The Rudolf Steiner Archive

We really ought to acquaint ourselves, somewhat, with the fundamental problem and fundamental currents of Christianity, if we wish to throw light upon the two ideals of the Christian world-conception in all their profundity. You already know, through previous lectures, that the teachings of Christianity, as generally proclaimed, are based upon a so-called esoteric Christianity. You know, moreover, that even in the Gospels we find intimations concerning this esoteric Christianity, clearly expressed in the words: When the Lord stood before the people He spoke in parables, but when he was alone with His disciples He explained these parables unto them. Thus, it is clear that He gave one form of his Teaching to those who had less understanding—to whom it was necessary to speak in parables, for it was not yet possible to go into things any deeper with them; and He proclaimed another Teaching which was destined for the initiated.

In the same way, also, Paul—the great expander of Christianity—taught, before the people, an external form of that Teaching, which we know through his Epistles. On the other hand, in addition to this Teaching of Paul—which was an external Teaching, meant for the people—he expounded an esoteric Teaching, as well. External history knows nothing about the fact that Paul founded the esoteric School at Athens, which was under the leadership of Dionysius. In this School of esoteric Christianity, the same Mystery-Teaching, or Occultism, was taught, which you also—at the present time—are learning to know anew, through Spiritual Science. Scientific learning does not know very much concerning those Teachings which were proclaimed at that time, at Athens, by the esoteric companions of St. Paul, to their more intimate disciples. One even speaks about a false Dionysius, because—it is said—it is not possible to prove that any of these Teachings were ever recorded in writing.

Pseudo-Dionysius is the name given to the man who taught this form of esotericism during the 6th century. Yet only those persons can call him by that name who do not know what was customary, in earlier times, in connection with Initiate-teachings of this sort. Only in our days has it become customary for people to record everything, as quickly as possible, in writing. Whatever was contained in the holiest Truth was preserved from publicity, in those days. One to whom such a Truth was to be entrusted was first scrutinised carefully. Only within the esoteric Schools was this Truth passed on from mouth to mouth—and only to such persons as could really value it aright. Thus it was that these particular teachings of esoteric Christianity were likewise handed down from man to man—till, finally, some of them were written down during the sixth century. Since it was customary for the leaders of such a School to always bear the name of Dionysius, the leader of this School at Athens, during the sixth century, therefore also bore this name—the same name which had been borne by his great predecessor at Athens, the friend of Paul.

Let us now consider in the spirit of this esoteric School, and actually in the way in which it was taught there, the concept of Sin, or, we might say, of slander against the Holy Ghost—and the Christian concept of Grace.

If we wish to grasp the fundamental meaning of Christianity, we must return, in thought, to a very remote past in the history of human evolution; and we must realise that, through the appearance of Christ-Jesus, something entirely new has actually been impressed upon the history of the spiritual evolution of humanity. What it is that has thus been impressed finds its fervent expression in the initiation of Paul himself.

The fact that a man like Saul, through so sudden an illumination, could attain to complete conviction of the Truth of Christianity, would not have been possible before the appearance of Christ-Jesus. We have already often spoken about the form of initiation which preceded the appearance of Christ-Jesus upon earth. Let us now do this, once again, in order to understand what the Spirit of Truth really signifies, in the Christian sense. If we wish to grasp what is was that took place, in the ancient sites of initiation, we must briefly recall to our minds the nature and being of man.

We know that man consists of a seven-fold being. His physical body is built up out of the same substances as those contained in the lifeless materials of the physical world. His etheric body calls these forces into life, and works—at every moment of life—against the decay of the physical body; only at death does the etheric or life-body go out of the physical body. The crystal is able to hold its substances together, through its own forces; the living body, on the other hand, decays as soon as it is abandoned and left to itself. It is indeed a fact that, at every moment, there is a fighter battling within this body against death; if this fighter ceases to battle, death ensues.

Man's third member is the astral body, or the consciousness-body. His fourth member is the Ego; by means of this member he is the crown of creation.

All Mystery-Teachings have thought of man as being built up of these four members. In the Pythagorean School, each disciple had to be introduced, first of all, to this Teaching of the fourfold man. Only when this Teaching had become his innermost conviction, could he be advanced to higher knowledge. Hence he had to take this vow: "I vow allegiance, by virtue of what is deeply engraved in our hearts: to the holy fourfold Being, to the sublime spiritual symbol—the primal fount of all natural and spiritual Creation."

Even the most undeveloped human being has these four members. Man evolves, throughout the course of his various incarnations, to an ever greater degree o perfection, through the fact that the Ego works upon these three members of his being.

It begins, first of all, within the astral body, to work upon everything that constitutes the progress of civilisation and logical scientific learning—upon everything, that is to say, which serves to bring about a freedom from the animal stage. This is the work of the Ego upon the astral body. In the case of every moderately-developed human being, whose Ego has already worked upon the astral body, we find that the astral body divides into two parts: into the originally existing part, and that part produced by the Ego. This latter part which expands more and more—the more the human being progresses—is designated by the name of Manas or Spirit-Self.

Christian esotericism designates this part as the Holy Ghost—the Holy Spirit, in contrast to the unpurified, unholy part of the astral body.

Thus, we have learned to know the fifth member. But the Ego can also work upon the more dense, etheric body. In a certain sense, this already takes place in the ordinary human being—that is to say, unconsciously. It has often been stated that we should learn to distinguish between the work upon the astral and the etheric bodies. The ratio of speed, in the progress of the first of these, in relation to the latter, may be compared with the movement of the minute-hand of the clock, in relation to the hour-hand. If a human being surrenders himself to the impression made upon him by some lofty work of art, this has a transforming effect upon his life-body and his consciousness-body. Every great artistic impulse has this effect. Strongest of all is the effect of those religious impulses which were brought into the world by the founders of religions, and which direct the Ego toward the Eternal. The clairvoyant eye can see how the etheric body becomes more and more beautiful and pure.

That part of the human etheric body which is spiritualised by the Ego, is called Budhi or Life-Spirit; it is the transformed life-body. Christian esotericism designates this part, which is transformed by the Ego, the Christos. The fifth member of the human being is the Holy Ghost—the sixth member is the Christ, the inner Christos.

Our attention has already been called to the fact that so-called Mystery-schoolings, or preparations, have always existed for man—enabling him to become an Initiate, and to look into the spiritual world. Such a training is based upon the transformation, on a higher plane, of the etheric or life-body. For this reason, we must be quite clear in our realisation that every higher form of schooling is more than a mere acquisition of concepts and material for study. The occult training consists, rather, in the transformation of the qualities of our etheric body. Anyone who has transformed a temperament has thereby achieved far more than if he had acquired an infinite amount of scientific learning.

Now, there is a still higher form of metamorphosis, which takes place only through secret or occult schooling. Through this, the human being purifies his physical body. How much, indeed, does man know concerning his physical body! Through the fact that he examines it by dissection in an "anatomical museum" he does not by any means acquire any real knowledge concerning the laws which rule it, nor any inner control of these laws. Yet there is a possibility for him to look into himself, so that the movements of the nerve-currents, of the pulse-beat, and of the breath-streams, will become clear to him, and he can then be consciously active within these. When the human being, accordingly—through so-called occult training—is able to transform his physical body also, this now transformed body is designated as Atman, because the work upon it begins with the regulation of the breathing processes. (In German "Atmen" means: to breathe.) The seventh member of the human being is Atman—in Christian esotericism: the Father.

Thus we first attain to the Holy Ghost, to the transformed astral body; through the Holy Ghost we come to the Christ—to the consciousness of the etheric body; and through the Christ, to the Father, or the consciousness of the physical body.

If you have understood how these seven members of human nature are inter-related, you will also understand how Initiation took place in ancient times, before Christ, and how this Initia-tion took place, after Christ-Jesus had appeared on the earth.

When the human being is asleep, only his physical and etheric bodies lie in bed—his astral body is outside. When he dies, he leaves his physical body behind: only that part of the physical body which he has already transformed goes with him: forces, that is to say, not substances. What the human being thus takes with him, is very little indeed. Nevertheless, it is just this part which, in a new incarnation, serves to build up a new physical body. Materialism designates this part as the "permanent atom". And this part of the physical body, which the human being himself has transformed, is the first to leave the physical body; then the etheric body leaves it; then the consciousness-body, and then the Ego. After a short time, that part of the etheric body which the human being has not yet worked upon separates itself.

Thus it is that the human being enters Kamaloca, the Place of Purification. After another period of time, that part of the astral body which the Ego has not yet worked upon, severs itself likewise… And then there comes the time when the human being has left to him, from his three bodies, only those parts which the Ego has worked upon and transformed, through its own forces; and this is what passes through Devachan—this is the eternal kernel of man's being. It increases more and more, the more the Ego has worked upon it.

The Holy Ghost is the eternal Spirit in man. The Christ is the eternal part of the life-body; the Father, the eternal part of the physical body. These Three accompany the human being throughout all time, as that part of him which is eternal.

Before the Christian era, Initiation took place in such a way that the disciple was first prepared for everything which Mystery Teaching was able to give, until he reached the point where he was familiar with all the concepts and ideas, all the habits and feelings which are needed for living and perceiving in the higher worlds. This was followed by what was designated as the Awakening, which lasted for three and a half days and three nights. This consisted of a process whereby, through the skill of the Temple-Priest, the human being was artificially placed in a condition resembling death, for three and a half days. Whereas, normally the physical and etheric bodies remain connected during sleep, the initiating priest now drew out, during this space of time, the etheric body of the disciple about to be initiated, so that only a very loose connection existed between the etheric and physical body, on the one hand, and the remaining two bodies, on the other hand. It was a deep, trance-like sleep. The Ego of the man lived in the higher worlds, during this period of time. As the disciple had been given a knowledge of the higher worlds, he now felt at home there. The Priest was his guide. First of all, the Priest had to free the etheric body from the lethargic physical body, in order to lead it out of the physical body; in a fully-conscious state, the human being would never have been able to rise to these higher worlds ; it was necessary for him to be lifted out of such a state. Although the experiences which a human being passed through in such a process, were sublime and overpowering, he was nevertheless entirely in the hands of the Priest; he was under the power of another, and only under these conditions was he able to enter the higher worlds.

What the human being was like, after having passed through this experience, may be imagined if we bear in mind that it gave him the opportunity of experiencing his own eternal being: he was then emancipated from the part which was not eternal—his physical body—which he could not use, if he wished to move about in the higher worlds. Such a human being returned as one endowed with knowledge—as one who could bear witness, through his own vision, to the victory of life over death. Those who could bear witness, in this way, were Initiates. Their etheric body had to be lifted out of the physical body, in order that they might experience the Christos in man. These Initiates were able to say to themselves: "I have learned through my own experience that there is a part in man, which is eternal, which outlasts all incarnations. I know it, for I myself have experienced this eternal kernel of man's being". In order to attain to this, they were obliged to dwell for three days in a state of profound, dream-like sleep.

But there was something else that was connected with this—this kind of Initiation was dependent upon still another factor. And, the further we go back in time, the more we realise the truth of this. I have already characterised this to you, when I once explained that, in ancient times, there existed what we might call "close marriage", in contrast to distant marriage. In all nations, we find small communities which were inter-related; people married within these communities, and it was considered immoral to abandon them by marrying outside. The same blood always streamed through these marriages. Only very gradually was this close marriage substituted by the principle of distant marriage. Indeed, in the case of initiation, very special measures had to be observed, it was necessary to choose most carefully, from preceding incarnations, in order to produce the best possible mixture o blood. Such a genealogy then produced the one who was capable of passing through the higher grades of Initiation. In the case of persons related by blood, it is especially easy to draw the etheric body out of the physical body. In the case of distant marriages, this is by no means so easy. Throughout long generations of priests, it was their duty to see that the blood was maintained in a specially determined way. Human life is complicated; it does not always follow a straight road; and it is necessary to penetrate more and more deeply into the riddles of existence.

In ever increasing measure, this principle of close marriage was broken; the tribe extended more and more to the folk or nation. In the case of the Israelites, we see how the tribal principle rose completely to the idea of the national community. Christ extends this perspective into the far distant future: "He that forsaketh not his father, mother, brother or sister for my sake, cannot be my disciple."—In a stern, yet in a most deeply true way, do these words indicate the direction followed by Christianity. Within the national community, one would say: This is my brother, for he was born in the same nation. in the human brotherhood, which must encompass the whole human race, one should say: Because you are a human being, you are my brother. This is the most profound of all Christian principles. All narrow-mindedness contained in the other form of relationship must be torn asunder, and a common tie must unite human beings. At the same time, this implies also that the old principle of Initiation has been torn asunder; for it was based upon relationship of the blood.

The new principle of Initiation—which is not connected, since the coming of Christ, with any physical quality—is clearly indicated to us, in the case of Paul: He is initiated in the Light, not in the darkness of the Temple. This could not have taken place, earlier. When we bear this in mind, we shall be able to realise the tremendous turning-point brought about by Christ Jesus. The way to this was prepared by Moses, Zarathustra Buddha, Pythagoras;—but it was brought to fulfilment by Christ-Jesus.

Thus we see also that in the Christian Schools of Initiation this new principle is carried through, for the first time—the principle of not drawing the human being out of the physical body, in order to lead him into the higher worlds, but of leading him into the higher worlds while completely conscious in his physical body. This is what took place, accordingly, in the Christian esoteric Schools. In contrast to this, there is the old way—and this still includes a great part of humanity, even at the present time—in which there is the initiating Temple-priest, to whose stern authority the neophyte surrenders himself. Only by subjecting oneself entirely to the power of such an Initiating priest, was it possible to ascend to higher worlds.

The principle of enforced authority came to expression also in social life. The Priests were rulers. Every law of government, the whole structure of the state, was in the power of the Initiates. From the blood-community of the tribe, up to the community of the nation, this was possible. But, through the fact that the old principle of initiation was eliminated, the way was opened for an entirely new form of authority: a free authority, based solely upon trust and confidence. "Believe only in the one whom you trust"—this is the most sublime Christian idea to which we can rise, by virtue of which we all face one another as brothers, and the one who, stands higher will be recognised as the one who deserves our trust.

"Watch and pray": this is a fundamental Christian principle. The new Initiation takes place in a state of full consciousness. "You will know the Truth, and the Truth will make you free”: these are profoundly Christian words, for they signify a perspective into the farthest future of Christianity. Christianity is at the beginning of its evolution.

Let us consider the intensely close tie that existed between the initiating Teacher and the disciple, during the ancient Temple-Sleep, which lasted three and a half days—when the neophyte was being initiated into the highest Mysteries. This relation was of a kind which we cannot even imagine, to-day. The relation between the hypnotiser and the one who is hypnotised may give a faint idea of the way in which the initiating Temple-priest first called to life the Holy Ghost, and then the Christos. The disciple reflected the Holy Ghost and the Christos of the Teacher: the personalities of the Teacher and the disciple streamed into each other, and the clairvoyant could observe the process. During the three days, the Teacher and disciple were one. The Ego of the Guru thus lived on, in all of his disciples, and was deeply merged with them, during the three and a half days.

Let us observe the pyramidal structure of social life: the folk below; above the folk, the Initiates; and, above these, the Teachers of the Initiates. One and the same Spirit streamed down through all these stages. Many things, consequently, passed over into, and lived on, in those who were initiated in this way—even things that were alien to them.

As a result of the Christian principle, the individuality appeared in its full value. This explains the fundamental principle of Christian initiation. Never should the disciple become merged with the Teacher in the old way. They must not become one person, during Initiation. The Holy Ghost must arise, and awaken within the Ego of each single human being: this has become the principle of Christian Initiation. And this is also expressed symbolically, in the miracle of Pentecost. The possibility of Initiation, in that case, was given through the fact that all who were present began to speak in different tongues.

The Teacher respects the individuality of the other person; he enters into the heart of his disciple—he does not draw this out of the physical body.

We should bear in mind that, for the modern human being, everything depends upon the free and independent development, within each one, of the Holy Ghost and the Christos. We shall then realise that it is through this principle of Christianity that—for the first time, indeed—this human personality can be looked upon as free and independent. Only through Christianity has the human individuality become really free; and, for this reason, through Christianity, an entirely new relation to Truth and Wisdom has become necessary.

In olden times, the spirit of Wisdom ruled over all things, because it was centralised. Through the cleavage that followed, it became de-centralised; but Egoism arose. The more the principle of distant marriage begins to hold sway, the greater must become the power of that element which brings together human beings, now become free. And what is this element? If we consider what we may learn to-day, in the elementary parts of spiritual science, and then go back to ancient times, we shall find that this knowledge was in the possession of small communities only—and, indeed, even then, only in the possession of the highest authority. For this reason, the ruling principle was based upon compulsion. We are now approaching the time when Wisdom will become m.re and more popular. This will be the means whereby the great Brotherhood of humanity will be established.

Two occultists will never be of a different opinion. Where-ever this is the case, one of the two opinions is wrong. Wisdom is something unified—a oneness—which cannot contain differences. The more individualised human beings become, the more they will need this wisdom; for, through it, they will be drawn together. To-day, we are living in an age of transition. The principle of different viewpoints ceases entirely, through the progressive development of Wisdom. The more individualised men become, the wiser they must grow; for knowledge will lead them together. This is the Spirit of Wisdom which Christ-Jesus his promised to His followers. The Sun of Wisdom draws into itself all differing standpoints—just as the sun attracts the plants. The Spirit which will make men free, is the Holy Ghost. Against this Spirit, no Christian may ever sin. For he who sins against it, sins against Christianity itself—against that promised Spirit which is able to draw together all separate human individualities.

There is a passage which tells us that Christ-Jesus cast out demons. Demons exist only as long as the human being is not free—as long as he has not yet received into himself the Spirit of Wisdom. The human being is absolutely filled with all kinds of beings, which stream in and out of his lower members. (Perhaps we may use the trivial comparison of a piece of cheese, with maggots creeping in and out of it). We call these beings shadows, spectres, ghosts, or demons. In making Himself known as the Spirit who casts out demons, Christ-Jesus has shown that He is the Spirit of Freedom. For demons can be cast out only by calling forth the one Spirit against the others—the Spirit of Freedom against all the other spirits.

Let us now consider once more the ancient communities—extending from the tribal community to the nation. How may these human beings, who are not yet individually free, be drawn together? Imagine to yourselves that everyone who is sitting here has become truly free—that the Spirit of Truth lives in each one! Would we, in that case, ever quarrel, ever fall into dissension? No—for where the Spirit unites us, there can be no divergence of opinions. In ancient times, external law had to hold sway, in order to hold human beings together. Where two human beings know the Spirit of Truth, they will, because of this, feel themselves drawn to each other.

At the beginning of human evolution was the Law: at the end of evolution, there will be peaceful, harmonious cooperation from within. Esoteric Christianity calls this, in contrast to the Law—Grace. To be able to share, in complete harmony, the feelings of one's fellow-man: this is the profoundest concept of Christianity.

The astral body that has been filled with the Holy Ghost, is the same in all men—the Spirit of Truth, in each one, is the same. Imagine to yourselves this Spirit within a human individuality in which also the Christos has been awakened—that is to say, that principle which is active as Life-Spirit within the Life-Body. If each one of us were to permeate his etheric body with this feeling, we should then have, in every heart, the feeling for the One, unified Spirit. Human individualities are brought together by the Wisdom which is common to all; and what each one feels within himself, is Caritas—Grace.

The One who brought Grace to earth was He Who, at the beginning of our Era, contained within His own individuality the whole Christos—the One Who fulfilled, for the first time, the principle of humanity, as a whole. Christ-Jesus developed in Himself what should live in every single human being. Whatever exists through freedom and peaceful cooperation, has come into the world through Him.

"Become alive again in Christ and kill the Spirit of discord", says Paul.

A human being may sin against everything which is not contained in this Spirit. But, if he were to sin against this Spirit of a common humanity, if he were to deny this Spirit—he would no longer be a Christian.

The human being must reach the stage of being conscious of the Spirit. If he develops himself, ever more and more, his consciousness-body becomes transformed into the Holy Ghost. It is for this reason that the Sin against the Holy Ghost cannot be forgiven. In the case of an uninitiated person, the transformation of the etheric body takes place unconsciously. As long as the human being is not initiated, the unforgivable sin can be committed only within his astral body. The Initiate may not sin, even against the physical or etheric body: to the one who is not initiated, these sins may be forgiven. All of this takes place with the help of those who are the Leaders of humanity.

What has been generally designated as the Elemental Kingdoms, since the earliest times, is not so easy to understand as we are apt to imagine after a superficial examination. For these Elemental Kingdoms belong to what lies behind the world which we generally perceive—behind the world which forces itself immediately upon our senses.

We can understand such things in the best way, if we proceed from what we can perceive through our senses—from the kingdoms of the sense-world, which are accessible to human observation. Here, in the physical sense-world, four kingdoms are spread out before our senses: the mineral kingdom, the plant kingdom, the animal kingdom, and the kingdom of man. This is common knowledge. Let us now try to form some clear idea as to the precise nature of these four kingdoms; for this is by no means clear to everyone. And for this same reason, it is also not so easy to gain an insight into the first, second and third elemental kingdoms. It is precisely when we speak of such difficult matters, that we must take great care, from the very outset, to realize that no true goal can be reached, if we believe that a concept which we have, as it were, driven like a stake into the ground, once formed it can be left rooted in this place. This may still be possible within the physical sense-world, for here, things stand one beside another; there is a division between them, just as this book, this piece of chalk, a rose, etc., are distinct and separate from one another. It is possible, in this case, to apply a term to a single object, for when we have named something, we can be sure that we have before us something distinct and limited. If, however, we went to the astral plane, that world which is immediately beyond our own, and permeates it, as the one nearest to it, we find that this no longer holds true, for the astral world is one of eternal movement. If you observe the astral body of man, which floats around him as his aura and is the expression of his desires and passions, etc., you will see that this astral body of man is in a constant motion—it is an ebb and flow fall of colours and forms, which change at every moment, for new colours shine forth and others disappear. This is what we find in the case of man. But there are other Beings which whirl about on the astral plane. Their astral bodies do not form part of a physical body, although they are no less changeable and variable, for at every moment they have a different shape, colour, or luminous force. Everything on the astral plane is the continual expression of the inner nature of these Beings. We would, indeed, find ourselves in a difficult position if we were to apply to the astral plane the rigid, unchangeable concepts of the physical world. We must learn instead to adapt ourselves to the mobility of these shapes—we must acquire mobile concepts. We should be able to use a concept, once in this way, and once in that.

This is true of the higher worlds to a still greater degree. If we consider the world from a higher standpoint, we find that everything on the physical plane is an expression of forces emanating from these higher worlds. In everything we see about us, such forces and beings lie concealed. It is precisely what accounts for the great diversity among the beings of the physical world. Observe, for instance, the mineral kingdom. All apparently lifeless beings, all minerals, belong to this kingdom. You are told, to begin with, that these minerals on the Earth have no etheric body of their own, no astral body and no Ego. But this is true only within the physical world. We must know this, in order to reach a clear conception of what actually takes place upon the physical plane. But let us now suppose that someone were to say: “The mineral is something which has nothing but a physical body.” This statement is exactly as false, as on the other hand—it would be true, were someone to say: “The mineral kingdom is something which has, upon the physical plane, only a physical body.” For, in the light of a genuine spiritual method of observation, we find that here, upon the physical plane, the mineral has a physical body, but nothing more. If we wish to find its etheric body, we must ascend to the astral plane: there, its etheric body is to be found. The moment that a human being becomes astrally clairvoyant, he is able to see the etheric body of the mineral—there, on the astral plane—and here, on the physical plane, he sees merely its physical body. If we extend our observations still further, we find that the mineral has also an astral body. This body cannot be found, however, upon the astral plane, but must be sought in the lower regions of Devachan.¹ Only in the higher Mental plane, in the Arupa-Mental² plane, do we find the Ego of the mineral—and it is from here, that the mineral is directed by its Ego. If you wish to form a rough picture of this, you must say to yourselves: I will try to imagine a human being, whose clairvoyance reaches as far as the higher Devachan. To such a clairvoyant, who is able to see into Arupa, the minerals will appear like the fingernails of the human being—because the minerals are as it were the nails of Beings whose Ego dwells in higher Devachan. It is not possible to think of the fingernails without the human being; the same thing applies also to the minerals.

Let us suppose that we observe a rock-crystal here on Earth. If we now look away for a moment, to the etheric body, which animates the physical body, there, in the astral world. Yet it would not be possible to perceive there, that any injury caused to the mineral, also causes it pain. The joy and gladness, pain and suffering of minerals can only be found on the Devachan plane—but entirely differently from the way in which we usually imagine this. A mineral's sensation of pain is not like that of an animal; we must not think that a mineral feels pain when we hammer it and break it into pieces. When workmen in a quarry break stone and they seem to harm it, this actually gives rise to a feeling of pleasure upon the Devachan plane—it is a true delight for the minerals. Thus, in their case, we find the very opposite of what takes place in the kingdom of man and in the animal kingdom. On the Devachan plane you can encounter the spirits of the minerals. Yet it is not merely one mineral which belongs, as it were, to a mineral personality, but rather a whole system—just as your fingernails do not each possess a separate soul. If someone were to imagine that everything of an astral nature must be found upon the astral plane, he would be under a delusion. It seems, of course, natural to look for the astral element upon the astral plane—nevertheless, the inner nature of a Being must be distinguished from the environment in which it lives. Just as your Ego has no physical nature, and lives nevertheless on the physical plane, so the astral body of the mineral does not live on the astral plane but in lower Devachan. We should not form schematic concepts, but must rather work our way through to a more precise determination of things.

