The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Ninth Lecture

[ 1 ] Yesterday we spoke of the occult aspirant’s encounter with Lucifer and with death, and we pointed out that, for the situation to unfold in the appropriate manner, the memory of the I or of the I-idea must remain from ordinary earthly life. We have also seen that help is available to modern humanity through the fact that it can receive the Christ impulse within the earthly world. And we have considered the peculiarity of this Christ impulse; we have seen that the being we call the Christ being differs from the other founders of religions in that we cannot really speak of the Christ as a personality who was initiated on Earth, but rather that during the three years of its sojourn on Earth, the Christ-being already possessed and brought with it all the powers of which it makes use. Thus, by becoming human, the Christ-Being was prepared to make the great sacrifice—for the Christ-Being this was a great sacrifice—of using only the specifically human forces within a human body and of expressing its entire connection with the Divine through specifically human forces.

[ 2 ] You see, this is the basis of what makes the appearance of Christ so extraordinary. Try to understand any other religious founder using ordinary human spiritual faculties—I am not saying to believe in him, but to understand him: It is always necessary that you first learn to understand the stage of his initiation, for you must elevate yourself to an understanding of this or that which radiates from a higher world into the human personality in question. And you must do this with the Buddha and with all other religious founders. With the Buddha, you must take as your starting point his enlightenment under the Bodhi tree and, in a certain way, acquire an understanding that in a person’s twenty-ninth year something inspiring can enter their life, just as the Buddha experienced under the Bodhi tree. But if you rise to this understanding, then, if you reflect a little, you will also understand what still needs to be added, however strange it may seem: Not only must the great founders of religions be understood through a kind of familiarity with the methods of initiation and so on, but even the evangelists and Paul.

[ 3 ] If you want to understand the evangelists, who wrote their texts under inspiration, you must first rise to a higher level of understanding; you must first come to realize how such individuals—hidden behind the names Matthew, Mark, or John—could have come to know the matters described in the Gospels. Therefore, by studying the Gospels, we sought to regain a sense—long since lost—that the evangelists spoke the truth. But anyone who wants to understand Christ does not need any of that. Every person can understand Christ with the most ordinary human understanding. There is no level of education so low that one could not understand Christ with it. This is precisely because Christ has brought into the purely human powers—into everything that works through human power—that which he was, whereas the teachings of the other founders of religion are based on what they have seen in the higher worlds. Therefore, provided the word is not taken trivially, it can truly be said: Christ is a founder of religion for the simplest of people, for every kind of understanding.

[ 4 ] Of course, one can only come to know Christ’s relationship to the higher worlds through initiation. But one does not need this until one enters into initiation. Yesterday I tried to help you understand the immense service Christ renders to occult aspirants. He gives them the means to remember their I when they are in the higher worlds. Without the Christ impulse, this is in a certain sense impossible, so that Christ becomes a help in modern initiations, and he becomes an ever greater and greater helper for occult aspirants. As wisdom progresses, one becomes aware of just how much one needs him. On the one hand, the Christ is there for the simplest of souls, and on the other hand, he is also there for those who need wisdom, and wisdom, and ever more wisdom. That is his nature. This stems from the qualities we tried to speak of yesterday. Therefore, it goes without saying that, precisely as the development of the Earth progresses, there will be ever more and more understanding of the Christ. This understanding will continue to grow. There will be more and more people who will recognize that while it is entirely justified to say that Christ is there for everyone, even for the simplest mind, and that everyone can find him; Christ is also there for those who must seek wisdom because they feel a duty to do so.

[ 5 ] Now we will set these thoughts aside for a moment and turn once more to the consideration of that encounter we spoke of yesterday. Here we must say: First, then, the human being encounters Lucifer. Lucifer, as we have seen, shows us what we have actually become from incarnation to incarnation in the course of Earth’s evolution, and we already brought to mind yesterday that Lucifer reveals to us a rather hideous form. Through Lucifer, one learns to recognize what one has become through him during the course of Earth’s evolution.

