The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Notes by Alice Kinkel for all degrees.

The bull symbolizes the purely maternal in man. If this were the only thing at work, then bulls would be the result. Therefore, during the time when she is carrying the new life within her, the mother must expend all her strength (unconsciously) to overcome the nature of the bull. The popular expression “mooncalf” in the sense of a deformity points to this origin of the bull's nature. Here again we can see how these popular expressions hold deep secrets. “Mooncalf”, the origin of the bull is to be found in the old moon.

The lion has its origin in the sun; it expresses the purely paternal.

The human being or the angel is that in the human being that passes from incarnation to incarnation.

The eagle is the superhuman, the divine in the human being. As an organ for this we have in the physical body the liver, the liver and the gray brain. ... The liver is also called the inner Jupiter; lightning and thunder power reside in it. From a clairvoyant point of view, this organ looks like clouds in which lightning and thunder flash. Man is clumsy compared to the superhuman, which is why the organ is like an unskillful lump. Now we may understand something of why it is said that the vulture feeds on the liver. This Prometheus saga is deeply significant.

Notes from the estate of Margareta Morgenstern

Our culture will increasingly sink into confusion. Lawyers, for example, will have a hard time finding their way out of the resulting chaos. People will become gaunt in body and soul and bald at thirty, thirty-three; they will become more and more desolate inside. The method of general time-saving comes over from America. No more thought is given to the work because the machine takes over all the manual labor, for example, in passing on bricks and so on, and so on.

Consider the shepherds in the fields in earlier times, when they slept in the open, whether in a hut or in an open field. They had the starry sky above them, and they still knew something of the cosmic connections. They saw not only this or that constellation, as people do today, but they still saw spiritual beings there. They knew they were united with them when they slept. They interacted with them from the cosmos. Matter is not an obstacle for spiritual beings to penetrate. Therefore, it is nonsense when it is said that the lodge rooms should not be aired, “because otherwise demons could enter.” A young member once asked: “Well, can't they just as easily come through closed doors and windows?”

When we sleep, we are still in the same situation as the shepherds in the fields of old, only we are usually unaware of it: spiritual beings work within us.

Some of us old folk, when we were young, met a real farmer and got into conversation with him. Of course, not every farmer felt this influence, and it was not easy for one who knew about it to open up to another. But when it happened, and in those days it could happen quite often, then such a farmer would say: “I have to rub the sleep out of my eyes so that the sun can enter me, so that I can wake up, otherwise I won't wake up.” When evening came, the sun went down and vespers were rung first, then they became sleepy, tired.

And the seasons, their change was felt quite differently in the past than it is today. People lived with the sun because they were still aware that we owe our ego powers to the sun. If we do not have these ego powers, then we fall asleep.

But more and more, people should free themselves from such bondage.

The Copernican system of the world. Just as if you were walking along the street to this room, and someone comes and asks you, “Are you walking?” - and you answer, “I don't know, I first have to observe whether I come to other houses.” - and you compare the time and the rows of houses and check whether you are walking or not. The same applies to the Copernican system of the world; it seeks a point of support in the universe.

After a hundred years many of you sitting here, even if not embodied, will become helpers for those confused souls who today no longer believe in a spiritual world and its workings.

... That is why it is said, because I want to give you the best I have to say from the spiritual worlds in these hours. We should draw strength for our outer life from these gatherings. Just the thought of it should give us strength for our outer life, strength for our thinking, purification for our feeling, strength for our will.

No matter what people do in the present, when they are reborn they will have a strong inclination and longing for their previous incarnation. They will experience something of this, want to know something, regardless of whether they are now striving spiritually or materialistically. We are currently at such a turning point in history, which leads people from an incarnation in which they want to know as little as possible about reincarnation and karma, to an incarnation in which they will have the most vivid sense of this: the whole life I am living now is hanging in the balance for me if I cannot know anything about my last incarnation.

And the people who now most of all rail against reincarnation and karma will writhe in agony in the next life because they cannot explain to themselves how the life they are now living could have come about. Theosophy is not practiced in order to acquire a certain longing for the previous life, but to awaken understanding for what will one day happen to all of humanity when the people who are alive today will be there again. The people who are theosophists today will share the tendency with the others to want to remember again; but they will have other insights and thus inner harmony in relation to their soul life. Those who today reject Theosophy will want to know about it and will feel something like an inner torment for something they do not understand. However, they will not grasp anything of what torments them; they will be at a loss, inwardly disharmonious. And it will have to be said to them in the next life: 'You will only learn to recognize what causes the torment when you imagine that you might actually have wanted this torment.

Of course, no one would wish for this torment, to go through it. But those who are materialists today will begin to understand their bleakness, their inner contrition, their torment in the next life when they follow the advice of the knowing ones, who will tell them: Imagine that this life, which you would now like to flee, is what you would have wanted yourself. Because you used to think that belief in an afterlife is futile, nonsensical, it has become futile, nonsensical and agonizing. You have planted the very thought in yourselves that makes this new life so bleak and so empty for you. Thus materialism will have a karmic effect in the next life. Thoughts that deny re-embodiment today are transformed into inner emptiness in the next life.

Notes A from the estate of Elisabeth Vreede First degree

When we are in our sacred space, we have to practice self-reflection. And we have to feel very strongly the karma that has brought us to the gates of this temple.

The human soul passes through the different ages and takes something with it from each one. From epoch to epoch, the soul's life changes, even if people do not notice it.

If we did not experience our own body, we could not immediately know whether we were walking or standing still; we would then have to perceive from the trees or telegraph poles whether we were walking or not. On a train, it may occasionally happen that you really don't know.

Today's astronomy is based on this point of view; it has to perceive from the movements of the stars and so on that the earth moves and that the whole solar system moves. In ancient times, it was quite different. In the time of the ancient Persians, for example, people still lived with their soul the life of the earth; through this they knew how the earth moves through space, and if they had recorded it, they would have drawn it like this - which later became the staff of Mercury.

This ability faded in later times. It was a freeing of the human being from the macrocosm, so that he can no longer feel this movement.

Only among the farmers did one still find this connection to the macrocosm some time ago. They went to bed when the sun went down and got up when the sun rose. If we were still like the ancients, we would not be able to have evening meetings; everyone would feel an insurmountable need for sleep.

It was the good gods who detached man from the macrocosm because, as a result of the temptation of paradise, man was connected to the creation of Lucifer and Ahriman. Therefore, after the Fall, Yahweh said to Lucifer: You wanted to give people the freedom within themselves so that they would become like the gods, distinguishing good from evil, but now they should also be freed from my creation so that they will follow it later in freedom and accept it.

As a result, man has become lonely in his soul on earth. And when we feel completely at home in our occult movement and in our meditation we are overcome by a great sense of loneliness, then that is a good sign of progress. Only through this feeling of loneliness can the higher worlds reach us.

At present, man is so far advanced that he has absolutely no eye for what is immediately around him. For example, Nietzsche once had a conversation with his friend from high school, Deussen, who was a Schopenhauerian, while Nietzsche wanted to go beyond Schopenhauer. Deussen defended the “negation of the will to live,” and when Nietzsche wanted to object to it, Deussen said that this could only happen if one had not yet understood what this negation really means.

But where is this negation of life really present? In the drunkards and gluttons; they are the ones who deny the divine creative powers; in all those who live in sensual passions or affects.

Everywhere a “bark culture” develops, which we must admire, but which we must immediately recognize as such. We have to cultivate the “marrow culture” alongside the “bark culture”. This outer culture is particularly flourishing in America. For example, the “scientific operating system” has developed there. This is of the same kind as, for example, “scientific pedagogy”, which also originated in America and is beginning to spread here as the “last word in wisdom”. Large numbers of children are observed to find out how long they can focus their attention on something and so on; then “fatigue coefficients” are established and the like. In this way, the work of laborers was also studied, for example, in laying stone; they examined how people could be used in such a way that, without having to think about it, the stones could be transported and laid in the fastest possible way. Man is made into a machine. This will get worse and worse in the future.

Everything will be mechanized; there will be no more handwriting, but children will immediately learn to type. Mechanization of life will dominate the future. It began with the discovery of the steam engine, and in the future people will look back on this discovery - or invention - as on a victory of Ahriman, just as we look back on the Fall of Man as on a victory of Lucifer. For when the steam engine was discovered at the end of the eighteenth century, the gods handed over the material development of the earth to Ahriman. The rest of the development of the earth, with its machines and the mechanization of life, belongs to Ahriman. The gods left it to him. This is what should hit our souls like a bomb.

But we should not try to remove the weight from the bowl that is being pressed down, but through our development we should put the weight of spiritual life on the other bowl. The Mystery of Golgotha was precisely that, the center of gravity of earthly development, and we have to take care of establishing balance.

Soon the terrible consequences of things like the “scientific operating system” (Taylor system) will arise. As a result, human souls will no longer be able to find their way on earth after living in the body for thirty or thirty-three years; they will experience themselves as dead and barren in soul. Then it will be up to those of us who have prepared ourselves for it and who will then live between death and a new birth in the spiritual world, to warm and sun the souls from there, so that they will feel: At first I was dead inside, but now something is beginning to live in me like an inspiration from higher worlds, something that makes me fully alive and warm again; now spiritual life is beginning to come into me again!

That is what must be said as a result of a conversation with the leading spirit of our development. And if one should ask: How can I know that what has been said here is really the result of such a conversation? - then the only answer that can be given is: What has been said today must be said, and it will have fulfilled its task when it strikes like a bomb in your hearts.

