The Rudolf Steiner Archive

There is a “holiest of holies” in man which we may designate as his self-consciousness. Those who see this in the right way, have no difficulty in perceiving that this word “self-consciousness” expresses at the same time the true meaning of human life. Self-consciousness is the capacity for transmitting the knowledge that One is an EGO.

You may clearly obtain an idea of this if you bear in mind that there is one name in the whole language which fundamentally differs from all the others: it is the word “I”. Anyone can designate the table, but, “I” is a designation which can only be applied individually to one's own self. To every other person one is a “you”. Never can the word “I” resound from outside, if it is to designate my own being. Spiritual science has always experienced this.

In the Jewish religion, for instance, when speaking of man's inner being, it was referred to as the unspeakable name of God. For the Hebrews said: When the “I” is to be pronounced, it must resound from the central point of our being. No being outside can utter this name: A kind of shudder therefore passed through the whole congregation when the priest uttered the word JAHVE, “I am the I am”. The God within man begins to speak—this is the pure, original, meaning of the Jewish name of God. You will also learn to know other names, but they all stand in some kind of relationship to this one name.

With this word “I,” we designate the fourth member of man's being. Through the Ego, and from this centre, man works upon the other members of his being, upon his astral body, etheric body and physical body. No matter how far we go back into the history of human development, we find that man always possessed these four members, and it is this which distinguishes him from the animals.

Let us now form an idea of the relationship between developed and undeveloped men in regard to these four members. Consider under this aspect one of the most savage men, who eats up his fellow-men, and compare him with an average European, and the latter again with a highly developed individual—Goethe, for example, or Schiller, or Francis of Assisi. The savage blindly follows the instincts and passions contained in his astral body. He has an Ego, but this Ego still lives completely under the sway of the astral body. An average man of the present time is already able to distinguish good and evil, and this is due to the fact that he has worked upon his astral body. He has worked upon it and even transformed certain instincts into so-called ideals. Man reaches an ever higher stage of development the more he transforms his astral body through his Ego. The modern average European has transformed a good part of this astral body. An individuality such as Schiller or Goethe has already transformed the greater part of the astral body. But a human being who has subjugated all his passions through his will, as for instance, Francis of Assisi, has an astral body which is entirely transformed by his Ego, there is nothing left in this astral body which is not completely under the sway of the Ego.

That part of the astral body which man has been able to transform, we designate as “Manas” or “Spirit-Self”. This is the fifth member of his being. We may then say: The Ego contains the seed for the transformation of the astral body into Manas, Spirit-Self,

Now man has the possibility to transform not only his astral body, but also his etheric body, so that the Ego also becomes the sovereign of the etheric body. But you must realise that this is a far more difficult and slower work. The difference between the transformation of the astral body and of the etheric body is the following:—

Consider what you knew when you were eight years old, and what you have learned since your youth! The bearer of all these transformations is the astral body. Consequently it changes essentially every day through the external impressions which you take in. But this is not the case with the etheric body. If you wish to have an idea of this imagine the following:—If you were a choleric child at the age of eight, you will probably still lose your temper even to-day. Only a few people succeed in transforming themselves to such an extent as to change also their habits, inclinations, temperament and character. This does not in any way contradict what I have explained above. The astral body is indeed connected with pleasure and pain and the other sensations, but when these have become habitual and so-called character traits, then they are rooted in the etheric body; and if we wish to transform these habits, then the etheric body must be transformed, for it is the bearer of every habit and character-trait.

I have frequently compared the transformations of astral body and etheric body with the progress of the minute and second hands of the clock.

Later on we shall speak of the development of the more advanced pupil. He is not a pupil in the meaning of ordinary life, not only one who learns something. Undoubtedly, such a pupil must also learn a lot, but far more important than learning, is the above-mentioned work upon the etheric body: He must succeed, for instance, in transforming a choleric disposition into gentleness of character. Spiritual science in particular gives him indications for this.

He who succeeds in transforming from one day to the other at least one of his habits, that is to say, some quality of his etheric body, has attained a high stage of development. Such a transformation of the etheric body should go hand in hand with the other things which the disciple of occult science learns. But even if a man knows nothing of such a training, he nevertheless transforms his etheric body of his own accord—though slowly and gradually, and throughout many incarnations And that part of his etheric body which he has been able to transform, we designate as Budhi, or Life-Spirit, which constitutes the sixth member of human nature.

Then there is the stage lying far, far above the others, upon which man learns to work upon his physical body and to transform it. That part of his physical body which he has learned to control, we designate as Atma, or Spirit-Man. It is the seventh member of his being. Atma is connected with the German word “atmen”, to breathe, for the process of transformation goes out from the breathing process.

We can only form an idea of what it means to control one's physical body consciously, through the Ego, if we bear in mind how little we really know of our physical body. This knowledge has nothing to do with the assertions of modern anatomy concerning man's physical body. Long before modern anatomy existed, there were ancient teachings, which of course were not known publicly, but which contained a knowledge concerning man's inner being. This knowledge enabled the wise men of ancient times to follow, for instance, the currents of life and of the blood, and they were thus able to observe themselves inwardly, to observe the physical body and all its organs. When we shall have reached this stage of development, not one portion of our body will move without the conscious participation of our will. This is the transformation into Atma, the Spirit-Man.

Now someone might object: The Physical body is the lowest member of human nature; how is it possible that its transformation should constitute the highest member? Just because the physical body is the lowest member, man's highest effort is needed in order to gain control over this body. The transformation of the physical body is intimately connected with the acquisition of power over forces which permeate the whole cosmos. And the sway over these cosmic forces is what we designate as magic.

Man's true inner nature thus consists of seven parts. But those seven parts are completely intermingled. A true idea of this intermingling can only be obtained if we compare it with the seven colours of the rainbow, which are all contained in the light of the sun. Even as the light consists of these seven colours, so man consists of his seven members.

Let us now consider the significance of this structure of man's being in connection with the knowledge of man's whole life-path. Yesterday we learned to know the nature of sleep. The physical body and the etheric body lie in the bed; respiration and blood-circulation remain, as life-expression of the etheric body, but everything pertaining to the astral body is lifted out of the physical body and the etheric body together with the Ego.

When death arises, something else appears, in contrast to this. Whereas the physical body and the etheric body remain united throughout the life between birth and death, death separates the etheric body also, and not only the astral body, as in sleep, from the physical body. But the physical body is so complicated (let us bear in mind yesterday's explanations) that it must decay, if obliged to rely upon its own forces.

Let us now observe clairvoyantly the human being after death: Before us lies only the physical body, and above it soar, the astral body and the etheric body ... Immediately after death, the deceased human being experiences a peculiar manifestation: At the moment of death, the course of his whole life appears in the field of human memory, like a spread-out picture. Every event, even the most insignificant, passes before him in the form of an image. This is the natural result of the fact that the etheric body, besides having the above-mentioned quality of preventing the decay of the physical body, is also the bearer of memory. As soon as it loses its first task, it devotes itself intensely to this second task. Since every event in life, whether, pleasure or suffering, is connected with joy or pain, owing to the permeation of the etheric body with the astral body, now that the astral body is also severed from him, man experiences those memory pictures, that is to say, he experiences his whole past life, without any sensations or feelings, as if it were a great panorama.

As long as the etheric body remains connected with the physical body, the instrument which it must use, the brain renders our memories incomplete; we only retain fragments of life impressions in our memory. The deficiency of the physical brain is responsible for this, but as soon as the etheric body becomes emancipated from the physical brain, it can remember everything.

An analogy may even be found in ordinary life, during the shock which one experiences, for instance, at the moment of drowning, or crashing, etc. This is simply due to the fact that at such a moment the etheric body becomes forcefully severed from the physical body, which also takes place, for example, in a slight degree when an extremity falls asleep (pins and needles), or in hypnosis. In the case of a hypnotized person, the clairvoyant can see his etheric body hanging out at both sides of the head. Materialistic physiology objects that in hypnosis there is a physical change in the blood, but people simply mix up cause and effect.

Man's first experience after death is therefore this retrospection of his past life, which differs in length, but averages about three and a half days.

Then comes a second kind of death, when the etheric body completely severs itself also from the astral body, so that a kind of etheric corpse remains behind. But this corpse soon dissolves, more or less quickly in each individual case, and becomes part of the universal cosmic ether. Yet it does not dissolve altogether; a kind of essence remains from the past life. The Ego takes this essence along with it; it is an imperishable treasure, which remains for all the subsequent incarnations. After every incarnation a new leaf is added, so to speak, to the proceeding one. In Theosophy this essence of the etheric body is called the Causal Body, and the quality of the causal body determines the way in which the future incarnations take place.

Now the astral body remains alone ... What is the difference between this condition, in which it is severed from the other members, from the physical body and the etheric body, and that of sleep, in which it also remains alone? The forces which it had to use during sleep in order to elaborate and improve the physical body, have now become emancipated, through the fact that the physical body has definitely been laid aside. The astral body now uses those forces for its own self and is conscious of this. In this state of self-consciousness the astral body now passes through a time which can be understood best of all if we consider the following:—

Imagine that you are enjoying a specially tasty dish—you eat it and enjoy its taste. This pleasure is not rooted in the physical body, but in the astral body, but it can only arise because it has the required organ, namely a tongue and a palate. Thus the physical body supplies the instrument for the gratifications of the astral body.

Now, what takes place after death, when the physical body has been discarded? The instrument is lacking, the transmitter of enjoyment, but the astral body has not lost the longing and desire for some special pleasure. Now imagine this state as vividly as possible. It resembles the condition of a man who is thirsting in the midst of a desert. After death the astral body still feels the desire for certain enjoyments, in the same measure in which it was accustomed to feel this during the past life on earth, and for this reason the time after death is for so many people a time of unsatisfied desires.

This condition is named Kamaloka (Kama means desire, and locus place). It is the same condition which we find described in many myths—for instance, the tortures of Tantalus, or purgatory. Of course, this condition is not only a torturing one; it tortures us until the astral body has lost the habit of desiring enjoyments. The more needs the astral body feels during physical life the longer does this condition of Kamaloka last.

But you may gather from the above, that according to the quality of these needs experienced by a human being during his past life on earth; the astral body may encounter in Kamaloka experiences which are not only torturing, but under circumstances very good and pleasant. The astral body will, for instance, feel pleasure in every moment of joy given to him by Nature and its beauty. In order to experience this enjoyment of Nature and its beauty, we must indeed have eyes to see, but beauty is something that transcends the physical, and therefore this condition is in Kamaloka the source of increased enjoyment. These things produce great joys and wonderful experiences even during the Kamaloka period.

Thus we may render this Kamaloka time more beautiful by emancipating ourselves from purely physical enjoyments. If you consider this, you will be able to understand several things in life, for instance, everything which constitutes art. The more ideal art is, the more the ideal essence manifests itself through art, the stronger and the more uplifting will, be the influence of the work of art, an influence transcending physical life. The Spirit is the real element of art. The materialistic short-sightedness, alone has led to naturalism in art.

After passing through this Kamaloka period, we therefore reach the stage where we have lost the habit of physical enjoyments, and this means that we must now pass through an entirely different condition. The soul now discards all those parts of the astral body which man, that is to say, the Ego, has not yet transformed. The discarded astral sheath now constitutes the third corpse which we leave behind.

Now that the Ego has united itself with that which it has gained from the other bodies—viz. with the above-mentioned essence of the etheric body and with that of the astral body—it passes on to the Spirit-realm. There it lives until the time of a new birth.

We shall speak of this tomorrow. To-day I only wish to emphasize once more that all these spiritual worlds exist continually round about us, and not in a “Beyond”, which is spatially separated from us. One who can look into the spiritual worlds can at any time perceive the above-mentioned corpses, as shadows or spectres. It is these corpses which so frequently intrude themselves in spiritistic seances. But if such an astral corpse is mistaken for the individuality in question, it is just as foolish a mistake as that of taking the physical corpse for the living human being, Thus the astral corpse frequently reveals very ridiculous traits, for it possesses the very qualities which the Ego has discarded.

Since it is our task to-day to continue following, man's destinies in the spiritual world, it will be advisable if we first form some idea of what we designate as a world, in the spiritual-scientific meaning.

We are conscious of the world round about us, because we have certain capacities and organs which enable us to perceive it. If we had other organs, this world would present an entirely different aspect. For example, if a man had no eyes enabling him to see the light, but an organ enabling him instead to perceive electricity, then he would not see this room flooded with light, but he would perceive electricity in every wire, flashing, streaming through it.—The world round about us, what we call our world, is therefore dependent upon our sense-organs.

The astral world, too, is nothing but a sum of phenomena, which the human being experiences in his environment , when he has severed himself from his physical body and from his etheric body, so that he can use forces enabling him to see what he cannot otherwise see. This is the case, when he has discarded his physical body and his etheric body. The perceptive organs for the astral world are the organs of the astral body, analogous to the sense-organs of the physical body.

Let us now contemplate the astral world.

Through methods which will be discussed later, a man endowed with spiritual vision can perceive the astral world even here, in his physical body. The astral world differs greatly from our physical world. You may obtain some idea of what is round about you in the astral world, if you summon up before your soul the life of dreams, which is the last trace of that early clairvoyance which man once possessed in times gone by. You all know this life of dreams from your own experience, as world of chaotic images. How does it come about that man dreams at all? We know that while we dream, the physical body and the etheric body lie on the bed, while the astral body soars above them. In a sound, dreamless sleep, the astral body is completely lifted out of the etheric body; but in a sleep filled with dreams, certain tentacles of the astral body still reach into the etheric body, and this enables man to perceive the more or less confused pictures of the astral world.

The astral world is as transparent as the dream-pictures; it is, as it were, woven out of dreams. But these dreams which constitute the astral world differ from ordinary dreams, for they are the images of a reality, just as “real” a reality as the physical world. We perceive this reality in the same way in which we perceive dreams, for the astral world, too, is perceived symbolically. You all know that the world of dreams is a symbolical world. Everything from the world outside which enters our sleep, takes on a symbolical aspect in our dreams. I will give you a few typical examples of dreams, which will show you how a simple impression from outside constitutes the foundation of a dream's symbolical image.

For example, you may be dreaming that you have caught a frog. You feel its slippery body, and on waking up you find that you are holding the cold end of the sheet in your hand. Or you may dream that you are in a cellar, in a dark hole full of spiders' webs: You wake up ... with a headache. Or you may see snakes in your dream, and when you awake you will find that you have abdominal pains. Or another dream: An academician has a long dream of a duel, beginning with some insult and ending with the pistol-shot: He hears the shot, awakes, and discovers that a chair has fallen.

The whole course of this last dream can also show you that the conditions of time are quite different in dreams. Not only does time run backwards, so to speak, but the whole conception of time loses its meaning in a dream. During a dream, we may pass through a whole life in the fraction of a second, in the same way in which our whole life passes before our soul's eye during the moment of drowning, or crashing. The point to be borne in mind in all these dream-pictures is that the cause which gave rise to them appears in the form of IMAGES.

This is the case in the astral world. Its images can be interpreted. The same astral experience always appears in the form of the same image; there is always regularity and harmony in these pictures of the astral world, whereas our ordinary dreams are chaotic. In the end, we can find our way about in the astral world just as well as in the physical world.

The astral world is woven out of such pictures, but they are the expression of soul-beings. After death all human beings are enveloped in such pictures, which are in part very rich in colour and form. Also when we are asleep the astral body can be seen in the midst of streaming, changing forms and colours. If we have the astral power of vision, we can perceive these astral beings in a surging sea of colours.

The astral world has, however, one peculiar quality, which appears strange to one who hears this for the first time. In the astral world everything exists, as it were, in the form of a picture reflected in a mirror, and a pupil of spiritual science must therefore get accustomed little by little to see things in the RIGHT way. For instance, you may see the number 365, but this really corresponds to 563. This applies to everything which we see in the astral world. There, everything that goes out of our own being appears as if it were coming towards us. It is most important to consider this fact.

When astral images arise, for instance, in pathological conditions, we must know how to deal with them. They often appear when people are delirious; a delirious person often sees all kinds of faces and forms rushing towards him, for the astral world becomes accessible to him in this pathological condition. Although these astral pictures seem to be rushing towards him, they are in reality streaming out of him. Progressive doctors should bear this in mind, for in future such symptoms will be more and more frequent, arising out of a concealed religious longing. The subject of a painting such, as for instance, the well known “Temptation of Saint Anthony” is based on such astral experiences.

If you think these things through to the very end you will no longer find it strange that time too is reversed in the astral world. An echo of this may be found in dreams. In this connection you should remember the above-mentioned example of the duel in a dream. In the astral world everything is reversed; even time. When we observe the development of a tree astrally, we first perceive its fruit, then its blossoms, and so on backwards to the seed.

After death, during the time in which we must lose our earthly habits, our whole life in the astral world runs backwards. But this process of living through our whole life once more backwards, concluding it ,with our first impressions of childhood, is faster than the one on the physical plane; it lasts about one third of the duration of our life on earth. Thus we live through our life again in a reversed order, but we experience many other things too.

Let us suppose that you were eighty years old when you died, and that now you live through your life backwards as far as your fortieth year. At that time you may, for instance, have boxed someone's ear, thus causing him pain. In the astral world this sensation of pain also appears as if in a mirror, i.e. YOU now experience the pain felt by the other person when you boxed his ear. But this also applies to every pleasant experience.

Only when the human being has thus passed through his whole life backwards, is he ready to enter the heavenly world. Religious traditions should always be taken literally. If you bear in mind what I have just now explained to you, you will easily understand that the human being can only enter the spiritual world—and the spiritual world is the one which the Bible designates as “Kingdom of Heaven”—when he has lived through his whole life backwards as far as infancy. This lies at the foundation of Christ's words: “Unless you become as little children you cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven”. For on reaching the stage of childhood in his reversed passage through life, the human being discards the astral body and enters the spiritual world.

Now I must give you a description of the spiritual world. The Kingdom of Heaven differs from the physical world even more than the astral world. But since it is only possible to describe the spiritual world with expressions taken from the physical world, it should be borne in mind even more than for descriptions of the astral world, that everything I say about the spiritual world should only be taken comparatively.

In the Kingdom of Heaven we also find a triad, as here on earth. Even as upon the earth we find the three aggregate states of solid, liquid and gaseous, and accordingly divide the earth into continents, oceans, and atmosphere, so we may also distinguish three similar spheres—but, as stated, only as a comparison—in the spiritual realm. The continental sphere, however, consists of something which differs from our rocks and stones. What constitutes the firm ground of the spirit realm, are the archetypal images of the physical world. For everything physical has its archetype, even man. The clairvoyant seer perceives these archetypal images as a kind of negative, that is to say, he sees space as a kind of shadow-form, and round about it radiant light. But corresponding, for instance, to the blood and nerves, these shadows are not uniform. But a stone, or a mineral reveal in their archetypal images a uniformly empty space surround by raying light.

Even as you walk, on firm ground here on earth, so in the spiritual realm you walk on the archetypal images of physical things. This forms the continents of the spiritual world.

When the human being first sets foot on these continents, a definite aspect always presents itself to him: It is the moment when he first has a clear perception of his own body lying before him. For he himself is spirit. Normally this takes place about thirty years after death, and this is connected with the fundamental experience: “This is you.” The Vedanta philosophy based one of its fundamental teachings on this knowledge, the “Tat twain asi”—this is you. All such expressions are drawn out of a deep spiritual knowledge.

The second sphere of the spiritual realm is the oceanic sphere. Whatever is life here in the physical world, i.e. everything that possesses an etheric body, exists in the spiritual realm as if it were a liquid element. Streaming, surging life flows through the spirit-realm. It even collects like the waters of the ocean, in a kind of ocean-basin, or to be more precise, like the blood streaming through the veins and collecting in the heart.

And thirdly we have the atmosphere of the spirit realm, consisting of all the passions, instincts, feelings, etc. You have all these sensations up there as an external perception, resembling the atmospheric phenomena here on earth. All this blows through the atmosphere of Devachan. As a clairvoyant, you can perceive in the spirit-realm all the sufferings and joys experienced on earth. Every passion, every feeling of hatred and such like, appears in the spirit-realm as if it were a storm. A battle, for example, appears in such a form that in the Devachan world the seer experiences a tremendous storm. The whole spiritual world is thus permeated with wonderful joys which pass through it, but also with terrible passions.

In the same way it is possible to speak of spiritual ears. When you have advanced to the stage of having an insight into the Devachan world, you may both see and hear these floating phenomena, and what you thus hear is the HARMONY OF THE SPHERES.

We have thus characterised the spiritual region up to this stage. But there is a fourth region in Devachan. Up to now we have found in it:

1. The prototypes of all physical forms; as the continents
2. The prototypes of all life, as the oceans
3. The prototypes of all soul-life, feelings, etc., as the atmosphere

Now there is something in human life which cannot have its origin in the external world, and its spiritual content constitutes the fourth sphere of Devachan. There we find every original idea, going as far as the creative productions of genius. All that is original, that is to say, all that man puts into the world, thus enriching the world, the prototypes of all these creations form the fourth sphere of Devachan. This concludes the description of the lower parts of Devachan.

Beyond this there are three higher spheres, but during his physical life man can only reach them through a higher initiation. They are only accessible to an initiate, and after death, they can only be perceived by more highly developed individuals.

What does such an advanced initiate experience when he penetrates into the next higher sphere of Devachan? At first he experiences that which is designated in Occult Science as the Akasha Chronicle. Everything that occurs in the world and that has ever occurred in it in the past, is preserved as an impression in a fine substantiality, which is imperishable.

Let me illustrate this through at example: Now I am speaking to you, but you would not hear me if my voice were not able to produce vibrations in the air. Thus every word which I utter exists in the air in the form of fine movements. These fine movements of course vanish, but everything which occurs here on earth becomes impressed in that fine substantiality which we experience when reaching the spiritual world. This impression is everlasting. Every word, every thought, everything which has ever taken place in humanity, can be read in the Akasha Chronicle. This entails either initiation, or that moment after death when the human being enters the higher devachanic sphere, that is to say, when he has developed so far as to perceive this high sphere of Devachan after death. In that case he is able to look into the past.

The Akasha Chronicle is a writing which preserves everything that has ever occurred. But it is not really a writing in the ordinary physical meaning, for it consists of images. You see, for example, Caesar in every situation of his life,—you do not see what he has done, but the inner impulses which led him to his deeds. These Akasha pictures possess a high degree of life, and if we cannot interpret them in the right way, they can give rise to great delusions. The source of many spiritistic aberrations is, for example, the appearance of an Akasha picture at one of these seances. If you summon Goethe, and the Akasha picture of November 25th 1797 appears before you, giving you information concerning some question, this picture will reply as Goethe would have replied had he been asked that question on November 25th 1797. Only those who really know the spiritual world can judge whether they are dealing with a reality or with a shadow. These descriptions can show you what aspect the higher spheres of the spiritual world present.

The first experience is therefore the perception of one's own body, and this experience is the starting point for all other experiences. The human being feels strongly that he has emancipated himself from his bodily involucres, for the most blissful of moments is the one in which he discards the last body, the astral corpse. Even as a plant wedged in the fissure of a rock would experience it as bliss to be freed, so this feeling of blissfulness becomes a fundamental sensation of the human being. It permeates him and transfigures the other feelings which were once experienced in an earthly manner, for instance, feelings of friendship, which may perhaps undergo certain transformations here on earth, but which are deepened and purified in the spiritual realm.

Also a mother's love for her child undergoes such a purification, and vice versa. The originally animal feeling of belonging to one another, which even here upon the earth took on a moral character, unfolds a still higher moral-power in Devachan, Every tie on earth becomes deepened in the spiritual realm, and all connections interpenetrate.