[ 6 ] The point is that one must learn to recognize this in the right way, that as an aspirant to the occult one must not stop at the point where Lucifer points out what we have attained through the gods, saying: This is the fragile form that lies before you. What you have attained through me is immortality. — But that then turns out to be ugliness. At first, when one considers this path of initiation referred to here, one gets a sense that Christ can help not only with what was spoken of yesterday, but also with the transformation of the form. But this also requires the resolve to remain faithful to this Christ impulse, not to lose it again, and to strive to gain ever more understanding of the Christ impulse. Therefore, there is no means, especially for those who profess the newer mysteries, by which they could be led away from this Christ impulse again.

[ 7 ] Now, however, we must remember that, of the threefold human being we have been considering, we had to, so to speak, assign the higher human being to the realm of the entire starry world. But we then said that the figure known in the Old Testament as Yahweh or Jehovah gives the upper human being—as a kind of down payment for what humanity has lost on this earth—that which we can assign to the moon; so that, recalling what we have discussed, we can say: The upper human being is, in a certain sense, assigned to the moon. In a certain sense, the middle human being, the breast human being, the human being who carries the heart within, as we have seen, is associated with the sun. So that we can form a mental image of what has always been understood in the occult schools and mysteries by the association of the middle human being—the human being who bears the heart—with the Sun, and of the human being who bears the head, either with the entire starry sky or, preferably, with the Moon.

[ 8 ] But Lucifer, too, has exerted an influence on human beings. Just as we carry the influence of the sun in our middle human being, just as we carry in our head human being the influence of the moon, as I described to you in connection with ancient clairvoyance, so do we also carry within us, first of all, the influences of another star, if you consider the forces emanating from this star in the appropriate way.

[ 9 ] You can easily create a mental image of how this effect must be different from the effects of the sun and moon. In ancient times, the effects of the moon were such that human clairvoyance truly followed a twenty-eight-day lunar cycle, so that every twenty-eight days a person would feel themselves in a state of greater or lesser clairvoyance. This had such an effect on people that it could be perceived directly by them. The effects of the sun are, of course, obvious; one need not say much to see that the average human being depends entirely on the sun. What was said in the last lecture should suffice. The influence of the third, which represents the same realm that appears to us in initiation as Lucifer, is such that it already acts in a spiritual manner. There can be no question of such a tangible effect. That is why many of the moon’s influences can be denied; no one denies the sun’s influences. Yet there are already people today who speak of the moon’s influence on human nature. Materialism, of course, rejects the influences of the other stars. It must reject them because they are spiritual and because materialism does not acknowledge the effects of spiritual forces. But just as the things I have described to you are connected to the upper human being through the Moon and to the middle human being through the Sun, so are the influences of Venus connected to the figure that confronts us when we cross the threshold of initiation, and I note right away that this concerns the celestial body that astronomers today call Venus. Venus is thus the realm of Lucifer. To begin with, the fact is that we learn precisely through initiation that the lower human being—the human being we have designated as the third sevenfold human being—is that aspect of the entire human nature which has been assigned by the higher gods to the realm of Lucifer. But now, in a way we will discuss later, Lucifer has taken possession of the whole human being, just as Yahweh or Jehovah has taken possession of the whole human being. And if you wish to grasp the full effect of Yahweh or Jehovah, then you must tell yourself: Within the human being whom you now know, according to our earlier lectures, as the head-human, there works that Jehovah-force which corresponds to the new moon, that is, the moon without light, which does not reflect the physical sunlight back to Earth. The physical sunlight, on the other hand, which is reflected back by the moon, you must think of as the influence of the Yahweh or Jehovah forces on the human being, which takes place from the moon upon the lower human being, upon the third human being. — So that we must say: If we place the chest-man in the middle, we have the Jehovah forces, corresponding to the full moon, acting upon the lower man; upon the middle or chest-man, the solar force now acts, as we know, but also the lunar forces. The Yahweh or Jehovah forces have thus taken hold of the entire human being. They act in alternating periods on the head-human and on the lower human, whereby the effect on the head-human corresponds to the new moon, and the effect on the lower human corresponds to the full moon.

