The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Second Lecture

[ 1 ] In a sort of introduction yesterday, we outlined the general character of the Book of Revelation. We attempted to set forth some broad guidelines that would help us understand that this Book of Revelation describes what might be called a Christian initiation. Today, my task will be to present to you the nature of initiation in general, to describe to you what takes place within a person when, through initiation, they are to be enabled to look for themselves into those spiritual worlds that lie beyond the sensory worlds, and it will also be my task to describe, in broad strokes, the nature of the experiences that occur during initiation. For only by delving a little more deeply into the nature of initiation can we gradually come to understand this significant religious document, the Book of Revelation.

[ 2 ] First, we must once again take a close look at the two states of human consciousness: the state of consciousness that lasts from morning, when a person wakes up, until evening, when they fall asleep, and the other state of consciousness that begins when a person falls asleep and ends when they wake up. We have often brought to the soul’s attention that the human being, as he appears to us in his present form, is first and foremost a fourfold being, consisting of the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body, and the I. To the clairvoyant consciousness, these four members appear in the outer form such that, first of all, the physical human body is at the center, like a kind of core. Let us visualize this very schematically (a drawing is made). During the day, this physical body is permeated by the so-called etheric body, which at first protrudes only very slightly—primarily around the head—like a bright glow, yet completely permeates the head. Further down, the etheric or life body becomes increasingly misty and indistinct, and the closer we approach the lower parts of the human being, the less it takes on the form of the physical body in the strict sense.

[ 3 ] These two aspects of the human being are, in turn, enveloped during the day by what we call the astral body, which protrudes in all directions like an ellipsoid or an egg shape and, in its basic form, has luminous rays that actually look as if they were running from the outside in and penetrating the human being from the outside in. Etched into this astral body are a vast number of various figures, all manner of lines and rays—some like flashes of lightning, others in strange twists and turns. All of this surrounds the human being in the most diverse manifestations of light. The astral body is the expression of the human being’s passions, instincts, drives, and desires, but also of all their thoughts and ideas. In this astral body, the clairvoyant consciousness sees everything depicted that is called a soul experience, from the basest drives all the way up to the highest moral ideals. And then we have the fourth member of the human being, which one might depict as if a ray were shining into the point located about one centimeter behind the forehead. That would be the schematic representation of the fourfold human being. In the course of these lectures, we will see how the individual parts appear within the whole.

[ 4 ] This, then, is the human being during the day, from the morning, when he wakes up, until the evening, when he falls asleep. In the evening, when he falls asleep, the physical and etheric bodies remain in bed, and there is a kind of “outflow” of what we have called the astral body. The term “flowing out” is somewhat imprecise. Actually, it is as if a kind of mist were forming, so that at night we see the astral body—which has emerged from the physical and etheric bodies—as a kind of spiral mist surrounding the human being, while the fourth member of the human being almost completely disappears on one side, that is, fades into the indefinite. The part of the astral body extending downward is only very faintly visible; the upper part is referred to as the astral body that has stepped out.

[ 5 ] We already emphasized yesterday what must happen to a person if they are to receive initiation. If a person is concerned only with the things that people in our age generally concern themselves with, they cannot receive initiation. A person must be prepared in such a way that, during the course of ordinary daily life, they perform the exercises prescribed by the schools of initiation—meditation, concentration, and so on. These exercises are, in essence, the same in all schools of initiation with regard to their significance for the individual. They differ from one another only insofar as, the further back we go into the pre-Christian schools of initiation, the more they are directed toward practicing and training the thinking process and the powers of thought. The closer we approach the Christian era, the more they are directed toward training the powers of feeling; and the closer we come to more recent times, the more we see—as in the so-called Rosicrucian teachings—that a special kind of will cultivation, of exercises of the will, is introduced, dictated by the demands and needs of humanity. Although the meditations are initially similar to those in the other pre-Christian schools, a special training of the will element nevertheless underlies the Rosicrucian exercises throughout. What is essential, however—and what was also achieved through the exercises of the Eastern mystery schools, as well as in the Egyptian and Pythagorean schools and so on—and what also constitutes the effect of those exercises that are based primarily on meditation on the Gospel of John, is that an effect is produced on the person during their daily life, even if only for a short time—say, just five or fifteen minutes— is brought about in such a way that the effect persists even when that state occurs in the sleeping person, when the astral body leaves the physical body. In a person who practices such—let us say—occult exercises, the astral body gradually exhibits the most varied transformations during the night. It exhibits different luminous phenomena; it reveals that three-dimensional structure of the organs we have already discussed; and this becomes ever clearer and clearer. The astral body gradually acquires an internal organization similar to that of the physical body in its eyes, ears, and so on.

