The Rudolf Steiner Archive

On the body of sensation hangs the sense sensation, the power to see and to hear. Our intercourse with the environment is related to our sense sensations, how much of it we can take in, whether or not we have a well-organized ear or eye. Our perceptions are regulated by this. How much we can absorb into our inner being in a lifetime depends on this. The sentient body has significance only for one incarnation of man between birth and death; it has no more influence for the immediately next incarnation. Now the sentient soul sends its Indriyas into the perceptions. Something higher is how man processes the impressions. This is imprinted on the sentient soul; this still has meaning for the next incarnation. Something still higher is the impression that man makes on his mind soul - as memory, feeling - how one enjoys something in the mind soul, and that has significance for the third incarnation. So that man with the construction of his external senses belongs only to the present, but what he processes with them goes into other incarnations.

Those who process little will bring nothing into the next incarnation through themselves; the other adds something from within himself which has a lasting effect. Let us think of such people opposite leading individualities. Who processes little, little can be implanted in him. Through the receptive mind-soul, the achievements are taken over into the future.

What now even man works into the consciousness soul, that goes into the fourth incarnation. Concepts belong to the consciousness soul; so that concepts, which seem to be innate, are acquired before [four] incarnations. Now even the highest mental images, as we experience them about the Divine, enter into the spirit self and work into the fifth incarnation.

According to this, one can calculate how to lead humanity as an initiate. If in the fifth sub-race Theosophy should come out, in the fifth preceding race this Divine had to arise.

Those whom I can now influence through my Rishis will then be ripe to receive the same in terms - said the Manu.

What man develops in his life-mind through meditation, he takes across to his sixth incarnation. And when he has learned to act on his etheric body through meditation, he takes what he has learned as chela over into the seventh incarnation. When the spiritual man is trained, it passes over into the eighth incarnation. And the master affects the ninth incarnation.

So we see that higher beings have had influence on the etheric body for seven incarnations, and on our physical body powers from the fourth sub-race of Atlanteans through nine incarnations. Therefore, the present bodies are built up by the beings who at that time had an effect on the Atlanteans.

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Laws of evolution of the inner karma We thus see the working of the inner karma and will understand what the Manu did when he prepared in the fifth sub-race of the Atlanteans - Ur-Semites - the little cluster that became the next tribal race. Something had to be prepared that could work after the sixth - Akkadians - and the seventh sub-race of Atlanteans - Mongols - had passed, still during four incarnations. After four incarnations comes out what has been implanted in the consciousness soul: the ego.

According to this scheme, the initiates calculated the future plan of mankind.

If we wish to understand the consciousness soul of a man, we must go back to his fourth incarnation. Those natures which assert themselves with especially strong energy have acquired it by especially strong activity four incarnations ago. People who have especially clear, combining mind and special feeling directions go back to three incarnations. Something that adheres to the sentient soul, feeling of beauty, tone of voice, timbre, goes back to the previous incarnation, In the case of the person who has not made it to the spirit self, we can only go back to four incarnations. We then see that something else is acting on him.

Everything is gradual in the world; new beings are always advancing. The higher, more perfect beings act upon those bodies of man over which he himself has no influence. Therefore his lower bodies are better organized than his astral body. The astral body is the result of human karma. Etheric body and physical body partly also, but other beings must cooperate, so that a special etheric body and physical body correspond to this astral body. We have seen that chelas can act on their etheric body, and masters, adepts on their physical body. On [every] human etheric body and physical body chelas and masters can also act. The difference is that the human being acts unconsciously, whereas the chela and master act consciously.

There are entities that still rise above these. On what do they have influence? On still higher things in man. Before man became a physical being, he was an etheric being and even earlier an astral being. Now nothing is lost on earth. What exists, remains, only it takes higher forms. The former etheric and astral bodies of men have become general; they work together as the astral bodies of the different nations. As masters work on our physical body, higher entities work on these "racial bodies"; "angels of circulating times>" they are called. They are the great regulators of national developments. They condition the appearance of a certain individuality in a nation - Luther, Bismarck. So there is more at play than human karma; it is intelligent direction.

Higher up is an even greater spirit, whose body is a mental one. In Christian esotericism they are called the "Archangels of the Circulating Times": seven great regulators of religious systems. Each sub-race has a system. The archangels together form the choir that regulates our root race: a choir of seven genii.

When you go up to the Arupa region, there we have what is called the body of genius that governs the whole root race; still higher, the genius that governs the whole round. Thus we come up to the seven who stand before the throne of God. All esotericism has this hierarchical division up to the top.

If we go back to the leader in the third root-race - Lemuria - who gave the impact to the impregnation with Manas, we see that it is a power even higher than the archangels of the circulating times. <"Exusiai> are called these powers, beings who regulate knowledge, while the archangels still regulate [in the unconscious] the religious.

So we see that the world becomes "entities" through and through. [Inwardly with its own body, outwardly other beings regulate karma]. He who does not know that everything is entity around him, does not know that from everywhere comes the counteraction to his action.

Astral Man
Ether man
Physical man
Etheric body
Astral body

We have come to know the supreme elemental realm as a realm of radiant colors. When we look at the wonderfully glittering world in connection with a state of consciousness, we get a correct mental image of it. It is a consciousness that directly expresses itself. Human consciousness is very subordinate, it only perceives the object from the outside, as in a mirror. The divine consciousness radiates light from itself. It is called emanation, as opposed to evolution, which is development.

Now, if something emanates from itself, it can be thought that the further the rays go, the lower its consciousness becomes,

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The amount of light that used to be in the points is now distributed around the perimeter. By the fact that the light becomes thinner and thinner, the consciousness becomes smaller and smaller, and thereby the first elementary realm passes into the second. This gives rise to the material - a consciousness that becomes weaker and weaker. In the third elemental realm, we have an even more attenuated consciousness, that is, an even more intensifying material.

