The Rudolf Steiner Archive

In the course of these lectures we have described how the earlier, preparatory stages of the Saturn, Sun and Moon evolutions have entered into the development of our earth. We must of course always bear in mind that what concerns us most of all, what is most important, is the development of man himself. We know that man is, so to say, the first-born of our whole planetary evolution. If we look back to Saturn, we are struck by the fact that in this state of weaving warmth we can speak only of the first rudiments of physical man, and that as yet nothing of what surrounds us today in animal, vegetable and mineral kingdoms existed. These were added after the human kingdom was already there. Hence we have to ask ourselves how the story of creation according to Genesis is to be reconciled with the facts of human evolution.

We shall soon see that everything which today we seek to learn through spiritual investigation is fully confirmed. On a superficial reading of Genesis it might seem that man emerged for the first time as if suddenly fired from a pistol on the sixth day. Yet we know that the human kingdom is the all-important one, that the other kingdoms are, as it were, by-products of human incarnation. So we ask ourselves where the human being is to be found in the days before the sixth. If the earth develops as a kind of recapitulation of the Saturn, Sun and Moon evolutions we should expect to find the human being there all the time, we should expect to find him long before the sixth day. How is it that we find no earlier mention of man in the Genesis account?

First of all, let us observe that Genesis, when beginning to speak of the creation of man, uses the word “Adam,”¹ and in the ancient Hebrew priestly language the word “Adam” does correspond more or less to our word “man.” But we must learn to understand more exactly what “Adam” means. The word called forth in the soul of the Hebrew sage a mental picture which can perhaps be rendered in English as “the earthy one.” Thus man is pre-eminently the earth being, the consummation of all earth existence, the final fruit of earth incarnation. But everything which comes finally to maturity in the fruit is already inherent in the nature of the plant. We shall not discover man in the earlier “days” of creation, unless we are clear that in reality it is not the physical man that precedes the soul-spiritual, but vice versa. We have to think of the physical, earthly man of today much in the same way as we think of a small quantity of water which we cool down and allow to solidify into ice. We have to think of the soul-spiritual man as solidifying, condensing to earthly man, through the work of the Elohim on the sixth day of creation, just as water freezes into ice. Thus progress up to the sixth day consisted in a condensation of the soul-spiritual part of man to the solid earth man. On the preceding “days” we must not expect to find man in the region of what has been cast off and is developing supersensibly according to appropriate physical laws; we must expect to find him in a soul-spiritual condition. Thus when we say in the words of Genesis that on the first day there were present the inner mobile energy and the outwardly manifest, we should not on that first day expect to find man in the earth element, but as a soul-spiritual being in the periphery of the earth. As a soul-spiritual being he is being prepared for his earthly existence.

Today I want to correlate some of the findings of Spiritual Science with the Genesis account. When Genesis tells us that through cosmic musing the two complexes of inner stimulation and outward manifestation arise, what is it which is being prepared in the very first rudiments of man? When the spirit of the Elohim weaves and broods through these complexes, what part of man is in course of preparation? It is what in spiritual scientific terminology we call the sentient soul, which today we have to look upon as something inward. That is what is being prepared on the first day of creation up to the point where it says: Let there be light; and there was light. Within all this there lies in the spiritual periphery the sentient soul of man. To put it more clearly, we look for the sentient soul to begin with in the circumference of the earth, and we place it in the time usually described as the first “day” of creation. Thus in the circumference of the earth, where the Elohim and the Beings ministering to them unfold their work, we have to see a human soul-spiritual present in the spiritual atmosphere somewhat in the same way as today we see clouds in the airy atmosphere; and this is the human sentient soul. Then the evolution of man makes a further advance. On the second “day” of creation we have in the circumference of the earth the refining of the sentient soul into the intellectual or mind-soul. When the sound-ether strikes into the developing earth, when the upper masses of matter separate from the lower, there is, as part of the upper sphere, weaving in the upper sphere, a man consisting entirely of the rudiments of the sentient and the intellectual or mind-soul.

Then on the third “day” we have to think of man as advancing to the stage of the consciousness soul. On this third day, down below on the earth under the influence of the life-ether, verdant life unfolds in species form; the earth brings forth the foundations of plant life—of course, only supersensibly perceptible—and up above in the ether there weaves what we call the consciousness soul, together with the sentient and the intellectual or mind-souls.

Thus the soul-spiritual man hovers in the periphery of the developing earth. He is as it were within the substance of the several spiritual Beings. So far he has no independent existence. It is as if he were being fashioned as an organ within the Elohim, the Archai and so on—as though he were in their bodies as part of them. Hence it is natural that it is of these Beings that we are told, for at this stage of earth development, they alone are actual individualities! To describe their lot is to describe the lot of the rudimentary human beings as well. But you can easily see that if man is one day to people the earth, something like a gradual densification of the human being has to come about. This soul-spiritual element must gradually be clothed in a body. At the end of what is called in the Bible the third “day” of creation we have the rudiments of a soul-spiritual man which today we should call the consciousness soul, intellectual or mind-soul, and sentient soul. These have to be provided with an outer garment. Within this soul-spiritual, man has next to acquire the garment of the astral body.

Let us try to realise what this means. When today can we study the laws of the astral body, isolated from the physical body? Our astral bodies are separated from us when we are asleep, though the astral form is now quite different from what it was in the time of which Genesis speaks. When man sleeps he leaves his etheric and physical bodies lying in bed, and he himself is in his astral body, which hides within it his ego.

Remember the many things which I have told you in the course of years about the peculiar life of the astral body during sleep. From my Occult Science you will recall that when the astral body is outside the physical and etheric bodies, currents go out from it, it begins to make connections with its cosmic surroundings. When in the morning you come back from the sleeping to the waking state you have absorbed strengthening forces from the whole cosmos. During the night our astral body has been united, through its effluence, with the entire cosmos. It has been united with all the planetary Beings associated with our earth. It has radiated its effluence to Mercury, Mars, Jupiter and so on, and in these planetary Beings are the strengthening forces which give to the astral body what it needs to enable us on its return to continue our waking life in the physical and etheric bodies. During the night our astral bodies are diffused and enlarged to a cosmic existence. The clairvoyant sees the astral body quit the physical body when the human being falls asleep. But in point of fact that is an inadequate description. The astral body winds its way in spiral form out of the physical body. It moves as a cloud in spiral form. What we see is only the beginning of the currents which emanate from the astral body. They go out into cosmic space and gather forces, they drink in the forces of the planets. And if anyone tells you that the astral body is what can be seen by a clairvoyant hovering like a cloud in the vicinity of the physical body, it is not true. During the night the astral body is poured out over the whole of our solar system. During sleep it is united with the planetary Beings. That is the very reason why we call it the astral body. None of the interpretations of the term “astral body” coined in the Middle Ages is correct. We speak of the astral body because during sleep it is in inner union with the starry world, the astral world, because it rests in the world of the stars and absorbs their forces.

When you grasp this fact, which is confirmed by spiritual investigation, you will say to yourselves: “Then surely the first influences which formed this astral body must have streamed to man from the astral world, the world of the stars, and the world of the stars must have been present in the developing earth!” Thus when we say that on the fourth day of creation what had hitherto been soul-spiritual clothed itself in the laws and forces of the astral body, then on that same fourth day the stars, the astra, must have unfolded their activity in the periphery of the earth.

And the Genesis account confirms this. In the passage on the fourth day of creation, Genesis gives a description of the clothing of man—man still in the spiritual or astral periphery of the earth—with the astral body, with the activity of the starry world, which belongs primarily to our earth. And this description agrees with what we should express as “the human astral body is formed in accordance with its laws.” Thus here too we find a deeper meaning in complete harmony with what clairvoyant investigation has today to tell of modern man. We shall see that at the time of which Genesis speaks the astral body was not the same as our own astral bodies are during the night; but its laws were the same, and the activity which it developed was the same.

We shall expect that during the next period, which Genesis calls the fifth “day” of creation, a still further densification will take place. Man still remains a super-sensible etheric being. But a further densification does take place within the etheric. Man still does not make contact with the earth, he still belongs to the more spiritual-etheric circumference of the earth. Here we touch upon something which it is extraordinarily important for us to understand for the sake of the whole development of man in his relationship with the earth. When we turn to the kingdom next to man, to the animal kingdom, a question may arise which we have often touched upon before as to why animals become animals, and man becomes man. That man has evolved from the animal kingdom, as the crude materialism of today imagines, could not even be accepted by superficial ratiocination if it really understood itself. But nevertheless if we study the course of the earth's development, we have to admit that animals made their appearance before man became visible as an earth being. Before man could become man upon the earth, appropriate conditions had to be prepared for his densification. Suppose that man had become dense enough to become an earth being, such as he is today, on the fifth day of creation! If he had descended to the solid earth at that time, he could not have acquired the form and substance which in fact he did acquire. Earth conditions were not yet ripe enough to give man this form. Man had to wait in the spiritual realm and to allow the development of the earth to proceed by itself, because it could not yet give him the conditions suited to his earthly life. Man had first to mature within a psycho-spiritual sphere, a more etheric sphere. Had he not delayed his descent to the earth, he would have had to assume an animal form. It is in fact because the soul-spiritual being, the group-soul, of these animal forms, descended when the earth was not yet ready for the human form, when it could not provide the necessary conditions for the earthly human form, that animals became animals. Man had to wait above in the spiritual realm. The beings which became animals descended too soon for human incarnation. At the time of the fifth day of creation the earth was filled with air and water. Man could not fashion an earthly body for himself by descending into that condition. The animals, the group-souls of the animals, who did descend into it became beings of the air, and beings of the water. Thus while these group-souls were clothing themselves in bodies derived from the substances of air and water, man had to wait in the spiritual realm, in order to be able later to assume human form.

What would have happened if man had descended into dense matter on the fifth day? His physical humanity would not have had the forces bestowed upon it which came to him through the elevation of the Elohim into a unity. We have already spoken of this unifying of the Elohim and have said that Genesis indicates it in a most wonderful way by speaking first of the Elohim and later of Jahve-Elohim We have said that the characteristic of the Elohim was that they wove in the element of warmth. Warmth was their element; it was, as it were, the body through which they manifested themselves. When at the end of the period of development described in Genesis the Elohim had advanced so much further that we can speak of a unitary consciousness, a Jahve-Elohim, a change in their nature was involved. This change followed the same principle as changes in other hierarchical Beings You will remember that I spoke of the “body” of the Thrones. We have said that at the beginning of our planetary evolution their body was sacrificed to the warmth-element of Saturn. We have also said that during the Sun evolution the body of the Thrones was to be found in the element of air and in the Moon evolution in the element of water, and on the earth in the earth-element, the solid. For the Thrones this condensation of their nature further and further from the state of warmth to that of earth betokened a kind of promotion.

What was it that had to take place in order that the Elohim likewise should rise to a higher stage as the fruit of their creative activity? In accordance with the laws which govern such things they had to progress to the next degree of densification. Just as in primeval times, in the transition from Saturn to Sun, the Thrones progressed from the state of warmth to that of air, so we should expect the Elohim too, in attaining their unified consciousness, to progress from warmth to air. That, however, did not happen on the fifth day, but only at the end of the series of events described in the Genesis account of the creation. Had man been permitted to descend into the finer element of air on the fifth day, it would have happened to him as to the other beings who sought their bodily nature in the element of air. They became animals of the air, because they could not be given the requisite strength, the power of the Elohim risen to the stage of Jahve-Elohim, to enable them to fulfil the meaning of earth existence. Thus man had to wait. He was not permitted to adopt the air as his element. When the creatures of the air descended, he had to wait until the Elohim had become Jahve-Elohim. Only then could he be given the Jahve-Elohim strength. He had to be bodied forth in the weaving of Jahve-Elohim, in the air, but he was not to take this elementary airy existence into himself until he could receive it from Jahve-Elohim. This the Genesis account conveys in a very subtle way; what it virtually says is that man grew ripe in a more spiritual-etheric existence, and only sought denser embodiment after the Elohim had advanced to the stage of Jahve-Elohim, after Jahve-Elohim was able to form the earthly nature of man by breathing into him the air. It was the efflux of the Elohim themselves, now grown to Jahve-Elohim, which streamed into man with the air.

There again we have a description in Genesis which wonderfully accords with the spiritual investigation of today. And in Genesis we find a theory of evolution compared with which the proud doctrines of today are mere fantasy. For Genesis guides us to the inwardness of creation, shows us what has to take place in the super-sensible before man can advance to sensible existence.

Thus while the other beings had already condensed physically in the region of air and water; man had still to remain in etheric existence, and it was in fact his condensation to the stage of the etheric body that took place in the period alluded to as the fifth day of creation. On the fifth day we still do not find man among the physical earth beings. It is not until the sixth day that we find man actually among the earth beings. It is then that he is received by the developing earth; what we call the physical body came into existence on the sixth day of creation.

But we must still emphasise that it would be quite wrong to believe that you would have been able to see with your eyes or touch with your hands the man who came into existence on the sixth day. If a man with the eyes of today had been at all possible at that time, he would not have been able to perceive the man who then came into existence. The man of today is too much inclined to think materialistically. Hence he at once thinks of the newly created man on the sixth day as a being just like himself. Man was certainly there in a physical form—but then even the vibrations of heat are physical. If you come into a space and find there differentiated currents of warmth not so dense as gas, you must still call that physical existence, and there was such physical existence on Saturn, even though only in the form of warmth. Thus man on the sixth day was not to be found in solid fleshly form. He was to be found in physical form, as an earth being, but only in the first manifestation of the physical, as a man of warmth. When that event occurred, so beautifully expressed in the words And God said, Let us make man, anyone sensitive to warmth would have perceived certain differentiations in the substance of warmth. If he had walked over the earth, which was at that time covered with vegetation and animal life in air and water—all at the species stage—he might have said to himself: “Strange! in certain places I get impressions of warmth—not of anything that has reached a gaseous condition—pure warmth-impressions.” There are differentiations of warmth in the periphery of the earth, beings of warmth flit hither and thither. Man was as yet not a gaseous being; he consisted only of warmth. Try to think away all the solid part of you, all the fluid, all the gaseous element, and to imagine only that part of the man you are today which pulsates in the warmth of your blood. Imagine your blood-heat apart from anything else, and then you have what came into being when the Elohim spoke the creative word: Let us make man. And the next stage of densification did not come until after the days of creation; the influx of what Jahve-Elohim was able to give, the inbreathing of air, did not take place until after the sixth day of creation.

Man will not understand his own origin until he makes up his mind to think of his descent as follows. At the beginning of the development of the earth there was a soul-spiritual condition; then came an astral condition; then an etheric condition, and then came the physical states, first warmth and then air. Even as regards the point of time when, after the six “days” of creation, we are told And the Lord God ... breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, unless we think of man at that moment as consisting only of warmth and air—so long as we believe that a man of flesh and blood was already there—we have not understood our own origin. The coarser is derived from the finer, not the finer from the coarser. It is alien to present-day consciousness to think in this way, but it is the truth.

When we have grasped this, then we shall understand why it is that in so many accounts of the creation the incarnation of man is represented as a descent from the periphery of the earth. When the Bible itself, after the “days” of creation, speaks of Paradise we must look for the deeper meaning behind this, and only Spiritual Science will enable us to understand the truth. To anyone who knows the truth, it is really very odd that the commentators should have argued as to whether Paradise was situated on earth at this spot or that from which mankind spread abroad. It is only too clear in many accounts of creation—including the one in the Bible—that Paradise was not situated upon earthly soil, that it was lifted above the earth, was so to say in the heights of the clouds, and that while man lived in Paradise he remained a being of warmth and air. At that time man did not actually walk about the earth on two legs; that is a materialistic fantasy. Thus even after the end of the “days” of creation, we have to think of man as a being belonging not to the ground, but to the periphery of the earth.

How then was he brought down to the surface of the earth? How did the further densification from the condition into which Jahve-Elohim had placed him come about? Here we come to something described pretty fully in my Occult Science; we come to what we call the Luciferic influence. To express more precisely what we mean by this, we must imagine that the Beings whom we have described as Luciferic practically poured themselves into the human astral body, so that after man had been built up through all the forces we have hitherto described, he received into himself the Luciferic influence. We shall understand what this means if we say that man's life of wish, of desire, everything anchored in the astral body, became permeated with the Luciferic element, hence became more violent, more passionate, more urged by greed, more self-centred; in short what we today call egotism, the inclination to be self-absorbed and self-isolated, the preoccupation with securing one's own inner comfort—all that entered into man with the Luciferic influence. Everything good or bad which can be classed as a permeation by inner comfort or satisfaction entered into man with the Luciferic influence. It was, to begin with, an alien influence. Out of the astral body as it had been hitherto, as it had been formed by the currents which streamed into it, another astral body now came into existence, one permeated by the Luciferic influence. The result was that the body of warmth and air contracted, condensed further. It was only then that the man of flesh came into being. It was only then that this further densification occurred. The man of pre-Luciferic times was to be found in the elementary existence of warmth and air; the Luciferic influence insinuated itself into the fluid and solid part of man, it lives in all that is solid and liquid. It is not at all a figure of speech, but literally describes the situation when I say that through the contraction of the human body brought about by the Luciferic influence man became heavier, sank down out of the periphery to the surface of the earth. That was the expulsion from Paradise. Man acquired for the first time the force of gravity. It was the Luciferic influence which brought him down to earth, whereas he had hitherto dwelt in its periphery. Thus the Luciferic influence has to be reckoned among the real formative forces of man.

We find then a remarkable parallelism between descriptions derived solely from spiritual investigation and those in the Bible. Notice nevertheless how in my Occult Science I deliberately kept out all the things that would have occurred to one so easily if one had wanted to introduce anything out of the Genesis account. In the description given in Occult Science I was careful to guard against that. I relied solely upon spiritual investigation. Now in a certain passage of that book we come to a description of the Luciferic influence given from quite a different aspect. But when we have come to that, we have reached the very period of time which is described in the Bible as man's temptation by the serpent, by Lucifer. We discover the parallel subsequently. Just as gravity, electricity and magnetism are forces which in a coarser way play their part today in the formation of our earth, so also the development of the earth could not have gone forward without the Luciferic influence. We have to reckon it as one of the essential earth-building forces. Hence oriental accounts of the creation, though not with such delicacy as that of the Bible, have also placed Paradise in the periphery of the earth and not on the earth's surface, and they conceive of the expulsion from Paradise as a descent from the periphery to the earth itself. Here also, if we know how to interpret what is said, we find complete agreement between spiritual investigation and the Bible.

But now let us consider yet another event. We have stressed the point that things are not so easy for the spiritual investigator as they are for the sort of science which works on the rough principle that “in the night all cows are grey,” and traces back the most varied events to the same cause. The spiritual investigator has to see in cloud formation something quite different from the formation of water on the surface of the earth. We have spoken of the Cherubim as the directing powers in cloud formation, and of the Seraphim as the directing powers in the lightning flash that issues from the clouds. If now we look upon the expulsion from Paradise as really referring to a descent from the periphery, we are describing almost word for word how man fell through his own weight, and how he had to leave behind him the forces and the Beings who form the clouds and the lightning—the Cherubim with the flaming sword. Man falls from the earth's periphery, out of the region where the Cherubim hold sway with their fiery swords of lightning. There we have a spiritual scientific version that confirms almost word for word the account of the expulsion from Paradise according to which the Godhead placed the Cherubim with the flame of the whirling sword before the gate of Paradise. When you realise this it becomes almost palpable that those ancient seers who gave us Genesis gazed with full powers of seership into the life of man weaving in the etheric heights, before he fell from the regions where the Seraphim and the Cherubim hold sway. So realistic are the Bible descriptions! They are not just similes or crude symbolism; they are the direct findings of clairvoyant consciousness.

Men today misunderstand the conceptions of ancient times. The Bible is criticised on all hands as if it were naively saying: “Paradise was a large garden planted with beautiful trees; lions and tigers roamed about, mingling with the human beings.” Well, it is easy to criticise, and one flippant critic has gone so far as to ask what would have happened to a man who was naive enough to stretch out his hand to one of these lions. If someone first invents a fantastic picture of something never intended by Genesis, it is easy to criticise it. This kind of outlook has only arisen in recent centuries. A Schoolman of the twelfth century would be astonished, if he could come back, to hear what he himself is supposed to have said about the Bible. It would never have occurred to a Schoolman to have such notions about the Bible as are prevalent today. Men could soon find this out if they really wanted to learn. If we studied Scholasticism properly we should soon see, what is clearly expressed in its writings, that it had an entirely different outlook. Even if there was no longer any consciousness that the Bible is a record of clairvoyant investigation, there was nevertheless still something very different from the materialistic and crude exegesis that came in with the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It would never have occurred to anyone in the early centuries of the Middle Ages to think like that. Today it is very easy to criticise the Bible, as long as one ignores the fact that the ideas under attack were only born a few centuries ago. Those who inveigh against the Bible the most vehemently are fighting a fantastic invention of the human mind, not the Bible; they are shadow-boxing. It is the task of Spiritual Science, by communicating its findings, to point once more to the true meaning of the Bible, and so clear the way for the tremendous impact it should make upon our souls when we learn to understand what resounds to us so impressively from ancient times.

• 1. In the English Authorised Version the word “Adam” does not appear until Ch. II, v.19—but in Hebrew the same word is used for “man” (as in Ch. I, v.26, onwards).

Again and again in these lectures we have been able to show how the Genesis account, rightly interpreted, has corroborated the findings of clairvoyant investigation. There remain a number of points still to clear up in this regard. The first thing will be to show with still greater precision the point of time at which the Genesis account falls in terms of spiritual scientific findings as to the evolution of our earth. I have already said that I put the beginning of Genesis at the time when the sun and the earth were about to separate, but we shall have to go more closely into this.

Those of you who have heard some of my earlier lectures, and also those who have studied the description of earth evolution in my Occult Science, will remember what great importance I attached to two significant moments in this evolution. The first was the separation of the sun from the earth. This was a very important event. It had to take place at some time, for had the two cosmic bodies remained united, as in the first stage of earth existence, the course of human evolution could not have given to man his true earthly meaning. All that we include in the word “sun”—thus not only the elementary or physical constituents in the body of the sun, but also the spiritual Beings who belong to it—had to withdraw from the earth, or, if you prefer, had to extrude the earth, because, had those Beings remained united with it, their forces would have worked too strongly for man's welfare. They had to mitigate their forces by removing themselves from the terrestrial scene and working upon it from without. We are therefore concerned with a point of time when a number of Beings transfer the scene of their operations to a distance, so as to moderate their influence on the development of both man and animal. From a certain point of time the earth is left to itself, and, because its finer, more spiritual forces have withdrawn with the sun, undergoes a certain coarsening. But man, such as he has become through the Saturn, Sun and Moon evolutions, still remained for a time with the earth. It was only very exalted Beings who withdrew with the sun and found their scene of activity outside.

After this separation, the earth still had within it all the substances and forces which go to make up the present moon. Man therefore was exposed to conditions which were much grosser than earth conditions proper later became, for the substance of the moon is very crass, as it were. One result was that, after the separation of the sun from the earth, the earth forces became ever more moonlike, ever denser. Another, that man himself was now exposed to the danger of wilting away, of becoming mummified, or at any rate of becoming mummified astrally. While, so long as the sun remained with the earth, conditions had been too fine, they now became too coarse. Consequently, as the development of the earth proceeded, man could thrive less and less by maintaining his connection with it. This is described in detail in my Occult Science.

We know from yesterday's lecture that men were still psycho-spiritual beings at this time, but that they were unable to unite with the earth on account of the density of the matter which streamed from the earth into its periphery so long as the moon remained with it. So it came about that the great majority of human souls had to relinquish their union with the earth. Here we come to something of great importance in the relationship between man and earth, something which happened during the time between the separation of the sun and that of the moon. During this interval human soul-spirits, except for a very small number, abandoned earthly conditions, and pressing upward into higher regions, continued their evolution upon the several planets belonging to our solar system, each according to the stage of his development. Some souls were fitted to pursue their evolution on Saturn, others on Mars, others again on Mercury, and so on. Only a very small number of the strongest soul-spirits remained in union with the earth. During this time the rest dwelt upon the earth's planetary neighbours. This came about at a time preceding (to use our own terminology) the Lemurian age.

