The Rudolf Steiner Archive

I want to talk to you more in-depth about the previous topic of the day before yesterday, about inner or esoteric development and super-sensible knowledge. It will be quite necessary to treat what we examined then as a prerequisite because we want to build further upon what has touched our soul at that time. You will have understood from what was discussed, that the development of the human being is not something that should be taken as a joke; it is not something that should be taken lightly. Though on the other hand, one has to emphasise repeatedly, that one should not talk about the dangers of occult development in an ordinary, trivial way either. The dangers are great, but the way they are usually talked about is not correct, we have to become very clear about this. Let us just try to imagine more precisely what happens to someone who has developed himself through some kind of exercise, let’s say, by way of the type of exercises mentioned in the last lecture, and let’s compare him with someone who is not involved in such training and follows, just like everyone else, his daily routine. We will arrive at a conscious understanding, if we begin, for example, with what we know about the ordinary state of sleep.

From the previous lecture¹ you’ve learnt what the human astral body actually does at night in the normal state of sleep. While a human being is asleep, the physical body and the etheric body lie in bed—but the so-called “astral body” together with the ego rises out of these and leaves them behind. And when the astral body is not in the physical body, and does not use its tools, the sense organs, to observe and reflect upon the external world, and is not kept busy by the movements and work of the physical body, then the astral body can take on a completely different task. It removes the exhaustion of both.² The removal of this exhaustion is its task. A clairvoyant can see how the astral body throughout the whole night works from the outside on the physical and etheric body to restore them so that in the morning the human being feels the renewal of his strength and feels refreshed. For this reason, sleep is such a good doctor, and if someone doesn’t get healthy and sufficient sleep he loses a lot. Many, many things that seem to be sicknesses, are only disturbances in the physical and etheric body. These disturbances remain if the astral body is unable to remove them. It is, however, able to remove these disturbances when it is not in the physical body as in the awake state, but when it is outside of the body.

Where does the astral body get its strength and abilities, that it uses to 'repair' the physical body? In my last public lecture, I have already compared the exit of the astral body out of the physical and the etheric body, to an amount of water contained in a glass. If you have about 1000 drops of water in this glass which form a body of water, then this is different from taking a thousand small sponges and sponging up every drop of water separately—and so you will have individualised each drop separately. In the same way, this happens with the astral body during the night. If all of you were to fall asleep here now, the same thing would happen as when you were to squeeze out the sponges and create one body of water. Your astral body would raise up and would join with the others. By connecting in this way, human beings come into contact with those harmonic magnificent occurrences in the universe. Our souls return in the night to the harmony of the spheres and from these the astral body with the ego—and this is the soul—acquire the strength needed for the restoration of the physical body.

What will happen to a human being who obtains an occult teacher and undergoes occult training? He is given certain tasks. One can only talk about these roughly. He receives tasks to meditate, concentrate, and so on. What is the purpose of the task assigned to the student by the teacher? The purpose is to slowly enable the astral body to see when it is outside of the physical body at night. The astral body of an ordinary human being is, when outside, unconscious within the astral world, as you would be unconscious in the physical world if you had no sense organs. Without sense organs, the world does not exist for you. The moment a human being receives the instructions to awaken the dormant forces of his soul, his astral body receives spiritual or psychic sense organs, those organs that are called Lotus flowers. These are not flowers any more than the lobes of the lungs³ are wings. Everyone knows that a hawk has wings that look quite different from the lobes of the lungs.

Lotus flowers are organs, that perform a kind of circling motion. One such organ is located underneath the forehead, one centimetre under where the eyebrows meet, in the brain. Focusing intensely on this point and simultaneously speaking a particular word, triggers a kind of flash, an appearance of light, visible to a clairvoyant from the outside. The sense organ begins to carry out a circling motion. It is said that the wheel is turning, it comes to life.

A normal average person does not have such an organ at this location, or there is at most a subtle hint of it. Through the training, the flashing appears when the astral body is outside of the physical one. The impression one gains as a clairvoyant, observing from the outside, is that of a turning wheel. This wheel is called a “swastika”. This sign, like other real symbols, cannot be explained by speculation. They weren’t randomly invented but can really be seen on the spiritual or astral plane. The swastika is a symbol of this sense organ, and all witty explanations in the theosophical literature are nonsense. One must not provide allegorical or symbolic explanations in theosophy. This would be what one must give up first: all speculation. One has to give up all this pondering about how things could be. It is only important to enter into reality itself. Located close to the larynx is the sixteen-petalled Lotus flower, an organ on which human development depends very much. Close to the heart is the twelve-petalled, and further down the ten-petalled Lotus, and so on.

These organs develop through the exercises that the teacher assigns to the student, in the same way as the sense organs of the physical body develop by practice, for example through the influence of light and sound. You can see one as a physical and the other as a spiritual process of exactly the same duration. You must not believe that any riotous processes, magic, or some such things, could lead someone to develop these sense organs. It is only intimate processes, learning by thinking thoughts that have the strength in them to develop such organs. Hereby it is consistently important that the human being learns what these thoughts are, and that he focuses on a particular bodily organ, for example at a point in his brain located one centimetre below the middle of the eyebrows. If a human being now focuses on this point whilst using a specific combination of words, he will awaken certain abilities inside his astral body. It is all systematically and, one could say, technically determined.

Some people don’t find this very relevant for them at all. Repeatedly, one hears phrases that are an absurdity for a true occultist: “I do not need a teacher; I have to find my teacher inside of myself”. Now, in such talks, the greatest egoism can be found—and it is nonsense. If someone would look at geometry from this perspective, what would be the result? Everyone is able to discover all the laws of geometry by way of inner development: he might need many thousand years to discover them, but he is able to find them. But is it really necessary, to discover geometry anew?

Should one not just connect to what mankind in century-long work has discovered, build upon it, and create something useful for humanity that has provided us with so much knowledge? Humanity is entitled to this. What could we spare humanity from, if we would feel devoted love towards the teachers of early mankind! In the same way, we are also not attempting to search for the sake of our own inner development, but as workers performing a great service to mankind. There were always human beings who were pioneers. They are the ones from whom we have to learn, and if we are worried about submitting to their authority then that is loveless nonsense. Working in the spirit of the teachers of mankind, to seek out those who can lead us, is an immediate and absolute necessity for occult teachers and students alike. Those things that the teachers tell us, and that were tested and known for centuries, tease the sense organs out of the astral body.

If someone gives occult advice—a real teacher won’t do this—then it can easily happen that they instruct the student on how he can gain perceptions in the astral world. It can then be perceived that the student begins to work on his astral body and starts to tease out the sense organs but begins to display worse habits and characteristics than prior to becoming an occult student. People were wondering about the fact that in the early times of theosophy many people made incomprehensible mistakes in regard to their character. Even a slight development of the astral body, instigated by the elementary teachings of theosophy, when these became first known publicly, triggered quite curious phenomena. For example, a student, who was a cashier, took off with the money, and another still did quite different things; also, people who were previously very peace-loving became quarrelsome. This is because even with a bit of occult development flowing from the theosophical concepts, if not followed up properly the bad sides of a character issue forth. However, none should be frightened because of this. Attention should simply be paid to such things as they need to be taken seriously. Using our strength of character, we just want to aim at not falling for such temptations. It will be different once a student is approached by real systematic occult training. Then work on the astral body is more extensive, and it becomes quite necessary to offer a substitute source of energy to replenish the physical and etheric bodies.

How can that be replenished which is taken from the physical and etheric bodies? To achieve this, it will be necessary to develop quite specific characteristics in a human being. In human nature and essence, it is possible to develop traits that allow the physical and etheric body to be maintained so they don’t depend on too extensive restoration. Imagine that you do something during the day that contributes to strengthening and restoring the physical and etheric body so that these will be resonating by way of their own purpose and rhythm in harmony with the great universe. Only then will you be able to use the forces for the astral body itself. This must be done, it doesn’t need to be done right away, but the time will come when it must happen. When the teacher says: “You have to concentrate the thinking”—what is meant by that is not only ordinary thinking. When told: “You have to sit down, think any ordinary thought and do not allow any other thoughts to come in, focus on the thought as intensely as possible whilst rejecting all other thoughts—this will require the human being to make a certain inner conquest—and this inner conquest is what counts. The subject is not meant to be interesting and fascinating. For example, it would be easy to focus on Napoleon, but it would be difficult to focus on a matchstick uninterruptedly for an extended period of time. This is the very essence. You will soon notice, how after some time you will reach a certain inner strength and surety. One can already feel, based on an inner experience, whether it has been effective.

Next, one must take the initiative and perform actions that one otherwise would most certainly not have done. It could be something completely unimportant. The importance of an activity is irrelevant, but it must be your own action, derived from your own original initiative. A man I told this to informed me after some time that every day in his office he would take seven steps forwards and seven steps backwards whilst imagining “Evolution and Involution”. Excellent! Not the importance of an action, but that the initiative is uniquely one’s own, is what counts.

I’ve talked to other friends about this and, to give them an example, I mentioned that one could water flowers if one had never done this before. And what did I have to deal with then? When I visited those friends, they were all busy watering flowers! That was the completely wrong thing to do because they weren’t supposed to perform “my” action, but to perform an action that they may not have invented but which is their very own, except for the invention. If this is done over an extended period, you will see its inner effect. It will harmonise and balance everything in the physical and etheric body, so that both resonate by themselves and do not require a lot of restoration work, thus enabling the astral body to withdraw a part of their strength.

Next, the human being must control himself in regard to desire and pain. In ordinary life, he is subjected to the slavery of his feelings. He laughs when someone shares something funny with him, he cries about any sad event. A student, however, has to exercise self-control, he must not allow himself to be dominated, but he himself must control lust and pain. Many think this would make them insensitive, but the opposite is the case. We thus overcome desire and pain, namely, what is egoistical desire and egoistical pain. We must find the way to sort of crawl or put ourselves into other beings, to become empathetic. None should shrink back from this exercise because of a concern about becoming insensitive—everyone will become more sensitive.

The fourth exercise is one I like best to explain by way of a legend. This legend is out of the life of Jesus Christ. Like many others it can’t be found in the Bible, it is Persian.⁴ When the apostles once walked with Jesus Christ across the countryside, they saw the half-decayed carcass of a dead dog lying around. “What nasty carrion”, the apostles said and turned away in disgust. Jesus Christ alone stopped, looked at the carcass, and after a while said: “What beautiful teeth this animal had.”—He noticed in the ugly, decaying carcass still the beautiful teeth. This gives us a hint that we should adopt and must adopt the habit to discover in all ugliness the grain of beauty, in bad the good, and in error the truth. This positive attitude must be practiced for some time, it will lead to inner harmony and inner rhythm.

The fifth exercise is, that the human being should be reasonably unbiased towards everything new that he encounters in the world. It could also be said that one is not allowed to use anything he is used to from the past to influence the future. The words: “I don’t believe this”, must completely disappear from the mind. If someone comes to you and tells you that the church tower has become crooked overnight, you’ll have to find a corner in your heart where you believe it is possible for anything to really happen. This does not mean that you should become uncritical; you should simply consider nothing to be impossible. Whoever can do this, is able to exert influence very effectively on the physical and the etheric body, so they will fall into a rhythm that feeds the astral body during the night with what has been gained for it through meditation and concentration. Because this will lead human beings gradually to the true theosophy, allowing them to gain insight everywhere into why things happen the way they do, and not in a different way. Whoever knows the mechanism of sleep, also knows why such exercises need to be practised.

Once a human being has taken steps on the occult path for some time under appropriate guidance, many things become to him visible, tangible, and able to be experienced that he would otherwise have missed. Don’t believe that the dangers that one encounters are otherwise not there in life. One just doesn’t see them in advance but goes through life without seeing them. One only learns to see what is around us in the spiritual world when one can enter into the higher planes. What man, for example, must encounter and will always encounter at a higher level, what he must cope with, and what he must prepare himself for, is the “Guardian of the Threshold”. Human beings have usually quite strange ideas about him.

What is this “Guardian of the Threshold”?—Today, we want to turn our attention to this experience by skipping many other things. You have to be clear about what a human being normally does during his whole lifetime. Let’s take the “Kamaloka life” in its true sense, the life after death, where the human being still has a certain inclination to the physical-sensory existence, and compare this life with what happens immediately prior to the beginning of the Kamaloka life. A great tableau of memories will be laid out in front of the soul of one who has just departed the physical body. Then the Kamaloka life begins.

This is very strange. For a start, it has the characteristic that the human being relives his life. In fact, he will live his whole previous life backward, by going back through the events, which happened prior to his death until his birth. In this way, one relives all events backward and will be finished with it once one reaches the own birth. One returns to every point that one has lived through. Let’s say, you’ve reached age sixty, and when you were forty years old you slapped someone in the face. When you reach this point in your backward memory experience, you will be drawn towards that human being and you will be marked, so to speak, with something strange: You will suffer the pain you have inflicted. Whilst throughout your life you might have harbored feelings of revenge, now you are feeling what the person felt, on whom you have taken or intended to take revenge. By way of backward experience, you re-live the emotions and feelings you have spread. Everything you will experience there offers you much that obstructs your further development in the history of mankind. Without the implanted mark of pain, you would get further more easily, because this inhibiting marking stays with you as a force. By absorbing those forces in the Kamaloka backward, you will, in the next life again be led by karma to where you will be able to use them to pay off the debt, to put things right, for compensation. Thus, longing develops to redeem where you have failed, and you will be attracted to do this when the human being again lives with you. This is how Karma plays out.

Another example: Four vigilante⁵ Century in Westphalia and survived until the 19^th Century. judges have sentenced someone to death and executed the judgment. Why did this happen? When the life of these four men was traced back, it turned out that in a former life the condemned man was a kind of chief who had sentenced those four men to death. The train of events that brought those five men together actually was created in the Kamaloka life. In this way, a human being always has the opportunity during his Kamaloka life, to accept those forces as inhibiting markings that will lead him again into life to pay off his debts.

After a human being has crossed through Devachan and should again return to the physical life, you will find the converse picture of what happens immediately after death. Now you will have a kind of premonition, a kind of preview of the life you are about to experience. Of course, what someone perceives at that time he will forget unless he is trained in the occult. There are verifiable cases, that human beings were so shocked by the preview that they did not want to enter into this life. It turned out that indeed the etheric body did not completely enter the physical body. In such cases, the etheric body of the head protruded quite a bit outside and caused a very specific kind of idiocy.

Now don’t think that karma plays out in such a way that we would be able to immediately pay off all the debts we have incurred in a previous incarnation, in the next one. It is not that simple. Sometimes one will have to go through many, many incarnations. If you would be able to look back for a moment and see everything, all the marks in your astral body that need to be redeemed, prior to your rising to certain heights of occultism, you would see your whole debt account.

What now confronts the student and must confront him in a symbolic and comprehensible form is what we still have to redeem, what still holds us back: the unredeemed karma. This is the Guardian of the Threshold.

It could also confront us in quite an abnormal way. I am aware of a case, where someone was incarnated at the end of the 18th century with quite an extraordinary greed to undertake certain deeds on the physical plane so that he had to experience a strange fate after death. He died; after a very long time, he left the remainder of his astral body. Usually, the astral body falls off after about a third of the time spent on earth, and remains back as an astral corpse, until it dissolves. Such astral corpses are consistently circling around us and exert a negative influence on people. He was unable to stay for longer in the spiritual world but experienced early, the urge to go down into the physical world again. Now he incurred a misfortune that very rarely happens. It is actually possible, that when a human being returns to physical existence, he finds his astral corpse is still around. This then is very bad for him because his current astral body will be penetrated by his earlier astral body, which is a horrible fate. He now has it consistently next to himself as a “doppelgänger”, and this is the abnormal form of the Guardian of the Threshold, which could occur in special exceptional circumstances.

For one, however, who is on the way to occult development, it is necessary that he, at a particular point in time, sees his ordinary astral body with all the marks of its unresolved karma, and he must try, through existing means, to balance out this unreleased karma. This is the true encounter with the Guardian of the Threshold. All of this has not been told to spook you, but to give you an idea of what is meant by “self-knowledge”, in the true sense of the word. Self-knowledge is two-fold: first, it is the recognition of what the true self must do. Second, it is the knowledge of the higher self. But their knowledge is something quite different. You can read in the Bible: Adam knew his wife.⁶—This is an expression for “fertilisation”. “Know yourself” means: fertilise yourself with the wisdom inside of you, look at the soul as a feminine organ and fertilise yourself. If you want to gain self-knowledge, search inside of you, where you will be able to recognise all your mistakes. If you want to reach knowledge of the higher self, search outside of you, because there knowledge of the world is knowledge of the self. Everything is in the sun because everything is sun. We have to let go of ourselves. I have been told: “You tell us about development and such things, but we want to achieve an uplifting of the soul, of the feelings.” One who speaks like that is his own enemy. Not by gawking into ourselves, but by learning to know the world in all its parts, bit by bit, will we become selfless and able to find self-knowledge and knowledge of God.

There is no phrase worse than that one: “One only has to look within oneself”.—There you will only find the lower self. One should search outside with love and one will discover. I have known people who said: “What do I need? I don’t need anything because I am Atman.” But even if they repeatedly say “Atman, I am Atman” they will not be able to become conscious of it, because they don’t know more about Atman than that it is a five-letter word. This looking within oneself only leads to shutting oneself off. We are nothing but a limb (part) of this world. The finger is only a finger as long as it is part of the organism; if you lose it, it will no longer be a finger.

The finger doesn’t separate itself from the organism, but the human being is so “smart” to believe he could separate himself from Earth, despite the fact that you only have to transport him a few kilometres above Earth, and he will perish. The human being belongs to the sun, according to his etheric and astral body, to a whole world of sun(s). It is the biggest mistake to want to find the self within oneself. Letting go of oneself by immersing oneself in all the details of the world is the right thing. One who fertilises himself with love and humility, will find divine salvation, whilst someone who searches for God inside of himself hardens.

You will see that there is much to learn when one wants to really get to know the esoteric way. It is important to have the right idea about such things. You don’t need to think about this from morning to night, just as it is unnecessary to repeat your own name all the time. It is sufficient to know the thought. There are thoughts without which an esotericist can’t be an esotericist. If he has those thoughts, as in his daily life he has his drives and motives, then these thoughts represent steps for him, that will lead him upwards to the super-sensible plane of knowledge, they will assist him in penetrating into the wisdom of the worlds, knowingly advancing to love.

• 1. Vienna, 6 November 1907. No transcript is available of this lecture.
• 2. Translator’s Note: the physical and the etheric body.
• 3. Translator’s Note: Lobes of the lungs are called “Lungenflügel” in German i.e., wings of the lungs.
• 4. J.W.v.Goethe, Notes and Treatises for the Better Understanding of the West-Easterly Divan, section: General—Lord Jesus, who wanders through the World (Nisami).
• 5. Judges of a Vehmic Court, a form of Court without fixed laws and norms, which occurred in isolation in the 13^th 5
• 6. 1 Moses, Chapter 4, 1, Luther Translation.

When talking about the initiation of the Rosicrucian, or the Rosicrucian Initiation, we must briefly place the concept of initiation in front of our soul. Mainly, this concept is about searching for a way to penetrate, through our own experience and own adventures, into the higher worlds that underlie our sensory world. We must distinguish three paths: initiates, clairvoyants and adepts. These are the three distinct paths to establish a relationship with the higher worlds.

Today, we will talk about how man can get to know the super-sensible worlds through his own experience. We will dispense with the tripartite division for today, but keep in mind carefully that when talking about initiation, we have one method of initiation in front of us.

