An Outline of Esoteric Science - AbundantHope.orgkrishnamurti.abundanthope.org/index_htm_files...Die Geheimwissenschaft Im Umriss, which is volume 13 in the Biblio-graphic Survey,

Introduction i

AN OU TLINE OF

ESOTERIC SCI ENCE

ii A N O U T L I N E O F E S O T E R I C S C I E N C E

C L A S S I C S I N A N T H R O P O S O P H Y

The Spiritual Guidance of the Individual and Humanity

How to Know Higher Worlds

Intuitive Thinking as a Spiritual Path

The Souls’ Awakening—A Mystery Drama

Anthroposophy—A Fragment

Theosophy

Christianity As Mystical Fact

Introduction i i i

AN OUTLINE OF ESOTERIC SCIENCE

R U D O L F S T E I N E R

Translated by CATHERINE E. CREEGER

ANTHROPOSOPHIC PRESS

iv A N O U T L I N E O F E S O T E R I C S C I E N C E

The previous English edition of this work was published by Anthropo-sophic Press with the title An Outline of Occult Science. It was translatedby Henry B. Monges and revised for later editions by Lisa D. Monges. Thisedition was translated by Catherine E. Creeger from the German editionDie Geheimwissenschaft Im Umriss, which is volume 13 in the Biblio-graphic Survey, published by Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach, Switzerland.

This edition Copyright © 1997 by Anthroposophic PressIntroduction Copyright © 1997 by Clopper Almon

Published by Anthroposophic Press3390 Route 9, Hudson, NY 12534

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Steiner, Rudolf, 1861–1925. [Geheimwissenschaft im Umriss. English] An outline of esoteric science / Rudolf Steiner ; translated by

Catherine E. Creeger.p. cm. — (Classics in anthroposophy)

Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-88010-409-0 (paper) 1. Anthroposophy. I. Creeger, Catherine E. II. Title. III. Series.

BP595. S894G44613 1997 299’.935—dc21 97-37188

CIP

Cover design: Barbara Richey

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the publisher, exceptfor brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and articles.

Printed in the United States of America

Introduction v

CONTENTS

Introduction by Clopper Almon vii

Preface by Rudolf Steiner 1

1. The Character of Esoteric Science 11

2. The Makeup of the Human Being 30

3. Sleep and Death 59

4. Cosmic Evolution and the Human Being 117

Introductory Thoughts 117

An Overview of Planetary Incarnations 125

Saturn 135

Sun 153

Moon 165

Earth 197

Atlantis 239

The End of Atlantis 247

Ancient Indian Civilization 252

Ancient Persian Civilization 258

Egypto-Chaldean Civilization 263

Greco-Latin Civilization 266

The Coming of the Christian Era 268

vi A N O U T L I N E O F E S O T E R I C S C I E N C E

5. Knowledge of Higher Worlds—Initiation 281

6. Cosmic and Human EvolutionNow and in the Future 376

7. Details from the Field of Spiritual Science 399

The Human Ether Body 399

The Astral World 402

Human Life after Death 403

The Course of a Human Life 406

The Higher Domains of the Spiritual World 408

The Aspects of Our Human Makeup 409

The Dream State 410

Acquiring Supersensible Knowledge 411

Observing Specific Beings and Eventsin the Spiritual World 412

Appendix

Rudolf Steiner’s Early Introductions toAn Outline of Esoteric Science 415

Further Reading 433

Introduction vii

I N T R O D U C T I O N

by CLOPPER ALMON

We and the world around us evolve. This evolution is no-where more marked than in our own consciousness. Whenwe try to enter into the religious texts of the ancient Egyp-tians, we have to admit that they are total enigmas to us.Our science would almost certainly be equally incompre-hensible to them. They were, for example, obvious mastersof what, in physics today, we call force; however, they usedit in a completely intuitive way, without any concept of it.They may well have had visions of force, but no concept.

Concepts appear first with the Greeks, and even then theyseem to have reached only into things of the intellect, logic,geometry, and philosophy only with the arrival of the scien-tific revolution. A new power seemed to unfold in us. Sud-denly we could comprehend that the same force that makesthe apple fall also holds the moon in orbit. The excitementof discovering that new inner capacity swept all before it.What could be understood with this new capacity was Sci-ence with a capital S; what could not was considered faith,religion, or superstition, according to one’s point of view.

Initially, Science consisted of physics and astronomy.Gradually, new domains were conquered; chemistry, ge-ology, biology, economics, and psychology led to awhole new way of viewing the world. Darwin’s theory ofevolution opened even the question of human origins to

viii A N O U T L I N E O F E S O T E R I C S C I E N C E

the march of Science. One field, however, remained be-yond the scope of Science—the inner, nonmaterial, spiri-tual being within each human individual, as well as allspiritual beings not incarnated in human bodies.

Religion and myth had long spoken of such beings, butto most students of Science they were invisible and hidden.Some enthusiasts of Science felt that if they themselvescould not perceive such beings, then they simply do not ex-ist. Talk of such beings in myths was considered merelyhuman behavior explained on the basis of material process-es. Other, wiser heads recognized that their own inability toperceive something did not prove its nonexistence; it didmean, however, that they themselves were in no position todevelop a science concerning it. Thus, they lived in a divid-ed world—one of Science and one of Religion.

Rudolf Steiner undertook the enormous work of extend-ing Science into this ultimate domain. As the son of a rail-way stationmaster, he had studied the natural sciences inhigh school and what we now call the Technological Uni-versity of Vienna—then, as now, the leading technologicalinstitute in Austria. He was at home in the natural scienceswith their logical, conceptual structure. He admired theircare and objectivity. But for him, they left out the essen-tial. To him, the spiritual beings of which myth and reli-gion spoke are not imperceptible but present realities. Hehad developed a remarkable, controlled clairvoyance,which he used as an instrument of scientific investigation.Although there had been clairvoyants before, what setSteiner apart was his conceptual presentation of clairvoy-antly perceived facts, which made them accessible to the

Introduction ix

understanding of those who do not have such direct per-ception. As one studies his work, the gap between Scienceand Religion fades. The inner capacity for comprehendingthe material world begins to comprehend the world of spir-it. Our divided world begins to knit together.

There remains, of course, the problem of the perceptionof spiritual beings. Can we take an interest in a science ofthings we cannot perceive? Now in the first place, mostmodern research in the natural sciences rests on observa-tions that I am in no position to verify for myself. I have totake the word of a scientist’s report. I have to trust that, hadI spent the many years that a scientist has spent preparing,and if I had built similar instruments, then I might havebeen capable of having similar experiences. Mostly, how-ever, the natural scientist asks that we follow along inthought. Steiner makes very similar demands. He asks pri-marily that we follow him in thought and ask ourselves ifsuch thinking makes sense. He is also at pains to explain apath of development that leads slowly but safely to an abil-ity to perceive the spiritual for oneself. This differs from thenatural sciences only in that the instruments we must buildare our own organs of perception. The process is longer,probably stretching over a number of lifetimes. The firststep on that path, however, is a diligent, open-minded studyof the results of spiritual research expressed in conceptualform. And this brings us directly to the present book.

An Outline of Esoteric Science is Steiner’s most com-plete and orderly presentation of the results of his work.Written in 1909 when he was 48, it represents his maturethinking; nevertheless, it has the careful structure and

x A N O U T L I N E O F E S O T E R I C S C I E N C E

development characteristic of a young author’s work. Theoriginal title Die Geheimwissenschaft in Umriss indicatesthat the subject of the book is just those realities and be-ings that are—at least initially—hidden from most of us.At the same time, however, it makes clear that it is no col-lection of “tales of the supernatural,” but a clear, concep-tual, thoroughly scientific account of these matters.Because the terrain is unfamiliar, a substantial portion ofthe book necessarily consists of what might be called“conceptual description.” The final word of the title, Um-riss (“Outline”), must also be taken seriously. Nearly ev-ery subject discussed here is treated in greater detail inother books or lectures. This book is terse, concise, anddemands the utmost attention from the reader, as well asthe energy to visualize inwardly the pictures presented. Itis not a book to be skimmed. Nor is it to be sampled hereand there—although one man who tried hit a passage thatchanged his life.

There is no proper English translation of “Geheim” inthe German title. The “heim” is cognate with our “home”and so connotes something intimate, held close, hidden,inner. Hence the “esoteric” in the title of the present trans-lation, for esoteric means fundamentally “inner.” Earliertranslations used the title Occult Science. In Latin, occultsimply means “hidden.” Occult, however, has a fallenmeaning in English that Geheim does not have in Ger-man. The book is about the majestic, full spiritual beingpresent in each of us, and about the lofty beings above us.Occult is clearly inappropriate. Other possibilities mightbe Spiritual Science or Science of Inner Realities or, to

Introduction xi

use Goethe’s expression developed in the early pages ofthe book, Science of Manifest Secrets.

This is probably not the best book by Steiner to read first.It might be better to begin with How to Know HigherWorlds for a “hands-on,” practical introduction to Stein-er’s approach to self-development. Theosophy is moreconceptual but still introductory, and is concerned with thestructure of the human individual as a being of body, soul,and spirit. It also deals with reincarnation and karma. Afterreading one or both of these, Cosmic Memory may be ap-propriate; it deals with earthly and human evolutionthrough metamorphosis and reincarnation. One may thenwant to read some of the lecture cycles, which are availableto us only as stenographic notes, unrevised by Steiner him-self. I would suggest starting with those given before 1910.Reading a few of these will soon awaken a desire to see allthe ideas put together and laid out in an orderly fashion.One is then prepared for An Outline of Esoteric Science.

If you want to get quickly to the heart of the matter, youcan safely skip the prefaces (most of which have beenmoved to the back of the present edition) and go straightto chapter 1 and read through to chapter 7. Afterward,look at the prefaces, including those in the appendix,which should now be more meaningful.

Chapter 1 makes a careful statement of the nature of thisscience. In chapter 2, Steiner deals with our own innernature as beings of body, soul, and spirit. It will recallparts of Theosophy but at a deeper level. Chapter 3, onsleep, death, and reincarnation, similarly extends ideasfrom the earlier book.

xii A N O U T L I N E O F E S O T E R I C S C I E N C E

Chapter 4 on evolution, however, is the great advanceover anything Steiner had previously written. Just as wecannot understand ourselves or any human being withoutrecognizing the reality of reincarnation, so it is with thewhole world, with the Earth itself. In order that we mayunderstand what stands before us as outer nature and asour inner nature, Steiner takes us back through three priorincarnations of the whole Earth and universe. Evolutionis the great theme of this book and, indeed, of Steiner’slife work. It is, however, an evolution that goes far be-yond anything dreamed of today in biology or geology.

Chapter 5 then explains the path of individual spiritualdevelopment. Here one senses an advance over the previ-ous expositions in How to Know Higher Worlds and The-osophy. I suspect that such an advance is largely the resultof several years of work with individual students. The fi-nal chapter looks into the future evolution of the Earth.

Why should one bother with all this science of the un-seen? If what is seen makes perfect sense to you as yousee it, then this book is not for you. But if life is full ofunanswered questions, such as: Where did we comefrom? How can we grow inwardly? Why is there suffer-ing? Why joy? Why birth? Why death?—then this bookwill have meaning for you, just as it has meaning for me.

Clopper Almon was a co-founder of the Rudolf Steiner Institute and hastaught courses there on this book and other subjects. He is professor ofeconomics at the University of Maryland, where his professional workis in building quantitative models of economics.

Preface 1

PREFACE

Now that fifteen years have elapsed since this book firstappeared in print, I may well be permitted to say some-thing in public about the state of mind that gave rise to it.

My original plan was to make the essential content ofthis book into the final chapter of Theosophy,1 anotherbook of mine which was published much earlier. This didnot work. When Theosophy was going to press, the sub-ject matter of this current book had not achieved closurein me as was the case with that of Theosophy. In my imag-inations, the spiritual being of the individual stood beforemy soul and I was able to describe it, but this was not yettrue of the cosmic relationships that were to be presentedin Esoteric Science. Individual details were there, but notthe total picture. So I decided to have Theosophy pub-lished in its present form, containing what I had seen asthe essential spiritual being in the life of the human indi-vidual, and to complete Esoteric Science in the nearfuture at my own pace.

In keeping with my mental attitude at that time, the con-tent of this book had to be presented in the form of

1. Theosophy: An Introduction to the Spiritual Processes in HumanLife and in the Cosmos, Anthroposophic Press, Hudson, NY, 1994.

2 A N O U T L I N E O F E S O T E R I C S C I E N C E

thoughts that were further elaborations of thoughtsapplied in the natural sciences, adapted for presentingwhat is spiritual. You will note in the introduction to thefirst edition, reprinted here, that I felt a strong responsibil-ity toward the natural sciences in everything I wrote aboutspiritual cognition at that time.

However, the spiritual world as it reveals itself to spir-itual sight cannot be presented exclusively in thoughts ofthis sort, since this revelation does not conform to a merethought content. Anyone who has directly experiencedthe nature of such revelations knows that the thoughts ofour ordinary consciousness are suitable only for express-ing sensory perceptions, but not for spiritual perceptions.The content of spiritual perception can only be conveyedin images (imaginations) through which inspirationsspeak, while these inspirations in turn stem from a spiri-tual entity perceived intuitively. (Necessary informationon the nature of imagination, inspiration, and intuitioncan be found here in Esoteric Science and also in my bookHow to Know Higher Worlds.)2

At present, however, those who describe imaginationsfrom the spiritual world cannot present only these imagi-nations. Doing so would be to present the contents of acompletely different consciousness, something thatwould stand alongside contemporary knowledge withoutrelating to it at all. People who have such imaginationsmust fill our present-day consciousness with what can be

2. How to Know Higher Worlds: A Modern Path of Initiation, Anthro-posophic Press, Hudson, NY, 1994.

Preface 3

seen by a different consciousness that looks into the worldof the spirit. The content of what they present will be thespiritual world, but in order to become fully comprehen-sible to our ordinary consciousness, which thinks in mod-ern terms and does not yet see into the world of the spirit,this spiritual world must flow into our thoughts andappear in thought form. It will remain incomprehensibleonly if we ourselves place obstacles in its path; that is, ifwe subscribe to contemporary prejudices about “the lim-its of knowledge” that result from an incorrectly con-ceived view of nature.

In spiritual cognition everything is immersed in subtlesoul experience—not only spiritual perception itself, butalso the type of understanding that ordinary unseeing con-sciousness brings to it. If people of superficial knowledgeclaim that others who believe they understand are merelytalking themselves into it, this demonstrates that theythemselves do not have the faintest idea of this subtleexperience. But the fact of the matter is that the merelyconceptual expression of truth or error in our understand-ing of the physical world becomes an actual experiencefor us when we face the spiritual world.

If we allow our opinion to be even ever so slightlyinfluenced by the assertion that the limitations of an ordi-nary consciousness that does not yet perceive prevent thisconsciousness from understanding spiritual perceptions,then this judgment, this feeling, blankets our comprehen-sion like a dark cloud, and we really cannot understand.But to an unperceiving but unbiased consciousness, spir-itual perceptions are fully comprehensible if seers cast


them in the form of thoughts. They are comprehensible inthe same way that a painter’s finished picture is compre-hensible to a non-painter. However, understanding thespiritual world is not an artistic, feeling process likeunderstanding a work of art, but a thinking process likethat of science. But in order to make this understandingreally possible, those who present spiritual perceptionsmust be able to cast them in the form of thoughts withouthaving them lose their imaginative character.

All this stood before my soul as I drew up my EsotericScience.

In 1909 I then felt that the prerequisites were in placefor me to be able to produce a book that 1) cast the con-tent of my spiritual vision in the form of thoughts to acertain provisionally adequate extent, and 2) could beunderstood by any thinking people who placed no obsta-cles in the way of their own understanding. I say thistoday and state at the same time that in 1909 I thought Iwas taking a risk in publishing this book. I knew thatprofessional scientists were incapable of mustering thenecessary impartiality, as were numerous others whodepended on science for their judgment. But the fact thatstood before my soul most clearly was that in an agewhen humanity’s consciousness was furthest removedfrom the spiritual world, there was an urgent need forcommunications from this world. I counted on the factthat there were also people who experienced being dis-tanced from all spirituality as such an impediment to lifethat they were grasping at communications from thespiritual world with inner longing.

Preface 5

The years that followed confirmed this completely.Theosophy and Esoteric Science, books that require thegoodwill of the reader in dealing with a difficult style ofwriting, have both enjoyed wide circulation. I tried veryconsciously not to supply a “popular” exposition of thesethemes, but one that requires the reader to exert a gooddeal of thought in approaching the content. Because of thecharacter I imprinted on my books, merely reading themis already the beginning of spiritual training. Exertingone’s thinking in the calm and collected way that thisreading requires strengthens the reader’s soul forces andmakes these forces capable of approaching the spiritualworld.

Calling the book Esoteric Science caused immediatemisunderstandings. I was informed from all differentdirections that something that intends to be a “science”must not be esoteric or secret.3 How thoughtless suchobjections were! As if anyone who actually publishes acontent wants to be secretive with it! The whole bookshows that nothing was meant to be labeled “secret”; it wasmeant to be cast in a form that made it as understandableas any “science.” When we use the term “natural sci-ences,” don’t we mean to indicate that we are dealing with

3. For instance, the early review by Wincenty Lutoslawski, “RudolfSteiners sogen. ‘Geheimwissenschaft’” (“Rudolf Steiner’s So-called‘Esoteric Science’”) in the magazine Hochland, vol. 1910/11, no. 1,Munich, October 1910, pp. 45–58. Its opening paragraph immediatelypresents this objection: “The expression esoteric science contains acontradiction just like dry wetness or light darkness. Science and eso-tericism, science and petty secrecy, are as far apart as day and night.”


the knowledge of “nature?” “Esoteric science” is the sci-ence of what takes place “esoterically” in the sense that itis perceived, not outside in nature, but where one’s soulturns when it directs its inner being toward the spirit.“Esoteric science” is the opposite and the counterpart of“natural science.”

My perceptions of the spiritual world repeatedly metwith the objection that they were reproductions and trans-formations of concepts about the spiritual world thatcame to the fore in ancient times. It was said that I hadread many of these things, absorbed them into my sub-conscious, and then presented them in the belief that theysprang from my own perceptions. I was said to havederived my reports from Gnostic teachings, the poeticwisdom of the Orient, and so on.

The thought that went into these claims is very superfi-cial. I am fully conscious of the fact that my knowledgeof spiritual things is the result of my own perception.Whether with regard to details or in the broader surveys,I subjected myself to strict tests to make sure that eachstep in the progress of my perception was made in full anddeliberate consciousness. I told myself that just as a math-ematician proceeds from one thought to another withoutautosuggestion or the unconscious playing any role in theprocess, spiritual perception must proceed from oneobjective imagination to another, without anything beingactive in the soul except the spiritual content of clear andcollected consciousness.

Knowing an imagination to be not merely a subjectiveimage but a reproduction in image form of an objective

Preface 7

spiritual content is an achievement of healthy inner expe-rience. It is achieved on the level of the soul and spirit inthe same way that a healthy person distinguishes betweenfantasy and objective perception in the realm of sensoryobservation.

So there I stood with the results of my perception beforeme. To begin with, they were perceptions without names.Later, I needed words in order to describe and communi-cate them, so I then went looking in older accounts ofspiritual matters for ways to express these still namelessthings in words. I made free use of the terms I found, somy usage almost never coincides with the ancient mean-ing. However, in every case, I went looking for such pos-sibilities of expression only after the content had becomeapparent in my own perception. I was able to eliminatewhat I had previously read from my own perception andresearch by means of the state of consciousness that Ihave just described.

It was also claimed that the terms I used were reminis-cent of ancient ideas. People fixed their attention on theexpressions themselves without going into the content. IfI spoke of “lotus flowers” in the human astral body, thatwas proof that I was repeating ancient Indian teachings inwhich that term is found. If I used the terms “angeloi,”“archangeloi,” and so on, then I was simply reviving con-cepts of Gnostic Christianity. I was constantly confrontedwith the objections of entirely superficial thinking of thissort. I wanted to point to this fact too, now that a new edi-tion of Esoteric Science is being published. This book,since it contains the outline of anthroposophy as a whole,


is especially susceptible to all the misunderstandingsanthroposophy is exposed to.

Since the time when the imaginations presented in thisbook first merged into a complete picture in my soul, Ihave constantly been developing my ability to perceivethe human being, the historical development of humanity,and the cosmos. But the outline I offered in Esoteric Sci-ence fifteen years ago remains unshaken as far as I amconcerned. Everything I have been able to say since then,if inserted into this book in the right place, seems only toelaborate on that outline.4

RUDOLF STEINER

The GoetheanumJanuary 10, 1925

4. This preface was written for the sixteenth through twentieth edi-tions of An Outline of Esoteric Science.

Preface 9

Publisher’s Note

As an aid to readers wishing to follow the text in German, thenumbers that appear in the margins indicate Rudolf Steiner’soriginal paragraphing in the German edition.

An index has not been included because it proved to be unfeasiblefor the text. As a resource for further study, it has been decided tosubsequently publish a separate “study guide.”


The Character of Esoteric Science 11

[1]

C H A P T E R 1

THE CHARACTER

OF ESOTERIC SCIENCE

The ancient term esoteric science is used to describe thecontents of this book. This term immediately rouses themost contradictory feelings among contemporary people.For many it is somewhat repellent or calls forth derision,pitying smiles, and perhaps even contempt. They imaginethat a way of thinking that describes itself in this way canonly be based on idle, fantastic dreaming, that this allegedscience can only conceal an impulse to reinstate all kindsof superstitions that those familiar with the “true scien-tific approach” and “real striving for knowledge” arequite right in avoiding. To others, what is meant by thisterm seems to provide them with something they cannotacquire in any other way; depending on their personalpredispositions, they are drawn to it either out of a deepinner longing for knowledge or out of the curiosity of arefined soul. Between these sharply divergent opinionsthere are all kinds of possible intermediate stages of con-ditional rejection or acceptance of what different individ-uals may think of on hearing the words esoteric science.


[2]

For many people the term esoteric science has a magicalring to it because it seems to appease their fateful obsessionwith knowing of something unknown, mysterious, or evenobscure, with a knowledge that cannot be acquired natu-rally. Many people do not want to satisfy their souls’ deep-est longings with something that can be clearly known.They tend to believe that in addition to what is recognizableand knowable in the world, there must also be somethingthat eludes cognition. Regarding their deepest longing forknowledge, and with a peculiar illogicality they do notnotice, they reject everything known and choose to acceptonly something that cannot be said to be knowable throughany natural form of research. Anyone who speaks of “eso-teric science” would do well to keep in mind the need toconfront misunderstandings caused by some of its advo-cates who are striving not for knowledge but for its opposite.

This account is aimed at readers who will not allowtheir impartiality to be shaken by the fact that a term callsforth prejudices under certain circumstances. There canbe no talk here of a knowledge that is “secret” in the senseof being accessible only to certain people because ofsome especially favorable destiny. We will do justice tothe term esoteric science as it is used here if we think ofwhat Goethe had in mind when he spoke of the “revealedmysteries” in the phenomena of the universe.1

1. “There are so many revealed mysteries because the feeling for thembecomes conscious in so few people, and these few, fearing to harmthemselves and others, do not give voice to their inner explanations.”Goethe in a letter to C.L.F. Schultz, November 28, 1821, in GoethesWerke (Goethe’s Works), Weimar ed., sec. 4, vol. 35, 1906, p. 192.


His view sees what remains secret, “esoteric,” orunrevealed in the phenomena we grasp only with oursenses and our sense-bound intellect as the content of asupersensible way of knowing.2 Of course, to those whorestrict science to what is revealed through the sensesand the intellect that serves them, what is meant here byesoteric science does not constitute a science. If suchpeople wish to understand themselves, however, theymust admit that they reject esoteric science not on thebasis of well-founded insight, but simply on the author-ity of their purely personal feelings.

In order to realize this, all we need to do is to considerhow sciences come about and what significance they havein human life. The definitive factor in the birth of a sci-ence is not the object that is studied but the type of humansoul-activity that takes place during the scientific quest.The activity and attitude of the soul involved in the studyof science is what we need to look at. If we acquire the

2. Some people have rejected the term esoteric science, as used bythe author in earlier editions of this book, on the grounds that a sci-ence cannot be something that is secret or “esoteric” to anyone. Thisobjection would have been correct if that had been the intent in usingthis term, but that is not the case. The natural sciences, the sciencesof nature, cannot be called “natural” in the sense that they belong toeveryone “by nature.” Similarly, the author understands esoteric sci-ence to be not a “secret” science but a science “of the esoteric,” ascience that deals with what is “secret” and unrevealed in the phe-nomena of the universe as far our ordinary means of cognition areconcerned. This science, however, should not remain a secret foranyone who searches for its knowledge in appropriate ways [note byRudolf Steiner; see also note, page 29.]


habit of exercising activity of this sort only when dealingwith what the senses disclose, we may easily succumb tothe opinion that the sense perception is the essential fac-tor. In that case, we fail to look at the fact that specificactivities and attitudes of the human soul have beenapplied, but only to what is sense-perceptible. However,it is possible to transcend this arbitrary, self-imposed lim-itation and look at the character of scientific activity itselfwithout regard to its specific application.

This is our basis for speaking of knowledge of the non-sensory content of the world as “scientific.” The humanpower of cognition tries to become involved with thiscontent in the same way that it would otherwise becomeinvolved with the world’s natural scientific content. It isthe intent of spiritual science to free the methods and atti-tudes of scientific research from their particular applica-tion to the relationships and processes of sensory factswhile preserving their way of thinking and otherattributes. Spiritual science attempts to speak about non-sensory things in the same way that the natural sciencesspeak about sense-perceptible things. While natural-sci-entific methods of research and ways of thinking stopshort at the sensory world, esoteric science views thesoul’s work in the natural world as a means of self-educa-tion and attempts to apply the faculties that develop inthis way to non-sensory domains. Instead of attempting tospeak about sensory phenomena as such, esoteric sciencespeaks about the non-sensory contents of the world in thesame way that scientists speak about its sense-perceptiblecontents. In this process, it retains the inner attitude of the


[3]

[4]

scientific method, which is what makes the study ofnature a science in the first place. This permits esotericscience to call itself a science.

When we begin to consider it, we will find that the sig-nificance of the natural sciences in human life is notexhausted in acquiring knowledge about nature, sincethis knowledge can never lead to anything except experi-ences of what the human soul itself is not. The soul prin-ciple does not live in what we know about nature; it livesin the process of knowing. The soul experiences itselfduring its active involvement with nature, and the resultof this living involvement is something other thanknowledge about nature itself, namely the self-develop-ment experienced in acquiring this knowledge. Esotericscience attempts to apply the result of this self-develop-ment to areas that transcend mere nature. It is not theintent of esoteric scientists to underestimate the value ofthe natural sciences. On the contrary, they try toacknowledge it even more than the natural scientists do.They know that it is impossible to establish any sciencewithout the exacting way of thinking that is the rule in thenatural sciences, but they also know that after this exac-titude has been acquired by genuinely entering into thespirit of natural scientific thought, the soul’s strength canhold it fast and apply it to other fields.

Something appears at this point, however, that maycause misgivings. While observing nature, the soul isguided by the object under observation to a much greaterextent than it is while observing the world’s non-sensorycontents, when it has to be able to hold fast to the essence


[5]

of the scientific way of thinking out of purely innerimpulses to a much greater extent. Since many peoplebelieve—although not consciously—that only the guid-ance of natural phenomena allows us to retain thisessence, they tend to decide dogmatically that as soon asthis guidance is abandoned, the soul with its scientificmethod is left groping in the dark. These people have notbecome aware of the distinctive character of this method;for the most part, they base their judgment on errors thatnecessarily arise when someone whose scientific attitudehas not been sufficiently reinforced by observing naturalphenomena nonetheless proceeds to observe non-sensorydomains. Such cases naturally give rise to a lot of unsci-entific talk about the world’s non-sensory content. How-ever, this is not because such talk is essentially incapableof being scientific, but only because in this particularinstance the scientific self-education that comes fromobserving nature was neglected.

With regard to what has just been said, however, any-one wanting to speak about esoteric science must keep asharp eye out for all the distractions and illusions that canarise from conjecturing about the revealed mysteries ofthe world without approaching them scientifically. Andyet it would be counterproductive, right at the beginningof an account of esoteric science, to speak about all thepossible aberrations that discredit its research in theminds of biased people, because these people concludefrom the very existence of the aberrations—and it is truethat they are very numerous—that the entire undertakingis unjustified. In most instances, however, scientists or


[6]

scientifically minded critics reject esoteric science dog-matically, as was described earlier, and their reference tothe aberrations is merely a pretext that is often uncon-scious. Discussion with such opponents will prove futile.Indeed, nothing prevents them from raising the very jus-tified objection that there is no way of determining fromthe outset whether the person who believes others are inerror actually possesses the firm foundation describedabove. Therefore, all that can be done by people who arestriving in the direction of esoteric science is to presentwhat they believe is permissible for them to say. Whetherthis belief is justified can only be decided by others, andin fact only by those who avoid dogmatic statements ofany sort and are able to enter into how these esotericresearchers communicate the revealed mysteries of cos-mic events. Of course the researchers will be obliged toshow how what they present relates to other achievementsof knowledge and of life. They will also need to showwhat opposition is possible and to what extent life’simmediate outer, sense-perceptible reality confirms theirobservations. However, they should never attempt topresent things in a way that depends on the art of persua-sion rather than on content for its effect.

Esoteric scientific accounts often meet with the objec-tion that they do not prove what they present, that theymerely make some assertion or other and say that eso-teric science has determined this to be true. Do not mis-understand the account that follows by thinking that anypart of it is being presented in this manner. An effort isbeing made here to allow the capability that unfolds in


the soul through studying nature to continue to developaccording to its own essence. In the course of this devel-opment the soul encounters supersensible facts. It isassumed that every reader who is able to really go intowhat has been presented will necessarily run up againstthese facts. The moment we enter the domain of spiritualscience, however, we encounter a difference between itand purely natural scientific observation. In the naturalsciences, facts are present in the field of the sensoryworld; scientists who present these facts regard theactivity of the soul as something that recedes into thebackground in the face of sense-perceptible relation-ships and processes. Those who present spiritual scien-tific facts must place this soul activity in the forefront,because their readers only arrive at the facts by makingthis activity their own in the right way. Unlike the factsof natural science, which—although not understood—are still available for human perception even withoutany soul activity, spiritual scientific facts enter into ourperception only through activity on the part of the soul.Thus those presenting spiritual science presume that thereaders are accompanying them on the search for thesefacts. Their presentation consists of recounting the dis-covery of these facts and is governed not by personalwhim, but by a scientific attitude trained by natural sci-ence. Therefore, they must also speak about the meansthey use to become able to observe non-sensory, super-sensible things.

By attempting to present an esoteric scientific subject,we will soon see that this leads us to acquire concepts


[7]

[8]

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and ideas that we did not possess before. The newthoughts we acquire about the nature of proof are alsodifferent from our previous conceptions of it. We learn torecognize that when natural science is explained, “proof”is something brought toward it from the outside, so tospeak. In spiritual scientific thinking, however, the activ-ity applied to proving something in natural scientificthinking is already present in the search for the facts. Wecannot find these facts if the path that leads to them doesnot constitute a proving process in itself. Anyone whoreally follows this path already experiences the elementof proof, and nothing more can be accomplished bymeans of a proof applied from outside. Failure to recog-nize this characteristic of esoteric science has led tomany misunderstandings.

The whole of esoteric science must spring from twothoughts that can take root in each human being. For theesoteric scientist, as the term is used in this book, thesetwo thoughts express facts that can be experienced if weapply the right means. For many other people, thesethoughts constitute extremely debatable claims that canprovoke a great deal of argument and may even be“proved” to be impossible. The first of these thoughts isthat behind the visible world there is an invisible one, aworld that is temporarily concealed, at least as far as oursenses and sense-bound thinking are concerned. The sec-ond is that by developing human capacities that lie dor-mant in us, it is possible to enter this hidden world.

Some people may say that there is no such hiddenworld, that the world we perceive with our senses is the


[10]

[11]

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only one, that it contains everything necessary to solve itsriddles, and that even if we are far from being able toanswer all our existential questions at present, a time willcome when sensory experiences and the science based onthem will be able to provide the answers.

Others say that we cannot state definitively that there isno hidden world behind the visible one, but our humanpowers of cognition cannot penetrate this world becausethey have limits that they cannot overstep. Althoughthose who need “faith” may take refuge in a world of thatsort, a true science based on the guarantee of fact cannotbe concerned with such a world.

A third group sees it as rather presumptuous to want topenetrate into a domain where we must renounce “knowl-edge” and be content with “faith.” Those who adhere tothis position find it wrong for the feeble human being towant to penetrate into a world that is supposed to be theexclusive province of religious life.

Still others raise the objection that it is possible foreveryone to share a common knowledge of the facts ofthe sense-perceptible world, but since knowledge ofsupersensible things is only a matter of personal, individ-ual opinion, we should not speak of universal certainty insuch things.

And there are others who make many other assertions.It becomes clear that observing the visible world pre-

sents us with riddles that can never be solved on the basisof the facts of this world alone. They will never be solvedin this way, regardless of how far the science of thesefacts may advance, because the very inner nature of the


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visible facts points clearly to a hidden world. If we do notrealize this, we are shutting ourselves off to the riddlesthat spring up everywhere out of the facts of the sensoryworld. We choose not to see certain questions and riddles,and so we believe that all questions can be answered bymeans of sense-perceptible facts. The questions wechoose to ask may indeed all be answered by the facts weexpect will be discovered in the future. There is no reasonnot to concede that this is the case. But why should wewait for answers to certain things if we ask no questionsabout them? Those who aspire to an esoteric science areonly saying that the questions they ask are a matter ofcourse for them and should be acknowledged as fullylegitimate expressions of the human soul. After all, sci-ence cannot be forced into narrow confines by forbiddingpeople to ask unbiased questions.

In response to the opinion that there are limits to humancognition which we cannot overstep and which force us tocome to a halt in front of any invisible world that may bethere, it must be said that there can be no doubt in anyone’smind that it is not possible to push one’s way into an invis-ible world with that particular kind of cognition. For any-one who believes that form of cognition to be the one andonly form, it is impossible to arrive at any other view of thematter than that human beings are denied access to anyhigher world that may exist. But it can also be said that ifit is possible to develop another form of cognition, thiscould lead into the supersensible world. If we consider thisform of cognition impossible, we reach a viewpoint thatmakes any talk of a supersensible world seem like pure


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nonsense. To an impartial judge, however, the only possi-ble reason for this viewpoint is that its champions areunfamiliar with any other form of cognition. Yet how canpeople pass judgment on something while insisting thatthey know nothing about it? Unbiased thinking must con-cur with the statement that we should speak only aboutthings we know and not make statements about things wedo not know. This kind of thinking can only speak of peo-ple’s right to communicate what they have experienced,but not of any right on their part to declare somethingimpossible if they know (or choose to know) nothingabout it. No one can ever deny others the right to ignorethe supersensible, but there is never any legitimate reasonfor people to declare themselves authorities, not only onwhat they themselves are capable of knowing, but also onwhat they suppose cannot be known by any human being.

In the case of those who declare it presumptuous toenter the domain of the supersensible, an esoteric scien-tific view must call their attention to the fact that it is pos-sible to enter this domain and that we sin against thefaculties we have been given if we allow them to stagnateinstead of developing them and putting them to use.

However, anyone who believes that views concerningthe supersensible world are strictly a matter of personalopinions and feelings denies what is common to allhuman beings. It is certainly true that individuals mustfind insight into such things on their own, but it is also afact that all people who go far enough come to the sameinsight about these things rather than to different insights.Differences exist only when people try to approach the


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highest truths through an arbitrary personal whim ratherthan by a scientifically guaranteed path. It must be admit-ted without reservation, however, that only those who arewilling to immerse themselves in the unique character ofthe esoteric scientific path are capable of acknowledgingthat it is correct.

If we acknowledge—or even merely assume or surmisefrom the manifest world—the existence of a hidden world,and if our awareness that our powers of cognition arecapable of development compels us to feel that this hiddenworld can reveal itself to us, then each one of us will beable to find the way to esoteric science at the individuallyappropriate time. When individuals have been led to eso-teric science by these soul experiences, several prospectsopen up before them. One is the prospect of finding theanswer to certain questions posed by their craving forknowledge; another is the quite different prospect of vic-tory over everything that impedes and weakens life.

In a certain higher sense, it signifies a weakening of lifeor even a soul death when a person is forced to deny orturn away from the supersensible world. Under certaincircumstances it even leads to despair when someoneloses hope that the hidden will be revealed. At the sametime, the various forms of this death and despair opposeesoteric scientific efforts on the inner level of the soul.They set in when our inner strength dwindles. If we arethen to have any strength for life at all, it must come fromoutside. Then we perceive the things, beings, and pro-cesses that appear to our senses, and we analyze themwith our intellect. They cause us joy and sorrow; they


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drive us to whatever actions we are capable of. We cancarry on like this for a while, but eventually we reach thepoint of dying inwardly, because we have exhausted whatcan be drawn from the world in this way for a humanbeing’s sake. This is not a statement stemming from thepersonal experience of one individual; it results from anunbiased consideration of all human life. What shields usfrom exhausting this source is the hidden element thatrests within the depths of things. Ultimately, if the strengthto descend into these depths to draw up new strength forlife dies away in a human being, the outer aspect of thingsalso proves to be no longer conducive to life.

This is by no means a matter of concern only to the indi-vidual human being with his or her personal well-beingand misfortune. Precisely through true esoteric scientificobservations, we arrive at the certainty that from a higherstandpoint, an individual’s well-being and misfortune areintimately related to the well-being or misfortune of thewhole world. We come to the insight that we are causingdamage to the whole world and all the beings in it whenwe do not develop our own forces in the right way. If weravage our life by losing our connection to the supersensi-ble world, not only do we destroy something within us,something that can ultimately drive us to despair as it diesoff, but our weakness also creates a hindrance to the evo-lution of the entire world in which we live.

Now, it is possible for human beings to deceive them-selves. We can succumb to the belief that there is no hid-den element, that what appears to our senses and ourintellect includes everything that can possibly exist. This


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deception, however, is only possible on the surface ofconsciousness, not in its depths. Our feeling and desire donot submit to this deceptive belief. In one way or another,they will always long for something hidden. If this iswithheld from us, it forces us into doubt, into uncertaintyin life, or even into despair. Cognition that reveals what ishidden is suited to overcoming all this hopelessness,uncertainty, and despair—in short, everything that weak-ens a life and makes it incapable of performing the ser-vices required of it within the world as a whole.

This is the beautiful fruit of spiritual scientific knowl-edge—rather than merely gratifying our passion forknowledge, it gives our life strength and steadfastness. Itdraws strength for work and confidence in life from aninexhaustible source. No one who has ever trulyapproached this source and returns repeatedly to take ref-uge there will ever go away unstrengthened.

There are people who do not want to know anythingabout such knowledge because they see somethingunhealthy in what has just been said. As far as the outer,superficial aspect of life is concerned, these people areright. They do not want what life offers in its so-calledreality to be diminished in any way. They see it as aweakness when people turn away from reality and seeksalvation in a hidden world that seems fantastic anddreamed-up. If we do not want to fall into a state ofpathological dreaminess and weakness in our spiritualscientific search, we must acknowledge that such objec-tions are partially justified. They rest on healthy judg-ment that leads to a half-truth rather than to a whole one


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only because it does not thrust its way into the depths ofthings but remains on the surface. If striving for super-sensible knowledge were likely to weaken life and turnpeople away from true reality, then such objectionswould certainly be strong enough to pull the foundationout from under this spiritual trend.

However, it is not appropriate for esoteric scientificefforts to respond to such opinions by “defending” them-selves in the usual sense of the word. In this case, too,they can speak only out of their own merit, which isapparent to any unbiased person, and make it evident thatthey supplement the life forces and strength for life ofanyone who immerses him or herself in them in the rightway. Such efforts cannot turn a person into a dreamer orsomeone who is alienated from the world; the strengththey provide comes from the sources of life that are theorigin of the soul and spiritual parts of us.

Still other obstacles may confront many people whenthey first approach an esoteric scientific search. It is afundamental truth that readers of esoteric scientificaccounts find descriptions of soul experiences whichthey can follow in order to approach the world’s super-sensible contents. But while this is the ideal, it still has tobe realized in actual practice.

Readers must first absorb a fairly large number ofsupersensible experiences recounted by others withoutexperiencing them personally. This cannot be otherwise,and will also be true of this book. The author willdescribe what he believes he knows about the nature ofhuman beings and what happens to them at birth, at


death, and in the body-free state in the spiritual world. Hewill also describe the evolution of the Earth and ofhumanity. It could seem that a certain amount of allegedknowledge is being presented like dogma, as if beliefbased on authority were called for. However, this is notthe case. In fact, what can be known about the world’ssupersensible content is present in the author as a livingsoul content, and immersing yourself in this content kin-dles impulses in your own soul which then lead to thecorresponding supersensible facts. In reading about spir-itual scientific knowledge, you are active in a differentway than you are in reading accounts of sense-percepti-ble facts. If you read accounts of the sense-perceptibleworld, you read about them, but if you read accounts ofsupersensible facts in the right way, you immerse your-self in the stream of spiritual existence. By taking in theresults of spiritual research, we also set out on our owninner path toward discovering these results for ourselves.

It is true that to begin with, what is meant here is oftennot noticed at all by those who read it. People imagineentering the spiritual world to be much too similar to asensory experience, and so they find their experiences inreading about this world much too thought-like. But if weare truly absorbing these things as thoughts, we arealready in the midst of the spiritual world and must onlyrealize that we are already experiencing (although we donot notice it) what we believed we were merely receivingin the form of thoughts communicated to us.

The real nature of what we have experienced willbecome completely clear to us if we actually practice


what is described in the second and last part of this bookas the path to supersensible knowledge. It would be easyto believe the opposite—that the path would have to bedescribed first. But that is not the case. To anyone whosimply does exercises in order to enter the supersensibleworld without paying any soul-attention to specific factsabout it, this world will remain an indistinct and confusedchaos. We learn to find our way into that world naively,so to speak, in the process of learning about some of itsspecific facts; only after that do we abandon our unsus-pecting naïveté and realize that we are fully consciouslyacquiring for ourselves the experiences that have beencommunicated to us.

If you go into esoteric scientific accounts in depth, youwill be convinced that this is the only sure path to super-sensible knowledge. You will also realize that the opinionthat supersensible knowledge might initially affect us likedogma—through the power of suggestion, as it were—isunfounded, because we acquire the content of this knowl-edge by means of a soul activity that strips it of any merelysuggestive power and only allows it to speak to us in thesame way as any truth that addresses our level-headedjudgment. Our initial failure to notice that we are living inthe spiritual world is not due to lack of thought on our partor to being influenced by suggestion in taking in what wehave read, but only to the subtlety and unfamiliarity ofwhat we have experienced while reading. When we firsttake in communications such as those in the first part ofthis book, we begin to participate, with help, in knowledgeof the supersensible world; through practical application


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of the soul exercises given in the second part, we begin toknow this world independently.

No real scientists will be able to find any essential con-tradiction between their science, which is based on thefacts of the sense world, and how the supersensible worldis investigated. These scientists use certain tools andmethods. They produce these tools by transforming what“nature” gives them. Supersensible cognition also makesuse of a tool—the human being—that must also first bemade suitable for higher research. The human abilitiesand forces that nature provides without any involvementon the part of the individual must be transformed intohigher ones. This is how we can transform ourselves intoinstruments for investigating the supersensible world.


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C H A P T E R 2

THE MAKEUP OF

THE HUMAN BEING

When we observe the human being from the viewpoint ofa supersensible mode of cognition, the general principlesof this cognitive mode take effect immediately. This wayof looking at the human being is based on recognizing the“revealed mystery” in our human makeup. Of all the ele-ments supersensible knowledge includes in this, the phys-ical body is the only one that is accessible to our sensesand our sense-based intellect. To clarify this concept ofthe physical body, we must turn our attention first to agreat riddle that envelops all of our observations of life:the phenomenon of death and, connected with it, so-called inorganic nature, the mineral kingdom, in whichdeath is always inherent. This points to facts that can onlybe fully explained through supersensible knowledge, anda significant portion of this book will have to be devotedto them. At this point, however, the intent is simply tooffer a few ideas for the sake of orientation.

Within the manifest world, the physical human body isthe part of the human being that is the same as the mineral

The Makeup of the Human Being 31

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world. In contrast, everything that differentiates us fromminerals cannot be considered part of the physical body.To an unbiased view, the most important fact is that deathexposes the aspect of our human makeup that is of thesame nature as the mineral kingdom. We can refer to thecorpse as the aspect that, after death, is subject to pro-cesses that are found in that kingdom. It can be empha-sized that in this element of our human makeup—thecorpse—the same substances and forces are at work as inthe mineral kingdom. However, it is necessary to empha-size equally strongly that this physical body begins tobreak down when death sets in. Yet we are also justifiedin saying that while the same substances and forces are atwork in the physical human body as in minerals, as longas we are alive they work in the service of somethinghigher. Only after death do they work in the physicalhuman body as they do in the mineral kingdom. They thenappear in the form that is true to their own nature: that is,as disintegrators of the physical body’s form.

Thus, in the human being we must distinguish clearlybetween what is manifest and what is hidden. During life,a hidden something has to wage a constant battle againstthe mineral substances and forces in the physical body. Ifthis battle ceases, their mineral effects come to the fore. Atthis point, supersensible science must get involved. Its jobis to look for what wages the battle, for something hiddenfrom sensory observation and accessible only to supersen-sible observation. A later chapter in this book will discusshow to reach the point where this hidden somethingbecomes as evident to us as sensory phenomena are to our


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ordinary eyes. For the moment, however, what is revealedto supersensible observation will simply be described.

It has already been stated that information on how toapproach higher vision can only be of value to people ifthey first become familiar with accounts of what super-sensible research reveals. In this field it is indeed possibleto comprehend things that we cannot yet observe. In fact,understanding is the first step toward achieving vision inthe right way.

Although the hidden something that fights off the dis-integration of the physical body is only visible to highersight, its effects are clearly evident to a faculty of judg-ment restricted to manifest phenomena. These effectsexpress themselves in the shape or form that the physicalbody’s mineral substances and forces share during life.Once death sets in, this form gradually disappears andthe physical body becomes part of the rest of the mineralkingdom. However, what prevents the physical sub-stances and forces from going their own way during life,which would cause the physical body to disintegrate, canbe observed by supersensible perception as an indepen-dent part of our human makeup. This independent ele-ment will be called the “ether body” or “life body.”

In order to prevent misunderstandings from creeping inright at the outset, there are two things that must be con-sidered with regard to the terms applied to this secondelement of our human makeup: First, the use of the wordether is different here than it is in modern physics, whichdescribes the medium of light as “ether.” Here, however,the meaning of the word will be restricted to the one given


[6]

above. It will be applied to this entity that is accessible tohigher vision but recognizable to sensory perception onlybecause of its effects—that is, because it is capable of giv-ing a particular shape or form to the mineral substancesand forces present in the physical body. Second, the wordbody should also not be misunderstood. After all, we haveto use words taken from ordinary language, words thatexpress only sense-perceptible things, to designate thehigher things of existence. In sensory terms, of course, theether “body” is nothing bodily at all, no matter how fineor delicate a body we might imagine. (As the author hasdiscussed in his book Theosophy, his intention in usingthe terms ether body and life body is not simply to revivethe old scientifically outdated idea of “life force,” or“vital force.”)

Having arrived at the point of mentioning the “etherbody” or “life body” in describing supersensible things,we have also reached a point where this description nec-essarily contradicts some modern-day views. The evolu-tion of the human spirit has led to a situation wheretalking about such an element of our human makeup isnecessarily seen as unscientific nowadays. The material-istic view has reached the point of seeing nothing morein the living human body than an assemblage of physicalsubstances and forces such as are also found in minerals,in so-called inanimate objects. The only difference issupposed to be that the way they are put together is morecomplicated in living things than in lifeless matter.

Not too long ago even ordinary science had differentviews on this subject. If you track down the writings of


serious scientists from the first half of the nineteenth cen-tury, you will find that, at that time, even some “real” sci-entists were also aware of something in living bodies that isdifferent from what is present in lifeless minerals. Backthen, people spoke of a “vital force” or “life force.” Admit-tedly, they did not imagine this life force as the life bodydescribed above, but their concept was based nonethelesson an inkling that something of this sort does exist. Theyimagined this “life force” as supplementing the physicalsubstances and forces of the living body, just as the force ofmagnetism supplements the plain iron in a magnet.

Then came a time when this “life force” was removedfrom the stock of scientific concepts, and people tried toexplain everything in terms of mere physical and chemi-cal causes. More recently, however, a reaction againstthis has again set in among some scientific thinkers. Insome quarters, it is admitted that assuming the existenceof something like a “life force” is not total nonsense afterall. However, even scientists who deign to admit this pos-sibility will not want to make common cause with theview of the “life body” that has been presented here. As ageneral rule, engaging these people in dialogue from theviewpoint of supersensible knowledge will lead nowhere.Instead, supersensible knowledge should make a point ofrecognizing that the materialistic view is a necessary con-comitant of our era’s great progress in natural science,which is based on a tremendous refining of our methodsof sensory observation. In the course of evolution, it issimply part of human nature to raise some specific indi-vidual capabilities to a certain degree of perfection at the


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expense of others from time to time. Human faculties thatlead to “hidden worlds” had to be forced into the back-ground by the exact sensory observation that the naturalsciences developed to such a significant extent. But nowa time has again come when we need to cultivate thesefaculties. We will win acknowledgment of what is hid-den, not by combating judgments that are the logical con-sequence of denying the existence of hidden elements, butby showing these elements themselves in the right light sothat they can then be acknowledged by those for whomthe time is right.

This needed to be said here to keep people from assum-ing that the author is ignorant of the views of natural sci-ence when he talks about an “ether body”—somethingthat is necessarily seen in many quarters as a figment ofthe imagination.

This ether body, then, is a second part of our humanmakeup. Supersensible knowledge attributes a higherdegree of reality to it than to the physical body. A descrip-tion of this body as supersensible knowledge sees it canonly be given in later chapters of this book, once the sensein which such descriptions are meant to be taken hasbecome evident. For the moment, let it suffice to say thatthe ether body permeates the physical body in all its partsand is to be seen as its architect, so to speak. The shapeand form of all our organs are maintained by the etherbody’s currents and movements.1 Our physical heart is

1. See also Rudolf Steiner’s lecture cycle Occult Physiology, Prague,March 20–28, 1911 (GA 128), particularly the fifth lecture.


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based on an “ether heart,” our physical brain, on an “etherbrain,” and so on. The ether body is differentiated justlike the physical body, but it is more complicated. In theether body, everything is in a living, flowing state ofinterpenetration, whereas in the physical body, distinctlyseparate parts are present.

Having an ether body is common to plants and humanbeings in the same way that having a physical body iscommon to humans and minerals. Every living thing hasits own ether body.

From the ether body, we move on to a further compo-nent of our human makeup. To help us visualize this nextpart, supersensible observation points to the phenomenonof sleep, just as it pointed to death in the case of the etherbody. As far as everything manifest is concerned, all ourproductive actions are based on activity in the wakingstate. Waking activity, however, is only possible if werepeatedly draw new strength for our exhausted forcesfrom sleep. Doing and thinking disappear during sleep; allsuffering and pleasure are submerged as far as our con-scious life is concerned. When we awaken, consciousforces rise up out of sleep’s unconsciousness like water outof hidden and mysterious springs. The consciousness thatsinks down into the dark depths when we fall asleep is thesame as the one that rises up when we awaken. Accordingto supersensible cognition, what awakens life again andagain from the unconscious state is the third part of ourhuman makeup. We can call it the “astral body.”

Just as the physical body cannot maintain its form bymeans of the mineral substances and forces it contains,


but only by being permeated by the ether body, the forcesof the ether body are incapable of illumining themselveswith the light of consciousness. Left to its own devices,the ether body would have to remain in an ongoing stateof sleep. We might also say that it would only be able tosupport a plant-like existence within the physical body. Awaking ether body is illumined by an astral body. As faras sensory perception is concerned, the effects of theastral body disappear when a person falls asleep. Tosupersensible observation, however, the astral body isstill present but appears to have separated from the etherbody or lifted out of it. Sensory perception does not dealwith the astral body itself but only with its effects on man-ifest elements. These effects are not directly present whilewe sleep.

In the same sense that having a physical body is some-thing we share with minerals and the ether body some-thing we share with plants, with respect to our astral bodywe are of the same nature as animals. Plants exist in acontinuous state of sleep. If we do not judge these thingsaccurately, it is easy to fall into the error of creditingplants with a consciousness similar to what animals andhumans have in the waking state. This error is only pos-sible if we form an inexact concept of consciousness.When an external stimulus is applied to a plant, it makescertain movements just as an animal would do; we cansay that plants whose leaves curl up under certain exter-nal stimuli are “sensitive” to these stimuli. The decidingfactor in consciousness, however, is not the fact that abeing responds to stimuli, but the fact that it inwardly


[10]

experiences something new in addition to the mereresponse. Otherwise, we would also be able to speak ofconsciousness when a piece of iron expands under theinfluence of heat. Consciousness is only present whenthe being in question has an inner experience—of pain,for example—as a result of the heat’s effect.

The fourth element that supersensible cognitionascribes to our human makeup has nothing in commonwith the manifest world that surrounds us. It is what dis-tinguishes us from our fellow creatures and makes us thecrown of creation, of the created world that belongs to usat least temporarily. Supersensible cognition forms a con-cept of this next part of our human makeup by pointingout essential differences among our waking experiences.These differences immediately become apparent whenwe turn our attention to the fact that in the waking statewe are constantly in the midst of experiences that are nec-essarily transient, while, on the other hand, we also haveexperiences of which this is not true. This differencebecomes especially clear when we compare our humanexperiences to those of animals. Animals experience theinfluences of the outer world with great regularity; underthe influence of the warmth and the cold, of pain andpleasure, and certain regularly recurrent processes in theirbodies, they become aware of hunger and thirst. Suchexperiences do not constitute the entire scope of ourhuman life; we can develop desires and wishes that tran-scend all this. It would always be possible, if we wereable to go far enough, to demonstrate where the cause ofan animal’s action or sensation lies, whether within its


body or outside of it. This is by no means the case withhuman beings. We can produce wishes and desires thatare not adequately accounted for by causes either withinor outside of our bodies. We must acknowledge thateverything falling into this domain has a special source.In spiritual scientific terms, this source can be seen in thehuman “I,” which can therefore be called the fourth partof our human makeup.

If the astral body were left to its own devices, pleasureand pain and sensations of hunger and thirst would takeplace in it, but there would be no sense of anything per-manent in all of this. What we are calling the “I” is not thepermanent factor itself, but what experiences perma-nency. In this field, we must formulate our concepts veryclearly so that no misunderstandings arise. When webecome aware of something lasting or permanent withinthe changing flow of our inner experiences, the feeling ofI begins to dawn on us. The fact that a being feels hunger,for instance, cannot give it a feeling of I. Hunger sets inwhen its recurrent causes make themselves felt in thebeing in question, which then attacks its food with gustosimply because these recurrent causes are present. Thefeeling of I does not appear when recurrent causes of hun-ger drive us to seek food; it appears when, in addition tothis, we retain an awareness of our pleasure on a previousoccasion when our hunger was satisfied, so that our desirefor food is driven by past experience, as well as by ourcurrent experience of hunger.

The physical body would fall apart if the ether body didnot hold it together. The ether body would sink into


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unconsciousness if the astral body did not illumine it.Likewise, the astral body would repeatedly forget the pastif the I did not rescue this past and carry it over into thepresent. What death is to the physical body and sleep tothe ether body, forgetting is to the astral body. We canalso say that life belongs to the ether body, consciousnessto the astral body, and memory to the I.

Falling into the error of ascribing memory to animals iseven easier than ascribing consciousness to plants. It isnatural to think of memory when a dog recognizes itsowners after perhaps not having seen them for a longtime. In reality, however, this recognition is not based onmemory but on something totally different. The dog feelsa certain attraction for its owners, which proceeds fromtheir very being. This gives the dog pleasure when itsowners are present. Each time they are again present afteran absence, the dog’s pleasure recurs. Memory, however,is only present when a being not only feels its experiencesin the present but also retains those of the past. Even if weacknowledge this, we might still fall into the error ofthinking that the dog remembers. We could say, forinstance, that since the dog grieves when its owners leave,it retains a memory of them. This, too, is an incorrectassessment of the situation. Through sharing life with itsowners, the dog comes to need their presence and thusfeels their absence in the same way that it feels hunger. Ifwe do not make such distinctions, life’s true circum-stances will not become clear to us.

Certain biases might make us object to this presentationand say that we cannot know whether or not anything


similar to human memory is present in animals. Thisobjection is based on untrained observation. If we arereally capable of observing factually how an animalbehaves in the context of its experiences, we will noticethe difference between its behavior and that of a humanbeing and will realize that the animal’s behavior is inkeeping with the absence of memory.

This fact is immediately clear to supersensible observa-tion. But in addition, the effects of what enters humanconsciousness directly during supersensible observationenable our thought-permeated sensory perception to rec-ognize it. If we say that we become aware of our ownmemory by inwardly observing our own souls, while wecannot do the same with the soul of an animal, this state-ment is based on a fateful error. What we can say aboutour own capacity for memory does not come frominwardly observing our souls, but only from what weexperience with regard to ourselves in relationship to theobjects and processes of the outer world. We experiencethis with regard to ourselves, with regard to other humanbeings, and also with regard to animals in exactly thesame way. We are blinded by illusion when we believethat we assess the presence of memory only on the basisof inner observation. Although we may say that the powerthat underlies memory is an inner power, our assessmentof it, even with regard to ourselves, is acquired from theouter world by looking at the context of life. We are ableto assess this context with regard to an animal in the sameway that we can assess it with regard to ourselves. Con-temporary psychology suffers a great deal in this respect


[*]

from its totally untrained and inexact ideas, which arehighly deceptive due to errors in observation.

It would be very easy to misunderstand this book’sexplanations of the faculty of memory.2 It will not beimmediately apparent to people who consider only outerprocesses that there is a difference between what happensin memory-like occurrences in animals or even in plantsand what is described here as real memory in humanbeings. It is true that when an animal does something forthe third or fourth time, to all outer appearances it maywell seem that memory and the learning associated withit are actually present. Like some natural scientists andtheir followers, we might even extend the concept ofmemory to include what happens when a chick creeps outof its shell and begins pecking at grain—it even knowsthe precise movements it needs to make with its head andbody in order to do this. We might say that since it cannothave learned this while still in the shell, it must havelearned it from the thousands and thousands of creatureswho were its ancestors. This is what Hering says, forexample.3 It is quite possible to describe this phenome-non as something that looks like memory. But if we donot consider the unique process that takes place in humanbeings—which is a process of really perceiving earlierexperiences at later points in time rather than merely a

2. Paragraphs indicated by [*] in the margins were included at theend of previous editions as “Special Remarks.”3. Ewald Hering (1834–1918), Über das Gedächtnis als eine allge-meine Funktion der organisierten Materie [“Memory as a GeneralFunction of Organized Matter”], Vienna, 1870.


[*]

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process by which earlier conditions influence later ones—we will never be able to really grasp the essence of humannature.

In this book, the perception of the past—and not merelyits reappearance, even in a changed form, at a later time—is what will be called memory. If we chose to use thisword for the corresponding processes in the plant and ani-mal kingdoms, we would need to have another one toapply to human beings. The word itself is not what isimportant in the discussion above; what is important isthat with regard to understanding the essential nature ofthe human being, we must recognize the difference. It isequally impossible to relate the apparently highly intelli-gent accomplishments of animals to what is being called“memory” here.