[ 6 ] But that still would not lead to seeing much, especially not for people today. However, people do perceive certain things once their inner organs have developed for a while. Then they begin to experience a state of consciousness during sleep. Spiritual environments emerge from the general darkness that otherwise prevails. What people can perceive there—and what they perceived especially in earlier times, for today it is already rarer—are wondrous images of plant life. These are the most primitive achievements of clairvoyance. Where once there was only the darkness of unconsciousness, something like a dreamlike, living, yet real entity rises up from a kind of plant-like formation. And much of what has been described to you in the mythologies of ancient peoples was perceived in this way. When legends describe how Wotan, Wile, and We found a tree on the shore and fashioned humankind from it, this indicates that it was first perceived in such an image. In all mythologies, you can perceive this primitive way of seeing—this plant-like vision. The description of such a vision is also the Garden of Eden, particularly with its two trees of knowledge and life; this is the result of this astral vision. And it is not for nothing that Genesis itself suggests to you that Paradise—and everything described at the very beginning of the biblical narrative—was actually beheld. One need only learn to read the Bible; then one will understand how deeply and significantly it captures this mysterious state in its descriptions. The way people teach today about Paradise and the beginning of the Bible is not how it was taught in the past. Back then, it was pointed out: Adam fell into a sleep—and that was the sleep, as the early Christians were told, in which Adam, looking back, perceived the events described at the beginning of Genesis. Only today does one believe that phrases such as “Adam fell into a sleep” appear by chance. They are not there by chance. Every word in the Bible has a profound meaning, and only those who know how to appreciate every single word can understand the Bible.

[ 7 ] So that is the first point. But then something special had to take place in the pre-Christian mysteries. So when a person had been performing his exercises for a long time—and this took a very long time—when he had absorbed roughly what was necessary to bring order to his soul, when he had taken within himself what we might call anthroposophy today, then he finally became a participant in the actual ancient initiation. What did this ancient initiation consist of?

[ 8 ] It is not enough for the organs to be formed in the astral body. They must be imprinted in the etheric body. Just as a seal imprints its letters in sealing wax, so must the organs of the astral body be imprinted in the etheric body. For this purpose, in ancient initiations, the student to be initiated was placed in a very special position. Specifically, he was brought into a death-like state for three and a half days. We will come to realize more and more that this state can no longer be induced today—nor should it be—but that we now have other means of initiation. I am now describing pre-Christian initiation. In this ritual, the initiate was placed in a death-like state for three and a half days by one who understood how to do so. Either he was placed in a kind of small chamber, a sort of tomb, where he rested in a state of death-like sleep; or he was bound to a cross in a specific position with his arms outstretched, for this facilitates the onset of the state one sought to achieve.

[ 9 ] We know from a wide variety of lectures that death occurs in human beings when the etheric body, together with the astral body and the ego, departs, leaving only the physical body behind. At that moment, something occurs in death that has never otherwise occurred between birth and death in the normal course of life. The etheric body has never, not even in the deepest sleep, left the physical body, but has always remained within it. At death, the etheric body leaves the physical body. During that death-like state, at least a part of the etheric body also left the physical body, so that a part of the etheric body—which was otherwise inside—found itself outside in this state. As you know, this is described in more exoteric lectures by saying that the etheric body is drawn out. That is not actually the case. But we can make these subtle distinctions only now. Thus, during these three and a half days—during which the priest-initiator closely watched over the initiate—the person was in a state where only their lower part was united with the etheric body. This is the moment when the astral body, with all the organs it has developed within itself, leaves an imprint in the etheric body. At this moment, enlightenment occurs. When the initiate was awakened after three and a half days, what had occurred within him was what is called enlightenment—that which had to follow the purification consisting solely in the development of the organs of the astral body. Now the student was a knower in the spiritual world. What he had experienced before was merely a preliminary stage of vision. This world, which consisted of a kind of formation that primarily mimicked plants, was now supplemented by essentially new formations.

