The Rudolf Steiner Archive

There are three terms we want to consider. We have to imagine that every spirit in the universe consists of three principles, as does the human being. We need not know the three principles for the other spirits, but they definitely exist:

1. conscious awareness
2. life
3. form.

When we consider the entities that exist on our Earth we find that all of them take their form from the mineral world, as we call it. There is no other form principle for the human being within the Earthly world. This form of the mineral world can only be taken to a higher level by giving it life. A life form can only gain a centre by life coming to conscious awareness. Form, life and conscious awareness are therefore the three principles which every entity has. The human being thus consists of body, soul and spirit. We know that the soul extends into the body, creating the soul body. This is filled, as it were, with sentient soul. The higher principle always integrates itself into the lower. The soul has conscious awareness because the spirit integrates itself into the spiritual (or consciousness) soul. Because of this, the human being has threefold nature—form, life and conscious awareness.

Bringing the different spirits in the world before the mind’s eye, we can divide them into three kinds by using this definition:

1. those where form predominates over the other two, life and awareness
2. awareness may prevail over life and form
3. all three may be in equilibrium.

For the present cycle we refer to

1. Spirits where awareness is predominant—‘dhyani’. They have a powerful conscious mind.
2. Spirits where conscious awareness, life and form are in equilibrium—called ‘substances’ in esoteric terms.
3. Spirits where form is prevalent—the ‘elementals’. ⁵⁵

For the ‘substances’, some connection exists between dhyani and elementals. Human beings were in the substance state when they emerged from the elemental spirit state and combined with the soul. They were merely models, or forms, at that time. Human beings were beautifully luminous orbs at that time, with their souls floating around them. They were ‘substance’ in the middle of the Lemurian age. Today they have gone beyond the level of being at mere ‘substance’ level. They are in the process of dhyanic evolution. In esoteric terms the principle which was ready to take possession of those bodies in Lemurian times is called 'human'.

We now ask: What are these three kinds of spirits able to do? Firstly let us consider the entities where conscious awareness predominates. Their conscious awareness is more all-encompassing than their own life and their own form. They are therefore able to have power over other life and other forms. In Christian esoteric terms such spirits are called angels of the orbital periods. What makes a planet able to orbit the Sun? The fact that it has an angel of orbital period which is able to make it move in orbit. These are the planetary dhyani or spirits. The Earth thus has its own angel of orbital period, its Earth dhyan. Let me remind you of the ‘Earth spirit’ in Goethe's Faust . Its body is the whole astral matter of the Earth.⁵⁶

The human being is in the process of becoming a planetary spirit. At present he is image of the godhead only in mineral terms, for he must still develop his astral, rupa-mental and arupa-mental nature. Then, at the end of the seventh round, he can become an angel of orbital period. The highest of the dhyan chohans will then say to him: ‘All animals and plants are given into your care.’ This will thus happen on the 7th day of creation. The human being will then be a dhyan chohan, a dhyanic cosmic spirit (chohan = cosmic spirit).

Secondly the spirits in whom form, life and conscious awareness are in equilibrium have power over form and are themselves guided by their conscious awareness. Spirits of this kind, which we know, are human beings who are at a certain level. They continue to develop and free themselves more and more of being under the control of their form, their lower nature. They seek to achieve something higher, which is awareness.

Thirdly, in the elemental spirits, form is mightier than life and conscious awareness, and their form thus needs to be controlled by conscious awareness and by life. They are the exact opposite of the dhyanic spirits. These can control more than just their form and life. In the elemental spirits form is more all-encompassing than life and conscious awareness. They therefore need a different life and a different conscious awareness to control their form. This means that elemental spirits have to lodge themselves in another kind of life and another kind of conscious awareness so that they may use it for themselves. They therefore retard the life and conscious awareness of others. The elementals are thus the spirits which hold evolution back. All parasitic life forms are governed by such elemental spirits. For us humans these life forms had already come to completion according to their kind in the lunar period, which is why form is predominant in them. They are now in decline, with their evolution in descent.

Animals with external skeletons, for example, have gone beyond evolution. Their inner development has dissolved, and they surround themselves with a horny layer on the outside (beetles, insects). They are preparing to subside into the eighth sphere. The ancient Moon also had an eighth sphere, a satellite Moon. Those life forms reached completion then, going beyond their evolution, and are now like overripe fruit. Spiders belong to the eighth sphere, for instance, and among plants, the mistletoe. Goethe therefore attributed the world of spiders and flies to Mephistopheles.⁵⁷ Anything parasitic is an outer reflection of elemental spirits living on the astral plane.

Before that the human being was also an elemental spirit. Not everything that is physical in him is destined to be redeemed. A cinder remains. This cinder, which remains there, is always present in the human being; because of it, the human being is under the influence of those astral elementals; the elemental nature which goes with it clings to him. Because of this, the human being is always connected with the principle which is inimical to his development, inhibiting and disrupting it. The spirits that cling to the human being are called 'Alben' in German mythology [elves, sprites, goblins, old English mære;—translator]. They appear vaguely in what are called 'nightmares', dreams where one thinks a spirit is sitting on one's chest. When you gain astral visions, you first of all see these spirits. (The 'dweller on the threshold' in Bulwer Lytton's Zanoni.)⁵⁸ It is a reflection of the human being’s astral knowledge of his mare, trying to fend off the enemy, a projection of an astral spirit in ourselves. It is the [lesser] guardian of the threshold. Someone unable to overcome his fear of the enemy within will usually turn back at the gate of initiation.

In the higher region of the astral plane, the [image of the] sphinx needs to be cast into the abyss before you are able to move ahead. The human being, who must develop, moves towards this moment. This is a developmental stage which people do not need to go through in the same way. It is possible for an individual to be guided through it with his eyes blindfold, as it were. If you are able to take moral nature to a higher level first, before you gain astral vision, the guardian of the threshold will appear less fearsome.

In the Atlantean race, it was above all the Turanians who gave themselves up to black magic and gained the greatest familiarity with the world of the elementals. Occult schools now put the main emphasis on practising the virtue of devotion, of selflessness and on moral development to equip people more effectively for the struggle. All occultists who continue to be ambitious, vain or self-seeking, get to know these retarding powers in evolution in a truly dreadful way, with these powers influencing them all the more strongly. We must love the teaching, be modest, humble and dedicated if we want to be sure of winning through. Evolution is retarded, held back by the elemental spirits, whereas it is accelerated by the dhyanic spirits.

• 55. See note 13. In the lecture given in Berlin on 27 October 1905 (Foundations of Esotericism, note 13), the terms ‘planets (states of consciousness), rounds or elemental worlds (life), globes (conditions of form)’ are equated with the Christian terms ‘power, kingdom and glory’.
• 56. Spirits of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd elemental worlds. See Note 6.
• 57. Goethe’s Faust I, ‘god of flies’, ‘lord of flies’.
• 58. Edward George Bulwer, Earl of Lytton (1803–1873). Zanoni; The Dweller of the Threshold, Book 4.

Since all evolution follows three principles—conscious awareness, life and form—and every entity must go through these three principles many times, we need to know exactly what levels of awareness, life or form we may be speaking of. Something can be known about seven of them. The seven levels of conscious awareness are:

1. The ‘trance’ state of the mind, also known as ‘deep trance’
2. Dreamless sleep
3. Dream-filled sleep
4. The waking state, or awareness of objects
5. The psychic state, or life in image awareness
6. The hyperpsychic state, or life in conscious awareness
7. The spiritual state = self-aware all-embracing awareness

The trance state is characteristically universal. It is the most comprehensive awareness as far as the range is concerned, but it is limited by dimness. It is the dimmest state of awareness. An entity living on our Earth which is put into this trance state would perceive the movements of the planets, mineral forms, crystalline forms, etc. Plant, animal and human life would not exist for this spirit. If this trance state is induced, the entity is in a position to see such things in the cosmos, but not the life of physical life forms. If a trance is entered into pathologically, the individuals concerned start to describe cosmic chains, and so on; sometimes this is in a confused way, but sometimes they will produce some very strange things that are very similar to the theosophical teachings. It is a wide-ranging universal awareness, but too dim to perceive actually living, sentient life forms.

The second state is the one we call 'dreamless sleep'. The way in which human beings go through their sleep state is generally still so dim that most of them feel that they are unconscious in it. It is less dim than the first state, but narrower. People who go through it consciously perceive what happens in the mineral and plant worlds, but the animal world, and so on, the world of inner responses and thoughts, does not exist for them. Sleepwalkers of this degree produce extraordinary drawings of arabesques in this state, but are not able to draft cosmic systems.

The third state is that of dream-filled sleep, which is familiar to us. We usually know nothing of any connection between our dreams and what is going on in the cosmos. The state is not all-encompassing but reflects the inorganic world and mineral, plant and animal nature. To someone who has not developed further, reflections of his own passions, his animal nature, will often appear in such dreams.

In the fourth state, the waking state, which is the narrowest but also the clearest, we perceive the mineral world, plants, animals and humans, but only in their outer form; not the law, not the inner response. This is something people must construct for themselves in the waking state, going by the outer gesture.

In the more enhanced states of awareness the bright clarity of physical awareness is retained. The fifth state, psychic awareness, extends through the astral world where feelings are directly perceived. Thus you will not just see someone’s sour face but directly perceive his feelings. The sixth state is the hyperpsychic state of awareness. Here human beings perceive all kama, and in addition also all that lives. They see the principle of growth and of life itself. The seventh state is spiritual awareness. In this, human beings perceive everything that happens in the cosmos in bright, clear conscious awareness.

We then also have the seven stages in the evolution of life. They are:

1. The first elemental world
2. The second elemental world
3. The third elemental world
4. The mineral world
5. The plant world
6. The animal world
7. The human world

To characterize these stages in a way similar to the one used for the conscious mind above, we may say the following. The first elementary world is the most subjective. The second is less subjective. The third even less so. We are in fact able to distinguish three degrees of subjectivity in the three elemental worlds. Where it begins to be objective, that is, acts in such a way that it acts not only from the inside to the outside but is seen from outside, it becomes mineral world. In the case of the first elemental world, existence comes into its own in outer terms. In the case of the second elemental world, life comes into its own in outer terms. In the case of the third elemental world, sentience or awareness comes into its own in outer terms. In the case of the fourth state, which is the mineral world, existence has become objective (4th level of life). The plant world: life has become objective (5th level of life). The animal world: sentience and awareness have become objective (6th level of life). In the human world all three degrees become objective (7th level of life). Conscious awareness and the I have then entered wholly into objectivity.

Life thus evolves through the seven worlds. Form also goes through seven stages, as follows.

1. The arupic form, which is form in its earliest potential, when it is not as yet actual form, but already has the urge to go outwards.
2. The rupic form, which is the spiritual form, with a mere hint of an outer form.
3. The astral form begins to be outwardly visible.
4. The physical form.
5. The plastic form, no longer rigid but making itself felt from the inside, with life pushing outwards, into form.
6. The intellectual form, which has grown even more mobile, with the spirit pushing outwards.
7. The archetypal, original form. This form is absolutely in control of itself, wholly mobile in itself. Everything pushes outwards; it can configure anything; it is active.

If we now want to consider the evolution of a particular entity, we have to be clear in our minds that it has to go through all the stages of conscious awareness, life and form, and that this happens in the following way.

