The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Every esoteric who's trying to develop himself inwardly must know about his connection with spiritual powers who live in the surrounding world and who stream in and out of him continually. When we look at a human being we first have his physical body. It's due to the working of spiritual beings that the physical body is put together the way it is. Archai work in the earth, water, air and fire elements. They stream in and out of his physical body. Likewise archangels are at work in his etheric body, and angels in the astral body. The sentient soul that developed out of the latter is worked on by the Exusiai. Dynamis work on the intellectual soul and Kyriotetes on the consciousness soul. Even high beings work on man's higher members: Seraphim on spirit self, Cherubim on life spirit and the Thrones on spirit man.

When an esoteric pupil wanted to know the essence of Christian teachings he had to look at this picture of man shaped like a tree that's rooted in the spirit. That's why they meant by Buddha sitting under the bodhi tree, or Nathaneal sitting under the fig tree. The world ash Yggdrasil is also a depiction of this tree.

The forces that work on the physical body are Archai. There's four kinds of these beings. They're not incorporated in physical bodies, they only have a corporality down to the ether. These are the four kings who work on man in the ether. Man owes his physical body to these beings who live in the ether. If one thinks of ever finer substances from solids to fluids, gases, warmth and ethers, one is getting the wrong idea about ethers for they are quite different from physical substances.

One should look upon the four forces in ether that work on man's physical body as the four temperaments. The substances of the four beings are the four temperaments. Beings who are incorporated in the choleric temperament work in man's warmth element, those in sanguine in his air, phlegmatic in water, and ones who are incorporated in the melancholic temperament work in his solid or earthy things. The melancholic temperament enables a man to form firm concepts that remain the same, so that if he thinks horse today it will remain the same concept for him tomorrow. Whereas the phlegmatic temperament keeps concepts fluid so that he can always take in new things. When a man thinks, his thoughts are firmer parts of the uniform mass of his aura. In some people thought forms tend to stay firm; in others they're constantly changing. If a man's forms of thoughts are flexible, new thoughts can press into them and the two understand each other very well. An esoteric must cultivate this flexibility of thought forms. This is of great importance for him. That a man can do this is based on phlegma. It's a mistake to say that a man has this or that temperament because he has this or that physical body. His physical body was formed out of the temperaments by the spirits who work in him.

Many people think that they're working for the good of mankind from morn till eve, but this is questionable. A clairvoyant can see that efforts coming from materialistic thinking have the wrong effect, and it may lie in some people's karma that they should wait until they can do certain things. Then a higher being can whisper such a task in his ear, so that it's not induced by outer circumstances. Life is a destructive process for someone who only devotes himself to outer sense impressions. A meditating esoteric doesn't let his life be determined by outer circumstances as much. One who makes repeated meditational efforts isn't exposed to astral confusions at night and makes himself ready to receive the instructions of spiritual beings. And it's very necessary that we be instructed in this way. For since 1879 we've entered a new stage of human evolution. Gabriel worked on the development of a new organ in man's brain by regulating human births (1525–1879). A 16^th century man would not have understood our present theosophy. It's up to archangel Michael to stimulate men to use their newly acquired organ, that degenerates if a man doesn't use it. Such a man comes under the influence of Michael's opponent, Mammon or Beelzebub. This is the God of hindrances, who wants to prevent men from making progress. The bacteria that arise under his influence can give rise to terrible epidemics and strange nervous diseases; children could be born with a ruined nervous system. After Michael's reign comes Oriphiel who gives the divine wrath that should only be used by highly developed people. Jesus drives the merchants out of the temple.

Although one can't eat one's way into the spiritual world, eating the wrong things can make spiritual development difficult or impossible.

Alcohol only arose after the Atlantean epoch to help men to become individualized. It closes man off from his higher capacities and encloses him in himself. That's why alcohol was used in the Dionysian mysteries. But now all civilized people have reached that stage so that alcohol is an unnecessary evil today. Through its use one loses the ability to get along with others and to understand them. Alcohol is especially harmful for esoterics since its use changes all developed higher forces into forces of the personal ego, repeatedly locks it into itself, and tears the astral body apart through the opposing streams of the higher and lower I forces. The principle through which everyone can consciously attain his individualization was brought through the coming of Christ to the earth. That's why Christ Jesus says: I am the true vine.

