The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Today I would like to speak about Genesis again, but in a different sense. I would like to provide some concepts that will enable you to gradually take Genesis literally. To do that, I would first like to refer to a passage in the Epistle of John. You will find a very interesting passage in the fifth chapter of the first Epistle of John, verses 7-8:

There are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three that bear record in earth, the Spirit, the water, and the blood: and these three are one.

In these words, you have a differentiation of the three upper and three lower principles, as they are to be understood in the sense of Christian esotericism, of Gnosticism. That is the Father, Atma; that is the Word, Budhi, the Creative, the Spirit permeating the whole world; and thirdly, Manas or Mahat, the Holy Spirit. Holy is the Word, which means: not yet subject to the physical. Atma, Budhi, Manas are meant by these three in heaven generating.

In addition to these three, there are the three spiritual elements in man. The spiritual elements are in the entire Jewish Kabbalah, going back to the original books of Moses, and in Christian esotericism: blood, water and spirit. One must only first be clear about what Jewish esotericism means by 'blood'. It is the lowest link of the soul, what we in theosophy call the astral - not our physical blood. Jewish esotericism believes that the movement of blood comes from the astral body, and that is correct. All influences that not only go directly through the soul but also affect something physical are called blood in Jewish esotericism. It is the active, the driving force. We only call the red juice that flows through the body blood.

The second is 'water'. In every kind of secret language, 'kama' is everywhere water. These are the feelings, the passions, the desires, and so on. And now I will tell you why it is called water. You have to familiarize yourself with the idea that today's humanity is accustomed to imagining many things in a more materialistic way than was the case in earlier times. If you imagine an old kabbalist, he saw in this water not only the flowing element, but also a parable. And he came to it in the following way. He said to himself: In the water live those animals which we must consider to be the original ones. From the liquid element originally emerged the animal world: sea animals, jellyfish, amphibians. These then went out of the water onto the land. Nowhere did passions and feelings arise than from the water. It was only later that land emerged, and then what is more highly organized also emerged. The soul, the feeling of pleasure and pain, emerged from the water. Water was the element that gives rise to pleasure and pain in man. That is why he called water the source of what is pleasure and what is pain.

We distinguish the lower soul, which makes the blood surge. The blood is the actual, deeper soul. Where we feel pleasure and displeasure, the actual inner pains, he calls that the water, because he derives this soul element from the water.

Then comes the thinking soul, the spirit. We therefore have the sentient soul, the inner soul, then the reasonable soul, the rational soul, and thirdly the consciousness soul, the higher soul, the part of the soul in which the spirit shines into the soul.

Now the Jew said to himself: Where soul arises, there is soul. The Jew therefore saw in the sea and everywhere where the liquid element was, a parable for the soul. Only because people have unlearned to see the soul do they see the outer physical water.

The conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus can give us further insight here.

Now there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews: The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God, for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him. Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born? Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be amazed that I said to you, you must be born again. The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know whence it comes and whither it goes. So is every one that is born of the Spirit.” [John 3:1-8]

This is how Jesus wants to make him understand. Because Nicodemus was a minor Mahatma, a master in those days, he said to him: Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. Man is born of the mother from blood; he must be reborn from water and the Spirit. What is born of blood is blood, what is born of the Spirit is spirit.

Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” Jesus answered and said to him, “Are you a teacher of Israel and do not understand these things?” [John 3:9-10]

Now we can also take the first words of Genesis in the right sense. The first verse can be translated as follows:

In the beginning God begot his karma as heaven and earth.

The concept of creating, as we understand it, is not present in the ancient languages. The Latin word creare means “to create”, but it comes from the Sanskrit word kr, which in turn comes from karma; so it means “to create”, and the sentence means:

The karma of God begins to flow.

Our development on earth was preceded by the development in which the world of Kama, the world of instincts, desires and passions, was able to develop to the highest level it could reach, which in the lunar epoch constituted the actual content of the beings. It had developed to the highest degree. The human beings who are now living in the earthly world have intellect. Our ancestors did not think; they only felt what they had to accomplish. Thinking is what is given to the earth to develop. We have a feeling that stands below thinking. We do not follow feeling directly; we let it be regulated by thought. It is put on the right track by thinking. The inhabitants of the moon could give themselves up to their feelings. They did not need to think about the affairs of their lives. They felt directly what they had to do. This emotional life, which lived in all beings, developed there to an infinite height. Today, when intellectual life is important, we no longer have any idea of the infinite tenderness and kindness and the magnitude of this emotional life. These beings that developed on the moon were elevated to the level of divinity. The masters who developed on the moon were pure wisdom that flowed from feeling. These Masters joined together in great fraternities in those days, and they formed one great unity when the Moon was fading away. Everything had merged into one great unity. This divine Being, who was, so to speak, the pinnacle of the lunar epoch, is addressed in Genesis as God - Yahweh or Jehovah. Here, God is nothing other than the pinnacle of the development of the Moon. Yahweh is a Moon deity and is also called a Moon deity by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky. She may have emphasized it a little too strongly, but it is so. The great Entity, which had developed the emotional life to the highest degree, that was Jehovah or Yahweh. What came over from the Moon - Kama in its highest perfection, water in its highest perfection, the flood - developed in two directions. On the one hand, it condensed and took on matter, the blood; on the other hand, it diluted and took on spirit. Above, it brightened in the spirit, below, it dawned in the blood. Thus, Yahweh differentiated. The primal water begets heaven, its spiritual pole, on the one hand, and the earth, its physical, material pole, on the other.

So what was the situation? Imagine that the Kama water comes over, the spirit is up, the physical, the blood, is down. The earth was chaotic, the blood was disorderly. Nothing but a confused and wildly intermingling physical-material. That was the one pole.

The earth was formless and chaotic, and darkness was over the face of the deep. Darkness was below the waters, darkness was in the deep. And over these waters was the spirit. The water was the middle. The spirit floated above the Kama waters like an aura.

Be very clear about what this aura is. We have already spoken about it. The physical body is not an aura, and what lives in the physical body is also not an aura, because you can see that with physical eyes. The mind is not an aura either. Only the soul provides an aura; everything that is of a spiritual nature provides an aura. This aura is influenced by the body from within or by the mind from without. Therefore there are three auras: the one clouded by the body, the one illuminated by the spirit and the actual glowing soul light. The one is the area through which the body is reflected in the soul, the other is the area through which the spirit is reflected in the soul. Now you are clear about how the spirit of God hovers over the waters or over the soul, and that the Kama is thereby illuminated by the spirit. The spirit does not have to be light. But when the spirit enters the aura, it intensifies the light.

And God said, “Let there be light!” [Genesis 1:3]

This means: Let the reflection of the spirit arise in the waters.

I would like the first three sentences of Genesis to be taken literally. It is not a matter of interpreting these sentences, but of thinking of the right thing to say with the words. For water: Kama, for God: the most highly developed that came from Kama from the lunar epoch. “This is my blood” - it is the same as what flows in the earth.

The Genesis is derived from the writings of the Egyptian temple mysteries. These had two great [moral] books. One was the Book of the Microcosm, the other was the Book of the Macrocosm. The latter described how the great cosmos is created from water through the word. The former, the Book of the Microcosm, was the Book of the Perfect Man. Both were completely parallel descriptions. It must be implied that man is a microcosm. Only someone who was initiated could have achieved this.

The Master initiates those He loves. The miracle of Lazarus is an initiation. That is why it is also said of Lazarus: 'He whom Jesus loved.

The Gospel of John begins with the same words: “In the beginning was the Word.”

Only then can the great books of the world be understood if one has the confidence that every word is only understood when one really goes deep into things and only objects to things as late as possible. That is the trust we need, because we must have trust in the great books of the world. This is what we must gradually learn again through the theosophical movement: to take these books literally.

"Mountain is the keyword for higher truths, for initiations. Jesus went up the mountain with his disciples when he saw the people. In the Holy Scriptures, we become familiar with the authority with which they were written. We recognize them as masterpieces when we see how everything fits together beautifully and how what we have gained through our masters since the last third of the nineteenth century provides the key to understanding these great books.

In a few days it will be thirteen years since the founder of the Theosophical Society left her earthly existence. She initially worked in secret societies, for it was not through free speech but in secret circles that the theosophical wisdom was presented, behind tightly closed doors.

This is to be taken more figuratively than literally, however. The Rosicrucians have preserved the treasure of wisdom that now flows in popular form in Theosophy. The tactics and diplomacy have been changed by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky. [More than in earlier times, people today are compelled to self-introspection and self-knowledge in order to get to know the secret depths of their own hearts. Therefore, the leaders of humanity have decided to bring the truth into humanity and to speak to all people of that which was otherwise hidden in the mysteries. But not only the results came out of the secret brotherhoods, but also the word itself. What we proclaim today is more of a spelling. But it should lead to reading the deepest truths of man.

Important personalities have been connected with these secret societies in some way. In his fairy tales, Goethe consciously draws on the secret knowledge of all times. There is a poem that he wrote to glorify the Rosicrucian spirit, a poem in which he expressed what is now the lifeblood of the theosophical movement. The poem is called “The Mysteries”.

