| 270. Esoteric Instructions: Fourteenth Lesson
31 May 1924, Dornach Translated by John Riedel Rudolf Steiner |
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| 270. Esoteric Instructions: Fourteenth Lesson
31 May 1924, Dornach Translated by John Riedel Rudolf Steiner |
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My dear friends! We have been studying the position of the human being in relation to the Guardian of the Threshold, and have led the soul in progressive steps into an understanding of the relationship a person has with the Guardian of the Threshold along the path of knowledge. Today we will initially focus our attention on the situation before Guardian of the Threshold, bringing it once again fully alive before our souls, in order to progress a bit forward by means of this esoteric consideration. A person must forsake, and here I repeat what is appropriate for today and has been covered in prior lessons, a person must forsake the physical world, in which his customary awareness is in force. He comes to know that the sensory-physical world can be grand and joyful, but also full of sorrow and pain, that it can in fact be majestic, and that he has every reason in the world to remain within it, in his awareness. But he also comes to know that he cannot ever get to know himself if he only directs his contemplative eye and sensitive soul out upon this physical world. And he must say to himself, that it is quite grand, arrayed color upon color and arranged form on form, but that just what he himself springs from and is patterned after cannot be found in the encircling wide reaches around. Yet even at this moment there rings forth from all sides unto a person, as the most noteworthy challenge in one’s life, the word of self-awareness: O man, know yourself! And in this way, a person will become clearly aware that in customary life he is certainly safeguarded from entering unprepared into what in certainty is the world of his own essential being. Moreover, the Guardian of the Threshold is the same high being who shelters a person as he enters the spiritual world every night in sleep, who shelters the person from consciously experiencing what in sleep is all around him, for otherwise he would be terribly upset in experiencing all this in sleep, if he experienced it unprepared, so much so that he would not be able to continue on in waking life as a human being with strength intact. But at the same time, the Guardian of the Threshold makes it clear to a person that he, the Guardian himself, is the only portal to true, to authentic knowledge. At this point, a person notices that he comes to an abyss, before entering the realm of knowledge, an abyss displayed as a bottomless chasm. The supporting pillars, that one stands on in the physical world, are gone. One cannot simply march over it. One can only carry himself across when freed of the physical, expressed symbolically, when one “grows wings”, so that one journeys over the abyss as a being of spirit and soul. But first the Guardian of the Threshold calls out for you to be mindful in regard to the abyss, particularly in regard to the beasts that emerge as spirit-formations from the abyss, for these beasts are the external reflections of impure willing, feeling, and thinking, and these beasts must first be overcome. And in vivid pictures displayed before one’s eyes, willing, feeling, and thinking are revealed in the three beasts, one shown as spectral, one ghoulish, and so forth. Then the Guardian of the Threshold shows us in greater depth how, in and of themselves, thinking, feeling, and willing can be strengthened, according to whether one has resolved in full awareness to overcome the beasts. And then, before someone actually enters the spiritual world, it is necessary to engage in situational meditations in perceiving the spiritual world, within which to discover how the cosmos speaks to a person, how the hierarchies speak to him, how at first all the things are proclaimed that await him there in the spiritual world. And we will become progressively more aware, through what is played out before our souls in the mantras, that a person must become something else, if he would stride over the abyss, if he would live within what is on the other side of the abyss. Ever more and more, we will become aware that here on the earth, we are in the company of the beings of the three realms of nature and in the company of people, but over there we are in the company of disembodied souls and in the company of the spirits of the higher hierarchies. A different sort of acquaintanceship is present there. Quite a different constitution of soul is required there for this quite different acquaintanceship. Once again, it is the business of the Guardian of the Threshold there to forcefully advise a person about how to comport himself, specifically about how to comport himself when striding across the Threshold and actually confronting the things of the spiritual world in their reality, about how in arriving there he must come to possess a wholly different soul-constitution. There, a person will be aware that within himself two conditions of soul can become a reality, the soul-condition of customary awareness on this side of the abyss, and the soul-condition outside of the physical and etheric bodies on the other side of the abyss, which is the soul-condition of the purely spiritual world. There, where the difference in these soul-conditions appear, great dangers await a person, dangers however, that initially present themselves in such a way that we have to characterize them as minor departures from normal conditions of soul, but that remain always within the soul when we characterize them properly, for they involve an extreme sickly soul-deformation. It must of course always be said, that when one’s path in the higher worlds is undertaken in the way so painstakingly delineated in the book How to Know Higher Worlds, in many smaller published anthroposophical works, and in the second part of my Outline of Occult Science, then straying from a normal soul-constitution should not happen, at least not easily. A person passing over into the spiritual world through healthy human understanding should be as fully aware of knowledge, initially, as one is through initiation. But a person must know that he may emerge in two different ways from the daily condition of soul-life that he is immersed in, if he does not pay attention to the proper sign-posts along the spiritual world’s pathway. Here on this side of the Threshold we stand upon the earth, upon the fixed elements of earth. The ground is under our feet. The ground supports us. The watery element is around us, that also takes part in the formation of our own body. This watery element cannot support us in normal life, but infuses throughout us, attaching itself to our blood. It is contained within our forces of growth, within our forces of nourishment. The air is what we breathe. The aeriform, the gaseous element is all around us. Warmth is also all around us, the warmth-ether, the fourth element. They are disconnected from one another in normal life. Where there is solid earth, there is no water. Where there is water, there is no air. Where there is air, there is no water. Only the fiery warmth presses into and throughout it all, for it is the only one that begins to press itself into everything. But the moment we take leave, even the first time, my dear friends, the moment we take leave of our physical body, these differentiations cease. The different elements cease to have individual borders. We ourselves enlarge, we extend ourselves out, and we are simultaneously in earth, water, fire, and air. We can no longer differentiate one from another. The attributes held individually by the four elements cease. The earth no longer supports us, for its fixed solidity ceases. Water no longer forms us, for its formative forces cease. In other words, when we plunge into water, it is not as in swimming, where we are separated from the water, but rather it is as if we dissolve into it, as ice dissolves into warm water, as if in becoming one with the water, then we no longer carry, when we pass over into the spiritual world, we no longer carry our blood as a separate element in our vascular circulation, but rather our blood becomes one with the ever-moving watery element of the universe. And just so, air ceases to be a formative breathing-force in us. And warmth ceases to engender our ego-force, ceases to inflame us in warmth to the feeling of individuality. It all ceases. This must be confronted, it must be confronted in the proper manner, this cessation of the differentiation of earth, water, air, and fire. To do this we may engage, in thought, in having already flown over the abyss. We have arrived on the other side, my dear brothers and sisters. There the Guardian of the Threshold calls out to us, that we should turn, lift our gaze, and face him. Now think, my dear brothers and sisters, have a lively imagination, imagine a person’s arrival there on the other side, where in certainty the knowledge of the spiritual world is revealed to him. He is there. The Guardian of the Threshold prompts him to look about, to take up the admonitions that he now needs, that in a certain fashion he has now become accustomed to, in the soul-condition that is present there, on the other side of the Threshold, within the spiritual world, there where he lives pressed into the four elements themselves, into earth, water, air, and fire. Just there a great danger appears, and please forgive the seeming triviality of the expression, my dear brothers and sisters, but if the person has possibly fallen in love with the illusion of disconnectedness of the solid earth, from the formative forces of water, from the creative forces of air, from the ego-awakening forces of warmth, then he may feel delighted merely in spiritual bliss, in giving himself over to the wonder of the spirit, and so he might remain within this spirit-bliss. A person may be overwhelmed, as the alluring power of Lucifer musters up against him. It depends on his karma, whether a person is more or less susceptible to the alluring power of Lucifer. If he is susceptible, so that he simply totally and completely falls in love with dissolving into earth, water, air, and fire, then the Luciferic attaches itself to him, and he will no longer be able to emerge from this demeanor of soul. He runs the risk, when he once again returns to daily life, of remaining within this soul-demeanor. And so the Guardian of the Threshold must and does call out to him, “You may not do it. You may not fall under the sway of Lucifer. In the dissolution in earth, water, fire, and air you may not simply feel the solitary wonder of bliss. You must take yourself firmly in hand, or else, when you again return to the physical world, as a person in the physical world, when you take up the soul-condition of customary awareness of the physical world, then from then on you will be a person quite confused.” That is the Luciferic danger, that on the return from the spiritual world, from the other side of the Threshold, a person may be bewildered and no longer have his senses about him, but would be an enthusiastic dreamer, an enthusiastic adherent of idealism, disdainful of customary awareness. That one may not do. And the Guardian of the Threshold admonishes, insistently, that one should be resolutely determined to live in the way corresponding to whatever world one is in, be it earthly or transcendental. But the Guardian of the Threshold sets down a second admonition. The second admonition is this, that one should take care, when one has arrived on the other side with his thinking, feeling, and willing split apart, one should take care of how much of his thinking, feeling, and willing at hand is still connected to the earthly, is still inclined to the earthly. There a person can once again be predisposed to remain in what has given him the experiences on this side in the fixed support of earth, to hold on tightly and cross over to the other side of the Threshold with a materialistic soul-constitution, to cross over with the formative forces of water frozen, solidified. Then he can become afflicted with an overweening earthly pride, and can say to himself, “In life on earth I have breathed in, have drawn into myself the very breath, out of which in times past the Father-God has formed human souls, human lives, which I can do also, when freed from earthly life’s confines.” But if a person carries over into the spiritual world what he perceives in his breath as the creative force of God, then he falls under the sway of the Ahrimanic alluring power. In this condition he cannot return, because before he would return, there in the spiritual world he is enfolded in powerlessness. He would be non-sentient, more or less. His awareness would be disabled, crippled. In this manner, his awareness having been stunted, he would more or less be a sort of tool or implement of the Ahrimanic powers there in the spiritual world. It is certainly so today since the beginning of the age of Michael, that the spiritual life of human beings, which today is crass and crude, frozen in materialism, is for the most part carried over as such into the spiritual world. And what this means, what it entails, is that the Ahrimanic powers enfold the human being in their grasp whenever his awareness has been stunted into something other than the condition of full wakefulness, and yes, my friends, this has been in evidence everywhere energetically ever since the outbreak of the great World War. As I have most certainly said many times since the outbreak of the World War, the history of this war cannot be written about from the physical plane’s standpoint alone. Documents by themselves do not reveal the truth, that of the thirty or forty people who were most certainly engaged in the production of the war, a great number at various times were in a state of clouded awareness, and were therefore implements of the Ahrimanic powers. In this way much of what transpired in the World War was a legacy of Ahrimanic powers. This World War can only be written about in an occult manner. Whatever one has seen after a fashion, in his wanderings on this side of the Threshold, of various leading personalities immediately before the outbreak of the World War, all that can be taken truly to be indicative of the habits of soul that are carried over to the other side of the Threshold, and over there then become stunted, become stunted in awareness, and become, therefore, a working force of the Ahrimanic powers. A person must be clear and fully self-possessed about this, that he may not carry back to this side, the soul-constitution of the other side of the Threshold. He may not carry the soul-constitution of this side of the Threshold to the other side, but rather, for every domain, this side and the other side of the abyss, a strongly stark human inner awareness must be developed. It arises in this manner for all four elements in the admonition of the Guardian of the Threshold. And again, we should delve into this admonition meditatively. Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, imagine that you are standing there on the other side of the Threshold. The Guardian has beckoned. You look straight at him. First, he calls out to you, admonishing.
One no longer has it. But your heart moves, deep within, and would give an answer. But the heart can be moved inwardly in a three-fold manner, an answer emerging by means of and from the cosmos. It can be moved, this heart, by Christ and his force. Then it answers:
meaning, the earth’s firmness,
That is the right demeanor of soul. I relinquish the pillars of earth, as long as the spirit carries me within the spirit-domain, as long as I am outside of the body. But the heart can also be moved by Lucifer. Then it answers:
So speaks the person in his lofty pride, in his self-satisfaction, as if he also would not need the support, when he traverses back into the physical world. Or the heart can be moved by Ahriman. Then it answers:
The support is referred to here, and carrying the hammered support out and over. No one should shrink back in fear from meditative soul-consideration of all three answers again and again, in order in this way to be able to choose and align with the first answer in freedom. For one must feel the inherent inward vacillation, the alignment with Lucifer, then with Ahriman. One must place this in meditation firmly within one’s vision. The meditation in this manner must embody the earthen element. [The first part of the mantra was now written on the board.] First the Guardian speaks:
The human heart must give answer. When moved by Christ, it answers:
If the soul has been moved by Lucifer, it answers in this way:
The phrase “as long as” [The words “as long as” were underlined.] emerges from the heart, draws the eternal into temporality, and so transforms the sentence. If the heart has been moved by Ahriman, it answers in this way:
And then, progressing further, so that the soul can fully devote itself to what stands there before it, the second admonition of the Guardian of the Threshold appears, pointing to the formative force of water. This formative force of water is what builds the fixed organs in us, drawing them out of the fluid elements. All that we take in as nourishment must first become fluid, and then the organs are formed out of it. All of a person’s sharply contoured organs have been cast out of fluid elements. This formative force ceases as soon as a person enters the domain on the other side of the Threshold. The Guardian warns, that this is the case. He calls out to us, when we stand there on the other side of the Threshold, our gaze directed onto his stern face. [The second part of the mantra was now written on the board.]
The person answers, if he has been moved in his heart by Christ, “My life extinguishes it, quenches it, as long as the spirit forms me.” The spirit begins to work on you over there, half out of your body.
in the sense of quenching it, putting it out, and by “it” is meant the forming force,
Again appears “as long as”, again unobtrusively. [The words “as long as” were underlined.] If the soul has been moved by Lucifer, however, then the phrase “as long as” is left out, and the sentence emerges with haughty arrogance:
Well, what has been extinguished can be rekindled, but what has been melted away, expunged, remains expunged. “My life expunges it”
If the soul has been moved by Ahriman, then it answers:
Please take note, my dear brothers and sisters, how everything in mantric verse is fashioned inwardly, meaningfully, and with confident certainty. Here [The first verse was indicated.] we see, “I leave”, “I feel”, “I will.” The ego speaks in the answer. In the second verse the ego speaks, but not so egocentrically, but rather says, “My life”, as in “My life extinguishes it”, “My life expunges it”, “My life affixes it.” Any entry into all reality is only spoken about properly, if it is spoken about accurately in every aspect. Lassitude in the formation of sentences, which is appropriate for people in the physical domain, may not be carried forward into the spirit-domain. In the spirit-domain speaking must be exact and accurate. You should also most certainly keep in mind, my dear friends, that it all corresponds to a reality, that this esoteric school has not been constituted out of human intentions, but rather out of those of the spiritual world, as was said at the outset, that all that comes to the fore here in the esoteric school of the Goetheanum, even though it is said through my mouth, is nevertheless a dictum of the spiritual world. This must be so in every rightfully constituted esoteric school, certainly in the present and in times to come, just as it was in the ancient holy mysteries. And this esoteric school is the true Michael School, the institution of those high spiritual beings partaking immediately of the inspiration of the cosmic will of Michael. Concerning the domain of air, the Guardian of the Threshold once again speaks in admonition,
waking you into existence. As Jehovah, by means of his infusion of the breath of life into humans, transformed simple living beings, by means of the stimulus inherent in his breath, into beings that can perceive, so a person, through sensing, through the stimulus that the external world brings to bear on the senses, becomes a being who perceives. But what exactly are the senses? My dear brothers and sisters, the senses are most certainly just refined organs of breathing. The breath broadens itself out into all the senses. As it lives in the lungs, so it lives in the eyes. Only that in the lungs it is bound up with carbon, but in the eyes with the more refined silica. In one’s organism carbonic acid is produced. [It was drawn in red and the word carbonic acid4 was written down.] In the senses silicic acid is produced in a much more refined state. [Drawn in yellow, silicic acid5 was written down.] A person lives in his lower pole where oxygen combines with carbonic acid, and in his upper pole, in the domain of his nerve-sense system, where oxygen combines with silicon, with silica, and forms refined silicic acid [green]. A human being lives in such a way, that when the breath forms up in the blood, he produces carbonic acid, and when the breath forms up in the senses, he produces silicic acid [yellow arrows], below and outwardly through the breath carbonic acid, in the senses and returning from the senses within the breathing-process silicic acid in a totally more refined dose. The Guardian of the Threshold calls out to us concerning what is in the air:
He who is moved by Christ in his heart answers:
no longer earth’s air, but heaven’s air,
The heart moved by Lucifer answers:
The heart moved by Ahriman answers:
As Jehovah once created with his breath, so those swayed by Ahriman absorb the air, in order to carry it along while crossing over into the spiritual world. The Guardian speaks to the man: [The third part of the mantra was now written on the board and at the same time in the Christ-line the words “as long as” were underlined.]
The heart moved by Christ speaks:
The heart moved by Lucifer speaks:
The air’s power to stimulate is not noticed at all. The heart moved by Ahriman speaks:
Concerning the fiery or warmth elements, the Guardian now speaks his last elementary word, admonishing that a person should not lose himself in the element of warmth, but also not carry over into the spiritual world the warmth-element as it is in physical existence, as displayed on earth. Just before I do this, however, my dear brothers and sisters, I would like to call your attention to this progression along the ascent:
Now the Guardian speaks in warning concerning the fiery elements: [The fourth part of the mantra was written on the board, and at the same time in the Christ-line “as long as” was underlined.]
Our ego lives in warmth, in what presses into and throughout us as warmth. I have often, my dear brothers and sisters, remarked on this in the esoteric school, that the fixed elements remain unconscious within, and also the fluid elements, even though in one’s feeling of satisfaction, one already feels the perfusion of the fluid elements. In satiety or in hunger one experiences the essential nature of the fluid element. The aeriform element is experienced soulfully. A person becomes breathless when not connecting properly with air, and fear comes with breathlessness. This already enters the realm of soul. Warmth is something in which one feels wholly at home. He participates in his condition of warmth or of cold with the whole of his ego. Fire inflames his ego. The heart moved by Christ answers:
A person does not need the material warmth of earth when the spirit supplies the spark and ignites his ego. For the ego blazes there not in earthly warmth, not in earthly fire, but within the fire of God. But the heart moved by Lucifer answers:
The heart moved by Ahriman answers, as if the fire begun upon the earth is taken as his own and carried over into the spiritual world, to master the spiritual world with the ego-fire of the physical world.
The ego will not blaze up except by deploying its own fire. Once again, the progression arising in the formulation first appears in the person speaking “I”.
It then becomes more objective, in that the person addresses the things pertaining to himself as “Mine”.
It then goes more inwardly, so inner nature becomes objective.
Now he climbs somewhat further into himself. And take note of the difference, my dear brothers and sisters. Early on is said merely “I”. Then “I” becomes objective, “my I”, as if it were another’s, as one would speak of another’s property. One is externalized even more, one is externalized out of the physical body, even to the extent initially of allowing one to speak fully egoistically of the ego, and one says:
as if it were an object. That is the proper way to render it here. One becomes acquainted with this rendering, my dear brothers and sisters, in all its depth and intensity, when one speaks with souls who have gone through the portal of death and have been in the spiritual world awhile. They do not say “I”, but rather they always say “my I”. I have not yet heard of one departed after death who has said “I”, except at most for a very brief time after death. So some time after death, the dead one says “my I”, because he gazes upon the ego with the eyes of the gods. It becomes objective for him, characteristically objective. Therefore, an account, from someone who has been dead for a somewhat longer time, cannot be accurate if the departed says “I”, if he does not say “my I”. So here in the fourth progressive section, before the Guardian of the Threshold, the soul says “my I”. And that, my dear friends, is the wonderful spoken exchange at the Threshold, between the Guardian of the Threshold and the human personality, that actually takes place when one stands there before the Guardian of the Threshold, as illustrated here, which must be attended to, in order to catch the feeling in its essential actuality when deploying and immersing oneself in this dialogue properly in meditation. So you form the words up in meditation properly, my dear brothers and sisters, the mantric words coming to you here today, when in a certain sense you hear the words that you yourself are speaking, but only in the course of the Guardian having been heard to be speaking before us first in a manner of soul. Therefore this is how one meditates, as if hearing four times over the Guardian of the Threshold at the start of each section, concerning earth, water, air, and fire, and then allowing one’s own true soul to answer, but in such a manner that one immediately hears the first answer as if inwardly ensouled by Christ, the second answer in the voice of the tempter, and the third answer in the voice of the pompous materialistic Ahriman-Spirit, who approaches a person with the desire to carry over into the spirit the manner of being of the mineralized human. Now, in closing today’s esoteric lesson, we will allow the characteristic way this is to be meditated to sound forth with firm effect.