Then came that other important event, which took place as we know during the Lemurian time, whereby the moon with all its matter and all its forces was itself withdrawn from the earth. This brought about great changes in the earth, which now for the first time came into a condition in which the human being could thrive. Whereas the earth's forces would have been too spiritual had it remained united with the sun, they would have become too coarse had it remained with the moon. Hence the moon too withdrew, and both sun and moon Beings then worked upon the earth from without, thereby bringing it into a state of balance. And in this way the earth prepared itself to become the bearer of human existence. This all happened during the Lemurian age.

Evolution now makes a further advance, and little by little the human soul-spirits who had escaped to the planets begin to return again. That went on far into the Atlantean epoch. What had crystallised out as man during the latter part of Lemuria and during Atlantis was gradually endowed with soul-spirits of differing characteristics, according to whether they came from Mars, or Mercury, or Jupiter and so on. This brought about great variety in earthly incarnations. Those of you who are familiar with the lectures I gave recently in Christiania know that this division of men into Mars-men, Saturn-men and so on was the origin of what later became racial differentiation. It is still possible today for the seer to recognise whether a man's soul has descended from this or that planet.

But it has also been emphasised—and it has been fully discussed in my Occult Science—that by no means all human souls abandoned the earth. What we might describe as the toughest souls were able to go on using earthly matter, and to remain with the earth. I have even mentioned the startling circumstance that there was an outstanding pair of humans who survived the densification of the earth. Spiritual investigation impels us to accept what to begin with seems incredible—that there was such a couple as Adam and Eve, and that the races which arose out of the return of souls from the cosmos came about through their union with the descendants of that pair.

If we bear all this in mind we shall be able to come to a conclusion as to the point of time in our spiritual scientific chronology to which the Bible account refers. Let me remind you that after the six or seven “days” of creation have been described, there comes what the superficial approach of modern biblical criticism takes for a second, separate account of creation; really it is quite consistent with the first. I have often described how during the progress of earthly evolution from the Lemurian to the Atlantean age a kind of cooling down of the earth took place. I went into this in detail in my Occult Science. During Lemuria we must think of the earth as a fundamentally fiery body, as having the element of fire spurting in it; the cooling-down process only began with the transition to Atlantis. During the Atlantean age the surface of the earth was still very different from what it became later; far on into the Atlantean age the surrounding atmosphere was still not water-free. The earth was completely covered with volumes of watery mist. The separation between rain and rain-free air which we have today did not exist in those ancient times. Everything was shrouded in watery mist, laden with all kinds of smoky fumes and other matter which had not at that time assumed liquid form. Much which today is solid at that time still permeated the atmosphere in the form of steam. And far on into Atlantis everything was permeated by those volumes of watery mist.

But that was the very period when what had previously existed in a much more spiritual condition began to take on physical form. In the condition described as the third “day” of creation we must not think that the forms of individual plants, as we know them today, sprouted from the earth, but we must give full weight to the phrase “after his kind,” that is, in species form; the reference is rather to the group-souls of the plants which were present in the earth in an etheric-astral state. What was described on the third “day” as the creation of the plants would not have been visible to external senses, it would only have been seen by clairvoyant organs of perception. It was during the time lasting from the end of Lemuria right on into Atlantis, the time when a state of mist developed in the periphery of the earth, and then gradually grew lighter, that what previously had been etheric became transformed into a condition somewhat resembling what we know today. The etheric became more and more physical. Strange as it may sound, the plant kingdom visible to the external eye did not develop until much later than the time indicated in the account of the third “day” of creation. It did not come about until the time of Atlantis. The geological conditions necessary for the development of the visible plants of today cannot be ascribed to a very early period.

The course of events from the end of Lemuria right on into the Atlantean time can be summarised as follows. The earth was enveloped in dense volumes of mist, charged with clouds of the smoke of various substances, later to be transformed into the crust of the earth. The beings “according to their kind,” visible to clairvoyant consciousness, had not yet been brought to physical densification; and the fertilising of the earth's soil with what still hovered in the atmosphere as water had not yet taken place; that only happened later. How could the Bible give this expression? It would have to say at a certain point: “Even after the conclusion of the seven days of creation, after the completion of what took place during Lemuria, still none of the plants we know today sprouted forth from the earth, the earth was still covered in mist.”

The Bible does in fact say this. If you read on, after the description of the seven days, you find it mentioned that there were still no herbs, no shrubs, on the earth, although it had been said earlier that the forms of the plants had arisen in species form. On the first occasion the reference was to something of a group-soul nature, the second time to something which sprang forth from the earth as vegetation in individual physical form. And the Atlantean mist is described as in fact it was after the “days” of creation. The words For the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth indicate that the condensation of the water in the atmosphere to rain only came about after the “days” of creation.

Thus we find a profound wisdom here. But I can assure you that nothing from this document influenced the description given in my Occult Science. I purposely refrained from consulting the Bible, and I might say that there were times when I tried hard to reach results which differed from those of this ancient tradition. Modern materialistic ideas of the Bible make it inevitable that one should not readily read into it any of the facts of Spiritual Science. But Spiritual Science itself constrained us to find in the Bible what we have ventured to say in these lectures, and our own reluctance notwithstanding, we have at last been obliged to recognise in the Bible what spiritual investigation had previously discovered.

Having made our position clear, we may now go on to ask where in the Genesis account we have to place the departure of human souls to the neighbouring planetary bodies, or planetary Beings, brought about by the hardening condition of the earth. We must put it at the point where it says that through the formation of the sound-ether the upper substances are separated from the lower. I went into that fully in my description of the second “day.” And when one follows it all with the eye of the seer one realises that along with what withdrew from the earth, which the Elohim called “heaven,” there withdrew at the same time the human souls. So it is the second “day” of creation which corresponds with the withdrawal of the human soul-spirits into the periphery of the earth at a definite time between the withdrawal of the sun and that of the moon.

But we must bear in mind that there is an important corollary to this. What was it exactly that went out into the cosmos at that time? In which member of man have we to look for it today? Of course it does not exist today as it was at that time, but we can nevertheless find something corresponding to it in certain members of our present human organisation. Let us look at the human being for a moment. Today we distinguish in him four members, the physical, etheric and astral bodies and the bearer of the ego. We know that the physical and etheric bodies during sleep remain in the bed. When we are concerned with those ancient times which are described in the second and on into the third “day” of creation, we cannot speak of physical and etheric bodies as we know them today. These were only formed later out of earthly substance. All there was of the human being at that time belonged to the part of man which today withdraws in sleep from the other human members (grown denser since that time); it belonged to the astral being of man. It is the forces working in the astral body that we must have in mind, when we contemplate the human soul-spirit which at that time took leave of the earth in order to thrive better upon the surrounding planets. It is those forces we have when with our astral body we are outside our physical and etheric bodies, which we have to look for on the surrounding planets after the second “day.”

We know, however, that when today man in the state of sleep is with his finer members outside his physical and etheric bodies, he is so to say articulated into the astral environment of our earth, into the forces and influences of the members of our planetary system. Man is then united with the planetary Beings. But in those far-away times man was not only united with the planets in some kind of sleep, but after his flight from the earth he was united with them all the time. Thus we have to bear in mind that during the third “day” of creation human souls—with the exception of those I have mentioned who stayed behind—were not on the earth, but in the region of the planets; there they had settled and there they developed further. But meanwhile, on the earth, those who, as the strongest, the toughest, had remained behind were developing. And their evolution consisted in clothing themselves more and more with earthly matter, so that there below on the earth, what we now have during the day as our physical and etheric bodies was being prepared. It was in order that these etheric and physical bodies should be able to play their part in every phase of earth development that some souls were preserved on the earth. By that means the etheric and physical bodies which were in course of preparation were propagated even while the moon forces were still united with the earth.

If we bring before our souls a true picture of the state of things after the withdrawal of the sun, we have to say that for the most part what is of a soul-spiritual nature in man is on the neighbouring planets in the circumference of the earth. The sun had already departed, but if at that time a man had been able to stand upon the earth, he would have seen dense formations of misty, smoky and steaming cloud upon its surface. No trace of sun was to be seen. The sun with its forces was far away, and only little by little began to take effect on earth by causing this volume of smoky mist gradually to lighten, and to assume in the circumference of the earth the form which the development of humanity needed. And if a man had been able to look upon evolution from without, he would have seen that it was only very gradually that the fog and the smoke lifted and that the forces of the sun began, not only to act through the dark envelope of smoke, but truly to make themselves perceptible. Or let us say that we are coming to the fourth “day” of creation, and getting near to the event we call the separation of the moon. Had a man been living on the earth at that time, he would have seen the rays of the sun piercing through the masses of smoke and steam. And while this was happening the earth gradually came into a state favourable to human incarnation, a state in which human beings could once more live. From the physical descendants of those who had remained with the earth throughout, bodies could now be produced for the soul-spirits who were returning from the periphery of the earth.

Thus we have two kinds of propagation. What later became the human physical and etheric body derives from those who remained on earth. The soul-spiritual element comes into it from the periphery. To begin with this approach from the neighbourhood of the planets was a spiritual influx. At the moment when the sun had penetrated the clouds of steam and smoke, after the moon had left it, the desire awoke in the soul-spirits of the neighbouring planets to come down again into this earthly region. When from the earth the sun became visible on the one hand and the moon on the other, the urge to descend to the earth grew more pressing in these souls. That is the reality lying behind the words used in describing the fourth “day” of creation: And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. For by the stars are meant the planets surrounding the earth. Thus the deed which brought about a kind of balance was produced on the one hand by the sun and on the other by the moon, and at the same time the human souls who wanted to incarnate on the earth prepared for their descent.

This places the fourth “day” of creation at a point in the Lemurian age, after the exit of the moon, when those conditions come about which you find described in my Occult Science, and which you can summarise in the words: “The human soul-spirits are pressing back to earth again.”

But now we must turn our attention for a little to the accompanying spiritual conditions. What we have just been considering is what afterwards became physical. We must become ever clearer that always behind the coarser lies a finer, and behind the physical lies a spiritual. With the exit of the sun the Elohim withdrew, transferring their scene of action to the exterior, so that they could work towards the earth from the periphery. But not all of them went. A part of the Elohim remained united with the earth, even while the earth still had the moon forces within it. And that part of the spiritual forces of the Elohim which remained united with the earth is in a certain way connected with all the good effects of the moon forces. For we must speak of good moon influences too. After the separation of the sun, everything on earth, human beings especially, would have been constrained towards a state of mummification, a hardened, woody condition. The human being would have been lost to the earth. The earth would have become a desert waste if it had retained the moon forces within its body. Within the earth the moon forces could never have been beneficial. Why was it that they had nevertheless to remain along with the earth for a time? Because humanity had to endure every phase of the earth's condition, because its toughest representatives had to survive the moon-densification. But then, after the moon had left the earth, its forces, which otherwise would have led to the death of the earth, became beneficial. After the withdrawal of the moon forces everything revived again, so that even weaker souls were able to descend and incarnate in human bodies. Thus by becoming her neighbour, the moon became earth's benefactor—which from within the earth it never could have been. The Beings who guided this whole series of events are the great benefactors of man. Who were they? They were the very Beings who had just united themselves with the moon, who then wrested the moon from the earth, in order to guide men further in earth evolution. We know from the Genesis account that the leading Guiding Powers were the Elohim. And the forces which brought about the mighty event of the moon's withdrawal and thereby enabled man to assume his proper nature were none other than the very forces which brought about the cosmic advancement of the Elohim to Jahve-Elohim. Part of the Elohim forces remained united with the moon and then withdrew it from our earth. Thus Jahve-Elohim is intimately bound up with what we find in creation as the body of the moon.

Now let us picture to ourselves more closely what all this really signified for man in his earthly incarnation. If man had remained tied to an earth which had the sun within it, then he would have become a mere cipher, fettered to the Elohim; he would not have been able to sever himself, and attain to independent being. But because the Elohim withdrew with the sun, man was enabled to remain with the earth and to preserve his own soul-spiritual life. If it had stopped there, however, man would have become hardened, he would have met his death. Why had man to come into a condition which provided even the possibility of his death? In order that he might become free, in order that he might cut himself off from the Elohim, in order that he might become an independent being. In the moon element man has something within him which really leads to decay, to death, and he would have received too big a dose of this element, had the moon not withdrawn. But you see how it all follows that it is this moon element which, as cosmic substance, is closely connected with human independence.

Present conditions on earth were brought about after the separation of the moon. The influence of the moon is thus not so strong now as it once was. But as far as the foundations of his physical and etheric bodies are concerned, man lived through the moon period too, he lived through the time when the earth was united with the moon, and therefore he has within him something of what is up there on the moon. He has preserved it in his physical and etheric bodies ever since. Thus man has the moon element within him. The earth could not have supported this moon element within it, but man has it in a certain way within him. Thus he has the disposition to be something other than a mere earth being.

As men we have the earth under us; the moon had to be cast out of the earth, but not until the right dose of its nature had been injected into man himself. The earth contains no trace of moon in it; it is we who bear that within ourselves. What would have become of the earth if the moon had not been wrested from it? Look at the moon for once with rather different eyes. The whole constitution of its matter is different from that of the earth. The astro-physicist speaking from the material aspect says that the moon has no air, scarcely any water, which means that it is far denser than the earth. It therefore contains forces which would lead the earth beyond the degree of hardness which earth actually has. These moon forces would make the earth physically harder, more fissured. To get a picture of what the earth would become if the moon forces were still in it, think of a very wet, muddy road becoming dustier and dustier as the water in it evaporates. You can see the whole process happening when after a fall of rain the mud in the street gradually turns to dust. Something like that would have happened to the earth if the moon forces had remained within it—it would have cracked and crumbled into lumps of dust. Something like that will happen to the earth one day, when it has fulfilled its task—it will crumble into cosmic dust. Earthly matter will be dissolved in cosmic space as cosmic dust when man has passed through his evolution upon it. Thus we can say that the earth would have become dust, it had the tendency to become dust, to crumble into particles of dust. It has only been saved from doing so already by the withdrawal of the moon.

But in man something has remained of this disposition towards dust. Through all the circumstances which I have described to you man receives into his being something of moony earth-dust. Those Beings connected with the moon have actually introduced into the human bodily nature something not derived from the earth which we have in our environment since the withdrawal of the moon; there has been imprinted into the human body something of the moon-earth-dust. But since Jahve-Elohim is united with this moon-nature, it means that it is Jahve-Elohim who has imprinted this moon-earth-dust into the human body. So there must have been a point in the course of earth evolution when it would be correct to say that in the cosmic progress of the Elohim Jahve-Elohim imprinted into the human body the earth-dust, the moon-earth-dust. These are the depths beneath that passage in the Bible which says that Jahve-Elohim formed man of the dust of the earth. For that is what it says. None of the translations which convey that Jahve-Elohim formed man out of “a clod of earth” make any sense. Jahve-Elohim imprinted into man the earth-dust.¹

Not a few of the startling discoveries we have already made have filled us with awestruck veneration in face of the revelations uttered in the Bible by the ancient seers and rediscovered in our own day be spiritual scientific research. But here, in the words “And Jahve-Elohim imprinted in man's bodily nature the moon-earth-dust,” the tale told by the clairvoyant authors of the Genesis narrative may well inspire in us a sensation of almost overwhelming reverence. And if those ancient seers were aware how the tidings which made them vocal came to them out of the realm wherein the Elohim, and Jahve-Elohim, were active—if they knew themselves to be receiving their wisdom from the very region of the World-creators—then they could say: “There is streaming into us as knowledge, as wisdom, as intelligence, the very Same that once worked within those Beings, giving shape to the earth itself in the beginning.”

Therefore we can look up in holy awe to those ancient seers, who themselves looked up into the regions whence their inspiration descended, into the realm of the Elohim and of Jahve-Elohim. By what name could they have called those Beings, who underpinned alike the creation itself and their own knowledge of it?

What sort of word could they have had for them—unless it were one which filled their whole hearts in the moment of receiving this revelation of the world-creative powers? Looking up to these, they said to themselves: “Our revelation flows down into us from divine-spiritual Beings. We can find no word for those Beings, save only that one which expresses the holy awe we feel. ‘They that beget the holy awe we feel.’” If we translate that into ancient Hebrew how does it run? “They that beget the holy awe we feel”—it has the ring of Elohim—the Hebrew word for those before whom man feels a holy awe. And in such a way we may approach the link which is to be found between the feelings and perceptions of the ancient seers and the name of those Beings to whom they attributed the creation and also their own power of revealing the creation.

• 1. The English Authorised Version says: And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground.

From all that has been said in the last few days, and especially from what was said yesterday, you will have gathered at about what time we have placed the Genesis story. In fact we have pointed out that the first momentous words of the Bible mark the moment when we should say in terms of Spiritual Science that the substance constituting the earth and sun, hitherto one body, makes ready to separate. Then follows the separation, and during its course what is described in the opening verses takes place. The biblical description of the creation then goes on to cover all that happens until far on into the Lemurian age, right up to the separation of the moon. What has been described by Spiritual Science as coming after the withdrawal of the moon, that is, at the end of Lemuria and in the beginning of Atlantis, took place after the “days” of creation. We pointed that out yesterday. We also pointed out the deep significance of the statement that man received in his body the imprint of the earth-moon-dust. This coincided with the cosmic event which we have called the advancement of the Elohim to become JahveElohim. We had to think of this advance as more or less coinciding with the beginning of the moon's activity from outside. Thus we must think of the process of the moon's separation, and its activity from without, as associated with that Being who represents the Elohim as one undivided entity, with Him whom we call Jahve-Elohim. The first phase of the action of the moon upon the earth coincides with the imprinting of the earth-moon material into the human body. The human body, which hitherto had consisted solely of warmth, was now endowed with something expressed as follows: And the Lord God ... breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul—or, let us say, a living being.

We must not fail once again to notice the aptness, the grandeur, the power of the biblical words! I have impressed upon you that the proper earthly incarnation of man depended upon his being able to wait in his spiritual nature in spiritual surroundings until suitable conditions were present in the earth itself; so that it was his late assumption of his bodily nature which enabled him to become a mature being. Had he come down into his body earlier, let us say, during the events of the fifth “day,” he could only have become a being resembling physically the beings of the air and of the water. How does Genesis describe the being of man? Wonderfully! The passage is a model of accurate and appropriate wording. We are told that the group-souls who descended into earthly matter on the fifth “day” became living creatures—became what we today call living creatures. Man did not descend at that time. The group-souls who still remained above in the great reservoir of the spirit did not descend until later. And even on the sixth “day” it was the animals nearest to man, the earth-animals proper, which came down first. Thus man was not able to descend into solid matter even during the first part of the sixth “day,” for if he had imprinted the earth-forces into himself at that time he would have become a creature physically resembling the animals. The group-souls of the higher animals descended first and populated the earth, as distinct from the air and the sea. Only after that, little by little, came about conditions favourable to the formation of the prototype of humanity.

How was it achieved? It is conveyed to us in memorable words when we are told that the Elohim set about combining their activities in order to make man after the image I have described to you. This earth-man arose because the Elohim, each with his different capacity, worked together as a group to achieve a common purpose. Man began by being the common purpose of the Elohim as a group.

We must try to get a closer idea of what man was like on the sixth “day.” He was not yet as he is today. The physical body which we find in man today only came later with the inbreathing by Jahve of the breath of life. The event which is described as the creation of man by the Elohim took place before the earth-dust had been imprinted into his bodily nature. What was he like—this man brought into existence by the Elohim, still in the Lemurian age?

Remember what I have often said about the character and nature of the man of today. It is only as regards his higher members that their physical humanity is the same in all men. As regards their sex we must distinguish. The male has a feminine etheric body, and the female a masculine etheric body. How did it come about? This differentiation, this separation into male and female, came about relatively late, after the “days” of creation. There was no such differentiation in the human being who arose on the sixth “day” as the common purpose of the Elohim. At that time all human beings had a bodily nature in common. We can best describe it (so far as representation is possible at all) by saying that the physical body was more etheric and the etheric body somewhat denser than is the case today. A differentiation between physical and etheric, a densification on the side of the physical, only occurred later under the influence of Jahve-Elohim. You will appreciate that we cannot speak of the human creation of the Elohim as separately male and female in the sense of today; the Elohim-man was at the same time both male and female, undifferentiated. Thus man, in the sense expressed by the Elohim in the words Let us make man, was still undifferentiated, still male and female at the same time. Through this deed of the Elohim the bisexual man was created. That is the meaning of the words translated male and female created he them. The words do not refer to man and woman in the sense of today, but to the undifferentiated man, the male-female man.

I am well aware that countless biblical commentators have objected to this interpretation and have sought to throw ridicule on what earlier distinguished commentators have maintained—which is nevertheless the truth. They take exception to the view that the Elohim-man was male-female, and that therefore the male-female is what was made in the image of the Elohim. I should like to ask such commentators on what they base their view. It cannot be upon clairvoyant investigation, for that will never give anything other than what I am saying. If it is upon external investigation, I should like to ask them how, in face of tradition, they justify any other interpretation. At least people ought to be told what the biblical tradition is. When through clairvoyant investigation one first discovers the true facts, then life and light breaks into the text, and minor discrepancies in the tradition no longer matter, because knowledge of the truth enables one to read the text correctly. But it is very different if one approaches the matter from the point of view of philology. One must nevertheless understand clearly that, even as late as the early centuries of the Christian era, there was nothing in the first chapters of the Bible to mislead anyone into reading the text as it is read today. There were no vowels at all, and the text was in such a condition that even the division into separate words had yet to be made. The dots which in Hebrew signify the vowels were only inserted later. Without the preparation which Spiritual Science gives, what claim has anyone to offer an interpretation of the original text, of which he can say conscientiously, and with scholarship, that it is reliable?

Thus in the Elohim-creation we have man at a preparatory stage. All the processes which are included in a term such as “human propagation” were at that time more etheric, more spiritual. They remained at a higher level. It was the deed of Jahve-Elohim which first made man into what he has become today. That had to be preceded by the creation in due order of other, lower beings. Thus the animals became living creatures by what one might almost call a premature act of creation. The same expression nephesch, living creature, is applied to these animals as is ultimately applied to man. But how is it applied to man? At the moment when Jahve-Elohim intervenes and makes man into the man of today, it is said that Jahve-Elohim imprints n'schamah. It is through having a higher member implanted into him that man himself becomes a living being.

Note what a very fruitful concept the Bible, of all books, introduces into the theory of evolution! Of course it would be foolish not to recognise that, as regards his external form, man belongs to the highest stage of the animal kingdom. This small concession may be made to Darwinism. But the essential thing is that man did not become a living being in the same way as the other, lower beings, whose nature is described as nephesch; man was first endowed with a higher member of his being, a previously prepared soul-spiritual element.

Here we come to another parallel between the ancient Hebrew doctrine and our own Spiritual Science. When we speak of the human soul, we distinguish between sentient soul, intellectual soul and consciousness soul. We know that these first arose in their soul-spiritual form during the first three “days” of creation. It was then that their characteristic tendencies were formed. But this inner soul-nature was not clothed in physical form, was not, so to say, impressed into a physical body until much later. Thus we have to understand that first there arises the spiritual, that this spiritual is then invested with the astral and then gradually condenses into the etheric-physical; it is only then that what was previously spiritual is imprinted into the body as the breath of life. Thus what was implanted as a seed into the human being by Jahve-Elohim had already been prepared earlier. It was there in the womb of the Elohim. Now it is imprinted into man, whose bodily nature had been built up from another direction. Thus it is something which enters into man from without. This impress of n'schamah first made it possible to implant in man the predisposition to, the rudiments of, the ego nature. For these old Hebrew expressions nephesch, ruach, n'schamah correspond to our spiritual scientific terms sentient soul, intellectual soul and consciousness soul respectively.

Thus this further evolution is very complicated. We must think of all that happened on the six “days” of creation, that is to say, we must think of the work of the Elohim before they advanced to Jahve-Elohim, as having taken place in higher, spiritual realms; and what we can see today in the world as physical man first came about through the deed of Jahve-Elohim.