In it, the humble pilgrim Brother Mark seeks a resting place for the human soul, a spiritual Montserrat, which was a high point of human spiritual development. In his search, he comes to a strange monastery. There are twelve hermits in it. The thirteenth is the bearer of the greatest wisdom, a leader of humanity. Each of the twelve hermits symbolizes one of the forces of the nations. Mark, the thirteenth, is to unite what humanity has sought in different ways. The twelve brothers symbolize human opinions. The thirteenth is the one who unites them. If we today activate the attitude characterized in the poem, we are on the ideal Montserrat.

At the entrance to the monastery is the symbol, the cross entwined with roses, [Plato says:] the world cross of matter, on which the world soul is crucified. More than ever, the necessity of self-knowledge weighs on us. We must solve this riddle of man's past, man's present and man's future. This self-examination is to be practised in order to then speak publicly about it in the language that was given at the first stage of secret learning.

A few words about an introductory lecture in the secret schools can be found in one of the monologues in Goethe's “Faust”, which Goethe only wrote afterwards. What he says there is the confession that man must live within the universe and must get his basic rules from it. It is about the scene “Forest and Cave” from “Faust I”, where it says:

Ehrlicher Geist, du gabst mir alles, was ich bat
Du hast nicht umsonst dein Angesicht im Feuer gewendet
Gabst mir die herrliche Natur zum Königreich.
Kraft sie zu fühlen, zu genießen. Nicht
Kalt staunenden Besuch erlaubst du nur,
Vergönnest mir in ihre tiefe Brust,
As in the bosom of a friend to look
You drive the series of the living
Before me and teach me my brothers
In the silent bush, in air and water know.
And when the storm in the forest roars and creaks
The giant spruce toppling neighbor branches
And neighbor strains squeezing down
And the hillside thunders hollowly with its fall
Then you lead me to the safe cave, show
Then myself and my own breast
Secret, deep wonders open up.
And as the pure moon rises before my gaze
Soothingly across, silver figures float before me from the rock walls
From the damp bush
silver figures of the ancient world,
and ease the strict pleasure of contemplation,
Oh, that nothing is perfect for man,
I now feel. You gave me the companion for this bliss,
which brings me closer and closer to the gods,
whom I can no longer do without,
can no longer do without, though he, cold and insolent,
humiliates me before myself and to nothing,
with a breath of words, transforms your gifts.
He fans a wild fire in my breast
after that beautiful image,
So I stagger from desire to fulfillment
And in fulfillment I languish for desire.

[Faust I, Vers 3217-3250]

[We first see his deep inner perception of nature, the great view that the world spirit allowed him, and then Goethe continues with the line:]

then show me myself and my own breast
Secret deep wonders open up.

[In the mystery schools, the teachers called their students together in the spring so that they could learn from the facts of nature.] Opening of the inner depths. In spring, when nature awakens, everything is full of wonder. These wonders of nature should not only be marveled at, but also deciphered. Mysticism leads us into nature at all levels, and we can learn how we ourselves as human beings should behave. What theosophical mysticism is is written in nature. If we understand the wonders of nature, we also understand our own wonders [then we understand what is alive in us, the secret meaning of life. The two lower realms of nature, the stone realm and the plant realm, lie chaste and mute before us.

The Stone Kingdom stands before us like a reminder of our distant past. [The Stone Kingdom reminds us of a distant time when we once enjoyed the brightly shining crystal in a dull trance state; the heavens themselves stand before us as a language of memory that we ourselves have gone through. The starry world and the Stone Kingdom remind us of the creative power from which we have sprung.

And the plant kingdom reminds us of another stage. We have left behind not only the crystals, but also everything that appears to be lifeless. With its millions of stars, nature appears lifeless, yet it is majestic. This realm reminds us of the omnipotence of the majestic creative power from which we have emerged. It is not just our Earth, on which we spend a short span of our existence, no, it is all the other worlds that the occultist knows.

[The whole, seemingly inanimate nature of the minerals is majestic. The kingdom of growth and life is based on this.

[Majestic] rock formations and plant formations in blissful serenity can be found everywhere. But only on our Earth does one thing [exist, a realm the seer finds only on our Earth, the realm of the higher animals, where feeling arises, where the living is contained within itself and develops self-awareness.] You cannot find the animal kingdom on other worlds as it exists on our Earth. Where we develop pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow out of blissful serenity, the forms we know arise, and our earth is the only setting for them.

It has often been said that something is expressed on the face of the animals that could only be described as compassion. Animal nature is really rooted in suffering. Animal nature arose so that humans could break free to higher levels. He had to leave animality behind him. He had to separate what lives around us as living animality. [From this follows for us compassion for the animals, which has ethics as its guide.] Man's ascent had to be paid for with the detachment of animality. Those who did not have the ability to free themselves from pain through lofty thoughts fell prey to this. Then man went the torturous path of the ego to cross over into another, higher world. All teaching and learning should only be there to lead us to what lies beyond life, because man's essence is spiritual. Anything that theosophy teaches that cannot be lived would be a futile effort.

[We can learn from nature how it presents us with three virtues in its three kingdoms.] There are three fundamental virtues of man:

- Majesty - in the first kingdom
- Blessed serenity - in the second kingdom
- Suffering and joy [compassion] - in the third kingdom.

What should we learn from pleasure and pain? [To endure pleasure and pain with patience, this is taught by] the doctrine of reincarnation. The animal cannot rise above the state of pain and pleasure. But the essence of man is spiritual. And the spirit seeks a home in that which is pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow.

Patience – that is what follows from the great teaching of reincarnation.

What can we learn from the plant kingdom in its blissful serenity? We learn what can flow to us from the great law, which the theosophical world movement has also given us in a popular form, from the law of karma, the law of the eternal causation of all spiritual things.

It seems to be the nature of plants to painlessly and calmly reproduce their kind in blissful serenity. They are completely devoted to producing their own kind. The sacrificial life of the whole plant consists of sprouting, growing and budding. When we face the world, we do not judge or condemn, but try to understand what it is doing from our own perspective. When we do not judge but seek to comprehend, we immerse ourselves in our fellow beings and draw from them the means to understand them. That is what the second kingdom teaches us. The law of karma teaches us love as the second moral principle. The plant kingdom reminds us of a preliminary stage of love.

[Then we can also understand the chaste, majestic realm of stones. Through our self-knowledge, we learn to appreciate the self in every other person, which faces us just as great as the stone kingdom; and once we have understood this, how we should approach every person with reverence, we have three fundamental virtues that the three natural kingdoms teach us: reverence for every ego, the mineral kingdom; love for every being, the plant kingdom; and patience, the animal kingdom.

Theosophy gives us the secrets of our hearts. We should practice self-knowledge. Then the deep meaning of an apparently simple saying by Goethe will become clear to us: “Know thyself and live in peace with the world.

What says “I” in every human being also says “I” in every other human being. This self-knowledge leads to true, highest respect for people. We must not interfere in the lives of other people, just as we must not or cannot interfere in the lives of the stone realm. The human self must be a sanctuary for us. Reverence for every human ego - that is the third ethical principle that the Theosophical movement wants to bring back into honor.

Patience, love and reverence are the three virtues in the human realm. Through reverence we approach the silent stone realm. From this flows what has been present as a principle in the secret schools. Make the mute, chaste realm of inanimate nature your ideal, so that you stand reverently before every other ego and it would violate your spiritual sense of shame to reach into that which is a human ego with a coarse hand. When that happens to you, then you have understood this highest ideal. This is what has been proclaimed as the sevenfold nature of nature and man. Three virtues in the realm of nature, three virtues in the realm of man. And in between the I. The I stands in the middle and develops in the same but retrograde sequence as nature offers it to us. So we progress through patience, through love, to reverence.

Yesterday we arrived at the point where the earth passed over into spiritualization; mature people go along with it and return with it to the sun.

The forces of matter have been eliminated, are no longer present. This development initially leads to an ever-increasing spiritualization; only then does the human being rise with his planet into the astral, then into the devachanic state. The sun spiritualizes with the earth. The beings who have not cared for such spiritualization do not take part in this. Initially, no lump can remain, everything astralizes, but the immature form a kind of sputum in this stage of development. There is such an astral, which is pure, noble, higher than the physical.

But another astral, in which are those beings who are more malignant and lower than those of physical development.

- devachanic
- astral
- physical

- astral world, which is below the physical. In this world, the beings that are in it are not in a physical body like a human being, but they have a terrible power of evil. All the powers that oppose our development dwell in it. The spirit of Mammon dwells in it, the spirit of obstacles, which puts the brakes on wherever there is a desire for progress. It is already active today.

When the earth itself enters an astral state, then all those beings who could not go into the higher astral world must go down into this lower one.

Thus, after the trumpets, we have a world that has been cast out, and this is a world of darkness. In the astral body, all beings are present that were unable to attain the degree of maturity to enter the sun. Before the Lemurian development, man descended into the physical body. At that time, peculiar spiritual beings were connected to the earth. Each of the planetary stages has seen a stage of humanity develop: on the moon, sun, Saturn...