 
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| 270. Esoteric Instructions: Fifteenth Lesson
21 Jun 1924, Dornach Translated by John Riedel Rudolf Steiner |
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| 270. Esoteric Instructions: Fifteenth Lesson
21 Jun 1924, Dornach Translated by John Riedel Rudolf Steiner |
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My dear friends! Once again, we will begin with the mantric verse of the world stage and the world’s beings, the mantric verse that confronts a person as it sounds forth from all sides, when one is able with true inner appreciation of heart and soul to perceive what the prime essential beings of the world, the prime producers of the world, are able to say.
My dear brothers and sisters, my dear friends, it is worth noting, that since various class members are making their appearance at this Class lesson today, who have not been here before, some things will be said for the sake of continuity, things which are necessary to know, if one wishes to take up and fully appreciate the subject-matter of today’s Class lesson. We have certainly experienced, my dear brothers and sisters, how the great pictures of life appear before the soul when a person approaches, through true, genuine experience, the abyss which emerges between the world in which we live here, and the world that we come to know as the one in which we have our own true being, our actual human existence. We are aware that when we take hold of the world around us here in the right way, that this world certainly claims our most intense interest. We look all around from the lowliest worm up to the shining, glittering stars of the heavens, looking all around throughout the realms of nature, out of which much has been taken that we ourselves carry within. And we have every reason, in what is revealed around us in streaming brilliant sunlight, to feel down to the bottom of our hearts and souls its grandeur, its world-shaking importance, and its majesty. And we should not become mislead by participating in any sort of esotericism, by any type of science of the spirit, however ascetically we happen to chance upon it, for it could be merely a false asceticism, that involves turning away from the world. We should turn neither from the lowly worm nor from the exalted starry heavens, simply because these belong to the visible world. We should not turn away from it all and fail to perceive its grandeur, its majesty, and its sublimity, and fail to perceive the significance that it has for each of us. We should take this to heart. If we truly embrace spiritual science, we should feel fully at home in what appears around us as the world. But we should also be aware, and we can become aware, as we interact with the things and beings and events of the world in the proper intrinsic manner of heart and soul, we can and should become aware that our true, genuine, highest human self is not to be found in all these realms of nature, in spite of the world being so grand and exalted, in its sun-drenched and sun-illuminated nature, but that in the pursuit of cognition, we must seek our highest nature in a world which is separated from us by an abyss, and that the things on the other side of the abyss, in the other world, from which we really stem, are portrayed to us initially as blackest night. The abyss looms before us as a wall, a black wall. But the first being that we meet stands right at the abyss. Ever more and more we must allow this to resound within every night when we sleep, and we may certainly find this out, that the realm we are actually in then is the one to which we belong with the innermost and most genuine part of our humanity. But we really take up residence in this realm only when fully ready. We should not enter undeveloped. The Guardian of the Threshold, the first spirit-being that we meet, has warned us about this, in regard to any serious, genuine wish to gaze into this world of our ancient origin, and to enter therein unprepared. Then it is the Guardian of the Threshold himself who speaks the first words to us, as we tread the path over the abyss, into the realm of spirit from which we come. The Guardian of the Threshold himself admonishes that we should look back at our own self, in order that in self-awareness we should seek the foundation for understanding the world. It is also the Guardian of the Threshold himself, however, who shows us that what is initially in our soul-nature as thinking, feeling, and willing, that this corresponds to a certain gestalt, an organization in the spiritual world, which can be portrayed in front of us, and with which we can become acquainted imaginatively. At the abyss he points this construction out to us, this gestalt of our thinking, feeling, and willing, in their initial forms appropriate for our present time and age, as the three beasts that emerge from the abyss. And all that follows then is an admonition from the side of the Guardian of the Threshold, that we should pay especially close attention to these three beasts, meaning of course, to ourselves, in order in this manner to really find, out of our primal state, the path toward world comprehension. All this has been brought in the form of mantric verses before the souls of all who have taken part in these lessons, and all of this has led up to what was brought forth in the last lesson. So here we stand, the situational meditation before us. We have been advised, have had it pointed out to us, that we are already standing on the other side of the abyss, although still under the warning guidance of the Guardian of the Threshold. He directs certain words to us, in order that they should lead us to an understanding of our situation when we have over-flown the abyss and have entered the realm which for us is initially quite dark. On this side, as long as we stay within our present realm, from which we have not originated and from which we have not emerged, here we have under us the firmness of earth, which carries and supports us, and which, as we have seen, may be touched and felt by our entire body, when we stand upon the first element, upon the element of earth. We also carry within us and may feel what one calls "water" in spiritual science. This is indicated overall by all fluidity, and we may feel the fluid element within us. Most certainly it has built us from within, has made us grow, out of its nature has guided all organs into being, merely out of its nature, out of the nature of this second element, the element of water. And entrained to this water element, that of course is also the blood element, is again an admonition of the Guardian. Entrained to what we take up through our breath, the air element, entrained to what we take up through warmth, the fire element working effectively in us, also entrained there and directed at us are meaningful words of the Guardian of the Threshold. And the powers of the world work in us in such a way that an answer forms in our souls, an answer concerning each admonishing question of the Guardian of the Threshold. This answer, brought into movement in us by world powers, this answer can come from Christ, and then it will be the right answer. It can come from Lucifer, but then it will be an incorrect answer. It can come from Ahriman, but then again it will be an incorrect answer. The admonition of Christ should always be formed, in regard to each individual element, so that the Christ in us speaks, so that over there in the spiritual world we feel full of spirit, totally full of spirit, fully in harmony with the spirit-element, but so that we know, that as long as we are men of earth, that we must ever and again journey back over the abyss into earthly existence, we must not languish in how we are over there in the spiritual world, we must tear ourselves away from the nature of the spiritual world. Christ will always speak to us in this way, warning us, that as long as we are in the spiritual world, that we should be at one with this spiritual world, but when we return again, that we should live upon the earth as proper men and women of earth, for we should be living in the spirit only in the spiritual world. Lucifer will always spur us on, seeking to have us wish to remain in the spiritual world, to become absorbed in lust with the spiritual world, to become absorbed in the pleasures of the spiritual world. Ahriman will always induce us into wanting to take on the task of pulling the spiritual world over into the physical world. This sort of thing must be allowed to work on one's soul, so that by its means a person can properly regard, can feel into the whole situation regarding the spiritual world. And so, feel that we ourselves are on the other side of the abyss, already standing within the spiritual world, but standing nonetheless in utter darkness, the Guardian of the Threshold at the abyss turning to us assertively, in warning, directing admonishing questions at us, questions that lance deeply into our souls. Sense how for each individual question a three-fold answer comes to us in the answers of Christ, of Lucifer, and of Ahriman.
There is no floor anywhere. We are in the spiritual world.
We will be probed by the admonishing questions of the Guardian, about how we have come to deport ourselves in regard to the supports of earth, in regard to the fluid forming force in us, in regard to the astral nurturing force of air in us, and in regard to the “I”-bearing force of fire in us. And in us Christ answers, if a proper humanity moves within us. In us the tempter Lucifer answers, as if we should bound over into the wonder of all forever, which we should really bring into movement within us only during the time we rightfully give ourselves over to the spirit. And in us Ahriman answers, as if we should carry over into the fields of earth, what we partake of in the land of the spirit. Whatever is possible for the soul, we must allow the soul to work on, to work within the soul. We must expose ourselves just as fully to the voice of Christ, as to the voice of Lucifer and to the voice of Ahriman. We must inwardly move ourselves in meditation into this situation. In depths of soul we then become, directly by this means, in having appealed to our deepest inner nature, my dear brothers and sisters, directly by this means we become so broadly liberated, that in liberated spirit-experience we can have the spiritual element most truly as our own. Today we must enter into this situation more fully. We must pointedly feel ourselves to be standing on the other side of the threshold of this abyss, the admonishing Guardian of the Threshold beside us, and within us voices dragging a human being toward the very different positions of Lucifer and Ahriman, and within us the voice of Christ showing us the proper course while Lucifer on one side and Ahriman on the other are seeking to mislead us. Then we will be in the right frame of heart and mind which makes it possible to start off into the spiritual world with feeling, with empathy, with empathic inner feeling. We can only do this, my dear brothers and sisters, by gradually acquiring the ability to sense, to feel, to regard higher spiritual beings, just as we sense, feel, and regard the beings of the three realms of nature here in the sensory world. When standing here in the sensory world, external to ourselves we may feel the nature of a stone, the mineral nature, and we may say to ourselves that this mineral nature also lives in us. For we have salinity in us. Mineral nature, living in us in salinity, is the principal thing that really makes it possible to be a human being upon the earth. We may gaze out upon the plant-world and know that we have taken plant-like nature into ourselves, having it in our earthly nature within what is bordered by our skin, carrying it in our power of growth, carrying it in what forms our organs for us, and carrying it also in all that we process while asleep. We feel plant-like nature carried in us, while we gaze at plant-like nature around us. We may gaze out upon the animals, and know that in our astral nature, in our breathing process, that we carry animal nature itself within us. As we gaze out on various animals, we say that we feel allied to, in sympathy with their animal nature, because we carry within ourselves this same animal nature, although within our human nature we reorganize it. We feel ourselves to be human here in the sensory world under the sway of the beings of the three realms of nature. We must learn to feel in this way when remaining within the spiritual world under the sway of those beings with whom we exist in our human soul and spirit nature, just as we exist here with our physical and etheric nature among the beings of the three realms of external nature. Just as we learn to know ourselves as physical human beings under the sway of other physical human beings, just so we must learn to know ourselves as humans of soul and spirit under the sway of higher beings of soul and spirit. We have become acquainted with what, for us as human beings, is the surrounding encompassing spiritual-soul world, composed of three hierarchies, in the same way we have learned to know what is around us here, and have become acquainted with the beings of the sensory world in the three realms of nature. With our physical-etheric nature we belong to the three realms of nature. With our soul-spiritual nature we belong to the three realms of the hierarchies. While remaining here in the physical world, it is only natural to belong to the three realms of nature, to let them flow through us and to remain amongst them. While remaining pressed into the soul-spiritual world, during our time there, our condition must be soul-spiritual, in belonging among the entities of the higher hierarchies of the spiritual world, feeling ourselves empathically, intuitively pressed in amongst them, and discerning these entities of the higher hierarchies just as we do otherwise in regard to the beings of the realms of nature. The Guardian in turn instructs us further about this. And to these mantric words, drawn forth from the spiritual world by the alluring voice of the Guardian, to these mantric words we must turn, ever and ever again allowing them to resound within our souls in meditation. Then they will have the power, directly by the simple manner in which they have been constructed, through the recapitulation within yourself, through their own quite capable intrinsic form, these mantric words will be properly able to call into wakefulness in our souls the feeling of standing within the spiritual world among the hierarchies. We have to envision the next mantra in this way, with the Guardian speaking. We are still standing on the other side of the Threshold of the spiritual world in darkness, having learned first to feel about within the spiritual world, before learning to gaze about. First the Guardian speaks, once again in reference to the elements of earth, water, and air. Building on fire will be the subject matter of the next Class lesson. First the Guardian speaks, in reference to the elements of earth, water, and air, and therefore to all that is fixed in us, to all that is fluid in us, primarily our blood and lymph, and in reference to all that is aeriform in us, the air taken in from outside that is encompassed in our breathing process. The Guardian speaks in reference to all this. And he calls forth what resounds in the world of the hierarchies. After the Guardian has directed his word at us, one hierarchy after the other speaks, the third hierarchy accompanying the first mantra, at first the Angels, then the Archangels, and finally the Archai. We should feel ourselves in this situation. The Guardian of the Threshold is speaking to us. It sounds forth from the darkness, as if emerging from the background all around, and at the same time it speaks within our souls, reverberating within us. The Guardian speaks: What becomes of earth’s firmness, that supported you? The Angels from the Third Hierarchy:
The Archangels from the Third Hierarchy:
The Archai from the Third Hierarchy:
We receive from the cosmos a momentous three-fold instruction in regard to the question of the Guardian of the Threshold. With magic power his words call forth the answer of the Angels, the Archangels, and the Archai. Just what do the Angels profess to us? As human beings we think. Initially we believe we only experience our thoughts. But while our thoughts are flowing through our souls, the Angels are actually living within our thoughts. And as we perceive with our senses, as we confront and engage something or other, so living within our thoughts are the Angels, for that is how they perceive, how they sense. They speak and make us aware of this. And just as the Angels sense within our thinking, just so the Archangels live in and experience in our feeling, and the Archai show themselves and take part in our willing. When some sort of thought, my dear brothers and sisters, zips through your soul, then you should feel, that in this thought a being of the hierarchy of Angels perceives something. In that you are thinking, an Angel is touching something, sensing, perceiving. While you are feeling, a being from the hierarchy of the Archangels is living into it, experiencing. While you are willing, in that you deploy your will, a being from the hierarchy of the Archai is taking hold and looking about, observing. Human thinking, human feeling, and human willing are not merely ongoing within human beings. When we think, the Angels sense. When we feel, the Archangels experience. When we employ our will, the Archai take part, looking about, observing. [The first part of the mantra was now written on the board.] The Guardian speaks:
It is answered from the hierarchy of the Angels, from the third hierarchy: [3rd Hierarchy was written in front of this section and underlined.]
It sounds forth from the hierarchy of the Archangels:
It sounds forth from the hierarchy of the Archai:
That is what in the spiritual world takes the place of the element of earth. For the supporting force of earth is simply not there. The firm floor of earth is gone. Everything solid and fixed is gone. The Third Hierarchy, the Angels, Archangels, and Archai make a firm support, but not as the minerals shape up into firmness. We would not be thinking deeply, but would be bogged down on all sides in our thinking if the Angels were not working there, if they were not having their own sort of sensory perception there. If the Archangels were not living in our feeling, we would scatter ourselves about in amorphous formlessness. If the Archai were not able to gaze into our willing, we would fade away to nothing in our willing. The second is water, which gives us the formative force, the fluid element in us. Once more we may imagine that we are standing on the other side of the abyss in darkness before the spiritual world. First, we learn to feel our way around in it. The Guardian is speaking, admonishing, questioning. Now, however, entrained in answer to the questioning about the force of fluidity, to the element of fluidity, is the Second Hierarchy, the Exusiai, Dynamis, and Kyriotetes. The Guardian speaks:
Out of the second hierarchy the Exusiai answer:
The Dynamis of the second hierarchy:
The Kyriotetes of the second hierarchy:
In this manner we are brought into becoming aware, that as we stand face to face with everything around us, that we are not standing alone. We should learn to feel that in our bodily existence, in all that we carry around within the boundaries of our skin, there lives a part of universal world existence. The Second Hierarchy is in us, working in us, making us to some extent cosmic beings, beings linked to the cosmos as our limbs are linked to us. All this should wash over us so thoroughly in awareness, through this mantric verse, so that in standing within the events of the world, everything within us, from the smallest vibration of our cellular organs, to the grand exalted beating movements of our blood, to the rhythms of our breathing system, to the rhythms alternating between night and day, so that everything, so that all this is not merely happening within us, but as a linked limb of universal world process. [The second part of the mantra was now written on the board.] The Guardian speaks:
The Exusiai answer from the Second Hierarchy: [2nd Hierarchy was written in front of this section and underlined.]
The Dynamis answer from the second hierarchy:
The Kyriotetes answer from the second hierarchy:
In these mantric verses, as I have often said, all must be taken specifically as given. So the question may arise, why it is, that standing here next to “world spiritual process” is “human body existence”? We must take each exact word to heart if a mantric verse is to work properly in our souls. Externally world process has dominion, and we perceive it as happening. This world process is world-wide, all-embracing, and fills the universe. As it continues on in us, it actually is in us, although we feel it as self-contained in our existence, because our skin defines our outer borders and we feel ourselves to be fully self-contained. Within ourselves we do not feel everything moving, undulating, weaving, in the way we feel it externally. And so here “process” stands in contradistinction to “existence,” whereas earlier and quite rightly “construction” stands with “construction," and “life” with “life”. And in regard to the element of air, its admonishing question is also raised by the Guardian of the Threshold. It is answered by the beings of the First Hierarchy, the Thrones, Cherubim, and Seraphim. They admonish us that we should become aware of just how the cosmos works in us. We must progress from mere consciousness to self-consciousness, and here it is the beings of the First Hierarchy who guide us.
So now we are admonished to re-awaken self-awareness at a higher level, for by means of the magical words of the second hierarchy we have traversed out into the cosmos, we have felt our unification with the cosmos. [The third part of the mantra was now written on the board.]
From the First Hierarchy the cosmic answer sounds forth: [3rd Hierarchy was written before the section and underlined.]
