The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Archetypal Self from whom we have proceeded
Primal Self who lives in all things
To you, you higher Self, we return.

To this we add the verse that expresses how this primal Self works on man, how it appears to men:

Truth, wisdom, immeasurablity, O God,
Bliss, eternity, beauty,
Peace blessedness, undividedness
On me
Peace, peace, peace.

The nature of the Trinity is expressed in the first part, and at the end the way in which this Trinity sinks down into a man's soul.

Mantra:

Primal Self from which everything proceeded
To which everything returns
Primal Self that lives in me
Towards you I strive.
AUM-peace, peace, peace, AUM.

Everything proceeded from this higher Self, even human bodies. We should not think that there's anything lowly or of little value in the world. Everything is divine. Even a grain of sand is something that came from the Godhead. In minerals we see the thoughts of the Godhead that have become form. The Godhead's thought comes to expression in all mineral forms.

Aside from form the Godhead also poured out its life in plants.

In addition to their life the Godhead has also poured feeling into animals and man's form and lower soul. Everything around us is an expression of God's power.

A man's body is the most perfect thing that the Godhead created for him. Man's body is the most perfect form that the Gods developed. It's an instrument through which man's soul looks out into the world. The human body is equipped in a wonderful way. Man's body is supposed to be a sacred temple for his soul. But the soul is not yet perfected. It's just beginning to develop. Man's body makes no mistakes; it's the imperfect soul that's constantly making them. Passions, desires, and drives live in it, and it uses the body to satisfy these desires.

But just as there are senses in man's body through which the soul looks out into the world, so organs will also gradually develop in the soul that will make it ever more perfect. Such organs are already developing in the soul.

We find a mighty drive in the animal kingdom that's independent of sense organs. If one brings a foreign pair of butterflies to Germany and releases the male in Frankfurt and the female say in Magdeburg, the two will reunite without fail. They do this with special organs that are even finer than sense organs. If we meet a total stranger whom we feel a great sympathy for, as happens between man and wife and also between friends, then this is a sign that these people belong together and that they have soul organs that tell them this and bring them together.

Men will develop such soul organs ever more as they purify their astral body and ennoble their other bodies. It's quite important to consider which foods are good for or harmful to higher development. Not everyone is in a position to pick out the foods that are favorable for his occult development. Sometimes it's better to renounce things that promote us inwardly. But it's nevertheless true that some foods have qualities that do not help men. A man must develop certain organs for his higher development. To this end certain concentrations are done in yoga exercises. When a man concentrates on a point between the eyes at the root of the nose with the thought “I am” he develops the organ that we call the two-petaled lotus flower and that makes him into an “I”. An animal can't say “I” to himself. When man's forebrain developed, the organ of the I was put into man's head at the root of the nose. The I lives there in man. But in animals the I is outside in front of the head and not in the skull. In animals it lives in the astral world. For instance all dogs have an ego in the astral world. In dogs a red stream from the astral plane streams in at the place where we have the organ of the I, and in a dog this ego becomes manifest in lower desires. In man the I streams out of this place.

But it isn't enough that the organ of the ego is developed in man. So that the higher self can stream into him to make him into a higher being, we find the organ for this where a vertical line from the top of the head crosses a horizontal line through the root of the nose, or a little above it. This organ is the pineal gland. Man makes a connection with the divine self in the world through the pineal gland. A third higher organ, the 16-petaled lotus flower, lies in man's larynx, and a fourth organ, the 12-petaled lotus is in the heart region. A man must choose his foods wisely so that these organs can develop in the right way. What's good for his inner development is what's connected with an animal's life process, namely, milk and what's made from it, and in plants what grows towards the sun above the ground.

A plant is an inverted man. When the sun was still united with the earth a plant's flowers stuck into the sun and its roots turned outwards. After the sun left the earth plants turned around and chastely turned their flow towards the sun with their roots in the earth. An animal is a half inverted plant, and man is a completely inverted plant since he turns all the organs that a plant turns towards the sun, away from it. Man's root, head or brain, is turned towards the sun. Plant, animal and man together form a cross.

Subterranean plant parts that are turned away from the sun aren't good for occult development, whereas everything that grows upward is good for men, especially fruit and grain that a plant gives us without us having to destroy it. Beans, lentils and other leguminous fruit pollute the etheric body (nitrogen). Milk is good for men because it's connected with an animal's life process and animals give it voluntarily. Whereas meat obtained by killing animals is bad for occult development, and so are all salts.

The higher self can enter a man if he prepares himself through a selfless life and through purification of his body. It's not enough to retreat within. The higher self is not in man at first but outside in nature and in his older brothers, the masters and leaders of mankind. From there it must go into him. Then he's overcome by the peace that's higher than all reason. That's what the formula: Truth, wisdom, immeasurability, O God ... refers to.