[ 10 ] I do not believe that anyone will doubt what I have just said once they come to understand why, particularly in the ancient Hebrew faith and in the ancient Hebrew rites, such significance was attributed to the new moon as a festival. If you look at the new moon festivals and see what feelings in the Old Testament corresponded to the new moon festival, then you will be able to gain a reasonable understanding of what has just been said. The middle phases of the moon correspond in such a way that the waxing and waning moon affects the entire breast-human. If you now also create a mental image of that, just as the moon acts upon the entire threefold human being—that is, its spirit, Yahweh or Jehovah—so too does the sun act upon the entire human being, but mainly upon the middle part, and that from there its effects radiate out to the entire human being, then you have two cosmic forces that are at work in the human being in a lawful manner.

[ 11 ] From Lucifer we learn that his realm is Venus, and that those forces which find their symbolic-physical expression by coming to us as the light of Venus, the Morning and Evening Star—that these physical rays of Venus, sent out into space, are the symbolic-physical influence of Lucifer upon human beings. Lucifer has not limited himself to acting upon the lower human being. He would only act there when Venus shines with its full disk, as during a full moon. You know that Venus has phases just like the moon, so that there is a waxing, a full, and a waning Venus. The quarters act upon the chest-human just as the quarters of the moon do. Venus, however, which acts spiritually, acts upon the head-human, so that an expression of what constitutes spiritual influences in relation to the human being can be seen in the interplay of the Sun, Moon, and Venus in the sky. Mind you, an expression of what is within the human spirit.

[ 12 ] Just as the great Solar Spirit acts within the human being in relation to the Lunar Spirit, in relation to Yahweh or Jehovah, so too does Lucifer, who is always at work within human nature, act in relation to these two. If one were to represent this law of interaction graphically and draw a diagram of it, the best way to do so would be to look for it in the constellations of the physical Sun, the physical Moon, and Venus. Just as these stand in relation to one another, just as they can have a relationship in which one opposes the other, repels it, strengthens it, or weakens it by placing itself above it and eclipsing it, so too is the relationship of the three spiritual forces that have been characterized within the human being. Human beings can particularly unfold their solar influence when it is not impaired by either the lunar or the Venusian forces. However, his sun—the forces located in the middle of the human being, in the heart—can also be eclipsed, so to speak, by the moon, by the forces of the head, just as eclipses can occur through Lucifer, through Venus. As you also know, there is what is called the transit of Venus across the sun in outer space.

[ 13 ] Thus, the interconnectedness of the inner trinity of the human being—the Sun spirit, the Moon spirit, and the Venus spirit, or Lucifer, so to speak—is symbolized in the cosmos and expressed through the constellation of the Sun, Moon, and Venus. It will now seem easy for you to understand, since we have also divided the entire human form in such a way that we have assigned the parts of the human form to certain signs, the fixed stars of the zodiac, that a relationship can exist between these three stars in the human being—that is, the three spiritual powers in the human being—and the individual members of the human form. A particularly significant example of this relationship in the human being would be, for instance, when the heart—that is, the powers of the heart, the solar spirit—exerts its strongest influence in the middle human being. In the middle human being we have inscribed the sign of Leo; so that we can say: When the Sun now acts in such a way that it can exert its forces particularly upon that limb of the human form to which we symbolically inscribed the sign of Leo, then a remarkable constellation is present in the human being. Likewise, a remarkable constellation is present when the forces of Yahweh or Jehovah are particularly strongly developed in their spiritual aspect, let us say in the sign of Aries, which signifies uprightness, or of Taurus, which indicates the forward-directed movement toward speech. These are the parts of the human form that must have a particularly original relationship to the power of the Moon. If they unfold most strongly there, this is a particularly favorable constellation for the human being.