Of all this which we find in the Bible—and again now in clairvoyant perception—and which first enables us to understand the inner nature of man, the Greek philosophers still had a consciousness derived from their various initiation centres—Plato especially, but even Aristotle still knew something of it. Anyone familiar with the works of Plato and Aristotle knows that in Aristotle there was still an awareness that man first became a living being through the introduction of a higher soul-spiritual member, whereas the lower animals went through different evolutionary processes. Aristotle expressed it somewhat as follows. He says that the lower animals became what they were through other processes of evolution; but that at the time when the forces which are active in the animal were able to become effective, the human soul-spiritual being, which still hovered in higher regions, was not yet allowed to acquire an earthly body, otherwise it would have remained at the animal stage. The human being had to wait; in him the lower, the animal stages, had to be ousted from their sovereignty through the implanting of the human member. To express this Aristotle made use of the word φθειρεσθαι (phtheiresthai). By this he meant to say, “Of course, superficially speaking, man has the same bodily functions as the animal, but in the animal these functions are supreme, whereas in man the bodily functions have been dethroned and have to follow a higher principle.” That is the meaning of the word φθειρεσθαι.

The same truth lies behind the biblical story of the creation. Through the implanting of n'schamah the lower members were dethroned. In the bearer of his ego man has acquired a higher member. But his earlier, more etheric nature was thereby brought down a stage and became differentiated. Man acquired an external, bodily member, and an inner, more etheric member; the one became denser and the other more rarefied. The principle was repeated in man which we have come to recognise as running through the whole of evolution. We saw how warmth condensed to air and rarefied to light, how air condensed to water and rarefied into sound-ether and so on. The same process takes place in man at higher levels. The male-female becomes differentiated into man and woman, and moreover in such a way that the denser physical body appears on the outside, the more rarefied, etheric, invisible body goes inwards. We could also call this the progress from Elohim-man to man the creation of Jahve-Elohim. The man we know today is the creation of JahveElohim, and the sixth “day” of creation corresponds with the Lemurian age, in which we speak of the male-female human being.

Now the Bible speaks of yet a seventh “day” of creation, and we are told that on this seventh “day” the Elohim rested. What does that actually mean? We only understand it aright if we realise that this is the very time when the Elohim rise, when they experience their promotion to become Jahve-Elohim. But we must not conceive Jahve-Elohim as the entire hierarchy of the Elohim united; we must understand that the Elohim give up, so to speak, only a part of their Being to the moon-Being, and hold the rest in reserve; and that in this older part of their Being they continue their own further evolution. So far as this part of them is concerned, their work is no longer devoted to the creation of man. That part of the Elohim which has become Jahve-Elohim continues to work on man. The other part does not work directly upon the earth, it devotes itself to its own evolution. That is what is meant by rest from earthly work, by the Sabbath day, by the seventh “day” of creation.

And now we must call attention to something else of importance. If everything that I have just been saying is correct, then we must regard the Jahve-man, the man into whom Jahve impressed his own Being, as the direct successor of the more etheric, more delicate man who was formed on the sixth “day.” Thus there is a direct line from the more etheric man, who is still male-female—from the bi-sexual man—to the physical man. Physical man is the descendant, in a densified form, of the etheric man. If one wanted to describe the Jahve-man who passes over into Atlantis, one would have to say: “And the man who was formed by the Elohim on the sixth ‘day' of creation developed further into the unisexual man, the Jahve-man.” Those who followed after the seven “days” of creation are the descendants of the Elohim-men, and thus of what came into being during the first six “days.”

Again the Bible is sublime when, in the second chapter, it tells us that the Jahve-man is in fact a descendant of the heavenly man, the man who was formed by the Elohim on the sixth “day.” The Jahve-man is the descendant of the Elohim-man in precisely the same way as the son is the descendant of the father. The Bible tells us this in the fourth verse of the second chapter, which says “Those who are to follow are the descendants, the subsequent generations, of the heavenly man.” That is what it really says. But if you take a modern translation, you find the remarkable sentence: These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens. Usually we find the whole hierarchy of the Elohim called “God,” and Jahve-Elohim called “the Lord God”—the Lord God made the earth and the heavens. I ask you to look at this sentence carefully and try honestly to find a reasonable meaning for it. Anyone who claims to do so had better not look on ahead in his Bible, for the word used here is tol'doth, which means “subsequent generations”; and the same word is used in the later chapter which tells of the subsequent generations of Noah. Thus here it is speaking of the Jahve-men as the descendants, the subsequent generations, of the heavenly Beings, in the same way as there it speaks of the descendants of Noah. Thus this passage must be translated something like this: “In what follows we are speaking of the descendants of the heaven-and-earth beings who were created by the Elohim and further developed by Jahve-Elohim.” Thus the Bible too looks upon the Jahve-men as the descendants of the Elohim-men. Anyone who wants to presuppose a fresh account of the creation, because it says that God created man, should also look at the fifth chapter, which begins This is the book of the generations (the word used there is the very same as in the other passages—tol'doth), and should assume a third account there—thus making his Rainbow Bible really complete! That way you will get a whole knocked up out of Bible fragments, but will no longer have the Bible. If we could go on longer, we should be able to elucidate what is said in chapter five too.

Thus, when we go deeply into these things, we see that there is full agreement between the biblical account of the creation and what we can establish through Spiritual or Occult Science. This leads us to ask why the Bible account is in a more or less pictorial form. What do these pictures represent? And then we realise that they too are the result of clairvoyant experience. Just as today the eye of the seer gazes in the super-sensible upon the origin of our earth existence, so too did those who originally composed the Bible story gaze upon the super-sensible. It was by clairvoyant experience that the facts originally given to us were acquired. When we set to work to construct prehistory from the point of view of purely physical observation, we start from the traces of it which are extant and discoverable by external means, and the farther back we go in physical life and physical origins the more hazy the physical forms become. But in this misty element spiritual Beings hold sway. And man himself in his spiritual part was originally within them. And if we pursue our study of its origin as far back as the times described in Genesis, we come to the original spiritual condition of our earth itself. The “days” of creation refer to spiritual stages of development, only to be grasped by spiritual investigation. What the Bible is telling us is that the physical is little by little formed out of the spiritual.

When the seer gazes upon the facts which are described for us in Genesis, he finds to begin with only spiritual processes. The physical eye would see absolutely nothing; it would gaze into a void. But, as we have seen, time goes on. Little by little for the seer the solid crystallises out of the spiritual, just as ice is formed out of water and solidifies. Out of the flowing sea of the astral, of the Devachanic, emerges what can now be seen by the physical eye. Thus, as clairvoyant observation proceeds, within the picture which to begin with has to be understood as purely spiritual, the physical emerges like a crystallisation. It follows that at an earlier time physical eyes would not have been able to discover the human being. Right up to the sixth and seventh “days” of creation, that is, right up to our Lemurian age, man could not have been seen by the physical eye; at that time he only existed spiritually. That is the great difference between a true theory of evolution and a fancy one. The fancy one assumes only a physical process of development. But man did not originate by lower beings evolving to human stature. It is utterly absurd to imagine that an animal form can be transformed into the higher, human form. During the time when the animal forms came into being, forming their physical bodies below, man had already long been in existence, but it is only later that he descends and takes his place beside the animal natures which had descended much earlier. Anyone who cannot look upon evolution in this way is beyond help; he is hypnotised as it were by modern concepts, he is influenced, not by natural scientific facts, but by contemporary opinion.

If we want to connect the coming into being of man with that of all other creatures, we must say that first there appear two branches, the birds and the marine animals;¹ then, as a special offshoot, come the land animals; the birds and marine animals came into existence on the fifth “day” of creation, the land animals on the sixth. And then came man, only not by producing the same line further, not as a continuation of the series, but by a descent upon the earth. That is the true theory of evolution, and it is contained more exactly in the Bible than in any modern textbook which surrenders to materialistic fantasy.

These are a few fragmentary remarks such as always seem to be required in the last lecture of a Cycle. To follow up adequately every aspect of such a theme as this would take months; there is so very much in this Genesis story of creation. In our Cycles we can never do more than touch upon things, and that is all I have attempted to do this time. I should like to emphasise once more that it has not been so very easy for me to give this particular course; nor will any of my hearers readily realise how difficult it is to reach the depths upon which the Bible story is based, how hard it is to find the true parallel between already ascertained spiritual scientific facts and the corresponding passages in the Bible. If one works conscientiously, the task is an extraordinarily exacting one. It is so often assumed that the eye of the seer reaches with ease everywhere—that one has only to look, and everything follows of itself. An inexperienced person often thinks, when confronted with a problem, that he will easily be able to solve it, whereas the further he probes the more numerous are the difficulties which present themselves. This is so even in ordinary, external research, and when one leaves the physical and plunges into clairvoyant investigation, then the real difficulties begin to show themselves, and with them the feeling of the great responsibility incurred in speaking of these things at all. Nevertheless I think I may say that I have not made use of a single word in the whole of this Cycle which cannot stand, which is not as far as it goes an adequate expression in our own language of the right way to conceive these things. But it was certainly not easy.

There is much that I could still say. Especially something which has been borne in upon us at every stage during these lectures—and that is the need for anthroposophical teaching so to permeate our hearts as to lift us with all the strength of our inner life to ever higher forms of perception, to an ever larger-hearted comprehension of the world. Whether we become better men in the intellectual, feeling and moral spheres—that is the touchstone for the fruitfulness of what we gather in the spiritual-scientific field. To study the parallel between spiritual-scientific investigation and the Bible can be particularly fruitful; for it enables us to experience how we ourselves are the “primal cause,” the “primal state,” as Jacob Boehme would have said, in that super-sensible spiritual womb whence also came those very Elohim who developed into Jahve-Elohim, into that higher form of evolution, in order to bring about the great goal of their activity, which we call man. Let us comprehend our origin with due reverence, but also with a due sense of our responsibility. The Elohim and Jahve-Elohim gave their highest forces to the beginning of our evolution. Let us look upon this our origin as laying upon us an obligation to absorb into our human nature more and more of the spiritual forces which in the course of subsequent evolution have entered into the development of the earth.

We have spoken of the influence of Lucifer. Because of this influence something which lay in the womb of that spirituality in which man too originated remained there for the time being; it came forth later in the incarnation of the Christ in the body of Jesus of Nazareth. Since that time the Christ has worked in the earth as another divine principle. And contemplation of the great truths of Genesis ought to point us to the duty of taking more and more into our own being the spiritual Being of the Christ; for only by permeating ourselves with the Christ principle shall we be able to fulfil our human task; only so shall we become on the earth more and more what we were predisposed to be in those times with which the biblical story of creation is concerned.

Thus such a series of lectures as this can not only give us knowledge, but can stir forces in our souls. Even if we forget much of its detail, may what we have learnt through a closer examination of the biblical story of creation go on working as power in our souls. I may perhaps be allowed to say this at the close of these lectures, during which we have tried to immerse ourselves in our anthroposophical life. Let us try to take with us the strength which should flow from this teaching. Let us carry it away with us, let us fructify our outside life with this strength. Whatever we may be doing, in whatever worldly profession we may be engaged, this strength can warm and ripen our creative activity as well as intensify our joy, our happiness. No one who has rightly grasped the sublime origin of human existence can go on living without taking this knowledge as a germinal force of blessing and joy for the rest of his life. When you try to carry out deeds of love, let the truth about the mighty origin of men shine forth from your eyes, and thus you will best reveal what anthroposophical teaching is. Our deeds will proclaim its truth, rejoicing those around us, conferring blessing, refreshment and health upon our own spirit, soul and body. We ought to be better, stronger, healthier human beings through having absorbed anthroposophical teaching. May this above all be the effect of this Cycle! It should be a seed which sinks into the soul of the hearer only to spring up again and bear fruit for those around us. Thus we go our separate ways, while our spirits remain united, and we try to work together to translate this teaching into life. Let us permeate ourselves with this spirit, without weakening, until the moment when we are able to meet again not only in the spirit but in the flesh.

• 1. Dr. Steiner draws on the blackboard.

Last time we sketched out a mental picture of the moment indicated by those meaningful words of the Bible: And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. They allude to an event which we can see as the recapitulation at a higher level of an earlier stage of evolution. I must keep on using the illustration of the man who on awakening calls up in his mind a certain content; it is in some such way that what had slowly and gradually been built up during the course of the Saturn, Sun and Moon evolutions springs to life again from the soul of the Elohim in a new form, a modified form. In fact all that is narrated in the Bible of the six or seven “days” of creation is a reawakening of previous conditions, not in the same but in a new form.

The next question which we have to ask ourselves is this—what kind of reality are we to attribute to the account of what happened in the course of these six or seven “days?” It will be clearer if we put the question in this way. Could an ordinary eye, in fact could any organs of sense such as we have today have followed what we are told took place during the six days of creation? No, they could not. For the events there described really took place in the sphere of elementary existence, so that a certain degree of clairvoyant knowledge, clairvoyant perception, would have been needed for their observation. The truth is that the Bible tells us of the origin of the sensible out of the supersensible, and that the events with which it opens are supersensible events, even if they are only one stage higher than the ordinary physical events which proceeded from them and are familiar to us. In all our descriptions of the six days' work of creation we are in the domain of clairvoyant perception. What had existed at an earlier time now came forth in etheric, in elementary form. We must get a firm grasp of that, otherwise we shall be all at sea over the true meaning of the impressive words of Genesis. Thus we must expect to see all that had gradually evolved during the Saturn, Sun and Moon evolutions emerging in a new form.

Let us begin by asking ourselves what were the special characteristics of each of these three planetary forms? On Saturn everything was in a kind of mOccult Science. What was there as the first rudiment of man, which really constituted the whole substance of Saturn, was in a kind of mineral form. But in saying this we must not think of the mineral of today, for Saturn had nothing in it either of liquid or of solid; Saturn was nothing but interweaving warmth. But the laws which prevailed in this planet of warmth, and which brought about and organised the complicated differentiations within it, were the very same laws which obtain today in the solid mineral kingdom. So that when we say that both Saturn and man himself were in a “mineral” condition we must remember that it was not the mineral of today, but a state of inweaving warmth governed by mineral laws.

Then comes the Sun condition of the planet. Here we must never forget that there was as yet no separation of the part which later became the earth. What today has become sun and earth was then a common body, a single cosmic body. In contrast to the earlier Saturn, a denser, gaseous element developed in the Sun, so that in addition to the interweaving warmth we have a transfluent gaseous or airy element, setting hither and thither in accordance with its own laws. But at the same time we have a new formation in the ascending mode, a kind of rarefaction of warmth towards the luminous, a radiation of light into space. Our planetary evolution, as I have called it, advanced during the Sun period to the stage of the plant. Again we must not imagine that there were plants on the old Sun in their present form; it is only that the same laws were at work there in the elements of warmth and air as rule in the plant kingdom today, those laws which determine that the root shall grow downward and the blossom upward. Obviously there could be no solid plants; one must think of the forces which send blossoms up and roots down, weaving in an airy structure, so that the Sun flashes forth blossoms of light in an upward direction. Imagine a gaseous sphere, and within it weaving and sprouting light, living light, which causes the gaseous vapour to shoot and sparkle in radiant blossoms, while at the same time below there is an effort to check these luminous outbursts, an effort to make the Sun cohere round its centre. Then you have the inweaving of light, warmth and air in the ancient Sun evoluticn. The laws of the mineral kingdom are repeated and the laws of the plant world are added, and so much of man as is already there has itself only reached a plantlike condition.

Where today should we find anything in the least comparable to that plantlike weaving in the air-warmth-light sphere of the Sun? With the senses of today we should search the whole of cosmic space in vain. At a certain period of the Sun evolution these conditions did obtain, even physically—that is to say, physically to the density of air. Today they cannot exist physically at all. The form of activity which at that time actually existed in the physical mode can only be found today by directing a faculty of clairvoyant perception towards that region of the supersensible world where are the spiritual Beings who lie behind our external physical plants, those Beings whom we have learnt to know as the group-souls of the plants. Today they can only be found by clairvoyant consciousness in spiritual realms. The group-souls of the plants do not subsist in individual plants, such as we see growing out of the soil, but there is one group-soul for each species of plant, such as the rose, the violet, the oak, and so on. For the poverty-stricken, abstract thinking of today, plant species are just abstractions, notions. They were already so in the Middle Ages; and it was because at that time men no longer knew anything of what weaves and activates in the spiritual as the basis of the physical, that there arose the well-known conflict between realism and nominalism—the dispute as to whether species were merely names, or whether they were real spiritual entities. For clairvoyant consciousness there is no sense whatever in this dispute, for when it directs its attention towards the plant-covering of our earth, it pierces through the outer forms to the spirit region where the group-souls of the plants actually live as real Beings. And these group-souls are one and the same reality as what we call species. At the time when the air, warmth and light sphere of the Sun was in its full splendour, when light, playing in the surface of the airy globe, threw off the sparkling blossoms of plant existence, these physically gaseous forms were actually the same as the plant species which can still be found today, though only in spiritual realms. Let us hold firmly in mind, then, that the plant “species” which cover our earth today with foliage and blossom, with trees and shrubs, pervaded the Sun actually as group-souls or species.

So far as man had evolved at that time, he too was to be found in a plantlike condition. He was unable to awaken mental images within himself, unable to awaken in consciousness what went on around him, any more than the plants today can do so. Man was himself living a plant existence, and his bodily form was among those light forms in continuous play in the gaseous globe. The emergence in the cosmos of even the most primitive forms of consciousness involves very special concomitant conditions. So long as our terrestrial substance was still united with the solar substance, so long as the sunlight did not fall upon the terrestrial globe from without, nothing of what we term consciousness could develop in it; nor could an astral body, which is the basis of consciousness, penetrate the physical and etheric bodies. For consciousness to arise, a separation or fission had to take place, something had to be split off from the Sun. And that happened during the third stage of our earth's evolution, during the Moon epoch. After the Sun condition came to an end, and had passed through a kind of cosmic night, the whole formation appeared again; but now it had become sufficiently mature to manifest as a duality, sufficiently mature for all the Sun elements in it to withdraw into a separate cosmic body, leaving behind the Moon, upon which the elementary conditions of only water, air and warmth were to be found. The Moon was the earth of that time, and it was only because the beings living upon it could receive the forces of the sun from without that they could take into themselves astral bodies and so develop consciousness, reflect in inner experience what went on around them. An animal nature, an inwardly living animal nature, a nature capable of consciousness, is dependent for its existence upon separation between sun and earth elements. The animal nature first appeared during the Moon evolution, and man himself—the body of man—was then developed to the animal stage. You will find this more closely described in my Occult Science. Thus we see that the three epochs which precede that of our own earth, and condition it, are linked together by certain laws. And on the Moon a fluid element is added to the gaseous—a watery element on the one hand, and an element of sound on the other, such as I described yesterday when speaking of the rarefaction of light. That is a very summary account of the course of evolution.

Now what had taken place during these three epochs emerged again in the recollection of the Elohim—at first, as I said yesterday, in a state of confusion which is described in the Bible by the words tohu wabohu. The stream of forces which moved from the centre to the periphery and from the periphery back again to the centre at first embraced the interactivity of all three elementary conditions—air, warmth and water. These three elements were now undifferentiated, though previously the gaseous and the warmth elements on the Sun, and the three forms, warmth, gas and water, on the Moon, had been distinct from one another. Now, during the tohu wabohu, they were all in motley confusion, gushing into and out of one another, so that in the early stages of earth development it was impossible to distinguish between what was watery, what was gaseous, what was warmth. They were all mixed up.

The first thing which then happened was that the element of light broke into all this; and out of the psychic or spiritual activity which I have described as cosmic musing there then came to pass a separation of gaseous from fluid. I will ask you to hold very clearly in your minds this moment which followed the coming into being of light. In dry prose, what happened was this: after the light had penetrated into the tohu wabohu, the Elohim caused what had once before in the past been the gaseous element to separate from what in the same way had been the watery element, so that it was again possible to differentiate between the gaseous and the watery. Thus in the chaotic mass compounded of the three elementary states, a separation came about, but in such a okay that elements of two different natures emerged—one of the nature of air, with a tendency to expand in all directions, the other of the nature of water, with the tendency to cohere. But the two were not yet in a condition comparable to the air or water of today. The “water” was very much denser—we shall presently see why this was so. On the other hand, to get an idea of the constitution of “air” at that time, we cannot do better than look up from the earth to where, in the region of air, the water turns to vaporous formations, and has the tendency to rise into clouds, only to fall again later as rain. Thus the one element was an ascending, the other a descending one There was a quality of water in both of them, but the one kind of water had the tendency to become vaporous, to rise upward as cloud, and the other the tendency to pour downward and assume a level surface Of course, that is only a comparison, for what I have been describing took place in the elementary world

Through their cosmic musing the Elohim brought it about that a separation took place in the tohu wabohu between two elementary conditions. The one had the tendency to press upward, to become vapour; that is, the watery transforming itself to the gaseous; the other had the tendency to discharge itself downward; that is, the watery condensing and cohering. That is the course of events which is expressed in modern languages in words somewhat like this: “The Gods made a something between the waters above and the waters below.” I have just described to you what the Elohim did. Within the “waters” they brought it about that one element had the tendency to spread outwards, to expand, the other to contract towards a centre. The something between is nothing tangible, it is just a way of saying that a separation has been brought about between the two forms of energy which I have just described. You could also put it this way, that the Elohim so acted on the waters that on the one side they took an upward direction, showed a tendency to cloud-formation, a tendency to stream out into space; on the other side they showed a tendency to accumulate upon the surface of the earth. The “partition” was really more like a notional one, and the word in Genesis which expresses this process of separation must! be so understood. You know that the Vulgate uses the word “firmament”¹ This word means something which should not be interpreted in a phenomenal sense—it simply means the separation of two directions of force.

With that we have reached what is described in Genesis as the second “day”; and if we want to put it into our own words, we should have to say, “within the vortex of elementary states the Elohim first separated the airy from the fluid nature.” That is a quite exact rendering of what is meant; the Elohim separated what tends to become air, which of course includes watery vapour, from what tends to contract and become denser. That is the second “day” of creation.

We go on to the next “day”! What happens now? What has been sent outwards, what radiates out and tends to form clouds, has reached a stage which in a certain way is a recapitulation of an earlier condition; it is a repetition in a denser form of what took place on the Sun. That which has a tendency to contract, which in a way repeats the condensation to water on the Moon, is now further differentiated, and this further separation constitutes what comes to pass on the third “day” of creation. We may say that on the second “day” the Elohim separated the airy from the watery. In the same way on the third “day” they separate, within the watery element, what we today know as water, from something which had not been there before, something which was a further densification—the solid element. It is only now that the solid comes into existence. During the Moon evolution this solid, earth element was not in existence. Now it is precipitated out of the watery element. Thus on the third “day” of creation we have a process of condensation, and we have to say that, as the Elohim on the second “day” separated out the airy element from the watery, so now on the third “day” within what was in effect the Moon-substance, they separate off a new watery element from the earth element, which now emerges as something completely new. Everything which I have hitherto described had already existed before, though in another form. The first thing which is entirely new is the earth element, the solid, which appears now on the third “day.” This earth element, separated out from the water, this is the new arrival. But this also makes it possible for what was already there to assume a new form.

What is it which now first begins to form? It is something which had already taken shape on the Sun, it is what we have described as the sprouting plant nature in the tenuous airy element of the Sun—which had then reappeared on the Moon in the watery element—though of course there were still no plants in the sense of today. And it is only on the third “day” that there is a recapitulation of this in the earth element. What is first repeated in the earth element as the plant nature is wonderfully described in the Bible. I will deal later with the question of how we should understand the “day” of creation; for the moment I am concerned with the irruption of light and of air from without, of the separation of water from solid. The solid now brings forth a recapitulation of the plant nature out of itself. That is very clearly described in the Bible, when it says that after the Elohim had separated the earth from the water, the plant life springs forth from the earth. Thus the sprouting of plant life on the third “day” of creation is a recapitulation in the solid element of what had already existed during the Sun evolution; it is as it were a cosmic memory. In the cosmic musing of the Elohim there arose the plant life which had been present on the Sun in gaseous form, but which emerges now in the solid state.

