The Rudolf Steiner Archive

A person consists of body, soul, spirit, of three epochs of the cosmos: past, present and future.

Our present round: present; the preceding past; what will come, the subsequent rounds: future. [...]

'Past' as an expression of the original spirit. Imagine the original spirit as water; everything physical is the solidified state of water. 'Present' is the soul; the 'future' lies within us as a seed. We cannot yet see the soul, but we are approaching the time when the soul can be seen. The past is the same as the future – the content of both is the present. The content is different and manifold – originating from the One – the multitude returns to the Unity. – The original spirit, conceived as the power of creation, as the center.

Now the power of creation emits thoughts as rays emanating from the center. Each such ray is a soul. Now, not every soul [...] is the creative power, but a part of it [...] is active and strives towards the whole again. If we could compare the soul itself to this creative power: the soul continually produces thoughts and sends them out into space; but not every thought is independent and can work independently as a being like the soul as God's thought. The path of development is twofold: the primal source as creative power – and thoughts.

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We cannot fathom the reason for God's devotion. We can know how a machine works by studying it. With a plant, although we can also study the laws here, it is more difficult to determine its form and development. It is even more difficult with animals. In the lower man we can still determine by observation what he does, which is no longer possible with the more highly developed. There it is an act of freedom. So the highest act of the Creator's freedom is this causeless devotion to the world out of love. No compulsion. So there is no logical reason for us with the great spirit. Plato as an initiate - like other sages - called love the reason of the universe.

Present as the connection between past and future is the power in us as an astral body.

Third Logos Wisdom. Therefore renunciation of Why? Because God as Creator in the act of His highest freedom created the world:

God, the Primordial Source, Unity, through devotion to the world out of love a multiplicity. — Example: water sprinkled in many drops; the drop is still the same water —, then Annie Besant: fire, and bursting out — sparks.

Now that we are thoughts – drops, sparks – of the Most High, we remember our origin. Memory = remembrance – Plato.

In the beginning was the Word—inexpressible! When I utter it, it consists of letters; each letter has a different sound. We are—every being is—such a letter of the Word. The diversity of beings is because, in order to speak a word, different sounds are necessary.

Word – diversity – that art Thou – it is I – I am I!

I. Logos omnipotence – II. Logos power – III. Logos wisdom.

There are two objections that are often made. They are easiest to grasp right now. Sinnett's book was the first popular [Theosophical] book. This book has acquired many members, who are now well-known, for the society. The book was written under the influence of a master. The master wanted to make these teachings accessible to the West. It was also partly inspired by questions that Sinnett himself addressed to the master. The connection was established through Mrs. Blavatsky.

The book first won a great many people who are now leading figures for the cause. The book “Isis unveiled” was much too heavy a book. The “Secret Doctrine” was published much later.

This book by Sinnett contains all the questions – at least hinted at – including those I have just mentioned, but not in the form of the explanations I have given. Instead, they are presented in two forms: firstly, from the wisdom itself, the secret knowledge of the masters of our lodge from time immemorial; and secondly, from the other part, the outer form. This form is adapted to the ways of looking at things and the way of thinking in the Occident. The book arose out of these two needs. The book has, to a certain extent, distorted ideas. This is due to the fact that they could not be understood in their full depth at the beginning. The work in detail always depends on the personality of the editor concerned. That which is inspiration is the core of wisdom, a comparison from higher regions. Wisdom is not preserved in the form in which it appears in our books. It is received in the form of arupa. The editor in question has to bring it into form, so that it still differs from what was originally received.

Today we may be able to express things even more clearly than they are in the “Secret Doctrine”. The same esoteric teachings also live in the secret teachings of the Rosicrucians. A few have studied Sinnett's book. Eduard von Hartmann wrote a treatise about Sinnett's book at the time. This treatise culminates in the fact that one has to deal with fantasies, and in a sentence that warns against it. But he approaches the book with a certain impartiality that is otherwise not found in the West. Eduard von Hartmann has familiarized himself with the sevenfold division. He has grasped that the higher part of human nature consists of Atma, Budhi, Manas, and that it becomes immortal when it is drawn to a higher one. In this way, it also becomes immortal. Eduard von Hartmann correctly says that only in the course of the third round does a fertilization of the individuality occur, so that one cannot speak of a survival of that which develops from the third round onwards and in the same. He cannot see what it is in man that re-embodies itself when you have not yet developed the sixth part. So they are not immortal. So he cannot see how one can speak of an immortality of the beings from the first, second and third rounds. Then come the fifth, sixth and seventh rounds; from the beginning, that is, from the first epoch of our first earthly developmental series, it is lunar. Then comes the earthly epoch and after our earthly epoch we still have three following ones. In each round we have seven races. Even if the sixth basic part has not yet developed in our humanity – from the very beginning, what is immortal in man was already present and in a much more perfect, more brilliant way. It was there. What has now, so to speak, submerged was also present in an earlier epoch, but in a liberated state, not yet having entered the body. All of us who are now alive may be called thoughts of the divine primal spirit. The physical basis, the etheric and the kamic basis, is developing below. This is the first chain of development.

And now imagine that at the beginning of development all individual souls were present as spirits. Imagine this original sphere, which is now scattered, of coarse matter. This sphere was in an atmosphere of a purely spiritual nature, in which the individual souls lived. They were still virginal and untouched by any materiality. These individual souls then still lived in close harmony with Atma. They were still one with Atma. The first stage of soul development is still 'being with Atma'. The formation of matter continues, but the development of the spirit descends. The Budhi comes to meet the physical. The moon epoch develops Manas in the floating atmosphere, so that Atma, Budhi, Manas are already emerging, and have been prepared: body, life force, Kama. In the third round they unite, the two, in Kama and Manas they can devour each other.

In the development of our group and our race, two currents have merged. One that descended and one that ascended. Imagine a crowd gathered in a meadow; they are led by a guide. Each individual builds a tent and makes windows in it. The group soul thinks the individuals. The individuals were related to the group soul as my left and right hands are to the human organism. From the very beginning the entities were there. At first the tent is still together and comfortable. Then it changes into physicality. Think again of the lamp reflected in many spheres. The mirror images then become luminous themselves. Each individual sphere becomes luminous and a selfish being.

And now something about the purpose of the world process: we have to compare the two concepts of 'intention' and 'achievement'. The intention is what wants to come to the outside, and the end is what the intention has realized in. It is best to look at a specific case to make this clear. Let us take a moon manvantara or an earth epoch and, within it, the pralaya. In the moon manvantara, the following has developed: Kama. How did these people come about? They were put together from the outside by Kama. Kama worked with love in them to bring them into being. They go out of the manvantara with a specific goal. What has been drawn in is universal Kama; what flows out is now love. It is a reversal of the current. In the beginning, Brahma has the tendency to emanate all Kama. This then comes back in a different form. It passes through special beings. Emanated wisdom and emanated love come back to Brahma again. That is the purpose of the world. Hunger is like nourishment, because before saturation the same condition exists as afterwards.

Because God gives people the power of creation, they give it back to him. What has been given as a sacrifice is given again as a sacrifice.

On the whole, the world can only be understood as an act of love, as freedom and as sacrifice. One should not criticize the world process on one's own initiative. The gift of thought is only given to people of the fifth round, during the fifth round it will still have a completely different development, and in the sixth it will

[termination of the transcript].