Through love man works his way up from the narrowness of egotism to the encompassing experience of cosmic life. There, nothing, is divided or severed; each one works for the others, for even in the spiritual world activity and work constitute the element which carries, furthers and unites the souls. But Love is the inexhaustible source of all life.

It will be our task to-day to describe to a certain extent the human being during his sojourn in Devachan between death and new birth. In this connection we must first of all form an idea of that which man gains through the fact that during his passage through the spiritual world he is, to begin with, active for his own sake. We can picture this more easily if we bear in mind the relationship of two things: of that which we experience, and of that which our experience becomes during the time between birth and death.

Consider, for instance, everything which you experience when you learn to write. You would find it difficult, to remember all the things which you had to take in at that time in order to learn the or writing. Think of all admonishments of your teacher. Perhaps even of his anger! All this passed through your soul, and what has remained? The capacity to write. Everything else has become blurred and the art of writing has remained.

This is the course of things in life generally—not only during the life between birth and death, but in the whole life of the universe, both in the physical and in the super-sensible world.

It is possible to form a conception of how the things explained above are active in the super-sensible world. Let us, for example, take Mozart. When he was quite a young boy he heard a long piece of music at St. peters in Rome; according to an old tradition it was not allowed to write down this music, but Mozart wrote it down afterwards, from memory. What memories you must have had! And he could do this as a young boy! How do materialists explained this? They would protest energetically if they were asked to believe that an ox grows out of a piece of earth, that in animals such as the ox arises in a way which does not correspond to Nature. They say: Miracles do not exist ... and they are perfectly right in this. But in the face of spiritual things they become tremendously superstitious and believed in miracles at which point materialists simply accept back such as the one just now described from Mozart's life, and without further ado they place it to the account of heredity. Yet at Mozart's case, an explanation not arising out of a spiritual science describes just as great a miracle as that of an ox growing out of a piece of earth. For it is possible for a human being gradually to acquire an excellent memory if he turns his spirit again and again towards the same object. Memory develops in exactly the same way in which something perfect develops out of something imperfect, and it would be a miracle if Mozart's memory had grown out of nothing!

The answer of spiritual science to such a problem is that even in such a case upgrade developed gradually and naturally. If a materialists seeks an explanation for it, he cannot extricate himself otherwise that by admitting that he must either believe in miracles or that capacity is which does manifest themselves prove that they already existed in a former life and that they followed an entirely natural course of development.

Reincarnation is consequently the logical deduction of such a train of thought. And those who explain, through a materialistic way of looking at things, that such a perfect memory as that of the young boy Mozart can arise out of nothing, should follow their belief to a logical conclusion and admit, for instance, that frogs develop without further ado from mud—A fact which was accepted by a natural scientists before the time of Francesco Redi. Consequently, those who wish to be logical in spiritual science state: Even as an oak-tree grows out of the acorn and develops gradually, so our soul-capacities develop little by little, and when a human being enters life with capacities so highly developed as those of Mozart, this undeniably proves that the human being gained these capacities during former lives on earth. This gives us a clue to the comprehension of man's destiny in the spiritual world.

The essential point is therefore that the experiences of one life transform themselves into capacities for the succeeding life. All the dispositions of character which we bring with us in this life are the fruit of experiences gained during earlier lives on earth. For this reason it is necessary to study man's passage through Devachan in order to understand fully how the experiences of one life become capacities in the next life.

When we pass through our life on earth, we daily experience many things, and all these experiences appear in the panorama-picture already described to you, which rises up before the soul's eye immediately after death. But the capacities which we have gained through all these experiences remain as an essence, and we take along with us into the spiritual world this essence,which endures for all times to come.

When the human being enters Devachan, he perceives the regions described to you yesterday; the continental region, consisting of the archetypes of all earthly forms; the oceanic region, consisting of everything which is life; the air-region, consisting of everything pertaining to the soul, pleasure and pain, joy and suffering, etc. In the continental region the human being first perceives the archetype of his own physical body, and in the air-region he of course perceives, to begin with, also that which took place within his own soul during his past life on earth in the form of joy, suffering, pleasure, pain and passions. In other words, he once more perceives all the experiences of his past life, but in an entirely different way than during his passage through the Kamaloka period, which I have already described to you. In Kamaloka he lived through them once more in order to lose the habit of being dependent on them. In the watery region of Devachan man experiences all the peculiarities of his bodily life, and in the air-region of the celestial world he passes through all his psychic experiences.

It is important and of great interest to realise that everything which we have experienced in the course of one life—our feelings concerning the world, pleasure, pain, etc.—that in the spiritual world all this surrounds us as an external world. We need not feel sad that there our sufferings lie spread out before us. This is not sad at all, for there, all our sufferings exist in the same way in which storms exist in the physical world and in the spiritual world all our joyful experiences appear to us like wonderful cloud-phenomena. In Devachan our own inner experiences do not exist within us, as here on earth, but they live in our environment in an external form, in the same way in which a picture of Nature lies spread out before us. Our inner experiences live round about us, as if they were images, sounds or atmospheric phenomena; they have become objectified, as heavenly forms.

I have told you that it is not sad if our sufferings come raying towards us; just as little sad as lightning or thunder in physical life. Those who perceive these connections know what they owe to their sufferings in particular. Just those who have passed through pain and suffering will always say that they gratefully accept joy and pleasure, but that they would never wish to do without suffering and pain. We owe all Our wisdom to our suffering and pain during past lives on earth. A man whose physiognomy bears upon it the mark of wisdom in this life, owes this to the fact that in former lives he experienced the world's connection as suffering.

I have already explained to you that everything which we have experienced during our earthly-life lies spread out before us in pictures, etc, , when we enter Devachan. What does this signify? It will be easier to understand this if we realise what influence the environment exercises upon us. You all know Goethe's words: “The eye has been formed through the light and for the light.” What does this mean? The eye must exist in order to perceive the light. If we did not possess our eyesight the world would be dark and gloomy. But what is the origin of the human eye? It has been formed by the light itself, and similarly the eye would degenerate if there were no light. It has, for instance, been possible to observe this fact directly, in the case of animals who immigrated into the caves of Kentucky.

Light is the origin of the power of sight. Once upon a time man was not endowed with sight, because he still lived under quite different conditions; in earlier times of the earth's development the sun was not visible to an external sensory eye. Let us remember in this connection what the legends relate in regard to “Niflheim”.

The:more man lived exposed to the sun, the further the eye developed by the light of the sun. All the other sense organs developed in the same way: sound formed the ear, heat the sense of heat. We would have no sense of touch if there were no hard objects. The external world moulds and forms our body.

This is most important in practical life; in fact, theosophy is always meant to be applied to practical life. It is also most important in education, for only an educator who can look deeply into man's nature educate in the right way.

The physical body develops until the child changes its teeth, the etheric body develops up to the 14th/15th year, and the astral body up to the 21st year. We must know all this if education is to be approached practically and not fantastically. Since the disposition of the physical body is what we must bear in mind up to the seventh year, physical impressions, that is to say, everything which the child perceives through his sense organs, must be considered deeply and thoroughly. Sins of omission in education in connection with the form and disposition of the physical organs in the child's body, are a loss for the whole of life.

An insight into this last sentence gives medicine in particular many guiding lines for a right treatment of illnesses, among others, for instance, rickets, How is it that rickets arise just in this period of life? Just because; the child is moulding its body, and that is why these symptoms manifest themselves in the form (deformed bones, bad teeth, wrong form of the skull, etc.) But for this very reason the child is still able, until dentition, to correct the wrong forms and lead them back to a normal condition. We can see that even the most crooked legs grow straight again if the child receives the right treatment, and that perfectly sound second teeth can develop even if the milk-teeth were quite defective, whereas crooked legs which were not healed up to the seventh year remain crooked for the whole of life.

Up to the seventh year the brain is also engaged in the work of moulding its plastic forms, and the fine developments and forms of the brain's shape which could not be moulded up to that time are lost forever. Since the physical brain is the instrument through which the spirit manifests itself, it is of tremendous importance that this instrument should be moulded as finely as possible, that is to say, that it should be prepared during, the first seven years of life. For even the greatest individuality can do nothing with a defective brain, just as the greatest pianist cannot play well on a piano which is out of tune. Spiritual science, can give most important guidance to pedagogy, as well as to medicine, particularly in regard to the development of the brain.

In modern medicine one comes across a complete misunderstanding of facts particularly in this field. Rickets manifest themselves in a deformation of the bones, but very frequently they also appear in the shape of a defective glandular system and diseased mucous membranes; that is to say, children affected with rickets frequently have symptoms of swollen glands, adenoid growths, etc. A third pathological symptom in such children is that at school they frequently remain behind spiritually and that they become apathetic, indeed even slightly idiotic. In reality this is based on the defective development of the physical brain, particularly of its so-called corticose substance, which must above all be developed in its finest structure during these years. And in the same way the other symptoms are based on defective development.

Through the modern natural-scientific training and attitude, modern medicine is in such cases more than inclined to follow the example of modern natural science, namely to look upon the external symptoms as cause and effect, linking them up together like pearls on a chain and completely ignoring the deeper spiritual causes. What is the result? The facts are: rickety bones, adenoid growths, diminished attention and comprehension on the child's part. The conclusion to which modern doctors arrive is: Children with adenoid growths become mentally defective Owing to those growths; consequently it is necessary to remove them. The growths are consequently removed by operation. If this conclusion were right, every child who underwent such a treatment would respond to it by the disappearance of the impediments in the brain. But what is observed after such a treatment in the great majority of cases? The operation results in a sham success of brief duration, for the growths appear again after a very short time. But if the illness is to be attacked at its root—and this is quite possible, only now this would lead us too far away from our subject—the deformed bones, the swollen mucous membranes and glands disappear, as well as the impediments in the working of the brain.

After this digression, let us new return to our subject. The external world thus calls into being and moulds the right physical forms. Up to the seventh year, the child is in reality nothing but sense-organ. Everything which it takes in with its senses is elaborated ; above all, what it sees and hears in its immediate environment. Until dentition, the child is therefore an imitative being, and,this goes as far as its physical organisation. This is quite natural. Through its sense-organs, the child takes in its whole environment. And it is always practicing how to use it to limbs. It watches how its father or mother, etc. do this or that thing, and it simply imitates them. This goes as far as the movements of hands and legs. If the father or the mother are, for instance, fidgety people, then the child will also become fidgety in countless cases; if the mother is calm, then the child will of course, also become calm. We must try to produce the right counter-condition by placing the child in a right environment.

It is absolutely necessary to stimulate the child's fantasy, besides giving it sensory impressions, if it is to receive the influences needed for the development of the physical brain. It is consequently necessary to give a small child toys which are as simple as possible. A natural child will again and again turned to the “old doll”, made of a rag, no matter how beautiful the “new doll” which it receives. Only the spoiled children of our age are brought up on “beautiful”dolls. What is the reason for this? The child must exert its fantasy in order to transform the red-doll in its fancy into something resembling human shape, and this is a sound activity for the brain. Even as the arm grow stronger through gymnastic exercises, so the brain develops through this exercise.

Also the colours in, the child's surroundings are important. They exercise quite a different influence upon a small child than upon an adult. Many people think that green has a calming effect upon children. But this is quite wrong. A fidgety child should be surrounded with red and a calm child with green or blue-green. The effect of red upon the child is as follows: If you look upon a bright red and then turn your gaze away quickly to a piece of white paper you will see its complementary colour, which is green. ... By this I mean to, illustrate the tendency which the eye has to produce the opposite colour. The child also attempts to do this; inwardly he seeks to unfold the activity which calls forth the counter-colour. This is an example showing how the environment can influence a child.

In a similar way the child is influenced by everything which surrounds it, in addition to many, many things which I shall explain later, in another connection. All this contributes to a very great extent to the development of the child's physical body, from its birth to dentition; to the development of the etheric body, from the seventh to the fourteenth year; or to the development of the astral body, from the fourteenth to the twenty-first year, etc. Indeed, during the whole life the surrounding world exercises its influence upon the human being. The proverb, “Tell me with whom you go, and I will tell you who you are”, is based on this insight, for “with whom you go” means “what takes place in my environment”. This environment therefore has a strong influence upon us. This applies particularly to the time when the astral body develops, from the fourteenth to the twenty-first year, and it is an almost daily experience that a young person can easily be astrally corrupted by his environment during these years.

It is exactly the same in Devachan, as here in physical life. Even as here on earth the human being is constantly exposed to the influences of the atmosphere, so he is also exposed to them in Devachan—and there the atmosphere consists of all psychic life, our own and that of our fellow men. All this soul life continually influences the, human being, and gifts and talents develop through the fact that they attract the psychically kindred astral forces from the environment, allowing them to exercise their influence. Mozart was born with such a great musical memory because in a former life he had gathered experiences having this goal in view, and then allowed these experiences to exercise their influence for a long time, during his life in Devachan. Through our environment in Devachan we pass through an enhanced development of our innermost being—indirectly, through all our experiences during our preceding life on earth.

All our capacities are therefore the fruit of former lives, and in Devachan they have been further developed. This is the bliss-giving feeling in Devachan. In Devachan we hatch out what we are able to do in our present life, And in accordance with this is the feeling which we have during the whole intermediary time of our Devachan existence: This feeling, connected with everything productive, is bliss.

Here on earth we often feel pain, but in Devachan even pain is bliss, for there we realise, that we acquire wisdom through pain. Even a materialistic scientist has discovered this fact his book “Mimic of Thought” he writes: “Every wise countenance reveals the expression of crystallised suffering”. From the pains of his preceding life the human being in fact produces through his experiences in Devachan talents and wisdom for his next life on Earth. And the feeling of producing this is one of untold bliss.

You may see a pale reflection of this here on earth in a hatching hen. If you transfer this to the spiritual plane and enhance it immensely you obtain the feeling of incessant infinite bliss between the time of Kamaloka and a new birth,—for then the human being works out all his dispositions and capacities for the next life. Everything there becomes a source of blissful life.

We have therefore seen that one source of bliss in Devachan is all the ties formed here on earth are formed once more in Devachan, indeed we experience the spiritual part of those relationships in an immensely enhanced form. The other source of bliss is the productive, creative activity for our next life, as described above.

If the spiritual investigator now turns his gaze upon this activity of man in Devachan he perceives that this productive work has a meaning not only for the individual human being and for his future organisation, but that the human being must contribute and cooperate in a significant way in the progress of the whole evolution of the earth. It is an error to think that in Devachan we are only concerned with our own affairs. How must we work, as blissful spirits in the realm of spirits?

The activity of the dead is a cooperation in the development of our earth . . . We might easily ask: Why are we always born again, after having passed through the experiences of one earthly life? Is not reincarnation useless?

But this is not the case. It is never useless for a man to be born again. The single lives on earth are so far apart , that we always learn something new and pass through new experiences. Centuries elapse between two incarnations, and when we return, the earth has completely changed. Let us suppose that we lived on earth in the second century after Christ. What aspect did the earth present at that time? Even the descriptions of this region, of the Elbe and the Weser etc. of a much later period would be quite different from present descriptions, for here, in Nassau-Hessen, there were still virgin forests.

When the human being is born again, he experiences something quite different from his former life. During our various lives on earth we participate in the development of the earth itself, through the very fact that we incarnate again and again. In addition there is the change brought about by every civilisation. Think of what a Roman boy was able to do! Of the great difference in the education of a boy of the present time! As we have seen, all these experiences are immensely important. It therefore has a deep significance that the human being must always come back again.

Let us now ask: Who changes the face of the earth? The dead themselves, who live in the spirit-realm, do this, through the power which they there acquire, enabling them to work upon this transformation of the earth. Even as human beings are here active externally upon the earth, so the dead are active upon the spiritual prototype of the physical earth. It is they who send their forces into this physical earth, cooperating in its transformation. Of course, there are leaders in this work and higher beings who take over the guidance. In this spiritual realm—which is in our very midst—the dead work upon the transformation of the countenance of the earth.

Why am I in this very place to-day? Why have I been born here? Because I myself have, so to speak, prepared my bed in the very place where I was born. The forces which have a transforming influence both upon the oceans and, upon the surface of the earth, are the forces of our dead. We know that the Atlantic Ocean of to-day was once upon a time a wide expanse of land; this transformation too has been brought about by our dead, and these forces are quite natural and in no way miraculous.

An insight into such things proves with absolute logic the importance and necessity of this work in the spirit realm. If we only know how to interpret the phenomena in the right way, we may even describe this work. Here on earth we breathe the air; we could not live without air. It is similar with the dead, except that there the light plays the same part which the air plays here on earth. The initiate perceives the dead in the midst of light, which is spread out everywhere. A clairvoyant seer, for instance, sees the plants surrounded by the spirits of the dead and these spirits of the dead make the plant grow through the light and change the plant. In the spiritual world we shall all soar above the earth and work upon the plants.

If we thus contemplate the world in connection with the spiritual beings, it becomes larger and more significant to us.

In conclusion, let me mention a few things which can help us to understand certain fine details in our civilisation.

At times, the seer finds that his own observations are confirmed by phenomena in the history of ancient peoples, which before were enigmas to him. It is, for instance, a well known fact that at first primitive nations possess a kind of clairvoyance enabling them to see things of which we have no idea. These primitive races often saw in the shadow, for example, something which is connected with the soul. The clairvoyant now returns to this through his own observations. For if you look in to the shadow which you yourself throw, you first learn to perceive your own spiritual emanations. If we retain the physical light, we perceive the spiritual in the shadow-space. This knowledge has been preserved in occult science, and many who had no inkling of this truth have used it, for example, Chamisso in his “Peter Schlemihl”. This is a man who lost his shadow and is very unhappy over this. But it is a spiritual fact that the soul is visible in the shadow, and the man without a shadow is therefore a man without a soul.

There are hundreds of examples of this kind. We really learn to know the world fully if we learn to know its spiritual foundations. Spiritual science therefore is not for brooding people, but for those who wish to be active in practical life. We do not wish to withdraw from the visible world, but rather to understand it better.

The higher facts are related to the visible world as magnetism is related to iron. We learn to know iron fully if we also learn to know magnetism. A few examples will show us that especially that which we learn to know in the spiritual world bears fruit in practical life.

When, as we saw yesterday, man has reached the stage in the spiritual world in which he has, so to speak, transformed everything which he possessed in the form of capacities and talents acquired during his earthly life, then the time has come for him to prepare for a new incarnation. But we must realise that two things should be dealt with in that which comes towards us from the human being. One thing is that which reproduces itself in the course of physical heredity, and the other is that which the human being brings along into the world from his earlier lives on earth.

To-day we shall have to describe man's descent into the world, but you need not object to the word “descent”, for it is not a spatial descent, but a gradual process of development whereby man comes out of the world which is round about us and enters into the physical world.

Yesterday we saw that the spiritual world should not be sought in a “Beyond”, but that it is also round about us; modern man, however, is not able to perceive this spiritual world.

Out of this spiritual world develops that which we designate as a new embodiment. We saw that from his former life man retains an essence of his etheric and of his astral body, a survey of his experiences, and that he also took with him into the spiritual world that part of his astral body which he had been able to transmute, casting off the unrefined part.

It will be easier to form an idea of reincarnation if we bear in mind a few other things concerning the life after death. We saw that immediately after his physical death man lives for about three and a half days within his etheric body and that his past life rises up before him in these three and a half days like a kind of picture. The etheric body dissolves and then comes the Kamaloka time; this is the time of purification, in which the astrality still requiring purification is cleaned and purged.

But now I must mention another experience. When this memory picture arises immediately after death, man has a significant experience. He has the experience as if he suddenly grew in size, quickly breaking through his own surface and growing out into space. This feeling does not vanish until he is born again. Man feels that he is as large as the whole world to which he belongs, as large as the whole space of the universe. This will enable you to realise that man can look upon his body and experience it as something which does not belong to him, for he sees his passions as if they were outside his body. He has the strange feeling of being spread out over the whole universe.

Then comes something which is more difficult to understand. During the whole time of Kamaloka man feels as if he were really split up into space. You may understand this better if you bear in mind the following: During the time of Kamaloka, when man lives through his life backwards as far as his childhood, in the manner described, he passes through all his experiences as if they were reflected in a mirror. If he once slapped someone's face it is he who now feels the slap, for he feels that he is a part of the world once occupied by the other person. For example, if you died here in Kassel and the other person whom you slapped lives in Paris, then you feel as if one part of your being were in Paris. Thus you feel as if you were split up over, the whole world; parts of you live, so to speak, wherever you have to look for something. But you should understand this in such away that you cannot feel anything in the space between Kassel and Paris. If you thus bear in mind all the events of your life, you really feel split up into many many places during your passage through the period after death.

The following may serve you as a simile: A wasp. consists of two parts, a front and a back part, with a very thin connection. Now imagine that the back part were completely severed, but that the wasp nevertheless, drags it along with it. This is more or less the way in which you can picture to yourself what I have just described: You feel that you consist of single parts and that there is no connection between them. But when the human being enters Devachan, he once more feels as he did immediately after death, namely as if he filled up the whole space of the universe.

Now, when in Devachan man has transformed all his dispositions into talents and capacities, the Ego once more feels attracted towards the physical earth and endeavors to descend to the earth in a physical incarnation. First of all the Ego surrounds itself with an astral body. This process takes place through the fact that Ego attracts everything astral; the astral substance comes shooting towards it, as it were. It is just as if you were holding a magnet in front of iron filings; even as these filings are attracted in definite forms, so the Ego attracts the astral substance. But while passing through the soul and spirit realms the Ego has gained impressions through its experiences and all these form the fundamental forces which help to build up the new astral body. The new astral body thus takes along with it everything that the human being has experienced during his former life and in Kamaloka. All the impressions which he has had there, have a definite influence upon the way in which the new astral body enters into him.

The human being has now acquired an astral body; but he must also have the other members. The astral body has only been formed through its own forces of attraction. Before conception, man is enfolded only by this astral body. The seer therefore continually sees these astral germs of human beings waiting to be born—that is to say, waiting to be conceived. He sees them flying about with a tremendous speed; bell-like shapes move about. through space with enormous speed; distances play no part whatever; they move so rapidly that distances play no part at all.

Now comes the enfolding with an etheric body; but that a process in which the human being does not become enfolded with his own forces alone. His own forces, which lie in him, can no longer care for the etheric body; for that purpose, man needs the help, of certain spiritual Beings who must cooperate in this.

You may have an idea of these Beings if you bear in mind that you sometimes use words which you do not generally connect with any definite thought; for instance, the word Folk-spirit, Folk-soul. To-day we have no definite idea in connection with this word, but only something quite abstract. But the clairvoyant seer connects with it something quite different. There really are Beings of a higher nature, who exist even as we ourselves exist, but who never incarnate in the flesh, and these beings are the souls, or the souls of tribes and races. We do not use a vague expression when speaking of the Folk-soul: The Folk-soul is a real being, except that it does not possess a physical body, for its lowest member is the etheric body. Then the Folk-soul has an astral body, the Ego, Manas, Budhi, Atma, and a still higher member which man does not attain and which Christian Esoterisism calls the Holy Spirit, and which Theosophy generally designates as the Logos.