[ 10 ] Now we come to a more precise description of what the initiate began to see. Now that he had been led to enlightenment, it became clear to him, once he was awakened, that he had seen something he had never before been able to take in with his mind. What, then, had he seen? What could he recall in his soul, in a certain sense, as a significant memory of what he had beheld? If we wish to understand what this person had seen, we must consider the evolution of the human being to some extent. We must remember that it was only gradually that human beings attained the degree of individual consciousness they possess today. The fact that they can say “I” to themselves in the way they do today was not always the case. We need only go back to the time when the Cherusci, the Heruli, and others lived in the regions where the Germans live today. At that time, the individual did not feel himself as an individual “I,” but as a member of his tribe. Just as the fingers do not feel themselves as something existing in and of themselves, so the individual Cheruscan did not feel in such a way that he necessarily said “I” to himself. The “I” was the “I” of the entire tribe. The tribe constituted an organism, and related groups of people, bound by blood ties, possessed, so to speak, a collective “I”-soul. Just as your two arms belong to your “I” today, so were you yourself a member of a larger community in those times.

[ 11 ] This is still clearly evident among the people who profess faith in the Old Testament. There, every individual felt himself to be a member of the people. The fact is that the individual did not speak of himself in the highest sense when he used the ordinary “I,” but rather felt something deeper when he said, “I and Father Abraham are one.” For him, a certain sense of self extended all the way back to Abraham, passing down through all the generations from Abraham to the individual. What was bound by blood was encompassed within a single “I.” It was like a shared “I”-group soul that encompassed the entire people, and those who saw through things said to themselves: What truly constitutes our innermost, imperishable being does not dwell in the individual; it dwells in the entire people. All individual members belong to this shared “I.” — Therefore, it was also clear to every such believer: If he dies, he unites with an invisible being that ascends all the way to Father Abraham. Indeed, the individual felt that he was ascending into the bosom of Abraham. There he felt secure in the imperishable, within the group soul of the people. This group soul of the entire people could not descend to the physical plane. There they saw only individual human forms. But those were not reality to them; reality lay in the spiritual world. They sensed that what flows through the blood is the Divine. And because they had to see God in Jehovah, they called this Divine Being Yahweh, or also His face: Michael. They regarded Yahweh as the spiritual collective soul of the people.

[ 12 ] The individual human being here could not see these spiritual beings. The initiate who experienced the great moment when the astral body was “imprinted” into the etheric body was the first to be granted a vision of the most important group souls. For when we look back to the ancient times of humanity, we find everywhere that the present “I” has developed out of such group consciousness, the group “I,” so that for the seer, when he looks back, the individual human beings increasingly converge into the group souls. Now there are essentially four types of group souls, four archetypes of group souls. If one considers all the various group souls of the different souls, they share a certain similarity, but also have differences. If one classifies them, one arrives at four groups, four archetypes. One can see them clearly when looking back clairvoyantly to that time when the human being was not yet in the flesh, had not yet descended to Earth. For now we must visualize more precisely the moment when the human being descended into the flesh from the spiritual regions. We can describe this moment only in broad symbols.

[ 13 ] There was once a time when our Earth was composed of a much softer matter than it is today, when rocks and stones were not yet as solid as they are now, when plant forms still looked different, when the whole world was embedded in watery caverns like a primeval sea, when air and water were not yet separated, and when, of all the beings that inhabit the Earth today, animals and plants had developed in the water. When the mineral beings began to take on their present form, one could say: Man emerged from invisibility. This is how he appeared to the initiate. Enveloped on the outside by a kind of shell, he descended from the regions that are now the air regions. Man was not yet physically present in a dense form, whereas the animal already existed in the flesh. He was a subtle air being, even in the Lemurian era. And he developed in such a way that the clairvoyant image is represented by the four group souls: on one side like the image of a lion, on the other like that of a bull, above like that of an eagle, and in the center below, something that is already human-like. This is how the clairvoyant image appears. This is how the human being emerges from the darkness of the spirit realm. And that which has shaped him in terms of strength appears in a sort of rainbow formation. The more physical forces surround the entire form of this human being like a rainbow. — One must describe this process of becoming human in the most diverse fields and in the most varied ways. Now it is described as it appears to the researcher in retrospect: how these four group souls have taken shape out of the common divine-human essence that descends. This moment has always been symbolically represented in the form you see depicted on the second of the so-called seven occult seals. This is the symbolic representation, but it is more than a mere symbol. There you have these four group souls emerging from the indeterminate spiritual realm, the rainbow surrounding them, and the number twelve. We must also understand what this number twelve signifies.

