The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Let's make it clear to ourselves what's really brought about by meditation. Streams of spiritual life are always flowing through the world. These streams can't flow into us when we're thinking about everyday things. But our meditation words are like portals that are to lead us into the spiritual world. They have the strength to open up our soul so that the thoughts of our great leaders, the masters of wisdom and of the harmony of feelings can stream into us. For this to happen the deepest quiet must reign in us. We must realize that meditation is a very intimate soul activity. So we should let the meditation words given to us by our teacher live in our soul right after we wake up and before other thoughts have gone through our soul. But we shouldn't look upon them as stuff to speculate on and philosophize about; we should think as little as possible about their meaning and significance. We have enough time for reflection the rest of the day. We should hold that off completely while meditating. We shouldn't repeat the words meaninglessly but should be clear that the words open our soul to the instreaming of divine beings, just as a flower opens and lets in sunlight. High spiritual beings whom we call masters stream down to us. We should realize that it's mainly they who guide us and are near to us in meditation. We should also know that they walk on earth incarnated in a physical body. Thus we should let the meditation words live in our soul without pondering about them; rather we should try to grasp the words' spiritual content with our feelings and to permeate ourselves completely with it. The power of these words doesn't just lie in the thoughts, but also in their rhythm and sound. We should listen to this, and if we shut out all sensorial things we can say that we should revel in the sound of the words. Then the spiritual world sounds into us. Since so much depends on the sound of the words one can't translate a meditation formula into a foreign language without further ado. The mediation formulas we received in the German language were brought down from the spiritual world directly for us. Every formula has the greatest effect in the original language. When an East Indian wants to give the highest expression to his reverence for the Godhead who reveals himself in three Logoi, he summarizes his feeling in three times three words that describe the activity of the three Logoi:

But the whole wealth of spiritual strength is only reproduced if the words are said in Sanskrit, the original language. Then one hears how even the air resonates:

The same applies to the Lord's Prayer. Spoken in German, practically the only thing that's effective is the underlying thought. The Latin Pater noster has a better effect, but the whole power and fullness only come to expression in the original Aramaic.

So we should hear our way entirely into the sound of the words. With the word schoepfen (create, also means to scoop, drink) we should have an idea that's as graphic as possible, as if one were dipping out of one vessel into another. All of our thoughts should be as pictorial and as full of content as possible. While meditating the meditation words should receive inner life, but we should exclude all spatial ideas and cling entirely to our senses. For there's spatial perception on the physical plane but not in the astral world. But the color, light, sound, aroma and so on that are connected with the senses are also present in the astral world. That's why in meditation we should try to awaken a sensory idea that's as clear and full of content as possible. Spiritual beings express their nature in colors, sounds, aromas and everything that the senses perceive, and they flow into us when we connect ourselves with sensations. The first Logos streams on as a directly perceptible aroma. A being of a higher or lower nature lives in every odor. Very high, god beings live in incense; they draw us up directly to God. The lowest kind of beings are incarnated in musk scent. People who know about such things use musk for sensual attraction. Spiritual beings also live in sounds and colors, “In pure rays of light ...” One should get a bright, luminous mental image, one should see and feel how luminous streams flow down to one. Every meditation formula is equipped with strength to awaken slumbering forces. But if one always longs for new exercises one destroys the exercise's force and doesn't get its fruit.

In some elementary esoteric schools a pupil is told to think nothing but glass, glass, glass for 15 minutes every day, for instance. If he succeeds in really keeping all other thoughts out of his soul during this time, then his soul becomes quite empty and pure, and the forces slumbering in it awaken, if other influences aren't too strong. But our meditation formulas contain great spiritual forces; they are portals to the spiritual world. The exercises get ever simpler the more a pupil progresses.

