamless sleep as a state of consciousness. So there are clairvoyant individuals who have developed to the point where they have filled part of their sleep with regular dreams that reveal new worlds. This is the beginning of this stage of illuminative clairvoyance, of imagination. Then you also see how other people, in whom they do not have this, live in their dreams.

Now the person who guides such a person must bring them to the point where they, the student, can bring their dream visions into everyday reality; that is, that they can perceive in everyday life what they perceive in their dream vision. Let's be clear about this. The ordinary dreamer: what do they see? He has experienced something during the day. This appears to him in his dream as a reminiscence. It is an echo of the experiences of the day. Or, he perceives his surroundings in some way. He hears a train rushing by. He wakes up and realizes that he has symbolically perceived the ticking clock next to him as a train. Or the moods in which a person finds himself can also be expressed symbolically in a dream. For example: a person becomes feverish and dreams of a boiling stove. I am telling you facts here that really happened once. I ask you to bear in mind that I am only giving examples of events that really happened. Now let's assume that a person dreams of ugly animals. The chaotic then ceases under the guidance of the secret teacher, and the student perceives things that do not come from everyday life. Things are revealed to him that he does not know from our world. Only when the student is able to transfer this into everyday life, then we make what he experiences the subject of occult wisdom.

So how do we regularize what I have characterized as chaotic? We start at the very beginning. You dream, for example, under the guidance of the teacher. The exercises are done as meditations, and they have the effect that you actually see a person suffering in your dreams. The person is in front of you in a certain situation. You are very soon convinced that you were not dreaming, nor that it is not real, but you convince yourself that you were with a friend who is suffering or has suffered. You have not seen anything sensual, but you have experienced the soul, the real soul life. You then experience not only one such individual soul life, but soon soul life in abundance. You have to familiarize yourself with the diversity of stories. You have to learn to grasp them in an orderly fashion. This is a long and patient task, but we have to do it. Then we dream this into our everyday life.

You will then be able to see the same thing in everyday life with a fully alert consciousness. You will not see what is sensual, but what is spiritual. You must imagine that you will be surrounded by the soul. When you, as a clairvoyant, are confronted with a person, you will at first see nothing differently than any other person sees. But when you turn your attention to his soul, he becomes spiritually transparent to you. But the right dream state must have preceded this. Then the other will follow, because there are very definite stages.

The next stage is where consciousness no longer fades, or at least does not need to fade, where you are therefore aware during dreamless sleep, where you are able to wake up in the morning knowing that you have had experiences, have really lived, throughout the night. This experience of dreamless sleep is not in such images. It cannot be compared with the world of images that are around us in dream-filled sleep. What occurs first in dreamless sleep is a world of sounds and speech, a world of tones and words. Dreamless sleep is first filled with words. You see, in the first stages of this clairvoyant development, you experience this quite sporadically and individually. You simply know in the morning that something has been said to me. You remember what was said to you. You know quite well that something like this could not be said to you in your present life, in ordinary life. It is perhaps a great truth that you could not experience in ordinary life. This calling and hearing was something spiritual. This is spread more and more until finally the whole life of dreamless sleep is a continuous conversation with other entities.

However, a prerequisite for not indulging in illusions in this world is that one has already attained a certain higher degree of inner selflessness. Someone who criticizes a lot, who likes to say a lot of derogatory things about the world and its phenomena, may very often be exposed to the most terrible, deceptive ideas at this stage of development. Therefore, the teacher will, above all, impress upon the students again and again. He will tell the student: Try, over and over again, to ask only questions and to let the answers be given to you from this state. This is quite different from what one actually does in ordinary life. In life, one is quickly finished with an answer. Try to look at life from this point of view. Today, everyone says, “I think so,” or “That is my opinion.” That is what people say today. But the occultist who wants to rise to this level should never speak that way. But when he has prepared himself, he should be able to speak differently within. He should ask questions of the world and learn to refrain entirely from giving an answer himself. This is a mood that Goethe, who knew it, describes in simple words. He says: We are not made to answer the problem, but to pose the problem, to pose it quite clearly, and then to await the further development in reverence. Creating this mood is extremely important for the student at this stage of development. Therefore, it is very useful at this level if he has the self-control and selflessness to set himself a very important task and to refrain from forming any opinion. After all, what he can say is usually only what corresponds to his ordinary level of intelligence. He already has this point of view. But he wants to go beyond this, and so he should completely refrain from answering and wait to be given the answer. In this state of dreamless sleep, it will be whispered to him. From this state, an ever deeper and deeper world arises, which is a world of conversation.

I would like to draw attention to a passage of this kind, to the profound saying of one of our exquisite minds, Goethe. Those who have read or heard Goethe's fairy tales will remember a passage that goes:

“What is more glorious than gold?” asked the king. “Light,” replied the snake.

“What is more refreshing than light?” asked the king. “Conversation,” replied the snake.

At this point, Goethe points out that he knew everything we have discussed here. This conversation, which is about light, is what he is referring to. Then one brings what one has experienced in this way in a dreamless state into everyday life. Some will be tempted to believe that the clairvoyant no longer sleeps without dreams at all, but sees all the time. That is not necessarily so. It does not depend on how much of the night is filled with such experiences. There can be long periods of dreamless sleep in between.

It is true – I think I have already hinted at it: anyone who can experience something in dreamless sleep in this way hears all the objects around him. He hears the glass of water, he hears every little thing that whispers something to him. This is the third stage of knowing, inspiration.

In this way, the scriptures that are called inspired were created. Today, theologians and scholars dispute the method of inspiration in the writings of initiates. Imagine what has been written about whether or not the gospel is inspired – by teachers who have no idea that there is such a thing as revelation. Inspired writings are for those who one day will be made to disappear as painlessly as possible. The greatest parts of the three synoptic gospels and the gospel of John were written in a state of clairvoyance. They are inspired. We are not dealing with a miracle, not with a dictation from a god, but with this state. Therefore, only those who know something about how truths come in such states can understand them.

The next stage is intuition. It expresses itself clearly to you through feeling: you are now inside things, no longer outside them. You now crawl into every thing. This is the state of intuition. The ordinary person only has the state of intuition with his ego. When a person is developed enough, he is inside every thing.

The human being perceives the spirits of twilight at the first level, at the level of imagination. At the level of inspiration, the human being perceives the spirits of fire or of fire nebula. At the level of intuition, he perceives the spirits of personality, the spirits that lie hidden everywhere as the basis of the world-Iche. When he has reached that point, he can truly immerse himself in the depths.

But there is also a raising above this state. This consists in the fact that man no longer merely perceives, but that he participates with humanity. This is even something where understanding itself easily ends with those who still go along to the level of intuition. They will no longer go along so easily from there. It is only through comparison that one can get closer to what I am saying now.

It is also a passive state in intuition. The person submerges, but in a certain respect remains passive. They only begin to become inwardly active when they rise higher inwardly. They now participate in the world. The state that I am now describing can only be reached if one has already reached the state of intuition. When someone has reached the point where they can completely immerse themselves in the object, where they feel that it is themselves, and where they feel as if they have entered the body of a dog or a tulip, so that they not only hear it but also feel what it is inside themselves, then they can move on to something else. He can first rise to the animal kingdom. When he does this, he initially has the task of selflessly observing the animal world around him, and he has to focus his attention on the different animal species. Then, while he has been in individual animals through intuition, a stage will now arise for him where he steps out of the individual animal again, but remains within the animal being itself. Let us say, for example, he has been observing a dog. Through intuition, he is able to completely immerse himself in the dog, to experience all its sensations, and to empathize with all the pleasure and pain that it feels.

Now there is a higher level. Here the person goes beyond things without losing all of this. But the special existence is lost in the process. He rises above the individual being, but in the animal nature he remains in it. He loses interest in the individual being, the special characteristics of this individual being disappear. As he gradually rises above it, but the essence of this being remains present, forms appear in his mind that he has not seen before. He first grasps the ego of the individual being and then takes this ego out of the being like an extract. It takes shape and forms itself, and now he gets what Plato called “ideas”. These are Plato's ideas. You no longer have a single dog, but you have a spiritual, living form before you. This gives you more than the individual being. You have the model for all these beings. You have what is called the soul of the species, and not as an abstract concept, but as a living reality. You are surrounded by the souls of the animal species. You now live with these as you previously lived with the merely sensual animals. Space is not empty around you. But the beings you see there do not look like the beings that walk around us. They are completely new beings, and they do not fit the individual being, the individual dog, but they do fit all of the same species. It is something much more abstract and much more alive than the physical. What you see there are the spirits of form. They belong to a higher spiritual world. One of these form spirits was Jehovah. He was the form spirit that constituted the generic soul of humanity. The generic archetype of humanity was the god Jehovah. It is at this level of the spiritual world that one can reach him, that one can rise to that which in the Jewish mystery teaching is called Jehovah, to the spirit of the human form.

Another spirit had to join this spirit of the human form if a new, different one was to develop. This spirit of the human form had only made man such that he was like the soul of the species. Individual life would not have emerged. Individual life emerged when man struggled to recognize good and evil. This is powerfully and impressively depicted in the Fall of Man. Jehovah did not want to go further than the form. Until then, he guided man. In connection with other entities, man then took over his guidance through the Jehovah principle. So you see him sinking with man's arrogance over the animal world into what is called the world of forms.