There are beings that could not complete their development in a particular planetary state. This also happened on the moon. These beings were transferred to the earth. The world progresses beyond a certain level, but certain beings remain behind. The angels who had not matured stood between human beings and angels; the hosts of Lucifer. They were the ones who pulled people back in their development, who caused a deeper entanglement in matter. Thus, the Luciferic development is linked to the human being. It has its good and bad sides. The good consists in the fact that without the luciferic influence man could not have become a free being. He has made himself independent of the direct guidance of higher beings. But this has made possible the fall into evil. Thus, for the salvation of man, the luciferic beings have also made a sacrifice by holding back their development.

Now it is different. The conditions are quite different before the middle of a development and afterwards. So it is not materialistic people who are making a sacrifice now, but on the contrary, progressive people. - Do not schematize.

What is the positive thing that the luciferic beings have done?

On Saturn, man had only a physical body.

Sun: etheric body
Moon: astral body
Earth: I

The physical is the oldest link that has undergone the most transformations. Marvelous construction of the heart, brain, etc.

Sun, Moon on Earth, I-aura.

If the Luciferic beings had not been present in Lemurian times, when the 'I' began to develop, the higher beings would have remained with man. And Yahweh.

The Luciferic beings could not participate in the development of the 'I', only in the astral body. So the effect of the Luciferic beings came into that. They gave the astral body independence, but also the possibility of falling into evil. In this way, the beings of Lucifer undergo a certain development. They make up in the astral body of man what they missed on the moon and achieve what they should have achieved there. They can vicariously experience in man what they missed on the moon. They advance with us. When the Earth unites with the Sun, there will be such Luciferic beings who will unite with the Sun with it. And so, by working on the sublimation of his instincts, man can redeem Lucifer. But only to the extent that he allows himself to be redeemed. There will be those who resist, who during their time on Earth remain in the state in which they were when they came to Earth. They will be cast out and appear as the evil astral world. There emerges the group of Luciferian entities that did not want to come any further. The old serpent is cast out, and the first of the dragons emerges. When the earth enters the sun, it is what is left behind.

But there are still other returnees: the people who do not move forward. There are those who cannot help it, who do not come to the state of awakening that is necessary for spirituality. They remain slaves to their animal instincts. Even if they cannot help it, they are still an evil force. This is the second of the animals, those who remain stuck in animality, cast out as the second of the animals. The “old serpent” says the Apocalypse – the luciferic beings – appear from heaven; the second dragon rises from the sea, that is what has remained in the lower nature in the development of the earth itself, “the animal in its totality – remaining in its instincts.

Now for the third type of being that lags behind. These are those who acquire the potential for black magic on earth. They lag behind within humanity, develop abilities that lead to the supersensible nature, but they use this ability in the service of black magic. Not in their instincts, but in full consciousness, they have turned away and yield to carnal matter for the sake of Sorat. He incarnates in them as their group soul. These people will be the incarnation of the Sun Demon. When will they emerge?

Let us imagine the further course of the earth's development. Union with the Sun. Because not everything has matured, man must return to the physical plane once more. Once again, the solar element separates. This also offers a chance of salvation for those who have been left behind by instinct. The mature decide in the moment of highest union to form another world body next to the sun, and to take in the beings that have been left behind, in order to be taken back again by the sun in the next cycle.

This present cycle means what? Every world body must undergo repetitions of what it has already undergone. Before the earth was able to begin as the earth, it had to repeat [gap in the transcript]

After the earth has united with the sun, it must prophetically anticipate future planetary developments. A pre-advent of the Jupiter, Venus, Vulcan state. During the pre-advent of the Jupiter state, the beings come out and the Jupiter Earth is there next to the Sun. On the Jupiter Earth, the beings have the opportunity to be taken back; the lower states are only there in hints and on the Vulcan state everything merges into one another. So, after our Earth, we experience a Jupiter Earth. There even the black magicians – Sorat – have the opportunity to return to the sun. But a number of them will not do so. And now that they have remained on the Jupiter Earth, a number of people, the Earth spiritualizes again. Once more, those who have spiritualized decide to return and form an intermediate Earth. Some Sorat-beings allow themselves to be redeemed once again; others still stubbornly resist on Venus Earth; and for them there is no longer any possibility of redemption on Vulcan Earth. The sixth, the Venus intermediate state, is therefore the decisive one. It is only in the sixth state of the Venus Earth planet that this decisive step comes. In this, there is again something that parallels the sub-races, so development waits for the smallest cycle, that is, for the sixth sub-state there, in order to still save. And only there, in the sixth sub-state of the sixth main state of the Venus cycle, is everything over: 666.

Those who give their corporeality to incarnate the sun demon as their group soul have finally decided to put their powers at the service of evil. The first dragon is therefore not a human being – Lucifer. Nor is the second – animal. But in the most eminent sense, they are people who have surrendered to the Sorat. 666 is therefore not an animal sign, but a human one. “Here is wisdom."

The apocalypticist therefore probably knew what we know as the development of the earth through 7x7x7 states. This apocalypse is truly an outline of the whole development. Let us consider the Venus Earth. It is a colorful place. On the Jupiter Earth, many can still be saved. For the Venus Earth, the worst human material remains. But there is not much hope there either. Those who spiritualize have only limited power to save. The forces are not sufficient to save. The worst have to wait for the future Jupiter and the future Venus, where the spiritual people have stronger powers. So the most wicked prevail on this Venus Earth. Indeed, much must be expelled; vice must be overcome, for which there is no power to redeem it. This presents itself to the apocalyptic as a plunge into the abyss of evil Babylon. The woman - the spirit of Venus-Earth - is completely filled with evil vices. Thus the fall of Venus-Earth is foreshadowed in the fall of Babylon.

Those people who have tried to save what can still be saved continue to develop; what has reached maturity rises to a final state of the earth, to the volcano earth. There everything is cleansed and purified.

In what field is man creative today? He is able to put the lifeless forces of nature at his service by painting a canvas or carving marble. But he cannot make marble come alive. He does not rule over the living, he masters inanimate nature. In the white-magical sense, he will only be able to control plant forces on the future Jupiter.

What will become of the cathedrals, the domes, the Raphael Madonnas? Their physical materiality will disintegrate - Leonardo's Last Supper. But they will not disappear. Analogous to this are today's crystals, which are formed out of the mountains. The saying of the Egyptian sages: [gap in the transcript] Just as we build and create works of art today, in the past forms were gradually worked out in the cosmos. This now grows out of the earth as a natural being. When the Earth has reached its goal, the works of art will grow out of it like natural products out of the renewing Earth. The Madonna on the canvas will fade away, but today's human labor will give the dwelling place into which later humanity will be born. The apocalyptic calls this dwelling place the “New Jerusalem.” There human labor will be resurrected. The human labor invested in it will be the seeds for the New Jerusalem. Thus the new earth will come into being, and it will be possible for people to live there who fit into this new state and who have kept pace with the development. These people will be able to say to themselves: This is the place for us, who will have developed love out of wisdom so that peace can be. “Jeru Salem” means “the place of peace.”

There were a few directives that I could give to better understand this momentous work. Today, we want to deal with a single issue of human development, because it will shed light on the whole development.

There are seven periods in post-Atlantean culture, and we are currently in the fifth. Each period has a specific task in relation to the human being. The human being is reborn because the conditions on Earth have changed. The great developmental epochs really work on the human being. Let us bear in mind that the human being consists of a physical body, an etheric body, an astral body and an I. When the human being began his development on Earth, he had developed the first three bodies. The task on Earth is to develop the I.

Let us look back at Atlantis, at the last third. In the last third, man had received the first seed to say “I” to himself. That was only a first seed. The two previous post-Atlantean thirds had to draw this “I” to themselves bit by bit. The main moment for the development of the “I” is the event of Golgotha. What is the fact that man received his “I” in the last third of Atlantis? Before man had arrived at this germ of the I, the connection between the physical body and the etheric body was quite different than later. Today, the etheric body of the head has approximately the same size and shape, which was not the case in Atlantis, where the etheric body still protruded. A certain point of the etheric head had to enter in order to connect with a point in the forebrain. Through this “mating”, the human being became mature enough to gradually develop his ego. To educate this ego, the human being needed the processing of the entire physical body, and all the rest of the Atlantean development was used to make the human physical body a carrier of the ego.

It was only after the Atlantic catastrophe that the human brain was so dense that it could become an ego carrier. The hydrocephalus is an atavism from ancient times. A firm, compact head was made by the etheric head going inside. And so the Indian culture could arise, in which a similar brain was already present. But the etheric body inside the physical body had not yet been educated to become a complete I-bearer. That is why the Indian longed to get out of this world.

Thus, in post-Atlantic culture, people begin to make changes to their etheric body that make it possible for the body to develop into an I-bearer. The I works from the inside out to transform the other bodies. Because the work of reworking the physical body begins with regulating the breath, the spiritual person is called “Atm”. Thus we can speak of seven basic parts. If we want to go into more detail in the sense and spirit of post-Atlantean culture, then we have to base it on the division into nine limbs as in my “Theosophy”. In Nordic mysteries, the division into nine was always taught.