[ 14 ] When you see what has just been described emerging, you have a clairvoyant sense that it is surrounded by something of a completely different nature and essence than what is emerging from the indeterminate spiritual realm. And what surrounds it was symbolized in ancient times by the zodiac, by the twelve signs of the zodiac. — The moment of entering clairvoyance is also linked to various other experiences. The first thing the person whose etheric body is emerging perceives is this: he feels as if he were growing larger and larger and expanding beyond what he perceives there. There comes a moment when the initiate says to himself: I do not merely see these four figures, but I am right there within them; I have extended my being beyond them. — He identifies with it. He perceives what is symbolized by the twelve constellations, by the number twelve. We can best understand what is expanding all around what is being revealed if we recall once again that our Earth has undergone earlier incarnations. As we know, before the Earth became the Earth, it passed through the state of Saturn, then that of the Sun, then that of the Moon, and only then did it become the Earth as we know it today. This was necessary. For only in this way was it possible for the beings that have now emerged to come forth on the present-day Earth. They had to gradually work their way through such forms of transformation.

[ 15 ] So when we look back to the distant past, we are looking at the earliest state of our Earth—that of ancient Saturn—which, at the very beginning of its existence, did not even shine. It was a kind of “state of heat.” You wouldn’t have been able to see it as a shining sphere; rather, if you had approached Saturn, you would have entered a warmer space, because it was simply in a state of heat.

[ 16 ] Now one might ask: Did the creation of the world begin with Saturn? Did not other states perhaps first bring about what Saturn has become? Were there not other incarnations that preceded Saturn? — It would be difficult to go back before Saturn, because it is only with Saturn that something begins without which we cannot go back at all. For it is with Saturn that what we call time begins. Before that, there were other forms of being—that is to say, we cannot really speak of “before,” because time did not yet exist. Time, too, had a beginning. Before Saturn, there was no time; there was only eternity, duration. Everything existed simultaneously. The succession of events only began with Saturn. In that cosmic state where there is only eternity, only duration, there is also no movement. For movement requires time. There is no orbit; there is duration and stillness—as is also said in occultism: “There is blissful stillness in duration.” That is the expression for it. Blissful stillness in duration preceded the Saturnian state. The movement of the celestial bodies did not begin until Saturn, and the orbit indicated by the twelve signs of the zodiac was interpreted as a sign of this. And while a planet passed through such a constellation, it was referred to as a “world hour.” This was regarded as a world hour. Twelve world hours—twelve daytime hours and twelve nighttime hours! Each celestial body—Saturn, the Sun, and the Moon—is associated with a succession of world-hours that group together into world-days, and ultimately in such a way that of these twelve periods, seven are perceptible externally and five proceed more or less imperceptibly. A distinction is therefore made between seven Saturn cycles, or seven great Saturn days, and five great Saturn nights. You could also say five days and seven nights, for the first and last days are days of twilight. It is customary to call such seven cycles, the seven world days, “Manvantara,” and the five world nights “Pralaya.” If one wishes to align this completely with our calendar system, then one counts two planetary states together—that is, Saturn and the Sun, and the Moon and the Earth. This results in twenty-four cycles. These twenty-four cycles form important epochs in the cosmic order, and these twenty-four epochs are conceived as governed by beings in the cosmos, who are alluded to in the Book of Revelation as the twenty-four Elders—the twenty-four rulers of the cosmic cycles and the cosmic ages. In the image of the seal, they are depicted as the world clock. The individual numerals of the clock are interrupted here only by the double crowns of the Elders, to indicate that they are the kings of time, because they govern the orbits of the celestial bodies. (See the second seal image.)