When man has reached the point where he begins to sense this entity, then he can rise to the next level. This consists in the fact that he now learns to recognize in these beings that which he has learned to see and recognize at a lower level, in the natural beings, when he goes beyond the form to the life. The first thing you perceive, and why I have to call it that, is that you first see this generic soul in the form. But you have to rise to a higher level of insight if you want to see this world of forms in motion, in action. You cannot do that by merely immersing yourself in the animal world. This gift will only be granted to you when you immerse yourself in the plant world with devotion and do the same with it as I have described with the animal world. When you immerse yourself in the plant world with intuition, but do not lose the essence of the plant, so that the essence of the plant remains and you know how to merge with the whole nature of the plant, when you succeed in experiencing the suffering and rejoicing of the great natural world through the plant world.

When these things are spoken of to a modern man – and the more scientific he is, the more – he laughs at you. But it is nevertheless true that in the plant world, joy and suffering can be perceived by those who can live with the plant world, not as a mere comparison, not as a symbol, but in such a way that they know how to perceive the expression of the inner feeling, just as a person perceives a feeling when a tear comes out of the eye. There is therefore a real level of perception where the dew beading on a plant announces real life to you, a life like that in a tear welling up from an eye. When you are able to see in the sap flowing out of the tree when you cut it, a manifestation of life in nature, just as you cut yourself and know that it then hurts, then you are where you can ascend into the world of activity, into the world of movement. Then you can perceive that the beings, which you previously only saw in form, are alive inside. That's when the beings start to talk. The generic souls say something to you.

The next stage is reached when a person is able to feel the same way about the mineral kingdom as I said for plants, about inanimate nature. Kant said: two things fill him with a sense of awe, the starry sky above him and the moral law within him. But that remains abstract as long as the abstract sky fills us with awe, so that it is still enough for us that the inanimate starry sky speaks to us. But the materialistic view already shows us that the dead crystal is not just dead and mute, but that it also speaks to us the secrets of nature. These secrets can be reached by lovingly immersing ourselves in nature.

Anyone who has done what I have described, who has suffered and rejoiced with the plant world, will also find it easy to understand the dull language of inanimate nature – although there is also a gulf there. It is relatively easier to understand the language of plants than the language of stones. Even at these higher levels, it remains true that we understand best that which is akin to us. We are akin to human feeling, human pain and human joy. Even though the joy and pain that appear in the plant world are very different from human joy and

human pain, they still have something faintly related about them that we do not recognize in the mute world of stone. But the new thing that we recognize in the mute world of stone is precisely what would elevate us so highly [above] what makes us so weak. The mute stone world has no more desires. The world of desire is silent there, it ceases, before we pass from the plant world to the stone world. The plant and animal worlds end here. The plants still have something analogous to desire, which increases in animals and is strongly evident in humans. This is what makes them unchaste, while the stone is chaste. Those who understand stone come to know beings that are chaste and desireless. One comes to know a life without desire or longing in the stone kingdom. When we can feel and perceive something similar in the stone kingdom, as I have described in the plant world, we come to recognize what it means to be a being that is chaste by nature. The chaste, mute world of stone, of which we no longer say that, as with the dewdrop, as with the dripping pitch of the tree, it expresses joy and pain, but must say that it, in discreet, completely restrained silence, faithfully preserves itself within itself and does not, if I may express myself trivially, flaunt what it experiences internally. That is the tremendous thing that we recognize in the interior of the stone world. The stone world reached perfection so many years ago. In truth, the stone world is the greatest. What we see today as rock crystal once went through its time of unchastity when we look back billions of years. The greatest wisdom of nature appears to us when we examine it in the soundless world of the stars, the stones and crystals.

The stage of form leads us to the spirit of form. The second stage, which starts from the plant world, leads us to the spirits of movement and activity, and the same stage of observation leads us to the spirits of wisdom. We do not reach them until we bring to life within ourselves the mute, chaste, self-contained entity, the living entity of the stone kingdom.

If you would like a brief description of what happens in a person, the following may be said. The person must first let the outer light around him disappear; he must first stand before inanimate nature and disregard everything that his senses tell him. Then there is darkness at first. When he now rises to the contemplation that I have described, then all beings shine from within. An inner light shines through and radiates through all these beings and radiates from them. And this is the light of wisdom. These are the stages of contemplation that lead us up to what I have described as the spirits of wisdom.

Now, as you know, at the very beginning of Saturn's development there are the spirits of will. If you want to learn to recognize these, you do not have to turn to animals, plants and minerals in general. Rather, to grasp the spirits of will, you must have something very special. No matter how fantastic you may consider what I am about to say, I hope that will not be the case. If you want to rise even higher - after you have more or less mastered the other levels - you have to approach something - it seems paradoxical - such as an anthill, in which not only animals of the same species are united, but also live in wise connection, and delve into the spirited interaction of these little creatures. The rational scientist does not do that. But the clairvoyant lives with the males and females and workers, all organized in their own way, and they interact in a wonderful way, so that he is inwardly identical with them.

This is the method for getting to know the will. Schopenhauer wrote a lot about the will. But he could have written this chapter if, as a clairvoyant, he had stuck his head into an anthill. There you learn to recognize what the will is by its very nature. There you learn to recognize what it means when you yourself pronounce the word 'I will'. This word lives deep within your own nature. Many things in your own nature come together there. But you only perceive the result. The natural scientist gives you a completely different view. What I am describing to you is taken from life. If, on the other hand, you choose a beehive instead of an anthill, you are doing something completely wrong. What lives in the beehive is quite different from what lives in the anthill.

We have spoken of the spirits of will, of wisdom, of form, of motion, of personality, of fire, of twilight, then of humans, animals, plants and minerals. These entities are not plucked out of thin air, they are not inventions, they are not speculations that are presented to you in elementary occultism, which passes itself off as theosophy, but they are things that are acquired through experience.

I could only make suggestions as to how something like this comes about, what is referred to as elementary theosophy or elementary occultism. In this way, one acquires the higher abilities that grant insight into the higher worlds.

This, you see, is something of what must be revived in the future. There is really a lot around us today that can cause concern, and I believe that what can really worry someone who is enthusiastic about real human progress is also the fact that many do not keep their eyes open. Man should be a pioneer in keeping his eyes open. What matters is not that individuals call themselves Theosophists, but that we find the means and ways in the great development of humanity to give a new foundation to what would otherwise really have to collapse.

Let me conclude the reflections of the old year with this reference, which I have made before. Much destruction is being wrought around us, much that might indicate to the attentive observer, even if he is not clairvoyant, that we are at the beginning of a great work of destruction in terms of external material things, which has developed over the past century, for material development only goes so far.

Supplement from notes of unknown authorship

But what is most worrying is that so many of our fellow human beings do not keep their eyes open for what is needed by humanity. The theosophist, however, should be a pioneer in this work of keeping their eyes open. It is not important that individuals sit down and develop, but to work together in the great development of humanity, to find ways and means to give new content to what would otherwise really have to collapse. Much destruction is being wrought around us today. Much that will alert the attentive observer to the fact that we are at the beginning of a work of destruction, of the material culture of the nineteenth century; for this has not been accompanied by a corresponding spiritual development. We are capable of wireless telegraphy; now imagine this ability of man developed just a little further, so that here in Berlin you could take a cab and drive through Friedrichstrasse with a wave generator, in order to destroy the entire Louvre in Paris by means of the corresponding wave excitations. No one would be able to prove the assassin in such a case. All our legal concepts will be completely powerless in a time that can easily be imagined; a time will come when purely material culture will, by and large, lead itself ad absurdum, where it has a destructive and devastating effect.

Only by the inner soul culture now moving up, so that people no longer depend on the external, and although the worst is done, but only the right thing happens, only by this can help. The path of development of today's humanity shows the first beginnings already. Only the path of inner, spiritual development can lead out again, and Theosophy is a necessary new beginning of a cultural direction, to which, so to speak, the necessary inner morality can be found to counteract the overwhelming external culture, which can only lead out, because man has the soul, the spirit, in addition to the material. That is why the renewed spiritual movements of today are so necessary, so that the forces that would otherwise wither away can be practised and cultivated again.

Our thoughts, feelings and desires move in two directions and lead us to two ideas of what is constantly around us, the transitory, and what man longs for, the eternal, about which he hopes for enlightenment, which he seeks to unravel because it appears to him as the riddle of life.

The truth that man seeks has been the same at all times; but people are not always the same; and so, at all times, depending on the development of humanity, the answers to the questions about truth have been given differently. The school of thought that wants to give us the answer to the question about the eternal in a way that is appropriate today is called the theosophical one. It has come to fruition in the last four decades.

What people usually understand by knowledge is connected with place and time; and the one who accepts this is the perishable human being. But the deeper core of human nature does not recognize through the senses. It recognizes that which has validity everywhere and at all times. Religions want to give people knowledge of that which is not bound to place and time. And the purpose of religion is to establish the connection between the human and the eternal. Theosophy is the realization of this inner man, of his essential core. Theosophy is not the realization of something other than what is around us, but only of another part of it. Suppose a blind man had been happily operated on in this room. The same objects are still there as before, but now with completely different revelations for him. In a similar way, through Theosophy, man learns about the same things as before – about people, plants, animals and minerals – but he learns different characteristics about them. Just as the operation is there to make the same object visible to the eye of the blind, so Theosophy is there to point out a different aspect of things, to show him new spiritual and psychological characteristics of things. They appear to him in other, more intimate relationships to people and to the whole of the rest of the world. In this way, the human being is uplifted, and the objects take on a new meaning for him. Theosophy is a knowledge of the immortal part in man. What the immortal essence of man is, what the essence of the God-man is, we can gauge from the words of Goethe:

If the eye were not sun-like,
How could the sun behold it.
If the power of God did not lie in us,
How could we be enraptured by the Divine.

