The Rudolf Steiner Archive

IT IS now our task to speak somewhat of the progress of human evolution in the future and of what one calls initiation. It is by means of initiation that present day man passes in advance through stages of life which are otherwise only passed through by humanity in the future.

If we occupy ourselves with the first problem it may seem to you audacious to try to speak about the future, or even that it is impossible to find out anything of the future of man. Nevertheless if you will consider the matter a little you will find that the view that one can know something about the future is not so unfounded after all. You have only to compare these things with what the ordinary researcher, the natural scientist, for example, can know with regard to future events. He can tell you definitely that if he mixes together oxygen, hydrogen and sulphur under certain conditions, sulphuric acid always results. One can say exactly what happens when one intercepts rays by a mirror. In fact, this goes even further in regard to things of external life; one can predict eclipses of the sun and moon for indefinitely long periods of time.

How is it possible to do this? Because, and in so far as [one knows], one knows the laws of physical life. Now if someone knows the spiritual laws of life, from these laws he can likewise say what must come about in the future. Here, however, a question generally arises which weighs heavily in people's minds. It is so easy to imagine that it is a contradiction of freedom, of man's own voluntary acts, if it could be known in advance what will happen. This too is an incorrect idea. When you combine sulphur, hydrogen and oxygen under certain conditions, sulphuric acid arises; that is determined by the laws of the combination. Whether you do it, however, depends on your will; and so it is also in the spiritual course of human evolution. What will happen will be done by man in entire freedom of will, and the higher a man develops the freer he will be. Nor must one think that it is already decided what a man will do in the future because one can see it in advance. Most people, however, have no right understanding of this problem and in fact it presents very great difficulties. Since ancient times philosophers have tormented themselves with the question of human freedom and the law of predestined phenomena. Practically all that has been written in this field is extremely unsatisfactory, for as a rule people cannot distinguish between foreseeing and being foreordained. Seeing in advance is in fact no different from looking out to some distant spot in space. If you look in space to a point far off, let us say the corner of the street over there, and you see a man giving a penny to another, have you brought about this action? Has it been caused through the fact that you see it? No, you only see that he does it, and that exercises no pressure on his act. Now in a certain respect it is like this in time, only people cannot grasp it. Let us suppose you are reincarnated in a couple of thousand years, you then do something of your own free will; that is the same as the example of the gift of the penny. Under certain circumstances the seer sees what is done in the future, and this future act is just as little determined by the present point of time as the gift of the penny by the point of space. People often say if one sees that something will happen then it is actually predetermined. But then one is confounding the present with the future. In fact it would be no prevision into the future if it were already predestined; you are not seeing something that is already there, but something that has first to come; you must grasp with exactness the concept of seeing-into-the-future. It must be exercised and practised in patient meditation, then only does one find it possible to understand these things aright.

After these introductory words we will now speak of some few things that can be said about the evolution of humanity in the future. We have reached the point where humanity has descended most deeply into matter, where men turn to account their spiritual forces in the construction and manufacture of instruments and machines that serve the personal life. Connected with this was an ever-increasing densification, both of mankind and the earth as a whole. We have seen that the mineral kingdom, as we call it, the densest part of the earth, only arose at a definite point of time in our evolution. It was only then that man entered upon his present earthly, development; and the division of the sexes and other phenomena went hand in hand with it. At that time when the human being had not as yet entered this physical development which contains a mineral kingdom, he too was of a much finer, softer nature. Just to give some idea of it, let us note how the reproduction of the human race took place in those ancient times before the two sexes were in existence. At that time the human being who was still of double sex and of a thinner, finer corporeality, brought forth another being from itself. This did not take place as it does today, but somewhat as in spiritualistic seances the etheric body of some other being proceeds from the medium. That gives you more or less a picture of this materialisation from oneself, the manner of human propagation in ancient times. It was like an out-pressure from human beings who were ripe to continue their own development.

Thus you see that with the densification of man in the cosmos is connected a descent into the world of matter. And another force is connected with it which could never have developed without it:—egoism. Egoism has a good and a bad side. It is the foundation of human independence and freedom, but in its reverse aspect the foundation too of all that is bad and evil. But man had to go through this force of egoism if he was to learn to do good of his own freewill. Through the forces which had guided him previously, he would always have been impelled to the good; it had, however, to be possible for him to go his own way. Just as he has descended he must now ascend again to spirituality; and as the descent is linked with the predominance of egoism so does the ascent depend on men's selflessness, their feeling of sympathy for one another, becoming stronger and stronger. Mankind has evolved through various epochs, first through the old Indian, then the Persian, the Egyptian-Chaldean-Babylonian, the Greco-Latin to the present, the Fifth epoch. And this will be replaced by a sixth. And as human evolution is working towards this, it is working at the same time at the overcoming of the principle which has been strongest since the time when the etheric body united with the point in the brain of which I spoke to you yesterday. That was the time of the fall into the deepest egoism.

Man was also egotistic in his earlier evolution, but it was then in a different way. The egoism which enters so deeply into the soul as in our present age is inseparable from the predominating materialism; a spiritual age will denote the overcoming of this egoism. Therefore Christianity and all movements imbued with genuine religious life have worked consciously towards breaking through all the old blood-ties. Christianity has made a radical statement in the words, “He who forsaketh not father, mother, wife, child, brother, sister cannot be my disciple.” This indicates nothing less than that in place of the ancient blood ties there must enter the spiritual bond between soul and soul, between one human being and another.

The only question now is—what are the ways and means by which humanity may attain spirituality, that is, the overcoming of materialism, and at the same time reach what may be called the bond of brotherhood, the expression of universal human love. One might imagine that universal human love need only be stressed strongly enough, and that then it must come about or that one should found Unions which aim at the goal of a universal human love. Occultism is never of this opinion. On the contrary! The more a man speaks of universal brotherly love and humanity, becoming in a sense intoxicated by them, the more egotistic he becomes. For precisely as there is a lust of the senses so is there a lust of the soul; and it is in fact a refined voluptuousness to say: “I will become morally higher and higher.” This, to be sure, is not a thought which creates the ordinary conventional egoism, but it does lead to a subtle form of egoism.

It is not by emphasising “Love,” “Sympathy,” that they are generated in the course of mankind's evolution. Mankind will be led to that bond of brotherhood far rather through something else, namely, through spiritual knowledge itself. There is no other means of bringing about a universal human brotherhood than the spreading of occult knowledge through the world. One may talk forever of Love and the Brotherhood of Man, one may found thousands of Unions; they will not lead to the desired goal, however well intentioned they may be. The point is to use the right means, to know how to found this bond of brotherhood. Only those whose lives are grounded in universal occult truth, valid for all men, find themselves together in the one truth. As the sun unites the plants which strive towards it and which yet remain individually separate, so must the truth to which all are striving be a uniform one, then all men find themselves together. But men must work energetically towards truth, for only then can they live together in harmony.

The objection might be made: surely all are striving towards the truth, but there are different standpoints and therefore strife and dissension arises. That denotes a knowledge of truth which is not sufficiently thorough. One must not plead that there may be different standpoints, one must first experience that truth is single and indivisible. It does not depend on popular vote it is true in itself. Or would you put it to the vote as to whether the three angles of a triangle are equal to 180 degrees? Whether millions of people admit that, or not a single one, when you have recognised it, it is true for you. There is no democracy about truth. And those who are not yet in harmony have not penetrated far enough into the truth—thence originates all quarreling over truth. It may be said: “Yes, but someone asserts this and another that in occult matters!” In genuine occultism that is not so. It is the same in occult things as in materialistic things, there too someone asserts this and another that, but then one of them is false. Even so is it in genuine occultism; it is only that people often have a bad habit of judging occult matters before they have been understood.

The aim of the Sixth epoch of humanity will be to popularise occult truth in the widest circles; that is the mission of that epoch. And the society which is united in spirit has the task of carrying this occult truth everywhere—right into life—and applying it practically. This is precisely what is lacking in our age. Only look how our epoch is searching and how no one can find the right solution. There are innumerable problems, the Educational Problem, the Feminist Movement, Medicine, the Social Problem, the Food Question. And people doctor away at these problems, endless articles are written, and each talks from his own standpoint, without being willing to study what lies at the centre—occult truth.

It is not a matter of having some abstract knowledge of the truths of spiritual science, but of applying them directly to life, of studying the social problem, the educational problem, in fact the whole range of human life, from the standpoint of real occult wisdom. “But then,” it might be urged, “one would have to know the highest wisdom.” That arises from the mistake of thinking one must always understand what one makes use of in life. But that is not necessary; understanding of the highest principles often comes much later than their application. If mankind had wished to wait in the matter of digestion till the laws of digestion were understood then the evolution of mankind would not have been possible. So too one does not need to be aware of all spiritual laws in order to let spiritual science flow into everyday life. That is precisely the way in which the Rosicrucian method deals with the spiritual—fewer abstractions, but instead, the study of the problems of everyday life. Do you think that the child knows all the grammatical rules of speech when it has learnt to speak? First it learns to speak and then learns grammar. So we must lay stress on the value it has for a man, with the help of spiritual teachings, to attack what lies directly around him, before he occupies himself with what is to be found in the highest worlds, with information concerning the astral plane and Devachan. This is the only way to understand what exists in our surroundings, and where we ourselves must play our part. And we shall find that it is our task to bind together through the unifying bonds of spiritual wisdom those portions of humanity who have been torn out of the old bonds of blood and race.

And then, inasmuch as we evolve from the fifth into the sixth and then into the seventh epoch, the ancient connection of race and blood will be increasingly lost. Mankind becomes freer of physical ties in order to form groups from the aspect of the spirit. It was a bad habit in Theosophy to speak of races as if they would always remain. The concept of race loses its meaning in the immediate future. To state incessantly that seven and again seven races have always evolved in the world is the speculative extension of an idea that only holds good for our age—looking backwards and forwards; it has never been said from clairvoyant vision, from occultism. Races have arisen, as everything else arises; and as everything again dies out so will races die out too. Those who have always only spoken of races will have to accustom themselves to making their ideas fluid. It is only a convenient way of talking. If one looks but a little into the future those ideas which applied to past and present are already no longer valid. It is most important that people should not consider that something they have once brought into a beautiful concept is a truth for all time. Men must get into the habit of making ideas fluid, of recognising that ideas change-that will be an advance. The ability of passing over from rigidly dogmatic ideas to mobile ones must be cultivated in those who would be the bearers of the future. For just as times change so must our ideas change too, if we would understand the times.

Souls live now in a human body which you distinctly perceive with the senses. By what means has it arisen? It was very different in earlier times when the soul descended, in fact for our present material outlook even comically different. The soul took up its abode in it. By what means has the human being evolved to its present form? Because the soul has itself worked in the body during all its incarnations. You can form an idea of how the soul has worked on the body if you consider what possibility has remained to the man of our materialistic age to work upon his body. He can work relatively but very little on his dense physical body. See how you work temporarily on the body and its physiognomy. Something for instance causes you terror, anxiety; the impression of anxiety and fear makes you go pale. And your physical appearance is affected in the same way by the blush of shame. This passes away again, but you see how it is caused. Something acts on the soul and the effects extends to the blood and thence to the physical body, changing the very appearance. The effect can be still more intensive. You know that people who lead a life of thought have it very much in their power to create an impression on their countenance of their intellectual work, one can observe whether or not a man has lived a life of mental activity. So men still work on their external expression and a man of noble feelings displays them in dignified movements. These are but very slight relics of how man has worked on himself during millions of years. Whereas nowadays you can only bring the blood to the cheek and drive it away again, in earlier times man was entirely under the influence of a picture-world which was the expression of a world of spirit.

The effect of this influence was that the human being could work much more creatively on his body. At the same time the body was also more soft and yielding. There was a time when you could not merely stretch out your hand, when you could not only point with the finger, but when you could send your will into your hand, and so form it that you could thrust out the fingers as continuations. There was a time when the foot was not yet permanent but could be extended as a continuation when man needed it. Thus through the pictures which he received from the surrounding world man shaped his own body. Today in our material age this moulding is unimaginably slow, but a time will come again when it will proceed more rapidly. In the future man will again acquire more influence over his physical corporeality. We shall see when we consider Initiation by what means he gains this influence; although he may not reach it in one life, yet he will be able to do much for the next incarnation.

Thus it is man himself who will bring about the future form of his body. Inasmuch as the human being becomes softer and softer, inasmuch as he separates himself from the hard parts, he is approaching his future. An age comes when man will live above his earthly portion as it were, as in time gone by. This condition, which is comparable to your present sleep-condition, will then be replaced by another when the human being will be able to draw his etheric body out of his physical body at will. It will be as if the denser part of man were here below on earth and the human being will make use of it from outside like an instrument. Man will no longer bear his body about and live within it, but will float above it, the body will itself have become rarefied and finer. That seems a fantastic idea today, but one can be distinctly aware of it from spiritual laws just as one reckons future eclipses of the sun and moon from the laws of astronomy. Above all it will be upon the reproductive force that man will work. He will transform it. Many people cannot imagine that there will ever be a different generative process. But it will be so, the process of generation will be altered. The generative process and all that stands in connection with it will pass over in the future to another organ. The organ that is already preparing to become the future organ of generation is the human larynx. Today it can only bring forth vibrations of the air, can only impart to the air what lies in the word that goes forth from it, so that the vibrations correspond to the word. Later on, not only will the word press forward in its rhythm from the larynx, but it will be irradiated by man, it will be penetrated by very substance. Just as today the word only becomes airwaves, so in the future man's inner being, his own likeness, which today is in his word, will issue from the larynx. The human being will proceed from the human being, man will speak forth man. And this in the future will be the birth of a new human being—that he is spoken forth by another.

Such things throw a definite light on phenomena in our surroundings which no natural science can explain. That transformation of the reproductive force which will again become free of sex, takes over then the functions of the earlier reproduction. Hence in the male organism at the age of puberty, a transformation also takes place in the larynx. The voice becomes deeper. This shows you clearly how these two things are interconnected. Thus occultism throws light again and again on facts of life and illumines phenomena for which materialistic science can give you no explanation.

And just as the organ of the larynx will be transformed, so too will the human heart. It is the organ which stands in intimate connection with the circulation. Now science believes that the heart is a kind of pump; that is a grotesquely fantastic idea. Occultism has never made such a fantastic statement, as has modern materialism. It is the feelings of the soul which give rise to the movement of the blood; the soul drives the blood, and the heart moves because it is driven by the blood. Thus the truth is exactly the opposite of what materialistic science states. Man today, however, cannot guide his heart as he will; when he feels anxiety, it beats faster, since the feeling acts on the blood and this quickens the motion of the heart. But what is suffered involuntarily by man today, will later, at a higher stage of evolution, be in his own power. Later on he will drive his blood by his own volition, and cause the movement of his heart as today he moves the muscles of his hand. The heart with its peculiar structure is a crux, a riddle for modern science. It has diagonally striped fibres, which are otherwise only to be found in voluntary muscles. Why? Because the heart has not yet reached the end of its evolution, but is an organ of the future; because it will in the future be a voluntary muscle. Thus it already shows the rudiments of this in its structure.

All that goes on in the soul changes the organism. And if you now imagine the man who is able to create his own likeness through the spoken word, whose heart has become a voluntary muscle, who will have altered yet other organs, then you have a conception of the future of the human race in future planetary incarnations of our earth. Humanity will progress on our earth as far as it is possible under the influence of a mineral kingdom. This mineral kingdom, in spite of its having arisen the last, will be the first to disappear again in its present form. Man will then no longer build up his body from mineral substances as today, the coming human body will only incorporate into itself substances of a plant nature. All that works in man today, as mineral will disappear. In order to give you a seemingly grotesque example: the human saliva of today is a mineral product, for the physical body is an inter-action of mineral processes. When man will have ended his mineral evolution he will no longer have a mineral spittle; it will be of a plant-nature—man will, so to speak, spit flowers. Glands will no more secrete what is mineral, but a plant-like substance. The mineral kingdom is brought to an end by the evolutionary return of humanity to plant-like existence.

Thus the human being lives over to Jupiter inasmuch as he expels all that is mineral and passes over to the creativeness of the plant. And inasmuch as he then later passes over to animal-creation—the animals will be different from those of today—when his heart will have progressed so far that it can appear as a creator, then he will create in the animal world, as today he creates in the mineral kingdom, and then the Venus condition will arise. And when he can create his kind by virtue of uttering his own likeness, then is the meaning of evolution complete, then is the word fulfilled: “Let us create man in our own image.”

Only by observing this aspect—that the body will be moulded from the soul—will man really transform the human race. Only through a thinking trained in the occult and spiritual sense, will there appear what has been described as the transformation of the heart and the larynx. What humanity thinks today, that will it be in the future. A humanity that thinks materialistically will produce frightful beings in the future, and a humanity that thinks spiritual thoughts, so works upon and transforms the future organism that beautiful human bodies will proceed from it.

What the materialistic mode of thought brings about has not yet been completed. We have two streams today, a great materialistic one which fills the earth, and the small spiritual stream which is restricted to but few human beings. Distinguish between soul-evolution and race-evolution. Do not think that if races pass over to a grotesque form that the soul too does the same. All materialistically thinking souls work on the production of evil race-formations, and what is done of a spiritual nature causes the bringing forth of a good race. Just as mankind has brought forth that which has retrogressed in the animals, plants and minerals, so will a portion split off and represent the evil part of humanity. And in the body which meanwhile will have grown soft the inner badness of the soul will express itself externally. Just as older conditions which have degenerated to the ape species seem grotesque to us today, so do materialistic races remain at the standpoint of evil, and will people the earth as evil races. It will lie entirely with humanity as to whether a soul will remain in the bad race or will ascend by spiritual culture to a good race.

These are things that we must know, if we would live into the future with real knowledge. Otherwise we go through the world with our eyes bound, for forces are working in humanity which we must recognise and to which we must pay attention. A man would neglect his duty to mankind if he did not wish to become acquainted with the forces which work in the direction of right evolution or against it. Knowledge for the sake of knowledge would be egotism. He who wants to know in order to look into higher worlds acts egotistically. But one who tries to carry this knowledge into the direct practice of everyday life, furthers the advance of the coming evolution of humanity. It is extremely important for us to learn more and more to put into practice what exists as the conception of spiritual science.

So you see, the Spiritual Movement has a quite definite goal, namely, to mould future humanity in advance. And the goal can be reached in no other way than through the acceptance of spiritual wisdom. This is the thought that lives in the mind of one who conceives spiritual science as the great task of mankind. He thinks of it as inseparable from evolution and he regards it not as an object of desire but as a task and duty that is laid upon him. And the more we acknowledge this, the more rapidly do we approach the future form of humanity in the Sixth Age. As at that time in ancient Atlantis, in the neighbourhood of modern Ireland, the advanced human beings were drawn to the East in order to found the new civilisations, so have we now the task of working towards the great moment in the Sixth Age, when humanity will undertake a great spiritual ascent.

We must endeavour to come out of materialism again, and societies with a spiritual aim must undertake to guide humanity, not from motives of arrogance and pride, but as a task and duty.

So a certain group of people must join together in order to prepare the future. But this union is not to be conceived of geographically. All ideas of locality have then lost their meaning because it is no longer a question of racial relationships. The point will be for people over the whole earth to find each other spiritually, in order to fashion the future in, a positive way. For this reason, 400 years ago, when our epoch plunged the deepest into matter, the Rosicrucian Brotherhood emphasised that practical spiritual science which contains an answer to all problems of everyday life.

Here you have the ascending evolution following the descending. Just as old knowledge acts as a disintegrating force, as is shown in Mauthner's Criticism of Language, so the spiritual current of thought seeks the unifying bond of spiritual wisdom. Hence arises the new school of initiation which is directly concerned with leading humanity over into a new cycle of time.

Thus with the principle of human evolution is connected the concept of Initiation.

WE have yet to speak today of the principle of Initiation, or esoteric training. And we will speak of the two methods of training which take into special consideration what has been explained here concerning human evolution. For we must be clear that in a certain way we find the truth by retracing our steps to earlier stages of humanity.

It has been said that the inhabitants of old Atlantis could perceive wisdom in all that surrounded them. The further we go back into the far past, the more we find states of consciousness through which men were able to perceive the creative powers which pervade the world, the spiritual beings which surround us. All that surrounds us has arisen through these creative beings and to see them is indeed the meaning of “knowledge.”

When mankind had developed to our present stage of consciousness (and this has only come about during our fifth post-Atlantean epoch) a longing was left in the soul to penetrate again into the spiritual realms. I have told you how in the ancient Indian people there lived from the beginning that deep longing to know the real spirit behind all that surrounds us in the world. We have seen how they had a feeling that all that surrounded them was a dream, an illusion; how their only task was to evolve upwards to the ancient wisdom that had worked creatively in early times. The pupils of the ancient Rishis strove to tread the path which led them through Yoga to look up into the realms from which they had themselves come down. They strove away from Maya to these spiritual realms above.

That is one way which man can take. The most recent way of attaining to wisdom is the Rosicrucian path. This path does not point man to the past but to the future, to those conditions which he will further live through. Through definite methods the pupil is taught to develop in himself the wisdom which exists in germ in every human being.

This is the way which was given through the Founder of the Rosicrucian esoteric stream, known to the outer world as Christian Rosenkreuz. It is not an unchristian way, rather is it a Christian path adapted to modern conditions, and lies between the actual Christian path and the Yoga path.

This path had been partially prepared long before the time of Christianity. It took on a special form through that great initiate, Dionysius the Areopagite, who in the esoteric school of Paul at Athens inaugurated the training from which all later esoteric wisdom and training have been derived.

These are the two paths of esoteric training particularly fitted for the West. All that is connected with our culture and the life we lead and must lead, is lifted up, raised into the principle of initiation through the Christian and through the Rosicrucian training. The purely Christian way is somewhat difficult for modern man, hence the Rosicrucian path has been introduced for those who have to live in the present age. If someone would take the old purely Christian path in the midst of modern life he must be able to cut himself off for a time from the world outside, in order to enter it again later all the more intensively. On the other hand the Rosicrucian path can be followed by all, no matter in what occupation or sphere of life they may be placed.

We will describe the purely Christian way. It is prescribed as to method in the most profound Christian book least understood by the representatives of Christian theology, the Gospel of St. John, and as to contents, in the Apocalypse or Secret Revelation.

The Gospel of St. John is a miraculous book: one must live it, not merely read it. One can live it if one understands that its utterances are precepts for the inner life, and that one must observe them in the right way. The Christian path demands of its disciple that he considers the St. John Gospel a book of meditation. A fundamental assumption, which is more or less absent in the Rosicrucian training, is that one possesses the most steadfast belief in the personality of Christ Jesus. The pupil must at least find it possible to believe that the most lofty Being, the Leader of the Fire-Spirits of the Sun evolution, was physically incorporated as Jesus of Nazareth; that Christ Jesus was not merely the “Simple Man of Nazareth,” not an individual like Socrates, Plato or Pythagoras. One must see his fundamental difference from all others. If one would undergo a purely Christian training one must be sure that in him lived a God-man of a unique nature, otherwise one has not the right basic feeling that enters the soul and awakens it. Therefore one must have an actual belief in the first words of the beginning of St. John's Gospel: “In the beginning was the Logos and the Logos was with God and a God was the Logos “to the words” And the Logos became flesh and dwelt among us.” Thus the same Spirit who was the ruler of the Fire-Spirits, who was linked with the transforming of the Earth, whom we also call the Spirit of the Earth, has actually dwelt among us in a garment of flesh, he was actually in a physical body. That must be recognised! If one cannot do this then it is better to undertake another method of training. One, however, who has accepted this basic condition and calls before his soul in meditation every morning through weeks and months the Gospel words down to the passage “full of grace and truth,” and moreover in such a way that he not only understands them, but lives within them, will experience them as an awakening force in the soul. For these are not ordinary words, but awakening forces which call forth other forces in the soul. The pupil must only have the patience to bring them before his soul continuously, every day, then they become the forces which the Christian training needs, aroused through the awakening of quite definite feelings. The Christian path is more an inner one, whereas in Rosicrucian training the experiences are kindled by the outer world.

The Christian path is pursued by an awakening of the feelings. There are seven stages of feeling which must be aroused. In addition are other exercises which are only given personally to the pupil, and suited to his special character. It is, however, indispensable to experience the 13th Chapter of St. John's Gospel, so to experience it as I will now describe. The teacher says to the pupil: You must develop quite definite feelings. Imagine the following: the plant grows from the soil, but is of a higher order than the mineral soil from which it grows. Nevertheless the plant needs it, the higher could not exist without the lower, and if the plant could think, it would have to say to the earth: It is true that I am higher than thou, yet without thee I cannot live. And it must incline itself to the earth in gratitude. Likewise must the animal bear itself to the plant, for it could not exist without plant life, and even so must the human being bear himself with regard to the animal. And if man has ascended higher, he must say to himself: I could never stand where I do without the lower. He must bow thankfully before them, for they have made it possible for him to exist. No creature in the world could subsist without the lower, to which it must feel gratitude. So even Christ, the very highest, could not exist without the twelve, and the feeling of his inclination to them in gratitude is powerfully portrayed in this 13th chapter. He, the highest of all, washes his disciples' feet.

If this is thought of in full wakefulness as a basic feeling in the human soul, if the pupil lives for weeks and months in reflection and contemplation which deepen this fundamental feeling—the gratitude with which the higher should look down to the lower to which it really owes its existence, then one awakens the first basic feeling. The pupil will have entered deeply enough into the experience when certain symptoms appear, an external symptom and an inner vision. The external symptom is that one feels the feet to be laved by water; in an inner vision one sees oneself as the Christ washing the feet of the twelve. This is the first stage, that of the Washing of the Feet. The event in the 13th Chapter of St. John's Gospel is not only an historical event, it can be experienced by all. It is an external symptomatic expression of the fact that the pupil has raised himself thus far in his life of feeling, nor does this sign fail to appear when he has progressed to this point in the enhancement of his feeling-life.

The second stage, the Scourging, is passed through if one deepens oneself in the following: How would it fare with you if the sufferings and blows of life broke in on you from every side? You should stand upright, you should make yourself strong to meet all the sorrows that life offers, and should bear them. This is the second fundamental feeling which must be experienced. The outer feeling of it is an irritation on the whole surface of the body, and a more inner expression is a vision in which one sees oneself scourged, at first in dream, and then in vision.

Then comes the third, which is the Crowning with Thorns. Here week-long, month-long one must live in the feeling: How would it fare with you, if you must not only undergo the sorrows and sufferings of life, but if even the holiest, your spiritual being, should be subjected to scorn and derision? And again, there must be no lamenting, it must be clear to the pupil that he must stand upright in spite of all. His inwardly developed strength must make him able to stand erect despite mockery and scorn. Whatever threatens to overthrow his soul he must stand erect! Then in an inner astral vision he sees himself with the crown of thorns and is sensible of an external pain on the head. This is the sign that he has advanced far enough in his life of feeling to be able to make this experience.

The fourth is the Crucifixion. Here the pupil must again develop a quite definite feeling. Today man identifies his body with his ego. One who would go through the Christian initiation must accustom himself to carry his body through the world as if it were a foreign object, a table, for instance. His body must become foreign to him, he bears it in and out of the doorway as something external, not himself. When a man has advanced far enough in this fundamental feeling, there is revealed to him what is called the “Ordeal of the Blood.” Certain reddenings of the skin appear on certain places in such a way that he can call forth the wounds of Christ, on the hands, the feet and on the right side of the breast. When the pupil by his depth of feeling is able to develop in himself the Blood Ordeal, the external symptom, then appears likewise the inner, the astral, in which he sees himself crucified.

The fifth is the Mystic Death. The pupil raises himself ever higher to the feeling: I belong to the whole world; I am as little an independent being as the finger on my hand. He feels himself embedded in the whole world, as if a part of it. Then he experiences the feeling that all around him grows dark, as if a black darkness envelops him, like a pall that becomes dense around him. During this time, the pupil of the Christian initiation learns to know all the sorrow and all the pain, all the evil and wickedness that attaches itself to mortal man. That is the Descent into Hell; each one must live through it. Then something comes to pass as if the veil were torn asunder, and the pupil sees into the spiritual worlds. This is called the Rending of the Veil.

