The Rudolf Steiner Archive

In material science it is customary—with the exception of a few circles who in modern times have come to a different explanation—to represent our present solar system as having developed out of a kind of nebula which embraced a space as far as the orbit of Neptune, that is, as far as the orbit of the outermost planet of our solar system. And then, it is supposed, through a condensing process, our sun and the planets moving round it gradually formed. As we have said, there are now a few exponents -who have a somewhat different view; but they too do not bring forward anything essential for us who take a spiritual view. So our sun and the planets circling round it are supposed to have formed themselves into globes. In connection with this a neat little comparison has always been made use of in the schools, and it is still employed to-day, to show by ocular demonstration how a whole planetary system can originate through rotation. Some oily liquid is taken, which, when placed in water takes a globular form. Then a small disc is cut and inserted through the equatorial line of this oily ball so that it is divided into two halves. This is then rotated by means of a pin stuck through the centre of the disc, and one sees at first one drop separate itself and circle as a separate body round the large globe, then a second and a third drop, and finally a large drop remains in the centre around which many smaller ones revolve. “A planetary system in miniature!” says the experimenter. Then he says: Why should not our solar system originate from that primeval nebula in this way, if we can now imitate it in this miniature solar system? Usually this comparison seems to be extremely illuminating and people now understand how once upon a time Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Earth, Venus, Mercury separated from that primeval nebula. But the whole affair, not only the comparison but the whole idea, proceeds from the emptiness of all present-day thinking, for the persons in question, otherwise quite learned men, who put for-ward this illustration in such an illuminating manner, forget only one thing, namely, that they themselves are present and turn the pin. Now self forgetfulness is very good in certain realms of life, but in this case, if the experimenter is forgotten, the most important thing is forgotten, for without him the drop of oil would never rotate at all. The learned person who believes in such a superstition—this superstition is called the Kant-Laplace system—should at least be logical in his thinking, he should at least presume that some sort of being must have sat on a gigantic stool in space at that time and set a gigantic axis in motion. But human thought has gradually become so accustomed to consider only the material, that the contradiction in such a comparison is no longer noticed. As a matter of fact, there is a certain truth in this so-called Kant-Laplace system, although the truth is different from the materialistic explanation of the matter. There is a certain truth in it because to spiritual vision everything contained in our present solar system actually appears as having proceeded from such a primeval nebula; only to him who can really investigate historically it is clear that the good in the Kant-Laplace hypothesis comes from occult traditions. This was forgotten when the word “occultism” became something of which one was afraid, as children are of the chimney-sweep. That which really took place did not happen without the influence of spiritual beings and powers. Matter can do nothing unless spiritual beings are behind it.

It would take us too far to-day if, linking on to what was said yesterday, we were to explain the whole of our solar system. Leaving the planets such as Jupiter, Saturn, etc., out of our present study, let us only keep in mind what is of special importance to human life and human evolution.

At one time there was, in fact, such a nebula; and in this all the parts of our solar system were as if dissolved. But, bound up with this nebula, so that they belonged to it, were all the beings mentioned in the course of our observations yesterday. For example, all the beings who passed through the human stage in the twenty-four Rounds were connected with this cosmic nebula. Other beings too were bound up with it. They all dwelt in this nebula which, if not thought of in connection with these beings, is a fantastic abstraction. In the way the materialistic chemist imagines this nebula, it is impossible; it exists only in thought, there is no reality. In reality, the nebula only exists because it is inhabited by a number of spiritual beings. For when this nebula again became visible, there were connected with it all the beings who once inhabited ancient Saturn, who then passed through the various stages of evolution through Sun and Moon right on up to Earth, when after a long intermediate pause the Earth-nebula arose, so to speak. The other beings also with whom we became acquainted on the Sun, were connected with this nebula. It is the whole choir of these beings, who filled the nebula, who produced the movements. For it is beings who create their field of work.

For example, there were beings who needed a dwelling place quite different from that of man if they were to undergo the evolution suited to them. The men who lived upon the ancient Moon as the ancestors of the present men had only physical body, etheric and astral bodies. With these three members of their being they came out of the so-called pralaya again like a plant from the seed. Thus when the entire system began it was unsuitable for the beings who had brought with them the germs for the present man. Had the speed of development been maintained which our solar system had at the beginning when it came forth from the cosmic twilight, man would have been unable to find the path of his evolution. It would have been as if you were now to be born and then in a very short time become old. If the speed of evolution natal to the Sun had been maintained, man would have grown old quickly; he would be unable to take the slow course through the decades which he now actually does; after a short time he would have white hair, he would be old almost before he was a child.

But this was not to be. There were beings who needed a quicker tempo. These only went through a part of evolution with man, then they took out the heavenly body which now stands as the sun in the heavens and made it their dwelling place. They drew out the substance of the sun together with their own being. For the sun which sends its light to us to-day is inhabited by spiritual beings, just as our earth is. With every sunbeam descending to the earth come the actions of those spiritual beings who in the course of the evolutions of Saturn, Sun and Moon had progressed so far that they were able to participate in the rapid development taking place on the present sun. High, exalted beings were connected with this sun existence at the beginning of our earth development. These separated from the earth; and that which then remained you must imagine as if you had mixed together the present moon and earth in a great cauldron, and this mingled earth and moon circled round the sun for a time.

Thus before we reached the point described yesterday as human incarnation, we have first to recognize the separation of the sun from the earth, that is, the present earth plus the present moon. Upon the sun remained the beings who are the spiritual directors of earthly events. When they came over from the ancient Moon there were seven such beings; in Genesis they are called Elohim, Spirits of Light. For a time they went through their evolution together with the earth, then they drew forth the sun so that they could now work upon the earth from the sun. These Elohim, these Spirits of Light, were seven in number. Six of them united their existence with the actual cosmic sun, and one, known in the Old Testament as Jehovah, separated from them and remained at first united with the earth. He guided and directed the earthly evolution from within, while the others worked upon it from without. That was the position for a time. But after what was pointed out yesterday concerning the ancient Moon, you will understand that with the withdrawal of the sun was connected a condensation of all that emerged as earth plus moon. There came a period in the earth's evolution when not only the substance, but all beings, underwent a coarsening. For example, the beings who later became man, who at that time were very soft and delicate, underwent a coarsening through taking on horrible instincts. A coarsening of all life took place.

Evolution could not remain thus if man were to arise. A coarsening would have taken place, everything would have become more and more dense and the human beings would have stiffened into mummies, they would have become mummified. And there would very soon have been a planet upon which some-thing not exactly beautiful, but human-like mummies, statues would have collected. The earth would have become mummified. A different event had to take place. Through the government of Jehovah, as cosmic spirit, that which you now see as the moon as the burnt-out moon-dross in the heavens, was separated from the whole mass of earth plus moon. Not only were the grossest substances separated but also the grossest beings. Hence only through the withdrawal of the sun it was brought about that man did not proceed too quickly in his evolution, and through the withdrawal of the moon it was brought about that he did not develop towards a condition of drying up, densification, or mummification.

Thus the earth was separated from the whole mass, and now the course of human evolution was guided on the earth under the influence of these two heavenly bodies—that is, of course, of their beings, the six sun Spirits and the moon Spirit, who had separated himself for the salvation of man. And it was so guided that on the whole these two forces were balanced. Through the exit of both the sun-forces and the moon-forces, exactly the right tempo for human development was attained.

Now in order to understand this more clearly, imagine a man as if influenced only by the sun. You know that man goes through his evolution upon the earth in many, many incarnations. Man began with his first incarnation, then took on a new body over and over again, until he goes through his last incarnation. He passes through a series of incarnations, as a result of which he develops slowly and rises from one incarnation to the next. Men trod the surface of our earth as true spiritual infants. Since the separation of sun and moon from our earth they have risen to the present stage. All these souls will return in different bodies up to the end of the earth's evolution. Now if man were influenced by the sun alone he would have to pass through in a single incarnation all that he now goes through in so many. The right tempo comes into the many incarnations through the balancing of the forces between the sun and moon from without.

Modern man was gradually shaped during the period which followed the withdrawal of sun and moon; the first germs of the present-day man were then created. That was at a time when man moved upon this earth in quite a different way from that in which he moves now. You must not imagine that when the moon had just gone forth man moved upon this earth in a fleshly form as he does now. There appear again all the forms which had previously been there, as a repetition; and when the earth was liberated from the sun and moon it looked approximately like the old Moon, even softer. And if a being with eyes organized like those of the present day had looked at the earth he would not yet have been able to see man. On the other hand, certain other beings were there who were not sufficiently mature to await a later time. These had to take bodily form while the stage of evolution was still incomplete; so that some time after the moon's departure from the earth certain forms of the lower animals could already be seen physically condensed. Man had not yet descended, nor yet the higher mammals. Man was still a spirit being. He floated as a spirit round the earth and took into himself the finest substances from the environment of the earth. Then gradually he densified so far that he could descend to where the earth had already become solid and islands had formed.

Thus we see that the first human beings appeared comparatively late in the earth's evolution and at that time they had a very different constitution from the present human being. I cannot describe to you the forms of those men which first crystallized, so to speak, out of the spirit. Although you have already heard much that is difficult to believe, you would be greatly shocked if I were to describe to you the grotesque forms of the bodies in which your souls were then incarnated. You would not be able to bear such a description. However, at a later date, when these things which are only now beginning to come to the consciousness of man through Anthroposophy, when they more and more penetrate men's consciousness, this will have to be made known, and it will have a tremendous result, it will be extremely important to the whole life of man. For only when man learns how his body has developed, how the organs he now possesses have gradually developed out of entirely different forms, will he feel that remarkable relationship existing between the organs in the human body which to-day are apparently far apart. He will then see the correspondence between certain organs, for example, between the appendix and the windpipe, which in their earlier form grew together in those remarkably formed beings. All that to-day is man is the previous form unrolled as it were, the previous form unfolded in the most varied ways. Organs which to-day are separated formerly grew together. They have, however, kept their relationship, and very frequently this relationship is manifested in illnesses. It is seen that when a certain organ is diseased another one is of necessity involved. Hence those who really study medicine will have to make many discoveries, of which the present medical age, which is only a collection of notes, does not dream; then only will physicians really learn something about the true nature of man. All this is merely to point out how entirely different was man's earlier form.

The solid parts have only been built into this human form gradually. There were originally no bones in the human body, even when it had already descended. The bones were developed from soft cartilaginous structures which traversed the human body like cords. These in their turn originated from quite soft substances, and these soft substances from fluid substances, these from airy, the airy from etheric and the etheric from astral which had densified from spiritual substantiality. If you trace it back you will find that everything material has originated from the spiritual. Everything is in archetype in the spiritual world. It was only the Atlantean epoch that the bones, formerly merely indicated, actually developed in man.

We must now more closely examine Lemurian humanity in order the better to understand the writer of the Apocalypse. I need only indicate that following the first period, when the moon had separated from the earth and man descended, he was of a very different nature as regards his will power from what he became later. At that time the will of man worked magically—by his will he could work upon the growth of flowers. When he exerted his will he could make a flower shoot up quickly, a capacity which can only be acquired to-day by an abnormal process of development. Hence at that time the natural surroundings depended upon how the will of man was constituted. If it was good it worked soothingly upon the billowing waters, upon the storm and upon the fiery structures which were then all around, for the earth was to a great extent of a volcanic nature. Man worked soothingly upon all this through a good will and destructively through all evil will. Whole islands could be destroyed by evil will. Thus the human will was in complete correspondence with its environment. The tracts of land upon which man then lived were destroyed essentially by the evil will of man, and only a small part of mankind was saved (we have here to distinguish between race-development and soul-development) who lived on into the epoch which we may describe in so far as words can express clairvoyant perception.

After this catastrophe by fire we come to the Atlantean epoch when the human race developed essentially on a continent which now forms the bed of the Atlantic Ocean, between the present Europe and America. At that time man lived under very different physical conditions. At the beginning of the Atlantean epoch he was a structure which perceived in quite a different way from the present man; we have already indicated this in the first lecture and again later; to-day we shall again point out this different kind of vision of the man of that epoch. He still had a kind of spiritual vision, because the construction of his body was different from what it is now. The etheric body was not yet so firmly bound up with the physical body. The etheric body of the head extended far beyond the physical body. Only towards the last third of the Atlantean epoch did the projecting etheric body draw in and take the form of the present physical human head. Since the form of the ancient Atlantean was so very different from that of present man and his members so differently joined together, his whole life of consciousness, his whole soul life was also different. And here—if we wish to understand the Apocalyptist—we must touch upon a very important, but a very mysterious, chapter.

If you were to enter this ancient Atlantis, you would find that it was surrounded not by such pure air as the present earth but by air saturated with volumes of mist, with water. This air became clearer and more transparent the further Atlantis developed, but the mists were densest where the more advanced Atlantean civilization referred to developed. The thickest mists were there, and from these developed the foundations of the later civilizations. Atlantis was covered far and wide by those mists. A division of rain and sunshine such as we have to-day did not then exist. Hence in ancient Atlantis that which you know as the rainbow could not appear. You might search the whole of Atlantis and you would not find it. Only when the condensation of the water led to flooding, when the great flood spread itself over the earth, could the rainbow originate physically. And this is a point where from Spiritual Science you will gain the greatest respect for the religious records. For when you are told that after the flood, Noah, the representative of those who then saved the human race, sees the rainbow first appear, this is really an historical event. After the flood humanity saw the first rainbow; previously it was not physically possible. Here you will see how profound, how literally true the religious records are. To-day many are distressed when one says that the religious records are literally true. Many quote a saying which is true; it is quoted, however, by lazy people, not as a true statement but from indolence. It is the saying: “The letter killeth but the spirit giveth life.” From this they deduce the right to take no notice at all of what stands in the records, to have no longer the will to recognize what is actually there, for it is the “dead letter” they say. And so they like to let their spirit shine and concoct all sorts of fantasies. These persons may indeed be very clever in their explanations, but that is not the point; the point is that we ought really to see in the records what is contained in them. “The letter killeth but the spirit giveth life” has the same significance in mystical language as the saying of Goethe, “He who has not this, this dying and becoming, is but a sad guest upon the dark earth.” This saying does not mean: “If you wish to lead some one to a higher knowledge you must slay him,” but it means that just through the culture of the physical world man must uplift himself to spirituality. So also the letter is the body of the spirit, and we must first have and understand it, then we may say that we can find the spirit in it. The letter, the understood letter, must then die so that the spirit may be resurrected from it. This saying is not an injunction to fancy anything you please about what is contained in the religious records. When we recognize the true significance of this rainbow as we have represented it, something like deep respect for the religious records invades our soul, and we get an idea of how, through the deepening of the understanding by the teachings of Anthroposophy, man first attains to true and real feelings and advances to a true understanding of the religious records by an act of will.

We will now look back into ancient Atlantis. We have already said that man then lived in a different state of consciousness and that his memory was different from what it is now; but the difference is much more considerable. If we go far back not merely into the later period of Atlantis but to the beginning, we then find the human consciousness very different from that which we possess to-day.

Let us once more consider the present consciousness. During the day a person uses his senses. At night he goes to sleep. On the bed lie the physical body and the etheric body; the astral body and the “I” withdraw. The sphere of consciousness darkens. The man of to-day sees nothing and hears nothing. Then again in the morning when the astral body and the “I” re-enter the physical body and etheric body, physical objects again confront him. How was it in the early Atlantean epoch? Let us take the moment when in the morning man plunged into the physical body and etheric body; at that time he did not have a physical world around him such as we have to-day. All the present objects which are now seen with clear outlines were then seen as if surrounded with an aura, with coloured edges, quite indistinct. In ancient Atlantis the appearance was somewhat similar to what is now seen when in the evening there is a dense fog and you cannot see the street lamps clearly, but surrounded by coloured edges. Thus it was in early Atlantis. All objects were seen indistinctly, not with clear outlines and surfaces as to-day, everything was as if enveloped in coloured mist. Only gradually have clear outlines developed. Had we looked at a rose in the first portion of Atlantis it was as if a cloudy structure arose and in the middle something red. Only gradually did the external colour appear to be laid on the surface; only later did objects obtain sharp outlines.

Hence you see that the physical world surrounding man was quite different in ancient Atlantis. It was also different when at night he rose out of his physical body when—shall we say—he went to sleep. Really it was not sleep in the present sense. However, the entire world of the misty physical formations remained below, and a spiritual world arose. Possessing no sharp outlines man lived within a spiritual world. Spiritual beings were his companions. In the first portion of the Atlantean epoch day and night alternated in such a way that when man plunged into his physical body he had only hazy, indistinct pictures of the physical world; but when at night he left the physical body he was able to live spiritually, although somewhat indistinctly, among spirits; he moved among spirits. And above all, man's entire life of feeling was also different in the Atlantean epoch. At that time when he went out of his physical body and etheric body, he did not feel fatigue and the need for rest. Neither did he find rest. He had to enter into the spiritual world; that was then his sphere of activity. On the other hand, when the morning came, he felt the need for rest and sought out his resting-place, which was his own body. There he lay peacefully. He crept into his own body and rested during the day.

Thus in the first period of Atlantis it was entirely different from what it is now. During the Atlantean epoch, man gradually passed from the very opposite conditions into those of the later period. This came about more and more as the etheric body was driven into the physical body. This occurred during the last third of the Atlantean epoch. Before this event man felt himself as a waking being above in the spiritual world; but as yet he did not say to himself “I,” he did not possess self-consciousness. When he withdrew from the physical body and etheric body in order to go into the brilliance of the night, he felt himself to be a member of the spirituality which was above, he felt himself safely hidden, so to speak, in his group-soul. It always became bright around him during the night; but he felt himself dependent. Just as our finger belongs to our “I,” so man felt that he belonged to the group-souls which are seen spiritually as the four heads of the Lion, Eagle, Bull and Man, described in the Apocalypse of John. Man felt himself transposed into one such group-soul. And only when, snail-like, he was in his bodily shell did he feel that he possessed something of his own. For the circumstance that man became an independent being resulted from his being able to envelop himself in his body. He had, however, to pay for this confinement in his body by the gradual obscuration of the spiritual world, until it completely withdrew. In its place the world which he saw below when he was in the physical body became brighter and clearer. In this way it gradually dawned upon him that he was an “I,” that he had self-consciousness within him. He learned to say “I” to himself.

If we wish to characterize what took place at that time we must imagine man creeping out of his “snail-shell,” as it were, into the spiritual world. There he is among spiritually divine beings. There resounds to him from without the name of what he is. One group heard the word which in the original language was the word for that group; another group heard a different word. Man could not name himself from within; his name sounded into him from without. When he thus crept out of the “snail-shell” of his body he knew what he was, because this knowledge was poured into his soul. Now when in his body he learned to perceive the physical environment, he learned to feel himself as “I,” he learned to feel within himself the divine power which previously was poured into him, he learned to feel God within him. The God nearest to him, who pointed to his “I,” he called Jehovah. This God was the “I”-leader, and man felt the power of this God arising within his “I.”

External events were connected with this. When the first Atlantean thus descended into his physical body and looked out into space, he did not see an actual rainbow; in the place where the sun later emerged, he saw something like a circle formed of colour; the sun did not yet penetrate in power, but acted through the mist; though hindered and held back by the fog, its forces influenced the earth. It appeared very gradually. All that we have described as the awakening of external consciousness was connected with the emergence of the sun from the mist. That which was up above where the other six spirits had their abode, who together with Jehovah had to guide the earth evolution, gradually emerged and shone down upon the earth in deeds.

What had taken place in man? When previously he rose out of his body, when it was night, so to speak, his soul and spirit entered into the inner astral brilliance to which the external sun is not necessary. This brilliance surrounded him. It was the same light which later shone down physically from the sun, from mighty spiritual beings. As he gradually enclosed himself in his physical consciousness, the door of inner vision was closed. Darkness surrounded him when at night he left his physical and etheric bodies and entered the spiritual world. To the extent to which he confined himself, to the same extent arose the external light which represents the deeds of the spiritual beings of the sun; the light of the spiritual beings shone externally upon the earth. Man prepared himself to look upon the external light as something material. The light shone in his then darkened inner being, but the light was not then comprehended by his darkness. This is a world-historical event. Man bought his self-consciousness at that time through spiritual darkening. In this way man grew out of the brilliance connected with the group-souls. But it was only the very first dawning of the individuality. It was a long, long time before he really grew possessed of it. The last portion of the Atlantean epoch passed away and the flood came.

The post-Atlantean epoch began. The ancient Indian civilization passed away. True self-consciousness had not yet developed. Then came the Persian and Babylonian-Egyptian ages. Man gradually matured so as to develop self-consciousness within him. At length came the fourth age. At this stage something of tremendous importance took place for which all that had gone before was the preparation. Imagine yourself now uplifted from the earth to a distant star and gifted with spiritual vision, looking down to the earth from that distant star. You would then see that this earth as physical body is not only physical body, but that an etheric body and an astral body belong to it, just as with man. The earth has all this too. You would see the earth surrounded by its aura and from that star you would be able to follow the development of the earth's aura for thousands of years. You would see this earth surrounded by all sorts of colours; in the centre the physical kernel and around it the aura floating in various forms and colours; and in this spiritual atmosphere of the earth you would see the most varied structures. You would see these colours and forms change in various ways in the course of thousands of years; but there would come a moment, a moment of great importance, when the whole aura assumes a different form and colour. Seen from outside the earth then appears in a new light; and this takes place extremely quickly, so that one has to say: From this moment a fundamental trans-formation of the earth has taken place; its aura has changed completely. When is this? It is the moment when upon Golgotha the blood flowed from the wounds of the Redeemer. This moment is an extremely important one, the most important moment in the whole of the earth's evolution! The moment when the blood flows from the wounds of the Redeemer is the same as that in which the aura of the earth shapes itself anew. An entirely new power enters in, the power which gives the most important impulse to the earth's evolution, for which all that we have considered up to now was only the preparation.

To the chemist the blood of Golgotha is the same as any other blood; but in reality it is quite different. It signifies that the substance of the blood flows down to the earth, and that the spirit corresponding to it fills the aura of the earth with new impulses and new forces which have significance for the future evolution of humanity. From there the forces which change the earth stream forth, from there they stream through man. Only a small part of what flowed in at that moment has been realized up to now. Ever more and more man will learn to understand what the earth has become through that moment of Golgotha, and what man can develop towards in that consciousness which he has gained since Atlantis. What, then, has man gained since Atlantis? Two things: the “I”-consciousness and the faculty of sight in the external world. That which previously was open to him, the spiritual world, has been closed. Truly these earlier men saw what the later myths relate—Woden, Mercury, Jupiter, Zeus. They saw all these beings at night; they were then among them. This door to the spiritual beings has closed. In its place man gained the world now surrounding him. The spirits have withdrawn from him; all that he was able to see at that time has disappeared. Formerly he saw the Divine when he slipped out of the snail-shell of his physical body. He had now to see the Divine within the body if it were to appear before him. This means nothing else than that we must receive the Divine in bodily visible shape because human consciousness has become adapted to physical vision, and for this reason the Divine Itself had to assume bodily physical form. Therefore the Divine appeared once on the earth in a fleshly body. It had to appear in this form because man had advanced to this stage of perception it had to be presented in this way to his perception so that he could understand it. And all the appearances which had previously taken place at other stages of evolution had to be united in that greatest event in the earth's history, which will throw light on the whole future and which we shall now unveil from the Apocalypse; in that event which physically looks as if drops of blood stream down to the earth, but spiritually as if something rises up which changes the aura of the earth. The force which then flowed in will work together with the earth throughout the whole future. The earth-soul, the spirit of the whole earth, was then inoculated with something new. The Christ principle united with the earth at that time and the earth has become the body of this Christ principle. So that the statement is literally true, “He who eats my bread treads me underfoot.” When man eats the bread of the earth he eats the body of the earth and this is the body of the earth-spirit which, as the Christ-Spirit, since the event on Golgotha, is united with the earth. And man walks upon the earth-body, he treads this body underfoot. All can be understood literally if only we are able first of all to comprehend the text in the right way.

To such a man as the writer of John's Gospel, all that he knew, all that he could grasp with spiritual vision, was a summons to understand the greatest event in the earth's evolution. Of all that he was able to stream through spiritual vision he said, “I must use it in order to understand Christ and His work.” It was the intention of the writer of the Apocalypse to use all his occult knowledge in order to explain the Event of Golgotha. Whatever he could learn from occult science was regarded by him as a road to wisdom, helping him to understand this event which he has placed before us in such a wonderful way, and regarding which we shall see what it signified for him.

For the modern man there always seems something hazardous in the prophecy of future events. We have already seen that in the seven seals we had to point out facts which are to come in the evolution of humanity, and as we unveil the Apocalypse of John, more and more we shall have to exercise this prophetic art. The question now is: What grounds are there for speaking at all of these things? We already referred in part at the beginning of our lectures to what lies at the basis of this. We said that at a certain stage of initiation the Initiate sees in the spiritual world that which descends later and becomes a physical event. But in the last two lectures we have shown that there is another basis for the prophetic art. We showed how man has developed out of spiritual spheres to his present existence. Now the future is in a certain sense a repetition of the past; not that the things of the past will happen again in the same way, but past events repeat themselves in a changed form.

In our last lectures we pointed out that in the ancient Atlantean epoch man had a kind of clairvoyance, and that, especially during his night condition, he consciously ascended into spiritual worlds; and we must clearly understand that the condition of a certain clairvoyance will be repeated in humanity. Between the Atlantean epoch and that which will come after the War of All against All we have our epoch, which we have described. In a certain way that which existed previously, that which was in the Atlantean epoch, will be repeated after our epoch, but there will be a very great difference. In the Atlantean epoch man had a dreamy, hazy, clairvoyant consciousness, and when he ascended into the higher worlds his clear self-consciousness faded and he then felt himself within the group-soul. After the great War of All against All man will again see into the higher worlds in a certain way. He will again have the former hazy clairvoyance, but in addition he will possess what he has gradually acquired in the external physical world.

Between the Atlantean flood and the great War of All against All man has had to renounce for a time the power to see into the spiritual world. He has had to content himself with seeing only what is around him in the physical world in the so-called waking consciousness. This is now the normal condition. But in its place it has become possible for him fully to develop his self-consciousness, his individual “I,” during this time, to feel himself within his skin as a separate “I”-personality, so to speak. This he has won. Now he also retains this individuality when he again rises into the higher spiritual worlds, and this ascent will be possible to him after the great War of All against All. But this ascent would not be possible if he had not taken part in that great cosmic event in the middle of our epoch which runs its course in the physical world, as was shown in the last lecture. Man would have been obliged to sink down into a kind of abyss had he not been preserved from it by the entry of Christ into our world. We must keep in mind that man has descended completely into the physical world in this epoch of ours.

Let us represent the physical plane by this line; above it what is called the spiritual, the heavenly world, and below it what is called the abyss. Man really reaches the line separating the spiritual world from the abyss in the fourth age, which we have described. We described the ancient Indian age, when man was still, on the whole, in the spiritual sphere. Previously he was above in the spiritual world. In Atlantis he still had a dim clairvoyance. He now comes down and reaches the line during the period of the Roman Empire. In this Empire man became fully conscious as an external sense-being, as a personality. That was at the time when the Roman idea of justice came into the world, when every one's aim was to be a separate personality, an individual citizen. Man had then reached the line. At this point it was possible either to return or sink below it. We have now, in fact, reached a point in human evolution—and all that I am saying is in accordance with the apocalyptic presentation—when in a certain way humanity is confronted by the need for a decision. We have already shown that in our age an enormous amount of mental and spiritual energy is used to provide for the lowest needs; we have shown how the telephone, telegraph, railway, steamboat and other things still to come have absorbed a tremendous amount of spiritual force; they are only used for the mere satisfaction of lower human needs. Man, however, has only a certain amount of spiritual force. Now consider the following: Man has used an enormous amount of spiritual force in order to invent and construct telephones, railways, steamboats and airships, in order to further external culture. This has to be so. It would have gone badly with humanity if this had not come about. This spiritual power has also been used for many other things. Only consider how all social connections have gradually been spun into an extremely fine intellectual web. What tremendous spiritual force has been expended so that one may now draw a cheque in America and cash it in Japan. An enormous amount of spiritual force has been absorbed in this activity. These forces had once to descend below the line of the physical plane, so to speak, which separates the spiritual kingdom from the abyss. For in a certain way man has actually already descended into the abyss, and one who studies the age from the standpoint of Spiritual Science can see by the most mundane phenomena how this goes on from decade to decade, how a certain point is always reached where the personality can still keep a hold on itself. If at this point it allows itself to sink down, the personality is lost, it is not rescued and lifted into the spiritual worlds.

This may be illustrated by the most mundane things. I could prove it to you, for example, in the details of the development of banking affairs in the second half of the nineteenth century. Perhaps it is only for future historians to show clearly that a fundamental change then came about which we may describe by saying that in banking affairs the personality was gradually shattered. I should have to draw your attention to the time when the four Rothschild's went out into the world from Frankfurt, one to Vienna, another to Naples, the third to London, the fourth to Paris. The whole of banking affairs was then brought into a personal sphere by the personal talent directed to them. The personality immersed itself in finance. To-day you see banking affairs becoming impersonal, they are passing into joint stock companies; capital is no longer managed by a single personality. Capital begins to control itself. Purely objective forces are working in capital, and there are already forces in this realm which draw the will of the personality to themselves, so that the personality has become powerless. Thus with seeing eyes one can penetrate into these mundane things and one can see everywhere how humanity, as regards the personality, has descended to the lowest depth. Now the personality may save itself and ascend again. It can save itself, for example, by really learning to strengthen its inner soul-forces and depend upon itself and make itself independent of the objective forces of capital. But the personality may also throw itself into these forces, it may in a certain way sail into and plunge into the abyss by allowing itself to be ensnared by the forces active in capital. The most important point of time, when the human personality descends to the earth and would have to turn back again, is the point of time of the appearance of Christ Jesus on the earth. He gave to the earth the power which made it possible for man to rise again; and he rises to the extent to which he has fellowship with Christ Jesus. Humanity will ascend to the point where the understanding dawns of what this event signified, so that for a large part of humanity this Christ impulse becomes the innermost impulse of their being, from which they work in life. Men must learn to understand more and more what Paul said: It is not I who work; but Christ works in me.

