The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Report in the “Mühlheimer Zeitung”, No. 86, February 16, 1906

Cologne, February 15. On Monday and Wednesday, Dr. Rudolf Steiner, the General Secretary of the German Section of the Theosophical Society, spoke in the Isabellensaal of the Gürzenich about two topics that may be of the greatest interest to us, since they deal with the inner development and the future of humanity. In his first lecture on 'the inner development of man', the speaker pointed out the aspirations and tasks of the Theosophical Society, which aim to form the core of a general brotherhood of humanity without distinction of faith, nation, class, or sex, and to cultivate the knowledge of the core of truth of all religious life, as well as to explore the deeper spiritual powers that lie dormant in human nature and in the rest of the world. One of the tasks of Theosophy is to promote and develop the abilities and powers lying dormant in man in a school-oriented way. Although this must be regarded as one of the tasks of Theosophy, it is not mandatory for every member of the Theosophical Society to undergo such inner schooling with the help of knowledgeable teachers; rather, it is entirely left to the discretion of the individual. Such schooling is only desirable when it is something that the person is drawn to from the bottom of their hearts. The development of inner abilities in esoteric circles was practiced in ancient times, as it has always been. In ancient times, this took place in secret schools, and later in more intimate circles of societies and orders. In the esoteric schools, the aim is to systematically explore the physical, mental and spiritual forces that are now working in confusion within the human being, in such a way that the soul and spirit become master over him and master the physical instincts. Theosophy teaches that man belongs to three realms: the physical, the soul and the spiritual, and that his being is subject to the laws of these realms. Knowledge of these laws promotes a person's inner development. First of all, it is necessary to listen to the teachings of the knowledgeable in the spiritual realm without prejudice and to let them take effect, because one does not initially have the spiritual tools to penetrate into the higher worlds. Therefore, the first thing that must be demanded of the disciple is unreserved, unbiased devotion. He must be able to make himself, as it were, an empty vessel into which the foreign world flows; he must become completely selfless and master of his pleasure and displeasure. He must accept pleasure and pain with composure; furthermore, he must strictly regulate his thinking, and this should take on the inner character of the spiritual world. Plato demanded that those accepted into his school first undergo a mathematical course of study so that their thinking would be a reflection of undisturbed mathematical thinking and reasoning; then the laws of the spiritual world would flow into the student. From his thinking, he must then allow his actions to be influenced. Thus, arbitrariness is nowhere to be seen, only conformity to law. Then the human being becomes free of all sense perception; his spiritual self is released from the sense-perceptible coverings. Thus he becomes a disciple of wisdom, a homeless human being who lives only in the spirit; he no longer lives only with the things that are formed by the spirit, but with the forming spirit itself. All doubt and superstition soon fade away, for he knows that the true form of the spirit is freedom from personality, doubt and superstition. To attain higher knowledge, man must acquire four qualities. First, he must learn to distinguish the eternal from the temporal, truth from mere inclination; second, he must learn to appreciate the eternal and real in relation to the transitory and unreal; third, he must develop six qualities: control of thought and action, persistence, tolerance, faith and equanimity; and fourth, he must develop the desire for liberation. These are the stages on the path to higher inner knowledge.

In the second lecture, Dr. Steiner used the theosophical worldview to sketch out an image of the future of humanity. He explained that human destiny is not limited to what happens between birth and death. Otherwise, it would have to be seen as an unjustifiable phenomenon that one person enters the world with all the prerequisites for a happy existence, while another, spiritually and physically backward, has no prospect of a good life. These phenomena can only be explained if one does not see the life between birth and death as the only one that man experiences. Man, said the speaker, must be considered from the point of view of development. Just as there are individual highly developed or lowly developed people, there are also entire nations that are more or less developed. These facts suggest that man acquires abilities in his previous life and what he acquires in this life he will gain in later lives. Nothing in the world is without cause, everything is in the closest relationship. All the spiritual knowledge we possess today we have acquired through our work in previous lives. Theosophists call the law that determines our destiny the law of karma. It states that everything we have acquired in the way of work and virtues, and everything we have committed in the way of mistakes and transgressions, must become recognizable in this or another life and regulates and determines our existence in a lawful manner. This view is what makes our existence understandable in the first place and allows us to recognize our relationships with the world around us. After death, the physical body, as an organism living on the mineral plane, falls back to the mineral plane, to the earth matter; it dissolves into it. But the soul remains in the soul world to which it belongs until the physical-sensory influences that the body has worked into it have been eliminated. This first period of the soul in the soul world is a painful one for it, because it cannot live out the desires, instincts and passions inherited from the physical body, since it lacks the physical organs for this. The soul must overcome the physical-sensual side of its nature, but then the soul also dissolves in the soul world and the human spirit now has the way free to enter the spiritual realm. There it brings with it the experiences it has gathered in life, there it refines them by subjecting them to spiritual laws, and thus enriched the spirit returns to new life and to further tasks. As it happens with the individual life, it happens with that of the nations, all for the ultimate purpose of inspiring matter more and more. Man's work is nothing more than a work on matter; it strives to bring about the spiritualization of one's own body and the entire environment, to produce one culture after another, one culture around oneself after another until all the material of the planet has dissolved and the overall result gained by the human spirit, the world spirit, freed from the earth's material, creates new planets for itself and ascends to new, higher realms of activity.

As you know, the saying that serves as the leitmotif of this lecture can be found in Goethe's “Faust”. This, his greatest work, has given rise to so many explanations that a whole library could be filled with them. The sentence spoken by Mephistopheles is sometimes explained in very peculiar ways. It is not possible to discuss them all here, but I would like to refer you to Professor Minor, who wrote a three-volume commentary on Faust. He gives the following explanation: Mephistopheles says mockingly, “Blood is a very special juice,” because he does not like blood and therefore demands a signature that is written in blood.

Faust enters into a pact with the emissary of hell; Goethe took this motif, like the material of the Faust saga in general, from German legends. The fact that Faust, the representative of humanity striving for the highest, should sign over his soul with blood is already known in the oldest Faust books – as early as the sixteenth century. He has to cut his hand, dip the pen into the blood, write his name, and then the words are said to have appeared in the coagulated blood: “Man, escape” — and yet blood should be something that Mephisto could not stand? On the contrary, it must be something very precious to him; that is Goethe's opinion of this passage in his great poem. From the standpoint of spiritual research, we can approach the significance of blood for life by considering the question: What actually is this blood? — This question is not to be treated scientifically; from the standpoint of spiritual science, we can look more deeply into the nature of man. We see the undercurrent of this saying for the entire historical development of man, so that we can at least answer the question in a certain direction. In doing so, we want to start from a saying that comes from an ancient teacher of the Egyptian secret schools, Hermes Trismegistus:

Everything below is like everything above!

“Above” refers to the spiritual world, “below” to the physical world; for the mystic, everything spiritual is “above” in the sense of Hermetic theosophy.

When we look at a person, we first see their physical appearance, their body; but we not only suspect, we know that a spiritual essence dwells within this body. We see the spiritual being revealed through the physical; the physical shows what moves the person at the bottom of their soul. We see their joy in their smile, their suffering in their tears. The entire physical aspect is a testimony of the spiritual. The spirit has built up the body: a lovely appearance as the image of a lovely soul; a brutal physical appearance, built up by a brutal spirit. We call the soul-spiritual the “upper”, the physical is the “lower”. Plato spoke of the “upper” as the archetype of things. Everything that surrounds us is the image of a spiritual reality. The world of archetypes is the “upper world”. Just as the shadow on the wall is the image of the object, so the lower world is the faithful reflection of the upper. Those who look at the world with spiritual eyes see not only the material; they see not only the eye and the ear, the body and its limbs, in the human form; they also perceive a soul behind it.

The sum of all physical phenomena in nature: forests, fields, plants, minerals, yes, the heavenly and planetary bodies are the expression of a spiritual world. Every time we see something in the lower, we can conclude that there is something corresponding in the upper. Man gets to know the lower in his everyday experience; the scientist examines it with instruments. The spiritual researcher shows us the archetypes – the upper aspect. We will understand things when we recognize the upper aspect for each lower aspect.

In this way, we will also come to know the human being when, after having observed the blood with the nervous system and the heart, we then search for what prevails in them, what corresponds to them in the upper aspect, when we ask: What is the spirit of the blood?

In the same way, we want to understand the human being by considering what the spiritual archetype of blood is. To do this, we have to follow the path of human development together.

What is the essence of the human being according to spiritual science? We get to know the upper part of the human being through the connecting link, starting from the body. For materialism, this is everything. Bones, digestive and respiratory organs, nerves, reproductive and circulatory systems make up the physical body. What we know about the human being consists entirely of the same substances that make up the things found in nature. The same matter is everywhere in the world, even in minerals.

Theosophy or spiritual science distinguishes, in addition to the body that we have in common with all inanimate nature, an etheric or life body, but understands it to mean something different from the physicist's understanding of ether. While science previously assumed only the physical, it too has recently come to recognize a kind of life principle. But while science reaches its knowledge only through logic and reasoning, the theosophist has gained his knowledge by developing abilities within himself that lie dormant in everyone. We call such a developed person an “awakened one,” that is, the spiritual world opens up to him.