One will easily get over the differences in the various methods, considering that people seek the way to the higher worlds from different starting points. When we have reached the peak of a mountain, we will have a clear view from up there. To get up there, we can start from different points of departure, using different ways. It would be nonsensical if, to get to the peak, we did not use the path straight in front of us, but first went around the mountain.

Let's apply this principle to initiation. Again, we encounter different starting points because people have different dispositions. External natural science is not in a position to really study the subtle differences which we encounter here. Our physiologists and anatomists are not able, with their crude instruments and methods, to find out these subtle differences of human beings. But for someone with occult knowledge there is a tremendous difference between a person born in the Orient, and one born in Europe or in America. This is evident right down to the physical nature. There is an enormous difference between someone who still has the living immediate emotion and feeling for Christ, and a man who is completely alienated from the original Christian feeling and whose entire worldview is based on the accomplishments of modern science. Not only are the feelings and thoughts of such a person different from those of someone with a Christian spirit, but differences can be observed even in someone's physique. Such subtle differences exist, which affect the most subtle structures of the body, that physiology and biology have nothing to say about them. Therefore the individual human nature has to be considered, as one cannot lead everyone in the same way to rise up into the higher worlds through higher development.

To understand this, we must go back into former ages of mankind. Mankind has gone through a long period of development. At the time we call Atlantean, our ancestors, that is, our own souls, lived in completely different bodies in ancient Atlantis in the West between our present-day Europe and America. Floods then occurred, on which the story about the biblical flood and many other different sagas of floods are based, including those floods which caused the downfall of the ancient Atlantis. This was followed by the post-Atlantean evolution in which we still find ourselves.

We have gone through four time periods during the post-Atlantean evolution, and we are still in the fifth. The first of these time periods included the old Indian culture, where people were taught by the holy Rishis themselves, inspired human beings who modern man can no longer imagine. Then came the second cultural epoch, the Persian, with the Zarathustra-religion. The third cultural epoch was the Babylonian-Assyrian-Chaldean-Egyptian one, from which the Hebrew culture slowly developed. As a fourth one, the Graeco-Roman cultural period followed, within which Christianity arose and which derived its elements from the people who had developed organically from the third culture. Now we are living in the fifth cultural epoch and heading towards the sixth.

Not only the thinking has changed, in the long time since the Atlantean catastrophe, but also the astral body, the etheric body and the physical body. We must not imagine though, that all people are equally placed within our fifth cultural period. Many peculiarities of the earlier cultural traditions were preserved. What has developed one after another, still lives next to each other.

Human beings went through completely different cultural epochs. They experienced changes within their whole being, which made it necessary to adapt the introduction to the higher worlds given to them by their spiritual guides.

During the Atlantean age men were still astrally clairvoyant. They lived together with their Gods and spirits in the same way as with the external plants, minerals, animals and humans. In the post-Atlantean period, men could no longer gain access to the higher worlds. They could no longer penetrate by direct observation of the divine-spiritual into the higher worlds, but could only artificially put themselves into a state where they became ‘companions' of the Gods again. This is the basis of the Indian way of yoga initiation. This yoga introduction to the higher worlds consists mainly in the dampening of the consciousness that man had acquired in the post-Atlantean age, the external perception, and in putting oneself back into former clairvoyant states of consciousness like those which were experienced by the Atlantean man.

If we continue to trace mankind's evolution beyond the Persian and the Chaldean cultural periods, we arrive at the Christian cultural period. This brought with it the Christian initiation, which can only be attained by a direct relationship with Jesus Christ through the Gospel of John and the Apocalypse. Then follows in the 13th and 14th century the first dawn of the materialistic cultural period. At that time the enlightened people were able to perceive: now the material time is coming up. Everything, that was fully realised in the 19th century, what had happened in the extreme, had been prepared long before. We find materialism not only in areas of external activity, but must confront it in all areas.

Until the turn of the 13th to the 14th century men held on to completely different feelings and emotions. A drastic change occurred in all areas, even in the most seemingly isolated ones. In the art of painting, for example, we encounter a great change in the emotions of people. Today, it seems arbitrary to the materialist when, for example, Cimabue¹ paints the background in gold on his pictures. However, this painter still followed the tradition of illustrating the higher world. When looking into the highest regions of the astral world, one will find that this golden background is a reality, an actual fact. Those, who later wanted to paint similar things, as imitators of those ancient painters who still possessed knowledge of the reality of the astral world through tradition, appear to us like barbarians compared to those who really still had a relationship to the higher world. For example, Giotto² did no longer portray what he felt to be true, but everything is painted based solely upon external tradition. At his time, it was natural to move towards that which could only be seen on the physical plane, to materialistic art. Only the greatest painters of that time still held on to tradition.

In Raffael's³ Disputa (Disputation of the Sacrament) one can see how in the basic colour from the bottom to the top is indeed reproduced with a certain accuracy, the experience that someone has who ascends to the higher worlds. This experience of the gradual transition from the lower to the higher worlds, up to the illustration of the genii that emerge from the golden background, is a necessity.

Those who know the spiritual truths know that behind the physical facts something else is hidden. They know that the reason why people are materialists today is that they are under external materialistic influences. But it is not just a matter of external perception. From the occult perspective one learns to know about other reasons. Thoughts and feelings are realities that radiate out into the world. We are swarmed by materialistic thoughts. Everywhere those thoughts are buzzing around us. Even if no books and newspapers that promote the materialistic views reach a farmer out in the countryside, materialistic thoughts that matter still buzz around and influence him.

If we ask, how human beings entered into the world at times when one still knew about occult powers, we will find that in those times care was taken, for example in China, that a human being at his birth into the physical world was welcomed by people filled with spiritual thoughts. This is something completely different from being welcomed by a materialistic doctor and a materialistic thinking environment. Here quite different things are encountered by man than what was formerly the case in an environment alive with spiritual thoughts. Herein lies the reason for the materialistic attitude of man. Already since the 13th and 14th century, man dives into a materialistic atmosphere from the moment of his birth. This had to be so. But, therefore, a method also had to be created for those who wanted to rise into the higher worlds, by which they could become strong and robust enough to be able to achieve the ascent into the spiritual worlds, despite the external materialistic circumstances.

This initiation method is the Rosicrucian one, which was created around the turn of the 13th and 14th century and was first inaugurated by Christian Rosenkreutz,⁴ one of the great leaders of mankind. Strictly separated from the external world, this method worked since those times for centuries, known only to a tight circle, most closely restricted during the 19th century, the materialistic one. Only during the last third of the 19th century it became necessary to reveal to the world through Theosophy what had been taught, at least in its elemental parts, in the Rosicrucian schools.⁵

In the year 1459 the true founder of the Rosicrucian stream himself reached that level, by which he gained the power to exert influence on the world in such a way, that this initiation could be brought by him to the world.

Since that time, this individuality of Christian Rosenkreutz has appeared again and again as leader of the movement in question. Through centuries he led a life ‘in the same body'. We have to understand the expression ‘in the same body' as follows: When looking at the physical body, we find nothing is left of what it consisted of ten years ago. But the consciousness has stayed the same. Every seven to eight years a human being exchanges all parts of his physical body, but the consciousness outlasts this ongoing exchange of physical substances throughout the whole life. What we in this way experience between birth and death, an initiate will experience this by dying and, shortly afterwards, reincarnating in a new body as a child. But he makes this journey fully conscious. The consciousness is maintained from one incarnation to the next. Even the physical resemblance remains with the initiate, because the soul builds up the new body consciously based on the experience of the previous incarnation. In this way the highest leader of the Rosicrucian school lived for centuries.

Only now it has become possible to make public some of the Rosicrucian principles. Until then none of this was made accessible, only once something had been shared.⁶ That which, according to the Rosicrucian study, leads human beings up into the higher worlds, are the following seven stages: First, the Study; second, the acquisition of Imaginative Knowledge; third, learning the Occult Script; fourth, the preparation of the Philosopher's stone; fifth, the correspondence of Microcosm and Macrocosm; sixth, the union with the Macrocosm; seventh, the Divine Bliss.

This does not mean that these seven stages need to be completed consecutively. A student, who meets a Rosicrucian teacher receives his instructions for higher development according to his individuality. From the seven stages of higher development will be selected what is most suitable for him. One might begin with the first and second stage and then maybe the fourth and fifth will follow for him. Only what is called ‘the Study', everyone needs to begin with.

Here ‘Study ' means something different than what is usually understood by it in daily life. What is meant is the particular way of acquisition of ideas and concepts, which is called ‘sensory-free thinking'. The whole thinking of an ordinary man is attached to the external sensory nature. Pay attention to everything that you experience from morning to night and then mentally discard everything that you have seen and heard externally. For most people, very little or nothing will be left. But whoever wants to make his way into the higher worlds must get used to being able to think without connecting to the external world, when the source of his thinking lies only within himself.

The only type of sensory-free thinking in European countries is arithmetic. The child learns that two times two is four, first by looking at an external illustration, at the fingers or the beans or at the terrible adding-machines. But a person will not arrive at a satisfactory result in this field as long as he is not able to imagine without the crutch of the external visual aid. One can never see a circle in the external reality. Circles, which one draws on the blackboard are chalk hills strung together. Only a devised circle is exact. You must construct the circle in your mind, you must devise the circle.

Today, people's sensory-free thinking can only be found in the fields of numeracy and geometry. But for most people these are not accessible and therefore only mentioned for the purpose of comparison. The best means to acquire sensory-free thinking is Theosophy itself, because there a person will hear about things he hasn't seen. What people learn there—how the human being consists of a physical, etheric and astral body, or how the Earth itself developed by going through different stages—they cannot see. Only when we exert our thinking and perceive the inner logic of a thing, we will grasp these things with ordinary logic, provided one relies on the comprehensive basis of logic. If people today are saying that they cannot comprehend this, then this is not because they are not clairvoyant, but rather because they do not wish to apply the logic of comprehension. The experiences of a clairvoyant can be understood with simple logic; clairvoyance is needed only for research purposes. Theosophy is the only logical thing for the theoretical and practical life. In contrast, what people say about super-sensible things in a materialistic way is illogical. What the science of the spirit brings is real concrete fruitfulness in life.

If we look at the principle of education from the standpoint of a theosophical worldview and from the standpoint of a materialistic mind-set, we can draw a comparison. In the former, things are being said about the developing human being which cannot be seen from the outside. But it is so that just within this the real, the true, the concrete exists. Today's materialistic worldview does not understand the growing child. Only by considering the whole nature of a human being, not only observing the outside, does one learn to place a human being with its full potential into the world.

At the same time, someone, who immerses himself into the teachings of the theosophical worldview, has got a method to learn sensory-free thinking. The true Theosophy will always aim as much as possible to develop sensory-free thinking. When we look at Theosophical teachings we will find descriptions of conditions that we cannot see. When looking at the evolution of our Earth and where it emerged from, we describe a planetary condition where everything was different from the current stage of our Earth: that old Moon—not the current one—where no hard, mineralised Earth crust yet existed on which the human being can walk, but where the planet only existed in a kind of plant nature. In this compound, which we can compare with cooking lettuce or spinach, more solid components only existed in a form like today's crust or bark of trees. Minerals didn't exist then at all.

If this is disputed from a materialistic perspective, because one can only imagine plants growing in mineral soil, then one could admit that under today's conditions this is certainly not possible any other way. But in earlier ages completely other conditions prevailed. A materialist is not able to imagine this, because he will always relate to today's conditions.

However, by means of such pictures, one can free oneself from what one sees all around. Nonsense makes sense when we contemplate far distant circumstances. Thus we learn to educate ourselves, to get away from our sensory conditions. We learn to place pictures before our soul, that we do not know today. Thus, our thinking lifts off from what is possible today. Those who try to connect with their thinking only to what would be possible today, stick to today's conditions and can't get away from them. For study in the Rosicrucian spirit it especially matters to train one's thinking on images of conditions that no longer exist today. To let a concept emerge from a concept, out of completely sensory-free thinking, is a means to arrive at what is called the Study. One can also get there by studying a book like the Philosophy of Freedom.⁷ The author has offered in it only the opportunity that thoughts think themselves. There the individual thoughts emerge by themselves out of completely sensory-free thinking, organise themselves in such a way that no thought can be removed from its place and be placed into a different spot. Just as a hand cannot get cut off from the body and be placed into another place. This is the way of sensory-free thinking.

A burning desire to absolutely want to raise oneself into the higher worlds is something many want, but it is something unhealthy. Striving is healthy only when an inner, dignified logic is cultivated by a thinking that is completely free of sensory impressions.

One who knows one's way around the higher worlds, knows that the perceptions there are quite different from those in the physical world. But there is one thing that remains the same element in the three worlds—in the physical, in the astral and in the Devachan world: that is logical thinking. This safe leader protects us from following all the will-o'-the-wisps. Without it we will never learn to tell illusion from reality, and come to believe that every illusion is an astral reality. Here in the physical world, it is easy to differentiate illusions from reality because the external facts correct us. For example, if you have walked down the wrong street, you will not arrive at the right place. In the higher worlds we have to find the correct way ourselves by applying our own mental strength. Otherwise, we will keep getting into increasingly more difficult labyrinths there, if we have not learned to tell illusion from reality beforehand. We can learn this in a Rosicrucian training.

The second stage in the Rosicrucian training is imaginative recognition, the recognition through pictures. This is the first stage of ascending from the physical into the spiritual world. Goethe provided the leitmotif, the leading principle, with the last words of the second part of his Faust, when he said: “All that is transitory, is but an allegory.”⁸ If we begin to see everything that surrounds us as spiritual pictures, then we strive upwards into the world of imagination.

In the Rosicrucian schools and also in earlier schools, it was attempted to teach the students the evolutionary principle that applies throughout the different kingdoms. Today one speaks about evolution in relation to materialistic thinking. Theosophy also speaks about this, but it is something else to transform the concept of evolution into a picture and lift it into imagination. Normally, it is only the mind that is occupied with the evolutionary principle. We arrive at the imagination as follows: Through many weeks or through months the soul was transformed through the directions of the teachers in the following way. We can best retell this in the form of a dialogue which, however, has never happened in this way. The teacher might have said something like, look at the plant, how with its leaves and blossoms it strives up towards the sun and sinks its roots into the ground, striving towards the centre of the Earth. If you are comparing it with the human being, it would be wrong to compare the bloom with his head, the roots with his reproductive organs. Darwin⁹ drew the right comparison. He pointed out that the root of the plant corresponds to the head of the human being. The human being is the inverted plant. The root, that the plant sinks into the ground, corresponds to the head of the human being. But that which the plant chastely holds up towards the Sun, the bloom and its fertilisation organs, the human being turns towards the Earth. If one turns the plant around fully, one gets the human being. If one turns it around halfway, one gets an animal with its horizontal spine.

If we conceive these things imaginatively, then not only our thoughts, but also our feelings and our emotions will be deeply ushered into the world that surrounds us. We will learn to recognise the inner relationship between plant and human being. We will recognise the pure, chaste plant nature which has not yet been pervaded by desires and passions, and the nature of the human being in whom chaste plant substance has been transformed into flesh pervaded by desires and passions. But through this entered at the same time something higher into man's being—he gained the clear day consciousness. The plant is asleep, but the human being has gained his clear day consciousness by being incarnated in flesh pervaded by desires, passions and instincts. To do this, he had to complete a full turn. The animal stands right in between. Although it has desires and passions, it has not yet gained the clear day consciousness.

The teacher told the student: If you feel this, you'll understand Plato's¹⁰ saying, “The world soul is crucified on the world body”. Plant, animal, man, that is the real innermost meaning of the sign of the cross. What passes through the nature kingdoms as common soul substance, as ‘world-soul', appears in symbolic form as a cross. This has been taught in the occult schools as the deepest meaning of the cross.

Then the teacher said to the student; watch how the plant chastely holds its calyx towards the Sun, how the shaft of sunlight kisses the plant's bloom. This was called the chaste kiss of the sunray, the holy lance of love. In this chaste kiss of the sunray, the holy lance of love, to which the calyx of the plant opens up, is a hint towards the ideal of the future where the human being once again will develop his organs higher to the chastity of the plant. Currently, man has developed up to the stage where he is penetrated by desires. He will develop further to the stage where he will have transformed his desires and will again be kissed by the spiritual sunray; where he will, on a higher level, bring forth his own kind anew, where the reproductive power will be spiritualised. This was called the ‘Holy Grail' in the occult schools. This is the real ideal of the Holy Grail—an organ that man will have, once his reproductive powers have been spiritualised. In the past, we see the chaste plant-nature; in the present, we see man permeated by desires; and in the future, we will see man with the purified body and how he receives in the Holy Grail chalice, a higher stage of development of the plant calyx, the spiritual shaft of sunlight.

This is not abstract thinking, but a state of being, where we feel each stage of development, not only think about it. When we feel in this way what is evolving, then we slowly raise ourselves up so that we arrive through the pictures at imaginative recognition. The picture of the Holy Grail will stand before us, once we detach these pictures from the sensory appearance, and receive the picture from the higher world.

If we let such pictures affect us—those that represent specific processes in the spiritual world and that were validated in the occult schools—then we call this ‘allowing the Occult Script to affect us'. This is the third stage of the Rosicrucian training.

We will find such pictures in seals and pillars, like those that were portrayed at the Munich Congress,¹¹ of the beginning and the end of the evolution of mankind and in the Apocalypse. In former times man was on an Earth that consisted of molten magma. He has come to his current body only gradually, through many incarnations, and he will continue to evolve through many incarnations. In particular there will be a transformation of the larynx and the heart. These will be the reproductive organs in the future. Today, my thoughts, feelings and emotions only embody in words which let the emotions of my soul in this room reach your ears through vibrations and will awaken similar thoughts and feelings in your souls. Later, the human being will create warmth and finally light, just as he now communicates his thoughts in words through the air. Just as man descended from of a sphere of light and warmth in the past, he will create warmth and light himself in the future.

This is depicted on the first apocalyptical seal.¹² The original condition of mankind, when the Earth was still in a stage of molten magma, is represented by the feet of the man on the picture being submerged in a fiery metal stream. The state of the future is depicted by a fiery sword, protruding from the mouth of a man. Such a picture works not only on the imagination, but also on someone's will power, when we observe the great powers of nature in this way. Because the same power, which lives as primordial force in the will of the human being, also lives in the whole external world. By learning to train our will, the will of the world will live in us—then our will is going to become one with the will that flows through nature. Man learns this by selfless devotion to the occult scripts.

The fourth stage of the Rosicrucian training is the preparation of the Philosopher's stone. This is a high mystery, kept secret. Towards the end of the 18th century some of it was revealed. For example, there was a remark in a central German newspaper¹³ by a person who had heard something about it. It said, “The Philosopher's stone really exists, and there are only a few people who do not know it. Many already held it in their hands, without knowing that it was the Philosopher's stone.” This definition was correct verbatim, only one must understand it. It is not a mere allegory. A Rosicrucian works on reality in such a way that he will penetrate into the physiology. He works at the real transformation of the Earth and of man, deeply into the physical body, not only on what is usually known as moral uplift, refinement of morals, and so on.

Let us look at the human breathing. Regulation of the breathing process forms an important part of occult development. People breathe in, use the oxygen that mixes with the carbon inside of them, and then they breathe out carbon dioxide. If this would continue forever by itself, then the atmosphere of the Earth would incrementally be filled with carbon dioxide and that would lead to the downfall of mankind. The existence of mankind presupposes the existence of plants. The plant absorbs the carbon dioxide, retains the carbon and releases the oxygen again. A continuous circulation happens between humans and plants. Humans, animals and plants belong together, one is not possible without the other.

