The Rudolf Steiner Archive

I have attempted to show how man can develop states of consciousness other than those of his everyday life and how the history of evolution provides abundant evidence that in the fields of human knowledge and action, man did not possess the consciousness we have today. Then I tried to call attention to the relationship between the consciousness of the scholars who lived in the tenth, eleventh and twelfth centuries and the manner in which knowledge was fostered in those days, in the School of Chartres, for example. And in this connection I pointed out how there arose forms of perception totally unrelated to our present level of consciousness. Brunetto Latini, Dante's teacher, is a case in point.

Yesterday I tried to recall man's relationship to the universe at an even earlier epoch, in the Mysteries of Ephesus, for example. We learned how entirely different conditions of consciousness prevailed at that time, though related to some extent to the normal scientific consciousness of today.

After this brief digression into history I should now like to continue our investigations. I have already indicated how the metallity, the basic substantiality of the mineral element, is related to man and his conditions of consciousness. Having shown man's relationship to the metal copper, I described the state of consciousness that enables him to participate in the experiences of the so-called dead after death.

We must realize that it was a form of perception such as this which Brunetto Latini experienced in that semi-pathological condition following upon his heat-stroke.

Indeed all that he describes, all that came to him through the inspiration of the Goddess Natura can be attained in that condition of consciousness—so closely related to our everyday consciousness—which is able to share the experiences of the dead immediately after their death. I said that it was a condition of greater reality. We inhabit a world of more powerful impressions, more luminous, a world that brings everything to fuller consummation than the phenomenal world.

We owe it to these factors alone that we can participate in the experiences of the soul which has recently passed through the gates of death.

At the same time, this world reveals a peculiar characteristic. When we inhabit this world in the state of consciousness I have described, we are no longer able to observe the normal experiences of our daily life; we see only that part of our life immediately preceding incarnation—our experiences when still in the spiritual world before birth. We must therefore realize that in this condition of consciousness we are detached from the world which man normally inhabits.

Let me illustrate my point. A man is born at a certain point in time. If, at the age of forty, he develops the copper condition of consciousness—I have already explained this in my lecture of the day before yesterday—his perception is no longer related to the immediate present, nor to his perception at the age of thirty or thirty-five; he can only look back to his experiences immediately before birth. He can do this for himself and others, but he cannot apprehend the world of everyday existence. This is only feasible for human beings.

In relation to animals, we do not see them in their familiar physical form; we look into the world immediately above and perceive what I have called the group-soul. We see, as it were, the aura of the animal species. And when we look out into the world, we find it transformed and discover something which is of supreme importance for mankind, but which is totally ignored in our present materialistic age.

And if, endowed with the highest academic learning in all faculties, we contact that Being who is ever present as the Goddess Natura, that Being so vividly described by the teachers of the School of Chartres, Bernardus Silvestris, Alanus ab Insulis and others, we feel abysmally ignorant despite all our modern knowledge. We feel that our present knowledge is relevant only to the world between birth and death and is no longer valid when we enter into the spiritual world with a consciousness that can follow the dead beyond the gates of death.

When we study chemistry, the sum-total of our knowledge holds good only for the life between birth and death. Chemistry, as such, is of no importance in the world we share with the dead. All the knowledge we acquire in the phenomenal world is valueless in this intermediate state between death and rebirth, it survives only as a memory. We have an immediate awareness of this intermediate sphere we now inhabit and we feel that the everyday world in which we learned so much has faded from our consciousness. This other world now lies open before us.

Let us imagine that a mountain looms up before us in our immediate environment. It gives an impression of solidity. When seen from a distance it reflects the light of the Sun and we note its contours and rock formations. Then we gradually draw nearer. When we set foot on it, we feel that it offers resistance, that we are standing on solid ground; there is no doubt of its reality.

Now in the intermediate world everything that I have described as solid and luminous ceases to have any significance; something seems to be issuing from the mountain, growing ever larger, and gives an impression of another kind of reality.

Under the conditions of normal life we see the mountain capped by a cloud. We are in no doubt that it is caused by condensation of water vapour. This phenomenon also loses all reality. Something different emerges from the cloud. What we see emerging merges with the cloud and mountain which are gradually lost to view. Out of this union is born a new reality that is not merely nebulous, but is at the same time endowed with form. And this applies to everything in this intermediate world.

Suppose we are standing in front of a large audience. The moment we enter the spiritual world all sharply defined contours are effaced. We perceive instead the soul and spirit of the audience projected in the form of clairvoyant images. And the mysterious spiritual aura of the environment gradually encompasses us. A new world arises, the world the dead inhabit after death.

We now become aware of something else. If this intermediate world which we have now entered did not exist, if it were not omnipresent, we should be without eyes and ears, without sense organs. The world described by the chemist and physicist cannot provide us with sense organs; we should be blind and deaf. Our sense organs could not be built up within us.

And this was the surprising discovery of Brunetto Latini when he returned from Spain to the neighbourhood of his native Florence and suffered that slight attack of heat-stroke which opened up to him this intermediate world. He realized that his sense organs were a gift from this other world, that his senses would be wholly undeveloped if this intermediate world did not permeate the world of sense experience. Our human status is determined by the fact that we owe our sense organs to our connection with this second world, this intermediate world.

At all times this second world has been called the world of the Elements. Here the terms oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen, etc., are meaningless, they are applicable only to the world between birth and death. In the second world it is only meaningful to speak of the elements earth, water, air, fire and light, and so on. For the specific characteristics of hydrogen, oxygen, etc., are wholly unrelated to the senses. What the chemist discovers about the scent of violets or of asafoetida, namely, that the one is pleasant and the other highly unpleasant, everything named after its chemical composition—none of this is of any significance. In the second world all manifestations of scent or smell are spiritualized. From the standpoint of the second world it would be described as aeriform; but it is a rarefied air, an air wholly permeated by spirit. Our senses therefore are rooted in the world of elements where it is still meaningful to speak of earth, water, fire and air.

We can now correct our previous misapprehensions and develop the right understanding. What is the reaction of the modern philosopher who claims to be both logical and objective and to have abandoned the naive outlook of earlier epochs? He maintains that these earlier conceptions were primitive: in those days men only spoke of the crude elements, earth, water, fire and air, whereas today seventy to eighty elements are known, not a mere four or five.

Now if a Greek with the typical outlook of his time were to be born today and were told of this attitude, his answer would be: Of course, you still speak of the elements such as oxygen and hydrogen, but in your own way. You have forgotten what we understood by the four elements. You are unaware of their composition, you no longer know anything about them. Despite the existence of all your seventy-two or seventy-five elements, the sense organs would never come into being, for they are born out of the four elements. We had a better knowledge of man; we knew how man's external vehicle with its sense organs was built up.—

We can only form a true estimate of the impressions received by men of olden time who had undertaken the first steps in Initiation, such as Brunetto Latini, when we recognize the significance of these impressions for the life of the soul and spirit, when we bear in mind their unexpected and striking effects and how the soul was actively stimulated by them.

If someone who has believed hitherto in the reality of his sense-impressions discovers that this reality could not even have created his sense organs and that behind this reality there must exist all that I have described here, then the effect in the first instance must be shattering.

It is important to realize that we cannot develop such knowledge and understanding if we perpetuate the old sterile conceptions of nature that we normally hold. When we enter into this second world, everything begins to vibrate with life. We say to ourselves: the mountain we knew through sensory experience appeared to be inanimate matter; we were wholly unaware that it was permeated with living forces. Now they are revealed to us. And the cloud that formerly appeared static and inert now manifests that indwelling vital life that we had not perceived before. Everything is quickened and in this weaving, pulsating life there is revealed a fundamental reality.

In this second world the laws of nature are not intellectual constructs; we are in touch with a spiritual Being. The Goddess Natura, who speaks to us, beckons and communicates insights from the world of reality. And in this way we learn about the reality of our environment through beings of a super-sensible world. We are translated from our purely abstract world that is determined by natural law into the real world of being, where we no longer arrive at natural laws by means of experiment and analysis, but feel ourselves in the presence of beings of a different world, beings who mediate knowledge and understanding because they know what we, as human beings, have yet to learn.

We thus enter the spiritual world in the right way. We realize that if we had been endowed only with sense organs, with the eye and its optic nerves, the nose and its olfactory nerves and the ear with its acoustic nerves, and that if all these nerves were connected at their point of origin, we should be unaware of the existence of oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen and so on, and of all we perceive between birth and death. We would be looking into the world of Elements—everywhere around us we would perceive earth, water, air and fire. We would not have the slightest interest in differentiating further between the solid and the gross material, the fluid and the aqueous element. As beings of physical sensibility we are familiar with the world of Elements. But the moment we become aware of what I have already described, we realize also that in man the sensory nerves which run back to the cranial cavity are more differentiated, more specialized and form in that area the first indications of the brain. In consequence we do not enter more deeply into ourselves; we become more extroverted and add to the nature of the four elements, earth, fire, air and water, our experiences between birth and death.

The cerebrum evolves nom a progressive metamorphosis of the sensory nerve fibres that run back to the cranial cavity. This cerebrum that is rolled back upon itself in man is of importance only for the life between birth and death. For our understanding of the spiritual world the intellect is of minimal importance. If we wish to enter even the first of the spiritual spheres that border on our world the intellect must be silenced. It is an organ that interferes with higher perception. Even when the intellect has been silenced, we cannot escape from sensory experiences; we must now spiritualize the senses and so attain to Imagination. In the normal course of events our senses perceive sense-derived images in the external physical world and the intellect transforms them into dead, abstract thoughts. If we silence the intellect and experience the world again through our senses, we then perceive everything in the form of imaginations. We become aware of this and then we realize that our deeper insights into life are ultimately linked with the development of states of consciousness that are higher and more spiritual than those of ordinary life.

Our peripheral organs, such as the eye and the ear, are continuously in touch with the world of the Elements and still perceive the dead years after their death. The perception of this world is lost, because our intellect intervenes. The peripheral senses of man mediate the spiritual world, the world of the dead. But the perception of this world, the world of the Elements earth, water, fire and air, is obliterated by the intellectual consciousness. Man sees only the physical world with its sharply defined contours, the world we inhabit between birth and death. But there is no doubt that a second world of a very different order does in fact exist. This world, however, is obliterated by the intellect and man looks only upon the familiar world of everyday consciousness.

Therefore modern man must practise the meditation which I mentioned yesterday. In the past it was still the practice after such meditation to administer metallic substances. I spoke of these in my last lecture. The attainment of the next higher level of consciousness depends therefore, in the first instance, upon the obliteration of the intellect and the spiritualization of the perceptions mediated by the sense organs. Since their brain is not developed, the animals also share these perceptions. But they have no ego-consciousness; their perceptions cannot be imbued with spirit, but only with primitive psychic forces. They do not perceive in the world around what man perceives when his senses are illuminated by the spirit. Animal perception is of a similar kind, but inferior and non-individualized.

What I now propose to say about the metallity, the real substantiality of the mineral world, should be accepted with the due reserve to which I drew attention yesterday when I said that the inner vitalization of the soul through the qualities of the metallity—in other words, the development of an inner communion with the metallity in a moral sense—is a necessary part of man's spiritual development today. The administration of metallic potentization to the human organism is the function of the medical practitioner. And so I ask you to accept with due reserve what I shall say about the unknown factors of metals, other than those already discussed. The mystery of mercury in particular has a special significance for those who approach the world from a spiritual angle, that is to say, for those who are able to perceive the spiritual operating in physical substances. The metal mercury is only one part of what spiritual science calls in general terms the mercurial. The mercurial includes everything that has the characteristics of liquid metals; in nature as we know it today, there is only one metal that shares these characteristics and can be regarded as mercurial, namely, quicksilver. But this is only one member of the mercurial species. In spiritual science the mercurial includes everything of a mercurial nature; quicksilver is looked upon simply as a typical example of the mercurial.

This quicksilver or mercury holds a profound secret. Its effect upon man is such that he is isolated from all impressions of the physical world and also from the world of the Elements.

As human beings, we recognize that organs such as the brain have been built up out of the physical world. We have also built up many other organs out of this sense world, in particular, a whole series of glandular organs that are essential to physical life.

Furthermore, many organs—I have already spoken of the sense organs—have been built up out of the world which I described as the world of the second level of consciousness. Copper and iron raise man to this second level of consciousness. Mercury has a different effect. It must of necessity be present in the universe; and, in effect, it exists universally in a subtle state of diffusion. We are surrounded, if I may so express it, by an atmosphere of mercury. The moment man absorbs more than the normal quantity of mercury, his organism endeavours to neutralize all those organs which have been built up from the physical and elemental worlds. The astral body of man is stimulated, as it were, to call upon only those organs that have been built up out of the world of stars.

Therefore, directly the consciousness is concentrated on the metallity of mercury, on its metallic and fluid qualities, on the fundamentally impalpable element that is characteristic of mercury and which, none the less, is related to the human being, man becomes inwardly permeated by a “third man.” I said that through his relationship to copper man is permeated by a second man who creates inner tensions and is able to relinquish the physical body and accompany the dead in the years immediately following their death. Quicksilver attracts to itself everything that can contribute to a far more closely-knit psychic organism. Through the effects of quicksilver man seems to apprehend the entire metabolism of his organs. When he experiences the strong metallic influence of quicksilver, the manner in which the fluids circulate through the various vessels suddenly claims his attention. The effect cannot be described as pleasant, for he feels as if he were bereft of mind and senses, as if everything were active, alive and stirring within him, as if he were in a state of inner ferment, turmoil and flux, pulsating with life and movement. And he feels this inner activity united with an activity without.

This situation, as I have described it, follows upon the conscious training of the inner life. Through the active influence of quicksilver man ceases to feel the presence of his brain; it has become a hollow cavity. That is an advantage for the perception of the spiritual world since the brain is quite useless for this purpose. What he does in fact feel is movement and activity permeating his entire organism. But at first all this ferment is as painful as if one suffered from inner exhaustion.

Everywhere this inner activity is united with an outer activity. We feel we have left the Earth and the world of Elements below us; everything exhales steaming vapour. But spiritual beings dwell in these vaporous, steaming exhalations. The divine Natura whom Brunetto Latini so vividly describes has now “turned about.”

As I said yesterday, she is identical with the Greek Persephone. Formerly she turned her countenance more towards the Earth; she disclosed those things that were still connected with the Earth sphere, such as man's experience of the life immediately after death. Now she “turns about” and man has the Earth and the elemental world beneath him and the world of stars above. Just as on Earth he was surrounded by plants and animals, his environment is now the world of stars. He no longer feels his insignificance in face of the mighty world of stars, but, in his new stature, he feels in relation to the world of stars exactly as he felt in relation to his immediate environment on Earth. With his increase of stature he has grown into the world of stars. But the stars are not as the stars we saw when on Earth; they reveal themselves as colonies of spiritual beings. We are once again in the world I have already described to you, a world that is awakened in man through his relationship with the metallity of tin. There is an inner relationship between mercury and tin as I have already indicated. Mercury lays claim to a certain part of our being, isolates it and bears it into that spiritual world whose external physical manifestation is the world of stars.

But we are now in a different world because the condition of our consciousness has been changed; it is no longer determined by the senses or the brain, but by that which the metallity of mercury has now drawn out of our organism. We find ourselves in a totally different world—the world of stars. I could, however, express this differently. The term “world of stars” has spatial implications; but through the attainment of this new level of consciousness we actually leave behind the world in which we exist spatially between birth and death and now enter the intermediate world, the world we inhabit between death and rebirth.

The hidden secret of mercury lies in this: mercury detaches man from the phenomenal world and opens up the intermediate world because quicksilver or mercury has an inner relationship to that part of man's being which is not derived from this Earth, but has been implanted in him by the beings of the intermediate world. The circulation of the fluids that he now experiences is determined by the world through which he passes between death and a new birth.

We now become a ware of something else, again something that Brunetto Latini perceived under the influence of the Goddess Natura, namely, that we live in the circulation of the fluids which is associated with the circulation of the cosmic fluids. We have relinquished the physical vehicle with its sense-derived consciousness and find ourselves in the realm we inhabit between death and rebirth. We become familiar with the nature of the circulation of fluids and begin to understand how this inner activity, this realm we inhabit between death and rebirth, has determined the nature of our temperament, whether sanguinic, choleric, melancholic or phlegmatic. We have a deeper insight into our make-up than we have when dependent on our senses. If we are born a phlegmatic we now realize that our impassivity, our phlegm, is determined by our experiences between the last death and the present birth. But in relation to this temperament that manifests itself physically in the circulation of the fluids, we must reckon with an additional factor. Consider for a moment what is involved in this circulation of fluids. In the field of anatomy or physiology we are concerned primarily with the physical. The physical is only an expression of the spiritual. But the spiritual element that is related to this circulation of fluids is not of the physical world, it is of the world that penetrates into man between death and rebirth.

When we review the different temperaments—and it was an overwhelming experience for Brunetto Latini when the Goddess Natura opened his eyes to the existence and nature of the temperaments—we conclude that the life between death and rebirth has determined the nature of these various temperaments that we associated with the circulation of the fluids. If we now probe deeper, we find that karma, the arbiter of destiny, plays its part in this.

If we contemplate the physical aspect of this remarkable metallic fluid mercury, we only begin to understand it when we are fully aware of its hidden secret: that a minute drop of liquid mercury reveals to the Initiate a profound relationship. This drop is able to infuse the spiritual into those organs that derive their structure and origin from the world between death and rebirth.

Thus all things in the world are interwoven and interrelated after this fashion. The physical is an illusion. And from the standpoint of the physical, the spiritual too is only an illusion, an abstraction. In actual fact the physical is interwoven with the spiritual and the spiritual with the physical.

If a human organism has been damaged because those organs are involved which are derived, in effect, from the intermediate realm, we must activate those forces which will repair the damage.

Let us assume that a doctor is consulted by a patient with a defective circulatory system that has its origin in the life between death and rebirth. He is confronted with a patient whose circulatory system has severed its link with the spiritual world. That is the case history. A spiritual diagnosis is made. The relation between the spiritual element and the physical diagnosis must be understood in the sense which I suggested yesterday. I repeat this again so that there shall be no misunderstanding. The diagnosis is as follows: the circulatory system of this patient has made a radical break with the spiritual world. What is to be done?

The correct treatment is to introduce the metallity into the body that will restore the connection between the circulatory system and the spiritual world. This is how mercury works upon man. Mercury works upon the human organism in such a way that those organs which can only be built up out of the spiritual world can again be brought into contact with that same world when they have severed their connection with it. Thus we see the somewhat dangerous, yet at the same time necessary relationship that exists between the knowledge of the states of consciousness in man and the knowledge of diseases. The one passes over into the other.

These things played a vital part in the ancient Mysteries and they also shed light upon such matters as I mentioned yesterday. Consider the following: in an age that had lost the old spiritual vision that recognized the Goddess Natura through her teachings about the secrets of nature, Brunetto Latini, the teacher of Dante, returns in a state of agitation from his ambassadorial post in Spain. As he approaches his native city his agitation increases because he hears of the fate of his own party, the Guelph party. He experiences all this in such a state of mind that a slight heat-stroke overcame him. The metallity of mercury has simply worked upon him from the environment.

What do we understand by a slight heat-stroke? It means that we feel the effect of the mercury in our environment, the mercury that is finely distributed throughout the Cosmos. Brunetto Latini experienced this effect and in consequence he was able to approach the spiritual world in an epoch when it was normally impossible for man to share this experience. Thus we see that in man there exists something that is related not only to the findings of natural science, not only to the disclosures of the person who is in contact with the dead in the first years after their death, but that our fundamental being is in touch with something far more sublime, a purely spiritual realm that we live through between death and rebirth. If we follow the ordinary scientific procedure we can understand the form of the liver or the lung, for example. With the aid of the next higher level of knowledge (that is known to modern physics only in its cruder aspects) we can understand the structure of the sense organs. But we shall never comprehend the peculiar characteristics of the circulatory system of man with his erect posture nor the mysteries of the metallic nature if we do not approach them through Initiation-knowledge.

This implies that we shall never understand the nature of disease in the sense I have described without Initiation-knowledge, for the physical properties of metals cannot cure disease. With an understanding of the physical attributes of metals it may well be possible to heal cerebral damage, but not disturbances of the circulatory fluids. What I have been saying is, in fact, not strictly accurate, for it is only the coarsest substance of the brain that can be healed. Fluids also circulate in the brain; therefore, in reality, one cannot heal cerebral damage with metals alone, but only with the aid of spiritual knowledge.

That may well be true, you will reply, but how do you account for the positive achievements of medicine today in the art of healing? The answer is that medicine is able to heal because it still preserves a memory of the old traditional knowledge about the spiritual elements in metals. It uses a combination of traditional knowledge and purely physical discoveries, though these are of not much avail. And if materialism were to triumph at the expense of tradition, chemical remedies alone could not effect any healing. We are now at the point in human evolution when we must make a new approach to the spiritual, because the old traditions of primordial clairvoyance have gradually been lost.

The mystery behind the metallity of silver is of a very special kind. If the cosmic impulse behind copper awakens the first higher level of consciousness in the being of man, if a different cosmic force behind mercury awakens a second higher level of consciousness that is related to the world of stars and therefore to the spiritual world which we inhabit between death and rebirth, then the metallity of silver must awaken a consciousness of an entirely different order.

When man intensifies and enhances his relationship to silver by the same process he adopted towards the metallic natures of copper and mercury, he comes into touch with a still deeper organization within him. Mercury relates him to the vascular system which, in turn, relates him to a cosmic circulation, to the spirituality of the Cosmos. The intensification of his relationship to silver brings him into direct contact with all the forces and impulses that survive from earlier incarnations.