In a sense, the future conscious work with the lower members must be anticipated. It must be preceded by unconscious work. This already took place in the Atlantean body – and also now. Only the initiated work quite consciously. First, therefore, there is an unconscious transformation of the astral body through the influence of higher powers of the ego. The result of this unconscious transformation of the astral body is now called the sentient soul. The transformed etheric body is the mind soul, and the transformed physical body is what we call the consciousness soul.

But even under the guidance of higher spiritual beings, the human being then begins to work more consciously and to develop the spirit self.

Physical body, etheric body, astral body, sentient soul, intellectual soul, consciousness soul, spirit self, life spirit, spiritual man – these are the nine members of the human being. These were the nine members taught in the old Nordic mysteries. What is formed between the astral body and the spirit self is developed step by step. In the first impulse, the I-radiation in the Atlantean time transformed it into the consciousness soul. This consciousness soul must educate the others in order to educate itself; then it must allow the Christ principle to permeate it in order to develop the spirit self.

In Indian culture, the etheric body is permeated by the Christized I.

In Persian culture, the sentient body
In Egyptian culture, the sentient soul
In Greco-Roman culture, the mind soul
In our culture, the consciousness soul.

In Philadelphia [the apocalypse], the first spark of the spirit self is struck under the influence of the Christ principle.

We are therefore in the culture that develops the consciousness soul and have to prepare ourselves to receive the Christed spiritual self. In Philadelphia, Christ will appear again in a finer body that will be visible to those who have prepared themselves.

In this way, the theosophical movement enables people to see Christ. This is how this processing of the bodies is gradually and thoroughly carried out. This is how we, through the wisdom of Theosophia, lead people to rise above themselves, to not get stuck in the personal, and thus become able to recognize Christ. Because it was necessary in terms of the evolution of the earth, Theosophy has entered our lives.

In the sixth period, meteorical phenomena that have materialized are evoked, and the others begin to ascend higher. But the sub-periods in it, which are characterized by the horses - white clothes and so on - do not pass by human development without leaving a trace. The three bodies interpenetrate more intimately with the three souls and with what will be acquired as a spiritual self. So what has happened in the sixth period? The four members and the finer differentiations of the I will have been worked through to a completely different extent. The three souls will have grown into the three bodies, they will have grown into them intimately.

What does it mean when we say that these members have grown together? They will have acquired the ability to create expression in the physical body. This ability is acquired through the fact that the person has worked through three periods of time. The fact that the person brings with them a development in the sixth period of time, in which they have worked on their soul, means that they have endeavored to spiritualize themselves. The third and the fourth will become intimately interwoven when they have completed the three cycles or epochs. This passage through a cycle, in which he has truly absorbed everything that a cycle offers, is called ©. Man is then finished with the completion of the cycle to its end.

They have achieved the interpenetration of the three with the four.

Sensitive soul / intellectual soul / consciousness soul.

First the number seven. Then, for the next period, the characteristic number is twelve, the multiplier. The twelve-thousanders emerge after completing the three cycles. Three zeros next to the twelve: 12,000.

And I heard the number of those who were sealed: a hundred and forty-four thousand sealed from all the generations of the sons of Israel: of the tribe of Judah, twelve thousand were sealed; of the tribe of Reuben, twelve thousand were sealed; of the tribe of Gad twelve thousand sealed; of the tribe of Asher, twelve thousand sealed; of the tribe of Naphtali, twelve thousand sealed; of the tribe of Manasseh, twelve thousand sealed; of the tribe of Simeon, twelve thousand sealed; of the thousand of the tribe of Levi were sealed; of the tribe of Issachar, twelve thousand were sealed; of the tribe of Zebulun, twelve thousand were sealed; of the tribe of Joseph, twelve thousand were sealed; of the tribe of Benjamin, twelve thousand were sealed. [Rev 7,4-8]

Now the various groups of people with 12 and 3 zeros who have joined the brotherhood of Philadelphia are designated. 144,000 are multiplied by the twelve groups (12x12) that have thus formed. Those who have developed the power over their soul will also have the power in the other souls. When soul works its way into soul, the deeds of men multiply. Thus, the apocalyptic shows us in depth that he knows the whole secret of human development. The truth is told in such a way that the human being is educated to penetrate from the cover into the real form, so that the consciousness soul is also developed. It is important to find certain things for oneself. That is why theosophy is presented later in a different form of wisdom. Even what is said today is still veiled.

Those who were initiated at the time of the apocalypse have already received the meaning. But what is esoteric in one age later becomes exoteric. That is the meaning of development. The esoteric transforms into the exoteric in the course of human development. This is also the case with the secret of Golgotha. The last act in the initiation of the mysteries. Awakening from the lethargic death and crucifixion, entombment and resurrection of the one to be initiated. Then it emerged, became an external historical fact, the historically evolved mystery wisdom of ancient times. The conservative mind always resists what is esoteric being carried out into the world. Christ was regarded as one who brought the mysteries into public life. The inner will appear more and more in the outer, unfolding splendor and color. If they had been able to follow the apocalypticist, they would have heard exactly the same thing when he spoke to his intimate disciples.

The sixth period has something of a decision everywhere. Philadelphia culture over into another time. The sixth seal brings the number twelve. The sixth trumpet also brings something crucial. 5 Jupiter Earth, 6 Venus Earth - overcoming the great Babylon.

Saved all who can be saved. It is decided who has to wait until the next time.

Repetition of Saturn 1, Sun 2, Moon 3, Earth 4, Jupiter 5, Venus 6, Vulcan 7.

When the Earth is forming into a world body for the sixth time, having completed five rounds, the sixth state is there, but the seventh is not yet. Therefore, for the time when Babylon is overcome, we are told:

Here is wisdom.

Five have fallen, that is Saturn, Sun...

They are gone for the elect - only sputum as beast -, and the sixth is, and the seventh has not yet come.

Up to this, the apocalypticist characterizes exactly.

One more thing: we have seven states, these are the proper ones that are gone through to ascend. But those who have proven to be immature are also placed under Sorat. What happens to them? They now have to separate a world of their own, on which they continue their development. So a special sphere separates, it falls out.

A small colony of the wicked, the black magicians, settle there. Read in the theosophical literature about the mysterious eighth sphere, which goes left, while the other goes right. He will remain there for a time, and the beast is the eighth and has come from the seventh and leads to destruction. The apocalypticist also knows that in addition to the seven balls, there is also an eighth. All theosophy could be extracted. The more development progresses, the more strength is needed to lead those who have turned away from spiritualization back to it. Therefore, an attempt must be made to save what can still be saved through the best. That is why Moses and Elijah are called upon. And we see them saying Wisdom in a later epoch on Earth. Moses and Elijah are among those who are initiated very early on. Therefore, they have to work later. Karma is at work in the world. The highest and the lowest are subject to it. Those who are initiated before Golgotha must attain the karmic correspondence. What happened earlier?

Lived in a lethargic state in the physical body for three and a half days. What was done? Nothing. Left to the outer powers. These three and a half years drop out of the development of these initiates. These are the only three and a half years that the old initiate has ignored in the work of his ego. Such a thing must also find its karmic balance. There, where they occur in their state of development, they must again leave their physical body to the outer world for three and a half days. Therefore we read:

And when they have finished their testimony, the beast that rises from the abyss will make war with them, and overcome them and kill them. And their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city, which is called spiritually “Sodom and Egypt”, because there also the Lord was crucified. And they of the peoples and tribes and tongues and nations shall lie three days and a half, and their dead bodies shall not be left in graves. And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry, and shall send gifts one to another; because these two prophets tormented them that dwelt on the earth.

And after three days and a half the Spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon them which saw them. And they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, Come up hither. And they went up into heaven in a cloud; and their enemies beheld them. [Rev 11, 7-12].

And so we have the karmic fulfillment of leaving the body to external powers. Even deeds that are done as sacrifices must find their karmic compensation. Except for the names, we find in the Apocalypse what Christ is. Christ is the deepest impulse that enters into the I of man. The I takes the Christ. We can characterize the I through intimate contemplation. Everyone can call all external things by their name. The name of the I must resound from within. The Christ plunges into this principle of the human being and gradually permeates it. A name that is not written in the external world, that only the one with the name can fertilize, who has it - recognize.

And he had a name written that no one knew [recognized] except himself.

That in the end the earth will be spiritualized in the sun, that everything will be spiritualized in the outer Jerusalem, is expressed:

And the city has no need of the sun or of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God has illumined it, and its lamp is the Lamb. [Rev 21,23]

First the apocalyptic seer sees the leader who guided our Earth as Vishnu Karma, then as Ahura Mazdao and so forth. He sees him as the one who carries the seven stars, who has the brazen rod, the spirits of development in his hand and the sword in his mouth. The word [gap in the transcript]

Everything undergoes a certain transformation. Even the organs, for example the heart muscle; it is on the way to becoming an arbitrary muscle. The larynx is on the way to becoming a reproductive organ. Through the voice, human beings will produce their own kind. Today, human beings can only communicate that which inspires their soul by communicating with the air. But more and more of the human being is communicated in this way. And man will multiply out of himself through the voice. “In the primeval beginning” and at the end will be the Logos - creating word. And so the mighty vision of the sword from the mouth is at a higher level the reawakening of Atlantis.

