The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Tenth Lecture

[ 1 ] It was by no means a coincidence that, after I had once again discussed the next encounter a human being has upon crossing the threshold into the supersensible worlds—the encounter with death and Lucifer—I then attempted to make the transition to a discussion that may have initially struck you as difficult to understand. I then attempted to explain to you the significance of the Christ Being, and in the course of this discussion of the Christ Being—which, one might say, emerged of its own accord, it was necessary to point to the story of the temptation in the Gospels, to Christ’s rejection of Lucifer—which is, of course, presented in the Gospels as the story of the temptation, as the temptation, as it is called there, in the hermitage, or, as is often said, in the desert. Then, after our reflection had progressed somewhat further, the transition was made to a discussion about the Buddha.

[ 2 ] Now let us briefly recall this encounter with death and with Lucifer. To the occult aspirant, Lucifer does indeed initially appear as the archetype of human and even superhuman—one might say divine—greatness, when, stripped of his deeds, he confronts humanity as a seductive being. And the occult aspirant is, so to speak, only then somewhat healed of the temptation when he looks back upon what he himself has become through Lucifer, when he gazes upon the terrifying, animal-like image that humanity has become from incarnation to incarnation through Lucifer’s temptation and seduction. And then, as I have told you, the occult aspirant of the present moment receives that help which can come to him from Christ; and the encounter is then roughly such that Christ offers a kind of highest, fullest consolation in the face of the terrible impression evoked by the encounter with death and with Lucifer, and with what one oneself represents, and what in a certain sense is the Guardian of the Threshold. If this encounter has made a terrible impression, then what Christ can be to one offers, so to speak, a comfort, a hope. For in place of death itself, in place of the broken human body, something else appears. And what I am telling you here is an absolute experience that can be had, that is truly experienced just as I describe it: For in place of death, making it clear to us that this “I” can indeed be preserved, Christ himself steps in. In other words, we receive within our consciousness an image that is entirely independent of any memory from sensory life. To speak of illusion or hallucination here would be sheer nonsense, for one could be blind, deaf, and odorless—or anything else—and still have this experience that presents itself at this point of initiation; Christ would nevertheless take the place of death. But what, then, does one have before one?

[ 3 ] Imagine that you have before you Christ, who takes the place of death, and Lucifer: this is precisely the image that the Gospels themselves present in the scene of the temptation in the desert. You wouldn’t even need to recall this story of the temptation from the Gospels; you would have it right before you. And you would have it before you because you have taken into your soul the impulse that Christ once walked the earth, was crucified, and conquered death. It is Pauline Christianity alone that must have had an effect on you, not the Christianity of the Gospels.

[ 4 ] So it is possible to experience something described in the Gospels independently of the Gospels themselves—that is, independently of any external impression whatsoever; that is entirely possible. If you think back to ordinary life, you will say to yourself: In ordinary life, you have a conscious experience when external impressions are made upon your consciousness, when the mental images of your consciousness are evoked by external impressions. — Now you have an image before you that no external impression can evoke, because you cannot find Lucifer anywhere in the sensory world. You cannot find him as an external impression in the physical-sensory world. This is complemented for you by the image of death—which you cannot find there in the sensory world either—in which death transforms into Christ. You have this in addition to what you can, if necessary, gain as a reminiscence from this external world, but which, when you enter this supersensory world, reveals itself to you as an image that can also be gained independently of the external world. No external impression needs to be present when you have before you this image of the temptation of Christ and the defeat of death—the defeat, so to speak, of everything that Lucifer began with humanity. And what kind of consciousness is this? A consciousness without an external object.

[ 5 ] I have tried to lead you to what the unrevealable light is, to what the inexpressible word is. Now you have grasped the concept of a consciousness without an external object, a consciousness that is given content by its own being. That is consciousness without an external object.

[ 6 ] And then our reflection led us to share this strange, yet true message about the Buddha. This, too, was no coincidence; rather, I had to preface it with yesterday’s reflection on the human being and his inner movements in order to make it clear to you that the human being can advance yet one step further in initiation, in the initiation into the higher worlds. I had to speak to you of the truth—which may at first be difficult to understand, and to which we shall return shortly—that Lucifer then presents himself in a completely transformed form, as the ruler of the realm of Venus, when we advance to this second stage. I said that what we had previously sensed as an overpowering sun then appears to us as a planet among the seven planets, and Christ appears as the spirit of this planet—as a brother to the spirit of Venus, who also appears to us in a certain sense as a planetary spirit—Christ, so to speak, as a brother to Lucifer. But then we had to follow this contemplation with that concerning the post-earthly destinies of the Buddha. They were linked to this contemplation precisely because, in their original form—as they are meant to be experienced—they cannot be experienced without this second stage of initiation, which arises in the manner described. Without moving beyond this first encounter with death and Lucifer—where one sees, for example, the scene of temptation—without moving on to the other stage of initiation, where the seven planetary spirits appear, without that one cannot grasp the truth about the Buddha as it was presented yesterday. Only then can one grasp it. That is why I had to preface this with that.