The clairvoyant seer may therefore address the Folk-Soul even as he addresses other human beings. To-day we have no real conception of such things and believe that this word designates characteristics of single nations. But this is not true—a reality is connected with it. The understanding for such things was necessarily lost through the materialistic conception, but it will be reached again. To-day men are inclined to dissolve such things into empty concepts. This had to come. For this same reason a book had to be published in our modern epoch which constitutes, so to speak, the very opposite of a theosophical conception. This book had to appear and has been greatly admired. It is Fritz Mauthner's “Kritik der Sprache” (The Critique of Language). Mauthner is a thinker who dissolves everything which lies beyond sensory things. Only a radical thinker who had been abandoned by every good spirit, could have the courage to write as Mauthner did, breaking with everything that is spiritual and real. In centuries to come, men will turn to this very book when they wish to know how people used to think at the beginning of the 20th century.

The Folk-Soul is a reality; it spreads out like a mass of fog, and in it are embedded all the etheric bodes of the individual human beings belonging to a definite nation and its forces stream into the etheric bodies of individual men.

Now there are spiritual beings having the rank of these Folk-souls, who cooperate in the building up of the etheric body of the new soul. These spiritual beings bring about the fact that the human being is led towards the nation which is most suited to him. The etheric body does not always fit quite perfectly; all the disharmonies which you often encounter in life often depend upon the fact that man is unable to build up his etheric body through his own forces. A complete harmony will only be reached upon a much later stage of development of the earth.

The enfolding with the etheric body takes place with great rapidity—a speed which you cannot conceive of if you compare it with physical conditions. Still higher spiritual beings then lead man towards the parents who are able to supply him with the substance which he needs for his physical body.

The modern materialist who sees that the son resembles his parents, will not be able to believe that something else is also connected with the body inherited from the parents. Of course, as regards our body we resemble our ancestors, but this does not contradict the facts explained above.

Let us observe a definite case—the family of Bach In the course of two hundred and fifty years, over 29 more or less significant musicians have come out of that family. Materialists will say: This clearly proves that there is such a thing as heredity!—In the same way the family Bernoulli produced eight mathematicians in a short time. How can we explain this? We can understand this best of all if we bear in mind hereditary conditions. As this is easier to grasp in the case of a musician lot us observe the family of Bach.

Let us suppose that a young Bach had lived in Rome during his former incarnation, that he had elaborated his dispositions and was ready to reincarnate. Supposing he had brought with him, as the result of his former incarnations, the greatest musical gifts; he could do nothing with these gifts if he were not able to find a well developed ear. Without such a well developed ear, he would be just as helpless as a great artist without an instrument. Necessarily such an individuality would have to incarnate in a body supplying a good organ for his dispositions. But the external form of the inner and outer organs is hereditary and if this individuality wished to become a musician, a well developed ear would be essential! Where can he most easily acquire such an organ? In a family of musicians. So he is led towards a family where he can find the best organ for his further development and the unfolding of the talents reposing in him. At that time, the best which could be found in that direction were the parents of Johann Sebastian Bach.

And how do matters stand with the brothers Bernoulli? Mathematical thought does not depend upon the structure of the brain (for mathematical logic does not differ from any other), but the mathematical gift is based upon the specially exact development in the structure of the three semicircular canals. This is an organ not larger that a pea, embedded in the middle of the ear and consisting of three semicircular canals, exactly corresponding to the three-dimensional space. If one canal lies exactly horizontally, then the second one stretches from right to left, and the third one from the front to the back.¹ They all face one another in an angle of 90 degrees The essential thing is therefore this exact position: The more exact the right angle is, the better does the organ function. If the organ is in any way injured, giddiness arises; you can no longer orientate yourself in space. The mathematical talent, that is to say, the possibility of using it, is based upon a specially fine elaboration of these canals. And this organ is inherited in the same way as, the musical ear.

The brain forms thoughts concerning space in exactly the same way in which it forms thoughts on philosophy. But the fact of having an understanding for the forms in space depends upon these three semicircular canals. Thus an individuality with highly developed mathematical gifts will incarnate in a family in which this organ has reached the most perfect development and this was the case in the family Bernoulli.

A suitable instrument is also needed in order to be morally efficient. An individuality with a high morality therefore seeks parents who promise to supply the best instrument for this purpose. The proverb, which is often used so superficially and trivially: “one cannot be too careful in the choice of one's parents”, is true in the deepest and most earnest sense, for a child chooses its own parents, so to speak.

Many people might object to this and ask: How can we explain mother-love, if that is so? For mother-love depends on the fact that the mother knows that the child is part of her own self. But viewed in the right light, mother-love does not suffer in any way—on the contrary, we learn to know it better.

Why is a child born to a certain mother? Because its spiritual qualities lead it to a mother who is spiritually related to it, and the child loves its mother even before it is conceived; mother-love is, as it were, the counter-part of this primary love and attraction. Consequently this insight even deepens the idea of mother-love.

Now the occasion for incarnate is essentially dependent on the qualities of father and mother; and there, father and mother work differently. When a human being descends to a new birth, the Ego, which possesses more volitional forces, feels more attracted by the father, and the more astral forces by the mother. The father has a greater influence upon the Ego, the will and character, and the mother has more influence upon the astral body—that is to say, more in the direction of thought. Of course, it is best of all if both parents are suited to the individuality seeking to incarnate.

When man descends, those forces are also active which were impressed upon him when he ascended to the spiritual worlds. All this develops forces of attraction and he is drawn into the sphere which was related to him from the very beginning. He is consequently led towards those human beings with whom he was already connected before.

Let me give you an example based on real fact. It once happened that a man was sentenced to death by a vehmgericht of four or five judges and executed. The former life of these six men was investigated through spiritual science and it appeared that they had formerly all been together on earth, but that the executed man had been their chieftain and that the others had been sentenced to death by him. The last execution was therefore a kind of atonement. This case in particular brings into clear evidence the law of Karma.

Thus the various forces which man attracted during his former life exercise a determining influence when he is born again, both in regard to the structure of his body and the place of birth, and in regard to his later destiny. Disharmonies appear in the physical body even more strongly than in the etheric body.

All these things show how man becomes enfolded by the three bodies when he is born again. And in every incarnation one Ego works upon the astral body, the etheric body and the physical body. Later on we shall see how man ascends to this high degree of perfection, for he transforms the astral body and the etheric body more and more. Out of the purified astral body develops Manas, out of the purified etheric body Budhi, and out of the purified physical body Atma. We are therefore able to imagine the ever growing perfection of man from incarnation to incarnation.

This appears most beautifully in the Lord's Prayer. But we can only understand it in the right way if we grasp it in the truly Christian meaning, as it was grasped in the Occult School of St. Paul. In this School the Lord's Prayer was explained according to its true Christian meaning, and the pupils were told: Imagine the higher members of human nature, which develop, through the fact that man more and more refines his three lower members. Early Christianity used to look upon these three higher members (Manas, Budhi, Atma) as man's higher nature. By developing the three higher members more and more, man gradually approaches the Godhead. From this standpoint, the esoteric Christians of the past used to call the three highest members the Divine Nature, and they called the highest Atma, i.e. the Father. This is the deepest divine essence in man: the Father in Heaven.

The Father is the essence towards which all men develop. He is the centre of the world's creation. The creation in the Christian meaning, can be best imagined if we bear in mind the sacrifice. Think of your mirrored-image, and assume that you could be just as selfless as this mirrored image, to the point of being able to sacrifice your own life. This is how we must think of a selfless creative activity: We ourselves must become completely one with the created object.

Now imagine the Father as the centre of a reflecting hollow sphere: The Father's image will in that case be reflected a thousand-fold. The esoteric Christian of olden times said to himself: Look at the world: All the Beings in it are, after all, the reflected images of God. And in their esoterisism they used to call this reflection of the Godhead's own image “the Kingdom”, that is to say: God, reflecting Himself everywhere.

“Continue now to develop your feelings,” was the instruction given to the pupil of esoteric Christianity in olden times, “continue to develop, your feelings. and if you can perceive God in everything, if you have dissolved the Godhead in an infinite number of single objects, and if you wish to distinguish these objects you must give each a name. This name: must be sanctified, it must be hallowed, for every single creature is a mirrored image of' the Godhead.”

In the course of his development, aiming at the attainment of God, man enters into these three elements. But you must not think that man becomes God. Take a drop out of the ocean: In its essence it is akin to the ocean, but it is not the ocean. In the same way the drop of divine nature within us is akin to God, to be sure, but it is not “the Godhead.” By developing the three highest members more and more, man gradually becomes united with the Kingdom; for the spiritual world comes down to him.

Here you have the three first entreaties in the Lord's Prayer: the first place, the appeal to the Father; in the second place, the entreaty that the Kingdom should come to us; in the third place, the Hallowing of the Name.

If we develop those three highest members within us, we shall always endeavour to avoid acting in a way which is not in harmony with the Spirit of the Father, from Whom we descend and to Whom we go in our development.

In contrast to the three higher members esoteric Christianity then considers the four lower members of man which must also become more and more perfect.

The physical body consists of the same substances which are also to be found outside in Nature, and these substances continually go in and out of our physical body. Indeed, if the physical body is to remain healthy, they must continually go in and out.

The etheric body has forces which are inter-related with the whole Folk-soul, even as the physical body's forces are inter-related with the whole of Nature. If the physical body is to remain sound, physical substances must go in and out of it day by day. If the etheric body is to remain sound, it must not develop upon an individual basis, but enter into harmony with the whole Folk-soul and with all the higher Beings.

The word “trespasses” is connected with the word “debts.” Debts clearly show that you do not stand there isolated, but that you live within social connection with your fellow-men.

That which brings disorder into the astral body of man was considered in early Christian esotericism as something connected with man's inclinations, passions, impulses and desires. Everything which can bring disorder into these is expressed by the word “temptation”. “Trespasses” are something which brings man into connection with the social community, whereas “temptation” is something into which every man may fall, in so far as he is an individual being.

If physical substances did not go in and out of our physical body, this body would come into disorder. Hence, we pray: this day our daily bread.

If the etheric body did not enter into a harmonious relationship with the Folk-soul, that is to say, if it did not insert itself harmoniously into the whole social structure, this body too would come into disorder. Hence we pray: Forgive us our trespasses.

If man fell into the error of giving way to every temptation which approaches him, this would bring disorder into his astral body. Hence we pray: Lead us not into temptation.

The Ego can commit errors which we designate as “evil”. Everything which transforms a normal, sound self-consciousness
into to evil, that is to say, into selfishness, belongs to these errors of the Ego (which is our own Self). To these errors belong all the aberrations of selfishness and egoism. Hence we pray: Deliver us from evil.

The physical body can thus develop soundly if we nourish it in the right way with daily bread.

The etheric body can develop soundly, if we bring it into a right harmony with the social structure in which we live.

The astral body can develop soundly, that is to say, it can be purged and purified, if we overcome all temptations.

The Ego can develop soundly, if we endeavour to transform every form of egoism into altruism, every form of selfishness to selflessness. Thus we may see in the Lord's Prayer a prayer encompassing the whole development of man.

Someone might now object—and you will often come across this objection: The Lord' s Prayer is one that was given by Christ Jesus for every man. Of what use are explanations such as the above, since the majority of men knows nothing about them?

The naive' person need not know anything about them. Look at the rose. The greatest wisdom has built up the rose, and yet even the simplest man may rejoice in it! It is not necessary to know anything of the wisdom contained, in the rose. It is the same with the Lord' s prayer. A power goes out from it and influences the human soul, even if the soul in its simplicity does not know this . But the Lord's Prayer could never contain this force had it not been drawn out of the deepest wisdom. Every great prayer, such as this greatest of all prayers, has been drawn out of the deepest wisdom, and the power of such prayers is based upon this fact. If you think that this is simply a thought-out explanation, you will be wrong, for the Being Who gave us the Lord' s Prayer laid into it this deep power.

You may therefore see that only with the help of spiritual science can we understand that which we practice daily the power of which has been experienced by mankind for nearly two thousand years.

Now we have reached a stage in the development of humanity where it is no longer possible to proceed without such a deepening of our understanding. Formerly, that is to say, up to that moment, humanity was able to feel the spiritual forces contained in this prayer without knowing its deeper meaning. But now humanity has progressed so far in its development that it must ask after this meaning, and an answer has to be given now.

The Christian religion will not lose any of its value thereby, but it will, on the contrary, manifest itself in its whole depth. Religious truths will be gained anew through the greatest wisdom. The esoteric explanation of the Lord's Prayer is an example of this. (See Rudolf Steiner's booklet: The Lord's Prayer) It shows us the path which man must tread through many incarnations. If he walks in the spirit of the four petitions referring to the four lower members, they will help him to fulfil the work leading to the development of his higher members, as expressed in the first three petitions of the Lord's Prayer.

• 1. In regard to the human head, and the directions “above, below”, “right and left”, “in front and at the back”, the organ as a whole stands like a cubus poised on its point.

To-day we must speak of what is designated as the Law of Karma, the law of cause and effect in the spiritual world. To begin with, the last lectures should be borne in mind, because they showed us how life as a whole takes its course through a series of incarnations. You have all been in the world many times and you will often return to it. We shall see later on that it is not right to think that our incarnations repeat themselves through all eternity either in the past or in the future. On the contrary, we shall see that they began at a certain point in time and that a time will come when they will cease; the human being will then continue his development in a different form.

Let us first consider that space of time in which reincarnations take place. In connection with this we should realise that everything which we call destiny, whether relating to character and inner qualities or to external events, is brought about by our preceding incarnations, and that everything which we do in this life has an effect upon our subsequent lives. The great law of cause and effect, the law of Karma, thus runs through all our incarnations.

Let us now picture to ourselves how this law is active in the whole universe—not only in the spiritual, but also in the physical world.

Take two imaginary jugs of water and then assume that you are heating an iron ball until it becomes red hot. You then drop it into the first jug, What will happen? The water will hiss and the ball will become cool. Then take the ball out of the first jug and drop it into the second one. In that case the water will hiss no longer and the ball will not become much cooler. We therefore find that the ball behaves differently in each case; in the second case it would not have behaved as it did, had it not been dropped into the first jug. Consequently the way in which it behaved in the second case is the result of what happened to it in the first jug. Such a connection is called Karma. The ball's Karma brings about the fact that the water in the second jug does not hiss and that the ball itself does not become much cooler.

I will now give you an example from the animal kingdom showing that preceding life-conditions bring about subsequent ones. Take those those animals which immigrated into the caves of Kentucky; their eyes gradually degenerated through the complete deprivation of sunlight. The substances which are generally used for the structure of the eyes go to other organs and as a result the eyes degenerate and the animals little by little become blind It is then the destiny of all their descendants to be born blind. Had the parents not immigrated into the dark caves, the descendants would not have been fated to lose their eyesight. The condition of blindness is therefore the consequence of the immigration into the dark caves.

Spiritual science explains that everything which occurs in the world is dependent upon Karma. Karma is the general law of the universe. Even the Bible speaks of this law at the very beginning. It says: “In the beginning God created the heaven and earth”. On reading this superficially, as is generally the case to-day, you do not notice that these words lie within the meaning of the law of Karma, but you notice it without further ado if you consult the original text of this ancient document, or if you take one of the oldest Latin translations, for instance the Septuagint, which the Roman Catholic Church still considers as the authoritative translation of the Old Testament, and particularly of Genesis. Perhaps in an introductory course such as this one, which is to acquaint you step by step with the immense depths of the spiritual-scientific world-conception, it is not inappropriate to deviate a little from our main subject.

Modern man has really no connection with the “living word”. Speech has become, on the one hand, a conventional means of communication and, on the other; a“business language”. Things were quite different in ancient times, when words were being coined, for the human being still possessed a living connection with the word. Indeed, in the remotest times, even the single letter leading to the composition of a word had a deep significance. A modern man has not the faintest idea of that which passed through the soul of an ancient Hebrew sage when he uttered the word “bara”, contained in the first sentence of Genesis; and which posterity—that is to say, the Latin world—translated with “creare”, and which we translate with “created”. What is the deep meaning of the word “bara”? In the German language we still find the same root “bar” in the word “gebären”, to bear children.

The root “K-r” lies in the word Karma. It is the same root which also lies in the word “creare”, so that when we say “creare” in Latin (to create), this simply means: something arises as the result of earlier influences; that is to say, something arises which is karmically determined by something which preceded it!

We can speak of Karma in the way in which we interpret it to-day only since the influx of the Luciferic influence, that is to say, from that moment onwards in which man took upon himself guilt. Consequently something of the idea of guilt always adheres to everything connected with the word Karma. “Creare” therefore means to produce something brought about karmically by earlier connections and conditions, whereas the root “bar” does not contain anything of this karmic relationship. How does this come about? Undoubtedly through the fact that the ancient Hebrew was still connected far more intimately with the spiritual world and still realised quite clearly that at a time when “the Elohim were meditating creatively” it was not yet possible to speak of Karma in the meaning in which we generally speak of it. But in the Latin epoch of human evolution man was already completely severed from the spiritual world, as we shall see upon some other occasion, and therefore he could imagine even the Elohim's “creative meditation” only within a karmic connection.

But “bara” as well as “crease” do not mean that God created the world out of nothing; both words contain the meaning that God led over earlier conditions into new ones ... in the same way in which a mother does not bear her child out of nothing. To bear a child means that the child passes over from a former concealed condition within the mother's womb into a condition in which it becomes visible in the external world.

This shows you how the meaning of the Bible can be distorted. Theology was the first to decree that God made the world out of nothing, (for theology no longer knew anything of the cosmic epochs of evolution which preceded earthly existence) and whole libraries have been written on this subject. Yet all these theologians fought against windmills, like Don Quixote. We should always know, however, against whom and against what we are fighting; that is to say, we should always reveal the original meaning of the ancient documents.

If we think of this Law of Karma in the right way, as the connection between cause and effect, applying it not only to physical life here on earth between birth and death, but also to the life in the spiritual world, we shall find that this very law of Karma becomes a torch which illuminates our own life. Insight into the law of Karma not only gives us a deep intellectual satisfaction, but it also profoundly satisfies our heart and soul and gives us the right understanding of our relationship to the world. More and more you will realise its deep significance and that only a true insight into this law of Karma enables you to mould your life harmoniously in regard to your environment.

The law of Karma does not throw light upon abstract riddles of the universe, but upon problems which we actually encounter in life at every step. Is it not a real life-riddle when we see that one human being is born in misery and poverty, apparently without any fault of his own, and that the finest gifts which lie concealed within him must atrophy owing to the social condition into which life has placed him? We must often ask ourselves in life: How can we explain the fact that an apparently innocent man is born in the midst of misery and pain, whereas another man is born without his merit in surfeit and wealth, surrounded at the cradle by those who tenderly love him? These are problems which modern superficiality alone can ignore.

The deeper we look into the law of Karma; the more we find that the hard injustice apparently presenting itself to a superficial observation of this law disappears. We then realise more and more why one man must live in one condition of life and another man in another. Injustice and hardness in one or other life-situation can only be seen if we limit ourselves to the observation of one life; but if we know that this one life is the absolute result of former deeds, the injustice, completely vanishes, for we perceive that the human being prepares his own life.

Someone might now object: It is terrible to think that all the blows of destiny which a human being encounters in this life are brought about through his own fault! We must realise, however, that the law of Karma is not something for sentimental people to brood over, but that it is an active law, rendering us strong and giving us courage and hope. For even though we ourselves have moulded our present life with all its hardships, we know at the same time that Karma is a law the chief significance of which must be looked for, not in the past, but in the future. No matter how deeply oppressed we may be in the present owing to the result of past deeds, our insight into the law of Karma will bear fruit in our subsequent lives. Our attitude determines what fruit our deeds will bear, for no action is without consequence. It is far more theosophical to look upon Karma as a law of action, as an active law! For no matter what we do, we cannot escape the consequences of our deeds. The more we suffer in this life and the better we bear our sufferings, the more shall we profit by this in future lives. Karma is a law which solves the riddles of life which we encounter at every step.

What is the connection between a preceding and a subsequent life? We should clearly bear in mind that everything which we experience as inner effects of external events—joy or pain over things which we encounter in life—that all this has an influence upon our future lives.

Now you know that everything living within us in the form of pleasure and pain, of joy and suffering, is borne by the astral body. Everything which the astral body experiences during this life, particularly if experiences repeat themselves again and again, appears in the next life as a quality of the etheric body. Some object in this life which gives us pleasure and which we call up in our soul again and again, will produce in the next life a deep inclination and predilection for this particular object. But this inclination and predilection are character qualities, and their bearer is the etheric body. Consequently the effects produced by the astral body in a preceding life become qualities of the etheric body in the next life. What you repeatedly experienced during this life, appears in your next life as fundamental character. A melancholic temperament is due to the fact that in a preceding life the human being in question had many sad impressions throwing him again and again into a sad mood; as a result, the etheric body will have the inclination to sadness in the next life. The opposite may be found in people who obtain something good from everything in life, thus producing in their astral body joy and happiness and an uplifted mood; this will become a lasting characteristic of the etheric body in the next life producing a merry temperament. But if a human being courageously overcomes every sad experience in spite of the hard school in which life has placed him, his etheric body will be born in the next life with a choleric temperament. If we know all this, we can almost prepare our etheric body for our next life.

The qualities which the etheric body possesses during one life appear, in the next, in the physical body. Thus if a man has bad habits and bad characteristics and does nothing to get rid of them, this will appear in the next life in the physical body as a disposition, a predisposition to illness. Strange as this may sound the disposition towards certain illnesses, particularly infectious ones, depends on the bad habits of a preceding life. This insight therefore enables us to prepare health or illness for our next life. If we conquer a bad habit, we become healthy and immune against infections in our next life. Thus we can prepare health for our next life. By endeavouring to foster only noble qualities, we can prepare a healthy body for our next incarnation.

A third and most important thing should be borne in mind in order to understand the law of Karma:—To truly estimate our actions in this life. So far we have only spoken of what takes place within the human being; but what he does during this life, that is to say, his attitude towards his environment and his actions, produce a result which appears in the surrounding world during his next life.

A bad habit in itself does not mean that I have done something; but if this bad habit leads to an action, this action changes the external world. In fact, everything which thus exercises an influence upon the physical world returns to us during our next life as our external destiny in the physical world. Thus the deeds of our physical body during this life become our destiny in the next. We learn this through being placed in this or in that life-situation. Whether a person is happy or unhappy in one or other condition of life depends upon his actions during his preceding life. An appropriate and instructive example for this case is that of the vehmic murder, which shows us how an external action during one life falls back upon men as their destiny during the next one.

This is a brief sketch of karmic relationships in regard to individual human beings . But we can speak of Karma not only in the case of individual persons, for man should not consider himself as a single being. If the individual were to rise even a few miles above the earth, the result would be the same as if the finger severed itself from the body.

If we penetrate into spiritual science we are literally forced to admit through this knowledge that we should not delude ourselves to the extent of insisting that we are single beings. This applies to the physical world and even more to the spiritual world. Man belongs to the whole world and his destiny is involved with that of the entire world. Karma touches not only the individual, but also the life of whole nations.

Let me give you an example: You all know that in the Middle Ages there were pestilences resembling leprosy. In Europe they completely disappeared only during the 16th century. Quite a definite cause, a spiritual cause, produced this form of pestilence in the Middle Ages. Materialists are of course inclined to trace such a contagious disease to bacilli, but not only the physical cause should be borne in mind in such illnesses. We can make exactly the same mistake if we try to find out, for example, why a man has been whipped, what is the cause of this whipping. A person of insight will immediately discover that certain brutal men in the village were the cause of the whipping. In this case it would be foolish to say that the blue wheals are due solely to the fact that the sticks came down so and so many times on the man's back. The purely materialistic cause of the blue marks is undoubtedly the fact that the sticks came down on the victims back, but the deeper cause must be sought in the brutality of the men who whipped him. Similarly the pestilence of the Middle Ages has a spiritual cause in addition to the materialistic one of the bacilli.