Vision: Lamb instead of four animals. Sorat pushed down by an archangel - Sorat. “In brief” is a wrong translation: the apocalypticist does not mean “in a short time”, but “in a brief outline”. Theosophy is the commentary on the Apocalypse - and in our time it is the only possible commentary.

I wanted to say a few more words about the significance of the oldest parts of the Old Testament before moving on to other things. I have often told you that in interpreting the Old Testament, you come to a point where you can begin to take it more or less literally. Now, in the nineteenth century, we experienced an age that was as ill-suited as possible to comprehend something like the five books of Moses. Anyone who understands these five books of Moses will not only see an increase in their insight into the world, but also an increase in their inner appreciation and reverence for all the writings that speak to us, as something that is not only a human voice, but - let us leave this for the time being in an unspecified way - something that resonates down to us from higher spheres than the human spheres.

In fact, we could and perhaps will be able to go back to the origin, to the actual theories of such writings, to the first inspirers. But we do not want to do that today. We want to touch on a question that goes back to an historical fact, which admittedly cannot be established by the external means of literature today, but which will become quite clear once the theosophical movement has taken root. So, I would like to consider an historical fact first. At the time when Christianity had its first starting point, when Jesus of Nazareth lived, there was the school of Philo in the famous Alexandria. Among the manifold teachings that Philo gave, the most outstanding were those that he gave his students about the five books of Moses.

I note that one of these students was the evangelist who wrote the Gospel of John. So the spirit that lived in the Egyptian schools also lives in the Fourth Gospel. This interpretation required a very special spiritual quality, and Philo began by telling his students that the five books of Moses were not written to express what is told in them, but that this was only an outer garment to express deep inner human truths. Line by line, the Old Testament is to be understood as allegorical, symbolic of human inner processes, of such processes that also took place in time at the same time, that is, the processes took place in the hearts of the people for many hundreds of years, from the time when Abraham wandered in the Canaanite land until the time when the Jews were led into Babylonian captivity. There events took place that did not happen outwardly, but in the souls, which were, however, connected with historical events. But one does not understand the historical events if one does not bring them into connection with the inner happenings. Above all, the students entered into a mood in which the whole of the Old Testament appeared to them as a revelation of the inner human self.

I will give you a few examples in a moment. What I have told you was regarded by nineteenth-century scholars as mere myth, especially the explanations given by Philo. He still gave these in a very forceful manner in oral discourse. Everything that has come down to posterity from this has been regarded as an allegorical interpretation, to which nothing more can be added. In the nineteenth century, the aim was to remain on the physical plane and to examine the facts that arise for the historian. Even if the Bible was doubted in its chronology, even if it was no longer believed that the world was created 4000 years before the birth of Christ, at the beginning of the nineteenth century the Bible was still taken as a kind of historical document, as something that gave us information about historical events. The events that were narrated - even if they were inaccurately narrated - were taken as if they mattered. I am now talking from the point of view of external scholarly research. The other things that occurred in the occult realm were not noticed at all.

But something did result from the achievement of deciphering the cuneiform script. It turned out that what can be found in the stories of the Old Testament can also be found in the Babylonian legends and myths. In particular, they tell us of a creation of the world that is very similar to the biblical creation of the world. The story of the Fall of Man is also told in a very similar way in the Babylonian myth. The content of the significant seal impressions is significant. It is the impression that shows two people sitting under a tree with a snake. We have the Fall of Man depicted on a seal impression that is much older than the writings themselves. So in cuneiform writing we have the story of the Fall of Man, the salvation of humanity in a similar way to Noah and so on, so that it became clear that the view that the Old Testament was based on divine revelation, given directly to Moses by God, could no longer be maintained. It is self-evident that secular scholarship has concluded from this that the Jews did not receive these legends by revelation, but that they brought them down with them from their ancestral homeland at the time when they came down, and that they were then influenced from outside.

The further you get into the Old Testament, the clearer it becomes. You have to assume that what we are told about Joseph, who lived around the time of the pharaohs and who helped the Jews achieve a respected position in Egypt, is true. And it must also be assumed that there was also such a Moses.

At least you could feel that there would be a story together. In later times, historical records have again undermined the ground for purely historical research. We have documents that testify that in the time in which the story of Joseph took place, peoples whom we cannot describe otherwise than as Hebrews lived in the land of Canaan and that they turned to Pharaoh for support in a famine. These letters are written in the Babylonian language and addressed to the Egyptian pharaoh. From this it can be seen that the Babylonian language must have been highly regarded. The language of the educated at that time was the Babylonian language, as in earlier centuries with us it was the French language.

But something else has emerged. The person of Joseph has become highly doubtful. History has gradually eroded this figure. It has been established that a personality who was governor in a Jewish land is identical to Joseph, so that the story in the Bible corresponds to a governor who could not have experienced the story. At the court of the Pharaoh, he advocated for the Jews' petitions to the Pharaoh. So we would not have a Joseph who spoke for his people in the way it is written in the Bible, but who, as governor, took care of the Jews, and that they also made the Egyptian journey back then. Today it seems more questionable than ever that the Israelites' journey to Egypt really took place. It is quite impossible that the retreat under Moses could have taken place as it is told. It is said that the Jews went into the desert, and it is said as if no other peoples were there. But at that time, this area must have been inhabited by other peoples who would have fiercely resisted. If we understand all this literally, then everything is in the air.

Secular [historiography] has contributed to the dismemberment of the Bible. If the critic begins with his criticism, he sees himself standing before nothingness. The critic must end up saying, “I can't say anything.” It may be so, but it may also be otherwise – this is the conclusion that the secular critic must necessarily come to.

In this regard, I can only provide a sketch. However, if you were to go through the matter and look at it, you would find – as I have indicated – that the result can only be what I have indicated: higher criticism and absolute lack of results. This probably has the effect that one will ask oneself: Are the interpretations that Philo of Alexandria gave, that it is just a play on words, correct, or are the old documents perhaps written in the sense that Philo of Alexandria could still know, but which was later forgotten?

Not only in the first book of Moses, but also in the later books, an answer can be found if one examines it esoterically and if one asks oneself: Did it literally happen as it seems to be written there, or were the writers such who championed esotericism, were they spirits who, with what they outwardly presented, connected an inner meaning? The whole area that is involved and about which it is said that Abraham passed through it, that Abraham must have lived in it at the time that preceded a great invasion of the people, the area north of the Euphrates; Persia, India, but also Egypt, all these areas were full of occult schools. They were more or less left alone, especially until 2005 BC. But in the middle of the third millennium BC, great migrations of peoples took place. What is referred to as the Babylonian people also settled there around that time. In the past, there were even more peoples who knew what priestly rule meant.

In all these areas there were seven degrees of initiation. The first degree was the degree of the “ravens”. Initiates of this degree were those who ensured the connection between the outside world and the secret places. Hence the ravens are the scouts who bring news of the outside world to those inside the temple, from which they can find the opportunity to work. When the old Barbarossa asks from century to century whether the ravens are still flying around the mountain, this is nothing more than the occult interpretation of whether the connection with the outside world still exists.

In the second degree of initiation, those who could use the word were those who had learned so much that they were inspired by spiritual life. They were called the champions.

In the third degree of initiation were those who could work through action, who stood firm through their power. They were called the “lions”. A warrior is one who works through the word; he is also called a prophet. But those who have become lions work through action. Sometimes, however, their work remains more or less unnoticed. They are often not recognized at all.

Those initiated in the fourth degree were called the “occult” [those working inside the temple].

Those initiated in the fifth degree were called in each country according to the name of the [people] in question. In India they were called: “Man” - . He was only truly a man when he had risen to Manas. The Persians called them “Persians”; the ancient Chaldeans called them “Chaldeans.” The entire nation was called Chaldeans, but the initiated of the fifth degree were especially called that. That is why they were always confused, when the people and when the initiated priests were designated. The initiates of this degree were priests who studied astronomy and astrology.

The initiates of the sixth degree were universally called the “sun-runners”. Their life had become so rhythmic that it ran as regularly as the course of the sun. He would have caused confusion if he had deviated from his path, just as the sun would cause confusion if it ever stepped out of its orbit. The sun-runners were the ones who were called upon to rule the nations. The kings of Western Asia, Southern Asia and Egypt were prepared for this by being initiated in the sixth degree. In the governors of Egypt, we therefore find sun-walkers who had reached a high degree of development, who understood the secret language of the world, and who also understood how to live out the spiritual secrets. It was said of such people that they led a life like the sun and that the sun, moon and stars bowed down before them, just as the moon and stars bow down before the sun.

These solar walkers or solar heroes are told in the most diverse legends and myths. Hercules is nothing other than a solar hero. The twelve labors are the passage through the twelve signs of the zodiac. Jason is also such a solar walker who set out to bring the golden fleece from the rough land of the barbarians. Thus, you can find myths with solar heroes among different peoples. Scholars have often wondered why the heroes of the myths are so often depicted in similar ways. They have been surprised that the lives of Buddha, Hercules and Zarathustra, Osiris and Christ are so similar. If they had known that these were initiates of the sixth degree and that the life of a sun-runner was simply being told, then they would not have needed to wonder. Even the story of Christ is part of it, and it shows that these were real events in their lives, but that they were predetermined by their fellow brothers. Their course of life was mapped out thousands of years before. The life of a sun-runner was described before, because through thousands of years the life of such a hero has taken the same course.