[ 17 ] Thus, the initiate first looks back upon this image of ancient times. But now we must ask ourselves: Why does the initiate see this image? — Because this image symbolically and astrally represents the forces that, in their present form, have shaped the human etheric body and, subsequently, the physical body. You can easily imagine how this works. Imagine a person lying in bed, leaving the physical body and etheric body with their astral body and I. Now, however, the astral body and the I belong to the physical body and etheric body as they are today—to the present-day physical human body and etheric body. This physical body and this etheric body cannot exist on their own. They have become what they are because the astral body and the “I” are integrated into them. Only a physical body in which no blood flows and which has no nervous system can exist without an astral body and an “I.” That is why a plant can exist without an astral body and an “I,” because it has neither blood nor a nervous system. For the nervous system is connected to the astral body, and the blood to the “I.” No being has a nervous system in the physical body that is not permeated by an astral body, and no being has a circulatory system in the physical body into which the “I” has not entered. Think about what you do every night. You callously leave your physical and etheric bodies behind, leaving them—along with their circulatory and nervous systems—to fend for themselves. If it depended solely on you, the physical body would have to perish every night simply because you leave your nervous and circulatory systems. It would die the very moment the astral body and the “I” leave the physical and etheric bodies. But the clairvoyant gaze sees how other beings—higher spiritual beings—then fill it. It sees how they enter into it and do what the human being does not do at night: nourish the circulatory and nervous systems. These are the very same beings, however, who created the human being—insofar as he consists of a physical and etheric body—not merely today, but from incarnation to incarnation. They are the same beings who, on ancient Saturn, brought about the first rudiments of the physical body and who, on the Sun, formed the etheric body. These beings, who have been active in the physical and etheric bodies since the very beginning of Saturn and the Sun, are active within them every night while the human being sleeps and callously abandons the physical and etheric bodies—surrendering them to death, so to speak; they enter them and sustain the nervous and circulatory systems.

[ 18 ] It is therefore understandable that at the very moment the astral body touches the etheric body to imprint itself upon it—since the human being is permeated by these forces that have formed him—he sees the image of these forces, which are symbolized in the second seal. That which sustains him and connects him to the entire cosmic universe shines forth at this moment of initiation. He sees that which has formed the two members of his being—the physical and the etheric bodies—and that which sustains them every night throughout their lives. He himself, however, has no part in this yet, for he is not yet able to work into these two members of his being. From a human perspective, the physical and etheric bodies, which lie in bed at night, would be condemned to a plant-like existence, for he leaves both to their own devices. Therefore, for humans, the state of sleep is an unconscious one, just as it always is for plants.

[ 19 ] What, then, of what is released during sleep in the ordinary person? What of the astral body and the “I”? After all, these are not consciously present at night either. In the ordinary person, nothing is experienced within the astral body during nighttime sleep. But just imagine for a moment that you were practicing the seven stages of the Johannine Initiation—these significant moments of Christian spiritual initiation. Then you would experience more than just what has been described so far. Quite apart from the fact that you could develop clairvoyant powers through the contact of the astral body with the etheric body, something else would occur as well. The human being becomes aware of the soul characteristics, the soul-human qualities of the astral world and the Devachanic world, from which he has actually been born in terms of his soul. And a still higher symbol enters into this picture, one that seems to fill the entire world. To this symbol of the ancient initiation, for those who pass through the stages of the Johannine initiation, something is added that is best represented by the first seal. As a clairvoyant vision, he sees the Priest-King with a golden belt, with feet that seem to be cast from metal, his head covered with hair like white wool, a fiery sword blazing from his mouth, and in his hand the seven world stars: Saturn, the Sun, the Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, and Venus.

[ 20 ] The figure in the center of the second seal image was, in the ancient initiation, only hinted at as the fifth of the group souls. It is that which, in the humanity of ancient times, existed only as a germ and only emerged in the Christian initiation as what is also called the Son of Man, who rules the seven stars when he appears fully in his true form before humanity.

[ 21 ] Thus, through this initially symbolic form of representation, it should be clear to us above all that what appears in modern human beings as a separation of the various members—the physical and etheric bodies on the one hand, and the astral body and the “I” on the other— can be approached in such a way that both can, so to speak, contribute their part to initiation: first through the form of initiation involving the contact between the astral body and the etheric body, where the four group souls shine forth; then through the working with the astral body, so that it becomes, in a special sense, capable of seeing. In the past, true vision in the supersensible world had, at most, reached the level of a kind of plant-like experience of the world. Through Christian initiation, what is achieved is a higher stage of initiation in the astral body, symbolically indicated by the second image.

[ 22 ] There you have described for yourself, based on the principle of initiation, the two things that you find described at the beginning of the Apocalypse. However, the apocalyptic writer described them in reverse order—and rightly so. He first described the face of the Son of Man—the face of the one who is, who was, and who is to come—and then the other. Both are symbols of what the initiate experiences during the initiation.

[ 23 ] Thus we have allowed these experiences to enter our souls—as happens in certain cases of initiation and is initially experienced. Tomorrow we will proceed to the details of these real, actual experiences, and we will see them reflected in the magnificent account of the Book of Revelation.