The Rudolf Steiner Archive

It is only through Pasteur that science is able to prove that living things can never arise from non-living things: the air alone is full of life germs; if you let them go through embers, no more life will arise. “All life originates from the living,” says modern science. However, it still believes that spiritual things can arise from corporeal ones. Through theosophy, we know that in the living, soul-like qualities never arise without the addition of the soul germ.

In the stream of development, the inanimate gives rise to the inanimate; if the animate is to arise, a new stream with life-germs must arise. But if the soul is to arise, a new stream with a soul-germ must arise. The inanimate is therefore the soil and the arena within which the animate realizes itself; never its cause. The living is always only the scene within which the soul realizes itself, never its cause. This is what leads us to the great law of reincarnation; we must seek the causes for everything we find in the soul in the soul self.

The species is born where the external conditions correspond to the species. If they do not, the individual being perishes; the species survives. So it is with the soul, which, after all its past life in a raw way of life, immediately thrives. The soul is emotionally connected to its surroundings; among those who are the same, the soul retains the tendency to return to its former habits.

The physical, kamic and mental bodies are composed of matter with corresponding laws. The same law returns after the matter has fallen away and it has unfolded in devachan, but draws to itself a related law in its new accumulation of matter. That is the law of karma: every past life remains as a cause for the following lives, and indeed the mental properties of the following lives will be based on the mental ones of the past, the kamic ones on the kamic ones of the past and the physical ones on the physical properties of the past.

The greatest difficulty begins with the incarnation in the physical body. Only in life can there be an interaction of the three bodies; the physical must become an instrument. We know that the virtues that strive up and down in human life interact. The “struggle for existence” leads to the lowest level of Kamaloka. “Selfishness, ‘lack of direction’ and ‘deception’ bring people to the second, third and fourth sections of Kamaloka.

The purification in the three upper stages consists in those who form the negation of the three higher qualities: mistaking the symbol for the thing; reading the B [illegible] word in the Bible instead of the spirit; literalism and symbol worship find their purification in the fifth region of Kamaloka.

Genuine piety is devotion to the spiritual. It can be directed towards the temporal or the eternal in the spirit. Revelers in the realm of the spirit, who pursue beautiful spirituality as a pleasure, purify themselves in the sixth department. In the seventh department are the idealists who seek God in nature, the theoretical materialists. The vices are nothing more than the shadow images of the Kama world in our physical world.

Justice, which draws Kama-Manas to Manas, still has to be purified, but in Devachan it leads to unity. The sense of extending justice beyond the boundaries of the immediate environment is awakened in the first region of Devachan. The virtue of abstinence from the worldly, devotion to the spirit is formed in the second stage of Devachan. The devout in the ordinary sense. - The active interest in life, the outward expression of fortitude, is purified in the third realm of devachan. People who take the initiative, who don't let themselves go.

Wisdom - anyone who can control the physical world from within - leads to the fourth level. Leaders and guides of humanity in external culture - musicians, educators.

[Those who] incline towards the eternal, [to them] it becomes a symbol. Increase of abstinence: true beauty. - When man allows himself to be determined by the eternal instead of by the transitory, we have piety, life in spiritual steadfastness. Wisdom is the height of wisdom. The seventh virtue of Manas is [a gap in the transcript].

Just as the scales of the manas can tip, so too can those of desire and harder vices. Everything is related in Kama; those who are entangled in it no longer have a fight to fight; the entities that want it can approach them. — When the craving for pleasure is increased, then the person no longer lives within himself, but rather in the external world: devotion to pleasure – the fifth vice. Epidemics – lust... When a person is completely controlled by external forces, has absolutely lost his way, is absorbed in desire, then we come to the sixth vice, which almost brings him to the destruction of his own being: instability. When he gives himself up to any kind of deception, when he does not see through anything with cleverness, when deception loses itself in dullness, then we have the last vice.

The personality thus holds everything together, it is between life and death. When it falls away, the two sides remain, pushing up and down. The measure of vices leads him to Kamaloka - the others to Devachan. As long as the personality holds together the struggle for existence and justice, the human being oscillates – when it falls apart, it is drawn in both directions. In the personality there was balance. Without personality, the virtues or vices fall prey to their own realms and laws. Plant – salts – seed.

Now we must bear in mind that all the virtues in man have developed within the domain of desire. As long as a being lives in the lower realm, it clings to the lower; it cannot live in the higher. Everything that clings to a person from Kama must be handed over to Kamaloka; only then can he ascend to Devachan. As long as something physical clings to the plant, it must live in the physical realm. – Kamaloka is the place where what was desire in the human being must be satisfied; there the human being must live out his virtues, whereas in the sensual life the physical shell was able to hold them together. – Thanatos, Sisyphos.

There are seven sections in both realms because there must be a corresponding atonement for each vice or each virtue; there are the laws for stripping away the seven disharmonious qualities, and the seven sections of the devachan are there for developing the seven harmonious qualities. The three lower ones for stripping away the coarse lower ones, the three higher ones for purifying the struggle for existence – the highest for stripping away deception.

Everything that is acquired as virtue in life finds its training in Devachan, the cargo is taken up into Devachan. Everything that occurs in sensual life is the phenomenal, the appearance; it points us to the noumenal, what is behind things. We must see personality in this twofold aspect. Here also lies what we call free will, which is given to us to help us in this struggle. Let vice be purified by freedom - the school of incarnation. Ever new interactions.

Man's true home is Arupa in Devachan. He descends into rupa and fills himself with the thought-body. In the arupa region he sees what his own self is, he enjoys the direct contemplation of the eternal. Now he is to go through the school of existence. In Arupa he would never come into contact with the world of separation. He must now [transform] the seeing of the eternal into thinking about the separate.

First, the human being surrounds himself with thought-material so that he can think the Eternal in the temporal. This brings him into the world of being special according to Rupa.

Second, the human being surrounds himself with astral-material so that he can feel the Eternal in the temporal. - Kama or astral world.

Three: The human being envelops himself in physical matter so that he can want the eternal in the temporal. Now he is incarnated again and is subject to the laws of the physical world until he takes the upward path again.

This is what we call the pilgrimage of the soul, which passes through the three worlds. Then comes the higher world, which is the soul's actual home, the formless world.

All the thoughts that we peel out of things must lie in things. We call their specific characteristic content form; but nothing can be formed without having a thin matter. So what we visualize in thought-matter is present as an entity.

The three upper principles rest within, while the three lower ones form the outer shell. They are present objectively and subjectively. The first three are only subjective. We cannot observe them. In the 4 Prana-Kama-Manas, thoughts become; they appear as shadows. If Manas, the soul, harbors thoughts, these thoughts would confront Kama-Manas in such a way that they would be its realities. Depending on the level of consciousness of a being, he calls something a reality. When man loses his physicality, he loses the physical principle. But when a principle darkens, a new one enters.

It shines within the soul 8. When he loses Prana and Kamaloka, 9 enters; [when he loses] Kama-Manas, then 10 enters. What is it that becomes active there?

When he loses Kama-Rupa, a new being enters into the depths of his soul; it is related to Kama-Rupa, but has a different law. This draws him into the world of the spirit. It is called the spiritual fire in occultism. “There will come one who baptizes you with fire.” What enters for the physical is that which contains everything, which dominates the physical with perfect wisdom. We call it ‘Mahav’ or ‘cosmic wisdom.’ It shines forth as we shed the physical.

The substances disappear, the laws become a higher principle. What becomes tendency and power shines forth again as a higher principle. When it gives up Kama-Manas, which is actually our self in this world, our truest self emerges - through being this being, our self-awareness. Now we address Manas as our body, the cosmic fire of thought that we carry. We address Manas as our objective, as we did our physical body before. When our self-awareness awakens, we feel as a unified being, belonging to the whole. St. Augustine: “We see things because they are; things are because God sees them.

We are, seen from a higher plane, thoughts of the world spirit cast into form. In the soul life of the world spirit, all things are truly present. When we strip away the embodiment, we remain in the soul life. That which we commonly call reality arises only when the higher principles darken and emerge in the world of particularity.

As an individuality, the human being is subject to the laws that prevail in the six higher realms; as a personality, they are subject to those that prevail in the four lower realms. Therefore, the lower realms must always be renewed. Man must die and be re-embodied because he lives in a world that is subject to the laws of birth and death. It is not man who is subject to the law of birth and death, but the lower worlds, in which man embodies himself from time to time.

Day and night change, but the law is eternal. We carry the law up, it shines in its beauty when we have shed the physical. Man carries the unified, the eternal, continually up into the higher realm. Man's task is to extract from the lower world as much of the higher world as is hidden in it. That is why he is esoterically compared to a bee. He has to raise the temporal in order to unite it with the eternal. Because he cannot do it all at once, he does it in successive embodiments. Since the world does not embody itself all at once, but in succession in epochs, man must also do the same. The reason for re-embodiment lies in the evolution of the world. We therefore not only redeem ourselves, but also the world, by developing ourselves, and fail in our task towards the Eternal if we do not further our development.

Let us first briefly repeat what has emerged from the consideration of the seven basic parts of man. Man is a citizen of three worlds: the physical, the soul and the spiritual. The physical world is a reflection of the spiritual world, as it were, its opposite pole. Just as we see a mountain landscape reflected in a mirror of water in such a way that the foot of the mountain is first visible in the water, but the summit is lowest down, so it is with the spiritual world. It experiences its inversion in the physical world - the deepest physical corresponds to the highest spiritual. Atma corresponds to the mineral, Budhi to the world of life, Manas to the animal world, whose outer expression is the animal kingdom.

The soul is what connects both worlds. Man is a summary of everything we encounter in the other worlds - the microcosm in the macrocosm. Abbreviated and compressed, we find everything that happens in the cosmos in him. We can follow how the three worlds create an expression in him, in order to look at themselves through him, as it were. Man is the eye that is opened to the cosmos, built by himself.

Let us first see how the mineral forces affect him: they compress the substance - through attraction and repulsion, through number and measure. This creates the physical basis of the human being. It would be rigid and lifeless in itself, like rock crystal, which is formed according to the same laws of material connection.

This is where the life force comes in, that which conditions growth and reproduction, elasticity and going beyond oneself, that which creates the species. This species-forming force is concentrated in the germ, finds its most striking expression in heredity and, through the law of form, dominates the substance, which is subject to dissolution in itself. The inherited form is that which is preserved. We also call this life body the etheric double body because it fills the entire physical body. It is clearly visible to anyone who has the relevant organ to see.

These two bodies are built by the forces of the outside world, which builds organs in them through which it makes itself perceptible. The physical world weaves the skin of the human being and inserts the sense organs into it. The eye is an invagination in the skin. Sensations arise through sensory perceptions. These already bring about something new. Something reacts inside the person. A source of activity opens up, which responds to the sensations with impressions. This is where the person's own life begins.