Satyam jnanam anantam brahma
Anandarupam amritam bibharti
Shatam sivam advaitam
Om, shantih, shantih, shantih.

A man is always destroying living things. He kills when he breathes. No living creature could exist on earth if only men who exhale carbon dioxide lived on it. The gas that a man exhales pollutes the atmosphere. It is lethal for all living things. Plants exhale oxygen and thereby enable live things to exist.

When the earth was still at the old Moon stage there was no human kingdom such as the one we have. The whole Moon was a kind of a plant being like a peat bog, soft and alive. The beings who are now men developed out of this plant-mineral earth. This plant porridge also contained present plants and animals. There was an intermediate kingdom between these two: animal-plants had sensation. There was a plant kingdom on old Moon, higher than the present mineral kingdom, an animal-plant kingdom of sentient plants, and a kingdom of man-animals, higher than the present animal kingdom and lower than the present human kingdom.

Creatures on this old Moon mainly lived in a nitrogen atmosphere. The Moon was surrounded by it, and it perished from an excess of nitrogen. The mushrooms that now still live on a more plantlike soil are remnants of the animal-plant kingdom that was present on old Moon. Since they contain much nitrogen they're not good for occult development. Parasitic mistletoe is another remnant of that kingdom.

After old Moon had perished from its atmosphere everything went through a pralaya, re-emerged, and present earth evolution began. Then after awhile everything that wasn't favorable for further evolution split off and formed the present moon. Other kingdoms developed out of the Moon kingdoms on earth. So that present plants could arise, one part of the plant-mineral kingdom had to be pushed down a stage, and the present mineral kingdom gradually arose through consolidation and hardening of the same. Men had not been able to perceive the world objectively on old Moon, but now that the plant-mineral kingdom had descended and the present mineral kingdom formed gradually it became objectively visible. It was only through the solidification that it could now reflect light and there was a world that became visible for physical eyes. This is what the biblical story about the creation of light refers to. All heavenly bodies that can be seen in a telescope have solidified to the mineral stage. But there are many more heavenly bodies than those we can see minerally.

Plants not only live from the mineral world, but also from the light that is reflected by the mineral kingdom. And just as plants live from this light, so men and animals live on the oxygen that plants exhale. The animal-plants of old Moon went down a step on one side and up a step on the other side. That's why animals can live from plants' oxygen. Physically oxygen is what otherwise lives in a plant as its etheric body.

Men-animals also split into two kingdoms, into the two sexes. This split gives rise to the human love that initially is still physical. Man can lift himself into the Gods' realm through this love. They lived from men's physical love just as men and animals live from the oxygen that plants emanate, and as plants live from light that's radiated back from the mineral kingdom. The nectar and ambrosia that the Gods feed on is the love of men and women. Man's ascent takes place through the overcoming of physical love, the regulation of the breathing process, and the development of kundalini light. First the overcoming of physical love. A separation of the previously unisexual man into two sexes was necessary so that the intellect could develop in man. Man was split into a higher spiritual nature and a lower animal one. It's an ascent when a man overcomes the forces of physical love and transforms them into higher, more spiritual forces through his own inner soul force. Secondly, a man who wants to develop higher must give up the forces that he takes from plants. Man uses up the vital oxygen that plants exhale through his breathing process. The breath becomes purer through rhythmization of the breathing process and inner soul work, so that what a man exhales contains less carbon dioxide. Then the air around him isn't used up as fast, and he doesn't take away so much oxygen or vital substance from other living beings. To attain this as much as possible Indian yogis withdraw into caves, where they breathe as little oxygen as possible. They can do that because their breath is so pure from soul work that they can live a long time without intake of outer air. The more spiritualized a man is the longer he can live in his own air and the less carbon dioxide he exhales.

The breath of a materialist ruins much more air than that of an idealist. Modern materialists can't live without a continual supply of fresh air. A man out in the country brings a certain rhythm into his life through his life with nature. Thereby the air that he exhales becomes better, whereas the city air gets full of poison through men's immorality. Plants stream out pure air, oxygen. They're pure, selfless, without desire, and that's why a man feels good among plants. But a continual supply of fresh air actually has an unfavorable effect on occult development, because one thereby takes too much life from plants. An esoteric learns to control his breathing process, and thereby he can have moments when he doesn't participate in the destructive process that's brought about by breathing. Thirdly a man learns to radiate back the light that the mineral kingdom reflects. He develops kundalini light and radiates it into the world, thereby giving light back to it—the light of the human kingdom. A man doesn't know what an important instrument he has in his organism. He knows the rest of the world better than he knows himself. He can in fact develop wonderful capacities.