[ 7 ] If you are now asking yourself whether it is possible, at least for the outer consciousness—which is dependent on external impressions—to grasp this truth regarding the Buddha in his post-earthly existence, then you will have to answer that it is not possible, with earthly consciousness, to explore the culture of Mars in such a way as to discover what the Buddha is doing there. But the moment initiation advances to the stage just mentioned and described yesterday, it becomes possible for consciousness to have this experience through its own being, without an external object. So, with regard to this truth about the Buddha, we are also dealing with a consciousness without an external object. The facts themselves are, of course, external; the Buddha does indeed live on Mars; but consciousness does not step outside itself, does not allow an external impression to act upon it when it recognizes such a truth, and is thus a consciousness without an external object. So, you see, I have led you to the concept that we cited as the third at the beginning of our lectures: to consciousness without an external object.

[ 8 ] So, if we take stock of what we have discussed, we already have three states of human consciousness: ordinary physical consciousness, then the state attained at the first stage of initiation, and as an example of an experience, I have presented the image: Death and Lucifer, or: Christ and Lucifer in the story of the temptation. The next stage of consciousness was the one where the seven planetary spirits appear to the human being. I have also illustrated this for you through the example of the Buddha, where you experience the Buddha’s destiny after he has just become the Buddha and no longer has to return to a physical existence on Earth. — So you have, so to speak, three states of human consciousness: we have physical consciousness; we then have the consciousness of higher worlds on the first level, as described yesterday, which we illustrated through the story of the temptation; and we have then pointed to an even higher consciousness, a second consciousness of a supersensible nature. And you see, as beautiful and desirable as it might be for some of you to point out even higher levels of consciousness, we lack the time for that. I will merely hint at such another level of consciousness of an even higher order shortly.

[ 9 ] What can we perceive and experience through physical consciousness? Everything that is present to the senses—that is, everything that is the object of our earthly existence. What can we perceive through the second level of consciousness? Let us set aside for now the example that has been cited, the story of the temptation. Through this consciousness of the first stage of higher consciousness, something else can be found; and what can be found and described through it is outlined in my *Outline of Esoteric Science*, specifically where the text discusses the lunar state that preceded our earthly state. This ancient lunar state no longer exists; it must be described through a consciousness without an object that exists today. It is present only in the higher worlds, preserved, as you have often heard, in the Akashic Records. So for the first consciousness of a higher kind, we have a second source besides the story of the temptation: we have all the events that, as we might say, relate to the ancient Moon. And everything connected with this ancient Moon can be described through this consciousness.

[ 10 ] Now I would like to draw your attention to one more thing. There is, in fact, a particular reason why, among the various experiences one can have, I have cited the story of the temptation as a concrete, specific example of an experience that one can initially have through this higher consciousness of the first kind. If, so to speak, one directs this higher consciousness of the first kind toward the old moon, one has a repetition of this story of the temptation. A repetition for human beings; in truth, of course, it took place long before that. For, you see, one then learns that Christ had already defeated Lucifer for himself on the old Moon, and that the scene described in the Gospels is the second, repeated event in which Christ achieves victory over Lucifer—that is, that Christ rejects Lucifer on Earth from the very beginning. This is for the reason—as you will surely take for granted, since the Christ also underwent a process of development—that when the Christ was still less developed on the Moon, he repelled all of Lucifer’s temptations—which at that time still meant something to him—out of a sense of complete devotion to the highest powers. Thus, on the ancient Moon, Lucifer had already confronted the Christ. On Earth, Lucifer was no longer a threat to the Christ; there, he simply rejects him. On the Moon, however, the Christ developed all the powers at his disposal to repel Lucifer. This is something one experiences more deeply when one casts the gaze of higher consciousness back into the ancient lunar era.

[ 11 ] When one progresses to the second, higher form of consciousness, something else emerges alongside insights that are significant for the Earth—such as the story of the Buddha—something that must be recognized later through this second, higher form of consciousness, and this is described in turn in my *Secret Science* in the sketch given about the earlier incarnational state of our Earth, about the ancient Sun. Back then, conditions were truly quite different, and it is indeed quite difficult—as you can see from the difficulty of understanding this very chapter of my *Esoteric Science*—to describe this ancient solar state. There I have given more consideration to the scenes closer to human experience, which relate, so to speak, to the natural side. At the time when this “Secret Science” was written, it would have found little understanding within the theosophical movement had I pointed to the more moral aspects that one also experiences in contemplating the ancient Sun era. There one no longer experiences the story of temptation. When we turn back to the Sun Age, the Sun itself still appears to us as one of the seven planets, with Venus as its prototype and Lucifer as its ruler; and at first the two—the Sun Spirit and the Venus Spirit, in other words, Christ and Lucifer—appear as a kind of brothers. One must then make every effort to perceive a difference between the two. The difference in the ancient Sun Age between Lucifer and the Christ does not readily emerge from a consideration of their outer nature, but only becomes apparent when one delves into the inner aspect. And it is difficult, exceedingly difficult, to find means of external representation now to show you in what the difference consists. Consider what I am about to say as an attempt to characterize, as best as possible, the difference that presents itself to clairvoyant consciousness in the old Sun Age regarding Christ and Lucifer.