By consuming alcohol one prepares a fertile soil for hosts of spiritual beings, just as a dirty room gets filled with flies.

The meat (but not milk and eggs) that we eat is permeated by the animal's astral body, and so our astral body has to work to digest it. This takes it away from its real task of creating pictures. Also at night it's held fast by the etheric body so that it can't leave it properly. This hinders it from its nightly task of restoring vital forces. Vegetarian food that consists of physical and etheric things support the creation of large, comprehensive pictures and so gives a greater insight that lets one oversee things better without much deliberation. The greater force doesn't exhaust us, but summons spiritual forces.

Vegetarian food is excellent for doctors and lawyers who will find it easier to see through their patients or their clients' affairs, but it's not the right thing for bankers, industrialists, salesmen and others who have a lot of calculating, for one loses the ability to make physical combinations. People who inherited a body that can't stand vegetarianism should not undertake an esoteric training.

The jogging, exercising and bathing that are often recommended are wrong for an esoteric; they pull him down into his physical body. He should try to move his limbs as little as possible.

A budding esoteric doesn't need faith, but only confidence in his teacher, as is true for any kind of instruction, and he needs his healthy human intellect. This will lead him to the conviction that masters of wisdom must exist since it would be illogical to assume that evolution stopped with us, although this in itself wouldn't tell him who or what these masters are. But his teacher knows who they are. A pupil can assume that basic truths like karma and reincarnation are true on a trial basis. Then he can find out for himself whether they're true. When something happens to him he'll tell himself that he must have caused it, and he'll act accordingly. That's why Jesus says that if someone strikes you on one cheek you should offer him the other one also, because if he hits you there too he's making bad karma good. A meditant should do six subsidiary exercises:

1. Think about a simple object for at least five minutes. Hold it fast in thoughts without going over to other things. One can prepare for this by familiarizing oneself with the object first. After a few days one can choose another object. This exercise arouses a feeling of firmness in the pupil as it activates the chakram between his eyebrows. One should send this feeling through the brain and down the backbone.

2. Do an unimportant thing every day at a certain time. This exercise also gives firmness.

3. Develop equanimity, that is, one shouldn't fluctuate between rejoicing to heaven and despairing to death. A joke can be enjoyed just as much if one doesn't laugh boisterously at; one can bear a pain better if one doesn't wallow in it too much. This gives one a feeling of quiet calm that one lets stream from the heart to the arms, and out through the hands.

4. See the beautiful and true elements in all things. Christ Jesus admired the beautiful teeth in a rotting dog, where his disciples only saw ugliness. One can discover at least a small kernel of truth and something beautiful in everything. If one does this exercise for some time it gives one a feeling of great joy.

5. Always be open to new things. One should never say: I never heard of that, that can't be, or I don't believe that. One should always leave the possibility open that one can learn something from everything that people say. Thereby one can learn from children, animals and everything else. This gives one the feeling that one could also perceive things while one is partly outside one's body.

6. This exercise is a combination of the preceding ones, so that one can combine two and two or any way one wants. By doing this, one gets the feeling that one has grown beyond the limits of one's skin.

Vegetarianism without spiritual striving leads to disease. It's not a matter of back to nature but of through nature to the spirit.

It's true that meditation and concentration exercises will be the main thing for our spiritual striving, but when the elaboration of the astral body begins, the food that an esoteric eats will be of some importance.

It's especially important to avoid alcohol in every form. The bad effect of alcohol on the brain function has been scientifically shown, and knowledge of spiritual things is made completely impossible through its use. It's inadvisable to eat meat and fish.