Here we have the transition to the soul. The soul in man is his most intrinsic, that which arises through the impressions and experiences within him, which is or can be different in each person, for no one can know whether the other 'ro' feels exactly the same way as he does himself. This new element we call 'sentient soul'; it extends beyond the physical body, visible to the one to whom the soul organs are opened. But it is dependent on the physical and life bodies, since it receives its impressions through them and is determined within its boundaries by their strength. We call this boundary the soul body. We are therefore dealing with a sentient soul body, that is, a unit with regard to the human being as a whole. If we consider the body as such, this soul body is its third limb; the sentient soul, on the other hand, is the first limb of the human soul; it is in the soul that the feelings of pleasure and pain, the drives and passions of human beings arise. Through these, it is subject to the body.

But now it comes into contact with the spirit, which has created a physical tool for itself in the organ of thought, the brain. Thought serves it in the first instance; man reflects on his perceptions and passions. In order to satisfy these, he seeks opportunities, acts - through this the power of thought places the soul in a higher conformity to law, to which it does not belong as a mere sentient soul; it grows beyond what it is in the animal or in quite undeveloped man. It becomes the intellectual soul. The clairvoyant beholds this as a special entity within the soul body, as a second link. Through the intellectual soul the human being is led beyond his own life. He opens himself more and more to the spirit. To the extent that he opens himself to the knowledge of truth and goodness, he takes in the eternal within himself, that which exists in itself and does not depend on impressions. That which shines forth as the eternal in the soul may be called the 'conscious soul'. The body has a limiting effect on it, the spirit expands it.

Berlin, undated transcript, 1904

During the Lemurian period something happened that has been among the most important events for many millions of years: the actual self of the human being took up residence in the human body. The human soul was further developed than the bodies that already existed at that time. Before the bodies were ready, the souls had a different development on other planets. Pitris: different degrees of development. Different level of consciousness. This consciousness, which we have now, has been gradually built up.

Through long periods of time, we have developed what is now on Earth on the Moon. Then it slept over. When man begins his Earth career, he is further than the Earth. He must build bodies in association with other high beings. “The Earth was desolate and confused.” The forms must be built from the material; this happens in the first three rounds. He builds forms as one builds a house. A kind of affinity with earthly matter brings this about. When he begins the fourth round, the bodies are so far ready that the entire physical system - bone, muscle, digestive, blood circulation system - is complete. The human brain is still in the design. The fourth round is for building this physical organ for consciousness.

Three main stages initially:

First: purely spiritual, arupa, formless; second: spiritual state of formation, rupa, astral state. At the end of the astral state, there is in the innermost part of the being:

1. an arupic being
2. enveloped by a thought body or rupa
3. by an astral body or sentient body.

He now begins the physical formation by first forming an impression of what he was astral in the finest matter, in ether. In earlier planetary development, man had a very different etheric body, which built up the one we now know, but in the fourth state of the fourth round, when the earth itself was etheric matter. It is the template of the physical body, roughly the color of peach blossom. During this time, the etheric body was the only human body. It was the first root race, subtle people floated in the etheric space and multiplied by one emerging from the other.

Becoming denser and denser, man goes through seven stages – racial – and now comes the second state, the air man. The ether attracts the air, permeates it, forms bodies. What we find in fairy tales is based on ancient memory. They are called Hyperboreans: “And the Lord made the winds his messengers.” Meaning: He formed a body of air for the spiritual beings. Hyperborea became more and more dense; air was very thick back then; yet the people were wonderfully beautiful. Etheric people were luminous fire figures. The astral earth would have been completely dark to a physical eye; during the etheric earth it would have begun to shine. The fiery figures are characterized as follows: “And God said, let there be light.

The Lemurians are so important because this important section was in the middle of it. Earlier catastrophes were not so violent because the earth was not yet so dense. Hyperboreans by rearranging the heat by moving the continent from the North Pole to the South.

Water-soaked, dense matter: the first Lemurians were formed from this; not as dense as lower jellyfish - they are called “egg-reproducing humans”, just like certain animals, amoebas, which first have indentations in which the nucleus is distributed, then it contracts. Thus man was materially immortal in those days, he divides but does not perish, so that man is materially immortal as such. In those days Pitri still hovered around the body; only in the middle of the Lemurian period could he take possession of it. He had everything, except the right brain. Now an approach to it was emerging. Fire mist had become protein-like, a brain approach was emerging and the soul could take possession. Only the very advanced Pitri could now form the body from within. So-called sons of the fire mist, Arhats, initiates, and indeed from the highest beings. Less strong Pitris would not yet have been able to form bodies. First representatives of wisdom. Other Pitris could have taken possession now, but then beings such as those that had emerged could not have come into being. Man would never have attained full freedom; he would have had a dull consciousness. Towards the end of the second Lemurian period, further Pitris began to incarnate.

Those bodies, however, that were not inhabited by Pitris at that time, developed into animality. If there were no brain in the body, no highly developed Pitri could work in it on our earthly plane. This development into animality is what all religions call the Fall of Man. At the expense of the brain, the rest of the human being has been pushed down into animality. By taking possession inwardly, the human being must develop senses in order to perceive. The Fall of Man creates the first karma.

Externally, physically, the first humans were much more perfect, but duller. At that time there were no apes; those bodies that were inhabited now developed into humans; the uninhabited ones decayed; they were soulless, amanasic ones. So during the second Lemurian period, a developed state of consciousness is achieved by sinking deeper into sensuality. The task of the eighth round, of all earthly development, is to achieve this state of consciousness.

On the moon he had a low one, and an even lower one earlier.

So through seven planets he develops seven states of consciousness. When they migrate from the moon, they had dream trance, before that plant trances, before that deep trances. Seven planets or states of consciousness. Seven kingdoms, seven races.

There must be something in man that meets every thing in the external world. There must be something in external things that corresponds to what is in us. We meet with things on a common scene. They meet us in three ways:

– mineral, man originated where the mineral power of God has condensed
– arousing pleasure and displeasure
– awakening thoughts.

In the manasic there must be something that produces the thoughts outside. That which receives the thoughts within us must be something that emerges from the thoughts. Everything is the same above as below. Man came down to meet the creative activity. The development was such that the creative met with the post-creative. The mineral kingdom is the setting for this encounter. Man has evolved into the mineral kingdom and must now evolve out of it.

Thus microcosm and macrocosm meet in the mineral kingdom. By evolving downwards, God encounters man through his relationship with the mineral kingdom.

All human development is in preparation for a future free confrontation with the Deity: Letter of Paul to the Romans Chapter 8, Verse 19: “For the fearful creature waits for adoption as a son.” All development is a yearning.

The Buddhist self-awareness will confront the Mahabuddha.

That is why there are attempts at development: the human being must develop the appropriate organs in the various spheres. He lives a double life in the physical plane in order to know everything that is native there, in the astral and in Devachan. He will be able to live in pure Devachan when he no longer has any inclination for the other worlds. Man can have an inclination downwards or upwards; he should have the desire for enthusiasm, make the down to the up, raise the temporal to the eternal. The mystery student has developed the amount of desire that lived in him towards the spiritual side; the desire becomes looking up.

The astral is an intermediate realm; if desire tends downwards, man's astral is kamic; if it tends upwards, it is purified and mental.

Man has a cosmic task: to develop the forces of the mineral kingdom upwards. Because he encounters the deity in the mineral kingdom, he must bring the forces he finds there to the deity. Hence the parable of the bee.

In the three kingdoms, he has to collect and unite with the deity. Through earthly life, we unite our dual task: to develop the sighing in disharmony into harmony. If we do not accomplish this task, we are missing something.

We are now at the boundary line where we have to reverse. It is the approach of two realms, it is the crossroads at the level of the mineral kingdom.

Theosophy is therefore a theory that must become life.

The human being brings into consciousness everything that the animal carries as unconscious memory. By developing thought through meditation, man brings back memories of past lives on earth. Christianity had the task of sanctifying the personality; therefore, the concept of individuality had to take a back seat for a time.

Development is the penetration of the later into the earlier; the firstlings of humanity are the forerunners of later development.

In every church window, in every saga, in every folk building, in the ideas of everyday life in the Middle Ages, we can find the expression of deep truths. Poems that are not understood today are born out of the spirit of deepest wisdom. The material of “Heinrich von der Aue” was also taken from the circle of European initiates. The “Poor Henry”. Nowhere is it indicated that one is dealing with theosophical poetry; least of all did G. von H. know.

Heinrich von der Aue is a noble servant on the large estate of Aue in Swabia. He is an exceptionally capable knight in all worldly matters, but does not care much about things that go beyond the worldly. Therefore, he was punished with an illness called: Miselsucht - a leprosy that was considered incurable. All German doctors – and in those days they were doctors who healed with the help of spiritual powers – had given up on Heinrich von der Aue; only a master in Salerno had offered the prospect of salvation. A pure maiden must sacrifice her life. But he does not believe this; he realizes that it is the punishment for his worldly knighthood. He gives away his possessions and withdraws to a farm, where he is cared for by the daughter. She decides to sacrifice herself for him; he travels with her to Salerno. Then he realizes that it must not be, and would rather remain ill. But the sufficient sacrifice is not physical death, but the will, the joyful, spiritual will.

One principle was adopted by all poets. One should keep the measure, the harmony. 'Diumaasze'. A theosophical principle often expresses it: It does not depend on the external success, but on the right will. 'Who' - says the poet - 'in the mind strives for purity and nobility and wants the right, finds balance and honor.' – the bliss that emanates from the sixth principle. Through such words, Heinrich von der Aue implies that he has striven for something deeper. Everything he has written breathes the same spirit.

“Erek and Enita” describes how the search is on for moderation, how love arises from uniqueness and harmony from disharmony. Erek marries Enita. He is a bold knight who stipulates that his wife never warns him of danger. But harmony arises from the trials.

Iwein marries the daughter of a giant, but leaves her a year after the wedding because Gawain advises him not to 'get lost', not to become lazy and careless. He goes away for a year to pass tests, promises to come back, but does not, and loses the favor of his wife and his mind. He is saved by fighting lions and dragons. Seventeen years of wandering.

Only through spiritual knighthood can one attain the ability to exercise spiritual rule. In the legends, the higher, purer soul is always symbolized by a female soul; the higher consciousness is represented as the virgin feminine. Through his pure higher soul, which knows what love actually is, through the Master of Salerno, who points out to him how the higher spiritual connects with him through sacrifice.

What is misery for someone who knows what the spiritual and the physical actually are? We know that in earlier developments, man was a higher animal, only earthly development is there to put manas into kama. Basically, all beings in our development partake of this kama-manasic nature. In the animal, manas is not in the head, it is directed by manas. In the various kingdoms, the laws of wisdom come to light. This was not yet the case on the moon, which was only enveloped in an atmosphere of wisdom.

It would be an irregularity on earth if a new kama were grafted directly onto kama itself. If a being lived on kama, it would be the life relationship of the moon. There are such things on earth: they are parasites, insects that live on other creatures. And in the plant world there is mistletoe, a parasite that draws nourishment from already existing life. What the Kama root needs to live is what remained from the moon epoch. Mistletoe remained behind, only stunted, and must live parasitically to complete its development.

Hence the construction of insects, which are often in a horn shell, came into earthly development unfinished and [gap in the transcript]. Animals with an exoskeleton are those that are latecomers from the lunar epoch. It is therefore understandable that mistletoe plays such a role in ancient myths and legends. It is associated with those [...] and who are therefore still attached to the moon, to the Kamic, which was justified in the past.