[ 14 ] Now you will also realize what the principle, the essence of astrology, is actually based on. I mention this not because I intend to speak at length about astrology—there would not be enough time for that—but to show what its essence consists of. This can be made clear in a few words. You see, the human being, as he stands before us with his threefold seven-fold form, is already aligned with the spiritual forces that correspond to the cosmic realms. For just as the forces of the Sun Spirit working within the human being correspond to the Sun Spirit, just as the forces of the Moon correspond to the head, and just as the forces distributed over the whole human being correspond to the third human being, so the limbs of the human form correspond to the fixed stars, whose signs I have written next to the limbs of the human form. Thus the human being is complete in his physical form. That which now comes from these forces, which work in from these directions, from these realms, did not merely work at the time when the human form was being formed, but continued to work through the ages and still works today; it acts in such a way that, in a certain sense, what a person experiences today as their external destiny can be related to the constellations of the stars, just as we must relate to the constellations of the stars what a person has already become. If it was beneficial for human beings, in terms of their physical constitution, that their solar forces, so to speak, interacted with those parts of their form to which we could assign the sign of Leo, then it will also be beneficial today for certain human qualities if important moments in their lives—above all the crucial moment of birth— fall at a time when the Sun is in the sign of Leo—that is, when the Sun covers Leo—so that these two forces mutually reinforce or influence one another.

[ 15 ] Just as what humanity is today is inscribed in the heavens through the constellations, so too is what will happen to humanity in the future inscribed there. This is the foundation of true astrology. You will soon see from what we are about to consider that, in essence, you need only truly understand occultism to grasp the principle of astrology, for we shall now proceed to the characteristics of the second stage of initiation.

[ 16 ] We have pointed out that, for the occult aspirant to attain the first stage of initiation—the encounter with Lucifer and with death—it is important to start from the human form, from what a human being initially appears to be to the physical eye. For the next stage, something else is important. There, it is important to start from the inner movement of the human being. Mind you:

First stage: Departure from the human form.

Second Stage: The starting point is best found in a person’s inner movement.

Now let us bring this inner movement of the human being to mind, just as we have brought the human form to mind.

[ 17 ] Here we have, first of all, a movement that humans perform very little in later life, but which they once had to perform with all their strength; otherwise, they would have remained quadrupeds and would have had to crawl throughout their entire lives. Humans must perform the movement that transforms them from a crawling child into an upright being. Human beings are not merely upright creatures in terms of their physical form; they are beings who raise themselves up during the course of their lives, so that the first important inner movement—for that is what it is—that human beings perform is the movement of raising themselves up. Thus, the movement of raising oneself up is the first thing we must consider.

[ 18 ] The second type of inner movement is one that, although people continue to use throughout their lives, they must first acquire as children. It is the movement of speech, that movement of inner life which must be carried out in order for words to come into being. You must create a mental image of a sum of inner movements being necessary for the word to be expressed. Before that, however, a person must learn another movement that is more hidden. In fact, they learn both movements together, so to speak; in essence, often the speech movement earlier than the other movement. You can find more details on this in my little book *The Education of the Child from the Standpoint of Spiritual Science*. In any case, however, these two movements exist, which a person learns and must perform as inner movements throughout their entire life. A person is even aware of the speech movement. Everyone knows that. But not everyone knows that a subtle movement is constantly taking place in the brain even when one is thinking. To realize this requires more subtle observation. I do not mean to preach materialism here when I speak of “movement.” The movement in the brain is indeed already present; it is merely an effect, not a cause. We are thus dealing with the movement of thought and the movement of speech as inner movements.

[ 19 ] If you continue to observe these movements, you will discover that the next important movement—the one necessary for inner bodily life to take place—is what we might call the movement of the blood. It is one of those movements that must occur for a human being to be human at all. The sequence of this movement seems somewhat arbitrary. But that doesn’t matter.