The more organs a person has, the more worlds can be opened up to him. Through self-development, through self-perfection, he can attain higher development. Then he can see the etheric body, which underlies the physical body as a very fine body. Everything that lives in a person comes from the etheric body. Plants have this in common with us; just as color belongs to the flower, so the etheric body belongs to the physical body for those who can see it. Many say that it is immodest to claim such a thing and think that no one can know this. But it is much more immodest to say this, because those who have not seen the matter cannot decide, but those who see can. No one can say more than: I do not know —, just as little as a blind man can claim that there are no colors because he does not see them.

The third link of the human being arises when one seeks the vehicle for everything that is named: desire, lust, passion, pain. Not only blood and nervous systems are in man, but just as real are those phenomena. We call its carrier the “astral body”. We have it in common with the whole animal world. But what makes man the crown of all creation, what makes him rise above the animal world; what he has for himself alone, is the fourth limb, the ego body. This is what distinguishes him from all beings except himself; out of this he develops further and further upwards. We recognize this when we compare an uncultivated person with a cultured person. — example of Darwin and the man-eater. — The I, which is already in him, has not yet worked on the astral body.

We therefore usually distinguish two parts of the astral body: the one part that the human being receives, and the other that he has worked into it. The astral body transformed by the I is the spiritual self or manas.

We can also work on our etheric body; many principles and moral ideas, which are still rooted in the astral body, also extend as forces into the etheric realm, for example, art. What a person absorbs from a work of art has an effect on the etheric body; the same applies to what is achieved through religion. We also distinguish two parts in it: the received and the worked-in spirit of life. We call this Budhi. A chela acquires the ability to work more and more into it; spiritual training is a working out of the etheric body. Finally, such a working out of the physical body can also take place through special spiritual abilities. The theosophist calls the spiritualized part through which man stands in relation to the whole cosmos “Atman” or the real spirit of man. Thus we distinguish seven aspects in the human being. These aspects of the human being are not to be understood as separate parts, but rather as seven levels, degrees of his being, like the tones of a scale or the colors of the rainbow. The last three levels: Manas, Budhi, Atma, make up the archetype of the human being - the upper part.

Man has not had these seven members from the beginning; only gradually have they been developed with the physical body; in the original state, only the predispositions for this physical body are found. Man is an image of the whole cosmos. Cuvier, the important naturalist, says: For the one who studies animal anatomy, the smallest member is an image of the whole body. From the peculiar shape of a bone, he can deduce the shape of the whole body. In each individual there is an image of the whole universe. If a being who is able to see through this were to come to our world from another world and see only a rock crystal, it could deduce from it what the whole world should be like. Each one that can internalize the external becomes a mirror of the whole universe. The human physical body cannot be regarded as a mirror of the universe in itself; it is only through the etheric body that it is internalized, and internalization continues through the etheric body. In the animal, external life is reflected in inner consciousness. In the plant, we do not yet have consciousness. Consciousness does not depend on external stimuli, but is present where external stimuli are reflected internally: in the animal.

In the human being, this consciousness expresses itself in the first formation of the nervous system. This nervous system is the so-called sympathetic or digestive system, solar plexus, arising on the sides of the spinal cord – it is an organ of consciousness. To observe the human being in this stage as a being with only this system of consciousness requires a training such as the Hindu receives in the yoga training. When the brain and spinal cord systems are not active in him, the human being sees an unknown world shining within him, a consciousness that was once his own: dull and dim, a kind of omniscience. The whole universe is reflected in this consciousness; it depends on the nature of the universe. It can reflect everything that shines into it from the universe, but it cannot give anything itself.

When the soul begins to integrate the ego into the tripartite body, it integrates itself into the spinal cord. Only with this does the possibility arise for an inner life to develop; only with this is the human being able to react to attacks... [gap]

In no physical body could self-awareness take root without the blood system. The blood system, in which inner warmth can develop, the red, warm human blood must be there for the ego to reveal itself. The blood is the carrier of self-awareness in a being. Therefore, if you have found the way to his blood, you have also found the way to his self; what affects the blood affects the self. It is not the ego that is or creates the blood; the astral body does that. Only when the astral body has created the blood is the ego able to dwell in it. One can receive knowledge from a person, learn many things, and in the same way one can teach another and make communications to him; but one has access to the particular individuality of a person only when his blood is affected, set in faster or slower motion. The particular juice provides access to the ego. Control over the blood makes one the master of the person.

How does one influence the blood? I would like to refer to a conversation between two well-known men: Anzengruber, the playwright, and Rosegger, the writer who portrayed Austrian rural life. Anzengruber spent his whole life in the city – and yet, with what genius he brought the figures of the rural world to the stage! Rosegger said to him: “Perhaps it would be better for you to study the farmers.” To which Anzengruber replied: “I wouldn't be able to do that; I can't do it by observation, it's in my blood. My ancestors were farmers, and when I am left to myself, it takes care of itself.”

There is a deep truth in this, and to explore it, we need to consider the nature of consanguinity. We speak of consanguinity, but in reality not a single drop of the father's blood passes into that of the son. Quite different organs are related, like the blood system. This forms itself at the latest in the embryo. If a similar organism descends from another, something similar is expressed in the blood. It is not the blood that is related, but that which is expressed in the blood, which moves it, warms or cools it. The relationship lies in the soul, which underlies the physical.

Among all peoples we find in ancient times that marriages were contracted within the near-kith and kin; small tribal unions married within the kin. It was a crime to marry outside the tribe, outside the blood relationship. All mankind has worked its way out of this.

From the near-marriage later developed the far-marriage. Tacitus, for example, in his “Germania”, gives a glimpse of how distant marriage developed from close marriage. At the moment this happens, a very special phenomenon appears: somnambulistic clairvoyance. For example, in 1000 and 900 BC, the ancient Greeks had the ancient clairvoyance; all legends originated from this state. Clairvoyance ceases when long-distance marriage occurs. Where form mixes with foreign form, something is expressed in the blood that does not belong to the common stock. This process was a change to the intellectual view in all peoples. Formerly, the process was similar for an old clairvoyant as it is today for a medium. To recall this state in our time would be an anachronism, as it was the natural state in the past; every child did not absorb from the outside, but felt within himself what was related to his tribe. When foreign blood was added, the person grew out of his tribe. Whereas in the past what was in the generations was expressed in the blood, later it was expressed in what the external senses conveyed. As a last remnant, although not quite like the old seer, Anzengruber feels not only what he himself feels as a human being, as an individual person, but also what his father has experienced. Hence the veneration of the ancestors, because and where one still felt their direct influence.

Thus there used to be an inner knowledge that the old sages exude from within, that emanates from systems that live below the blood, a knowledge of the whole universe; the knowledge that flows in from within instead of what later in human life gained control over one's blood from the outside. Now the influx from the outside has control over one's blood.

Genesis speaks of people living to be 800 and 900 years old. This can also be explained from what has been said before: in ancient times, not just a person was named with a name, but everything that the ego can encompass; a person who remembered not only what he, but also what his father and grandfather experienced, everything that could be summarized as a common memory, was given a common name. As age diminishes, so does memory, namely everything that is imprinted in the blood of a generation, we have the transition from close marriage to long-distance marriage.

Thus it is already evident in the Bible that whoever has a person's blood has the person himself. What has an effect in people inscribes itself in the blood, insofar as it inscribes itself, so much has the person. Through such combinations of spiritual research as here, through clairvoyance, the deepest cultural possibilities can be considered. It would be impossible for culture to graft a completely alien culture onto an original one. Many believe that this is precisely how it should be expressed in the blood; but this is a mistake.

If, for example, we were to impose our modern culture on the Hindus, we would only wipe out their original culture. If we want to bring the culture of the higher peoples into the lower one, we must know the preconditions; with the ever-increasing racial mixing, the underlying conditions should be considered. It is the purpose of Theosophy to intervene here and to bring about the observance of a correct system. He who would lead men to higher culture must know how to approach the blood of men from without. He cannot bring culture to man unless his blood reacts. Thus the wisdom of the saying is expressed for all culture:

Blood is a very special fluid.

What did Mephistopheles have to do to get to the very depths of Faust? He had to get his blood. He wants to take possession of his blood because he knows what the old legends always emphasize:

If you have his blood, you have his self!

Spiritual research finds that the penetration of this saying shines through into the cultural stages of humanity.

To the discerning eye, everyday things are the greatest mysteries. The deepest science is needed to solve the most mundane things. Natural science provides the basic key to solving many questions. Other questions can only be solved by spiritual science, to which is given the much-abused and much-misunderstood name of Theosophy. The great, gigantic fate that elevates man by crushing him is often called a sum of coincidences. Some grow up without care at their cradle, can only prove little services to their fellow human beings. Others are watched over by a caring love, their abilities are developed, they can lead a satisfying existence and become a useful member of the world. Why? The law of the interlinking of facts, causes and effects, is to be investigated for this.

Let us take a few cases. A person at the age of eighteen chooses a different profession than at the age of twelve. But after eight years, a disharmony arises. He is like an elastic ball that has been compressed and then expands again. This occurs as many years before as after the nodal point. Roughly in the middle of life, at 35 to 37 years of age, there is a kind of turning point. In this way, causes from youth have an effect in old age. In the fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth year, one had youthful ideals that sank into life. This is not the reason for later dallying. Even if they are not fulfilled – for our soul they are not – they become strong forces in our soul. Thus a person grows up who is secure within himself. After mid-life, the fruit of such ideals can be a calm composure.