In the saga, the beings that cause evil, connect their urges with the Kamic, are associated with mistletoe in the most spiritual way. [Baldur] is killed by mistletoe, which stems from an earlier epoch. If it extends into our epoch, it will bring about destruction. Earthly Kama must be ruled by Manas. Life on Earth is being destroyed by the lunar parasites. This is why the devil is called the lord of the flies.

If man himself abandons himself too much to Kama in earthly development, he grafts Kama onto Kama onto Kama and then becomes disharmonious within himself. This disharmony can be seen in the disease that breaks the measure. He is afflicted by the addiction that underlies this plant. Those who abandon themselves to the passions remain stuck in what belongs to the lunar. This damming up of the wave of life produces the disease of misery.

Those who do not strive for spiritual enlightenment experience a stagnation in their whole life. This cannot be understood by a physical doctor, only by someone who knows the connection between all planes. When the dammed up wave of life is lifted, when selfishness is truly sacrificed, then healing occurs.

Iwein is also a deeply symbolic piece of writing. Here again a female being represents the higher self. In this case it is the daughter of a giant, a race preceding humanity. The fusion of man with nature, as well as with [gap in transcript], was the gigantism. At the beginning of his development, Iwein is still close to this original development. He must now awaken Manas within himself. Manas was originally a gift of the gods, connected with the soul. Now he loses the higher gift in order to regain it as inner human intellect. When he reconciles with the higher self, he gains it, but by freeing the lion from the dragon, that is, from selfishness, from the wisdom that is directed towards the worldly.

It is wonderful when we consider the Mithras mysteries: their seven degrees. The fourth degree is the lion. When the fourth principle – lion – awakens in the higher sense, it strives towards the fifth and wants to be freed from the third, the dragon.

These poems arose from tremendous depths; it takes until the sixteenth century for them to surface. With the Copernican revolution, poetry becomes more secularized. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, there is tremendous esoteric depth.

These Monday gatherings are intended to develop into truly intimate gatherings of our Theosophical community. Those present should speak as much as possible. I believe that this is the best way to enable a real discussion, with questions and answers from the group.

I would like to talk about apocalypses because this topic is suitable for leading more and more into the whole current that we call theosophical. When we talk about apocalypses, we will have to discuss all kinds of deeper, theosophical questions. Today, only a brief introduction will be given. We will then also have the opportunity to talk about a wide range of topics.

Of all the apocalypses, the best known is the secret revelation of John, which can be found at the end of the New Testament. There are a great many interpretations of this apocalypse. If you delve a little deeper into these interpretations, you will find that they often go very deeply into theology; but some are also very shallow. I myself will try to introduce you to the Apocalypse of John from a mystical point of view and then also to other apocalypses.

You might wonder why I am touching on this topic. However, the audience should be aware that we will be delving deeply into theosophy, touching on profound theosophical questions, and we would hardly find words if, in connection with this topic, the basic questions and basic goals were to be discussed in detail.

When speaking about such a lofty topic as the Apocalypse, it must be assumed that the main basic concepts of theosophical knowledge and theosophical goals are in place, and that you are convinced that Theosophy has a place in the world and that it not only has a general human but also a good scientific basis. You cannot talk about apocalypses if you still doubt whether Theosophy is superstition or real knowledge. We need to be clear about this fundamental question. The questions that are part of preparing the ground for Theosophy will all be touched upon. I will not only give the basic concepts of Theosophy, but the related questions will also be discussed. So, by talking about apocalypses, I would like to assume that the basis of the Theosophical worldview is generally given.

What does it mean to talk about apocalypses? First of all, I would just like to note that an apocalypse is a very specific way of looking at the world. You see the world in the form of an apocalypse. The one who can express an apocalypse himself has reached a certain point of view. You can read the apocalypse of others and you will learn very deep truths from it. But one cannot, without having reached a certain level of realization, utter what is contained in an apocalypse. There have been apocalypses among all peoples and at all times. We too, in Theosophy, have apocalypses.

Who can now speak in terms of apocalypses? I will answer this question, and that will lead us deeper into the essence of the apocalypses than a definition. The path of knowledge is prescribed for us; we are told how to come to knowledge and thereby to real spiritual effectiveness. Perhaps you have followed the stages one has to go through to enter and follow the path. You know that one has to develop very specific qualities in order to gain the freedom of vision that takes us away from what is merely sensually perceived and allows us to glimpse into the spiritual world. To do this, it is necessary for the human being to learn to distinguish between the 'eternal' and the 'temporal', to direct their gaze not at the temporal, not at the passing, but at the eternal, at what remains, so that they can then change their whole perception of the world around them, namely that certain things that are extremely important to the everyday person become unimportant to them, and other things gain in importance. What the everyday person finds important, such as the satisfaction of desires and everything that our self-interest dictates to us, must become unimportant. What must become important is what we have in mind as the eternal goal of humanity. We must have a sense of the ideal, of that which cannot be determined according to all possible advantages, but from the insight that it is about the human being, for the sake of the human being. If we have a sense of the ideal, we must also develop the sense that we learn to love it. The ideal is tremendously valuable. How many can sincerely look into their hearts and say that they truly love the ideal as one loves a child or a loved one? The ideal is far too intangible for people to grasp. But we must learn to love the intangible, that which exists only in the mind.

Then another quality we have to develop is “thought control”. We must not let our thoughts drift to and fro, but must practice controlling them so that we are able to hold on to a thought for as long as necessary to gain very specific knowledge through it and to become clear in a certain way through it. Man must realize that thoughts usually control him. To control thoughts means to master thoughts. We must not let ourselves be carried away by this or that urge to do this or that action. We must be given a sure direction. We must control ourselves only through the center within ourselves.

The third thing is that we acquire a certain even-tempered attitude towards the events of everyday life, which usually make people either euphoric or sad. We must have a certain “even-temperedness” both towards events that lift us up to heaven and towards those that plunge us into the deepest sorrow. Only by maintaining our composure throughout events can we find the way to judge things perceptively.

Then we must develop what we call 'tolerance'. This is a word that is easy to pronounce but means much more than is usually thought. How often in life do we condemn without asking why this or that person has come to this or that action. We must always ask: how and why? We must not be carried away to criticize. We must understand, understand everything in the broadest sense. If we develop this attitude, we will enter into the state of mind that kindles the life of knowledge in us. Do not think that the mind has no influence on the life of knowledge. Today, people overestimate the one-sided intellect and underestimate the qualities that lie deeper in the soul. They do not believe at all that these are the things that lead to knowledge. You can be a great scholar, you can have great knowledge and still not have free judgment. It would be quite easy for a wise man to feel superior to a child in his simplicity. But it would be quite wrong for him to give in to this sentiment. The wise man rejects the thought of being wiser than a child. Those who insist that they are more understanding and clever than others can never become wise. Those who accept the judgment of others with equanimity can become wise, can learn to understand by stepping back and judging from the perspective of the other. The fact that they understand the simple – even the simplest – is uplifting and useful for real progress and is a result of their tremendous tolerance.

A further quality must then be developed, which in Theosophy is called “faith”. Those who believe that they have come to a conclusion with their knowledge will not progress. The wise man must always be in the mood to realize that he actually knows very little and that every moment can teach him something completely new, that every expression of life can be a revelation to him. The one who truly walks the path of knowledge takes it so far that he says to himself: I may experience something in the next minute that throws everything I have believed and assumed so far overboard. In ordinary life, one will not take this to the extreme, but in the moment when one approaches anything in search of knowledge, one must really take it so far as to give up belief in one's previous knowledge. The wise man will never say: 'That cannot be', but will say: 'Everything is possible'. Through what I already know, I must never allow a judgment to arise about the possibility or impossibility of anything. The belief in the possibility of progressing to ever new revelations is a quality that the pathfinder must develop.

Then there is a quality that comes by itself, a quality that is called 'objectivity' or 'balance'. This helps us to avoid the pitfalls of life that condemn us to proclaim an apparent truth everywhere. This balance is not just a sum of everything else. Those who want to become wise must remain in balance; they must not let themselves be driven off course.

Once these qualities have been developed within us, the highest that can be attained at the preliminary stage of development comes, namely that man has the 'longing' to be truly free.

The theosophical movement wants to liberate people by speaking with universal tolerance of that which can apply to all people at all times.

This is what the pathfinder develops. When he has developed these qualities to a certain degree, then he is ready for what is called discipleship.

Then comes the moment when he has a great experience of tremendous significance: from this point on, he receives impressions from the spiritual world, from a completely different world, from a world that lies behind our world and of which our world is only the effect. He enters the world of the spiritual. He then looks at the world from the other side. What we call space and time no longer apply to him. It makes no difference to him that he is living in this particular incarnation. He could just as easily be living in a different incarnation. He could have lived thousands of years ago – when he looks at what he is now seeing, he would see it in the same way. He could even be living in the future and would still experience everything in the same way.

This is the first level of discipleship. Such a person is called a homeless person; he is removed from the Heimav. In return, he also says things that no longer refer to this or that place, to this or that people, to this or that race, but he says things that refer to all races, to all times and all peoples.

The first stage enables him to see only what is nearest. At this stage, he only sees what belongs to a so-called “root race”. The disciple, then, sees what relates to our present root race, back to the time when the Atlanteans disappeared.

Then the second stage of discipleship begins, which is not attained through theory, not through concepts and ideas, but through a real insight. The Theosophical worldview teaches that man does not live only once in the world, but many times, that he embodies himself again and again and that his actions are related. The individual lives are connected by cause and effect. This can be seen by observing life. It is also possible to understand this concept in theory. Many followers of Theosophy are still at the stage of believing reincarnation and karma to be true only as a conceptual and intellectual realization. However, the second stage of discipleship has the knowledge of the truth of reincarnation and karma. The disciple does not suspect the truth of reincarnation and karma – he knows it.

Now comes the third stage of discipleship. Re-embodiment is not an eternal thing. Before the middle of the Lemurian period, there was not yet what we call reincarnation, and after the middle of the sixth root race, this kind of reincarnation will cease again. Another kind of life and re-embodiment will then be there. Up to the middle of the sixth root race, man will be reincarnated. Reincarnation will then depend on the will of the person; today it is independent of it. We can say there is a first moment before reincarnation and a last moment after it. Before that, man was one who did not incarnate, and after that he will be one who no longer reincarnates. To see beyond the realm of reincarnation is the attribute of the third level of discipleship. This disciple, this chela at the third level, is called “swan”. When he looks at the first and the last, that is, at that which is higher than all reincarnation, then he is able to write and speak of apocalypses. What is contained in any apocalypse initially comes from those initiates who not only overlook the time of reincarnation, but see from the first to the last. To show how man has come into this reincarnation and how he comes out of it again, that is the task of every apocalypse. It has to describe a distant past and a distant future, and in doing so it also encompasses the present. In the Apocalypse of John you will find a description of the seven sub-races of our fifth root race, because what is said of the seven churches refers to the seven sub-races of the fifth root race. The admonitions that the apocalyptic John addresses to the churches are the admonitions that the chela John calls out to the individual sub-races. Each sub-race is connected with a very specific constellation in heaven. Therefore, there are seven stars that represent the seven angels: they guide the genii of the seven sub-races. Then one is led to the first and to the last. The first is the human being who stands before reincarnation, and the last is he who still stands after having overcome reincarnation.