We have an analogous example in weeping. Its spiritual cause is sadness, but its material one is the secretion of the lachrymatory glands. It hardly seems possible that a famous modern scientist should have come to the same foolish conclusion mentioned above, but he actually made the monstrous statement that the human being does not weep because he feels sad, but that he feels sad because he weeps!

But let us get back to the pestilence. If you wish to explain the deeper cause of this disease spiritually, you must look back upon a significant historical event. Upon the great masses of peoples coming from the East, who overflowed Europe, bringing with them fear and terror. These Asiatic masses were people who had remained behind at the ancient Atlantean stage, and were consequently decadent races. They were races whose decadence had the character of putrefaction, which was particularly strong in their astral body. Had they invaded Europe without bringing s0 much terror and fear to the Europeans, nothing would have happened. But these hordes brought with them fear, terror and and alarm, whole nations in Europe experienced this state of fear and terror. Now the putrid substance of the Huns' astral bodies mixed with the terror-stricken astral bodies of the peoples whom they had invaded. The degenerated astral bodies of these Asiatic hordes unloaded their bad substances on the terror-stricken astral bodies of the Europeans, and this putrid substance was the cause of the pestilence, the physical effects of which appeared later on.

This is in reality the deep spiritual cause of pestilence in the Middle Ages. Consequently something which had a spiritual cause appeared later in the physical body.

Only those who know the law of Karma and have insight into it are called upon to play an active part in the course of history.

Let me now tell you something which contributed to he founding of the spiritual-scientific world-conception: Karma influences not only individual men, but also nations, and even humanity as a whole. Those who pursue the course of history in the spiritual life of Europe know that materialism came to the fore during those last 400 years or so. The most innocent aspect of materialism is to be found in science, for there every mistake can always be perceived and corrected. The influence of materialism is far more harmful in practical life, where everything is viewed from the angle of material interests. But materialism would never have entered practical life, had men not had a predilection for it. The influence of of materialism is most harmful of all in the sphere of religious life, that is to say, in the Church: The Church above all has been heading towards materialism for centuries. In which way? If you go back to the days of early Christianity, you would never have heard people say, for instance that the seven days creation was actually accomplished in seven days, as we so often hear to-day, nor was the “seventh” day imagined in such a way that after a hard piece of work someone sits down and rests. The materialistic age has lost all knowledge of the reality underlying this work of seven days.

It is the task of spiritual science to give mankind an explanation concerning the true meaning of this ancient document, Genesis. (See Rudolf Steiner's Secrets of the Bible Story of Creation GA 122)

It is the materialistic conception in religion which corroded most deeply the life of nations. Materialism will hold sway more and more in the religions sphere, and. particularly in this direction people will less and less realise that the spirit, not physical material things, counts most of all. It will readily be admitted that the materialistic way of thinking, feeling and willing has gradually penetrated into the whole life-conception of mankind, and finally this appears in the state of health of the succeeding generations.

In an epoch in which men have a sound conception of life, a strong central point is produced within them, enabling them to be self-contained personalities whose descendants become strong and healthy. But an epoch in which people believe only in matter, will give rise to a generation of men who have a body where everything goes its own way, where nothing is directed towards a centre, thus producing symptoms of neurosis, of nervous diseases. If materialism continues to be the ruling world conception in the future, these nervous health conditions will gradually increase.

The clairvoyant can tell you exactly that which must occur if materialism is not counter-balanced by a sound spiritual conception. Mental diseases would in that case become epidemical and even newly born children would suffer from symptoms of trembling and from other nervous disturbances, while the further result of the materialistic mentality would be a race without any power of concentration; in fact, we can see this already to-day. About three decades ago, this thought—how mankind would fare without spiritual remedy against the effects of materialism—led to the inauguration of the spiritual-scientific movement. Many discussions may arise regarding a remedy, yet no objections can be of much avail in the face of the chief argument: its efficacy. It is the same with the efficacy of spiritual science as a remedy, for it is a preventive against that which would inevitably occur if men continue along the path of materialism.

If we reflect more deeply over the law of Karma, we cannot look upon men as a single being, but as forming part of a community subjected to the law of Karma. The law of Karma is not of much use to those who wish to believe in a blind fate. It would of course be quite wrong to attribute such a character to the law of Karma. Yet we constantly come across people who fall into this error. One person says: “I know that it is not my fault that this or that thing happens to me; it is my Karma and I must bear it!” Or another one says: “I see a person who is in misery; but I must not help him, for this misfortune is his own fault; it is his Karma and he must bear it!”—Such arguments would be quite a senseless interpretation of the idea of Karma!

In order to have a clearer conception of this great law, you may compare it with the commercial law of debit and credit. Even as the merchant is subjected to this law in all his actions, so life is subjected to Karma, Your items in life are marked off on the debit or credit side, according to the good or bad actions which you have done during your past life. All your good qualities are booked on the credit side, and all your bad ones on the debit side of Karma.

But we should, not say: “I have no right to interfere!” This would be just as foolish as when a merchant balancing his accounts says: “I must not do any more business, for in that case I should alter my balance sheet.” Even as the merchant improves his balance sheet with good business, so I improve my Karma with every good action. And even as the merchant is always at liberty to enter a debit or a credit item in his account, so the human being is always free to do likewise in his account book of life. Not in spite of the law of Karma, but just because of it, man is free in regard to his actions. Just because he knows that everything he does—and he does this in full freedom—has an effect upon his account book of life, he cannot agree with those who do not help a man in need. It would be the same as if a merchant facing bankruptcy were to ask us for a loan of 5000 pounds. Would you not give him the money if you knew that he is a good business man who would work his way up again? It is the same with man in need: You help him to better his Karma so that his destiny takes a turn for the better, and at the same time you improve your own Karma through this good action.

The law of Karma consequently induces us to take an active part in daily life. A right understanding of the law of Karma, particularly from this aspect, is of special importance if we consider it in relation to Christianity. In this connection there are serious misunderstandings, particularly on the part of theologians. Modern theologians say: We teach that sins were forgiven us through Christ's death upon the Cross, and you teach the law of Karma, but this contradicts the former.

Yet the contradiction is only apparent, because the law of Karma is simply misunderstood. On the other hand, there are theosophists who declare that they cannot accept Christ's death of atonement—but these theosophists misunderstand the law of Karma just as much as the others.

Take the following case: You help a man, interfere in his destiny and turn it to the good. If you could help two men, this would just as little contradict the law of Karma. Assume that you are an individuality called upon to blot out evil in the world by a certain deed: would this contradict the law of Karma? The Christ-Being has, in the largest measure, done something analogous to the above example, like a man who helped not only a hundred or a thousand other men through his own deed, but the whole of mankind. The death of redemption, Christ's death of atonement, therefore harmonizes completely with the law of Karma—indeed, it can only be understood in the light of this law. A contradiction can only be seen by those who do not understand this law. Christ's death contradicts the law of Karma just as little as when I help a man in his need.

When looking upon the law of Karma you must think of the future, for with everyone of our actions we enter into our account book an item which will bear fruit. Only as long as one is passing through the illnesses of childhood in theosophy can a contradiction be found between Christianity and the law of Karma.

Many things become clear to us through an insight into this law. In the first place, we can accurately prove the connection between the individual bodily development and earlier lives. A life full of love prepares for the next life a course of development whereby the human being preserves his youth for a long time; a premature ageing is on the other hand caused by much antipathy during the past life. In the second place: A particularly selfish sense of grasping and hoarding things produces in the next life a disposition to infectious diseases. In the third place, it is of special interest that pains, and particularly certain illnesses through which we pass, produce a beautiful body in our next life. This insight enables us to bear many an illness more easily.

An insight into such connections of destiny enabled one of the greatest Bible students of our time, Fabre d'Olivet, to use an image which clearly shows us how things are linked up in life. He says: Behold the pearl in the shell! The animal in it had to pass through an illness, and the beautiful pearl arises through this illness. Thus illness during this life is in fact often connected with things which render our next life more beautiful.

How these things may be further developed in various directions, will be shown tomorrow.

Let me add a few supplementary explanations to the problem of reincarnation and karma, and then pass on to the discussion of the development of our earth, for only the consideration of these facts enables us to understand man's true nature as it appears to us in relation to the cosmic conditions. I shall conclude this course of lectures by leading you on to the contemplation of man's development, when he endeavours to attain vision and knowledge of the higher worlds.

In order to penetrate into the spiritual worlds we must first consider the pre-Christian training, secondly the Christian training, and thirdly the Rosicrucian training.

Further explanations connected with the problem of reincarnation should really be reserved for a separate chapter, because for beginners they are difficult to understand. What we shall discuss now refers to the time which lies between two incarnations. In itself it is a problem which shocks modern materialistic thought.

Immediate spiritual experience, which is one of the sources of knowledge at the disposal of the spiritual investigator, cannot be attained by those who lack spiritual vision. But those who apply the training which will be spoken of later on, will be well able to find out in what epoch the majority of men now living on earth passed through their last earthly incarnation. I shall then discuss what means were used in the Chaldean and Pythagorean schools and in every other occult school of pre-Christian times, to enable man to enter the spiritual world.

All those who have insight into the conditions which exist in the spiritual world, all those who are able to trace human development back into the preceding incarnations, will discover that the majority of souls now living had their preceding incarnation in the first centuries after Christ's birth, up to the 8th and 9th century. But these are average conditions, for the time between two incarnations may also be of shorter or of longer duration.

Another fact is connected with the one mentioned, a fact which must now be strongly emphasized: Namely, there are certain uncommonly radical thinkers of the present, who claim equality for all men. This is nothing but the materialistic aspect of a claim for equality which was advanced during the first Christian centuries—equality in the face of God, and equality in the face of the temporal powers.

Many of the people who advanced this claim for equality during the early centuries of Christianity and who then passed through the portal of death with unfulfilled claims, many of these people whose souls took with them into the spiritual world this longing for equality in the face of God and of the temporal powers, are born again at the present time, and they of course bring with them a particular attitude in regard to these claims, but in a transformed shape which is in keeping with the modern materialistic world-conception. But these men who return to the earth overlook the materialistic influence which the modern age exercises upon their claims. It is not right to believe or to declare that the modern idea of freedom comes from Christianity.

The transformation of the old claim of equality in the face of God and of the temporal powers into the modern claim for equality under all earthly conditions, can only be viewed in the right way if we survey the true connections revealed by the spiritual-scientific world-conception. Those who survey these true connections and at the same time consider the modern materialistic world-conception; realise without further ado that the claim for equality advanced by modern radical thinkers is something which necessarily had to arise independently and of its own accord. On the other hand, however, it is a fact that the human beings must from now onwards rise again from materialism to spiritualism. This alone can heal social conditions. There is no other remedy than spiritual science itself.

This problem is discussed more fully in numbers 30, 32 and 34 of the magazine “Lucifer-Gnosis” ¹ all the other remedies, even those advanced from high quarters, suffer from the blemish of amateurishness, for modern men know nothing whatever of the higher worlds. If modern social thinkers were to submit to some extent to the inspirations of spiritual science, they would really discover ways and means of approaching these problems.

Even as it is true that humanity had to descend from a spiritual past, into materialism, so it is also true that it must rise again to spirituality. A spiritual world-conception alone can produce something that gives rise to harmony, peace and love. Even in this sphere, spiritual science can be of practical help in the highest possible way.

Now I will show you how a conception of the human course of development gained through spiritual-scientific observations can lead us back to the events that lie between death and re-birth.

I have already explained to you that it is not in vain that the human being returns to the earth many times and we have seen that the reason for this lies in the fact that with every new incarnation the human being finds, entirely new conditions upon the earth. With every new incarnation he gathers new fruits for the future, for the earth has each time undergone a complete transformation, both in regard to human civilisation and the external aspect of Nature. Every time the human being enters the earthly sphere through a new incarnation, he finds the face of the earth completely changed.

According to the Chaldean conception, the transformation of the earth depends upon the sun's relationship to the other stars. You may find more detailed explanations on this in many of my lectures; now I can only refer to it quite briefly.

If you observe the astronomical aspect when the sun rises the vernal point, if you observe this vernal point and the other conditions in the world of the stars, you will find that the sun's position in regard to the other stars changes every spring. The vernal point advances year by year, so that in about 26,000 years (25,920) this point returns to where it was 26,000 years ago. This closes a cycle. But the circle thus described is only an apparent one, for in reality the sun describes a spiral. The vernal point was fixed in accordance with the constellation with which it coincided and the sun accordingly describes a circle in the sky and this circle is designated as the Zodiac with its twelve signs. Every year the sun advances a little, and within 26,000 years tho sun has passed through all the signs of the Zodiac.

About 747 B.C. the sun rose in the sign of Aries; and since the sun's passage through all the Zodiac signs takes up about 25,920 years, one twelfth of the time, i. e., 2160 years is needed in order to pass from one sign to the other. The change in the face of our earth is really dependent upon the fact that the vernal point advances. After an epoch of about 2,200 years the face of the earth has therefore changed to such extent that entirely new conditions have arisen; and on the average, the human being advances to a new incarnation within this space of time.

The observations of occult science show that this is indeed the case. Ancient peoples always connected a definite feeling with the rising of the sun in the vernal point of Aries, and this feeling may be described as follows: “From the sign of Aries the sun again sends down to us for the first time this year the rays which conjure up the plants from the earth.” They thought that the sign of Aries sent them these rays and and so they particularly venerated this sign. Sacred feelings of a definite kind were connected with the naming of the Zodiac signs. Aries sends down the forces of the vernal sun, and in the Lamb the peoples of those times therefore saw a symbol for the regenerating forces in Nature and in the human being. Many legends are connected with it; for instance, the legend of Jason going in quest of the Golden Fleece, which symbolizes something immensely prized by men. This veneration for the Ram or the Lamb held sway for many centuries and it was taken over by Christianity. That is why a lamb could originally be seen on the Cross, instead of Christ. And that is why Christ was called the Lamb of God.

If that is so, and if the sun rose in the sign of Aries from the 8th century B.C. onwards; another form of worship must have existed before that time; when the sun's vernal point lay in the sign of Taurus. In fact before the 8th century B.C. the bull was venerated instead of the lamb. This veneration lies at the foundation of the temple-cult of Apis in ancient Egypt, and of the Persian Mithras-cult. 2,200 years earlier, the sun rose in the sign of Gemini, and this sign too played a part in the ancient cultures of those times. The ancient Persian religion, with its Ormuzd and Ahriman cult may be traced back to this.

Thus we see that the ancient peoples had very significant conceptions in connection with the sun's passage through the single signs of the Zodiac. This again is connected with the fact that man reincarnates after a definite space of time; on the average, when 2,200 years have gone by since his last incarnation. Within this epoch, it makes a great difference whether he incarnates upon the earth as a man or as a woman, and so the calculation of the time during which the single. incarnations take place is very complicated. A human being's experiences during an incarnation as a man or as a woman differ so much, that he must incarnate twice during this epoch of 2,200 years, once as a man, and once as a woman, so that two incarnations succeed one another during the average period of one thousand years. Therefore 1,100 to 1,200 years only lie between two incarnations. Generally speaking, it is therefore right that a male and a female incarnation should alternate, but in exceptional cases there may be several succeeding incarnations of the same sex (the greatest number which could be observed was seven), but then the sex changes. These are exceptions, for as a rule the sexes alternate in the successive incarnations.

This can be said of the time which lies between two incarnations. But its duration depends upon many other things besides. For instance, a certain individuality may be particularly suited to a definite epoch, in order to fulfil a certain task. In such a case, the higher powers may draw this individuality into an incarnation before the expiration of the normal period. They draw him down, because his whole constitution enables him to fulfil a definite mission. This is particularly the case with the great leaders of humanity. But in the whole of human life the balance is re-established late on, for such an individuality will have to live through a correspondingly longer time in Devachan.

Another thing which must be said is that there is a kind of counterpart to the experience already described to you, which takes place immediately after death, when man looks back upon his past life as on a picture. This counterpart consists in a kind of prophetic vision of the following life on earth.

Let us bear in mind once more how the retrospective vision arises at the moment of death. You know that the etheric body has the two principal tasks of stimulating the vital functions of the physical body, that is to say, of constantly protecting the physical substance against decay and of regulating the structure of this substance; but the etheric body is also the seat of memory. When the etheric body abandons the physical body at the moment of death, it is relieved of its first task, and then its second quality comes to the foreground, that is to say, the memory of everything which the human being experienced during his past life. This forms the retrospective picture of human life. At the moment man's being only consists of the etheric body, the astral body and the Ego.

When man enters a new incarnation the following arises: the Ego descends from the spiritual world with all the imperishable extracts which it has acquired, both those pertaining to the etheric and to the astral body. For the building-up of a new astral body, the Ego must attract all those astral qualities corresponding to the development, through which it has passed so far, and afterwards it must similarly attract the etheric qualities. All this, takes place during the first days after conception, and the new etheric body begins to work independently and to develop the physical germ of the human being only after the 18th or 20th day, whereas before that time the mother's etheric body fulfilled that which must then be done by the new etheric body. From the 18-20-th day after conception, the individuality about to incarnate, which has enveloped its Ego with a new astral and etheric body, begins to take possession of the physical body, which has up to that time been formed by the mother.

When the human being thus takes possessionof the physical body, he consists of exactly the same members as during the moment of death; in the latter case he had just discarded the physical body, and in the former, he has not yet taken it up. This will easily enable you to understand that when the human being enters his new physical body, something arises which is analogous to his experience on discarding this body at the moment of death. When he enters his new physical body, the human being has a kind of fore-vision of his coming life, even as at the moment of death he has a retrospection of his past life. But he forgets this fore-vision, because the constitution of his physical body does net yet allow him to retain it in his memory.

At this moment the human being realises: “These are the family-conditions into which I am born, these are the geographical and local conditions and my destiny ...” And at that moment it may sometimes occur that when the human being thus foresees a sad or a terrible experience which lies in store for him, he receives a shock and is afraid of the life which awaits him, so that his etheric body does not properly unite with the physical body, it does not wish to enter it. Idiocy is the result of such a fright of the etheric body's reluctance to enter properly into the physical body. A clairvoyant may perceive the etheric body of such people protruding above the physical head and because the etheric body is not properly structured into the physical head, the brain remains behind in its development, for the etheric body does not work upon it as it should. Many cases of idiocy to-day are dependent upon this.

If we bear in mind that the majority of men who are reincarnated to-day passed through their preceding incarnation dating the 9th to the 11th century A.D., we can easily understand that the modern age in particular produces such cases of idiocy. By applying a kind of physical treatment the etheric body may be influenced so that it gradually penetrates into the physical body, and this may improve the condition. Such a treatment, however, can only be applied by a person who is able to see the spiritual cause of the existing facts, so that he can deal with the case properly.

We know from the preceding explanations that man's whole being consists of physical body, etheric body, astral body and Ego. These members do not simply fit together, but they interpenetrate and they all influence one another. Thus they all influence tho physical body and cooperate in, working upon it in such a way that it can develop properly. When you face a human being and your higher organs of perception are undeveloped, you can only, see his physical body. But the physical body appears to you as it does, only because the etheric body, the astral body and the Ego permeate it, and because they all cooperated in developing this physical body. The physical organs of the human body were not built up chaotically by the three higher members, for we can clearly perceive how the higher members worked upon the structure of the physical body. Let us try to form a picture of this.

In the physical body we have first of all that which constitutes in a certain connection the purely physical organs. These organs are based upon purely physical laws—namely, the eyes, the ears, the larynx, etc. The eye is, to be sure, a living organ and it obtains its life from the etheric body which permeates and nourishes it, but seen from a purely physical standpoint it is a complicated apparatus, ruled by the same forces which are also active in inorganic Nature, for instance, in the crystal. We may therefore look upon the activity of the eye in accordance with purely physical laws.

These sensory apparatuses must first extricate themselves from the physical body. They are organs which we first learn to know more strictly as organs which are built up by the physical forces and according to physical laws.

We then have a second group of organs; the organs of nutrition, growth and procreation, culminating in the activity of the glands. The etheric body is chiefly involved in the development of these organs.

As a third group we have the nervous system, which is built up essentially by the astral body. And in the fourth place we have that which constitutes the red blood in animals and in man: the red blood, the warm blood, is built up by the Ego.

We thus have firstly the purely physical parts, the sensory organs—later on, also the purely mineral osseous system which is built up by the physical body itself.

Secondly, the glandular system, the organs of procreation and so forth, which are built up by the etheric body.

Thirdly, the nervous system, which is built up by the astral body.

Fourthly, the blood system which is, built up by the Ego.

When we consider the development of the earth, we shall understand this better.

You should realise that the law of reincarnation must be applied to the whole world, not only to the human being. I now live upon the earth, I am the reincarnation of my preceding state, but this is not only the case with me, as human being, but in a certain way with everything which fills the world's spaces,—among other things, with the planets. Even as- we are the reincarnation of former individualities, so the earth is, among other things, the reincarnation of an earlier planetary condition.

The reincarnations of our earth are not unlimited in number, either in regard to the past or to the future; even the best clairvoyant cannot look back further than a definite state of being in regard to our earth, for even his knowledge is subjected to limitations. The clairvoyant can look back as far as three incarnations of our earth, and similarly he can survey three incarnations which will follow the present one. Including, the present state of the earth he thus surveys seven incarnations.

It may perhaps sound superstitious to people who hear this for the first time that the clairvoyant sets the earth so to speak in the centre of this course of development, and one might say: This is a very strange coincidence! But only a superficial judgment induces one to speak like that, for it is not more strange than the fact that when I stand in an open field, I can look out everywhere at an equal distance, for I stand in the middle of the horizon. And through the Ego, I also stand in the centre of the sevenfold human being: physical body, etheric body, astral body, Ego, Spirit-Self, Life Spirit, Spirit-Man. This is based upon the same standpoint.

Even my explanations regarding the planetary development of our earth may surprise many people and seem strange to them.

Our earth developed out of a former planet. This planet from which our earth arose can no longer be seen in the sky. But a fragment of that which once existed may be seen in the present Moon; the Moon is a fragment of the earth's predecessor. If you were to mix the present earth and the present moon and all the spiritual beings living upon them, you would more or less obtain an image of the earth's preceding incarnation, which the occultist designates as Moon. But you should bear in mind that this hypothesis is only advanced in order to make the process more comprehensible to you, yet like all hypotheses it is of course not quite correct. If we were to mix the present earth and the present moon, in the same way in which we mix two substances in a chemical laboratory, we would not by a long way obtain the ancient Moon . For we must consider that when earth and moon separated, these two celestial bodies each continued, their own development. The solid substance, for instance, which we call the mineral kingdom has only been formed since the present development of the earth. Before this development of the earth, there were no minerals in the present meaning.

From this imaginary mixture of earth and moon we must therefore eliminate everything which developed afterwards. The mass of the ancient Moon did not consist of anything resembling the present mineral. Its consistency had not gone beyond a liquid or viscous condition. As stated, the above hypothesis has only been advanced in order to render things more comprehensible to people who have never heard anything of the planetary development of our earth and of the whole cosmos. For a deeper understanding of this course of development, far more is needed, but this cannot be explained in an introductory course such as the present one for such things can only be unfolded little by little. This course of development will then repeatedly be completed and illumined from ever new standpoints.²

Before the earth passed through this ancient Moon condition, it lived in a state of existence which occultists designate as the Sun. The earth passed through conditions resembling those which still exist upon the present sun. But if we now wish to apply the same hypothesis as before things become, more complicated. If you wish to have an idea of this condition, you must mix the earth the moon and the sun, thus obtaining one celestial body, the former Sun. (Here again, the same restrictions must be borne in mind as in the case of the ancient Moon). In the further course of its development, the ancient Sun put out, cast out from itself all the essential parts, forces and substances of the present earth, and moon, and thus it changed from a planet into a fixed star. Also our earth will one day become a sun, when it shall have transformed all its beings into Beings of Light ...

