The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Second Lecture

[ 1 ] When one speaks of the insights into higher realms of existence known to the initiated but not yet accessible to ordinary people today, an obvious objection is often raised against this discussion of supersensory facts. It goes like this: “What are you—who claim to possess higher knowledge—telling us about higher worlds? What significance does this have for us, who cannot ourselves look into the supersensible worlds?” | To this I reply with the beautiful words of a young contemporary who, through her fate, has become known in the widest circles: Helen Keller. She became blind and deaf at the age of two. By the age of seven, this child was still like a kind of animal. Then a loving soul, a brilliant teacher, came along, and today, at the age of twenty-six, Helen Keller is surely among the most educated of her people. She has delved into the sciences and possesses an astonishing breadth of reading; she is familiar not only with classical and modern poets, but she also knows and studies philosophers such as Plato, Spinoza, and so on. And she, to whom the world of light and sound is forever closed, harbors a moving courage to face life and a deep joy in the beauty and splendor of the world. Some passages from her book on “Optimism” are deeply etched in our souls. She says: “Oh, for years night and darkness lay all around me, and a soul was found that taught me, and in place of night and darkness came peace and hope.” - Another passage: “Through thought and feeling, I have conquered heaven. Only one thing could be given to this soul—not sight or hearing; the sensory world remains closed to her, reaching her only through the words of others—but the sublime thoughts of the great geniuses have flowed into her soul, and through the words of the wise, she shares in a world that you all know.”

[ 2 ] This is the situation of one who hears about higher worlds only through the accounts of others and cannot see into these higher worlds for oneself. Such a comparison teaches the significance of accounts from higher worlds, even if one cannot yet see them for oneself. But there is something else before our soul. Helen Keller must tell herself: I will never see that world for myself. — But every person can tell themselves: I, too, will see the higher worlds when my spiritual eyes are opened. — The spiritual eyes and ears of the soul can be opened for anyone, provided they have the necessary patience and perseverance.

[ 3 ] “How long will it take for me to gain insight?”—others ask. The eminent thinker Subba Row gave a beautiful answer to this. He says: One person achieves it in seventy incarnations, another in seven; one in seventy years, another in seven; yet another in seven months, seven weeks, seven days, or seven hours. — Or, as the Bible says, higher knowledge comes “like a thief in the night.” Every spiritual eye can be opened, provided one has the necessary energy and patience. That is why everyone can draw joy and hope from the messages of others, for what we hear about the higher worlds is not mere theory; it is not something unrelated to our lives. It is something that yields two fruits we must have in life if we are to grasp it correctly: strength and certainty. And we gain both to the fullest extent: strength from the impulses of the higher worlds, and security when we know where humanity comes from and where it is going, when we become aware that we are visibly creatures of the invisible world. But only those who also know about the other two worlds truly understand the visible world.

[ 4 ] The three worlds are:

1. the physical world, the setting for all human beings
2. the astral or soul world
3. the devachanic or spiritual world.

[ 5 ] These three worlds are not spatially separated from one another. We are surrounded by the things of the physical world, which we perceive with our external sense organs; but the astral world also exists in the same space as we do. Just as we live in the physical world, we also live simultaneously in the other two worlds—the astral and the devachanic worlds. Wherever we are, the three worlds are there as well. We simply cannot yet see the higher worlds, just as a blind person cannot see the physical world. But when the soul senses are opened to a person, then the new world, with its new qualities and new beings, emerges before them. As they gain new senses, they also encounter new things.

[ 6 ] If we now proceed to a closer examination of these three worlds, we can say: The physical world does not require any special characterization. Everyone is familiar with it, and everyone learns the physical laws that govern it.

[ 7 ] He becomes acquainted with the astral world after death, or he lives in it now as an initiate. The student whose senses are opened to the astral world is initially confused, for what appears there cannot really be compared to anything in the physical world. One must learn many things from scratch. The astral world is characterized by a number of qualities. One particularly confusing quality for the student is that everything appears reversed—as if in a mirror image—so that he must get used to viewing things in a completely different way. For example, he must learn to read numbers backward to forward. We are accustomed to reading a number such that, if it says 3, 4, 5, we read 345; in the astral world, we must read it the other way around, as 543. Everything is reversed into a mirror image. This is very important to know. This also applies to higher matters, such as moral issues; these, too, appear as mirror images. At first, people do not quite grasp this. Many people today complain that they see themselves surrounded by malevolent black figures that threaten and frighten them and the like. This is a phenomenon that already affects a great many people today and about which most are completely unaware. In many cases, the situation is as follows: these are the person’s own drives, desires, and passions that live within them, specifically in what we call the astral body. The average person does not normally see their own passions, but through specific processes in the soul and the brain, they can become visible to them; only, they then appear to them as if in a mirror image. Just as someone who looks into a mirror and sees objects all around them, so they behold the mirror images of their own impulses all around them, and so on. Everything that flows out of them, they then see flowing back toward them. Another phenomenon is that time and events run backward. For example, in the physical world we first see the hen and then the egg. In the astral realm, however, it is the other way around: first one sees the egg, and then the hen that laid it. In the astral realm, time moves backward; first one sees the effect, and then the cause. Hence the prophetic vision; no one could foresee future events without this backward flow of temporal events.