Today I will talk about the development process of the three human races up to the initial stages. Let us first stay with our round and our race. It is the fourth round and the fifth race in which we live. I will describe the development of our present race. The [Atlantic] race precedes it. This lived on a continent between America and Africa. Parts of Africa still belong to it, at certain times also Egypt - although Egypt has repeatedly been under water - and Greenland. This race was preceded by the Lemurian race. In this race, man received the Manas from Kama. This was preceded by two other human races. It is an exaggeration to call the preceding races human races.

The individualities that make up our causal body – that was before the middle of the third race – they were not actually incarnated, but were in a state of spiritual-cosmic descent at that time. Try to visualize this correctly for now. I will use an image to make this completely clear.

Imagine: a child is learning to write, and you start by taking a certain book, let's say a book about physics, and having sentences from physics copied out. However, it is not important that we write a, e, i, u, because the content of the physics book floats over everything, so to speak. The teacher is the mediator. Let us assume that I have the child write the sentences of the physics book so that he gets used to recognizing the content. At first, the content will remain outside. But the time will come when the content is absorbed into the child, and the child then writes the content from within, which has been imposed on him from the outside. Now imagine the living content of all the causal bodies that have been incarnating continuously since the third human race as the content of the physics book. Also, imagine that they will also incarnate. This content was not yet incarnated at the time, as a virgin individuality [hovered] over what is now taking place down here.

First of all, we have to imagine that everything that later incarnates is present in a complete unity. It was, as it were, all world soul, which still contained everything that later developed as a causal body. The idea of Giordano Bruno will make this clear to us in a very wonderful way. The idea is not in the book, but you have to form it. We compare the world with the individual human soul, and then we imagine the world soul with its thoughts instead of the human soul with its thoughts. These are living beings. Human thoughts must be expanded into living entities. They would then experience the causal bodies as the entities of thought.

Everything that lives in us was once in the third human race, which was full of thoughts of the world soul. Then the cosmic descent happened. It was all like currents coming out of the divine center. Christian esotericism says: The angels proclaim the glory of God. Every thought proclaims the glory of God. It is, so to speak, the mouthpiece of God. This now descends into the Rupa-region of the mental world. It takes shape in the most diverse ways. Only now can we speak of the individual being formed. Now man begins to feel himself. He is in the Rupa-region. Now he descends further into the astral region. The beings have then become astral entities.

Now there is a law in the spiritual cosmos that says that the lower connects with the upper when the lower and the upper have become similar. The upper has become astral. Just as human thoughts surround themselves with astral matter, so do world thoughts surround themselves with material and astral entities.

Entities had come from the moon that had already been physically real before, entities that were clumsy entities that were not only similar to animal forms. They were gigantic figures, entities that could not think, in which only chemical forces had formed. What was manasic worked like a thread from the outside, just as the individual bee is guided by the bee soul. What guides here is the same as what descends later. That is already doing the work. As Kama develops, the reaching down happens from above. They have become astral from the physical form, they have returned to the state of the germ.

The beings we call Pitris pass over to the Pralaya and are fertilized by that which had previously hovered above them. Everything that is chemical in us comes over. The Moon Pitris had no brain; they had no intellect. They were only ruled by what has now receded as the sympathetic nervous system and now performs the unconscious functions.

Now that which is Kama-Manas splits off first from the effervescent part of the world soul. This now passes through three elemental realms. It develops arupically, rupically and astrally. And at the moment when the intellect has become astral, our round begins. The Moon-Pitris come from the planet like seeds. The first sphere is an arupic sphere. There the seed-bodies float first. There the arupic intellect is formed. Then there is a small pralaya. The second sphere follows. They work into each other in such a way that now strange formations arise, formations which are more finely shaped on one side. The outer clumsy entities of the moon Pitris are preserved. This contracts during the time when the second sphere is forming. In the third sphere, the intellect becomes astral and the former Kama nature also becomes astral again. Now they are together and now the fourth sphere also begins, the actual human race.

Now man develops into the etheric form. In the first race, the beings or human beings were entirely etheric, until in the third race the I descended, where that which is worked into it can connect with manas and work with manas, the intellect. Externally, kama-manas appears. Man recognizes good and evil. Now he begins to incarnate further and further. In the second race, the further development is prepared. We begin to form incarnations only in the middle of the third race in the Lemurian race.

What I will use now is a correct image. We first exist in the world soul, as it were in a cornucopia. Then we descend deeper and deeper, and as this descent happens, there is a mysterious affinity with some body down there. Because I am now Atma, there is a physical body down there that belongs to me in an occult way. Then I descend into prana, then comes kama, which evolves into manas. Together: the egos in Atma are distributed among the beings evolving in kama.

When the Lemurian race unfolded, there were not yet animals in the sense that we know them today, but they were very different beings. What was ready was the entire mineral kingdom. These were not individual minerals, but a jumbled realm. The mineral kingdom also froze into solid forms. Inside, KamaManas developed in man, outside the mineral kingdom. Now the principle of the plant kingdom was dissolved in the generally floating mineral kingdom. They were not yet individual plants - as in the “Opodeldok” the etheric plant forms interweave - because the plant principle lives in it. Likewise, that which became animals does not yet live in physical forms, but was a swelling, soft mass, although individualized to a certain degree.

The spirit hovered over the waters. The world spirit had not yet sunk into the individual beings. First the mineral kingdom solidified, then the plant kingdom and then the animal kingdom. The consolidation of the human kingdom took place simultaneously. One must not assume that humans have developed from the animals we call monkeys. The apes are those beings who missed the connection at the time, who were therefore not incarnated with Manas. The ape egos are taken up by decadent bodies. Within the mental realm, there are still countless other animal souls that would incarnate if animal bodies were to arise within the present time. We must not imagine this in a moral way, but more cosmically, concerning the world soul.

Let us assume that our Theosophical Society does not succeed now, then the American-European development would come to a standstill. But if we triumph, then [gap in transcript]

A culture was established in the Gobi Desert, and from there all the development of that time was broadcast. Now, not a geographical closure is to be formed, but more of a moral one; a core is to be formed that will serve as the foundation for the next race. If the right egos are not found now, a failure would be recorded and there would be a delay. In the normal development, Nirmanakayas can only develop when the physical body has dissolved back into the mental.

Plato is a so-called five-rounder. This state has been artificially achieved. But then you will have all astral bodies. The Buddha or Christ natures are not just five-rounders or six-rounders. They work from the mental body. These are then a kind of double nature, which now develop in the physical body what others will only achieve in much later periods of time.

First, the purely physical theory that is usually taught in our schools. According to Kant-Laplace's theory, it is assumed that at the point where our solar system is today, there was once a thin, gaseous nebula, similar to the mass of the Orion Nebula, so that the entire planets such as Jupiter, Saturn, Mars, Venus, Earth - in analogy - were like simple fat globules, like fat globules floating on water.

[Dr. Steiner takes a card sheet that is as large in diameter as a fat globule, pushes it through the fat globule, which is then divided into two parts. Then he pushes a needle through it as an axis, puts it in water and sets it in rotation. It becomes a lens, and then fat globules split off and move around the original drop.]

Kepler replaced the circular motion with the ellipse. All physical theories are built on analogies. There is no other evidence. As long as we remain within the physical mass, we can transfer the process we have described to the large scale and accept it. If someone had sat outside the process of creation to observe its development, they would not have seen anything different.

But suppose that something that would not be visible to the physical eye would become visible in the preceding and subsequent for someone who begins to see brightly, who could say: Now something is present in the moment when the ethereal condenses into the physical. He completely disregards what precedes it. And that is the secret, that everything else is eliminated and only the physical remains. Such a physical representation cannot be challenged. It is a partial truth. The Kant nebula could never have been there if it had not condensed out of something else. Can you imagine organic germs separating out of a mass of gas? From this you can see that within what Kant describes, something must have been present that Kant does not describe. If we trace back the states of our earth: today it is solid, before that it was liquid, even before that it had a gaseous form. But before it took on the gaseous form, it was an astral sphere.