Before its present condition, the earth was therefore the ancient Moon-planet, and this was preceded by the ancient Sun. We may then look back upon a still earlier state of development, which occultists designate as Saturn. We can therefore distinguish the following states of development, which preceded our earth: Saturn, Sun, Moon and Earth, and these will be followed by the Jupiter, Venus and Vulcan states.

Someone might say: You tell us that the earth was once Saturn, but Saturn still shines in the sky even to-day. But the Saturn which once constituted our earth has nothing in common with the star now shining down as Saturn. I do not mean to say that the beings who live upon the earth, once lived upon the Saturn which now shines in the sky. The present Saturn is connected with the former Saturn condition only as explained in the case of the present Moon and the ancient moon condition. Since those remote times, the Saturn which we now see, has passed through its own development, and the ancient Saturn is related to the present one in the same way in which a baby is related to an old man. The present Saturn was once in a condition resembling the ancient Saturn, even as an old man was once an infant.

When the spiritual investigator looks up to Jupiter, he finds upon Jupiter conditions and beings which the earth will one day have, when it shall have become Jupiter.

This teaching has been handed down by the most ancient initiates, and initiates have explained this course of development over and over again to their pupils.

Certain parts of our language which may be traced back to the remotest past, were formed by initiates. In an introductory course I cannot explain this fully, because this would lead us to far away from our main subject. But in ancient times, when the formation of speech was still still dependent upon initiates, language was quite different from what it is now. To-day, for instance, when naming something, we choose a name because it is uncommon, but it has no deeper significance. In olden times, however, there was a deep significance in names, and the choice of a name depended upon inner conditions. Thus one wished to erect a kind of monument, as a remembrance of the earth's course of development through the ages, and through its planetary conditions. A kind of time-table was formed, so that man might always remember these phases. But if we wish to understand this table,we must first consider certain other things.

The above outline shows you that before its present earth-condition the earth passed through a Saturn, Sun and Moon condition. Before the earth became the present earth, that is to say, during the transition from the moon state of existence
to the present earth existence; the earth stood under the strong influence of another celestial body, namely under the influence of Mars.

The important influence of Mars, which is of tremendous significance for the further development of our earth, was exercised just at the beginning of the development of our earth. Parenthetically let it be said that the earth then obtained from Mars the iron subatances which were not contained in the earthly substance.

During the first stage of its development, the earth was therefore influenced by Mars, and during the second half, that is to say, now, it became subjected to the stronger influence of Mercury. This explains why occultism drops the designation “earth” and subdivides the conditions of the earth into two halves, the Mars part and the Mercury part. This changes the above diagram as follows: Saturn condition, Sun condition, Moon condition, Mars and Mercury condition, Jupiter condition Venus condition and Vulcan condition.

The Vulcan condition would therefore be the eighth in the series; within this course of development it plays the same part as the octave in music. Even as the octave repeats, as it were, the first tone, but on a higher scale, so the Vulcan condition is a repetition of the Saturn condition, but upon a higher stage of development. The whole cosmos developed out of the spirit, and in the Vulcan stage everything will once more return to the spirit, but upon a higher and more manifold stage of development. Innumerable spirit-men developed out of a uniform spirituality, even as out of the seed which the sower planted in the earth, grains resembling this seed reach a manifold development in the ear of corn which ripens in the autumn. Everything perishable is but a symbol.

The ancient initiates made these seven names flow into that monumental table mentioned above, in memory of the earth's course of development, and this is given to us in the names of the seven days of the week:

The day of Saturn = Saturday
The day of the Sun = Sunday
The day of the Moon = Monday
The day of Mars = Mardi (Mars = Ziu, Dius = Tuesday)
The day of Mercury = Mercredi (Mercury = Wodan = Wednesday)
The day of Jupiter = Giovedì (Thor = Thursday)
The day of Venus = Vedredi (Venus = Freya = Friday)

A monument has indeed been preserved in the names of the days of the week, a monument which reminds us of the seven stages of development of our earth. Apparently common things in life may thus show us deep spiritual connections.

You must now bear in mind that even the whole development of humanity is intimately connected with this planetary evolution. Indeed the whole human development can only be understood in the light of the planetary evolution.

Each member of the human being is intimately connected with one of these planetary stages of evolution of the earth, in so far as the foundation of each of the members of the human being was laid during one of these phases.

The physical body was thus prepared during the Saturn age, the etheric body during the Sun epoch, the astral body during the Moon phase, and the Ego entered the human being only during the Earth phase. The physical body is consequently the most perfectly developed member, whereas the etheric body is only in the third stage of its development, for it was prepared upon the ancient. Sun; the astral body in the second stage, for it was prepared upon the ancient Moon, and the Ego is the baby among the members of the human being, for its development only began with the present earth condition.

An indication for what has just been said may be found by considering the four members of man from the aspect of their development.

During the infancy of the Theosophical Society the expressions “higher” and “lower” members were much in use; the physical body was designated as the lowest member and this was frequently connected with ideas of value. All too frequently people were inclined to look upon the physical body as the least valuable of all and they even despised it. But this is, quite wrong.

If you look more closely upon the wonderful structure of the physical body, you will find without further ado that it stands upon a tremendously high stage of perfection, whereas this is, for instance, not the case at all with the etheric body. If you look upon the physical body through the eyes of wisdom, you will find a wonderful structure in every one of its organs—in the heart, in the bones, etc. Observe the wise structure of the heart and consider the work done daily and hourly by this comparatively small organ. Compare this with the present comparatively still deficient development of the astral body: the unpurified passions which live in it every day, man's longing for pleasures which literally ill-treat the structure of the heart—nevertheless the heart is able to paralyze these harmful astral influences without breaking; and frequently without undergoing any damage.

To-day the astral body is not so developed as the physical body; at present the physical body is the most perfect member. But in the future the astral body will reach a stage in which it will surpass the physical body. Also the etheric body is less developed than the physical body and the astral body stands in the third place. The Ego is the youngest of the members, constituting the human being, and it will consequently be the last to reach perfection.

Everything in the physical body constituting its essentially physical part is therefore oldest of all. Our physical body passed through a development before the etheric body was incorporated with it. And this development through which the physical body passed purely as physical body is the Saturn phase. There, the first foundation of the physical body was merely a physical apparatus.

The course of development proceeded and upon the Sun the etheric body was incorporated with the physical body, The etheric body filled, as it were, the physical body, in a certain way transforming it. During the Moon state of existence the astral body was added, and the Ego was only added during our present Earth condition. To-day man is a fourfold being. During the Moon epoch he consisted of physical, etheric and astral body; during the Sun epoch he consisted of physical and etheric body, and during the Saturn epoch only of the physical body, The physical body therefore has four,the etheric body three, the astral body two and the Ego one phase of development. The physical body is the most perfect member, because it has been elaborated more than the others.

Thus you see how the single members of the human being are connected with the development of the whole planetary system. In occult books you will therefore find the following designations:

Saturn body for the physical body,
Sun body for the etheric body,
Moon body for the astral body,
and Earth body for the Ego, which is the real earthly member of man

To-morrow we shall study the development and the whole life upon Saturn, and then we shall pass on to the Sun and to the Moon. This will show you how the human beings perfected themselves more and more until they reached the present state.

• 1. See Geisteswissenschaft über die soziale Frage; published by Phil. Anthrop. Verlag. Dornach, Switzerland
• 2. Compare the Akasha Chronicle. Also Microcosm and Macrocosm. The Great and the Small World, Soul Problems, Life Problems and Spiritual Problems.

In continuation of yesterday's sketch on the planetary evolution, let us now add some further explanations. We have already explained that our earth once passed through a Saturn, a Sun and a Moon condition. Let me now describe to you these successive states of existence, as they are usually described in occultism. When speaking of the soul's development along the path of knowledge, we shall be able to understand many things which can now only be advanced hypothetically.

If we consider the Saturn state of existence, that condition of our earth lying millions and millions of years before the present time, we find that it presented an aspect greatly differing from the one which is taken for granted through our present physical conditions. Above all, we should bear in mind that man, the most perfect being we know, has passed through the longest course of development. You will therefore hear the description of a course of development which greatly deviates from the Haeckel-Darwin theory of evolution, but the advantages of this purely materialistic theory may be gathered from my book, “Haeckel, the Riddles of the World and Theosophy”.

The first thing to be grasped is that the most perfect beings are those who passed through the longest course of development, and the most perfect being of all is man, especially the physical body of man. All other beings in our environment have not attained to the perfection of man's physical body, which has taken longer than all others for its development. If we look back through spiritual vision, we therefore find that the first foundation of man's physical body was laid upon Saturn. The whole universe, with all the beings and objects which it contained, influenced the first state of the earth's existence. The present human beings on our planet still possess all the organs which were formed upon Saturn and they are the most perfect parts of man's physical body, namely, the sense-organs. These apparatuses can be grasped from a purely physical aspect and their first foundation was then laid. Of course, you must not think that the eye existed on Saturn in the same form in which it exists to-day. But the first foundation of the eye, the ear, of every sense-organ and of all the other purely physical apparatuses of the human being appeared upon Saturn. The only activities existing upon Saturn which may still be found to-day, are those which pertain to the mineral kingdom. (Crystallizations, etc.)

Upon Saturn, the human being existed in the form which was the first foundation of his physical body; everything, else, the blood, the tissues, etc. did not then exist. Physical apparatuses constituted the first basis of man's physical body. Even as the emerald, the mica, etc, arise through physical laws and develop in the form of cubes, hexahedrons, etc, so at that time forms developed which resembled apparatuses and which existed upon Saturn in the same way in which crystals now exist upon the earth. The activity of Saturn's surface essentially consisted in a kind of reflection which went out into the universal space. The Beings in Saturn's environment who were scattered in the universal spaces sent down their influences. Something which we may call the “cosmic aroma” was also then strongly developed. Only a few phenomena of the present day may give you a feeling for what took place upon Saturn: for example, when you hear an echo in Nature, the sound of this echo can convey to you something which went streaming out of Saturn as the result of the impressions which it received. These conglomerations of forces resembling apparatuses which threw back pictures in the universal space, formed the first foundation of that which developed later on as the eye. In a similar way we might follow the development of everything else. What you now have within your body, was once upon Saturn a physical kingdom, which sent out into the world's spaces the reflection of the whole cosmos in a manifold manner.

Myths and legends preserved this knowledge far more clearly than one generally supposes. The Greek myth of Chronos and Rhea, proceeding from the Eleusinian Mysteries preserved, for example such a truth; it contains however, a great displacement of facts due to the way in which the Greeks viewed the great cosmic connections. This myth tells us that Chronos sent down his rays and that these rays then returned to him in many forms: this explains the picture of Chronos devouring his children.

Now you must not think that the Saturn mass was as firm and solid as the physical bodies of to-day; even water and air do not give you an idea of Saturn's fundamental substance. When speaking of bodies in occultism, we speak of solid, liquid and gaseous bodies. And if we speak of the elements in the old manner, they correspond to that which modern chemistry designates as the “aggregate conditions” of matter, for you must not think that the men of olden times, when speaking of the “elements” meant the same thing as we do. Then there is a higher “aggregate state”, designated in ancient occultism as “fire”; a better meaning is however conveyed by calling it “heat”. Even physics will be obliged to recognise that what is designated as heat, may be compared with a kind of fourth aggregate state, with another kind of substance differing from air and water. The Saturn mass was not even condensed to the state of air it consisted of purified heat, and its activity resembled that of the heat your blood, for it was connected with inner life-processes. The physical processes upon Saturn were real life-processes. Saturn consisted of heat-substance, of an immensely fine volume which may be designated as neutral, if compared with our present substances.

If we wish to study the Beings who inhabited Saturn, we must realise that the Beings whom we now see moving about upon the earth, then possessed only the first beginning of a physical body; they were embodied in heat-substance, and their activity consisted in a current of heat which moved about. These currents constituted the deeds of the Beings who filled Saturn with life. Even as to-day you are able to make a table, so these Saturn-beings did their work by producing currents of heat. Nothing else could be observed of these Beings. A greeting exchanged upon Saturn was as if two currents of heat moved to and fro, exchanging their forces.

The Beings who passed through the human stage upon Saturn did not possess a physical body as their lowest member, for they did not descend into matter so deeply as to require a physical body. Their lowest member was the Ego, even as to-day our lowest member is the physical body; then came their Sprit-Self or Manas, their Life-Spirit or Buddhi, then Spirit-Man or Atma. In addition they developed an eighth, ninth and tenth members, which must be included.

Theosophical literature calls these members which the human being has not yet developed, the “Three Logoi”; in Christianity they are called the Holy Spirit, the Son or the Word, and the Father. We may therefore say: Even as the human beings now consists of physical body, etheric body, astral body and Ego, Spirit-Self, Life-Spirit and Spirit-Man, so these Beings living upon Saturn, who in regard to their connection with the earth may be compared with the present human beings, consisted of Ego, Spirit-Self, Life-Spirit, Spirit-Man; of the Holy Ghost, the Son or Word, and the Father. The theosophical terminology designates them as “asuras”. They are the Beings who from the very beginning implanted into the physical foundation of man's body the feeling of independence, of Ego-consciousness, and of Ego-feeling. You could not use your eye in the service of the Ego had your eye's foundation not been prepared at that time, so that now you are enabled to place your eye at the service of the Ego. These members were therefore prepared by the Spirits of the Ego, also
named the Spirits of Egoism. They gave us the wisest thing of all, when developed in the right way. But everything of the highest nature becomes perverted into its opposite if it is not developed in the right way, because then it exercises the most harmful and destructive influence. Man could never reach that high stage which we designate as human dignity, had not these Spirits of Egoism implanted in him the Ego-feeling. There have always been Beings who followed an evil Course, and consequently we must say: The Beings who implanted the Ego into man and who are now upon a stage of development greatly surpassing the human one, those Beings to whom we may look up as the highest of all, gave their Ego as an offering of self-renunciation and sacrifice; but the others followed the development of their Ego in a selfish manner.

In striving after freedom and human dignity we bear within us the influences of the Spirits of the Ego who followed the good path, and we bear within us the seed of evil, because the influence of the Beings who fell away continued to be active. This contrast has always been felt. Christianity itself makes a distinction between God the Father, whom it considers as the most highly developed Spirit of Saturn, and his opponent, the Spirit of all the evil Egos and of everything which is radically immoral, the Spirit who fell away upon the ancient Saturn. These are the two representatives of Saturn.

Even as after death we encounter other forms of existence, so a cosmic body, such as Saturn, passes through a kind of intermediate state, a kind of sleep-condition, before it enters into a new condition; it passes through a “pralaya” in contrast to a “manvantara”, so that we have a kind of resting, passive condition of the planet, between the Saturn and the Sun state of existence. The whole planet then emerges in a new form from its sleeping state, which is, however, a spiritual one.

Saturn thus emerged as the Sun, and a considerable transformation had taken place. Upon the Sun a great number of the germs which had already developed upon Saturn and which are still developing within us to-day, were permeated by an etheric body. During such a planetary transition something evolves which may be compared with the fruit of a plant which we lay in the earth; it decays, but it forms the foundation of a new plant Thus everything which developed upon Saturn arose again upon the Sun with a new foundation and it became permeated with an etheric body.

There were also other beings who had remained behind upon the mineral-physical stage, and they can be compared with the present mineral kingdom. The Sun absorbed them as a kind of subordinate kingdom of Nature, but at the same time another kingdom was raised to the stage of plant-man.

You obtain a right conception of the Sun-atmosphere if you imagine a thick, chemical gas, no longer representing a merely reflecting body, but one which absorbed everything which, came raying towards it, and after having transformed it, reverberated it in the same way in which plants now reverberate colours. The plant forms its green colour and other substances and returns them to the cosmic spaces. That which lived upon the ancient Sun cannot be compared with an echo, nor with a reflected image, as in the case of Saturn, in regard to the beings embodied upon the Sun, we come across a phenomena which can only be compared with a kind of Fata Morgana, with atmospheric phenomena resembling coloured pictures. Such phenomena which can only be perceived to-day in certain regions of our globe, can give you an idea of how these plant-bodies could be perceived. You must imagine that your bodies revealed certain Fata Morgana-like processes, through which your present bodies could pass as if through air. You were then as transparent as a Fata Morgana—but this phenomenon did not only consist of light, but also of tones and smells whirring through the gas- sphere of the Sun.

Whereas the beings living upon the Sun could shine like the fixed stars of to-day, the ancient Saturn kingdom of the beings who had remained behind, could be observed like a dark mass, like dark forms against the light, like obtuse. caverns in the body of the Sun, which disturbed its harmony. Particularly in regard to the “cosmic aroma” these retarded beings mixed into it sensations which provoked all kinds of evil smells. Myths have retained a recollection of this, for they relate that the Devil leaves behind an evil smell. As it progressed, the Sun really left behind a dark part, and the sun-spots which are visible now, are the remnants of the ancient Saturn kingdom which once existed upon the Sun. Hypothetically these spots should be explained exactly as we explain them now; for all these explanations are valid.

In a short sketch you thus have the earth's sun-existence painted, as it were, from its material aspect. Let us now see who were the Beings who attained the human stage upon the Sun. They would have to be described as follows: Their lowest body is the astral body, then comes the Ego, the Spirit-Self, the Life-Spirit, the Spirit-Man or Atma, then the Holy Ghost in the Christian meaning, and finally the Son or the Word. They did not have the Father, for this member was only developed during the Saturn era. These Saturn Spirits meanwhile rose to a still higher stage, and now they stand far above the human being.

The Leader of the Sun Spirits, in so far as He exercised the highest, influence upon the earth, the representative of the Spirits whose highest member was the Son or the Word, is the Christ, in the esoteric meaning of Christianity. He is the real regent of the earth, in so far as the earth is based upon the Sun state of existence. Upon the Sun, Christ would not yet have been called by that name. The old form of Christianity always taught this truth, and the difference between genuine Christianity and, the exoteric form of Christianity, which is in so many cases based upon misunderstandings, is that the older form of Christianity exerted all its thinking power and applied every conception in order to understand that high Being Who took on human shape in Jesus of Nazareth. The ancient form of Christianity wished to gain a conception of what lay at the foundation of this mystery, and no wisdom was too high for it, or too complicated: It explained the Being of Christ within Jesus of Nazareth in accordance with this truth. Many a passage in the Gospel of St. John can only be understood if you grasp it from this aspect. It suffices to draw attention to one point: If you take the words, “I am the Light of the World” literally, these imply that the Christ is the great Sun Hero, and that the Light which belongs to the Sun constitutes His being. We designate the whole hosts of Spirits whose Leader is the Christ as the “Fire Spirits” and we say: The Asuras or the Ego Spirits reached the human stage during the Saturn era. During the Sun existence the Fire Spirits or the Logoi, whose highest representative is named the Logos or the Word, reached this stage. For this very reason, Christ is named the “Word” that existed in “the beginning”, and the “beginning” designates in the Bible a definite point of departure in the cosmic evolution.

Again we have an intermediate condition, a kind of sleeping condition for the whole cosmic body, and then it begins to shine forth again as the ancient Moon.

You must imagine that in the beginning the present Earth and the present Moon formed one body with the Sun. Only when the Sun began to shine forth again, one part of the Beings separated from it with their own environment, so that two celestial bodies arose. One of these bodies, the Sun, begins to develop into a fixed star, and the body which separates from it begins to circle around it. The ancient Sun thus divided itself into two parts; the more highly developed substance remained behind upon the Sun, and the less perfect substance was eliminated. Consequently, that which once pursued the same course, because there was only one body, now followed two separate course: the Sun path and the Moon path. The Sun path was the one which developed upon the Sun-body, whereas the Moon developed its own world. You could reconstruct the ancient Moon by mixing together the present earth and the present Moon; this would enable you to form a conception of the way in which the ancient Moon was constituted. Both physically and spiritually the present Moon is far below the Earth in regard to its quality, and the Earth separated from the Moon just because it needed better conditions of life for Beings who lived upon it. The Earth developed beyond the stage it had reached during the Moon existence; but its best part remained behind upon the Sun.

What was the aspect of things upon the ancient Moon? The Beings who had passed through a preparatory stage upon Saturn by developing the physical foundation of the sense-organs, transformed these organs upon the Sun by permeating them with a etheric body; the sense organs thus became centralised, and the first basis of the organs of growth reaching as far as the glands could unfold upon the ancient Sun under the influence of the etheric body; this was a final product of the Sun existence.

Upon the Moon, the astral body was added in a similar manner. Everything astral first existed in the surroundings; the Fire Spirits had an astral body as their lowest member. The Beings upon the Sun resembled plants; for instance, they could not move from their fixed places. Although the whole body of the Sun was gaseous, you must imagine air-strata of greater density which were the bodies of these human plants. But now the astral body of man was added; this gave rise to the first foundation of a nervous system. The kingdom which had reached the plant stage of development upon the Sun, passed over to the animal stage, to a stage resembling that of animals. The physical ancestors of man upon the Moon thus possessed three bodies: the physical body, the etheric body and the astral body, yet they greatly surpassed the most highly developed apes of our planet; they were human animals which no biology can describe, an intermediate kingdom between man and animal. Our present vegetable, animal and mineral kingdoms only developed later, but even as there were human animals; so we must admit the existence of an intermediate kingdom between plant and animal; plants with a kind of sentient capacity, plants which literally squeaked if one touched them. These plant-animals could never have grown upon a mineral soil, such as the present soil of the Earth; in fact, this mineral soil did not exist upon the Moon. Its mass did not consist of the present rocky substances, not even of loose soil. Comparatively speaking, the Moon's foundation consisted of a mass resembling a mash of cooked spinach or salad, and in it a kind of mineral plant, The whole foundation of the Moon was therefore of vegetable nature. A peat bed of to-day would resemble the kingdom which existed at that time as an intermediate kingdom between our plants and minerals. There were no rocks, and anyone walking over the ground would have walked over such a peaty ground or vegetable foundation, and analogously you may think of rocks in the form of woodened portions within this mass.

The plant-animals grew out of this whole foundation, and above them, in the Moon's environment which may be designated as “fire-air”, moved those beings who were man-animals. Imagine the whole atmosphere filled with saltpeter, carbon and sulphur gases; the Moon-men lived in this fiery air which you would thus obtain. Occultists always knew of the existence of this fire-air, and under older conditions of the Earth it was even possible to produce this fire-air artificially. This is only possible to-day in a very restricted circle, but this knowledge has been preserved in genuine alchemy. Consequently, if you read in Goethe's “Faust”, “Let me produce a little fire-air”, this touches the depths of occultism. Fire-air enwrapped; the Moon; this was its atmosphere.

We can understand this Moon-existence even better if we add another fact. Upon the Moon there was a kingdom of plant-minerals, of animal-plants growing out of this vegetable-mineral soil, and then there were the animal-men moving about upon it. But upon each stage there are beings who remain behind—you may, if you like, say that they did not “pass”. This is the case not only at school, but also in the great course of development, where a pupil may have to repeat a class. These beings who did not “pass”, appear in future stages of development in very peculiar conditions. Such stragglers of the plant-minerals who did not “pass” still exist in parasites, for instance in the mistle-toe. It cannot grow upon mineral soil, because it was accustomed to grow upon a vegetable-mineral soil. It proves a fact resembling that of a pupil who did not move on to a higher form; except that the case of the beings who remain behind in the cosmic development is far worse. Particularly in the North we come across a myth which describes this; you are all acquainted with the northern myth of Baldur and his death through Loki.