(This last part was first given in Kristiania, October 1913, during the cycle “The Fifth Gospel”)

Notes B by Unknown

The hours we spend between the three altars and our three lights are to be used for self-reflection. We are to learn to understand the world correctly. People today rely on external documents and, compared to earlier periods, say: How we have come so gloriously far! — Thus they stand under Ahriman and Lucifer.

Let us assume that man is so organized that he does not know whether he is walking or standing. In this situation, man finds himself in relation to the earth. Only by observing the stars does science calculate and recognize that the earth moves and how. It was not always so.

We go from incarnation to incarnation. The soul life is always different: when our souls were incarnated in Persian culture, people felt much more connected to the earth. They felt the movements of the earth in the cosmos. When this consciousness was lost, people deduced from the stars that the earth moves. Copernicus' theory is not correct. The Earth moves approximately in the lines of a Mercury staff. Man has thus lost a great ability. (Only the ability to perceive the Earth's movement inwardly also makes possible an understanding of the teaching and figure of Zarathustra.) But because of this he has become freer. Man has been set aside from the spiritual world on to the Earth, and he does not even know whether it moves. When Lucifer once approached man temptingly and said, 'I will make you free; you will see for yourselves what is good and what is bad,' the stern voice of Jahve was heard behind him saying, 'You lead man on to the earth, you must also lead him on it to his own independence.

Our whole culture would not be possible if man had not achieved this independence. Because man would also be bound to the great macrocosmic conditions: tiredness in the evening; the life of the farmer with nature. Progress must be recognized, for example, the ingenuity that has been used to build a (machine), even if that machine has no good purpose. Machine culture.

The Earth is handed over to the rule of Ahriman in order to mechanize it. This is what the archangeloi teach. As a counterweight, they teach people to develop spirituality, wisdom, virtue and moral strength (wisdom, beauty, strength). - From America, the land of bark culture, a management science is now coming over. Man becomes completely a machine (Taylor system). Experiments on children because of fatigue. Work should be done entirely mechanically to save time. Children will learn to write with a machine, not by hand. Free time should be used to enjoy beauty. Blindest of the blind. The beauties will not be there. Things belong together...

From the age of thirty, souls will no longer be able to cope with themselves. Our work and our task is to help them. This is the right aspiration if we strive not for ourselves but for the service of humanity. These proclamations should hit our spiritual life like bombs.

Notes A from the estate of Elisabeth Vreede First degree

About the desolation of the world and of man. The desolation of art, science, industry, trade and so on. Everything is growing old. In the future, people will be around as if they had no ego; they will move and work like robots.

Eduard von Hartmann's pessimism: blowing up the Earth is the best thing to do. In a way, his pessimism seems justified in the face of such a bleak future. Although we feel deepest sorrow about it, we can still be grateful to our karma for what we receive here, because then, in the future – as if floating above it – we will be able to give these automaton-like people something to guide them, something like a substitute for the missing ego. This is what the master says when asked about it.

Recording B by Alice Kinkel For all degrees

The knowledge and understanding of the development of our earth is the power and the means for us to advance in the occult. If we look at our earth, we see that it is in a state of dying. We know that human life has an ascending phase, lasting until about the age of thirty, and a descending phase. The same is true of the Earth. The ascending half can be reckoned as lasting until about the middle of the Atlantean period. From that point on, it would be a matter of time before it died or became desiccated; but through certain interactions, this time was delayed until the time of the Mystery of Golgotha, for through the Mystery of Golgotha the new, rejuvenating forces of youth were bestowed upon the Earth once more. Science also tells us that the Earth is dying, disintegrating, and that we are walking on it. The physicist, he already speaks today of the heat death of our earth, of the dissolution, the decay. (The geology of Eduard Sueß is cited and discussed.)

What does occultism, which dissects the Christ impulse, as we do here in view of our three altars and our three candlesticks, have to say about this?

If we go back to the ancient mystery and wisdom sites, which our union is to follow, we do not need to go far back at all, only to the Zarathustra teachings, where the best feelings and sensations were dedicated to the worship of fire. What lives in this fire, in this sacrificial flame? Those who have followed our explanations in our intimate meetings in recent times will not be surprised when it is said: Ahriman lives in this fire or is connected with this fire. What does the physicist describe when he speaks of the heat death of the earth or when he describes his other investigations? He describes the deeds of Ahriman.

But for the Zarathustrians, this fire was something else. The connection with the good powers was there, he sought and cultivated them in the worship of the fire, the powers that save and give the strength of the soul not to be burned.

This earth will indeed suffer a heat death and burn up and scatter into the universe, but the souls that are connected with the good powers will have the strength to save from destruction that which comes from the rejuvenating impulse of the Mystery of Golgotha and to carry it over into future earthly developments, what will shine as the Jupiter sun over the future Earth.

Everything that comes from ordinary science today is old and withered, and it opens up a desolate wasteland in the human heart and soul; for when the physicist draws his conclusions to a close, he arrives at the heat death of the universe. - And what comfort does he then give to humanity? Only that it will be a long time before it happens! – Dreary and bleak is the prospect for the human soul. There is only one way, only one single way, that leads to new life. The earth has grown old and withered; it is doomed; a corpse that withers, it is. But a divine being has descended from the heights of the divine spirit - the Christ being - and brought the earth the impulse of spring, new life.

Those who connect with Christ Jesus will find the way out of this earth to new life. Everything must arise anew on this earth through the Christ presence. People will no longer be able to work through the old impulses of wisdom, beauty and virtue or strength; new impulses must come through Christ. The old impulses will fail. And an architecture will arise that presents only the ridiculous; a painting, a poetry, a medicine will arise that no longer exert any real effects. People will rejoice when all kinds of airplanes criss-cross the air, but every such airplane contributes to the death of the earth.

What then are our machines, what is our technology? We use metals for them that we tear out of the earth and remove from their divine purpose. Every machine is like a piece of flesh torn from the body of the earth; every machine contributes to its death.

If a number of souls can be found – and such souls must be found – who want to take up the Christ impulse, as it is advocated and explained here by true occultism, then these souls can emanate that which saves, that which carries the earth over to Jupiter. A new science, a new philosophy, a new art, a new painting, a new technique, a new medicine, a new commercial life must arise. And the Christ will be the great teacher for all branches of human life.

The Master of Wisdom showed the image of humanity's future when He was implored: a horrifying image - people walking around down there like automatons, who have lost their ego as if lost, who are deeply numbed by this materialistic culture that contains only the strength of old men. By their thirtieth year, when their youthful strength is spent, these people will be like automatons.

In the past, the destinies of the earth were guided from the outside by divine beings and the inherited divine powers were then there to help humanity to progress. Now man himself is to be a co-advisor to the gods (about the destiny of the earth) and to radiate powers from himself through the Christ impulse. And the Master of Wisdom has confirmed that you are called upon, when you have gone through the gate of death, to radiate the occult knowledge and truths that you have absorbed, to send them down from the spiritual worlds to Earth, to strengthen the souls of people who walk around down here like automatons. Think humbly and responsibly of how karma has led you to be called to this!

What does this breathing out of human deeds into the universe mean? The word “God”, “delight” has the same stem. Central Europe has a word that means “to delight”. In the past, God approached man from the outside during the day; it was called “divine delight”, a sacred delight.

The Master showed a second face; the first: a sad face, corresponding to the state of humanity; but the second a holy, inner delight, because through the Christ impulse, springing, sprouting, forces of spring can be sent out into the world. - Many words that have become trivial can become meaningful again through true occultism.

Angelic music is the harmony of the spheres. Aircraft are the disturbers of the harmony of the universe! We must develop inner warmth within us.

Notes from Alice Kinkel

“My kingdom is not of this world.” We must understand this saying, which has been so often misunderstood, either through false asceticism or through false accusations by opponents, as if one wanted to know nothing of this world. We must understand it correctly, very correctly.

From the highest world, bring into this world the strength that only gives this world true essence. Doing our duty here in this world, but knowing that this world is not the world of Christ Jesus, that His power must be carried into this world alone. It would be a bad state of affairs in this world if that did not happen.

The time will come when people will be seduced by Lucifer and Ahriman to say and believe: My kingdom is of this world.

Doomsday mood sweeping the world. There was a doomsday mood around the year 1000. People sensed that Lucifer and Ahriman were loose, and they were loose. The power of Lucifer and Ahriman is growing weaker and weaker until the advent of the Christ into the world, when their power is most strongly suppressed.

4000 BC: People still knew about the spiritual world.
3000 BC: The heyday of Egyptian culture.
2000 BC: Abraham's calling.
1000 BC: The time of David, immediately followed by the building of the Temple of Solomon.
994-1049 AD: Odilo, the Abbot of Cluny. Zealotry. The zeal of a faith that clings to dogmas. A Napoleon of faith who conquers Europe. Violence and domination associated with this faith. A personality who accomplishes all this. She represents the victory of Lucifer, who conquers the power of faith of people to have them for himself. Basel public: I am the way, the truth and the life; we follow him, he will lead us.

Sign of the number under which a year stands. Very significant sign of the conversion of numbers, according to which is calculated. Earlier [the] six-system: dozen, everything according to the number 12; or 60 = 5x 12; the good twelve number. Now everything is according to the ten system, which means that 10 = 2x 5 is the number and the division that are entirely of Lucifer and Ahriman. If you spend a “six”, then the good power is introduced, that is, the money goes with it through the world. Nothing is evil or good in itself, only how it is placed in the world makes it appear evil.