We should never let a feeling of regret arise when we let the pictures of the day pass by us in reverse order. We shouldn't wish that we had been better, we should want to get better. We should think: I couldn't do otherwise back then, but now I can do it better and I will do it better in future. With every experience we should ask: Did I do it right; couldn't I have done it better? We should look at ourselves as a stranger, as if we looked at and criticized ourselves from outside. It's very important to be able to remember little details in our daily life. A general who won a big battle has a picture of it before his eyes that evening. But he forgot how he put his boots on and took them off again. If we see ourselves walking down a street we should try to remember how the rows of house ran, which store windows we passed, the people we met, how they and we looked. Then we see ourself going into a store and we recall which sales lady came towards us, what she had on, how she spoke, moved, etc. We must make a big effort to recall such details, and this strengthens the soul's forces.

With practice one can get to the point where the whole day's life runs through the soul, clear as wall paintings with all details in five minutes. This exercise is useless for someone who runs through the day superficially and just registers the events colorlessly. If a man walks a stretch and wants to bring this back he can stand still and try to remember what's behind him. Or he can turn around and look at where he's gone. If a period of time has passed we can initially only recall this with our memory and can't look back at the period of time that has elapsed. But this looking back that we only know in connection with space is also possible in time, and we learn to do it by trying to let the last day pass before us as clearly as possible in perceptible pictures. No event of the past is entirely gone, they're all there in the Akashic record. This is the only way one learns to read it. Initially one only sees things that concern oneself from this, and gradually also other things. That's why the evening retrospect is such an important, indispensable exercise.

An esoteric will gradually notice that his memory is worsening, until it disappears, but it will be replaced by the ability to see the past directly.

The subsidiary exercises strengthen the pupil's soul character, bring it into the right form, and make the results of meditation good. If one chooses a match for the first exercise one has to make a real effort to think about this at least five times every day. It's this effort that awakens the soul's forces. What does a match look like? What kinds of matches exist? How are they made? For what are they used? Where are they stored? What harm can they do? etc. After awhile one will get a feeling of inner certainty and firmness after the exercise. One should pour this into one's head and spinal cord, as if it were water.

Initiative in actions is the second exercise. One chooses actions that one wouldn't have done otherwise and one does them every day at a particular time. Simple exercises that one has to force oneself to do are the most effective to start with. Here again one soon notices a feeling of firmness and the urge to be active. One should pour this feeling like water down from the head to the heart to incorporate it completely.

In the third period one begins to put an end to all fluctuations in one's soul life. All rejoicing up to heaven—saddened to death must disappear. No pain should depress one, no joy should bring one outside of oneself. Fear, excitement and lack of composure must disappear. Thereby a feeling of quiet equanimity becomes noticeable like an inner warmth. One concentrates this feeling in the heart and lets it radiate from there into hands and feet, and then towards the head. After the third period one develops what one calls positivity in one's soul. One also tries to see the good and beautiful in the worst, ugliest and most terrible things, as the Persian legend about Christ tells us. One day one will have a feeling of inner bliss. One concentrates this in the heart, lets it radiate to the head and then out through the eyes.

In the fifth period one practices never letting one's future be determined by the past. One must become entirely unbiased, take in everything, open one's soul. If someone says to one: The church steeple turned last night, one shouldn't laugh at him but should think: Maybe there's a law of nature that I don't know yet. Then one will soon get the feeling that something is streaming into one from the space outside. One sucks this in through eyes, ears and the whole skin, as it were. Then in the sixth period all five exercises should be done at once, to give a harmonious blend. One should also try not to take too much time in doing the morning meditation and the evening review.

One who wants to become a real esoteric should realize that he attains something now that all men will attain later. And he must be clearly aware that great tasks will be given him someday, that he'll be used for the further development of mankind in the future. This thought, this goal must live in him entirely, otherwise he's not an esoteric in the true sense. And if he develops himself into the future like this his eyes will also be opened about the past, and then the present becomes understandable out of the future and past. Thereby past, present and future become harmoniously united. The great masters put this into the sacred syllable AUM. That's one of many interpretations that can be given to this syllable. When we speak this syllable the great masters are here with us and the air resounds with the spiritual power of these sounds: AUM

From notes B: Mercury staff/snake of evil and of good that guides man in the overcoming of evil through his own power through knowledge (Mercury).