Every entity must go through the seven stages of conscious awareness. Each stage of this state of consciousness in the various forms it takes is called a 'planetary system' in theosophical textbooks. An entity goes through a planetary system, which means that it metamorphoses through these seven states of awareness. The human being is now going through the stage of waking consciousness. This is known as the 'Earth state'. Before this he went through the state of dream consciousness. That was at the stage of lunar evolution. This is put in words as: The human being has completed the Moon stage in his evolution.

Human beings have to go through all realms of life in every state of conscious awareness. On the Moon they thus went through the first, second and third elemental worlds, and through the other four worlds in dream consciousness. On Earth they have to go through the seven stages of life. At present humans are on the planetary system of the Earth, which means in the waking state, in the middle life stage, and in the mineral world. In form, humans are now physical (fourth globe or fourth form state); in terms of life they are mineral (fourth round); in terms of conscious awareness, awake (fourth planetary system). A 'round' means the passage of an entity through one of the realms of life. Each planetary system has seven rounds. On Earth, human beings are in their fourth round. In this round, mineral evolution will be taken to its perfection, in the fifth round plant evolution, in the sixth animal evolution, the animal level of awareness, and in the seventh round human conscious awareness.

Every entity must go through all forms in each of these seven worlds, assuming every form. It will be arupic first, then rupic, astral, physical, plastic, intellectual and finally archetypal. These seven metamorphoses of form were called the seven 'globes' in the early days of developing theosophical teachings:

• arupic metamorphosis the first globe,
• rupic metamorphosis the second globe,
• astral metamorphosis the third globe,
• physical metamorphosis the fourth globe,
• plastic metamorphosis the fifth globe,
• intellectual metamorphosis the sixth globe,
• archetypal metamorphosis the seventh globe.

These seven globes are not actually separate globes; the objective process is not such that one leaves one globe for another. Together they make up an orb in which these different form states are interpenetrating. This evolution of form states was called the 'phase states' in earlier esoteric terminology. Something is connected with this that may be described by taking the following line of thought.

Imagine an entity with physical eyes, and also that all those states are always present in the world. Whilst human beings are at their level, other entities are at different stages of evolution. In esoteric terms this is called: Here a higher form of space begins. This region is called the region of perviousness in esoteric language. Even in the astral world, two entities are able to interpenetrate. You need to develop an inner feeling for this region of perviousness, for the way our world is penetrated by another. Physically we see only part of the cosmos, a part of the whole. From this point of view a visible heavenly body is one that is in the fourth state of form, in the phase of physical form; with regard to life this is the mineral world.

Physical visibility arises gradually, from the arupic form downwards, and then gradually disappears again as we move towards the archetypal form. We therefore also call these form states 'phases'. The Earth went through the arupic, rupic and astral states before it became physically visible. After the physical it will still go through the plastic, intellectual and archetypal states.

On the physical plane, an occult relationship exists between these form phases and the phases of the Moon. The passage through the seven form phases from the arupic to the archetypal state is therefore called a ‘cosmic month’, though the term is not used in all esoteric languages. Passage through all states of conscious awareness is called a ‘cosmic year’. Between cosmic day (form cycle) and cosmic year (conscious awareness cycle) lies the cosmic month (life states). It is longer than a cosmic month and shorter than a cosmic year.

In esoteric terms conscious awareness is ‘the Sun’, form ‘the Moon’, life for us now ‘the Earth’. A state of conscious awareness takes longest, a life state takes less long, and a form state is the least long. Every life state must go through all seven form states. From arupa to archetypal state it goes, first of all in the first elemental world, then in the second and third elemental worlds, and so on. It thus goes through seven times seven consecutive metamorphoses of life—those are the seven rounds, each of which goes through seven metamorphoses. Seven times seven metamorphoses or 49 which every entity has to go through: 49 on Earth, 49 on the Moon, thus 49 each on seven planetary systems, i.e. 7 times 49 = 343 (the sum of digits = 10). These 343 states make up a cosmic year.⁵⁹

We are now in the fourth planetary system (fourth state of conscious awareness, waking consciousness). We are on the Earth, going through the fourth sphere of life, the fourth round, the mineral world. The mineral world has reached the fourth globe, that is, the fourth form phase, which is the physical phase. It will reach perfection in this round, which also means that the human physical body in its mineral aspects will reach perfection in this round. On completion of all 343 states the human being will be what we call a ‘god’. This is not the supreme god but 'the third Logos', which is in truth the Logos of form when it will have gone through the 343 metamorphoses. It is form at its most advanced stage. These different configurations of conscious awareness are form again on the higher plane. Conceived as a whole, these 343 forms are thus the third Logos. The second Logos will represent life at its highest stage, and the first logos, conscious awareness at its highest stage. The stages of form are represented in colours and signs for esoteric students, the stages of life in sounds, life sounding forth. No characterizing signs exist in the physical world for the stages of conscious awareness.

• 59. See lecture given in Domach on 20 November 1914, in Balance in the World and Man, GA 158, tr. D. Osmond; N. Vancouver: Steiner Book Centre 1977.

Conscious awareness on the first planet was at deep trance level. It had the widest horizon, yet it was also the dimmest. The human being had an overview of the whole planetary system in this state. On the second planet, conscious awareness was at the dreamless sleep level—somewhat brighter but also narrower. On the third planet, dream-filled sleep level awareness was distinctly brighter and narrower. At the dreamless sleep level, human beings were able to perceive life, at the dream-filled sleep level also the inner feelings. Conscious awareness on the fourth planet is daytime consciousness, narrowed down to the greatest degree but also destined to perceive the conscious self in another individual. This is the clearest state of conscious awareness. The psychic level of awareness on the fifth planet will be far brighter than our present one. It will extend across the whole astral sphere. On the sixth planet, conscious awareness will be at the hyperpsychic stage. The lower thought world will be openly apparent to human beings. On the seventh planet humanity will reach the spiritual stage of conscious awareness. Then the higher mental world will open up before them. Every developmental phase within such a level of conscious awareness is called a ‘planet’ or a ‘planetary evolution’. This covers the evolution of conscious awareness.

A review of the evolution of life follows. Every stage of awareness has to go through seven life stages, these being the first, second and third elemental worlds, the mineral, plant, animal and human worlds. Each phase of passing through a life stage is called a ‘round’. We thus have 7 rounds on each planet, and on the 7 planets together 49 metamorphoses of life.

The stages of form.

Every life stage has to go through seven form stages, the forms of the

1. arupic
2. rupic
3. astral
4. physical
5. plastic (physically mobile—life governs form)
6. intellectual (not only mobile, but can be penetrated by thought)
7. archetypal (the whole I lies exposed to the outside world)

These form stages are called 'globes'. Every stage has a special function. Let us consider these functions in the case of human beings.

Human beings first of all go through the seven worlds in the seven form stages in deep trance awareness. On every planet, the densest stage is the middle one (No. 25 in the table below). We thus have the first elemental world in the arupic, rupic, astral, physical, plastic, intellectual and archetypal stages; then the second elemental world in the same seven stages, and likewise the third elemental world. We also have the mineral world in the stage states. These realms were only at the seed stage, however; in reality there was only one world. Number 49 is the human world in the archetypal stage, as the last globe in the last round—form, life, spiritual awareness.

The characteristic physical form is gone through in the middle of the 49 stages. The human being entered into evolution as a universal spirit which then became a separate spirit. First of all an individual orb separated off from a general orb. Those individual human orbs went through the different transformation stages. One of the later transformation processes yielded the ‘ether double body’. This stage of first separation from the universal is called ‘conscious awareness going down into the abyss’.⁶⁰ It is reached in the physical stage of the first planet. 24 stages went before, with another 24 to follow. The middle stage, the 25th, is the densest. The physical potential for the human being arose as a dense physical orb. At that time the Earth was like the ether or like the consistency of light on our present Earth. When awareness had fallen into the abyss it had a form rather like a mulberry.

On the second planet, in the deep sleep state of awareness (dreamless sleep), the human being became immersed in number. The orbs developed on the first planet were acting in a certain regular harmony. A relict from that second state is that chemical elements do not combine in any random numbers. Colours and sounds are in an order determined by their wave lengths. On the second planet we thus find order based on measure, number and weight.

Only one world existed at the first stage (Saturn); at the second stage (Sun), when the human being had become immersed in number, it was possible to separate into two worlds. One world arose which remained a continuum all the way to the human being, and another containing everything that was not suitable for developing as far as the human being. This became a separate second world (potential for animal and plant worlds, the lower forms of life). Law: It is not possible to have higher development unless something is separated out and left behind at a lower level. The degree of development was specific and given in that potential of the first planet. From it followed the law of life. It is the law of unequal but full development—no taking without giving. The first obligation of the esoteric student is to give something back.

On the third planet a third element developed—the law of elective affinities. People develop sympathy and antipathy for one another. This law applies in all worlds, in chemistry, for example, and in the mineral world. This also made it possible for a new world to develop. The animal, plant and mineral worlds developed. The human being as we see him today did not yet exist at that time. He was still a kind of animal then, at the kamic level. The spirit had not yet entered into the body.

On the fourth planet, in waking consciousness, a new potential developed for some entities so that they were not subject to the law of elective affinity. A life form that went further had to come. This was birth and death, which did not exist before. This form of life could only come because entities no longer existed in isolation but were held together by a supersensible thread of life. Individual incarnations were as if threaded on some cotton. The entity became manifold in time through birth and death. Before, human beings were manifold only in space. On the third planet (Moon), multiplication happened by tying off and division, and all lived in sympathy and antipathy with one another. Everything which multiplies by division is therefore immortal in material terms. Because of this the lowest animals, monads, are immortal (according to Weismann).⁶² Death is only possible when insemination exists as well as division. The price for birth and death was that entities continued to be split off, with the human being developing at the cost of other entities. Because of this, birth and death was also imposed on all other entities, which have no individual karma. The human being had to push each of the worlds which were below him down by one level.

Birth and death are connected with human karma. On the next planet, the human being, having gained a higher level of awareness, will be aware not only of the workings of karma but will have conscious awareness in karma itself. His inner strength will have grown to such an extent that he will have the will to be his karma. He will bear it in his figure and physiognomy. His physiognomy will reveal what lies in his astral and mental body. It will then happen that someone who is good will also be truly seen to be good from the outside, and someone who is evil as evil. Such evil people will then be found only among those who trained in black magic. The great judgement will come, dividing good from evil. This will happen on the fifth planet. From the fifth planet onwards we can only speak of the evolution of goodness.

On the sixth planet everything that is meaningless will be eliminated as evolution continues—anything that shows itself to be senseless and illogical on the lower mental plane. This sixth planet is the planet of the Logos, the word, for it is the word which gives meaning.

On the seventh planet, a wholly purified condition will prevail. The planets that went before will have performed their functions, and the fruits of this will be gathered. This is the state of being in complete harmony with God.

The spirit was present all the time when the human body was evolving and going through all these stages. Initially it floated above the body, and then, in the middle of the Lemurian age, it united with the body. The spirit is meant to gather experience on the lower planes through the body. In Greek esoteric teaching, the human soul was compared to a bee gathering honey from the planetary evolutions, from the fall into the abyss on the first planet to the state of complete harmony with God on the seventh planet. Redemption is thus happening all the time. What is held under a spell in matter is released and redeemed. Human beings only gathered experiences from the time when they inhabited the body. Before that they were the architect who built the whole of it in order to inhabit it.

The human being thus goes through the following process of evolution.