The piety of Francis of Assisi is quite different from that of the ascetic monk Odilo, and it also stands in a different sign, in a different number - or good. The power of Lucifer and Ahriman will continue to grow stronger and stronger, and around the year 2000 they will be very strong.

The human development from 800 AD to 1600 AD: intellectual soul; now consciousness soul develops. Connected with this is the fact that the etheric body is becoming more and more loose; [one can] already see how the cloud of the etheric body goes its own way independently. Man will be less and less able to control the forces of his etheric body; his inner life will become poor and barren if it is not permeated and strengthened by spiritual science. Development of the consciousness soul. The emergence of the etheric body is a danger for man, resulting in a poverty of ideas if the etheric body is not permeated with spiritual forces drawn from spiritual science. The culture of the intellectual soul is still rich in ideas, art, literature, but now so poor in them.

Man will be dependent on the forces of economic life, and Ahriman will place his claws on his neck. He will be unfree if he does not consent to come to the spirit.

There are two things:

1. Lucifer has taken possession of the power of faith in man, which lives in dogmas. Year 1000 = Odilo, and he has not yet let go of that; and the two - Ahriman and Lucifer - have truly joined forces in our time.

2. Ahriman will increasingly take hold of money and economic life. [He has] his soldiers [in] industry and so on. Lucifer's soldiers [are] those who say they are fighting for the Lord Jesus Christ.

Odilo, also a messenger of Lucifer (also a pastor [Riggenbach]), will increasingly [...] say that they have the true faith.

Hatred against us. - Around the building they will have to fight against the year 2000, after many other things that one does not dare dream of today have passed over Europe. The building razed to the ground. But it must be there, even if it is imperfect, we are building spiritually today. 2086 many such there.

Where we leave a blank space, Norman timber-framed forms and the reverse. That which the good spirits already wanted to bring in around the year 1000, but were prevented by Ahriman and Lucifer, we now want to do, through the same spirits, to try to better understand the Christ.

Moors, Byzantine pointed arch. - Sign of Cain against the Norman timber buildings.

“My kingdom is not of this world.” - Meditating on this in the soul keeps Lucifer and Ahriman at bay. For these are the words and powers of the true Christ.

Notes A by Camilla Wandrey All degrees

My dear sisters and brothers!

Every human being has the potential for occult abilities in the depths of his soul. The teacher, to whom the human soul entrusts itself, does nothing other than to awaken these sleeping, unconscious soul powers, to gradually raise them into consciousness and thus to give the soul the opportunity to penetrate deeper and deeper into the secrets of the world, of the macrocosm, and to recognize its relationships to the microcosm, the human being, more and more. For those disciples who begin to make progress in occult knowledge, it is good practice to converse, so to speak, with the sense organs of their body.

For example, I could imagine holding a dialogue with my eyes. Of course, the consciousness of the eye is different from the consciousness that the whole person has. A person looks up at the sun; with consciousness, he allows the essence of the sun or the moon and the starry sky to take effect on him through his sense organs. But the eye itself cannot consciously see the sun, moon or starry sky. However, it can consciously see animals, plants - in fact, everything on earth. But it cannot consciously rise to the starry sky.

Man stands on the earth and looks up to the firmament, but not to heaven, for the eye cannot see it consciously. The only heaven to which the eye can rise is the earth. The earth is the same for the eye as heaven is for man.

Now someone might object: Yes, but we do see the starry sky through the eye. Yes, but only because the I in man is within it. It is the I that looks up at the starry sky and admires its splendor and magnificence. The eye alone cannot see it consciously.

The eye is connected to the rest of the human organism through the optic nerve. It is, as it were, rooted in the human being through this optic nerve. As a creature of the Earth, the human being stands on the Earth. They are connected to the entire Earth organism, and the occultist sees how the entire head of the human being is something like an eye through which the Earth spirit looks up to the firmament, and that the rest of the human body is, in a sense, something like a root through which they are connected to the interior of the Earth. When you look at the head and the rest of the human organism in this way, the human form only then takes on meaning.

Now you know that among the lower animals there are quite a number of insects that have not just one eye, but many eyes: the compound eyes. And so the earth spirit also has many, many eyes: these are the heads of the people through which the earth spirit looks up into the cosmos, and each person is a facet of the earth spirit's eye. And the earth spirit looks up to the sky through people with such intensity that it creates an imprint in the brain of the human child arriving on earth as soon as it is born. You will find a more detailed description of this in 'The Spiritual Guidance of the Human Being and of Humanity'.

And just as the human being carries his sense organs with him on his physical body, so too does the earth have its sense organs - and these are the human beings.

And the earth also thinks. How does it think? - The human being on earth initially thinks through the medium of his brain. The brain of the earth is the animals with their group souls. One could say: they form the entire nervous system of the earth, so that the higher animals form the brain, the lower ones the spinal cord and the solar plexus nervous system, the vegetative system. And the earth lives and breathes and also nourishes itself through the plant world.

And finally, what gives it the firm structure that the human body has in the bone system is what we see in the mineral kingdom.

Thus the earth spirit lives in its physicality. And the earth spirit looks up to heaven so that it is not separated from the universe, its home, by man and what man does on the surface of the earth. This earth spirit naturally has a different consciousness from that of humans; its gaze is freer, more unrestricted, and streams out into the vastness of the firmament when it looks up through its compound eyes: the heads of humans. Do not believe, my dear sisters and brothers, that it is ever held back by the hard skull. He, the spirit of the earth, sees through physical matter; it does not exist for him, it is transparent to him. He looks up to heaven, which is the home of the Christ, who has united with our earthly body since the Mystery of Golgotha.

If we think this through, we can say: It is the Christ who looks up through me to his true home: heaven. Not I, not my earthly self beholds heaven – but the Christ in me.

Let us, my dear sisters and brothers, look at this occult truth from yet another perspective: let us consider the state of sleep. We know that the astral body and the ego are outside the physical and etheric bodies. They are then in the spiritual world, in the world of hierarchies. And through them – while the human being is not present with his consciousness at first – the hierarchical worlds that act upon us have an effect on the human being and on the earth. We human beings, when we immerse ourselves in this spiritual fact, can know with reverence: spiritual beings feel, want, and even think through me: the hierarchies that rule over me. Through me, they send their feeling horns down into the physical world during the state of sleep, so to speak.

And for this they use my soul-spiritual, which is separated from the physical-etheric. This can give us as earth people the certainty that we, with our soul-spiritual, are members of the higher hierarchies.

My dear sisters and brothers, let us increasingly imbibe the following thoughts: through our physical and etheric sense organs, we human beings are of the earth, through which the Christ gazes up to the firmament, to the heaven that is His true home. And let us also feel how the spiritual hierarchies work through our astral body and our ego down to earth. Let us become more and more aware of how we are embedded through our human existence in the activity of all spiritual beings working on world evolution.

If we stop at this point in our human consciousness, we can know: here is where spiritual science becomes religion.

Often, my dear sisters and brothers, I have emphasized that we are living in a significant time in human development. In all modesty, however, we may know and feel that if we carry such soul content within us in all seriousness and dignity, we are called to form a select band within the rest of humanity. We are called to first receive the treasures of the spirit, which are to flow to humanity little by little for its salvation, and to spread them ever further.

At the turn of the millennia, the luciferic and ahrimanic beings are particularly at work, and something very significant will happen to many and more and more people in the last decade of the twentieth century. This is already being prepared. Care is taken for people from the spiritual world so that they grow towards this event. In the next higher world, a fact will take place from now until the end of our century and further into the following millennia: Man will transform himself inwardly in a very natural way, so that he will imbue his soul with a light that gradually emanates from the human being himself and will illuminate the Christ-form within the etheric world. And the more this inner light develops in man, the more the etheric form of Christ will become visible in the coming centuries. This introduces a completely new event that will have an effect on the Christ-development of humanity.

We may know, my dear sisters and brothers, Through what the earth spirit, in union with the Christ, accomplishes by looking into the heavens through our human head, and through what the hierarchies achieve by looking down into the earthly world through our soul and spirit, this inner light is kindled in us human beings when we become aware of these cosmic-earthly facts through meditation. With this inner light we perceive – as in an image that arises through us – the etheric Christ. The Christ has left his home, the world of the hierarchies, with which he was connected before the Mystery of Golgotha. And he has sacrificed himself into the earth.

The spiritual hierarchies must rediscover the Christ in the process of becoming earth. And they will find him again through the light that human souls ignite within themselves, as has been described to you, my dear sisters and brothers.

This light has been a factor in the development of the universe since the very beginning. It is a factor in the fact that at some point people will be proclaimed as instruments of the gods to help with the evolution of the earth through this inner light. And we are now approaching this point more and more. And by you, my dear sisters and brothers, being allowed to receive these secrets of the world, as is the case in today's lesson, you are called upon to help with the evolution of the world.

Now there are two spiritual entities that want to prevent this: the one entity - Lucifer with his hosts - is striving to prevent people from feeling like spiritual and soulful organs of the spiritual hierarchies. He seeks to fill people with other false ideas, teaching them ideas and desires that create error after error in the soul. One can truly say: He makes man obsessed with all kinds of false soul stuff.