The Gods were frolicking about in the Aesir's home and in there games they hurled about all kinds of objects. Baldur had just before had dreams foreboding his early death, and the Gods were therefore afraid to lose him. The Mother of the Gods had taken an oath from all the living and inanimate beings and they all had all promised that they would never hurt Baldur, and so the Gods enjoyed the game of throwing all manner of weapons against Baldur. Loki, the opponent of the Gods, had discovered that one being, who was considered to be harmless, had not made any promise, and this was the mistle-toe, which lay in hiding somewhere in the distance. Loki obtained the mistle-toe, gave it to the blind god Hodur, who threw it at Baldur: the mistle-toe wounded Baldur, for it had not sworn the oath, and Baldur died.

This myth indicates that that which is invulnerable upon the Earth can only suffer harm through that which has remained behind from another existence as something evil. In the mistle-toe people saw something which had entered the present state of existence from an earlier one. All the beings now living upon the earth can only suffer harm through that which has remained behind from an earlier one. All the beings now living upon the Earth are connected with Baldur. But it was otherwise upon the Moon; consequently that being which had remained behind from the Moon was able to kill Baldur. All the various customs connected with the mistle-toe arise out of this foundation.

We should also consider the Moon existence from another aspect, from the Spiritual one. The Moon Beings who had reached the human stage must be described as beings whose lowest member was the etheric body, their second one the astral body, then the Ego, Spirit-Self, Life-Spirit, Spirit-Man or Atma, and then they also had the Holy Ghost. They no longer had the ninth member pertaining to the Fire Spirits upon the Sun. The highest of the Moon Spirits who had reached the human stage is called the “Holy Ghost” in Christian esotericism. In the early original form of Christianity, the threefold Godhead was therefore intimately connected with the evolution of the earth. The Holy Ghost is a Spirit who is above man and Who is able to inspire him in a direct way.

Thus you may see that the Moon Spirits now stand above the human being. They are also called “Lunar Pitris”, “Moon Fathers” and “Spirits of Twilight”. The whole host belonging to the Holy Ghost is called in Christian esotericism the Host of Angels. The Angels are the Spirits immediately above man, who passed through their human stage upon the ancient Moon.

The life of the animal-men and of the plant-animals upon the Moon, differed from that of the beings who developed out of them upon the Earth. The movement of the Moon, which had already severed itself from the Sun, was quite different from the movement of the present earth around the sun. The ancient Moon circled around the Sun in such a way that it always turned the same face towards it, even as the Moon to-day always shows the same side to the earth. The Moon thus turned only once around its own axis, while circling around the Sun. The Moon Beings were therefore dependent upon the Sun in quite a different way than is the case with the present earthly inhabitants. During the Moon's whole epoch of revolution around the Sun, it was always daytime on one of its sides, and a kind of night upon the other. The Moon Beings, who were already able to move about, wandered in a kind of circle around the Moon, so that they passed through one epoch in which they stood under the influence of the Moon. The time in which they stood under the Sun's influence was their time of procreation. For there was already a kind of procreation. The Moon-men could not as yet express joy and pleasure through sounds; their expressions had a more cosmic significance. The sun-epoch was the time of ardour and passion, and it was connected with a great screaming on the part of the Moon Beings, This exists to-day in the animal kingdom.

Many other things have remained from that time. You know how one tries to investigate the true reason for the birds migration, why they circle around the globe in a certain manner. Many things which are mysteriously concealed to-day, can be understood if the whole course of earthly evolution is borne in mind. There was a time when the lunar beings could only procreate when they wandered towards the Sun; this may be called their epoch of sexual life. General processes of lunar life expressed themselves in sounds at certain seasons of the and at other times, the beings upon the Moon were dumb.

We have thus learned to know time earth' s passage through the three preceding conditions of its existence: that of Saturn, of the Moon and of the Sun.

Let us consider to-day the transformation of the ancient Moon into the present Earth. But first of all we must draw attention to an important phenomenon of the Moon development. When this development drew towards its close, when. everything, which I have already described to you had more or less taken, place, the ancient Moon and the Sun were reunited. The ancient Moon found its way back, as it were, to the Sun, and as a result a uniform body arose. These two celestial bodies which were reunited then passed over into a kind of latent planetary existence. Out of this came forth the fourth metamorphosis, which did not immediately resemble our present Earth, for the present condition of our Earth was prepared gradually and slowly. A study of the Earth in particular can give us a clear conception of the cosmic law that later conditions of development must in a certain way repeat conditions which have already existed. Before the Earth became our present planet—after awaking from its latent planetary condition—it had to repeat briefly the Saturn, Sun and Moon conditions. Of course, this development took a somewhat different course than in the case of the three planets themselves.

Upon Saturn we found the first foundation of the sensory apparatus which we now possess; During the first repetition of the Saturn Condition these sensory forms had progressed so far that a kind of human shape could develop; but during this metamorphosis the automatic sense-apparatus did not as yet possess an etheric body. The etheric body was embodied during the repetition of the Sun condition, and the astral body was added during the third transformation, the repetition of the moon condition. During the third phase we once more have Sun and Moon as separate bodies in the cosmic space. But the beings who lived upon them had in the meantime developed further; they had gradually prepared themselves for the experiences which awaited them upon the Earth. There, a fourth member was added to the three bodies which the animal-like human race possessed upon the ancient Moon, and this fourth member was the Ego.

But this course of development did not take place so quickly. While the earth was passing through its Saturn epoch, the automatic sense-apparatus of man had to mould a form enabling it to absorb the Ego. During the Sun repetition the etheric body also transformed itself, so as to be able to become the bearer of an Ego, and during the Moon repetition the astral body underwent a change enabling it to take in the Ego. These members waited, as it were, for the moment when they could take in the Ego.

What we were able to pursue thus far, was the separation of the Sun from the Moon. Then comes a stage which more closely approaches our present development, namely the separation of the Moon from the Earth. Two bodies emerge from the ancient Moon: one which consisted of the worst material in regard to its beings and substances, was thrown out into the cosmic space, and the other formed the present Earth. It was necessary to eliminate that which would have hindered the beings from their further development and this part which was cast out became the present Moon. After the elimination the Earth existed as an independent cosmic body. This entailed powerful cosmic events: first the separation of the Earth plus Moon from the Sun, and then the separation of the Earth from the Moon. These two events prepared our present development.

I have led you as far as the point where our Earth became an independent sphere. Let me now lead you to this point by following another direction, so that you may have a clear idea as to the exact position of this point in regard to our Earth. Let us go back from the immediate present into the past; let us go back from the present form of the Earth which you all know, to a past condition. Even natural science draws attention to the great differences between the present and the past aspect of our Earth. All this, to be sure, is based on hypotheses, but in this field natural science meets spiritual science to some extent. Natural science says: Huge virgin forests once existed in the regions which we now inhabit, their climate was one which we now encounter in Equatorial zones and gigantic animals lived in those forests.

According to the statements of modern natural science the face of our Earth once presented quite a different aspect from the present one. The ice-age followed the tropical climate and preceded the present temperate one. Every book on geology contains these facts. I am only telling you this in order to show you that the face of our Earth underwent great transformations in the course of certain epochs of time and that now it presents an entirely different aspect from that of the past.

As far as the external aspect of the Earth is concerned, natural science, which only disposes of the combining intellectual power, of apparatuses, etc., can only look back upon a few thousands of years. The descriptions of a clairvoyant looking back upon the past development of our Earth must, however, differ from those of natural science though a kind of harmony ,will one day be established between natural science and spiritual science. Natural science draws attention to a fact which a clairvoyant can ascertain without any doubt namely that the face of our Earth has not only changed in regard to plants, but that continents and oceans once existed in regions of our Earth where they no longer exist. Huxley, for instance, pointed out that a whole part of Great Britain has already been submerged by the ocean four times. Thus the face of our Earth constantly undergoes a transformation. In volume 12 of “Kosmos” you may, for instance, find an article on the so-called old continent of Atlantis, where a scientist who completely adopts the standpoint of natural science proves, through the configuration of the flora and fauna in Europe and in America, that the present Atlantic Ocean must once have been a continent, and that great parts of Africa must in those times have been covered by the ocean. On the other hand, the continent of Atlantis existed, in the West, stretching between the present Europe and America. This scientist only speaks of the fauna and of the flora of Atlantis, which is of course natural. But even if remnants of the ancient human beings, who were our ancestors could be found (they must exist at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean), it is not possible to-day to investigate to such an extent the bottom of the ocean. The clairvoyant, however, can look back as far as the time of Atlantis, and he knows that this ancient Atlantean continent, which Plato describes, really existed. Essentially speaking, the whole surface now covered by the Atlantic Ocean was once Atlantis, and this continent was inhabited by the physical predecessors of the present human race. Of course they had a rather different aspect from the one imagined by modern natural science.

We should not in any way compare them with the present apes; though psychically and physically the Atlanteans greatly differed from modern men, they were not apes. Apes did not exist at that time, for this animal species, only arose much later; simply through the fact that certain human shapes of that time remained behind at the stage of development which had then been reached, and afterwards degenerated, sinking down to a lower stage. Darwinism consequently makes a great mistake, which is, however, easy to detect. If we have before us two men, one upon an imperfect stage of development and the other a man who applied his faculties in order to perfect himself, and if we are told that these two men are relatives, we shall not say: They are relatives, and consequently the more perfect man descends from the less perfect one. Yet Darwinism comes to such a conclusion: The perfect and imperfect specimens stand side by side; one developed upwards by applying his faculties in the right way, while the other led them down and thus became decadent. That is how apes the descendants of human beings, confront man. An ape is a caricature of man, but he is not like a human being.

At the time of Atlantis there existed an entirely different human race, which gradually developed towards a higher stage. But certain men remained behind in there development, and because the Earth itself underwent changes, these beings also changed; they degenerated and became a caricature of man—they became apes. These lower beings, the apes, are consequently degenerated specimens of higher beings who had become decadent.

If we study the Atlantean man, an observation of his psychic qualities will give us the best idea of his way of living.

All that modern men are able to do—to think logically, to calculate, etc.—all this arose much later. Logic, power of judgment, etc. were unknown to the Atlanteans. But on the other hand, they had a soul-quality which has now become decadent; they had an almost inconceivable power of memory. They could not calculate twice two is four, nor make this calculation over and over again through intellectual power, but they could bear in mind the result obtained by multiplying two by two, and they were always able to remember this result. This is connected with an entirely different constitution which existed on that ancient continent. If you wish to have an idea of the physical aspect of that continent, imagine a mountain valley filled with thick fogs and mists: The Atlanteans never saw an atmosphere which was free from moisture. The air was always filled with water. When the ancient Atlanteans came over into Europe,they preserved the memory of this condition and they called the land of their ancestors.“Niflheim”, which mans the land of fogs.

When the last third of the Atlantean epoch drew towards its close, the Atlanteans began to notice that they were Egos. The Ego foundation had indeed existed for some time, and the Atlantean even had a certain feeling for the Ego, but only during the last third of the Atlantean epoch he learned to say clearly: “I am an Ego.” This is connected with the relationship of the etheric body with the physical body.

If you observe these two bodies, you will notice that they more or less coincide, but the etheric body slightly protrudes above the physical body. Between the eyebrows there is a point which constitutes a centre for certain forces and streams of the etheric body, and this corresponds to a definite point in the physical brain. These two points must coincide; on this depends the capacity of being able to experience oneself as an Ego, to calculate, combine, etc. In the case of idiots, f0r instance, these points in the head do not coincide, and when this is the case, man's power of judgment no longer functions properly. In the case of the Atlanteans these points did not coincide, and this is still the case to-day with animals. If you observe the head of a horse you will find that these two points are far apart. In the Atlantean, the etheric head protruded and his physical head had a retreating brow.

But the Atlantean had something which man lost when the etheric body and the physical body began to coincide. The Atlantean still possessed dull clairvoyance, but he was, for instance, unable to count up to five. All his judgments were based on his capacity of remembering incredibly distant times. And that old clairvoyance appeared as the enhancement of our present dream-life. Imagine the highest enhancement of this dream-life: this would lead you to the conceptual capacity, to the ancient, dull, dream-like clairvoyance of the Atlantean. When the Atlantean walked over the earth; he could indeed see the human beings in their physical involucres more or less as we see them to-day, but this perception had in a certain way a misty and foggy outline. The Atlantean could, however, perceive something which we cannot perceive. When we meet someone today, we do not see anything special of his inner being, we can only see what his features reveal to us; a gloomy expression will tell us that he is sad and will enable us to guess something of his state of mind. But when an Atlantean encountered someone who had evil intentions towards him, a brown-red vision rose up before him, and if that person loved him he saw a blue-red vision. A kind of colour vision harmonized with the psychological state of the other person; the Atlantean could still perceive something of what took place in the inner being of other men. An Atlantean walking along, who saw a terrible red-brown fog rising up before him, ran away, for he knew that a dangerous animal was approaching (perhaps it was still far away), one that would surely devour him.

The ancient Atlantean clairvoyance even had a physical foundation. For the Atlantean considered that only his close relatives belonged to him (to a far greater extent than was the case later on). Small communities existed which did not extend beyond the family circle. It was of greatest importance to marry only within this restricted family circle. These marriages between closely connected relatives produced a blood mixture which preserved the etheric body's capacity to receive spiritual influences. Had the Atlantean attempted to marry outside his family circle, he would have suppressed his clairvoyant faculty and, astrally speaking, would have become an idiot. It was a moral, ethical law to remain within the blood-ties of one s family. Before the Atlantean was able, to have a definite experience of his Ego,he said “that am I” to his whole blood-brotherhood. He considered himself as a part of the whole blood-brotherhood, even as the finger is a part of the hand.

But something else is based on this fact. The Atlantean could not only remember his own experiences, but also the experiences of his father, grandfather, great-grandfather, etc., reaching far down the line of the generations, as far as the founder of his family. Everything which came from there, everything which streamed through the line of the generations was experienced as a unity. This can show you how greatly developed was the memory of the Atlanteans! Everything was based upon memory. Later on we shall see how man lost this powerful memory because he broke through the circle of close marriages.

An Atlantean soul necessarily required quite a different physical nature and environment than is the case to-day. He needed an environment described, for instance, in the legendary “Niflheim” of the ancient Germans. Legends and myths are not in any way based upon so-called popular fancy or poetic invention. The origin of such legends can be clearly traced. The Atlanteans still possessed an ancient, dull clairvoyance, and the events which were later on related and preserved (though frequently in a distorted form) in the legends and myths of various nations really occurred.

The transmigration of the Atlanteans to the East has been preserved wonderfully in a cycle of European legends. Man could not say “I” to his individual personality, when he still lived on the ancient Atlantean continent. Consequently egoism, which later on constituted the foundation of social life, did not exist among the Atlanteans. The inhabitant of Atlantis considered as his possession everything which belonged to all his blood-relatives and he felt that he was a member of this blood relationship. Then came the transmigration to the East. Man's Ego-consciousness emerged more and more, and with it, human egoism. Man once lived far more in the external world than within his own being; Nature still formed part of his being. He felt as if he were embedded in Nature, as if he were a part of Nature. With the acquisition of his Ego-consciousness, the world around him became narrower and narrower; he separated himself from his environment little by little and the Ego emerged more and more.

This was at the same time connected with a process of Nature. When the old Atlantean looked up to the sky, he could not see the sun as we see it to-day; thick masses of fog filled the air, and when he looked at the sun and at the moon he saw an immense circle of rainbow colours. Then came the time when the Atlantean could perceive the sun and the moon as such. But there was one phenomenon which was unknown to the Atlantean—the rainbow. When the waters of Atlantis began to leave the atmosphere, when rain alternated with sunshine as is the case to-day, then the Atlantean learned to know the rainbow, for there no rainbows in the moisture-filled atmosphere of ancient Atlantis. Now bear in mind that great stretches of land were laid bear by the great Atlantean flood, and this has been wonderfully preserved in many legends, particularly in the Bible. Consider the deep truth contained in the Bible words: “And when the waters had departed, Noah saw the rainbow”. Only when the atmosphere became freed from the fogs and mists of Atlantis, could the sun appear to man in its present form. This process accompanied the narrowing of man' s being, so that he became confined within his own self, within his Ego.

For reasons which have a profound meaning, spiritual wisdom defines the light flooding through space as the etheric gold, and gold is looked upon as the condensed light of the sun. The ancient Atlanteans were taught by their teachers that there is a connection between the light of the sun and gold, and they took in the following image: “The light of the Sun, the gold of the sun, shines forth! It envelops us with a ring which frees the Ego, bringing about the fact that we no longer experience ourselves selflessly as a part of Nature”. Among the Atlanteans the Ego was still dispersed within clouds of mist, but now it began to enfold him like a ring.

The mists of Atlantis left the atmosphere, they were pressed down and appeared in the West as rivers. For the descendants of the Atlanteans, the Rhine was nothing but mist which descended from the air and then flew along as a river. In the Rhine they perceived the masses of water still permeated by light; in the Rhine they felt the presence of the sun's gold, which exercised such a pure and selfless influence upon the inhabitants of ancient Atlantis. They saw this gold in the Nibelung treasure of the Rhine, and anyone who strove to gain possession of this treasure, was their enemy.

Richard Wagner, who describes this in music, was not clearly conscious of this truth, but nevertheless he was inspired by this powerful, encompassing fact. Remember the Prologue to “Rhine Gold”: Is the wonderful organ-theme in E sharp not the point where the Ego enters humanity? But even as the plant does not know the laws according to which it grows, so the poet does not require the full knowledge of what he writes. We must think of the creative artist as one who is inspired by forces which stand behind him. In this case, a conspicuous artist has felt something which must again enter mankind. We can therefore see that even in art the same spirit which lies at the foundation of spiritual science streams into human culture. We can see it flowing into it from two directions. This is how we should consider life as a whole.

We have traced human evolution as far back as Atlantis. Let us now consider a few more details. At that time men did not build houses such as they exist to-day, for they could utilize to a far greater extent the forces which existed in Nature. Masses of rock were moulded together with that which existed in the environment, and constituted dwelling places which resembled natural houses. The further back we go, the more we come across men endowed with clairvoyance and possessing an image-consciousness. In a visionary form, in pictures which rose up before their souls, they could see the feelings of those who lived round about them. In the early Atlantean epoch, even the human will presented quite a different aspect. To-day you can stretch out the finger of your hand through your will, and this action is connected with your thinking. But in the early Atlantean age the body was a far more supple mass. The Atlantean could not only stretch out his finger, but he could even make it longer or shorter; he could easily make his hand grow when he saw a small plant, he could make it grow through an effort of his will. He disposed of a kind of magic. He also had a strange connection with the animal world; he still perceived something which later on could no longer be perceived and he exercised a fascinating power over animals through his gaze.

If we go back still further, we reach an age in which even Atlantis did not exists; people then lived upon a continent designated as “Lemuria”. It stretched south of our present Asia, as far as Africa and Australia; this was the continent inhabited by our ancestors when they were Lemurians. Their body was far softer than that of the Atlanteans and their will, far more powerful. But the ground under their feet was most unsteady; fire eruptions, volcanic powers continually upheaved it; ancient Lemuria was a kind of fire-country.

If we go back still further, we reach a time in which the osseous system began to develop out of a boneless mass, and then comes a time in which the earth had not yet developed the present mineral kingdom; everything was in a constant state of flux and reflux.

The further back we go into the evolution of the earth, the greater is the degree of heat which we encounter. We reach an age in which the forms now constituting our solid earth were in a liquid state, like mercury or molten lead. The solid state only developed in Lemuria. Thicker and thicker grow the messes of mist. This was not a sea of fog, but a thick ocean of hot steam, containing, all kinds of molten substances whirling within it. Man's predecessor could already live in certain parts of this steam, but he of course possessed quite a different constitution from the present human being. We thus reach a time in which man lived in a kind of primordial ocean, in a warm, fiery-watery element. The earth's kernel was enveloped by a kind of primordial ocean, containing the germs of everything which developed later on.

This was the aspect of the Earth immediately after the Moon's exit from it as a separate body.

We have now gained insight into a course of development reaching to the time in which the Sun first severed itself from the Earth and from the Moon; and when the Moon severed itself from the Earth, leaving it in the condition described above.

To-morrow we shall once more consider this process which I have set forth just now from two aspects, and then we shall consider the further development of man and of the earth, reaching as far as the present time.

Yesterday, in the description of the development of the various cycles of earthly development, we reached a point which made us realise how the three celestial bodies, the Sun. the Moon and the Earth, gradually separated from one another. We began by considering this separation and stopped at the point where the Moon separated itself from the Earth, but we also tried to reach this same point by setting out from the present time and going back to the Atlantean epoch. Let us now consider the condition of the Earth at the time of Atlantis. Long, long epochs of time must be borne in mind, taking up millions of years, so that the great changes which took place, not only in the universe, but also upon the earth, need no longer surprise us.

Let:us consider once more the Earth, after its separation from the Moon. It was still enveloped by a volume of air, which presented, however, quite a different aspect from the present air. You must not think that this air inwardly resembled a glowing stove—although its temperature was far higher than is the case now. At that time many substances which are now solid existed within the Earth in a liquid state. An air thickly permeated with gases of the most varied substances, enveloped the Earth, an atmosphere which we might designate as fire-air, a repetition of the former Moon-condition,

When the Earth became independent after its separation from the present Moon, it was surrounded by a strange atmosphere which may be designated as fire-air, Through the fact that the Earth freed itself from the atmosphere which went away with the Moon, the beings who lived upon the Earth were able to attain certain higher stages of development. Within the atmosphere of the Earth the most advanced animal-men had reached a higher stage than the one which they had attained upon the Moon, and these were the beings who later developed into men. A great number of these animal-men remained behind upon the Moon-stage. As a result, they not only remained behind, but owing to the entirely new conditions which now arose, they sank half a degree below the level which they had previously attained, (animal-men could, only live upon the Moon) and thus they became animals. Animals did not as yet exist upon the Moon. We therefore have two kingdoms: Human beings—and the kingdom of animal-men, beings who had remained behind and had gradually sunk to the level of animals.

The same applies to the plant-animals. A certain number of these had developed to a higher stage, to that of animals; others had remained behind and changed into plants. A The kingdom of plant-minerals also followed this line of development: some became heavy minerals, while others ascended in their development to the level of plants.

Not everything arose in accordance with one standard of measure, for the animals which we know to-day arose, for instance, partly through the descending development of men-animals and partly through the ascending development of plant-animals. In the vegetable kingdom also we have side by side the plant-minerals in an ascending course of development and the plant-animals in a descending course. The plants now chiefly constituting the pleasant plant-carpet of our earth, arose through the ascending development of the Moon's plant-minerals; this is, for instance, the case with the violet. On the other hand, everything that gives us a decaying impression is in a descending development, whereas our green, leafy, plants will in future attain to higher stages.

Our minerals developed entirely upon the Earth; there were no minerals upon the Moon, such as exist to-day. The mineral kingdom is the former plant-mineral kingdom which sank down to a lower stage and which was embedded into the earth as a firm crust. When the Earth cast off the Moon, the substances which remained behind and which later on became
minerals, solid metals,. etc., were still an altogether liquid mass. The substances which at that time had already reached a solid state, were hurled out into the cosmic spaces, because, had it kept these substances, the Earth could not have developed, further. Then the first metals which reached a solid state were added. Sometimes they had most peculiar forms! What you now encounter in the mountains as granite or gneiss, at that time revealed quite clearly that it had arisen through the descending development of vegetable beings, of plants which had become stones.