For the I, remembering and forgetting signify some-thing very similar to what waking and sleeping signify forthe astral body. Just as sleep allows the cares and troublesof the day to disappear into nothingness, forgettingspreads a veil over life’s bad experiences, blotting outpart of the past. And just as we need sleep to strengthenour exhausted life forces again, we also need to eradicatecertain parts of our past from our memory in order toapproach new experiences freely and without bias. For-getting is precisely what develops our strength to perceivesomething new. Think about things like learning how towrite, for instance. All the detailed steps that childrenhave to go through in learning how to write are forgotten,and what remains is the ability to write. How could wepossibly write if all our past experiences of learning how


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to do it arose again in our souls as memories each time weput pen to paper?

Now, memory appears in various stages. Its simplestform is when we perceive an object and can then turnaway from it and reawaken a mental image of it. Thismental image was formed while we were perceiving theobject, in a process that took place between our astralbody and our I. The astral body made the outer impres-sion of the object become conscious, but we would havebeen aware of the object only for as long as it was actuallypresent if the I had not absorbed this knowledge and takenpossession of it.

This is the point where supersensible observation sepa-rates our bodily nature from our soul nature. We speak ofthe astral body as long as we have in mind the birth ofknowledge about an object that is present. What givespermanence to this knowledge, however, we then call thesoul. But from what has just been said, we can immedi-ately see how closely the human astral body is linked tothe part of the soul that gives permanence to knowledge.These two things are united into a single element of ourhuman makeup, so to speak, and, therefore, this union canalso be called the astral body. If we want exact terms, wecan also call the human astral body the soul body and thesoul, to the extent that it is united with this soul body, thesentient soul.

The I rises to a higher level of its essential nature whenit directs its activity toward the aspects of this object-knowledge that it has made its own. Through this activity,the I detaches itself more and more from perceived


objects in order to work within what it has made its own.The part of the soul where this happens can be called theintellectual soul or mind soul. It is characteristic of boththe sentient and mind souls that they work with what theyreceive through impressions of objects perceived by thesenses and then retained in memory. Here the soul istotally given over to something external to it. Even whatit takes possession of through memory has been receivedfrom outside.

However, the soul can transcend all this. It consists ofmore than just the sentient and mind souls. It is easiest forthe supersensible view to provide some idea of this bypointing to a single simple fact whose comprehensive sig-nificance needs to be appreciated: Within the entire scopeof our language, there is only one name whose essentialcharacter distinguishes it from all others. That name is I.Any other name can be applied to the thing or being towhom it belongs by any human being, but as a designa-tion for a being, I has meaning only when that beingapplies it to itself. The name I can never be heard comingfrom outside as the name of the listener; one can onlyapply it to oneself. I am an “I” only to myself; I am a“you” to anyone else and anyone else is a “you” to me.

This state of affairs is the outward expression of adeeply significant truth. The actual essential nature ofthe I is independent of anything external; therefore,nothing outside of it can call it by its name. Religiousdenominations that have consciously maintained theirconnection to the supersensible view call the term I the“ineffable name of God.” This points to what has just


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been indicated. Nothing external has access to the part ofthe human soul we are looking at now. This is the soul’s“hidden shrine,” and only a being that is of the samenature as the soul can gain entrance there. The God whodwells within the human being begins to speak when thesoul recognizes itself as an I. Just as the sentient andmind souls dwell in the outer world, a third soul elementimmerses itself in the divine when the soul achieves per-ception of its own being.

It is easy to misunderstand this view as a declarationthat the I and God are one and the same. However, it doesnot state that the I is God, but only that it is of the samecharacter and essence as the divine. If we took a drop ofwater out of the sea, would we be claiming that it is thesea if we said that the drop is of the same essence or sub-stance as the sea? If we absolutely want to use a compar-ison, we can say that the drop is to the sea as the I is to thedivine. We can find a divine element in ourselves becauseour own primal being is taken from the divine. Thus,through this third part of the human soul, we acquire innerknowledge of ourselves, just as we acquire knowledge ofthe outer world through the astral body. This is why eso-teric science can call this third soul element the con-sciousness soul. In an esoteric scientific sense, the soulconsists of three parts: the sentient soul, the mind soul,and the consciousness soul, just as the body consists ofthree parts: the physical body, the ether body, and theastral body.

Psychological errors in observation, similar to thosealready mentioned regarding the erroneous assessment


of the capacity for memory, make it difficult to acquirethe right kind of insight into the essential nature of theI. Many things we believe we understand can seem torefute what is presented above, while in reality theyconfirm it. This is the case, for example, with Eduardvon Hartmann’s comments on the I in his Outline ofPsychology:

In the first place, self-awareness is older than theword I. Personal pronouns are a rather late productof the evolution of languages; they are of value tolanguage only as abbreviations. The word I is ashorter substitute for the speaker’s own name, but asubstitute that each speaker, as such, uses for himor herself, regardless of what proper name othersmay apply to him or her. Self-awareness candevelop to a very great extent in animals and inuntaught people with severe speech and hearingimpairments, even without reference to a propername. Awareness of one’s own name can fullyreplace the absence of the use of the word I. Thisinsight eliminates the magical aura that envelopsthe little word I in the minds of many people. Thisword cannot contribute in the least to the conceptof self-awareness; rather, it receives its entire con-tent from that concept.4

4. Eduard von Hartmann (1842-1906), System der Philosophie im Grun-driss (An Outline of a System of Philosophy), vol. 3 Grundriss der Psy-chologie (An Outline of Psychology).


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We can agree completely with such views; we can alsoagree that no magical aura should be attached to the littleword I to darken our thoughtful consideration of the mat-ter. But the nature of a thing is not determined by howgradually the word designating it came about. The impor-tant point is that the essential being of the I in self-aware-ness is “older than the word I,” and that we are compelledto use this particular little word, endowed with qualitiesbelonging to it alone, for the element in our interrelation-ship with the outer world that is different from what ananimal can experience. Nothing can be shown about thenature of a triangle by showing how the word “triangle”came about; similarly, nothing can be concluded aboutthe nature of the I by knowing how the word developedout of a different verbal usage in the course of the evolu-tion of language.

The true nature of the I first reveals itself in the con-sciousness soul. The soul loses itself to other things infeeling and intellect, but as the consciousness soul it takeshold of its own being. That’s why the consciousnesssoul’s perception of the I can take place only through acertain inner activity. Mental images of outer objects,formed as these objects come and go, work on in ourintellect through a power of their own. However, if the Iis to perceive itself, it cannot simply surrender itself. Inorder to be conscious of its own being, it must first useinner activity to lift its being up out of its own depths.When the I is perceived—that is, when self-reflectiontakes place—an inner activity of the I begins. Throughthis activity, perceiving the I in the consciousness soul


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acquires a quite different meaning for the human beingthan perceiving everything that approaches us throughour three bodily elements and the other two parts of thesoul.

The force that makes the I manifest in the conscious-ness soul is actually the same force that makes itselfknown in all the rest of the world, but in the body and inthe lower soul elements, it does not appear directly, butreveals itself in stages through its effects. Its lowest man-ifestation takes place through the physical body; it thenrises step by step to what fills the mind soul. We mightsay that at each step in its ascent, another veil cloaking thehidden element falls away. In what fills the consciousnesssoul, this hidden element steps unveiled into the inner-most temple of the soul where it appears as only a drop inthe sea of all-pervading spirituality. Here, however, wemust first take hold of this spirituality. We must recognizeit in ourselves so that we are then also able to find it in itsmanifestations.

What makes its way like a drop into the consciousnesssoul is called the spirit by esoteric science. In this way theconsciousness soul is united with the spirit, which is thehidden element in everything manifest. When we want tograsp the spirit in all of the revealed world, we must do soin the same way that we grasp the I in the consciousnesssoul. The activity that led us to perceive this I must now bedirected toward the manifest world. In doing this, weevolve to higher levels of our being and add somethingnew to the body and soul elements of our human makeup.To begin with, we conquer what lies hidden in the lower


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parts of the soul. This takes place through work on the soulthat proceeds from the I. How a person is involved in thiswork becomes evident when we compare a noble idealistto someone who is still totally given up to lower desiresand so-called sensual pleasures. Such a person can becomea “noble idealist” by withdrawing from certain base incli-nations and turning toward higher ones; that is, by workingout of the I to have an ennobling and spiritualizing effecton his or her own soul. The I becomes the master withinthat person’s soul life. This can be taken to the point whereno desire or craving can find a place in the soul unless theI allows it to enter. In this way, the entire soul becomes arevelation of the I, as was previously true only of the con-sciousness soul. Fundamentally, all of our cultural activityand spiritual endeavors consist of work that aims for thismastery by the I. All human beings who are alive at presentare involved in this work, whether or not they choose to beand whether or not they are conscious of it.

But this work leads to higher levels of our essentialhuman nature and develops new parts of our makeup thatare hidden behind what is manifest to us. Not only canwe master the soul by working on it out of the I so that itreveals what is hidden in the manifest, but we can alsotake this work further and extend it to the astral body.The I then takes possession of the astral body by unitingwith its hidden nature. This astral body that is conqueredand transformed by the I can be called the spirit self.(This is the same as what is called manas in the traditionsof Eastern wisdom.) The spirit self constitutes a higherelement of our human makeup, one that is present in it in


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embryonic form, as it were, and emerges more and morein the course of working on ourselves.

Just as we conquer the astral body by making our waythrough to the hidden forces standing behind it, this alsohappens with the ether body in the course of our innerdevelopment. Working on the ether body, however, ismore intensive than working on the astral body becausewhat is concealed in the ether body is cloaked in twoveils, while what is hidden in the astral is cloaked in onlya single veil.

We can get an idea of the differences in working oneach of these two bodies by pointing to certain changesthat can take place in us in the course of our development.First, let’s think about how certain soul qualities developwhen the I works on the soul, how passion and desire, joyand sorrow may change. All we need to do is to think backto our childhood. What gave us pleasure then? Whatcaused us pain? What have we learned, what have weadded to what we were able to do as children? All of thisis only an expression of how the I gained mastery over theastral body, because the astral body is the vehicle of pas-sion and sorrow, of joy and pain.

In contrast, there are certain other qualities of ours,such as our temperament and the deeper idiosyncracies ofour character, that change relatively little over time.Someone who was hot-tempered as a child will oftenretain certain aspects of this violent temper in later life.This point is so striking that there are theorists who totallydeny the possibility of any fundamental change in a per-son’s character. They assume that this remains constant


[*]

throughout a person’s life, simply revealing itself in onedirection or another. However, this conclusion is basedon lack of observation. It is clear to anyone who has thecapacity to observe such things that even a person’s char-acter and temperament change under the influence of theI, although this change is slow in relationship to thechange in the qualities described above. To use a compar-ison, the relationship between the two kinds of change islike the movement of the hour hand of a clock in relation-ship to the minute hand.

Now, the forces that bring about changes in a person’scharacter or temperament belong to the hidden domain ofthe ether body. They are of the same nature as the forcesthat govern the living kingdom—that is, the forces thatserve the processes of growth, nutrition, and reproduc-tion. Explanations that will be presented later on in thisbook will shed the right light on these things.

It is not possible to draw a fixed boundary between thechanges that take place as a result of the activity of the Iin the astral body and those that take place in the etherbody, since they blend into each other. If something welearn enhances our faculty of judgment, a change hastaken place in the astral body, but if this judgmentchanges our state of mind so that we become accustomedto feeling differently about a subject after having learnedabout it, then a change has taken place in the ether body.Everything we take possession of in such a way that wecan recall it again and again is based on a change in theether body. Anything that gradually becomes an en-trenched part of the wealth of our memory rests on the


fact that the work performed on the astral body has beentransferred to the ether body.

The I is not working on the astral body when we simplygive ourselves up to pleasure and suffering, joy and pain,but only when the idiosyncracies of these soul qualitiesbegin to change. Likewise, this work extends to the etherbody when our I applies its activity to changing our traitsof character, our temperament, and so on. Every individ-ual is working on this change, too, whether consciouslyor not. In ordinary life, the strongest impulses workingon behalf of this change are religious ones. When our Iallows impulses that flow from religion to work on itagain and again, these impulses develop a strength withinthe I that works right through into the ether body andtransforms it, just as lesser impulses in life cause a trans-formation of the astral body. These lesser impulses,which come to us through learning, thinking, ennoblingour feelings, and so on, are subject to the many and var-ious changes in our life, but religious feelings leave auniform imprint on all our thinking, feeling, and willing.They shed a common, uniform light on our whole soullife, so to speak. We think and feel one way today,another way tomorrow, prompted by a great variety ofcauses. But if, because of religious feelings of whateversort, we divine the presence of something that remainsconstant through all these changes, we will relate bothtoday’s and tomorrow’s soul experiences to this funda-mental feeling. Religious belief, therefore, has a far-reaching effect on our soul life that becomes stronger andstronger with time because it works through constant


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repetition. This is why it acquires the strength to work onour ether body.

True art has similar effects on us. If, through the outerform, color, or tone of a work of art we are able to pene-trate to its spiritual foundation with our thought and feel-ing, then the impulses our I receives as a result actuallywork right through to the ether body. If we think thisthought through to its conclusion, we can assess art’s tre-mendous significance for all of human development andevolution.

We have referred here to only a few examples of thingsthat provide the I with impulses to work on the ether body.There are many such influences in our lives that are not soreadily apparent to the observing eye as the ones that havebeen mentioned here. From these, however, it is evidentthat there is an additional part of our human makeup hid-den within us, and that the I is gradually developing it. Wecan call this second spiritual element the life spirit. (Thisis the same as what is called buddhi in the traditions ofEastern wisdom.) “Life spirit” is the appropriate term forthis because the forces active within it are the same forcesthat are active in the life body. The only difference is thatwhen they manifest as the life body, the human I is notactive in them. However, when they manifest as the lifespirit, they are imbued with the activity of the I.

Our intellectual development and the extent to whichwe purify and ennoble our displays of feeling and will arethe measure of our transformation of the astral body intothe spirit self, while religious and other related experi-ences leave an imprint on our ether body and turn it into


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the life spirit. In the course of ordinary life, this happensmore or less unconsciously. In contrast, in what is knownas initiation, supersensible knowledge points out themeans that allow us to take this work on the spirit self andlife spirit quite consciously in hand. These means will bediscussed in later sections of this book. For the moment,the most important thing is simply to show that in addi-tion to the body and the soul, the spirit is also activewithin the human being. Later, we will also see how thisspirit belongs to the human being’s eternal aspect, in con-trast to the transitory body.

The activity of the I, however, is not limited to workingon the astral body and the ether body. It also extends tothe physical body. A trace of the influence of the I can beseen, for instance, when a person blushes or turns paleunder certain circumstances. In this case, the I actuallytriggers a process in the physical body. When changestake place in a person through the activity of the I, specif-ically with regard to its influence on the physical body,the I is actually united with the physical body’s hiddenforces, with the same forces that bring about physical pro-cesses in it. We can then say that the I is working on thephysical body through this activity. This statement mustnot be misunderstood; we must not assume that this workis something crudely material. What appears in a crudelymaterial way in the physical body is only the manifestaspect of this work. Its essential forces are spiritual innature and lie hidden behind this manifestation. We arenot speaking here of work on the physical body’s mani-fest material aspect, but of spiritual work on the invisible


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forces that bring the body into existence and later cause itto disintegrate again.

In ordinary life, the work of the I on the physical bodyenters our consciousness to only a very limited degree ofclarity. We arrive at complete clarity only when we takethis work consciously in hand under the influence ofsupersensible knowledge. At that point, however, itbecomes apparent that there is a third spiritual part to thehuman being. This may be called the spirit body, in con-trast to the physical human being. (In Eastern wisdom thisspirit body is called the atma.)

It is also easy to be misled with regard to the spirit bodybecause we view the physical body as the human being’slowest component and, therefore, have difficulty comingto terms with the fact that working on this physical bodyis supposed to result in the highest part of our humanmakeup. But the very fact that the physical body concealsthe spirit active in it behind three veils is the reason whythe highest form of inner work is needed to unite the Iwith the spirit hidden there.

Thus, the human being appears to esoteric science as abeing made up of different elements. Those of a bodilynature are the physical body, the ether body, and the astralbody. Those belonging to the soul are the sentient soul, themind soul, and the consciousness soul. The light of the Ishines forth within the soul. The spiritual elements are thespirit self, the life spirit, and the spirit body. It followsfrom the descriptions above that the sentient soul and theastral body are closely united and constitute a unity in acertain respect. Likewise, the consciousness soul and the


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spirit self constitute a unity, because the consciousnesssoul is where the spirit flares up and radiates outward intothe other parts of our human makeup. Taking this into con-sideration, we can speak of the following configuration ofthe human being: The astral body and the sentient soul canbe combined into a single element, as can the conscious-ness soul and the spirit self. We can simply call the mindsoul the I because it takes part in the nature of the I; in acertain respect, it already is the I that has not yet becomeaware of its spiritual nature. This results in seven compo-nents of the human being: 1) the physical body; 2) theether body or life body; 3) the astral body; 4) the I; 5) thespirit self; 6) the life spirit; and 7) the spirit body.

This sevenfold configuration of the human being neednot have anything “vaguely magical” about it—as peoplewho are used to materialistic concepts so often claim—ifthese people would simply stick closely to the meaning ofthe descriptions above and not superimpose this element ofmagic from the very beginning. We ought to speak of theseseven parts of the human being no differently from how wespeak of the seven colors that make up light or the sevennotes that constitute a scale (if we consider the octave to bea repetition of the tonic). The only difference is that we arespeaking from the viewpoint of a higher method of observ-ing the world. Just as light appears in seven colors andsound in a sevenfold scale, homogeneous human natureappears in the seven differentiations described above. Justas there is nothing inherently superstitious about the num-ber seven in tone and color, this is also the case with regardto differentiation in the human being.


(During one oral presentation on this subject someoneremarked that, in the case of colors, the number seven isnot correct, because there are other colors, invisible to theeye, that lie beyond red and violet. Even taking this intoaccount, however, the analogy to colors holds good,because our human makeup actually extends beyond thephysical body on the one hand and the spirit body on theother. These extensions, however, are “spiritually invisi-ble” to methods of supersensible observation, just as thecolors beyond red and violet are invisible to the physicaleye. It was necessary to respond to this remark, becauseit is so easy to think that supersensible observation isamateurish and imprecise in how it uses ideas from thenatural sciences. However, anyone who pays strict atten-tion to the intended meaning of what is said here will findthat it actually never contradicts true natural science, nei-ther when natural-scientific facts are used for purposes ofillustration, nor when remarks made here point to a directrelationship to natural scientific research.)

Sleep and Death 59

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C H A P T E R 3

SLEEP AND DEATH

Just as we cannot solve the riddle of life without consider-ing death, we also cannot break through to understandingthe essence of waking consciousness without consideringthe state we pass through during sleep. Someone who hasno feeling for the significance of supersensible knowledgemay entertain doubts about this knowledge simply becauseof its views on sleep and death. We can appreciate the rea-son for these doubts. There is nothing incomprehensibleabout it if someone states that human beings are here inorder to lead an active and effective life, that purposefulactivity depends on being able to devote ourselves to thislife, and that delving into conditions like sleep and deathcan result only from a penchant for idle dreaminess andlead only to empty fantasies. It is easy for people to believethat rejecting such “fantasies” is a sign of a healthy souland that devoting oneself to “idle dreaminess” is a patho-logical trait that is present only in people who lack both joyin life and the strength to tackle it and who are incapableof real “purposeful activity.”


It would be doing this opinion an injustice to present itas totally false, because there is a certain kernel of truthin it. It is a quarter-truth that needs the other three-quar-ters for completeness. If we attack the one-quarter of itthat is true, we will simply arouse the suspicions of thosewho see that quarter very clearly but have no inkling ofthe other three.

It must be acknowledged without reservation thatinvestigating what is hidden behind the veils of sleep anddeath actually is pathological if it leads to weakness andestrangement from real life. Likewise, we must agreethat much of what called itself esoteric science in thepast, as well as much of what is practiced today underthat name, bears the imprint of something unhealthy andhostile to life. But this unhealthy element does not springfrom true supersensible knowledge. On the contrary, thereal fact of the matter is this: Just as we cannot always beawake, when it comes to the real circumstances of life inthe broadest sense, we also cannot get along withoutwhat the supersensible element can offer us. Life contin-ues while we are asleep, and our forces for the workingand creating we do while we are awake gain strength andrefreshment from what sleep gives them; this is howthings stand with what we can observe in the manifestworld. But the world is broader in scope than that partic-ular field of observation, and what we know in the visi-ble world must be complemented and fructified by whatcan be known about the invisible worlds. If we did notrepeatedly draw strength for our depleted forces fromsleep, we would destroy our life. Similarly, a worldview

Sleep and Death 61

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not fructified by a knowledge of the hidden elementinevitably leads to desolation.

Something similar is true of “death.” Living things suc-cumb to death so that new life can come about. Knowl-edge of the supersensible element is precisely what canshed light on Goethe’s beautiful words, “Life is[Nature’s] most beautiful invention, and death is a trick itplays in order to have abundant life.”1

Just as there would be no life in the usual sense of theword if there were no death, there can be no real knowl-edge of the visible world without insight into the supersen-sible realm. All knowledge of the visible must immerseitself in the invisible again and again in order to be able toevolve. Thus it is evident that the science of the supersen-sible is what makes the existence of revealed knowledgealtogether possible. When it appears in its true form, thisscience of the invisible never weakens life; it repeatedlystrengthens it and makes it fresh and healthy when it hasbecome weak and sick from having been left on its own.

When we fall asleep, the connection between the ele-ments of our makeup changes. The part of a human beingthat lies sleeping on the bed contains the physical bodyand ether body, but not the astral body or ego. Life’s pro-cesses continue during sleep because the ether bodyremains united with the physical body. If the physical

1. An aphorism on “Nature” in Goethe’s NaturwissenschaftlichenSchriften (Works on Natural Science), edited and with commen-tary by Rudolf Steiner in Kürschner’s Deutsche National-Litera-tur (National Literature of Germany), 5 vols. (1884–1897), (GA1a, e, vol.2, GA1b), p. 8.


body were left to itself, it would have to disintegrate.What is extinguished in sleep, however, are our mentalimages, our pain and pleasure, joy and sorrow, our abilityto express our conscious intentions, and similar realitiesof our existence. The astral body is the vehicle of allthese, however. If we are unbiased in our assessment ofthis situation, we will never be able to entertain the notionthat the astral body is destroyed during sleep, along withall our pleasure and pain and the entire world of our ideasand will. It is simply present in a different state. For our Iand astral body to have a conscious perception of our painand suffering and all the other things just listed, ratherthan simply being filled with them, the astral body mustbe connected to the physical body and the ether body.And in fact it is connected when we are awake, but notwhen we are asleep. In sleep, the astral body withdraws.It takes on a different form of existence than the one it haswhen it is connected to the physical and ether bodies.

So the next task for supersensible knowledge is to con-sider the astral body’s other form of existence. As far asobservation in the external world is concerned, the astralbody disappears during sleep. Now supersensible percep-tion’s job is to follow it until it takes possession of thephysical and ether bodies once again when we wake up. Asin all cases involving knowledge of the world’s hiddenthings and processes, discovering the particulars of what isreally going on in the state of sleep requires supersensibleobservation. Once what can be discovered by this meanshas been stated, however, it is immediately understandableto truly unbiased thinking, because processes in the hidden

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world have effects that are visible in the manifest world.Once we see how the contribution of supersensible obser-vation makes sense-perceptible processes understandable,such corroboration by life itself constitutes the proof thatcan be required for such things. Those who choose not touse the methods of attaining supersensible perception thatwill be explained later will still be able to have the experi-ence of accepting the statements of supersensible knowl-edge and applying them to manifest things in their ownexperience. By doing so, they will find that life becomesclear and understandable. The more precisely and thor-oughly they consider ordinary life, the more they willcome to this conviction.

Even though the astral body experiences no mentalimages during sleep, no pleasure or pain or anything sim-ilar, it does not remain inactive. On the contrary, it isobliged to maintain a lively activity in the sleeping state,an activity it must take up again and again in rhythmicalsuccession after periods of being involved in the activitythat it shares with the physical and ether bodies. Just asthe pendulum of a clock that has swung to the left andthen come back to the middle must then swing to the rightbecause of the momentum gained by swinging to the left,the astral body and the I that rests in its bosom, havingbeen active for a while in the physical and ether bodies,must then spend the next period of time being busy andactive in the body-free state in an environment of souland spirit. As far as our normal state of life is concerned,unconsciousness sets in when the astral body and the Iare in this body-free state, because this represents the


[*]

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counterbalance to the state of consciousness that devel-ops in the waking state through union with the physicaland ether bodies, just as the pendulum’s swing to theright is the counterbalance to its swing to the left.

The soul-spiritual principle in the human being experi-ences needing to enter this state of unconsciousness asfatigue. However, this fatigue is the expression of the factthat during sleep the astral body and I are preparing them-selves to re-form, during the next period of wakefulness,what has arisen in the physical and ether bodies throughpurely organic—and unconscious—formative activitywhile they were free of the spirit and soul principles. Thisunconscious formative activity is the polar opposite ofwhat happens in the human being during consciousnessand by means of consciousness; these states must alter-nate in rhythmical succession.

The usual views on the connection between sleep andfatigue are not in line with the facts. We think that sleepsets in as a consequence of fatigue. This is an oversimpli-fied idea, as is shown by the fact that people often fallasleep during uninteresting lectures or on other similaroccasions even if they aren’t tired at all. Anyone whoinsists that such occasions make us tired is trying toexplain this phenomenon by applying a method that lackscognitive integrity.

Unbiased observation will certainly show us that wak-ing and sleeping represent different relationships of thesoul to the body. Like a pendulum swinging alternately tothe right and to the left, these relationships alternate inrhythmic succession in the ordinary course of life. This

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same unbiased observation reveals that the state of beingfilled with impressions of the outer world awakenswithin the soul a desire to follow this state with a differ-ent one in which the soul is absorbed in enjoying its ownbodily nature. Two states of soul alternate—surrenderingto outer impressions and surrendering to one’s ownbodily nature. During the first state, the desire for thesecond is produced unconsciously. The second state thenruns its course in unconsciousness. Fatigue is the expres-sion of wanting to enjoy our own bodily nature, soinstead of saying that we want to sleep because we feeltired, we actually ought to say that we feel tired becausewe want to sleep. Since the human soul can, as a sort ofadaptation, evoke at will states that normally appear as amatter of necessity, it is also possible for us to evoke thedesire to enjoy our own bodily nature when we havenumbed ourselves to a given outer impression. That is,we fall asleep even though our inner condition gives usno reason to do so.

The physical body can only be maintained in a shapeand form suitable for a human being by means of a humanether body, which must in turn receive the appropriateforces from an astral body. The ether body is the sculptoror architect of the physical body. However, it can onlyshape the body in the right way if it receives the stimulusto do so from the astral body. The astral body contains theprototypes according to which the ether body gives thephysical body its form. During the waking state, the astralbody is not filled with these prototypes of the physicalbody, or only to a certain extent, because the soul puts


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images of its own in their place. When we direct oursenses to our surroundings, we form mental images bymeans of perception, mental images that are likenesses ofthe world around us. Initially, these likenesses disturb theimages that stimulate the ether body to maintain the phys-ical body. If our own activity were to supply our astralbody with images that would stimulate the ether body inthe right way, this disturbance would not happen. In fact,however, this disturbance, which is expressed in the factthat the prototypes for the ether body are not fully effec-tive during the waking state, plays an important role inhuman existence. In the waking state the astral body car-ries out its activity within the physical body, while insleep it works upon it from outside.

Just as the physical body, which is of the same nature asthe outer world, needs the outer world to supply it withnourishment, for example, something similar is also trueof the astral body. Imagine a physical human body re-moved from the world that surrounds it. It would have toperish. This demonstrates that without its whole physicalenvironment, it could not exist. In fact, the entire Earthmust be just the way it is if physical human bodies are toexist on it. In reality, the entire human body is simply apart of the Earth, or, in a wider sense, part of the wholephysical universe. In this connection, its relationship issimilar to that of a finger on one hand to the entire humanbody. If we sever the finger from the hand, it can no longerremain a finger. It withers away. The same thing wouldhappen to a human body if it were removed from the bodyit is part of, from the living conditions provided by the

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Earth. If we were to raise it a sufficient number of milesabove the Earth’s surface, it would die just as a finger sev-ered from the hand dies. If we pay less attention to this factwith regard to our own physical bodies than with regard tofingers, this is simply because fingers cannot stroll aroundfreely on the body the way people can on the Earth, so thedependence of fingers is more obvious.

Just as the physical body is embedded in the physicalworld to which it belongs, the astral body is also embeddedin a world of its own. However, it is torn out of this worldduring our waking life. An analogy will illustrate whathappens in this case. Imagine a container full of water. Asingle drop in this volume of water is not something sepa-rate and independent. But then suppose we take a littlesponge and absorb one drop out of the whole amount.Something similar happens with the human astral bodywhen we wake up. During sleep, it is in a world that is likeitself; in a certain sense, it constitutes something belongingto that world. But when we wake up, the physical body andthe ether body absorb it and fill themselves with it. Theycontain the organs through which it perceives the outerworld, but in order to acquire this perception, it must sep-arate itself from the other world to which it belongs. How-ever, it can only receive the prototypes it needs for theether body from this other world.

In the sleeping state, the astral body receives imagesfrom the world that surrounds it, just as the physical bodyreceives nourishment from its surroundings, for example.The astral body actually lives out there in the universe,outside the physical and ether bodies, in the same universe


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that gave birth to the entire human being. This universe isthe source of the images we use to maintain our form, andwe are harmoniously incorporated into it during sleep. Aswe awaken, we lift ourselves up out of this all-encompass-ing harmony in order to acquire outer perception. Duringsleep our astral bodies return to the harmony of the uni-verse again. When we awaken, we bring enough strengthwith us out of the cosmic harmony into our bodies so thatwe can go without being in that state for a while. The astralbody returns home during sleep and brings renewed forcesback into our life when we awaken. The outer expressionof this is the refreshment that healthy sleep bestows on us.Further esoteric scientific descriptions will show that theastral body’s home is more encompassing than the aspectof the physical environment that belongs to the physicalbody in the narrower sense. While we humans, as physicalbeings, are part of the Earth, our astral bodies are part of aworld that embraces additional heavenly bodies. Duringsleep, therefore, we enter a world that encompasses otherworlds in addition to our Earth. As mentioned before, thisfact will only become clear from later descriptions.

It ought to be superfluous to point to a misunderstand-ing that can easily arise with regard to these facts, but thisis not the case in an age when certain materialistic waysof thinking are present. Of course people who subscribeto these views can say that the only scientific thing to dois to investigate the physical conditions of somethingsuch as sleep. They can say that even though experts arenot yet united on the subject of the physical cause ofsleep, one thing is certain—we must assume that specific

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physical processes are the basis of this phenomenon. Ifonly people would admit that supersensible knowledge inno way contradicts this claim! It agrees with everythingthat is said from this point of view, just as we all agree thatin the physical construction of a house, one brick must beplaced on top of another, and that when the house is fin-ished, its structure and the fact that it holds together canbe explained in terms of purely mechanical laws. In orderfor the house to come about, however, the architect’s ideais needed, and this idea is nowhere to be found when weinvestigate only the physical laws that apply.

Just as the thoughts of the person who created the houselie behind the physical laws that make it explainable, thestatements of supersensible knowledge also lie behindwhat physical science quite correctly presents. It is truethat this comparison, which may be considered trivial, isoften used to justify the idea of a spiritual backdrop to theworld. But in such matters the important thing is not thatwe are familiar with specific concepts, but that we attachthe right value to them in arguing the point. The mere factthat opposing ideas exercise so much power over ourcapacity for judgment can prevent us from assessing thisvalue correctly.

Dreaming is an intermediate state between waking andsleeping. To thoughtful consideration, dream experiencesconsist of a colorful intermingling of images in a worldthat conceals an element of regularity and lawfulnesswithin it, although at first glance this world seems toreveal an often confusing ebb and flow. In dreaming, weare released from the laws of waking consciousness that


fetter us to sensory perception and to the rules that governour power of judgment. And yet, dreams obey certainmysterious laws that are fascinating and alluring to ourfaculty of surmising and are the deeper reason why we soreadily compare “dreaming” to the beautiful play ofimagination that supports artistic sensitivity. We will findthis confirmed if we simply recall a few characteristicdreams: We dream, for example, about driving off a dogthat is about to pounce on us. We wake up to catch our-selves in the unconscious act of throwing off the coverswhere they were weighing on an unaccustomed body partand starting to bother us.

What does dreaming do to a sense-perceptible processin this case? Our sleeping life allows what our senseswould perceive in the waking state to remain fully uncon-scious for the moment, but it does hold fast to one essen-tial thing—the fact that we are trying to get rid ofsomething. It spins a pictorial process around this fact.The images as such are echoes of our daily waking life,but there is something arbitrary in the way they are bor-rowed from it. We have the feeling that although the sameexternal provocation might also conjure up other picturesin our dream, these would still symbolically express thesensation of wanting to get rid of something. Dreams cre-ate symbols; they are symbolists. Inner processes can alsobe transformed into dream symbols. Suppose we dreamthat a fire is crackling nearby; we see the flames in ourdream. We wake up and find that we have been toowarmly covered and are getting hot. The feeling of toomuch warmth expresses itself in the dream image.

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Very dramatic experiences can be enacted in dreams.We dream, for instance, that we are standing at the edgeof a cliff. We see a child running toward the edge. Thedream lets us experience all our tormenting thoughts: Ifonly the child would pay attention and not fall over thecliff! We see the child fall and hear a dull thud as the bodylands. We wake up and find that something hanging onthe bedroom wall has fallen down with a dull thump. Inthe dream, this simple process is expressed in excitingimages. At the moment, we need not wonder about how itis possible for the momentary dull thud of a falling objectto trigger a whole series of events that seemed to takeplace over a certain span of time. We only need to con-sider how the dream makes an image out of what sense-perception would offer if we were awake.

We see that as soon as our sensory activity comes to ahalt, something creative asserts itself in us. This is the samecreativity that is also present in completely dreamless sleep,where it appears as the soul state that is the opposite of thewaking state. In order for this dreamless sleep to set in, theastral body must have withdrawn from the ether body andthe physical body. During dreams, it is separated from thephysical body in that it is no longer connected to our senseorgans, but it still maintains a certain connection to the etherbody. That we can perceive the astral body’s processes inimage form is due to this connection. When it ceases, theimages immediately sink down into the darkness of theunconscious, and we have dreamless sleep.

That dream pictures are arbitrary and often absurd isdue to the fact that the astral body is not able to relate its


[9]

images to the right objects and processes in our externalsurroundings because it is separated from the physicalbody’s sense organs. This state of affairs becomes muchclearer when we consider a dream in which the I seems tosplit into two, for instance when someone dreams of sit-ting in a classroom and being unable to answer a certainquestion, which the teacher then answers immediately. Inthis case the dreamer cannot make use of the physicalbody’s organs of perception and is therefore not in a posi-tion to relate these two occurrences to one and the sameperson, namely his or her self. In order for each of us torecognize the enduring I in ourselves, we must first beequipped with organs of outer perception. This enduringI would only be perceptible to us outside the physicalbody if we had acquired the ability to become aware of itin some way other than through these organs of percep-tion. It is up to supersensible consciousness to acquire thefaculties needed for this. We will talk about the means ofacquiring these faculties later on in this book.

Death, too, occurs only because of a change in the rela-tionship between the elements of our makeup. Here again,the effects of what supersensible perception describes canbe seen in the manifest world, and—if our power of judg-ment is unbiased—we will be able to confirm the commu-nications of supersensible knowledge by observing outerlife. However, in this case the expression of the invisible inthe visible is less apparent, and it is more difficult to fullyrecognize the significance of how the processes of outer lifeconfirm what supersensible knowledge communicates. Tothose who refuse to understand how the sense-perceptible

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contains a clear indication of the supersensible, claimingthat these communications are mere figments of the imagi-nation seems even more natural than saying the same ofmany things that have already been discussed in this book.

During the transition to sleep, the astral body is simplyreleased from its connection to the ether body and thephysical body, which remain connected to each other. Atdeath, however, the physical body also separates from theether body. The physical body is given over to its owninherent forces; as a corpse, it must disintegrate. Afterdeath the ether body, however, finds itself in a conditionthat it never experienced between birth and death, exceptunder certain exceptional conditions that will be spokenof later. It is now united with the astral body, but withoutthe presence of the physical body, because the ether andastral bodies do not separate from each other immediatelyafter death. It is easy to understand the need for the forcethat holds them together for a time. If that force were notpresent, the ether body would not be able to extricateitself from the physical body at all. In sleep, for example,they are held together and the astral body is incapable oftearing them apart. The requisite force takes effect atdeath, severing the ether body from the physical body sothat the ether body is now connected with the astral body.Supersensible observation shows that this connection isdifferent in different people, but lasts for a matter of days.(For the moment, this time period will be mentioned onlyas a point of information.)

Later, the astral body separates from its ether body andcontinues on its way without it. While these two bodies


[11]

are still connected, we are in a state that allows us to per-ceive the experiences of our astral body. As long as thephysical body is present, the work of restoring its worn-out organs must begin from outside as soon as the astralbody is released from it, but once the physical body hasbeen cast off, this work is no longer necessary. However,the force formerly used for this purpose during sleep per-sists after death and can now be used to make the astralbody’s own processes perceptible.

If our processes of observation cling to life’s externali-ties, we may still say that these are all claims that may beclear to those gifted with supersensible sight, but foreveryone else there is no possibility of arriving at thetruth of the matter. This is not the case. After supersensi-ble knowledge discovers something in this or any otherdomain that is removed from ordinary perception, it canbe grasped by our ordinary power of judgment. We mustsimply give the right consideration to relationships in lifein the manifest world. The relationships among thinking,feeling, and willing and their relationship to our experi-ences in the outer world remain inherently incomprehen-sible as long as the character of their revealed activity isnot seen as the expression of an unrevealed activity. Thisrevealed activity becomes transparent to judgment onlywhen the activity and the course it runs in the physical lifeof a human being can be seen as resulting from whatsupersensible knowledge concludes about non-physicalthings. If we confront this activity without benefit ofsupersensible knowledge, it is as if we were in a darkroom with no light. Just as we see the physical objects in

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our surroundings only when light is present, what takesplace in our soul life becomes explainable only in thepresence of supersensible knowledge.

As long as we are connected to the physical body, theouter world enters our consciousness in the form of imagesor reproductions, but after we cast that body off, we beginto perceive what our astral body experiences when it is notconnected to the outer world by physical sense organs. Atfirst, the astral body has no new experiences; its connec-tion to the ether body prevents it from experiencing any-thing new. However, it does possess a memory of the lifethat is just over. The still-present ether body allows thismemory to appear as a comprehensive living picture, soour first experience after death is a perception of lifebetween death and birth as a series of images spread out infront of us. During that life, memory was present only dur-ing the waking state, during union with our physical bod-ies, and only to the extent that these physical bodiespermitted. But nothing that makes an impression on thesoul during life is ever lost to it. If the physical body werethe perfect instrument for this, it would be possible at anymoment in life to make our entire life appear to the soul.At death, the physical body’s hindrance disappears. Aslong as the ether body persists, a certain perfect memory ispresent, but this disappears to the extent that the etherbody loses the form, similar to the physical body, that ithad while dwelling in that body. This is also the reasonwhy the astral body separates from the ether body after awhile—it can only remain united with an ether bodywhose form still corresponds to the physical body.


During life between birth and death, the ether body sep-arates from the physical body only in exceptionalinstances and only for brief periods. For example, a por-tion of the ether body can separate from the physicalbecause of excessive pressure on one of our limbs. In thiscase, we say that the limb in question has “gone to sleep.”That peculiar feeling comes from the separation of theether body. (Of course this is another opportunity for amaterialistic view of things to deny the presence of theinvisible in the visible, saying that this all stems from thephysical disturbance caused by the pressure.) In a caselike this, supersensible observation can see how the cor-responding part of the ether body slips out of the physical.

If a person experiences extreme fright or some similarunusual shock, the ether body may separate from thegreater part of the physical body for a very short time.This happens if, for whatever reason, we suddenly findourselves near death—on the verge of drowning, forexample, or in danger of falling while rock climbing. Theaccounts of people who have experienced such thingsactually come very close to the truth and can be con-firmed by supersensible observation. They state that insuch moments their entire lives passed in front of theirsouls like a great picture in their memories.

Of the many examples that could be given here, onlyone will be referred to because it comes from a man whosepersonal philosophy would consider everything said aboutsuch things here to be sheer fantasy. For those who havemade a few steps in the direction of supersensible obser-vation, it’s always very useful to become familiar with

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such accounts by people for whom supersensible scienceis mere fantasy, since it is not so easy to attribute theseaccounts to bias on the part of the observer. (It is to behoped that spiritual scientists will learn a great deal fromthose who consider their efforts ridiculous, and it need notconfuse them if their critics do not return their affection.Of course, supersensible observation itself does not aim toverify its own results through such things; it refers to themnot in order to prove its findings, but only to clarify them.)In his memoirs, Moritz Benedikt, an eminent criminologistand well-known researcher in many other fields of naturalscience, relates a personal experience: Once he nearlydrowned while swimming and saw his whole life flashbefore him in retrospect as if in a single picture.2

If the images seen by others on similar occasions aredescribed differently and even seem to have little to dowith the events of their past, this does not contradict what

2. Moritz Benedikt (1835–1920); in his autobiography Aus meinemLeben. Erinnerungen und Erörterungen (Excerpts from My Life:Recollections and Commentary) Vienna, 1906, p. 35, Benediktdescribes this instance as follows: “I have had a great love for waterever since childhood, and this has prompted several experiences thatstick in my memory. I went to great lengths to be able to swim out-doors, and once it happened that I went under while swimming in theDanube. Fortunately I was driven up against a post that served as amarker for swimmers. For scarcely more than half a minute, I wasconscious of the fact that I was drowning and made the remarkableobservation that in that brief time my memories of my entire lifepassed in front of me at top speed. Psychologists are familiar withthis observation, but few people have experienced it personally. I wasabout twelve years old at the time....”


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was said above. The images that arise in this unusual stateof separation from the physical body are often not readilyexplainable in terms of their relationship to life. How-ever, if they are considered in the right way, this relation-ship can always be recognized. If someone was once neardrowning and did not have the experiences describedhere, this in no way detracts from the general description.We must keep in mind that these experiences can takeplace only when the ether body is really separated fromthe physical body but remains united with the astral body.When the shock also causes a loosening of the connectionbetween the ether body and the astral body, these experi-ences do not take place because complete loss of con-sciousness occurs, as it does during dreamless sleep.

In the time immediately after death, our experiences ofthe past appear, combined into a single memory-picture.After that, the astral body separates from the ether bodyand continues its journey on its own. It is not difficult tosee that everything the astral body acquired through itsown activity during its stay in the physical body nowremains in it. The I developed the spirit self, the life spirit,and the spirit body to a certain extent. To the extent thatthese have been developed, they do not owe their exist-ence to the organs of the various bodies, but to the I,which needs no outer organs, either for self-perception orto remain in possession of what it has united with itself.In that case, we might wonder why we have no perceptionduring sleep of the spirit self, life spirit, and spirit bodythat have developed. The reason for this is that the I is fet-tered to the physical body between birth and death. Even

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when it is with the astral body outside the physical bodyduring sleep, it is still closely connected to the physicalbody because the astral body’s activity is directed towardthe physical body at that point. In this state, the I and itsperception are directed toward to the outer sensory worldand prevented from receiving the revelations of the spiritdirectly. Death allows these revelations to reach the I forthe first time, because death frees the I from its connec-tion to the physical and ether bodies. The moment the soulwithdraws from the physical world that lays claim to allof its activity during life, another world lights up for it.

Even during this time, not all of our connections to theouter sense-perceptible world have been terminated.Instead, they are maintained by certain desires that arestill present. These desires are the ones we create throughbeing conscious of the I as the fourth element of ourmakeup. Desires and wishes that spring from the nature ofthe three lower bodies can only be active in the externalworld, and they cease when these bodies are discarded.Hunger, for example, comes about through the externalbody and is silenced as soon as this body is no longer con-nected to the I. If the I had no desires other than those thatoriginate in its own spiritual nature, it would be com-pletely satisfied by the spiritual world into which it istransported at death. Life, however, has given it otherdesires. Life kindled a longing in it for pleasures that canonly be satisfied by physical organs, although these plea-sures are not inherent in the organs themselves. The threebodies are not the only elements that expect satisfactionfrom the physical world; the I also finds certain pleasures


in this world, pleasures that the spiritual world has nomeans of providing. For the I, there are two types ofdesires in life: those that originate within the bodies andmust also be satisfied there, coming to an end when thebodies disintegrate, and those that originate in its ownspiritual nature. The latter are also satisfied by means ofbodily organs as long as the I inhabits the bodies, sincethe hidden element of the spirit manifests in bodilyorgans. Along with everything the senses perceive, theyalso take in something spiritual. This spiritual element isalso present after death, although in a different form.Everything of a spiritual nature that the I desires withinthe sense-perceptible world is also still there when thesenses are no longer present.

If there were not a third type of desire in addition tothese two, death would signify only a transition fromdesires that can be satisfied by the senses to those thatfind fulfillment in the revelation of the spiritual world.The third type of desire consists of the ones the I createsfor itself during life in the sense-perceptible worldbecause it also takes pleasure in aspects of this world inwhich the spirit does not manifest.

The lowest pleasures can be manifestations of thespirit. The satisfaction a hungry being gains from takingin food is a manifestation of the spirit, because if it did nottake in nourishment, the spiritual element would not beable to evolve in a certain respect. However, the I can alsomove beyond the enjoyment offered by this necessarystate of affairs. It can long for food that tastes good,regardless of how eating serves the spirit. The same thing

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happens with regard to other things in the sensory world.This creates desires that would never appear in the sense-perceptible world if the human I were not incorporatedinto it. Such desires, however, also do not originate in thespiritual nature of the I.

Even as a spiritual being, the I must have sensory plea-sures as long as it lives in a body. The spirit manifests insense-perceptible things, and the I is enjoying nothingother than the spirit when it gives itself up to sense-per-ceptible things through which the light of the spirit shines.The I will continue to enjoy this light even when sensual-ity is no longer the medium for the rays of the spirit.

In the spiritual world, however, no gratification existsfor desires not already inhabited by the spirit in the sense-perceptible world. When death occurs, the possibility ofsatisfying these particular desires is cut off. The desire toenjoy good-tasting food can only be satisfied when thephysical organs used in taking in food are present—thepalate, the tongue, and so on. After shedding the physicalbody, we no longer have these, and if the I still needs tohave these desires satisfied, this need must remain unmet.To the extent that this desire is in accord with the spirit, itis present only as long as the physical organs are there, butto the extent that the I has created it without serving thespirit, it persists after death as a desire that yearns in vainfor satisfaction. We can only get an idea of what then takesplace in the human being by imagining that someone issuffering from raging thirst in an area where there is nowater far or near. That is how things stand with the I afterdeath, to the extent that it still cherishes unextinguished


desires for the pleasures of the outer world and no longerpossesses organs that could satisfy them. Of course wemust imagine the raging thirst that is an analogy for thestate of the I after death as being intensified immeasurablyand encompassing all other remaining desires that cannotpossibly be satisfied.

After death, the I immediately finds itself in the situa-tion of having to free itself from the shackles of thisattraction to the outer world. In this respect, the I has tobring about purification and liberation within itself. Itmust eradicate all the desires that came about in it duringlife in the body, which therefore have no right to exist inthe spiritual world. The world of these desires is dis-solved and destroyed after death like an object that isseized and consumed by fire. This offers us a glimpse intothe world that supersensible knowledge calls the “con-suming fire of the spirit.” Any desire that is sensual innature in a sense that is not an expression of the spirit isseized upon by this “fire.”

We might feel terrified and inconsolable when we con-front the conceptions of these processes that spiritual sci-ence inevitably supplies. It might seem shocking that ahope that needs sense organs for its fulfillment must turninto hopelessness after death, and that a desire that canonly be satisfied by the physical world must be trans-formed into searing deprivation. However, it is possibleto maintain this view only as long as we fail to considerthat all the desires seized upon by this “consuming fire”after our death are not beneficial ones in any higher sensebut represent destructive forces in life.

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Through such forces, the I binds itself more closely tothe world of the senses than is necessary for taking in itsbeneficial aspects. This world is a revelation of the spiri-tual element concealed behind it. If the I chose not tomake use of the senses to enjoy this spiritual element, itwould never be able to enjoy the spirit in this form, inwhich it can reveal itself only through the bodily senses.However, to the extent that the I desires the aspects of thesense world in which the spirit does not speak, it deprivesitself of the world’s true spiritual reality. If sensory enjoy-ment as an expression of the spirit signifies an elevationand development of the I, then enjoyment that is not suchan expression signifies impoverishment and desolation. Ifa desire of this latter sort is satisfied in the sense world, itsdevastating effect on the I, although present, does notbecome visible until after death. That is why enjoyingsuch pleasures in life can create new, similar desires,although we are not at all aware that we are envelopingourselves in a “consuming fire.” What becomes visibleafter death is nothing other than what was already presentaround us during life, and when it becomes visible itshealing, beneficial consequences also become evident.

For example, a person who loves someone else is notattracted only to the aspects of the other person that can beexperienced through physical organs. However, these arethe only aspects that can be said to become inaccessible toperception at death. After death, the aspect of the belovedperson for which physical organs were only a means to anend becomes visible. In fact, the only thing that preventsthis other, higher aspect from being completely visible is


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the presence of desires that can only be satisfied by meansof physical organs. If this desire were not eradicated, con-scious perception of the beloved person after death couldnot come about at all. Seen in this way, the terrifying,inconsolable conception we might have of post-deathevents as they are described by supersensible knowledge istransformed into a conception that is deeply satisfying andconsoling.

The experiences we have immediately after death differfrom life’s experiences in still another respect. Duringpurification, we live life in reverse, so to speak. We gothrough everything we experienced during life sincebirth, but in reverse order back to childhood, beginningwith events immediately preceding our death. In this pro-cess, everything in our life that did not originate in thespiritual nature of the I appears spiritually before us, butwe experience its inverse. For example, if a person dies atage sixty but injured someone else in body or soul at ageforty, he or she will experience this event again on reach-ing this point in his or her fortieth year on the journeyback through life. However, what is experienced this timewill not be the satisfaction that came from attacking theother, but the pain the other person suffered as a result.

From what has just been described, we can immedi-ately see that the only part of such an incident that can beperceived as painful after death is the part originating ina desire of the I that has its source purely in the outerphysical world. In reality, the I not only harms the otherperson by satisfying such a desire, it also harms itself, butthis damage remains invisible during life. After death,

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however, this whole damaging world of desire becomesvisible to the I. The I then feels drawn to every being andthing that once kindled such desires in it so that thesedesires can be eradicated in the “consuming fire” in thesame way that they were created.

On our journey back through life, all our desires of thissort will have gone through the fire of purification onlywhen we reach the point of our birth again. From thatpoint onward, nothing prevents us from dedicating our-selves completely to the spiritual world. We enter a newlevel of existence. Just as we discarded the physical bodyat death and the ether body soon after, the part of the astralbody that can survive only in our consciousness of theouter world now disintegrates. For supersensible knowl-edge, therefore, there are three corpses—the physical, theetheric, and the astral. We discard the last of these at theend of the purification period, which is about one-third aslong as the time that elapses between birth and death. Thereason for this will become clear later on, when we con-sider the course of a human life on the basis of esoteric sci-ence. Just as physical corpses are physically perceptible inthe world we live in, for supersensible observation astralcorpses are constantly present in the surroundings, havingbeen discarded by human beings who are moving from thestate of purification into a higher level of existence.

As far as the I is concerned, a totally new state of con-sciousness sets in after purification. Before death, outerperceptions had to flow toward the I for the light of con-sciousness to shine on them, but now a world virtuallyflows outward from within and comes to consciousness.


The I lived in this world between birth and death, too, butthen it was veiled in sense-perceptible manifestations,only appearing in its real form when the I disregarded allsense perceptions and perceived itself in its own innersanctuary. Just as pre-death self-perception on the part ofthe I took place within, in its inner being, the world ofspirit in all its fullness is also revealed from within afterdeath and purification.

Actually, this world is already revealed as soon as theether body is discarded; it is simply obscured, as if by adarkening cloud, by all our desires that still turn toward theouter world. It is as if the dark demonic shadows risingfrom desires consumed by fire were mingling with a bliss-ful world of spiritual experience. And not only shadows—these desires are real beings! This immediately becomesapparent when the I is stripped of physical organs andtherefore becomes able to perceive things that are spiritualin character. These beings appear as distorted caricaturesof what we formerly learned about through sense percep-tion. Supersensible observation states that the world of thepurifying fire is inhabited by beings whose appearance canbe horrible and painful to the spiritual eye. They seem totake pleasure in destruction; their passion is intent upon anevil that makes the evil of the sense-perceptible worldseem insignificant in comparison. When we bring desiresof the sort described above into the supersensible world,they appear to these creatures as food that constantly nour-ishes and strengthens their powers.

This image of a world imperceptible to the senses canseem less incredible if we observe a portion of the animal

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kingdom without bias. To spiritual sight, what is a cruel,prowling wolf? What reveals itself in what the senses per-ceive in it? Nothing but a soul that lives in and acts out ofdesires. We can call the outward form of a wolf anembodiment of these desires. If we had no organs to per-ceive this form, we would still have to acknowledge theexistence of the being in question if its invisible desiresbecame visible through their effects—that is, if a powerinvisible to the eye were prowling around doing every-thing that can be done by a visible wolf.

Now it is true that the beings of the purifying fire arepresent only to supersensible consciousness and not tosense perception; however, their effects—namely thedestruction of the I if it supplies them with nourishment—are clearly evident. These effects become visible whenjustifiable enjoyment escalates to the point of immodera-tion and excess, for sense-perceptible things would alsoonly attract the I to the extent that enjoying them is some-how justified in the very nature of the I itself. Animals aredriven to desire only through things in the outer worldthat their three bodies crave, but human beings havehigher desires because a fourth element, the I, is added totheir three bodily elements. But if the I seeks to satisfysuch desires in a way that destroys its own being ratherthan maintaining and furthering it, this is a result, not ofthe effect of its three bodies or of its own nature, but ofbeings whose true form is concealed from our senses,beings who can assail the higher nature of the I and arecapable of arousing desires in it that, although unrelatedto sensory existence, can only be satisfied through it. The


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food of these beings consists of passions and desires thatare worse than any animal passions because they are notplayed out in the sense world but take hold of the spiritualelement and drag it down into the domain of the senses.Therefore, the forms of such beings appear much morehideous and gruesome to spiritual sight than the forms ofthe wildest animals, which only embody passions that arejustifiable in the sense-perceptible world. The destructiveforces of these beings are infinitely greater than anydestructive fury that exists in the sense-perceptible ani-mal kingdom. In this way, supersensible knowledge mustexpand our view to include a world of beings that arelower in a certain respect than any visible destructive ani-mals.

Having passed through this world after death, we thenfind ourselves face to face with a world that contains thespiritual element. The only desire this world arouses in usfinds satisfaction in the spirit alone. Here too, however,we distinguish between what belongs to our own I andwhat constitutes its surroundings, what we might also callthe spiritual world outside of the I. Now, however, whatwe experience of these surroundings streams toward us inthe same way that our perception of our own I streamstoward us during life in the body. During life betweenbirth and death, our surroundings speak to us through theorgans of our bodies, but once we have discarded all ourbodies the language of our new surroundings speaksdirectly to the “innermost sanctuary” of the I. Our entiresurroundings are now filled with beings that are similar innature to our I, for only an I has access to another I. Just

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as we are surrounded in the sense-perceptible world bythe minerals, plants, and animals that make up that world,after death we are surrounded by a world that is made upof beings of a spiritual nature.

However, something that is not part of our surround-ings there comes with us into this spiritual world—that is,what the I has experienced in the sense-perceptible world.Immediately after our death and for as long as our etherbody is still connected to the I, the sum total of theseexperiences appears temporarily in the form of a compre-hensive memory-picture. The ether body itself is then dis-carded, of course, but something of this memory-pictureremains behind as an imperishable possession of the I, asif we had made an extract or distillation of everything thathappened to us between birth and death. This is life’s spir-itual yield, its fruits. Since this yield is of a spiritualnature, it contains everything spiritual that has beenrevealed through our senses; without life in the sense-per-ceptible world, it would not have come about. Afterdeath, the I feels this spiritual fruit of the sensory world tobe its own inner world through which it enters the worldof beings that manifest as only an I can become manifestto itself in its innermost depths. Just as a plant seed, whichis the essence of the entire plant, can only develop whenit is planted in a different world, namely the soil, what theI brings along from the sensory world now unfurls like asprouting seed, and the spiritual environment that hasreceived it begins to affect it.

It is true that the science of the supersensible can onlyuse images to describe what happens in this “land of


spirits,” but when supersensible consciousness investi-gates the events— invisible to the physical eye—thatcorrespond to these images, it becomes evident that theimages represent a true reality. Comparisons with thesensory world can illustrate what needs to be depicted,since although this other world is completely spiritual incharacter, it is similar to the sensory world in a certainrespect. For example, in the sensory world a colorappears when some object acts upon the eye. Similarly,in the “land of spirits,” an experience similar to the oneinduced by a color is produced when the I is acted uponby another being. During life between birth and death,however, the inner self-perception of the I is the onlyexperience that is induced in the same way as this color-like spiritual experience. This is not like light striking usfrom outside; it is as if another being were acting directlyupon the I, causing it to imagine this activity as a coloredpicture. Thus all the beings in the spiritual environmentof the I express themselves in a world radiant with color.

Since the way they come about is different, of coursethese experiences of color in the spiritual world are alsoof a somewhat different character than sense-perceptiblecolors, and something similar must be said with regard tothe other impressions we receive from the sense-percep-tible world. The sounds of the spiritual world are mostsimilar to impressions in the sensory world. The more welive our way into the spiritual world, the more it appearsto us as a freely moving vitality that is comparable totones and harmonies in sense-perceptible reality. How-ever, we do not sense these tones as something that

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approaches a sense organ from outside, but rather as aforce streaming through the I out into the world. We feelthe tones the same way we feel our own speech or singingin the sense-perceptible world, but in the spiritual worldwe know that these tones that are streaming out of us arealso manifestations of other beings who are pouringthemselves out into the world through us.

A still higher manifestation takes place in the “land ofspirits” when sound becomes the “spiritual word.” Thennot only the movement-filled vitality of another spiritualbeing but also the being itself communicates its own innernature to the I. When this happens, when the “spiritualword” flows through the I, two beings live within eachother without any of the separation that is a necessary partof togetherness in the sense-perceptible world. This isreally what it is like for the I to be together with other spir-itual beings after death.

Three distinct domains of the land of spirits appear tosupersensible consciousness. They may be compared tothree regions in the physical, sense-perceptible world.The first is the spiritual world’s “land masses,” so tospeak; the second is its “bodies of water”; the third is its“atmosphere.”

In the first domain of the “land of spirits,” everythingthat assumes a physical shape on Earth so that it can beperceived by means of physical organs is perceivedaccording to its spiritual nature. For example, the forcethat gives a crystal its shape can be perceived in the “landof spirits,” but its manifestation there is the opposite ofwhat appears in the sense-perceptible world, so to speak.


To spiritual sight, the space occupied by a mass of rock inthe physical world appears as a cavity of some sort, butthe force that shapes the form of the stone is seen allaround this cavity. The color the stone possesses in thesense-perceptible world appears as an experience of itscomplementary color in the spiritual world. Thus, fromthe viewpoint of the land of spirits, a red stone appearsgreenish and a green one is experienced as reddish. Allother characteristics also appear in the form of their oppo-sites. Just as things such as stones and masses of soilmake up the sense-perceptible world’s land masses orcontinents, the formations described above constitute thespiritual world’s “land masses.”