When the circle spreads out so that a straight line is formed, the mineral kingdom is formed. In the mineral kingdom, the radiance has lost its power. But we now have four kingdoms: the first, second, third elemental kingdoms and the mineral kingdom. Consciousness is where it is directly radiant, luminous, with the emanation on one and the same plane. If we go to the second elementary kingdom, the consciousness is one plan higher than the substance. And if we pass into the third elementary kingdom, the consciousness is two planes higher than the substance; and in the mineral kingdom the consciousness is three planes higher than the substance it directs. The curvature of the substance becomes a balancing. If we go further, the consciousness does not move higher, but begins to grasp the substance from the other side. Gravitation arises instead of emanation. Matter clenches again.

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On the fifth stage we have the plant kingdom. We are still experiencing gravity. When a stone falls to the earth, it attracts it. This is the same force that actually only really comes into its own in the plant kingdom. If the gravitation advances, the counter image to the second elementary kingdom arises - the animal kingdom. If now the substance moves together again with the consciousness, then we have to do it with the human kingdom.

In the human being the center of gravity is his I, to which he refers everything. There again his center of consciousness coincides with the material. Let us consider the development of man from here:

Saturn: the development of the physical body in the first elementary kingdom. A radiating light vein. When the development comes from Saturn to the Sun, man undergoes this radiance, and the physical body enters the second elemental kingdom; on the Moon, the third elemental kingdom. On Earth, the physical body is in the mineral kingdom.

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On Saturn, man does not yet have an etheric body; it develops only on the Sun, it is there in the first elemental kingdom, it is the same radiating entity. On the Moon the etheric body is in the second elementary kingdom, on the Earth it is in the third elementary kingdom.

The astral body is not yet present on Saturn, nor on the Sun. It develops in the first elementary realm on the Moon; on Earth it develops into the second elementary realm. After the astral body we come to the ego. This enters the first elemental realm only on earth.

When we now ascend, we come to the development on Jupiter. There the physical body of man passes from the mineral kingdom to the plant kingdom. In exchange, the etheric body will move up into the mineral kingdom. The astral body moves up from the second to the third elementary kingdom, the ego from the first to the second elementary kingdom.

On Venus, the physical body moves on into the animal kingdom, that is, it is master of pleasure and pain. The etheric body is then in the plant kingdom, the astral body in the mineral kingdom, and the ego is in the third elemental kingdom.

Now we move on to the volcano. There it[, the physical body,] is in the actual human kingdom, the etheric body is then in the animal kingdom, the astral body in the plant kingdom, and the ego in the mineral kingdom. To be in the mineral kingdom means: to bring forth such matter from itself, as for example this table.

It brings forth physical matter around itself. Then it makes plants grow upon it; makes animals walk upon it. And at last it calls forth man. The ego has then become planetary spirit itself.

All planets are mineral-become “I”s.

[What is radiant planetary matter are I's become mineral.]

In the Middle Ages we often hear of the art of making gold and of the philosopher's stone. Such things, though connected with quite deep questions of life, are often misunderstood by people who know nothing of higher things. By "philosopher's stone" one understood in former times the production of some mineral, which was able to prolong the life by medicinal ingestion. Gold, as it is found on earth today, has in fact not always existed in the same form, but first had completely different forms and then gradually changed into gold. It is more difficult with gold to bring it into a liquid state than with lead, for example, but there is also liquid gold, which runs like water at high temperature. You can liquefy it still further, then gold clouds develop, which cover the planet, and if you volatilize it more and more, from gold - sunlight develops. So that we have in gold a substance which was formed inside the earth by the solidification of sunlight in the same way as ice was formed by the solidification of water.

When the earth was still sun, the gold was sunlight. It was only by splitting off the sun that the earth became so cold that the rays of light remaining in it solidified into gold. The miner still knows this, and he treats the gold in this way. On the moon the gold became a little more rigid than it was on the sun; it ran in streams on the surface of the moon. On the earth it became veins of gold and crossed the earth as the veins of blood cross the man. When the earth time was there, it happened in such a way that man himself could take up all that which had previously solidified into gold. The light gained this meaning for man. When man sucked fire in and out, it glowed through him and permeated him with the substance contained in the sunlight. The sucking in and out of the fire is a process which was externally connected with luminous and light phenomena; man was then a shining and glittering man. Remnants of it are in the beings that cause the sea luminescence and also in the firefly. Man has lost this luminosity by sucking the warmth into himself. In the post-Lemurian time we already have the warm man, and now the way back begins. When man develops physically, he will not only develop the warmth in himself, but will radiate it again and illuminate his surroundings like a sun. Then he will radiate the light like the sun used to do, and the earth can evolve. On the earth, which later becomes Jupiter, he radiates the luminous gold power, so that man will be the creator of gold. Thus, through his own development, man becomes the chemical laboratory that creates gold. Man becomes the planetary spirit and then brings forth what the planet has brought forth. A material transformation is really going on with him, and so he becomes the source of gold. Through meditation and concentration we generate the forces that lead to this. So that today for the mankind these spiritual operations are the natural forces, by which he prepares later material transformations. Today, even a Christ could not materially produce gold directly in our physical earth, because you cannot produce anything that the environment does not absorb.

The art of making gold was conceived quite materially in the Middle Ages. One did not wait, did not extend spirituality to many incarnations, but merely to one, and thereby materialized.