And this cannot be described by physical theory. You have to imagine the space where the earth is now as being filled with astral matter. At a certain point in time, Kama is divided into two poles. One of these is the physical-material, the other the kamic-manasic. Now the material emerges, as it were, out of nothing.

He cannot recognize the Kama-Manas. This forms the human being, and the human being forms the animals as side branches. Something else must precede the astral earth. This is preceded by a mental earth, the rupic-mental earth. But when the rupic-mental earth was formed, the rupic-mental sun, Venus, and so on, the whole planetary system, was formed at the same time. All planets became rupic-mental at the same time. The original was the Sun. The first division that arises is developed out of the Arupic. The segregation of the planets takes place in such a way that this is a purely mental process. The Dhyan-Chohans are the mental spirits of the planets.

Let us consider Jupiter. The Arupic mental Sun has become the Rupic mental Mercury and so on. We have designated as rupic-mental all the processes that relate to the planetary system. Everything that enters into the individual planets is astral. The astral-earthly has nothing to do with any other planet. On the other hand, we have the rupic-mental sphere in common with all the other planets. The kamic entities are those that belong only to our physical existence. The observer sitting on the chair could only see the bodies shine when they have entered the physical-material. A Christian who imagines God as a man with a long beard is spiritually superstitious. Those who believe in the Kant-Laplace theory we call materially superstitious.

If we follow the lunar cycle, we are dealing with a physical moon. It becomes astral. Take the earth. It was first arupic, then rupic, then mental, astral, physical, then astral again, rupic, arupic. We have already been through this.

The Pitri nature is astral and so on. In the astral state, we would never be able to make the transition from one planet to another. Only when we rise to the mental and there again reach the roupical-mental, which still belongs to the same planet, and come to the formless, only then can we pass into the pralaya and ascend to another planet. We have to reach the arupical stage to be able to go from one planet to another.

I will now describe the process by which the Earth was formed from the Moon. In today's physics books, the process is described very crudely. The conditions are described as being similar to those on our Earth. Our Earth makes one revolution in 24 hours. The Moon completes the same in 29 days. That is one lunar month. It revolves around its axis once. Its day lasts half of 29 days = 14¾ days day and 14¾ days night. When the sun shines for so long, such heat is generated that the lead, if it exists on the moon, would melt completely at noon and would flow on the moon. Lead could never stay put for a day. The other metals would all be water. And if we look at the night, it would have become so cold before sunset that the thermometer would be 150 degrees below freezing. Everything that looks like earthly life would have to perish every moonlit night. You see, the conditions are radically different when we look at them purely physically.

Now I will show you what conditions were like before our Earth was formed. The body that is the Moon today is not the Moon we speak of in occult science. That was a world body that no longer exists today, on which the soul ancestors lived, who had a highly developed Kama nature, were long-haired, gigantic in size, and in certain races even looked similar to a Nikelmann [...], moist, the ancestors were enclosed in the germ. Their physical form had become astral; from there rupisch, arupisch, then germ [...] and from there over to earth. The seeds were fertilized by Kama-Manas. Then the astral formed, and then we had the astral earth.

In this line were the Pitris, who were essentially already merged with Kama-Manas, and most of the Pitris were merged with such Kama-Manas seeds. But there were also a number of Pitris natures who had not reached their level of development in the earlier lunar epoch. Not those that had gone mad, that disturbed the development, but those that had remained behind, that had not achieved the development. They were there with the full amount of kamic power that belonged to them, that was not usable by others. This was excreted, and the sphere that was present lengthened, becoming an ellipsoid, an egg-shaped form.

In this form, two solid cores formed, one large and one small. And now the small sphere and the large sphere were separated. The moon lost its astral shell, a mass of slag that contains only those kamic forces that are more firmly embedded in its mass than the magnetic forces are in a magnet. Lunar magnetism is a very condensed kamic force. The outside then also condenses and becomes solid earth. This process of casting out takes place in the astral state. The Rupa earth differs from the earlier moon in that the seed of Kama-Manas is added. The fact that we do not make moral demands on cosmic bodies in the mineral kingdom is because the astral body of the same has come to rest. You will not blame Vesuvius for overflowing and spewing fire.

The more one has burnt [kama], the more one's human body will resemble a star. The astral body will not appear as a surging battlefield between the astral and the physical, but will come to a uniform rest within itself. The burning of [kama] consists precisely in the thorough astralization of the astral body.

As soon as we go beyond the conditions of the earth, all knowledge becomes somewhat patchy and complicated, even for those in the know. If I say anything today about connections that are outside of the sun and the earth and go beyond them, then it is possible that it will be one-sided in some respects – if only because they are little known and sometimes too complicated. But some things will arise that are illuminating for the question that Franz Seiler has asked.

We must hold on to the fact that for the consideration of our solar system, the most important point of view is that, with the Copernican system, the sun is moved to the center of our solar system. And present-day astronomy regards the earlier world system, the Ptolemaic system, as an outdated and, as such, downright false system. However, it is only a difference in perspective. Astronomy presents all calculations with respect to the Earth, and Copernicus presents them with the Sun as the center, as if one were to describe a region with respect to one mountain and the same region from another mountain. Things are entirely relative. What we call rest and motion is more correctly represented in the Copernican system. But as far as rest and motion in the astral is concerned, this is more correctly represented in the Ptolemaic system.

The Middle Ages are not to be understood in exactly the same sense as our present-day conceptions. When you find the earth in the center in Dante, and then the spheres of the moon, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and then the sphere of the fixed stars, this does not mean the same physical sense of space as that understood by astronomy in the physical sense, but rather it means spiritual, mental connections. By the physical the medieval astronomer, who was not really an astronomer but a theosophist, understood only a sensualization of the spiritual connection. He did not understand the same, did not give the rough facts as the modern astronomer gives them, but he wanted to understand them as a sensualization of the spiritual connection of the world. Only another point of view was put in the place of the old point of view.

And now a few words about the connections themselves. We must be clear that the planets the ancients spoke of are not at the same stage of their development. While the Earth presents itself to us from the standpoint of Kama-Manas, the planet Mercury is today in a far more advanced state. It has already reached the point where earthly development will have arrived when we have developed the Budhi principle in all of humanity, when the Budhi principle will set the tone within earthly development.

Mercury is completely immersed in Budhi. On Venus we have Manas, pure Manas, which plays the same role as Kama-Manas on Earth. Venus and Mercury are planets that shine ahead of our Earth. They are therefore models for earthly development. [...] The Venusian and the Mercuryan are basically present throughout the solar system. They do not need to work, but they can work. So that on our Earth could occur what we call the appearance of the so-called Venus Sons. They could become teachers for the Earth as in the third Lemurian race this took place because the Earth needed this influence. It only requires the opportunity from outside for the Venus Sons. If the Earth does not need the influence, it is not there, if it needs it, it is there. That is the influence between Earth and Venus.

Then there is the planet Mars. In a certain respect, it represents a state that the Earth had already outgrown before it entered the lunar epoch. But that would not be today's Mars. It is no longer in the state that the present Moon is in. The Moon represents an externally overcome state of earthly development. Mars was already a moon and has entered a new line of development, so that it once represented the state and today is, so to speak, only at the place where our earth went through its pre-lunar epoch, the epoch in which it was in the state of pure prana. The lunarian epoch in Kama, the Mars epoch in the state of pure Kama. Plants and human beings, who have now developed the pranic principle as the highest principle. This took on the same role for them as Kama-Manas does for us. It would be a false idea if we believed that this was linked to pleasure and displeasure. That only came in the lunarian epoch.