The 25th level, the middle one, is always the deepest and densest. We are now on the fourth planet and at the 25th level, which means in the densest state. On the seventh planet, in the seventh world, the human world, and the seventh form, which is archetypal, human evolution will reach its greatest perfection. The human being will then have his archetypal form, be truly godlike and human, with an all-embracing, spiritual conscious awareness.

• 60. See notebook page ‘777 incarnations’ and Special Note, both in this volume. In a lecture given in Paris on 9 June 1906 (An Esoteric Cosmology, in GA 94; Spring Valley: St George Publications 1978), we read that the number 7-7-7 signifies the esoteric cipher of the three Logoi and the exoteric number is the multiplication of these three sevenhoods in the evolutional plan, i.e. 343.
• 62. August Weismann (1834–1914), zoologist. Rudolf Steiner wrote about him in his essay ‘Haeckel und seine Gegner’ [in German] in GA 30.

Today we will consider evolution on our Earth in particular. First, let us briefly sum up what we have been considering so far.

In Earth evolution we are at the fourth level of conscious awareness, that is, on the fourth planet. Bright daytime conscious awareness develops step by step through 49 stages. The highest level on the preceding planet, which was Moon, was the perfection of a highly developed dream-level awareness. This was similar to the awareness we now see in the most highly developed animals. The physical human being—not the human being of soul and spirit, for he was then following another line of evolution and would only unite later with the physical—was then able to think in the kind of way which the dream-level awareness of today’s most highly developed animals permits. At the beginning of such an evolution process, it is our most essential nature which matters for the way we progress.

Animals, plants and minerals developed earlier than the human being. Everything which had then developed in such a way that it could progress further went into a kind of seed state with the human being and through a pralaya. On the Moon, the human seeds were sufficiently far advanced to develop the capacity for a higher dream-level awareness. The animals had only reached a dim dream-like level, plants an even lower one, and the minerals were at a still lower level of awareness. Anything not suitable for further development was cast off as a kind of cinder. In the next stage, Earth evolution, seeds existed for that kind of humans, animals, plants and minerals. This means seeds existed not only from the human world, but also from the animal, plant and mineral worlds, which were very different then from what we know as animals, plants and minerals today. The minerals were more in the kind of state one sees today with metals at exceedingly high temperatures.

The forms evolving step by step in our Earth evolution are not identical with the animals, plants and minerals of earlier times. They were already a stage ahead of what was needed for Earth. Only the human being found the conditions he needed on Earth. The other worlds therefore developed more or less as overripe fruit. They were unable to take root. These entities are therefore not really at home on this Earth itself, but only in the soil provided by entities which are at home here. They became parasites. The Moon animals and plants were used to living in a kama soil, being wholly in the psychic realm, and therefore could only find a soil on Earth when kama existed there. They thus became parasitic, like mistletoe, for example, which developed independent growth on the Moon but was not able to grow directly in the soil here on Earth. It was a power that had its justification on the Moon, but not on Earth. This made it a power which retards and affects the development of other plants. Satan is therefore the lord of parasites; he uses the powers that are parasitic. In Germanic mythology, the god Loki was hostile to Balder, god of the Earth. Everything which had come down from the lunar period was represented by Loki. No one on Earth could harm Balder, only the one who had come from the Moon. Balder was therefore felled by a mistletoe, which had its power from the Moon.

Our animals, which are evolving, and the human being, too, have developed a skeletal system on Earth. The animals which had already completed their evolution on the Moon did not have a skeletal system there. On Earth they have created an exoskeleton for themselves—a crust or shell. Examples are beetles, arachnids and so on. They came into Earth evolution from the Moon. All life forms which truly follow Earth evolution develop an endoskeleton. This is why Eve is said to have been created from a rib. So there were then two streams on Earth, firstly everything that could develop into animals, plants and minerals on Earth, and secondly human beings in their seed stage.

How did the higher development of the human being proceed? To have everything in him that would later enable him to reach the level of development he was destined to reach, the human being needed to eliminate anything that would otherwise have gone into parasitic development. He had to develop those three other worlds next to his own.

The first phase was the period of time which is called the ‘first round’ in the theosophical literature. In the first round the human being had to create the potential for the physical and Earthly mineral world out of himself, in the second round the plant world and in the third round the potential for the animal world, for that of which these worlds evolved would have prevented him from achieving what he has only been able to achieve by distilling his human nature. It was only in the fourth round that he had freed himself sufficiently from all the other worlds, that he was then prepared to be the vessel for the spirit which had floated around him, waiting for him. It was only in the fourth round that he had developed so far that the spirit was able to take possession of this purified body. He was increasingly able to spread himself, leaving behind him along the way, as his offerings, the mineral, plant and animal worlds. All higher development must be paid for by leaving other entities behind.

In the fourth round the human being is learning to govern the mineral world through his senses. He makes use of the nonliving, mineral world and will advance further and further in this. The vital energies of the plant world are not yet in his conscious control. The Atlanteans controlled them unconsciously, instinctively. Atlanteans also created their airships unconsciously. The task for the second half of the fourth round is to pour the spirit consciously into the inorganic world. This means that by the end of the fourth round, the mineral world will have been gradually absorbed by the human being. He will have physically transformed everything physical and mineral with his thought forms. It is his task to redeem the mineral world again, pouring in his mind and spirit and configuring it through his spirit. In the second half of the fourth round the human being will have gone on to control the astral. On the last globe, the archetypal one of the fourth round, the mineral world will be wholly alive.

In the first half of the fourth round human beings finally developed the ability to relate their senses to the mineral world. In the second half of the fourth round they will redeem the mineral world. Part of it will, however, remain behind, being eliminated since it is of no further use to human beings. This creates the 'eighth sphere', which is of no further use to human evolution but only to spirits of a higher kind. Later, when it has dissolved into cosmic dust, it will serve as material for the creation of new worlds. It will be taken up into other evolutionary streams; the human being cannot take it up for himself. First you have evolution, creation for the outside, then involution, when things are taken in again.

In the fifth round the mineral world will have gone. It will have been redeemed. In the first half of that round human beings will develop the higher senses that will enable them to relate to the plant world the way they now do to the mineral world; they will develop 'plant thinking'. The human being would then live in full conscious awareness in the Garden of Eden. Gravity will have gone. Everything will have metamorphosed into plants. In the second half of the fifth round, the human being will draw the whole of the plant world into himself again; he will redeem it in so far as he is able to redeem it. These worlds had of course been separated out at an earlier time to help humanity, being superfluous and an impediment to human evolution.

The same thing will then happen with regard to the animal world in the sixth round. Then the human being will be wholly human. In the seventh round the human being will develop his true intended nature in his atman—free of those other worlds, which he cast out, he will then develop his own godlike nature. Every round is a day of creation [in the biblical sense, transl.]. The seventh round will be the seventh day of creation when man becomes godlike and when God can rest from his labours.

From the middle of our own round, the fourth, evolution will need to take another direction. The mineral world shows the most marked separation. The human being relates to the world of matter, which is growing denser, in a wholly external way. Minerals, plants and animals are more closely related to the surrounding world than he is. The forces in a crystal live in the universe, making no claim to be special or separate. It is part of the whole. The claim to be separate and distinct will grow more powerful in stages. The human being is most separate and by himself, something which happened above all in the middle of the Lemurian race for the human being. A housing was created for the spirit. Then the spirit united with the human being. And with the spirit then working to emerge again, human beings began to integrate into that world again, doing so through community. First they had to establish a separate identity; then they developed communities in the spirit, brotherhood. What had been sympathy and antipathy at the kama level now becomes power of attraction by choice. A deliberately chosen brotherliness develops. Someone belonging to a lodge of brothers no longer knows the separation which others know; he does not separate from his group but integrates into it in full awareness.

The conscious awareness of an adept rests in his brotherhood or group. Spirits who have reached a certain level with this are called dhyanic spirits, the great creative energies. Brotherhood lodges develop into dhyanic spirits. Dhyanic spirits are like collections of cells. The brotherhood lodge of the adepts will be seen as a dhyanic spirit. Evolution again brings enrichment here. An important point lies in the middle of the fourth round: Human spirits begin to come together in a brotherhood, to develop a dhyanic spirit.

We thus feel that there is a vast difference between the first and second halves of a round. In the first half, the human being develops the organs by means of which he reaches out. In the second half he draws those organs into himself again. The first half is meant to prepare him for that withdrawal. In the second half of the round every spirit will find redemption for its own kind of life, at the appropriate level. ‘Round’ is also ‘cycle’ in esoteric terminology. In every cycle, evolution proceeds from the arupic to the archetypal. This is known as an ‘epicycle’ [= globes]. It is thus only in the second half of a cycle or round that an entity can gather karma, for this will be when it begins to be active. The karmic development of an entity will therefore have significance specifically on the plane where it is evolving at the time.

Spirits exist that guide physical evolution from higher planes. Their lowest form of evolution occurs in astral matter. Every nation, every race, every tribe has astral matter in common which is the material in which the spirit of the nation incarnates. The spirit of a nation is always a bit ahead of the individual members of the nation in its development. From the middle of a cycle onwards it is able to gather karma. We help to create the karma of the nation, the race, and so on. This is known as 'collective karma' it is something very real. The result is that spirits which are one level further ahead will also have karma.

International endeavors belong to an even more comprehensive spirit that embraces all the astral material of the Earth. The physical Earth is also the physical body for this spirit of the Earth, the planetary Logos which, if we rise to it, signifies the karma for the whole of Earthly evolution. International endeavors are the first step towards the great unity we shall have on the arupic plane. Theosophists live with the idea of this great all-inclusiveness, this concentration in one point.

We have been considering the influences to which the human being is subject on the physical plane. Evolution in globes tends towards the physical plane. The human being, who is now at the mineral level, had to go through the preceding stages to prepare for his existence on the physical plane. In every area or on every plane we have to look at the part which matters. At present we are looking at the actual human being. In the seven consecutive states of the first planet (Saturn) he was quite imperfect, a kind of mulberry, a progressively developing form. First planet: Conscious awareness going down into the abyss. Spirits were involved in human evolution which had already gone through evolutions of their own and become dhyanic, which the human being will only be by the end of the 343 stages. These spirits had gained all kinds of powers and energies.

Human beings take in the first half of a cycle; in the second half they give back what they have taken. In the first half of the one cycle, the mineral world was thus separated out, since it was a hindrance to human beings. They were then using for themselves all the energy which would otherwise have served to develop the mineral world further; later on they absorbed this world again. In the second half of the cycle, human beings thus redeem the mineral world, metamorphosing it. They then give to the mineral world the achievements of their own evolution, having first separated that world out. Absolutely everything in human evolution is subject to the metamorphosis of taking and giving. This determines our ethical attitudes to the highest degree. Anything we make our own may only be taken so that it may be given back again later on.

The dhyanic spirits had gone through the taking stage at an earlier phase in their evolution. This makes them giving spirits on Earth. From the very beginning they were makers, guides and brought order. When the mulberry (Saturn) divided into many orbs, those dhyanic spirits had to develop many orbs from that one orb. At the second stage (Sun), they put the orbs in order according to measure, number and weight. At the third stage (Moon) they established the law of elective affinity, of sympathy and antipathy among the orbs. The dhyani of the fourth stage (Earth) rule over birth and death and over karma. They are lords of karma, the lipikas who are above all taking or receiving, beyond sympathy and antipathy. They intervene at the fourth level of awareness, which is the level of daytime conscious awareness. Again and again new makers would come in and intervene at the evolutionary stage which the human being had reached.