Everything repeats itself in a new form. The plant life is still in a state which is not individualised as on our earth today. I have expressly called attention to the fact that separate plants such as we see around us in the sense-world today were not to be found on the Sun, nor on the Moon, nor even on the earth at the moment when the plant nature emerges again in the earth element. What were there were the group-souls of the plants, what we today call the species, which to clairvoyant consciousness were no abstractions, but something actually present in the spirit realm. At that time there was a re-emergence in a supersensible realm of what we call plant species. And that is what the Bible says. It is strange how little Biblical commentators are able to make of the words And the earth brought forth grass and herb yielding seed after his kind. One ought to say, instead of after his kind, “in the mode of species.” What it means is that the plant nature was there in the form of group-souls, in the form of species; there were no individual plants such as there are today. You will not understand the description of the springing-up of plant life on the third “day” of creation unless you think of the group-soul nature. You must clearly understand that no plants, as we understand the term today, sprang up at that time, but that out of a psychic activity, out of a cosmic, musing activity, sprouted species, in other words the group-souls of the plant kingdom.

Thus, when on the third “day” of creation we are told that the Elohim separated out from the fluid the solid, the fourth elementary condition, we fmd that in this “solid” state—which of course in its original elementary form would not yet have been visible to an external eye, but only to clairvoyant sight—there was a reappearance of the forms of the plant species.

This was not yet possible as regards the animal nature. We have already described how the animal nature made its first appearance during the Moon evolution, after a duality had come into being, after the sun had begun to operate from without. Hence a repetition of this event (the separation of the moon) had to take place before evolution could advance from the plant to the animal nature. Therefore after the third “day” it is pointed out how in the environment of the earth the sun, moon and stars now come into activity; how there begins to take effect something which radiates from without, which sends in its forces from without. Whereas hitherto we have seen the effect of a sprouting activity within the planet itself, now, in addition to this, we see something which comes from the heavenly spaces, radiating inwards. In other words, in addition to the forces of the earth itself, which could only recapitulate what it had produced as a unitary body at an earlier stage, the Elohim in their cosmic musing brought into action the forces which streamed down upon the planet from outer space. Cosmic existence was added to earthly existence. To begin with, let us see nothing but this in what is described as taking place on the fourth “day.” What was the result of this irradiation from without? It enabled processes to be recapitulated—though in a different form—which were already to be found in the Moon evolution. During the Moon evolution there had developed as much of an animal nature as could live in the elements of air and water. It was only now that this could reappear. Therefore Genesis tells us, in wonderful accord with the facts, how on the fifth “day” of creation the teeming multitude in air and water comes into existence. It describes a recapitulation of the Moon epoch, now in a new form, at a higher level, in the earth element.

My dear friends, at the contemplation of such things this ancient record fills us with awe; it is wholly in the spirit of our anthroposophical outlook that we are able to feel the deepest reverence for it. What is experienced by clairvoyant consciousness is recorded in this document in impressive words, in words full of power; we find there again what we already know—that after the irradiation from without had taken place, a recapitulation became possible of what had existed in the airy and the watery elements of the Moon evolution. In the light of such a soul-stirring discovery how can we attach any importance to intellectual criticisms of these things? What nonsense it makes of the argument that this document was written in primitive times, when human knowledge was still at a very childish level! A fine “childish level,” when we rediscover in it the highest knowledge to which we can raise ourselves! Must we not ascribe to those who have handed down to us this ancient record the same spirituality which alone today enables us to rise to this revelation? Does not this document, bequeathed to us by those ancient seers, bear witness for them? The content of this record itself testifies that its writers were inspired. Truly we need no historical proof, the words furnish their own proof.

When we understand the matter in this way we realise that it was only after the fifth “day” of creation that anything new could happen. For all the necessary recapitulation had now taken place. Now the earth itself, which had emerged as a new element, could be populated with animal life, and with whatever might develop as new formation. Hence we find described in impressive detail how creatures appeared on the sixth “day” whose existence was bound up with the new element of earth. Up to the fifth “day” we have a recapitulation at a higher stage in a new form of what had gone before, but on the sixth “day” the earth-nature comes into its own for the first time, and something is added which has only been made possible by the earth conditions.

I have now given you an outline of the six “days” of creation. I have shown you how those who shrouded their deep wisdom in this narrative must have been fully conscious of what was emerging as new. Further, they must have been fully aware that it was only within this earth element that what constituted the very core of man's being could enter in. We know that all that man went through during the Saturn, Sun and Moon evolutions amounted to preparatory stages for the real human incarnation. We know that during the Saturn period the first rudiments of a physical body had been laid down in man; during the Sun evolution the rudiments of an etheric or life body were added; during the Moon evolution the rudiments of an astral body. What was recapitulated up to the end of the fifth day contained an element of astrality. Everything which has being has astrality. To infuse the ego, the fourth member of human nature, into a being in this whole evolutionary complex was not possible until the conditions for the earth had been fully created. So the Elohim prepared the earth by recapitulating the earlier stages at a higher level throughout the five “days” of creation. It was only then, only because the recapitulation had taken a new form, that they had at their disposal a fit vessel, a vessel into which they could impress the human form; and that was the consummation of the whole of evolution.

Had a mere repetition taken place, evolution as a whole would only have been able to advance to the animal, to the astral stage. But because all the time, from the beginning and throughout the periods of recapitulation, something was being infused into evolution which finally revealed itself as earth, at last there came something into which the Elohim could pour all that was in them. I have already described how it lived in them—it was just as if there were seven men in a group, each one of whom has learnt something different, each of whom has a different capacity, but all of whom are working towards a common end. They all wish to make one and the same thing Each has to contribute what best he can. Thereby a work in common arises. No single individual has the skill to produce this object alone, but together they are able to achieve it. We could say that their product bears the impress of the joint idea they had formed of their work. We must bear in mind throughout this special characteristic of the seven Elohim, that they all worked together in order to bring about at last their crowning achievement—in order at last to pour human form into what had been brought about by a recapitulation of earlier conditions, because the whole bore the stamp of something new.

Hence suddenly we begin to hear quite a different language in the Genesis account. Earlier it says “the Elohim created,” or “the Elohim spoke.” There we have the feeling that we are dealing with something already determined. Now, when the consummation of earth existence is about to be achieved, we read: Let us make man. That sounds as if the Seven were taking counsel together, as one does when one is trying to bring to fulfilment a work in common. And so, in what emerges as the final consummation of the work of evolution, we have to see a product of the combined effort of all the Elohim; we have to see that they all contribute, each as he is able, to this their work in common, and that at length the human etheric form appears as an expression of the capacity and skill acquired by the Elohim during the Saturn, Sun and Moon evolutions.

In saying this we have drawn attention to something of immense importance. We have touched on the question of what we may call human worth. In many epochs the impression made upon religious minds by certain words brought their consciousness far nearer to the truth than is the case today. It was so in the case of the Hebrew seer. When he looked up to the seven Elohim, what he experienced obliged him to say to himself, in all humility and reverence, that man must be something mighty in the world, if the differing activities of seven Beings had to combine in order to bring him into existence. The human form on earth is a goal of the Gods! I ask you to feel the immense significance of this statement, and you will say to yourselves that each one of us has a tremendous responsibility for the human form, has an obligation to make it as perfect as possible. Perfection became a possibility from the moment when the Elohim resolved to bend all their united capacities towards the achievement of the one goal. This divine heritage has been entrusted to man, in order that he may develop it ever higher and higher into far distant times. Our study ofcosmic evolution in relation to the tremendous opening words of the Bible must lead us in all humility, but also in strength, to a consciousness of this goal to be achieved. It is our origin that these words unveil. At the same time they point us to our goal, our highest ideal. We feel ourselves to be of divine origin; but we feel too what I tried to show in my Rosicrucian Drama, at the point where the initiate passes a certain stage, and feels himself in the resounding “O Man, experience thyself!” To be sure, he feels his human weakness, but he also feels his divine goal. He is no longer lost, no longer inwardly shrivelled, but on the contrary he feels uplifted; in the moment of experiencing his true Self he feels that he is being experienced. When he is able to experience himself in that other Self, something streams through him which is akin to his soul, because it is his own divine destination.

• 1. So does the English Authorised Version, which reads as follows: Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. See Figure 5, below.

We have pointed out that in the Genesis account of the coming into existence of the earth, there is first of all a recapitulation of those earlier stages of evolution which today can only be reached through the clairvoyant investigation which we recognise as the source of our anthroposophical world outlook. If we recall what we have learnt from that source about the conditions of evolution in periods prior to the existence of our earth, we remember that what later became our solar system was contained in a planetary existence which we call Saturn. We must be quite clear that this ancient Saturn consisted solely of interrelationships of warmth. If anyone, from the standpoint of modern physics, raises an objection to my speaking ofa cosmic body consisting only of warmth, I must refer him to what I said two days ago—that I could myself raise all the scientific objections against the things said here today or at any other time. But there is really not time in these lectures to touch on what this gullible modern science has to say. Faced with the sources of spiritual scientific investigation, the whole range of modern scientific knowledge seems pretty amateurish. I do intend one day to deal with many of the objections raised. I shall probably begin next spring at the time of my lecture cycle in Prague; and I shall there speak not only of the whole basis of Anthroposophy, but in order to satisfy contemporary minds, I shall speak also of the arguments against it. My Prague cycle will be preceded by two public lectures, of which the first will be called: How can Anthroposophy be refuted? And the second: How can Anthroposophy be substantiated?¹ Later I shall repeat these lectures at other places, and people will then see that we are fully aware of the objections which can be made against what is taught in Anthroposophy. Anthroposophy has a firm foundation, and those who think they are able to refute it do not yet understand it. Time will show in the long run that this is so. As to Saturn's state of warmth, let me once more draw attention to certain observations in my book Occult Science, which may also help to satisfy those who are prompted by their scientific training to object.

Having said this, I feel free to resume my exposition from the anthroposophical standpoint, without further reference to well-meant objections. In Saturn, then, there was an interweaving of varying conditions of warmth. Let us get hold of that quite clearly. The Genesis account describes a repetition within the developing earth of this ancient Saturn state, these relationships of warmth or fire. That is the first thing in the elementary existence which we have to hold fast to. But mark, please, in what sense we speak of warmth or fire in the case of such a lofty existence as that of the Saturn evolution. We shall not get anywhere near it by striking a match or lighting a candle and examining the warmth of physical existence. We have to think of it as much more spiritual—or perhaps better say more psychic. Feel your way into yourself as a warmth-bearing being—and this feeling of your own warmth, experience of your own soul-warmth, will give you a proximate idea of that interweaving warmth in Saturn.

Then we pass on to the Sun, the second phase of the evolution of our planet, and speak of how in elementary existence warmth condensed to the gaseous or aeriform. Thus in the elementary existence of the Sun we have to distinguish between warmth and the gaseous or aery. We have already pointed out that together with the condensation of warmth into air—that is to say, with the descent of the elemental consistency in the direction of density—there is a corresponding ascent towards a more rarefied, more etheric condition, so that if we call “air” the elementary condition next below warmth, we must call the condition next above warmth, light, or light-ether. Thus, if we look at elementary conditions as a whole during the Sun evolution, we shall say that in the Sun there is an interpenetration of warmth, light and air, and all life during that time manifested itself within this condition of warmth, light and air. Now we must once more make clear that if we take into consideration only these elementary manifestations of warmth, light and air, we are only considering the outer aspect—the maya, the illusion—of what is really there. In reality spiritual Beings are announcing themselves externally by means of warmth, light and air. It is somewhat as if we were to stretch out our hand into a heated space and say to ourselves: “Since there is warmth in this space, there must be a Being who disseminates this warmth, and finds thereby means of manifestation.”

When we pass on to the Moon, there again we have warmth as the middle condition, condensing below into air or gas and still further below into water. Light once more makes its appearance above. Then, above the light, we have a finer, more etheric state. I have already said that we may give the name “sound-ether” to what works within substances as an organising principle, causing chemical combinations and chemical analyses; it is something which man can only recognise with his external senses when it is transmitted by the air, but it lies spiritually behind all existence. We might call it “ringing” or tonic ether. Alternatively, because this spiritual sound organises material existence according to number and weight, we might also call it the ether of numbers. Thus we rise from light to sound, but we do not confuse this sound with the external sound which is carried over the air, but recognise it as something which is only perceptible when the clairvoyant sense is in some way awakened. Thus both in the Moon itself and in what works upon it from without we have to see, in elementary form, warmth, air, water, light and sound.
When we reach the fourth condition, and with it the coming into existence of the earth proper, a further stage of condensation and a further stage of rarefaction are added—below, the earthy or solid; above, the life-ether, which is a still finer ether than the sound-ether. So we may describe the elementary existence of the earth in this way. Warmth is again the middle state; as denser conditions we have air, water, solid; as rarer conditions we have light, sound and life ethers. In order to be quite sure that nothing is left vague in this exposition, I will once more state explicitly that what I describe as “earth” or “solid” must not be confused with what modern science calls earth. What is described here is something which is not directly visible around us. Of course, what we tread upon when we tread the earth's soil is earth, in so far as it is solid; but so are gold, silver, copper and tin, earth. Everything of a solid material nature is earth in the sense of occultism. The modern physicist will of course say that there is nothing in this distinction—that he himself differentiates between our various elements, but that he has no knowledge of any primeval substance lying behind those elements. It is only when the clairvoyant eye penetrates the external elements—some severity of them—and seeks the basis of solidity, when he looks for the forces which organise matter into the solid state, it is only then that he discovers the forces which construct, which build, which combine solid, liquid and gaseous. That is what we are referring to here, and that too is what Genesis is referring to. We shall, then, expect to fmd that according to Genesis the three earlier conditions are in some way recapitulated in earth existence, but that the fourth state appears as something new.

Let us check the account by the same method that we used in earlier lectures. In the coming into existence of our earth we should expect to find a repetition of the Saturn state. In other words we should expect to fmd the Saturn warmth working as an expression of a soul-spiritual. And this is what we do fmd, if we understand the account rightly. I have told you that the words which are usually translated And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters really mean that the soul-spiritual of the Elohim expanded and that a warmth element—the kind of warmth we conceive to be rayed down from the hen to the egg in the act of brooding—penetrated the existing elementary condition. In saying “The spirit of the Elohim radiates as a brooding warmth through the elementary existence, or the waters,” you indicate the recapitulation of the Saturn warmth.

The next condition has to be one which represents a recapitulation of the Sun evolution. For the time being let us ignore the condensation process which goes on from warmth to air, and let us turn our attention to the process of rarefaction, to the element of light. Let us take the fact that during the solar period light penetrates into our cosmic space, and then the recapitulation of the ancient Sun evolution will be the permeation by light of our developing earth. That is announced in the mighty words: And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

The third recapitulation, considered with reference to the finer elementary states, must consist in the fact that the organising, tonic or sound-ether permeates our nascent earth. Let us then ask ourselves whether there is in fact any indication of such a recapitulation of the Moon evolution in the Genesis account. What should we expect to find? We should expect the sound-ether to set to work to organise the elementary substance, rather as the fine powder spread on a plate is organised when we pass across the plate the bow of a violin, and the sound-forms of Chladni appear. There would have to be a recapitulation which would be recorded somewhat like this: “The tonic or sound-ether set to work to organise matter in a certain way.” But what is actually reported about the moment of creation which followed upon the coming into existence of light? We are told that something was stimulated by the Elohim in the material elementary mass which caused it to radiate in the upward direction and to gather itself together, to contract, in the downward direction, as I described to you yesterday. A force enters into the elementary matter and organises it, just as sound takes hold of the powder and brings about the Chladni figures. Just as the powder is organised, so the elementary mass is organised through the radiation upward of part of it, and the concentration downward of the other part. The word rakia, which is used to indicate what the Elohim introduced into the elementary matter, is difficult to translate, and the usual translations are inadequate to render it correctly. Even when one takes into account all that can today be contributed towards its elucidation, including what philology has to say, one is bound to confess that neither the translation “firmament” nor any of its variants takes us very far. For there is an element of activity, of stimulation in this word. And a more precise philology would fmd that there is contained in this word what I have just indicated—that the Elohim stimulated something in the elementary matter which may be compared with what is stimulated in the powder ofthe Chladni sound-figures when sound sets to work to organise it. As the powder is organised in the case of the Chladni sound-figures, so the elementary mass is disposed upward and downward on the second “day” of creation. Thus, in the Genesis account, following the intervention of the light-ether, we see that of the sound-ether, and the second “day” of creation gives us, quite in accordance with the facts, what we must understand as a recapitulation of the Moon evolution.

You will soon see that these recapitulations cannot come about in an entirely straightforward manner, but that they overlap one another. And the apparent contradiction between today's exposition and that of yesterday will soon be explained. The recapitulation takes place in such a way that first there happens what I am now describing, and then there is a more comprehensive recapitulation, such as I described yesterday.

After the moment when the sound-ether has so disposed the substances that some radiate upward, and others accumulate below, we should expect to fmd that something sets to work as a still finer condition, one which we must call the earth element proper—what we have called the life-ether. After the second “day” of creation something should happen which would indicate to us that life-ether was streaming into the elementary mass of our earth, just as previously light and organising sound had poured in. There should be some phrase in Genesis to indicate that life-ether thrilled through the mass and caused life to stir, caused life to unfold. Look at the Genesis account of the third “day” of creation. It tells us how the earth causes green things to grow, the living element of tree and herb—as I said yesterday, in the mode of species—after his kind. There we have a vivid description of the instreaming of the life-ether, which evokes everything that is said to have come into being on the third
day.

Thus in Genesis we find all that clairvoyant investigation can bring to light—which is what we should expect, if it really derives from occult knowledge. It is all there if we know how to interpret it. It is a wonderful experience to find confirmed in Genesis what we have first discovered by independent investigation. I can assure you that in the description I gave in my Occult Science of the coming into existence of the earth as a recapitulation of the Saturn, Sun and Moon evolutions, I quite deliberately and scrupulously ignored anything which could have been learnt from Genesis. I only described what I was able to discover quite independently of that ancient record. But if you then compare these independent findings with the Genesis account, you see that the latter says just what our independent investigation has enabled us to say. That is the remarkable consonance to which I called attention yesterday, when what we can say of our own accord comes sounding back to us from the spiritual faculties of seers who speak to us across thousands of years.

Thus, in the first three “days” of creation, we see as regards the finer elements of the earth's nature a successive activity of warmth, light, sound-ether and life-ether, and in what these activities stimulate and enliven we see at the same time the development of stages of densification—from warmth to air, then to water and finally to solid, to the earth element, in the way I have described. The processes of densification and of rarefaction interpenetrate one another and together they give us a unified picture of the coming into existence of our earth. Whether we speak of the denser states—air, water, earth—or of the more rarefied states—light-ether, sound-ether, life-ether—we are concerned with manifestations, with the outer garments, as it were, of soul-spiritual Beings. Of these soul-spiritual Beings the first to appear before the mind's eye in the Genesis account are the Elohim, and the question arises: what kind of Beings are the Elohim? So that we may know where we are, we must be able to give them their proper place in the order of the hierarchies. You will no doubt remember, from the various lectures I have given in the course of years, or from what you have read in my Occult Science, that in the hierarchical order going from above downward, we distinguish, first, a trinity which we call the Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones. You know that then we come to a second hierarchy which we call the Kyriotetes or Dominions,² the Dynameis or Mights, and the Exusiai or Powers, or Revelations; when we come to the lowest trinity, we usually make use of Christian designations, and speak of Archai, or Principalities, or Spirits of Personality; of Archangeloi or Archangels; of Angeloi or Angels. Those in this lowest group are the spiritual Beings who stand nearest to man. Only then do we come to man himself, as the tenth member within the hierarchical order. Now the question is, where within this order do the Elohim belong?

We find them in the second of these trinities, and identify them with those Beings whom we call Exusiai or Powers, or Spirits of Form. We know from what we have been taught for years that during the Saturn evolution the Archai, the Spirits of Personality, were at the human stage, the stage at which we ourselves now stand. During the Sun evolution the Archangeloi or Archangels had their human stage; and during earth existence it is man who is at this stage. One grade above the Spirits of Personality we have the Spirits of Form, the Exusiai, who are also called Elohim. Thus the Elohim are lofty, sublime spiritual Beings who had advanced beyond the human stage before the time of Saturn, when our planetary existence began. We get an idea of the sublimity of these Beings if we bring home to ourselves that in the order of the hierarchies they stand four stages above the human. The spirituality which was weaving in this realm—which was, so to say, practising cosmic meditation, cosmic musing—and out of this cosmic meditation brought about our earth existence, was four stages above the human stage. Spiritual Beings at this stage can through their meditation work creatively—they are not, as men are, limited to the creation of thought forms. Because the meditative activity of the Elohim is four stages higher than human thinking, it is not merely an organising, a creative activity within the sphere of thought, but it forms and creates existence.

Having said this to begin with, the question now arises, what of the other hierarchies? First we should like to know what part was played in the Genesis account by the Beings whom we have called the Archai, or the Spirits of Personality. They constitute the next lower rank in the hierarchies. Let us once more remind ourselves that in the Elohim we have highly exalted Beings, Beings who at the time of the Saturn evolution had already risen above the human stage. They were active throughout the whole of the Saturn, Sun and Moon evolutions, creating and organising, and they are at work too in the earth evolution. Should we not expect to find the Spirits of Personality, the hierarchy next below that of the Elohim, mentioned in the Genesis account? Since we know what lofty, sublime Beings the Elohim are, we should expect to find the Principalities, or Spirits of Personality, at work in their service. Is there any indication in Genesis that after the Elohim had unfolded the main creative activity they made use of the Archai or Principalities as their servants in lesser activities? We know that the chief, the most comprehensive activity is undertaken by the Elohim themselves; but after they had laid down the main lines, so to say, after they had exercised their great creative forces, did they not appoint other Beings such as the Archai to represent them on the spot?

To find the answer to this question we must first learn to understand Genesis in the right way. There is a passage in the Genesis account which has been a veritable stumbling-block to all the commentators, because for centuries they have completely ignored what occult investigation has had to say about the real meaning of the words with which our Bible opens. If you are at all familiar with modern Biblical criticism, you will know what difficulty this point has caused the commentators. There is a sentence in Genesis which is rendered And God divided the light from the darkness, and it is then made to appear that light and darkness alternated. I shall come back again to a closer examination of the words. For the time being I will make use of a translation into modern speech—it is not correct, and I am only using it provisionally. At a certain point it says: And the evening and the morning were the first day. And further: And God called the light Day. This is a real stumbling-block for the world of letters! What then is a “day” of creation? The naive intellect regards a day as lasting twenty-four hours, as something which alternates between light and darkness, as does our day, during which we wake and sleep. Now of course you all know how much scorn has been heaped upon this naive idea of the creation of the world in seven such days. You perhaps also know how much labour—how much fruitless labour-has been applied to the task of identifying the seven days of creation with longer or shorter periods—geological epochs and so on—so as to make a “day” of creation signify some longer period of time.

The first difficulty arises of course when one comes to the fourth “day,” when Genesis first speaks of the setting up of sun and moon as directing time. Now every child today knows that the regulation of our twenty-four-hour day depends upon the relationship of the earth to the sun. But since the sun was not there until the fourth “day,” we cannot speak of a twenty-four-hour day earlier than that. Thus anyone who tries to adhere to the naive belief that the day of the creation story is a day of twenty-four hours has to do violence to the Genesis account itself. There may of course be such people; but it must be objected to them that in insisting that Genesis refers to days such as ours they are certainly not supported by revelation. As to the vagaries of those who try to find a way out by giving a geological meaning to these “days” of creation, they are really not worth bothering about. For in the whole range of the literature of the subject there is not the slightest evidence that the word yom³ signifies anything resembling a geological epoch.