[ 8 ] It is not without value to become acquainted with these peculiarities of the astral world. Many myths and legends of all peoples have dealt with them with marvelous wisdom; for example, the legend of Hercules at the crossroads. It is said that he once found himself standing before two female figures, one beautiful and alluring; she promised him pleasure, happiness, and bliss; the second, simple and serious, speaking of hardship, hard work, and self-denial. The two figures represent vice and virtue. This legend correctly tells us how, in Hercules’ astral realm, his own two natures appear before him—one urging him toward evil, the other toward good. And these appear in mirror image as two female figures with opposing characteristics: vice is beautiful, voluptuous, and alluring, while virtue is ugly and repulsive. Every image appears inverted in the astral realm.

[ 9 ] Scholars attribute such legends to the collective consciousness of the people. This is not true. Nor did these legends arise by chance. The great Initiates shaped them according to their wisdom and communicated them to humanity. All legends, myths, all religions, and all folk literature serve to solve the mysteries of the world and are based on the inspirations of the Initiates.

[ 10 ] The insights from the higher worlds provide us with inspiration and strength for life, and through them we gain a foundation for morality. Schopenhauer says: “It is easy to preach morality, but difficult to justify it.” Without a genuine foundation, however, one will never truly make morality one’s own.

[ 11 ] Many people say: What use are insights into higher worlds to us, if we simply become good people and adhere to moral principles! — But in the long run, moralizing will have no effect; rather, the knowledge of truth will lay the foundation for true morality. The moralist is like a person who lectures a stove on its duties to heat and provide warmth, but gives it no coal. If one wants to establish morality, one must give the soul “fuel,” and that happens only through the knowledge of the truth.

[ 12 ] There is a saying in occultism that can now be revealed: Every lie is a murder in the astral world! — This is a very significant statement, the importance of which can only be understood by those who have insight into the higher worlds. How casually people speak: “Oh, that’s just a thought, a feeling—it stays in the soul; I mustn’t slap someone, but a bad thought doesn’t do any harm.” — There is no more untrue saying than: “Thoughts are duty-free”—for every thought, every feeling is a reality, and if I think someone is a bad person or that I do not love them, to one who can see into the astral world, this is like an arrow, like a bolt of lightning, moving like a shotgun pellet toward the other person’s astral body and harming them. Every feeling, every thought is an entity, a form in the astral world, and for those who have insight into this world, it is often much worse to witness someone harboring a bad thought about a fellow human being than to see them physically harmed. To make this truth known is to establish morality, not to preach it. When one speaks the truth about a person, a thought-form is created that the seer can recognize by its shape and color, and which strengthens the life of the other person. A thought that contains a truth is directed toward the being to whom it refers, and it nourishes and enlivens that being. Thus, when I think a truth about my fellow human being, I strengthen their life; when I speak a lie about them, I direct a hostile force toward them that has a destructive, even deadly, effect. Therefore, every lie is murder. Every truth is a life-affirming element; every lie is a life-inhibiting element. Those who know this will be more careful regarding truth and lies than those who are merely told that they should always tell the truth.

[ 13 ] The astral world is composed mainly of forms and colors. These also exist in the physical world; however, on the physical plane we are accustomed to seeing colors always associated with an object. In the astral world, these colors float freely in the air like images of flames. There is a phenomenon in the physical world that resembles these floating colors: the rainbow. But the astral color images move freely through space; they vibrate like a flood of colors, a sea of colors in ever-changing, diverse lines and forms.

[ 14 ] Gradually, however, the student comes to recognize a certain similarity between the physical and astral worlds. At first, this radiance—this sea of colors, so to speak—appears to him as if it were unbound; it does not cling to objects. But then the flecks of color coalesce and attach themselves—not to objects, but to beings. Whereas before only a floating form was seen, spiritual beings—called gods or devas—now reveal themselves through these colors. Spiritual beings express themselves through them. A world of beings that speaks to us through colors is the astral world.

[ 15 ] The astral world is the world of colors; even higher is the Devachanic, or spiritual, world. When the student becomes acquainted with the spiritual world, he recognizes it through a very specific process; he comes to understand a profound saying of Indian wisdom, “Tat tvam asi,” which means: “That is you!”—Much has been written about this. The student only comes to know the true meaning when he passes from the astral world into the Devachan world. There, in an instant, he sees his physical form outside of himself and says: “That is you.” Whereas before he had said to himself, “That is me,” he now sees his physical form outside of himself and says: “That is you.” - At that moment, the person is in the world of Devachan. There, another world joins the world of colors, clear and distinct: the world of sounds, which in a certain sense was already there but did not have this meaning. The world of Devachan is the world of sound. Pythagoras referred to this sound as “sphere music.” One hears the celestial bodies moving along their orbits as they resonate. One perceives the harmony of the worlds; everything lives in sound. As an initiate, Goethe makes the sun resound; he reveals the mystery of Devachan. When Faust is in heaven, in the spiritual world, surrounded by devas, the sun resounds, the spheres resound:

The sun resounds in the ancient way
In the realms of the brothers, a contest of song,
And its prescribed journey
It completes with a thunderous roar.