The eye must meet the sunbeam; likewise, the inner strength of the soul must meet the flowing strength of the Godhead. The mystics have expressed this in their own way; for example, Angelus Silesius, with the words:

If Christ is born a thousand times in Bethlehem and not in you, you will still remain eternally lost.

The realization through the eternal core of our being is a different kind of knowledge than that gained through our senses and mind. We therefore distinguish different kinds of human nature, depending on whether the human being is eternal or perishable. Usually, man is perceived as a very unified being. You can see the human being with your eyes, he is perceptible to your senses like a mineral. But even if the anatomist cuts up the corpse, he only experiences what he can see with his eyes and touch with his hands. The human being he observes is no different from inanimate nature on the outside. Physical and chemical processes also take place in his body. This human being is the same as the minerals; somewhat more complicated, but the same as the rest of the physical world in itself.

But this is not the whole of man, but only the very first part of man. Thus there is a difference between the other physical bodies and the human body. If we copy a human being and cut off the hand of this imitation, it remains a hand; if we cut it off the real human being, it withers; my hand only has the possibility of existing with me. Without me, it is no longer a hand. A doctor will object: “That's quite natural, because there is no blood circulating in it anymore.” But the question is: Why does my hand need blood and the other doesn't?

And so we come to the second link of the human being; the whole body is a living thing, unlike the crystal. Such beings, from which a piece is taken and yet remains the same, are called “living beings”. We humans also have this life body, which holds the individual parts together; and we call this life body the ether body. For the theosophist, it is just as real as the physical body. And just as we have the physical body in common with all minerals, we have the etheric body in common with all plants. Man is a plant; he grows and reproduces, for these qualities are dependent on the etheric body.

Even more essential than this is the third link. In the same space as the physical body and the etheric body, there is a sum of pleasure and pain - a sum of instincts and drives, thoughts and perceptions that can be cut through just as easily as the physical and etheric bodies. For centuries, this third body has been called the astral body. We have it in common with all animals. Man is thus a being that unites all three kingdoms of nature - minerals, plants, animals - within himself. Goethe recognized this, and Schiller documented it with the most beautiful words in his first letter to Goethe:

For a long time now, although from a considerable distance, I have observed the course of your mind and noted the path you have mapped out with ever-renewed admiration. You seek what is necessary in nature, but you seek it in the most difficult way, from which every weaker force will guard itself. You take all of nature together to get light on the individual; in the totality of its manifestations, you seek the explanatory ground for the individual. [Letter of August 23, 1794]

A naturalist from the beginning of the nineteenth century, Lorenz Oken, calls the human being an extract harmonized from all the properties of the animal kingdom. Paracelsus, the great physician of the Middle Ages, says: What is spread out in individual letters is united in the human being; one must spell out the whole of nature, then one can put oneself together like a human being.

Thus we have minerals, plants, animals in the physical body, etheric body and astral body in man according to his threefold nature.

Subtle natures recognize a fourth; so Jean Paul, who says of himself: As a young boy, I once stood in front of a barn. Then suddenly a completely new thought came to me: You are a self, and it felt like I had looked into the past of my being.

When we name things, we find that each thing has its own special name, as a table, chair, bench, a name with which everyone can identify the subject. Only humans have a name that they can pronounce only for themselves; can give themselves. The deep spirits of religion always develop this feeling. That is why the Jews called the unpronounceable name of God, Yahweh, I. I cannot grasp my I from the outside, only from the deepest inside. In my inner being, God announces himself in my soul. This I holds everything else together, and the work of the I on the other three bodies is world development. The I dominates all animal nature within itself and ennobles it.

When Darwin once came to an area where man-eaters lived, he told them that it was not good to eat people. He was told in reply how he could know that. Since he had never tasted human flesh, he could not judge whether it was good or bad. By “good” and “bad”, the savage understood only the pleasant and unpleasant. The knowledge that eating people is improper has developed through the work of the I on the astral body. In the beginning, the desires are raw, but the I refines them by plowing through the astral body - the body of desires - in such a way that it is made into the creature of its own I. I then no longer follow my instincts, but what my I - my duties - prescribe to me. We call such an astral body, which is completely transformed, the fifth link Manas. Today's man has partially reached this stage. When he has worked through the entire astral body, he becomes ripe to also work through his etheric body. If he succeeds in doing this, he has reached the sixth stage, Budhi, and can finally work on the physical body from the Budhi plan. When he has mastered the physical body, his whole being - Atma - is awakened in him.

Thus we have the human being in its sevenfold nature: four lower limbs and finally three higher ones, which the human being develops himself. The astral body is also partly the result of the work of the ego.

What happens when a person dies? Here we have the physical body before us. Death and sleep have been compared; but sleep is something else, a state in which a person is temporarily not at all what he actually is. What makes the sleeping person different from the ordinary one? The physical and chemical processes - digestion and the other life processes - take place just as they do when we are awake; pleasure and pain are forgotten. If we prick the sleeping person, they do not feel it until they wake up. In the sleeping person, the physical and etheric bodies - or life body - are in front of you. The astral body, the body of desire, is not present, otherwise the sleeper would also feel pleasure and suffering. The I with the astral body is gone. Sleep is therefore a release of the astral body - the body of desire. Sleep is initially interrupted by dreams. But dreams are not like waking experiences. We distinguish three types of dreams:

First: memories of everyday life, reminiscences. Second: perceptions from the environment, but in a special way. We may see the lamp, but not how it is placed. The ticking of a clock next to our bed may sound like the clatter of horses in the dream - expressed symbolically. Secondly, the dream is a creator of symbols. For example, a farmer's wife dreams that she is walking from the village to town, entering the church to listen to the sermon. The pastor in the pulpit raises his hands. His hands transform into wings. Suddenly, instead of speaking, he begins to crow, just as the rooster outside has crowed. This is the figurative way in which dreams work and create. The astral body is the great symbolizer, it transforms the crowing of the cock into a symbolic image.

Thirdly, the nature of dreams is characterized by remnants of the experiences of the astral body when it is released from the physical body and dwells in another world - the astral world. Dreams can be developed, instead of being chaotic, they can be induced with great regularity.

Death: When a person dies, something else happens; not only does the astral body detach itself, but it also takes the ether body with it. The sleeping person is alive, but the dead person is no longer alive because he has lost the ether body - the life body. After some time, the ether body is given to the rest of the ether world. Then only the astral body with the ego remains. It consists of two parts: what has not been worked through and what the person has already worked into it. Everything that is lent from the outside must be given up after death; and the animalistic is given up in the Kamaloka period - astral world. In this world the task is set to cast off the cover, which one has not cultivated; then one still possesses what one has purely worked out of one's ego.

Kamaloka is followed by Devachan, the place where all that is divine lives, namely the ego and what it has deified of its astral body. There the human being becomes mature to return to this earth again, and what he needs here, he must take on in the new life. He ennobles his astral body more and more in the new life. He can only do this if he gets a new ether body. This re-taking of the lower limbs leads to reincarnation. What a person has worked into his astral body is eternal; what he must discard is transitory, namely, what he has not yet plowed through. When he has worked through his entire astral body, he must also - at a higher level - work through his etheric body. We call such a person a chela.

The Wisdom Teaching differentiates between the mere cultural man and the chela. In ancient Greece, there were schools where not only the great culture was taught, but also chelas - initiates - were formed. One required of such a person that he had undergone a catharsis - purification, cleansing. Only then are the Budhi and the Christ awakened. The difference between the civilized man and the chela is as follows in death: When a chela dies, his etheric body no longer dissolves in the world ether, but as much of it remains as the I has worked into it. The chela will find his etheric body again afterwards to occupy it upon re-embodiment; while the civilized man gets a new one.

What religions prescribe, for example, has an effect on the etheric body: true piety. Letting inner wisdom take effect preserves the etheric body. Books that offer inner wisdom include: [“The Book of Divine Consolation”]; sentences from “The Imitation of Christ”; in the “New Testament”, the Gospel of John contains awakening sentences from the thirteenth chapter onwards that awaken the inner being, eternal power within man. In “Light on the Path” – written by Mabel Collins – every sentence is awakening. The following four sentences are particularly strengthening etheric power:

Before the eye can see, it must wean itself from tears.
Before the ear can hear, its sensitivity must fade.
Before the voice can speak before the masters, it must unlearn woundedness.
And before the soul can stand before them, the blood of its heart must moisten its feet.

Another means is the seeking of worldly truths. Knowledge and wisdom have an effect on the astral body. - Delving into the works of beauty - Raphael's Madonnas. Allowing beauty to flow into oneself has an effect on the astral body. The chela transforms this work into a conscious one. When the chela has worked through his etheric body, he then has to work on getting his physical body under his control.

By working on my astral body, I become a nobler person - wiser and better - and as such I can urge others to ennoble themselves. This is an effect from person to person; the good and wise person will exert a more beneficial influence than the opposite. The etheric body has its ability not only in the physical world, but also in the world of thought. Through imagination, through thoughts, one can influence others. I can send the thoughts of my soul to others. Speaking and admonishing are working in the physical world. Likewise, effects can be practiced in the supersensible world to the extent that the etheric body is worked through and dormant forces are awakened. By pursuing the thoughts into the tool, one makes the forces of the physical body supermundane. This ideal is Atma - or as the Christian says: communion with the Father.

Those who work on themselves in this way reach into the eternal. The stone disintegrates and is absorbed by the earth; the plant also gives its physical body to the earth and its etheric body to the cosmic ether. Like the mineral, man gives his physical body to physical matter, and like the plant, he gives his etheric body to the cosmic ether.