From seven to fourteen, authority is a vital need. What is true is then not through its reasons, but through a revered authority. There is also a certain emotional life: one takes joy in every flower, for there are divine spiritual beings behind them. From the mid-forties onwards, the opportunity arose to absorb what at that time became a firm character in the freshness of life. These things emerge so deeply as effects because they went so deeply into our soul. Experiences in the seventh year have effects in the evening of a person's life. But if we say: this is beautiful, this is ugly, then practically nothing results for the good of people. We should awaken the soul's need to do this or that. To do this, we delve a little deeper. We draw on this in our old age. We give the child provisions for old age. A great poet says: “What we have recognized with our intellect, we look up to with devotion.” We encounter devotion as an effect at a later age; we later spread an atmosphere of love and bliss.

Such connections are found in spiritual science. They are subject to the law of karma. It is possible to modify the above, for example, by getting married at twenty-three; but that does not overturn the law that governs the change of career at the age of eighteen.

In the seventeenth century, a law applied that has only now been refuted. It was thought that worms, insects and so on grew out of river mud. Today it is taken for granted that an earthworm germ is necessary for this. In the seventeenth century, it was believed that if you beat oxen bodies until they were tender, bees would come out; hornets would come out of horse corpses, and wasps would come out of donkeys. Francesco Redi, who died in Pisa in 1697, said: “Living things can only grow out of living things.” He was considered a formidable heretic.

This is how it is in the spiritual world: spiritual and soul-like qualities are passed on, drawing on the characteristics of the father and mother, thus fulfilling themselves. Now the law of karma is still outlawed; in later times people will not believe that it was ever not believed.

Development takes place between birth and death. Experiences are condensed into an ability, for example the ability to write. The individual experiences are forgotten. Experiences lead to a state of what happens without compulsion.

All sensory impressions, pleasure and pain, sink into unconsciousness during sleep. The soul life is ignited by external stimuli. During sleep there is unconsciousness because external impressions are silent. The spiritual researcher must consciously command silence with his will to the external impressions; but inwardly the soul must be filled with that which is stronger than external impressions. The first act is the emptying of the soul, the second is complete calm, otherwise there is a storm. Then comes the awakening of initiation. At a lower level, it is like someone born blind undergoing an operation. Then come spiritual facts, spiritual beings, then comes hearing and seeing with spiritual ears and eyes. Then comes knowledge of the other members of the human being.

During waking hours, we use up our soul forces; during sleep, we replace them and draw from our home world what replaces the used-up forces. During sleep, experiences are transformed and converted into essence as abilities, for example, of writing. We would never be able to develop if we did not sleep. When we fall asleep, the ego descends into the depths of consciousness. The astral body has its subconscious, the ego rests, the astral body submerges into its own world to transform our experiences. The astral body works in a way that we cannot work, transforming experiences into abilities. The ego cannot take care of its own development, cannot provide relationships with the environment. The ego peels itself out of the entire sphere of the environment. An accident that we do not understand is how the ego, which must renounce, relates to the environment. Accident is everything that can be spatially called sleep.

We step through the gateway of death with the extract.

A burning fire of unquenched longing will consume the human being during the period of purification after death; pleasures are experienced as longing, satisfaction as burning longing. Living back with triple speed. The period of purification is not just like some kind of hell. Not only will beating be experienced, but one will also see how that act was damaging, how it affected perfection. Like tied stones, one will drag them along. This instills the urge to balance these things, to do something good for people. An enormous willpower then drives one back into the world to remove those millstones. After this third of the lifetime has passed, the astral body is discarded, then an extract of the astral and etheric bodies is taken along. Only then do you enter devachan or the realm of heaven. This is like a repetition of childhood, the moment of birth. Then you enter the purely spiritual world. Here there is a confluence of experiences into abilities, into qualities of mind. This is the individual development between death and a new birth.

For some, the experiences of the French Revolution are transformed into wisdom; others have passed by. Think of Penelope and her unravelling of the fabric. Her experiences with the suitors are not transformed into qualities of mind.

The plastic development of the ear belongs to music, the specific development of a part of the brain to calculating. A new archetype is built up in this way. This is linked to a certain sensation; this is the bliss that is experienced in producing, this spiritual life and weaving in the spiritual archetype, weaving into the essence of the substance of the etheric body, like the feeling of warmth in the hen when it lays an egg and in the artist when he is ready to bring a painting onto the canvas. There is bliss in this. Then the urge to overcome obstacles is also woven into it. These are two things: the new abilities and this urge are woven into the new incarnation. Reincarnations only make sense if there is something new on earth to absorb. How different it was what the child learned in Greek and Roman times than today. Just as when an artist has been carrying an image around with him and is urged to put it on canvas, the soul feels the urge to work out its new archetype and to balance.

So two forces determine the soul and guide it to the family and place where the soul can make amends. Perhaps it is not possible to balance everything right away. Eventually the archetype becomes the image of perfect humanity. Then karma has been fulfilled when everything is balanced.

Other people live with us and sooner or later pass through the gate of death. They only reincarnate after centuries, when circumstances have radically changed. Those who live together will be together in the spiritual world. The love for mother and child is at first animalistic, but then a soul bond develops. Insofar as it reaches the spiritual core, there is a continuation in the spiritual world. Longing for love and friendship becomes more intimate and conscious in the spiritual world. Thought is not the son of desire. The spiritual researcher gets used to the desire for what he thinks is the best form in the spiritual world. Then an objective picture emerges; truth is what makes people happy.

It is repeatedly emphasized that Theosophy is not something new, not something that has only come to mankind in our time. But it is particularly interesting that even personalities close to us face it in such a way that we may count them among the spirits we can call “Theosophists”. Alongside Herder, Jean Paul, Novalis and Lessing, Goethe appears as one of the most outstanding Theosophists. Some people, however, might object to this, because there is not much evidence of theosophy in Goethe's works that we know of. In Goethe's time, it was not yet possible to spread esoteric truths throughout the world. The “higher truths” were only disseminated in a limited society, for example, the Rosicrucians. No one who was not prepared was admitted into this society. But those who belonged to it spoke of it in all kinds of allusions. Thus Goethe at the most diverse places of his writings. Only those who are equipped with theosophical wisdom can read Goethe correctly. For example, “Faust” cannot be understood without that.

The “Fairy Tale” is Goethe's apocalypse, his revelation, in whose symbolic representation the deepest secrets are contained. That Goethe reveals his theosophical worldview in the “Fairy Tale” can only be understood if one knows the reason for it. Schiller had invited Goethe to collaborate on the “Horen”. Schiller himself had contributed the essay “On the Aesthetic Education of Man” to this journal. It poses the question: How does the person who lives in the everyday arrive at the highest ideals, at a mediation between the supersensible and the sensible? Schiller saw in beauty a descent of the highest wisdom into the sensible. He was able to express in a wonderfully vivid way what seemed to him to be a bridge leading from the sensual to the supersensual. Goethe now says that he cannot express himself in philosophical terms about the highest questions of existence, but he wants to do so in a great picture. At that time he contributed the “Fairytale” to the Horen, in which he attempted to solve these questions in his own way.

Goethe also expressed himself in a thoroughly theosophical sense elsewhere. He had already incorporated his views into “Faust” in his early youth. Between his studies in Leipzig and his stay in Strasbourg, Goethe received an initiation from a personality who was deeply initiated into the secrets of the Rosicrucians. From that time on, he speaks in a mystical, theosophical language. In the first part of “Faust” there is a strange phrase that is put in quotation marks: “the sage speaks”. Goethe was already attached to the theosophical idea that there are beings among us today who are already further along than the rest of humanity, that they are the leaders of people from supersensible spheres, although they are also embodied in the body. They have attained a knowledge that goes far beyond what can be understood with the senses. The passage in question reads:

Only now do I realize what the wise man says:
'The spiritual world is not closed,
Your mind is closed, your heart is dead!
Rise up, disciple, unwearied,
Bathe the earthly breast in the morning light!

When you get to know Jacob Böhme, you get to know one of the sources from which Goethe drew his theosophical wisdom. [J. Boehme's “Aurora” is the dawn, the astral world.] We can only understand some of Goethe's work if we grasp it in this sense. In the poem “The Divine”, Goethe speaks of the law that we call karma, and also of those exalted beings:

According to eternal, ironclad
great laws
we must all
complete
our existence

Hail to the unknown,
higher beings
we sense!

If anyone now wants real proof of Goethe's theosophical way of thinking, let them read the poem under “God and the World”, called “Howard's Memorial”. The first line reads:

When Gottheit Camarupa high and lofty

— Kama Rupa is the principle of man, the astral body, as we know it from theosophical teachings. When Goethe spoke intimately to those with whom he was united in the lodge, he spoke of ideal divine beings who shine forth as examples for mankind. This was intended for his close circle, for example, what he says in the poem “Symbolum”:

From the other side
the voices of the spirits are calling you,
the voices of the masters
Do not neglect to practise
the forces of good.

He speaks openly of the masters when he speaks intimately to his fellow masons.

But it is the fairy tale of the green snake and the beautiful lily that most profoundly introduces us to his view. In it, we find a depiction of the three realms in which human beings live: the physical, the soul or astral world, and the spiritual world. The symbol for the astral or soul world is water. For Goethe, water always represents the soul. This is the case in his poem about the soul and fate:

Soul of man,
How like thou art to water!
Fate of man,
How like thou art to wind!

He also knew the mental realm that man experiences between two states of embodiment, between death and birth, the Devachan, the realm of the gods. Man strives unceasingly for this realm. He fights here on earth to reach this realm.