[ 16 ] He is referring to the spirit of the sun, which truly resounds when one dwells in the Devachan world. We can see that this is what Goethe means from the fact that he sticks with this image. In the second part of Faust, when Faust is transported back into this world, it says:

With resounding sound, for the ears of the spirit
The new day is already dawning.
Rock gates creak and rattle,
Phoebus’ wheels roll with a crackling sound,
What a clamor the light brings!
It thunders, it trumpets,
The eye squints and the ear is astonished,
The unheard cannot be heard.

[ 17 ] One hears the Devachanic world and sees the astral world. Upon entering the Devachanic world, the astral world remains fully intact for the student, but it changes for him. When one first enters the Devachanic world, it presents a strange sight: in the Devachanic world, one sees everything in negative, as on a photographic plate. Where there is a physical object, one sees nothing; what is physically bright is black there, and vice versa. One sees everything in complementary colors: yellow instead of blue, green instead of red. In the first region of Devachan are the archetypes of the physical world—insofar as it is not endowed with life—that is, the archetypes of minerals, as well as those of plants, animals, and humans, insofar as their physical forms are concerned. It is the region that forms the basic framework of the spirit realm. It can be compared to the solid land of our physical Earth; hence it is called the “continental mass” of Devachan. A person standing before an initiate appears dark where he physically occupies space, but is surrounded on all sides by a shell of light.

[ 18 ] As the senses become more refined, the archetypes of life come into view, and everything that is life flows across the earth like water. Here one cannot see a mineral, because it has no pulsating life, but one can see plants, animals, and human beings. Just as blood flows through the body, so does all life flow through Devachan. This second division is called the “seas” of Devachan.

[ 19 ] In the third section, the “Air Circle,” everything that exists in the physical realm—emotions and sensations, pleasure and pain—flows away.

[ 20 ] The physical forms are, as it were, the solid continental foundation in Devachan. Everything that possesses life is the sea. Everything that signifies pleasure and suffering is contained within the atmospheric sphere of Devachan. The content of all that is suffered and enjoyed on Earth is manifested here—that is, everything animal and human. A battle, for example, appears to the initiate on the Devachan plane as fiery, flickering flashes of lightning, as mighty thunder—one might say, as a violent thunderstorm. But it is not the physical effects of the battle, but rather the passions of the opposing armies that face each other there, which appear to the initiate as heavy clouds with thunder and lightning.

[ 21 ] The fourth division of Devachan transcends everything that would already exist even without human beings. It contains all the original thoughts that live within a person, through which he brings something new into the world and influences it—regardless of whether these are the thoughts of a scholar or an uneducated person, a poet or a farmer. These thoughts need not be great inventions; they can also be part of everyday life.

[ 22 ] After these four stages, one stands at the threshold of the spiritual world. Just as the night sky appears to us as a hollow sphere, encircled by a wreath of stars, so it is with this threshold of Devachan. But this is a significant threshold; it is called the “Akasha Chronicle.” Everything a human being has ever done or brought about—even if it is not recorded in history books—remains inscribed in that imperishable history book at the boundary of Devachan, which is called the Akashic Records. Everything that has ever been brought about by conscious beings in the world can be found there. If, for example, the seer wishes to know something about Caesar, he takes some minor detail from history as a point of reference, so as to have a fixed point on which to concentrate. He does this mentally; then images appear around him of everything Caesar did, of what happened around him, of how he led his legions, fought his battles, and won his victories. But this occurs in a remarkable way; the seer does not merely see an abstract text, but everything passes before him as if in silhouettes, in images. It is not what actually took place in space that unfolds, but something entirely different. When Caesar, for example, won his victories, he was thinking; everything that was happening around him also lived in his thoughts—after all, every movement of the arm also lives in the thoughts. The intentions—that is, what Caesar imagined and thought as he led his legions—as well as their own imaginings—are revealed in the Akashic Records. It is a faithful reflection of everything that has taken place; whatever conscious beings have ever experienced is recorded there. The initiate can thus read the entire human past. But he must first learn how to do so. These Akashic images speak in a confusing language, because Akasha is a living entity. But one must not confuse the Akashic image of Caesar with Caesar’s individuality. The individuality may already have been reincarnated. This confusion occurs particularly easily when one gains access to the Akashic images through external means. Thus, they often play a role in spiritualist séances. The spiritualist believes he is seeing a deceased person, but it is only that person’s Akashic image. An Akashic image of Goethe, for example, may appear as he was in 1796; the uninitiated person confuses it with Goethe’s individuality. This is all the more confusing because this image is alive, answers questions—and not only those that were already asked back then, but entirely new ones that were never voiced. These are not repetitions, but answers just as Goethe might have given them at that time. It is entirely possible that this Akashic image of Goethe might even compose a poem in the style and spirit of Goethe as he was then. Akashic images are, in fact, truly living entities.

[ 23 ] These facts are so wonderful, but they are facts.