Mushrooms are very harmful; they contain hindering lunar forces, and everything that arose on the old Moon signifies rigidification. Likewise legumes aren't very advisable because their nitrogen pollutes the etheric body. Proteins make mastery of sexual passions difficult. Sugar promotes independence, and should be avoided by egotistical people. People who tend towards envy, deceit and bad will should avoid cucurbits and vine plants in general. The sweet, intoxicating aroma of melons darkens clear, intellectual consciousness and should be avoided by emotional people. Apples intensify the urge to dominate in some people and often lead to rudeness and brutality. The high iron content in cherries and strawberries isn't good for everyone.

If someone wants to undergo training in thinking, he mainly needs a well-constructed, healthy brain apparatus. Since present-day parents seldom give their children such well-built brains, one needs help to strengthen one's brain apparatus. And here it's mainly filberts that supply the brain-building substance. All other nuts are of less value and peanuts should be avoided altogether. Milk butter is the best fat. Coffee supports logical thinking, but doesn't make one a logical thinker by itself. Drinking too much coffee leads to hysteria in people who don't think much. One can get good ideas by drinking tea or by doing special exercises.

It's especially important for an esoteric to lead a life of moderation. An ancient sage said: Moderation purifies feelings, awakens ability, cheers one up and strengthens memory; the soul loses most of its earthy weight and thereby enjoys greater freedom. A man wouldn't be able to generate productive thoughts if he ate too much and too often, because his forces would be used in digestion, and there wouldn't be any left for thinking. Schiller, Shakespeare and many other writers lived on very little food. The mind is never so clear as after long fasting. The greatest saints lived on fruit, bread and water, and no miracles were ever done on a full stomach.

When a man works on himself he harmonizes his temperaments, but until then a melancholic pupil should eat fruit, so that its sun forces permeate the solidifying and rigidifying element in melancholics. Phlegmatics shouldn't eat black roots because they would only increase his inner love of ease. Whereas a sanguine would benefit by eating root vegetables. One could almost say: A sanguine must be fettered to his physical body by food, otherwise he might fly away. The ego is predominant in cholerics, so they should avoid hot spices and stimulating food.

A master doesn't need solid food, and temperaments no longer influence or control him. He uses the choleric temperament to do his magic deeds, he lets the things of the physical world pass by him like a sanguine, he'll behave like a phlegmatic in his enjoyment of life and he'll brood about his spiritual findings and experiences like a melancholic. But it'll take us awhile to get that far, so we should try to bring our whole life into harmony with our spiritual striving. You only get as much out of life as you put into it.

Before Christ came to earth and became a man so much darkening had taken place that even masters in physical life no longer had the clear knowledge of super-sensible things that they had previously. After Christ became flesh things brightened up slowly. That's why some initiates didn't have a clear idea of the importance of the Mystery of Golgotha, and this was true of a great initiate who had known practically all the spiritual things that a man could know in his Egyptian initiation.

First higher beings reveal something to mankind's great initiates, and then the latter must pass this on as teachings. And no one can arrive at knowledge unless what was already revealed is first given to him as a teaching. That's quite impossible. That's why in esoteric schools they always taught things that can let a pupil come to knowledge. That's why teachings that can be given publicly are given in theosophy to give those who long for it a chance to arrive at a knowledge of truth, to get to Christ.

The childhood of great initiates differs little from that of other men, although a few points might indicate what kind of spirit lives in the child. They have to learn and enrich their knowledge like others an thereby reacquire what they had been in earlier incarnations. This was also the case with Christian Rosenkreutz. Some men may have been surprised that he didn't see the importance of the Event of Golgotha right away. This was because the ego of Christ Jesus had been placed in him, just as the etheric body in Francis of Assisi. But since it was the ego it first had to work through to knowledge to then become fully effective. Therewith he had a high and important mission.

The true and only name of Christ is “I am”; anyone who doesn't know and understand this and calls him something else doesn't know anything about him at all. I am is his only name.