A man has an organ in himself that fills with air when he inhales and loses this air when he exhales. It fills up with outside air right into its finest branches on inhalation. But spirit lives in the air around us. When a man inhales he breathes spirit in, and when he exhales he puts some of the spirit that lives in him into the exhaled air. The spirit develops in him ever more and also outside in the world through the rhythmicized, spirit-filled breath. The spiritual man's growth is promoted through breathing in and out. The most important thing is the spirit that a man puts into his exhaled breath. The spirit is built up by thoughts. A man builds up and streams out his spirit through every thought that he gives along with the exhalation. Man didn't always have an organ to inhale air. Beings breathed fire instead of air on old Moon. Just as we breathe oxygen in and out, so they breathed fire in and cold out. Future men will no longer breathe air. Just as a man prepares his warmth by feeding his warmth organ, the heart, with the blood circulation, through air streaming in from outside, so he will later have an inner air organ through which his organism will be supplied with what we now take in from the atmosphere. A man prepares his own warmth, that on old Moon had been directly sucked in from the environment by the beings there. A man will be able to elaborate the used up air in his interior. Later on he'll no longer live in an outer air. On Jupiter he'll live in light and inhale light just as we inhale air now and inhaled warmth on old Moon.

Overcoming of physical love or development of astral body and transformation into spirit self, ennoblement of animal kingdom ... wisdom

Rhythmization of breathing or development of the etheric body and transformation into life spirit, elevation of the plant kingdom ... beauty

Radiation of kundalini or development of physical body, transformation into spirit man, elevation of mineral kingdom ... power

When all of this has happened the mineral kingdom will pass over into a kind of plant kingdom, then the latter into an animal kingdom, etc. until the next round.

Today we'll try to get a little closer to the nature of the three Logoi. Many Theosophists speak about these things before they know much theosophy. This can only bring confusion and harm. If the higher consciousness isn't awakened in a man, he can't really form an idea about the three Logoi. And yet one can prepare the soul for right vision in the future by making the right pictures. All spiritual things make an imprint on the physical world also. So we'll look at the things in the physical world that correspond to these high forces.

People usually say that a man has five senses. Occultism only names three, namely smell, sight and hearing. Taste and the warmth sense lie between these. When I smell something I take very fine particles of the particular substance into my nose. Therefore in smell I perceive matter itself. But when I see with my eyes I only perceive an image of the object that's produced by a chemical process in the eye. Taste is a sense in between smell and sight. Although I take parts of the object into myself when I taste it, I don't perceive these parts directly as in smell, for I must first subject them to a chemical process to taste them. In hearing I perceive air vibrations and no objects. I also perceive particular oscillations when I feel warmth, but then my whole body perceives, whereas in hearing the perception of oscillations takes place in an organ that's especially developed for this.

The three Logoi are related to these three senses. The third Logos is so selfless that he lets his being resound through the world. The second streams himself out in pictures. The first Logos lets his own body stream out. That is the highest grade of selflessness, when one can let one's own essence flow out.

At the beginning of the world the first Logos began to let his being stream out; a fragrance filled world space. Let the world aroma be the first Logos. All material things originated from his body. He is the aroma of the world. Then the second Logos began to stream out and he wove pictures and forms into the world aroma. The world began to take on form; light and colors lit up. Then the third Logos sounded through the developing world. World aroma flowed in space, wonderful forms lit up, and the sounds of the third Logos surged through this shimmering, fragrant world.

Thus we can look upon the whole world around us as an outflow of the three Logoi and thereby gradually press forward to their true nature. Now a Logos does not work by himself—the three live and weave completely in each other so that each of the three also expresses himself in the other two. But we can't perceive the effects of the three equally well, because they stream out at different times.

When our chain of planets first saw the light the streaming out of the third Logos began. And his sound will only die out when our planet chain will have reached the end of its development. But the waves of the two other Logoi didn't first stream out at the beginning of our world chain, they came over to us from previous world evolutions. The flow waves of these two have a longer duration than those of the third Logos. But before our planetary chain reached its goal on the Sun, the streaming of the second had ended, and a new outstreaming began. This new outstreaming is what really belongs to our planetary system at which we too are working. Long before the new radiation of the second Logos had fully streamed out it prepared itself. It was such preparatory streams that brought Buddha, Zoroaster, Hermes and other founders of religion into the world. When the light of the second Logos shone in a preparatory way for the last time, it shone the brightest, and that was in Christ Jesus. When it shines again now it's the second Logos himself who radiates out his being anew.

The flow wave of the first Logos is even longer than that of the second one. When the second Logos has already been flowing along for some time, the first one's radiation is just dying away and begins his new outraying, that then only really belongs to our planetary chain. Thus the third Logos becomes the most clearly perceptible to us. He sounds loud and clear, and if we want to characterize his nature we say that he has a clear, vocalic sound: A.