In contrast, Ahriman seeks to present something as reality to man that, spiritually speaking, is nothing but maya, nothingness. He seeks to keep man always in a state of blindness that covers the true light from him. Just as a person is blinded when looking at the sun, so Ahriman seeks to blind him on earth by spreading out the colorful carpet of the sensual world in seductive colors, teaching him that this is the only true reality and thus covering the spiritual reality behind this carpet from the person. Blindness of men on earth, that is the mission of Ahriman.

Take, for example, the Copernican system, which entered into the cultural development at the dawn of modern times. It should not be denied that it has its justification for a certain period of time, but it is equally impossible to deny that it has great contradictions and deficiencies, as it is taught to young people today. But now, in the future, the urge will arise in many people to recognize these deficiencies and to penetrate to the truth. More and more people will clearly recognize how many errors it contains.

Ahriman will always try to darken [people's view], Only recently a book came flying onto my desk that can only be read by someone with a mathematical education. In this book, the author seeks with great ingenuity to prove that the earth is not spherical or lenticular, but that it represents an elongated surface. One can see in such a way how Ahriman leads the battle in an ingenious way against the thinking of truth in man.

Spiritual science shines into this web of error. Through it the most profound thoughts of truth of the gods are imparted to man, so that he can extricate himself from the web of error of Ahriman; and it shows the soul how it can be filled with the strong warmth of the love of the Christ for the world, which snatches it from all egoism and all selfish revelry in untrue sentimentalities that Lucifer produces in the soul. All religions have been based on sentimentality and egoism. People were told: If you behave as shown in it, then you have the right to expect this or that reward.

My dear sisters and brothers: spiritual science gives the true religion, which is also knowledge. A completely egoism-free religion that calls on people to work with the gods. And it is a necessity that it be given today.

In the cycle of time, a thousand years will soon have passed again. We are thus approaching a most significant event, which is already beginning to cast its shadows - ever more clearly perceptible - ahead of itself. Before the year 1000, people feared the approaching end of the world. Today, it will happen more and more that we grow into a time in which the luciferic and ahrimanic forces will receive a tremendous, ever more knowledgeable power. Yes, they will take hold of human souls in such a way that they will put their physical powers at the service of Ahriman and Lucifer in many, many people. More and more people will be possessed by demons of Lucifer and Ahriman. And they will believe that they are right. In their blindness, they will not even notice in whose service they are: for the devil does not notice the little people when he holds them by the collar.

But to whom will these people be unfaithful? They should be called upon to place their occult physical powers, as we have learned today, at the service of the world as a whole - to become servants, co-workers of the World Spirit!

The occultist must blush with shame before the World Spirit when he looks at such souls possessed by the adversaries - knowing what mission these souls have become unfaithful to: the mission to be instruments of this World Spirit in such a way that he can maintain his connection with the Christ-Spirit, can work with the Christ so that his sacrifice may find fulfillment.

This is what true occultism is given to us for today. To study it means nothing other than to gradually train ourselves to become a self-aware tool of the World Spirit.

Notes from the estate of Elisabeth Vreede, volume 1

If we continue to develop our occult abilities, we will be able to penetrate ever deeper into the secrets of the world, of the macrocosm in its relationship to the microcosm, to the human body. For those who are beginning to make progress in the occult, it is good to converse with their sense organs.

For example, I could imagine holding a conversation with my eye. Of course, the consciousness of the eye is different from the consciousness that the human being has. The eye cannot consciously see the sun or the moon or the stars, but it can consciously see animals, plants, in fact everything on earth. However, it cannot raise itself up to the starry sky. Man stands on the earth and looks up at the firmament. The eye is something like this in man, but the heaven to which the eye alone can raise itself is the earth. The earth is the same for the eye as heaven is for man.

Now someone might object: Yes, but we do see the starry sky through the eye! - Certainly, but only because the human ego is behind it; the eye alone could not see it consciously. And just as the eye is connected to the rest of the human organism through the optic nerve, through which it is, so to speak, firmly rooted in the human being, so the head of the human being is the eye through which the earth spirit looks up to the firmament, and the rest of the human being is, so to speak, the root through which it is connected to the interior of the earth. It is only in this way that the human form acquires meaning.

Among the lower animals, there are quite a number – the insects that have not just one eye, but many eyes, the compound eyes. So the earth spirit also has many eyes, namely the heads of the people, through which he looks up into the cosmos, and every person is a facet of the eye of the earth spirit. And the earth spirit looks so intensely through the human being to the sky that it is already imprinted in the human brain at the moment of birth! This has been pointed out in the book “The Spiritual Guidance of the Human Being and Humanity.

And the earth also thinks. How does it think? The group souls of the animals are the brain of the earth; one could say that they form the entire nervous system of the earth, for the higher animals form the brain, the lower ones the spinal cord and the solar plexus, the so-called vegetative nervous system.

And the earth lives and breathes and also nourishes itself, namely through the plant world. And finally, what gives it its solid structure, like our skeletal system, is the mineral kingdom.

The earth spirit looks up to heaven through the human being so that it is not separated from the universe. Of course, the earth spirit has a completely different consciousness than the human being; its view is freer, more unrestricted, the hard skull, for example, would not be an obstacle for it. He looks up to heaven, which is the home of the Christ, who has united with the earth spirit since the Mystery of Golgotha.

It is the Christ who, through me in me, looks up to his true home, heaven. Not I, but the Christ in me! We must also look at it from another point of view.

We know that during sleep the astral body and I are outside the physical and etheric bodies. They are then in the spiritual worlds, and through them the higher hierarchies work downwards on man and on earth. We must feel: the spiritual hierarchies feel, will, and even think through me, so to speak, they stretch their feeler horns down into the physical world.

Through our soul and spirit we are members of the higher hierarchies.

Let us increasingly imbue ourselves with the thought that we humans are the sensory organs through which the Christ looks up to heaven, his true home; but let us also feel how the spirits of the higher hierarchies work through our souls down to earth, how we are embedded in the higher hierarchies through our being. At this point, spiritual science becomes religion!

It has often been emphasized that we are living in momentous times. In all modesty, we can feel that we are a select group called upon to first receive the treasures of the spirit and then spread them further. And precisely because the luciferic and ahrimanic entities are always particularly active around the turn of the millennium, something very significant will happen for many: Through the work of the earth spirit, united with the Christ, as he looks up into the heavens through us humans - we perceive this as the etheric Christ; and in the image that arises, the spiritual hierarchies, with whom the Christ was united, must recognize him in his earthly incarnation!

Two spiritual entities seek to hinder the development of man. He who wants to prevent us from feeling ourselves as soul organs of the spiritual hierarchies is Lucifer. Instead, he seeks to fill man with other, false ideas. You can really say he makes him obsessed with all kinds of secular and spiritual stuff.

Ahriman, on the other hand, seeks to deceive man by presenting as reality that which is only Maya. When man is blinded, when he looks at the sun, Ahriman also seeks to blind him on earth by spreading the colorful carpet of the sensual world before him in seductive colors, hiding the spiritual reality behind it. The mission of Ahriman on earth is to blind man on earth.

Take, for example, the Copernican system, which entered the cultural development at the dawn of modern times. It is not to be denied that it has its good, but just as little is to be denied that it, as it is taught into the youthful age, also shows its great contradictions and deficiencies. More and more in the future, the urge will arise in many people to eliminate these deficiencies. More and more people will clearly recognize how many contradictions it shows, as far as their view is not darkened by Ahriman. Just recently a book arrived on Dr. Steiner's desk that can only be read by someone with a mathematical education. The author attempts to prove that the Earth is an elongated surface. This is not correct, but it is not as absurd as one would like to believe.

Only spiritual science can shed light on this, because it conveys the thoughts of the gods. That is why it will be the religion of the future. All religions so far have been based only on selfishness

and sentimentality. People were told: If you do this and that, you will receive such and such a reward. This true religion, which is also knowledge, is a religion completely free of egoism. And it had to be given now, because in the time cycle, another one thousand years will soon have passed. There is no longer the fear that the end of the world is near, as there was in the year 1000, but it will become more and more apparent that around the turn of this century, these luciferic and ahrimanic forces will assume ever greater power. More and more people will put psychic powers at their service and be possessed by Lucifer and Ahriman without realizing it, because the devil never feels the people, even when he has them by the collar.

The occultist must blush with shame before the World Spirit when he looks at such souls possessed by Lucifer, knowing what mission these souls have become unfaithful to, namely to be an instrument of the World Spirit so that he can maintain his connection with the Christ Spirit.

That is why true occultism is given to us today, and to study it, to study it seriously and devotedly, means nothing more than to train oneself to become such a tool of the world spirit.

Record C by Alice Kinkel For all degrees

One good way to develop the occult powers of perception is for a person to speak with his senses. We know that in all things, consciousness of various degrees is revealed. Spiritual beings also live behind our senses, but our senses have a different consciousness than that of a human being; they see the world differently than we do. If a person talks to his eye (an occultist can do this with any of his senses), this eye will tell him something that may sound paradoxical: the eye does not see a starry sky as a human being does, it knows of no sun or moon, but it does tell us about something like a heaven. This heaven is the earth with what appears on its surface. We see the sky above. The eye sees the earth below as heaven, and the eye sees this when it is awake. When it is asleep, it would say: My heels, the back of my knee, now perceive what the eye previously saw when awake. The illuminated part of the earth (for the eye, the sky) seems to have slid backwards, behind the eye. The eye perceives our body as its earth. How embedded the eye is in our body. And so embedded, stored in the earth, is the human being. For just as he stands on the earth, he is the sensory organ of the earth.