Yes, my dear brothers and sisters, without having felt the effective working of this last mantra, as it sounds forth from the fiery flashing power of the Seraphim, “Wake inner light in yourself in your god’s-world-light,” without this flashing, flaming word intoned by the Seraphim flaming forth, we would not be able to catch the sense of how, out of our own soul, a force must be awakened, so that as we stand there in darkness, on the other side of the abyss, still just feeling about, gradually feeling the world approaching us, by this means, by and by, a mere glimmer begins to emanate from us, becoming more lucid, the glimmer progressively penetrating ever further in space, and broader and broader, and as the glimmer becomes more and more luminous, more and more brilliant, by means of our own force the night-bedecked darkness there in the spiritual world gradually becomes lucent. It must be so. In this manner we must try to attain the igniting power of the true self, the fiery igniting power of true humanity, for this is the light in the initially night-bedecked spiritual lands. So, we feel ourselves to be within the threefold spiritual world of the Angels, Exusiai, Thrones, and so forth, just as we feel ourselves to be within the sensory world here in the sensory existence in the three realms of nature. So we learn to feel ourselves as human beings in our true human manner of existing in the spiritual environment, just as we feel ourselves as sensing human beings in the sensory environment. We learn it, inasmuch as we ascend due to the third hierarchy, which unfurls the spirit in us, we ascend to the particular spirit within which this hierarchy lives, inasmuch as we then ascend from this to the second hierarchy, which develops the spirit in us of producing, living, existing, and finally, insofar as we come to the first hierarchy, where we once again have a support, although a support of spirit, which most certainly is at the top and not at the bottom, wherein we have the reign of wisdom in the Cherubim, which brings us, in the service of self-awareness, to what can in turn bring warmth into our inner nature in self-perception, in inner-self-feelings, in inner-self-warming, until we come thereby to this inwardly-warmed self which becomes the illuminating element, which will clarify, illuminate what was dark for us before. And so we stand, feeling such things at the side of the Guardian of the Threshold, feeling immersed in the admonition sounding forth, confronting us from all the beings of the world, from all the happenings of the world, so that from self-awareness we ascend to world-awareness, from world-awareness to human-awareness, and so that we remain standing extant in nature, but also extant in spirit, we ourselves held by both sides of reality, by the side of nature and by the side of spirit. But then resounding in a new form, in a new gestalt, the words not being different, but being felt differently, strengthened through the admonition of all the hierarchies of the spiritual world, in which we stand primarily as human beings, and so then again resounds the world word:
 
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| 270. Esoteric Instructions: Sixteenth Lesson
28 Jun 1924, Dornach Translated by John Riedel Rudolf Steiner |
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| 270. Esoteric Instructions: Sixteenth Lesson
28 Jun 1924, Dornach Translated by John Riedel Rudolf Steiner |
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My dear friends! Once again, we will begin by our allowing the word to sound forth, which may resound within the soul of each and every human being, given a proper understanding of the world, of the entirety of what is near and far in the cosmos. Before this word speaks to our souls, however, I really must say at least a few words, once again, to clarify the significance of this school, for once again gathered here today there are many new members of the esoteric school. I will make my remarks today quite brief, but what must absolutely be included in this clarification, is that this school must be seen to be such, that it conveys its information out of the spiritual world and down to human souls, so that what lives here in the school, what is brought here in the school to human souls, is seen intrinsically as a communication from the spiritual world itself. In this context, one can see that membership in the school must be seen, in the highest degree, as something to be taken seriously. Such gravity, which must be present throughout this school, has certainly only become possible through the constitution of the Anthroposophical Society since the Christmas Conference. Ever since the Christmas Conference, the Anthroposophical Society configured as such has been an entirely open institution, but at the same time an open institution through which flows an esoteric impulse. It is an esoteric impulse for the hearts of today, which is certainly more approachable and engaging than the more exoteric impulse that was present previously. From members of the Anthroposophical Society as such, no more is required than that they feel themselves to be listeners to anthroposophical wisdom. Beyond that no more is demanded than would ordinarily be expected of every decent human being. Membership in the School entails something more, however, for members of the school should accept the stipulations, the serious stipulations of the school. And the most basic stipulation is just this, that each member belonging to the school should comport himself or herself in life, so that on every side and in every circumstance he or she is a representative of anthroposophical matters before the world. In being a representative of anthroposophical matters before the world, it is of course also necessary, that in regard to all that one does or wishes to do that is somehow related to anthroposophical matters, be it ever so distantly related, that one engaged in these things seek an interrelationship with the leadership of the school, meaning the esoteric Executive Council at the Goetheanum. And this, for all intents and purposes, will allow the school to assume a real leadership role in the Anthroposophical Movement, represented as it is today by the Anthroposophical Society. And so even now, it is necessary that membership in the school should come to be so regarded, that those affiliated with the school will take up Anthroposophy with their whole human nature, with their whole being, and with the feeling that they themselves are linked limbs of the real stream that will flow forth from the Goetheanum. As this is fulfilled and put in place, my dear friends, it cannot be seen as a curtailment of one’s human freedom in any way, for membership in the school is based on reciprocity. Within the school the leadership must have the freedom to do what they are appointed to do, to do what they hold to be the right things to do. And just as one need not be a member of the school, or become a member of the school, without freedom, and must remain thoroughly free, just so must the leadership of the school be able to remain in place in freedom, without anyone being able to say anything to the contrary, so that their free will is not compromised in any way. It is a covenant of freedom between the leadership and those who will be members. In order, on the other hand, to be truly in earnest in maintaining the earnest nature of the school, and it simply and at least cannot be otherwise, the leadership of the school should take up and maintain their right to revoke someone’s membership, for whatever reason they hold to be necessary. And as testament to the strength with which the leadership has taken this on, my dear friends, is the fact that in the comparatively brief existence of the school sixteen members of the school as a whole have been suspended for some time, sometimes briefly and sometimes for a longer period of time. And I must emphasize once again, this measure must be, certainly as we in plunge ever deeper and deeper into esoterica, this measure must remain uncompromisingly strong in the future, regardless of whomever the personalities are who are so affected. And now let the word be spoken, the word that should always be spoken admonishingly at the outset of this our engaging esoteric discussion, the admonition that sounds forth to human beings from all the events and things of the world and from all the beings of the world, held in one’s heart, in order to understand it, the admonishing call to self-awareness, which is the true foundation of world-awareness:
My dear friends, we have been imbued with what should come to us from the spiritual world as mantric verses, up through to those mantric verses in which we feel about within the esoteric situation. This esoteric situation certainly involves representing to ourselves in meditating, how at first the being standing there at the abyss of existence speaks to us. Therefore, picture it once again, for we cannot call this up before our souls often enough. A person sees all around himself, immediately around about himself in earthly existence, the realms of nature. He looks about at the sublime stars. He sees the clouds in motion. He sees all that is around about him in wind, weather, lightning and thunder. He sees all from the lowliest worm up to the most sublime display of the twinkling starry heavens. Only a false asceticism, which is not a part of genuine esotericism, can somehow disdain what belongs to the sensory world. Any person who has the will to be a proper human being cannot do otherwise than take it all in, in the most intimate manner, all reality that is sensed and made sense of, from the lowliest worm to the majestic, awe-inspiring, twinkling stars. Then in solitude the moment comes, in which deep in his innermost soul a person can grasp, the moment in which he must say to himself, “All that you see around you is grand, vast, beautiful, sublime, and magnificent. You should not disdain it. You should appreciate it. Step by step you should march forward through the world, in order to be able to see ever more and more what your eyes alight upon, what your ears resound with, what the other senses discern, what you can grasp with your sense of reason. But while you look around near and far, and within the marching movement of time, in spite of all the grandeur, beauty, and sublimity in your surroundings, in this territory is not to be found just what the innermost nature of your own existence itself is.” And you will have to say to yourself, “The innermost source of your own existence is to be sought elsewhere.” That is the power that can be take hold of us in such a thought! That which then proceeds for the soul can only be portrayed in imaginative conceptions. These imaginative conceptions initially lead us as if to a broad field, in which is spread out all the things of earth, sensory-material things. We find it to be drenched in sun, we find it brightly illuminated, but as we look all around nowhere do we find the essence of our own being. Then we look around more carefully. And bordering on this sun-drenched field, in which for the senses all is beautiful and grand and sublime, in which we ourselves are not, but bordering on this is a dark, night-bedecked wall. We have a sense that within the darkness there is the possibility of light being shed on the source of our true being, but we cannot gaze within. And in that we are following the path this far, the abyss of existence appears before us. This is the threshold to the spiritual world. We still have to cross over this abyss. There stands the Guardian, who warns us that we must be prepared, in order to cross over the abyss. For with our customary habits, our customary ways of thinking, feeling, and willing in the physical-sensory world, we will not cross over this abyss of existence into the true spiritual world, in which our true essential being primarily stands. The very first spirit form that we encounter there is the Guardian of the Threshold. Every night when we sleep, we are within this spiritual world. But a sort of darkness surrounds us in our essential “I am” nature and in our astral body, for we can enter into this spiritual world only when ready. The Guardian of the Threshold warns us about entering unprepared. Now however, as we approach him, he sends us his great admonitions. And these admonitions confront us in the mantric verses that have formed the content of these esoteric lessons up to now. Those who do not yet have these mantric verses can most certainly obtain them from other members of the school. To obtain them with the proper decorum, however, it must be kept in mind that not the one receiving them, but rather the one giving them must ask if they can be given. These verses have not only shown us that we should involve our heart when we wish to cross over the abyss of existence, they have also already shown us, as we ourselves find out for ourselves in our condition of soul, once we have flown over the abyss and are gradually starting to sense about, not yet gazing, but just sensing about, that the darkness, that initially confronted us night-bedecked, that this darkness gradually clears. Initially one feels that it clears, and one feels that the elements, the earthen, the watery, the aeriform, and the fiery, become something else over there, that we are living in another world. And this world, in which we will come to know our own essential being, and thereby the true form of the elements, is quite another world. The last time, through the meditation parading before our souls, we formed the conception of the Guardian standing at the abyss of existence and of ourselves already across and on the other side of the abyss, just feeling, not yet seeing, and that the darkness was lightening. There the Guardian speaks to us, after he previously of course clarified for us just how we should comport ourselves in regard to the elements. The Guardian speaks to us about how the elements have now changed for us. He puts forth questions to us. Who answers? The hierarchies themselves answer these questions, from one aspect the Third Hierarchy, the Angels, Archangels, and Archai, from the next aspect the Second Hierarchy, and from the third aspect the First Hierarchy. The Third Hierarchy, the Angels, Archangels, and Archai, answers when the Guardian of the Threshold asks us, “What becomes of earth’s firmness?” The Second Hierarchy, the Exusiai, Dynamis, and Kyriotetes, answers when the Guardian of the Threshold asks us, “What becomes of water’s forming force,” the formative force that works in us and really gives us our inner organization. And the First Hierarchy, the Thrones, Cherubim, and Seraphim, answers when the Guardian of the Threshold asks us what becomes of our breath, of the air’s quickening power, which really wakes us from dim plant-like existence-awareness into a consciousness of existence filled with feeling and empathy. And such mantric verses certainly possess the wherewithal to permeate our soul, our heart, so that we feel drawn into the whole situation. The Guardian of the Threshold puts each searching, admonishing question to us. The hierarchies answer.
That, my dear brothers and sisters, it the warning word emerging from the company of the Guardian of the Threshold with the Hierarchies, that brings our souls gradually further and ever further along, when we experience them in the right way ever and ever again. The manner of proceeding, which must be the case for people today and for people in the future, and has been described in the holy mysteries of old, is for the student to say he was guided into the essential nature of the elements of earth, water, and air. But all-pervasive warmth, which is also an element, is within the earth element, supporting us personally with its firmness, and within the water element, forming us personally, contouring our organs, bringing them into existence, into motion and into growth. Warmth lives within this water element. Warmth also lives within the air element, through which once upon a time the spirit of Yahweh blew into humanity its being of soul, and through which even today a person awakens his soul-being out of dull plant-like existence. Warmth lives within this aeriform element. Warmth lives all around and within all. We must become acquainted with it as the all-pervasive element. As the all-pervasive element, we must dive into it. We certainly feel ourselves to be very, very close to it. We feel remote from the fixed element in earth, even though we sense its support in the earth. Even from the watery element we feel remote. The aeriform element, however, presses into us in intimate coexistence. Sometimes the aeriform element is not quite in harmony with us, as when we have too much, or too little air, when this shows just how inwardly our life is connected with the aeriform element. Having too much air evokes fear and anxiety. Having too little air makes one faint. We are certainly deeply touched by the element of air. We feel, though, that our most intimate uniting is with the warmth element. Whether warmth or cold is in us, it is we ourselves who are warm or cold. In order to live, we must produce a certain degree of warmth within ourselves. We remain intimately close to the warmth element. In order to approach it even more closely, not just one hierarchy must speak, but the admonishing words of the different hierarchies must sound forth together. To this end the Guardian of the Threshold also addresses words of warning, a question, to warn us about the element of warmth. The answer emerges from the world-all, from the cosmos, but is now something quite different. The Guardian of the Threshold puts his question:
We are already familiar with the form of the question. Now the question concerns our being guided into the element of warmth, or fire. Not just one Hierarchy answers, or one group of beings within a Hierarchy, but rather what answers is a chorus of Angels, Exusiai, and Thrones. Seconding this, a chorus of Archangels, Dynamis, and Cherubim answer the question. Thirdly, the Archai, Kyriotetes, and Seraphim answer. In this way the three answers ring forth from choir-groups of the three hierarchies speaking together, concerning the generalities of the element of warmth. We must so form this as a conception, while we are pondering the admonishing question of the Guardian of the Threshold concerning the warmth element, so that at this moment sounding forth from our “I” answers emerge, but answers inspired by the hierarchies, and so the answers sound forth admonishingly. As if from all sides the Angels, Exusiai, and Thrones speak forth first. Secondly the Archangels, Dynamis, and Cherubim speak. Thirdly the Archai, Kyriotetes, and Seraphim speak. Always all three Hierarchies speak, always an ordered group from the three Hierarchies speaks. And this confronts us cosmically in conjunction with the question.
All three Hierarchies admonish us to think about how all that approaches us during life on earth is carried over in the world ether, and we see it carried over in the world ether when we have gone through the portal of death. Standing there in the spiritual world, after we have crossed over through the portal of death, we look back on our life on earth, but also look out on the wide etheric reaches, where is inscribed what we have accomplished by thinking, feeling, and doing during life on earth. It is a unity, the flaming script of your life.
Here we are made mindful of the second stage which we undergo when we have passed through the portal of death. There we experience backwardly, in mirror-images, that is to say, in its just atonement, in making amends, in becoming one with world-all again, all that we have accomplished here in life. If we behaved toward a person in some manner, we then experience backwards in the time-stream what the other experienced through us. And just so, as I have delineated, do the Archangels, Dynamis, and Cherubim inform us in warning about just what this second stage is that we experience between death and a new birth. But at just what happens in working out the details of our karma in the third stage, at just what happens as we are working together as souls with other human souls and with the beings of the higher Hierarchies, about this we are advised, in warning, by:
We must allow ourselves to be drawn into the situation so as to feel the Guardian of the Threshold speaking, his earnest bearing reaching out to us, admonishing us, and out of the far reaches of the world, ringing out and over us, our hearts embrace what unites us with the mysteries of life. [The fourth part of the mantra was now written on the board.]
What stands before us is a black, night-bedecked darkness, since for the eyes of soul it is not yet suffused with light. But we have the feeling, as we remain standing there in this black, night-bedecked darkness, that as we are feeling about, that everywhere we feel the beginnings of glimmerings of light. And we find that we are able to maintain an awareness of it, of this glimmering light that we can only feel. We feel our way toward the Guardian of the Threshold. Of course, we really only beheld him so long as we were over there in the sensory world. Then we stepped initially into darkness and heard his admonishing, questioning word. But this admonishing, questioning word has led us along, so that now we feel a bit of the moving, working light, the gentle, moving, working light. Seeking help in the moving, working light we turn to the Guardian of the Threshold. And it is a singular experience. Not yet light, although the illumination allows itself to be felt. In this felt illumination the Guardian of the Threshold reveals himself, as if now he would be more intimate with us, as if here he would approach us more closely, as if we would also approach closer to him. And what he says from this point on works extremely effectively, as it might work on you in life if someone were to whisper something in your ear in confidence. Continuing on, what initially resounded meaningfully as an admonishing earnest word from the Guardian of the Threshold, trumpeted, mighty, majestic, from all sides out of the cosmos, and impinging on our hearts, as it continues on it becomes an intimate conversation in moving-working light with the Guardian of the Threshold, for now it is no longer as if he were speaking to us, but rather as if he were whispering.
And our inner being is warmed by this confidential communication of the Guardian of the Threshold, by his saying, “Has your spirit understood?” Our inner being is warmed. It experiences itself in the warmth. And it feels itself driven, impelled, this inner being to answer. Devoutly it answers, and so we envision it in meditation, devoutly it answers, calm, unassuming:
Our “I” answers the question, “Has your spirit understood.” The answer is neither haughty nor expectant. The answer is not “I have understood,” but rather, the “I” feels that divine existence penetrates into the innermost aspect of human nature, divine breath in man it is, that peacefully abides and prepares the way for understanding. [The first stanza of the new mantra was now written on the board.]
And seconding this, the Guardian asks, confidentially:
The “I” answers:
Again, it is not some sort of haughty answer that the “I” feels building, when the Guardian asks, “Has your soul accepted,” but rather the soul is aware that there are divine souls speaking within, the souls of the beings of the higher Hierarchies, and that in what is said lives not merely an individual, but rather an entire council, an advisory assembly, such as when the coursing stars of a planetary system reciprocate in sending out their forces of illumination. In this manner the world souls send out the council’s conclusions. They are taken up by the soul innately. And out of the harmonies the soul hopes that the “I” will become sound, so that in a fashion appropriate for human beings the becoming I is an echo of world-harmonies. As in the wandering planets of the solar system, the world-souls in the world-spirit-forum deliberate together in harmony, and the harmony of this concurrence sounds on into the human soul.[The second stanza was now written on the board.]
And the third confidential question that the Guardian directs to human beings in this situation, is this:
The soul feels that world-forces live in this body, as everywhere else, concentrated in a point in space. But now these universal powers do not appear as physical powers. The soul has finally become aware that those powers that appear externally as functioning, physical powers, as gravity, electricity, magnetism, heat, and light, that these powers, when appearing in human bodies, are moral powers, transformed powers of the will. The soul perceives the world-forces as the eternal powers of world-justice, constituted throughout the happenstances of earthly life. The soul perceives them as rectifying powers, rectifying powers that in their words of truth weave the threads of karma, and thereby the true essential “I”.
then the person feels impelled to answer, full of humility, although fully in accord with world-justice:
In this manner the soul becomes, after having experienced, together with the Guardian of the Threshold and the Hierarchies, the transformation, the metamorphosis of the universal elements, in this manner the soul becomes inwardly devoted to these three questions of the Guardian, the soul becomes interwoven with the particular spiritual beings who have poured themselves out in response, and the soul in turn comes a little further along in response to the enigmatic word, “O Man, know yourself!” And now just today let us put side by side the opening word with what we come upon in feeling the warmth-element. The warmth element itself approaches us in a reverent voice concerning the spiritual content of the cosmos, and then we feel how much further we have progressed in following the great admonition, “O Man, know yourself!” We will see how we as human beings remain in the middle between this resounding call, from all events and all universal beings, between this call and the mantric verse parading directly in front of our souls by means of today’s lesson.
 
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| 270. Esoteric Instructions: Seventeenth Lesson
05 Jul 1924, Dornach Translated by John Riedel Rudolf Steiner |
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| 270. Esoteric Instructions: Seventeenth Lesson
05 Jul 1924, Dornach Translated by John Riedel Rudolf Steiner |
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My dear friends! Once again, we begin today with what is spoken and confronts us, with a proper connection to the world by human hearts, sounding forth from all that exists and is coming into existence as the ever-present call to self-awareness, through which a person in certainty can begin to come into real world-awareness.
Once again, we let this move through our souls, this, which was joined together with the content of the last Class lesson. This had also emerged as a meditation of what a person can experience when he feels himself to be entirely in world cohesive inter-connection, above all in cohesive inter-connection with the spiritual world. Yes, we have allowed to parade before our souls the human path to the abyss of existence, at which stands the Guardian of the Threshold. We have heard the lessons given by the Guardian of the Threshold. We have heard how whoever now arrives at the other side of the Threshold, initially feeling himself in light, experiences the world in a new way, in that he at once takes up what is spoken by the Guardian of the Threshold on one side, but also what is said to him by the spiritual beings of the higher Hierarchies. And the last dialogue was of this sort, in which the Guardian posed a question concerning the element of warmth. Warmth presses into and through everything, and from the other side of the abyss displays itself as a moral element, a moral element that casts illuminating wisdom, as one after the other the three groups speak, the Angels-Exusiai-Thrones, then the Archangels-Dynamis-Cherubim, and finally Archai-Kyriotetes-Seraphim. Then again, the Guardian speaks to the “I” in three stages, in questions penetrating into human nature, and as clarified last time, the “I” humbly answers, although in this slower-paced dialogue with the Guardian, the words now inwardly change.