The alchemists regarded the chemical processes as a symbol for the striving for this spiritual realm. They call this realm: the realm of the lily. Man is called the lion who fights for this realm, and the lily is the bride of the lion. Goethe also hinted at this in “Faust”:

My father was a dark
man of honor who, in his own way, reflected on nature and its sacred circles
with sincerity, but in a whimsical way;
who, in the company of adepts,
locked himself in the black kitchen
and, according to endless recipes,
he poured together the adverse. Then a red lion, a bold suitor, was married to the lily in the lukewarm bath.

Here Goethe speaks of the marriage of man with the spirit (in the lukewarm bath is in the soul bath. The soul is the water, the red lion is the human being). In the “Fairytale”, Goethe also depicted the three realms: the sensual realm as the one bank; the soul realm as the river; the Devachan — spiritual realm — as the opposite bank, on which the garden of the beautiful lily is located, which symbolically represents the Devachan for the alchemists. Man's entire relationship to the three realms is brought into a symbolically beautiful presentation. We have come over from the spiritual realm and strive back to it. Goethe has a ferryman bring the will-o'-the-wisps from the spiritual realm to the sensual realm. The ferryman can bring everyone across, but not bring them back. We came over without our will, but we cannot go back the same way. We have to work our way back into the spiritual realm.

The will-o'-the-wisps live on gold. They absorb this gold. It penetrates their bodies. But they immediately throw it off in all directions. They want to throw the gold at the ferryman as a reward. But he says that the river cannot tolerate the gold; it would foam up wildly. Gold always represents wisdom. The will-o'-the-wisps are people who seek wisdom but do not unite with its essence, instead regurgitating it undigested. The river represents the soul's life, the sum of human instincts, drives, passions. If the gold of wisdom is carelessly thrown into the river of passions, the soul is disturbed, stirred up.

Goethe always pointed out that man must first undergo catharsis, purification, in order to become ripe for the reception of wisdom. For if wisdom is brought into unpurified passion, the passion becomes fanatical, and people then remain trapped in their lower ego. The ascent of Kama to Manas is dangerous if it is not connected with a sacrifice of the lower self. Regarding this, Goethe says in the “West-Eastern Divan”:

And so long as you do not have this,
this: Die and Become!
If you are only a dull guest
on the dark earth.

The human being must be willing to sacrifice himself.

The will-o'-the-wisps are still caught in the Ahamkara, in the lower self. Wisdom cannot tolerate this. The soul life must slowly be purified and slowly ascend. In the meadow, the will-o'-the-wisps throw gold around. There they meet the snake. It consumes the pieces of gold. It makes them one with itself. It has the power not to make its ego proud and selfish, not to strive upwards in a vertical, arrogant way, but to move in a horizontal line in the crevices of the rocks and gradually to attain perfection. A temple is depicted, which is located in the crevices of the earth. The snake has already been roaming back and forth through it, groping and sensing that mysterious beings dwell there.

But now the old man comes with the lamp. The snake has become luminous because of the gold. The temple is illuminated by its radiance. The old man's lamp has the property that it only shines where there is already light. There it shines with a very special light. So on the one hand there is the snake that has become luminous because of the gold, and on the other hand there is the man with the lamp, which also shines. The light on both sides makes everything visible in the temple. In the corners are four kings, a golden, a silver, a bronze and a mixed king. The snake could only find these by touching them before, but now they have become visible to it through their own glow. They are the three higher principles of man and the four lower ones. The iron king is Atma, the divine Self; the silver king is Budhi, the love through which man can communicate with all men; and the golden king is Manas, the wisdom that radiates out into the world and that can absorb this radiant wisdom.

When man has acquired wisdom unselfishly, he can see things in their true essence without the veil of Maya. The snake now clearly sees the three higher principles of man. The golden king is Manas, just as the gold everywhere signifies Manas. The four lower principles are represented, symbolized, by the mixed king. In the lower principles, too, Atma, Budhi and Manas have moved into the sphere of appearance, but disharmoniously. Only when it is purified does something develop that cannot exist in disharmony. The temple is the place of initiation, the secret school that only those who bring the light themselves, who are as selfless as the snake, can enter. The temple is to be revealed one day, rising above the river. It is the realm of the future, towards which we are all striving. The secret places of learning shall be led up. Everything that man is shall strive upwards, dissolve in harmony, strive towards the higher principles. What was once taught in the mysteries shall become an obvious secret. The wanderers shall go over and across the river, from the sensual to the supersensible world and back again. All people will be united in harmony.

The old man with the lamp represents where man can already gain knowledge today without having reached the summit of wisdom, namely through the powers of piety, of the mind, the powers of faith. Faith needs light from outside if it is to truly lead to the higher mysteries. The serpent and the old man with the lamp have the powers of the spirit, which already guide [the soul] today and lead into the future. He who already feels these powers today knows this from certain secrets. The old man therefore says that he knows three secrets. But the fourth secret is spoken of in the strangest way. The serpent hisses something in his ear. Then the old man calls out:

The time has come!

The time has come when a great multitude of people will have grasped which is the way. The serpent has said that it is ready to sacrifice itself. It has reached the point where it has recognized that the human being must first die in order to become:

And so long as you do not have this,
this: Die and become!
If you are only a dull guest
on the dark earth.

To be in the full sense of the word, man can only through love, devotion, sacrifice. The snake is ready for that. This will be revealed when man is ready for this sacrifice. Then the temple will stand by the river. The will-o'-the wisp have not been able to pay off their debt; they had to promise the ferryman to pay it later. The river only takes the fruits of the earth: three cabbages, three onions, three artichokes. The will-o'-the wisp come to the old man's wife and behave very strangely there. They have licked up the gold from the walls. They want to stuff themselves full of wisdom and give it back. The pug dog eats some of the gold and dies, as all living things must perish from it. It cannot absorb the wisdom as the snake absorbs and transforms it, so it has a killing effect. The old woman has to promise the will-o'-the-wisps to pay off her debt to the ferryman.

When the old man comes home with the lamp, he sees what has happened. He tells the old woman to keep her promise, but also to take the dead pug to the beautiful lily because she brings everything dead back to life. The old woman goes to the ferryman with the basket. There she encounters two strange things. She finds the great giant on the way, who has the peculiarity of letting his shadow cross the river in the evening, so that the traveler can then cross the river on his shadow. In addition, the path over is conveyed when the snake arches over at midday. The giant can mediate the transition, but so can the snake when the sun is at its highest, when man elevates his ego to the divine through the shining sun of knowledge. In the solemn moments of life, in the moments of complete selflessness, man unites with the deity.

The giant is the rough physical development that man must go through. He also comes into the realm of the beyond through this; but only in the twilight, when his consciousness is extinguished. But this is a dangerous path, taken by those who develop psychic powers within themselves, who put themselves into a trance state. This transition happens in the twilight of the trance state. Schiller also once wrote about the shadow of the giant. These are the dark forces that lead man over.

When the old woman passes the giant, the giant steals a cabbage head, an onion and an artichoke, so that the old woman only has part of them, which she wants to use to pay off the debt of the will-o'-the-wisps. The number three is therefore no longer complete. What we need and have to weave into our soul life is taken away from us by the twilight forces. There is something dangerous in giving oneself to these. The lower forces must be purified by the soul. Only then can the body ascend when the soul fully absorbs it. Everything that surrounds an inner core in the form of shells is a symbol for the human being's shells. Indian allegory refers to these shells as the leaves of the lotus flower. The human physical nature must be purified in the soul. We have to pay off, surrender the lower principles to the soul life. We have expressed the paying off of the debt in the fact that the river has to be paid off. That is the whole process of karma.

Since the river is not satisfied with the payment of the old woman, she has to dip her hand into the river. After that, she can only feel the hand, but no longer see it. That which is external and sensual to us humans, what is visible about a person, is the body; it must be purified by the soul life. This symbolizes that if a person cannot atone for it in the nature of the plant, he must commit a guilt. Then the actual physical nature of the person becomes invisible. Because the old woman cannot atone for her guilt, she becomes invisible. The I can only be seen in the splendor of the day when it is purified by the soul life. The old woman says: Oh, my hand, which is the most beautiful thing about me. It is precisely that which distinguishes man from the animal, that which shines through him as spirit, becomes invisible if he has not purified it through karma.

The beautiful youth had aspired to the realm of the lily – spirituality – and the beautiful lily had paralyzed him. By this, Goethe means the ancient truth that man must first be purified, must first have undergone catharsis, so that he no longer reaches wisdom through guilt, so that he can absorb the splendor of higher spirituality within himself. The youth had not yet been prepared by the purification. All living things that are not yet ripe are killed by the lily. All dead things that have gone through the “Stirb und Werde” are revived by the lily. Goethe now says that one is ripe for freedom who has first freed himself within. Jakob Böhme also says that man must develop out of the lower principles.

He who does not die before he dies
Will perish if he dies.

Man must first mature, must first be purified before he can enter the realm of the spirit, the lily. In the ancient mysteries, man had to pass through stages of purification before he could become a mystic. The youth must first pass through these stages. They lead him to the lily.

The snake signifies development. We see those who are seeking the new path, all those who are striving towards spirituality, gathered around the lily. But first the temple must rise above the river. All move towards the river, the will-o'-the-wisps in front; they unlock the gate. Selfish wisdom is the bridge to selfless wisdom. Through the self, wisdom leads to selflessness. The snake has sacrificed itself. Now one understands what love is, a sacrifice of the lower self for the good of humanity, full brotherhood.