Let us now observe the plant, just as we see it before us. Here, on the physical plane, it has its physical body and its etheric body. It has these two bodies on the physical plane—but where are we to look for the astral body of the plant? We shall find it in the astral world—and the Ego, in the lower Devachan. Let us now go a step further, to the animal. The animal has, in the physical sense-world, a physical body, an etheric body, and an astral body—but its Ego is on the astral plane. That is to say: just as, here on the earth, we encounter the human being as an isolated person, as a single individuality, so you will find the Egos of the animals, as complete, self-contained personalities, on the astral plane. We must think of this in the following way: All groups of animals which have a similar form, have also a common Ego. Man, therefore, distinguishes himself from the animals, owing to the fact that every human being has an individual Ego. On the astral plane, we find for instance, the Ego of the lions, the Ego of the tigers, etc. There, they are single, self-contained Beings; the single animal group-egos inhabit the astral plane just as the human beings inhabit the physical-sensory world. For the human being it is true that for him the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body and the Ego have descended as far as to the physical plane. This is true, however, only when the human being is awake—when he is asleep it is otherwise. The physical and etheric bodies are then in the physical world, whereas the astral body and the Ego are on the astral plane. Thus, during sleep, the fourfold human being is separated into parts, and is to be found partly on the physical plane and partly on the one directly above this—the astral plane. On the physical plane, the human being is then of the same value as a plant (see table below).

Now we have already learned to know, in previous lectures, the various ways in which the expressions “astral”, etc. must be used. But we shall only attain a comprehensive insight, if we realize clearly that these things cannot be pushed around like pieces on a chessboard. If we study the human being, we must observe him quite precisely, in the following way: We find in him the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body, and the Ego. It has often been emphasized here, how very important it is to form a clear conception concerning the relation of these four members. It is very easy to imagine that the physical body is the most imperfect and the lowest of these. From a certain aspect, however, it is the most perfect of all—for it has passed through four successive stages of evolution—on (ancient) Saturn, Sun, Moon, and on the Earth. The etheric body has only reached its third stage of perfection, for only on the Sun it was added to the physical body. In the future, it will indeed rise to a higher stage—although at present, it is not yet as perfect as the physical body. The astral body was only added on the Moon, it has reached the second stage of perfection. The Ego is the baby among the four members of man: for it was added only on Earth, and is thus only at the beginning of its evolution; it works continually in a corruptive way upon the other bodies. Anyone who studies, from an anatomical point of view, the wonderful organization of the physical body, is filled with wonder by the perfection of the heart and of the brain. How imperfect, on the other hand are the impulses and passions of the Ego! The Ego craves for wine, beer, etc., which exerts a destructive influence throughout life—nevertheless, the physical body withstands these attacks for decades! Let us now try to make clear to ourselves how the Ego was inserted, as it were, within the physical body and how it first arose.

To begin with, there was the ancient Saturn-evolution. This was the first stage of evolution for the precursor of our present physical body. At that time man's physical body had the cosmic value of a mineral. If you look at a mineral today, you will see in it a retarded stage of existence; it has remained behind at the same stage which the physical body had reached on Saturn. But you must not think from this that the physical body had then the appearance of a mineral of today—this would be quite wrong. The present minerals are the youngest forms in evolution. On Saturn, the human body was not so dense; this density of the physical body of man was very slight indeed.

Let us now consider the relation between the various stages of matter. The first is what we call earth—that is, everything which today may be called a solid body, iron, copper, zinc, etc. everything solid is earth. Secondly, everything liquid is water, for instance, Mercury. Even iron, in a liquefied state would be water. Every liquid metal is water in the sense of Spiritual Science. Thirdly, if you convert water or anything else into steam, it, even metal steam, becomes air. Spiritual Science goes still further, for it shows that the air may become still more rarefied—may become thinner still. In this case, we must go beyond what is physical today,—and there the spiritual scientist assumes a warmth-ether, or fire. For the spiritual scientist, fire is something distinct within itself, just like earth, water, and air—whereas modern science merely looks upon it as a state of matter.

On Saturn, warmth was the substance of man's physical body. On the Sun, the physical body of man was condensed to air; then an etheric, or life-body, entered into it, transforming this physical body. We now have on the sun a physical human body, with an integrated etheric body consisting of one member. The physical body consists of two members. In the case of the physical body on the Sun, we must distinguish a more perfect and a less perfect part—that is to say, one part was not as yet permeated by the etheric body. When picturing to ourselves this physical body on the Sun, we must realize that the inner part of this physical body has received nothing from the etheric body; it has still the same value as the physical body had on Saturn. Thus, we have one part which has already attained to the stage of a plant, and this part is at the same time permeated by another part, which is still at the stage of a mineral: yet these two parts completely permeate one another.

Let us now consider the physical body on the Moon. Here, it is already condensed to water. The etheric body and the astral body are incorporated in it. Thus, we must now distinguish three different parts: One part is permeated by the etheric and astral bodies; another part is permeated only by the etheric body; and a third part has remained at the mineral stage.

And now, let us consider the physical body on the Earth. Here, the Ego is added. On the Earth, four members are interwoven. One part of the physical body is permeated by the etheric body, astral body and the Ego; a second part, by the etheric body and astral body; a third part, by the etheric body only; and a fourth part remains at the mineral stage. It has the same value as a mineral, and is still at the stage of Saturn. These four parts can be clearly distinguished in the physical body. The first part, which contains all four members, consists of the red blood corpuscles. Wherever we find red blood, these four members permeate one another.

The nerves are the second member. Wherever nerves are found, there the physical, etheric and astral bodies permeate one another. Where glands are to be found, the physical and etheric bodies interpenetrate. All the instruments of the senses, all organs which have the character of a physical apparatus, have reached merely the mineral stage. They follow exactly the same laws as do the minerals. The eye and the ear, for instance, belong to these mineral inclusions; also in the brain, such mineral parts still exist. Thus you can see for yourselves how easily one may be tempted at times to become a materialist—because something that is mineral permeates the whole body. If a materialist declares that the brain is mineral, he is in part right—that is, if he considers merely one part of the brain. Particularly in certain parts of the frontal brain—which are, however, also permeated by other irradiations, solely mineral forces are active. And were we to study the bones and muscles, it would become still more complex. When the human Ego entered into man, it began to devise the sentient soul, the rational soul, and the consciousness soul; and at the same time, it worked out the bones and muscles. If we wish to observe these things exactly, we need years of study, only to be able to keep them distinct and separate. We must trace one thing after the other, with patience.

If we now have before us a sleeping human being, his physical body and etheric body lie on the bed. But this physical body is very complicated. When the human being is awake, the astral body and the Ego work within his blood. But what happens when the physical body lies on the bed and the human being is asleep? The functions of the etheric body are indeed still carried on—yet the astral body and the Ego have to cooperatively work on the preservation of the blood. Hence, every night, the blood would be doomed to death, since it is dependent upon the Ego and the astral body, but these leave the body unfaithfully. Also the whole nervous system is abandoned disdainfully, on which the astral body must collaboratively work. Thus, we have before us the strange fact that in reality, the blood and the nervous system would have to die every night—they would fall a prey to death, if they would depend entirely upon the human being. Other Beings must come to their aid; other Beings must take over the work of man. From other worlds, other Beings must pour their activity into man, in order to preserve what he so disdainfully abandons. We shall now try to explain the nature of these Beings who become active when man is asleep, and to make it possible for him to preserve his blood intact.

We can form an idea of these Beings, if we ask ourselves: where does the human Ego really live, when it lives here, upon the physical plane? In which one of the three kingdoms does it live? And we must ask ourselves further: how much can we really know, without clairvoyant perception?—We can gain knowledge only of the mineral kingdom. This is the peculiar characteristic of the human being—that he cannot even grasp the plant completely, as long as he is not astrally clairvoyant. Materialists declare that plants are merely a conglomerate of mineral processes—just because they can see only the plant's mineral nature. When the human beings will have progressed, in their work upon themselves, as far as the first stage of clairvoyance, the life of the plants and the laws of life will then appear to them just as clearly as do now the laws of the mineral world.

If you construct a machine, or build a house, you do this in accordance with the laws of the mineral world. A machine is build according to these laws of the mineral world; but you cannot construct a plant in this way. If you wish to have a plant, you must leave this work to those Beings which form the foundations of Nature. In the future, it will be possible to produce plants in the laboratory, but only when human beings will regard this as a sacrament, as a holy rite. Only when man has become so earnest and purified, that he looks upon the laboratory-table as an altar, will he be permitted to produce living substance. Until this time has arrived, however, not even the slightest detail concerning the way in which living beings are constituted, will be revealed to him. In other words: The Ego lives, as a cognitive being, in the mineral kingdom, but it will ascend, in the future, to the plant kingdom, and it will learn to know this kingdom, just as today, it knows the mineral kingdom. Still later, it will learn to grasp also the laws of the animal kingdom; and finally, those of the human kingdom. All human beings will learn to know and to grasp the inner nature of plants, animals, and of man—these are prospects for the future. Whatever we really understand, we can also produce—for instance, a clock. But the human being of our day will never be able to produce anything belonging to the sphere of living Nature, without the help of the Beings that lie behind nature, as long as such a work has not become for him a sacramental rite. Only then will he be able to ascend from the mineral kingdom to the plant kingdom. The human being is already a human being, at the present time; but his knowledge is restricted to the mineral kingdom. The Ego of man lives within a human form, but when this human Ego looks out into the environment, its cognition is limited to the mineral kingdom. The Ego thus possesses only the capacity to vitalize the blood in a mineral fashion—it is unable to do more. Although the Ego lives within the blood, during the day—dwelling within it and vitalizing it—nevertheless it does this merely in a mineral way.

How does it do this? If you look out into the world, your cognition will reveal to you the laws of the mineral kingdom. Try to observe for yourself the peculiar quality of this human activity. You look out into the world through your senses; you grasp the mineral laws, and during your waking hours, you impress these laws upon your blood—you force them into the entire substance of your blood, thus vitalizing it in a mineral way. This is the peculiar process which takes place during the act of cognition. Now imagine the human being in accordance with the following schematic drawing as shown below. The regularities of the mineral world stream into him from all sides. However, they do not remain only in his sense-organs; but stream, while the human being is awake, together with the blood through the whole human body.

Now, what does the plant-world do? You will understand what takes place in the case of a plant, if you bear in mind the following: You have always been told that the Ego works upon the man's other bodies and transforms the astral body into the Spirit-Self. To the same degree that this takes place, do the laws of the plant kingdom stream into the human nervous system. When the human being has reached the next stage of clairvoyance, the laws of the animal kingdom will permeate his glandular system, and when he works upon the transformation of his physical body, the laws of the human kingdom itself will flow into the human body. All this should be thought of as applying to the waking state and to the various stages of a higher clairvoyant consciousness. Thus we can say that the human being has reached, at the present time, a stage where the Ego permits the laws of the mineral kingdom to stream into the blood. But it is able to do this only during the waking state because the mineral laws can enter the blood only while man is awake. While he is asleep however, the blood must also be cared for. And because this blood has been worked upon, throughout four successive stages (of evolution), three other powers must now step in with their activity. The first of these is a power which is the most closely related to the way in which the Ego works upon the blood—but it is a power which has not descended as far as the physical plane. The blood would be given over to death, did not another Ego work upon it, while the human being is asleep. Another Ego which has remained on the astral plane, and now intervenes by taking over the work upon the blood. If we observe the human blood, this “special juice”,³ we find that while the human being is awake, the Ego of man is active within it, here on the physical plane. During the night however, the blood is worked upon by an Ego which dwells upon the astral plane. For there are such Egos.

Now I have earlier referred to Egos living on the astral plane—namely, to the group-souls of the animals. But in this case we are dealing with another species of Egos, dwelling upon the astral plane, which work upon the human being and vitalize his blood, when the Ego of man has abandoned it. By what means do they accomplish this? And what is it that they bring into the blood? They bring into it that which, ever since the time of Saturn, must always be present in the human body—namely fire, warmth. These are spirits which have never descended as far as the physical plane—spiritual Beings that live on the astral plane and have a body of fire. In the mineral kingdom, everything appears to us endowed with a certain degree of warmth. Warmth is met as a quality of solid, liquid, and gaseous bodies. Now try for a moment to think of warmth as something completely separate, which does not exist as such on the physical plane. But on the astral plane, you would find such a warmth, such a fire, flowing there and thither—such a fire which moves back and forth as a self-contained being—and within it, you would find embodied Beings such as we ourselves were on ancient Saturn. These Beings enter into the blood during the night, and vitalize it with their warmth. But something else must also take place—for the astral body also abandoned the blood, and this body too, is indispensable to it. Thus it is not sufficient if these Ego-beings alone approach man during the night and work upon him with their warmth-bodies—but other beings as well are needed, who can process the blood in the same way as the astral body does. These Beings have their Ego upon the Devachan plane, and this Ego possesses a still higher body, which is not even condensed as far as warmth. The Ego which I described first, did never descend even as far as the physical world, it remained on the astral plane. The second Ego descended even less, it has never entered the astral plane—it has remained in Devachan. It permeates the blood and brings about in it the same that the human astral body does during the day.

Thus you may see how we are cared for and protected during the night by higher Beings which do not live in the mineral kingdom. The human Ego has descended as far as the mineral kingdom, and will later ascend to the plant kingdom, etc. These other Egos have remained behind the human kingdom during the successive stages of evolution; they form the hidden kingdoms, the Elemental Kingdoms, which lie behind our physical world, and which work down into it. The first Being which works in our blood during the night, has a warmth body—just as we have a physical body; it permeates the blood with warmth—and at the same time, lives upon the astral plane in its warmth body. Through this warmth-body, it belongs to the third Elemental Kingdom. These Beings, belonging to the third Elemental Kingdom, are the companions of the group-egos of the animals—they belong to the same region. And what are the capacities of these Egos? They need not have the same capacities as a human Ego, which has descended as far as the physical sense-world; but they are able nevertheless, to act as a substitute for the human Ego, from the astral plane. These Egos work down from the astral plane, in the same way that the animal group-Egos work down upon the animals. That is why we perceive them to be similar to animal group egos. This means they enliven man's astral body with impulses, desires, and passions. If we have before us an astral body—what lives within this astral body? In addition to the Ego, Beings live within it whose Ego dwells upon the astral plane. These Beings permeate the astral body just as maggots live in cheese. This is the third Elemental Kingdom: it is the kingdom which forms impulses and passions of an animal nature.

But behind this kingdom lies another, namely the second Elemental Kingdom. This kingdom is active within a purer element, where it moulds and forms the shapes of the plants. But its activity extends also to the human being—to his many elements which have a plant-like character—nails, hair, etc. These are not permeated by the astral body, but merely by the etheric body; for this reason they feel no pain. The hair and nails are products from which the astral body has already withdrawn—it is possible to cut them, without causing pain. At an earlier time however, the astral body was also within these. Many things in the human being are of a plant-like nature, and within all these plants-like elements, the Beings of the second Elemental Kingdom are active. Hence, that which builds up the body of a plant consists of the forces belonging to the second Elemental Kingdom. Within the plant, the Plant-Ego, which permeates the etheric and astral bodies, and those Beings of the second Elemental Kingdom work together. The plant-Ego on the Devachan plane is a companion of the beings of the second Elemental realm. Whereas the Ego of the plants works upon the plant from within, these other Beings work upon it from without—forming it, making it grow and blossom. The whole plant is permeated by its etheric body. But it does not possess an astral body of its own; instead the entire astral body of the Earth planet forms the common astral body of the plants. The Ego of the plants is to be found at the centre of the Earth. All plant group-egos are centralised in the centre of the Earth. For this reason, if you pull up a plant by the roots you cause pain to the Earth; but, if you pick a flower, the Earth will have a feeling of well-being, as a cow has a feeling of well-being when her calf sucks her milk. It is also a wonderful experience when the seeds and grain is mowed in autumn, to see how great waves of well-being stream over the Earth! The Beings which work upon the plants, from out of the second Elemental Kingdom, and help them to take shape, fly toward the plant from all sides, like butterflies. The renewal and repetition of the leaves, blossoms, etc., is their work. This is what acts upon the plants from out of the second Elemental Kingdom.

In like manner, there is a first Elemental Kingdom, which gives the minerals their form. The animals received their form determined by instincts and desires from the Beings of the third Elemental Kingdom. The leaves, etc., of the plants are formed by the second Elemental Kingdom; this work consists chiefly of repetitions. But the formative forces of the minerals, which work out of the formless element, are to be found in the higher Devachan. These three Elemental Kingdoms permeate one another, flow into one another. One who imagines everything distinct and separate, will never attain to a living understanding. In the plant kingdom, the plant and mineral kingdoms permeate one another. In the animal kingdom, the animal, plant and mineral kingdoms interpenetrate. And in a human being, the Ego is added to these. For, with the emergence of the Ego, the human kingdom first arose on the Earth. It is the Ego which first makes man a human being; it finds its expression in the blood. But the Ego can for the present, penetrate with its cognitive forces only into the mineral kingdom; it must leave the other kingdoms to the Beings of the Elemental Kingdoms. The mineral kingdom contains, besides this mineral kingdom itself, also the first Elemental Kingdom; for this reason, it takes on a clearly defined shape. The plant owes its form entirely to the second Elemental Kingdom—for, without it, it would be spherical. And the animal is endowed with instincts, etc., owing to the added activity of the third Elemental Kingdom. Our world consists of interpenetrating regions; only if we are able to make our concepts mobile and fluent, shall we gradually be able to understand such things.

If we wish to form a concept of how the third Elemental Kingdom is connected with the animal kingdom, the following example may be helpful. You all know the migrations of the birds. The birds take quite definite routes in their migrations; from Northeast to Southwest and from Southwest to Northeast. But who directs these migrations? It is the group-souls of the birds. In these flights the urge for regular migrations over the Earth comes to expression. They are directed by the Souls of the Species, or Group-Souls, of the animal kingdom.

On the other hand, the animals are given their form, which enables them to have certain instincts and so that it has a bearer for these instincts, by the Beings of the third Elemental Kingdom—the companions of the animal group-souls. If we wish to express this in a somewhat trivial manner, we may say: Those Egos which constitute the animal group-souls form one community on the astral plane; and the Beings of the third Elemental Kingdom form another. Nevertheless, they must work together in fair harmony—the one supplies the instincts, the other the bodies, forming and moulding them, so that the instincts can realise themselves.

The physical forms of the plants originate from the Beings of the second Elemental Kingdom. And in everything which moulds and works upon the minerals, the Beings of the first Elemental Kingdom are to be found. The forces of the minerals, active as attraction and repulsion, the atomistic forces, proceed from the group-egos of the minerals. It is the Beings of the first Elemental Kingdom who form the minerals.

Thus we obtain a perspective which reveals to us where we may seek for the effects of the various kingdoms in our world. We must however, observe these things very accurately. We may say to a plant: You are a living being; this you owe to the plant-ego. Your form, your shape however, is given to you by the Beings of the second Elemental Kingdom.

Thus the distinct kingdoms are connected. There are seven of these. The first Elemental Kingdom provides the formative forces for the minerals—for instance for the crystals. The second Elemental Kingdom provides the formative forces that shape the plants. The third Elemental Kingdom cares for the blood during the night and at the same time forms the animals’ instinctive life. The mineral kingdom is the one in which an Ego in the mineral kingdom can be formative. The plant kingdom is such, that an Ego can form a plant world within it. The animal Kingdom is such that an Ego can form an animal world within it. The kingdom of man is the kingdom into which an Ego can shape a human world.

From all this we can see that patience is necessary for the penetration of Spiritual Science. The world is constructed in a complicated way, and the highest truths are not the simplest. It is an utterly senseless way of speaking to declare that the highest things can be grasped with the simplest concepts. This is due only to convenience. It is admitted of course, that it is not possible to understand a clock at once, but the world, people want to understand immediately. If we wish to grasp the Divine, infinite patience is needed, for the Divine contains everything. In order to understand the world, people wish to apply the simplest concepts. This is simply convenience, no matter how reverently the soul may say it. The Divine element is profound, and an eternity is needed in order to grasp it. Man carries indeed, the spark of the Godhead within him, but the nature of the Godhead can be understood only by collecting a knowledge of the facts of the world.

The great patience and renunciation which knowledge entails, is what we must learn first of all. We ourselves must gradually mature in order to form judgments. The world itself is infinite at every point. And we must be modest enough to say that everything is, in a certain sense, only a half-truth. We must transform everything into moral impulses, even the organisation of man's being into ten or twelve members.⁴ Spiritual Science gives us pictures which we should unite with our feelings. For Spiritual Science is of value only when we draw not only knowledge from it, but are filled with the noblest feelings for the profundity of the world that surrounds us. All the greater then, will be the longing for the Divine. The very fact that the Divine appears to man to be suspended in distant heights, should inspire him so much the more to become strong so that he can reach the Divine again.

• 1. Devachan - Mental plane - Theosophical term for the spiritual world.
• 2. Arupa - Mental plane - the upper or higher spiritual world; Rupa - Mental plane - the low or lower spiritual world.
• 3. This relates to a statement by Mephisto in Goethe’s Faust, Part 1, in the Study-room - “Blood is a very special Juice”.
• 4. Compare notes to the lecture held in Berlin, 18 March 1904 in No. 29 Contributions to the Collected Works of Rudolf Steiner, Easter 1970.

Today, we will talk about how a person who adopts the theosophical worldview not only learns something and is able to recognise something about the world and its beings, but how the theosophical teachings, perspectives, thoughts and ideas are able to affect human feelings and emotions. Rightfully, it is often emphasized that theosophy shouldn't be something that only theoretically introduces us to higher worlds, but that it should be something that deeply penetrates our life. Normally, the opinion connected with this saying is deemed something trivial and inferior, so today we must form a view about the importance of such an opinion. In the most intimate way thoughts and ideas, which we absorb through theosophy, are flowing steadily into our whole feelings and emotions, so that we can become, literally through theosophy, different human beings. Of course, this trivial opinion is often based on a preconceived notion about how a theosophist must be. And if he is not like that, one says: I understand a theosophist to be someone completely different. I am thinking what a theosophist should be, only a theosophist can be the judge of. And if others who are not yet theosophists always say that they imagine a theosophist to be different, then their opinion cannot be very theosophical since they are not really experts. Today, we do not want to talk about such a trivial opinion, but about the intimate transformation of our emotions and feelings once we really absorb theosophy into ourselves. We want to deal with this question: Are such thoughts that are revealed to us able to penetrate into all the forces of our soul and, in relation to everything we experience within us, able to turn us into a new human being? They can do this.

The world around us, the ordinary world through which we walk, could look different for us at every turn if we understood theosophy. Therefore, today we must try to dive deeper into a theosophical understanding of the world.

Around us are lifeless beings that we call minerals, plants and animals, and other human beings. We know that behind these beings are spiritual beings, that there exists behind our physical world a spiritual world. We know that even of a human being who stands in front of us, we can only perceive a small part with our senses, the physical body. We know that this human being has apart from this physical body, his etheric body, his astral body, his Ego—these latter three members we are unable to perceive with ordinary senses. When looking at a stone, we tell ourselves it is different from a human being because as a mineral, as a stone, it has no etheric body, no astral body, no Ego in the physical world, but only a physical body. About the plant, we know it has a physical body and an etheric body. About the animal, we know that it has those and also has an astral body. But only the human being has the fourth member—the Ego. Thus, by having a fourth member, the Ego, above all other beings, the human being is the crown of our physical world. If we say it like that, then it is correct. But if we say it a little bit differently, then it is already wrong. If someone says, here in the physical world the stone or the mineral only has a physical body, then that is correct. But if one leaves out the words ‘here in the physical world’ then this is already wrong, and indeed utterly wrong. If someone says 'the stone has only a physical body' ... then this is utterly wrong.

What looks quite pedantic has to be said at least once, so that people get a feeling for the way how precisely one must talk about these subtle things. The stone too has its etheric body, its astral body and its Ego, albeit not in the physical world. This applies to the plant and the animal too. It is important to place in front of your soul precisely the idea that we should look at the stone from a higher point of view: as a being, that also belongs to something other than that which faces us. Have a look at your fingernails. Imagine that some sort of tiny being would look at these nails and could not see anything of the fingers, because it didn’t have any sense organs. It would believe that the nails are something separate that stands alone, and yet this is not true. The nails only make sense when they are attached to the fingers. So it is with all of our minerals. Human beings look at the minerals and they see of these only their physical body. But just like the nails belong to the fingers, the physical body of the mineral belongs to an etheric body which can no longer be found in the physical world. The physical body of the minerals is in the physical world, and the etheric body of the mineral is in the astral world. For a being that looks into the astral world, it just appears as if they follow the nails to the fingers because this etheric body in the astral world belongs to the mineral. In the same way, the mineral has an astral body, but this astral body of the mineral is in what we call ‘Devachan’. And finally, the mineral also has an Ego and this Ego is in the higher Devachan world, in the Arupic world.