These beings were purely engaged in reproduction. Even before that, the earth was in a state in which it developed the physical, purely elementary principle. So at that time, before the Mars epoch had come, the earth, or rather the forerunner of the earth, was purely physical. At that time, the forerunner of man was also already present. But he was only changeable in the physical life. He was an automaton, an automatic human being. All spiritual life was above man. He himself was only an automaton. The world body that man inhabited at that time was so elementary that it had no cohesive force, so it shattered. And that formed the ring of planetoids: the many planets that circle the sun like a ring.

How is it that Mars was able to develop further, although the body was shattered? Mars already had the life principle within it and therefore continued to live, while the other was only physical and had to disintegrate. So we have the four stages of development before us.

Our moon will later have completely disappeared, and in its place a new world body will shine, which will fertilize the kamic principle in a different way. In this way we have advanced to the planetoids and now come out of the circle of the planets, where we encounter Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus. There is no reason to speak of Neptune yet. It occupies a special position. It does not belong to our planetary system alone, but to another as well. It is a border planet. In contrast to this, we have to look at Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus. You may say that Uranus was not yet known at that time. It was only discovered in the eighteenth century. But it was known in esoteric teaching. The three outer planets, Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus, counted. The planetoids, however, represented the fragmentation of the elemental realm.

Everything else is the reincarnation of what was there before. Our entire planetary chain was nothing more than the re-embodiment of states that had existed before. Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus represent the three higher cosmic principles, which simply reincarnated, first in the elemental, then in the pranic and so on, so that in Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus we have to recognize the three principles Atma, Budhi, Manas - Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus.

Now I will characterize Saturn. He represents this upper triad in a very special way. I characterize him from the point of view of the spirit of our earth. He presents himself as the desire to reincarnate in the earthly chain of planets. You can imagine that the upper triad harbors the desire to become the earthly chain of planets. Saturn represents this aspiration. Imagine that it says to itself, “I want to form a planetary chain in which Kama-Manas becomes the middle principle: elemental-physical, pranic, kamic - Kama-Manas, Manas, Budhi.

The earth will become a kind of Venus-Jupiter-Sun when it is in the Sun. This wish is essentially expressed in the configuration of Saturn in that Saturn contains all the principles laid out next to each other. Actually, there are not seven, but nine principles. This also helps us to understand the configuration of Saturn. Man is three times threefold. He consists of body, soul and spirit. Each part consists of three parts again. Let us take the body first. It consists, firstly, of the physical body, secondly, the life body, and thirdly, the bodily form. First, think of the physical body. You have the stomach as a chemical laboratory, then the heart, a pumping station, and so on. The prana must work in this. These pranic parts must then be joined.

Secondly, the soul: it consists, firstly, of the sentient soul; secondly, of the mind soul – it can understand what it feels; thirdly, it is aware as the consciousness soul.

Thirdly, spirit: firstly, All-Spirit; secondly, human spirit; thirdly, human self-spirit-self. What the human spirit is is expressed by Christian esotericism as follows: the angels proclaim the glory of God. The human spirit is only aware of the glory of God, it is not itself.

[Stage] 3, 4, 6 and 7 combine and form only one. This gives us one. At the time when it was decided to form the chain of worlds, there were still nine. Saturn represents this plan. It represents the Kama-Manas, which stands in the middle. So we have four principles in front and four behind. Therefore Saturn has eight moons. That makes nine in total, and these nine together represent the preliminary plan for the creation of the world, while the ring signifies the process of becoming unified into a single entity. These unified principles are the archetypal human being. The ring is therefore also called “spiritus mund”. Thus Saturn would be the preliminary sketch of the planetary system. It looks like our solar system set apart. It is the archetype of our entire solar system. Within the upper triad, only one remains as Atma. This is Uranus.

And now Atma as unity, as upper triad with the Tetraktys. This presents itself as a common sphere for the upper principles, which are grouped around below as the four exemplary moons that Jupiter has. They are therefore not yet moons in our sense, but they are the principle of the moon before the moon is there. Our moon is a precipitated part. The four moons of Jupiter are driving, which can only be absorbed into Jupiter. Our principles apply only to our development. The deva development is already such that we cannot say that it has the same principles. Kama is already so different that we could not use it. The manasic principle of the devas is quite different, has quite different characteristics, although it is allied with us and we are able to understand it.

These indications are to be observed under certain conditions. But much has come to our knowledge only through tradition. Even Masters know about such things only because records are available from times when these things were still known. In the middle of the Lemurian race, the great teachers had come. We can know something about the Dhyani-Chohans. The Secret Doctrine is drawn from these records. Originally, it was only the Dzyan verses. These were only available in ancient records, accessible only under special conditions.

The Pitris of the moon - Manvantara - had the task of developing the sentience in its most ideal form. They had attained the likeness of Yahweh and became seeds. The solar Pitris were those who had progressed in lunar development. The lunar Pitris had attained the likeness. Those who had trained as masters on the moon were intellectually higher than the moon deity. The earthly deity extends as far as earthly development.

Yahweh only advanced to the first person of the Trinity through an error.

People or lower Dhyanis are those who advance beyond the lunar epoch.

None of the lunar Pitris had developed the causal body.

1. Incarnation of the planetary chain: planetoid,
2. Mars,
3. Moon,
4. Earth.

The Pitris as empty bellows absorbed the elementary essence in order to gain physicality.

All this took place in the darkness, and now the first red sphere emerges from the universe. The highly developed cosmic beings now draw the essence towards themselves, and the formers, the planetary spirits, shape according to the archetypes, placing them within as seed-images. These have a task that transcends the individual planetary manvantaras. They do not stand within our development.

The highest thoughts are sunk in as germs, and now the next formers come and give shape; the archetype of man, of the animal, of the crystal, which at first were only points. As a third step, astral matter now comes in, like color in the ink. Sphere D formed in physical matter for the first time.

E.- F - G.: Evolution of life instead of form.

At first there were automatic human beings; now they begin to want to move, to stir from within.

First the point is animated, then the figure, then the matter, and the archetype turns into seed.

The Pitris were the souls - perfect sensation; the physicality from the elementary essence; the spirit is lowered from the Logos as a black point; and the earthly task is the perfect marriage between spirit and soul. The seed of the spirit is lowered into the soul.

First the souls must bring the forms to maturity, then inhabit them.

Segregation of the mineral kingdom: the minerals are present as archetypes and can reproduce themselves. – Etheric fire.

2. round,
3. round,
4. round: gelatinous, gigantic beings.

The solar Pitris now intervene to take control.

Today I will simply describe the rounds to you. You will have to be patient because the facts will be manifold. I can therefore only sketch them. It is also extremely difficult to express and describe them in words because they are quite unlike our present circumstances.

I will try to describe what is called the first round. I will simply describe the actual events. If we want to describe the beginning of the first round, we have to imagine that a sphere separates from the dark space of the universe. This sphere has a reddish color for those who can see at such a high level, A reddish sphere separates itself from the darkness of space. This reddish sphere contains within itself all the beings and substances that will later appear on Earth, but in a completely dissolved state, as it were. At first nothing has a form in it. Everything is formless in this red mist, which is thinner than the thinnest ether, if one can imagine it at all. This red sphere therefore represents that which we receive as a drawing of the first Aupa sphere of our seven globes belonging to the earth.