The astral body gradually dissolves in the Kamaloka, but not what has been worked through. Something remains. Man makes himself immortal through what he has worked into his body; he creates a core of his being.

The physical body is broader than the astral body; it does not have such a part that is bad. Take, for example, a thigh bone. It is not a compact mass, but - when viewed under a microscope - a wonderful framework that no engineer could construct. No beam is stronger than it needs to be. No architect could build something like this - it is constructed out in the cosmos. The human heart, with all its fibers, the entire physical body, is such a product of divine order.

The astral body is constantly attacking the physical body. The heart is good. Now the astral body – the body of desire – comes along with wine, tea and other stimulants and disturbs its normal beat. It takes a long time for the astral body to become as wise as the physical body. But then it can work on its etheric body. When the etheric body is also wise, the physical body is worked on; in the future it will strengthen the physical body. But who is working in the physical body today? The Godhead; it is working on the limbs of human nature, on which man does not yet work himself. Let us go back to the example of the cut-off hand. The hand can only exist on the body; removed from it, it withers. Likewise, if I were to be lifted just a few miles above the earth, I would wither away like the severed hand. From this it follows that as a physical human being I am bound to the place where I am placed. Just as I cannot consider the hand by itself, I cannot consider the human being without the earth. Man is not a body in itself, but a part of the whole earth organism. He can only exist with the properties that the earth offers. For example, he could not exist at a temperature of two hundred degrees Celsius. Just as our organism is enlivened by the soul, so is the whole earth organism enlivened by the earth soul.

The 'spirit of the earth' in Goethe's 'Faust' is not a phrase, but truth. Those who awaken the etheric body within themselves can associate with higher spirits, like Goethe, to whom the earth spirit reveals itself:

In the floods of life, in the storm of action
I surge up and down,
Waving to and fro!
Birth and grave,
An eternal sea,
A changing weaving,
A glowing life
Thus I create at the whirling loom of time
And work the living garment of divinity.

The physical body is a link in the planetary organism. The etheric body is a link in the planetary ether. In the etheric spirit lives the spirit, which is called Budhi or, in Christian terms, 'son'; in the physical body lives the 'father spirit'. Through the astral body, through the etheric body and the physical body we come to God. The 'spirit' is astral, which, when it is well purified, we call the 'Holy Spirit'. In the etheric body we have union with the Son. In the physical body we find the Father-Spirit, the Spirit of planetary life.

All religions are based on such truths. Theosophy wants to awaken these truths. The theosophical worldview wants to give the seeking souls points of reference. Man has arisen from the eternal. If he can do nothing about brain molecules, he can do a lot about his thoughts; and we conquer the lower natures by bringing them closer to the divine.

Man must develop various abilities in the succession of the ages. In ancient India, that to which only the chela can look back is enclosed in the poetry of the “Veda”. In European regions, similar to the Veda, sacred knowledge was laid down by the Druids - holy men, great teachers. The “Edda” is the same as Veda.

In Buddha, the same wisdom teachings appear in a different way. Buddha becomes Wotan in the Germanic: 'Boda' becomes 'Wota', 'Wota' becomes 'Wotan'. Thus we have the same key to German mythology. In the Hebrew secret doctrine we have the 'I' - the 'Jao' - 'Jehovah'. In Christianity, the Christ.

Eternity is taught by the Spirits of Wisdom.

Later there came a time when the physical world was conquered [...]. This conquest of the physical world has caused the spiritual world to recede. This is why Theosophy is now stepping in to replace the rampant materialism with something spiritual. In the past, the various religions taught according to the needs of the individual peoples. Today, materialism has enveloped the entire globe; therefore, the spiritual must also embrace the whole world. Mankind on earth must become a spiritual whole. This is the goal of Theosophy. Just as people understand each other everywhere in the material world, just as a check passes through the whole globe as a common currency, truth and wisdom should become common currencies everywhere. That people everywhere learn to understand each other and exchange their thoughts as a cheque is exchanged for money, that is our goal – and that is why the call for brotherhood among people is the first that the Theosophical Society makes. The last few centuries have conquered temporal goods. Culture has added layers to the earth's crust that bear witness to its evolutionary process. Only in the uppermost layers do we find human remains. Millions of years further on, and everything we are working on now will also form a layer around the globe and provide a uniform cultural history. Theosophy works for the future, in which not only the material, but also the eternal, the immortal, will embrace the whole universe. That is why it places such great value on the core of brotherhood.

In the same way that people understand each other in material terms, they will also understand each other in spiritual terms in the future, when they awaken the eternal, because the eternal is revealed in the soul. Through the eternal that is within us, the eternal is first revealed – and from the transient to the eternal, that is the path prescribed for us by theosophy.

I must first explain something that is important for understanding evolution and re-embodiment. Every personality, every individuality must live out its life in the devachan, in the arupa sphere, in order to maintain the unified thread. A personality as exalted as Nicholas of Cusa descends even in ordinary life from the arupa sphere. Every person acts from the arupa sphere, but only a few know about it. The higher a person has risen in the arupa sphere in the time between two lives on earth, the more the divine breaks through in him.

Cusanus wrote a work about not-knowing out of higher knowledge: De docta ignorantia. “Ignorantia” means “not-knowing”, and not-knowing here is equivalent to higher beholding. In his books he also expressed the following: There is a kernel of truth in all religions; we need only look deeply enough into them. He also stated that the Earth revolves around the Sun. He stated this as an intuition.

Copernicus did not live until the sixteenth century, Cusanus already in the fifteenth century. Such an incarnation as that of Cusanus is to be considered in context. It is possible that the recollection of previous incarnations is lost in an incarnation, only to awaken later, perhaps after one or even after many incarnations. The means of the causal body can only be used when one awakens in the plane above the causal sphere. Every being must be drawn back down to the physical sphere by a force from the devachan, and by forces that he has not yet encountered. In the highest Arupa level, the person gets to know these forces and thus gains influence over his later incarnation. He also had his life in his hands to a certain extent.

Cusanus points to both theosophy and modern science. Cusanus also had influence on his following incarnation. It was Nicholas Cusanus who experienced re-embodiment in such a way that he reappeared as Copernicus.

An incarnation does not depend solely on one's own development, but also on the usefulness and significance for the whole evolution. An example of regular development. The succession of personalities of higher individualities is no longer irregular. There is no regular development in the less developed. In highly developed individualities, however, outstanding qualities will emerge. These include

firstly, a sincere looking up to the Higher,
secondly, a calm love for God,
thirdly, becoming in God.

As a regular development of an individuality, we can consider

firstly: a contemporary of Jesus, Philo;
secondly: Spinoza;
thirdly: Fichte.

Three personalities – one individuality. If you read Fichte without knowing about these processes, you will understand very little. But with this knowledge, you will find that the words of these personalities are written in fire. These great minds have undergone a regular evolution themselves.

In oriental esotericism, there is something that is difficult to understand: the being does not need to be exhausted in its determinations. A personality can work on one level without lowering its whole being into that level. The being does not need to coincide with the upadhis. The desire to help is the thread of strength that establishes the connection with the sphere in question.

An initiate is one who is able to communicate from self to self with other individualities. The fourth step on the path of knowledge is initiation. One cannot speak about the nature of the initiate.

To understand Western spiritual culture, we need to note a few things. The starting point of our reflection today is the event that Tauler experienced in the Middle Ages. He preached passionately as a Christian. One day, a personality came to him who apparently wanted to listen to him. But he soon turned out to be greater than Tauler. He said that this sermon is only conceptual, it is only intellectual knowledge, a matter of memory. But through practice, Tauler soon brought him to the point where he preached differently, that he spoke through the Spirit. This layman walked with the Master Jesus of Nazareth.

Christianity originated from a circle that came from oriental sources. The Knights Templar had a home where Solomon's Temple used to stand. This is only an external accessory. One can distinguish between an exoteric side, an esoteric side and a secret doctrine. The aim of the Knights Templar was to give Christian life a completely new direction. The cults were hidden in a completely secret service. They differed significantly from what was then the Christian cult of the West. They were based on an oath that had been taken by a Christian patriarch. It was a current that can even be seen as anti-Christian. The worship of the divinity of Christ was to be done away with. It is an emphasis of the faith of the Knights Templar in John the Baptist. It was a revival of what had existed in Christianity within the Gnostic school.

In what way was the Templars a new influence in Christianity, a revival of the old teachings? Jesus accompanied the cultural development to the present day. - “I remain with you until the end of the world.”

One could learn as little about the true nature of Christianity through study as one can today. The most diverse studies on Christianity have been made. One is amazed at this. Just take Pfleiderer, for example. But this cannot give satisfaction to anyone who stands on the ground of Christianity. Historical facts cannot help us. It is about an eye-to-eye vision with Jesus, about an immediate vital influence. There must be a small circle that knows the truth not only through the knowledge of the letter, but through direct life. The Knights Templar said to themselves: We can only be initiated into the secrets by the chela who has been left to us.

No one can skip any of these stages. There are four stages. “I baptize you with water, but one is coming who will baptize with fire and the Holy Spirit.” The baptism with water is associated with the personality of John the Baptist.

A large part of Goethe's initiatory knowledge can be traced back to Rosicrucianism. Not only the outer part of it, but the stream of mystical facts has existed. With Swedenborg, there is a danger of being easily taken for a charlatan. But before he came to his mysticism, he was at the height of the science of his time. The Academy of Sciences collected the learned writings of Swedenborg. This current also had a great influence on Goethe. Swedenborg was influenced by a current of Atlantic culture. This influence can only be a very peculiar one, and one can see how difficult these mystical things are for those who try to understand them. The influence of this Atlantic school of thought can be as follows.