The first and second Logoi also sound along in the third one, the first and third radiate as pictures in the second Logos, and the second and third Logoi stream out their aroma in the first Logos. But to begin with only the interactions of the first and second are discernable in the third Logos for us. Now if we can hear the clear, loud A of the third Logos, the sound of the second Logos can also be heard in there.

Since our second Logos is still developing, his tone still sounds dull and yet vocalically full, like U. Our first Logos who only arises in the future sounds along like a quiet, humming undertone as a dully consonantic M. Thus we have the sound of the most sublime powers expressed in AUM. That's the goal towards which we are all striving: to participate in the essence of these very sacred world forces. A human soul only has value for world evolution to the extent that it participates in these powers: AUM

The third Logos, sound, is entirely on the physical plane. We can generate sounds and take them in. Later on a man will be able to place the pictures of the outer world he receives via his eyes outside again as forms via his pineal gland and blood that he'll then have under control. He'll generate oxygen himself and convert the blue blood that goes to the heart into red blood without the use of outside air. And he'll give it for the creation of pictures and forms. When he's become still more selfless he'll be able to give out his own substances and create beings out of it by means of the pituitary gland and place them outside.

Let's make it clear to ourselves what's really brought about by meditation. Streams of spiritual life are always flowing through the world. These streams can't flow into us when we're thinking about everyday things. But our meditation words are like portals that are to lead us into the spiritual world. They have the strength to open up our soul so that the thoughts of our great leaders, the masters of wisdom and of the harmony of feelings can stream into us. For this to happen the deepest quiet must reign in us. We must realize that meditation is a very intimate soul activity. So we should let the meditation words given to us by our teacher live in our soul right after we wake up and before other thoughts have gone through our soul. But we shouldn't look upon them as stuff to speculate on and philosophize about; we should think as little as possible about their meaning and significance. We have enough time for reflection the rest of the day. We should hold that off completely while meditating. We shouldn't repeat the words meaninglessly but should be clear that the words open our soul to the instreaming of divine beings, just as a flower opens and lets in sunlight. High spiritual beings whom we call masters stream down to us. We should realize that it's mainly they who guide us and are near to us in meditation. We should also know that they walk on earth incarnated in a physical body. Thus we should let the meditation words live in our soul without pondering about them; rather we should try to grasp the words' spiritual content with our feelings and to permeate ourselves completely with it. The power of these words doesn't just lie in the thoughts, but also in their rhythm and sound. We should listen to this, and if we shut out all sensorial things we can say that we should revel in the sound of the words. Then the spiritual world sounds into us. Since so much depends on the sound of the words one can't translate a meditation formula into a foreign language without further ado. The mediation formulas we received in the German language were brought down from the spiritual world directly for us. Every formula has the greatest effect in the original language. When an East Indian wants to give the highest expression to his reverence for the Godhead who reveals himself in three Logoi, he summarizes his feeling in three times three words that describe the activity of the three Logoi:

But the whole wealth of spiritual strength is only reproduced if the words are said in Sanskrit, the original language. Then one hears how even the air resonates:

The same applies to the Lord's Prayer. Spoken in German, practically the only thing that's effective is the underlying thought. The Latin Pater noster has a better effect, but the whole power and fullness only come to expression in the original Aramaic.

So we should hear our way entirely into the sound of the words. With the word schoepfen (create, also means to scoop, drink) we should have an idea that's as graphic as possible, as if one were dipping out of one vessel into another. All of our thoughts should be as pictorial and as full of content as possible. While meditating the meditation words should receive inner life, but we should exclude all spatial ideas and cling entirely to our senses. For there's spatial perception on the physical plane but not in the astral world. But the color, light, sound, aroma and so on that are connected with the senses are also present in the astral world. That's why in meditation we should try to awaken a sensory idea that's as clear and full of content as possible. Spiritual beings express their nature in colors, sounds, aromas and everything that the senses perceive, and they flow into us when we connect ourselves with sensations. The first Logos streams on as a directly perceptible aroma. A being of a higher or lower nature lives in every odor. Very high, god beings live in incense; they draw us up directly to God. The lowest kind of beings are incarnated in musk scent. People who know about such things use musk for sensual attraction. Spiritual beings also live in sounds and colors, “In pure rays of light ...” One should get a bright, luminous mental image, one should see and feel how luminous streams flow down to one. Every meditation formula is equipped with strength to awaken slumbering forces. But if one always longs for new exercises one destroys the exercise's force and doesn't get its fruit.

In some elementary esoteric schools a pupil is told to think nothing but glass, glass, glass for 15 minutes every day, for instance. If he succeeds in really keeping all other thoughts out of his soul during this time, then his soul becomes quite empty and pure, and the forces slumbering in it awaken, if other influences aren't too strong. But our meditation formulas contain great spiritual forces; they are portals to the spiritual world. The exercises get ever simpler the more a pupil progresses.