You may gather from this that upon the Sun and upon the Moon the mineral kingdom was a vegetable kingdom. The vegetable kingdom has not developed out of the mineral kingdom, but minerals have developed out of the vegetable kingdom! The coal which is now dug out of the earth is nothing but a complex of petrified plant—plants which decayed and became stones, so that now they can be dug out of the earth as petrified plants. If you were to go back still further, you would see that once even the hardest stones were plants; and that they have arisen out of plants through the descending development of plants to the mineral kingdom.

A clairvoyant sees this in the following way: If you investigate gneiss, the mineralogist will tell you that it consists of feldspath, hornblende and mica—but he cannot go further. The clairvoyant says: Feldspath in gneiss appears to spiritual vision quite clearly as the petrified stalk and the green leaves of plants, the petrification of those parts which built them up; whereas the mica foundation is related to that part of the plants which still develops to-day as the plants sepals and corollae. When a modern occultist observes a piece of gneiss he will say: This is a petrified plant, and even as plants now possess leaves and flowers, etc., so the mica foundation of gneiss has developed out of the sepals and petals of ancient epochs.

Thus it can be explained how every mineral developed out of former plants. For the substances which came over from the ancient Moon were plants, which then became densified in the liquid mass of the Earth. Even as one can see the water in a receptacle freezing into solid ice, so it is possible to observe in the early stages of the Earth's development the gradual forming of solid masses. Thus the solid crust of the Earth slowly developed out of the liquid Earth. The further we proceed, the higher and purer become the beings who live upon the Earth, and those that were unable to ascend became petrified. It was the same both with animals and men. Man reached the stage of being able to transform his body in a still higher measure.

The Moon-men floated and swam about in a primordial ocean; they were predisposed to this swimming movement. This may sound strange to modern men, nevertheless it is true; and let it be said without reserve, that I do not wish to mitigate some of these apparently grotesque descriptions;, for generally people laugh at truths when they are revealed for the first time.

The human. being who swam about in this primordial ocean had as yet no eyes and endowed with sight such as we have to-day: man, indeed, received the foundation of sight upon Saturn, but in this primordial ocean he did not need to see; he had to orientate himself in other ways. The ocean contained all the food which he required for his life and also animals, some benevolently disposed towards him; and some not. At that time man still possessed an organ which now exists in the head, it is the size of a cherry and is called the pineal gland (in reality it is not a gland). Once upon a time, this organ was of immense size; it enabled man to orientate himself in the ocean and it protruded from his head like a lantern. Man moved about, by using this lantern-like organ in front; it was a sensitive organ, not an organ of sight. He used it when swimming about. Later on, he no longer needed it and so it shriveled.

At that time it was not possible to speak of an Ego foundation. In regard to everything which man did, he was still under the guidance of higher spiritual powers: We may compare him with the animals of to-day. From a spiritual-scientific aspect, we now look upon animals by saying that man differs from the animal through the fact that he has an individual soul; every man has his own soul, his individual Ego.

This is not the case with animals; for whole groups of animals have one soul in common. For instance, all the animals pertaining to the lion species have one soul, which lives in the astral world. Similarly all the animals of tiger-nature have a soul in common. In the case of animals we therefore speak of group souls. All the horses together have one group soul; these horses belong together. Even as the single fingers belong to the hand, so the animals belong to their group soul. Consequently we cannot speak of individual responsibility in the case of animals. Only of an individual soul can we say that it is either good or evil.

At that time, the human beings possessed a kind of group-soul embedded in the bosom of the Godhead. We must however realise that that which now lives in us as our Ego already existed in those early epochs, but it did not live within the human body.

Man's origin must be sought in two currents: that which came over from the Moon and continued to develop, constituted the animal-man who lived upon the Moon; but that which now lives in us as our individual soul, existed in those times in the higher realm, in the care of the Godhead,—only man's body lived below in the primordial ocean. Later on body and soul united; the soul descended and spititualised the body, so that man became an individual soul.

Imagine a receptacle containing water; in it are many many drops of water, but it is impossible to distinguish them. If you were to take many hundreds of small sponges dipping them into the water, the drops first contained in the volume of water would be individualised. Similarly imagine your spirituality soaring above the primordial ocean and compare your soul reposing in the bosom of the Godhead with the drops of water; the bodies absorb the souls, even as the small sponges absorb the drops of water; the souls thus became independent, in the same way in which the water becomes individualised into drops through the sponges. Below we have the primordial ocean with the floating-swimming bodies, and above there are the souls. We cannot describe this better than by saying: “And the Spirit of God moved (literally: brooded) over the face of the waters,” which means that he elaborated that which was below until it was able to take in the soul-drops.

The bodies themselves had to soar and float, and for this purpose the beings within them needed a special organ. At that time man had no lungs, but a kind of air-bladder; this kept him afloat in the ocean.

The fish which have remained behind upon that stage, have even to-day an air-bladder and no lungs. The lungs developed little by little, as the air freed itself from the moisture and man could raise himself above the water, so that he began to breathe in air. A long process, lasting millions of years, finally enabled man to breathe in the air through his lungs. This gave rise to the physical form capable of absorbing the soul. The more man became a being who breathed through lungs, the more he became capable of taking in the soul. You cannot express this better than with the words: “And God breathed His own breath into man's nostrils and he became an individual soul.”

At the same time this enabled man to develop something which he did not possess before; he became capable of forming red blood. Before that time all human beings had a constitution which gave them the same temperature as their environment; if they were surrounded by a higher temperature, they were adapted to it. Red blood did not exist at that time and the animals above the stage of amphibians are human bodies which have remained behind at a much later stage of development. After the epoch in which man began to develop red blood, the animals also began to develop into warm-blooded beings.

Even as a plant cannot develop out of a stone, but stones developed out of plants, so the animal developed out of man. Every being upon a lower stage developed out of beings who once stood upon higher stages, this is the theory of evolution. Man first had to transform himself into a being with red blood, and then he could leave behind the animals. You may literally see in animals the stages left behind in man's development. In every animal man perceives more or less a piece of himself which he has left behind. Paracelsus expressed this so wonderfully in the words: When we look about in the world, we see, as it were, the letters of an alphabet; in the human being alone these letters unite and form a word. Consequently the meaning of that which lies spread out in man's environment is to be seen in man himself.

You must then bear in mind the following: An apparently insignificant process (but in the light of spiritual science it is an extraordinarily important process) took place at that time: it already began in the early stages of the Earth's separation from the Moon, when the Earth was still connected with the Moon, and it consisted in a certain cooperation between Mars and the Earth. During the whole first half of the Earth's development, the forces of Mars streamed into the Earth, so that this first half is actually designated as the Mars condition of the Earth. Iron is connected with this passage through Mars and iron then began to play an entirely new role in the earthly process of evolution.

Iron plays a far more superficial part in plants, but you can see how things are connected: cosmically, the Earth passed through Mars and Mars gave it iron; iron was then stimulated to exercise the functions which it now possesses and iron appeared in the blood. The aggressive side of human nature, that which turns man into a warrior here on earth, is connected with the iron in the blood. The Greek myth knew this, for it designated Mars as the God of War.

The human body thus became capable of taking in the Ego; for without red, warm blood a body cannot be the bearer of an Ego. This is very important. Pulmonary breathing is the first condition for the formation of warm, red blood. The required processes then arose upon the earth and became embodied with the blood. Little by little, man developed so as to become a red-blooded being breathing through lungs, and then he left behind the other creatures, the lower warm-blooded animals.

In occultism, animals are not only differentiated in the ordinary way, but another differentiation is pointed out. We distinguish the “inwardly sounding animals”, those which can express their own pain and pleasure in sounds from the “non-sounding animals”. If you descend to the lower animals, you may still hear sounds, but these are purely external, produced by rubbing together certain parts of the body,or by climatic influences; these are sounds produced by external causes. Only the animals which branched off when man had developed into a warm-blooded being were able to express pain or pleasure through sounds coming from within.

This was the time when man's larynx was transformed into an organ of sound. The fact that outside the liquid earth substance became crust, produced an inner process in the human being; parallel with the external process of hardening, an osseous and cartilaginous skeleton developed within the human being out of the soft parts of his body. Beings with a skeleton did not exist before that time.

The minerals outside are the counterpart of the bones. The Earth perpetuated this epoch in the masses of rock and man in his skeleton. Man then gradually became an upright walking being, thus changing over from his former horizontal position into a vertical one. He turned round, so that his front extremities became organs of work, and his other extremities were used for walking. There is a connection in all this, for no being without a sound-producing larynx and an upright walk can be an Ego-being.

Animals were predisposed for this, but they degenerated. Consequently they could not transform themselves into beings endowed with speech, for speech is connected with a larynx located in a in a body having an upright position. We may gather this through a primitive fact. Many dogs are undoubtedly cleverer than parrots, yet a parrot learns more, because its larynx is in a more vertical position. Parrots and starlings learn to speak a little, because their larynx is located vertically.

This shows you that the Earth and man advance to ever new stages of development. The atmosphere also changed: a condition developed in which the Earth was surrounded by a misty, foggy air. This took place at the time, when the Lemurians saw their continent crumbling away, so that they wandered out to Atlantis and became Atlanteans.

During this, phase of evolution; in which man acquired the first elements of speech, which were, to be sure, sounds expressing mere feelings, the soul emerged more and more. Essentially speaking, the Atlantean had a dull kind of clairvoyance. As he came out of the sub-earthly ocean, his eyes developed to the extent of enabling him to participate in the light raying out from the sun through the masses of mist. Physically, his power of sight and perception developed more and more, but he gradually lost his old clairvoyance. The most advanced race of the Atlanteans developed in a certain region of the Earth's surface during the last third of the Atlantean era, which was a significant close of phase of evolution.

In view of the existing conditions, the Atlantean who traveled more to the West, became inwardly neutral natures, cold and indifferent, and developed later on into the copper coloured population of America. The others who traveled further South, became the black Negro population, and those who turned to the East became later on the yellow Malayan population. These populations concentrated themselves in the most unfavourable places which prohibited a further development. But the peoples who lived in a region now occupied by Ireland, and further West, in a country now covered by the ocean, reached the highest stage of development. The mixtures of not and cold streams which existed there, permitted the human body to develop in the best and speediest manner. A pronounced Ego-feeling, a first foundation of such a feeling, developed from the still magical will power of those epochs. It was then that man first learned to say “I”. The human beings then also learned the first foundations of counting and of arithmetic, and they developed the first capacity of forming judgments and of combining thoughts.

There were always Beings among them who had progressed further, who were the leaders of humanity and their relationship to man was that of Beings who belonged to a higher realm. These Beings became the teachers and guides of men and it was they who induced them to migrate towards the East. From the site which lay in the neighbourhood of present-day Ireland certain peoples had already migrated to the East, settling as far as Asia. Now the most highly developed masses of peoples began to migrate to the East, and everywhere along their journey they formed colonies, the most powerful of these colonies, with the most highly developed culture, existed in the neighbourhood of the present Gobi desert. Later on, a certain number of peoples travelled from there to many parts of the world: one group went to the present India; where they encountered an indigenous yellow-brown race, with whom they became partly united.

It was after the Atlantean flood, that this colony travelled South and founded the first culture of the post-Atlantean epoch, the first culture of our own age. The most advanced teachers who went with this colony, the first great teachers of ancient India, are called the ancient Indian Rishis. The Hindoos of to-day are the descendants of that ancient population, but if we wish to discover traces of this culture we must go far back into times which are not known to history; the Vedas, for example, already belong to a later epoch, for nothing was recorded in those early days.

The ancient Hindoo nation represents the first cultural group after the Atlantean age and consequently they resembled the Atlanteans most of all. The Atlantean was a kind of dreamer; his consciousness was dull, he did not have any power of judgment and self-consciousness and like a dreamer he wandered about half consciously. The ancient Hindoos were the first to overcome this condition, but they were still partly rooted in it. The ancient Hindoo longed to experience the spirit realm of past times and yearned for the clairvoyance which the Atlanteans still possessed. In ancient India the early Yoga training still consisted of a kind of dulling of human consciousness, which transferred the human being back to the times when he could still perceive in his environment spiritual beings. The Hindoo longed for this clairvoyance of ancient Atlantis and in the Yoga training the Rishis taught him the methods of producing clairvoyance, though these methods followed another line of development.

The Atlantean did not possess any power of judgment, whereas in India the power of judgment had already awakened; but men loved, so to speak, that which they had already overcome and they knew how to conjure it up again, by dulling their consciousness and by recalling that which they had seen in earlier epochs. The culture of ancient India preserved this through its highest representatives. The Hindoo did not seek to enhance his consciousness, but he dimmed it down to a dreamy state, and this explains the passivity of the Hindoo character. It would be a great disadvantage, indeed harmful, if modern culture were to take hold in a greater measure of life in India.

During the first epochs, the human beings did not perceive minerals; and what the Atlantean saw least clearly of all ,was the mineral kingdom. Through his visions, the spirit-world was the one which existed for him, and this world lived in everything. He perceived the human being surrounded by colours—by sympathetic colours if he liked him. This was the world which the Hindoo tried to conjure up again. But human progress requires that man shall enter more and more into a relationship with that which exists upon the earth in the world of matter, The Atlanteans did not need any instruments; they orientated themselves through their clairvoyance and they attributed no importance whatever to physical instruments. The Hindoo followed the Atlantean in this, and consequently he looked upon the physical world as Maya, as a kind of illusion and lie. He had no interest in the world which is accessible to the ordinary senses. He asked the dream-like world of the Spirit to rise up before him.

The progress from this Indian culture to the next cultural epoch, i.e. the Persian one preceding the time of Zarathustra, consisted in the fact of humanity learning to appreciate external reality. A second colony went out from the Gobi desert and founded a kingdom in Asia minor which existed in remote times and which gave birth to the kingdom of Zarathustra. The Persian began to perceive the existence of a world in which he had to be active. The Divine essence appeared to him as something which he had to overcome, against which he had to measure his strength. From the spiritual world he drew the forces which he needed in order to work in this world. The world appeared to him as something dark, which had to be transformed with the aid of the good forces. The Hindoo established a science pertaining exclusively to the spiritual world, which told him nothing about the external reality. But to the Persian this external reality presented another aspect, it was something which had to be constantly transformed through his own work.

The third colony which went out from the Gobi desert went further West into Asia Minor and founded the Chaldean-Babylonian-Egyptian cycle of culture. In addition to the earlier science of the Spirit, these nations also possessed a science of the physical world. An astrology and geometry arose in Egypt which taught the Egyptians how to treat and cultivate the earth. Science extended to spheres which the Hindoo still looked upon as a world of illusion. Now this world of illusion had become a world calling for the keenest thought, for a manner of thinking connected with physical things. When the Hindoo immersed himself in the starry world, this world was to him only the expression of the Godhead. But the Chaldean loved the physical World; to him it was a part of the Godhead into which he penetrated and immersed himself. This activity leading him from the divine into the physical world appears to us in the Babylonian-Assyrian culture.

We have now reached a point leading us to the fourth cultural cycle, which we designate as the Graeco-Latin culture. The human being is now included in the external perception, The Egyptian knew that the world was not a chaos, but that it was fraught with meaning and that it had been constructed throughout immeasurable aeons of time. The sphinx and the pyramid expressed great cosmic thoughts. The ancient Egyptian concealed his knowledge of these truths in images: he created the sphinx, which faces us like a riddle of evolution itself: the development of man's higher essence from earlier animal-like conditions. This was the wisdom which the Egyptian spoke out into the world in his own way. In ancient Egypt you may find calculations and measurements,which were drawn directly from heaven. The cities were built in such a way that the Egyptian expressed in these constructions a sacred order of laws and they sought to express in images the cosmic laws which governed the universe. This did not as yet include the individual human essence, which only begins to unfold in Greek art, and which shows us that man now takes hold of his own being as an immediate reality and seeks to create it as an image in space.

Man became more and more familiar with the world which the Hindoo designated as Maya. He began to face his own self. Within the world which in ancient India was considered as an illusion, the Greek created a world of realities and realised that he had to create it without the help of the Gods; more and more he united himself with the external reality and out of his own strength he permeated the external reality with a divine essence. If you study the Greek “polis” you do not find in it any trace of jurisprudence. Man had to establish this during the Roman epoch as “Roman right” which governed the private social intercourse of men, as Roman citizens.

The human being thus acquired an ever greater knowledge of that which takes place in the world of external reality.

The fifth cycle of culture is the one in which we now live, with our materialistic civilisation. It is the time in which man has descended most profoundly into the external world. Compare, our age with preceding ones: We know, to be sure, how to apply the forces of the spiritual world to our physical environment—we carry the spiritual world into it. But in the light of spiritual science this presents strange aspects. Think of the time when the human being still produced his flour by grinding corn between two stones—he did not apply much spiritual power to do this. In ancient Egypt and Chaldea he still immersed himself in the wisdom of the heaven; he still learned a great deal concerning the spiritual significance of the earth itself and of the starry sky. The Greek still placed into the world of physical reality the idealised human form. What is the aspect of our own time? A great amount of spiritual power is used to produce modern natural science with its technical appliances. How great is the difference between obtaining food by primitive means, and obtaining it from America with the aid of telephone, engines, etc.! Yet these complicated technical means are after all used to satisfy the same needs also felt by animals and which animals are able to satisfy by primitive means! Try to investigate how many of the modern inventions really serve spiritual life, and how much spiritual power is used for the sake of furthering material life! What an enormous amount of spiritual power must human beings develop at the present time for the satisfaction of material requirements! There is no great difference whether an animal satisfies its hunger by grazing, or whether man obtains his food from America or Australia through all kinds of means.

This is hot an adverse criticism, for this had to come. Man had to submerge himself in the physical world. The Hindoo still looked, upon it as an illusion, but modern man considers the physical world as the only reality. We have reached the deepest point in our descent and this rendered possible the greatest progress upon the physical plane: This descent, however, must not be in vain, even from a spiritual aspect!

A new element has now arisen, an element that was implanted into the world during the first third of the post-Atlantean epoch: it is the rise of Christianity, the most significant influence in the whole development of the earth. In the light of occultism, everything which proceeded is only the preparation for Christianity. Buddha, Hermes, and so forth, prophetically pointed towards Christianity, for Christianity must lift man out of his deepest entanglement with matter. And it will raise man out of this entanglement. Man's ascent from matter begins again. The task of spiritual science is to help in this ascent into the spiritual world.

The next epoch of our Post-Atlantean culture will bring still more inventions and discoveries; but man will more and more perceive mere letters in the physical world. A genuine Christianity will speak of the external world as condensed Spirit, and the Spirit will once more arise out of matter. We shall then no longer say that the external world is an illusion, for we shall recognise it fully and lose nothing, and yet rise up to a higher spiritual world.

Christianity will contribute most of all towards this course of development. During the sixth epoch, great masses of men will be deeply moved and seized by truths which are now revealed to few, and this will give mankind an insight into the spiritual world. What now exists as thought will in future be a real force. Many people will have this power of thought during the sixth epoch of culture. The theosophical Christianity of to-day will spread among great masses of men. These thoughts will grow stronger and stronger and they will have a creative influence upon the human form.

Once upon a time the human body had quite a different aspect from that which it has to-day; indeed, if I were to describe to you this human body of ancient times, you would be greatly surprised. Because it was still soft, the Ego could exercise a far greater influence upon it. Modern man has only retained an insignificant rest of the psychic influence of will upon his body, for instance, when you are seized by sudden fright you grow pale, because the inner soul-condition penetrates as far as the blood and your complexion changes. But other bodily conditions can show you how little we are now able to control our body. With the gradual ascent into the spiritual world this will change; man's body will become softer and softer and he will once more be able to influence the thoughts which now still exist so sparsely, will gradually grow stronger; these thoughts will then be able to transform even the body. Man will be able to mould his own body—but this will only be the case in a very distant future.

Sex arose in the human being only during the Lemurian age; before that time he was bi-sexual, both male-and female. With the incorporation of the Ego, the human being was split into two sexes. We shall learn to know this better, when we shall consider more closely the development of the human blood. This will lead us to the problem of the division into sexes and also to the fact that the now existing division of the sexes will again disappear.

Thus we look into a future in which the human being will exercise quite a different influence upon his body.

What is, for example, that which sends the blush of shame into our face? What is it? A last remnant of the influence which man once exercised over his body. Man will more and more be able to work consciously into his body, and then will come the time when he will be able to transform the muscle of his heart into one which obeys' him.

Science describes the heart as a mere physical apparatus: as a pump. But the blood does not only stream through the body because the heart pumps the blood through it; everything which constitutes the blood depends upon the soul; the blood pulses more or less quickly according to our feelings, and it is the blood which produces the movement of the heart. But in future the human being will have a conscious influence upon the heart; therefore the heart is an organ which is now at the beginning of its development. The heart is a muscle with a spiritual development, an organ through which the human being will be able to express himself as he develops towards a higher stage, thus exercising a creative influence upon his whole body.

The heart is only at the beginning of its development, and for this reason it is a cross to materialistic science. Materialistic science tells you: all the muscles through which you move, are formed of transversal strips, but all those muscles which move automatically consist of longitudinal strips. The heart however is a peculiar organ upsetting every calculation! It is an automatic muscle, nevertheless it has, even to-day, transversal fibres.

To-morrow I will show you how certain things can be explained in the light of spiritual science.

Spiritual science thus throws light upon that which surrounds us. We shall redeem everything which has become matter from its present rigid condition. This is how the thought of redemption, may be grasped in its deepest essence! Man has developed to an ever higher stage, leaving behind him certain kingdoms in the course of this development. He will become powerful and redeem that which he has left behind; he will help to redeem the earth! But if he is to redeem the earth he must not despise it, but unite himself with it.

Yesterday we tried to follow the evolution of humanity in the universe and also upon the earth. Today I shall only add a few explanations to this, in order to pass over to that which spiritual science is able to say concerning the significance of Christianity and also concerning the Christian initiation. But to begin with please turn your gaze once more to the point of issue of human development.

We have said that when the earth separated from the present Moon, it was enclosed by a kind of primordial ocean, and we explained how the human being then united himself with his soul-spiritual part. We then pursued this course of development as far as the present time, which we characterised as the time of man's deepest descent into matter through the spirit. We recognised that an ascent must once more come, a spiritualisation, and we also spoke of the mission of Theosophy,or Spiritual Science in regard to this course of development.

We already pointed out that the division into two sexes took place in ancient Lemuria. The lower beings upon the Moon were already divided into two sexes, but the human being who lives in each one of you was only at that time divided into two sexes upon entering his bodily form. We must think of these antediluvian times of human evolution; before the separation of mankind into two sexes, male and female, in such a way that what we designate as sex did not exist as yet, or at least, it existed in quite a different form. Now a great deal depends upon our grasping the great significance of the fact explained just now for the whole course of human evolution.

If this division into two sexes had not occurred, if humanity were not to complete its course of development through this cooperation of the male and female principle, the human being would have an entirely different form. The individual element in man comes from the influence of the male principle. Yesterday I explained to you the difference between a group soul and an individual soul. This is quite different among animals. The animal has two sexes even on the astral plane. But the human beings did not have these two sexes on the astral plane before descending like drops into the individualised human bodies, or they had not yet passed, as one might. say, through “the fall into sex”. Had the sexlessness of man continued in the physical world, replacing the two sexes, man could not have become an individual being. The true meaning of human development is that man should become more and more individualised.

If we once more survey the epochs which I described to you yesterday you would see how greatly the human beings resembled one another in regard to their external form. The cooperation of the two sexes gave rise to individual differentiations; these became more and more pronounced the further man advanced into the future. Without the division into sexes the generations would always look alike. We must really say that the fact that man becomes an independent being depends upon the division into two sexes.