Everything that is life in the sense-perceptible world isthe oceanic region in the spiritual world. To our physicaleyes, life is evident in its effects in plants, animals, andhuman beings. To our spiritual eyes, life is a being thatflows, permeating the land of spirits like seas and rivers.Better still, it can be compared to blood circulation in thebody, because the distribution of seas and rivers in thesense-perceptible world is irregular, while a certain regu-larity, like that of the circulating blood, is the rule in thedistribution of flowing life in the land of spirits. At thesame time, this flowing life is also heard. It resounds spir-itually, as it were.

The third domain of the land of spirits is its “atmo-sphere.” Everything that appears in the sense-perceptibleworld as feeling exists in the spiritual realm as an all-per-vading presence, just like the air on Earth. We must imag-ine it as a sea of flowing feeling. Sorrow and pain, joy and

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delight flow throughout this domain like winds andstorms in the atmosphere of the sense-perceptible world.Let’s imagine a battle being fought on Earth: Not onlyhuman figures with forms that can be seen with physicaleyes confront each other here, but feelings confront feel-ings and passions confront passions. The battlefield is notonly full of human figures, it is also full of pain. All thepassions, the pain, and the joy of conquest that are activehere not only manifest as sense-perceptible effects butalso become perceptible to spiritual senses as an atmo-spheric process in the land of spirits. In the spirit, an eventlike this is like a thunderstorm in the physical world. Spir-itual perception of such events can also be compared tohearing words in the physical world. This is why it is saidthat “wafting spiritual words” surround and permeate thebeings and events of the land of spirits, just as air sur-rounds and permeates the beings of Earth.

Still other perceptions are possible in this spiritualworld. Something comparable to the warmth and light ofthe physical world is also present here. The actual worldof thoughts is what pervades everything in the land ofspirits, like the warmth that pervades all earthly thingsand beings. Here, however, we must imagine thesethoughts as living, independent beings. What we grasp asa thought in the manifest world is like a shadow of athought being that is active in the land of spirits. Let’simagine that a thought is extracted from the human beingin which it is present and is endowed with an inner life ofits own as an active entity. We then have a feeble illus-tration of the content of the fourth domain in the land of


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spirits. What we perceive as thoughts in our physicalworld between birth and death is merely a manifestationof the thought world, shaped as the instruments of ourvarious bodies permit. But all the thoughts we cultivatethat enrich the physical world have their origin in thisspiritual domain. We need not think only of the thoughtsand ideas of great inventors or geniuses in this regard.We can see how we all have ideas that suddenly occur tous—not merely ideas that are due to the outer world, butideas we use to transform this outer world. To the extentthat we speak of feelings and passions whose causes liein the outer world, these belong in the third domain of theland of spirits, but everything that lives in our souls in away that makes creators of us, everything that allows usto transform and fructify our surroundings, is evident inits primal, essential form in the spiritual world’s fourthdomain.

What is present in the fifth domain can be compared tophysical light. It is wisdom revealing itself in its primalform. Beings belonging to this domain pour wisdom outinto their surroundings like the sun that sheds light onphysical beings. A thing that is illuminated by this wis-dom shows its true significance and meaning for the spir-itual world, just as a physical being shows its color whenshone upon by light.

There are still higher domains of the land of spirits, butthey will be described in a later part of this book.

After death, the I, along with what it brings with it fromlife in the world of the senses, is immersed in the spiritualworld. What its past life yielded is still united with the

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part of the astral body that is not discarded at the end ofthe purification period. As we have seen, only the partwhose desires and longings are still directed toward phys-ical life falls away after death. Immersing the I and itspast life’s yield in the spiritual world can be likened toplanting a seed in fertile soil. The seed draws on sub-stances and forces from its surroundings in order todevelop into a new plant; similarly, development andgrowth are the very essence of the I that has beenimmersed in the spiritual world.

The force that creates an organ lies hidden within whatthat organ perceives. Our eyes perceive light, but withoutlight there would be no eyes. Creatures that spend theirlife in darkness do not develop any organs of sight. Simi-larly, the whole bodily human being is created out of theforces lying hidden in what is perceived by the organs ofour various bodies. The physical body is built up by theforces of the physical world, the ether body by those ofthe world of life, and the astral body out of the astralworld. Now when the I is transported into the land of spir-its, it encounters these forces,which are hidden to physi-cal perception. In the first domain of the land of spirits,the spiritual beings that always surround human beings,building up our physical bodies, become visible to the I.In the physical world, what we perceive is nothing otherthan the manifestations of these spiritual forces that haveshaped the human physical body. After death, we findourselves surrounded by these same formative forces, butnow they show themselves in their true forms, whichwere previously concealed.


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Similarly, in the second domain we find ourselves inthe midst of the forces that make up the ether body, whilein the third domain the forces that stream toward us haveorganized the astral body. What the higher domains of theland of spirits send toward us is also what constitutes ourmakeup during life between birth and death.

From this point onward, these beings of the spiritualworld work in conjunction with what we have broughtwith us as the fruit of our former life, which now becomesa seed. Through their interaction, we are first built upanew as spiritual beings. When we sleep, our physical andether bodies persist; the astral body and the I, althoughoutside of these two bodies, remain connected to them.Any influences the astral body and the I can receive fromthe spiritual world under these circumstances serve only toreplenish the forces we have exhausted while awake.However, after the end of the purification period, when wehave discarded not only the physical and ether bodies butalso the part of the astral body that still clung to the phys-ical world through its desires, everything flowing from thespiritual world toward the I serves not only to improve itbut also to reconfigure it. And after a certain period of time(spoken of later on in this book) an astral body formsaround the I and becomes capable of living in etheric andphysical bodies of the sort appropriate to human beingsbetween birth and death. Then we are ready to undergobirth again and to appear in a new earth existence whichthen incorporates the fruit of our previous life.

Up to the point of forming a new astral body, we wit-ness our own rebuilding. Since the powers of the land of

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spirits, like our self-aware I, manifest from within ratherthan through outer organs, we are able to perceive theirmanifestations as long as our faculties are not yet directedtoward an outwardly perceptible world. However, themoment the astral body has taken shape again, these fac-ulties turn outward. From that point onward, the astralbody again begins to demand an external ether body andphysical body and turns away from the revelations of theinner world. For this reason, an interim period of sinkinginto unconsciousness now begins. Consciousness will beable to appear again only in the physical world, when theorgans necessary for physical perception have beenformed.

During this time when the consciousness illuminatedby inner perception has come to an end, a new ether bodybegins to connect to the astral body, and we can then entera physical body again. The only I that would be capableof taking part consciously in reconnecting to these twoelements would be one that had succeeded in creating alife spirit and spirit body, the creative forces hidden in theether and physical bodies. Until we reach this stage,beings that are further along in their development than weare must direct this process of reconnecting. These beingslead the astral body to a set of parents so that it can begiven the appropriate etheric and physical bodies.

Before the connection to the ether body has been com-pleted, something happens that is extremely significant forus as we enter physical existence again. As we have seen,each of us in our previous life created destructive forcesthat became evident during our journey backward after


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death. Let’s look again at the example mentioned earlier:In the previous lifetime, the person in question, who wasforty years old at the time, caused pain to someone else inan outburst of anger and later, after death, encountered thatother person’s pain as a force destructive to the develop-ment of his or her own I. The same is true of all similarincidents in this person’s previous life. These obstacles todevelopment then confront the person’s I when it re-entersphysical life. Just as the I saw a kind of memory-picture ofthe past life as death set in, it now has a preview of the lifeto come. Once again this person sees a picture of this sort,but this time it shows all the obstacles that need to be over-come in order to make progress along the path of self-development. What is seen in this way becomes the start-ing point for forces that this person must take along intohis or her new life. The image of the pain inflicted onanother becomes the force that motivates the I, on re-entering life, to make up for this pain. Thus our previouslife has a determining effect on the new one. In a certainrespect, our deeds in this new life are caused by ones in ourprevious life. We must see this lawful and regular connec-tion between an earlier existence and a later one as the lawof destiny. We usually apply the term “karma,” borrowedfrom oriental wisdom, to this law.

However, building up a new bodily organization is notthe only activity that is required of us between death anda new birth. During this process, we live outside of thephysical world. But meanwhile the physical world con-tinues to evolve. The face of the Earth changes within arelatively short period of time. A few thousand years ago,

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what did the region look like that our country now occu-pies? As a general rule, when we appear on Earth in a newexistence, it does not look the way it did during our lastlifetime. All kinds of things have changed in our absence.Now, hidden forces are also at work changing the face ofthe Earth. They work out of the world we find ourselvesin after death, and we, too, must help to transform theEarth. However, as long as we have not become clearlyconscious of the relationship between the spiritual ele-ment and its physical expression by creating the life spiritand spirit body in ourselves, we require the guidance ofhigher beings if we are to assist in this transformation, butwe do assist in it nonetheless. We can say that during thetime between death and a new birth, we transform theEarth in a way that aligns its conditions with what isdeveloping within us. If we observe some spot on Earth ata certain point in time and again after a long time haselapsed, we find it in a totally different condition. Theforces that have brought about this change are presentamong human beings who have died. This is how they areconnected with the Earth between death and rebirth.

Supersensible consciousness sees manifestations of thehidden spiritual element in all of physical existence.

To physical observation, what works at transformingthe Earth is the light of the Sun, changes in climate, andso on. To supersensible observation, however, the forcesof people who have died are active in the rays of sunlightfalling on the plants. If we observe in this way, webecome aware of human souls hovering around the plants,transforming the surface of the Earth, and so on. In death,


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our attention is not focused only on ourselves and on pre-paring our own new earthly existence. No, we are alsocalled upon to work spiritually on the outer world, just aswe are called upon to work physically during life betweenbirth and death.

Not only does human life work on circumstances in thephysical world from the land of spirits, but the reverse isalso true—activity in physical existence has its effects inthe spiritual world. An example can illustrate what hap-pens in this connection: A bond of love exists betweenmother and child. This love arises out of an attractionbetween the two of them that is rooted in the sense world,but it changes over the course of time. The sensory bondbecomes more and more spiritual. And this spiritual bondis fashioned not only for the sake of the physical world,but for the land of spirits as well. This is also true of otherrelationships. What is fashioned in the physical world byspiritual beings persists in the spiritual world. Friendswho have become intimately connected during life alsobelong together in the land of spirits; after they have dis-carded their various bodies, their togetherness is muchmore intimate than it was during physical life, for as spir-its they are there for each other in the same way that spir-itual beings reveal themselves to others from the inside,as described above. Also, a bond that has formed betweentwo people leads them together again in a new life. In thetruest sense of the word, therefore, we must speak of peo-ple finding each other again after death.

This process that takes place with human beingsbetween birth and death and then from death to a new

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birth repeats itself. We return to Earth again and again,whenever the fruit of one physical lifetime has ripened inthe land of spirits. Yet this repetition does not go on with-out beginning or end. At one point we left different formsof existence for ones that run their course as describedhere, and in future we will leave these and move on to oth-ers. An overview of these changing stages will be pre-sented later, when the evolution of the cosmos in itsrelationship to the human being is described from theviewpoint of supersensible consciousness.

Of course the processes that take place between deathand a new birth are even more hidden from outer sensoryobservation than is the case with the spiritual elementunderlying our existence as it manifests between birth anddeath. Sense perception can see the effects of this part ofthe hidden world only where these effects enter physicalexistence. For sensory observation, the question is whetherhuman beings entering existence through birth bring alongsomething of the processes that supersensible knowledgedescribes between a death and the next birth. Even if wefind a snail shell with no trace of an animal in it, we willacknowledge that the shell came about through the activityof an animal; we will not be able to believe that this formcreated itself by means of mere physical forces. Similarly,if we observe people during life and discover somethingthat cannot have originated in this life, it is reasonable toadmit that it originates in what the science of the supersen-sible describes, if this sheds clarifying light on somethingthat is otherwise unexplainable. Thus it is also possible forrational sensory observation to understand invisible causes


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through their visible effects. Any unbiased observer of ourcurrent life will find this more and more correct with eachnew observation. It is simply a question of finding theright point of view for observing effects in outer life. Forexample, where are the effects of what supersensibleknowledge describes as processes belonging to the purifi-cation period? How do effects appear that belong to whatwe are supposed to experience after this period of purifi-cation in the purely spiritual realm, according to detailsprovided by spiritual research?

If we reflect on life deeply and seriously, there areplenty of riddles that demand our attention in this partic-ular area. We see one person born into poverty and mis-ery, endowed with only meager talents and seeminglypredestined for a pitiable existence because of the cir-cumstances of his or her birth. Meanwhile, another per-son receives lavish care and attention from solicitoushands and hearts from the first moment of life, developsbrilliant capabilities, and has all the potential for a fruitfuland satisfying life. We can respond to such questions withone of two opposing points of view. The first one clingsto what we can perceive with our senses and understandwith our sense-bound intellect. This view does not ques-tion the fact that one person is born to happiness andanother to misfortune. Even if it doesn’t use the termchance, it will not think of assuming that there is somelawful interrelatedness that causes such disparities. Andwhen it comes to potentials and talents, this way of look-ing at things will attribute them to what is “inherited”from parents, grandparents, and other ancestors. It will

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refuse to look for causes in spiritual processes undergoneby the person in question before birth, processes thatshaped his or her potentials and talents, yet are quite inde-pendent of his or her line of descent.

However, there is also a second point of view that willfeel unsatisfied with this interpretation, insisting that evenin the manifest world we do not see things happen in spe-cific places or under specific circumstances without need-ing to assume that there are reasons why they happen.Even though these causes remain undiscovered in manyinstances, they are present nonetheless. Alpine flowers donot grow on lowland plains; there is something in theirnature that brings them together with Alpine surroundings.Likewise, there must be something in a person that causeshim or her to be born into a particular environment. Causesthat lie only in the physical world are not enough toexplain this. To any more profound thinker, assuming thatsuch causes are sufficient would be like assuming that thefact that one person hits another doesn’t have to do withthe feelings of the person doing the hitting, but only withthe physical mechanism of his or her hand!

This second viewpoint is equally dissatisfied with anyexplanation of predispositions and talents as qualitiesthat are merely “inherited.” Nevertheless, it can bepointed out that certain abilities do run in families. Musi-cal abilities were passed down in the Bach family for twohundred and fifty years.3 The Bernoulli family produced

3. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, this German familyproduced over fifty musicians.


eight mathematicians, some of whom were earmarkedfor quite different careers as children.4 But their “inher-ited” talents always drove them into the family profes-sion after all. Furthermore, it can be pointed out thatexact investigation of someone’s line of descent alwaysdemonstrates that in one way or another this person’s tal-ents were evident in his or her ancestors and are only anaccumulation of inherited tendencies.

People who hold the second point of view will certainlynot disregard such facts, but these cannot mean as muchto them as they do to those who want to base their expla-nations purely on processes taking place in the sense-per-ceptible world. Adherents of the second view will pointout that it is just as impossible for inherited predisposi-tions to assemble themselves into a unitary personality asits is for metal clock parts to assemble themselves into aclock. To the objection that the parents working togethercan bring about this combination of predispositions andthat this takes the place of the watchmaker, as it were,they will reply, “If you look at it impartially, you will findan element in each child’s personality that is completelynew. This cannot come from the child’s parents simplybecause it was not present in them.”

4. A prominent family of mathematicians in Basel during the seven-teenth and eighteenth centuries. Jacob Sr. (1654–1705) studied theol-ogy, Johann Sr. (1667–1748) studied medicine, and Jacob Hermann(1678–1759) studied theology before turning to mathematics; Nico-laus Sr. (1687–1759) studied law, Nicolaus Jr. (1695–1726) studiedmathematics and law, Daniel (1700–1782) studied medicine.

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Unclear thinking can cause a great deal of confusion inthis area. The worst is if adherents of the first viewpointsee adherents of the second as opposing something that isbased on “positive fact,” while it may not even occur tothe latter to deny the truth or value of such facts. They,too, see quite clearly that a particular cultural predisposi-tion or spiritual direction is “passed down” within a fam-ily and that if certain predispositions are combined andaccumulate, they can result in an outstanding personality.They are quite capable of agreeing that the most illustri-ous name almost always stands at the end of a bloodlinerather than at the beginning. It should not be held againstthem, however, if they are forced to hold ideas that arequite different from those of people who choose not to gobeyond sense-perceptible facts. These people can berebutted by saying that individuals certainly do demon-strate certain characteristics belonging to their ancestors,because the element of spirit and soul that enters physicalexistence through birth derives its bodily nature fromwhat heredity provides. However, this says nothing morethan that a being shares the idiosyncracies of the mediumin which it is immersed. Unbiased minds will not denythe justification for the comparison, although it is cer-tainly a strange and trivial one, if we say that the fact thata human being appears clothed in the traits of his or herancestors says just as little about the origin of this indi-vidual’s personal characteristics as being wet from fall-ing into the water says about the wet person’s innercharacter. Furthermore, the fact that the most illustriousname stands at the end of a bloodline demonstrates that


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the bearer of this name needed that bloodline in order tofashion the body that was necessary for the developmentof his or her entire personality. This proves nothing aboutthe “inheritability” of the personal element itself; in fact,it proves the exact opposite as far as healthy logic is con-cerned. If personal talents actually were passed downwithin a family, they would have to stand at the begin-ning of a bloodline to be transmitted to the descendants.The fact that they are present at the end, however, is evi-dence that they are not passed down.

Of course it would be easy to misunderstand the state-ment that if an individual’s personal gifts were simplysubject to the law of heredity, they would have to appearat the beginning of a bloodline. We might say: “Well,they cannot appear there, because they have to developfirst.” This is not a valid objection, because when wewant to prove that something has been inherited from apredecessor, we have to demonstrate that the predeces-sor’s previously existing trait becomes evident again in adescendant. If it is apparent that something is present atthe beginning of a bloodline and reappears later on, itwould be justified to speak of heredity, but we cannot dothis if something that was not present earlier shows up atthe end of a bloodline. The reversal of the sentence abovewas only intended to show that the idea of heredity is animpossible one.

This is not intended to deny the fact that those whospeak of spiritual causation in life often add just as muchto the confusion. They often speak in terms that are muchtoo general and indefinite. If we say that an individual’s

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personality is an accumulation of inherited characteris-tics, that can certainly be compared to the statement thata number of metal parts have assembled themselves intoa clock. But it must also be admitted that many state-ments about spiritual worlds are no different from thestatement that the parts of a clock are incapable of put-ting themselves together so that the hands actuallymove, and that therefore something spiritual must bepresent to make sure this movement happens. Facedwith such a statement, we actually have more reason tosay, “I’m not going to bother any more with these ‘mys-tical’ beings that move the hands of the clock; I’d ratherfind out about the mechanical relationships that makethis happen.” It is not at all a question of merely know-ing that there is something spiritual (the watchmaker)behind mechanical objects (such as clocks). The onlysignificant thing here is to become familiar with thewatchmaker’s thoughts, which existed before the clockwas assembled. We can rediscover these thoughts in themechanism of the clock.

Merely dreaming or fantasizing about the supersensibleelement never gives rise to anything except confusionbecause it is unable to satisfy the opponents of spiritualviews, who are quite right when they say that such refer-ences to supersensible beings in the abstract do not helpus understand the actual facts of the matter. Of coursethese opponents may also say the same thing about thestatements of spiritual science, which are specific anddefinite. In that case, however, we can point to how theactivity of a hidden spiritual element affects our outer life.


We can say, “Suppose it’s true what spiritual researchclaims to have established by means of observation—thatduring the purification period we undergo after death, oursouls experience how specific actions of ours in the pre-vious life hinder our further development, and that whilewe are experiencing this, we develop an impulse to makeup for the consequences of these actions. Let’s assumethat we bring this impulse with us into a new life, and thatit then shapes character traits that put us in a position tomake up for what we have done. If we look at the sumtotal of such impulses, we then have a reason why we areborn into certain surroundings as a matter of destiny.”

The same can be applied to a different assumption.Once again, let’s assume that spiritual science is right insaying that the fruits of a bygone life are incorporated intoan individual’s spiritual “seed,” and that in the land ofspirits where we spend the time between death and a newlife, these fruits ripen so that they can be transformed intopredispositions and abilities that will appear in that newlife, shaping our personalities to reflect the effects ofwhat we have gained from a prior life. If we make theseassumptions and use them to observe life in an unbiasedway, we will see that they make it possible for us toacknowledge all the realities of the sense world in theirfull truth and significance. At the same time, they clarifyeverything that must always remain incomprehensible tothose who base themselves strictly on sense-perceptiblefacts while turning their attention to the spiritual world.And above all, any illogical assumptions will disappear—for instance, the one to the effect that because the most

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illustrious name appears at the end of a bloodline, thebearer of that name must have inherited his or her talents.The supersensible facts communicated by spiritual sci-ence make life logically comprehensible.

However, conscientious truth-seekers who have no per-sonal experience in the spiritual world but are attemptingto chart a course among the facts will still be able to raisean important objection by claiming that it is inadmissibleto assume the validity of any fact simply because itenables us to explain something that would otherwise beunexplainable. An objection of this sort is surely totallymeaningless for anyone who knows the facts in questionas a result of direct supersensible perception. And latersections of this book will indicate the path people can taketo become personally familiar with the law of spiritualcausation as well as with other spiritual facts that aredescribed here. For those who do not choose to take thispath, however, this objection can indeed be significant. Itsrefutation is also valuable for those who have decided onthis path, and for them, accepting this objection in theright way is the best first step.

It is absolutely true that if we have no knowledge ofsomething, we should not assume that the thing existssimply because it explains things that would otherwiseremain unexplainable. However, in the case of the spiri-tual facts that have been presented here, the matter is actu-ally quite different. If we assume that these facts are true,we experience not only the intellectual result that lifebecomes comprehensible, but also something quite dif-ferent. Let’s imagine that something happens to us that


causes us considerable pain and embarrassment. We canreact to this in one of two ways: We can be distressedabout the incident and succumb to feeling embarrassed oreven be overcome with pain, or we can relate to it quitedifferently, telling ourselves that in a previous life, weourselves actually created the force that led us to thisevent; in fact, we’ve brought this thing upon ourselves.We can then kindle in ourselves all the feelings that arethe results of a thought like this. Of course, for it to havesuch results for all our feelings and sensations, we have toexperience this thought with the utmost sincerity and withall our strength.

If we manage to do this, we will have an experiencethat can best be illustrated by means of a comparison:Let’s assume that two people get hold of a stick of seal-ing wax. One of them makes intellectual commentsabout its “inner nature.” No matter how clever thesecomments are, people can easily retort that this “innernature” is pure fantasy if it doesn’t show itself in anyway. But the other person rubs the sealing wax with acloth and shows that it attracts small particles. There is agreat difference between the thoughts that ran throughthe first person’s mind and prompted his or her remarksand the thoughts of the second person. The first person’sthoughts have no consequences for reality, but the sec-ond person’s thoughts have lured a real thing, an actualforce, out of hiding.

This is also the case with imagining that a former lifehas implanted in us the power to encounter a certainevent. Simply imagining this arouses a real force in us

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that allows us to meet the event in a way that is very dif-ferent from how we would have met it if we had not enter-tained this thought. The event’s inherent necessity dawnson us, whereas otherwise we would only have been ableto see it as a coincidence. We will immediately under-stand that since what we imagined was strong enough toshow us the facts of the matter, we must have had the rightidea. If we repeat inner processes like this, they begin tobe a source of inner strength and their validity is con-firmed by their fruitful consequences. This validity grad-ually becomes a force to be reckoned with. Suchprocesses have a healing effect on spirit, soul, and body;they foster life in every respect. We become aware thatwhile this allows us to take our place in the context of lifein the right way, considering only a single life betweenbirth and death means succumbing to delusion and false-hood. This knowledge makes our souls stronger.

Although people can only produce this purely innerproof of spiritual causation for themselves, through indi-vidual inner activity, it is possible for everyone to havesuch proof. However, those who have not produced it forthemselves cannot evaluate its power to prove, whilethose who have produced it will no longer have anydoubts about it. This need not surprise us at all. It’s quitenatural that such an intimate component of our innermostbeing, our personality, can only be adequately proved bymeans of the most intimate experience.

However, it is not legitimate to object that since suchmatters conform so closely to inner experience, eachperson must deal with them individually and that they


are therefore not an appropriate subject for spiritual sci-ence. Of course each person must have the experiencefor him or herself, just as each person must understandthe solution to a mathematical equation. But the way togain this experience holds good for all human beings,just as the method for solving a mathematical equationis valid for all.

Leaving aside supersensible observations, of course, weshould not deny that the above-mentioned proof, which isbased on the strength-generating force of the thoughts inquestion, is the only one that will stand up to any unbiasedlogic. All other considerations are certainly very impor-tant, but they all have aspects that leave them open toattack. If we have acquired a sufficiently unbiased view,however, the fact that human beings are educable will con-stitute logically effective proof for us that there is a spiri-tual being struggling for existence within the body thatenvelops it. We will compare animals to human beings,telling ourselves that an animal’s normal characteristicsand capabilities appear definitively at birth, clearly show-ing how the animal’s heredity predetermines it and how itwill develop under the influence of the outer world. Wecan see how a young chick carries out vital functions in acertain way from the very moment of its birth.

In human beings, however, upbringing and educationestablish a relationship between our inner soul activityand something that can exist without any connection toheredity. We are also capable of assimilating the effectsof outer influences, and all educators know that suchinfluences must be met by forces coming from within the

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person in question—if this is not the case, any attempt ateducation will be in vain. Unbiased educators are awareof a clear-cut boundary between inherited predispositionsand the personal inner forces shining through them, whichcome from earlier lives. It is true that the proofs we canadvance for such things are not as “weighty” as the proofsof certain facts of physics that can be demonstrated bymeans of a pair of scales. But then, these are subtle andintimate aspects of our lives, and if we have a sense forthem, their intangible proofs are as conclusive or more sothan tangible reality.

The objection that animals can also be trained and canacquire characteristics and faculties through education isnot valid to those who are able to see the essentials. Asidefrom the fact that all kinds of intermediary states exist inthe world, the results of training an animal do not fusewith its personal nature in at all the same way as this hap-pens in humans. It has even been stated that the abilitiesdomestic animals acquire through training and throughliving together with human beings are inheritable; that is,that they work directly on the level of the species ratherthan on the individual level. Darwin describes how dogsfetch and carry without being trained to do so or havingseen it done. Who would make similar claims abouthuman education?

There are thinkers whose observations have made themgo beyond the idea that human beings are put togetherfrom outside by means of purely hereditary forces. Thesethinkers have worked their way up to the idea that a spir-itual being, an individuality, precedes and shapes our


physical existence. Many of them, however, do not find itpossible to grasp the existence of repeated earthly liveswhose fruits are present in the interim as formative forceshelping to build up the human being. Let’s hear what onesuch thinker has to say. In his book Anthropology,Immanuel Hermann Fichte, son of the famous Fichte,cites the observations that led him to the following con-clusion:5

In the fullest sense of the word, the parents do notproduce the child. They make not only the organicsubstance available but also the intermediate, sen-sory/soul element that is evident in the child’s tem-perament, unique soul-coloring, specialization ofimpulses, and the like, whose common source is“fantasy” in that broader sense that we havealready established. Since a unique mixture andunion of the parents’ souls is unmistakable in allthese elements of the personality, it is completelyjustifiable to explain them as purely a product ofprocreation, especially if, as we have concluded,procreation is to be seen as an actual soul process.But precisely the crucial central point of the per-sonality is lacking here, for a deeper and more pen-etrating observation reveals that even these

5. Immanuel Hermann Fichte (1796-1879), Anthropologie, Leipzig1860, pp. 528 and 532. I.H. Fichte was a philosopher and edited theworks of his father, philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762-1814),a “transcendental idealist,” who attempted to perfect Kant’s ideas.

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idiosyncrasies of mind and soul are only garmentsthat cloak the child’s real spiritual, ideal predispo-sitions, instruments that are capable of furtheringor hindering the development of these predisposi-tions but in no way capable of creating them out ofthemselves.

Further on we read:

Each person existed previously in accordance withhis or her fundamental spiritual form. Spirituallyconsidered, no individual resembles another anymore than one species of animal resembles another.

These thoughts go just far enough to permit a spiritualbeing to enter our physical bodily nature. However, sincethis being’s formative forces are not derived from causesin previous lives, it would have to arise from a divine pri-mal foundation each time a personality comes into exist-ence. If we assume this to be true, there is no possibilityof explaining the relationship that exists between predis-positions that work their way out from inside us and whatcomes from our outer earthly surroundings and ap-proaches our inner being in the course of life. The innerhuman being, springing anew for each individual out of adivine primal foundation, would have to be a total strangerto what confronts it in earthly life. For this not to be thecase—as in fact it is not—the inner human being musthave already been connected to the outer world; it mustnot be living in it for the first time. Unbiased educators can


clearly perceive that they are introducing their students toresults of earthly life that are indeed strange to theirmerely inherited traits of character, yet make them feel asif they had already taken part in the work that producesthese results. If we consider the life of present-day human-ity from all points of view, the only satisfactory explana-tion for it is provided by repeated earthly lives and thefacts that spiritual research reveals about existence in thespiritual realm between these earthly lives.

The expression “present-day humanity” is used quitedeliberately here. Spiritual research shows that when thecycle of earthly lives first began, the conditions facingspiritual beings entering their bodily garments were quitedifferent from what they are at present. In the followingchapters, we will go back to this primeval state of human-ity. Once the results of spiritual science have demon-strated how human beings took on their present form inthe context of the Earth’s evolution, it will then be possi-ble to point out more precisely how the human being’sessential spiritual core comes from supersensible worldsand enters its bodily garments, as well as how “humandestiny,” the spiritual law of causation, develops.

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C H A P T E R 4

COSMIC EVOLUTION

AND THE HUMAN BEING

Introductory Thoughts

In previous chapters, we saw that our human makeup con-sists of four parts: the physical body, the life body, theastral body, and the vehicle of the I. The I works withinthe other three elements to transform them. On a lowerlevel, this transformation results in the sentient soul, themind soul, and the consciousness soul; on a higher level,in the spirit self, the life spirit, and the spirit body. Now,these members of our human nature relate to the cosmosas a whole in a great variety of ways, and their evolutionis linked to that of the cosmos. By considering cosmicevolution, we gain insight into the deeper secrets of ourhuman makeup.

It is obvious that our life is connected in many ways toour surroundings, to where it evolves. Even external sci-ence, through the facts available to it, has been forced tosee that the Earth itself—our dwelling in the most com-prehensive sense of the word—has undergone an evolu-tion. Science refers to stages of the Earth’s existencewhen human beings did not yet exist on this planet in


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their present form, and it demonstrates how humankindslowly and gradually evolved from very basic stages ofcivilization to our present circumstances. Thus science,too, has come to believe that there is a connectionbetween human evolution and the evolution of our celes-tial body, the Earth.

Spiritual science traces this connection by means ofknowledge that derives its facts from perceptionenhanced by spiritual organs. (Spiritual science is usedhere to mean the same thing as “esoteric science,” asshould be evident from the context.) It traces the courseof human evolution in reverse. In doing so, it becomesapparent that the actual inner spiritual beings of humanindividuals have gone through a series of lives on thisEarth. In this way, spiritual research arrives at a point intime in the distant past when the inner essence of eachhuman being first embarked on an outer life in the presentsense of the word. This first earthly embodiment waswhen the I first began to be active within the three bodies(astral body, life body, and physical body) and to carrythe fruits of this work over into a subsequent life.

If we shift our view back to this point in time, we willbecome aware that within the earthly conditions encoun-tered by the I, the physical, etheric, and astral bodieswere already developed and interconnected in a certainway. The I then united for the first time with the beingconsisting of these three bodies and began to take part intheir further evolution. Until reaching this level wherethey first encountered an I, they had been evolving with-out one.


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To answer our questions about how these three bodiesarrived at a stage of development where they were capa-ble of receiving an I and about how this I itself came intoexistence and became capable of working within thesebodies, spiritual scientific research must go still furtherback in time. We can only answer these questions by trac-ing the development of the Earth itself by spiritual scien-tific means. Through such research, we arrive at thisplanet’s beginning point. A view based solely on factssupplied by our physical senses is not far-reachingenough to come to conclusions that have anything to dowith this beginning. One such view concludes that all ofthe Earth’s substance formed out of a primeval mist. Itcannot be the task of this book to go into such ideas inmore detail, because spiritual research is more concernedwith spiritual causes lying behind matter than with themere material processes of Earth’s evolution.

As an example, if there is a person in front of us whois raising a hand, this can suggest two different ways oflooking at this action. We can either investigate the mech-anism of the person’s arm and the rest of his or her bodyand describe the process that is taking place as a purelyphysical one, or we can turn our spiritual attention to whatis going on in the person’s soul and to his or her innermotivation for raising a hand. In a similar way, research-ers schooled in spiritual perception see spiritual processesbehind all the processes of the physical, sense-perceptibleworld. To them, any transformation in the material aspectof the Earth is a manifestation of spiritual forces lyingbehind matter. But if we go further and further back in


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time in our spiritual observation of the life of the Earth,we eventually arrive at the point in evolution where mat-ter first began to exist. This material element developedout of the spiritual. Before this point, only the spiritualelement was present. Through further spiritual observa-tion, we see how this spiritual element partially con-densed into matter, so to speak. The process taking placebefore us is the same thing, on a higher level, as whatwould take place if we were observing a container full ofwater undergoing some ingenious cooling process so thatlumps of ice gradually form. Just as we see ice condens-ing out of something that used to be all water, spiritualobservation allows us to trace how material things, pro-cesses, and beings “condense” out of an element that wasformerly completely spiritual in character.

This is how the Earth developed from a spiritual cosmicbeing into a physical planet: Everything materially con-nected to it condensed out of what was formerly spiritu-ally connected to it. However, we must not imagine thatthe spiritual element is ever totally transformed into mat-ter; matter is always only a transformed portion of theoriginal spiritual element, which remains the actual guid-ing principle even while matter is evolving.

It is reasonable to state that a view restricting itself tosense-perceptible physical processes—and to what ourintellect can conclude from them—is not able to informus about the spiritual element in question here. Let’simagine a being with senses that are capable of perceivingice, but not the finer state of water from which iceemerges by means of cooling. For this being, water would


[8]

simply not be present and could only be perceived whenparts of it turned to ice. Likewise, the spiritual elementthat lies concealed behind earthly processes remains hid-den from those who do not admit the existence of any-thing not present to the physical senses. If such peopledraw correct conclusions about earlier conditions on theEarth from current physical, perceptible facts, they willonly be able to go back to the point in evolution when thepreexisting spiritual element partially condensed intomatter. Their method of observation perceives as little ofthe preexisting spiritual element as it does of the spiritualelement currently at work behind matter.

Only in the last chapters of this book will we be able tospeak about the paths we must follow in order to learn touse spiritual perception to look back on the earlier statesof the Earth that are mentioned here. For the moment, itshould only be mentioned that as far as spiritual researchis concerned, facts about even the most distant past havenot disappeared. Once a being has achieved physicalexistence, the material part of it disappears after the deathof its body. However, the spiritual forces that haveexpelled this bodily element do not “disappear” in thesame way. They leave their traces, exact reproductions ofthemselves, in the spiritual foundations of the world. Ifwe are able to raise our perception from the level of thevisible world to the invisible, we ultimately find our-selves face to face with something comparable to amighty spiritual panorama that records all the bygoneprocesses of the world. These imperishable traces ofeverything spiritual may be called the “Akashic record,”


if we designate the spiritually lasting element in worldevents as their Akashic essence, in contrast to their tran-sient forms.

Now at this point it must be said again that research intosupersensible realms of existence can only be carried outwith the help of spiritual perception, which in this casemeans reading the Akashic record. However, what hasalready been said in earlier parts of this book about simi-lar instances also holds good here: Although supersensi-ble facts can only be discovered by means of super-sensible perception, once they have been discovered andcommunicated by the science of the supersensible, theycan be understood by ordinary thinking, at least if itattempts to be truly unbiased. In the pages that follow,information on the Earth’s evolutionary stages will becommunicated from the standpoint of supersensibleknowledge. The transformations our planet has under-gone will be followed all the way down to its present-daystate. If we consider what now actually confronts us asmere sense perception and then absorb what supersensi-ble knowledge has to say about how what presently existshas been evolving since time immemorial, and if ourthinking is truly impartial, we will be able to say: First ofall, what this knowledge describes is thoroughly logical;secondly, when we accept what is communicated bysupersensible research as true, we can understand howthe things we encounter have become what they are.

Now, when we speak of logic in this context, of course,this doesn’t mean that there is no possibility of logicalerror in any accounts of supersensible research. We will


only speak of “logic” here in the same sense that we speakof it in ordinary life in the physical world. Just as we arechallenged to present things logically in the physicalworld in spite of the fact that individuals presenting thefacts of any given subject can fall into logical error, thesame is true in supersensible research. It can even happenthat researchers who are capable of perception in super-sensible domains may succumb to error in presentingtheir results logically and may be corrected by someonewho, although not capable of supersensible perception,has the capacity for sound thinking. Essentially, however,there can be no objection to the logic applied in supersen-sible research. It should be totally unnecessary to empha-size that nothing can be said against the facts themselveson purely logical grounds. Just as the existence of a whalein the physical world can never be proved logically, butonly by seeing one, only spiritual perception can recog-nize supersensible facts as such.

However, it cannot be emphasized enough that beforeattempting to observe the spiritual world through our ownperception, we must first acquire an overview of it both bymeans of logic, as was indicated earlier, and by realizinghow universally understandable the sense-perceptible,manifest world becomes if we assume that the communi-cations of esoteric science are correct. If we reject this pathof preparation, all our experience in the supersensibleworld remains uncertain and even dangerous; we merelygrope our way around. That’s why this book presents thesupersensible facts of Earth’s evolution first, before dis-cussing the actual path to supersensible knowledge.


We should also keep in mind that if we use thinking asour exclusive means of finding our way into what super-sensible knowledge has to say, this is not at all compara-ble to simply listening to an account of some physicalprocess we cannot see for ourselves. In itself, pure think-ing is already a supersensible activity. To the extent thatit is a sense-oriented process, thinking cannot lead tosupersensible processes all by itself, but if we apply it tothe supersensible processes reported by supersensibleperception, it then grows into the supersensible world onits own. In fact, one of the very best ways of achievingperception in the supersensible domain is to grow into thehigher world by thinking about the information supersen-sible knowledge conveys. If we do it this way, we enterthe higher world with greatest possible clarity. This iswhy a certain trend in spiritual scientific research consid-ers this type of thinking to be the best possible first stepin any spiritual scientific training.

It should seem quite understandable that this book doesnot describe how the outer world confirms the supersen-sible with regard to every detail of Earth’s evolution asperceived in the spirit. That was not what was intendedwhen it was said that the hidden element can be detectedeverywhere in its manifest effects. What was meant wasthat everything we encounter can gradually be illumi-nated and become understandable if we see manifestevents in the light provided by spiritual science. In thefollowing pages, the manifest element’s confirmation ofthe hidden element will be referred to in only a few char-acteristic instances in order to show how this can be done


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at any point in the course of practical life, wherever wechoose to do so.

An Overview of Planetary Incarnations

If we follow the Earth’s development in reverse in thesense of the above-mentioned spiritual scientific methodof research, we arrive at a stage when our planet existedin a spiritual state. If we continue researching still furtherback in time, however, we find that this spiritual elementpreviously existed as a physical embodiment of a sort.That is, we encounter a bygone physical planetary statethat was later spiritualized; still later, it rematerialized andwas transformed into our Earth. The Earth as we know itthus appears as the reincarnation of an ancient planet. Butspiritual science can go still further back, and when itdoes, it finds that this whole process was repeated twomore times. This Earth of ours has undergone three priorplanetary stages with intervening stages of spiritualiza-tion. The further back we trace these incarnations, themore subtle and delicate in character the physical elementbecomes.

When faced with the descriptions that follow, it’s nat-ural to wonder how anyone of sound mind can possiblyassume the existence of cosmic evolutionary stageslying so far back in the past. It must be said in responsethat for those who are now able to see and understandthe spiritual element hidden in what is perceptible to thesenses, insight into earlier stages of evolution, no mat-ter how distant, is not an impossibility. Talking about


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evolution in the sense intended here is meaningless onlyfor those who do not acknowledge this hidden spiritualelement in the present. For those who do, previousstages of evolution are present in their perception of thepresent one, just as the one-year-old child is still presentin their perception of a fifty-year-old person. You mayobject that in this example, in addition to the fifty-year-old, one-year-old children and all the stages in betweenare actually there for us to see. That’s true, but it isequally true of the evolution of the spiritual element inthe sense intended here. Anyone who has come to anobjective conclusion on this matter will also see that inany comprehensive observation of the present that alsoincludes its spiritual element, past evolutionary stagesreally are present along with the perfected stages ofpresent-day evolution, just as one-year-old babies arepresent along with fifty-year-olds. If we can simply dis-tinguish between the different successive stages of evo-lution, it is possible to see primeval events within theearthly events of the present.

Now, in the form in which we are currently evolving,human beings appeared for the first time in the fourth ofthe above-mentioned planetary incarnations, the actualEarth itself. The essential feature of our current humanmakeup is that it comprises four parts, the physical body,the life body, the astral body, and the I. However, thiscomposite figure would not have been able to appear if ithad not been prepared by the circumstances of prior evo-lution. Within the previous planetary incarnation, beingsdeveloped that already possessed three of the present four


components of the human being—the physical body, thelife body, and the astral body. These beings, who could becalled the predecessors of human beings in a certainrespect, still had no I, but they had developed the threeother parts and their interrelationships to the point ofbecoming mature enough to then receive the I. Thus, ourpredecessors on the planet in its previous incarnationachieved a certain degree of maturity in the three partsthey possessed. This planetary incarnation then passedover into a spiritual state, out of which a new physicalplanetary state then developed, namely that of the Earth.In this Earth our matured human predecessors werepresent in a seminal state, so to speak. The entire planet,having undergone spiritualization and reappearance in anew form, was able to offer these embryonic humans withtheir physical, etheric, and astral bodies not only the pos-sibility of developing to their previous level again, butalso the possibility of moving beyond it by receiving the I.

The Earth phase of evolution, therefore, fell into twoparts. In the first period, the Earth itself appeared as areincarnation of the previous planetary stage. This reca-pitulation period, however, took place on a higher levelthan that of the previous incarnation because of the inter-vening stage of spiritualization. And at this point theEarth contained the seminal stages of our predecessorsfrom the previous planet. These first developed to theirprevious level; once they had achieved it, the first periodwas over. Because of its own higher level of evolution,however, the Earth could then develop these seminalhuman beings still further by making them capable of


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receiving the I. The second period in this Earth phase ofevolution is characterized by the unfolding of the Iwithin the physical, etheric, and astral bodies.

Just as humankind is being brought to a higher level bythe Earth phase of evolution, this was also the case ineach of the earlier planetary incarnations, since a humanelement was already present even during the first of theseincarnations. This is why we can shed light on the essen-tial nature of present-day human beings by tracing ourevolution back to the very distant past, to the first plane-tary incarnation.

Now, supersensible research gives names to these plan-etary incarnations, calling the first Saturn, the secondSun, the third Moon, and the fourth Earth. We must keepclearly in mind, however, that these classifications mustnot immediately be associated with the use of the samenames for the components of our present-day solar sys-tem. Saturn, Sun, and Moon are intended as names forevolutionary forms the Earth went through in the past.The relationship between these worlds of the ancient pastand the celestial bodies that make up our present solarsystem will become clear in the course of the descriptionsthat follow. It will then also become clear why thesenames were chosen.

Conditions during these four planetary incarnationswill now be described, but only in brief outline. The pro-cesses, beings, and destinies on Saturn, Sun, and Moonwere truly as varied as on Earth itself, so only a few in-dividual characteristics of these conditions will beemphasized in order to illustrate how earthly conditions


developed out of earlier ones. We must also keep in mindthat the further back we go, the less similar these condi-tions are to the present day, and yet, in order to describethem at all, we have to characterize them by using mentalimages derived from present-day earthly circumstances.Thus, when we use words such as light or heat withregard to these earlier stages, we must not forget that theydo not mean exactly the same thing as what we now calllight and heat. And yet this terminology is correct,because what light and heat developed out of is apparentto observers of the supersensible at earlier stages of evo-lution. By following the descriptions given here, we willbe able to gather from the context what mental imageswe need in order to arrive at illustrations and compari-sons that characterize events that took place in the fardistant past.

This difficulty in finding suitable descriptions becomesespecially significant with regard to planetary conditionsprior to the Moon incarnation. The conditions prevailingduring the Moon incarnation itself still showed a certainsimilarity to earthly conditions, so when we attempt todescribe them, their similarity provides certain cluesabout how to express supersensibly acquired perceptionsin clear ideas. It is a different matter when the Saturn andSun phases of evolution are described. What is accessibleto clairvoyant observation there is very different from theobjects and beings belonging to our present sphere of life,and this makes it extremely difficult to bring these an-cient realities into the scope of supersensible conscious-ness. But since our present makeup cannot be understood


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without going back as far as the Saturn state, these reali-ties must be described. These descriptions will certainlynot be misunderstood by anyone who keeps this diffi-culty in mind and is aware that much of what is said ismore of an allusion to actual realities than an exactdescription of them.

A contradiction might be found between what is saidhere and on the following pages and what is said in theparagraph beginning on page 125 about the past continu-ing to exist in the present. We might imagine that an ear-lier Saturn, Sun, or Moon state, or even a human formsuch as is described here as having existed during thosebygone stages, does not exist anywhere alongside thecurrent state of our Earth. It is true that there are no Sat-urn, Sun, and Moon humans running around amongearthlings in the same way that there are little childrenrunning around among fifty-year-olds. However,humankind’s earlier states are supersensibly perceptiblewithin earthly human beings. In order to recognize this,we must only have acquired a power of discriminationthat includes the full scope of life’s circumstances. Justas the little child is present along with the fifty-year-old,the corpse, the sleeper, and the dreamer are also presentalong with the living, waking, earthly human being.Even if these various manifestations of the present-dayhuman being are not the direct equivalents of the variousstages of evolution, an objective observer will nonethe-less see these stages in them.

. . . . . . . .


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The physical body is the oldest of the present four ele-ments of our makeup, and in its own way it is also the onethat has achieved the greatest degree of perfection. Super-sensible research shows that this physical human elementwas already present during the Saturn phase of evolution.However, as will become evident in the course of thisdescription, the form it had on Saturn was something com-pletely different from the present physical human body. Itis inherent in the nature of this present physical body that itcan only survive in connection with the life body, astralbody, and I, as has been described earlier in this book. Thisconnection did not yet exist on Saturn. At that time thephysical body was undergoing its first evolutionary stageand did not incorporate these other elements. It maturedenough to receive a life body only in the course of the Sat-urn phase of evolution, but in order for it to actually do so,Saturn first had to spiritualize and then reincarnate as Sun.During the Sun incarnation, what the physical body hadbecome on Saturn had to develop all over again, as if froma residual embryo, before it could imbue itself with an etherbody. Incorporating an ether body changed the character ofthe physical body, raising it to a second level of perfection.
Something similar took place during the Moon phase ofevolution, when our predecessors, having evolved fromthe Sun to the Moon, incorporated the astral body. Thistransformed the physical body for a third time, raising itto a third level of perfection. The life body was similarlytransformed and was then at its second level of perfection.During the Earth phase, the I was incorporated into ourhuman predecessors, who consisted of physical, etheric,


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and astral bodies at that point. Through this process, thephysical body achieved its fourth level of perfection, thelife body its third, and the astral body its second, while theI is still only in its first stage of existence.

If we can devote ourselves to taking an unbiased look atthe human being, we will have no difficulty imaginingthese elements’ different degrees of perfection in the rightway. All we need to do is to compare the physical bodywith the astral body in this respect. Obviously the astralbody, as a soul component, is at a higher level of evolutionthan the physical body, and in future, when it has been per-fected, it will be much more significant for our overallmakeup than the present physical body. In its own way,however, the physical body has reached a certain climax inits evolution. Just think of the structure of the heart, whichis organized in harmony with the greatest possible wis-dom, or of the wonderful construction of the brain or evenof a single part of a bone such as the upper end of the thighbone. Within the end of this bone we find a regularly struc-tured network or trellis-like pattern of delicate rods. Thewhole thing is arranged so as to yield the best possibleresults for the surface of the joint—for example, the bestdistribution of friction—so that it achieves the right kindof mobility while using as little material as possible.

We find wisdom-filled arrangements such as this in allparts of the physical body. And if we then go on to observethe harmonious interaction between the parts and thewhole, we will certainly agree that this member of ourhuman makeup is complete and perfect in its own way.Any apparent ineffectiveness in certain parts of the body


or disturbances in its structure or functioning seem unim-portant in comparison. We will even discover that in a cer-tain respect, such disturbances are only the necessaryshadow side of the wisdom-filled light that illumines ourentire physical organism.

Now let’s compare this to the astral body as the vehicleof our pleasure and pain, desires and passions. What inse-curity prevails there with regard to joy and sorrow; whatfrequently meaningless desires and passions are playedout, often running counter to our higher aims! The astralbody is only beginning to achieve the harmony and inter-nal consistency that we already find in the physical body.Similarly, it is possible to show that the ether body,although more perfect in its own way than the astral body,is less perfect than the physical body. If we consider the Iin the right way, it will also become evident that it is cur-rently only at the very beginning of its evolution. To whatextent, for example, has it already accomplished its taskof transforming the other components of our makeup intomanifestations of its own nature?

For those familiar with spiritual science, the results ofouter observations in this area are underscored by some-thing else. We might point out that the physical body issubject to illness. But spiritual science is in a position todemonstrate that a great percentage of all illness origi-nates in errors and aberrations of the astral body thatdestroy the perfect harmony of the physical body in aroundabout way, through being transmitted to the etherbody. Both this deeper connection (which can only betouched on here) and the actual reason for many disease


processes elude any scientific method of observationthat chooses to confine itself to physical, sense-percep-tible facts. Since in most cases this connection results indamage to the astral body that does not produce pathol-ogies in the physical body during the lifetime in whichthis damage occurs, but only in the following one, thelaws governing this process are meaningful only forthose who acknowledge the existence of repeated humanlives. But even if we do not choose to acquire this deeperknowledge, looking at life in the usual way will alsoshow us that human beings indulge in far too many grat-ifications and desires that undermine the harmony of thephysical body. And gratification, desire, passion, and soon have their seat in the astral body rather than in thephysical body. In many respects, the astral body is stillimperfect enough to destroy the perfection of the physi-cal body.

It should be pointed out again at this point that discussingthese things does not constitute an attempt to prove spiri-tual scientific statements about the evolution of the fourmembers of our human makeup. Any proof is taken fromspiritual research itself, which shows that the physicalbody has undergone four transformations toward higherdegrees of perfection, while our other members haveundergone fewer, as already described. Here, we are sim-ply attempting to show that spiritual research communi-cates facts whose effects are also evident in the varyingdegrees of perfection of the physical body, life body, andso on, and that these different levels of perfection are alsooutwardly perceptible.


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SaturnIf we want to form an approximately accurate idea of

conditions during the Saturn phase of evolution, we mustconsider the fact that during that period, none of thethings and creatures currently belonging to the Earth andits mineral, plant, and animal kingdoms were present assuch. The beings of these three kingdoms developed onlyduring later evolutionary periods. Of all the earthly beingsthat are now physically perceptible, human beings werethe only ones existing at that time, and of these humanbeings, the physical body was the only part alreadypresent, as described above. However, the beings of themineral, plant, animal, and human kingdoms are not theonly beings that belong to the Earth at present. There arealso other beings that do not reveal themselves in physicalbodies. Such beings were also present during the Saturnphase of evolution, and their activity in this Saturn settingresulted in the later evolution of human beings.

In looking at the middle evolutionary period of the Sat-urn incarnation, although not at its beginning or end, spir-itual perception can discern a state consisting primarily ofwarmth. No gaseous, liquid, or solid elements are to befound; these all appear only in later incarnations. Let’simagine that human beings with present-day sense organswere to approach this Saturn world as observers. With theexception of the sensation of warmth, they would experi-ence none of the sensory impressions humans can have.On entering the space occupied by Saturn, they wouldperceive only that its condition of warmth is differentfrom the rest of the surrounding space. However, they


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would discover that this space is not uniformly warmthroughout but has warmer and colder areas that alternatein a great variety of patterns. Warmth would be perceivedradiating along certain lines that are not straight but formirregular shapes produced by variations in heat. Ourobservers would be confronted by something like a struc-tured cosmic being that appears in constantly changingstates and consists only of heat.

It is difficult for modern individuals to imagine some-thing that consists only of warmth, since we are accus-tomed to perceiving warmth only in association with hotor cold gaseous, liquid, or solid bodies, rather than think-ing of it as something in itself. Especially those of us whohave absorbed the ideas of modern physics will find itridiculous to talk about warmth or heat in the way justdescribed, and we might say this: While there are solid,liquid, and gaseous bodies, heat only indicates a condi-tion of one of these three types. When the smallest parti-cles of a gas are in motion, this motion is perceived asheat, so where there is no gas, there can be no such move-ment and therefore no heat.

Spiritual scientific researchers see this subject in aquite different light. For them, heat is something thatthey can speak of in the same sense that they speak of agas, a liquid, or a solid body. It is a substance still moredelicate than a gas, and a gas is nothing other than con-densed heat in the same sense that a liquid is a condensedvapor or a solid a condensed liquid. So spiritual scientistsspeak of bodies of heat just as they also speak of bodiesof gas or vapor.


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In order to follow spiritual researchers into this domain,it is only necessary to admit that soul perception is possi-ble. In the world that is presented to our physical senses,heat certainly does exist as a condition of solids, liquids,and gases. However, this is only an external aspect oreffect of heat. Physicists speak only about heat’s effect,not about its inner nature. Let’s try to disregard all theeffects of heat we receive through external objects andsimply picture the inner experience we have when we say“I feel warm” or “I feel cold.” Only this inner experiencecan give us an idea of what Saturn was like in the evolu-tionary period described above. We would have been ableto run right through the space it occupied; there wouldhave been no gas to exert any pressure, no solid or liquidbodies to reflect any impressions of light. But at everypoint within this space, we would have had the inner feel-ing of a particular degree of warmth, yet without receiv-ing any impression from outside.

Conditions in a cosmic body like this are not suitable forthe animals, plants, and minerals of the present time. (Itshould, therefore, hardly be necessary to say that what wasdescribed above could never actually take place. It is notpossible for a modern human being as such to actually con-front Old Saturn as an observer; the description was onlyintended as an illustration.) The beings that supersensibleperception becomes aware of while observing Saturn are ata very different stage of evolution than present-day sense-perceptible earthly beings. The first beings to appear to thissupersensible perception do not have physical bodies likethose of present-day human beings. When we speak of a


“physical body” in this context, we must be careful toavoid thinking about human physical bodies as they existtoday. Rather, we must distinguish carefully between thephysical body and the mineral body. A physical body isone that is governed by the physical laws we observe todayin the mineral kingdom. However, our present-day physi-cal bodies are not only governed by such physical laws butare also imbued with mineral substance. There can be notalk of physical/mineral bodies like this on Saturn.

The physical corporeality that existed on Saturn wasgoverned by physical laws, but these laws expressedthemselves only in the effects of warmth, so the physicalbody was a delicate ethereal body of heat. All of Saturnconsisted of warmth bodies like this, which laid the firstfoundations for present-day physical/mineral human bod-ies. Our present bodies developed when the gaseous, liq-uid, and solid states of matter that later came intoexistence were incorporated into these warmth bodies.

Among the other, non-human beings perceived bysupersensible consciousness when it becomes aware ofthe Saturn state, there are some, for example, who haveno need for a physical body. The lowest component oftheir makeup is an ether body; in addition, however, theyhave a part that is higher than any belonging to humanbeings. The highest member of the human being is thespirit body, but these other beings have something that ishigher still. Between the ether body and the spirit bodythey also have all the other components described in thisbook as belonging to human beings: the astral body, theI, the spirit self, and the life spirit.


Saturn, like our Earth, was surrounded by an atmo-sphere, but instead of being a sphere of air, Saturn’s atmo-sphere was of a spiritual character. To precisely expressthis inner experience that occurs in spiritual research,instead of saying “Saturn is surrounded by an atmo-sphere,” we would have to say, “While supersensible cog-nition is becoming aware of Saturn, an atmosphere thatbelongs to Saturn also presents itself to consciousness.”Similarly, we would have to say “other beings”—or“beings of this sort”—“present themselves.” Transform-ing this into the expression that something “is present”must be permitted, because this also takes place in theexpressions we use for actual soul experience in the caseof sensory perception. This is evident from the context ofthe discussion; however, it must kept in mind in readingthe descriptions that follow.

Saturn consisted entirely of beings, those just describedand still others. There was a constant interaction betweenthe warmth bodies on Saturn and these beings, whoallowed the elements of their makeup to sink down intoSaturn’s physical warmth bodies. So while there was nolife in these warmth bodies themselves, the life of theirsurroundings was expressed in them. They could be com-pared to mirrors, but instead of reflecting images of thebeings in question, they reflected their state of life. Wewould not have been able to discover anything living onSaturn itself, and yet Saturn had an enlivening effect onthe surrounding celestial space because, like an echo, itradiated back the life sent down to it. Saturn seemed likeone big mirror of celestial life.


Certain exalted beings whose life was reflected by Sat-urn may be called the Spirits of Wisdom. (In Christianesotericism, they are known as kyriotetes or “domin-ions.”) Their activity on Saturn did not begin with themiddle evolutionary period described above; in fact, in acertain sense it had already come to an end by then.Before they could become conscious of how the warmthbodies of Saturn were reflecting their own life, the Spiritsof Wisdom first had to bring these bodies to the point ofbeing able to carry out this reflecting process. For thisreason, their activity commenced shortly after the begin-ning of the Saturn phase of evolution, when Saturn’sbodily nature still consisted of chaotic substance thatwould not have been capable of reflecting anything.

In observing this chaotic substance, we are making useof spiritual perception to transport ourselves back to thebeginning of the Saturn phase. What can be observed atthis point has not yet acquired the character of heat that itwill later possess. In trying to characterize it, we can onlyspeak of a quality that can be compared to human willing.It is will and only will, through and through. At this point,therefore, we are dealing with a state that is all soul. If wetrace this element of will back to its source, we find thatit originally emanated from certain exalted beings.Through stages we can only guess at, these beings hadbrought their evolution to the point where, at the begin-ning of the Saturn phase, they could pour forth will out oftheir own essence. After they had been doing this forsome time, the activity of the above-mentioned Spirits ofWisdom united with this outpouring of will. Thus this


will, previously wholly without attributes, graduallyacquired the ability to reflect life back into celestial space.The beings who experienced bliss in pouring forth willout of themselves at the beginning of the Saturn phase ofevolution can be called Spirits of Will. (In Christian eso-tericism, they are called “thrones.”)

After a certain stage in Saturn’s evolution had beenreached through this interaction between will and life,other beings present in Saturn’s surroundings becameactive. They can be called Spirits of Motion, the Christiandynamis or “virtues.” They have no physical body and nolife body. Their lowest element is the astral body. Oncethe Saturn bodies had acquired the ability to reflect life,this reflected life was ready to be imbued with character-istics that had their seat in the astral bodies of the Spiritsof Motion. As a result, it seemed as if feelings, manifes-tations of sensation, and other soul forces were beinghurled outward from Saturn into celestial space. Saturn asa totality appeared to be an ensouled being demonstratingsympathies and antipathies. However, these manifesta-tions of soul were certainly not its own; it was only fling-ing back soul activities belonging to the Spirits of Motion.