We are the eye of the earth as humanity. Every human being is an eye of the earth. The earth has many eyes. Just as there are lower animals that have compound eyes, so every human being is a facet of the eye of the earth. The earth has a different consciousness than humans. The spirit of the earth looks out through us as its sensory organs into the heavens, perceiving differently than we do; but it looks so intensely, with such power, that it leaves an imprint of its power in the sensory organ. Just as the physical eye would be blinded if it looked so intensely into the light that an imprint of the power were to arise in the eye, so the earth can bear this strong power. A bony covering, such as our skullcap is, does not prevent it from looking through. And it looks out into space so intensely through the human being at his birth that the human being shows an imprint of the whole starry sky in his brain.

We are the sensory organs of the earth. But our earth also thinks. Its brain and nervous system are the animals of the earth. The higher animals are its brain, the lower ones its spinal cord and solar plexus. And its thoughts are the group souls of the animals. They are also invisible, like our thoughts. The earth also breathes and feeds itself; and these are the plants of the earth. And just as the bone system underlies our body, so the mineral underlies the earth.

[And just as we stand on the earth, we are embedded in it, just as the eye is embedded in the brain. And just as the optic nerve continues into our brain and connects further with our body, so we are the eye of the earth, with which it looks out into space.

Just as the consciousness of the eye is a dreaming one, graduated in sleep, so our consciousness in relation to that of the earth, which is a much brighter one, is also a dreaming one. We can feel like the optic nerve of the earth, growing out of it into the sky. To know ourselves as a sensory organ of the earth is necessary for the future. We are the chosen ones for this knowledge. In all modesty and humility, we want to tell ourselves that. The Christ is the spirit of the earth. Through us, as his sensory organ, he looks out into his home in the heavenly realms: it is not I who looks out, but the Christ in me.

What is proclaimed from the pulpits about Christ can be understood as an atavistic world view, and is directed only at our egotism and sentimentality. But our karma leads us, so to speak, to proclaim a new world view. We are at the starting point of it. This twentieth century, the last century before the year 2000, will need more and more people who know that they are meant to become sense organs for the Christ. What does such knowledge trigger in us? Reverence and deep devotion, true religiosity.

Spiritual science must bring this new world view. That is why we are now receiving it as a gift from the higher worlds. It addresses the greatness of the human being by telling him: You human being [you are destined to become a sense organ for the Christ]...

But it will be difficult to feel and know that we are the sense organs of the earth. Because this awareness will always darken us and not want to let Ahriman arise. He will want us to think and speculate and philosophize about what man is when we cannot feel ourselves as the sense organ of the earth. And the time until the end of the earth will be just long enough for him to hold back people on earth. They would have become so accustomed to the earth that he could then lead them into his realm, that he could establish his kingdom. Because he wants to keep us from knowing that we are an organ of the earth, that is why we are so difficult to understand in the world. More and more confusion.

But our organization is such that at night we leave our physical and etheric bodies here, and the astral body and the ego go into the spiritual world. But we as souls can feel ourselves at night, projecting from the spiritual worlds into the physical world, like horns of feeling stretching out from ourselves into this world, widening more and more. As a soul being, feeling at night that embodies the will of the hierarchies, as they want to see man on earth. As a soul, we are the will, feeling and thinking of the gods. To feel this is even more difficult than to know oneself as a sense organ of the earth. For Lucifer will repeatedly cloud our clear consciousness of this and will present demonic things in front of it, so that people become obsessed with all kinds of spiritual stuff and say to themselves: You should not work on earth with the physical instrument of the body, but with your spiritual powers. That is Lucifer who says that.

It is uncomfortable to have to think again and again in spiritual science, to have to reflect again and again on the thoughts of the gods; because that is what we are doing. It is more comfortable to say to oneself: you don't need any of that, you have all of that in spiritual powers. These are demons, and people will become more and more obsessed by them. The blinding of the human being as an organ of the senses of the earth, that is what Ahriman wants. Being obsessed comes from Lucifer. Why we are being told this, we must ask our karma. We are the ones to whom this is said and we vow loyalty, firm and true loyalty to that to which we have committed ourselves; for the temple is no bauble, but the most sacred thing for us, to which we want to be loyal.

If what has been said is received by our hearts as warmly as it has been given, then we will find the right way, despite all difficulties, to know ourselves by day as the sense organ of the Christ and by night to feel ourselves as the feeling of the hierarchies, which say: The Christ was with us in the spiritual world; he took leave of us in the Mystery of Golgotha; he entered into the earth, and we must feel him down there through the souls of men. A sign that the hierarchies feel the Christ will be when people see the etheric Christ, and this must always be the case in the last century of the second millennium and in the first centuries of the third millennium. Today, many people are confused. For the adversaries of the Christ, Lucifer and Ahriman, will be unleashed around the year 2000, and there will be great confusion. But we should feel that we are the ones who know: Through me, the Christ looks into the spiritual worlds, and my etheric vision is the feeling of the hierarchies of the Christ (on earth) in the earth. He who knows the connections must blush before the good advice of the world spirits, the true light gods, when he sees how all kinds of spiritual stuff, demons, are mistaken for the true spiritual world.

We must know that we are placed in the struggle between Ahriman and Lucifer with the true light gods.

[“I am the eye of the earth with my physical body.

And with my soul, I am the tool for the activity of the gods.”]

Notes D by Unknown

Something very important that we should awaken in ourselves more often in meditation is a kind of conversation with our senses. Take the eye, for example. The eye does not see as we see the sky above us with the sun, moon and stars, but we have to imagine that we are the microcosm of the earth for the eye, and the surrounding world is for the eye what the sky is for us. The eye is as if in a dreaming consciousness, not as we are in a bright daytime consciousness. And at night, when we sleep and close our eyelids, the eye sinks into a deep, dreamless sleep, and it is as if the upper half were dark and could only be seen through the hollow of the heel and knee, just as the sun disappears behind the earth for people on the other side of the world in the evening.

Just as the eye is the sensory organ of the human being, so the human being is the sensory organ of the earth, only that the earth has many eyes, just as there are animals that have what are known as compound eyes. And our head is to the earth what the eye is to us. The powers with which the earth looks out into the cosmos are so strong that they penetrate the firm skullcap and look at the cosmos and the sky. The starry sky is imprinted in our brain, and right at birth a certain part of the starry sky is imprinted in our brain. We must endeavor, in humility and modesty, to provide the best possible organ of vision for the spirit of the earth, through which it can look up into the cosmos.

But the earth also needs breathing and nourishment, just like humans. The plant world is there for this purpose, supplying the earth with substances and forces from the cosmos.

And the earth can think too. What is achieved through the human brain, spinal cord and nerves is done for the earth by the animal world. The higher animal world corresponds more to the human brain, the lower to the nerves and the extended marrow. It is the group souls of the animals through which the earth thinks.

The earth's bone system is in the mineral kingdom.

The spirit of the earth is the Christ, who, through us as the earth's sensory organ, looks up to the higher hierarchies from which he came and which he left to connect with the earth. And we must increasingly make ourselves the appropriate tool and seek to develop the abilities slumbering within us so that we can see the etheric Christ in the last century of the second millennium. Then we will also make ourselves a tool for the high gods of light, who will look up to the Christ through us, whom they have been seeking on earth since he left his true home. This realization will lead us to true religiosity, not what is proclaimed to us from the pulpits by the priests. There, appeals are made to people's selfishness and sentimentality to awaken religiosity. They are told: Your sins will be punished, your good deeds will be rewarded.

Just as the eye is implanted through the nerves and is connected to the human organism, so is our head, the eye of the earth, connected to the earth through our physical body. Our body is like the nerve that attaches to the eye and integrates it into the human organism.

We should consider ourselves, in all humility and modesty, to be the select few of people who, in the last century of the second millennium, are to hear this wisdom and these truths first. For they must now flow into humanity. We should not sink into the mire of the swamp, but rise up to the world of light.

Notes A by Unknown

The human being is the eye of the spiritual hierarchies. The spiritual hierarchies perceive the soul of the human being as their soul. Just as these hierarchies have undergone a soul-spiritual development, they are now undergoing their physical development in humanity. We should learn to feel more and more that we are organs of these high beings.

It is wrong to speak of feeling at home in the universe and to say: What more do I need to know about it when I know that I am at home in the universe. This is roughly the same as a naturalist saying: What do I need to explore nature in detail! Everything is nature, nature, nature! —But just as we do seek to fathom nature particularly in its details, so we should also do it with the spiritual. And what was said before about us being the sense organs of the spiritual beings should serve this purpose. And the more we grasp all this, the more we will come into the right relationship with the whole world. Another thing can help here. Let us look at our temple: It is a reflection of man as well as of the world (?), all these relationships are expressed in it.

Let us turn to the altar of the east: in the east, the intellectual powers of the earth flow towards it. From there, the sacred powers of the intellect flow through the earth. These are roughly represented in A. This is the head of the earth.

Let us turn to the south. From there the sacred powers of the heart radiate, the powers of love and devotion of the earth.

From the west, the sacred will pours into the earth, flowing through the limbs, from which the actions flow.

When we imagine our temple in meditation, we should remember that the altar of the east represents the head, the altar of the south the heart, and the altar of the west the limbs of the earth, and we should feel how in the east the powers of the intellect, in the south the powers of the heart and love, and in the west the powers of will flow and converge in the center of the temple.