The development in the human body is like this: Today, what the plant has to do for man, namely to produce the coal ― plant corpses are still recognisable in hard coal ― will later be done by man himself. Occultism can demonstrate that through the further development of the human being and his later transformed heart and respiratory organs, man will achieve this himself. One way how the human being can take up the plant process and consciously carry this out himself, is by rhythmisation of the breathing process, so that he doesn't release the carbon dioxide to the plant, but builds up the carbon within his own body The human being learns to build up his own body within himself.

If we compare this, with what we have been told about the Holy Grail, we will have the Grail now concretely before us. Through the rhythmisation of the breathing process man learns to produce in himself the carbon, that occurs in nature as graphite and diamond, in the form of chaste plant nature. To produce within oneself the carbon, the pure, chaste substance, is called the “Preparation of the Philosopher's Stone”. One must imagine it similar to a translucent diamond, but in a softer form. Man is a mighty inner apparatus, he learns through occult training that he is working on the evolution of his own lineage to a higher form. Someone with a materialistic view, on hearing about this, very characteristically remarked, that this would be a nice thing, from which it might be possible to develop a profitable branch of industry. Not at all! Exactly this remark illustrates the necessity to keep such disclosures secret. For only when people have reached such a moral and intellectual level that they can no longer think egoistically can such secrets be revealed to them.

The fifth stage is the ‘correspondence of microcosms and macrocosms'. For everything that happens in the world outside, there is a process within the human being, that repeats this in him on a small scale. One must only contemplate what happens within oneself, then one will intuitively come across the processes in the external cosmos. For example, through a specific meditation and concentration on the inner part of the eye, man learns to recognise the inner nature of the Sun, because the eye is an extract of the essence of the Sun. Goethe once said that ‘the eye is made by the light for the light.'¹⁴ The light created the eye. Without the Sun, there is no eye. All that is essential in the Sun is in some way reflected in the eye. To recognise the light of the Sun by concentrating on the essence of the eye—this is Rosicrucian training. In this way, one can learn to know the whole world from within the human being. For example, through concentration on the liver, man learns to know quite specific creative natural forces, right into the creativity of man. Thus man learns to know the whole world through himself, because he is a small world. Here he learns how in reality microcosm and macrocosm correspond to each other.

Concentrating in a certain way on the human heart will provide knowledge of the lion nature outside. This is not only a phrase. Each human being must singularly find the way into the vast universe. Then the perception of being one and feeling one with the whole cosmos will occur by itself. When man learns fully, out of every limb of his body—also out of his etheric and his astral body—to walk the way to the vast universe with patience step by step, then he will expand his organism to one that encompasses all space. He will then be within all beings. He is then able to experience the feeling which is called ‘divine bliss'.

It is important that man lets go of himself, so he can find the way to the creative powers. The more he emerges out of himself, the more he will reach into the higher worlds. Goethe described in the poem The Mysteries,¹⁵ how someone walks to a mysterious temple to meet with various people, through whom the diverse schools of thought come together. Goethe places a cross that is entwined with roses at the entry portal of the temple. ‘Who added to the cross the wreath of roses?' says the poem. Only someone who knows that the cross entwined with roses expresses the development to a higher human state would say this. Goethe has also expressed this in those words:

And until thou truly hast
this ‘dying and becoming’
thou art but a troubled guest
over the dark earth roaming¹⁶

Man has to approach more and more a state where he, out of the dying part of himself, will be newly created inside. Like a tree whose bark outside is dying, but on the inside new shoots are developing, thus man too surrounds himself with death on the outside, to be newly created inside. Thus in former times initiates were compared to the oak and called druids.¹⁷ This ‘dying and becoming' means the human being always creates fresh life inside. The dying will become for him the preserver of new life.

Therefore, it is said:

The power that holds constrained all humankind,¹⁸
the victor over himself it no more can bind.

By this it is meant for humankind to overcome the ordinary life and turn it into a vessel, so that within it the sprouting seeds of a higher life can evolve to fruition.

• 1. Cimabue, from 1240 until after 1302, Italian painter, teacher of Giotto. 1
• 2. Giotto, 1266-1337, Italian painter and master builder, student of Cimabue. 2
• 3. Raffael, actual name Raffaello Santi, 1483-1520. 3
• 4. Christian Rosenkreutz: Not recognised by public history as a real historic figure of the 14th/15th century, Christian Rosenkreutz became legendarily known from two anonymous Rosicrucian texts Fama Fraternitatis or the Discovery of the Brotherhood of the Highly Laudable Order of R.C., Kassel 1614, and Confessio Fraternitatis or Confession of the laudable Brotherhood of the highly honourable Rose Cross, Kassel 1615. According to this, he was a German of noble birth who lived from 1378 to 1484. The name appears for the first time in a text handwritten and as such distributed in 1604, and in 1616 anonymously published in the text The Chymical Wedding of Christiani Rosencreutz, Anno 1459. Rudolf Steiner portrayed the author of this text, Johann Valentin Andreae, as the carrier of inspiration of Christian Rosenkreutz. Refer to Rudolf Steiner, The Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz in Philosophy and Anthroposophy. Collected Essays 1904-1923, GA 35. The essay is also contained in the translation of The Chymical Wedding into New High German by Walter Weber, Basel 1978. According to Rudolf Steiner, Christian Rosenkreutz was a real historical personality. Compare also, The Esoteric Christendom and the Spiritual Leadership of Humanity, GA 130. 4
• 5. Re the Rosicrucian method - refer to note 4 above. Obviously, the deliberations of Rudolf Steiner at this point have been only fragmentary captured by the note taker. For better comprehension refer to the presentation in the lecture dated 15 September 1909; Lecture 1 in The Lucas Gospel cycle, GA 114. 5
• 6. Rudolf Steiner refers to an article about the Philosopher's Stone by Karl Arnold Kortum (1745-1828), which appeared in a central German newspaper, the Reichsanzeiger, on 8 October 1796.
• 7. Translator's note: The book The Philosophy of Freedom is also known as The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity.
• 8. Goethe, Faust, Part II, 5th act, closing choir.
• 9. Charles Darwin, 1809-1882, British Natural Scientist. His hint about the correspondence of the human head and the plant root can be found in his work The Power of Movement in Plants translated from English by Victor Carus, Volume 13, of Charles Darwin's Gesammelte Werke, Stuttgart 1881, Chapter 12, Summary and Final Remarks, Page 492 (Ending): “It is hardly an overstatement, when one says, that this tip of the root is equipped in a way that has the ability to direct the movements of the neighbouring parts, like a brain of a lower animal; the brain sits within the foremost end of the head, and receives impressions from the sense organs and directs the various movements”.
• 10. Rudolf Steiner often quoted this saying from the Timäus, Chapter 8, always using the wording of the Vienna philosopher Vincenz Knauer, from his work Die Hauptprobleme der Philosophie in ihrer Entwicklung und Teilweisen Loesung von Thales bis Robert Hamerling, (The main problems of philosophy in its development and part solution from Thales to Robert Hamerling) Vienna and Leipzig 1892, page 96 (belonging to the library of Rudolf Steiner and underlined by him): The myth told in Timäus is that God created the world soul in the shape of a cross that he laid through the universe and spanned across it the world body”. In Timäus itself it says that God split the world soul into two halves “slang both parts together in the form of the letter Chi (X) and twined of each a circle, so that both met with each other across the middle, and each one with itself. To both parts he gave the uniform and in the same room happening movement of the circular reversal, but one of the circles he made into the outer one and the other into the inner one” (quoted from the translation by Otto Apelt of Die Philosophische Bibliothek, Volume 179, Leipzig 1919). In the view of the elders two circles were of greatest importance in the whole world: The equator and the ecliptic. Thus the translator (O.Apelt) remarks about this point in Timäus: “And so it is then in Plato's explanations, that by way of a mysterious process the soul extends itself to the spatial building of the ecliptic and the equator. When the position of these two biggest circles towards each other is illustrated through the form of the letter X (Chi, whereby one needs to imagine the letter not in a vertical but horizontally orientation) then this is a quite appropriate comparison. Because these two circles cut each other at an angle of 23 1/2 degrees. The reversal of the equator proceeds from East to West (that is from right to left, because the ancient ones have often, when determining areas of the world, turned their gaze towards the North); the rotation of the ecliptic proceeds from West to East.” In addition, it should be remarked that the Church Father Justin the Martyr points out in his first Apology, that the source for Plato's teaching about the creation of the world is the Old Testament: Even what Plato said in the Timäus about the Son of God for the explanation of the World, where it says “He builds him in the universe like a Chi”, was similarly borrowed by him from Moses. Because in Moses' scripts it is written that at the time when the Israelites left Egypt and were in the desert, they were confronted by poison spraying animals, adders, vipers, and all kind of snakes, that brought death to the people. Then Moses, acting on an inspiration and impulse from God, took ore and shaped a cross from it. He then erected it in the holy tent and talked to the people; “If you look at this picture and trust in it then you will find healing.” Thus, so he reports, the snakes died, but the people, he continues, escaped death. This was read by Plato, and because he did not understand it properly and believed that it was not the shape of the cross that was meant, but the form of the Chi, he made the statement that the power that is primary to the first God, was distributed in the universe like a Chi.” Quoted from Bibliothek der Kirchenväter. Frühchristliche Apologeten und Märtyrerakten, Band 1 (Early Christian Apologists and Martyrs Files, Volume 1), Kempten-Munich 1913, Page 73/74).
• 11. A Congress of the Theosophical Society held in May 1907–compare Rudolf Steiner, Pictures of Occult Seals and Columns; the Munich Congress, Pentecost 1907 and its Impacts, GA 284/85.
• 12. Refer to note 10 above.
• 13. Refer to note 6 above.
• 14. Goethe once said; “The eye has been made by the light for the light”... literally: The eye owes its existence to the light. From similar animal auxilliary organs the light calls forth an organ that is capable of becoming its equal. And so the eye builds itself at the light for the light, so that the inner light can meet the outer light”. In Goethes Naturwissenschaftliche Schriften (Goethe's Natural Science Writings), published by and commented on by Rudolf Steiner in Kürschner's German National Literature, 5 Volumes, 1884-97. Reprint, Dornach 1975, GA 001, Volume III, Design of a Theory of Colours, Introduction, page 89.
• 15. Re the poem The Mysteries refer to GA 98, Part 1, Lecture 4, Cologne, 25 December 1907.
• 16. “and until though truly hast, this dying and becoming..” is the final verse of the poem by Goethe Blessed longings of the collection West-Eastern Divan.
• 17. Druids were called knowledgeable of oaks, from Latin after Caesar, Cicero and Tacitus.
• 18. Goethe, The Mysteries, 22nd Verse.

If you were in the Cologne Cathedral last night you could have seen there in illuminated lettering: C.M.B. As is well known, these letters represent the names of the so-called Three Holy Kings, who, according to the tradition of the Christian Church, were called: Caspar, Melchior, Balthasar. For Cologne these names awaken quite special memories. An old legend tells us that the Three Holy Kings had become bishops, and some time after they had died their bones had been brought to Cologne. Related to this is another legend which tells that a Danish king had once come to Cologne, bringing with him three crowns for the Three Holy Kings. After he had returned home he had a dream. In his dream the three kings appeared to him and offered him three chalices—the first chalice contained gold, the second frankincense, and the third one myrrh. When the Danish king awoke the three kings had vanished, but the chalices had remained. There before him stood the three gifts he had retained from his dream.

In this legend there is profound meaning. It is hinted to us that the king in his dream rose to a certain insight into the spiritual world by which he learnt the symbolic meaning of the three kings, of these three Magi of the Orient, who brought offerings of gold, frankincense and myrrh at the birth of Christ Jesus. From his realisation he retained a lasting possession: those three human virtues, which are symbolised in the gold, the frankincense and the myrrh—self-knowledge in the gold; self-devoutness, that is the devoutness of the innermost self, or self-surrender, in the frankincense; and self-perfection and self-development, or the preservation of the eternal in the self, in the myrrh.

How was it possible for the king to receive these three virtues as gifts from another world? He received this possibility because he had endeavoured to penetrate with his whole soul into the profound symbolism lying concealed in the three kings who brought their offerings to Christ Jesus.

There are many, many features in this Christ legend that lead us deeply into the most diverse meanings of the Christ principle and what it is supposed to do in the world. Among the profoundest features of the Christ legend are the adoration and the sacrifice by the three Magi, the three oriental kings, and we must not approach this fundamental symbolism of Christian tradition without a deeper understanding. Later the view developed that the first king was the representative of the Asiatic peoples; the second, the representative of the European peoples; and the third king, the representative of the African peoples. Wherever Christianity was to be understood as the religion of earthly harmony, the three kings and their homage were more often seen as a convergence of the different currents and religious trends in the world into a single principle, the Christ principle.

When this legend was given such a form, those who had penetrated into the mystery principles of esoteric Christianity saw in the Christ principle not only a force that had intervened in the course of human development, but they saw in the being that embodied itself in Jesus of Nazareth a cosmic world-force—a force far transcending the humanness that merely prevails in our present time. They saw in the Christ principle a force that indeed represents for man a human ideal that lies in a distant future development, but one, which can only be approached by man when he grasps the whole world more and more in the spirit. Initially they saw in man a small being, a small world, a microcosm, which for them was an image of the macrocosm, the great all-embracing world which contains everything that man can perceive with his external senses, see with his eyes, hear with his ears, but comprises, besides, all that the spirit could perceive including the perceptions of the lowest and also of the most clairvoyant spirit.

This was how the world appeared to the esoteric Christian in ancient times. All he saw occur in the firmament and on our Earth, all he saw as thunder and lightning, as storm and rain, as sunshine, as the course of the stars, as sunrise and sunset, as moonrise and moonset—all this was a gesture to him, something like mimicry, an external expression of inner spiritual processes.

The esoteric Christian views the world structure as he views the human body. When he looks at the human body, he sees it as consisting of different limbs: head, arms, hands, and so on. When he looks at the human body he sees hand movements, eye movements, movements of the facial muscles, but the individual limbs and their movements are for him the expression of inner spiritual and soul experiences. And just as he looked at the human limbs and their movements and perceived through them that which is the eternal, the soul in man, the esoteric Christian saw in the movements of the celestial bodies, in the light that streams down from the celestial bodies to humanity, the rising and setting of the Sun, the rising and setting of the Moon—in all of this he saw the external expression of divine-spiritual beings pervading space. All these natural phenomena were to him deeds of the Gods, gestures of the Gods, mimicry of those divine-spiritual beings. As was also everything that occurs among mankind, when people establish social communities, when they submit to moral rules and regulate their actions among themselves by laws, when from the forces of nature they create tools for themselves—although they make these tools with the help of the forces of nature, but in a form in which they have not been directly provided by nature. For the esoteric Christian, everything that man did more or less unconsciously was the external expression of inner divine spiritual workings.

But the esoteric Christian did not confine himself to such general forms. Instead he pointed to very specific individual gestures, single parts of the physiognomy of the universe, of the mimicry of the universe, in order to see in these individual parts very definite expressions of the spiritual. He pointed to the Sun and said: The Sun is not merely an external, physical body. This external, physical solar body is the body of a soul-spiritual being who rules over those soul-spiritual beings who are the governors, the leaders of all earthly fate, the leaders of all external natural occurrences on Earth, but also of all that happens in human social life, in the lawful conduct of men among each other. — When the esoteric Christian looked up to the Sun, then he revered in the Sun the external revelation of his Christos. In the first place the Christos was for him the Sun's soul, and the esoteric Christian said: From the beginning the Sun was the body of the Christos, but human beings on Earth and the Earth itself were not yet mature enough to receive the spiritual light, the Christ-light, which streams from the Sun. Humanity, therefore, had to be prepared for the Christ-light.

And now the esoteric Christian looked up at the Moon and saw that the Moon reflects the light of the Sun, but is more feeble than the Sun's light itself; and he said to himself: If I look at the sun with my physical eyes, I am dazzled by its radiant light; if I look into the Moon I am not dazzled; it reflects to a lesser degree the radiant light of the Sun. In this weakened sunlight, in this moonlight pouring down upon the Earth, the esoteric Christian saw the physiognomic expression of the old Jehovah principle, the expression for the religion of the old law. And he said: Before the Christ principle, the Sun of Righteousness, could appear on Earth, the Jahve principle had to prepare the way by sending this light of Righteousness, toned down in the Law to the Earth.

What lay in the old Jehovah principle, in the old law—the spiritual light of the Moon—was for the esoteric Christian the reflected spiritual light of the higher Christ principle. And like the confessors of the ancient Mysteries, the esoteric Christian—until far into the Middle Ages—saw in the Sun the expression of the spiritual light ruling the Earth, the Christ light. In the Moon they saw the expression of the reflected Christ light, which by its very nature would blind man. In the Earth itself the esoteric Christian saw, like the confessors of the ancient Mysteries, that which at times disguised and veiled for him the blinding sunlight of the spirit. The Earth was for him just as much the physical expression of a spirit, as was every other body an expression of something spiritual. He imagined that when the Sun could be seen shining down on the Earth, when it sent down its rays, beginning in the spring and continuing through the summer, and called forth from the Earth all the budding and sprouting life, and when it had culminated in the long summer days—then the esoteric Christian imagined that the Sun maintained the external up-shooting life, the physical life. In the plants, springing from the soil, in the animals that could unfold their fertility in these seasons, the esoteric Christian saw the same principle in an external physical form that he saw in the beings for which the Sun is the external expression. But when the days became shorter, when autumn and winter approached, the esoteric Christian said: the Sun withdraws its physical power more and more from the Earth. But to the same degree as the Sun's physical power is withdrawn from the Earth, its spiritual power increases and flows to the Earth most strongly when the shortest days come, with the long nights, in the times that later were fixed by the Christmas festival.

Man cannot see this spiritual power of the Sun. He would see it, said the esoteric Christian, if he possessed the inner power of spiritual vision. The esoteric Christian was still conscious of the fundamental conviction and fundamental knowledge of the Mystery-pupils from the most ancient times to the more recent time.

In those nights, now fixed by the Christmas festival, the mystery pupils were prepared for the experience of inner spiritual vision, so that they could see inwardly, spiritually that which at this time most withdraws its physical power from the Earth. In the long Christmas winter night, the mystery pupil was made to advance so far that he could have a vision at midnight. Then the Earth no longer shrouded the Sun,¹ which stood behind the Earth. It became transparent for him. Through the transparent Earth he saw the spiritual light of the Sun, the Christ light. This fact, which represents a profound experience of the mystery pupils, was captured in the expression ‘to see the Sun at midnight’.

There are areas where the churches, otherwise open all day, are closed at noon. This is a fact which connects Christianity with the traditions of ancient religious confessions. In ancient religious creeds the mystery students, on the strength of their experience, said: At noon, when the Sun stands highest, when it unfolds the strongest physical power, the Gods are asleep, and they sleep most deeply in summer, when the Sun unfolds its strongest physical power. But they are widest awake on Christmas night, when the external physical power of the Sun is at its weakest.

We see that all beings, who desire to unfold their external physical strength look up to the Sun when the Sun rises in spring, and strive to receive the external physical power of the Sun. But when, at a summer noon, the Sun's physical power flows most lavishly from the Sun to the Earth, the Sun’s spiritual power is weakest. In the winter midnight, however, when the Sun rays the least physical power down to the Earth, man can see the Sun's spirit through the Earth, which has become transparent for him. The esoteric Christian felt that by immersing himself in Christian esotericism he approached more and more that power of inner vision through which he could completely fulfil his feeling, thinking and his will-impulses when gazing into this spiritual sun. Then the mystery student was led to a vision of most real significance: As long as the Earth is opaque, the individual parts appear to be inhabited by people who develop separate creeds but the unifying bond is not there. Human races are as scattered as the climates, human opinions are scattered all over the Earth and there is no connecting link. But to the extent that human beings begin to look through the Earth into the Sun by their inner power of vision, to the extent that the “Star” appears to them through the Earth, their confessions will reconcile to form one great united human brotherhood. And those who guided the great individual human masses in the truth of the higher planes towards initiation into the higher worlds, were introduced as the Magi. There were three Magi, while in the different parts of the Earth the most diverse powers are expressed. Humanity therefore had to be guided in different ways. But as a unifying power there appears the Star, rising beyond the Earth. It leads the scattered individuals together, and then they make offerings to the physical embodiment of the solar Star, which had appeared as the Star of Peace. The cosmic-human religion of peace, of harmony, of universal peace, of human brotherhood, was thus brought into connection with the ancient Magi, who laid down the best gifts they had for humanity at the cradle of the incarnate Son of Man.