If a man concentrates on the peculiar properties of silver—and it is some time before the effects are registered—he concentrates within himself those forces which are responsible not only for the circulation of fluids through the vessels, but also for the circulation of warmth in the bloodstream. He then realizes that he owes his human status to the warmth circulating in his blood, in that he feels a certain inner warmth, a material, yet at the same time a spiritual element within his blood; and that in this warmth forces from former incarnations are actively working. In man's relationship to silver is expressed that which can influence the warmth-activity of the blood and also that which provides a spiritual link with earlier incarnations.

Silver therefore preserves that metallic virtue which reminds man of what survives in his present life from earlier incarnations. For the circulation of the blood with its remarkable warmth-differentiations is not derived from this physical world, nor from the world of Elements which I have described to you, nor even from the world of stars. The world of stars determines the course and direction of the blood circulation. But in the warmth of the blood that circulates within us there works the vitalizing force from previous lives on Earth. It is to this we appeal directly when we refer to forces of silver in their relationship to man. Thus the mystery of silver is related to his previous incarnations. Silver is one of the most astounding examples .of the all-pervasiveness of the spiritual, even in the physical world. He who has a right understanding of silver knows that it is the symbol of the cycles of man's lives on Earth. Hence the mystery of silver is bound up with reproduction and its secrets, because through the process of reproduction the being of man is perpetuated from generation to generation. The spiritual being who existed in former lives on Earth incarnates again through the process of reproduction. This is the same mystery as the mystery of blood. The mystery of the blood, of the warmth of the blood, is the mystery of silver.

We are now familiar with the normal condition of man. Let us proceed to a study of his pathological states. Now the blood should not take its warmth from man's present environment, but from the spheres through which he has passed in previous incarnations. Let us suppose that the warmth of his blood is affected by his present environment and is not activated by that which links us spiritually to previous incarnations. Pathological conditions then ensue. They occur because all that is connected with the warmth of the blood is severed from its natural associations, from earlier lives on Earth. What is fever? From the stand point of spiritual science fever occurs because the human organization has severed its relation with the cycle of incarnations. If, in some cases of illness, the doctor ascertains that the external world has worked upon the patient in such a way that his organization is in danger of being cut off from earlier incarnations, then the doctor administers silver as a remedy. A very interesting case of this nature occurred recently in Dr. Wegman's Clinic in Arlesheim. A condition such as I have described may suddenly occur in the spiritual life. Through external circumstances the human organization, owing to the peculiar characteristics of the blood, threatens to break away from previous incarnations. And this is precisely what happened recently in a particular case in Dr. Wegman's Clinic. A patient who was convalescent suddenly developed an unexpectedly high temperature, a fever of unknown origin as it is described by orthodox medicine. With her intuitive understanding Dr. Wegman immediately administered a silver cure. When she told me about it the case revealed a complete picture of cosmic relationships. We learn from this of the interplay between what is connected with the spiritual evolution of man on the one hand, and on the other hand, with what leads to pathological conditions; and we learn how to treat them.

How is it that the Initiate is able to survey former lives on Earth? So long as we are bound up with earlier incarnations, as is the case in ordinary life, and are still involved in their karma, we cannot look back upon our earthly incarnations with our ordinary consciousness. The effects of these incarnations are felt in our present life. We fulfil our karma under their influence and our life is determined by karma. We cannot look back without ordinary consciousness, but, if we wish to do so, we must throw off its limitations for a time. And when we can see the earlier lives objectively, we are in a position to look back.

We must, of course, be able to restore the status quo in a perfectly normal way, otherwise we become psychopaths, not initiates.

Here we have a phenomenon that arises in the course of spiritual development. We cast off our spiritual moorings that attach us to previous incarnations. In abnormal cases and under pathological conditions disease has this effect. Disease is an abnormal expression of that which we must develop normally in a higher sphere in order to attain spiritual vision and other levels of consciousness. If the blood, isolated from the rest of man's organism, surrenders to the dictates of its consciousness—for blood possesses a consciousness of its own, even as other organs have their own particular states of consciousness—if, then, the blood is freed from the bondage of the rest of the organism, it can look back in this abnormal state into earlier incarnations, but not consciously. In order to look back consciously we must first dispense with normal consciousness; when we look back in a pathological condition the link with normal consciousness will be preserved.

The study, for example, of the metallity of silver which is an excellent remedy for all diseases associated with karma, leads on from the mystery of silver to other profound mysteries. We have thus spoken of virtually all those metallic natures that are related to the various conditions of consciousness in man. We will now extend our investigations into these conditions of consciousness, into the relationship to other worlds which man can establish through these conditions. In other words we propose in the next lectures to study in further detail the right path to spiritual knowledge.

I have already spoken of the different states of consciousness which can be developed out of the forces of the human soul. Initiation-knowledge is dependent upon the fact that our knowledge of the world stems from these different states of consciousness.

Today we propose to ascertain how man's relationship to the world is determined by these different states of consciousness. First of all, let us recall that a single level of consciousness, that of daily waking consciousness, suffices to meet the needs of everyday existence. In our present epoch man has the possibility of developing two further states of consciousness in addition to his normal waking consciousness, but initially they cannot serve as valid criteria for immediate purposes of knowledge.

The one is the state of dream consciousness in which man experiences reminiscences of his daily life or faint intimations of the life of the spirit. But in ordinary dream life these reminiscences and intimations are so distorted, so commingled with uncorrelated, grotesque images and symbols that nothing can be learnt from them.

If, with the aid of Initiation-knowledge, we wish to know what realm man inhabits when he dreams, the answer would be somewhat as follows: in normal life man possesses a physical body, the body which is perceptible .to the senses and which is an object of scientific study. This is the first member of man's constitution, the member which everyone imagines he understands, but which in effect, as we shall see later, he understands least of all today.

The second member is the etheric body which is described in more detail in my publications, especially in my book Theosophy. The etheric body or body of formative forces is a delicate organization, imperceptible to ordinary sight. It can be perceived only when man has developed the first state of consciousness which is able to accompany the dead in the first years after death. This etheric body is more intimately linked with the Cosmos than the physical body whose whole organization is more independent.

The third member of man's constitution—it seems best to adhere to the old terminology—is called the astral body. This is an organization that is imperceptible to the senses; neither can it be perceived in the same way as the etheric body. If we were to try to perceive the astral body with the cognitive faculty by means of which we perceive the external world today or with the insights of the next higher consciousness that is in touch with the dead, we should see nothing but a void, a vacuum, where the astral body is located.

To sum up: man possesses a physical body that is perceptible to the senses; an etheric body perceptible to Imagination by virtue of the forces that can be developed through the practice of concentration and meditation in the manner already indicated. But if we try to perceive the astral body with the aid of these forces, we meet with a void, a spatial vacuum. This void is filled with content only when we attain the emptied consciousness which I have described, when we can confront the world in full waking consciousness in such a way that, though sensory impressions are obliterated and thinking and memories are silenced, we remain none the less aware of its existence. We then know that in this void we have our first spiritual vehicle, the astral body of man.

A further member of the human organization is the Ego itself. We perceive the Ego only when the emptied consciousness is progressively developed.

When we dream, our physical and etheric bodies are detached from the astral body and Ego which are in the spiritual world, but we cannot perceive with the astral body and Ego if we possess only normal consciousness. We perceive external impressions of the world around because the physical body is endowed with eyes and ears. At the present stage of man's evolution we find that in ordinary life his astral body and Ego, unlike the physical body, are not endowed with eyes and ears. Thus, when he withdraws from his physical and etheric bodies in order to enter the dream-state, it is as if he had a physical body in the physical world bereft of eyes and ears, so that all around were dark and silent. But it was never intended that the astral body and the Ego should always remain without organs, without eyes and ears of the soul. Through spiritual training of which I have spoken in my books, it is possible to awaken these spiritual organs in the astral body and Ego and thus to see into the spiritual world through the insight born of Initiation. Then man withdraws from his physical and etheric bodies and perceives the spiritual, just as in his physical and etheric bodies he perceives the physical, and in a certain sense, the etheric as well. The man who achieves this insight then achieves Initiation.

Now what is the position of the ordinary dreamer? Try and imagine concretely the process of falling asleep. The physical and etheric bodies are left behind in the bed whilst the astral body and Ego slip out of the physical vehicle. At this moment the astral body is still vibrating in harmony with the physical and etheric bodies. The astral body has participated in all the inner activities of eyes and ears and of the will in the functioning of the physical and etheric bodies throughout the day. The astral body and the Ego have shared in all this. When they quit the body, the vibration continues. But the day experiences, as they continue to vibrate, come in contact with the surrounding spiritual world and there arises a chaotic, confused interplay between the activity of the external spiritual world and the continued vibrations of the astral body. The individual is caught up in all this and is aware of the confusion. All that he has brought with him has left its impact upon him, continues to vibrate and becomes the dream.

It is obvious that this will contribute little to the understanding of reality. What is the position of the Initiate? When he slips out of his physical and etheric bodies, he is able to obliterate the reminiscences and after-vibrations that still persist. He suppresses, therefore, all that proceeds from the physical and etheric bodies. Moreover through concentration, meditation and the development of emptied consciousness, the Initiate has been able to acquire eyes and ears of the soul. He does not now perceive what is happening within himself, but what is happening in the spiritual world outside him. In place of dreams he now begins to perceive the spiritual world. Dream consciousness is a chaotic counterpart of spiritual perception.

When the Initiate has first developed these inner astral organs, clairvoyance and clairaudience, he finds himself in a continual state of conflict and endeavours to suppress these reminiscences, these after-vibrations from the physical and etheric bodies. When he enters into the world of Imaginations, when he has an intuitive perception of the spiritual, he must fight a continual battle to prevent the dreams from asserting themselves. There is a continual interplay between that which seeks to dissolve into dreamlike fantasy and delude him, and that which represents the truth of the spiritual world.

Ultimately every aspirant becomes familiar with this conflict. He comes to realize that, at the moment he strives to enter consciously into the spiritual world, he experiences recurrent after-images of the physical world, disturbing images that intrude upon the true pictures of the spiritual world. Only through patience and persistence can he resolve this intense inner conflict.

Now if we are too easily satisfied when dream images flood our consciousness, we may readily dream ourselves into an illusory world instead of entering into a world of spiritual reality. The aspirant, in effect, must possess an exceedingly strong, intelligent inner control. Imagine what this demands of him. If we are to speak of spiritual investigation, or of methods for attaining to the spiritual world, we must draw attention to these things. If we wish to take the first steps towards an understanding of the spiritual world, we must show real enthusiasm for the task. Inner lethargy, inner indifference or indolence are obstacles in the path of its fulfilment. Our inner life must be active, lively and responsive. But there is a danger of losing ourselves in day-dreams, of spinning a web of illusion. We must be able, on the one hand, to soar into the empyrean on wings of fancy and, on the other hand, we must be able to temper this inner activity and responsiveness with prudence and sober judgment.

The Initiate must possess both these qualities. It is undesirable simply to indulge one's emotions; it is equally undesirable to submit to the dictates of the intellect and to rationalize everything. We must be able to strike a balance between these two extremes. We must be able to dream dreams and yet be able to keep our feet on Earth. As we enter into the spiritual world we must be able to participate in the dynamic world of creative imagination, but at the same time have firm control over ourselves. We must have the capacity to be a poet richly endowed with imagination, yet not succumb to its lures. We must be able, at any moment in our search for spiritual knowledge, to be fired by a creative impulse. We must be able to control the drift towards a world of fantasy and rely upon practical common sense. Then we shall not become victims of illusion, but experience spiritual reality.

This inner disposition of soul is of vital importance in true spiritual investigation. When we reflect upon the nature of dream consciousness and recognize that it conjures up chaotic images out of the spiritual world, we realize at the same time that, in order to acquire spiritual knowledge, the whole force of our personality must now enter into the psychic energy that otherwise persists in a dreamlike state. Then for the first time we begin to understand what ‘entering into the spiritual world’ implies. I said that dream consciousness conjures up the spiritual. This would appear to contradict the statement that the dream consciousness also conjures up pictures derived from the corporeal life. But the body is not only physical, it is wholly permeated with spirituality. When someone dreams that an attractive and tasty meal is set before him and he proceeds to consume it, though he has not a tithe of the cost of the meal in his pocket, then in the symbol of the meal he is presented with a picture of the real spiritual, astral content of the digestive organs. There is always a spiritual element in the dream despite the fact that the spirit has its seat in the corporeal. The dream always contains a spiritual element; but very often it is a spiritual element associated with the body. It is necessary to realize this fact. .

We must understand that when we dream of snakes, their coils are a symbol of the digestive organs or of the blood vessels in the head. We must penetrate into these secrets, for we can only arrive at an understanding of these subtle, intimate elements that must be developed in the soul when we undertake spiritual investigation through the science of Initiation and give the closest attention to these matters.

The third stage through which man passes in ordinary life is that of dreamless sleep. Let us recall this condition: the physical and etheric bodies lie in the bed; outside these bodies are the astral body and Ego-organization. The after-vibrations and reminiscences from the physical and etheric bodies have ceased. It is only in his Ego and astral body that man inhabits the spiritual world. But, having no organs, he cannot perceive anything. Darkness surrounds him; he is asleep. Dreamless sleep means that we live in the Ego and astral body and are unable to perceive the vast, majestic world around us. Take the case of a blind man. He has no visual perception of colours and forms. So far as these are concerned, he is asleep. Now picture a man living in his astral body and Ego, but without organs of perception. In relation to the spiritual he is asleep. Such is man's condition in dreamless sleep. The purpose of concentration and meditation is to develop spiritual eyes and ears in the astral body and Ego-organization. Then man begins to behold the spiritual plenitude around him. He perceives spiritually with that which in normal consciousness is lost in sleep and which he must rouse from its slumber through meditation and concentration. The otherwise uncoordinated elements must be integrated. Then he gazes into the spiritual world and shares in the life of the spiritual world in the same way as he normally shares in the life of the physical world through his eyes and ears. This is true Initiation knowledge. One cannot prepare a person for spiritual perception by external means; he must first learn to organize effectively his inner life which is normally so chaotic.

Now at all times in the history of humanity it was an accepted practice to prepare selected individuals for Initiation. This practice was interrupted to some extent during the epoch of extreme materialism, i.e. between the fifteenth century and today. During these centuries the real significance of Initiation was forgotten. Men hoped to satisfy their quest for knowledge without Initiation and so they gradually came to believe that only the physical world was their proper field of enquiry. But what is the physical world in reality? We shall not come to terms with it if we consider only its physical aspect. We only understand the physical world when we are able to apprehend the spirit that informs it. Mankind must recover this knowledge once again, for today we stand at the crossroads. The world presents a picture of disruption and increasing chaos. Yet we know that amidst this chaos, this welter of dark, obscuring passions that threaten to destroy everything, the intuitives are aware of the presence of spiritual powers who are actively striving to awaken in man a new spirituality. And preparation for Anthroposophy consists fundamentally in listening to this voice of the spirit that can still be heard amid the clamour of our materialistic age.

I said that in all ages men endeavoured to develop the human organization in such a way that they could perceive the spiritual world. Conditions varied according to the epoch. When we look back to ancient Chaldean times, or to the epoch of Brunetto Latini, we find that men were more loosely linked with their physical and etheric bodies than is the case today when we are firmly anchored in those bodies. And this is to be expected; it is the inevitable consequence of our education today. After all, how can we expect to communicate with spiritual beings when we are compelled in many cases to learn to read and write before the change of teeth? Angels and spiritual beings cannot read or write. Reading and writing have been developed in the course of human evolution in response to physical conditions. And if our whole being is orientated towards purely scientific investigation we shall obviously have difficulty in withdrawing from our physical and etheric bodies.

Our present age finds a certain satisfaction in ordering our entire cultural life in such a way that we cannot have any possibility of spiritual experience when we are separated from our physical and etheric bodies. I have no wish to inveigh against our contemporary culture, nor do I wish to criticize it. It is the inevitable expression of the epoch. I shall discuss the implications later; meanwhile we must accept things as they are.

In ancient times the astral body and Ego, even in waking consciousness, were much more loosely associated with the physical and etheric bodies than they are today. The Initiates, too, were dependent upon this loose association of the bodies that was natural to them. Indeed, in the remote past, nearly everyone could be initiated into the Mysteries. But it was only in the far distant times of the primordial Indian and old Persian cultures that everybody could be raised above his human station.

Then, in later epochs, the selection of candidates for Initiation was limited to those who had little difficulty in withdrawing from their physical and etheric bodies—men whose astral body and Ego enjoyed a relatively high degree of independence. Certain conditions were a prerequisite for Initiation. This in no way prevented every effort being made to bring the aspirant to the highest stage of Initiation commensurate with his potentialities. But beyond a certain point success depended upon whether the aspirant could attain to independence in his astral body and Ego easily or only with difficulty. And this was determined by his makeup and natural disposition. Since man is born into the world, he is inevitably dependent upon the world to a certain extent between birth and death.

The question now arises whether man today is subject to similar limitations when embarking on Initiation. To a certain extent that is so. Since I wish to give a full and clear account in these lectures of the true and false paths leading to the spiritual world, I should like to point out the difficulties in the way of Initiation today.

The man of ancient times was more dependent upon his natural endowments when he became an Initiate. Modern man also can be brought to the threshold of Initiation, in fact, through appropriate psychic training he can so fashion his astral body and Ego-organization that he is able to develop spiritual vision and perceive the spiritual world. But in order to complete and perfect this vision he is still dependent today on something else, something of extreme subtlety and delicacy. I must ask you not to come to any final conclusions about what I shall say today until you are familiar with the content of my next lectures. I can only proceed step by step.

In Initiation today man is dependent to a certain extent on age. Let us take the case of a man who is thirty-seven when he begins his Initiation and has good expectations of life. He begins to practise meditation, concentration or some other spiritual exercises, either under guidance, or independently, in accordance with some instruction manual. As a result of repeated meditation on some theme, he acquires, first of all, the capacity to look back over his life on Earth. His earthly life appears before his inward eye in the form of a uniform tableau. Just as in normal three dimensional vision objects are situated in Space—the front two rows of chairs and their occupants here, over there a table and behind it a wall; we see the whole in perspective in simultaneity—so at a certain level of Initiation we see into Time. One has the impression that the passage of Time is spatial. Now we see ourselves at the age of thirty-seven. We had certain experiences at thirty-six, at thirty-five and so on, back to the time of our birth. In retrospect we see a uniform tableau before us.

Now let us assume that at a certain stage of Initiation a man reviews his life in retrospect. At thirty-seven he will be able to look back into the period from birth to the age of seven approximately, the time of the change of teeth.

Then he will be able to look back into the period between the ages of seven and fourteen, up to the age of puberty. And then he is able to look back into the period between fourteen and twenty-one and the rest of his life up to his thirty-seventh year. He can survey the panorama of his life in spatiotemporal perspective, so to speak. If he can add to this perception the consciousness born of the emptied waking consciousness, a certain power of vision flashes through him. He acquires insight, but his insight assumes widely different forms. The experiences from birth to the age of seven, from the age of fourteen to twenty-one, and those of later years evoke different responses in him. Each life-period responds in its own way; each period has its own power of vision.

Now let us consider the man of sixty-three or sixty-four. He is able to look back over the later periods of his life. The period between the ages of twenty-one and forty-two appears relatively uniform. Then follows further differentiation. There are significant differences in his perceptions between the ages forty-two to forty-nine, forty-nine to fifty-six, fifty-six to sixty-three. All these periods are an integral part of his make-up. They represent the spiritual aspects of his life on Earth. If he develops this inward vision, he sees that his different insights are dependent upon the level of his being at a particular age. The first seven years of childhood awaken in him a different insight from that of the years between seven and fourteen. In the period of adolescence, from fourteen to twenty-one, it is again different; the years between twenty-one and forty-two bring further differentiation, to be followed in its turn by the somewhat differentiated powers of insight that belong to the later periods of life.

Let us assume that we have acquired the capacity to have memory-pictures of our life experiences and, in addition, have attained the insight derived from the emptied consciousness which has obliterated the memory-pictures. The forces of Inspiration now become operative, so that we no longer survey our life-periods through the physical eye, but through the spiritual eye, the new organ of vision. Through Inspiration we have reached a point when we no longer conjure up pictures of our life-periods with their separate happenings, but perceive them through spiritual eyes and ears. At one time we see clairvoyantly the life-period between seven and fourteen, at another clairaudiently the period between forty-nine and fifty-six, just as formerly we heard and perceived in the external world when we used our eyes and ears. In the world of Inspiration we make use of the power derived from the period between the ages of seven and fourteen and from the period between the forty-second and forty-ninth years. In this world the life periods become differentiated organs of cognition. Thus we are, to a certain extent, dependent upon our age for the range of our vision. At thirty-seven we are perfectly capable of speaking from first-hand experience of Initiation, but at the age of sixty-three we would speak with deeper knowledge, because, at that age, we have developed other organs. The life-periods create organs. Now let us assume that we propose to describe personalities such as Brunetto Latini or Alanus ab Insulis, not from information derived from books, but from clairvoyant knowledge. (These examples will be familiar to you because we have already spoken of them in the last few days.) If we try to describe them when we have reached the age of thirty-seven, we discover that we are in touch with them spiritually in the awakened consciousness of sleep. We can converse with them, metaphorically speaking, as we do with our fellowmen. And the strange thing is that when they discuss spiritual matters with others, they can only speak with them from their present level of wisdom and inner spirituality. Then we realize how very much we can learn from them. We must listen to them and accept in good faith what they have to teach.

Now you will realize that it is no light matter to stand in the presence of a personality such as Brunetto Latini in the spiritual world. But if we have made the necessary preparations we shall be able to determine whether we are victims of a dream delusion or in the presence of a spiritual reality. It is possible therefore to evaluate the communications we receive.