[ 12 ] When we turn our gaze to Christ on the one hand and to Lucifer on the other, we become aware of something else as well. We realize that Lucifer, the ruler of Venus, appears in an extraordinarily luminous form—though spiritual light is meant—so that we have the sensation: All the splendor that can ever come to us through a contemplation arising from the revelation of light is something insignificant compared to the majesty of Lucifer in the ancient Sun Age. But we notice within this Lucifer, when we consider his intentions—which can then be seen through—that he is a spirit who, through all that he possesses, is endowed with an infinitely great pride, with such pride that one can also be tempted by this pride. For, as is well known, even things that a person does not find seductive up to a certain point become seductive when they attain majestic grandeur. And pride in its majestic grandeur also has a seductive effect. This is the seductive aspect of Lucifer in his proud grandeur, in his pride in his luminous form. That which one might call “unrevealed” light—the light that does not shine outwardly but possesses within itself the great, powerful force—he possesses this to the fullest extent. And alongside this, the figure of Christ in the ancient Sun Age, who is, so to speak, the ruler of the Sun planet, is an image of the fullest devotion to all that otherwise exists in the world around him. While Lucifer actually appears to be concerned only with himself—one must clothe all this in human words, though they are insufficient—Christ appears as devoted to that which surrounds him in the vast, vast universe.

[ 13 ] The vast universe was not as it is today. If one were to transport oneself to the sun today, looking out radially, one would first see the twelve constellations of the zodiac. At that time, they were not visible as such from the outside. Instead, there were twelve figures, twelve beings who, since outer space was not filled with light, let their words resound from the depths of darkness, from the depths of the night. What were these words? Yes, you see, they were words—the word “word” is, in turn, merely a surrogate to hint at what is meant—they were words that spoke of ancient times, already ancient back then. These were the twelve world initiators. Today, the twelve signs of the zodiac stand in the direction of these twelve world initiators, and from them resounds to the soul that is open to the whole world the original nature of the unspoken world-word that could be formed from the twelve voices. And while—I must now begin to speak figuratively, because human words are simply not enough—Lucifer had within himself the sole urge to illuminate everything with the light within him and thereby to recognize it, Christ surrendered himself to the impression of this world-word of an ineffable nature and took it wholly, wholly into himself; so that they were now united in the Christ-soul, so that this Christ-soul was the unifying being of the great world mysteries resounding through the ineffable Word. Thus we are confronted with the contrast between the Christ who receives the World Word and the proud Lucifer, the spirit of Venus, who rejects the World Word and seeks to fathom everything with his light.

[ 14 ] And all subsequent development stemmed from what Lucifer and Christ were at that time. For this had the consequence that the Christ Being had taken into itself the all-encompassing Word of the worlds, the all-encompassing mysteries of the worlds, and that the Lucifer Being—through what I can only express with the words “proud figure of light”—lost its realm, the realm of Venus. For other reasons, which are now beyond our scope, the other planetary spirits either lost or altered their essences. That is not what concerns us now. What matters to us is the contrast between Christ and Lucifer. Thus it came to pass that Lucifer lost more and more of his dominion, that the realm of Venus slipped further and further from him, that Lucifer, so to speak, became a dethroned ruler with his light, and that the planet Venus henceforth had to manage without an actual ruler, and could therefore undergo only a downward development. But during the old Sun Age, Christ had taken in the World Word; and this World Word has the property that it kindles into renewed light within the soul that receives it, so that from the old Sun Age onward the World Word became light in Christ, and the planet, whose ruler Christ was, developed from the ancient Sun Age onward into the center of the entire planetary system, into the Sun, and the other planets came into dependence on the Sun, also with regard to their spiritual rulers.

[ 15 ] We must allow this scene to sink in; then we will find that during the ancient Sun Age, the paths of Christ and Lucifer diverged. Lucifer’s path led downward; he had to lag behind in his development, and that is why he also remained behind in his development during the Lunar Age. The Christ Spirit, the Solar Spirit, moved forward and became a spirit developing forward, finally able to appear on Earth in the form often described to you. Through his devotion to the universe, through the reception of the divine-creative Word, through identification with the divine-creative, with the ineffable Word, through the rejection of all pride and through the replacement of all pride with devotion to the World Word, Christ was transformed from the ruler of a planet—which he was in the ancient Sun Age— the ruler of the other planets, with the domain of the Sun. And if you know this—I am speaking this in particular to those who have heard my lectures in Helsinki—if you know this, you will no longer find a contradiction in the fact that the Christ has been spoken of as a solar spirit of a higher order than the planetary spirits. For this is self-evident in the present state. Christ towers above the other planetary spirits; he is the Sun Spirit. Here, however, where the aim was not merely to describe the animation of the individual celestial bodies by their spirits, but to describe the individual states of consciousness, it had to be pointed out that, through his special nature, Christ has evolved from a spirit of the same kind as the planetary spirits, in the course of that development that has taken place between the ancient Sun and the present time, into the ruler of this entire system.

[ 16 ] As I said, there is not enough time to also describe the third type of higher consciousness. I can only hint that the ancient Saturn state—the first state that can usually be described in the successive incarnations of our Earth—can be experienced with this higher consciousness of the third kind, so that we can also speak of a third consciousness of a supersensory nature. If, however, we wish to trace initiation in its entirety, we must refer to dizzying heights of consciousness; this is something that, in a certain sense, appears from the outset as a kind of presumption, and where, in fact, the inability to use human words already begins. For this reason, my *Esoteric Science* also refrains from describing anything that pertains to even higher states of consciousness, for the simple reason that one cannot actually describe the higher things with human words. These higher states of consciousness were brought about in the Mysteries by first forming special symbolic signs and then speaking in a symbolic language, and through such symbolism, people could be led up to higher states of consciousness. But there are even higher states of consciousness, and one can indeed speak of a fourth and fifth consciousness of a supersensory nature. This, of course, extends into infinity, and one can only ever speak of it as proceeding in one direction.