Asuras are spirits of the very greatest egoism who remained behind during Saturn evolution. They want to condense matter and compress it ever more so that it can't be spiritualized and brought back to its original condition. They're the dregs of the planetary evolution that goes form Saturn to Vulcan. The asuras inhabit the moon and from there they work on the men whom they want to drag down into the eighth sphere and thereby tear away from progressive evolution and its goal—the Christ. All those who strive towards the eighth sphere will eventually live on a moon.

AUM. One wards off bad influences when one says it in the right way; it connects man with the creating Godhead, the three Logoi. The evil beings who want to tear men away from the Godhead can't stand it. AUM must be spoken with the awareness:

A is atma, U is buddhi, M is the wisdom that directs the higher self to AUM.

In November 1879 Michael conquered the spirit of hindrances, Mammon, on the astral plane. The battle must still be fought out on the physical plane. Michael will fight with the spirit of darkness for another 400 years. We pupils of the school are called upon to spread light and spiritual life during this time. Mammon, the spirit of hindrances and darkness, has countless helpers who are often incorporated in bacteria and bacilli; all perversities and sins are from him.

The rejection of spiritual wisdom is a sin against the Holy Spirit.

Gabriel transformed men's brains and an organ developed in the forehead that should be used. If no spiritual content flowed into it this part of the brain would wither, giving rise to infectious diseases and pestilence. Spiritual science was kept secret under Gabriel. This science is suppose to stream out into the open under Michael. Brains are already worked on in the mother's body. When we look at an outside object it sends light (through Michael) into our eyes, and this creates a mirror image in the brain. The resulting mental image enables us to perceive the object consciously. In meditation we have to create the mental image without an outer object. Through the pictures that we create for ourselves the force of what we've made a picture of can stream into us. We can create such imaginations more easily through the forces that we take into us in esoteric classes. We should take in such teachings with hearty feelings.

Saturn forces work on the sense organs. The terrible degenerations that we see in sexual things will get much worse when Saturn rules the earth 400 years from now. It's a matter of training warriors to combat sensual things. We're called upon to train ourselves so that we can fight this battle. Michael needs hosts of helpers to fight out on the physical plane what he's already overcome on the astral plane. That's the great task that we have to fulfill.

In pure thoughts you find the self that can maintain itself.

Pure thoughts are ones that don't refer to perceptible things, but to basic theosophical teachings about man's make-up, existence between death and life, earth evolution, etc. Pure thoughts give man sure inner support, whereas purely material thinking leads to instability and nervousness. Meditation leads to a loosening of the astral from the etheric and of this from the physical body. This loosening can be dangerous unless pure, logical thinking is practiced. The way of looking at things on the astral and devachanic planes is quite different from the one on the physical plane, so that one can easily get confused there; only thinking logic remains the same; one should cultivate this. Thereby certainty is gained in outer and inner life. Strong people will only listen to their inner voice, whereas weak people will always listen to others' advice.

If you convert the thoughts to a picture you'll experience creating wisdom. (Jachin and Boaz)

The pure thought should change into a picture, create a picture. For example, one can imagine how a plant turns its flower to the sun and that man is an inverted plant. Imagine how the fine substance of a plant is gradually converted into flesh and thereby took in passions and desires. Man should not try to become plantlike and spiritual again and to free himself from all the slags of the astral body, until it's gotten to the point where it becomes creative through the word that it utters.

Another exercise that makes abstract ideas into mobile and living pictures is to imagine the old Moon as a kind of peat of living spinach containing woody bark that corresponds to our present mountain chains. Likewise imagine the old Sun as being full of life and spiritual development. Then more recently the sun left the earth-moon so that men wouldn't spiritualize too fast, and then the moon left so they wouldn't rigidify and scleroticize. Thereby an equilibrium was attained. Everything that was created by the Godhead was first there as a picture, just as a painter has a spiritual picture in his mind's eye before he puts it on canvas.