The legend has retained this beautifully, by saying that the Danish king rose to an understanding of the Wise Magi, of the three Kings, and because he had risen to it they bestowed on him their three gifts: firstly, the gift of wisdom in self-knowledge; secondly, the gift of devoted piousness in self-giving; and, thirdly, the gift of the victory of life over death in the strength and fostering of the eternal in the self.

All those who understood Christianity in this way, saw in it the profound spiritual-scientific idea of the unification of religions. For they were of the view, yes, they had the firm conviction that whoever understands Christianity thus, can rise to the highest grade of human development.

One of the last Germans to understand Christianity esoterically in this way is Goethe. Goethe has laid down for us this kind of Christianity, this kind of religious reconciliation, this kind of Theosophy, in the profound poem The Mysteries. Although it has remained a fragment² it shows us in a deeply meaningful way the inner spiritual development of one who is imbued with and convinced by the feelings and ideas that were just hinted at.

We first learn how Goethe points us to the pilgrim-path of such a man and indicates that this pilgrim-path may lead us far astray. That it is not easy for man to find it, and that one must have patience and devotion to reach the goal. Whoever possesses these will find the light that he seeks. Let us hear the beginning of the poem:

A wondrous song is here prepared for many.
Hear it with joy! Tell all from far and near!
The way will lead you out o'er mount and valley;
Now is the view obscured, now wide and clear,
And if the path should glide into the bushes,
That you have gone astray, you need not fear,
For by a persevering, patient climb
We shall draw near our goal, when it is time.

But no one will, despite profound reflection,
Unravel all the wonders hidden here:
Our mother earth brings forth so many flowers,
And many shall find something to revere;
Maybe that one will gloomily forsake us,
Another stays with gestures full of cheer:
For many wand'ring pilgrims flows the spring,
To each a different pleasure it will bring.

This is the situation into which we are placed. We are shown a pilgrim who, if we were to ask him, would not be able to tell us rationally what we have just explained to be the esoteric Christian idea—but a pilgrim, in whose heart and soul these ideas live transformed into feelings. It is not easy to discover everything that has been secreted into this poem called The Mysteries. Goethe has clearly indicated: a process occurring within a person in whom the highest ideas, thoughts and conceptions are transformed into feelings and sensations. What causes this transformation to take place?

We live through many embodiments, from one incarnation to another incarnation. In each one we learn things of many kinds; each one is full of opportunities for gathering new experiences. It is impossible to carry over everything in every detail from one incarnation to another. When man is born again, it is not necessary for everything that he has once learnt to come to life again in every detail. But if someone has learnt a lot in one incarnation, dies and is born again, although there is no need for all his ideas to be revived, but he will return to life with the fruits of his former life, with the fruits of his learning. His sensations, his feelings correspond to the realisations of his earlier incarnations.

In this poem of Goethe we find expressed something wonderful: we encounter a man who, in the simplest words—as a child might speak, not in particularly intellectual or abstract terms—shows us the highest wisdom as a fruit of former knowledge. He has transformed this knowledge into feeling and sensation and is thereby qualified to guide others who may have learnt more in the form of concepts. Such a pilgrim with a mature soul that has transformed much of the knowledge it has gathered in earlier incarnations into direct feeling and sensation, such a pilgrim we have before us in Brother Mark. As a member of a secret brotherhood he is sent on an important mission to another secret brotherhood.

He wanders through many different areas, and when he is tired, he comes to a mountain. He finally climbs up the path to the summit. Every step in this poem has a deep significance. When he has climbed the mountain, he sees a monastery in a nearby valley. This monastery is the dwelling of the brotherhood to which he has been sent. Above the gate of the monastery he sees something extraordinary. He sees the cross, but in a special guise; the cross is entwined with roses! And at this point he utters a significant word that only he can understand who knows how very often this password has been spoken in secret brotherhoods, “Who added roses to the cross?” And from the middle of the cross he sees three rays radiating out as if from the Sun. There is no need for him to place before his soul conceptually the meaning of this profound symbol. The perception of it and feeling for it already live in his soul, in his mature soul. His mature soul that knows everything that lies within it.

What is the meaning of the cross? He knows that the cross is a symbol for many things; among many others also for the threefold lower nature of man: the physical body, the etheric body, and the astral body. In it the ‘I’ is born. In the Rose-Cross we have the fourfold man: in the cross the physical man, the etheric man, and the astral man, and in the roses the I. Why roses for the I? Esoteric Christianity added roses to the cross because it saw in the Christ principle a summons to raise the I from the state in which it is born in the three bodies to an ever higher and higher I. In the Christ principle it saw the power to carry this I higher and higher.

The cross is the symbol of death in a quite particular sense. This, too, Goethe expresses in another beautiful passage³ when he says,

And until thou truly hast
This dying and becoming,
Thou art but a troubled guest
O'er the dark earth roaming.

Die and become—overcome what you have first been given in the three lower bodies. Deaden it, but not out of a desire for death, but to purify what is in these three bodies so as to attain in the I the power to receive an ever-greater perfection. By deadening, what is given to you in the three lower bodies, the power of perfection will enter into the I. Into the I, the Christian should take into him the power of perfection in the Christ principle, right down to the blood. This power must work right into the blood.

Blood is the expression of the I. In the red roses the esoteric Christian saw that which in the blood, purified and cleansed by the power of the Christ principle, and in the I, which in turn was cleansed by this blood, leads man upwards to his higher being—he saw the power that transforms the astral body into the Spirit Self, the etheric body into the Life Spirit, the physical body into the Spirit Man. Thus, we encounter in the Rose-Cross connected with the triple beam a profound symbol of the Christ principle. The pilgrim Brother Mark, who arrives here, knows: he is at a place where the profoundest meaning of Christianity is understood.

Full weary by a long and tiring journey,
With a sublimest motive underta'en,
A pilgrim, brother Mark, came through the thicket,
With staff in hand, his footsteps to sustain,
And longing for a little food and drinking,
One beauteous eve he reached a quiet plain.
Its wooded gorges soothing hope bestowed
Beneath a friendly roof to find abode.

But lo! a path he scarcely can distinguish,
High up a mountain steep before him wending.
He follows it, as more and more it rises,
In curvings in and out the boulders bending,
Until again by sunlight warm enveloped,
He turns and sees how fast he is ascending.
At last the summit comes within his sight,
Inspiring him with heart-felt, deep delight.

Next it the sun, majestic in its setting,
Enthroned 'mong clouds within the dark'ning sky.
Now for the peak! For all his weary toiling
He hopes to be rewarded there on high.
O'erlooking all the country 'fore him spreading,
A human home he will perchance espy.
And while he climbs, oh sound how full of cheer!
The chime of bells is wafted to his ear.

And as at length he has attained the summit,
Below a softly sloping valley lies.
His quiet look with inward pleasure brightens;
Before the forest full of joy he spies
A stately building in a greening field,
Which the departing sun with lustre dyes.
E'er long he nears through meadows dewy damp
A monastery lit with gleaming lamp.

He soon arrives outside the quiet homestead,
With hope and peacefulness his soul enfolding,
And on the arch above the closed portal
A symbol full of mystery beholding.
He stands and ponders, whispers words of prayer,
The deep devotion of his heart unfolding;
He ponders long: What does this sign convey?
The sun has set, the chiming dies away.

The sign he sees erected here on high
That brings consoling hope to all mankind,
Which many thousands pledged their lives to shield,
To which in fervour prayed the human mind,
That has destroyed the bitter powers of death,
On victors' banners fluttered in the wind:
A stream of comfort permeates his being,
He sees the cross and bows his head in seeing.

He feels anew the faith of all on earth,
The power of salvation streaming thence;
But as he looks, he feels his very soul
Pervaded by a new and unknown sense:
Who added to the cross the wreath of roses?
It is entwined by blooming, clusters dense,
Profusely spreading just as though they could
Endow with softness e'en the rigid wood.

While light and silv'ry clouds, around it soaring,
Seem heavenward with cross and roses flowing,
And from the midst like living waters streaming
A threefold ray from out one core is glowing;
But not a word surrounds the holy token,
The meaning of the symbol clearly showing.
And while the dusk is gath'ring grey and greyer,
He stands and ponders and is lost in prayer.

The spirit of deepest Christianity which can be found within this dwelling is expressed in the cross entwined by roses. And as the pilgrim now enters, he is actually received in this spirit. As he enters, he becomes aware that in this house not this or that religion holds sway—but that the higher Oneness of the world’s religions is at work here. In the house he tells an older member of the brotherhood who lives there, at whose behest and on what mission he has come. He is made welcome and hears that in this house lives in perfect seclusion a brotherhood of twelve brothers. These twelve brothers are representatives of diverse groups of people from all over the Earth; every one of the brothers is the representative of a religious creed. None is to be found here, who is accepted while still young in years and immature. One will only be accepted when one has explored the world, when one has struggled with the joys and sorrows of the world, when one has worked and been active in the world and has wrestled with oneself upwards to gain a free survey over one’s narrowly confined domain. Only then is one placed and accepted into the circle of the Twelve. And these Twelve, of whom each one represents one of the world religious creeds, live here in peace and harmony together. For they are led by a thirteenth who surpasses them all in the perfection of his human Self, who surpasses them all in his wide survey of human circumstances.

And how does Goethe indicate that this Thirteenth is the representative of true esotericism, the carrier of the Rosicrucian confession? Goethe indicates this by one of the brothers saying: He was among us. Now we are plunged into the deepest sorrow because he is about to leave us, he wishes to part from us. But he feels it is right to part from us now. He desires to rise to higher regions, where he no longer needs to reveal himself in an earthly body.

He may ascend, for he has risen to a point that Goethe describes as follows: In every creed lies the possibility of coming closer to the highest unity. When each of the twelve religions is matured to establish harmony, then the Thirteenth, who has before brought about this harmony externally, can rise up. And we are beautifully told how we can achieve this perfection of the Self. First, the life-story of the Thirteenth is related. But the Brother who has admitted the pilgrim Mark knows many more details, which the great leader of the Twelve could not say himself. Several traits of profound esoteric significance are now told by this brother to the pilgrim Mark. It is told, that when the Thirteenth was born a star appeared to herald his earthly existence. This is a direct link to the star that guided the Three Holy Kings and to its meaning. This star has an enduring significance; it indicates the way to self-knowledge, self-giving, and self-perfection. It is the star that opens the understanding of the gifts that the Danish king received through the vision that appeared to him in his dream. The star that appears at the birth of everyone mature enough to receive the Christ principle within oneself.

And other things also became apparent. It became clear that he had developed to that height of religious harmony, which brings peace and harmony of the soul. Profoundly symbolical in this sense is the vulture which swoops down when the Thirteenth entered into this world, but instead of having a devastating effect, it spreads peace around it among the doves.

We are told still more. As his little sister is lying in the cradle a viper winds itself around her. The Thirteenth, still a child, kills the viper. Hereby is wonderfully indicated how a mature soul—for only a mature soul can achieve such a thing after many incarnations—kills the viper already in early childhood; this means he overcame the lower astral nature. The viper is the symbol for the lower astral nature. The sister is his own etheric body, around which the astral body winds itself. He kills the viper for his sister.

Then we are told how he obediently submitted to what at first the family demanded of him. He obeyed his harsh father. The soul transforms its realisations, ideas, and thoughts. Then healing powers develop in the soul, through which healing can be brought about in the world. Miraculous powers develop; they find expression in his use of his sword to lure a spring out of the rock. Intentionally, we are here shown how his soul follows in the footsteps of the Scripture.

Thus gradually there matures the superior, the representative of humanity, the Chosen One, who works as the Thirteenth here in the community of the Twelve—the great secret order that, under the symbol of the Rose-Cross, has taken on the mission for all mankind to harmonise the creeds scattered throughout the world. This is how we are first made acquainted in a profound manner with the soul-state of the one who has until now led the Brotherhood of our Twelve.

At last he knocks. The myriad stars above him
Look down with shining eyes as they appear.
The portal opens, and he is bidden welcome
By brethren wont to comfort and to cheer.
So he relates how far by hill and valley
The will of higher Beings led him here.
They stand amazed, for well they see their guest
Was sent to them by heavenly behest.

They crowd around him, and their inmost being
They feel by a mysterious power stirred,
Their breath they hold to listen, for he rouses
An echo in their hearts with ev'ry word.
Like deepest lore, yet uttered by a child,
The wisdom flowing from his lips is heard:
He seems so innocent, like crystal clear,
As though descended from another sphere.

At last an aged brother cries: Oh welcome,
If with consoling hope thy path is blessed!
Thou seest us, our souls are moved within us
By thee, and yet we can but stand oppressed:
Our greatest bliss from us is being taken,
Anxiety and dread disturb our rest.
Thou comest as a stranger, yet to share
Portentous hours of mourning and of care:

For he, alas! who all of us united,
to whom as father and as friend we bow,
who light and fortitude within us kindled—
Our leader—is prepared to leave us now.
Yea, he himself his passing has predicted,
refusing though to tell us when and how:
The mystery of what must needs befall
Brings bitter tribulation to us all.

Thou seest us grey and aged ev’ry one,
By nature destined for repose and rest:
Not one was here admitted who, a youth,
Desired to fly from wordly joy and zest.
Each one has met with life's vicissitudes,
Its burdens, pleasures and its anxious quest,
Until, matured, too old to longer roam,
Within these walls we found a shelt'ring home.

The noble man who led us to this haven,
Within his heart the peace of God does dwell;
Along the path of life we walked together,
His ev'ry action I remember well;
But now his fervent praying, his seclusion,
The hour of his departing must foretell.
How small is man! Oh would that he could give
His life, so that a greater one might live!

This is my heart's profound and only wish!
Fulfilment is denied to my desire.
How many have preceded me in death!
How bitter is the thought he must expire.
Had he been here, with hearty welcome's warmth
He would have given all thou didst require;
But now in spirit-regions dwells his mind,
Already far from those he leaves behind.

Each day one hour he lingers in our midst
And speaks to us, by strange emotion stirred:
The wondrous paths that Providence has led
Within his life he lauds with ev'ry word;
We hark and heed, for after-ages hoarding
With care the merest trifle that occurred,
While one writes down his words to make us sure
His memory shall live both true and pure.

I hear him speak, but oh, how much there is
That I would rather myself relate,
For all is still alive within my mind,
The least of circumstances I would state;
Impatiently I list, can scarce conceal
How sore it is thus silently to wait:
One day I shall no more restrain my zeal,
The splendours of this beauteous life reveal.

I should disclose how first an angel's voice
His coming to his mother prophesied,
And how, when he was christened, in the sky
A star with brilliant lustre was descried,
How down a vulture swooped with mighty wings
To settle by the gentle pigeons' side,
But not to pounce on them in greedy wildness,
A harbinger he seemed of peace and mildness.

How as a child a viper he destroyed,
This is a miracle he ne'er has told.
He found his sister peacefully asleep,
The clinging reptile round her arm was rolled.
The nurse had fled and left the babe alone,
He killed the pois'nous snake, resolved and bold;
His mother came and saw the daring deed
And thrilled with joy she found her daughter freed.

He ne'er related that a spring arose
From out the barren rock before his sword,
And as a brook, with rippling waves alive,
Its plenteous waters down the hill-side poured;
E'en now, as quick as forth it gushed at first,
It bickers silver sparkling o'er the sward.
But those who saw the wondrous stream appear,
Dared not to drink, o'ercome by solemn fear.

For when a man excels by gifts of nature,
It is no wonder if his life is blessed;
In him we worship the Creator's power,
Through feeble human clay made manifest;
But he who overcomes himself has gained
The greatest triumph, stood the hardest test,
And well may he to all the world be shown:
Yea, this is he, this deed is his alone!

With all our strength we strive to live and labour,
Where'er by fate our twisting paths be wended;
Whereas the world oppresses, e'er impeding,
And seeks to tear us from the way intended;
Within this inner storm and outer struggle
Our spirit hears a word scarce comprehended:
The power that holds constrained all humankind
The victor o'er himself it no more can bind.

Thus this man, who had overcome himself, that is, who had overcome the “I” that at first is allotted to man, became the Superior of the chosen Brotherhood just characterised. And so he leads the Twelve. He has led them to a point where they are mature enough for him to be allowed to leave them.

Our Brother Mark is then conducted further into the rooms where the Twelve work. How did they work? Their activity is of an unusual kind, and we are made aware that it is an activity in the spiritual world. A man whose eyes observe only the physical plane, whose senses only see the physical and what is done by people in the physical world, cannot easily imagine that there is still other work. Work that may in some circumstances even be far more essential and important than work that is done externally on the physical plane. Work from the higher planes is far more important for mankind. Mind you, whoever wishes to work on the higher planes must fulfill the condition that he has first completed his tasks on the physical plane. These Twelve had done so. For this reason, their combined activity signifies something of high importance for the service to mankind.

Our Brother Mark is led into the hall where the Twelve were accustomed to assemble. There he encounters in a profound symbolism the nature of their combined activity. The individual contribution that each of the Brothers has to make to this joint activity, in accordance with his particular character, is expressed by a special symbol above the seat of each of the Twelve. Symbols of many kinds are to be seen there, expressing meaningfully and in very different ways what each one has to contribute to the common work. This work consists of spiritual activity, so that these streams flow together here into a current of spiritual life that floods the world and has a strengthening effect on the rest of humanity. There are such brotherhoods, such centres from where such flows emanate and impact on the rest of mankind.

Above the seat of the Thirteenth, Brother Mark again sees the sign: the cross entwined with roses. This sign is at the same time a symbol for the four-fold nature of man, and in the red roses it is the symbol for the purified blood- or I-principle, the principle of the higher man. Then we see that which is to be overcome by this sign of the Rose-Cross installed as a special symbol to the left and right of the seat of the Thirteenth. On the right Mark sees the fiery-coloured dragon, representing the astral nature of man.

It was well known in Christian esotericism that man's soul can be devoted to the three lower bodies. If it succumbs to them, then it is dominated by the lower life of the threefold bodily nature within it. This is expressed in the astral perception by the dragon. This is no mere symbol but a very real sign. In the dragon is expressed what must first be conquered. In the passions, in these forces of astral fire—which are part of man's physical nature—in this dragon Christian esotericism saw that which mankind has received from the torrid zone, from the South. This poem was written in the spirit of Christian esotericism, which spread throughout Europe. From the South stems that part of man which mankind acquired as hot passion tending more towards the lower sensory nature. As a first impulse to fight and overcome this, one sensed what flowed down from the influences of the cooler North. The influence of the colder North, the descent of the I into the threefold bodily nature, is expressed according to an old symbol taken from the constellation of the Bear, which shows a hand thrust into the maw of a bear. The lower bodily nature expressed by the fiery dragon will be overcome. What has been preserved in the higher animal species was represented by the bear. And the I, which has developed beyond the dragon nature, was represented with profound appropriateness by the thrusting of a human hand into the bear's maw. On both sides of the Rose-Cross there appears what must be overcome by it. It is the Rose-Cross that calls on man to purify and raise himself up higher and higher.