Now I ask you to watch what is called the transition from one sphere to the other. It is not really a transition, but a transformation of the appearance of the sphere, which remains in the same place. The sphere becomes brighter and brighter and at the same time denser and denser, and there are perceptible lines in it that have a certain arrangement, emanating from certain points, like radiant lines. To the seer's open eye, the sphere gradually takes on an orange color. This is what we call the rupa sphere. There are conditions within which it darkens and then brightens again – the pralaya conditions.

Then it becomes denser and glows yellow; it now consists of astral matter, in which lines now go in all directions, forming figures. These are the forces that later compose the mineral kingdom as such. Then there are small pralaya states again. The sphere then enters a state in which it takes on a kind of greenish coloration. This is the first physical state that the whole first round then takes on.

Everything that was previously merely sensuous intimation has now progressed to a certain degree of density. The physical matter in which this earth is located no longer exists on earth at present. It is a kind of etheric air, but you can find a hint of this physical state in all those who know something. I am reminded of a passage in Goethe's “Faust”: “Macht ein wenig Feuerluft.” Fire air is the first physical matter, a fire air that is greenish and contains everything that came later [...] in which the globe presents itself in this state.

Now there is another small pralaya. The sphere now develops in such a way that it takes on a completely different form. In its next state, it can be compared to a mulberry. It separates into smaller spheres and now takes on a coloration that shimmers towards the bluish. The lines are now distributed over individual spheres, and what used to be active throughout the entire sphere – the elementary forces – is now active in the individual small spheres. Increasingly distinct forms appear. Cubic, dodecagonal forms and so on appear and become increasingly clearer.

The next state indicates how and when it begins to fall apart. The whole thing now has a coloration between blue and violet. It turns into violet and goes through the pralaya state like this. In this seventh state, all forms of minerals have emerged. While this formation was emerging, while this type of mulberry was emerging, the matter became thinner and thinner. First it was Arupa matter, then in the last state, fully developed mineral nuclei appear in it, where the Arupa sphere used to be. The entire mineral kingdom is now archetypally present.

And now it passes into a twilight state. So there have been seven successive states, they had the task of bringing the mineral kingdom to the archetypes of the minerals. I would like to emphasize that, in all this turmoil of facts, this is what has always come from the lunar epoch, as the developed entities of the lunar epoch. These are essentially the human souls that have gone through the entire conditions of the lunar epoch and are at the most diverse stages of development. Not all of them have achieved the goal that could be achieved. Some, on the other hand, have progressed further. There were also, if I may say so, 'Mosesses', 'Platons', 'Pythagorasses'. They are not yet able to participate in all the processes I have described so far. These processes are too low. On the other hand, the beings who have not reached the heights must now catch up. They have to participate in the formation of these forms. They have to catch up on the lessons, as it were, that they neglected earlier. That is kaleidoscopically the succession of conditions that I have described. It is as if you were looking into a kaleidoscope, and just as the different successions can be seen there, so it is to be imagined.

The second round of the first state shows up by the fact that we see a reddish ball shimmering again. But this is much more richly structured than the previous one. Above all, we see intertwining vortex systems in the ball that look like the well-known snake rod of Hermes. At first only in very light, bright suggestion. Such structures stand out. And after the sphere has returned to the pralaya state and glows orange, it becomes such that it passes into motion. The snakes, which were at first motionless around the axis, now begin to move around the axis. The formation enters into a state of complete motion within itself. Then there is another state of pralaya, and an astral sphere in a beautiful, bright yellow color emerges. And the formations I have described now appear at a higher level, in that what they used to show only as movement now shows traces of forms everywhere, so that astral cylinders, discs, lines and all kinds of formations of the most diverse shapes have now emerged from the coils, in magnificent beauty. Radial figures emerge that continually push new formations out of themselves. The whole is in great motion. Then there is another pralaya, and the greenish sphere is formed, the fourth sphere, the physical state.

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This is again in a matter that no longer exists today. It is called the state of fire-air, and that is a critical state at the present hour. Then intermediate states are present. These are of a kind of form between the watery and the airy. Everything is in a foggy state of green color. You could only compare the whole structure to a water pond with all kinds of green aquatic plants moving and stirring. The entities that are in there all have the transparent glowing green color. Then another pralaya occurs and what I have described as the mulberry appears again. The state becomes astral. The individual is formed out of itself, whereas before the change only took place in the whole of the sphere. Then another pralaya occurs.

The indigo sphere emerges, and the entire formations now become mere devachan formations, mere mental formations, but of great certainty. The next state is that in which the archetypes of the entire plant kingdom are formed. It has become a violet sphere. The archetypes are formed, the whole disappears from view. A state of twilight sets in. This state now enables the consciousness of the Pitris, who are already a little higher or souls that have come over from the lunar epoch, to participate in the construction of these structures with their powers. We have now completed what we call the second round. Previously, the mineral kingdom had reached the second round. What I previously described as a physical state has now progressed so that it is as if you imagine snow figures in the great ice, but in distinct watery, fog-like formations. The minerals are now in this fog-like state. This is the case while the sphere has a greenish coloration. With that, we have described what was described as the second round, the actual conditions.

And now comes the third round. The state of eclipse occurs. And now I notice that during these pralaya states, which I will describe, with the archetypes of the mineral and the plant, when they pass into the twilight state, something also happens. But even for the seer's eye it is difficult to see anything. There is no complete extinguishing of the sphere. It is important to emphasize this. It is like seeing the moon, which is half illuminated, and yet the other dark side can still be seen. A reddish sphere now appears for the third time. In this sphere, what is called the boundary in occult language occurs. The beings delimit themselves from the outside, they cover themselves with skins. The result is that living beings appear that shed their skin. This is an aupa state. Then a pralaya state occurs. The orange-colored sphere appears. The forms become more distinct. They begin to move. A pralya state occurs again. The whole now becomes an astral sphere, a sphere of stellar color, in which all three types of formations are present. Regular forms of metals, of minerals, the archetypes of plants, take on the astral form again, and the formations, covering themselves with a skin, begin to collide, to become perceptible to each other. They sense each other, they feel that they are there.

Now another pralaya, and the fourth, the physical state occurs. This is again a critical state, which can be compared, in terms of its consistency, with what is seen in egg white. All the structures that have emerged also take on this protein-like matter, from the densest protein to the completely gelatinous protein. The whole has turned green, and the entities that have emerged with the boundary are so far that they show the mucus-like animal formation; in forms from radiating shapes up to ape-like shapes. The Pitris – souls – already have the possibility to initially incarnate in these forms – imperfectly. They are also called water people. These are people who can stand upright despite their swelling, gelatinous matter.

Now the bluish astral state comes again, in which the consistency is not so dense. It can no longer be compared to the mulberry, it can only be compared to the astral. There is just no intelligence in it. A pralaya is formed again, and the indigo sphere comes. All forms become more definite. They become more alive from within. They are thought beings. And then comes the violet sphere. The whole sum of entities has passed into archetypes. They have become germ-shaped and now merge into the archetypes of the animal world that have emerged. And after another pralaya has taken place, when the red sphere dawns again, what we call the fourth round begins. What can later provide the body for the actual human race is gradually being prepared: the archetypes of the mineral, plant and animal kingdoms. More and more definite forms emerge. The orange state occurs, the astral state. There are already certain entities that resemble the later animals and humans in form. Then there is another pralaya state, and the actual earth, our present earth, appears in what we now call etheric matter, within the fourth round, on which earth, in etheric substance, man is present. He is still an animal-man, but already guided and surrounded by the solar Pitris, the higher intelligences who have come over, who have reached a higher level of development and are also guided by higher intelligences, which are described in Genesis as the Elohim. They were all working to advance man in his development.