The sixth is the Burial and Resurrection. When the pupil has advanced so far he must say: I have already accustomed myself to look on my body as something foreign, but now I see everything in the world as standing as near to me as my own body, which indeed is only taken from these substances. Every blossom, every stone, is as near to me as my body. Then the pupil is buried in the earthly planet. This stage is significantly linked with a new life, with the feeling of being united to the deepest Soul of the planet, with the soul of the Christ, who says, “those who eat my bread tread me underfoot.”

The seventh, the Ascension, cannot be described; one must have a soul that is no longer dependent on thinking through the instrument of the brain. In order to be sensible of what the pupil undergoes in what is called the Ascension, it is necessary to have a soul which can live through this feeling.

This passing through states of humility and deep devotion represents the nature of the Christian initiation, and he who earnestly goes through it experiences his resurrection in the spiritual worlds. Today it is not possible for all to undertake this path, and so the existence of another method leading to the higher worlds has become a necessity. That is the Rosicrucian method.

Here again I must refer to seven stages which will give a picture of the content of this training. Much of it has already been described in Lucifer-Gnosis,¹ much can only be given from teacher to pupil within the school, and yet an idea must be formed of what the training provides. It has seven stages, though not consecutive, it is a question of the pupil's own individuality. The teacher prescribes what seems to him adapted to his pupil, and much else forms a part that cannot be made public.

The seven stages are the following:

1. Study
2. Imaginative knowledge
3. Inspired knowledge, or reading the Occult Script
4. Preparation of the Philosopher's Stone
5. Correspondence between Macrocosm and Microcosm
6. Living into the Macrocosm
7. Divine Bliss

Study in the Rosicrucian sense is the ability to immerse oneself in a content of thought not taken from physical reality but from the higher worlds. This is called the life in pure thought. Modern philosophers for the most part deny this; they say that every thinking must have a certain vestige remaining from sense perception. This, however, is not the case, for no one, for example, can see a true circle; a circle must be seen in the mind; on the blackboard it is only a collection of tiny particles of chalk. One can only attain to a real circle if one leaves aside all examples, all actual things. Thus thinking in Mathematics is a super-sensible activity. But one must also learn to think supersensibly in other fields.

Initiates have always exercised this kind of thinking in regard to the being of man. Rosicrucian theosophy is such super-sensible knowledge, and its study, with which we are now occupied, is the first stage of the Rosicrucian training itself. I am not bringing forward Rosicrucian theosophy for any external reason, but because it is the first stage of the Rosicrucian Initiation. People think often enough that it is unnecessary to talk about the principles of man's being, or the evolution of humanity or the different planetary evolutions, they would rather acquire beautiful feelings, they do not want to study earnestly. Nevertheless, however many beautiful feelings one acquires in one's soul it is impossible to rise into the spiritual worlds by that alone. Rosicrucian theosophy does not try to arouse the feelings, but through the stupendous facts of the spiritual worlds to let the feelings themselves begin to resound. The Rosicrucian feels it a kind of impertinence to take people by storm with feelings. He leads them along the path of mankind's evolution in the belief that feelings will then arise of themselves. He calls up before them the planet journeying in universal space, knowing that when the soul experiences this fact it will be powerfully gripped in feeling. It is only an empty phrase to say one should address oneself direct to the feelings, that is just indolence. Rosicrucian theosophy lets the facts speak, and if these thoughts flow into the feeling nature and overpower it, then that is the right way. Only what the human being feels of his own accord can fill him with bliss or blessedness. The Rosicrucian lets the facts in the cosmos speak, for that is the most impersonal kind of teaching. It is a matter of indifference who stands before you; you must not be affected by a personality, but by what he tells you of the facts of world-becoming. Thus in the Rosicrucian training that direct veneration for the teacher is struck out, he does not claim it nor require it. He wishes to speak to the pupil of what exists, quite apart from himself. One who will press forward into the higher worlds must accustom himself to the kind of thinking in which one thought proceeds from another. A thinking of this nature is developed in my Philosophy of Spiritual Activity and Truth and Science. These books are not written in such a way that one can take a thought and put it in another place; much more are they written as an organism arises, one thought grows out of another. These books have nothing at all to do with the one who wrote them; he gave himself up to what the thoughts themselves worked out in him, how they linked themselves one to another.

Study, then, for one desiring to make a somewhat elementary approach means acquiring a certain knowledge of the elementary facts of spiritual science itself, whereas for one who wishes to go further it means an inner meditation in a thought-structure which lets one thought grow out of another, out of itself.

The second stage is Imaginative Knowledge, the knowledge which unites with what is given to the pupil in the study-stage. The study is the basis, it must be perfected through individual imaginative knowledge. If you think over various things that I have touched upon in the last lectures, you will find traces—in the echo for instance—of what were everyday occurrences on Saturn. It is possible to look on all around us as a physiognomy of an inner spiritual element. People walk over the earth and it is a conglomeration of rocks and stones to them, but men must learn to grasp that all surrounding them is the true physical expression for the Spirit of the Earth. Just as the body is ensouled, so is the earth planet the external expression for an indwelling spirit. When men look on the earth as possessing body and soul as man does, then only they have an idea of what Goethe meant when he said “All things corruptible are but a semblance.” When you see tears run down the human countenance you do not examine by the laws of physics how quickly or how slowly the tears roll down; they express to you the inner sadness of the soul, just as the smiling cheek is the expression for the soul's inner joy. The pupil must educate himself to see in each single flower in the meadow he crosses, the outer expression of a living being, the expression of the Spirit dwelling in the Earth. Some flowers seem to be tears, others are the joyful expression of the earth's Spirit. Every stone, every plant, every flower, all is for him the outer expression of the indwelling Earth Spirit, its physiognomy that speaks to him. And everything “corruptible” or transitory becomes a “semblance” of an eternal, expressing itself through it. Feelings like these had to be attained by the disciple of the Grail, and by the Rosicrucian. The teacher would say: Behold the flower chalice which receives the ray of the sun, the sun calls forth the pure productive forces which slumber in the plant and hence the sun's ray was called the “holy lance of love.” Look now at man; he stands higher than the plant, he has the same organs within him, but all that the plant harbours in itself, perfectly pure and chaste, is in him steeped in lust and impure desire. The future of human evolution consists in this: man will again be chaste and pure, and speak forth his likeness into the world through another organ which will be the transformed organ of generation. Chaste and pure without desire, without passion, man's generative organ will be; and as the calyx of the blossom turns upward to the holy love lance, it will turn to the spiritual ray of wisdom, and fructified by this will bring forth its own image. This organ will be the larynx.

The Grail pupil was shown: the plant on its lower stage has this pure chalice, man has lost it; he has degenerated to impure desires. Out of the spiritualised sun ray he must let this chalice come again, in chastity he must develop that which forms the Holy Grail of the future.

Thus the pupil looks up to the great Ideal. What comes to pass in the slow evolution of the whole human race is experienced earlier by the initiate. He shows us mankind's evolution in pictures and these pictures work quite differently from the abstract thoughts which have been produced by the modern materialistic age. If you picture evolution in such lofty and powerful pictures as the Grail, then the effect is different from that of ordinary knowledge, which is unable to exercise any deep influence on your organism. Imaginative knowledge works down on the etheric body and thence on to the blood and this is the medium which acts formatively on the organism. Man will become increasingly more able to work on his organism through his etheric body. All imaginative knowledge based on truth is at the same time healing and health giving, it makes the blood healthy in its circulation. The best educator is imaginative knowledge, if man is only strong and devoted enough for it to be able to work on him.

The third stage is Reading in the Occult Script, that is, not only seeing isolated pictures but letting the relationship of these pictures work upon one. This becomes what is called occult script. One begins to coordinate the lines of force which stream creatively through the world forming them into definite figures and colour-forms through the imagination. One learns to discover an inner connection which is expressed in these figures and this acts as spiritual tone, as the sphere-harmony, for the figures are founded on true cosmic proportions. Our script is a last decadent relic of this old occult writing and is modeled on it.

One comes to the fourth, Preparing the Philosopher's Stone, through exercises of the breathing process. If man breathes as ordained by nature he needs the plant-world for his breathing.

If the plant were not there he could not live, for it gives him oxygen and assimilates the carbon which he himself breathes out. The plant builds its own organism from this and gives back oxygen, thus through the plant world oxygen is continually renewed for man. Humanity could not exist by itself; eliminate the plant world and mankind would in a short time die out. So you see the cycle: you breathe in oxygen which the plant breathes out, you breathe out carbon which the plant inhales and from which it builds up its own bodily nature. Thus the plant belongs to me, it is the instrument by which my life is sustained. You may see in the coal how the plant builds its body from carbon, for coal is nothing else than the dead remains of plants.

Rosicrucian training guides the pupil through a definitely regulated breathing process to form that organ that can within himself effect the transformation of carbon into oxygen. What is today done by the plant externally, will later on, through a future organ which the pupil is already developing through his training, be effected in man himself This is slowly being prepared. Through the regulated breathing process man will bear in himself the instrument for the preparation of oxygen; he will have become akin to the plant, whereas now he is of a mineral nature. He will retain the carbon in himself and build his body from it, and hence his body will later on be more plant-like, then he can turn towards the holy love lance. The whole of humanity will then possess a consciousness like that gained by the initiate today when he raises himself into the higher worlds.

This is called the transmutation of human substance into that substance of which carbon itself is the basis. This is the Alchemy which leads man to build up his own body as does the plant today. One calls this the preparation of the “Philosopher's Stone” and carbon is its outer symbol. But it is not the Philosopher's Stone until the pupil can create it himself through his regulated breathing process. The teaching can only be given from teacher to pupil, it is wrapped in deep secrecy, and only after he is completely purified and made ready can the pupil receive this mystery. If it were to be made public today, then men in their egoism would gratify their lowest needs through the misuse of this highest mystery.

The fifth is the Correspondence of Microcosm and Macrocosm. When we survey the path of human evolution we see that what lies within man today has gradually entered from without—for instance, the glands were an external growth on the Sun, like our modern fungi; all that today lies within the human skin was once outside. The human body is, as it were, pieced together from what was spread outside it, each separate member of your physical body, etheric body and astral body was somewhere outside in the universe. This is the macrocosm in the microcosm. Your very soul was outside in the Godhead. Whatever is within us corresponds to something which is outside, and we must learn to know the true correspondences in ourselves.

You know the spot on the brow just above the root of the nose; it expresses the fact that a certain something which was formerly outside has drawn into man. If you penetrate this organ in meditation, sink yourself into it, this denotes more than a mere brooding in this point, you learn to know then the part of the outer world which corresponds to it. The larynx, too, you get to know and the forces which build it. Thus you learn about the macrocosm through sinking yourself into your own body. This is no mere brooding within yourself! You should not say: God is within and I will seek Him. You would only find the puny human being whom you yourself magnify into God! One who only speaks of this inward brooding never comes to real knowledge. To reach this by the path of Rosicrucian Theosophy is less comfortable and demands real work. The universe is full of beautiful and marvelous things, one must be absorbed in these, one must seek God in his individual expressions, then one can find him in oneself and then only does one learn to know God as One. The world is like a great book. We find its letters in created things, we must read these from beginning to end, and then we learn to read the book microcosm and the book macrocosm from beginning to end.

This is no longer a mere understanding, it lives over into feeling, it fuses the human being with the whole universe and he feels all things to be the expression of the divine Spirit of the Earth. If a man has reached this point, he voluntarily performs all his deeds in accordance with the will of the whole cosmos and this is what is known as Divine Bliss.

When we are able to think thus, we are treading the Rosicrucian path. The Christian school is based more on the development of inner feelings, in the Rosicrucian school all that is spread out in physical reality as the divine nature of the earth is allowed to work upon us and reverberate in us as feeling. These are two ways which are open to all. If you think in the manner of modern thought then you can take the Rosicrucian path, no matter how scientific you may be. Modern science is an assistance if you do not merely study cosmic evolution, reading the letters, as it were, but carry your research into what is concealed behind, just as in a book one does not consider the letters but reads the meaning by their aid. You must seek the spirit behind science, then science becomes to you but the letter for the spirit.

What has been said is not meant to be a comprehensive account of the Rosicrucian training, it is only meant to serve as an indication of what can be found in it. It is a path for present day man, it makes him capable of working into the future. These are only the elementary stages, to give some idea of the way. We can thus realise how through the Rosicrucian method one may oneself penetrate into the higher mysteries.

Spiritual Science is necessary to humanity for its further progress. What is to take place for the transforming of mankind must be brought about through men themselves. He who accepts the truth in his present incarnation will mould for himself in later incarnations the outer form for the deeper truths.

Thus what we have discussed in this lecture course is coordinated to a whole. It is the instrument which is to work creatively for future civilisation. It is taught today because the man of the future needs these teachings, because they must be directed into the evolutionary path of mankind. Everyone who will not accept this truth of the future, lives at the cost of other men. But he who accepts it lives for others, even if at first he is impelled by an egoistic longing for the higher worlds. If the path is the right one then it is of itself the destroyer of self seeking and the best educator of selflessness.

Occult development is now needed by mankind and must be implanted into it. An earnest, true striving for truth, step by step, this alone leads to genuine brotherliness, this is the magician which can best bring about the uniting of humanity. This will serve as the means to bring about humanity's great goal, unity; and we shall reach this goal when we develop the means to it in ourselves, when we seek to acquire these means in the noblest, purest way, for it is a matter of hallowing humanity through these means.

Thus Spiritual Science appears to us not only as a great ideal, but as a force with which we permeate ourselves and out of which knowledge wells up for us. Spiritual Science will become increasingly more widespread, it will penetrate more and more all the religious and practical aspects of life, just as the great law of existence penetrates all beings; it is a factor in humanity's evolution.

This is the sense in which these lectures on Rosicrucian Theosophy have been given. If it has been understood, not only abstractly, but so that feelings have been evoked through knowledge of facts, then it can work directly into life. When this knowledge flows into all our members, from head to heart and thence into the hand, into all that we do and create, then we have grasped the foundations of spiritual science. Then we have grasped the great task of civilisation which is laid in our hands, and then from this knowledge feelings, too, are developed which one who likes to take things easily would prefer to develop direct.

Rosicrucian Theosophy does not wish to revel in feelings, it wishes to bring the facts of the spirit before your eyes. The pupil must take part, must let himself be stimulated by the facts which have been described, feelings and sensations must be aroused in him through them. In this sense Spiritual Science should become a powerful impulse for the sphere of feeling, but at the same time be that which leads us direct into the facts of super-sensible perceptions, which lets them first arise as thoughts and then leads the seeker upward into the higher worlds.

This was intended to be the significance of these lectures.

• 1. Dr. Steiner refers to the articles in Lucifer-Gnosis afterwards published as Knowledge of the Higher Worlds.

Spiritual science must become an instrument of mutual understanding, whereby we learn to understand each other, as it were, across all of humanity and into the soul. And this learning to understand each other, even into the soul, must permeate us as an anthroposophical attitude, so to speak, and live in us, otherwise the occult truths that flow into humanity through spiritual science will not be easily understood by us either. In this respect, spiritual science can, because it is, so to speak, the key to understanding the innermost, bring about peace and harmony across the earth. How can it do that?

Let us illustrate this with a concrete example. Take, for example, the relationship between two people who have different religious beliefs across the earth, let us say Christianity and Buddhism. What we can say with reference to Christians and Buddhists, who provide us only with classical examples, we could of course also say for the world views of two people living side by side in Europe; for what applies on a large scale will also apply on a small scale through spiritual knowledge. If we take the Christian and the Buddhist as they are in the traditional orthodox creeds, how do they relate to each other? Well, in such a way that the Christian actually believes that the Buddhist can only be saved if he accepts Christianity in the form that he has. And so we see the missionary activities of Christians among Buddhists; they take their particular confession there. And the orthodox Buddhist behaves in a very similar way. Suppose both became anthroposophists. How would a Christian, as an anthroposophical Christian, relate to a Buddhist? Well, let us say that he hears what is one of the most important things in Buddhism and what, basically, is only properly understood by someone who lives within Buddhism itself. Today, there are two ways of learning about the content of the various religious beliefs: from people who study comparative religion and from those who learn about the content of the various religious beliefs in a spiritual-scientific way. If we consider those who practice comparative religion, we must say that they are extraordinarily hardworking and active people who endeavor to cultivate the scholarly comparison of different religious beliefs. But when they compare these religious beliefs, something very special comes to light; then what they are looking for, even if they do not admit it, is actually only the untruthfulness of the various religious beliefs. These people are looking for what is not true, what was accepted by the various religious beliefs in childlike times; that is, they are looking for untruth. The person who studies this as a spiritual scientist seeks the main core in the individual religious beliefs; he seeks what is contained in a single nuance, but still as a perceptional nuance, in this or that religious belief. He seeks, therefore, what is true in the individual religious beliefs, not what is false.

In this respect, things can go strangely. Isn't it true that no one who knows the facts will have anything but the greatest respect for Max Müller, perhaps the greatest scholar of comparative religion or the greatest authority on religious studies. He, too, did not give much more than what one might call: the untruth of the oriental creeds. But he believed that he was giving everything with it. And then H. P. Blavatsky appeared and spoke quite differently. She spoke in such a way that one saw in her: she knows the main core of the oriental creeds.

What did Max Müller say? His judgment is somewhat grotesque and shows that a scholar does not necessarily need to be well-versed in logic. He thought that people follow Blavatsky, who only gives them a completely false representation of oriental religions, while she does not take into account the true representation of them, which, for example, he, Max Müller, gives. And he used the following comparison: Yes, when people are walking down the street and see a real pig grunting, they are not particularly surprised, but when they see a person grunting like a pig, it causes a stir. He wanted to compare what is naturally given in the oriental religious systems, namely his kind of religious comparison, with the pig that grunts naturally – I am not making the comparison! - and wanted to compare what H. P. Blavatsky has given with a person who grunts like that. Well, I won't even talk about the tastelessness of the comparison; because it doesn't seem very logical to me: I would be a little surprised if I met a person who could grunt deceptively. But I would not, really not, use the other comparison of comparative religious studies with the said animal, and it is strange that Max Müller himself used it.

Spiritual science introduces us to the truth of different religions. Take a key point in Buddhism: the Buddhist knows, when he has understood the basic tenet of his faith, that there are bodhisattvas, and he knows that these bodhisattvas, once beginning as an individuality, undergo a more rapid development than the other human individualities and then ascend to the Buddha. Buddha is a general name for all those who, in a human, carnal incarnation, ascend from the bodhisattva to the Buddha. And one of those who are especially honored with the name Buddha is precisely the son of Shuddhodana: Gautama Buddha. And with regard to him, it must be recognized, as with every Buddha, that when he attained the dignity of Buddha at the age of twenty-nine, the incarnation in which this occurred was his last incarnation, and that he would not need to descend again to a carnal incarnation on earth. This is regarded as a truth by Buddhists. A comparative religion scholar would regard it as a childish notion. But the anthroposophist, who familiarizes himself with the secrets of religions in all fields, does not approach the Buddha in this way, but he knows that such a thing is a truth. And so, just like any devout Buddhist, the anthroposophist faces Buddhism and says: Yes, I know that there are such things as bodhisattvas who ascend to the Buddha, who do not need to reincarnate again. That is one of the sentences of your religious community that I recognize, just as you do, and by acknowledging it, I can look up to your Buddha with reverence, just as you do. That is to say, the anthroposophical Christian begins to fully understand what the Buddhist says, and he has the same feelings and perceptions with him, he shares them with him, and they understand each other from the one side at first.

Now let us take the opposite case, where the Buddhist has also become an anthroposophist and is learning to recognize what the Christian, who has raised himself above the narrow-mindedness of the confessional orthodox point of view, knows about Christianity. Let us assume that the Buddhist Buddhist hears what a Christian can say about the Christ Impulse itself. He hears that within Christianity, within Christian esotericism, it has been recognized that at one point in the course of evolution, a being called Lucifer approached man in his development; he then hears that as a result, this human being descended lower than would have been the case had there been no Luciferic influence. And he then hears that it is actually something that we look up to as if it were a matter for the gods when we consider the rebellion and revolt of Lucifer against the progressive powers of the gods. So we are looking into a matter for the gods. And then we hear from the Christian who really understands his Christianity that the settlement of this matter between the advancing gods and Lucifer had to become what we call the Mystery of Golgotha. And why?

Well, in its present form, death and everything associated with death has really come about through the influence of Lucifer. But death is something that can only be found in the physical world. There is no death in a supersensible world, insofar as supersensible worlds are accessible to man with his clairvoyant consciousness. Not even the group souls of animals die; they only transform. There is metamorphosis, but not what is called death. The disintegration, the falling apart of a part of a particular entity, death, only exists in the physical world. Now, as a compensation, it had to be chosen - this can only be hinted at - by supernatural beings to suffer death in order to have a common cause with men, something that could be a compensation for the Luciferian rebellion. To conquer Lucifer, the Divine had to go through death; to do so, it had to descend to earth.

So what happened through the Mystery of Golgotha is a divine matter through which a compensation was created for the Lucifer matter. It is the only divine matter that has taken place before the eyes of men. This unique impulse, which cannot be imagined as anything other than the passing through of the Divine through death on the physical plane and the emanation of the Christ impulse into the spiritual atmosphere of the earth from that point on. This is now regarded by anyone who knows Christianity as the primary essence of that Christianity. In this way, Christianity, understood in a deeper sense, differs from all other religions in that the other religions see the main thing about their origin in some religious founder, in a personality; but that Christianity does not see the essential in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, but sees in this personal founder only the bearer of the Christ impulse, that Christianity sees the essential in a fact. This must be grasped with all possible intensity: in a fact that had to take place as such at some point in the evolution of the earth: in the passing through of the divine through death. That is the special truth of Christianity: that it is not an individuality but a fact, an event, an experience that is placed at the starting point. Of course, it does not matter if someone says to us, “Yes, look, Jesus of Nazareth still has all kinds of passions, all kinds of qualities that a, let us say, according to oriental views, somehow advanced man should no longer have.” That does not matter at all. That is not the point at all. Anyone who allows themselves to be misled by this has no understanding of Christianity, because Christianity is not about Jesus of Nazareth at all, but about the event of Golgotha, about that fact. Let other founders of religions have personal qualities that other peoples like better than those of Jesus of Nazareth! But those who become Buddhists or anthroposophists will realize that in Christianity it is the event of Golgotha that matters, and they will give the Christian back what he has given them. They will say: Just as you yourself admit that there are bodhisattvas who develop as individualities, ascend to the Buddha and then do not need to incarnate again, so we admit that once in the development of man such a passing through of the divine through death has occurred. You admit that there is a shade of truth in our religion, and we admit that there is a shade of truth in yours. — Thus both sides understand each other. They would not understand each other, for example, and discord would be created if Christians came who thought they had become Anthroposophists and said: I don't believe you that a Buddha can no longer appear in a physical body, but I assume that in a certain time the Buddha will appear again in a physical body. - That would be an impossibility for someone who recognizes the essence of Buddhism. It would be impossible to expect the Buddhist to believe that his Buddha could appear in the flesh again. The Buddhist would say: “You do not understand Buddhism.” And it is quite natural and should not be a matter for discussion that just as the person who claims that a Buddha will come again in the flesh does not know Buddhism, so the person who claims that a Christ can come flesh again, who therefore does not realize that it concerns here a unique life of a divine entity on Earth, precisely for the purpose of passing through death on the physical plane, and not something else. So it concerns mutual understanding across the whole Earth, to really grasp each other and thereby establish peace. Discord would be caused if one were to claim to a Buddhist that Buddha would reappear in the flesh; and discord would be caused if one were to claim that the Christ could come again in the flesh. Such things would have to take a deep revenge, for they are impossibilities in view of what really lives in the evolution of mankind. It would be grotesque if anyone were to claim that the Christ had to come again and that people should understand him better now than they did then and should prepare themselves better for him and not kill him: such a person would not know that the killing was crucial and that without it there would be no Christianity at all! The good will to understand really does lead to mutual understanding, and we see how spiritual science can be an instrument for seeking the main core in the individual religious denominations everywhere. If you really want to, you will find it. That is why it is the message of peace for the world. Spiritual science will have to create a cultural soul for the whole world, just as it has given rise to the material cultural body that now extends across the whole earth in industry and commerce. It is precisely by recognizing the diversity that has been given to humanity in the various religious beliefs, and then in turn relating to that which appears to us as the core of truth through spiritual science, that we achieve a kind of synthesis, a unification of the various world views in our time. This should be emphasized with regard to one point.

The aim of the anthroposophically oriented movement that we are pursuing here has never been to present the differences between religious denominations in such a way as to ascribe advantages to one religious denomination and disadvantages to the other. How often has it been said: The spiritual height that was there immediately after the Atlantic catastrophe in the culture of the ancient Indian Rishis has not been reached at all today. It has therefore not been reached by Christianity as it exists today either. We do not indicate advantages and disadvantages, but present the individual religions in their essence. So we also only present when we draw attention to other differences. If we follow the more oriental way of thinking, namely the one that has the most followers, the Buddhist one, you will see one thing: there the main interest of the people is taken up by what is called the passage through the various incarnations. They speak there of a bodhisattva; but a bodhisattva is not one who lives only from the year of birth to the year of death, but one who comes back again and again and then becomes a Buddha; and one speaks of bodhisattvas as if they appeared in various numbers within the development of humanity. One generalizes more, one grasps more the individualities that remain. But how has it been done so far in the Western view? The exact opposite was the case. When people spoke of Socrates, Plato, Raphael, Michelangelo, they were referring to personalities, and here the Western view presents the limited entities as the essential being. This had its good side, because thereby a special education was achieved to chisel out and work out the individual human personalities. This was essentially the case with those views that H. P. Blavatsky, for example, did not understand: the ancient Hebrew and the New Testament views.

One looked, for example, to Elijah. The occult researches about him have something surprising. I need only say that we notice the uniqueness of which makes him a forerunner of what should have happened through the Christ Impulse. He still understands the matter in such a way that the Divine Being is expressed in the National Ego; but he already points out that the most worthy means of recognition lies in the Ego itself. In this respect, Elijah can be seen as a kind of herald of Christianity, and none of the other prophets seems to me to be a herald in the same way as Elijah. There is still a hint of Jehovah in his words, but with him we find Jehovah as close to the human ego as possible. Then we turn our attention to another figure, again as an individual personality, to John the Baptist. We find how he precedes the Christ Impulse, how John the Baptist really presents himself as the one who characterizes the Christ Impulse in words. He says: Change your mind, no longer look to the times of ancient clairvoyance, but seek the Kingdoms of Heaven within your own humanity! — That which the Christ Impulse is in reality: John the Baptist characterizes it. He is a herald of Christianity in a most wonderful way. What lives in the heart of John the Baptist appears to us as a kind of further development, an inner spiritual further development, compared to what lived in Elijah.

We then turn to Raphael and look at him as seemingly a very different figure from John the Baptist; but by looking at Raphael - yes, we just need to immerse ourselves in him a little in a truly human way, and we find in him a herald of Christianity.

Take the following. We turn to a passage from the Acts of the Apostles, the passage where it says: “And Paul came to Athens, and the Athenians gathered around him, and Paul stood before them and said: You women and men of Athens, you have so far worshiped your gods in all kinds of signs; but the Godhead does not live in external signs in reality. You also have an altar, however, on which it says: “To the unknown God!” But I say to you that the unknown God is the one who cannot be indicated by external signs in his true form, but who underlies all that is alive and all that exists. He is the one who lived on earth and was resurrected, the one who, through resurrection, will lead man himself to resurrection.” And further on, the Acts of the Apostles tell us – and we can almost see Paul standing before the Athenians – how some Athenians believed and others did not. Among the former was Dionysius, the Areopagite. Then we look at the painting that hangs in the Camera della Signatura in Rome and was painted by Raphael, and which is called “The School of Athens”. Now let us assume – as was quite natural at the time – Raphael had before him the passage from the Acts of the Apostles that we have just been discussing. It came to life in him. And now we look at the various Athenians, to whom he gave the faces, and except for the hand movement, we see stepping forward – stepping forward among the Athenians – a figure whom we recognize if we just consider Paul in the Acts of the Apostles.