[Let us now come to the] philosopher's stone. To anyone who has not practiced occultism, the writings about it seem as if written by a madman. In the eighteenth century one described it in the "Imperial Gazetteer" and said, "He who knows it only once finds it everywhere; you have it in your room, find it in the street, hold it in your hand. - So he describes him as something that you just don't know what it is. It is erwas, which, if man will be able to generate it through himself, will make him truly immortal.

We know that man is placed in the whole nature, that he is dependent on the plant world. He inhales oxygen, exhales carbonic acid; the plant, on the other hand, assimilates carbonic acid and exhales oxygen. Thus man and plant complement each other. What the human being expels, the plant builds up its body from. It goes without saying that there must be light before the plant can build up its body; but when that is there, it builds it up from the carbonic acid. Such a plant is a strange chemical laboratory. The main substance is carbonic acid; what salts it takes up are secondary. Carbonic acid consists of carbon and oxygen. The plant retains the carbon and releases the oxygen. Man combines the oxygen with his carbon and pushes it away from him. We can see this when we dig plants out of the ground after millions of years; what do we find? We find coal. The plant has in fact incarnated into the coal, and the coal is its corpse, its lunar body. If we were to follow what the plant world would do if left to its own devices, we would see that the earth would be transformed into a coal planet.

Now we have seen that man is transforming the mineral kingdom, that he is plowing the earth with the same forces with which the mineral kingdom works. When the earth steps out of its present round, man has completely transformed it, then the fifth round begins with the plant kingdom [as the lowest kingdom]. Then man will do to the plant kingdom what he is now doing to the mineral kingdom: he will work through it and incarnate in it. And thus the laboratory powers of the vegetable kingdom will pass into him, and he will, out of his own powers, transform the planet into coal. Thus we have reached the point where the human kingdom becomes immortal. No longer will man move in and out of a body, as is the case with his mineral incarnations, but as a spirit being he will assimilate the substance and move out again, thus forming the planet out of his own substance. Of course, the coal will then be present in the fine form of the present diamond; man forms his diamond planet, which he permeates with the gold veins, as formerly the sun permeated his earth planet with gold veins. Man becomes planetary spirit. Thus we must understand Kortum when he says that we hold the philosopher's stone perpetually in our hand: It is coal.

In addition to the seven known forms of consciousness, there are five more, twelve levels in total. The consciousness of deep trance, dreamless sleep consciousness, dream sleep consciousness, waking consciousness, psychic consciousness, super-psychic consciousness, spiritual consciousness.

Spiritual consciousness on the volcano is so high that the person becomes a kind of creator. But what about the higher beings that have begun to develop even higher abilities than merely knowing, doing and creating everything? With spiritual consciousness, the person would be a magician, he could create beings. But there is one thing he still cannot do: emanate from his own being, give off substance. That is the ability of the five higher levels of consciousness: the ability not only to shine, to radiate light, but to radiate matter, to give off one's own substance.

We can distinguish between emanating consciousness, perceiving consciousness and active consciousness, that is, consciousness that creates forms. When we create forms, substance is already there; we merely give it form. When we perceive, form is already there; we emanate images. When we have emanating consciousness, we let the substance itself flow out.

The actual emanating consciousness is the stages twelve, eleven, ten and nine of consciousness; the stages of perceiving consciousness are eight, seven, six, five, and of forming consciousness four, three, two, one. Before something is formed or perceived, something must first be there, and therefore the emanating consciousness first has the task of radiating the material for such a world, of spinning the material out of itself, so to speak. This is called the 'first emanation': the emanating consciousness emits the substance. The substance should not be underestimated; it arises from the sacrifice of a higher consciousness. Where does the substance come from? It comes from where the future substance will come from, it comes from consciousness.

The second thing that happens is that the forming consciousness intervenes; that is the 'second emanation'. And when this forming consciousness has created forms, the perceiving consciousness can take them up – the 'third radiation'. The first emanation that emanates the material is also called the third logos; the forming one that builds the plastic figures is called the second logos; and the perceiving consciousness is called the first logos. Christian esotericism calls the world of the third logos, in which the gods sacrifice their consciousness, radiate: the heavenly world; the world of the second logos: the underworld; and the world of the first logos: the human world.

Let us apply these general concepts to our own humanity. On Saturn, we have the emanation of a matter; on the Moon, the emanation of a spirit. The spirits of will emanate matter out of their consciousness. The human body is formed out of this matter. The primal forces – Asuras – first embody themselves in it; they become human, so to speak. [Christian Science also calls the spirits of the personality primal forces.] On the sun, it is the spirits, the Sons of Fire, the Agnishvattas, who become men. On the moon, the spirits of the twilight, the Lunar Pitris, become men. On the earth, men become real men. On Jupiter, lower beings become men – these are the evil ones. Man rises higher, becomes an angel in a certain sense; on Venus he becomes an archangel and on Vulcan a primal power.

We now have to fall back on radiating matter on the part of the spirits of will. From this matter the physical body is formed on Saturn, transformed on the Sun, on the Moon and on the Earth, and now it begins to crumble, to peel off from the human being - when he becomes an angel, an angel of light. We have an analogy in the coral colony; it is rooted in the water, more and more lime is deposited on it, and more and more little animals form on it, which die; the coral grows as a result. In this way our planet will deposit more and more coal.

Nothing is without matter; when one loses itself, a new one, albeit thinner, must take its place. People move into the angelic stage, lose physical matter, but maintain the etheric body. Etheric matter forms the body up to the volcano, where it loses itself, as does physical matter here.