[ 20 ] The fifth movement, which must be present for the blood movement to exist at all, is the respiratory movement. This is a distinct, specific movement in its own right. It is different from the blood movement and is not the same thing. I say that the order of these things is somewhat arbitrary, since one can switch the order of the thought movement and the speech movement by placing one in the second position and the other in the third—but that is not important. One can also mention the respiratory movement first and then the circulatory movement; if one focuses more on the lungs, one must even do so. But if one focuses more on the origin of the movements, one must adopt the chosen order because, especially in men, the actual central origin of the respiratory movement lies in the diaphragm, which is located below the heart. So if one wishes to establish an order based on the origin, one must choose this order.

[ 21 ] The sixth movement—I am, of course, always referring to the body’s internal movements that must take place—is the one that certain organs must perform and which, to use a general term, could be called glandular movement or vascular movement. The human blood vessels must be in constant activity, in constant internal motion, so that the human being can be sustained as a living being. For certain reasons, which would take too long to explain here, I would simply like to say “glandular movement.”

[ 22 ] A seventh movement is that which occurs when, in the human body, it is not merely individual vessels or glands that move to secrete something the individual person needs within themselves, but rather the movement that the human body—notably, as a body—must perform when nature arranges for the birth of a new human being. Here we are dealing with a totality of bodily movements. Whereas in other vascular movements we are concerned only with the movement of a part, in the reproductive movement we are concerned with the secretion of the whole human being in some form. Whether it is the female or the male body makes no difference. We are always dealing with the separation of the entire human being. We therefore call this movement the “reproductive movement.”

[ 23 ] There are no other inner movements, if you correctly understand the seven types of movement listed. The others are external movements. For example, when a person moves their feet and hands, these are external movements. However, the inner movements that exist within a person are something the person has already brought with them, even though the Earth has altered them in many ways. And just as the entire human form must be related to the constellations of the zodiac—and therefore the signs of the zodiac are assigned to the individual parts of the human form—so too are these individual movements formed from the entire planetary system.

[ 24 ] We can thus deduce these seven parts of the inner, mobile human being from our planetary system; and because the relationships between these movements within the human being correspond to the relationships between the planets in our solar system, these individual movements are also designated by the symbols used for the planets:

the Upright Movement ♄
the Thinking Movement ♃
the Speaking Movement ♂
the Blood Movement ○
the Breathing Movement ☿
the Glandular Movement ♀
the reproductive movement ☾

[ 25 ] With regard to the circulation of blood, this movement intersects with what we have previously identified as the actual center of the organs belonging to the middle human being, which in particular serves as the point of contact for the Sun Spirit. Therefore, one must also relate the circulation of the blood—which has its center in this middle human being—to what is the most important force of the middle human being, so that the circulation of the blood must be designated by the sign of the Sun. Here we are dealing with the power of the Sun Spirit, particularly insofar as it is a moving force. We could say that the Sun acts as a fixed star upon the entire middle human being; but upon the movements that depend mainly on the middle human being—upon the circulation of the blood—the Sun acts like one of the other planets mentioned. If I use the symbols that today’s astronomers also employ—in this case, I am not using the old terminology that was revised by Kepler, but rather the designations customary in modern astronomy—then the respiratory movement can be designated with Mercury ☿, the glandular movement with Venus ♀, and the reproductive movement with the Moon ☾. The reproductive movement, located in the lower human being, is again something that, so to speak, coincides with the influence of the Moon spirit, which intervenes here in the lower human being and affects the inner mobility of the human being.

[ 26 ] Thus, we have a threefold sevenfold human being in the human form, and also a sevenfold human being in the context of the inner movements of the human being. If the occult aspirant now strives to distinguish these inner movements within himself, then he can take the next step in what I have already spoken to you about.

[ 27 ] You see, it’s not as easy as it used to be, because the outer form is, so to speak, right before the human eye, but not the inner movement. One has to make a bit of an effort to feel that inner movement. One must learn to distinguish, and one must learn to feel the movement of standing upright inwardly, to feel the movement of thinking, to feel the movement of speaking—which is the easiest—to feel the movement of the blood, to feel—which again is not difficult—the movement of breathing; finally, to feel that of which one usually feels only the result, namely whether one is lying down or standing upright, and to feel the movement of excretion.