If you condense feeling to light you'll reveal the forming force.

If for instance one feels that the sun is spirit and creative joy, and the moon is something cold, coarse, contracting and scleroticized, then the latter will produce a light phenomenon that goes from orange to red into brown, whereas in the sun the feeling condenses to a light phenomenon that goes from blue through violet to reddish violet. If this phenomenon becomes ever more intense the beings who are the bearers of this light appear in the colors and take on forms and shapes.

If you concretize will to beings you'll create in world existence.

Once man's will—that's now impure and little developed—has become stronger, he'll be able to create with it. If he can think himself into the future condition of the earth and work with the world directors, his will helps to bring about this new condition and is co-creative in world existence. If all men didn't want our earth to become Jupiter, it couldn't happen—although this would be black magic. This is just mentioned to show how mighty and powerful man's will is and will become.

These four mantras correspond to pure thinking, Imagination, Inspiration and Intuition.

What we aspire to in esoteric life is the attainment of a different, higher state of consciousness than is the one we are in now. We are looking to reach a state that would only occur—with the ordinary course of things—on Jupiter. In a different way, of course, this condition occurs in the occult pupil, who undergoes the development in advance, than in the Jupiter man. Jupiter man will have a very different physical body than we possess today.

There are states in everyday consciousness in all people reminiscent of the moon's state and others in which the state of Jupiter protrudes. When the pubic blush kicks us in the face, we repeat a piece of lunar condition. Why this? On the moon, we didn't have blood yet. But we know that blood is the expression of our self. On the old moon, all the forces that work in our blood today were outside ours. There was not yet a feeling of me in us. If we blush out of shame, we would like to say: Oh I wouldn't be, I soak into the earth.—In doing so, we are pushing the blood outwards, as it were, passing our self off.

Another condition that points to Jupiter is the one that occurs when we feel fright, fear by fading. What is happening? We push our blood for the heart to strengthen our self. We do this instinctively to make ourselves strong, to avert a danger from us. On Jupiter, the heart will become an arbitrary muscle—at will we can amplify our self. For in fact, on Jupiter, events and Beings will confront us in which we have absolutely necessity to strengthen our self-consciousness. But we must seek to reach a state where we protect our self in exactly the same way as with the feeling of anxiety, without having a sense of anxiety.

If we take a deep breath and hold our breath, we recap a piece of lunar condition. If, on the other hand, we leave our breath outside, we have a piece of Jupiter's state in it. This is related to whether the secret student gets exercises in which he has to hold his breath, because in a way he has to go through the moon state, or whether he gets exercises in which he has to leave his breath outside, because he can thus reach the Jupiter state. Everyone has to be treated individually. We know that the flow of humanity is already splitting in two parts, the one that passes into the good, the moral, and the other that ends into the chilling, evil. Such conditions are already starting to take place, the germs are already present. So everything that is today in machines, instruments in the world and set in motion, on which Jupiter becomes terrible, horrifying demons. Anything that serves only the principle of usefulness will once become such terrible powers. Paralyzed, this can become when we transform the usefulness apparatus into those that, in addition to its usefulness, proclaim above all the beauty, the divine. It is very good that we know this. Otherwise, such powers would tear the Earth apart. We also see how enormously important it is that in the education of the child we surround the same thing with artistic impressions. Art frees up. Even the locomotive must once be converted into a machine that is beautiful.—Our feelings of fear and anxiety are food for other evil beings. We do not have to give rise to such ideas. Because on Jupiter, such demons are surrounded us in far greater numbers than they are now. But for whom there is nothing to fear in this respect, who, like a clever man, keeps his shell pure, so that no flies can accumulate around the dirt. The astral plan is actually a wisdom region; [Also the world of the physical]. It was only by having selfishness descended into them with the individual I that disorder has entered them. A certain piece now in the cosmos has descend on the physical plan at this point in time, as it were as a premature birth. These are the comets. In them we still find the laws of wisdom. Therefore, the wonderful tracks in which they measure the celestial space. And a clash with our Earth's body can therefore only be assumed by materialistic astronomy.