The other beings, who were already higher, will naturally continue to ascend. The spirits of twilight – Lunar Pitris – are on Earth one step higher than humans, and accordingly, they progress upwards. This level of entities will not only be endowed with spiritual consciousness on Vulcan, but also on Venus. On the level before that, on Jupiter, the Agnishvattas – archangels – have spiritual consciousness. And still one level earlier, on Earth, the elemental forces – Asuras – have their spiritual consciousness, so that in the normal course on Earth, those spirits of personality who had reached their humanity on Saturn attain their spiritual consciousness. They are endowed with free will, so they can stray here. Therefore, here on Earth, the battle takes place between the elemental forces that turn away and those who follow their ascent. This battle between the elemental forces of light and those of darkness is described in the Bhagavad Gita and the Book of Enoch. It takes place at the moment of human incarnation. Two elemental forces are born, one group under the leadership of the descending one, another group under the leadership of the ascending one; the latter is called Christ by Christian esotericism.

[Do you remember the image?] The plant represents the inverted human being. In the plant, the head is directed downwards; in the human being, it is directed upwards. The incarnation is an inversion. As a lower being, the human being was directed head downwards; later, he turned upwards. When we remember Hephaestus, it is an image of the crumbling away of the parts that are directed downwards. Hephaistos is wounded by the evil leader. The good primal power — Christ — shines forth from the earth from humanity in the forefront with a consciousness that will only be granted to man himself on Vulcan. Christ is the first to reveal himself from the new matter emanating from earthly existence. The first to manifest in the new matter independently of the old matter is Christ. This manifestation is called: the birth out of the virgin matter [or out of the Virgin]; out of the second Logos, the beginning of the Gospel of John.

Thus, the appearance of Christ on earth is the center of the whole evolution. It is a cosmic event that has significance for the whole evolution.

Incarnation or reincarnation is not the same thing in all cases. A reincarnation we call the life between birth and death. It is only arbitrary to say that man died after death and his incarnation is here. Let us think of an entity that never incarnated on earth and never incarnated in the astral; such an entity would observe man in the devachan. It would see man disappear when he went to earth, and would then see him arrive again. This being would say: He is born when he arrives and he dies when he disappears. It depends entirely on the point of view of the observer. When a student of occultism develops higher knowledge, devachanic seeing, the first thing he comes to know in devachan is the area between death and a new birth that man goes through. That is why it is said that what a seer first sees is in the midst of Devachan. When he comes up still higher, even the planetary chain with its manvantaras does not light up for him, but first the pralayas become bright. It is important because now we have to ascend to another kind of reincarnation, namely one that does not have devachan and pralaya in the sense that man does - these are the racial spirits.

Let us take the spirits of the fifth sub-race of the Atlanteans, and the first, second, third and fourth sub-races of the Aryans, that is, five spirits which are much higher in their development than man. Because they are much higher, they incarnate somewhat differently. With them the course of life is no longer interrupted by birth and death. Man will later also come into such kinds of incarnation. Such a being does not die, but his body becomes weaker and weaker, and while it becomes weaker, a second one builds up. In the case of man, it is intermittent cycles that he has to go through. The racial spirit builds a second, then a third [body] when the previous one is in decay. The body consists of the individuals of a race. In this process, one race does not die so suddenly, but it decays very gradually, while the other one rises. This is how the racial spirit leads across. In man there is an alternation between the life on earth and the life in Devachan. In the center of the Devachan life the outer earthly life explains itself; therefore also in the center between the incarnations the explanation will have to be fetched for that which incarnates itself. This is indeed also the case with the race spirit. The race spirit will likewise find its explanation through certain points. [This is to occupy us now.

Think of the following]: If man wants to have an explanation for himself, for his life, he looks to Devachan. If he wants to have an explanation for the race, there must be an opportunity in the race itself for the spirit of the race to reveal itself. This is indeed what happens. In certain points the spirit of the race reveals itself. What did it have to tell us in the fifth sub-race of the fourth root race? That at a certain point the cosmic upward leader would appear, namely, that Christ would reveal Himself.

What comes out in man in the devachan is the human manas. The racial spirit is one step higher; as the redeeming word, what comes out is what corresponds to manas in man, and that is Budhi, the Word. So that the whole fifth root race urges to reveal the word of Christ. Every time in the interstices between the five sub-races under consideration, the message of the coming Christ is proclaimed anew, and this proclamation is called the Gospel for the whole root race. And the blessed race spirit between the fifth sub-race of the fourth root race and the first of the fifth root race is called Matthew; the second, between the first and second sub-race: Mark; the third, between the second and third: Luke; and the fourth, between the third and fourth sub-race: John. That is why it always says "according to Matthew." That's why there are four Gospels, because there are four intermediate states, four Good News between the [five] sub-races.

The first Gospel represents, as it were, the physical incarnation, therefore it also narrates the [generational succession] of Christ. The second Gospel represents the etheric body of the race; it is conferred by the race body being purified, The Gospel of Luke is the proclamation from the kamic side. The Gospel of John is the most spiritual of all. Irenaeus has been completely misunderstood. [He has stated how many of the Gospels are to be held as the correct ones, and considered it arbitrary. But this is not correct.]

We have seen that the event of the birth of Christ on earth has a cosmic significance; it is central to planetary evolution. The whole astral body of the Earth has undergone a change since Christ appeared on Earth. Before that it was only possible to look into higher worlds through the mysteries and prophetic schools. It was not possible before such an appearance as the conversion of Saul into Paul, [it was not possible] that through the astral the higher worlds were seen. Such a nature initiation was possible only because through the death of Christ the astral substance of the earth had changed. Christ had made Himself a body out of the etheric sphere of the earth at the appearance of Damascus, and in that body He appeared to Paul.

The question is always raised whether Paul was a real initiate or not. In fact, he was from the moment of the appearance, but not like the ancient prophets and initiates, but by an immediate natural event. Through this he was called to his mission. We will understand everything in his sermons when we come to understand the impression that this apparition made on him. Through it he was led to present the relation of Christ to men in the light of grace.