After this had been going on for some time, still otherbeings, which can be called the Spirits of Form, becameactive. Their lowest part was also an astral body, but itwas at a different stage of evolution than that of the Spir-its of Motion. Whereas the Spirits of Motion impartedonly general expressions of sensation to the life Saturnwas reflecting, the astral activity of the Spirits of Form(the Christian exousiai, or “powers”) was such that their


expressions of sensation were flung out into space asthough from individual beings. It could be said that theSpirits of Motion allowed Saturn as a whole to appear asan ensouled being, while the Spirits of Form divided thislife into individual living beings, so that Saturn thenappeared as a conglomerate of soul beings. To get a pic-ture of this, imagine how a mulberry or a blackberry ismade up of small individual fruits. To those with super-sensible perception, Saturn at this period in its evolutionwas likewise made up of individual Saturn beings which,although they did not yet possess individual lives andsouls, reflected the lives and souls of the beings that livedin them.

In the next order of beings to intervene in this state ofSaturn, the astral body was also the lowest element, butthese beings had brought the astral body to a stage ofdevelopment where it functioned like a present-dayhuman I. Through these beings, the I looked down uponSaturn from its surroundings and conveyed its own natureto Saturn’s individual living beings. As a result, what wassent out from Saturn into space appeared similar to theactivity of human personalities in our present cycle oflife. The beings bringing this about may be called theSpirits of Personality, the Christian archai or “principal-ities.” They granted a semblance of the character of per-sonality to the little Saturn bodies. However, personalityas such did not exist on Saturn, but only its reflection, asit were, an empty shell of personality. The Spirits of Per-sonality had their real personality out on the periphery, inSaturn’s surroundings. The delicate substance described


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earlier as heat was bestowed on the Saturn bodies throughthe fact that the Spirits of Personality allowed theiressence to be reflected back by these bodies in the waythat has been described. There was no inwardness in any-thing on Saturn, but the Spirits of Personality recognizedthe image of their own inwardness as it streamed back tothem from Saturn in the form of heat.

While all this was going on, the Spirits of Personalitywere at the level of present-day human beings; they weregoing through their human phase. If we want to take anunbiased look at this state of affairs, we must imagine thata being can be “human” in a form different from the formwe presently possess. The Spirits of Personality were“human” on Saturn. Their lowest component was not thephysical body, but the astral body with the I. Althoughthey had no physical or ether body such as ours in whichto express the astral body’s experiences, they not onlypossessed the I but were also aware of it because the heatof Saturn made them conscious of it by reflecting it backto them. They were “human beings” under circumstancesdifferent from those of Earth.

The events in the further course of Saturn’s evolutionwere different in character from the previous ones. Previ-ously, everything had been a reflection of outer life andsensation, but at this point an inner life of a sort began.Here and there within the Saturn world light began to stir,flaring up and then darkening again. Flickers and glim-mers of light appeared in some places, while in otherslightning-like flashes appeared. Saturn’s warmth bodiesstarted to flicker and glow and eventually to shine.


The fact that this stage of evolution had been reachedmade it possible once again for certain beings to becomeactive. These beings can be called Spirits of Fire, theChristian archangeloi or archangels. They did have astralbodies, but at that stage of their existence they wereunable to stimulate them by themselves; they would havehad no feeling or sensation if they had not been able towork on the warmth bodies that had reached the Saturnstage that has just been described. Acting on these bodiesgave the Spirits of Fire the possibility of recognizing theirown existence through the influence they exerted. Theycould not say to themselves: I exist, but only somethinglike: My surroundings permit me to exist. They did per-ceive, and their perceptions consisted of the activities oflight on Saturn that have been described above. These are,in a certain sense, their I. This granted these beings con-sciousness of a very particular sort that can be describedas pictorial consciousness. We can imagine it as similarin nature to human dream consciousness, but it possesseda much greater degree of vitality than our dreaming does,and we must realize that its images were no mere insub-stantial dream images surging in and out but bore anactual relationship to Saturn’s stirrings of light.

In this interplay between the Spirits of Fire and Sat-urn’s warmth bodies, the germinal form of human senseorgans were incorporated into evolution. We see the firstglimmering, the first delicate ethereal beginning, of theorgans we currently use to perceive the physical world.Phantom human beings, who at this point exhibit onlylight-archetypes of sense organs, are recognizable to


clairvoyant perception within the Saturn world.1 Senseorgans, therefore, are the fruit of the activity of the Spiritsof Fire, but these spirits were not the only ones involvedin bringing these organs about. At the same time, otherbeings entered the field of Saturn. These beings were sofar advanced in their evolution that they were able to usethese embryonic senses to perceive the cosmic events tak-ing place in life on Saturn. These beings may be called theSpirits of Love, the Christian seraphim. Without them, theSpirits of Fire could not have had the consciousnessdescribed above. The Spirits of Love looked at events onSaturn with a consciousness that enabled them to conveythese events in image form to the Spirits of Fire. Theythemselves renounced any benefits, any gratification orpleasure, that they might have derived from perceivingevents on Saturn. They renounced all of this so that theSpirits of Fire could have it.

1. Regarding the nature and development of human perception and thesense organs, see Rudolf Steiner, Anthroposophy (a Fragment) A NewFoundation for the Study of Human Nature, Anthroposophic Press,Hudson, NY, 1996.Regarding the phantom, see for example Rudolf Steiner, From Jesusto Christ, Rudolf Steiner Press, London, 1991, lecture 6; “. .. thephysical forces and substances laid aside [at death] are not the wholephysical body, because its complete configuration could never derivefrom them alone. Something else belongs to these substances andforces, which is best called the ‘phantom’ of the human being. Thisphantom is the form-shape that, as a spiritual texture, builds up thephysical substances and forces so that they fill out the form weencounter as a human being on the physical plane” (p. 113).


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These events were followed by a new period in Sat-urn’s existence. Something else was added to the stirringsof light. It may seem sheer folly to many when we speakof what then reveals itself to supersensible cognition. Sat-urn’s interior was like surging, intermingling sensationsof taste. Sweet, bitter, sour, and so on could be observedat various points within Saturn, while outwardly all ofthis reverberated into celestial space as sound and wasperceived as music of a sort.
Once again, certain beings found it possible to becomeactive in these processes taking place on Saturn. We willcall them Sons of Twilight or Sons of Life, the Christianangeloi or angels. They interacted with the surging forcesof taste that were present in Saturn’s interior. Throughthis, their ether body or life body became active in a waythat can be described as a type of metabolism. Theybrought life into Saturn’s interior, and processes of nutri-tion and elimination began to take place there. The activ-ity of these beings brought about these processesindirectly rather than directly. This internal life made itpossible for still other beings to enter, beings who can becalled Spirits of Harmony, the Christian cherubim. Theytransmitted a dim type of consciousness to the Sons ofLife. It was even dimmer and more dusk-like than ourpresent-day dream consciousness, similar to our con-sciousness during dreamless sleep, which is of such a loworder that we never become conscious of it at all, so tospeak. Nonetheless, it is present. It is different from ourday consciousness in kind as well as in degree. At present,plants also have this dreamless sleep consciousness.


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Although it does not convey perceptions of an outer worldin the human sense, it does regulate the life processes andbring them into harmony with the processes of the outercosmos. At the Saturn stage in question, the Sons of Lifewere not able to perceive this regulating process, but theSpirits of Harmony did perceive it and were therefore theactual regulators.

All this life-activity was played out in phantom humanbeings described earlier; as a result, spiritual sight per-ceived them as enlivened. Their life was only a semblanceof life, however. It actually belonged to the Sons of Life,who made use of these phantom human beings, as it were,in order to express their own life.

Now let’s turn our attention to these phantom humanswith their semblance of life. During the Saturn perioddescribed, their forms were ever-changing, resemblingnow this figure, now that. As they continued to evolve,these forms became more defined and lasted somewhatlonger as they began to be imbued with the effects of spir-its that we have already mentioned with regard to thebeginning of the Saturn phase of evolution, namely theSpirits of Will, or thrones. As a result, these phantomhumans themselves appeared with the simplest, dullestform of consciousness. We must imagine this conscious-ness as even duller than that of dreamless sleep. Underpresent conditions, minerals have this form of conscious-ness, which brings the inner being into harmony with theouter physical world. On Saturn the Spirits of Will regu-lated this harmony. As a result, human beings appeared asreproductions of the life of Saturn itself. What Saturn was


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on a large scale, human beings were on a small scale. Thisprovided the initial nucleus of something that is still onlyin a seminal state in present-day human beings, namelythe spirit body or atma. Within Saturn, the dull will ofthese ancient human beings was evident to supersensibleperception through effects that can be compared tosmells. What manifested outwardly, moving out intocelestial space, was something similar to a personality,but instead of being directed by an internal I, it was regu-lated from outside like a machine. The regulating agentswere the Spirits of Will.

If we survey the descriptions above, it becomes evidentthat, starting from the middle stage of the Saturn phasedescribed first, the stages of this evolutionary phase can becharacterized by comparing their effects to present-daysense impressions. We said that the Saturn phase mani-fested first as heat, followed by stirrings of light and thenby stirrings of taste and sound; finally something arosethat revealed itself within Saturn like sensations of smelland, on the outside, like a mechanically acting human I.

What were Saturn’s manifestations prior to the state ofwarmth? What had existed before that cannot be comparedto anything accessible to outer sensory perception. Sat-urn’s warmth state was preceded by a state that we nowexperience only in our inner being. If we give ourselves upto ideas that we form voluntarily in our souls, withoutbeing impelled to do so by outer impressions, we havewithin us something that no physical senses can perceive,something that can only be perceived by higher sight. Sat-urn’s warmth state was preceded by manifestations that


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exist only for those who perceive supersensibly. We canlist three such states: pure soul warmth that is not out-wardly perceptible, pure spiritual light that is darkness foreverything outside, and finally a state of spiritual essencethat is complete in itself and needs no external being inorder to become conscious of itself. Pure inner warmthaccompanies the appearance of the Spirits of Motion; purespiritual light, the Spirits of Wisdom; pure inner essence isconnected to the first outpourings of the Spirits of Will.

With the appearance of Saturn’s warmth, therefore,our evolution made the step from a purely spiritual innerlife to an existence that manifested outwardly. It will beespecially difficult, no doubt, for present-day conscious-ness to accept the statement that what we call “time”first appeared during Saturn’s warmth stage, since pre-ceding states were not temporal at all but belonged to adomain that spiritual science can call “duration.” There-fore, it must be understood that all references in thisbook to temporal relationships with regard to conditionsin the “domain of duration” are used only as compari-sons and aids to understanding. In fact, what precedestime can only be described in human language by usingexpressions that include the concept of time, so we mustbe aware that although the first, second, and third Saturnperiods really did not take place “one after the other” inthe present meaning of the phrase, we cannot avoiddescribing them in succession. And in spite of theirduration or simultaneity, they were dependent on eachother in a way that actually can be compared to a se-quence in time.


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Pointing to Saturn’s first evolutionary states also shedslight on all further questions about where these statescame from. From a purely intellectual standpoint, ofcourse, it is entirely possible to inquire about the origin ofany origin, and so on, but this won’t do when we are facedwith facts. An illustration is enough to make this clear: Ifwe find tracks on a road somewhere, we can ask wherethey came from. The answer may be, “From a wagon.”We can then continue, asking, “Where did the wagoncome from, and where did it go?” Again, it is possible togive an answer based on facts. We can then still ask,“Who was sitting in the wagon? What were that person’sintentions, and what did he or she do?” Eventually, how-ever, we get to a point where the facts put an end to thequestioning quite naturally. If we continue questioningafter that, we are getting away from the purpose of theoriginal question and simply go on asking questionsmechanically. In instances such as the one just cited forpurposes of comparison, it is easy to tell where the factsput an end to the questioning. This is not so easy when itcomes to great questions about the cosmos. If we lookclosely, however, we will still be able to see that all ques-tions of where things came from must end in the Saturnstates described above, because there we come to a placewhere beings and processes derive their justification fromthemselves rather than from their origins.

As a result of the Saturn phase of evolution, germinalhuman beings evolved to a certain stage, reaching thelow-grade, dull consciousness we talked about earlier.We must not imagine that it began to develop only in the


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last Saturn period. The Spirits of Will worked during allof Saturn’s stages, but to supersensible perception theresult of their activity is most conspicuous in the lastperiod. There is no fixed dividing line between the activ-ities and effects of the different groups of beings. When itis said that the Spirits of Will were active first, and thenthe Spirits of Wisdom, that does not mean that they wereactive only at that time. They were active throughout theentire evolution of Saturn, but their activity can beobserved best during the periods specifically mentionedwith regard to each group, when the beings in questiontook over the leadership, as it were.

The entire Saturn phase of evolution, therefore,appears as a reworking of what emanated from the Spiritsof Will by the Spirits of Wisdom, Movement, Form, andso on. In this process, these spiritual beings were alsoundergoing an evolution of their own. For example, afterhaving their life reflected back to them from Saturn, theSpirits of Wisdom were at a different level than they werebefore. The fruits of their activity enhanced their ownintrinsic capabilities. As a result, when the activity wascompleted, something similar to human sleep set in forthem. The periods when their activity was directed towardSaturn were followed by periods when they lived in otherworlds, so to speak, and their activity was turned awayfrom Saturn. Therefore, clairvoyant perception sees anascent and a descent in the Saturn evolution describedabove. The ascent continued until the state of warmth hadbeen formed; with the first stirrings of light, the ebbinghad already begun. By the time phantom human beings


had acquired form through the Spirits of Will, the spiri-tual beings had gradually withdrawn. The Saturn phase ofevolution died away and disappeared as such, and aperiod of rest set in. It was as if the incipient humanbeings entered a state of dissolution—not one in whichthey disappeared, but one similar to what happens to theseed of a plant, which rests in the earth as it prepares tomature into a new plant. Similarly, germinal humanbeings rested in the bosom of the cosmos and awaited anew awakening.

When the time came for these germinal human beingsto awaken, the spiritual beings described above hadacquired, under different circumstances, the capacity towork on them once more. The ether bodies of the Spiritsof Wisdom had acquired a capacity not only for enjoyingthe reflection of life as they did on Saturn, but also forallowing life to stream out from themselves, endowingother beings. At this point the Spirits of Motion were asfar advanced as the Spirits of Wisdom had been on Sat-urn. Previously, the lowest member in their makeup hadbeen the astral body, but then they acquired the etherbody or life body. The other spiritual beings, too, hadarrived at correspondingly higher levels of evolution andcould therefore work differently to evolve the germinalhuman beings than they could on Saturn.

However, the germinal human beings had dissolved atthe end of the Saturn evolutionary phase. In order for thespiritual beings who had evolved further to pick up wherethey had left off, the germinal human beings first had tobriefly recapitulate what they had gone through on Saturn.


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(This is visible to supersensible perception.) Incipienthuman beings emerged from concealment and began todevelop through their own capacity, through forces thathad been implanted in them on Saturn. They emergedfrom the darkness as beings of will and advanced throughthe stages of seeming alive and seeming ensouled to themechanical manifestation of personality they had pos-sessed at the end of the Saturn phase.

SunThe second of the great evolutionary phases we men-

tioned, the Sun stage, raised human beings to a higherstate of consciousness than had been achieved on Saturn,although in comparison to our present-day consciousness,this Sun state might well be described as “unconscious-ness,” since it approximates the state we now find our-selves in during completely dreamless sleep. Or we couldalso compare it to the low-grade consciousness in whichthe present-day plant world slumbers. To supersensibleperception, there is no such thing as “unconsciousness,”only various degrees of consciousness. Everything in theworld is conscious.

In the course of the Sun phase of evolution, the humanessence attained a higher degree of consciousness,because the etheric body or life body was incorporatedinto its makeup. Before this could happen, the Saturnstages had to be recapitulated, as described earlier. Thisrecapitulation had a very specific purpose. Once theperiod of rest came to an end, the former Saturn emergedfrom “cosmic sleep” as a new cosmic being, as the Sun.


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But as a result, the circumstances of evolution hadchanged. The spiritual beings whose activity on Saturnhas been described had moved on to different states ofbeing. To begin with, however, germinal human beingsappeared on the newly formed Sun just as they were at theend of the Saturn phase. They first had to transform thevarious stages of development they went through on Sat-urn so that these stages would correspond to circum-stances on the Sun. For this reason, the Sun phase beganwith a repetition of events on Saturn, adapting them to thechanged circumstances of the Sun’s life.

When human beings had gone far enough in adaptingthe level of development it had acquired on Saturn to theSun’s circumstances, the Spirits of Wisdom mentionedearlier began to allow the etheric body or life body tostream into the physical body. The higher level thathuman beings achieved on the Sun can be characterizedby saying that the physical body, already seminallyformed on Saturn, was lifted to a second level of perfec-tion by becoming the vehicle for an etheric or life body.This etheric body or life body itself achieved its first levelof perfection during the Sun phase of evolution. In orderfor the physical body to reach its second level of perfec-tion and the life body its first, however, still other spiri-tual beings had to intervene during the further course ofthe Sun’s life, just as was already described with regardto the Saturn phase.

When the Spirits of Wisdom began to pour the life bodyinto the germinal human beings, the Sun, dark until then,began to shine. With the life body, the first signs of inner


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vitality also entered the germinal human being. Lifebegan. What still had to be described as a mere semblanceof life on Saturn then became actual life. The period ofpouring the life body into the human being lasted for acertain length of time, after which an important changetook place in the germinal human being. It separated intotwo parts. Whereas previously the physical body and thelife body were intimately connected and formed a whole,at this point the physical body began to detach itself as aseparate part. However, it also continued to be permeatedby the life body. Now we are dealing with a twofoldhuman being. One part is a physical body permeated by alife body working within it, the other part is pure lifebody. This separation, however, took place during a restperiod in the life of the Sun. During this period the shin-ing that had already begun was extinguished, and the sep-aration took place during a “cosmic night,” as it were.However, this interval of rest was much shorter than theabove-mentioned one between the Saturn and Sun phases.Once this rest period was over, the Spirits of Wisdomcontinued to work for a time on the twofold human being,just as they had formerly worked on the unitary humanbeing. Then the Spirits of Motion began their activity.They suffused the human life body with their own astralbody. Within the physical body, the human life body thenacquired the ability to carry out certain inner movementsthat can be compared to the movements of sap in apresent-day plant.

Bodies on Saturn had consisted solely of heat substance.During the Sun phase of evolution, this heat substance


condensed into a state that can be compared to the presentstate of gas or vapor, a state that can be described as air.The first beginnings of this state became evident after theSpirits of Motion had begun their activity. The followingscene presents itself to supersensible consciousness:Within the substance of heat, something resembling deli-cate structures appeared and began to make rhythmicalmovements by means of the forces of the life body. Thesestructures represented the human entity’s physical body atthat stage of evolution. They were totally permeated withwarmth and wrapped in a mantle of warmth. Physicallyspeaking, we can call them warmth structures that incor-porated regularly moving shapes of air. If we want toretain the earlier comparison to the present-day plant, wemust keep in mind that we are not dealing with a compactplant formation, but with a gaseous or airy structure whosemovements are comparable to the movements of sap in thepresent-day plant. This gaseous or airy substance becomesvisible to supersensible consciousness through the effectof the light that it emits, so we could also speak of figuresof light that present themselves to spiritual vision.

The evolution we have characterized then continued.After a certain time, another rest period ensued, afterwhich the Spirits of Motion continued their activity untilit was supplemented by that of the Spirits of Form, whoseeffect was to allow the formerly constantly changing gas-eous shapes to assume permanent forms. This also tookplace through the fact that the Spirits of Form allowedtheir forces to flow in and out of the human life body. Pre-viously, when only the Spirits of Motion were working on


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them, the gaseous shapes were in constant motion, retain-ing their form only for an instant. At this point, however,they took on temporarily distinguishable forms.

After a certain length of time, a rest period againensued, after which the Spirits of Form resumed theiractivity. Then, however, entirely new conditionsappeared within the Sun’s evolution. We have reached themidpoint of the Sun phase of evolution. This is the timewhen the Spirits of Personality, who had reached thehuman stage on Saturn, transcended this stage and rose toa higher level of perfection. They acquired a conscious-ness that present-day human beings have not yet acquiredin the ordinary course of evolution. We will acquire itwhen the Earth—that is, the fourth of the planetary stagesof evolution—arrives at its goal and enters the next plan-etary phase. Then we will not only perceive what oursenses convey to us about our surroundings but will alsobe capable of perceiving in image form the inner soulstates of the beings around us. We will possess pictorialconsciousness while retaining full self-awareness. Therewill be nothing dream-like or dull in the pictures we see.We will perceive the soul element in images, but inimages that express realities in the same way that physicalcolors and sounds do now. At present we can only rise tothis kind of vision through spiritual scientific training,which will be discussed later on in this book.

Midway through the Sun phase, the Spirits of Person-ality acquired this vision as a gift of their normal evolu-tion. It made them capable of working on the newlyformed human entity’s life body in a way that was similar


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to how they had worked on the physical body during theSaturn phase, when warmth reflected their own personal-ity back at them. At this point, the gaseous shapes werereflecting the images of these beings’ pictorial conscious-ness back at them in resplendent light. They beheld super-sensibly what was taking place on the Sun, and theirvision was no mere observing. It was as if something ofthe power that human beings call “love” were assertingitself in the images that streamed toward them from theSun. If we observe this more closely with our soul pow-ers, we discover the reason for this phenomenon. Exaltedbeings were mingling their activity with the light stream-ing out from the Sun. These were the Spirits of Love, theChristian seraphim that were mentioned earlier. Fromthis point onward, they acted on the human etheric body,or life body, along with the Spirits of Personality. Thisactivity caused the life body itself to advance one stagefurther in its course of evolution. It acquired the abilitynot only to transform the gaseous shapes within it, butalso to adapt them so that the first signs of reproductionappeared in the living human being. Secretions weredriven out of the gaseous structures—sweated out, so tospeak—and assumed forms similar to their maternalstructures.

In characterizing the Sun’s further evolution, we mustpoint to a fact that is all-important in cosmic evolution—namely, that not all beings reach their goals in the courseof an evolutionary epoch. Some fall short of their goal.Thus, during the Saturn phase, not all of the Spirits of Per-sonality actually reached the intended human level that


was described earlier. Likewise, not every human physi-cal body that developed on Saturn attained the degree ofmaturity necessary to become the vehicle of an indepen-dent life body on the Sun. As a result, there were beingsand formations on the Sun that were not adapted to thecircumstances there and had to use the Sun phase to makeup for what they had missed on Saturn. Therefore, spiri-tual observation of the Sun stage shows that when theSpirits of Wisdom began pouring into the life body, thebody of the Sun grew dark, as it were. Intermingled in itwere formations that would actually still have belonged toSaturn. These were warmth structures that were not ableto condense into air in the right way—human beings whohad remained behind at the Saturn stage. They could notbecome vehicles for normally developed life bodies.

This Saturn warmth substance that remained behindthen divided into two parts on the Sun. One part wassucked up, so to speak, by human bodies and formed acertain internalized lower human nature from then on.This means that human beings on the Sun absorbed some-thing into their bodily nature that actually correspondedto the Saturn phase. Just as the human Saturn bodies hadmade it possible for the Spirits of Personality to rise to thehuman level, this Saturn element in human beings did thesame for the Spirits of Fire on the Sun. They raised them-selves to the human level by allowing their forces tostream in and out of this Saturn element, just as the Spiritsof Personality had done on Saturn. This, too, happened inthe middle of the Sun phase of evolution. At this point, theSaturn element in human beings was mature enough so


that with its help, the Spirits of Fire (archangeloi) wereable to pass through their human stage.

Another part of Saturn’s warmth substance separatedoff and achieved an independent existence alongside andamong human beings of the Sun phase. It constituted asecond kingdom alongside the human kingdom, a king-dom that developed a completely independent but purelyphysical warmth body on the Sun. Consequently, it didnot include independent life bodies that could be workedon by the fully developed Spirits of Personality in the waydescribed earlier. However, some of the Spirits of Person-ality had also remained behind at the Saturn stage, notreaching the level of humanity. A bond of attractionexisted between them and the second, newly independentSun kingdom. These spirits then had to work on thisunderdeveloped kingdom in the same way that their moreadvanced counterparts had worked on the human beingswho first developed physical bodies on Saturn. On theSun itself, however, it was not possible for the underde-veloped Spirits of Personality to do this, so they withdrewfrom the body of the Sun and formed a separate and inde-pendent cosmic body outside of it. From there, they wereable to work back on the beings of the second Sun king-dom. Thus, the single cosmic formation of the former Sat-urn split into two. From this point on, the Sun had asecond cosmic body in its surroundings, a body that con-stituted a rebirth of Saturn, after a fashion—a new Saturn.From there, the quality of personality radiated into thesecond Sun kingdom. In this second kingdom, we aredealing with beings that had no personality of their own


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on the Sun itself. However, they reflected the personalityof the Spirits of Personality on the new Saturn back tothem. Supersensible consciousness can observe warmthforces at work among the human beings on the Sun,forces that played into the Sun’s normal evolution. Inthese forces we can see the influence of these new Saturnspirits.

We must keep in mind that during the middle of the Sunphase, the human being was organized into a physicalbody and a life body in which the more advanced Spiritsof Personality worked in conjunction with the Spirits ofLove. Part of the underdeveloped Saturn nature, in whichthe Spirits of Fire were active, mingled with the physicalbody. Everything the Spirits of Fire produced in this Sat-urn nature must be seen as a precursor of present-dayhuman sense organs. We have seen how the Spirits of Firehad already worked on rudimentary forms of our sensesin the warmth substance on old Saturn. And in what theSpirits of Personality accomplished in conjunction withthe Spirits of Love (seraphim), we can recognize the sem-inal stages of our present-day glandular system.

However, the work of the Spirits of Personality dwell-ing on new Saturn was not exhausted in what wasdescribed above. They not only extended their activity tothe second Sun kingdom, as has been mentioned, but alsocreated a certain connection between this kingdom andthe human senses. The warmth substances of this king-dom flowed in and out through the seminal human senses,enabling human beings on the Sun to achieve a certainperception of this lower kingdom that was outside of


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themselves. Of course this was only a dim perception inkeeping with the dullness of the Saturn consciousness wetalked about earlier. It consisted essentially of variousimpressions of heat.

Everything described here as belonging to the middleof the Sun phase of evolution lasted for a certain amountof time, and then another period of rest began. After that,evolution continued along the same lines for a while untilthe human ether body was mature enough to permit thebeginning of a joint effort between the Sons of Life(angeloi) and the Spirits of Harmony (cherubim). Withinthe human being, manifestations comparable to percep-tions of taste (but expressing themselves outwardly assounds) became apparent to supersensible consciousness.As you recall, we already had to describe something sim-ilar with regard to the Saturn phase of evolution. On theSun, however, this development was more inward; it wasfull of a life that was more independent.

In this process, the Sons of Life achieved the dim pic-torial consciousness that the Spirits of Fire had achievedon Saturn. This was done with the help of the Spirits ofHarmony (cherubim), who actually beheld spirituallywhat was taking place at that point in the Sun’s evolution,but renounced all the fruits of this perception, all feelingfor the wisdom-filled images that came about, andallowed these to flow into the dream consciousness of theSons of Life in magnificent supernatural disclosures, as itwere. In turn, the Sons of Life worked the figures of thesevisions of theirs into the human ether body, which couldthen go on to achieve ever higher levels of development.


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Once again a period of rest set in; once again everythingarose out of “cosmic sleep,” and after a time humanbeings matured to the point where they began to rouseforces of their own. These were the same forces that hadstreamed into them through the activity of the thronesduring the last part of the Saturn phase. These humanbeings now developed an inner life that presents itself toconsciousness in a way comparable to an inner perceptionof smell. Toward the outside, however, toward celestialspace, these human beings revealed themselves as per-sonalities that were not, however, directed by any internalI, but seemed more like plants giving the impression ofpersonality. We have already seen machine-like manifes-tations of personality at the end of the Saturn phase. Andjust as the initial nucleus of something that is only semi-nally present even in present-day human beings—namely, the spirit body or atma—developed on Saturn, asimilar initial nucleus of the life spirit (buddhi) wasformed on the Sun.

After all this had been going on for a while, anotherperiod of rest ensued, after which—just as in previoussimilar instances—human activity proceeded for a certaintime. The conditions that then set in entailed a new inter-vention on the part of the Spirits of Wisdom. Throughthis, human beings became capable of feeling the firsttraces of sympathy and antipathy for their surroundings.They still had no real feeling, but they did have a forerun-ner of feeling, because the inner life activity whose man-ifestations might be characterized as perceptions of smellexpressed itself outwardly as a kind of primitive speech.


Having inwardly perceived a sympathetic smell—or ataste or a glimmer of light—the human being in questionexpressed this outwardly through a sound, and this alsooccurred in the appropriate fashion in the case ofinwardly unsympathetic sensations.

As far as human beings were concerned, the actual pur-pose of the Sun phase of evolution was accomplishedthrough all the processes that have been described:Human beings had achieved a sleep consciousness, alevel of consciousness higher than what they had pos-sessed on Saturn.

After a while, the point in evolution was reached whenthe higher beings associated with the Sun stage had tomove on to other spheres in order to assimilate the poten-tials they had laid down in themselves through their workon the human being. A major period of rest ensued, likethe one that had taken place between the Saturn and Sunphases. Everything that had developed on the Sun passedover into a state comparable to that of a plant when itsgrowth forces lie dormant in the seed. Just as these forcesof growth come to light again in a new plant, however, allof the Sun’s life emerged from the womb of the cosmosagain when the rest period was over, and a new planetaryexistence began. We will be able to grasp the significanceof this pause, this “cosmic sleep,” if we direct our spiri-tual view to one of the orders of beings mentioned above,such as the Spirits of Wisdom, for example. On Saturnthey had not yet advanced to the point of being able toallow an ether body to stream out of them. They onlybecame ready to do so through the experiences they had


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on Saturn. During the rest period, they transformed whathad been prepared in them into actual capacities, so thaton the Sun they were sufficiently advanced to allow lifeto stream forth from them, endowing human beings withether bodies of their own.

Moon After the rest period, what had formerly been the Sun

emerged from “cosmic sleep.” That is, it became percepti-ble to the forces of spiritual vision once again, as it hadbeen before becoming invisible during the rest period.However, a twofold aspect then appeared in the newlyemerging planetary being that will be called the Moon (notto be confused with the part of it that is the Earth’s moonat present). The first thing we must note is that what hadseparated off during the Sun phase as “new Saturn” hadbeen reabsorbed into this new planetary being. That is,new Saturn had reunited with the Sun during the period ofrest. To begin with, everything that had been present in thefirst Saturn reappeared as a single cosmic formation. Thesecond thing we must note is that during the period of rest,the human life bodies that had developed on the Sun hadbeen absorbed by something that constituted a certain spir-itual covering for the planet. At this point, therefore, theselife bodies did not appear in union with the correspondingphysical human bodies, which appeared separately for thetime being. Although these physical bodies carried withthem everything that had been created in them on Saturnand Sun, they lacked ether bodies or life bodies. Theywere not able to absorb ether bodies immediately, because


they had not yet adjusted to the evolution these ether bod-ies had undergone during the rest period.

In order to accomplish this adjustment, a repetition ofthe Saturn state once again took place at the beginning ofthe Moon phase of evolution. Physical human beingsagain recapitulated the periods of Saturn’s evolution, butunder totally changed circumstances. On Saturn, as weknow, the only forces at work in human beings had beenthe forces of a warmth body, but at this point the forces ofthe gaseous body acquired on the Sun were also active.However, they did not appear at the very beginning of theMoon phase of evolution, when it was as if human beingsconsisted only of heat substance with the gaseous forceslying dormant within them. Then a time came when thefirst signs of these gaseous forces appeared. Finally, inthe last stage of the Saturn recapitulation, human beingsagain appeared as they had done while in a living state onthe Sun. Their life, however, again proved to be only asemblance of life.

First a period of rest ensued, similar to the short periodsof rest during the Sun phase of evolution. Then the influxof the life body into the physical body—which had mean-while become mature enough to receive it—began again.Like the Saturn recapitulation, this influx took place inthree distinct epochs. During the second of these epochs,human beings adjusted to the new Moon circumstances tothe extent that the Spirits of Motion were able to trans-form the ability they had acquired into deeds and wereable to allow the astral body to flow out of their ownessential nature into the human being. The Spirits of


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Motion had prepared themselves for this work during theSun phase and transformed what they had prepared intothe above-mentioned ability during the rest periodbetween the Sun and Moon incarnations.

The influx of the astral body continued for a while, andthen one of the shorter rest periods ensued, after whichthe influx continued until the Spirits of Form began theiractivity. The astral body acquired its first soul character-istics through the fact that the Spirits of Motion wereallowing it to stream into human beings. Processes thattook place in the astral body because it possessed a lifebody—processes that had still been plant-like in charac-ter during the Sun phase of evolution—began to beaccompanied by sensation, and the astral body began toexperience pleasure and displeasure because of theseprocesses. Until the intervention of the Spirits of Form,however, this remained an ever-changing inner ebb andflow of pleasure and displeasure. But these ever-chang-ing feelings were, at that point, transformed in such away that the first trace of longing and desire appeared inhuman beings, who then attempted to repeat what hadonce given them pleasure and to avoid what they hadexperienced with antipathy. However, since the Spirits ofForm did not surrender their own being to humans, butsimply allowed their forces to stream in and out of them,human desires lacked inwardness and independence.They were guided by the Spirits of Form and appearedinstinctive in character.

On Saturn, the human physical body was a body ofwarmth. On the Sun, it condensed into the gaseous state;


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that is, into air. During the Moon phase of evolution, at acertain point when the astral element was streaming in,the physical body achieved a further degree of condensa-tion and entered a state comparable to present-day liq-uids. We can call this state water, meaning not water aswe understand it today, but any fluid form of existence.The human physical body then gradually assumed a formconsisting of three structures composed of different statesof matter. The densest, a water body, had currents of airrunning through it, and both water and air were also per-meated by warmth in various manifestations.

Once again, not all the bodies that had existed at theSun stage had achieved the full maturity corresponding tothat stage. On the Moon, therefore, there were some bod-ies that were only at the Saturn stage and others that hadonly reached the Sun stage, so two other kingdoms cameabout alongside the kingdom of normally developinghuman beings. One of these kingdoms consisted ofbeings that had remained behind at the Saturn stage andthus had only physical bodies that were not ready tobecome vehicles for independent life bodies on theMoon. This was the lowest Moon kingdom. The secondkingdom consisted of beings that had remained behind atthe Sun stage and, therefore, did not become matureenough on the Moon to incorporate independent astralbodies. These beings formed an intermediary kingdombetween the kingdom just mentioned and the kingdom ofnormally developing human beings.

However, something else also took place: Since sub-stances composed merely of forces of heat and those


composed merely of air also permeated human beings atthis stage, humans also carried a Saturn and a Sun charac-ter within themselves. As a result, a certain rift developedin human nature, calling up something very significant inMoon evolution after the activity of the Spirits of Formbegan. A cleft started to form in the cosmic body of theMoon, and part of its substances and beings separatedfrom the rest. Two cosmic bodies were formed out of one.One of them became the dwelling place of certain higherbeings who had formerly been more closely linked to theunitary cosmic body. In contrast, the other was occupiedby human beings, the two lower kingdoms describedabove, and certain higher beings who did not move overto the first cosmic body. The first cosmic body with itshigher beings appeared like a reborn but refined Sun,while the other was the actual new formation of thisphase, the “old Moon,” the third (after Saturn and Sun)planetary incarnation of our Earth.

The reborn Sun took only warmth and air with it fromthe substances that had come about on the Moon, while thewatery element was present on what remained of the Moonin addition to these two other substances. As a result of thisseparation, the beings who had departed with the reemerg-ing Sun were not hampered in their further development bythe denser Moon beings and were able to proceed unhin-dered in their own evolution. This made it possible forthem to achieve an even greater power in working down onthe Moon beings from outside, from their Sun. In turn,these Moon beings also received new evolutionary possi-bilities. The Spirits of Form, in particular, had remained


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united with these Moon beings and proceeded to firmlyestablish the character of their passions and desires. Thiswas gradually expressed in a further condensation of thehuman physical body. Its formerly merely watery consis-tency became viscous, and its air and warmth formationsbecome correspondingly denser. Similar processes alsotook place in the two lower kingdoms.

As a result of the separation of the Moon body from theSun body, the Moon related to the Sun in the same waythat the Saturn body had once related to the entire sur-rounding cosmos and its evolution. The Saturn body hadbeen formed out of the body of the Spirits of Will, orthrones. Its substance reflected back into cosmic spaceeverything experienced by the spiritual beings living inthe surroundings, and through events that followed, thisreflection gradually awoke to independent life. The basisof all evolution lies in this gradual separation of indepen-dent being from the life of its surroundings. As though byreflection, these surroundings then imprint themselveson this separate being, which then continues to evolveindependently.

The Moon body also separated from the Sun body inthis way, first reflecting back the life of the Sun. This isthe cosmic process that would have taken place if nothingelse had happened: There would have been a Sun bodywhere the beings adapted to it would have experiencedcertain things in the elements of warmth and air. Oppositethis Sun body, there would have been a Moon body whereother beings living in warmth, air, and water would haveevolved. The progress from the Sun embodiment to the


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Moon would have consisted in the fact that the life of theSun beings was mirrored for them by Moon processes, asit were, allowing them to enjoy it in a way that was notpossible for them during the Sun embodiment.

In fact, however, the process of evolution did not con-tinue in this way. Something then happened that was pro-foundly significant for all subsequent evolution. Certainbeings adapted to the Moon body took possession of theelement of will (the legacy of the thrones) that was avail-able to them and used it to shape a life of their own, inde-pendent of the life of the Sun. Alongside Moonexperiences that were fully under the influence of theSun, other independent Moon experiences developed,causing a state of rebellion or revolt against the Sunbeings. The different kingdoms that had come about onSun and Moon, especially the kingdom of incipienthuman beings, were drawn into this revolt. As a result, theMoon body contained two sorts of life, both spirituallyand materially speaking—one that was intimately con-nected to the life of the Sun and one that broke away fromall this and went its own independent way. This divisioninto two kinds of life was then expressed in all subsequentevents of the Moon embodiment.

What this evolutionary period presents to supersensi-ble consciousness can be characterized in the imagesthat follow. The entire surface of the Moon consisted ofa semi-living substance that was sometimes sluggish andsometimes animate in its movement. There was still nomass of minerals in the sense of the rocks and soil wewalk around on today. We could say that a kingdom of


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plant-minerals was present. However, we must imaginethat the entire surface of the Moon consisted of thisplant-mineral substance, just as the Earth now consistsof rocks, soil, and so on. Just as nowadays we have tow-ering masses of rock, on the Moon there were harderportions comparable to hard, woody structures or hornformations. Just as plants now rise out of the mineralsoil, Moon-soil was covered and permeated by the sec-ond kingdom, which consisted of certain plant-animalswhose substance was softer and more inherently mobilethan that of the surface mass. This kingdom spread outover the other one like a viscous sea.

Human beings themselves can be described as animal-humans whose nature included the components of the twoother kingdoms. However, each human being was totallypermeated by a life body and an astral body that wereworked on by forces emanating from the higher beings onthe detached Sun. This ennobled the human form. Whilethe Spirits of Form had given human beings a form thatadapted them to life on the Moon, the Sun spirits madethem into beings that transcended that life. They then hadthe strength to ennoble their own nature by means of theabilities bestowed on them by these spirits; in fact, it waspossible for even the aspect of human nature that wasrelated to the lower kingdoms to be raised to a higher level.

Perceived spiritually, the processes involved here can bedescribed like this: The predecessors of human beings hadbeen ennobled by beings who had broken away from theSun kingdom. This ennobling process especially affectedeverything that could be experienced in the element of


water, since the Sun beings who governed the elements ofwarmth and air had less influence on this element. For ourpredecessors, the result of this was that two types of beingsexerted influence on their makeup. One part of it wastotally imbued with the effects and activities of the Sunbeings, while the break-away Moon beings worked in theother part, making it more independent than the first. In thefirst part, the only states of consciousness that could comeabout were those in which the Sun beings lived, while inthe second a type of cosmic consciousness similar to thatof the Saturn state prevailed, only on a higher level. Ourpredecessors thus felt themselves to be an image of thecosmos, while their Sun portion experienced itself only asan image of the Sun.

Within human nature, a certain conflict then arosebetween these two types of beings. It was resolved by theSun beings making the material organism, which allowsindependent cosmic consciousness to come about, frailand perishable so that it would need to be cast off fromtime to time. While shedding this material organism andfor some time afterward, our predecessors were depen-dent solely on the Sun’s influence. Their consciousnessbecame less independent and they surrendered com-pletely to the life of the Sun. Their independent Moonpart was then renewed, and after a while this whole pro-cess repeated itself. On the Moon, then, our predecessorslived in alternating states of clearer and duller conscious-ness, accompanied by transformations in the materialaspect of their being. From time to time they cast off theirMoon bodies and put them on again later.


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Seen physically, great variations appeared in the Moonkingdoms described here. The mineral-plants, plant-ani-mals, and animal-humans were differentiated into groups.We can easily understand this if we consider the fact thatbecause certain structures had remained behind at each ofthe earlier stages of evolutions, their forms were endowedwith the most varied characteristics. Some still displayedcharacteristics of the beginning of the Saturn phase, whileothers were typical of its middle and final periods, and thesame was true of all the stages of the Sun’s evolution.

In the cosmic body’s evolution through successiveplanetary incarnations, some of the structures associatedwith it fell behind, and so did some of the beings involvedin its evolution. A number of levels of such beings hadalready come about in the evolution leading up to theMoon. There were Spirits of Personality who had still notreached their human level on the Sun, but there were alsoothers who had caught up to the stage of humanity there.The Spirits of Fire should have been human on the Sun,but a number of them also fell behind. During the Sunphase, certain underdeveloped Spirits of Personality hadwithdrawn from the main body of the Sun to reconstituteSaturn as a separate cosmic body. Similarly, in the courseof the Moon phase the beings mentioned above also with-drew to separate cosmic bodies. Up to this point, we haveonly spoken of the separation of Sun and Moon, but forthe reasons described above, still other cosmic formationssplit off from the Moon body that appeared after the greatpause between Sun and Moon evolutions. After sometime, a system of cosmic bodies came into existence. It is


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easy to see that the most advanced of these must be calledthe new Sun. Just as a bond of attraction existed betweenthe underdeveloped Saturn kingdoms and the Spirits ofPersonality on new Saturn, as described earlier, a similarbond now formed between each of these cosmic bodiesand the corresponding Moon beings. It would take us toofar afield to follow up all these cosmic bodies in detail, sowe must be content with indicating why a whole series ofcosmic bodies gradually separated from the unitary cos-mic formation that appeared as Saturn at the beginning ofhuman evolution.

After the Spirits of Form became active on the Moon,evolution continued for a while in the way alreadydescribed. After this time, a pause again ensued, and thecoarser portions of the three Moon kingdoms entered acertain state of rest, but the finer portions—specificallyhuman astral bodies—separated from these coarser for-mations and entered a state in which the higher forces ofexalted Sun beings were able to work on them especiallystrongly. When the rest period was over, they reenteredthe parts of the human being composed of coarser sub-stances. Through having assimilated these strong forcesduring the rest period—in a state of freedom—they werethen able to make these coarser substances mature enoughto receive the influence that was soon to be exerted onthem by the normally advancing Spirits of Personalityand by the Spirits of Fire.

Meanwhile, these Spirits of Personality had arisen tothe level of consciousness of Inspiration, where they werenot only able to perceive the inner states of other beings


in image form, as they did in their earlier pictorial con-sciousness, but could also perceive the actual inner natureof these beings as if in a spiritual language of sounds. TheSpirits of Fire, however, had risen to the level of con-sciousness occupied by the Spirits of Personality on theSun. Therefore, both types of spirits were able to inter-vene in the matured life of human beings. The Spirits ofPersonality worked on the astral body, the Spirits of Fireon the human ether body.

This gave the astral body the character of personality.From this point onward, it not only experienced pleasureand pain but also related them to itself. It did not yetachieve a full I-consciousness that would allow it to say,“I exist,” but felt that it was being carried and protectedby other beings in its surroundings. Looking up to them,it could say, “These surroundings of mine maintain myexistence.”

From this point onward, the Spirits of Fire worked onthe ether body. Under their influence, the movement offorces within this body increasingly became an inner lifeactivity. What happened there found physical expressionin the movement of fluids and in phenomena of growth.Since gaseous substances had been condensed intowatery ones, it was now possible to speak of a certain pro-cess of nourishment in the sense that what was taken infrom outside was transformed and assimilated within. Ifwe think of something halfway between digestion andbreathing as we know them now, this will give us an ideaof what was going on in this direction. Human beingswere taking nourishing substances from the kingdom of


the plant-animals. We must imagine these plant-animalsas swimming or floating in, or lightly attached to, the ele-ment that surrounded them, just as present-day loweraquatic animals live in water or land animals live in air.However, this element was neither water nor air as weknow them now, but something halfway between the two,a kind of dense vapor in which various substances movedto and fro in various currents, as if in solution. The plant-animals simply seemed to be like regular, condensedforms of this element and were frequently only slightlydifferent from their surroundings. Alongside the processof digestion, respiration existed, not as we know it now,but as a process of drawing warmth in and allowing it tostream out again.

To supersensible observation, this was as if the organsinvolved in these processes were opening and closingagain, allowing a stream of warmth to flow in and out anddrawing in and expelling gaseous and water-like sub-stances. Because human beings already possessed anastral body at this stage of their evolution, these processesof respiration and digestion were accompanied by feel-ings, so that a certain pleasure came about when the sub-stances absorbed from outside were favorable todevelopment. Displeasure was aroused when harmful sub-stances flowed in, or even when they appeared nearby. As has already been described, the processes of breathingand digestion were very closely related. Likewise, the pro-cess of forming mental images was very close to repro-duction. The things and beings in the Moon humans’ sur-roundings did not exert a direct effect on senses of any


kind. The character of mental image-forming was suchthat the presence of these things and beings stimulated pic-tures in the dull, dusk-like consciousness of humanbeings. These images were much more intimately con-nected with the actual nature of the surroundings than ourpresent-day sense perceptions, which only reveal the outeraspect of things and beings through colors, sounds, odors,and so on.

To get a clearer idea of the consciousness of the Moonhuman, let’s imagine it as being embedded in the vapor-like surroundings described above. A great variety of pro-cesses were taking place in this vapor-like element. Sub-stances were combining and separating; certain partswere becoming denser, others less dense. All this was tak-ing place in such a way that although human beings didnot see or hear the process directly, it did call up imagesin their consciousness. These images can be compared tothose of our present-day dream consciousness. For exam-ple, when something falls to the ground, someone who issleeping does not perceive the actual event but may imag-ine that a shot has been fired. However, the images ofMoon consciousness were not arbitrary like our dreamimages today. Although they were symbols rather thanexact reproductions, they did correspond to outer pro-cesses. A particular outer process gave rise to only onespecific picture. Moon humans were therefore in a posi-tion to adapt their actions to these images, just as weadapt ours to our perceptions. We must keep in mind,however, that our perception-based actions are subject topersonal choice, while Moon humans under the influence


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of such images were impelled to action by some unclearimpetus.

This pictorial consciousness made it possible not onlyto have an image of outer physical processes but also topicture the spiritual beings and their activities that were ineffect behind the physical facts. Thus, the Spirits of Per-sonality became visible, so to speak, in the objects of theplant-animal kingdom; the Spirits of Fire appeared in andbehind mineral-plant beings, and the Sons of Lifeappeared as beings that could be mentally pictured with-out connection to anything physical, as etheric-soul for-mations, so to speak.

Even though the mental images of Moon consciousnesswere symbols rather than exact reproductions of outerthings, their effect on the inner human being was muchmore significant than that of present-day mental imagestransmitted through perception. They were capable of set-ting the whole inner being in motion and rousing it toaction. Inner processes took shape in accordance withthem; they were true formative forces. Human beingsbecame what these formative forces fashioned; theybecame copies of the processes of their own conscious-ness, so to speak.

The more evolution proceeded in this direction, the moreprofoundly and incisively human beings changed as aresult. Gradually the force emanating from the images ofthis consciousness became unable to extend to all ofhuman physical nature, which then divided into two partsthat were different in character. Certain elements formedthat were subject to the formative influence of this pictorial


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consciousness; to a great extent, these became a copy ofthe human image-forming activity described above. Otherorgans, however, withdrew from this influence. In one partof their being, human beings were too dense, so to speak,too much determined by other laws to act in accordancewith the images of consciousness. These images withdrewfrom human influence but became subject to that of theexalted Sun beings themselves. This stage of evolution,however, was preceded by a period of rest while the Sunspirits summoned the strength to work on Moon beingsunder totally new circumstances.

After this rest period, the makeup of the human beingwas clearly separated into two different aspects. One ofthem, not subject to the independent activity of pictorialconsciousness, took on a more definite form and cameunder the influence of forces which, although emanatingfrom the Moon body, came about there only under theinfluence of the Sun beings. This part of the human beingparticipated increasingly in the life inspired by the Sun.The second part grew up out of the first part like a kind ofhead. It was inherently mobile and plastic, taking shape asthe expression and vehicle of dimly active human con-sciousness. These two parts, however, were intimatelyconnected and exchanged fluids with one another. Someof their organs also stretched from one into the other.

During the time when all this was happening, a signifi-cant harmony was achieved through the development ofa relationship between Sun and Moon that was in linewith this evolution. It has already been mentioned thatbecause of their stages of evolution, advancing beings


pull their celestial bodies out of the general cosmic mass(see page 151). They radiate the forces, as it were, and thesubstances separate accordingly. This was how Sun andMoon separated in order to create the right dwellingplaces for the corresponding beings.

The spirit’s role in regulating substance and its forces,however, is much greater than this. The beings involvedalso determine certain motions of the heavenly bodies,such as how they revolve around each other. Thus thesebodies come into varying positions in relation to eachother, and when their relative positions change, theeffects the corresponding beings have on each other alsochange.

This is what happened with Sun and Moon. With thebeginning of the Moon’s movement around the Sun,there were times when human beings moved more intothe influence of the Sun’s activity, and other times whenthey were able to turn away from it and be more indepen-dent. The Moon’s movement was the result of certainMoon beings breaking away, as described earlier, and ofthe resolution of the ensuing conflict. It was only thephysical expression of the spiritual relationship of forcescreated by the secession of these beings. The conse-quence of one celestial body revolving around another isthat alternating states of consciousness set in, asdescribed earlier, in the beings occupying these bodies.We can say that the Moon turned its life alternatelytoward the Sun and away from it. It had a Sun period, butalso a planetary period when the Moon beings developedon the side of it that was turned away from the Sun. As


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far as the Moon was concerned, however, something elsewas involved in addition to the movement of these celes-tial bodies. Looking back by means of supersensible con-sciousness, we can see how the Moon beings themselvesmoved around their own cosmic body at regular inter-vals. At certain times they sought out the places thatwould expose them to the influence of the Sun, while atother times they migrated to places where they would notbe subject to this influence and would have the possibil-ity for self-reflection, so to speak.

To complete our understanding of the picture that isbeing drawn of these processes, we must also considerthat the Sons of Life reached their human stage duringthis time period. On the Moon, the human senses, whichhad already begun in seminal form on Saturn, were stillnot available for human beings to use for their personalperception of outer objects. At the Moon stage, however,these senses became instruments for the Sons of Life,who made use of them in order to perceive through them.These senses, which belonged to the physical humanbody, thus entered into a reciprocal relationship with theSons of Life, who not only made use of them but also per-fected them.

As has already been described, a change also took placein the circumstances of human life through humanbeings’ changing connections to the Sun. Things tookshape in such a way that each time human beings becamesubject to the Sun’s influence they became more devotedto the Sun and its phenomena than to themselves. At suchtimes, they experienced and absorbed, so to speak, the


grandeur and glory of the cosmos as expressed in theexistence of the Sun. In this case, the exalted beings whohad their dwelling on the Sun were working on the Moon,which in turn worked on human beings. However, thisinfluence did not extend to the whole human being, butprimarily to the parts that had withdrawn from the influ-ence of personal pictorial consciousness. In particular, thephysical body and life body achieved a certain size andform, but on the other hand manifestations of conscious-ness declined. However, when the life of human beingswas turned away from the Sun, they were occupied withtheir own nature. An inner activity began, especially inthe astral body, while the outer human figure became lessattractive and less perfect in its form.

Thus, during the Moon phase of evolution there weretwo distinctly different, alternating states of conscious-ness—a duller consciousness during the Sun period anda clearer state during the time when life was left todepend more on itself. The first state was the duller one,but it was also the more selfless. In this state, humanbeings were more devoted to the outer world, to the cos-mos as it was reflected in the Sun. This alternation instates of consciousness can be compared both to ourpresent-day alternation between sleep and waking and toour life between birth and death, on the one hand, and ourmore spiritual existence between death and a new birth,on the other. Waking up on the Moon, as the Sun periodgradually drew to a close, could be characterized assomething halfway between ordinary morning awaken-ing and being born, as we now know them. Similarly, the


gradual dimming of consciousness as the Sun periodapproached resembles a state halfway between fallingasleep and dying, because on the Moon, human con-sciousness of birth and dying was not yet what it is today.

During a kind of Sun life, human beings gave them-selves up to enjoying that life and were withdrawn fromtheir own life for the duration, living more spiritually. Itis only possible to attempt an approximate and figurativedepiction of what human beings experienced during thesetimes. They felt as if the causative forces of the cosmoswere streaming into them and pulsating through them.They felt as if intoxicated with the cosmic harmonies theytook part in. During these times, the astral body was asthough freed from the physical body, and a part of the lifebody also withdrew from it. This formation consisting ofastral body and life body was like a marvelous, delicatemusical instrument, and the mysteries of the universeresounded from its strings. The elements of the physical/etheric part of the human being that was less influencedby consciousness were shaped according to the harmo-nies of the universe, because the Sun beings were at workin these harmonies. In this way, that part of the humanbeing was shaped by the spiritual tones of the cosmos.

At this time, the alternation between clearer and dullerstates of consciousness was by no means as abrupt as ourpresent-day alternation between waking and deep,dreamless sleep; although human pictorial consciousnesswas not as clear as our present waking consciousness, theother state of consciousness was also not as dull as ourpresent dreamless sleep. Thus, human beings did have


some idea, although a subdued one, of the play of cosmicharmonies in the physical body and the part of the etherbody that had remained united with it.

During the time when the Sun was not shining onhuman beings, so to speak, pictorial ideas took the placeof these harmonies in the consciousness; in the physicaland ether bodies, especially the organs that were directlyunder the authority of consciousness flourished duringthat time. In contrast, the other parts of the human being,which were no longer being worked on by formativeforces from the Sun, underwent a kind of hardening anddesiccating process. When the Sun period approachedagain, the old bodies disintegrated and separated from thehuman being, who then arose, inwardly reconfigured ifstill unsightly, as if from the grave of the old bodilynature. The processes of life had been renewed. Throughthe workings of the Sun beings and their harmonies, theform of the newborn body was then perfected and the pro-cess described above repeated itself.

To human beings, this renewal was like putting on newclothes. Their essential nuclei had not passed through anactual birth or death but had simply shifted from a state ofspiritual tone-consciousness, where they were devoted tothe outer world, to a state of turning inward to a greaterextent. They had “shed their skins.” Their old bodies hadbecome unusable, so they were cast off and renewed. Thisis also a more precise characterization of what was men-tioned earlier as a kind of reproduction closely related tothe process of mental image-forming. Human beingswere reproducing their own kind with regard to certain


parts of the physical and ether bodies. What came about,however, was not a child totally distinguishable from theparent. Instead, the essential nucleus of the parent-beingshifted over into the child. The parent-being did not pro-duce a new being, but reproduced itself in a new form.

This was how Moon humans experienced changes inconsciousness. When the Sun period was approaching,their pictorial ideas grew dimmer and dimmer. They werefilled with a blissful sense of surrender, and cosmic har-monies resounded within the stillness of their inner being.Toward the end of this period, the images in their astralbodies were re-enlivened, and they began to feel andsense themselves to a greater extent, experiencing some-thing like an awakening out of the peace and bliss theyhad been immersed in during the Sun period.

However, there is still another important experiencethat appears in this connection. As the images of theirconsciousness became clear again, human beings had theexperience of feeling wrapped in a being-like cloud thathad descended from the cosmos. Each of them experi-enced one such being as complementing and belonging tothem personally. It was experienced as an I, as somethingthat granted them their existence. This being was one ofthe Sons of Life. The individual human being’s feelingsfor that being were something like this: “Even during theSun period, when I was given over to the glory of the cos-mos, I dwelled in this being. It was invisible to me then,but now it is becoming visible.” These Sons of Life werealso the source of the strength that allowed human beingsto work on their own bodily nature during the Sunless


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period. And then, as the Sun period approached again,human beings felt themselves becoming one with theirSons of Life. Although they did not see them then, theystill felt intimately connected to them.

This connection to the Sons of Life was such that indi-vidual human beings did not each have a personal Son ofLife, but a whole group of human beings experienced onesuch being as belonging to them. Moon-humans lived inseparate groups like this, and each group experienced oneSon of Life as their collective I. The difference betweengroups was made apparent by the fact that the ether bodiesof each group’s members shared a distinctive form. Sincetheir physical bodies took shape in accordance with theirether bodies, the characteristics of the ether bodies wereimprinted on the physical bodies and the individual groupsof human beings appeared as so many different humantypes. When the Sons of Life looked down on the groupsof human beings belonging to them, they saw multiplica-tions of themselves in these individual human beings. Thiswas their experience of being an I; they were mirrored inhuman beings, so to speak. This was also the task of thehuman senses at that time. It has already been shown thatthese senses did not yet transmit any perceptions ofobjects. However, they did reflect the essence of the Sonsof Life. What the Sons of Life perceived through thisreflection provided them with their I-consciousness. Andin human astral bodies, this reflection aroused the imagestypical of their dull and dusk-like Moon consciousness.

The human being’s own activity and interaction with theSons of Life brought about the first seminal beginnings of


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the nervous system in the physical body. The nerves rep-resent an extension of the senses into the interior of thehuman body, as it were.

From this description, it can be seen how three types ofspirits—the Spirits of Personality, the Spirits of Fire, andthe Sons of Life—worked on Moon humans. If we lookat the main time period in the Moon evolutionary phase,its middle period, we can say that this is when the Spiritsof Personality implanted independence and the characterof personality in the human astral body. This madehuman beings capable of turning inward and working for-matively on themselves during the times when the Sunwas not shining on them, so to speak. The Spirits of Firewere actively at work on the ether body to the extent thatthis body imprints the independent form of the humanbeing on itself. These spirits were responsible for humanbeings feeling that they were still the same beings aftereach bodily renewal. Thus, through the Spirits of Fire, theether body was given memory of a sort. The Sons of Lifeworked on the physical body so that it could become theexpression of the newly independent astral body. Theyalso made it possible for this physical body to become aphysiognomic copy of its astral body.

In contrast to this, at times when the physical body andether body were developing independently of the autono-mous astral body during the Sun periods, higher spiritualbeings intervened in them, specifically the Spirits ofForm and the Spirits of Motion. They worked down fromthe Sun to accomplish this intervention, as was describedabove.


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Human beings matured under the influence of these cir-cumstances, gradually developing in themselves the sem-inal nucleus of the spirit self, just as they had developedthe nucleus of the spirit body on Saturn and that of the lifespirit on the Sun. This brought about a change in condi-tions on the Moon. In the transformations and renewalsthat followed, human beings became ever nobler andmore refined, but they also gained in strength. As a result,their image-consciousness was increasingly maintainedduring the Sun periods and began to influence the forma-tion of the physical and etheric bodies, which had for-merly been accomplished totally through the activity ofthe Sun beings. What was happening on the Moon bymeans of human beings and the spirits associated withthem was becoming increasingly similar to what had for-merly been accomplished by the Sun and its higherbeings. As a result, these Sun beings became more andmore able to apply their forces to their own development.Because of this, after a certain time passed, the Moonbecame ready to reunite with the Sun.
Perceived spiritually, these processes appear like this:The “break-away” Moon beings were gradually overcomeby the Sun beings and had to adapt so as to incorporatetheir undertakings into those of the Sun beings to whomthey had become subject. However, this happened onlyafter long epochs had gone by in which the Moon periodsbecame ever shorter and the Sun periods ever longer. Dur-ing the evolutionary period that followed, Sun and Moonwere again a single cosmic formation. During this time,the physical human body became completely etheric.