[ 28 ] The ability to distinguish between the individual movements that take place is something that is absolutely essential if the occult aspirant wishes to make progress. If the occult aspirant applies this to these inner movements in the same way I described yesterday—that is, as one should do with the human form—then instead of focusing outwardly on the human form and expecting an afterimage, he should now try to feel inwardly, to sense the inner mobility of the human being, the inner activity. And then, after one has, so to speak, physically fixed oneself inwardly, one should try to hold onto this impression, just as we tried yesterday to hold onto, purely in memory, the impression of the figure. Then one actually comes to truly recognize seven such figures, as we encountered them yesterday as two figures. Yesterday we encountered the figures of Death and Lucifer, and we heard that when we recall the thought of Christ, we then have something we can carry over into the other, the supersensible world.

[ 29 ] When the occult aspirant steps out of his inner, dynamic self in the manner described, when he steps out of his inner, dynamic self, seven figures do indeed appear before him. He becomes acquainted with seven spiritual beings, and he knows that these seven spiritual beings correspond to his inner movements just as the Sun, the Moon, and Venus correspond to what we spoke of yesterday and today. The human being learns to recognize that he has grown out of our planetary system, that the planets, as physical celestial bodies, are governed by planetary spirits, and that the human being’s upright movement can take place within him only through the rule of the Spirit of Saturn—the Spirit whose domain is on Saturn, just as Lucifer’s is on Venus. The occult aspirant then knows that his thought movements are connected with the ruling or directing spirit of Jupiter, that speech movements are connected with the directing spirit of Mars, that blood circulation is connected with the directing spirit of the Sun, that everything pertaining to the respiratory movement is connected with the directing spirit of Mercury, that everything pertaining to the glandular movement is connected with the directing spirit of Venus, and finally, that everything pertaining to the reproductive movement is connected with the directing spirit of the Moon. But he also knows that all these spirits interact with one another, that their principal seat and point of influence in the human being is such that one type of movement affects another, that in the human being the spirit of Saturn acts primarily through the movement of standing upright, but is indirectly involved in all other movements. A particularly noteworthy situation arises when this directing spirit of Saturn unfolds its power especially strongly in Aries or Taurus. A particularly significant situation arises here, and now that you know how the directing planetary spirits are related to the individual members of the human nature of movement, we can indeed experience that the principle of true astrology lies in what we have come to know as the signs for the individual members. You need only know what is at stake here, and then you will know that therein lies the principle of true astrology, which springs from nothing other than the significant fact that the human being is born out of the cosmos, an extract, an essence of the entire cosmos.

[ 30 ] Just as we must ascend to the fixed stars to understand the human form, and just as we find that form influenced by the principal forces emanating from the Sun, Moon, and Venus, so too do we now find that the inner mobility of the human being is brought about in a very special way by the seven planetary spirits. Thus, human beings come to know seven spiritual beings. But something extraordinarily remarkable occurs here. Note the fact that among these seven spirits is also the spirit of Venus, whom we have already met as Lucifer. It is very, very strange what the occult aspirant encounters there. When he takes the first step into initiation, he encounters Lucifer, and we saw that Lucifer shows him that form of himself of which we spoke yesterday. He encounters Lucifer as the being who made him the ugliest, and now, in encountering the Spirit of Venus, he encounters Lucifer once more. But now Lucifer turns out to be something quite different. The second time, it is not the same form that one encounters the first time. One knows, of course, that it is the same being, but it reveals itself in two different forms. The initiate thus gains the insight that Lucifer can reveal himself in two forms. The first time he reveals himself is upon crossing the threshold, which we spoke of yesterday, where he points out that humanity owes its immortality to him, where he says, for example: “The gods have given you a fragile body, but I have given you immortality.” — When one then looks around, it is that dragon of which we spoke yesterday. That is why this form is also called the lesser form of the Guardian of the Threshold.