[ 17 ] If we take this into account, we will be able to present to our soul the possibility that human beings, through various forms of supersensible consciousness, perceive worlds other than the physical world; and if you consider that the first beginnings of the physical human being, as described in *The Secret Science*, already began during the ancient Saturn state, you will indeed perceive in the human being a certain connection to the world of the third supersensible consciousness. But besides this, human beings are guided and directed by beings who are higher than themselves. They can perceive these higher beings; these beings act upon them. And it is surely clear to you from the outset that while human beings, as they stand before us, are created from the worlds extending up to the third supersensible consciousness, they are nevertheless connected to even higher worlds.

[ 18 ] You see, what is described there as attainable through various states of consciousness can truly be made clear even to the ordinary person, so to speak. One can understand that such states of consciousness exist. Although human beings on Earth, as earthly beings, do not experience these states of consciousness directly, they do experience external manifestations of these states of consciousness.

[ 19 ] After all, he experiences physical consciousness anyway. As for the first form of supersensory consciousness, human beings experience a surrogate, a hint of it, in that elevated dream consciousness which does not merely provide arbitrary dream images, but extends to perceptions of realities that, admittedly, belong to a higher world. And all that is really needed is a systematic higher training of the dream consciousness; then the human being attains the first form of supersensible consciousness. And this first form of supersensible consciousness can already shed light on important events that took place on the ancient Moon, the past incarnational state of our Earth. Therefore, you will find that in occult communications, most of the descriptions, alongside what took place on Earth, pertain to the ancient Moon, while very often the narrative stops there and the communications do not go back beyond this lunar state to the ancient solar state. This is the case when such communications are based on the first clairvoyant consciousness, which is the most common and the easiest to attain. From this consciousness, which goes back to the ancient Moon, comes the vast majority of what is presented in Helena Petrovna Blavatsky’s *Secret Doctrine*. All occultists who are well-versed in the subject know this. Therefore, when you go through the “Secret Doctrine,” you will find little in the extensive communications regarding archaic knowledge that goes beyond the lunar states that preceded the present Earth state.

[ 20 ] These states of dream consciousness are thus the very beginning—one might say the surrogate—that human beings on Earth have of the next, supersensible consciousness. When a person is in deep sleep, their consciousness is obscured, but this does not mean that consciousness is absent. If this deep sleep consciousness were to awaken—if it were to awaken outside the body—it would be the second supersensible consciousness, which ascends to a higher level, and this would indeed lead those who can experience it up to the state of the ancient Sun.

[ 21 ] A person who reflects a little will therefore say to themselves: Through my waking consciousness, I go about performing external movements; these are connected to my waking consciousness, to my earthly consciousness. The movements that are inner, namely the movements of the middle human being, continue even while the person is asleep; these are governed by the consciousness that the person then has, so to speak, as a deep sleep consciousness. Only, they know nothing of it. Hence the heartbeat, breathing, and such movements are connected to this second consciousness, and can only be understood internally in their full connection with the higher worlds when the human being awakens outside of their body, precisely in the deep sleep state of their body. So that the human being can actually realize through their reason that there are three such states of consciousness. It would take us too far afield now to show that there are indeed still things that point to the existence of even higher states of consciousness. In any case, we may say that the human being who reflects on what human life is like as an earthly being has at least glimpses of the higher states of consciousness. Therefore, one can also speak to the earthly being of these higher states of consciousness; one can speak of the fact that the human being experiences the ordinary events of earthly life through their everyday consciousness; that furthermore, if their dream consciousness were to undergo an immense expansion, they would experience everything connected with the laws that have been inherited from the ancient Moon into the present-day Earth; and that, if they were to awaken in deep sleep, independent of their body, they would also experience the ancient solar states in the form in which they still extend into the present-day earthly conditions. So this can be communicated, and one can describe how it manifests. It is therefore not entirely incomprehensible today to point out these things. One can awaken an understanding of what the occult aspirant explores, what he calls various states of consciousness, which are in truth different worlds.

[ 22 ] It has become customary to refer to these various states of consciousness as different “planes”; that which can be comprehended with physical consciousness is called the physical plane; that which can be comprehended with the first type of supersensible consciousness: the astral plane; that which can be comprehended with the second type of supersensible consciousness: the lower Devachan or mental plane; that which can be perceived by the third type of supersensible consciousness: the higher mental plane or higher Devachan plane. Then would follow the Budhi plane and the Nirvana plane. But with that we would merely have different names for what the occult process of development yields. And then, to tie in with mental images that are easier to form than those concerning various states of consciousness, one would actually have depicted the human being. For it is always the human being who acts in his states as belonging to the various planes or worlds. And then one would have led the knowledge, the science, the understanding of the human being from the occult standpoint—where one speaks of various states of consciousness development—to the theosophical standpoint. While the occultist speaks of states of consciousness, the theosophist speaks of successive planes. You see that in this way, occultism can be proclaimed outwardly as theosophy.