Therefore if the impulse which descended to the physical world in the fourth age enters into the hearts of men, if it becomes the impulse behind their activity, then the ascent takes place, and all the souls who find this union with the Christ principle find the way upward. But all the souls who failed to find this union would have gradually to go down into the abyss. They would have gained the “I”; they would have attained egoism, but would not be in the position to rise up again with this “I” into the spiritual world. And the consequence to a man who makes no connection with the Christ principle would be that he disconnects himself from the spiritual ascent; instead of ascending he would descend and harden himself more and more in his “I.” Instead of finding in matter merely the opportunity to develop the “I” and then rise up again, he would only descend deeper and deeper into matter.

Yes, everything repeats itself. The possibility arose for man to enter our physical world. By surviving the Atlantean flood it has become possible for him to create and develop his present human countenance. This is really an image of the spiritual “I”-divinity dwelling in man. Towards the end of the Atlantean epoch the etheric body united with the physical; its forces drew into the physical head and thereby man received his present human countenance, in which the spirit of God is reflected.

Let us suppose that he were to deny that it was the spirit which has given him the human countenance; then he would not use the body as an opportunity to attain the “I”-consciousness and again spiritualize himself; but he would grow together with the body and love it so much that he would only feel himself at home in it. He would remain united with the body and go down into the abyss. And because of not having used the power of the spirit, the external shape would again come to resemble the previous form. The man who descends into the abyss would become animal-like. Thus humanity will realize what we have already indicated. Those who use the life in the body merely as an opportunity to gain the “I”-consciousness will descend into the abyss and form the evil race. They have turned away from the impulse of Christ Jesus, and from the ugliness of their souls they will again create the animal form man possessed in former times. The evil race, with their savage impulses, will dwell in animal form in the abyss. And when up above those who have spiritualized themselves, who have received the Christ principle, announce what they have to say regarding their union with the name, Christ Jesus—here below in the abyss will sound forth names of blasphemy and of hatred of that which brings about the spiritual transformation.

A person who thinks superficially might say at this point: Yes, but very many have lived who have experienced nothing of the Christ-impulse; why should not these have partaken in the impulse of Christ Jesus? This is objected from the materialistic side: Why should salvation only come with Christ Jesus? If persons who are not Anthroposophists say this, it is comprehensible; but if Anthroposophists say it, then it is incomprehensible; for they ought to know that man returns again and again, and the souls which lived in earlier times will return in new bodies in the period after the event of Christ, so that there are none who could not participate in the event of Christ Jesus. The above objection can only be made by one who does not believe in re-embodiment.

Thus we see how the division takes place. There will come a time when those who have striven for spiritualization will be capable of living in the spiritual world, a time when that which they have formerly acquired will be made manifest, when they will bear the name of Christ on their forehead because they learned to look up to Him. Now when the seal is opened man will have imaged in his outward figure what he bears inwardly in his heart. One who inwardly bears Christ in his soul will after the unsealing bear in his face the sign of Christ; his external form will be like Christ Jesus; but those who remain in the civilizations before the appearance of Christ Jesus will have to experience some-thing else. These four civilizations, the ancient Indian, Persian, Assyrian-Babylonian-Chaldean-Egyptian-Jewish and the Graeco-Latin were preparatory ages. The soul had to go through the bodies of these civilizations in order to prepare itself for the great event of the appearance of Christ Jesus on earth. During the period of preparation there were two great forces. The forces which brought men together were forces which had their material foundation in the blood. If men had simply been placed side by side in their present form, what was to develop in humanity would never have originated.

Prior to the earth the old Moon was the bearer of our creation. This old Moon was the Cosmos of Wisdom; our Earth is the Cosmos of Love. It is the mission of our Earth to bring men together in love. In the future, when the seventh trumpet has sounded and the earth has dissolved, when it has lost its physical substantiality and is changed into an astral heavenly body, then love, the force of love, will have flowed into the whole human race, into everything earthly. For this power of love must flow in as the earth-mission of humanity—just as you now see the power of wisdom in your environment. We have often drawn attention to that wonderful construction of the thigh-bone. This does not consist of a compact mass, but of many delicate lattice-like structures which are so wonderfully put together that the greater carrying capacity is attained with the expenditure of the smallest amount of material, such as no engineer of the present day can achieve. And if we were to examine everything we should find that the wisdom man has gained in the course of his earthly evolution was already contained in the earth.

How often have we been told in the course of lessons on history that man has made continual progress and that he has grown wiser and wiser! You will remember how these several stages were presented; for example, you were shown that at the beginning of modern times man arrived at the point where he invented gunpowder, paper from rags, wood-pulp, etc. You have experienced pleasure in seeing how mankind has ascended. By means of his intellect man has learned to make paper. One might suppose it was an original invention. But to one who contemplates the world in its totality this appears in a different light. The wasps could do this long before, for the wasp's nest is constructed of material which is exactly the same as paper. Thus thousands of years before in the nest of the wasp there already existed what man afterwards achieved through his subjective wisdom. Not the single wasp is able to make paper, but the group-soul, the ego which holds together the whole group of wasps. It possessed this knowledge long before man. And wherever you look, if you are not blind, you will find wisdom in everything.

Do not imagine that this wisdom had not to develop! The world was not always thus filled with wisdom. It was only during the Moon evolution that it gradually flowed into all that now surrounds us. During the Moon period, that which was all chaos was rearranged so as to acquire wisdom. If you could direct your gaze to the Moon evolution you would find every-thing chaotic, so to speak, but as yet no wisdom. Only in the course of the Moon evolution was wisdom poured into the various beings and creations, so that it was there by the time the Earth came forth from the twilight. All things are now filled with wisdom. And as man to-day looks into his environment and sees wisdom in everything, so will he, when he has reached Jupiter, see all the beings around him in a remarkable way. They will pour out something like the fragrance of blissful love. Love will stream forth from all things, and it is the mission of the earth-evolution to develop this love. Love will then flow through everything, just as wisdom is now in everything. And this love is poured into earthly evolution by man's gradually leaning to develop love.

He was not able to have spiritual love immediately, love had first to be implanted in him at the lowest stage. It had to have a material vehicle, namely, the blood-relationship. The first schooling was to exercise love in the realm of blood-relationship; the separated human beings were brought together through that which coursed through their veins being imbued with love. This was the preparatory school of love; it was, in fact, the great school of love. And the impulse which spiritualizes this love, which does not merely allow it to remain where it works physically, but imparts it to the soul, is the great Christ-impulse in the world.

Now, had only this one impulse of blood-brotherhood operated, human evolution would have taken a strange course throughout the whole of antiquity. The beings who were the guides of the ancient times, and above all Jehovah, led men together in love, so that they united in blood-relationship; but if men had been united only through blood-relationship before the appearance of Christ Jesus, then individual human beings would never have been able to progress to personality. The individual would have been emerged in the tribe. As it was, the individual did very much lose himself in the whole. The consciousness that one is an individual human being has only developed very gradually. In the Atlantean epoch there could be no question of a man feeling himself as an individual being, and this was also the case much later. People do not understand how names were given in ancient times, otherwise they would discover how men then felt. Think of the people of the Old Testament; in pre-Christian times they experienced their “I”—if they wished to feel it aright—by no means in their separate personality. Each one who thoroughly felt the impulse streaming from the Old Testament said: I and Father Abraham are one. For he felt that he was secure in this community which reached back to Abraham, whose blood flowed through all the generations down to the last. Hence he said: “I feel that I am not a lost member when I realize that my blood is the same as that of my Father Abraham.”

And they tried to follow the community back still further. They felt secure in the group-soul. They pointed to Noah, to Adam. It is no longer known what these names signify. It is not known that in those ancient times the consciousness of man was quite different from what it is to-day. A person can only remember with difficulty what happened in his childhood, and memory certainly stops at birth. In the time of the patriarchs a man remembered not only what he himself had experienced but what his father, grandfather and great-grandfather had experienced. This was in his memory, just as with you the remembrance of your childhood. He did not know that his life specially began with his birth. The memory reached back for hundreds of years. No name was given to the separate consciousness, for there would have been no meaning in it. As a person remembered the experiences of his father, grand-father, great-grandfather, etc., a common name included the whole chain. The names Adam or Noah signify the remembrance which passed through several generations. As far as the memory of the experience of Noah extended, the chain was called Noah; this was an inner man, a spiritual being, who lived through several generations. It would have been considered meaningless to give a name to the outer man.

Thus the name Adam applied to a spiritual being, and the individual human being was not yet aware of his “I.” He would have disappeared in such a community but for the impulses which continually attacked this merging in the community, and whose object was to tear man away from the blood-ties and bring him to independence. In his astral body nestled certain spiritual beings who gave him the impulse not to allow his consciousness to become submerged. These were the Lucifer beings. It was they who in the pre-Christian period worked against the unification and it is to them that man owes his independence, his developing personality. It is extremely important to understand that we owe to Jehovah that which strove to unite, and to the Lucifer spirits that which strove to separate. In the early ages of Christianity there was a saying which ran: “Christus verus Luciferus,” i.e. Christ is the true Light-bearer; for Lucifer means the Light-bearer. Why is Christ called the true Light-bearer? Because through him has now become justified what previously was not justified. Previously there was a tearing asunder; men were not mature enough to be independent. Through the “I”-impulse which they received through Christ Jesus they had progressed so far that in spite of the “I” they could develop love of one another. Thus that which Lucifer wished to give to humanity in anticipation, so to speak, when humanity was still not sufficiently mature, was brought to humanity by the true Light-bearer, Christ Jesus. He brought the impulse to independence, but he also brought the spiritual love which unites those who are not related by blood. Through him came the epoch when humanity matured to the point which Lucifer previously wished to bring about. This saying, “Christus verus Luciferus,” was later no longer understood. He alone who rightly understands it learns to know the first teachings of Christianity.

We have therefore to comprehend this impulse in this way; we have to see how humanity was prepared for the standpoint it had to attain. Thus the Indian, Persian, Egyptian, Graeco-Latin periods were times of preparation pointing to the great Christ-event. But it is possible for man to harden himself, as it were. Let us imagine a person living at the time of Christ Jesus, and let us imagine that he could consciously decide what he wished to do. If Christ Jesus were to come he could say, “Oh, what was there previously is sufficient for me, I wish to know nothing, I will have no fellowship with Christ Jesus.” He would have in his soul the forces, the impulses, which could be acquired in the time before Christ Jesus, which could be gained through the Indian, Persian, Egyptian and Graeco-Latin civilizations. But in cosmic evolution a man ought only to have such impulses until a new one arrives. If he stands still, then he remains behind at this stage. We must not misunderstand historical development; we must not say that the same principle works in all civilizations, for it is not for nothing that one civilization is built up on another. Let us suppose some one wished to sleep through the Christian development. He would then live into the future until after the great War of All against All, but he would have nothing of the great love-principle of Christ which brings the Egos together, which makes communities of individuals. He would have everything which leads the Egos into the abyss. He would have the separating forces. This brings us to a consideration which may give rise to the question: Why does the unveiling of the first four seals provide such a comfortless picture? Because here come forth the men who wish to remain in these four preparatory civilizations in which is contained the old form of Lucifer that drives men asunder. Hence in the unveiling of the seals we are shown, too, how they got the form which they have acquired. They have slept through the event of Christ Jesus and are re-born in the forms which can be given them without the influence of the Christ-principle. Hence there appears again that which indicated the mere intelligence, the mere intellect; the horse appears four consecutive times. The old form of man appears which he obtains by receiving into himself the horse nature. This form appears at the opening of the seals.

And when the fifth seal is opened what is then brought to our notice? Those who in the preceding period have learned to understand the event of Christ Jesus! These are clothed in white garments, they have been passed by, figuratively they have been slain, they are those who are preserved for the spiritualization of the world. Thus it is the union with the Christ-principle which brings it about that men have these white garments and appear when the fifth seal is opened. Here we see a clear indication that the time when Christ appears is an important epoch for mankind; it is the epoch which brings it to pass that after the War of All against All the four ages may appear when those who have remained behind are tormented by the materiality which had proceeded with evolution and to which they have chained themselves; they are tormented by all the evils and torments of the coarsened, hardened materiality. Everything which is now described in the breaking of the seals represents nothing else than the descent into the abyss. While in the fifth seal we are only briefly directed to those who are chosen, we are shown for the rest those who remain in materiality, who go down into the abyss, who assume the forms which existed previously because they did not progress, because they have not acquired the power to transform these shapes.

You may form a picture of it; imagine that your human forms were to-day made of indiarubber; and within this rubber human body is your inner soul power which gives this rubber body its human form. Imagine that we take out the soul-force, then the rubber body would collapse. Men would receive animal forms. At the moment when you draw the soul out of this human body of rubber, man would manifest the animal form. What man has gained for himself is like something which he produces to-day by his own power. If you could observe what he formerly produced in the astral body you would see its likeness to the animal. It is really an inner force such as this which gives the rubber man the present form. Imagine that this power is removed, imagine man not fertilized by the Christ power; he springs back into the animal form. Thus it will happen to those who fall back. They will afterwards form a world beneath the present world, so to speak, a world of the abyss, where man will again have assumed animal shape.

Thus we learn to understand the direction evolution will actually take. That which is now prepared will come out again bit by bit in the future, just as that which was laid down in the Atlantean epoch has come out bit by bit in our epoch. I have said that in the last third of the Atlantean epoch a small colony was formed from which our civilizations have been derived, and from which the two following will also originate. It will be somewhat different in the next epoch which will succeed all these. There will not be a colony limited to one place, but from the general body of humanity will everywhere be recruited those who are mature enough to form the good, the noble, the beautiful side of the next civilization, after the War of All against All. This again is a progress as compared with the earlier Atlantean epoch when the colony developed in one small place, but with us there is the possibility that from all races of the world will be recruited those who really understand the call of the earth mission, who raise up Christ within themselves, who develop the principle of brotherly love over the whole earth; and indeed, in the true sense, not in the sense of the Christian confessions, but in the sense of the true esoteric Christianity which can proceed from every civilization. Those who understand this Christ-principle will be there in the period following the great War of All against All. After our present purely intellectual civilization, which is now developing in the direction of the abyss of intellect—and you will find that this is the case in every field of life—there will come a time when man will be the slave of the intelligence, the slave of the personality in which he will sink. To-day there is only one way of preserving the personality, and that is to spiritualize it. Those who develop the spiritual life will belong to the small band of the sealed from all nations and races, who will appear in white garments after the War of All against All.

We are now beginning to comprehend the spiritual world from our immediately present intellectual civilization. It is the aim of true Anthroposophy, from out of the present intellectual standards, to comprehend the spiritual world, and to gather together those who can understand the call to spiritualize the world. These will not form a separate colony but will be gathered from every nation and will gradually pass into the sixth age, that is to say, not yet beyond the great War, but primarily into the sixth age, for necessities still exist which are connected with old race ties. In our epoch, races and civilizations are still inter-mingled. The true idea of race has lost its meaning but it still plays a certain part. It is quite impossible at present for every mission to be carried out equally by every people. Certain nations are predestined to carry out a particular mission.

The nations which to-day are the vehicles of Western civilization were chosen to lead the fifth age to its zenith; they were the nations who were to develop the intellect. Hence wherever this civilization extends we have predominantly the civilization of the intellect, which is still not yet finished. This intelligence will spread still further, people will exercise still more of their spiritual forces in order to satisfy their bodily needs; to slay one another they will employ much greater spiritual forces before the great War of All against All. Many discoveries will be made in order to be able the better to carry on war, an endless amount of intelligence will be exercised in order to satisfy the lower impulses. But in the midst of it something is being prepared, with which certain nations of the East, the Northern part of the East, are gifted. Certain nations are preparing to emerge from a certain dullness and bring in a spiritual impulse with mighty force, an impulse which will be the opposite pole to intelligence. Before the sixth age of civilization, represented by the Community of Philadelphia, we shall experience something like a mighty marriage of peoples, a marriage between intelligence and intellect and spirituality. At the present time we are only experiencing the dawn of this marriage and no one should understand what is here said as a song of praise to our age; for one does not sing songs of praise to the sun when there are only the first signs of dawn. But we find remarkable phenomena when we compare East and West, when we look into the depths and foundations of the different nations.

Do not let us look upon this as a desire to take sides. These lectures, which are intended to be objective, are far, far removed from any party spirit. But you may compare objectively that which is attained as science and philosophy in the European West with that which appeared in the East, let us say in Tolstoi. One does not need to be a follower of Tolstoi, but one thing is true; in a book such as Tolstoi's about life you may read one page, if you understand how to read it, and compare it with whole libraries in Western Europe. And you may then say the following: In Western Europe one acquires spiritual culture with the intellect; certain ideas are put together out of details which are intended to make the world comprehensible, and the achievements of Western European civilization in this respect will never be surpassed. But if you understand such a book as Tolstoi's Concerning Life, you will often find condensed into ten lines what, in these Western European libraries, it takes thirty volumes to say. Tolstoi says something with elemental force, and in a few lines of his there is the same amount of energy as is assembled in thirty such volumes. Here one must be able to judge what comes forth from the depths of the spirit, what has a spiritual foundation and what has not. Just as overripe civilizations contain some-thing that is drying up and withering, so do rising civilizations contain within them fresh life and new energy. Tolstoi is a premature flower of such a civilization, one that came far too soon to be fully developed. Hence he has all the faults of an untimely birth. His grotesque und unfounded presentations of many Western European things, all that he brings forward in the way of foolish judgment, show that great personalities have the faults of their virtues and that great cleverness has the folly of its wisdom.

This is only mentioned as a symptom of the future age when the spirituality of the East will unite with the intellectuality of the West. From this union will proceed the age of Philadelphia. All those will participate in this marriage who take into themselves the impulse of Christ Jesus and they will form the great brotherhood which will survive the great War, which will experience enmity and persecution, but will provide the foundation for the good race. After this great War has brought out the animal nature in those who have remained in the old forms, the good race will arise, and this race will carry over into the future that which is to be the spiritually elevated culture of that future epoch. We shall also have the experience that in our epoch, between the great Atlantean flood and the great War of All against All, in the age represented by the community at Philadelphia, a colony is being formed, the members of which will not emigrate but will be everywhere; so that everywhere there will be some who are working in the sense of the community of Philadelphia, in the sense of the binding together of humanity, in the sense of the Christ-principle.

We have said repeatedly that our epoch will end, when the seventh age has passed away, by the War of All against All, but this war must really be pictured quite differently from the way we have been accustomed to think of war. We must bear in mind the foundation, the real cause of this war. This foundation or cause is the increase of egoism, of self-seeking and selfishness on the part of man. And we have now progressed so far in our considerations that we have seen what a sharp two-edged sword this “I” of man is. He who does not fully realize that this “I” is a two-edged sword will scarcely be able to grasp the entire meaning of the evolution of humanity and the world. On the one hand this “I” is the cause that man hardens within himself, and that he desires to draw into the service of his “I” his inner capacities and all the other objects at his disposal. This “I” is the cause of man's directing all his wishes to the satisfaction of this “I” as such. Its striving to draw to itself as its own possession a part of the earth which belongs to all, to drive away all the other Egos from its realm, to fight them, to be at war with them, is one side of the “I.” But on the other hand the must not forget that the “I” is at the same time that which gives man his independence and his inner freedom, which in the truest sense of the word elevates him. His dignity is founded in this “I,” it is the basis of the Divine in man.

This conception of the “I” offers difficulty to many people. It has become clear to us that this “I” of man has developed from a group-soul nature, from a kind of all-inclusive universal “I” out of which it has been differentiated. It would be wrong if man were to crave to go down again with his “I” into some sort of universal consciousness, into some sort of common consciousness. Everything which causes a man to strive to lose his “I” and dissolve it into a universal consciousness, is the result of weakness. He alone understands the “I” who knows that after he has gained it in the course of cosmic evolution it cannot be lost; and above all man must strive for the strength (if he understands the mission of the world) to make this “I” more and more inward, more and more divine. True Anthroposophists possess nothing of the empty talk which continually emphasizes the dissolution of the “I” in a universal self, the melting into some sort of primeval sea. True Anthroposophy can only put forward as the final goal, the community of free and independent Egos, of Egos which have become individualized. It is just this that is the mission of the earth, which is expressed in love, that the Egos learn to confront one another freely. Love is not perfect if it proceeds from coercion, from people being chained together, but only when each “I” is so free and independent that it need not love, is its love an entirely free gift. It is the divine plan to make this “I” so independent that as an individual being in all freedom it can offer love even to God. It would amount to man being led by strings of dependence if he could in any way be forced to love, even if only in the slightest degree.

Thus the “I” will be the pledge for the highest goal of man. But at the same time, if it does not discover love, if it hardens within itself, it is the tempter that plunges him into the abyss. For it is that which separates men from one another which brings them to the great War of All against All, not only to the war of nation against nation (for the conception of a nation will then no longer have the significance it possesses to-day) but to the war of each single person against every other person in every branch of life; to the war of class against class, of caste against caste and sex against sex. Thus in every field of life the “I” will become the apple of discord; and hence we may say that it can lead on the one hand to the highest and on the other hand to the lowest. For this reason it is a sharp two-edged sword. And he who brought the full Ego-consciousness to man, Christ Jesus, is, as we have seen, symbolically and correctly represented in the Apocalypse as one who has the sharp two-edged sword in his mouth.

We have represented it as a high achievement of man that just through Christianity he has been able to ascend to this concept of the free “I.” Christ Jesus brought the “I” in all its fullness. Hence this “I” must be expressed by the sharp two-edged sword which you already know from one of our seals. And the fact that this sharp two-edged sword proceeds from the mouth of the Son of Man is also comprehensible, for when man has learnt to utter the “I” with full consciousness it is in his power to rise to the highest or sink to the lowest. The sharp two-edged sword is one of the most important symbols met with in the Apocalypse.

Now if we understand what was said at the close of our last lecture, that after our present civilization will follow that which is characterized in our last lecture through the community of Philadelphia, we must particularly notice that from the sixth age will be taken those human souls who have to pass over into the following epoch. For, after the War of All against All—as we have already said—there will be expressed in the features all that is in our age being prepared in men's souls. The so-called seventh age will be of very little importance. We are now living in the fifth age of civilization; then follows the sixth, from which will proceed a number of people full of understanding for the spiritual world, filled with the spirit of brotherly love, which results from spiritual knowledge. The ripest fruit of our present civilization will appear in the sixth age. And that which follows it will be what is lukewarm, neither warm nor cold; the seventh age is something like an overripe fruit, which outlasts the War of All against All, but contains no principle of progress.

This was the case also when our culture originated. Let as think of the time before the Atlantean flood. We have said that it was in the last third of the Atlantean epoch—which men experienced on the land now covered by the Atlantic Ocean—when a small group was formed in the neighbourhood of the present Ireland, which had reached the highest stage of Atlantean civilization, and this group then migrated to the East, whence all later civilizations have proceeded. Let us keep this clearly in mind, let us think of this portion of the earth which now forms the ocean west of Ireland, let us think of a migration of people starting from there and going towards the East and from it a number of tribes proceeding, which then populate Europe. All that is contained in the population of Europe originated in this way. The most gifted portion of the Atlanteans wandered towards central Asia; from there proceeded the various civilizations up to our own, as we have described. So we see that our present civilization originated in a small group of Atlanteans.

Atlantis, however, had seven consecutive stages just as our own civilization has seven stages which we know as the ancient Indian, ancient Persian, Assyrian-Babylonian-Chaldean-Egyptian-Jewish, the Graeco-Latin, our own and two further ones. It was in the fifth stage when this emigration began; so that the specially chosen population of Atlantis which lies at the foundation of our culture is taken from the fifth Atlantean race, for in Atlantis we may speak of races. A sixth and a seventh followed. These were, so to speak the lukewarm races. They also survived the great flood but there was no living sprouting force in them. They were related to the fifth Atlanteans civilization somewhat as the bark which is lignified and hardened is related to the sappy stem. These two races which followed the actual root-race were incapable of developing, they were overripe, so to speak. You may still see stragglers of these old overripe races to-day, especially among the Chinese. This Chinese people is characterized by the fact that it has not identified itself with what was manifested in the fifth race, the root-race. It was when the etheric body entered into the physical body that man received the first germs which enabled him to say “I.” They had passed over that period; they had, however, thereby developed the high civilization which is known to-day but which was not capable of development. The fifth Atlantean race sent its people every-where, and they founded new civilizations, civilizations capable of growing and becoming more perfect. Indeed, this all developed from the ancient Indian civilization to our own. The sixth and seventh races of Atlantis allowed themselves to become hardened and therefore became stationary. As we have said, the Chinese civilization is a remainder of that ancient civilization. The old Chinese possessed a wonderful Atlantean heritage but they could not progress any further. Nothing remains uninfluenced from outside. You may examine ancient Chinese literature; it has been influenced from every direction, but its fundamental tendency bears the Atlantean character. This self-completeness, this capacity of making discoveries and going no further, could never bring the Chinese beyond a certain stage—all this proceeds from the character of Atlantis.

Just as it happened at that time with the fifth race, that it provided men who were capable of development and with the sixth and seventh, that they experienced a descent, so will it also be in our epoch. We are now looking with great longing towards the sixth civilization, to that which must be described as developing out of the spiritual marriage between West and East. The sixth stage will be the foundation for the new civilizations which will arise after the great War of All against All; just as our civilization arose after the Atlantean epoch. On the other hand, the seventh race of culture will be characterized by the lukewarm. This seventh age will continue into the new epoch, just as the sixth and seventh races of the Atlantean epoch continued into our epoch as races hardened and stiffening. After the War of All against All, there will be two streams in humanity: on the one hand the stream of Philadelphia will survive with the principle of progress, of inner freedom, of brotherly love, a small group drawn from every tribe and nation; and on the other hand the great mass of all those who are lukewarm, the remains of those who are now becoming lukewarm (Laodicea).

After the great War of All against All, gradually the evil stream will be led over to good by the good race, by the good stream. This will be one of the principal tasks after the great War of All against All; to rescue what can be rescued from those who after the great war will only have the impulse to fight one another and to allow the “I” to express itself in the most external egoism. Such things are always provided for in advance in the spiritual guidance of humanity.

Do not consider it a hard thing in the plan of creation, as something which should be altered, that humanity will be divided into those who will stand on the right and those who will stand on the left; consider it rather as something that is wise in the highest degree in the plan of creation. Consider that through the evil separating from the good, the good will receive its greatest strengthening. For after the great War of All against All, the good will have to make every possible effort to rescue the evil during the period in which this will still be possible. This will not merely be a work of education such as exists to-day, but occult forces will co-operate. For in this next great epoch men will understand how to set occult forces in motion. The good will have the task of working upon their brothers of the evil movement. Everything is prepared beforehand in the hidden occult movements, but the deepest of all occult cosmic currents is the least understood. The movement which is preparing for this, says the following to its pupils: “Men speak of good and evil, but they do not know that it is necessary in the great plan that evil, too, should come to its peals, in order that those who have to overcome it should, in the very overcoming of evil, so use their force that a still greater good results from it.” The most capable must be chosen and prepared to live beyond the period of the great War of All against All when men will confront those who bear in their countenances the sign of evil; they must be so prepared that as much good force as possible will flow into humanity. It will still be possible for those bodies, which are to a certain extent soft, to be transformed after the War of All against All by the converted souls, by the souls who will still be led to the good in this last epoch. In this way much will be accomplished. The good would not be so great a good if it were not to grow through the conquest of evil. Love would not be so intense if it had not to become love so great as to be able even to overcome the wickedness in the countenances of evil men. This is already being prepared for and the pupils are told, “You must not think that evil has no part in the plan of creation. It is there in order that through it may come the greater good.” Those who are being prepared in their souls by such teachings, so that in the future they will, be able to accomplish this great task of education, are the pupils of the Manichaean School. The Manichaean teaching is generally misunderstood. When you hear anything or read something about it, you find merely phrases. You may read that the Manichees believed that from the very beginning of the world there have been two principles: good and evil. This is not so, the teaching of the Manichees is what we have just explained. By the name “Manichaeism” should be understood the above teaching and its development in the future, and the pupils who are so led that they can accomplish such a task in future incarnations. Manes is that exalted individuality, who is repeatedly incarnated on the earth, who is the guiding spirit of those whose task it is to transform evil. When we speak of the great leaders of mankind we must also think of this individuality who has set himself this task. Although at the present day this principle of Manes has had to step very much into the background because there is little understanding for spiritual work, this wonderful and lofty Manichaean principle will win more and more pupils the nearer we approach the understanding of spiritual life.

Thus you see how the present-day humanity will pass into the new epoch beyond the War of All against All, just as that root-race of the Atlanteans lived over into our epoch and founded our civilizations. After the great War of All against All humanity will develop in seven consecutive stages. We have already seen how that which is said concerning the opening of the seven seals in the Apocalypse of John gives us the character of the seven consecutive civilizations after the great war. Then when this civilization—which can only be seen by the initiates in the astral world and in its symbolism—has run its course, a new epoch will begin for our earth development in which again new forms will appear. And this new epoch, which will follow the one just described, is symbolized in the Apocalypse of John by the sounding of the seven trumpets. Just as the epoch after the great War of All against All is characterized by the seven seals, because the seer can only see it to-day from the astral world, so by the sounding of the trumpets is characterized the stage of civilization which follows, because man can only perceive it from the true spiritual world where the tones of the spheres sound forth. In the astral world man perceives the world in pictures, in symbols, in Devachan he perceives it in inspiring music; and in this Devachan is contained the climax, as it were, of what is revealed concerning what follows the great War of All against All.

Thus if we represent it in a diagram, we have our seven ages of civilization in the space between the letters a–b, so that we have the ancient Indian civilization as the first, the ancient Persian as the second, the Assyrian-Babylonian-Chaldean-Egyptian-Jewish, the Graeco-Latin,and our own as the fifth stage of the post-Atlantean epoch. The figure IV would be the Atlantean epoch, (a) the great flood by which this comes to an end, and (b) the great War of All against All. Then follows an epoch of seven stages (VI) which is represented by the seven seals, then follows another (VII) also containing seven stages, represented by the seven trumpets. Here again lies the boundary of our physical earth development.

Now the Atlantean civilization (IV), which preceded our own, was also preceded by other stages of civilization; for that of our own (V), which follows the Atlantean, is the fifth -Stage on our earth. Four stages of civilization preceded it. But we can scarcely call the first stage a civilization culture. Everything was still etheric and spiritual, all in such a condition that if it had developed further in this way it would not have become visible at all to sense organs such as ours. The first stage developed when the sun was still bound up with our earth. There were then quite different conditions, one could not speak of anything which looked like the objects now surrounding us. Then followed a stage characterized by the sun separating. Then one characterized by the moon leaving the earth; this was the third stage, which we call the ancient Lemurian. At this point the present man appeared on our earth in his very first form, concerning which I have pointed out that they were such grotesque bodily forms that it would shock you if you were to hear them described. After the Lemurian followed the Atlantean, and finally our own.