Let us be clear in our minds about the nature of those makers. Spirits who are at the human stage receive and give in alternation. We can only give something which we have previously received. The human being thus alternates between being subject to 'perception', as it is called, and activity. Perception is subject to the law of taking; activity to the law of giving. The law of the makers, however, is the law of revelation. Their activity is known as 'revelatory activity'. (Arranging the world according to measure, number and weight, sympathy and antipathy, separating good from bad, and so on.)

There is a major difference between these spirits which reveal themselves and us human beings. Seen on its own, human evolution proceeded in such a way that initially the human being was down in the abyss (physically an orb), which was followed by order being established with measure, number and weight, and so on. Human beings also become more spiritual at every higher level of evolution. If we go from the outside to the inside in human evolution, we come to the higher faculties.

We said that human beings are evolving towards the principle of brotherliness. Today, at the fourth level, manas emerges and budhi and atman are potentially there. At a later level budhi will emerge, and at an ever later one, atman. When brotherliness will develop around them from outside as they develop from the inside to the outside, they will apply these principles from the outside to the same degree as they are evolving from the inside. When the human being has developed manas, for instance, budhi will begin to shine out as a potential development. In developing budhi, human beings reorganize the whole astral body; the other pole of kama (budhi) then develops. The kama which previously filled the human being inwardly will go to the outside and surround him as budhi. This is an inversion, the reversal of the astral. All kama is received by benevolent powers which are directed towards the outside. Then atman will appear in budhi. The same outward-directed transformation will then come for the ether body. The ether body is able to act into the outside world, not only morally and beneficially, but also magically. It then gains magical powers, vital energies. The influence of atman and budhi causes the human being to be poured out into the world, he spreads out to benefit the outside world. A lodge based on brotherhood that is more highly developed has the ability to work magic in the world and influence the life ether.

At the next stage, atman, the divine self, will shine out. The human being will then be aware that he belongs not only to the Earth but to the whole world. He will develop Logos awareness. He will be a world creator, with the ability awakening in him to control the physical world just as he was controlling the vital energy before. Initially the human being developed from outside in; then from inside out. When he will have come so far that he will be able to control his outer surroundings, he will be a dhyanic spirit. Initially powerless where his influence was concerned, he will then be all-controlling ... [text missing].

Dhyanic spirits were also active in the middle of the Lemurian age. They had inwardly resolved to connect the spark of actual life in the spirit with the principle which is physical body. They had been able to be creative in the physical from the beginning. But they could not bring the manasic element into the physical unless they first created measure, number and weight, elective affinity and sympathy and antipathy in the physical. Now, with birth and death introduced, they had opportunity to connect the manasic principle with the physical body, and the physical body was then able to think. On the Moon they were able to implant kama in the Moon human being. The dhyanic spirits descended so far into matter in their creative work that they were able to pour the manasic spark drop by drop into the entity they had been preparing. The bodily principle was then able to take in the spark of thinking.

If the body had gone only through the one evolution, it would have been capable of becoming an extraordinarily powerful thinker. But humanity came across to Earth from the Moon with a kama that had been taken to its highest level of perfection.

The very first evolution: the dhyanic spirits formed the human physical body out of matter, and the human beings who had come across as Moon souls with kamic evolution (pitris) had a hand in this. They were also working in the body, but their further evolution was brought about in that the makers worked with them in raising the body one level higher than they had been on the Moon.

If the dhyani which created the body from virginal matter had been working on their own, human beings would have been thinking automatons. Human beings are however warm-hearted, with both sympathies and antipathies, and that has been the work of the Moon pitris. The virginal matter was on the one hand worked on by the dhyan chohans, who reveal themselves, and on the other hand by Moon pitris who joined in the work in the middle of the Lemurian age. This created human beings capable of thinking who were also able to connect sympathies and antipathies with their thoughts.

The human being had thus become a thinking soul dwelling in a body. On the Moon he had been a soul in a body. The principle we call 'ego' had been present as a soul quality from the beginning, going through evolution on the third planet.

On the fourth planet the ego also took in the manasic or spiritual principle. Before, the ego had been the highest principle, now it also took in the manasic. From this point onwards we are dealing with an ego endowed with spirit. Before, the ego was called 'ahankara', the element which now holds the spiritual ego within it. If human beings are able to say 'I' to themselves today, this ability comes from the middle of the Lemurian age. Before, every human being had been a divine thought. The soul had already evolved through three states. But in the middle of the Lemurian age the divine thought united with the soul so that there would be a soul endowed with spirit.

The truly eternal principle which is at work in us was initially the divine thought in us. We were then in the keeping of the godhead. The makers were from the very beginning preparing vessels for this divine thought, and we were permitted to share in the work. The souls dwelt in these vessels, to prepare them so that they might receive the divine thought. This is how soul, body and spirit came to be connected with one another in the human being. The manasic principle was poured into the human kama at that time. Then the human being was given budhi by other dhyanic spirits, and still later, others again gave him atman.

The potential which was there when the human being appeared as lunar soul, only appearing in its fullness by the end of evolution, is atman. The manasic shone out first in the lunar human being. This spark of the manasic was destined to bring budhi and atman to development in itself at a later time. The lunar human beings who came to the Earth in the middle of the Lemurian age, when their bodily house was ready to be inhabited and prepared to receive manas, are called pitris, which means 'fathers'. It therefore depended on how the pitris had developed earlier on, and when had they received the spark of manas. A pitri could also remain so far behind in evolution that in the middle of the Lemurian age he would not have reached the level of being able to connect with the human body and dhyanic spirit.

Evolutions always go in seven cycles. It is possible to lag behind a little in evolution at any stage in the seven cycles. Those who have remained behind will need to use the final phase to catch up on some things. We are thus able to distinguish seven classes of Moon pitris, according to the way in which they had lagged behind. These existed in the middle of the Lemurian race. Only the most highly evolved pitris were then able to incarnate. The others were not yet able to do anything with their bodies. Because of this new pitris were coming up all the time until the end of the Atlantean age and even into post-Atlantean times. To this day, pitris still incarnate in population groups that are at a very low level; one may also find quite childlike, little developed pitris among the lower levels of the population in our large cities. However, it is rare now for pitris to incarnate for the first time today. There are only few very young pitris who are still wholly governed by their kama.

Above these pitris there were others on the Moon who had not only reached the normal level but already gone for the kind of evolution which we are now aiming at; this was so that they might be leaders. Dhyanic spirits had to think for the pitris on the Moon, so that there were none on the Moon with independent thinking, nor any who were able to act independently. But the dhyanic spirits found individual pitris who were more willing instruments than others, as we now also see it in animals, for instance. These are guided by other thinking spirits, always one spirit per genus. Sophisticated dressage is nothing to surprise us, therefore. The thinking originates in another spiritual centre in that case.

During Moon evolution, some also proved more suitable tools for the dhyanic spirits. They were of two kinds, those in whom the astral body and those in whom the life body was the more willing tool. If the physical body had been available as a tool, they could have joined the ranks of dhyanic spirits, though as lesser dhyani with a more limited sphere of power. We can imagine, therefore, that apart from the seven classes of pitris two classes of them had developed to an even higher level. These were the solar pitris, with power over their astral body and their prana body.

On Earth, we thus have:

Firstly, pitris who had gone through the various stages of evolution to the highest which is normally reached; in the middle of the Lemurian age they began to go through a human evolution—Moon pitris.

Secondly, pitris who were half dhyanic, which means that by the middle of the Lemurian age they had come so far that they would very soon incarnate the higher divine principle in themselves—Sun pitris.

Thirdly, spirits who were already dhyanic. In the middle of the Lemurian age we have dhyanic spirits, manasic dhyani whose function it was to throw the spark of manas into the human being. Then we have those which threw the spark of budhi into the human being. These dhyani, which live on higher plane, are the ones which are called the buddhas in a higher sense, or Christos in Christian terms. They are the fourth dhyani, the budhi dhyani. They are real gods. We have now widened our horizon. The spark, which the budhi dhyani are there to give, can first of all be thrown into the solar pitris. Such a solar pitri, into whom the spark of budhi has been thrown, is called a bodhisattva.

At a much later time the spark of budhi was able to descend as far as the lunar pitris. The first lunar pitri who was filled with budhi and in whom human and godhead were united, was Jesus Christ. And there we have to consider that in Jesus Christ the budhi divinity had descended to the lowest level.

The budhi spark can descend as far as the kama manasic principle. The human being would then be a teacher. Buddha, Zarathustra, Krishna, Moses, Hermes and others were such teachers. Such individuals are born destined to be teachers. If the budhi influence went as far as kama itself, then the Christ principle had to descend into a body at a later time in life when it was already occupied by kama. That is how is was with Jesus who was only able to receive the Christ in his 30th year. If we consider the Jesus evolution, he had taken on karma by the very fact that kama was developed in him from the beginning. This had not been the case with the solar pitris; they were one level beyond kama. The lunar pitris had, however, started as purely kamic spirits and then begun to take on human Earthly karma. To be our brother, the Christ had to enter into a body carrying karma. The body, which was to receive the Christ, the budhi principle, had been configured by a higher chela of the third degree of initiation (Zarathustra). This body became the edifice for the godhead, the Christ.

Dhyanic spirits, too, are unable to bring thoughts to realization without prior preparation. And the human body had to be prepared before these spirits gave thinking to humanity.

Speaking of a trinity of the soul we have to say: Father, Mother and Son—Osiris, Isis, Horus.

Speaking of a trinity of the spirit, we have to say: Father, Word and Holy Spirit.

At a later time, trinity of the soul and trinity of the spirit were confounded.

In the middle of the Lemurian race, building the house for the human being had progressed as far as having the potential for thinking. The dhyanic spirits had gained the level of perfection which enabled them to endow the physical body with the power of thought. With the physical body now having this power, single-gender nature changed to two-gender nature. Before, an entity was able to produce offspring without involving another entity. The power of physical productivity was therefore twice as great in those entities than it is in individual human beings today. In the middle of the Lemurian age, therefore, the human power of productivity was divided in two, with the second half used to develop the ability to think. Until then humanity had evolved at the cost of other worlds which were eliminated by it. Now human beings had to divide in two themselves—into a lower and a higher productive power (power of thought). The latter developed at the cost of the former. Our physical power of rational understanding is thus former regenerative power transformed.

Up to that time only cold-blooded life forms existed on Earth. No life form had as yet the kind of blood that develops fire from within through kama. All of them, including the human being, were cold-blooded at the time. All the cold-blooded life forms we have today are atrophied forms descended from the cold-blooded life forms of that time. Every kind of warm-blooded life form we have today was still part of the human being then, only separating off gradually.

Step by step the human being would always leave behind anything that was less good in order to gain higher development. Reptiles, birds and mammals separated off first, the apes fairly late. Warm-blooded life forms are also earlier stages that have been left behind, with the human being casting them off just as he did the mineral, plant and cold-blooded animal worlds before. The fact that no warm-blooded life forms had existed until then, really means that a further world was created. In esoteric thinking, one does indeed speak of mineral world, plant world, cold-blooded animals, warm-blooded animals.

The warm-blooded animals were only separated off within the Lemurian age because kama entered into the bodies, taking hold of the lower part of that halved productivity. The kama acting from within brought about the warmth in warm-blooded life forms.