While the human being on the other side of the Threshold of Existence, where the Guardian stands, merely feels himself in the moving, living light, it will gradually, slowly, not just be felt-light, it will slowly be the sort of light of which one can say, that the person sees it. From a feeling of light that wafts and weaves, that one has, so to speak, in one’s spiritual grasp merely as an idea, it gradually becomes light that as such becomes visible to the eye of the spirit. But a person can come into seeing this light in no other way than by receiving in turn the deep and fundamental words of the Guardian. And these admonishing words call attention to a mighty world-imagination, pointing to something through which, even while standing here in the sensory world, a person can gain his own impression of something enormously majestic, if he has the heart for it. And so, when a person becomes inwardly translucent and pours his attention wrapped in wonder into the sky above, into the entrancing cloud formation, the majestic rainbow, then he can perceive something else, as if there were glowing spirits, spirits showing through the colorful shining of the rainbow, spirits from the other side of the physical sensory show. Yes, it stands there, it forms up out of the universal all, it vanishes again into the universal all, and it is emplaced within this universal all as a mighty imagination. At this moment the Guardian brings up that part of this impression of the rainbow which should also be clearly visible over there in the spiritual world. [A secondary rainbow was drawn.]1  And the Guardian calls attention to the following, that whoever has crossed over and arrived in the spirit-world, should bring such an image into motion within himself out of his sensory-world memory, just such an image that the rainbow, having dominion everywhere, has always made for him. And it is noteworthy, my dear brothers and sisters, that when a person crosses over out of the physical-sensory world into the spiritual world, the image of the rainbow is such that one remembers it very easily, and quite easily and appropriately calls up in this remembrance the connection between the spiritual world, in which it really becomes all light, and the physical-sensory world, which with one’s powers of insight one has just taken leave of. And then, for it is not the sight of the rainbow, it is the memory of the rainbow that is called forth by the Guardian of the Threshold, and then the Guardian continues his instruction. Now just try, we will hear the words with which the Guardian speaks, try now with the force with which you would otherwise be gazing outward with your eyes, to prepare for yourself the means of penetrating through the rainbow, the means of penetrating through, under, and beyond the rainbow to the other side. Therefore, let us imagine [The second drawing was developed.], that within cloud-formations [white], looking outward from the earth [small arrows], the rainbow would be here [red in the cloud-formations]. So far, we have imagined the Guardian Teaching us to press on through that rainbow and from the vantage point [struck through the cloud-formation up to a small circle, on which the word “vantage point” was written] of the other side to look back, there from the wide reaches of the world, from there to look back at the rainbow. So, the Guardian instructs us about it, and also to be contemplative, to be mindful in our imagination, to deepen ourselves in meditation, so that in a way we may stride beyond the point reached in the last lesson. Then, when from over there we look back, when you therefore envision, my dear brothers and sisters, that you have gone beyond the drawing on the board [a white arrow pointing left overhead in the first drawing], and are looking backward at the rainbow [a red arrow to the right underneath in the first drawing], as it re-emerges in memory and is gazed at backward, then the rainbow becomes a mighty basin, a sort of world chalice. And one no longer sees a bow. It is as if one were looking at an immense and mighty basin in the heavens, at a chalice within which colors are flooding one into another. That is the imagination initially put by the Guardian.
These are mighty words spoken here by the Guardian. And you must properly place yourselves in the situation, my dear brothers and sisters, in the situation of the whole force of formation within which the pupil of the Guardian of the Threshold finds himself, when summoned to behold the world-chalice with its content, the color-flooded light.
One must thoroughly penetrate into, must be immersed by such imagery. And if the image works inwardly and quite deeply within the “I”, then a person sees that within this color-flooding that fills the chalice, that within this color-flooding the high beings of the Third Hierarchy appear, the Angels, Archangels, and Archai. And they breathe in the colors, after their own angelic fashion. They assimilate the colors. One gains an appreciation of the world-creativity lying behind the sensory world, displaying itself in the deeds of the higher hierarchies, one gains an appreciation of this in the dominion of the spiritual beings on the other side of the rainbow, initially in their breathing in the colors of the world-chalice, inhaling them in their own way. One sees that in passing over from the world into the rainbow, infusing into the rainbow, thoughts appear behind the rainbow, thoughts that have been absorbed, have been breathed in by angelic beings. In this way a person becomes acquainted with the nature of the rainbow. All that has been thought, the various thoughts coming from people everywhere, in every region, will time and again, ever and again, be gathered up and channeled through the arc of the rainbow into the spiritual realm, there to be breathed in by the high beings of the Third Hierarchy. What shines so enchantingly within the reaches of the world-all has not just physical significance, but also inner spiritual significance. And one does not get to know anything of the magic of the ethereal arc by remaining within the physical-sensory world, but rather in order to really get to know it, a person must have assimilated the various admonitions of the Guardian of the Threshold, those that we have become acquainted with. Then, however, directly through the impression one acquires from the vantage point of the other side, the impression of the rainbow there as world-chalice, it will be clear how for us the light gradually spreads out within it, although at the beginning it stood before us as a dark, night-bedecked sphere. We are no longer in darkness. It brightens and clarifies. It is sunlight. Seen from the other side of the rainbow, it is the color-flooded world-chalice. Then the Angels, Archangels, and Archai internally begin to mirror their consciousness of human souls, as they breath in the color-flooding, so that what lives sense-perceptibly here upon the earth, insofar as it is suitable for the spirit-realm, will be carried into the spirit-realm. And then, when one has witnessed how these high beings of the Third Hierarchy have breathed in what they have taken up from the sensory world, as what has penetrated through to them through the rainbow that they have transformed, so that it can be taken up into the spiritual world, then it is seen that they go with it, with what they have taken up into themselves in this way, and carry it on in service to the higher spirits, to the spirits of the Second Hierarchy. For the spirits of the Third Hierarchy, the Angels, Archangels, and Archai, are the serving spirits of the spirit-world. From them we hear now, yes we hear what we saw when we turned our soul's vision on the color-flooded world-chalice on the other side of the rainbow.
[This second stanza was now written on the board.]
My dear brothers and sisters, let us once more firmly place the image before our souls of the vast world-chalice taking up half the heavens, and the flooding of the colors within it, which we otherwise see plainly in the rainbow, but here moving and living in one-another, and the approaching high beings of the Third Hierarchy, the Angels, Archangels, and Archai. They breathe these colors in. But to us the thoughts of the high beings of the higher Hierarchies in this color-inbreathing become visible in soul. Really, we watch, as inspired with these world-thoughts, these present beings of the Third Hierarchy wend their way to the present beings of the Second Hierarchy, whom they serve; they wend their way to the Exusiai, the Dynamis, the Kyriotetes. And before us we have the mighty image of the appearance of the pure spirit-being, the sun-dweller, that simply appears there, when the physical image vanishes, that sun-designed, that small, in spite of all its vastness in relation to the earth, that small image, for it is only an image, when that small image by the sun vanishes. And majestically the sun will encompass the entirety of all, endlessly far larger than the vast world-image. Appearing then are the present beings of the Second Hierarchy, weaving, living in the pure realm of spirit, now really receiving what the Angels, Archangels, Archai bring to them. These are not dead thoughts, such as we have; there the dead thoughts have been taken in from the sensory-semblance and in the in-breathing by the Angels, Archangels, Archai have become enlivened. As in a mighty opera the Angels, Archangels, Archai carry these enlivened thoughts forth to the present beings of the Second Hierarchy, to the Exusiai, Dynamis, Kyriotetes. The very thoughts that have lived in earth existence, that in earth existence are semblance, are awakened by the present beings of the Second Hierarchy into actual existence. And we see how the beings of the Third Hierarchy receive from the beings of the Second Hierarchy the already enlivened thoughts, that now will become a mighty world revival, a new world from the dead sensory-semblance that has been received by Angels, Archangels, Archai, a new world, a revived world will come into being by the action of the Exusiai, Dynamis, Kyriotetes. Then we watch as the noteworthy world mystery, the cosmic mystery comes into effect. We watch as the Exusiai, Dynamis, Kyriotetes give over what they have just received from the beings of the Third Hierarchy to what we in earth-existence call rays of light, rays of light from the sun, rays of light from the stars. In all these rays of light will the enlivened, awakened web of thoughts now be given over to the world. In truth the rays of light are nothing physical. In truth the spirit shines in the rays of light. But we overlook it, when the radiation presses in so upon us, as we gaze upon it so, we overlook what these rays will have been given in the background from the domain of the beings of the Second Hierarchy. In all this radiance, in the star-radiance, in the sun-radiance, will have been given over what the beings of the Second Hierarchy weave into the fabric of world-thought, but also all that they have allowed to be given over from the enlivened thoughts, in dead sensory-semblance also dead but enlivened through the beings of the Third Hierarchy. And now we hear how they give over to these radiant spirit-forces what takes effect as creative love in the cosmos, what weaves as love on the stars’ and sun’s radiance, as love floods through the cosmos and what is decidedly the constructive formative force of the entire cosmos, how it is entrusted to the star-radiance, entrusted to the sun-radiance. Now we see with eyes of the spirit how the spirit-radiant, love-awakening, love-bearing spirits of the Second Hierarchy incorporate the world. So now we hear spoken, not to us, we bear witness to a dialogue between the beings of the Second Hierarchy and the beings of the Third Hierarchy. It simply sounds forth. We hear it merely as bystanders. It is the first time that we hear the beings of the upper Hierarchies speaking among themselves in the ongoing situation’s meditation.
And while we bear witness to the heavenly conversation, the previously night-bedecked darkness gradually lightens for the eyes of the spirit. It becomes infused with soft, gentle light. [This third stanza was now written on the board.]
Were we to take this up and be suffused with it, we would see a bit further as the eye of the spirit splays over it. Then we would see how the earth-thoughts bearing life, rising through the Second Hierarchy, have been imparted to starlight, to sunshine, and have become augmented with love. Then we would see it all being taken up by the beings of the First Hierarchy, and these First Hierarchy beings making it into the elements out of which new worlds are fashioned. What Angels, Archangels, and Archai breathed into themselves, what Exusiai, Dynamis, and Kyriotetes received from them, took up, and changed into forces of creation, out of these the Thrones, Cherubim, and Seraphim constitute new worlds. And what is noteworthy is this, that first we were witness to a heavenly conversation, carried on by the beings of the Second Hierarchy with the beings of the Third Hierarchy. Now we hear more with ears of the spirit. Beginning to speak the words of worlds are the beings of the First Hierarchy, the Thrones, Cherubim, and Seraphim. And for us initially, it is as though we were merely hearing in turn a heavenly conversation, alongside of which we are listeners, auditors. Quite soon it will become clear to us, that it is not so. First the Angels, Archangels, and Archai allowed their voices to resound. Then arose the dialogue between the Exusiai, Dynamis, and Kyriotetes, and the Angels, Archangels, and Archai. Then the Thrones, Cherubim, and Seraphim intermixed themselves into the conversation. A whole chorus from the spheres of spirit resounds. We become aware, while the voices of the nine choirs are sounding forth together, that what rings forth from them in turn is directed at us as human beings. So at the last, the whole spiritual world speaks to us. Then in turn, when spoken within the spiritual world, when taken up in the Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones’ world-words, then in turn it rings out also here into our human nature. It sounds forth to us in our humanity:
[This fourth stanza was now written on the board.]
The spirit-word that the “I-am” wills, is the world. And while we hear these words pressed into movement within our human nature with the ear of the spirit, it becomes light in the spiritual world. The gentle light that was there previously changes into spirit brilliance. That is the experience with the Guardian as the spiritual sphere comes to light.
And then, it is as if the Guardian of the Threshold touches us gently with his spirit-organs. We feel his being, but it is as if he does not have his spirit-eyes on us, as if for a moment nothing shows, in spite of previously being in bright spiritual space. Then the word mounts up out of our inner nature, the word that today we will not yet count as being among the mantras that we have received, but instead at the close of this lesson it will be put in abeyance, set aside, and deferred till the next time. For, when we depict with sensory imagery, what really occurs purely in spiritual fashion, the Guardian of the Threshold gently covers our eyes with his hands, so that we see nothing of the spiritual brilliance we find ourselves in all about, for what mounts up within us, is what in remembrance works in the sensory world, which we have left with the acquisition of insight in the spiritual world. It mounts up.
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| 270. Esoteric Instructions: Eighteenth Lesson
12 Jul 1924, Dornach Translated by John Riedel Rudolf Steiner |
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| 270. Esoteric Instructions: Eighteenth Lesson
12 Jul 1924, Dornach Translated by John Riedel Rudolf Steiner |
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My dear friends! The call to self-knowledge, which the soul of man can take up, when it listens impartially to all the beings and events of life, in nature and in the life of the spirit, we will once again, at the beginning of our lesson, allow to pass before our souls.
We are in the midst, my dear brothers and sisters, of our souls finding the answer to this question, having gone quite far in its contemplation, along the way to the Guardian of the Threshold, to the abyss of existence. We were infused with the instruction of the Guardian of the Threshold along the way. What had stood there previously dark and dull, a person knowing that it nevertheless held his being, that it held the source of his existence, what had been before him dark and dull started to lighten, and then became bright, quite bright. Then in the brightness we heard the Guardian’s call.
And the Angels, Archangels, and Archai allow their voices to resound upon this word of the Guardian of the Threshold, as they focus on human souls.
And so we see how there, through the flooding light of the world chalice, with which we became acquainted in the last lesson, the beings of the Third Hierarchy become irradiated and illuminated. We see droves of these high beings of Angels, Archangels, and Archai going forth in service to the higher spirits, to the Exusiai, Dynamis, and Kryriotetes. And we become witness to the Exusiai, Dynamis, and Kyriotetes speaking to the beings serving them, implementing what these serving beings require for humanity.
And then, urged on by what is within us, we then must turn our gaze to the highest spirits, to the First Hierarchy, turning to them as they turn themselves in blessing to human beings. From there we hear:
We bear witness to what beings of the higher worlds discuss among themselves, to what the highest beings pour into human souls as world-words, to what inundates human hearts, and so we must feel ourselves within this dominion-over-all, moving-through-all world light, within which we ourselves live and move. And now we come upon a truth, perceived there where disembodied spirit-beings live their lives, where spirits think their truths, where spirits are adorned in their beauty, where the work of spirits takes spirited effect. And we come upon the grand, the all-encompassing, the spirit-world-interwoven truth: that spirit is all that is. For we appear, we live, we move in spirit. We embrace spiritual existence. And now we think about how spirit, within which we now live, is all that is. And now we know that there also where we otherwise are in life, there also in the world of sensory show is simply spirit. Spirit is alone, is all that is. This stands now before our souls as unwavering, almighty truth: that spirit is all. And it is good for us to envision this truth in imagery before the soul. [It was drawn in red.] That, illustrated in the image, is spirit. It is only spirit. [While speaking the word “is” was written within the red drawing in various places.] That which appears here, is. It is spirit. And what is outside this red area, is nothing. That stands before our souls. And the spirit-world says to us, here it is, here it is, here it is, here it is. Everywhere the spirit is, is something.  [Presently while speaking on, the word “nothing” was written at various places between the areas drawn in red, and further away the words “minerals”, “plants”, and “animals.”] And where there is no spirit, is nothing. And we are duly impressed, that that is the truth. Everywhere spirit is, is something, and where spirit is not, is nothing. And yet we ask ourselves, how does it appear to us, all that seems to show itself in the world of sensory appearance, out of which we have gone forth over the Threshold here into the spiritual world, where we find the truth of existence, the spirit, emplaced before our souls? Back over there we saw what here is drawn in red as nothing. We are too weak over there, concerning what is drawn in red, to see. What remains over there residually? Nothingness! What we see over there is nothingness, whether it is called minerals, it is a sort of nothingness, whether called plants, a second sort of nothingness, whether called animals, a third sort of nothingness, and so forth. We perceive nothingness because we are too weak to see what is something. And this nothingness we talk about as the realm of nature. That is the grand beguilement, or as we say, the grand illusion. There are only various sorts of nothingness around us, before our eyes, as we gaze about embodied in corporeality. And we have the deeply felt impression that we are living there, and giving names to what fundamentally is nothing, to what is a grand illusion. And what appears to us presently, what lives over there as nothing and to what we give names, it appears to us as a summation of names, names that we give to the state of nothingness. For in their true state all beings are simply in existence, here where we have entered, here in the spiritual world. Names assigned to nothingness over there are wasted on what is bereft of being. And beings not from the realms of gods, to which we belong, and to which we rightfully belong, such beings can take possession of the names we have wasted on the nothingness. And henceforth they bear these names. When we are not clear about this, that here upon the earth we give names to what has no real existence, we lapse with our names into a stark, strong illusion. We must know that we are giving names to what is intrinsically nothing. That stands out presently before our souls, while we are living and moving here within the light, so that it can be felt deep, deep, deeply by the spirit-craft of our hearts, which has remained with us in crossing over. Now we know that we have drawn out of the realm of illusion into the realm of truth. Earnest solemnity, sacred earnest solemnity in regard to truth begins to have dominion in our souls. And now we look back at the trustworthy Guardian of the Threshold, who stands at the abyss of existence. He is not speaking just now. He spoke out of the darkness. He spoke as we were just feeling the luminosity. He spoke while the luminosity grew into brilliance. Now as we stand in the brilliance astounded by the grand truth that there is only spirit, he presently does not speak, he now silently indicates how on high the beings of the higher hierarchies are speaking among themselves. And we think for a moment in regarding the spirit, that down there in life on earth we have been struck with the impression minerals, plants, animals, and physical human beings have made on us, at what the clouds have to say, at what the mountains say, at what the gushing springs are doing, at the power of lightning, at the rolling thunder, at the stars whispering world mysteries. That was what we met with along the way down there. That was our experience. Now all is silent on this side of the abyss of existence. Presently we are witnesses as the gods speak with one another, as the whole choir of angels begins to speak. Still looking upward, we see this choir turning to the higher spirits, turning to the spirits of the Second Hierarchy in service. We gaze at the loving, serving behavior of the Angels, Archangels, and Archai as they turn to the Exusiai, Dynamis, and Kyriotetes. We have the impression of the gathering of the Third Hierarchy in service. We have the impression of the gathering of the Second Hierarchy in world-creating, in world-dominion, in world-illumination, and we hear what these beings, inwardly spirit illuminated, godlike in willing, and willing all that is godlike, what these beings are saying one to another. We hear the Angels, as they allow their word to resound. Out of their care in guiding human souls they allow their word to resound.
That is carried by the Angels. That is what they are concerned with, in how they should be guiding human souls, for they note that there is thinking going on among human beings. They turn in supplication to the Dynamis, in order to obtain the force by means of which they can properly guide human beings in thinking.
The Dynamis from the realm of illumination, dominion, and action answer full of love, full of benevolence:
And the flooding light, the force of illumination in thinking, streams forth from the Dynamis to the Angels. What the Angels receive, without human beings knowing it, illuminates within human thinking. Now we are aware of what works and moves within human thinking: the illumination of Angels! But the force of light belonging to this illumination, they have received it from the Dynamis. [The first part of the mantra was now written on the board.]
There is thinking going on among human beings! That is their concern. That is what they put forth as their words of concern.
Now they turn in their concern to the Dynamis:
The Dynamis answer:
Our spiritual gaze goes further. We see the gathering of Archangels turning in service to the spirits of the Second Hierarchy. Now they turn to the Exusiai and Kyriotetes, to these two categories of spirits of the Second Hierarchy. Angels have turned to the Dynamis, and Archangels have turned to the Exusiai and Kyriotetes. And their concern is that there is feeling among human beings. They appeal to the Exusiai and Kyriotetes for what they need for the feeling-life of human beings, in order to guide them.
They must breathe life into feelings. And with mighty voice, since two choirs are answering, the answer from the Kyriotetes and Exusiai resounds in the spiritual world-all.
[The second part of the mantra was now written on the board.]
It is answered.