The entire assembly moves towards the temple. The temple rises above the river. The youth is resurrected. He is endowed with Atma, Budhi and Manas. Atma, in the form of the brazen king, steps before the youth and hands him the sword. It is the highest will, not mixed with the others. Atma should work in man so that the sword is on the left and the right is free. Before that, man works in particularity, the war of all against all. But now, when man is purified, peace will take the place of struggle, the sword on the left for protection, the right free to do good.

The second king represents what is known to us as the second principle, as the Budhi – piety, mind, through which man turns to the Highest in faith. Silver is the symbol of piety. The second king says:

Feed the sheep,

because we are dealing here with the power of the mind. The appearance here is the appearance of beauty. Goethe associated a religious reverence with art. He saw in art the revelation of the divine, the realm of beautiful appearance is the realm of piety. The brazen king signifies – without the lower principles – power, the silver king peace, the golden king wisdom. He says:

Recognize the Supreme.

The youth is the four-principled man who develops into the higher principles. The four principles are paralyzed by the spirit before they have undergone the purifying development. Then the three higher principles work in harmony in man. Then he will be strong and powerful; then he may marry the lily. This is the marriage between the soul and the spirit of man. The soul has always been represented as something feminine; the mystery of the eternal, the immortal, is presented here.

The eternal feminine draws us up.

Goethe used the same image here in the “Fairytale”, when the young man marries the beautiful lily.

Now all that is alive passes over the vaulting bridge from the sacrificed human self. Wayfarers pass over and across. All the kingdoms are now connected in beautiful harmony. The old woman is rejuvenated, as is the old man with the lamp; the old has passed away and everything has become new. The ferryman's small hut is now included in the temple in a silver-plated state as a kind of altar. What unconsciously took man across before now takes him across in the conscious state. The composite king has collapsed. The jack-o'-lanterns licked out the gold, for they are still directed towards the low. The giant now indicates the time. What used to be the sensual principle, what led across in the twilight hour, what is sensual, what belongs to the state of nature, now indicates the evenly passing time. As long as man has not developed the three higher principles, the past and the future are in conflict. The giant can then only work in an inharmonious way. Now time has become something harmonious in this ideal state.

The thought fastens that which fluctuates in a lasting way, which is expressed in the following words:

And that which floats in fluctuating appearance
is fastened with lasting thoughts.

What is seen in the Pythagorean school as the rhythm of the universe, the music of the spheres, the sounding of the planets that move rhythmically around the sun, arises through the realization of the divine thought. For the mystic, a planet was a being of a higher order. This is why Goethe also says:

The sun resounds in the ancient way
In the singing of the spheres,
And completes its prescribed journey
With a thunderclap.

That man has the ability within himself to develop to the highest divine, he says in the words:

If the eye were not like the sun,
It could never behold the sun;
If the power of God were not in us,
How could we, being divine, be enraptured?

I. Report in the “Mühlheimer Zeitung” of March 20, 1905

On Saturday evening, Dr. Rudolf Steiner, Berlin, General Secretary of the German Section of the Theosophical Society, spoke on 'Goethe's Faust in the Light of the Theosophical World View'. The speaker explained that Goethe cannot be grasped in the full depth of his life's work if Faust is seen only as the poetic expression of the outer life around us and of the soul life in its outer phenomena. Faust offers infinitely more; it aims to provide a picture of the development of man and his place in the world and the universe. Goethe had insight into the teachings of mysticism, which coincide with those of theosophy; in the sense of mysticism, he had given in his Faust a picture of the human being, his development and ascent. He had reproduced the ancient teachings as only a poet could reproduce them, namely in the representation of a poet, and in doing so, he had made use of mystical terminology. Goethe was familiar with the ancient division of the universe into a physical, a mental and a spiritual world, and it was clear to him that man is also composed of three parts: a physical, a mental and a spiritual one. He therefore understood the human being as a microcosm in which the image of the universe, the macrocosm, was reflected. The ancient wisdom teachings of the Indians, Egyptians, Persians and Greeks understood the development of the human being in the same way as Goethe. He paid homage to the view that the human soul was there from the very beginning, that it had developed through all the realms of nature and become the creator of these realms, that on this journey of development through the most diverse states, it had created man in his present form and was now striving to spiritualize him further. To make clear this view of the work of Goethe, the speaker pointed to the many expressions of mystical terminology scattered throughout Faust, such as the passage in the prologue in heaven, which cannot be understood in any other way than in a mystical sense:

The sun resounds according to ancient custom
In the song-contests of the spheres of the brothers,
And its ordained journey
It completes with a thunderclap.

These processes, which can only be perceived in the world of the spirit, where the ear of the spirit listens and the eye of the seer can no longer follow, not to mention the physical eye – they are referred to in mysticism as sounding or resounding. In the first act of the second part, Ariel calls the organ that is to be understood as the organ of perception in these worlds the “ear of the spirit”. Ariel speaks:

Hark! Hark! The hoar-hounds howl!
The new-born day is breaking
For the ears of spirits.
The gates of rocks are creaking and cracking;
The wheels of Phoebus are rolling and clattering;
What a tumult the light brings!
It trumpets, it trombone;
Eye blinks and ear astonishes,
Unheard of does not listen.

The first part of the tragedy, as Dr. Steiner explained, presents man to us in the struggle with the lower physical passions. In the second part, we are shown the development of his soul and his ascent into the purely spiritual. Mephisto is the principle of desire and longing until the soul incites to higher life. The realm of the mothers is understood to mean the spiritual realm, to which Faust descends to attain the spiritual archetypes of things (Helena as a symbol of beauty). In Homunculus, the soul's journey of development is shown through the realms of nature; in Euphorion, the moment of higher enlightenment, which comes to us in happy hours and suddenly disappears again, etc. The captivating explanations, of which we have only been able to reproduce a few here, were met with much applause.

II. Report in the “Kölnische Zeitung” of March 22, 1905

On Saturday evening in the Isabellensaal of the Gürzenich, Dr. Rudolf Steiner of Berlin gave a lecture on “Goethe's Faust, a Picture of His World View from a Theosophical Point of View”. The speaker often uses a mystically opaque mode of expression; in the course of his hour-long speech, he wove into his inwardly spiritualized presentation, which developed in broad strokes into a journey through Goethe's life's work, viewed from a theosophical perspective, reflections on the history and essence of Theosophy. Even though the Theosophical Society as such has existed only for 30 years, the spirit of the world view had already been active first in esoteric Buddhism and later in the most important minds of the Orient and the Occident at all times. From individual basic ideas of the theosophical doctrine, Redrier spread, as in earlier lectures, over the three worlds of theosophy, life, soul and spirit. Regarding the subject itself, he said that Goethe's poem of life could only be understood if one illuminated it with what the theosophical world view meant, which he had expressed in a special way in the secrets and fairy tales of the green snake and the beautiful lily. With advancing age, he had become more and more absorbed in this world and realized that when we know the world, we also know the fragmented details of our being; there is no end to knowledge, only degrees. That is why Goethe had to end Faust as a mystic, after saying in his youth, “A good man in his dark urges is well aware of the right path.” After the speaker had considered the prologue from the mystic's point of view, he described Faust in the first part as tired of the sensual world; all the sciences of the mind did not satisfy him, in his innermost being there was a yearning for a spiritual world in the sense of mysticism. That is why Goethe lets Faust reach the earth spirit in the flame and recognize at the end of the first part that true self-knowledge is knowledge of the world. In the second part, he lets Faust get to know the three worlds of the theosophist. The imperial court embodies the great sensual world – Mephisto, “the impulse of development,” repeatedly draws him back into it – the mothers are the soul principle that is fertilized so that the higher human being may be born in the human being. The mystic also said to the materialist: “In your nothingness, I hope to find the All.” The homunculus, which can also only be understood mystically, is the representative of mystical clairvoyance, the birth and downfall of Euphorion are the mystical moments of celebration that quickly fade away. Finally, it was explained how Faust becomes completely independent of the sensual world, how he goes blind, how darkness is around him, but there is bright light within him. The “Chorus mysticus” is a Goethean creed. The lecture was very well received and was followed by a stimulating discussion.

With the Apocalypse we enter into the deepest depths of the Christian world view. Every great religion has had its secret teachers, and so has Christianity. Above all, we must be clear about the nature of the secret teaching. The Apocalypse is nothing other than the Christian secret teaching. We only have to understand the key words: “Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.” This is the core of Christianity. Believing and seeing are two opposites. Christianity should also bring bliss to those who believe even if they do not see. The great mystery at Golgotha had its harbingers in the earlier human races. Even in the ancient mysteries, as long as our root race is on earth, something was celebrated in secret temple sites, something was shown to people that was nothing other than the mystery of God's deeds in the world.

We accompany our ancestors to the places that were most sacred to them. There they were shown how the God Himself descends to Earth, how He merges with material existence. This is called the crucifixion of the deity in the earthly. This was depicted in such a way that a human form was placed in a kind of coffin; this meant that the deity entered matter. It was then shown that the human being must perfect himself; then he would find God within himself. This is the same power that is crucified in matter and can therefore be reborn out of matter.