We should never let a feeling of regret arise when we let the pictures of the day pass by us in reverse order. We shouldn't wish that we had been better, we should want to get better. We should think: I couldn't do otherwise back then, but now I can do it better and I will do it better in future. With every experience we should ask: Did I do it right; couldn't I have done it better? We should look at ourselves as a stranger, as if we looked at and criticized ourselves from outside. It's very important to be able to remember little details in our daily life. A general who won a big battle has a picture of it before his eyes that evening. But he forgot how he put his boots on and took them off again. If we see ourselves walking down a street we should try to remember how the rows of house ran, which store windows we passed, the people we met, how they and we looked. Then we see ourself going into a store and we recall which sales lady came towards us, what she had on, how she spoke, moved, etc. We must make a big effort to recall such details, and this strengthens the soul's forces.

With practice one can get to the point where the whole day's life runs through the soul, clear as wall paintings with all details in five minutes. This exercise is useless for someone who runs through the day superficially and just registers the events colorlessly. If a man walks a stretch and wants to bring this back he can stand still and try to remember what's behind him. Or he can turn around and look at where he's gone. If a period of time has passed we can initially only recall this with our memory and can't look back at the period of time that has elapsed. But this looking back that we only know in connection with space is also possible in time, and we learn to do it by trying to let the last day pass before us as clearly as possible in perceptible pictures. No event of the past is entirely gone, they're all there in the Akashic record. This is the only way one learns to read it. Initially one only sees things that concern oneself from this, and gradually also other things. That's why the evening retrospect is such an important, indispensable exercise.

An esoteric will gradually notice that his memory is worsening, until it disappears, but it will be replaced by the ability to see the past directly.

The subsidiary exercises strengthen the pupil's soul character, bring it into the right form, and make the results of meditation good. If one chooses a match for the first exercise one has to make a real effort to think about this at least five times every day. It's this effort that awakens the soul's forces. What does a match look like? What kinds of matches exist? How are they made? For what are they used? Where are they stored? What harm can they do? etc. After awhile one will get a feeling of inner certainty and firmness after the exercise. One should pour this into one's head and spinal cord, as if it were water.

Initiative in actions is the second exercise. One chooses actions that one wouldn't have done otherwise and one does them every day at a particular time. Simple exercises that one has to force oneself to do are the most effective to start with. Here again one soon notices a feeling of firmness and the urge to be active. One should pour this feeling like water down from the head to the heart to incorporate it completely.

In the third period one begins to put an end to all fluctuations in one's soul life. All rejoicing up to heaven—saddened to death must disappear. No pain should depress one, no joy should bring one outside of oneself. Fear, excitement and lack of composure must disappear. Thereby a feeling of quiet equanimity becomes noticeable like an inner warmth. One concentrates this feeling in the heart and lets it radiate from there into hands and feet, and then towards the head. After the third period one develops what one calls positivity in one's soul. One also tries to see the good and beautiful in the worst, ugliest and most terrible things, as the Persian legend about Christ tells us. One day one will have a feeling of inner bliss. One concentrates this in the heart, lets it radiate to the head and then out through the eyes.

In the fifth period one practices never letting one's future be determined by the past. One must become entirely unbiased, take in everything, open one's soul. If someone says to one: The church steeple turned last night, one shouldn't laugh at him but should think: Maybe there's a law of nature that I don't know yet. Then one will soon get the feeling that something is streaming into one from the space outside. One sucks this in through eyes, ears and the whole skin, as it were. Then in the sixth period all five exercises should be done at once, to give a harmonious blend. One should also try not to take too much time in doing the morning meditation and the evening review.

One who wants to become a real esoteric should realize that he attains something now that all men will attain later. And he must be clearly aware that great tasks will be given him someday, that he'll be used for the further development of mankind in the future. This thought, this goal must live in him entirely, otherwise he's not an esoteric in the true sense. And if he develops himself into the future like this his eyes will also be opened about the past, and then the present becomes understandable out of the future and past. Thereby past, present and future become harmoniously united. The great masters put this into the sacred syllable AUM. That's one of many interpretations that can be given to this syllable. When we speak this syllable the great masters are here with us and the air resounds with the spiritual power of these sounds: AUM

From notes B: Mercury staff/snake of evil and of good that guides man in the overcoming of evil through his own power through knowledge (Mercury).

Asuras are spirits of the very greatest egoism who remained behind during Saturn evolution. They want to condense matter and compress it ever more so that it can't be spiritualized and brought back to its original condition. They're the dregs of the planetary evolution that goes form Saturn to Vulcan. The asuras inhabit the moon and from there they work on the men whom they want to drag down into the eighth sphere and thereby tear away from progressive evolution and its goal—the Christ. All those who strive towards the eighth sphere will eventually live on a moon.