And we turn to the third gathering of the Third Hierarchy, to the gathering of the Archai. Their concern is that there is willing among human beings, the third concern of the Third Hierarchy. We feel the Angels turning to the Dynamis, then we felt the Dynamis in action, far up in the heights, so that the light from on high is garnered and given to the Angels in their concern for human thinking. And we felt all that is encompassed by world-warmth is garnered by Exusiai and Kyriotetes, and is handed over to the Archangels, so that they can lead in feelings in human beings. And deep below, where the spirits and gods of the deep rule, from the abysses in which rules much that is evil, from there deep forces of goodness must be obtained. There all the gods of the Second Hierarchy pull together, for in their concern for human beings willing the Archai need the strength of the depths. And so they speak:
And in answer to this, in mighty formidable cosmic voice, the mighty voices of the mighty spirits of the Second Hierarchy ring forth together, all three together, three choirs gathering into one choir, Kyriotetes, Dynamis, and Exusiai, three choirs in one:
[The third part of the mantra was now written on the board.]
It is answered by Kyriotetes, Dynamis, and Exusiai together:
That is the world, the world present in the sacred creator-words, the resounding of which we become witness to in spiritual worlds, as we are witness to what goes on in mineral and plant-like realms here on the earth. And we take it in, as it comes to us on our way, as it becomes our experience.
We grow into the spiritual world. Instead of what surrounds us here on this sensation-laden earth, surrounding us there are the choirs of the spiritual world. And we become witnesses to what the gods are saying, to what the gods are saying in their concern for the human world, in their caring works concerning the human world. Only when our meditation undergoes this full disengagement from what we are here on the earth, and we feel engaged with a world the gods there in their divine speech allow to exist, only then do we experience true reality. And just when we have this reality, we also have what is really around us here between birth and death. For behind all that lives here between birth and death in apparency, is what comprises the true reality we live in between death and a new birth. People of earlier times lived upon the earth, but in a dull, dream-laden clairvoyant state of existence. Their souls were filled with a sort of dream-laden pictures that spoke of the spiritual world. Imagine before us such a man of olden times. Then, when not working, even though the sun still stood in the heavens, when putting his work aside to rest awhile, then he might have paused for reflection, to bring up the pictures he was able to experience in his soul, which reminded him of what he had experienced in pre-earthly existence in the spiritual world. But he did not understand the connection of his earth existence with the other existence, the one that glowed there within in his clairvoyant dreams. But the teachings of the adepts, the initiates, were there to make it clear. They brought clarity at first to their students, and through their students to all people, about what the connection is. And so one lived in the earth-world by means of memories of pre-earthly existence. In life on earth today, the memory of the pre-earthly existence has been lost. Initiates can no longer bring clarity about the connection of life on earth with pre-earthly existence, for people have forgotten what they experienced in pre-earthly existence. Such a clarification is simply not possible. Cosmic memory does not need to be brought into clarity, for today it is simply not there. But what must be heard through initiation science, is what the gods are saying there behind sensory existence. Then people must experience it. And increasingly the time will come in which people, having gone through the portal of death, will only be able to understand the spiritual world, into which they have entered, when they can say the following: When the person has stepped through the portal of death into supra-earthly existence and then finds himself in the reality of the spiritual world, within the world of Angles, Archangels, Archai, Exusiai, Dynamis, Kyriotetes, Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones, when he experiences all this, then what he experiences there after death should not remain incomprehensible and dark for him, for then he must remember the things that he went through by means of initiation knowledge. And it will be important, immeasurably important to the understanding of what can be experienced there in the life between death and a new birth, to have already heard it as such, for otherwise it cannot be understood, other than through a memory of having heard, back on earth, such as what resounds over there.
Those are the words, my brothers and sisters, that properly belong in the esoteric school today. They should ring forth there, by means of the instruction through which the power of the Age of Michael is channeled through the esoteric school. It can then be as follows. In the esoteric school the first to be heard within life on earth will be the voice of the Angels:
The answer of the Dynamis:
The voice of the Archangels is heard.
The answer of the Kyriotetes and Exusiai:
The words of the Archai:
All three ranks of the Second Hierarchy answer, the Exusiai, Dynamis, and Kyriotetes:
Having heard this in esoteric schools, and on hearing them ringing forth again after having gone through the portal of death, people will hear both together, the esoteric school here and the life between death and a new birth there. They will understand what there resounds. Or people may remain dull and unwilling to hear what the esoteric schools have to say about preparedness through Anthroposophy in general. They may not take up what can be gently heard through initiation knowledge from the higher realms. Then they go through the portal of death. There they hear what they should have heard earlier. They will not understand the incomprehensible ringing, the simple reverberation, the noise of worlds resounding in the words of power of the gods speaking among themselves. The gospels speak of this. Paul speaks of it, that people should attend to the guiding wisdom of Christ before death brings them into the land of the spirit. For death in spirit-land comes also, at the same time, when we go through the portal of death and do not understand what resounds there, when instead we are only able to hear incomprehensible noise, instead of the understandable words of the gods. This is because what has befallen us, instead of life of the soul, is death of the soul. That the soul might live, for this reason there is initiation knowledge. That the soul remains alive when it passes through the portal of death, for this reason there are esoteric schools. This should permeate us thoroughly And now let us recall the path we have been walking along in the spirit. Let us recall how we approached the Guardian in order to become acquainted with how someone might cross over the abyss of existence. And let us look just now upon the impressions that from over there have worked on our souls, let us take up into our souls what can parade before our souls as the inner drama of self-awareness. We have gone down the path. Standing there in a certain way are three tablets. Presently we stand before the third, after we have taken up into our souls all the depths of the divine call. From the first tablet, a short time after having come to the abyss of existence, there it would peal forth:
Now the Guardian of the Threshold approaches us. The second tablet looms. On it is written:
Then when we have arrived on the other side, passing by the earnest Guardian, standing there, we would hear a dialogue such as this:
Human beings are willing!
From there we gaze back over here on the sensory world. From there we feel the words concerning this sensory world:
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| 270. Esoteric Instructions: Nineteenth Lesson
02 Aug 1924, Dornach Translated by John Riedel Rudolf Steiner |
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| 270. Esoteric Instructions: Nineteenth Lesson
02 Aug 1924, Dornach Translated by John Riedel Rudolf Steiner |
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My dear friends! Once again, we will begin by allowing the verse to flood into our souls, the verse that can presently bring to us how all that is and is becoming in the world, what has been in times long past, is in the present, and will be in the future, how out of all sounds forth to us, evermore resounds in us, and calls out to us to seek self-awareness, and as such is the foundation for true, for truly balanced world-awareness. O Man, know yourself! Well, my dear brothers and sisters, we have allowed mantric verses to pass by our souls, which in their craft comprise the way forth into spirit-land, past the Guardian of the Threshold, into what is at first the dim, dark, night-bedecked spiritual world, which at first just feels light, then for soul-perception becomes light. In this spiritual world we have seen how a person partakes, generally unawares although he can become aware, how a person partakes of the dialogue of the higher hierarchies among themselves, which the hierarchies among themselves work on and interweave into the world, which itself is spoken forth in word-of-worlds. And finally, we have been able to situate ourselves in that world-domain in which the various hierarchy choirs ring all together. Let us bring to mind once more how the choirs of the various hierarchies resound within one another, there, where we are infused with what the high beings of the Second Hierarchy are saying, where we are infused with what the beings of the First Hierarchy are speaking forth. As they speak, we presently begin to hear them resounding together as a choir. The Guardian makes us mindful, as we have already become acquainted with in previous lessons, of the following: See the ethereal iris’s After the Guardian of the Threshold has advised us about the spirited mystery of the rainbow, the Angels, Archangels, and Archai peal forth as if from a choir: Sense our thoughts The spirits of the third hierarchy clarify how in service to humanity they apply in supplication to the Second Hierarchy, to the Exusiai, Dynamis, and Kyriotetes. Out of their domain we hear, once again in chorus: What you have taken up, And when we have heard how the spiritual beings of the Second Hierarchy align with our “I-am” in world-creativity, then the Thrones, Seraphim, and Cherubim of the First Hierarchy peal forth in choir: In your worlds of will And now we stand within the spirit word, within the spirit word that lies at the foundation of world formation. We feel this spirit word around about us. We feel the world infused throughout with this spirit word. We feel ourselves interwoven with this spirit word. We feel the influx of this spirit word into our most intimate human nature. And finally, we feel this world-wide spirit word streaming into our hearts. We feel ourselves there with the whole of our human nature in the surging of this spirit word. We feel ourselves there in spirit in the word-interlaced world spirit. There is the Guardian in the distance. We have walked past the Guardian. Presently he is quite distant. We hear him yet softly, as he now allows a final admonishing word to stream forth to us from his distant reach. The Guardian speaks from afar. The human I knows itself in the realm of the Seraph-Cherub-Throne borne Spirit-Word. The Guardian speaks: Who speaks in spirit-word There sounds forth in answer from the realm of the First Hierarchy: Speaking is star-flaming, – we feel the world-speech, the language of the world-word within ourselves – in my heart. My dear brothers and sisters! Whoever would penetrate into the esoteric realm should certainly feel at once the primeval sacred ehyeh asher ehyeh,2 the I am which is a sacred holy word, that resounds here but emerges from a reality on the other side. The I am that we take hold of in fleeting thoughts is merely a reflection. We must most certainly make ourselves aware that the true I am does not emerge from us in speech within the earthly realm, initially. If we are worthy and would say the I am, we first must come into the realm of the Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones, for there the I am rings true. Here in the earthly realm, it is somewhat illusory. But there, in yonder watch, in order to experience truly and inwardly the I am, there we must hear world-words. We must solemnly hear the question of the Guardian of the Threshold, who most certainly speaks there in world-words. With thunderous flaming, spiritually thunderous flaming the Seraphim, who forge their way through the world, there where we now stand the Seraphim speak the world-word’s fiery speech. The word is flame, flaming voice. And as we experience ourselves in this blazing world fire, in this fiery speech speaking in flaming voice, then we experience the true I am. That is contained in these words, which come now as a question from the distant Guardian of the Threshold, whom we have long ago passed by, and then in answer comes forth from the domain of the First Hierarchy: Who speaks in spirit-word [The first part of the mantra was now written on the board.]
When a person’s customary word resounds, then what speaks by means of the person’s word is human thinking. And when the spiritual world-word resounds, then what speaks by means of spiritual world-word is world-thinking. This lies embedded within the following question of the Guardian, that he now sets forth as a second from the distance. The Guardian speaks from afar. The human-I knows itself in the realm of the Seraph-Cherub-Throne borne Spirit-Word:What thinks in spirit-word These are the very thoughts issuing, coming forth, of world-souls, from all world-souls, from all the beings belonging to the various hierarchies. They sculpt, form, fashion everything that exists in the world’s realms. Therefore, the Guardian asks who it is that thinks the potent thoughts that form and fashion all things: What thinks in spirit-word Again, coming to us from the realm of the First Hierarchy:
First it was the flaming speaking the words. The stars flaming speak the words. The luminaries, from which the flaming comes, think.
—So says the person to himself, standing within it all.— In the primal source of light3 That is the second colloquy, the second call, as if the beings of the First Hierarchy were giving us world-permission, that we within ourselves may experience the "I am". What thinks in spirit-word [The second part of the mantra was now written on the board.]
The world-spirit-word must speak. From it, thoughts stream forth. But the thoughts are formative, the thoughts are infused with force; the thoughts stream forth and world beings and world events thereby come into being, becoming all that is. In it the word-formed world-thoughts live, the thought-laden world-words. It is not a simple sort of thinking; it is not a simple sort of speaking; it is formation, creative forceful crafting, forces streaming forth in words. Forces imprint the thoughts out into world-beings, into world-events. All this is indicated, pointed to, in the third question which the Guardian of the Threshold puts to us from afar: What crafts4 in spirit-word The whole world, which there resounds with the world-word, which there is thoroughly illuminated with world-thinking, is just the same as what thinks and speaks in human beings, is incorporated or embodied, is just the same as what resounds in the world-word. What shines thoroughly illuminated by thinking is world-embodiment. The Thrones carry it, bear it, or said somewhat better, it is that within which the Thrones bear the thoroughly thought-illuminated, world-spirit-word. To this the answer comes, from the realm of the First Hierarchy, to the question of the Guardian: Crafting is star-world-embodiment,6 We must build a word that is rather uncommon. But just as one illuminates by light and as the verb to live is built from the noun life, likewise in what emerges as a force in what is borne by the body, likewise one can build the word abide, or embody. Then to embody is nothing that is dead, to embody is nothing that is finished, to embody is something that is active at all times, is versatile, is moving, it embodies. Embodying are thronal bearing-powers; World-word, world-thinking, then world-embodiment. Speaking, then thinking, and in the third question the Guardian refers to world-embodiment:
[The third part of the mantra was now written on the board.]
In a certain way, my dear brothers and sisters, it is a sort of closure along the path, the path that began in the realm of illusion, in the realm of maya, that has led us to the Guardian of the Threshold, that has led us in self-awareness through to self-awareness in the spiritual realm, and that has allowed us to hear the choirs of the Hierarchies. In a certain way it is a closure, for we now stand in the position of being allowed to experience in ourselves the true I am, the ehyeh asher ehyeh. We are able to experience it in this dialogue, as the threefold It is I springs us forth from the heart, allows us to spring forth from the heart, so that when it springs us forth from the heart, it will allow into our heart the echo of what the Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones allow to resound within this heart.
With that, my dear brothers and sisters, the first stage of the school’s First Class has in a certain sense been completed. We have allowed those impartations that we could receive from the spiritual world, for this school is a school constituted by the spiritual world itself, we have allowed those images and inspirations that can come from the spiritual world to be drawn into us. They constitute what for our souls is the way to go forth in capturing the true human "I" in the vicinity of the Seraphim, the Cherubim, and the Thrones. My dear brothers and sisters, as you have heard in general anthroposophical proceedings concerning the supersensory School of Michael, it had initially resounded inwardly in such heart-felt lessons. The mighty images, cultivated imaginatively at the start of the nineteenth century, and then placed before the soul, if one was so destined to be in the vicinity of Michael, the revelations of the school of the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries, which in the supersensory world was led by Michael himself and high spiritual beings, in the aforementioned sense. And now we stand before this anthroposophical school founded by Michael. We feel ourselves within it. Michael-words they are, Michael-words that ought to characterize the way that leads forth into the spiritual world and into the human "I". These Michael-words of the esoteric Michael-school have built, so to say, the first stage. As will then be announced, when we meet once again in September for these Class lessons, then it will be the will of the Michael-power to begin by highlighting the imaginative cultus-revelations from the beginning of the nineteenth century. That will be the second stage. All that has now been brought before our souls as mantric words, will stand before our souls more fully in imagery, which, insofar as is possible, will be the imagery as brought down here of the supersensory imaginative cultus from the beginning of the nineteenth century. The third chapter of this school will build what will lead us on to those interpretations that were given to the mantric words in the supersensory Michael School of the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries. We should feel that we place ourselves in the midst of all that is within the spiritual world itself. Ever and again, however, we should look back upon the physical-sensory world, and in exemplary-unassuming fashion accommodate ourselves to that which has dominion in the sensory-physical earthly world. To this end, and in closing, let us once more allow to sound before our souls all, if we are capable of receiving it, if we are able to sense it, all that sounds forth from every stone, from every plant, from every animal, from every billowing cloud, from every bubbling spring, from every rushing gust of wind, from the woods and mountains, and everywhere from the things and events of the earth all around, if can sense it there as it sounds forth. We were in the realm of the Seraphim, the Cherubim, and the Thrones. By itself the voice of the Guardian sounded forth from afar. We go in modesty back again, past the Guardian, back into the realm of the sensory show, into what is apparent to the senses. And again, we allow the words to reverberate within us:
 
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| 270. Esoteric Instructions: First Recapitulation Lesson
06 Sep 1924, Dornach Translated by John Riedel Rudolf Steiner |
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| 270. Esoteric Instructions: First Recapitulation Lesson
06 Sep 1924, Dornach Translated by John Riedel Rudolf Steiner |