In this way, the poem really presents us with the principle of esoteric Christianity in the deepest way, and illustrates to us above all what should be before our soul, especially at a festival like the one we are celebrating today.

The eldest of the Brothers belonging to the Brotherhood, who lives here, explicitly tells the pilgrim Mark that their combined activity is happening in the spirit, that it is spiritual life. This work for mankind on the spiritual plane means something special. The Brothers have experienced life's joys and sorrows, they have endured external conflicts; they have performed work in the world outside. Now they are here, but here also work is done continuously to further the development of mankind. The pilgrim Mark is told: You have now seen as much as can be shown to a novice to whom the first portal is opened. You have been shown in profound symbols how man's ascent should be. But the second portal harbours greater mysteries—how from the higher worlds work is done on mankind. You can only learn these greater mysteries after lengthy preparation, only then can you enter through the other gate. Profound secrets are expressed in this poem.

In him I scarce as virtue may denote
The power of good which e'en his youth inspired
And taught him to respect his father's word,
When harshly he his services required,
With duties burdening his leisure hours;
The son obeyed with ardour, never tired,
Like some poor boy who, friendless and astray,
Is glad to work for but a trifling pay.

On foot he joined the warriors in the field,
In lowering tempest and in dazzling light,
The horses he did tend, the meals prepare,
And armed the soldiers ready for the fight.
Oft as a messenger, both keen and fleet,
He hastened through the woods by day and night;
To live for others both in thought and action
Seemed but to give him joy and satisfaction.

And brave and cheerful always, in the strife
He sought the arrows scattered on the ground;
Then hastily he gathered curing herbs,
With which the burning wounds he cooled and bound;
And just as if his very touch were healing,
Ere long the sufferers were strong and sound;
How all regarded him with joy and pride!
Alone his father seemed not satisfied.

E'en as a ship, despite its heavy load
From port to port with speedy lightness sailing,
He bore the burden of his parents' word
That in obedience ne'er he should be failing;
As pleasure is for boys, for youths distinction,
For him his father's will was all-prevailing,
So that he might demand whate'er he would,
Each task was soon fulfilled, each test was stood.

At last the father yielded and acknowledged
The merit of his son in word and deed;
While of a sudden all his sternness vanished,
He gave the youth a swift and precious steed;
Henceforth a sword replaced the shorter dagger,
And from his lesser duties he was freed:
Thus, destined by his birth and well acquitted,
Into an Order he was now admitted.

Ah, well could I report for many days
Amazing things to every one who hears;
And higher than the most delightful tales
His life will be esteemed in coming years;
For what in poetry and fiction charms,
Yet to our mind incredible appears,
Will here with greater pleasure still be heard,
Because it has in real event occurred.

The name of him whom Providence has chosen
That wondrous things on earth he should achieve,
Whom I may often praise, though ne'er sufficing
Whose destiny we scarcely can believe,
His name—it is Humanus, Saint and wise one,
The best of men whom I did e'er perceive:
By origin another name he bears,
Which with illustrious ancestors he shares.

The aged brother would have spoken on.
Filled with the miracles that he did know,
And he shall gladden us for many weeks
With all the stirring facts he still can show;
But he was interrupted, just as now
His heart was pouring forth in fervent flow.
The others softly in and out had passed
And deemed it time to intervene at last.

When Mark had bowed before his hosts and prayed
In gratitude for the sustaining meal,
A bowl of crystal water he requested.
They brought what he had craved with friendly zeal.
Hereafter led him to their festive hall,
Therein a sight unwonted to reveal.
Of what he saw you soon will be aware,
For everything shall be described with care.

No ornament was here, the eye deluding,
A cross-arched vault rose sternly from the ground,
And thirteen chairs against the walls, he noticed.
Were like a pious chorus ranged around,
By clever hands full delicately carven;
In front of each a little desk he found.
Devotion seemed to fill the very air,
Fraternity and restfulness and prayer.

Above each chair was hung a special shield,
Thirteen in all the number he espied.
They seemed to be important, purposeful,
No boast of ancestors in shallow pride.
And brother Mark, with longing all aglow,
Desired to learn what secret they did hide:
Lo, in the middle one the mystic sign,
The cross which clustring roses do entwine.

Each object will arouse to life and action
The soul which to its inspiration yields;
Some places are adorned by swords and lances,
While helmets hang above these other shields;
Here battered weapons are to be discovered,
Such as one may collect on battle-fields:
There spears and banners, come from distant lands,
And even fetters here and iron bands!

Each brother sinking down before his chair,
In silent prayer profoundly wrapt they rested;
Then softly chanted fervent hymns of thanks,
By cheerfulness and piety suggested;
With mutual blessing they retired to sleep,
A short repose, by fancies unmolested:
But Mark remains, surrounded by a few,
Still wishing more attentively to view.

Though tired in body, full awake his mind,
Preoccupied by many hidden things:
For here, his thirst in raging flames appeasing,
A dragon is enthroned with fiery wings;
And here between his jaws a bear is holding
An arm from which the blood it loses springs,
Both shields, in distance corresponding quite,
Hung next the Rosy-Cross to left and right.

Wherever he now turns and gazes in amazement,⁴
The more he marvels at the art and splendours
Abundant wealth seems wasted here on purpose
Has everything just made itself?—he wonders.
Should he have doubts about the work’s fulfilment?
Who so conceived the plan? ― he ponders.
It seems to him, with heavenly delight,
He’s only just beginning to live each moment right.

The paths were wonderful that led thee here,
The aged brother speaks unto his guest:
Oh let these symbols bid thee stay until
The many heroes' deeds we manifest;
Our mysteries we will confide to thee,
For what is here concealed, can ne'er be guessed;
Although thou wilt divine what here was done,
Endured and lost, and last what triumph won.

Do not believe that but of times gone by
The brother spake. Here wonders never fail;
And more and ever more thou shalt behold,
Until withdrawn is the enshrouding veil.
One portal only 'tis that thou hast passed:
And if thou feelst the call, O friend, prevail!
The foremost court as yet thou didst attain,
But worthy art the very core to gain.

After a short rest, our Brother Mark learns to divine at least something of the inner mysteries. In powerful symbols he has let the ascent of the human Self work upon his soul. When he is woken from his brief rest by a sign, he comes to a portal, only to find it is locked. He hears a strange triad: three beats and the whole as if intermingled with the playing of a flute. He cannot look in, cannot see what is happening there in the room.

We do not need to be told more than these few words to indicate in a profound way what awaits man when he approaches the spiritual worlds, when he is so far purified and perfected by his endeavours to work on his Self that he passed through the astral world and then approaches the higher worlds—those worlds in which the spiritual archetypes of things here on Earth can be found. When he approaches what is called the ‘world of heaven’ in esoteric Christianity, he first approaches it through a world flooded with colours. Then he enters into a world of sound, into the harmony of the universe, the music of the spheres. The spiritual world is a world of sound. He who has developed his higher Self to the level of the higher worlds, must become at home in this spiritual world. It is precisely Goethe who clearly expressed the higher experience of a world of spiritual sound in his Faust, when he lets him be raptured to heaven, and the world of heaven reveals itself to him through sound.⁵

“The sun-orb sings, in emulation
'Mid brother-spheres, his ancient round...”

The physical Sun does not sound, but the spiritual Sun does. Goethe retains this image when, after long wanderings, Faust is transported up into the spiritual worlds:

“Sounding loud to spirit-hearing,⁶
see the new-born day appearing.”
“Pealing rays and trumpet-blazes
—eye is blinded, ear amazes:
The Unheard can no one hear!”

As man evolves higher through the symbolic colour world of the astral, he approaches the world of the harmony of the spheres, the Devachan domain, that which is spiritual music. Only softly, softly going outside does our Brother Mark hear―after he has passed through the first portal, the astral portal—the chiming sound of the inner world behind our external world; of that inner world which transforms the lower astral world into this higher world through which the triad flows. And by ascending to the higher world a human being’s lower nature is transformed into the higher trinity: our astral body changes into the Spirit Self, the etheric body into the Life Spirit, the physical body into the Spirit Man.

Brother Marcus first senses the triad of the higher nature in the music of the spheres, and by becoming one with this music of the spheres, he has a first inkling of the rejuvenation of someone who enters into contact with the spiritual worlds. He sees, as in a dream, rejuvenated mankind floating through the garden in the form of the three youths carrying three torches. This is the moment when Mark's soul woke up in the morning from darkness, and where some darkness has still remained as the light has not yet penetrated it. But precisely at such a time the soul can look into the spiritual world. It can look into the spiritual worlds, just as it can look into them when the summer noon has passed, when the Sun gradually gets weaker and winter has arrived, and then at midnight the Christ-principle shines through the Earth in the Holy Night of Christmas.

Through the Christ-principle man is elevated to the higher Trinity, illustrated for Brother Mark by the three youths who represent the rejuvenated humanity. This is the meaning of Goethe's lines:

“And until thou truly hast
This dying and becoming,
Thou art but a troubled guest
O'er the dark earth roaming.”

Every year anew, Christmas must remind those who understand esoteric Christianity that what happens in the external world is mimicry, are the gestures of inner spiritual processes. The external power of the Sun runs free in the spring and summer sunshine. In the Holy Scripture this external power of the Sun—which is only the proclamation of the inner, spiritual power of the Sun—is expressed in John the Baptist, whereas the inner, spiritual power is expressed in Christ. And while the physical power of the Sun continuously abates, the spiritual power rises and grows more and more in strength until it reaches its zenith at Christmas time. This is the meaning underlying the words in the Gospel of St. John, “I must decrease, but He must increase”.⁷ And He increases and increases until He appears where the sun-force has again attained the outer physical power.

So that man may henceforth be able to revere and worship the spiritual power of the Sun in this external physical power, he must learn to recognise the meaning of the Christmas festival. For those who do not recognise this meaning, the new power of the Sun is nothing other than the old physical power anew. But one who has familiarised himself with the impulses which esoteric Christianity and especially the Christmas festival should give him, will see in the growing power of the solar body the external body of the inner Christ, which radiates through the Earth, which vitalises and fertilises it, so that the Earth itself becomes the bearer of the Christ power, of the Earth-Spirit. Hence, what is born to us every Christmas night is born anew each time. Christ will allow us to inwardly perceive the microcosm within the macrocosm, and this perception will lead us higher and higher.

The festivals, which have long ago become something external to man, will again appear in their deep significance for man, if he is led by this profound esotericism to the knowledge that the external events of nature―such as thunder and lightning, sunrise and sunset, moonrise and moonset―are the gestures and physiognomy of spiritual existence. And at the significant points, marked by our festivals, man should realise that then also in the spiritual world important things are happening. Then he will be led to the rejuvenating spiritual power, represented by the three youths, which the I can only win by devoting itself to the outer world, and not by egotistically shutting itself away from it. But there is no devotion to the outer world if this outer world is not permeated by spirit. That this spirit should appear anew each year as a light in the darkness for all human beings, even for the weakest, must be written afresh each year into the heart and soul of humanity.

This is what Goethe wished to express in this poem, The Mysteries. It is at once a Christmas poem and an Easter poem. It aims to hint at profound secrets of esoteric Christianity. If we allow what he wished to indicate of the deep mysteries of Rosicrucian Christianity to work upon us, if we absorb its power even in part, then we will become missionaries for at least a few of those in our surroundings. We shall succeed in shaping these festivals in such a way that they are filled with spirit and with life.

When after short repose within his cell
A deep resounding bell awakes our guest,
His soul is filled with longing for devotion,
He rises quickly with unwearied zest
And hastens to the church, with all his heart
Responding to the gladly heard behest,
Obedient, peaceful and by prayer bestirred;
Alas! The door is locked, he stands deterred.

But hark! a blow on dull resounding ore
Three times in equal intervals renewed,
No chime it seems to be of clock or bells,
From time to time with tones of flute imbued;
The floating music fills the heart with joy,
Mysterious 'tis and scarce to be construed,
It sounds like singing, solemn and entrancing,
To which the couples interlace in dancing.

Bewildered and by strange emotion moved,
He hastens to the window there to gaze;
The day is dawning in the distant east,
The sky o'erflown by lucent streaks of haze.
And may he trust his eyes? A mystic light
Is fleeting through the garden's winding ways;
Three youths with torches in their hands he sees
Who haste along the paths between the trees.

He clearly sees their wonderful apparel,
The white resplendent garments which they wear,
Their girdles made of intertwining roses,
The wreaths of flowers in their curly hair;
They seem to come from some nocturnal dances,
With joy of movement thrilled, enlived and fair.
But as the stars will fade, when day is near,
Extinguishing their torch, they disappear.

• 1. A correction after the transcript by Walter Vegelahn. In the first Edition this sentence was due to a different transcript recorded in error as “then the Earth was no longer the hull”.
• 2. Goethe himself wrote an essay about this fragment in the year 1816, “The Mysteries, a fragment by Goethe”, in Essays on Literature, Contributions to the Morning paper for the educated classes, 1807-1816. Sophien Edition, Volume 41/1.
• 3. “And until thou truly hast” is the final verse of the poem by Goethe “Blessed Longings”, of the collection West Eastern Divan.
• 4. The verse “Wherever he now turns and gazes in amazement”, is missing from most Goethe Editions, but according to an original handwritten Goethe script it had been intended for The Mysteries. Refer Goethe’s works, Weimar Edition, Volume 16, Page 436.
• 5. “The Sun-orb sings, in emulation...”, Goethe, Faust Part I, Prologue in Heaven, Verse 243 et seq.
• 6. “Sounding loud to spirit-hearing..”, Faust Part II, Act 1, Ariel Scene, Verse 4666 et seq.
• 7. “I must decrease, but he must increase”. The literal translation would be “I must sink, but he has to rise”. John-3-30.

On various occasions it has been emphasised that the spiritual development, as aspired to by Spiritual Science, must bring the human being into a living relationship with the whole environment. Much in our environment that filled our ancestors with veneration has become dead and mundane for man. For example, a large number of people are alienated from and cold towards our annual festivals. The urban population in particular has only a scant memory of what Christmas, Easter and Whitsun (Pentecost) mean.

Today, mankind does no longer possess this enormous emotional content that our ancestors connected with the festive seasons because they were aware of the great facts of the spiritual world. Cold and sober people look at Christmas and Easter today, and especially also at Whitsun. The pouring out of the Spirit has become an abstract event for many people. But this will change—it will only become life and reality when mankind will come to a truly spiritual realisation of the whole world.

Today, there is a lot of talk about the forces of nature, but not a lot is said about the beings behind these nature forces. Modern man regards talk about the “beings of nature” as a rehashing of an old superstitious belief. It is considered an old superstition if someone believes that the words used for gnomes, undines, sylphs and salamanders, as our ancestors called them, are based on reality and mean something real. First, in a certain way it doesn’t matter what kind of theories or ideas people have, but if people are tempted by these theories to ignore certain things and to apply their theories in their daily life in practice, then the issue becomes fully relevant.

Let’s take a grotesque example: Who believes in beings whose existence is bound to the air or who are embodied in water? For example, if someone says, “Our ancestors believed in certain beings like gnomes, undines, sylphs and salamanders, but this is all imaginary stuff!”, then one would like to respond by saying, “Ask the bees.” And, if the bees could talk, they would answer, “Sylphs are not a superstition for us—we know quite well what they are to us!” Someone who is clairvoyant can trace (with his eyes) which force it is that draws the little bee to the flower. “Instinct, natural drive,” is man’s answer, but these are empty words. It is those beings, that our ancestors called sylphs, that guide the bees to the bloom’s calyx to search for food—and those beings are active in the whole bee swarm in search for nourishment.

Wherever different nature kingdoms touch, there is an opportunity for certain (elemental) beings to reveal themselves. For example, inside the Earth, where the stone touches on a metal vein, special beings will settle down. At a spring, where moss covers the stone and thus the plant kingdom touches the mineral kingdom such beings will settle in. Where animals and plants touch, in the bloom’s calyx when the bee touches the blossom, particular beings will embody themselves, and likewise where the human being touches onto the animal kingdom. This is not happening in the normal course of contact. For example, not when the butcher slaughters cattle, or when someone eats the flesh of animals—nothing like this will happen in the normal course of life. But where in the extraordinary course of events, as it happens with bees and flowers, the kingdoms touch each other in an exuberance of life, beings will embody themselves. And especially where man’s mind, his intellect, is particularly engaged in interacting with animals, such beings embody themselves. An example would be the emotional relationship a shepherd has with his sheep.

When we go back to the ancient times, we find such close relationships between humans and animals more often. In times of lower cultures, it was common to have relationships such as an Arab has to his horse, but not as the owner of a racing stable has to his horses. There we find those powers of mind that interplay between kingdoms–like between the shepherd and the lambs. Or where the senses of smell and taste will be developed and radiate across, like between bees and flowers, an opportunity is created for certain beings to embody themselves. When a bee sucks at a flower, a clairvoyant can perceive how at the rim of the flower a small aura is created. This is the effect of the taste: The sting of the bee into the bloom’s calyx has produced a certain flavouring agent – the bee perceives the taste and radiates it out like a bloom’s aura – this is the nourishment for sylph-like beings. Likewise, the element of feeling between the shepherd and the sheep is food for salamanders.

The following question is not for one who understands the spiritual world, “Then why are these beings there and not otherwise?” We should not ask about their origin, because their origin lies in the cosmos. But if one creates an opportunity for them to feed then they appear. For example, bad thoughts emanating from a person will attract bad entities to settle into his aura because they find food there. Then certain beings embody themselves in his aura.

Wherever different nature kingdoms touch, the opportunity presents itself for embodiment of certain spiritual beings. When a miner hacks away the soil—where metal nestles against the stone in the interior of the Earth—the clairvoyant can observe at various spots strange beings crouching, huddling together in a very small place. They scatter, they sputter apart when the earth is removed. They are strange beings but, in a way, not at all unlike humans. Although they have no physical body, they have reason. But the difference between them and human beings is that they possess intelligence without responsibility. Therefore, they do not feel anything is wrong about sometimes playing a prank on human beings. They are called gnomes, and numerous species of them are housed in the earth. They are at home where stone and metal touch. In the past they served mankind very well with mining—not with coal mining but with metal mining. The way how mines were constructed in ancient times, the knowledge about how the strata are layered, was learnt from these beings. They knew the most productive seams and how the layers ran inside the earth. Therefore, they were able to provide the best instruction on how to proceed with work. If one doesn’t want to work with spiritual beings and only relies on the senses, then one will end up in a dead-end road. From these spiritual entities one has to learn a certain method to explore the Earth.

Likewise at a spring beings embody themselves. Where the stone touches the spring, beings bound to the element of water embody themselves: the undines. Where animal and plant touch, the sylphs are working. The sylphs are bound to the element of the air, they lead the bees to the blossoms. Therefore, we owe almost all useful knowledge about beekeeping to old traditions. Especially about beekeeping¹ we can learn a lot from them, because the science that exists about this today is completely erroneous. The old wisdom that has spread through tradition will only be confused by this. Science proves to be useless in this context. Useful are only the old beekeeping flicks of hand whose origin is unknown, because man at that time used the spiritual world for guidance. Nowadays people also know about salamanders because if one says, “Something is flowing to me, I do not know where it comes from...”, then this is usually the effect of the salamanders.

When a human being enters into such close contact to animals as a shepherd to his sheep, then the beings who live in his surroundings will whisper insights to him. A shepherd would have received the knowledge he had about his flock from the salamanders in his surroundings. These old insights have dwindled and now must be regained through proven occult knowledge.

