The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Theosophical Cosmology I

[ 1 ] The series on the basic elements of theosophy, which I announced some time ago, will not be held until later, when there may be more interest. I have postponed these lectures and decided to use the Thursdays in the near future to explore cosmology and the evolution of the world—that is, the theosophical doctrine of the origin of the world and the formation of humanity within it.

[ 2 ] I am well aware that I am about to tackle one of the most difficult chapters of theosophical doctrine, and I can tell you that some of our lodges have decided not to address this chapter at all for the time being because it is too difficult. Nevertheless, I have decided to proceed because I believe that the insights I am able to offer might be of some benefit to many. Even if we cannot fully grasp such a difficult subject right away, we will at least be able to gain some inspiration that may help us delve deeper into this matter at a later time.

[ 3 ] Those who have been part of the Theosophical Movement for some time will know that the questions: “How did the world actually come into being?” How did it gradually evolve to the point where beings such as ourselves could inhabit this world?”—are among the very first questions to have been addressed within the Theosophical Movement. Not only one of the first books to draw attention in the West to the ancient worldviews—H. P. Blavatsky’s *Isis Unveiled*—has addressed such questions of the origin and evolution of the world, but also the book to which we perhaps owe the majority of our oldest followers: Sinnett’s *Esoteric Buddhism*. How does a solar system form, and how do planets and star clusters form? How has our Earth developed, what stages has it gone through, and what stages might still lie ahead? These are questions that are addressed in great depth in this *Esoteric Buddhism*. Then, at the end of the 1880s, Blavatsky’s *The Secret Doctrine* was published, and in its first volume it again addresses the question: How did the world system develop? — and in the second volume, the question: How has the human race developed within our Earth?

[ 4 ] Now I need only point out a single issue to illustrate the full extent of the difficulty. If you open the first volume of Blavatsky’s *The Secret Doctrine*, you will find that a certain portion of the assertions contained in Sinnett’s *Buddhism* are there described as erroneous and, in part, corrected. These matters had been partly misunderstood and partly misrepresented by the Theosophical writers. Mrs. Blavatsky therefore had to set the record straight. She said that, with regard to Theosophical cosmology, there had been a kind of Babylonian confusion of tongues and that the leading figures [of the Theosophical Society] were by no means of the same mind on these matters.

[ 5 ] You all know that the teachings of the *Secret Doctrine* were imparted by great and exalted Masters who are far ahead of our average level of development. Even before the *Secret Doctrine*, a book had been published in which Sinnett, the author of *Esoteric Buddhism*, published a series of letters from a Mahatma. From this we see the difficulties that stand in the way of understanding this Secret Doctrine, and we understand how those who, like Sinnett and Blavatsky, were eager to receive these teachings, literally groaned under the difficulty of comprehending the teachings presented to them. “Oh,” said one teacher, “you who are accustomed to thinking with a different kind of mind cannot understand what we have to say, even though you make the greatest effort to grasp it.”—When we bear this statement in mind, the difficulties must become apparent to us. Wherever lectures on cosmology have been given, misunderstandings have arisen. Well, this is well-founded, so I hope you will bear with me as I attempt to contribute something to this teaching.

[ 6 ] Now I would like to preface this with a few remarks that clarify the position of theosophical cosmology in relation to modern science and its methods. Someone might come along and say: Look at the progress our astronomers have made; we owe this to telescopes, mathematical methods, and photographic techniques, which have led us to knowledge of distant stars. — Modern science, with its meticulous methods, seems—in its own view—to have the sole right to determine anything about the evolution of the universe. It seems to have the right to dismiss what others say about the evolution and origin of the universe. Many an astronomer will object to us: “What you Theosophists tell us about cosmology are, after all, ancient teachings that were taught by the Chaldeans or the Vedic priests and that belong to the oldest body of wisdom of the human race; but what significance can there be in what was said millennia ago, since the science of astronomy has only taken on a reasonably certain form since Copernicus?” — Well, what is written in the first volume of Blavatsky’s *The Secret Doctrine* seems to conflict only with what astronomers, armed with telescopes and the like, have made clear to us. But the Theosophist need not at all find himself in any contradiction with what the astronomer asserts. That is not necessary, although there are Theosophists who believe they must oppose modern astronomy in order to make room for their own teachings. I know very well that the leading figures of the Theosophical Movement believe they can instruct the astronomers. Let us illustrate the Theosophists’ standpoint in relation to that of the astronomers with a simple example.