What then is the meaning of the word yom, which is usually translated as “day”? Only those can form a judgment about this who are able to transport themselves in feeling, in attitude of soul, into ancient methods of naming things. The process of nomenclature in ancient times needed quite a different kind of feeling from what we have today. To avoid too great a shock, let us take it step by step. Let me first draw your attention to a doctrine held by the Gnostics. They spoke of spiritual powers who played a part in our existence, who entered successively into the development of our existence, and these powers, these Beings, they called Aeons. By these Aeons they do not mean periods of time, but Beings. They mean that a first Aeon acts, and, having executed the work of which he is capable, is succeeded by a second Aeon, and after the second has exhausted his capacities, a third takes over, and so on. When the Gnostics spoke of Aeons, they meant Beings guiding development in succession, one taking over from another. It was only very much later that the purely abstract concept of time was associated with the word “Aeon.” Aeon is a Being, a living entity. And just as “Aeon” expresses “living entity,” so too does the Hebrew word yom. It has nothing to do with a merely abstract designation of time, but conveys the quality of being. Yom is a Being. And when one is dealing with seven such yamim following one another, one is dealing with seven consecutive Beings or groups of Beings.

We find the same thing elsewhere concealed in a verbal resemblance. In the Aryan languages there is a connection between deus and dies—god and day. There is an essential inner relationship between this pair of words; in earlier times the connection between “day” and a Being was clearly felt, and when one spoke of weekdays, as we speak of Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and so on, one did not mean simply periods of time, but the groups of Beings working in Sun, Moon, Mars and so on. Let us then understand the word yom, which is usually rendered “day,” to mean a spiritual Being; then you have the hierarchical Beings one stage lower than the Elohim, Beings whom the Elohim used as subordinate spirits. After the Elohim through their higher organising powers had brought light into existence, they then appointed to his post Yom, the first of the Time-Spirits, or the Archai. Thus the spiritual Beings whom we call Spirits of Personality, or Principalities, are the same as those called in Genesis, Time-Intervals, Days, Yamin. They are the servants of the Elohim. They carry out what the Elohim direct from their higher standpoint. Those of you who heard the lectures which I gave recently in Christiania⁴ will remember that there too I called the Archai Time-Spirits, and described how they still work as Time-Spirits today. They were the servants of the Elohim. They were appointed by the Elohim to carry out the plans for which they themselves had laid down the main lines. In this way everything fits together into one great system, even for our understanding. But of course it is only when you have followed up what I am saying for years that you will acquire a real grasp of how everything without exception falls into place.

The exalted Beings of the Elohim entered into this interweaving of the several ethers, and of air, water and earth, and appointed Beings below them in rank as their servants. They gave these Beings their orders, so to say. In the moment when the Elohim had poured light into existence, they passed over to these Beings the task of carrying out in detail what had been set going. Thus we may say that after the Elohim had created the light, they appointed the first Time-Spirit to represent them. It is this Spirit who is hidden behind the customary phrase “the first day.” We shall only understand the still deeper meaning of this first day when we also understand what lies behind the verse: And the evening and the morning were the first day. The first of the Time-Spirits entered into activity, and with this activity was associated what can be described as an alternation of ereb⁵ and boker.⁶ Ereb is not the same thing as evening, and boker is not the same thing as morning. An appropriate translation would be: “There was ereb, confusion; and there followed boker, organisation.” There was a state of disorder, and it was followed by a state of order, of harmony, brought about by the work of the first of the Time-Spirits.⁷

• 1. These lectures were in fact given in Prague in March 1911, and repeated in Stuttgart in November of the same year, and again in Munich and Berlin in 1912. Only the Berlin lectures have been published. (Ergebnisse der Geistesforschung, Basle, 1941.) They have not been translated.
• 2. Wherever possible, the designations for the hierarchies used in this translation are those of the New Testament Authorised Version (Colos. 1:16 and Eph. 1:21). The “Dynameis” of Dionysius the Areopagite is sometimes translated “Virtues.” Cf. Milton's Paradise Lost.
• 3. See Figure 6, below.
• 4. “The Mission of Folk-Souls” See footnote, p. 71.
• 5. See Figure 7, below.
• 6. See Figure 8, below.
• 7. See Figure 9, below.

What we are about to consider now is completely outside the scope of anthroposophical considerations. It is only indirectly related to it, and is intended to be a purely philosophical consideration. The direct connection is that it is often claimed that anthroposophical spiritual science cannot stand up in the forum of science, that it appears like pure dilettantism that a serious philosopher should not engage with. It will now be shown that it is not anthroposophy that is amateurish, but philosophy.

At present, philosophy is a wholly unsuitable instrument for elevating oneself to anthroposophy. Let us first orient ourselves in philosophy. Let us see how philosophy has developed historically. Then we want to subject the hereditary evil to a certain consideration. We want to show how philosophy today suffers from the fact that at a certain time all philosophical thinking became entangled in a spider's web, and is therefore incapable of gaining a broader perspective in relation to reality.

We must face the fact that all the history of philosophy begins with Thales. In more recent times, attempts have been made to extend philosophy backwards, that is, to go beyond Greek philosophy. People speak of Indian and Egyptian philosophy. Those who do not construct an arbitrary concept of philosophy say that an important period did indeed begin with Thales. If we ask what it is that intervenes in human evolution, what was not there before, we must say: it is conceptual thinking. It was not present before. This is characteristically different from everything that was there earlier. In the past, only what the seer had seen was said. In Plato, the gift of prophecy still predominates. The first conceptual thinker, whose system is no longer based on the old gift of prophecy, is Aristotle. In him we have the purely intellectual system. Everything else was preparation. The gift of living and thinking in pure concepts begins to find its most outstanding expression in Aristotle. It is no mere coincidence that Aristotle is called the “father of logic”. To the seer, logic is revealed at the same time as seeing. But to form concepts, one needed not only his logic, but also the fact that in the following period the revelations of Christianity were re-shaped into thought formations with Aristotelian logic.

This Aristotelian thinking spread both to the Arab cultural area in Asia, to Spain and to Western Europe, as well as to the south of Europe, where Christianity was influenced by Aristotelian thinking. Anyone observing the 7th to 9th centuries can see that Christian teachers, like anti-Christian elements, expressed their teachings in Aristotelian form, and this remained so until the 13th century.

We will see in a moment what the focus of Aristotelian thought is. In the middle of the Middle Ages, Thomas Aquinas spread the so-called Thomistic philosophy; it is based on Christian revelation and Aristotelian logic. The Christian teachings were not taught in a strictly adhered form of thought, but it was intended to show that these teachings could also be defended in Aristotelian forms of thought, against the Arabs and their students, such as Averroes, who also thought in these forms of thought. They wanted to show how one could use the correctly understood Aristotle not for Arab teachings, but for Christianity. They wanted to refute the objections of the Arab thinkers; hence the zealous study of Thomas Aquinas. At that time, Aristotle dominated all of science, including, for example, medicine.

Now we have to characterize what the earlier scholasticism had of Aristotle. The thinking at that time was quite different from today's. If you compare it with what was done at that time, you have to say: in terms of content, life was poor then. The tremendous inventions were only made later. The essential thing about that time is the strictly trained thinking. Today people laugh at the strict definitions of scholasticism. But when you compare it to today's arbitrary understanding of all concepts, then you first feel the benefit of that view that there must be an understanding of the concepts. It takes a long time to define the concepts, but then you are working on solid ground.

In order to be able to orient ourselves further, we have to go into a few of Aristotle's concepts. He was a good interpreter for Christianity, even from the point of view of anthroposophy. A few concepts should show how sharply Aristotle thought. Aristotle distinguishes knowledge according to sense and intellect. The senses perceive this rose, this person, this stone. Then the intellect enters. It breaks down into an understanding of matter and form. All things contain matter and form. These two concepts take us a long way. Aristotle sees matter and form in every single natural thing that the senses perceive: consider a wolf. It eats nothing but lambs; then it consists of the same matter as the lambs, but a wolf will never become a lamb. What makes the two different is the form. We have the form of the lamb and the wolf. He identifies the underlying form with the genus lamb and the genus wolf. Aristotle makes a clear distinction between the genus and the generic concept. When we are confronted with a flock of lambs, we form the generic concept. What our concept determines in its form is an objective thing outside us, just as if we were to imagine the prototypes of the forms spreading invisibly throughout the world, spurting out the individual genera into which the indifferent matter is poured. Everything around us is based on the generic; for Aristotle, the material is indifferent.¹

With the scholastics, Albertus Magnus, we find what underlies the external entities. The earlier scholastic distinguishes universals before things, in things and after things. Albertus Magnus says about this: the universals before the thing are the thoughts of the divine entities. There we have the genus. These thoughts have flowed into the things. When man encounters things, he forms the universals according to the thing, which is the conceptual form. In this whole description of the development of thinking, there is only talk of sensible things. He identifies the outer sense with the “sense”. Everything else that is there is a concept to him. The generic concept is not identical to the genus. The whole thing is because people had lost the ancient gift of seeing, so that a philosophy could arise.

An old sage would not have understood at all how to make distinctions in this way, because he would have said: With the gift of prophecy, one can perceive the genus. It was only when the gift of prophecy dried up that the actual science emerged. It was only when man was left to his own devices that the necessity arose to develop a thinking art. Scholasticism arose under the influence of this important principle. In ancient times, the spiritual worlds were still accessible to man. Now the scholastics could refer all the more to Aristotle, because he spoke of the gift of prophecy: Ancient reports tell us that the stars are gods, but the human intellect can no longer make anything out of them. But we have no reason to doubt it.

Scholasticism replaced what was seen with revelation. It placed what was to be taught in the once inspired word. At first, humanity must become accustomed to developing the theory of thought in relation to external things. Where would it end if it were to roam into all possible supersensible things? We want to deny ourselves that; we want to educate ourselves in the things that are around us. So says Thomas Aquinas. When objects come to us, they are given to us for the senses. Then we are compelled to form concepts of them. Behind the things, divine powers rest, which we do not dare approach. We want to educate ourselves from thing to thing. Then, by strictly adhering to the sensual, we finally come to the highest concepts. So we adhered to two things: to the revealed teaching material, which is given in the scriptures, to which thinking does not approach. It has been taken over by the seers. Furthermore, they adhered to what was being worked out in the sensory reality. With this, we only just reach the Bible and Revelation. For a time, the higher world is withdrawn from human thought. But there is no final renunciation of the supersensible worlds. When man has conquered the sensual world, he can get a presentiment of the supersensible worlds. Man can free himself from the physical body and have revelation directly. But first the intellect must be trained. When the human being forms concepts about external things, these concepts depend on the human organization in form, but not in content. In scholastic epistemology, it is never considered that something unrecognized may remain. The objective enters into knowledge; only the form in which concepts are formed depends on the organization of the human mind.

This earlier scholasticism is called realism. It believed in the reality of content. Scholasticism then became nominalistic. People have lost touch with the objective external world. They said: the mind forms concepts; they are not real. The concepts became mere names; they were only abstractions. What is to be achieved with the concept is lost. Therefore, the nominalists had to say to themselves: Sensual reality is spreading before us. We summarize it as our minds will. Nothing real corresponds to our concepts. One must guard the actual revelation against human thinking and renounce all understanding. This view reached its climax in Zuther's saying that human reason is powerless, the deaf, blind, foolish fool who should not presume to approach the teaching material.

This is an important turning point. Luther condemns Aristotle. From this point on, the suggestion that gave birth to Kantianism goes. Kant was a Wolffian until the end of the sixties, like almost all philosophers at the time. Wolff taught: Reason is able to make something out about the supernatural worlds. He distinguishes between rational and empirical science. It is possible to gain a certain amount of human knowledge. The a posteriori knowledge has only relative validity.

[Gaps and deficiencies in the transcript. For a description of Wolff's philosophy, see the lecture of March 14, 1908 in this volume.]

At first, Kant also followed in Wolff's footsteps. Hume disturbed him. Hume developed skepticism. He said that no wall should be built between a priori and a posteriori knowledge. All knowledge is knowledge of habit; there is no rational knowledge. Kant awoke from his dogmatic slumber. But he could not completely go along with it. He said: Hume is right; we gain everything from experience. Only mathematics is an exception; what it says has absolute validity. He therefore advocates two things. First, there are absolutely certain judgments a priori. Second, all knowledge must be gained from experience. But experience is governed by our judgments. We ourselves give laws to experience. Man confronts the world with his organization of thought. All experience is governed by our form of knowledge. Thus Kant linked Hume with Wolff.

Now man is ensnared in this philosophical web. Fichte, Schelling and Hegel are exceptions. Individual natural scientists also follow this path. Helmholtz says: What man has before him is spun out of his organization. What we perceive of the thing is not even an image, but only a sign. The eye makes only perceptions on the surface. Man is completely ensnared in his subjectivity. The thing in itself remains unknown. – It had to be so. Nominalism has lost the spiritual behind the surface. The human interior has been enervated. The inner working becomes purely formal. If man wants to penetrate behind reality, his inner being gives him no answer. The whole of 19th-century philosophical thinking does not find its way out of this. Hartmann, for example, does not go beyond the idea. A simple comparison can clarify this. A seal contains the name Müller. Nothing, not even the smallest material thing, can come from the brass of the seal into the sealing wax. Consequently, nothing objective can come from the seal; the name Müller must form itself out of the sealing wax. The thinker is the sealing wax. Nothing passes from the object to the thinker. And yet the name Müller is in the sealing-wax. Thus we take the content out of the objective world, and yet it is the true content that we take out. If one takes only the material, it is true: nothing passes from the seal to the stamp and vice versa. But as soon as one sees the spirit, the higher principle, which can embrace the objective and the subjective, then the spirit passes in and out into the subjective and the objective. The spirit carries everything over from objectivity into subjectivity. The ego is objective and subjective in itself. Fichte showed that. -²

The entire epistemology of the 19th century resembles a dog chasing its own tail. You end up with: I have created everything. The world is my imagination. Everything has spurted out of my inner being. I also have the right to kill everything.

Kant uses very convoluted terms. Kant says: I have destroyed knowledge to make room for faith. He has limited knowledge and established a practical faith because everything is spun out of the subjective.

Kantianism is the last result of nominalism. Today the time for it has expired. Man must train his thinking again in reality in order to form real concepts; then we can recognize the supersensible truths again. The scholastic attitude is time-bound, the spiritual had to be withdrawn from thinking for a time. Now the revealed teaching material must again become teaching material to be examined. We must again examine everything with reason. It is a light with which one can penetrate everywhere. One can investigate, understand, grasp everything. Reason is the lowest form of clairvoyance, but it is a seeing, hearing, and intelligent power. Thus we extricate ourselves from the net. Philosophy must free itself from this net and allow itself to be fertilized by logic to achieve true thinking.

• 1. See note
• 2. The rest of the lecture was only recorded by the transcriber in fragmentary notes, as the following sentences show.

Of course, it is not possible to cover this topic of logic as fully as one would wish in the time available. If you wanted to cover the subject exhaustively, you would have to hold a kind of course. Therefore, please take what is said here only as a few sketchy suggestions. I do not intend to proceed systematically either, but only to present some of the elementary logical truths to you, so that you may have something that you can perhaps make use of right now.

We have formed a concept of the concept itself, have heard what a judgment is and how a conclusion arises, namely through the connection of judgments. It has been said that there are certain inner laws of the technique of thinking that determine how to connect judgments if one wants to reach correct conclusions. We have given the original form of the conclusion in the first form of the conclusion using the example: All men are mortal. Caius is a man. Therefore Caius is mortal. In the major premise, “All men are mortal,” we have the first judgment; and in the minor premise, “Caius is a man,” we have a second judgment. The point now is to let a new judgment follow from the connection of these two judgments, through inner conformity to law: “Therefore Caius is mortal.” We call this last judgment the conclusion. We see what this concluding sentence is based on: we have two sentences that are given, that must be present; we know what they state. The point now is to omit the middle term from these two given sentences. The subject term of the antecedent was: “all men”, the predicate term “mortal”. In the consequent we had the subject term “Caius” and the predicate term “man”. In the final sentence, the two terms that were present in both sentences are omitted, namely the term “human”. The fact that we can form the final sentence depends on how this middle term “human” is included in the upper and lower sentences. Our scheme was: \(M = P\); \(S = M\); \(S = P\).

The fact that we are allowed to construct the conclusion in this way depends on the distribution of the concepts in the antecedents. If it were different, we would not be able to conclude as we did in the example given above: Photography resembles man (antecedent); photography is a mechanical product (subordinate clause). If we were to omit the middle term, which is contained in both sentences, then no valid conclusion could be formed here. This is because in both sentences the middle term is connected to the predicate in the same way as the subject. The middle term must be at the beginning in one case and at the end in the other; only then can we form a valid conclusion. Logic is a formal art of forming concepts. It is already evident in the arrangement of the concepts how one can arrive at valid conclusions. We must acquire as laws the way in which the concepts must be combined. We could also say that formal logic comprises the doctrine of concepts, judgments, and conclusions.

Now we will deal with judgments in a few remarks. Certain laws can be established about judgments. The laws of inference will only be understood once the tenets about the concepts and judgments have been established. So today we will first deal with the laws of judgments and concepts.

If we start with the law of concepts themselves, we can compare a concept such as “lion” with the concept of “mammal”. Both are concepts that we can form. They differ in the following ways. Think about what all falls under the concept of “mammal”. It is a large group of individual objects, for example, monkeys, lions, marsupials, and so on; that is much more than we summarize under the term “lion”, which gives us only a small part of the “mammal” concept. Thus, all concepts differ from each other in that some concepts cover a great deal and some only a small area. Here we say: The concepts differ in their scope; but they also differ in other respects. To define the concept of “lion”, many characteristics are needed, many features such as head, color, paws, teeth, and so on. All these things that are listed to get to the concept of “lion” are called the content of the concept. The concept of “mammal” has considerably fewer characteristics than the concept of “lion”. If you were to subsume animals with a certain hair color under the concept, that would no longer be correct. When you form the concept of “mammal”, you have to have as few characteristics as possible, a small content, for example, only the characteristic that it gives birth to live young and that it suckles them. Thus, in “mammal” we have a concept with little content and great scope, and in “lion” the opposite. There are therefore concepts with great scope and little content, and concepts with little scope and great content. The greater the scope of a concept, the smaller its content; the greater the content, the smaller the scope. Thus, concepts differ in content and scope.

Let us now consider judgments in a similar way. When you pronounce the judgment: All men are mortal, you have a different judgment than: The crocodile is not a mammal. The difference between the two is that in the first case something is affirmed, the concepts are brought together in such a way that they are compatible. In the second case, the concepts do not agree; they exclude each other; here we have a negative judgment. Thus, we distinguish between affirmative and negative judgment. There are still other differences with respect to judgment. All men are mortal - the judgment is such that something quite different is given with it than with: Some flowers are red. In the first case, the statement of the property applies to the entire scope of the subject concept; in the second case, other characteristics can be added. The latter judgment is called a particular judgment, in contrast to the first, a general judgment as opposed to a universal judgment. So we have affirmative and negative, universal and particular judgments. Other distinguishing features can also be found in judgments. For example, a judgment can be made in such a way that it is along the lines of “All men are mortal,” or a judgment can be pronounced in such a way as “When the sun shines, it is light.” The first judgment unites the subject and predicate concepts unconditionally, whereas the second unites the subject and predicate concepts not unconditionally, but only conditionally. It only states that the predicate term is there when the subject term is also there, nothing else. The first - All men are mortal - is an absolute or unconditional judgment, the second - When the sun shines, it is light - is a hypothetical judgment. So there are absolute or unconditional judgments and hypothetical or conditional judgments. Many more such characteristics of judgments could be cited; but the point is to show that some of the knowledge depends on these differences. One must master the technique of concepts in order to be able to draw correct conclusions.

If, for example, you take our conclusion after the first conclusion figure: All men are mortal. Caius is a man. Therefore Caius is mortal – we have a general judgment in the major premise and a singular judgment in the subordinate premise, because it is applied to only one individual, to Caius. This is a subform of the particular judgment. This arrangement of the judgments is permissible; it leads to a correct conclusion. But let us try a different arrangement. Take, for example, the proposition: Some women have red dresses – this is a particular judgment. And now let us say: Mrs. NN is a woman. – Now I must not conclude: Therefore Mrs. NN has a red dress. – I must not do that because it is impermissible to conclude according to this figure of speech when the antecedent contains a particular judgment. Only when the antecedent is a universal judgment is this figure of speech correct. Thus certain laws can be established here again. We could now also cite other properties of judgments. We have said that a judgment can be affirmative or negative. Let us take a negative judgment: The crocodile is not a mammal. This animal is a crocodile. Here we may conclude: Therefore this animal is not a mammal. The subordinate clause may thus be affirmative as well as negative.

So there is a certain technique of thinking, a law of thinking, which is formal, that is, quite independent of content. If we observe this formal technique, we think correctly, but otherwise we think incorrectly. We have to follow this technique of thinking, this law of thinking, in order to come to the right conclusions.

We now have a famous classification into analytical and synthetic judgments, which was originally proposed by Kant. Today, people who do a little philosophy can very often come across this classification. What is the difference in the Kantian sense? An analytic judgment is one in which the concept of the predicate is already contained in the concept of the subject. In a synthetic judgment, on the other hand, the concept of the subject does not necessarily contain the concept of the predicate. For example, the sentence “the body is extended” is an analytic judgment, because one cannot think of a body without also thinking of its extension. “Extended” is only one characteristic of the concept “body”. A synthetic judgment, however, is one in which the concept of the predicate is not yet contained in the concept of the subject. Subject and predicate are brought together by an external cause. For example: “The body is heavy” is, according to Kant, a synthetic judgment. For he believes that the concept of heaviness is connected with the concept of the body only through external reasons, through the law of attraction. In the synthetic judgment, therefore, the concepts are more loosely connected.

Much nonsense has been made of the concepts of analytical and synthetic judgments in recent philosophy. It always seemed to me that the most enlightening thing was the story that is said to have happened to an examinee at a German university. He came to a friend on the evening before the exam and asked him to quickly teach him a few more logic terms. But the friend realized the futility of such an undertaking and advised him to leave as he was and take his chances. The next day, the examinee was asked: Do you know what an analytical judgment is? The sad answer was: No. To which the professor replied: That's a very good answer, because I can't say either. And what is a synthetic judgment? The student, growing bolder, answered again: “I don't know.” The professor said, very pleased: “You have grasped the spirit of the matter. I congratulate you, you will get a good grade!” In a certain respect, the matter seems to me to be indeed shedding light. For the difference between the two types of judgment is indeed a floating one: it depends on what one has thought with the concept. For example, one person adds the concept of extension to the body; on the other hand, the person who adds the concept of gravity brings more to the concept from the outset than the other person. The point now is for us to recognize what is really real in the combination of concepts into judgments, or rather what the secret goal of all judgment is. Judgment is in fact purely formal at first.

But there is something connected with judging that will become clearest to you if you compare the following two judgments with each other. Let us assume – not that we are going to leave the physical plane – we have the judgment: The lion is yellow. When you form this judgment, it can be correct. But let us assume that someone imagines some concept out of his head, an animal half lion, a quarter whale and a quarter camel. He could quite well imagine it together; he calls it, let us say, “Taxu”. He could now form the judgment: This animal is beautiful. - This judgment is valid in a formal respect just as the judgment: The lion is yellow. - How do I distinguish valid judgment from invalid judgment? - Now we come to a chapter in which we have to find the criterion for the ability to form a judgment at all. You can change the judgment: “The lion is yellow” at any time, namely by saying, “A yellow lion” or “The yellow lion is”. - But we cannot say, “A beautiful taxu is”. This leads to a criterion for the validity of a judgment: one must be able to include the predicate concept in the subject concept and make an existential judgment out of it. The transformation of a formal judgment into an existential judgment by adding the predicate to the subject thus forms the criterion for validity. In the first case, [empirical] necessity unites the concept “yellow” with “lion”; in the second case, it is assumed when forming the concept that the subject has been taken from an existential judgment, whereas in fact it only arose from a formal judgment.