And so we could go through the most diverse things with Raphael. If we focus on his various Madonnas, we must ask ourselves, however: Isn't one thing strange about Raphael, he is great when he paints the scenes that show the becoming, the growing in the emergence of Christianity, the little Jesus as something that contains the whole of Christianity becoming in the germ. But we do not find Raphael's painting of Judas betraying Christ, nor does he actually paint Christ carrying the cross, because his Christ carrying the cross seems to us to be forced, not at all like Raphael's other works. Instead, we find the Annunciation, the Ascension, that is, the things that point precisely to the emergence of Christianity.

And how did these things speak to people? Yes, they spoke most peculiarly. You know that one of Raphael's most magnificent works is in Dresden: the Sistine Madonna. People who think superficially might think that this is a work of art that was paraded through Germany like a victor. It made no impression on Goethe at all because he had heard how people generally thought about this work. As a young man, Goethe was not yet as sure in his judgment as he was in his old age and was still receptive to what people said. What did the museum officials in Dresden tell him? Well, that the child was ugly in its entirety, that the Madonna had been painted over by an amateur, that the little putti below had been added by some kind of handyman. That was still the attitude towards the Sistine Madonna when Goethe came to Dresden as a young man. But let us see how it is now. Let us consider what Raphael actually has become for people! Raphael worked in Rome at a time when there was much dispute about religious dogmas. The way in which Raphael paints the Christian mysteries is interdenominational. If we take the later great Italian painters, we see the religious mysteries painted in such a way that we recognize: this is the Christianity of the Latin race. Raphael paints in such a way that we are dealing with universal renderings of Christian mysteries that transcend nations. That is why we see how, in a short time, the Sistine Madonna finds its way into the souls even in Protestant areas. And if anthroposophy is to work for the understanding of the Christian mysteries, it will find its way best into those souls in which the feelings live that are won by images like the Sistine Madonna, into those souls that are prepared in this way. And when we say today that Christianity is only at the beginning of its development, that it will only receive its true form through the spiritual key that anthroposophy is able to give, then we know that Raphael stands as a herald for this Christianity.

And again we turn our gaze to yet another figure, taking only what is Western in outlook: we turn to the figure of the German poet Novalis. If we turn to Novalis, we find traces of the purest anthroposophical teaching in every detail; one need only unravel them, so to speak. Thus we see how Novalis is imbued with an anthroposophical Christianity.

We have thus presented four figures as personalities. That was the Western view. Now comes the spiritual-scientific deepening. Through this, people will already experience why, for example, Raphael feels that magnetic attraction to be incarnated into the earth on a Good Friday, in order to outwardly suggest through the birth on Good Friday that he has something to do with the Easter mystery. These things can only be hinted at today; in a few decades people will understand the things that are being asserted in this way, just as they understand scientific facts today: that it is the same individuality that lived in Elijah, John the Baptist, Raphael and Novalis. First they will recognize the personalities, then the individuality as it has passed through them. And now we understand the fourfold heraldry and the ascent in this fourfold heraldry. Now we stand by such a thing quite differently than we used to. Today we already know that the original form of the Stanze in Rome can no longer be seen; they have been spoiled, are no longer as they were painted by Raphael's hand, and only centuries need pass for these things to disappear. Even if the replicas will have a longer life, what created the individuality is dissolved into its atoms. But even if Raphael's physical works are pulverized by the passage of time, we know that the same individuality that created those works was present again in Novalis and brought about, in a different way, what was in him.

Thus we see how today, in addition to what the Western way of looking at things has achieved, the limited vision of personalities is added to individuality; how, in other words, the best that the Western world view has achieved is combined with the best that the Eastern way of looking at things has. This is how time progresses. As humanity progresses and realizes these things, the spiritual world will not remain silent, but will speak to humanity in even the most mundane of phenomena. And so, people will not only have to rise to the spiritual world through a kind of knowledge, but more and more this knowledge will be transformed into a kind of, one might say, experience. But for this to happen, a real spiritual movement is needed today. That such a movement is necessary is evident simply from the fact that people no longer judge even the simplest things in the right way.

Let us single out one detail today. A person who leads a healthy life goes through waking and sleeping in the course of twenty-four hours. We know that when he falls asleep, the physical and etheric bodies remain in bed and the astral and I go out. What then happens to what remains in bed? When the clairvoyant looks back from his astral body at what is happening in the etheric and physical bodies, he sees how a more vegetative life begins, a life that has actually been destroyed by daytime consciousness. Fatigue is compensated for; that is, the etheric body and the physical body now flourish and sprout, and the astral body and the I have been withdrawn. When they submerge again into the physical body and etheric body in the morning, they have to make them tired again; they graze, let wither what has sprouted during the night.

Everything that is in the microcosm is also present in the macrocosm. When we see in spring how the earth lets its greenery shoot out in the plants, how flowers and leaves sprout and how the plants prepare to bear fruit, what do we have there? The one who compares externally will say that the waking up in the morning can be compared to the waking up of nature in spring. But the opposite is true! We have to compare the blossoming in spring with falling asleep. We have to compare the emergence and growth of plants in spring with what happens in the etheric and physical body of a person when they fall asleep. Then, as summer approaches, it becomes more and more alive, as in the human physical and etheric bodies in the middle of the sleep period. And in autumn it becomes as if the human being descends into the physical and etheric body in the morning, in autumn, which causes withering of what has sprouted during spring and summer. One must correctly put together what happens outside and inside; one must not seek external allegories and compare spring with waking up and autumn with falling asleep, but the other way around.

So that we can say: That which is the spirit of the earth goes to sleep in spring and wakes up as earth spirits in autumn and winter. In winter, they are connected to the earth as earth spirits, in order to rise again in spring and summer to the heights of heaven, to the astral heights and to the other side of the earth. When spring comes again, they go back to sleep.

It does not contradict that the earth sleeps once on one half and the other time on the other half. Something similar is also the case with man in a certain respect. The person who follows the processes clairvoyantly sees that in spring it is the same as when a person falls asleep, where the individual spirit withdraws into the astral world; he sees that in spring what we call the earth spirits withdraw into the astral world, and vice versa. Yes, today's humanity – except for those sitting here, who would probably burst out laughing if one were to speak of the falling asleep and waking up of the earth spirits. One believes this humanity; it does everything to prove that it has no idea of the real processes of the world. But it was not always so, not at all, but it was different in the past! There was an old human clairvoyance, and that saw these facts correctly. It was seen that the earth spirits withdraw in spring to go up, so to speak, into cosmic heights. In autumn these spirits descend again. This was recognized in ancient times. It was natural to point out that in the middle of summer there is something like an absence of the actual earth spirit from the earth. Instead, there is an upsurge of the elemental nature spirits, as in a paroxysm, and a lagging behind of what is earthly-bodily on the earth, which thus emerges through the senses. If one wanted to make this clear, one could not do better than to move the Feast of St. John to this time, in order to point out how the sprouting nature spirits and the actual spirits of the earth, which are the I and the astral body of the earth, work.

But what about when winter approaches? Then the earth wakes up, and the astral body and the ego are connected with the earth. That is when we have to move the festivals that primarily relate to the spiritual part of the human being. That is where Christmas has been moved to. And then, when the spirit of the earth moves upwards, which is indicated by Easter, this movement away from the earth, this movement into the astral, was related to the relationship between the sun and the moon.

All these things that we are looking into connect us in a wonderful way with ancient clairvoyance, showing us how, in what has been handed down from ancient times, we have to see something that has to do with ancient human clairvoyance. It is quite natural for the materialistic world view to say that it has only the body to educate, that it says: It is inconvenient for us, especially with regard to cheque transactions and similar things, to have Easter early one year and late the next, and this must be remedied so that trade and industry can get away with it as comfortably as possible. Easter should always be celebrated on the first Sunday in April! — This is only appropriate for the materialistic age, which has no connection with the spiritual world. Just as it is appropriate for materialism to entertain such ideas, it is equally true that a spiritual movement must maintain the connection with humanity's ancient festivals. And we will not hold back in doing what is appropriate for a spiritual worldview, especially with regard to practical activity.

And this should be expressed in what is presented to you in our calendar, which of course appears ridiculous to the outside world, but we do not want to withhold it from them, even if they think we are fools because of it. It is expressed through this calendar that we must maintain the connection with ancient times. In the illustrations for the calendar, which were created by a dear and beloved member of our group, you have a renewal of that which has already become dry and barren: the imaginations that relate to the constellations of the sun and moon and the signs of the zodiac, renewed for the soul of today, given in such a way that you really benefit from it when you look at the sequence of weeks and days. If you ask how you can gain access to such things yourself, then take a look at the Soul Calendar: these meditations are the result of many years of occult research and experience. If you make them effective in the soul, you will see that what is forming in the soul is the connection between the effectiveness of spiritual

worlds in the succession of time. And what we call the Mystery of Golgotha, we have made outwardly, exoterically, so that it does not shock at first glance. We have drawn a circle around it, on which 1912/13 is written, but inwardly the calendar is calculated in such a way that the beginning is marked by the birth of human ego-consciousness, that is, with the Mystery of Golgotha. And besides, the years are counted from Easter to Easter, which is bound to prove rather inconvenient for commercial life, but is necessary for spiritual life.

Thus something is provided that has grown out of our way of thinking and that can be used by everyone, so that by using it they can take a step closer to the spiritual path than can be achieved by any other means.

It will become more and more apparent how the things we undertake within our anthroposophical movement are actually conceived from a unified basic principle and impulse, and how the individual does not owe his existence to a whim, but is placed in such a way that he really fits into our work as a whole as a single building block. For this, of course, it is necessary that more and more individual members also develop an understanding of this collaboration and that we move beyond special interests and special aspirations and focus more on what unites us. Of course, it is understandable that many individual members have special aspirations and special requests, that some would like to bring this or that into the anthroposophical movement. But especially here in this place, where truly selfless cooperation will be necessary if we really want to achieve what we have planned, it must be deeply, deeply rooted in our hearts that we will only have a beneficial effect if we do not assert our special aspirations, but rather what can be integrated into the whole, what is being striven for, as a building block. Otherwise it cannot become a whole. This is so extraordinarily important, and in this respect I believe that the realization of what should have happened there is the basis for studying how the anthroposophical movement should develop.

So today I have tried to present to you some of our anthroposophically oriented views, and we have thus created a kind of substitute for what should have been this time, but could not be because not all the official approvals have been obtained: namely, the laying of the foundation stone of our Johannesbau. But we hope that in the not too distant future we will be able to make up for this. For perhaps in doing so we will also lay the foundation stone for a revival of the anthroposophical movement as we understand it in the West. And if we succeed in doing the right thing in this field, then we will already have provided the proof that we, in all loyalty to the truth, without any inclination towards sensationalism, are making those occult efforts our own which present-day humanity needs for its further development.

Today let us try to add something to what is already familiar to us. What I have to say may be useful to some of you in that it will lead to a more exact idea of the nature of man and his relationship to the cosmos.

Anthroposophists often hear objections to spiritual science from outsiders. Scholars and laymen alike criticize the division of man into the four members of physical body, etheric body, astral body and ego.¹ These skeptics often say that perhaps one who has developed hidden soul forces may be able to see these things but there is no reason why one who has not should concern himself with such ideas. It should be emphasized, however, that life itself, if one is attentive to it, confirms what spiritual science has to say. Furthermore, the things anthroposophy has to teach can be extremely useful in everyday life. This usefulness, which is not meant to be taken pragmatically, gradually comes to carry conviction even for those who are not particularly inclined to concern themselves with clairvoyant perception.

Now let's consider nervousness. It is well-known today that there are many people who complain of nervousness and all that this implies, and we are hardly surprised when the statement is made that there is none who is not afflicted. Considering present social conditions to which all this nervousness can be attributed, such a statement can be readily understood.

Nervousness becomes manifest in a variety of ways, most obviously perhaps when a person becomes an emotional fidgety-gibbet, that is to say, someone who constantly jumps from one thought to another and is unable to hold a single thought in his head, let alone carry it through to a conclusion. Such constant scurrying in the inner life is the most common form of nervousness. Another is one in which people do not know what to do with themselves and are unable to make anything of themselves. When called upon to make a decision in a given situation, they are at a loss for an answer. This condition can lead to more serious symptoms that may finally be expressed in various forms of disease that simulate organic illnesses in a most deceptive way. Gastric disturbances are an example. Many other conditions might be mentioned, but who in our time does not know of them? We need only mention the “political alcoholism” that has pervaded the important events of public life. This expression was coined because of the way political affairs in Europe have been conducted during recent months. There has been no little talk about it since people began to notice how unpleasantly the prevailing nervousness is making itself felt.

If people remain as they are, we need not doubt but that there will be no improvement in the near future. The prospects of change are by no means hopeful. There are many harmful factors strongly influencing our lives that pass like an epidemic from person to person and thus those who are weak also become infected.

It is extremely harmful for our time that many of the men who hold high and responsible positions in public life have had to study as one does today. There are whole branches of learning that are taught in such a way that throughout the entire school year the student will be unable to spend his time and energy really thinking through what he has heard from his professors. As a result, when he is faced with an exam, he is forced to cram for it. This cramming, however, is dreadful because it provides no real connection of interest of the soul with the subject matter that the student is to be examined in. No wonder the prevailing opinion of the student often is one of wanting to forget as soon as possible what he has just had to learn!

What are the consequences of these educational methods? In some respects, men are no doubt receiving the training needed to take part in public life. But, as a result of their schooling, they are not inwardly united with their work. They feel remote from it. Now there is nothing worse than to feel remote in your heart from the things you have to do with your head. It is not only repugnant to sensitive people, but it also acts most adversely on the strength of the etheric body. Thus, because of the tenuous interest that may exist in the core of a person's soul for his professional pursuits, his etheric body is gradually weakened. Precisely the opposite effects are obtained, however, when anthroposophy is taken up in a healthy way. A man will not merely learn that he consists of physical body, etheric body, astral body and ego. He will also come to behave in such a way that these members unfold strongly and harmoniously in him.

Often in anthroposophy, even a simple experiment repeated with diligence can work wonders. Let me speak in detail, for example, of forgetfulness, so common and such a nuisance, but also so significant in our lives. Strange as it may seem, anthroposophy shows it to be harmful to health, and that many upsets bordering on severe illness can be avoided if people would only be less forgetful. And who can claim to be exempt, since there is no one who is not forgetful to some degree. Just consider the numerous cases in which people can never find where they put things. One has lost his pencil, another cannot find his cufflinks, etc., etc., all of which seems trivial but such things do, after all, occur often enough in life.

There is a good exercise for gradually curing such forgetfulness. Suppose, for example, a lady is forever putting her brooch down when she takes it off in the evening, and then cannot find it in the morning. You might think the best cure for her forgetfulness would be to remember to put it always in the same place. There is, however, a far more effective means of remembering where it is. This does not, of course, apply to all objects but in this case the lady should say to herself, “I will put my brooch in a different place each evening, but as I do so I will hold the thought in mind that I have put it in a particular spot. Then I will form a clear picture in my mind of all the surroundings. Having done this, I will go quietly away. I realize that if I only do this once, I probably will not succeed, but if I make a habit of it, I will find that my forgetfulness gradually disappears.”

This exercise is based on the fact that the person's ego is brought consciously into connection with the deed he does, and also that he forms a picture of it. Connecting the ego, that is, the spiritual kernel of man's being, in this way with a pictorial image, sharpens memory. Such an exercise can be quite useful in helping us to become less forgetful.

Further results can also be attained from such an exercise. When it becomes habit to hold such thoughts when things are put aside, it represents a strengthening of the etheric body, which, as we know, is the bearer of memory. But now assume you have advised someone to do this exercise not because he is forgetful but because he is nervous. It will prove to be an excellent cure. His etheric body will be strengthened and the nervous tendencies will disappear. In such cases, life itself demonstrates that what spiritual science teaches is correct.

Here is another example that may also appear trivial on the surface. You know that the physical and etheric bodies are intimately connected. Now anyone with a healthy soul will be moved to compassion for clerical workers and others whose professions demand a great deal of writing. Perhaps you have noticed the strange movements they make in the air whenever they are about to write. Actually, with some of them the movements are not so extreme and they may only give a kind of jerk when they write, a jerk repeated for every up and down stroke. You can see the jerking in the writing. This condition is easily understood through spiritual science. In a healthy human being the etheric body, guided by the astral body, is always able to permeate the physical body. Thus, the physical body is normally the servant of the etheric body. When, undirected by the astral body, the physical body executes movements on its own, it is symptomatic of an unhealthy condition. These jerks represent the subordination of the etheric to the physical body, and denote that the weak etheric body is no longer fully able to direct the physical. Such a relationship between the physical and etheric bodies lies at the occult foundation of every form of cramp or convulsion. Here the physical body has become dominant and makes movements on its own, whereas in a healthy man all his movements are subordinated to the will of the astral body working through the etheric.

Again, there is a way of helping a person with such symptoms, provided the condition has not progressed too far, if one takes into account the occult facts. In this case we must recognize the existence and efficacy of the etheric body and try to strengthen it. Imagine someone so dissipated that his fingers get to shaking and jerking when he tries to write. You certainly would do well to advise him to write less and take a good vacation, but better still you might also recommend that he try to acquire a different handwriting. Tell him to stop writing automatically and try practicing for fifteen minutes a day to pay attention to the way he forms the letters he writes. Tell him to try to shape his handwriting differently and to cultivate the habit of drawing the letters. The point here is that when a man consciously changes his handwriting, he is obliged to pay attention to, and to bring the innermost core of his being into connection with what he is doing. The etheric body is strengthened in this way and the person is made healthier.

It would not be a bad idea to introduce such exercises systematically into the classroom to strengthen the etheric body even in childhood. But, even though anthroposophy can give such pedagogical advice, it will doubtless be a long time before leading educators will consider it anything but foolish. Nevertheless, suppose that children were first taught to write a particular style of penmanship and after a few years were expected to acquire an entirely different character in their handwriting. The change, and the conscious attention it would involve, would result in a remarkable strengthening of the etheric body.

So you see, something can be done to strengthen the etheric body. This is of immense importance because in our time weakness of the etheric body leads to many unhealthy conditions. What has been indicated here represents a definite way of working upon the etheric body. When these exercises are practiced, an actual force is applied to the etheric body that certainly could not be applied if the existence of this body were denied. Surely, however, the effects of the force, when they become apparent, demonstrate the existence of the etheric body.

The etheric body can be strengthened by performing another exercise, in this case, for the improvement of memory. By thinking through events, not only in the way they occurred but also in reverse sequence, that is, by starting at the end of an event and pursuing it through to the beginning, will help to make the etheric body stronger. Historical events, for example, which are usually learned in chronological sequence, can be followed backwards. Or a play or story can be thought through in reverse from end to beginning. Such exercises when done thoroughly are highly effective in consolidating and strengthening the etheric body.

When you come to think of it, it soon becomes apparent that people do not do the things that would contribute to the strengthening of the etheric body. The restless daily bustle of modern life does not allow them the opportunity to come to that inner quiet required for such exercises, and in the evening after the day's work they are generally too tired to be bothered. Should spiritual science begin to penetrate their souls, however, people would soon see how many things done in the bustle of modern life could be dispensed with, and they would find the time to practice such exercises. They also would become aware of the positive results that could be achieved if such exercises were carefully applied in education.

Another little exercise may be mentioned here. If it has not been cultivated from early youth, it is, perhaps, not quite so useful in later life. Nevertheless, it is still a good exercise to practice in later years. With certain things we do, no matter whether or not they are of enduring importance, it is good practice to look carefully at what is being done. This is comparatively easy in writing and I am quite sure many people would soon correct their hideous handwriting if they really looked at the letters.

In still another exercise a person should endeavor to watch himself the way he walks, moves his head, laughs, etc. In short, he should try to form a clear picture of his movements and gestures. Few people actually know what they look like when they are walking, for instance. While it is good to make this experiment, it should not be prolonged because it would quickly lead to vanity. Quite apart from the fact that it can be corrective of undesirable habits, this exercise also tends to consolidate the etheric body. When a man cultivates an awareness of his gestures and involuntary actions, the control of the astral becomes increasingly stronger over the etheric. Thus, he also becomes able, if necessary, to suppress certain actions or movements out of his free will.

It is an excellent accomplishment to be able to do quite differently the things we do out of habit. Nowadays, people only alter their handwriting for unlawful purposes, but I am not advocating a school of forgery when I suggest that if one changes one's handwriting honestly, it will help to consolidate one's etheric body. The point is that it is good to be able to do quite differently on occasion the things we do habitually. This does not mean that we need become fanatical about the indifferent use of our right and left hands. If a man, however, is occasionally able to do with his left hand what he commonly does with the right, he will strengthen the control of his astral over his etheric body.

The cultivation of the will, as we may call it, is most important. I have already mentioned how nervousness often makes it impossible for people to know what they should do. They do not know their desires, or even what they should desire. This may be regarded as a weakness of the will that is due to an insufficient control of the ego over the astral body. Some people do not know what they want and, if they do, they never manage to carry it out. Others, still, cannot bring themselves to will firmly what they should.

The way to strengthen one's will is not necessarily to carry out something one wishes, provided, of course, it will do no harm to leave the wish unfulfilled. Just examine your life and you will find countless desires it would no doubt be nice to satisfy, but equally possible to leave unsatisfied. Fulfillment of them would give you pleasure, but you can quite well do without. If you set out to examine yourself systematically in this way, every restraint will signify additional strength of the will, that is, strength of the ego over the astral body. If we subject ourselves to this procedure in later life, it becomes possible to make good much that has been neglected in our earlier education.

Let me emphasize that it is not easy to apply what has just been described in the education of the child. If a father, for example, denies a wish of his son that he could fulfill, he is apt to awaken the boy's antipathy. Since it is thus possible to arouse antipathy, you might say that the non- fulfillment of wishes in education is a doubtfully correct principle. What, then, is to be done? The answer is for the person guiding the child or pupil to deny himself the wishes in such a way that the child becomes aware of the denial. There is a strong imitative impulse at work here in the child, especially during the first seven years, and it will soon become evident that he will follow the example of his elders and also deny himself wishes. What is hereby achieved is of untold importance. When, through our interest in anthroposophy, our thoughts are directed in the right way, we come to know spiritual science not only as theory but as a wisdom of life that sustains and carries us forward.

A most important means of strengthening the control of the ego over the astral body was presented here in two recent lectures.² In them I discussed the importance of being flexible enough to consider what is said not only for, but also against, an issue to be able, as it were, to see both sides of a problem. Generally, people see only one side, but there is really no problem in life that should be treated this way. Pros and cons are never lacking. We would do well to acquire the habit of always adducing the pros as well as the cons in a case. Being what they are, human vanity and egoism usually favor what one wants to do. Therefore, it is also good to list the reasons against.

The fact is that man would so much like to be “good” that he is often convinced he will be if he does the things there are so many reasons in favor of doing, and disregards the things there are so many reasons against. It is an uncomfortable fact to have to realize, but there are always many possible objections to practically everything we do. People are not nearly as good as they think. That is a universal truth, a truism, but it can become an effective truth when it is made a practice in everything that is done to consider also what might be left undone.

The results to be attained by these means can be clarified by an example. No doubt you have met people so weak-willed that they would rather let others take care of their affairs. They would rather sit around asking themselves what they should do than find reasons in themselves to act. What I am now going to say must also be conceived as having many cons as well as pros. Assume that one of these weak-willed people is confronted by two others. One of them says, “Do this.” The other says, “Don't.” The one whose will exerts the stronger influence on the weak-willed person will be the victor. This is a most significant phenomenon because the decision of “yes” or “no” made by the weak-willed person will have been brought about by the adviser whose strength of will was the greater.

In contrast, however, suppose that I stand alone and quite independently face in my own heart the necessity of making a “yes” or “no” decision. Then, having answered “yes,” suppose I go forth and do what must be done. This “yes” will have released a strong force within me. When you thus place yourself in consciousness before a choice of alternatives, you allow strength to prevail over weakness simply from the manner in which your decision is made. This is important because in this way the control of the ego over the astral body is greatly strengthened. Try to carry out what I have just described and you will find it will do much to strengthen your will.

This problem, however, also has its darker side. You will not strengthen but only weaken your will if, instead of acting under the influence of what speaks for one course as opposed to another, you were out of slackness to do nothing. Seemingly you will have followed the “no” direction, but in reality you will have been merely lax and easy going. If you feel limp and weary, it would be better not to attempt to make a choice until you are inwardly strong and know that you can really follow through with the eventual pros and cons you place before your soul. It is obvious that such things must be brought before the soul at the right time.

The control of the ego over the astral body is also strengthened when we witness from our souls everything that creates a barrier between us and the surrounding world. The anthroposophist, however, should not feel that he should repress justified criticism if it is objective. On the contrary, it would represent a weakness to advocate the bad in place of the good, and one need not do this. But we must be able to distinguish something that is to be criticized objectively from something that we find exasperating simply because of its effect on ourselves. The more we make ourselves independent of what confronts us, the better. Thus it is good to practice self-denial in not considering bad in our fellow-men the things we consider bad only because they are bad for us. In other words, we should not apply our judgment only where we ourselves are not involved. This is really difficult to apply in life. When a man has lied to you, for instance, it is not easy to restrain your antipathy, but having caught him in it you should not immediately jump to conclusions. There is another way. We can observe from day to day how he acts and speaks and let this, rather than what he has done to us, form a basis for our judgment. Then you are taking into consideration what there is in the man himself and are not basing your judgment on the effect his conduct has made on you. Your personal relationship with him should be disregarded in order that you may view him quite objectively.

It is advisable for the strengthening of the ego to reflect on the fact that in all cases we might well refrain from a considerable portion of the judgments we pronounce. It would be more than enough if but a tenth of them were experienced in our souls. Our lives would by no means be impoverished thereby.

These may seem like small details I have given here, but it must also be our task now and again to consider such problems. Then, in order to lead purposeful, healthy lives, we see how differently life must be grasped than is ordinarily the case. It is not always right to send to the drug store for medicine when a man is ill. What is important is to order life in such a way that people become less susceptible to illnesses and that they have a less oppressive effect. They will become less oppressive when we strengthen the influence of the ego over the astral body, the astral body over the etheric, and the etheric body over the physical. Self-education and an influence upon the education of children can follow from our fundamental anthroposophical convictions.

• 1. Spritual science views man as a fourfold being:
  
  The physical-mineral body man has in common with the mineral kingdom.
  
  The etheric or life body is the carrier of all life and growth forces. It is the element man has in common with the plant kingdom. Plants have physical and etheric bodies.
  
  The astral body is the carrier of feelings, instincts, etc., that man has in common with the animals, which possess a physical, etheric, and astral body.
  
  The ego, unique spark of divinity in man. It makes possible self-awareness and enables man to become a free being capable of choice between good and evil.
  
  —Translator
  
  
• 2. How to Disprove Theosophy, January 8, 1912; How to prove Theosophy, January 10, 1912. These lectures have not yet been published in English.

Here is much complaint nowadays of ‘nervousness’ and all that this word implies; and we can scarcely be surprised at the statement that there is no man or woman nowadays who is not nervous. We can well understand even this declaration. These conditions manifest themselves in life in various ways: most easily in this way, that the person becomes what we might call a ‘psychological fidget’—that is to say, a man or woman who is unable to hold fast a single thought, but constantly jumps from one thought to another. This constant hurry of the inner life is one of the easiest forms of nervousness. There is also another form, where people do not know what to do with themselves—cannot make anything of themselves. Or again this: when they are called upon to make some decision, they never know what they shall do in the given situation. This latter nervousness can lead to still worse symptoms, till it expresses itself in manifold forms of disease, even imitating organic diseases—gastric disturbances, for instance—in a most deceptive way. Many another condition might be mentioned. Who does not know of these things in our time? We need not go so far as to speak of a ‘political alcoholism’ with regard to the great events of public life. Quite recently, there has been no little comment on public affairs in this direction. This very phrase was recently coined for the way the political affairs in Europe were conducted during recent months. People began to perceive how very unpleasantly the prevailing nervousness is making itself felt.