I would like to draw your attention to the story of Joseph. Read it and listen to my suggestions for how you might teach it. Joseph's father, Israel, made him a colorful coat. Among the Persians, those initiated at the fifth degree were called “Persians,” while among the Israelites they were called “Israeb.” It was a real event that those initiated at the fifth degree bowed to those initiated at the sixth degree on a certain day. Joseph told his brothers about his dream in which the sheaves bowed down to him, whereupon the brothers said to him: “Should you become our king and rule over us?” But they did not understand everything. Now he spoke even more clearly by telling his brothers another dream: “Behold, the sun and the moon and eleven stars bowed down to me.” Here Joseph spoke of the fact that he wants to be initiated in the sixth degree. - Let us throw him into a pit, said the brothers. The “pit” is the place of initiation. A “wild beast” has torn Joseph apart. The tearing of the earthly garments is the dying of the lowly. The story shows us that Joseph has grown up to become a sun-runner, a sun-hero.

Egypt was the place of those temples where the most highly initiated were. The seventh degree is the degree of the “fathers.” Abraham belonged to the fathers only in Chaldea. Moses could then also be initiated into the Egyptian mysteries through Joseph, and from this emerged what Moses spoke to his people.

This is a brief example of the kind of instruction that Philo gave his students. The scholars had no idea that these were spiritual processes, but believed that real historical events were being described. But now we also understand why there is nothing left for biblical criticism. It does not stick to the real content, which it lets slip through its fingers.

The Jews of the first Christian communities told the story of Jesus' initiation in a similar way. The key to this lies in the old commentaries that exist for the Bible and the Vedas.

[Spiritual processes that must be read esoterically are also the fairy tales, for example, “The Seven Little Goats.” - The outer criticism always lets the real content slip through; it takes the symbols as deeds. - The keys are not available to external scholarship; it does not know how to read such things.)

Next time, I will discuss one of the most significant stories that you have often heard, but whose inner meaning is as infinitely deep as hardly anything else – the story of Cain and Abel. On the one hand, we have Cain's murder, and on the other hand, the whole human race is derived from Cain. The great secret lies in Abel, who sacrificed the animals of the forest, and Cain, who sacrificed the fruits of the field.

The eye is called upon to perceive. Sensation – perception – can only arise when a nervous system begins to develop. Half of the eye is a living physical apparatus; the other half is permeated by the nervous system. The optic nerve would never perceive if the physical were not constructed in a certain way; with the same physical laws as an inanimate apparatus, plus life.

So these two things are to be formed in humans: an apparatus to receive and one to mediate. Outside in nature we have the mineral kingdom, and the mineral kingdom has given us the apparatus, which is formed from the components of the same kingdom, with which we absorb this kingdom. Everything in the outside world we also have; little by little we have to absorb the whole mineral kingdom.

In the fourth round, we assimilate the mineral kingdom, and by the end of the fourth round we will have consumed the entire kingdom. During the first round, we expose the mineral, while during the fourth we absorb it. During the second, the same thing happens with the plants, while during the third, the same thing happens with the animals.

During the seventh, man is within himself; he has absorbed all the realms. How does this happen? In the nineteenth century, the materialistic one, people began to completely deny the life force. For example, urea, which was previously thought to be produced only by the organism, was produced in the laboratory. The researchers thought that if they could now chemically represent what was previously believed to come from the living, there would be no difference between the living and the inanimate, only a more complex organism. They should have said: there is life in the mineral too.

Man is first able to recognize the inorganic, only later will plant and animal life be understood. The sense by which the nerve spreads perceives the mineral process from the outside. But the nerve will then grasp the life contained in the eye, grasp the incoming prana as we do today with light. The eye will have progressed so far that the plant will flow in directly. The mineral has ceased to exist. The mineral has reached its greatest density in the fourth round and will soon disintegrate into cosmic dust. Therefore, the stone is the image of perfection within our round, and the leaf is the nearest cover. The image of the jewel in the middle of the lotus flower is the symbol of the tendency of human striving today. Buddha sitting in the lotus flower is such a symbol. Today, the human being perceives so strongly in a mineral way that the researcher even denies everything else. But within him is the life - prana - that now takes everything assimilated with it through the pralaya and possesses the processed as a spiritual inner life, as something absorbed within him. - So in each round, until the human being - absorbing everything - remains only in God.

During the first round, man had developed his physical self, the bone system emerged in the system; in the second round it was animated, man became a plant. It is hollow, the plant as an outline.

In the fifth round, he will have the core within him. The human being as a plant-human being in the second round reproduces, life begets life. In the first round, unity prevailed; in the second, number, the emergence of one from the other. Form also prevails – shape – because number comes together.

In the third round, the beings begin to live within themselves. Reciprocity rules – pleasure and pain.

Something new begins in the fourth round. Until now, there was still a shell everywhere. The mineral kingdom begins to form a core. We are only now able to distinguish between shell and core. The core can separate and control ever new shells. Birth and death prevail. The core can retain a germ that outlasts all shells, and we experience birth and death.

In the first three rounds up to the middle of the fourth, the daughter essence is released from the mother essence; it separates. Everything was there as long as the round lasted; only with the fourth round is birth and death possible.

The first is unity, which dominates the first round. The second is number, which dominates the second round. The third is interdependency, which dominates the third round. The fourth is birth and death, which dominate the fourth round.

The union of the Pitri with the Dhyan Chohan is the core. [...]

When observing individual development, one should not limit oneself to human beings, because their development is only a special case in the whole of nature. Development is the change of day and night, everything that takes place in time, ebb and flow - a similar thing takes place everywhere in inanimate nature: changes in temporal events. What remains [in this changeable] is the law. In spring, the sun is in a certain constellation, that of Aries - on March 21. It was the symbol of the Logos – the ram or lamb is therefore the sign of the re-appeared solar Logos: the Lamb of God. Greek Argonaut saga: the rams, the sun god, is brought home. The sun follows the same law. What changes is the appearance and what allows the appearance to repeat itself in the same rhythmic play is the law.

But in a certain sense, the law also changes. Eight hundred years before Christ, the sun began to rise in Aries, earlier in Taurus; very slowly it moves on. Therefore, the Egyptians had the sacred bull ‹Apis›, also the Persians. As long as the sun moved in the sign of Taurus, it was worshiped like that.

Before that, the sun rose in Gemini, and we hear of its worship among ancient peoples, among the Persians, and also among the ancient Germans. About every two thousand years, the sun moves forward very slowly. So the law is relatively constant, but it also undergoes development. The law is the constant, the eternally changing is the phenomenon.

Let us now move from inanimate to animate nature. The individual plant continually dies, but the species emerges from the seed. Just as in inanimate nature the phenomena pass away and the law remains, so in animate nature the species is preserved and the individuals perish. This applies to the plant and animal world.

But here, too, the species remains and changes at the same time over the course of time: the tame city pigeon has developed from the rock dove. The essence of the species remains, but something changes. How did the species undergo this development? Through the external living conditions in which the species find themselves. The effect of the external on the internal changes the species. Everything that previously came upon a being as external circumstances subsequently becomes a process of further development in the being itself. The caves of Kentucky deprive the animal of its sight; the animal absorbs the darkness.

The sun would remain if other powerful celestial bodies did not continue to move it. Every being absorbs and then develops itself further. Every process of further development is therefore interaction. The animal develops itself in such a way that it provides for the next generation.

Let us now move up to the level of personality. It is capable of imagining and can therefore enter into a new type of living conditions and absorb spiritual impressions. It enters into a new, spiritual environment. Just as in the species, the process of further development is formed in the personality through the new spiritual conditions. Personality passes away like the phenomenon and the individual, and like the law and the species, individuality remains. It would be a violation of the law if it were otherwise, and so we understand reincarnation. The spiritual essence of the personality is absorbed from within by the living conditions, and develops further. This is the agreement of the law of reincarnation with that of the preservation of the species and the law.

When we follow the developing species, we observe the adaptation to external living conditions, which is then inherited. Adaptation and inheritance are the great laws that govern living nature. All inheritance is a transfer of acquired characteristics to the heirs. When I look at the pouter pigeon, I will only understand it if I go back to its ancestors and look for the causes that gave rise to its organs. The present formations must be sought in the activities of times gone by. What was previously an activity later becomes an organ. The same thing happens spiritually with the individuality. It adapts and passes on to the successor of the personality the individuality it has acquired in the spiritual realm. What is taken in through experience is furthered in the process of development.