The Atlanteans inhabited a country that stretched between Africa, Europe and America. It perished many thousands of years before our era. Plato still speaks of a last remnant, of the island of Poseidonis, which is said to have perished about ten thousand years before our era. For the mystical researcher, the fact of the Atlanteans' existence is certain. This fourth race had particularly developed one spiritual power, which has taken a back seat in our society in favor of another power. Their memory was their main strength. It is less important for us to know what they looked like on the outside. Our fifth race has developed the intellect. The Atlanteans did not calculate and think like us. Our calculating and thinking is a product of the fifth human race. Another power of mind will replace the intellect in the future. The Atlanteans never formed the judgment 2 x 2 = 4. There was no such judgment at that time. Man remembered that 2 x 2 = 4 was taken earlier. He also knew general sentences, but he could not summarize certain types of animals. The general judgments were only formed in the fifth race.

This shows how one faculty can be overshadowed by another. The strong sense of smell in certain animals is later overshadowed by the intellect of humans. This Atlantean culture has been preserved in today's spiritual development. Certain influences flow into our cultural life. Examples of this are Leadbeater and Swedenborg. However, this influence is always somewhat chaotic. Since the eighteenth century, there has been a very intense influence of this Atlantic Lodge within our Western development. Many are under this influence without knowing it. The influence goes to the subconscious. This can always be influenced by certain currents. This can be observed in somnambulists. Many people who advocate something today do not know that they are under this influence.

What did the Knights Templar bring to Western thought? They broke away from Christianity. Then astrology comes to them. Within the Knights Templar we have a complete system of astrology. They now turn their gaze up to the starry world, to the great connections of the universe, away from Jesus. Thomas Aquinas predicted Copernicus [in the thirteenth century], as did Cardinal Nicolaus Cusanus [in the fifteenth century].

Two things can be seen:
1. A great plan has been designed, under the influence of which we stand in the Theosophical Society.
2. Religions have a common core of truth.

This is expressed in the second program of the Theosophical Society. One also finds the teaching that the earth revolves around the sun in Cusanus and later in Copernicus. The last point has emerged in a long series of developments. Western culture had emerged from the same source from which Gnostic knowledge had originally emerged.

A comparison: I have a child to educate until adolescence. I don't want him to absorb knowledge too soon that makes the mind strong but does not sufficiently ennoble the heart. Certain truths are left untouched. When the heart has been purified and ennobled in the right way, then one approaches it with the truths of nature. It is the same in the greater world of nature. First comes the development of the emotional side and then that of the intellectual powers. The development of literature is subject to the same influences.

We have a mystical direction and a scientific direction. The first includes the well-known great mystics, the second the naturalists such as: Lamarck, Darwin, Copernicus and so on. These two currents still run side by side today. The union has not yet been found.

Reincarnation and karma are contained in the Bible as self-evident truths. The higher soul of man was the content of all wisdom religions. The mysteries had to cultivate this higher soul above all else. This higher soul should now recede, so that the lower soul can experience development. This too should receive a higher religious culture. This ennobling of the individual personality was achieved all the more surely the more one disregarded the development of the higher soul. It is necessary to give humanity a new impetus from this theosophical side.

The materialistic attitude has gained a great influence, and has also gained a deep influence on the moral life. This can be seen from statements such as the following: Hamlet's tragedy is nothing more than a product of the transformation of what Shakespeare ate. - In the long run, there is no morality in the materialistic view. Hence the necessity for the Theosophical movement. In the past, world views were still possible on a materialistic basis. Today, after the research of natural science, no longer.

As long as Christianity was only concerned with the sanctification of the personality, it was not necessary to consider the greater truths and the higher life of the soul. There is a great connection with what I have said about the mysteries. You will see on closer examination that Christianity wanted to make the mysteries popular. This is evident from many sayings: “Blessed are they that have believed without seeing,” “Blessed are they that have begged for the Spirit,” and so on. What was in the mysteries was to be handed down to humanity piece by piece.

The mystery process was carried out in different stages:

— The first stage was the purification of the personality, the purification of the astral body. Pythagoras also subjected his disciples to a preparatory and purification process.
— Then he taught them about the nature of the external world.
— Then he gave them the teaching about re-embodiment and karma, the law of the moral world order.

This process then also became external, historical; it became a mystical fact within the historical development itself:

— Up to the twelfth century, Christianity is the process of purification of the fifth race of mankind.
— Then comes the teaching about the nature of external nature. In the case of humanity, this takes centuries.
— Then comes the teaching about reincarnation and karma. The development of the individual is repeated in the development of humanity.

The repetition of the mystery process can be found in the theosophical current.

Today, in this “occult hour,” I would like to continue from where we left off last time and say something else, this time from a different perspective, about the last lecture. I would like to say something about the question of why the esoteric teachings are being revealed in our time in particular.

The theosophical movement differs from other movements in that it has made public various elementary esoteric teachings and will continue to do so in the future. It is a necessity for our time. These are esoteric teachings that were also available in the past. The teachings that we find in the “Secret Doctrine” are not new. These esoteric teachings are ancient wisdom. The way in which this wisdom has been preserved was and is still secret today and will remain secret in the future. It should only be passed on from mouth to ear, and only after a period of strict examination should it be passed on to the candidate. Because this knowledge can also be misused, so it is said. And there is some truth to this view.

If certain elementary parts of this esoteric wisdom are made public, then Theosophy has to ensure that no potentially harmful influence or even abuse arises. When elementary parts of the esoteric teachings appeared in publicly available books, there was great consternation in certain occult circles. And the Theosophists were reproached for divulging secrets that were otherwise reserved for only a few. We must therefore now ask ourselves: May some things of this knowledge be published at all?

Last time, I already referred to a secret society, namely the mysteries of the Knights Templar, which had the goal of reestablishing Christianity. The Theosophical movement has a similar goal. From an even deeper point of view than we discussed last time, I will explain today why it has become necessary to share some of the world's occult knowledge. In the past, it was considered wrong to pass on this esoteric knowledge. It was only accessible to initiates. It was kept in closed secret societies. But over the last millennia and centuries, there were always traitors who betrayed individual parts of the “secret knowledge” and carried them out of the temples. But external science also researched and found former “secrets” and thus contributed to their publication.

So today there are two schools of thought within the occultists: one says that it is not right and that it is harmful to publish even a part of the knowledge. Therefore, the question arose within the responsible occultists: How should the secret teachings be treated in the future? Secrecy or publication? What is now more correct for the future of humanity? This question also had to be answered from another side. Because the serious occultists had realized that humanity would have to morally degenerate due to its sinking into materialism if parts of the secret knowledge for the salvation of humanity were not published. Therefore, Helena P[etrowna] Blavatsk[y] set about collecting and publishing what had already been published, that is, the parts of the various secret teachings that had already been “betrayed” and published. The published teachings, which can be found, for example, in Isis Unveiled and The Secret Doctrine, were tested. In essence, the occultists had to admit that they had withstood the test. We Theosophists are on the side of occultists who believe that these publications of “Isis unveiled” and “The Secret Doctrine” are not only useful, but that it was even necessary to make them public and popular.

Human knowledge cannot be acquired all at once, nor even throughout an age. Knowledge is in a state of constant evolution. This can be observed in the astral realm. The astral realm does not always remain the same, it undergoes small changes. They are not significant, but they can still be clearly perceived. The general scenery of the astral plane was different in the time of the Atlanteans and is different in our time. It changed from year to year. Certain changes in the astral world have led to the realization that it is necessary to share some of the occult knowledge with people, and to share it publicly and popularly, not just with a few initiates. This is the deepest occult knowledge, and only part of it can ever be told.

Around the year 1900, very special signs appeared in the astral world, which prove to the knower with absolute certainty that the greatest secret, which must be expressed in our race, now shows a slightly different character than it did before. There are leading truths, and these lead up to what we call the secrets of existence. Man is not capable of assimilating the deepest truths of his time in any age. Nor is man of today capable of understanding the deepest secret of his race. He must first mature for the understanding.

The basic secret was always only in the possession of the adepts. Through the possession of the secret, they were the leaders of the respective race. We are now members of the fifth [root] race. First there were two [root] races that were organized differently. Then came the third [root] race, which was already organized similarly to ours. The Atlanteans were the fourth [root] race. After this previous human and racial development, we come as the fifth [root] race. Two further [root] races, the sixth and the seventh, will follow. Each [root] race has a great secret of existence. The realization of this great secret of existence brought access to the great truths, which are living forces. These are the great laws that are effective in the world. These great laws cannot intervene in the world in this way from the outset. They must first be in the possession of the masters and the initiated. Only through these masters do they then indirectly affect people.

In “Lucifer”, which is now being published, the subject under discussion here will be touched upon. Only at the end of the fifth [root] race will it become known and understood by a larger number of people. The earlier root races were such that these secrets could only be obtained by a few. In our root race, the ability of the intellect, the mind, has already been developed very far. But the deepest depths are closed to the intellect. But some of the secret's outer aspects can be guessed by the intellect. Before the year 1875, nothing was known about these things, or at least they were not considered. The secret of the fifth [root] race can now be passed from the intellect to the intellect without being spiritualized. The secret that has been guessed can then also be passed on to the unspiritualized mind in this way. I cannot explain what the signs in the astral are that occurred around the year 1900. But it is an indisputable fact that some pieces were actually guessed by personalities who are far removed from any occult current. This is due to the character of the fifth human race. There will soon be many who will guess some of it.