Suppose, then, at the age of thirty-seven we were to converse with Brunetto Latini in the spiritual world. This should not be taken literally, of course. He would talk to us of many things; then, perhaps, we should like to have more precise, more detailed information. Thereupon he would say: ‘in that case we must retrace our steps from the present, the twentieth century, back through the nineteenth and eighteenth centuries, to the century in which I lived when I was Dante's teacher. If you wish to accompany me along this path you must wait until you are a little older, until you have a few more years behind you. Then I can tell you everything and satisfy your thirst for knowledge. You can become a high Initiate, but, in reality, you cannot accompany me along this path into the past by spiritual volition alone.’—For this to be possible you must have grown older. If you wish to make certain of returning without hindrance to the spiritual world with the person in question, you must have passed your forty-second year at least and have reached the age of sixty.

These things will show you the deeper aspects of man's being and the significant part they play in youth and age. Only when we draw attention to these things are we in a position to understand why some die young and others live to a ripe age in their different incarnations. I shall have more to say about this later.

We have seen how man, as he develops, progressively deepens and extends his perception of the spiritual world. I have shown how his relationship with a being existing as a discarnate soul in the spiritual world, such as Brunetto Latini, changes with the conditions of evolution, depending on whether he uses for spiritual perception the organs developed in youth or in age.

The panoramic survey of the world and its evolution that unfolds before the soul of man in this way can be extended to other fields. The question is: in what way can we enlarge human consciousness, human insight, and give it another direction? Today I will indicate one such direction and enter into further details in the following lectures.

In the normal consciousness of our earthly life we know only the Earth environment between birth and death. If there were an end to our chaotic dream life, if we were to have perception in a state of deep, dreamless sleep instead of normal consciousness, we should no longer experience a purely Earth environment around us. But we are, in effect, endowed with other conditions of perception and consciousness than the normal.

Let us now consider the following: our everyday consciousness is related to our immediate environment. Since we cannot see into the interior of the Earth our immediate environment is the sphere of normal consciousness. Everything else in the Cosmos, Sun, Moon and all the other stars shine into this sphere. Sun and Moon send down to Earth clearer indications of their presence in the Cosmos than the other heavenly bodies. Physicists would be astonished if they could experience in their own way—for they refuse to consider our approach—the prevailing conditions in the sphere of the Moon or the Sun. For the descriptions given in the text-books of astronomy, astrophysics and the like are wide of the mark. They offer only the vaguest indications. In ordinary life when we wish to make a person's acquaintance and later have an opportunity of speaking to him, we do not normally say: I have only a vague impression of this person; he must retreat to a distance where he is almost out of sight. Then I shall have a much clearer impression of him and will describe him.

The physicists of course have no choice; it is the result of necessity and they can only describe the stars when they are a long way off. But a transformed and enlarged consciousness lifts us into the world of stars. And the first thing we learn from this is to speak of these worlds of stars quite differently from the way in which we speak of them in ordinary life.

In normal consciousness we see ourselves standing here on Earth, and at night the Moon over against us in the heavens. In order to see differently, we must enter into another kind of consciousness and sometimes that takes a considerable time. When we have attained this consciousness and are able to perceive our experiences, all that we have lived through from birth to the age of seven, to the change of teeth, with the consciousness that is in touch with the dead, with a consciousness that has achieved Inspiration and so become inner power of vision, then we see a totally different world around us. The ordinary world grows dim and indefinite.

This other world is the Moon sphere. When we have attained to this new consciousness, we no longer see the Moon as a separate entity, we are actually living in the Moon sphere. The Moon's orbit traces the furthest limits of the Moon sphere. We know ourselves to be within the Moon sphere.

Now if a child of eight could be initiated and could review the first seven years of its life, it could live in the Moon sphere in this way. Indeed, a child would not have the slightest difficulty in entering into the Moon sphere because it has not yet been corrupted by the influences of later years.

Theoretically this is a possibility; but, of course, a child of eight cannot be initiated.

When we use the power derived from the first life-period, from birth to the age of seven, for spiritual vision, we are able to enter into this Moon sphere which is radically different nom the sphere perceived by ordinary consciousness. An analogy will help to illustrate my point.

In embryology today the biologist studies the development of the embryo from the earliest stages. At a certain stage in the development of the embryo a thickening of the membrane occurs at an eccentrically situated point on the external wall. Then encapsulation takes place and a kind of nucleus is formed. But whilst this is clearly visible under the microscope, we cannot say: this is nothing but the germ, the embryo, for the rest is also an integral part.

The same applies to the Moon and the other stars. What we see as the Moon is simply a kind of nucleus and the whole sphere belongs to the Moon. The Earth is within the Moon sphere. If the germ could rotate, this nucleus would also rotate. The Moon's orbit follows the boundaries of the Moon sphere.

The ancients who still knew something of these matters did not speak therefore of the Moon, but of the Moon sphere. The Moon, as we see it today, was to them only a point at the furthest boundary. Every day this point changes position and in the course of twenty-eight days traces for us the boundaries of the Moon sphere. When our inner experiences between birth and the seventh year become inspirational vision, we acquire the power to enter into the Moon sphere as our perception of the Earth is gradually lost.

When the experiences of the second life-period, between the change of teeth and puberty, are transformed into inspirational vision, we experience the Mercury sphere, the second sphere. We live together with the Earth in the Mercury sphere. The experiences of the Mercury sphere only become visible through the organ of vision that we can create for ourselves when we look back consciously and with clear perception into the experiences of our life on Earth between the ages of seven and fourteen. With the inspirational vision derived from the years between puberty and the age of twenty-one, we experience the Venus sphere. The ancients were not so ignorant as we imagine; with their dreamlike knowledge they knew a great deal about these things and they endowed the planetary system that we experience after the years of puberty with a name associated with sexual awareness which begins at this period.

Then when we look back consciously on our experiences between the ages of twenty-one and forty-two, we know that we are within the Sun sphere.

When the separate life-periods are transformed into organs of the inner life, they endow us with the power to enlarge step by step our cosmic consciousness.

It would be untrue to say that we cannot know anything of the Sun sphere before our forty-second year. We can learn about it from the Mercury beings for they are fully acquainted with it. But in that event our experience comes to us indirectly, through super-sensible teaching. Now in order to have direct experience in the Sun sphere in our own consciousness, in order to be able to enter into it, we must not only have lived in the period between the ages of twenty-one and forty-two, but we must have passed our forty-second year, we must be able to look back over the past, for only in the retrospective survey are the mysteries revealed.

And again, when we are able to look back upon our life up to the forty-ninth year, the mysteries of Mars are revealed. If we can look back upon our life up to the age of fifty-six, the Jupiter mysteries are revealed. And the deeply veiled, but extraordinarily illuminating mysteries of Saturn—mysteries which, as we shall see in the following lectures, veil the profound secrets of the Cosmos—are revealed when we look back upon the events and happenings between the fifty-sixth and sixty-third years.

Thus you will realize that man is in fact a microcosm. He is related to those things that he never perceives in normal consciousness. But he would be unable to fashion, or to order his life, if the Moon forces were not active within him from birth to his seventh year. He perceives later on the nature of their influence. He would not be able to re-create his experiences between the ages of seven and fourteen, if the Mercury mysteries were not active within him; nor would he be able to re-create his experiences of the years between fourteen and twenty-one—the period when powerful creative forces pour into him, if he is karmically predisposed to receive them—if he were not inwardly related to the Venus sphere. And if he were not united with the Sun sphere, he would not be able to develop ripe understanding and experience of the world between the ages of twenty and forty-two, the period when we pass from early manhood to maturity. In ancient times the system was not very different: the craftsman served his apprenticeship until he reached the age of twenty-one, then he became “travelling man” and ultimately “master.” Thus, all man's inner development between his twenty-first and forty-second years is related to the Sun sphere. And all his experiences during his declining years between the ages of fifty-six and sixty-three can be attributed to the influences of the Saturn sphere.

Together with the Earth we exist within seven interpenetrating spheres, and in the course of our life we grow into them and are related to them. The original pattern of our life between birth and death undergoes a metamorphosis through the influence of the starry spheres which mould us from birth to death. When we have reached the Saturn sphere, we have passed through all that the Beings of the planetary spheres can of their bounty accomplish for us. Then, in the occult sense, we embark upon a free and independent cosmic existence which looks back upon the planetary life from the standpoint of Initiation, an existence that in certain respects is no longer subject to the compulsions of earlier life-periods. However, I shall speak further on these matters in the following lectures.

In the last lecture we saw how man learns to command his different life-periods and to review them with spiritual vision. He thus attains to Inspiration through which he can raise his consciousness step by step to full communion with the world of stars. This world must be understood, of course, as an expression, a revelation, of purely spiritual beings and purely spiritual facts.

In order to open the doors to the spiritual world and to undertake investigations into that world, strenuous efforts must be made to develop the necessary states of consciousness and the necessary psychic condition. We should not harbour the illusion that we can achieve spiritual insight through the instrument of normal consciousness.

A few specific examples will serve to illustrate my point. Before indicating the potential sources of error in spiritual investigations, I should like to make the following introductory remarks.

When a person undertakes serious spiritual training which unlocks the doors to the spiritual world and enables him to perceive—and if I may use the expression—to hold converse with the spiritual world, he realizes that the historical evolution of mankind shows wide differentiations, notable differences of spiritual background.

Our present epoch which we may call the Michael epoch for reasons which I shall indicate later, begins in the last third of the nineteenth century, in the eighteen-seventies approximately. This epoch was preceded by an epoch that lasted for three or four centuries. To those with spiritual knowledge this earlier epoch was totally different in character. This epoch, in its turn, was preceded by another, again of an entirely different nature. When, therefore, with Initiation-knowledge we look back into the past, we find that particular epochs evoke totally different impressions. I have no wish to describe these impressions in the abstract; I should like to illustrate them by concrete examples.

In the course of these lectures I have spoken of personalities who played their various rôles in the evolution of humanity. I have mentioned, for example, Brunetto Latini, the famous teacher of Dante, the teachers of the School of Chartres, Bernardus Silvestris, Alanus ab Insulis and Joachim of Fiore. And I could speak of hundreds of other personalities of the ninth to the twelfth centuries and even of the thirteenth century. Each of these personalities was characteristic of his epoch.

When a person who wishes to investigate the history of mankind from the standpoint of Spiritual Science studies, for example, the epoch of Dante or Giotto, i.e. the pre-Renaissance epoch, he feels that it is imperative to consort in the spiritual world with human beings, with discarnate human souls; he must meet face to face, metaphorically speaking, the human souls living between death and rebirth. In Initiation-knowledge we have a definite feeling that our spiritual relationship to an individuality such as Brunetto Latini must be as personal as our relationship to our fellowmen in the physical world. I have tried to suggest this in the descriptions I have already given. Therefore in speaking of Joachim of Fiore and Brunetto Latini I depicted this epoch in such a way that it was evident that I felt the need to give my characterization as far as possible a personal touch.

In the following epoch which extends to the last third of the nineteenth century, the situation is quite different. In this epoch there is much less need for the Initiate to enter personally or individually into relationship with the discarnate souls we wish to contact. We would prefer to see them in their total environment; we do not feel the need to approach them directly, but rather to make contact with them in some way through earthly knowledge, through ordinary consciousness.

You will forgive me if, at this point, I introduce something from direct personal experience. In this case, the personal experience is entirely objective. The epoch preceding our own was the age of Goethe and for decades I was engaged in the study of his works. I particularly wanted to approach Goethe in the first place through his scientific writings and through natural science in general. Only in later years did the need arise to have direct contact with him as a spiritual being in the spiritual world. But it was first necessary to experience him after his death in his total relationship to the Cosmos as a stellar being, so to speak, not as an individual personality. On the other hand, when we wish to make spiritual contact with a personality such as Brunetto Latini, or with those who were concerned with the study of nature in that epoch, we feel an immediate need to exchange ideas and opinions with them personally, in intimate spiritual communion.

This is a very important distinction and is connected with the fact that the inner spiritual character of the two epochs is totally different. Today we are living in an age when man, indeed the whole of humanity, has a unique opportunity of apprehending spiritual truths directly, an age when Initiation Science becomes common property. This epoch which has only just begun must not be permitted to run its course without a spiritual recognition on the part of the cultured classes of the major facts which are accessible to them, not mundane, physico-sensible facts, but spiritual facts. From now on our epoch must energetically pursue a spiritual science that is directly associated with the spiritual world, otherwise mankind will not be able to fulfil its appointed task. We must enter more and more into a spiritual epoch.

In the preceding epoch other forces exercised a predominant influence in human evolution. And when we speak from the standpoint of genuine stellar knowledge we are able to say: in the epoch upon which we entered in the seventies of last century, it is above all the spiritual forces emanating from the Sun which must exercise a major influence in everything in the psychic and physical life, in science, religion and art. In our epoch the influence and activity of the Sun forces must become progressively more widespread.

For those with real knowledge the Sun is not the globe of gas described by modern physics, but an aggregate of spiritual beings. And the most important spiritual beings, who radiate the spiritual, as the sunlight radiates physically and etherically, are grouped round a Being who, in accordance with ancient Christian-Pagan or Christian-Judaic terminology, may be designated as the Michael being. Michael works from the Sun. The spiritual influences from the Sun can also be called the influences of Michael and his hosts.

In the epoch preceding our own it was not the Sun forces, but the Moon forces which were the driving forces behind man's life, activity and search for knowledge. The Moon forces were the driving forces behind the epoch which ended in the eighteen-seventies after lasting for three or four centuries.

In this epoch the leading beings who influenced the evolution of Earth and man were grouped round a Being called Gabriel, to adopt the ancient terminology. We could equally well choose another name—the terminology is of minor importance—but it would be best to keep to the name Gabriel, in accordance with the Christian-Judaic tradition.

Thus, in the way I have indicated, we are made aware of the spiritual activity in man that is derived from the world of stars. If, through Initiation-knowledge, we ascertain what works in man from birth to the change of teeth, we gain insight into the activities of the Moon in the Cosmos, in other words, through the inspired retrospective survey of the first years of childhood, we acquire knowledge of the Gabriel epoch when the Moon influences are particularly active.

On the other hand, in order to perceive the peculiar characteristics of an epoch such as our own, we must be more mature, have reached the forties and be able to look back upon the formative forces within us between our twentieth and fortieth years, or more precisely, between the ages of twenty-one and forty-two. Consequently, in the epoch preceding our own it was the very young children who played a decisive rôle in the cosmic direction of the world. The forces of the Gabriel epoch were already foreshadowed in the impulses operative in early childhood. In our epoch it is the men in their twenties or thirties who are destined to receive the impulses from the Sun forces; it is the adults who have a vitally important part to play in the cosmic guidance of the whole world.

These facts are the practical consequence of direct spiritual perception which I described to you the day before yesterday. They are not empty theories, but fruits of actual perception. You will realize, therefore, that for an understanding of the Gabriel epoch which preceded the present Michael age there was no particular need to encounter personally the discarnate souls of that epoch. One felt like a little child face to face with a grown-up, because one had to confront these souls with the inspired perception of the earliest years of childhood.

It is quite different when we are investigating the preceding epoch, the epoch of Alanus ab Insulis, Bernardus Silvestris, Joachim of Fiore, John of Hanville and Brunetto Latini. This age was dominated by forces which man acquires when he reviews in retrospect what is working within him in the period between the change of teeth and puberty. These are the Mercury forces. He experiences something of extraordinary significance when, starting from this life-period, he develops the corresponding organs for perception of the spiritual. Between the time of the change of teeth and puberty man is a child who is eager to learn, and when he perceives with the organ of this life-period, he experiences once again the child's enthusiasm. Hence he wishes to encounter personally those who belong to this epoch. And he does so with the knowledge born of Initiation. He would like to confront a personality such as Brunetto Latini just as a child of ten or twelve confronts his superior, his teacher or instructor.

When man possesses true Initiation-knowledge he is not unconscious of things of the phenomenal world. He is both an adult and a child eager for knowledge. He confronts Brunetto Latini on a footing of equality, yet with an intense eagerness to learn from him.

The Initiation-knowledge of the age back from the fifteenth to the eleventh century takes its particular colouring from this relationship. It is an age in which the main impulses for the Earth and humanity are given by Mercury.

The Being round whom everything revolved, the Being of special significance in this age, was known under the ancient name of Raphael. Raphael is Mercury in the age that preceded the Renaissance, the age of Dante and Giotto. We feel we would like to know personally precisely those who are little known to history, those whose names are not recorded.

When we are familiar with the teachings of Spiritual Science this epoch evokes in us a strange response. First, we are annoyed that the text-books have so little to say about Brunetto Latini or men such as Alanus ab Insulis; we should like to be given more historical facts. Then, as we extend our horizon, we are glad and thankful that orthodox history is silent. For the documentation of external history is only fragmentary. Imagine how our epoch would appear in the eyes of posterity if newspaper articles on the subsidiary branches of historical knowledge were held to be the sole valid testimony. We can only be thankful that we are not disturbed by the limited information given in encyclopaedias about these personalities. And with all the means at the disposal of the Anthroposophical Society today, we try to make spiritual contact with these men and report all that can be ascertained about them from the standpoint of Spiritual Science.

In this context it is most important to be in touch with those personalities who were associated with nature knowledge in the Raphael epoch. A deeper knowledge of nature, a deeper understanding of medicine can be communicated through many a personality who, to clairvoyant perception, emerges out of the spiritual twilight of this age (from the ninth to the fifteenth centuries) and can inform us of the current conceptions of matter and of the current ideas of man's relationship to the whole Cosmos. When we look into this age with spiritual vision, we meet with many personalities who are unknown because their names have not been handed down to posterity, yet these personalities exist in reality. Many of these personalities appear before us and we say: there stands “Paracelsus major,” but we have no record of his name, whilst “Paracelsus minor” lived in a later age, in the Gabriel epoch, and had reminiscences of the nature wisdom of Paracelsus major, though no longer in the pure, sublime and spiritual form of Paracelsus major.

Then “Jacob Boehme minor” appears before us in the later Gabriel epoch. And again we say: This personality proclaimed sublime truths which he learned from various traditional teachings and which gave stimulus to his inspiration. When “Jacob Boehme major” who is not known to posterity and whose name is only mentioned occasionally, like those of Alanus ab Insulis and Brunetto Latini, appears before us, then for the first time we really understand “Jacob Boehme minor.” The Pre-Renaissance epoch, at the close of which the famous figures of Dante and Brunetto Latini, and the School of Chartres, stand out like solitary luminaries, whilst Scotus Erigena appears like some erratic boulder in their midst—this epoch contains something that can provide powerful spiritual stimulus. External, medieval history is shrouded in darkness, but this darkness conceals the presence of powerful personalities who can illumine the epoch of which I have just spoken.

When we enter into the Raphael epoch, from the ninth to the fifteenth centuries, [See note, below] then the figures of a Dante, a Giotto and especially those whose names are unknown to posterity, as well as the others I have mentioned, appear to stand out in bold relief. They make an immediate human impression upon us. Raphael himself, who was never incarnated in a physical body, remains more in the background, and other spiritual beings who permanently inhabit the spiritual world are less sharply defined in this epoch. It is the human beings, the deceased in particular, who stand out in bold relief.

[In a note book of Rudolf Steiner, under the date of 18th August, 1924 (“Morning lecture, Torquay”) the following entry was made in connection with the Archangel epochs:

1879	-	1510		Gabriel	Moon
1510	-	1190		Samael	Mars
1190	-	850		Raphael	Mercury
850	-	500		Zachariel	Jupiter
500	-	150		Anael	Venus
150	-	200		Oriphiel	Saturn

]

In the following Gabriel epoch we have the impression that even figures such as Goethe, Spencer, Lord Byron and Voltaire are leading a shadowy existence in the spiritual world. Through spiritual perception, on the other hand, we become aware of beings of signal grandeur who leave an impression of the superhuman, rather than the human. They exist today and the Moon sphere is their permanent abode, as the Earth is ours between birth and death. These impressive figures attract our attention, whilst the human souls recede more into the background. We learn from these figures that they were once united to the Earth as we human beings are today. Whilst human beings live in their physical bodies, these Moon beings formerly lived on Earth in subtle, ethereal bodies. And we realize that we are in the presence of beings who, in primordial times, were associated with humanity and were the spiritual Teachers of mankind on Earth. When their tasks on Earth were fulfilled, they withdrew to the Moon sphere and are no longer associated with the Earth today.

You know from my book Occult Science, that the Moon was once a cosmic body united with the Earth and later split off from the Earth. These beings accompanied the Moon after its separation and later became inhabitants of the Moon sphere. At the stage of knowledge, therefore, which enables us to be in touch with the dead immediately after their death, we enter a world where, because we still retain the earlier knowledge of normal consciousness, we are surrounded by the men whom we recognize today in normal waking consciousness to have been physical men on Earth; then, when we enter into this other consciousness, we learn to realize more and more that we are in the presence of spiritual beings who belong to the Moon sphere even as we belong to the Earth. They are omnipresent and take an interest in human affairs, but not from the physical point of view of men today.

Among these beings who were once the great Teachers of mankind and who no longer dwell on Earth, but—if we may use the expression—are inhabitants of the Moon sphere, are to be found beings of surpassing grandeur and of the highest spiritual development, filled with inner, spiritual majesty. Very much can be learnt from them concerning the mysteries of the Cosmos. Their knowledge far transcends the knowledge within reach of ordinary consciousness. But they cannot express this knowledge in abstract thoughts. When we draw near to them, we are met with the full tide of song; they express everything through poetry and artistic images. In their own way they delight and enchant us with sublime harmonies unknown to Homer and the ancient Indian epics. But deep wisdom lies in all that these beings conjure up before us.

There are however less perfect beings amongst them. Just as on Earth there are pleasant or unpleasant characters, so amongst these other beings can be found those who have not attained the majesty and perfection of their companions. None the less, they have reached a certain stage of perfection because they became their pupils and disciples and so were able to leave the Earth sphere to live and continue working in the Moon sphere. When, to use a trivial expression, we contact these beings, we are immediately aware that they have a burning interest in earthly affairs, but their interest is of a wholly different kind.