The dhyanic spirits were then able to create a human form where half the productive power was converted into powers of rational understanding. The Moon pitris then proceeded step by step to take possession of the human bodies thus created.

Dhyanic spirits may also lag behind in evolution. Some from the class of spirits who had created the human being on the Moon had thus remained behind. They had not managed to get so far as to take part in creating two-gender nature. But they had gained the ability to develop the kama body, configuring it with great wisdom. They were able to take the kamic principle in the human being to its highest peak. This was the work these spirits were still doing in the Lemurian age. However, on the Moon the kama body had not yet had gender, which means that these spirits were unable to take part in developing the kama in the sexual sphere.

Whilst the dhyani, which had gone ahead of them, had taken the human body so far that the spirit was able to enter into the bodies of two different genders, the single aim of these retarded spirits was to use their most sublime wisdom to create a human race that would develop what had been aimed for on the Moon, though this excluded sexuality. They furthermore found the wisdom in man to be akin to their own essential nature. They took hold of the human being and wanted to bring him into a form that would exclude all the lower kamic element; they wanted to bring him to perfection directly, without first going through sexuality. They wanted to make a human being full of wisdom, leaving aside what he must go through in his physical nature. These are the spirits which refused to take part in the creative work in physical nature.

If the human being had developed only in accord with the first dhyani's intentions, his lower kamic nature would not have developed, and he would have been under dhyani thought guidance. Who would then have been thinking in the human being? Divine thoughts had entered into him. Human beings would have been under God’s guidance. God would have been thinking in them, and never they themselves. They would then have been true children of God, but they could never have become like God themselves. They would have been thinking automatons, never able to grasp the inner spark of wisdom as their own; it would always have been an alien light.

Then those retarded spirits came and they were at exactly the right stage to come in and help at this point. They had developed the wisdom-filled kama body on the Moon, and they knew how to penetrate kama with wisdom. They were the spirits to whom the human being owed his freedom. He had to be tied in with kama so that the spark of spirit might be his own. They thus learned to love the light of the other dhyanic spirits. In esoteric terms they are called the great ascetics or kumaras. For at first they refused to be creative; they did not understand the two-gender state. They were insubordinate. They became guiding spirits for the human being at the point where kama was taken up towards wisdom.

The elohim, and especially the Jahveh elohim, had created the human being but did not want him to be 'like one of us’. Now, following the intervention of the retarded dhyani, they wanted at least to prevent human beings from becoming spiritual and leave aside everything low. Lucifer's original aim had been to let sexuality die away and let the human being merge wholly into the spiritual. Jehovah on the other hand tends to put the emphasis on physical life.⁶³ He does not want the human being to grow spiritual too soon, but wants to make him go through the phases of Earth evolution. Together the two bring about the free human being.

The rebellion of the lower dhyani was the work of Lucifer, the intervention of the spirits who free the human being is known as ‘Lucifer’s secret’. In all esoteric schools, Lucifer was venerated as much as all the other dhyanic spirits. Lucifer was called on whenever people needed guidance to find the way to the spirit in full clarity of perceptive understanding. In the early Christian mystery centres, Lucifer's Mystery was still understood and also put down in writing in those early days. This book is most carefully guarded in the Roman Catholic Church, for good reason, for the Church has declared Lucifer to be the enemy of humanity, though the truth is that he made the automated human being into a free spirit. The book is kept at the Vatican; the Count of St Germain has a copy.⁶⁴

We have now been considering the way heavenly spirits (dhyani), Earthly spirits (the human being in his Earthly body and the lunar soul principle of the pitris) and the luciferic spirits worked together in Lemurian times. Let us now consider a specific line of human evolution.

A cycle will always be descending and then ascending: evolution - involution. This is also how it has been with the evolution of our senses. We did not always have the same senses. The human being of the Polarian age was enveloped in a form of matter that was highly tenuous and indeed shadow-like. He had been developed according to the pitris—etheric. These ether human beings really looked oval, like an egg, and moved in a wholly etheric element. Our present-day senses would have been useless at that time. A sense to give orientation within the etheric matter was sufficient, and that was the sense of hearing. They had only this one sense, to perceive the movement of the ether matter, just as later on, in the 6th root-race, the human being will hear the ‘trumpets’ (Book of Revelation), that is, the sounds of the spheres.

As matter condensed, a principle we must call temperature differences developed within matter. Movements were no longer regular, and this created denser and warmer areas. The Hyperboreans were made of air matter. They were able to detect differences in temperature by means of a sense of feeling. Further condensation of the Earth made bodies more solid at first, and finally incandescent. Outwardly this could look like a flame. The sense of sight developed, and this happened in such a way that the temperature organ of the head, which projected like an lantern from the top of the head, changed into an organ of vision. This was later going to be the pineal body, atrophied today, but incandescent and projecting in earlier times—the single eye of the Cyclops. Further condensation of the Earth caused this eye to go through involution, with two eyes taking the place of the one, though they only developed fully in Atlantean times.

Up to the third sub-race of the Atlantean age there would always still be people who had developed their one eye (the eye of Cyclops) and were using it for clairvoyant vision. Then a new ability developed, and this involved a sense by which the condensed matter could be perceived—the sense of taste (tongue). Matter had to be concentrated to such a degree that it came to be salt-like. The sense of smell developed last of all; it was to gain its real significance only in the rounds that followed.

Evolution continues, and in this round we are called on to develop two new senses. We have already begun to start the cycle actively where before we started it passively. What was passive before, is now becoming active for us. The potential developed in the Atlanteans. Before that, human beings had no speech; this only began to develop with the Atlanteans. In speech, human beings utter what they have heard with their ears. The evolution was an involution before. Talking is the opposite pole to hearing. It must continue to develop. It will gain significance and become a sense when mystic evolution will have refined the human being from inside to such effect that it will be able to take the spiritual element in directly. When the spiritual unites with the larynx, the human being will at last be able to speak in a higher sense (in the presence of the masters).

The first time a human manu, who will be a human ‘master’, will arise will be by the end of the fifth root-race. In the sixth root-race he will be a brother to the human race. Those who will have taken their mystic evolution of the astral so far that they will be able to recognize the master, will have achieved this by developing this sense. ‘Before the voice can speak in the presence of the masters it must have lost the power to wound.’⁶⁵

A seventh sense also needs to be developed in our cycle. Just as the sense of hearing will emerge actively, in speech that no longer wounds, so the sense of feeling will go through a reversal. The individual will no longer consider only the things which come from the outside to be feeling, but will also know how to direct them to the outside. He will be able to let his heart unfold freely for the outside and let his deepest feelings enwrap other human beings. The spiritual soul principle, which lives in the heart today, will then flow out. The individual will lay his soul openly at the feet of others. We will not be able to develop this sense unless we consciously endeavour to meet others and the whole world openly: ‘Before the soul can stand in the presence of the masters its feet must be washed in the blood of the heart.’

The astral body organizes these senses when the human being lives in the spirit of these two rules.

• 63. See lecture given in Berlin on 25 October 1905, in GA 93a, Foundations of Esotericism (see note 13).
• 64. See lecture given in Berlin on 23 May 1905, in GA 93, The Temple Legend (see note 22).
• 65. Mabel Collins, Light on the Way, London 1888. See Rudolf Steiner’s commentaries on this [in German] in GA 264, and in GA 266/1.

We are going to have an example of how the world evolved, concentrating on the point where evolution went through the middle of the Lemurian age, and looking at some of the time that went before and came after. The aim is to show how the sense of the eye developed at that time.

If we were able to look at the world as it was at the time of the first, the Polarian race, we would find it to be an ether orb. Soon, meaning several millions years later—which can mean ‘soon’ in world evolution—matter condensed. We see the beginnings of what we call ‘air’. In the air itself, the first beginnings evolved of what we call ‘fire’ and ‘water’. At the time, however, the water in the air was a fiery mist. At that time, in the beginning of the Lemurian age, the Earth was a dense, smoky, fiery mist. Real water as we know it today only developed later as the Earth cooled down; solid matter came even later.

We have to realize that human beings were involved in some form or other at every one of these developmental stages. Human evolution is always dependent on the surroundings.

Let us now look at the human being as he began to evolve at the time when those fiery mists were developing. He had his sense of hearing at the time, and a sense of feeling for temperature differences; he was a highly differentiated, mobile creature flying around in the fiery mist. He needed an organ for feeling if conditions were favourable, not too hot nor too cold. The Cyclops-like organ developed at this time, which had initially served as an organ for feeling the ambient temperature, to tell him if he might enter into it or not.

Then the whole mass in which he was moving started to grow fiery. Before, this element we now call ‘flame’ was not present; the level of the temperature was much higher than the temperature of fire today. The feeling organ sensed that the state of heat was turning into flame and thus gradually condensed into an organ of vision. We see, therefore, that this feeling organ evolved from the inside, arising initially from an inner need of the human being; it was to tell him if he felt well or not. Initially, the organ therefore existed for the sake of the human being himself, so that he might evolve as a life form in conditions that would allow this. At the same time—initially as an attendant phenomenon—the organ developed the ability to perceive the flame which had grown cold, which was light. The organ was at the top of the human head, like a glowing lantern. As matter condensed further it changed from an organ of feeling into an organ of vision.

The mobile human body was getting progressively denser. The result was that this feeling eye lost significance in the encounter with denser objects with external boundaries. Now the attendant phenomenon of being able to see the cold flame came into its own. The organ grew able, as matter was growing denser, to see the object with its boundaries; it was thus given a new role, as it were, as the surroundings changed. The original function has remained and will come into its own at a later stage.⁶⁶

The new quality had thus entered into the entity from the outside, to be given its function later on. Every entity first absorbs from the surroundings what it will later need for its conditions for life. Human beings would never have been able to perceive things through their eyes if these had not been created into them out of the surroundings. Organs need to be created out of the surroundings first, so that these surroundings may then be perceived. Through the organs which the surrounding world has created in him, he can in turn bring influence to bear in the surroundings.

Human beings can never give anything to the world unless the world has first created the conditions for it. Thus interaction between human being and world created the eyes, and through them human beings will later be able again to influence the world. We always have the same process; the human being first absorbs something from the outside which he will then later give out again. Everything in us has resulted from an activity. There is nothing in existence that has not originally been activity. All existence is the result of activity. This applies in all areas of existence, on all planes.

If we consider the dhyanic spirits in their revelatory activity, this is the outcome of an activity they had previously absorbed. This is the law of karma in its most comprehensive sense. All that is results from activity. To be a fortunate individual, you must have created your good fortune yourself in an earlier existence. The good fortune someone enjoys is the outcome of some activity on that individual’s part that had proved a blessing.

Consideration given to the karma of eye development differs from other [studies of karma] in that the individual remains perfectly calm and objective in giving his consideration. Emotions come into it when he considers the karma of his essential nature—idea of just and unjust. In the Vedantic and Pythagorean schools it was therefore the custom to discuss karma by choosing objects that would not arouse emotions. This first of all purified the thoughts, so that nothing by way of passions and feelings would enter into them. This was ‘study’, the aim being to get to know the laws of the world in a way that did not involve emotions. It was called ‘catharsis’, leaving aside anything personal. After this the individual concerned could become a mystic. For as long as human beings have reflected on the destiny of their souls, they have been very interested to know if it is mortal or immortal. They therefore had to go through catharsis in those times before they could study the soul’s destiny without emotion. Calm, emotionless study would free them from fear and self pity, above all egotistical compassion. Aristotle therefore defined drama as a cleansing through fear and compassion.⁶⁷

We can see, therefore, that evolution involves a sequence of stages. At one level an entity will absorb something, then to be active on the outside at another. To begin with, the entity comes face to face with the outside world; then interaction develops. This would continue if circumstances did not change. When condensation occurs, the activity is struck back and the entity is transformed from inside.