Everything that has become religion, art and science has emerged from the mysteries. The mysteries were a pictorial representation of what later took place at Golgotha. The drama of God developed more and more in its details. If one could follow what the temple priest said to the temple student, one would hear roughly the same thing that is written in the Gospel of John. It had condensed into a canon. The Christian gospels are ancient temple records. The teaching was taken from the depths of the temples. It is nothing new. This is hinted at in the gospels, especially in John. What the disciple saw in the temple was intended to depict what had happened in the world. This was depicted in this one testament. What was depicted in the temple site is expressed by John:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not.

The student who was admitted to the mysteries could see in them an image of the great mystery of the world. What had been presented in the mysteries had actually taken place in Palestine. Christianity is a fulfillment. It has emerged onto the historical stage; the temple documents were kept secret. Those who were admitted to the mysteries had to take a sacred oath not to reveal any of it to the uninitiated. Today, any science can appropriate knowledge, but the ancients said: Only a pure heart may know, in an impure heart knowledge becomes an evil power. Only those who could communicate the word of knowledge from a worthy heart and feeling to others were allowed to know. Only the word of knowledge that was warmed through by good, pure and noble feeling was respected. The temple records were the secret revelation for the disciples of the mysteries.

Now Christ had truly been revealed. Through this, Christianity was brought out of the temples and onto the world stage for the whole world. Those who believed without looking into the temples were also to be blessed. For thousands of years, a secret teaching was proclaimed in the temples; this was revealed through the appearance of Christ.

The initiates were to work in such a way that people would be prepared for the future. The prophets were initiated into the mysteries. Every content of initiation is revealed later. At that same moment, new content is given for a new future. Christ himself performed such an initiation in the miracle of Lazarus. The Gospel had been revealed through Christianity, it had become a message. A new secret teaching now developed in early Christianity. Outside, the content of the Gospels was proclaimed, the suffering, the resurrection. But in the mysteries, events of the future were presented. Even today there are still Christian mysteries. They depict what is to happen in the distant future.

Christ is what is called in Theosophy the second entity of the divine Trinity. This consists of the three entities: God the Father, the Word and the Holy Spirit. The Father is that towards which everything strives, the entity towards which the whole unknown universe is moving. The Word is the guide to the Father. It was seen in all worlds as that which leads to the Father. 'Veda' means 'the Word'. The most ancient records of the Indians were called the 'Vedas'. The Indian knew that his Rishis - his teachers - were inspired; they imparted the 'Vedas', the 'Word', which was inspired by the Deity, the Word from which the world originated. In ancient India the Word was not something external. It reflected the essence of the object.

The ancient Germans had a runic writing system; in ancient times, when a person pronounced the name of a thing, he knew that the thing had come into being from the word. That is why we find the unpronounceable name of God among the Jews, because it was the essence itself. That is why the actual name of God - Yahweh - was only used on the most solemn occasions and for the most solemn actions.

The ancient peoples said to themselves: The world was created by the word, the Logos. The word once excited world vibrations, rhythmic movements from which the world emerged. The third divine essence is that which the word can grasp, which gives strength to strive up to the Father. The Word, the divine power of creation, the second link in the divine trinity, has taken on human form.

And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

Man will not always appear in this coarse material form; the development of man in the flesh is the fourth round or cycle. Before that, man was in a freer material form and remained in a completely different kind of existence for three cycles. But the abilities he now has, he could only acquire in the flesh. He must now develop upwards again through finer materials.

The sixth cycle will be special. He will then be in a more refined matter. Today we can only embody the word in physical air vibrations. Only insofar as I express my being in the word does it come to another. But in the sixth cycle we will consist of a finer substance, so that we will reproduce our whole being outwardly in vibrations and reveal our whole being to all people. Today, the human being can hide much through gross materiality. But then, in the sixth round, we will be entirely vibration, entirely sound, beings that communicate with the environment in rhythmic or non-rhythmic waves. Then the word, the name of the human being, is external physicality. Now the human being cannot communicate his entire being to the outside world. But there have always been beings who are superhuman, like the word itself; these can be in the flesh in the fourth cycle, which the others will be in the sixth cycle. The word has already become flesh in Christ. What can take place for human beings in the sixth cycle has been realized in the fourth cycle through Christ in humanity. This is the mystery of the Incarnation of the Logos.

The goal of man is: You shall develop to such an extent that you can turn your whole being outwards. That is the following of Christ. In the sixth cycle, man is to become what Christ exemplified in the fourth cycle. Clement Alexandrinus, Origen, were Christian initiates and imbued with the full significance of the goal, that a millennium, a cycle, must come when man will have the opportunity to be an outward seal imprint of Christ living in the flesh. Thus, a dormant Christ principle is hidden in man. In order for this to become manifest, the human being must pass through various states. This was presented in the first Christian mysteries. We find this in the first chapters of the Apocalypse. The “firstborn from the dead” means that he was the model in the fourth round of what it means to live the whole word in such a way that it will be revealed.

Human development is much older than history. Our present root race - [the Aryan,] the fifth - developed in its first sub-race in present-day India. The Indian religious books were written only in much later times. In the beginning, nothing external about the development of humanity was entrusted to man. This was guided by the old Rishis to a religious belief that was wonderfully monotheistic. The second sub-race - the Persians - developed a religion based on the principle of duality; however, this was not written down until much later. In the third sub-race, a three-part deity was recognized, especially in Egypt. This had an effect on the preceding races. Only now were the Vedas written down. The mysteries were shown in the Egyptian pyramid temples, and the gospels were taken from there. The flight to Egypt indicates this.

The third sub-race is followed by the fourth, the Greco-Roman sub-race, in which Christianity developed; then the scientific world view developed in place of the religious one; the culture of the intellect developed from the eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Like a swan song, something of the old world view still lies in that time, with which the new world view was linked at that time.

The emergence of the innermost being of man before other people is what the creed of Christ must become. Those who can fully understand that Christ belongs to the world will be the twenty-four elders who worship the Lamb, Christ. In the future, in the sixth root race, some will be able to worship the Lamb in all its significance. Then man can mingle with those who worship the Lamb. This is represented by the symbol of the four beasts – lion, cow, man and eagle – who worship among the elders.

In addition to the physical body, man also has an astral body. This is not as developed as the physical body. In relation to the physical body, man is similar to God; the human race will only become more beautiful. The further perfection will be that he will perfect the astral body. Sensation, feeling and the like will become more perfect. This happens in the fifth cycle. We are still facing this cycle. Now the human being's astral body is not yet so far developed. Only the physical body is developed now. In the astral body, he only becomes a human being in the fifth cycle. There, where the human being lies before the Lamb, adoring, he does not yet stand as a complete human being. There he has one of the forms of animality. He has gained this astral form of man through earlier stages of development. Certain qualities of animality are expressed in the races. Courage is represented by the lion, sensual creativity by the ox, the cow; man represents the lower man, the Kama-Manas man, who rises above the earthly. These are not yet god-like. Men mingle with the god-like and are symbolized by the four animals; that is the point at which man will have arrived in the sixth root race, after a destruction has once more swept over the earth.

Now John describes more distant, later conditions. The messages are sent to the seven churches. The races not only live one after the other, but also next to each other. They also all have leading personalities, of whom history tells nothing.

The various schools that have fulfilled their task and now still rigidly and conservatively adhere to their task, but which must hand over their mission to humanity, are the seven communities. These receive the seven letters. The apocalypticism first clears away the old secret teachings to make way for the new secret teaching. The message to the seven churches is: You can no longer be guides, now a new revelation must come, a new church.

The apocalyptic also described the three subsequent rounds. These rounds cannot be seen with astral clairvoyance, but only when a person enters the world of Devachan, the mental world. When a person has reached that stage, he sees in spirit. When a person enters this world of Devachan, he does not see, but he hears. He is clairaudient there. 'Clairaudient' is the term we use for the spiritual world. There he hears the music of the spheres, which was spoken of in the schools of the Pythagoreans. Goethe also alludes to the sounds when he speaks of the spirit. 'The sun resounds', says Goethe. This indicates the audible state, as it is in Devachan. “The sight of it gives strength to the angels.” The angels are the spiritual beings who preside over the planets. If you want to see how a cycle unfolds, you have to recognize in the world that which resounds; the apocalypticist indicates these world cycles in the trumpets of the angels.

In the sixth round, the whole being will now be clearly revealed before everyone. But even before the sixth round begins, man can develop the Christ principle out of himself. What used to be external has become an ability in man through internalization, involution. Externalization, the evolution in the great world laws, and internalization, involution, are related to each other as exhalation and inhalation. As man passes through the races, he assimilates that which lives around him. All have passed through the ancient Indian period, then through all the other sub-races, and so they will live in the time when they will lie in adoration at the feet of the Lamb. The seven seals will be broken when man has come to the knowledge of himself, to the worship of Christ. Then the book will be unsealed. Because John indicates that this is still before the seventh race, he first has six seals opened; only later the seventh seal, when man has progressed even further in his development.

Initially, people became acquainted with their religion through the scriptures, which they understood literally. Today, it is considered enlightened to have outgrown religious documents. Regarding the Old Testament, it has always been said that it is impossible to reconcile the biblical concepts with an enlightened consciousness. People started to understand the scriptures figuratively; they still held on to the symbols. This understanding of biblical symbolism then led people to still take the biblical spirit with a certain seriousness. But even theologians today can hardly decide on anything other than to take the first chapters of the Old Testament only as a figurative representation. A rather cozy view can arise from it, but as man progresses, he cannot remain with this view. It is a kind of path of development: first to move away from the orthodox view, then from the figurative view and to move on to another, again in a sense literal view.