John was in a so-called initiation shell. He also says that he was in spirit. And what is revealed there is nothing other than the inspiration of a chela in the third degree of discipleship; it is an apocalypse of the swan. The swan is the one who establishes the connection between the most highly inspired and man. This is expressed in the most important legends.

So the disciple becomes homeless at the first level. Those who have become swans can attain the higher revelations. They are those who come into our world, but you are not allowed to ask them their name because they come from a world beyond. This is expressed in a great, powerful allegory that also has a deeply mystical meaning. It is a very profound truth that is expressed in the Lohengrin saga; through Lohengrin, who comes with the swan, who was thus a disciple - a chela - of the third degree. Great truths are found with him. Only he who understands the saga of Lohengrin understands world history from the eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth century.

Now I have explained to you the origin of who can speak apocalyptically, who can create a picture of the world, independent of space and time. We will also talk about the distant past, the present, but also the future. This will become clear when we talk about the apocalypse revealed by Theosophy. There we will see what man can set as a great goal, because it really is a great goal.

From the question and answer session

The materialist says that we follow animality to the stage where it has become human, and now we follow the urge present in man at a certain higher level.

But this is not based on knowledge, it is based on materialistic dogma. You do not follow the laws of nature by dogmatically limiting these laws of nature to a very specific point and saying: so far and no further. You can only follow the laws if you recognize them. You have to combine the knowledge of the laws with following them.

An example of this: the religious person will not merely rely on the fact that he says: I do not lie because it puts me at a disadvantage or makes me contemptible in the eyes of my fellow human beings. He is much more convinced that lying has a broader meaning, that it is something that goes against the divine order of the world and that it brings its punishment, its effects, with it. If you support the truth, you are supporting the advancement of a certain development. If you describe events differently than they are, you do the same as if you were to suppress a plant germ: you withhold a very specific direction of development. This does not seem so bad as long as you are not aware that you can also withhold something in spiritual growth. But the occultist says: a lie is a murder. What would have developed as a living being is killed by the lie.

The division of the sexes is related to birth and death.

The second stage of discipleship resolves doubt and makes superstition impossible.

The investigation of the reincarnation of another human being must be completely impersonal. If the researcher is asked, he can get involved.

In answer to the question of which student would be able to read in the Akasha Chronicle, I would like to reply: anyone who is ready to become a disciple can read in the Akasha Chronicle. There are two types of reading in the Akasha Chronicle: the actual reading is possible as soon as one becomes a disciple at all. But one must first learn to spell. The Akasha Chronicle throws mirror images into the astral plane. It is located at the boundary between the rupa and arupa levels. But you can, for example, find Caesar's war campaign in the astral plane as a reflection of the records in the Akasha Chronicle.

Last time, I spoke about the stage of human development at which one is able to speak of an apocalypse. I showed that one should look at the world in such a way that one's gaze extends over such long periods of time that one can see the time before man began to undergo his individual incarnations, and one can also see the time that lies after these wanderings through birth and death. I have also said that it is necessary for the so-called chela to have attained the third degree of chelaship.

The Apocalypse of John also emerged from such a school. He who thus surveys the world does not see it differently from how other initiates see it. You must realize, above all, that the 'visions', the 'higher experiences' or whatever you want to call it, are no different from one another, and that, however strange it may seem to the uninitiated, when, for example, the four animals are mentioned, it will never sound different from the mouth of one than from the mouth of the other. Two initiates will not report the same thing in different ways.

To give you an idea, I would like to speak of what every such initiate experiences about the development of humanity. The one who made the statements contained in the Apocalypse surveyed the period of time that lies before our present root race, he surveyed the two races that preceded our race, he surveyed the time when man first took on his present form in the middle of the Lemurian period, and he surveyed life beyond birth and death. Now, before the point in time that we call the point of human incarnation in the middle of the Lemurian period, there is a very specific form of humanity that is different from what we now call human. I will start from a very specific point.

The present man, as you know, consists of seven bodies. We have the physical body first, then the etheric double body, thirdly the astral body and four more. First of all, we are only interested in the three lower bodies: the physical body, which can be perceived with the ordinary senses, then the so-called etheric double body, which cannot be perceived with ordinary senses. This etheric double can be seen by those who have acquired the ability to do so when they subtract the physical body. They then see in space a double of the person, which has approximately the color of a peach blossom. Embedded in this is, so to speak, the astral body, a luminous oval. When a person dies, the event of death initially means that the sum total of the higher bodies, the etheric body, is released from the physical body. In the first period after death, the astral body is united with the etheric double. Later, in a few days, the astral body leaves the etheric double. The astral body then goes through the experiences it has to undergo between death and a new birth. Today, the etheric double body has only an intermediary position. It mediates the activity of the astral body with the physical body. While man walks on the earth today, the physical body has the greatest significance for him. The physical brain is the instrument of man's highest spiritual activity. The etheric double body acts as a link, mediating the activity of the physical body with the higher bodies. The dissolution [of the etheric body] did not yet take place in the time of the first races and also not yet in the first time of the third race. This was not yet the case in the first time of the third root race. In the so-called polaric race, the etheric body was the most significant. The whole body was a fine, thin etheric matter. Only later did the etheric body become denser by becoming imbued with physical matter. At the end of the first root race, human beings on our earth were not yet tied to the ground in the same way as they are today; they floated through the etheric earth, and their organs were also etheric. Man was an etheric being. Gradually, he became denser until, in the middle of the Lemurian period, he had become so dense that he was able to take on a physical body. But even in the middle of the Lemurian period, man was not yet as dense as he is today. The matter at the beginning of our third root race was somewhat denser than the matter that you can see today in the clouds of fog that drift over the mountains. These people would appear to us today like fiery clouds. That is why those who came to Earth from other regions as the highest intelligences to teach people are called “Sons of Fire Nebula.

When the geologist takes us back to the specific point on Earth where the physical remains of humans first end, the physical trace is lost. Man was simply made of such fine matter at a certain time that no physical imprints of it can be found in the early layers of the earth. That transition from finer matter to physical matter, those beings that have developed up to physical density, the esotericist designates - to have a word for it in our language - as the “eagle” stage of man. He described the physical human being of that time as the eagle. In esoteric language, the eagle is the human being of the Lemurian race, the human being who works his way up out of ethereal matter into dense matter.

Then comes the Atlantean race. Initially, they were only endowed with a denser etheric body. At that time, the human being was still able to master the seed life forces in plants. They heated their ships with the prana of the plants, as described in the book 'Atlantis' by Scott-Elliot. This shows us that in those days man had greater control over his etheric double than he has today. Later man will gain control over the higher bodies. The details of this process, which is a real, actual process, are described by the apocalypticist.

The second stage, in which man still has control over the etheric body, is referred to in the esoteric art term as the stage of the “Lion Man”. This is a technical term for the Atlantean.

Then comes the man of the fifth, the Aryan race, who is referred to by the word “bull”, because physical strength is the predominant expression.

If you take these three designations, you have three very specific successive stages of human development. Those who are initiated into certain mystery schools learn a very specific language and writing in which those who learn the comprehensive truths know how to express themselves in their experiences. It is a language that all initiates around the world write and speak. It is a symbolic language. Anyone who has learned it understands it and knows when they find a certain sign in old documents that it refers to something very specific.

I will mention some of these characters, the most elementary ones, in the course of these lectures. A frequently used symbol to characterize this stage of humanity is two interlocking triangles that together form a hexagonal figure. These two triangles always have something else in them when they appear in occult works. [Here - see drawing - in the angles filled with A, L and St are the images of the eagle, lion and bull. And here below is a triangle that symbolizes the previous states. The three angles remain unfilled. They represent the original three states of humanity. In the middle is always the actual human being. This constant element, which runs through all incarnations, remains through all stages. This is what is meant by the human being.

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Here you have the four natures through which man has become human in the course of his development. You have indicated these in the two interlocking triangles. If you look at this sign, you will understand why these animals appear wherever an apocalyptic speaks about these three stages of development. They also appear with the prophet Ezekiel. With John they are described in a very special way.

The apocalypticists overcome that shell that separates people from the areas where they can see those earlier stages. For people to really be able to see what has taken place on earth, other organs must develop for them. Those stages of development that humanity has gone through and that have become imperceptible and unconscious to it must be revived. So the etheric body of the apocalyptic must be revived, he must begin to really see, to become an eye, a real eye.

Therefore, the chela must not only be able to project himself back to the stage of the eagle, to the stage of the lion and the bull, but he must also be able to project himself back to the stage of the seer. It is only in the third stage that the chela truly attains this vision.

What I have described here is what you will find in the fourth chapter of the Apocalypse [of John]. The Apocalypse not only describes the past stages of humanity, but also the future stages of human development. Only he can grasp this future who has an eye for the ascent to the use of the etheric body and the higher bodies, which, so to speak, have fallen out of use in the course of development. The human being of the fifth race can only move freely, can only become aware of himself in the physical body. But now he is developing in such a way that he can later become aware of himself again in the higher bodies.

We have developed and achieved a very deep development, the development of the purely physical mind, in the present sub-race of the fifth root race. Our present sub-race will be followed by the sixth and this by the seventh. This marks the end of our root race. Then comes a new, higher root race and then another one. This development consists of man finding his way more and more into the use of his higher bodies.

We are heading towards a very specific goal, because we are, after all, on the way from the fifth to the sixth race. In everything, the human being uses the physical mind, he uses a very specific moral code and a religion. This dominates him for the reason that the physical mind rules. The individual must essentially seek his fortune at the expense of others. The individual who strives for the higher already strives beyond what is required by general life. In occult schools, there are three words that describe the new age, the age of a new, later humanity. In the realm of social life, it is

That is why the Theosophical Society has included universal brotherhood as the most important item on its agenda, because it wants to prepare for life in the sixth root race. Man will only feel happy there if happiness is not attained at the expense of others. That is morality. Our science is materialistic. This will be different in the next sub-race. We are striving for a different scientific state. That is to say, “pneumatology, the doctrine of the spirit and of spiritual things, will be decisive in the new race. And especially in the sphere of religion, something will be decisive that is not possible today because the intellect is in the way: ‘self-authority’. Man will himself hear the tidings of the existence of a divine world spirit. That is the free religious principle of the next race. Brotherhood, pneumatology and self-authority in religious matters characterize the race that is gradually and slowly preparing itself, and which will shape the future. A seventh race will take on completely different forms, which we will deal with another time.