In the development of the eyes, we have first of all the feeling eye in direct contact with the surrounding world. Then the eye was delimited by the denser matter which formed a layer in between. This physical layer separated the fire of the inner eye from the fire outside. Denser layers form in the following way. If there is a uniform orb to begin with, a spherical shell will first of all develop and this separates from the inner sphere because a layer forms in between. This is how the original atom arose.⁶⁸ Initially, therefore, we have equally subtle matter inside and out, separated by a fine membrane of denser matter. Imagine that the process continues. Imagine the membrane of denser matter divides again in a similar way, as if it developed a more recent, denser membrane around itself. A separate entity thus develops, surrounding itself with progressively denser membranes, like the way an atom develops. We therefore have to think of the way atoms form—part of an existing form of matter being separated off by matter that grows progressively denser.

A difference then exists between inner and outer. This will have to show itself in some way. Consider sensation, as we call it. It may be caused by a pin prick, for example. But there has to be something which causes the sensation and something which has it—something active and something passive. Everything in the world comes into existence like this. All that is results from activity. All activity depends on there being something that is passive. These are the two poles we must look for with any activity. Even with the smallest atom we have something active and something passive. In the case of the atom, the forces acting from outside invert the membrane which encloses it. It grows concave from the outside, and convex, the opposite, from the inside.

In relation to the world we are the passive part, for we receive and feel impressions all the time. These continuous impressions are sensed by the astral body. We have to distinguish between activity and passivity in the astral world. Every sensation has to be produced, or rather caused. Nothing can be caused in the world of sentience without having an effect in that world. You have to visualize the whole of sentient space. If there were only a single astral body, we would never be able to ascribe sensations to the activities of other entities. Yet the ability to sense things could not have developed in us if we had not differentiated it out from a whole astral world in this way. Astral existence presupposes astral activity. In the same way mental existence presupposes thought activity, and physical existence physical activity.

Having understood this, we also understand something else. The human being thinks. This is his existence. Cogito ergo sum (Descartes).⁶⁹ Our passive thinking about things presupposes active thinking, presupposes that the things have first been created through the thought. Our human passive thinking presupposes one that is active. For every passive thought there must have been an active and creative thought before. Every feeling, every sensation, all passive experience in the astral body presupposes that this astral experience has been actively brought about. Anything which appears in the world all around us presupposes that the phenomena were first called into existence. Light would not exist if light had not been brought about; existence would not exist if it had not been brought about; sensory perception presupposes that the phenomenon is first revealed.

Everywhere in the world we find these three:

Active and passive thinking
Active and passive life
Active and passive existence.

Everything which is passive existence for the human being, is called the physical plane; it is the essence of all passive existence.

The essence of all passive life is called the astral plane.

The essence of all passive thinking is called the rupa mental plane.

The essence of all active thinking is called the arupa mental plane.

The essence of all active life is called the budhi plane.

The essence of all active existence is called the nirvana plane.

These are the five [six] planes known to us. Activity is most intensive in the nirvana plane, for existence itself is created there.

If we consider the human being in terms of these planes, we see that every thought which a human being thinks is followed by another active thought on the corresponding plane, which is the reaction. If you have a thought on the lower mental plane, this causes a counter image on the higher mental plane. If you have a feeling, this produces a counter image on the budhi plane. If you are active in the physical plane, this produces a counter image on the nirvana plane. Just as earlier an active thought created our passive thinking, so does an active thought creative its passive counter image on the higher mental plane, and so on. We thus cannot take a single thought but that this has its counter image, and the same holds true for a feeling or action.

The sum of all those counter thoughts, counter experiences and counter actions is called the akashic record. It is therefore possible to read every human thought on the higher mental plane, all feelings and experiences on the budhi plane, and all actions in the nirvana plane. The spirits which regulate the relationship between those counter images and human beings play an important role. Human beings live out their thoughts on the mental plane. What they deal with in their thoughts, all happens on the mental plane. When they are there, in the devachan, between death and rebirth, they build the character of their thought body for the next life. That is where the counter images of their former thoughts are. The individual draws them to his mental body, which has been freed from anything physical or astral, and thus creates his future mental body according to the thought images he has created. However, he would not be able to connect the counter images of his experiences and actions with himself on his own. This needs spirits who regulate things from the outside, the lords of karma, the lipikas. They connect the counter images of the human being’s feelings and actions with him when he is on the budhi and nirvana planes—with kamic and other elements already enveloping him—to provide for the incarnations that will follow.

• 66. See lecture given on 30 September 1905, in GA 93a, Foundations of Esotericism (see note 13).
• 67. Aristotle (384–322 BC), in Poetics, 6th section. See also Rudolf Steiner’s essay ‘Aristoteles ueber das Mysteriendrama’ in Lucifer-Gnosis, GA 34.
• 68. See the lectures given in Berlin on 16 & 23 Dec. 1904 and 21 Oct. 1905, in The Temple Legend (see note 22).
• 69. René Descartes (1596–1650), French philosopher and mathematician. Principia Philosophiae Part 1, paragraph 7.

Seven times seven metamorphoses have to be gone through to get from the beginning to the end of evolution:

7 states of conscious awareness 7 worlds or states of life 7 form states

The seven states of conscious awareness are

deep trance
dreamless sleep
dream state
waking state
psychic state
hyperpsychic state
spiritual state.

The seven worlds or states of life are

first elemental world
second elemental world
third elemental world
mineral world
plant world
animal world
human world.

The seven form states or metamorphoses of form are

In reality these seven globes or form states are not seven different globes but just one orb; this goes through seven successive states. Each state needs to be transformed into the next. To do this calls for a spirit which represents a specific sum of energy and takes the orb from one level to the next. Such a spirit is called ‘prajapati’. These sublime spirits, with their tremendous powers, were given that ability in earlier evolutions. They have a long learning stage behind them. This has made them into energies able to transform one orb into the next in the new universe.

These seven states of form are gone through in all seven worlds of life and in all seven states of conscious awareness. We can see now that anything they achieve in one cycle these spirits (prajapati) can also achieve in the others—on Earth, for example, on the Moon, and so on, so that states of the same kind can always be brought about by spirits of the same kind.

This happens with all cycles, on all seven planets. The prajapati of form exist once and for all; here they are the lowest prajapati that have to bring about the final transformation, coming into play whenever a transition becomes necessary.

The arupa and archetypal states differ markedly from the other five levels. The form state really begins on the rupa plane. There is as yet no form on the arupa plane, only the potential for it, and on the archetypal plane form gives itself its own form; it is all life there. Because of this the first and seventh states of form are really states of life, with the seventh always in the nascent (beginning to evolve) state of the first which is to follow, or where the seventh (archetypal) has become what was in the nascent state at the first.

The archetypal state of form is such that form has become life; on the arupic level form is still life. We therefore really have only 5 prajapati of form, for 2 of the 7 already belong to the higher prajapati of conscious awareness. We might say that stages of life and states of form are merely condensed states of conscious awareness, or perhaps the passive side of active awareness, or perhaps the actual negative aspect of the world view, with conscious awareness the positive aspect. The first and last of the prajapati of form states thus belong to the higher hierarchy of the prajapati of conscious awareness.

Every spirit also goes through the worlds of life. This brings us to the prajapati of the rounds, each of them controlling one world of life. Seven states of life are transformed one into the other by seven spirits. Each time we have completed the seventh round we are at a state corresponding to that of the first round, but at a higher level. The human being entered into Earth evolution with an awakening clear daytime conscious awareness; he is now developing this, and by the end of the seventh round the human being will have brought to full development the potential which he had in the first round, at the beginning.

These seven rounds are the seven days of creation in Genesis.⁷⁰ We are now in the fourth day. In the second chapter of Genesis we have a specific description of the fourth round—the creation of the human being, the time when this happened being the middle of the Lemurian age. It will only be on the seventh day that the human being will truly have developed in the image of God with regard to his physical, astral, mental and arupa bodies. Principles that were content by the end of Moon evolution, had become potential by the beginning of Earth evolution.

We can really only call six rounds ‘rounds of life’, for the seventh is a round of the next higher state of conscious awareness. As there are thus only six states of life there are also only six prajapati of life. We add one of the prajapati of life to the seven prajapati of conscious awareness, and then there are also two prajapati of form. We thus really have ten prajapati of conscious awareness, including the one which arranges the transition to the six prajapati of life, and two which arrange the transition to the prajapati of form. This gives us

10 prajapati of conscious awareness
6 prajapati of life
5 prajapati of form
or 10 + 6 + 5 = a total of 21 prajapati.

Stanza 4 of Dzyan in H. P. Blavatsky’s Secret Doctrine refers to this: Ten is called ‘The One from the Egg’⁷¹ = 0. From the egg (0), the 10 prajapati of conscious awareness, came first of all the first prajapati of life, followed by six other prajapati of life and five prajapati of form = 1065,⁷² or 21 (10 + 6 + 5, value of Jehovah).

Concerning the chakras of the astral body,⁷³ just as the human physical body has senses, so does the human astral body have senses. They lie in a row. One of them is above the larynx. They are called chakras, sacred wheels. They do not move in ordinary people, but in a seer they are mobile and rotate. The chakra above the larynx is essentially in a leaf form. All astral chakras are called ‘lotus flowers’. The one above the larynx is called the 16-petalled lotus flower. This wheel evolved gradually in human evolution. [See Fig. 9j It was only in the Lemurian race, in the middle of the Lemurian age, that ideation, the ability to think, gradually began to develop. Only the last Lemurian race had developed it to a reasonable degree. At that time, the first of the lotus petals shone out, and every race that followed added another, if development went normally:

• seven petals in the seven sub-races of the fourth root-race, the Atlantean race,
• seven petals in the seven sub-races of the fifth root-race, the Aryan race (five up to now, as we are in the fifth sub-race)
• one petal in the first sub-race of the sixth root-race.

Then all 16 petals of the ability to form ideas will light up.

From the third sub-race of the fourth root-race onwards, memory also developed. The memory current also changes over to the wheels in stages, through five sub-races of the fourth Atlantean root-race, through seven sub-races of the fifth root race and through four sub-races of the sixth root-race.

The average human being therefore has 13 petals of the ability to form ideas developed, and memory has reached its 10th petal. If memory, which started with the 4th petal of the ability to form ideas meets up with the stream of ability to form ideas, the chakra begins to rotate. In normally developed people this would be in the 4th sub-race of the 6th root-race. The wheel will then go round like a whirlwind. With each successive race the light will move on to another spoke in the wheel, or another petal of the lotus flowers.

The wheel will be finished with the first sub-race of the sixth root-race. At present, the average person still lacks three spokes, which are a dark void. The wheel has not one vortex, but two.

The second stream crosses the first. In the third sub-race of Atlanteans memory was added. Memory will continue until the fourth sub-race of the sixth root-race. After that it will be lost, having become superfluous.

When memory made its appearance in the fourth sub-race, illumination of the ability to form ideas had progressed as far as the fourth spoke; three sub-races were without memory. The last part of the memory stream meets with the other stream. In the fourth sub-race of the sixth root-race the wheel will finally begin to move. When the wheel is set in motion, the human being will give his word to the astral world. Anything he will say then will have an immediate effect on others. Thus another person will feel the kindness that is expressed in a word; he will feel every word.