You must not imagine these beings to be unsympathetic, rather uninviting figures. Although, compared with their companions, they are imperfect, they far transcend the level of distinction, cleverness and insight that contemporary man can attain with normal consciousness. At all times they share the habits of their companions; but they have different habits and tendencies from those of the ordinary man today.

I should now like to enter into the details of a matter of some importance. When we enter into relationship with such beings, we naturally feel the need to exchange opinions, to confer with them about one thing or another—these expressions are, of necessity, somewhat trivial. Let us assume, to take a concrete example, we are conferring with these beings about writing, the written works of men. One man, we will suppose, has simply written down his name, the other has written his signature or monogram.

When we discuss these questions with these beings, they reply: you men are interested in what is of least importance—in the primary meaning of a word, in what “blacksmith” or “coiffeur,” for example, signify. It is far more interesting to observe the particular movements of the writer as these words are written down, how everyone writes differently—rapidly or laboriously, skilfully or clumsily, mechanically or artistically.—These beings pay close attention to man's particular behaviour-pattern when he is writing. This is what interests them.

And in the spiritual world of which I am now speaking, these beings also have their adherents—various kinds of spiritual entities who no longer live on Earth, and who rank sometimes below, sometimes above man. They give us no guidance on terminology or nomenclature, but advise on the pattern and form of writing which mankind has developed since these beings were on Earth. Writing, in our sense of the term, did not exist when these beings were on Earth.

In their intercourse with mankind they observed how writing gradually evolved. They were interested in the dexterous movements of the fingers and noted how the dexterity of the fingers was supplemented later on by the addition of a quill pen and later a fountain pen. They had little interest in what was committed to paper; they were wholly engrossed in the movements entailed.

An additional factor must now be taken into account—existing emanations still surviving from the Earth have been largely overlooked by mankind. They assume many forms: first of all, if I include amongst them what I have just described, the movements emanating from men. It is the movements emanating from the human being which can be discussed with these beings.

Now in the first place, this is something that does not lead to the real sphere of these beings, for at the time they lived on Earth writing did not yet exist. These beings are wildly ironical when they comment on the limited capacity of man today to understand his fluid emanations. These entities were very much aware of them, whilst modern man ignores them. Thus, m the epoch when these beings were on Earth the fluid emanations, the fluid emanations from the skin, were of vital importance. One learned to recognize one's fellow-man through his exhalations; this was later ignored.

The third thing to which these beings are specially receptive, is skin expiration, the aeriform element that emanates from man. All these emanations, as we shall learn later, may assume a semi-spiritual character. These beings are particularly receptive to these emanations that proceed from man—the solid element in writing, the watery element in skin evaporation, the aeriform element in skin expiration. One must remember that man breathes perpetually through his skin.

Fourthly, these beings are receptive to warmth emanations. All these things in so far as they exist on Earth have special significance for these Moon beings. Man is judged by the configuration of his movements in writing and by the particular nature of his emanations.

The next emanation is the ever-present light emanation. In every individual, not only the aura, but also the physical and etheric bodies radiate light. Under ordinary conditions these radiations are so dim as to be invisible, but their existence has recently been demonstrated by Moriz Benedikt in a specially constructed dark room. He showed that the physical body is surrounded by a subtle aura of red, yellow and blue light emanations which vary at different places round the body. Moriz Benedikt tells us how he demonstrated the coloured aura. He showed the left side of the body under normal conditions of light and the other side under conditions that revealed the aura. Everything depends upon establishing the proper experimental conditions.

The sixth emanation is the emanation of the chemical forces and is found only in rare and exceptional cases on Earth today. It is of course always present, but operates only in the rare cases when black magic is practised. When men become conscious of their chemical emanations and exploit them; black magic is being practised on Earth.

The seventh kind of emanation is the direct spiritual life emanation or vital radiation. The use of chemical emanations today invariably degenerates into black magic which is odious and evil. Whilst black magic is a force to be reckoned with, the life emanations are no less important. These Moon beings of whom I am speaking, can, for their part, always rely upon and work with the life emanations and use them for good. They are not black magicians, for black magicians are those who under certain conditions succumb to evil and perpetrate evil on Earth. But the Moon beings can only rely upon the life emanations at Full Moon, when they can dwell in the Sun's reflected light and are subject to its influences. We must learn to make creative use of what we receive from the spiritual world. The task of our age is to find living ideas, to develop living concepts, perceptions and feelings and not to invoke dead theories. And these are directly inspired by the beings who are united with the Being whom we call Michael.

In the previous Gabriel epoch mankind was more attracted to the material world. Men were unwilling to seek contact with the beings who, under certain circumstances, are closely related to man, because these beings were concerned with something rather alien to that epoch, namely, the occult emanations that proceed from human beings.

Adjoining the physical world that we inhabit between birth and death is a spiritual world, where we are in touch with the dead in the manner already described. But this world has many other aspects, amongst them the virtue of those forces that live in the emanations of man. In a certain sense this is a highly dangerous region of the Cosmos, and as I have often mentioned in these lectures, we must have psychic and spiritual balance and control in order to ensure that all that proceeds from these Moon beings may become a force for good and not for evil.

Indeed, all the forces and impulses of the present epoch must hasten to turn to account the life emanations on Earth. But it is so fatally easy to fall victim to that which lies between this life emanation and all the other emanations we should be only too happy to possess—to fall victim to black magic. Men would so much like to make visible what is expressed in movements—I shall speak of this later—what is present in the fluid emanation, in the light emanation. All this is related to a certain extent to the forces for good and can only make for goodness, because the Michael age is dawning amongst men. Between all this lies black magic that must be resisted if we are to pursue the right methods of spiritual investigation.

1. Movements emanating from men.
2. Skin emanations of the fluid element.
3. Skin emanations of the air element.
4. Warmth emanation.
5. Light emanation.
6. Emanation of chemical forces (black magic).
7. Life emanation.

Now when this intercourse takes place in the spiritual world between human beings on Earth and the Moon beings—and it is continually taking place in the realm of the subconscious—then the interest which certain Moon beings develop in the movements of writing and drawing, and which is revealed clairvoyantly, may also find an echo in certain elementary beings of the spiritual world. Elementary beings are of a lower order than Moon beings. They never incarnate on Earth, but live in the adjacent world as spiritual-etheric beings. Their interest in the world of man may have the following consequence.—From observation we are aware that the thoughts which a human being communicates through writing react upon his whole being. They first present in his Ego, are then transmitted to the astral body which executes its movements exactly as the Ego determines. Next they work into the etheric body and down into the physical body. Certain elementary beings observe these effects and long to react in the same way. This is not possible, because the laws obtaining in their world are different from those of the world in which writing is practised. Writing is the prerogative of the physical world of man on Earth.

But the following situation can arise. Certain types of people, when they write or think or even feel, are firmly anchored in their etheric body; the whole etheric body is involved in the process, which then impresses itself strongly in the physical body. In the case of these types of people the Ego is suppressed and their astral, etheric and physical bodies produce a facsimile of writing and drawing. These types are mediums.

Because their Ego is suppressed such mediums take up into themselves these malleable elementary beings of the spiritual world who have learned the movements of writing from the Moon beings. Then these mediums proceed to execute the movements of writing, not in full Ego-consciousness, but under the influence of the elementary beings that control them. Mediumistic writing and drawing and the usual mediumistic phenomena are brought about through the emanations of the medium in a state of diminished consciousness. These emanations are utilized by the control.

The second kind of emanation can be used by certain beings who, under the influence of the Moon beings, readily assimilate the artistic talents of man. These beings also enter into those human beings who have damped down their surface consciousness and who have a certain artistic impetus in their etheric and astral bodies which can be canalized into the emanations. Under certain conditions it is highly interesting to observe how this type of human being can become possessed by elementary-spiritual beings and how these emanations are invaded by seemingly phantom forms that are in part a composite of man's perception of his life experiences which has slipped down into his etheric and astral bodies and which appears in the emanations; and in part, communications from the world inhabited solely by the elementary beings who have entered into him.

Now similar results were obtained from the experiments of Schrenk-Notzing. The subjects of his experiments were certain mediumistic types, negative psychics, who, in a state of diminished consciousness, when the Ego had been suppressed, were ideal material for elementary beings by virtue of their fluid skin emanations. There is an interesting book on the subject by Schrenk-Notzing. Some condemned it as fraudulent, others gave it high praise. It is not surprising that the latter regarded his findings as extraordinary; for it is extraordinary that, when experiments are made with a medium, ectoplasm issues from a certain part of the body, a form that embodies a spiritual element not to be found on Earth. In many cases there is found associated with the form a picture which the medium recently saw in an illustrated paper. Something streams out of the medium. It is the skin emanation. And into this there streams something wholly spiritual; but associated with this was something that the medium recently saw in an illustrated paper or comic journal, for example, a portrait of Poincaré.

It need not surprise us that people are amazed at such things. But we are indeed most surprised that fashionable people, people of good taste, and even ladies, who would be most unwilling to speak about skin exudations or to discuss psychic materialisations, nevertheless feel an inordinate desire to watch the medium who materializes these ectoplasmic forms out of nothing but ordinary sweat.

The phenomena in Schrenk-Notzing's experiments are simply exudations which materialize through the skin emanations an ectoplasmic form that is activated by the elementary beings.

In the same way the skin emanations, i.e. the air formations issuing from the medium, can be stimulated by certain elementary beings. But these skin emanations are so closely associated with the particular human form and man impresses his own human form so strongly upon them, that for the most part these beings cannot do much more than create a phantom of the man himself. We then witness those phenomena where the phantom issues from the medium.

It is not so easy to produce warmth and light emanations from the human being so that the medium manifests something, i.e. the visible phantom, that can be acted upon by these elementary beings under the influence of Moon beings. Certain preliminary steps must first be undertaken.

As I have already indicated, natural science has recently developed a technique which can demonstrate in a dark room certain light radiations and warmth emanations. In this respect the experiments of Moriz Benedikt are most illuminating. But it has always been the case, and it is still true today, that only those can utilize effectively warmth and light emanations who undertake the preliminary steps which not only involve manipulating the physical world through black magic, but also include the production of hallucinogenic effects by means of special incense-burning and aromas, and the preparation of specific concoctions, and so forth. This is the origin of all those magical practices which are fully described in the old books of magic.

The purpose of these magical ceremonies is to evoke the forces inherent in the light and warmth emanations of man. In the writings of Eliphas Levi and also in those of Encausse who wrote under the name of Papus you can find highly questionable and dangerous instructions on this subject but we cannot afford to ignore them since we must speak about the objective aspect, the true nature, of these things.

All these things lead directly to black magic which makes use of the spiritual concealed within the earthly element. What is this spiritual element? You will find in my book Occult Science—an Outline that at one time the Moon was united with the Earth. Many forces belonging to the Moon were left behind on Earth and are now diffused through minerals, plants and animals. And these Moon forces are still to be found there. When therefore, we, as terrestrial beings, make use of Moon forces which do not normally belong to minerals, plants, animals and man, we trespass into the realm where we meet with elementary beings who have learned much from the Moon beings, but in a way that is foreign to our world. The black magician, therefore, employs Moon forces that still exist on Earth. But because he works in this way he contacts elementary beings who, as it were, watch—as one watches a game of halma or chess—the right and proper relationships between human beings and Moon beings and so learn to draw very near to the physical world, to peer into the physical world or even to set foot in it. But the normal human being in whom all this remains in the subconscious has no contact with these beings. The black magician, however, who works with the Moon forces, who has captured them in his retorts and crucibles is caught in a vortex of those elementary beings.

Even an honest and upright man can learn from these black magicians. In Faust, Part I, Goethe portrayed a condition where man is the centre of whirling forces, a condition that is dangerously near to black magic. By exploiting these forces man enters into the region where entities in the service of the Moon beings are ready to associate with human beings. Thus centres of black magic arise where Moon forces cooperate with spirits who have entered directly into their service, a service that makes for evil. And because many activities of this kind have been practised in recent centuries, a dangerous atmosphere has been created in the Earth. This dangerous atmosphere is undeniably there and is transfused with multitudinous forces that are born of a union of human activities with Moon elements and of dynamic Moon forces with elementary beings in the service of illicit Moon forces. It is this region that is actively opposed to all that is destined to proceed from the Sun region in the Michael age. And this must be taken into special consideration in relation to the life emanation in the sphere of the soul and spirit.

From this point we will pursue our enquiries further tomorrow.

1. Emanations from human beings-mediumistic power
2. Skin emanations of the fluid element-materialization
3. Skin emanation-manifestation of the phantom
4. Warmth emanation
5. Light emanation
6. Emanation of chemical forces (black magic)
7. Life emanation
   Michael—Sun
   Gabriel—Moon
   Raphael—Mercury
   

When we develop the levels of consciousness of which I have already spoken, then each particular level opens the door to a specific cosmic sphere. I propose to describe in outline the relationship between the nature of man's perception and the different spheres to which we can attain by developing the appropriate conditions of consciousness. Of course I can only depict these spheres as contiguous, although, in reality, they interpenetrate. (drawing on blackboard). I have already shown how the Moon and Mercury spheres permeate our own sphere.

Let us suppose we develop the level of consciousness which enables us to be in touch with the dead in the years immediately after their death. This world borders on our world.

The next level of consciousness by means of which we penetrate further into the life of the deceased after he has retraced his earthly life (in kamaloka) in reverse order is that which I have called the emptied consciousness, but a waking consciousness in relation to the physical world. We then enter into a wider realm where we are intimately associated with the Mercury beings, with the events and occurrences characteristic of the sphere of Raphael. Here we become aware especially of the healing forces inherent in human nature.

Thus with each state of consciousness we enter into a specific region of the universe and so we learn to know the beings who belong to these regions at any particular time. If we wish to inform ourselves of the conditions under which men live immediately after death, we must develop the appropriate consciousness in order to enter the world in which they dwell. Their true form is only revealed to us in the world to which they belong. If we wish to observe the Mercury beings we must share the consciousness of their world. Thus we can take it for granted that these worlds are, in a certain sense, insulated from each other and that each world has its specific condition of consciousness. Indeed, if we would understand the universe aright, this is a prerequisite, for only in this way can we prepare ourselves to know these beings in their true character. I propose to show you by means of a simple example in what direction such knowledge leads—a knowledge that seeks to develop in the right way the state of consciousness appropriate to a particular cosmic sphere.

Let us assume we have before us a plant with its leaves and flowers. We have already learned that a plant is the reflected image of the archetypal form existing in the spiritual world and which forms the plant-being on Earth. And when we gain knowledge of the plant kingdom by raising our consciousness into this world of archetypal forms something of vital importance is disclosed, namely, that w; must clearly differentiate between the kinds of plants found on Earth. When we examine a particular specimen, the cichorium intybus (chicory), for example, with the appropriate spiritual perception, its appearance is different from that of many others. Let us take as a typical example the common violet and compare it with belladonna, the deadly nightshade. When we study the plant kingdom in the way I have indicated, we shall find, when we participate in the world to which the violet belongs, that is, in the world of the emptied, waking consciousness, that the violet stands revealed in all its innocence to the eye of the spirit.

The deadly nightshade, belladonna, on the other hand, derives its being from other worlds. We understand the being of the common plant when we perceive that it possesses a physical and etheric body and that the flowers and fruit are surrounded by the universal cosmic element. We see the organic life of the plant sprouting everywhere out of the Earth, the etheric body around it and the astral element seemingly enveloped in cloud. Such is the nature of plants like the violet. Plants like the deadly nightshade have a different arrangement. The belladonna develops its bell-shaped flowers inside which the fruit is formed and the astral element penetrates into the fruit. The violet develops its capsule only in the etheric element. The fruit of the deadly nightshade assimilates the astral element and in consequence the plant is poisonous. All plants which in any of their parts assimilate astrality from out of the Cosmos are poisonous. Those forces which enter into the animal, provide it with an astral body and fashion it inwardly into a sentient being, are also the source of the toxic element in plants.

This is most interesting. We find that our astral body is the bearer of forces which prove to be poisonous when assimilated by plants. This is how we must think of poison. We can only acquire an inner understanding of poison when we realize that man's astral body contains in effect the forces of all existing toxins, for they are an integral part of his being.

In this discussion I simply wish to present a clear-cut point of view which will be of service later in helping us to distinguish between true and false paths in spiritual investigation. What do we learn from the examples of the violet and belladonna? When we have developed the consciousness appropriate to the world of each plant we perceive that the violet is a being that remains within the world proper to it and attracts to itself nothing from a world that is alien to it. The deadly nightshade, on the other hand, attracts to itself something from an alien world; it assimilates something that is the prerogative of the animal kingdom and not the plant kingdom. This is true of all poisonous plants. They assimilate something which should not belong to the being of the plant, but which belongs in reality to the animal kingdom.

Now in the Cosmos there are many beings belonging to different regions. In the region where we meet with the dead and can follow them for ten, twenty or thirty years after their death until they leave this region, are to be found a number of beings who are undoubtedly real, but who, unperceived by men, enter into our physical world. Perhaps I can best describe them as a particular kind of elementary being. When, therefore, we follow the dead after they have passed through the gates of death, we enter into a world inhabited by all kinds of elementary beings who are endowed with form and who really belong to that world. We may say therefore that, since these beings appertain to that world, they ought in reality to utilize only the forces pertaining to it. Now amongst these elementary beings will be found some who do not confine their activities to their own world, but who observe men when they write, for example, and who follow all the activities within the world of men between birth and death. We are permanently surrounded by such beings who are spectators of our activities.

Now this spectator rôle is not in itself harmful, for the essence of the entire plan underlying what I am now describing is that all the worlds which border on our own, the world we enter immediately after death, the world where we contact the dead many decades after death, all these worlds lack everything that man acquires through his association with the physical world. In this world of the dead there is, for example, neither writing nor reading; there are no aeroplanes, no motor cars or coaches-and-four as we know them.

We cannot say that here on Earth we construct motor cars, write, read and write books, in all of which Angels do not also participate. We cannot say that all these things have no significance for the Cosmos in general. The fact is that those beings which I have just described are ‘commissioned’ from the world immediately adjacent to our own. They have to keep an eye on the activities of man. From other worlds they are charged with the mission to concern themselves with human nature and to preserve what they learn in that field for future times.

As human beings we are able to carry over our karma from one life to the next and also the effects of external culture upon our karma. We can carry over from one earthly life to another our experiences associated with the motor car, but not the construction of the car itself. We cannot ourselves carry over from one life to the next that which is born of earthly forces alone. In the course of civilization, therefore, mankind has laid the foundations of something that would be lost to it if other beings had not come to its aid. Now the beings of whom I have spoken are ‘detailed’ for the task of preserving for the future that which man cannot carry over from one earthly life to another.

Since in past ages it has been most difficult for many of these beings to fulfil their tasks, much of what had been discovered in ancient times has again been lost to humanity. The salient point I am trying to establish is that we are surrounded by beings who, in accordance with the cosmic plan, have been charged with the mission to carry over into the future that which man himself is unable to transmit from one earthly life to another, especially the abstract content of our libraries, for example. The spiritual beings with whom man is in direct contact cannot do it and therefore we as human beings cannot do it either. These beings must enlist into their service others who had long been alien to them, who had experienced a totally different evolution from the spiritual beings associated with man. These beings with their different evolution I have called in my books, Ahrimanic beings. Despite their different evolution there are occasions when they come in contact with our own, when, for example, we build a motor car. They are beings who are able by virtue of their Ahrimanic cosmic forces to understand modern techniques such as the construction of a motor car. They transmit to future ages the technical achievements of civilization which man himself cannot carry over from one incarnation to the next.

With this information at our disposal we are now in a position to describe what a medium really is. We must of course distinguish between a medium in the widest sense and a medium in the literal sense of the word. Taking the term ‘medium’ in the widest sense, we are all mediums fundamentally. We are all beings of soul and spirit before we incarnate to live out our life between birth and death. Our spiritual essence is incarnated in the physical body. The physical body is an intermediary for the activities of the spirit. Taking the word ‘medium,’ then, in the widest sense, we can say that every being is to some extent a medium. This is not the meaning we attach to the term ‘a mediumistic type’ in the normal sense. In the world between birth and death a mediumistic person is one who has developed certain sectors of the brain in such a way that they can be isolated from his total being. Thus, at certain times, those parts of the brain which sustain the Ego-activity in particular, no longer serve as a basis for this Ego-activity.

When we say “I” to ourselves, when we are fully Ego-conscious, this consciousness is rooted in specific parts of the brain. These parts of the brain are insulated by the medium and, instead of the human Ego, certain entities of the class I have just described feel an urge to slip into these parts of the brain. Such a medium then becomes the vehicle of those beings whose real function is to transmit to the future the achievements of civilization. When these entities take possession of a brain from which, at certain times, the Ego is absent, they feel an overwhelming desire to establish themselves in this brain. And when a medium is in a trance condition, when the brain is insulated, an entity of this kind which is subject to Ahrimanic influences and whose function is to transmit the achievements of civilization to the future, slips into the brain. Instead of being the bearer of the human Ego, such a medium is, temporarily, the vehicle of an elementary being which is neglecting its duty in the Cosmos. I want you to take quite literally the expression: a being which is neglecting its duty in the Cosmos.

The duty of such a being is to observe how men write. Men write with the forces which are rooted in these parts of the brain of which I am speaking. Instead of merely observing, as is the normal practice, these beings are on the lookout at all times for a mediumistic brain that can be insulated. Then they slip into it and introduce into the contemporary world what their observation has taught them of the art of writing. Thus, with the help of mediums they project into the present that which, in accordance with their mission, they ought to communicate to the future. Mediumism depends upon the fact that what is to become future capacities is already developed in the present in a vague and chaotic manner. This is the origin of the prophetic gift of the medium and the fascination he has for others. Indeed its operations are more perfect than those of man today, but it is introduced by beings in the manner already described.