AUM. One wards off bad influences when one says it in the right way; it connects man with the creating Godhead, the three Logoi. The evil beings who want to tear men away from the Godhead can't stand it. AUM must be spoken with the awareness:

A is atma, U is buddhi, M is the wisdom that directs the higher self to AUM.

In November 1879 Michael conquered the spirit of hindrances, Mammon, on the astral plane. The battle must still be fought out on the physical plane. Michael will fight with the spirit of darkness for another 400 years. We pupils of the school are called upon to spread light and spiritual life during this time. Mammon, the spirit of hindrances and darkness, has countless helpers who are often incorporated in bacteria and bacilli; all perversities and sins are from him.

The rejection of spiritual wisdom is a sin against the Holy Spirit.

Gabriel transformed men's brains and an organ developed in the forehead that should be used. If no spiritual content flowed into it this part of the brain would wither, giving rise to infectious diseases and pestilence. Spiritual science was kept secret under Gabriel. This science is suppose to stream out into the open under Michael. Brains are already worked on in the mother's body. When we look at an outside object it sends light (through Michael) into our eyes, and this creates a mirror image in the brain. The resulting mental image enables us to perceive the object consciously. In meditation we have to create the mental image without an outer object. Through the pictures that we create for ourselves the force of what we've made a picture of can stream into us. We can create such imaginations more easily through the forces that we take into us in esoteric classes. We should take in such teachings with hearty feelings.

Saturn forces work on the sense organs. The terrible degenerations that we see in sexual things will get much worse when Saturn rules the earth 400 years from now. It's a matter of training warriors to combat sensual things. We're called upon to train ourselves so that we can fight this battle. Michael needs hosts of helpers to fight out on the physical plane what he's already overcome on the astral plane. That's the great task that we have to fulfill.

In pure thoughts you find the self that can maintain itself.

Pure thoughts are ones that don't refer to perceptible things, but to basic theosophical teachings about man's make-up, existence between death and life, earth evolution, etc. Pure thoughts give man sure inner support, whereas purely material thinking leads to instability and nervousness. Meditation leads to a loosening of the astral from the etheric and of this from the physical body. This loosening can be dangerous unless pure, logical thinking is practiced. The way of looking at things on the astral and devachanic planes is quite different from the one on the physical plane, so that one can easily get confused there; only thinking logic remains the same; one should cultivate this. Thereby certainty is gained in outer and inner life. Strong people will only listen to their inner voice, whereas weak people will always listen to others' advice.

If you convert the thoughts to a picture you'll experience creating wisdom. (Jachin and Boaz)

The pure thought should change into a picture, create a picture. For example, one can imagine how a plant turns its flower to the sun and that man is an inverted plant. Imagine how the fine substance of a plant is gradually converted into flesh and thereby took in passions and desires. Man should not try to become plantlike and spiritual again and to free himself from all the slags of the astral body, until it's gotten to the point where it becomes creative through the word that it utters.

Another exercise that makes abstract ideas into mobile and living pictures is to imagine the old Moon as a kind of peat of living spinach containing woody bark that corresponds to our present mountain chains. Likewise imagine the old Sun as being full of life and spiritual development. Then more recently the sun left the earth-moon so that men wouldn't spiritualize too fast, and then the moon left so they wouldn't rigidify and scleroticize. Thereby an equilibrium was attained. Everything that was created by the Godhead was first there as a picture, just as a painter has a spiritual picture in his mind's eye before he puts it on canvas.

If you condense feeling to light you'll reveal the forming force.

If for instance one feels that the sun is spirit and creative joy, and the moon is something cold, coarse, contracting and scleroticized, then the latter will produce a light phenomenon that goes from orange to red into brown, whereas in the sun the feeling condenses to a light phenomenon that goes from blue through violet to reddish violet. If this phenomenon becomes ever more intense the beings who are the bearers of this light appear in the colors and take on forms and shapes.

If you concretize will to beings you'll create in world existence.

Once man's will—that's now impure and little developed—has become stronger, he'll be able to create with it. If he can think himself into the future condition of the earth and work with the world directors, his will helps to bring about this new condition and is co-creative in world existence. If all men didn't want our earth to become Jupiter, it couldn't happen—although this would be black magic. This is just mentioned to show how mighty and powerful man's will is and will become.

These four mantras correspond to pure thinking, Imagination, Inspiration and Intuition.

What we aspire to in esoteric life is the attainment of a different, higher state of consciousness than is the one we are in now. We are looking to reach a state that would only occur—with the ordinary course of things—on Jupiter. In a different way, of course, this condition occurs in the occult pupil, who undergoes the development in advance, than in the Jupiter man. Jupiter man will have a very different physical body than we possess today.