The human manu of the sixth root-race, who will guide this race, being the first human manu,⁷⁴ will only be able to live with human beings when they have developed so far that they can talk to the master. They will only be able to do this when this chakra is wholly developed, when the human word goes over directly into the stream of the wheels. This would normally be in the fourth sub-race of the sixth root-race. Lagging behind would mean that not all 16 spokes develop. The individual would then not be able to speak in the presence of the master, with the result that he could not be guided by the master at this state in evolution. It is particularly important to develop this chakra, and that will depend on whether the human being gets out of the habit of wounding with his voice.⁷⁵

Human beings have 16 opportunities—in going through 16 sub-races—to develop this chakra. If they do not do so, they will follow the 16 ways of perdition through the word.⁷⁶

In the metamorphoses that follow, the [last petals of the 16-petalled lotus flower] are developed further, plastic, then in thought matter, then archetypally. In the following round the 16-petalled lotus flower will truly be a vegetative petal or leaf at the physical level. The spokes will then be real leaves, and the mineral element will have vanished altogether.

In the 7th root-race, the chakra will develop which is called the two-petaled lotus flower and lies between the eyebrows. (Fig. 9)

• 70. See Genesis (note 46).
• 71. See Special note in this volume
• 72. See esoteric lesson given in Hamburg on 14 March 1909 [in German] in GA 266/1.
• 73. In terms of a second, anterior vertebral column. See lecture given on 29 Sept. 1905 in #GA 93a, Foundations of Esotericism (note 13).
• 74. See Zur Geschichte und aus den Inhalten der ersten Abteilung der Esoterischen Schule 1904–1914, GA 264, S. 199 ff.
• 75. See note 65.
• 76. Also mentioned in the lecture given in Berlin on 23 December 1904 in The Temple Legend, see note 22.

We often talk about principles as if they were of the same kind and only differed in degree. Yet if we want to understand how things are connected, we need to get to know the principles themselves in their nature.

We need to distinguish three things in the world; three kinds of effects. Only things that take effect can be considered by a perceptive entity, and we therefore focus our attention on the effects. There are therefore three ways in which something may take effect—first, actually in the spirit; secondly in the soul, thirdly at the physical level. Effects in the spirit, anything that can in some way take effect in spirit, is called budhi; anything that can take effect at soul level is called kama; everything that can have a physical effect is called prana. Budhi, kama and prana are the three ways of taking effect. They are of the same kind but at different levels.

Now we have to realize that effects would always be fluid, indefinite, if they did not define themselves. If kama is to happen in a particular way, for instance, it must set itself limits. Budhi, kama and prana must therefore set themselves limits if they are to be defined influences or effects. In the theosophical literature these boundaries are called ‘sharira’, meaning ‘vessel, shell, sheath’. If budhi sets itself a boundary, this is called ‘karana sharira’; if kama does, it is ‘linga sharira’, and with prana it is ‘sthula sharira’. These sharira are thus the limits, the outer forms, which the three kinds of effects set for themselves. Now the following may happen (Fig. 10, starting from below).

First of all we have prana in action; then prana sets itself a limit on the outside—sthula sharira. Prana thus sets itself a boundary in one direction but remains billowing and open in the other. Prana is now joined by kama, setting itself a boundary here—linga sharira. Then prana is no longer billowing and open on this side either, for kama with its boundary has pushed its way in. Kama in turn remains open on the other side. Then budhi comes and limits itself off from kama, and you get karana sharira. The three principles thus have intermediate layers. If this is a spirit, a self-awareness must also live in these three principles and their interfaces—this is known as ‘atman’.

The human being consists of the three principles, the interfaces and self-awareness or atman. Each may have its own subdivisions. If we take it like this, we have the composition of the human being as such.

Here, in the human being (Fig. 10), the physical body is the outer shell, and atman rests inside. The arrangement can of course also be very different. [For the planetary spirit,] the situation is, for example, that prana shows itself initially as active, setting itself a limit, in an inward direction. (Fig. 11)

Prana is then limited on the inside by sthula sharira, kama by linga sharira, and budhi by karana sharira. We would thus have an entity where atman was on the outside, then budhi, then kama and last of all prana. Atman would then appear as wholly expanded in the periphery [an orb] and sthula sharira would be a point at the centre. (Fig. 12)

Such a spirit would be a dhyan chohan, a planetary spirit that must present in a way which is the reverse of the human way. In the human being, sthula sharira is on the outside, in dhyan chohans atman; then comes budhi, and so on.

We can get a clear idea of this if we take the following example. If we close our eyes, it is dark for the time being; once we open them again, we see the light. We only see the light, however, because we have an inner feeling for it and are therefore able to receive it. It must first be there, however, if we are to receive it. And just as we have to be there to sense the light, so there must be an entity out there which reveals light. We are light receivers; out there must be light givers, light revealers. And just as we are only able to sense light because we have kama, the astral body, in us, so a planetary spirit must have a kama that lets light shine out. Kama is thus active towards the centre here, and in the radius of the circle there. (Fig. 13)

The circle which is convex towards the top is for us, for our sentience, for the one which receives, the principle moving towards the giver. The circle which is convex towards the bottom is the kama of the dhyanic spirit. The kama of revelation thus acts downwards—karana sharira. Whereas the human being has a kama that seeks to move towards the centre, so the planetary spirit has a kama that seeks to move outwards, to the periphery, revealing light, whilst the kama of the human being receives light. Two kinds of spirits, natures that complement one another, always go together. A spirit must have the desire—receiving; another must be able to give—giving. Human desirous kama presupposes that there is a giving kama, the kama of love.

Human budhi mediates insight. Such insight as we gain into things comes through our budhi. The planetary spirit must thus be a giver of thoughts, and human budhi a receiver. The planetary spirit thus acts in entirely the opposite way, complementing the human spirit.

Every single thing in the world exists only in the context of the whole; it is part of the whole. As a part it belongs to the whole planetary Earth spirit. Thus this table here consists of matter, which makes it an object we encounter in space; secondly it has energy, for it offers resistance, otherwise it would not exist for us; thirdly this energy does not come to expression at random but according to specific laws (natural laws).

What is energy? What is it that makes life possible in us? It is an energy which takes things in, maintaining life. Human vital energy serves to hold together the matter which is in the human being. Because of this, the matter and its energy in the human being is directed inwards, building the human being up from inside. Without this, we could not be perceived as living human beings. The table on the other hand has matter which is directed outwards, and this functions according to law. Matter as such cannot be perceived, only its properties and qualities such as colours, sounds, and so on. Matter itself is completely beyond sensory perception. A prana in matter withdraws completely from sensory perception but gives itself in order to reveal itself. We also have insight into the law which lies in matter, and the thought which comes to expression in it.

Budhi comes to outer expression in the natural world. Every body which gives outward expression to the planetary spirit is continually radiating outwards; its budhi is thus directed outwards. It becomes light which the senses perceive. Budhi lies in the properties and qualities of things, in the aspect which is on the outside. The law must reveal itself through karana sharira. Manas revealed is law. In being luminous, a body sends us budhi. The thought, expressing spirit, through which it sends us budhi, is karana sharira. The planetary spirit keeps kama to itself, withdrawing it from sensory perception. Its matter ... [Marie Steiner-von Sivers’ notes indicate a gap here.] On the other hand it reveals the cosmic thoughts which human beings must fathom deep down inside. The principle which the planetary spirit revealed wholly on the surface is its budhi. In the Bible, it says that the planetary spirit first of all revealed itself as light. The spirit thus reveals budhi qualities (light) at the first level. Budhi qualities (light) are revealed by the spirit at the first level. These ancient sacred teachings of the polarity between human being and planetary spirit are brought out most beautifully in esoteric Christian teaching. In cabbalistic terms the budhi qualities which come to revelation are called ‘powers’. It is thus the powers of light and darkness which revealed themselves first. Once again we can take Genesis literally.

The spirit thus reveals budhi qualities on the first level. On the second it reveals its karana sharira; it orders things according to laws. Something which is convex in the macrocosm is thus concave in the microcosm. Something which the human being perceives last, comes first in the macrocosm; the microcosm finally comes to perceive and understand the sentient experience in the macrocosm.

The question arises if there is a transitional stage between the two—between human being and planetary spirit. Think of an entity with one conscious awareness. That is the human being. He has different parts, but these share a common awareness. (Struggle between patricians and plebeians.)⁷⁷ We might show it more or less like this (Fig. 14).

Individual parts all radiate towards the common awareness. If we take the latter to be energy, and the parts, too, we can say that the common awareness is predominant, influencing all the others. Now think of numerous entities functioning in this way (Fig. 15)

Each has its own existence. Through [the common ideal] it can connect its own with those of others. The different conscious minds create a common focus; they seek to gain a specific common ideal. This then lives in the different conscious minds as a common spiritual ideal. If they reach the point where their spiritual ideal is of greater value to them than they themselves, they will be drawn to it just as before they drew the parts of their conscious awareness to themselves. Where before they had been the focus or centre for those different spheres, the common ideal will then be the central focus for the large sphere. Individual entities then become parts of a common entity, giving up their separate existences and living in the common ideal. They cease to be centre and give themselves a common centre. A brotherhood lodge then develops from individual people. If the common ideal is so powerful that it draws all the individual conscious minds to it, these people make up a body that has a soul of a higher kind. A brotherhood lodge then develops with a perfectly communal spirit. This is a new entity. The soul could never have come down into the human being if he had not become a house for it with different parts. It is never possible for a higher principle to come down unless individual minds become vital parts, the form for a higher kind of house, so that the common awareness may come to expression in it.

This gives us the transition. Another centre is created. Human development is an inversion, the reversal of all principles. As human beings express themselves in seven ways, we get not one but seven centres. These will be the seven elohim, the pitris for the next planet.

Man thus progresses from a spirit which takes in the surrounding world to a spirit which reveals itself. The two completely opposite natures—human being and elohim or dhyan—are merely forms of one essential nature. At a future time, the human being will no longer be as he is now; he will be a dhyan chohanic spirit. In esoteric terms this is called the ‘secret of man becoming god’.

When individual conscious minds all turn to one centre, with everything outside becoming atman, there will be just a single core of sthula sharira inside, which is unity at its highest level.

Such oneness cannot be achieved on Earth; it needed seven sublime spirits to create it. This, then, is the Logos, with atman in the periphery. In the cabbala, the ‘realm’, union, crowns all. This is also the principle on which the Church is founded, with all human beings having part in one conscious awareness. The law of form is birth and death. The law of life is rebirth. The law of the spirit is karma. Life goes through birth and death, appearing in new forms all the time. Form is transient by nature, life repeats itself, the spirit does not perish, it is eternal.

• 77. Plebeians could not be priests or hold political office. From the 4th century BC onwards, the privileges of patricians grew less and less, and in 287 the plebeians were given equal rights politically.

Today we will try and get a clearer idea of the transition from the Logos to a new system, a new creation.

People usually ask first of all: How did it all come into existence? This is probably the hardest question, but one that is frequently asked. All one can do is to give an approximate idea. Above all we must be clear in our minds that it is our rational mind which asks how things came into existence, getting a more or less plausible notion of how one would have created the world if one had been the creator. The rational mind is, however, one of the things that originated in the Logos, and it is clear that the Logos has a far greater conscious awareness. We therefore cannot judge the Logos with our rational human minds and phrase the question like this: Why did the world have to arise out of the Logos? All we can ask is how the emergence of the world from the Logos proceeded, how things arose. We cannot ask why because why would imply compulsion. The process must be an act the Logos has done in freedom, not something done from necessity.