Just as the belladonna mediates the astral world—acts as a medium for certain astral forces that it absorbs into its fruit—so a human being through his particular type of brain is a medium for these elementary beings who at some future time must participate in our civilization, because men cannot carry over everything from one earthly life to another. This is the real secret of mediumship—possession by a certain class of beings.

Now you may conclude that these beings are, on the one hand, actual creations of Ahrimanic beings. Ahrimanic beings exist in the Cosmos and possess an intelligence far superior to that of mankind. When we encounter the Ahrimanic beings in the world immediately adjacent to our own or, having attained insight, encounter them in the physical world as well, we are astonished at their vast, outstanding intelligence. Their intelligence ranges far beyond that of human kind. And we first learn to respect them when we realize how infinitely intelligent they are. Something of this intelligence passes over to their progeny, the elementary beings who slip into mediumistic brains, so that in this way significant information may be revealed by mediums. We may learn much of capital importance, especially if we attend to what they communicate in fully developed consciousness. When we rightly understand the nature and constitution of the spiritual world, we cannot deny that mediums are able to impart much authentic information. Though we may learn much of importance from them, this is not the right path to spiritual knowledge.

You will realize this from the example of plants which are plant mediums, mediums for certain astral forces which are responsible for the toxicity in plants. It is only through a rightly developed consciousness that we realize how this situation arose. I should like to describe this in the following way, for when discussing the spiritual world, it is better to provide a clear, concrete description than to deal in abstract concepts.

Let us assume that with Initiation-knowledge we enter into the world where the dead live in their life after death. When we accompany the dead in this way we first enter into a world totally different from our own. I have already described it to some extent and have pointed out that it gives an impression of far greater reality than the world in which we live between birth and death.

When we enter this world we are astonished at the remarkable beings to be found there, apart from the souls of the dead. The souls of those who have recently died are surrounded by strange demoniac forms. At the entrance to this intermediate world which the dead must enter and in which we can accompany them with a certain clairvoyant vision, we meet with demoniac figures with enormous webbed feet—enormous by earthly standards—like the duck or the wild duck species and other aquatic animals, huge webbed feet that are perpetually changing shape. These beings have a form somewhat similar to that of the kangaroo, but half bird, half mammal. And when we accompany the dead we pass through vast areas where such beings dwell.

If we ask ourselves where these beings are to be found, we must first have a clear idea of the location of such beings, of where we imagine them to exist. They are always around us, for we inhabit the same world as the dead, but you must not look for them in this hall. It is at this point that the path to real and exact investigation begins.

Suppose you are walking through a meadow where many plants of the species colchicum autumnale, the autumn crocus, are to be found. If, as you are standing amongst the autumn crocuses, you try to evoke the state of consciousness that is able to follow the dead, you will see, wherever an autumn crocus is growing, a being of the kind I have just described, with webbed feet and strange kangaroo-like body. Such a being emerges from every autumn crocus.

If you were to move on to another area where the belladonna, the black deadly nightshade, grows by the roadside and if you transpose yourself into the state of consciousness of which I have spoken, you will meet with totally different beings, horrible, demoniac beings who also belong to this world. Colchicum autumnale and belladonna therefore are mediums which permit beings of the next world to enter into them and which in their other aspect really belong to the world of the dead.

If we bear this in mind, we shall realize that everywhere around us is another world. It is essential that we should enter this world consciously, that we should perceive the colchicum autumnale and the belladonna not solely with the normal consciousness, but with the higher consciousness that is in touch with the dead.

Now consider the following. Here is a meadow, we will suppose, where the autumn crocuses are growing. In order to find the plants that bear the belladonna flowers you might have to travel far and climb a mountain-side. On the physical plane, belladonna and autumn crocus are not found together. But in the spiritual world they are found in close proximity. Space is of a different order. Objects that may be situated far apart in the physical world may be in close proximity in the spiritual world. The spiritual world has its own primordial laws; there everything is different.

Now suppose we meet with these plants in the world of the dead. When we are first in touch with the dead, we discover that these plants by no means evoke in them the horrible impression they evoke in us. They, the deceased, know that the presence of these demoniac beings is in accordance with a wise cosmic plan. When therefore we are in touch with the dead, we find that the intermediate world is populated with demoniac forms corresponding to the poisonous plants. If we then progress further towards the realms from which the dead withdraw after ten, twenty or thirty years in order to enter into a higher realm, we find the related forms of the non-poisonous plants. Thus the plant kingdom plays a significant part both in the physical and the next higher world. In the latter, however, it assumes different forms.

That which belongs in its true form to the world of the stars has its counterpart on Earth in the form of a belladonna, an autumn crocus or a violet. It has also its counterpart in the world of the dead where its true form is reflected in the manner already described. Everything in the one world reacts upon the other worlds. But in order to have real knowledge of these things we must enter consciously into the world where they really belong.

The same applies to the beings of these other worlds. We can only know what the elementary beings are, the progeny of the Ahrimanic powers, when we enter into the world immediately bordering on our own. Now these beings manifest through mediums. They take possession of the mediums and in this way temporarily enter our world. If we contact them through a human medium only, we learn to know them in a world that should really be foreign to them; we do not know them in their true form. Therefore those who learn to know them only by their manifestations through mediums cannot possibly arrive at the truth since these beings are manifesting in a world that is foreign to them. Spiritual revelations are undoubtedly transmitted, but it is impossible to understand them when they issue from a world to which they do not belong. The deceptive and highly hallucinative element in everything connected with mediumistic consciousness is explained by the fact that those who contact these beings have no understanding of their real nature.

Now because they enter the world in this way a unique destiny is reserved to these beings. The knowledge of the universe that I have described serves to enlarge our field of knowledge. When we enter the world of the dead and traverse the demoniac forest of colchicum autumn ale, digitalis purpurea (purple foxglove), datura stramonium (thorn-apple) and so on, we realize that violets will undergo a metamorphosis and in future will assume totally different forms. They have a significance for the future of the Cosmos. By its very nature the autumn crocus prepares the death for which it is destined. The poisonous plants are moribund plants, species that are dying out, with no possibility of future development. In future times they will be replaced by other poisonous species. The poisonous species of today are already dying out in our epoch. The epoch of course is of long duration, but these poisonous plants have the seeds of death within them. And this will be the fate of all vegetation. When we survey the world of vegetation with this spiritual vision we perceive forces of growth and development with a dynamic urge towards the future and a world that is dying and doomed to perish.

And so it is with the beings who take possession of the mediums. They detach themselves from their companions whose task is to carry over the present into a distant future. Through the agency of mediums they invade the world of the present, are there caught up in the destiny of the Earth and sacrifice their future mission. In this way they deprive man to a large extent of his future mission. And this is what faces us when we understand the real nature of mediumism, for mediumism implies that the future shall perish in order that the present may be all important. When therefore we attend a séance with insight into the real occult relationships and into the true nature of the Cosmos, we are at first astonished to find that the entire circle participating in a spiritistic manifestation is seemingly surrounded by poisonous plants. Every spiritualistic séance is surrounded in fact by a garden of poisonous plants which no longer bear the same aspect as in the kingdom of the dead, but which grow up around the spiritualist circle, and from their fruits and flowers demoniac beings are seen to emerge.

Such is the experience of the clairvoyant at a spiritualistic séance. For the most part he goes through a kind of cosmic thicket of poisonous plants that are activated from within and are part animal. Only by their forms do we recognize that they are poisonous plants. We learn from this how everything at work within this mediumistic form that ought to advance the course of human evolution and bear fruit in the future is relegated to the present where it does not belong. In the present, it works to the detriment of humanity.

Such is the inner mystery of mediumism, a mystery of which we shall learn more in the course of these lectures.

It is now possible to indicate precisely what aspect of mediumism presents a major problem to the constitution of man. In this context my account must of necessity appear somewhat abstract, but it will help you a little towards some understanding of the nature of mediumism.

Now the human brain lying in the cranial cavity has an average weight of 1500 grammes or a little more. That is really a considerable weight and if the human brain were to press with its own weight on the delicate veins at the base of the brain, they would immediately be crushed. However long we live, the weight of our brain never presses upon the network of veins beneath it. We understand this immediately if we interpret it in the right way. Let us take man as he is at present constituted. The spinal canal passes upwards and terminates in the brain. With the exception of certain portions, the spinal canal is filled with fluid and the brain floats in this fluid.

Now let us consider the law of Archimedes. You will be familiar with it from your study of physics. It is said that he discovered it in a flash of inspiration whilst he was in his bath. He made the following experiment: with his body wholly immersed in the bath he lifted first one leg and then the other out of the water. He noted that his legs had a different weight according to whether they were in the water or out of it. They lost weight when they were immersed in the water. For a man such as Archimedes this experience had wider implications. He discovered that when an object is wholly immersed in a fluid the apparent loss of weight is equal to the weight of water displaced.

A beaker filled with water is placed on a bench and a solid body suspended by a thread from the hook of a spring balance is lowered into the water. We find that the weight of the body is less in water than in air. When a solid body is immersed in a fluid it experiences an up-thrust equal to the weight of the fluid displaced. This is the law of Archimedes.

And this principle is of great benefit to man for the brain floats in the cerebral fluid; the apparent loss in weight of the brain is equal to the weight of the cerebral fluid displaced. Thus our brain does not weigh 1500 grammes. Its loss in weight is equal to the weight of the fluid displaced, that is, 1480 grammes, so that in accordance with the law of Archimedes its effective weight is only 20 grammes approximately.

In our brain organisation we have something that is much lighter than its real weight. Our brain weighs only 20 grammes, but we must treasure these 20 grammes for they alone can harbour our Ego.

Now our whole body contains all manner of solid constituents which also float in a fluid medium—the blood corpuscles, for example. They all suffer loss of weight and only a fraction of their weight remains. They also harbour the Ego. Thus the Ego is diffused in the blood that is not subject to gravity. In the course of our life we must carefully observe everything within us that has perceptible weight. We must pay the strictest attention to what is situated in the heavy part of the brain and which still possesses weight in the literal sense. For there and nowhere else our Ego may be situated—otherwise astral body, etheric body and so on, take over.

The medium is a human being in whom this solid part of his constitution, the 20 grammes brain, no longer contains the Ego. The Ego is expelled from those parts which still retain weight and then elementary beings can enter immediately.

A materialistic mode of thinking seeks to localize everything and wants to know in which part of the human being the elementary being is situated when it takes possession of the medium. This is the language of the materialistic mind that thinks mechanically and mathematically. Life, however, does not proceed mechanically or mathematically, but dynamically. We must not say, therefore, that the medium is possessed at some place or other that can be localized purely mathematically and geometrically. We must say: the medium is possessed in those parts of his constitution that possess weight or gravity, in the part that is attracted to the Earth. There the Ahrimanic beings can enter; and not only there, but also elsewhere. This description that I have presented to you gives only the crudest aspect of the matter. We have yet to discuss a more subtle aspect.

Now the eye is our organ of vision for the external world. The optic nerve, distributed in the eye, is connected with the brain and provides the basis for colour sensation. The materialist tries to explain how the optic nerve transmits the colour sensations to the brain and releases them there. He compares the whole process to the loading of a ship or a railway truck. Something is ‘loaded into’ the optic nerve from without and is transported by the nerves; it is then unloaded somewhere or other and then passes into the soul. The explanation is not quite as crude as this, but that is what it amounts to. The real explanation, however, is totally different.

The function of the optic nerve is not to convey the colour sensation backwards to the brain, but to insulate it at a certain point. The colour exists only at the periphery. The function of the optic nerve is to insulate the colour sensation the nearer it approaches the brain, so that the brain is virtually without colour sensations; only weak, faint colours reach the brain. And not only is colour sensation insulated, but also every kind of relationship to the external world. Hearing and sight are associated with the sense organs. In the proximate area of the brain the optic and auditory nerves and the nerves that register sensation of warmth reduce everything lying at the periphery to a dim impression. This bears the same relationship to the sensation as the 20 grammes to the 1500 grammes, for the 20 grammes give only a faint impression of the weight of the brain. This is all that remains to us. When we take in the magnificent spectacle of the dawn through our senses, the hind-brain registers only a faint shadow, a dim impression of it. We must pay heed to this dim shadow, for it is only there that our Ego can enter.

The moment our Ego is insulated and we manifest mediumistic powers, an elementary being slips into this faint shadow or into the feeble tones that proceed from the auditory sense. This being slips into the parts vacated by the Ego where the external sense-perception is obliterated, and takes possession of the medium. Then it enters into the ramifications of the nerves, into the will-organisation, that is to say, the nerves that govern the formation of the will. In consequence the medium begins to respond actively because that which should be under the control of the Ego has been taken over by the elementary being. All the subtle, shadowy elements, the residual weight of the brain, the remnants of the colour and auditory sensations, possess us like a phantom—for this 20 grammes weight is only a phantom and these feeble shadows of the colours that penetrate into our inner being are phantom-like. The elementary being enters into this phantom and then the medium grows so lethargic that his body becomes wholly passive and everything in the dim, phantom-like shadows that should really be permeated by the Ego—shadows that are normally tenanted by the Ego—now becomes active within him.

A human being can only be a medium when he permits his faculties which are at the service of the normal man to be inhibited by lethargy, by total inertia, and when the phantom that I have described becomes activated. We can observe this, for example, in the way the medium writes. The medium, of course, could not write unless everything within him were lighter as in the case of the brain, for everything possessed of weight floats in a fluid medium, gives a feeling, a sensation of lightness and so the elementary being writes in those areas which are not subject to gravity and where normally the Ego directs the pen. In the medium, then, it is the elementary being that takes over the direction of the pen in this human phantom.

There is no denying the fact that in all mediumistic phenomena we see the intrusion of another world. Just as the Ahrimanic beings of another world can enter into the movements performed by the medium, so too can they enter into the emanations which I described yesterday. Powerful fluid emanations are present notably in the glandular regions of the human organisation. These elementary beings penetrate not only into the fluid emanations but also into the breath emanations and light emanations. Only in the case of the chemical emanations is there conscious intercourse between the individual who makes use of these chemical emanations and the beings who enter into them. At this point black magic sets in—the conscious cooperation with these beings who enter in after the manner I have described.

Mediums and those who experiment with mediums are unaware of the real processes involved. The black magician, however, is fully conscious that he is invoking for his own purposes these beings of the elementary world into the chemical emanations of human beings, more especially into his own. Hence the black magician is perpetually surrounded by a host of subordinates consisting of these elementary beings, and he makes it possible for them to use the occult-chemical impulses in the phenomenal world, either through his own emanations, or through fumigations, perfumes from the burning of aromatic gums carried out in his laboratory.

Thus we learn that just as the belladonna trespasses into an alien world and so becomes toxic, so too through mediumship the spiritual world trespasses into the world we inhabit between birth and death. And fundamentally this danger is always present whenever the consciousness of man, i.e. his full Ego-consciousness, is suppressed, whenever he is in a stupefied, comatose condition or has actually suffered syncope. Whenever man's consciousness is damped down, not through sleep, but through some other factor, there is the danger that man will be exposed to the world of elementary beings. How far this plays a significant rôle in the life of man we shall discuss in the next lectures.

We began these lectures with an enquiry into our normal dream life and from here we moved on to a consideration of further states of consciousness which enable us to enter into worlds other than the one we inhabit between birth and death. Finally we discussed mediumistic consciousness, the consciousness which man experiences in a somnambulistic condition, for the mediumistic state is always of this nature.

Now both kinds of experience, those of the dream and of somnambulism, are conditions of the soul which are also found in their true form in normal life. It is only when they are intensified that they lead into true or false channels.

Today we will examine our dream life once again. We have seen that when man in normal consciousness passes over from the waking state into sleep, he is subject to dreams and that his astral body registers during the latter state an after-vibration of his experiences in the etheric and physical bodies. Then follow the chaotic, indeed extraordinary dream-experiences which only an Initiate can rightly interpret, because the man who does not penetrate more deeply into the nature of the spiritual world is simply bewildered by these normally chaotic experiences.

But we have also seen how, through exercises in meditation and concentration, the weft of dream life can be interwoven with the woof of higher consciousness. We therefore envisage man transplanted into the chaotic and wondrous world of dream; but he remains fully conscious in this dream life which is as real to him as ordinary life. Then he gains insight into another world where he can accompany the dead in their after-death existence. He feels that a world of much greater reality than our present world envelops him. The question now is: what is the real nature of the world he now contacts? I have already spoken about this, but today I would like to touch upon this question from a different angle.

I described how there once lived on Earth illustrious teachers who did not inhabit physical bodies, but only subtle etheric bodies, and were able therefore to incarnate in the ether surrounding the Earth. They instructed men through Inspiration and laid the foundations of the primordial culture on Earth. When we look back into these ancient times with the appropriate condition of consciousness, we find these primeval spiritual teachers sharing the life of mankind. Then they withdrew to the Moon sphere and today are only to be found in this sphere where they have subjected to their purposes all manner of beings who have never lived on Earth. They live amongst these elementary beings and work upon human beings who have passed through the gates of death, instructing them how to acquit themselves in relation to their karma. These are the Beings with whom we are concerned when we first enter the spiritual world. Just as we cannot ignore society and social relationships in our life on Earth, so we must cooperate with these other Beings in order to attain higher knowledge. And it is with the help of these Moon Beings who were once the primeval teachers of humanity on Earth and the beings whom they have taken into their service, that we investigate the spiritual world immediately adjacent to our own. It is there that we find the key to earlier Earth epochs and to the earlier incarnations of human beings. We can then discover personalities who once lived on Earth and with whom we either had, or had not, karmic connections. In order to illustrate this, I pointed out how, by further developing this level of consciousness, we gradually contact earthly beings such as Brunetto Latini, Dante, Alanus ab Insulis and others who are no longer incarnated on Earth today.

This state of consciousness is therefore an illumination, a translucence of the dream state. In ordinary life the dream state represents, so to speak, only the rudimentary beginnings of this state. Now it is very easy to show the difference between the Initiate and the man living at the ordinary level of consciousness.

Under normal conditions of sleep man's physical and etheric bodies are left behind, whilst his astral body and Ego are outside his body. In the dream state experience is solely the province of the Ego. The occurrences experienced in the dream belong, it is true, to the astral body which is still outside the physical and etheric bodies, but in terms of ordinary consciousness only the Ego can experience the dream.

The Initiate, however, experiences with his Ego and especially with his astral body. The difference, therefore, between the Initiate and the ordinary dreamer is that the latter only experiences with his Ego when he is outside his physical and etheric bodies, whilst the Initiate experiences with his astral body as well.

Now this mode of perception was developed to a high degree, especially in the ancient Mysteries, for the purpose of investigating the super-sensible worlds. It was further developed in a decadent form throughout the Middle Ages and later epochs. In modern times it has virtually disappeared. Isolated individuals, either by spiritual means or through tradition, have always received instruction from the ancient teachers in the Mysteries how to remain fully conscious in ordinary dream life. Individuals have at all times been able to penetrate into these worlds, but the attempt is fraught with danger. When the Initiate with Imaginative Knowledge is immersed in the normal dream world, he immediately has the feeling that he is losing touch with the physical world, that he is losing consciousness and sinking into a void. He feels as if solid ground were slipping from under his feet, as if he were no longer subject to the force of gravity. He experiences a feeling of inner release, a feeling that he is being swept away into a cosmic ocean, that he might easily lose control over himself because he is no longer firmly anchored.

The purpose of the spiritual exercises described in my book, >Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, is to obviate this danger. Whoever undertakes these meditations in the right way will find that he develops “wings” of the soul and that, having overcome gravity, he can now take wing. When the Initiate loses the physical and etheric ground beneath his feet and has not yet developed the “wings” of the astral body and Ego, a dangerous situation arises. Though I express myself figuratively you will understand my meaning. The dangers are real enough. If we prepare ourselves assiduously for the world we enter as a result of these exercises, all possibility of danger is excluded. We can gradually participate in these worlds just as we participate in the physical world through our physical and etheric bodies.

This was more or less the condition of man in earliest times. Today we have to achieve this condition through the practice of spiritual exercises. The make-up of primordial man was such that, in contrast to our waking consciousness, he enjoyed a natural condition of spiritual vision such as I have described amongst the Chaldeans and a condition that could not be equated with our dream state, but was a form of Imaginative perception. When confronted by another human being a man perceived not only his physical contours, but had a dreamlike impression of the aura around him. It was the true aura, not merely a subjective illusion. In addition to this gift for perceiving the aura of the physical body, he also possessed another faculty—for both are related to each other—which enabled him to perceive the aura of a spiritual being who is not incarnated in a physical body. And then he dreamed the form of the spiritual being.

Note the difference: if, in ancient times, a man looked at his physical counterpart, he imagined in a true dream the aura around him. If he met with a spiritual being, an Angel or an elementary being, he had, from the first, a spiritual perception of the aura and ‘dreamed’ the form belonging to it.

This is how the earliest painters worked, but we are unaware of it today. These painters saw the spiritual beings and ‘dreamed’ the corresponding forms. They depicted the Beings of the hierarchy of the Angels almost in the likeness of human beings, the Archangels with unsubstantial bodies, but with clearly defined wings and head; and the Archai solely with a winged head because this was the form they ‘dreamed.’ These insights were as natural to men of ancient times as it is natural to us today to see another's physical features. Since man has gradually lost his clairvoyance, he must reacquire it through spiritual training. But as clairvoyance was natural to primitive man, and relatively easy to regain through spiritual training, it has been the subject of extensive investigation over the years. There has always been an active interest in the world ruled by the Moon Beings and the Initiates of the ancient Mysteries, who were the true investigators, have much to say of this world, of their encounter with the dead, of the investigation into the Moon sphere and how the world appears from the perspective of the Moon sphere.

Copernicus established his heliocentric system from the point of view of the terrestrial consciousness only. The old Ptolemaic system is not erroneous; seen from the perspective of the consciousness of the Moon sphere its findings are correct. Now it is a characteristic of these investigators, i.e. the Initiates of the Moon sphere, that their activities are restricted to that sphere.