[ 7 ] Take a poet whose work we enjoy and find uplifting. This poet may find a biographer in another person, and this biographer will attempt to help us understand and explain the inner spiritual and emotional world that the poet carries within. But there is another way of looking at it: the physiological, scientific approach. Let us suppose a natural scientist studies the poet. Naturally, he studies only those physiological and physiognomic aspects of the poet that interest him; he studies him from a scientific standpoint, and whatever he can observe and synthesize using his scientific mind, that is what he will tell us about the poet. We, as Theosophists, would say that the natural scientist describes and explains the poet from the standpoint of the physical plane. — But this natural scientist will not say a single word to you about what we call the poet’s biography, about his soul and spirit. Thus, we have two parallel approaches, which, however, need not conflict with one another at all. Why shouldn’t the scientific perspective exist alongside the spiritual-psychic perspective, with each being valid in its own way? After all, this is not a case of one encroaching upon the other.

[ 8 ] The same is true of scientific cosmology—of what our astronomers tell us about the structure of the universe and the evolution of the solar system. They will describe what can be perceived by the external senses. However, a spiritual-psychic perspective is also possible, and if one grasps the structure of the world in this way, one will never come into conflict with astronomy; on the contrary, the two perspectives will sometimes support one another, for they run parallel to one another and are independent of one another. For example, when the scientific study of brain physiology was still far from as advanced as it is today, there were already people who wrote biographies of great minds. The astronomer cannot therefore object that the occult perspective is outdated and impossible simply because Copernicus placed astronomy on a different foundation. The occult sources are, after all, entirely different; they existed long before the eye was trained to observe the heavens through telescopes, and before photography had advanced enough to capture images of stars. Copernican research has something entirely different to say than occult research; and one force within the human soul is by no means dependent on the other. The power that provides us with insight into the spiritual and soul realm goes so far back that no historian can tell us where this way of viewing the structure of the world actually began. It is not possible to determine how the leading minds arrived at these occult views.

[ 9 ] Occult schools already existed in Europe before the Theosophical Society was founded in 1875. However, at that time, the knowledge we commonly refer to today was shared only within small, exclusive circles. There was a strict rule against allowing this knowledge to spread beyond the confines of these schools. If one wished to join a school, one had to work rigorously on oneself before the first truths were imparted. It was firmly believed that a person must first become ready to receive these truths. There were many levels within the schools through which one had to advance—examination levels—and anyone deemed not yet ready enough had to continue preparing. If I were to describe these levels to you, you would be overwhelmed by the rigor of this path. Matters concerning the evolution of the world were considered among the most important, and only at the highest levels were they communicated to people. In the 17th century, which had a great influence on culture, this knowledge was in the hands of the Rosicrucian movement. This movement originally drew upon Eastern and Oriental knowledge, and this knowledge was imparted to its European followers at various levels at that time. At the end of the 18th century and especially at the beginning of the 19th century, these occult schools disappeared from European culture, and the last Rosicrucians withdrew to the Orient. It was an age in which people had to organize their lives according to external knowledge; the invention of the steam engine, scientific research into cells, and so on were emerging. Occult wisdom had no say in this, and those who had reached the highest pinnacle of this wisdom—the highest-ranking initiates—withdrew to the Orient. Although there were still occult schools later on, they are of little interest to us now; however, I must mention them because Madame Blavatsky and Mr. Sinnett, when they received their cosmological knowledge from the Buddhist-Tibetan secret schools, went back to the original sources at that time.

[ 10 ] A long spiritual evolution in Europe had brought the European mind and European intellectual capacity to a point where it was difficult to grasp occult truths. These truths were now only with great difficulty understood. When this initial knowledge of theosophical cosmology reached the public—partly through *Esoteric Buddhism* and partly through *The Secret Doctrine*—the followers of the occult schools took notice, and it seemed wrong to them that the strict rule of not allowing anything to leak beyond the boundaries of their schools had been broken. The followers of the Theosophical Movement, however, knew that it was necessary to share some of this knowledge. Western science, however, could make no sense of what had been said, for no one was able to verify what Madame Blavatsky and Sinnett had written. In particular, no one knew what to make of that magnificent cosmological hymn consisting of the so-called Dzyan Stanzas, which precedes the two volumes of Madame Blavatsky’s *The Secret Doctrine*. The authenticity of these stanzas, which recount the history of the universe, was called into question; no natural scientist could make sense of them; at first glance, they seemed to contradict everything European scholars knew. There was one scholar, an Orientalist whom I hold in the highest esteem, Max Müller, who vigorously championed Eastern wisdom. Everything he could access regarding Eastern wisdom was made available to Europeans by Max Müller. But neither Max Müller nor other European researchers knew what to make of what Madame Blavatsky proclaimed. At the time, the prevailing view was that what was written in *The Secret Doctrine* was pure fantasy. For the scholars had found no mention of it anywhere in the Indian texts.