But guessing the secrets is something very dangerous. It is disadvantageous both for the person concerned and for humanity as a whole. It is dangerous for the reason that communicating the secret of the fifth root race would actually divide people into a few very good people and many others who are radically immoral. This is a paradoxical and daring statement at first. But it is true. It is not possible to communicate the central secret of the fifth root race. If someone were to communicate the secret, he would be at the mercy of the other. He would lose the opportunity to exert the beneficial effect of this secret on humanity. Besides, it is quite futile to share the secret because it could only lead to harmful effects. There is no initiate who has shared this secret. And there is no way to discover the secret to a person. Even torture would be useless. The person would go insane or die from the torture.

Theosophy is to prepare humanity so that when the secret is partially revealed, the bad effects will be paralyzed.

One fundamental difference between the secret of the fifth root race and the secrets of the earlier root races is that the secret of the fifth root race can be partially guessed by the mind. In the past, the secret was strictly in the hands of adepts, who thus had the power to lead humanity. This danger [of guessing] now exists. However, humanity could outgrow the adepts in some respects. Some must therefore be prepared when the secrets confront them from outside. Then the time will come when individuals who can guess can emerge with pieces of truth. But that would be terrible and a disaster would occur among people. There would then be a few good people, and the great mass of the others would then be lost to the good. These truths are only to be used under the premise of the theosophical basic teachings.

If the adepts had not gained influence, humanity would have been divided into three parts:

— firstly, the thoughtless masses,
— secondly, the destructive rationalists with the guessed secret, and
— thirdly, the occultists.

[People] would wage a life-and-death struggle against each other. Those who had guessed the secret would not realize why the secret must not be revealed. The clairvoyant gift could also prevent disaster.

The Theosophical Society therefore strives not for the three parts of humanity to arise, but for a core of universal brotherhood to be created. One may object: there will never be a universal brotherhood. We reply: what you say is true, but we know the foundations and we know that such a nucleus will protect humanity. This is a kind of prophecy, but it is based on objective perception in the astral world.

The [fifth] root secret is one that can be guessed to a certain extent. Therefore, the time for guessing must be prepared. We therefore know of an even deeper reason for the astral laws, which compels the person concerned to use his powers for the theosophical movement. This is because he knows where humanity is heading.

If I am to describe how devastating the divination of a piece of the [fifth] secret can be, I can only say that the person is able to divine through the aforementioned character traits. But precisely because of this, he is also unable to do anything to paralyze the harmful effects. Those personalities who have already guessed something have proved that they do not know how to handle such a secret. Anyone who has guessed or found out something is exposed to many dangers. Usually the most adventurous ideas prevail about this. Nevertheless, what is said about the dangers is absolutely true, even if it is not literally true. The man of the fifth [root] race has so-called inhibitors. His Kama-Manas has braking devices that act on the astral and mental bodies. There are a lot of forces present in the astral body that are kept in check by these devices. The morality of the fifth [root] race, as it relates to actions, is far better than the morality of the astral and mental qualities. Many often have very little morality. It is difficult to make them understand that there is a morality of feeling and of thought. The least of what is in their inner being comes to the surface. There it appears much dirtier than is usually observed.

The moment a part of the secret is revealed to man, all restraints fall away and the full power of the forces is released. The wild inner forces must be directed into the right channels by the theosophical movement. Outwardly good people, apparent angels, would become devils under the influence of the aforementioned moment [the revelation of the fifth secret].

People must therefore support each other, they must work together. All thoughts directed towards the immediate present will have a harmful effect. There are enormous masses of thought that are directed only towards the temporal. These are ideal things, certain legal demands that relate only to the temporal and not to the eternal.

I have already described how an initiation took place in the Pythagorean school. These were preliminary stages of initiation. In “Lucifer” I have already spoken publicly about higher questions of initiation. Now I would like to say something else that cannot and must not be said in a public journal.

In the various stages of initiation, the person to be initiated was first made aware of the vanity of physical existence. Secondly, the person to be initiated was introduced to a world of a very different nature from our visible world. The person being initiated was introduced to a world that is more real, more powerful and more directive, to a world that underlies our world but cannot be perceived by our senses.

Next Friday, we will discuss the events that precede the birth of a human being. For occult research, the conditions that a human being has to undergo before his birth are also important. We will also address issues related to the unification of the human ego with its prepared physical body and various other issues related to the manifestations of the times.

Today I would like to elaborate on the relationship of our Theosophical Society [to other spiritual currents]. As a Theosophical Society, we differ quite significantly from all previous endeavors. Last time we saw how the esoteric teachings were treated in the Pythagorean school, and I pointed out that in this Pythagorean school we have something that the Secret Doctrine taught in secret. In terms of doctrine, we have something in common with this Pythagorean school.

And then we have something similar to what was present in the time of [early] Christianity. The Theosophical Society is concerned with the teachings we find in Gnosticism.

The Theosophical Society is essentially different from any kind of secret society. We also meet in larger groups in the Theosophical Society as in the time of Christ, and not in small hidden circles, as was the case with the Pythagorean School. But we can show even more similarities.

I have already mentioned the Rosicrucians and the Knights Templar. They were different because they were real secret societies with a hierarchical principle of order. The Rosicrucians only addressed a few individuals. They never gathered in larger contexts. Today I would like to give you an idea of how the Rosicrucians worked. They existed in their original form until the end of the 18th century, when the most remarkable spiritual endeavors arose and the form had to be changed as a result. Christian Rosenkreutz was incarnated in Count Saint Germain at that time. From the thirteenth century until the French Revolution, the Rosicrucians only knew each other. Only those who were themselves Rosicrucians could recognize each other. It was impossible for a Rosicrucian to be recognized from the outside. Rosicrucians could be in the most unnoticed worldly positions. Many heads of the education system were in a certain position so that they could work strongly without being recognized. But they also came from the outside into the legislative and administrative branches and were therefore highly effective.

In truth, the Rosicrucian relates only to his spiritual brothers. He works solely from the spiritual sphere from which humanity is governed. It should be borne in mind here that it is not only words that have an effect. Effects from the spiritual sphere flow into human life in a variety of ways. Only those who can go to the spiritual source really know what is involved. Today, it is generally assumed that history develops from external events, but there are countless other channels that are hidden and have a strong influence on human life.

How does the Theosophical Society differ from these earlier movements? Today, the facts come from outside, which makes it necessary to communicate theosophy and the theosophical truths to the world. Little by little, humanity's secret knowledge will be made accessible in the future. Today, there are also parts of the earlier secret knowledge that have already appeared or are appearing publicly. They were found either by external natural science or, as in the case of history, in connection with some essays that appeared in the Revue Bleu, for example.

The published historical facts are roughly the following: There are records of Queen Marie-Antoinette by the Countess d'Adh&mar. These are messages from the trusted friend of Queen Marie-Antoinette of France, who lived as a lady-in-waiting close to the queen. I will just outline what is in these records. On the eve of the Revolution, a gentleman presented himself to this lady-in-waiting. It was the Comte de Saint Germain, who requested an audience with the king and asked the lady-in-waiting to arrange one for him. Maurepas was a minister and was keen to prevent such an audience with Louis XVI. So the Count Saint Germain discussed the matters that related to the royal house and the whole French nation with the queen's lady-in-waiting and asked her to report the conversation to the queen. — This is the first act of the facts.

The confidante presented the matter to Queen Marie-Antoinette. The queen granted the lady-in-waiting an audience with Count Saint Germain. So it came about that in the presence of the Countess d'Adhemar, a conversation took place between the queen and Count Saint Germain, in which he pointed out the dangerous situation in which France then found herself. He then said: “If my warnings are not heard, then I will no longer be seen for three generations.”

However, the First Minister Maurepas then made any further contact with Count Saint Germain impossible. In July 1789, the same Count Saint Germain came to Paris again to speak to the Queen's confidante at a rendezvous in a church. During this conversation, he not only told the confidante things that would happen in the next few years, but also predicted things for decades to come. “He who sows the wind shall reap the whirlwind.” He had already expressed this long before the time when Christ walked on earth. This man, who at that time appeared as Count Saint Germain, was none other than the founder of Rosicrucianism, Christian Rosenkreutz himself. We are dealing here with a man who can live entirely in the mental world, entirely in the world of thought. Thoughts live not only in the present, but also in the past, and so thoughts will be deeds in the future.

In the last occult lesson, I described how the theurgist gains insight into the depths of world events. The theurge's expanded vision offers a much deeper insight, penetrating into the intentions of world governance. Count Saint Germain was able to see the deepest driving forces within the world movement. He clearly expressed this at the time, and it can be found in the notes of Countess d'Adhemar. What he showed her was that things had to happen as the great plan of the world intended, as the great intentions were.

In the case of Count Saint Germain, we are dealing with a human individuality that had become completely intertwined with another personality that was also connected to the French Revolution: the demon of Count Cagliostro. However, all the external facts that take place before our eyes are nothing more than what happens internally. But there is something else at the root of this matter as well. It was, so to speak, a symptom of a nonsensuous history.

If we recognize the facts of life today correctly, we will see that the causes that led to the French Revolution are still at work today. Today, no attention is paid to such facts [that Christian Rosenkreutz, in his then embodiment as Count Saint Germain, said in Paris in 1775: “A century will pass before I reappear” - and] “If I am not heeded, I will not reappear before three generations have passed.” This is what the Count Saint Germain had said in mid-1789.

What then took place in France [during the French Revolution], after the Count Saint Germain had not been listened to, had been long prepared [within the secret societies].