The race in which Christianity developed is the fourth. This was preceded by the third race. In certain periods of time, what has already taken place is repeated. The first three sub-races briefly repeated the eagle, lion and bull stages. These were preparatory races, while what the following race had to accomplish emerged within the fourth sub-race, which is essentially characterized by man or by God incarnate. Christianity arose within the fourth sub-race. Around the middle of the Middle Ages, it was replaced by the fifth, our present sub-race, which we broadly characterize as the “Germanic” one. It replaced the so-called “Latin race”; by this was understood everything that had slowly absorbed the stream of Christianity and also slowly developed in a spiritual sense in Europe. Before that, three other races went through it, which essentially briefly repeated the earlier conditions.

Within the Apocalypse, these seven conditions are expressed as the seven churches. The churches represent the seven sub-races. What is spoken to the church of Ephesus, to the church of Smyrna and so on, are the words that are addressed to the different sub-races. There are still members of the various races living in the world today, and there are still members of the first sub-race of the fifth root race. The Indian people essentially belong to this. The Indian people have expressed the culture of thought in the highest sense. The highest deification of thought was expressed in ancient India. This had to briefly repeat what Lemurian man had developed. The Lemurians were sentient beings. The members of our race are thinking beings. Memory only developed in the Atlantean race. The Lemurians had no memory. Although people in the first sub-race thought, they thought in sensations, and you can find an account of their thoughts in the ancient Vedic culture. You will read these works correctly if you read them with the thought that the thought revels in a wonderful world of feeling. In the cultures that serve thought more with memory, in which external custom then holds the culture of memory in the service of heroes, because the memory of a great inventor or discoverer or king is fixed in morality and in which the long catalogs are created that then led to the calendar. Much was noted in the first races by the ancient Indians and Persian magicians. And from these notes the first beginnings of the calendar emerged. From these first sub-races emerged the present-day humans. Man has advanced to the fifth race because he has understood: within himself is the God; because he has understood the apocalyptic advance.

But the first race, which expresses itself in the Vedas, could also most easily fall into error. The feeling is not yet strong enough for the thought to internalize itself. So it has come about that the Indian cultural epoch has two sides next to each other. On the one hand, we have the wonderful, lofty conceptions of spiritual deities, as we find them in the ancient Vedic culture, that wonderful religion of which those who do not know it cannot form a conception of the depth of the Vedanta. This is a purely spiritual teaching of such clarity that it is said in Europe – but this is more or less true: Every day that one penetrates anew into these wonderful depths is, for those who have already become accustomed to remaining silent and calm, yet another source of new admiration. Compared to what the ancient Vedic culture of India offers, the admiration that applies to our present-day life cannot be lasting. There is nothing that can be compared to what this ancient Indian culture offers. On the other hand, the people have fallen into the most abject idolatry. What is usually found in books about Indian culture is a colorful jumble of idolatrous and religious ideas that gives no real picture. The idolatry of the people must be distinguished from the great and powerful spiritual world of the Brahmins. The great bright sides of humanity always have great dark sides as well. People who often have members within their nation, within their tribe, who have attained the highest spiritual perfection, have themselves often remained attached to the most external things. The Apocalypse seeks to illustrate these phenomena that I have described to you in the church of Ephesus, on the one hand in those who have kept their first love, and on the other hand in those who have abandoned the works of their first love and have sunk back. The Nicolaitans are mentioned, who only see in outward appearances what man should strive for. A monumental word is to be directed to those who live in such a community.

I just wanted to show how world-important events are addressed by such a passage, as directed to the community of Ephesus, as a representative of these conditions:

I know your works, labor and patience; and how you cannot bear those who are evil, and you have tested those who say they are apostles, and they are not, and you found them false; and you have tolerance and patience, and for my name's sake you labor, and you have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Remember therefore from whence you are fallen, and repent. And do the first works. Otherwise I will come unto you quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent. But this you have, that you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. He who has ears, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. He who overcomes, to him I will give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God. [Rev 2,2-7]

If you want to understand the beginning of the Bible, you have to know what things refer to. We have spoken of the Hyperboreans. That was not a race so dense that it could not have been reached. - Air beings. Therefore, we need not be surprised if they have left no signs of remembrance, no bones and so on. Only what was physically hardy could leave remains. What takes place in the first chapter of Genesis is even higher than the Hyperborean time. Only up to the astral, above all physical.

Let us review the seven rounds: only the fourth round has produced people like the present ones; the archetype of such a human being was created who could realize himself within the mineral kingdom. Before that, he had gone through the elemental realms.

5. Round plant kingdom
6. Round animal kingdom
7. Round human kingdom

So that one cannot actually say of the present round that man is in the image of God. It is only in the seventh round that he will be God-like in his human nature. Only the physical body has attained perfection. Further development is again the attainment of earlier stages, but in a higher form. Man became physical as he is today when he got warm blood.

We must make a clear distinction between warm- and cold-blooded animals. Fish have no passions. Man has also gone through the state of cold-bloodedness. The Lemurian race were cold-blooded until the appearance of sexuality. We must reach this state again in a higher form. Christianity strives to regain this state of cold-bloodedness. It wants to curb and ennoble the passions. The esotericist says that Christians are Pisces, who overcome everything that comes from warm-bloodedness.

The astral body will only be complete in the next round. When our fourth round has passed, the mineral will no longer be there. Man will not be tied to the ground; he has also developed out of the form of moving in the air: hence the symbol of the eagle. During the sixth round, he absorbs the plant world. Humans and animals will divide in the absorption of the plant world. Animals will process the tendrils; humans the seed power.

In the seventh round, man is then present as the image of God.

So in the first round, only the first elementary realm is present; the mineral kingdom begins.

What makes an object perceptible is the mineral kingdom; man needs higher organs to see beyond the physical; he must develop new senses. During the first four rounds, the world was visible because it gradually developed the mineral. The moment the mineral kingdom flashes, the world shines. Before that, it would have been completely lightless. At first, this light was dark red; everything that is to develop later is still present in the darkness. Everything that was preparing to become mineral earth was light. Everything else that came over from the moon was darkness, with the exception of the mineral. Everything that is light is now the sun, everything that is darkness is the moon.

Heaven is all spiritual. Waters are that from which the earth was formed, its astral basic germ. When we now look at the mineral kingdom, we cannot distinguish one stone from another; nothing is separate. It was only in the second round that individual beings were singled out; this is indicated by the fact that the spiritual was separated from the physical. If the image of the spiritual did not remain, a plant could not be recreated. The stone remains, needs no separation. The

plant needs it; this is the task of the second round. “Waters are the beings, the unified. The division lies in the separation of the spiritual from the physical.

They were plants that we would call sponges or algae today; not what we would call herbs today. They have a different nature, but they are plant-like beings. Especially those that do not yet have the correct green color.

During the third round, everything that not only takes life from the ground but also carries life forward is created. The difference between seed-bearing plants and sponges. The sponge still takes life from the general nature. When we look at the animal's astral body during the third round, it is something quite unfinished, it is merely the mineral ground that is being prepared. The animal has a plant nature, it reproduces and has an astral nature of feeling, it feels. But what concerns us here is only the mineral imprint. So what is created during the third round is the mineral imprint, and it consists of the fact that it has a plant body that carries seeds. The Genesis writer describes only what has remained of plants and animals, the solid shell; he omits the ethereal and astral. – Snail in its shell as an example. He describes what carries seeds.

During the fourth round, the mineral continues to develop to the point where it can become a shell for plants, animals and humans. In the third round, animals could not see the moon and stars because they were not yet mineral; now they will.

What has come from the lunar condenses as a moon body; the sun is condensed light.

We have not yet come to the end of the fourth day, because the round has not expired. What happens later? The birds are the future astral bodies of humans; winged animals are cherubs and angels. This multiplication is not a sexual multiplication.

The sixth round: one must think of the process as having been elevated into the mental realm, where everything becomes pure. God gives plants to man for food: absorption of the plant kingdom. Everything that is now an animal will then, as it were, be summoned into its astral body. The lion first strives towards his kind, he is not yet in his kind. Only in the sixth round will each animal be in its kind; then their earthly development will cease and a higher one will begin. Only now is man the ruler: he must be able to rule magically. Then man will be male-female again. All herbs and tendrils to the animals.

Heaven, the highest spiritual realm, is also completed. God can only rest when man is also complete. The later states are always repetitions of the earlier ones. For our fourth state, we can also imagine that we find the future hinted at in the present. A derived sense is possible because each following one on a higher level repeats the previous one: the first three days of creation correspond to the first three rounds. The four last days of creation on the Arupa-, Rupa-, astral and etheric-physical phase of the earth up to the time in the Lemurian race.

The real original meaning: seven rounds and taken in the most spiritual sense. But then a derived one [gap in the transcript]

because each following one at a higher level repeats the previous one.

Very few knew what the Genesis meant; the point in time when it was first set down in writing coincides with the beginnings of Christianity. Philon Judaeus of Alexandria was the first to give something as we have taken it today. The time when an esoteric teaching was first entrusted to a book coincides with the time when the mystery was overcome. Those who were initiated experienced the sacrificial death of the god in the mysteries, and if they were initiated higher, their own sacrificial death. What had previously been experienced by the individual in the crypt was carried out into the world arena. What was previously only experienced by those who saw was now to be shared with those who believed. While Philo, as far as possible, published the esoteric for the first time, Christianity presents it as a mystical fact. History is made of what was previously experienced only in the mysteries.

This is the central cosmic significance of Christianity and its founder. Everything that came before points to it, everything that came after rejects it. What happened earlier in the mysteries was like a prophecy. Therefore, Christianity is a fulfillment. “I have not come to destroy, but to fulfill.”

The second chapter of Genesis begins where, in our present round, the physical state occurs. In the etheric state, animals and plants did not yet exist, because man is actually the first. The polar race is still etheric, but already physical. As man develops from the etheric human being, who is still male-female, animals and plants arise as waste products. In the beginning, man had all the qualities that are now distributed among the other plants and the animals: the rage of the lion, the cunning of the fox. So the middle of the Lemurian period is an important point in time for all beings. Beings with warm blood did not exist earlier.

Now, the seven days of creation are the seven rounds; the conditions that preceded our physical ones can also / gap in transcript ]

the fourth round begins / gap in transcript ]

In the Egyptian mysteries it was recorded that the seven days are seven rounds. Our own physical development is described in the second chapter. Now the seventh day is meant only with regard to mineral-physical development.

The etheric was there, and in the etheric, like fog figures, people separated out – etheric double bodies.

The lower Indian yogi tries to achieve psychic experiences by changing the breathing process. A body in which the carbonic acid is active is not capable of harboring spiritual things, but it can harbor psychic things. Those who hold the carbonic acid in them longer than is the case in the normal process become more plant-like as a result. The psyche and soul have passed over and now take possession of the etheric body they find, shaped by the gods of form; union of the soul with the dust of the earth, physical mineral etheric body. All matter that is today separated into two celestial spheres is united in the etheric sea. In the center between the present Earth and the Moon was the ether sphere; in it was united what later separated, daughter spheres are from the mother sphere, which is referred to as “Paradiso”. Only through this did the Earth become ripe to attain physical density, through which man has become so. So indeed Paradise existed, from which man was expelled.

Only now, after the separation, do plants develop. Man could not develop further if he did not give up certain parts that became plants. “If they had not chosen a lower existence, I would not have developed higher,” man must tell himself.