Having said this, we must not imagine that we cannotspeak of the existence of a physical body in this state.What had been formed as the physical body during theSaturn, Sun, and Moon phases was still present. In thiscase, it’s important to recognize the physical elementeven when it does not manifest in an outer physical way.The physical element still exists even when it outwardlydisplays the form of the etheric or even of the astral ele-ment. We must simply distinguish between outer appear-ances and inner laws. It is possible for a physical entityto etherize or astralize, yet still retain its physical laws.This is what happened when the physical human bodyhad reached a certain degree of perfection on theMoon—it became ether-like. However, when supersen-sible consciousness, which can observe things like this,looks at an ether-like body of this sort, this body appearsimbued with the laws of the physical element instead ofthose of the etheric element. In such cases the physicalelement has been absorbed into the etheric in order torest and be cared for there as if in the womb of a mother.Later it reemerges in physical form, but on a higher level.If Moon humans had kept their physical bodies in acrudely physical form, the Moon would never have beenable to reunite with the Sun. By assuming an ethericform, the physical body became more closely related tothe ether body and could therefore also be more inti-mately imbued with the parts of the ether and astral bod-ies that had to withdraw from it during the Sun periodsof the Moon phase of evolution. Human beings, who hadappeared in the form of dual beings while Sun and Moon


were separated, became unified beings again. Althoughtheir physical element became more soul-like, their soulelement was more united with the physical.

These unitary human beings had now entered the imme-diate sphere of the Sun beings, who were then able towork on them in a way that was quite different from whentheir activity had been directed toward the Moon and itshuman beings from outside. Human beings were now insurroundings that were more soul-like and spiritual incharacter, which made it possible for the Spirits of Wis-dom to have a significant effect on them—specifically, toimprint wisdom on them, to ensoul them with wisdom.This allowed them to become independent souls in a cer-tain sense. The influence of the Spirits of Wisdom wasthen augmented by the Spirits of Motion, who worked pri-marily on the astral body, which developed a soul-likemobility and a wisdom-filled life body under the influenceof these two orders of beings. The wisdom-filled etherbody constitutes the first seminal beginnings of what wasdescribed in an earlier chapter as the mind soul in present-day human beings, while the astral body stimulated by theSpirits of Motion is the seminal nucleus of the sentientsoul. And because all this was brought about when humanbeings were in a state of heightened independence, theseseminal nuclei of the mind and sentient souls appeared asthe expression of the spirit self. We must not make themistake of thinking of the spirit self at this stage in evolu-tion as something independent of the mind and sentientsouls. They are only the expression of the spirit self,which signifies their higher unity and harmony.


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It is especially significant that the Spirits of Wisdomintervened during this epoch in the way just described.They did so not only with regard to human beings, butalso with regard to the other kingdoms that had developedon the Moon. When Sun and Moon were reunited, theselower kingdoms were absorbed into the sphere of the Sun,and everything physical about them was etherized. Fromthat point on, therefore, mineral-plants and plant-animalsexisted in the Sun alongside human beings. However,these other beings remained endowed with laws of theirown that made them feel like strangers in their new sur-roundings. Their character had little in common with thatof their environment. Since they had been etherized, how-ever, the effect of the Spirits of Wisdom was able toextend to them as well. In fact, everything that entered thesphere of the Sun from the Moon was imbued with theforces of the Spirits of Wisdom. For this reason, what theSun-Moon formation became during this period in evolu-tion can be called the cosmos of wisdom.
After a period of rest, our Earth’s solar system appearedas the successor to this cosmos of wisdom. When thathappened, all the beings that came to life again on Earth,emerging from their Moon nuclei, appeared filled withwisdom. This is why we present-day Earth humans, if weobserve closely, can discover wisdom in the nature of thethings around us. We can admire the wisdom in every leafof every plant, in every human or animal bone, and in themarvelous structure of the brain and heart. When humanbeings need wisdom in order to understand things—thatis, when we extract wisdom from them—this shows that


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wisdom is inherent in the things themselves, for no matterhow hard we might try to understand things with wisdom-filled ideas, we would not be able to extract wisdom fromthese things if it were not present in them to begin with. Ifwe want to use wisdom to grasp things that we think havenot received wisdom themselves, we might as wellbelieve that we can get water from a glass that has not hadany poured into it. As will be shown later on in this book,the Earth is the resurrected “old Moon.” It appears as awisdom-filled formation because the Spirits of Wisdomimbued it with their forces during the period justdescribed.

It should be understandable that this book’s descrip-tion of conditions on the Moon necessarily emphasizedonly some of their transitory evolutionary forms. In thisflow of events, certain things had to be selected andemphasized for the sake of the description, so to speak.Naturally, such a description of evolution yields onlyseparate images and may therefore seem the worse fornot being incorporated into a context of fixed and defi-nite concepts. In response to this objection, let it be saidthat this description was deliberately given in the form ofless concise concepts, because the point here is not somuch to build constructs of speculative concepts andideas as to give an idea of what can actually present itselfwhen spiritual sight turns to these facts. And with regardto the Moon phase of evolution, what presents itself inthis way simply does not have the clear and definite con-tours that earthly perceptions reveal. During the Moonepoch, we are dealing with very changeable, vacillating


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impressions, with mobile, fluctuating images and thetransitions between them. In addition, we must considerthe fact that the evolution in question took place overlong, long periods of time and that we can only select cer-tain momentary images to emphasize when describing it.

Essentially, the high point of the Moon phase of evolu-tion was reached when, thanks to the astral bodiesimplanted in them, human beings had advanced farenough so that their physical bodies made it possible forthe Sons of Life to achieve their human stage. At thatpoint human beings had also achieved everything that thisphase could give them for themselves and the progress oftheir inner development. What followed, the second halfof the Moon phase of evolution, could therefore bedescribed as a period of abatement. Nonetheless, some-thing important happened during this period with regardto human beings themselves and their surroundings. Wis-dom was implanted into the Sun-Moon body. As we haveseen, the seminal nuclei for the mind and sentient soulswere laid down during this period of abatement. Not untilthe Earth phase of evolution, however, did they unfold,together with the consciousness soul, so that the birth ofthe I, of independent self-awareness, could take place. Atthe Moon stage, the mind and sentient souls were not yetactual expressions of human beings themselves; rather,these soul elements appeared as instruments for the Sonsof Life who belonged to these human beings. Whathuman beings on the Moon felt with regard to this wouldhave to be described as follows: The Son of Life lives inme and through me, sees the Moon environment through


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me, and thinks in me about the things and beings of thisenvironment. Moon humans felt themselves overshad-owed by their Son of Life; they felt like tools for thishigher being. During the separation of Sun and Moon, attimes when the Moon was turned away from the Sun, theyfelt a greater degree of independence, but they also felt asif the I belonging to them, which disappeared from theirpictorial consciousness during the Sun periods, thenbecame visible to them. For Moon humans, what wedescribed as a change in their state of consciousness gavethem the feeling that during the Sun periods, their I driftedaway with them into higher regions to sublime beings,and that it descended with them into lower worlds whenthe Sun disappeared.

The actual evolutionary phase of the Moon had beenpreceded by preparatory periods during which the Saturnand Sun phases were repeated in a certain way. Similarly,we can distinguish two epochs within the time of abate-ment after the reunification of Sun and Moon. Duringthese epochs, things even condensed physically to a cer-tain degree. Thus, the Sun-Moon formation alternatedbetween states that were soul-like or spiritual in characterand states that were physical. In the physical epochshuman beings, and also the beings of the lower kingdoms,appeared as stiff figures that were not independent butseemed to foretell what they were meant to become later,during the Earth phase, in a more independent way. Wecan thus speak of two preparatory epochs in the Moonphase and two different ones during the time of abate-ment. Epochs such as these can be called “cycles.” In


what followed the two preparatory epochs but precededthose of the abatement—that is, the time of the Moon’sseparation from the Sun—we will also be able to distin-guish three epochs. The middle one is the time when theSons of Life became human. This was preceded by anepoch whose circumstances were all focused on this mainevent, and it was followed by another in which the beingsin question found their way into and developed their newcreations. Thus, the middle portion of the Moon phases isdivided into three epochs; along with the two preparatoryepochs and the two epochs of abatement, this makes atotal of seven Moon cycles. We can therefore say that theentire Moon phase of evolution ran its course in sevencycles. The periods of rest between these cycles havealready been described several times.

We only arrive at an accurate idea of this state ofaffairs, however, if we imagine that there were no abrupttransitions between periods of rest and periods of activity.For example, the Sun beings withdrew gradually fromtheir activity on the Moon. For them, an apparent periodof rest began while there was still lively independentactivity taking place on the Moon. The active period ofone order of beings often overlaps with the rest period ofothers. If we take this into account, we can talk about arhythmic, cyclical rising and falling of forces. Similardivisions can be observed even within the seven Mooncycles that were pointed out above. We can call the entireMoon phase of evolution one great cycle, one planetarycycle, in which case the seven divisions within it consti-tute smaller cycles, and their parts still smaller cycles.


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This division into seven times seven sections was alreadynoticeable during the Sun phase and a suggestion of it waseven present during the Saturn phase. However, we mustconsider the fact that the boundaries between sectionswere already blurred on the Sun and even more so on Sat-urn. These boundaries became ever clearer as evolutioncontinued toward the Earth phase.

Earth After the conclusion of the Moon phase of evolution as

outlined above, all of the beings and forces involved in itentered a more spiritual state of existence that was at atotally different level from either the Moon phase itself orthe Earth phase that followed. This means that a beingwhose faculties of cognition were highly developedenough to perceive all the details of the Earth and Moonphases would still not be in a position to view what hap-pened between them. As far as such a being is concerned,at the end of the Moon phase the cosmic beings and forceswould have disappeared as if into nothingness, so tospeak, and would reappear out of the darkness of the cos-mic womb after a certain interim period had elapsed.Only a being with far higher faculties would be able totrace the spiritual events taking place in the interim.

At the end of the interim period, the beings who hadbeen involved in evolutionary events on Saturn, Sun, andMoon appeared with new abilities and faculties.Through their previous actions, the beings who weremore advanced than human beings had acquired the abil-ity to bring humans to the point of being able to develop


a consciousness one level higher than the pictorial con-sciousness that belonged to them during the Moonphase. This was to take place during the subsequentEarth phase. However, these human beings first had tobe prepared to receive what was to be given to them.During the Saturn, Sun, and Moon phases of evolution,they had incorporated the physical body, the life body,and the astral body into their nature, but these parts oftheir makeup had only received abilities and forces thatenabled them to support pictorial consciousness. Theystill lacked the organs and the overall form that wouldpermit perception of a world of outer sense-perceptibleobjects in a way appropriate to the Earth stage. Just as anew plant can unfold only the inherent predispositionsthat are present in the seed of the old plant, at the begin-ning of this new evolutionary phase, the three membersof human makeup appeared in forms and with organsthat would only allow them to develop pictorial con-sciousness. They required a certain preparation in orderto develop to a higher level of consciousness.

This happened in three preliminary stages. During thefirst stage, the physical body was raised to a level whereit was possible to make the necessary transformations tosupport object consciousness. This first preliminarystage in the Earth phase of evolution can be described asa repetition of the Saturn phase on a higher level, becauseduring this period, as was the case during the actual Sat-urn phase, higher beings worked only on the humanphysical body. When this body had advanced far enoughin its development, all the beings in question first had to


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shift into a higher form of existence before the life bodycould also advance. The physical body had to be recast,so to speak, so that when it unfolded again it would beable to receive the more highly developed life body.After this interim period devoted to a higher form ofexistence, a certain repetition of the Sun phase of evolu-tion ensued, but on a higher level, in order to develop thelife body. After another interim period, something simi-lar happened to the astral body in a repetition of theMoon phase of evolution.

Let’s now turn our attention to events in evolution afterthe conclusion of the third repetition described above. Allof the beings and forces in question had spiritualizedagain and had ascended into higher worlds during thistime. Something of these beings and forces was still per-ceptible in the lowest of these worlds, which is the sameworld where present-day human beings dwell betweendeath and a new birth. It consists of the various regions ofthe land of spirits. Before the physical evolutionary phaseof the Earth began, the beings in question once againdescended to a point where their lowest manifestationscould be seen in the astral or soul world.

All aspects of the human being that were present duringthis period were still in their astral form. In order tounderstand this state of humankind, we should note thatalthough, at that point, human beings each contained aphysical body, a life body, and an astral body, the physi-cal body was not present in physical form, nor the lifebody in etheric form. Both of them were present in astralform. What made the physical body physical was not a


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physical form, but rather the fact that it still containedphysical laws in spite of having taken on an astral form.It was a being governed by physical laws but appearing insoul form. Something similar was true of the life body.

At the beginning of this stage of evolution, spiritualsight is confronted with the Earth as a cosmic being thatis all soul and spirit. That is, its physical and life forcesstill appeared in soul form. This cosmic formationincluded, in seminal form, everything that would later betransformed into the creatures of the physical Earth. Thisbeing was luminous, but its light was not yet such that itcould have been perceived by physical eyes even if anyhad been present. It shone with a soul light perceptibleonly to the receptive eye of the seer.

Within this being, something we can call “condensa-tion” then took place. After some time, this resulted in theappearance of a fiery form in the midst of this soul forma-tion. This form was similar to Saturn in its densest condi-tion and was interwoven with the effects of variousbeings involved in evolution. As we observe the interac-tion between these beings and the celestial body, theyseem to emerge from the Earth’s fiery sphere at sometimes and to immerse themselves in it at others. Thus, thisfiery sphere was not a uniform substance but resembledan organism imbued with soul and spirit. The beings des-tined to assume the present-day form of human beings onEarth were still not in a position to participate much inthis process of immersion in the body of fire. Theyremained almost exclusively in its uncondensed sur-roundings, in the bosom of higher spiritual beings. At this


stage only one spot on each of their soul-shapes touchedthe fiery Earth, whose heat was therefore able to condensea portion of the astral form of each one. This kindledEarth life in them, but the greater part of their being stillbelonged to soul-spiritual worlds. The warmth of lifeplayed around them only to the extent that they were incontact with the Earth’s fire.

In order to form an image of the supersensible humanbeing at the beginning of the physical Earth period, wemust imagine an egg-shaped soul form existing in the sur-roundings of the Earth. Its lower surface was enclosed ina cup, like that of an acorn, but the substance of this cupconsisted purely of heat or fire. As a result of beingencased in heat, not only was life kindled in the humanbeing, but the astral body also underwent a change at thesame time, incorporating the seminal beginnings of whatwould later become the sentient soul. Thus, we can saythat at this level of existence, the human being consistedof a sentient soul, an astral body, a life body, and a phys-ical body woven of fire. The spiritual beings involved inhuman existence surged up and down in the astral body,while the sentient soul made the human being feel boundto the body of the Earth. Human consciousness at thisstage was primarily a pictorial consciousness in whichspiritual beings disclosed themselves. The human beinglay in the bosom of these spiritual beings, and the sensa-tion of a personal body appeared only as a point withinthis consciousness. The human being looked down fromthe spiritual world on an earthly possession, so to speak,and had the feeling, “This is yours.”


As the Earth continued to condense, the characteristicdivisions within human beings became more distinct.After a certain point in time, the Earth became condensedenough so that only one part of it was still fiery, whileanother part took on a material form that we can describeas gas or air. A change then took place in human beings,too. Not only were they touched by Earth’s heat, but airsubstance was incorporated into their bodies of fire. Justas heat kindled life in human beings, the air that thenplayed around them aroused an effect in them that can bedescribed as (spiritual) sound. The human life bodybegan to resound. At the same time a portion of the astralbody split off from it, forming the first beginnings of themind soul that would appear later.

In order to form an image of what was taking placewithin the human soul at this time, we must realize thathigher beings were surging up and down within theEarth’s body of air and fire. Within the fire body of theEarth, the Spirits of Personality were of primary signifi-cance for human beings. When heat roused human beingsto life, their sentient souls acknowledged the presence ofthese spirits. Similarly, the beings that were called arch-angels (in terms of Christian esotericism) earlier on inthis book disclosed themselves in the air body. Theireffects were what human beings experienced withinthemselves as sounds when the air played around them.When this happened, their mind souls acknowledged thepresence of the archangels. Thus, what human beings per-ceived at this stage through their connection to the Earthwas not yet a collection of physical objects. Instead, they


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lived in sounds and in sensations of warmth that rose upin them, and in these currents of warmth and surgingsounds they perceived the Spirits of Personality and thearchangels. However, they were not able to perceive thesebeings directly, but only through a veil of heat and sound,as it were. While their souls were being penetrated bythese perceptions that came from the Earth, human beingsstill experienced themselves as resting in the bosom ofhigher beings, and their souls were still filled with ebbingand flowing images of these beings.

Earth’s evolution continued, again expressing itself in acondensation. Watery substance was incorporated into theEarth body, which then consisted of three elements—thefiery element, the airy, and the watery. Prior to this, how-ever, an important event took place. An independent cos-mic body separated from the Earth of fire and air. In thecourse of further evolution, this developed into our present-day Sun. Previously, Earth and Sun had been one body, andat this point the Earth still contained everything that isincluded in our present-day Moon. The Sun separated fromthe Earth because certain higher beings could no longercontinue to tolerate the presence of condensed watery mat-ter in their own evolution and in what they had to accom-plish for the sake of the Earth. From the general Earth body,they extracted the substances that were suited only to theirpurposes and withdrew from the Earth to form a new dwell-ing place for themselves on the Sun. They then workeddown upon the Earth from outside, from the Sun (seepage 168). Humankind’s own further evolution, however,required a setting where matter continued to condense.


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Human beings also underwent a change as a result ofthe incorporation of liquid substance into the Earth body.From this point on, not only did fire stream into humanbeings and the air play around them, but their physicalbodies incorporated liquid substance. At the same time,the etheric part of them changed and became perceptibleto them as a delicate body of light. Formerly, humanbeings had felt streams of warmth rising up toward themout of the Earth and had sensed the air pressing in on themthrough sound, but now the watery element also perme-ated their bodies of air and fire, and they saw its ebbingand flowing as brightening and dimming light. A changetook place in their souls, too. The first beginnings of theconsciousness soul were added to those of the sentientand mind souls. The angels, or Sons of Life, work in theelement of water, and it is they who also actually generatelight. For human beings, it seemed as if the angelsappeared to them in the light.
Certain higher beings formerly present within the Earthbody itself were now working on it from the Sun. Thischanged all their effects on the Earth. Earth-bound humanbeings would not have been able to feel the Sun beings’effects any more if their souls had been constantly turnedtoward the Earth that supplied their physical bodies, so analternation in human states of consciousness developed.The Sun beings pulled human souls away from theirphysical bodies at certain times, and as a result humansbegan to alternate between a purely spiritual existence inthe bosom of the Sun beings and a state of being unitedwith the body and receiving Earth’s influences. When


human beings occupied physical bodies, currents ofwarmth streamed toward them, air masses surroundedthem with sound, and liquids flowed in and out of them.When they were outside of these bodies, they rested in thebosom of higher beings and images of these beings surgedthrough their souls.

At this stage of its evolution, the Earth experienced twodifferent periods. During one, it was allowed to surroundhuman souls with its substances and clothe them in bod-ies. During the other, these souls deserted it and only thebodies remained, and both the Earth and its human beingswere in a state of sleep. We can state quite objectively thatat this point in the distant past, the Earth was goingthrough periods of day and night. (This was expressedphysically and spatially in the fact that the Earth movedin relationship to the Sun, bringing about the alternationbetween daytime and nighttime. This movement wascaused by the interaction of Sun beings and Earth beings.The day period occurred when the surface of the Earthwhere humans were evolving faced the Sun; night—thatis, the time when human beings led a purely soul exist-ence—occurred when this surface was turned away fromthe Sun. We must not imagine, however, that the Earth’smovement around the Sun in those ancient times wasalready similar to what it is today. Circumstances werestill quite different then. However, even at this point, itmay be useful to hint that the interrelationships of spiri-tual beings inhabiting celestial bodies are a cause of thesebodies’ movement. Causes that are soul-like and spiritualin character move these celestial bodies into position and


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set them in motion in ways that allow spiritual circum-stances to be played out in the physical realm.)

Turning our gaze toward Earth during its nighttime, wewould see its body in a corpse-like state, since it con-sisted, for the most part, of the disintegrating bodies ofhuman beings whose souls were in a different state ofexistence. The differentiated fluid and gaseous structuresthat made up human bodies were disintegrating and dis-solving into the rest of the Earth’s mass. Only outwardlyunattractive seminal nuclei remained, the parts of physi-cal human bodies that the interaction of fire and thehuman soul had been building up ever since the beginningof the Earth phase of evolution. These nuclei had beengrowing increasingly dense.

As we can see, what is said here about day and nightshould not be thought of as being too similar to what theseterms mean when applied to our present-day Earth. At thebeginning of its day period, when the Earth again beganto experience the direct effect of the Sun, human soulsagain made their way into the realm of physical life. Theymade contact with the above-mentioned nuclei, causingthem to germinate and take on outer forms that seemed tobe images of their soul-beings. What took place betweenthe human soul and the bodily nucleus was somethinglike a gentle impregnation. Now these embodied soulsalso began to attract masses of air and water and incorpo-rate them into their bodies. Air was forced out of the dif-ferentiated body and drawn in again—the first beginningsof what later became the process of respiration. Waterwas also taken in and expelled; the process of digestion


began in its earliest form. These were not yet perceived asexternal processes, however. A kind of outer perceptiontook place through the soul only in the case of the above-mentioned impregnation-like process, when the souldimly felt its own awakening to physical existence as itcontacted the seminal nucleus extended toward it byEarth. It heard something that can be approximatelyexpressed in the words, “This is my form.” The resultingfeeling, which we might call a dawning of the I feeling,persisted in the soul throughout its connection with thephysical body.

In contrast, the soul still experienced the assimilation ofair in a purely soul-spiritual way, as a pictorial processappearing in the form of ebbing and flowing images ofsound that supplied the germinal nucleus with forms as itwas differentiating. The soul felt surrounded by surgingsounds on all sides and sensed how it shaped its body inaccordance with these sound-forces. This was howhuman figures took shape at that stage. To present-dayconsciousness, they would not have been perceptible inany external world. They took shape as plant-like orflower-like shapes of delicate substance, but since theywere inwardly mobile, they seemed like fluttering flow-ers. During their Earth or day period, human beings expe-rienced the blissful feeling of being shaped into formssuch as these.

The soul experienced the assimilation of watery partsas an influx of strength, an inner strengthening. Out-wardly, it appeared as the growth of the physical humanstructure.


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As the direct influence of the Sun waned, the humansoul also lost its ability to control these processes, andthey were gradually discarded. The only aspects remain-ing were the ones that permitted the above-mentionednucleus to mature. Meanwhile, human beings left theirbodies and returned to the spiritual state of existence.

Since not all parts of the Earth’s body were used inbuilding up human bodies, we must not imagine that theEarth during its night period consisted only of disintegrat-ing corpses and nuclei waiting to be awakened. Thesewere all embedded in other structures that took shape outof the Earth’s substances. What was happening with thesestructures will be described later.

The process of condensing the Earth’s substance, how-ever, continued. The solid element, which we can call“earthy,” was added to the liquid. At this point, humanbeings also began to incorporate the earthy element intotheir bodies during their times on Earth. As soon as thisbegan, the forces their souls brought with them from theirbody-free times no longer had the same power as before.Prior to this, each soul had shaped its body out of thefiery, airy, and watery elements in accordance with thetones that resounded around it and the images of lightthat played around it. The soul was no longer able to dothis when it was confronted with a solidified figure, sofrom this point onward other powers intervened in theprocess of fashioning the body. What remained of thehuman being when the soul slipped out of the body wasno longer a mere nucleus that was roused to life by thereturning soul. It had become a formation in which the


force necessary for its own re-enlivening was inherent.When the soul departed, it left behind something morethan a mere afterimage of itself; it also sank part of itsenlivening power into that image. When the soul reap-peared on Earth, it could no longer merely rouse its imageto life; the re-enlivening had to take place within theimage itself. The spiritual beings working down uponEarth from the Sun now maintained this enlivening powerin human bodies, even when the human beings in ques-tion were not present on Earth.

When the soul incarnated during this period, it not onlyfelt surrounded by surging sounds and light-images inwhich it sensed the presence of the next higher beings;through receiving the earthy element, it also experiencedthe influences of still higher beings who had chosen theSun as their sphere of activity. Formerly, human beingshad experienced themselves as belonging to spirit-soulbeings, with whom they were united during their body-free state, and the I of each human being still existed inthe bosom of these spirits. Now, however, how the I con-fronted human beings during physical embodiment wasno different from how everything else around them ap-peared during that time. From this point onward, indepen-dent likenesses of soul-spiritual human beings werepresent on Earth. Compared to present-day human bod-ies, these likenesses were formations of a very delicatematerial nature, since earthy portions were intermingledin them only in the very finest state, comparable to howpresent-day human beings use their organ of smell to takein very finely dispersed substances coming from an object.


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Human bodies were like shadows. However, since theywere distributed over the entire Earth, they came undercertain influences of the Earth that are different in char-acter on different parts of its surface. Previously, bodilylikenesses had corresponded to the human soul-being thatenlivened them and had therefore been essentially similareverywhere on Earth, but now differences appearedamong these human forms, preparing the way for whatlater appeared as racial differences.

While bodily human beings were becoming increasinglyindependent, the formerly intimate connection betweenEarth humans and the world of spirit and soul was loosen-ing to a certain extent. At this point, when souls left theirbodies, these bodies continued to live a life of a sort.

If evolution had continued in this direction, the Earthwould have become petrified under the influence of itssolid element. To supersensible cognition looking backon these circumstances, it becomes evident that whenhuman bodies were abandoned by their souls, they weresolidifying more and more. After a while, human soulsreturning to the Earth would not have found any usablematerial to unite with, since all the substances that couldhave been utilized by human beings would have beenused up in filling the Earth with the hardened remains ofearlier embodiments.

At this point, however, something happened that gavethe whole process of evolution a different direction.Everything that would have contributed to permanentlyhardening the Earth’s solid substance was expelled. Atthat point our present-day Moon withdrew from the


Earth, and everything that had previously contributeddirectly to fashioning lasting forms on Earth now workeddown from the Moon, indirectly and in a weakened form.The higher beings responsible for this form-fashioninghad decided that they were no longer going to contributetheir effects from within the Earth, but were going towork on it from outside. As a result, a distinctionappeared among human bodily structures that must beregarded as the beginning of gender separation into maleand female.

The previous inhabitants of the Earth, human figurescomposed of finely dispersed substance, had brought forththeir offspring— new human forms—through the interac-tion of the two forces within each individual: the force ofthe seed and the enlivening force. These offspring werenow transforming themselves. In some of them, the germi-nal force of the element of spirit and soul worked morestrongly, while in the other group the force that enlivenedthe germinal nucleus was stronger. This was broughtabout by the weakening of the solid element’s powerthrough the withdrawal of the Moon. The interaction ofthese forces became more delicate than it was previously,when it took place within a single body. As a result, theoffspring were also finer and more delicate. They enteredthe Earth in a fine material state and only gradually incor-porated the finest solid particles. This made it possible forhuman souls returning to the Earth to unite with bodiesonce again. Since these bodies were now being enlivenedon the Earth itself, souls no longer enlivened their bodiesfrom outside, but they united with them and caused them


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to grow. Certain limits were imposed on this growth, how-ever. As a result of the Moon’s separation, human bodiesbecame flexible for a while, but the more they continuedto grow on Earth, the more the forces of solidificationgained the upper hand. Ultimately, souls grew less andless able to participate in the organization of their bodies,which disintegrated when these souls ascended into spiri-tual and soul modes of existence.

It is possible to trace how the forces that human beingsgradually acquired during the Saturn, Sun, and Moonphases of evolution became increasingly involved inhumankind’s continued progress as the Earth took shapethrough the processes described above. First the astralbody, which also still contained the life body and thephysical body within it in a state of dissolution, was kin-dled by the Earth’s fire. Then it separated into a finerastral portion, the sentient soul, and a coarser etheric por-tion that could then be affected by the Earth element. Atthis point, the ether body or life body, which alreadyexisted in prototype, made its appearance. While themind and consciousness souls were developing in theastral human being, the coarser portions of the ether bodythat were sensitive to sound and light were separating off.

At the point in time when the ether body condensed stillfurther, changing from a body of light into a body of fireor warmth, evolution had reached the stage of incorporat-ing particles of the solid earth element into the humanbeing, as described above. Because the ether body hadcondensed to the level of fire, it was then also able tounite with substances of the physical Earth that were


diluted to the level of fire. This also had the effect of uti-lizing forces of the physical body that had been implantedinto the ether body at an earlier stage. Meanwhile, thephysical body had become more solid, however, so if theether body had been acting on its own, it would no longerhave been able to introduce gaseous substances into it. Asindicated earlier, the higher beings that lived on the Sunmade their appearance at this point and breathed air intothe body. Higher beings guided the living breath of airinto human beings; however, thanks to their past, humanbeings possessed the necessary forces for imbuing them-selves with Earth’s fire. Prior to solidification, the humanlife body, as the receptor of sound, had guided this streamof air, imbuing the physical body with life, but once thislife was received from outside, it consequently becameindependent of the soul portion of the human being.

At this point, human beings leaving the Earth leftbehind not only seminal nuclei of their forms, but also liv-ing likenesses of themselves. The Spirits of Formremained united with these likenesses; having bestowedlife on them, they also transferred it to the next generationafter these human souls had left their bodies. This is howwhat is known as heredity developed. When a human soulthen returned to the Earth, it found itself in a body whoselife had been transferred to it from that soul’s ancestors.The soul felt especially drawn to just such a body; as aresult, it developed a certain memory of these ancestorswith whom it felt at one. This memory passed like a com-mon consciousness through a succession of descendants.The I flowed down through the generations.


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At this stage of evolution, human beings experiencedthemselves as independent beings during their time onEarth. They felt the inner fire of their life bodies unitingwith the outer fire of the Earth. They felt that the warmththat flowed through them was their I. These currents ofwarmth, interwoven with life, were the first beginnings ofblood circulation. However, in the air that streamed intothem, human beings did not feel that they were quite theirown beings, since the forces of the above-mentionedhigher beings were active in this air. But some of theactive forces in the air streaming through human beingsalready did belong to them, thanks to their previouslydeveloped etheric forces, and they retained this portion,so they did control some of these currents of air. To theextent that this was the case, they themselves were activein their own formation alongside the higher beings. Theyshaped their own airy parts according to the images oftheir astral bodies. While air was streaming into theirbodies from outside, becoming the basis of respiration,part of the internal air separated and developed into anorganism that was then imprinted onto human beings,forming the basis for what would later become the ner-vous system. Thus, at this time warmth and air connectedhuman beings to the external world of the Earth.
In contrast, they sensed nothing of the solid elementthat was being introduced. Although it was involved intheir incarnation on Earth, they could not perceive itsintroduction directly, but only in a dull state of conscious-ness and in the form of images of the higher beings atwork in this element. At an earlier stage, they had also


perceived the introduction of liquids in the form of suchimages of superior beings. By now these earlier imageshad undergone a transformation within human conscious-ness due to the densification of the human earthly figure.The liquid element was suffused with the solid, so theaddition of solids also had to be experienced as somethingcoming from higher beings acting from outside thehuman being. In their souls, human beings were no longerable to possess the power to guide this process of incor-poration, because it now had to serve the human body thatwas built up from outside. They would have destroyed theform of this body if they had tried to guide the processthemselves. Thus, what they took in from outside seemedto them to be commanded by the higher beings who wereworking on fashioning the human body.

The human beings of this time did feel that they were I-beings; each had a mind soul as part of the astral body andused it to experience inwardly, in the form of images, whatwas happening outside, and also to penetrate the delicatenervous system. Thanks to the life that flowed from gen-eration to generation, they felt themselves to be thedescendants of their ancestors. They breathed and felt theirbreathing to be the effect of the higher beings describedearlier as the Spirits of Form, and they also obeyed theSpirits of Form in taking in the nourishment that thesebeings’ impulses brought them from the outer world.

Human beings were least aware of their origin as indi-viduals, feeling only that they had been influenced by theSpirits of Form who expressed themselves in the Earth’sforces. Their relationship to the outer world was guided


and directed. This was expressed in the fact that they weresomewhat conscious of the soul-spiritual activities takingplace behind their physical world. It is true that they didnot perceive these spiritual beings in their actual form.Instead, they experienced sounds, colors, and so on intheir own souls and knew that the deeds of spiritualbeings were active in this world of mental images. Com-munications from these beings resounded toward humanbeings, who received their manifestations in images oflight. The most inward feelings of Earth humans camefrom the images they received through the element of fireor warmth. They already distinguished between their owninternal warmth and the currents of warmth in theirearthly surroundings. The Spirits of Personality disclosedthemselves in these currents, but human beings were onlydimly conscious of what stood behind these currents ofouter warmth, perceiving in them only the influence ofthe Spirits of Form. When heat exerted powerful effectson their surroundings, human souls felt that spiritualbeings were inflaming the surroundings of the Earth, andthat a spark given off by these beings was warming theinner being of each soul through and through.

Human beings did not yet make this same distinctionbetween outside and inside with regard to the effects oflight. The feelings produced in the souls of Earth humansby light images appearing in their surroundings were notalways the same. There were times when human beingsexperienced these images as external ones, specificallyduring their period of growth on Earth, shortly after hav-ing descended from the body-free state into incarnation.


As the time approached when the nucleus of a new Earthhuman formed, these images faded, leaving behind onlysomething like inner memory images of themselves.These light images contained the deeds of the Spirits ofFire or archangels; to human beings, they appeared to bethe servants of the warmth beings who sent the spark intotheir inner nature. When the outer manifestations of theseSpirits of Fire were extinguished, human beings experi-enced them inwardly as mental images or memories andfelt united with their forces. This was indeed the case,because what they received from these spirits allowedhuman beings to work on the surrounding atmosphere sothat it began to shine. At this time, natural and humanforces were not yet separated from each other to theextent that they would be later. A great deal of what washappening on Earth still originated in forces belonging tohuman beings. At that time, someone looking down fromoutside at natural processes taking place on the Earthwould have perceived not only effects that were indepen-dent of human beings, but human effects as well.

For Earth humans, perceptions of sound took shapedifferently and were perceived as outer sounds ever sincethe very beginning of the Earth lifetime. Whereas lightimages were perceived from outside only until the mid-dle period of human existence on Earth, outer soundscould still be perceived after this midpoint. It was onlytoward the end of their life that Earth humans were nolonger sensitive to sounds. They were left with memory-images of these sounds, which contained the manifesta-tions of the Sons of Life, or angels. Toward the end of


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their lives, human beings felt inwardly united with theseforces and, by imitating them, were also able to producepowerful effects on the Earth’s water element. Thewaters in and above the Earth surged in great wavesunder their influence.

Human beings had a notion of taste only during the firstquarter of their Earth life, and even then their souls expe-rienced these impressions like memories of experiencesin the body-free state. As long as human beings had thesesensations, their bodies continued to densify by taking inouter substances. In the second quarter of their Earth life,although their growth continued, human forms werealready completely developed. During this time, humanbeings were not yet capable of forming a mental image ofthe solid element and could therefore perceive livingbeings other than themselves only through the effectsthese beings produced in warmth, light, and sound. In thefirst quarter of their lives, human beings received theabove-mentioned impressions of taste only from thewatery element.

The outer form of the human body was a copy of theinner soul state of the human being. The parts containingthe potential for what would later form the head were themost completely developed, while the other organs gavethe impression of appendages and were shadowy andindistinct. However, Earth humans varied with regard totheir forms. Their appendages were developed to agreater or lesser extent, depending on the earthly circum-stances of their lives. These circumstances varied fromplace to place on the Earth. The appendages were more


prominent in areas where human beings were more entan-gled in the earthly world. The human beings whose previ-ous development made them most mature at thebeginning of the Earth’s physical evolution and who hadtherefore been able to experience contact with the ele-ment of fire right at the beginning, when the Earth had notyet condensed into air, were then able to develop theirpotential heads to the greatest degree of perfection. Thesewere the human beings who were most harmonious inthemselves.

Others had only been ready for contact with the elementof fire once the Earth had already developed air. Theywere more dependent on outer circumstances thanhumans of the first type, who experienced the Spirits ofForm clearly in the element of warmth; in earthly life,humans of the first type felt that they retained a memoryof togetherness with these spirits in the body-free state.Human beings of the second type were less aware of thismemory of the body-free state; they experienced their fel-lowship with the spiritual world primarily through thelight impressions of the Spirits of Fire or archangels.

There was also a third type of human beings who wereeven more entangled in Earth existence. These were theones who had only been able to come into contact with theelement of fire after the Earth separated from the Sun andassimilated the watery element. Their feeling of belongingto the spiritual world, particularly at the beginning of theEarth phase, was especially weak. They experienced thisconnection only when human beings began to feel theeffects of the archangels and especially those of the angels


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in their inner conceptual life. In contrast, at the beginningof the Earth period these human beings were full of activeimpulses for deeds that could be accomplished underearthly circumstances. Their appendage organs were espe-cially strongly developed.

Before the Moon’s separation from the Earth, the Moonforces in the Earth had led to increasing densification, andas a result human souls returning from the body-free statewere no longer able to incarnate into some descendants ofthe nuclei left behind on the Earth by human beings. Theforms of these descendants had become too solidified, andthe Moon forces had made them too dissimilar to humanforms to receive human souls. Under these circumstances,some human souls no longer found it possible to return toEarth. Only the strongest and most mature human soulsfelt up to the task of transforming growing earthly bodiesso that they could blossom into human figures. And onlysome of the bodily descendants of human beings becamethe vehicles of earthly human beings. Others, because oftheir densified forms, were only capable of receiving soulsthat were on a lower level than human souls.

Meanwhile, some human souls were forced not to par-ticipate in the Earth phase of evolution at that time andhad to embark on a different course. There were soulswho found no place on Earth already at the time when theSun separated from the Earth. They were removed toanother planet to develop further. Under the guidance ofcosmic beings, this planet detached itself from the gen-eral mass of the cosmos that was still united with theEarth at the beginning of its physical evolution. (The Sun


had already disconnected itself.) This planet is the onewhose physical expression is known to outer science asJupiter. (The names of celestial bodies and planets areused here in exactly the same sense that a more ancientscience spoke of them. The intended meaning becomesclear from the context. Just as the physical Earth is onlythe physical expression of an organism of spirit and soul,this is also the case with every other celestial body. Andjust as observers of the supersensible do not use the name“Earth” to mean merely the physical planet or the name“Sun” to mean merely the physical fixed star, they alsohave broad spiritual contexts in mind when they speak of“Jupiter,” “Mars,” and so on. Of course the shapes andfunctions of the celestial bodies have changed since thetimes described here. In a certain respect, even their loca-tions in space have changed. We can only recognize theconnection between our present-day planets and theirancestors if we are able to trace their evolution back intothe far-distant past by means of supersensible cognition.)

The souls described above continued to develop on“Jupiter.” Later, as the Earth continued to solidify,another dwelling place had to be created for other soulswho had been able to inhabit these solidifying bodies fora while but were no longer able to do so when the solid-ification advanced too far. An appropriate place for theirfurther evolution was created for them on “Mars.” Evenwhile the Earth was still united with the Sun and wasincorporating its airy elements, it had become evidentthat some souls were not fit to participate in the Earthphase of evolution at that time because they were too


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strongly affected by the body’s earthly configuration.Already at that point, they had to be withdrawn from thedirect influence of the Sun forces; they needed the Sun towork on them from outside. A place was made for themto continue their evolution on “Saturn.”

So we see that in the course of the Earth’s evolution thenumber of human bodies decreased, while bodiesappeared that were not capable of embodying humansouls but only of receiving astral bodies of the sort thathuman physical and life bodies had received on the oldMoon. Figures of this sort colonized the Earth as it grewtoo desolate for human beings. Ultimately, human soulswould have had to leave the Earth entirely if the Moon’sseparation had not made it possible for any human figurestill capable of receiving a human soul to remove itshuman nucleus from the influence of the Moon forcescoming directly from the Earth, allowing it to maturewithin itself until it could be safely surrendered to theseforces. As long as this nucleus was taking shape withinthe human being, it was under the influence of beingswho had separated the Moon from the Earth (under theguidance of their mightiest member) in order to help theEarth’s evolution over a critical point.

When the Earth had developed the element of air withinitself, the astral beings described above were present onit, remnants from the old Moon who had fallen furtherbehind in their evolution than the lowest human souls.They ensouled the figures that had already been aban-doned by human beings before the Sun’s detachment.These beings were the ancestors of the animal kingdom.


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Over the course of time they developed especially thoseorgans that were present in human beings only as append-ages. Their astral bodies had to work on the physical andlife bodies in the same way that humans had done on theold Moon. The animals that came about in this way hadsouls that could not dwell in individual animals. Thebeing of each soul expanded to include all the descen-dants of one ancestral figure. Thus all animals that wereessentially descended from a single figure had a commonsoul. A new animal soul was embodied only when spe-cific influences made the descendants too different fromthe figure of their ancestor. In this sense, therefore, spiri-tual science can speak of a group soul belonging to theanimal species (or genus).

Something similar happened at the time when Sun andEarth separated. Forms emerged from the watery ele-ment that were no further along in their evolution thanhuman beings had been prior to the old Moon phase.They could only receive the effects of an astral elementif it influenced them from outside. This was only possi-ble after the Sun had left the Earth. Each time the Earth’sSun period commenced, the Sun’s astral element stimu-lated these figures to form their life bodies out of theEarth’s etheric element. When the Sun turned away fromthe Earth, however, these life bodies dissolved into thegeneral body of the Earth. Thus, as a result of coopera-tion between the Sun’s astral element and the Earth’setheric element, the physical forms that were the ances-tors of the present-day plant kingdom emerged from thewaters.


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On Earth, human beings became individualized soulbeings. The astral bodies that the Spirits of Motion hadpoured into them on the Moon divided into sentient,mind, and consciousness souls on Earth. When their con-sciousness souls had advanced far enough to be able toshape bodies fit to receive them, the Spirits of Formendowed each of these with a spark of their own fire, kin-dling the I in each one. After this point, each time humanbeings left their physical bodies, they were in the spiritualworld where they met the beings who had given themtheir physical bodies, their life bodies, and their astralbodies during the Saturn, Sun, and Moon phases of evo-lution and had brought them to the level of the Earthphase. The body-free state also underwent a change oncethe spark of the I had been kindled in earthly life. Prior tothis point in evolution, human beings had no indepen-dence with regard to the spiritual world. They never feltlike individual beings in this world, but more like organsin an exalted organism made up of beings superior tothemselves. At this point, however, their experience ofthe I on Earth began to carry over into the spiritual world.From this point onward, human beings felt themselves tobe independent entities in this world, but they also feltconstantly connected to it. In the body-free state, theyencountered a higher manifestation of the Spirits of Formwhose earthly manifestation they had perceived on Earththrough the spark of the I.

In conjunction with the Moon’s separation from theEarth, body-free souls began to have certain experiencesin the spiritual world. Reproducing human bodies that


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were capable of receiving soul-individualities was possi-ble on Earth only because some formative forces had beentransferred from the Earth to the Moon. This broughthuman individualities into the domain of the Moonbeings. Lingering echoes of earthly individuality werepossible in the body-free state only because souls in thisstate also remained in the domain of the mighty spiritswho had brought about the Moon’s separation. This pro-cess developed in such a way that immediately after leav-ing their earthly bodies, souls could see the exalted Sunbeings only in the reflected radiance of the Moon beings,as it were. Souls were able to see these exalted Sun beingsdirectly only after having been sufficiently prepared bybeholding this reflection.

The Earth’s mineral kingdom also came about throughexpulsion from the general evolution of humankind. Itsstructures are what remained solidified when the Moonseparated from the Earth. The only portion of the soul ele-ment that felt drawn to these structures had remained atthe Saturn stage and was therefore only suited to shapingphysical forms.

All events mentioned here and in what follows tookplace over the course of vast periods of time. We cannotgo into a discussion of the time frame here.

The processes described here present the Earth phase ofevolution from the external side. Considered from thespiritual side, it looks like this: The spiritual beings thatpulled the Moon out of the Earth and united their ownexistence with it, thus becoming Earth-moon beings,brought about a specific configuration of the human


organism through the forces they sent down to Earth fromthat cosmic body. Their effect was directed at the newlyacquired human I and made itself felt in the interplaybetween this I and the astral body, ether body, and phys-ical body. As a result, it became possible for humanbeings to consciously reflect the wisdom-filled configu-ration of the cosmos in themselves, to reproduce it as if ina mirror of knowledge.

Let’s recall our earlier description of how humanbeings during the old Moon period achieved a certaindegree of independent organization through the separa-tion of the Sun at that time. They achieved a more inde-pendent level of consciousness than they could havederived directly from the Sun beings themselves. Thisfree and independent consciousness, which reappearedduring this particular period of the Earth phase of evolu-tion as the legacy of the old Moon phase, could now bebrought into harmony with the cosmos again through theinfluence of the above-mentioned Earth-moon beings,who shaped it into a copy of the cosmos. That is, this iswhat would have happened if no other influences hadtaken effect. In the absence of other influences, humanbeings would have become beings with a consciousnesswhose content reflects the world in the images of cogni-tive activity as a matter of natural necessity, rather thanthrough their own independent intervention.

However, this is not what happened. Just at the time ofthe Moon’s separation, certain spiritual beings intervenedin human evolution. These beings had retained too muchof their Moon character to be able to take part in the Sun’s


separation from the Earth, so they were also excludedfrom the activity of the beings who directed their effectsdown upon the Earth from the Earth’s moon. These beingswith their old Moon character had been condemned to anabnormal evolution on the Earth, so to speak. Somethingin their Moon character had rebelled against the Sun spiritsduring the old Moon phase of evolution. At that point, thiswas a blessing to human beings in that it led them to a freeand independent state of consciousness. The conse-quences of these beings’ idiosyncratic evolution duringthe Earth period meant that they then became the oppo-nents of the beings who were working down from theMoon and trying to shape human consciousness so that itscognitive processes would inevitably reflect the cosmos.What had helped human beings achieve a higher level onthe old Moon proved contrary to adaptations that hadbecome possible through the Earth phase of evolution.The old Moon character of the opposing powers gavethem the ability to work on the human astral body—spe-cifically, in the sense of the descriptions above, to make itindependent. They exercised this ability by giving theastral body a certain independence for the duration of theEarth phase, in contrast to the involuntary and unfree stateof consciousness that would have been brought about bythe Earth-moon beings.

It’s difficult to find expressions that can be employed todescribe how the above-mentioned spiritual beingsaffected human beings in this period of the primeval past.We must not imagine their effects to be like present-daynatural influences, nor are they like the effect one person


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now has on another by using words to awaken innerforces of consciousness, allowing the other person tolearn to understand something or to be stirred to moral orimmoral actions. In this primeval period, the effect ofthese beings was not a natural influence but a spiritualone working in a spiritual way and transferring itself fromthe higher spiritual beings to human beings in accordancewith the state of human consciousness at that time. Wetotally miss the essence of this if we imagine it as aneffect of nature. But on the other hand, if we say thatbeings with old Moon character approached humanbeings in order to “seduce” them and win them over totheir own goals, we are using a symbolic expression thatholds good only as long as we remain aware of its sym-bolic character and are quite clear about the spiritual real-ity behind the symbol.

The effect of the spiritual beings who had remained atthe Moon stage had two consequences for human beings.Because these beings aroused the possibility of indepen-dently regulating and mastering the images of conscious-ness in the astral body, human consciousness wasstripped of the character of merely mirroring the cosmos.Human beings became masters of their knowledge. How-ever, this control originated in the astral body, and so theI, which was actually superior to this body, became con-stantly dependent on it. This meant that in the future,human beings would be exposed to the ongoing influenceof a lower element in their nature and would therefore beable to sink below the level specified for them by theEarth-moon beings in the course of cosmic events. In the


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time that followed, the abnormally developed Moonbeings exerted a continual influence on human nature. Wecan contrast these old Moon beings, who can be called theLuciferic spirits, to the others who worked down from theEarth’s moon to shape human consciousness into a mirrorof the cosmos but gave it no free will. They gave humanbeings the possibility of unfolding free activity in theirconsciousness, but at the same time they gave them thepossibility of error and of evil.

As a result of these processes, human beings’ relation-ship to the Sun spirits was different from the one predes-tined for them by the Earth-moon spirits, who strove todevelop the mirror of human consciousness in such a waythat the influence of the Sun spirits would have dominatedall of human soul life. These processes were thwarted,and a conflict came about in human beings between theinfluence of the Sun spirits and that of the spirits who haddeveloped abnormally during the Moon phase of evolu-tion. This conflict made it impossible for human beings torecognize the physical effects of the Sun as such; theseremained concealed behind earthly impressions of theouter world. The human astral element, filled with theseimpressions, was drawn into the domain of the I. Fromthat point onward, this I, which would otherwise onlyhave felt the spark of fire bestowed on it by the Spirits ofForm and would have subordinated itself to their com-mands in everything pertaining to outer fire, worked onouter phenomena of warmth through the astral elementinjected into it, creating a bond of attraction betweenitself and the Earth’s fire. This meant that human beings


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became entangled in earthly matter to a greater degreethan had been predestined for them. Previously, eachhuman being had a physical body consisting primarily offire, air, and water with only a trace of solid earth sub-stance, but now the solid body grew denser. And whereaspreviously human beings had been more delicate in theirorganization and had hovered above solid ground in a sortof floating, swimming movement, they now had todescend from the surroundings of the Earth onto parts thatwere already more or less solidified.

The character of the spiritual influences describedabove—the fact that they were neither natural influencesnor ones that work between human beings on a soullevel—explains how they could have such physicaleffects. Soul effects that human beings have on each otherdo not work as deeply into the bodily element as the spir-itual forces that we are considering here.

Because human beings were exposing themselves tothe outer world’s influences through their own mentalimages, which were subject to error, and because theywere living their lives in accordance with desires and pas-sions that they did not allow higher spiritual influences tocontrol, the possibility of illness appeared. One particulareffect of the Luciferic influence, however, was thathuman beings could no longer experience a given earthlylifetime as a continuation of body-free existence. Fromthis point onward, they assimilated earthly impressionsthat could be experienced by the astral element injectedinto them. These impressions united with the forces thatdestroyed the physical body. Human beings experienced


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this as a dying-off of their earthly life, and so death madeits appearance, brought about by human nature itself. Thispoints to a significant mystery of human nature—thehuman astral body’s connection to disease and death.

At this point, conditions set in that specifically affectedthe human life body. It was incorporated into a relation-ship between the physical body and the astral body thatfreed it in some respects from the effect of abilities humanbeings had acquired through the Luciferic influence. Onepart of this life body remained outside of the physicalbody so that it could only be governed by higher beingsand not by the human I. These higher beings were theones that had left the Earth at the time of the Sun’s sepa-ration in order to occupy a new dwelling place under theleadership of one of their exalted fellows. If this part ofthe life body had remained united with the astral body,human beings would have used previously acquiredsupersensible powers for self-serving purposes and wouldhave extended the Luciferic influence to these powers.This means that they would have gradually freed them-selves from the Sun beings, and the human I would havebecome a completely earthly I. After the death of thephysical body, or even as soon as it started to deteriorate,this earthly I would have moved into another physicalbody, the body of a descendant, without first undergoinga connection to higher spiritual beings in a body-freestate. In this way, human beings would indeed havebecome aware of the individual I, but only as an earthly I.

This was averted by the process that involved the lifebody and was brought about by the Earth-moon beings.


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The actual individual I was released from the merelyearthly I so that human beings identified only partiallywith this individual I during life on Earth, but at the sametime felt the earthly I to be a continuation of the earthly Iof their ancestors down through the generations. Duringlife on Earth, each human soul felt the presence of a kindof group I extending back to its distant ancestors, andhuman beings felt themselves to be members of suchgroups. Only in the body-free state was the individual Iable to feel that it was a single and separate being. How-ever, the fact that the I was encumbered with the memoryof earth consciousness, of the earthly I, interfered withthis individualized state by dimming the view of the spir-itual world, which was beginning to be veiled betweendeath and birth in a way similar to how it was obscured tophysical vision on Earth.

All the changes taking place in the spiritual world whilehuman evolution was passing through these conditionswere expressed physically in the gradual regulation ofinterrelationships between the Sun, the Moon, and theEarth, and in a broader sense those of other celestial bod-ies as well. We will emphasize a single consequence ofthese interrelationships—alternating days and nights.(The movements of celestial bodies are regulated by thebeings that inhabit them. The movement of the Earth thatcaused day and night was brought about by the interrela-tionships of various spirits superior to human beings. Themovement of the Moon came about in a similar way sothat the Spirits of Form could work on the physicalhuman body in the right way and in the right rhythm


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through the Moon’s revolution around the Earth aftertheir separation.) At this point, the human I and astralbody were working in the physical body and the life bodyby day. At night this working ceased, and the I and theastral body left the physical and ether bodies and weretotally in the domain of the Sons of Life (angels), theSpirits of Fire (archangels), the Spirits of Personality, andthe Spirits of Form. In addition to the Spirits of Form, theSpirits of Motion, the Spirits of Wisdom, and the thronesalso included the physical and life bodies in their field ofactivity. In this way, damage to the human being from theeffects of astral body’s mistakes during the day could becorrected.

Now that the number of human bodies on Earth wasincreasing again, there was no longer any reason for themnot to receive human souls. Because of how the forces ofthe Earth’s moon were now working, the human bodiestaking shape under their influence were fully fit toembody human souls, so the souls that had previouslymoved to Mars, Jupiter, and so forth were led back downto Earth. This meant that there was a soul available foreach human descendant born over the course of the gen-erations. This continued over a long period of time, so themovement of souls back to Earth corresponded to theincrease in the number of human beings. At this time,souls undergoing earthly death and leaving their bodiesretained a memory-like echo of earthly individuality dur-ing the body-free state. The effect of this memory wasthat these souls reincarnated whenever bodies appropriatefor them were born again on Earth. As time went on,


human offspring came to include both people with soulsthat came from outside—those who were appearing onEarth for the first time since its very earliest stages—andothers with souls reincarnating on Earth. During theperiod that followed, there were fewer and fewer of theyoung souls that were appearing for the first time andmore and more reincarnated souls, but for a long time thehuman race did consist of these two types of humanbeings as a result of this state of affairs.

During this period, human beings felt more united withtheir ancestors through their common “group-I” duringlife on Earth, while the experience of the individual I wascorrespondingly stronger in the body-free state betweendeath and a new birth. The souls coming from celestialspace to enter human bodies were in a different situationfrom the ones who already had one or more Earth livesbehind them. The new souls brought with them into phys-ical life on Earth only the conditions they had been sub-jected to by the higher spiritual worlds and by their ownexperiences outside the earthly domain. The others hadadded conditions themselves during earlier lifetimes. Atthis point, the destiny of the new souls was determined bythings that lay outside their new earthly circumstances,while the destiny of the reincarnated souls was deter-mined also by what they themselves had done in earlierlifetimes under earthly circumstances. Along with rein-carnation, individual human karma also appeared.

The fact that the human life body had been withdrawnfrom the astral body’s influence, as described above,meant that the circumstances of reproduction did not fall


within the scope of human consciousness but were sub-ject to control by the spiritual world. When a soul wasmeant to descend into the earthly sphere, the impulse toreproduce appeared in Earth humans. To a certain extent,this whole process was shrouded in mysterious darknessas far as earthly consciousness was concerned.

But the consequences of this partial separation of thelife body from the physical body also appeared withinearthly life. The life body’s abilities could be very muchenhanced through the influence of the spirit. As far ashuman soul life was concerned, this was expressed in theexceptional degree to which memory developed. In thehuman beings of this time, independent logical thinkingwas only at its earliest beginning stages. In contrast, theircapacity for memory was almost boundless. It was alsooutwardly apparent that human beings had a direct, feel-ing-like knowledge of the working forces in all livingthings. The forces of life and reproduction of the animalkingdom and especially those of the plant kingdom wereat their disposal. For example, they could extract andapply what rouses a plant to growth, just as we nowextract the forces of lifeless nature such as those lyingdormant in anthracite and apply them to making machinesmove. (More details on this subject may be found in mybooklet Our Atlantean Ancestors.2)

2. This first appeared as a chapter in “Aus der Akasha-Chronik”(“From the Akashic Chronicle”) in the magazine Lucifer-Gnosis(nos. 14–16, July–September, 1904), which Rudolf Steiner foundedand edited. It is contained in Cosmic Memory: Prehistory of Earthand Man, Steinerbooks, Blauvelt, NY, 1990 (GA 11) pp. 38–41.


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The inner soul life of human beings also changed in agreat many ways because of the Luciferic influence. Itwould be possible to describe many types of feelings andsensations that resulted from this, but only a few of themwill be mentioned here. Before this influence took effect,everything human souls shaped and did was carried outin the sense intended by higher spiritual beings. Therewas a predetermined plan for everything that was sup-posed to be done. To the extent that human conscious-ness had already developed, it could predict how thingswould have to develop in future according to this precon-ceived plan. This awareness of what the future wouldbring was lost as the veil of earthly perceptions waswoven over the manifestations of higher spiritual beings.The actual forces of the Sun beings were concealed inthese perceptions. From this point onward, the futurebecame uncertain. Along with this uncertainty, the pos-sibility of fear was implanted in the human soul. Fear isa direct consequence of error. But we also see howhuman beings, formerly involuntarily subject to certainforces, became independent of them under the Lucifericinfluence. From this point onward, they were capable ofmaking decisions on their own. Freedom is the result ofthis influence, and fear and similar feelings are simplyconcomitants of human evolution toward freedom.

Human beings had fallen under the influence of earthlyforces through the Luciferic powers. Seen spiritually, theappearance of fear indicates that still other powers wereat work within the earthly forces. These other powershad become abnormal much earlier in the course of evo-


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lution than the Luciferic powers. Human beingsabsorbed their influence along with the earthly forces.They contributed the character of fear to feelings whoseeffect would otherwise have been quite different. Thesebeings can be called “Ahrimanic,” or, in the Goetheansense, “Mephistophelian.”

Although the Luciferic influence first made itself feltamong the most advanced human beings, it soon spread toothers as well. The descendants of advanced humanbeings intermingled with the less advanced ones de-scribed above, allowing the Luciferic force to reach themtoo. But the life bodies of souls returning from the planetscould not be protected to the same extent as those belong-ing to the descendants of souls that had remained onEarth, who were protected by an exalted being whoseleadership in the cosmos was in effect when the Sun sep-arated from the Earth. In the domain under considerationhere, this being appeared as the ruler of the Sun kingdom.The exalted beings who had attained sufficient maturitythrough their cosmic evolution moved with this being toa dwelling place on the Sun.

However, there were also beings who had not ascendedto such heights at the time of the Sun’s separation, andthey had to look for different settings for their activity.These were the beings who brought about the withdrawalof Jupiter and the other planets from the common cosmicsubstance that was originally included in the physicalorganism of the Earth. Jupiter became the dwelling placeof some of the beings who had not matured to the level ofthe Sun. The most advanced among them became the


leader of Jupiter. Just as the leader of the Sun’s evolutionbecame the higher I that worked in the life body of thedescendants of human beings who had remained onEarth, this Jupiter leader became the higher I that spreadlike a common consciousness through the human beingswho had their origins in the interbreeding of Earth off-spring with humans who first appeared on Earth duringthe period of the air element and then moved to Jupiter. Inthe sense of spiritual science, we can call these the “Jupi-ter humans.” They were descended from beings who hadstill embodied human souls at a certain time in the distantpast, but had not been mature enough to participate in thefirst contact with fire at the beginning of the Earth phaseof evolution. These were souls that fell between thehuman and animal kingdoms.

