The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Lecture Twelve

[ 1 ] The Devachan—or the abode of the gods—corresponds to the Christian heaven and the spiritual world of the occultists. It goes without saying that these regions—which are only seemingly otherworldly, since they are in a living relationship with our world, but which lie beyond the reach of our physical senses—can only be described in symbols and parables, for our language is suited only to the world of the senses.

[ 2 ] The Devachan comprises seven degrees or seven different regions, arranged in ascending order. These are not levels or specific locations, but rather states of the soul and the spirit. The Devachan is everywhere. It surrounds us just as the astral world does, only we cannot see it. Through a series of exercises, the initiate gradually acquires the necessary abilities to see it. Let us consider how it gradually opens up to those who acquire new powers of perception.

[ 3 ] At the first stage of clairvoyance, dreams become more frequent; they feature specific figures and meaningful words; they increasingly take on a meaning that can be deciphered and that relates to real life. For example, one might dream that a friend’s house is on fire, and later learn that the friend has just fallen ill. These first glimpses into the Devachan make it seem like a sky streaked with clouds that cluster together and gradually take on living forms.

[ 4 ] With the second stage of clairvoyance, dreams take on very distinct contours. These are the geometric and symbolic forms of the great religions, the sacred symbols of all ages, which are, so to speak, the language of the creative Word—the sacred hieroglyphs of the cosmic language: the cross, symbol of life; the pentagram, or five-pointed star, the symbol of the Word; the hexagram, or six-pointed star—two interlocking triangles—the symbol of the macrocosm, mirrored in the microcosm, and so on. But these symbols, which we represent with abstract lines, appear here in color, alive and flashing like lightning against a background of light. Nevertheless, they are not the garments of living beings, but rather denote, so to speak, the norms and laws of creation. From them are formed the animal figures that the first initiates chose to represent the sun’s cycles through the constellations of the zodiac. The initiates have handed down their visions through these symbols—for example, in the symbol of Cancer, which depicts a vortex formed by two opposing lines. The oldest written characters in Sanskrit, Egyptian, Greek, and runic scripts—each of which always has its own meaning—all originally trace back to spiritual forms.

[ 5 ] At this stage of his clairvoyance, however, the student is still on the threshold of Devachan. The task is to go beyond it and find the passage that leads from the astral world to the first stage of the Devachanic world. All secret schools have known this path, and even early Christianity, though it did not draw upon the ancient forms of initiation, nevertheless possessed an esoteric symbolic language, traces of which we can still find.

[ 6 ] Thus, the Acts of the Apostles mentions Dionysius, who was an initiated disciple of Paul and taught an esoteric form of Christianity. Later, in the 9th century, John Scotus Eriugena established an esoteric form of Christianity at the court of Charles the Bald. This was then gradually obscured by dogma. However, when one enters the Devachan, one sees that the description Dionysius gave of it is confirmed.

[ 7 ] Rhythmic breathing according to the yoga system is one of the methods used to enter the world of Devachan. The sure sign that this entry has taken place is that consciousness undergoes an experience described in Vedanta philosophy by the words: tat tvam asi = that you are.

[ 8 ] In a dream, a person sees his own physical form from the outside. He sees his body lying stretched out on his bed, but as if it were an empty shell. Surrounding this hollow form, the astral body glows like an egg-shaped radiance; it appears as an aura from which the body seems to have been withdrawn, while the body itself appears as an empty, hollow form. It is a vision in which the relationships are reversed, as in a photographic negative. One becomes accustomed to this view with regard to all things. One sees, as it were, the soul of crystals, plants, and animals in the form of a halo of rays, while their physical substance appears as a hollow form, an empty space. But only natural objects can appear this way; nothing created by human hands can.

[ 9 ] At this first stage of Devachan, one sees the astral image of the physical world; this is what is called the mainland of Devachan, the negative form of the valleys, the mountains, and the physical continents.

[ 10 ] By practicing meditation with held breath, one reaches the second stage of Devachan. The cavities that make up the physical substance fill with a system of spiritual currents. These are the currents of universal life that permeate everything; it is the ocean of Devachan. Here, the initiate plunges into the bubbling source of all life. He sees this life as an immense network of rivers, whose channels permeate everything. At the same time, a strange and entirely new sensation permeates him. He feels himself beginning to live within the metals. Reichenbach, the author of the book on the Od, had discovered this phenomenon in sensitive individuals, whom he had asked to identify metals wrapped in pieces of paper.

[ 11 ] “The beings one encounters in this region are those whom Dionysius the Areopagite calls the archangels or animators of metals”; they correspond to the second degree of clairvoyance.

[ 12 ] One reaches the third stage of Devachan when one detaches one’s mental life from all connection with the physical world, when one can experience one’s mental life without any specific thought content. The Master says to his disciple: “Live in such a way that you set your intellectual thinking in motion without an object!” - Then a new world opens up. After one has seen the continents and rivers of Devachan—that is, the astral soul of things and the currents of life—one perceives the air, the Devachanic atmosphere. This atmosphere is entirely different from our own. Its substance is alive, resonant, full of sensation, as if it were feeling. It responds to each of our gestures, our actions, and our thoughts through vibrations, light phenomena, and sounds. Everything that happens on Earth manifests here in the form of color, light, and sound. Whether one lives here during sleep or after death—one can always trace the echo of what is happening on Earth. For example, one can observe a battle: one does not see the battle itself, nor its ebb and flow; one hears neither the cries of the combatants nor the cannon fire. Rather, battles and passions manifest as lightning and thunder. Thus, Devachan does not separate us from the Earth, but shows it to us as if from the outside. One no longer experiences pain and joy as something taking place within oneself. One observes them objectively, like a play. It is a new period of training in compassion and mercy. Devachan is a school where one learns to view the sufferings and joys of this world from a higher perspective, where one mobilizes all one’s powers to transform suffering into joy, setbacks into new upsurges, and death into resurrection.