Then we will turn to these altars and ask that these forces flow into us and flood and empower us.

In the past, people lived much more in all the relationships between body, earth and the life within it. This can still be clearly seen, for example, in the units of measurement used: the foot, the ell, the system of twelve, and so on.

Now we have the decimal system, which is the work of Ahriman. So that we can follow the work of Ahriman in the details of life, in general the work of the spiritual.

It is not enough to say: I feel myself in the universe. We must know this universe, this spiritual, down to the smallest detail, only in this way can we stand in life in practice. Not a single measure or other relationship reminiscent of Ahriman is found in our Dornach building.

Everything is arranged in single-axis symmetry. As we know, the Ahrimanic entities are always particularly active around the turn of a millennium and seek to attack people. In Moorish culture, the Ahrimanic forces attempted such an advance northwards. The Ahrimanic principle has been expressed in the pinnacle that characterizes Moorish architecture.

In contrast, another current had come from the north in the Norman wooden buildings, but could not develop further because the Ahrimanic influence prevented it.

The architecture of these buildings now appears again in our Dornach building, but in such a way that where there were windows before, there are now walls, and where there were walls before, there are now windows. In this century, mighty storms will still befalling humanity, and in the eighties or nineties nothing more of our building will be seen on the physical plane. But the seed will have been planted in people's souls and will continue to work. In the twenty-first and twenty-second centuries, our building will then serve as an example, as a model, for such buildings.

Record B by unknown

You come to the point where you experience your organs, let's say the eye; it could also be another organ. It becomes like this: not “I see through my eye,” but “the spirit of the earth sees through me.” Some insects have compound eyes. Every human being is a facet in the eye of the earth spirit. Just as the body of the earth, the sun, moon and stars are the sky for the eye, so the earth is its body and it sees through the eye.

The ego and the astral body are the soul of the higher hierarchies of the spiritual world, embedded in the soul of the spirit.

Just as the germ of the plant has it within itself, so our lodges are the germs of what must flourish in the world as a plant, and therefore the germ of what will become a spiritual fruit in the world must be nurtured and cared for. The germ does not perish with the plant; and even if many germs do not develop into plants, the spiritual germ does not die, it is eternal like the germ itself. If we meditate on this truth, it can be of great help to us in realizing the higher worlds.

The outer [cultures] may die away. We know that the culture of the Moors strove to bring ahrimanic forces to the West in the pointed arches of their architecture.

The Normans counteracted them with their buildings. What they left unfilled was to be filled by the art of the future - as in the Dornach building. But in the eighties nothing of it will remain. Yet in the twentieth, twenty-first century many such buildings will come into being. It will remain a model in the hearts of many; and subsequently will produce its own kind.

Thus the world spirit looks through us into the future.

Imagine the spiritual being:

The altar of the east = head
the altar of the south = heart extended into infinity
the altar of the west = limbs

Notes C from the estate of Elisabeth Vreede First degree

Let us look at our temple, it is a reflection of the human being as well as of the world; all these relationships are expressed in it. 1914

Let us turn to the altar of the East. From the East the intellectual forces of the Earth stream in. From there, the Earth is permeated with the sacred powers of the mind. These are reflected in the altar; there is the head of the Earth.

If we turn to the south, the sacred powers of the heart, the powers of love and devotion, radiate from there to the earth.

From the west, the sacred will pours into the earth, flowing through the limbs, from which the actions flow.

When we imagine our temple in meditation, we should remember that the altar of the east represents the head, the altar of the south the heart, and the altar of the west the limbs of the earth; and we should feel how in the east the powers of the intellect, in the south the powers of the heart and love, and in the west the powers of the will flow and converge in the center of the temple. Then we will turn to these altars and ask that these powers flow into us and flood and empower us.

Notes by Alice Kinkel

We live in it in our human evolution; our time is an especially important and significant time. A human faculty is at a particularly important point in our time: human thinking, and an infinite amount for its development will depend on how people use this faculty.

Dr. H. shows us two examples from his occult research work and their tasks and practice in the spiritual worlds. He tells us: A personality of the nineteenth century who could not comprehend the spiritual while he was in the physical body died, and now he was in danger of losing his intellect in the spiritual world to Ahriman. And for years I wrestled with Ahriman to restore this person's intellect!

As a second example, it is said: Let us assume that a personality has written a book on the physical plane and it is now necessary for another person to reflect with inner participation, with love and loyalty, the thoughts that this personality has set down in the book, in order to help the man who wrote the book not to lose his intellect to Ahriman after his death.

It is remarkable that people on the physical plane often ask you why you have written a book. It may have been done to help another person by reflecting their thoughts with love. Humanity is facing the ever-increasing danger of losing its intellect to Ahriman if it does not want to learn to use its thinking properly.

It is an elemental being that man speaks with when, for example, he speaks with his eye. When the eye becomes selfish and egotistical, man becomes blind. Man gets cataracts when the eye wants to go its own way and see for itself.

The human being is meant to be the sensory organ of the earth, the eye of the earth. He should also be the brain of the earth, but his thoughts stray into the abyss of the earth. Today the earth thinks through the innocent animal world.

A [consonant] is every sign of the zodiac and the planets are the vowels. The earth reads these letters and then knows what it has to do in its duties. The ancients knew this and said: What does the earth have to know most of all if it is to find its way in world affairs? It must know the secret of the zodiac, it must know a circle.

The religion of the future will be that which is understood in spiritual science. The temple of the future will be that whose first image we are attempting to erect in our Dornach building. And in the future, people will pray and be devout in such a way that the soul will say to itself: Through me, the earth looks out into space and reads in the zodiac and the planets the secrets of the universe, of which it becomes a part through its actions. And it will give man comfort in loneliness, in suffering and oppression, that he may say to himself: I can give myself to the eye of the earth, to the tool of the hierarchies. The earth looks through me by day, and the hierarchies can flood my soul by night to let their feelings and will flow onto the earth.

During the day the feelings and volitions of the gods cannot flow to earth, and so divine wisdom has given man sleep, because only when freed from the body or in a state of clairvoyance can the soul be an instrument for the gods. For during the day an Ahriman draws in the air we breathe, but at night the gods can draw in us.

The temple should represent the sacrifice that the spirits want to make. The sacrifice must be, without sacrifice there is no becoming, no progress.

We want to sacrifice our intellect and offer it to the Christ, so that the Christ may also include it in the wreath of pearls that the Christ can wind out of holy sacrifices that he has brought for the development of humanity.

The Father pours forth His holy Will, His creative power; the Christ looks up, sacrificing Himself: “Thy will be done!”

It is our fault that we do not yet understand the great mystery of his work. We are in the bosom of the Father by night and look down at our body, in which the servants of Christ work, and we should tell each other this.

Religion must be a selfless one, then man will sacrifice to the Godhead and learn to understand that sacrifice means the most sacred thing to unite with the Godhead.

Excerpts from notes taken by Nanna Thorne from a lecture by Rudolf Steiner in Kristiania (Oslo) on December 4, 1921, translated by Agnes Steineger and Karl Engqvist in a letter dated November 27, 1966 from Karl Engqvist (Järna) to Edwin Froböse (Dornach)

Dear Mr. Froböse.

Unfortunately, I am writing this to you from my bed. I suddenly became quite ill yesterday.

Thank you very much for your kind words.

I would now like to add a few things that were not included in the translation by me, because they come from Miss Nanna Thorne, at least for the most part.

The title reads: “I entered this sense world”, Oslo, May 21, 1923. Then it continues like this:

“When Dr. Steiner was in Oslo for the first time in 1921, he spoke about the mantram: ‘I entered this sense world’, and likewise the last time he was up here, in May 1923. Today a report is to be given of this last lecture. It was therefore the last thing he entrusted to the esotericists here in Norway.”

Here, Miss Steineger has translated the first sentence incorrectly. It should probably read: “[...] he spoke for the first time about the mantram [...]”. - The heading was certainly added by Nanna Thorne. - It is also written at the top, in brackets: “(Is the mantram read?)”

Before the two lectures, there are three mantras on a left-hand page in the book: “I entered this world of the senses”, “First know the earnest guardian”, “O man, know thyself”.

---

The lecture from 1921 begins like this:

Everyone should realize that they are a spirit, come from the spiritual worlds and are only down here for a short time.

Why does the human spirit have to come here to Earth, where it has to go through so much?..

An infinite desire for earthly life, to bring new life germs, fills the human spirit. That is why it descends again and again...

A person creates their karma through their thoughts...

There is also another inheritance that man must take with him into earthly life: original sin... Lucifer... Ahriman, the lord of death...

Another consequence of man's dried-up, killing thinking is the point of view of science regarding the laws of nature... Thoughts and ideas essentially revolve around machines, mechanics and the like. The life of thought has become earthbound, poor and dried up; Ahriman, the god of death, now has the power, and to such an extent that not only the human soul perishes, but the physical human organism is also damaged, it becomes paralyzed and is killed, the material dies. ...

And not only man will stiffen and go towards death, but all of nature. ...

And just as nature here on earth is heading towards death, so too is the universe... It is not enough to know about the new life-force of Xri; if it is not worked into people through the will, one will nevertheless face spiritual death.... this new life-force that is given to man by grace...