There were also beings who had detached Mars fromthe common cosmic substance and made it their dwellingplace under the leadership of their most advanced mem-ber. A third type of human beings fell under their influ-ence. These were “Mars humans,” who also came intoexistence through interbreeding. (This information shedslight on the origins of the planets of our solar system. Allof the celestial bodies in this system came about becauseof the various stages of maturity of the beings inhabitingthem. However, it is not possible to go into all the detailsof these cosmic divisions here, of course.)

Human beings who perceived the presence of theexalted Sun-being in their life bodies can be called “Sunhumans.” The being who lived in them as their higher I—only in the generations, of course, not in individuals—is


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one who was later given various names as human beingsacquired conscious knowledge of him. To present-dayhuman beings, the Christ’s relationship to the cosmos isrevealed in this being.

We can also distinguish “Saturn humans.” The beingwho appears as their higher I had to leave the commoncosmic substance along with his associates alreadybefore the Sun’s separation from the Earth. In humanbeings of this type, both the life body and the physicalbody had portions that remained untouched by theLuciferic influence.

Now, in the case of the lower types of human beings,the life body was too unprotected to be able to withstandthe Luciferic influence. These human beings were capa-ble of capriciously extending the free will of the I sparkwithin themselves to the point where it caused mighty anddestructive fires in their surroundings, resulting in a tre-mendous catastrophe on Earth. A large part of the inhab-ited Earth was destroyed by firestorms, and with it thehuman beings who had succumbed to error. Only a smallnumber who had remained partially untouched by errorwere able to escape to an area of the Earth that had beenprotected from the corrupting influence of humans up tothat point.

Atlantis The land in the area presently covered by the Atlantic

Ocean proved to be an especially appropriate dwellingplace for this new breed of humanity. The human beingswho were most untouched by error retreated to this area.


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Only scattered groups occupied other areas of the Earth.In the sense of spiritual science, the part of the Earth thatonce existed between present-day Europe, Africa, andAmerica can be called “Atlantis.”3 (The relevant litera-ture makes references of a sort to the pre-Atlantean stageof humanity’s evolution that is described in the precedingsection of this chapter. It is called the Lemurian age of theEarth, and it is followed by the Atlantean age. However,the time when the Moon forces had still not unleashedtheir primary effects can be called the Hyperborean age.This is preceded by still another age that coincides withthe very earliest period in the physical evolution of theEarth. In the biblical tradition, this time prior to the inter-vention of the Luciferic beings is called the Age of Para-dise, and human beings’ descent to Earth and theirentanglement in the world of the senses is known as theexpulsion from Paradise.)

The Atlantis period of evolution was the period of theactual division of the human race into the Saturn, Sun,Jupiter, and Mars groups. This division had only beenprefigured prior to that time. The separation of the wak-ing and sleeping states also had specific consequencesthat became especially evident among humankind onAtlantis. The human astral body and the I spent the nightin the domain of superior beings, up to and including theSpirits of Personality. Part of the life body was not boundup with the physical body, and because human beingswere able to remain united with this part during sleep,

3. See Plato’s Timaeus, 24-25e and Kritias 112e-121c.


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they were able to have perceptions of the Sons of Life orangels and the Spirits of Fire or archangels. Because ofthe Luciferic influence, however, their perception of theSpirits of Personality remained unclear. But in addition tothe angels and archangels, human beings in this state wereable to perceive the beings who, as a result of havingremained behind on Sun or Moon, were incapable ofentering Earth existence and therefore had to remain inthe world of soul and spirit. The Luciferic principle, how-ever, made it possible for human beings to draw thesebeings into the domain of souls separated from their phys-ical bodies. This meant that human beings came in con-tact with beings who had a very strong seductive effect onthem and increased the soul’s leanings toward error, espe-cially with regard to misusing the forces of growth andreproduction, which had come under human controlthrough the separation of the human physical and etherbodies.

During the Atlantean age, some individuals weregranted the possibility of being entangled in the world ofthe senses to the least possible extent. This transformedthe Luciferic influence from an obstacle to human evolu-tion into a means of further advancement that put theseindividuals in a position to develop their knowledge ofearthly things earlier than would have been possible oth-erwise. In this process, these people attempted to elimi-nate error from their mental activity and to discover theoriginal intentions of spiritual beings in the phenomenaof the world. They kept themselves free of urges anddesires of the astral body that turned only toward the


world of the senses, and thus they became increasinglyfree of the astral body’s errors. The conditions thisbrought about in them led them to perceive only with thepart of the life body that was separate from the physicalbody, as described above. Under these conditions, thephysical body’s perceptive capacity was wiped out, so tospeak, and the physical body itself seemed dead.Through their life bodies, these human beings thenunited completely with the domain of the Spirits of Form,who showed them how they were being led and guidedby the exalted being who had assumed leadership duringthe separation of Sun and Earth and who was later tomake human beings receptive to understanding theChrist. These individuals were initiates. However,because human individualities had entered the domain ofthe Moon beings, as described above, as a rule even theseinitiates could not be directly touched by the great Sunspirit, who could only be shown to them by the Moonspirits as if in a reflection. They saw only the Sun-being’sreflected glory.

These individuals became leaders of the other humanbeings and were able to communicate to them the mys-teries they had beheld. They attracted disciples whomthey taught how to attain the state leading to initiation.Their knowledge, previously revealed through theChrist, could be acquired only by people who were “Sunhumans” in the sense indicated earlier. They nurturedtheir mysterious knowledge and the practices that led toit in a special place we’ll call the Christ oracle or Sunoracle—that is, “oracle” in the sense of a place where


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the intentions of spiritual beings are perceived. What issaid here about the Christ will be misunderstood unlesswe consider the fact that supersensible knowledge nec-essarily sees the appearance of the Christ on Earth as anevent that was foretold by those who were already awareof the meaning of the Earth’s evolution prior to thisevent. It would be a mistake to assume that these ini-tiates had a relationship to the Christ that would only bepossible later, after His actual appearance on Earth.However, they were able to grasp in a prophetic way andmake comprehensible to their disciples that anyonetouched by the power of the Sun-being sees the Christapproaching the Earth.

Other oracles were called into being by the Saturn,Mars, and Jupiter humans. The vision of the initiates ofeach group was directed upward only as far as the beingwho could be discerned as the corresponding higher I inthe life bodies of the members of their group. This ishow the wisdom of Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars acquiredfollowers.

In addition to these methods of initiation, there werealso methods for those who had absorbed too much ofthe Luciferic principle to allow as large a part of the lifebody to separate from the physical body as was the casein Sun humans. In these people, the astral body retainedmore of the life body in the physical body, and they wereincapable of being brought to a prophetic revelation ofthe Christ through the above-mentioned conditions.Because of the Luciferic principle’s greater influence ontheir astral bodies, they had to undergo more difficult


preparations before being able, in a less body-free statethan the others, to behold the other higher beings,though not the Christ. Among the beings they were ableto behold, however, were certain ones who, althoughthey had left the Earth when the Sun separated from it,were not yet at a level that would have permitted them toparticipate in the Sun’s evolution for any length of time.After the Sun’s separation from the Earth, these beingspulled Venus out of the Sun in order to make it theirdwelling place. The being who became their leader alsobecame the higher I of the group of initiates and theirfollowers described above. Something similar happenedwith the leading spirit of Mercury with regard to humansof a different type. This is how the Venus and Mercuryoracles came about.

Human beings of the particular type who had absorbedthe most Luciferic influence were able to reach up onlyas far as the leader of the beings who had been the firstto be expelled from the Sun’s evolution. This being didnot occupy a particular planet in cosmic space, but livedin the surroundings of the Earth itself, having reunitedwith it after returning from the Sun. This being mani-fested as the higher I of human beings who can be calledfollowers of the Vulcan oracle. Their vision was directedmore toward earthly phenomena than was the case withthe other initiates, and they laid the first foundations forwhat later became the arts and sciences among humanbeings. In contrast, the Mercury initiates laid the basisfor knowledge of more supersensible things, and theVenus initiates did this to an even greater extent. The


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fact that the Vulcan, Mercury, and Venus initiatesreceived their knowledge more in the form of their ownthoughts and ideas distinguished them from the Saturn,Jupiter, and Mars initiates, who received their mysteriesmore as a revelation from above and in a more finishedstate. The Christ initiates occupied the middle ground,receiving the ability to clothe their mysteries in humanconcepts along with their direct revelations. The Saturn,Jupiter, and Mars initiates had to express themselves insymbols to a greater extent, while the Christ, Venus,Mercury, and Vulcan initiates were more able to commu-nicate through concepts.

What reached Atlantean humanity in this way hap-pened indirectly, by way of the initiates. However, therest of humankind also received special faculties as aresult of the Luciferic principle, because the exalted cos-mic beings transformed certain faculties that might oth-erwise have led to ruin into a blessing. One such facultywas speech. Human beings received it as a result of thedensification into the physical, material nature and theseparation of part of the life body from the physicalbody.

During the time following the Moon’s separation,human beings at first felt united with their physicalancestors through the “group I.” But this common con-sciousness connecting descendants and ancestors wasgradually lost over the course of the generations. Laterdescendants had an inner memory that no longer reachedback to their earlier ancestors, but only to not very dis-tant ones. People’s memories of one or the other ancestor


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appeared only during contact with the spiritual world intheir sleep-like states. They were then likely to feel atone with their ancestors. They believed these ancestorshad reappeared in themselves. This was an erroneousidea of reincarnation that emerged primarily in the lastpart of the Atlantean age. The truth about reincarnationcould only be experienced in the schools of the initiates.Only the initiates, who saw human souls in the body-freestate passing from one incarnation to another, were ableto communicate the truth about this to their disciples.

At the point in the distant past that we are talking abouthere, the human physical figure was still very differentfrom how it is at present. To a great extent, it was still theexpression of soul characteristics. Human beings stillconsisted of matter that was softer and more delicate thanwhat they acquired later. What is solid today was thenstill soft, supple, and malleable. Human beings with morepronounced soul and spiritual elements were delicate,mobile, and expressive in their bodily structure, whilethose who were spiritually less developed had body formsthat were coarse, immobile, and less malleable. Advance-ment on a soul level contracted the limbs and kept a per-son’s stature small, while delayed soul development andentanglement in sensuality expressed itself in giganticsize. During their growth period, people’s bodies tookshape according to what was forming in their souls in away that seems incredible or even fantastic to our modernway of looking at things. Moral depravity in a person’spassions, drives, and instincts resulted in a giganticincrease in material substance.


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Our present human physical form came about throughcontracting, densifying, and solidifying the Atlanteanone. Prior to the Atlantean age, human beings werefaithful copies of their soul character, but the causes thatled to the post-Atlantean human form, which is solid andrelatively independent of any soul qualities, were inher-ent in the processes of Atlantean evolution. (The animalkingdom on Earth became dense in its forms much ear-lier than human beings.) Under no circumstances can thelaws currently governing the shaping of forms in thekingdoms of nature be extended to the distant past.

The End of Atlantis Toward the middle of the Atlantean age, a great disas-

ter was gradually building up within humankind. Thesecrets of the initiates should have been carefully pro-tected from individuals who had not prepared their astralbodies to receive this knowledge by cleansing them oferror. When such people did acquire an insight into thishidden knowledge, into the laws through which higherbeings guided the forces of nature, they used these lawsfor purposes that served their aberrant needs and pas-sions. The danger became even greater when these peo-ple entered the domain of the inferior spiritual beingswho could not participate in Earth’s normal evolutionand worked against it. These beings were constantlyinfluencing human beings, arousing interests in themthat actually worked contrary to human well-being.

At that time, human beings still had the ability to usethe natural growth and reproductive forces of animals


and humans for their own purposes. Not only ordinarypeople but also some initiates succumbed to the tempta-tions of the inferior spiritual beings and used these super-sensible forces in the service of aims that ran counter tohumanity’s evolution. To carry this out, they chose asso-ciates who were not initiates and who used the mysteriesof nature’s supersensible workings exclusively for baserpurposes. The consequence was great depravity amonghumankind. The evil spread further and further, andsince the forces of growth and reproduction, whenuprooted and applied out of context, have a mysteriousconnection to certain forces at work in air and water,these human actions released powerfully destructive nat-ural forces. This led to the gradual destruction of theAtlantean region through catastrophes involving theEarth’s air and water.

The Atlanteans—at least those who did not perish inthe storms—were forced to emigrate. The storms werechanging the entire face of the Earth. Europe, Asia, andAfrica on one side and America on the other were gradu-ally acquiring the shapes they have today. Hordes of emi-grants headed for these lands. As far as our presentsituation is concerned, the most important migrationswere the ones that moved eastward from Atlantis.Europe, Asia, and Africa were gradually settled bydescendants of the Atlanteans. Various peoples differingin their degrees of both development and depravity tookup residence there. In their midst marched the initiates,who guarded the mysteries of the oracles and establishedcenters in various regions where the services of Jupiter,


Venus, and so on, were cultivated in both the good senseand the bad.

The betrayal of the Vulcan mysteries had an especiallynegative effect, because their followers’ view was the mostfocused on earthly circumstances. This betrayal forcedhuman beings to become dependent on spiritual beingswhose prior development made them reject everythingcoming from the spiritual world that had evolved as a resultof the Earth’s separation from the Sun. As a result of this,these beings worked specifically in the human element thatresulted from having sensory perceptions that drew a veilover the spiritual element. From this point onward, thesebeings acquired a great deal of influence over many of theEarth’s human inhabitants. This influence first made itselffelt in the fact that human beings were increasinglydeprived of the feeling for the spiritual element.

Since the size, form, and flexibility of the human physi-cal body were still determined by soul qualities to a verygreat extent during this period, the betrayal of the myster-ies also came to light in corresponding changes in thehuman race. Amorphous human figures, grotesque in bothsize and shape, were created wherever human depravitywas especially evident, wherever supersensible forceswere placed in the service of baser drives, desires, and pas-sions. Such figures, however, could not persist beyond theactual Atlantean period. They died out. Physically, post-Atlantean humankind developed from Atlantean ancestorswhose bodily forms had already solidified in a way that didnot allow them to succumb to soul forces that were con-trary to nature.


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There was a certain period in Atlantean evolutionwhen the laws prevailing in and around the Earthresulted in conditions that forced human forms to solid-ify. Although the races of humanity that had alreadysolidified before this period were able to continue repro-ducing for a long time, their bodies gradually grew sorestricting for the souls incarnating into them that theseraces were forced to die out. In actual fact, some of theseracial forms persisted into post-Atlantean times, andmodified forms of the ones that remained sufficientlyflexible continued to exist for a very long time. How-ever, the ones among them that did remain flexiblebeyond this time tended to embody souls that had expe-rienced the damaging influence of the betrayal of themysteries to a very great extent. These forms were des-tined to die out quickly.

Thus, ever since the middle of the Atlantean age,beings had been present who exerted their influence inhuman evolution by making human beings live their wayinto the physical world of the senses in an unspiritualway. This went so far that instead of the true form of thisworld, people saw phantasmagoric delusions and illu-sions of all sorts. However, human beings were exposednot only to the Luciferic influence, but also to the influ-ence of those other beings we spoke about earlier, whoseleader can be called Ahriman. (This is the name that wasgiven to this being later on during the Persian civiliza-tion. Mephistopheles is the same being.) Through thisinfluence, human beings who had died fell into the handsof powers that made them appear like beings exclusively


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inclined toward earthly, sensual circumstances. Theywere increasingly deprived of their free view into theprocesses of the spiritual world. They had to feel thatthey were in Ahriman’s power and were excluded fromthe fellowship of the spiritual world to a certain extent.

One especially significant oracle had preserved theancient service in the purest form amid the generaldecline. It was one of the Christ oracles, and for that rea-son was able to preserve not only the mystery of the Christbut also the mysteries of the other oracles, since revealingthe most exalted Sun spirit also disclosed the leading spir-its of Saturn, Jupiter, and so on. The initiates of this Sunoracle knew the secret of how to generate for this or thathuman being the types of life bodies that had been pos-sessed by the best initiates of Jupiter, Mercury, and so on.With the means at their disposal, which cannot be dis-cussed further here, they effectively perpetuated reproduc-tions of the best life bodies of ancient initiates andimplanted them later in suitable individuals. The Venus,Mercury, and Vulcan initiates made it possible for similarprocesses to take place with regard to astral bodies.

At a certain point in time, the leading Christ initiate wasisolated with a few associates who were only capable ofreceiving the secrets of the cosmos to a very limitedextent, because they were naturally predisposed to havingphysical and life bodies with the least degree of separa-tion between them. At that time, such individuals werethe best ones to assure the further progress of humankind.Because they experienced less and less during the sleep-ing state, the spiritual world was increasingly closed to


them and they lacked all understanding of what had beenrevealed in ancient times when human beings occupiedonly life bodies rather than physical bodies. The individ-uals in the immediate surroundings of this leader of theChrist oracle were the most advanced with regard toreuniting the physical body with the portion of the lifebody that was formerly separate from it. This reunifica-tion was gradually being accomplished among humanbeings as a consequence of changes that had taken placein their Atlantean home and on Earth in general. Humanphysical and life bodies were coinciding to an evergreater extent.

As a result of this, human beings lost their previouslyboundless faculty of memory, and a life of thought beganfor them. The part of the life body that was united with thephysical body transformed the physical brain into theactual instrument of thinking. Only after this did humanbeings actually experience the I within the physical body.Self-awareness awakened for the first time. To beginwith, this was actually true of only a small percentage ofhuman beings, primarily associates of the leader of theChrist oracle. The masses of human beings scattered overEurope, Asia, and Africa preserved the remnants of olderstates of consciousness to varying degrees and thereforeexperienced the supersensible world directly.

Post-Atlantean Civilizations: Ancient India The Christ initiate’s associates were people of highly

developed intellect, but of all the people living at that time,they had the least experience in the supersensible domain.


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This initiate moved with them from the west to the east, toan area in central Asia, wanting to protect them as much aspossible from contact with human beings of less advancedconsciousness. He educated these associates of his, andmore especially their descendants, in accordance with themysteries that were revealed to him. Thus, he trained awhole host of human beings who took to heart impulsesthat were in harmony with the mysteries of the Christ ini-tiation. From among them, he selected the seven best toreceive life bodies and astral bodies that were reproduc-tions of those of the seven greatest Atlantean initiates. Inthis way he educated one successor for each of the initiatesof Christ, Saturn, Jupiter, and so on. These seven new ini-tiates became the teachers and leaders of the human beingswho had settled in the southern part of Asia, specifically inancient India. Since these great teachers were actuallyendowed with reproductions of the life bodies of their spir-itual ancestors, what was present in their astral bodies—namely the knowledge and understanding they had assim-ilated themselves—did not extend to what was revealed tothem through their life bodies. If this revelation was tospeak in them, they had to silence their own knowledgeand understanding. When they did so, the exalted beingswho had spoken to their spiritual ancestors also spokethrough them and out of them. Except when such beingswere speaking through them, these were simple peoplegifted with whatever degree of intellectual and emotionaleducation they had acquired on their own.

At that time, India was occupied by human beings whohad superbly preserved a living memory of the ancient


Atlantean state of soul that had permitted experience inthe spiritual world. A large number of these people alsopossessed a very strong tendency of heart and mind towant to experience this supersensible world. Thanks tothe wise guidance of destiny, the majority of people ofthis type, who came from the best portions of theAtlantean population, had migrated to southern Asia. Inaddition to this majority, others had immigrated at differ-ent times. The Christ initiate mentioned above appointedhis seven greatest disciples to be the teachers of this asso-ciation of human beings, to give their wisdom and theircommandments to this group of people.

For many of these ancient Indians, very little prepara-tion was required to enliven in them the barely extin-guished faculties that led to observing the supersensibleworld, because a longing for this world was actually afundamental mood of Indian souls. They felt that the orig-inal home of human beings was in this supersensibleworld, that they had been transplanted from this world tothe world that can be provided by outer sensory percep-tion and the sense-bound intellect. They felt that thesupersensible world was the true one and that the sensoryworld was maya, an illusion of human perception. Theystrove by all possible means to open a view into the spir-itual world. They were unable to develop any interest inthe illusory world of the senses, or only to the extent thatit proved to be a veil over the supersensible world. Thepower that the seven great teachers could exert on peoplelike this was tremendous, and what they revealed made itsway deep into Indian souls. And because the life bodies


and astral bodies that had been passed down to thembestowed sublime powers on these teachers, they wereable to have magical effects on their disciples. They didnot actually teach, but their personalities acted upon thoseof others as if through magical powers. The civilizationthat came about in this way was completely imbued withsupersensible wisdom.

What is contained in the Vedas, the books of Indianwisdom, is not the original form of the exalted wisdomfostered by these great teachers in ancient times, but onlya feeble echo of it. Only supersensible sight can lookback to the original unrecorded wisdom behind what waswritten. An especially prominent characteristic of thisoriginal wisdom is the harmony and accord that existedamong the various oracles of Atlantean times. Each ofthe great teachers could divulge the wisdom of one of theoracles, and these various aspects of wisdom were incomplete harmony, because the fundamental wisdom ofthe initiation that prophesied the coming of the Christstood behind all of them. However, the teacher who wasthe spiritual successor of the Christ initiate did notpresent what this initiate himself, who had remained inthe background of evolution, was capable of revealing.Initially, it was not possible for the Atlantean Christ ini-tiate to pass on his high office to any post-Atlantean indi-vidual. In contrast to the Atlantean Christ initiate, whowas able to completely transmute his perception of theChrist mystery into human concepts, the Indian Christinitiate was only capable of presenting a reflection of thismystery in signs and symbols, because his humanly


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acquired conceptual abilities could not encompass thismystery.

Nonetheless, the result of the union of the seven teach-ers was a panorama of wisdom expressing their knowl-edge of the supersensible world, only parts of whichcould have been promulgated in the old Atlantean oracle.This panorama revealed the exalted leadership of the cos-mic world and quietly alluded to a great Sun spirit, theconcealed being who was enthroned above the beingsrevealed by the seven teachers.

What the term “ancient Indians” means here is not whatis usually understood by it. No outer documents havecome down to us from the time we are speaking of here.The nation of people now known as Indians belongs to ahistorical stage of evolution that came about only muchlater than this. We must recognize the “Indian” culturedescribed here as the prevailing culture of the first post-Atlantean epoch in Earth’s history. After that came a sec-ond post-Atlantean epoch, when the “old Persian” civili-zation described later on in this book was the dominantculture. Still later, the Egypto-Chaldean civilizationdeveloped. It too will be described later. While the secondand third post-Atlantean cultural epochs were takingshape, the “ancient” Indian culture also underwent itsown second and third periods. The third period is what iscommonly described as “ancient India.” We must notconfuse what is described here with the historical ancientIndia spoken of elsewhere.

What later led to separating people into castes wasanother characteristic of the culture of ancient India. The


inhabitants of India were descendants of Atlanteans whohad belonged to different human types: the Saturnhumans, Jupiter humans, and so on. Through supersensi-ble teaching, they understood that a soul’s position in acertain caste was not a matter of coincidence but a matterof self-determination. The fact that many people wereable to stir up inner memories of their ancestors, asdescribed earlier, made it easier for them to understandsupersensible teachings in this way, but it also easily ledto erroneous ideas about reincarnation. During theAtlantean age, the truth about reincarnation could only beacquired through the initiates. Similarly, during the earli-est Indian times this truth could only be acquired throughdirect contact with the great teachers. In fact, the mistakenconcept of reincarnation that was described earlier wasextremely prevalent among the people who had spreadout over Europe, Asia, and Africa after the sinking ofAtlantis. And because initiates who had gone astray dur-ing the Atlantean evolutionary period had also shared thismystery with people who were not ready to receive it,people increasingly confused the correct idea with thefalse one. Many of these people still possessed a dusk-likekind of clairvoyance as a legacy of the Atlantean age.While the Atlanteans entered the domain of the spiritualworld during sleep, their descendants experienced thisspiritual world in abnormal intermediate states betweenwaking and sleeping. In these states, images of an oldertime to which their ancestors had belonged appeared inthem, so they considered themselves reincarnations ofpeople who had lived in those times. Teachings about


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reincarnation that contradicted the initiates’ genuine ideason the subject spread over the entire Earth.

Ancient Persian Civilization Ongoing migrations from west to east since the begin-

ning of the destruction of Atlantis led to the settlement ofthe Middle East by a group of people whose descendantswent down in history as the Persians and their affiliatedtribes. Supersensible cognition, however, must lookmuch further back in time than the recorded history ofthese ethnic groups. We must first speak about the laterPersians’ very distant ancestors, who issued in the sec-ond great epoch of civilization in post-Atlantean evolu-tion. It came about after the Indian civilization. Thepeople of this second epoch had a different task from theIndians. Their inclinations and longings were notdirected only at the supersensible world but were alsoadapted to the physical world of the senses. They beganto love the Earth. They valued what human beings couldconquer for themselves on Earth and what they couldgain through earthly forces. Their accomplishments as awarrior nation and the methods they invented for extract-ing the Earth’s treasures are related to this characteristicof their nature. There was no danger that their longing forthe supersensible would turn them completely awayfrom the “illusion” of the physical, sense-perceptibleworld. On the contrary, they were more in danger ofcompletely losing their souls’ connection to the super-sensible world because of their appreciation for the phys-ical world.


The character of the oracles that had been transplantedfrom Atlantis also reflected the general character of thepeople. Formerly, human beings had been able to acquirecertain powers by experiencing the supersensible world.At this time, it was still possible to control some lowerforms of these powers. Of these powers, there were thosecultivated in the oracles that guided natural phenomena inways that served personal human interests. At this time inthe past, people still had great ability to control forces innature that later retreated beyond the reach of human will.The guardians of the oracles, who had inner forces at theircommand that were related to fire and other elements, canbe called “magi” or magicians. The legacy of supersensi-ble knowledge and supersensible forces that they had pre-served for themselves, although insignificant in com-parison to what human beings had been capable of in thestill more distant past, appeared in many different forms,ranging from the noblest arts whose only purpose was thewelfare of human beings to the most reprehensible prac-tices. The Luciferic principle prevailed in these people ina very particular way, connecting them with everythingthat could distract human beings from the intentions of thehigher beings who would have been the sole guides ofhuman progress if the Luciferic intervention had not hap-pened. Even the members of this people who were stillgifted with remnants of the ancient clairvoyant state, theintermediary state between waking and sleeping that wasdescribed earlier, felt very drawn to the inferior beings ofthe spiritual world. Because these people needed a spiri-tual impetus that would counteract this character trait in


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them, they were supplied with leadership by what had alsobeen the source of ancient Indian spiritual life, namely theguardian of the mysteries of the Sun oracle.

For these people, the guardian of the Sun oracle pro-vided a leader who can be known by the name that hascome down to us in history as Zarathustra or Zoroaster,but it must be emphasized that the person we are speakingabout here belonged to a much earlier age than the histor-ical bearer of that name. However, we are dealing herewith a question of spiritual science rather than one ofouter historical research. Anyone who cannot help butthink of a later age in connection with the bearer of thename Zarathustra can reconcile this with spiritual scienceby thinking of the historical Zarathustra as a successor tothe first great Zarathustra, as someone who assumed hisname and worked in the spirit of his teaching.

The impulse Zarathustra needed to provide for his peo-ple consisted in pointing out that the physical world of thesenses is more than just the spiritless thing peopleencounter when they fall exclusively under the influenceof the being of Lucifer. Human beings owe their personalindependence and their sense of freedom to this being.However, Lucifer is supposed to work in them in har-mony with the opposite spiritual principle. It was impor-tant for the ancient Persian people to remain alert to thepresence of this other spiritual being. Their inclinationtoward the physical world of the senses threatened tomake them merge completely with the Luciferic beings.

Now, the initiation Zarathustra had received throughthe guardian of the Sun oracle allowed him to receive the


revelations of the exalted Sun beings. His training had ledhim to special states of consciousness in which he wasable to behold the Sun beings’ leader, who had taken thehuman ether body under his protection as described ear-lier. Zarathustra knew that this being was guiding the evo-lution of humanity but would only be able to descend toEarth from cosmic space at a certain point in the future.For this to happen, this being would have to be able to livein the astral body of a human being in the same way thathe had been able to work in the human life body eversince the Luciferic intervention took place. For this tohappen, a human being would have to appear who hadtransformed the astral body back to the stage it wouldhave attained without Lucifer at a certain other point intime (in the middle of the Atlantean period of evolution).Without Lucifer, human beings would have reached thisstage earlier, but without personal independence andwithout the possibility of freedom. From this pointonward, however, human beings were to regain this highlevel in spite of these traits of their character.

In his clairvoyant states, Zarathustra saw that in human-kind’s future evolution, it would be possible for a specificperson to have an astral body of this sort. He also knewthat until this time arrived, it was impossible to find thespiritual forces of the Sun on Earth; they could be per-ceived, however, by means of supersensible sight in thedomain of the spiritual portion of the Sun. He was able tobehold these forces when he turned his clairvoyant gazetoward the Sun, and he brought his people tidings of thenature of these forces, which at that time could be found


only in the spiritual world but would later descend toEarth. In this way he proclaimed the great Spirit of theSun, the Spirit of Light (the Sun aura, Ahura-Mazdao orOrmuzd). For Zarathustra and his followers, this Spirit ofLight became manifest as the spirit who turns his counte-nance toward human beings from the spiritual world andprepares the future within humankind. This spirit, whopoints to the Christ before His appearance on Earth, wasthe spirit Zarathustra proclaimed as the Spirit of Light.

In contrast, Zarathustra depicted Ahriman (AngraMainju) as a power whose influence causes the humansoul life to deteriorate when it surrenders to this influencein a one-sided way. This power is none other than the onedescribed earlier as having achieved a particular domin-ion over the Earth ever since the betrayal of the Vulcanmysteries. Alongside his tidings of the Light God, Zar-athustra also proclaimed the doctrine concerning spiritualbeings that reveal themselves to the purified conscious-ness of the seer as the companions of the Spirit of Light.In stark contrast to these beings were the tempters whowere appearing to the unpurified remnants of clairvoy-ance that had been retained from Atlantean times. It hadto be made clear to the ancient Persians that the humansoul, to the extent that it was inclined toward working andstriving in the physical world of the senses, was the bat-tleground in a conflict between the power of the LightGod and that of His adversary. Zarathustra showed howhuman beings had to act so as not to be led into the abyssby this adversary, whose influence might be turned togood through the power of the Spirit of Light.


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Egypto-Chaldean Civilization
A third post-Atlantean cultural epoch first developedamong the peoples who eventually migrated into the Mid-dle East and North Africa—the Chaldeans, Babylonians,and Assyrians on the one hand and the Egyptians on theother. They developed a still different understanding ofthe physical, sense-perceptible world than the ancientPersians. In comparison to other ethnic groups, they hadacquired much more of a spiritual predisposition for intel-lectual endowment, for the ability to think that had beendeveloping since the later part of the Atlantean age. As weknow, it was the task of post-Atlantean humanity todevelop soul faculties that could be acquired throughawakened powers of thought and feeling that are notdirectly stimulated by the spiritual world but come aboutwhen human beings observe the world of the senses, findtheir way into it, and adapt it. Conquering the physicalworld with these human faculties must be seen as the mis-sion of post-Atlantean humanity.

This conquest proceeded step by step. In ancient India,although people’s soul makeup already directed themtoward the physical world, they still saw it as an illusion,and their spirits turned toward the supersensible world. Incontrast, the people of ancient Persia began an attempt toconquer the physical world of the senses, but to a largeextent they still did so with soul forces that were the legacyof a time when human beings could reach directly into thesupersensible world. Among the peoples of the third cul-tural epoch, souls had lost much of their supersensible fac-ulties. They had to investigate the spirit’s manifestations in


their sense-perceptible environment; their progress camefrom discovering and inventing the cultural means ofadvancement that this environment yielded. Humankind’ssciences came about through deriving the laws of the spir-itual world from the physical sense-world that concealedit; technology and the arts and their tools and methodscame about through recognizing and applying the forces ofthis sensory world. The Chaldeans and Babylonians nolonger saw the world of the senses as an illusion. They sawits natural kingdoms, its mountains and seas, its air andwater, as manifestations of the spiritual deeds of powersstanding behind this world, and they attempted to discoverthe laws governing these powers. To the Egyptians, theEarth was the setting for their work. In the state in which itwas given to them, it was in need of being transformedthrough their own intellectual forces so that it wouldreflect the impact of human power.

The oracles that had been transplanted from Atlantis toEgypt originated primarily in the Atlantean Mercury ora-cle, but there were also others—the Venus oracles, forexample. What these oracles cultivated in the Egyptianpeople became the seed of a new civilization. This seedoriginated with a great leader who had been trained in thePersian mysteries of Zarathustra and was a reincarnationof one of the disciples of the great Zarathustra himself. Ifwe want to cite a historical name, we can call him Hermes.Through absorbing the Zarathustra mysteries, he was ableto find the right way to guide the Egyptian people. Inearthly life between birth and death, the Egyptiansapproached the physical world of the senses with their


understanding in a way that allowed them to perceive thespiritual world behind the world of the senses only to avery limited extent; however, they were able to recognizespiritual laws in the sense-perceptible world. Therefore,they could not be taught about this spiritual world as onethey would be able to enter during life on Earth, but it waspossible to show them how human beings in the body-freestate after death would commune with the world of spiritsthat left impressions in the sense-perceptible, physicaldomain during an earthly human lifetime. Hermes taughtthat to the extent human beings on Earth applied theirforces to working in accordance with the intentions ofspiritual powers, they make it possible for them to unitewith these powers after death. In particular, those who hadworked most diligently in this direction between birth anddeath would be united with Osiris, the exalted Sun-being.

The Chaldean-Babylonian aspect of this cultural streamwas more emphatic than the Egyptian in directing thehuman mind toward the physical world of the senses. Thelaws of this world were investigated and spiritual arche-types were perceived in their sense-perceptible images.However, in many respects this people remained caught inthe sense-perceptible element. Instead of a star’s spirit, thestar was pushed into the foreground, and the same was trueof other spiritual beings and their earthly manifestations.Only their leaders acquired really deep knowledge of thelaws of the supersensible world and of how these lawsworked together with the sense world. The contrastbetween the knowledge of the initiates and the mistakenbeliefs of the people was stronger here than anywhere else.


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Greco-Latin Civilization
Conditions were quite different in the areas of southernEurope and Asia Minor where the fourth post-Atlanteancultural epoch blossomed. We can call this the Greco-Latin epoch. The migrants to these countries were thedescendants of people from many different parts of theancient world, and their oracles followed the traditions ofmany different Atlantean oracles. Some individuals pos-sessed the legacy of ancient clairvoyance as a natural fac-ulty; for others, it was relatively easy to acquire it throughtraining. Particular centers not only preserved what hadcome down from the ancient initiates but also developedworthy successors, who in turn trained disciples who werecapable of rising to high levels of spiritual perception.This meant that these ethnic groups possessed an innerurge to create a place in the sense-perceptible world thatwould express the spiritual element in its perfect formwithin the physical element.

This urge resulted in Greek art, among many otherthings. If we can understand the Greek temple throughspiritual sight, we will recognize that in this marvelouswork of art, human beings have transformed the sense-per-ceptible, material element in such a way that every part ofit has become an expression of the spiritual element. TheGreek temple is the “house of the spirit.” In beholding itsforms, we perceive what is otherwise seen only by seers. Atemple of Zeus (or Jupiter) is fashioned in a way that pre-sents our physical sense of sight with a worthy vessel forwhat the guardian of the Zeus or Jupiter initiation beheldwith spiritual sight. This is true of all Greek art.


In mysterious ways, the wisdom of the initiates flowedinto poets, artists, and thinkers. In the constructs ofancient Greek philosophy, the mysteries of the initiatesare found in the form of concepts and ideas. The influ-ence of the spiritual life, the mysteries of the Asian andAfrican initiation centers, flowed into these people andtheir leaders. The great Indian teachers, the associates ofZarathustra, and the followers of Hermes had all traineddisciples, and either these disciples or their successorsthen founded initiation centers in which the ancient wis-dom came to life in a new form. These were the myster-ies of antiquity, where disciples were prepared to reachstates of consciousness that would allow them to attainperception of the spiritual world. (More will be saidabout these mysteries of antiquity in the final chapters ofthis book; other details are available in my book Chris-tianity as Mystical Fact.4) Wisdom flowed out of theseinitiation centers to those who cultivated the mysteries ofthe spirit in Asia Minor, Greece, and Italy. (In the Greek-speaking world, the Orphic and Eleusinian mysteriesdeveloped into important initiation centers. The greatteachings and methods of wisdom from earlier timesworked on in the Pythagorean school of wisdom becausePythagoras had been initiated into the secrets of a varietyof mysteries during his extensive travels.)

4. Steinerbooks, Blauvelt, NY, 1988.


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The Coming of the Christian Era
During the post-Atlantean period, human life betweenbirth and death also had its effect on the post-death, body-free state. As human beings increasingly turned theirinterests toward the physical world of the senses, itbecame ever more possible for Ahriman to work his wayinto their souls during earthly life and then to retain thispower beyond death. This danger had been very slightamong the peoples of ancient India, because they experi-enced the physical world of the senses as an illusion dur-ing earthly life, thus extricating themselves fromAhriman’s power after death. The danger was greater forthe ancient Persians, who took an active interest in thephysical world during the time between birth and death.They would have succumbed to Ahriman’s enticementsto a great extent if Zarathustra’s teachings about the LightGod had not impressed on them the fact that a worldbelonging to the Spirits of Light stands behind the physi-cal world of the senses. To the extent that the souls of thepeople of this culture absorbed the world of ideas stimu-lated by Zarathustra, they were able to escape from Ahr-iman’s clutches, not only during earthly life but alsoduring life after death when they were preparing for anew earthly life. During life on Earth, Ahriman’s powermakes us see physical, sense-perceptible existence as theonly one and thus blocks our view into the spiritual world.In the spiritual world, this power makes us completelyisolated and focuses all our interests on ourselves. Humanbeings who are in Ahriman’s power when they die arereborn as egoists.


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At the present time, through spiritual science, we candescribe life between death and a new birth as it is whenthe Ahrimanic influence has been overcome to a certainextent. This is how the author of this book has describedit in other works and in the first chapters of this book, andthis is how it must be depicted in order to illustrate whatpeople can experience after death if they have acquired apurely spiritual view of what is actually present. Whetherindividuals experience this to a greater or to a lesserdegree depends on the extent of their victory over Ahri-man’s influence. We are drawing ever closer to being allthat we can be in the spiritual world. However, the factthat other influences can restrict our possibilities must bekept clearly in mind as we consider the course of humanevolution.

Among the Egyptian people, Hermes had made surethat individuals prepared themselves during earthly lifefor fellowship with the Spirit of Light. However, becauseat that time the pattern of people’s interests between birthand death already permitted very little penetration of thephysical/sensory veil, their souls’ spiritual gaze remainedclouded after death, and their perception of the world oflight remained faint. This veiling of the spiritual worldafter death reached a peak among souls who entered thebody-free state from incarnations during the Greco-Latincivilization. They had brought the cultivation of sensory,physical existence to full flower, thus condemning them-selves to a shadow existence after death. It was not emptytalk but a feeling for the truth that made a hero of thatage—inclined as he was toward the life of the senses—


say, “Rather a beggar on Earth than a king in the realm ofshades.”5

All this was still more pronounced among the Asiaticpeoples, who instead of turning their gaze to spiritualarchetypes had also made sensory representations thefocus of their reverence and adoration. A large part ofhumanity was in this situation during the Greco-Latin cul-tural period. As we see, post-Atlantean humanity’s mis-sion of conquering the physical world of the sensesnecessarily led to estrangement from the spiritual world.The greatness of this age was therefore inevitably boundup with its decline.

In the mysteries, the human being’s connection to thespiritual world was cultivated. In specific soul conditions,their initiates were able to receive revelations of thisworld. These initiates were the successors of the Atlanteanguardians of the oracles, more or less. What had becomeveiled to others through the impact of Lucifer and Ahri-man was disclosed to them. Lucifer veiled that aspect ofthe spiritual world that had streamed into people’s astralbodies without any involvement on their part until themiddle of the Atlantean age. If the life body had not been

5. The soul of Achilles, conjured up out of Hades by sacrifices to thedead, speaks to Odysseus:

Speak not wrongly of death, Lord Odysseus.I would much rather be a slave and a drudge in the fields, A pitiable man in search of his miserable food, Than a king down here in the realm of the dead.

— Homer, The Odyssey, Song XI


partially separated from the physical body, people wouldhave been able to experience this area of the spiritualworld as an inner soul revelation. Because of Lucifericintervention, they could do so only during special states ofsoul; then a spiritual world appeared to them in astralarray. In this way, superhuman beings revealed them-selves, appearing as figures that consisted only of thehigher members of the human makeup. These membersbore astrally visible symbols of these beings’ particularspiritual forces.

After Ahriman’s intervention in the middle of theAtlantean age, another type of initiation was added to thisone. Ahriman concealed all of that aspect of the spiritualworld that would have appeared behind physical senseperceptions if this intervention had not taken place. Ini-tiates owed the disclosure of this aspect to the fact thattheir souls had practiced all the faculties that humanbeings had acquired since that time, but to a far greaterextent than was required to gain impressions of physical,sense-perceptible existence. Through this, the spiritualpowers lying behind the forces of nature were revealed tothese initiates, who were then able to speak about the spir-itual beings behind the natural world. The creative powersof the forces at work in nature below the human levelwere disclosed to them. What had continued to worksince the time of the Saturn, Sun, and old Moon phases ofevolution, shaping the human physical, etheric, and astralbodies as well as the mineral, plant, and animal king-doms, formed the content of one type of mystery. Thesewere the mysteries Ahriman tried to conceal. What had


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led to the sentient, mind, and consciousness souls wasrevealed in mysteries of a second type.

However, there was one thing that the mysteries couldonly prophesy—namely, that in the course of time an indi-vidual would appear with an astral body in which con-sciousness of the Sun Spirit’s world of light could comeabout through the life body, in spite of Lucifer and withoutany special states of soul. This individual’s physical bodywould have to make it possible for Him to receive the rev-elations of the aspect of the spiritual world that Ahrimancan conceal until the time of physical death. Physicaldeath would be able to change nothing in this individual’slife; that is, it would have no power over Him. In such anindividual, the I would manifest in such a way that Hiscomplete spiritual life would be present simultaneously inphysical life. This being is the bearer of the Spirit of Lightto whom initiates lifted themselves up in one of two ways,by being led during special soul states either to the spiritof the superhuman element or to the essence of the powersof nature. Since the initiates of the mysteries predicted thatsuch a human being would appear in the course of time,they were the prophets of the Christ.

An exceptional prophet, in this sense, arose among theIsraelites, a people who had acquired Near Eastern ethniccharacteristics through natural heredity and Egyptianteachings through education. This prophet was Moses.His soul had been so thoroughly influenced by initiationthat in exceptional states of consciousness it received therevelation of the being who had formerly assumed therole of shaping human consciousness from the Moon in


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the normal course of Earth’s evolution. In thunder andlightning, Moses saw not only physical phenomena butalso the manifestations of this spirit. However, his soulhad also been worked on by mysteries of the other sort, sohe had astral visions of the superhuman element becom-ing human through the I. Thus the being who was to comewas disclosed to Moses from two directions as the highestform of the I.

With the appearance of the Christ, the great prototypeprepared for humanity by the exalted Sun-being appearedin human form. In certain respects, all mystery wisdomhad to take on a new form at this point. Previously, thiswisdom had existed only in order to make people capableof entering a state of soul in which they could perceive thedomain of the Sun spirit outside of earthly evolution.From this point onward, mystery wisdom was given thetask of making people able to recognize the Christ whohad become human and to understand the natural andspiritual worlds out of this center of all wisdom.

At that moment in the life of Christ Jesus when Hisastral body first contained everything that Lucifer’sintervention can conceal, He began to appear as theteacher of humanity, and human evolution on Earthbegan to be implanted with the potential to take up thewisdom that will allow the gradual attainment of Earth’sphysical goal. And at the moment when the event ofGolgotha took place, the other possibility, which canallow Ahriman’s influence to be turned toward the good,was implanted in humanity. From this point onward,human beings can take with them into death that which


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frees them from isolation in the spiritual world. Thisevent in Palestine stands in the center, not only ofhumankind’s physical evolution, but also of that of theother worlds to which human beings belong. When theMystery of Golgotha was accomplished, when the Christhad undergone death on the cross, He appeared in theworld where souls lingered after death and set limits onAhriman’s power, illuminating the regions that theGreeks had called “the kingdom of shades” with a spiri-tual bolt of lightning that showed its inhabitants that lightwas meant to enter it again. What was accomplished onbehalf of the physical world through the Mystery ofGolgotha cast its light into the spiritual world.

Until this event, humankind’s post-Atlantean evolutionhad been a time of ascent for the physical world of thesenses, but also a time of decline for the spiritual world.Everything that flowed into the sensory world had its ori-gins in what had already been present in the spiritualworld since primeval times. But ever since the Christevent, people who lift themselves up to the Christ mys-tery are able to take what they have struggled to achievein the sensory world with them into the spiritual world.From the spiritual world it then flows back into theearthly world of the senses through reincarnating humanbeings who bring with them what the Christ impulse hasbecome for them in the spiritual world between death anda new birth.

What flowed into humanity’s evolution through theappearance of the Christ worked within it like a seed thatcould only ripen gradually. Until now, only the very


smallest part of this profound new wisdom has flowedinto physical existence, which is only at the very begin-ning of its Christian evolution. During the ages that haveelapsed since the Christ’s appearance, Christian evolutionhas always been able to disclose only as much of its inneressence as individuals and peoples were able to receiveand absorb through their capacity for thought. Thisknowledge was first cast in a form that could be called acomprehensive ideal for life. As such, it opposed theforms of life that post-Atlantean humanity had developed.

Earlier in this book, the conditions prevailing inhumanity’s evolution since the repopulating of the Earthin Lemurian times were described. We saw that withregard to their souls, human beings may be traced back tovarious beings who came from other heavenly bodies andincarnated into the bodily descendants of the ancientLemurians. The different races of human beings resultfrom this fact. As a result of their karma, these reincar-nated souls had widely diverging interests in life. As longas all of this was still in effect, the ideal of “universalhumanity” could not exist. Humanity had its origins in aunity, but up to this point all of Earth’s evolution led onlyto separation. The Christ concept supplied an ideal thatcounteracts all separation, because the forces of theexalted Sun-being who is the origin of each human I alsolived in the human being who bore the name of Christ.The Israelites still experienced themselves first and fore-most as an ethnic group; the individual was a member ofthat group. To begin with, the fact that the ideal human


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being dwells in Christ Jesus and is untouched by divisivecircumstances was grasped only as a thought, and Chris-tianity became the ideal of all-embracing fellowship.Above and beyond all special interests and relationships,the feeling arose that each person’s inner I has the sameorigin. Alongside all of our earthly ancestors, the com-mon father of all human beings appears: “I and the Fatherare one” [John 10:30].

In Europe, the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries A.D.paved the way in Europe for a cultural epoch that beganin the fifteenth century and is still going on today. Thisfifth post-Atlantean epoch was to gradually replace thefourth or Greco-Latin epoch. The ethnic groups whobecame the vehicle for this age after undergoing variousmigrations and destinies were descended from theAtlanteans who had been least touched by everything thathad taken place in the four preceding cultural epochs.They had not moved into areas where these cultures tookroot, but had reproduced the cultures of Atlantis in theirown way. There were many individuals among them whohad retained the legacy of ancient dusklike clairvoy-ance—the condition we described as being halfwaybetween waking and sleeping—to a great extent. Thesepeople knew the spiritual world as a matter of personalexperience and were able to communicate what wasgoing on in that world to their fellows. A whole world oftales about spiritual beings and spiritual events was builtup. Our ethnic treasure troves of fairy tales and legendsoriginally developed out of spiritual experiences of thissort, since the dusklike clairvoyance that many people


possessed persisted right down into the recent past. Oth-ers had lost their clairvoyance, but they developed theiracquired abilities, which related to the physical world ofthe senses, according to feelings and sensations that werein harmony with these clairvoyant experiences.

Here, too, the Atlantean oracles had successors in themystery centers that were everywhere. However, thesecrets of initiation that developed in these mysterieswere primarily ones leading to revelation of the spiritualworld that Ahriman had blocked; that is, they disclosedthe spiritual powers behind the forces of nature. The var-ious European mythologies contain the remnants of whatthe initiates of these mysteries could disclose to people.However, these mythologies also include the other secret,although in a less perfect form than the southern and east-ern mysteries. Superhuman beings were also known inEurope, but people saw them as constantly doing battlewith Lucifer’s companions. They did in fact proclaim theGod of Light, but in such a form that it was impossible totell whether he would succeed in overcoming Lucifer.However, the figure of the Christ who was to come alsoilluminated these mysteries. It was prophesied that Hiskingdom would succeed that of the other god of light. (Allthe legends about the twilight of the gods and the likehave their origin in this European mystery-knowledge.)

These influences led to a split within the human soulduring the fifth cultural epoch. This split still exists todayand is evident in many different phenomena of life.Human souls did not retain enough of an inclinationtoward the spirit from ancient times to be able to preserve


the connection between the spiritual and sense-percepti-ble worlds. This connection was retained only as a matterof feeling and sensation, but not as a direct perception ofthe spiritual world. In contrast, human beings were pay-ing more and more attention to perceiving and controllingthe sense-perceptible world. The intellectual forces thatawakened in the last Atlantean period—all those forces inthe human being that use the physical brain as theirinstrument—were developed in the context of knowingand controlling the sense world. Two worlds developedwithin the human breast, so to speak. One of them isturned toward physical, sense-perceptible existence,while the other is receptive to the revelation of the spiri-tual element in order to penetrate it by means of feelingand sensation but without direct perception.

This split in the soul was already prefigured when theteaching of the Christ flowed into these areas of Europe.People took this message of the spirit to heart, imbuingtheir sensation and feeling with it, but were not able tobuild a bridge between it and what their sense-orientedintellect was exploring in physical, sense-perceptibleexistence. The divergence we recognize today betweenouter science and inner spiritual knowledge is simply aconsequence of this state of affairs. The Christian mysti-cism of Eckhart, Tauler, and others was the result of imbu-ing feeling and sensation with Christianity,6 while theexclusively sense-oriented natural sciences and their

6. Master Eckhart (1260–1327), and Johannes Tauler (1300–1361),Dominican monks and mystics.


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effects on our life are the results of the soul’s other predis-position. We owe all our accomplishments in the domainof outer material culture entirely to this separation of ourcapacities. Through our one-sided turning toward physicallife, the faculties that use the brain as their instrument wereenhanced to the point where modern science, technology,and so on, became possible. This material culture couldoriginate only among the peoples of Europe, because theywere the Atlantean descendants who developed their incli-nation toward the physical, sense-perceptible world intospecific faculties only once that inclination had alreadyachieved a certain maturity. They had previously allowedit to remain dormant, subsisting on their legacy ofAtlantean clairvoyance and on the communications oftheir initiates. Whereas outwardly the spiritual culture wasdevoted wholly to these influences, their sense for control-ling the material world was gradually maturing.

At present, however, the sixth post-Atlantean culturalepoch is already dawning, for whenever something ismeant to come about at some future point in humanity’sevolution, it gradually matures during the preceding age.It is already possible now to begin to discover the threadthat will bind the two sides of the human breast—mate-rial culture and life in the spiritual world—togetheragain. On the one hand, this requires that we understandthe results of spiritual perception; on the other, that werecognize the manifestations of the spirit in our observa-tions of and experiences in the world of the senses. Thesixth cultural epoch will fully develop the harmonybetween these two things.


This brings our narrative to the point where we can shiftfrom looking at the past to looking at the future. How-ever, we will do better to consider the process of initiationand knowledge of the higher world first, and then followthis up by briefly presenting a view of the future, to theextent that this is possible within the scope of this book.

Knowledge of Higher Worlds — Initiation 281

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C H A P T E R 5

KNOWLEDGE OF HIGHER WORLDS

—INITIATION

Between birth and death, human beings at our presentstage of evolution experience three states of conscious-ness during ordinary life: waking, sleeping, and the statebetween them, dreaming. Dreaming will be consideredbriefly later on in this book, but here let’s look at life inits two main alternating states, waking and sleeping.

We achieve knowledge of higher worlds by acquiring athird state in addition to sleeping and waking. When weare awake, our souls are devoted to sensory impressionsand the mental images they stimulate. When we sleep,these sensory impressions are silenced, but our souls alsolose consciousness; the experiences of the day sink downinto a sea of unconsciousness. Now let’s imagine that thesleeping soul is capable of becoming conscious in spite ofthe fact that all sensory perceptions are excluded, as isotherwise the case in deep sleep, and that not even a mem-ory of the day’s experiences is present. In that case, wouldthe soul find itself in a state of nothingness? Would it beunable to have any experiences at all?


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[3]

It is only possible to answer these questions if we canactually induce a state of consciousness similar to this, ifthe soul is actually able to experience something even inthe total absence of current and remembered sensoryimpressions. In this case, although the soul would seemasleep with regard to the ordinary outer world, it would notbe asleep but would confront a real world just as it does inthe waking state. Now, this state of consciousness can beinduced if we bring about the soul experiences made pos-sible by spiritual science. Everything spiritual science tellsus about the worlds lying beyond the world of thesenses—including the information given in precedingchapters of this book—has been investigated by means ofthis state of consciousness. This chapter will discuss, tothe extent possible in this book, the methods used to createthe state of consciousness needed for this research.

This state of consciousness is similar to sleep in onlyone respect, namely that it puts an end to all outer senseimpressions and eliminates all the thoughts stimulated bythese impressions. But although during sleep the souldoes not have the strength to experience anything con-sciously, this other state of consciousness provides thisstrength, awakening a perceptive ability that only sensoryimpressions can arouse during our ordinary life. Thesoul’s awakening to this higher state of consciousness canbe called initiation.

Initiation methods lead us out of our usual state of wak-ing consciousness into a soul activity that makes use ofspiritual instruments of observation. These instrumentsare already present in the soul in a seminal state, but they


need to be developed. Now it’s possible for people to dis-cover at a certain point in the course of their lives thatthese higher instruments have developed spontaneously,without any special preparation, and that a certain invol-untary self-awakening has taken place. As a result, thesepeople find that their essential nature is totally trans-formed and that their soul experiences are infinitelyenriched. They also find that no knowledge of the sensoryworld can possibly provide the bliss, soul satisfaction,and inner warmth that they now experience as a result ofwhat is being disclosed to understanding that is not acces-sible to the physical eye. Strength and certainty will flowinto their will from a spiritual world.

Such instances of self-initiation do occur, but theyshould not tempt us to believe that the only right thing todo is to wait for this to happen and do nothing to bring ini-tiation about through appropriate training. Since self-initi-ation can come about without observing rules of any sort,it is not necessary to talk about it here, but what will bedescribed is how training can develop the seminal organsof perception lying dormant in the soul. People who feel noparticular urge to do something for the sake of their owndevelopment may easily say that human life stands underthe guidance of spiritual powers and that instead of inter-vening in this guidance, we should patiently await themoment when these powers find it right to disclose anotherworld to our souls. These people may well feel that there isa certain presumptuousness or unjustified desire in wantingto interfere with wise spiritual guidance. People who thinklike this will change their minds only when one particular


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thought makes a strong enough impression on them. Thisthought is: “This wise guidance has given me certain fac-ulties, not so that they will remain unused, but so that I canput them to use. The wisdom in this guidance lies in thefact that it has planted the seeds of a higher state of con-sciousness in me. I understand this guidance only if I feelthat human beings have an obligation to reveal everythingtheir own spiritual powers can possibly reveal.” If thisthought has made a strong enough impression on the soul,then the above-mentioned doubts about training for ahigher state of consciousness will disappear.

However, another doubt can still arise about this train-ing. We might say, “Developing inner soul faculties con-stitutes an intervention in an individual’s hidden holiestof holies and involves a certain transformation of that per-son’s entire nature. It is inherently impossible for us toindependently conceive of the means for bringing aboutsuch a transformation, because only those who have per-sonally experienced reaching a higher world can knowhow to do it. But if we turn to a person like this, we permitthat person to have an influence on our own soul’s hiddenholiest of holies.” Even having methods for bringingabout a higher state of consciousness presented in bookform would not be particularly reassuring to people whothink like this, because the point is not whether wereceive this information as an oral communication orlearn about these methods from someone who knowsabout them and presents them in a book.

There are indeed people who are knowledgeable aboutthe rules for developing spiritual organs of perception but


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subscribe to the view that these rules should not beentrusted to a book. In general, these people also considerit impermissible to communicate certain truths having todo with the spiritual world. Given the present stage ofhumankind’s evolution, however, this view must be con-sidered outdated in a certain way. It is true that we can goonly so far in communicating the rules in question, but theinformation that can be provided leads far enough so thatthose who apply it to their own souls will reach a point inthe development of their knowledge where they will thenbe able to discover the rest of the way. Only personal pre-vious experience on the path to spiritual knowledge cangive us the right idea about how this path then leads on.

All these facts can give rise to doubts about the path tospiritual knowledge, but these doubts disappear when weconsider the nature of the course of development indi-cated by the training that is appropriate to our times. Thisis the path that will be discussed here. Other methods oftraining will be mentioned only briefly.

The training that will be discussed here will providethose who have the will to develop their higher facultieswith the means for beginning to transform their souls.There is no question of dubious intervention in the stu-dent’s inner nature unless the teacher attempts to bringabout this transformation through methods that elude thestudent’s consciousness, and no instruction in spiritualdevelopment that is appropriate for our times makes useof methods like that. Appropriate instruction does notmake the student into an unconscious instrument; it sup-plies rules of conduct which the student then implements.


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When the occasion arises, the reason for laying downsome particular rule will not be withheld. People search-ing for spiritual development do not need to receive andapply these rules as a matter of blind faith. In fact, blindfaith is totally out of place in this area.

If we have not yet begun spiritual training ourselves buthave considered the nature of the human soul simply as itreveals itself to our ordinary self-observation, we can askourselves after receiving the recommended rules of spiri-tual training: How can these rules affect our soul life?Even without any training, we can answer this questionadequately by applying our healthy common sense in anunbiased way. We can get the right idea of how theserules work even before we subject ourselves to them,although only training itself allows us to actually experi-ence how they work. Even then, our experience willalways be accompanied by understanding only if soundjudgment accompanies each step we take. In this day andage, any true science of the spirit will provide only rulesthat can stand up to the scrutiny of sound judgment. If weare ready and willing to undertake only this kind of train-ing and do not permit any bias to drive us into blind faith,all our doubts will disappear. We will not be disturbed byany objections that can be raised about an appropriatetraining in attaining a higher state of consciousness.

This training is not superfluous even for those whoseinner maturity can eventually lead to self-awakening oftheir spiritual organs of perception. On the contrary, it isespecially suitable for them, because people like thisalmost invariably have to make many roundabout, useless


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detours before self-initiation takes place. Training sparesthem these detours and leads them forward on a straightpath. Self-initiation is a result of having achieved theappropriate degree of maturity during preceding life-times. It can very easily happen that a soul rejects trainingout of a certain dim sense of its own maturity, since thisfeeling can create a certain arrogance that prevents theperson from having confidence in a true spiritual training.It is also possible for a certain level of soul developmentto remain concealed and appear only at a certain age. Insuch cases, training can be exactly the right way to makeit appear, but if the person in question remains closed tothe possibility of training, it may well be that his or herability will remain concealed during the present lifetimeand will appear again only during some subsequent life.