Therefore, when we are looking at the minerals around us, we see entities pushed in front, that just like our nails stick out of the organism, they stick out of the beings to whom they belong and who in regard to their Ego exist in higher worlds. Just like you have nails, these beings have limbs which they extend, first into the lower Devachan world, then into the astral world and then they grow nails downwards: the minerals of the Earth. So when you look at a mineral, don’t believe that this one mineral has an Ego, but many related minerals belong to a common Ego. There are few such mineral personalities on the Devachan plane. The plant is different from the mineral in that on the physical plane it has its physical and also its etheric body. In the astral world, it has its astral body and on the Devachan plane, it has its Ego. The plant Ego is therefore one level lower than the mineral Ego so that on the lower Devachan plane one can encounter beings, who in turn have as their lowest limb a plant. The animal has its physical body, its etheric body and its astral body all on the physical plane, here in the physical world, and its Ego in the astral world. All animals belonging to one species and, for example, all lions, do not each have a separate Ego, but share a common one. This Ego is also called animal group-Ego. The human being differs from the animals because he also has his Ego on the physical plane.

When looking at an animal with the eyes of a theosophist, these feelings must arise: You will find in every human being an Ego—in every single human being. In an animal you cannot find an Ego on the physical plane. For this you must climb up to the astral plane, which is populated by animal group-Egos. The lion-Ego on the astral plane is an entirely different being than a single lion, just like your fingers appear to be a different ‘being’ from yourself. There are animal group-Egos, which are far more intelligent than the smartest human beings on the physical plane. These group-Egos are the drivers, catalysers and arrangers of what an animal experiences here on the physical plane. Never will anyone come to a true understanding of animal life, who doesn’t know that what the animals do here is only an expression of the measures that have been taken by the animal group-Egos. Look at the strange phenomenon that in a particular season, the bird life of the Northeast begins to migrate Southwest in one line, to return again in spring. Each bird species flies at a particular height and you can imagine that these bird migrations are connected to important instincts in the animal world. The spring migration is a wedding flight. If you enquire about the underlying wise arrangements of this, you will not understand these without making it clear to yourself that these are made by the group-Egos who conduct and direct everything. All that happens in the animal world will appear different to us, once we are aware of the presence of group-Egos. Imagine you had a wall with different holes in it through which someone would put his hands. What a mistake would one make if one would believe these hands are beings themselves. Someone who believes that an animal is a being by itself makes such a mistake. Those who conduct the bird migration are wise beings. In this way the animal world becomes an expression of a world of wise beings standing behind it. We learn to know a wonderful world of beings and no longer pass thoughtlessly over what we encounter directly. In fact, those animal group-Egos are always present in the periphery of our Earth. They are spiritually constantly encircling our Earth, just like the trade winds or the migrating birds or the electrical and magnetic currents that flow around the Earth. In this way spiritual currents and movements exist that do not represent anything but those deeds of the animal group-Egos.

When we now observe the plant world, it represents something similar. We see the outer plant. What we perceive as a plant in front of us, is a physical and an etheric body. But if we rise up to the astral plane, we find the astral bodies of the plants, and in Devachan the plant-Egos. For our earthly flora there is a greater number of such plant-Egos, which all have one common place where they are together—that is the centre of the Earth. All plants strive with the essence of their being towards the centre of the Earth.

Watch what happens to the Earth itself if we look at it from this perspective. It will no longer be the body as portrayed by geology, but the Earth will thereby become a living being with an Ego. A single plant does not possess an astral body, but all plants are immersed in and enclosed by an astral body, so that we can imagine the plant world of the Earth vaguely like this: All plants belong to the astral body of the Earth and in the centre of the Earth is the Ego of the plants. In this way, the Earth becomes a conscious being to us. Just as your Ego, which is located within your body, sends its rays towards your fingers, the Ego of the Earth, which is located in its centre, sends its rays towards the individual plants. Like our hair, the plants are organs of the Earth organism. Each plant strives towards the centre of the Earth as towards its Ego. In the spiritual world countless beings can be tucked in together at one single location. The spatial relationships in the spiritual world are different from those in the physical world. All plant Egos are able to meet each other in the centre of the Earth. The weeds have a different Ego than the wheat. Both Egos don't get on well with each other, but both their Egos are within the centre of the Earth. Such a truth must not only be grasped by the intellect, but must also be felt with every step you take through life. The plant cover of the Earth will become something different for us, when we stride along with the feeling that these plants are the outer physical expression of a spiritual content connected with the Earth. Earth has its Ego, which is realised through all the plants.

Only by looking at the issue in this way, and not stopping at mere concepts, does it come to life. Only then we will have grasped it in the right way. Because then we know that what we do to a plant is having a similar effect as if we did the same to a human being. If we are hitting a person, then this will hurt him because he has an astral body. The etheric body is unable to experience joy or pain. The individual plant doesn’t feel hurt if we squeeze it, as not all individual plants possess an astral body. But the jointly shared astral body of the plants belongs to the Earth, and what is done to a plant hurts it. In the centre of the Earth are the plant-Egos and it is there that consciousness originates about what one does to a plant. Once we grasp this teaching with all the strength of our soul, we will walk differently upon the surface of the Earth. Thus, every step we take in life becomes a communication with the Earth as a conscious being, and we know that this Earth as a whole experiences pleasure and pain and joy and sorrow. But we have to experience this in the right way. One could believe that if we cut a plant, the Earth would feel pain. This is not the case. Detailed information can only be given by a clairvoyant able to see the way the Earth’s astral body functions. If you pick a blossom, this creates a feeling as if a calf is suckling milk from its mother, which creates a kind of well-being sensation for the cow. Plants that the Earth lets sprout up, can be compared to the milk that spurts out of an animal, so that when you pick flowers, a feeling of pleasure for the Earth is provided. But if you rip these out with the roots, the Earth experiences pain, as if you were cutting into flesh. If you take this vividly, you will notice what kind of spiritual relationship with the Earth you will gain. Once the sickle slices through the stalks, the clairvoyant sees blissful sensations move across the Earth, across the fields. By mowing a field, a flood of well-being moves across the Earth. Our relationship to the world is deepening in a wonderful way when we begin to settle into these truths, and feel how we are hurting Earth when we rip out her plants, like someone would rip out a hair from us.

It could be objected that sometimes it might be very good to not rip off all the blossoms but leave them in nature, and sometimes it is good to reposition plants elsewhere and rip them out with their roots. This doesn’t change the fact that tearing out produces pain, and picking creates feelings of pleasure. The moral side is something different from the fact itself. A moral perspective which is justifiable in a human life, must not be applied to the cosmos. Imagine someone who is getting their first white hair, so that from an aesthetic standpoint it seems desirable to pull them out. He might become more beautiful, but it will hurt him. Thus, it might be desirable to replant plants, but it will hurt the Earth. The question is, ‘Is it not necessary to cause such hurt?’ or ‘Is one allowed or should one cause such pain?’. Pain is in many ways inseparable from existence. The human being steps into the world through the pain of the mother. Whatever is born is born in pain. Even if it is necessary to rip out plants, it will always be painful for the Earth. Our concepts and ideas turn into intimate emotions and feelings. We slowly notice all the things we do not perceive in our environment because we do not know about them. In our surroundings there is always feeling, and perceiving and living; it is not only a mechanical process when the sickle is wielded through the stalks, but floods of emotions stream across the field in autumn. Thus we learn to empathise with the beings which surround us.

What about rock? Rock, as we have said, has its Ego just like a human being, but in a much higher world. This rock-Ego and this rock-astral-body feel and sense just like the Earth, when you rip out plants or pick them. It is not only a mechanical process when the stone carvers in a quarry are hammering stone by stone out of it. Those rocks that are blown up will be seen by a person, who only uses his senses, as a process of the outer world. We learn to know that something similar happens, is experienced, in a soul when we immerse ourselves into theosophy. There you should not judge according to analogies, but must proceed with something concrete. One could believe that the hammering in a stone quarry causes pain. This is not so. You cannot bestow a bigger favour upon the mineral kingdom than when you split a stone apart—this is its true bliss. An outpouring of pleasure is happening when you blow up stones in a quarry and the stones are thrown around everywhere. The stone possesses a true longing and passion to be split, blown up, ripped apart.

In contrast, something else causes pain and suffering to the being at the foundation of our rock world. If you have dissolved cooking salt in a glass and this begins to separate, so that it separates itself as hard salt, settles, and then, when what had been dissolved forms once again a solid body, the affected being experiences pain. If you again dissolve what has been joined together, then it experiences pleasure. If you would reassemble the blown-up stone fragments and return them to the original rock, this would hurt the rock-soul tremendously. Consider that essentially our Earth was created as a liquid fire body. So that you can have solid ground under your feet, many different solutions and forms of water had to group together to form solid bodies.

Once our Earth consisted wholly of molten metals. Then the first island formations occurred. This was accompanied by massive pain. For the Earth it was painful to become our dwelling place, and the incremental solidification of the Earth, as described by natural science, meant spiritual processes happened simultaneously. If someone, who understands these things, experiences a volcanic eruption where the dissolved materials are flooding out and solidify, then he sees streams of pain of the lava-soul flowing down the mountain. In this way the whole of nature is ensouled for us, if we are conscious of these things. But this is also what the initiates have always held out to mankind. The sayings of the initiates have normally a deep meaning and deep value and sometimes not only one meaning. Understand that the Earth was once a liquid fire body, and that this stone kingdom has solidified and agglomerated itself. Under suffering, the Earth was transformed into our dwelling place. Only through the suffering of the rock kingdom were we able to reach a certain level of development. This pain of the rock will only cease, when the final state of the Earth will be reached, when the Earth will become softer again, when it will become spiritual again. Put yourself into this phase of the Earth: liquid-fire Earth, humans still spiritually immersed in it. The stone masses solidify. Ongoing pain and suffering in the seemingly lifeless rock kingdom for the sake of progressing the human race. How could one express this better than this: “For all creatures are sighing in pain, awaiting to be adopted as children”.¹ One cannot go down deep enough, if one truly wants to grasp the sayings of initiates.

This all shows that understanding the world is something completely different from an abstraction. When the concepts are being deepened, emotional experiences appear through which we can look into the soul entities that stream through the world. Everything becomes for us an expression of the soul in some form. Every step in our life becomes something different, because not only do we connect to the beings in front of our senses, but also with those unknown beings on ever higher planes of the world. We only must find within ourselves the thoroughly different way to live.

In this way, we also learn to find the soul in a plant, in an animal, in a mineral. We learn to know the soul of a whole people. An entire people has a common soul and what one calls the Folk-soul is not a dead term; it is something real. When a people arise, let’s say the Goths, and perish again, this is like the birth and death of a single human being. But in the whole people lives some soul essence and the individual beings are the limbs of this Folk-soul, embedded into the Folk-soul’s substance, which in turn has its fates, sufferings and joys. First, we gain an idea, then increasingly more knowledge of how the world around us is suffused everywhere with pleasure and pain, old and young—as it is within ourselves. This is what through the theosophical teachings turns us into different human beings. This means acquiring theosophical understanding, implementing theosophy intimately in your life, as if the theosophical concept was a seed, which we plant into suitable Earth. Then it starts to sprout and becomes blossom and fruit when it becomes an emotion and a feeling and when we immerse ourselves through our emotions and feelings deeply, deeply into our environment. When through theosophy plants and stones become not only objects of observation, but our friends and fellow beings, who warm up to us through theosophical observation, whom we learn to love, like we love human beings, then by and by we will gain understanding, a perspective will open up about the enormous educational value of theosophy for the whole future. Imagine human beings in two, three, four, five centuries who will not only have concepts about karma and reincarnation but will walk through the world with such emotions as we have indicated here. All of human life and all education will be different when the human being will be able to perceive everywhere the pulse of other beings. If he places his hand on a tree and feels the pulse of the Earth, if he smashes a stone and shares the emotions of bliss that the stone soul experiences, and if he becomes conscious that the Earth had to suffer pain, then the human being will walk across this Earth differently. Life then will be different, and the right empathy, through the human beings themselves, will prevail and be alive.

• 1. Luther’s translation reads literally: “The creatures are fearfully awaiting the revelation of the children of God”, Letter to the Romans, 8:19

Last time¹ we explored a theme that led us from our physical world to the higher worlds by means of what we call the elemental kingdoms. At that time we had the opportunity to look into the complicated nature of the human being and everything that is connected with it, how multiple threads lead upwards from the human being into the higher worlds. It is advisable to somewhat extend this topic today. This makes it necessary to make a brief comment beforehand.

If we would solely focus on the elemental facts, then we would not progress well in our theosophical contemplations. Many of the members would then have to refer back repeatedly to the same facts. Elemental things do not have to be understood solely in the way one hears about them when first encountering the theosophical world view. They can also be understood in a way that differs to a small extent from what a rational man nowadays would be able to accept. That is to say, a rational modern man would at most acknowledge a small amount of what rises above the physical world. There might be some people who would accept such things. But they say, “There can be no certainty about such things, although they are not completely inane.” However, this last remark will be thrown at what corresponds to “the higher planes” of theosophical illumination. This does not only mean that a higher grade of understanding is required to hear about and understand the higher regions, but all the feelings one can muster, after searching for knowledge for a long time during a life focussed on Theosophy, belong to it. In a way, more might be expected of people who have had Theosophy in their lives for a longer time. Those who are recent participants are asked to keep in mind that today’s topic is somewhat far from what is ordinarily being talked about. But it shouldn’t be too difficult to say to oneself, “Initially some of this will seem to me to be fantasy and dream-like, but after contemplating for longer along those lines, it will become less strange. It could be possible that a number of things only appear to me inane now, but once I have developed feelings about them, they will no longer appear to me to be so.

Afterwards and with objectiveness, we want to approach this topic which, for those who have advanced in their feelings, constitutes a higher chapter of the theosophical world view.

If we, with the open eyes of a clairvoyant, penetrate further and further into the higher worlds, into the astral world, the lower and higher Devachan, of which we have already talked often, we can see entities there who do not embody themselves into our physical world, who do not assume a physical body, but who are still complete entities like human beings here on our plane. If man ascends from the solid foundation of our physical world to the higher worlds, he has to distinguish between two different kinds of beings. One kind sends its revelations down into the physical plane. The other kind reveals itself either not at all on the physical plane, or so that this revelation is hardly comprehensible for ordinary observation.

Let us recall groups of animals that belong together, who are of similar shape and are related to each other. They have a group-soul—a group-Ego in the astral world. If we observe such a group-Ego on the astral plane, we will find that such a being is a self-contained entity, a personality, like the human being is a self-contained personality on the physical plane. The seer will meet the group-souls of animals there, just as he is meeting people here. They are individual, self-contained personalities on the astral plane, and only their revelations are sent down into the physical world. It is just as if I am separated from them by a wall with holes in it, so that fingers can be stuck through it. One could then say, “I see something belonging to a different entity.” This is just as if you are observing a lion, and the soul to which it belongs is as if it is behind a wall, and all lions are like fingers stretched through the wall. We meet these group-Egos as self-contained beings on the astral plane. They can be easily found in the physical world through their revelations, as one can see the organs that are stretched out into it.

But it is not the case with all astral beings that one can well observe what they reveal. If one’s senses are not heightened one would not even suspect the presence of these astral beings. Thus, man meets personalities on the astral plane, some of them he knows, but also some who appear unfamiliar to him, who he doesn’t know well from the physical plane, who, in a certain sense, are new to him. The astral plane is very populated and various entities live there that people would never have dreamed of. It is not proposed that these entities have no effect on the physical plane—on the contrary, they have a tremendous effect on human beings. We can only recognise the complexity of the inter-relationships when we look at all that impacts on these. We encounter beings who partly seem to be extraordinarily gentle, mild beings, who also live very peacefully amongst themselves. But we also meet others, who cannot really be characterised in this fashion, who have all sorts of mean characteristics and especially pose a danger when they are coming near humans.

The peculiar thing with these beings is that all our conceptions about spatial relationships that we have derived from the physical world, are being dismantled. If we do not want to live in a fantasy, we have to gradually immerse ourselves into concepts that are quite different from those that we usually have. What we encounter with these not very pleasant beings is, that they are not really present where we perceive them to be but are somewhere completely different. Their effects are in the astral world, but their home isn’t there.

A rough comparison would be like this; imagine a worker who lives in a suburb and every morning goes to work in the city. There he has his field of work, but he lives outside the city. This is a rough comparison. A better one would be the following, but this is also already quite fantasy-like; imagine the worker lives very far away from Munich, but has elastic arms, so that he can be hours away from his work and still can perform it. You will have to attain quite different spatial imaginations than those that you are familiar with from the physical plane. Any being of astral nature is able to live on another planet, and yet exert influence here on the astral plane. This is because the separation of spatial conditions no longer exists. The effects that it instigates, for example on other world bodies, are transmitted and appear on the Earth. We do not want to examine the spiritual world only with concepts that we have formed in the physical world, but we must force ourselves to form new concepts as well.

Those entities, about which I have said that they belong to the unappealing beings, are lunar beings. There they have their actual home. Clairvoyantly, you could observe the outstretched fingers here in Munich, but to observe the being itself you would have to travel for hours. You will find that such beings manipulate things here on Earth. But if you follow the ‘lines of force’ you will arrive at the Moon. That is where their homeland is. In fact, the Moon is populated in this way. Although these beings do not possess a dense corporeality such as our Earth beings have, they have a physicality, but it is so diluted, that on Earth it expresses itself as astral. They could be compared to dwarfish beings that will not grow taller than a six- to seven-year-old child. These beings have one characteristic that will appear to you as being very strange, but it is contingent upon the conditions of the Moon. However, if all worlds were alike, then there would be no need that so many of them should exist. This characteristic is that they can roar with infinite power. Their yelling instruments are extraordinarily well developed. At first, these beings make themselves known on the earthly astral plane. They are not always and everywhere present but are attracted by certain circumstances of our lives. The deeds of such beings can be found at certain locations, especially where mediums, somnambulists are, and where very specific things are present. There they penetrate with their effects and deeds and express themselves to the human being in a very unpleasant way. They can also be found where lower passions are unfolding.

On the other hand, the good-natured beings of the astral plane can be found where particularly humanitarian passions run free. In any charitable organisation, where real charity lives in the souls, there is stimulated that which draws such beings into the circle of humanity. In this way man really attracts certain beings by way of his deeds, and due to the characteristics that radiate out from him. Thus, he creates a connection to far away celestial bodies, that comes about through the manifestation of the deeds of the beings from other worlds and human souls.

The beings about whom I have talked last, which are gentle and mild, also have their home on a different planet, namely on Mars. From there they exert their influence onto the Earth. These beings work thus, so to speak, by striding across the vastness of space with their deeds. All real effects, except physical ones, from one planet to another, are based on the relationships between the inhabitants of those world bodies. So you can see that we will find very odd comrades when we are rising up in to the higher worlds. It doesn’t help to say, “Spiritual worlds exist ...” and so on, instead man must learn to know those beings.

If we now ascend to even higher worlds with clairvoyant ability, we will reach the lower Devachan plane, the lower spiritual world. This too penetrates our physical and astral world. There we will find the group-Egos of the plants. You already know that the plants that cover the Earth, are combined in large groups, that correspond to one group-Ego. These group-Egos can only be found on the Devachan plane, but they are at first located in the middle of the Earth, where all of the plant group-Egos have their centre. If you imagine in this way the whole Earth, where the different plant group-Egos permeate each other, you will see it as one vast organism. Like the human organism the sum of the plant group-Egos experiences joy and sadness, pleasure and pain. We can say exactly how pleasure and pain are present in this Earth-organism. We know that picking plants creates pleasure, yes sensuality, a feeling of well-being, of comfort—a comfort that can be compared to what a cow feels when the calf is suckling the milk. On the other hand, ripping out roots hurts the Earth-organism, causes it discomfort. You can see now, how one can tell in detail, how the beings in the Devachan world feel. Whatever we are doing here on Earth, these are not sober facts, but whenever we are doing this or that, we are causing pleasure or pain, joy or suffering, to some being. When the reaper cuts through the stalks, a whiff of pleasure drifts across the fields that the plant-soul feels. In this way, one who has a feel for these things walks across the Earth and learns to empathise with the spiritual beings, who live in the higher worlds, and who once again only send their organs into the physical world.

But once one reaches the Devachan regions, one will encounter other beings, who do not so openly affect the physical world, but who express themselves much more covertly. Once again one has to differentiate between two kinds of beings. On one side there are extraordinarily gentle, mild, harmony-emanating beings, and on the other one there are predatory-like beings, who are constantly fighting with each other. These too have their homeland on a different planet and only express their effects on the Devachan plane. They are rooted on Venus—they can be found there as inhabitants of this planet if one visits it with spiritual sight. Thus, one can make new acquaintances in each world, if one begins on the physical plane with what one perceives as dense matter, and then rises up to the origin of those beings. If you start from whole groups of plants, and groups of animals, you will arrive at the plant- and animal-souls—but then you will also be able to find other beings who do not express themselves in a dense sensory way on the physical plane.

Instead of starting with plants or animals, one could also begin with minerals or stones, and there one finds the beings in the higher Devachan. They also experience pleasure and pain, joy and suffering. If the clairvoyant observes a quarry, where workers crumble and chip away at the stones, then he can see how the mineral-soul experiences something. One must not come to conclusions by applying analogies and allegories. Smashing with hammers doesn’t cause hurt. A whiff of well-being emanates whilst the stones are smashed up. A feeling of pain exists, if you want to reassemble the separated rock masses to stones again. It will inflict pain if you want to crystallise a new whole from the scattered masses. One can learn to empathise with and share in the experience of the mineral kingdom together with the Ego of the minerals.

Once again, we learn to know entities, that in the physical world do not express themselves in such a rough and gross way. Again, we want to observe two different ‘species’ that appear to be the most noticeable ones. They are the ones who have a strange spiritual constitution. They are difficult to describe, but you will get an idea of them if you imagine an extraordinarily talented being who, to make an invention, wouldn’t have to think a lot but would simply through its perceptions be prompted to redesign an object in some ingenious way. These are beings who live, in a certain way, in percipience, without thinking as such playing a major role for them. They are very odd beings of extraordinary ingenuity, which is entirely based on perception, not on thinking. Opposite them are other beings, who are as unlikeable, as the former are likeable. These other beings can be characterised as also living in the world of percipience, also do not think a lot, but the especially seek out perceptions that are appalling and abhorrent for us humans. They derive enjoyment from rummaging around in such perceptions. These entities have their home on Saturn, just as the others, previously mentioned ones, are at home on Moon, Mars and Venus.

Here now we have a perspective of the higher beings. We could ask, what do we have to do with all those beings? It could seem like idle curiosity to concern ourselves with them. But they concern us a great deal. Because although in the physical world they do not announce themselves in an obvious way, they are expressing themselves through their work, in a way that is extremely important for man. These beings guide us as if automatically to one of their influences that is quite normal for us human beings. In a way what has been said about somnambulists etc., is an exception. However, these beings have also very normal effects on humans, on some more than on others. What type of effects they have, steps before our soul when we look, in a particular way, at a person’s constitution, on the juices streaming through him. Different kinds of juices are streaming through the human being.

Let us first look at the nutritive juice—the “chyle”. Food will be absorbed out of a variety of ingredients, gets digested, passes through the intestines and is forced through the intestinal walls by the organs located there, to then be used appropriately for the reconstruction of the body. This is one current permeating the human being. It has its source in the nutritional intake. Another type of juice is the lymph, a liquid that runs through those vessels that partly run together with the blood vessels collecting in the abdomen, but that also streams through the whole organism in a particular way. The lymphatic vessels have a characteristic at which we will look in detail another time, namely that all those lymphatic vessels that run from the left side of the trunk to the head, join together and pour into the left collarbone cavity. Only the streams coming from the right part of the body are separated from them. There is an underlying occult significance to this.

A third juice is the blood, that in turn streams through the human organism in the most diverse way. Someone who only looks at the human being with materialistic senses will see in these substances, blood and so on, bodies that can be chemically analysed and that consist of various chemical parts. But whoever looks with seeing eyes at the issue, knows that spirit is everywhere, and that all matter is based on spirit. Whatever you might see—gold that streams through the Earth in veins; mercury that settles itself in drops—is an expression of something spiritual. And so, one who looks at the three juices with spiritual eyes, knows that little can be said by examining the chemistry, and so on, of those juices. Spiritual entities stream through the organism with those juices. With the blood spiritual entities stream through the human body, likewise with lymph and chyle. Only someone who recognises these as an expression of spiritual entities, truly knows these juices. From all sides, from above and below, and so on, spirits that exist in the world and in the environment stream through us—only someone who knows this is able to correctly place the human being on this Earth organism, in this earthly setting.

Only one of the three juices mentioned is a more or less independent expression of the human I/self. This is the blood. The blood is the physical expression of the I, so that one can say; with the blood pulsating through the body, the human I streams through the body. But only to a certain extent, and this varies from one human to the other, is the human being master of his organism in relation to his blood.

This is not so with the lymph. Our own I does not live in the lymph, but other beings do, astral beings, who have their home on Moon and Mars. Whilst the lymph is being composed and decomposes, those beings penetrate into the human being, and when the lymph flows through him, the lines of force, the deeds of these beings, flow through him. Just imagine that the I has a purifying influence on the astral body. To the same extent to which the human being becomes master of the astral body, he also becomes master over the spirits or their effects, that flow with the lymph through the body. Thus, by reformation, by purification of his astral body, man increasingly restricts the arbitrariness of these beings. You see, what you are spiritually doing by ensuring that the intellectuality is developed, and that the ethic becomes purer and nobler, and the aesthetic feelings become purified—this changes the effects that emanate from those above-mentioned beings of the astral plane. They are losing the terrain within you. The higher development consists in man becoming progressively an expression of his own being.