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My dear Friends! Circumstances have worked out in such a way that numerous friends found it possible to come to today's class and shall probably also be present for further sessions, friends who were not present at previous sessions of the class, and it is not possible, therefore, simply to proceed in the way that was indicated when we met the last time. Also, the repetition of the class lessons need prove to be no hardship for those members of this esoteric school who have participated in earlier sessions, for the content of this esoteric school is of such a nature that it should again and again be brought before the soul. This is on point for those for whom today's session is a repetition, as the repetition, just because it is a repetition, also signifies a continuation. For all those, however, who are here today for the first time, it signifies something else. It signifies an acquaintance with the beginning of the esoteric path. It is true that even those who are far advanced along the esoteric path find special fruitfulness for their further striving in returning again and again to the beginnings. Returning in this way to the beginning is at the same time always an entering upon a new and further step. This is the way we wish to look upon these lessons which are now to be given. So, for the sake of those members who are here today for the first time, the nature and significance of this school shall be set forth once again in an introductory manner. When the impulse for the Christmas Conference manifested itself here in this hall through the spiritual laying of the Foundation Stone of the Anthroposophical Society on Christmas Day, it was then indeed the fact, as I said yesterday, that an esoteric impulse was from then on to flow through the entire Anthroposophical Society, an esoteric impulse which could indeed already be observed in everything that has been undertaken since Christmas in the Anthroposophical Society. The kernel of this esoteric activity of the Anthroposophical Society must henceforth be the esoteric school, specifically the esoteric school which, arising out of the whole character of Anthroposophy, now has to replace what was previously attempted as the so-called Independent College of Spiritual Science, which one cannot claim to have been successful. This failure took place at a time when I did not yet personally have the responsibility for the conduct of the Anthroposophical Society and also did not have the task of permitting those who wished to try something to go ahead and try it. This kind of thing should not occur again in the future. It was in accordance with the nature of what formed itself out of the Christmas impulse, an impulse with which I was united, that the Free School of Spiritual Science, with its various sections, should constitute the esoteric kernel of all that was once again intended to become effective as esoteric activity within the Anthroposophical Society. An esoteric school, however, is not founded in the earthly realm. An esoteric school is only truly present when it is the earthly reflection of what is founded in the supersensible worlds. It has frequently been discussed in Anthroposophical meetings of that in the rulership within the hierarchy of archangels, who have wielded authority over human spiritual life in sequence, it was the Archangel Michael who took on this guidance of spiritual life in the last third of the nineteenth century. It has also been pointed out that Michael's guidance has a very special importance in spiritual life, within the spiritual development of human life on earth. It is certainly so in human evolution that life in this evolution is guided by seven successive archangels, by seven archangels who together constitute the substance of the rulership of the planetary system to which sun, earth and moon also belong. The impulse radiating out from each of these archangels extends over a period of three to four hundred years. Taking our start from the archangel under whose impulse the spiritual life of mankind stands at the present time, taking our start from Michael, we presently have the archangel who has the spiritual force of the sun within him in everything which he does, in everything that he nurtures. He was preceded three to four hundred years back, reckoning back three to four hundred years from the last third of the nineteenth century, Michael’s rulership was preceded by the rulership of the archangel Gabriel, who predominantly bears Moon forces in his impulses. Preceding still further back, we come to those centuries where there was a kind of revolt, especially among those who were the main carriers of civilization, a revolt during medieval times against spiritual activity and spiritual beings. This was due to the rulership of Samael, who bears Mars forces in his impulses. Going even further back, we come to that epoch in which a medically oriented alchemy flowed deeply into spiritual life under the rulership of the Archangel Raphael, who bears Mercury forces in his impulses. Retracing our steps still further, we come ever nearer to the time of the Mystery of Golgotha, although not quite reaching it, and we find the rulership of Zachariel,1 who bears Jupiter forces in his impulses, and then the rulership of Anael,2 who bears Venus forces in his impulses, at a time quite close to the Mystery of Golgotha. Then we come to the time in which the radiance of the Mystery of Golgotha confronted a profound spiritual darkness pervasive on the earth under the rulership of Oriphiel,3 who bears Saturn forces in his impulses. Then we return again to the former rulership of Michael, in which a concurrence of world-wide, cosmopolitan impulses took place in Alexandrianism, in Aristotelianism, which up to that time had been brought to mankind through the Greek mysteries and spiritual ways and beings of the Greeks. By means of Alexander this was carried over into Asia and North Africa, so that the life of spirit that had arisen in a small territory streamed out over the whole of the civilized world at that time. For it is precisely this which characterizes a Michael Age, that what has flowered at an earlier time in a single locality radiates out in cosmopolitan fashion over the other parts of humanity. So, one always returns, when one has completed a cycle of all the various archangels, to the same archangel. We could go yet further back through another sequence of Gabriel, Samael, Raphael, Zachariel, Anael, and Oriphiel, and we would arrive once more at a Michael age. And we will find that after the Michael age which now streams down upon us, there will again follow an era of Oriphiel. And so, my dear friends, we should be aware that Michael impulses live in characteristic fashion in all that is to take place at the present time as spiritual activity and spiritual substance. But this is a more important Michael epoch than were the preceding ones. I merely wish to draw your attention to this fact. What is essential in this regard is that when at Christmas the Anthroposophical Society was placed in the service of esoteric spiritual life, this esoteric school, the esoteric kernel of the Society, could only come into existence if it were founded by that spiritual power to whom is entrusted the responsibility for the guidance of the present epoch of mankind's history. We live in this esoteric school as in an esoteric school founded by Michael, the spirit of our time. We live in an esoteric school that has been rightly founded, for this school is the Michael school of the present time. So, my dear friends, you only conceive what is spoken in this school properly if you are conscious that what is spoken here is entirely what the Michael stream itself wishes to bring to mankind. Michael-Words are all the words spoken in this school. Michael-Will is everything which is willed in this school. Michael-Pupils are you all, when you take your places rightly within this school. Only when this consciousness lives within you is it possible for you to take part in the right way in this school, to participate in this school with the right mood and attitude of heart and mind, to know and feel that you are not merely members of what steps forth in the world as an earth institution, but what steps forth as a heavenly institution. Furthermore, it is understood that each person who becomes a member of this school is beholden, is pledged4 to nurture the school. It is a unique aspect of the Christmas Foundation impulse of the Anthroposophical Society that a character of complete openness has impressed itself on this Society. As a result, nothing further is required of one who becomes a member of the Anthroposophical Society than that he receives from the Society what flows within the spiritual movement of anthroposophy. One undertakes no further obligations when one becomes an adherent of anthroposophy. The obligation to be a decent human being is, of course, understood. It is another matter when one seeks to enter this school. In this case, in regard to all that emerges out of the whole spiritual spirit, out of the occult spirit of this school a member of this school will take on a nurturing-pledge5 to be a worthy representative of Anthroposophical enterprises before the entire world, with all of one’s thinking, feeling, and willing. One can be a member of this school in no other way. The decision whether or not one is a worthy member of this school rests solely in the hands of the leadership of the school. The leadership of the school must take seriously, however, the specific duties which it takes on. The leadership of this school is accountable only to the spiritual powers, to the Michael power itself, for the various things that it does. The leadership, however, must take seriously the point that whoever belongs to the school must be a worthy representative of the concerns of Anthroposophy before the world. This entails that the leadership of the school must insist that membership be taken up seriously in the utmost sense. The leadership must therefore make clear to whomever cannot meet this seriousness, that that person’s membership cannot continue. That this will be taken seriously, my dear friends, you may see from the fact that in the short time this school has existed, in twenty cases already, it has been necessary to exclude members for a period of time. Strict rules of this kind will have to be maintained. One may not play around with genuine esoteric matters, for they must be handled with utmost earnestness. In this manner straightforwardly through this school earnestness can stream into the movement of Anthroposophy, which is absolutely necessary for it to flourish in true spirituality. These are the introductory words which I had to convey to you. If you, I am speaking now to those who are present here for the first time, if you receive the words which are spoken as genuine messages from the spiritual world, as genuine Michael words, then you will take your places here in the only way that is right for you to do so. Let us first bring before our souls those words which sound forth to man when he looks out with unprejudiced perception upon all that surrounds him in the world, in the world above, in the world around him, and in the world below. We may look out to the silent world of the minerals, to the sprouting, springing realm of the plant kingdom, to the mobile realm of the animals, to the pensive realm of the human being on earth, we might turn our glance out to the mountains, to the seas, to the rivers, to the bubbling springs, we might gaze up to the moving clouds, to thunder and lightning, we might gaze up to the shining sun, to the glimmering moon, to the twinkling stars. From all around, when a person opens his heart, when he is able to hear with soulful ears, there sounds forth confronting him the admonition, which also rests within the words which I have now to utter:
And when we allow the sense and spirit of these words to work upon us, we feel the longing to seek those wellsprings from which our actual human nature flows. To understand these words completely means to seek out in earnest longing the path which leads to those waters from which flows the beingness of the human soul, to seek the origin of human life. This will come to you, my dear brothers and sisters, in accordance with the disposition of your karma. But the first step will be a contemplative understanding of the esoteric path. This esoteric path will be portrayed in Michael words here in this school. The path will be portrayed in such a way that each human being can walk it, that no one is obliged to follow it, but rather that it can initially be understood, for this understanding is itself the first step. Therefore, there will flow forth in mantric words what Michael has to say to humanity at the present time. These mantric words are at the same time words for meditation. Once again, the effect of these words in meditation will depend on the karma of each individual soul. The first thing is to acquire an understanding that just from the spoken mantric words a longing for human self-awareness springs forth, directing the mind to the wellsprings of human existence-awareness. O Man, know yourself! Yes, this longing must grow inwardly. We must seek for the wellspring that lives in the human soul, which is our intrinsically human existence. We must first look out upon the world as given around us. We must look out and into all that is present for us in small things and into what is grandiose. We observe the silent stone, the earthworm, we observe whatever grows and creeps and lives around us in the realms of nature. We gaze out to the mighty twinkling, glistening stars. We hear the rolling thunder. If a person becomes an ascetic, he does not have the perspective to fathom the riddles of the intrinsic nature of a human being, nor when one despises what lives as a worm in the earth, what twinkles in the vault of the heavens, nor when one despises outward sense appearance and seeks for an abstract, vague, inwardly chaotic path, but rather, only when one develops a direct deep feeling for all that creeps, lives, and endures in the tiniest worm, when one develops a feeling for the majesty of what shines down upon us from the stars, when one can feel beauty, truth, purity, sublimity, extraordinary greatness, and majesty in all that enters through our senses and becomes perception. When one can stand upright as an observant human being and can hear from plants, stones, animals, stars, clouds, seas, springs, and mountains, when one can hear and grasp majesty and greatness and truth and beauty and radiance from everything surrounding him, then a person says to himself with full depth and intensity, “Certainly great, powerful, majestic, and magnificent is all that crawls, as do the worm on the earth, that sparkles and shines above, as the stars do in the heavens, but your being, O Man, is not among them.” You are not in all that of which your senses initially bear witness. Then one turns one's questioning, riddle-laden glance toward the far distances. From this point forward the esoteric path will be described in imaginations. One turns one's glance toward the far distances. Something in the nature of a path comes into view, a path that leads to a black, night-bedecked wall, which reveals itself as the beginning of profound darkness. We stand there, surrounded by the majesty of sense existence, marveling at the majesty and splendor and radiance of sense existence. Not finding there our own being, our gaze is directed toward the boundary of sensory appearance. But there looms black, night-bedecked darkness. In our heart, however, something says to us, “Not here, where sunlight gleams back to us from all that grows and moves and lives, but rather over there, where night-bedecked darkness confronts us, there are the wellsprings of intrinsic human existence. From there must come the answer to the question, “O Man (O Mensch), know yourself!” So we go cautiously to confront the black darkness and become aware of the first being whom we come up against, who stands there where the black night-bedecked darkness begins. Like a previously unnoticed cloud formation, it draws itself together, becomes humanoid, not weighed down with gravity, yet with human likeness. With earnest, deeply earnest gaze it meets our questioning glance. This is the Guardian of the Threshold. Between the sun-filled, light-reflecting surroundings of man and that night-bedecked darkness, there is an abyss, a deep, yawning abyss. At the abyss the Guardian of the Threshold confronts us. We designate him just so for a reason, as follows. Of course, every night in sleep the human being’s “I” and astral body is certainly in that world which now appears to imaginative cognition as black, night-bedecked darkness. One is unaware, as one’s soul senses are not yet opened, one is unaware of living and moving in the midst of spiritual beings and spiritual conditions from falling asleep until awakening. If one were to experience awareness without further preparation what may be experienced there, one would be utterly crushed. The Guardian of the Threshold protects us, which is why he is called the Guardian of the Threshold. He protects us from crossing the abyss unprepared. We must obey his admonitions if we wish to follow the esoteric path. He wraps the human being in darkness every night. He guards the threshold, so that the human being, falling asleep, shall not pass over unprepared into the spiritual, occult world. There he stands, when we have sufficiently taken this to heart, when we have immersed our soul in it. There he stands, directing his admonition to us, that everything in our physical surrounding is beautiful, but that our own being is not to be found in all this beauty, that we must seek beyond the yawning abyss of existence in the region of night-bedecked, black darkness, that we must wait until it grows dark here in the sunlit, light-gleaming realm of sense-perceptible brightness, until it becomes bright for us there, where for the present there is only black darkness. It is this that the Guardian, with earnest words, puts before our souls. We are still standing a certain distance before him. We gaze out and take in his admonishing word, which resounds from the distance.
This is the first admonition of the Guardian of the Threshold, that first admonition which says to us that beautiful and great and sublime as our sense-world surroundings are, this world gleaming with light illuminated by the sun is for the being of man just a sort of darkness, that we must search there where the darkness is, that this darkness becomes light for us, so that the nature of a human being may be confronted and illuminated for us out of this darkness, so that out of this darkness the human riddle may be resolved. Then the Guardian of the Threshold continues.
[The mantra was written on the blackboard; heading and last line was underlined.]
The continuation of this sentence follows after a few lines, but first we have a clause in parentheses:6
This concludes the parenthesis. Now we continue the sentence. “And from darknesses clarifies itself.,
(the Guardian of the Threshold himself)
Then it is the Guardian himself, who after having conveyed this first admonition, sense light as darkness, darkness as light, now directs our attention to those feelings and senses that can now begin to rise with primeval power out of our soul. He, the Guardian, gives expression to them, as he allows his glance to grow yet more earnest, more earnest yet, as he stretches his arm and his hand toward us in admonishment, in warning, and utters these further words:
We feel ourselves drawn into making a few steps toward the Guardian; we approach nearer to the yawning abyss of existence.
It is different whether initially the word sounds forth to us from sensory beings, if we understand correctly, “O Man, know yourself,” or whether it now sounds forth at the fearful abyss of being out of the mouth of the Guardian of the Threshold himself. One and the same word, yet two different ways of being taken hold of by it! All of these words are mantric, are there to be meditated, are the sort of words that stimulate capacities in the soul to draw nearer to the spiritual world, if they are able to inflame the soul. [The mantra was written on the blackboard. The heading and the last line were underlined.]
While the Guardian speaks these words, we have approached the yawning abyss of being. It goes deep down. There is no hope that we can cross over the abyss with the feet given to us on earth. We need to be freed from the weight of earthly, we need the wings of the spirit to cross over the abyss. Just there however, just as he has beckoned us to the edge of the abyss of being, the Guardian makes us aware that at this time of our inner self, before it has been refined and purified, of how it actually is in the present, of how we are entirely given over to hate toward the spiritual world, to mockery of the spiritual world, to lack of courage and to fear of the spiritual world. Just there the Guardian makes us aware of this self of ours that wills there, that feels there, that thinks there in its threefold configuration as willing, feeling and thinking, of how this self of ours is actually constituted today, is formed by the age in which we live. This we must first come to recognize before we can become aware of our god-implanted true self in true, genuine self-awareness. As the three beasts, one after another, are drawn out of the abyss, they appear to us as seen by the eternal godlike healing powers, the will of a person, the feeling of a person, the thinking of a person. As one after the other, willing, feeling, and thinking in their true form emerge out of the abyss, the Guardian speaks in clarification. We stand fast at the abyss. The Guardian speaks. The beasts rise. The Guardian:
I will write these mantric verses on the blackboard next time. Having learned this from the mouth of the Guardian one returns in memory to the beginning. There stands once more before the soul what all beings say, that are in our surroundings, if we understand them rightly, what all beings said to man in the most distant past, what all beings say to man in the present day, what all beings will say to the human being of the future:
These are the words of the Michael School. When they come to be spoken, the spirit of Michael waves and weaves through the room in which they come to be spoken. And his sign is the very sign, that in his presence may confirm his presence. [The Michael sign was drawn on the blackboard.]  Then Michael leads us into the true Rosicrucian School that would reveal the secrets of man's own true being in the past, in the present, and in the future through the Father God, the Son God and the Spirit God. And then, impressing the seal on the words “rosae et crucis” the words may be spoken
accompanied by the signs of Michael's seal, which are, for the first words, “Ex Deo Nascimur” [The lower seal gesture was drawn on the blackboard.], for the second words, “In Christo Morimur” [The middle seal gesture was drawn on the blackboard.], and for the third words, “Per Spiritum Sanctum Reviviscimus” [The upper seal gesture was drawn on the blackboard.], whereby, as we speak the words “Ex Deo Nascimur,” confirming them through the seal and signs of Michael, we feel, “I honor the Father” [Overlying the drawn lower seal gesture was written the words:]
As we speak “In Christo Morimur” we feel with this sign, “I love the Son.” [Overlying the drawn middle seal gesture is written the words:]
As we speak “Per Spiritum Sanctum Reviviscimus” we feel with this sign, “I unite with the Spirit.” [Overlying the upper seal gesture is written the words:]
That is the meaning of the signs. Michael's presence becomes confirmed by his seal and signs. [The Michael sign was made. Then the gestures of the three seal signs were made, and at the same time the words were spoken:]
Only those who are authorized members of this School may possess the mantric words which have come to be written on the blackboard, that is, those who have received the blue membership card. No one else may possess these words. Of course, anyone prevented from attending one or other of the Lessons may also receive them, as well as those who live too far away to attend. So long as they are members of the school, they may receive them from others who are also in this school. In each case, however, permission must be sought before the mantras are passed on. Not the one who wants to receive the mantras but the one who wants to pass them on must ask either Frau Dr. Wegman or myself for permission. This is not merely an administrative matter. Every time a mantra is passed on permission must first be sought either from Frau Dr. Wegman or from me. The mantras may not be sent through the post, but only handed on personally. 
|
| 270. Esoteric Instructions: Second Recapitulation Lesson
09 Sep 1924, Dornach Translated by John Riedel Rudolf Steiner |
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| 270. Esoteric Instructions: Second Recapitulation Lesson
09 Sep 1924, Dornach Translated by John Riedel Rudolf Steiner |
|---|
My dear brothers and sisters! It is not possible, again today, to repeat the introductory words, despite the fact that a number of new members of this esoteric school are present who were not here before. For this reason, I must require that when the newly admitted members of the school receive the mantras from other members, in accordance with the instructions which I shall refer to at the conclusion of today’s session, they must feel themselves duty bound to have explained to them, by those who impart the verses, the conditions for membership in this school. It will now be necessary to continue where we left off the last time. To begin with let us once again allow those words to come before our soul which sound forth to any open-minded human soul from all beings of the world and from all living processes of the world. What lies in the following words sounds forth to the human being from everything around him; all things have spoken thus to man in the past, all things speak thus to him in the present, all things will speak thus to him in the future.