There are states in everyday consciousness in all people reminiscent of the moon's state and others in which the state of Jupiter protrudes. When the pubic blush kicks us in the face, we repeat a piece of lunar condition. Why this? On the moon, we didn't have blood yet. But we know that blood is the expression of our self. On the old moon, all the forces that work in our blood today were outside ours. There was not yet a feeling of me in us. If we blush out of shame, we would like to say: Oh I wouldn't be, I soak into the earth.—In doing so, we are pushing the blood outwards, as it were, passing our self off.

Another condition that points to Jupiter is the one that occurs when we feel fright, fear by fading. What is happening? We push our blood for the heart to strengthen our self. We do this instinctively to make ourselves strong, to avert a danger from us. On Jupiter, the heart will become an arbitrary muscle—at will we can amplify our self. For in fact, on Jupiter, events and Beings will confront us in which we have absolutely necessity to strengthen our self-consciousness. But we must seek to reach a state where we protect our self in exactly the same way as with the feeling of anxiety, without having a sense of anxiety.

If we take a deep breath and hold our breath, we recap a piece of lunar condition. If, on the other hand, we leave our breath outside, we have a piece of Jupiter's state in it. This is related to whether the secret student gets exercises in which he has to hold his breath, because in a way he has to go through the moon state, or whether he gets exercises in which he has to leave his breath outside, because he can thus reach the Jupiter state. Everyone has to be treated individually. We know that the flow of humanity is already splitting in two parts, the one that passes into the good, the moral, and the other that ends into the chilling, evil. Such conditions are already starting to take place, the germs are already present. So everything that is today in machines, instruments in the world and set in motion, on which Jupiter becomes terrible, horrifying demons. Anything that serves only the principle of usefulness will once become such terrible powers. Paralyzed, this can become when we transform the usefulness apparatus into those that, in addition to its usefulness, proclaim above all the beauty, the divine. It is very good that we know this. Otherwise, such powers would tear the Earth apart. We also see how enormously important it is that in the education of the child we surround the same thing with artistic impressions. Art frees up. Even the locomotive must once be converted into a machine that is beautiful.—Our feelings of fear and anxiety are food for other evil beings. We do not have to give rise to such ideas. Because on Jupiter, such demons are surrounded us in far greater numbers than they are now. But for whom there is nothing to fear in this respect, who, like a clever man, keeps his shell pure, so that no flies can accumulate around the dirt. The astral plan is actually a wisdom region; [Also the world of the physical]. It was only by having selfishness descended into them with the individual I that disorder has entered them. A certain piece now in the cosmos has descend on the physical plan at this point in time, as it were as a premature birth. These are the comets. In them we still find the laws of wisdom. Therefore, the wonderful tracks in which they measure the celestial space. And a clash with our Earth's body can therefore only be assumed by materialistic astronomy.

The secret pupil must all know these things—for without knowing he would not get any further; He will one day have to understand this.

Man receives the moon consciousness on Jupiter to Earth consciousness. He approaches spiritualization.

One who understands the working of these numbers

When something was supposed to be given to a Rosicrucian pupil through which he could elevate himself, then the above verse and figures were placed before his soul. These figures are nothing abstract but must be permeated with one's feeling and intellect if one wants to understand them. If this happens in the right way the pupil experiences truths that are of the greatest importance for his further development. The point is the point of life from which all evolution proceeds. All life proceeds from a unity and goes over into manifoldness. Plurality springs from unity.

Everything that's around us on earth comes from man. Nature is a spread out, dismantled man. Mineral, plant and animal are found in him. All qualities that a man has are found scattered in the kingdoms of nature. Man is the crown of creation. All existing things come from man.

In the second row we see how evolution proceeds in large numbers. But plurality must bring it about that a unity arises again from it. This happened in the middle of the Atlantean race when man acquired his I. Man was still relatively simple then. Today he's already much more complicated.

In the third row we see symbols for earth, water, air and fire. The first element is contained most purely in carbon today. Man exhales carbon dioxide; this is taken in by plants and is found solidified in coal and diamonds.

The second element, water, isn't found on earth in its original condition—it's what we call oxygen. People used to drink oxygen like we drink water today. If we only had carbon and oxygen on earth we'd get old very fast. Oxygen has the ability to let everything live very rapidly and to constantly renew things.

That's why the third element, air, had to be added. It's the present nitrogen, which dampens life. Without nitrogen's influence there would be no consciousness; astrality couldn't become manifest.

The fourth element is fire. Fire plays a big role in occultism. It's the warmth element. All four elements intermingle. We maintain our own warmth with the help of fire. Self-consciousness wouldn't be possible without it. We have the physical expression of our I, blood, through it. A combustion process takes place. Thereby man has become a being with self-consciousness, as can be seen from the first symbol in the fourth row: the sulfur process. The second symbol consists of the moon, sun and the ego as an appendix. The third symbol signifies the division of the physical and etheric bodies that were originally similar; then the physical body condenses and the finer etheric body remains outside, surrounding it. This is similar to what happens when salt is dissolved: first there's a milky fluid from which salt precipitates, leaving the finer water above: the salt process. The hexagram in the fifth row represents the double nature of man that is intertwined, and the last upside down Venus is man's “I” that surpasses all other creatures.