Grace, in the original Christian sense, is exactly the same as what in theosophical language is called the Budhi. Budhi can therefore be called grace: Man is born in ever succeeding incarnations. When he has balanced the karma, his manas is pure and free, so that one can say: Man attains manas through righteousness. Through justice, the balancing of karma is there. The Budhi he receives as a new thing by flowing in from above. Budhi was called Caritas. The ancient prophets and initiates depended on acquiring manas first. Christianity, as it were, drops a ray of Budhi upon men, before which karma is removed, so that men feel it as a grace. And such as Paul especially feel the grace because they have received a great stream of Budhi.

The second important thing for Paul was that for him Christ was the Living One who overcame death. He had not believed in Jesus in his previous life. Everything he heard told from Jerusalem in Tarsus did not convince him. He was only convinced by what he had had as a living experience. He appeals everywhere to the fact that Christ is risen, that he is the living one, to his very own experience. All he assures is that people can reach their goal, that they can be transformed by the living Christ. This is the great magic that comes from Paul. Now Paul first proclaimed the doctrine outside in the world as far as he could, preached everywhere in this sense, moreover founded a secret school in Athens where Christian esotericism was taught. There was his great disciple Dionysius the Areopagite; he was so called because he [belonged to the Areopagus]. This Dionysius also founded the doctrine of the so-called Christian hierarchy. We know that he was a great Christian esotericist who exerted a great influence on later Christian teaching by presenting the dhyanic natures, superhuman entities, cherubim and seraphim, to his disciples. Until the sixth century was taught this doctrine, which he never wrote down. Always every head of such a school was called again Dionysius. It was not until the sixth century that such a Dionysius wrote down the doctrine in books, as far as it could be presented externally. Those who are not esotericists consider Dionysius as not a real personality, deny the matter, and therefore speak of PseudoDionysius. But this is folly.

[I said], Dionysius founded, besides Christian esotericism, the so-called Christian hierarchy. He says there exist hierarchically superimposed groups of spirits. Now if the church is to mean something special, it must be an earthly image of this heavenly hierarchy, and so he then arranged the earthly hierarchy. It was thought noble, not in the sense of the later degenerations. Now two currents asserted themselves in the church. One was founded on the fact that the higher self is to be born out of the personality.

It was mainly founded on letting this higher self be born in every man as the Christ. This was the Arian current. It was somewhat premature at that time, and quite in vain did the presbyter Arius advocate it at the Nicene Council, for what is Arius' teaching will not be able to be born out of the devotional personality until the sixth subrace. As a seed, as a germ it was present among the Eastern peoples, first appears among the Goths. The Bible translation of Wulfilas was held in the sense; the whole East was Arian. It was an early, advanced post - theosophy of that time.

The other current was Athanasianism. This one built the higher self not on the individual personality, but on the organization of the Church. And there the door was opened to degeneracy. Therefore, from early on we have to distinguish between the external course of the church and the recurring attempt to deepen Christianity. The first important phenomenon is Augustine. He transformed the teaching of St. Dionysius of Areopagita into an inward mysticism, so that in St. Augustine one can find a truly deep theosophical mysticism. But at the same time he emphasized the principle of the Papal State; and equally great are the mystical writings of Augustine as well as the "Civitate Dei". Thus, for the time being, the victory of Athanasianism was definitely given, for by the fact that Augustine, the great Father of the Church, advocated the principle of Church authority, the whole Middle Ages had to be based on this authority. "I would not accept the truth of Christianity if the Church did not compel me to do so." In this saying of Augustine lies germinal the dogma of infallibility. Then we see the teaching of Dionysius once again deepened, meteorically shining forth in the great Scotus Eriugena, who lived at the court of Charles the Bald in France. In his great, important writing "De divisione naturae" he has in a genuinely Dionysiusian manner expounded the doctrine of man and the superordinate entities. For this he was literally pinched to death with pincers by his priest comrades.

Then, via Spain, the ancient secret doctrine reaches Europe: one learned about the mysteries in a certain sense through the Jewish-Arabic Kabbalists, and it became necessary to bring the Christian doctrine into a certain harmony with what had come over. The form of teaching that had come over was a highly spiritual one. Thus Christianity itself had to become highly spiritual. It had to be all worked out in fine terms, and this was done by scholasticism, which thus flourished from the twelfth to the fourteenth century.

Scholasticism is the spiritualization of the intellect. It is paralleled by a spiritualization of the mind; it is expressed in two pages. It begins with the French mystics, the two Saint-Victors and the very learned chairman of the Council of Constance, Gerson, before whom Huss had to answer, and the German mystics from Meister Eckhart to Valentin Weigel. Then in the fifteenth century the doctrine was renewed once again by the German Nicholas of Cusa.

Then came the time when science went its own way, when everything was explained physically, starting from Copernicus, and thus the spiritual part of knowledge was misjudged. The consequence of this was that Luther wanted to protect faith from science and therefore said, so to speak: religion has nothing at all to do with science, it has to base itself only on the letter of the Bible.

And after that came the centuries where science and religion came more and more into opposition. This brought about in the nineteenth century the sharp antagonism between religiosity and materialism, of which theosophy is supposed to be the balance,

It is always necessary to a kingdom of nature that three certain forces be processed by the beings of this kingdom of nature. Thus, the mineral kingdom processes the chemical forces. The plant kingdom depends on the light; certainly also heat is necessary, but it remains in the environment, the light processes the plant directly. The animal kingdom processes the heat, the fire. Then in the human kingdom the sound is processed. All processing is done through organs. Through leaves, the light is processed into the plant, and this creates the pigment chlorophyll, green color. Animal life warmth is produced by the heart. The heart is the organ through which the heat passes into the human and animal body, it works the heat around. The heart, like the other human organs, is built symmetrically. Actually, man has two hearts separated by a septum. Each half of the heart is in turn separated by a septum into atrium and actual heart, so that one has to distinguish four spaces: Atrium and ventricle, connected by the valve, and right and left heart. Now from the left ventricle goes the great vein, aorta, upward first; then the aorta sends a branch that supplies the brain. Another branch goes throughout the body, supplying the abdominal region through a fine vein. Other branches go down into the limbs, and then they come into the right atrium. From the brain, a branch goes back into the right atrium. This is the great circulation.