In that remote time, and far back in the Atlantean epoch, but even in the post-Atlantean epoch, you find that the law of “marriage among close relatives” prevails, and: that this is only gradually replaced by the law of “marriage among non-relatives” In remote epochs people married within closely related groups, within small tribes. In every nation you will find that it was once considered unusual and wrong to marry someone who belonged to another tribe one's own, and this was everywhere considered an exceptional event.

The further back we go, the more we find that it was looked upon as an ethical law for people to marry within their own tribe; so that blood only mixed with the blood of relatives. We can explain this process best of all by setting out from a comparison which hits the nail on the head, whereas all other comparisons are weak. Let me tell you a little story in this connection.

You know Anzengruber and Rosegger. Rosegger is a writer who described his village characters with great devotion. Also Anzengruber has a good knowledge of his subject. In his drama “Der Meineidbauer,” (The Perjured Farmer) the farmer and peasants whom he portrays really live. We know how plastic these characters are in the “Meineidbauer” and in his, “Parson Of Kirchfeld” and in other plays. Rosegger and Anzengruber one day went for a walk together and Rosegger said: “I know you really never look at farmers; perhaps you could describe them better if you went to see them in the village.” Anzengruber replied: “If I did this, I would probably be quite at a loss. I never learned to know peasants more closely, but I can describe them because my father, my grandfather and all my ancestors were farmers, and I still have this farmer's blood in my veins. I form my characters through the farmer's blood in me, and I do not bother about the rest!”

This is an interesting fact and it indicates what we should bear in mind. Where blood does not mix, as in the case of old tribal communities, or in the case of the Anzengruber family, we find such a marked character as the writer Anzengruber, in his last incarnation. He had inherited the plastic force and he knew how to appreciate it; this plastic force ran through the blood of the generations. This really occurs where the blood only mixes with the blood of relatives. If the blood mixed with alien blood it quenched the soul's plastic forces. Had Anzengruber married, had he married a someone belonging to a different social class his children would no longer have had this plastic force.

In the case of almost every nation still existing to-day we can observe this phenomenon at the beginning; marriages within small circles of blood-relatives were always connected with an extraordinary power of memory. They were connected with a dull, vague clairvoyance people could remember what they had experienced since their birth and they looked upon these experiences as something connected with their personality. Before these marriages between close relatives were replaced by marriages with non-relatives, people could literally remember the experiences of their grandfather and even of distant ancestors; they said “I”, and passed through the experiences of their grandfathers, great-grandfathers, and forefathers. The further back we go the more we find a power of memory reaching far back into the line of the generations.

it is interesting to see that these people: did not feel that they were individual egos when they said “I”, their grandfather was included in in this, and they bore his name, a name which encompassed all. Even as you now adopt a name connecting it with an individual person; so these nations adopted a name reaching far back into the centuries, because birth did not break off the thread of memory. The individual human being had no name, for birth was no special event. All men had one name, as long as the thread of memory remained unbroken.

In the Bible you have a document relating this giving of names: all the discussions about the names of the patriarchs are merely theological discussions! Adam was Adam and became so old because the power of memory was preserved for centuries, and the individual who descended from Adam felt that his Ego was one with that of his ancestor. The blood which thus flowed through the centuries producing such a memory was named “Adam”. So long as memory lasted in the line of the generations and the experiences of the forefathers could be remembered as if they were one's own, one said: “Adam still lives. People did no at all experience themselves as individual physical personalities, but they identified themselves with that which existed spiritually and which united them.

Then the marriages between non-relatives became more and more frequent. The mixing of the blood gradually killed the power of memory which once reached beyond the individual human being. The limitation of memory is a result of these marriages between non-relatives. In the course of human evolution the individual human being gradually grew out of his tribe.The blood in common which flowed through the tribes also contained the common expression for this blood: love. Those who were blood-relatives loved each other. But this love, which we may designate as a primordial love connected with the blood and leading to the development of families gradually died out in the course of time. The love of the past greatly differed from the love which shines towards us as the love of future times. During the Atlantean epoch, this love ruling through the blood prevailed; people who had the same blood in their veins loved one another. But this gradually disappeared; individually, the human beings gradually emancipated themselves from the closer family ties.

This primordial love, which arose when the souls began to descend into physical bodies, thus faces us in a descending,course of development; this love streamed into the human beings at the moment which the Bible describes in the words: “And God breathed into man's nostrils the breath of life and he became a living soul.”

But something else arose at that time. Man became a living soul, and consequently a being who breathed through his lungs. The air which he thus breathed in, produced his red blood. The Ego-nature expressed itself in the red blood. As long as the blood was a common element shared by many, the Ego too was a common Ego. We see this in the Jews, where a whole nation was ruled by a group-soul. But the human beings gradually developed and emancipated themselves from the blood of their relatives. When the first breath of air entered the human being it formed the first foundation of his blood. But long epochs of time passed by before mankind reached the degree of maturity enabling it to influence the blood so that the primordial love could be replaced by a love for mankind as a whole.

Imagine the course of human development as described just now: The primordial love would gradually die out; love among relatives, the love of a mother for her child, and so forth, would have to decrease; the blood has not the power of encompassing the whole of humanity with a tie of love, so that the power of the Ego, the power of selfishness would grow ever more ... An event had therefore to occur which replaced the primordial love with another kind of love, calling into life a spiritual love, and this event is Christianity.

The appearance of Christianity prevented that which would otherwise have taken place: the disintegration of the whole of humanity into single human atoms. The human beings must indeed become more and more independent, for this lies in the development of their blood, but that which was driven apart naturally, must once more be led together spiritually, through a new power which is able to exercise its influence without the love connected with the blood: This new power is Christianity.

The Mystery of Golgotha thus acquires a fundamental significance for the whole evolution of humanity. If we understand this, we also understand the meaning of the words: the Blood of Christ. This is not something which can be experienced or investigated externally, but something which must be considered as a mystical fact. I have therefore entitled my book purposely, “Christianity as Mystical Fact” and not “The Mysticism of Christianity”!

In order to understand the nature of Christ Jesus upon the earth, in order to understand this fundamental significance of Christianity, we must study the preparatory stages which led to Christianity. For they already existed in ancient times. You may really see how an early Christian regarded this by taking a passage of St. Augustine's writings: “What we now call religion has always been the true religion, except, that that which once constituted the true religion is now called the Christian religion.” St. Augustine still knew that Christianity has a foundation: that which once lived in the ancient Mysteries. These very Mysteries are now to be revealed through the theosophical movement. Let me characterize it in a few words.

There were schools which were at the same time churches and centres of art; at the head of these schools stood the leaders of humanity, those who had advanced most in human development. Into these schools were admitted people who were considered to be adapted for a training enabling them to gain an independent conception of the spiritual world which surrounded them. They were carefully prepared; first of all they had to learn the facts of the spiritual world theoretically, more or less in the same way in which we now learn these facts through spiritual science. Then they reached ever higher stages. Theory changed into practice, exoteric into esoteric truths. They received a living instruction in every subject. Strict rules governed the pupil's life, so that he might gradually ascend to the contemplation of the spiritual world. The pupil first learned to know the facts and laws of the spiritual world, and then he had to develop through exercises the organs which enabled him to look into the spiritual world.

Let me now describe to you the final act. You must bear in mind that man's sleep consists in the fact that his astral body goes out of his etheric and physical bodies, whereas death consists in the fact that the physical body remains alone, because the etheric and astral body have left it. Now the leader of the Mysteries, the hierophant, through methods which he applied, prepared the human being in such a way that his physical body lay for three and a half days as if dead, while the etheric body and the other members were outside. This was not sleep, nor death, but a third condition. Everything was prepared in such a way that during these three and a half days the human being could journey into the higher worlds, through the guidance of the hierophant who initiated him, he now learned to know the things which have been described in my preceding lectures. He learned to know this in a direct way, through his own vision; after these three and a half days he was newly born. When he returned, he could remember everything which he had experienced in the spiritual worlds; now he was a living witness to the existence of these worlds. His words acquired a different sound from that which they had before, he had become “Blessed”, and the words could be applied to him: “Blessed are those who see”.

When he returned, he was given new name; he laid aside his old name and as an initiate he continued to use his new name. A strange phenomenon arose when he descended from the spiritual worlds and again took possession of his physical body, when he again began to live in the physical worlds. In the case of every initiate—this was a law—words rose to his lips which can be translated with: “My God, my God, how Thou hast glorified me!”

This could be felt by a human being who had reached this stage. He could say of himself: “Everything which still existed in the form of primordial love, everything which is to be implanted in man through the blood, must be replaced within me by a love which knows no difference between mother, brother, sister and other human beings”. Spiritually, he had abandoned his parents, wife, children, brother and sister, and had become a follower of the Spirit. And people said of him that Christ had come to life within him.

All this had taken place in the concealment of the Mysteries. These men were the witnesses of the spiritual world, and they were also prophets, for they pointed towards a coming event. This event is none other than the Mystery Of Golgotha. What took place with the individual human beings in the Mystery schools, occurred upon the physical plane in Palestine once only, for the whole world.

If you were now able to study the instructions which were given, to the old initiates, you would find that they closed with this experience lasting three and a half days; but never before had this experience been enacted upon the physical plane! A new epoch began with the Mystery of Golgotha. You may therefore say: All initiations were prophetic announcements of that which took place in the Mystery of Golgotha; this event could only take place because an individuality as encompassing as the Ruler of the Sun Spirits was incarnated in the body of Jesus of Nazareth. What took place upon Mount Golgotha, could not have been fulfilled by any human Ego; such as we have it. Such a deed called for an Ego which had already advanced t0 a high stage of development upon the Sun.

In this way we are able to grasp the Divine humanity of Christ Jesus, which modern men so easily reject, because they cannot penetrate into the depths of the spiritual world. If we consider things in the true light, we may therefore perceive that upon Golgotha an event took place which has a significance greatly surpassing that of any other event.

Among modern men, Richard Wagner alone had an inkling of the significance of the blood, I have already explained to you that man's glandular processes are an expression of the etheric body; his nervous processes an expression of the astral body, and the blood an expression of the Ego. I have shown you that if Christ had not appeared, the development of the blood would have led to a greater form of egoism; the Ego would more and more have increased man's selfishness and egoism. The unnecessary blood, man's excess of blood, had to flow out, had to be sacrificed, so that humanity might not completely lose itself in selfishness. The true mystic sees in the blood which flowed out of the Savior's wounds the surplus blood which had to flow out in order that a soul-spiritual brother love might take hold of the whole of mankind.

This is how the spiritual scientist looks upon the blood which streamed down from the Cross; the blood which had to be taken away from humanity in, order that man might rise above material things. The love which was linked by blood ties was therefore replaced by a love which will fully develop in the future; by a love going from one human being to the other. Only in this light is it possible to understand the words of Christ Jesus:—“He that forsaketh not father, mother, brother, sister, wife and child, cannot become my disciple.” These words can only be grasped if we bear in mind that the event upon Golgotha has overcome everything which had once to be strengthened through the kindred blood, through the love of relatives. He who replaced this love by the new, soul-spiritual love, could say that the old form of love had to be relinquished. This is how things are connected.

The appearance of Christ Jesus Himself is a deep mystical fact; and can only be understood if we do not apply to it the standard of natural science. Those who apply natural-scientific standards to the appearance of Christ Jesus, resemble people who see a tear and judge it according to the law of gravity, refusing to see in it an expression of the soul.

Such things can only be understood with the aid of spiritual science. The appearance of Christ Jesus upon the earth differs from that of all other founders of religions. What the others gave was a teaching. In the case of Christ Jesus we can really say: Almost every word which He uttered, has already, been said in the past in one or the other connection. The essential thing in the case of Hermes or of Buddha is the words which they spoke: in Christ Jesus the essential thing is the fact that He existed, that He lived upon the earth, and that the Mystery of Golgotha was enacted.

Those who wish to be Christians in a truly spiritual-scientific meaning, become so through the fact that they believe in the Divinity of Christ-Jesus. The first disciples did not only proclaim: “we are sent out into the world in order to announce His words”, but they were to bear witness to His existence: “We have heard the words themselves and, have placed our hands into His wounds!”

The essential thing is the fact that Christ-Jesus existed. In other religions you may eliminate the founders of these religions and you would not lose much. But if you were to eliminate Christ-Jesus, then Christianity would not be there! This is the difference. People like Darwin, Strauss, Drews, etc. may proclaim as much as they like that all other religions can be rediscovered in Christianity—this is not essential, for the essential point to be borne in mind is the fact that He existed and that He set forth as a fact what the Prophets had foretold. Christianity is therefore no theory, but a working power.

If you were to rise from the earth to another planet, you would not only see the earth, but also the earth's etheric and astral body; you would see the spiritual earth besides the physical one; and if you could dwell on that planet for thousands of years, if you could have dwelt on it even before the appearance of Christ-Jesus, you would have seen how in the spiritual part of the earth the colour of the astral body underwent a change through the fact that Christ-Jesus was there. The earth really underwent a change, and the men who lived after Christ-Jesus, lived upon a transformed earth. For this reason they can overcome the deepest descent of the spirit. Before that time, it was necessary to be raised to the spiritual worlds if one wished to know something about it; but in Christianity the Mystery Itself has descended to the earth. It was there, as a historical event, visible to physical eyes. The Godhead had to descend in order to lead humanity up once more, from the physical world into the spiritual.

This is the description of Christianity which you will find in the purest of Gospels, in the Gospel of St. John. It is not only a poetical work, but a book of life. Only one who has experienced it, knows what the Gospel of St. John really is: and if its reality has been experienced, then everything which I have explained to you to-day can be proclaimed as a self--discovered truth.

Let me now show you briefly how we may attain knowledge of the truths of Christianity.

Among many books, the Gospel of St. John is the one which indicates the methods by which it is possible to fathom the depths of Christianity. Even when Christianity did not as yet exist in its present form, it was already taught in the Mystery-schools; for instance, in the school of Dionysius the Areopagite, a disciple of the Apostle Paul. In ancient times it was usual to designate throughout centuries the nearer of the Mysteries with the same name, so that this person who took over the Mysteries and wrote them down, was given the same name as his predecessor.

Those who immerse themselves into the first words of the Gospel of St. John from the standpoint of esotericism, experience that they become within them a quickening force. But the Gospel of St. John must be applied as it was originally intended to be applied; and we must have the patience to take the first sentences of the Gospel of St. John again and again as a subject of meditation, and to let them pass every morning before our soul. They. will in that case have the power to draw out of our soul deeply hidden forces. But we must of course have a correct translation of these words expressed in German word-characters, they must more or less express what the original text contained. In a translation which is as faithful as possible, let me now show you that the real life of the spirit is indicated in the words of the Gospel of St. John.

“Im Urbeginne war das Wort, und das Wort war bei Gott, and ein Gott war das Wort. Dieses war im Urbeginne bei Gott.

Alles ist durch dasselbe geworden, and ausser durch dieses ist nichts von dem Entstandenen geworden. In diesem war das Leben, and das Leben war das Licht der Menschen. Und das Licht schien in die Finsternis, aber die Finsternis hat es nicht begriffen.

Es ward ein Mensch gesandt von Gott, mit seinem Namen Johannes. Dieser kam zum Zeugnis, auf dass er Zeugnis ablege von dem Licht, auf dass durch ihn alle glauben sollten. Er war nicht das Licht, sondern ein Zeuge des Lichtes; denn das wahre Licht, das alle Menschen erleuchtet, sollte in die Welt kommen.

Es war in der Welt, und die Welt ist durch es geworden, aber die Welt hat es nicht erkannt.

Zu den einzelnen Menschan kam es, bis zu den Ich-Menschen kam es, aber die einzelnen Menschen—die Ich-Menschen—nahmen es nicht auf.

Die es aber aufnahmen, die konnten sich durch es als Gotteskinder offenbaren.—Die seinem Namen vertrauten, sind nicht aus Blut, nicht aus dem Willen des Fleisches and nicht aus menschlichen Willen,—sondern aus Gott geworden. Und das Wort is Fleisch geworden und hat unter uns gewohnen, and wir haben seine Lehre gehöret,—die Lehre von dem einigen Sohne des Vaters, erfüllt von Hingabe und Wahrheit!”

(Translation into English)

“In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was a God. This was from the very beginning with God.

All things came into being through Him, and except through Him, was not anything made that was made.

In Him was the life, and the life became the light of men. And the light shone in the darkness, but the darkness did not comprehend it.

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. The same came for a witness to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe. He was not the Light, but a witness for the Light; for the true Light which lighteth every man had to come into the world.

He was in the world, and the world came into being through Him, but the world did not comprehend Him.
To each man He came, even to the Ego-men, but these individual men, these Ego-men, received Him not.

As many as received Him could manifest themselves through Him as children of God. Those who confided in His name are not born of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have heard His teaching, the teaching of the only Son of the Father, filled with devotion and truth.”

I could now tell you many things of how you would have to immerse yourselves in each chapter of St. John's Gospel. Let me only give you one example—how you would have to use the chapters from the thirteenth chapter onward, if you were a true disciple of Christian Initiation. What I am telling you in words, has occurred in fact to render it more comprehensible, I will clothe it in the form of a dialogue, giving you an idea of what took place between teacher and pupil.

The teacher said to his pupil:—You must develop within you a feeling, you must think the following: Transfer yourself into the plant. If it had consciousness such as you have, and if this consciousness enabled it to look down to the stones, it would say: Thou lifeless stone; thou art a lower being than I in rank among the beings of this world; I am higher than thou. But could I exist as a plant, if thou were not there as stone? I draw my nourishment from thee. I could not exist without that which is lower than me.

And if the plant were endowed with feeling it would say: I am indeed higher than the stone, but I bow down humbly towards it, for the stone made it possible for me to live.

Similarly the animal would have to bow down to the plant and say: If thou; O plant, were not there, I could not exist, although I am higher than thee. To thee, a lower being, I owe my existence. Humbly I bow before thee.

Now rise up to the kingdom of man, survey the different human beings, the lowest and the highest,—what would each one have to say, who stands upon a higher rank of development than the others? Even as the plant bends down to the mineral and the animal to the plant; so each human being who stands upon a higher stage must bend down to those upon a lower stage and say; Thou standest upon a lower rank, yet to thee I owe the fact that I can be there!

Now imagine this carried out to the highest stages, reaching as far as Christ-Jesus, and you will have Christ's attitude towards the Apostles with whom He lived. He bent down towards them, even as the plant bends down to the mineral and washed their feet “I owe my life to you, and I bend down to you!”

For a long time the pupil had to pass through a scale of all these feelings. This feeling had to become more and more alive and then he awoke to the first stage of Christian Initiation. This can be felt through an outer and inner symptom: The outer symptom consists therein that the pupil really feels for a time as if the watery element were washing around his feet, and the inner symptom consists in the fact that he himself experiences the thirteenth chapter of the Gospel of St. John as an inner vision upon the astral plane.

The teacher then proceeded by telling the pupil: You must experience something else: you must now imagine that bodily and psychical pair and suffering rush towards you from every side; but you must arm yourself against everything so that you can say: However great the pain and suffering which come towards me, I remain upright, I do not allow myself to overthrown! This is called the Scourging. Its outer symptom is that one experiences on the skin's surface pains which are an indication that the soul has reached this stage. And the inner symptom is that one sees oneself upon the astral plane undergoing scourging. But the essential thing is that the soul gains in the form of inner experience.

The third thing which the pupil heard from his teacher was the following: Now you must develop a feeling that you do not only withstand every form of pain coming towards you, but that you remain upright and steady, even when the holiest
within you is cast down into the dust. You must remain so strong, that everyone can tell you, This is worth nothing. But even though people trample on you, you must know its worth, and you must be able to withstand a whole world.—If the pupil reached this stage, he was said to have reached the “Crowning with Thorns”. The outer symptom is to feel a certain pain in the head and the inner one, to see oneself in the situation of the Redeemer with the crown of thorns.

The fourth thing was the following: The teacher told his pupil: You must gain a new connection with your body. You dwell in your body, but you must look upon it as something quite strange, even as the table outside is a strange object for you. You must even learn to say: I am carrying my body through the world. The body must become for you, as alien as other external objects.—This was said to be the experience of the Crucifixion. Even as the Redeemer carried the Cross, so one carried one's body about, as if it were a piece of wood. The outer symptom for the Crucifixion consists in the stigmata. During the meditation the pupil could produce on his hands, feet and on the right side of his breast the signs of Christ's bleeding wounds; red spots on these places reminded him of the Crucifixion wounds. This “blood trial” is an outer symptom showing that one has learned t0 know the inner essence of Christianity. And the inner experience is to see oneself on astral vision hanging upon the Cross.

The fifth stage is what one calls the “Mystical Death”. This can only be described approximately, The Mystical death consists for the pupil in the fact that the whole world appears to him as if it were enveloped in black darkness, as if a black wall stood before him. The whole physical world appears to him as if it were blotted out, as if it had disappeared. This can be experienced. It is a moment revealing everything bad and evil which can exist in the world (in reality, it can only be known through this experience). In order to know life one must also pass through this experience. It is called the “Descent into Hell”, and it is followed by a strange event appearing before one's eyes; that black wall is rent asunder. This is the “Rending Of the Veil of the Temple”. After this one cam look into the spiritual world. This is designated as the “Mystical Death and the Rending of the Veil of the Temple”.

The sixth stage is the “Burial and the Resurrection”, where the pupil learns to experience that in addition to the other feelings, all external objects appear as if they belonged to his body, that the whole world belongs to him. Even as the finger might say: I an only a finger through the fact that I belong to the organism of the hand, so the human being only lives upon the earth through the fact that he belongs to the earth. People can walk about upon the earth, and consequently they think that they are independent. But if we permeate ourselves with the feeling that everything belongs to us, we have the experience designated as the “Burial”. Soul-spiritually we rest in the earth and only after this experience we rise again, spiritually. Only then can we have an understanding of the deed of Christ-Jesus who united death with his own soul; and even as He has once been the Ruler of the Sun, He has now become the Spirit of the Earth. We should take the words of St. John's Gospel literally: “Whoso eateth my bread, treadeth me underfoot.” If you look upon Christ-Jesus as the highest planetary Spirit of the Earth, and the earth as His body, you will understand that you literally tread the body of Christ-Jesus with your feet. And you become united with Him when you experience this sixth stage, of the Burial.

Then comes the seventh stage, the “Ascension”, which cannot be described, for it can only be understood by those who can think without using their brain.

Now I have described to you the process of the Christian Initiation. The pupil acquired thereby what was called the “Eye of Christ”. Everything, around you would be dark if you had no eyes; even as you cannot see the sun without eyes, so you cannot perceive Christ without the Christ-organ. The eye is born through the light for the light. Light is the source of vision. The sun must exist outside as real sun, and you experience this real sun within your eye. It is the same with the spiritual eye. We use empty words when speaking only of the “Christ within”; it is the same thing as speaking of the eye without taking into account the existence of the sun! The capacity to look upon the Christ may be acquired through the exercises indicated above; but the power enabling him to do this, again conies from the historical Christ. Even as the sun is related to the eye, so the Christ is related to the Christ-organ which develops in the human being.

This is not meant as, a. guidance, but as an explanation of facts. We must learn to know what exists in the world. These, lectures aim at showing the deep sources of the truly Christian spirit, and how the Gospel of St. John itself contains the methods of a Christian Initiation, giving in man the eye which enables him to see Christ Himself. But those who wish to announce Him, must in a certain way have lived with Him, not only through faith, but in reality.