This is a criterion for the validity of every judgment. The formal correctness of a judgment depends only on the correct connection of the concepts, but the validity of a judgment depends on the existential judgment. A formal judgment is transformed into an existential judgment by adding the predicate to the subject; one enriches the subject. And that is precisely the goal of judging and also of concluding: the formation of such concepts that have validity. Form the judgment: A yellow lion is - then you have thought not only in terms of formal correctness, but also in terms of validity. Now you see that formal logic does indeed offer us the possibility of filling ourselves with correct concepts, so to speak, but that the formation of valid judgments is what we must have in mind; and valid judgments cannot be gained from mere formal logic. The existential judgment in our example – The yellow lion is – was gained from external sense observation. Formal logic gives us the possibility of arriving at correct concepts; with its help we can create quite fruitful concepts. But for the validity of judgments, logic will have to be fertilized by content-related aspects. People usually do not really realize what logic is at all. But if one has learned to grasp the concept correctly, independently of content, it is extremely important.

The validity and the formality of a judgment are two different things. Because people do not really understand the connection between these things, they spin out very grand theories, which some people regard as irrevocable, but which would collapse of their own accord if people were to realize the difference between “formal correctness” and “validity”. You know that there is a modern school of psychology that strictly denies the freedom of the human will. Every human action, it says, is strictly determined by previous events. There are certain methods of proving this, and these play a fateful role today in statistics, for example. For example, someone is investigating how many people in France die by suicide. That's easy, you don't even have to think about it; you just note the numbers over a period of about five years, then you examine it for another five years and so on. Then the person finds that there is a certain difference between these numbers. Now he takes larger numbers, compares twenty to twenty years and finds that here the suicide numbers are almost the same; of course not the same, because the circumstances change, - say, they increase in a certain proportion. A numerical law can be found according to which one can predict how many suicides will occur within a certain period, how many people will die by suicide in a certain period of time. Now there are people who say: if you can calculate in advance how many people would commit suicide, how can one still speak of human freedom? It is the same with estimating future crimes. According to an immutable causality - so they say - so many people would have to become criminals. It is not to be said here that the law is not valid. In a way, it is perfectly applicable in practice to certain cases. But the moment the law is applied, the worst misunderstanding will result, the essence of things or the human being will be investigated and fathomed.

Let us think of insurance companies that work with probability calculations. They arrive at very specific formulas by deducing from experience that a certain number of every hundred married twenty-year-olds will lose the other spouse to death over the course of thirty years. They check the percentage rate within a certain period of time and use it to determine the insurance premiums. It is quite practical to apply such laws in the insurance business; they are true, these laws; but they do not go to something deeper. The matter becomes strange when we take the laws more deeply! Let us imagine that someone is presented with the material of such an insurance company and finds: There is still a spouse alive who should have died by now; but this person is healthy and, according to his inner being, it does not even occur to him to die yet. Nevertheless, the insurance company still has a right to its money, because the formal laws apply very well in the world, but one cannot see into the inner being of a person through such laws. And so it is with all the laws of nature, which are only gained through the collection of external observations. One only gains a concept of the external course of events, but cannot draw conclusions about the inner essence of a thing or a person, for example, whether it is healthy or sick. In the same way, you can never gain a concept of the essence of light by observing its phenomena. You have to keep this in mind, otherwise you will come to results such as those of Exner in his last rectorate speech in Vienna.

External facts are not indicative of the inner essence of a thing. There is still a great deal of confusion in the thinking of humanity in this regard. It cannot be claimed that one can learn to think through logic; that is just as impossible as becoming a musician through the study of harmony. But logic is necessary for correct thinking, just as the study of harmony is necessary for composing for the right musician. One must know how judgments and conclusions are formed. But we must always remain in the same region if we want to make formally correct judgments. For example, the conclusion is: All men are mortal. I am a man. Therefore I am mortal - apparently no fallacy, because here we fall back on the subject. However, the laws of logic only apply if you stay on the same level. The conclusion “Therefore I am mortal” refers only to the body. However, our ego belongs to another level; it is not mortal. The conclusion: “Therefore the ego is mortal” is therefore false. Such formal errors are frequently found in the work of today's scholars.

As in recent years at the beginning of our Munich lecture course, may I be allowed to use this first lecture as a kind of introduction to what we are going to deal with in the coming days.

It may well be that the first thought that occurs to you at the beginning of this cycle should refer to what for several years has been the introduction to these Munich lectures, that is, our artistic dramatic productions. If I may be allowed to give expression to the thought that comes before my own soul on this occasion, it is that it gives me the deepest satisfaction to see how, this year as well as last, we have been able to open these productions with a reconstruction of the Mystery of Eleusis. Seeing that this year we have the pleasure of a still larger audience than before, perhaps it will not be superfluous to repeat a few words I have already spoken here in Munich.

All that is bound up with the Eleusinian Mystery is intimately connected with what we call our anthroposophical striving. We began with quite a small circle of which only a few have remained faithful to the movement. We began years ago in Berlin, actually connecting the representation of initiation and initiation principles of the various epochs and races to all that has been accomplished for the Anthroposophical Movement by our revered friend Edouard Schuré with regard to the reconstruction of the Eleusinian Mystery. It was with all this that we made a kind of introduction to this movement of ours. Now that for some years past we have been able to give dramatic productions of what has issued from Edouard Schuré's soul, we have been able to stamp a kind of impression of the feelings, sentiments and thoughts that, for rather a smaller circle of us, have formed themselves around this starting point of our movement. If I am to define all this, I should say that an inner confidence, an inner faith, flowed out of the spiritual purity and chastity of the way in which these things entered our souls. So that we might say that if we allow these sentiments and feelings to flow into us, together with all that we feel in our souls with regard to our anthroposophical striving, we can at least hope for some measure of success. This is what the things themselves told us in the beginning, what they told us by the deep and serious way they penetrated into the spiritual, and what the years that have since passed have also told us.

What belief were we able to hold at the beginning, and later in the course of the recent years? It was the importance of the moment in the evolution of humanity—I mean the moment in relation to world history—that was able to arise before the soul. The idea could arise that it was quite in accordance with the laws of human evolution that in our present age new forces, and particularly forces of spiritual life, should wish to enter the souls of men if they were to hold their own in face of what the present and immediate future may demand of their inmost being. In giving voice to this thought, may I be allowed to refer to something personal, which is, nevertheless, by no means personal to me.

Years ago, before we started our movement, I often had occasion to speak about all kinds of spiritual matters with the German art historian, Herman Grimm, who, as you know, has since passed into higher worlds. In our walks together from Weimar to Tiefurt, or around Berlin, a good deal was said about the demands of the spiritual life in our time relative to nature; how humanity has sought its goal during the course of European evolution and has tried to find harmony in its soul life. There was one thought that kept coming to the fore in conversation with Herman Grimm, who was so deeply interested in all the spiritual life of the West. When we go to the root of the matter, this one thought was how the European man can look back over a number of centuries, or over the last 2000 years, how the European can look back in such a way that when he probes into his own soul and examines its needs and asks himself, “What can I understand, what is comprehensible to me in human affairs that transpired then that I need for my own life of soul?” He can then answer, “However many of the details of life at that time may be incomprehensible, somewhere there is a link with what I myself experience, if I let the new age pass historically before my soul.” Even the complications that arose in the Roman Empire at the time of Caesar, or in the still more remote time of Republican Rome, appear comprehensible to European consciousness today. We find our bearings when we try to understand the souls of those times, even though in many respects they may be far removed from what present day man can feel or think. But when the soul looks back into ancient Greece it becomes quite a different matter. It is only if we do not go sufficiently deep into things with what we call our human understanding that we, as modern men, can say that the days of ancient Greece may be as easily understood as Roman times or as the times that followed. When in going back we come to ancient Greece and let the historical records of it work on our souls, we begin to meet with what is incomprehensible. I should like to repeat, as something clear and easily understood, what Herman Grimm often used to say, “A man like Alcibiades is a mere prince in a fairy story compared with Caesar or with those who lived in Caesar's day.” Greek life appears in quite a different light, and human and divine bear a different relation to each other. Everyday life and all that might be called the divine enlightenment of everyday life seems quite different. The whole life of soul existing on the soil of ancient Greece seems entirely different. These things become particularly striking when we let those personalities work on our souls who can in truth become far more living in the modern soul than the people of whom history relates—those personalities we find in the works of Homer, Aeschylus or Sophocles.

Starting from such a thought, the results of our modern culture will certainly enable us to say that the further back we go in human evolution, the more does man appear to be directly connected with the super-sensible and all that radiates into and works within his soul. For we can already perceive the beginning of a quite new humanity when, not superficially but fundamentally, we get near the soul of the Greek. Something quite special appears, too, when we allow the historical works of literature that have arisen in the course of European civilization to work upon us. The historians write about the various ages back into Roman times as of something they have grasped and mastered. When you open a history book, you will find that the writer, when desiring to give life and form to the personalities he is representing, is able to apply the feelings and sentiments of his own age as far back as ancient Rome. In purely historical writings, even among the best historians, Greek figures, even those of the later Greek period, are like silhouettes, shadow-pictures that cannot come to life. How could anyone with genuine feeling for what it means for a man to have his feet firmly on the ground, maintain that any historian has really succeeded in thus planting Lycurgus or Alcibiades on their feet, as can be done in the case of Caesar. The Greek soul appears full of mystery when we look back into Grecian times, or so it appears to the man who merely tries to grasp it with his ordinary consciousness. Those who feel this mystery have the right feeling.

In this connection we may well ask how a Greek soul would have felt with respect to many things that are fully comprehensible to the modern soul. Let us consider an early Greek soul. Let us try by means of much that spiritual science gives us to feel our way into this soul. What would the Greek souls have said to the image, the old traditional story, that is so easily comprehended by the later European soul the story of the Fall, the old story of Paradise, and all that later ages received as the Old Testament. This would have been absolutely foreign to the Greek soul, as foreign as the Greek soul itself is to modern man. You cannot think the story of the temptation in Paradise, the story of Adam and Eve, into the Greek soul, so that it would be fully understood there as it lived for instance in the Middle Ages and on even into modern times. Therefore, it is first necessary even for us to prepare our own souls before we can understand that age, so different from our own.

It is when we cherish thoughts like these that we first begin to have a real sense of what it is that our present moment has brought us. Last Sunday when the curtain went down after the last scene of the Eleusinian Mystery, I could not help thinking how thankful we may be that we are able today to turn our eyes and minds to the course of events that show us the Greek soul in its life of feeling and experience. Moreover, that we are able to fill the auditorium with those who can imagine how, in the course of man's evolution on earth from epoch to epoch, the human soul has assumed different forms, and how it has learned to experience in different ways its environment and its own life. For many years we have been striving to understand the life that human souls had to live in the beginning of earthly evolution when the external body, and with it the inner soul life, were quite different from what they afterward became. We have been striving to understand how the human soul lived in Atlantean times, how it lived in post-Atlantean times, and we have grown to realise in what manifold ways the soul has lived and experienced itself within us. The soul that is in each one of us, the soul that has passed through one incarnation after another, not in order to experience the same things over again but to keep on having fresh experiences—in what various ways its life has been lived! So it is possible for us to sit in this auditorium, and to forget the things directly affecting us in this age in order to absorb objectively and dispassionately what was peculiar to souls of a different age. We need not set our understanding to work; we need only give ourselves up to immediate feeling to see that the events enacted in the reconstructed Eleusinian Mystery contain within them all that man's soul lived through from the darkest depths of life up to the light of the spirit, from deep sorrow to heights of bliss, experienced, however, in various ways in the course of time. Then we may get a simple and unprejudiced, but perhaps all the more certain, feeling of what the Greeks felt when such names were spoken, such images awakened, as those of Demeter, Persephone, and Dionysos. It may be possible for whole worlds to arise before us from within the soul when these images are awakened.

As human beings we find ourselves in the external physical world. We learn to know it through our physical senses, through the experiences of our soul, and through what we experience with our understanding and with our reason. We feel today, in quite a distinct way, that our soul is in a measure independent of the external life of surrounding nature, and of all that is concealed in it. The Greeks could never have felt this in the way man feels it today. At that time they never could have understood this estrangement from nature, this emphasis on the need of forsaking the world of the senses in order to press on into spiritual worlds. But in his own way the Greek felt a significant difference, a significant cleft, between what may be called the spirit in man and what may be called the soul. For the things of the soul and the things of the spirit are the expressions we use for human experience, and are two spheres closely impinging on one another.

Let us turn to the scene at the very beginning. Demeter stands in her proud spiritual chastity before Persephone, warning her not to taste the fruits that Eros can give. We turn our gaze to Demeter and see in her all that man calls spiritual, everything as he says in which “he as spirit has part.” But man also sees that in the realm of the earth all that is spiritual is bound up with all that has most to do with the senses and is the most material. Demeter, the Goddess, who brings forth the fruits of the earth and presides over the external and moral ordering of mankind—Demeter, human spirit, chaste and proud in face of much that generally lives in men, but inwardly bound up with and permeating the external world of the senses—it is thus that Demeter stands before us. Persephone appears before our inward vision as something that awakens an image of the human soul principle in our soul. It is connected with all that concerns man's individual existence as he stands there with his soul in the midst of earthly joys and sorrows. If it would picture what lives in Persephone, the soul must feel its connection with all that pulsates through earthly joys and sorrows. Persephone is all soul, Demeter all human spirit. If we then allow the course of the Eleusinian Mystery to work upon us, if the basic tones struck in the very first dialogue between Demeter and Persephone go on resounding in us, become intermingled and then clear, finally leading up to the figure of Dionysos—then, how the whole human being is to be found in Dionysos! How all that becomes living in us when we confront Demeter and Persephone lives again in Dionysos! Then, in the last scene, we see man's soul striving toward harmony of soul and spirit. The whole Dionysian play becomes a striving out of the darkness of life into the light of the spirit.

I have no wish to be a commentator nor to pull to pieces a work of art. I only wish to put into words the feelings that can arise in man with regard to the most intimate secrets of his soul when confronted with the Eleusinian Mystery. I should never think of saying that Demeter was the personification or symbol of a primal form of the human spirit, or that Persephone symbolised the human soul. That would be an insult to the plastic, living nature of a work of art. That would mean applying rigid concepts of the intellect to all that lives in a work of art that is just as living as man or any other living being. But what we may and can feel about the secrets of the soul—of that we may speak.

Now let us set two pictures before ourselves. Let us picture the later European consciousness that is now beginning to free itself and that henceforth will thirst after the forms revealed by the truths of spiritual science. Let us picture this European consciousness as it has been working through the centuries, this European soul that felt the riddle of life on being told how the first human being was there (man and woman), so far removed from the God he had come to fear, and upon hearing the alluring voice of a being strange to him, to his own human soul. Whence did this being come? What is it? How is it related to man's own soul being? The European soul, the European consciousness, hardly attempts any explanation. It accepts the strangeness of Lucifer, and it suffices it to know that from Lucifer came knowledge, but also the voice of temptation. And the words decreeing the divine judgement after the temptation—how they resound as from infinite cosmic space! How little they are suited by their very setting to draw this question from the soul: “Where can I find in the most intimate life of my own soul what is resounding through the wide spaces of the macrocosm?” Try to imagine the drama of Paradise as a living picture. Try to feel inwardly how unnatural it would be to represent the figures in the drama in purely human form. On the other hand, now try to imagine how, in speaking of the deepest and most intimate concerns of the Greek soul, it is a foregone conclusion that you should have before you the human figure of Demeter, the human figure of Persephone, even that of Dionysos or of Zeus! Try from this to experience how infinitely near to the Greek soul came all that permeated the macrocosm! We can characterise this in a few words. All that we need say is that before the Eleusinian Mystery was reconstructed by Edouard Schuré it simply did not exist in the form in which we can now see it. But now we have it! We need only feel what is contained in these two statements to grasp the whole significance of the matter. This to my mind transcends all mere trivial expressions of gratitude because we have also pointed to the whole significance that this reconstruction of the Eleusinian Mystery has for modern spiritual life. All that is connected with the Mystery of Eleusis, and all that has been achieved by the author in the historical re-awakening of the principles of initiation in the various epochs, corresponds to what is deepest and most intimate in the European soul. Everyone who takes spiritual life in a sincere and earnest way is under an obligation of a sacred, serious kind to carry precisely this kind of attitude into the present life of the soul.

My dear friends, you may talk a great deal with people outside in the world about all manner of things concerning anthroposophy, and some may even seem to find satisfaction in such conversation. But when one is able to look into the depths of the soul, one knows that the soul needs to be given, though perhaps unconsciously, what it truly desires in the innermost recesses of the heart.

It was feelings such as these that filled my soul last Sunday when we saw the curtain fall on the last scene of the Mystery of Eleusis, and the weeks preceding our Munich performance showed me that I was not alone in these feelings. All of us sitting here may feel the warmest gratitude toward those who for weeks past have been sacrificing themselves to the work of studying and entering into the personalities they had to represent. The consciousness lives in all those whom you have actually seen on the stage that they are servants of the spiritual world, and that it is necessary in our age that every effort be made to introduce spiritual values into the general culture of mankind. Reverence for spiritual things enabled the players gladly to bear much that preparations for the performances demands. We must also remember with special thanks those who have for years been working behind the scenes, though perhaps even more visibly than the individual players. They have devoted their efforts, and especially their ability, which is more than their efforts, to the service of this particular task. We may regard it as a kind of inner karma of our movement that we are able to have among us one who provides all that the scenes require in the way of drapery and clothing for the players, and who does it all in such a manner that it is not only in keeping with the intentions that I have at heart but is also accompanied by true spirituality. We may take it as a favourable karma of our movement in Central Europe that we have such a personality among us. That this karma has a yet deeper foundation, we can see from the fact that the same person was able to co-operate so successfully in all that has been done, for instance, for our Calendar during the past months. Like all our undertakings it is to serve the great purpose. So that first among those who were able to collaborate in such an outstanding manner, not only as players but in the whole of our work, we may mention Fraulein von Eckardstein. Then I think with deepest gratitude, and I should like to evoke this gratitude in your hearts, too, of our self-sacrificing painters, Volkert, Linde, Hass and this year Steglich of Copenhagen, as well. And many must remain unnamed for they are too numerous.

My dear friends, anthroposophy does not consist merely in theories and prophecies. It consists in the will to sacrifice oneself for the demands of the present age. A feeling for this ought to be awakened so that by real human work the seed may be planted for the spiritual life that is so necessary for the future of mankind. If such is our feeling, we shall understand better and better how those who would call themselves anthroposophists must grow together in the concrete and immediate working together toward worthy and serious aims. First in value is what the individual does, what the individual creates and all that he is prepared to bring as his own offering. Here, perhaps, I may speak of the following.

There were free days between our performances when many of our friends were busy rehearsing from morning to night, and on those days Dr. Unger gave lectures here in Munich. It was a source of deep satisfaction to me when our good managing director, Sellin, came to me behind the scenes yesterday morning full of enthusiasm for Dr. Unger's two lectures with the remark, “A movement with such inspired representatives does not come to naught.” What is it that gives me such great pleasure in such an occurrence? Allow me to say this quite honestly and sincerely. It is the independent force, the absolutely independent way in which a human personality is here presenting the matter out of himself, quite freely, by means of his own faculties, without limiting himself to what I myself would say. To one who himself wishes to work independently, nothing can give truer joy than to find someone else who is independent, shoulder to shoulder with him, giving out according to his own ability once he has recognised that it fits into the whole.

A short while ago I received a letter practically saying that much needed to be done within the German anthroposophical movement if anyone was ever to do anything but repeat quite literally what has been said by me. The way truth is represented out in the world is often like that. I do not want to criticise this remark that objectively contains what is untrue in the strictest sense of the word. I do not mention it in order to blame or condemn. But the other side, which is for us the positive side, must be repeatedly emphasised. Let us feel bound to truthfulness, to the testing of what is. Let us feel that we must never speak of any matter until we have learned about it, until we have gone into it. Otherwise, there can be no blessing in occult development, in occult striving. Truth and truthfulness! That is the first and foremost law. What is the good of any prophet, of any description of super-sensible facts, if they are not permeated by honest and sincere truthfulness. From the place from which I speak to you, it may be that you will accept many things that I have to say, but it will please me best if you accept them out of the conviction that it will always be my own deepest endeavour toward you to make no statements except those that can be made with the most candid truthfulness, since I can see no blessing for any occult movement unless one is dedicated to the truth! It may be contrary to what we desire, contrary to the demands of our ambition or our vanity, contrary to many other things in our soul; it may be against the grain to submit ourselves to any kind of authority, but all the same it may be right. For there is one authority to which we should submit ourselves willingly and of our own free will, and that is the authority of truth, so that all we can achieve, not only in what we say but also in what we do, in all our individual deeds, may be permeated by truthfulness. You must also look for that truthfulness in what is put before you in our anthroposophical artistic and dramatic efforts. Try to find it, and although you may realise that there are some things we have failed to attain, you will see that we have striven to permeate all that we do by an atmosphere of truthfulness. We have tried never to let ourselves speak of “tolerance” if tolerance is not really there and if we do not really practice it. Calling others intolerant does not constitute tolerance; to relate something of someone that is not what he represents does not constitute tolerance; to stress continually that one should “be tolerant” does not constitute tolerance. But if one is truthful one knows one's own value and how far one may go. If we are servants of the truth, it will follow as a matter of course that we shall be tolerant.

We may well speak of these things by way of introduction, although it is not generally my custom to enter into all manner of warnings and admonitions. But, on such an occasion as this, how could these words not flow forth from the heart, these words that would point out how, from an inwardly associated impulse, we were able gradually to make this reconstruction of the Mystery of Eleusis in a certain respect into something from which we may start. We wished to be open and honest with European souls, we wished to be truthful, seeking with a sense of truthfulness for what the European soul is thirsting. The deepest thoughts are often revealed in the simplest words, formulated in the simplest language. Let us learn, with an honest and sincere conviction of the needs of our age, to recognise what a deed it was to recreate the Eleusinian Mystery out of the dark spiritual depths, which begin just at the point where we go back from ancient Rome to ancient Greece. We may then leave it to each individual soul here present to rejoice in the thought as I am sure many will, very deeply—that the creator of this reconstruction of the Mystery of Eleusis is with us during our time in Munich.

In these lectures we shall have to discuss important questions intimately related to spiritual life. We shall have to speak of what lies at the basis of so-called initiation and, after having indicated some of its secrets and laws, we must go on to speak of the significance of all that radiates out for life from initiation and initiates in the course of human evolution. We shall have to speak of all this in relation to what may be summed up in such contrasting ideas as eternity and the passing moment, the light of the spirit and the darkness of life. Then, having considered the life of man from the point of view these ideas give, we shall return again to the power of initiation and the power of initiates. It is the principle of initiation, then, that on this occasion will be the limit of our studies.

Eternity; we need only touch on this idea to feel resounding in us something connected with the deepest longings of man's soul and with the highest aims of his endeavour. The passing moment always brings before us all that surrounds us in life, that reminds us of the necessity to search in this passing moment of our lives for what is able to give us a view into the land of our desire, into eternity. We only have to call to mind how Goethe introduced into his Faust the deepest secret of this his greatest poem, by making Faust say to the passing moment. “Tarry yet, thou art so fair!” and making him then confess that if such can become the soul's attitude, if it can so identify itself with this confession as to say to the passing moment, “Tarry yet, thou art so fair,” it must necessarily follow that Faust should own that he deserves to fall victim to Mephistopheles, the enemy of mankind on earth. Thus, Goethe makes everything connected with the feeling that flows from the passing moment the basic mystery of his greatest poem. It seems then that what we live in—the passing moment—is in opposition to what we call eternity, for which man's soul must constantly long.

The light of the spirit! In all the anthroposophical studies we have pursued over the years, we have recognised that the striving after spirit light has the fundamental aim of leading man out of the darkness of life. Once more we feel how in Faust, one of the greatest poems in human evolution, a poet, wishing to portray a great and all-embracing soul, cannot but make it come forth out of the darkness of life. What is it that entangles Faust at the beginning of the poem? What envelops him? It is the darkness of life. How often have we to emphasise that so great is the force and power of this darkness over man, that the spirit light, finding him immature, may so work upon him as not to illuminate but to dazzle and stun him. So that the question may not only be, “What is the way to the light of the spirit, where can it be found?” but rather and above all, “How must man tread the path of the soul that is able to lead him to the spirit light in the right way?”

These are only the guiding lines that should occupy us in these lectures. We have reached such a stage in our anthroposophical work that we need not develop our subject from the very start, but may connect it to some of the things already familiar to us.