[ 31 ] Now, on the second stage of initiation, something else becomes apparent to us; it becomes clear that Lucifer can also unleash other forces. If we were unable to unleash within ourselves all the forces of excretion, all the forces that emanate from our bodily organs, we could not be human; it would be impossible for us to be human. The circulation of blood, the act of breathing—these alone cannot sustain us. The movement of the humors, the movement of the vessels, the movement of the glands—which is directed by Lucifer, the spirit of Venus—must also be present. This is the difference between all manner of exoteric traditions and what is expounded here: while the traditions do speak of Lucifer and the individual planetary spirits, these things do not provide true knowledge. True knowledge is certainly no child’s play. It reveals to us Lucifer as the defiler of the human form and, on the other hand, as the necessary spirit that alone makes us human.

[ 32 ] And now we experience something most remarkable within the initiation. Once we have succeeded in holding fast to the Christ, in connecting with him inwardly, so that he gives us the means to carry the thought of the I, the mental image of the I, the self-consciousness of the Earth into the supersensible world we are entering, then we have gained a sense that this Christ-force has something to do with the solar force. We first gain such an inkling; for on the first stage of initiation, it is little more than an inkling of what dawns upon us regarding the connection between the Christ force and the spiritual solar force. On the second stage, this Christ force also presents itself to us as, I might say, a tangible figure that one can already get to know a little better, that becomes clearer and more distinct to us in the supersensible world. So on the second stage of initiation, one becomes somewhat more acquainted with the supersensible Christ. The next thing this Christ shows us is that he calls the ruling spirit of Venus—whom we have learned is Lucifer—his brother and describes him as a planetary spirit like any other. At the moment he reveals himself on the second stage, he appears as a planetary spirit, so that he stands fraternally among the seven regents of the planets.

[ 33 ] In this way, we are, as it were, entering a realm where we come to know a noble council of seven planetary spirits who relate to one another in complete brotherhood. This is a dangerous precipice, and the occult aspirant must learn many other things if he is not to fail at this dangerous precipice, for he must not simply accept what is presented to him there. He must try to gain a precise understanding of the underlying principles.

[ 34 ] When one delves into the details of occult knowledge, so to speak, one can choose various tools to help one become familiar with the field of occultism. Simply by getting to know the seven brothers, who are the seven planetary spirits, we do not yet know everything; for seven brothers can, after all, differ from one another, and this difference is not immediately apparent to us. We must look more closely and conduct more detailed studies if we wish to gain a deeper understanding. And here I would like to present you with a description that, if you examine it closely in light of what the exoteric myths provide, you will find thoroughly well-founded and reasonable—however strange it may seem—a description you will find well-founded because it is derived from occult research. Compare this with religious and historical documents. Reason will then say: Yes, I am reassured. — The further you go with your reason, the more you will be able to say yes to what I am telling you, if you regard it as a result of occult research that can be obtained in the present day in the realm of the great cosmic life, and which is relatively easily accessible to modern humanity.

[ 35 ] One must start from something; one must take a starting point somewhere. So, to begin with, one must become acquainted with the seven cosmic spirits and, as it were, their realms. Through this, however, we come to know only the highest governing spirits and their realms—the corresponding planets. But we cannot stop there. We must, as far as occult research allows, examine these realms more closely; we must delve into certain aspects in greater detail, and here the following path presents itself to the present-day occult aspirant, provided he sets to work conscientiously with the means that modern practical occultism can provide. On the advice of an experienced occultist, he may begin by studying a life such as that of the Buddha—the life of Gautama Buddha.