[ 23 ] The point is that, in the course of our reflections, other perspectives have also emerged, and it is necessary for us to fully address these other perspectives. For example, one of these is that, in terms of his external form, the human being is a three-fold, seven-part being. Indeed, there is not enough time to go into all the details. Recall what is stated in *The Secret Science*: that before this earthly state, the human being passed through three other states—the Moon, the Sun, and Saturn—and that the very first rudiments of the outer human physical form were already present during the ancient Saturn state, and that this physical human being was then developed further and further. If you consider this, you will say to yourself: What appears to us today as such a wonderful body has had to undergo a very long evolution; for this evolution passed through three states: Saturn, Sun, and Moon. Each of these states can be divided into seven, and each seventh part of these states has imprinted something on the human form, leaving a trace. Then you have the three times seven formative forces. Only what the human being has added during the Earth period cannot be found. But that is precisely what is fragile; that is the synthesis of the entire form; that has been shattered by Lucifer. So that when we divide the human being into three times seven members, we have there the expression of the physical human being on Earth, of what the preceding Saturn, Sun, and Moon states have imprinted on the physical human being, and we can say: We are dealing there first and foremost with the physical human being. — The occultist must observe him, as we have done in part, insofar as time has permitted, in these lectures; but the theosophist can simply be pointed to what is immediately present, and one can say: It is the physical body in the human being. — So that when we consider the human being, we are first dealing with his physical body, that complex structure which has passed through so many states and still today unfolds the imprint of these many states.

[ 24 ] But then we considered something else; we considered the human being in terms of their inner movements. And remember where that led us yesterday. One can see the form, but the movements—we already pointed out yesterday that it is difficult to distinguish there, to determine which movements are the essential ones—one does not see the movements as such. But a peculiarity of our observation has revealed, in a completely natural way, that it is precisely through this human capacity for movement that we have been led back to the ancient Sun. And now it will no longer seem strange to you when I draw your attention to the fact that everything that constitutes such inner mobility in human beings is connected with the experiences that human beings went through during the time of the ancient Sun. So while the human being, as a physical being as he appears to us, bears within himself the imprint of Saturn, the Sun, and the Moon, as an inwardly mobile being he bears within himself the forces of his inner mobility dating back to the ancient Sun era. There he has gone through the Sun era, the Moon era, and the Earth era up to the present. That which is not form but the inner basis of this mobility, we designate as the first invisible human being. One does not see this invisible human being; one sees only its outer consequences, the movements; this is referred to as the etheric human being, the etheric body. The etheric body is perceived only through a higher consciousness, but the effects of the etheric body in the physical world are the inner movements that the human being performs. So we could say: Insofar as the human being had to pass through all three states that preceded it, it has become the physical human being; insofar as it had to pass through only the solar and lunar periods, it has become the etheric human being; insofar as it has passed through only the lunar period, it has become the astral human being. Everything that led to thinking, feeling, and willing has become integrated into their movements; so that you can ascend again. If you ascend from what is inner, not physical and outer, you come to the astral human being, who as such cannot be seen, but whose inner expressions are thinking, feeling, and willing. And then we come to what the Earth has made of the human being in preparation and what it is destined to complete in the future: the full development and further shaping of his I, which has emerged in the course of Earth’s evolution and will develop into higher stages: the Spirit-Self, the Life-Spirit, the Spirit-Man—Manas, Budhi, Atma. And we have thus structured the human being himself.

[ 25 ] You can see from this that, as we come to understand human beings from all over the world, we not only encounter the various states of consciousness—which we then refer to as worlds—but we also arrive at a classification of the human being: the physical body, the etheric body, and so on. And through rational external observation of the human being, one can in turn arrive at the insight: You do not see the etheric body, but you see its manifestations here in the physical world. The manifestations of the etheric body are the movements within; the manifestations of the astral body are thinking, feeling, and willing. The “I” reveals itself. And as soon as a person is reasonable enough to grasp that the movements a person must make inwardly do not originate from the human form, cannot originate from the physical, as soon as they rise to the only reasonable thought that it must originate from the supersensible, then they also have the possibility not only to believe, but also to grasp with reason that there is an etheric body. So if one clothes occult knowledge in such forms that they speak to the general consciousness, then one has brought occultism into theosophy, clothed it in theosophical terms. Just as it is the case that in theosophy one speaks of planes, so too is it clothed in theosophical terms when one speaks of the various members of human nature. Everything that can be said about the human being is to be found through occult means. We must traverse the entire world; as occult aspirants, we must assume the various states of consciousness; then it becomes evident to us that these various states of consciousness are what first enlighten us about what the human being truly is, so that the human being can truly be understood in his essence only through occultism. Theosophy is now the attempt to clothe occult knowledge in rational truths, so that human beings can understand all of this. The things I have told you are consistent in the most manifold ways with themselves and with the world, if you examine them rationally. And in this rational examination I see that which the results gained from occultism are actually meant to confirm for you.