He then goes through the second race and condenses. Then comes what we call the third race, and which we have described several times.

The following is the process as it presents itself:

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We understand the cosmos best if I say something about the human aura first, and this will enable us to better present the development of the rounds and races with regard to the influence of the so-called Pitris. You will see why I am including this.

What is called the physical human being is only part of the human being; the complete human being consists of a number of members that are actually visible to those whose sense organs are open to them. Although you know all of this in essence, I still have to link it to what I have to say in order to describe it accurately. The physical human being then has what I would call an etheric double body within him, which is visible to someone who has ether vision. It is a true double image of the ordinary physical body.

Then a so-called soul body or astral body penetrates both of these. This astral body extends beyond the physical body, is slightly larger and has the shape of an oval, of an egg, because it extends a little further beyond the body at the head and is a little narrower. It contains all the feelings, passions and desires that make up a person's inner life. All things that are caused by physical life are contained in it as dark clouds. The purer it is, the more it resembles the stars. It has a color that ranges from orange to yellow. If you imagine the physical body away, you have a kind of elongated circle that has an orange color as its basic tone. You can see the most diverse cloud formations flickering in it and the tiniest figures playing in it. In the human being, as he exists today as the average human being, this is visible to the seer.

You then find this astral body permeated with another form, with what we call the mental body. This mental body has only existed in human beings since the middle of the third race; the Lemurians, who were at the beginning of their development, did not yet have a mental body. If we go back to the area south of the front and rear India towards Australia, where the Lemurians lived, they had a physical body, something condensed in the middle, and then the astral body. Otherwise, nothing could be seen in them. The more the Lemurian race developed, the more a dark, black, spherical spot appeared inside these astral bodies, at a point - and if you want to describe this point, it is where our physical brain has its center. This black point, this spherical spot within the astral body, is what is actually referred to as the human ego, which has developed since the Lemurian period. This is the outer form of the ego!

Since the development of the Lemurian race, the beginning of what I have called the mental body has been located within this point. From this point begins an emanation that grows ever larger and larger and permeates the aura, so that the aura is animated from within. In the Lemurians, the point was still very small; it grew larger and larger, and now, in the average person, it protrudes above the astral body to the extent that it gains predominance over the passions and drives through thinking, through the mind, through moral feeling; that is what has developed since the Lemurian race.

We must now ask ourselves: why is this developing? The answer to the question of the “why” of this mental body lies in the fact that it is only now that what one is actually entitled to call spirit is emerging in humans. Since that time, since the spiritual impact on humans has taken place - that is, since the middle of the Lemuria - the emergence of the human mental body has been taking place.

Now I ask you to consider that the driving force behind what causes the mental body to emerge is the higher self: AtmaBudhi-Manas; this wells up. If we could see it alone in its swelling, it would be a blue mass, which, the further it comes outwards, becomes more and more violet. Because it is also mixed with the earlier formations of the astral body, it takes on various other nuances; it is mixed. That which is the I in man was only at that point during the time of the Lemurian race, because in reality this point then becomes the boundary of the mental aura, so you have to imagine - let us say - the astral body of the Lemurian Age in such a way that what was initially just a black dot formed a spiritual skin that became bigger and bigger [see sketch]; and in the spiritual skin is the I.

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We have so far progressed in our development. Now let's go back to the point where, apart from the astral body, the Lemurian human being was completely in absolute darkness and only the astral body was luminous, in that the black dot appeared and the astral body began to radiate.

Before that, the astral body was surrounded by a bluish shell. They were in an astral body that was surrounded by a blue shell on the outside. However, this was not present on its own; it continued until it reached the blue shell of the next Lemurian. This blue atmosphere represents the collective human spirit, which holds together from the outside what was organized there. The development consists in this blue mass being drawn in and absorbed; the entire blue auric mass is finally drawn in and completely absorbed. Then the Lemurians are pure astral bodies. This also comes to the fore at the point I mentioned and wells up from within. Then the whole mental world is drawn in, and the astral body now glows in the dark.

We are now going back more and more. All the astral bodies were enclosed in the general aura that belonged to them. If we go back to the beginning of our development on earth, we would have what underlies development. When we look at these natures, these astral spheres, they are the descendants of what we call the Pitris. Everything in these astral auras comes from the Pitris, who came over from the Junarian epoch into our development. This total matter in the aura comes from the Lunarian epoch.

In the interval between the Lunar and Earthly epochs, these entire astral entities are present as seeds and slumbered over. So that you now have to imagine the total blue aura as a total mass that is drawn in, that appears as a total mass in a very dark violet, so that it could be seen even during the pralaya, so that it could be seen as it developed from the lunar to the earthly development; one would see how it exists in a dark violet.

When earthly development begins, the earth is red; it glows reddish; but it has the blue atmosphere around it. The reddish earth is what has formed from the Pitri seeds. The Pitri seeds form the reddish Arupa sphere, and that which is spirit surrounds this Arupa sphere as a blue atmosphere. This spirit, which was present, is differentiated as such; it is differentiated in itself, that is, it already carries the spiritual seed for every human being that will arise later. Just as our soul contains individual thoughts, so the spirit carries the individual human being as a thought. At the intersections there are dark spots (see sketch).

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When the old moon was in its nirvana, the individual Pitris were completely separate from each other; they had the most perfect astral bodies imaginable. What I have just described comes from the lunar epoch. What comes across? The Pitri seeds and their entire auric atmosphere; they undergo the Pralaya there. However, they would not be able to develop further in earthly evolution if they did not now encounter something that is present everywhere in the universe, but which can only be suitable for them in a certain form, namely that which can later become physical matter and which is present everywhere in the universe as cosmic dust.

Worlds are constantly being created and destroyed, filling the entire universe with cosmic dust. Take, for example, the comet discovered by Biela. It split into two parts, then into several parts, and finally into many parts; it will eventually disintegrate into world atoms. Cosmic dust was discovered in the nineteenth century. It makes it so that when we calculate a planetary orbit, we get a number that is slightly too large because the planets have to overcome the dust masses.

Now you have to imagine that what comes across as the Pitri seeds and the auric atmosphere combine the world dust, but such world dust, which is attracted by them with a magnetic force, is what they need so that they can integrate it and become firm. This is how they get the physical body. So the Pitris organize the world dust; the Pitri is dependent on absorbing the world dust like the plant absorbs the earth dust from the soil. This process is expressed in the theosophical scriptures as follows: the Pitris form the seed forms and then build out the forms with matter so that the blue spiritual atmosphere can be absorbed.

The building is done from two sides: from the inside, from the Pitri seeds, the physical body is built; and the blue atmosphere, flowing in from the outside, forms the mental body.