You'll remember the esoteric saying that stood on one of our columns at the Munchen congress:

In pure thoughts you find the self
That can maintain itself.

The truth in this verse makes up a large part of esoteric life. One can divide everything that a man thinks and feels today into two areas. By far the most of what men think and feel is stimulated by outer perceptions. Thoughts and feelings are ignited by things. In principle it makes no difference whether you see a streetcar and let your thoughts be stimulated by this or if an astronomer looks through a telescope and calculates a planet's path on the basis of these observations with the help of the arc of a circle. All thoughts that are stimulated from outside hinder the astral body's development. The astral body is active all night long. All the thoughts that a man thought during the day come to it. And since these are mostly thoughts that arose through stimulation from outside, they burden it. Only the part of the astral body that preserved its harmony through the fact that it's born out of higher worlds works on the restoration of the worn out physical and etheric bodies. Only thoughts that aren't stimulated from outside work as forces in the astral body to promote and purify it.

Where do these thoughts come from? They come from divine creator beings. It's very important for an occult pupil to know about the thoughts of these spiritually creative beings. These beings had the present world in them as thoughts before they created it. The very first thing that was in them was will; the will to act was there first. This stimulated them to have feelings. And from feelings arose the thought by which they solidified and created things. Thus the world was built according to thoughts.

Today the carrying out of a human deed occurs in the reverse order. The thought is there first—stimulated by an outer object; this arouses a feeling, and only then does a man's will principle step in to bring about a deed.

All real esoteric life can only develop by taking in the thoughts of these divine creator spirits, the thoughts before the creation of things. Most people devote themselves entirely to exoteric life and try to suppress all esoteric life. Thereby they're holding up human progress. They're enemies of further development and they rigidify men. Only esoteric truths promote human evolution.

Now it's a law of occultism that every esoteric truth is used up after awhile. And mankind's leaders must see to it that a new one is proclaimed. So what do we need a new truth for, some say. They want to stop all esoteric progress. It's the task of all true occultists to see to it that thinking is kept alive and in flux. This is attained by taking in the thoughts of divine creator beings. These thoughts work at night in the astral body and work into the etheric body. And when the work of these thoughts in the astral body becomes ever stronger and more active with respect to the etheric body, then that moment approaches that must come sooner or later for every pupil where he becomes aware of spiritual worlds, where thoughts become impressed in the etheric body like a seal in wax.

One of these thoughts is in the Rosicrucian verse that we spoke of last time. Today we'll look at this verse from a somewhat different viewpoint. We know that Saturn existed first. Its matter wasn't even gaseous, it was a warmth matter. A man with present-day senses would not have seen Saturn; he would only have felt warmth if he was at the place where Saturn stood. A Saturn man consisted of warmth mater. The atmosphere of Saturn was fiery-bloody. Man didn't have any blood yet, but the first germ of his later blood lay in the atmosphere around him. Man's physical parts were only germinally present.

If one looks at how after a pralaya old Saturn changed into old Sun with the spiritual gaze that moves over the planets one notices that Saturn's warmth atmosphere condenses into air. Man gets an etheric body on the Sun. He is a shining being. Spiritual beings work through the Sun's astral atmosphere upon the etheric body, ignite it and thereby make it shine. One calls this the sulfuric process. Something quite similar arises today in thinking. When our fiery blood runs into nerve masses there's a combustion process and things light up.

When the Sun passes over to the Moon, air condenses to water. The Moon's body is a water body. We notice something very strange about this water body. Single water drops change their position in an extremely lively manner and race around with inner mobility. In some respects one can compare this property of the water drops with mercury. That's why one calls this principle that's added on the Moon the mercurial principle. The parts are put together into forms by sounds, somewhat like Chladni's sound figures. First two came together, then two pairs made four, etc., just as one still finds in new plant, animal and human forms. That's the female principle. The male principle only arose later from pure earth forces.

When the moon passed over to the earth, water condensed to earth. The precipitating salt process took place on the earth for the first time through the interaction of fire and water. Man arose from female and male and began to dissolve things again through thinking so that evolution could continue. Man received the erring I on earth.

Now if we look at this evolutionary series we see the four elements fire, air, water, earth as in the third line of the verse (2–12):

... see the three
salt, mercury and sulfur,
two arise from sun and moon (male and female)
From this grows the Son of Man
The crown of creation.

Understood like this, the Rosicrucian verse gains meaning.