It is common knowledge to all of you that the present Anthroposophical Society was formerly a part of the Theosophical Society. The Theosophical Society which is similar to many societies of a kindred nature that have been founded in the course of recent years, has accumulated an abundant literature. If you refer to this literature you will find—whether rightly or wrongly is immaterial for the moment—that it describes the world of which I am now speaking, the Moon sphere, the world that we investigate in conjunction with the Moon Beings. When it was proposed that I should work in the Theosophical Society it had important implications for me—although I was faced with certain difficulties at first, for in the Theosophical Society I found investigations and a literature which were limited solely to this Moon sphere. Undoubtedly this material contains much that is incorrect, but much that is highly important and unique, especially in the writings of H. P. Blavatsky. But everything to be found in the writings of H. P. Blavatsky is determined by her association with the Moon sphere and her relationship with Initiates who elected to stay behind in this Moon sphere as an act of sacrifice.

I can assure you that I have come to know many of these Initiates and how such spirits penetrate into the Moon sphere but are indifferent to man's desire to develop further.

When I wrote my book, Occult Science—an Outline, in the years between 1906 and 1909, I described the Earth in its earlier incarnations of Moon, Sun and Saturn. [See Chapter IV: Man and the Evolution of the World.] My description did not end with the Moon incarnation; I traced the Earth incarnation as far back as the Saturn incarnation, whereas all the Initiates who spoke of these matters concluded their account between Moon and Sun; in reality, they traced the Earth incarnation only as far back as to the Moon sphere. Any suggestion that they should look back to still earlier incarnations of the Earth was met with indifference, sometimes even with a sense of disquiet. They declared this to be impossible, for the path was blocked by an insuperable barrier. It was of course, most important and not without interest to understand the reason for this. It soon became apparent on closer acquaintance that these Initiates had an aversion, an antipathy to the modern scientific outlook. When these Initiates were introduced to the ideas of Darwin, Haeckel and their followers they became most indignant and regarded them as childish and stupid and refused to have any truck with them. They were less antipathetic to the ideas of Goethe at first, but ultimately they found that he too spoke the language of the modern scientist and then they dismissed the whole affair.

In short, one could not appeal to the Initiates with such ideas. And it was in the years 1906 to 1909 when I first steeped myself in modern scientific ideas in order to impregnate them with Imaginations that I found it possible to penetrate to the Sun and Saturn spheres. I did not use these scientific concepts as a method of cognition after the fashion of Haeckel or Huxley, but as an inner motivation in order to overcome the limitations to which the Initiates were subject at a time when the modern scientific outlook did not yet exist and when therefore one could achieve higher consciousness only by impregnating the dream-world with Imaginations. In writing my Occult Science I attempted to imbue with inner meaning the fully conscious scientific outlook of Huxley and others which normally is only associated with the external world, and to impregnate the Imaginative world with it. Then it was possible to understand this whole sequence of Saturn, Sun and Moon and to investigate on Earth the old Initiate-knowledge.

I am describing this path to knowledge in order that you may understand how these things arise. You may perhaps say that this is a personal interpretation. But in this case the personal element is, in fact, wholly objective. The criticism directed against my book Occult Science is that it is written like a mathematical text-book, that I sought to avoid subjective interpretation and that I described with mathematical detachment the whole path of development I have been discussing. None the less this path is precisely as I have described it. Its origin lay in the circumstance that the modality of thought which has existed since the time of Copernicus and Galileo and which was enriched by Goethe was combined with the same disposition of soul that is normally present in Imagination. Thus it was possible to trace back this sphere that had always been accessible to the Initiates, to its origin in Saturn.

From this example you will appreciate perhaps how important it is to approach these matters not in a vague, haphazard fashion, but with clear and conscious deliberation, to introduce a note of caution where thoughtlessness so easily takes over. Under normal conditions the dream life is in contact with the Ego only, but here we have an example where it contacts the astral body also.

To the question: what is the difference between modern natural science and the information I have given in Occult Science? I would reply: the modern scientist can only appeal to the Ego and begins to dream the moment he surrenders his Ego, whilst I was able to take over into the dream life the concepts of natural science, to direct the astral body into the worlds I had to describe.

This is a path which can be described to you exactly and will serve as an example to indicate perhaps more precisely how the true paths differ from the false.

The condition diametrically opposed to the dream state is that of somnambulism and mediumism. The dreamer lives wholly in his Ego and astral body. Even though he has no conscious perceptions in the astral body, he nevertheless lives within it. He lives wholly in his Ego and astral body outside his physical and etheric bodies. He is thrust down into, immersed in his own being, and his own being is then affiliated to other worlds. Thus the dreamer is submerged, so to speak, in his own being and hence is immersed in the Cosmos and, to a certain extent also in his physical organism.

The precise opposite is the case with the medium and somnambulist. Man is only in a mediumistic or somnambulistic condition when his Ego and astral body are outside his physical and etheric bodies; but in this case, as I have pointed out, his Ego and astral body are possessed by an alien being.

Thus we have the medium or somnambulist with his physical being, but the Ego and astral body are outside the physical and etheric bodies. The Ego and astral body are suppressed, for another being takes them over. Consequently the medium cannot influence the physical and etheric bodies in the right way. Even when we are in dreamless sleep, for instance, we exert an effect upon the physical and etheric bodies. In waking life we permeate our physical and etheric bodies from within; in sleep we protect them from incursions from without.

This no longer applies to the somnambulist. The medium or somnambulist has no control over his physical and etheric bodies; they are, so to speak, deserted territory.

When a man is endowed with the constitution of soul that is normal for our time, it is the forces of the plants and minerals alone that have an influence upon his physical and etheric bodies. If the forces of the minerals, i.e. of the mineral Earth, did not influence our physical body, we should be unable to walk or move around, because we are dependent upon these forces. It is permissible to share the world of the mineral forces; that is the normal condition, but they must not enter into the etheric body.

The same applies to the plants. It is permissible for the forces of the plants still to work to a certain extent upon the etheric body, although not too strongly. But the forces that stimulate sensation in the animal and the forces of another human being should no longer be permitted to influence the physical body of man, and especially his etheric body. Because the physical and etheric bodies of the medium or somnambulist are deserted, the animal and terrestrial human forces work upon the medium or somnambulist. The physical and etheric bodies become influenced by suggestion. Just as thought passes from the dream into the environment, so in this case the will is detached from the human being and merges into the environment. We can suggest to the medium or somnambulist that he should stand up and walk; if we offer him a potato we can suggest that it is a tasty pear and so on. As human beings when we suggestionize the medium or somnambulist we make direct contact with the physical body, and hence with the etheric body. The medium and somnambulist bear within them in their etheric body their physical environment which should be reflected only in the physical body, as is the case with normal man. Normal man therefore surrenders himself in a dreamlike state to his inner spiritual world, the medium to the external world of nature.

Now mediumism or somnambulism is a normal condition in so far as the condition itself is normal. For the ability to move about, to seize hold of objects, to be able to perform any kind of external action is a magico-somnambulistic achievement on the part of everyone. But this activity must be limited to the physical body; it must not find its way into the etheric body, otherwise the normal passes over into the abnormal.

And so the dreamer lives entirely within his own being; the medium or somnambulist is outside his being. The physical and etheric bodies of the medium or somnambulist function somewhat after the fashion of automata and we can work upon them because his own Ego and astral body fail to provide for them. Consequently, just as in the dreamer an inner spiritual world is created, so in the medium or somnambulist there comes into being a union with the external world of nature, with the world of form and its origin, with all that is perceptible and all that is related to space and time.

When we sink down into the world of dream, we are immersed in the formless, in that which is in a state of constant transformation. When we penetrate with our physical and etheric bodies into the world where the somnambulist or medium is exercising his will under the influence of suggestion, everything is sharply defined; all that supervenes as the result of external influence is carried out with extraordinary precision.

This world is the exact antithesis of the normal world of dream; in the somnambulist it is a dream activity, a natural creation externalized. It is dreaming in action, activity in a dreamlike state, in place of dreaming in inner experience only.

From the standpoint of Initiation this antithesis is most interesting and significant. When the Initiate sinks down into the world of dreams in order to permeate it with Imaginations he meets with difficulties. I have already spoken of this. He feels that he is no longer subject to gravity, that he no longer has firm ground beneath his feet. When the Initiate enters into this world he must gain access to it consciously, whilst the somnambulist finds his way into it unconsciously—he feels that he may at any moment lose consciousness. He is always faced with this possibility, and he must take himself firmly in hand so that he maintains full consciousness. If, as Initiates, we penetrate more deeply into this world, we must proceed here as sensibly and intelligently as normal beings in the visible and tangible world. The Initiate must not betray the fact that, whilst he is living a normal life, he is at the same time living with full consciousness in a spiritual world. For were he to imagine for a single moment that he was detached from the physical world, he would begin to give himself airs and his fellow men would think him rather odd. And they would say: what madman is this! This may happen if he does not keep a tight hold on himself in order to preserve full consciousness as he passes through the spiritual world which is omnipresent just as the sensible world is omnipresent.

This opens up a sphere that has not been dealt with by the Theosophical Society, but which the “big guns” among the natural scientists have seized upon, namely, the sphere of psychical research. These researches are carried out by men with a scientific background and of limited potentialities who undertake statistical surveys and who experiment with mediums in order to ascertain the nature of the spiritual world. In all kinds of societies, and from different points of view, attempts are now being made to investigate objectively what processes are involved when a man moves his limbs or reacts, not with his normal consciousness, but with a diminished or totally obliterated consciousness, at a time when other beings have taken possession of his soul. The reactions of those whose consciousness has been damped down in this way are thus recorded.

The suggestion has even been made by enthusiasts for this kind of investigation that I, together with the fruits of my investigations, should put myself at their disposal in their laboratories in order that they may be able to investigate objectively the phenomena of the inner world. This is about as sensible as if someone were to come along and say: I understand nothing about mathematics so I cannot say whether the statements of mathematicians are true or false. The best thing for him to do would be to come to me in my psychical laboratory and I will make experiments with him to show whether he is a great mathematician or not.—That is approximately the situation. I am here speaking of a field of investigation at the present time in which no real attempt is being made to penetrate to the inner being of man, but simply to investigate somnambulism and mediumism from outside by methods that are a caricature of the scientific method. For if people really penetrated to the inner being of man they would realize that in mediumism and somnambulism they are faced by the external vehicle, an automaton consisting of physical and etheric bodies; that they are not investigating the spiritual reality, but that what they wish to investigate has deserted the external vehicle. They simply refuse to look into the more subtle aspects of the spiritual world. They often want to perceive the spiritual, not only through inner experience, but also in visible and tangible form.

This approach sometimes assumes other forms as, for example, in the Theosophical Society, at the very time when I had already described this path. They were looking for the spiritual figure of Christ in a physical body. They wanted to find a direct manifestation of the spiritual in the external world.

We must accept the physical world as it is and seek the spiritual where it really exists—in the physical world of course, but essentially in the spiritual spheres that permeate the physical world.

Here lies yet another region. Man in a healthy state feels impelled to bridge the gap between the region of inner experience and external perception, between the chaotic world of the dreamer and the abnormal world of the medium and somnambulist. Art is born of the union of these two worlds and their mutual fructification. For in art the external form is imbued with spirit and the spiritual content is clothed in external form.

Whilst the Theosophical Society was busy proclaiming an ordinary human being to be a spiritual entity, we in the Anthroposophical Society were impelled to direct the occult stream into art. The Mystery Plays and Eurythmy were born, and the art of Speech Formation was developed. [See list of literature] These and similar developments in the Anthroposophical Society were the fruits of the impulse to bridge the gap between the spiritual and the physical, so that consciousness bridges the chaotic world of dream and the chaotic world of the medium or somnambulist. In art these two worlds are consciously merged.

Some day this will be understood. People will understand the purpose of our endeavours when Speech Formation, as practised by Frau Marie Steiner, shall be restored to the level it once enjoyed when men were still instinctively spiritual. For them rhythm and measure in speech were more important than empty, abstract diction. These must be revived again. And Eurythmy restores to us again man unfolding before us through movement, man as he really is as a being of soul and spirit. This is what we learn from Eurythmy.

In art, therefore, we have had first of all to build a bridge from the world in which the dreamer wanders aimlessly to the world in which the medium or somnambulist blindly stumbles around. In our present materialistic age the dreamer is left to his solitary reflections and knows nothing of configurations and material forms which express and reveal the spiritual. And the somnambulist lives his life caring little whether he enjoys a medium's fame or whether he invents theories of an ideal State like the Bolshevists and, like the medium, projects all kinds of manifestations into the world around. Both dreamer and somnambulist share the life of the contemporary world without the slightest suspicion of the existence of the spiritual.

It is essential to find once again the bridge leading from the spirit into matter and from matter to the spirit. In the sphere of art we must first build this bridge so that we no longer stumble and drift along in a semi-conscious state, but develop a sense for art through spiritual movements which are not of the normal kind. Thus Eurythmy has its true, inner source in an impulse arising out of Initiation and all that we practise in the art of Speech Formation stems from the same source. And when the forthcoming Course on Dramatic Art¹ is held at Dornach we shall try to restore once again the spiritual image of dramatic art. For a long time attention has been focussed on how to present the actor on the stage with a maximum of realism. In the nineties discussions on this subject were simply comic. The question was discussed—and naturalism finally won the day—whether Schiller's characters should declaim their heroic lines with their hands in their trouser pockets because that was the contemporary fashion. There is every reason therefore for finding the right way to explore the spiritual world. It is a sound principle to follow the path of art.

It is most important to transcend the ancient Initiation-Science that was steeped in the Moon mysteries and everything pertaining to them and to develop that inner condition of soul that can only be reached when the achievements of natural science—I am referring in this context to the intellectual conquests of natural science—can be used to fructify the occult knowledge of the Initiate. On the other hand, it is equally important to make a special field of research the confused, dilettante experiments which are undertaken in order to ascertain what takes place in the ectoplasmic forms when, in trance condition, the somnambulist or medium is possessed by elementary beings. For these two paths are really one and the same, namely, the emergence from within the dream into conscious dreaming and the conscious apprehension of the external world which natural science knows only in its mineral properties—these, so-called psychical research proposes to explore in its dilettante fashion. Since we live in a scientific age it is important to pursue this path of spiritual investigation and also to explore spiritually that other realm which is the polar opposite of the world of dreams.

The somnambulist or medium produces phenomena to which we are not accustomed in ordinary life. His handwriting, movements, speech and sense of taste are not those of the normal man because his astral body and Ego are outside the physical and etheric bodies and we are dealing with a physical and etheric body which are deserted and are given up to the influence of the Cosmos. We are confronted with physical and etheric manifestations which do not reflect the normal workings of nature, but which proceed from the spiritual world. For after all it is immaterial whether we suggestionize the medium or whether the medium is subject to some stellar, climatic or metallic influence which he assimilates into his etheric body.

We must bear in mind that the vehicles of the medium are at the service of the spiritual for magical ends. We cannot study these manifestations without knowledge of the spiritual as the Society for Psychical Research would like to do by means of external experiments. We must look into their spiritual relationship. We must observe the phenomena produced by the medium or somnambulist and the spiritual basis behind them.

All these phenomena manifested through the medium or somnambulist are associated with other mediumistic phenomena. When in trance condition a medium performs some act under human or cosmic influence, i.e. when a physical and etheric body perform some act, then this is temporarily the same as the process which takes place, though determined by other factors, in the poisonous plants which are the source of disease in man. It is only the external, transient mask of disease that is revealed in the mediumistic, somnambulistic state. From a certain point of view—and we shall have to discuss this in greater detail in the course of the next lectures—we can see in the phenomena of mediumism and somnambulism (there is no necessity to do so, but it is always possible) what is happening in the person who is ill, because his Ego and astral body have withdrawn in some abnormal way from an organ, or from the whole organism, and have been replaced by other spiritual influences.

Since men were aware of this relationship in ancient times the Mysteries were always associated with medicine. And because people were not so inquisitive as today, they never felt the need to be interested in mediums and somnambulists, for they were familiar with their activities just as they were familiar with the conditions of disease. They approached these matters more from the medical point of view. It is a standpoint that we must acquire once again.

And the other path which approaches the spiritual through natural phenomena, through natural science, in dilettante fashion must be pursued in the right way. All phenomena and particularly everything that is expressed through the pathological states of men and animals must be reviewed again in the right perspective. Only then shall we be in a position to investigate the phenomena which the Society for Psychical Research would like to explore.

And this field of investigation has now been opened up by the Anthroposophical Society. We have been able to study pathological phenomena in such a way that through them the door to the spiritual world has been opened. This has become possible because Dr. Ita Wegman and I endeavoured to develop along the right lines this field of investigation that had been ignored by psychical research; and also because Ita Wegman possesses not only the knowledge of a qualified doctor, but also those intuitive therapeutic gifts which lead directly from observation of the clinical picture to spiritual insight and thence to genuine therapy.

Here, then, lies the path that must be followed in order to explore the region that I have indicated. Through our efforts we hope to develop a genuine Initiation-medicine, which itself is an Initiation-natural science. Thus the true path, in contradistinction to the many false paths, will be demonstrated to all. And the first volume of the book written by Dr. Wegman and myself will indicate the steps that must be undertaken. [See list of literature]

In this connection it would be well to point out perhaps that the differences between the true and false paths can best be illustrated by examples.

I said previously that a path to art must be found that will link once again the sphere of the spiritual with the sphere of natural science. I must now add that it appears to inhere in the conditions of modern civilization that we shall only find the right path to art when we have first explored the right path in relation to the investigation of natural phenomena, the path of spiritual science. For in the sphere of art today mankind is so far removed from building the bridge of which I have spoken that it can only be persuaded of the active permeation of art by the spirit when it can be finally convinced of the activity of the spiritual that can be seen especially in the genesis of the pathological; when there is clear evidence of how the spirit operates and reveals itself in matter. When mankind becomes aware of the activity of the spiritual in the kingdom of nature, then it may perhaps be possible to arouse sufficient wholehearted enthusiasm for the idea that the spiritual can be presented directly to the world in the form of works of art.

I will speak further on these matters tomorrow.

• 1. Speech and Drama, 19 lectures, Dornach, 5th to 23rd September, 1924.

Yesterday I spoke of abnormal and pathological approaches to the spiritual world: the path through enrichment of inner understanding, the path of deeper penetration into the world of dream on the one hand, and on the other, the path which sets out to investigate the external manifestations of somnambulists and mediums by methods which are really a travesty of those of natural science. I pointed out that it is essential to follow both these paths and to pursue them purposefully if we are to develop true Initiation-knowledge. Today I propose to examine this problem more closely and to explore those cosmic influences to which man's consciousness and his total being are subject.

It is easy to see that amongst the influences working upon man, apart from those of the Earth, the influences of the Sun and Moon are paramount. Although people as a rule do not pay much attention to this, it is none the less evident today, even to the scientist, that nothing would exist on Earth without solar radiations.

Sun forces conjure plant life out of the Earth. They are essential to all animal life and to the physical and etheric bodies of man. Sun activities are to be found everywhere if we are prepared to look for them; they are vitally necessary to the higher members of man's being. Less attention, however, is paid to the Moon influences. They often survive today in the form of superstitious beliefs, and any precise knowledge about them is frequently distorted by the existence of superstitious notions about such influences. Those who propose to work in the scientific field today feel themselves to be above superstition; in consequence they deny that Moon influences have any significance and refuse to consider them seriously. Now and then, however, not only poets who are aware that the magic of the Moon stimulates their poetic imagination, not only lovers who exchange their tender passion by the light of the Moon, but also sages have a presentiment of the influences of the Moon upon the Earth, each in their different way. And this can prove highly instructive.

In the middle of the nineteenth century there lived in Germany two professors, Schleiden and Gustav Theodor Fechner. Fechner was attracted to a scientific study of the more mysterious workings in man and in the wider kingdom of nature. He collected data and statistical evidence to show that the rainfall over a particular area was related to Full Moon and New Moon and he concluded that rainfall varied with the phases of the Moon. He did not hesitate to defend his point of view against the scientific theories of the day. His colleague at the university, the eminent botanist Professor Schleiden, held a different opinion. He ridiculed the ideas of Fechner and declared that it was nonsense to speak of Moon influences of this kind. Now both professors were married and in the relatively small university town of the day conditions were still patriarchal. At that time it was customary for the wives to collect rainwater because they believed it was ideal for washing linen. Not only the two professors debated the issue, but their wives also tried to get to the bottom of the question. One day Professor Fechner said to his wife: “Professor Schleiden refuses to believe that the phases of the Moon have any influence on the rainfall. I want you to collect the rainwater that falls during one phase of the Moon, and Frau Professor Schleiden to collect the rainwater that falls during the following phase. As Professor Schleiden does not believe that the Moon phases play any part in the matter, there can be no possible objection.” But Frau Professor Schleiden was unwilling to grant to Frau Professor Fechner that phase of the Moon during which, according to her husband, a higher rainfall was impossible! A regular quarrel ensued; university and families took sides.

Now this incident has a scientific basis. When we investigate these influences with the methods of Spiritual Science we find that we can speak of powerful Sun and Moon influences, not merely as a relic of superstitious beliefs, but as a scientific fact. Having stated this, we have virtually exhausted all that modern man in normal consciousness can know on this subject. Modern man lives, so to speak, under the influences of Earth, Sun and Moon, and his consciousness also is fundamentally dependent upon them. For, as I have already pointed out, the external, visible aspect of the stars, Sun and Moon, is not the decisive factor. We have already emphasized that the Moon sphere harbours those Beings who were once the primordial teachers of mankind. The Sun sphere also harbours a vast multitude of spiritual beings. Every star is a colony of beings, just as the Earth is the cosmic colony of humanity. As I have already indicated, man lives today almost exclusively under the influence of Earth, Sun and Moon during the period between birth and death. We must now acquire a more precise knowledge of the spiritual, psychic and physical conditions in which man lives under the influence of Sun and Moon.

