The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Lecture Ten

[ 1 ] The occultist is never concerned with establishing dogmas. He recounts what he has seen, what he has explored on the astral and mental planes, or what Masters—whom he recognizes as such—have revealed to him. He has no ambition to convert others, but rather seeks to awaken in them the same sense that has been awakened within himself, enabling them to see as well.

[ 2 ] Here we shall discuss the astral human being as he appears to clairvoyant perception. The astral human encompasses the entire soul world of sensations, passions, emotions, and instincts. To the inner sense, these manifest as forms and colors. The astral body itself is a cloud-like, egg-shaped formation that flows around and envelops the human being. We can perceive it inwardly.

[ 3 ] With regard to the physical human being, the task is to take in both the substance and the form. The substance is renewed within seven years, while the form remains intact. For behind the physical lies a supersensible architect. This architect is the etheric body. We do not see it; we see only its work, the body. The physical eye sees in the organism only what is complete, and not what is in the process of becoming.

[ 4 ] The opposite is true when one has a sense of the astral body—that is, of one’s own astral body. We perceive it from within through our passions and the various stirrings of the soul.

[ 5 ] The clairvoyant’s ability consists in learning to see from the outside what we feel from the inside in ordinary life. Sensations, passions, and thoughts are then transformed into living and visible forms. This is what forms the aura surrounding the physical body—a form of light.

[ 6 ] Just as the etheric body builds up the physical body, so do the emotions shape the astral body. Everything that lives in the aura finds expression there. Every human aura has its own specific nuances, its predominant colors. All other colors play out against this background color; for example, the melancholic temperament has a blue tint. But so many different impressions pour into the aura from the outside that the observer can easily be misled, especially when observing his or her own aura.

[ 7 ] The clairvoyant sees his own aura in reverse—that is, the exterior as the interior and the interior as the exterior—because he is viewing it from the outside. What does he see?

[ 8 ] All founders of religions were accomplished clairvoyants and spiritual leaders of humanity, and their moral principles became rules for living that were guided by astral and spiritual truths. This explains the similarities among all religions. Such a similarity exists, for example, between the Buddha’s Eightfold Path and Christ’s Eight Beatitudes. Both are based on the truth that whenever a person develops a virtue, they also cultivate a new faculty of perception. But why exactly are there eight stages? Because, as the clairvoyant knows, there are eight possibilities for the development of clairvoyant faculties.

[ 9 ] In occultism, the astral body’s sensory organs are called lotus flowers, sacred wheels, or chakras. The sixteen-spoked wheel, or sixteen-petaled lotus flower, is located in the area of the larynx. In very ancient times, this lotus flower rotated in a specific direction—counterclockwise, that is, from right to left. In modern humans, this wheel stands still; it no longer rotates. But in the clairvoyant, it actually begins to move again, and in the opposite direction—from left to right. Eight of the sixteen petals were once visible. The eight in between were hidden. In the future, they are all to become visible. For the first eight are due to unconscious higher perception, while the eight new ones are due to conscious perception, which arises from personal effort. And it is precisely these eight new petals that bring Christ’s Beatitudes to fruition.

[ 10 ] Human beings possess yet another lotus flower, the one with twelve petals. It is located in the heart region. Once, only six petals were visible. The cultivation of six virtues will cause the other six petals to unfold in the future. These six virtues are: control of the mind, initiative, emotional balance, positivity—which allows one to see the best in everything—an attitude free of prejudice, and finally, harmony of the inner life. Then the twelve petals will begin to move. They express the sacred nature of the number twelve, which we find again in the twelve apostles, in the twelve companions of Arthur—and in each case, it is a matter of creativity, of activity. And this is so because everything in the world develops in twelve different nuances. In Goethe’s poem “The Mysteries,” in which the ideal of the Rosicrucians is expressed, we find a new example of this. According to an explanation the poet gave to young people himself, each of the twelve Knights of the Rose Cross represents a religious current.

[ 11 ] These truths can likewise be found in signs and symbols, for these symbols are not arbitrary inventions but correspond to realities. For example, the symbol of the cross, like that of the swastika, is a representation of the four-petaled chakram of the human being. And the twelve-petaled lotus flower finds its expression in the symbol of the Rose Cross and the twelve companions. The thirteenth among them, the invisible companion who unites them all—that is the truth, the unifying bond of all religions. Every new beginning, every new religious revelation, is a “Thirteenth” that offers a new synthesis of the twelve nuances of spiritual truth.