The secret pupil must all know these things—for without knowing he would not get any further; He will one day have to understand this.

Man receives the moon consciousness on Jupiter to Earth consciousness. He approaches spiritualization.

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One who understands the working of these numbers

When something was supposed to be given to a Rosicrucian pupil through which he could elevate himself, then the above verse and figures were placed before his soul. These figures are nothing abstract but must be permeated with one's feeling and intellect if one wants to understand them. If this happens in the right way the pupil experiences truths that are of the greatest importance for his further development. The point is the point of life from which all evolution proceeds. All life proceeds from a unity and goes over into manifoldness. Plurality springs from unity.

Everything that's around us on earth comes from man. Nature is a spread out, dismantled man. Mineral, plant and animal are found in him. All qualities that a man has are found scattered in the kingdoms of nature. Man is the crown of creation. All existing things come from man.

In the second row we see how evolution proceeds in large numbers. But plurality must bring it about that a unity arises again from it. This happened in the middle of the Atlantean race when man acquired his I. Man was still relatively simple then. Today he's already much more complicated.

In the third row we see symbols for earth, water, air and fire. The first element is contained most purely in carbon today. Man exhales carbon dioxide; this is taken in by plants and is found solidified in coal and diamonds.

The second element, water, isn't found on earth in its original condition—it's what we call oxygen. People used to drink oxygen like we drink water today. If we only had carbon and oxygen on earth we'd get old very fast. Oxygen has the ability to let everything live very rapidly and to constantly renew things.

That's why the third element, air, had to be added. It's the present nitrogen, which dampens life. Without nitrogen's influence there would be no consciousness; astrality couldn't become manifest.

The fourth element is fire. Fire plays a big role in occultism. It's the warmth element. All four elements intermingle. We maintain our own warmth with the help of fire. Self-consciousness wouldn't be possible without it. We have the physical expression of our I, blood, through it. A combustion process takes place. Thereby man has become a being with self-consciousness, as can be seen from the first symbol in the fourth row: the sulfur process. The second symbol consists of the moon, sun and the ego as an appendix. The third symbol signifies the division of the physical and etheric bodies that were originally similar; then the physical body condenses and the finer etheric body remains outside, surrounding it. This is similar to what happens when salt is dissolved: first there's a milky fluid from which salt precipitates, leaving the finer water above: the salt process. The hexagram in the fifth row represents the double nature of man that is intertwined, and the last upside down Venus is man's “I” that surpasses all other creatures.

You'll remember the esoteric saying that stood on one of our columns at the Munchen congress:

In pure thoughts you find the self
That can maintain itself.

The truth in this verse makes up a large part of esoteric life. One can divide everything that a man thinks and feels today into two areas. By far the most of what men think and feel is stimulated by outer perceptions. Thoughts and feelings are ignited by things. In principle it makes no difference whether you see a streetcar and let your thoughts be stimulated by this or if an astronomer looks through a telescope and calculates a planet's path on the basis of these observations with the help of the arc of a circle. All thoughts that are stimulated from outside hinder the astral body's development. The astral body is active all night long. All the thoughts that a man thought during the day come to it. And since these are mostly thoughts that arose through stimulation from outside, they burden it. Only the part of the astral body that preserved its harmony through the fact that it's born out of higher worlds works on the restoration of the worn out physical and etheric bodies. Only thoughts that aren't stimulated from outside work as forces in the astral body to promote and purify it.

Where do these thoughts come from? They come from divine creator beings. It's very important for an occult pupil to know about the thoughts of these spiritually creative beings. These beings had the present world in them as thoughts before they created it. The very first thing that was in them was will; the will to act was there first. This stimulated them to have feelings. And from feelings arose the thought by which they solidified and created things. Thus the world was built according to thoughts.