It is important to avoid certain obvious misunderstand-ings with regard to the training in supersensible knowl-edge that is intended here. One such misunderstanding canarise from thinking that this training intends to make itsstudents into different beings with regard to how they leadtheir entire lives. But this is not a question of giving peoplegeneral instructions on how to conduct their lives, it’s aquestion of telling them about soul practices they can carryout in order to learn to observe the supersensible element.These practices have no direct influence on the parts oftheir lives that lie outside of supersensible observation.People acquire the gift of supersensible observation inaddition to these other parts of their lives. This perceptiveactivity is just as separate from life’s ordinary functions asthe waking state is from sleep. One state cannot interfere


with the other in the least. Wanting to have impressions ofthe supersensible interspersed in the course of life’s ordi-nary events would be like dealing with constant,unhealthy interruptions to your sleep when you are ill. Thestudent must be able to induce the state of observingsupersensible reality through an act of free will.

Indirectly, however, supersensible training is related tocertain standards of conduct inasmuch as insight into thesupersensible is either impossible or harmful without acertain ethical attitude toward life. For this reason, muchof what leads to supersensible observation is also a meansof ennobling how we lead our lives. On the other hand,insight into the supersensible world allows us to recog-nize higher moral impulses that also apply to the physicalworld of the senses. Certain moral necessities can only berecognized from the supersensible world.

A second misunderstanding consists in believing thatsoul practices leading to supersensible cognition mightinvolve changes in the physical body’s structure or func-tioning. On the contrary, these practices have nothing atall to do with anything that is any business of physiol-ogy’s, or of any other branch of natural science, for thatmatter. They are purely spiritual soul-processes that areas far removed from anything physical as healthy think-ing and perception are. What happens in the soul as aresult of such practices is no different in character fromwhat happens during healthy thinking or conclusion-forming. The processes involved in a real training insupersensible knowledge have just as much or little to dowith the body as healthy thinking does, and anything that


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relates to the human being in any other way is a distortionof true spiritual training rather than the real thing. Thepresentation that follows is to be taken in the spirit ofwhat has been said here. If supersensible training seemsto require things that would make a person into somethingelse, this is simply because supersensible cognition pro-ceeds from a person’s entire soul. In actual fact, it is sim-ply a question of instruction in practices that make itpossible for the soul to bring about moments in its lifewhen it can observe the supersensible.

. . . . . . . .

It is only possible to rise to a state of supersensible con-sciousness from ordinary waking consciousness, the statethe soul lives in prior to its ascent. Training provides thesoul with methods that will lead it out of the ordinarywaking state. Among the first methods provided by thetraining we are discussing here are some that can still bedescribed as functions of ordinary waking consciousness.The most important of these consist of silent activities ofthe soul. The soul is meant to devote itself to certain spe-cific mental images that have the intrinsic power toawaken certain hidden faculties in the human soul. Suchmental images are different from those of our daily wak-ing life, whose purpose is to depict outer things—themore truly they do this, the truer they themselves are, andit is part of their essential nature to be “true” in this sense.This is not the purpose of the mental images the soul con-centrates on when its goal is spiritual training. Theseimages are not structured so as to reproduce anything


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external, but to have an awakening effect on the soul. Thebest thought pictures for this purpose are symbolic ones,but others can be used also. The content of these mentalimages is not the point; the point is that the soul devotesall its energies to having nothing in its consciousnessother than the mental image in question.

In our everyday soul life, the soul’s energies aredivided among many different things and our mentalimages shift rapidly. In spiritual training, however, thepoint is to concentrate the soul’s entire activity on a singlemental image that is freely chosen as a focus for con-sciousness. For this reason, symbolic images are betterthan ones that represent outer objects or processes andhave a point of contact with the outer world, since thesedo not force the soul to rely on itself to the same extent asit does with symbols that it creates out of its own energy.It’s not important what is imagined, but only that the pro-cess of visualizing the image frees the soul from depen-dence on anything physical.

By calling to mind the concept of memory, we canbegin to grasp what it means to immerse ourselves in avisualized image. For example, if we look at a tree andthen turn away from it so that we can no longer see it, wecan reawaken the mental image of the tree out of ourmemory. The mental image we have of a tree when it isnot actually present before our eyes is the memory of thetree. Now let’s imagine that we retain this memory in oursoul; we allow the soul to rest on this memory image andattempt to exclude all other images. Then the soul isimmersed in the memory image of the tree. But although


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the soul is immersed in a mental image, this image is acopy of something perceived by our senses. However, ifwe attempt the same thing with an image that we insertinto our consciousness through an act of free will, we willgradually be able to achieve the necessary effect.

We will illustrate this with a single example of con-templating or meditating on a symbolic mental image.First, this mental image must be built up in the soul. I cando this as follows: I imagine a plant taking root in theground, sprouting one leaf after another, and continuingto develop up to the point of flowering. Then I imagine ahuman being alongside this plant. In my soul, I bring tolife the thought that this human being has qualities andabilities that can be called more perfect than those of theplant. I think about how human beings are able to movearound in response to their feelings and intentions, whileplants are attached to the ground. But then I also noticethat although human beings are certainly more perfectthan plants, they also have characteristics that we cannotperceive in plants, characteristics whose absence canactually make plants seem more perfect than humans.Human beings are filled with desires and passions whichtheir actions obey, and certain errors result from thesedrives and passions. In contrast, I see how plants obeythe pure laws of growth as they develop one leaf afteranother and open their flowers without passion to thechaste rays of the Sun. I can say that human beings havean advantage over plants with regard to a certain type ofperfection, but that the price they have paid for this per-fection is to allow urges, desires, and passions to enter


their nature alongside the forces of the plants that seemso pure to me.

Next I visualize the green sap flowing through the plantand imagine this as an expression of the pure, passionlesslaws of growth. Then I visualize the red blood flowingthrough human arteries and imagine it as an expression ofurges, desires, and passions. I allow all this to arise in mysoul as a vivid thought. Then I think about how humanbeings are capable of development, how they can use thehigher soul faculties to cleanse and purify their urges andpassions. I think about how this destroys a baser elementin these urges and passions, which are then reborn on ahigher level. The blood may then be imagined as theexpression of these cleansed and purified urges and pas-sions. For example, in the spirit I see a rose and say: In thered sap of the rose blossom I see the color of the plant’sgreen sap transformed into red, and the red rose, like thegreen leaf, obeys the pure, passionless laws of growth.Let the red of the rose symbolize the blood that is anexpression of purified urges and passions. They havebeen stripped of their baser element and are now similarin purity to the forces that are active in the red rose.

I now try not only to assimilate these thoughts with myintellect, but also to bring them to life in my feeling. I canhave a blissful sensation when I imagine the growingplant’s purity and absence of passion; I can generate afeeling in myself for the price human beings must pay forgreater perfection by acquiring urges and desires. Thiscan transform my earlier bliss into a serious feeling. Next,a feeling of liberating happiness can stir in me as I devote


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myself to the thought of the red blood that can become thevehicle of inwardly pure experiences, just like the red sapof the rose blossom.

It is important not to unfeelingly confront the thoughtsthat serve to build up a symbolic mental image such asthis. After having basked in these thoughts and feelings,we transform them into this symbolic image: We imaginea black cross. Let this be the symbol of the baser elementthat has been eliminated from our urges and passions. Weimagine seven radiant red roses arranged in a circle wherethe two beams of the cross intersect. Let these be the sym-bol of the blood that is an expression of cleansed, purifiedpassions and urges.1 This symbolic image must now becalled up before our mind’s eye in the way described ear-lier with regard to a memory image. A symbolic mentalimage such as this has the power to awaken our soulswhen we inwardly immerse ourselves in it and devoteourselves to it. We must try to exclude all other mentalimages while we are immersed in this one. We must allowonly this symbol to linger before our mind’s eye in thespirit, and it must be as vivid as possible.

1. The point here is not the extent to which any particular natural scien-tific view can or cannot find these thoughts justifiable. The point is todevelop thoughts about plants and human beings that can be acquiredby means of simple, direct observation without any theory whatsoever.These thoughts do have a value alongside other, more theoretical ideas(which are no less valuable in other respects) about things in the outerworld. In this case, the purpose of these thoughts is not to present factsin a scientific way, but to build up a symbol that proves effective on asoul level, regardless of whatever objections may occur to one or theother individual as it is being built up.—R. STEINER.


It is not without significance that this symbol was notimmediately proffered as a soul-awakening image butwas first built up by means of specific ideas about plantsand human beings, because the effectiveness of a symbollike this depends on its being put together in this waybefore it is used for meditation. If we imagine it withoutfirst having gone through this buildup in our own souls,the symbol remains cold and is much less effective thanif it has received its soul-illuminating power through thispreparation. During meditation, however, we should notsummon up all of these preparatory thoughts but shouldonly allow the image to linger vividly before us in thespirit while permitting the feeling we had as a result ofthese preparatory thoughts to resonate. In this way, thesymbol becomes a token of this experience of feeling,and its effectiveness is due to the fact that the soul dwellson this experience. The longer we can dwell on it withouta different and disruptive image intervening, the moreeffective the whole process will be. However, outside ofthe time we set aside for actual meditation, it is a goodidea to frequently repeat the process of building up theimage through thoughts and feelings of the typedescribed above, so that the feeling doesn’t fade away.The more patience we have in renewing it, the more sig-nificant the image becomes for our souls. (Additionalexamples of methods of meditation are explained in mybook How to Know Higher Worlds.2 Described there are

2. How to Know Higher Worlds: A Modern Path of Initiation, Anthro-posophic Press, Hudson, NY, 1994.


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meditations on becoming and dying in plants, the cre-ative forces lying dormant in seeds, the forms of crys-tals, and so on, which are especially effective. The intenthere was to use a single example to demonstrate thenature of meditation.)

A symbol such as the one described here is not a copyof any outer thing or being that nature has produced, butthis very fact gives it the power to awaken certain facul-ties that are strictly soul-like in character. However, anobjection could be raised to this. Someone might say,“It’s true that the symbol as a whole is not present innature, but all its details have been borrowed from nature:the black color, the roses, and so on. All these things areperceived by the senses.” Anyone who is bothered by thisobjection should consider the fact that the process ofreproducing the sense perceptions is not what leads toawakening our higher soul faculties, but that this isbrought about solely through how these details are com-bined, and the combination itself does not depict anythingthat is present in the world of the senses.

This symbol was intended to illustrate the process ofeffective meditation. In spiritual training, any number ofimages of this sort could be used, and they could be builtup in many different ways. Certain sentences, phrases, orsingle words may also be assigned as subjects for medita-tion. The goal of all of these methods of meditation, how-ever, is to tear the soul away from sensory perception andto rouse it to activity in which physical sense impressionsare meaningless and the development of dormant innersoul faculties becomes the essential thing.


It is also possible to meditate only on feelings, sensa-tions, and so on, and such meditations prove to be espe-cially effective. Let’s take the feeling of joy, for example.In the normal course of our lives, our souls may experi-ence joy when an outer stimulus for it is present. A soulwith healthy feelings who sees a person doing somethingout of the goodness of his or her heart will experience sat-isfaction and joy. But this soul can then proceed to thinkabout an action of this sort, saying “When something isdone out of the goodness of someone’s heart, the person inquestion is acting not in his or her own interest but in theinterest of fellow human beings. Such an action may becalled morally good.” The meditating soul, however, canfree itself completely from its mental image of the individ-ual case in the outer world that has given it joy or satisfac-tion, and it can then form a comprehensive idea ofgoodheartedness. Perhaps it thinks of how goodhearted-ness comes about when one soul absorbs another’s interestand makes it its own. The meditating soul can then feel joyin this moral idea of goodheartedness. This joy is not dueto any process in the sensory world; it is joy in an idea assuch. If we attempt to keep such joy alive in the soul for acertain length of time, we are meditating on a feeling, asensation. What then becomes effective in arousing ourinner soul faculties is not the idea itself, but rather theongoing influence of a feeling within the soul that has notbeen stimulated by a mere individual outer impression.

Since supersensible knowledge is able to delve moredeeply into the essence of things than our ordinary think-ing, meditating on feelings derived from supersensible


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experience is much more effective in developing soul fac-ulties. As necessary as this may be for higher levels oftraining, we must be aware that we can go quite far simplythrough energetic meditation on feelings and sensationsof the sort typified by the meditation on goodheartedness.

Since people differ in their essential character, differenttraining methods will be effective for different individuals.With regard to how long meditation should last, we mustkeep in mind that the calmer and more deliberate this med-itation can become, the stronger its effect will be. How-ever, any excesses in this direction should be avoided. Theexercises themselves teach us a certain inner discretionand can show us the limits to observe in this regard.

As a rule, such meditation exercises will have to be car-ried out for a long time before the person doing them isable to perceive their results. Patience and persistence areabsolute prerequisites of spiritual training. People who donot summon up both of these attitudes, who do not calmlycontinue to do their exercises with patience and persis-tence forming a constant underlying mood in their souls,will not accomplish much.

It should have become evident by now that meditationis a means of acquiring knowledge about higher worlds.However, it should also be evident that not just any arbi-trary thought content will lead to this knowledge, but onlyone that has been organized as described.

The path that is pointed out here leads first to what canbe called imaginative cognition, which is the first stage ofhigher knowledge. Cognition based on sensory percep-tions and their assimilation by the sense-bound intellect


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can be called “object cognition” in the sense of spiritualscience. Beyond this lie higher levels of cognition, the firstof which is imaginative cognition. The term imaginativemay cause doubts on the part of those who think of imag-ination only in terms of illusory ideas that don’t corre-spond to anything real. In spiritual science, however,“imaginative” cognition must be understood as cognitionthat comes about through a supersensible state of con-sciousness in the soul. Our senses have no access to thespiritual realities and beings that are perceived in this state.Because this state of consciousness is awakened in the soulby meditating on symbols, or imaginations, the worldbelonging to this higher state of consciousness can becalled the imaginative world and the cognition that appliesto it can be called imaginative cognition. Therefore, imag-inative means something that is “real” in a different sensethan the realities and beings of sensory, physical percep-tion. The content of the mental images that fill our imagi-native experience is not important at all; what is importantis the soul faculty this experience develops.

One very natural objection to using the symbolic imagesdescribed here is that they are shaped by dreamlike think-ing and arbitrary imagination and can therefore only havedubious results. Doubts of this sort are unjustified withregard to the particular symbols that form the basis of gen-uine spiritual training, because these symbols are chosenin such a way that it is entirely possible to disregard theirconnection to any outer sensory reality and to seek theirvalue only in the force they exert on the soul when it with-draws all of its attention from the outer world, suppresses


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all sensory impressions, and excludes all thoughts it mightentertain as a result of external stimulation.

The meditative state is best illustrated by comparing itto the sleeping state. These two states are similar in onerespect and totally opposite in another. Meditation issleep that constitutes a higher form of wakefulness incomparison to our ordinary consciousness during the day.The important point is that concentrating on the idea orimage in question forces the soul to summon up muchstronger forces from its own depths than it does in ordi-nary life or ordinary cognition. This increases its innerliveliness. It frees itself from the body just as it does dur-ing sleep, but without falling into a state of unconscious-ness. Instead, it experiences a world it did not experiencebefore. Although this soul state is similar to sleep in thatthe soul is released from the body, in comparison to ordi-nary day consciousness it can be described as a state ofheightened wakefulness. This allows the soul to experi-ence itself in its true inner independent nature. In contrast,because the soul’s own forces do not develop to the sameextent in the ordinary daily waking state, it can onlybecome conscious of itself there with the help of the body.As a result, it does not experience itself but only becomesaware of itself in the reflection-like image that the body(or actually the body’s processes) presents to it.

By their very nature, symbols built up in the waydescribed above do not yet relate to anything real in thespiritual world. They serve to free the human soul fromsensory perception and from the brain, the instrument towhich our intellect is initially bound. This cannot happen


before we feel that we are imagining something by meansof forces that do not use the brain and the senses as theirtools. The first thing we experience on this path is thisprocess of being freed from our physical organs. We canthen say that our consciousness is not extinguished whenwe disregard sensory perceptions and ordinary intellec-tual thinking; we are able to rise above them and experi-ence ourselves as individual beings alongside what wewere previously. This is the first purely spiritual experi-ence—observing an “I”-being of soul and spirit, a newself that has risen up out of the self that is bound only tothe physical senses and the physical intellect.

If we freed ourselves from the world of the senses andthe intellect without meditation, we would sink downinto the “nothingness” of unconsciousness. Of course,we each have a being of soul and spirit prior to medita-tion, but at that point it has no tools for observing thespiritual world. It is something similar to a physical bodywithout eyes for seeing or ears for hearing. The energyapplied during meditation first creates organs of soul andspirit in a previously unorganized soul-spiritual being.What is created in this way is also the first thing we per-ceive, so in a certain sense our first experience is a self-perception. It belongs to the very nature of spiritualtraining that at this point in its development, the soulpracticing self-education is fully conscious of the factthat it first perceives itself in the world of images (imag-inations) that appears as a result of the exercises thathave been described. Although these images appear tobe living in a new world, the soul must recognize that to


begin with they are nothing more than a reflection of itsown being, strengthened by these exercises. Not onlymust the soul recognize this and assess the situation cor-rectly, it must also have developed its will sufficiently tobe able to remove or extinguish these images from con-sciousness at any time. Within these images, the soulmust be able to act freely and completely deliberately.This belongs to a genuine spiritual training at this point.If the soul were not able to do this, its situation in thedomain of spiritual experience would be similar to thatof a soul in the physical world if its eyes were fixated onobjects and unable to look away.

There is only one exception to the rule that it must bepossible to extinguish images, and that is a group of innerpictorial experiences that must not be extinguished at thisstage of spiritual training. They correspond to the core ofthe soul’s own being. In these images, each student of thespirit recognizes his or her fundamental being, the aspectof the self that moves through repeated Earth lives. At thispoint, sensing repeated Earth lives becomes a real experi-ence. In all other instances, however, the above-men-tioned independence with regard to spiritual experiencesmust prevail. Only after having acquired the ability toextinguish our experiences do we approach the real spiri-tual world outside of ourselves. In place of what we haveextinguished, something else appears, and we recognizeits spiritual reality. We feel that our souls are outgrowingsomething undefined and becoming something defined.We must then move on from self-perception to observingan outer world of soul and spirit. This happens when we


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structure our inner experience along the lines of what willbe described next.

To begin with, the souls of spiritual students are weakwith regard to everything that is perceptible in the worldof soul and spirit. During meditation, they will have toexpend a great deal of inner energy to hold onto the sym-bols or mental images that they have built up out of thesense world’s stimuli. But if they also want to achievereal observation in a higher world, they must be able to domore than merely hold onto these visualizations. Havingdone this, they must also be able to spend a certainamount of time in a state that not only permits no stimulifrom the outer world of the senses to affect the soul, butalso eliminates the earlier visualizations from conscious-ness. Only after this has been done can what has takenshape through meditation appear in consciousness. Thepoint is that from now on the soul must have enough innerstrength so that what has taken shape in this way is reallyperceived spiritually and does not escape attention, whichis all too possible when the soul’s inner energy is stillonly weakly developed. The organism of soul and spiritwhich begins to develop, and which the student is meantto grasp in self-perception, is delicate and fleeting. Thedisturbances from the sense-perceptible outer world andfrom its aftereffects in memory are great, no matter howhard we try to keep them at bay. It is not just a questionof the disturbances we notice, but even more of those weare completely unaware of in ordinary life.

However, in this context the very nature of the humanbeing makes a transitional state possible. It is possible for


the soul to accomplish in the sleeping state what is ini-tially impossible for it in the waking state because of dis-turbances from the physical world. If we devote ourselvesto inner contemplation and are then properly attentive towhat happens during sleep, we will notice that we are not“fast asleep,” that our souls have times when they are stillactive in a certain way in spite of being asleep. Duringthese states, natural processes keep the influences of theouter world at bay even though the waking soul is not yetstrong enough to ward them off under its own power. Butif the meditation exercises have already taken effect, thesoul frees itself from unconsciousness during sleep andsenses the world of spirit and soul.

This can happen in two different ways. Either we areable to realize during sleep that we are now in anotherworld, or we are able on waking to recall having beenthere. The first instance requires greater inner energy thanthe second, which is therefore more prevalent amongbeginners in spiritual training. Students can gradually getto the point where they realize after they wake up that thewhole time they were sleeping was spent in anotherworld, and that they emerged from this world when theywoke up. Their memories of the beings and realities ofthis other world will become ever more definite. In onesense or another, what can be called “continuity of con-sciousness”—that is, the continuation of consciousnessduring sleep—has set in. This does not mean, however,that these people are always conscious during sleep. It isalready a big step toward continuity of consciousness ifpeople who otherwise sleep just like anyone else have


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certain times during sleep when they can look, as thoughconsciously, into a world of spirit and soul, or if they canlook back in memory on these brief conscious states whenthey are awake.

We must not forget, however, that what is describedhere is only meant to be a transitional state. If our purposeis to train ourselves, it’s good to go through this transi-tional state, but we should not believe that we shouldderive a conclusive view of the world of spirit and soulfrom it. In this state, the soul is uncertain and not yet ableto trust its perceptions. Through such experiences, how-ever, it gathers more and more strength in order eventu-ally to be able to keep the disturbing influences of thephysical outer and inner worlds at bay when it is awake—and thus to observe the world of spirit and soul withoutbeing distracted by any impressions coming from thesenses, by the intellect that is bound to the physical brain,or even by the mental images of meditation, which weremerely a preparation for spiritual sight and have nowbeen removed from consciousness.

Anything spiritual science makes public in any formshould never originate in any other kind of soul-spiritobservation than the one that occurs in the fully wakingstate.

Two soul experiences are important as our spiritualtraining continues. One is what makes us able to say,“From now on, when I disregard all the impressions thephysical outer world can give me and look into my innerself, I will not be looking at a being whose activity istotally extinguished but at a being who is aware of itself


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in a world I knew nothing about as long I allowed myselfto be stimulated only by impressions from my senses andfrom my ordinary intellect.” At this moment, the soul hasthe feeling of having given birth to a new being withinitself, to the essential core of its own being, as describedabove. This new being has characteristics that are totallydifferent from those previously present in the soul.

The other experience is that of having the old beingstanding like a second being alongside the new. What weformerly experienced as containing us now turns intosomething we confront from outside in a certain respect.At times we experience ourselves outside of what we eachotherwise regarded as our own essential being, as theindividual I. It is as if we were now fully conscious of liv-ing in two I’s. One of them we have known all along; theother stands above it like a newborn being. We feel howthe first acquires a certain independence with regard tothe second, somewhat similar to how the human body hasa certain independence with regard to the first I. Thisexperience is very significant, because it makes us realizewhat it means to live in the world we are trying to reachthrough our training.

The second, newborn I can now be guided into percep-tion in the spiritual world. Within it, something candevelop that has the same significance for this spiritualworld as the sense organs have for the physical world ofthe senses. Once this development has advanced to thenecessary level, we will not only sense ourselves as new-born I’s but will begin to perceive spiritual realities andspiritual beings in the surroundings, just as we perceive


the physical world through our physical senses. This is athird important experience.

To really cope at this level of spiritual training, we mustcount on the fact that self-love and egotism will accom-pany the strengthening of our soul forces, appearing to adegree that we never experience in our ordinary soul life.It would be a mistake to believe that mere ordinary self-love is what we are talking about at this point. At thislevel of development, this powerful egotism is intensifiedto the point where it seems like a force of nature withinour own souls, and a rigorous will-training is required inorder to overcome it. This egotism is not produced byspiritual training; it is always present but becomes con-scious only when we experience the spirit. It is absolutelynecessary for will-training to go hand in hand with ourother spiritual training. We have a strong urge to feelblissfully happy in the world we have just created for our-selves; as described above, we must be able to extinguish,so to speak, what we have just worked so hard to bringabout. Having reached the imaginative world, we mustextinguish our selves, but egotism’s strongest urges agi-tate against this.

It is easy to believe that the exercises of spiritual train-ing are something external and disregard the soul’s moraldevelopment. In response, it must be said that the moralstrength that is needed to overcome egotism, as has beendescribed, cannot be acquired without elevating thesoul’s moral state to the corresponding level. Progress inspiritual training is unthinkable unless it is accompaniedby moral progress. Without moral strength, it would be


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impossible to defeat egotism. All talk of genuine spiritualtraining’s not being a moral training at the same time isinaccurate. Only those who have not experienced this per-sonally can doubt our ability to know that we are dealingwith realities in what we believe to be spiritual percep-tions and not with mere self-deceptions (visions, halluci-nations, and the like.)

The real fact of the matter, however, is that if we havereached this level through a genuine training, we will beable to distinguish mental images of our own creationfrom spiritual realities in the same way that any individu-als of sound common sense can distinguish their ownmental images of a hot piece of iron from the actual exist-ence of a piece they are touching. Healthy experience, andnothing else, reveals the difference. Even in the spiritualworld, life itself is the touchstone. Just as we know in thesense-perceptible world that an imagined piece of ironwill not burn our fingers no matter how hot we imagine itto be, trained students of the spirit know whether they areexperiencing a spiritual fact only in their imagination orwhether real facts or beings are making an impression ontheir awakened spiritual organs of perception. The gen-eral rules we have to observe during spiritual training soas not to fall victim to deceptions in this regard will bedescribed later on.

At this point, it is extremely important for students ofthe spirit to have acquired a very specific state of soulwhen they first became conscious of the newborn I, sinceit is through the I that we become able to guide our sensa-tions, mental images, and feelings; our urges, desires, and


passions. Perceptions and mental images cannot be left totheir own devices in the soul. They must be controlledthrough thoughtful deliberation. The I is what imple-ments the laws of thinking and uses them to bring orderinto our life of thoughts and mental images. Somethingsimilar is true of our desires, urges, inclinations, and pas-sions. Our ethical principles become the guides for thesesoul forces. Through moral judgment, the I becomes thesoul’s guide in this area. If an individual then extracts ahigher I from the ordinary one, the original I becomesindependent in a certain respect, and it loses as much vitalstrength as is given to the higher I.

Let’s suppose, however, that an individual who has notyet developed sufficient ability and stability with regardto laws of thinking and powers of judgment chooses togive birth to the higher I on this level. This person willonly be able to leave behind as much thinking ability forhis or her lower I as was developed previously. If theamount of orderly thinking is insufficient, a disorderly,confused, fantastical type of thinking and judging willappear in this person’s newly independent ordinary I.Because the newborn I in such a person can also only beweak, the confused lower I will dominate supersensibleperception and the person in question will not demon-strate balance in judging his or her observations of thesupersensible. If this person had developed the faculty oflogical thinking sufficiently, it would have been quitesafe to allow the lower I to be independent.

This is also true in the domain of ethics. If we have notachieved firmness in our moral judgments, if we have


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not sufficiently mastered our inclinations, urges, andpassions, we will allow the ordinary I to become inde-pendent under circumstances in which these soul forcesare still active. As a result, we may not apply the samehigh standards of truthfulness to our experiences ofsupersensible cognition as we do to what we raise to thelevel of consciousness in the outer physical world. Withthis slackened sense of truth, we could take all kinds offantastic imaginings for spiritual reality. Firmness in eth-ical judgments, steadiness of character, and thorough-ness of conscience must work into our sense for truth,having first been developed in the I that is left behindbefore the higher I becomes active for purposes of super-sensible cognition. This is not meant to scare peopleaway from spiritual training, but it does have to be takenvery seriously.

If we have the strength of will to do everything neces-sary to make the first I inwardly secure in carrying out itsfunctions, we have no reason to be afraid of freeing thesecond I through spiritual training to pursue supersensiblecognition. However, we must be aware of how powerfulself-deception is when it comes to feeling “mature”enough to undertake something. Students in the spiritualtraining that is described here develop their thought life tothe extent that they will never be in danger of going astray,although this is often assumed to be inevitable. Thisthought development makes all the necessary inner expe-riences appear and be played out in the soul as they shouldbe, without being accompanied by harmful aberrations offantasy. Without appropriate thought development, these


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experiences can cause profound uncertainty in the soul.Through the method emphasized here, these experiencesappear in such a way that it is possible to become com-pletely familiar with them, just as we become familiarwith perceptions of the physical world if we are in a soundstate of mind. By developing our thought life, we becomemore able to observe what we are experiencing in our-selves; if we do not develop it, we will not be able to facethis experience in a calm and collected manner.

An appropriate training lists certain qualities that thosewho want to find the way into the higher world shouldacquire through practice. These are, above all, the soul’smastery over its train of thought, its will, and its feelings.The method for bringing this mastery about through prac-tice has two goals. On the one hand, this practice is meantto imbue the soul with stability, certainty, and equilib-rium to the extent that it retains these qualities even whena second I is born out of it. On the other hand, it is meantto give this second I strength and support for its journey.

Objectivity is what our thinking needs most of all forspiritual training. In the physical world of the senses, lifeis the great teacher of the human I as far as objectivity isconcerned. If the soul chose to allow its thoughts to wan-der aimlessly, it would have to be immediately correctedby life so as not to come into conflict with it. The soul’sthinking must correspond to the actual course of life’srealities. When we turn our attention away from the phys-ical world of the senses, we are no longer subject to itsautomatic correction, so our thinking will go astray if it isnot able to self-correct. This is why students of the spirit


must train their thinking so that it can set its own directionand goals. Their thinking must teach itself inner stabilityand the ability to stick strictly to one subject. For this rea-son, the appropriate “thought exercises” we undertakeshould not deal with unfamiliar and complicated objects,but with ones that are simple and familiar.

Over a matter of months, if we can overcome ourselvesto the point of being able to focus our thoughts for at leastfive minutes a day on some ordinary object (for example,a pin, a pencil, or the like), and if, during this time, weexclude all thoughts unrelated to this object, we will havemade a big step in the right direction. (We can consider anew object each day or stay with the same one for severaldays.) Even those who consider themselves thinkersbecause of their scientific education should not scorn thismeans of preparing themselves for spiritual training,because if we fix our thoughts on something very familiarfor a certain period of time, we can be certain that we arethinking objectively. If we ask: What is a pencil made of?How are these materials prepared? How are they puttogether to make pencils? When were pencils invented?and so on, our thoughts correspond to reality much moreclosely than they do if we think about the origin of humanbeings or the nature of life. Simple thought exercises arebetter for developing objective thinking about the Saturn,Sun, and Moon phases of evolution than any complicatedscholarly ideas, because what we think about is not thepoint, at least initially. The point is to think objectively,using our own inner strength. Once we have taught our-selves objectivity by practicing on sense-perceptible


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physical processes that are easily surveyed, our thinkingbecomes accustomed to striving for objectivity evenwhen it does not feel constrained by the physical world ofthe senses and its laws. We break ourselves of the habit ofallowing our thoughts to wander without regard for thefacts.

The soul must become a ruler in the domain of the willjust as it is in the world of thoughts. Here again, life itselfappears as the controlling element in the physical worldof the senses. It makes us need certain things, and our willfeels roused to satisfy these needs. For the sake of highertraining, we must get used to strictly obeying our owncommands. If we do this, we will become less and lessinclined to desire nonessentials. Dissatisfaction and insta-bility in our life of will, however, are based on desiringthings without having any clear concept of realizing thesedesires. This dissatisfaction can disrupt our entire mentallife when a higher I is trying to emerge from the soul.

A good exercise is to tell ourselves to do somethingdaily at a specific time, over a number of months: Todayat this particular time I will do this. We then graduallybecome able to determine what to do and when to do it ina way that makes it possible to carry out the action inquestion with great precision. In this way, we rise abovedamaging thoughts, such as: “I’d like this, I want to dothat,” which disregard totally the feasibility of what wewant. A very great man put these words into the mouth ofa seer: “I love whomever longs for the impossible.”3 This

3. Goethe, Faust, Part Two, Act 2.


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great man himself said, “Living in ideas means treatingthe impossible as if it were possible.”4 These statements,however, should not be used as objections to what hasbeen presented here, because what Goethe and his seeressManto ask can only be accomplished by those who havetrained themselves in desiring what is possible in order tothen be able to apply their strong will to “impossibilities”in a way that transforms them into possibilities.

For the sake of spiritual training, the soul should alsoacquire a certain degree of composure with regard to thedomain of feeling. For this to happen, the soul must mas-ter its expressions of joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain.There are many prejudices that become evident withregard to acquiring this particular quality. We mightimagine that we would become dull and unreceptive tothe world around us if we are not meant to empathize withrejoicing or pain. However, that is not the point. The soulshould indeed rejoice when there is reason to rejoice, andit should feel pain when something sad happens. It is onlymeant to master its expressions of joy and sorrow, of plea-sure and displeasure. With this as our goal, we will soonnotice that rather than becoming dulled to pleasurable andpainful events in our surroundings, the opposite is true.We are becoming more receptive to these things than wewere previously. Admittedly, acquiring this charactertrait requires strict self-observation over a long period oftime. We must make sure that we are able to empathizefully with joy and sorrow without losing ourselves and

4. Goethe, Verses in Prose.


expressing our feelings involuntarily. What we are meantto suppress is not our justified pain, but involuntaryweeping; not our abhorrence of a misdeed, but blind rage;not alertness to danger, but fruitless fear, and so on.

Exercises like this are the only way for students of thespirit to acquire the mental tranquillity that is needed toprevent the soul from leading a second, unhealthy life, likea shadowy double, alongside the higher I when this I isborn and especially when it begins to be active. Especiallywith regard to these things, it is important not to succumbto self-deception. It can easily seem to people that theyalready possess a certain equilibrium in ordinary life andthat they therefore do not need this exercise, but in fact itis doubly necessary for people like this. It’s quite possibleto be calm and composed in confronting things in ordinarylife and yet have our suppressed lack of equilibrium assertitself all the more when we ascend into a higher world. Itis essential to realize that for purposes of spiritual training,what we seem to possess already is much less importantthan systematically practicing what we need to acquire.This sentence is quite correct, regardless of how contra-dictory it may seem. No matter what life may have taughtus, what we teach ourselves is what serves the purposes ofspiritual training. If life has taught us excitability we needto break that habit, but if it has taught us complacency weneed to shake ourselves up through self-education so thatour souls’ reactions correspond to the impressions theyreceive. People who cannot laugh at anything have as littlecontrol over their lives as people who are constantly pro-voked to uncontrollable laughter.


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An additional way of training our thinking and feelingis by acquiring a quality we can call “positivity.” There isa beautiful legend that tells of Christ Jesus and severalother people walking past a dead dog.5 The others allturned away from the ugly sight, but Christ Jesus spokeadmiringly of the animal’s beautiful teeth. We can prac-tice maintaining the soul-attitude toward the world thatthis legend exemplifies. The erroneous, the bad, and theugly must not prevent the soul from finding the true, thegood, and the beautiful wherever they are present. Wemust not confuse this positivity with being artificiallyuncritical or arbitrarily closing our eyes to things that arebad, false, or inferior. It is possible to admire a dead ani-mal’s “beautiful teeth” and still see the decaying corpse;the corpse does not prevent us from seeing the beautifulteeth. We cannot consider bad things good and falsethings true, but we can reach the point where the bad doesnot prevent us from seeing the good and errors do notkeep us from seeing the truth.

Our thinking undergoes a certain maturing process inconnection with the will when we attempt never to allowanything we have experienced to deprive us of our unbi-ased receptivity to new experiences. For students of thespirit, the thought: “I’ve never heard of that; I don’tbelieve it,” should totally lose its meaning. During specific

5. A story attributed to the Persian poet Nizami (1141–1203), andadapted by Goethe for inclusion in his West-östlicher Divan. It istranslated into English as “Agraphon” in Selected Poems, AngelosSikelianos, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1979, pp. 137–139.


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periods of time, we should be intent on using every oppor-tunity to learn something new concerning every thing andevery being. If we are ready and willing to take previouslyunaccustomed points of view, we can learn from everycurrent of air, every leaf, every babbling baby. Admit-tedly, it is easy to go too far with regard to this ability. Atany given stage in life, we should not disregard all our pre-vious experiences. We should indeed judge what we areexperiencing in the present on the basis of past experi-ences. This belongs on one side of the scales; on the other,however, students of the spirit must place their inclinationto constantly experience new things and especially theirfaith in the possibility that new experiences will contradictold ones.

We have now listed five soul qualities that students ina genuine spiritual training need to acquire: control ofone’s train of thought, control of one’s will impulses,composure in the face of joy and sorrow, positivity injudging the world, and receptivity in one’s attitudetoward life. Having spent certain periods of time practic-ing these qualities consecutively, we will then need tobring them into harmony with each other in our souls. Wewill need to practice them in pairs, or in combinations ofthree and one at the same time, and so on, in order to bringabout this harmony.

Methods of spiritual training recommend these exer-cises because if conscientiously carried out, they not onlyhave the above-mentioned direct effects on students butalso affect them in many indirect ways that they need ontheir path to the spiritual worlds. If we do these exercises


enough, we will encounter many shortcomings and errorsin our soul life and will discover the necessary means ofstrengthening and safeguarding the activity of our intel-lect, our feelings, and our character. Depending on ourabilities, temperament, and character, we will certainlyneed many other exercises, but these will follow quitenaturally from ample practice of the ones describedabove. In fact, we will notice that these exercises indi-rectly and gradually supply things that did not initiallyseem inherent in them. For example, after a certain time,people with too little self-confidence will notice thatdoing these exercises develops the self-confidence theyneed. The same is true of other soul qualities. (Specificand more detailed exercises can be found in my bookHow to Know Higher Worlds.)

It is significant that students of the spirit are able toadvance to ever higher levels of the faculties indicated.They must develop their control of thoughts and feelingsto the point where their souls have the power to establishtimes of complete inner tranquillity. During these times,students must keep their hearts and minds free of every-thing outer daily life brings with it in the way of joy andsorrow, satisfactions and concerns, and even tasks anddemands. The only things that are allowed to enter thesoul in this state of meditation are what the soul itselfchooses to admit. It is easy for a certain prejudice tobecome apparent with regard to this. People might thinkthat we would estrange ourselves from daily life and itstasks if we withdrew our heart and mind from them forcertain periods during the day. In reality, however, this is


not the case at all. If we give ourselves up to periods ofinner stillness and peace, this engenders many powerfulforces that are applicable even to our duties in daily life.As a result, we will not only not be worse at fulfilling ourdaily obligations but will certainly be better at it than wewere before.

It is extremely valuable when people are able to detachthemselves completely during these periods fromthoughts about their personal concerns and rise to con-cerns that are shared by all. If they are able to fill theirsouls with communications from the higher spiritualworlds, and if this information is able to capture theirinterest to the same extent as their personal cares or con-cerns, this will prove especially fruitful for their souls.

If we make an effort to intercede in our soul life andregulate it in this way, we will also find it possible toobserve ourselves and our own concerns with the samecomposure we apply to the concerns of others. Being ableto look at our own experiences, joys, and sorrows as ifthey belonged to someone else is a good preparation forspiritual training. We can gradually acquire this ability tothe necessary extent by taking time after our day’s workis done to allow our experiences of the day to pass in frontof us in the spirit. We should see ourselves in the imagesof these experiences; that is, we must look in on ourselvesin our daily lives as if from outside. We acquire a certainfacility in self-observation of this sort by beginning withvisualizations of small isolated portions of our daily life.With practice, we become increasingly skillful in doingthis retrospective view, so that after considerable practice


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we are able to form a complete picture in a short time.Looking at our experiences in reverse order is especiallyvaluable for spiritual training because it forces us to freeour visualizations from our normal habit of merely trac-ing the course of sense-perceptible events with our think-ing. In this reversed thinking, we visualize thingscorrectly but are not bound by their sense-perceptiblesequence. This is something we need in order to find ourway into the spiritual world. It makes our visualizingstronger in a healthy way. That’s why it is also good, inaddition to visualizing our daily life in reverse, to do thesame with other things such as the sequence of a drama, anarrative, a melody, and so on.

For students of the spirit, the ideal increasinglybecomes to relate to the events they encounter in life withinner certainty and tranquillity of soul and to judge themaccording to their own inherent significance and valuerather than on the basis of a personal state of mind. Withthis ideal in view, students are able to create a foundationin their own souls for devoting effort to the above-men-tioned meditation exercises on symbolic ideas or otherthoughts and feelings.

The prerequisites described here must be met, becausewe build up our supersensible experience on the basis ofour standing in ordinary soul life before entering the spir-itual world. In two different ways, everything we experi-ence supersensibly is dependent on the soul’s point ofdeparture for entering this world. If we are not concernedfrom the very beginning with making a healthy faculty ofjudgment the basis of our spiritual training, we will


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develop supersensible faculties that perceive the spiritualworld inexactly and incorrectly. Our spiritual organs ofperception will not develop properly, so to speak. Just aswe cannot see properly in the world of the senses if oureyes are defective or diseased, we also cannot perceiveproperly with spiritual organs that have not been devel-oped on the basis of a healthy faculty of judgment.

And if we take an immoral attitude as our point ofdeparture, the way we ascend into the spiritual worldswill make our spiritual view seem clouded or dazed. Wewill confront supersensible worlds like someone observ-ing the sensory world in a daze. Although in the sensoryworld, such a person will surely not be capable of sayinganything significant about that world, even dazed spiri-tual observers are more awake than people in a normalstate of consciousness, so their statements become errorswith regard to the spiritual world.

. . . . . . . .

Inner soundness of the imaginative stage of cognition isachieved when the habit of what we might call “sense-freethinking” supports the soul meditations described here. Ifwe form a thought on the basis of observing something inthe physical world of the senses, this thought is not sense-free. However, such thoughts are not the only ones humanbeings are capable of having. Our thinking does not neces-sarily have to become empty and without content simplybecause we do not allow it to be filled with sensory obser-vations. The safest and most obvious way for students ofthe spirit to learn sense-free thinking is by studying the


facts that spiritual science communicates about thehigher world and by taking possession of them with theirown thinking. Although these facts cannot be observedby our physical senses, we will find that we are able tocomprehend them if we have enough patience and per-sistence. We cannot do research in the higher world ormake observations of our own without higher training,but even without it we can understand everythingresearchers communicate about this world.

There is no reason for anyone to say: How am I sup-posed to accept on faith what spiritual researchers say,since I can’t see it for myself? Simply by thinking aboutit, we can come to the conviction that this information istrue. If we can’t do this, it’s not because it is impossibleto believe in something we do not see, but simply becausehow we have applied our thinking has not yet been suffi-ciently unbiased, comprehensive, and thorough. To cometo clarity on this point, we must realize that human think-ing, if it gets a strong inner grip on itself, can comprehendmuch more than we usually imagine it can. There is aninner entity inherent in thought itself that already hasconnections to the supersensible world. The soul is usu-ally not aware of these connections because it is in thehabit of developing its thinking abilities only by applyingthem to the sensory world. As a result, the soul findsinformation about the supersensible world incomprehen-sible. However, this information actually is understand-able not only to a spiritually trained way of thinking, butto any thinking that is aware of its full power and is will-ing to make use of it.


By constantly making the statements of spiritualresearch our own, we become accustomed to thinking ina way that does not draw on sensory observations. Welearn to recognize how thoughts interweave within thesoul, how one thought seeks out another even when theconnections between them are not brought about by thepower of sensory observation. Here, the essential thing isthat we become aware of the inner life of the thoughtworld. We become aware that if we are truly thinking, weare already in the domain of a living supersensible world.We realize that something within us is building up athought-organism, and that we ourselves are one with this“something.” When we give ourselves up to sense-freethinking, we experience that something being-like isflowing into our inner life, just as the characteristics ofsense-perceptible things flow into us through our physi-cal organs when we observe by means of our senses.Observers of the sense-perceptible world say to them-selves: There is a rose in the space out there, and it is notstrange to me because it makes itself known through itscolor and its smell. When sense-free thinking is at workin us, we only need to be sufficiently unbiased to have thecorresponding thought: Something being-like that linksone thought to another within me, forming a thought-organism, is making itself known to me.

However, there is a difference between the sensationswe have of things we observe in the outer sensory worldand our sensations of the inherent reality that makes itselfknown in sense-free thinking. People observing a rosefeel that they are observing it from outside, while people


devoting themselves to sense-free thinking feel that theinherent reality that is making itself known to them ispresent within them; they feel one with it. Of course thosewho can only bring themselves—either consciously orsubconsciously—to acknowledge the existence of thingsthat confront them in the way that external objects do willnot be able to have the feeling that something being-likein character can make itself known through the fact thatthey feel one with it. In order to see correctly in this con-nection, we must be able to have this inner experience:We must learn to distinguish the connections betweenthoughts that we create freely and arbitrarily from theones we experience within ourselves when we silence ourpersonal arbitrary will. In the case of the latter, we maythen acknowledge that while we ourselves are quite stilland are not creating any connections between thoughts,we are giving ourselves up to what “thinks in us.” We arethen as fully justified in saying that something being-likein character is working in us as we are in saying that therose is working on us when we perceive a certain redcolor or a particular scent.

This is not contradicted by the fact that the contents ofthese particular thoughts of ours have been communi-cated to us by spiritual researchers. Although thesethoughts are already present when we give ourselves upto them, it would be impossible for us to think them with-out recreating them anew in our souls in each singleinstance. In any case, the important point here is thatwhen spiritual researchers awaken thoughts in their lis-teners and readers, these people must first draw these


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thoughts up out of themselves. In contrast, researcherswho describe sense-perceptible realities point to thingsthat their listeners and readers can observe in the world ofthe senses.

(The path that leads us to sense-free thinking by meansof information conveyed by spiritual science is abso-lutely reliable. However, there is another one that is evenmore reliable and, above all, more exact. It is presentedin my books Goethe’s World View and Intuitive Thinkingas a Spiritual Path.6 These books present the knowledgehuman thinking can gain when it does not devote itself tothe impressions of the external physical world of thesenses, but only to itself. What is then at work is not thethinking that indulges only in memories of sense-percep-tible things. It is pure thinking, which acts like a livingentity within the human being. Although these booksinclude none of the information conveyed by spiritualscience, they demonstrate that pure thinking, workingonly within itself, is capable of unlocking the secrets ofthe universe, life, and the human being. These worksconstitute an important intermediate level betweenknowing the world of the senses and knowing the spiri-tual world. They present what thinking can gain by risingabove sensory observation while not yet becominginvolved in spiritual research. If we allow these books towork on our entire souls, we are already in the spiritual

6. Goethe’s World View, Mercury Press, Spring Valley, NY, 1985;Intuitive Thinking as a Spiritual Path: A Philosophy of Freedom,Anthroposophic Press, Hudson, NY, 1995.


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world, but it makes itself known to us as the world ofthoughts. People who feel that they are in a position toallow an intermediate stage such as this to work on themare traveling a safe path. It will give them a feeling forthe higher world that will bear the most beautiful fruit inall times to come.)

. . . . . . . .

To put it precisely, the goal of meditating on the sym-bolic mental images and feelings characterized above isto develop higher organs of perception within the humanastral body. Initially, these organs are created out of thesubstance of the astral body. They inform us about a newworld where we get to know ourselves as new I’s. Thesenew perceptual organs are already different from those ofthe physical world of the senses in that they are activeorgans. Eyes and ears passively allow light and sound towork on them, but our perceptual organs of spirit and soulcan be said to be constantly active during perception andgrasp objects and facts in full consciousness, so to speak.As a result, we experience soul-spiritual cognition as aprocess of uniting with the facts in question and “dwellingin them.”

Metaphorically speaking, these developing individualorgans of soul and spirit can be called “lotus flowers,”because this corresponds to the imaginative picture super-sensible consciousness has to make of them. (Of course,we must realize that this term has nothing more to do withthe actual thing in question than the term chamber doeswhen we speak of the “chambers” of the heart.) Through


very specific types of meditation, we work on the astralbody in such a way that one or the other soul-spiritualorgan, or lotus flower, takes shape.

After everything that has been described in this book, itshould be superfluous to mention that we must not imag-ine such an organ as something whose reality is reflectedby our sensory mental image of it. These “organs” aresupersensible and consist of soul activity that is shaped ina particular way. They exist only inasmuch and as long asthis soul-activity is being exercised. There is nothingsense-perceptible about these organs, just as no “vapor”is present around a human being who is thinking. We fallinto misunderstandings if we insist on imagining thesupersensible as sense-perceptible in any way. Althoughthis remark is quite superfluous, it is inserted herebecause we repeatedly encounter people who are con-vinced of the existence of the supersensible but try toimagine it only as something sense-perceptible. We alsorepeatedly encounter opponents of supersensible cogni-tion who believe that spiritual researchers are speaking of“lotus flowers” as if they were talking about delicatesense-perceptible formations.

Any genuine meditation that is done with regard toimaginative cognition has an effect on one or the other ofthese organs. (Details on methods of meditation and exer-cises that influence specific organs may be found in mybook How to Know Higher Worlds.) In any genuine train-ing, the student’s individual exercises are set up andarranged in a sequence so that the organs can developaccordingly—either in conjunction with one another or


one after the other. This training requires a great deal ofpatience and persistence on the student’s part. The usualamount of patience people acquire as a result of their sit-uation in life is not sufficient, because it often takes along, long time before these organs have developedenough to be used for perception in the higher world.When this finally happens, it can be called “enlighten-ment,” in contrast to the period of preparation, or purifi-cation, that consists of exercises to develop the organs.(The word purification is used here because these exer-cises purify a certain part of the student’s inner life, elim-inating everything that comes exclusively from the worldof sensory observation.)

It’s certainly possible for people who have not yetexperienced actual enlightenment to receive repeated“flashes of light” from a higher world. Even such“flashes” allow them to bear witness to spiritual worldsand should be accepted with gratitude. But studentsshould not waver if these flashes do not appear during thepreparation period, which may seem unduly long. Peoplewho are still capable of becoming impatient because they“don’t see anything yet” have not yet acquired the rightrelationship to the higher world, a relationship understoodonly by those who are capable of seeing the training exer-cises as almost an end in themselves. In actual fact, theseexercises are working on our soul-spiritual nature; that is,on the astral body. Even if we cannot “see,” we can feelthat we are doing soul-spiritual work. The only possiblereason for not being able to feel this is having a precon-ceived idea of what we are actually trying to “see.” In that


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case, we will think nothing of something that is actuallyimmensely significant. However, we must be subtlyattentive to all of our experiences while practicing,because they are so very different from all of our experi-ences in the world of the senses. We will then notice thatwe are not simply making impressions on the astral bodyas if it were some indifferent substance. There is a wholeworld in there that is different from the life our senses tellus about. Higher beings work on the astral body in thesame way the outer physical world of the senses works onthe physical body. We “bump into” the higher life in ourown astral body if we do not close ourselves off to it, butif we repeatedly say to ourselves: “I don’t perceive any-thing,” it’s usually because we have preconceived ideasof how this perception is supposed to look. Because weare not seeing what we have convinced ourselves weought to see, we say that we don’t see anything.

However, once we have the right attitude about doingthese training exercises, we will increasingly find some-thing in them that we can love for its own sake. We willrealize that the very act of practicing places us in themidst of a world of spirit and soul, and we will waitpatiently and humbly for what may follow. This attitudecan best become conscious in us in these words: I will doall the exercises that are suitable for me, knowing that atthe right time, as much will come to me as is importantfor me to have. I do not demand this impatiently, but I amconstantly preparing to receive it.

It is not legitimate to object that students of the spirithave to grope around in the dark indefinitely because


success alone can show them that they are on the rightpath. It’s not true that this is the only way to know thatwe are doing the right exercises. If we take the rightapproach to our exercises, the satisfaction we gain willmake it clear that we are doing the right thing. We do nothave to wait for success to have this certainty. Appropri-ate practice in the field of spiritual training goes hand inhand with a satisfaction that is more than just satisfac-tion. It is also knowledge, the knowledge of being able tosee that what we are doing is leading us in the right direc-tion. We can have this knowledge at any time if we payattention to the subtleties of what we are experiencing. Ifwe do not, this experience escapes us and we pass it bylike hikers lost in thought who fail to see the trees oneither side of the trail, although they would be able to seethem if they simply paid attention to them.

Success invariably does come if we continue to prac-tice, and it is not at all desirable to force results to appearmore quickly. If we did, the result might be only a smallpart of what actually should have appeared. With regardto spiritual development, partial success is often the rea-son for a great delay in achieving complete success. Mov-ing among the forms of spiritual life that constitute partialsuccess dulls us to the influences of forces that can lead tohigher levels of development. We only appear to havegained something by having “seen into the spiritualworld,” because seeing it in this way gives us deceptiveimages instead of the truth.

. . . . . . . .


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As the soul-spiritual organs, or lotus flowers, takeshape, they appear to supersensible consciousness to belocated close to certain organs in the physical body of theperson undergoing training. Of these soul organs, we maymention the following: the so-called two-petalled lotusflower that we feel as if between the eyebrows, the six-teen-petalled lotus flower in the area of the larynx, thetwelve-petalled lotus flower in the area of the heart, and afourth that is located near the solar plexus. Other suchorgans appear in the vicinity of other parts of the physicalbody. (The names two-petalled or sixteen-petalled can beused because the organs in question can be compared toflowers with a corresponding number of petals.)

We become conscious of the lotus flowers through theastral body. As soon as we have developed one or theother of these organs, we are also aware that we have it.We feel that we are able to make use of it and that indoing so we are actually entering a higher world. Inmany respects, our impressions of this world are stillsimilar to impressions of the physical world of thesenses. People with imaginative cognition will be able tospeak of this new higher world in terms of sensations ofwarmth or cold, perceptions of sounds and words, andimpressions of light or color, because that is how theyexperience it. However, they are aware that these percep-tions express something different in the imaginativeworld than they do in the world of sense-perceptible real-ity. They realize that the causes underlying them aresoul-spiritual rather than physical-material ones. If theyreceive something like an impression of warmth, they do


not attribute it to a piece of hot iron, for example, butthink of it as emanating from a soul process similar to theones they had, until now, been familiar with only in theirown soul life. They know that soul-spiritual things andprocesses stand behind these imaginative perceptionsjust as material, physical beings and realities standbehind physical perceptions.

Alongside the similarity between the imaginative andphysical worlds, however, there is also a significant dif-ference. One thing that is present in the physical worldappears quite differently in the imaginative world. In thephysical world, we can observe things constantly cominginto existence and disappearing again; there is a constantalternation between birth and death. In the imaginativeworld, this phenomenon is replaced by the constant trans-formation of one thing into another. For example, in thephysical world we see a plant die and decompose. In theimaginative world another configuration that is physi-cally imperceptible comes about as the plant withersaway. The decaying plant is gradually transformed intothis other configuration. Once the plant has completelydisappeared, this figure has developed fully and taken itsplace. Birth and death are ideas that lose their significancein the imaginative world. They are replaced by the con-cept of one thing being transformed into another.

Because of this, certain truths about our human makeupbecome accessible to imaginative cognition. These truthsare the ones presented in chapter 2 of this book. As far asphysical, sensory perception is concerned, only the pro-cesses of the physical body are perceptible. These are


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played out in the “domain of birth and death.” The othermembers of our human makeup—the life body, the sen-tient body, and the I—are subject to the laws of transfor-mation and are perceptible to imaginative cognition.Anyone who has advanced to this stage perceives howsomething that goes on living after death in another stateof existence releases itself, so to speak, from the physicalbody at death.

However, inner development does not stop at the levelof the imaginative world. If we chose to stop here, wewould perceive beings who are undergoing processes oftransformation, but we would not be able to interpret theseprocesses, nor would we be able to orient ourselves in thisnewly won world. The imaginative world is a restlessregion, full of movement and transformation; there are noresting places in it. We reach such resting places only bydeveloping beyond the level of imaginative cognition towhat can be called cognition through inspiration.

It is not necessary for those seeking knowledge aboutthe supersensible world to acquire the faculty of imagina-tive cognition to its fullest extent before moving on toinspiration. Their exercises may be arranged so that whatleads to imagination develops parallel to what leads toinspiration. After the appropriate amount of time, thesestudents will enter a higher world where, in addition tobeing able to perceive, they will also be able to orientthemselves and interpret what they see. Typically, how-ever, they first perceive some of the phenomena of theimaginative world and only later feel that they are gainingthe ability to orient themselves.


Compared to the world of mere imagination, however,the world of inspiration is something totally new.Through imagination, we perceive the transformation ofone process into another, but through inspiration webecome familiar with the inner qualities of the beings whoare undergoing transformation. Through imagination, werecognize the soul expression of these beings, but throughinspiration we penetrate their inner spiritual nature.Above all, we recognize a multitude of spiritual beingsand the relationships between them. In the physical worldof the senses, we are also dealing with a multitude of dif-ferent beings, but the multitude in the world of inspirationis different in character. There, each being’s very specificrelationships to others are determined by its inner makeuprather than by external influences as is the case in thephysical world. When we perceive a being in the world ofinspiration, we do not perceive any outer effect it mighthave on another—that is, any effect comparable to howphysical beings affect each other. Instead, the relationshipbetween beings comes about through how they are eachinwardly constituted.

In the physical world, this relationship can be comparedto the relationship between individual sounds or letters ina word. Let’s take the word human. It is brought about bythe combined sounding of the speech sounds h-u-m-a-n.Although there is no impetus or other external influenceconnecting the h to the u, the two sounds work togetherwithin the totality because of how they are inwardly con-stituted. For this reason, observing the world of inspira-tion can only be compared to reading, and beings in this


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world are like letters of the alphabet in how they affectobservers. We must become familiar with these lettersand decipher their interrelationships like supersensiblewriting. This is why spiritual science also calls cognitionthrough inspiration “reading the hidden script.” How thishidden script is read and how what has been read can becommunicated will now be made clear using previouschapters of this book as examples.

The first thing described was how the makeup of thehuman being consists of different components. Next, itwas shown how the cosmic body on which human beingsevolve has passed through various conditions during theSaturn, Sun, Moon, and Earth phases of evolution. Theperceptions that allow us to recognize the members of ourhuman makeup on the one hand, and the Earth’s succes-sive stages and earlier metamorphoses on the other, areperceptible to imaginative cognition.

However, it is also necessary to recognize the connec-tions that exist between the Saturn state and the physicalhuman body, the Sun state and the ether body, and so on.It must be possible to demonstrate that the seminalnucleus of the physical human body came about alreadyduring the Saturn state, and that it then continued toevolve during the Sun, Moon, and Earth states until itreached its present form. For example, it was necessary toshow what changes took place in the human being as aresult of the separation of the Sun from the Earth, and thatsomething similar happened in relation to the Moon. Itwas also necessary to describe the interactions that wereneeded for the transformations in humanity that occurred


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during the Atlantean age and the successive periods of theIndian, Persian, and Egyptian cultures, and so on.

Depicting these connections does not result from imag-inative perception, but from cognition through inspira-tion, from reading the “hidden script” in whichimaginative perceptions are like letters or sounds. Thissort of reading, however, is needed for other things inaddition to explaining what has been described above. Wewould not be able to understand the whole course of ahuman life if we were able to look at it only through imag-inative cognition. If we were not able to orient ourselveswithin our imaginative perceptions, we would perceivehow the soul-spiritual members are released from whatremains behind in the physical world at death, but wewould not understand the connections between what hap-pens after a person’s death and the states that precede andfollow. Without cognition through inspiration, the imagi-native world would remain like writing that we stare atwithout being able to read.

When we advance from imagination to inspiration asstudents of the spirit, it becomes evident very quicklyhow wrong it would be to renounce understanding thegreat phenomena of the cosmos and to attempt to restrictourselves only to facts that touch upon immediate humaninterests, so to speak. Those who are not initiated intothese things might well say, “It seems to me that the onlyimportant thing is to find out what the fate of the humansoul is after death. If someone tells me about that, that’senough. Why does spiritual science tell me about distantthings like the Saturn and Sun states and the separation


of the Sun and Moon from the Earth?” However, if wehave been introduced to these things in the right way, werealize that we can never really know what we want toknow if we do not also know about these other things thatseem so unnecessary. Any description of the human con-dition after death will remain completely incomprehen-sible and worthless if we cannot link it to conceptsderived from those distant things. Even the simplestsupersensible observation makes it necessary to knowabout such things.