[ 26 ] The second point that has arisen must also be addressed so that you may see that ‘Theosophy and Occultism’ do not merely lead into contradictions—as you have already seen from the first lecture how we are to deal with contradictions—but that, upon further consideration, these contradictions are resolved. You have already seen this in various instances during these lectures; but in other instances, new contradictions might arise for you precisely from what has just been said to you again. Of course, I cannot discuss every possible contradiction today, but I will attempt to resolve one contradiction with the help of such occult insights as arise in the second, supersensory consciousness. Several of you will recall that I and others have often pointed to the Christ Being as a cosmic Being whose uniqueness surpasses that of the other founders of religions. It has been said that it is not particularly surprising that this distinctive quality of the Christ Being can be recognized primarily in the West, for the West is characterized by the historical spirit. And so, for the Earth to develop in such a way that human beings can pass through various incarnations, the West also needs a focal point for this development. And one can really only be surprised that there are Westerners who refuse to acknowledge this focal point. This focal point is precisely the Christ impulse. And anyone who were to speak of reincarnations of the Christ would be making exactly the same mistake as someone who believes that a scale should be held in place at several points. In such a case, you are doing the same thing to the Christ-being as if you were trying to make a scale move at two or three points. From this point of view, the matter is therefore infinitely simple.

[ 27 ] But there is another, moral reason that must be taken into account regarding humanity’s relationship to the Christ, who is to be regarded as the driving force behind Earth’s evolution. This other point of view is as follows: The Christ entered into this evolution at a specific moment. The people living today were also incarnated before Christ, are now incarnated again, and thus lived not only during that period of Earth’s development when Christ was not yet present, but they also live now, when Christ has been here. And the materialistic objection that is often raised—that if Christ were so important, his one-time coming to Earth would constitute an injustice—this materialistic objection falls away. People often ask: Well, how could such an injustice have occurred, that all the people who lived before Christ were not to have received the blessing of Christ, while those who live after Christ are to receive this blessing? — But these are the same people! So this objection should truly not be raised from a theosophical standpoint. But precisely in the latter lies something extraordinarily significant. For it can indeed be raised in a certain way, though only in relation to a few cases; but one of these cases where it can be raised, if you think about it carefully, is precisely the case of the Buddha.

[ 28 ] While it is true that the people scattered across the earth are born again and again and thus experience the Christ impulse in their incarnations after the time of Christ, the Buddha lived in pre-Christian times, reached the stage of development there at which he no longer needed to return to an earthly body, and thus indeed belongs to the admittedly few people who lived on this Earth and passed away before Christ came. That is simply the way it is. And now you might ask: Yes, what is the relationship between Christ and the Buddha—apart from what I mentioned yesterday, that the Buddha shines from higher worlds into the astral body of the boy Luke-Jesus—but what is the relationship between Christ and the Buddha otherwise? Is it really the case that the Buddha simply left the Earth before Christ was on Earth? That he set out on his path to Mars, so that the Buddha and the Christ, so to speak, pass each other by? — You see, we must now draw upon a deeper occult insight if we are to solve this problem. Consider what I have said. I have explained how Christ was connected to the Sun. In fact, Christ came into union with the Earth only through the baptism of John—or rather, through the Mystery of Golgotha. Christ is thus a solar spirit; before the Mystery of Golgotha took place on Earth, we must see him in connection with his realm, the Sun, where the ancient Zarathustra also sought him. And while Christ acts as ruler in the solar realm, while he has not yet extended his rule over the Earth—at least not yet through his impulse—the life of the Buddha unfolds on Earth.

[ 29 ] Now we must go back to the Buddha’s previous incarnations if we wish to gain insight. We know that the Buddha was previously a Bodhisattva, that he worked on Earth as a Bodhisattva for long ages. However, these Bodhisattvas did not possess an ordinary human soul, as we have otherwise described it; rather, there is a very special connection with these Bodhisattvas. You must recall what is described in my *Esoteric Science* regarding the beginning of our Earth’s development: that after an intermediate state between the ancient Moon and the Earth, the Sun was once again united with the Earth and the other planets, and that they subsequently separated again. So there was once a state in which the Earth was united with the Sun. Then the Earth and the Sun separated, and you know that the separation of the Moon then took place; you know how the Earth was strengthened by souls from other planets. Let us now consider the very moment when the Sun separated from the Earth. At the time this happened, the two planets Venus and Mercury were still inside the Sun, astronomically speaking. And the process is such that first the Earth separates from the Sun, with Venus and Mercury still inside it at that time; only afterward do Venus and Mercury separate from the Sun. So there were the Sun and the Earth. Development now continues on Earth. Only a small portion of humanity remains behind. Others ascend to the planets, later descending again. But beings also went along—for the world consists not only of external matter but of beings—beings went along when the Sun separated from the Earth. The leader is the Christ. For in the time of Earth’s development, when the Sun separated from the Earth, what had already taken place was what one might call the supremacy that the Christ attained over Lucifer and the other planetary spirits. Later, Venus separated, and Mercury separated. Let us consider this separation of Venus from the Sun. Along with Venus, beings separated who had initially gone along but were not capable of remaining in the Sun; they separated and populated Venus. Now, the being who underlies the later Buddha had gone along, and for these inhabitants of Venus, initially as an emissary of the Christ, the Sun. Christ first sent him to Venus, and indeed the Buddha underwent all manner of stages of development there; and when the souls then returned from Venus to Earth, the ordinary human souls were naturally little developed; but the Buddha, who returned and then descended to Earth with the Venusian souls, was such a highly developed being that he could now become a Bodhisattva and then, early on, a Buddha. Thus, in the Buddha you have an ancient emissary of Christ, whose task was to prepare the work of Christ on Earth. For the mission to the people of Venus had no other purpose than to send a forerunner from the Sun to Earth. And now you can also understand: Because the Buddha was with the Christ longer than the other Earth humans—for the Earth separated earlier— therefore he needed only that part of the Christ impulse which he still carried within him from the Sun, so that it was sufficient for the Buddha to follow the Christ event from the spiritual world with the help of the impulse he had received from the Christ on the Sun, while the other human beings had to await the Christ event on Earth. Because the Buddha had this special relationship with the Christ—because he had been sent ahead as a forerunner—he did not need to wait for the Christ event on Earth, but took with him from Earth the ability to remember, even without the Christ-means that other human beings need, what the “I” signifies on Earth, and thereby to look down from the higher worlds upon the Christ event. Thus that remarkable mission which the Buddha undertook on behalf of the Christ could be prepared for a long time in the cosmos. The Buddha was first sent to the people of Venus—and compare what I am saying now with the lectures in Helsinki—then to Earth; then he made his way back to the people of Mars and continued to work there on the long-prepared mission on Mars.