Today the carrying out of a human deed occurs in the reverse order. The thought is there first—stimulated by an outer object; this arouses a feeling, and only then does a man's will principle step in to bring about a deed.

All real esoteric life can only develop by taking in the thoughts of these divine creator spirits, the thoughts before the creation of things. Most people devote themselves entirely to exoteric life and try to suppress all esoteric life. Thereby they're holding up human progress. They're enemies of further development and they rigidify men. Only esoteric truths promote human evolution.

Now it's a law of occultism that every esoteric truth is used up after awhile. And mankind's leaders must see to it that a new one is proclaimed. So what do we need a new truth for, some say. They want to stop all esoteric progress. It's the task of all true occultists to see to it that thinking is kept alive and in flux. This is attained by taking in the thoughts of divine creator beings. These thoughts work at night in the astral body and work into the etheric body. And when the work of these thoughts in the astral body becomes ever stronger and more active with respect to the etheric body, then that moment approaches that must come sooner or later for every pupil where he becomes aware of spiritual worlds, where thoughts become impressed in the etheric body like a seal in wax.

One of these thoughts is in the Rosicrucian verse that we spoke of last time. Today we'll look at this verse from a somewhat different viewpoint. We know that Saturn existed first. Its matter wasn't even gaseous, it was a warmth matter. A man with present-day senses would not have seen Saturn; he would only have felt warmth if he was at the place where Saturn stood. A Saturn man consisted of warmth mater. The atmosphere of Saturn was fiery-bloody. Man didn't have any blood yet, but the first germ of his later blood lay in the atmosphere around him. Man's physical parts were only germinally present.

If one looks at how after a pralaya old Saturn changed into old Sun with the spiritual gaze that moves over the planets one notices that Saturn's warmth atmosphere condenses into air. Man gets an etheric body on the Sun. He is a shining being. Spiritual beings work through the Sun's astral atmosphere upon the etheric body, ignite it and thereby make it shine. One calls this the sulfuric process. Something quite similar arises today in thinking. When our fiery blood runs into nerve masses there's a combustion process and things light up.

When the Sun passes over to the Moon, air condenses to water. The Moon's body is a water body. We notice something very strange about this water body. Single water drops change their position in an extremely lively manner and race around with inner mobility. In some respects one can compare this property of the water drops with mercury. That's why one calls this principle that's added on the Moon the mercurial principle. The parts are put together into forms by sounds, somewhat like Chladni's sound figures. First two came together, then two pairs made four, etc., just as one still finds in new plant, animal and human forms. That's the female principle. The male principle only arose later from pure earth forces.

When the moon passed over to the earth, water condensed to earth. The precipitating salt process took place on the earth for the first time through the interaction of fire and water. Man arose from female and male and began to dissolve things again through thinking so that evolution could continue. Man received the erring I on earth.

Now if we look at this evolutionary series we see the four elements fire, air, water, earth as in the third line of the verse (2–12):

... see the three
salt, mercury and sulfur,
two arise from sun and moon (male and female)
From this grows the Son of Man
The crown of creation.

Understood like this, the Rosicrucian verse gains meaning.

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If an esoteric mediates on these lines and the diagram they give him much strength. During the Saturn period there was only a warmth globe on which the spirits of darkness attained their human stage. The blood we had then was dark. There was a hidden fire or warmth on the planet, but no light. When Saturn disappeared, the Sun rose from the darkness, the second, air element with its oxygen made Saturn's glimmer burst into flames, and then there was light, as is symbolized by the alchemist's sulfur. Blood turned from black to yellow.

During the Moon period the whole atmosphere was watery, but not like the water we know. It was divided into spherical drops that moved past each other with tremendous speed. One finds this condition of Moon substance in quicksilver, that also divides into very small spheres and is more mobile than all other substances. During the Moon period blood was as white as this substance, and it was given forms by the world tone. These forms are female. The whole Moon represents the female principle.