So you see that we have on our earth seven epochs of development. The first two were absolutely unlike our epoch.; the third partly ran its course in a region lying between the present Africa, Asia and Australia, in ancient Lemuria. In the very last Lemurian race there was again a small group of the most advanced. These were able to emigrate, and from them developed the seven races of the Atlanteans. The last Lemurian race founded the Atlantean races. The fifth of the Atlantean races founded our civilizations, of which the sixth will found the future civilization after the great War of All against All. And the very last of those civilizations will have to found that which is indicated by the seven trumpets. After that, what will happen? Our earth will then have reached the goal of its physical evolution. All the objects and all the beings upon it will then have been transformed. For if we have had to say that already in the sixth epoch men will show good and evil un their faces, we shall have to say all the more of the seventh that the form of man and the forms of all the other beings will be an expression of good and evil to a much higher degree than in the sixth epoch. All matter will bear the stamp of the spirit. There will be absolutely nothing in this seventh epoch that can be hidden in any way. Even those belonging to the sixth epoch will be unable to hide anything from him who has the necessary vision. An evil man will express his evil, a good man will express the good that is within him; but in the seventh epoch it will be quite impossible by speech to hide what is in the soul. Thought will no longer remain dumb so that it can be hidden, for when the soul thinks, its thought will ring forth outwardly. It will then be just as thought is already to the Initiates to-day. To them thought now rings out in Devachan. But this Devachan will have descended into the physical world, just as the astral world will have descended into the physical world in the sixth epoch. Even now the sixth epoch can be found in the astral world and the seventh in the heavenly world. The sixth epoch is the descended astral world, that is to say the images, the expressions, the manifestations of it. The seventh epoch will be the descended heavenly world, the expression of it. And then the earth will have reached the goal of its physical evolution. The earth, together with all its beings, will then change into an astral heavenly body. Physical substance as such will disappear. The part which until then had been able to spiritualize itself, will pass over into the spirit, into astral sub-stance. Imagine all the beings of the earth who up to that time have been able to express what is good, noble, intellectual and beautiful in their external material form; who will bear an expression of Christ Jesus in their countenances, whose words will manifest Christ Jesus, for they will ring out as resounding thoughts—all these will have the power to dissolve what they have within them as physical matter, as warm water dissolves salt. Everything physical will pass over into an astral globe. But those who up to that time have not progressed so far as to be a material and corporeal expression of what is noble, beautiful, intellectual and good, will not have the power to dissolve matter; for them matter will remain. They will become hardened in matter; they will retain material form. At this point in the earth's evolution there will be an ascent into the spirit of forms which will live in the astral and which will separate from them-selves another material globe, a globe which will contain beings unfit for the ascent because they are unable to dissolve the material part. In this way our earth will advance towards its future. Through the souls gradually refining matter from within, the substance of the earth will become more and more refined until it receives the power to dissolve. Then will come the time when the insoluble part will be ejected as a special planet. In the course of seven ages that which has hardened itself in matter will be driven out, and the power which drives it out will be the opposite force to that which will have forced the good beings upward.

What, then, will they have used to dissolve matter? The power of love gained through the Christ-principle. Beings become capable of dissolving matter through taking love into their souls. The more the soul is warmed by love the more power-fully will it be able to work on matter; it will spiritualize the whole earth and transform it into an astral globe. But just as love dissolves matter, as warm water dissolves salt, so will the opposite of love press down—again throughout seven stages everything which has not become capable of fulfilling the earth mission. The contrary of divine love is called divine wrath, that is the technical expression for it. Just as in the course of the fourth stage of civilization this love was imprinted in humanity, just as it will become warmer and warmer through the last stages in our epoch, the sixth and seventh, so on the other hand there is growing that which hardens matter around itself the divine wrath. This effect of the divine wrath, this expulsion of matter is indicated in the Apocalypse of John by the outpouring of the seven vials of divine wrath. Imagine what the whole condition will be; the substance of the earth will become finer and finer, the substantial part of man will also become more and more spiritual, and the coarsest parts will only be visible in the finer part like the skins or shells sloughed off, for example, by reptiles or snails. These harder parts will thus become more and more incorporated in the substance which is growing finer. In the last epoch, the epoch of the sounding of the trumpets, you would with spiritual vision see how men consist of delicate, spiritualized bodies; and how those who have hardened the material principle in themselves have preserved in themselves what to-day are the most important constituents of matter; and how this will fall as husks into the material globe which will be left after the epoch indicated by the sounding of the trumpets.

This is prophetically described in the Apocalypse of John, and it is important to develop a feeling in our souls about this knowledge of what is coming, so that it may fire our will. For what will man have made of himself when the sixth and seventh epochs are over? What will he have made of his body? If we now observe the human body we find that it is not yet the expression of the soul within; but it will gradually become an expression of what the soul experiences within. Man's outer body will thus become an expression of the good by his receiving the highest message, the highest teaching there is on this earth; and this highest teaching is the message of Christ Jesus on the earth; the highest that can be given to us is the message of Christ Jesus. We must take it up thoroughly, not merely with the understanding; we must take it into our innermost being, just as one takes nourishment into the physical body. And as humanity develops further it will take up the joyful message into its inner being more and more. It is just this reception of the message of love which it will have to regard as the result of the earth's mission. The power of love is contained in the Gospels, the whole power of love, and the seer can say nothing else than: “In the spirit I see a time before me when that which is in the Gospel will no longer be outside in a book but when it will be devoured by man himself.”

Our earth evolution depends upon two things. Our earth was preceded by what we call the Cosmos of Wisdom, and that was preceded by what we call the Cosmos of Strength, of Power (certainly the word does not convey much, but we must use it because it has become customary). Wisdom and strength have been received as a heritage from previous stages of evolution, from the ancient Moon and the ancient Sun. We shall see that during our earth evolution this is also expressed by our naming the first half after the representative of the Sun forces, Mars, for we only need note at this point that within our earth evolution we have in Mars that which implanted iron in the earth; in Mars we see the bringer of strength. And in that which rules the second half of the earth evolution we have the representative of the ancient Moon evolution, Mercury, which embodies in the earth the heritage received from the Moon, wisdom. Thus the earth evolution consists of two parts, Mars and Mercury. It has received as a heritage two mighty forces. That which it has inherited from the cosmos of strength is expressed in Mars, and that which it has inherited from the cosmos of wisdom is expressed in Mercury. The mission of the earth itself is to bring love. Love is to be gloriously manifested as the result of the earth evolution. This is a very profound thought expressed by the writer of the Apocalypse. It is the profound thought underlying the whole of the earth evolution.

Let us once more go back to the first portion of the Atlantean epoch, to the time of which we said that the air was still saturated with water. Man was still organized for a water existence. Only in the middle of Atlantis had he progressed so far that he forsook the water and trod upon solid ground. Up to the middle of the earth's evolution we must regard water as the vehicle of human evolution, just as afterwards solid earth. It was only comparatively late that the solid earth became the field of human evolution. It is only half the truth if we speak of the whole of Atlantis as consisting of dry land. In many respects it was not covered, let us say, by the ocean, but by something between air and water, air-saturated with water. And this water-air was the element in which man lived. Only later did he become capable of living in clear air and standing on solid ground. That was, comparatively speaking, not long ago; so that if we survey the earth's evolution, we may say, expressing it symbolically: On the one hand we have earth and on the other hand water—that is the earlier period. From the water emanates one of the forces, and from the earth emanates the other force, up to the first half of evolution. In the middle of the fourth period we speak of the Mars forces, of the forces given by water, so to speak, and we speak of the Mercury forces in the later time when the solid earth gives the supporting forces. This fits quite accurately into the conception that man is supported in his entire earth mission by two pillars. They represent two parts of the earth's mission, the two heritages man has received from earlier periods. And above them is symbolized what is to be attained through the earth itself, namely love, which is there gloriously revealing itself, which is supported by these heritages. Thus the writer of the Apocalypse really describes it just as it presents itself to those who ascend. Therefore, when we observe what lies beyond the earth and what confronts us when earthly substance dissolves into the spiritual, this is symbolically indicated by what we see in the fourth seal. See Dr. Steiner's Occult Seals and Symbols. Of course it has to appear reversed, because it represents what belongs to the future. We see the two forces which the earth has received as heritage from the cosmos of wisdom and the cosmos of strength, and we see all that appears as the fulfilment of the earth's mission, as the force of love which man develops. The whole appears to its as the personification of the man of the future. The man of the future here confronts us symbolically, supported by these forces, permeated by this power. The message of love, the book before him, is a book which influences him not only from without but he has to devour it. Here we behold before us the mighty picture which appears at this stage. “And I saw another mighty angel” (that is, a being which is presented thus, because he is already above the present man), “descend from the spiritual spheres” (that is how it is seen by the Seer) “clothed with a cloud, and his countenance was like the sun and his feet like pillars of fire”—these are the two forces of which we have spoken, which the earth has received as a heritage. “And he had in his hand a little book opened; and his right foot was set upon the sea and his left upon the earth. ... And I said unto him, Give me the little book. And he said unto me, Take it, and eat it up; and it shall pain thee in thy belly, but in thy mouth it shall be sweet as honey. And I took the little book from the hand of the angel and ate it up; and it was in my mouth sweet as honey.” Here we have the feeling arising in the seer when he directs his gaze to the point when the earth passes from the physically material into the astrally spiritual, when the earth mission is attained. And when the seer sees this he learns what is really connected with this message of love, which entered in as an impulse in the fourth age, he learns even in the present life, as the Apocalyptist learnt, what bliss is and the bliss that may lie before humanity. But he learns it in his present body; for if a being wished to live with man, however high he might be, he would be obliged to incarnate in the flesh. And in many respects the present body, just because it offers the spirit the possibility of rising high, also gives the possibility of suffering. While, there-fore, the soul is able to ascend—the soul of the seer—as the Apocalyptist has described, into spiritual regions, in order to receive the Gospel of Love, and in spirit is able to feel the bliss sweet as honey, yet the seer lives in a present-day body, and in accordance with this he must say that the ascent produces in the present body the antithesis of that bliss in many respects. He expresses this by saying that although the little book is at first sweet as honey when he eats it, it gives him severe pains in the belly. But this is only a small reflection of the “being crucified in the body.” The higher the spirit rises, the more difficult it is for it to dwell in the body, and this is the symbolical expression for these pains: “being crucified in the body.”

Thus we have briefly sketched what will happen in our earth evolution, what lies in front of man in his earthly evolution. We have arrived at the point when man is changed into an astral being; when the best parts of the earth disappear as physical earth and pass over into the spiritual; when only something like a separated portion will through the divine wrath fall into the abyss. And we shall see that even there the last stage at which salvation would not be possible has not yet been reached, although that which is in the abyss is pictured by the most frightful symbols, by the seven-headed and ten-horned beast and by the two-horned beast.

In our description of the evolution of man we have now reached the point when, after the epoch characterized by the sounding of the seven trumpets, the earth with all its beings passes into another condition, when the physical dissolves, so to speak, and changes into spiritual, but first into astral. An astral earth arises and into it pass all the beings who are ripe for it, that is, who have become capable of overcoming even their material part, and using it in the service of the spiritual. On the other hand, those who are unable to spiritualize the bodily, material part, who cling to the material, are thrown out and form a sort of secondary earth, the study of which is very instructive for gaining knowledge of the future destiny of humanity. But to this end it is necessary that we clearly understand what has become, during this astralizing of our earth, of those who have reached the necessary degree of maturity, who have taken the Christ-principle into themselves and allowed it to become active. We shall now occupy ourselves with what can develop out of man.

We shall best understand this if we have the patience again to consider what man has become and what possibilities of development lie within him for the future. At present man consists of four principles. The first is the so-called physical body; this is the principle man has in common with all the present creations of the mineral kingdom; this part of man one can see with the eyes and grasp with the hands; it is the lowest principle of human nature, which alone remains as the corpse at death. But this physical body would every moment have the same fate as the corpse at death, it would fall to pieces were it not permeated by what we call the etheric body or life body. This etheric body man no longer has in common with the mineral kingdom, he has it in common with the beings of the earthly vegetable kingdom. In every man the etheric body is a combatant which between birth and death holds together the parts of the physical body which continually have the tendency to disintegrate. What is the physical body of man, in reality? It is that which, when death has destroyed the form, after a short time becomes ashes. It is a little heap of ashes, so wonderfully arranged in the life body that the whole man makes the impression he now does upon those who look at him. The second principle, then, is the ether or life body. The third principle, which man has in common with the animals, is the so-called astral body, the vehicle of instincts, desires, passions, thoughts, ideas, etc., all that is usually called the soul in main. Finally we have the fourth principle in human nature, that which makes man the crown of earthly creation, which makes him stand out above all the other beings, and enables him to develop as “I,” as an individual self-conscious being in earthly existence. In the future the evolution of man will unfold in such manner that he will gradually work from his

“I” upon the lower principles, so that the “I” becomes their ruler. When the “I” has thoroughly worked upon the astral body and taken possession of it, so that in this astral body there are no more unconscious and unguarded impulses, instincts and passions, then the “I” will have developed what we call Spirit Self or Manas. Spirit-Self is none other than the astral body, only the astral body is the third principle before it is transformed by the “I.” When the “I” transforms the etheric body also, Life-Spirit or Budhi is produced; and when in the remotest future the “I” transforms the physical body so that this is completely spiritualized by the “I” itself (this is the most difficult work, because the physical body is the densest), then the physical body develops into the highest principle of human nature, namely, Atma or Spirit-Man. Thus, if we conceive of man in his seven-fold nature, we have the physical body, the etheric body or life-body, the astral body and the “I.” Further, we have that which man will develop in the future; Spirit-Self or Manas, Life-Spirit or Budhi and Spirit-Man or Atma. That is the sevenfold being of man. However, he will only develop these higher principles in the far-distant future. It is not yet in man's power while on the earth to work so far upon himself as to bring all these higher spiritual parts to full development.

If we consider the sevenfold man in this way we shall, however, not fully comprehend the man we see before us to-day. It is indeed true that if we survey man as a whole we may speak of these seven principles, but if we wish to understand the present man we must be more exact. You will remember that the physical body was developed on Saturn, the etheric body on the Sun, the astral body on the Moon, and that the Ego is to be developed on the Earth. It has already developed to a certain high degree.

We must now observe this earthly evolution of man somewhat more closely. The greater portion of humanity will only have gained the power to work quite consciously in the Spirit-Self, in the transformed astral body, at the close of the earth evolution. On the other hand, during our earthly evolution man had to pass through a kind of preparation which made it possible for him to work half-consciously and half-unconsciously, as it were, on his three lower principles.

This half-conscious and half unconscious work began in the Lemurian epoch, to which we have already referred. At that time the “I” began to work in a very dim consciousness, and at first, in fact, on the astral body. If therefore, you follow the earth development from the Lemurian epoch into the first portion of the Atlantean, you will find the “I” worked at first in a very dim consciousness, half unconsciously only on his astral body. That which then appeared on the earth as the product of the transformation of the astral body, we call sentient-soul. Then during the Atlantean epoch, when the air was filled with dense volumes of water-vapour, the “I” worked in dim consciousness on the etheric body and produced what we call intellectual-soul or mind-soul; and from the time when, from the country in the neighbourhood of the present Ireland, the great impulse came which drove the peoples from the West towards the East and led beyond the great Atlantean flood to our new culture, from the beginning of the last third of the Atlantean epoch, the “I” worked unconsciously on the physical body. It worked into what one calls the consciousness-soul, that which gave man the foundation to work out of the group-soul nature a more or less self-conscious “I” which first received the great impulse towards complete individuality with the appearance of Christ Jesus. Then only did we really become capable of what one may call working more or less consciously on the astral body. Really only since the advent of the Christ impulse on earth have we begun to work consciously on our astral body. So that if we speak of man to-day we have to say that he has developed physical body, etheric body, astral body, then sentient-soul (the astral body which was formerly transformed in dim consciousness); the intellectual-soul (the etheric body which was dimly trans-formed in the Atlantean epoch); and the consciousness-soul (the physical body which was dimly transformed in the later portion of the Atlantean epoch), so that he gradually matured to where he could develop Spirit-Self (Manas) as far as it can be observed in man to-day.

All men now possess the rudiments of the Spirit-Self, but one has more, another less. Many will still have to go through many incarnations before they have developed the Spirit-Self far enough to become aware of what they are working upon within their human nature. But when the earth has reached its goal, when the seventh trumpet begins to sound, the following will he observed: that which exists of the physical body will be dissolved like salt in warm water. The human Spirit-Self will be developed to a high degree, so that man will repeat again and again the words of Paul, “Not I, but Christ in me does everything.” This will enable him to dissolve the physical nature and make the ennobled etheric into a being which can live in the astralized earth. Thus man, a new being, will live over into this spiritualized earth.

We might say that the important stage of passing over into the earth which has become spiritualized, is wonderfully expressed in the Bible where it says that everything which man now accomplishes within himself in the physical body during the earth period is like a sowing whose fruit will appear when the earth has become spiritual. “And that which thou sowest is not the body that shall be, but bare grain, it may chance of wheat or of some other grain. But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body” (1 Cor. xv. 37), That is, the body which is the expression of the soul of the individuality. “There are also celestial bodies and bodies terrestrial, but the glory of the celestial body is one, and the glory of the terrestrial body is another.” The earthly bodies will be dissolved, the celestial will appear as the luminous expression of what the soul is. “It is sown corruptible and will rise incorruptible.” The incorruptible body will then be resurrected. “It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body.” Paul calls the etheric or life-body, spiritual body, after the physical has dissolved and the etheric passes into the astral earth. Paul here sees beforehand the incorruptible spiritual body, as he calls it.

And now let us consider what it is that man will embody as the expression of his capacity for receiving the Christ. It is the same that hovered before Paul in spirit, and that he calls “the last Adam,” while he calls the first man who entered into existence in a physically visible body “the first Adam.”. At the end of the Lemurian epoch we already find various animals below, but man is not yet visible to external eyes; he is still etheric. He condenses, and absorbs mineral constituents and appears in his first form; the physical man gradually appears, just as water condenses into ice, Physical evolution then proceeds so far that what is earthly can dissolve and eventually disappears. Hence the man who has the etheric body appears as the last Adam. The first Adam has the capacity of seeing the earth in the physical body through the physical senses; the last Adam, who assumes a spiritual body, is an expression of the inner capacity for receiving the Christ. Hence Christ is called by Paul the last Adam. This comprises the whole of human evolution; in spirit we see what man will become in the future, whereas before we saw how he descended to the earth.

Now to understand the following we must look a little more deeply into the mysteries of becoming man. If you could observe man before his body became physical, that is to say, when he was still invisible to physical eyes, when he first descended from the etheric, so to speak, by becoming first an airy, watery structure, then a cartilaginous structure—if you could follow him thus you would see that our earth was also quite different. In the time before the descent of man there was really no mineral kingdom. The earth only possessed the heritage of the Moon. The lowest kingdom was the vegetable kingdom, and the earth was much softer. The distribution of the watery and gaseous substances was quite different. If you had looked at the earth before man had descended from the surrounding atmosphere to the solid ground it would not have appeared to you as the abstract product described in modern geology, etc.; one might say that our earth as a whole was at that time more like an organism. It was permeated with all kinds of ordered currents, and was more like a living being than it is now. And man, who existed in that ancient time more as a spiritual etheric being, was not born as he is to-day, but he was, so to say, brought forth out of mother earth herself. It was mother earth herself that produced man, that still spiritually

etheric being. Before man separated front the whole earth, he was a being who was really bound up with the whole earth. imagine a body which is soft, and in it hardened parts appear; this will give you a picture of how men were at that time born from mother earth. They were connected with the earth by all kinds of currents, and remained connected with it. Hence man had an entirely different life; for example, the circulation of the blood, which is now confined within the limits of its skin, extended everywhere into the surrounding earth—it existed in the form of natural forces. If we wished to draw a picture of what it was like at that time we should have to say: there arose within the earth—not perceptible to physical eyes, but to spiritual vision—a part which was raised and could be distinguished from the rest of the environment; but the forces in it were connected by innumerable threads with the rest of the whole earth. That was the beginning of a physical human being. There was a time when the human beings were connected in this way by threads with the rest of the earth.

As we have said, we are now touching upon an important and deep mystery, the last traces of which may be seen in the fact that when man is born at the present time, the connection with the maternal organism made by the umbilical cord is severed. This connection with the organism of the mother is the last remains of the connection man had with mother earth. And just as to-day man is a son of man, born from man, he was once a son of earth, born from the earth, when the earth was still a living being. He became independent through the umbilical cord—by which he was connected with the whole earth—being severed, so to speak; he thereby became a being born from his like. We must clearly understand that the paths of the blood now existing in man are nothing more than continuations of currents which in the ancient condition of the earth permeated the whole earth, it is the same with the nerves. All the nerves extended into mother earth. These are now sundered, as it were, from that which streamed through the whole earth as nerves. And the other parts of the human being in the same way. Man is born out of mother earth. That which is now enclosed within the skin has been drawn into him from the whole earth. The being of man is taken from the earth, the forces of the whole earth are in him. Before he became a son of man, he was a son of earth. The name Adam really means son of earth. All these ancient names point to important secrets. But when we are aware of this we shall understand that before the visible man appeared on the earth, the latter already contained within it all the forces of this visible man. Before man became a human being the earth was the bearer of all the human forces. Thus the earth is the mother of the human race. Just as little as you can imagine that man could ever grow out of the present stony earth, just as little could he spring forth from the earth, unless it were a living being. What we have just briefly indicated took place in the Lemurian epoch.

This earth was extremely important to man, for in its original form it contained all that man later possessed within him. In one part the heart was prepared, in another the brain; in our earth every nerve fibre was prepared. And just as our inner being was prepared in the earth, in the same way, in that which we shall have developed as our new body when the earth has reached its goal, do we carry within us the form which the future planet, the future embodiment of our earth must assume. To-day man works upon his soul; in this way he makes his body more and more like the soul, and when the earth has arrived at the end of its mission his body will have become an outward image of the soul which has taken Christ into itself. Such a man will survive and implant in the next embodiment of our earth the forces he has thus developed. Jupiter will have an appearance such as men are able to bring about by constructing it out of their own bodies. This Jupiter will, to begin with, receive its form from that which man has made for himself. Imagine that all the bodies you have fashioned are united in a single cosmic globe; that will be Jupiter. In your soul you have the germs of the future form of Jupiter, and of the forces it will contain. And out of Jupiter will be born the Jupiter beings. Thus man is now preparing for the birth of the Jupiter bodies.

What, therefore, must man do in order to give a worthy form to the future embodiment of our earth? He must take care that the work he can now do consciously is done in the Christine way, so that the etheric body which will be an image of this work will enter worthily into the spiritualized earth. All the parts of this body will be just as man has made them. He will bring into this spiritual earth what he has made of his physical body, and this will be the foundation for his future evolution. Just as your present soul develops in your present body, which you have inherited from the Moon, the future soul will develop in that which you yourselves make out of your own body. Hence the body is described as that which envelops the soul, which clothes the “I,” which is inhabited by the “I,” as the temple of the selfhood within, the temple of the Divinity dwelling in man, the temple of God. When, therefore, you form this body, you are building a future temple, that is to say, the new incarnation of the earth. You build up Jupiter in the right way by shaping the human body in the right way.

What, therefore, must appear when the earth has reached its goal? A temple of the soul harmonious in all its measurements. Hence the Initiate is commissioned to examine this temple which man will then have built. When this temple of God is measured it will be made manifest whether the soul has done what is right. “And there was given use a reed like unto a rod, and the angel said: Rise, and measure the temple of God, and the altar, and them that worship therein. But leave out the outer court” (Rev. xi. 1). This means, all that was there as a preparation must be thrown out of the temple. Man had first to have physical body and etheric body before he could work on them. These bodies are the outer court, and must fall away, they must be thrown out. That alone which man has made does he keep. That is the temple in which are to live the new beings in the Jupiter period.

We shall live, then, in an earth which has become spiritual. We see how the pattern of this Jupiter period is already being prepared. We see foreshadowed how men bring with them the fruits of their earth existence. And now we must clearly under-stand that all that was there before reappears in this spiritual condition on the earth, in a higher state of evolution. Most prominent are the bearers of the spiritual currents upon which the earth is founded, and from which it has proceeded. The bearers of these currents appear in living form. If we follow Christian tradition we shall see in Elias and Moses the personal representatives of what we found in yesterday's lecture in the two pillars. In Christian esotericism Elias and Moses are looked upon as those who give the teachings of the two pillars. Elias was the one who brought to man the knowledge and message of the one pillar, the pillar of strength, Moses the one who brought the message of the pillar of wisdom. Moses means wisdom or truth, and Elias means the directing force, that which gives the impulse—it is difficult to express the words in ordinary language. Thus we see these two appear in the spiritualized earth und, indeed, at the stage of evolution they will then have reached. In the Transfiguration of Christian tradition Christ appeared between Moses and Elias, and this entire procedure appears again at the end of the earth evolution in such a way that the sun, the spiritual sun of love, the manifestation of the earth mission of love appears supported by Sun-Mars, and Moon—Mercury, by Elias and Moses. Just as yesterday we saw the two pillars which at first appear before the Initiate as the symbols of strength and wisdom, and above the sun of love, so we may now picture the evolution of the earth a stage further, and the one pillar will appear in its living nature, in its personal form, as Elias, and the other as Moses, and what is above, as the veritable Christ-principle.

If we now turn our attention away from the earth itself and what is upon it, and consider it in connection with the whole space of heaven, we shall find we have arrived at a very important matter at the time of which we are now speaking. Earth and Sun comprised one body. The earth has developed out of the sun, and the moon has split off. We have said that this had to take place to obtain the right speed of evolution. But now, when man has passed through these stages of development, after he has spiritualized himself, he is ready to unite again with the forces upon the sun, he can proceed at the same tempo as the sun. An important cosmic event now takes place; the earth reunites with the sun. While that of which we have spoken is taking place, the earth unites with the sun. We said that the sun-spirits descended to the earth at the event of Golgotha, that this Christ-principle will be the means of bringing evolution to the point we have described. The earth will then be ready to unite with the sun; and that which was necessary in order that evolution should not proceed too quickly, namely, the moon, will be over-come, for man will no longer need it. The forces of the moon will be overcome. At this stage man can unite with the sun; he will live in the spiritualized earth and at the same time be united with the force of the sun; and he will be the conqueror of the moon. This will be seen on examination to be represented by the symbolical figures of the fifth seal; the woman who bears the sun within her and has the moon under her feet. [The fifth seal in Dr. Steiner's Seals and Symbols].

Thus we have arrived at the moment when man is spiritualized, when he reunites with the forces of the sun, when earth and sun form one body and the moon forces are overcome. Now, we must remember that only the most advanced beings, who have been impregnated by the principle of Christ, have passed through this development. They have reached thus far; but those who have hardened in matter have fallen away and formed, so to speak, a kind of secondary planet of hardened, flesh-like matter. Now remember what man looked like to astral vision before he descended to the earth as a physical being. We pointed out that he appeared in the four types of his group-soul, in the form of the Lion, the Eagle, the Bull and the Man. These four types of the group-soul meet us, so to speak, before man descends into the physical, before he is individualized. These four typical forms which man had before he entered into the physical body are invisible in the present physical human being. They arc in the soul-force, pressed, as it were, into the human form like india-rubber. It is, in fact, the case that when man loses control over himself, when his soul becomes silent either by going to sleep, or otherwise falling into a more or less unconscious condition, then one still sees to-day how the corresponding animal type comes out. But, on the whole, man has overcome this animal type by having descended to the physical plane. When did he receive the power to overcome in the astral world the animal type?

Now you will remember that we spoke of the seven ages of the Atlantean evolution. These seven ages comprise the first four and the last three. In the first four man was completely group-soul. Then in the fifth age the first impulse to the “I-soul” originated. Therefore we have four stages of development in Atlantis during which man first progresses as group-soul, and each of the first four Atlantean races corresponds to one of the typical animal forms—lion, eagle, bull and man. This passes over into the human stage in the fifth age. These typical forms are then lost. Now imagine that in the present epoch man permeates himself with the Christ-principle and thereby conquers his animal nature more and more; but if he does not permeate himself with the Christ-principle, he does not over-come the animal nature. The four typical heads, lion, eagle, bull and man, remain, so to speak, as something which assumes its form again as soon as it has the opportunity, and in addition come three others, those of the last three races of the Atlantean epoch, when man had already begun to be man. These three also remain if man does not work in his soul so that this animal nature disappears. How then will a man appear on the spiritualized earth who during our epoch has not taken into himself the Christ-principle? He will appear in materiality; he will reappear in the shapes from which he has come. He has had these animal forms and has passed through three others as well. He has left unused that which could have overcome the animal nature. The animal nature springs forth again, and, indeed, in seven forms. As once in Atlantis there emerged the four heads, the animal man, so out of the transformed earth, the astralized earth, seven such typical heads will again emerge, and the drama that took place at that time will again be enacted. The germ of the spiritual man was there, but he could not yet develop an individual form; he developed the four animal heads. The embryo human being of that epoch is also represented by the woman who brings forth man. The man of the future is also represented by the woman who gives birth to the spiritual man. But that which has remained in the flesh is represented on the secondary earth by the animal with seven heads, just as there were four heads in the period before man had the possibility of overcoming the animal nature, so those who have remained in the animal nature will appear as one entity, as the beast with the seven heads. Thus in the future, after the earth has united with the sun, while the spiritualized earth is above, there actually appears below, all that has not taken into itself the spiritual principle. The animal heads reappear which were there formerly, except that now they are out of their time. They are now the “adversary;” previously they were in the right period, the period of preparation. Thus we see that as at that time there arose from the physical, there now arises from the astral sea—the sun is also astralized—the monster with the seven heads, the seven-headed beast. All that was deposited in man by the etheric body is called in the mystery language—which the Apocalyptist also uses—a head, because when seen clairvoyantly it produces a typical form of head, e.g. a lion's head.