The Revolution arose out of the call for the rights of the personality. (The four lower principles). The urge for freedom belongs to the lower Manas. The course of events thus took place according to an inner plan. But that man wanted to bring the goods, which then had to be achieved in a bloody way, to humanity in a peaceful way. The conditions at court did not allow his advice to be heeded. The outer course of events had to take the other path, that is, the bloody path. The encyclopedists, the philosophers of the Enlightenment, had a part in the revolution. Those who consider only the sensual, as happens in the “Systeme de la Nature” [by Paul Henri Thiry d'Holbach], have only Maja in their perspective. Goethe called it a hollow work, as if it had flowed out of purely physical, sensual interests. Thinking, feeling and acting have been completely materialized in this work.

We see, then, that contemporary science has already become completely materialistic in terms of natural and cultural science. It has become so out of necessity. Our feelings have also become so materialistic. When we look at materialistic historical thinking today, we see that people are so completely dependent on the prejudices of their own time. The historian is virtually compelled to project these prejudices of his own time back into earlier times. If one is able to see this in the right way, then it is downright outrageous to encounter ideas about the lives of past centuries. This being afflicted with the prejudices of one's own time makes it so that today no one can put themselves back into the feelings and desires of the thirteenth century. But in those days everything was quite different. The judgments one encounters today are made with the exclusion of all factual knowledge. They are based only on the very outermost historical basis. No consideration is given to the fact that everything changes in the course of human development.

What is regarded as “right” today will be recognized by later generations as “wrong”. This also applies to spiritual movements. What was right for the Rosicrucians of the Middle Ages would no longer be right today. People today not only demand more, they also demand something different. Today it is impossible to work in the way that the Rosicrucians worked in earlier centuries. However, those who want to help people today are the disciples of those who, in earlier centuries, demanded that the human mind should judge over everything.

If we go back even further in human development, when Christianity was founded, it was still possible to appeal to feeling. In those days, one could build on “faith”. But we could no longer appeal to such “faith” today.

Progressive history was brought to life by the Rosicrucian disciples of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. We are only paying tribute to our age when we appeal to reason today. It is very important to always keep in mind: We give, but it is always our contemporaries who demand.

It is generally assumed that a truth is easy to grasp. But is that really so? The intellect can understand everything, but otherwise it is the most powerless to really intervene in inner events. The intellect can never grasp from within. The intellect only ever understands things on the outside. What happens in research today? Animals and plants are chemically examined. We have found out how the substances interact, how digestion works. What happens in this research? It is organized with thinking and combined with the intellect. This is done by the intellect. But by approaching the facts of life in this way, the intellect has at the same time, by organizing and combining, driven life out of everything. Intellectual science has “come a long way”. It has achieved amazing things. This is, of course, fully recognized by us.

In 1875 Haeckel's students [Hertwig] Strasburger researched the connection between cells and shed light on the fertilization process. Today, external science even understands how personality is formed. The birth of personality was glimpsed in 1875. But science had to pass by the higher individuality.

But if we now look further back into the past, we see that earlier centuries still saw the core of the human being. And they also spoke of this core. Today's science, however, has completely detached the human being from his original spiritual sources. Science will only say that material feelings and desires live in the human being. Material reasons are sought in everything, which are the basis of later generations.

But if one wants to grasp the truth, the spiritual must be added today. The doctrine of reincarnation and karma, of the interconnection of fate, is part of this. The mind, descending, is completely powerless. But only when it ascends will the mind be productive again. People in the past did not just have minds. From the thoughts that arise from the doctrine of reincarnation and karma, the higher soul powers will flow.

I will soon speak to the members about what was involved in the emergence of Christianity. It will be necessary for us to become clear about the founding of Christianity. I will try to make Christianity understandable in the form it took on at that time.

I was asked a very pertinent question: When and how does the union of the ego, the actual human self, with its various bodies take place?

In answering this question, I am obliged to go back a long way. This is because I want to give the answer in line with the latest ideas of today's science in order to show the harmony of science with the theosophical wisdom.

The moment in which the soul settles in the body, that is the moment after I was asked. Let us use a comparison when answering this question. The comparison between a house and its inhabitants, that is, between body and soul. It is quite clear that the inhabitant will adapt the house according to his occupation. But the house also depends on the foundation on which it is built. It can also be destroyed by laws that have nothing to do with the occupant. For example, by the weather. It is the same with our body in relation to its soul. Body and soul are each subject to their own laws. Body and soul are related to each other like house and occupant. They only go through each other for a time. Form and design are formed according to needs, for example, according to the occupation.

From a theosophical point of view, we cannot just consider external laws. We also have to ask ourselves: How is the house prepared? When does the body become capable of being a shell? How does the soul develop up to the point in time when it takes possession of the physical house?

If we look at the theosophical literature today, it does not give us any information about the state of the soul before birth. But the research of natural science about the way the house, how the bodies are built, is in an important stage. Physical science accommodates us more and more every day. But the results of science are uncertain in many ways, and they bring many new things.

My answer is given with regard to the present state of science. It is not dogma. For science must advance from day to day.

Now let us consider the stages of the soul between two incarnations. At first it is in the realm of Arupa in Devachan. At first, the soul's state can be compared to the state of the plant germ. The whole plant is contracted for a time in the point-shaped lily germ. In the germ, invisibly to our outer eye, the whole lily is already contained. In the small germ granule, the whole plant is already contained. This can be shaped in the germ in the most diverse ways. When we look at the germ in this way, it is quite different from what the soul was before and will be afterwards. But the soul is also in a state where it is completely freed from all shells. It is part of the plan of development, it must feel free and unhindered for a while. Then it can apply the strength it has gained in this freedom to the new embodiment.

Coming down from that highest level, the soul then surrounds itself with thought material, with the mental body. Then, in turn, it surrounds itself with astral material. In the time before birth, this is an extremely mobile process. The self becomes an extremely mobile organ. The self appears in the form of a funnel and also in a certain coloration. The middle part is like a star ray. The germ that comes from Devachan is in a radiant cylinder and is radiant with golden-yellow light; it then surrounds itself with astral matter, so that the self then takes on such a funnel-shaped form. This takes place with tremendous speed. What is in the golden-yellow radiant cylinder is the mental-astral shell of the self.

Aristotle has given us a term for this: “nous poeticos”, higher soul power, “nous pateticos”, soul perceptions, powers of perception, after the soul has incarnated in the flesh.

Such a funnel shape can never come into contact with a body that does not accommodate it with its shape. And yet one funnel can be very large and the other very small, corresponding to the human germ. Only recently have scientists been able to provide information about the development of the animal-human organism.

Such research was conducted in Corsica in 1875. The researchers had progressed to the point of being able to say: Here, at this point, the human personality begins. The materialistic scientist can say: We now know the processes that lead to existence in the material plane. But if we knew nothing of these preceding states, we would only be able to study our outer personality through today's natural science.

In the same year that this new starting point for research emerged, so did theosophical wisdom. The discovery that sheds light on the development of the animal-human organism coincides with the proclamation of wisdom about the human soul by the theosophical society. Today's natural science has reached a point of view not unlike that of Aristotle.

The question may be raised: Why did sexuality arise at all within the third round? Before that, reproduction took place in an asexual way. All religions lead back to the man who was neither male nor female, to Adam-Kadmon. Now one could ask: Why does reproduction now take place in a sexual way? Mystery researchers have always known an answer to this. I will give you the answer in the form of modern science. Until now, it was believed that the whole process of fertilization was different from what it has now been revealed to be. Now this question has become the subject of serious scientific investigation. But how do the scientific results relate to the question of sexual reproduction? The sexual way of reproduction would not be necessary at all. Nature could have helped itself in a different way. That is why science no longer says: both sexes are equally necessary for reproduction. And that is correct, because for mere reproduction, the female alone would suffice. Nevertheless, nature chose a different path, namely the path of mixing the sexes, after two sexes had been created. And why do this if it could also be done without mixing? Well, nature chose the creation of two sexes and then the mixing of the sexes because it foresaw that, when the third [root] race began, the human selves would want to incarnate, and for this incarnation sexual reproduction is necessary.

That is to say, nature has also prepared this point in time from which human intelligence should reincarnate again and again into shells, into bodies. From this point in time, since human selves wanted to incarnate, reproduction should take place through the mixing of the two sexes. And why should that happen? So that with each new incarnation a mixture of qualities, a mixture of characteristics, can occur at all that was not there before. Reproduction was therefore only possible because one personality with another personality was able to simply produce another. Before that, there was an enormous similarity to his ancestors. Without the two sexes, man would suffer a small change through contact with the outside world, but basically he would always have remained similar to his ancestors, like the similarity of the lily daughter and the lily mother.

As we can see, the child not only bears the characteristics of the mother, but also those of the father. A completely different kind of new being emerges in the mixed product, and thus the individual human being becomes the result of two completely different currents. The mother's body provides everything physical and material. And the male sex is only there to change the characteristics. The male sex therefore only provides the impetus for this. The male penetrates the female and now, contrary to what was believed, a unification does not occur, but a radiating body appears here - called centrosome. Without this centrosome, there can be no reproduction. In the case of lower animals, reproduction can even be brought about by combining them with an acid. Two nuclei then appear. Reappearance with two nuclei looks something like this: one nucleus attracts the male characteristics, the other the female ones.