The whole of evolution arises from taking and giving. Evil also arises from this, which only lies in time and must be balanced out later. The corresponding good is created for the evil in later time; this is how development comes about.

Now everything that man needs was available on earth. All the life force that man does not need is in the plants; in the middle of the tree of life, what he needs, the life force. It is man's own prana, purified for him by giving up some of it.

The sympathetic nervous system spreads like a tree in his body. Nothing can arise in the universe without its counterpart appearing. Man must now find his complement in the other tree, in the polaric: spinal cord and brain. In addition to mere prana, his organs for knowledge are developing. The human spirits were able to connect with him and take up residence in the tree of knowledge. We will skip the four currents this time.

[Gap in the transcript] you will die. All life that existed until now did not know what we call birth and death today. What was physical was immortal. In order to create an organ for the spirit, [gap in the transcript] a duality was created. The abundance of the human spirit was like a large amount of liquid in relation to a vessel that cannot hold it; the series of lives are the various vessels. It is natural that man, when faced with the choice, should either retain his immortality in the lower realms or purchase it through many lives.

In order for man to turn to the spiritual, it is necessary that birth and death arise. Because the spirit has many facets, it is important that man comes into different situations. The diversity of characteristics would not be achieved and different destinies would not arise if the mother only gave birth to a daughter without the means of sexuality; only now did the mixture come and with it the diversity: the diversity among people and thus the possibility of creating the most diverse destinies. Sexual reproduction is a necessary counterpart to birth and death.

In hermaphrodites, only the characteristics of the ancestor can be inherited; for entirely new characteristics to arise, the mixture of two must be added. Amphimixis is the necessary correlate of birth and death. In the period when humans acquired bones, that is, a mineral basic structure, humans divided into men and women; the Persian Genesis still contains the meaning well.

At this moment, with the physical evolution of man, all warm-blooded creatures arise - “hm entsprechend” means “of the same nature”. In the wake of man, the animals arose.

The sleep into which Adam falls: Before that, man was a physical being into which the spirit was driven from the outside; now what used to come from the outside must sprout within, must break out. Consciousness from the outside can only become inner by man crossing a threshold. He sleeps over.

With the becoming male and female of the human being, the work on the physical plane begins at the same time. Now he is dependent on himself. He used to be connected to higher matter and the spirit.

And now they realize that they are naked. What has now come is matter, because before that it was finer matter in which the sense organs had not yet been formed. Seeing was only possible once eyes had been formed. The moment when the spiritual organs of prehistoric times became sense organs was the moment when man became a special being. He saw himself in his selfhood.

I would like to continue today with my reflections on the Apocalypse. Anyone who wants to understand the full meaning and spirit of a work of writing such as the Apocalypse must, above all, realize how religions work and how Christianity worked in its early days, that is, what forces made it possible for Christianity and other religious systems to pour out this mighty and magnificent life of the spirit over humanity.

Today, the belief is all too widespread that the simple, plain word that everyone can understand must actually contain the truth, and there is a certain “tendency” today against the elevation of the spirit to the heights of thought, to the heights of supersensible vision - thus a “dislike”. We often hear even theologians say: anything that cannot be clothed in the simplest words that every person can understand without fail, that cannot be of much use to the truth. Those who think this way will not be able to understand the full meaning and spirit of a work of writing such as the Apocalypse is, and as the mystical Gospel of John already is. Admittedly, nothing should be said against the correctness of the saying that the truth must be proclaimed in simple words, because whoever wants to proclaim the truth must find the ways to be able to speak to the simplest hearts. He must find the words to speak to those who stand on the heights of science, culture and education, as well as to those who are referred to by the expression “simple man from the people”. But the power, the inner power, cannot find expression in the simple, plain word. This power comes from the highest heights of spiritual life. In its early centuries, Christianity also had mystery initiation sites where not only simple words, not only generally understandable things were proclaimed, but where the revelation of the highest spiritual vision was proclaimed, which in the Gospel of John reaches up to the regions where space and time have no meaning. Not every outsider could then speak of these revelations of the highest regions. The church fathers and teachers of the first centuries then found the very popular, simple word through which they found access to the uneducated. They themselves had the power, the authority of spiritual proclamation from the highest heights of spiritual life. And something like that is also implied in the Apocalypse as if by itself. You only need to read the most important passages in the Apocalypse with understanding and you will find that what has been brought down from the heights of the spirit is set in a world picture, that a world picture has been designed from it.

I, John, who am also your brother and companion in tribulation and in the kingdom and power of Jesus Christ, was on the island called Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ. I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day. [Rev 1,9-10]

With this he expressed that he was on the “island of Patmos” - he meant a mystery place - and had received this revelation. And in the Spirit he had received it. And in other places he speaks differently. At the beginning of chapter four, he says:

After this I looked, and behold, a door was opened in heaven; and the first voice that I had heard speaking like a trumpet said, 'Come up here, and I will show you what-after this shall take place.

The first three chapters contain what I have already tried to outline in the last lesson. But then the fate of the root race that will replace ours is described. Therefore, the Apocalypse distinguishes precisely between the two types of vision, inspiration and intuition. This is necessary if one wants to proclaim the one and the other. A low intuition is enough to reveal the destinies of a root race, but a higher intuition is needed to see what happens after this root race of ours, for example, when the sixth and seventh root races have emerged. This cannot be seen in the way of seeing that underlies the first three chapters; it can only be seen when one ascends to devachan. The destiny of a root race can never be revealed to us in the realm of highly developed astral vision. That is why John says that he heard the voice in spirit. Until the end of the third chapter of the Apocalypse, we are dealing with higher astral vision; from the fourth chapter on, we are dealing with devachanic vision. The initiates of all times speak as the apocalypticist speaks.

There is only one thing in the Apocalypse that is different from the other profound initiation texts. In the Apocalypse, the point of view is different. The theologian John speaks in the Apocalypse as a Christian, from a Christian point of view. Therefore, anyone who wants to read the Apocalypse with the right sentiment, with the right feeling, must completely identify with the confession, and above all with the very human confession, not just with the theologian's confession. They must identify with the feeling of a highly initiated Christian, with the feeling that a Christian has when the full power of Christian revelation has taken hold of him. One must know this.

A significant word can be found in the first letter of John:

There are three witnesses on earth: blood, water and the Spirit.

And there are three witnesses in heaven: the Father, the Word and the Holy Spirit. [1 John 5:7-8]

To the theosophist, these three principles that give birth in heaven are known as Atma, Buddhi and Manas. The Christian calls the principles that underlie the world: Father, Word and Holy Ghost. To speak about the Father would have been rejected by the Christian of the first centuries, because

No one comes to the Father except through me. [John 14:6]

And the one who spoke these words is the great Christian Master himself, the one through whom Christianity itself came into the world. I now speak entirely in the spirit of an initiated Christian of the first period. He believed in the Father, and he believed that he could not get to know him other than through the word.

And what was the word? Only a weak idea can be given to the uninitiated of what the initiated Christian of the first time calls the word, and that is through a comparison. The highest that man can rise to is the thought, the mental. Man always rises through the thought to the life in Devachan. He lives in Devachan, he is just not aware of it. That is the characteristic of the earthly human being that he lives in three worlds at the same time: in the physical world, in the astral world and in the devachanic world. But he is only conscious in the physical world. The highest expression that exists in the world was, for all religions, including the first Christian religion, the world-creative will. And if the Christian says anything at all about the Father, it is solely that the Father is the world-creative universal will. When man wants to express the highest that lives in him, the Devachanic, the thought, through the will, that is, through the world-creative principle, it happens first through language. In man, the word is the enunciator of the spirit through the will. And so the first Christian said: Everything that our world is is conceived in the highest sense through the word - but now through the word that came into being through the highest world-creative will. Just as man expresses his highest through the power of the will to the word, so the Christian says: The Father expressed His Spirit, the Holy Spirit, through the power of the word. That is why it also says in the Gospel: “All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made.

The Third Person is the Holy Spirit. He is to the universe what the spirit of the individual human being is to that human being. This Spirit descends in the Word of the world. If a Christian wanted to visualize this, he would say to himself: Just as a person speaks, how his word resounds into the air, setting the air in motion in waves, and how his thought thus lives on in the waves of the air, and the word is the embodiment of the human spirit, so the world is the embodiment of the word of God.

Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. [John 1:3]

This also means that the actual fundamental principle is the highest that man can embody in the world, that is the word. And this word is referred to as the second divine person or as the Son of God, as the highest being, not as an abstract, pantheistic image of the world soul, but as a being much more personal and individual than the human personality, the human individuality. It must be firmly held that we are dealing with a supreme being and that the word is an expression of the supreme being through which the whole universe, like man, can see with eyes, hear with ears, and comprehend with the mind. For the first Christian, this has become man in the one whom he recognizes as the proclaimer of the gospel.

Thus, for the first Christians, the event in Palestine had a cosmic value. He who walked in Palestine was not a man like the other men for the first Christians. He was for them the Word made flesh, that which can see with eyes, hear with ears, and comprehend with the mind in the whole universe, and this infinite being in the form of a human being. Those who do not understand it this way, who want to quibble about the incarnate God, about this Word of the incarnate God, who do not see it as the incarnation of God in Jesus, cannot put themselves in the shoes of the first Christians.

He was a unique personality. The gospel expresses this in a magnificent, wonderful, and powerful way. That the Christ ascended to the devachanic vision is clearly expressed in the gospel for those who can read these things.

But in order to fully understand Christianity, I ask you to consider one thing. We have a great similarity in what we call the narrative of the life of Jesus and in what we call the narrative of the Buddha's life. This similarity in the proclamation, this similarity of the years of apprenticeship and so on has been emphasized in many ways. Where this similarity comes from is known to the mystic, because he knows that such a life is repeated at certain periods of humanity. But the Christ-life has something else, something essentially different from the Buddha-life, and that was understood by the first Christian initiates. If you follow the Jesus-life, you come to a point that is described as the Transfiguration. Jesus went with his disciples Peter, John and James to the mountain and was transfigured, he became radiant from within, and Moses and Elijah hovered on either side of him. The disciples then received significant revelations. This indicates an extremely important moment. Moses and Elijah appear at the side of Christ Jesus. Time is suspended, the past is present. This is how it is in devachan. Here in the physical world we have space and time. In the astral world we have only time. But the devachanic world is without time and space. Moses and Elijah, who have long since passed away, are immediately present. This means that at the transfiguration the three disciples Peter, James and John were raised to devachanic vision.

Starting from this transfiguration, we can see what is important: it is the actual sacrificial death, the suffering, dying and sacrificial death, that is, what you do not have in the Buddha-life. Buddha went out with his disciple Ananda and became radiant. When you see this scene depicted in the Buddha-Life, you see it in a different form; that depends on popular opinion. But in the last moment we have the transfiguration. Buddha's Life concludes with the transfiguration. The Jesus-Life begins its really significant epoch only with this fact. This indicates what the Christ wanted to say about all the old religious systems of the preceding sub-races of the fifth root race. The Christ wanted to say: We do understand the prediction of what came through the Gospels in the preceding religious systems, we do recognize that in the old mysteries the Word of Truth was taught and given. But there is one thing that has come into existence only through Christianity, and that is expressed by the key-word: “Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.” – That is the great, the world-historic significance of Christianity in its Gospel.