From the right ventricle goes the small circulation; the branch goes directly into the lungs and coming back from the lungs goes into the left atrium, then through the left valve into the left ventricle. In the lungs, the blood is renewed; it breathes in the oxygen, the blue blood goes through the combustion process and starts its cycle again as red blood. Combustion always means the combination of a substance with the oxygen of the air. What goes on in the lungs is a process of combustion; a real relationship that develops between the individual animal body and the whole air is what happens. Just as the plant consumes light, so the animal consumes fire; it is a heating of the body. The higher process is that which then takes place in man alone - animals have merely a disposition of it - that is sound.

These three links represent a connection between microcosm and macrocosm. The big circuit that goes through the whole body is called microcosm; the single being and the small circuit represent the connection with the macrocosm. There are transitions between individual beings: Fishes have no lungs and also no heart so developed, therefore the fish has alternating warmth, the warmth of its environment. The heart gradually works its way out in the reptile; the lungs work their way out of the swim bladder, from an aquatic organ into an air organ.

Everything in the world is based on this connection between microcosm and macrocosm. The connections made in this way make it clear that it is impossible for human beings to be separated from the larger world. It is impossible for man to exist without air. It is illusion to believe that man is more independent than his hand. He, too, can live only in connection with the great organism. It belongs to the earth as the hand belongs to man. The heart is a kind of brain for the future. This can also be understood already now. The brain is merely a bulge of the nervous system. Now there is not only this nervous system in the human body, but also the solar plexus, the sympathetic nervous system. There are two smaller strands on the spinal cord, they spread out, and their task is to supply all involuntary movements of the human being, which are connected with digestion, respiration and so on, plexus solaris. In lower animals this sympathetic nervous system has a much greater importance, because it precedes the actual formation of the heart, as for example in the intestinal animals, they are also called plant animals. Now the heart is formed with its nervous system and makes the creature self-sufficient, which develops its brain.

Three things we can say:

First: The world creates a being through the sympathetic nervous system.

Second, it gives it the opportunity to become self-sufficient through the heart.

And thirdly, the cerebral nervous system is formed, whereby that which formerly acted upon the heart from without, acts outwardly from the brain through the heart. As to the sympathetic nervous system corresponds light, so to the brain corresponds inner light, and between the two stands heat.

When one learns Theosophy today, one often feels it to be something completely new. Neither a man who has graduated from the theological, nor one who has graduated from the philosophical faculty, will ever have heard of these relations of man to the rest of nature. Yet there is nothing in our present science that contradicts these teachings. Everything that is taught today only gets a hand and foot when it is built on the basis of Theosophy. The future development will be such that Theosophy will spread over all branches of knowledge. It will not take very long, because the development does not always go at the same speed; at the beginning it goes rapidly, slows down, and when it is past the middle, it goes up again rapidly. This can be proved by following things on the astral plan. From Charlemagne to the eighteenth century, there were many discoveries. Nevertheless, in these thousand years the development does not contain more than in the hundred years that have gone on since the end of this development. However, it is now going ten times as fast as in the time of Charlemagne. From this we can infer that it will not be very long before the Theosophical worldview will draw wide circles around it.

One does not find this knowledge any more with those who are determined "ex officio" to it. It was not always so. In the year 83 a man was born who had a great influence on the development of Christianity. In every line of this man we find a theosophical teaching. Now, however, he was the purest churchman. He saw in the church the purest embodiment of Christianity. From this we see that there was a theosophist as the tone-setting church teacher in those days. If you keep the terms fluid, only then you will understand the different theosophies of the world. It is not the way of expression but the meaning that must be emphasized. The doctrine of the sevenfold constitution of man is found in Augustine. He starts from the soul. It was common at that time to divide man into the well-known three members: Body, Soul and Spirit. These three parts presented themselves to the church father approximately like three liquids, which one mixes together and then can no longer distinguish from each other. Thus Augustine gets seven members out. They correspond to the sevenfold division of the theosophists. By also acquiring such views, our own insight becomes deeper and deeper.

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From the scheme we see that we need do nothing but study our own Christianity. Augustine had predecessors: Justin the Martyr; then Origen taught especially clearly. He explicitly taught the pre-existence of the soul. A philosophical foundation for Christianity was needed because Arab philosophers were gradually arriving from Spain. These had thorough knowledge in the occidental philosophy, namely of Aristotle. This also forced the Christian teachers of the Middle Ages to study Aristotle and base Christianity on him. Averroes and Maimonides were the names of the Arab philosophers. Under the compulsion of Aristotle, the initial doctrine of the soul came into Christianity.

The Celtic remnants first seized Christianity with power. The purest and most vigorous Christianity until the tenth century was taught in Ireland, England and Scotland. A beautiful monastic life developed there. The missionaries who spread Christianity in Central Europe were all from this area. Why is it in the Celtic monasteries that Christianity takes its beautiful, powerful form? In the ancient Druidic mysteries there were the same teachings. As a secret service, the teachings of the Druids were still present until the age of Queen Elizabeth. What was taught in the Druid Mysteries was the same as what is in Theosophy and Christianity. They basically got their own teaching, only in different words. Only one thing was new, which gave the great impetus to this wise mission. They had been told: We are there for the preparation of a future religion; our religion will give way to a greater one. As with the prophets of the Old Testament, Christianity was expected, foretold in the Druid Mysteries. Now they had what was expected. In Christianity came what had been predicted for millennia. The tragic train comes because the doctrine of the twilight of the gods exists; the old gods must give way to a new religion.