However, this state is not yet capable of receiving a soul germ; only new cells can be built up by it. This structure takes place according to the following law: 1, 2, 4, 8, 16 cells and so on, up to the state of the mulberry germ. As an occult researcher, you see, in addition to what I have just described, the power that is at work here. This has been passed down from our ancestors. What we call “physical prana” has a pinkish hue. It permeates the cells during their formation and multiplication. The physical prana can continue the process. The mulberry germ is then divided into two layers. With this process, a soul germ has united with the human germ. When we have these processes before us, we have arrived at the first days of the embryo's life. The cylinder of rays disappears into the funnel. It divides into two stars. These two stars form something that develops in the two layers here. Each of the stars takes hold of one of the two layers. They migrate into the embryo. These stars are what then form the basis for the two nervous systems: the sympathetic, unconscious nervous system, which takes care of vegetative activities, and the central nervous system. Then the 'astral prana' is added. The same thing happens with the germ of a higher animal. At the beginning, the germ of a higher animal cannot be distinguished from the human germ.

This thickening marks the actual appearance of the segmented spinal cord. On one side you can see five vesicles appear. One of these develops into the front one, the second into the middle one, the third into the back one, and then the hindbrain.

Now the cone of rays, which had disappeared, reappears (between the 20th and 30th day). The pranic current has already organized the brain and the spinal cord. From there it enters the prepared human brain as mental prana. So we have a “physical prana”, then a second prana under the direction of the astral, which is active in the sympathetic nervous system and builds up the brain so that the actual self can move into the prepared brain. It is not yet present, not yet externally perceptible. Every soul force forms the organs itself. From the brain, the slumbering self continues to form in order to adapt. Then the self moves into the organism as “mental prana”.

We are dealing with a threefold fertilization. Firstly on the physical plane, secondly with a double fertilization on the astral plane and thirdly with the impact of the self. There must be a single body for this. And this can only be achieved through the mixture of qualities of motherly-feminine and [fatherly-]masculine, through the dual sexuality.

Thus we have recognized the actual purpose of reproduction by the sexes. Sexual reproduction is not to be understood as a cause, but as an end.

The next question would now be about the conditions after death. Furthermore, the question: What about our ability to perceive after death, after shedding our covers.

Last time I spoke of the moment when the supermundane being of man unites with what we call the “earthly body”. This union was possible because of the coming together of two entities, an astral entity and a physical one. Together they are then subject to physical laws. Let us take the example of the house. The condition of the house does not depend on the occupant. The condition of the house may depend on the temperature, the weather and so on.

I should have to tell you about [seven] world secrets. Especially one that deals with birth and death. It is a sin to express these secrets in words. Therefore, I can only speak of them to a certain extent.

You will hear more in the fall. Then there are still some things that I want to formulate as follows: whether or not I will become aware of some secrets after death, whether or not, when our physical shell has fallen, I will receive a sum of knowledge that remains hidden to us in the physical shell. Theosophists have been reproached for treating these things as if they wanted to lead them away from the sensual and towards the supernatural, as if they were trying to distract people from the immediate, active work, as if they wanted to distract people from the physical people among whom they live. But that is not right. Because only if you take things too simply can you come to this conclusion. We must not believe that in the intermediate state man has a wealth of knowledge that he did not possess before. From embodiment to embodiment, the being progresses in development. Such progressive development of the human being was in primeval times and will also be in primeval times. But it was something different in primeval times and will be something different again in future times. It used to be something that needed to pass through the work in the cosmic worlds.

We know that the people who live here now have lived on this or another planet in previous lives. During all these passages, the inner core of the human being absorbs something. Later, when he has passed through, he has more than he had before.

To clarify this, let us take the example of learning to write. We have now forgotten the difficulties of learning. But the ability to write has remained with us. We would not have this ability if we had not gone through the effort of learning. This is how it is in the world of man, and it is the same in the cosmic world. It is the same during each incarnation. Man is in a continuous learning process. A thousand tasks and a thousand experiences are to be mastered. What remains of the laborious learning process is the result – a basic power.

That is why there was and is a symbol in all mysteries. This symbol was shown to the mystics in its full meaning when the mystic had progressed a little. He was compared to the bees. The bee is the symbol of man in general. If you understand this correctly, you will also understand immortality. The bee flies from flower to flower and carries what it needs into the hive. But honey is what gives the beehive its meaning. Man is also a bee that moves down from the spiritual world - the beehive - to the various other worlds and brings the honey from them, in order to then bring it back to the realm of the spirit, which is the home of the soul. Without what the soul has collected outside, the result of the collecting would never be in the realm of the spirit. So man is also obliged to bring the honey he has collected. If he does not gain experience, he would be like a bee that only sits on the flowers without sucking their honey.

Thus, Theosophy does not call upon people to be ignorant of the world or even to turn away from the world, but rather to grow together and work together with the physical world. A mature person from this sensual world would not forget the temporal in the eternal and the eternal in the temporal. Each in its place.

We incarnate, we then live within the embodiments. But we want to remain the beings that we are. That is why we should bring the results up into the world of the spirit! The idea of immortality in Theosophy is an idea that urges us to absorb as much as possible into ourselves. If our being did not live in a body in which it can hear, see, and touch, it could never perform works that are to be performed in the external sensual world. We need the senses to connect with the things of our earth in this way. The experiences we need can only be drawn from physical existence through our senses. I have already mentioned the relevant Greek expressions: nous aisthetikon, lower spiritual power, and nous poetikos, higher spiritual power.

Today we are incarnated. We should do as much as we can according to our abilities, so that when we incarnate again, we can do more and more for this earth. Everything that falls between two incarnations also serves his earthly development, as does what he does in this incarnation itself. We are placed in a heavenly existence in the intermediate states between two incarnations so that we can learn to fulfill our earthly existence better and better. This is based on what you can often find in theosophical books. It is often said there that nothing new occurs between two incarnations, but that only a processing occurs. We are here only created for our earthly existence.

Our ancestors, however, had very different forms from us, and our descendants will again have very different forms from those we have now. What we call physique, the physical body, did not yet exist in the lunar epoch. It will not exist in the epoch that will follow ours either. What we call the mineral kingdom was not there before the earth and will not be there after the earth either. We must therefore also be clear about the fact that what we call “mind” is only of importance within our earthly development. Our human, personal intellect is something that adheres to this earth, just as our physical body adheres to the earth. Only within such a physical structure as the earth possesses does such an intellect have any meaning. Our intellect corresponds to sensual things. It is the right instrument for these sensual things.

The whole form as you have it now is not there when your bodily senses cease and you discard the physical body. Many say that everything around them is nothing but an illusion. We form our ideas about what we have here in our senses. It may also be said that everything that is not sensual reality is not reality, that it is an illusion, that it is also an illusion to call the higher kind of reality, such as “Kamaloka” and “Devachan”, also “reality”.

By teaching this higher reality, Theosophy not only helps people to understand a reality after death. We live with the physical things on our earth. Our existence is linked to these things. First through feeling, then through knowledge, through thinking. We also feel pleasure and pain. Our soul works on things, forms ideas and concepts in the world. And in these ideas and concepts, the human being lives. If you were only pushed by things and had no memory and would forget it if you had seen a dog, every other dog would be a new object for you. Without memory, you would not be able to bridge the gap between individual experiences. So we stand in the world as feeling and thinking human beings.

We connect what evokes satisfying feelings in us to a unity, to the good, and also to everything that evokes unsatisfying feelings in us, to the bad. When we no longer have the world in sensual impressions, our sympathies and antipathies still remain. You cannot learn anything about the earthly world except when you are in the physical shell with the sensory organs.

But what develops from these sensations, the feelings and the thoughts, they are what remain. The human being then has to suck that out of the physical. Master K[oot] H[oomi] told us that a person can become immortal if he only wants to. He did not say that he is immortal under all circumstances, but that he can achieve immortality. Man does this by sucking the honey out of the world and taking it with him into the spiritual worlds.

However, we cannot fully develop what we have experienced in one incarnation. We are constantly prevented from fully developing this free power of our soul. In fact, the feeling that connects with any object of the sensory world is something much greater, much more powerful than can actually be perceived in the sensual world. The vehicle for these feelings is the astral body. However, they do not come out in their full power. For the clairvoyant, every thought is a star that sends out its rays in all directions. Within this physical world, however, this star comes into existence in a crippled state. Feelings should also develop in all directions, but they are held together by the physical shell, like a plant in a crevice of a rock.

After the physical shell has fallen away, the person then lives in the astral world, in Kamaloka. A balance must be created there between feelings that are good and those that are bad. That is the task of development. Only good feelings can advance the world, pass them on. The bad ones must be balanced in Kamaloka. Nothing new occurs there. Higher feelings are those which Plato calls “enthusiasm”. They pass over into the higher world. The lower feelings remain in Kamaloka.

Before we have been initiated into the mysteries, we cannot form any ideas about the world of feelings. What we have sown here comes to fruition in the astral world. We receive the fruit of it in the astral world. All desires that have been developed, everything of this kind that is present, becomes visible to us on the astral plane.

The myth of Tantalus, who suffers eternal hunger and thirst although food is placed before him, can teach us a lesson. The water and food disappear as soon as he reaches for them. This is the intensification and correction that occurs on the astral plane. You can find this description of the astral world everywhere in the myths of the nations. In Devachan, the harvest of what man has sown on earth takes place. In Devachan, man becomes a regular star. We then return to the new life with appropriate moral principles.

Now a few words about the connection between devachan and our present-day sensual world. In other words, we may ask: Can we look down from devachan on the souls that are embodied here? The souls look somewhat different. Only that which has already penetrated to the devachanic existence from within this physical existence can be perceived by us in the devachan. As an example of this: a mother with two children. The mother dies. The devachan world is active in all three, but it is not a real experience for all of them. There is more devachanic substance in the one who is more developed. Communication between a living person and one in devachan is possible. But it depends on us how much of the devachan can be perceived by us. Instruction regarding the higher worlds is given only in devachan. A person can rise to a master. However, nothing new can be learned in the interim between two incarnations.