Now there can be no doubt that it will grow no better for mankind in the near future. The prospects are by no means hopeful; for there are many harmful factors and abuses, strongly influencing our present life, and passing like an epidemic from one man to another, so that others who are in good health generally, but who are weak, are as if infected by them. Among other things, it is extremely harmful for our time that many people who come into high and responsible positions have studied in the way one does. There are whole branches of scholarship, pursued in this way: For a whole year, the college student will spend his time and energy quite otherwise than really thinking what the professors are giving in their lectures. Then, when he has to know something for his examination, he will set to work and ‘cram’ for it during a few weeks; and the worst feature is that there is no real connection—no inner interest of the soul in the cramming, or rather, in the subject of the cramming. In our schools, the prevailing opinion of the pupils often is: ‘If only I could soon forget what I have just had to learn!’ What is the consequence? No doubt, in some respects, men are thus fitted to take a hand in public life. But they are not inwardly united with the thing that they are doing; they feel remote from it. Now there is nothing worse than to feel remote, in your heart, from the things that you are having to do with your head. It has a most adverse effect on the strength of the human ethereal body. The ethereal body becomes more and more enfeebled under such pursuits, precisely because of the very slight connection which then exists between the core of the man's soul and the activity that he engages in.

For one who takes it in a healthy way, Anthroposophy should have precisely the opposite effect. He will not merely learn that man consists of ‘physical body, ethereal body, astral body and Ego;’ he will behave in such a way that the several members unfold strongly and healthily. If a man makes a very simple experiment but repeats it with diligence, he will often find that the very slightest thing can work miracles. What I have just described is closely connected with the quick forgetfulness of many people. It is often said that such forgetfulness is a great nuisance in life. Anthroposophy says more than this; it shows that it is also harmful to health. Many things even bordering on very severe illnesses of human nature would be avoided if people were less forgetful. And who can claim to be exempt? Who has not to complain of forgetfulness in some respect? Assume, for instance, that a man begins to notice he can never find things where he put them. It may seem strange for us to be speaking of these things, but after all, they do occur in life; and there is a very good exercise for gradually curing such forgetfulness. Suppose, for instance, that a lady is in the habit of putting her brooch down somewhere, and presently discovers that she can never find it again in the morning. No doubt, you will say, the best thing to do is always to put it in the same place; but we will speak of a far more effective cure. She should say to herself: ‘Now, all the more, I will put it in different places; but as I do so, I will unfold the thought: I have put the thing there, and I will mark the surroundings well. And now I quietly go away; and I shall see, if I only do this once, I shall not always succeed in finding it again quickly; but if I do it often, I shall see that my forgetfulness by-and-by disappears.’ The effect of this exercise is that the Ego is brought into connection with the fact, with the deed I do, and that a picture is developed. This bringing-together of the soul and spirit—the Ego, the kernel of our being,—and the pictorial image, can most effectively sharpen one's memory. And this can be very useful for life; one will forget far less. Still more, however, can be attained. Let us assume that it became a kind of habit for people to hold such thoughts when they take things off or when they put things aside. It would represent a strengthening of the ethereal body. For, as we know, the ethereal body is in a certain sense the bearer of memory. We need not therefore be surprised that this will strengthen the ethereal body. Assume, however, that you give someone this advice, not merely because he is forgetful but because he shows certain signs of nervousness. You will see that it is a very good cure; he will gradually put aside certain so-called nervous conditions. Life itself in such a case will prove that the things Anthroposophy teaches are correct.

In human nature, as you know, the physical body and the ethereal body are immediately connected. Now there is one thing observable in our time, which moves one with compassion if one bears a healthy soul in one's breast. Have you ever seen people who have to write much in their profession—Post Office workers, for example—and who make strange movements whenever they are about to write? It need not go so far as that, for when it has gone so far, it is already a pretty bad condition. It may be no more than this: that whenever they are writing, they have to give themselves a kind of jerk—a repeated jerk for every upward or every downward stroke. You can tell it from the handwriting if it is written like that. Such a condition can only be understood by Spiritual Science. As to the relation of the two bodies, in a thoroughly healthy human being the ethereal body must always be absolutely able to enter into the physical; and the physical body must always be the other's servant. It is an unhealthy state of affairs if the physical body executes movements on its own account; it represents a preponderance of the physical over the ethereal. We are then faced with an inherent weakness of the ethereal body. This kind of relation between the physical and the ethereal body lies at the occult foundation of every kind of cramp or convulsion. In all such conditions, the physical body is dominant and performs all manner of movements on its own. Here again—provided these conditions have not got the upper hand too much—there is a way of helping. We must only reckon with the occult facts; we must believe in the existence and activity of the several members of man's being.

Suppose someone has got into such a condition that his fingers continually shake when he begins to write. It will certainly be good to advise: ‘Take a holiday, write less for a time, and you will get over it!’ But this is only half the necessary advice; one could do much more by adding: ‘Without making too much effort, try every day—quarter or half an hour would do—to alter your writing, so that you have to attend, and not write mechanically, as in the past. For instance, while you used to write f in this way, do it now more upright, with a different form. Cultivate the habit of painting the letters.’

If spiritual knowledge became more widespread, the superiors of such an unfortunate man would not say, when he came back from his holiday: ‘What a crazy fellow you are, you are writing quite differently.’ People would realise that this is a healthy thing. The point is that when a man changes his handwriting, he is obliged to pay attention to what he is doing—that is, in other words, to bring the centre and core of his being into connection with the thing he does. To do so is to strengthen the ethereal body; thereby we become healthier human beings.

It would not be bad deliberately to work for this in school education. Anthroposophy must here give a piece of advice to the educational world, though doubtless it will not be followed for a long time yet. Suppose that when you first taught children to write, you taught them a certain style of handwriting; then, after a few years, you saw to it that they assumed a different character of writing. This change—and the conscious attention it involves—would result in an untold strengthening of the ethereal body.

You see that we can do something in life to strengthen our ethereal body. Now this is of immense importance, for numerous morbid states are due to the weakness of the ethereal body. Nay, we may even assert that many forms of illness would take an entirely different course if the ethereal body were stronger. The course they actually take is due to the weakened ethereal body, which is characteristic of the man of today.

What we have here been indicating represents a definite way of working upon the ethereal body. When we do this, we apply an actual force to something—a force we could certainly not apply if we denied the existence of this ‘something.’ If, then, the effects of the force thus applied became apparent, surely it proves the existence of the ‘something’—namely, in this case, the ethereal body.

Another thing to strengthen the ethereal body is to perform yet another exercise for the improvement of memory. It may already have been mentioned; let me repeat it nevertheless. We can do infinitely much to strengthen the ethereal body if we go through something that is familiar to us, not only in the way we know it, but in backward sequence. Say, for example, in school we have to learn by heart a sequence of Kings or the like; it is extremely good to learn them also in the opposite direction. If we do this in a comprehensive way, we do much to strengthen the ethereal body. To think through a whole play backwards, for instance, is highly effective in strengthening the ethereal body.

You will soon see that in ordinary modern life people do not do such things as would contribute to strengthen their ethereal bodies. They do not give themselves a chance in the restless bustle of modern life; they do not come to that inner quiet which is needful for such exercises. In the evening, people are generally too tired to harbour such thoughts. But when Anthroposophy begins to penetrate into their souls, people will see how many things that are done in the bustle of modern life could well be spared; then it would not be impossible to gain the time for these strengthening and health-giving exercises. Moreover, people will quickly see the very good results that can be achieved if these things are already observed in education.

Another little exercise may now be mentioned. With certain things we do—no matter whether or no they are of such a nature as to leave a trace behind—it is a good exercise at the same time to look at the thing which we are doing. It is easy to do so, for instance, in writing. I am quite sure, many a person would soon wean himself of his hideous handwriting if he really contemplated the letters.

But there is another thing which it is quite good to do as an exercise, though it should not be prolonged. One should endeavour to watch oneself: how one walks, how one moves one's head, how one laughs, etc.; in short, one tries to get a clear notion of one's own movements and gestures. Very few people know what they look like from behind while they are walking. It is good to make this experiment; only it must not always be continued, for it would quickly lend itself to vanity. This exercise also tends to consolidate the ethereal body, and it works in such a way as to strengthen the control of the astral body over the ethereal body. You thus become able, if need be, to suppress certain actions or movements of your own free will. The point is, it is good to be able to do the things we habitually do, quite differently on occasion, so that we are not always obliged to do them in one way. One need not become a fanatical upholder of the indifferent use of the right and the left hand. But if a man is able now and then to do with the left hand what he commonly does with the right, he will strengthen the control of his astral body over his ethereal body.

The ‘culture of the will’, as we may call it, is notably important. I have already pointed out how often nervousness will take the form that people never know what they shall do; nay, they do not know what they shall desire, or even what they want to desire. They shrink from doing what they have resolved to do. We may regard it as a certain weakness of the will, but it is due to an insufficient command of the Ego over the astral body. Some people cannot bring themselves firmly to will what they should will. The way to strengthen one's will is not to carry out something one wishes—provided, needless to say, that it will do no harm to leave the wish unfulfilled. Examine yourself in life, and you will soon find countless things which it is very nice, no doubt, to satisfy, but equally possible to leave unsatisfied—when the fulfilment would give you pleasure, but you can quite well do without it. Set out in this way systematically, and every such restraint will signify an access of strength to the will; and that is, strength of the Ego over the astral body.

If we subject ourselves to this procedure in later life, we can still make good much that our education nowadays neglects. It is not easy, at this point, to find the right educational tact. If you are able to fulfil a pupil's wish and you deny it to him, you will awaken his antipathy; so, you might say, it seems doubtful if the non-fulfilment of wishes is a right principle in education, for you could easily call forth an all-too-great antipathy. What are you then to do? There is a way. Deny the wishes, not to your pupil but to yourself, so that the pupil perceives it; and as there is a strong imitative impulse, especially in the first seven years of life, you will soon see that the child will follow your example and deny wishes to himself.

A most important means of strengthening the control of the Ego over the astral body is to set forth what is to be said for and against one and the same thing. Look out into life, and you will see that people are constantly saying only the one thing. That is the usual state of affairs. But there is nothing in life which you can truly treat in this way; there are never no pros or cons. And it is good for all things if we acquire the habit of adducing the pros and the cons as well. Human vanity and egoism frequently favour what one is about to do; therefore it is also good to enlist the reasons against. The fact is this: Man would so like to be ‘a good man’; and he is convinced often that he will be, if only he does what there are so many reasons in favour of his doing, and leaves undone what there are so many reasons against. It is an uncomfortable fact, but there are many possible objections to practically everything you do! Truth to tell, you are not nearly as good as you believe. This is a universal truth—a truism, no doubt; but it is an effective truth if you make it a practice, with all things that you do, clearly to put before you what you might also leave undone. What you thereby attain is this:—No doubt you have sometimes met people so weak in their will that they would sooner leave others to run their affairs. They would far rather ask: What am I to do now? than find the reasons for their action in themselves. Let us assume that such a person, who is fond of asking others (what I am now saying, by the way, must also be conceived as having many cons as well as pros!) is confronted by two different people. One of them says: ‘Do this!’ the other says: ‘Don't do it!’ We shall see that the one counsellor gains the victory, namely, the one who has the stronger influence of will. This is a most significant phenomenon, for the Yes or the No is brought about by the will of an adviser, whose strength of will has gained the victory over the other's will. But now suppose that I stand quite alone, and in my own and inmost heart I face the Yes and the No, and then go and do the thing because I have given myself the answer Yes. This Yes will have unfolded a strong force within me. Thus when you place yourself in consciousness before a choice of alternatives, you let something that is strong overcome something that is weak. And that is important, for it greatly strengthens the control of the Ego over the astral body. You will do very much for the strength of your will, if you try to carry out what I am now describing. But there is also the shadow-side. For you will not strengthen your will, but only weaken it, if instead of acting under the influence of that which speaks for the one course or the other, out of mere slackness you do nothing. Seemingly you have then followed the No, while in reality you have merely been lax and easygoing. It will be good, not to attempt the choice when you feel limp and weary, but when you are inwardly strong and know that you can really follow what you place before your soul as the eventual pro or con. These things must be brought before the soul at the right time.

Another thing to strengthen the control of the I over the astral body is to dismiss from our souls everything that creates a barrier between us and our surroundings—not by withholding justified criticisms, but by distinguishing something that is to be blamed for its own sake from something that one finds exasperating because of its effect on oneself. The more one can make one's judgments, particularly about fellow-men, unaffected by their attitude to oneself, the better it is for the strengthening of the Ego in its control of the astral body. It is a good thing to practise this self-denial: not to consider bad in our fellow-men the things we can only consider bad because they are bad for ourselves; and, in effect, only to apply our judgment where we ourselves are not in question. You will see how difficult this is in life. For instance, when a man has lied to you, it is not easy to restrain your antipathy. Nevertheless, one need not go at once to others, to complain of him; but we can observe from day to day how he acts and speaks, and let this form a basis for our judgment, rather than what he has done to us. It is important to let things speak for themselves and to understand a person in himself, not through one particular action, but from the consistent pattern of his behaviour. You will soon find that even with a man whom you consider an exceptional scoundrel, many of the things he does are quite out of keeping with his conduct in other respects. It is good for the strengthening of our Ego, to meditate upon the fact that in all cases we might very well refrain from nine-tenths of the judgments we pronounce. It would be ample for life if only one-tenth of them were to be formed in our minds; it would by no means impoverish our life.

What I have told you today are apparently small details, but it must also be our task, now and then, to dwell upon these things. For then we see how very differently we must take hold of life than we generally do. It is not the most important thing to say that when a man is ill you should send to the chemist's for a medicine. The important thing is to order life in such a way that illnesses will become less and less oppressive; and they will become less oppressive if by such practices we strengthen the influence of the Ego over the astral body, of the astral body over the ethereal, and of the ethereal body over the physical. Self-education, and an influence upon the education of children, can follow from our fundamental anthroposophical convictions.

This is lecture 3 of 14 in the lecture series entitled, Experiential Knowledge of the Supersensible. It is also lecture 3 of 5 included in the collection of lectures known as, Psychoanalysis in the Light of Anthroposophy, Psychoanalysis and Spiritual Psychology, or Freud, Jung, and Spiritual Psychology.

When public lectures are held for a larger public, certain things must be dealt with differently than at Group-meetings, because the members of a Group who have worked together and have studied these matters for some time, are prepared to accept such things differently than a larger public. Yesterday we saw that we can speak of hidden aspects of man's soul-life and we must place these hidden sides of human soul-life against the facts ascertained through ordinary, everyday consciousness.

If you were to observe superficially what lives in your soul, from the morning when you awake until the evening when you fall asleep—what lives in it in the form of ideas, feelings or moods, and impulses of the will-including of course all that enters the soul from outside through sense-perception—if you observe all this, then you will obtain all that can be termed as forming the contents of ordinary consciousness. We must now realise that everything which is thus contained in the life of our consciousness, is dependent as far as this ordinary consciousness is concerned upon the instruments of the physical body. The nearest and most obvious fact proving what has just been said, is that man must awake in order to live within the course of events, ascertained through an ordinary consciousness. This signifies that man must dive into the physical body with that part of his being which is outside the physical body during sleep, and that this physical body with its instruments is then at his disposal. He should be able to use these instruments in order to ascertain the happenings which are accessible to ordinary consciousness. The following question immediately arises:—How does man, as a spirit-soul being, use his bodily instruments—the sense-organs and the nervous system? How does he use his bodily organs in order to live within his everyday consciousness? In materialistic spheres it is held that the physical or bodily instruments constitute for man something which produces the facts of his consciousness. I have often pointed out that this is not the case; we should not imagine that the inner structure of our body, namely the sense-organs or the brain, produce the facts of consciousness, just as a candle, for instance, produces a flame. The relationship of what we call consciousness to the bodily instruments is entirely different; we may compare it with the relationship of a man who sees his reflection in a mirror, to this mirror. When we are asleep, we live within our consciousness as if we were walking, so to speak, in a straight line. If we are walking in a straight line, we do not see what our forehead, etc. looks like—but the very moment that someone holds a mirror in front of us, we can see ourselves. Then that which is already a part of us, comes toward us; it begins to exist for us. The same thing occurs in the case of the facts in our ordinary consciousness. They live in us continually, but in reality they have nothing to do with our physical body. Just as we ourselves have nothing to do with the mirror, so the facts in our consciousness have nothing to do with our physical body. The materialistic theory in this sphere is not even an acceptable hypothesis—it is sheer nonsense! For in this connection the materialist states something which may be compared to nothing less than this—namely, that someone who sees himself in a mirror, declares that he has been produced by the mirror. If you wish to delude yourself that the mirror has produced you, because you can only see yourself when a mirror is held before you, then you may also believe that various parts of the brain, or your sense-organs produce the contents of soul-life. Both things are equally clever and equally true. The truth, that a mirror can produce a man, has just the same value as the other truth, that a brain can produce thoughts. The facts that live in our consciousness have their own existence. It is necessary however that our ordinary organisation should perceive these existing facts of consciousness. To render this possible, we must be faced by something which reflects the facts of consciousness—namely, our physical body. Thus we possess in our physical body something which we may call a mirroring apparatus for the facts of our ordinary consciousness. These live in our spirit-soul being, and we perceive them because the mirror of our corporeality is held in front of what lives in us and is part of us, but cannot be perceived by us through the soul (just as we cannot see ourselves unless a mirror is held before us). This is the true aspect of things, But the body is not merely a passive mirroring apparatus—it is something in which processes take place. You may therefore imagine at the back of this mirror—instead of the dark coating which brings about the reflections—all kinds of happenings which take place there, behind the mirror. This comparison may be used to characterise the true relationship between our spirit-soul being and our body. Hence we must bear in mind that the body is a mirroring instrument for everything we experience within our normal, everyday consciousness and that moreover the physical body is a true mirror. Behind—or if you like—beneath these normal facts of consciousness, lie all those things which rise to the surface of our ordinary soul-life, which must be designated as the facts contained in the hidden depths of the soul.

Something of what lives in the hidden depths of the soul is experienced—let us say—by the poet, by the artist. If he is a real poet, a real artist, he will know that he does not attain what comes to expression in his poetry in the usual way—he does not attain it through logical thinking, or in the way in which we come to the facts of consciousness through outer perception. He knows that things arise out of unknown depths and are there, really exist, without having been formed by the forces of ordinary consciousness. But other things also arise out of these hidden depths of soul-life. These are things which play a part in normal consciousness, although we do not know anything about their origin, as far as ordinary life is concerned. But yesterday we saw that we can descend more deeply into soul-life—as far as the region of semi-consciousness, the region of dreams, and we know that dreams lift something out of the hidden depths of soul-life which we would be unable to lift up in the usual, normal way, through an effort of consciousness. If something, which has been buried in memory long ago, rises before a man's soul in the form of a dream-picture, as happens again and again—then, in most cases, this man would never have been in a position to lift these things out of the hidden depths of his soul-life by trying to recollect them—because ordinary consciousness does not reach as far as this. What can no longer be reached through normal consciousness, can however be reached through sub-consciousness. In this semi-conscious state during dreams, many things are brought to the surface which have remained behind, as it were—which have been stored. They surge up—but only those things surge up which could not become active, in the same way as other things become active, which dive down into hidden soul-depths, from out the experiences gained in life. We acquire health or we grow ill, we become bad-tempered or glad—but this takes place so that we do not notice it in the normal course of life, because it constitutes bodily conditions, determined by what has dived down into the soul out of our life-experiences—something which we cannot remember, but which is nevertheless active in the depths of soul-life, making us into what we then become during the course of life. We would understand many human lives if we were to know what has entered the hidden depths during the course of life. We would understand many a human being in his 30th, 40th, 50th year—we would know why he has this or that inclination, why he feels so deeply the cause of his dissatisfaction—we would understand many things if we were to trace the life of such a man back to his childhood. In his childhood, we would see how parents and surroundings influenced him; what was called forth during childhood in the form of sorrow and joy, pain and pleasure—things perhaps that are completely forgotten, but influence a man's entire state of health and of mind. For what surges and rolls down into the hidden depths of soul-life out of our consciousness, continues to be active there below. The strange part of it all is that these forces which are working there, first work upon ourselves and do not abandon—so to speak—the sphere of our personality. Hence, when clairvoyant consciousness descends to these depths (this occurs through imagination, through what we call imaginative knowledge), when it descends to the depths where these forces are active in sub-consciousness, as just described, then man always finds his own self. He finds what surges and lives within him. And this is a good thing. Indeed, in a true self-knowledge, man must learn to know himself; he must contemplate and learn to know all the impulses which are active within him.

If man does not pay attention to this fact, if he pays no attention to the fact that first of all he will find his own self with all that constitutes it and is active within it, he will be exposed to all kinds of errors when his clairvoyant consciousness penetrates into sub-consciousness through the exercises of an imaginative knowledge. Through a form of consciousness resembling the ordinary consciousness, man cannot be aware at all that he comes across his own self when he descends into the depths of soul-life. At a certain stage of development it will be possible to have visions—let us say—to see shapes which are unquestionably something new, when we compare them with what we have learnt to know through the experiences of life. Such a circumstance can indeed arise. But if we were to imagine that such things belong to the outer world, this would be a great illusion. These things do not arise in the same way in which the facts connected with our inner life generally arise in ordinary consciousness. If we have a headache, this is a fact which enters usual consciousness. We know that the pain is in our own head. If we have a stomach-ache, the pain is experienced within our own self. If we descend to the depths which we call the hidden soul-depths, we can only be within our own self—yet we can see things which appear to us as if they were outside our own selves. Let us take, for instance, a striking case. Let us suppose that someone desires most intensely to be the reincarnated Mary Magdalene, (I once mentioned that I have already met twenty-four reincarnated Magdalenes in my life); let us assume that someone desires most intensely to be Mary Magdalene. But let us also assume that this person does not confess this wish to himself (we need not confess our wishes to ourselves—this is unnecessary). Well—someone may read the story of Mary Magdalene and may like it immensely. In his sub-consciousness the desire to be Mary Magdalene may now immediately arise. He is aware of nothing in his usual consciousness except that he likes this character. The person in question has a liking for this character. He is aware of this in his upper consciousness. But in his sub-consciousness lives the burning desire to be himself this Mary Magdalene—yet he knows nothing about this. He does not bother about this. He is guided by the facts of his usual consciousness; he can go through the world without being compelled at all to become aware of this erroneous fact in his consciousness—the intense wish to be Mary Magdalene. But let us suppose that such a person has attained, in some way or other, a kind of occult training. This would enable him to descend into his sub-consciousness—but he would not become aware of the fact, “in me lives the desire to be Mary Magdalene”—he would not become aware of this in the same way that he becomes aware of a headache. If he were to notice this desire to be Mary Magdalene then he would be sensible and assume toward this desire the same attitude as toward a pain—namely, he would try to get rid of it. But through an irregular descent into sub-consciousness, this does not take place, because his desire acquires the form of something which is outside his own personality, and to the man in question it appears as the vision: “You are Mary Magdalene”. This fact stands before him, is projected outside his own being. Moreover, a human being at this stage of development is no longer able to control such a fact through his Ego. This lack of control cannot arise when we undergo a regular, sound and absolutely careful training; for then the Ego accompanies all experiences in every sphere. But as soon as the Ego no longer accompanies all our experiences, the fact described above can arise in the form of an objective outer happening. The observer believes that he can remember the events connected with Mary Magdalene and feels himself identified with this Mary Magdalene. This is unquestionably possible. I emphasize this possibility, because it shows you that only a careful training and the conscientiousness with which we penetrate into occultism, can rescue us from falling into error. If we know that we must first see before us an entire world, that we must see around us facts, not something which we apply to our own selves, but something that is in us, and yet appears like the picture of a whole world—if we know that we do well to consider what we first see before us is the projection of our own inner life—then we possess a good shield against the errors which can beset us along this path. The best thing of all is to consider at first everything that rises out of our inner being as if it were an exterior fact. In most cases these facts arise out of our desires, vanities, ambition—in a few words, out of all the qualities connected with human selfishness. These things above all project themselves outside and now we may ask:—How can we escape from such errors? How can we save ourselves from them?

It is not possible to save ourselves from error through the usual facts of consciousness. Error arises because we cannot, so to speak, come out of ourselves at the moment when we are being faced by a world picture; we remain entangled within ourselves. This will show you that the essential thing is to come out of ourselves, to distinguish in one way or another that here we have before us one kind of vision, and there another. Both visions are outside; one is perhaps merely the projection of a wish, and the other one is a real fact. Yet they do not differ as much as things differ in ordinary life—for instance, when one person states that he has a headache and we ourselves have a headache. For our own inner life, as well as that of another man, are both projected outside into space. How can we discriminate between them?

We must learn to investigate the occult sphere—we must learn to distinguish a true impression from a false one, although all impressions are mixed together and arise as if they were all equally entitled to be taken for true impressions. It is just as if we were to look into the physical world and were to see there, beside the actual trees, other imaginary trees, and as if we were unable to discriminate between them. The true facts outside and the facts which arise only within ourselves are mixed together, just as if false and true trees were standing side by side. How can we learn to distinguish one sphere from the other? We do not learn this at first through our consciousness. If we remain only within the life of thoughts we cannot possibly discriminate, for this possibility is given to us only through a slow occult training of the soul. If we progress more and more, we reach the point where we learn to distinguish one thing from another—that is, we do in the occult what we would have to do if we were to see actual trees beside imaginary ones. If we walk toward imaginary trees, we do not strike against them, but we do collide with real trees! Something similar also occurs—but as a spiritual fact, of course—in the occult sphere. If we proceed in the right way, we can learn to discriminate in a comparatively easy manner between what is true and false in this sphere; but we cannot do this through thoughts—only through a decision of the will. This decision of the will can arise as follows:—If we survey our life, we find in it two distinct groups of events. We often find that this or that thing in which we succeed or fail, is connected quite normally with our capacities. In other words—we can understand our failure in a certain direction because we are not particularly clever in that sphere. On the other hand, we can understand our success in this or in that direction because we know that we have certain capacities which account for it. Perhaps it may not always be so strictly necessary to realise this connection existing between our actions and our capacities. There is also a less clear way of realising it. For instance, when misfortune strikes someone at some later stage in life and he then thinks about this, he may say to himself:—“I have been a man who has done very little in order to become more active ... ” Or else he may admit to himself:—“I have always been such a happy-go-lucky fellow ... ” In both cases he will be able to say that he did not realise immediately the connection between his failure and his past actions, but he did realise that a light-hearted lazy man will not succeed in all things as well as a conscientious, diligent one. There are things where we can see quite well their connection with our successes or failures, but there are others where it seems impossible to find a connection—where we must say:—In spite of this or that capacity which should have guaranteed our success in this or in that direction, we have not succeeded. Evidently there are also certain kinds of successes or failures where we can not see at once the connection with our capacities. This is one aspect. The other one is that in the case of certain things which we encounter, such as blows of destiny, we may sometimes say:—“Well, this seems justified; for we ourselves have supplied the conditions for it.” But for other occurrences we find that they happen without our being able to discover anything which could be indicated as their cause. Thus we have two kinds of experiences—experiences which come from us, and where we can see the connection with our own capacities—and the other kind of experience which has just been described. In the case of some experiences which come to us from outside, we find happenings of which we cannot say that we ourselves have given rise to them, and again there are others of which we know that their foundation lies in us. Let us look about us in life and make an experiment which is very useful for every human being. This experiment can be made as follows. We place together all things the causes of which are unknown to us, and also all the things in which we have succeeded and of which we can say that they have happened in some unaccountable way—things for the success of which we are not responsible at all. But also failures which we can remember may be placed together in this way. Then we look upon outer events which have met us by chance, for which we cannot find any influence on our part. Now we may make the following soul-experiment. Let us imagine that we build up in thoughts an artificial man (bear in mind that first of all we make this grotesque soul-experiment)—we construct this artificial man; he is made in such a way that all the things in which we have succeeded in an unaccountable way are brought about through his capacities. Hence when we find that we have succeeded in something which requires wisdom, whereas we are stupid in this very thing, we build up an imaginary man who is particularly wise in this very sphere and who would therefore have met with success in it. We may also apply this experiment as follows in the case of an outer event. Let us assume that a brick falls on our head. At first we cannot realise the cause of this. Let us now construct an imaginary man who brought about the falling of this brick, as follows:—First of all he ran up on to the roof and pulled out a brick so that it would necessarily fall down soon afterwards. Then he quickly ran down again and the brick struck him. This is exactly what we do in certain happenings, although we know quite well in accordance with the usual course of events that we have not caused them; in fact these happenings may even be very much against our will. Let us suppose that someone has struck us at a certain time in our life. To facilitate matters, let us place this occurrence in our childhood; let us suppose that someone engaged to look after us, has beaten us. And let us imagine that we did all we could to deserve this beating. In short, we now construct an imaginary person in whom all those things are centred which are impenetrable to our understanding. You see, if we wish to progress in occultism, we must carry out several things which are in contrast to ordinary facts. But if we only do what appears to be sensible in the usual meaning of the word then we do not come much further in occultism, for the things connected with the higher world may at first seem foolish to an ordinary human being. But it does not matter if the method may appear foolish to a superficial sober-minded man. Let us therefore construct this imaginary human being. At first this may appear grotesque, and perhaps we do not realise its purpose. Yet we shall make a discovery within ourselves; everyone who makes this experiment will discover that it is impossible to get rid of this man whom we have built up in our thoughts—he will begin to interest us. Indeed, when we make this experiment, we will find that we cannot rid ourselves any more of this artificial man—he lives in us. Strange to say, he does not only live in us, but transforms himself within us; he changes greatly. He transforms himself so that in the end he differs entirely from what he was before. He becomes something, of which we cannot but say that after all it is contained in us. This is an experience which we all can have. What has now been described—not the imaginary human being which we have first constructed, but what has become of him—may be designated as a part of what is contained within ourselves. It is exactly that part which has, so to speak, brought about those things in life which apparently have no cause. Thus we find within ourselves something which really brings forth the things that cannot be explained otherwise. What I have described to you constitutes in other words a way enabling us not only to gaze into our own soul-life and to find something in it, but also to tread a path leading out of this soul-life into the surrounding world. For the things in which we fail do not remain in us, but become a part of the world around us. We have taken from it something which is not in keeping with the usual facts of our consciousness. But we have obtained something which appears as if it were contained within us. Then we feel as if we had after all some connections with the things that apparently arise with no real cause. Thus we begin to feel how we are connected with our destiny, with what is called karma. This soul-experiment is a true path, enabling us to experience karma in a certain way.