Similarly to how astral beings pervade us and stream through us with the lymph, Venus beings penetrate the nutritional juices. These are not controlled by lower entities, but by higher beings. A higher power is necessary to make even the composition of the chyle an expression of one’s own personality. If you remember that these beings are the comrades of the plant-souls, the plant-Egos, then you will see that these beings essentially have their point of attack in the kind of food people are eating. Thus, people differ in regard to races and nations in the various areas of the globe, for the reason that they eat different kinds of food. And if the human being gradually learns to emancipate himself from the arbitrariness of nutrition, when he chooses the food based on the principles of spiritual knowledge, then he slowly gains control over the nutritional juice and thus emancipates himself from these beings that influence him from the outside. Therefore, so much importance is attached to the food products that affect the human being in various ways. What you are eating contains the power of certain beings, and by gaining influence over them, one will become the master of his own organism. Indeed, one expels spirits by whom one was possessed before, by consciously choosing what one eats.

In fact, the human being is in a certain way only master over his blood. But he could also reign over other juices. Try to recognise how man through this or other food attracts these beings, bad entities, then you will understand the importance of this for education, medicine and other sciences. To make progress it does not suffice to merely say, “The human being needs to perfect himself.” One also has to go into the details of how this perfection can be achieved.

Beings from Saturn are influencing another area of our existence. Because they live entirely within the outer perception, they have an influence on our outer perception. It is not irrelevant if a person focusses passionately with his eyes and senses onto something disgusting, something lowly, or if he, with a certain attraction, focusses his eyes on the beautiful and noble in this world. Depending on this, either good or evil Saturn beings win influence over this person.

As it is the case with the nutritional juice and the lymph, likewise beings sneak into him with the passions with which a human being soaks up sensory impressions. It is never without side-effects when you direct your gaze to sensory impressions. You are taking in deeds of spiritual beings with every glance. If you look at a beautiful, noble picture, then not only that which is visible streams into you, but also spiritual beings enter together with what you see. If you listen to sensual music, the spiritual power of saturnine beings also streams into you. This gives you a measure of how complicated life is, as soon as you are penetrating into the spiritual foundations.

Especially strong is the influence of those sense impressions that we call smell. With smells people absorb a vast number of effects of spiritual entities. You can consciously affect a human being by using odours to convey the workings of abominable beings. Many a perfume would not be used if one would be aware of the effect it has on one’s fellow human beings.

In the intrigues of some princely houses² not only words have played a part, but there have been times when personalities understood it well to beguile their fellow human beings through perfume and aromatic effects.

The most important things in life elude the senses, and man lives unconsciously, without suspecting the influence of spiritual beings to whom he is exposed at all times.

• 1. Refer to the lecture dated 4 December 1907—The Elemental Kingdoms of Nature
• 2. Presented in more detail in GA102-01, The influence of Spiritual Beings Upon Man. It concerns Draga Maschin, Queen of Serbia, who was killed together with her husband, Alexander I, in 1903.

When I last had an opportunity¹ to talk to you, we raised our eyes to the firmament, to the planets that have a certain relation to our human organisation, to our immediate life. Today we want to take a closer look at the development of our planetary system, insofar as it is related to humanity. You might be aware that we basically look at all developments in the cosmos always from the perspective of human evolution. No matter how far we cast a glance back, we always do this with the intention of precisely understanding human nature. This forces us to look at the evolutionary history of our own nature from many different angles. As you may imagine, earlier stages of our Earth and other planetary bodies were no less complicated than our present circumstances. It is not possible to grasp with a few concepts the development of our system—one can only get closer to this development by approaching it from various starting points. It might look as if there are contradictions between the separate imagined pictures. But these are only the result of the occult facts being described from different perspectives. If one were to paint a picture of a tree from various angles, one could create a hundred paintings of that same tree, yet the pictures might all differ. Thus, to gain a comprehensive idea, one has to produce a description from different starting points, and when one has captured many characteristics, these will fit together like different photos from various spatial viewpoints.

Today, the Earth’s development will be described as it appears to the clairvoyant eye. We know that the present embodiment of our Earth was preceded by three others—Saturn, Sun, and Moon. We also know how we have to imagine the Saturn state. We cannot imagine that it had a material composition like our current material matter. We differentiate between matter: our solid matter—Earth; liquid matter—our water; gaseous matter—the air; and the first subtler state—the warmth-matter. If one had come close to the ancient Saturn, one would have noticed its existence only because it felt like entering a warmer space, like a baking oven. In this fire matter, the first rudiment of the physical body was brought forth. But this was only a mirror image, reflected back into space.

After a Pralaya (dissolution or resting period), the Saturn state developed into the Sun state. The matter densifies and becomes gaseous. The human body permeates itself with the etheric body, but everything is still a very thin gaseous matter. What exists of the physical and etheric bodies presents itself like a Fata Morgana, like a mirage, in this Sun.

After another Pralaya, the Sun state passes into the Moon state. The matter liquefies. The human being permeates itself with the astral body. A significant event took place during the Moon’s development. What was present in the Moon’s water matter was a mixture of our present Sun, the Moon and the Earth. But then came a time when a kind of Sun separated itself off, together with the finest and most vital substances and the highest developed beings. What makes up our present Moon and the Earth remained behind as the old Moon. In the moment of separation, those beings that were left behind hardened.

The whole Moon-globe became a semi-living world body. There, the lowest realm is located between the present mineral and plant kingdoms; the second realm is between the plant and animal kingdoms; and the third is between the animal and human kingdoms. What is now rock was once like the wood of trees. All the substances on Earth were like peat or spinach. The mountains were lignified. From this basic substance grew beings that were between our plant and animal kingdoms. The mistletoe has maintained its habit of growing on living substance, though at that time it had a dawning sensation that it no longer has as it degenerated. The third stage were the “human animals”. These were the ancestors of human beings. This form of the old Moon only developed after it had separated from the Sun and orbited around it.

Then there was a reunification and, after a Pralaya, our Earth appeared. Our Earth had to repeatedly go through the earlier Saturn, Sun and Moon states. Only then did it bring forth its actual Earth shape. That it was at first of a fiery composition is something that has been maintained as a halfway suggestion. Physicists say that the Earth developed out of a fiery state. But the fiery state wasn’t gaseous, it was a completely different substance than what physicists mean by gas. It was there that the first rudiment of the physical body was formed again. What appeared then was different from what had appeared in the Saturn state, in that it had already matured out of earlier states of Saturn, Sun, and Moon. It had now become a more complicated human rudiment, the result of the earlier states, made out of a subtle etheric substance. Earth consisted of a conglomerate of such human rudiments. It looked like a blackberry made from the most subtle warmth-matter. The Earth is nothing but a compilation of human rudiments in warmth-matter.

It is now incumbent upon me to give you an idea of what these first rudiments looked like. We must take as an aid what has remained of these first human rudiments until later times. It is now enclosed by other limbs of the human nature. Today it pulsates in us as the body-heat of the blood. This is the remnant of the first human rudiments. What appeared then as warmth lines has again been transformed considerably over time. A child has a soft spot on the top of its head—this is an opening that the human being had since ancient times. During the middle of human development, a kind of warmth-organ was protruding from this spot like a blazing radiation, like suction arms, like an etheric lantern—the cyclopean eye. However, it was not an eye but a warmth organ that the human being needed for orientation purposes. Mankind lived at that time in warmer and colder liquid elements, and this organ told him which environment was useful or detrimental to him. The organ is a reshaped version of an organ from the fire state of the Earth. One has to imagine strength lines running from it to the heart, an independent development without the other limbs, as these do not exist yet, so that it looked like a lantern with protruding suction arms radiating downwards, that will later become veins. This is the “warmth human”.

During the initial Earth’s warmth period, the Earth was still united with the Sun, the Moon, and other planets. Later, a densification occurs. The warmth-matter state becomes a gaseous one. This evolutionary stage is of great importance for the human being because the development of warmth into air was such that channels of air surrounded the energy lines of warmth-matter. During this Earth development, the respiratory circulation process emerged for the first time. Now comes a very important fact. Whenever thermal matter densifies into air-matter, it also dilutes itself into a still more subtle state, into light-matter. This was the case when Saturn formed itself into the Sun—the gaseous state was permeated by light, radiating into cosmic space. Likewise, that is how it was when the Earth densified itself into the air-matter state—it was completely permeated by light; it radiated into cosmic space.

The Earth, as it were, had become a sun. Light is also the initiator of something different—it penetrates into the dark warmth-matter. The first human rudiments were not radiant; at best one would have been able to feel them through differences in warmth. Now this whole system, this warm bloodstream, is surrounded by glowing and radiating light. This light settles into the human body—this is the nervous system. The strength lines, the structure-lines of the nervous system, are light that has taken on a shape. The brain was distributed around the fiery matter, around the lantern, as a light-power. The nervous system that perceives light, was once itself light. And the whole Earth radiated out into space.

The time came when, once again, the Sun peeled itself out of the Earth. The finest materials and beings formed an independent world body, so that our Earth circulated around the Sun. Connected with the removal of the subtlest materials was the densification of the remaining matter. The subtle radiant Sun body emerged on one side, on the other side the Earth matter becomes much more dense. The Earth moves into a watery state, thicker than our ocean water, because everything that is firm today was also contained in it. With the liquefying process a new element emerges. To the extent to which water appears, the music of the spheres, the cosmic sounds, are emanating from the cosmos and out of the Earth. This is not music such as ours today that travels through the air. The development of the Earth is now under the influence of cosmic music. The material substances separate out from a larger mass of undifferentiated matter. Under the influence of the music of the spheres, the Earth’s substances begin to dance. This is the differentiation of substances into purely organic substances, for example, into protein. This is how organic matter, the protoplasm, came about under the influence of the music of the spheres, like today’s Chladni sound figures.² These substances, protein-like, sticky substances, are pushed into the earlier strength lines of the human rudiments. The cells, which today are considered to be the origin of organisms’ evolutionary history, arose much later only, when they were born of certain beings. The atom, too, is never primary—it is always what falls out of the whole. A whole is never put together out of individual cells. The whole process was assisted by the Moon‘s continued presence within the Earth’s body. The three human races who lived through those times are the Polar, the Hyperborean and the Lemurian race. Then the Moon separated from the Earth.

While the Moon was still connected with the Earth, something else arose. This was a time of continuous densification. Nearing the end of the Earth's connection with the Moon something special happened. The original fire was like our blood warmth, a living fire. The external fire emerged at the end of the Moon stage. What arose under the influence of this physical combustion, is understood best if one were to look at a burning physical corpse. What emerges as ash, is comparable with the residue of this earth combustion. This had a fresh impact on our Earth development. This is how everything mineral came into being. Out of the organic substances the mineral, the ashen, emerges like a darkening, like a dusk. Before this there were only protein-like substances. Now there are clouds of ash embedded in the protein. These ash clouds are integrated into the organic substances of all natural kingdoms; the plant, animal and human kingdoms.

If this development had continued, then everything would have become mummified and rigid. We have already mentioned the reason why the Sun and the Moon separated. The purpose of this separation was that if all the powers and beings had remained connected, then the human being would not have been able to obtain the living conditions that he has today. If the Sun had stayed connected with the Earth, the conditions would have been too rapid for human life. He would have grown old, right at birth. Only the highly developed beings were able to participate in such a vehement life development. They went with the Sun. The other beings had to firm up. But the firmness would have become complete—and therefore, the Moon had to be removed from the Earth so that the human being could be kept in the proper balance. The Sun gives the power of continuous living growth. The Moon impedes this development at a level suitable for the human being. The human being is in the midst of beings who develop much faster than he is and those who develop much more slowly. The Sun has taken on the development of life, the Moon the development of forms. The human being was given the opportunity to reshape the form that he had reached. Now he was prepared so that the germ of the “I” could sink into him. In this way, the development of the human being in the psychic-spiritual (soul-spirit) direction was instigated. This was at the end of the Lemurian era. From then onwards, here on Earth, the human being had to develop his I with the help of his other limbs. This development falls into the last Lemurian, the Atlantean, and our present time.

But the human I is only very slowly learning to take control of itself. At the outset, when the body was impregnated with the I, it could not yet have controlled its own development. If we follow the whole development of the Earth, we first see the Earth in a state of warmth. At that time it was not yet separated from the other planets that belonged to its system. Physics also knows of this starting point, but only in a physical sense. It talks about a dead gas ball. But from where life arose, it doesn’t say. One illustrates the origin of a planetary system by placing a drop of oil on water. Then the drop is sliced by a card and this is then turned around by a needle. One can observe small drops separating themselves. However, those experimenters are forgetting that they are standing there and are turning the needle. They do not explain how the experiment would proceed without them. Spiritual beings were connected with this gaseous body, with the warmth-matter. The reason why the planets separated out into globes is that on our Earth not only human beings were developing, but also beings that stand above and below mankind. On Old Saturn, beings already existed that went through their human stage there. Today, those beings have developed far beyond the human stage. The Fire Spirits on the Sun are at present two stages above humanity. Moon-men are one stage above human beings. The humans on Saturn were the Spirits of Personality. However, at the same time even higher beings lived there, who had been human beings even earlier. All of those beings remain connected to the planetary system.

The Sun separated from the Earth because higher beings, who required another setting, were connected to it. Had they remained on Earth they would have been delayed in their development. They needed fast speed. However, there existed not only beings who needed the Sun, but there was a whole range of diverse beings at different stages of development. Some beings pushed out Uranus for themselves, for other beings Saturn was created. Jupiter has become another setting. Jupiter emerged when the Earth had lit up already. In this way, one site after another was constructed according to the needs of the spiritual beings. When the Sun split off, it took along certain beings, who were unable to remain connected with the Earth, but were still unable to cope with the very fast pace of the Sun. These beings were more exalted than human beings, but not as mature as the other beings of the Sun. For these beings, the Sun split off Mercury and Venus, whose beings were in-between the Sun-beings and the human beings on Earth. These beings are the ones that directed and led the development of the I, when the I itself was not yet able to do this. The mission of the Earth’s evolution is to develop the I. Only when Christianity bears its most ripe fruits will humanity reach its stage. Venus beings worked through the astral or Devachan world, or incarnated themselves in humans and became their leaders. In a way that humans were not conscious of, they laid the germ for further human evolution into them. From a different viewpoint, they are called Luciferian beings. The Mercurial beings were also related to the Earth’s development. They were the first great mystery teachers. In secret, they led the training of the oldest initiates. Whilst Venus beings have a very long lifespan, Mercurial beings do not know anything about birth and death because they have developed Budhi. They remain fully conscious throughout birth and death.

Now we have talked quite a bit about how the Earth’s development proceeded, the purpose of the origin of the world globe and the human being. This is a new picture of evolution. By following descriptions from different viewpoints, one will gain a true image of reality. The moment one becomes dogmatic, one becomes unable to ever penetrate into real occultism. When trying to gain an overview, like the one given at the beginning of this lecture,³ one will be able to slowly observe the spiritual life in its reality.

• 1. See Lecture given on Munich, 15 January 1908, GA 98, Lecture 4.
• 2. Chladni sound figures are forms created by way of sound vibration. These are made visible by covering a metal plate with fine dust and using a violin bow to create vibrations. Discovered by the physicist Ernst Chladni (1756-1827).
• 3. The overview mentioned here was included in the first edition of this lecture, but has been omitted from the current edition, as it is not a text by Rudolf Steiner.

Today, we want to talk about some things that might be outside the normal sphere of deliberation but that will clarify, from a different perspective, some of the material that we have heard about in earlier lectures. The overall message discussed today is meant to shed light on much of what we’ve heard before and will hear in the future. Today, we will talk about the hierarchy of beings that exist in the world and are above the human being. We have occasionally mentioned such beings in the context of the Earth’s evolution. Now we will look at them in a different context, namely from the perspective of those beings’ characteristics, their purpose, and their work.

Nowadays there is a certain convenience in terms of world-view, as many people do not want to put any other beings between themselves and the Godhead. It is so incredibly comfortable to imagine a mineral kingdom, a plant kingdom, an animal kingdom, and a human kingdom, and then, without much ado, to climb up to the all-pervading God, about whom one believes to have a more or less correct consciousness or feeling. For the real Science of the Spirit it is not that convenient—between humans and the entity, about which we have a presentiment that it might be the Godhead of the world, it needed to insert beings at the most diverse stages of perfection. This hierarchy has been repeatedly hinted at. In Christian Esotericism¹/6^th Century, probably by Severus, the Patriarch of Antioch. Compare the introduction in the referenced volume, pages 13-14. they have the following names: Angels, Archangels, Primordial Forces, Powers, Virtues, Dominions, Thrones, Cherubims, Seraphims. These are nine different kinds of beings, to which man is connected right at the bottom of the hierarchy. Only if we look upwards beyond the realm of the Seraphim can we divine what we address as the Godhead.

Do not believe that it is insubstantial and meaningless if it is said that it is a convenience of the worldview to simply ascend from the human being to the Godhead without involving these beings. If human beings had not forgotten to study and acknowledge them, then the aberrations of materialism would not have occurred. Although it is possible to combine some sort of religious feeling, a kind of dark religious sentiment, with the immediate ascent from human being to deity, but it is never possible to arrive in this way at a real understanding of the world; a true picture of the evolution of the world can never be combined with this. For this reason, humanity has now lost its understanding of the world. There is an aspect in religion that is based only on feelings and vague emotions that will always allow itself to be denied in the face of materialistic ideas. The Theosophical world-view re-opens an understanding of the world by teaching mankind again about these beings. In this way, a reference point is created in order to counter the denial of a higher world. People who today struggle against acknowledging this world are increasingly preparing the ground for the most banal, disastrous materialism. The materialists themselves are really the victims—the real perpetrators are those who, out of convenience, do not want to know anything about what exists between mankind and the Godhead.

Now that you know the reason why we must talk about these higher beings today, we will look at their characteristics in a free aphoristic way. First, we will examine the angels, the Angeloi, the divine messengers, who stand closest to human beings. They differ from human beings mostly through their faculties of perception and recognition. A human being perceives and acts out his deeds within a world that consists of the four realms of nature; namely among the minerals, plants, animals and human beings. This is the nature of his perception; these are his acts of will.

The angels, who stand one stage above the human beings, differ from them in that the mineral realm does not exist for their perception. Their perceptive faculty begins with the plant kingdom and then progresses further to the animal, the human, and to their own angel kingdom. Within these four kingdoms the life of the angels takes place. What the human being perceives as a mineral filling a spatial area is for these beings empty space, blank space. If you remember how in my book Theosophy I’ve described how, in Devachan, man perceives the mineral world, namely as empty space, then you roughly understand the kind of perception these beings have, who live permanently in such a world. The minerals do not present an obstacle for them—they are able to walk through them; they are not interested in them. The mineral realm is too far beneath them. Their awareness only begins with the plant kingdom and extends to their own realm.

AAs angelic beings, they call themselves “I”. By being so constituted they will, through their actions, make something clear to us that we already know. When the human being goes through the portal of death, he will first encounter the curious experience of the memory picture. It presents itself thus: When the human being dies, he first gets the feeling that he will grow and grow increasingly, and this enlargement is accompanied by the appearance of the memory picture. Once the picture ends, something like a kind of extract—like a fruit of life—remains. This will create a type of germinal force for the construction of the human being in his next incarnation. This is a kind of etheric, internally structured essence that remains with him as the essence of all his experiences in the etheric body and will accompany him through the eternities. If we also remember that the human being, after having passed through the Kamaloka, takes this essence with him to Devachan, and that he is not passive there but has his essential tasks to fulfil, then the deeds of those beings who are standing one level above us will become quite clear. The human being only reincarnates once he can experience something new, once he can take a new fruit into himself. The Earth goes through many transformations. Therefore, it is wrong that it is not necessary to come repeatedly as some people believe. A human being can always experience something new that he will take with him into eternity.

What is causing the transformation of the Earth’s surface? Who is working on the transformation of the Earth? How does it happen that a completely different picture of the plant world emerges in a particular area, with completely different living conditions? Just imagine, for example, how the area where Munich is located now must have looked 3,000 years ago and how human beings on the physical plane continuously change the face of the Earth with their physical powers. But because man only changes the mineral kingdom, you can imagine that other changes have to arise from Devachan. And from there, once again, it is the human beings who, coming from the spiritual, consistently transform the Earth. But they could not do it by themselves. They would not know what the face of the Earth should look like, or what condition it should be in. They are only able to do this under the leadership of higher beings. Those higher beings who guide and lead them are the beings that we call angels. They deal with what exists in a human being during the presence in Devachan in a different form. They guide and lead the eternal Ego of man. And because they, due to their nature are able to reach down into the world of plants, they can achieve the transformation of the Earth.

Now it will be easy to comprehend that these beings are always leading, guiding beings for the human Ego. They do not even interrupt their leadership when the Ego gets incarnated again. The Ego is regulated and led by such entities. Therefore, the naive belief that a protective being exists for the higher Ego is not unfounded. We know however, that the entities we call angels were still human beings when they were on the Moon. From human beings, they have evolved higher. Knowing this it is easy to understand that man also is on the way to becoming such a higher being himself and will be one on Jupiter. Thus, there is something in man, that works today towards a higher existence and is on the way to become such a being. He will then be of a nature similar to such angelic beings. Here we are looking deeply into the spiritual development of the world. However, what we have in front of us as a list of names, these should not be considered to be something permanent—but a description only of hierarchical levels.

When we now focus higher up on the archangels, we arrive at beings that once again have a different faculty of perception and a different type of activity. For them, even the plant world is not of interest, as it is not perceptible. Their perception only begins with the animal world. This is their lowest realm—followed by the human, angel and archangel realms—these are the four realms of these beings. Thus, we can say we are looking up to such sublime beings who reach down with their deeds only as far as the animal kingdom. They live in the animal and human kingdoms and so on, but their deeds do not reach down into the plant kingdom.

These facts were known to the earlier consciousness of human beings. We are allowed here to look deeply into the emotional life of earlier peoples and times. Just as our ancestors still felt aware of the deeds of angels in plants, they felt aware of the deeds of archangels in animals. For this reason, ancient people, such as the Egyptians, worshipped certain animals. This was an expression of the knowledge of mankind. Whoever looks at the curious figures, the subject of Egyptian animal worship, will stand in awe of the deep wisdom of those people. Not without reason did they connect these animals with higher beings and mankind. Let us keep in mind how the life of humans was always connected to the life of animals, how progress on Earth is connected to animals—certain aspects of man’s development depend on animals—then we will comprehend the deep foundation of animal worship.

What is the responsibility of the archangels? Nowadays, some people are still saying that something like a Folk Spirit exists. But for most people, this has become just empty talk, something abstract. Most people do not know a lot about the fact that a nation is actually led by a real Folk Spirit. This Folk Spirit is an archangel, for whom the whole nation is one body, just as a human body is for the human spirit. The Folk Spirits are the tribal spirits. Whilst the angels guide and lead individual people through their incarnations, the archangels lead the lives of whole groups, entire nations. Now we will understand why the Egyptians felt that the deity gave them certain animals as companions. It is because the lives of whole groups of people are deeply connected to the lives of certain animal species. They correctly saw the deeds of the Folk Spirit in this. They worshipped the power of the Folk Spirit, who had sent the animal companion to them.

You might ask me, if one could imagine a being that perceives all the separate organs of a human being but is unable to perceive him as a whole entity; such being would be unable to comprehend that these organs form a whole. So you could say, certainly, maybe today with his current perception man does not directly perceive the angels and archangels, but he might perceive what their organs, their ears, and their eyes are. Or, we might imagine that angels perceive plants, animals, humans and angels. What then are their sense organs? Maybe people could even perceive the sense organs of angels? Where are these? They exist and they can be perceived by human beings. Man just doesn’t know this.

The sense organs of the angelic beings will become understandable when I tell you that man himself has two eyes to see the mineral world with, but can not see the his eyes directly on himself. The sense organs are made for perception, but they do not perceive themselves. Thus, it is with the angels in the mineral world. Their sense organs can be found in the mineral physical world, but they do not perceive that world themselves. The sense organs of the angels are our precious gemstones. These are mysterious tools for angelic beings to perceive with. Thus, these organs lie within the mineral world. In the same way that the human being has his sense of feeling and his sense of touch, these beings possess their sense of feeling, which expresses itself in the carnelian; and their facial sense in the chrysolite. They simply do not perceive within the mineral world because their sense organs are in it. Even in this regard, we can find some dim consciousness amongst the ancient people who ascribe particular properties to certain precious stones. These properties derive from the presence of angels in them.

Therefore, what we mean by Folk Spirit is a very real presence within the beings who we call archangels. Let us now focus on the Primordial Forces, who are even one level higher. What is their responsibility with regard to the evolution of mankind? When looking at their faculties of perception, we have to say that the mineral, plant, and animal kingdoms are non-existent for them. The lowest realm that they perceive is the human realm. Including this, their perception stretches over four kingdoms—the human realm, the angel realm, the realm of the archangels, and their own realm. They reach down only as far as the level of human beings. Let us visit their activities. Again, we find an expression to which man has no real connection: the Spirit of an Epoch, of a Time. Each epoch has its own unique characteristics. For example, think of our post-Atlantean time. In five Epochs, the Spirit of Time has changed. Among the Indians, the Zeitgeist (the Spirit of Time) did not want to acknowledge the physical world, considering it to be Maya. This was immediately after a dawning clairvoyance had sunk in and the human being had stepped into the physical world. From then onwards, we see how man conquers the world bit by bit.