We saw how someone who takes this in comes to feel the longing arising out of the word which speaks to him from all things and from all processes in the world, the longing to take leave of the majestic, shining world of the senses and to enter into that world which exists beyond the yawning abyss, the world which at first looms up before the human soul as black, night-bedecked darkness. For the solution, the true solution of the riddle of man the hope arises that everything in external life that is bathed in radiant, gleaming light may grow dark so that the light which is in the world where our true self is to be found may shine forth from the world of being that at first appears to be black, night-bedecked darkness. And as we approached in thought and feeling along the path, we saw the figure of the Guardian of the Threshold brightly forming up, clarifying its existence in our awareness as if from a spiritual cloud. We heard him speak, for everything that is spoken here sounds forth out of spiritual worlds, sounds forth at the behest of Michael, the leader of the spiritual stream of mankind at the present time, for this school is the true Michael School. And the Guardian spoke about human self-awareness. But then he uttered words which at first have a crushing effect upon the soul. The Guardian called us to himself, to stand close by him. He gazes toward us, beholding us with earnest countenance. He shows us how our willing, our feeling, our thinking appear, at least as imaginations of what is envisioned by the gods. There it is not yet human, this willing, this feeling, this thinking; there it is still animalistic. There acquaintanceship with oneself is still bewildering, shattering. But we must penetrate out of their misconception by means of that aspect of ourselves that is conjured up, which in our time, in our world era has been placed in us, for by means of this we can press onward to true self-awareness. This misconception, familiarity with that aspect of ourselves that we carry about within us in the spirit of our era, is shown to us by the Guardian as he allows the first beast to rise out of the yawning abyss of existence, the beast that depicts willing. His hand then sweeps again instructively over the abyss of existence, showing the second beast rising up, the beast that depicts feeling. And then once again the hand sweeps instructively over the yawning abyss of existence, allowing the third beast to rise up, the beast that depicts thinking. They rise up one after the other. The first beast, initially the true spirit-gestalt of our willing, is produced by fear of knowing, fear that can only be overcome through courage, courage concerning spiritual awareness. Just so the second beast appears, born out of hatred of knowing, lurking in the underground reaches of the soul in all human beings, only to be overcome by dignified enthusiasm for knowing, by truly soul-filled fire for knowing. Living in souls today is lukewarm indolence toward inner awareness, indeed, hatred in relation to inner acquaintanceship, because of mental laxity and laziness. Then also comes the third beast in his ghostly character, produced by doubts about the spiritual world, doubts which gnaw today at the roots of human souls, doubts that can only be weakened and made to yield when inner knowing wakes the strength in itself to attain those things which exist outside in the spiritual world. The Guardian speaks about this at the yawning abyss of being once we have drawn near to him:
[The mantra, including the underlinings, was now written on the blackboard:]
When the Guardian has shown us this staggering picture, confronting us presently in answer to the challenge, “O Man, know yourself,” once the Guardian has shown us this picture, he approaches us to give us a clarification, which now can begin to set us straight, a clarification of the third beast, that is interwoven in our thinking, of the second beast interwoven in our feeling, and of the first beast interwoven in our willing. And he gives us a sort of lesson in what he initially says to us. He points out to us how we should feel our way correctly into our human earth-thinking. My dear brothers and sisters, even exoterically one feels that this thinking, suitable in relationship to things and processes of the world, is somewhat abstract, somewhat shadowy, somewhat unreal. What actually is this thinking? As a picture we must place in our mind’s eye what this thinking really is. We place there a corpse, a corpse which has only a short time ago been left by the soul and spirit of a human being. We examine this corpse. It can never arise in the world as it is now. It can be nothing for itself, but can only be left over from a living person. It must have been due to the person, who must himself have configured it. Death lies there; life has withdrawn; the corpse lies in the coffin. Let us keep firm hold of this image. Our soul-spiritual life, which is our own true human essence, was alive before it descended from the divine spiritual world through conception and birth into a physical earthly human body. When it was in the spiritual world it was no shadowy, abstract thinking, but soul-spirit-being, living, moving, fashioning, working, weaving, continuing. There it was alive. Then it descended into a human body. But it died while descending. The human body is its coffin. And the thinking that we have between birth and death is the corpse of that living thinking that we had before we descended into earthly existence. My dear brothers and sisters, we rightly experience thinking’s esoteric essence only when we experience it in this way, and only then can we struggle upward, gradually, gradually overcoming the ghostly gestalt of the third beast. Only then can we rise ever nearer and nearer to the pure angelic gestalt of true thinking, the dead after-image of which whiles away, weaves, works, and dwells1 in our physical, earthly body. As long as we regard thinking as somewhat alive, we are not being truthful. Only when we look at our body as the coffin of dead thinking, only when we feel this thoroughly, only then are we truthful. So the Guardian of the Threshold speaks to us in his words, which we will hear and can use as mantric verse. He speaks them to us in special intimacy. And when we pass by our thinking to view our feeling, then we must see and feel how the sort of customary feeling, which we believe to be living within us between birth and death, is only half-living, how this feeling works continually to consume us, how it somehow continually kills us, how it pointedly drags us away from spirit. Thinking is dead, but in us our half-alive feeling is basically only picture-formation. Only when we feel this contrast in our feeling, that this earth-feeling is a weak, half-living reflection of the might of the sun, which as universal world love the cosmic feeling streams through the whole cosmos, then we feel the contrast of feeling correctly. In this manner the Guardian of the Threshold speaks to us confidentially, intimately. And not until we feel a similar contrast in willing, that it undoubtedly lives in us, but that that it is continuously being tampered with and bogged down by hostile opposing spiritual powers, who intend that its force should not be in service to overarching godliness, but rather to physicality below, not until we actually feel these opposing powers, that in our willing continuously would like to divert us from our proper godly task and ensnarl us entirely and solely in awareness of our earth existence, only then can we really feel these opposing powers trying to take possession of our willing, trying to have the future of the earth in their power. If they were to succeed, if we are not steadfastly on guard that our willing remains hallowed to godliness, not to Ahrimanic earth-powers, then on earth the gods themselves would be disputed, the gods who actually tended earth-existence from the very beginning. The Guardian says this to us in clarification of the three beasts:
[The mantra was now written on the blackboard and a few words were underlined]
(it is merely an image)
(the first is image, the second force) Of feeling, that hollows-out suitable soul (the progression: image or type, force, might)
Ever more the Guardian at the gaping abyss of being leads us nearer to true self-knowledge, which can only dawn for us when light arises yonder in the black, night-bedecked darkness. In this regard he shows us in different ways, what he first showed us in the formation of the beasts, and then in the formation of the corresponding mantric verses, and now again delineates, in order that we may come ever closer and closer to self-awareness, so that we may gain wings with which to cross the abyss of being, for we are not able to cross over with human feet, with heavy human feet, which means with external illusions, with maya-reality. So the Guardian makes us aware, after he has given us these mantric verses intimately, he makes us aware of how we should proceed in using empathy in delving into our thinking, how we should feel our thinking and not just see it as objectively existing, for there we no longer weave the fabric of our thoughts as illusion, as we do in the sort of thinking that we engage in as men and women of earth, but rather as something else than appearance. Self-aware existence means our true actual existence, that does not actually live in thinking, but conceals itself in thinking, so says the Guardian. One can do nothing except to plunge into the appearance of thinking, ever further, then as one plunges deep into and disperses oneself with the soul beneath the appearance of thinking, one arrives into immeasurable world-ether. There, where our aware-self feels itself just minimally hovering in appearance, there we should honor the guiding beings of the higher hierarchies that guide us. There we feel that we need these guiding beings of the higher hierarchies. Then the Guardian admonishes, that we should turn from thinking to feeling, experiencing, finding with empathy feeling streaming within us. Thinking is still entirely appearance. In feeling, however, we stand at least halfway close to our existence. In feeling we come deeper into our intrinsic existence than we do in thinking, although we are not yet fully within. We are halfway into our proper being when we are feeling, for feeling has some ambiguity, not total ambiguity, for it mingles semblance and substance. The aware-self that we seek, here in the proper sense genuine aware-self, simply leans toward semblance. Now we should plunge into the semblance of existence, into an existence that only seems to be, into a semblance that is energized halfway toward existence. There we will grasp world forces that now are not merely semblance, but rather halfway existing as world soul forces. There we should consider well in this moving web of our intrinsic weaving, moving being in the weaving moving world ether, there we should consider well the life powers intrinsic to the soul, that we cannot consider in thinking, for thinking is semblance only. Then we should plunge into willing, which we feel as existence, existence concealed within us. We are unable to inwardly grasp it. But the will is effective as thrusting and crafting existence. The will climbs from all apparent being and equips our autonomous existence, our true autonomous existence, meant here as autonomous existence in the best sense. We should turn our life to this. It is filled with world-spirit-might. Our intrinsic existence should inwardly grasp and plunge into world-creator-might, the world-maker-might that inwardly fills all regions of space, all times, all spirit-realms in willing. At the very edge of the abyss the Guardian speaks:
I will write these mantric verses on the board next time and clarify their various characteristics. Now, however, let us turn once more to what spoke to man in the past, to what speaks now in the present, and to what will speak in the future, exhorting him to undertake the holiest task on his life's path, the task of seeking self-knowledge:
The next esoteric Lesson of this First Class will take place on Thursday at 8 o'clock. I must now add that the verses, which are given as mantric verses for meditation by the Guardian of the Threshold at the behest of Michael, are only for those who are members of this school. Those who are unable to receive them personally can obtain them from someone else who is a member of this school. Permission must, however, be requested in every single instance either from Frau Dr. Wegman or from me. This is not merely a bureaucratic regulation, but rather it points to the fact that everything in our Anthroposophical Movement from now on expresses a reality. The procedure for passing on the texts begins with the request for permission as a real matter of fact, not as a mere administrative reason. The mantras may not be sent through the mail. Only the one who has to give the mantras to someone else may ask permission from Frau Dr. Wegman or from me. It is not the one who is to receive them who asks, but the one who is to give them. You speak with someone who might give them to you and that person then requests permission. If anyone has taken notes during this lesson of anything other than the mantras, I would ask that they be kept not longer than a week, after which they should be burned, in order that the content of the school, which only has meaning if the Michael stream flows through the school, shall not go beyond the circle of its members and thereby become ineffective. This is not because of any obscure wish to make things secret, but so that the content of the school may not become ineffective. This is a fundamental occult law that must be observed. And we live in an earnest occult school, in the true School of Michael, and we give what flows here through this school in the sign of Michael. [The Michael Sign was drawn on the blackboard.] We give it in the Rosicrucian sense with the Rosicrucian symbol.
[The sign of the lower seal gesture was drawn on the blackboard.]
[The sign of the middle seal gesture was drawn on the blackboard.]
[The sign of the upper seal gesture was drawn on the blackboard.] And we think as we make this seal and sign of Christian Rosenkreutz:
[This was written beside the sign of the lower seal gesture.]
[This was written beside the sign of the middle seal gesture.]
[This was written beside the sign of the upper seal gesture.]
[The sign of Michael was made.] [The three seal gestures were made and the words were spoken.]
 
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| 270. Esoteric Instructions: Third Recapitulation Lesson
11 Sep 1924, Dornach Translated by John Riedel Rudolf Steiner |
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| 270. Esoteric Instructions: Third Recapitulation Lesson
11 Sep 1924, Dornach Translated by John Riedel Rudolf Steiner |
|---|
My dear brothers and sisters! It is not possible to repeat once again the introduction and the obligations of membership for those who have just joined the class. Therefore, I enjoin those class members who will give the newly accepted members the verses, in accordance with the procedures that I shall review at the close of this session, I enjoin them to also communicate the conditions of membership to those who have only just become members of the class. Now, my dear brothers and sisters, we shall begin as previously by letting the specific words meander through our souls, words that a person who can sense them can hear from all actuality of the encompassing world, words that could be heard in the past, that can be heard in the present, that will be heard in the future, that presently call out to him, that urge him insistently from the whole world-all to self-awareness, to self-knowledge, that truly bridge to what a person needs for his thinking, for his feeling, for his work in the world, if a person wishes to become a human being in the full sense of the word.
My dear brothers and sisters, the description of the path of awareness has led us to the Guardian of the Threshold. After the Guardian of the Threshold, hard at the abyss of existence, has shown us the specific forces, the forces of our inner being of willing, feeling, and thinking, how they appear eviscerated to the eyes of the beings of the spiritual world, after he has shown us, how in truth a person of the present time’s awareness, not having awakened into full humanity, in regard to these forces observed inwardly, instead before the spiritual godly powers appear as the three beasts, that presently will be placed before the person and indicated by the Guardian of the Threshold, after the Guardian of the Threshold has placed this shattering appearance before our souls, he then shows us the further path that through lifting oneself up leads in turn to true self-awareness, the path that must be walked, if the demand O Man know yourself1 is to be fulfilled. After showing us how initially we should regard our thinking, feeling and willing, he shows us, in the specific mantric verses that were presented here in this Michael School at the end of the last session, how we first of all have to immerse ourselves, have to steep ourselves in our thinking and come to recognize that our thinking is illusory appearance, that cannot be carried by our true individuality, and how by diving down below mere appearance we become interwoven into the world ether and come somewhat to honor the guiding beings who lead us from earthly life to earthly life. Then he shows us how we can clamber down into our feelings, where appearance mingles with reality, how there with half strength emerges our being, our self-nature (our selfhood in the best sense of the word), how there we should consider well what already streams inwardly, for within the powers of life lies not merely our transient apparent existence, but rather the powers of life of the world, of the cosmos. Just when we descend into willing do we feel existence streaming into our autonomous existence.2 Apparent-being transforms itself in existence. Our being descends into willing and we feel world-maker-might streaming through our willing. These were the words of the Guardian of the Threshold hard on the abyss of being, where there before us stands the yawning darkness, the night-bedecked darkness, which should lighten, in order that we find the light that can illuminate our intrinsic self. Behind us lies the shining sunlit-gleaming physical reality, that now becomes dark, as we cannot find within it our own intrinsic being. There the Guardian of the Threshold speaks the mantric words:
[The mantra was now written on the board:]
The Guardian of the Threshold has spoken a mantric verse for us, regarding which it not merely matters to arrive at the content, but with our entire strength of feeling to transpose ourselves into the movement and life6 of the spiritual world. It is for this reason that this verse is formed just so, in the first part appearing rhythmically as a downward movement out of the spiritual world. Each line begins with a stressed, higher syllable, followed by an unstressed, lower one. In the first verse we have: [The reading emphasized the trochaic meter, which was indicated with a macron and a breve above the first two syllables of each line.]
The downward movement toward us on the part of the spiritual world is to be felt in this trochaic rhythm. We only take this verse rightly into our soul when we speak it with the inner feeling that this descent of the spiritual world, the speaking downward to us by spirit-beings, is at work in this rhythmic cadence:
The next verse is just the opposite. Here we are supposed to ascend in feeling to real existence. Here [in the first syllable] we are below; here [in the second syllable] we strive upward toward reality. The lower, unstressed syllable precedes the higher, stressed one: [The reading emphasized the iambic meter, which was indicated with a breve and a macron above the first two syllables of each line.]
We must live in these words that are united in this mantric rhythm. We must feel them like this:
That we are entering more fully into reality is expressed in the progression, that initially we honor [the word was underlined on the blackboard], an activity that is an inner soul-activity, that we then ascend to consider well [the word was underlined on the blackboard]. We gradually approach the matter beginning with guiding beings [the word was underlined], who guide us, who are busy with us, then with powers of life [the words were underlined], which dwell, move, and live throughout the world. In a mantric verse everything is placed in the right place, and all is joined together in the right way in the organization of the entirety. The third verse tells us how we take up existence directly in willing. We stand right beside existence. Two stressed syllables begin the line: [The reading emphasized the spondaic meter, which is indicated with two macrons above the first two syllables of each line:]
Here we have progressed. It’s no longer a matter for us to consider, but rather to grasp [the words were underlined], which is an action. World-maker-might [the words were underlined] comes at the beginning of the line, whereas powers of life is at the end of the corresponding line, in order to indicate the complete turn-about that we undergo when we rise from appearance through semblance to existence. The third verse must therefore be experienced in such a way that the beginning of each line is felt in this spondaic meter. In the first verse we have the trochaic meter [“trochaic” was written beside the first verse], in the second the iambic meter [“iambic” was written beside the second verse], in the third the spondaic meter [“spondaic” was written beside the third verse].
After the Guardian of the Threshold has placed this before our soul, he makes us aware of how we must be incorporated, if we want to progress in spiritual knowledge, into the cosmos, into the world, into the cosmos, into the world with all their forces. Their place in us is not initially delineated, but in the cosmos, it is visibly arrayed. In the cosmos we can point out the places. In us all is interwoven. But we do not proceed to a real inner acquaintanceship if we do not go out into world-forces and world-powers, if we remain within ourselves subjectively, if we remain enclosed within our skin, if we do not go out and beyond, our body becoming the whole world. Then our soul of our narrow human nature will feel itself as a member of the world. Spirit will incorporate our narrow human nature into the whole cosmos, into the whole world. This we must fully consummate, as the Guardian of the Threshold advises. He points out to us how massive forces from the depths of the earth pull on all beings. Forces go out that draw us down, that bind our willing to the earth, if we do not make it free through inner striving. Our gaze goes toward earth, our gaze reaches down, if we want to localize our willing. We must feel ourselves at one with the mass of the earth, we must feel pulled on by the earth, we must have the impulse within us to free ourselves from the mass of the earth, if we would allow our willing to become one with the cosmos, which we must do.
So speaks the Guardian of the Threshold to our willing at the yawning abyss of existence, in service to Michael. And he instructs us, for he would integrate our feeling into the cosmos, now not to the depths, he instructs us about the horizontal reaches of the world, where from West to East, from East to West, forces swing like a pendulum and permeate us. These are the forces that seize our feeling. Godlike powers we must feel, which send their spirit clarity7 into this horizontal wash of waves,8 if we would integrate our feeling correctly into the world’s expanse. Just as we would integrate our willing into the vertical, feeling it bound below and wanting to free it above, just so must we be able to place our feeling into the world’s expanse. Then will our feeling be light, bright, clear.9 Then something goes through and through our feeling, just as the Sun with its light passes through us as it shines through the Earth’s air on its path from east to west. But in all that streams through us we must find the loving. The force of love alone, which moves and lives in a person, love alone can do what there will be demanded of us. Then wisdom will be woven into us, and we will feel ourselves within the expanse of the circling movement of the Sun, as a feeling human being, an individual strong in virtuous spirit works. That is said to us at the yawning abyss of existence as feeling human beings, that is said to us by the Guardian of the Threshold.
And when the Guardian of the Threshold presently would speak to our thinking, that it should be integrated into the cosmos, then he instructs not as he does in willing directed under, that should get into motion above, then he instructs not as he does with feeling in the wide circling, in which a person moves with the sun, then he instructs in the heights, in the heights of heaven, where alone the self can live selflessly, if it would catch hold of the powers of thought in what comes from overhead in grace. We must inwardly be stalwart10 in order to take up the word, for only if we hold ourselves in fortitude in striving for wisdom and inner knowing, only then the Word of Worlds resounds from on high in grace, only then it speaks of mankind’s true enduring being.11 Just that the Guardian of the Threshold states to us at the yawning abyss of existence.
[The mantra was now written on the blackboard.]
There above is the place we must look to if our thinking would be in unity with the forces of the cosmos. In the world’s circling expanse is the region that we must feel into, if our feeling would be in unity with cosmic forces. We must look down to the region of our earth-bound willing, which we should free toward the heights, to incorporate it properly into cosmic activity. Everywhere, above, in the periphery, and below, everywhere there is particular existence. We must feel it inwardly. The Guardian of the Threshold also instructs us there, in service to Michael and speaks to us about what we find above, in the middle, and below. He teaches us additionally about the heights, the widths, and the depths, as he teaches us about thinking, feeling and willing. So he speaks:
We are placed in the world between light and darkness. Light wants to seize our essential conscious existence,12 our self; darkness wants to seize our essential conscious existence. We have to find the path between light and darkness in order to retain the self. This lies in the admonition of the Guardian of the Threshold. And the Guardian speaks concerning our feeling:
In turn we stand with feeling between polar opposites, between loving warmth, between warm love and cold hardness, hardening coldness. We must find our way between these two if our essential conscious self is to find itself. And the Guardian of the Threshold instructs us admonishingly about the third realm, where the will primordially emerges and stands:13
Life and death, we can lose our willing to life, we can lose it to death. We feel it vanishing in life, or feel it confined in death. We must seek the path. The Guardian demands this of us. It is from this point that the work will begin in the next lesson. The Guardian draws our attention once more to the way we must seek our path in order to come to our human self. There he speaks earnest words, for it is not easy to find the inner strength that holds and carries and guides the self, strength the self should itself find, which it does not have in ordinary life on earth. How the Guardian gives us the means we will delve into more deeply. Next Saturday, these mantric verses will be written on the board, and we will hear the Guardian speak further, as he teaches about straying in error, which we must know about to find the correct path. He would direct us along the right path by showing us where we might get lost. Now however, let us think once again, looking back on life on earth, which we must do every time we enter into the esoteric, now let us think again of the admonition that has been spoken to man in the past by all beings and processes, that speaks to man in the present, that will speak to man always in the future.
When all that streams through the Guardian in Michael's name through this Michael School, when here instruction permeates our soul in this rightful Michael School, then we may be certain, if we are honest and open-minded, that the power of Michael streams through this room, which may be brought to witness by the Sign of Michael [The Michael sign was drawn on the blackboard.] and by the seal-gestures, by means of which Michael allows the Rosicrucian Stream, the Rosicrucian Temple, to stream in the force that the man of today needs for his esoteric life, that takes effect out of the three-sided wellspring of the world, out of the godlike Father principle, out of the Christ principle, out of the Spirit principle, so that the Rosicrucian Maxim, the Rosicrucian Proverb combines with the Michael-Gesture-Sign.
which must be felt in such a way that the gesture is understood as:
Once again: [The Michael sign was made, and then the three seal gestures, accompanied by the spoken words:]
It has to be added that the mantric verses given here in this school may only be possessed by those who are legitimate members of the school. If any member of this school was prevented from being present at a session at which he might have been present, but does not have the mantras of the hour, he may receive them from another member who was able to have them. For this it is necessary to ask either Frau Dr Wegman or myself. So if somebody wishes to receive the mantras because he could not receive them here, there must be a request to Frau Dr Wegman or myself, but not by the one who would receive the mantras, only by the one who would pass them on. This must be stated at the very outset. Furthermore, it has to be emphasized that this is not an administrative measure, it has to take place in every single case for every individual to whom one wishes to give the mantras, for it is the beginning of that occult act through which one receives the mantras. Those members who have only joined recently and have advanced to today's lesson may only receive those mantras which have been offered up to their participation in today's lesson. Only in particular cases, which must be judged individually, may the request be made as to whether the later mantras may be given. The mantras may be transmitted from one member to another only by word of mouth, in no other way. They may not be sent by mail. If somebody has made notes, other than the mantras, it is his duty to keep these notes only for a week, and thereafter to burn them. What is communicated here in the rightfully existing School of Michael has significance only in verbal communication, which is an inner occult law, with the exception of the mantric verses. To forestall the assumption that these things are being handled in a childish, secretive manner, it has to be stated that if these occult mantras were to be passed on illegitimately to others, they would lose their effectiveness, for the act of transmitting is part of the efficacy of the school. It is for the sake of this occult fact that the handling of the mantras is required to be so strict. In the program for tomorrow the course on pastoral medicine will take place at 9:30 and the course for theologians at 3:30. Tomorrow evening there will be a lecture for members, and at 5 o'clock in the afternoon a performance of eurythmy. The speech formation course will be at 12 noon as usual.  