You may argue:—“I cannot quite understand what you say.” But when you say this, it is not because you think that you cannot understand; you say it because you fail to understand something which is in reality quite easy to understand—but you do not think about it. It is impossible to understand such things unless we have carried out the above mentioned experiment. Hence, these things can be looked upon merely as the description of an experiment which can be made and experienced by everybody. Through this experiment we can all realise that in us something lives which is connected with our karma. If we were to know this beforehand, it would not be necessary to be given directions showing us how to attain it. It is quite natural that this cannot be realised unless we have made the experiment. However, it is not a question of “understanding” things in the usual meaning of the word, but of accepting a communication concerning something which our soul can experience. If our soul treads such paths, it will grow accustomed to live not only within itself, within its wishes and passions, but it will grow accustomed to look upon exterior happenings and to connect them with its own self. Our soul will grow accustomed to this. The very things which we have not desired are those which we ourselves have brought into the occurrences. Finally, if we are able to face our whole destiny so that we accept it calmly, if in the case of things about which we generally grumble and protest, we think instead—“let us accept them gladly, for we ourselves are responsible for them”—if we are able to do this, then we develop a particular frame of mind. This frame of mind will enable us to distinguish the true from the false when we descend into the hidden depths of soul-life, to discriminate with absolute certainty; then what is true and what is false will appear with wonderful clearness and certainty.

If we look upon a vision with the spiritual eye and are able to dispel it simply through the fact that we dispel or conjure away all the forces which we experience as our inner being and which we learn to know anew in this form—if we can dispel them as it were through a mere glance—then this vision is nothing but a phantasm. But if we can not eliminate it in this way and are able to dispel only that part which reminds us of the outer sense world—that is the visionary part—if the spiritual element remains as an undeniable fact, then the vision is a true one. This distinction however cannot be made before we have accomplished what has already been described. Hence, on the super-sensible plane the true and the false cannot be distinguished with certainty unless we have undergone the above mentioned training. The essential fact during a soul-experience is that our usual consciousness is in reality always contained in what we desire, so that through this soul-experiment we become accustomed to consider as our own will what we do not wish at all as far as our ordinary consciousness is concerned—what usually goes against our will. In a certain connection we may have reached a definite stage of inner development; if however such a soul-experiment does not induce us to place this connection with what we have not wished, against the wishes, pensions, sympathies and antipathies living within our soul, then we shall make one mistake after another. The greatest mistake of this kind was made just in the Theosophical Society by H. P. Blavatsky. She observed the field where the Christ may be found, and because her wishes and desires—in a few words all that constituted her upper consciousness—contained antipathy, indeed hatred for everything Christian and Jewish, whereas she had a predilection for all that had spread over the earth as spiritual civilisation, excluding the Christian and the Hebrew, and because she had never passed through the training described today—she was faced by an entirely false idea of the Christ. This is quite natural. She handed this idea over to her more intimate disciples and it is still alive today, coarsened into a grotesque picture. These things reach into the highest spheres. We can see many things on the occult plane, but the capacity of distinguishing them is higher than merely seeing or perceiving them. This must be emphasized sharply.

Now the following problem arises: When we dive down into our hidden soul-depths (every clairvoyant must do this), we first reach our own self. We must learn to know ourselves by passing really and truly through that stage where we are at first faced by a world in which Lucifer and Ahriman continually promise us the kingdoms of the world. This signifies that we are placed before our own inner world and that the devil tells us—this is the objective world. This is the temptation which even the Christ could not escape. The illusions of the inner-world were placed before Him. But through His own strength He was able to see from the very beginning that this was not a real world, but something contained in man's inner world. Through this inner world, in which we must distinguish two parts—one which we can eliminate, namely, our true inner content, and another which remains—we reach the objective super-sensible world through the hidden depths of our soul-life. Just as our soul-spiritual kernel must use the mirror of the physical body in order to perceive the things outside, or what constitutes the facts of ordinary consciousness, so the human being must use his etheric body as a mirror, as far as his soul-spiritual kernel is concerned, in order to perceive the spiritual super-sensible facts which he at first encounters. The higher sense-organs, if we may use this expression, appear in the astral body, but what lives in them must be reflected through the etheric body, just as the soul-spiritual content which we perceive in ordinary life is reflected through the physical body. We must learn to use our etheric body. Since our etheric body is generally unknown to us, although it is that part which really gives us life—it is quite natural that we should first learn to know this etheric body before we learn to know what enters into us from the super-sensible world outside, and before this can be reflected through the etheric body.

You see, what we thus experience by reaching the hidden depths of our soul-life—when we experience, so to speak, our own self and the projection of our own wishes—this very much resembles the life which we usually call Kamaloca. It differs from Kamaloca-life through the fact that during our ordinary life we progress as far as an imprisonment (for we may call it thus) within our own self; yet our physical body is there and we can always return to it, whereas in Kamaloca the physical body no longer exists. Even a part of the etheric body no longer exists—that part which during life throws back to us a reflection; we are surrounded by the general life-ether which is now the reflecting instrument and mirrors everything that is contained in us. During the Kamaloca-period our own inner world is built up around us, with all its wishes and passions. All that we experience and feel within us, is now around us as our objective world. it is important that we should realise that Kamaloca-life can first of all be characterised through the fact that we are enclosed within ourselves and that this constitutes a prison; all the more so, as we cannot return to any form of physical life, which constitutes the foundation of our whole inner life. When we experience our Kamaloca-life so as to realise gradually (we gradually realise this) that everything contained in it can only be eliminated when we begin to feel in a different way, when we no longer have within us passions etc.—only then do we break through the walls of our Kamaloca-prison.

In what sense can this be understood? In this sense:—let us suppose that someone dies cherishing a certain wish. This wish will be part of what is then projected outside; it will be contained in one of the formations that surround him. As long as this wish still lives in him he will not be able to open the gates of Kamaloca with any key, as far as this wish is concerned. When he realises that this wish can be satisfied only by eliminating it, by giving it up, by not desiring any more—only when this wish has been torn out of the soul and he assumes toward it the very opposite attitude, only then everything that imprisons him in Kamaloca, including this wish, will be torn out of the soul. At this stage between death and a new birth we reach the sphere which is called Devachan: we can also reach it through clairvoyance if we have learned to know what forms a part of us. Through clairvoyance we reach Devachan, when we have obtained a definite degree of maturity; during Kamaloca we reach Devachan in the course of time, just because time torments us through our own desires, so that they are gradually surmounted in the course of time. Through this, all that is conjured up before us, as if it were the world and its glory, is burst asunder.

The world of real, super-sensible facts is what we generally call Devachan. How do we generally encounter this world of real, super-sensible facts? Here on the earth we can speak of Devachan only because we can penetrate through clairvoyance (if the Self has really been overcome) into the world of super-sensible facts which actually exist, and these facts coincide with what is contained in Devachan. The chief characteristic of Devachan is that moral facts can no longer be distinguished from physical facts, or physical laws; moral laws and physical laws coincide. What is meant by this? In the ordinary physical world the sun shines over the just and the unjust; one who has committed a crime may perhaps be put in prison, but the physical sun will not be darker because of this fact. This signifies that the world of sense-reality has both a moral order of laws and physical one; but they follow two entirely different directions. In Devachan it is otherwise—there, this difference does not exist at all. In Devachan everything that arises out of something moral, or intellectually wise, or esthetically beautiful, etc., leads to a creation, is creative—whereas everything that arises out of something immoral, intellectually untrue, or esthetically ugly, leads to destruction, is destructive. The laws of Nature in Devachan are indeed of such kind that the sun does not shine equally brightly over the just and the unjust. Speaking figuratively, we may say that the sun actually is darkened in the case of an unrighteous man, whereas the righteous man who passes through Devachan really finds in it the spiritual sunshine, that is, the influence of the life-spending forces which help him forward in life. A liar or an ugly-minded man will pass through Devachan in such a way that the spiritual forces withdraw from him. In Devachan an order of laws is possible, which is not possible here or earth. When two people, a righteous and an unrighteous one, walk side by side here on the earth, it is not possible for the sun to shine upon one and not to shine upon the other. But in the spiritual world the influence of the spiritual forces undoubtedly depends upon the quality of a human being. In Devachan this signifies that the laws of Nature and the spiritual laws do not follow separate directions, but the same direction. This is the essential thing which must be borne in mind—in Devachan the laws of Nature and the moral and intellectual laws coincide.

As a result of this, the following will arise:—When a human being enters Devachan and lives there, with all that is still contained in him from his last life on earth—righteousness and unrighteousness, good and evil, esthetic beauty and ugliness, truth and falsehood—all this becomes active in such a way that it immediately takes possession of the laws of Nature existing in Devachan. We may perhaps compare it to the following fact in the sense-world. Let us suppose that someone has stolen, or has told a lie here on earth and then goes out into the sunshine; but the sun no longer shines upon him, he cannot find sunshine anywhere, so that through the want of sunlight he gradually becomes ill ... Or let us suppose—this can also serve as a comparison,—that someone who has told a lie here on earth cannot breathe any more—all these cases would be similar to what actually happens in Devachan. One who is guilty of this or that sin, will find there, as far as his soul-spiritual being is concerned, that the laws of Nature coincide with the spiritual laws. Consequently, when this man continues to develop in Devachan as described above, and he progresses more and more, then such laws and qualities will live in him, that what he now becomes in Devachan, corresponds to the qualities which he has brought with him from his preceding life. Let us suppose that someone lives in Devachan for 200 years; he has peered through Devachan, and if he told many lies during his life on earth, then the Spirits of Truth will withdraw from him in Devachan. Something in him will then die, whereas in another truth-loving soul this will instead flourish and come to life.

Let us suppose that someone passes through Devachan with a pronounced vanity, which he has not set aside. In Devachan this vanity will be a most foul exhalation, and certain spiritual beings avoid such an individuality that exhales these foul odours of ambition or vanity. This is not described figuratively. Vanity and ambition are indeed most foul exhalations in Devachan, so that certain beings, who withdraw because of this, cannot exercise their beneficial influence. It is just as if a plant were to grow in a cellar, whereas it can flourish only in the sunshine. The vain person cannot prosper. He develops under the influence of this quality. Then, when he reincarnates, he has not the strength to take into himself the good influences. Instead of developing certain organs soundly, he develops an unsound organic system. Thus, not only our physical condition, but also our moral and intellectual condition, show us what we will become in life. On the physical plane, the laws of Nature and the spiritual laws go separate ways. But, between death and a new birth they are one—the laws of Nature and the spiritual laws are one. Destructive forces of Nature enter our soul, as the result of immoral deeds during a preceding life; but life-spending forces enter it, as the result of moral deeds. This is not only connected with our inner configuration, but also with what we encounter in life, as our karma.

The characteristic element of Devachan is that there is no difference between the laws of Nature and spiritual laws. The clairvoyant who really penetrates into the super-sensible worlds experiences this. The super-sensible worlds differ very much from the worlds here on the physical plane. It is simply impossible for a clairvoyant to make the distinction usually made by a materialistic mind, namely, that there are merely objective laws of Nature. Behind the objective laws of Nature there are in reality always spiritual laws; and a clairvoyant cannot, for instance, cross a dry piece of meadow land, or a flooded region, or perceive a volcanic eruption, without realising that spiritual powers, spiritual beings, are behind all phenomena in Nature. A volcanic eruption is for him also a moral deed, although the moral element may perhaps lie on an entirely different plane than we may, at first, imagine. Those who always confuse the physical and the higher worlds will say:—“If innocent people perish through a volcanic eruption, how can we suppose this to be a moral deed.” But at first, we need not consider this opinion; for it would be just as cruelly narrow-minded as the opposite one—namely, to consider this eruption as a punishment inflicted by God upon the people who live near the volcano. Both opinions are only the result of the narrow-minded mentality here on the physical plane. But this is not the point in question; far more universal things must be taken into consideration. Those people who live on the slopes of a volcano and whose possessions are destroyed through an eruption, are perhaps without any guilt in this life. But this will find its balance later on, and does not imply a merciless attitude on our part (to consider it as such would again be a narrow-minded interpretation of the facts). In the case of volcanic eruptions, for instance, we find that in the course of the evolution of the earth human beings cause to certain things; and because these things occur, the entire evolution of humanity is held up. For this very reason, good Gods must work in a certain way in order to establish the balance—and such phenomena in Nature sometimes bring about such a balance. Very often, this connection can be seen only by penetrating into occult depths. Thus, adjustments occur in the case of things brought about by human beings—things which are in opposition to the spiritual course of mankind's true development. All events, even if they are mere phenomena of Nature, have something moral in their depths, and the bearers of this moral element; which lie behind the physical facts, are spiritual beings. Thus, if we imagine a world where it is impossible to speak of a division between the laws of Nature and spiritual laws—in other words, a world where justice rules as a law of Nature—then this world would be Devachan. And in Devachan we need not think that actions which deserve punishment are punished arbitrarily; for there, the immoral element destroys itself and the moral one progresses, with the same necessity with which a flame sets fire to combustible material.

Thus, we see that just the innermost characteristics, the innermost nerve, so to speak, of existence, varies in the different worlds. We cannot form a picture of the various worlds unless we bear in mind these peculiarities which differ radically in each world. Hence, we may characterise the physical world, Kamaloca, and Devachan, as follows: in the physical world, the laws of Nature and the spiritual laws constitute a series of facts which take their course in separate directions. In the world of Kamaloca, the human being is imprisoned within his own self, enclosed in the prison of his own being. The world of Devachan is the very opposite of the physical world. There, the laws of Nature and the spiritual laws are one and the same thing. These are the three characteristics; and if we bear them carefully in mind, if we try to feel the radical difference between our world and one where the intellectual laws, and also the aesthetic laws, are at the same time laws of Nature, then we shall have an inkling of what is contained in Devachan. If we meet an ugly person, or a beautiful one, here in the physical world, we have no right to treat the ugly man as if he had something repulsive in his soul-spiritual being, nor can we place a beautiful human being on a certain height, from a soul-spiritual aspect. But in Devachan it is entirely different. There, we never meet anything ugly, unless it has been caused by something; and the human being who owes his ugly face to his preceding incarnation, but strives to be true and upright in this life, cannot possibly meet us in Devachan with an ugly face. Such a human being will indeed have transformed his ugly face into beauty. On the other hand, it is just as true that one who tells lies and is vain and miserly wanders about in Devachan with an ugly form. Something else, however, must also be borne in mind. In ordinary physical life we do not find that something is continually being destroyed in an ugly face, and that a beautiful face continually adds something to its beauty. But in Devachan we see that ugliness is a destructive element, and whenever we perceive something beautiful we are compelled to realise that it brings about a continual growth, a continual fructification. Hence, in the world of Devachan we must have entirely different feelings than in the physical world.

It will be necessary to find the essential element in these feelings, and to acquire the capacity of adding to the outer description of things these feelings and experiences which are described in spiritual science. If you strive to experience a world wherein the moral, the beautiful, and the mentally true elements appear with the same necessity as a law of Nature, you will attain the experience of Devachan. It is for this reason that we must collect so many facts and work so hard, in order to melt down to a living experience what we have thus acquired through study. Without effort it is impossible to attain a true knowledge of the things which must gradually be made clear to the world through spiritual science. Today there are undoubtedly many people who argue:—“Why should we learn so many things through spiritual science? Must we become schoolboys again? Feelings or experiences seem to be the most important thing in it.” Indeed, feeling is precisely what should be taken into consideration—but, first of all, the right kind of feeling must be acquired. The same thing applies to everything. A painter also would find it far more pleasant if there were no need for him to learn the elements of his art, and so forth, and if he were not obliged to paint his final picture slowly and gradually on the canvas. It would be far more pleasant if he could just breathe on the canvas, and so produce his finished picture! The peculiar thing in the world today is this—that, the more we reach the soul-spiritual sphere, the more people fail to understand that a mere breathing on the canvas does not suffice! In the case of music, few people will admit that a man who has learnt nothing at all can be a composer; this is quite obvious to them. They will also admit this in the case of painting—although less strictly than in the case of music—and in the case of poetry they will admit still less that study and training is necessary. This is why there are so many modern poets. No age has been so unpoetical as our present age, in spite of its many poets! Poets need not learn much—they are simply expected to write (although this has nothing to do with poetry)—at least orthographically; it suffices if they are able to express their thoughts intelligibly! And less still is expected from philosophers. For it is taken for granted that anyone may express his opinion concerning all kinds of things which belong to a conception of the world, or life-conception. Everybody has his own point of view. Again and again we find that careful study, entailing the application of all means available to an inner activity, in order to investigate and know at least something of the world, counts for nothing in the present day. Instead, it is taken for granted that the standpoint of one who has toiled and worked in order, to venture to say at least a few things concerning the secrets of the universe is equivalent to the standpoint of one who has simply made up his mind to have an opinion! Hence today everybody has, so to speak, his own conception of the world. And a Theosophist above all others! In the opinion of some people, still less is required to be a Theosophist. In their opinion, all that is needed is not even to acknowledge the three principles of the Theosophical Society, but only the first one—and this entirely according to their own liking! Since all that is required is to admit with more or less truthfulness that love toward others suffices—whether or not one is really filled with love does not count so much—it is easy enough to be a Theosophist, and then of course one has the right kind of feeling! Thus we descend continually. We begin with an estimation of music and expect a certain standard from those who wish to have an opinion on music—we descend continually and require less and less, until we finally reach Theosophy, where least of all is required! For we think that what is generally considered inadequate in the case of painting, for instance, is sufficient in the case of Theosophy—no effort is needed here, yet we lay the foundation for a universal brotherhood, and then we are Theosophists! We need not learn anything else! But the essential point is this—we must strive with all our might to transform into living experiences what we gather in the form of study—for the shadings of these feelings will give us the highest and truest knowledge. You should direct all your efforts toward the attainment of an experience such as the impression derived from a world where the laws of Nature and the spiritual laws coincide. If you work in full earnestness (let the people believe that you have only studied theoretical facts!), if you have spared no effort in comprehending this or that theory, then an impression will be left behind in Devachan. If an experience, a real feeling, exists not only in your fancy, but you have really acquired it through careful work, then this experience, these nuances of feeling, will reach further than they can reach merely by themselves—they will become real through earnest, diligent study. And then you are not far distant from the point where this nuance of feeling will acquire life, and Devachan will really lie before you. For this nuance of feeling becomes a perceptive capacity if it is worked out truthfully. Our groups, our working centres, are what they should be, only if the work within them is really carried out without any sensation and on an honest basis. In this case our groups and centres are schools which are meant to lead man into the spheres of clairvoyance. Only someone who does not wish to attain this and is unwilling to work can have a false opinion concerning these things.

During the last few days, we have spoken about many things connected with the existence of hidden depths in our soul-life; and we should now do well to consider various other aspects of this subject, which may be useful for the Anthroposophist to know. On the whole, it must be said that a complete clarification of these things is possible only when we work them through in the light of what Anthroposophy is able to give.

Now, we have already considered, from the most varied aspects, all that might be termed the organisation of man. Hence, it should be quite easy for each one of us—if we direct our attention in some measure, to the hidden depths of the soul to connect in the right way what thereby appears from a new standpoint, with the organisation of man as it is known to us through the more or less elementary presentation of the Anthroposophical world-conception. It has been repeatedly stated, during the last few days, that everything comprising our conceptual thoughts, our perceptions, the impulses of our will, our feelings and sensations—in short, everything that takes place in our soul during its normal state, from the moment of waking to the moment of falling asleep—may simply be termed the activities, the peculiarities, or the forces, of ordinary consciousness.

Let us now summarise graphically—by enclosing it between these two parallel lines (a—b)—everything that is included in the ordinary human consciousness: that is, everything that a human being knows, feels, and wills, from the time he awakes, till he falls asleep.

We then find—do we not—that our thoughts, and also every one of our perceptions, belong within this sphere enclosed by these two parallel lines. Thus, when we enter into relationship with the external world through our senses, and thereby form an image of this external world through all sorts of sense impressions—an image which is still in connection, or in contact, with the external world—this also forms part of our ordinary consciousness. At the same time, our feeling-life and our impulses of will belong here also—in short, everything that constitutes our ordinary consciousness. We might say that this sphere represented by these parallel lines (a—b), includes everything which the normal, every-day life of the soul makes known to us.

Now, the important thing is that we should know, quire clearly, that this so-called soul-life is dependent upon the instruments of the physical body -- that is upon all those instruments comprised by the senses and the nervous system. If we now draw two other parallel lines beyond the first two, we may say that the sense-organs and the nervous system in our physical organism serve as the instruments of this ordinary consciousness—the sense-organs being the more important, although the nervous system may also be included, to a certain extent.

And, below the threshold of our ordinary consciousness, lies all that may be enclosed between these other two parallel lines (b—c)—and which may be termed the hidden side of the soul's life, or the sub-consciousness. We obtain a clear conception of what is imbedded, as it were, in this sub-consciousness, when we remember, on the one hand, that the human being acquires, as we have learned, through spiritual training, imagination, inspiration, and intuition. Thus we see that, just as we have to include our conceptual thoughts, our feelings, and our will-impulses, in the ordinary consciousness, so we have to include imagination, inspiration, and intuition, in the subconscious life. But we know, also that the sub-consciousness is active, not only when such a spiritual training is carried on, but that it may also become active in the form of an ancient inheritance—as an original primitive state of human consciousness, or a kind of atavism. In this case, something arises which we may call visions; and these visions, arising—let us say—in the naive consciousness, correspond, in this primitive state of consciousness, to the Imaginations acquired by means of the right training. Moreover, forebodings may arise; and these would be the primitive inspirations. A significant example will at once show us the difference between a foreboding and an inspiration.

We have often mentioned the fact that, in the course of the 20th century, an event will occur, in human evolution, which we may call a kind of spiritual return of the Christ; and that there will be a number of people who will experience the influence of the Christ upon our world—when He enters it in an etheric form, from out the astral plane. A knowledge of this fact can be attained if we learn to know, through the right sort of training, just how evolution takes its course, and we then come to see—as a result of this training—that such an event must indeed take place, during the 20th century. It is also quite possible, on the other hand—and indeed this often happens, in our days—that certain people will be gifted with a natural, primitive clairvoyance, a mysterious kind of inspiration, which we may describe as a foreboding of the approaching Christ. These people will not even know, perhaps, exactly what is taking place; yet, nevertheless, an important inspiration such as this may quite well appear as a foreboding, if something takes place within the primitive consciousness which is more than a vision, more than a foreboding. A vision is experienced when the image or counterpart of a spiritual occurrence arises before us. Let us suppose, for instance, that someone has lost a friend—so that the Ego has passed through the portal of death and is now dwelling in the spiritual world. A kind of connection may be established, in this case, between the one living in the spiritual world, and the one dwelling on the earth; and yet, the one who is living in this world may not know, at all rightly, just what the dead friend desires of him—indeed, he may have a false idea of what the departed friend, yonder, is experiencing in his soul. Nevertheless, the very fact of such a condition may be experienced in the form of a vision; and—even if it should be wrong, as far as the picture is concerned—the vision may be based upon the true fact: namely, that the departed friend wishes to establish a connection with the one who is still alive. And this assumes the form of a premonition. Thus, one who has premonitions knows certain things concerning either the past or the future, which are not accessible to ordinary consciousness. Let us suppose, on the other hand, something arises before the human soul in the form of a clear perception (not merely as a vision which may, under certain circumstances, be misleading, but as a clear perception); and let us suppose that it represents either some event which takes place in the physical world—although not in a sphere which renders it accessible to the ordinary senses—or an event taking place in the super-sensible world. Such an appearance is usually designated by occultism as “deuteroscopy,” or second sight. And with this I have described to you something, whether it be described through regular training or whether it appears in the form of natural clairvoyance, that takes place in human consciousness—in the sub-consciousness, to be sure; yet at the same time in the human soul itself.

Now, when we speak of sub-consciousness, in contrast to ordinary consciousness, we find that everything that takes place here in the human soul differs very greatly from all processes in the ordinary consciousness. These processes of ordinary consciousness—with respect to those things with which they are connected—are in reality such, that we must speak of the impotence of this ordinary consciousness. The eye sees the rose; but this eye, which acts, to be sure, in such a way that the image of the rose arises in us, is quite powerless to picture to the ordinary consciousness—even with all its perception and its capacity to imagine the rose—such a thing as the growth, the growing and fading of the rose. The rose grows and dies again through its inherent natural forces; and neither the eye, nor the ordinary consciousness, can go beyond the sphere which is accessible to their perception. This is not the case, however, with the facts belonging to the sphere of the sub-conscious. And this is what we must bear in mind first of all; for it is extremely important. If we perceive something with our eye, during the normal act of vision—whether it be coloured pictures, or anything else—we are not only unable, through our perception, to change anything in the objective facts, but something else indeed arises, if our sight is normal. If nothing else takes place, for the eye, than the mere act of vision, the eye in this case remains unchanged by this process. Only when we go beyond the natural limits, by sometimes passing from a normal light to a blinding light, do we injure the eye. So that we may say: facts and processes of ordinary consciousness do not enable us even to react upon ourselves, if we simply remain in this ordinary consciousness. Our organism is indeed constructed in such a way that facts accessible to ordinary consciousness do not even cause any particular changes within us.

It is quite different, however, with those things which arise in the sub-consciousness. Let us suppose that we form an imagination, or that we have a vision. And let us now suppose that this Imagination, or this vision, corresponds to some good Being. This good Being, in that case, is not in the physical, sense-world, but in the super-sensible world; and let us now suppose that the world, inhabited by these Beings which we perceive through imagination or vision, lies enclosed, here, between these two parallel lines. Let us try to find in this world everything which may become object, or perception, for our sub-consciousness (b—e)—we shall refrain from writing anything in this space, for the time being. On the other hand, if we have an imaginary picture, or a vision, of some sort of evil or demoniacal Being in this super-sensible world, we are not powerless, as far as this Being is concerned, in the way the eye is powerless with regard to the rose. If, during the imagination or vision of an evil Being, we call forth the feeling that it should retreat from us—if we do this while seeing perfectly clearly this visionary, or imaginative, picture, such a Being in this other world, must actually feel as if it were pushed and driven away by a force proceeding from us.