When we meet the word, initiation, which is for us so intimately connected with the words eternity and spirit light, all the great men of whom we have heard in the successive epochs of humanity as initiates, become living in our souls. With them our souls call to life, too, the several epochs themselves, how they ran their courses, how men lived in them, and how the light streamed into humanity from both initiates and initiation temples in order to make possible what the impulses, the essential driving forces of human evolution, have in all ages become. It would take us too far afield today to refer in detail to all that happened in earth evolution before the Atlantean catastrophe broke upon the face of the earth, completely changing it. We can gain an adequate idea of what we are considering if we turn our gaze to post-Atlantean times, remembering the particular configuration of the human being and his various aspects throughout the ages.

We will let our gaze sweep back over the characteristic civilisation that followed immediately after the face of the earth had been re-formed by the Atlantean catastrophe. We have often spoken reverently of all that in the first post-Atlantean epoch the great and holy teachers of mankind brought to that part of the earth where later the Indian civilisation was developed. We have remarked how the soul cannot but look up from below to the lofty spiritual teachings that came into the world at that time, through certain human individualities who still bore within them all the inward greatness of those men who in Atlantean times had direct communion, which was no longer possible in later epochs of mankind, with the divine spiritual worlds. We have pointed out how the heritage of Atlantean wisdom, now accessible to the occultist alone, lived on in post-Atlantean form in the ancient holy teachers of the first post-Atlantean period of culture. We have also pointed out how great and significant man finds all that then lived, to which, now, it is only the Akashic Records that bear witness, when he receives reflections of it in Indian, or any other oriental literature. The moral and spiritual sublimity contained in these writings as an echo of primeval spiritual teachings cannot be fully realised by present-day humanity insofar as external culture is concerned. Least of all can it be realised in the countries that have been prepared for their present external culture by what the various forms of Christianity have accomplished during the last centuries. Thus the soul felt directed upwards when it turned its gaze to all the greatness that, so dimly sensed today, has only come down to us as a faint echo of primeval spirituality. So, if man looks up to the old wisdom and remembers above all what has often been mentioned here, namely, that only in the seventh and last epochs of the post-Atlantean age will mankind again reach the point of drawing up out of the darkness of life the understanding of what once lived at the beginning of post-Atlantean times and gave the impulse for human evolution—if we consider that mankind must mature to the last epoch before it can feel and experience in itself what at that time was felt and experienced, then only shall we get a sense of how exalted must have been the initiation principle that gave the impulse to the ancient, holy, spiritual culture of mankind.

Then we see how, in the course of successive epochs, mankind, struggling for other spiritual treasures, other treasures of earthly life, seems to descend ever lower, how it takes other forms, but how, according to the needs of the age, great initiates give to men from the spiritual worlds what they require at any particular epoch as impulse for their culture. Then, before our vision, arises the Zarathustra culture that, if seen in its true light, entirely differs from that of the holy Rishis.

We then see the Egyptian-Chaldean culture arise, and the ancient holy mysteries of Greece, to which we referred from a quite different aspect in our last lecture. Everywhere we see the light of the spirit shining down, according to the needs of the different epochs, into the darkness of life. If at the outset of our considerations we ask what are our ideas of an initiate—it is obvious that at the beginning of these lectures only approximate ideas can be given of so vast a concept—we must first gather up much of all we have already heard in the anthroposophical field. We must be clear that for complete initiation it is necessary that man should not look out on the world from within his physical body in the usual way, by perceiving the world around him through his eyes and other sense organs, nor must he gain knowledge of this world or any other world around him through the intellect bound to the brain, nor through what he may call his sense of orientation. He must not form concepts about these worlds in the ordinary way. He must arrive at a stage in which, by means of what we may term “the perceiving of worlds outside his physical body,” he develops something in his life of soul that may be called a super-sensible spiritual body, having within it organs of perception, though of a higher kind, just as the physical body has eyes and cars and other organs of perception and understanding. “One who can see worlds without using the organs of his physical body” can be given as an entirely explicit definition of an initiate. The great initiates, who gave man the important cultural impulses in the course of successive ages, had attained in the highest measure independence of the sensory body, and use of another quite different in character.

I do not wish to say much that is abstract. Wherever possible I shall bring forward concrete examples, and today therefore I should like to illustrate this life outside the sensory body in a higher organisation belonging to the soul and to illustrate it by means of the following example.

If one who has only gone a few steps on the way to initiation, realises through self-observation what it is that he experiences in and of himself, he may say something like, “One of the first things I experienced of myself is that I have within me, besides my physical body of flesh, a finer one that may be called an etheric body, which in earth life is carried about with me just like the physical body.” Anyone making his first steps toward initiation realises this at first in such a way that he feels within this body and experiences it just as, on another level, he feels what lives in his blood or nervous system, or in what arises from his muscular system. Such an inner feeling and experience is present, and it can exist also for the etheric body. It is then particularly useful for a student in the first stages of initiation to get to know the difference, or one might say the relationship, between the realisation of himself, the experience of himself in his physical body, on the one hand, and on the other, in his etheric body. Man experiences himself in the etheric body in the same way as one is conscious of the blood or the beating of one's heart and pulse in the physical body.

To gain a clear idea of this we may consider the etheric body in connection with the physical body, in which one is more at home than in the body that one only succeeds in reaching by means of a journey into the spiritual. One may say to oneself, “In my etheric body I have a part corresponding to my physical brain and to all that constitutes my head. The head, the brain, is as though crystallised out of the etheric body, and so rests within it that it might be compared to a piece of ice floating in water—the water representing the etheric body and the ice, the physical body crystallised from the etheric body. An intimate connection is felt and experienced between what may be called the etheric part of the head or brain, and the physical brain itself. We then realise how we create our thoughts, how we form memory images within the etheric body, and how the physical brain is only a kind of reflector, but we also realise how intimate is the connection of the brain with the etheric body. This can be experienced with especial force when one has to work hard at tasks connected with the physical plane in the physical life, when prolonged thought about things is necessary, and when one must exert the physical body to bring up memory images from the depths of life and to hold them together. In such a process, the etheric body always takes a direct part, whether one knows it or not. But inwardly connected with it is the physical brain, and if this brain is tired out, fatigue is markedly felt in the corresponding etheric part. We then notice something like a block in what is experienced as the etheric part of the brain, something like a foreign body, so that one can no longer get at what one must know since mobility in the physical brain must run parallel with mobility in the etheric body. You may then have the distinct feeling that your etheric body never grows tired. It would be able to gather up thought images to all eternity, and bring to the surface all that you know. But before all this can be expressed in the physical world, it must be reflected back, and this the brain refuses to do. The etheric body never tires. Just because it can be continuously active, it notices the fatigue of the brain all the more. One notices as it were the forces of exhaustion produced by the brain, and when the brain goes to sleep and falls into the torpor of fatigue, one might say, “Now you must stop or you will be ill.” The etheric body cannot be used up, but by giving the brain too much to do it is possible indirectly to over tire it more and more, thus bringing about a lifeless, deathlike condition. A living organism will not suffer anything normally connected with it to be partially deadened and brought into an abnormal state. Hence, out of a free resolve, one must say, “So that I may not kill part of my brain and leave it to go on consuming itself, I must stop when I begin to feel it like something foreign inside me.”

That is what we experience when we try to find the relation between that part of the human or etheric body, which corresponds to the brain or head, and the physical brain or physical head itself. There is an intimate connection between them. In effect, the external life of the senses runs its course in such a way that it is impossible to break down what is parallel between the two. Therefore, if we want to express the relation, we may also say that in our head, especially in our brain, we have a faithful expression of the etheric forces, something that, in the external phenomena and external functions, gives us a really faithful image of the functions and processes in the corresponding etheric part.

It is different in the case of other organs of the human etheric body and the corresponding physical sense organs. These things are quite different. I will give you an example. Consider the hands. Just as there exists in the etheric body an etheric part corresponding to the head or brain, so there are etheric processes in the human etheric body corresponding to the hands. But the difference between the external physical hands and their tasks, and what lies at the basis of the corresponding etheric part is far greater than the difference between the physical head and its corresponding part in the human etheric body. What the hands perform has far more to do with the world of the senses and is much more a purely sensory function, while what is done by the corresponding etheric organs is only manifest in a small degree in what finds physical expression in the hands.

In order to describe the corresponding facts, I must, as is often the case, say things that appear grotesque and strange for physical experience, and for grasping physical observations in words. But what I say is fully in accordance with basic facts, and everyone who knows anything about these things will at once feel that they really are as I am obliged to describe them. They are the etheric parts corresponding to the physical hands. But apart from the fact that what corresponds to these etheric parts finds its expression in the hands and their movements, these etheric organs in the etheric body are true spiritual organs. The etheric organs expressed in the hands and their functions, work far more intuitively, more spiritually, and perform a far higher task than is accomplished by the etheric brain. Whoever has made progress in these matters will say that the brain with its etheric basis is in effect by far the least skilful of the spiritual organs man bears within him because as soon as he begins to bestir himself in the etheric part of the brain, he soon becomes aware of this foreign part of it.

The spiritual activities connected with the organs underlying the hands, but incompletely expressed in the hands and their functions, serve for a far higher, more spiritual kind of knowledge and observation. These organs can lead into the super-sensible world and can occupy themselves with our perception and orientation there. A spiritual seer may express this, somewhat surprisingly but accurately, by saying that the human brain is a most clumsy organ for research in the spiritual world, and that the hands, or the spiritual basis of the hands, are far more interesting and significant organs for gaining knowledge of the world, and are certainly far more skilful organs than the brain.

Not much is gained on the way to initiation by advancing from the use of the physical brain to a free use of the etheric brain. The difference is not great between what may be achieved through a purified, intuitive brain-thinking, and regulated spiritual working in the etheric spiritual counterpart of the brain. The difference becomes much greater between what our hands accomplish in the world, and what can be done by the etheric part that is the spiritual basis of the hands, in the same way as the etheric brain is the spiritual basis of the physical brain. On the path of initiation not much development of the etheric brain is necessary, since it is not a particularly important organ. But the etheric basis of the hands is connected with the activity of the lotus flower in the region of the heart, as you will learn in my book, Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment.

This lotus flower pours out its rays of force in such a way as to build up the organism that, at the stage at which physical man now stands, exists in an incomplete form in the hands and their functions. When we learn this fact, and think of the great difference between the mere use of physical hands and all that we can acquire as regards the super-sensible world through the etheric organs underlying the hands—such far more skilful organs than those of the etheric brain—we gain a vivid conception of learning to experience initiation and all the enrichment that it means for man. We do not acquire much enrichment through the feeling that our brain radiates out to feel its etheric counterpart. This is the case, but it is not a really permeating and significant experience. The significant experience begins when one feels that other parts are also expanding and making contact with the universe. Though it may sound strange, yet it is true that the least skilful organ for spiritual investigation is the brain, since it is the least capable of development. On the other hand, entirely new perspectives are opened out when we consider other apparently subordinate organs.

Thus there takes place a complete transformation of what man experiences in himself when he starts on the first steps toward the heights of initiation. It is necessary that one should bring this to consciousness, that one should grasp it as an inner transformation of the human personality, like the principle of development elsewhere in the universe; one thing passes over into another, the later being called, though perhaps not always appropriately, the more perfect as compared with the earlier. If we are clear how in the course of evolution one thing is transformed into another, how the seed of the plant is transformed and becomes leaves, flower and fruit, we can say that the human personality, too, experiences something of this kind; namely, what it is and what it can become through the methods given in Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, which are the first beginnings of what may lead us right up to the highest regions of initiation. It is good—and you will see why—to arouse within us a living conception of how the men who are destined to become spiritual leaders in the course of time develop themselves inwardly, how all becomes transformed that is at first only germinal and appears so imperfect in man, like the hands in comparison with other organs. Outwardly, this transformation is not noticeable, but the inward change is all the more significant. Just as the outer world exists even for one who is blind and cannot see what is visible to others but only appears if the eye is there, so the world that is spiritual is present around us. But we have to bring to it what we can in order that the spiritual content of the world should approach us.

Now, in the various epochs of humanity there must stream into the course of evolution as impulse all that can be given through living oneself into the spiritual world. This is what was always behind everything proceeding from the mysteries, the initiation centres. A true idea of the course of human evolution may be gained by thinking of the great initiates as the real driving force, the real individualities, behind what is to be perceived externally. The connection between what these great initiates have to do and what happens externally in the World, often only becomes perceptible through anthroposophy or some other form of occultism. The external, purely historical knowledge of the learned only sees that human history, human evolution, is running its course; it does not see the driving forces behind it. In external history we follow what seems like a chain of phenomena, one link following another in a succession of external events. But that at certain points of the chain impulses are entering from quite another world by way of initiation, this we only learn to accept through anthroposophical development. Thus, anthroposophically we see the inmost centre in the course of time and all that, fundamentally, gives to evolution its whole stamp and character. We perceive the various developments of religion as an out-streaming from the initiates. We perceive how the impulses flowing from the mysteries and initiation centres pass over into the general life of mankind.

Whoever regards the evolution of mankind in this way becomes, as a matter of course, free from any kind of a priori preference for a particular religion. This has always been the case with genuine occultism. It is one of the first requirements of initiation to divest oneself of all prejudices and preconceived feelings that grow up in a human soul when it incarnates into a particular religious system or community. In self-education one has to watch carefully that nothing remains in the soul that might give preference to any one religion. We must meet with absolute impartiality all that is contained in the various religions that, through initiation as impulse of development, has entered human evolution. As soon as there is any preference for a particular religion, something like an astral mist is formed through which no free vision is possible. Anyone who, by reason of an inclination that is a matter of course in ordinary life, harbours a preference in his soul for any religion, will never be able to understand other religions. Though he may not know it, he will perceive the predominance of one part of the contents of initiation and will never attain impartial knowledge of the other. Thus, for an occult view, it is obvious that one should confront without prejudice the various streams and impulses flowing from initiation. No one in studying a plant would give the flower preference over the root because he then would not be able to form an objective judgement of its whole structure. Just as little can a correct judgement of the inner content of one religious principle be gained if one is unable to observe other religions with complete impartiality.

In these lectures we shall be speaking of the demands the soul must make upon itself when taking the first steps toward initiation. I should like first to arouse a feeling of how initiation is related to life, and of how the various initiation centre's and initiation impulses stand in regard to human evolution, particularly in post-Atlantean times.

Now occult investigation, in following up this course of human evolution, has a peculiar experience that can only be properly appreciated when such words as have just been spoken about the equal value of all religions are genuinely understood. When these ideas become a matter of course, something remarkable is experienced that will be increasingly better understood during the course of these lectures.

Let us turn our gaze to the initiates who give light to mankind as the ages go by. A man living primarily in the physical world, looking back on the initiates as historical and traditional figures, may say, “Those are the great figures of world history.” When necessary, history has taken good care that as little as possible should be known of them. Although this may sound paradoxical, it is a good thing that humanity should know so little of Homer, for example, since it has not been possible for his image to be distorted by the learned as has been done in the case of other personalities. So will it be—we may well long for this—with Goethe when once he has become as unknown a personality as Homer is today. Man's soul then can look out into the external world at these personalities, and see what they did there. Then he may himself take the first steps in initiation and become able to turn his gaze on the great figures of initiation such as Buddha or Zarathustra. He may be able to remember what Buddha or Zarathustra was to him in the world of the senses, what sort of impression he there received of these human individualities. Then, when some degree of spiritual light has dawned for him through initiation, he may ask, “How does Buddha now appear to me, and how Zarathustra?” And he will say, “I now have more knowledge of Buddha and Zarathustra. I know something I was not able to know in the world of the senses.” Such a man may then develop even further, until he comes to the stage when he will see better what these beings are as spiritual entities. One learns to know a Buddha, a Zarathustra, better the more one lives oneself into spiritual light until, when at last a certain limit is reached, it stops. That is one secret phenomenon, however, that has no need to be discussed further here. Suffice it to say that, as higher worlds are approached, further knowledge may come to a stop. This is the case as regards all initiates whom we meet in world evolution.

Now the spiritual student, who has not advanced too far, can easily be mistaken in these matters. That, however, is not of much consequence. It may happen that some human individuality, who in bygone ages stood high as a spiritual seer, on being reincarnated later, seems to have descended from his former spiritual heights. But the truth is simply that there are certain connections in human evolution where those who have already been initiates, are reincarnated as non-initiates because time conditions call for them to accomplish certain deeds for which their initiation, latent during one or more incarnations, may work in some special way. Mistakes may easily arise about such individualities as they appear to us here or there making their way in external life, and quite wrong ideas may be formed about them. But in the course of progress these mistakes have gradually to be corrected. On the whole, therefore, it is a fact that man's relation to the initiates is such that he learns to know them better as he himself ascends toward the light of the spirit.

In the successive epochs of human evolution we find one remarkable phenomenon. I could give examples of what I have just told you of the confusing way in which initiates on reincarnating sometimes appear to have come down from their heights. You would probably be much surprised if I told you, for instance, in what way Dante was reincarnated in the nineteenth century. But it is not my task here to discuss further this result of my own investigation and what was established for me. Rather have I to bring forward with strong proof the things known to everyone conversant with occultism, letting everything else recede into the background and stating nothing that is not generally recognised where bona fide occultism is upheld.

Now another remarkable phenomenon appears to us that can best be expressed by saying that we meet with a Being regarding Whom it would be senseless to say that He was initiated like other initiates. While through Him the principle of initiation stands before us in the world objectively and is there, yet it would be meaningless to speak of this Individuality as having been initiated on earth like other initiates in the course of human evolution. I have often touched on this fact. A certain degree of misconception has arisen by understanding this fact as originating in specifically Christian prejudice. In reality it is not any kind of Christian prejudice, but should be stated as the objective result of occult research. This Individuality Who was not initiated like other initiates, of Whom it would be quite meaningless to speak as having gone through initiation like others, is Christ Jesus Himself. Let us again emphasise that, just as it is impossible to understand a scale if it is said that it should be suspended from two points instead of one since the one point constitutes its very nature—just as it would be impossible for a competent mechanic to maintain that a scale should be suspended from two or more points, it would be equally impossible for any genuine occultist to maintain that our earth evolution could have more than one fulcrum, more than one centre of stability. I have said that this is an objective result of occult research that may be recognised by anyone, be he Buddhist or Moslem.

Anyone who has made certain progress in occult development learns to know the initiates insofar as they are great personalities or have done great deeds. He learns to know them in the spiritual worlds as he ascends toward initiation, and the higher he rises the better he learns to know them. Let us take the example of a man who possibly had no opportunity in his earthly life to learn to know the Buddha and had never concerned himself about him. I know people who have entered deeply into the whole life of the occident without having any idea of the Buddha. It might be said of them that in their bodily life in the physical world they never had anything to do with him. Or take someone who in his earthly life has never interested himself in the great leaders of the Chinese religion. Imagine men of this kind entering the super-physical worlds through initiation or, as in some of the cases I know, entering these worlds for the first time after physical death. They can then become acquainted with Buddha, Moses and Zarathustra because they can meet them as spiritual beings and gain a real knowledge of them. If they want to gain knowledge of these personalities, the fact that they had no opportunity to do so on earth is no hindrance. But it is quite different in the case of Christ. I beg you to receive this as an occult fact. Suppose a man had never in any of his incarnations established a relation with the Christ Being. That is a hindrance to him when, in order to find Christ in higher worlds, he is using his perceptive faculties in an ultra-physical world, for Christ cannot then appear to him in His true form. It is on earth that it is essential to prepare for the vision and recognition of the Christ Being in higher worlds. This is the occult difference in the relation of man to other initiates. The Christ event is such that something specific becomes related to the actual physical evolution of the earth in its most important phase, radiates down into the earth's physical evolution and forms its centre of gravity.

Now let us assume that the beings who live out their lives as human souls did not at first pay any attention to the earth. It might be that something happened in the course of the world to make these souls say, “We will take no notice of the earth; why should we incarnate down there?” This is, of course, impossible but let us assume it for a moment.

Then, insofar as what belongs to the earth is spiritual, these human souls would be able to experience it in the spiritual worlds, and all the great, sublime principles that were active in the initiates would there be visible to them. Were such a soul in the higher worlds to put the question to cosmic evolution, “Of all the beings in the higher worlds I want to know the Christ, to learn to understand His world mission and His essential task,” then the answer would have to be, “If you would know the Being Who is for us the Christ, then you must incarnate on earth. You must in some way participate in the Mystery of Golgotha in order to enter into relation with the Christ Being.”

The Christ Mystery had to take place on earth in accordance with cosmic law. The earth is the stage where, in accordance with cosmic law, the Mystery of Golgotha has had to be enacted, and where the essential foundation has had to be laid for an understanding of the Christ. The understanding of the Christ that man gains on earth is a preparation, on a different scale to any other preparation that takes place on earth, for any vision and knowledge of this Being in the higher worlds. Therefore, in the Christ Being the principle of initiation was lived out in quite a different way from that of other initiates. They experienced a super-sensible world, indeed, sometimes profoundly, and gave the various impulses out of that world into the course of human evolution. But when they had experience of the higher worlds, when they were within them, they were out of their physical bodies. Though it did not require much effort on the part of high initiates to leave the physical body, though but a small step was necessary to issue from it into the fullness of spiritual facts, yet it is true that this transition from the physical body to the higher bodies has to be made. In the Christ Jesus we have the distinctive phenomenon that, in reality, in accordance with the principle of initiation—in accordance, that is, with what man needs in order to bring about initiation—He never, during the whole three years He was living on earth, deliberately left the physical body as is done in initiation. He always remained within it. All that He brought into life and gave to the world during those three years He gave through His physical body. The other initiates gave what they had to give to mankind through their super-physical bodies. In Christ we have the one and only individuality Who has given all that He gave, all that He said, all that went out from Him into human evolution, through His physical body and never indirectly through the higher bodies.

In ordinary consciousness this is experienced in such a way that the sense of it can be summed up by saying that in Christ we have a phenomenon that can be understood by the most primitive consciousness that anyone possesses through the body by means of which we speak in everyday life. Hence, the intimate, brotherly union with the Christ Individuality, the possibility of understanding the Christ Individuality without the aid of education, simply by means of original primitive human feeling; hence, the necessity for working up to a higher form of comprehension, if one wishes to understand the other initiates. Thus what I have often emphasised in these last ten years is true. In Christ we have a Being Whom the simplest mind can understand, although anyone who has raised himself to this higher comprehension will understand Him better. In Christ Jesus all that can be connected with a human body was present, spiritualising the human body to the greatest possible extent, and working in the human body through Christ Jesus. The other initiates were not able to be so fully active while giving forth what was spiritual because they had always to go out of their physical body and return to it later in order to reveal what they had retained of the super-sensible world. Christ, however, always had to live everything out in the physical world through the physical body.

Such things must be taken into consideration if we would go into the true connections. Everything else is empty talk, as for instance, when it is discussed whether Christ or the other initiates stand the higher. Nothing is gained by such classification; that is quite beside the mark. The essential thing is to look into the connection between the beings. It is a matter of personal preference whether the founder of one religion is deemed “higher” than another. That will not do much harm; men are always subject to such little weaknesses. The important thing is to realise wherein consists the actual distinction between the position of Christ and that of the other initiates in the world. We may then calmly allow people to say, “I consider this or that individuality the higher on account of what he did.” When the difference I have described is understood, the distinction will also be understood between the impulses that have come into the world through the various initiates.

If we would speak of initiation and its significance for human life and evolution, we must try to probe into the essential nature of all this with the concepts and modes of thought that are indispensable to any true description of super-sensible worlds. It is comprehensible that at every stage of its development the human soul should experience the deepest longing to discover the nature of the worlds more or less justifiably described as eternal. Surely it is also comprehensible that, at first, human souls should try to probe into higher worlds without much preparation and with the ordinary ideas and concepts of the life of the senses. I expressly say that this is comprehensible, and this may, to a certain extent, apply where the longing after eternity is satisfied by one or other of the religious faiths. But when it is a question of gaining a deeper insight into the course of all spiritual things, particularly into the course of all life of the soul in the real anthroposophical sense, we must gradually accustom ourselves to the necessity of submitting our ideas, concepts and modes of thought to a certain change before we are able to form correct ideas of the higher, super-sensible worlds. Because this is particularly necessary for an actual description of the Christ event, as we shall see in the next lectures, I may perhaps be allowed to say a few words today about the transformation and re-molding of man's conceptual life that is necessary if he would arrive at ideas about the super-sensible worlds.