The teacher to whom the Irish and Scottish monks mainly go back is Beda Venerabilis. With him one finds similar things like the teachings of the carbon. In the Middle Ages one has forgotten this so that one does not understand any more what one reads with the great spirits. All this will revive Theosophy.

Myths are stories containing great truths, which great initiates have related to men. The Trojan War, for instance, is the narrative of the battle waged between the third and the fourth sub-race of the fifth root-race. The representative of the former is Laocoon, priest of an ancient priest-kingdom, who was at the same time a king.¹ The representative of the latter is Odysseus, the personification of cunning and of the force of thinking which developed within the fourth subrace.

We find that initiates lead the course of evolution also in the North. In Wales we come across a brotherhood of initiates of the pagan period, a priesthood and knighthood culminating in King Arthur and his Round Table. They are faced by the brotherhood of the Holy Grail and its knights, working on behalf of the spreading of Christianity. Art and the development of politics are all connected with great initiates belonging to these two brotherhoods, representing a pagan and a Christian civilisation. The influence of the Holy Grail gradually begins to increase toward the end of the thirteenth century. This is a special turning-point in the civilisation of Europe: cities begin to be founded. The ancient rural civilisation, based on the possession of landed property, is replaced by a city-civilisation, a bourgeois civilisation. This implies a radical change in the whole life and thinking of men.

It is therefore not devoid of meaning if just at the time of the meister-singers' contest on the Wartburg a legend from Bavaria should have come to the fore—the legend of Lohengrin. What was the significance of this legend during the Middle Ages?

At the present time we no longer have the slightest idea of how a medieval soul was constituted; it was particularly receptive for spiritual currents flowing below the surface of things. We find to-day that the Lohengrin legend specially emphasizes the Catholic standpoint. But this element which may disturb us today should make us consider the fact that during the Middle Ages this legend could only have influenced men if clothed in something which was really able to stir human souls. This garment had to be supplied by the ardent religious feeling of that period, so that the legend contained something of what lived within the human hearts. What was the significance of the legend?

An initiation—the initiation of a disciple who advances to the degree of a Teacher.

Such a disciple must first of all become a man who has no country and no home; that is to say, he fulfils his duties just like other men, but he must strive to look beyond his own Self and develop his higher Ego.

What are the characteristics of a disciple?

1. He must overcome everything that is personal and develop the God within him.

2. He must be free from every doubt. The things pertaining to the spiritual world stand before his soul as true facts.

   He must also be free from every superstition since he himself is able to control everything he can no longer fall a prey to illusions.

   Upon a still higher stage the key of knowledge will be delivered to him. He is then said to have acquired the power of speech and becomes a messenger of the super-sensible world. The depths of the spiritual world are then revealed to him. This is the second stage.

3. The third stage is reached when he says “I” to every being in the world, just as he says “I” to himself. At this stage he has risen to the capacity of encompassing the universe. In mysticism a disciple who has reached the third stage is designated as a Swan, he is then a mediator between the Teacher and human beings.

The Swan-Knight therefore appears to us as an emissary of the great White Brotherhood. Thus Lohengrin is the messenger of the Holy Grail. A new impulse, a new influence was destined to enter human civilisation. You already know that in mysticism the human soul, or human consciousness, always appears as a woman. Also in this legend of Lohengrin the new form of consciousness, the civilisation of the middle classes, the progress made by the human soul, appears in the vestige of a woman. The new civilisation which had arisen was looked upon as a new and higher stage of consciousness. Elsa of Brabant personifies the medieval soul. Lohengrin, the great initiate, the Swan of the third degree of discipleship, brings with him a new civilisation inspired by the community of the Holy Grail. He must not be asked any questions, for it is a profanation and a misunderstanding to place questions to an initiate concerning things which must remain occult.

The influence of great initiates always brings about the promotion to new stages of consciousness. As an example illustrating how these initiates work, I will remind you of Jacob Böhme. You already know that Jacob Böhme proclaimed great, profound truths. Whence did he obtain his wisdom? He relates that when he was still an apprentice, he was one day sitting alone in his master's shop. A stranger entered and asked for a pair of shoes. Jacob, however, was not allowed to sell shoes during his master's absence. The stranger spoke a few words with him and then he went away. After a while, however, he called the boy Böhme out of the shop and told him: “Jacob, now you are still small and humble, but one day you will be quite another person, and the world will marvel at you!” What is implied in this?

It is an initiation, the description of a moment of initiation. At first, the boy does not realize what has happened to him, but he has received an impulse.

Also in the legend of Lohengrin we come across such a moment of initiation. These legends are important indications, which can only be understood by those who possess an Insight into the connections of things.

The Lohengrin legend (as explained, it is connected with the legend of the meister-singers) has a decidedly Catholic character. Richard Wagner used it for his Lohengrin poem. This reveals Richard Wagner's high inner calling.

Wagner used another ancient legend-theme in his Ring of the Nibelungs. These ancient Germanic legends set forth the destiny of the Aryan tribe. We must seek the origin of the Ring legends in a period which followed the great Atlantean flood, when the surviving peoples began to migrate over Europe and Asia. These legends are a reminiscence of the great initiate Wotan, the god of the Aesir. Wotan is an initiate of the Atlantean period, and all the other Aryan gods are only great initiates.