The etheric forces have to work upon it. If we follow the Atlantean evolution we find that the etheric body was still outside the head. That disposition in man due to the etheric is called in the language of the Apocalyptic mysteries “head.” This, therefore, refers to what is seen by clairvoyant vision chiefly as a head. But that which is brought about physically in man through some part of the etheric body is called a “horn.” Thus in the language of the mysteries a horn is a very mysterious thing. For example, that which has been brought about physically in man through his having passed through that race of the Atlantean epoch in which the lion was the typical group-soul, is called a horn. Thus the physical part which comes from some member of the etheric body is called a horn. A horn is the organ which is the external physical expression for something etheric. I will now speak to you in a concrete manner. All the physical organs of man are really densified etheric organs, they have proceeded from the condensed etheric body. Let us consider the human heart; to-day it is a physical organ, but it has condensed from an etheric organ. This present human heart received its rudiments when man went through the group-soul nature designated as the lion. Thus the heart is the horn of the lion head, for when the etheric body had progressed so far that man appeared with the group-soul symbolized by the lion's head, the rudimentary foundations were formed for that which later developed into the human heart. From this germ of the lion-man originated the present human physical heart. While, therefore, we trace back the origin of the etheric body to the changing of one head into another, to the addition of one head to another, we understand the human physical body as the addition of one horn to another. The human etheric body actually consists of “heads,” the human physical body of “horns.” That is the language of the mysteries. All the organs of man have developed out of the etheric body, they are, therefore, nothing but horns.

We have now to reflect upon all that we have heard; for this is something of which even the Apocalyptist says: “Here is wisdom.” We shall only understand this wisdom, which the writer of the Apocalypse has put into the appearance of the seven-headed beast with ten horns, if we carefully ponder over what “horn” really is in relation to “head” in the language of the mysteries. We shall see that the beings who have kept these seven heads, because they have remained behind in evolution, have, in fact, acquired in the abyss a physical body which consists of ten hardened members of the physical body.

We have seen that in the Apocalypse of John we have a description of what takes place in Initiation, or rather, the experience of a Christian during Initiation. In the concluding lectures, when we have briefly considered the whole of the Apocalypse, we shall still have to answer the question: What, really, is this document from an historical point of view? Why does such a document exist? But now, as we have reached the important point revealed in our last lecture, when our earth passes into a spiritual condition, though first of all into an astral condition, when certain remarkable beings appear in what has condensed in matter and split away from the normal progress of our earth evolution, it will be useful before we proceed further to make a general survey of certain things contained in the outline of our anthroposophical world conception. For you have seen that in all we have had to consider, certain conceptions as to numbers play a role, and now we are about to form a conception of what the seven-headed and ten-horned beast is, and what the two-horned beast is.

To begin with, we must find our bearings with regard to the outline of the evolution of the world. This runs its course in absolute conformity with certain numerical relations. The layman will be tempted to say—when he hears that the number seven and other numbers play such a great rôle in our studies—“Oh yes, these Anthroposophists are dishing up those old superstitions connected with the number seven, twelve and so on.” And when our contemporaries hear of something which develops regularly according to the number seven, they then begin to speak of superstition, although they themselves are really living in exactly the same superstition with respect to something of which they have a little knowledge; for they say, for example, that the rainbow consists of seven colours, the scale of seven tones, since the eighth is only a repetition of the first. And in many other realms one speaks of the number seven—and rightly so. In our study of the great cosmic relationships we speak of the number seven in no other sense than the physicist does when he speaks of the seven colours, and, in acoustics, of seven tones. For us the number seven is simply the result of occult experience, just as the scientist observes and counts the seven colours, so does the spiritual investigator count seven consecutive conditions in the world's evolution. And because the initiates in the Mysteries always knew about these things and expressed them, they passed over into the common consciousness; and the number seven was found to be of a particular significance. Exactly because the number seven was founded on cosmic relationships, it passed over into common belief, and of course, also into superstition. If we remember what has been said concerning the secret of the seven trumpets, the seven seals, the seven Letters, and what has been said concerning the seven consecutive ages of the Atlantean epoch, we see that in the evolution of the world there are really consecutive periods which are repeated in conformity with the number seven. We shall now give an outline of cosmic evolution, showing that this number governs all its parts.

We have heard that the Earth before it was Earth was Moon, before it was Moon it was Sun planet, and before it was Sun it was Saturn. After the Earth-condition it will pass over into the Jupiter-condition, and then into the Venus-condition, and lastly into the Vulcan-condition, so that we have seven consecutive planetary embodiments of our earth; Saturn, Sun, Moon, Earth, Jupiter, Venus and Vulcan. Now these are the greatest divisions in our whole evolution which with spiritual vision we are able to survey to a certain extent. We have described the three preceding conditions of the Earth. We shall now try to understand the purpose of this evolution and why the Earth passes through these seven conditions. These seven conditions coincide with the development of human consciousness. Each of these conditions: Saturn, Sun, Moon, Earth, Jupiter, Venus and Vulcan, characterizes a definite condition of human consciousness. Let us turn our attention back to the ancient Saturn period. We know that the various parts of which man is now constituted, did not exist at that time, but only the very first beginnings of his physical body. Obviously these first rudiments could not develop such a consciousness as man has to-day. Other beings had a human consciousness, but at that time the present man had a consciousness such as the minerals now have on the physical plane. We call this a deep trance-consciousness. The first germ of man had this consciousness upon Saturn. This Saturn evolution was gone through in order that man night gradually rise to higher states of consciousness. That was the first stage of consciousness, the deep trance-consciousness. Of course it must not be imagined that the degree of consciousness remained the same throughout the whole of the Saturn period, but on the whole the consciousness of man upon Saturn may be characterized as a deep trance-consciousness. It is dimmer even than the consciousness which man has to-day in dreamless sleep, for that was then the consciousness he passed through at the second stage, during the Sun evolution. This is the consciousness now possessed by the plants around us in the physical world.

Then came the Moon stage of evolution. Man then possessed a consciousness which can be understood more easily because in dream-consciousness man has at least a last remnant of the Moon-consciousness. To-day this dream-consciousness is an intermediate condition between dreamless sleep and the ordinary, waking, clear day-consciousness. Thus the third stage of consciousness was reached on the Moon, and it may be compared to the present dream-filled sleep, but it was much more vivid and real. Dream-filled sleep yields a consciousness which consists of odds and ends of ideas and pictures and is but slightly related to the real external world. The Moon-consciousness, which was a consciousness of dream-pictures, had very significant relations with the outer world. It corresponded exactly to what was present in the soul-spiritual environment. There was a repetition of this during the Atlantean epoch. We call it the dream-picture-consciousness; it might also be called the somnambulic-consciousness. The fourth state of consciousness is reached and passed through on our Earth; it is what we call the clear day-consciousness or objective-consciousness.

During the Jupiter period man will rise to a still higher degree of consciousness of which most people to-day have no inkling, when all that we have described has taken place and all that is yet to be added from the Apocalypse of John which is still to be described. Then, when man is saved, so to speak, when he has risen from the abyss or escaped from decadence, when he has risen into the astralized and spiritual earth, this will be the foundation for his attainment upon Jupiter of the consciousness which we may call the “conscious picture-consciousness.” If this is to be described it can only be done from the experiences of the Initiates. For initiation is indeed nothing but the acquisition of the capacity to attain at an earlier stage of evolution what normal humanity will gain at a later stage. In the conscious picture-consciousness man is just as self-conscious as he is to-day from morning to evening, but he perceives not only the external objects, but in his soul's field of vision he has pictures; indeed, they are pictures which are by no means dim, but rather are incorporated in the clear consciousness of day. Thus the clear day-consciousness plus the Moon-consciousness gives the Jupiter-consciousness. Man keeps what he now has and in addition gains the capacity of perceiving the element of soul and spirit. To-day the Initiate not only sees man as he is physically, but shining around him he perceives all kinds of spiritual forms which are the expression of his desires, instincts and thoughts; in a word, his aura. It glows and sparkles around the human form like delicate flames, partly like a cloud of light. All this can be seen in the human astral body by the Initiate, just as the outline of the physical body is seen by the ordinary physical eyes; all this is a picture of what takes place in the soul. The Initiate experiences a consciousness which may be described as Moon-consciousness plus Earth-consciousness.

Then upon Venus comes a sixth state of consciousness which may be described as the inspired-consciousness, the consciousness of inspiration. It is called the consciousness of inspiration because at this stage of consciousness the Initiate perceives not only the feelings, desires, impulses, etc., of the soul, but also its whole inner character as a uniform sound. He begins to perceive that which pervades the world of—shall we say—colour and form-structures as the music of the spheres, so that each single being stems like a musical form within that which had previously been perceived as an astral picture.

The seventh stage of consciousness which will exist on Vulcan we may call the Intuitive-consciousness. Intuition is not the triviality ordinarily understood by the word to-day when one imagines one is able to divine something through a vague feeling—that is a misuse of the word. In the schools of the Initiates, Intuition is applied to the highest stage of consciousness we can imagine, when the soul identifies itself with the spiritual beings and lives within them. Although the soul remains quite individual, it rests within all the objects and beings of its field of vision.

The seven stages of the earth's whole evolution thus present to its seven consecutive states of consciousness. Now each of these must in its turn also be attained in seven stages, and we call these seven stages, which must be passed through every time, Stages of Life. So that we distinguish seven stages of consciousness, and in each of these, seven stages of life. It is difficult in our language to find words to express these seven stages of life. If we merely take our earth into account, we may describe the stages of life by speaking of the seven kingdoms, for the stages of life on earth coincide with the kingdoms. Here we may describe the first stage of life as the first elementary kingdom, the second as the second, the third as the third elementary kingdom, the fourth as the mineral kingdom, the fifth as the vegetable kingdom, the sixth as the animal kingdom and the seventh as the human kingdom. Now we might say that at each of these stages of consciousness seven such stages of life, or kingdoms, are passed through. But if we were similarly to describe the seven stages of life on Saturn as the first, second and third elementary kingdoms, as mineral, vegetable, animal and human kingdoms, this would only give rise to false conceptions, for the expressions for these kingdoms are coined in accordance with our earthly experiences. And in those primeval times the kingdoms were formed quite differently from what they now are on the earth. We can only say that analogous to these kingdoms there were seven kingdoms on Saturn and seven on the Sun. The seven kingdoms of the Moon were more like the present kingdoms; and as far as the seven stages of life on the earth are concerned, these have become the seven kingdoms of the earth. And on the earth we can, indeed, describe these more easily, although it is extremely difficult to give an idea of the three elementary kingdoms. People think they have a true conception of the mineral, vegetable, animal and human kingdoms, though this is not really the case. Perhaps you will succeed in forming some kind of idea of the three elementary kingdoms if you consider the following. Imagine parts of the mineral kingdom, stones, metals, etc., becoming finer and finer, so that you see less and less of them; they dissolve, so to speak, into finer and finer substance. Suppose it all volatilizes into an extremely delicate, transparent, invisible substance. If you continually refined these substances you would at length produce something which is no longer mineral kingdom but the third elementary kingdom. Then we should rise to a second and a first elementary kingdom. It is difficult for our present qualities of perception to form ideas about these kingdoms which are secreted in and condensed into our world. It is as if these elementary kingdoms had condensed and disappeared, so to speak, into our world. They precede our mineral kingdom. We have seen when this mineral kingdom itself was formed. In earlier periods of the earth's evolution the mineral kingdom existed in the condition of the elementary kingdoms.

Now the other four kingdoms. We see the mineral kingdom around us, also the vegetable, animal and human kingdoms. But we must clearly understand that these designations are really not quite correct in the spiritual scientific sense. The layman describes the present minerals as belonging to the mineral kingdom, the plants as belonging to the vegetable kingdom, the animals as belonging to the animal kingdom and man to the human kingdom. From the lay point of view this is correct, and for all the trivial things of life it suffices, but in the occult sense it is incorrect. For at the present time man is perfected alone in the mineral kingdom. Only in future periods of evolution will he rise to the plant, animal and. human kingdoms. As man has an “I”-consciousness at the present time we may certainly call him man, but we must not yet say that he is incarnated in the human kingdom in the sense of Spiritual Science. To this end something else is necessary of which we must now speak.

What can man comprehend to-day? That is the point. He can to-day understand only the mineral kingdom. As soon as the comes to the vegetable kingdom he no longer understands it, the mineral kingdom he can understand. From the forces of the mineral kingdom he can construct houses, machines, etc. When he comes to learn in the same way to observe what the forces are in a plant which makes it grow tall, only this will lift him with his consciousness into the vegetable kingdom. And by learning to comprehend how an animal can feel—at the present time he has only an external view of it—he becomes a member of the animal kingdom. And when he understands not only his own “I” but that of another, when he fully understands a man inwardly, then only does he belong to the human kingdom.

You will best understand that man can now comprehend only the mineral kingdom if you make the following observation. Imagine that a great number of learned men say that plants and animals are nothing more than complicated minerals. And these learned men are expecting a time when they will so combine material substances that these will become plants and animals. They are under the illusion that one can understand the plants as mineral beings, because they have no idea that there is any-thing else besides the mineral kingdom. Indeed, many say, “You Anthroposophists dream that there is an etheric body, something which extends beyond the merely mineral; but you will dream no more when we succeed in making a living being in our laboratory just as we now produce sulphuric acid from the separate substances, from carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen, etc.” It is believed that a living being can be constructed in the same way in which sulphuric acid can be produced; it is believed that purely materialistic science will one day be able to do this. It is believed that Anthroposophists are foolish enough to doubt that the time will come when plants will actually be produced in the retort. This time will come. But students of Spiritual Science have always known that this time will come; they know that the time will come when man will take the plant nature into his own being, just as he now has the mineral nature within him. And just as he builds houses of minerals, just as he now uses the forces of the mineral kingdom, so will he in the future, out of the familiar forces of the plant kingdom, produce plant forms and still higher things in the laboratory, without resorting to seeds, without having to call to his aid forces of nature unfamiliar to him. But if this possibility of producing a living organism in the laboratory were to come prematurely, from the point of view of true Spiritual Science this is what would be called black magic. Man must first become ripe for each succeeding step of evolution. There is a saying well known in Spiritual Science, which runs: Man will only produce living organisms in the experimental laboratory, as he now produces mineral products, when the laboratory-table has become the altar and the mixing of the chemical substances a sacramental act. This is a saying which has always been found in occult circles. Truly, as long as a person enters the laboratory in the belief that he can work with unholy feelings the same as with holy ones, so long will he never be able, with the will of those who guide evolution in the right way, to produce anything living in the laboratory. This will only be possible when it is realized that a mineral product may indeed be produced, even if a scoundrel is standing at the laboratory table, but that a living thing can never be produced under these circumstances. For into the living being flows—when it is put together—something which is M. the man himself. If the man were a villain, what was villainous would flow over, and the being produced would be an expression of villainy. Only when it is realized that man as a whole being works with his whole inner being in what he produces, will the world be ready to produce something that is alive, plants, animals and human beings, in free activity. Man will then have risen into the plant kingdom when he understands the plant nature as he now understands the mineral. He will have risen to the animal kingdom when he understands feelings in such a way that he can make a sensitive being through his own spirit-power, just as he now makes as external object. And he will have ascended to the human kingdom when he can form man anew in free activity.

Thus man is now living in the mineral kingdom; and he is fundamentally the only being which has developed fully in the mineral kingdom, whilst the beings in the other kingdoms stand in many respects at much lower stages than the one designated in Spiritual Science as the mineral kingdom. Thus the plants show as a kind of preparatory stage what man will experience when he himself shall one day be in the plant kingdom. But the plants arc not really in the plant kingdom; they are, at the most prototypes; not archetypes, but pointers to a future kingdom in which man will be, when he inwardly passes through the plant nature, just as he is now passing through the mineral nature. This plant kingdom in which man will be, will be distinguished by other things, its nature may be characterized by a moral statement which is, indeed, often repeated intellectually but by no means comprehended. To-day man lives in such a way that the individual, even if he does not acknowledge it, is convinced that it is possible for a person to be happy although his neighbour may be unhappy. It is certainly quite possible for one person to feel happy in spite of others being unhappy. Even if it be acknowledged, speaking intellectually, that the highest moral principle is that which makes all men happy, in practice, people are convinced that the happiness of one is quite possible without others being just as happy as he. When man is in the plant kingdom he will have reached a stage of evolution morally, at which it will be impossible to feel happy as an individual if others of his kind are unhappy. “The happiness of the individual is inseparably connected with the happiness of all.” This statement will rule when man is taken up into the plant kingdom. No man could then feel happy in any way if his happiness were obtained at the expense of others.

Thus you see that there are very few who are capable of perceiving such subtle ideas as we must have in Spiritual Science if we wish to understand everything. But you also see that man still has long vistas of evolution in front of him. All this he must attain, and very little of it exists as yet.

Thus we speak of seven kingdoms through which man himself passes. Upon Jupiter there will be again seven kingdoms which will still be somewhat similar to the seven earth kingdoms, but they will nevertheless be quite different from these. Upon Venus there will again be seven, and again upon Vulcan. Here we can by no means call them kingdoms any longer, the idea “kingdom” is no longer suitable. If we bear all this in mind we must say that we have (primarily) seven stages of development of consciousness, the Saturn, Sun, Moon, Earth, Jupiter, Venus and Vulcan stages, and at each stage of consciousness seven stages of life, through which every single being which gods through the degree of consciousness must pass. Each stage of life must again pass through seven stages of form, and, indeed, in such a way that you have to consider your present physical stage of farm to be in the very middle. Before anything becomes physical it is astral; before it is astral, it is at a certain spiritual stage which is called lower devachan; and before anything descends to this stage it is in a higher stage of devachan. Here we have three stages of form. The first may be designated as formless. The next stage of form we designate as the stage of lower devachan. Then we come to the astral stage. When the astral condenses it becomes physical. Then the physical dissolves again and returns to a more perfect astral; this passes to a more perfect lower devachanic, and this to a higher devachanic. The physical condition of form is in the middle.

Each kingdom (each stage of life) passes through seven conditions of form. You must distinguish between physical and mineral, for they are not the same. As to-day the physical coincides with the mineral in appearance, the two may easily be confused. The mineral kingdom or stage of life passes through all the stages of form; it can be laid down as mineral kingdom above in the higher region of devachan. It then descends into the lower spiritual region (lower devachan) and is still the mineral kingdom, then into the astral—here it is astrally prepared—and then it condenses to the physical. Thus in each kingdom we have seven conditions of form.

Each condition of consciousness can only run its course in seven conditions of life; each condition of life in seven conditions of form. That is 7 x 7 x 7 conditions. In fact, an entire evolution such as that of the earth passes through 7 x 7 x 7 conditions of form. Our earth was once Saturn; this went through seven conditions of life and each condition of life through seven conditions of form, Therefore you have forty-nine conditions of form upon Saturn, forty-nine upon the Sun, forty-nine upon the Moon, etc.; 7 x 49 == 343 conditions of form. Man passes through 343 conditions of form in the course of his evolution. When Saturn was at the very outset of its evolution it began in the highest spiritual to which we can attain, as a structure in the highest part of devachan. That was the first condition of form, and it was entirely mineral. As such it descended to the physical kingdom, and reascended to higher devachan. And here begins the great difficulty, for you must now say, if you wish to use the expressions named: Man passes into the next kingdom. But these expressions do not apply to Saturn. Upon Saturn man passes in this way through forty-nine conditions. The curious thing is that you may now ask: “Man had to pass through conditions of life on Saturn, but he only acquired an etheric body on the Sun. How, then, can one say that he goes through conditions of life?” They were not yet as they were later when he had a life body, they were vicarious. This is brought about through the activity of higher beings. Man has no independent life upon Saturn, but higher beings permeate him with their etheric body, with their astral body, “I,” etc. In any case you must understand that upon Saturn man has passed through forty-nine conditions, upon the Sun forty-nine, and forty-nine upon the Moon. Upon the earth of these forty-nine conditions he has only passed through the first three conditions of life and is now in the fourth—in the mineral kingdom. In the first condition of life he was in the first elementary kingdom and there passed through seven conditions of form; in the second condition of life he was

in the second elementary kingdom and passed through seven conditions of form; he was in the third elementary kingdom and passed through the seven conditions of form. He is now in the fourth elementary kingdom, which is the same as the mineral kingdom, and he is approximately in the middle of this, somewhat beyond the middle.

From all that we have outlined you will have seen that the whole earth passes through 343 conditions. I beg you to picture it in this way: Saturn originates and passes through forty-nine conditions; it is primarily a fiery mass, a body of heat, and goes through various conditions, but it is always the same globe that passes through these forty-nine conditions. In the same way, the Sun is always one and the same globe which passes through the forty-nine conditions. But there are intermediate conditions. It is as if between the several embodiments of the earth there were a kind of spiritual interval. It is the same with the planets as with man, the planets also pass through spiritual intervals, which lie between the periods of manifestation.

If you clearly understand that in the course of our evolution we have seven conditions of consciousness, you will also perceive how this is connected with what is described in our various books. They are cosmic systems. You will there read that our Earth developed out of an ancient planetary system which is described as Moon. We then went further back from the Moon to the Sun, and from the Sun to Saturn. Each of these conditions is divided into the seven conditions of life—formerly called Rounds; Rounds are the same as conditions of life. And those now called conditions of form were formerly called globes. The latter expression was extremely misleading, for it led to the idea that these seven globes were side by side.

These conditions, from the most remote form, which was almost formless, down through the physical and up again to the formless, are not seven globes existing side by side, but seven successive conditions. The same globe that is now physical was first of all spiritual, then it became denser and denser. It is the same globe simply condensed. Then a portion of it became astral, then a portion physical; it is always the same globe. It dissolves again like salt in warm water, it again becomes astral. We have ascended to this astral where, in the Apocalypse, the vials of wrath are described; there the earth becomes astral again.

Thus you see how the number seven governs the whole of evolution. In the last few days we have given a skeleton outline of this, as it were, in the form of pictures, sometimes truly grotesque pictures, and in any case, such as deviate very much from what can be seen to-day in the physical world. If you conceive of it in this way it is approximately as if you were to erect the scaffolding for a house, the most external part that is intended to be used by the masons. That has, however, nothing to do with the subject; these are only thoughts about the subject, so to speak. We must rise from this purely intellectual scheme, which assists us indeed to understand, to the living structure, by using the pictures which are to be seen in the astral for the various conditions; then only have we what is called occult wisdom. As long as you build up a scaffolding you remain in the thought customary to you in the physical world. The whole scheme we have sketched is only physical thought. This is related to the full reality not at all like the inner framework of a house to the complete building, but only like the outer scaffolding upon which the builders stand. This has to be taken down again when the building is completed. In the same way the scaffolding of thought has to be taken down again if one wishes to have the truth before one as it really is. If one considers this abstraction as the reality, then one is not by any means speaking of true Spiritual Science but only of the concept which the man of the present day can form regarding the spiritual facts. The way in which spiritual facts are presented abstractly at the present time may be seen in such a diagram as I have made, but this in itself is unfruitful. I had to put it before you because we also need such a diagram, but fundamentally it is of no use to one who wishes to progress upon the truly spiritual path. If you describe the whole world, up to the highest spiritual facts, by means of such diagrams, this only has meaning for your present incarnation. In the next you must learn another diagram. This can only be thought by using the brain; it is only adapted for the brain. But as the brain disintegrates at death, the whole schematic presentation then falls to pieces. On the other hand, if you comprehend—at first in pictures of fantasy—that which really happens, what we have described as the consecutive pictures of the seals seen by spiritual vision, that is something which is not bound up with your physical brain, and which you retain because it does not originate from physical thinking, but from facts seen clairvoyantly. Therefore one must take care not to mistake for spiritual wisdom that which is striven for after the pattern of physical comprehension, which would also schematize the higher worlds. This is a description by means of the ordinary physical intellect. Of course, the physical intellect must play a part; on this account it is even useful to present such a diagram, and we may now carry it a step further.

We have seen that we pass through 343 conditions of form. Now, the subject grows more complicated when we learn that the matter does not end here, but that man must also pass through various conditions with each condition of form. In our mineral condition of life during the Earth period three conditions of form have preceded the present physical condition of form and three others will follow it. But now the physical again passes through seven conditions, and these are the seven of which we have spoken in previous lectures; the first when the sun is still united with the earth, the second when it separates, the third when the moon withdraws, the fourth that of the Atlantean humanity. The Atlantean humanity lives in the fourth epoch of the development of the physical condition of form. Thus within each condition of form you have again seven epochs or so-called root-races, although the expression “race” applies only to the middle condition. We are now living in the fifth epoch, the post-Atlantean epoch, between the great Atlantean flood and the great War of All against All. The sixth will follow this and then the seventh. The sixth epoch is indicated in the Apocalypse of John by the seven seals, and the seventh by the seven trumpets. Then the earth passes over into the astral. That is a new condition of form which again will have its seven epochs.

And still our diagram is not at an end. Each epoch as it runs its course between such events as the great Atlantean flood and the great War of All against All must again be divided into seven ages. As regards the fifth epoch there are the Indian age of civilization, the Persian age of civilization, the Assyrian-Babylonian-Chaldean-Egyptian-Jewish age, the Graeco-Latin age, our own age, then the sixth, which is indicated in the Apocalypse by the community of Philadelphia, and the seventh age of civilization which will follow that.

Thus if we imagine the whole of evolution consisting of nothing but short ages such as these—which, however, are long enough—we have 7 x 7 x 7 x 7 x 7 stages of development such as the ancient Indian or the ancient Persian. The number of different conditions of this nature which man passes through between Saturn and Vulcan is 16807:

7 x 7 x 7 == 343.
7 x 343 == 2401.
7 x 2401 == 16807.

Thus you see how the number 7 governs development in the successive periods throughout the whole of evolution. Just as the tones in music progress from octave to octave, so does the whole of evolution take place in octaves of development.

Let us now recall that we have seven of these conditions out of the 16807 in our epoch between the great Atlantean flood and the great War of All against All, and that previously we had seven more in the Atlantean epoch. But we also remember that man went through four of these seven ages of the Atlanteans epoch under quite different conditions from the last three. You know the kind of conditions we have to enumerate. Four of the conditions out of the total number, man went through during the Atlantean epoch in such a way that he felt himself as a group-soul, as we have described, as eagle, lion, bull and man. He gradually developed these four group-souls during these four root-races of the Atlantean epoch. Now because races always continue, just as, for instance, the Indian has continued, although later ones have developed (they pass into one another), for this reason the four heads indicating the group-souls also remained at the beginning of the fifth age of Atlantean civilization and we have this four-headed beast. Now when man began to harden himself from the etheric into the physical, he developed four different parts of the body in accordance with his fourfold group-soul. And through the former group-soul consciousness changing into the individual-consciousness, man had within him a con-junction of the earlier four-foldness at the beginning of the fifth age of Atlantis. He bears within him the four heads which are summed up in his head which gradually arises. It is composed of the four group-heads as it developed in the course of the fifth period. Man has four parts of the physical body corresponding to the four heads. These are the four horns. So that you may imagine that because man was etheric, he had four heads, four animal heads, only the last is already human-animal, for that is what is meant. He was four-headed, and each force-system corresponding to one of these heads formed physical organs. We saw in our last lecture that there was a force-system which formed the heart, namely, that which is connected with the lion head. The various organs of man are like condensations of the corresponding parts of the etheric body. This is the view of the writer of the Apocalypse. He says: That which is physical is a densification of the etheric. Just as you would think: “This skin thickens and forms a callosity,” so the Apocalyptist thinks: “man exists etherically and this condenses and becomes physical.” And because man is fourfold, consisting of four group-souls, four condensations are formed. These constitute his physical body. This is the reason why one described as “horn” that which in the physical body corresponds to the etheric body. Horn is a callous thickening. Man is described, as far as he had developed in the fourth age of the Atlantean epoch, as an animal with four heads and four horns. He then evolves further towards an individual human being. This begins in the neighbourhood of the present Ireland. Man passes through the last three ages in such a way that he possesses the germ of the ego-being. He no longer develops an animal body outwardly, but has risen to the human stage. He matures his human nature more and more until he absorbs the Christ-principle. If we regard present-day man, we see that he was not always as he appears to-day. In order for him to become what he now is, he had to pass through four animal group-souls, he had to be incarnated in bodies corresponding to the present lion form, the bull form, the eagle form and the human form. He then pressed forward and became more and more human, and the form of the earlier group-soul disappeared. It is no longer there, man has assumed human shape.

We must now understand an important event which then took place when man assumed human form, for without this under-standing one cannot comprehend the Apocalypse of John; it was an event of the greatest importance. Up to this event when man passed into the human soul-nature, something was totally hidden from his vision which later was revealed. Man had a kind of dim, hazy consciousness. When he wakened in the morning he saw everything surrounded by misty formations, so to speak; and when he went to sleep he was in the spiritual world. This appeared to him in pictures; for such is the nature of the spiritual world. I shall now describe something which took place before man passed over physically into the human condition, before he passed from the group-soul nature to full “I”-consciousness.

That which he lived through here upon the earth consisted only of a number of experiences. He then went to sleep and during his sleep was in a dim consciousness in a spiritual world where he lived among gods and spirits, of which an echo remains in the myths and legends. He then experienced mighty pictures; for example, the picture in which he encountered two other beings who threw stones behind them, and out of these stones other beings like themselves grew out of the earth. These were experiences which man had throughout the fourth age of the Atlantean epoch. To express it plainly, we must say that reproduction took place in sleeping-consciousness, not in the waking-consciousness. When man was outside his physical body and in the spiritual world, he accomplished in this condition of picture-consciousness deeds which had to be brought about. The whole act of reproduction was veiled in a spiritual element and appeared to him in the picture of throwing stones behind him. The act of reproduction was enveloped in spiritual consciousness; it lay behind the day-consciousness. Man had no knowledge of sex. In the day-consciousness he did not see himself as existing in two sexes, his soul was untouched by any thought of sex. Not that it did not exist; it did exist, but it rested in the obscurity of a spiritual consciousness; during the day-consciousness he knew nothing of it. With the acquisition of the first germ of the “I”-consciousness man first became aware of sex. That is the moment presented to us in the Bible when Adam and Eve become aware that there is such a thing as sex. This important event took place at this stage in the earth's evolution.

If with spiritual vision you look back to the time which preceded that time, you see only that part of man which is the instrument of the spirit. The other part was invisible, Only the upper part of man could be seen. From the point of time we have mentioned the whole man began to be seen. It is now comprehensible why men began to cover themselves up. Previously they saw nothing which required covering. In this way man gradually emerged into the external world.