Selfishness is combated through logical thinking. If thinking regulates itself logically, desires can no longer come up and the body works automatically. We close our eye automatically if a fly approaches it. Spirits of Movement built this reflex into us. What we do automatically is always correct and wise; what we do voluntarily is subject to error. Sprits of Movement also had to learn; they made a lot of mistakes before movements like eye closure became automatic in us and before these movements could be carried out so wisely. Such movements are completely independent of our personal feelings, wishes, etc. That's the way our thinking must become. The right sequences of thoughts must be strung together entirely by themselves; thoughts must not be produced for selfish reasons and purposes. They must proceed from previous ones in a purely logical way. We learn logical thinking from theosophical teachings, when the mighty facts that can all be understood with the intellect, even if one can't see and investigate them oneself, are placed before us and we try to grasp them with our thinking. Thereby we're diverted from lines of thought that only group around our own small lower ego and we're directed towards great, comprehensive ideas. That's the way we work on our astral body.

We're born with certain inclinations that become converted into habits during life. What fit to these habits earlier now becomes a hindrance to progress. All action must become conscious; we should do things on our own and not because of our connections with family, nation, classes or circumstances. Thereby we work on our etheric body.

Worries put pressure on the physical body. We should do our duty, and also against opposition, but we shouldn't worry too much. It's hard to strike the right balance here between concern and standing above it, but too much worry dries out the brain so that it can't take in new thoughts. The greatest man of sorrows or soter was Christ, and as it says in (I Peter 5:7) we should cast all our care on him; for he cares for you. that is, we should give all worries past a certain point to Christ so that He can make our physical body healthy and strong, so that our soul is also healthy.

After Parzival stood before Titurel and had the experiences of which we spoke, an intimate and deep feeling of shame arose in him. This feeling of shame permeated him completely. He had gone through catharsis and had thought that he was now so good and pure that he could become one of the followers of the Master of all masters, the Christ. In this feeling of shame he was reminded of Christ's words: “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God.” He now knew how very imperfect he was still and how much he still had to take into his striving for the good, how much he was still lacking in order to be good.

And a second feeling, a feeling of fear overcame him. He thought that he had gotten rid of that a long time ago. But it was a different kind of fear from the ones he'd known previously. It was a feeling of his own smallness and weakness as a man compared with the sublime Godly being when he let a second word of Christ live in his soul: “Become perfect even as your Father in heaven is perfect.” These two words should live in the soul of every esoteric.

An esoteric should kindle full devotion for divine beings in his soul. Thereby the consciousness develops that what one does isn't so good, but that one should always try to become more perfect. We should look at what's developing in one's soul. God lives in developing things. If we get to the point where we're acting in a good and noble way, then it's God in us who's good. The God who lets us act in a good and noble way is our archetype itself, that created us. We must become a complete copy of this archetype.

Be it ever so hidden, there's a selfish motive in everything we do. We must realize that we can't be selfless. It's a world karma that lets us act egoistically. But world karma is God. Everything that God is and does in the way of good is better than we could do it. An esoteric should tell himself: Let me do something that I have made it my duty to do, let me do it as hard as I can and in such a way that I tell myself that the divine element that's at work in me is doing this and I'm only the instrument of this godly element—then the higher self in its striving towards perfection is revealed to him.

There are three revelations of the higher self: Through a dream, an inkling, and through meditation. If an esoteric has lived in his meditations, if he has tried to repeatedly live in his thoughts, words and deeds in accordance with the perfection principle, if he has repeatedly tried to be good—then at some point he'll realize: If I would place all the joy and suffering that I previously thought was in me outside me, then it would be as if it surrounded me like a soul-spiritual thing; I no longer live in what I have placed outside, I'm no longer touched by the waves of pain and joy. Then a pupil must learn to stand fast in the center of his existence by living entirely in the power of the mantra: Ex Deo nascimur. Thereby the pupil inserts the higher self into his humanness; this second I isn't in us and can't be found by brooding into oneself but only by growing out beyond oneself.

Through the exercises we stimulate a force in us that otherwise works more as a memory force in us and reawakens the ideas, feelings and sensations that were aroused by past things and happenings in the outer world. The pupil gets to know this as a force only; he learns how to organize it up into the brain, so that it eventually grows toward the higher self that floats above us. The pupil now lives in this newly acquired force. All outer pains and joys now seem to be outside of his center. He stands there firmly enclosed in himself against all outer influences; he feels free in himself and free of all external things.