Take the bean: it develops to the germ, everything else falls away, only the small part remains, and that dies off, only life itself with the species passes over to the offspring plant. Only the species remains, but when it became a germ, the bean species itself was still surrounded by a part of vegetable matter, which must also fall away. The developed plant is no longer the species, but it has something of the sheaths that the germ has to save. Only when everything has fallen away can it arise anew. It is a new incarnation. Just as in individuality, which is surrounded by all sheaths and can only incarnate when all remnants have fallen away. Man has even more sheaths; they must return to where they came from. Then his germ is free and single, in the world in which alone it can develop - to a new existence. Man belongs to the earth, without it he would be inconceivable. He can only exist under this atmospheric pressure; this also applies to the spiritual conditions. This is because he has developed into this earth, into its physical, astral and mental spheres, which are interwoven. The human being is constructed from these three spheres as an earthly human being. The individuality itself is only in the higher mind, which is not bound to the earth, but belongs to the solar sphere; the earth with its three spheres, but also the sun and all other planets, rests in it. So we still consist of a substance that does not change, the unwritten page in which the experiences are recorded.

We call the mental sphere, in so far as it belongs to the earth, “Rupa”, formed; the other, which extends, “Arup”, mental. This is where [the] individuality belongs. We are children of the sun in a certain respect, which is why we also call our teachers sun children.

Just as the plant slowly returns all the substances it has taken in to build itself, keeping only what is of the species, so the human being - individuality - retains only what is arupa, mental, in order to reincarnate. Arupa is the region that leads out of the earth into the general. Then it is the freed butterfly that can spread freely in the Arupa-Mental, then [gap in the transcript] it must return to experience anew.

When man has given up his physical, he also has to give back to the astral what has served his construction from there, then he lives in Kamaloka.

What he learns in this life becomes an inclination, it must develop in Arupa, then it will reach full development. Man is not only an earthling, but also a sun child through his belonging to the sphere. In the third race the spark was ignited. Where did this spark come from, which the Manasaputra brought? The first knowledge was not given earthly, but brought over from an earlier state; it is something that goes beyond the sphere of action; so it remains when these effects cease. Only by the fact that man is able to pass through Arupa does he remain, otherwise he would have to shatter. But in the same way, the progressive development of the spiritual is a law that applies to individuality.

The external becomes the internal, what is experienced externally becomes the inner principle of progress. What comes to the individuality becomes inner law. The stream of the macrocosm flows into the individual and thus becomes microcosm. Predispositions are the results of previous experience: our conscience is previous experience. Just as in the study of nature, we have to explain it; that is the law of karma: causation through the various incarnations. You have the cause for a present-day disposition in an earlier activity.

Vedanta: What you think today, you are tomorrow.

Reincarnation means: the preservation of the spiritual in the physical.

Karma means: what is first an activity later becomes a habit or trait.

Through his past he comes to know his future. He connects the past with the future. The ancients called death the brother of sleep. What we are today is a continuation of yesterday; sleep connects, yesterday is the cause of today's karma. Man maintains himself by building on the past. This is how it is with the human race. We learn our past in order to control our future; we also learn about the present from the future.

More highly developed people like Plato have brought more to revelation from the higher basic parts than others; others must become what he was. Plato is an artificial five-rounder. Buddha, Christ, Zarathustra are six-rounders. They, too, continue to develop. At the end of the seventh round, humanity will have reached a certain degree of harmonious development.

The lunarian epoch only became disharmonious as a new principle. It will be the same at the end of the seventh round. Sin is not from God, it came into the world through the law, but the law is from God, according to Paul. Manas approached Kama to take it to a new level. Kama had to be integrated, sawed and filed, like a wheel for a clock. Through the law; Kama or the flesh in itself was good. At the end of our terrestrial epoch, the firstlings come with a far higher development than the harmonious development of the masses. Theosophy calls it the Dhyan Chohans.

So it was at the end of the lunar epoch: the first Pitris were so advanced and came over to undergo a development in the earth epoch that went beyond the regular. They could only intervene when the earth beings could feel something of Manas within themselves. They were first active in the formation of humans in order to be understood by them later. [For example: the] Elohim of the Old Testament were only understood when the spark of the spirit was awakened in them [humans]. In particular, they were able to understand Jahve-Elohim, the Lord of Form, who clothed everything with the physical shell.

The great teachers, Sons of Light, Manasaputras, had appeared in this way - teaching. In revelation, everything can only appear in polarity, in two forms; man must understand through opposites; he enjoys the light when he sees the shadow. Here, too, polarity appeared in God Michael - Yahweh - and Lucifer. Yahweh-Elohim and his group are destined to direct man's intellect to the external in form; the other group directs attention more to the purely spiritual, to the inner being in man. Thus, God and the serpent appear in myths as opposites: God wants to teach love; the serpent wants to teach wisdom. God wants to teach form; the serpent wants to teach life.

The differentiation into imagination and sensuality, into sexuality, which had not existed before, now occurred. With it, language, as an expression of imagination.

So that two kinds of intelligence were at work: “You shall know!” said Lucifer, and imparted speech with thinking. He imparted the inner life. Jehovah was the God of form and procreation, and also of love — who hallowed outer sensuality through nobler feelings. “You shall bear children with pain.

We thus see the intervention of higher intelligences in the form of the God of love and the God of wisdom. When love was to become personality in Jesus, the head of the serpent had to be crushed.

So we have the three currents: Lunarian Pitris in germ form, which are animated by the mineral kingdom and have to mature to receive the influence of the Elohim. The Elohim have the task of leading up to this point. So that in the first three rounds the normal entities progress until they are mature to connect with the Elohim and to progress together with them.

What happened is what is described as the fall into matter, the Fall of Man. Humanity only became aware of sensuality when it was there, so they made clothes out of leaves. The Sons of Form and Love and the Sons of Wisdom now led people until the fourth race, in which something new occurred. The Sons of Wisdom have to do with thinking and imagining; the Sons of Love with the sanctification of human sensuality. This is the greatest task, for it is to be led to divinity. It is difficult because in sensuality there is desire, longing - that is, the tendency to remain within sensuality. First there was the fall into matter; now there is the tendency to remain within it, if it is not pointed upwards. It was a sacrifice of the Sons of Light to become the leaders of sensuality, a greater sacrifice than becoming the leaders of thinking. The Sons of Light are exposed to all the dangers of sensuality; it became more and more seductive the more they developed it. And the result was the subjugation of some of the Sons of Light under the power of matter. This led to the great catastrophes of the Atlantean period. This is what is called black magic. The second case is when the danger became a trap for some of the Sons of Light: material selfishness instead of guidance from matter. The flood - mythical account.

The Sons of Light found the Earth Daughters beautiful: This sex had to succumb. They threw off what could not be taken. And now we have what came next; our savages are the decadent descendants of those ancient races that perished. Within Asia, there were those who had retained their equilibrium and progressed to the fifth race. This small part went to India, partly to Babylonia, Egypt, Europe and so on.

What happened then is happening today on a higher level of consciousness. Today, a geographical area - the ark - cannot be isolated. Today, instead of spatial isolation, there must be isolation of thought and attitude.

Even now individuals can incarnate from the Atlanteans who perished – only their culture and their geographical soil were destroyed. The culture of the fifth race, too, will be destroyed if it becomes evil. Some of it must be gathered to form the basis of the sixth race, united by that which will form the core: love. We must now collect in the spirit of love, we must consciously do what was once done unconsciously – calling from all nations to the brotherhood. We have the high task of being for the sixth race what was once done for the fifth.

Those who have an interest in the future culture are working on it. Those who do nothing for it will also enjoy the fruits; if the perished Atlanteans had found what they had sown, they would have found a hell; so too would the fifth race find it in the sixth if we did not work to prepare new karma for the sixth race. What we sow, we will reap, also in terms of racial karma.

There is a tremendous difference between the mental structure of these three. We omit the first Rama, the Axe, who esoterically still belongs to the Atlantean race. This second Rama has a Buddha-mind, but it appears through Manas, wisdom.

Budhi is the source of wisdom, revelation, inspiration - no matter where it comes from. Let us imagine a drop of mercury in a beautiful geometric figure. Mercury is its figure; the way it is arranged is its form. So wisdom can be seen as a whole, but arranged in the different systems of the cosmos. One could know all one's knowledge in one sentence, then this synthetic knowledge would be Budhi and Manas (d/gap in the transcript).

Manas is Budhi in a certain arrangement.

Now, Christian esotericism calls the 'summary' 'the word' and the 'arrangement' the 'Holy Spirit'. Indian esotericism calls the Word 'Budhi' and the Holy Spirit 'Manas'.

Legend: All esotericists knew that all “knowledge” could be summarized in a 'sun of knowledge'. The esotericist has the one word in which everything is compressed - he derives everything else from this word. The inspirer on whom a religious system is based goes - according to legend - into the temple to take possession of the word. Jesus entered the temple, cut himself, took the word, hid it in his body and now practiced the word. This is an example.

Let us imagine the image of mercury. The sphere is the same as the droplets, only in arrangement. You can separate them — Budhi distributed in Manas — and also bring them together. Let us imagine that the knowledge of the cosmos has been handed over to a being as astrological knowledge, so that he is able to gain a wise insight into the world. Such a being is Rama, who received this knowledge in its synthetic unity. He was, as it were, the general of knowledge.

Let us consider someone who does not receive knowledge as a unified whole, but rather knowledge already distributed throughout the world, no longer the word, but the Holy Spirit: Krishna. With regard to the individual, Krishna also speaks in the Bhagavad Gita. Rama is not the great conqueror of the world, gently leading by the hand. Krishna is already the teacher.