If we consider the outer human form as the condensed part of the etheric, we have in the fourth Atlantean age the four horns in addition to the four group-soul heads. Now, however, in the last three ages of Atlantis something twofold begins to develop physically. At each stage where a group-soul head was to develop, a double physical, male and female, was formed. In the first four stages you find man formed with four heads, the condensed etheric with four horns. We now have three more heads which are invisible because the external human form absorbs then. These three are only perceptible to spiritual vision, three etheric heads, a principal human head between two others which are like shadows beside it, like a double shadow. Thus when the Atlantean flood burst, we have seven group-soul heads, of which the last three always appear in such a way that they have their physical part in a double form, as male and female. From this you see that at the end of the Atlantean epoch the entire group-soul nature of man—although the later portion remains invisible—has seven heads and ten horns. The horns of the first four heads are not separated into male and female, but only the last three. Man has the seven heads and ten horns within him. He must now work upon these through the reception of the Christ-principle so that they shall be destroyed, so to speak. For each time a man dies the sevens-headed and ten-horned nature can clearly be seen in his astral body. This is merely held together like a piece of india-rubber which has been correspondingly formed. Now suppose a person hardened himself during our epoch against the Christ-principle and were to come to the time of the great War of All against All without having had the Christ-experience, suppose he were to come to this time and had thrust the Christ away from him, then when the earth passes over into the astral, that which was there and which he ought to have changed, would spring forth, it would spring forth in its old form. The beast with the seven heads and ten horns would appear, whereas in those who have received the Christ-principle, sex will again be overcome. The hardened ones will keep the six-horned sexuality and will appear in their totality as the beast with the seven heads and ten horns of which the rudiments were laid down in the Atlantean epoch. They will be transformed through the reception of the Christ-impulse, but if Christ is rejected they will remain and will reappear in the epoch indicated by the falling of the vials of wrath and the earth splitting, as it were, into two parts, one in which the Christ-men appear with white garments as the elect, even in the epoch of the seals; and the other part in which men appear in the form of the beast with seven heads and ten horns. Then appears another beast with two horns, symbolized by the number 666.

We have followed the evolution of our earth so far that we have seen how, after various important events which are described by the opening of the seven seals and the sounding of the seven trumpets, in the future the earth with all its beings will pass into a kind of spiritual condition, with the exception of those who refuse to receive the Christ-principle; this refusal we have to understand as a malevolent and unintelligent spiritual opposition energetically exercised. Of course, when the earth has taken on its astral, its spiritual form, these beings too will be unable to exist in a dense material form—shall we say—in earthly substance; in the epoch following after the sounding of the trumpets, the epoch characterized by the outpouring of the vials of wrath, they will also pass over into astral forms. But the lower nature they will have acquired through not having accepted the Christ-principle will be expressed in the astral by their having essentially the animal form we have characterized, with the seven heads and ten horns. Now from all that has been said you will be able to gather what the relation is between what we call “heads” and what we call “horns”; but in connection with this the question may arise in your mind: Why is it that just certain organs which appear is the physical body are called “horns”? Why does one designate as horns the physical organs and their vestiges in the astral when the earth shall have become astral? It can easily be understood that those who have not taken up the principle of Christ must fall back again into the condition in which man was before he could partake of the Christ-principle. Man was formerly a non-individual being with a group-soul; and we have seen that during the first four ages of the Atlantean epoch he was furnished with the group-souls which are correctly symbolized by the lion, bull, eagle and human heads, but the last must be conceived of as an animal human head. We must imagine that when man reappears in the spiritualized earth and has failed to take in the Christ-principle during our epoch, he will then again appear in the old form, because he has contributed nothing towards the highest development of his previous group-soul nature; and not only in this form but with three heads more, which were added during the ages. Before the great flood of Atlantis three further ages followed after the first four.

In these three ages those who later received the Christ-principle had in a certain way the possibility of taking up three further group-soul heads; but they have transformed them, they have raised the animal nature in man to a higher stage. They will appear in a spiritualized form when the earth is spiritualized. The others, who have rejected the Christ-principle, will appear with seven heads, because there were before the flood seven ages during which the animal nature was developed. And because in the last three Atlantean ages there was bi-sexuality in contra-distinction to the first four, each head, so to speak, appears with two possibilities towards the animal nature, with male and female possibilities, so that in these three later ages each head appears with two horns; that is man with ten horns altogether. Some one might now say, “I quite understand that those who do not work upon themselves so as to strip off the form which they have and lift it up to the human, will reappear in the animal form; but I do not understand why horns are spoken of! It is quite comprehensible when heads are spoken of, but why horns?” I will now explain why one not only speaks of horns, but must speak of them. The expression is not merely to be understood symbolically, it is reality. Those who fail to take up the Christ-principle into themselves will actually appear in astral form also, but because they have so shaped their instincts that they have held fast, so to speak, to the animal group-soul, the corresponding instincts appear in the astral body which men will then have, in the form of horny protuberances. It is an actual form.

I will explain by means of a single organ how it comes about that the man who does not receive the Christ-principle will actually appear with horns when the earth has become spiritualized. Take the organ of the human larynx and the windpipe. You are continually breathing air in and out through this wind-pipe. This is an activity which man exercises. In a person who spiritualizes himself, this activity is in the service of the spiritual; but in one who does not incline towards the Christ-principle it takes on the character of the old forces belonging to the seven heads. Suppose we illustrate it in this way:

The air continually passes in through the larynx from outside. But you know that the astral body of man surrounds him. The stream of air which passes in will always be in connection with the astral. Now when the earth is spiritualized it can be seen whether the breathing of a man was the servant of the Christ-principle or the servant of the lower forces already in the world before the Christ-principle. If it was the servant of the Christ-principle it loses the form adapted to the present body. Man himself has the power to transform everything which is astral into a higher spiritualized form. If he does not take up the Christ-principle he is unable to draw out of this fleshly form that which is suited to it, and the consequence is that after the fleshly form has fallen away and disappeared, after the physical larynx has gone, this form of the astral body remains, which always comes into the larynx with the breath. This form remains in the shape of a horn. Wherever the external astral forces go in and out of man they remain adapted to the preceding animal form when man passes over into the astral form, that is, he then appears with true astral horns; these are actual astral shapes. They correspond exactly to the penetration of the astral substantiality during the earth life. These pictures do not present random symbols, they present the true form of what will one day appear. This must be clearly understood.

Let us now determine our present position in evolution in accordance with what we have already considered, in accordance with that somewhat uncongenial diagram of many numbers. We now clearly understand that the forty-nine great transformations of Saturn have passed away, the seven conditions of life belonging to Saturn (which in theosophical books are also called rounds), each with its seven conditions of form (globes); and that, further, the forty-nine corresponding Sun-conditions and the forty-nine Moon-conditions have also passed away. Man has so far passed through these 147 conditions in his earlier evolution. Added to these now come the conditions which man has already passed through during our Earth period. The first three conditions of life, which are also called the first three rounds, are behind us, and we are now living in the fourth condition of life, in the fourth round. Now as each of these rounds includes its seven conditions of form, we have completed 3 x 7 conditions during the first three earth-rounds; therefore to the 147 we must add another twenty-one. We have not yet completed the fourth condition of life, but part of it is behind us; we have finished the first three conditions of form, the almost formless spiritual conditions, the arupa, the rupa and the astral conditions, and are now in the physical. So to the 147 plus twenty-one we must add three more. Thus we have completed 171 conditions of form out of the 343 of the seven planets. You must particularly bear in mind that we are now in the 172nd condition of form, which is the physical earth. During this 172nd condition all that we have described has taken place. When this condition began, the earth was united with sun and moon. During this condition the sun and moon withdrew, and after these events man appeared as he now is upon the physical earth. Then began the Atlantean epoch, of which we have spoken. We have also said that we must again divide this condition of form, which is the 172nd, into seven epochs. The first lies in the far distant past. When it began the sun was still united with the earth. Somewhat figuratively we have grown accustomed to call this epoch the Polarian human race. It is difficult to form any idea of this epoch. Then during the withdrawal of the sun comes the race of the Hyperboreans; then, during the exit of the moon, a third, the so-called Lemurian human race. The fourth epoch within the 172nd condition of form is the Atlantean race. The fifth is the one in which we are living. Following the fourth was the great Atlantean flood. After our own will follow the epoch expressed in the Apocalypse of John by the seven seals; and then comes the one typified by the seven trumpets.

Now we know that each of these seven epochs is again divided into seven ages. Our own epoch, the fifth within the 172nd condition of form, is divided into the ancient Indian age of civilization, the ancient Persian, the Assyrian-Babylonian-Chaldean-Egyptian-Jewish, the Graeco-Latin, our own, a sixth and then a seventh age of civilization. Then follows the great War of All against All. The succeeding epoch is again divided into seven parts, expressed by the seven seals; and the epoch expressed by the seven trumpets is again divided into seven parts. If you now consider that 171 conditions of form will be added to those that have already passed away, you will have 342. One more added to this gives 343 in all; but we are living in this one, it stands in the middle. Some one might now say: “It is really a very wonderful thing that we have the good fortune to be living exactly in the middle of evolution.” This must indeed seem a curious fact to those who do not reflect further upon it, that we are living in the middle of evolution! But to one who understands the whole matter it is by no means strange. It is no more wonderful than if some one, standing in an open field in level country where he sees equally far behind and in front, finds himself in the middle of the field of vision. If he goes some distance further, he again sees equally far behind and in front. There would be entirely different conditions in evolution if we were to take our stand at another point. We are always in the middle. Man can always see equally far behind him and before him, even with the highest spiritual vision. Something else might perhaps strike one. Some one might say: “How is it that you do not say that we are exactly in the middle in other respects? For now it is no longer the case. We are in the 172nd condition of form. The exact middle would be in the fourth epoch of this, but we are now in the fifth, that is, somewhat beyond the middle. This does not exactly agree with the statement that we are actually in the middle.” Underlying this there is a remarkable fact, you may understand it by a comparison. If you comprehend this clearly, you will see that it is an important fact. It is really the case that in regard to the great main conditions we are in the middle; but in regard to the conditions which concern us immediately, we stand somewhat beyond the middle. Why is this? Imagine you are travelling through a very level country in a special railway carriage from which you can have a clear view in every direction. Suppose you are able to do this for some length of time. You have a perfectly clear view, and if at any one point in your journey you could rapidly make a sketch of the whole of the surroundings, this picture would be absolutely circular. There is only one case in which this would not be so. Imagine you are sitting in the rapidly moving train and you note the picture you see. At this moment you fall asleep and travel for a time while sleeping. During this time you are unaware of the way in which the picture is changing. You awake. Imagine that at this moment the picture you saw on going to sleep again quickly arises. It does not now agree. The reason is that you have been asleep for a certain length of time. Your picture does not now coincide with the view which is equal in every direction, for there is in addition the part you have slept through.

Let us now ask: “Is it perhaps the case that man has slept from the middle of his evolution up to our age?” It might be explicable to us that the picture would have to agree up to that point. Now, as we have come beyond the middle, it would be possible, if we have slept, that the picture may have altered a little. Has man been asleep? In the occult sense humanity has been asleep since the middle of the Atlantean epoch, because that was the time when the whole human race, as such, lost the ancient dim spiritual vision. From the spiritual point of view man sank as if into a state of sleep. He began to turn his attention to the sense world, and thus, from the point of view of the spiritual world, to pass into a state of sleep; and only when he has regained the higher vision will he have a free view, so to speak, in every direction. There will then no longer be this disarrangement of evolution, there will be the same distance behind and in front. Since the middle of the Atlantean epoch man has, in fact, been asleep, by reason of his being unable normally to participate in the sight of the spiritual worlds if we leave Initiates out of account—somnambulists also, if you will—we have to say that man does not see; for seeing means really to look into the world. As regards the spiritual world humanity is asleep, and it will continue to sleep for a time. For the period since the Atlantean epoch the statement of John's Gospel holds good: “The light shone into the darkness and the darkness comprehended it not.”

Thus in this division there is hidden an important truth, the truth that humanity is living in a dark age, the age of darkness, and the Christ-principle has come in this age in order that humanity might be led forth into the age of light. For this reason it was correct to put the present position of evolution not in the middle, but beyond the middle, because in Atlantis begins the dark age which will continue into our sixth age, when the elect appear in white garments, when they appear as the first of those who are again able, under ordinary normal conditions, to have the spiritual world around them and the age of darkness will have passed away. Then appears the age of which it must be said, “The light shines in darkness and the darkness comprehends the light.“ For this reason the dark age will also be called the time when man directs his gaze only to the physically material world in the normal condition and does not see the spiritual world behind it. We shall now connect this with what has already been said regarding evolution. When evolution has progressed beyond the seventh epoch, beyond the epoch indicated by the sounding of the trumpets, the earth then spiritualizes itself and passes over first into the astral, then into the lower devachanic and finally into the higher devachanic condition. Afterwards it returns to the same conditions by condensing more and more from the finest spiritual; and the condition comes which usually is described as the fifth round, which again will have seven conditions of form, and in the middle will again pass through a development of what must be characterized as seven successive epochs, or, shall we say, race conditions.

Now let us, even if it be somewhat difficult, look a little more deeply into the following conditions of our earth evolution. Let us turn our gaze to a quite definite point in our future evolution just as we have been considering the present stage. Let us start with our present, namely the 172nd condition. Prior to this 172nd condition the Earth had already completed three sub-conditions; the 172nd condition is the Earth itself. Three have already been completed and it is now in the fourth of these conditions. First, however, we are considering only the conditions of form. We reckon that we are in the fourth condition of life or fourth round. Granted this is so and we say: In this fourth condition of life or round we have already passed through three conditions of form and are now in the fourth. Now we ask further how many of the sub-conditions have we passed through? The first, second, third and fourth. The last was the Atlantean epoch. This is now completed. We have passed through four conditions and are now in the fifth, the post-Atlantean. Of this fifth epoch we have again passed through four sub-conditions, namely, the ancient Indian, the ancient Persian, the Egyptian and the Graeco-Latin, and are now in the fifth age. So that we can say: before our immediate present stage of evolution we have completed 344 conditions. These 344 conditions which we have completed are described is Apocalyptic language as the number of evolution. When, therefore, it is asked: What is the number of evolution, our evolution, the answer is 344. This is not read according to the system of ten, but according to the system of seven. Three conditions (out of the seven) have been gone through, and four conditions (out of the next smaller seven) have been gone through, four conditions (out of again the next smaller seven). That is what is really meant by the 3-4-4. One must not simply read it like other numbers, but it contains, written side by side, the number of stages passed through.

When the earth is spiritualized and has developed to its next conditions, then more and more stages will have been gone through. And the time will come, when six conditions of the first kind, six of the second and six of the third will have been passed through. Just as we now have the 344 as the number of evolution, in the future when six conditions of life, six root-races and six sub-races have been gone through, the number 666 (six six six) will apply, read in the manner above described, which is the method used by the writer of the Apocalypse. Thus a time will come when the number 666 is the number of evolution. This will only be in a very distant future, but this future is already being prepared at the present time. Three great main conditions have been completed and we are now living in the fourth. But when we have reached the great War of All against All, and the epoch indicated by the seven seals has passed away, we shall have gone through six of the middle kind. When the first trumpet sounds we shall have passed through six such main races, and when the first six trumpets are over, we shall have experienced 66. By then humanity will have had opportunity to prepare for the terrible time which will follow much later, when not only 66 but 666 will be reached. All that lies in the future is already being prepared now. The time following the War of All against All, the time after the seventh trumpet is sounded, will see men who, through excluding themselves from the Christ-principle, will have attained a high degree of evil, of the tendency to sink into the abyss. By then these men will have sunk so low that when the point of time 666 comes they will be able to descend very low into evil, into the abyss of evil. Men will have taken into themselves, already in the period after the great War of All against All, when the seventh trumpet sounds, the germs of this descent into the abyss in the far-distant future. It will, indeed, for a long time be possible for those who have taken these germs into themselves to turn round and be converted, to tarn back in their development in order even then to receive the Christ-principle. But the first predisposition will have been formed, and those who retain this tendency will no longer be able—when that distant future has come which is indicated not by 466, but by 666—to change this tendency into good. They will succumb to the frightful fate of which we have still to speak.

Thus we see that with this number six, whether it is simply six, or six six, or six six six, there is connected something bad for human evolution. We are now living in the fifth main period and the fifth sub-period. After the great War we shall pass into the sixth epoch; but before the great War there comes, immediately after our fifth age, the sixth age, described as the community of Philadelphia. We know that we are now living in the age in which materialism has spread abroad in humanity. We have seen that throughout the past centuries man has become more and more materialistic; but this materialism is such that a person can turn back from it at any time. The materialist still has opportunity to turn back. It is, however, necessary that at the present time a spiritual conception of the world should gain ground, a conception which leads a small group of people to this spiritual view of the world. This group will comprise those who will lay the first foundation of the great bond of brotherhood in the sixth age, which will follow ours, and is, therefore, not very far distant, whose beginning lies in a period which can be counted in millennia and these will bring about the very first division in humanity. Those who persist obstinately in materialism, and also the others who will be inclined to accept a spiritual conception, who in the small group develop a bond of brotherhood, both these will appear in the sixth age. This simple 6 can already be fateful to many, but not finally binding, for a turning back will still be possible. But mankind will continue beyond the great War of All against All. Five epochs will have passed away; the number 6 will appear again. Afterwards the allurements and temptations will come again in order further to develop the materialistic tendencies and to carry them over into the epoch of the sounding of the trumpets, and when six great periods and six smaller periods have passed away, after 66, there will already be very considerable tendencies in humanity which will not be so easy to put increasingly right as they are at the present time. Thus we see that actually the world of bad tendencies works within humanity and that the good men separate from the evil more and more clearly and definitely, in accordance with the description of the writer of the Apocalypse. The last great separation will be when the number six will be fulfilled not only for the shorter periods but for the longer ones. This will be the case when our earth has completed its six kingdoms of life or six rounds, and within the seventh. round, again six conditions of form. When the earth has finished this, the tendencies of humanity to evil will have developed to a frightful form. Nothing but evil will then appear, with frightful devastating power, in those who have remained evil.

How often, therefore, during our earth period, does humanity have the opportunity to succumb to the enticement of evil? First of all in the age after the present one, before the great War. Then man has a second and a third opportunity as well. This descent into evil is gradual. In the period when the earth has passed over into a spiritual condition, we have to deal first of all with two possibilities. When the earth reunites with the sun, those who have received the Christ-principle will then be ripe to rise into the forces of the earth which unite with the sun; those who have received the possibility of evil will be excluded. These are, as it were, in such a position that they thrust the sun away from themselves, they thrust away that which would enable them to unite with the forces of the sun. They are opponents of this union. For this reason the Apocalypse rightly designated the power, the Being, who leads men so to spiritualize themselves that they can unite with the sun as the Christ, and—as we shall hear—as the Lamb. One describes the Christ-Being as the genius of the sun who unites himself with the earth and becomes also the genius of the earth. He has already begun to be this since the event of Golgotha. But there is also an opposing principle to the Lamb, there is also a Sun-Demon, the so-called Demon of the Sun, that which works in the evil forces of man, thrusting back the force of the Lamb, and it works un such a way that a certain amount of the human race is thrust out of the evolution which leads to the sun. These are the opposing forces of the sun, they are in opposition to the sun; at the same time they are the forces which have the tendency to be entirely thrown out of our evolution when the 666 stages have passed away; they will then be finally cast into the abyss. So that we may say: At the time when the earth is united with the sun there will be excluded, not only that which is symbolized by the beast with seven heads and ten horns, but also that which is furnished with forces which are in opposition to the sun. All this is destined to disappear into the abyss when the 666 is fulfilled.

Now this 666 has always been written in a very mysterious way; we shall see later on that there is every reason to wrap in mystery the facts with which we are now dealing. And for this reason it was written 666. In the mysteries from which the writer of the Apocalypse received his initiation, they wrote 400 200 660. This is written in such a way that the laity cannot understand it. This 666 was hidden; it was to remain a secret. By having 200 here and by the other figures being transposed, an illusion is produced. Now in the kind of writing used by the Initiates there is a certain principle which consists in letters being expressed by corresponding numbers. Several of the remarkable people who, in the course of the nineteenth century wished to unravel the mystery of the number 666, hit on the principle of expressing letters by numbers, but they have come upon it in such a way that one can say: they have, indeed, heard sounds but not in unison. For they have acquired in an unclear way that which I have now explained and which has always been taught esoteric-ally. They have found out that when one sets letters of the Hebrew alphabet in place of these numbers the result is “Nero,” thus they have concluded that 666 signifies Nero. This is not the case. 666 must first be written: 400 + 200 + 6 + 60, and then one can arrive at the meaning. Then one must write 400 as ת (Tau), 200 as ר (Resh), 6 as ו (Vau), and 60 as ם (Samech). These four letters express the four numbers 400 + 200 + 6 + 60. In a wonderful way they have been drawn into this mystery, wonderful through the ingenuity of those who have drawn them in because at the same time the sounds of these four letters have again a special occult significance. What must the number 666 actually mean if it is to express what we have explained? It must mean the principle which leads man to complete hardening un the external physical life, so that he simply thrusts from him that which enables him to strip off the lower principles and to rise to the higher. That which man has obtained as physical body, etheric body, astral body and lower “I,” before it rises to the higher—these four principles are at the same time expressed by these four letters, by Samech, the physical body, Vau, the etheric body, Resh, the astral body and Tau, the lower “I.” Thus we see that that which is hardened in these four principles before they begin their divine evolution is expressed by the four letters. The writer of the Apocalypse can truly say, “Here is Truth!” For wisdom is contained in it. “Let him who hath understanding consider the number 666.”

And now we will read it. We read it in this way, from right to left.

We have then to supply the vowels and it reads: Sorath, Sorath is the name of the Sun-Demon, the adversary of the Lamb. Every such spiritual being was described not only by name but also by a certain symbolical sign. For Sorath, the sun-demon, there was this sign:

a thick stroke bent back upon itself and terminating in two curved points.

Now we must understand the writer of the Apocalypse rightly. At the very beginning he makes a remarkable statement, which is usually wrongly translated. The beginning of the Apocalypse runs, however “This is the revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him to spew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John.” “Signified it.” By this we must understand that he gives the important, the real content of the mystery hi signs. He has put that which 666 expresses in signs. What he describes is the sign, and he describes it thus (Rev. xiii. 11): “And I saw another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb.” These are nothing else than the two strokes at the upper part of the sign, and in order to conceal this he simply calls the two strokes here “horns.” It was always the case in the use of the mystery language that one uses a word in more than one sense so as to make it impossible for the uninitiated to understand without special effort. That which he describes here: “It has two horns like a lamb,” is the symbol of the sun-demon, which in the mystery language is expressed by the word “Sorath,” and this, if we convert the several letters into their numbers is expressed by the four numbers, 400, 200, 6 and 60. This is a very veiled way of expressing 666. Thus we see that the writer of the Apocalypse is referring to the adversary of the Lamb. When the earth passes over into the spiritual, the forms of men appear below in such a way that they receive their old animal form. The beast with the seven heads and ten horns appears. But there also appears their seducer, the adversary of Christ, who has the great power to prevent their returning to the sun. Man himself cannot be the adversary of Christ, he can only let slip the opportunity to take the Christ-principle into himself, through what dwells in him as false power; but there is such an adversary, the sun-demon. This appears as soon as there is something that can become his prey. Before the prey is there, before the men are there with the seven heads and ten horns, there is nothing to lead astray, the tempter has nothing to seek there; but when men appear with such inclination, then comes the tempter, and he appears as the second beast and seduces them!

Thus at the moment when the earth passes over into the astral condition there appears that in man which existed in him when the earth was still clothed with a covering of water. The human animal appears. From the water one sees the beast with seven heads and ten horns raise itself. Through this human animal having left the earth unused, Sorath, the adversary of the sun, the tempter, can now arise out of the earth, through this he can approach man and tear him down with all his might into the abyss. Thus from this time on we see a being drawing close to man, which has a fear-fill power! What, then, does this being do in order to lead man into the most horrible things one can think of? For man to be led into what is merely immoral, what is already known to normal man, it did not need this monster which appears as the sun-demon. Only when that which in a good sense distinguishes the beings who bring salvation to the human race, only when spiritual eminence is turned to its opposite, only when spiritual power is placed in the service of the lower “I”-principle, can it bring humanity to the point when the beast represented with two horns gains power over it. The misuse of spiritual forces is connected with that seductive power of the beast with the two horns. And we call this abuse of the spiritual power black magic, in contradistinction to its right use, which is white magic. Thus through the separation of the human race there is prepared at the same time the power to attain greater and greater spiritual conditions on the one hand, and thereby to obtain the use of the spiritual forces, and arrive at white magic; while on the other hand abuse of spiritual forces is a preparation for the most fearful kind of power of the two horned beast—black magic. Humanity will finally he divided into beings who practise white magic and those who practise black magic. Thus in the mystery of 666 or Sorath is hidden the secret of black magic; and the tempter to black magic, that most fearful crime in the earth evolution, with which no other crimes can be compared, this seducer is represented by the writer of the Apocalypse as the two-horned beast. Thus there appears on our horizon, so to speak, the division of humanity in the far distant future; the chosen of Christ, who finally will be the white magicians, and the adversaries, the terrible wizards, the black magicians who cannot escape from matter and whom the writer of the Apocalypse describes as those who make prostitution with matter. Hence this whole practice of black magic, the union which takes place between man and the hardening in matter is presented to him in the spiritual vision of the great Babylon, the community made up of all those who carry on black magic; in the frightful marriage, or rather, unrestrained marriage, between man and the forces of prostituted matter. And thus in the far future we see two powers confronting each other; on the one hand those who swell the population of the great Babylon, and on the other hand chose who rise above matter, who as human beings unite with the principle represented as the Lamb. We see how on the one hand the blackest ones segregate themselves in Babylon, led by all the forces opposing the sun, by Sorath the two-horned beast, and we see those who have developed front the elect, who unite with Christ, or the Lamb, who appears to them; the marriage of the Lamb on the one hand, and that of Babylon, the descending Babylon, on the other! We see Babylon descend into the abyss, and the elect, who have celebrated the marriage with the Lamb, rise to the exercise of the forces of white magic. And as they not only recognize the spiritual forces but also understand how to operate then magically, they are able to prepare what they possess in the earth for the next planetary incarnation, Jupiter. They sketch out the great outlines, so to speak, which Jupiter is to have. We see the preparatory forms, which are to survive as the forms of the next earth incarnation, as Jupiter, come forth by the power of the white magicians: we see the New Jerusalem produced by white magic. But that which is described as Sorath—666—must first be expelled. That which has succumbed to the principle of the two-horned beast, and hence has hardened itself into the beast with the seven heads and ten horns, is driven forth. The power by which the sun-genius overcomes those who are expelled, which drives them down into the abyss, is called the countenance of the sun-genius and the countenance of the sun-genius is Michael, who, as the representative, so to speak, of the sun-genius, overcomes the beast with the two horns, the seducer, which is also called the great dragon. This is represented to the seer in the picture of Michael who has the key, who stands by the side of God and holds the opposing forces chained.

Thus is characterized in the Christian-Rosicrucian esotericism the casting out of those who belong to 666, and the overcoming of the dragon, the seducer. Thus before our gaze to-day there appears that which the writer of the Apocalypse has enveloped in mystery, which one must first discover by removing the veil, and of which he says, “Here is Wisdom.” “Let him who hath understanding count the number of the beast” (that is, the two-horned beast); “for this number is 666.”

Those who have connected this with Nero have made a poor response to this challenge of the writer of the Apocalypse. For you see from what cosmic depths the wisdom must be drawn which leads to the explanation of the number 666. Although to-day you may have to make efforts to understand this passage, you must not forget that it is necessary to make efforts to understand the deepest mysteries. And the Apocalyptist has veiled these deepest mysteries of cosmic evolution. He has veiled then because it is good for man that the most important mysteries should be expressed in symbols. For apart from all the rest, through the powers exercised to decipher the signs is gained much of that which at the same time lifts us up to the good powers themselves. Let us not be cast down because we have to wind our way through a scheme of numbers. If you had had to grasp what was given secretly in the ancient schools in such numbers, before anything else was given, you would have had to go through very much more. There the pupils were obliged in be silent for a long time and quietly listen when nothing but numbers, 777, 666, etc., were explained again and again, at first in their formal meaning. And only when they had grasped this meaning were they allowed to know its actual significance.

Certain dread concerning the destiny of humanity in the future may come over one who enters with feelings into the thoughts which occupied us at the close of our last lecture. A picture of this future of humanity was brought before us which on the one hand was great and powerful, filling one with bliss, showing the future condition of the man who has understood the mission of our present age upon the earth, who has received the Christ-spirit and is thereby able to keep pace with the necessary spiritualization of our earth, a glorious blessed picture of those men who are called in exoteric Christianity the “Redeemed,” and, not quite appropriately, the “Elect.” But the opposite picture had also to be put before you, the picture of the abyss in which is found a humanity which was not in a position to receive the Christ-spirit, which remained in matter, which excluded itself, so to speak, from the spiritualizing process leading into the future; and this portion of humanity which has fallen away from the spiritualized earth, and, in a certain sense apart from it, advances towards a frightful fate. When the beast with the seven heads and ten horns glowers at us from the abyss, the beast led astray by the other frightful being, the two-horned beast, this picture gives rise to fear and horror, and many aright ask: “Is it not hard and unwise on the part of Providence to lead a number of men to such a frightful fate, and in a way, to condemn them to the abyss of evil?” And the question might arise, “Would it not have been more fitting for a wise Providence to have averted this frightful fate from the very beginning?”

In answer to these questions, we might, to begin with, say something abstract, theoretical—and it already signifies a great deal for one who can grasp this theoretical statement is his feeling: It is extremely wise that Providence has taken care that this terrible fate is possible for a number of men. For if it were impossible for man to sink into the abyss of evil, he would not have been able to attain what on the one hand we call love and on the other freedom; since to the occultist freedom is inseparably connected with the idea of love. It would be impossible for man to develop either love or freedom without the possibility of sailing down into the abyss. A man unable, of his own free decision, to choose good or evil, would be a being who would only be led on a leading-string to a good which must be attained of necessity and who had no power to choose the good of his own fully purified will, by the love which springs from freedom. If it were impossible for man to follow in the trail of the monster with the two horns, it would also be impossible for him to follow God out of his own individual love. It was in accordance with a wise Providence to give the possibility of freedom to the humanity which has been developing through our planetary system, and this possibility of freedom could be given on no other condition than that man himself has to make the free choice between good and evil.