But for this we must learn to understand the language of the old wisdom teachings and recognize that the old teachers did not invent stories, did not create fantasies, but that they had a different conception of the truth than we have today. They wrote down the eternal truth in their teachings. This cannot be brought directly to every person, while the sensual truth can be brought to everyone.

The great teachers of old had themselves undergone an inner development. Their vision was a spiritual one. They knew that what they saw in the spirit could not be seen by everyone around them. The nations were still childlike in their perception. Accordingly, the great truths had to be given to them in a special form suitable for their understanding. Now all great teachers approached people with the awareness that the soul is immortal. It must be developed towards the truth. Moses, for example, knew that when he linked to the ideas of the people, he was planting something lasting in the soul, in the causal body. The materialistic thinker believes that the soul perishes at death. But Moses said to himself: If I communicate the truth to man today in a certain form, it will have an effect in his soul. Later he will be ripe to recognize the truth in its true form. Moses knew that later others would come who would interpret what he taught. He prepared the form. That which he prepared has gone through the incarnations of the souls. He did not consider it right to tell people the final form of the truth right away.

He himself had the truth in the background. He expressed this in the seven days of creation. He brought the truth into the form that corresponded to people's childlike understanding at the time. If he had spoken of the “round” days, he would not have been understood. He therefore spoke of days, as in ancient India one speaks of the days and nights of Brahma.

On the moon, man had a dream-like consciousness. There he had developed dream consciousness to its highest level. Each of us had come there in a kind of germinal state; there he had perceived in a dream-like way, absorbed it and developed it into a germ. These germs slept over from the moon to the earth. A spiritual germ was the human being who came to earth. He had slept through a [pralaya] into the earthly state.

Now his destiny is to come to clear consciousness. He has to go through a long series of states. In the first three rounds, what he had gone through on earlier planets was repeated. Moses speaks of the rounds. During the first round, man is in the first elementary realm. The dream state gently transitions into a state that man has now reached. The moon man did not distinguish between himself and the other objects. For him there was a dream-like pictorial reality in the way the external world is there for us in a dream. He did not perceive through the senses. The contrast between himself and his world was to be developed by man in the first round on earth. Moses calls it the difference between heaven and earth. He was to recognize himself as an earthling next to heaven. That is what happens in the first cycle of development.

In the beginning God created heaven and earth. The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep.

Man did not distinguish between himself and the individual objects. It was all still chaos. Then, after the first round, man went through an intermediate state again and then came to the second round. There the objects already got more definite boundaries. He can already distinguish what is around him. It is no longer desolate and confused. He can distinguish between what is spiritual and what is an external object. Before that it was dark on the face of the deep; the Spirit of God hovered over the waters. All that was human was water. The human germs together formed the waters. The Spirit of God brooded over the human germs, which He called forth into forms. There was light.

As soon as we see the outside world, when the entities confront us, only then can they reveal themselves to us. There was light.

God divided the light from the darkness; he made day and night. [Genesis 1:5]

Man perceived the objects. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

Now followed the Rupic round, the formative round, in which one could perceive existence. There shall be a difference between the waters; each should have its own Kama. Every single human being was set apart by God setting a boundary and dividing the waters above and below the firmament. He implanted in the individual human germ the ability to distinguish between the spiritual and the physical. The two souls were laid in the human being; the soul that looks up and the soul that looks into the earthly, that lives in the earthly.

In the third round, man enters the third elementary realm. The individual astral bodies of human beings became more and more distinct. Now man becomes independent. He steps out of the mother soil of the earth. He reaches the plant existence. These are not our present plants. Man was in the plant existence himself. All the separated astral bodies gained the ability to bring forth astral beings like the plant. During the third round, man was called to the animal existence, but in a plant-like nature, because the animal had not yet developed the body of passion. He had no warm blood yet. This was formed in the third round of the third elementary realm. The insemination indicates that fertilization has not yet taken place.

God said: Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together to one place, and let the dry land appear.

In the beginning, the astral body was not visible. Now it is becoming distinct. The dry land is only the special, more solid form that forms a boundary around itself. The gathering of the waters signifies the general astral world in its entirety.

And God said, “Let the earth bring forth grass and herbs.” [Genesis 1:11]

This was man. The ancient Germans also believed that man emerged from ash and elm, and the ancient Persians also believed that man emerged from a tree.

And have his own seed with himself [...] [Genesis 1:11]

means that each species carried its own seeds within itself and that there was no sexual reproduction.

The fourth round is the one in which the physical human being prepares himself as he is now. Man entered the mineral kingdom, he took on a body that was subject to chemical and physical laws. In the next round, he will no longer have that, but will then control his astral body just as he now controls his physical body. He will then have astral organs, he will be able to develop his organs himself when he needs them, when the astral body will control everything physical. But now, in the fourth round, man can only act with regard to the laws of the mineral world. In the physical, mineral body we are enclosed as in a house. It was only through our becoming physical ourselves that the whole world became physical. Previously, he gained knowledge of the world around him through a kind of clairvoyance. With the fourth round, the whole world of sensual objects has emerged around him. Moses could therefore say:

There are lights in the firmament of the heaven, which divide the day and the night, and give signs, times, days, and years. [Genesis 1:14]

Kant says that space and time come from man himself. Moses said that even then. Everything that can be perceived by the senses only came into being when man became physical, mineral. Through the physical round, we make the mineral body more and more perfect and also develop our astral body. In the next round, it will be developed in the same way as the physical body is today. Man will then float as if in an airy realm. Then man will have become a free being, then he will truly have become an animal being. Only then will animality be expressed in man. The astral body of man is meant here in the image of animals because the astral man moves freely in the astral world, like whales in the water, birds in the air and so on. - That is the fifth round or the fifth day.

In the sixth round, the human Kama-Manas body is formed, the lower mind body, which we now wear hidden in the physical shell. In the sixth round, man will stand as a human being in the true sense of the word, no longer enclosed in a shell. At the same time, the higher animals are formed with man. The Kama-Manas body then reaches the higher level of animal life.

And God said, “Let us make man in our image, in the likeness of ourselves: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

Only then will man become what he is meant to become.

So God created man in his own image, in the likeness of himself; male and female he created them.

Through sexuality, the human being develops into a being that will be male and female. The original text reads: He created man male-female. Only now does man truly gain dominion over the animals. He only acquires power, magic, when the actual human being is liberated on the sixth day. - On the seventh day, man had become God-like. In the seventh round, man is in the aupa state again; he has become creative himself, has become God himself, hence it says:

God rested on the seventh day. [Genesis 2:2]

The fourth round is the most important for human life. Man used to be less dense. Moses says:

He took the solid substances of the earth. [corresponds to Genesis 2:7]

He was surrounded by dust. He adopted the mineral laws. He was formed from the dust of the earth, and the living soul was formed in him. When the human being in the Lemurian race acquired solid forms — a skeleton — sexuality also arose. The solidification went hand in hand with the division into the sexes. In the second chapter, Moses describes the human being who later emerged in the Lemurian race, in the two-sexedness. This was taught in all mysteries. It was only in the fourth round that the plant and animal forms emerged as they are today. During the development of man, the plants and animals split off from him. The lower animals had arisen before. Warm-blooded animals only arose with humans. The animals developed as a result of retarded humans splitting off. The animals are the decadent human nature. They no longer fit into today's conditions. They are creatures that have remained at earlier stages. The original animal forms split off first, only then did the two sexes of humans arise.

In the beginning, man used his entire productive power externally. In the beginning, man reproduced from within himself. When he had lost the ability to penetrate dense matter, he used half of his productive power as a thinking organ.

On the one hand, man became a sexual being, while on the other, he developed half of his productive power internally into a thinking organ. He now acquired the ability to process the spirit with his brain. The spirit now fertilized him. At the same time as the division into two sexes, the thinking human being emerged. He recognized good and evil. During this period, the spinal cord and the brain also developed.

This is the snake that originated in man himself. He went through the amphibian stage. This being was his own seducer. It began to develop with the beginning of its passage through sexuality. Spinal cord and brain first developed in amphibians, and in man in the amphibious state.

Anyone who wants to know the origin of the Catholic Mass must trace it back historically to the mysteries. Mysteries are places of worship in which higher knowledge is not only taught and acquired, but in which the phenomena in question are also demonstrated. The mysteries have taken on a particularly popular form in the currents of worship that came from Persia and Egypt. It is from these that the mass has emerged.

Anyone who wanted to gain knowledge of higher worlds before the appearance of Christ had to be accepted as a student in a secret school. He first had to learn how the world and man came into being. He was introduced to an examination of the origin of the world and the significance of man within the world. He was taught how the divine world spirit has taken shape everywhere. Minerals, plants, animals and so on were seen as formations of the world spirit. Man is a confluence of all that is in the world. Paracelsus once said: All entities of the world are letters, and man is the word in which all these are found. Man is the microcosm in the macrocosm.

The disciple was taught how the Divine Being splits into many details, only to be reunited in man. The disciple was allowed to experience this splitting of the Divine and the return to man.

Man has brought low desires, passions and instincts into the world. The lower animal forms are decadent products of man. Everything that is expressed in animals by lower passions has been brought into the world by man. An original state of the world was as we now see it realized in the mineral world. The gem has no desire, no craving, no wish; the gem is chaste and undemanding. If you imagine the other entities with the same chaste and undemanding nature, you have the ideal of the secret disciple. He had to awaken in him the feeling: You must become again as pure, desireless creation, which has emerged so chaste from the hand of the Creator. He sacrificed everything lower - that was the “catharsis”, the purification of instincts, desires, passions - this corresponds to the “sacrifice” or “oblatio” in the Mass, the second part of the Mass.