And the pupil feels something else. Previously he had learned the teachings about karma. Now he knows that he stands under the necessity of the effects of karma. He experiences the higher self that places him into existence through birth in this newly attained force, and he sees how what develops in his destiny in the outer world must be brought about through the active necessity of karmic force. This gives him a certain joy with respect to pain and suffering. He confronts everything with equanimity.

If a pupil has progressed this far, he then gets to contemplation and thereby to consomatio of the higher self. And now spiritual eyes and ears are organized into him and begin to function when he devotes himself to the exercises with patience, persistence and concentration. He learns to see the light world of spiritual beings and the spiritual will being who resounds towards him, audible to his opened spiritual ears. And he knows that he can't have these spiritual experiences by means of his physical organism. In his experience of the pentagram (8–27) he feels that he's placed into the whole etheric and spiritual world This drawing and occult script has a soul-awakening and a spirit-liberating effect. The pupil should repeatedly place it before his soul and he'll experience that every new forces grow in his soul thereby. We saw that Parzival who stood before Titurel in solitude had the experiences that come to expression in this occult script. The whole Christian wisdom and mystery that winds around the Grail is expressed in it. The mystery wisdom is like a greenhouse plant that was only revealed to a few mature people; what the rest of mankind received was the faith content of the various religions. The Christian wisdom of the Grail is a mystery that was revealed to all as knowledge but to no one as a content to be taken on faith. All pupils of western esotericism are Parzivals.

Lohengrin is a son of Parzival. He's a personality that doesn't come fully to expression in a body. The swan is the expression of the higher individuality that radiates above him. Lohengrin unites himself with Elsa, the human soul. She doesn't ask him where he comes from, she doesn't ponder about his nature—she takes him the way he is with thanks and humility for his gifts. But when someone maliciously suggests that he's not of noble birth, she asks him about this. Thereupon, Lohengrin has to withdraw from her. He disappears up into the spiritual world. A pupil should mainly have a feeling of thankfulness for what is given to him from higher worlds in this incarnation. He should not investigate and search or interpret these talents with his ordinary intellect. For this induces the higher self to withdraw from his soul. There's a big warning for us in Elsa's fate. We shouldn't let any outer thoughts, no feelings and sensations from the outer world into the sanctuary of our mediation and concentration, otherwise that source of strength through which we attain the growing out and up of our human forces to the higher self isn't stimulated, we can't find the higher self, it repeatedly retreats before us. We should observe the projection of the spiritual world's effects into us in contemplation, closed off from all outer impressions, alone in the deepest quiet and immersion; resting in the deepest solitude we should let them work in us quietly and chastely in order to eventually become knowers of truth, to become an instrument for the work of spiritual beings.

An esoteric who meditates and is approached by things from outside could ask: Would this have happened to me if I hadn't become an esoteric? An esoteric should make it his duty to observe life and himself very intimately. The fact that he has set out on this path should stand at the center of his life, for him, for he is a small center of spiritual life, and this radiates out into his environment—more of less unconsciously for him—and brings about the things that approach him. Through his higher development, a pupil leaves his lower self that connects him with the outer world alone—at least for a short time. During meditation he leaves it to itself and qualities that we thought we had overcome already crawl out from all corners of our nature and can make us worse if we don't keep ourselves under firm control. Certain exercises have been given us to support us here, in addition to our meditations.

As you know, everything runs cyclically, and this is also true of development. If we begin an esoteric training now, then after seven years all kinds of qualities that were slumbering in us can emerge strongly and set one back. But this can't happen if a man pays enough attention to himself, his life and his surroundings.