[ 13 ] This has nothing to do with passive contemplation and a more or less self-centered heavenly bliss, as depicted by certain religious authors who believe that the sufferings of the damned are part of the happiness of the elect. It is a living heaven, where the boundless desire for compassion and activity, which is inherent in the human soul, yearns for unlimited spheres of action and infinite horizons.

[ 14 ] On the fourth stage of penetration into Devachan, things appear in the form of their archetypes. It is no longer the negative aspect but the original archetype that reveals itself there. This is the workshop of the world, which encompasses all the forms from which creation sprang. This is Plato’s world of ideas, the realm of the mothers of which Goethe speaks and from which he has the phantom of Helena rise. What appears at this stage of Devachan is what the Indians call the Akashic Records. In our modern language, we would call it the astral image of all world events. Everything that has passed through the astral body of human beings is preserved here in an infinitely subtle substance, which is actually a form of negative matter.

[ 15 ] To understand the validity of these images, which float in the astral light of the Earth, one must draw on comparative analogies. The human voice utters words and thereby forms sound waves that penetrate other ears and reach other brains, where they evoke images and thoughts. Each of these words is a sound wave of a very unique form which, if we could see it, would differ from every other. Now let us imagine that these words could solidify and freeze like a wave of water due to a sudden, immense cold. In that case, these word-forms would fall to Earth in the form of frozen air, and one could recognize each of them by its shape. These would then be crystallized words.

[ 16 ] And now let us imagine the opposite of a process of condensation. We know that every body can transition from a more solid state to a more immaterial one: from the solid to the liquid and to the gaseous state. The refinement of the material state can reach a degree which, if exceeded, results in negative matter; this is called Akasha. All events are imprinted in it in a definitive way, and one can retrieve them all, even those from the most distant past.

[ 17 ] The images in the Akashic Records are not static. They constantly unfold like living pictures, in which objects and people move and sometimes even speak. If one were to summon Dante’s astral form, it would speak in his own style, as if from his former sphere of life. These are the images that almost always appear in spiritualist séances and are mistaken for the spirit of the deceased. This is misleading.

[ 18 ] One must learn to decipher the pages of this book with living images and to unroll the countless scrolls of this chronicle of the universe. This can only be achieved by distinguishing the outward appearance from reality, and the human imprint from the living soul. This requires daily practice and extensive training to avoid errors in interpretation. For it could happen, for example, that one receives precise answers in response to Dante’s outward appearance, but these answers do not come from Dante’s individuality—which is continually evolving—but rather from the old Dante, as he is bound to the etheric sphere of his era.

[ 19 ] The fifth stage is that of the harmony of the celestial spheres. The upper regions of Devachan are characterized by the fact that all sounds there are clearer, more luminous, and more resonant. There, one hears the voices of all beings in a magnificent harmony, and this is what Pythagoras calls the music of the spheres. It is the inner speech, the living word of the universe. To the clairvoyant, whose hearing has become attuned, each being now takes on a particular timbre—a resonant aura, so to speak. There, every being reveals its name to the occultist. In Genesis, Jehovah takes Adam by the hand, and Adam names all beings. On Earth, the individual is lost among the multitude of other beings. There, each has its own timbre, and yet at the same time, the human being merges with all beings, becoming one with his surroundings.

[ 20 ] At this stage, the student is called the swan. He hears the sounds through which the Master speaks to him and conveys them to the world. Apollo’s singing swan makes the sounds of the beyond heard. It is said that he comes from the land of the Hyperboreans, that is, from that world where the sun hides from the sky as it sets.

[ 21 ] We have reached the point where we bid farewell to the world of the stars from the other side. One no longer reads the Akashic Records from the earthly perspective, but from the heavenly one; they become an occult stellar script. One looks into the innermost depths of the stellar sphere and perceives the source of the universe, the Logos.

[ 22 ] We find in the myths echoes of this stage of the swan, especially in the Middle Ages through the legends of the Grail, which are the echo of experiences in the devachanic world. All the heroic deeds recounted there are performed by the Knights of the Grail, who embody the great impulses that, at the behest of the Masters, permeate humanity.

[ 23 ] The time when the Grail legend arose under the influence of the great initiates is the time when the rule of the bourgeoisie began and when the founding of the great free cities spread from Scotland to England and from there to France and Germany. The newly liberated human being unconsciously longs for truth and for the divine life. In the legend of Lohengrin, Elsa represents the human soul—the soul of the Middle Ages—which strives for fulfillment and is always depicted in occultism by a female figure. The knight Lohengrin, who comes from an unknown world—from the Castle of the Holy Grail—to free her, represents the Master who brings the truth. He is the messenger of the Initiate, symbolically carried by the swan. The messenger of the great Initiates is called “Swan.” One must ask neither about his origin nor his true name. One must not doubt the signs of his sovereignty. One must take his word for it and recognize the radiance of truth in his countenance. Whoever lacks this faith is incapable of understanding him and unworthy of hearing him. Hence Lohengrin’s prohibition against Elsa asking about his origin and his name. The Swan is the Chela who brings the Master.

[ 24 ] The Master’s messenger on the physical plane is the initiated disciple who has ascended to the fifth degree and whom the Master sends into the world. Thus, this legend expresses what takes place in the higher worlds. The Logos—the Word of the Sun and the Planets—shines its light into myths and legends.