What was once accomplished in the mystery temples, closed off from the world, for a select few through initiation, through beholding the great truths of the world in the interior of the mystery crypts, should also be able to become and become so inwardly free and elevated in soul, even those who do not go so far as beholding, but who can only believe. Therefore, in Christianity, what used to take place in the secrecy of the mysteries, the highest, the mystery in which man himself passes through the gate of death to rise again in a higher life, this deepest mystery secret, which an uninitiated person cannot understand in its true meaning, was moved to the great horizon of world existence. What took place in Palestine took place as a historical, real fact, which occurred in all its details as previously the mystery acts inside the mystery sites. In the mysteries, sacrifices and sacrificial deaths were repeatedly performed. The ancient mystery teachings had to be brought to the world in a popular form. But with that, a further step has been taken through Christianity, a step in the conception of an initiate of the first Christianity, a step that leads people beyond the stage that the old religions could have given them.

Who were the teachers of the old religions? They were the teachers of humanity. What they taught was what mattered. The teachings of Buddha, Zoroaster, Confucius, Hermes, Pythagoras, Laotse, [Socrates, Plato] - it was the words themselves that mattered. They stood, as it were, on a high mountain, and from there they proclaimed the highest, the holy word. But something else was possible. It was possible for this word itself to descend and take on human form, and for once it was not what was proclaimed that mattered, but what was lived, lived in the deepest sense of the word. The goal was there. In ancient times, the path was indicated to our fifth root race. In addition, there were the teachings and commandments of the old religious founders, of Laotse, Confucius, Moses, and Buddha – their truths. But then the Word itself came down in the form of flesh and lived among us. And the threefold Word became true:

I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

And so the Christian disciple and the initiate saw in his founder the 'way', the 'truth' and the 'life'. In a profound saying the Christian disciple has indicated what I have said. All the founders of ancient religions were regarded as embodied angels, messengers of the Godhead. 'Angel' means nothing other than messenger of the Godhead. But now there came One before Whom the angels covered their faces in reverence and lay down at the feet of the Mystic Lamb, the feet of God made flesh. That is the mystery, that in the incarnate Lamb a deeper descent to men, a life with men, can be seen. From the mountain the ancients proclaimed the Word. But Christ descended into the valley and lived as a human being among humans. He did not command what should be done, he did not say what is true, but he showed by the way he lived that the word had been realized. In this, the Christian saw his religion distinguished from the other religions. This also placed him at the center of what the Christian initiate has to proclaim as an apocalypse or secret revelation. Why the Incarnate Word is also called the “Lamb” is what we will discuss next time.

It will have become clear to us that we must place this Lamb at the center of the Apocalypse, and that through this Lamb alone the future of humanity can be proclaimed. In the fourth chapter of the Apocalypse, when man is led up, when heaven is open, the truths of the beyond are proclaimed to him. This is the mystical Lamb who breaks the seals of the world. There the transfigured flesh meets. Hence the question: What revealed itself to you when you stepped beyond the mere height of Christian vision? Then the mystical Lamb revealed itself to him. The devachanic world opened up to him, and with it the possibility of revealing the actual secret that must be revealed when the time is fulfilled, when the seventh sub-race of our fifth root race is over and a new race of humanity with a new stage of development is about to begin.

Thus we have described in the Apocalypse the fate of the fifth sub-race and the beginnings of a new world order, which is described with three key words: 'pneumatology', 'community life' built on love, and 'moral teaching'. This world announces itself in the world secret, which is revealed through the seven seals that are opened by the one who, by going among men, made this secret possible in the first place, and who will fulfill it when the time has come for our root race to mature, to pass over into that world and reach that stage of evolution that is designated by these three words. The content of the Apocalypse must be drawn from such depths. This is not to say that true Christianity can only be drawn from these heights. But it must be imbued with fire, and this fire can only be won by man if he draws strength from higher vision, and the result of higher vision in the Christian sphere is precisely the Apocalypse.

Before continuing with the explanation of the apocalypses, I do not want to fail to repeat once more that this explanation of the apocalypses really has a true value only for those who have been in the theosophical movement for some time and approach the theosophical worldview with a certain benevolent understanding. There are some things that have to be said here that could easily give opponents of Theosophy the opportunity to impute all kinds of fantastic things to Theosophy. There are some things that have to be said that at first seem like a flight of fancy to the reasonable person, to the rationalist. One must be familiar with the way of thinking and feeling of a theosophist if one does not want to misunderstand too much of what is said in the Apocalypse.

We must keep in mind the explanation I have given regarding the position of Christianity to Jesus the Christ, and also the explanation regarding the relationship of the apocalyptic to Jesus, if we want to understand the rest. The greatest value for grasping the world position of Christianity lies in the correct understanding of the saying: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” I have already pointed out that this saying has its significance in that Christianity has become, so to speak, the greatest world mystery, that through Christianity that which used to take place in the depths of the temples has been carried out onto the great world plan. I have already remarked that this does not in the least detract from the historical fact of what took place in Palestine between the years 1 and 33, but rather the one who sees through things is quite in favor of the conventional Christian tradition being an historical truth, so that in this respect Theosophy coincides with the beliefs of Christians on every single point. But this historical fact from the beginning of our era is also something else, and we understand the fact in the right sense if we grasp it as a mystical fact, if we realize that the Passion, the Death, the Resurrection, the Ascension, are world-historical events that took place earlier in the Mysteries. Christianity has a word that indicates how the ancient mystery relates to the fulfillment of that mystery in Christianity. Christianity calls everything that pointed to the Christ before the appearance of the Christ a “promise.” Those who see through things know that promise means nothing other than that the event that took place in Palestine was promised in the depths of the mysteries.

We can understand this almost literally if we read the ancient scriptures. Let us go back to the mysteries in Greece. What took place in them, deeply mysterious, and known only to the initiates, was the suffering, death and resurrection of the Son of God. However, they experienced it because the initiates were prepared through schooling on higher planes. So in the mysteries, the initiates saw the suffering, death and resurrection of the Son of God. This was presented to them in their spiritual vision. That is the promise. And then this promise was fulfilled in Palestine. This explains the saying: Blessed are not only those who see in the mysteries, but also those who can believe, not only in the word shown to the mystic, but in the Word made flesh. That is the meaning of this saying. From this point of view, we must grasp the connection and the relationship in which the apocalyptic John stands to the mysteries of antiquity and to the Christian mystery, and who thus comes to stand between the mysteries of antiquity and the Christian mysteries. Then light is shed on many a word.

In the Apocalypse, we are told that seven seals will be opened. What does the 'opening of seals' mean in the language in which the Apocalypse is written?

From time immemorial, the mystery of the incarnation of the Son of God had been foretold to the adepts. And the presentation of this mystery on the physical plane is called, in the language of the apocalypticist, the breaking of a seal. In the secret language, “unlocking a seal” means nothing other than to proclaim something that was previously only proclaimed to the initiated and that was previously only depicted in the mysteries. This goes so far that the image is accurate down to the last detail. What was later revealed had previously only been contemplated in the mysteries. During the time of the mysteries, there was no book in which what took place in the mysteries was written. Only later did such books come into being. And one of these books is the Gospel. What was previously presented in the mysteries is written in it, and what is written in it will be unsealed for those who will be ready for it.

Who will be ready? Here is something that you must grasp in its full context in the Apocalypse. We have seen that something is being proclaimed to seven communities. You have seen that these communities represent the seven sub-races of the fifth root race. Who are the ones who proclaim? And who are the ones to whom it is proclaimed? From the esoteric point of view, we must consider the appearance of Christ in comparison with other appearances. If you have taken the last issue of “Lucifer” in your hands, you will have found something there that I will briefly repeat here. Humanity is guided in its evolution by great leaders. These leaders regulate the progress of humanity's evolution. In esoteric language, these leaders are called “Manus”. A Manu is therefore the one who, at the beginning of a race, gives the great impulse, the direction in which this race should develop. We are now in the fifth root race. When this fifth root race began its career after the downfall of the Atlantean, the fourth root race, it was given the great impulse by the Manu of our fifth root race. This Manu is not a human among humans in the same way as the other outstanding human individuals. Rather, this Manu was already at a high level of development before humanity was even filled with spirit on Earth. If we go back to the third root race, where the human spirit first flashed in the human body in the middle of the Lemurian period, we have such leaders of the human race. In those days, when men were young, when they were still children, they could not guide themselves. But their guides were not their own kind. These entities, who had already attained a higher development in an earlier evolution, which is not the human one, were so far advanced that they could be human guides before the spirit had incarnated in human bodies.

These were superhuman entities. There are two types of such superhuman entities. The ones who, at a time when human beings were still children in a spiritual sense, had already progressed so far that they had reached a level that humanity will only reach in the distant future, these highly developed individuals, these Manus, are called “the holy spirits” in the esoteric language.

Then there was a second type of being that was already closer to humans, but still superhuman in nature. They are called “sons of God.” And the next group of individualities were those who were already human among humans.

If we go back to the middle of the Lemurian period and follow man in his development, then we have three stages of individualities within the evolution that has something to do with humanity. We have a high group of individualities that are far more exalted and that went through those stages of development in times long past that man will only attain in the distant future: the holy spirits. The second group are the Sons of the Gods; they are those who are nearer to men, but are still far above them. And the third group are those who, as men, were still children, but who, among the first men, were nevertheless the most advanced. They were called the “Fathers,” the “Pitris.”

Thus there are three stages, and it is the entities of these three stages that lead men.

If we now go back to the beginning of the fifth root race, we find at the beginning the superhuman Manu, who gave the great impulse. But then, in the course of the fifth root race, something very peculiar happens - namely, in the course of the fifth root race, human beings themselves come to such a point that some of them are able to take over the spiritual leadership of the human race. Those whom we call fathers or elders will then be able to lead humanity in the same way that the superhuman beings led people before. Thus, the leadership of humanity passes from the Manus to the human brothers themselves. The holy spirits, the sons of God, the fathers, were the guides of humanity in the successive periods. [...]

When the Word took on human form - so the apocalyptic says in his language - this Word, the Logos, took on human form in the form of this Son, just as the Word had previously taken on human form in the form of a spirit. Or - since Christian esotericism calls the spirit “Engeb” - the Word was previously an angel before it became flesh. That is Christian esotericism. First there is the Word, the Logos, an angel. Then it has become flesh as the Son, and then it will become an elder, a father. That is the succession of stages. This is what the Christian initiates have always proclaimed. One must only understand their words in the right way.