[ 30 ] On Mars, the situation is such that those humans who remained there are in great danger, just as the people of Earth were in great danger from which Christ delivered them. The Martians are in danger that—since they had no ego to develop in particular—their astral body, and thereby indirectly their etheric body as well, might lose a tremendous amount of power, might, so to speak, dry up. The entire nature of the Martians has played itself out in such a way that terrible wars have taken place on Mars. The people on Mars are very down-to-earth—the people on Earth are cosmopolitan in nature—the Martians are much more earthbound, and there are very few cosmopolitans on Mars. But on the other hand, there is—or at least there has been—a great deal of war and strife; all of this arose from the strong astral body that was not pacified by the ego. If you take all of this together, you will understand that among people who develop as is the case on Mars, there must be an immense amount of strife. Mars is merely a kind of reincarnated Moon, and since what lies within the astral body is not tempered by the pacification of the ego, these people are exceptionally warlike. The Greeks had a true insight in making Mars the god of war. One is overcome with great astonishment upon finding echoes of this in the myths; and it is a surprising thing to discover that truly immense wars did indeed rage there. One is then immensely astonished to find, even in the ancient mystery teachings, that these occult insights were already present in the terminology. So immense wars did indeed take place there. And now imagine the continuation of the life of the Buddha, this Master of compassion and love, this Master in overcoming caste distinctions, and you will understand that the Buddha truly has his mission on Mars; this mission, which consists of introducing there what the Martians cannot achieve on their own—what would appear to them as an utterly exaggerated piety, as monasticism and so on—by working upon the Martians through a magnificent example of extreme humility and gentleness, and inspiring them in this direction. I can only give you the beginnings of the picture of how the Buddha is to work on Mars. The significance, the effect of the Buddha there is truly quite similar for these Martians, who live without the ego, to that of a savior, a liberator to a higher worldview. And while on Earth a general brotherhood and love of one’s neighbor is connected in its deepest impulse with the Christ, cosmopolitanism is essentially connected with that act of salvation which the Buddha is to perform there.

[ 31 ] There is one more point I need to address before we part ways. This is the point intended to show you that the various religions on Earth—which, as is self-evident to the theosophist, all originated from a single source—merely differ in their approach to the occult revelations that can be made. One might say that every religion, when properly understood, points to a religious founder who, through that religion, has made known in a suitable way to a group of people some experience of a particular stage of initiation. There you will find, for example, a religion that is not capable of rising to the level of Christ, who is the Sun Spirit, but which has the particular capacity to rise to that all-encompassing soul that lived in the spirit who was then often incarnated as a Bodhisattva, and which thereby points specifically to the one who is, in turn, the great Initiator, the Enthusiast of the Buddha. Thus, a religion that cannot rise to the view that the Christ is the Sun Spirit and has come down to Earth. It sees, as it were, far enough to look as far as this emissary and to encompass everything that, as it were, emanates from the Sun and which, in the most eminent sense, becomes a planetary spirit; and it is, of course, quite understandable that the Buddha is designated as a planetary spirit. Such a religion, which primarily pointed to this spirit that now guides the Buddha’s own development, could only take on a form such as that of Vishnu in the Indian Trimurti. And because such a religious form has not yet penetrated to the recognition of Christ’s universal victory over Lucifer, it cannot set the figure of Lucifer in opposition to Christ in the way that is possible in the present age. Consequently, in such a religion, Lucifer appears in a certain sense alongside Christ as an independent, undefeated, and equal figure. We have seen for ourselves: Lucifer is presented as a kind of brother. This is what you have when Shiva is set against Vishnu. And I ask you to study the Shivaites now; then you will understand how one can comprehend the Shiva religion of India if one has knowledge of the Luciferic being. For Shiva is truly Lucifer in the form in which he has not yet been defeated. The entire cult, the whole religion with its sixty million followers, as the religion of Shiva, is actually to be described in the most eminent sense, from the perspective just mentioned, as a kind of Luciferic religion. You will find it understandable that all forms of occult knowledge, depending on people’s dispositions, could manifest themselves at various levels in the different religions.