The creative principle of the Logos can only be given in image form.⁷⁸ We imagine an entity and its mirror image. We have to say to ourselves: The mirror image contains everything which is also to be found in this spirit. It looks exactly the same but is not alive; it does not include the principle of life. It will only be possible to understand how the mirror image can grow like the spirit if we consider that the spirit gives its life, its existence, to the mirror image. We have to consider, therefore, that a spirit gives its life to its mirror image. This is the idea of the first sacrifice. Giving up one’s own existence, transferring one’s own life to the mirror image—that is the original sacrifice.

This is exactly how it is with the Logos. The first Logos relates to the second as if we were standing in front of our mirror image and decided to give our own life to the mirror image. Giving one’s life is the original sacrifice made in freedom. It was the deed of the first Logos. The second Logos is exactly the same as the first Logos, except that it has been given existence through sacrifice. If we study the activity of the second Logos we find that its nature is such that it reflects the essential nature of the first Logos back to that first Logos. The second Logos is thus a reflection of the first Logos having been given the life that flowed from the first Logos.

The first Logos produces a reflection, and then gives its life to the mirror image. In the first Logos everything is directed towards the outside, with its existence an influence on the outside. The second Logos has 1) the existence it has received, and 2) the ability to let its content shine back on to the first Logos. We thus have duality in the second Logos. Its life and content are two things. The content is the same as for the first Logos, but its life is somewhat different from the first Logos (Fig. 17).

The line down the middle of the second circle indicates that in the second Logos life and content are two things, that they have been divided. Yet when it comes to content, image and mirror image are the same in either case, whilst life is two things.

This could not yet as such give a cosmic system, for all one would have, would be the relationship of one Logos to the other; there would be no multiplicity. This could only come with a further sacrifice. A further mirroring process had to come in which the relationship of the two was also reflected.

First, the first Logos was reflected once again, then the mirroring was mirrored. This created the third Logos as a reflection of the other two Logoi. The third Logos thus contains:

1. the mirror image of the first Logos
2. the mirror image of what the first Logos brought about in the second, which is its life
3. the mirror image of the content which the second Logos reflects back to the first.

Let us now visualize this (Fig. 18). The first Logos is reflected in a). If the first Logos is creative activity directed to the outside, its mirror image in the third Logos is the exact opposite of the action of the first Logos. In the first Logos, a) is the most sublime light of the world; in the third Logos it is the most extreme spiritual darkness.

b) in the second Logos is the life which the second Logos received from the first. It is not the life which gives itself in sacrifice but the life which has been accepted. The life which sacrifices itself in the first Logos is love. The opposite of this in the third Logos is absolute desire, longing, striving for Logos. In the third Logos, b) is thus absolute desire.

c) in the second Logos is the mirror image of the first Logos reflected by the second Logos.

In our own mirror image we distinguish

1. the image which shone out and comes back out of the darkness
2. what we have given returns as desire
3. the image itself, which we ourselves are

This corresponds to the three parts in the third Logos:

1. spiritual darkness = tamas
2. absolute desire = rajas
3. the simple mirror image of the first Logo = sattwa.

Tamas, rajas and sattwa are the three gunas, the three parts of the third Logos.⁷⁹

First there are a), b) and c). a) on its own is tamas. If a)—spiritual darkness or tamas—combines with b)—rajas, absolute desire—darkness combines with desire and we have a striving for the first Logos. If a) and c)—tamas and sattwa—are combined, we have the image of the first Logos, created out of the darkness. We can also combine b) and c). Each may occur on its own or be combined with one of the others. All three in combination are what the first Logos itself is. We have seven possible combinations of the three gunas (Fig. 19).

These are the seven different guna combinations. Think of these seven possible combinations as the next world-creative principle which may arise from the three gunas. These seven spirits do exist. They are the ‘seven creative spirits before the throne’, the seven creative powers that come after the three Logoi (Fig. 20).

These seven creative powers give rise to what we call the ‘prajapatis’. As each is able to repeat this exactly at subordinate levels of conscious awareness, life and form, we always have three: three times a, three times b, three times c, three times ab, three times ac, three times be, three times abc, making together three times seven = 21 prajapatis. Each of them acts like an original Logos. This gives us the 21 creators of a specific solar system.

The first concept we meet, therefore, is that of sacrifice made in perfect freedom. Once we have it, the question as to why ceases to have significance. Human progress consists in no longer asking this question but moving on to the concept of the creative Logos.

With a mechanical instrument, a watch, for instance, or a machine, we can predict how it will behave. This is somewhat less the case with natural processes, though to a degree it applies. Thus the time of a solar eclipse can be calculated. We may speak of ‘necessity’ in this case. With a plant it will also still be possible to say what it will do under specific conditions. However, the higher we go in the natural world, the more does it become impossible to say what an entity will do in a given situation. The higher a person is with regard to gifts and content, the less will it be possible to predict his actions, for we cannot grasp his reasons and motives. In that case all we can do is wait and see what he will do in a given situation.

In the same way we have to accept the creation of the world as an act done by the Logos in freedom. Progress consist in knowing that when it comes to the universe we do not ask as to the why, and that the question as to the ground or reason is not justifiable. All of those who understood this never spoke of a ground or reason. Jakob Boehme spoke of a ‘source and origin’ of the world.⁸⁰ To progress to insight into the world-creative power, we can only go to the point where we know that our own evolution must have been the goal, for that is where the creator must once have stood. The creator must have everything we possess, but in reverse. Atman is the lowest point within us. The creator has atman as numerous points in his periphery. When the solar system was in its inception, the world-creative Logos had the qualities we have found to be the goal of our evolution—atman, budhi, karana sharira or manas, kama, linga sharira, prana, sthula sharira—all as part of its essential nature.

We need to be clear in our minds as to where the activity of this creative Logos may lie. So we first of all investigate where the different metamorphoses take us. One form metamorphoses is physical, two are astral, two mental and two arupic, making a total of seven. When we have reached the height of the mental plane, we have become karana sharira from outside; we then become budhi and finally atman (Fig. 21, left). When the Earth has reached its goal we will be active on the higher mental plane. The transition then begins which takes us to the next planet. For this, we must have atman on the outside. This means that karana sharira and budhi must also vanish to the outside (Fig. 21, right).

The consequence is that we should not think that nothing happens in the transition to a new planet—pralaya is not inactivity and sleep—but karana sharira and budhi are shed. We must shed karana sharira on the budhi plane and budhi itself on the nirvana plane.

Evolution therefore becomes this (Fig. 22).

Pralaya is a very different kind of activity from that which occurs during a manvantara. To configure a new planetary chain, the spirit must have gone through the budhi and nirvana planes on the other side. The significance of these planes is that on them the spirits go through exactly the same process between planets as human beings do in devachan. There are also great pralayas—maha pralayas. If we follow the metamorphoses of conscious awareness from one planet to another, we get daytime conscious awareness on Earth, dream consciousness on Moon, and so on (Fig. 23).

It is necessary to go through the nirvana plane between one kind of conscious awareness and another. When the highest state of conscious awareness has been reached and atman has shed all vestments, having become truly all-embracing, it will be capable of creating a new solar system. For this, it must first go through two further planes of conscious awareness. By then it has gained a kind of all-vision, it will then be able to have a view of the whole cosmic system.

Our present daytime conscious awareness can have an overview of the mineral world, psychic consciousness can overview life, intellectual conscious awareness sentience, and spiritual conscious awareness of all that is. Atman has then reached its highest level. Atman is all-awareness.

If atman is to shine out, it must first develop the ability to give everything; it must be creative. It does so by vesting itself in budhi and manas. It can then start a new cosmic system on the arupa plane. When conscious awareness will have reached the final level, therefore, it will still have to go through two other planes. The first plane is the one where it does not peel off budhi but adds it; this is called the ‘para nirvana’ plane. The plane on which the entity descends again so that it may be active on the arupa plane, is called ‘mahapara nirvana plane’. Two planes that are in opposite positions correspond. The lowest is the physical, its opposite nirvana. (Fig. 24)

On the astral plane, desire rules, on the para nirvana plane love, budhi. On the mental plane, perception rules, taking in the thought; on the mahapara nirvana plane the creative thought rules. The budhi plane is absolute, loving dedication to the divine. Its opposite is a state of having completely turned away from all that is divine. Where the budhi plane is beatific, its opposite has absolute wretchedness. That is the eighth plane, the eighth sphere.

Imagine a particular entity has turned its back on evolution on some plane or other, going its own way. It would fall into the eighth sphere and would have to wait there until the whole of evolution has gone round. It could only be taken along again, as lowermost entity, in the next evolution. This cosmic ‘compass rose’ (Fig. 24) shows the opposites very well.

When we have arrived on the nirvana plane, the entity will have reached the point where its atman is completely on the outside. We are then dealing with the kind of Logos which we have called ‘the seven’. These are the seven creative spirits, which is also why we have seven different races [the ‘root races’, with seven sub-races each].

The seven different spirits belong to the nirvana plane. Going through the para nirvana plane and the manapara nirvana plane then, we come to the first and second Logos itself. The second arises on the para nirvana plane, the first on the mahapara nirvana plane. On the nirvana plane the cosmic system is brought to completion by the 7 times 3 = 21 prajapatis. The last of these is abc, the third Logos itself. Only the first Logos is able to take up again anything which has fallen into the eighth sphere. It takes it along with the cosmic dust. To be cast out from evolution is to link one’s life to something which inexorably remains behind, without fail, and to wait until evolution once again coincides with the state in question. A native of an uncilivilized wild place with the soul of such a native is relatively happy; but imagine a more highly developed spirit in the body of such a native or even a dog—that is banishment indeed. The higher soul has taken the road to a lower manifestation. To ‘go into the eighth sphere’ does indeed mean to be no longer progressing in accord with evolution, to be unable to participate in the evolution of the others, but to be cast back to a lower level.

Conscious awareness is perception up to the nirvana plane. From then on it is no longer mere perception but inner activity. On the para nirvana plane it is activity directed to the outside. On the mahapara nirvana plane it is the creative conscious mind of the Logos. This moves on from there through the eighth sphere and on to the physical plane, where it becomes the creative powers of nature. In reality these give expression to divine thoughts which appear to us as powers or forces because we do not have the overview.

• 78. See also part 2 in this volume. Also lecture given in Karlsruhe on 4 February 1907; The Structure of the Lord’s Prayer from GA 97; tr. A. H. Parker; London: Rudolf Steiner Press 1971; also in The Christian Mystery, Hudson: Anthroposophic Press 1998.
• 79. The teaching of the three gunas tamas, rajas and sattva is the foundation of the sankhya philosophy in the Vedanta system. See Rudolf Steiner’s lecture of 18 December 1912, in The Bhagavad Gita and the Epistles of Paul, GA 142; tr. L. D. Monges, D. M. Bugbey; New York: Anthroposophic Press 1971.
• 80. In ‘Aurora oder Morgenroete im Aufgang’, 23. Kapitel, Verse 1-6, in Sämtliche Werke, herausgegeben von K. W. Schibler, 6 Bde, Leipzig 1831–1846, Bd 2, S. 268.