For this, we must become familiar with the idea that everything is different in the super-sensible world from what it is in the world of the senses because an exact repetition of any world existence is nowhere to be found in the universe. If everything is different, why should it be assumed that human conceptions and representations hold good in the higher worlds as they do in the life of the senses? They certainly do not. Anyone really pursuing the practical path into the worlds opened to him by initiation, anyone having actual experience of super-sensible life, well knows that not only must he transform many things in himself—I might equally say, leave them behind with the Guardian of the Threshold—but he must also lay aside many of his habits, representations and concepts before he can enter the higher worlds.

We will proceed first of all from certain ideas to which we must all undoubtedly be subject in physical life. Here two concepts, or systems of concepts, have a decisive effect. In our life of the senses they stand side by side; they run parallel. The one consists of all the ideas we form about the natural world, about the forces and laws of nature. Side by side with all these ideas of ours, there exists in ordinary sensory life what we call the moral world order, the sum of our moral conceptions, thoughts and ideas. If a man takes accurate stock of himself, he must soon come to the conclusion that in the life of the senses these two systems of concepts natural order and moral world order—must be kept distinct. If we are describing a plant, we analyse it according to natural forces and natural laws. Let us suppose it is a poisonous plant. We do not confuse our description with the issue of whether or not it is morally responsible for being poisonous. We maintain that it is part of sound thinking in the life of the senses, when describing the world of nature, to rid ourselves of what we call moral concepts and ideas. We know that we must do the same, too, when we want to gain a clear and objective idea of the animal world. We feel, for instance, that it would be senseless to hold a lion responsible for its cruelty in the same way as we should a man. But if many modern naturalists are finding something like moral conceptions in the animal kingdom, I might say more as a matter of preference than from any real necessity, to a certain extent this may be justified. At the same time, we can at most speak of an echo, of a suggestion, of moral concepts in what animals do and in what happens in the animal kingdom. A simple development of the interpretation of nature requires that we should free ourselves from moral concepts so long as these interpretations are confined to the world of the senses. Then, however, as unprejudiced and thoughtful observation of oneself must affirm, the moral world order enters with authority into our life, making unconditional and absolute demands. We know it is his moral ideas that decide the world of a man, and indeed not only his worth in human social life. It also makes one able to say that even a man who is not moral, if he be granted grace at some special moment to reflect quietly about himself, will determine his own value as a human being according to the moral ideas that light up in his consciousness. It must repeatedly be emphasised that these two systems of concepts must be kept properly distinct.

All this becomes quite different the moment the higher, super-sensible worlds are entered, and one gains the power of perceiving, observing, experiencing and living outside the physical body. When such observation is really attained, it takes place at first in the etheric body of which I spoke yesterday. Then, later, the world, or rather a second super-sensible world, is observed with the astral body. The further we rise into higher worlds, the more do the concepts and ideas that we have worked upon and acquired in the ordinary physical world lose their significance. They must be transformed if we are rightly to describe and understand what comes to meet us in the super-sensible worlds. In the ordinary world of sense existence, we have only one thing to remind us of a fundamental fact familiar to every clairvoyant, and that is when we speak in symbols and metaphors so that our words re-echo what in actual reality is only experienced in higher worlds. When the expression is used that greed or jealousy or hate “burns,” there is something in such an expression that belongs to the many wonderful mysteries of the creative activity of speech, where there shines down into primitive, elementary human consciousness what, in its reality, is only present in the higher worlds. Everyone knows that when he speaks of a “burning hate” he does not mean a burning like the burning of a fire in the external world. He knows that he is speaking figuratively, but that it would avail him nothing to try to explain the objects and processes of nature by calling moral ideas to his aid. In speaking, however, of processes in the higher worlds, it is not in the same metaphorical, figurative sense that we use such expressions. I may perhaps remind you that in my mystery play, The Guardian of the Threshold, certain processes of the soul, feelings and desires, are twice spoken of as “burning” in the higher world. This expression is not to be taken as a metaphor; it stands for something quite real and actual, a spiritual reality. Lucifer, for instance, would never say that something burned him in the same sense as a man in the physical world would speak of hate burning him. Lucifer would say it in a real and literal sense. For what in super-sensible worlds might be compared to the natural order, to the natural processes of the sense world, is far more intimately connected with what may be called the moral world within the super-sensible world, than is the case with these two ideas in the world of the senses.

We can gain some idea of all this at once if we turn to man's etheric body. When speaking of the physical body, we can talk of raising a hand to perform a moral action. We can see the hand with our physical eyes and, to explain its functions, we can investigate it through knowledge belonging to the material world. This description of the hand in physical existence is not essentially different whether we have to do with a hand performing a moral or an immoral action. So far as we can give a description of the hand in physical life at all, we have no business to mix with the question of how the hand is formed and all that we bring to its explanation, the other question of whether it is the habit of performing moral actions or not.

The matter is different where a man's etheric body is concerned. Suppose that to clairvoyant vision a man's etheric body, or some particular part of it, appears incompletely developed. On enquiring into the true cause of such being the case with some particular organ, we find that the reason for the imperfect development lies in a moral fault, in some moral deficiency in the man. Thus, man's moral qualities are actually expressed to some extent in his etheric body. They are still more distinctly and more intensively expressed in his astral body. While, therefore, in the case of a man, we should be doing him a great injustice by assuming that some physical deformity were the expression of something in his moral nature, in what concerns the moral world it is certainly true that if we think of the expressions natural order, natural processes and moral causes as merging into one another in the higher worlds, moral qualities are actual natural causes and are there expressed in forms and processes. To avoid any misunderstanding, I should like expressly to state that the perfect or imperfect development of man's higher organism—his etheric and astral bodies, his higher bodies if we may so call them—need have nothing to do with the perfect or imperfect development of his physical body. A man may even have some physical organ crippled from birth, while the corresponding etheric organ may not only show a perfectly normal development but, in certain circumstances, a more perfect development more complete in itself, when the corresponding physical organ is thus crippled or deformed. The idea, therefore, that moral qualities are faithfully expressed in the form of the body cannot be applied to physical existence, but it is nevertheless absolutely true of the part of man that belongs to super-sensible worlds.

Thus we see that the natural order and the moral order, which apparently run side by side in the ordinary life of the senses, are interwoven in the super-sensible worlds, and in speaking of some part of the etheric body, we can well say that such and such a form is due to hate. Hate shows itself in this member of the etheric body in quite a different way from how love is expressed. We may speak thus where the super-sensible worlds are concerned, but it would have no meaning were we confined to a description of nature in the world of the senses. This necessity to change our concepts when the higher worlds are in question is a particularly distinctive feature as regards what, in ordinary sensory life are reckoned as cravings or desires. We may ask how cravings, desires and emotions appear to us in the life of the senses. They appear in such a way that we seem to see them arise from the very recesses of man's soul being. If we see any particular craving aroused in a man, we are then able to recognise something of his inner condition and how it causes this craving to arise. We can see that it is above all the inner nature of the soul that determines the character of the man's desires. We know quite well, for instance, that a piece of veal will call up quite different cravings in two different men. It does not depend on the veal, but on all that a physical man has in his soul. A Raphael Madonna may leave one man completely cold, while another may experience a whole world of feeling. We may thus say that man's world of desire is kindled within his inmost nature.

All this is changed when we enter the super-sensible world. It is foolish to say that one cannot speak of desires and so forth in super-sensible worlds. They do actually exist, and they are determined in the great majority of cases by external things—by what a being sees and perceives. Hence, a clairvoyant in these worlds cannot get such a near view of the inner conditions of the being he meets when wanting to discover his desires and cravings, but he has to observe the super-sensible surroundings of the being in question. When, therefore, in the super-sensible world, he perceives a being having desires, longings, emotions, he does not look at the being himself, as we should do in the physical world, but he looks at the surroundings. He looks to see what other beings are present in the neighbourhood. He will always find that the nature of the being's desires and emotions vary according to the kind of beings who surround him because there, desires and emotions can always be explained by external things.

A case in point may make all this clearer for you. Suppose a man enters the super-sensible worlds either through the first stages of initiation or by passing through the gate of death. A clairvoyant then observes him in the super-sensible worlds. Let us assume that the man had taken some imperfection belonging to his character with him out of physical existence—some kind of incapacity, a moral imperfection, perhaps some crime committed in the physical world that stays with him in the super-sensible worlds as a torturing memory. To make a search for this, it is not so much a question of the clairvoyant looking into the inner soul of the man, as it is of observing his surroundings. Why should this be? It is because this content of soul, this quality of soul that the man carries over with him as an imperfection or moral flaw performs something real, something actual. It guides the man and brings him to a particular place in the super-sensible world, to the very place where there is some being who possesses in perfection what is imperfect in the man who is newly arrived. Thus, this moral flaw, this consciousness of a faculty lacking, has an actual effect. It guides a man along a certain path and confronts him with a being possessing in perfection the very quality lacking in himself, and he is condemned to continual contemplation of this being.

Thus, in the super-sensible worlds we come into the presence of beings who possess all that we ourselves do not possess, and they show us what we lack. We are not drawn to them by what in physical life are called desires, but by means of a real process. If the clairvoyant sees what kinds of beings surround a man there, he can, by objective observation tell what the man lacks and what are his failings. The being into whose presence the man comes, at whom he is condemned to go on gazing, stands there as a continual reproach, one might say. This reproach, standing outside him, has the effect of rousing within him what in super-sensible worlds might be called a craving, a desire, to become different. It arouses in him the activity and strength to work his own transformation, so that he may rid himself of his fault, of his imperfection. You need not exclaim that the super-sensible worlds must, therefore, always be able to show forth beings having in perfection all that we lack! The super-sensible worlds are indeed rich enough to be able to confront us with beings perfect in everything where we are in fault. They are far richer than we in physical life can imagine. Yes, indeed, the super-sensible world is always able to confront man with a being having in perfection everything in which he himself is imperfect!

This gives some idea of how desires and cravings are real forces, determining our path in the super-sensible world. It is not as though our desires represented something objective in which we could remain stationary. But according to what we are, we are led on our way and placed where all that we lack appears before us as something real, or as an effective reproach. It might easily be said that if this is so man would be completely without freedom in super-sensible worlds because he would be confronted with an external world that would determine how he was to work upon himself. On further observation, however, in super-sensible worlds it turns out that while one being may feel the reproach and begin to work toward perfection, another may resist and fight against imitating what is thus placed as a reproach before him. But this resistance works quite differently in the super-sensible worlds from how it does in the world of the senses. When a being refuses thus to work on himself, he is driven back into other worlds that are strange to him, where he does not know the way, and where the necessary conditions of life are lacking. In other words, this being condemns himself to a kind of inward process of destruction. One may always either choose the fruitful, helpful process shown to one and behave oneself accordingly, or inoculate oneself with destructive forces by resisting it. One has this amount of freedom. But reciprocal action definitely takes place between what is moral and all that is going on in super-sensible space.

A further example of this is that our conceptions of beauty and ugliness, quite in place in the world of the senses, can really no longer be applied when we ascend into super-sensible worlds. Indeed, there are manifold reasons why these conceptions can no longer be used there in the way in which they are used in the world of the senses. When we perceive in super-sensible worlds, we see above all a significant difference in the various beings that meet us. By virtue of the intuitive knowledge that will then be ours, we will be able to say that the being we are looking at is able, and has the will, actually to reveal in his external appearance all that is within him.

Let us assume that such a being has an etheric light-body, that it is one of the beings who do not incarnate into the world of the senses but who only in higher worlds take on a light-body or something of that nature. This light-body may be the expression of what such a being is within. It is not like a man in the sense world who confronts us in a definite form and yet may be hiding within him the most manifold feelings and sentiments, so that he is able to say, “My feelings are for myself alone. What is seen of me externally is my natural form, and I am well able to conceal what appears in my soul.” That is not the case with certain beings in the super-sensible worlds; their external form is the most direct expression of what they bear within them. In their component parts, what they are lies fully open to view. But there are other beings unable directly to express, to manifest, their real nature in their external super-sensible appearance. Confronted by beings of this kind, clairvoyant consciousness has the feeling of something repellent, something from which it wants to get away, something oppressive that may even be offensive.

Thus, we can distinguish two kinds of beings, those who are perfectly willing to expose their inner nature, to reveal what is within them, and beings who give one the feeling that what they expose is definitely distorted and what is within them is concealed and does not issue forth. In man's life of the senses, one cannot say to the same extent, when one person is capable of being secretive and another is perfectly frank, that the difference lies in their natures. Their features may be different, but they belong to the same world as far as their natures are concerned. In the super-sensible worlds, however, those who reveal all that they have within them, and those who do not, are two radically different kinds of beings. If we would use the words beautiful and ugly with approximately the meaning we have in the world of the senses, we must apply them to these two kinds of beings. In the super-sensible world we only come to the point by calling the beings who reveal everything, beautiful, for in front of them we feel just as we do before a beautiful picture. But the beings who do not reveal their natures in their external form are felt to be ugly. Thus, if we can put it so, beauty or ugliness depends upon the fundamental natures of the beings.

What is the consequence of this? When clairvoyant consciousness enters a world where it must have these feelings about beauty and ugliness, much in its whole mode of feeling must undergo a change. It is quite natural for the clairvoyant to say that a being revealing all that he has within him is beautiful, and the other idea immediately arises that to be beautiful is to be upright and honest. A being is beautiful because he hides nothing, because he bears in his very countenance what is within him. True and beautiful are one and the same when we enter the super-sensible world. A being who does not reveal what is within him is ugly. That is immediately felt by clairvoyant consciousness. But there is the further feeling that he lies and does not show what he ought. What is ugly is at the same time untruthful! What is true, upright and honest is at the same time beautiful; what is ugly is untruthful. In the super-sensible worlds a point is reached when a separation between the concepts beautiful and true, in the one case, and between ugly and untrue in the other, loses all meaning. So the expression beautiful must be used of a being who is felt to be honest and upright, while the opposite feeling must be called ugly.

We see here how moral and aesthetic concepts merge when the higher worlds are reached. It is a peculiar feature of this ascent into super-sensible worlds that concepts do thus merge into one another, that things to which we refer separately in the world of the physical senses become linked and fused together. Hence, other modes of feeling must be acquired if expressions of the sense world are to be used of super-sensible beings. One is almost always obliged to represent these things more simply, and still more in accordance with physical consciousness than really coincides with a strictly correct representation because they become so complicated.

To my explanation of how the concepts true, upright and beautiful, in the one case, and ugly and untruthful in the other, become linked together, I must add something further. On making one's way into super-sensible worlds one may meet a being who, according to all ideas acquired in the life of the senses, must be called beautiful, perhaps even exquisite—beautiful, radiant and exquisite. There is the picture! But simply because this being appears in such a form, is no proof that it is also a good being; it may even be quite an evil being and yet stand before one in this sublime, angelic form. According to the idea of beauty that we have in the sense world, we should call such a being beautiful in its super-sensible appearance. How could we help it? Seeing it thus in the world of the senses we should be quite right in calling it beautiful. It may really be the ugliest being in existence, and yet, if one uses the expressions of the sense world, the word beautiful must be used. It may be an utterly evil being, containing hidden wickedness and untruthfulness, a very devil in the form of an angel; this is quite possible in super-sensible worlds. Still, in diverse ways of which we still have to speak, one may gradually get to the truth of the matter by approaching it in clairvoyant consciousness. One is confronted by this angelic form and if, during super-sensible vision, one has become capable of coherent thought, it is possible for one to say, “I must not let myself be deceived by the fact that I am looking at something angelic or a wonderful form of some kind; anything is possible; it may be an angel but also it could be a devil.” One may now begin with what must so often be undertaken on entering higher worlds, that is, a good examination of oneself.

We may seek counsel with ourselves to find out how many bad points such as selfishness or egoism we possess. Then our soul becomes permeated with bitterness and remorse. But this bitterness, this pain, may be the very thing to lead us to purify and cleanse ourselves from our selfishness and egoism. When, through this, one comes to see how little one is free from self, and how necessary it is to struggle to be free, then the whole process in the soul lights up. Now, if we have got so far as not to lose our vision while taking stock of ourselves as usually happens at first, the angel in certain cases may be revealed as no angel at all, but may assume an ugly form. Then one can gradually reach the point of saying to oneself, “I myself gave this wicked being the power to express its wickedness by masquerading before me in a quite different form, but, by permeating myself with purer feelings, I have forced it to show me its true form.”

Consequently, a process of the soul has a compelling force in the super-sensible world. We ourselves either make it possible for these beings to lie to us, or we compel them to show themselves in their true form. The appearance of the super-sensible world to us depends on how and with what qualities we enter it. What is called the source of illusion must be dealt with in quite a different way from what is customary.

Someone may enter the super-sensible world and describe all sorts of glorious things. If you told him he had been deceived he would not believe it, for did he not see it all? But he did not see what he would have seen had he done what I have just described. Had he acted in this way he would at once have seen the truth: It is beautiful when a devil shows himself as a devil but it is ugly for him to appear in the form of an angel.

When we enter the super-sensible world, we must above all rid ourselves of the habit of speaking of things according to the ideas we gained of them in the world of the senses. If we keep to these ideas we shall first say to the form appearing to us that it is a beautiful angel and afterwards that it is a hideous devil. But clairvoyant consciousness, if it is to give a correct description, cannot express it thus. On the contrary, it must say of the ugly devil that it is a beautiful devil, even though, according to material conceptions, it is quite hideous. We do not arrive at this point simply by turning upside down all the ideas gained from the life of the senses. That would certainly be an easy way. Anyone could then describe the devachanic plane, for instance, by putting beautiful for all that was ugly in the sense world, ugly for beautiful, red for green, white for black, and so forth. But that cannot be done; the concepts of the super-sensible worlds must be acquired by experience. We must acquire them gradually, as a growing child acquires sense conceptions, not by theory but by experience. When we become conscious that we are speaking in the language of the super-sensible world, it will no longer seem natural to call a devil ugly if he appears as a devil. Feelings of this kind must be acquired if we are to find our bearings in the super-sensible world and to know our way about there. From this it will be easy to form some idea of what is meant when, for the sake of simplicity, we say, “On the one side stands the world of the senses, on the other, the super-sensible worlds”. Super-sensible existence is entered by crossing the boundary of sensory life, but if it be entered with all that is gained from this life, if the conceptions and ideas acquired in the sense world are applied there, they are of no use and the wrong construction is put upon things. One must learn to transform one's knowledge at the boundary, not just theoretically but in a living way. Ideas acquired in the life of the senses cannot be used at all on crossing over; they must be left behind. So you see how at the boundary much must be left behind of all that is so intimately woven into us in the world of sense existence.

I should like now to describe the matter not theoretically but from the point of view of concrete perception. Let us suppose that someone, having acquired the capacity for crossing the boundary of which we have been speaking, enters the super-sensible world from the world of the senses. At the boundary he asks himself, “What must I leave behind now, so as to feel at home in the super-sensible world?” After due reflection he will say, “I must really leave behind everything I have experienced, learned or acquired in my various earthly incarnations from primeval times up to the present. I must lay everything aside here because I am entering a world in which all that can be learned during incarnation has no further meaning.” It is quite easy to say such a thing, easy to hear and easy to grasp it in the abstraction of a concept. But it is an entirely new inner world really to experience such a thing, to feel it livingly, to lay aside like a garment all that one has appropriated during incarnations in sensory existence in order to enter a world where it no longer has any meaning. If this becomes a living feeling, then one has a living experience that really has nothing to do with theory. It is a living experience such as we have in the world of reality when we actually meet a man and make his acquaintance, and when he speaks and behaves in a certain manner toward us, so that we learn to know him in a way we should were we living with him, not just by making concepts about him.

Here we stand at the boundary between the life of the senses and spiritual life, confronted not by a system of concepts but by a reality that only works super-sensibly, and as concretely and livingly as a human being. This is the Guardian of the Threshold. He is there as a concrete and real being. When we learn to know him, we know he belongs to those beings who, to a certain extent, have taken part in life since primeval times on earth, but who have not gone through what one experiences as a being of soul. This is the being who, in the mystery play, The Guardian of the Threshold, is meant to be expressed dramatically in the words:

Thou knowest well, who has been guardian
Of this realm's threshold since the world began,
What beings need to cross the threshold o'er
Who to thy time and to thy kind belong ...

This “to thy time and to thy kind” is something that proceeds indeed, from the very essence of the matter. Of other times and other kinds are the men, the beings, who since primeval times have in a certain sense separated themselves from the path of humanity on earth, and in each of these we meet a being of whom we may say, “I have a being before me who experiences and lives through a great deal in the world, but he does not concern himself with all the love and grief and pain that can be experienced on earth, nor yet with the failings and immorality there. He neither knows nor wishes to know anything of what has taken place up to now in the depths of man's nature.” Christian tradition expresses this in the words: “When confronted by the mystery of man's becoming, such beings veiled their faces.” A whole world is expressed in this contrast between such beings and human beings.

Now a feeling arises as immediately as does the feeling we have on meeting a fair-haired man, that “he has fair hair.” There comes this feeling: In passing through various earthly cultures. I have naturally acquired faults, but I must get back again to my original state; I must retrace my steps on earth, and this being can show me the way just because he does not possess my faults. One has before one a being who stands there majestically as an actual reproach, but at the same time spurring one on toward all that one is not. The being shows one this most vividly, and one can feel one's own being completely filled with the knowledge of what he is and what he is not. There one stands before this living reproach. This being belongs to the rank of archangels. The meeting actually takes place, and has the effect of suddenly revealing to us what we have become as earthly man in sensory existence. This is direct self-knowledge in the truest and broadest sense. You see yourself as you are; you also see yourself as you ought to become!

But it is not always fit for man to see himself thus. Today I have only spoken of the world of concept and idea that has to be discarded. But much else must be laid aside. When we reach the Guardian of the Threshold, we must really lay aside all that we know of ourselves, but we must still retain something to carry on with us. That is the chief thing. This knowledge that we have to leave everything behind at the threshold is an inner experience in itself to which one must have attained, and the preparation for this stage of clairvoyance must consist in schooling ourselves to bear what would otherwise be full of terror and fear. With proper schooling we need not speak of danger because such a schooling does away with danger. Powers of endurance must be attained through due preparation; they are the fundamental force necessary for all further experience. In ordinary life man is not capable of enduring all that he must endure when standing before the Guardian of the Threshold.

The Guardian of the Threshold is there for a strange purpose. If it is not to be misunderstood, it has to be judged from the standpoint of the super-sensible world. In man, the activities of the super-sensible world are always at work, though he knows nothing of this. Whenever we think and feel and will, it always necessitates a certain activity of the, astral body and connection with the astral world. But man knows nothing of this; if he knew what his bodies really were he would not be able to bear it and would be stunned by it. So that when man meets this being without sufficient preparation, everything must be veiled from him, including the being. The being must draw a veil over the super-sensible world. He must do this for the protection of man who, while within the world of the senses, could not endure the sight. In this we really see a concept that, in the world of the senses, can only be judged morally, as the most direct ordering of nature. The protection of man from sight of the super-sensible world is the function of the Guardian of the Threshold. He must hold man back until he has completed the necessary preparation.

We have here tried to gather up a few ideas that may help us to form a concept of the Guardian of the Threshold. I have tried to collect ideas, concepts and experiences of this kind in a little book, A Road to Self Knowledge, that will be in your hands in the course of the next few days. It may be helpful to you in conjunction with these lectures. The book will consist of a series of eight meditations, and is so conceived that should the reader carry them out, he will gain something definite for his life of soul. Today I have tried to deal with a few of the ideas that can lead us to the Guardian of the Threshold. Starting from this point we shall pass beyond the Guardian of the Threshold, and try to gain some degree of insight and perspective from which we can reach a yet deeper understanding of the Christ Being and of the Christ Initiation.