Let us consider the two poles of consciousness between which lies the state of dream—the waking consciousness and the emptied consciousness of sleep, of dreamless sleep. If we observe man during sleep when his physical and etheric bodies are detached from his astral body and Ego, we find that between falling asleep and waking he carefully preserves in the astral body and Ego the Sun influences which are withdrawn from the physical and etheric bodies.

From waking to sleeping we experience the Sun externally. We are aware of its effects even when totally blanketed by rain, for we owe our perception of objects around us to the reflected rays of the Sun. During the whole of our waking life we are exposed to the influence of the Sun which illumines objects from without. The moment we pass over into the condition of sleep the Sun begins to shine in our Ego and astral body and we perceive it with our spiritual eyes. Between sleeping and waking the Sun is within us. You are aware that certain minerals when left in a dark room after exposure to irradiation absorb the light and then become luminous. To spiritual perception the Ego and astral body of man follow the same pattern. In the waking state they are to some extent overpowered by the external sunlight. They begin to glow and to shine, since they are now imbued with sunlight between sleeping and waking.

To sum up: in waking life man lives under the influence of the external Sun forces; during sleep he is under the influence of the Sun forces which he now bears within himself until the moment of waking. During sleep we have the Sun within us and only the physical and etheric bodies are left behind. But from the spiritual world during sleep we irradiate from without our physical and etheric bodies with the sunlight stored within us. If we should omit to do this, if we did not irradiate our skin and the innermost recesses of the sense-organs with the sunlight stored within us, then we would soon collapse and die. In fact we provide for the vigour, growth and vitality of our organism by directing the stored-up sunlight from without on to our skin or by assimilating it into the sense-organs.

In effect, therefore, when man's astral body and Ego are outside his physical and etheric bodies during sleep, he first of all irradiates his skin with sunlight and then directs the sunlight through the eyes and ears to the nervous system.

This is the phenomenon of sleep. The Sun shines from the human Ego and astral body, irradiating the skin and penetrating into the human being through the doors of the senses.

Then, irrespective of whether it is New Moon or Full Moon—for the influences are always present, although they change with the phases of the Moon—Moon forces from without invade man's physical and etheric bodies. Thus, in the physical and etheric bodies during sleep we see the workings of the Sun proceeding from the Ego and astral body; in the physical and etheric bodies the workings of the Moon.

We have thus characterized the state of sleep in relation to the Cosmos. During sleep man's inner life is related to the Sun, his external life to the Moon. For, although the astral body and Ego are outside, they are, in reality, his inner being.

In waking life, the situation is reversed. When we are awake, Moon influences permeate our whole inner being, whilst Sun influences invade us from without. In waking life, therefore, Sun influences stream directly into our physical and etheric bodies, and the Ego and astral body within us are subject to the stored-up Moon forces.

During waking life, therefore, the Sun forces stream into our physical and etheric bodies from without and our inner being is permeated with the stored up Moon forces. During sleep the Sun inhabits the astral body and Ego; during waking life, the Moon. In waking life the Sun inhabits the physical and etheric bodies, during sleep, the Moon.

Even when man becomes a night-reveller and by sacrificing sleep invites the next day's hang-over, even then these influences are still present. For although we may choose to ignore nature's laws, the fact remains that things will take their normal course for man by virtue of their inherent inertia, by virtue of the law of cosmic continuity.

If man sleeps by day and wakes by night, the Moon influences are still active within his Ego and astral body during his nocturnal waking life; and the Sun influences also stream into him, but he experiences them as he would normally experience the light shed by street lamps, or dim starlight were he to lie out in the open and look up at the stars. But the Sun forces which man stores up during sleep and the Moon forces which pervade his inner being during waking life are present everywhere. With the physical and etheric bodies the position is reversed.

Man owes his ordinary consciousness between birth and death to this pattern of events. We shall now consider how the situation changes when man attains to higher forms of consciousness. For the relationship of the Initiate to Sun and Moon is progressively modified, and through this change of relationship to the Cosmos man finds his way into the spiritual world.

There is no need for me to describe man's relationship to the world, to the Sun and Moon in normal consciousness; everyone is aware of this when he recalls how man lives in his day consciousness and his night consciousness. The moment man begins to strengthen his inner soul-forces in relation to the normally chaotic dream consciousness, the moment he succeeds in transforming this dream consciousness into an instrument for the apprehension of reality, in that moment he becomes aware that the accumulated Moon forces are present in his Ego during waking life. The moment he actually transforms the dream into reality through Initiation-knowledge, he feels the presence of a second being within him, but he knows that the forces of the Moon sphere live within this second being.

In the early stages of Initiation consciousness man becomes aware that Moon forces are within him and that they always tend to develop within him a second man who is encased within the first man. A conflict now sets in. When the Moon forces begin to be inwardly active in this second man of whom I am speaking, not in waking consciousness, but during sleep, in such a way that this second man is released naturally by these inner Moon forces—when he is set free by the presence of the Moon at night and begins to wake to consciousness in the passive condition of sleep, then this second man concealed within the first, the normal man, seeks to wander around in the light of the Moon and takes the other with him. This is the origin of the somnambulistic condition peculiar to sleep-walkers.

When the Moon is shining outside, it is possible to awaken the second man who then makes contact with magical forces, i.e. anomalous forces which differ in kind from those of nature. He begins to wander around. As a sleep-walker in a diminished state of consciousness he behaves in a way that would be foreign to ordinary consciousness. Instead of lying in bed, as he would normally do, he wanders around and climbs on roofs. He is looking for the sphere which, in reality, he ought to experience outside his physical body. .

When this becomes a conscious inner experience and is directed into normal channels we take the first step in Initiation-consciousness. In this case however, we do not contact the actual external Moon influences; but the Moon forces in our inner being enable the second man to develop his consciousness. We must at all costs prevent this second man from breaking loose. There is always the danger that the second man might break loose, wander phantom-like abroad and stray along false paths. He must be kept under control.

Inner stability and self-control are essential for the acquisition of Initiation-knowledge in order to ensure that this potentially errant second man stays within the body and remains linked to the ordinary, matter-of-fact consciousness associated with the physical body. We must perpetually struggle to prevent this second being, the creation of the strengthened inner Moon nature, from dissociating itself from us. The second being is strongly attracted to everything associated with metabolism, peristalsis, the stomach and other organs, and makes heavy demands upon them.

The first indication, the first experience, of man's dawning Initiation-knowledge is that he follows one of the two paths which have to be traversed—the path that leads through the development, through the conscious realisation of the dream world.

And if he now becomes aware (in the dream state)—and, as I have pointed out, this is a necessary step—he realizes that though it is day without, within himself he bears the night. In the daytime there awakens within him something like an inner night.

When this Initiate-consciousness awakens, the day is still day to the outward eyes and for the external apprehension of things; but in the course of this day the spiritual light of the Moon with its refulgent beams begins to invade and illumine all around—and the spiritual begins to shine.

We know, therefore, that by inner effort man brings the night consciousness into the day consciousness. When this happens in full consciousness, just as other activities are performed consciously during the day, when this vigilant man is able to invoke the night activities of the Moon into the waking experiences of the daytime, then he is on the true path. If he allows anything to enter into him when he is not fully conscious so that out of their own inner momentum the night experiences arise in the day consciousness, then he finds himself on the false path that ultimately leads to mediumism.

The essential point is, therefore, that we must be fully conscious, in full control of experiences. The phenomena and experiences as such are not the decisive factors, but the way in which we respond to them. If the ordinary sleepwalker could develop full consciousness at a time when he is climbing on the roof top, he would at that moment experience an intimation of Initiation. Since he fails to develop this consciousness he falls to the ground when we shout at him to awaken him. If he did not fall, but developed full waking consciousness and could maintain this condition, he would then be an Initiate. The task of Initiation-knowledge is to develop along sound lines, sound in every respect, what is developed in the sleep-walker pathologically.

You will note, then, how a hair's breadth separates the true from the false in the spiritual world. In the physical world there is no difficulty in distinguishing between the true and the false because man can appeal to common sense and practical experience. As soon as he enters the spiritual world, it is exceedingly difficult to establish this distinction; he is wholly dependent on inner control, inner awareness. Furthermore, when man has awakened the night in the day, the moonlight gradually loses its character of external radiance. We experience it less externally; it creates a general feeling of inner well-being. We become aware however of something else. The wonderful glowing light of Mercury illumines this spiritual night-sky. The planet Mercury actually rises in this night that has been wooed into the day; it is not the physical aspect of Mercury, for we realize that we are in the presence of something living. We cannot recognize immediately the living spiritual Beings who are the inhabitants of Mercury, but we have a general impression that, from the way in which Mercury appears to us, we are in touch with a spiritual world.

When the spiritual moonlight becomes a universal life-giving force within us in which we participate, then the spiritual planet Mercury gradually rises in the night consciousness that has been wooed into the day consciousness. Out of this sparkling twilight in which Mercury appears there emerges the Being whom we call the Divine Being Mercury. We have absolute need of him for otherwise confusion will set in. We must first of all find this Being in the spiritual world, the Being whom we know for certain belongs to Mercury. Through our knowledge of this Divine Being (Mercury) we are able to control at will the “second man” who is awakened within us. We no longer need to stumble along undefined paths like the sleep-walker, but we can be led by the hand of Mercury, the messenger of the Gods, along the clearly defined paths that lead into the spiritual world. .

If, then, we wish to find the true paths into the spiritual world we must first undergo certain definite experiences which serve to guide and direct us. The ordinary mystic looks inward. Through introspection he sets up an emotional ferment compounded of God, the universe, angels and devils. At best his introspection leads to normal dream states where it is impossible to tell whether they come from the sexual or the intellectual plane. As a rule the experiences are confused and chaotic. This is the vague and nebulous mysticism which does not illumine the dream, but, as only the Initiate can understand, makes the confusion more confounded.

Such experiences, so instinct with wonder and poetry as described by Catherine of Siena and others, can only be understood by the Initiate, for only he knows what they really experience. Hence, if we pursue our Initiation with the same clear and lucid consciousness with which we calculate, or study geometry, if we penetrate with full consciousness into these things, we are on the right path. Only through the realization that we woo the inner night of the Moon into the external day, do we discover the real spiritual world. Just as no one can deny that the Moon or Mercury rises in the outer world of space, that this is a reality, not a dream delusion, so we find that the spiritual world is equally real and no delusion when we enter it in full consciousness and meet with spiritual Beings, just as we meet with human beings here on Earth. When we seek the spirit without becoming conscious of the nature of the spiritual world we are at all times on a false track. If we remain on Earth and are content to experiment with mediums and their manifestations and do not have direct contact with the spiritual, then we are on the false path. Every activity that fails to awaken consciousness in the spiritual world, that stumbles along blindly and only looks for effects, as superficial occultism for example, is on the false path. Everything which, on penetrating into the spiritual world, immediately experiences this world as a spiritual reality, is on the right path.

And thus an inner, living knowledge of the Moon sphere is the starting-point of the one path of Initiation. And we may say: man's normal experiences in relation to Sun and Moon which are normally experienced in sleep, the Initiate now experiences in waking life. Man becomes aware of the Moon influences as though they were external to him. He woos the night into the day. And instead of the night sky which we normally see studded with stars when we look out into the night, we see first of all the planet Mercury rise up before our inward vision: and if we have followed the instructions described in my book Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and have succeeded in developing real Imaginations, then in this Moon sphere during waking life, the world of Imaginations is revealed to us as a reality.

When we enter into the sphere of Mercury influences these Imaginations pass over to the Mercury Beings. We do not now experience mere visions devoid of reality, but we perceive visions as Imaginations. These Imaginations pass over to the beings corresponding to them. Therefore, if we have not advanced far enough along the path of Initiation we may have the vision of an Archangel, but it remains a vision. Only at a further stage does the vision really contact the Archangel and then the real Archangel is revealed within the vision. At an earlier stage, when we experienced the light of the Moon within us, the Archangel was not of necessity there. But now the Archangel has become a reality. Thus we become conscious of the Mercury influences in that our world of visions passes over into a world in which we really perceive the spiritual. I must emphasise constantly that all this can only be achieved in the right way when we are fully conscious.

And then if we pursue our meditations further, strengthen and vitalize our inner being in increasing measure, we attain to the sphere where the Venus influences are added to those of Mercury. Then, when we contact the Venus influences, when Venus rises in this inner night which has been wooed into the day, the visions of the Beings who have appeared in the Imagination pictures, in the images of the true visions, are lost and we face the spiritual world with emptied consciousness. We know that the spiritual Beings are there; we have attained to the Venus sphere where the spiritual Beings dwell. We wait until the Sun sphere draws near to us. The whole process is a preparation for experiencing the Sun a second time. All this takes place during the waking consciousness of day, when we are subject to the influences of the Sun from without. We take the path I have described through Moon, Mercury and Venus. Then the visions vanish. We press on. The entire path was a path leading from Earth, to Moon, to Mercury, Venus and finally to the Sun. We enter into the inner being of the Sun and behold the Sun a second time, spiritually. Its appearance is fleeting and undefined, but we know that we are perceiving it spiritually. We gaze into the inner being of the Sun.

If I may use a crude analogy, it is as if we were to say to ourselves: I see something in the distance, and draw near to it. At first I take it for an inanimate object, take hold of it, whereupon it bites my hand. Now I know that it is not an inanimate object, but a real dog; I realize that it is possessed of inner being.

This crude comparison may draw your attention to the fact that these experiences are rooted in reality. We pass from the Earth through the influences of the Moon, Mercury, Venus, and arrive at the stage where we behold the Sun; we realize that it is a living spiritual Being and that spiritual Beings dwell within it.

In the first place this is the path that can be followed. At every stage along the path it becomes abundantly clear that as the Initiate progresses, he must retain his full consciousness and that he is then on the right path, and that if man, irrespective of the way he leaves his body, loses consciousness and enters into the Cosmos that has become spiritual reality before his spiritual gaze, then he is on the false path. We must have an inner realization of the difference between the true and false paths of inner spiritual perception.

Yesterday I indicated how, in accordance with the demands of the time, various psychic and occult societies, using methods which are a travesty of those of natural science, are attempting to investigate the spiritual world through external phenomena. Please do not misunderstand me. I have no wish to disparage these methods for I know only too well how ardently men desire to know scientifically the real nature of the spiritual world through observation of external phenomena. I only wish to point out how these paths must lead into error and what must be the nature of the true paths. Since we are living today, and must continue to live, in a scientific age, it is perfectly understandable that there should be men who wish to investigate the spiritual world by the direct methods of natural science and who consider other, purely spiritual paths to be unreliable. And they come to the conclusion that there exists, on the one hand, the ordinary world in which men live and fulfil the demands of social life and who think and act in terms of this social life. There is nothing unusual in this. It is the accepted way of life. This is the field of scientific investigation which is concerned with external phenomena, with the phenomena of heat, light, electricity, magnetism and so on.

On the other hand, however, abnormal situations occur in life. Men practise automatic writing; they perform various acts under the influence of hypnosis and suggestion. They suspect that an unknown world is revealed in this way in the ordinary world and they want to interpret these external signs and abnormal phenomena. They want to explain how the thoughts and experiences of someone in New York are communicated telepathically to a friend living in Europe who has a psychic affinity with him, whereas normally the news is transmitted by wireless telegraphy. Phenomena of this kind of which innumerable instances could be cited, are investigated by the statistical methods of natural science. This path cannot lead to any goal or final understanding because man lacks the necessary spiritual orientation which must be sought in the spiritual world itself. All these phenomena, wonderful as they may seem, are seen to be aggregates of unrelated phenomena in the external world. We cannot arrive at any knowledge or understanding of them, we can only record them, regard them as extraordinary and formulate hypotheses about the spiritual world which are meaningless, because the phenomena themselves have their source in the spiritual world and do not betray their real nature. However much we concern ourselves with mediums and scientific facts, the spiritual world is always with us, but it does not reveal its real essence.

In this context I would like to recall the investigations which I mentioned yesterday when I stated that Dr. Wegman and I are now endeavouring to provide an accurate description of these phenomena. This method of investigation, even as the other line of enquiry I have just described which seeks to throw light on the inner life of dreams, cannot dispense with spiritual insight. It proceeds in such a way that the phenomena to be investigated are related directly with their counterpart in the spiritual world itself.

But these phenomena are not associated with the isolated and miraculous events which we encounter in the external world in the manner I have just described. They belong to the realm that is perceived by the person who is trained in medicine, anatomy and physiology when his perception of the external form of a human organ—the lung, the liver, or some other organ—is transformed into an imaginative apprehension of this organ, when he gradually begins to be able to see the human organisation in Imaginations.

This becomes possible therefore when we are able to study the organs of man which normally function after the fashion of the abnormal rather than the normal external phenomena of nature, i.e. when we are in a position to transform our initial human, scientific, anatomical knowledge into spiritual penetration into the human organisation. In the method which I described before, we take our starting-point from the total being of man. The path that starts from the individual human organs which we apprehend and perceive directly through a spiritual anatomy is the path that can lead to true results in contrast to the false approach that seeks to understand external phenomena by statistical methods that are a travesty of natural science. You will appreciate, therefore, that before these matters could be discussed, we needed the co-operation of a medical practitioner trained along these lines. Furthermore you will realize that when a human organ is apprehended spiritually in this way by a person who looks at anatomy from this standpoint, he must harbour no doubts about the goal before him. And now there is disclosed to spiritual perception not an inner man such as I described earlier, but an external, cosmic man, still nebulous of course, but in the form of a mighty, gigantic being—man as he is perceived, not as a totality, but as he appears through an inner spiritual perception of his organs. Because these organs are seen spiritually, not merely the physical man, but the cosmic man stands revealed. Just as formerly the world of night—the Moon-sphere—was wooed into the day, so we now woo into this being—who is not the complete man, but a being who consists of the single organs—the impulses of the Saturn sphere.

Just as at an earlier stage the Moon sphere was charmed into the ordinary waking consciousness, the Saturn sphere is now charmed into the scientific consciousness. We become aware that the forces of Saturn work in a special way in every organ, most strongly in the liver, relatively feebly in the lungs and least of all in the head.

We thus become conscious of the goal which demands of us that we seek the Saturn influences everywhere. Just as in the earlier stages we advanced spiritually through the practice of meditation, so now, through identification with the search for Saturn, for the inner spiritual structure of each organ, we penetrate into the Jupiter sphere and come to recognize that every organ is in effect the terrestrial counterpart of a divine-spiritual Being.

In his organs man bears within him the images of divine-spiritual Beings. The entire Cosmos first appeared as a gigantic Being in the Saturn sphere and the whole man is seen as a gigantic cosmic Being appearing as the sum-total, as the inner-organic, cooperative activity of generations of Gods.

Once again we must pursue this path in full consciousness so that we are activated by forces which are able to support and sustain us in the course of our spiritual experiences. We must bear in mind that all these influences are in the first instance in the embryonic stage, but their appearance is transient. It is indeed easy to recognize their presence, but it is impossible to describe them, to retain a clear impression of them and mould them into mental images if we succumb to the inherent danger, namely, that all that arises in this sphere may immediately disappear from our consciousness, so that we are never in a position to contemplate it.

Now those who are today engaged in psychical research never dream of taking the spiritual into account. They prefer to work experimentally in their own way, by inviting certain individuals for laboratory tests. But spiritual realities cannot be reduced to the human level, especially when the declared intention is to apprehend them by these methods and to arrive gradually at a scientific explanation.

The medical book of which I spoke yesterday can only offer a first, elementary introduction to what will become a fully developed science in the distant future. But to the extent to which these things exist in the spiritual world today and are natural to the Beings who live, not on Earth, but on the Sun—to that extent they can be brought into earthly consciousness in the manner I have described. We should not imagine that we can develop spiritual insight by means of laboratory experiments or the abstract anatomy to be found in text-books. The essential point is that all spiritual matters must be directly experienced by man himself. Why is this so?

We can only hold these realities steady in the light when they are supported and sustained by the forces which arise from the common endeavours of man, by the forces which man derives from earlier incarnations on Earth. When this happens there enters into the world of the Saturn and Jupiter spheres what we may call the Mars sphere. From then onwards these things begin to speak. They are revealed through Inspiration. Then we return to the Sun once more with the consciousness of Inspiration.

This is the other path that is demanded of natural science today and which the Initiates of whom I spoke yesterday would prefer to avoid. They feel ill at ease when they are brought in contact with this path, but none the less it is a path which must be traversed.

The path through the Moon sphere, as you will realize from the present discussions, was admirably suited to the old Initiates and we have remarkable information about this Moon path in H. P. Blavatsky's Secret Doctrine. If we can distinguish fact from fiction, many important truths are to be found in the Secret Doctrine. But this path leads through the sphere of the Lunar-astral light with which H. P. Blavatsky was intimately associated and where an exalted Mercury messenger directed her interpretations. When we follow her disquisitions we realize how she always directed her imagination to the right source. The remarkable thing about Blavatsky is that no sooner does she feel the first promptings of an Imagination than it is immediately realized. Guided by the Mercury messenger, she is led to a secret library. The idea takes shape within her and the Mercury messenger leads her to a book carefully guarded by the Vatican. She reads the book and we find in her writings a variety of information to which she would otherwise not have had access because it had been jealously guarded by the Vatican for centuries! This path is indeed a well trodden path which must be carefully distinguished from everything that is achieved under firm inner control.

The other path takes the course I have described and relies upon the methods of modern natural science which H. P. Blavatsky detested like the plague. This is the path that must be trodden in the manner I have described, in the full realization that it finds its strength and support in the karmic development of the forces of human beings, not so much for the sake of awakening karmic memories, but in order to hold fast to them for the purpose of describing them.