[ 11 ] Mrs. Blavatsky said that where she had obtained her secrets, there were still great treasures of ancient literature, but that the most important aspects of this wisdom had been kept hidden from European scholars. Even the little that could be communicated was not understood due to the European way of thinking; the commentaries containing the key to understanding were missing. The books that explained how the individual passages were to be interpreted were carefully preserved by the educated native Tibetans—at least, that is what Madame Blavatsky said. But other advanced thinkers also assert that this literature provides historical evidence that there once existed a primordial wisdom which, in spiritual and intellectual matters, was far superior to everything the world knows today. The Eastern sages say that this primordial wisdom is contained in the books they have carefully preserved, and that this primordial wisdom was not handed down to us by people like ourselves, but that it originates from beings of a higher order, that it originates from divine sources. The Orientals speak of a divine primordial wisdom. However, Max Müller stated in a lecture to his students that research does not allow us to assert that such primordial wisdom ever existed. Upon hearing of Max Müller’s judgment from Madame Blavatsky, a great Brahmin scholar of Sanskrit remarked: “Oh, if only Max Müller were a Brahmin and I could lead him to a temple, there he could convince himself that there is an ancient divine wisdom.”

[ 12 ] Some of the information that Blavatsky conveys through the Dzyan stanzas has been drawn from such hidden sources, which she herself uncovered. If Madame Blavatsky had invented these stanzas herself, then we would be faced with an even greater miracle.

[ 13 ] However, we are not dependent on drawing occult insights into the origin of the world from the ancient writings. There are powers within human beings that enable them to perceive and explore these truths for themselves, provided they develop these powers in the proper way. And what can be experienced in this way corresponds to what Madame Blavatsky brought back from the Far East. It turned out that even in Europe, occultists had preserved a body of knowledge that was passed down from generation to generation from teacher to student and was never entrusted to books. The occultists were therefore able to verify what Blavatsky revealed in *The Secret Doctrine* against their own knowledge, above all against that which they had acquired through their own abilities. Even those trained in the European tradition can rise to the challenge of verifying what is written in Blavatsky’s *The Secret Doctrine*. It has indeed been verified and confirmed, but it is nevertheless difficult for European occultists to come to terms with it. Let me mention just one thing: European occult knowledge has been shaped in a very specific way by Christian and Kabbalistic influences and has therefore taken on a one-sided character. However, if one sets this aside and goes back to the very foundation of this knowledge, then complete agreement with what has been revealed to us by Madame Blavatsky is possible.

[ 14 ] Although it was thus possible to examine to some extent what Madame Blavatsky presented to us as cosmology, it is difficult to make scholars understand what is meant when the origin of the world is discussed from the perspective of occult knowledge. It is, of course, astonishing what scholars accomplish in deciphering ancient documents, how they toil to decipher Babylonian cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyphs; but Max Müller himself says that what they have discovered in these inscriptions still does not provide a picture of the history of the world’s creation. We see how scholars, so to speak, are tinkering with the shell but fail to penetrate to the core. This is not to detract from the great care and meticulous mosaic work of the scholars. I merely wish to point to the books that have been published in connection with the Bible-Babel controversy. All of these are works of mosaic; yet the scholars remain stuck on the shell. One senses that they have no idea of the paths that lead to the key to these mysteries. It is as if someone were to begin translating a book written in a foreign language into their own language. At first, it is imperfect. So it is with the translations of ancient creation myths by our modern scholars. They are truncated versions of the ancient teachings of wisdom, as they have been passed down to us from generation to generation in the secret schools. Only those who had reached a certain degree of initiation could know anything about them. At the end of these lectures, I will return to this topic once more.