[ 36 ] You see, I have emphasized this many times before and must emphasize it here as well: the life of Gautama must be understood in the same way that Buddhists understand the life of the Buddha, not as an external, materialistic, historical perspective interprets it today. One must have risen to such an understanding of the Buddha’s life that one knows: The Buddha became the Buddha by passing through many, many incarnations, becoming a Bodhisattva, and then, having been born as a Bodhisattva—as the son of King Suddhodana—ascending to Buddhahood in the twenty-ninth year of his life. One must know that the Bodhisattva’s ascent to Buddhahood actually means—as every initiated Buddhist and indeed every initiate knows—that such an individuality, having become a Buddha from a Bodhisattva, has its final earthly incarnation in the life it experiences as a Buddha; that once he has become a Buddha, he no longer has to return to such an earthly body, but works in other worlds that are not earthly.

[ 37 ] This must be understood as a prerequisite. One must be fully aware that it is true that, upon his ascension from Bodhisattva to Buddha, the Buddha rose to a cosmic dignity, and that in the course of his further development, which he must undergo, he need not descend again to become a physical human being on Earth. For those who have been following this, I have already touched upon—I would say—the only point where the Buddha again reveals something of his development; it was when I showed that two Jesus children were born, the Matthew and the Luke Jesus children, and it was also said that at the birth of the Luke Jesus child, the Buddha incorporated astral forces into the astral body of Jesus, which he had to send down from the spiritual world. This, however, only touched upon what the Buddha once sent down to Earth. In Norrköping I said that the initiates could also come together with the Buddha in other ways. On Earth, however, the Buddha was present in the sense that one can say: He no longer lived on Earth after his life as the Buddha. — The occultist who now continues on his path can also continue to follow the Buddha’s path. It is, of course, not an earthly life, but it can still be observed, so that in the realm of practical occultism the question arises: What has become of the Buddha since he no longer incarnates in a physical human body? — One can seek the Buddha as he is in the vast world. It may seem strange to you, but the Initiates do indeed find the Buddha engaged in a great, significant task, in a truly immense task. For when the occultist’s opened gaze searches out into the cosmos, he finds the Buddha’s further sphere of activity, strangely enough, on that planet which we in physical astronomy call Mars, and the occultist must say in all seriousness: Since the time when the Buddha acquired the ability that enabled him to no longer have to appear in earthly life, a new mission has been assigned to him. We come to know this new mission through an occult observation of Mars. We thus come to know the mission that is his very own.

[ 38 ] If we wish to gain a thorough understanding of this mission, we find through occult investigation that the beings on Mars who would correspond to human beings on Earth—but who are of a completely different nature—we may simply call them Martians— were placed at a certain point in their development in a similar necessity to that in which Earth humans found themselves in the fourth post-Atlantean epoch, when the Christ was to come to them. And just as Christ became a Redeemer and Awakener, just as that was Christ’s mission in relation to humanity on Earth, so is the further mission of that Bodhisattva, after he has become a Buddha, to be a Redeemer and Liberator of the Martians. He must therefore accomplish a similar event on Mars as Christ had to accomplish on Earth.

[ 39 ] When we look at the life of the Buddha, it essentially breaks down into two parts: the first part, in which the Buddha worked for the people of Earth and brought them what they were to receive through the Buddha and through all that he had already brought them during his time as a Bodhisattva; and the second part, in which the Buddha works beyond Earth, having ascended to a higher power for which his earthly life was merely a prerequisite. Yes, the Buddha has grown into a power of salvation, a power of liberation. If we could compare—we will speak further, if possible, of the feelings with which the Martians receive the Buddha’s work—the Buddha’s work on Mars with the very similar work it is not the same, but somewhat different, of Christ Jesus on Earth and the Mystery of Golgotha, we would find a difference that must exist precisely because there is a difference between Earth humans and Martians.

[ 40 ] We see, then, that tasks are assigned to the beings who are developing within the cosmos. The moment a being ascends from one level of existence to another, a new task is also assigned to it. We see, then, that human beings must fulfill their earthly journey, yet in doing so they are touched by beings who either have had a cosmic task from the very beginning, like the Christ, or who evolve from the Earth toward a cosmic task, as was the case with the Buddha.