But this is only an empty theory, you might say, and man rises but slowly to the point where he not only says this in words and accepts it in moments of speculation as a kind of explanation, but also experiences it in his feeling. Seldom does man now rise to the thought, “I thank thee, O wise Providence, that thou hast made it possible for me to bring thee a love which is not forced but springs up free in my own breast: that thou dost not force use to love thee, but that thou hast given me tine choice of following thee.” Nevertheless, man has to rise to this feeling if he wishes really to feel this theoretical explanation. We can, however, offer additional comfort, or, rather, another quieting assurance, from a clairvoyant observation of the world. For it was stated in our last lecture that at the present day, he alone has au almost unalterable tendency to the abyss who is already entangled in some way in the prongs of the two-horned beast, which leads men to the practice of black magic. Even for such as now fall into the arts of black magic it will still be possible to withdraw in the future. But those who do not come at all into any contact with black magic arts (and this is for the time being the case with most people), these may have nevertheless a certain tendency in the period following the War of All against All, towards final evil, but the possibility in the future of turning back again and following the good will be far greater than the compulsion unconditionally to follow evil.

From these lectures it may be seen that for those who now turn to a spiritual conception of the world, in order to live beyond the great War into the sixth epoch (which is represented by the opening of the seals), there is the possibility to receive the Christ-principle. They will be able to receive the spiritual elements which are laid down in the age signified by the community at Philadelphia, and in the near future they will manifest a strong tendency towards becoming spiritual. Those who turn to-day to a spiritual view receive a powerful disposition to enter upon the upward path. One must not fail to recognize how important it is even at the present time that a number of persons should not turn a deaf ear to the anthroposophical world conception, which is bringing to humanity in a fully conscious manner the first germs of spiritual life, whereas formerly this took place unconsciously. That is the important thing, that this portion of humanity should take with it the first conscious tendencies towards the upward movement.

Through a group of people dedicating themselves to-day to the foundation of a great brotherhood which will live over into the epoch of the seven seals, help will be provided for those others, who to-day still turn a deaf ear to the teachings of Spiritual Science. For the present, we have still to go through many incarnations of the present souls before the great War of All against All, and again up to the decisive point after the great War. And afterwards in the epoch of the seals we also have to go through many changes, and men will often have the opportunity to open their hearts to the spiritual world-conception, which is to-day flowing through the anthroposophical Movement. There will be many opportunities, and you must not imagine that future opportunities will only be such as they are to-day. The way in which we are able to make the spiritual view of the world known to others is still very feeble. Even if a man were now to speak in such a way that his voice were to sound forth directly like the fire of the spirit, that would be feeble as compared with the possibilities which will exist in later and more developed bodies in order to direct our fellow-men to this spiritual movement. When humanity as a whole will have developed higher and higher in future ages, there will be very different means through which the spiritual conception of the world will be able to penetrate into men's hearts, and the most fiery word to-day is small and weak compared with what will work in the future to give all souls the possibility of the spiritual conception of the world—all the souls now living in bodies in which no heart beats for this spiritual conception of the world.

We are at the beginning of the spiritual movement, and it will grow. It will require much obduracy and much hardness to close the heart and mind to the powerful impressions of the future. The souls now living in bodies which have the heart to hear and feel Anthroposophy, are now preparing them-selves to live in bodies in the future in which power will be given them to serve their fellow-creatures, who up to that time had been unable to feel this heart beat within them. We are only preparing for the preparers, as yet nothing more. The spiritual movement is to-day but a very small flame; in the future it will develop into a mighty spiritual fire.

When we bring this other picture before our minds, when we let it enter right into our feelings, then there will live in us a very different feeling and a very different possibility of knowledge concerning this fact. To-day it is what we call black magic into which men can, in a certain way, fall consciously or unconsciously. Those who are now living thoughtlessly, who are quite untouched by the spiritual conception of the world, who live in their comfortable everyday torpor and say, “What does it matter to me what these dreaming Anthroposophists say?” these have the least opportunity of coming into the circle of black magic. In their case they are now only neglecting the opportunity to help their fellow-men in the future in their efforts to attain the spiritual life. For themselves they have not yet lost touch. But those who to-day are beginning in an unjustifiable way to oppose the spiritual life, are really taking up into themselves in the very first beginnings the germs of some-thing one might call black magic. There are very few individuals to-day who have already fallen into black magic in the frightful sense in which this horrible art of humanity must really be spoken of.

You will best understand that this really is so if I give you but a slight indication of the way in which black magic is systematic-ally cultivated; then you will see that you may search high and low among all your acquaintances and you will find no one of whom you could believe that he was already inclining to such arts. All the rest is fundamentally only the purest dilettantism which may be easily got rid of in future ages. It is bad enough that in our day things are sometimes praised with the intention to defraud people—which in a certain sense is also the beginning of the art of black magic. It is also bad that certain ideas are percolating, which—although they do not absolutely belong to the black art—nevertheless mislead people; these are the ideas which rule the world to-day in certain, circles and which can flourish amidst materialistic thought, but which although not without danger, will not be irreparable in the next epochs. Only when a man begins to practise the ABC of black magic is he on the dangerous path to the abyss. The ABC consists in the pupil of a black magician being taught to destroy life quite consciously, and in doing so to cause as much pain as possible and to feel a certain satisfaction in it. When the purpose is to stab or to cut into a living being with the intention of feeling pleasure in that being's pain, that is the ABC of the black arts. We cannot touch upon the further stages, but you will find it horrible enough when you are told that the beginning in black magic is to cut and stab into living flesh, not like the vivisector cuts—this is already bad enough, but the principle of vivisection finds its overthrow in the vivisector himself, because in kamaloca he will himself have to feel the pain he has caused his victims, and for this reason will leave vivisection alone in the future. But he who systematically cuts into flesh, and feels satisfaction in it begins to follow the precipitous path of black magic, and this draws him closer and closer to the being described as the two-horned beast.

This seductive being is of quite a different nature from man. It originates from other world periods; it has acquired the tendencies of other world periods and will feel deep satisfaction when it meets with beings such as those evil ones who have refused to take up inwardly the good which can flow from the earth. This being has been unable to receive anything from the earth; it has seen the earthly evolution come but has said, “I have not progressed with the earth in such a way that I can gain anything from earthly existence.” This being could only have got something from the earth by being able to gain the rulership at a certain moment, namely, when the Christ-principle descended to the earth. If the Christ-principle had then been strangled in the germ, if Christ had been overcome by the adversary, it would have been possible for the whole earth to succumb to the Sorath-principle. This, however, did not take place, and so this being has to be content with those who have not inclined towards the Christ-principle, who have remained embedded in matter; they in the future will form his cohorts.

Now in order to understand these hosts more clearly we must consider two ideas which in a certain sense may serve as a key to certain chapters of the Apocalypse. We must study the ideas of the “first death” and the “second death.” What is the first death and what is the second death of man, or of humanity? We must form a clear picture of the ideas which the writer of the Apocalypse connected with these words. To this end we must once more recall to mind the elementary truths concerning human existence.

Consider a human being of the present day. He lives in such a way that from morning when he awakes until evening when he falls asleep he consists of four principles: the physical body, etheric body, astral body and the “I.” We also know that during his earthly existence man works from his “I” upon the lower principles of his being, and that during the earth existence he must succeed in bringing the astral body under the control of the “I.” We know that the earth will be followed by its next incarnation, Jupiter. When main has reached Jupiter he will appear as a different being. The Jupiter-man will have thoroughly worked from his “I” upon his astral body; and when to-day we say, The earth-man who stands before us in the waking condition has developed physical body, etheric body, astral body and “I,” we must say of the Jupiter-man: he will have developed physical body, etheric body, astral body and “I” but he will have changed his astral body into spirit-self. He will live at a higher stage of consciousness, a stage which may be described as follows: The ancient dim-picture-consciousness of the Moon, which existed also in the first epochs of the earth-consciousness, will again be there with its pictures as clairvoyant consciousness, but it will be furnished with the human “I,” so that with this Jupiter-consciousness man will reflect as logically as he does now with his day-consciousness on the earth.

The Jupiter-man therefore will possess spiritual vision of a certain degree. Part of the soul-world will lie open to him; the will perceive the pleasure and pain of those around him in pictures which will arise in his imaginative consciousness. He will there-fore live under entirely different moral conditions. Now imagine that as a Jupiter-man you have a human soul before you. The pain and pleasure of this soul will arise in pictures before you. The pictures of the pair of the other soul will distress you, and if you do not remove the other's pain it will be impossible for you to feel happy. The pictures of sorrow and suffering would torment the Jupiter-man with his exalted consciousness if he were to do nothing to alleviate this sorrow and thus at the same dine remove his own distressing pictures which are nothing but the expression of the sorrow around him! It will not be possible for one to feel pleasure or pain without others also feeling it.

Thus we see that man gains an entirely new state of consciousness in addition to his present “I”-consciousness. If we wish to understand the importance of this in evolution we must once more turn our attention to man when asleep.

During this condition the physical body and etheric body lie on the bed, and his “I” and astral body are outside. During the night (if we speak somewhat inexactly) he callously abandons his physical and etheric bodies. But through being able to liberate himself during the night from his physical and etheric bodies, through being able to live at night in the spiritual world, it is possible for man during this earthly existence to work transformingly from his “I” upon his astral body. How does he do this?

To describe this clearly let us take man in his waking state. Let us suppose that in addition to his professional work and duties he devotes a short time to higher considerations in order to make the great impulses his own which flow from John's Gospel, from the words: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God ...” Let us suppose that he allows to rise within him the great pictures brought before him in John's Gospel, so that he is always filled by the thought: “At the beginning of our era a Being lived in Palestine whom I wish to follow. I will so order my life that everything may be approved by this Being; and I will consider myself as a man who has taken this personality as his ideal.” But we need not intolerantly think that John's Gospel alone may be taken. It is possible in many other ways to immerse oneself in something which can fill the soul with such pictures; and although in a certain way we must describe John's Gospel as the greatest revelation which has originated in humanity, which can exercise the most powerful effect, we may, however, say that others who devote themselves to the Vedanta wisdom or immerse themselves in the Bhagavad Gita or in the Dhammapada, will also have sufficient opportunities in following incarnations to come to the Christ-principle just through what they have thus acquired. Let us suppose that during the day a man fills his mind with pictures and ideas such as these, then his astral body is laid hold of by these thoughts, feelings and pictures, and they form forces in his astral body and produce various effects in it. Then when man withdraws from his physical and etheric bodies at night, these effects remain in the astral body, and he who during the day has been able to immerse himself in the pictures and feelings of John's Gospel has produced something in his astral body which during the night appears in it as a powerful effect. In this way man works to-day during the waking consciousness upon his astral body.

Only the Initiate can become conscious of these effects to-day, but men are gradually developing towards this consciousness. Those who reach the goal of the earth evolution will then have an astral body completely permeated by the “I,” and by the spiritual content which it will have formed. They will have this consciousness as a result, as a fruit of the earth evolution, and will carry it over into the Jupiter evolution. We might say that when the Earth period has thus come to an end man will have gained capacities which are symbolically represented by the building of the New Jerusalem. Man will then already look into that picture-world of Jupiter; the spirit-self will then be fully developed in him. That is the goal of the earth evolution. What, then, is man to gain in the course of his earthly evolution? What is the first goal? The transformation of the astral body. This astral body which to-day is always free of the physical and etheric bodies at night will appear in the future as a transformed portion of the human being. Mau brings into it what he gains on the earth; but this would not be sufficient for the earth evolution. Imagine that man were to come out of the physical body and etheric body every night and were to fill his astral body with what he had acquired during the day, but that the physical and etheric bodies were untouched by it. Man would then still not reach his earthly goal. Something else must take place; it must be possible for man during his earthly evolution to imprint, at least in the etheric body, what he has taken into himself. It is necessary for this etheric body also to receive effects from what man develops in his astral body. Man cannot yet of himself work into this etheric body. Upon Jupiter, when he has trans-formed his astral body, he will be able to work into this etheric body also, but to-day he cannot do this; he still needs helpers, so to speak. Upon Jupiter he will be capable of beginning the real work on the etheric body. Upon Venus he will work upon the physical body; this is the part most difficult to overcome. To-day he still has to leave both the physical and etheric bodies every night and emerge from them. But in order that the etheric body may receive its effects, so that man shall gradually learn to work into it, he needs a helper. And the helper who makes this possible is none other than Christ, while we designate the Being who helps man to work into the physical body as the Father. But man cannot work into his physical body before the helper conies who makes it possible to work into the etheric body. “No man cometh to the Father, but by me.” No one acquires the capacity of working into the physical body who has not gone through the Christ-principle. However, when he has reached the goal of earthly evolution, man will have the capacity—through being able to transform his astral body by his own power—to work upon the etheric body also. This he owes to the living presence of the Christ-principle on the earth. Had Christ not united him-self with the earth as a living being, had he not come into the aura of the earth, that which is developed in the astral body would not be communicated to the etheric body. From this we see that one who shuts himself up by turning away from the Christ-principle deprives himself of the possibility of working into his etheric body in the way that is necessary during earthly evolution.

Thus we shall be able to characterize in another way the two kinds of men which we find at the end of the earth's evolution. We have those who have received the Christ-principle and thus transformed their astral body, and who have gained the help of Christ to transform the etheric body also. And we have the others who did not come to the Christ-principle; who also were unable to change anything in the etheric body, for they could not find the helper, Christ. Now let us look at the future of mankind. The earth spiritualizes itself, that is, man must lose completely something which he now un his physical existence considers as belonging to him. We can form an idea of what will then happen to man if we consider the ordinary course of his life after death. He loses the physical body at death. It is to this physical body that he owes the desires and inclinations which bind him to the ordinary life; and we have described what man experiences after death. Let us take a person who is fond of some particularly dainty food. During life he can enjoy this, but not after death. The desire, however, does not cease, for this is seated, not in the physical body but in the astral body, and as the physical instrument is absent it is impossible to gratify this desire. Such persons look down from kamaloca to the physical world which they have left; they see there all that could give them satisfaction, but they cannot enjoy it because they have no physical instrument for the purpose. Through this they experience a burning thirst. Thus it is with all desires that remain in man after death and are related to the physical world, because they can only be satisfied through physical instruments. This is the case every time after death; each time man sees his physical body fall away, and as something remains in him from this physical body it still urges him to the ordinary world of the physical plane, and until he has weaned himself from this in the spiritual world he lives in the fire of desire. Now imagine the last earthly incarnation before the spiritualization of the earth, the laying aside of the last physical body. Those who are now living on the earth will have progressed so far through the Christ-principle that, in a certain way, it will not be very difficult for than to lay aside the very last physical body; they will, however, be obliged to leave something, for all that can give pleasure from the objects of this earth will have disappeared once and for all from the spiritual earth. Think of the last death possible in our earth evolution, think of the laying aside of the last physical body. It is this last death of the incarnations which in the Apocalypse is called the first death, and those who have received the Christ-principle see this physical body as a sort of husk which falls away. The etheric body has now become important to them for, with the help of Christ, it has become so organized that it is for the time being adapted to the astral body and no longer desires and longs for what is below in the physical world. Only through all that has been brought into the etheric body through the help of Christ do men continue to live on in the spiritualized earth. Harmony has been produced between their astral and etheric bodies by the Christ-principle.

On the other hand there are those who have not received the Christ-principle. These do not possess this harmony. They too must lose the physical body, for there is no such thing in the spiritual earth. Everything physical must first be dissolved. It remains as desires for the physical, as the unpurified spiritual, as the spiritual hardened in matter. An etheric body remains which the Christ has not helped to be adapted to the astral body, but which is suited to the physical body. They are the souls who will feel hot fires of desire for physical sensuality; in the etheric body they will feel unappeasable, burning desire by reason of what they have had in the physical life and which they must now do without. Thus, in the next period, after the physical has melted away, we have men who live in an etheric body which harmonizes with the astral body, and we have others whose etheric body lives in discord because they desire what has fallen away with the physical body.

Then in the further stage of evolution there comes a condition where the spiritualizing of the earth has proceeded so far that there can no longer be even an etheric body. Those whose etheric body completely harmonizes with the astral body lay aside this etheric body without pain, for they remain in their astral body which is filled with the Christ-Being. They feel the laying aside of the etheric body as a necessity in evolution, for they feel within them the capacity to build it up again for them-selves because they have received Christ. Those, however, who in this etheric body desire what belongs to the past cannot retain this etheric body, when all becomes astral. It will be taken from them, it will be torn out of them, and they now perceive this as a second dying, as the “second death.”

This second death passes unnoticed over those who have made their etheric body harmonize with the astral body through the reception of the Christ-principle. The second death has no power over then. But the others feel the second death when they have to pass over into the future astral form. The condition of humanity will then be such that those who have reached the goal of evolution will have entirely permeated their astral body with Christ. They will be ready to pass over to Jupiter. Upon our earth they have made the plan of the Jupiter evolution. This is the plan which is called the New Jerusalem. They live in a new heaven and a new earth, that is, Jupiter. This new Jupiter will be accompanied by a satellite, composed of those who are excluded from the life in the spiritual, who have experienced the second death and are, therefore, unable to attain the Jupiter consciousness.

Thus we have such men as have pressed forward to the Jupiter consciousness, who have attained to spirit-self; and such beings as have thrust away the forces which would have given them this consciousness. They are those who only upon Jupiter have attained to the “I”-consciousness of the earth, who exist there, so to speak, as man now exists on the earth with his four members. But such a man can develop himself only on the earth, the earth alone has the environment, the ground, the air, the clouds, the plants, the minerals which are necessary to man if he wishes to gain what may be gained within the four members. Jupiter will be quite differently formed, it will be a new earth, soil, air, water, everything will be different. It will be impossible for beings who have only gained the earth consciousness to live a normal life; they will be backward beings.

But now comes something more for our comfort. Even on this Jupiter there is still a last possibility, through the strong powers which the advanced will have, to move those fallen beings to turn back and even to convert a number. Only with the Venus incarnation of the earth will conic the last decision, the unalterable decision. When we reflect upon all this, the thought we recently considered will be seen in a new light. It will no longer call forth anxiety and disquietude, but only the determination: “I will do everything necessary to fulfil the earth mission.”

When we consider all this in the right way, a mighty picture of the future of humanity opens up before us and we get some idea of all that was in the illuminated soul of the writer of the Apocalypse who wrote down what we, in a faltering way, can discover from a study of it. Every word of the writer, indeed every turn of expression, is significant. We must only try to understand it clearly. Thus, according to our last lecture, in 666 we are referred to the beast with the two horns, and then a remarkable statement is made, “Here is Wisdom! Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man.” An apparent contradiction, but one of the many contradictions which are to be found in every occult work and exposition. You may be sure of one thing; that an exposition which runs so smoothly that the ordinary human intellect can find no contradiction is certainly not based on an occult foundation. Nothing in world-evolution is so shallow and trivial as that which the human intellect, the ordinary intelligence perceives as free from contradiction. One must penetrate more deeply into the substrata of human contemplation and then the contradictions will disappear. One who observes how a plant grows from root to fruit, how the green leaf changes into the petals, these into the stamens, etc., may say, “Here we have contradictory forms, the flower-leaf contradicts the stem-leaf.” But one who looks more deeply will see the unity, the deeper unity in the contradiction. So it is with what the intellect can see in the world. It is precisely in the deepest wisdom that it sees contradictions. Hence it must not disturb us when here in the Apocalypse we meet with an apparent contradiction: “Let him that hath understanding ponder over the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man.”

We must once more consider by what means it may be possible for a man to be led astray by the two-horned beast. We have pointed out that since the middle of the Atlantean epoch man has slept through the higher spiritual development, so to speak. This sleep still exists at the present time. But it was necessary. If it had not entered in, that which we call the intellect would never have been developed. Man did not possess this before our epoch, he acted from other impulses. His pictures drove him to action, without reflection. He had lost this ancient gift of spiritual vision and in its place he has developed intellect and thereby descended into matter. This has drawn a veil over the spiritual world, but at the same time the intellect has been acquired. This may be a great hindrance to the spiritual development. At the very last it will be nothing else but this misguided intellect, this misguided intelligence, which can prevent man from coming to the Christ-principle; and if those who at last succumb to the two-horned beast could look back upon what has dealt them the worst blow they would say, “The tendency to descend into the abyss only came later, but that which darkened the Christ-principle for me was the intellect.” Let him who has this intellect reflect upon the number of the beast; for only through man having become man, that is to say, through his being gifted with this ego-intellect, can he succumb to the beast 666. For the number of the beast is at the same time the number of a man. And only one possessing intellect can perceive that this is so. It is the number of that man who has let himself be misled by his intellect. Deep truths such as these are concealed in these things.

Thus you see that the writer of the Apocalypse gives you a great deal when you reflect upon the various intimations we have given. He expresses many of the truths known to Spiritual Science. He gives what he promises. He leads man to the vision of what is to come; to the vision of the beings and powers which guide the world. He leads us to the spirit in the first seal, and to the form presented in the last seal. Here we see how the regular form of the New Jerusalem is revealed to him spiritually. The regularity of the New Jerusalem is indicated in the last chapter by its description as a cube. To describe all that is in this last picture would take us too far.

It is now necessary to point out for what purpose the Apocalypse was written. I should indeed have to say a great deal if I were to describe this in detail, but you cm at least take away with you one hint, one which we find at a certain part of the Apocalypse. The writer of the Apocalypse says: A time will come when that high degree of consciousness will actually have developed, when man will see the beings who direct the world, the beings represented by the Lamb and by the appearance of the Son of Man, with the flaming sword. We are referred to this in tones which contain within them that assurance of which we have spoken. The writer of the Apocalypse, who is a great seer, knows that in ancient times men were gifted with a dim clairvoyance. We have described this and have seen how at that time inns were the companions, so to speak, of beings in the spiritual world, and themselves saw the spiritual world. But who has lost this gift of seership? Who? We must now put this forward as an important question. We have seen that fundamentally it was lost by those men who were led to the physical plane, the physical life, when the second half of the Atlantean epoch began. Man looked upon the solid formation of our earth, upon the clearly outlined objects of our earth. The ancient clairvoyance disappeared; he became self-conscious, but the spiritual world was closed to him. The formations which un ancient times filled the air like an ocean of mist, disappeared; the air became clear, the ground distinct. Man descended to the visible earth. This took place comparatively late, it coincided with the attainment of the present intellect, the present self-consciousness of man. Now let us remember what has been said about this earth as well as about the great Event of Golgotha. If some one had observed the earth at that time from a distance with spiritual vision at the moment when the blood flowed from the wounds of the Redeemer, he would have perceived that its whole astral aura changed. The earth was then permeated by the Christ-force. Through this event the earth will be able to reunite with the sun. This power will grow. This is the power which preserves our etheric body from the second death. Christ becomes the Earth-spirit more and more, and the true Christian understands the words, “He who eats my bread treads me underfoot”; he considers the body of the earth as the body of Christ. The earth as a planetary body is the body of Christ; of course at present this is only at its beginning. Christ has still to become the Earth-spirit; He will smite himself fully with the earth, and when the earth later unites with the sun, the great Earth-spirit, Christ, will be the Sun-Spirit.

The body of the earth will be the body of Christ; and men must work upon this body. They began this when they entered upon the earth; they have worked upon this earth with their forces. In all traditions one can fund something which is little noticed because little understood. Thus, for example, in the Persian tradition we find that since the time men lost clairvoyant consciousness they have become beings who have pierced the earth. While they live in the phases which they pierce the earth—that is, while they work upon the earth—during this time when they pierce the body of Christ they do not see with clairvoyant consciousness the guiding powers and, above all, they do not see the Christ face to face. But the writer of the Apocalypse refers to the time when not only those who at that time had spiritual vision will see the spiritual, but when humanity will again have come to the stage where it is possible to see the Christ-Being himself. All will see him, including those who have pierced him, these who had to pass through a portion of their evolution in cultivating the earth, in the piercing of the earth, they will see the Christ. For these sayings are such that they lead those who gradually learn to unveil them deep into the imaginative world of the Mysteries, of the Apocalyptic language.

What, then, did the Apocalyptist wish to write, what did he wish to represent? This question will be answered if we briefly refer to the origin of the Apocalypse. Where do we first fund what is written down in the Apocalypse? If you could look back into the Mysteries of ancient Greece, into the Orphic and Eleusinian Mysteries, if you could go back into the Mysteries of ancient Egypt, Chaldea, Persia and India, you would find the Apocalypse everywhere. It existed, it was there. It was not written down, but lived from one generation of priests to another, through the generations of the Initiators, where the memory was so vivid that one could master such abundant material. Memory even in much later times was far better than ours; we need only remember the singers of the Iliad, how they went about and sang their songs from memory. It is comparatively not long ago, that memory has deteriorated so much. In the Mysteries these truths were not written down, but they lived from generation to generation of the Initiators. Why was the Apocalypse written? It was intended to serve as an instruction for those who brought the pupils into Initiation. At that time the one who was to be initiated was led out of the physical body and remained as if dead. But when he had been led out, the Initiator enabled him to see in his etheric body that which later through the Christ-impulse he would be able to see spiritually in the physical body. Thus the ancient Initiates were the prophets who could point to Christ; and they did so. They were able to do this, because Christ is shown in this Apocalypse as due to appear in the future. The Mystery of Golgotha had never yet taken place where a person in the physical body could set forth the whole drama of Initiation historically. Where then could the possibility of this Event of Golgotha be comprehended? At a certain stage the Initiates had comprehended it outside their body. That which took place on Golgotha had taken place before in another consciousness. There might have been thousands there, and yet the Event of Golgotha could have passed by them unnoticed. What would it have been to them? The death of an ordinary condemned person! It was only possible to understand what took place on Golgotha where the contents of the Mysteries were known. The Initiators could say, You can understand the one whom we have shown you during the three and a half days, whom the prophets announced to you, if you use the means which the Mysteries can give you. The Apocalyptist had received the tradition of the Mysteries orally; he said, “If I am permeated with what can be experienced in the Mysteries, Christ appears to me.” Thus the Apocalypse was nothing new; but its application to the unique Event of Golgotha was something new. The essential thing was that for those who have ears to hear it was possible, with the help of what is in the Apocalypse of John, to penetrate gradually to the true understanding of the Event of Golgotha. This was the intention of the writer of the Apocalypse. He received the Apocalypse from the ancient Mysteries; it is an ancient sacred book of humanity and has only been presented externally to humanity by the disciple whom the Lord loved and to whom he bequeathed the task of announcing his true form. He is to remain until Christ comes; so that those who have a more illuminated consciousness will be able to understand him. He is the great teacher of the true Event of Golgotha. He has given to man the means by which he can really understand the Event of Golgotha. At the beginning of the Apocalypse the writer says (I have tried to translate the first few words in such a way that they convey the true meaning): “This is the revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave unto his servant, to show in brief what must needs come to pass. This is put in symbols and sent through an angel to his servant John, who wrote these things.” He wishes to describe it in brief; what does this mean? It means in other words: “If I were to describe in detail all that will take place from now up to the goal of the earth evolution, I. should have to write a very great deal, but I will show it to you in a short sketch.” This the translators who could not penetrate into the spirit of the Apocalypse have translated as “to show what must shortly come to pass.” They thought that what is described in the Apocalypse was to happen in the near future. But it ought to read: “I will briefly describe what will take place.” The original text fully admits of the true interpretation I have tried to give in the introduction to Seals and Columns.

We have said much in these lectures concerning this ancient sacred record of the human race, much concerning the secrets which the Lord imparted to humanity by the disciple whom he loved. You may have learnt from this that the Apocalypse is a profound book full of wisdom, and have perhaps many tines during these considerations been troubled because much in it is so difficult to understand. Now I should like to say one thing at the close of our studies. All that I have been able to say to you corresponds exactly to the intentions of the writer of the Apocalypse, and was always taught in this way in the schools which have kept to the intention of the writer of the Apocalypse. But it is by no means all that could be said and one can go much deeper into the truths, into the foundations of the Apocalypse. And if we were to penetrate fully into all the depths, what I have been able to say to you would seem only like a first superficial presentation. It cannot be done in any other way, we can at first give only a superficial presentation. One must go through this. One has to begin with the elementary things, and then, when one has gone a little further, greater depths will be found. For below the surface there is a very great deal of which we have been only able to unveil a very little. If you go further along the path which in a certain way you have begun by turning your attention to the exposition of the Apocalypse of John, you will gradually penetrate into the depths of the spiritual life. You will come into depths which cannot possibly be expressed to-day, because they could not be brought into consciousness, because no one has yet ears to hear. The ears must first be prepared to hear, by such explanations as have now been given. Then they will gradually be there, cars able to hear the Word which flows at such profound depths through the Apocalypse. If you have been able to receive a little of what could be imparted, you must be aware that only the most superficial things could be given, and of these only a few observations. May it give you the impulse to penetrate more and more deeply into what can only be surmised through these lectures. If I were to say only what can be said about the surface, I should have to lecture for still many, many weeks. These lectures could only be a stimulus for further study, and those who feel the impulse to penetrate more deeply into the Apocalypse will have received them in the right way.

If we wish to know the nature of the spiritual forces powers active in the different kingdoms of nature in the heavenly bodies, we must first become acquainted with these spiritual beings themselves, as we have already begun to do in the three lectures which have been given. We tried to characterise the so-called nature-spirits, and then ascended to the beings which stand immediately above man and which we can find in the higher world to our own. We will continue these considerations to-day, and must therefore link them to what has already been said on the way in which we can link ourselves to the beings of the Third Hierarchy. As shown in the last lecture, it is possible for man to rise above himself, to subdue all his own special ego interests in order, by that means, to rise into a sphere which he first of all finds his own guide, who can give him some idea of those beings called, in the sense of western esotericism, Angels, Angeloi.

We then pointed out how further progress along the path leads to knowledge of the Folk or Nation-Spirits, of whom we have spoken as Archangels, Archangeloi; and how, in the course of cultural civilisation we find the so-called Spirits of the Age, the Archai. If a man follows the path roughly indicated yesterday, he gains a certain feeling of what is meant by these beings of Third Hierarchy, but even if he goes through an occult development, he will for a long time only have a sort of feeling. Only if he goes in patience and persevere through all the feelings and perceptions mentioned yesterday, can he pass over to what may be called clairvoyant vision of the beings of the Third Hierarchy. If, therefore, we progress further along this way, we shall find that gradually we educate ourselves, developing in ourselves a different state of consciousness, and then we can begin to have a clairvoyant consciousness of the beings of the Third Hierarchy. When a man follows this way further he will find that he gradually trains himself to another condition of consciousness and that then a clairvoyant perception of the Third Hierarchy can begin.