The fourth, earth element appeared during the Earth period in connection with the third alchemistic substance—salt, the symbol of crystallization and dissolution. This is where the male element appears. Our present men with their red blood are shaped on the earth. Everything that dissolves is salt.

Thus we have four kinds of fire in the four kinds of blood: black on old Saturn, yellow on old Sun, white on old Moon and red on earth. The warmth that now lives in our blood is the warmth of the planet Saturn. All these bloods or fires are still in us and are instruments for spirits who work in and on us, until we'll be individualized enough to do what these spirits do. The air we inhale is the instrument, bearer or body of a certain kind of spirit. The light rays that pass into our eyes have a light spirit in them who works upon our eyes. Saturn spirits find a point of attack in the warmth of the blood and ego. Some of them are very bad and dangerous.

The verse above shows the way to control our instruments. The four kinds of fire refer to our four lower sheaths that are the “children” of the I. They must be “burned in the fire of the spirit,” so that they can become a fourfold philosophical fire in the Vulcan period. We must “add fire to fire,” that is, the fiery, lower passions must be purified by uniting them with the higher, spiritual fire.

We might get a clearer idea of how this happens if we consider that our whole life is filled with four kinds of activity. We perceive the surroundings with our physical senses. We feel sympathy or antipathy for others with our life body. We feel wishes and emotions with our desires body. We draw conclusions and make decisions with our intellect. That's the most important part, that we form conclusions and decisions. We can change our opinions about a thing, but a done deed remains, and the result of a whole planetary period depends upon the decisions that were made during it. Just as fire leaves ashes of the burnt material behind, so a resolve or decision leaves something good or bad behind forever. That's why an occult principle says: when in doubt, do nothing.

The ashes that a thought leaves strengthen bones, and so people with rickets do better if they think abstractly. Our sympathy or antipathy works on the etheric body. We can easily see this through ordinary observation. We know that the etheric body controls glands. A gourmet drools when he sees good food. The glands in our body dry out and become like the bark of a tree that protects the interior to the extent that we learn to control ourselves and to bring our sympathy or antipathy into harmony. Saps rise and fall in a plant, and in winter it dies because it has no protection from the cold. Whereas a tree allows its outer side to dry out and become bark; this protects it from the cold and storms. That's the way an initiate is; his life body doesn't die from one incarnation to the next. That's the way Druids were, and “Druid” means oak—the strongest tree.

Blood is the I's instrument. Saturn spirits work in the warmth of our blood, as Christ worked in Jesus' blood from age 30 on. Before that Jesus had worked on his physical, etheric and astral bodies. Then Christ took hold of the blood and purified it during the three years. That's why blood had to flow. When we've purified our four bodies in the same way we'll then have the four-fold philosophical fire that belongs to the Vulcan period.

A man had spiritual vision and knowledge in earlier stages of development. His body was a kind of resting place for him in which he could sleep and lose his consciousness while he was in it. As his being became increasingly conscious on the physical plane his spiritual perception and cognition decreased. When man became very interested in things around him he lost his spiritual vision and cognition entirely, and a dense veil covered spiritual things. This interest in outer sense phenomena is called estimatio in occultism, and estimatio is a poison that brings death. It takes away consciousness of the continued existence of the I and thereby brings a consciousness of birth and death with it. It blots out consciousness of the I and the memory of continued life. Consciousness must not be withdrawn from the outer world entirely, for then it wouldn't take the essence of what it gained from outer experiences with it. However this is the case in imagination. It must not be completely inactive; a man must be able to direct his consciousness at a picture of his action at will. A man wouldn't be able to raise his hand if he couldn't imagine it pictorially. When he raises his hand the picture and action are present simultaneously. If he begins to make mental images without an action, that is, if he unites his consciousness with the imagined picture he'll then regain the ability to see astral things. This stage is called imago. When the soul attains complete peace or quiet so that it remains completely peaceful no matter what approaches it, then its consciousness will be able to penetrate the veil of the harmony of the spheres. This means transmutatio through inspiritation or incatatio. When glands were created on old Sun it happened through a process that's similar to the one that takes place in our body when someone thinks of food and this makes his mouth water. Glands were created on old Sun by higher beings who, as it were, tasted the surroundings and secreted the gland substance that was absorbed by physical bodies. Adrenal glands secrete a substance that promotes bone building. The pancreas transforms sugar into substances that are good for nutrition. Secretion of the glands is a process that's brought about by soul processes.