During the second epoch, amongst the Persians, man becomes aware that the Earth is a field of his work. He realises that he has to imprint his spirit on the material world. He confronts the benevolent spirit Ormuzd as a servant—time overcomes the evil Ahriman.

Then follows the third epoch, the Egyptian-Chaldaean-Babylonian time, where the spirit continues to work. The sciences appear. The human being not only understands the world as his working field, but he searches for its laws. The Egyptians discover geometry. The Chaldean is searching in outer space for a pattern of the movement of the stars, the world in its material substantiality, is thought to be pervaded by laws, that is, by spirit.

In the fourth epoch, the Greek era, man conquers one more piece of this other world through art. Greek art is something special because here the human being imprints his own “I-form” onto the material matter. Then, once again, a new epoch followed. We can continue to move on step by step, and would see how the Spirit of the Time changes itself. Just like the face of the Earth is transformed by the angels who are guiding the human “I”, and the archangels are leading the people of nations, so the consecutive epochs are determined by the Primordial Forces. Those beings that are standing behind the processes are incredibly important to observe. Separate human individuality is something different—and its work under the influence of the Spirits of the Epoch is something else again. Think of Giordano Bruno.² What has happened through him, has not been done by him alone. Had he incarnated three centuries earlier or later, he would have been an equally gifted individual, but he would have had to do something quite different, led by the Spirit of his Time. The Spirits of Time, who are an expression of the Primordial Forces that reach down into the human being, are positioning these people in the places where they belong. If you look at the individual human being as a tool of the Primordial Forces, as material of these Spirits, then you will understand their work. Wherever man appears in a large or small position, they have to be judged accordingly, for man is to the Primordial Forces what the minerals are to us. For all those concerned with the Science of the Spirit, the question always arises to what extent this or that personality is the material of the Spirits of the Epoch. One can gain deep insight into the workings and weaving of evolution when one observes how people are placed in the appropriate positions in the world.

Let us now ascent to the Powers, for whom man as such is no longer there at all. We can then imagine in a different way what is involved in the development of the forces of nature. The lowest realm that would possibly be accessible by the Powers’ perception is that of the angels. Angels are to these highly sublime beings what the mineral kingdom is to us. On other occasions, we have already pointed out the workings of these Powers: Everything that goes beyond the individual human being, that is connected to the affairs of the whole planet, are the deeds of these Powers. If we trace our Earth back to the time when it, and with it the human being, emerged as a gradually forming entity, then we return to the Primordial Forces.

But if we wish to look at the life and emergence of the Earth itself, then we have to return to the Powers. They have nothing to do with individual human beings, but rather with the planetary genesis. We find these Powers in the Sun and Moon forces within ourselves. We know that humanity as such stands under the influence of these Sun and Moon forces. If the Sun forces only would work, the warm, fiery, light-giving Sun forces, then the human being would develop very fast—he would rush through one life. The delaying force is the force of the Moon, compelling him to take on form. If only these forces were at work, man would live only once, have only one incarnation, then he would die and mummify in his form. Earth would be covered by statues. If solely the Sun forces were at work, man would also go through only one incarnation, but in this incarnation he would live through all that he would otherwise go through in countless incarnations.

The collaboration of both forces establishes the right balance so that the human being can develop the way he does. The Moon on its own would cause mummification. Now the Moon rules the one incarnation; the Sun rules the subsequent incarnations from the outside, whilst the angels work from the inside. The nature and weaving of the Powers is revealed to us here. They are quite correctly described in the Bible as the Spirits of Light or Elohim, who existed before the Earth was created. One of them is Yahweh, who forces the human beings into form. In the working and weaving of the Powers, we see what is connected to the life of the whole planet. Here we have an opportunity to gain deep insight into the foundation of our world’s evolution.

However, we have also already heard that certain beings always remain behind in their development. The current Powers were previously Primordial Forces on the Moon. But there are Primordial Forces of the Moon that did not complete their set tasks and who came onto the Earth as Primordial Forces. They had not developed fast enough, although they were candidates to become Powers. The most outstanding of these Primordial Forces, who could actually be at the level of the Powers, is the entity commonly called Satan. Thus, he is at the rank of the Primordial Forces and could even be a Power. Amongst the Spirits that move the world forward, this Epochal Spirit works against the others. He is such a force on Earth as would have fitted on the old Moon, and he is still intimately connected with the forces of the old Moon. He is the Master of all obstacles and inhibitions that are placed in the path of the progressive Epochal Spirits. You will comprehend what it means when it was said that, in his life, Jesus Christ had to first overcome Satan, the Opponent of Progress, just at the moment of the greatest progress. Christ wanted to lead mankind in a mighty step forward, but first he had to overcome this adversary as the inhibitor and disruptor of this development, who wanted to prevent the Primordial Forces of our Earth from advancing further. Christian Esotericism calls these unlawful Primordial Forces Satanic Powers.

What is often called Providence presents itself quite definitively in detail as a group of beings. If man would once again be able to research the connection between sensory appearances and spiritual beings, he would understand many things better. Everything that appears to us in this world is an expression of spiritual beings.

You know, for example, that the planets, the celestial bodies, perform certain movements around themselves and around others. Why does this happen? The movement of the Earth around its axis was not always there. Why did it come about? The reason is that the human being at its present stage of development needs the alternation between day and night, between sleeping and waking. The macrocosm is most intimately connected to the microcosm—through the division of time, life is being regulated. During the time of the old Moon, it was quite different. There was a completely different time allocation, a quite different alternation between day and night, because the old Moon moved entirely differently. Those beings who nowadays direct these movements, have prepared these already in their own lives. Spiritual beings are behind those movements which are their deeds. In the future, mankind will recognise a deep wisdom in those movements.

A deep wisdom lies in the so-called “orbit” of the Earth around the Sun. Man will one day realise that something incredibly significant is happening there. Aren’t you surprised that I am saying “so-called” orbit. What is today taught in schools about the way the Earth moves around the Sun, is only the result of a mathematical example. It is not absolutely true. One day this explanation will also take on quite different forms. Even from a historical perspective people could inform themselves that it is not like that. It is quite a strange issue with the system of Copernicus.³ He founded his beliefs on three basic principles, of which only two were adopted by today’s science, and the third one was dropped under the table. In reality, the Sun races with high speed through space towards the constellation of Hercules. A movement, as it is usually described, is only feigned by the fact that the planets also move along. The true path of the Earth forms a corkscrew line⁴ . What is called theobliquity of the ecliptic is the gravity line between Sun and Earth. One has forgotten that the Earth turns once a year around the axis of the ecliptic, and this rotation combines itself with the corkscrew turn. Copernicus still differentiated between those two things, but nowadays it is not done anymore. The movement with the ecliptic was dropped. Therefore, it is not compatible with the facts when one says that the Earth turns around the sun. In reality, it is a corkscrew movement.

If the corkscrew line were a straight line, then progress would be immensely faster—Earth would have to travel along its path with incredible speed, and that would be exactly what the human being couldn’t cope with.

If the Earth would really pass through those spaces in a straight line, then man would become old immediately. As it is, the movement was amended in a wise way by the leading Spirits. The absolute progress is being delayed through a different way of movement. As you can see, there lies deep wisdom in the cosmos—this wisdom is the expression of the leading Spirits. We have been given angels and archangels as governors of our evolution. The forces that are working from incarnation to incarnation, that push man further, so that he will not become mummified, these are the governors of the future rotation times of Jupiter. Such Spirits that are standing above the human being and regulate his life, are therefore called the “Spirits of the Rotation of Time”, because their deeds will find expression later in the rotation times of the celestial bodies. The way the stars move today can be seen as the results of what higher beings have done in former times. In today’s humanity you can already recognise the future times of rotation. With this a tremendous spiritual life enters the celestial space, when we learn to look at it in this way.

Today, we only wanted to look at the characteristics of beings up to the Powers. We can imagine how the external is the expression of something internal. When what is said here fills humanity again, then much will change. We have now an immense low in academic education. The external progress is incompatible with the spiritual life. This would lead to a tremendous low if such truths were not made known and used to enlighten the science. People no longer know where to go with their materialistic science. Recently, a psychology book⁵ was published—one should not think that such a book has no effect just because the author is still unknown. The book explains that the law of the conservation of forces also applies to the soul, and that the inner manifestations of the soul consist only of a transformation of food. He roughly says, “For 10 years, it has been known with certainty that the so-called law of the conservation of forces is identical with the effects of the nervous system. One can prove that all that man absorbs in the form of energy from the consumption of food, is completely identical to that which he produces in work. Since one can prove exactly the same thing happens inside man as elsewhere in the world, there can, therefore, be no soul being. We are only dealing with the conversion of food into energy, which is given off again to the outside.”

This is a very smart conclusion. Just as well one could say: In front of a Bank are two people counting money that is carried in and out. The amounts are equal, therefore inside the bank there are no staff. But is not staff needed to manage everything? This example is on the same level as the psychologist’s opinion and a large part of what figures as science today. Everyone who even somehow considers this matter can imagine what a spiritual culture that thinks so little would lead to. It is necessary to possess spiritual knowledge, for only here the single real impulse is given to the development of humanity. If the human being does not find out what is behind the manifestations, then the world cannot be understood. One must arrive at the great, far-reaching, all-embracing laws, at the relationships of beings and worlds.

• 1. Refer to Dionysius Areopagita: The Hierarchies of the Angels and the Church, Barth Publishing House, Munich 1955. Dionysius Areopagita was a student of the Apostle Paul, by whom he was initiated into Christian esoteric. Initially his teachings were conveyed only verbally, and were written down only in the 5^th 1
• 2. Giordano Bruno, 1548-1600, Italian Philosopher.
• 3. Nicolaus Copernicus, 1473-1543, astronomer, founder of the modern heliocentric view of the cosmos.
• 4. See also to the more detailed description, of later years, of this topic inCorrespondences between Microcosm and Macrocosm. Man—Hieroglyph of the Universe, GA 201, and in The Relation of the different Branches of Natural Science to Astronomy, GA 323. 4
• 5. em>Outline of Psychology, Leipzig, 1908, by Hermann Ebbinghaus (1850-1909), Professor of Philosophy in Halle, Leipzig. Ebbinghaus’ views, that Rudolf Steiner summarised, can be found in his book, page 37, in the section headed Interaction and Parallelism. He says there, “Since about one decade.... the preservation of energy in higher beings, for example in dogs, yes, recently also in humans, has been proven by experiments..... the source of the energy flow lies in the food consumed”. Ebbinghaus’ presentation culminates in the sentence, “Also in the organism of the human being there is consequently no space for the free activity of independent souls”.

We have often emphasized that the worldview based on the Science of the Spirit must not remain just something abstract or conceptual, or something that we present as our worldview only in solemn moments of our lives to satisfy our inner spiritual needs. Rather, our worldview must be something that deeply intervenes in our life and being, in our work from morning to night. This will become very clear to us if we focus our attention on what is always around us, namely the relationships and connections that spiritual beings and the spiritual world in general have with us and our lives.

The physiognomy of the external life will only become clear to a human being, after he looked into that which out of the spiritual world brings about this physiognomy of existence. Not until we know a human being’s soul, will we begin to understand him fully by his physiognomy. We will then know how to interpret his gaze and explain his facial expressions. Likewise, the external world in its large and small manifestations will become understandable once we get to know its spiritual foundations. We are already able to make a lot clear to ourselves when we follow life at every turn and observe it with an eye sharpened by the Science of the Spirit.

Recently, an aperçu came to my mind that I would like to use as an introduction simply to get us in the mood for today’s contemplation. I have often drawn your attention to¹ how strangely in the destiny of the world, in its historical karma, things are interconnected in European culture. I have pointed out to you how in the Nordic mystery world, the mystery world of Druids and of the Trots, a certain tragic streak prevailed during teaching. In the old pre-Christian mystery world, the disciples who were initiated into high spiritual wisdom, high spiritual science, were also always made aware of something. It was pointed out to them that the view of the spiritual world conveyed to them, namely in Northern and North-western Europe, would receive a special illumination through a future event. Prophetically, the later appearance of Christ was alluded to. The whole of European culture becomes understandable to us when we follow the strange threads of how Christianity entwined and interwove itself into the remnants of the ancient Nordic beliefs about the spirit world. And sometimes small external facts really seem to be symptoms even though they are more than symptoms. They are real evidence of what is happening inside. Thus, one following these fine threads unravels for himself the physiognomy of external events.

During one of my last lecture journeys,² it stood quite vividly before my soul, how in the areas of the North, in Sweden and Norway, the after-effects of the ancient Nordic spirit world can still be perceived in detail. It seems one can perceive how these effects are playing into a spiritual view of all that we encountered. And then one feels something very special, when right in the middle of these echoes of the ancient world of the Nordic gods, something manifests itself that points to strange karmic historical connections. Right in the midst of the echoes of this ancient Nordic spirit world, an impressive picture presents itself.

On reaching Uppsala, one is, so to speak, right in the middle of the things that further remind one of the ancient Nordic mystery world. Right there you come across the first Germanic translation of the bible of Ulfilas,³ that wonderful document about the penetration of Christianity into the European world. Even if we do not go into specific karmic connections, we will feel something of karmic relations when we remember that this document was first in Prague, then was captured during the Swedish war and brought to this place by strange circumstances. It seems to us as if this first translation of the Bible into Germanic is a living monument to the penetration of Christianity into the ancient Nordic spirit world.

When one truly perceives the things that one encounters also as an outer expression of inner spiritual facts then all becomes explainable from the inner perspective and everything comes to life. Thus, today we want to place before our soul and examine some of the many things that show us external events and external facts as a consequence, a physiognomic expression, of inner spiritual natures and occurrences of such spiritual beings and events.

When we survey the life of man, it becomes obvious right away that in today’s world, where materialistic thinking is prevalent, only connections that are well visible from the outside are studied and noted. One will call something harmful when the harm it causes is clearly visible to the eyes. Something is called useful when its utility is obvious.

It will become especially clear to us that spiritual facts play out in between the sensual events of life, so to speak, in between our sensual bodies that are connected with human life, if we first consider certain deeds of beings who exert influence on our world. Of course, these beings cannot be naturally perceived by man’s physical senses but are deeply significant for the entire human life.

We can take a closer look at only one kind of such beings, although there are many. The space that surrounds us is not only filled with air, but with a great variety of spiritual beings. There are those that we call elemental beings. The majority of them can be characterised by something that they do not possess, but rather by what actually makes a human being a human being, namely a feeling of moral responsibility. They cannot have this. They are organised in such a way that they cannot be held responsible in a moral sense. Don’t think that at least some of those beings who go and in out of our bodies, at least a certain kind of them, have no intellect, are not intelligent. Many of them are very smart beings—beings which are hardly inferior to man in terms of cleverness and intellect. Let us first take a look at such beings who are found in the higher worlds, but who have a certain relationship with man himself, which has its effects in life. This is what we want to examine.

We begin with the assumption that a person really lives in two distinct states. Within the duration of twenty-four hours, a typical modern man transitions from the awake state of day to the state of sleep at night. We know from earlier observations that during the day a human being is in a regular way composed of four bodily members—the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body, and the I. During the night, when someone falls asleep, the physical and the etheric body remain lying in bed, whilst the astral body and the I lift themselves out. We have also learnt, that these four members of the human body find their expression in the physical body. We know that the I finds expression in the blood. The blood in its movements is nothing but the material revelation of the I. Likewise, the nervous system is the material revelation of the astral body, and the glands are those of the etheric body. The physical body has its own revelation, so to speak. If you keep that in mind, then you can understand that this human nervous system in the physical body is designed just so that it can only exist when it is permeated by the astral body. This is so because the astral body is its creator and maintainer. It is organising the nervous system that is dependent on it. The nervous system can only live under the influence of the astral body. Similarly, closely connected are the blood and the I. Just imagine what happens when you, disdainfully, leave your physical body each night. You leave the nervous system behind in the physical body but take with you the astral body, that is its nurturer. You leave behind to its own devices, what the astral body should take care of. Likewise, your I steps out and leaves the blood to its own devices. That is what the human being does each night. He leaves his physical body, or rather the nervous- and blood-systems, to their own devices. However, these could not survive, if they had to depend solely on themselves. Because of the way they are, they must in the human form be permeated by an astral body, just as the blood must be permeated by something that is equivalent to the I.

What you do not do yourself, namely, to supply your nervous system, other beings have to do. Therefore, you will see that in the same moment in which the astral body and the I are pulling themselves out of the physical and etheric bodies, higher beings from higher realms are moving in. They sink their astrality into the nervous system and supply the nerves and the blood. Those that descend from the higher realms each night take possession of the physical body when the human being disdainfully leaves it behind. So, we can say that astral substantialities that create the physical and etheric bodies, who are participants in their creation, take care of these bodies again when the human being leaves them. Hereby they find the bodies different from the way they were originally delivered to the human beings. Man lived in it with his astral body and his I and has worked in it. Now the spiritual beings from higher cosmic regions find effects in it that do not correspond to their higher spirituality at all. Effects that are the aftermath of what the human being did during the day in his physical body, instigated by his astrality and his I.

Of course, the materialistic approach knows only roughly the basics. But when we consider the mysterious facts of the spiritual world, we will find that there exist also quite different effects that influence the physical body. One cannot have a single thought, feeling, or emotion without it affecting the physical body.

Although an anatomist cannot prove this, every feeling and every emotional state causes a certain change in the structure of the physical body, and this is what is then discovered by those beings who descend into the human being.

Of special relevance are the effects on the physical body caused by all those things a human being has within his soul of lies, slander, and hypocrisy. The materialistic view is that lies, slander, and hypocrisy are only as harmful as can be observed from the outside. But this is not correct. In reality, very delicate effects are exerted on the physical body, however, these effects cannot even be perceived microscopically. Later, when the soul leaves the body during sleep, the effects remain in the physical body and are found by the higher beings. These consider not only those soul experiences that are, in the gross sense, called lies, slander, and hypocrisy, but also, for example, the subtle, conventional lies that are required by today’s social order. Lies spoken out of politeness or custom, and the whole gamut that can be listed starting with insincerity, hypocrisy, and petty slander even if only in thought, all this expresses itself in effects on the physical body and is found by those descending beings. And as all of this is at night within the physical body something special is brought about.

Through this, pieces are always torn off from the substance of those beings that are descending into the body. Through this, certain pieces of the higher beings must excise themselves. The consequence of lies, hypocrisy, and slander during the day is the excision of certain beings during the night, that are through this somehow related to the physical human body. These beings thus acquire an independent existence in the spiritual world that surrounds us; they are beings that we class as phantoms. Phantoms are spiritual entities that look like physiognomic expressions, in a certain way they are replicas of human limbs and form. They are of such subtle materiality that the physical eye cannot see them, yet they have, so to say, a physical form. The clairvoyant sees parts of human heads, human hands, whole figures flying through the air. Yes, he sees the entrails of human bodies buzzing around, the stomach, the heart, all the phantoms that were set free by excision because of what humans have done to their physical bodies, as the result of lies, hypocrisy, and slander.

Such phantoms that consistently buzz through our spiritual space are proof to you that human life itself is the cause of beings that now, in a not at all particularly advantageous way, influence human beings. Although in some ways they possess certain intelligent characteristics, they do not have any moral accountability. They eke out their existence by placing obstacles in the way of man, obstacles that are much bigger than those we call bacteria. Something else is also happening. Important pathogenic agents can be found in such beings because phantoms, who have been created through people, will find in bacilli and bacteria a very good opportunity in support of their existence—a source of food. They would more or less dry up in their spiritual existence, if this nourishment wasn’t there. But in a sense, these bacteria are in turn created by them. Because the phantoms exist in the physical world, they can be serving a purpose. Through mysterious causes, that which is in some way needed is also available.

Thus, through lies, slander, and hypocrisy man creates an army of spiritual entities of the category of phantoms.

Something similar happens to the etheric body that man leaves behind at night. This has also been organised for life so that it can only exist as a human etheric body when it is permeated by higher beings. When its own astrality is outside, the higher beings dive into the etheric body also. This has to be remembered! Then it becomes comprehensible that effects in the etheric body, caused by certain processes of our soul-life, remain during the night and bring about the excision of beings, according to the etheric body pattern, from what sinks into the etheric body. The soul processes that lead to such entities, are processes caused in human society through what we call “bad laws” or “wrong rules.” Much of the lawful effect of injustice that a man’s soul experiences in dealing with others, impacts the soul in such a way that the after-effects remain in the etheric body at night and lead to the excision of beings that we call ghosts. This is the second kind of beings that man creates.

Then we have to consider that this issue also exists vice versa.

What stepped out of the body at night, the astral body, is organised in such a way that it depends on being present within the nervous system. When it is not within it, then it is not in its proper place. Then he astral body also must be supported from the higher worlds. Higher protective spirits must unite with it. From these higher spirits as well, something can be excised through human soul activity and peculiar soul processes. This occurs through the effect on human nature of what we could call “giving incorrect advice.” For example, this effect happens when someone forces wrong advice on another, or forms insufficiently justified prejudices, or persuades someone and treats his soul in such a way that does not allow him to agree freely, by pushing him, so to say, forcibly to a conviction that one is fanatically devoted to oneself.

When such influences are exerted from one person to another, an effect remains in the astral body during the night, which leads to the higher beings excising certain entities that belong to the category of demons. t. These will be created, in the way described above, because the people do not meet with an attitude that could be expressed as follows, “I want to tell the other person what I think. If he agrees, that is his business!”

Hundreds of demons are created at the gaming table at gatherings, in Germany called Herrenabende (Gentlemen’s evenings), and at afternoon tea, where really rarely an attitude can be found that is based on inner tolerance. Instead, an attitude prevails where an individual thinks, “If you do not want to share my opinion, then you are stupid.” This type of communication from soul to soul is demon-generating to the highest degree.

Thus spiritual beings really spring from human life. They animate the spiritual world, and all these beings, phantoms, ghosts, and demons in turn affect man. If in our surroundings one or another prejudice spreads epidemically or this or that silly fashion spreads, then this is the work of the demons that were created by human beings and are now obstructing the straight line of progress. Man is always encircled and swarmed by the beings he has created.

Thus, we see how man impedes his own progress due to his ability to create in the spiritual world. We must become conscious of the fact that everything we think, feel, or perceive emotionally has a more significant effect in the wider context than what would happen if we shot a bullet. The latter might be bad, but it is only assumed to be more dangerous than the former because man can see it with his gross senses, while he does not observe the other effects.

This is a part of the spiritual life that the human being unfolds himself, as it were. Another part, how someone participates in the interactions with the spiritual world, might become clear to us from certain human cultural activities that, however, are also not merely as they appear to the external senses. To understand this, you have to keep in mind that there are still other beings besides humans.

We can say that the human being presents himself like this. He has a physical body as the lowest member of his being. There are beings who really exist, who in their present stage of development do not possess such gross physical bodies, but for whom the lowest member of their being is an etheric body. Man can draw such beings to his sphere on the basis of his activity, more than would happen if he wasn’t active. Indeed, part of the development of culture consists of attempting to establish contact with these beings, whose lowest member is an etheric body. Such contact is facilitated by man creating, in a particular way, physical corporealities that can be used by those beings to literally latch on to them, to extend themselves through them. In this way, connecting bridges to those beings are built. Imagine that the flower basket on this lectern was a corporeality shaped just like certain forms of the etheric body of those just mentioned higher beings. They would then have a tendency to settle there, play around the flower basket, and connect themselves with it.

We would see how this basket is an incentive for spiritual beings to lower themselves down into it, hug it lovingly, and feel good about being able to descend in this way into the community of human beings. We only need to create suitable forms and then we are able to create bridges between ourselves and these beings. People have always done this at certain times in this or in another way. In the Greek cultural period, human beings actually had to a high degree the ability to establish communication with those spiritual entities they called their gods. These Greek gods are not a fiction of folk fantasy, but these Greek gods are true beings, they exist and have to be regarded as such beings—this Zeus, this Pallas Athene, and so on, whose lowest bodily member is the etheric body.

And how did the Greeks draw the gods into their sphere? The Greeks achieved this by acquiring to a high degree what could be called an architectonic spatial awareness. A person who studies space from the perspective of Spiritual Science knows that space is not the abstract emptiness our modern mathematicians, our physicists, and mechanics dream about, but something very distinct. Space is something that has in itself lines to here and there, lines in all directions. There are strength lines from top to bottom, right to left, front to back, straight and round, and in all directions. There are pressure and pull effects of a spiritual nature in a room. In short, one can feel the space and can permeate it instinctively. I have often used the example that someone who has spatial awareness knows why certain old masters could paint three angels floating in space so wonderfully lifelike; he perceived that these three angels, like three globes, support each other in space by their gravitational pull.

If this is told to an untrained man, he will conclude that they would have to fall down. He cannot comprehend that they are supporting and holding each other up. Such mutually supportive dynamic measurements are those of which the ancient people became aware of, who still had a living feeling of the ancient clairvoyance that was present. For example, it is completely different when looking in this context,at a picture by Boecklin.⁴ In contrast to his usual excellence, against which there is nothing to be said, you will find there, if you have retained the living sense of space, this strange figure of an angel of which you have the feeling that it must fall down at any moment.