The same thing happens, if we have the corresponding imagination, or vision, of a good Being. In this case, also, if we develop a feeling of sympathy, this Being will feel within itself a force which compels it to approach us and to connect itself with us. All Beings—whatever may be their place in this world—sense the forces of attraction, or repulsion, coming from us, whenever we form visions of them. Our sub-consciousness is therefore in a situation similar to that of an eye that would not only see a rose, but would develop, through the mere sight of the rose, the desire that the rose should approach it—could attract it to itself. Or, if upon seeing something repulsive, the eye were not only to come to the opinion, “This is repulsive,” but could eliminate this repulsive thing through mere antipathy. Our sub-consciousness is therefore connected with a world in which the sympathy and antipathy arising in the human soul can be active. It is necessary to place this quite clearly before our minds.

But sympathy and antipathy—and, generally speaking, all the impulses in our sub-consciousness—are not only active in this sphere, in the way already described; they are also active in what is more especially within ourselves, and which we must now think of as a part of man's etheric body—not only as a part of the etheric body, however, but also as certain forces of the physical body—enclosed, here, within these two parallel lines (b—c). We must imagine here, that is to say, first of all what lives in man as a force pulsating through his blood, or: the force of warmth in the blood. And then, we must imagine within this space still another force: namely, that force which is present in our healthy or unhealthy breathing depending, as it does, upon our entire organism in short, the more or less healthy force of breathing. We may also call it the constitution of the force of breathing. Furthermore, a great part of what we must term man's etheric body belongs to all that upon which the sub-consciousness is actively at work within us. Hence, sub-consciousness, or the hidden forces of the soul-life, work within us in such a way that they influence, in the first place, the temperature of our blood. Since the entire pulsation, the vitality, or lack of vitality of our circulation is dependent upon the temperature of our blood, we can realise that this whole circulation must be connected in some way with our sub-consciousness, Whether or not a human being has a more rapid, or a less rapid, circulation is essentially dependent upon the forces of his sub-consciousness.

Now, if the influence man has on all that exists in that other world, in the form of demoniacal of good Beings, takes place only when there arise out of his sub-consciousness with a certain clearness visions, imaginations, or other sorts of perceptions—that is if, things really stand clearly before him; and if, then, certain forces become as it were magically active in this world, through sympathy and antipathy, this clear way of facing himself, subconsciously, in his own soul, will not be necessary for the influencing of that inner organism which consists of what we have indicated here (b—c). Whether man knows, or fails to know, exactly what imaginations correspond to this or that sympathy within him—in either case, this sympathy works upon the circulation of his blood, upon his breathing-system, upon his etheric body. Let us now suppose that, for a certain period of time, someone is inclined to have only feelings of repulsion. If he were able to see visions, or if he were endowed with imaginative knowledge, he would have the kind of vision, or imagination, described day before yesterday, in the form of perceptions of his own being. These would be projected out into space, to be sure, but they would nevertheless belong only to his own world; these visions and imaginations would reveal what lives within him in the way of forces active in feelings of repulsion. Yet, even if he simply has these feelings of repulsion, so that they live within him—they nevertheless work upon him all the same. And they work in such a way, indeed, that they actually influence the force which warms his blood, and also the force in his breathing. Hence, if we now pass on to the other aspect, we find that the human being has a more or less healthy breathing—depending upon the feelings which he experiences in his sub-consciousness; and that he has a more or less healthy circulation, depending upon his sub-conscious experiences. It is especially the activity of the etheric body, and all its processes, that are dependent on the world of feeling that lives in man.

When the facts of sub-consciousness are really experienced by the soul, we can see, not only that there exists this connection (of the world of feeling—with the breathing, the circulation, and the activity of the etheric body), but that owing to it, there is a continual influence upon the entire constitution of man, with the result that there are certain feelings and sensations which reach down into the sub-consciousness. And because these call forth certain forms in the force of warmth in the blood, and a certain disposition in the force of breathing and of the etheric body, their influence upon the organism is either a furthering one, during the whole of a man's life; or it is one that retards and hinders it. Thus there is always something arising or passing away in man, through these forces which play into his sub-consciousness. He either diminishes his vital forces, or he increases them, through what he sends down into his sub-consciousness out of his ordinary conscious state. If a man takes pleasure in the thought of lies which he has told; if it does not fill him with repulsion—for this would be the natural feeling toward a lie—or if he is lazy and indifferent toward lies, and even takes pleasure in telling them, this feeling which accompanies the lie, is in that case sent down into his sub-consciousness. Whatever enters the sub-consciousness, in this way injures the circulation of the blood, the constitution of breathing, and the forces of the etheric body; and the consequence of this will be that the human being, when he passes through the portal of death with what then remains to him, will be stunted—will become impoverished in his forces—because something has died in him, which would have come to life had he felt abhorrence and repulsion toward lying—in accordance with the normal human feeling. If the feelings of aversion toward lying had dived down into his sub-consciousness they would then have been transferred to those forces indicated here, in our drawing, and the human being would have sent down into his organism something beneficial—something in the nature of forces of birth.

Thus we see how, in the first place, the human being works from out of his sub-consciousness upon his own growth and decay, because of the fact that forces are continually passing from his upper consciousness—from his ordinary consciousness—down into his sub-consciousness. Man, as he is constituted today, however, is not yet strong enough to cause injury through his soul-nature, as it were, to other parts of his organism also—besides his circulation, his breathing, and his etheric body. He cannot harm the coarser and firmer parts of his physical organism, as well. Thus, we may say that man is in a position to harm only a part of his entire constitution. What has thus been injured appears with especial clearness, when that part of the etheric body which has remained (for the etheric body is continually connected with the force of warmth in the blood, and with the constitution of breathing) has been influenced in the way we have mentioned; for in this case it deteriorates through wrong feelings. On the other hand it acquires fruitful, strengthening and beneficent forces through good, normal, true feelings. We may therefore say that what takes place in his sub-consciousness enables man to work directly upon the growth and decay, that is, upon the true processes, the reality, of his organism. He plunges down from the sphere of impotence of his ordinary consciousness, into the sphere where there is constant growth and decay, in his own soul, and consequently in his whole human constitution.

Now we have seen that, through the fact that our soul has more or less experience of our sub-consciousness—knows something concerning it: through this fact, the sub-consciousness also acquires an influence over that world which may be termed (according to an expression which was used for it throughout the Middle-Ages)—the elementary world. Nevertheless, man cannot enter into direct relationship with this elementary world, but only by the circuitous road, of experiencing, first of all in himself, the effects of his sub-consciousness upon his organism. If, after a period of time, the human being has learned sufficient self-knowledge to say to himself: “When you have this feeling within you, and when you send the one or the other result of your conduct down into your sub-consciousness, you destroy certain things in yourself, thereby, and cause them to be stunted; and when you experience other things, and send down certain accompanying experiences, you further your development,” if, for a certain period of time, he experiences within himself this fluctuation between destruction and furthering forces, he will then become more and more mature in self-knowledge. This is, in reality, the true self-knowledge; and it can be likened only to a “picture” with may be obtained as follows:—

Self-knowledge, attained in this way, may actually bring it about—through a lie, and through a wrong feeling toward the lie, which arises in our instincts—that we feel as if a scorpion were biting off one of our toes. We may be sure that, if human beings were to perceive some real effect of this sort, they would never lie as they do. Thus, if we were to experience at once, in the physical world, a crippling of our physical organism this would correspond to what actually happens in connection with things that usually remain invisible—through what we send down into sub-consciousness, out of our daily experiences. Any sort of lazy indifference toward a lie, which is sent down into the sub-consciousness, has the effect of biting off something within us, as it were—taking away something which we then no longer possess, so that we are stunted and must acquire it again, in the later course of our karma. And if we send down a right feeling into our sub-consciousness (of course, we must imagine an infinite scale of feelings which may plunge down in this way) we grow in ourselves thereby, and form new life-forces in our organism. The first thing which appears in a man who attains true self-knowledge is this ability to become a spectator of his own growing and fading.

I have been told that my listeners did not understand quite clearly, day before yesterday, how we may distinguish between a true vision or imagination which forms an objective experience, and one which is merely projected into space and belongs to our subjective life. Now, we cannot say—“Write down this or that rule, and then you will be able to distinguish the one from the other.” Such rules do not exist; on the contrary, we learn only gradually, in the course of our development. And we are able to distinguish between what belongs only to ourselves, and what arises as exterior vision and belongs to a true Being, only when we have passed through the experience of being continually devoured, inwardly, by sub-conscious processes that kill. This will equip us with a kind of certainty, and will be followed also by a state in which we shall always be able to face a vision or an imagination and say to ourselves: “If we can see into the vision through the force of our spiritual sight, the vision will remain; for, if we develop the active force of spiritual sight, this corresponds to an objective fact. If, on the other hand, the active force of spiritual sight obliterates the vision, this proves that it was merely a part of our own self.”

Thus, a human being who is not careful with regard to this may even see thousands and thousands of pictures from the Akasha Chronicle; yet, even so, if he does not apply the test as to whether or not these pictures are obliterated through an absolutely active sight, these Akasha pictures, in that case—no matter how many facts they may reveal—can be looked upon only as pictures of man's own inner life. It might happen, for instance—I repeat, it might happen—that someone who sees nothing more than his own interior, projected in very dramatic pictures, imagines these to be events, let us say, which extend over the entire Atlantean world, through whole generations of humanity. ... And, all the while—no matter how seemingly objective—this might, under certain circumstances, be merely a projection of his own inward being. Now, when a human being passes through the portal of death, it always comes to pass that whatever might hinder his subjective life from being transformed into visions or Imaginations now disappears. In the ordinary human life of our day, as we know, what man experiences within himself sub-consciously, what he sends down into his sub-consciousness, does not always become vision or Imagination. It becomes an Imagination if he undergoes the regular and necessary training; and it becomes a vision if he still possesses an atavistic clairvoyance. When the human being has passed through the portal of death, his entire inner life becomes immediately an objective world, and is there before him. Kamaloka is in its essence nothing else than a world erected around us out of all that we have experienced within our own souls. Only in Devachan does the reverse of this take place. Thus we can easily realise that what I have said regarding the activity of man's sympathy and antipathy, as contained in visions, Imaginations, Inspirations, and also premonitions, etc.—that this activity always, under all circumstances, influences the objective elementary world. And I said, in connection with this activity, that, in the human being who is incarnated in the physical body, only that which he brings as far as vision or Imagination can influence this elementary world. In the case of the dead, those forces also which existed in the sub-consciousness and which always accompany the human being when he crosses the portal of death, are active in the elementary world; so that everything which he experiences after death is in reality exceedingly active in the elementary world.

Just as certainly as we create waves in the river, when we lash its waters—with the same certainty do the experiences of the dead continue to influence the elementary world. Just as certainly, I repeat, as waves arise and ripple out from whatever point we happen to strike, in the water; and just as surely as a current of air continues to create itself, just so surely do these forces continue their influence in the elementary world. Hence, this elementary world is continually filled with forces which have been called into being through what human beings take with them, out of their sub-consciousness, when they cross the portal of death. The important thing, therefore, is always to be in position to create such circumstances as will enable us to see—to perceive—the things in the elementary world. It need not surprise us, when the clairvoyant rightly recognises the things that occur in the elementary world as Beings brought about through the activity of the dead. At the same time—and under certain specific conditions to be sure—we can pursue these activities, resulting from the experiences of the dead (and influencing, first, the elementary world) even as far as the physical world. For, when a clairvoyant has himself passed through all those experiences which I have described, and has attained the ability to perceive the elementary world, he will arrive at the point, after a certain length of time, when he has the most extraordinary experiences.

Let us suppose that a clairvoyant passes through the following process:—To begin with, he looks at a rose, let us say. He looks at it with his physical eye. Now, when he looks at it in this way, he will receive a sense-impression. And let us suppose, further, that this clairvoyant has trained himself to experience quite a definite feeling, with a certain definite nuance, when he sees the colour red. This is necessary; otherwise the process would not go any further. Unless we experience quite definite nuances of feeling, when we see colours, or hear sounds, we cannot progress in a clairvoyance that is directed at exterior objects. Now, let us suppose that the clairvoyant gives away the rose. If he were not clairvoyant, his perception would sink down into his sub-consciousness and would carry on its work, there—making him ill or healthy, as the case might be. If on the other hand, he is clairvoyant, he will now perceive just how his Imagination of the rose works upon his sub-consciousness. That is, he will have a visionary picture—an Imagination of the rose. At the same time, he will perceive how the feelings which the rose called forth in him have either a furthering or a destructive effect upon his etheric body—as well as upon what we have here described as the physical body. He will perceive in everything, the effect upon his own organism. And if he has now formed an Imigination of the rose, he will be able through this to exercise a force of attraction upon that Being which we may call the Group-Soul of the rose, and which is always at work in the rose. Thus, he will be able to look into the elementary world, to see the Group-Soul of the rose, in so far as it lives in that world. Now, on the other hand, if the clairvoyant goes still further—that is, if he has started by looking at the rose; has then given it away; and, finally, has pursued the inner process of his surrender to the rose, and of the effect resulting therefrom; and if he thus reaches the point of seeing something of the rose in the elementary world, he will then see, in the place where the rose appeared to him, a wonderfully luminous sort of picture, belonging to the elementary world. And then, if he has followed the process as far as this point, something new will take place. He may now ignore what is there, before him, and may command himself not to look with the inner eye at what appears before him as a living etheric Being, extending out into the world—he must not see this! An extraordinary thing then takes place: namely, the clairvoyant sees something which goes through his eye and which shows him the activity of the forces that construct his eye—those forces, that is, which build up the human eye out of the etheric body. He sees which are the constructive forces of his own physical body. He actually sees his physical eye as if it were an exterior object.

This is actually what may take place. He may follow the path leading from an exterior object to that point—otherwise a space containing absolute darkness—where, without allowing any other sense-perception to enter, he now perceives what his own eye looks like, in a spiritual picture. Thus he can see the interior organ itself; and he has now reached this region, here)—the region of what is truly creative in the physical world, or the creative physical world. Man perceives it first, by perceiving his own physical organisation. Thus he retraces the path and returns to himself. What is it that has sent into our eye forces which, in reality, cause us to see this eye, as if rays of light went out from it, corresponding completely with the nature of vision? As a next step, we then see the eye surrounded by a sort of yellow luminosity, we see it enclosed within ourselves. All this has been effected by the process of those forces which have brought man up to this stage.

The same course is followed by those forces which may proceed from a dead person. The dead man takes with him, into the world in which he lives after passing through the portal of death, the content of his sub-consciousness. As soon as we reach the interior of our own physical eye, we experience there the forces sent out by the dead, and coming from the elementary world back into the physical world. The one who has died may perhaps experience a special longing for someone he has left behind. This special longing was contained, at first, in his sub-consciousness; but it now immediately becomes a living vision; and through this he influences the elementary world. In the elementary world, what at first was only living vision becomes, now at once, a force. This force takes the path indicated by the longing for the one living on earth; and if it is in any way possible, there will be knocking and other noises in the physical world, in the neighbourhood of the living. One may hear these sounds of rapping, etc., or perceive them, just as one perceives any other physical thing. These very things, which are due to connections and circumstances of this sort, would be noticed far more often in the world than is generally the case, if people would only pay attention to the times most favourable for such influences. And the most favourable times are the moments of falling asleep, and of waking in the morning. People simply do not pay sufficient attention to such things—for, indeed, there cannot really be any human beings, anywhere, who have not, at some time or other, received messages from the super-sensible world, in the transition state between falling asleep and awaking again—messages that come in the form of rapping noises, or even of spoken words.

I wished to allude to this today, my dear friends, because I wished to point out the true reality of the connection between Man and the Universe. What man obtains from the objective sense-world, in his ordinary consciousness, is powerless, and devoid of any real connection with this sense-world. But, as soon as his experiences pass into his sub-consciousness a connection with Reality is established. The impotence of his preceding state of consciousness is transformed into a fine, imperceptible, magic force. And when man has passed through the portal of death, and is unhampered by his physical body, his experiences are such as to play into an elementary world; and, under favourable circumstances they may work down as far as the physical world—where they may be perceived even by the ordinary consciousness.

I have indicated the simplest sort of thing which can take place; because, after all, we must always begin with the simplest things. Naturally, in the course of time—for we have always allowed ourselves time to work out gradually whatever we need to know—we shall pass on to the more complicated things, which may lead us, in turn, into the more intimate connections, so to speak, existing between the Universe and Man.

If you will think back to the dramatic scenes we have had before us these last few days, you will find that they lead into what we will consider in this lecture cycle. First of all, I would like to call to mind Scenes Nine, Ten and Thirteen of The Souls' Awakening. These are scenes whose effect one could call simple and straightforward. After the happenings in the Spirit Realm (Scenes Five and Six) and the Egyptian initiation (Scenes Seven and Eight), some people might have expected a much more forceful sequel coming before their eyes of soul, more tragic, perhaps, or more emphatic in speech, not just a subsiding into inner quietness. However, anything formed differently in Scenes Nine, Ten, and Thirteen would appear untruthful to the occult eye.

We see on stage various developments of soul. It should be said immediately that we have also given theoretical descriptions of the development into higher worlds, and these contain points of reference for every person on his or her path towards the spiritual world. Nevertheless, soul development is necessarily different for each one, according to his own special nature, character, temperament and circumstances. We can therefore gain a deeper understanding of an esoteric soul development only when we observe its diversity: how differently it takes place in Maria, how differently in Johannes Thomasius, how differently in the other characters of the drama.

Scene Nine is first of all directed to that psychological moment when the consciousness breaks into Maria's soul of the experiences that had penetrated to her very core but not altogether consciously during the devachanic¹ time before birth and in the ancient Egyptian initiation. In what was presented to us as “Spirit Realm,” we are concerned with soul experiences between death at the end of a medieval incarnation and birth into our present time. The events of all four Mystery Dramas, with the exception of the episode in The Souls' Probation that represents the spiritual review of his previous life by Capesius, take place at the present time, a time linked to the spiritual past spent in Devachan, between the death of the various characters after their incarnation in the Middle Ages (this being the content of the episode mentioned) and their present life.

The experiences of the devachanic period differ according to the preparation our souls have made on earth. It must be understood that it is a significant experience when a soul can go through what is called the Cosmic Midnight with consciousness. Souls that are not prepared for it will sleep through that part of the time called the Saturn period of Devachan (one can designate the successive periods a soul undergoes between death and a new birth as connected with the various planets: Sun, Mars, Mercury periods, and so on). Many souls sleep through the whole Cosmic Midnight. Souls that have been prepared are awake in this period of their spiritual life, but there is no guarantee that souls so prepared will also bring a clear memory of this experience into their life on earth when they come back into physical existence.

Maria and Johannes were well prepared for the experience of the Cosmic Midnight during their time in the spirit between death and new birth. Nevertheless a kind of soul darkness prevailed at the beginning of their earth lives, continuing over long periods of time and shrouding the experience of the Cosmic Midnight; then at a later stage of their present life, this rose to the surface. It reappeared only when a certain inner calmness and resolution of soul was reached. Significant and profound are the experiences of the Cosmic Midnight when the soul is awake to them. The earthly memory of all this must come as a calm inner experience, a luminous inner experience, for the effect of such a perception of the Cosmic Midnight is this: what formerly was only subjective, working inwardly as soul force, now appears as a living being or beings before the soul. As shown in Scene Nine of The Souls' Awakening it presents itself before Maria in the forms of Astrid and Luna as real beings. To Johannes Thomasius the Other Philia becomes a living being of the spiritual world, and to Capesius, Philia, in Scene Thirteen. These characters had to learn to feel perceptively that what before this were only abstract forces within themselves now could appear to them in a spiritually tangible form.

What comes to souls spiritually tangible as genuine self-knowledge has to appear in complete soul quietness, the result of meditation: this is essential if such happenings are to be experienced in the true sense of the word for genuine strengthening of the soul. If a person wanted to experience the Cosmic Midnight as retrospective memory or to experience what is shown as the Egyptian initiation not in the clear light of meditation but as intense tragedy, he would not be able to experience them at all. For the spiritual happening that is taking place in the soul would place itself like a dark veil before it, so that any impressions recede from observation. A soul that has experienced the Cosmic Midnight and in its deepest core received a momentous impression of the kind shown in Scenes Seven and Eight of The Souls' Awakening can remember the past happening only when the soul in completely lucid calmness can perceive thoughts approaching, thoughts about earlier experiences in the spiritual life or in the former earth life. This is what is expressed in the words at the beginning of Scene Nine:

A star of soul ... there ... at the spirit shore ...
it draws near ... nears in spirit brightness ...
my Self it brings... and nearing,
its light gains strength ... gains calmness too.
You star within the circuit of my spirit ... what,
approaching, shines on my beholding soul?²

Only when the soul is in this calm mood, so that the experience does not whirl in upon it with tragic vehemence, can one feel the arising memory of the Cosmic Midnight and the experiences of the previous incarnation as occultly true. When it is experienced and lived through, the Cosmic Midnight has a profound significance for a person's emotional life. There one lives through what can only be expressed as follows: In the Cosmic Midnight things are experienced that he hidden deep, deep down under the surface, not only of the sense world but also under the surface of the various worlds to which a dawning clairvoyance can lead. The sense world recedes, and also there recedes from clairvoyant vision in some of those who have already been able to discern various layers below the sense world, what we may call (and we will speak of it at length later on)—the Necessities in cosmic events. The Necessities are rooted in the foundations of things, where also the deepest part of the human soul rests. This, however, evades the physical gaze and also the dawning clairvoyant gaze, revealing itself to the latter only when something is experienced like the Saturn period scenes. One may therefore say that to such a clairvoyant gaze, which indeed must first appear between death and a new birth, it is as if lightning flashes were crossing the soul's whole field of vision, lightning whose terrifying brilliance was illumining the Cosmic Necessities, which at the same time were themselves so blindingly bright that the cognitive gaze dies away in the radiant light. Then from this expiring glance of cognition there come forth picture forms that enweave themselves into the cosmic web like the forms from which grow the destinies of the cosmic beings. One discovers in the foundations of the Necessities the fundamental causes of human destinies and those of other beings, but only when one gazes with glances of cognition that die away in the knowing, destroyed by the lightning flashes; they then remodel themselves as if into forms that have died but that live on as the impulses of destiny in life.

All that a true self-knowledge can discover in itself—not the self-knowledge so bandied about in Theosophical ranks but the highly serious self-knowledge that comes to pass in the course of esoteric life³—all that a soul can perceive within itself, with all the imperfections it has to ascribe to itself, all this is heard at the cosmic midnight as if enwoven into rolling cosmic thunder, rumbling in the underground of existence.

All these experiences may take place with great anguish and solemn resolve between death and a new birth as an awakening at the Cosmic Midnight. If the soul is mature enough to allow the consciousness of this to enter the physical sense world, it must happen in the quiet clarity of the meditative mood hinted at by Maria at the beginning of Scene Nine. What, however, the soul has perceived within its spiritual life must have preceded this, as if something of itself, something belonging intimately to itself but not always dwelling in what one can call the Self, had approached from world distances. The mood in which something in the spirit world approaches one like a part of oneself, yet as though coming from far away: this was attempted in the words Maria speaks in the Spirit Realm (Scene Six):

The flames are nearing—nearing with my thinking
from distant cosmic soul-shores of my being.—
A heated battle nears—and my own thinking
must battle with the thoughts of Lucifer;
within another soul my thinking fights.—
Hot light is wafted—out of fierce dark coldness.—
It flashes lightnings, this hot light of soul—
the light of soul—in cosmic fields of ice—

The memory of the experience that can be expressed in such words as this can be rendered again in the words of Maria mentioned above at the beginning of Scene Nine (“A star of soul ...”). What, however, the soul has to feel in order to have such a memory of the Cosmic Midnight must also lie in one's earth life, for here the human soul goes through events which bring to it the moods of inner anguish, inner resolve, inner dread, that one can only express in such words given to Maria to speak at the end of Scene Four. Indeed, one has to have felt that the individual self tears itself away from what one generally calls the inner life; that the power of thinking, with which one feels so confidently connected in life, tears itself out of the inner being and seems to go off towards the far, far limits of one's field of vision; and one must have found alive in oneself as soul presence what is expressed in such words—though naturally these will seem complete nonsense, overflowing with contradictions, to the sort of comprehension limited to the external senses and tied to the brain. One must first have experienced the feeling of one's own self moving away, of one' s thinking moving away, if one is to live through again in complete calm the memory of the Cosmic Midnight. The memory during earth life must be preceded by the experience of the Cosmic Midnight in the spiritual life, if what is in Scene Nine should take place.

To make this possible, however, there must again have been the soul mood expressed at the end of Scene Four. The flames do in truth take flight; they do not come earlier into earthly consciousness; they do not approach the calm of meditation, before they have first fled away, until this soul mood has become a truth:

The flames are fleeing ... fleeing with my thinking;
----------------------------------------------------------
And there at distant cosmic shores of soul
a furious battle ... my own thinking fights ...
at flowing nothingness—cold spirit light ...
my thinking wavers, reels ... cold light ...
it strikes out of my thinking flaming waves of darkness ...
what now emerges from the fierce, dark heat?
in red flames storms my Self ... into the light ...
into cold light ... of cosmic fields of ice.

These things are linked together; their being connected in this way strengthens the inner soul faculties. What at first was only an abstract soul force now steps before the soul in a spiritual body, so that in one sense it is a special entity, on the other hand it belongs to one's self, as Astrid and Luna appear to Maria. These beings, who are real and at the same time perceived as soul forces, appear in such a way that they can stand on stage with the Guardian of the Threshold and with Benedictus as they do in Scene Nine. The most important thing is to sense the mood of this scene so that in a quite different, individual manner, when the inner soul force corresponding to the Other Philia takes on bodily form, an awakening takes place, that is, the memory of the Cosmic Midnight and of the ancient Egyptian time in Johannes Thomasius. To such a finely attuned soul as Johannes Thomasius the words of the Other Philia: “Enchanted weaving of your own being...” have a special meaning, as well as what is connected with them during the rest of the Mystery Drama. Because of this, the Spirit of Johannes' Youth, Benedictus and Lucifer appear as they do at the end of Scene Ten. It is important to bring before the mind's eye in just this scene how Lucifer approaches Johannes Thomasius and the same words are spoken that were heard at the end of Scene Three in The Guardian of the Threshold. In these words one discovers how the battle Lucifer wages moves through all the worlds and through every human life, and one also discovers the mood that resounds out of the words of Benedictus in answer to Lucifer. Try to feel what lies in these words which sound from Lucifer both in The Guardian of the Threshold at the end of Scene Three and in The Souls' Awakening at the end of Scene Ten:

Lucifer: I mean to fight.
Benedictus: And fighting serve the gods.

Let us note very carefully something else at this point, that although the same words are spoken in these two places, they can be spoken so that in each place they mean something quite different. What they mean at the end of Scene Ten of The Souls' Awakening is determined by the fact that the preceding words of Maria are transformed from words spoken in The Guardian of the Threshold, while in Maria's soul there lives what she had spoken:

Maria, as you have desired to see her,
does not exist in worlds of radiant truth.
My holy, solemn vow rays forth new strength
to hold for you what you have gained.

She says now:

You'll find me in bright fields of light ...

She no longer says:

And you will find me in cold fields of ice ...

but

You'll find me in bright fields of light
where glowing beauty brings forth powers of life.
Seek me in grounds of worlds where souls
must struggle to achieve their feeling for the gods
through love, which in the All beholds the Self.

The words are turned around from what they are in Scene Two of The Souls' Awakening. It is through this that the dialogue between Lucifer and Benedictus at the end of Scene Ten: “I mean to fight”—“And fighting serve the gods,” becomes entirely different from what it was at the end of Scene Three in The Guardian of the Threshold. In understanding this, light is shed on something of an ahrimanic thrust, one can say, that prevails in all intellectual thinking, in the whole intellectual culture of today.

It is one of the most difficult things for people with this superficial faculty of intellect in our modern culture to realize that the same words in a different context mean something different. Modern civilization is such that people think that the words they use—in so far as they have been coined on the physical plane—must always mean the same thing. Here we have precisely the place where Ahriman has people most firmly by the throat, and where he hinders them from understanding that words only become living in their deepest sense when one looks at them in the connection in which they are uttered. Nothing that reaches out beyond the physical plane can be understood if one does not keep this occult fact in mind. It is especially important today that an occult fact of this kind should work upon our hearts and souls as a counterbalance to the external intellectual life that has taken firm hold of every human being.