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| 270. Esoteric Instructions: Fourth Recapitulation Lesson
13 Sep 1924, Dornach Translated by John Riedel Rudolf Steiner |
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| 270. Esoteric Instructions: Fourth Recapitulation Lesson
13 Sep 1924, Dornach Translated by John Riedel Rudolf Steiner |
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My dear brothers and sisters! It is not possible each time we meet here to give the corresponding introduction concerning the task and significance of the it school and concerning the nature of membership in the school. Despite the fact that again today there are here present a considerable number of new members, I will nevertheless not give the introduction but will continue from the point where we left off last time. Concerning the members who in the accustomed manner are to give the newly accepted members the mantric verses which have been heard so far, I must require, under the conditions I will mention at the close of this session, that they speak about the conditions which arise from acceptance into this school as they hand on the mantras. We begin once again by letting the words to meander before our souls, that from all beings of the world, out of all processes of the world, the words that speak to each human being who has an impartial sense of it, the words within which lie a demand to seek to live as a human being (to those who are worthy of being called human), a demand to seek through true self-awareness, self-awareness that leads to world-awareness. And we most certainly are called out to from all sides, by all the beings of all the realms of nature and all the realms of spirit, we are summoned to what in the true sense of the word is the obligation to self-awareness, which is the way to world-awareness. Just as all beings of nature and of spirit have demanded of the human being in the past, just so will the human being be demanded of in the future. These demanding words, which press upon the human soul from all sides of the world, from east and west, from south and north, from above and below, if a person will hear them, these words may also today serve to begin what this Michael School should signify for your hearts, for your souls:
We have seen how a person who seeks inner awareness approaches the Guardian of the Threshold, how after the seeker for inner awareness has stood there, shattered under the impressions of the three beasts which represent the true form of his present willing, feeling and thinking as they appear before the countenance of the spiritual world, and how the seeker after inner awareness is raised up, little by little, by the Guardian of the Threshold. We have already taken up what the Guardian of the Threshold says to the one whom he wishes to raise up, how the Guardian, on the one hand, directs one’s attention upward, indicating how light battles with dark powers in that realm out of which thinking’s force streams into our human being. The Guardian of the Threshold thinks that we need this picture. We need it, so that when we are intent on feeling the ultimate source of our thinking, when we seek awareness in the correct manner of the force driving our thinking in our human nature, that we can place ourselves in that realm from which our thinking comes, where, however, a fierce battle rages between the mighty powers of light, light that intends to bring thinking along the right track, and between mighty powers of darkness, that would draw thinking away from the right track, that would lead it along paths of error. Our thinking has its roots in this realm above us. As we push along to become knowers, we must know that our thinking is rooted in the battle between light and darkness. Then we find, if we understand what it means to strive toward the light, we find that evermore we must hold ourselves upright. We must know that we are placed into the battle between light and darkness: the light intends to take us, so to speak, into a spiritual light-filled powerless insensibility, whereas darkness intends to take us and arrange for us to lose our way in matter. We must seek the balance between both conditions. We must not allow ourselves to be taken by light, and we must not allow ourselves to be led astray by darkness into materiality. Instead, we must remain firmly and uniquely self-possessed as we find the balance in our thinking between light and darkness. On the other hand, as we contemplate our feeling, there we must see, in the realm which acts and lives more in the flat horizon of wide world-reaches, we must see how we are placed into the battle between soul-warmth and soul-coldness. In soul-warmth all the Luciferic powers work effectively, including the powers of beauty, the powers of brightness, the powers which want to bestow on all of us divine capacities without effort on our part. We should become dependent and lack freedom were they to catch us up within themselves. On the other side stand the powers of cold, of soul-coldness, which are permeated by Ahrimanic beings, which would like to bring us into coldness and also into loss of self-possession. Once again, we must find the balance between spirit-bliss, into which the powers of warmth, of heat, of fire, would like to take us, and those regions of seductive, persuasive Ahrimanic powers, who would like to lead us with an all-too-tempting intellectual seduction. In turn we must balance ourselves between both powers, in order to find the right feeling for inner awareness. Then, when we look out upon the source of our willing, we must look down. There is the realm of the earth and of massive gravity, out of which initially for our earthly life the force of our willing comes. For the earth not only has within it the force of its mass, it also has within it the force of willing of humanity. Once more we stand confronted by two powers, the powers of life and the powers of death. We can fall prey with our willing to the powers of life. Then it as if the powers of life would like to seize us. They want to will through our will forces in connection with the cosmos. We must maintain our self-possession, upright and alert, finding the balance between these powers of life on the one hand, and on the other hand the powers of death, which would like to confine us eternally by weaving our willing into material formations. The Guardian of the Threshold demands of us at this point that we maintain ourselves in a condition of balance between light and darkness, in a condition of balance between warmth and cold, in a condition of balance between life and death. Allying ourselves with the power of light alone, we would be stupefied, would be blinded. Giving ourselves to darkness alone is also something which we should not do, for then we would lose ourselves in the stuff of darkness. What we must aim for in a spiritual sense is aspired to all over the world . Wherever you look, my brothers and sisters, light and darkness work effectively inter-nested into one another. Look at your hair. Light inserts it for you into your head, but darkness must permeate it, for otherwise hair would be merely rays of light. Look at your entire body. It is woven out of light, but it would not be able to have earthly density if darkness were not woven into it. Look at every object, my brothers and sisters! The blossoming plants, they are created out of light, yet the powers of darkness must press their way upwards out of the ground in order that from light and darkness what the plants represent in their firm consistency as earthly creatures can emerge. Just as balancing between light and darkness is to be found in all of nature, so too the human being must strive toward balance spiritually, through soul activity, if the person really wants to become a seeker after inner awareness. The same thing is also true of striving for balance between warmth and cold, and also with striving toward balance between life and death. So we stand at the yawning abyss of existence, always beholding, always beholding. As we look back on the color-glittering realms of nature, to which we belong with our senses, it becomes ever darker and darker, as it becomes clear to us that in all the radiant realms of sense perception, there does not arise whatever is our own being, whatever leads us to self-knowledge. Before us, like a black wall, is the boundary of that dark domain into which we must enter, in order that it may light up, through the power which we ourselves bring into it. We still stand at the yawning abyss of existence, and yet we have already gained a certain courage, a confidence that through the admonitions of the Guardian, that wings will indeed grow which will enable us to cross the abyss, in order to enter that realm of darkness in confidence, and that the darkness will indeed become light. That is actually one of the final admonitions which the Guardian of the Threshold gives us, which sounds forth:
[The mantra was now written on the blackboard:]
A person will find, my dear brothers and sisters, if one gives oneself over to these mantric words with the right attitude of heart and mind, if one gives oneself to these words in inner quiet of soul, in full inner devotional empathy, in surrender to all that is spiritual, yeah, the person will find that within these words themselves there lies that which brings the soul into equilibrium. We stand at this point as seekers after inner awareness before the Guardian of the Threshold at the yawning abyss of existence. As we attempt to pursue the course between light and darkness, the Guardian of the Threshold instructs us also on how we can find ourselves rightfully within our own innate self between warmth and coldness, and between life and death. We can do this in no other way, my dear brothers and sisters, than by rightly considering the following: in order to genuinely know oneself inwardly, it is necessary to become one with the world, to gain a feeling in relation to the world such as a finger might have, if it could feel on its own, in relation with the whole human body. If the finger were able to feel, of itself, it would say: I am only a finger as long as I am part of the human body, as long as the body's blood is my blood, and the body's pulsation is my pulsation. If one cuts me off, I cease to be a finger. The finger loses its meaning in the separation from the organism to which it belongs and as part of which alone it can be a finger. Just so must the human being learn to feel in relation to the entire world. We are members of the spirit-soul organism of the whole world, and as human beings we only appear to be separate from the spirit-soul organism of the world. We must correctly find our way as part of the spirit-soul-organism of the world, and must know, to begin with, that there, spread out around us, are the elements earth, water, air, fire. We must learn to feel ourselves as one with the elements, as far as our bodily nature is concerned, for it is made up of these elements. The Guardian of the Threshold teaches us how we ought to do this, and how we can achieve it. Consider now exactly what flows into those instructive mantric verses which the Guardian of the Threshold gives us at the point we have now reached in our approach to the abyss of being. My dear brothers and sisters, just think of yourself pressing your finger, in a tentative, groping way, against some object or other. You know that the object is there when you press against it. You feel out the object. You have the sense of being one with this object, it is the sense of touch which unites your finger with the object you are presented with. Now imagine that your whole being is like a finger, like a touching, sensing organ. You stand on the earth, on the element earth. You stand because the earth’s chief attribute is the element of mass. You touch the earth with the soles of your feet, regardless of whether you are standing on the wooden floor a room, or whether you are standing outdoors on the surface of the earth. What is crucial is that in standing you feel the sense of touching, sensing the massive gravity element of earth. Even if you are standing high on a mountain or on a tower, you feel, just as you sense what is hard and what is soft, what is warm and what is cold through the tip of your finger in the process of touching, you sense the unity of your being when you imagine your whole self as a finger and through the soles of your feet experience the massive gravity.1 This is expressed by the Guardian of the Threshold, as he admonishes us, in the following way:
That the forces of earth are our pillars, that the earth element supports us, so that we do not sink down, this is what the Guardian of the Threshold tells us at this point. Then he guides us further, so that we feel not only how we stand below as a whole finger, but rather how we feel what is within the finger. This is, at first, the element of water, the fluid element. For everything which is in man, this can indeed in its external aspect be studied by means of physical science, everything is born out of the fluid element. The solid element is deposited out of the fluid element, as ice is out of water. We must ascend to feeling within ourselves the second element. Everywhere outside us is the liquid element in the world. Within us, our own formative forces are formed out of the fluid element. The formative forces fashion us, give us form. Our lungs and our livers are solid forms, but they take shape out of the fluid element. Just as we feel the earth as our support, similarly we experience our organs, we feel ourselves formed as human beings out of the water element. The fluid forces fashion us, they are our sculptors, and the earth is our support. Therefore, the Guardian of the Threshold admonishes us:
Everywhere we can taste and feel our way through the world, but when we feel in ourselves this tasting:
Now the Guardian of the Threshold admonishes us further. He instructs us how we can unite ourselves also with powers of air. We breathe in the air. If we breathe in the air abnormally, we can experience inner feeling-sensations of anxiety breaking into our coherent flow of existence. Just as the element of water forms and builds us, however, normally the element of air nurtures us. The Guardian of the Threshold instructs us:
Now the Guardian guides us further to the element of warmth. We feel ourselves, indeed, intimately united with warmth. The earth, as support, we still feel to be somehow outside us. In water’s fashioning us, during growth for example, we know but little, for that remains in the subconscious. The powers of air press into our feelings only when they become irregular, when they no longer function in a normal way. But in warmth, when we have it correctly with our human being, we simply feel at one with it. When we feel warmth externally, we become ensouled in warmth in our whole human being. And when we experience coldness externally, we become rigid within ourselves. Warmth and coldness are one with us in a very different way in the elemental world. They are neither supports, nor sculptors, nor nurturers; they are our true helpers in physical existence. The Guardian of the Threshold instructs:
If we follow all that lies in this challenge, we shall find the way consciously to unite our bodily being with the elements. For of course, our bodily being really is one with the elements. Our bodily being is one with the elements in varying degrees, however, initially with the element of earth in an external, mechanical manner. The earth element is a pillar for us, externally, mechanically. The process then grows more inward in regard to water, but still is something which exists in forms and configurations, which does not yet enter the soul realm. Water-beings build us; they are our sculptors.4 The process penetrates fully into the moral sphere, however, when we unite with the element of air. The air element is no longer merely an external sculptor, it is our nurturer, and our feelings become anxiety feelings when abnormal breathing fails to nurture us. The powers of air are nurturers. Helpers, that we actually can be earth beings, helpers are warmth and cold, that are fire-powers. Already this is completely elevated into the moral. The meaning of the admonitions is summarized from the place of the Guardian of the Threshold as the progression, the enhancement of the elements:
[The mantra was now written on the blackboard:]
We have the progression [now underlined on the blackboard]: pillars, sculptors, nurturers, helpers. We have yet another progression. For in a mantric verse each word stands in its rightful place, and no word is there merely to fill out a line. Everything coincides with the inner meaning with which we should unite ourselves as we meditate such a mantric verse. We have a progression [the words were underlined on the board]: touch within, live within, feel within, think within. This is an exceptional progression. So must we also experience, we must in meditating it experience the inner meaningful structure of such a mantric verse. When the Guardian has spoken this, he sums it up once again in a single line: [It was written on the board:]
In this way the Guardian of the Threshold has led us to the inner adventure of the verse, by means of which we can unite everything that belongs to our body with the elements, to which it belongs. He then guides us further upwards into the soul realm. Here he does not direct us to the elements earth, water, air, fire; here he directs us to the planets, to the wandering stars. Here he directs us toward the way in which we should feel that in the circles of the planets, in what through the planets will be drawn as circles around the earth, one or another planet draws each circle. The circles have their relationships and speak with one another, when the human being raises himself soulfully to this secret of the world-guiding planetary powers. Then he himself lives with his soul-nature in the spiritual realm of the cosmos, as he formerly lived with his bodily nature in the realm of the elements. To feel at one with the cosmos soulfully is only possible when we live ourselves into the realm of the wandering stars, of the planets, with their entrainment. This is what the Guardian of the Threshold tells us with these words:
[These two lines were written on the board:]
Once again, the Guardian of the Threshold sums up what lies in these two lines as the direction-giving strength, as the feeling of unity of the mysteries of the soul with the wandering stars, brought together in the line: [It was written on the board:]
That means, make yourself exist,
The world-orbits of the various planets are drawn together into a single world-circling. By this we have felt the unity of body and soul with the world, with the world, the body with the earthly elements, the soul with the wandering stars. If we want the spirit to feel at one with the World-All,5 we can neither look to the elements, nor can we look to the mysteries of the planets. In this case we must lift our gaze up to the fixed stars, to the resting stars. For there is the power with which we must feel our spirit at one out there in the vast World-All, if we in the true sense of the word would feel ourselves to be a member of this World-All. It is at this point that the world begins to sound in the music of world-spheres.6 Therefore, the Guardian of the Threshold admonishes us:
[These two lines were written on the board:]
Once again, the Guardian of the Threshold summarizes what lives in this challenge, in the single sentence:
Our existence as spirit is in every moment a creating of ourselves. [The line was then written on the board:]
We stand encased in this, if we correctly find and feel ourselves taken in before the Guardian of the Threshold. We recall how the word of self-knowledge sounded out to us from of all beings, albeit still in an abstract form, how it rang out to us from all sides of the natural and spiritual realms of existence. But this one saying O Man, know yourself is now laid out in its individual limbs. It now dissociates the single challenge into one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine limbs. The O Man, know yourself we should now see in a certain sense in nine rays. Then it will be filled with what we need for our meditation. So we should feel. And so in a certain sense we should be vow7 to the Guardian of the Threshold, that we will fulfill his admonition:
We take a kind of vow before the Guardian of the Threshold, that we will forevermore allow his admonitions to run as mantras in the soul. And let us look back, ever and again, for with every step forward we feel ourselves pledged8 to remember what takes place on this side of the threshold. For on this side of the threshold every stone, every plant, every tree, every cloud, every spring, every cliff, every stoke of lightning, every thunderclap calls out to us:
When with the full spiritual crafting force of the Guardian of the Threshold the words resound in this room, the words that he, as the serving arm of the Michael-Might, the reigning power of our time, the words that he calls out to us, when these words resound here, then since the might of Michael himself is in place in this esoteric school, then we can be certain that Michael dwells with his force, with his spirit, with his love, that Michael dwells in spirit and soul among us. This may be confirmed, one may responsibly feel that the might of Michael guides this school, so that nothing else streams through this school other than what lies in the holiness of the will of Michael himself. This may be confirmed through Michael's Sign and Michael's Seal, this Michael-Sign [The Michael sign was drawn on the blackboard.] and the Michael-Seal, which confirms that the might of Michael is drawn into the true Rosicrucian-Teaching and so combined with what will be taught in the Michael-School. With Michael’s Seal, the Rosicrucian-Endowment sealed in the Rosicrucian-Maxim will be presented by being spoken.
[The lower seal gesture was drawn on the blackboard.]
[The middle seal gesture was drawn on the blackboard.]
[The upper seal gesture was drawn on the blackboard.] What this means is this:
[This was overwritten onto the lower seal gesture.]
[This was overwritten onto the middle seal gesture.]
[This was overwritten onto the upper seal gesture.] I honor the Father lives as a feeling, goes through our soul as a feeling as we speak the dictum “Ex Deo Nascimur”. I love the Son silently is felt drawing through the soul with the dictum “In Christo Morimur”. I unite with the Spirit is felt silently with the dictum “Per Spiritum Sanctum Reviviscimus”. The dictums of the Guardian of the Threshold come to you, my brothers and sisters, with Michael’s Sign and Seal. [The Michael sign was made, and with the three seal gestures were spoken:]
The verses which are communicated in this School may only be rightly possessed by those who have been rightfully accepted as members in the school. Those who are unable to be present at a lesson, when verses are transmitted, may receive these verses from those who have themselves received them within the school. But, in order to receive the verses in this way, first the express permission must be obtained either from Frau Dr. Wegman or myself. This request for permission from Frau Dr. Wegman or myself can only be made by the one who intends to transmit the verses to someone else. It is, therefore, to be understood from the beginning that it is not the one who wishes to receive them; it would serve no purpose if the responsible person were he who requested them. He or she can go to someone else, and can ask this person to give them to him or her, but the one to give them must ask permission in each case. This is not an administrative regulation, but, rather, an occult procedure, which must be adhered to, because the handing on of the verses must begin with this real act. The request cannot be made in writing. Because this has happened it is necessary for me to mention it here. Unless there are particular reasons for it which would make a verbal understanding impossible, permission may not be requested in writing but must be requested orally. In esoteric matters (less than anywhere else in life) there may creep in even the appearance, the remotest hint, of bureaucratic methods. Everything must be founded in life, just as in all matters which concern the Anthroposophical Society. Then there remains to be said that anyone who writes down anything more than the mantric verses is obligated to keep what has been written down no more than eight days and then to burn it. For it is no good if these things somehow remain around. They can take all kinds of ways. Something that is esoteric must be handled in this way: this is not an arbitrary procedure. In esoteric matters everything arises out of true occult foundations. If esoteric, mantric verses find their way beyond the circle of those members who are entitled to have them, who are genuinely entitled to them by virtue of having received them directly here, or having received them in the rightful manner indicated above, if they come into the possession of others, who have not received them in this correct and rightful manner, the verses lose, for all who have them, their spiritual power. This is an occult law. It is simply a fact that there are laws in the spiritual world, laws which cannot be transgressed against with impunity, without consequences. It is, therefore, not a question of an arbitrary regulation, rather of adhering to an occult law. Now, I have to announce that tomorrow, once again at 9:30, the course on pastoral medicine will be held; at 12 noon, the course on speech formation and dramatic art; in the afternoon at 3:30, the course for theologians, and in the evening, at 8:15, a members' lecture will be given. The eurythmy performance will be given at 5 o'clock. The next esoteric Lesson, which will then round out the Michael Teachings which have been received, will take place on Monday at 8:30.  
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