... Ex Deo Nascimur

If the esotericist is to see into the spiritual worlds, he must first meet the “guardian of the threshold”... Before he lets the esotericist in, he takes away the use of the physical senses; therefore, the esotericist must have developed occult organs in advance to replace them.

Likewise, the Dweller takes from him everything he has absorbed through the mind. ... This, that one takes the sense world for reality, also makes it impossible to get clarity about oneself, to get to know one's own nature.

Everything seen in space is dead. Once the gods created it. Now they have abandoned it, they have moved away. It is the work of the gods, but they themselves are gone; matter is dead, it is permeated by Ahriman, and here in this dead man does not find his true being. Nor can one find one's true nature as long as one allows oneself to be deceived by the spirits of the age. ... It is important to see the errors of one's own time (that is, epoch, Karl Engqvist), to rise above them and then to try to live in time, with time and for time.

In Christo morimur.

In this struggle to arrive at one's true self, these words will resound:

O man, know thyself.

It is Xri (short for Karl Enggvist), the world word, that makes these words resound through everything that life on earth has to give.

You do not find your own being just by looking into yourself, but by seeing everything that is in the cosmos, everything that is around us in space. There the image of one's own self is spread out.

It is not only in space that you get to know your higher self. Space belongs to the physical world. But behind space, time is at work through everything that lives in time. There one must also find one's self (which was awakened to conscious life in man through Xri[s] (abbreviation by Karl Enggvist) death), learn to understand how this higher self has fought its way out... through what happens in time. One must direct one's attention to the fact that time is a creative being that incessantly sends its impulses among people so that they may develop their ego here on earth, may find their ego. ...

When man recognizes his ego as that which stands behind things in space and behind what he has experienced in time, and when he sees the meaning of it all, then the ego is consciously born in him, and then he himself will one day become a creative word of the world... But the living, fully conscious spirit lives among the divine beings.

Per Spiritum Sanctum Reviviscimus

The lecture is 19 pages long in Fräulein Steineger's handwriting. The one from May 21, 1923 is 21 pages long.

Since the class existed before the Christmas Conference, it follows, I think, that the institutions and agreements that existed before the Christmas Conference were not destroyed by the Christmas Conference, and thus neither was Rudolf Steiner's will to Mrs. Marie Steiner. I feel tremendously uplifted and inspired to have been able to contribute to this fact. Very warm greetings, also from my wife,

Karl Engqvist

The Vidar group tried to get Fräulein Steineger's inheritance after her death, but my friends explained to them that she had given me testamentary power of attorney to dispose of it. What luck!

Reproduction of the content of a Michael School class held by Rudolf Steiner on May 21, 1923 in Kristiania (Oslo) [in Marie Steiner's notebook no. 1 dated “(Kristiania) 18, May 1923”] through notes by Nanna Thorne in the translation by Agnes Steineger and Karl Engquist in a letter dated November 20, 1966 from Karl Engqvist (Mölle, near Helsingborg) to Edwin Froböse (Dornach)

Dear Mr. Froböse!

I was able to do the translation during a week's rest at a health resort (near Helsingborg). It is really, as you said, a historical document. Perhaps you could write me a postcard to confirm receipt?

Best regards,
Karl Engqvist

More or less consciously, every esotericist has the urge to penetrate into the spiritual world. To achieve this, we have decided to take the esoteric path. This decision may be considered the most important one we have made in our lives. Everything else is small in comparison; for the work we do as esotericists, we do in the knowledge that it is not only for ourselves, but for humanity. It extends beyond time, into eternity. Higher knowledge is only attained through practice (training in the Norwegian text). That is why we have been given our exercises and mantras, which must be practiced as intensely and vividly as possible. Without this, one does not reach the goal. They form the gate through which the esotericist must pass if the spiritual world is to open to him.

Equally important as performing the exercises is developing the right attitude towards the spiritual world. We must become aware that everything around and within us we owe to the beings that live there, even our own life and the soul content that flows in during meditation. We must become aware that we are approaching these high, divine beings.

Therefore, the esotericist should approach these beings with deep reverence, and he should try to get a living feeling for who he is now meeting - he must learn to love what flows towards him from them.

Through one's thought life, one reaches connection with the world of the spirit when one handles one's thoughts differently than usual. When they become just as real to him as external things: during intense meditation, you notice that in the inner silence of the thought process, something much higher and more real than the things of the external world is revealed. Thoughts take on life, they themselves come to life. They are never shadowy and abstract: you hear a voice within you, unrecognized beings speak to you in the silence through your thoughts. One listens to an inner word, an inner language.

Meditation is the name given to this life of the soul in thought, which expands more and more into a life in the spirit. And it is the means to all supersensible knowledge.

There is another way to arrive at the inner word. Not only by searching within, but also by searching without.

Everything in the external world has been given a name. People have given names to all things, to every animal, every plant and every mineral. And the name is not just a label; behind the name there is something spiritual that is active. Even feelings and concepts have been given a name. Through the name, through the word, one person can come into more intimate contact with another. Through words, we get to know the soul life of another person, their thoughts and feelings.

But if you want to get to the “inner word” in this way, it is not enough to just get a superficial idea of the soul life of another person; you have to go deeper. And this can only be achieved if, while listening, [...] you get used to suppressing your own feelings and opinions, even if they are completely opposite to those of the other person. Only then will you hear the soul of the other person through the words – you have to listen in.

If you listen to the other person's soul through their words, then the occult organs in the astral body and later in the etheric body develop so that you are able to perceive voices and words from the spiritual world: they are not audible to the outer ear, but the ability to perceive the “inner word” is awakened to life.

In quiet moments, the inner voice speaks to the student, and the spiritual world reveals itself through it. The everyday noise must then be silenced so that it is quiet in the person. The words, the being with the other world, fill his entire soul, and spiritual truths are gradually revealed to him. A strong feeling of happiness accompanies this experience. It is as if an inner light is lit in him, and new life flows towards him from the divine world.

(The acquisition of the ability to perceive the inner word takes different lengths of time.) The ability to grasp the inner word takes a different amount of time to develop in different people; some experience it after a very short time, others only after a succession of years. One must patiently work and wait until this is achieved. Through the ancillary exercises and the special exercises, the ability is developed and this brings one the first step forward on the path to the spiritual world.

When meditation with the intense thought life is finished, one tries to create complete silence within oneself – to live in the soul element. Then, one day, when you have reached a certain point in your development, you feel as if you were surrounded by a great darkness, a void, an empty space, and at the same time you feel as if you were expanding more and more, indeed it is as if you were losing yourself in the dark infinity. You are seized by fear. But at that point, you should say to yourself, “I live,” so as not to slip away completely and lose yourself.

Then you will perceive a light in the silent darkness that comes from within yourself, and with this light you move into infinity. Suddenly it resounds from the great infinite, from the world word: “O man, know thyself.” Mighty, powerful, it resounds (the Norwegian “runger” is almost “tosen”, “thunder”) towards the esotericist.

(In four stages) This word is pronounced in four stages. To the esotericist, it is as if the sun rises in the morning, rises at noon, sets in the evening, and the moon rises and sets again. It becomes morning, and it becomes evening, it becomes midnight and morning again, and in each of these stages one hears a word resounding: O man, know thyself.

And yet the whole experience may last only a few moments, at most a minute or two. It is not the duration of time that matters, but the intensity of the contemplation. In those two minutes, the experience can be so intense when you hear these words that it is as if you are experiencing a whole day and [a whole] night with the rising and setting of the sun, the rising and setting of the moon.

The words come from the world of the spirit and are felt as overwhelming. They thunder (runger) at you. It is something similar to what the ancient Hebrews experienced when pronouncing the word Yahweh. It was as if the cosmos collapsed with a thunderous roar, so powerfully did the sound reverberate. They heard it as one short and one long syllable.

In the same way, the words: “O man, know thyself” will sound to us in short and long syllables. Then the words die away and it becomes very quiet.

But now a voice is heard (which the disciple now understands as coming from an angel), which the disciple now understands as coming from an angel:

"Thus sounds the world word.
You hear it with soul-strength.
You feel it with spirit-strength.

Again there is silence. The student feels himself anxiously and thoughtfully: ‘Who speaks so powerfully?’

The third verse is read.

O man, know thyself!
Thus sounds the world word.
Thou hearest it with the soul's might,
Thou feelest it with the spirit's power.
Who speaks so mightily?
Who speaks so intimately?
Does it work through the radiance of space
In the experience of your mind?
Does it resound through the weaving of the waves of time
In the stream of your life?
Is it you yourself who, in the feeling of space and in the experience of time, Creates the word, Feeling the word to be foreign to you in the spiritual emptiness of space, because you lose the power of thought
in the stream of the destruction of time.

The world of the spirit is close, one feels that, and a wish arises to come into possession of a measuring rod that can show one the greatness (the size) of the spiritual life in comparison to the smallness of everyday life.

We have such a measuring stick in our breath in relation to day and night.

We compare our own breathing with the cosmic breathing. The cosmos breathes us out over the course of a day. We awaken in the morning and live consciously in the physical world – an exhalation of the cosmos. [We fall asleep into the spiritual world – an inhalation – and awaken again in the morning.] A day and a night here is for the cosmos like for us a breath (is for the cosmos as one of our breaths is for us).

Let us consider more carefully what it actually means that our 24 hours are the same for the cosmos as a single breath is for us.

Normally, a person has 18 breaths per minute; children a little more, older people a little less, but on average it is 18 breaths per minute. In one hour it is 18 x 60 = 1080 and in the course of a day and a night 25,920 times. So a person breathes 25,920 times in 24 hours.