In more recent times, the living sense of space has been lost.

The Greeks possessed this sense of space as an architectonical thought associated with the art of building. A Greek temple is a crystallised spatial thought in the truest sense of the word. The column that carries what is horizontally or obliquely lying on it is not something invented but something that, for someone who possesses a spatial feeling, already lies within the room and must not be any different at all. The whole temple is born from the concrete space. This is what someone who can see the lines of the room perceives. He doesn’t need to do anything more than to fit the stone material where he sees the lines, and simply fill with physical material what is already perfectly outlined. In a Greek temple, the spirituality of the room is completely transformed into a visible form. By creating the crystallised spatial thought in this way, forms were made so that spiritual beings whose etheric body is their lowest member could descend into the closed room thus created and find in its forms an opportunity to dwell there.

Therefore, it is not a mere fantasy but the full truth, the real truth, that the Greek temple was the home of the god. Yes, the god dwelled in it. Through the forms of the room, he dwelled in it. It is the peculiarity of the Greek temple that the invisible god descends and takes possession of the forms. You can imagine a Greek temple without people. Far and wide, no people can be seen. Completely abandoned by people could this site be and yet the temple would not be deserted! The god dwells in it! This is what is characteristic about the Greek temple, but it does not apply to the Gothic dome. It is something completely different, if you imagine a Gothic dome without people and that the dome was empty. Then it is not a whole. The Greek temple is complete without people. The Gothic dome is only complete when it holds the community within and when to the pointed arch the folded hands are added, when thoughts and feelings are uniting with the architectonic forms. If you imagine these away, then the Gothic dome is incomplete. This is how it is different from a Greek temple. It is a different architectonic thought, born out of the spiritual space in a magnificent way, but without people it is incomplete. And then again, when it is spiritually populated, when it is filled with the faithful community, then spiritual beings of the kind described are able to descend into it. Thus, each architectonic thought is quite concretely designed for something specific.

Also, the Egyptian pyramid is constructed in such a way that the soul that leaves the body can take the path that is mapped out within the inner passages of the pyramid. The passage of the soul out of the body into the spiritual world is expressed there. The thought expressed in a Romanesque building is one of a grave. A Romanesque church without a crypt, if it cannot be imagined as a vault that curves above corpses, is incomplete. This is part of it. Through this the church is born out of the thought of the resurrected Saviour. It is the worshipful building for the grave of Jesus Christ.

So you can see that the human being builds a bridge from the physical to the spiritual world through the forms he creates. It may be hardly comforting to learn that humans create an army of spiritual beings that impede their development. But to learn that they are also able to pave a way for themselves that leads upwards to higher spiritual beings, by placing such architectonic forms into the world, might be somewhat consolatory.

This is no less the case with other works of the fine arts. It is the same with works of sculpture or painting. Through their forms they offer an opportunity to those beings who are able to adapt their etheric shapes to what is being fashioned and wrap these forms around themselves. They tend to lean more on the outside of the works of sculptors. They surround these sculptural artworks, while architectural works are more filled in. With paintings we reach another kind of beings, beings whose lowest bodily member consists of very fine etheric material. Someone who understands this knows that the astral-etheric beings feel at home where a painter with his colour harmony, gives them, in his line-forms, an opportunity to enter from the spiritual world into ours.

Then there are spiritual beings whose astral body is their lowest bodily member and who consist of even subtler substances.

These beings find in music an opportunity to share the company of people who express themselves in the arts of moving forms. A room filled with the sounds of music is an opportunity for those spiritual beings who have an astral body as their lowest member to descend. Thus, the filling of a room with musical sounds is definitely something by which man can establish interactions between himself and other spiritual beings. Just as the human being attracts through high, remarkable music, so to speak, good beings into his circle, it is also true that repulsive music attracts bad astral beings into man’s sphere of influence. You would not be very edified if I were to describe to you the horrible astral beings that dance around when the orchestra plays at some modern musical performances. These things need to be taken seriously.

We have now seen how our visible world and an invisible world of spiritual beings behind it are interacting.

In addition, the spiritual worlds express themselves in many other species of living entities. For example, where the different realms of nature touch each other, we find there is an inducement for spiritual beings to appear. We can point to elemental beings, which make life even more understandable to us.

An inducement for the manifestation of certain beings is given where metal lies and overlaps next to the ordinary realm of the Earth. Wherever this realm of the Earth is penetrated by metal veins, there can be found very smart elemental beings who use their cleverness to play pranks on humans. Sometimes, however, they are acting in a beneficial way. We call them gnomes. Beings of the gnome species can be found in the interior of the Earth. They huddle in certain places provided the ground is firm. There might be hundreds of them together. But if a vein is exposed, they scatter apart. Then everything lives and teems with those figures who before were crouching together.

As said, this is the case where earth touches metal. At a spring—where the plant kingdom touches the mineral realm, where something mossy entwines the stones fraternally, where things come together in a peculiar way that normally do not belong together—there you find beings that we call undines and nymphs who also are real beings.

And finally, we find elemental beings where the spiritual and the physical interact. When the animal kingdom and the plant realm meet in such a way that initially the beings are distant from each other and later touch, for example when a bee sucks at a flower, an unfolding of taste is happening in the space where the bee and flower are together. A taste effect exists when the bee absorbs the juice of a flower. This effect is perceptible to a spiritual researcher in that he sees something like an aura manifesting around the crown of the flower which is the expression of the savouring process. All of this is an inducement for the beings we call sylphs to manifest. They have a special task in the life of bees, as they do not only appear when a bee sucks on a flower, but also the sylphs show the way when bees are swarming. They are the leaders of the bees.

The following illustrates how the Science of the Spirit will one day become useful. The beekeepers’ wisdom emerged from clairvoyance. What is done in beekeeping,⁵ such as instinctive grips of the hand, has been inherited from ancient times. In the old days, there would still have existed a dim clairvoyance that allowed the beekeepers to use the astuteness of the sylphs for the organisation of the bees’ lives. Modern beekeeping doesn’t know anything about this anymore. That’s why it does many things wrong with its innovations. Modern science lacks the necessary insights. Human beings will be able to shape the nature processes in which they themselves participate much more productively when they are conscious of and knowledgeable about the workings of spiritual beings. One who looks at life in this area will see that, in relation to beekeeping science, what is good stems from the old times, while modern natural scientists partly produce ghastly stuff that is not applicable at all and leads people astray. Most beekeepers are led by sure instincts and luckily do not follow modern science. For example, even what exists as a theory about the fertilisation process, which plays an important role, is wrong and cannot persist in the face of the insights that penetrate reality.

Another inducement for the emergence of such species of elemental beings is created by man, for example, by living together with the animal kingdom like an Arab with his horse or like a shepherd with his herd of sheep, and not like someone in a sports club.

The soul effect between a shepherd and his flock is similar to the interactions between bee and flower, and therefore the feelings between the shepherd and the flock are an inducement for quite special beings, namely salamanders, to emerge. They are beings of a fine substantiality. They are very smart and very wise, even if they do not possess moral accountability. Their wisdom finds expression in what they whisper to one another of the shepherd’s wisdom. It is not stupidity that is attributed to the shepherds. They are not impostors. But it contains much of what is whispered to the shepherds by those who have come into being as a result of the shepherds living together with their flocks.

For those who want to study this, the opportunity will not be available for much longer as such things are dying out. But until recently such studies could still be done quite properly, if one found selfless people⁶ in the countryside who still knew a lot about the principles of health and healing. They knew very important things. Paracelsus⁷ was able to say that he had learnt more by keeping company with such people than he had learnt at all universities. This was not without a reason. Thus, we can see that there is still such an area in our surroundings where spiritual beings exist who enter into our sphere in a peculiar way. One must not ask where these beings come from. The world has in its shoals all sorts of spiritual beings. It is only a matter of an opportunity to bring them somehow to the right place. Although the following comparison is not beautiful, it is correct: In a clean room there are no flies. But if the house is badly managed, if all sorts of leftovers are lying around, flies will soon appear. It is the same in the invisible world that surrounds us—as long as a human being does not create the opportunity, spiritual beings are not there at all. But if we provide an opportunity, they will always be there. Then they step into our sphere. Then they begin to interact with us.

This is something that shows us how the outlook of a person can broaden beyond the physiognomy of the outer world.

The spiritual beings work into our world in the same way as the soul creates its countenance. A period of time will come for human beings when people by necessity will depend on their knowledge of the spiritual world to shape their lives. Nowadays, man can only tackle the world roughly through his senses. But we will see how we will again advance to a time where the human being will act out of the spirit. We will advance to a time where our whole environment is seen as an expression of the spirit, even if this era will at first not be like those ancient eras of the Gothic domes or the Greek temples.

However, in our time of technology and utility it already is possible for more to happen than does happen today. Human beings have lost the ability to feel, perceive, and experience spirits, and thus have also lost the yearning to express spiritual forms externally. But if people again felt the spiritual, then this could be expressed anew even in our utility buildings. Hereby it steps in front of my soul what I have once experienced as a young man. The builder of the Vienna Votive Church, Prof Ferstel,⁸ gave an inaugural address about building styles and said, “Building styles are not invented. Building styles are born out of the whole culture of the times.” This can be proven by studying the building style of the Egyptian pyramids in the context of the whole spiritual life of that former time. In our time, the only thought that is expressed is the materialistic utility thought. Our time cannot have a building style similar to the Gothic or Greek one. This is something that Anthroposophists should pay attention to.

Out of the spiritual life of the Anthroposophical movement,⁹ a cultural ocean must be created out of which forms will crystallise again into a new building style.¹⁰ An expression of humanity is only possible where a common spiritual culture exists. The one really new style of our time is the building style of the warehouse. It is possible that people who later look back at an earlier time will characterise eras by their building styles. The medieval time can be characterised solely on the basis of the Gothic domes. One could leave all other documents out of consideration but would still be able to extrapolate the nature of the mid-Middle Ages just from the Gothic domes. Likewise, this is so with the time between the 19^th and 20^th century. This can now later be sketched from the style of the warehouse. The warehouse corresponds completely to the materialistic utility thought. This thought shows itself in the warehouse exactly in the same way as the spirit that lived in Tauler¹¹ or Eckhart¹² found expression in the Gothic dome.

Even in our time, it is possible to work stylistically in a different way. Our cultural resources are such capable formative forces, that they could have a much greater educational effect on the soul life of man than they do today. For example, today we have the era of the railways, but there is not yet a building style for railway stations. This is because man does not feel what happens when the train arrives and departs. He does not feel that what happens when the train tracks can be expressed externally. The arriving and departing locomotives which must drive into the buildings can find their expression in their hollow forms.

Hopefully, once mankind masters air travel, it will be ready to connect the thought of the departure with the departure place, so that one feels that only an airplane can take off from a place shaped that way. In everything, the spiritual life can find expression in form. Only when we feel that we are surrounded everywhere by expressions of the soul, like it used to be in the Middle Ages, then the right thing is achieved. This can only happen when culture permeates human life that proceeds from the perspective of the Science of the Spirit. Spiritual Science is not impractical. It is precisely something that must permeate the culture of the world and capture it. It does not consist of abstract thoughts, but it must flow into all cultural streams according to the intention of those who have brought it to life. It must reveal itself in everything. We should permeate everything with the thoughts that the Science of the Spirit offers us.

There is one other thought that we should place in front of our soul, namely the thought that can give us a certain awareness of how the impulses of Spiritual Science must work to become what they are destined to be.

It is good, especially when we are concluding a winter season and depart from each other, that we take along such refreshment of feelings and mind, and let some of this stream into our hearts and carry this out into the world and always feel like members of the global stream of Spiritual Science. It may be that today still many outside cannot know anything about the Science of the Spirit. Just look at our small meetings, and then look at everything that is done outside—nothing is known; nothing is felt of the essence of Spiritual Science.

When something like this is placed in front of our souls, then only one other picture may emerge, a picture to strengthen soul and heart. It is the picture that appears when we look at the very earliest Christian times and see what was setting the tone then, what existed as culture in the time of the old imperial Rome.

Let us visualise what life was like in that ancient imperial Rome. Picture how the ruling circles set up floor after floor for themselves, while at the same time a small heap of people were banished to live down below in the vaulted cellars. How barrels with incense had to be placed so that the stench which oozed from the corpses, from the decaying corpses of those pursued and killed from the ranks of this small heap, would not be noticed so much. Let us follow how the wild beasts jumped out of the kennels and tore apart those who were thrown to them from the rank of this small heap. Let us descend from the palaces of the rulers of imperial Rome into the passages where the first Christians lived, to where just this small heap dwelled. Where they erected their first altars over the bones of their dead ones. Where invisible to the leading imperial Rome, they unfolded their culture. They did this invisibly like the today’s followers of a new spiritual realisation who meet invisibly, spiritually invisible to the official leading culture! Let us follow those down below, who were not even allowed to show themselves to the light of day. How thousands of them were buried there. Hidden were those who were implanting underneath the surface of the Earth a new spiritual culture into humanity. While up above, imperial Rome acted as is well known. Then let us look at the situation a few centuries later. What the then ruling imperial Rome has brought forth has been blown away, has been swept away. And what remained is that which had to eke out its existence in the lower vaults, hidden from the eyes of the rulers. That is what has remained.

This is how cultures originate in the darkness of concealment. Thus, they form and then step out of the darkness. We can take this consciousness into our feeling, that the movement of the Science of the Spirit is really called to be something similar to the first Christian movement. May it lead an underground existence at first, and may those in the worlds above ground have quite different thoughts. No matter how much they still think of themselves as the authorities, in a few centuries things will be different.

Then the Anthroposophist will have the feeling that he will carry upwards into the light that which today works underground; that he will carry the Spiritual Science thinking like the first Christians carried their culture out of the catacombs. Such a consciousness gives us the power and the possibility to absorb spiritual knowledge into our soul life. We want to depart in such a mood, to once again come together in such feelings. We do not want to deal with abstractions, but with something that can become the “nerve” of our life. Thus, we want to pour into our souls what we hear from the higher worlds. We want to arm ourselves with strength and remember a little that the Spiritual Science thinking must have grown so close to our hearts that, even if we are separated for a while, we are together in spirit. And this feeling shall lead us together again.

• 1. GA 103, Lecture 8, The Gospel of John, 27 May 1908
• 2. In March and April 1908 with lectures in Lund, Malmoe, Stockholm, Uppsala, Kristiana (Oslo), Göteborg and Copenhagen. No transcripts are available of these lectures.
• 3. Ulfilas, 331-383, Gothic bishop, translated the bible into Gothic. The translation is partly preserved in the Argent Codex in Uppsala, the largest fragment, and in further parts in Wolfenbüttel, Milano, Rome and Torino, in total 117 of the original 333 sheets. The scripture is the oldest known Germanic book, written on purple coloured vellum in gold and silver lettering. It was discovered in the 16th Century in the Abbey Werden/Ruhr. From there it got to Prague and became the property of Emperor Rudolf II. In 1648 it was carried off to Sweden, then to the Netherlands, where it was purchased by the Swedish Chancellor Graf de la Gardie and gifted to the University of Uppsala
• 4. Arnold Böcklin, Swiss painter, 1827-1901. Until 1945 his painting Pietà was in the National Museum of Berlin and has since gone missing.
• 5. Compare; Rudolf Steiner, GA 351, Cosmic Workings in Earth and Man, On Beekeeping
• 6. Refer to GA 28 The Story of my Life, Chapter 3, about becoming acquainted with a simple man from among the people.
• 7. The quotation reads; “At the higher schools the Medicus does not learn and gain knowledge of all that he should be able to do and know, but from time to time he has to go to school to old women, gypsies, black artists, country travellers, old farmers and the like more unremarkable people and learn from them.” in “Philos, occulta II” after R Julius Hartmann “Theophrast von Hohenheim”, Stuttgart and Berlin 1904, page 30.
• 8. Heinrich von Ferstel, 1828-1883, Professor for Building Art in Vienna. The quoted sentence “Building styles are not being invented” is part of the following speech excerpt;
  
  “The greatest error of our century lay in the belief that it was possible, through personal willpower, intense effort of individuals, or even through administrative regulations, to reshape or establish the artistic expression of a people, that can only be the result of all external circumstances and influences. Architecture fell under the spell of an oppressive load of aberrations through which the conviction finally came to the fore that building styles cannot be invented at all...., thus likewise art can be developed only following the natural processes of all becoming and emerging. ... Architects are only the priests of that heavenly daughter, who embeds her ideas in stone with immortal script.” (Quoted from, “Speeches held at the occasion of the solemn inauguration of the elected Rector for the study year 1880/81, of the k.k. Technical University in Vienna, Heinrich Freiherr von Ferstel, o. oe. Professor of Building Art, on 9 October 1880.” Vienna, o.J. Speech of the newly starting Rector Heinrich, Freiherr v. Ferstel, page 39 f.)
• 9. In the postscript it says; “...out of the spiritual life of the Theosophical Society.” In the first publication of the lecture, in the News Bulletin No. 30-35/1936, this was changed to read “Anthroposophical Society”. This wording was likewise used for the first book edition. As in the year 1908 an Anthroposophical Society did not yet exist, the editors of the current (1996) edition have changed the respective wording to read “Anthroposophical movement”.
• 10. On 20 September 1913, Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) laid the foundation stone for the building of the Goetheanum in Dornach/Solothurn. The Goetheanum was then erected as an artistic wooden building based on Steiner’s new, spiritually appropriate forms. In the New Year’s night 1922/23 the Goetheanum fell victim to the flames due to arson. By now a new building in concrete, and in forms that correspond to this material, has been erected as a second Goetheanum on the same spot, based on a sculptured model by Rudolf Steiner. Refer “Ways to a new building style”, GA 286.
• 11. Johann Tauler, around 1300-1361, Dominican and German mystic.
• 12. Meister Eckhart, around 1260-1327, Dominican and German mystic.

What has been the generally designated as the Elementary Kingdoms, since the earliest times, is not so easy to understand as we are apt to imagine after a superficial examination. For these Elementary Kingdoms belong to what lies behind the world which we generally perceive—behind the world which forces itself immediately upon our senses.

We can understand such things in the best way, if we proceed from what we can perceive through our senses—from the kingdom of the sense-world, which are accessible to human observation. Here, in the physical sense-world, four kingdoms are spread out before our senses: the mineral kingdom, the vegetable kingdom, the animal kingdom, and the kingdom of man. This is common knowledge. Let us now try to form some clear idea as to the precise nature of these four kingdoms; for this is by no means clear to the average person. And for this same reason, it is also not so easy to gain an insight into the first, second and third elementary kingdoms. It is precisely when we speak of such difficult matters, that we must take great care, from the very outset, to realize that no true goal can be reached, if we believe that a concept which we have, as it were, driven like a stake into the ground, can then be left rooted in this place. This may still be possible within the physical sense-world, for here, things stand one beside another; there is a division between them, just as this book, this piece of chalk, a rose, etc., are distinct and separate from one another. It is possible, in this case, to apply a thought to a single object, for when we have named something, we can be sure that we have before us something distinct and limited. If, however, we send to the astral plane, that world which is immediately beyond our own, and permeates it, as the one nearest to it, we find that this no longer holds true, for, in the astral world, there is eternal movement. If you observe the astral body of man, which floats around him as his aura and is the expression of his passions, etc., you will see that this astral body of man is in a continual movement—it is an ebb and flow, a rise and fall of colors and forms, which change at every moment, for new colors shine forth and others disappear, at every moment. This is what we find in the case of man. But there are other Beings which whirl about on the astral plane. Their astral bodies do not form part of the physical body, although—at the same time—they are nonetheless changeable, for at every moment they have a different shape, color, or luminous force. Everything on the astral plane is the continual manifestation of the inner nature of these Beings. We would, indeed, find ourselves in a difficult position if we were to apply to the astral plane the rigid, unchangeable thoughts of the physical world. We must learn instead to adapt ourselves to the mobility of these shapes—we must acquire mobile thoughts. We should be able to use a concept, once in this way, and once in that.

This is true of the higher worlds to a still greater degree. If we consider the world from a higher standpoint, we find that everything on the physical plane is an expression of forces emanating from these higher worlds. In everything we see about us, such forces and beings lie concealed. It is precisely this fact which explains the great variety among the beings of the physical world. Observe, for instance, the mineral kingdom. All apparently lifeless beings, all minerals, belong to this kingdom. You are told, to begin with, that these minerals upon the earth have no etheric body of their own, no astral body and no Ego. But this is true only within the physical world. We must know this, in order to reach a clear conception of what actually takes place upon the physical plane. But let us now suppose that someone were to say: “The mineral is something which has nothing but a physical body.” This statement is exactly as false, as on the other hand—it would be true, were someone to say: “The mineral kingdom is something which has, upon the physical plane, only a physical body.” For, in the light of a genuine spiritual method of observation, we find that here, upon the physical plane, the mineral has a physical body, but nothing more. If we wish to find its etheric body, we must ascend to the astral plane: there, its etheric body is to be found. The moment that a human being becomes astrally clairvoyant, he is able to see the etheric body of the mineral—there, on the astral plane—and here, on the physical plane, he sees merely its physical body. If we extend our observations still further, we find that the mineral has also an astral body. This body cannot be found, however, upon the astral plane, but must be sought in the lower regions of Devachan. Only in the higher Mental plane, is the Arupa-Mental plane, do we find the Ego of the mineral—and it is from here, that the mineral is directed by its Ego. If you wish to form a rough picture of this, you must say to yourselves: I will try to imagine a human being, whose clairvoyance reaches as far as the higher Devachan. To such a clairvoyance, who is able to see into Arupa, the minerals will appear like the fingernails of the human being—nails of Beings whose Ego dwells in higher Devachan. It is not possible to think of the fingernails without the human being; the same thing must be applied also to the minerals.

Let us suppose that we are observing a rock-crystal here upon the earth. If we now look away for a moment, our clairvoyant gaze discovers the etheric body, which gives life to the physical body, there, in the astral world. Yet it would not be possible to perceive there, that any injury caused to the mineral, also causes it pain. The joy and gladness, pain and suffering of minerals can only be found upon the Devachanic plane—but entirely differently from the way in which we usually imagine this. A mineral's sensation of pain is not like that of an animal; we must not think that a mineral feels pain when we hammer it and break it into pieces. When workmen in a quarry break stone, this actually gives rise to a feeling of pleasure upon the Devachanic plane—it is a true delight for the minerals. Thus, in their case, we find the very opposite of what takes place in the kingdom of man and in the animal kingdom. On the Devachanic plane, it is not merely one mineral which belongs, as it were, to a mineral personality, but rather a whole system of minerals—just as, imaginatively speaking your fingernails do not each possessed a separate soul. If someone were to imagine that everything of an astral nature must be found upon the astral plane, he would be under a delusion. It seems, of course, natural to look for the astral element upon the astral plane—nevertheless, the inner nature of a Being must be distinguished from the environment in which it lives. Just as your Ego has no physical nature, and lives nevertheless upon the physical plane, so the astral body of the mineral does not live on the astral plane but in lower Devachan. We must not have delayed our thoughts according to a system, but must rather work our way through, with the aid of a more precise analysis and understanding of things.

Let us now observe the plant, just as we see it before us. Here, on the physical plane, it has its physical body and its etheric body. It has these two bodies on the physical plane—but where are we to look for the astral body of the plant? We shall find it in the astral world—and the Ego, in the lower Devachan. Let us now go a step further, to the animal. The animal has, in the physical sense-world, a physical body, an etheric body, and an astral body—but it's Ego is on the astral plane. That is to say: just as, here on the earth, defined in the human being as an isolated person, as a single individuality, so you will find the Egos of the animals, as complete, self-contained personalities, upon the astral plane. But we must think of this in the following way: All groups of animals which have a similar form, have also a common Ego. Man, therefore, distinguishes himself from the animals, owing to the fact that every human being has an individual Ego. On the astral plane, we find for instance, that the Ego of the lions, the Ego of the Tigers, etc. There, they are single, self-contained Beings; the single animal group-souls inhabit the physical sense-world. But in the case of the human being, he must recognize the fact that the physical body, etheric body, astral body and the Ego have all descended as far as the physical plane. This is true, however, only when the human being is awake—when he is asleep it is otherwise. The physical and etheric bodies are then in the physical world, whereas the astral body and the Ego are on the astral plane. Thus, during sleep, the fourfold human being is separated into parts, and is to be found partly on the physical plane and partly on the one directly above this—the astral plane. On the physical plane, the human being is then of the same worth as a plant.

Now we have already learned to know, in previous lectures, the nearest ways in which the expressions “astral”, etc. must be used. But we shall attain to a real penetration and insight into these things, only if we realize clearly that we cannot push them about like the men on a chessboard. If we study the human being, we must observe him quite precisely, in the following way: We find in him the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body, and the Ego. It has often been emphasized here, how very important it is to form a clear conception concerning the relation of these four members. It is very easy to imagine that the physical body is the most imperfect and the lowest of these. From a certain aspects, however, it is the most perfect of all—for it has passed through four successive stages of evolution—upon ancient Saturn, Sun, Moon, and upon the Earth. The etheric body has reached its third stage of perfection, for only upon the Sun was added to the physical body. In the future, it will indeed rise to a higher stage—although at present, it is not yet as perfect as the physical body. The astral body was added to the other two bodies upon the Moon, hence it has reached only the second stage of perfection. The Ego is the baby among the four members of man: for it was added only upon the Earth, and is thus only at the beginning of its evolution; it works continually in a corruptive way upon the other bodies. Anyone who studies, from an anatomical point of view, the wonderful organization of the physical body, must be filled with wonder by the perfection of the heart and of the brain. How imperfect, on the other hand are the impulses and passions of the Ego! The Ego craves for wine, beer, etc., whichever destructive influence throughout life—nevertheless, the physical body with stands these attacks for decades! Let us now try to make clear to ourselves how the Ego was inserted, as it were, within the physical body—how it first arose.