We can clearly distinguish three stages in Wagner's treatment of the Siegfried legend.

The first stage is a description of modern civilisation. In Richard Wagner's eyes modern men have become mere day-labourers of civilisation. He sees the great difference between modern human beings and those of the Middle Ages. Modern achievements are in part produced by machines, whereas during the civilisation of the Middle Ages everything was still an expression of the soul. The house, the village, the city, and everything it contained, was full of significance and men rejoiced in it. What do our storehouses, warehouses and cities mean to us to-day? In the medieval period the house was the expression of an artistic idea; the whole street-picture, with the market and the church in the middle, was the expression of the soul.

Wagner felt this contrast, and what he wished to achieve through his art was to place before man something which would make him appear complete and perfect at least in one sphere. In his Siegfried he wished to portray a perfectly harmonious human being in contrast to the labourers of industry. Our great men have always felt this: Goethe had the same feeling, and also Hölderlin, who said: “There are labourers in this world, but no men”, and so forth. Every great man has longed after truly great human beings.

A change could not take place in an external form, for the course of evolution cannot be turned backward. A temple was therefore to arise in which art in a complete and perfect form was to raise human beings above the ordinary level of life. The modern period of civilisation needed this temple, just because modern life is so torn and splintered. This was the first idea in Wagner's mind in connection with the Siegfried-poem.

But a second idea rose up before Wagner's soul as he descended into still more profound depths of the soul.

At the beginning of the Middle Ages an ancient legend found its way into German poetry—the legend of the Nibelungs. This kind of legend contained the deepest feelings of the folk-soul. Only those who really study the folk-soul can conceive what lived at that time within the heart of the German nation. These legends were the expression of deep inner truths, of great truths; for instance, the legends of Charlemagne. These tales were not related as they are related today, they were not connected with the historical Charlemagne, for people possessed a deeper insight into the historical connections. The Frankish kings took on the aspect of ancient Aryan ancestors; the Nibelungs were priest-kings who ruled over their kingdoms and provided at the same time the spiritual impulses. These legends were the reminiscence of a great time which had past. In this light Charlemagne's coronation in Rome was looked upon as something special. The Nibelungs were consecrated priest and kings during a remote past of the Aryan sub-race, and their memory was handed down in the legends of the German emperors. Wagner's attention was attracted by these legends and a character appeared to him which seemed to represent the contrast between the modern period of material possession and the medieval period which was still connected with the ancient spiritual culture. Wagner occupied himself with the legend of Barbarossa. Also in Barbarossa we find a great initiate. We are told of his journeys to the Orient; from there he brings back from the holy initiates a higher wisdom—knowledge, or the Holy Grail.

According to the myth of the 12th and 13th century the emperor is under a spell and dwells in the interior of a mountain; his ravens are the messengers informing him of what takes place in the world. The ravens are an ancient symbol of the Mysteries; in the Persian Mystery-language they symbolize the lowest stage of initiation. Hence they are the messengers of the higher initiates. What was this initiate (Barbarossa) supposed to bring? Richard Wagner wished to set forth how an ancient period is replaced by a new one, with its changed conditions of property. What once existed has withdrawn like Barbarossa. The influence of the initiates becomes crystallized for Wagner in Barbarossa.

This thought transpires in the Nibelungs. Taken at first from a more external aspect, but now upon a deeper foundation, it becomes the expression of the profound views of the Middle Ages, setting forth the dawn of a new civilisation. Once more Wagner seeks a still more profound description of this thought. Guided by an infinitely deep and intuitive comprehension of the Germanic sagas, he finally chooses the figure of Wotan, instead of Barbarossa. These sagas describe the setting of the Atlantean period and the rise of the fifth root-race out of the fourth. This is, at the same time, the development of the intellect. The human intellect, or self-consciousness, did not exist among the Atlanteans. They lived in a kind of clairvoyant condition. We find the first traces of a combining intellect in the fifth sub-race of the Atlanteans, the primordial Semitic race, and this intellect continued to develop within the fifth root-race. Self-consciousness arises in this way. The Atlantean did not say “I” to himself as forcefully as a human being belonging to the Aryan race. After the fall of Atlantis this ancient civilisation was brought over into the new one; the Europeans are a surviving branch of Atlantis. A contrast now arises between the Germanic spiritual civilisation and the initiates who work in an occult way and inspire the intellect in its external form.

The dwarfs of Nifelheim are the bearers of the Ego consciousness. Richard Wagner makes Wotan, the ancient Atlantean initiate, oppose Alberich, the bearer of egoism, who belongs to the dwarf-race of the Nibelungs and is an initiate of the Aryan period. When similar new impulses arise something entirely new is born. The bearer of intellectual wisdom is gold. Gold is deeply significant in mysticism, for gold is light, and out-streaming light becomes wisdom. Alberich brings the gold, the wisdom which has become hardened, out of the waters of the Rhine. Water always symbolizes the soul-element, the astral element. The Ego, gold, wisdom, come forth out of the soul. The Rhine is the soul of the new root-race out of which arises the understanding, the Ego consciousness.

Alberich takes possession of the gold, he captures it from the Daughters of the Rhine, the female element characterising the original state of consciousness.

This connection lived in the profound depths of Wagner's soul. He deeply felt what was connected with the rise of the new root-race, of the Ego-consciousness, and he characterised it profoundly in the first E flat major chords of Rhinegold. This streams and weaves musically throughout Wagner's Rhinegold. Wagner's themes were poems originating from ancient myths. In these legends lived something which, filled with force and life, is able to permeate the soul with a spiritual rhythm. What we experience and what we ourselves are, this comes to life and resounds through us in these ancient sagas.

• 1. Laocoon's struggle with the Serpent, the symbol of cunning.