The Pitris are present in various degrees of perfection; not all have reached the same high level. It is exactly the same as with Plato, Pythagoras and so on, who, when Nirvana of the Earth is reached, will be further along than the general human race; they were simply more advanced. The most advanced were the solar Pitris. There are two types of them. But then there are also two types of lunar-Pitris who had reached a fairly normal level of development, namely such that they were able to develop a kind of karma within themselves, a karma that was similar to the karma of our animals at the end of our earth development. Certain animals will have reached the point where one can speak of guilt and atonement in relation to them. Our animals do not yet have this, but at the end of their development they will. The karmic principle was already present in some species. In other species it was only in the process of development, and in still others it was only present in a rudimentary way. There are seven levels here, which are again related to the seven human rounds. In the very first stage the Solar-pitris were unable to intervene; they had no need to. They were there, but they hovered around the earth, as it were, waiting to be admitted. I will compare this with the following:

Imagine yourself back in the old days of the pile dwellings in Germany. Imagine that there would have been trained engineers there; they would not have been able to start anything, they would not have been able to do anything; there would have had to be more primitive natures: these were the still imperfect Pitris. When a later stage of development was reached, only the more perfect Pitris had the ability to take in. This continued until the Solar Pitris were able to intervene during the fourth round. It was only during the Lemurian race that the Solar Pitris were able to incarnate. The entire auric atmosphere was drawn in to make them swell from within. This was something that had nothing to do with Earth at all, but it gained influence. Then the more perfect beings, who already had the power to draw forth something from themselves, and whom we know as the Venus Sons - the Manasa-Putras, higher entities that were not intended within earthly development - had to intervene. They were there, and when they had incarnated, the first of the still lower human beings could receive the first teaching.

Today I would like to explain to you the formation of the aura and show you how it gradually develops. You will then easily understand the rest. I will show how the aura has developed since the middle of the Lemurian race. I will give you a kind of description of it so that it will be self-explanatory to you.

The middle of the Lemurian race development is an important point for the human race. Until then, the human body was built up from the outside, so that by the middle of the Lemurian race, the human body was already present as a physical body, etheric body and astral body. These three are present in the aura of the Lemurian ancestor. At the moment we arrive at the middle of the Lemurian race, a black dot becomes visible in the middle of the aura of the Lemurian ancestors.

If you imagine the physical body away, the etheric and astral body remains. This is the Lemurian man. He then receives a black point above the head; it is what we call the actual self of the human being. I will draw the Atlantic man in a moment, following on from this.

The Atlantean human would now look something like this, if this were the physical body /see sketch]. The Atlantean human, according to his aura, looks quite different from the Lemurian human and the present human; the Atlantean human has a black egg shape, and the astral human is the entire aura. Within the astral aura, the black dot expands and becomes a shell for the inner core. The remains of the Atlantean race still have this peculiar aura. The spirit shines within the black dot; it begins to shine. That which begins to shine is blue in itself, but appears, depending on the astral body,

in different shades of blue-red, indigo and so on. So, if you imagine everything away, something like an indigo egg will be visible. In a person who is particularly imaginative, it appears through various green thought forms. In a person who has very pure, abstract thoughts, it appears through the yellow form. Then it also appears in a beautiful coloration that tends more towards violet. This, which the Atlantean human has, becomes larger and larger, so that in an average person of our present race this black egg coincides with the outline of the astral body.

Our present-day human being more or less maintains a balance. He occupies his mind as far as he is interested, and he controls his desires and instincts with his mind. All our external culture is basically there to satisfy urges, instincts and passions. This is expressed by the fact that your astral aura coincides with the mental aura.

If you look at a more highly developed person in the present development, it is somewhat different. The mental aura extends beyond the astral aura; it protrudes somewhat. The I extends even further.

In the case of a chela or an adept, you have the astral body in the middle, then the mental body and only then the black egg, the I, so that the astral is surrounded by the mental and only then covered by the I, so that the astral is used for mental purposes.

The I is a point in the moment of becoming I in the middle of the Lemurian race. The I is now the outermost shell. The brain becomes more and more the center of the whole organism.

In the first race of our Aryan population, the actual center of movement in the mental aura was still located slightly above the physical brain and only gradually migrated into the physical brain. Those who were incarnated as adepts within the Atlantean race were endowed with a much higher intuition, an intuition that was still impersonal. Then this gradually migrated into the being, and only later does the spiritual come out of the personal.

The adepts of the fourth - that is, the Atlantean - race were still God-inspired seers; those of the sixth race will be self-inspired seers!

That is the difference between the beginnings of our own race [i.e., the fifth] and us! This is also a reason why, at the beginning of the theosophical development or movement, the adepts, who are our adepts, could hardly be understood; why they themselves felt that they could hardly be understood. This was because the adepts, who belonged to the earliest population, had a much more spiritual life that had not yet descended into mere rationality. The Westerner wants to understand. Therefore, if you read the “Secret Doctrine,” you will find the passage where the Master says, “You with your Western judgment understand it only with difficulty!

Everything in the aura can be seen by the seer, absolutely everything. The only thing he does not see, and in which no seer can see anything, is the essence of the dark, which signifies the ego, whether it is the black point or the black ring. What is visible is what has been formed from the outside and what has been formed from the inside. What actually constitutes a person's true self cannot be seen by any seer! One can follow exactly what nature has brought forth as I, but one can never see it in its self-uniqueness. For anyone, even for the highest seer, there is the dark point in man. Just as little as one can say “I” to another person, just as little can we see what is in the aura of the other I.

Something about consciousness: You consist of nothing but cells. Each cell has a cell consciousness. Your consciousness is the totality of the cell consciousnesses. The consciousness of which I speak here will never merge into another. Just as you incarnate in a cell body, so a higher consciousness will incarnate in what comes from the various egos. At each seance, the totality of the participants is the body for a higher entity. The actual ego is therefore not visible.

In the Lemurian, there is therefore a dark point; in the Atlantean, there is a circle or an egg-shaped form within the aura; for us, this blackness coincides approximately with the boundary of the aura; for the adept, the mental aura extends beyond the astral aura, and where it does so, it becomes resplendent in the most beautiful sense; it then plays into the blue or violet. The rose-red is the actual creative process, where the ego in the creative forces begins to reshape the world in a spiritual way, and where the adept begins to become a real planetary spirit.

And now something about what is really understood by so-called inanimate nature: the higher spirits also have an ego. If a spirit is so great that it builds a solar system, then it is not to be found in the sun, but at the outermost edge of the system. The solar system appears to be inanimate because the ego has already been externalized. If we could get to the edge of the solar system, we would find the ego there. That is the esoteric reason for the blueness of the sky! Space appears blue because it represents nothing other than the black shell on the outside! And outside this black shell, the spirit appears through the various shells in differently colored regions! So when you look at it, it must appear to you as if you were seeing a black surface through a glass that is illuminated, it appears blue to you. For example, the center of a flame also appears blue. Where the flame is blue, there is a dark space; nothing is burning there. This is easy to see in a candle flame; but in truth it is black. Every flame is bright. The blue of the sky can truly be called a firmament, as Genesis says; this is to be understood as literally as possible, just as the general spirit is outside of the ego. Nothing in the world is without spirit; there is only spirit that has not yet become ego; within is the spirit with which the ego has already been filled. The ego is the boundary between the spirit from outside and the spirit that lives in man. This boundary is the ego of the solar system concerned.

The Genesis is an inspired book; it is not something that has been thought up by people. As long as the mental had not yet been drawn into the human mind, inspiration came from outside. And we call the books inspired from outside the content of the original revelations. These all agree with each other if we look beyond the cover that people have drawn over them. We can go to the Indian books or to the traditions of the decadent tribes in America: they agree because they were received as revelations. This is not only known to occultists, but has obviously always been recognized. Herder also saw through this. The nineteenth century, which was mainly concerned with criticism, measured these things according to human opinions. The correct point of view regarding these books is the one from which it can be said: If we do not understand these books, it is not the book that is absurd, but we ourselves can be absurd.

I would now like to return to the aura of advanced people, for example to Plato in ancient Greece. The development that Plato has achieved will only be reached by the average people of the present race in the next round; that is why such people as Plato are called “artificial fifth-rounders”. Now, however, they also differ significantly from the other people. When the present people have reached the fifth round, their bodies will no longer be physical bodies as they are now, but astral bodies, so that the difference will still be there. Plato was in the physical body of the fourth round what the other people can only be in the astral body of the fifth round!