When man lived in an astral or picture consciousness so that his spirit could go into spiritual realms at will, some beings remained at this stage. This stage remained crystallized in them, as it were, and birds represent this in a crystallized form. Birds like eagles who have such a wonderful eye, have crystallized astral vision. Mammals crystallized the stage where man tried to control his body's movements. These animals attained this only partially and therefore remained behind at a lower stage of evolution.

Man gains interest in the physical world through perception or estimatio. It's this interest that fetters him to the physical world. One can grow out of this by seeing the spiritual behind things in the sense world. In an earlier stage of consciousness men had imaginatio and no estimatio for physical things, and even earlier they had incantatio or inspiratio. Moderns usually only have estimatio during the day, and they have imaginatio at night. Men are unproductive in daytime; they used to be much more productive. Moderns are only productive during sleep. Consciousness arises when the astral body and ego destroy the physical and etheric bodies during the day. When the astral body and ego become aware of their physical surroundings it's as if the nerves were being torn to pieces.

Corporeal tiredness arises from the destructive, deadly effect of the astral body and ego on the etheric and physical bodies. The streaming of the physical world into man's organism has a poisonous, destructive effect.

At night the ego and astral body take in the forces of the spiritual world and stream them into the physical and etheric bodies. They surround the physical body with pictures that have a healing effect on it. The first thing a man sees when the spiritual world opens before him for the first time is his physical body. This picture of the physical body has a healing effect on him. Likewise the astral body and ego work upon the rest of man in a strengthening, healing way at night through true pictures out of the spiritual world. They stream into the ripped nerve strands and destroyed organism. Thereby forces from the spiritual world stream in at night that eliminate tiredness from the body.

Tiredness mainly arises from interest in things. No tiredness is caused if one looks at something without personal interest. For instance, say someone really likes a tasty food. Thereby he has a personal interest in the food because it stimulates his gums. It has quite a different effect on a man if he knows his connection with the cosmos and that he's at a stage where he has a physical body that needs food. This affects his organism differently than if he only eats food for pleasure. A man must get to know spiritual things through the physical body, and then he loses interest in physical things.

A man should look upon estimatio as the low point in evolution. He must grow out of this into the imaginatio that he had previously. But if he connects himself with the physical world he goes below the lowest point and can no longer ascend. It's very important for a man to learn to occupy himself with things that lie beyond the physical plane, with ideas and concepts that are super-sensible. Exercises are given to this end. The longer and more patiently a pupil practices certain ideas, the more he learns to overcome personal interests and to ascend to imaginatio. Then a man becomes productive instead of just taking in things from outside. He then streams something from within out into the world. One rightly says that man has the sun and moon in him. When he looks at things without personal interest he streams a spiritual light onto them; he becomes a sun who illumines things. They reflect his light. The surroundings that reflect his light become a moon.

Correct ideas have a healing effect on man, and wrong ideas make him sick. One can find a wrong idea behind every disease, if one traces it back. Mankind in general is responsible for this and not individuals. Interest also has a destructive effect when people run from one sensation to the other and always want to be amused. That makes people sick. It's also a hindrance to progress to have a personal interest in higher knowledge. Men become scleroticized thereby. A man must not become indifferent to his surroundings. He must retain his feeling and sympathy for his surroundings. Some say that sympathy can also come from egotism. That may be the case. Many kinds of sympathy only arise because one doesn't want to see other people suffer. That's even a good thing. It's better for a man to help someone out of egotistical sympathy than not to help him at all. But we must learn to develop a sympathy that stands above egoism, that helps neighbors because it's one's duty to help them.