To begin with, there was the ancient Saturn-evolution. This was the first stage of evolution for the precursor of our present physical body. At that time man's physical body had the cosmic value of a mineral. If you look at a mineral today, you will see in it a retarded stage of existence; it has remained behind at the same stage which the physical body had reached upon Saturn. But you must not think from this that the physical body had then the appearance of a mineral of today.—this would be quite wrong. The present minerals are the youngest forms in evolution. Upon Saturn, the human body was not so dense; this density of the physical body of man was very slight indeed.

Let us now consider the relation between the various stages of matter. The first is what we call Earth—that is, everything which today may be called a solid body iron, copper, tin, etc. Everything solid is Earth. Secondly, everything liquid is Water for instance, quicksilver. Even iron, in a liquefied state would be Water. From the third-place, if you convert water into steam it becomes Air. Occultism, here goes still further, for it shows that the air may become still more rarefied—may become thinner still. In this case, we must transcend what is physical, in the modern sense—and here the occultist speaks of Warmth-Ether, or Fire. For the occultist, Fire is something distinct within itself, just like Earth, Water, and Air—whereas modern science merely looks upon the fire, or heat, as a state, work condition of matter.

Upon Saturn, heat was the substance of man's physical body. On the Sun, the physical body of man was condensed to air; at the same time, an etheric, or life-body, entered into it, transforming this physical body. We now have a physical body, with an etheric body consisting of one member, and the physical body of two members. In the case of the physical body upon this Sun, we must distinguish a more perfect than the less perfect part—that is to say, one part was not as yet permeated by the etheric body. When picturing to ourselves the physical body upon the Sun, we must realize that the inner part of this physical body has received nothing from the etheric body; it has still the same value as the physical body had upon Saturn. Thus, we have one part which has already attained to the stage of a plant, and this part is at the same time permeated by another part, which is still upon the stage of a mineral: nevertheless, these two parts completely permeate one another.

Let us now consider the physical body upon the Moon. Here, it is already condensed to water, and the astral body is incorporated within the etheric and physical bodies. Thus, we must now distinguish three different parts: One part is permeated by the etheric and astral bodies; another part is permeated only by the etheric body; and a third part has remained at the mineral stage.

And now, let us consider the physical body upon the Earth. Here, the Ego is added. On the Earth, four members are interwoven. One part of the physical body is permeated by the etheric body, astral body and the Ego; a second part, by the etheric body and astral body; a third part, by the etheric body only; and a fourth part remains at the mineral stage. It has the same value as has a mineral, and is still on the stage of the Saturn. These four parts can be clearly distinguished in the physical body. The first part, which contains all four members, consists of the red blood corpuscles. Wherever we find red blood, these four members permit one another.

The nerves are the second part, or member. Where nerves are found, there the physical, etheric and astral bodies permeate one another. Where glands are to be found, the physical and etheric bodies interpenetrate. All the instruments of the senses, all organs which have the character of a physical apparatus, have reached merely the stage of the mineral. They follow exactly the same laws as do the minerals. The eye and the ear, for instance, belong to these mineral parts; also in the brain, we find such mineral parts. Thus you can see for yourselves how easily one may be tempted at times to become a materialist—because of something mineral does actually permeate the whole body. If a materialist declares that the brain is mineral, he is in part right—that is, if he considers merely one aspect of the brain. Particularly in certain parts of the frontal brain—although these are, indeed, permeated by others—mineral forces alone are active. And were we to study the bones and muscles, it would become still more competition. When the human Ego entered into man, it began to work upon the sentient soul, the understanding soul, and the consciousness soul; and at the same time, it formed the bones and muscles. If we wish to observe these things exactly, we need years of study, only to be able to keep them distinct and separate. We must trace one thing after the other, with patience.

If we now have before us a sleeping human being, his physical body and etheric body lie upon the bed. But this physical body is very complicated. When the human being is awake, the astral body and the Ego work within his blood. But what happens when the physical body lies on the bed, in the human being is asleep? The functions of the etheric body are indeed still carried on—yet there can be no blood, unless an astral body and an Ego are active within it. Hence, every night, the blood would be doomed to death, since it is dependent upon the ego and the astral body. But these as we know, leave the body—leave it mercilessly. Also the whole nervous system is mercilessly abandoned, for the nervous system is dependent upon the astral body. Thus, we have before us the strange fact that in reality, the blood and the nervous system would have to die every night—they would fall a prey to death, if they would be obliged to depend entirely upon the human being. Other Beings must come to their aid; other Beings must take over the work of man. From other worlds, other Beings must pour their activity into man, in order to preserve what he so treacherously abandons. We shall not try to explain the nature of these Beings who become active when man is asleep, and to make it possible for him to preserve his blood intact.

We can form an idea of these Beings, if we ask ourselves: where does the human Ego really live, when it lives here, upon the physical plane? In which one of the three kingdoms does it live? And we must ask ourselves further: how much can we really know, without clairvoyant perception?—Without clairvoyance, we can, in reality, gain knowledge only of the mineral kingdom. This is the peculiar characteristic of the human being—that he cannot even grasp the plant completely, as long as he is not astrally clairvoyant. Materialists declare that plants are merely a conglomerate of mineral processes—just because they can see only the plant's mineral nature. When the human beings will have progressed, in their work upon themselves, as far as the first stage of clairvoyance, the life of the plants and the laws of life will then appear to them just as clearly as do now the laws of the mineral world.

If you wish to construct a machine, or to build a house, you must do this in accordance with the laws of the mineral world. Initiates construct according to these laws of the mineral world; but you cannot construct a plant in this way. If you wish to have a plant, you must leave this work to those Beings which form the foundations of Nature. In the future, it will be possible to produce plants in the laboratory, but only when human beings will regard this as a sacrament, as a holy rite. Only when man has become so earnest and purified, that he looks upon the laboratory-table as an altar, will he be permitted to produce living substance. Until this time has arrived, however, not even the slightest detail concerning the way in which living beings are constituted, will be revealed to him. In other words: The Ego lives, as a cognitive being, in the mineral kingdom, but it will ascend, in the future, to the vegetable kingdom, and it will learn to know this kingdom, just as today, it knows the mineral kingdom. Still later, it will learn to grasp also the laws of the animal kingdom; and finally, those of the human kingdom. All human beings will learn to know and to grasp the inner nature of plants, animals, and of man—these are prospects for the future. Whatever we really understand, we can also produce—for instance, a clock. But the human being of our day will never be able to produce anything belonging to the sphere of living Nature, without the help of the Beings that lie behind nature, as long as such a work has not become for him a sacramental rite. Only then will he be able to ascend from the mineral kingdom to the vegetable kingdom. The human being is already a human being, at the present time; but his knowledge is restricted to the mineral kingdom. The Ego of man lives within a human form, but when this human Ego looks out into the world, its knowledge is limited to the mineral kingdom. The Ego thus possesses only the capacity to vitalize the blood in a mineral fashion—it is unable to do more. Although the Ego lives within the blood, during the day—dwelling within it and vitalizing it—nevertheless it does this merely in a mineral way.

How does it do this? If you look out into the world, your cognitive forces will reveal to you the laws of the mineral kingdom. Try to observe for yourself the peculiar quality of this human activity. You look out into the world through your senses; you grasp the mineral laws, and during your waking hours, you impress these laws upon your blood—you force them into the entire substance of your blood, thus vitalizing it in a mineral way. This is the peculiar process which takes place during the act of cognition. Now imagine to yourselves the human being, in accordance with the following diagram (it cannot be produced here) ... the laws of the mineral world are streaming into him from all sides. They do not, however, remain merely within his sense-organs; but while the human being is awake, they stream together with the blood, throughout the whole human body.

Now, what does the plant-world do? You will understand what takes place in the case of a plant, if you bear in mind the following fact: You have often been told that the Ego works upon the man's other bodies and transforms the astral body into the Spirit-Self. In the same degree that this takes place, do the laws of the vegetable kingdom stream into the human nervous system. When the human being has reached the next stage of clairvoyance, the laws of the animal kingdom will permeate his glandular system, and finally, when he is able to work upon the transformation of his physical body, the laws of the human kingdom itself will flow into the human body. All this should be thought of as applying to the waking state and to the various stages of a higher clairvoyant consciousness. Thus we can say that the human being has reached, at the present time, a stage where the Ego permits the laws of the mineral kingdom to stream into the blood. But it is able to do this only during the waking state—for, the mineral laws can enter the blood only while man is awake. While he is asleep however, the blood must also be cared for. And because this blood has been worked upon, throughout four successive stages of evolution, three other powers must now step in with their activity. The first of these is a power which is the most closely related to the way in which the Ego has worked upon the blood—but it is a power which has not descended as far as the physical plane. The blood would be given over to death, did not another Ego work upon it, while the human being is asleep ... another Ego which has remained upon the astral plane, and now intervenes by taking over the work upon the blood. If we observe the human blood, this “peculiar fluid”, we find that while the human being is awake, the Ego of man is active within it, here on the physical plane. During the night however, the blood is worked upon by an Ego which dwells upon the astral plane. For there are such Egos.

Now I have referred, only recently, to Egos living upon the astral plane—namely, to the group-souls of the animals. But in this case we are dealing with another species of Egos, dwelling upon the astral plane, which work upon the human being and vitalize his blood, when the Ego of man has abandoned it. By what means do they accomplish this? And what is it that they bring into the blood? They bring into it that which, ever since the time of Saturn, must always be present in the human body—namely fire, heat. These are spirits which have never descended as far as the physical plane—spiritual Beings that live on the astral plane and have a body of fire. In the mineral kingdom, everything appears to us endowed with a certain degree of heat. Heat is met with as a quality of solid, liquid, and gaseous bodies. But now, try for a moment to think of heat, of warmth, quite independently, quite by itself ... it does not exist as such upon the physical plane. But upon the astral plane, you would meet with such warmth, or heat, streaming there and thither—heat as an independent being—and within it, you would discover Beings embodied, such as we were ourselves upon ancient Saturn. These Beings enter into the blood during the night, and vitalize it with their warmth. But something else must also take place—for the astral body also abandoned the blood, and this body too, is indispensable to it. Thus it is not sufficient if these Ego-beings alone approach man during the night and work upon him with their warmth-bodies—but other beings as well are needed, which work upon the blood in the same way as does the astral body. These Beings have their Ego upon the Devachanic plane, and this Ego possesses a still higher body, which is not even condensed as far as heat. The Ego which I described first, did not descend even as far as the astral plane—for it has remained in Devachan. It permeates the blood and carries on within it, an activity which corresponds to that of the astral body during the day.

Thus you may see how we are cared for and protected during the night by higher Beings which do not live in the mineral kingdom. The human Ego has descended as far as the mineral kingdom, and will later ascend to the vegetable kingdom, etc. These other Egos have remained behind the human kingdom during the successive stages of evolution; they form the hidden kingdoms, the Elementary Kingdoms, which lie behind our physical world, and which work down into it. The first Being which works in our blood during the night, as a body of heat—just as we have a physical body; it permeates the blood with heat—and at the same time, lives upon the astral plane with its body of heat. Through this warmth-body, it belongs to the third Elementary Kingdom. These Beings, belonging to the third Elementary Kingdom, are the companions of the Group-Egos of the animals—they belong to the same region. And what are the capacities of these Egos? They need not have the same capacities as a human Ego, which has descended as far as the physical sense-world; but they are able nevertheless, to act as a substitute for the human Ego, from the astral plane. These Egos work down from the astral plane, in the same way that the animal Group-Egos work down upon the animals; souls of the animals. In other words, they fill man's astral body with impulses, desires, and passions. If we have before us an astral body—what lives within this astral body? In addition to the Ego, Beings live within it whose Ego dwells upon the astral plane. These Beings permeates the astral body just as maggots live in cheese. This is the third Elementary Kingdom: it is the kingdom which forms impulses and passions of an animal nature.

But behind this kingdom lies another, namely the second Elementary Kingdom. This kingdom is active within a purer element, for it moulds and forms the shapes of the plants. But its activity extends also to the human being—to his many elements which have a plant-like character—nails, hair, etc. These are not permeated by the astral body, but merely by the etheric body; for this reason they feel no pain. The hair and nails are products from which the astral body has already withdrawn—it is possible to cut them, without causing pain. At an earlier time however, the astral body was also within these. Many things in the human being are of a plant-like nature, and within all these plants-like elements, the Beings of the second Elementary Kingdom are active. Hence, that which builds up the body of a plant consists of the forces belonging to the second Elementary Kingdom. Within the plant are active both the Plant-Ego, which permeates the etheric and astral bodies and these Beings of the second Elementary Kingdom. Whereas the Ego of the plants works upon the plant from within, these other Beings work upon it from without—forming it, making it grow and blossom. The whole plant is permeated by an etheric body. But it does not possess an astral body of its own; instead the entire astral body of the Earth forms the common astral body of the plants. The Ego of the plants is to be found at the center of the earth. This is true for all plants. For this reason, if you pull up a plant by the roots you cause pain to the earth; but, if you pick a flower, the earth will have a feeling of well-being, as a cow has a feeling of well-being when her calf sucks her milk. It is also a wonderful experience when the corn is moved in the autumn, to see how great waves of well-being streamed over the earth! The Beings which work upon the plants, from out of the second Elementary Kingdom, and help it to take form, fly toward the plant from all sides, like butterflies. The renewal and repetition of the leaves, blossoms, etc., is their work. This is what acts upon the plants from out of the second Elementary Kingdom.

In like manner, there is a first Elementary Kingdom, which gives the minerals their form. The animals received their shape, or form—a form determined by instincts and desires—from the Beings belonging to the third Elementary Kingdom. The leaves, etc., of the plants are formed by the second Elementary Kingdom; this work consists chiefly of repetitions. But performing, shaping forces of the minerals, which work out of the formless element, are to be found in higher Devachan, in Arupa-Devachan. These three Elementary Kingdoms permeate one another, flow into one another. One who imagines everything distinct and separate, will never attain to a living understanding. In the vegetable kingdom, the vegetable and mineral kingdoms permeate one another. In the animal kingdom, the animal, vegetable and mineral kingdoms interpenetrate. And in a human being, the Ego is added to these. For, with the income of the Ego, the human kingdom first arose upon the earth. It is the blood which first makes man a human being; all the kingdoms are contained within it. But the Ego can for the present, penetrate with its cognitive forces only into the mineral kingdom; it must leave the other kingdoms to the Beings of the Elementary Kingdoms. The mineral kingdom contains, besides this mineral kingdom itself, also the first Elementary Kingdom; for this reason, it takes on a clearly defined shape. The plant owes its form entirely to the second Elementary Kingdom—for, without it, it would be spherical. And the animal is endowed with instincts, etc., owing to the added activity of the third Elementary Kingdom. Our world consists of interpenetrating regions; only if we are able to make our thoughts mobile and fluent, shall we gradually be able to understand such things.

If we wish to form a concept of how the third Elementary Kingdom is connected with the animal kingdom, the following example may be helpful. You all know the migrations of the birds! The birds take quite definite courses in their migrations; from the northeast to southwest and from southwest to northeast. But who directs these migrations? It is the Group-Soul of the birds! In these migrations instinct comes to expression. Essentially speaking, they are wedding-flights—for the birds take flight in order to breed in better climates. They are directed by the Souls of the Species, or Group-Soul, of the animal kingdom.

On the other hand, the animals are given their form, which enables him to have certain instincts, and which is the bearer of these instincts, by the Beings of the third Elementary Kingdom—the companions of the animal Group-Souls. If we wish to express this in a somewhat trivial manner, we may say: Those Egos which constitute the animal Group-Souls form one company, upon the astral plane; and the Beings of the third Elementary Kingdom form another. Nevertheless, they must work together in harmony. The one supplies the instincts, the other the bodies, forming and moulding them, so that the instincts may live within them.

The physical forms of the plants originate from the Beings of the second Elementary Kingdom. And in everything which molds and works upon the minerals, the Beings of the first Elementary Kingdom are to be found. The forces of the minerals, active as attraction and repulsion, the atomistic forces, proceed from the groups of minerals. But it is the Beings of the first Elementary Kingdom who form the minerals.

Thus we obtain a perspective which reveals to us where we may seek for the activities of the various kingdoms within our world. We must however, observe these things very accurately. We may say to a plant: You are living being; this you owe to the Plant-Ego. Your form, your shape however, is given to you by the Beings of the second Elementary Kingdom.

Thus we may sum up the four kingdoms as follows. The kingdom of man is the kingdom within which an Ego can work formatively into the human world; the vegetable kingdom is the one within which an Ego can work formatively in the plant world; the mineral kingdom, the one in which an Ego can build for itself forms in the mineral kingdom. The third Elementary Kingdom cares for the blood during the night, and forms at the same time, the instinctive life of the animals; the second Elementary Kingdom forms the plants; and the first Elementary Kingdom forms the minerals—for instance the crystals. From all this we can see that patience is necessary for the penetration into Spiritual Science. The world is constructed in a complicated way, and the highest truths are not the simplest. It is an utterly senseless way of speaking to declare that the highest things can be grasped with the simplest concepts. This is due only to laziness. It is admitted of course, that it is not possible to understand a clock at once, but the world, people believe, can be understood without any further trouble. If we wish to grasp the Divine, infinite patience is needed for the Divine contains everything. In order to understand the world, people wish to apply the simplest concepts, but this is simply laziness ... no matter how reverently the soul may say it. The Divine element is profound, and an eternity is needed in order to grasp it. Man dares, indeed, the spark of the Godhead within him, but the nature and Being of this Godhead can be understood only by collecting a knowledge of the facts of the world.

The great patience and renunciation which knowledge entails, is what we must learn first of all. We ourselves must gradually mature in order to form judgments. The world is infinite at every point. And we must be modest enough to say that everything is, in a certain sense, only a half-truth. We must transform everything into moral impulses, even the classification of man's being into ten or twelve members. Spiritual Science gives us pictures which we should unite with our feelings. For, Spiritual Science is only of value when we draw from it not merely knowledge, but are filled with the noblest feelings for the profundity of the world around us. All the greater then, will be the longing for the Divine. The very fact that the Divine appears to man so far removed, in distinct height, should incite him so much the more to become strong, in order that he may again find his way thither.

The title of this course of lectures has been announced as “Theosophy according to the Rosicrucian Method.” By this is meant the wisdom that is primeval, yet ever new, expressed in a form suitable for the present age. The mode of thought we are about to study has existed since the fourteenth century, A.D. in these lectures; however, it is not my intention to speak of the history of Rosicrucianism. As you know, a certain kind of geometry, which includes, for instance, the Pythagorean Theorem, is taught in elementary schools of the present day. The rudiments of geometry are learnt quite independently of how geometry itself actually came into being, for what does the pupil who is learning the rudiments of geometry today know about Euclid? Nevertheless it is Euclid's geometry that is being taught. Only much later, when the substance has been mastered, do students discover, perhaps from a history of the sciences, something about the form in which the teaching that is accessible even in elementary schools today originally found its way into the evolution of humanity. As little as the pupil who learns elementary geometry today is concerned with the form in which it was originally given to mankind by Euclid, as little need we concern ourselves with the question of how Rosicrucianism developed in the course of history. Just as the pupil learns geometry from its actual tenets, so shall we learn to know the nature of this Rosicrucian wisdom from its intrinsic principles.

Those who are acquainted merely with the outer history of Rosicrucianism as recorded in literature know very little about the real content of Rosicrucian Theosophy. Rosicrucian Theosophy has existed since the fourteenth century as something that is true, quite apart from its history, just as geometrical truths exist independently of history. Only a fleeting reference, therefore, will here be made to certain matters connected with the history of Rosicrucianism.

In the year 1459, a lofty, spiritual Individuality, incarnate in the human personality who bears in the world the name of Christian Rosenkreuz, appeared as the teacher, to begin with of a small circle of initiated pupils. In the year 1459, within a strictly secluded spiritual Brotherhood, the Fraternitas Roseae Crucis, Christian Rosenkreuz was raised to the rank of Eques lapidis aurei, Knight of the Golden Stone. What this means will become clearer to us in the course of these lectures. The exalted Individuality who lived on the physical plane in the personality of Christian Rosenkreuz worked as leader and teacher of the Rosicrucian stream again and again in the same body, as occultism puts it. The meaning of the expression “again and again in the same body” will also be explained when we come to speak of the destiny of the human being after death.

Until far into the eighteenth century, the wisdom of which we are here speaking was preserved within a strictly secret Brotherhood, bound by inviolate rules which separated its members from the exoteric world.

In the eighteenth century it was the mission of this Brotherhood to allow certain esoteric truths to flow, by spiritual ways, into the culture of Middle Europe; and thus we see flashing up in an exoteric culture many things that are clothed, it is true, in an exoteric form, but which are, in reality, nothing else than outer expressions of esoteric wisdom.

In the course of the centuries many people have endeavoured, in one way or another, to discover the Rosicrucian wisdom, but they did not succeed. Leibnitz tried in vain to get at the source of Rosicrucian wisdom. But this Rosicrucian wisdom lit up like a flash of lightning in an exoteric work which appeared when Lessing was approaching the close of his life. I refer to Lessing's Education of the Human Race. If we do but read it between the lines, then (but only if we are esotericists) we shall recognise in its unusual utterances that it is an external expression of Rosicrucian wisdom. This wisdom lit up in outstanding grandeur in the man in whom European culture and, indeed international culture, was reflected at the turn of the eighteenth century—in Goethe. In comparatively early years Goethe had come into contact with a source of Rosicrucianism and he then experienced, in some degree, a very remarkable and lofty Initiation. To speak of Initiation in connection with Goethe may easily be misleading; at this point therefore it will be well to indicate something of what happened to Goethe during the period after he had left the Leipzig University and before he went to Strassburg. He passed through an experience which penetrated very deeply into his soul and expressed itself outwardly in the fact that during the last period of his stay in Leipzig, he came very near to death.

As he lay desperately ill, he had a momentous experience, passing through a kind of Initiation. To begin with, he was not actually conscious of it but it worked in his soul as a kind of poetic inspiration and the process by which it flowed into his various creations was most remarkable. It flashes up in his poem entitled “The Mysteries,” which his closest friends have considered to be one of his most profound creations. And indeed this fragment is so profound that Goethe was never able to recapture the power to formulate its conclusion. The culture of the day was incapable of giving external form to the depths of life pulsating in this poem. It must be regarded as issuing from one of the deepest founts of Goethe's soul and is a book with seven seals for all his commentators. Then, however, the Initiation took increasing effect in him and finally, as he grew more conscious of it, he was able to produce that remarkable prose-poem known as “The Fairy Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily”;—one of the most profound writings in all literature. Those who are able to interpret it rightly know a great deal of the Rosicrucian wisdom.

At the time when Rosicrucian wisdom was intended to flow gradually into the general life of culture, it happened, in a manner of which I need not speak further now, that a kind of betrayal took place. Certain Rosicrucian conceptions found their way into the world at large. This betrayal on the one hand, and on the other the fact that it was necessary for Western culture during the nineteenth century to remain for a time on the physical plane uninfluenced by esotericism—these two facts made it imperative that the sources of Rosicrucian wisdom, and above all its great Founder, who since its inception had been constantly on the physical plane, should, to all appearances, withdraw. Thus during the first half and also during a large part of the second half of the nineteenth century, little of the Rosicrucian wisdom could be discovered. Only now, in our own time, has it become possible again to make the Rosicrucian wisdom accessible and allow it to flow into general culture. And if we think about this culture we shall discover the reasons why this had to be.

I will now speak of two characteristics of the Rosicrucian wisdom, which are important in connection with its mission in the world. One has to, do with the attitude of the human being towards this Rosicrucian wisdom-which must not be identified with the occult form of Christian-Gnostic wisdom. We must touch briefly upon two facts appertaining to the spiritual life if we are to be clear about the fundamental character of Rosicrucian wisdom. The first of these is the relationship of the pupil to the teacher; and here again there are two aspects to consider. We shall speak, first, of “Clairvoyance,” and secondly, of what is sometimes called “Belief in Authority.” “Clairvoyance”—the term is really inadequate—comprises not only spiritual seeing but also spiritual hearing. These two faculties are the source of all knowledge of the world's hidden wisdom and true knowledge of the spiritual worlds can come from no other source.