Anyone who has a hidden opposition to his teacher will find that this feeling soon breaks through and adversely influences the effect of meditation. In an esoteric's daily meditations he should keep it in mind that he's mainly trying to get through to his higher self, and he should reflect on what this higher self is. He shouldn't think that he's supposed to bring something to this higher self—he should have an expectant attitude towards him and expect everything from him. Usually there are three ways in which it approaches a pupil on his path. The first way is a rather flitting one and it requires the attentiveness that an esoteric should have for all things. Namely, this is in a dream, and what happens there is what one calls a doubling of the I. For instance, one has a problem or wants to do something. Then someone appears to one in a dream who tells one what to do or who solves the problem, one who is better and cleverer than oneself. One should pay attention to such dreams. Then in the course of development it may happen in helpless moments or at times when one has made a decision that one hears a quiet voice that, for instance, advises one not to do what one has decided on. It's often a decision that one has made with the best knowledge and conscience, and if one follows the voice that nevertheless advises against it, it may seem as if one has done the wrong thing, but in by far the most cases, one will immediately notice that one did the right thing in following the voice. Now, if one practices paying attention to this, one will notice that one has something in one that's higher than one's own reason, that's cleverer than one is oneself. And the third time that one confronts one's higher self is a very important and sacred one. This is during meditation. One will only unite with him for short moments there. But to attain this, one must silence one's whole lower nature. We must eliminate everything that fills us with antipathy or petty feelings for the world and life. In observing himself, a pupil must always keep the polarity law in mind, that is, if he has a bad quality and wants to get rid of it, he must also look for the opposite quality in himself. It's certainly there. The presence of one quality definitely conditions the existence of the opposite one, whether one believes it or not, and this must be eradicated—then the other one also disappears. For instance, if one feels then there's also the polar hate in one, be it ever so hidden, and one has to drive this out. Then the fear disappears by itself. The higher self will only unite with us if such qualities are eradicated in meditational moments.

This union with the higher self is beautifully depicted in the saga of Lohengrin and Elsa. Lohengrin comes to save Elsa, to unite himself with her. Distrust, a negative quality is sown in her soul, and the higher self, Lohengrin, must withdraw to higher worlds, can't unite with her.

When we begin an esoteric life through our meditation, we must resolve to move something new into the center of our life, something that wasn't there till now but that will now become the main thing. The success that our exercises will have will depend on the intensity of this resolve. One can take the exercises that one gets as something that's added to everyday life, so that one does them like some other ordinary work. But one will then notice that the progress one makes isn't especially great. The resolve that an esoteric should make is to connect everything he runs into in ordinary life with his esoteric life, to really feel that this is the center from which he directs all of his other life, from which something is constantly flowing into this life.

For what are we supposed to accomplish with our meditations? If we do them in the right way we're supposed to develop a strong force, a force that uses the words of the meditation as an instrument with which we gradually create spiritual organs in our astral body with which we'll perceive the surrounding spiritual world. The impressions that we make in the mass of our astral body only gradually become permanent, for we can compare our astral body with an elastic mass that becomes imprinted but then returns to its previous shape after awhile. We make these impressions during sleep when our ego and astral body have left the etheric and physical bodies. The stronger and more intensively we do our meditations, the more intensive the impressions in the astral body become, until they remain and the organs we call lotus flowers develop from them. This process is described in the verse that comes to us from the masters of wisdom and of the harmony of feelings:

But we can only really use these organs when they've become so strong that they can be imprinted from the astral into the etheric body. It's only when the etheric body has received a copy that the portals before which the Cherub with the flame of the whirling sword, stands open for us.

We've heard that our physical and etheric bodies couldn't live for a second without an ego and an astral body and that therefore when these two leave the physical and etheric bodies during sleep, higher kinds of beings enter them, beings who are of the same nature as our I and astral body, but who stand much higher. An archangel replaces our astral body, and a spirit of personality, our I. We meet these high spiritual beings when we've developed our astral organs, and esotericism calls this tremendous event that's so sacred to us the “meeting with the higher self.”