Among the many things that have to be considered in these Mystery Dramas, notice how indeed in The Souls' Awakening the remarkable figure of Ahriman steals in quietly at first,⁴ how it seems to insinuate itself among the other characters and how it continually gains in significance towards the end of the drama. I shall endeavor to bring out for you a special piece of writing about Lucifer and Ahriman, and other things as well, entitled The Threshold of the Spiritual World;⁵ it will be on hand during this lecture course, for these seem to me the subjects particularly necessary to illumine for our friends at this time. It is not easy to get a clear understanding of such figures as Ahriman and Lucifer. Perhaps it may be useful for some of you to observe how precisely in The Souls' Awakening he who is not quite in a fog about the ahrimanic element in the world may be able to think of things which someone else through unconscious ahrimanic impulses may be thinking, too, but in a different frame of mind. There will be many among you, dear friends, who can enter into all the circumstances which stream into such words as those expressed by Ahriman while he is insinuating himself among the various persons:

Do not permit him to confuse you quite.
He guards the threshold faithfully indeed,
although he shows himself in borrowed clothes
which you have patched together in your mind
from odds and ends that look like melodrama.
You as an artist could, of course, avoid
producing him in such a wretched style,
though later you will surely do it better.
But even his distorted image serves.
It does not need too much of emphasis
to show you what his present stature is.
You should take notes of how the Guardian speaks:
too mournful is his tone, too much of pathos.—
Forbid him this, and he will show to you
from whom today he borrows to excess.⁶

I can imagine that many people—from some aesthetic point of view or other—will shake their heads at the way these Mystery Dramas are put before us. My dear friends, these objections as well as others raised against anthroposophy can be set aside by those who put themselves in the mood of Ahriman. The hypercritical people of our time who denounce anthroposophy certainly belong to those described by the poet: “The devil's never noticed by some folk, even when he has them by the neck!” We can judge these opponents of anthroposophy a bit by what Ahriman is saying here while he prowls around. He meets us in his more serious form when the death of Strader gradually plays into the events presented in the drama; it comes about then that the forces flowing out of this death must be sought by soul vision in the effect they have on everything else that happens in The Souls' Awakening.

It must be said again and again that this awakening takes place in different ways. For Maria it happens that, through special circumstances, the soul forces that find their bodily-spiritual expression in Luna and Astrid appear before her soul. For Johannes Thomasius it takes place when he experiences in himself the enchanted weaving of his inner being, on the Other Philia's appearance in a spiritually palpable form, if one may use such an absurd expression. For Capesius it happens through Philia in a still different way. In many other forms this awakening can gradually dawn upon souls, for instance, as we see it dawn upon Strader in Scene Eleven. Here we do not meet what we have just described as the spiritually tangible forms of Luna, Philia, Astrid and the Other Philia; we have the still imaginative pictures that radiate spiritual experiences into the physical consciousness. This stage of the awakening of the soul that takes place in Strader can be represented only by such an imaginative perception as the image of the ship in Scene Eleven.

In yet another form can the awakening of the soul gradually prepare itself. You will find this, carefully planned, after Ahriman has been shown in his deeper significance in Scene Twelve: it is hinted at in Scene Thirteen in the conversation between Hilary and Romanus. Let your mind's eye rest on what has been happening in Hilary's soul between the events in The Guardian of the Threshold and those of The Souls' Awakening, expressed in these words of Hilary:

My friend, I thank you for these occult words.
I've heard them often; for the first time now
I feel the secret meaning they contain.
The cosmic ways are hard to penetrate.
And I, dear friend, am called upon to wait
until the spirit shows me the direction
which is in keeping with my spirit sight.

What are the words Romanus had spoken?⁷ They are words that Hilary has heard again and again from the place where Romanus stands in the Temple, words that Romanus has so often spoken at this place, yet until this experience, they had passed before the inner vision of Hilary without the deeper understanding one can call understanding of life. It is also a bit of soul awakening for someone to wrestle his way to an understanding of what he has taken in as thought-forms, grasping them pretty well and even lecturing about them but still without having a living, vital understanding. He may have absorbed everything of anthroposophy contained in books, lectures and cycles, may have even imparted it to others, perhaps to their great benefit, and yet discover this: to understand as now Hilary understands the words of Romanus is only possible after a certain experience for which he must calmly wait. This is a definite stage of the awakening of the soul.

O if only a good number of our friends could put themselves into this mood of waiting! If only they could adopt this frame of mind, of awaiting the approach of something whose description in advance both as theories and explanations has apparently been clear enough and yet misunderstood—then something would take place in their souls that is expressed by Strader's words in Scene Three of The Souls' Awakening. Strader stands there between Felix Balde and Capesius, stands there in a remarkable way—he stands there so that literally he hears every word they say and could repeat it, and yet he cannot understand it. He knows what it is, can even consider it to be wisdom, but now he notices that there is something that can be expressed in the words:

Capesius and Felix, both ... to me ...
conceal dark meaning in transparent words ...

Our supremely clever people today will perhaps concede that by chance this or that person can hide meaning—clear meaning—in obscure words. However, it will not easily be granted by these clever people that an obscure meaning can be hidden in clear words. Nevertheless for human nature to concede that in clear words an obscure meaning may be hidden is of the two the higher acknowledgment. Many sciences are clear, as are many philosophies, but something important would happen for the further evolution of mankind if philosophers would finally confess that—although in all philosophical systems they had certainly produced stuff that was clear and ever clearer, so that anyone could say, “These things are clear!”—yet there may be in clear words an obscure meaning. Something important would take place if the many people who think themselves supremely clever, reckoning what they know to be wisdom (and to some degree rightly so), if they could only place themselves before the world as Strader places himself between Felix Balde and Capesius and learn to say:

I often understood—what you are saying;—
I took it then for wisdom;—but no word
of what you say has meaning for me now.
Capesius and Felix, both—to me—
conceal dark meaning in transparent words.

Just imagine some modern philosopher or one from the past, who has brought together in his own way a plausible clear system of philosophy, and who will take a stand by the side of his philosophy (which is of course in its own way the result of all human thought), saying, “I've usually found this comprehensible. Everything I've written I've taken for wisdom—and yet not a single word in all these phrases can I understand. Even in those I wrote myself, much of it is incomprehensible: these pronouncements seem to hide a dark meaning in clear words.”

Well, one cannot easily imagine such a confession coming from one of our recent or slightly older philosophers, nor from one of the highly clever men of our materialistic, or as it's called in more grandiose style, our monistic age either. And yet it would be a blessing for our present life if people could assume the attitude towards the thoughts and other cultural achievements that Strader assumed towards Felix Balde and Capesius. If only such people might become more and more numerous, and if only anthroposophy could in very truth contribute something directly to this self-knowledge!

• 1. Devachan, devachanic (Sanscrit, deva-divine being) The spirit world. In An Outline of Occult Science Steiner describes it as “The manifestation of the Spirit World in its fullness.”
• 2. Rudolf Steiner, The Souls' Awakening, contained in Four Mystery Dramas, (Vancouver, Steiner Book Centre, 1978).
• 3. Theosophical Society: The German section of the Theosophical Society, headed by Rudolf Steiner until 1912, diverged from the beginning from the rest of the Theosophical Society which was headed by Annie Besant. In 1912, the German section broke away and the Anthroposophical Society was founded.
• 4. The Souls' Awakening, Scene 3.
• 5. Rudolf Steiner, A Road to Self-Knowledge and The Threshold Of The Spiritual World (London, Rudolf Steiner Press, 1975).
• 6. The Souls' Awakening, Scene 13.
• 7. Rudolf Steiner, The Probation of the Soul, contained in Four Mystery Dramas.

You will have seen that the soul experiences of those who appear in The Souls' Awakening take place on the boundary between the physical sense world and the super-sensible spiritual worlds. It is of great significance to the science of the spirit to seize this border region with the inner eye, for it is only natural that at first everything of the super-sensible world that the human soul can experience is an unknown territory from the viewpoint of our faculties and soul experiences in the physical sense world.

When a person has become familiar with the spiritual world by means of the various methods we have apprehended, that is, when the soul has learned to observe, explore and perceive outside the physical body, then such existence and perception in the spiritual world makes it necessary for the soul to develop quite special capacities, special strengths. When during its earth existence the soul is striving towards clairvoyant consciousness, whether already clairvoyant or wishing to become so, it should of course be able to stay outside the body in the spiritual world and then as an earth being come back again into the physical body, living as a human earth person, a normal sense-being within the sense world.

We may therefore say that the soul in becoming clairvoyant must be able to move in the spiritual world according to its laws, and it must ever and again be able to step back over the threshold into the physical sense world, behaving here—to put it in plain terms—correctly and sensibly. Since the faculties of the soul for the spiritual world must be and are different from those the soul employs for the physical senses and the rest of the physical body, the soul has definitely to acquire mobility, if it wants to become clairvoyant. Then it can perceive and take in the spiritual world with the necessary faculties for it, returning across the border and now experiencing the sense world with what is necessary here. The gaining of this adaptability, the capacity of transformation, is never easy. If we are to estimate correctly, however, the differences between the spiritual and physical sense world, we must keep clearly within our mind's eye precisely this border region between the two worlds and the threshold itself over which the soul must pass when it wants to leave one world and enter the other. We shall see in the course of these lectures how injurious it can be for the soul in many different ways to carry the habits of one world into the other, when—in one or the other direction—the threshold has to be crossed.

Our conduct when passing over this threshold is made especially difficult by the presence of beings within the world order that play a certain role in the happenings shown in The Souls' Awakening and the other dramas: the luciferic and the ahrimanic beings. Indeed, in order to gain the right relationship to the transition between one and the other world that we've been speaking about, it is necessary to know how to conduct ourselves in the right way towards both kinds of beings, the luciferic and the ahrimanic. Now it would certainly be convenient—and this solution is chosen at least theoretically by very many souls—to say: “Yes, indeed, Ahriman seems to be a dangerous fellow. If he has such an influence on the world and on human affairs, the simplest thing to do is to banish from the human soul all the impulses that come from him.” This might seem to be the most convenient solution, but to the spiritual world it would be about as sensible as if someone, in order to restore the balance to a pair of scales, were to take off whatever was weighing down the lower one. These beings we call Ahriman and Lucifer are right here in the world, they have their task in the universal order, and one cannot sweep them away. Besides, it is not a question of annihilating them, but—as in the case of the weights on both sides of the scales—the ahrimanic and luciferic forces must balance each other in their influence on human beings and on other beings. We do not bring about the true activity of any of the various forces by removing it but by placing ourselves in the right relationship to it. We have the wrong attitude to these luciferic and ahrimanic beings if we simply say that they are bad and harmful. Although these powers rebel in a certain sense against the general order of the universe—which had already been designed before they entered it—this does not stem from the fact that they invariably have to exercise a harmful activity, but rather that—like the others whom we have met as lawful members of the higher worlds—they have a definite sphere of activity in the sum total of the universe. Their opposition to and rebellion against the cosmic order consists in their going beyond their own sphere; they exert beyond this sphere the forces they should employ only within their lawful domain. From this standpoint let us consider Ahriman or the ahrimanic beings.

We can best characterize Ahriman by saying: he is the Lord of Death, far and wide the ruler of all the powers that have to bring about in the physical sense world what this world has to have, the annihilation and death of its entities. Death in the sense world is a necessary part of its organization, for otherwise the beings in it would accumulate to excess, if destruction of life were not at hand. The task of regulating this in a lawful way fell to Ahriman from the spiritual world; he is the ruler of the ordering of death. His sovereign domain is the mineral world, a world that is utterly dead. One can say that death is poured out over the whole of the mineral world. Furthermore, because our earth world is constituted as it is, the mineral world and its laws pervade all the other kingdoms of nature. Plants, animals, human beings—all are permeated, as far as they belong to the earth, by the mineral; they absorb the mineral substances and, with them, all the forces and laws of the mineral kingdom; they are subject to these laws insofar as they are part of the being of the earth. Therefore whatever belongs justifiably to death extends also into the higher regions of the lawful rule of Ahriman. In what surrounds us as external nature, Ahriman is the rightful Lord of Death and should not be regarded as an evil power but as one whose influence in the general world order is fully legitimate. We will enter into a right relationship with the sense world only when we bring a creditable interest to bear upon it, when our interest in the sense world is so reasonable that we can see everything in it without greedily demanding eternal life for any of its physical forms; on the contrary, that we can do without them when they meet their natural death. To be able to rejoice rightly in the things of the sense world but not to be so dependent on them as to contradict the laws of death and decay—this is the right relationship of the human being to the sense world. To bring about this right relationship to growth and decay, the human being has the impulses of Ahriman within himself; for this reason they pulsate in him.

Ahriman, however, can overstep his bounds. In the first place, he can so far overdo that he sets to work on human thinking. A man who does not see into the spiritual world and has no understanding of it will not believe that Ahriman can put his fingers upon human thinking in a very real way—nevertheless, he does! Insofar as human thinking lives in the sense world, it is bound to the brain, which according to universal law is subject to decay. Ahriman has to regulate the passage of the human brain towards decay, but when he oversteps his territory, he develops the tendency to loosen this human thinking from its mortal instrument, the brain, in order to make it independent. He tries to detach the physical thinking directed to the sense world from the physical brain, into whose current of decay this thinking should merge when the human being passes through the gate of death. Ahriman has the tendency, when he admits man as a physical being into the stream of death, to snatch his thinking out of the current of decay. Throughout a man's whole life Ahriman is always fastening his claws into this thinking activity and working on the human being so that his thinking will tear itself away from destruction. Because Ahriman is active in this way in human thinking and because men bound to the sense world naturally perceive only the effects of the spiritual beings, those who are thus in the clutches of Ahriman feel the impulse to wrench their thinking out of its place in the great cosmic order. The result is the materialistic frame of mind; this is the reason men want to apply their thinking only to the sense world, and the people who refuse to believe in a spiritual world are the ones particularly obsessed by Ahriman: it is he who enters their thinking and prevails upon its remaining in the sense world. First of all, if a person has not become a practical occultist, the result for his inner attitude will be that he becomes a rank, coarse-grained materialist who wants to know nothing about spiritual matters. It is Ahriman who has enticed him into this, only he doesn't notice it. For Ahriman, however, the process is the following: when he succeeds in severing the physical thinking from its brain-bound foundation, he throws shadows and phantoms out into the world which swarm then through the physical world; with these, Ahriman is continually trying to establish a special ahrimanic kingdom.

Unremittingly he lies in wait when man's thinking is about to pass into the stream wherein man himself will journey through the gate of death; there Ahriman lurks, on the watch to snatch away and hold back as much of this thinking as possible, and to form out of it, to tear from its mother-soil, shadows and phantoms that will people the physical world. Occultly observed, these phantoms drift around in the physical world disturbing the universal order; they are creations that Ahriman brings about in the way just described. We will have the right feeling for Ahriman when we appreciate his lawful impulses, for when he lets them enter our souls, we have a correct relationship to the sense world. However, we must be watchful that he does not tempt us in the way I have indicated. Certainly the policy some people choose is more convenient when they say: “Very well, we shall push every ahrimanic impulse out of our souls.” But nothing will be accomplished with this dislodgment except that the other side of the scales will be brought right down—and whoever through mistaken theories succeeds in driving ahrimanic impulses out of his soul falls prey to those of Lucifer.

This shows itself particularly when people, shying away from the right relationship to the ahrimanic powers, despise the sense world and root out their joy in it. Then they reject their former good relationship and in order not to become attached to it, they crush all their interest in the physical world. With this comes a false asceticism, which in its turn offers the most powerful handle to the entrance of the unlawful luciferic impulses. The history of asceticism could very well be written by presenting it as a continuous allurement of Lucifer. In false asceticism a person exposes himself to this kind of seduction because instead of rightly balancing the scales, using thus the polarity of forces, he does away with one side altogether.

However, when the human being makes a correct estimate of the physical sense world, Ahriman is fully justified. The mineral world is his very own kingdom, the kingdom over which death is poured out continuously. In the higher kingdoms of nature Ahriman is the regulator of death insofar as he affects the course of events and the creatures lawfully. What we can trace as super-sensible in the external world, we call for certain reasons spiritual; what is more active inwardly within the human being, we assign to the soul. Ahriman is a more spiritual being; Lucifer is more soul nature. Ahriman can be called the lord of all that takes place in external nature; Lucifer penetrates with his impulses into the inner nature of man.

Now there is also a lawful task belonging to Lucifer, one quite in accordance with the universal cosmic order. In a certain way Lucifer's task is to tear man and everything in the world pertaining to the soul away from living and being absorbed in the physical-sensory alone. If there were no luciferic power in the world, we would dream along in the perceptions streaming into us from the external world and in what comes to us from that world through the intellect. That would be a kind of dreaming away of human soul existence within the sense world. There are indeed impulses which will not tear our souls away from the sense world as long as they are bound temporarily to it but which raise our souls to a different sort of living, feeling and rejoicing from the kind the sense world can offer. We need merely to think of what humanity has been seeking as artistic development. Wherever the human being creates something through his imagination and his soul life of feeling, no longer clinging dully to the sense world but rising above it, Lucifer is the power that tears him out of that world. A large part of what is uplifting and liberating in the artistic development of mankind is inspired by Lucifer. We can designate something else as the inspiration of Lucifer: the human being has the chance through luciferic powers to free his thinking from a mere photograph-like copying of the sense world; he can raise himself above this in freedom, which he does, for instance, in his philosophy. From this point of view, all philosophizing is the inspiration of Lucifer. One could even write a history of the philosophical development of mankind, insofar as this is not pure positivism—that is, does not keep to the external materialistic—and could say: the history of the development of philosophy is a continual testimony to the inspiration of Lucifer. All creative work, in fact, that rises above the sense world we owe to Lucifer's rightful activities and powers.

However, Lucifer too can overstep his domain, and the rebellion of the luciferic beings against the cosmic order is due to their overstepping their place. Lucifer has the tendency continually to do this by contaminating the feeling life of the soul. Ahriman has more to do with our thinking, Lucifer with the feelings, with the life of the emotions, passions, impulses and desires. Lucifer is lord over everything of soul feeling in the physical sense world. He has the tendency to detach and separate this feeling life of the soul from the physical world, to spiritualize it, and to set up, one can say, on a specially isolated island of spiritual existence a luciferic kingdom composed of all the soul feeling he can seize and carry off from the sense world. Whereas Ahriman wants to hold back thinking to the physical sense world and make shadows and phantoms of it, visible to elementary clairvoyance as floating, wafting shadows, Lucifer does the opposite: he takes what is soul feeling in the physical sense world, tears it out and puts it in a special luciferic kingdom set up as an isolated kingdom similar to his own nature, in opposition to the general cosmic order.

We can form an idea about how Lucifer can get at human beings in this way by considering with all our heart and soul a phenomenon in human life that we will speak about later in more detail: the phenomenon of love in the widest sense of the word, the foundation of a true moral life in the world order of humanity. Concerning love in its widest sense, the following has to be said: when love appears in the physical sense world and has its effect on human life, it is absolutely protected from every unlawful luciferic attack if the love is for another person and for that other person's own sake. When we are met by some other human being or by one belonging to another kingdom of nature in the physical world, that being meets us with certain qualities. If we are freely receptive to these qualities, if we are capable of being moved by them, they then command our love and we cannot help loving that other being. We are moved by the other being to love it.

Where the cause of love lies not in the one who loves but in the object of love, this form and kind of love in the sense world is absolute proof against every luciferic influence. But now if you observe human life, you will soon see that another kind of love is playing its part, in which a person loves because he himself has certain qualities that feel satisfied, or charmed, or delighted, when he can love this or that other being. Here he loves for his own sake; he loves because his disposition is thus or so, and this particular disposition finds its satisfaction in loving someone else.

This love, which one can call egoistic love, must also exist. It really has to be present in mankind. Everything we can love in the spiritual world, all the spiritual facts, everything that love can cause to live in us as a longing for and an impulse upwards into the spiritual world, to comprehend the beings of the spiritual world, to perceive the spiritual world: all this springs naturally from a sentient love for that world. This love for the spiritual, however, must—not may but must—come about necessarily for our own sake. We are beings whose roots are in the spiritual world. It is our duty to make ourselves as perfect as we can. For our own sake we must love the spiritual world in order to draw as many forces as possible out of it into our own being. In spiritual love a personal, individual element—we can call it egoistic—is fully justified, for it detaches man from the sense world; it leads him upwards into the spiritual world; it leads him on to fulfill the necessary duty of continually bringing himself further and further towards perfection.

Now Lucifer has the tendency to interchange the two worlds with each other. In human love whenever a person loves in the physical sense world for himself with a trace of egoism, it occurs because Lucifer wants to make physical love similar to spiritual love. He can then root it out of the physical sense world and lead it into his own special kingdom. This means that all love that can be called egoistic and is not there for the sake of the beloved but for the sake of the one who loves, is exposed to Lucifer's impulses.

If we consider what has been said, we will see that in this modern materialistic culture there is every reason to point out these luciferic allurements in regard to love, for a great part of our present-day outlook and literature, especially that of medicine, is permeated by the luciferic conception of love. We would have to touch on a rather offensive subject if we were to treat this in greater detail. The luciferic element in love is actually cherished by a large section of our medical science; men are told again and again—for it is the male world especially pandered to in this—that they must cultivate a certain sphere of love as necessary for their health, that is, necessary for their own sake. A great deal of advice is given in this direction and certain experiences in love recommended that do not spring from a love for the other being but because they are presumed indispensable in the life of the male. Such arguments—even when they are clothed in the robes of science—are nothing but inspirations of the luciferic element in the world; a large portion of science is penetrated simply by luciferic points of view. Lucifer finds the best recruits for his kingdom among those who allow such advice to be given to them and who believe that it is imperative for the well-being of their person. It is absolutely necessary for us to know such things. Those words I quoted yesterday must be emphasized again and again: People never notice the devil, either in luciferic or ahrimanic form, even when he has them by the collar! People do not see that the materialistic scientist who gives the advice just mentioned is under the yoke of Lucifer. They deny Lucifer because they deny all the spiritual worlds.

We see therefore that what is great and sublime on the one hand, what carries and uplifts the evolution of humanity depends on Lucifer. Mankind must understand how to keep the impulses that come from him in their rightful place. Wherever Lucifer makes his appearance as the guardian of beauty and glory, as the patron of artistic impulses, there arises in humanity from his activity great and sublime power. But there is also a shadow-side to Lucifer's activity. He tries everywhere to tear the emotional side of the soul away from the sense organism and make it independent, permeated with egoism and egotism. Thus there enters into the emotional soul nature the element of self-will and other such tendencies. A person can then form for himself in freewheeling activity—with a generous hand, one can say—all sorts of ideas about the universe. How many people indulge in philosophizing, shake it out of their sleeves, without troubling themselves in the least as to whether their speculations are in accord with the general course of universal order! These eccentric philosophers are actually found in great numbers all over the world. In love with their own ideas, they fail to counterbalance the luciferic element with the ahrimanic one that always asks whether everything man acquires by his thinking in the physical sense world actually squares with the laws of the physical world. So we see these people running around with their opinions, which are just a lot of fanatic enthusiasms incompatible with the cosmic order. It is from the shadow side of the luciferic impulse that all these fanatic enthusiasms, the egoistic and confused opinions, the eccentric ideas and false, extravagant idealism arise. Most significantly, however, it is on the borderland or threshold between the sensible and the super-sensible that these luciferic and ahrimanic elements confront us, when we look with the eyes of clairvoyant consciousness.

When the human soul takes on the task of making itself capable of looking into the spiritual world and gaining insight there, it takes on itself, more than anything else, a task that otherwise is carried out by the subconscious guidance of soul life. Nature and its laws take care that in everyday life man does not often transfer the customs and regulations of one kingdom into another; the natural order would be entirely out of control if the separate worlds were to get mixed up together. We emphasized a moment ago that love for the spiritual world must evolve in such a way that the human being develops in himself first and foremost an all-pervasive inner strength, as well as a craving for self-improvement. He has to fix his eye on himself when he nurtures his love for the spiritual world. If, however, he transfers to the senses the kind of ardour that can guide him in the spiritual world to what is most sublime, it will lead him into what is most detestable. There are people who have in their outward physical experience and in their everyday activities no special interest in the spiritual world. It is said such people today are not uncommon. But nature does not permit us to use the ostrich strategy in her affairs. The ostrich strategy, as you know, consists in the bird sticking his head in the sand and believing that the things he doesn't see are not there. Materialistic minds believe that the spiritual world is not there; they do not see it. They are true ostriches.

Nevertheless, in the depths of their souls, the craving for the spiritual world does not cease to exist merely because they deaden themselves and deny its reality. It is actually there. In every human soul, however materialistic, the desire and love for the spiritual world is alive, but people who deaden their soul nature are unconscious of the craving.

There is a law that something repressed and deadened at one point will break out at another. The consequence of the repression of the egoistic impulse towards the spiritual world is that it thrusts itself into the sensual desires. The kind of love due the spiritual world hurls itself away from there into the sensual impulses, passions and desires, and these impulses become perverse. The perversity of the sensual impulses and their repellent abnormalities are the mirror image of what could be noble virtues in the spiritual world, were human beings to use for the spiritual world all the forces poured out into the physical world. We must consider this seriously: what finds expression in the sense world as loathsome impulses could—if they were used in the spiritual world—accomplish there something of the most sublime character. This is immensely significant.

You see how in this regard the sublime is changed into the horrible when the boundary between the physical sense world and the super-sensible world is not observed or valued in the right way. Clairvoyant consciousness should develop so that the clairvoyant soul can live in the super-sensible worlds according to the laws of those worlds; then it must be able to return to its life in the body without letting itself be led astray in the everyday physical sense world by the laws of the super-sensible worlds.

Suppose a soul could not do this—then the following would take place. We shall see that the soul in passing the boundary region between one world and the other learns most of all how to conduct itself in the right way through meeting the Guardian of the Threshold. But suppose a soul, having made itself clairvoyant (this can very well happen) had through various circumstances become clairvoyant without rightfully meeting with the Guardian of the Threshold. Such a soul could see into the super-sensible worlds clairvoyantly and have perceptions there, but it would return then to the physical sense world after entering wrongfully the spiritual world and merely nibbling at dainties there. Such eaters of sweet things in the spiritual world are numerous and it can truly be said that nibbling there is far more serious than it is in the sense world. After nibbling at the spiritual world, it happens very often that a person takes back into the sense world what he has experienced, but the experience shrinks and condenses. A clairvoyant of this kind, one who does not conduct himself according to the laws of the universal order, returns to the physical sense world bringing with him the condensed pictures and impressions of the super-sensible worlds. He will no longer merely look out and ponder the physical world but while he lives within his physical body he will have before him the after-effects of the spiritual world in pictures quite similar to those of sense except that they have no relation to reality, are only illusions, hallucinations, dream pictures.

A person who is able to look in the right way into the spiritual world will never again confuse reality and the fantastic. In this the philosophy of Schopenhauer, in so far as it is erroneous, refutes itself. In the case of its greatest mistake—that our whole environment is nothing but our mental picture—it refutes itself even in the sense world. If you press Schopenhauer's statement, it will show itself up as a fallacy, for you will be guided by life itself to distinguish between iron heated to 900 degrees that is actually perceptible and the imagined iron of 900 degrees that will cause no pain. Life itself reveals the difference between reality and fancy when one lives in the real world with the capacities belonging to it. Even Kant's statement by which he formulated his so-called proof of God, that is, that a hundred imagined dollars are just as valuable as a hundred real ones—that, too, will be contradicted by life. Certainly a hundred imagined dollars contain just as many pennies as a hundred real ones, but for all that there is a difference that comes strongly to the fore in real life. I would recommend anyone who considers Kant's statement to be correct to try to pay a hundred dollar debt with imagined currency; he will notice the difference at once.

If this is the case in the physical sense world when one really stands firmly in it and observes its laws, it is the same for the super-sensible worlds. If one only nibbles at the latter, one will have no protection against mistaking illusion for truth; when the pictures shrink and condense, one takes what should be merely picture for reality. The sweets, too, that such a person carries within himself out of the spiritual world are a special booty for Ahriman to pounce on. From what he can pull out of ordinary human thinking he gets only airy shadows, but—to put it plainly—he gets well padded shadows and plump phantoms when he presses out of human body-individualities (as well as he can) the false illusory pictures created by nibbling on the sly in the spiritual world. In this ahrimanic fashion the physical sense world is populated by spiritual shades and phantoms that offer serious resistance to the general cosmic order.