The science of today must be imbued with human values such as I described yesterday, when I referred to my collaborator in this sphere. It is by discussing concrete examples, not through definitions that we can best discover the origin of the true and false paths. In order to conclude this course of lectures I propose tomorrow to add as much information upon this subject as is possible in the short time at our disposal.

The contents of this book are selected from the matter of Rudolf Steiner's Esoteric School. The School remained in existence for ten years from 1904 to 1914, when the outbreak of the First World War prevented its continuance. During that period Rudolf Steiner was still within the Theosophical Society, and he used the words `theosophy' and `theosophical', though always (as he tells us in his Autobiography) in the direction in which his anthroposophical spiritual science had from the first been pointing. After the lapse of a further ten years, when he went on to found the General Anthroposophical Society and himself became its President, his esoteric guidance of those members who sought it was continued on a somewhat different footing, in closer association with the organization and direction of the Society.

The institution of the Esoteric School in 1904 had been quickly followed by publishing descriptions of the path which pupils should follow, in the book Theosophy, in the series of Essays, Knowledge of the Higher Worlds. How is it achieved? (first published in book form in 1909), and also in Occult Science: an Outline, which appeared early in 1910. A description of the basic conditions for inner development, particularly of the `subsidiary exercises', is also to be found in these books, and after their publication Rudolf Steiner sometimes alluded to such exercises by reference to them. In Chapter V of Occult Science: an Outline (`Knowledge of Higher Worlds. Concerning Initiation') he lays down as follows the necessary precondition for all the exercises.

We can however understand from this how necessary it is that man should not demand entry into the spiritual world until he has learned and understood certain essential truths of that world by the simple exercise of his everyday intelligence, developed in the physical world. If spiritual development follows the right and normal path, then before he aspires to enter the supersensible world the pupil will already have mastered with his ordinary intelligence the whole of the earlier contents of this book.

In 1947, thirty-three years after the First World War had interrupted the Esoteric School and two years after the end of the Second, Marie Steiner, in response to requests from members of the Anthroposophical Society, set about publishing the most important of the Contents of the Esoteric School. Numerous works on oriental training methods (Yoga etc.) were making their appearance, and it was her object to set against these something from the European discipline of Rudolf Steiner. `By making available', she wrote in a letter, `examples of Rudolf Steiner's careful, personally-delivered advice, I wished to ensure that something could come forth from that Rosicrucian stream which is more in tune with the present age than decadent Indian and Tibetan methods.'

Three separate series of selections in English translation, entitled From the Contents of the Esoteric School, have previously appeared in 1948, 1949 and 1954. The following includes a revised translation of all that they contain together with some additional material not previously published in English.

O.B.

There is a beautiful saying by Hegel: The most profound thought is bound up with the historical, external Figure of Christ. And the greatness of the Christian religion is that it is there for every stage of development. It is within the grasp of the most naive consciousness and at the same time it is a challenge to the deepest wisdom.

That the Christian religion is comprehensible to every stage of consciousness is shown by the very history of its development. Properly understood, it must be the task of Theosophy, or of Spiritual Science in general, to show that the Christian religion calls for penetration into the deepest Wisdom-teachings. Theosophy is not a religion, but an instrument for understanding the religions. Its relation to the religious documents is rather like the relation of mathematics itself to the writings in which it was originally taught. A man can understand mathematics through his own spiritual faculties and comprehend the laws of space without having to refer to any such early text. But if he has really absorbed the truths of geometry, he will value all the more highly the original texts through which these laws were first presented. So it is with Theosophy. Its sources are not in ancient documents, nor do they rest upon tradition; they lie in the reality of the spiritual worlds. It is there that they must be found and grasped by the development of a man's own spiritual powers, just as he grasps mathematics by endeavouring to develop the faculties of his intellect. Our intellect, by means of which we are enabled to comprehend the laws of the world of sense, is supported by an organ, the brain. Similarly, in order to grasp the laws of spiritual worlds, we need appropriate organs.

How have our physical organs developed? Because forces from outside have worked upon them: the forces of the Sun, the forces of sound. Thus did eyes and ears come into being - out of neutral, sluggish organs into which, at first, the sense-world could not penetrate, and which opened only by degrees. If our spiritual organs are worked upon by the right forces, they too will open.

What then are the forces which surge in upon our still inert spiritual organs? During the daytime, the astral body of modern man is assailed by forces that work against his development, and even destroy such organs as he formerly possessed before the dawn of his clear day-consciousness. In earlier times, man received direct astral impressions. The surrounding world spoke to him through pictures, through the form in which the astral world comes to expression. Living, inwardly organic pictures and colours hovered freely in surrounding space as expressions of pleasure and repugnance, sympathy and antipathy. Then these colours wrapped themselves, as it were, round the surface of things, and objects acquired fixed outlines. This was when the physical body of man was steadily gaining in solidity and becoming more highly organized. When his eyes opened fully to the physical light, when the veil of Maya spread itself over the spiritual world, his astral body received impressions of the surrounding world by way of the physical and etheric bodies. The astral body itself transmitted these impressions to the `I' and from the `I' they passed into his consciousness. Thus he was personally involved and continuously active. But the forces working upon him were no longer plastic, weaving forces akin to the nature of his own being; they were forces that fed upon him, destroyed him, in order to awaken the I- consciousness. Only in the night, when he sank down into the rhythmic- spiritual world homogeneous with him, did he acquire new strength and become able once more to feed forces into his physical and etheric bodies. Out of this conflict of impressions, out of the deadening of the astral organs formerly working unconsciously in man, the life of the individual `I', the I-consciousness, arose. Out of life-death; out of death- life. The ring of the serpent was complete. And now from this wakened I- consciousness there had to arise forces that would kindle life again in the defunct vestiges of earlier astral organs, shaping and moulding them.

Mankind is moving towards this goal, guided by its Teachers and Leaders, the great Initiates, of whom the serpent is also the symbol. It is an education towards freedom, hence a slow and difficult education. The great Initiates could have made the task easier, for themselves and for man, if they had worked upon his astral body during the night, when it is free, in such a way as to impress the astral organs into it from outside. But such an act would have operated in man's dream-consciousness; it would have trespassed on his sphere of freedom. The highest principle in man, the Will, would never have unfolded. Man is led onward stage by stage. There has been an Initiation in Wisdom, an Initiation in Feeling, an Initiation in Will. True Christianity is the summation of all stages of Initiation. The Initiation of antiquity was the prophetic announcement, the preparation. Slowly and gradually the man of later times emancipated himself from his Initiator, his Guru. Initiation, to begin with, proceeded in deep trance-consciousness, but was equipped to imprint in the physical body a remembrance of what had transpired outside the body. Hence the necessity of releasing the ether-body, the bearer of memory, as well as the astral body. Astral body and ether-body sank together into the Ocean of Wisdom, into Mahadeva, into the Light of Osiris. This Initiation proceeded in deepest secrecy, in absolute seclusion. No breath from the outer world might intrude. The man was as if he had died to outer life, and the tender seeds were nurtured away from the blinding light of day.

Then Initiation came forth from the darkness enshrouding the Mysteries into the clearest light of day. In a great and mighty Personality, the Bearer of the highest unifying Principle, of the Word - of Him who is the expression and manifestation of the hidden Father, and who taking on human form became the Son of Man and thereby the Representative of all mankind, the Bond uniting all I's - in Christos, the Life-Spirit, the Eternal Unifier, the Initiation of mankind as a whole was accomplished, as historical fact and at the same time as symbol, on the plane of feeling. So potent was this Event that in every individual who modelled his life on it, its power could continue to work - right into the physical, expressing itself even in the appearance of the stigmata and in the most piercing pains. Feelings were shaken to their innermost depths. An intensity of emotion, the like of which has never surged through the world before or since, arose in mighty waves. In the Initiation on the Cross of Divine Love the sacrifice of the `I' for All had taken place. The blood, the physical expression of the `I' had flowed in love for mankind, and the effect was such that thousands pressed forward to this Initiation, to this Death, letting their blood flow in love and devotion for mankind. That blood untold was poured out in this way has never been sufficiently emphasized; the thought no longer enters the consciousness of men, not even in theosophical circles. Yet the waves of ardour which in this streaming blood flowed down, and then ascended, have fulfilled their task. They have become the wellsprings of powerful impulses. They have made mankind ripe for the Initiation of the Will.

And this is the legacy of Christ.

GENERAL DEMANDS WHICH EVERY ASPIRANT FOR OCCULT DEVELOPMENT MUST PUT TO HIMSELF
(Subsidiary Exercises)

In what follows, the conditions which must be the basis of any occult development are set forth. Let no one imagine that he can make progress by any measures applied to the outer or the inner life unless he fulfils these conditions. All exercises in meditation, concentration, or exercises of other kinds, are valueless, indeed in a certain respect actually harmful, if life is not regulated in accordance with these conditions. No forces can actually be imparted to a human being; all that can be done is to bring to development the forces already within him. They do not develop of their own accord because outer and inner hindrances obstruct them. The outer hindrances are lessened by means of the following rules of life; the inner hindrances by the special instructions concerning meditation, concentration, and the like.

The first condition is the cultivation of absolutely clear thinking. For this purpose a man must rid himself of the will-o'-the-wisps of thought, even if only for a very short time during the day - about five minutes (the longer, the better). He must become the ruler in his world of thought. He is not the ruler if external circumstances, occupation, some tradition or other, social relationships, even membership of a particular race, the daily round of life, certain activities and so forth, determine a thought and how he works it out. Therefore during this brief time, acting entirely out of his own free will, he must empty the soul of the ordinary, everyday course of thoughts and by his own initiative place one single thought at the centre of his soul. The thought need not be a particularly striking or interesting one. Indeed it will be all the better for what has to be attained in an occult respect if a thoroughly uninteresting and insignificant thought is chosen. Thinking is then impelled to act out of its own energy the essential thing here, whereas an interesting thought carries the thinking along with it. It is better if this exercise in thought-control is undertaken with a pin rather than with Napoleon. The pupil says to himself: Now I start from this thought, and through my own inner initiative I associate with it everything that is pertinent to it. At the end of the period the thought should be just as colourful and living as it was at the beginning. This exercise is repeated day by day for at least a month; a new thought may be taken every day, or the same thought may be adhered to for several days. At the end of the exercise an endeavour is made to become fully conscious of that inner feeling of firmness and security which will soon be noticed by paying subtler attention to one's own soul; the exercise is then brought to a conclusion by focusing the thinking upon the head and the middle of the spine (brain and spinal cord), as if the feeling of security were being poured into this part of the body.

When this exercise has been practised for, say, one month, a second requirement should be added. We try to think of some action which in the ordinary course of life we should certainly not have performed. Then we make it a duty to perform this action every day. It will therefore be good to choose an action which can be performed every day and will occupy as long a period of time as possible. Again it is better to begin with some insignificant action which we have to force ourselves to perform; for example, to water at a fixed time every day a flower we have bought. After a certain time a second, similar act should be added to the first; later, a third, and so on . . . as many as are compatible with the carrying out of all other duties. This exercise, also, should last for one month. But as far as possible during this second month, too, the first exercise should continue, although it is a less paramount duty than in the first month. Nevertheless it must not be left unheeded, for otherwise it will quickly be noticed that the fruits of the first month are lost and the slovenliness of uncontrolled thinking begins again. Care must be taken that once these fruits have been won, they are never again lost. If, through the second exercise, this initiative of action has been achieved, then, with subtle attentiveness, we become conscious of the feeling of an inner impulse of activity in the soul; we pour this feeling into the body, letting it stream down from the head to a point just above the heart.

In the third month, life should be centered on a new exercise - the development of a certain equanimity towards the fluctuations of joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain; `heights of jubilation' and `depths of despair' should quite consciously be replaced by an equable mood. Care is taken that no pleasure shall carry us away, no sorrow plunge us into the depths, no experience lead to immoderate anger or vexation no expectation give rise to anxiety or fear, no situation disconcert us, and so on. There need be no fear that such an exercise will make life arid and unproductive; far rather will it quickly be noticed that the experiences to which this exercise is applied are replaced by purer qualities of soul. Above all, if subtle attentiveness is maintained, an inner tranquillity in the body will one day become noticeable; as in the two cases above, we pour this feeling into the body, letting it stream from the heart, towards the hands, the feet and, finally, the head. This naturally cannot be done after each exercise, for here it is not a matter of one single exercise but of sustained attentiveness to the inner life of the soul. Once every day, at least, this inner tranquillity should be called up before the soul and then the exercise of pouring it out from the heart should proceed. A connection with the exercises of the first and second months is maintained, as in the second month with the exercise of the first month.

In the fourth month, as a new exercise, what is sometimes called a `positive attitude' to life should be cultivated. It consists in seeking always for the good, the praiseworthy the beautiful and the like, in all beings, all experiences, all things. This quality of soul is best characterized by a Persian legend concerning Christ Jesus. One day, as He was walking with His disciples, they saw a dead dog lying by the roadside in a state of advanced decomposition. All the disciples turned away from the disgusting sight; Christ Jesus alone did not move but looked thoughtfully at the corpse and said: `What beautiful teeth the animal has!' Where the others had seen only the repulsive, the unpleasant, He looked for the beautiful. So must the esoteric pupil strive to seek for the positive in every phenomenon and in every being. He will soon notice that under the veil of something repugnant there is a hidden beauty, that even under the outer guise of a criminal there is a hidden good, that under the mask of a lunatic the divine soul is somehow concealed.

In a certain respect this exercise is connected with what is called `abstention from criticism'. This is not to be understood in the sense of calling black white and white black. There is, however, a difference between a judgment which, proceeding merely from one's own personality, is coloured with the element of personal sympathy or antipathy, and an attitude which enters lovingly into the alien phenomenon or being, always asking: How has it come to be like this or to act like this? Such an attitude will by its very nature be more set upon helping what is imperfect than upon simply finding fault and criticizing.

The objection that the very circumstances of their lives oblige many people to find fault and condemn is not valid here. For in such cases the circumstances are such that the person in question cannot go through a genuine occult training. There are indeed many circumstances in life which make occult schooling impossible, beyond a certain point. In such a case the person should not impatiently desire, in spite of everything, to make progress which is possible only under some conditions.

He who consciously turns his mind, for one month, to the positive aspect of all his experiences will gradually notice a feeling creeping into him as if his skin were becoming porous on all sides, and as if his soul were opening wide to all kinds of secret and delicate processes in his environment which hitherto entirely escaped his notice. The important point is to combat a very prevalent lack of attentiveness to these subtle things. If it has once been noticed that the feeling described expresses itself in the soul as a kind of bliss, endeavours should be made in thought to guide this feeling to the heart and from there to let it stream into the eyes, and thence out into the space in front of and around oneself. It will be noticed that an intimate relationship to this surrounding space is thereby acquired. A man grows out of and beyond himself, as it were. He learns to regard a part of his environment as something that belongs to him. A great deal of concentration is necessary for this exercise, and, above all, recognition of the fact that all tumultuous feelings, all passions, all over-exuberant emotions have an absolutely destructive effect upon the mood indicated. The exercises of the first months are repeated, as with the earlier months.

In the fifth month, efforts should be made to develop the feeling of confronting every new experience with complete open-mindedness. The esoteric pupil must break entirely with the attitude which, in the face of something just heard or seen, exclaims: `I never heard that, or I never saw that, before; I don't believe it - it's an illusion.' At every moment he must be ready to encounter and accept absolutely new experiences. What he has hitherto recognized as being in accordance with natural law, or what he has regarded as possible, should present no obstacle to the acceptance of a new truth. Although radically expressed, it is absolutely correct that if anyone were to come to the esoteric pupil and say, `Since last night the steeple of such and such a church has been tilted right over', the esotericist should leave a loophole open for the contingency of his becoming convinced that his previous knowledge of natural law could somehow be augmented by such an apparently unprecedented fact.

If he turns his attention, in the fifth month, to developing this attitude of mind, he will notice creeping into his soul a feeling as if something were becoming alive, astir, in the space referred to in connection with the exercise for the fourth month. This feeling is exceedingly delicate and subtle. Efforts must be made to be attentive to this delicate vibration in the environment and to let it stream, as it were, through all the five senses, especially through the eyes, the ears and through the skin, in so far as the latter contains the sense of warmth. At this stage of esoteric development, less attention is paid to the impressions made by these stimuli on the other senses of taste, snell and touch. At this stage it is still not possible to distinguish the numerous bad influences which intermingle with the good influences in this sphere; the pupil therefore leaves this for a later stage.

In the sixth month, endeavours should be made to repeat all the five exercises again, systematically and in regular alternation. In this way a beautiful equilibrium of soul will gradually develop. It will be noticed, especially, that previous dissatisfactions with certain phenomena and beings in the world completely disappear. A mood reconciling all experiences takes possession of the soul, a mood that is by no means one of indifference but, on the contrary, enables one for the first time to work in the world for its genuine progress and improvement. One comes to a tranquil understanding of things which were formerly quite closed to the soul. The very movements and gestures of a person change under the influence of such exercises, and if, one day, he can actually observe that the character of his handwriting has altered, then he may say to himself that he is just about to reach a first rung on the upward path. Once again, two things must be stressed:

First, the six exercises described paralyse the harmful influence other occult exercises can have, so that only what is beneficial remains. Secondly, these exercises alone ensure that efforts in meditation and concentration will have a positive result. The esotericist must not rest content with fulfilling, however conscientiously, the demands of conventional morality, for that kind of morality can be extremely egotistical, if a man says: I will be good in order that I may be thought good. The esotericist does not do what is good because he wants to be thought good, but because little by little he recognizes that the good alone brings evolution forward, and that evil, stupidity and ugliness place hindrances along its path.

OR THE DAYS OF THE WEEK

The pupil must pay careful attention to certain activities in the life of soul which in the ordinary way are carried on carelessly and inattentively. There are eight such activities.

It is naturally best to undertake only one exercise at a time, throughout a week or a fortnight, for example, then the second, and so on, then beginning over again. Meanwhile it is best for the eighth exercise to be carried out every day. True self-knowledge is then gradually achieved and any progress made is perceived. Then later on - beginning with Saturday - one exercise lasting for about five minutes may perhaps be added daily to the eighth so that the relevant exercise will occasionally fall on the same day. Thus: Saturday - Thoughts; Sunday - Resolves; Monday - Talking; Tuesday - Actions; Wednesday - Behaviour, and so on.

SATURDAY

To pay attention to one's ideas.

To think only significant thoughts. To learn little by little to separate in one's thoughts the essential from the nonessential, the eternal from the transitory, truth from mere opinion.

In listening to the talk of one's fellow-men, to try and become quite still inwardly, foregoing all assent, and still more all unfavourable judgments (criticism, rejection), even in one's thoughts and feelings.

This may be called: `RIGHT OPINION'.

SUNDAY

To determine on even the most insignificant matter only after fully reasoned deliberation. All unthinking behaviour, all meaningless actions, should be kept far away from the soul. One should always have well- weighed reasons for everything. And one should definitely abstain from doing anything for which there is no significant reason.

Once one is convinced of the rightness of a decision, one must hold fast to it, with inner steadfastness.

This may be called: `RIGHT JUDGMENT' having been formed independently of sympathies and antipathies.

MONDAY

Talking. Only what has sense and meaning should come from the lips of one striving for higher development. All talking for the sake of talking - to kill time - is in this sense harmful.

The usual kind of conversation, a disjointed medley of remarks, should be avoided. This does not mean shutting oneself off from intercourse with one's fellows; it is precisely then that talk should gradually be led to significance. One adopts a thoughtful attitude to every speech and answer taking all aspects into account. Never talk without cause - be gladly silent. One tries not to talk too much or too little. First listen quietly; then reflect on what has been said.

This exercise may be called: `RIGHT WORD'.

TUESDAY

External actions. These should not be disturbing for our fellow-men. Where an occasion calls for action out of one's inner being, deliberate carefully how one can best meet the occasion - for the good of the whole, the lasting happiness of man, the eternal.

Where one does things of one's own accord, out of one's own initiative: consider most thoroughly beforehand the effect of one's actions.

This is called: `RIGHT DEED'.

WEDNESDAY

The ordering of life. To live in accordance with Nature and Spirit. Not to be swamped by the external trivialities of life. To avoid all that brings unrest and haste into life. To hurry over nothing, but also not to be indolent. To look on life as a means for working towards higher development and to behave accordingly.

One speaks in this connection of `RIGHT STANDPOINT'.

THURSDAY

Human Endeavour. One should take care to do nothing that lies beyond one's powers - but also to leave nothing undone which lies within them.

To look beyond the everyday, the momentary, and to set oneself aims and ideals connected with the highest duties of a human being. For instance, in the sense of the prescribed exercises, to try to develop oneself so that afterwards one may be able all the more to help and advise one's fellow- men - though perhaps not in the immediate future.

This can be summed up as: `TO LET ALL THE FOREGOING EXERCISES BECOME A HABIT'.

FRIDAY

The endeavour to learn as much as possible from life.

Nothing goes by us without giving us a chance to gain experiences that are useful for life. If one has done something wrongly or imperfectly, that becomes a motive for doing it rightly or more perfectly, later on.

If one sees others doing something, one observes them with the like end in view (yet not coldly or heartlessly). And one does nothing without looking back to past experiences which can be of assistance in one's decisions and achievements.

One can learn from everyone - even from children if one is attentive.

This exercise is called: `RIGHT MEMORY'. (Remembering what has been learnt from experiences).

SUMMARY

To turn one's gaze inwards from time to time, even if only for five minutes daily at the same time. In so doing one should sink down into oneself, carefully take counsel with oneself, test and form one's principles of life, run through in thought one's knowledge - or lack of it - weigh up one's duties, think over the contents and true purpose of life, feel genuinely pained by one's own errors and imperfections. In a word: labour to discover the essential, the enduring, and earnestly aim at goals in accord with it: for instance, virtues to be acquired. (Not to fall into the mistake of thinking that one has done something well, but to strive ever further towards the highest standards.)

This exercise is called: `RIGHT EXAMINATION'.