This other condition of consciousness can be compared with the sleep of man, because in this condition a man with his ego and his astral body feels freed from his physical and etheric bodies. We must have a perception of this feeling of freedom. We must gradually learn what it means not to see with our eyes, hear with our ears, or think with our intellect, which is connected with the brain. Again, we must distinguish this condition from that of ordinary sleep, inasmuch as in it we are not unconscious, for we have perceptions of the spiritual beings in our environment;—at first, only dimly sensing them, and then, as has been described, clairvoyant consciousness lights up within us, and we get a living view of the beings of the Third Hierarchy and of their off-spring, the nature-spirits. If we wish to describe this condition more accurately, we may say that he who raises himself through occult development to this condition actually perceives a sort of demarcation between his ordinary consciousness and this new condition of consciousness. Just as we can distinguish between waking and sleeping, so to him who has gone through occult development, there is at first a distinction between the consciousness in which he sees with his ordinary eyes, hears with his ordinary ears, and thinks with the ordinary intellect—and that clairvoyant condition in which he has nothing at all around him of what he perceives in the normal consciousness, but has instead another world around him, the world of the Third Hierarchy and its offspring. The first achievement is learning to remember in ordinary consciousness what one has experienced in this other condition of consciousness. Thus we can accurately distinguish a certain stage in the occult development of man, when he can live alternately in his ordinary consciousness, when he sees, hears, and thinks like other men, and in the other condition of consciousness which he can, in a sense, produce voluntarily, and in which he perceives what is around him in the spiritual world of the Third Hierarchy. And then just as we remember a dream, so can he, in his ordinary consciousness, remember what he experienced in the other, the clairvoyant condition. He can talk about it, can translate into ordinary conceptions and ideas what he experiences in the clairvoyant state. Thus if a seer in his ordinary condition of consciousness, himself wishes to know something of the spiritual world, or to relate something about it, he must call to mind what he experienced in the other, the clairvoyant conditions of consciousness. A clairvoyant having reached this stage of development, can only know something of those beings whom we have described as the beings of the Third Hierarchy and their offspring; he can at first know nothing of higher worlds. If he wishes to know of these he must attain a still higher stage of clairvoyant vision

This higher stage is reached by continually practicing those exercises described in my book Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and How to Attain It and especially going through those exercises there described as the observation—let us say—of the plant, of the animal, etc. If a man continues his exercises in this way, he attains a higher stage of clairvoyance. This consists not only in his having two alternate conditions of consciousness and being able to remember his clairvoyant experiences in the normal condition; but having attained this higher stage of clairvoyance, he can also perceive spiritual worlds, spiritual beings and spiritual facts when in his ordinary condition of consciousness, looking at the things of the external world through his eyes. He can then, so to speak, carry his clairvoyant vision over into his ordinary consciousness, and can see behind the beings around him in the external world, the spiritual beings and forces everywhere more deeply concealed, as though behind a veil.

We may ask: “What has happened to a clairvoyant, who is able not merely to remember the experiences of another condition of consciousness, but who can have clairvoyant experiences in his own everyday consciousness?” If a man has only ascended to the first stage, he can only make use of his astral body in order to look into the spiritual world. Thus the body which a man makes use of at the first stage of clairvoyance is the astral body; at the second stage of clairvoyance which has just been described, he learns to make use of his etheric body. By means of this he can even in ordinary, normal consciousness, look into the spiritual world. If a man learns to use his etheric body in this way as an instrument for clairvoyance, he gradually learns to perceive everything in the spiritual world belonging to the beings of the Second Hierarchy.

Now, however, the clairvoyant must not stand still here, only perceiving his own etheric body, so to speak; but on attaining this second stage of clairvoyance he has a very definite experience. He has the experience of seeming to go out of himself, and as it were, of no longer feeling enclosed within his skin. When he—let us say—encounters a plant or an animal, or even another human being he feels as if a part of himself were within the other being; he feels as if immersed in the other being. In normal consciousness and even when we have reached the first stage of clairvoyance, we can still say, in a certain sense, “I am here; and that being which I see is there.” At the second stage of clairvoyance, we can no longer say this; we can only say, “Where that being is which I perceive, there am I myself.” It is as though our etheric body stretched out tentacles on all sides and drew us within the beings into which we, perceiving them, plunge our own being. There is a feeling belonging to our ordinary normal consciousness which can give us an idea of this clairvoyant experience; only, what the clairvoyant of the second stage experiences is infinitely more intense than a feeling; it amounts to a perception, an understanding of, an immersion in another being. The feeling to which I refer, which can be compared to this experience of the clairvoyant, is sympathy, love. What does it really imply when we feel sympathy and love in ordinary life? If we ponder more closely on the nature of sympathy and love—this was slightly touched upon yesterday—we find that sympathy and love cause us to detach ourselves from ourselves and to pass over into the life of the other being. It is truly a wonderful mystery of human life, that we are able to feel sympathy and love. There is scarcely anything among the ordinary phenomena of normal consciousness which can so convince man of the divinity of existence, as the possibility of developing love and sympathy. As human beings we experience our existence in our own selves; and we experience the world by perceiving it with our senses or grasping it with our reason. It is not possible for any intellect, for any eye, to look into the human heart, to gaze into the human soul; for the soul of another keeps enclosed in its innermost chamber what it has within it of joy or sorrow, and truly it should appear as a wonderful mystery to anyone, that he can, as it were, pour himself into the being of other souls—live in their life and share their joys and sorrows. So just as we with our normal consciousness can by means of sympathy and love plunge into the sorrows and joys of conscious beings, so does the clairvoyant learn, at the second stage of clairvoyance, not only to plunge into everything conscious, into everything that can suffer and rejoice in a human way or in a manner resembling the human; he learns to plunge into everything that is alive. Mark well, I say everything living;—for at this second stage one only learns to plunge into living things, not yet into that which is without life or which appears lifeless, dead, and which we see around as a mineral kingdom. But this immersing oneself into living things is connected with a view of what goes on in the inner nature of those beings. We feel ourselves there, within the living beings; we learn to live with the plants, the animals, and with other human beings, at this second stage of clairvoyance. But not only this; we also learn to recognize behind all living things a higher spiritual world, the beings of the Second Hierarchy. It is necessary that we should form a clear idea of these connections for if one only enumerated what sort of beings belonged to the various hierarchies that would seem but a dry theory. We can only gain a living idea of what lives and weaves behind the sense-world if we know the path by which clairvoyant consciousness penetrates it.

Now, beginning once more from man, we will try to describe the beings of the Second Hierarchy. We saw yesterday, that the beings of the Third Hierarchy are characterised by the fact that in place of human perception, they have manifestation of their own being, and instead of human inner life they have what we may call “being filled with the spirit.” In the beings of the Second Hierarchy we experience when we plunge into them, that not only is their perception a manifestation of their being, not only do they manifest their own being, but that this manifestation remains, as something independent, which separates from these beings themselves. We can gain an idea of what we thus perceive if we think of a snail, which separates off its own shell. The shell—so we understand—consists of a substance which is at first contained in the body of the snail. The snail then detaches it. Not only does the snail manifest its own being externally, but detaches something which then becomes objective and remains. So it is with the actual nature, with the selfhood of the beings of the Second Hierarchy. Not only do they manifest their self-hood as do the beings of the Third Hierarchy, but they detach it from themselves, so that it remains as an independent being. This will be clearer to us, if we picture on the one hand, a being of the Third Hierarchy, and on the other hand a being of the Second Hierarchy. Let us direct our occult vision to a being of the Third Hierarchy. We recognize this being as such because it manifests its selfhood, its inner life externally, and in this manifestation it has its perception; but if it were to change its inner perception, its inner experience, the outer manifestation would also be different. As the inner condition of these beings of the Third Hierarchy changes, and their experiences vary, so do the external manifestations continually change. But if you look at a being of the Second Hierarchy with occult vision, it is quite different. These beings also perceive and experience inwardly; but what they experience is detached from them like a sort of shell or skin; it acquires independent existence. If the being of the Second Hierarchy then passes on into another inner condition, has a different perception and manifests in a new way, the old manifestation of the being will still exist; it still remains and does not pass away, as in the case of a being of the Third Hierarchy. So then, what appears in the place of manifestation in a being of the Second Hierarchy, we can call a self-creation, a sort of shell or skin; it creates, as it were, an impression of itself, makes itself objective, in a sort of image. That is what distinguishes the beings of the Second Hierarchy. And if we ask ourselves what appears in these beings in the place of the “being filled with the spirit” of the beings of the Third Hierarchy, it is shown to occult vision that every time the being detaches such a picture, or image of itself, life is stimulated. The stimulation of life is always the result of such a self-creation.

Thus, in the beings of the Third Hierarchy we must distinguish their external life in their manifestation, and their inner life in their “being filled with spirit.” In the beings of the Second Hierarchy we must distinguish their external side as a creating of themselves, a making of themselves objective in images, in pictures; and their inner activity as the stimulation of life, as if fluidity continually rippled in itself and congealed as it detached its image externally. This approximately represents to occult vision the external and internal fulfilment of the beings of the Second Hierarchy. Whilst to occult vision the “being filled with the spirit” of the beings of the Third Hierarchy appears in picture and imagination, as a sort of spiritual light, so is the fluidic life, the stimulation of life which is connected with an external separation, perceived in such a way that occult perception hears something like spiritual tone, the Music of the Spheres. It is like spiritual sound, not spiritual light as in the case of the Third Hierarchy.

Now in these beings of the Second Hierarchy we can distinguish several categories just as we did among the beings of the Third Hierarchy. To distinguish between these categories will be more difficult, for the higher we ascend the more difficult it becomes. We must in the course of our ascent, first of all gain some idea of all that underlies the world surrounding us, in so far as the world around us has forms. I have already said that as regards this second stage of clairvoyance, we need only consider that which lives, not that which appears to us lifeless. What lives comes into consideration, but what lives has in the first place, form. Plants have forms, animals have forms, man has a form. If clairvoyant vision is directed with all the qualities described to-day, to everything around us in nature which has form, and if we look away from all the other parts of the being and only see the forms, considering among the plants the multiplicity of the forms, as also in the animals and in man, this clairvoyant vision then perceives from the totality of the beings of the Second Hierarchy those which we call the Spirits of Form— the Exusiai. We can, however, turn our attention to something besides the form in the beings around us in nature. We know indeed, that everything which lives changes its form, in a certain respect, as it grows. This change, this alteration of form, this metamorphosis, strikes us more particularly in the plant-world. Now if we direct, not the ordinary vision but the clairvoyant vision of the second stage, to the growing plant-world, we see how the plant gradually gains its form, how it passes from the form of the root to the form of the leaf, to the form of the flower, to the form of the fruit. If we look at the growing animal, at the growing man, we do not merely consider a form as it exists at a given moment, we see the growth of the living being. If we allow ourselves to be stimulated by this contemplation of the growth of the living being; reflecting how the forms change, how they are in active metamorphosis—then, the clairvoyant vision of the second stage becomes aware of what we call the category of the Spirits of Motion—Dynamis.

It is still more difficult to consider a third category of such beings of the Second Hierarchy. For we must consider neither the form as such, nor the changes of form, nor the movement; but that which is expressed in the form. We can describe how a man may train himself to this. Of course it does not suffice to train the ordinary normal consciousness in such a way as has just been described, he must he helped by the use of the other exercises which raise man to occult vision. He must perform these; and not educate himself by means of his ordinary consciousness but by clairvoyant consciousness. This must first train itself as to how man himself becomes, in his outer form, the expression of his inner being. As we have said, that can also be done by the normal consciousness, but in that way one would attain to nothing but conjecture, a supposition of what may lie behind the bearing, gestures, and the facial expression of the human being. But when the clairvoyant vision which has already been trained to the second stage of clairvoyance, allows the physiognomy, gestures, and facial expression in man to work upon him, it produces stimulations through which he can gradually train himself to observe the beings of the third category of the Second Hierarchy. But this cannot take place—please take note of this—if he merely observes the gestures, imitative expression, and physiognomy of man; if he remains at this stage very little can really be gained. He must pass on—occult education is carried on in this most rational way in this realm—he must pass over to the plants. The animals can be left out, it is not very important to study them, but after one has trained oneself a little, clairvoyantly, to learn the inner being of his soul from a man's physiognomy and gestures; it is important to turn to the plant-world and educate oneself further by means of this. Here someone clairvoyantly trained can have very remarkable experiences; he will feel profoundly the difference between the leaf of a plant which—let us say—runs to a point (diagram a.) and the leaf of a plant which has this form (diagram b.); between a blossom which grows upwards in this way (c.) and one which opens outwards. (d.) (See Figure 2) A whole world of difference appears in the inner experience if one directs the occult vision of the second stage to a lily or to a tulip, if one lets either a panicle of oats or a wheat or barley stalk work upon one.

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You can realise from this that only to the occult vision of the second stage are those beings which we call the group-souls, actually perceptible. Only for those occultly developed individuals who can extend their own etheric body as tentacles, is it possible to know the beings of the Second Hierarchy and also the group-soul-beings which exist in the various kingdoms of Nature. Still more difficult is the ascent to the beings of the First Hierarchy, and to those beings which are their offspring in the kingdoms of nature. We shall speak further about these in the next lecture.

We have come in our studies to the so-called Second Hierarchy of the spiritual beings, and in the last lecture we described what the human soul must do if it would penetrate to the nature of the Second Hierarchy. A yet more difficult path leads to a still higher rank of spiritual beings belonging to the first, the uppermost, rank of the Hierarchies to which we can attain. It has been emphasised that by means of a special enhancement of the experiences which we have in ordinary life in the feelings of sympathy and love, by raising these feelings to the occult path, we may succeed in pouring forth our own being, coming out of ourselves, as it were, and plunging into the being we wish to observe. Mark well that the characteristic of this immersion in another consists in extending our own being like tentacles, and pouring it into the other being. In so doing, we must, however, always retain our own consciousness, we must be consciously present in our own inner life beside the other being. That is the characteristic feature of the second stage of clairvoyance which has been described. At this second stage, where we feel ourselves one with other beings, we must still realise that we ourselves are there, as it were, beside the other being. But even this last remains of egoistic experience must cease if we wish to ascend to the highest stage of clairvoyance.

There we must completely lose the feeling that we exist as a separate being in any one part of the world. We must reach the point, not only of pouring ourselves into the other being and standing beside it, retaining our own separate experience, but we must actually feel the foreign being as our self. We must completely pass out of ourselves and lose the feeling that we are standing beside the other being. If we thus dive down into a foreign being, we succeed in looking upon our self as we were previously, as we are in ordinary life—as another being. For example, suppose a student at the higher stage of clairvoyance plunges down into some being of the kingdom of nature; he does not then look upon this being from within himself; he does not merely immerse himself in it as at the second stage of clairvoyance, but he knows himself to be one with this being, and he looks back upon himself from within it. Just as formerly he looked upon a foreign being as outside himself, so now at the higher stage of clairvoyance, he looks out from within the foreign being, and sees himself as a foreign being. That is the difference between the second and higher stages. Only when this third stage is reached do we succeed in perceiving other beings in our spiritual environment besides those of the Second and. Third Hierarchies. The spiritual beings of whom we are then aware also belong to three categories. The first category we perceive chiefly when, in the manner described, we plunge down into the being of other men or of the higher animals, and by that means educate ourselves. The essential thing is not so much what we perceive in other human beings or in the higher animals, as that we should educate ourselves by that means and perceive behind the human beings and animals the spirits belonging to one of the categories of the First Hierarchy:—the Spirits of Will or, according to western esotericism—the Thrones. For we then perceive beings we cannot describe otherwise than by saying that they do not consist of flesh and blood, nor even of light and air; but of that which we can only observe in ourselves when we are conscious that we have a will. In so far as their lowest substance is concerned, they consist only of will. Then if we educate ourselves in the manner described and now also fix our gaze on the lower animals and their life; or if we plunge into the plant-world, considering it not merely according to its gestures or its mimicry, as described yesterday—but become one with the plant, and from the plant look out upon ourselves;—then indeed we attain an experience for which there is no real comparison within the world, as we know it.

At the most, we can attempt to find a comparison for the qualities of those beings to whom we then ascend—the beings of the second category of the First Hierarchy, if we allow such feelings to work upon our soul as may be aroused by earnest people of great worth; people who have applied the many experiences of their life to the gaining of wisdom—who after many applied years of rich experience have gathered so much wisdom that we say to ourselves: “When they express an opinion, it is not their personal will speaking, but that life which they have accumulated for decades, and by means of which they have, in a certain sense become quite impersonal.” They make upon us the impression that their wisdom is impersonal, and is the blossom and fruit of a mature life. Such persons call forth in us a feeling, though but a faint one, of what influences us from our spiritual environment when we press forward to the stage of clairvoyance of which we must now speak. In western esotericism this category of beings is called the Cherubim. It is extremely difficult to describe the beings of this higher category, for the higher we ascend the more impossible does it become to make use of any qualities of ordinary life wherewith to arouse an idea of the loftiness and greatness and sublimity of the beings of this Hierarchy. We can perhaps to some slight extent describe the Spirits of Will, the lowest category of the First Hierarchy, by saying: “We become familiar with Will, for Will is the lowest substance of which they consist.” But this would be impossible if we were only to regard the will which we encounter in man or animals in normal life, or the ordinary feelings and thoughts of man. And it would be impossible to describe by what is usually accepted as human thought, feeling, and will, the beings of the second category of the First Hierarchy. For this we must turn to the life of special persons who, in the way described, have built up an overwhelming power of wisdom in their souls. When we realise this wisdom of theirs, we feel somewhat as the occultist feels when he stands before the beings we call the Cherubim. Wisdom, not acquired in decades, as is the wisdom of eminent men, but such wisdom as is gathered in thousands, nay, in millions of years of cosmic growth, this streams towards us in sublime power from the beings we call the Cherubim.

Still more difficult to describe are those beings called the Seraphim who form the first and highest category of the First Hierarchy. It would only be possible to gain some idea of the impression which the Seraphim make upon occult vision, if we take the following comparison from life. We will pursue the comparison just made. We will consider a man who for decades has built up experiences which have brought him overwhelming wisdom, and we will imagine that such a wise man speaks from his most impersonal life wisdom, that out of this most impersonal wisdom his whole being is permeated as if with inner fire, so that he need say nothing, but just appear before us. The wisdom of those decades, that life-long wisdom, will be apparent in his countenance, so that his look can tell us of the sorrows and experiences of decades; and this look can make such an impression on us that it speaks to us as the world itself, which we experience. If we imagine such a look or imagine that such a wise man does not speak to us in words alone; but that in the tone and in the peculiar coloring of his words he can give us such an impression of all this rich life of experience that we hear in what he says something like an undertone, conveying the nature of his experiences, then again we gain something of the feeling which the occultist has when he ascends to the Seraphim. Just like a countenance matured by life which tells of the experience of decades, or like a phrase which is so expressed that we hear not merely the thoughts, but realise: “This phrase expressed with resonance, has been acquired in pain and by the experience of life. It is no theory, it has been attained by struggles and suffering. It has passed through the battles and victories of life, and has sunk into the heart.” If we hear all this as in an undertone, we gain an idea of the impression which the trained occultist receives when he lifts himself to the beings we call the Seraphim.

We might describe the beings of the Third Hierarchy by saying:—What in man is perception, in them is manifestation of self: what in man is inner life, waking consciousness, is in them being filled with spirit. We might describe the beings of the Second Hierarchy by saying:—What in the beings of the Third Hierarchy is manifestation of self, is in them self-realisation, self-creation, a stamping of impressions of their own being; and what in the beings of the Third Hierarchy is being filled with spirit, is in them stimulation of life, which consists in severance, in objectifying themselves. Now what in the beings of the Second Hierarchy is self-creation, we also encounter in the beings of the First Hierarchy when we look at them with occult vision; but there is a difference. This difference consists in this. What the beings of the Second Hierarchy make objective, what they create from themselves, exists only so long as these beings remain connected with their creations. Thus, note well:—the beings of the Second Hierarchy can create something like an image of themselves, but it remains connected with them and cannot be separated from them. The beings of the First Hierarchy can also objectify themselves, they can also stamp their own being; it is separated from them as in a sort of skin or shell, but it is an impression of their own being. When this is detached from them, however, it remains existing in the world though they sever themselves from it. They do not carry their own creations about with them, these creations remain in existence even if they go away from them. Thus a higher degree of objectivity is attained by them than by the Second Hierarchy. When the beings of the Second Hierarchy create, if their creations are not to fall into decay, they must remain connected with them. The creations would become lifeless and disintegrate, if they themselves did not remain connected with them. What they create has an independent objective existence; but only so long as they remain linked with it. On the other hand that which is detached from the beings of the First Hierarchy can be disconnected from them, and yet remain in existence, self-acting, and objective.

In the Third Hierarchy we have manifestation and being filled with spirit. In the Second Hierarchy, self-creation, and stimulation of life. In the First Hierarchy, which consists of the Thrones, Cherubim, and Seraphim, we have a form of creation in which the part created is detached—we have there not only self-creation, but world-creation. That which proceeds from the beings of the First Hierarchy is a detached world, such an independent world that this world-phenomenon is a fact, even when the beings are no longer there. Now we may ask: “What then is the actual life of this First Hierarchy?” The actual life of this First Hierarchy is such that When such objective, independent, detached beings proceed from it, it realizes itself. For the inner condition of consciousness, the inner experience of the beings of the First Hierarchy, lies in creation, in forming independent beings. We may say: They contemplate that which they create and which becomes a world, and it is not when they look into themselves but when they look out of themselves upon the world which is their own creation, that they possess themselves. To create other beings is their inner life; to live in other beings, is the inner experience of these beings of the First Hierarchy. Creation of worlds is their external life—creation of beings their inner life.

In the course of these lectures we have drawn attention to the fact that these various beings of the hierarchies have offspring; beings split off from themselves, which they send down into the kingdoms of nature, and we have learnt that the offspring of the Third Hierarchy are the nature-spirits, while the offspring of the Second Hierarchy are the Group-souls. The beings of the First Hierarchy have likewise offspring split off from them, and as a matter of fact I have already described from a different aspect these beings which are the offspring of the First Hierarchy. I described them at the beginning of this course, when we ascended to the so-called Spirits of the Rotation of Time, the spirits governing and directing what goes on in the kingdoms of nature in rhythmic succession and repetition. The beings of the First Hierarchy detach from themselves the beings governing the alternation of summer and winter, so that the plants spring up and fade away again; that rhythmical succession through which, for instance, the animals belonging to a certain species have a definite period of life in which they develop from birth to death. Everything too which takes place in the kingdom of nature rhythmically and in recapitulation, such as day and night, alternations of the year, the four seasons of the year, everything which thus depends upon repeated happenings, is regulated by the Spirits of the Rotation of Time, the offspring of the beings of the First Hierarchy. These Spirits of the Rotation of Time can be described from one aspect, as we did some days ago, and we can now describe them according to their origin, as we have done to-day. Thus we can comprehensively represent the beings of these Three Hierarchies as follows:

If we want to proceed further in the task before us we must now become familiar with the conceptions to which the trained vision of the occultist gradually rises and which, when one first becomes acquainted with them, are somewhat difficult; but today we will place these concepts and ideas before us. This will enable us, when in the following lectures, the whole life and being of the Kingdoms of Nature and of the Heavenly Bodies is to appear before us, to accustom ourselves more and more to the form and manner in which the beings described are connected with the kingdoms of nature and with the heavenly bodies. In this way we shall be able to acquire more definite conceptions concerning them.

In speaking of man he is described as he reveals himself to occult vision in my books Theosophy, Occult Science, and others. In considering man we say: The most external part, the part perceptible to human eyes and senses is his physical body. Thus we look upon the physical body as the first human principle. The second, the etheric body, we already regard as something super-sensible, invisible to the normal consciousness, and the astral body we regard as the third principle. These three principles approximately comprise the sheaths of man. We then come to yet higher principles. They are of a soul nature. In ordinary life we regard them as the inner soul-life; and just as we speak of a threefold external covering, so can we speak of a threefold soul:—the sentient soul, the intellectual soul or mind-soul, and the consciousness soul. These principles of human nature, from the physical body to the consciousness soul, are already present to-day in every human being. To these may also be added a shining in of the next principle, which we designate the Spirit-Self—or, as perhaps some are accustomed to call it: Manas. The next principle, which will only really be formed in man in full measure in the future, we call the Life-Spirit—or Buddhi. Then comes that which we designate as the actual Spirit-Man—or Atma, which in fact is the innermost part of man's nature but which, as far as the consciousness of man today is concerned, is still asleep within him. It will only light up in future earthly days as the real center of consciousness. These principles of human nature are such that we speak of them as separate unities. In a certain sense the physical body of man is one unity; the etheric body of man is another; and so likewise are the other principles of human nature. The whole man is a unity, consisting of the union and combined working of these various principles.

If we wish to go further, you must picture to yourselves that there are beings so far exalted above human nature that they do not consist of principles which we could call physical body, etheric body, etc., but that the principles of these beings are themselves beings. Thus while man has his individual principles which we cannot look upon as beings, but merely as separate principles, we must ascend to beings possessing no physical body as part of themselves, but who, corresponding with the physical body of man, have something which in our study we have called the Spirits of Form. When we say that there are beings of a higher category, not having a physical body as one of their principles, but having among their principles a being itself, a Spirit of Form, we may then gain an idea of a being not yet described, but which we will now proceed to describe. If we wish to do this we must make use of those concepts to which we have risen in the course of these lectures. I have already said that it is difficult to come to these ideas, but you may be able to raise yourselves to such thoughts by means of an analogy. Let us consider a bee-hive or an ant-hill, and take the individual entities, the individual bees in a bee-hive; it is clear that the bee-hive possesses a real common spirit, a real collective being, and that this being has its various parts in the individual bees, just as you have yours in your separate principles. Here you have an analogy for still higher beings than those we have already considered, beings having among their principles nothing which we can compare with the physical body of man, but instead something we must designate as itself a being, a Spirit of Form. Just as we live in our physical body, so does the life of those beings of a higher eminence consist in their having the Spirits of Form, or a Spirit of Form as their lowest principle. Then instead of the etheric body which we human beings have, these beings have as their second principle, Spirits of Motion, instead of what is to us our astral body, these beings have a Spirit of Wisdom. Instead of the sentient-soul which we as human beings have, these beings have as their fourth principle, the Thrones, or Spirits of Will. Instead of the intellectual soul these beings have the Cherubim as their fifth principle; and as the sixth, as we have the consciousness soul, they have the Seraphim. Just as we look up to that which we shall only gradually attain in future earth-lives, so do these beings look up to That which towers above the nature of the hierarchies. Just as we speak of our Manas, Buddhi, Atma—or Spirit-Self, Life-Spirit and Spirit-man—so, as it were, do these beings look up from their Seraphic Principle as we out of our consciousness soul, to a Primal Spirituality. Then only have these beings something analogous to our inner spiritual life. It is extremely difficult to arouse concepts within us concerning that which exists above the hierarchies as the spiritual nature of the highest spirits themselves. Hence in course of the evolution of humanity, the various religions and world-concepts have, as we might say, forborne with a certain reverent caution to speak in concise concepts pertaining to the sense-world of what exists even above the hierarchies.

If in order to call forth such a concept as lives in the soul of the occultist when he looks up to the Seraphim, we try to grasp such means as can only be found in analogy, in considering people with a rich experience of life; we find that even in such persons nothing in their lives can in the very least help one to characterize the Trinity, which, as it were, appears above the Seraphim, as their highest being—as their Manas, Buddha and Atma.

In the course of human evolution there has unfortunately been much dispute over the cautious surmises with which the human mind has ventured to approach that which is above, in the spiritual worlds. Unfortunately, we may say; for it would be much more seemly if the human mind were not to try to describe beings of such sublimity with the concepts taken from ordinary life, nor by means of all sorts of analogies and comparisons; it would be more seemly for man to desire in deepest reverence to learn ever more fully, so that he might be able to form more approximate concepts. The various religions of the world have tried to give approximate concepts of what is Above, in many significant and speaking ideas; ideas which, to a certain extent do gain something special, in that they reach out beyond the individual life of man in the external sense-world. Naturally, we cannot by means of such ideas describe, even approximately, these exalted beings to whom we refer, but we can, to a certain extent, call up a conception of what is inexpressible, and should be veiled in holy mystery. For one ought not to approach these matters with mere human intellectual concepts obtained from the external world. Hence in the successive religions and conceptions of the world it was sought to characterize these things approximately and by faint indications; they drew near to what is so far above man and in its very nature mysterious, by an attempt at characterizing, or rather, by a giving of names.

The ancient Egyptians have, in their giving of names, made use of the concept of Child or Son—Father and Mother, as that which towers above individual man. Christianity endeavored in the succession of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, to find a name for this Trinity. We may therefore say: “In the seventh place we should have to put the Holy Spirit, in the eighth place the Son and in the ninth the Father.” If therefore we look up to a being whose highest content disappears as in a spiritual Mystery we can say symbolically—Spirit, Son, and Father. When we look up to such a being with occult vision we say to ourselves: just as when we look at man externally, regarding his physical body as his lowest principle, so among such beings, if we are to regard them as in any sense analogous, we have before us as their lowest principle the Spirit of Form; that is, a spirit which gives itself form, a spirit having form. We must therefore look upon that which is in this being as analogous to, or resembling the physical body of man; as something which has form. Just as we have something of form in this physical body of man as his lowest principle and as in this form, which in truth, as we encounter it, is obviously “Maya,” lives that which is a Spirit of Form—so that which appears to us when we direct our gaze into cosmic space and there perceive a planet—Mercury, Venus, Mars or Jupiter—is the external form of the Spirit of Form. It is that which belongs to the being of whom we have just spoken, as the physical body of man belongs to man. When we see man before us, his form expresses what lives in him as his higher principles—etheric body, astral body, sentient soul, etc. When we look at a planet its form expresses to us the work of the Spirits of Form. Just as behind the human form, behind the physical body, are the etheric body, astral body, sentient soul etc., so, behind the planet, belonging to it, are what we know as the Spirits of Motion, Wisdom, Will; Cherubim and Seraphim etc. If we wish to visualize the complete being of a planet in the sense of spiritual science, we must say:—The planet meets our perception in cosmic space when its physical being, given by the Spirit of Form shines forth; and it conceals from us, just as man conceals his higher principles from the physical gaze, all that rules within and around it, as beings of the higher hierarchies. Thus we rightly imagine such a planet as Mars, or Mercury, only when we first of all picture it in its physical form, and then think of it as surrounded and permeated by a spiritual atmosphere stretching out into infinity and having in the physical planet its physical form, the creation of the Spirit of Form—and as its spiritual environment the beings of the hierarchies. Only when we consider it thus do we conceive of the complete planet, as having the physical as a kernel in the center, and round it the spiritual sheaths which consist of the beings of the hierarchies. This will be considered more in detail in the following lectures, but to-day we may, in order to some extent to indicate the direction of our observations, give the following information revealed by occult investigation.