Let us go a little further. Summarizing what has been scattered. The unity from above summarized from the details.

Buddhism came about by pointing to a section of the world: This and that is applicable to it. Buddhism is tailored to the spirit of the Indian people. Rama knowledge is tailored to the whole world.

These were the avatars of the fifth race. We have characterized the Budhi knowledge. Buddha is thus the Budhi teacher for Manas, for the sacred spirit. The task now is to introduce this teaching into the physical plan. [Buddha] is the teacher sent by the deity. If a teaching is to be incorporated into the physical plan, it must arise from the feelings, perceptions and kama-manasic thinking of the people themselves; for example, Zoroaster and Hermes were sent, not grown out of. At some point, a people had to have their own inspirer, and that was only possible if a chela like Jesus of Nazareth [gap in the transcript]

So we tailored the knowledge to the individual personality, which in turn becomes international again. This is the cosmic significance of Christianity. He tried to give something to man as a human being. He was therefore not only the “way” like Krishna - instruction - and not “truth” like Buddha - summary - but “life”. He therefore did not write anything down. He lived the things, independently of the national coloring that is given in the language. Exemplary life, center and focus for the new confession, which is to be sought in belonging to Him. A gathering of the confessors around the personality is necessary. Not only must I understand what He teaches, but in life one must be united in Him. We have laid our hands in His wounds.

The disciples bear witness.

This explains the mystical union of Christ with Jesus. To be united in Christ is life.

In the case of Buddha, Budhi and Manas incarnated from the very beginning, and it did not depend on the personality. In the case of Christ Jesus, the personality came into its own in mystical union.

The Christian community of incarnated Christs is also a body of personalities. According to the Indian model, the figure of Christ, who incarnated for three years, is not found on the devachan plan. There is another plan.

Behind the ecclesiastical community lies the continuously incarnated Christ, our Maitreya, not in human form, but in us. He sanctifies Christianity without knowing anything about incarnation, not as a personal avatar but by living out his life in Christendom and in all that it achieves. Maitreya – the tenth avatar – is still awaited by the Indians, and revered by Christians as their mystical brother. That is why Buddhism kills off personality; the [Buddhist] becomes an ascetic. Christianity elevates personality, fulfills what the Greeks dreamed of, the earthly paradise.

Individual Christians are like cells, hence the balance through saints who atone for criminals. Therefore the church is the substance, the body for the Maitreya Jesus of Nazareth, who understood; always incarnated to accomplish the right thing. - The Christ - the soul.

It is only in the sixth race that the Christ will really take on his outer form; all so united that the individual does not separate his good from that of the whole.

When we now consider separateness and union, we must do so in contrast to the earlier unity. The present-day unions will represent something where the individual members are - the goal is the soul.

Christianity should strive for this brotherhood. The White Lodges are advanced posts, undertaking various tasks but working together. They are the cores around which individuals group themselves. At the end of our planetary development, there will be seven such lodges, with one goal, harmonious. These cores remain, go through a pralaya and appear as the seven leading spirits of future development. These are called by the Hebrew teaching 'Elohim', and one is Jahve - Lord of the Form.

Thus, in Christianity, not a national deity is embodied, but a unifying one that leads to the new development. It indicates the turning point, down into physical development and back up again - therefore has a cosmic significance -, contains the teachings of the others all, but can only be understood in its connection with the cosmos.

The green parts = remains of the Lemurian continent. On Earth, everything is in development. We would encounter a very different configuration of the Earth in Lemuria; a much higher temperature. Everything that is solid today would then be found in a liquid state. Metals would flow. We assume that this temperature would not harm their beings. The Lemurian continental parts were of a completely different nature, not emerging from the liquid element, but rather slightly liquid parts in a sea of fire, and only when it cooled down did this fire become dangerous to the more solid parts. The destruction happened because the remaining fire became dangerous to the cooled parts. The fire was what the Lemurians used to form everything; a fine etheric fabric was around the fiery-liquid mass in which the continents floated; the people were cloud-like fiery-flooding figures.

As differentiation occurred, fire was banished into fire basins, humans were able to work with firepower, came to black magic and perished in the fire. About a million years ago there was more differentiation.

The red was soft masses, more waxy continents; the air was much denser than it is today; the water was much thinner, still related to what we call the element from which life with form originated [...] . Even more related to the watery in plants, so that people were more related to what surrounded them. They could not yet easily penetrate the air; the water much thinner, like today's fog, was more related to them. There was more life force in this rarefied water than in today's denser, more differentiated water. People felt much more akin to the elements because of this kinship. The result was that they could use the power contained within them. Example of a locomotive with mineral steam propulsion. Grains have a similar stored energy to coal. Today's man cannot convert it into motive power; the Atlanteans were able to supply their engines with seed power.

He crossed the few plant species in order to use the power, and through skillful crossbreeding experiments, he produced the many varieties of plants and animals. This is where the difference to the Darwinian theory lies. No scientist wants to deny that these many species have emerged from a few; it is just that all hypotheses have been shattered, such as “(struggle for existence, ”sexual breeding choice, because science is faced with the fact that man himself is the breeder.

The Atlanteans were equipped with the power of seed, vril. The fourth root race had the plan of life at its disposal and ruled over everything with the power of seed; the fifth root race can only use mineral power. The Atlanteans had small airships that they heated with the power of seed. These moved in the dense air, close to the ground, and steered over the mountains. The water was thinner and was therefore used for the fine arts, especially in the city of golden gates.

Within the root race are seven sub-races that underwent migrations. First, the original people.

Rmoahals, people who still resembled the last Lemurians, with a fairly physical organization, living in nature itself. Their descendants, the Tlavatli peoples, organized themselves up to develop the dominant element of the Atlanteans, memory, which found its first peak in the third race, among the Toltecs. They had cities that were built entirely according to the principle of intuitive architecture - as it is degenerated today in beaver dams.

A rock, a natural garden, was continued in the buildings, as it were. In complete harmony with nature, they created fabulously beautiful dwellings; the canalization system was magnificent, cleanliness even greater.

Gradually, these peoples had developed an ever more highly cultured way of life. The sons of the fire mist had grown into adepts with schools of adepts; the rulers were taken from among the adepts themselves. It was impossible for them to be unworthy, because people knew how to regulate inheritance by choosing the appropriate parents. This secret, the secret of birth, was almost completely lost. Everything was based on memory, which extended beyond what they experienced between birth and death. It was taken for granted that a son had a shared memory with his father, grandfather, and so on, so that they mastered the knowledge and arts of their fathers through intuition. Thus, breeding was more important than education. All knowledge was therefore more a matter of trial and error than of study. Hence there were also other schools: more workshops where people learned how to do things. There was no counting involved; instead, people memorized and remembered. [No one was educated; no one could have described what their family tree would have looked like.] The temples were ancestral temples; the later cult of ancestors is a degeneration of this culture of ancestors, which was based on memory. History was recorded in symbols. Until the middle of the third race, mastery of the vril force was strictly held by the adepts, who understood the symbols that had to be learned first.

The fourth race, the original Turanians, were the first to have degenerated. They stole the secret of the vril force and became black magicians.

In the fifth race, the first announcement of thought and combination: the Ur-Israelites. They remained mixed between the sixth and seventh races; they were the progenitors of today's Aryan root race, bringing over the power of memory and adding combination.

The sixth race was that of the Akkadians, more towards Asia. It was the people who already understood the combining, calculating activity in the sense of practical enterprise. They were a trading people. They are the ones who brought something that did not exist before: primal jurisprudence, that is, rules for the mutual relations of people. The seventh sub-race, the Mongols, realized the Atmic principle of unity in religious matters. The others looked up at the starry sky and saw the divine in the power of the stars. The Toltecs had felt the power of Vril as divine, then worked it out intellectually until it was worshipped by the Mongols as “Tao”.

The Greeks in their tradition have expressed many things. Three types in the images of the gods:

- the Zeus type, that of the fifth root race,

- the satyr, faun circle, related to the primeval Egyptian mummies in the face, represents the memory of the Atlantean type. Satyr – eastward = faun: bringing the memory of peoples living to the west.

- Hermes: god of merchants, bearing everything that set the tone for the Atlanteans: the snake as a symbol of the healing vril force, god of doctors. Wings indicated an intimate relationship with nature; winged god who survived the flood. So that the three types are truly historical documents.

Greek mythology, related to Greek esotericism: the

Egyptian Hermes, in Egypt the adepts had retreated – and related to the great artists of the Atlanteans; under the

name of Hermes they summarized their adepts' knowledge. Hence

the relationship between the esoteric Hermes and the god of trade.

Now the time came, similar to the Lemurian one. The continents condensed, the Turanians used the vril force to draw water, so that the continents were shaken by its own power. Due to the condensation of the water, it was not possible to hold the water at its points; the evil arts, evil were the ferment of progress. Due to the proliferation of mischief, the sea condensed. The extracted life force, which pushed the molecules apart, caused the opposite pole, the power over the condensed sea was lost. They themselves extracted the power that held the sea together.

The life force in the plants of the Atlantians was still connected to the life force of the Atlantians themselves; when he made changes to himself, he could cause the plants to grow slower or faster.

So we have to change our ideas to have the concept of development.