If we follow these thoughts further, then we will have to say to ourselves, “We are completely surrounded by spiritual beings! We walk through the air, and it is not only a chemical substance, but every breath of wind, every air movement is the revelation of spiritual entities.” We are surrounded and completely permeated by these spiritual entities. And, in the future man must have knowledge of what lives around him, if he doesn’t want to experience a completely sad and life draining fate. Without this knowledge he will no longer be able to progress. Man must ask himself, “Where do these beings come from? Where do these beings stem from?”

This question will lead us to an important realisation. To form a view about this, we have to become clear about how in the higher worlds certain facts play out, where what is detrimental and evil is transformed through certain things by wise guidance into something good. For example, the waste, the manure—this is what has been chucked out and through wise usage it is later effective in the economy as the foundation for plant germination. Higher powers pick up and transform things that have seemingly dropped off from higher development. This we encounter to a great extent in the beings we have spoken about, when we follow up on their origin. How do these “salamandrian” entities come into being? Let’s look at this in detail. Salamanders depend on the existence of a specific relation between human and animal. Animals do not have an “I/ego” such as human beings have. Such an ego exists only in modern man on Earth. These human egos are so that every human being has an ego enclosed in himself. This is different with animals. The animals have a “group-ego,” a “group-soul”. What does that mean? A group of animals of the same species, animals of similar shape, have a common ego. For example, all separate lions share a common ego, all tigers, all pikes do.

The animals have their ego in the astral world. This is as if a human being would stand behind a wall with ten holes in it and would put his ten fingers through the holes. Then the human being could not be seen, but every rational person would conclude, “there is a central power behind it that belongs to the ten fingers.” This is how it is with the group-ego. The separate animals are merely the limbs. What they belong to is in the astral world. These animal-egos are not similar to humans, although, from a spiritual perspective they could well be compared with each other, because an animal group-ego is a very, very wise being. The human being as an individual soul is not nearly as wise. For example, think of certain bird species: how wise is it that they are migrating at particular heights and in specific directions to escape winter, and return again by different routes in spring. Here we can recognise in the bird migration the truly wise powers of the group-egos. They can be found everywhere in the animal kingdom.

People are very narrow minded when they are listing human progress. Let us remember our school days, where we learnt how in the Middle Ages slowly the stream of the modern times emerged. The Middle Ages surely have something important to put on record, such as the discovery of America, the invention of gunpowder, the art of book printing and finally also of linen paper. It was probably an important progress to use this product instead of parchment, but thousands of years ago the wasp group-soul had done the same, because wasps’ nests are made from the same material as the paper produced by man; it is made of paper.

Human beings will only slowly find out how certain conjectures of his spirit are connected with what the group-souls have worked into the world.

The group-souls are in constant movement. The clairvoyant perceives a persistent flicker across the backbone of the animals. The spine seems to be enclosed by flickering light. The animals are pervaded by an infinite number of streams that are encircling the Earth in all directions, such as the trade winds, which affect the animals by streaming around the spinal cord. These animal group-souls are perpetually going around the Earth in a circular motion at every height and in every direction. These group-souls are very wise, but they are missing one thing which they do not yet have—they do not know that which on Earth is called “love.” Only in a human being is love connected to wisdom in an individual.

The group-soul is wise, but the individual animal experiences love as sexual love and parental love. In an animal love is individual, but the wise arrangement, the wisdom of the group-ego is still void of love. The human being has united love and wisdom—the animal has love in the physical life, and it has wisdom on the astral plane. Such realisations will be immensely enlightening for people.

The human being arrived at his current “I” only gradually. Previously man also had a group-soul, and the individual soul has crystallised itself only gradually. Let us follow backwards the evolution of mankind up to ancient Atlantis. In former times man lived in the old Atlantis, a continent that is now covered by the Atlantic Ocean. At that time the wide Siberian plains were covered with large oceans. The Mediterranean Sea was quite differently distributed then. Also in our European regions were wide expanses of sea. The further we go backwards into the old Atlantean time, the more all circumstances of life are changing, the more the human being’s waking and sleeping state changes.

Now when man sleeps the physical body with the etheric body remains in bed, and the astral body and the ego lift themselves out. The consciousness darkens, everything becomes dark, sombre, silent. In the Atlantean time the difference between sleeping and waking was not yet so pronounced. At that time, during the waking state, the human being did not see such firm boundaries, such sharp contours, such strong colours attached to objects. When he woke up in the morning, he dived into something like a nebulous substance. For example, there was no greater clarity than when we would look through fog at lights with an aura. Instead, his consciousness did not exactly cease when he was asleep—he then saw the spiritual things.

As man progressed, the physical world gained more and more its contours, but in exchange for this the human being lost his clairvoyance. Then the difference became more and more pronounced: in the spiritual world above, it became increasingly darker and in the physical world below increasingly brighter. All myths and sagas originated during the time when the human being still perceived the astral world up there. When he ascended into the spiritual world, he learnt to know Wotan, Baldur, Thor and Loki and beings, who had not yet descended onto the physical plane. This could be experienced in former times, and all myths are memories of living realities.

All mythologies are such memories. These spiritual realities have simply disappeared from human beings. In the past, when man dived into his physical body in the morning, he got the feeling: “You are an individual, a single one.” But when he dived back into the spiritual world at night he felt: “You are not at all an individual, you are just a link in a great whole, you belong to a great community.”

Tacitus² still told that the ancient peoples, the Herules and the Cheruscans, felt themselves to be more like a tribe than as individual human beings. From an individual’s sense of belonging to a tribe—that one would count oneself as belonging to a tribal community—certain customs such as the blood feuds have originated. Everything that belonged to the whole tribal group-soul was one body. All happens gradually in evolution. Only gradually did individual consciousness evolve out of this absolute tribal group consciousness.

Also, in the descriptions from the time period of the Patriarchs, we find traces of the transition from the group-soul to an individual soul. In the time prior to Noah, memory was quite different: it reached back to what the father, the grandfather, the great-grandfather had experienced. The boundary of birth was not a boundary. In the same blood the same memory flowed on into generations far removed. Today authorities are interested in knowing an individual’s name. In the time when the human being still had a memory of what his father and grandfather had done, this was called by a common name. Then what was connected by the same blood and the same memory was given the same name. This was called “Adam” or “Noah”. Names like Adam or Noah do not describe the life between birth and death of an individual, but the stream of memories as far as it reached. The old names cover whole human communities that were alive in those times.

How would it be if we would compare certain beings: the human-like apes with the human being. The immense difference is that the apes have a group-soul and the human being an individual soul, or at least the aptitude to develop one. The ape group-soul exists in a very special situation (see drawing). Imagine the Earth (refers to sketch) as the horizontal line. Above this, the group-souls of the animals are floating in the astral world like in a cloud that extends over our physical world. Let us now focus on the lion group-ego and the ape group-ego. Each lion is a separate limb into which the group-soul pours part of its substance. When a lion dies, its physical part drops away from the group-soul, like a fingernail from a human being. Then the group-soul retracts what it had sent into the lion and gives it to a different lion, which is newly born. The group-soul stays above. It sort of stretches out tentacles that are hardening in the physical world, then drop off and are being replaced again.

Therefore, the animal group-soul does not know birth and death. The individual animal is something that “falls off” and “grows on”—the group-soul remains untouched by life and death. For the lions it applies entirely, that each time a lion dies, all that has been sent from the group-soul returns to it again.

However, this is not so with the apes. There are individual animals that tear off a piece of the group-soul, which then cannot return to it. When the ape dies the essential part returns, but another part of it excises itself from the group-soul. What the group-soul stretches out, the ape makes it too tight, and when the ape dies part of the group-soul is excised, so that, in a sense, a part of it breaks out, rips away from the soul and does not return to it. In this way excisions from the group-soul arise. In all ape species excisions from the group-soul occur.

We find something similar in certain amphibians, in certain bird species, and especially pronounced in the kangaroo. Through these excisions something is kept back from the group-soul. What remains in this way from the warm-blooded animals will become an elemental being, a nature spirit—the salamander. These elemental beings, these nature spirits are, so to speak, waste, waste products of the higher worlds, that will be put into service by higher beings. They would, if left to their own devices, create interferences in the cosmos. Instead, the higher wisdom uses the sylphs to send the bees to the flowers. Thus, the large forces of elemental beings are placed under higher, wise leadership and the harm that they could cause is transformed into something useful.

This is how it is in the realms that lie below the human being. Now, it could also happen that a human being excises himself off from his group-soul, and as an individual does not find a possibility to develop himself further. Because, whilst being a “limb” of his group-soul, he was guided and led by higher beings, but now he is left to his own guidance. If the human being does not acquire appropriate spiritual knowledge, then he is in danger to excise himself. This is the question that arises.

What is it now, that prevents human beings from excision, from wandering around without direction and aim, whilst earlier the spiritual group-soul has provided directions? We have to become clear that man more and more individualises himself and that in the future he has to voluntarily seek to unite with other humans. In the past, a link existed based on blood relations, tribes and races. But this type of “union” comes more and more to an end. Everything in a human being leads more and more to him becoming an individual being. The only avenue possible is a reversal. Imagine there are a number of people on Earth who say to themselves, “We are going our own way. We want to find inside of us the direction and the goal of the path ourselves. We are all on the way to becoming more and more individualised human beings.” There is a danger of fragmentation. Already people are no longer able to endure spiritual unions. Today we are going as far as everyone having their own religion and presenting their own opinion as the highest ideal. But when human beings internalise ideals, then this leads to agreement, to a common opinion. For example, we recognise internally that 3 x 3 = 9, or that the sum of the three angles in a triangle is 180 degrees. This is an inner knowledge. One doesn’t need to cast a vote about such inner knowledge. No misunderstandings will arise about such inner recognitions, they lead to agreement. All spiritual truths are of this kind. What is taught by the Science of the Spirit, the human being finds through his inner forces. These lead him to an absolute unity, to peace and harmony. There are no two different opinions about a truth without one of them being wrong. The ideal is maximum possible internalisation—it leads to unity, to peace.

First there existed a human group-soul. Then mankind was released from this group-soul in the past. But in the future of evolution people must set themselves a sure goal to strive towards. When they unite themselves in a higher wisdom, then from the higher worlds a group-soul will descend again—when free communities arise out of the bound natural communities. What the leaders of the Science of the Spirit movement hope is that we will find in it a community where the hearts stream towards wisdom, as the plants stream towards sunlight. Where a common truth binds together the different egos, there we create an opportunity for a higher group-soul to descend. By turning our hearts together towards a higher wisdom, we embed the group-soul. We are building, so to speak, the bed, the environment, in which the group-soul is able to incarnate. Humans will enrich life on Earth by developing something that allows spiritual beings to descend from the higher worlds. This is the aim of the Science of the Spirit movement.

This was now once presented in a grand, magnificent form to mankind to show that the human being without such living spiritual ideal would transition into a different situation. This is a “symbol” that can illustrate to man with overwhelming power how humanity can find the way through a spiritual union, to provide a site to incarnate for the common spirit. This symbol is put in front of us in the Whitsun community in which a number of people, glowing from a common feeling of fervent love and devotion, had assembled for common action. There were a number of people whose souls were still reverberating after the shattering event, so that in all of them the same was alive. In the convergence of this one same feeling they provided that in which a higher, a common soul could incarnate. This is expressed by the words that say the Holy Spirit—the group-soul—descended and separated itself into fiery tongues. This is the great symbol for the humanity of the future. If the human being would not have found this connection, then man would transition into an elemental being. Now humanity must search for a site for the Beings from the higher worlds that bend downwards. With the Easter festival man was given the power to absorb into themselves such mighty imaginations and to strive towards oneness of the spirit. The Whitsun Festival is the fruit of the unfolding of this power.

Through the souls’ striving together towards the common wisdom, a lively relationship must be established forever with the forces and beings of the higher worlds, and with something that currently has as little meaning for humanity as the Whitsun Festival. Through the Science of the Spirit, it will once again become meaningful to man. Once people understand the significance of the descent of the Holy Spirit for them in the future, then the Whitsun Festival will come to life again. It will then not only be a memory of that event in Jerusalem, but the everlasting Whitsun Festival of the united soul endeavour will manifest for humanity. It will become a symbol for the great future Whitsun community when mankind will unite in a common truth to allow higher beings the possibility to incarnate. It will depend on human beings themselves, how valuable this will make the Earth for the future and how effective such ideals can be for mankind. Once humanity will strive towards wisdom in this right way, then higher spirits will join mankind.

• 1. compare Rudolf Steiner - Cosmic Working in Earth and Man, Beekeeping. GA 351
• 2. Cornelius Tacitus, 55 to about 120 AD, Roman historian, in his work Germania

In the last lecture, we observed some spiritual beings who are standing below the human being, some of which have abilities that are comparable with human abilities, but they are lacking any feeling of responsibility. We have seen how they are to be considered detritus of evolution, that would be obstructive if left to their own devices, but how they, used by a higher wisdom, will be transformed out of harmful into good beings.

Today, we want to widen the multitude of entities we observe by adding some more, to show how humans are interacting with them. We want to assume initially, that at nightfall each time the human being will experience a change from waking state to sleeping state. We know that when someone is in a state of day consciousness his four bodies are connected with and are mutually penetrating each other. Further, let us remember that each night the astral body and the ego raise themselves out of the physical and the etheric body. Now we have seen how at night, out of this human connection, out of the four-bodied human entity, two separate beings, different from each other, arose. The physical body and the etheric body stay back lying on the bed—outside remain the astral body and the ego.

Modern man experiences completely different states of consciousness at night than during the day. We can compare his state of night time consciousness with the consciousness of plants. A plant has the state of consciousness of ‘dreamless sleep’. During sleep, a kind of plant consciousness adheres to human beings too—at night, during the dreamless sleep, man is also in the spiritual worlds.

To these concepts we add that every element of the human being finds expression in the physical body. The physical body is, so to say, the result of all basic elements of a human. The ego has its expression in the blood, the astral body is expressed in the nervous system, the etheric body finds its expression in the lymphatic system, and the sensory system represents the expression of the physical body. If we perceive the human physical body as an expression of the manifestation of its different parts, then we have to say to ourselves that the blood circulation is there because of the individual ego. No nervous system can exist without the astral body structuring and creating it. At night, we draw the astral body and the ego out of the physical body, but not the nervous system and the blood. However, the blood and the ego belong together, and the astral body and the nervous system belong together.

At night, man behaves extremely disdainfully towards his corporeality. In order for the human being to have tools for the ego and the astral body, the blood and the nervous system had to emerge. Now he deserts the blood and the nervous system at night. It is impossible for a physical body with blood and nervous system to exist even for one second without the astral body and the ego. The plant is able to exist without these, because it has neither a nervous system nor a blood circulation. If we would at night solely be dependent upon ourselves, we would find the physical body dead in the morning. We take away those higher powers, the astral body and the ego, which must provide for the physical body at night. What we don’t do during the night, other beings must do. At night such beings penetrate into the physical and etheric body and lower themselves into them. Every night, higher spiritual beings enter into the human being’s physical and etheric bodies and carry out the work, that during the day is performed by the individual’s own ego and astral body. They are high, noble beings, who once created the physical and the etheric bodies of the human being, who take care of them again at night. At night the astral body and the ego stay in the higher world above, and down below remain the physical body and the etheric body. They have been abandoned at night by the astral body and the ego. To the same extent that the physical and etheric bodies are being deserted by the astral body and the ego, the powers of higher beings enter into them.

The etheric human body is not the same as the etheric body of a plant. Higher powers from a higher world stream into the physical and the etheric body of a human being at night. The following could happen: During the day, man constantly influences the physical body and the etheric one. When someone thinks and feels, then this happens in the astral body, but it reaches beyond into the etheric body and the physical body. It impresses itself into these.

In the past, the physical and the etheric body emerged purely by will of higher beings. But once a human being becomes conscious of its ego, the influences of the higher beings exit out of the physical and etheric body. That which lives in the soul is not without impact on these bodies. An anatomist, of course, cannot establish what kind of changes are taking place in a person’s physical and etheric body, but they are taking place. A large effect happens in these bodies when someone lies. Lies and hypocrisy are processes within the soul and the ego. From a materialistic perspective one could believe that lies only happen on the inside. But the occult observer knows that through lying, changes happen inside the physical body that affect the bodily structure. Such changes also come about through the countless conventional lies that live in the world.

Surveying the material reality, we know that our life is riddled with all sorts of untruths. If people tell each other something they do not mean, then this is like an impression of a signet in sealing wax. This imprint stays. All hypocrisy, untruths, slander remain like an imprint in the physical body. When someone leaves his physical and the etheric body at night, such imprints can be seen. Now the beings from the higher worlds come and find these. This is incompatible with the higher worlds. Through this something new occurs, something completely new is being created. The higher beings will now excise ‘beings’ through the physical body, which will then lead an independent life between our worlds. In the occult science these are called phantoms. They are called phantoms, because they are closest to physical perception. Furthermore, they are beings with physical regularity. They are swarming through our space. They are obstructing human development and evolution. They make what lives in the world worse than it would be if they would not exist. The phantoms are beings that mankind creates by way of lies, hypocrisy and so on, which hold back evolution.

Learning to know about the impact of the spiritual beings is much more helpful than preaching morals. Mankind in the future will know what it creates by lies, hypocrisy and slander. The most effective morals are created by learning to know the facts, not through moral principles. By existence based on the science of the spirit, the strongest moral drives and impulses are created. Phantoms are also a kind of nature beings who exist—created by the activity of man. In the evening, the human being deserts the physical body and leaves in it the signet imprints of lies, hypocrisy and so on. When he returns in the morning, then these phantoms first stream out of the physical body.

The etheric body too can be manipulated so that it creates excised beings. Once again, certain processes in the human world are causing such excisions to come into existence through the etheric body. Like all unjust things, such as unjust laws that punish in the wrong way, bad arrangements in a social community work back onto the etheric body, so that from them beings are created. In today’s superstitious time such entities are only ridiculed. These beings are spectres, ghosts. They are real and thus can be categorized as true spectres and ghosts. Mankind should make an effort to make its arrangements as well as possible, so that they are not creating such beings.

Now let us focus on the ego and the astral body during the night. Keep in mind that also the human astral body and the ego are in a special situation. They have aligned themselves to the blood and nervous system. During the night, higher powers from a higher world stream down onto the astral body and the ego. If a human being takes along certain things from his daily life, so again an excision process will occur. Again, the things that cause the excision process are things of the soul life. Let’s imagine two people have opinions that differ. One tries to convince the other and feels a longing to convince him. This longing is nowadays widely spread amongst humans. People should present their opinion to one another and wait to see if some forces stir within the other through which he would accept the opinion. There are so many opinionated fanatics, who are not at all content if they are unable to force their opinion on someone else. If something like this happens, then it is detrimental to both astral bodies. They pick up persuasions and wrong advice. Whatever is imprinted into the astral body from these persuasions and ill advice, will at night cause beings to be produced. Such beings are called demons.

These demonic beings exert particularly unfavourable influence on our human development. They whizz through the spiritual room and prevent people from developing their personal ideas. Imagine how much will be sinned in this regard in many coffee shops, at the beer table! Continuously, forces are collected for the creation of demons. These creep into the human soul. Ask yourself how many appear at this or that court hearing, when people act as witnesses. They are convinced, and therefore are not really committing perjury, because they are convinced. Once an ”experiment” was conducted and it went according to plan. Thirty people were asked to describe it. Two described the process correctly, all other twenty-eight people added things that had not happened. In this way, demonic beings are created that exert all sorts of influences. There is no other remedy for the human being than the recognition of this fact, to know what to do to free himself from the influences of these detrimental spiritual entities. They are present everywhere where there is opportunity to exert their destructive influences. The occult observer can see this in the courtroom. The beings always work into the direction from which they have emerged. Such beings that have come about through bad laws will again work so that they entice people to make more bad laws.