We have already pointed out that what we observe as the physical form of the planet is a creation of the Spirits of Form. Our Earth-form is also a creation of the Spirits of Form. Now with regard to our earth we know that it is never at rest; that this earth is in a state of perpetual inner change and movement. It will be remembered from the description given in the Akasha Chronicle that the external aspect of our earth to-day is quite different from what was presented, for example, at the time we call the Atlantean epoch. In this primeval Atlantean epoch the surface of the earth-globe, to-day covered by the Atlantic ocean, was a mighty continent; while where Europe, Asia and Africa are now situated, scarcely any continents were as yet formed. Thus the solid matter, the substance of the earth has been transformed by its inner motion. The earth-planet is in a continual state of inner motion. Consider, for instance, that what we know to-day as the island of Heligoland is but a small part of that land which in the ninth and tenth centuries still projected out into the sea. Although the periods during which the inner changes alter the earth's surface are comparatively great yet without going deeply into these matters, we can all say that our planet is in perpetual inner motion. Indeed, if we do not merely include the solid earth in the planet, but also the water and the air, then daily life teaches us that the planet is in inner motion. In the formation of clouds and rain, in all the phenomena of atmospheric conditions, in the rise and fall of the water, in all these we see the inner mobility of the planetary substance. That is a life of the planet. Just as the etheric body works in the life of the individual man, so does that which we designate as the Spirits of Motion work in the life of the planet. We may therefore say: The external form of the planet is the creation by the Spirits of Form. The inner livingness is regulated by the beings we call the Spirits of Motion or Movement. Now to the occultist, such a planet is in every way an actual being, a being regulating what goes on within it, according to thought. Not only is that which has just been described as inner vitality present in the planet but the planet as a whole has consciousness, for it is indeed a being. This consciousness which corresponds to the consciousness of man, to the lower form of consciousness—the subconsciousness in the astral body—is regulated in the planet by the Spirits of Wisdom. We may therefore say: The lowest consciousness of the planet is regulated by the Spirits of Wisdom. In thus describing the planet, we still refer to the planet itself. We look up to the planet saying: It has a definite form, that corresponds to the Spirits of Form; it has an inner mobility, that corresponds to the Spirits of Motion. All this is permeated by consciousness, which corresponds to the Spirits of Wisdom. Now let us follow the planet further. It passes through space; it has an inner impulse which drives it through space, just as man has an inner impulse of will which causes him to take steps, to walk along in space. That which leads the planet through space, which governs its movement through space and causes it to revolve around the fixed star, corresponds to the Spirits of Will, or Thrones. Now if these Spirits of Will were only to give the impulse of motion to the planet, every planet would go its own way through the universe; but this is not the case, for every planet acts in conformity with the whole system. The motion is not only so regulated that the planet moves, but it is brought into due order with the whole planetary system. Just as due order is brought let us say, to a group of people, of whom one goes in one direction and another in another to reach a common goal—the movements of the planets are also so arranged that they harmonize. The harmony of movement between one planet and another corresponds to the activity of the Cherubim. The regulation of the combined movements of the system is the work of the Cherubim. Each planetary system with its fixed star, which is in a sense the Commander-in-Chief under the guidance of the Cherubim, is again related to the other planetary systems to which other fixed stars belong. These systems mutually arrange their positions in space with due regard to the neighboring systems, just as individual persons agree together, deliberate with one another with regard to their common action. Just as men found a social system by virtue of this reciprocity, so is there also a reciprocity of the planetary systems. Mutual understanding prevails between one fixed star and another. By this means alone does the cosmos come into existence. That which, so to speak, the planetary systems discuss with one another in cosmic space in order to become a cosmos is regulated by those beings we call the Seraphim. We have now, as it were, exhausted what we find in man, as far as the consciousness soul. Just as in man we ascend to his higher spirit-nature, to that which alone gives meaning to the whole system up to the consciousness soul, so if we ascend above the Seraphim we come to what we tried to describe to-day as the Highest Trinity of Cosmic Being; we come to that which governs in the Universe as the All-pervading, Divine, Threefold Divine Life, Which creates for Itself sheaths in the different Planetary Systems. Just as that which lives in man as Spirit-Self, Life-Spirit, and Spirit-Man, (Manas, Buddhi, Atma), creates sheaths in the consciousness soul, intellectual soul, and sentient soul, astral, etheric, and physical bodies: so do the Fixed Stars of planetary systems move through space as the bodies of Divine Beings. Inasmuch as we contemplate the life of the world of Stars, we contemplate the bodies of the Gods, and finally of the Divine in general.

In our last lecture we tried to consider a planetary system in its dependence on the various spiritual beings of the three hierarchies, ranged, as it were, one above the other; and which we tried to describe in the previous lectures. We gained an idea of all that participates in forming a planet, and we have seen how a planet receives its form, its enclosed form, as a result of the activity of the Spirits of Form. We saw further that the inner life, the inner mobility of the planet, is the result of the activity of the Spirits of Motion. What we may call the lowest consciousness of the planet, which can be compared with the consciousness present in man in his astral body, we have to allot to the Spirits of Wisdom. That impulse through which the planet, instead of remaining stationary changes its place in space, we have to allot to the Spirits of Will, or Thrones. The organizing of the planet in such a way that it does not follow an isolated course in space but so moves that its impulses of motion are in harmony with the whole planetary system to which it belongs, the regulating of the individual movements of the planet in harmony with the whole system, that is an activity of the Cherubim. Finally we ascribe to the Seraphim what we may call the inner soul-life of the planet, whereby the planet comes as it were, into connection with the other heavenly bodies, as a man by means of his speech enters into relation with other men. So that we must observe a sort of coherence in the planet; and in this, what comes from the Spirits of Form is but a sort of kernel. On the other hand every planet has something like a spiritual atmosphere, we might even say something like an aura, in which work the spirits belonging to those two higher hierarchies which are higher than the Spirits of Form. Now if we want to understand all this aright, we must make ourselves acquainted with yet other concepts than those I have just recalled to you—concepts to which we shall most easily attain if we begin with the beings of that hierarchy which stands, so to speak, nearest to humanity in the spiritual world, namely the beings of the Third Hierarchy.

We have said that characteristic of the beings of the Third Hierarchy is the fact that what is perception in man is in them manifestation, and that what in man is inner life, in them is being filled with spirit. Even in those beings who start immediately above man in the cosmic order, the Angels or Angeloi, we already find this peculiarity, that they are actually conscious of that which they manifest from out of themselves. When they return to their inner being, they have nothing independent, nothing self-enclosed, like the inner life of man; but they then feel shining and springing forth in their inner being, the forces and beings of the higher hierarchies above them. In short they feel themselves filled and inspired by the spirit and its beings, immediately above them. Thus what we men call our independent inner life, really does not exist in them. If they wish to develop their own being, if they wish to feel, think and will somewhat as a man does, all that is immediately manifested externally; not as in man, who can shut up within himself his thoughts and feelings, and allow the impulses of his will to remain unfulfilled. What lives as thought in these beings, in so far as they themselves bring forth these thoughts, is at the same time also externally revealed. If they do not wish to manifest externally they have no other means of returning into their inner being, but by once again filling themselves with the world above them. Thus, in the inner life of these beings dwells the world above them, and when they live a life of their own, they project themselves externally, objectively.

Thus, as we have seen, these beings could hide nothing within them as the product of their own thought and feeling, for whatever they bring about in their inner being must show itself externally. As we mentioned in one of the former lectures, they cannot lie, they cannot be untrue to their nature so that their thoughts and feelings did not harmonize with the external world; they cannot have an idea within them which does not agree with the external world; for any ideas which they have in their inner being, are perceived by them in their manifestation. But now let us just suppose that these beings had a desire to be untrue to their own nature, what would be the result? Well, in the beings we have designated as Angels, Archangels, and Spirits of the Age or Archai, we find throughout that everything which reveals itself to them, everything which they can perceive is, so to speak, their own being. If they were to wish to be untrue, they would be obliged to develop something in their inner being which would not be consistent with their own nature. Every untruth would be a denial of their nature. That would mean nothing less than a deadening, a damping-down of their own being. Now suppose that nevertheless these beings had the desire to experience something in their inner nature which they did not manifest externally; to do so they would have to take on another nature.

What I have just described as the denial of their own nature by beings of the Third Hierarchy, the taking on of another nature, did actually take place; it did occur in the course of the ages. We shall see, as these lectures go on, why this had to happen; but to begin with we will confine our attention to the fact that it did happen; that, as a matter of fact, among the beings of the Third Hierarchy there were some possessed with this desire to have experiences in their inner nature which they need not manifest externally. That is, they had the wish to deny their own nature. What did this bring about in these beings? Something entered, which the other beings, those of the Third Hierarchy which retained their own nature, cannot have. The beings of the Third Hierarchy can have no inner independence such as man has. If they wish to live in their inner being, they must immediately be filled with the spirit-world above them. A certain number of the beings of the Third Hierarchy had the desire to develop something within their inner being which they would not immediately encounter in the external world as perception, or revelation of their own being. Hence the necessity arose of denying their own nature and taking on another nature. To develop an inner life of their own, to attain inner independence, a number of beings of the Third Hierarchy had to give up their own nature, to deny it. They had, so to speak, to bring about in themselves the power not to manifest certain inner experiences externally. Now let us ask:—What then were the reasons which moved these beings of the Third Hierarchy to develop such a desire within them? If we fix our attention upon the nature of the beings of the Third Hierarchy, with their manifestation and enfilling with spirit, we see that these beings are in reality wholly at the service of the beings of the higher hierarchies. Angels have no life of their own; their own life is manifestation, which is for the whole world; as soon as they do not manifest themselves there radiates into their inner being the life of the higher hierarchies. That which induced a number of them to deny their nature was a feeling of power, of independence and freedom. At a certain time a number of beings of the Third Hierarchy had an impulse, an urge, not merely to be dependent upon the beings of the higher hierarchies, but to develop within themselves an inner life of their own. The result of this was very far-reaching for the whole evolution of the planetary system to which we belong; for these beings whom we may call the rebels of the Third Hierarchy, brought about nothing less than the actual independence of man—making it possible for him to develop an independent life of his own, which does not immediately manifest externally, but can be independent of external manifestation.

I am intentionally using many words to describe this circumstance, because it is extremely important to grasp accurately what is here in question, namely, that an impulse arose in a number of the Third Hierarchy to develop an inner life of their own. Everything else was simply the result, the consequence of this impulse. What then was this result? It was in fact a terrible one, namely, the betrayal of their own nature; untruth, falsehood. You see, it is important that you should understand that the spirits of the Third Hierarchy which had this impulse, did not do what they did for the sake of lying, but in order to develop an independent life of their own; but in so doing they had to take the consequence, they had to become Spirits of Untruth—spirits which betrayed their own being—in other words, Spirits of Lies. It is as though someone were to take a journey on foot—and he meets with a wet day; he must of necessity make the best of it and put up with getting wet, which he did not at all intend:—in the same way the spirits of which we are speaking, had no intention of doing something in order to sink into untruth. Their action arose from their wish to develop an inner life, an inner activity; but the result, the consequence was, that they at the same time became Spirits of Untruth. Now all the spiritual beings which in this way, through betraying their own nature, arose as a second category beside the spirits of the Third Hierarchy, are called in occultism, Luciferic Spirits.

The concept of the Luciferic Spirits consists essentially in the fact that these beings wish to develop an inner life. Now the question is—What have these spirits to do, to attain their goal? We have already seen what they had to develop as a result; and we shall now inquire further what they had to do in order to attain this goal of an inner independent life. What did these spirits wish to surmount? They wished to prevent themselves from being filled wholly with the substance of the higher hierarchies; they wished to be filled, not only with the beings of the higher hierarchies, but with their own being. They could only accomplish this in the following way: Instead of filling themselves with the spirit of the higher hierarchies, and, as it were, leaving themselves open to the free outlook towards the higher hierarchies, they cut themselves off, detached themselves from them, in order in this way to create substance of their own from the substance of the higher hierarchies. We can gain a correct idea of what is here in question if we think of the beings of the Third Hierarchy in the following way. We think of them represented symbolically, graphically, in such a way that they manifest their own being outwardly, as it were, as though it were their skin; so that each time they developed inner thought or feeling, a manifestation arises, like a shining-forth of their own being. The moment they do not manifest themselves, they take up the light of the higher hierarchies which flows into them; they fill themselves with the spirit of the higher hierarchies and, as it were, open their whole being to them.

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Those spiritual beings of the Third Hierarchy of which we have just spoken did not wish to be filled with the spirit nor to be connected with the spiritual substance of the hierarchies. They wanted an independent spiritual life, they therefore cut themselves off, they detached themselves, so that the being of the higher hierarchies was above them; they cut the connection and detached themselves as independent beings, retaining the actual light in their inner being. Thus they, as it were, stole what should only have filled them, and then returned to the higher hierarchies. They stole it for themselves, filled their own inner being with it, and by that means developed an independent side to their nature. This concept can provide an explanation of events in the cosmos, without which we should be quite unable to grasp a stellar system, the constitution of the stars in general as we know them with our human physical consciousness. Without these concepts one cannot possibly grasp the life of the stars, the life of the heavenly bodies.

I have now tried to indicate to you how certain beings of the Third Hierarchy have become quite different beings—Luciferic Spirits. That which took place in these beings of the Third Hierarchy cannot, of course, take place in the same way in the beings of the other hierarchies but something similar takes place even with these. If we apply that which takes place in the beings of the other hierarchies to a consideration of the Spirits of Form, it will give us an idea of how a planetary system is actually formed. At the conclusion of the last lecture it was said that what our vision first perceives in the planets, proceeds from the Spirits of Form; but it is not quite accurate to represent it thus. If you consider the planets—Mars, Saturn or Jupiter for instance—which are outside in cosmic space; as you see them with your physical eyes, or with the telescope, you have in the form revealed to you, not merely the Spirits of Form. Let us take, for example, the planet which for a long period of time, has been reckoned as the outermost one in our system; Uranus and Neptune were added later, as we shall see; but to begin with we will consider Saturn as the outermost. If we look at Saturn with physical vision we find him outside in cosmic space, a sort of luminous globe (leaving his rings out of the question). To the occultist who follows the spiritual events in the cosmos, this globe which is seen out there is not what the occultist calls Saturn; to him Saturn is that which fills the whole space bounded by the apparently elliptical orbit of Saturn.

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You know that astronomy describes an orbit of Saturn which it interprets as the path of Saturn round the Sun. We will not at present discuss the accuracy of that statement, but if you take this accepted concept and here in the center imagine the Sun (S), and the outer circle as the orbit of Saturn, as astronomy conceives it, then everything which is within this orbit of Saturn, within the ellipse of Saturn, is to the occultist Saturn. For to him not only is that which the external eye sees as the most external physical matter, Saturn; not only that which gleams in the heavens, for the occultist knows, occult vision teaches him that, as a matter of fact, a sort of accumulation exists which extends from the Sun to the orbit of Saturn (a,a,a, in the diagram). So that if with occult vision we regard this orbit of Saturn, we have a sort of etheric filling in of the whole space: (the wide crosslines). That which lies within this orbit we must think of as filled with matter, not however in the form of a globe, for we have to do with a very flattened ball, a lens. Looked at from the side, we should if we had the Sun at (S¹) have to draw the Saturn of the occultist thus:—as a much flattened ball, and at (a¹), would be that which is designated the physical Saturn. We shall understand still better what is in question if we add an idea which we can gain in a similar manner from occult science with regard to Jupiter. External physical astronomy knows as Jupiter that shining body which revolves round the Sun as the second planet (the inner circle). That to the occultist, is not Jupiter: to him, Jupiter is all that lies within the orbit of Jupiter (narrow sloping lines). Looked at from the side, we should have to draw Jupiter so that if we put wide sloping lines for Saturn, we can put narrow sloping lines for Jupiter. That which astronomy describes is only a body (bl) which is, so to speak, on the outermost limits of the true occult Jupiter.

What I am here saying is not a mere theoretical idea or fancy, the fact actually is, that matter, not coarse physical matter but fine etheric matter, fills the space within the orbit of Saturn in its lenticular, flattened, ball-like form, as drawn here. It is just as much a fact that the second smaller space for Jupiter is filled with a different etheric substance which permeates the first; so that there is simple etheric substance only between the two orbits; within, the two etheric substances permeate one another, mutually permeate one another.

Now let us ask: What is the task of the Spirits of Form in this whole disposition? That Spirit of Form which forms the basis of Saturn, sets a boundary, gives form to this etheric substance which in an occult sense we call Saturn. Thus the outermost line in the formation of Saturn has been shaped by the Spirit of Saturn, which is also a Spirit of Form. In the same way the line of Jupiter was formed by the Spirit of Form allotted to Jupiter; the line of Mars by the Spirit of Mars, which is a Spirit of Form. Now we may ask: Where then actually dwells the Spirit of Form which corresponds to Saturn, or Jupiter, or Mars? If we can speak of a place in which these beings are, where is this place? In the ordinary sense of the word we cannot so do; we can only say:—The spiritual beings which we call the Spirits of Form work as forces within the etheric substance I have just mentioned; but they all have a common center, and this is none other than the Sun. Thus if we seek for the actual place whence the Spirits of Form work, the Spirits of Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, etc., as also the Spirit of Form belonging to our Earth—if we seek for the center, the starting point from which the Spirits of Form work—we find it in the Sun. That means that the Spirits of Form corresponding to our planets, comprise, as it were, a synod or council of Spirits, having its seat in the Sun, and from there sets boundaries to certain etheric substances, certain masses of ether, so that what we call occult Saturn, occult Jupiter, comes into being. Now let us ask: How would it be if the Spirits of Form alone were to work?

From the whole significance of these studies you will gather that those physical planets would not be in existence if only the Spirits of Form were to work. They would indeed have, as it were, their abode in the Sun, where they form a sort of college; and we should have around us the planetary spheres as far as the orbit of Saturn, for there would be, so to speak, concentric globes, flattened balls in existence as occult planets; the most external of these flattened globes being of the finest etheric matter, the next somewhat denser and the innermost of the densest etheric matter. Thus the physical planets would not be in existence if these Spirits of Form alone were to work, but there would be globe-shaped, accumulated masses bounded by what the physical astronomy of to-day calls the orbits of the planets. But within the cosmos there are certain spiritual beings corresponding to the Spirits of Form, but who, as it were, are rebels against those of their own class. Just as we find Luciferic Spirits among the beings of the Third Hierarchy, which in order to set up their own independent life, cut themselves off from the spiritual substance of the higher hierarchies, so do we also find within the category of the Spirits of Form that some separated and would not go through the usual development of a Spirit of Form, but went through an evolution of their own. These oppose the normal Spirits of Form, are in opposition to them. What then happens is as follows.

Let us suppose that we had at point S the centre-point of the spiritual Council of the Spirits of Form; the Spirit of Form working upon Saturn would call forth this etheric globe, so that by the agency of this Spirit of Form a flattened globe would arise, as in the diagram. At an outermost point of this etheric globe, in opposition to the Spirit of Form working from the centre of the Sun works the rebel, the Luciferic Spirit of Form. He works from without inwards; opposingly. Thus we have the normal Spirit of Form working outwards from the Sun, centrifugally; he brings about the occult Saturn, which is then to be seen as a mighty etheric globe with its centre-point in the Sun. At the periphery, working inwards from cosmic space, is an abnormal Spirit of Form who has cut himself off from the normal evolution of the others; and at point (a) through the combined working of the forces working inwards from cosmic space, and those others working outwards from the sun, there occurs an “inturning,” which finally becomes detached, and that is the physical planet Saturn. Thus we have to imagine that where our physical eyes ace the planet Saturn, there are two forces working together; the one, the, normal force of the Spirit of Form working outward from the Sun; and at a definite point in opposition works the detached Spirit of Form. This produces an “in-turned” structure; the ether is notched, and this notch appears to the physical eye as the physical planet Saturn. Just the same occurs with the physical Jupiter, and with the physical Mars. Hence, by this example you see how in individual cases there actually arises what we call “maya,” the great illusion. Where physical astronomy places a planet, there is in truth a combined working of two forces; and only because, in truth, a great and mighty etheric heavenly body is there, which, through the contact of these opposing forces, is dented in and has a notch formed in one place, does the appearance of the physical planet arise.

For in truth here we have actually to do with a turning in, and to be really accurate the matter must in the first place be described as:

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The Spirits of form working from the Sun extended the etheric substance to a certain distance; there worked the abnormal Spirits of Form in opposition, and caved the substance in, so that in reality a hollow was made in the etheric substance. As regards the original etheric substance of the planet, where the physical eye believes it sees the planet—there is really nothing; the actual planet is where the physical eye sees nothing. That is the peculiarity of “maya.” Where the physical planet is seen, there is a hollow. It may perhaps be said: “It is a very strange idea that where the physical planet is to be seen, there is a hollow,” for you will ask about our Earth. In the sense of what has been expounded, our Earth must also be a sort of flattened ball having its central point in the Sun, and it must also be such a notch, such a sort of hollow on the outermost rim. “A fine thing that!” you can say, “We know quite well that we are walking on firm, solid earth. In like manner we might take for granted that where Saturn, Jupiter or Mars are, there would naturally have to be solid filling, not hollow. And nevertheless where you walk about on our Earth—where, in the sense of Maya-perception you believe yourselves to be walking on solid, firm ground—even then, in reality, you are walking about on a hollow. Our Earth itself, in so far as it is an accumulation of matter, is a hollow in cosmic space, something bored into cosmic space. All physical matter comes into being through the meeting together of forces coming from the Spirits of Form. In this case we have the meeting of the forces of the normal Spirits of Form and those of the abnormal Spirits of Form. They collide with one another and in reality an indentation is produced and consequently at this point a simultaneous breaking up of the form, but only of the form. The form breaks up and this hollow space is bored. Now broken spiritual form, crushed form, is in reality matter. In a physical sense matter only exists when spiritual forms are broken up. Thus the planets out there are also broken-up forms.

In our planetary system the Spirits of Form have helpers, as has been made evident by our previous considerations. They themselves determine the boundaries, as we have described:—but above the Spirits of Form stand the Spirits of Motion, above these the Spirits of Wisdom, above these the Spirits of Will, above them the Cherubim, the Seraphim. In all ranks of these spiritual beings there are those who can be likened to what we have described as Luciferic Spirits. So that wherever a planet is formed, on its outermost border not merely do the Spirits of Form cooperate, but that which goes out from the Sun, from the activities of the normal hierarchies, working from within outwards, is always being opposed by the forces coming from the abnormal, the rebellious hierarchies.

The Cherubim and Seraphim are those hierarchies which just as much take part in the whole working of the forces, as do the Spirits of Form. They have the task of bearing the power of light outwards from the center-point of the planetary system, from the center of the Sun. Inasmuch as the beings of the higher hierarchies, the Seraphim and Cherubim, become the bearers of light, they have now the same relation to the light as the forces of the Spirits of Form to the etheric substance. Just as the forces of the normal Spirits of Form pass outwards and encounter the forces of the abnormal spirits working in opposition, and by that means a notch is hollowed out, so also do the forces work which carry the light, filling the whole etheric space; but in opposition to them work the abnormal forces (See Figure 6, point a), so that the planet arrests the light. Just as it arrests the forces of the Spirits of Form, so does it arrest the light, and throw it back; hence it appears as a reflector, as a thrower-back of the light which the spirits we call the Cherubim and Seraphim carry to it from the Sun.

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Hence the planets have no light of their own, because they claim for themselves the force of the light which would be their due as beings if they were to open themselves to the normal Cherubim and Seraphim—because they veil themselves, cut themselves from the whole. Thus every planet has a cut-off separated light. It is not correct to say that the planets only have light borrowed from the Sun; every planet has its own light; but it has cut it off, keeps it hidden within itself, and develops it for its own independent inner life of light. We shall see that each planet only shares this light with its own beings, belonging to the kingdoms of nature on the planet in question. But that light to which they ought to open themselves, which they ought to take up from outside, is brought to them from the Sun by the Cherubim and Seraphim, but to that they close themselves, and throw it back. Hence, seen in cosmic space, they are stars which have no light of their own. Thus, as it were, with the light which flows in from the Sun a notch is formed and the planet throws itself against that light flowing in from the Sun; arrests it and throws it back.

Thus to occult vision what we observe in the stellar world, is absolutely different from what it appears to physical astronomy. What exists for the latter is nothing but a description of a Maya, and only behind this Maya does the truth lie; for the truth behind the material world is the spiritual world. In reality the material world does not exist at all. What is called the material world is the interplay of the forces of the spiritual world.

We have tried to describe to-day how such a planetary system really arises. Very little is really known in the external world, in the world of physical science, of the origin of such a system; for though physical science imagines that a planetary system arises from a sort of massing of etheric substance, the first fundamental principle is omitted which should hold good in all natural science. How often are children told at school—at least I do not know whether it is done here, but in Central Europe they are always told—that according to the Kant-Laplace system of the origin of the world a mass of original matter was in rotation from which then the separate planets split off. (There may be some little improvement in that to-day, but the principle is the same.) And in order that this may be quite clear and comprehensible, the children are shown by means of a little experiment how easily a planetary system can be formed. A large drop of some oily substance which floats on water is taken, and a circle ingeniously made in the line of the equator which is pierced through with a card; then a needle is passed through from pole to pole, then one begins to turn, and behold, out of the drop of oil arises a pretty little planetary system. Quite in the sense of the Kant-Laplace theory of the origin of the world, little drops separate off and rotate, while in the center remains the big drop, the Sun. What is more natural than to represent this to young people as a visible proof that this was also once enacted in the great cosmic spaces. But in so doing an important error is made, one which ought never to be made in natural science. There are certain conditions that ought never to be forgotten in making experiments. A scientist who forgets conditions without which no experiment can come about does not describe it accurately even according to natural science. If you omit any essential condition you are not describing it correctly according to natural science. The essential condition in the origin of this planetary system is however that the teacher should stand there and make it revolve, otherwise the whole system could not originate! The Kant-Laplace theory would thus only be possible if those who believe in it could at the same time supply a gigantic teacher in cosmic space, who would revolve the whole etheric mass. People notice even small errors in logic—perhaps not always, but often;—but capital errors, such errors as those which in their effects extend to the whole cosmic-conception, are not remarked.

Now there is no great teacher outside, making the axis of the world revolve, but there are the individual beings of the various hierarchies, who through the interplay of their forces, bring about the distribution and regulation of the movements of the different heavenly bodies. This should be the answer to those who would believe that the ordinary materialistic theory as expressed in Kant-Laplace, or in later hypotheses, is sufficient to explain the cosmic system, and that it is not necessary to consider anything else, as do the occultists. To those people who from a materialistic standpoint object to this living interplay of the hierarchies, we must again reply: with the capital error in logic which must be made by all cosmic materialistic hypotheses we cannot reach our goal; for there is no possibility of explaining a planetary system without calling to one's aid what occult vision can actually see. It is certainly abundantly proved to occult vision that what must he described with the physical senses is indeed, considered in its reality, something quite different. Thus what the eye sees is really nothing but the reflected light, which is thrown back, because, when the Seraphim and Cherubim carry the light of the Sun into cosmic space, the Luciferic Cherubim and Seraphim throw themselves against them, so to speak, and insert darkness into the substance of the sunlight; cutting off the light within, and claiming for each of the planets a light of its own.

These thoughts, now given out on the basis of occult observation and occult investigation, were first expounded in the post-Atlantean period in a sublime way by the great Zarathustra to his pupils. Everything which is rayed down from the Sun into cosmic space in the way just described, by the beings of the higher hierarchies centered in the Sun, was ascribed by Zarathustra to the Spirit whom he named Ahura Mazdao, or Ormuzd. That spirit who carried the forces of his being from the center-point of the Sun into the periphery, was everywhere opposed by the abnormal spirits of the different hierarchies, which in their totality, form the kingdom of Ahriman. We shall, however, see that we must separate the kingdom of Ahriman from that of Lucifer with regard to the planetary system. We shall have more to say about this; but at the conclusion of this lecture, attention must be drawn to the fact that Zarathustra in his own way symbolically pointed out to his pupils this connection of the Light of Ahura Mazdao, or Ormuzd, streaming out from the Sun, and of the kingdom of Ahriman embedded within it. Zarathustra said: What proceeds from the Sun we represent symbolically through that which the Seraphim and Cherubim carry, i.e. through the light. That which is hurled against the light in opposition by all the abnormal spirits of the higher hierarchies, the notch thus hollowed out, we represent by what is accepted as darkness. (That is, an individual light imprisoned within, manifesting externally as darkness.) That, Zarathustra represented as a kingdom of Angramanyu, or Ahriman. Thus we see how this teaching which, having originated in Asia Minor, is in a sense, once more given to us today, was met first in the Zarathustra civilisation. What always fills us with such significant feelings with regard to the evolution of humanity, is that we ourselves come upon certain things which even if they were not traditional and not to be observed in the Akasha Chronicle, are furnished by the results of present-day occult investigations; and which we can re-discover in the great teachings of antiquity. And only when we permeate ourselves with the truth which at the present time can be found in occult investigation, and when this same truth shines towards us from the old teachers and leaders of humanity, do we acquire a right relation to these leaders of humanity. Then only do they become living to us, then only do we understand them aright. Then, too, does the evolution of humanity reveal itself to us as a mighty discourse held by the spirits, now not only resounding forth to one another in space, but interpreting one another in the successive periods of time, completing one another, and leading the stream of civilisation on into the future.