The first part is the proclamation or the “Gospel”, where the message of the dissolution of the world spirit in nature is imparted, the intellectual insight into how the world has come into being. This is followed by the second part, the sacrifice. The secret disciple had to have the will to retrace the path to the original chaste form of creation. When he was ready for this, he was admitted to the actual mysteries. In the Egyptian mysteries, he then had to spend three days alone in a locked room and was placed in a state of consciousness in which he could have higher types of perception. He now experienced the descent of the god into the world and the distribution in the world of souls or the astral world, after he himself was ready to sacrifice himself in a similar way.

He first experienced an image that was clear to him through a sure realization: This was once you, in the time when you were still without drives and passions, when you were still without desire. He saw his own image in the distant past, a human image on a higher level. The second was that he saw how this human image on a higher level gave rise to a male human image, whose face shone like the sun. This was Osiris. He saw the emergence of Osiris from the primeval man, surrounded by a radiant aura. From the second image, the present form was then created after a second entity had been separated - Isis - and Horus, the present human being, was born. Now he was an awakened soul.

In the present human being, when he lies asleep, one has first the physical body, then the etheric body and further on the actual aura that lifts out of the sleeping person. The person is in his aura; he has then left his physical body. In the depths of the temple mysteries, the secret disciple consciously experienced the described states in the astral body. He was then a “transformed, a ”consecrated one. He who is transformed in this way perceives the light phenomena of the lower beings.

This process was the third step of the mysteries, the ‹transformation› of man into his astral form. Then the secret student had realized: Just as you have seen the Osiris, you were once like that too; you were astral and then became physical; a second time you should plan to become embodied. By free decision the soul should return to the physical body. When he came out of the mysteries again, he should consciously carry the physical body with him. Now he also received a new name. He felt that this was his eternal name. Each of us has such a name, which he carries in all his incarnations. The initiate carried this eternal name. He had voluntarily incarnated in his body. The human being now speaks “I” to his own body. But the initiate knew that he is not the same as his body. He carries his body on his back. Such a one is crucified in his body; he is the one crucified in matter. Now he steps out and consciously does all the things he used to do unconsciously. This union with the body was called 'communion', the fourth process in the mysteries. He who is thus transformed and reunited with his body is a true initiate.

Now Christ appeared on earth. This appearance of Christ on earth meant that what had previously taken place in the mysteries now took place before the world in physical space. In the past, individuals had gone through the mysteries. All this had now become a historical event, a real historical event in the sacrificial death of Christ Jesus. Now Christ Jesus has established a memorial in remembrance of these mysteries. Those who joined Christ no longer needed to look. To look means to “look into a mystery”. Those who were to come to inner knowledge no longer had to learn to look through the mysteries. They could remain with the external sign. This external sign has a deeper meaning.

The three highest members of the human being are Atma, Budhi and Manas. In the past, when one spoke of “man”, one spoke of Atma, Budhi and Manas. At that time everyone believed that each life was only one in a long series among many, and that it was a life earned. Man was steeped in this. At the same time, there was something about the personal life that man basically looked beyond. He did not attach great value to it.

The task of the first two millennia after Christ was to educate humanity for the higher self through KamaManas. The personal life should be taken seriously and with grandeur. Man spends about two millennia in Devachan. During this period, all of humanity will pass through an incarnation in which value is placed on the personal.

Christ went with Peter, James and John to the mountain - that is, to the sanctuary. This was the introduction to devachanic vision. There they saw Moses and Elijah beside Jesus. 'El' - in 'Elijah' - means 'the way', Moses is called 'the truth' - the moral truth - and Jesus is 'life'. Jesus says to his disciples: 'Elijah has appeared again. John was this Elijah. He told them further: But do not tell until I reappear. They should not speak of the doctrine of reincarnation until he would come back in a new world cycle. For two millennia, the world should get to know the value of the personal. That which runs through from one incarnation of man to another is the finer matter of man, the water, the spiritual. This is also referred to in: “The Spirit of God brooded over the waters,” the waters - the people. The impersonal man is symbolized by the water.

Wine is the symbol for the personal man. Christ transforms the water into wine. He transformed an impersonal religion into a religion of the personality. Just as water turns into wine, so does the impersonal nature of man turn into the personal. He who can grasp the teaching of reincarnation and wants to rise above personality must abstain from wine. He who enjoys wine will never arrive at an understanding of what is impersonal in man.

The lower body should be ennobled and glorified, which is why Christianity should live without the doctrine of reincarnation for two millennia. Christ had appeared to sanctify the personality. As a sign that Christ had taken upon himself the entire sacrifice that used to take place in the mysteries, Christ instituted the sacrifice of the Mass. In it, the mystery act was repeated in an outward sign.

The external action of the Mass is as follows: the priest goes to the altar with the altar boy. First there is a preparatory act, the 'relay prayer' and the 'Kyrie Eleison'. The deeper Mass consists of four parts: 'Gospel', 'Sacrifice' - Oblatio, 'Transformation' and 'Communion'.

During the “Gospel”, a passage from the Gospels is read. This takes place on the right side of the altar. The actual altar is built so that it faces east. The priest stands on the north side. Here he reads the message. This refers to the fact that the human being in the first root race, the polaric one, was also in the north, from where he descended more and more into matter.

The second part of the mass is the 'oblatio' or 'sacrifice'. The priest sacrifices what represents the higher man, just as man used to sacrifice himself. The chalice is the outer symbol for the human heart. What we have in our hearts represents something future; it is less developed now, but contains the spiritual. When man no longer thinks in matter but in the spiritual, then the heart will be the organ of thought. Today the heart is still personal. The wine in the chalice represents the personal. The wafer signifies the brain. Bread and wine are now transformed into the higher nature, into Christ Himself.

The sacrifice brings about the transformation of man. This act is spoken softly so that only the priest himself can hear it. This is an allegorical indication that the truly divine in man is something that he only speaks to himself. Every human being can only say “I” to himself. This is why the Jewish secret doctrine could only let the name be pronounced with particular shyness, the name Yahweh, which is the actual “I” within. That is why the words in the offertory are spoken half in silence and half murmured. That is why the third part, the consecration, is the sacrifice of the Mass.

All this shows that something in the external nature stands as a symbol for what the divinity itself is. In the coarser matter and in the finer matter, the divinity is represented. The bread and the wine, body and blood. At the moment when the consciousness is fully awakened that we are dealing with transformed matter, then on the altar we have in the host a matter such as it is in our brain, and in the wine a matter such as it is in our heart - in the blood.

The priest breaks the host in a certain way, into a certain number of pieces, namely nine:

1. Corporatio = embodiment
2. Nativitas = birth
3. Circumeisio = circumcision
4. Apparitio = appearance
5. Passio = suffering
6. Mors = death
8. Gloria = glory
9. Regnum = kingdom

These nine parts represent the transformed human being, who participates in the higher. These are the nine parts of the human being. The parts that the human being experiences within his personality are 1 to 7, and 8 and 9 extend beyond the personality, which is why they are placed next to it.

Thus, in communion, man unites with his seven-part nature and strives for 8 and 9: 'Gloria' and 'Regnum'. This is accompanied by the Lord's Prayer. First, the Paternoster refers to the existing God of heaven, then to “Thy name”, the name of God, the Logos, who became flesh in Christ, and then to “Thy kingdom”. The whole thing is a parable for the existing world. Man should understand his communion with the existing world. Only the human being who came out of the mysteries understood the world. This is expressed in the Paternoster.

On particularly festive occasions, the procession also includes the 'Sanctissimum', that is the consecrated monstrance containing the Holy Body. At the top of the monstrance is a sun-like rounding with rays, the rounding rests in a half-moon shaped cover. This is also how Osiris and Isis were depicted. The union of Isis and Osiris is represented by the words 'Sanctissimum' above the altar, a symbol of the time when the sun still enveloped the moon.

No priest who is not ordained or authorized to wear the stole may read the sacrifice of the Mass. The stole is the actual priestly garment. The priest first wears a skirt, then the “alba, a shirt-like garment with a belt, then a symbolic garment, then the stole, which is crossed over the chest, and over that the casul.

The stole is the actual insignia of priestly dignity. Therefore, when he wears the stole, he feels like a servant of the church. He is no longer allowed to proclaim his own opinion. He keeps his personal opinion to himself; he says to himself that it could be wrong, and he proclaims what has been believed for thousands of years.

The new era led everything spiritual into the material in the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. People learned to judge the world according to material conditions. After Galileo and Copernicus, all attention was drawn down to the physical plane. Everything was conditioned by karma. As a later religion, Protestantism no longer had any understanding for the sacrifice of the Mass. When we see and hear the Mass celebrated with full understanding, we have before us the last reflection of the consecration performed in the ancient Egyptian pyramids.

The physical man emerged from the solar man Osiris; he shall become the solar man again. He has unconsciously descended from the height of the sun; consciously he shall ascend to it again. Solar heroes are those who walk with such certainty on their spiritual path as the sun on its orbit. These solar heroes have reached the sixth degree of initiation. The degrees of initiation for the Persians were: first a raven, second a secret, third a warrior, fourth a lion, fifth a Persian, sixth a solar hero - solar runner -, seventh a father.