The human being should look into the spiritual world, so that he will become practical and not continually create obstacles. When we look across that which we have just examined, we have to say that during the waking hours of daily life people create a lot of causes for the emergence of all sorts of spiritual beings—elemental beings. We have to ask what significance they have in regard to the future development of mankind. We take a look back into ancient times, when our ancestors were living in the Atlantean world. If we would go back far enough into the old Atlantean development, then we would gradually arrive at humans in a totally different shape. Imagine back, approximately in the middle of the Atlantean time. We must imagine the human beings as follows: the part of the etheric body which today is within our head, was at that time widely extended out across the physical head, as it can be perceived even today by a clairvoyant in the horse. The same is still particularly noticeable in an elephant, who currently has a large protrusion in front of and above its physical head, just like this was the case for human beings in the old Atlantis. Evolutionary progress consisted of these parts moving closer together, so that today a human’s etheric head and the physical head are almost covering each other.

In earlier times, the human being had a twilight clairvoyance. When he would, during the day, dive into the physical body, he did not see distinct contours, but he would perceive the objects surrounded by an aura. At night, he would not recognise any boundaries at all, but only the spiritual element of things. Since the post-Atlantean time we differentiate thus far five cultural ages. In the ancient India, the first of the post-Atlantean ages, the connection of the etheric head of a human being with his physical head was very light. Increasingly, the fusion of the etheric with the physical head became stronger. During our time, the fifth post-Atlantean age, it became the strongest, as mankind descended into the physical, material world, and where they penetrated most deeply into the material substance. Throughout these many incarnations during the various epochs, people learned a lot until today in their present incarnation. Everything that happens in the world, does so in a descending and an ascending line. As truly as the etheric head always connected itself more and more strongly with the physical head, it is also true that little by little a loosening occurs. We have already arrived at a point in time where the etheric head begins to loosen again. Here we must differentiate between development of races and the development of the soul. In the future, there will be souls who have not done enough whilst the etheric head was united with the physical one. Because of the fusion of the etheric head with the physical head, many people are reluctant nowadays to embrace spiritual truths. Human beings who accept spiritual truths now, will when they return later, have absorbed enough in this incarnation, to be able to make a connection to incarnate. But those, who fail to do now what needs to happen, will not be able to find suitable bodies in the future. This is because the development of the races will create normal bodies, that are fit for those souls who have not neglected anything. Other bodies will be so that the loose etheric body cannot absorb anything. These people will be a special kind of human being, who will drop out of the progressive development of mankind.

It takes quite something to find your bearings within a future body. Imagine a soul that will live in a physical body with a loose etheric body. This soul would no longer understand if one would tell it about demons and so on. Today is the point in time where one can talk about those things. When the etheric body has loosened up again, one can no longer do this. Currently, the etheric body has a calling to quite different perceptions. The etheric body will later live in the spiritual world. This is populated with demons, and so on. Then this world of spiritual beings will be around the human being, and if he is not prepared for this now through the teachings, then he will be at a loss when he faces these beings. However, those that carry with them the knowledge obtained in this incarnation about these beings, will understand how to behave towards them. In the future, these knowledgeable individuals are destined to transform these beings into servants of the ongoing evolution. So, we understand how people can fail to complete their task to further the development of humanity and that of other beings.

All these demons, ghosts and phantoms are harmful today, but in the future they will be transformed by us into servants to human development. For this to happen human beings must prepare themselves. The development of the soul and the development of the race do not run side by side.

In the future, humanity will separate into the good and the bad. By one part developing in the proper ascending way to transform the demons, ghosts and phantoms in the future, they will push down another part. These will be the bad ones. What the human spirit creates has a real meaning—this has always been so during the development of mankind.

Another example will demonstrate how the human being co-creates in today’s world. We will focus on the fourth cultural period—on the Greek temple. The idea about the temple arose initially from the human soul. The concept for the temple is based on what we call a column, and on what this column carries. Never again has humanity achieved what it did at the time when humans succeeded to put themselves into the ‘supported space’ of the Greek temple. Let us compare a Greek temple with a modern building. Once a column becomes decorative it is no longer the true column that it is when it is free standing and really load-bearing. The human being must feel that the column consists of the right material. If we paint a thin iron column, that carries the same load as a thicker stone column, then it lies to us.

A Greek temple is a Greek spatial idea. This would be understood by people who can imagine that forces are moving from top to bottom and from right to left. We can imagine three painted angels, suspended in the air, so that one knows they are carrying each other. We find this spatial feeling with the old painters. Nowadays we can't find it anymore, not even by Boecklin.¹ On his Pietà there is an angel, that we feel could fall down any moment.

This is something that even the greatest genius might be missing when spiritual culture is lacking: a sense of space. Each time a person creates a real spatial concept, then this creates an opportunity for a higher being to fill this room. We are then ‘captivating’ higher beings to descend into the room. Quite different beings are enticed to descend by a Greek column and the horizontal beams resting upon it—quite other beings by the Gothic cathedral and its pointed arcs. The Gothic cathedral differs spiritually from the Greek temple in the following way: In the Greek temple humans have worked the spatial sense into it in an occult way, so that the temple is a crystallised spatial thought. In this way, the temple, being the way it is, is the home of a higher being, a god, even if it has been deserted by people. But to the Gothic cathedral belong people. It must be complemented by the devotions of the human beings and the folded hands they raise up. The Greek temple is an abode of a god. The Gothic cathedral is a cultural site, and an abode of a god when human beings are present. The Greek temple is, even if it has been deserted, the abode of a spiritual entity. So we can see, that people, by being in harmony with the spiritual world, are working together with it. So we can see in the spirit, how, through human deeds, more and more can be done to entice higher beings to descend.

Once again the Whitsuntide thought steps in front of our soul. The Whitsuntide thought expresses symbolically what we are able to recognise through such observation: that people through their work create sites for spiritual beings to descend to, that people are working on the spiritualisation of the world.

We must understand the spiritual science thought in such a way that it permeates into all branches of life. In our materialistic time the outer life is only in a small way an expression of the inner life. In the past, every door lock, every key was an expression of something spiritual. Now everything is comparatively insignificant. The human being will once again learn to work in such a way that the outside will be a replica of the inside. Then a railway station too will emerge as a thought, like the Greek temple and the Gothic cathedral came about. Our time too has a building style that corresponds to our time. This is the warehouse. It is the replica of the ‘utility’ thought, the replica of the human egoism. The time of usefulness has brought forth as the only original style that of the warehouse.

Previously, people put their spiritual feelings into a building style. The warehouse is an expression for the feelings of the 19th century. But already now there is a spiritual movement underway, that prepares for a later spiritualisation. Those humans who understand the anthroposophical movement in this way will make the Whitsuntide thought a reality. In the future we will see the anthroposophical thoughts crystallised in what the Earth will be covered with.

• 1. Arnold Boecklin, Swiss Painter, 1827-1901. His painting Pietà was in the National Museum in Berlin until 1945, and has since been missing.

Today, let me speak to you about many different things that can be easily linked together and in which you will readily discover some kind of relationship.

Let me speak to you above all of man's connection with the surrounding world, of man's feelings towards this world, and how these feelings can be deepened through a theosophical world-conception. Above all, I wish to awaken in you the feeling that a man with an average modern education and an average world-view does not contemplate the world in the same way as a theosophist.

If Theosophy is to be raised from the level at which it is known by so many, from the level of a theory, or number of teachings, to something that has soul, that fills our soul, purifying and ennobling all our feelings and emotions—if it is to be raised to a life content, we must be able, as it were, to experience and really apply to our daily life what we realise through Theosophy. We have only received Theosophy in the right way, when, for instance, we understand how to regard a plant, a field, a mountain, or an animal in a different way from how we were able to look at and perceive these before we became theosophists. We shall be able to enter more deeply into the meaning of these words, if we immerse ourselves into the nature of what is called self-consciousness.

You are all familiar with the self-consciousness of man. You know that we distinguish four members of the human being: physical body, etheric body, astral body and Ego. What we call self-consciousness arises from the fact that man grows conscious of his Ego. Self-consciousness does not only enable us to gain knowledge of the surrounding world, but also of ourselves; it enables us to know that each one of us is an independent being. When we really follow this thought to the end, we will grasp how this self-consciousness in man is to be understood.

The question now arises: How do matters stand with the animal, the plant and the mineral?—Can we speak in a certain sense of self-consciousness in the case of animal, plant and mineral? People who simply say: “Why should not every stone also have an Ego, like man, only that man does not perceive it,” such people speak without any knowledge of the matter. For on the plane which we call the physical, only man is endowed with self-consciousness, with an Ego—and the animal, the plant and the mineral have no Ego on the physical plane. Man is distinguished from animal, plant and mineral by the fact that he has an Ego here, on the physical plane, in the ordinary world.

Don’t take my words to imply that there has to be a definite alternative. You must realise clearly that certain higher animals, particularly animals that live much in the company of man, such as domestic animals, have a kind of self-consciousness, resembling that of the lower savages of today. There are differences in degree everywhere. We shall not speak about transitions, but how things are mainly, in average states. From this standpoint, we may therefore say that, generally speaking, we do not come across self-consciousness in animals, here on the physical plane.

What kind of self-consciousness do animals possess? You easily rise to an understanding if you ask yourself, “Where is the self-consciousness of each of my fingers?” There you must tell yourself, “My own consciousness is the self-consciousness of my finger.” It cannot be thought of apart from your common consciousness. Your ten fingers have their common consciousness, in your Ego; there, they have their common Ego. The same applies to the other members of your body. This constitutes your self-consciousness.

Now transfer this concept to the concept of an animal species. There you must say to yourself: Everything in the animal kingdom which has the same form, all the lions, bears, frogs, fish—all of those that are similarly shaped, these lions belonging together, and so on, really behave in the same way as my ten fingers. Distance does not count. If we were to ask each finger as to its Ego, it would have to answer: It is the Ego of the man to whom we belong. In the same way, if you were to ask a lion in a menagerie, or a lion in Africa, each would point to the common Ego of the species, to the group-Ego.

All animals of the same form have a common ego. Man differs from the animal through the fact that each human being has his own Ego, whereas the animal has an Ego common to his species, a group-Ego. You cannot find the Egos of the animals in the physical world, for they exist in a world which we call the astral plane. There, you will find one being comprising all the lions. Just as here, upon the physical plane, you may encounter an individual human being self-contained within his skin, so—if you were clairvoyant—you would encounter on the astral plane the lion-Ego, the bear-Ego, as self-contained beings like the human beings here on Earth. On the astral plane they are quite intelligent beings, it’s not that they are lagging behind man. The single lion may be inferior to man, but his Ego is a very sublime being, who must understand and accomplish with penetrating wisdom the whole task connected with the lions here on Earth. These animal-Egos are therefore highly intelligent beings.

If you were now to follow clairvoyantly all these beings who constitute the collective Egos of the animals, you would see that they exercise a very strange activity. The animals’ tasks are ruled and governed by the beings whom we call the animal-Egos. These animal-Egos constantly surround the Earth.

Let me select one example out of many, in connection with the task of these animal-Egos. If you study a well-known phenomenon, about which men have thought a great deal—the flight of the birds, you will find that the birds that live in northern regions begin to gather in the autumn; they fly from north-eastern to south-western regions, and then southwards. They gather again in the spring and return north. At the foundation of these bird migrations lies the breeding and hatching of the young, and so on. The spring migration is a kind of wedding flight. The regularity of these flights is guided by the group-Souls; they command everything. You might observe the lines of flight: One species flies in this way, another in that way, some birds fly low over the ground, others high in the sky. Everywhere, you will find a deep wisdom in all these details. We may say: Everything that constitutes the souls of the animals encircles our planet, encircles our Earth. This example shows us how the wisdom of the group-Soul rules the flight of the birds.

How do matters stand with plants? They only have a physical and an etheric body. Individually, they have no independent astral body and no independent Ego on the physical plane. If you could observe yourself during your night's sleep, you would see your physical and etheric body lying on the bed. What lies on the bed has the value of a plant; the plant always consists of this. What lives in you during the day, when you are awake, what is contained in your physical body, is outside your physical and etheric body during the night.

In the case of the plant, the astral body and the Ego, which you lift out of your physical and etheric body during the night, are always outside. But this going out is also connected with something else.

Let us suppose that you were all to go to sleep here—which would, of course, not be very desirable; in that case, all your Egos and your astral bodies would be outside. They would not be so separated, as they are now separated from one another, while they live in the physical body. They would intermingle more, they would form a more uniform mass, as if they were swaying into one another. They would dissolve, as it were, in the common astral body of the Earth, and out of this astral body of the Earth, which is mingled with that of the Sun, they would draw the strength that eliminates fatigue. This is continually the case with the plants.

In the plant you see before you a physical and an etheric body. But the plant's astral body is outside. The whole Earth has an astral body in common, and that is the astral body of the plants. And the Earth also has a common Ego, and that is the Ego of the plants. Therefore you must look for the Ego of the plants in the common Ego of the whole Earth.

And now all the plants on Earth appear to you like your own fingers. You are an organism and your fingers are growing out of it. The whole Earth is an organism, and the plants are literally its members, which share in the common consciousness. What ensues from this, is literally true. You feel pain, when someone hurts you, or cuts into your flesh. Similarly, the whole Earth may feel pain under certain conditions. But the Earth does not feel pain when you pick a flower or cut a plant; this would not cause it pain. What causes pain to the Earth can be understood if we bear in mind the following:

The whole Earth must be imagined as a unified organism and all the plants as members of this common organism. The plants growing on the Earth are related to it more or less in the same way as the milk is related to the human being, or to the animal. When the calf sucks the milk of the cow, the cow experiences a certain feeling of well-being. The whole Earth has this same feeling when you pick a flower or cut a plant. Because what the Earth sends up to the Sun, what it sends out of itself, is in a different form that which lives in the milk. But if you tear out a plant with its root, it is the same as if you were to tear away a part of your body, or cut into your flesh. The Earth experiences something quite different when we cut a plant which is firmly rooted in the ground—then the Earth experiences well-being—but when we tear it out with its root it experiences something completely different. This should not be judged morally, but in accordance with the facts, and these are the facts.

Now try to feel, and not merely to think such a truth. We can feel it in the following way: When we go out in the autumn, and see a farmer mowing down the corn with the scythe, those who know how matters stand in the astral body of the Earth, can feel the feelings of desire, of joy, of pleasure which pass over the surface of the Earth, while the corn is being cut. When the reaper cuts down the corn at harvest time, the whole Earth really experiences joy. These kinds of feelings are experienced, when we know how matters stand with the group-soul of animals, the Earth-soul of plants, the group-Ego, and the Ego of the Earth. In the migrating flock of birds we can feel the wisdom; the wise arrangements of the astral beings who make these. We can even feel the wind of wisdom, like a current of air. And if we know that in the plants we encounter the soul of the Earth, we experience feelings and sensations in everything that happens to the plants. We perceive the cosmic Spirit surrounding the Earth, when we observe the Ego of the animals; and we perceive the cosmic Soul, the feelings of nature, when we pay attention to the Ego of the plants.

This is indeed so. If we look at the teachings of Theosophy not merely theoretically, if they fill our whole soul, we can feel the presence of the God who always passes through nature. And, if this is the case, then when one man faces another, he knows—does he not?—that a feeling heart beats in the other’s breast, that he has feelings similar to his own, that he does not merely think about the other, but also empathises with him. In this way, we gradually learn to experience something resembling the beat of the pulse, the warm feeling of nature. Nature becomes for us a living knowledge of spirit and soul.

Let us now imagine what it means to spiritualise nature through this teaching. We feel as if Spiritual Science enables us to bear ourselves quite differently towards everything, as if our feelings are purified and ennobled. What an indifferent matter it is to an ordinary man when the scythe passes through the corn, and cuts it down! And what a different experience this is to a theosophist, who follows the cutting scythe with his heart, and who knows that there below, where the scythe touches, is a living being, that the astral body of the Earth experiences pleasure. Thus nature gradually becomes truly full of life for us. This means that we must allow seemingly abstract theories to transition into living feelings and sensations. Every step in daily life changes, when we thus allow theory to become feeling.

Now that we understand this, let us pass on to another subject, which we may already have considered from another aspect, but which will appear to us in a new light.

You raise your eyes to the Moon and to the Sun. You have just heard how out of the theosophical wisdom a feeling can be kindled which teaches us how to empathise with the environment. This also extends to lifeless objects, even to the stones.

It is very peculiar how we learn to judge many things in our surroundings in a different way: Man often imagines things the wrong way. We think that we go out into the world equipped with knowledge and want to see what is really taking place, when something happens in the world outside. We may, for instance, come to a quarry: There, the workmen are hammering and quarrying the stone. There we come to the Ego of the stone, which is not merely connected with our earthly planet, but with our whole planetary system. The stone has its central point in that of the planetary system. The stone also has its sensations. But you must not think that the stone feels pain when it is broken up or destroyed. No! When you break or destroy a stone, this means that a feeling of pleasure ensues. You may even notice immeasurable pleasure throbbing through the quarry, when the men are working there. But when stone is joined to stone, pain is felt. It is interesting to know this.

Once the Earth was a glowing, molten object; you could not have lived there, until it had cooled down. Everything was dissolved in this glowing mass; it had to consolidate, and this process was connected with pain, whereas the separation gives joy, pleasure. The whole inanimate nature suffers, so as to enable you to build your dwelling places. Nature sighs for those who have insight into it; it sighs!

Nature will again be dissolved into its primeval elements. Lifeless nature had to be drawn together with pain, so that man might pass through his development. But when man has become so spiritualised that he no longer needs the solid Earth as a foundation, then the Earth will be redeemed with him; lifeless nature longs for this. What the Apostle Paul said, is true: “The whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain.”¹ It will be saved, when man approaches a spiritualised state.

It can be noticed that children, who have a certain feeling for the astral world, because they are still differently constituted from grown-ups, can still feel something of the sensations of a lifeless object that is being destroyed. Not always—for in many cases it is just naughtiness—but sometimes children destroy things because they feel such empathy. Indeed, we can see that they do not always destroy things out of naughtiness.

Things sometimes present an entirely different aspect from a spiritual standpoint. You can see, therefore, that the whole Earth is permeated with soul and spirit and that it is filled with feeling. The wonderful part of Theosophy is that it leads us into the living nature. Now you can easily understand that those who view things from the standpoint of occultists, must also look on the Sun and the Moon as endowed with soul and spirit, like the kingdom of nature. This is how it really is.

The part of the Sun that we can see when we look at it with our physical eyes, relates to the Sun's whole being, just as what we can see of the human body with our physical eyes relates to the whole being of man. The body of the Sun is the body of the Sun's spirit, and the body of the Moon is the body of the Moon's spirit. Sun, Moon and Earth belong together in a spiritual relationship—and this, to be sure, is a very complicated matter.

A whole range of spiritual beings are united with the Sun; their bodies, and not only their spirits, are in the Sun. When an occultist looks into the Sun and perceives the Sun's rays, this is not only a physical phenomenon for him, but it is connected with something else. You can get an idea of what he thus discerns, for instance, when a woman in the street raises her hand in a giving gesture towards a child. You see the movement of her hand and perhaps also the coin falling into the child's palm. Yet this is only the physical aspect. If you were to penetrate into the process expressed by the physical action, you would perceive the compassion as the impulse that causes the hand to move. In the child, too, you would see the external process as the expression of a spiritual process, perhaps of gratitude.