We should look towards this moment with feelings of highest devotion, with a being intensively permeated by its sacredness. If we don't do our meditation with this attitude of really genuine humility, then the spiritual world won't reveal itself to us in its true form, but all kinds of fantastic formations will appear to us, and the moral result will be a ruinous price. It's a good deed that the world into which we would like to press prepared by a school that rightfully exists, is closed by the Cherub with the fiery sword as long as we're insufficiently prepared. The guardian of Paradise stands exactly at the place where we slide over into deep sleep, where we lose consciousness. If we didn't lose it here we would see him. But a glance into the world of archangels would destroy us, since we're not up to it.

Now, why is this archangel who enters our etheric body called our higher self? Why do we try to become united with him? Here we must touch upon a secret that concerns the human being. The man that we see walking around on earth today is really a maya, he is incomplete. There was a time in the ancient Lemurian epoch when only a single pair of human beings remained on earth, that was strong enough to ensoul animal-like formations. The other men had gone to various planets, and so present men originate from this primal pair. The Bible' story about Adam and Eve is right, even though it's presented in the form of an allegorical tale. Now Lucifer overpowered these first human beings and permeated their astral bodies with his influences. This made the later Ahrimanic influences possible and everything that helped men to live in the physical sense world. Thereby the spirit behind matter disappeared for him ever more, and the latter became an unpenetrable cover for him. If man had only remained under the influence of the divine spiritual beings who created him, he wouldn't have become free, but he always would have recognized spiritual things behind matter. Now, these guiding creators didn't want the whole etheric body to be permeated by Luciferic influences. So they held one part of Adam's etheric body back in spiritual worlds. And this part of the etheric body is the higher self with which we should reunite ourself and with which we're a whole human being. An esoteric should tell himself: This higher being that really belongs to me is waiting over there to become reunited with me, and in my meditation I should strive to go to him with all fervor, should form myself into a chalice that takes in this higher element. Paul, who was an initiate in these things, uses exactly the right expressions when he speaks of the old and the new Adam. This union of the etheric body that remained behind with a human being happened for the first time when the Luke Jesus was born. This Jesus boy received Adam's etheric body. The high, guiding creator beings had held back the capacity of individual thinking and speech for men with this part of the etheric body. It's true that a man thinks, but it's no thinking that he produces himself individually—instead he takes some of the divine thinking substance that streams through the world. Man has no individual language either, for high spiritual beings gave groups of men a common language. Men are supposed to acquire their own thinking and language through a reunion with their higher etheric body. Since the ability to speak lies in the etheric body, one can understand the legend that tells us that the Jesus boy didn't have to learn to speak, but that after his birth he spoke to his mother in a language that she understood. Through the connection of Adam's etheric body with a physical human body again, it became subject to the law of number and multiplication that applies to every spiritual thing that descends into matter. Just as a seed that's laid in the earth produces an ear with many kernels, so Jesus' body was the soil for Adam's etheric body, the through-station for multiplication, and it's these multiplied etheric bodies that are waiting for us. When we're immersed in our meditation so that the whole outer world disappears for us, we'll then get the feeling that we're dying, and then united with our higher self we're resurrected. That's why for the more recent esoteric schools that exist rightfully, the cross is the symbol for resurrection to this new life. It's not a birth that's taken to be the starting point of this life, but a death, the death of Christ on the cross of Golgotha, and the symbol for this life is the holy blood that flowed forth. That's why we have the dead plant, the dried wood with the live, red roses sprouting from it united in the rose cross. And in our meditation we should feel that we're born from God, as it says in our main guiding-verse, that's supposed to be the guiding verse of our esoteric life, and that we die in Christ as we let the force of our meditation become a light in us that radiates into higher world; and our higher self comes to meet this warmth, these rays—thereby it unites with us as the Holy spirit in which we come back to life again:

In esotericism we must note something that we call the Spirit of the Day. The masters of wisdom and of the harmony of feelings have given us meditation through which we can approach one of these divine creating beings each day. We will begin with the guiding verse which the masters gave for today.

Great embracing Spirit,
Many archetypes
Sprouted out of your life
At a time when my life forces
Didn't yet exist.
You were.
I lift up my soul to you.
I was in you.
I was part of your forces.
You connected yourself
With the earth's first beginnings
To a sun of life
And gave me the force of life.
I was in your radiant life forces.
You were.
My life force radiated into yours in space.
My body began its becoming in time.
You were.