From all this, we see how the ahrimanic influence can encroach most strongly when it oversteps its boundaries and works against the general cosmic order; it turns to evil, especially in the perversion of its lawful activity.

There is no essential evil. Everything evil arises from this, something that is good in one direction is put to use in the world in another direction and thereby turned into evil. In a somewhat similar way the luciferic influence, the inducement to so much that is noble and sublime, may become dangerous, exceedingly dangerous, particularly to the soul that has become clairvoyant. This happens in just the opposite situation. We looked before at what happens when a soul nibbles at the spiritual world, that is, perceives something there, but then on returning to the physical sense world does not tell itself: “Here you may not use the same kind of thought pictures that are right for the spiritual world.” In this case the soul is exposed in the physical world to the influence of Ahriman. But the opposite can take place. The human soul can carry into the spiritual world what should belong only to the physical sense world, namely the kinds of perception, feeling, and passion that the soul must necessarily develop to a certain degree for the physical world. None of the emotions cultivated here, however, should be carried into the spiritual world if the soul is not to fall victim to the temptations and allurements of Lucifer to an unusual degree.

This is what was attempted to some extent in Scene Nine of The Souls' Awakening in presenting Maria's inmost soul attitude. It would be quite wrong for anyone to require in this scene something as dramatically tumultuous and exciting as what one likes to have in superficial physical drama. If Maria's inner nature were such that at the moment of receiving the memories of the devachanic world and of the Egyptian period, her soul had experienced disturbing passions, disturbing desires, it would have been hurtled back and forth by these waves of emotion. A soul that cannot receive the impulses of the spiritual world with inner calm, in absolute tranquillity, rising above all outward physical drama, will suffer in the spiritual world a fate that I can only render in the following picture: Imagine to yourselves a being made of rubber flying in all directions in a space enclosed on all sides, flying against a wall and thrown back from it, flying against another wall, thrown back again, flying back and forth like this in turbulent movement on the waves of the emotional life. This actually happens to a soul that carries into the spiritual world the kind of perception, feeling and passion belonging to the sense world. Something further happens. It is not pleasant to be thrown back and forth like a rubber ball as if one were in a cosmic prison. Therefore in such a case the soul that is clairvoyant follows chiefly the special policy of the ostrich; as a matter of fact, the soul stupefies itself in regard to this being thrown back and forth; it dulls its consciousness so that it is no longer aware of it. It therefore believes that it is not being thrown back and forth. Lucifer can then come all the closer, because the consciousness is dulled. He lures the soul out and leads it to his isolated kingdom. There the soul can receive its spiritual impressions but, received in this island kingdom, they are completely luciferic.

Because self-knowledge is hard to come by and the soul has the greatest difficulty in becoming clear about certain of its qualities, because, too, people are bent on getting as quickly as possible into the spiritual world, it is not at all to be wondered at that they say to themselves: I am already mature enough; I will of course be able to control my passions. As a matter of fact, it is more easily said than done. There are certain qualities that particularly challenge our control. Vanity, ambition, and similar things sit so deeply entrenched in human souls that it is not easy to admit to oneself: You are vain and ambitious! You want power! When we look into ourselves, we are usually deceived about just those emotions that are the very worst ones. To carry them into the spiritual world means that a person will most easily become the prey of Lucifer. And when he notices how he is thrown hither and thither, he does not willingly say: This comes from ambition or from vanity—but he looks for the way to deaden the soul. Then Lucifer carries him off into his kingdom. There, of course, a person may receive insights but these do not correspond to the cosmic order, which had already been designed before Lucifer began his meddling.⁸ They are spiritual insights of a thoroughly luciferic nature. He may receive the most extraordinary impressions and judge them to be absolute truths. He may tell people about all sorts of incarnations of this person or that, but these will simply be purely luciferic inspirations.

In order that the right relationship should come about at her “Awakening,” Maria had to be presented, at the moment when the spiritual world was to rush in on her with such vehemence, as a person who could well appear absurd to someone like one of our fine young theater critics. A dainty little modern critic might well say: “After finishing the Egyptian scene, there sat Maria as if she had just had breakfast, experiencing these things without a bit of lively drama.” And yet anything else would be untrue at this stage of her development. Only Maria's quiet calmness can represent the truth of her development, as the rays of spiritual light fall upon the scene. We see from this how much depends on the soul mood, mastering within itself all the emotions and passions that are significant only for the physical sense world, if the soul is to cross the threshold of the spiritual world in the right way; otherwise it will experience there the necessary consequence of what remains of sensual feeling. Ahriman is the more spiritual being; what he carries out in the way of unlawful activity, of the unlawful activity he can create, flows more or less into the general world of the senses. Lucifer is more a being of soul; he tries to draw emotional soul elements out of the sense world and embody them in his special luciferic kingdom, where for every human being—according to the egoism rooted in his nature—Lucifer wants to ensure the greatest possibility of segregated independence.

We see from this that when we want to form a judgment of such beings as Ahriman and Lucifer, it cannot be a question of simply calling them good or bad. Instead we have to understand what is the lawful activity, what is the right domain of these beings and where their unlawful activity, the overstepping of their limits, begins. For through the fact that they go beyond their limits, they entice human beings to an unlawful overstepping of the boundary into the other world, taking with them the faculties and laws of this world. The scenes of The Souls' Awakening deal particularly with what is experienced in passing back and forth across the boundary between the physical sense world and the super-sensible world. In this lecture today I wanted to make a beginning by describing some of the things that must be carefully watched in the borderland between the two worlds. Tomorrow we will go further into this.

• 8. See Rudolf Steiner, The Guardian of the Threshold, Scene 7. Contained in The Four Mystery Dramas.

When speaking about the spiritual worlds as we are doing in these lectures, we should keep the following well in mind: the clairvoyant consciousness which the human soul can develop in itself will change nothing in the nature and individuality of a person, for everything entering that consciousness was already long present in man's nature. Knowing a thing is not the same as creating it; a person learns only to perceive what is already there as a fact. Obvious as this is, it has to be said, for we must lead our thoughts to realize that the nature of the human being is hidden in the very depths of his existence; it can be brought up out of those depths only through clairvoyant cognition. It follows from this that the true, inmost nature of man's being cannot be brought to light in any other way than through occult knowledge. We can learn what a human being actually is not through any kind of philosophy but only through the kind of knowledge based on clairvoyant consciousness. To the observation we use in the sense world and to the understanding limited to the sense world, the being of man, the true, inmost nature of man, lies in hidden worlds. Clairvoyant consciousness provides the point of view from which the worlds beyond the so-called threshold have to be observed; in order to perceive and learn, quite different demands are made on it from those in the sense world.

This is the most important thing: that the human soul should become more or less accustomed to the fact that the way of looking at and recognizing things that for the sense world is the correct and healthy one is not the only way.

Here I shall give the name elemental world to the first world that the soul of a human being enters on becoming clairvoyant and crossing the threshold. Only a person who wants to carry the habits of the sense world into the higher super-sensible worlds can demand a uniform choice of names for all the points of view the higher worlds can offer. (At the close of this course of lectures and also in my small book coming out in a day or two, The Threshold of the Spiritual World, I shall point out the connection between the terms chosen here—for example, elemental world and those in my books Theosophy and Occult Science, soul world, spirit world, and so on—in order that people do not look for contradictions in a superficial way where they do not exist.)

Fully new demands meet the life of soul when it steps over the threshold into the elemental world. If the human soul insisted on entering this world with the habits of the sense world, two things might happen: cloudiness or complete darkness would spread over the horizon of the consciousness, over the field of vision, or else—if the soul wanted to enter the elemental world without preparing itself for the peculiarities and requirements there—it would be thrown back again into the sense world. The elemental world is absolutely different from the sense world. In this world of ours when you move from one living being to another, from one happening to the next, you have these beings and events before you and can observe them; while confronting and observing them, you keep your own distinct existence, your own separate personality. You know all the time that in the presence of another person or happening you are the same person that you were before and that you will be the same when you confront a new situation; you can never lose yourself in another being or happening. You confront them, you stand outside them and you know you will always be the same in the sense world wherever you go.

This changes as soon as a person enters the elemental world. There it is necessary to adapt one's whole inner life of soul to a being or event so completely that one transforms one's own inner soul life into this other being, into this other event. We can learn nothing at all in the elemental world unless we become a different person within every other being, indeed unless we become similar to a high degree to the other beings and events.

We have to have, then, one peculiarity of soul for the elemental world: the capacity for transforming our own being into other beings outside ourselves. We must have the faculty of metamorphosis. We must be able to immerse ourselves in and become the other being. We must be able to lose the consciousness which always—in order to remain emotionally healthy—we have to have in the sense world, the consciousness of “I am myself.” In the elemental world we get to know another being only when in a way we inwardly have “become” the other. When we have crossed the threshold, we have to move through the elemental world in such a way that with every step we transform ourselves into every single happening, creep into every single being. It belongs to the health of a person's soul that in passing through the sense world, he should hold his own and assert his individual character, but this is altogether impossible in the elemental world, where it would lead either to the darkening of his field of vision or to his being thrown back into the sense world.

You will easily understand that in order to exercise the faculty of transformation, the soul needs something more than it already possesses here in our world. The human soul is too weak to be able to change itself continuously and adapt itself to every sort of being if it enters the elemental world in its ordinary state. Therefore the forces of the human soul must be strengthened and heightened through the preparations described in my books, Occult Science and Knowledge of the Higher Worlds from these the life of soul will become stronger and more forceful. It can then immerse itself in other entities without losing itself in the process. This being said, you will understand at once the importance of noting what is called the threshold between the sense world and the super-sensible world. We have already said that the clairvoyant consciousness of a human being on earth must go back and forth continually, that it must observe the spiritual world beyond the threshold while it is outside the physical body and must then return into the physical body, exercising in a healthy way the faculties which lead it to the right observation of the physical sense world.

Let us suppose that a person's clairvoyant consciousness, when returning over the threshold, were to take back into the sense world the faculty of transformation it has to have in order to be at all aware of the spiritual world. The faculty of transformation I've been speaking about is a peculiarity of the human etheric body, which lives by preference in the elemental world. Now suppose that a person were to go back into the physical world keeping his etheric body as capable of transformation as it has to be in the elemental world. What would happen? Each of the worlds has it's own special laws.

The sense world is the world of self-contained forms, for here the Spirits of Form rule. The elemental world is the world of mobility, of metamorphosis, of transformation; just as we continually have to change in order to feel at home in that world, all the beings there are continually changing themselves. There is no enclosed, circumscribed form: all is in continual metamorphosis. A soul has to take part in this ever-changing existence outside the physical body if it wants to unfold itself there. Then in the physical sense world we must allow our etheric body, as an entity of the elemental world capable of metamorphosis, to sink down into the physical body. Through this physical body I am a definite personality in the physical sense world; I am this or that distinct person. My physical body stamps my personality upon me; the physical body and the conditions of the physical world in which I find myself make me a personality. In the elemental world one is not a personality, for this would require an enclosed form. Here, however, we must note that what the clairvoyant consciousness recognizes in the human soul is, and always has been, present within it. Through the forces of the physical body, the mobility of the etheric body is restrained only for the time being. As soon as the etheric body sinks back into the physical encasement, its powers of movement are held together and adapted to the form. If the etheric body were not tucked into the physical body as if into a tote bag, it would always be impelled to continuous transformation.

Now let us suppose that a soul, becoming clairvoyant, were to carry over into the physical world this desire of its etheric body for transformation. Then with its tendency towards movement, it will fit rather loosely into the physical body, and thus the soul can come into contradiction with the physical world that wants to shape it into a definite personality. The etheric body, which always wants to move freely, can come back over the threshold in the wrong way, every moment wishing to be something or someone else, someone that may be quite the opposite of the firmly imprinted form of the physical body. To put it even more concretely: a person could be, say, a Scandinavian bank executive, thanks to his physical body, but because his etheric brings over into the physical world the impulse to free itself from physical constraints, he may imagine himself to be the emperor of China. (Or, to use another example, a person may be—let us say—the president of the Theosophical Society, and if her etheric body has been loosened, she may imagine that she has been in the presence of the Director of the Universe.)⁹

We see that the threshold that sharply divides the sense world from the super-sensible world must be respected absolutely; the soul must observe the requirements of each of the two worlds, adapting and conducting itself differently on this side and that. We have emphasized repeatedly that the peculiarities of the super-sensible world must not unlawfully be carried over when one comes back into the sense world. If I may put it more plainly, one has to understand how to conduct oneself in both worlds; one may not carry over into one world the method of observation that is right for the other.

First of all then, we have to take note that the essential faculty for finding and feeling oneself in the elemental world is the faculty of transformation. But the human soul could never live permanently in this mobile element. The etheric body could as little remain permanently in a state of being able to transform itself, as a human being in the physical world could remain continually awake. Only when we are awake can we observe the physical world; asleep, we do not perceive it. Nevertheless we have to allow the waking condition to alternate with the sleeping one. Something comparable to this is necessary in the elemental world. Just as little as it is right in the physical world to be continually awake, for life here must swing like a pendulum between waking and sleeping, so something similar is necessary for the life of the etheric body in the elemental world. There must be an opposite pole, as it were, something that works in the opposite direction to the faculty of transformation leading to perception in the spiritual world. What is it that makes the human being capable of transformation? It is his living in imagination, in mental images, the ability to make his ideas and thoughts so mobile that through his lively, flexible thinking he can dip down into other beings and happenings. For the opposite condition, comparable to sleep in the sense world, it is the will of the human being that must be developed and strengthened. For the faculty of transformation: thinking or imagination; for the opposite condition: the will.

To understand this, we should consider that in the physical sense world the human being is a self, an ego, an “I.” It is the physical body, as long as it is awake, that contributes what is necessary for this feeling of self. The forces of the physical body, when the human being sinks down into it, supply him with the power to feel himself an ego, an I. It is different in the elemental world. There the human being himself must achieve to some degree what the physical body achieves in the physical world. He can develop no feeling of self in the elemental world if he does not exert his will, if he himself does not do the “willing.” This, however, calls for overcoming something that is deeply rooted in us: our love of comfort and convenience. For the elemental world this self-willing is necessary; like the alternation of sleeping and waking in the physical world, the condition of “transforming oneself into other beings” must give way to the feeling of self-strengthened volition. Just as we have become tired in the physical world and close our eyes, overcome by sleep, the moment comes in the elemental world when the etheric body feels, “I cannot go on continually changing; now I must shut out all the beings and happenings around me. I will have to thrust it all out of my field of vision and look away from it. I now must will myself and live absolutely and entirely within myself, ignoring the other beings and occurrences.” This willing of self, excluding everything else, corresponds to sleep in the physical world.

We would be mistaken if we imagined that the alternation of transformation with strengthened ego feeling were regulated in the elemental world just as naturally as waking and sleeping are in the physical world. According to clairvoyant consciousness—and to this alone it is perceptible—it takes place at will, not passing so easily as waking here passes into sleep. After one has lived for a time in the element of metamorphosis, one feels the need within oneself to engage and use the other swing of the pendulum of elemental life. In a much more arbitrary way than with our waking and sleeping, the element of transforming oneself alternates with living within with its heightened feeling of self. Yes, our consciousness can even bring it about through its elasticity that in certain circumstances both conditions can be present at the same time: on the one hand, one transforms oneself to some degree and yet can hold together certain parts of the soul and rest within oneself. In the elemental world we can wake and sleep at the same time, something we should not try to do in the physical world if we have any concern for our soul life.

We must further consider that when thinking develops into the faculty of transformation and begins to be at home in the elemental world, it cannot be used in that world in the way that is right and healthy for the physical world. What is thinking like in our ordinary world? Observe it as you follow its movement. A person is aware of thoughts in his soul; he knows that he is grasping, spinning out, connecting and separating these thoughts. Inwardly he feels himself to be the master of his thoughts, which seem rather passive; they allow themselves to be connected and separated, to be formed and then dismissed. This life of thought must develop in the elemental world a step further. There a person is not in a position to deal with thoughts that are passive. If someone really succeeds in entering that world with his clairvoyant soul, it seems as though his thoughts were not things over which he has any command: they are living beings. Only imagine how it is when you cannot form and connect and separate your thoughts but, instead, each one of them in your consciousness begins to have a life of its own, a life as an entity in itself. You thrust your consciousness into a place, it seems, where you don't find thoughts that are like those in the physical world but where they are living beings. I can only use a grotesque picture which will help us somehow to realize how different our thinking must become from what it is here. Imagine sticking your head into an anthill, while your thinking comes to a stop—you would have ants in your head instead of thoughts! It is just like that, when your soul dips down into the elemental world; your thoughts become so alive that they themselves join each other, separate from each other and lead a life of their own. We truly need a stronger power of soul to confront these living thought-beings with our consciousness than we do with the passive thoughts of the physical world, which allow themselves to be formed at will, to be connected and separated not only sensibly but often even quite foolishly. They are patient things, these thoughts of our ordinary world; they let the human soul do anything it likes with them. But it is quite different when we thrust our soul into the elemental world, where our thoughts will lead an independent life. A human being must hold his own with his soul life and assert his will in confronting these active, lively, no longer passive thoughts. In the physical world our thinking can be completely stupid and this does not harm us at all. But if we do foolish things with our thinking in the elemental world, it may well happen that our stupid thoughts, creeping around there as independent beings, can hurt us, can even cause real pain.

Thus we see that the habits of our soul life must change when we cross the threshold from the physical into the super-sensible world. If we were then to return to the physical world with the activity we have to bring to bear on the living thought entities of the elemental world and failed to develop in ourselves sound thinking with these passive thoughts, wishing rather to hold fast to the conditions of the other world, our thoughts would continually run away from us; then hurrying after them, we would become a slave to our thoughts.

When a person enters the elemental world with clairvoyant soul and develops his faculty of metamorphosis, he delves into it with his inner life, transforming himself according to the kind of entity he is confronting. What is his experience when he does this? It is something we can call sympathy and antipathy. Out of soul depths these experiences seem to well up, presenting themselves to the soul that has become clairvoyant. Quite definite kinds of sympathy and antipathy appear as it transforms itself into this or that other being. When the person proceeds from one transformation to the next, he is continually aware of different sympathies or antipathies. Just as in the physical world we recognize, characterize, describe the objects and living beings, in short, perceive them when the eye sees their color or the ear hears their tones so correspondingly in the spiritual world we would describe its beings in terms of particular sympathies and antipathies. Two things, however, should be noted. One is that in our usual way of speaking in the physical world, we generally differentiate only between stronger and weaker degrees of sympathy and antipathy; in the elemental world the sympathies and antipathies differ from one another not only in degree but also in quality. There they vary, just as yellow here is quite different from red. As our colors are qualitatively different, so are the many varieties of sympathy and antipathy that we meet in the elemental world. In order therefore to describe this correctly, one may not merely say—as one would do in the physical world—that in diving down and entering this particular entity one feels greater sympathy, while in immersing oneself in another entity one feels less sympathy. No! Sympathies of all sorts and kinds can be found there!

The other point to note is this: Our usual natural attitude to sympathy and antipathy cannot be carried over into the elemental world. Here in this world we feel drawn to some people, repelled by others; we associate by choice with those who are sympathetic and wish to stay near them; we turn away from the things and people who are abhorrent and refuse to have anything to do with them. This cannot be the case in the elemental world, for there—if I may express it rather oddly—we will not find the sympathies sympathetic nor the antipathies antipathetic. This would resemble someone in the physical world saying, “I can stand only the blues and greens, not the red or yellow colors. I simply have to run away from red and yellow!” If a being of the elemental world is antipathetic, it means that it has a distinct characteristic of that world, which must be described as antipathetic, and we have to deal with it just as we deal in the sense world with the colors blue and red, not permitting one to be more sympathetic to us than the other. Here we meet all the colors with a certain calmness because they convey what the things are; only when a person is a bit neurotic does he run away from certain colors, or when he is a bull and cannot bear the sight of red. Most of us accept all the colors with equanimity and in the same way we should be able to observe with the utmost calmness the qualities of sympathy and antipathy that belong to the elemental world. For this we must necessarily change the attitude of soul usual in the physical world, where it is attracted by sympathy and repelled by antipathy; it must become completely changed. There the inner mood or disposition corresponding to the feelings of sympathy and antipathy must be replaced with what we can call soul-quiet, spirit-peacefulness.¹⁰ With an inwardly resolute soul life filled with spirit calm, we must immerse ourselves in the entities and transform ourselves into them; then we will feel the qualities of these beings rising within our soul depths as sympathies and antipathies. Only when we can do this, with such an attitude toward sympathy and antipathy, will the soul, in its experiences, be capable of letting the sympathetic and antipathetic perception appear before it as images that are right and true. That is, only then are we capable not merely of feeling what the perception of sympathies and antipathies is but of really experiencing our own particular self, transformed into another being, suddenly rising up as one or another color-picture or as one or another tone-picture of the elemental world.

You can also learn how sympathies and antipathies play a part in regard to the experience of the soul in the spiritual world if you will look with a certain amount of inner understanding at the chapter of my book Theosophy that describes the soul world. You will see there that the soul world is actually constructed of sympathies and antipathies. From my description you will have been able to learn that what we know as thinking in the physical sense world is really only the external shadowy imprint, called up by the physical body, of the thinking that, lying in occult depths, can be called a true living force. As soon as we enter the elemental world and move with our etheric body, thoughts become—one can say—denser, more alive, more independent, more true to their own nature. What we experience as thought in the physical body relates to this truer element of thinking as a shadow on the wall relates to the objects casting it. As a matter of fact, it is the shadow of the elemental thought-life thrown into the physical sense world through the instrumentality of the physical body. When we think, our thinking lies more or less in the shadow of thought beings. Here clairvoyant spiritual knowledge throws new light on the true nature of thinking. No philosophy, no external science, however ingenious, can determine anything of the real nature of thinking; only a knowledge based on clairvoyant consciousness can recognize what it is.

The same thing holds good with the nature of our willing. The will must grow stronger, for in the elemental world things are not so obliging that the ego feeling is provided for us as it is through the forces of the physical body. There we ourselves have to will the feeling of ego; we have to find out what it means for our soul to be entirely filled with the consciousness, “I will myself”; we have to experience something of the greatest significance: that when we are not strong enough to bring forth the real act of will, “I will myself,” and not just the thought of it, at that moment we will feel ourselves falling unconscious as though in a faint. If we do not hold ourselves together in the elemental world, we will fall into a kind of faint. There we look into the true nature of the will, again something that cannot be discovered by external science or philosophy but only by the clairvoyant consciousness. What we call the will in the physical world is a shadowy image of the strong, living will of the elemental world, which grows and develops so that it can maintain the self out of its own volition without the support of external forces. We can say that everything in that world, when we grow accustomed to it, becomes self-willed.

Above all, when we have left the physical body and our etheric body has the elemental world as its environment, it is through the innate character of the etheric body that the drive to transform ourselves awakens. We wish to immerse ourselves in the other beings. However, just as in our waking state by day the need for sleep arises, so in the elemental world there arises in turn the need to be alone, to shut out everything into which we could transform ourselves. Then again, when we have felt alone for a while and developed the strong feeling of will, “I will myself,” there comes what may be called a terrible feeling of isolation, of being forsaken, which evokes the longing to awaken out of this state, of only willing oneself, to the faculty of transformation again. While we rest in physical sleep, other forces take care that we wake up; we don't have to attend to it ourselves. In the elemental world when we are in the sleeping condition of only willing ourselves, it is through the demand of feeling forsaken that we are impelled to put ourselves into the state of transformation, that is, of wanting to awaken.

From all this, you see how different are the conditions of experiencing oneself in the elemental world, of perceiving oneself there, from those of the physical world. You can judge therefore how necessary it is, again and again, to take care that the clairvoyant consciousness, passing back and forth from one world to the other, adapts itself correctly to the requirements of each world and does not carry over, on crossing the threshold, the usages of one into the other. The strengthening and invigorating of the life of soul consequently belongs to the preparation we have often described as necessary for the experience of super-sensible worlds.

What must above all become strong and forceful are the soul experiences we can call the eminently moral ones. These imprint themselves as soul dispositions in firmness of character and inner resolute calm. Inner courage and firmness of character must most especially be developed, for through weakness of character we cripple the whole life of soul, which would then come powerless into the elemental world; this we must avoid if we hope to have a true and correct experience there. No one who is really earnest about gaining knowledge in the higher worlds will therefore fail to give weight to the strengthening of the moral forces among all the other forces that help the soul enter those worlds. One of the most shameful errors is foisted on humanity when someone takes it on himself to say that clairvoyance should be acquired without paying attention to strengthening the moral life. It must be stressed once and for all that what I described in my book Knowledge of the Higher Worlds as the development of the lotus flowers that crystallize in the spirit body of a student-clairvoyant may indeed take place without attention to supportive moral strength but certainly ought not to do so.

The lotus flowers must be there if a person wants to have the faculty of transformation. That faculty comes into existence when the flowers unfold their petals in a motion away from the human being, in order to grasp the spiritual world and adhere to it. Whatever a person develops as the ability to transform himself is expressed for the clairvoyant vision in the unfolding of the lotus flowers. Whatever he can acquire of a strengthened ego-feeling becomes inner firmness; we can call it an elementary backbone. Both of these must be correspondingly developed, the lotus flowers so that one can transform oneself, and an elementary backbone so that one can unfold a strengthened ego in the elemental world.

As mentioned in the lecture yesterday, what develops in a spiritual way can lead to a high order of virtues in the spiritual world, but if this is allowed to stream down into the sense world, it can bring about the most terrible vices. It is the same with the lotus flowers and elemental backbone. By practicing certain methods it is also possible to awaken the lotus flowers and backbone without aiming for moral firmness—but this no conscientious clairvoyant would recommend. It is not merely a question of attaining something or other in the higher worlds, but of knowing what is involved. At the moment we pass over the threshold into the spiritual world, we approach the luciferic and ahrimanic beings, of whom we have already spoken; here we meet them in quite a different way from any confrontation we might have in the physical world. We will have the remarkable experience that as soon as we cross the threshold, that is, as soon as we have developed the lotus flowers and a backbone, we will see the luciferic powers coming towards us with the intention of seizing the lotus flowers. They stretch their tentacles out towards our lotus flowers; we must have developed in the right way so that we use the lotus flowers to grasp and understand the spiritual events and so that they are not themselves grasped by the luciferic powers. It is possible to prevent their being seized by these powers only by ascending into the spiritual world with firmly established moral forces.

I have already mentioned that in the physical sense world the ahrimanic forces approach us more from outside, the luciferic more from within the soul. In the spiritual world it is just the opposite: the luciferic beings come from outside and try to lay hold of the lotus flowers, whereas the ahrimanic beings come from within and settle themselves tenaciously within the elementary backbone. If we have risen into the spiritual world without the support of morality, the ahrimanic and luciferic powers form an extraordinary alliance with each other. If we have come into the higher worlds filled with ambition, vanity, pride or with the desire for power, Ahriman and Lucifer will succeed in forming a partnership with each other. I will use a picture for what they do, but this picture corresponds to the actual situation and you will understand that what I am indicating really takes place: Ahriman and Lucifer form an alliance; together they bind the petals of the lotus flowers to the elementary backbone. When all the petals are fastened to the backbone, the human being is tied up in himself, fettered within himself through his strongly developed lotus flowers and backbone. The results of this will be the onset of egoism and love of deception to an extent that would be impossible were he to remain normally in the physical world. Thus we see what can happen if clairvoyant consciousness is not developed in the right way: the alliance of Ahriman and Lucifer whereby the petals of the lotus flowers are fastened onto the elementary backbone, fettering a person within himself by means of his own elemental or etheric capacities. These are the things we must know if we wish to penetrate with open eyes and with understanding into the actual spiritual world.

• 9. Leadbeater wrote that he had “stood with Mrs. Besant in the presence of the Director of the Universe.” Mrs. Besant was at that time the President of the Theosophical Society.
• 10. See The Souls' Awakening, Scene 4. The Guardian of the Threshold says:
  You see myself, too in delusion's form
  while vain desires are joined to inner sight
  and spirit peacefulness as sheath of soul
  has not yet taken hold of your whole being.