He who only receives the Sun's rays with his physical eyes, has the same relation to the spiritual seer, as he who sees only the woman's or the child's physical gesture has to one who also perceives the inner processes. He whose power of vision has been trained through occultism to see the Sun's rays coming towards us, also perceives how spiritual beings in the Sun overflow with feelings, and how these feelings become deeds. Their deeds are what they send down with the Sun's rays. If you observe the astral body of the Earth, you will find in it something like gratitude which is felt by the whole plant-world, as it receives the Sun's rays.

Still more wonderful is the course of a whole year! When the plants open out, this is a heart-felt psychic expression of the Earth's inner processes, and at the same time it expresses the feelings of the creative, gift-bestowing Spirits of the Sun.

Now we should note a certain contrast, but not an opposition, between the spiritual beings of the Sun and those of the Moon. The Earth, the Sun and the Moon belong together. In a very remote past, they were one body. Then the Sun severed itself from the Earth, that is to say, from the union of the present Earth with the present Moon.

Why did this take place? This can be explained in many ways. But today we shall only give one of the many reasons. When the Sun separated itself out of the Earth, all the beings who were of higher nature than those which remained behind, left the Earth with the Sun. For the Sun can be the dwelling place of far higher spiritual beings than man. Beings who far surpass man left the Earth and became the Spirits of the Sun, and the Sun became their dwelling place.

Consequently, if we look into the Sun with trained occult vision, we can see the physical Sun as a body, as the field of action and the dwelling place of sublime spirits, of the Solar Spirits. For a while, they were able to continue their development on the same planet on which we now live, but they were obliged to separate themselves from it, and, in order to continue their development in an appropriate manner, they took the finest substances away from it.

One of these Spirits of the Sun left the others, for he had been given a special task. He remained still connected with the Earth. Later on, the Moon also went out from the Earth; the Earth became independent. This Spirit, this Spirit of the Sun, who first had been given another task, a task which was not to be done from the Sun, is Jahve, or Jehovah, as cosmic intelligence.

This individuality left with the Moon, so that since the Earth was severed from the Sun and from the Moon, certain exalted Solar Spirits live in the Sun, and Jehovah in the Moon. The soul forces and the spiritual forces of these beings shine down upon the Earth together with the light that comes down to us from the Sun and from the Moon.

Man could not have developed as he did, had he been subjected to the exclusive influence of one of these beings. Man's development had to follow the course which it actually did follow.

If the Earth had only had the Sun, and not the Moon, man would have been subjected to a constant and rapid metamorphosis, and would have developed very quickly. This would not have been good for him; he would have hurried too much and passed over certain stages of his development. The best forces for the development of man are assembled in the Sun: but a quick pace had to be avoided. For this reason, Jehovah separated from the others, thus retarding the whole pace of human development.

Thus, in the course of human development, the forces of the Sun and of the Moon work together and produce the right mean.

If only the forces of the Moon had been active, man would have withered; withered, lifeless natures, mere forms, would have lived on the Earth, instead of living human beings. If you go through a museum and look at statues, you see before you the image of what the Moon would have made of you: soulless forms, of great beauty, certainly, but without soul. The Sun's forces bring life and movement into these stiff and rigid forms, but under the influence of the Sun's forces only, man would have become spiritualised too soon.

The course of earthly development has been arranged in this wise way, and this is why the Sun and the Moon, with their forces and beings, had to separate from the Earth.

If a clairvoyant could have studied the evolution of the Earth from another planet, if he could have watched how the Earth unfolded, he would have seen a strange sight. Let us suppose that someone follows the development of our Earth from a distant heavenly body: He would, in that case, see not only the physical body of the Earth, but also its astral body. If he were to observe this astral body, he would perceive in it all kinds of light-phenomena. He would follow these through thousands of years. Then a moment arrives, when the astral body completely changes, revealing new colours and entirely new processes.

There is such a moment in the evolution of the Earth, if we consider the Earth as an organism. Before this, the astral body reveals particular colours; and afterwards it shows us other colours. These two time periods of the Earth’s astral body are completely different. And if the clairvoyant observer were to investigate this moment when the astral body of the Earth experienced this radical change, he would discover that it coincides with the moment of Christ's death on Golgotha. When the blood streamed out of the wounds of Christ-Jesus, the whole astral body of the Earth changed. This is the cosmic mystery of the significance of Christ's death.

This should not be considered merely with the intellect. No occult training would be high enough to allow us to penetrate by feeling the whole significance of this event. What occurred at that time in our world-system? What brought about the change in the astral body of the Earth?

The change was brought about through the fact that from this moment onwards one of the Spirits of the Sun united his astral body with that of the Earth. We have already explained that there are several Spirits of the Sun, six in all. One of these, whom we designate as the Spirit of Christ, united his astral body with that of the Earth in the very moment when the blood streamed out of the wounds of his physical body. Since that time, the Earth has undergone an essential transformation, because it has become united with the body of Christ.

The Christ-principle descended from heavenly heights; until the death of Christ Jesus upon the Cross it lived in the body of the Sun. Through Christ's death it became united with the body of the Earth. Since then, the Earth, as a planetary body, is the body of Christ. Since then, He became one with the Earth.

Now we can understand in a deeper sense the meaning of the words: “He that eateth my bread, treadeth me underfoot.”² Imagine that the Earth is the body of Christ, and take this expression literally. The human beings walk on the body of the Earth, and eat the bread of the body of the Earth. And when the Spirit of the Earth speaks, it cannot describe this process in any other way than with the following words, “He that eateth my bread, treadeth me underfoot.”—and certainly without a grudge.

And the Lord’s Supper itself! How infinitely deeper is its meaning, if we know that the body of the Earth is the body of Christ! What is the bread that is baked from the grains of corn? How must the Spirit of the Earth address this bread?—“This is my body,”³—words that should be taken literally. And how must the Spirit of the Earth address the sap-forces of the plants? How must he, after having united himself with the Earth-Ego, talk to the saps that stream through the plants?—“This is my blood.” Just as the blood flows through the veins of your body, so literally the blood of Christ flows in the sap of the plants through the body of Christ, through the body of the Earth!

Who would not own that this gives an infinitely deeper meaning to the Holy Supper? What do we experience when we feel how the astral body of Christ unites itself with the Earth, and when we in this moment realise the meaning of the words which have just been quoted? What does the human being experience when he penetrates into all this? How profound the meaning of a sacrament like the Mystery of the Lord's Supper will become for him!

Thus we learn to consider all life around us in a different way, particularly through an occult study of these processes. We learn to understand the religious scriptures by taking them literally. And when we learn to grasp them in the way that is explained above, we begin to realise that all external interpretations of religious scriptures must disappear. For religious scriptures are drawn out of the deepest facts and express these. Genuine religious scriptures contain nothing that does not correspond with the great truths, such as the union of Christ's Spirit with the Earth, when His blood streamed out on Golgotha. How immensely our emotional life deepens, when we gain an insight into this mystery!

The task of Theosophy is to work in such a way that man once more learns to awaken in his soul the deep emotions and feelings which once lived in his forefathers—really lived there! Through the theosophical teachings we have now tried to conjure up before our souls what the soul is able to experience through this—it was the same in the past, where the early Christians also felt in this way. They could feel it deeply! These deep feelings continued to live in them until materialism came, with its intellectual judgments. Then the spirits withdrew, as it were, for nothing exerts such an estranging influence on spiritual beings as the intellect. When the intellect dissects things and encompasses them in its caustic criticism, it also drives away the spiritual beings from the human soul.

The myth of the good goblins has a deep meaning; they really existed, when as yet the light of the intellect had not been in man. This light of reason drove away the goblins. Such feelings existed, when the critical intellect had not as yet permeated the human soul.

Theosophy is there to give man again warm empathy with the whole of nature—in spite of the intellectual forces. The development of the intellect could not be held at bay; the spiritual nature had to withdraw for a time. But the spirit will return. We shall keep our intellectual powers, and in addition gain warm and glowing feelings, enthusiasm and compassion. Knowledge and feeling are united when we penetrate to the sources of life, and a new life will spring out of religious scriptures when that for which Goethe longed comes about. For, many centuries ago, the majority of mankind could not read the Bible, although they heard something of its contents. It was not until the art of printing was invented, that they were able to read the Bible. But today, they no longer read the deep, mysterious scriptures themselves; they only read the opinions expressed about the Bible by critical spirits. Goethe longed for an age in which men would once more learn to read the Bible, and not books about it. For today, they read books about the Bible! For a few pence, one can buy books that show that the Bible is supposedly a patchwork of separate documents, like the Old Testament has come about piece by piece. A book has even been written, where every sentence, printed in different colours, shows what was written at an earlier and at a later date, the additions, and so on, the so-called “Rainbow-Bible”!

These things are the outcome of the critical intellect, which can only perceive that something was written by one or the other author on the material plane. It cannot see that the authors of the Biblical writings were all of them disciples of great initiates, who possessed a direct insight into the spiritual world. The essential thing is to recognise the true spirit in the words, to penetrate into that which lies behind them, to understand that the religious scriptures were written from the depths of the true spiritual realisation.

Thus, we have seen the way in which we must understand these things. Through this, man learns what is important. Then he will rise up to the right feeling, which means to the right life.

• 1. In Luther’s translation it literally says, “The creatures are fearfully awaiting the revelation of the children of God”, Romans 8:19.
• 2. John 13:18.
• 3. “This is my body.....This is my blood”, Matthew 26: 26, 28.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It has to be emphasized repeatedly that Theosophy must be lived, that, by way of Theosophy, the human being not only learns this or that, but that he learns to think differently, to feel, to perceive emotionally in regard to his whole environment. This will become a reality for someone who accepts the theosophical impulses in the right spirit. He has to learn to feel empathy, to experience living with all beings, but mostly this needs to apply in relation to other human beings. However, we learn best to empathise with human beings when we first learn to do this with the rest of the world.

Slowly man learns to know the whole world that surrounds him. He slowly learns, that he is surrounded everywhere by spiritual beings, that he walks through spiritual beings everywhere. He learns to understand this in regard to feeling and in regard to sensation. He learns to know what surrounds us in the three realms of nature. He learns to know the beings in the mineral realm, the plant realm and the animal kingdom. He strides differently through the meadows and forests, over the fields and open country from someone who has not gone through theosophical training.

When looking at the other beings, one could at first believe that the animal beings do not have a soul like human beings. The Ego of man, man’s soul, is certainly different from an animal’s Ego, in that the Ego of man lives on the physical plane. When we look at an animal as such, then each individual animal has a physical body, an etheric body and an astral body. Human beings have in addition to these three bodies an Ego. During his waking state man’s Ego is contained in him. The animal, however, does not have an Ego on the physical plane. For this, we have to go a bit deeper into the so called astral world. On the astral plane we will find a population of animal Egos, just like we have a human population here on the physical plane. Just as one man meets another here, a clairvoyant is able to meet self-contained personalities on the astral plane—these are the animal Egos.

One has to imagine it thus—imagine the ten fingers of a human being stretched through a wall. They are moving. We can see the ten fingers moving, but not the human being himself. He is hidden behind the wall. We are not able to explain to ourselves how the ten fingers can get through the wall and move. We have to assume that there is some being to which they belong. It is the same with animals in the physical world. All animals of similar shape have one group-Ego. Here in the physical world we see the animals roam about, and what we are seeing has a physical body, an etheric body and an astral body. If we see here in the physical world, for example, lions, then these lions are externalized organs of those lion-Egos that live in the astral world. The lion-Ego, the group-Ego of physical lions, is a similarly self-contained being on the astral plane as we are self-contained beings here. Thus each group of animals has an Ego on the astral plane: a lion-Ego, a tiger-Ego, a vulture-Ego are on the astral plane. The single animals exist here in the physical world like fingers stretched through a wall.

When we observe the individual animals here, many of them appear to be extraordinarily smart. These animals are being managed from the astral plane where the animal-Egos, the group-Egos, are located. The population of the astral plane is much more clever than human beings. The animal group-Egos on the astral plane are very wise beings. Observe the bird-migration, whereby the birds migrate through the various regions, how their flight is arranged, how during autumn they move to warmer regions and how they gather together again in spring. If we deeply look into these wise arrangements, we have to ask ourselves: who is hidden behind the wall, who arranges all of this?—These are the group-Egos. When we watch a beaver building, then we will see that the beaver built more wisely than the greatest engineering art.

One has observed the intelligence of bees at work by giving sugar instead of honey to them. Then they were watched. They cannot take along the sugar, so they go and fetch other bees. First they fly to a source of water, from which each bee carries a drop of water, drenches the sugar with it and transforms it into a kind of syrup. This is then carried to the hive. The spirit of the beehive is behind the work of the bees. The individual bees belong to a single bee personality, just like our limbs belong to us. Only it is the case that each bee is more separate from the others, and our individuals limbs are closer together, more compact. We walk everywhere through entities invisible for us, through the animal group-Egos, who evade physical observation.

As we begin to empathise with beings of which man has not the slightest idea, we can also empathise with the plant souls. The plant-Egos live in an even higher world than the animal-Egos. The plant-Egos, those self-contained group-Egos, to each of which a series of plant belongs, are on the so-called Devachan plane. We can also tell the place where these plant-Egos actually are—all plant-Egos are at the centre of the Earth. The animal Group-Egos are circumventing the Earth like the trade-winds, while the plant-Ego’s are in the centre of the Earth. They are beings that all penetrate each other. In the spiritual world the law of permeability holds sway—one being passes through another. We see the animal group-Egos pass across the Earth like the trade-winds and observe how they, out of their wisdom, perform what we consider to be the deeds of the animals. When we observe the plants, then we see the head of the plant, the root, is extended to the centre of the Earth, because there, at the centre of the Earth, is their Group-Ego.

The Earth itself is an expression of soul-spiritual entities. The plants appear to us, from a spiritual viewpoint, to be something like the nails on our fingers. The plants belong to the Earth. One who observes the individual plants, can never see them completely. Each plant belongs to the sum of entities, that make up the plant-Egos. Thus we can immerse ourselves into the feelings and emotion of the plants themselves. The part of the plant that grows out of the earth, that strives from within the earth to the surface, has a different nature from what grows under the earth. If you cut off the bloom, stalk and leaves of a plant, then that is something different from pulling out the root. If you cut off a plant this will create a certain type of well-being, like a pleasure for the plant soul. This pleasure it similar to what is felt, for example, by a cow whose young calf suckles at its udder. The plant part that grows out of the earth really is something similar to the milk of animals.

When we walk through the fields in autumns and the stalks are falling under the scythe of the reaper, when the scythe strikes the sheaves, then feelings of well-being, akin to ecstasy, breathe across the fields. It is something immensely significant when the reaper goes through the field with his scythe, and we not only can watch the falling sheaves with our physical eyes, but we can see feelings of pleasure stroking the Earth.

However, when you rip out a plant by its root, this causes pain for the plant soul. The laws that apply in the physical world are not the same as those in the higher worlds. We will gain different insights when we ascend to the spiritual worlds. Sometimes also here in the physical world the principle of beauty contradicts the principle of pain or joy. It is possible that someone, driven by beauty concepts, rips out a few white hairs, although it will hurt him. This applies to plants too. It might look more tidy to rip out a plant by its root, it might be more beautiful, but it will still hurt the plant.

The stones are also lifeless only in the physical world—in the higher worlds they too have their group-Egos. In the upper areas of Devachan, the group-Egos of the minerals exist. They too experience joy and pain. We will not find out anything about this by way of speculation, but only through the Science of the Spirit.

If we observe a worker in a quarry breaking up stone by stone, we could believe that this would cause pain to the stone soul. But this is not so. Just when a stone is blasted, then feelings of pleasure burst forth from the stone in all directions. Out of the quarry, where rock is blasted apart, strong feelings of well-being stream out on all sides. When we have a glass of water and add salt to it, and the salt dissolves, then feelings of desire and pleasure will stream through the water. Joy streams through the water when the dissolution of salt is being observed from a spiritual viewpoint. But if we allow the dissolved salt to settle and harden again, then this happens under pain. Likewise, it would cause pain to the stone soul if we could amalgamate the rock again that was blasted apart.

In their secret writings, in their religious scriptures, the seers have always shared their secret knowledge with human beings. But the people have lost the ability to understand these secret scriptures. Let’s imagine ourselves back into the ancient periods of time of our earthly evolution. We see the stones of our solid mountain ranges, that are built up from various clay strata, basaltic stones and so on. When we go even further back, we find that things on Earth become more and more soft. Then we come back to a time, where the Earth was filled with mighty masses of fiery warmth, where the iron, where all metals, all minerals, were dissolved in the spiritual. The human being was also a spiritual being at that time. To allow man to develop further, to receive his current shape, those soft masses needed to solidify. The mountain ranges emerged, the mineral masses dissolved out of the soft substance, and the Earth became the dwelling place of today’s human beings. The lifeless rock masses crystallised themselves out of the fiery liquid Earth like the salt out of the salt solution. Everything shaped itself so that the firm masses were formed out of the liquid state. This did not happen without pain. The whole hardening process of the globe was connected with the pain of the stone soul.

In the future Earth will become spiritualised again. The Earth will again fragment, as is already indicated by radium today. The process of dissolution of the Earth will begin, a spiritualisation, a deification, an adoption in the place of children will happen. Let us hear what the Apostle Paul says, “The whole Earth, all beings, are sighing under pain, waiting to be adopted as children”.¹

What we have got here is a representation of what happens on Earth, where the stone soul suffers under pain until the condition occurs when the stone soul will be adopted in place of a child. One could feel pain within one’s soul when those, who are announcing the religious scriptures to man, dream all sorts of things into them, because they do not want to make an effort to penetrate deeply into these records. Those people who are leading mankind are really violating their duty if they do not want to penetrate deeply into the religious scriptures.

The apostle Paul knew what the processes on Earth meant. Theosophy must lead mankind in our modern time into the depth of religious scriptures. It is sad if those who are called upon to be the representatives of the scriptures, make no effort to immerse themselves in them—they do not even have the will to understand them. All the arrogance of the present that says, “we’ve finally made such magnificent progress”,² must disappear. There are so many who believe that our ancestors knew nothing! Then people come and interpret the scriptures of Paul—religious scriptures—as they want to, but filled with arrogance they feel that they know more than our ancestors. But how do these words affect us, “All creatures are sighing under pain, awaiting to be adopted as children”? when we allow the insight of the feeling stone soul to affect us, how it awaits in pain to be adopted in place of a child? Human beings with a materialist mindset believe that when they walk outside they walk through air, wind and fog, through oxygen and nitrogen. But a person who has spiritual knowledge, knows that he is walking through spiritual beings everywhere, that with every breath he takes in spiritual beings and absorbs them.

So we have seen, how the animal-Egos circumvent the Earth like the trade-winds, how the plant-Egos are gathered together in the centre of the Earth, how the Earth itself feels something when we rip out plants, and how the Earth itself is alive and ensouled and has feelings. Everything outside is ensouled and imbued with life.

In the same way as the physical body is born out of the physical substances and powers, our spiritual limbs are born out of the vast cosmos. Then we begin to see a small world within us that rests inside the vast world. This creates a blissful feeling in us. Only when we learn to empathise with the minerals, plants and animals, will we learn to feel how our Ego rests within the whole cosmos.

Thus we can see how Theosophy leads us into the spiritual foundations of existence. It is something that transforms our sense of life, our life impulses in such a way that through it we become different human beings. The theosophical concepts are seeds, will-impulses for real experiences.

• 1. St Paul says, “the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain.” In Luther’s translation it literally says: “The creatures are fearfully awaiting the revelation of the children of God”, Letter to the Romans, VIII,19
• 2. Goethe, Faust I, Scene 1, night; “Excuse me, but it is a great delight, On the spirit of the ages to set our sight, To see how wise men have thought before us, and we’ve finally made such magnificent progress.”