[ 12 ] The rites and ritual ceremonies of religions spring from this truth. At the root of all rites and all cults established by clairvoyants, it is divine wisdom that speaks. Through it, the astral world expresses itself in the physical world. The rite represents, as in a reflection, what takes place in the higher worlds. This fact is found in the rites of Freemasonry just as it is in the religions of Asia. At the birth of a new religion, an initiate lays the foundations upon which the ritual of the external cult is built. As humanity evolves, the rite—a living image of the spiritual world—develops all the way to the realms of artistic production. For art likewise springs from the astral world—and the rite becomes beauty. As is well known, this occurred during the era of Greek culture.

[ 13 ] Art is an astral process whose origin has been forgotten. We find a clear example of this in the Mysteries and among the Greek gods. In the Mysteries, the Hierophant describes human evolution in its three phases: the animal-man, the true man, and the god-man—the true superman, not Nietzsche’s false superman. Through these three types, he conveyed to the initiates a vivid image, just as he received it from the astral light. At the same time, these three supersensory types found expression in poetry and the visual arts through the following three symbols: first, the animal type, the satyr; second, the human type, Hermes or Mercury; third, the divine type, Zeus, Jupiter. Each of them, together with everything that surrounds them, represents an entire cycle of humanity. In this way, the students of the mysteries conveyed into art what they had seen in the astral light.

[ 14 ] The peak of human life currently occurs around the age of thirty-five. Why is that? Why does Dante begin his journey at the age of thirty-five, in the middle of human life? Because at this point, the human being—whose activity up to that point had been concentrated on developing the physical body—ascends to the spiritual realms and can direct his activity toward becoming a seer. Thus, Dante, too, becomes clairvoyant at the age of thirty-five. At this point, the physical forces cease to monopolize the spiritual influence. These forces, now freed from the physical, can transform themselves into clairvoyance.

[ 15 ] We are touching upon a profound mystery here: the law of the transformation of the organs. The entire development of the human being is marked by a transformation of the organs. What has reached the highest stage in the human being is the result of the transformed lowest stage. Thus, the reproductive organs, too, must be transformed.

[ 16 ] With the separation of the sexes, the astral body also divided: into a lower part, which gives rise to the physical reproductive organism, and an upper part, which kindles thought, imagination, and speech.

[ 17 ] The reproductive organ, the power of procreation, and the vocal organ, the creative word, once formed a single whole. One can understand the unifying bond between these two poles where they still formed a single organ. The negative, animal pole and the positive, divine pole were once united and have since separated.

[ 18 ] The third Logos is the creative power of the Word, as expressed at the beginning of the Gospel of John. Its echo is the human word. In ancient myths and legends, this fact found profound expression in the description of the limping Vulcan. His task was to guard the sacred fire. He limps because, during initiation, a person must lose a part of his physical body—the lower part of the body comes from a past that must disappear. The lower human nature must fall in order to rise to an even higher level in the time to come. Thus, in the course of his development, man has split into a lower and an upper part.

[ 19 ] In certain medieval illustrations, the human figure is depicted as split into two parts by a line. The upper left portion and the head are above the line, while the upper right portion and the lower part of the body are below it. This line represents the past and the future of the human body. The two-petaled lotus flower is located below the forehead at the bridge of the nose. This is an astral organ that has not yet developed but will one day evolve into two antennae or wings. A symbol of this can already be seen in the two horns on Moses’ forehead.

[ 20 ] Viewed from top to bottom, from the head to the reproductive organs, the human being is composed of two halves that are essentially the same—this is the product of the past. From left to right, the human being is symmetrical: this represents the present and the future. But these two symmetrical parts do not have the same value.

[ 21 ] Why are we usually right-handed? The right hand—which, of the two, is the one that works most actively today—is destined to atrophy later on. The left hand is the organ that will survive once the two wings on the forehead have developed. The brain of the chest will be the heart, which will be an organ of consciousness. And there will be three organs for locomotion.

[ 22 ] Before humans stood upright, there was a time when they walked on all fours. That is the origin of the riddle posed by the Sphinx. She asked: What creature walks on all fours in childhood, on two legs in the prime of life, and on three legs in old age? Oedipus answered: It is man, who indeed walks on all fours as a child and leans on a cane as an old man. In reality, the riddle and its solution refer to the development of all humanity: past, present, and future, as understood in the ancient mysteries. Having walked on all fours in a bygone era of its evolution, humanity now stands upright on two legs. In the future, he will fly and will in fact make use of three aids: The two wings that develop from the two-petaled lotus flower will be the organ of his will to move, as well as the transformed tool of the left side of the chest and the left hand. Such will be the tools of future locomotion.

[ 23 ] Just as the right side and the right hand will wither away, so too will the present reproductive organs, and, as we have seen above, human beings will bring forth their likeness through the Word. Their Word will shape their likeness in the etheric body.