One of the most outstanding Christian initiates, Paul, could only express the deepest secrets in suggestive language. He also said what I have said in a suggestive way. When the Word was still an Angel, the Word was still on the supersensible plane. The Word is spoken from the clouds, from the supersensible, when the commandments are proclaimed. The time of the law is the time of the promise. When the word was an angel, that was the time of the law. Then the word became flesh. Later the word becomes an elder or a father. This is what Paul, who was initiated, proclaimed in his letter to the Galatians. There you will read what I have now said with the following words:

But the law is not of faith; but, “The man who does them will live by them.” Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree!”), that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, and we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. Brethren, I speak in the manner of men: Though it is but one man's covenant, yet if it has been confirmed, and if nothing else is added, then nothing else, though it be added, is valid. Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made. He does not say, “Through the seed,” as of many, but as of one, “Your seed,” which is Christ. Now this I say, the covenant, that was confirmed beforehand by God in Christ, the law, which was four hundred and thirty years later, does not set aside the promise. For if an inheritance is of the law, it is no longer of promise; but God gave it to Abraham by promise, free of charge.

What then is the law? It was added because of transgressions, till the Seed to whom the promise belongs should come. And it was appointed through angels by the hand of a mediator. Now a mediator is not for one mediator; but God is one. How is it that the law is opposed to God's promises? For far from it! But if a law had been given which was able to impart life, then righteousness would truly have come by the law. [Gal 3,12-21]

In other places, too, we find it stated that the Word was angelic, but later took on flesh. What happened as a result of the Word taking on flesh? It was proclaimed to the sub-races of the fifth root race, how they should develop in the future. The apocalypticist now presents to us in the letters to the seven churches how this development takes place. Not all reach the goal, not all those who have entered into the development also reach this goal in the time that is at issue here. Something special is happening here. But let us ask ourselves, in order to understand this correctly: how does the apocalyptic continue to present this to us, which was rightly handed down by the Fathers, by the Elders? Do the Elders themselves come to meet us in the Gospel? Yes, they come to meet us at the time when the angel became the Son. The Fathers are not yet ready to accept the Word within themselves. They had to be referred to the future. At the time of the promise, the fathers are not yet ready. They will only understand the word when they have reached the end of the fifth root race, where, within themselves, as fathers, they will only understand what remained veiled to them at the time of Christ, their master. The twelve disciples are the elders. They are destined to appear before the Christ again. Then, however, the book that was given to them sealed will be unsealed at the end of the fifth root race.

But there is something else special going on during evolution. We are told what it will look like when the fifth root race is ready to decide whether to survive into the sixth root race. I will only hint at what I will explain in more detail in the following lessons. And as we will hear, the onset of the sixth root race is announced with the trumpets:

And the fourth angel sounded, and the third part of the sun was smitten, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the stars; so as the third part of them was darkened, and the day shone not for a third part of it, and the night likewise. [Rev 8,12]

This is the third that was left behind, which would not have been necessary. The letters to the churches contain not only exhortations but also sharp reprimands. Not all of them reach their goal. The third part falls away completely from evolution. So we have one third that will reach the goal, a middle third that will be left behind, and a last third that will not reach its goal and will fall away completely. One third does not reach its goal, a second third will only reach its goal later, which together makes two thirds, and only one third of those who started the evolution will have reached the corresponding stage of evolution by the end of the fifth root race.

72 elders were called to enter into evolution and should develop further. The exhortations to the seven churches that they had to lead show us that only a third of them will reach the goal. If we take one third of the 72 elders, we come to 24 elders who will still be there when the seven seals of the book are revealed. This revelation of the majesty of God is something that has been proclaimed with the appearance of Christ. In the fourth chapter of the Apocalypse it says:

After this I looked, and behold, a door was opened in heaven; and the first voice that I had heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.

And immediately I was in the Spirit. And behold, a throne was set in heaven, and on the throne sat one; and he that sat was like to look upon like the stone jasper and sardius; and there was a rainbow around the throne, like to look upon like an emerald. And around the throne were twenty-four other thrones, and seated on the thrones were twenty-four elders, clothed in white robes, and golden crowns on their heads.

And out from the throne came lightning, thunder, and voices. And before the throne were seven lamps of fire, which are the seven Spirits of God. And before the throne there was a sea of glass like unto crystal: and in the midst of the throne, and round about the throne, were four beasts full of eyes before and behind. And the first beast was like a lion, and the second beast like a calf, and the third beast had a face as a man, and the fourth beast was like a flying eagle. And each of the four beasts had six wings, and they were full of eyes all around, and they had no rest day or night, saying, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and who is and who is coming!”

And when the beasts gave glory and honor and thanks to him who sat on the throne, who lives forever and ever, the twenty-four elders fell down before him who sat on the throne, and worshiped him who lives forever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying: Lord, you are worthy to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they exist and were created.

This is the future stage of evolution, where those who have overcome will have become real fathers.

I said that what took place in the depths of the mysteries will be unsealed later. Now I have told you that in the Greek mysteries the appearance of Christ on earth was depicted. What was then a secret was revealed through the appearance of Christ. We could have gone into the Greek mysteries and there we would have seen suffering, death, resurrection and ascension. The seven seals will fall in the future. If a mystery is also proclaimed then, it will again be a mystery whose seal will fall in a later future.

I will tell you a mystery, as far as it can be told in our configuration, a mystery that has been celebrated since the time of the ancient Indian Rishis and is of the deepest significance. I will try to express it symbolically in the following way:

There is a horse with its front hoof raised. On this horse is a divine figure with a bow. He gives a certain sign, then the horse steps on a snake's head with its front hoof. This is the horse Kalki. This shows that everything that is still of a lower nature will fall away, that a future will come when the Son of God - that is, the one sitting on the horse - will come and, as king, adorned with the crown, will bring the revelation of what is hidden in the book with the seven seals. This is a mystery that you can find everywhere.

I could only hint at it very superficially. But even today it is still something that can only be experienced and seen as a mystery by an apocalypticist, but which will be revealed to us in the future in the same way that John revealed to us and wrote down the unsealing of the old world. Then we shall understand that it points to the time when the elders, the fathers, will receive the revelation of what underlies this mystery and will appear when it is unsealed.

The sixth chapter of the Apocalypse reads:

And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, “Come and see.” And I saw, and behold, a white horse, and he who sat on it had a bow; and a crown was given to him, and he went out conquering, and to conquer. And when he opened the second seal, I heard the other beast say, “Come and see.” [Rev 6,1-3]

This is repeated four times. The unsealing of the mystery of the Fathers, as contained in Christianity, is the most significant word spoken in the Mysteries. Where does man come from? Where is he evolving to? From Father to Father. This is revealed in the Father through the Mediator.

No one comes to the Father except through me.

You see, the entire evolution of the world, the past and the future, is truly expressed in the Apocalypse. These are, by the way, only the most elementary allusions. One must first be able to use the words of the Apocalypse in their true sense. We will learn more and more about them.

This evening I only wanted to evoke a feeling that one can delve into this writing and then realize that it is of unfathomable depth. That is the only thing I can still assure. This Apocalypse is one of those writings that truly inspire humility and devotion, and through which one learns what the Indian esotericist calls “faith”. There is an experience that teaches us this faith in the deepest sense. It is this: After we have endeavored to understand such a writing, we first think we know something about it. But when we try to pursue it further and then approach it again, we find that our earlier interpretation was quite childish. We see that only now do we really understand the matter. And when we have done that and live for a while and pick up the book again, we feel the same way as the last time. If you have experienced this a few times, you will have “shraddha”, faith. You will then become more and more absorbed and also find more and more in it. That is the inexhaustible source of such scriptures, which we can read with firm confidence, but can never learn everything from them. At the same time, it is an incentive to be humble towards such scriptures, to research in them and to continue this research forever. It then becomes clear to us that, however profound an explanation may appear to be, it will become even more profound in the future. From this then springs the awareness that the best that is given to man does not come from human imperfection, but from divine perfection, because it is divine wisdom, that is the revelation of divine wisdom. Documents of wisdom are given to us in these books. Our understanding of them is still weak, because these writings come to us not from human beings, from below, but from the gods, from above. We must develop ourselves upwards to understand them. This gives the esotericist a sense of the truth of the saying, in which he must live, which must become his guiding principle, which must increasingly permeate the theosophist, because it is not knowledge of dogmas, not knowledge of doctrines that constitutes the theosophist, but being permeated by the wisdom of this saying, being filled in his attitude with what the saying contains. The saying is:

The Highest is a given from the beginning of time. We are a completely free association with regard to our truths. The Society is merely a place where these truths are represented, depending on what the individual knows to say about these truths. Particularly when it comes to these most difficult problems, you may well experience that, out of the basic theosophical mood, a diversity emerges between what the individual personalities express. You need not think that one is in any way opposed to the other, for we know that the truth is higher than we are and that we can only approach this truth from the most diverse sides. It is as if we were looking at a city from different points of view. Due to the perspective, some things may appear somewhat different to us. Not everyone can and may present things differently than how he sees them. And with regard to the question of the Christ problem, there is not really unity but rather diversity in the way we look at it, which, however, will probably lead to a unification of views in the next few years. But the situation today is still such that each person can only proclaim what his or her point of view gives him or her. In doing so, he is not fighting against the other's point of view, but perhaps he will contribute something to harmonizing the views. One of the views held by some of those who can speak authoritatively on such matters is that Jesus of Nazareth was born 105 years before our era and that he died not by crucifixion but by stoning. I have never made a secret of the fact that I cannot subscribe to this view, but that I have to present what I know about it. I have also never made a secret of the fact that my view is that the so-called tradition, as it is given, is to be held fast, and that it is also to be held fast with regard to the historical course, insofar as it arises from a real view, which can then rectify the view of the Gospels. Now you should not find it strange that two occult teachers can have different views on one and the same point. If you consider that two travelers who come to a foreign country and write about their travels often agree very little, in that although they have both seen the same thing, they describe what happened quite differently. If this is possible on the physical plane, then it is easy to understand that on the higher planes, the same differences can arise. For on these higher planes, observation is certainly possible, but not necessarily easier than on the physical plane. The perspective relationships through which one sees a phenomenon are so difficult to unravel that a shift in perspective can easily occur. The following can happen, for example: if you see an event in the occult field that took place 1900 years ago, you may have two figures next to each other. These two figures, although they appear next to each other in the occult field, may be 100 years apart. So, although you see things together, they may be related to each other 100 years earlier or 100 years later. I do not want to say anything more with this, but only to hint that observation is subject to such errors. I could not express a better word than that I have to stick to the traditional point of view. This also applies to the crucifixion, because it is occultly difficult to distinguish a crucifixion from a stoning. It is therefore not surprising when two opinions arise.

From the Q&A

Was Christ's death culpable or innocent?

Socrates also seems to have been condemned to death innocently. Aeschylus was condemned to death because he had revealed a secret of the mysteries. That is why Socrates was also condemned. Betrayal of the mysteries was punished by death under all circumstances, even in the community in which Jesus lived. It was also said of Jesus: You cannot live with this man, because he does too many signs. In the resurrection of Lazarus, the reason for the condemnation is found. Renan has noticed very well that the resurrection of Lazarus is connected with the condemnation of Christ. But this reason is never given. This is one of those cases where evolution causes tragedy. The death of Jesus was not a death based on karma. Karma begins at one level and once ends.

Was the suffering necessary for the establishment of his teaching?

This is connected with involution and evolution. Involution had to take place in death. No mustard seed can develop unless it first dissolves into the soil.