[ 32 ] Now then, when you take a step back and look at the whole picture—we have discussed some of the unrevealable light, some of the inexpressible word, and we have also managed, through various detours, to arrive at consciousness without an object—now ask yourself, as you reflect on this triad: Do these three things at least express themselves in their manifestations in our world?

[ 33 ] You see, you can understand how they express themselves if you take into account everything that has been discussed in the course of these lectures. You will say to yourselves: The light appeared entirely in the character of the proud Lucifer; the light is therefore, in essence, an attribute of the spiritual, and man actually possesses the light only in its weakest expression within his thoughts when he is here on the physical plane. And where else does man have the otherwise ineffable Word when he is here on the physical plane? Well, what the ineffable Word is in the world is the utterable Word here on the physical plane, and you need not go far to reach the source from which the Word must come: it is the soul in man. So while the light gradually becomes more spiritual, the Word gradually becomes manifest in man in the soul. And consciousness without an object—how does it reveal itself in the physical human being? Through the fact that external matter acts upon him. What physical consciousness is requires the external object; it chews on the external object. Above we have found: consciousness without an object, the ineffable Word, the unrevealed Light; below we find, as the final manifestation on the physical plane, human consciousness that chews on matter; we find the soul, which reveals the word, albeit in a clouded form, and we finally find the light, which is present in the very faint form of thought in human beings, so that the clairvoyant can perceive thought as light, as a human aura—indeed, everything that comes from light—only as an aura. But in thinking, or in that which is already spiritual on the physical plane—in thinking—the final reflection of the unrevealable Light appears. So that we can say: We can express the highest things we have found by pointing to the human being, to the human being as spirit, as soul, as matter. In the spirit and in the soul together, the human being finds, once again as a unity, the image of his I. Yes, even this last thing that man finds on the physical plane—matter or substance, soul, and spirit—is a revelation of the highest Trinity. People have, after all, lost those ancient revelations of the old occultism; as occultism gradually took on its newer form, it found little external understanding anymore. In our time, it must find it again; in this time, it must become Theosophy once more.

[ 34 ] But there was an interim period when people did not look up to the occult truths that had previously been revealed to them; during that time, people did not understand what we today call ‘theosophy.’ At that time, they held fast to the last revelation, to the final effects of the Higher Trinity—matter, soul, and spirit. And it was from this perspective, which was only uprooted because it did not know the origins of the last revelations, that what actually first emerged six centuries before the Christian era and has persisted to our time arose: what one might call philosophy has emerged. And everywhere you will find that philosophy takes up the thread of the last outer manifestation of the great Trinity, which remains deeply veiled. It sees only the material life spread out before it, which human consciousness chews upon. It does not grasp the ineffable Word, but it can still sense the soul-life of the world when it reveals itself in the human soul as the spoken Word. It does not find the unrevealed Light, but it can sense it, since it appears in its ultimate effect—in human thinking, that part of the human spirit which is first turned toward the external world. Body, soul, and spirit—in the Greek spirit they appear as the threefold human being—play their great role throughout the entire age of philosophy. There was a time when the occult sciences were veiled from the outer world, theosophies were veiled, and people had held fast to the outermost revelation, to what is called body, soul, and spirit. And this age extends right into our own days; but the time of philosophy is fulfilled. The philosophers have had their age behind them. The only thing that can be philosophy today is the salvation of that within the human being which the clairvoyant must remember on the first stage of his development—it is the salvation of the I, of self-consciousness. Philosophy will have had to grasp this. Therefore, try to understand my *Philosophy of Freedom* from this perspective, where the connection is made precisely to that which must lead philosophical consciousness into the age that is now coming, and in which that which can be a more accurate reflection of the higher Trinity than philosophy must once again enter into human development—that is, theosophy must enter into human development.

[ 35 ] As you can see, the age of philosophy has run its course. Theosophy is older than philosophy. Theosophy will take the place of philosophy despite all opposition. It is, so to speak, the one with the longer span; in terms of duration, it extends beyond the age of philosophy. From a philosophical standpoint, humanity can only be viewed over a certain period of time; the age of theosophy extends further into the past and future than the age of mere philosophy. Humanity can be viewed from the standpoint of theosophy. But towering above all and penetrating completely into the essence of humanity is occultism. This occultism is what makes us fully acquainted with the human being. For occultism underlies all human knowledge. Occultism is the oldest and has the longest history. Before theosophy there was occultism; after theosophy there will be occultism. Before philosophy there was theosophy; after philosophy there will be theosophy.

[ 36 ] But you, my dear friends, must now strive to grasp, among other ideals, that you are called to understand how the philosophical ideal—which was, after all, meant for only a few people— in our time has had to merge into a new ideal, the theosophical ideal, which will be comprehensible to many people, because theosophy is able to speak to humanity from much greater depths of the human soul than abstract philosophy, which must remain abstract because it can offer only a final reflection of the original human being and its trinity. If one views the matter to which we are devoted in this way, then one views it within a necessity of world history; then one feels what Theosophy must be for modern humanity, how the threefold perspectives are in fact, for humanity and its own contemplation, perspectives of humanity that will develop one after another. And then, as you allow this thought to sink from your head into your heart, you will attain a sense of the essential, the significant, and the sacred—which is what Theosophy is meant to be for us.