So Plato was in the physical body of the fourth round, which other people will only be in the astral body of the fifth round! This requires a significant difference in the progress of development. As a result, when earthly development is complete, Plato will be in a very different state from the others. In the fifth round he will perhaps be a Buddha and in the sixth he will be even higher! Let's go back and look at Plato again. During the fourth round, he had already achieved with his physical brain what the average person will be able to achieve with their astral brain in the fifth round. This will enable him to have a corresponding effect in the next round; he has thus acquired an ability that others do not yet have: namely, to have an effect on the physical brain!

This is the same as if an engineer were suddenly transported to a primitive tribe; there he will be able to transform all things to a much greater extent with his artistic skills and knowledge; he will be able to teach this primitive tribe. While someone who grows out of the wild tribe can only take development a small step further, the one who comes into the tribe with a great development will be able to take the tribe much further. A highly developed person will naturally not intervene in the first stages of development, but only later, when development has progressed to a certain point. That is the task of advanced people! They will cross over into the next developmental epoch, but will wait until they can intervene!

[Presumably from the question and answer session:]

By retroactive, I meant that he has acquired abilities that others do not have. The others are bound to the physical brain, and then again bound to a single brain. He will act on the astral brain in the sixth round and on the mental brain in the seventh, so that he can retroactively act on the earlier brains, that he can direct them from outside.

The effectiveness of the Pitri is therefore to be understood as something similar, in which sense the earlier can participate in the construction of the new world body. Those who have completed their development in the normal way, who have become real people, will be able to contribute accordingly to this construction from the outside.

How far have we come at the end of the seventh round? So far that we can rebuild from the outside everything that the spirit has built up from the inside. So when we find new world dust, we will immediately build a body that will correspond to our level of development. We will build the “humans” of future stages of development! But those who have remained behind, who have not come so far, will have to build the lowest forms; they will accordingly be the ones who, as it were, build the walls of the new world system from below, and the developed ones will intervene where there is work for them.

The ego in us can never be lost; it only transforms. At present it thinks, and that is the highest faculty it possesses today. We will animate the next entities again, but not with manasic egos, but with higher egos. We leave the thoughts of the more developed ones to form a new sun; we lay them on the altar of community. A split of a nation into two parts is always preceded by a battle of the Dhyan-Chohans on higher levels.

Today I would like to talk about the formation of the cosmos according to Annie Besant's “Ancient Wisdom”. I would like to show how to try to read the relevant passage. It starts on page 325, where Annie Besant attempts to describe how the transition from the lunar epoch took place, in which our ancestors underwent their development and then came to our earth. During the lunar Manvantaras, evolution produced seven classes of beings, who were called Father because they produced the beings of terrestrial evolution.

Just as we have the task during our earthly epoch to bring the mind and so on to the highest development, these beings on the moon had to bring the sentient being to the highest refined form. That is the chemical principle, so that they had developed the sentient life in the idealized way. When the seventh round had been completed, these beings entered into a state of Nirvana. That was the full image of Yahweh, the being that was their ideal. As seeds overwinter, so they overwintered through a pralaya. They thus developed soul.

There were also two other races. Solar Pitris were those who had progressed further than the ordinary lunar development. They had reached the highest level of similarity with their deity. But even during the lunar epoch there were Moon Pitris, Moon Pithakas. The more developed beings were solar Pitris. Those who had already become masters on the moon were, in terms of the development of the human mind, higher than the moon gods. The moon gods did not develop the element of reason. It would be futile for the deity to only come as far as it was in the beginning. Something must be produced that goes further than the beginning. If the Masters are looked upon as the end of our life development, they are found to be of a much higher wisdom than that which has been incarnated as Earthly Wisdom. The wisdom that has been incarnated is only sufficient to guide the Earthly development to its end. Therefore, it must be realized that the Master is, under certain circumstances, much higher than the Deva.

Yahweh only became the first person of the Trinity through an error. He is the god of earthly forms, who therefore forms the Adam out of matter. Of course, the Jews have the Father-God. But they don't talk about him. That is namely the one who was never spoken of.

People are called such lunar-age beings who advance the Pitris - Dhyanis. No one had developed the causal body on the lunar epoch. Those who had causal bodies had progressed beyond the lunar epoch into the earthly, human epoch. Plato will bring the highest development of the causal body into the next round.

The lunar Pitris had a certain intelligence, similar to that of animals. The earth is the fourth incarnation. The first incarnation is the planetoids, the second is at the position of Mars, the third at the position of the moon. The fourth incarnation of the planetary chain is the earth. The elementary essence is what I have described as world dust. Just as seeds absorb substances from the earth, the Pitris absorbed earthly materiality. [...]

Sphere a) is the archetypal world. The red sphere emerging from the archetype, developing out of the darkness. The archetypal world. The archetype of all understanding. The mind must be shaped. It must be formed into the body. There was only a solar plexus, no nerve plexus that emanated from the head. The planetary spirits are above the corresponding development. The planetary spirits are at work from the outside; they have the highest task. They determine the succession; they have a task that stands above the individual. They never enter.

The mental world is limited to one kind of sphere. Instead of the stars and constellations, the Akasha Chronicle appears. The formers are not active in the mental sphere, they are active in the realm of Budhi, so the planetary formers can only be found in the sphere of Budhi. At first, the thought is only a point, then it takes shape. The archetype of the plant and the archetype of the minerals arise. On the sphere b) the forms of lower-level formers are reproduced until they have matured into a denser matter. There are small signs and colors in it. The color is the astral matter. The sphere, which was red, has turned orange, and now it is turning yellow. Now it is filled with astral matter.

And now sphere c). On sphere c) the form reaches its densest consistency. From this point on, the nature changes. Spheres e), f), g) follow. On spheres e) and f), consciousness first manifests itself on the ethereal plane. On the blue sphere f), the beings begin to will from within, they begin to move. So the first automatic mind manifests itself. The Lunarpitris are the soul forces of form; they bring it to maturity and later inhabit it. That which they have here in black is the soul. That they think is spirit.

The earthly epoch is destined to make the marriage between spirit and soul complete. Fire is the element of the first round. It is actually fire air, ether fire. In the second round, the first-class Pitris continue their involution. In the second round, the archetypal forms of the plants come into being, which then take on their completion in the fifth round. The mineral is at the stage of highest perfection. The human brain, as a mineral substance, is only a carrier. The mineral kingdom is already dissolving. In the next round, the plant kingdom dissolves, followed by the animal kingdom. And only in the seventh round will man reach his perfection. The mineral has developed seven principles. It is the most perfect of what we have. We have three spiritual realms: the first, second and third logos; then the first elemental realm, the arupic realm; secondly the rupic realm; thirdly the astral, fourthly the physical, the mineral. The mineral is perfect in the fourth round. The plant will have reached its perfection when it has become astral. Genesis, with its seven days, indicates the seven rounds. The first four days are the first four rounds, the seventh day is the resting. The fourth day is the present round. The fifth, sixth and seventh days are yet to come.

The more you get to know Genesis, the more you will have to understand it literally. When you are ready to take the meaning of Genesis literally, then you have really understood it. Air is the element of the second round. The Pitris reach the beginning of the human stage here. The Solarpitris make their first appearance here, on sphere d), to take the lead in human evolution. The beings are always ready four rounds later. The archetypes of human forms were already given in the fourth round.