[ 15 ] It is, then, the initiates who can come to understand these things through their own experience. You may ask: What, exactly, is an initiate? There is so much talk in theosophy and in occult societies about so-called initiates. — An initiate is one who has developed to a high degree the powers that lie dormant in every human being but can be developed by them. The initiate has cultivated these powers and mastered them to such an extent that he can understand the nature of the forces in the cosmos, in the structure of the world, that are relevant to what I wish to explain. Now, you might say: We are always told that such occult powers lie dormant within human beings, but this is certainly not a certainty for us. — That is merely due to a misunderstanding. The mystic, the occultist, claims nothing—absolutely nothing—that any scholar in his or her field might not also claim. Imagine someone tells you a mathematical truth. If you yourself have never studied mathematics, then you lack the knowledge to verify this truth. No one would dispute that one must first acquire the necessary skills to assess a mathematical truth. No authority can decide on such a truth; only the individual who has experienced it can judge it for themselves. Similarly, only the one who has personally experienced such an occult truth can decide on it. Yet our contemporaries demand that the occultist prove what he has to say immediately and in a way accessible to the average mind. They invoke the maxim: “What is true must be provable, and everyone must be able to understand it.” — Yet the occultist asserts nothing other than what every other scholar in his field also asserts, and he demands nothing that every mathematician does not also demand.

[ 16 ] One might ask: Why are occult truths even being presented today? After all, the path taken by previous occult schools was precisely that of preserving this knowledge within closed circles. The occultists of the “Right” still follow this path. But anyone with experience who recognizes the signs of our times knows that this is no longer the right approach today. And it is precisely this fact—that this is no longer the right approach today—to which the Theosophical World Movement owes its emergence. What is most highly developed in the present age is the intellect. We owe our successes in industry and technology to our combinatory thinking, in conjunction with the senses. This intellect, this intellectuality, celebrated its greatest triumphs in the 19th century. External, intellectual thinking has never been as dominant as it is today. When I said that the Eastern sages possessed primordial wisdom, they possessed it in a form entirely different from that of modern thinking. Even the greatest masters of the East did not possess this acuity of logical thinking, this pure logic; nor did they need it. That is why it was also difficult to understand them. They possessed intuition, inner vision. True intuition is not attained through logical thinking or through combinatorial reasoning; rather, a truth stands directly before the mind of the individual concerned. He knows it. There is no need to prove it to him.

[ 17 ] Now the teachers of the Theosophical Movement have the right to impart a certain portion of occult wisdom. We have the right to clothe the wisdom that has been transmitted to us in the form of intuition in the thought-forms of modern life. A thought is a force like electricity, a force like steam power, like thermal power; and for those who absorb these thoughts presented within the Theosophical Movement—those who devote themselves to them and do not approach them with suspicion from the outset—these thoughts become a force within them. The listeners do not notice it at first; the seed only sprouts later. No theosophical teacher demands anything other than to be listened to. He does not demand blind faith, but only that one listen. Neither accepting them on faith nor rejecting them out of disbelief is the correct stance. The listener should simply reflect on the ideas communicated to him, free from faith and doubt, free from “yes” and “no.” They must adopt a “neutral” attitude and allow the teachings to take effect in their mind “on a trial basis.” Those who allow theosophical ideas to take effect in this way do not merely have thoughts; rather, a spiritual power pours into them, acting upon them and enriching them.

[ 18 ] Because Western European culture has developed thinking to such an extent, people find it easiest to gain access through thought. Even the most devout churchgoers today can no longer imagine how people used to believe. That source of conviction no longer flows today. Today we must nourish our thoughts in a completely different way. Because thinking was not cultivated in the past, spiritual teachings could only be imparted in secret schools. Today, when it comes to the spiritual, we must turn to the power of thought; then we will ignite our thoughts so that they live within us. The spiritual speaker addresses his listeners in a completely different way than the ordinary speaker. He speaks in such a way that a kind of spiritual aura, spiritual forces, radiate from him. The listener is to accept a thought—without saying “yes” or “no”—as something entirely objective, to live with this thought, to meditate on it, and to allow it to take effect within himself. Then, through the thought, power will be kindled within us.

[ 19 ] Today we must proclaim the occult truths about the origin and formation of the world in the form of European thought and modern scientific inquiry. These lectures will address this very topic: the conditions that preceded the formation of our Earth. We will be taken back to ancient times, when, out of the deepest twilight, the being that would later become human took shape. We will be guided to the stage where this human being was conceived by earthly forces, where he was enveloped in earthly matter, up to the point where he stands today. We will come to know the pre-earthly and earthly development of our world structure and see how Theosophy offers us a glimpse into the future; we will see where the development of our world is headed. We wish to demonstrate all of this without contradicting the views of today’s astronomers. As we develop the powers that lie dormant within us, we ourselves will come to understand the great goal toward which we are heading: the attainment of cosmological wisdom. Let us consider this cosmological wisdom in the coming hours.