In Rosicrucianism there is an essential difference between the actual discovery of spiritual truths and the understanding of them. Only those who have developed spiritual faculties in a fairly high degree can themselves discover a spiritual truth in the higher worlds. Clairvoyance is the necessary pre-requisite for the discovery of a spiritual truth, but only for its discovery. For a long time to come, nothing will be taught exoterically by any genuine Rosicrucianism that cannot be grasped by the ordinary logical intellect. That is the essential point. The objection that clairvoyance is necessary for understanding the Rosicrucian form of Theosophy is not valid. Understanding does not depend upon the faculty of seership. Those who are incapable of grasping the Rosicrucian wisdom with their thinking have simply not developed their logical reasoning powers to a sufficient extent—that is all. Anyone who has absorbed all that modern culture is able to give; who is not too lazy to learn and has patience and perseverance can understand what a Rosicrucian teacher has to impart. Those who have doubts about Rosicrucian wisdom and who say that they cannot grasp it must not cast the blame on the fact that they are incapable of rising to the higher planes. The fault lies in their unwillingness either to exert their reasoning powers sufficiently or to put the experiences gained from general culture to adequate use. Just think of the tremendous popularisation of wisdom that has taken place since the appearance of Christianity down to the present day, and then try to picture Christian Rosicrucianism as it was in the fourteenth century. Think of the relation of a human being then living in the world, with his teachers. It was only possible in those days to work by means of the spoken word. People do not, as a rule, rightly appraise what tremendous development has taken place since that time. Think only of what has been achieved by the art of printing. Think of the thousands and thousands of channels through which, thanks to this discovery, the highest achievements of Culture have been able to flow into civilisation. From books down to the latest newspaper article, you can perceive the innumerable channels through which countless ideas flow into life. These channels have only been open for mankind since that time and they have had the effect of making the Western intellect assume quite different forms. The Western mind has worked quite differently since then and the new form of wisdom had necessarily to reckon with this fact. A form had to be created which would be able to hold its ground in face of all that flows into life along these thousands of channels. Rosicrucian wisdom can hold its own against any objection that might be raised by either popular or technical science. Rosicrucian wisdom contains within itself the sources which enable it to counter every objection made by science. A true understanding of modern science, not the dilettante understanding to be found even in University Professors, but understanding that is free from abstract theorising and materialistic conjectures, standing firmly upon the basis of facts and not going beyond them, can find from science itself the proofs of the spiritual truths of Rosicrucianism.

A second point concerning the relationship between teacher and pupil in Rosicrucianism is that the relationship of the pupil to the “Guru” (as the teacher is called in the East) is fundamentally different from that prevailing in other methods of Initiation. In Rosicrucianism this relationship cannot in any way be said to be based upon belief in authority. Let me make this clear to you by an example drawn from everyday life. The Rosicrucian teacher desires to stand in no different relation to his pupil than does a teacher of mathematics to his students. Can it be said that the student of mathematics depends upon his teacher simply out of belief in authority? No! And can it be said that the student of mathematics does not need the teacher? Some people may argue that he does not, because he may have discovered how to teach himself from good books. But this is simply a different situation from the one where student and teacher are sitting in front of each other. In principle, of course, self-instruction is possible. Equally, every human being, provided he reaches a certain stage of clairvoyance, can discover the spiritual truths for himself but this would be a much lengthier path. It would be senseless to say: My own inner being must be the sole source of all spiritual truths. If the teacher knows the mathematical truths and imparts them to his pupil, the pupil is no longer called upon to have “belief in authority” for he grasps these truths through their own inherent correctness and all he needs is to understand them. So is it with all occult development in the Rosicrucian sense. The teacher is the friend, the counselor, one who has already lived through the occult experiences and helps the pupil to do so himself. Once a man has had these experiences he need as little accept them on authority as in mathematics he need accept on authority the statement that the three angles of a triangle are equal to 180°. In Rosicrucianism there is no “authority” in the ordinary sense. It is far rather a matter of what is required for shortening the path to the highest truths.

That is the one side of the question; the other is the relation of the spiritual wisdom to culture in general.

These lectures will show you that it is possible for truth to flow directly into practical life. We are not setting up a system that is applicable in theory only; we are speaking of teachings which can be put to use in practical life by anyone who desires to know the foundations of the science of worlds and to allow the spiritual truths to flow into everyday life. Rosicrucian wisdom must not stream only into the head, nor only into the heart, but also into the hand, into our manual capacities, into our daily actions. It does not take effect as sentimental sympathy; it is the acquisition, by strenuous effort, of faculties enabling us to work for the well-being of humanity. Suppose some society was to proclaim human brotherhood as its aim and was to do no more than preach brotherhood. That would not be Rosicrucianism. For the Rosicrucian says: Suppose a man is lying in the road with a broken leg. If fourteen people stand around him pityingly but not one of them is able to help, the whole fourteen together are of less importance than a fifteenth who comes, perhaps, without any sentimentality at all, but is able to and actually does deal with the broken leg. The attitude of the Rosicrucian is that what counts is knowledge able to take hold of and intervene effectively in life. Rosicrucian wisdom considers that repeated talk about pity and sympathy has an element of danger in it for continual emphasis upon sympathy denotes a kind of astral sensuality. Sensuality on the physical plane is of the same nature on the astral plane. It is the attitude that is always only willing to feel and not to know. Knowledge that is capable of taking effect in practical life—not, of course in the materialistic sense but because it is brought down from the spiritual worlds—this is what enables us to work efficaciously. Harmony flows of itself from knowledge that the world must progress; and it flows all the more surely because it arises quite naturally out of knowledge. Of a man who knows how to deal with a broken leg, people might say: If he is no friend of humanity, he may just let the sufferer lie. Such a thing would be possible in the case of knowledge pertaining only to the physical plane. But it would not be possible for spiritual knowledge. There is no spiritual knowledge that would refrain from entering into practical life.

This, then, is the second aspect of Rosicrucian wisdom, namely, that it can be discovered only through the powers of clairvoyance but can be understood by normal human reason. It may seem strange to say that in order to have experiences in the spiritual world you must become clairvoyant, but that in order to understand what the clairvoyant sees, this is not necessary. A seer who descends from the spiritual worlds and tells of what comes to pass there, bringing to the knowledge of men something that is necessary for humanity at the present time, can be understood if those who listen are willing to understand. For the constitution of the human being is such that it can be intelligible to him.

First of all we shall study the seven-fold nature of man according to the Rosicrucian teaching. We shall consider the whole nature of man as he confronts us; we shall learn to understand the nature of the physical body, which everyone thinks he knows all about but in reality knows nothing. As little as we can see the oxygen in water but must separate it from the hydrogen in order to recognise it, as little do we see the real physical human being when we look at another man standing before us. Man is a combination of physical body, etheric body, astral body and the other higher members of his being, as water is a combination of oxygen and hydrogen. The being who stands before us is the sum total of all these members! If we are to see the physical body alone, the astral body must have separated from it: this is the condition in dreamless sleep. Sleep is a kind of higher chemical separation of the astral body with the higher members of man's nature, from the etheric and physical bodies. But even then it cannot be said that we have the real physical body before us. The physical body is alone only at death, when the etheric body too has left it.

This has a direct and concrete bearing. I will make it clear to you by means of an example. Think of some particular part of the astral body. In the remote past, the pictures which the human being perceived in dim, shadowy clairvoyance, worked very differently than do mental images today. These pictures were impressed, first of all, into the astral body. Let us suppose that at one time pictures of the three dimensions of space—length, breadth, and depth—were impressed into the astral body. This picture of three-dimensional space which was once impressed into the astral body through the old, dim clairvoyance was carried over into the etheric body. Just as a seal is pressed into liquid sealing wax, so did the astral picture impress itself into the etheric body and this in turn moulded the forms of the physical body. Thus the picture of three-dimensional space built an organ in a particular area of the physical body. Originally there was a picture in the astral body of the three perpendicular directions of space; this picture impressed itself, like a seal into wax, into the etheric body and a certain part of the etheric body moulded an organ in the interior of the human ear, namely, the three semi-circular canals. You all have them within you; if they are in any way impaired you cannot orientate yourself within the three directions of space; you get giddy and cannot stand upright. Thus are the pictures of the astral body connected with the forces of the etheric body and the organs of the physical body.

The whole physical body of man in its plastic forms is nothing else than a product of the pictures of the astral body and the forces of the etheric body. Hence those who have no knowledge of the astral and etheric bodies cannot understand the physical body. The astral body is the predecessor of the etheric body and the etheric body is the predecessor of the physical body. Thus the matter is complicated. The three semi-circular canals are a physical organ, just as is the nose. All noses differ from one another although there may be resemblance between the noses of parents and children. If you were able to study the three semicircular canals in the ears of human beings, you would find difference and resemblance just as in the case of noses, for these canals may resemble those of the mother or father. What is not inherited is the innermost spiritual core of being, the Eternal in man which passes through the successive incarnations. Individual talents and faculties are not determined by the brain. Logic is the same in mathematics, in philosophy, or in practical life. The difference in the quality of the faculties becomes apparent only when logic is applied in domains where knowledge depends, for instance, upon the functioning of the semi-circular organs in the ear. Mathematical talent will be particularly marked when these organs are highly developed. An example of this is the Bernoulli family, which produced a succession of fine mathematicians. An individual may possess great incipient talent for music or some other art, but if he is not born into a human body that has inherited the requisite organic structures, he cannot bring these talents to expression.

So you see, the physical world cannot be understood without knowledge of how it is constituted. The Rosicrucian does not consider it his task to withdraw in any way from the physical world. Certainly not! For what he has to do is to spiritualise the physical world. He must rise to the highest regions of spiritual life and with the knowledge there obtained labour actively in the physical world, especially in the world of men.

This is the Rosicrucian attitude-the direct outcome of Rosicrucian wisdom. We are about to study a system of wisdom which will enable us to understand even the smallest things; and we shall not forget that the smallest thing in the world can be of importance to the greatest, that the smallest thing, in its rightful place, can lead to the highest of goals!

In the last lecture yesterday we spoke of the kind of relationship which Rosicrucianism adopts to the human being and to culture in general. Although the actual data of knowledge concerning the higher worlds can be discovered only by the seer, by more highly developed spiritual faculties, nevertheless the Rosicrucian method is such that the wisdom it imparts can be understood by the logical intellect. The knowledge itself is discovered by the seer with higher faculties, but normal human reason is capable of comprehending it. Let it not be imagined, however, that what it is possible to say in a single lecture can hold its ground against all criticism; this could only be so if the statements were put to the test by all the means accessible to the human mind. In the last lecture we spoke of yet another characteristic of Rosicrucianism, namely, that this method aims at carrying Spiritual Science into practical life. That is why things are put forward in such a way that they can be made an integral part of life. Here too you must have patience; at the beginning it will seem as though many things are inapplicable in practical life. But when you are able to survey the whole, you will realise that what I have said is true. The Rosicrucian method of investigation is able to impart wisdom that can take effect in life.

First of all we will consider the several members of man's constitution. Only by advancing step by step and omitting nothing shall we be able to get a view of the organic whole. We shall also study the destiny of the human soul after death and the human being in his waking consciousness, in sleep and in death. We shall have to consider what is accomplished by man between death and a new birth. It is a widespread view that man is inactive after death but this is not the case. He has far rather to be intensely active, to create, to perform work that is of significance in the cosmos. We shall also have to speak of reincarnation and karma, of destiny in the evolution of man, of how humanity developed in days of yore and of evolution in the future. It will be my task today to give a brief description of the constitution and nature of the human being.

We must realise that the nature and being of man appear far more complex to spiritual perception than to ordinary sense-perception which is permeated by intellect and can only observe a very small portion of human nature as a whole. From the point of view of occultism, the physical body as we see it in front of us is actually permeated by the etheric body and the astral body. These three bodies are united and only when the etheric and the astral bodies are removed have we the real physical body of man before us. The physical body is that member which the human being has in common with the whole of physical Nature around him, in common with minerals, plants and animals.

The only correct view of the physical human body is to say that it corresponds with the extent of man's kinship with the mineral kingdom around him. But you must realise that this member of man's being is the one that can least of all be conceived of as separate from the cosmos. The forces working in the physical body pour in from the cosmos. Think of a rainbow. If a rainbow is to appear, there must be a particular combination of sunlight and rain clouds. The rainbow cannot be absent if this combination between sunlight and rain clouds actually exists. The rainbow is therefore a consequence; a phenomenon brought into being from without. The physical body too, is, in a way, a pure phenomenon. You must look in the whole surrounding universe for the forces which hold the physical body together. Where, then, are we to find, in their true form, these forces which cause the physical body to have the appearance it has? Here we are led into higher worlds, for in the physical world we see the physical body as a phenomenon only. The forces which give rise to this phenomenon lie in a very lofty spiritual world. We must therefore give some study to worlds which exist as truly as the physical world exists.

When the occultist speaks of higher worlds, he means worlds that are around us all the time, only the senses for perceiving them must be opened just as the eyes must be opened for the perception of colours. When certain senses of the soul, senses which lie higher than the physical senses, are opened, the world around us is pervaded by a new revelation known as the astral world. Rosicrucian Theosophy calls this world the Imaginative World—but “Imaginative” here denotes something much more real than the ordinary implication of the word. There is a constant flowing and ebbing of pictures; the colours that are otherwise chained to objects are involved in myriad transformations within the astral world. In the movement that has linked itself with Rosicrucianism this world is also called the “Elemental World.” These three expressions therefore: Imaginative world, Astral world, Elemental world, are interchangeable.

A still loftier world, revealed to yet higher senses, is that of the “Harmonies of the Spheres.” This higher world penetrates into the world of pictures and colours. It is called “Devachan”, “Rupa Devachan”, or also the “Mental world”; in Rosicrucian terminology it is known as the world of the “Harmonies of the Spheres” or the world of Inspiration, because sound or tone is the medium of the Inspiration when the corresponding senses have been opened. In the movement that has linked itself with Rosicrucianism, this world has been called the “Heaven world.” Lower or Rupa-Devachanic world, Devachan, the world of Inspiration, the Heaven world—these again are one and the same.

Still another world, revealed by even higher senses, is known in Rosicrucianism as the world of true Intuition, but “Intuition” here has a much higher reality than is contained in the word as used in everyday life. True Intuition is a “merging into” other beings, so that they are known from within themselves. In the movement that has linked itself with Rosicrucianism, this world of Intuition has been called the “world of Reason” (Vernunftwelt); it is so far above the ordinary world that it casts a shadow-image only into the world of men. Intellectual concepts are faint and feeble shadow-images of the realities in this higher world. In addition to the physical world, therefore, there are three other worlds. Behind the forces which hold the physical world together there are forces which are to be found in the highest world, the world of Intuition. In comparison with the “nature-forces” in this highest world, everything that the physicist discovers in the physical world is like so many faint shadow-images. For every concept you have, say of a crystal, or of the human eye, you would find, in this highest world, living Beings. A concept in the physical world is the shadow-image of Beings in this highest world. Thus the physical world is built up by forces which manifest, in their true form in Arupa-Devachan—to use the theosophical mode of expression.

We can form a still clearer conception if we think about the mineral kingdom from this point of view.

The human being has ego-consciousness, “I”-consciousness. We say that a mineral is without consciousness, but this is true only in the physical plane. In the higher worlds the mineral is not without consciousness. You will not, however, find the ego of the mineral world in the Elemental world; the ego-consciousness of the mineral lies in the highest of the worlds of which we have spoken. Just as your finger has no consciousness of its own, for its consciousness lies in your “I”, in your ego, so the mineral is connected with its ego by streams that lead into the very highest realm of world-existence. A fingernail is part of the human organism as a whole; its consciousness is in the “I”. A nail is related to the organism as the mineral is related to the highest spiritual world. There is one “I” belonging to the whole living organism and the nails, like the mineral, are an outermost manifestation of what has hardened within this life. The human physical body has this in common with the minerals: that the physical body, in so far as it is purely physical—has a consciousness belonging to it in the spiritual world above. Inasmuch as the human being is endowed with purely physical consciousness (although he does not know it), inasmuch as he has a physical body with its consciousness in a higher world, his constitution is such that the physical body is worked upon from above. What fashions the physical body is not under your control. Just as it is the “I,” the ego, which moves your hand, so is your physical body worked upon from a higher world, and the ego-consciousness belonging to the physical body gives rise to the physical processes of the body. The Initiate who attains to Intuition—he alone has such power over his physical body that no current passes through his nerves without his knowledge; not until man reaches this stage can he be a citizen of those spiritual worlds which govern and direct his physical body.

Man has his second member, the etheric or life-body, in common with the plants and the animals. It is visible to the seer and has approximately the same form as the physical body. It is a body of forces. If you could think away the physical body, the etheric body would be left as a body of forces, a body permeated with streams of forces which have built up the physical body. The human heart could never have assumed the form it actually bears if there were not in the etheric body an etheric heart; this etheric heart contains certain forces and currents and these are the builders, the architects, the moulders of the physical, heart. Suppose you have a vessel containing water and you cool the water until hardening, ice-formations appear in it. The ice is water, only the water has hardened and the forms of the ice-blocks were within the water as lines of force. Thus is the physical heart formed out of the etheric heart; it is simply a hardened etheric heart and the streams of force in the etheric heart have given the physical heart its form. If you could think away the physical body, you would see that the etheric body, especially in the upper parts, is almost similar to the physical body. This similarity, however, continues only as far as the middle of the body for there is great differentiation within the etheric body; you will realise that this is so when I tell you that the etheric body in the male is female and in the female, male. Without this knowledge much will remain incomprehensible in practical life. The etheric body appears like a form of light extending everywhere, but only slightly, beyond the form of the physical body. The human being has the etheric body in common with the plants. It is the same with the etheric as with the physical body: the forces which hold the etheric body together are found in the world of Inspiration, the world of Rupa-Devachan, the Heaven-world. All the forces, which hold the etheric body together, lie one stage lower than those which hold the physical body together. The ego-consciousness of the plants is therefore to be found in this world of Inspiration, of Lower Devachan, of the Harmonies of the Spheres. In this same world too, lies the ego-consciousness that pervades the human etheric body and lives within you without your being aware of it.

We come now to the third member of man's being, to the astral body—the “Soul Body” in Rosicrucian terminology. Man has the astral body in common only with the animals. The astral body is the bearer of feeling, of happiness and suffering, joy and pain, emotions and passions; wishes and desires, too, are anchored in the astral body. The astral body must be characterised by saying that there is within it that which is also present in the animal world. The animal world, too, has consciousness. The astral being of man and of the animal is held together by forces which have their seat in the Imaginative world or the “Elemental” world in Rosicrucian parlance. The forces which hold the astral body together and give it the form it has, are to be perceived in their true form, in the astral world. The ego-consciousness of the animal is also within this astral world. Just as in the case of a human being we speak of an individual soul, in the case of an animal we speak of a group-soul which is to be found on the astral plane. We must not think here of the single animal living on the physical plane but a whole species of animals—all lions, all tigers—have an ego in common, a group-soul to be found on the astral plane. So that the animal is really only comprehensible when it can be followed upwards to the astral plane. “Strands,” as it were, go forth from the lions, for example, and in the astral world unite into the group-soul that is common to the individual lions living on the earth. Just as the human being has an individual ego, so in every astral body there lives something of a group-ego; this animal-ego lives in the human astral body and the human being does not become independent of this animal-ego until he develops astral sight and becomes a companion of astral beings, when the group-souls of the animals confront him on the astral plane as individual animals confront him here. In the astral world there are beings who can only come down in fragments, as it were, to the physical plane as so-and-so many animals. When the life of these animals comes to an end they unite in the astral world with the rest of this astral being. A whole species of animals is a being on the astral plane, a being with whom converse can be held as with an individual here on earth. Although there is not exact similarity the group-souls are not incorrectly characterised in the second seal of the Apocalypse where they are divided into four classes: Lion, Eagle, Bull, Man (i.e., man who has not yet descended to the physical plane). These four Apocalyptic animals are the four classes of the group-souls which live in the astral world by the side of the human being with his individual soul.

And now we will think of that which man no longer has in common with the world around him; we will think of the “I”, the ego. By virtue of this fourth member of his being, man is the crown of physical creation; he has consciousness on the physical plane. Just as the mineral consciousness is in the world of Arupa-Devachan, the plant consciousness in Rupa-Devachan, the animal consciousness on the astral plane, so the ego-consciousness of the human being is in the physical world. In his “I,” man has something into which no other being or centre of consciousness intrudes.

Thus we have the fourfold human being: physical man, etheric man, astral man, ego or “I.”

This does not, however, comprise the whole of man's nature. Man had these four members in his very first incarnation on the earth and as he passes through successive incarnations, higher development takes place. He works, from the ego, upon the three other members. In the remote past, during his first incarnation on the earth, man was entirely under the sway of every emotion and desire; true, he also had an ego, but he behaved like an animal. If we compare this wild man with one who is a high idealist; the difference lies in the fact that the former has not yet worked from his ego upon his astral body. The next step in evolution is that man works upon his astral body. The result of such work is that certain fundamental properties of the astral body are brought under his own control. The average European allows himself to follow certain impulses and forbids himself to yield to others. As much of the astral body as a man has brought under the sway of the ego-that we call Spirit-Self (Manas). Manas is a product of the transformation of the astral body by the ego. In its substantiality, Spirit-Self is identical with the astral body; there is merely a different ordering of what was originally in the astral body but has been transformed into Spirit-Self.

A man whose development progresses acquires the faculty not only of working upon his astral body but also of working from the ego upon his etheric body. Let us be clear about the difference between working upon the astral body and working upon the etheric body. Think of what we knew at the age, say, of eight, and of what we have learnt since then. Obviously we have learnt a great deal. Everyone has assimilated a vast number of concepts and ideas which cause him no longer to follow his emotions and passions blindly. But if one remembers having had a violent temper as a child and then thinks of how far this violent temper has been conquered, it will be found that it is still apt to break out. Again, it is seldom that a man who once had a bad memory succeeds in fundamentally improving it or in enhancing the strength or getting rid of the weakness of his conscience. I have often compared the changes that a man brings about in his temperament and the like, with the slow progress of the hour hand of a clock. The essential characteristic of the pupil's Initiation is this: Learning is regarded as a mere preparation; much more is done for Initiation when the temperament itself is transformed. If a feeble memory has been changed into a strong one, if violence has been changed into gentleness, a melancholic temperament into serenity, more has been accomplished than the acquisition of great learning. Here lies the source of inner, occult powers, for this indicates that the ego is working upon the etheric body, not only upon the astral body.

In so far as they express themselves, these qualities are to be found in the astral body but if they are to be transformed, this must happen in the etheric body. What the ego has transformed in the etheric body is present in a man as Life-Spirit, in contrast to Life-Body. In theosophical literature, Life-Spirit is called “Budhi.” The substantiality of Budhi is nothing else than that part of the etheric body which has been transformed by the ego.

When the ego becomes so strong that it is able not only to transform the etheric body, but also the physical body—the densest of the principles in man and the forces of which extend into the very highest world—we say that a man is developing the very highest member of his being: Spirit-Man, or Atma. The forces for the transformation of the physical body lie in the highest world of all. The transformation of the physical body begins with the transformation of the breathing process, for Atma is Atmen—breath. This transformation causes changes in the constitution of the blood which works upon the physical body; man is here functioning in the very highest worlds.

Transformation can proceed in two ways and to be precise we must speak of an unconscious and a conscious transformation. In reality, every European, from out of his ego, has unconsciously transformed the lower members of his being. In the present phase of evolution he works consciously only in respect of the development of Spirit-Self (Manas) and he must be an initiate if he is to learn to work consciously at the transformation of his etheric body.

Thus even the most primitive human being in the very earliest stage of evolution has the three original members and within them the ego. Then begins the process of transformation. For long ages it proceeded unconsciously; humanity is now beginning consciously to transform the astral body. The Initiates are now consciously transforming the etheric body and in the future all human beings will consciously transform the etheric body and the physical body.

The three primeval members of man's nature are: physical body, etheric body, astral body—and then the “I,” the ego. The ego first transforms these three members. The process which has caused Manas, Budhi and Atma (Spirit-Self, Life-Spirit, Spirit-Man) to arise as unconscious, germinal realities of being, lies in the past so far as present-day humanity is concerned.

Rosicrucian Theosophy makes the following differentiation: Sentient Soul, Intellectual or Mind Soul, Consciousness Soul (Spiritual Soul). The conscious process of transformation lights up for the first time in the Consciousness or Spiritual Soul. Here the ego begins consciously to work at the transformation. Spirit-Self is developed in the Consciousness Soul, Life-Spirit in the Mind Soul, Spirit-Man in the Sentient Soul. Thus we have, in all, nine members of man's nature.

Outwardly regarded, two of these members—Sentient Soul and Soul-Body interpenetrate, like a sword in its sheath; the Sentient Soul is within the Soul-Body, so that they appear as one. So is it too with Spirit-Self and Consciousness Soul. These nine members are thus reduced to seven:

1. Physical body.
2. Etheric (or Life-) body.
3. Astral body within which is the Sentient Soul.
4. Ego.

Higher members:

5. Spirit-Self (Manas) together with the Consciousness—or Spiritual Soul.
6. Life-Spirit (Budhi).
7. Spirit-Man (Atma).

Such is the inner constitution of man's nature which has, in reality, nine members, two and two of which coincide. Therefore the Rosicrucian method speaks of three times three members = nine, which is reduced to seven. We must, however, recognise the nine within the seven; otherwise we shall reach only a theoretical conception.

The transition from theory to reality can only be made by a study of man's essential nature.

9. Spirit-Man
10. Life-Spirit
11. Spirit-Self
12. Consciousness Soul
13. Mind Soul
14. Sentient Soul
15. Astral body
16. Etheric body
17. Physical body

The “I” lights up in the souls and then begins the work on the bodies.

The indications given today will be a guide to us tomorrow when we shall study the human being in sleep, in waking consciousness and in death.