Great embracing Spirit
May my I raise itself from below upward,
May it get an inkling of you in the all-embracing.
May the spirit of my being be illumined
By the light of your messengers.
May the soul of my being be enkindled by the fire flames of your servants.
May the will of my I grasp
Your creatorword's force.
You are.
May your being permeate my will
That my I be grasped by an understanding of your light's shining,
Your life's love-warmth
And your being's creator words.
You are.

Today we'll speak about how easily an esoteric tends to forget even the simplest exoteric sayings of theosophy, such as: Everything sensory is maya or illusion. Every esoteric should meditate on this regularly. Many will think that they already understand this statement long ago. But few reflect how little of it they really bring into their life and feeling and how much they would have to include thereby. For instance, someone can say: I do the Lord's Prayer every morning and draw strengthening forces for the whole day from the spiritual content of this wonderful prayer. Now, one of the masters of wisdom said that he only prays the Our Father once a month, and otherwise he prepares himself to pray it worthily that one time. Now the first one could say that he'll pray it once a month too, because one should follow a master's example. But what would that be? That would be pronounced haughtiness. It would be saying that we can do as much as a master can, that what he can draw from the spiritual content of the Lord's Prayer is also accessible to us. We often think that we have already eradicated a quality like pride, but have just pushed it into another corner of our nature. For all of these qualities are also maya, and so are the concepts that we make for ourselves on the physical plane about good and evil, right and wrong. When we spoke of the influences of lucifereic beings in exoteric classes we formed the view that these influences were bad ones which we have to resist, whereas on the other hand we know that Lucifer brought us freedom. But we should definitely not take our acquired concepts of good and evil, right and wrong with us into the high regions in which something takes place between Lucifer and the good Gods that looks like a battle and namely one that mostly takes place in the human soul. It's an occult secret that certain qualities of a man develop too fast during earth evolution, and Lucifer is at work here. How does this come about?

Lucifer comes over from Moon evolution and brings the Moon tempo into everything that comes under his influence. Now since he mainly influences our intellect and reason they have developed far in advance. We'll go through many more incarnations and have a variety of experiences, but our intellect and reason will be the same as they are now. And what's the consequence of this advanced development? We can't harmonize our intellect with the wisdom that we find in the world, thereby giving rise to one error after another.

I can give you a trivial example. After the first terrible eruptions of Mt. Pelee were over, the experts at the scene calculated that there would be a long dormant period. But the eruptions came again, worse than before, and the lava and rubble buried the experts and their proclamations. This is an example of how our combining intellect storms ahead and gets on the wrong track instead of slowly working its way into the wisdom of nature's forces.

Lucifer's influences are at work all over the earth. But we would be mistaken if we would want to look for an expression of the same in earthquakes, storm and hail. On the contrary, we must look for his influence in everything that becomes mature quickly, and this acceleration must be hindered by the good Gods. Weather catastrophes are often the expression of the good Gods; they're the hindrance that they have to oppose Lucifer with to avoid overly rapid development. And namely they're hindrances that also correspond to old Moon evolution, in order to offset Lucifer's Moon tempo; what was right on the Moon now has harmful effects.

The good Gods must also intervene to retard an esoteric's development. For what does Lucifer do in our esoteric life? It's due to him that we take the maya of our concepts from material life with us into our meditations. So that we don't enter spiritual worlds unprepared in this wrong way the good Gods throw hindrances on the path, such as all of our bad qualities. They are the bad will, rage, pride, vanity, and envy that break out when we approach the Gods with our earthly views and feelings. The spiritual worlds remain closed to us until we've eliminated these hindrances, for they must be kept free of everything that's maya.

If we reflect about this relation of the good Gods, of Christ, to the Luciferic beings, to Lucifer, then the meditation verse: Everything around us is maya or illusion, will appear to us in a quite different light. We'll become aware of how often we forget in everyday life that things and qualities that we think are very important are just maya.