Now it is not only the breathing of man that is so much greater in the spiritual world in relation to the cosmic, [but] we have to think of everything magnified 25,920 times. - Small things that we hardly notice here, a small mistake, for example, that we almost overlook, takes on a different sound in the spiritual world. There it has a tremendous influence. Everything in our soul life takes on meaning by being magnified 25,920 times.

But not only the moral life of man has these great dimensions in the spiritual world, but also all the other impressions that the soul receives from things down here are magnified there to the corresponding degree. The impressions of beauty that people receive from all the beautiful things in nature, from flowers, clouds, the sea and mountains, however beautifully it is expressed here, cannot be compared to the impressions of beauty experienced there – they are so sublime, so majestic. Just as the physical breath relates to the soul-spiritual breath, so much more powerful and awe-inspiring is the spiritual world in relation to the physical.

Therefore, the cosmic or heavenly word - the word of the world that sounds to the disciple from the spiritual world and that he gets to know through meditation - is correspondingly greater than the words that people speak or have spoken with the ordinary breath. Before these spiritual-cosmic dimensions, he must figuratively speaking, take off his shoes.

It is good for the esotericist to live into this consciousness in advance, otherwise he would be completely overwhelmed when he consciously experiences the spiritual worlds. He should try to live into this difference as much as possible, even when meditating on the cosmic words:

O man, know thyself.

The experiences discussed here are all on this side of the threshold, but they serve to a high degree to strengthen the esotericist so that he can stand firm when he is to cross the threshold and the immense dimensions of the spiritual world open up to him.

Before this happens, however, he meets the Guardian, who does not let anyone in without certain conditions.

First and foremost, he demands that one leave one's faults, evil desires and passions behind on this side of the threshold: they cannot be taken into the higher worlds.

But who, then, will be allowed in?

If the Guardian were to demand that the esotericist should be free of all faults, he would be asking the impossible. For no one is free of faults. The faults are there. Every person is full [...] of ill-wishes and desires and succumbs to passions. If someone imagines otherwise (if someone imagines that he does not have them), then, if not sooner, he will recognize something completely different before the guardian. There he will see all his faults in their ugliness. Courage and fearlessness are needed to see the truth about oneself. The Guardian forces man to self-knowledge and does not let the disciple in before he admits his faults. This must be. At least to himself he must admit his faults (own) that he is steeped in selfishness and full of evil desires and many other faults. A true, Christian admission that this is so is the first condition the Guardian makes before admitting the esotericist.

But he demands more. Full of faults as he is, the esotericist must not take his evil desires and wishes into the spiritual world. Every time the esoteric meditates, he comes into contact with the higher worlds. But then he must not take his lower nature with him; he pollutes the other world if he weaves personal, selfish thoughts into his meditation, and the result is that it is felt as dark and empty. He can then neither give, hear nor experience anything after meditation. The spiritual world remains closed as long as the esotericist cannot stop brooding over himself and his selfish desires during meditation. During the few minutes of meditation, he should rise above everyday life and detach himself from his lower self, instead devoting himself entirely to the spiritual. If he cannot do this, the spiritual world will remain dark and empty for him despite all meditation. Everything is amplified 25,000 times there; therefore, nothing disharmonious may be allowed in, and for this reason the guardian stands to make sure that the lower self remains this side of the threshold.

The Dweller also takes from the esotericist everything that he has absorbed through his mind and intelligence. All thoughts that revolve around the physical are of no significance in the other world; completely different faculties are needed there. Only thoughts that have helped one to achieve greater and greater self-knowledge may be allowed to enter through the gate. But no one achieves self-knowledge only through the help of the sense organs and intellectual thinking. Spiritual powers must first have sent their light and strength to the esotericist, and the esotericist must have developed an honest will if he is to meet the guardian and have him teach him to cross the threshold.

The second verse is read (“First recognize the earnest...”

First recognize the earnest guardian
Who stands before the gates of the spirit world,
Denying entry to your sensory power
And the power of your mind,
Because in the weaving of your senses
And in the forming of thoughts,
From the space of their own nature,
From the times of their own power,
The truth of their own being,
You must first conquer with strength.

When the guardian allows the esotericist to see and hear in the spiritual world, he feels intensely: “I live.”

It is something quite different from the feeling he has when he says the same words. This too is magnified more than 25,000 times. And what he perceives and sees in the spiritual world is so sublime, so majestic that our mind could never have conceived it. Through it all resounds: “O man, know thyself!”

There are esotericists who believe that they do not want to concern themselves with becoming clairvoyant because there are so many difficulties and dangers associated with it. They recoil. Yes, it is true, there are countless dangers and difficulties that every esotericist encounters before he becomes clairvoyant, and also after he has received [clairvoyance]. Lucifer and Ahriman are always trying to get power over people, but never as strongly (powerfully) as after the attainment of higher knowledge. One must not blind oneself to this and for this reason refrain from doing everything to attain this ability; that is the absolute duty of an esoteric. The development of humanity has now reached the point where basically every person should consciously strive to go the occult way. The spiritual world is now so close to human consciousness, if only people would make an effort to remove the last veil. But if they fail to do so, the development will fail and people will be drowned in everything that pulls them away from the spiritual, in materialism, worship of mammon, self-interest and so on. Therefore, a small number of people must in any case absorb spiritual science, the spiritual, and follow the esoteric path.

And this will be even clearer to us when we remember what the spiritual powers have done for us even before we entered this incarnation. How they have accepted us all at the Michael School in the spiritual world. Michael himself has placed the longing for it within us and given us the opportunity for higher knowledge. We have been chosen for this, so it must be felt as a duty to do everything to achieve it. It should not be felt like a duty, no, far from it, it should rather be felt as a grace so great that we should be filled with the deepest gratitude.

We do not have the right to hold back because of the dangers and difficulties. Lucifer is certainly trying to make the esotericists fanatics and fantasists in order to conquer them for his kingdom, and tempts the esotericists to egoism in all its forms. It is particularly easy to succumb to vanity, ambition and pride.

We also succumb to Ahriman. He tries to turn us into materialists and wants the esoteric knowledge we receive in esoteric practice to become rigid and fossilized into dogmas. He also wants to turn us into a sect. And at the same time, he tries to increase our interest in physical things, so that our thoughts revolve essentially around them and we become lethargic and indifferent to our exercises. And if someone achieves a little clairvoyance, [Ahriman] does everything to awaken false ideas and illusions. This must be clear to every esotericist.

But just as Lucifer and Ahriman fight to gain power over the esotericist and prevent occult development, it is equally certain that good powers always surround the esotericist and are ready to give him strength to resist these enemies in all temptations. But fearlessness and good will are the best allies, and there Michael-Christ is ready to help, so that the evil forces must retreat.

When the esoteric meditates and returns to everyday life, when he has to go among people again, feel their coldness, their selfishness - and his own selfishness - he will notice that meditation has given him a new strength that will become an armor for him during the day: He will more easily become aware of temptations and will more easily overcome difficulties, both within himself and around him. And whatever happens, he must never forget that all esotericists receive a special power from the hierarchies that work to give people a conscious connection with the spiritual world. We must never completely leave this out of our consciousness, it should lie in us like an underground. But there we will never lose heart either, and we will experience that power is sent to us to overcome difficulties and dangers.

Through trust in these powers and through meditation, we will come into ever stronger contact with them. But this connection can also be strengthened by studying nature and the cosmos; by recognizing the laws, essences and forces that operate there, and gradually sensing the spiritual forces that are the driving ones. Here one learns to understand the language of the hierarchies, God's language – thoughts of the cosmos are hidden in it.

In the beginning, it is not easy to understand this language. To say that everything in nature is an expression of divinity is quite easy. But to understand what thoughts and what is hidden behind nature and the cosmos, that is, to fully understand this language, is only learned through occult experiences in the spiritual world. But then it also becomes a living language that makes it clear what thoughts underlie the mineral, the plant, the animal and one's own physical body. Then one understands that a divine power has created all this and has led the soul and the mind of man into the physical world in order to develop strength through life in matter, in order to work out from his own conscious ego an ever stronger connection with the hierarchies and the spiritual worlds.

If the esotericist is to experience this, then he must not escape the duty that the esoteric school imposes on its students to develop clairvoyance; this is the surest way to get a living connection with the higher world.

Every esoteric lesson is meant to help with this. It should be the case that every time we gather for an esoteric lesson, we then have the feeling that we have caught a glimpse, if only for a moment, of the spiritual world, and thus a sacred mood that gives new strength to take on the difficulties of life again.

This mood will then follow us further, in that it will become the determining factor for the thoughts, feelings and actions that life imposes on us.

It is true that no esoteric has the right to give to those outside the school what he learns in an esoteric hour, and the mantras are only for the esoterics, but the fruit of what has been learned should shine over his whole life and show everyone that he draws from an invisible power.

If the esoteric becomes the guiding principle for his life, the light on his path through life, then he has received and experienced the esoteric hour in the right way.

The first verse is read (“I entered this...”).

I entered this world of the senses,
My heritage of thinking with me leading,
A God's power has me introduced.
The death, he stands at the way end.
I want to feel the Christ's being.
It wakes in material dying spirit birth.
In the spirit I find the world so
And recognize me in the world becoming.

Ex Deo Nascimur In Christo Morimur Per] Spiritum Sanctum Reviviscimus