For example, when a plant passes from the floweringstage to the fruiting stage, supersensible observers see atransformation taking place in an astral entity that coversand surrounds the flowering plant like a cloud comingfrom above. If fertilization did not take place, this astralentity would metamorphose into a form quite differentfrom the one it assumes as a result of fertilization. We canunderstand this whole process as supersensible observa-tion perceives it if we have learned to understand its naturefrom the great cosmic process undergone by the Earth andall its inhabitants at the time when the Sun separated fromthe Earth. Before fertilization, the plant’s situation is likethat of the whole Earth prior to the Sun’s detachment.After fertilization, the plant’s flower resembles the Earthwhen the Moon forces were still active in it after the Sunhad detached itself. If we have personally acquired theideas that can be gained from studying the Sun’s detach-ment, we will then objectively perceive the meaning of theprocess of fertilization in the plant. We will say that theplant is in a sun state before fertilization and in a moon


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state afterward. Even the very smallest processes in theworld can only be understood if we see them as copies ofgreat cosmic processes. Otherwise their nature remainsjust as incomprehensible as Raphael’s Madonna would beto someone who saw only a little speck of blue because therest of the picture was covered up.

Everything that is now happening in the human beingis a copy of all the great cosmic processes that have to dowith our existence. If we want to understand what super-sensible consciousness observes about phenomena tak-ing place between birth and death and those taking placebetween death and a new birth, we will be able to do soif we have acquired the ability to decipher imaginativeobservations by means of concepts acquired from thestudy of macrocosmic processes. This study provides uswith a key for understanding human life. This is why, inthe sense of spiritual science, we are also observing thehuman being when we observe the Saturn, Sun, andMoon states.

Through inspiration, we acquire the ability to recognizethe relationships between beings in the higher world. Thenext higher stage of cognition makes it possible to recog-nize the actual inner nature of these beings. This level ofcognition can be called “intuitive cognition.” (The wordintuition is misused in everyday life to mean an indefinite,uncertain insight into something; although it may coin-cide at times with the truth, we cannot prove that this sud-den insight is justifiable. What is meant here, of course,has nothing to do with an “intuition” of that sort. Here, theterm intuition is used to designate a cognitive process of


the highest degree of light-filled clarity. If we have it, weare fully conscious of its justification.)

To have knowledge of a sense-perceptible being meansto stand outside it and assess it according to externalimpressions. To have knowledge of a spiritual beingthrough intuition means having become completely atone with it, having united with its inner nature. Studentsof the spirit rise to this level of knowledge step by step.Imagination brings us to the point where we no longerfeel that perceptions are external qualities of beings;instead, we recognize in them the emanations of some-thing that is soul-spiritual in character. Inspiration leadsus still further into the inner nature of beings and teachesus to understand what these beings are for each other. Inintuition, we penetrate into the beings themselves.

Here too we can use the accounts in this book to dem-onstrate the significance of intuition. The precedingchapter not only told how development proceededthrough the Saturn, Sun, and Moon phases of evolution,and so on, it also informed us that beings were involvedin this development in a great variety of ways. Thethrones, or Spirits of Will, the Spirits of Wisdom, theSpirits of Movement, and others were all introduced. Inthe Earth phase of evolution, the Luciferic and Ahri-manic spirits were mentioned. The structure of the cos-mos was traced back to the beings involved in it. We canlearn about these beings through intuitive cognition,something we already need if we want to understand eventhe course of a human life. In the time after death, whathas freed itself from the physical, bodily aspect of the


human being passes through various states. Imaginativecognition would still be more or less able to describe thestates immediately following death. However, what hap-pens when a human being advances further into theperiod between death and a new birth would remaintotally incomprehensible to imagination if inspirationwere not added to it. Only inspiration is able to discoverwhat can be said about human life after purification in the“land of spirits.” However, inspiration is no longer ade-quate for the next stage; it loses the thread of understand-ing at this point, so to speak. There is a period in humandevelopment between death and a new birth when thehuman being is accessible only to intuition.

However, this part of the human being is always withinus, and if we want to understand it in its true inner nature,we must also use intuition to seek it out in the timebetween birth and death. If we attempted to understandthe human being exclusively by means of imaginationand inspiration, the processes that belong to this inner-most being and play from one incarnation into the nextwould elude us. Therefore, only intuitive cognition makesit possible for us to objectively investigate repeatedearthly lives and karma. All the truths that can be commu-nicated about these processes must result from researchthat makes use of intuitive cognition. Knowledge of theinner being within us can also come only from intuition.Through intuition, we perceive the aspect of ourselvesthat progresses from one earthly life to another.

. . . . . . . .


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Exercises for the soul and spirit are the only way we canachieve the knowledge that comes from inspiration andintuition. These exercises are similar to the contempla-tions or meditations described for acquiring imagination.However, while these exercises that lead to imaginationare linked to impressions of the physical world of thesenses, this link must increasingly disappear in exercisesthat lead to inspiration. To clarify what has to happen, let’sthink again about the symbol of the rose cross. By immers-ing ourselves in it, we have an image before us whosecomponents are taken from impressions of the sensoryworld—the black color of the cross, the roses, and so on.However, the way these components are combined intothe rose cross is not derived from the physical world of thesenses. If we attempt to eliminate the black cross and redroses from our consciousness as images of sensory reali-ties and retain in our souls only the spiritual activity thatcombined them, then we have a means of meditation thatwill gradually lead to inspiration.
Within our souls, we should ask: What have I doneinwardly in order to combine the cross and roses into thissymbol? I want to hold fast to what I have done, to thepersonal soul process I have undergone, but to allow theimage itself to disappear from my consciousness. I willfeel everything within me that my soul did in order tobring the image about, but I will not picture the imageitself. From this point onward, I will dwell quite inwardlyin the activity of mine that created the image. Instead ofmeditating on an image, I will become absorbed in myown image-creating soul activity.


Such absorption, if carried out repeatedly with regard tomany symbols, will lead to cognition through inspiration.Here is another example: We meditate on the mentalimage of a plant that first grows and then decays. We allowan image to come about in our souls of a gradually devel-oping plant as it emerges from the seed, as one leaf afteranother unfolds, as flowers and fruit develop. Then we pic-ture how the plant begins to wilt; we follow this process tothe point of complete dissolution. As we meditate on thisimage, we gradually arrive at a feeling of becoming anddecaying for which the plant is only an image. When wepersevere at this exercise, this feeling develops into animagination of the process of transformation that underliesphysical becoming and decay. However, if we want toachieve the corresponding inspiration, we must do theexercise differently. We must reflect on the actual soulactivity that derived the idea of becoming and decay fromthe image of the plant. We must allow the plant to disap-pear completely from our consciousness and meditate onlyon our own inner activity. Only exercises of this sort makeit possible to rise to the level of inspiration.

Initially, it will not be easy to get a thorough grasp ofhow to approach such an exercise, because if we are inthe habit of allowing our inner life to be determined byouter impressions, we immediately become uncertainand start to vacillate when we have to develop anothersoul life that has cast off all its connections to these outerimpressions. To an even greater degree than in acquiringimaginations, it must be clear to us that we should onlyundertake exercises that lead to inspiration if we are


willing to accompany them with all the precautionarymeasures that will safeguard and solidify our power ofjudgment, our feeling life, and our character. Taking theseprecautions has two results. First, our personalities willnot become unbalanced during supersensible perception;second, we will acquire the ability to really carry out whatthese exercises demand of us. We will find these exercisesdifficult only as long as we have not acquired a certainvery specific soul makeup, very specific feelings and sen-sations. If we patiently and persistently cultivate inner fac-ulties in our souls that favor the growth of supersensiblecognition, we will soon acquire not only an understandingof these exercises but also the ability to actually do them.

We will gain much by acquiring a habit of often with-drawing into ourselves in a way that is less concernedwith brooding about ourselves than with quietly organiz-ing and digesting our experiences in life. We will findthat our ideas and feelings are enriched by bringing oneexperience into relationship with another. We willbecome aware to what a great extent we experience newthings not only by having new impressions and encoun-ters but also by allowing the old ones to work in us. If webegin to allow the experiences and even the opinions wehave acquired to interact as if we ourselves with all oursympathies and antipathies and personal interests andfeelings were not even present, we will prepare theground well for the forces of supersensible cognition.We will truly develop what we can call a rich inner life.However, the most important thing in this regard is thestability and balance of our soul qualities. In devoting


ourselves to a certain soul activity, we tend to fall intoonesidedness all too easily. As a result, if we oncebecome aware of the advantages of inner reflection anddwelling in our own world of ideas, we may develop suchan inclination toward this that we increasingly shut our-selves off from the impressions of the outer world. This,however, makes our inner life dry and desolate.

We will go the farthest if, alongside the ability to retreatinto ourselves, we preserve our open receptivity to allimpressions of the outer world. This does not apply onlyto life’s so-called important impressions. Any individualin any situation, even in the most miserable surroundings,can experience enough simply by remaining open andreceptive. We do not need to go looking for experiences;they are everywhere.

It is also especially important how we transform theseexperiences in our souls. For example, we might make thediscovery that someone we or others greatly admire has acertain character trait we would have to consider a short-coming. This experience can lead our thinking in one oftwo directions. We could simply say: Now that I’ve real-ized this, I can no longer respect this person the way Iused to.” Or we could ask ourselves: “How is it possiblefor this respected person to be afflicted with this particu-lar fault? What must I do to imagine this fault not only asa shortcoming, but as something caused by this person’slife or perhaps even by his or her great qualities?” If wewere to ask ourselves these questions, we might come tothe conclusion that our respect is in no way diminished byhaving observed this shortcoming. Every time we come to


such a conclusion, we learn something and increase ourunderstanding of life.

Now it would certainly be a bad thing if the merits ofthis way of looking at life were to mislead us into excus-ing everything possible in people or things that have oursympathy, or if we were to acquire a habit of disregardingeverything that deserves criticism on the grounds thatdoing so is advantageous for our inner development. Thisis not the case when the impulse not only to censure butalso to understand the faults comes from our own motiva-tions; however, it is advantageous if the instance at handelicits this attitude regardless of whether we who judgestand to gain or lose by it. It is absolutely correct that wecannot learn by condemning a fault, but only by under-standing it. However, if we want to exclude disapprovalentirely for the sake of understanding, we will not get fareither. Once again, the important thing is stability andbalance in our soul forces, not onesidedness in one direc-tion or another.

This is particularly true of one soul quality that isexceptionally significant for individual development,namely the feeling we call reverence or devotion. Thisfeeling, whether we develop it in ourselves or alreadypossess it as a fortunate gift of nature, forms an excellentbasis for supersensible powers of cognition. Being able tolook up to certain people in our childhood and youth withdevoted admiration in the same way that we would lookup to high ideals means that supersensible cognition willfind fertile ground in our souls where it can thrive. Lateron in life, when our judgment has matured, if we look up


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at the starry heavens and sense the revelation of higherpowers with complete devotion and admiration, we arepreparing ourselves for knowledge of supersensibleworlds, and this is also true when we are able to appreci-ate the forces that prevail in human life. It is of no littlesignificance if as adults we are still able to have the high-est degree of reverence for other people whose worth wesurmise or believe to recognize. Only when such rever-ence is present can a view into the higher worlds open up.If we are not capable of reverence, we will never advancevery far in our knowledge. If we do not want to acknowl-edge the worth of anything in the world, the essence ofthings will remain closed to us.

In contrast, however, if our feelings of reverence anddevotion tempt us to totally kill off our healthy self-awareness and self-confidence, we sin against the law ofsoul stability and balance. Students of the spirit will workon themselves continually to make themselves ever moremature, but when they do so, they are also permitted tobe confident in their individual personalities and in theircontinuing growth. If we achieve the right feelings alongthese lines, we will say to ourselves: There are latentforces within me, and I am capable of bringing them upout of my inner being. Therefore, wherever I see some-thing I must honor because it is superior to me, not onlymust I honor it, but I may also trust myself to developeverything within me that will make me similar to it.

The greater our ability to be attentive to certain pro-cesses in life that are not immediately familiar to our per-sonal judgment, the greater the possibility of laying the


foundations for leading our development into the spiritualworlds. An example may illustrate this: Individuals mayfind themselves in a situation in life where they can eitherdo something or leave it undone. Their judgment says: Doit; but there is still a certain inexplicable something intheir feelings that keeps them from doing whatever it is.They can choose to pay no attention to this inexplicablesomething and simply do whatever their powers of judg-ment suggest. However, they can also give in to the urg-ing of the inexplicable and refrain from going throughwith the action in question. If they then follow up the mat-ter further, it may become evident that the results wouldhave been disastrous if they had followed their judgment,and that it was a blessing that they refrained from that par-ticular action. An experience like this can guide ourthinking in a very specific direction, allowing us to recog-nize that there is something in us that guides us better thanthe degree of judgment we possess at present. We need tobe open-minded about this “something” within us, whichwe are not mature enough to reach through our faculty ofjudgment.

It is of the greatest possible benefit for the soul to payattention to such instances in life, because they provide ahealthy premonition that there is more in us than we cansurvey with our power of judgment at any given time.Such attentiveness works to expand our soul life. Onceagain, however, it is also possible for serious onesided-ness to result. If we got into the habit of always disregard-ing our judgment because of “premonitions” impelling usto do this or that, we might become the playthings of all


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sorts of undefined urges. It is a short step from a habit ofthis sort to lack of judgment and superstition.

For students of the spirit, superstition of any sort isdisastrous. It becomes possible for us to truly make ourway into the domains of spiritual life only if we carefullyguard ourselves against superstition, fantastic ideas, anddaydreaming. We do not enter the spiritual world in theright way if we rejoice at every opportunity to experiencesomething “that cannot be grasped by the human mind.”A preference for the inexplicable certainly does not makeanyone a student of the spirit. We must break ourselves ofthe biased habit of thinking that mystics are those who“assume the existence of the inexplicable and the unfath-omable” wherever they please. For students of the spirit,the appropriate attitude is to acknowledge the presence ofhidden forces and beings everywhere, but also to assumethat the unfathomable can be successfully investigated ifthe necessary forces are available.

A certain soul disposition is important to students of thespirit at every level of development. It consists not inexpressing their desire for knowledge in a one-sided way,constantly asking how one question or another may beanswered, but by asking how they can develop certain fac-ulties. Once these faculties have developed through patientinner work, the answers to these questions appear by them-selves. Students of the spirit will always cultivate this souldisposition in themselves. This leads them to constantlywork on themselves, to make themselves ever more mature,and to relinquish the desire to force answers to certain ques-tions. They will wait until such answers come to them.


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Once again, if we become one-sided in this respect, wewill not make much progress. At certain times, studentsof the spirit can also have the feeling that they themselvesare able to answer the most exalted questions with theforces currently at their disposal. Here, too, steadinessand balance in our soul disposition play an important role.

It is helpful to cultivate and develop many more soulqualities if we are attempting to achieve inspirationthrough doing such exercises. Each of these qualitiescould be described individually, but in each case it wouldhave to be emphasized that steadiness and balance are theall-important soul qualities. They prepare us to under-stand and to be able to carry out the exercises that havebeen described as necessary for achieving inspiration.

The exercises for achieving intuition require studentsof the spirit to extinguish from consciousness not only theimages to which they devoted themselves in attainingimagination, but also the life of their own soul activity,which they contemplated in acquiring inspiration. Liter-ally nothing must remain in their souls from any previ-ously known outer or inner experiences. However, ifthere were nothing in their consciousness after discardingthese experiences—that is, if their consciousness disap-peared and they sank into unconsciousness—they wouldrealize that they had not yet matured enough to be able toundertake exercises to develop intuition, and they wouldhave to continue the exercises for imagination and inspi-ration. Eventually, however, there comes a time when ourconsciousness is not empty when the soul casts off itsinner and outer experiences, but something remains as an


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effect. It then becomes possible for us to give ourselvesup to this effect, just as we previously gave ourselves upto something that owed its existence to outer or innerimpressions. This residual effect is nevertheless very spe-cific in character. In comparison to all our previous expe-riences, it is something really new. When we experienceit, we know that this is something we were not familiarwith before. It is a perception, just as an actual sound is aperception when our ears hear it. This new perception,however, is something that can only enter our conscious-ness through intuition, just as sound can only enter ourconsciousness through our ears. Intuition strips ourimpressions of their last sensory, physical remnants, andthe spiritual world begins to be apparent to our cognitionin a form that no longer has anything in common with thecharacteristics of the physical world of the senses.

. . . . . . . .

Imaginative cognition is achieved when the lotus flowersdevelop out of the astral body. Through the exercises weundertake in order to reach inspiration and intuition, spe-cific movements, configurations, and currents that werenot there before appear in our ether body or life body.These are the organs that allow us to acquire the abilityto read the “hidden script” and what lies beyond it. Thechanges in the ether body of a person who has achievedinspiration and intuition present themselves to supersen-sible cognition as follows: A new center in the etherbody, located approximately in the area of the physicalheart, becomes conscious and develops into an etheric


organ. A great variety of movements and currents runfrom it to the various parts of the human body. The mostimportant of these currents go to the lotus flowers, perme-ating them and their individual petals, and then pour outlike rays into external space. The more highly developedthe person in question, the larger the surrounding areawhere these currents are perceptible.

In a genuine training, however, this center in the area ofthe heart does not develop immediately. First, the way isprepared for it. A temporary center appears in the head,which then slips down to the vicinity of the larynx andthen moves into the area of the physical heart. In anabnormal development, the organ in question might formimmediately in the vicinity of the heart. In this case,instead of achieving supersensible perception calmly andobjectively, the person in question would be in danger ofbecoming a visionary and a fanatic.

As students of the spirit develop further, they learn howto take the currents and differentiations that have devel-oped in the ether body, make them independent of thephysical body, and use them independently. In this process,the lotus flowers are used as tools for moving the etherbody. Before this can happen, however, certain currentsand rays must have formed all around the ether body, clos-ing it off as if in a delicate network and making it a self-contained entity. Once this has happened, nothing hindersthe movements and currents taking place in the ether bodyfrom coming into contact with the external world of souland spirit, so that outer soul-spiritual events and inner onestaking place in the human ether body intermingle. At this


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point, such a person consciously perceives the world ofinspiration. Cognition of this sort does not appear in thesame way as the cognition that applies to the physicalworld of the senses. In the sensory world, we receive per-ceptions through our senses and then form mental imagesand concepts about them. This is not the case when weknow about something through inspiration. What we knowthere is immediately present in a single action; there is nosuch thing as thinking about a perception after it occurs. Ininspiration, what we acquire in the form of a concept afterthe fact in sensory, physical cognition is presented simulta-neously with the perception. This is why we would flowinto and merge with the surrounding world of soul andspirit and be unable to distinguish ourselves from it if wehad not developed the network in the ether body that hasjust been described.

When we do the exercises that lead to intuition, they notonly affect the ether body but also work into the supersen-sible forces of the physical body. We must not imagine,however, that the effects within the physical body areaccessible to our ordinary sense perception. They canonly be assessed by means of supersensible cognition andhave nothing to do with external cognition. They are aresult of consciousness maturing to the point where it isable to have intuitive experiences even after havingexcluded all previous outer and inner experiences.

Intuitive experiences, however, are tender, subtle, anddelicate. At its present stage of evolution, the physicalhuman body is coarse in comparison to them and presentsa major obstacle to the success of intuition exercises. But if


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these exercises are carried out with energy, persistence,and the necessary inner tranquillity, they eventually over-come the mighty obstacles presented by the physicalbody. Students of the spirit notice that this has happenedwhen they gain control over certain expressions of thephysical body that formerly occurred completely uncon-sciously. They may notice it also because they feel theneed to regulate their breathing, for example, for shortperiods of time so that it harmonizes with what their soulsare doing in these exercises or other meditations. In innerdevelopment, the ideal is to not perform any exercises,including breathing exercises of this sort, by means of thephysical body itself. Instead, everything that needs tohappen with regard to the physical body should comeabout only as a consequence of pure intuition exercises.

. . . . . . . .

At a certain level in their ascent along the path to worldsof higher cognition, students of the spirit notice that theforces of their personalities are being held together differ-ently than they are in the physical world of the senses. Inthe physical world, the I makes the soul forces of think-ing, feeling, and willing work together in a unified way;under the ordinary circumstances of our lives, these threesoul forces always relate to each other in specific ways.For example, we see something in the outer world, andour souls like it or dislike it—that is, the mental image ofthe thing is necessarily followed by a feeling of liking ordisliking. We may desire the thing in question or have animpulse to change it in one way or another. This means


that our will and our ability to desire something are asso-ciated with an idea and a feeling. This happens becausethe I unites visualizing (thinking), feeling, and willing,thus bringing order into the forces of the personality. Thishealthy order would be disrupted if the I were to provepowerless in this respect—if our desires wanted to take adifferent direction from our feeling or thinking, for exam-ple. Thinking that a certain thing is right while wanting todo something that we do not think is right, or wantingwhat we dislike instead of what we like, would not indi-cate a healthy state of mind.

On the path toward higher cognition, however, we actu-ally notice that thinking, feeling, and willing separate andacquire a certain independence from each other—forexample, that certain thoughts no longer seem to automat-ically impel us toward a specific way of feeling and will-ing. At this point, although in thinking we can perceivesomething correctly, we again require an independentimpulse coming from ourselves in order to come to anyfeeling or willed decision about it. During supersensibleobservation, thinking, feeling, and willing do not remainthree forces radiating from their common center in the Iof the person in question. They become independentbeings—three separate personalities, so to speak. Theindividual I must become that much stronger, becauserather than simply having to impose order on three forces,it must now guide and direct three beings. This separa-tion, however, should persist only as long as supersen-sible observation continues. Here again it becomes appar-ent how important it is for exercises leading to higher


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training to be accompanied by ones that provide stabilityand firmness for our capacity for judgment and our life offeeling and will. If we do not bring these qualities with usinto the higher world, we will soon see that the I provestoo weak to act as an appropriate guide for thinking, feel-ing, and willing. In this case, the soul is torn apart in dif-ferent directions by three personalities, so to speak, andits inner unity comes to an end. But if a student’s devel-opment proceeds in the right way, the transformation ofthese forces signifies true progress, and the I retains itsmastery over the independent beings that now make upthe soul.

In the further course of personal development, this evo-lution continues. Thinking, having become independent,stimulates the appearance of a fourth specific soul-spiri-tual being that can be described as a direct influx ofthought-like currents into the human being. The entirecosmos then appears as a thought structure that confrontsus just as the world of plants or animals confronts us inthe physical domain of the senses. Similarly, our newlyindependent feeling and willing stimulate two forces inthe soul that also act like independent beings within it.Still a seventh force and being appears, which is similarto our own I.

This whole experience is linked to another one. Beforeentering the supersensible world, we know our thinking,feeling, and willing only as inner soul experiences. Assoon as we enter this world, we perceive things thatexpress the element of soul and spirit rather than thephysical, sensory element. There are now beings of soul


and spirit standing behind the perceived qualities of thisnew world and presenting themselves to us as an outerworld in the same way that stones, plants, and animalspresent themselves to our senses in the physical domain.Students of the spirit can perceive a significant differencebetween the world that is now disclosing itself to themand the one they were accustomed to perceiving with theirsenses. A plant in the world of the senses remains thesame regardless of what the human soul feels or thinksabout it. Initially, this is not the case with the images ofthe world of soul and spirit. They change according towhat we feel or think. We imprint a certain character onthem in accordance with our own essence.

Let’s imagine that a certain image appears in the imag-inative world in front of us. It shows itself in one form ifour souls remain indifferent to it, but as soon as we expe-rience liking or disliking with regard to this image, itchanges its form. To begin with, therefore, these imagesnot only express something independent of and externalto us but also reflect what we are. They are thoroughlypermeated with our own human essence, which is drawnover the beings in question like a veil. Even when we areconfronted by a real being, we see something of our owncreation instead of the being itself. We can actually havesomething totally true in front of us and still see some-thing false. And this is not only the case with regard to theaspects of our essential nature that we actually notice inourselves, but everything else in us also influences thisworld in the same way. For example, we may have hiddentendencies that do not become evident in our life because


of our education and character, but they do influence theworld of spirit and soul, which assumes a particular col-oration as a result of the total being of each one of us,regardless of how much we ourselves know or do notknow about this essential being.

To advance beyond this level of development, we mustlearn to distinguish between ourselves and the spiritualouter world. We must learn to exclude all the effects ofthe individual self on the world of soul and spirit aroundus. The only way we can do this is by knowing about whatwe ourselves bring into this new world. The importantthing, therefore, is that we must first have a true and thor-ough knowledge of ourselves so that we can perceive thesurrounding world of soul and spirit in a pure way. It isinherent in certain facts of human inner development thatknowing ourselves in this way takes place quite naturallyand as a matter of necessity when we enter the higherworld.

As we know, we each develop our I, our self-aware-ness, in the ordinary physical world of the senses. This Inow acts as a center of attraction for everything thatbelongs to the human individual. All our inclinations,sympathies, antipathies, passions, opinions, and so ongather around this I, as it were, which is also the point ofattraction for everything we call an individual’s karma. Ifwe were to see this I exposed, we would recognize itsneed to encounter specific forms of destiny in this andsubsequent incarnations, according to how it lived in ear-lier incarnations and what it acquired there. With all ofthis clinging to it, the I is necessarily the first image that


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appears to the human soul ascending into the world ofsoul and spirit. According to a law of the spiritual world,this double of ours must be the very first impression wereceive there. This underlying law becomes easily under-standable if we consider the following: In our physical,sensory life we perceive ourselves only to the extent thatwe have inner experiences of ourselves in our thinking,feeling, and willing. However, these perceptions are innerones that do not present themselves to us in the same waythat stones, plants, and animals present themselves. Inaddition, we also become only partially familiar with our-selves through inner perception because somethingwithin us prevents deeper self-knowledge. What preventsthis is an impulse to immediately transform any charactertrait if self-knowledge forces us to acknowledge it and wedo not want to succumb to self-deception.

If we do not give in to this impulse, if we simply divertour attention from this aspect of ourselves and remain theway we are, we deprive ourselves of the possibility of get-ting to know ourselves on this particular point. But if wedelve into ourselves and hold up certain character traits forinspection without deceiving ourselves, either we will bein a position to correct them or we will be unable to do soin our present situation. In this latter instance, a feelingthat we must describe as “shame” creeps into our souls.This is how healthy human nature actually works—itexperiences many different types of shame in the processof self-knowledge. Now, this feeling already has a veryspecific effect even in our ordinary life. People with soundthinking will make sure that the aspects of themselves that


give them this feeling have no outer effects, that they arenot played out in outer actions. Shame, therefore, is a forcethat impels us to conceal something within us and notallow it to become outwardly perceptible.

If we give this due consideration, we will understandwhy spiritual research ascribes much more wide-rangingeffects to an inner soul experience that is very closelyrelated to the feeling of shame. This research reveals atype of hidden shame in the hidden depths of the soul, ashame that we do not become conscious of in our physi-cal, sensory life. However, this hidden feeling works in away that is similar to how the ordinary feeling of shameworks in everyday life—it prevents a person’s innermostbeing from appearing to that person as a perceptibleimage. If this feeling were not there, we would confront aperception of what we are in truth. We would not onlyhave inner experiences of our ideas, feelings, and will; wewould also perceive them just as we perceive stones, ani-mals, and plants. This feeling conceals us from ourselves,and at the same time it conceals the entire world of souland spirit, because the fact that our own inner being isconcealed from us means that we are also unable to per-ceive the means of developing tools for recognizing theworld of soul and spirit. We are unable to transform ourown being to receive the organs of spiritual perception.

However, if we work toward acquiring these organsthrough genuine training, the first impression that appearsto us is an impression of what we ourselves are. We eachperceive our own double. This self-perception cannot beseparated from perceiving the rest of the world of soul


and spirit. In ordinary life in the physical, sensory world,the effect of the feeling described above is that it con-stantly closes the door of the soul-spiritual world in ourfaces. If we want to take even a single step toward enter-ing this world, this subconscious feeling of shame imme-diately appears and conceals the part of the world of souland spirit that wants to become evident. The exercisesthat were described earlier, however, open this world tous. And in fact, this concealed feeling acts like a greatbenefactor of human beings, because any powers of judg-ment, feeling life, or character we acquire without spiri-tual scientific training do not make us capable of standingup to the perception of our own nature in its true formwithout further preparation. Perceiving this woulddeprive us of all of our self-esteem, self-confidence, andself-awareness. We need to take precautionary measuresin cultivating our sound judgment, feeling life, and char-acter in addition to doing the exercises for higher knowl-edge in order to ensure that this does not happen. Throughproper training, we learn, as if unintentionally, enoughspiritual science and the necessary means of self-knowl-edge and self-observation to have sufficient strength toencounter our double.

For students of the spirit, it is then like seeing what theyhave already learned in the physical world in anotherform, as a picture of the imaginative world. If we havealready acquired a rational grasp of the law of karma inthe physical world, we will not be unduly shaken by see-ing the seeds of our destiny imprinted on the image of ourdouble. If we have used our powers of judgment to


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become familiar with the evolution of the cosmos and ofhumankind, and if we know that at a certain point in thisevolution the forces of Lucifer invaded the human soul, itwill not be difficult for us to bear it when we becomeaware that Luciferic beings and all their influences arecontained in this image of our own essential nature.

We see from this how necessary it is that we notdemand to enter the spiritual world ourselves before wehave understood certain truths about this world throughthe ordinary powers of judgment that we develop in thephysical world of the senses. Before wanting to actuallyenter the supersensible worlds, students of the spiritshould make their own the information in this book thatprecedes the discussion of knowing higher worlds. In thecourse of a legitimate self-development process, theyshould do this on the basis of their ordinary powers ofjudgment.

In a training that does not pay attention to safeguardingand solidifying the power of judgment, their life of feel-ing and their character, it could happen that the higherworld would approach the students before they had thenecessary inner faculties. If this happened, encounteringtheir doubles would depress them and lead them intoerrors. If, however, human beings avoided this encounterentirely and were nevertheless led into the supersensibleworld—which would also be possible—they would beequally incapable of recognizing this world in its trueform. It would be totally impossible for them to distin-guish between what they themselves were projectingonto things and what these things really were. It is only


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possible to make this distinction if we perceive our ownessence as an image in itself. If we do so, everythingflowing from our own inner nature detaches itself fromwhat surrounds it.

In our life in the physical world of the senses, the dou-ble immediately makes itself invisible by means of thesense of shame described above when we approach theworld of soul and spirit. Simultaneously, however, thedouble also conceals this entire world. It stands like aguardian in front of that world, refusing entry to anyonenot yet suitable for entering. The double can therefore becalled “the guardian of the threshold to the world of souland spirit.” We encounter this guardian of the thresholdnot only when we enter the supersensible world in theway described but also when we enter it through physicaldeath. The guardian reveals itself gradually in the courseof our soul-spiritual development between death and anew birth. In this case, however, we are not oppressed bythis encounter because we know about worlds we did notknow about during life between birth and death.

If we were to enter the world of soul and spirit withoutencountering the guardian of the threshold, we would suc-cumb to one deception after another, because we wouldnever be able to distinguish between what we ourselveswere bringing into this world and what really belongs toit. Genuine training, however, is only permitted to leadstudents of the spirit into the domain of truth and not intothe domain of illusion. It is inherent in this training thatthe encounter with the guardian must take place at somepoint, since it is an indispensable precautionary measure


against the deception and illusory fantasy that are possi-ble when we are observing supersensible worlds.

One of the most indispensable precautions all studentsof the spirit must take as individuals is to work carefullyon themselves to avoid becoming delusional visionarieswho may succumb to deception and autosuggestion.Whenever instructions for spiritual training are followedcorrectly, the potential sources of deception aredestroyed. Of course this is not the place to go into all thenumerous details that have to be considered with regardto these precautions; only the most important points canbe indicated here. The deceptions that come into consid-eration here come from two sources. Some of them comefrom the fact that we color reality with our own soulnature. In ordinary life in the physical world of the senses,this source of deception poses relatively little danger,because there the outer world always forces itself uponour observations in its actual form, regardless of how wemight attempt to color it with our desires and interests.But as soon as we enter the imaginative world, the imageswe perceive change because of these desires and interestsof ours, and we confront a seeming reality that we haveshaped ourselves, or have at least contributed to shaping.Through encountering the guardian of the threshold, stu-dents of the spirit become familiar with everything that iswithin them that they might carry into the world of souland spirit. This eliminates the first source of deception.The preparation that students undergo before entering theworld of soul and spirit accustoms them to disregardingthemselves even when observing the physical world of


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the senses, allowing only the essence of things and eventsto speak to them. If we have prepared thoroughly enough,we can wait calmly to encounter the guardian of thethreshold. This encounter will be the ultimate test ofwhether we are really also in a position to exclude ourown being when we face the world of soul and spirit.

In addition to this, still another source of deceptionsappears when we misinterpret an impression we receive.A simple example of this type of deception in our physi-cal, sensory life is what happens when we sit in a train andthink that the trees are moving in the opposite direction,while we ourselves are actually moving with the train.Although in many cases such deceptions in the physicalworld of the senses are more difficult to correct than thissimple one, it is easy to see that in this world we find themeans to do away with such deceptions if our sound judg-ment takes everything into account that can contribute toan appropriate explanation. The situation is different, ofcourse, as soon as we make our way into supersensibledomains. In the world of the senses, facts do not changewhen human beings are deceived, so it is possible forunbiased observation to use the facts to correct the decep-tion. In the supersensible world, however, the matter isnot that simple. If we apply false judgments in approach-ing a supersensible process we are trying to observe, weinsert these false judgments into the process itself, wherethey become so entangled with actual fact that it is notimmediately possible to distinguish them from the fact. Inthis case, the error is not inside us and the correct fact out-side; our error has become a component of the external


fact and can therefore not be corrected simply by observ-ing the fact in an unbiased way. With this, we havepointed to a superabundant source of possible deceptionsand illusory fantasies for those who approach the super-sensible world without the right preparation.

Just as students of the spirit acquire the ability toexclude deceptions that come about because of how theirown nature colors supersensible phenomena, they mustalso acquire the gift of inactivating this second source ofdeception. They become able to exclude what comesfrom themselves once they have recognized the image oftheir own double, and they will be able to exclude thissecond source of deception once they have acquired theability to recognize from the makeup of a supersensiblefact whether it is the truth or a deception. If deceptionslooked exactly the same as facts, it would be impossibleto distinguish between them, but this is not the case. In thesupersensible worlds, deceptions have inherent qualitiesthat distinguish them from realities. It is essential for stu-dents of the spirit to know which qualities distinguish therealities.

It seems self-evident that someone unacquainted withspiritual training might ask, “How is there any possibilityof protecting ourselves against deception, since there areso many sources of it? And are students of the spirit evercertain that all their so-called higher knowledge is notbased only on deception and autosuggestion?” Anyonewho talks like this is not taking into account the fact thatthe very way a true spiritual training takes place blocksdeceptions at the source. In the first place, through their


preparation true students of the spirit will have acquiredenough knowledge about the causes of deception andautosuggestion to be able to protect themselves. In thisrespect, they have more opportunities than any others tobecome sufficiently matter-of-fact and competent tojudge what they encounter in life. Everything they expe-rience makes them distrust indefinite premonitions andquestionable flashes of so-called inspiration. Their train-ing makes them as careful as possible. In addition, anytrue training first guides its students to thoughts aboutgreat cosmic events—that is, to things that force them toexert their powers of judgment, refining and sharpeningthem in the process. The only way we could miss out onthis sharpening of our healthy powers of judgment, whichgive us certainty in distinguishing between deception andreality, would be by refusing to enter such distant realmsand insisting on restricting ourselves to “revelations”closer at hand.

However, all of this is not the most important thing.What is most important is inherent in the very exercisesthat are used in genuine spiritual training. They have to bearranged in such a way that the student’s consciousnesshas a complete and exact overview of what is going on inthe soul during meditation. First of all, a symbol is devel-oped to bring about imagination. There are still imagestaken from outer perceptions in this symbol; we are notsolely responsible for its content. And since we do notcreate it ourselves, it is possible for us to delude ourselvesabout how it comes about. We may misinterpret its origin.However, students of the spirit remove this content from


their consciousness when they move up to the exercisesfor inspiration, where they contemplate only their ownsouls’ activity that shaped the symbol. Here too error ispossible. We have acquired the character of our soulactivity through our upbringing, education, and so on. Wecannot know everything about the origin of this activity.However, students of the spirit also remove this activityof theirs from their consciousness, so if something stillremains, there is no remnant of anything that cannot besurveyed. Anything that can possibly mingle with thiscan be assessed with regard to its entire content.

In their intuition, students of the spirit thus possesssomething that shows them the makeup of anything that isa totally clear reality in the world of soul and spirit. If theythen apply the signs they have recognized as being charac-teristic of soul-spiritual reality to everything that presentsitself to their observation, they will be able to distinguishsemblances from realities. And they can be certain thatapplying this law will protect them from deception in thesupersensible world just as certainly as they will not mis-take an imagined piece of hot iron for a real one that actu-ally burns them in the physical world of the senses. It goeswithout saying that we will only apply these criteria toknowledge we regard as our own experience in the super-sensible worlds, and not to what we receive as communi-cations from others and understand with our physicalintellect and our healthy feeling for the truth. Spiritual stu-dents will attempt to draw a precise boundary betweenwhat they have acquired in these two different ways. Theywill willingly receive information about the higher worlds


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and attempt to understand it with their powers of judg-ment, but when they categorize something as personalexperience or direct observation, they will have testedwhether it presents the very same characteristics that infal-lible intuition has taught them to perceive.

. . . . . . . .

Once students of the spirit have the encounter with theguardian of the threshold behind them, they face furtherexperiences as they ascend into supersensible worlds.First of all, they notice a certain inner relationshipbetween this guardian and the seventh soul force that wasdescribed above as forming itself into an independententity. In a certain respect, this seventh being is noneother than the double, the actual guardian of the threshold.It poses a specific task to students of the spirit. They mustuse their newborn selves to guide what they are in theirordinary selves, which appear to them in images. Thisresults in a sort of struggle against the double, who willconstantly try to gain the upper hand. Achieving the rightrelationship with the double, not allowing it to do any-thing that does not happen under the influence of the new-born I, strengthens and consolidates the forces of thehuman being.

In the higher world, self-knowledge is different in somerespects than it is in the physical world of the senses,where self-knowledge appears only as an inner experi-ence. In contrast, the newborn self immediately presentsitself as an external soul phenomenon. We each see ourown newborn self as a separate being in front of us, but


we are not able to perceive it fully. Regardless of whatlevel we have reached on the path to supersensibleworlds, there are always still higher levels where we willperceive ever more of the higher self, which can thereforereveal itself only partially at any given level. However,when we first become aware of some aspect of the higherself, we are overcome by an extremely great temptationto look at it from the standpoint we acquired in the phys-ical world of the senses, so to speak. This temptation isactually a good thing, and it must happen if our innerdevelopment is to proceed properly. We must eachobserve our double, the guardian of the threshold, andplace it in front of the higher self in order to notice the dis-crepancy between what we are and what we are meant tobecome. When we do this, however, the guardian of thethreshold begins to assume a completely different form.It presents itself as an image of all the obstacles confront-ing the development of the higher self. We perceive whata burden we are each dragging around with us in the formof the ordinary self. If our preparations have not made usstrong enough to say: “I am not going to stop here; I willstrive unceasingly to develop toward my higher self,” wewill falter and shrink back from what is ahead of us. Inthis case, we have plunged into the world of soul andspirit but quit working our way forward. We become pris-oners of the form that now stands before our souls as theguardian of the threshold.

The significant thing about this experience is that wedon’t have the feeling of being prisoners. We are muchmore likely to believe that we are experiencing something


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completely different. The figure summoned up by theguardian of the threshold can create the impression in oursouls that the images appearing to us at this stage of ourdevelopment already encompass all possible worlds, thatwe have arrived at the pinnacle of knowledge and nolonger need to exert ourselves. Instead of feeling like pris-oners, it’s possible for us to feel that we possess all theimmeasurably rich secrets of the cosmos. We will not besurprised by this experience, which is the exact oppositeof the true state of affairs, if we consider that we arealready in the world of soul and spirit when we have thisexperience and that one of this world’s idiosyncrasies isthat experiences can appear in reverse. This fact wasalready pointed out earlier in this book when life afterdeath was described.

The figure that we perceive at this stage of our develop-ment shows us something different from what firstappeared to us as the guardian of the threshold. In the dou-ble as we first perceived it, we saw all the character traitsthat the ordinary self possesses as a result of the influenceof Luciferic forces. However, in the course of human evo-lution another power has also been able to move into thehuman soul because of Lucifer’s influence. This is whatwas described as the power of Ahriman in earlier chaptersof this book. It is the power that prevents us from perceiv-ing the soul-spiritual beings of the outer world lyingbehind the surface of sense-perceptible things. What thehuman soul has become under the influence of this poweris shown in image form in the figure that appears duringthe experience that has just been described.


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If we approach this experience with the right prepara-tion, we will interpret it correctly, and then another figurewill soon appear. In contrast to the lesser guardiandescribed earlier, we can call this figure the “greaterguardian of the threshold.” The greater guardian tells usthat we must not remain at this stage but must continue towork energetically. The greater guardian awakens in usthe awareness that the world we have conquered will onlybecome a truth and not metamorphose into illusion if wecontinue to work in the appropriate way.

However, if we approach this experience without hav-ing been prepared for it by a proper spiritual training,when we encounter the greater guardian something thatcan only be compared to a feeling of immeasurable horroror boundless fear will fill our souls.

Just as the encounter with the lesser guardian makes itpossible for us to test whether we are protected against thedeceptions that can arise when we insert our own beinginto the supersensible world, the experiences that ulti-mately lead us to the greater guardian allow us to testwhether we are capable of overcoming the deceptions thatcan be traced back to the second source described above.If we are able to resist the immense illusion that leads usto believe that the world of images we have reached is arich possession while in reality we are mere prisoners, wewill also be protected against mistaking semblance forreality in the further course of our development.

To a certain extent, the guardian of the threshold willassume an individually different form for each humanbeing. The encounter with the guardian corresponds to


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the experience that overcomes the personal character ofour supersensible observations and makes it possible forus to enter an area of experience that is free of personalcoloring and valid for every human being.

. . . . . . . .

Students of the spirit who have had the experiencesdescribed above are then able to distinguish what theythemselves are from what is outside of them in their soul-spiritual surroundings. They will then realize that we needto understand the cosmic process described in this book inorder to understand human beings themselves and theirlives. We understand the physical body only if we recog-nize how it has been built up through the Saturn, Sun,Moon, and Earth phases of evolution; we understand theether body only if we trace its development through theSun, Moon, and Earth phases, and so on. However, wealso understand what is presently involved in the Earth’sevolution if we recognize how all this has unfolded grad-ually. Spiritual training puts us in a position to recognizethat everything in the human being is related to corre-sponding facts and beings in the world outside of us. It isa fact that every part and organ of the human being isrelated to all the rest of the world. In this book, it has onlybeen possible to present a sketchy outline of the facts.However, we must keep in mind that the physical humanbody, for example, was present only in seminal form dur-ing the Saturn phase of evolution. Later, during the Sun,Moon, and Earth phases, its organs—heart, lungs,brain—evolved from this seminal endowment. Thus our


heart, lungs, and so on are related to the Sun, Moon, andEarth phases of evolution. Something similar is true ofthe organs of the ether body, sentient body, sentient soul,and so on. Human beings took shape out of the entireworld immediately surrounding them, and every detail ofour human makeup corresponds to a process or being inthe outer world.

At the appropriate level of inner development, stu-dents of the spirit begin to recognize this relationshipbetween their own individual beings and the greaterworld. This level of cognition can be described asbecoming aware of the correspondence between themicrocosm, or smaller world, that is the human beingand the macrocosm, or greater world. Having brokenthrough to this stage of knowledge, students of the spiritcan then begin to have a new experience. In spite ofbeing aware of themselves in their full independence,they begin to feel as if they have grown together with theentire structure of the cosmos. They have a feeling ofmerging with the entire cosmos and becoming one withit, yet without losing their essential nature. We candescribe this level of development as “becoming onewith the macrocosm.” It is important not to think of thisas a cessation of an individual consciousness, as if theessence of a human individual were flowing out into theuniverse. To think of it in this way would only reflect theopinion of an untrained faculty of judgment.

In the sense of the initiation process described here,the individual stages of higher cognition can be listed asfollows:


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1. Studying spiritual science by initially making useof the power of judgment, which we have acquiredin the physical world of the senses.

2. Acquiring imaginative cognition. 3. Reading the hidden script (this corresponds to

inspiration). 4. Living one’s way into the spiritual surroundings

(this corresponds to intuition).5. Recognizing the relationship between the micro-

cosm and the macrocosm. 6. Becoming one with the macrocosm. 7. Experiencing all of these previous experiences as a

totality, as a fundamental mood of soul.

We do not necessarily need to think of these stages as hap-pening one after the other. On the contrary, depending onthe individual student, training may proceed so that onelevel has been only partially completed before the studentbegins with exercises that correspond to the next level. Forexample, it may be very good for a certain student to doexercises leading to personal experiences in inspiration,intuition, or recognizing the connection between micro-cosm and macrocosm even though he or she has onlyacquired a few imaginations with any degree of certainty.

. . . . . . . .

Once students of the spirit have experienced intuition, inaddition to being able to recognize the images of the worldof soul and spirit and read their interrelationships in the“hidden script,” they also acquire direct knowledge of the


actual beings who work together to bring about the worldto which we human beings belong. Through this, they alsoget to know themselves in the forms they possess as spiri-tual beings in the world of soul and spirit. They haveworked hard to be able to perceive the higher I and haverealized how they need to continue working in order tocontrol the double, the guardian of the threshold. But theyhave also encountered the “greater guardian” who con-stantly urges them on to greater effort. This greater guard-ian becomes the example they want to emulate, and oncethis has happened it becomes possible for them to recog-nize who it is standing in front of them in the form of thegreater guardian. In the students’ perception, the greaterguardian is now transformed into the figure of the Christ.The essence of this being and His intervention in Earth’sevolution has been made clear in earlier chapters of thisbook. In this way, students of the spirit are initiated intothat same exalted mystery that is linked with the name ofChrist. The Christ discloses Himself to them as the greatexample for human beings on Earth.

To those who have recognized the Christ in the spiritualworld as a result of their initiation, historical events onEarth in the fourth post-Atlantean evolutionary period(the Greco-Latin age) also become comprehensible. Forstudents of the spirit, the intervention of the exalted Sunbeing, the Christ-being, in Earth’s evolution at that timeand His ongoing work within this evolution become amatter of direct experience and personal knowledge.Through intuition, therefore, the purpose and significanceof Earth’s evolution are revealed to students of the spirit.


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The path that is described here as leading to knowledgeof the supersensible worlds is one that every human beingcan follow, regardless of his or her present situation inlife. In talking about such a path, we must keep in mindthat although the goal of knowledge and truth is the samein all ages of Earth’s evolution, the starting points havebeen different at different times. People wanting to set outon the path to the spiritual world at present cannot startfrom the same point as ancient Egyptian candidates forinitiation, for example. That’s why present-day individu-als cannot simply take up the exercises assigned to stu-dents of the spirit in ancient Egypt. Since that time,human souls have progressed through various incarna-tions, and this progress is not without meaning and signif-icance. The abilities and characteristics of human soulschange from incarnation to incarnation. Even if weobserve human history only superficially, we can see thatall of life’s circumstances were different after the twelfthor thirteenth century than they were before: opinions,feelings, and even human abilities changed. The path tohigher cognition that is described here is one that is suit-able for souls incarnating in the immediate present. Ittakes its point of departure for spiritual development fromwhere people stand at present, whatever the circum-stances of their individual lives may be. Just as the formsof outer life change, evolution from one period to the nextleads humankind to ever different forms with regard tothe paths to higher cognition. At any given time, outer lifeand initiation must be in perfect harmony.


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C H A P T E R 6

COSMIC AND HUMAN EVOLUTION

NOW AND IN THE FUTURE

Unless we understand past evolution, it is impossible toknow anything about the present and future states ofhuman and cosmic evolution in the sense of spiritual sci-ence, because everything spiritual researchers are able toknow about the present and the future is simultaneouslypresent in what presents itself to their perception as theyobserve the hidden facts of the past. This book has dealtwith the Saturn, Sun, Moon, and Earth phases of evolu-tion. Without observing the facts of previous evolution-ary phases, we cannot understand the Earth phase ofevolution in the sense of spiritual science, because in acertain respect the realities of the Moon, Sun, and Saturnphases are present in what confronts us now in the earthlyworld. The beings and things that were involved in theMoon phase continued to evolve, and everything thatbelongs to our present Earth came from them.

However, not everything that came from the Moon andhas now become the Earth is perceptible to consciousnessin the physical world of the senses. Part of what passed

Cosmic and Human Evolution 377

from the Moon to the Earth in the course of evolution onlybecomes evident at a certain level of supersensible con-sciousness. Having reached this level of cognition, wecan perceive that our earthly world is connected to asupersensible world which contains the part of Moonexistence that did not condense enough to be physicallyperceived by our senses. The supersensible world con-tains this aspect of the Moon as it is at present, not as itwas during the ancient Moon phase of evolution. How-ever, it is possible for supersensible consciousness to geta picture of conditions at that time.

When this supersensible consciousness concentrates onthe perception that is possible at present, it becomes evi-dent that this perception is gradually separating into twoimages all by itself. One image represents the form theEarth had during its Moon phase of evolution. But as theother image presents itself, we can recognize that it con-tains a form that is still in a seminal stage; only in the futurewill it become a reality in the way that the Earth is a realitynow. On further observation, it becomes apparent that in acertain sense the results of what happens on Earth are con-stantly flowing into this future form, which therefore rep-resents what our Earth is meant to become. The effects ofearthly existence will unite with what happens in this otherworld, giving rise to the new cosmic being into which theEarth will eventually be transformed, just as the Moon wastransformed into the Earth. We can call this future form theJupiter stage.

If this Jupiter stage is observed by means of supersensi-ble perception, it becomes evident that in the future certain


processes will have to take place because certain beingsand things are present in the supersensible part of theearthly world that came from the Moon. These beings andthings will assume certain forms after various events havetaken place within the physical, sense-perceptible Earthrealm. This means that the Jupiter stage will contain some-thing that has already been predetermined by the Moonphase of evolution, and it will also contain something newthat is entering evolution as a whole only because of pro-cesses taking place on the Earth. This is why it is possiblefor supersensible consciousness to experience somethingof what will happen during the Jupiter stage.

The beings and facts that can be perceived within thisfield of consciousness do not have the character of sen-sory images; they do not even appear as delicate airystructures that might give rise to effects reminiscent ofsense impressions. The impressions we receive fromthem are purely spiritual impressions of sound, light, andwarmth that are not expressed through material embodi-ments of any sort. They can only be grasped by means ofsupersensible consciousness. It is possible to say thatsuch beings have “bodies,” but these bodies becomeapparent within the soul element, their present essentialnature, like a sum of condensed memories that thesebeings carry in their soul-nature. Within such beings, wecan distinguish between what they are now experiencingand what they have already experienced and now remem-ber. The latter is contained in them like a bodily element,which is experienced in the same way that earthly humanbeings experience their bodies.


[*]

At a higher level of supersensible cognition than thatjust described as necessary for perceiving the Moon andJupiter, it is possible to perceive supersensible things andbeings that are further evolved forms of what was alreadypresent during the Sun stage. At present, these figureshave achieved such high levels of existence that they arenot perceptible at all to consciousness that has onlyreached the level of being able to perceive Moon forms.This world’s image also splits into two when we contem-plate it inwardly. One image leads to knowledge of thepast Sun stage, while the other presents a future form ofthe Earth. The Earth will assume this form when theeffects of the Earth and Jupiter processes have flowed intothe forms of this world. Spiritual science calls this theVenus stage. Similarly, a future stage of evolution thatcan be called the Vulcan stage, which has the same rela-tionship to the Saturn stage as Venus to the Sun and Jupi-ter to the Moon, becomes evident to a still more highlydeveloped supersensible consciousness. Therefore, inconsidering the past, present, and future of the Earth, wecan speak of the Saturn, Sun, Moon, Earth, Jupiter,Venus, and Vulcan phases of evolution.

Several chapters in this book have described how thehuman world and human beings themselves move throughthe stages that have been given the names Saturn, Sun,Moon, Earth, Jupiter, Venus, and Vulcan. The relationshipof human evolution to certain celestial bodies, which coex-ist with the Earth and have been given the names Saturn,Jupiter, Mars, and so on, was also indicated. Of course,these heavenly bodies are also undergoing evolutions of


[*]

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their own. At the present time, they have reached the stagewhere their physical aspects present themselves to ourperception as the entities that physical astronomy knowsas Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, and so on. In the sense of spiritualscience, present-day Saturn is a reincarnation of ancientSaturn, so to speak, and came about because of the pres-ence of certain beings prior to the Sun’s separation fromthe Earth. These particular beings were unable to partici-pate in this separation, because they had incorporated somany characteristics suited to Saturn existence that theywere out of place on a cosmic body that concentrated pri-marily on developing Sun characteristics.

Present-day Jupiter, however, came about because ofthe presence of beings with characteristics that will onlybe able to develop during the future Jupiter stage of gen-eral evolution. A dwelling place was made where theycould foreshadow this future evolution. Mars is a celestialbody inhabited by beings who went through the Moonphase of evolution in a such way that they no longer hadanything to gain from staying on Earth. Mars is a reincar-nation of old Moon on a higher level. Present-day Mer-cury is the dwelling of beings who are ahead of theEarth’s evolution, because they have developed certainearthly characteristics in a higher form than is possible onEarth. In a similar way, present-day Venus propheticallyanticipates the Venus stage of the future.

Because of all this, we are quite justified in giving thestages before and after the Earth-phase the names of theirpresent representatives in the cosmos. It goes withoutsaying that when people want to use intellects trained in


[*]

the outer observation of nature to judge the parallel drawnhere between the supersensibly perceived states of Sat-urn, Sun, and so on and their namesakes among the phys-ical heavenly bodies, they will raise many objections towhat has been presented here. But just as it is possible touse mathematical concepts to visualize the solar systemas an image of happenings in time and space, it is alsopossible for supersensible cognition to imbue this mathe-matical image with a soul content so that it takes on aform that permits drawing this parallel. Imbuing theimage with soul content in this way, however, is also fullyconsistent with the further application of a strict natural-scientific method of observation. At the moment, this nat-ural-scientific method still restricts itself to trying toexpress the interrelationship between the solar systemand the Earth in purely mathematical, mechanical con-cepts, while the natural science of the future will, of itself,be driven to expand these mechanical concepts to includeones imbued with soul.

It would certainly be possible to show that these modernnatural-scientific ideas already provide sufficient groundsfor expanding these concepts, but this undertaking wouldrequire a whole book in itself. All that can done here is topoint to this matter, although doing so exposes it to manymisunderstandings as a result. The disagreements betweenspiritual science and natural science are often only appar-ent ones. They result simply from the refusal of natural sci-ence to formulate ideas that are demanded not only bysupersensible cognition but also—if the truth be told—bycognition that restricts itself to sense-perceptible things.


[*]

Everywhere in the results of modern natural-scientificobservations, unbiased observers can find indications ofother fields of purely sensory, physical observation thatwill have to be investigated in a purely natural-scientificmanner in the future. Such investigations will show that afull observation of nature confirms what supersensible per-ception reveals about any supersensible cosmic eventswith corresponding sense-perceptible manifestations.

In addition to the comprehensive circumstances ofEarth’s evolution, observations of the nearer future alsopresent themselves to our consciousness. Every image ofthe past corresponds to one of the future. However, in dis-cussing these things, we must emphasize something thaturgently needs to be taken into account. If we want toknow about things like this, we must totally relinquish theview that philosophical contemplation educated merelyby sense-perceptible reality is capable of discoveringanything about them. These things cannot and should notever be researched by thinking about them in this way. Ifwe were to believe that because spiritual science hasalready supplied us with information about the Moonphase of evolution, we will now be able to discover whatthings will look like on Jupiter by comparing the circum-stances of Earth and Moon and applying this kind ofthinking, we will succumb to enormous deceptions.These circumstances should only be researched throughsupersensible consciousness that rises to the level neces-sary to observe them. Only when the results of thisresearch have been communicated is it also possible tounderstand them without supersensible consciousness.


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[3]

Spiritual researchers are in a different position withregard to communications about the future than they arewith regard to those about the past. We are not initiallyable to confront future events as impartially as we con-front the past. What will happen in the future stirs up ourfeeling and willing, but we tolerate the past quite differ-ently. Anyone who observes life will know that this is trueeven of our ordinary existence, but only those who areaware of certain things in the supersensible worlds canknow what forms this tendency assumes and to what anenormous extent it increases with regard to life’s hiddenfacts. This is the reason why knowledge of these things iskept within very specific limits.

Just as the greater cosmic evolution can be presented as asuccession of states from Saturn through the Vulcan phase,it is also possible to present shorter spans of time such asthose that make up the Earth phase of evolution. The enor-mous upheaval that brought an end to life on Atlantis wasfollowed by the stages in human evolution that have beendescribed in this book as the ancient Indian, ancient Persian,Egypto-Chaldean, and Greco-Latin cultural periods. Thefifth period is where we stand now—the present. Thisperiod began gradually around the twelfth, thirteenth, andfourteenth centuries A.D., after having been prepared eversince the fourth and fifth centuries. It has been clearly evi-dent ever since the fifteenth century. The Greco-Latinperiod that preceded it began around the eighth century B.C.,and at the end of its first third the Christ event took place.

The disposition and faculties of the human soulchanged during the transition from the Egypto-Chaldean


period to the Greco-Latin. During the Egypto-Chaldeanperiod, what we now know as logical thinking or grasp-ing the world through reason did not yet exist. At thattime, the knowledge we now make our own through ourintellect was acquired in a way that was appropriatethen—directly, through an inner knowledge that wassupersensible in a certain respect. While people per-ceived things, the necessary concept or image of thosethings simply appeared in their souls. When the facultyof cognition is like this, not only do images of the phys-ical world of the senses appear, but a certain knowledgeof non-sensory realities and beings also rises out of thesoul’s depths. This was a remnant of the ancient, dusk-like supersensible consciousness that all of humankindhad formerly possessed.

In the Greco-Latin age, there were more and more peo-ple who lacked this faculty. In its place, the capacity forintellectual reflection appeared. People became moreand more removed from direct dreamlike perception ofthe world of soul and spirit and ever more dependent ontheir intellect and feelings to provide an image of thatworld. In some respects, this state of affairs continuedthroughout the fourth post-Atlantean period. Only thoseindividuals who had retained the legacy of the formersoul disposition, so to speak, were able to admit the spir-itual world into their consciousness directly. These peo-ple, however, were holdovers from an earlier age. Theirtype of cognition was no longer suited to the new age,because as a result of the laws of evolution, an old soulcapacity loses its full significance when new faculties


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appear. Human life adapts to these new faculties and nolonger knows what to do with the old ones.

There were also individuals, however, who quite con-sciously began to develop other, higher powers in addi-tion to the powers of intellect and feeling they hadacquired. These powers made it possible for them tobreak through into the world of soul and spirit again. Theway they had to begin to do this was quite different fromhow it had happened among the students of the ancientinitiates, who had not had to consider the soul facultiesthat developed only during the fourth post-Atlanteanperiod. This fourth period saw the first beginnings of thetype of modern spiritual training that has been describedin this book. However, at that time it was only in itsbeginning stages; it could only be fully developed in thefifth post-Atlantean period beginning with the twelfth andthirteenth centuries, and especially since the fifteenthcentury. People who attempted to ascend into supersensi-ble worlds in this way were able to experience somethingabout higher realms of existence through their own imag-ination, inspiration, and intuition. To those who werecontent with the faculties of intellect and feeling that haddeveloped, what ancient clairvoyance had known wasaccessible only through oral or written traditions thatwere passed down from generation to generation.

For people born after the Christ event who did notmake their way up into supersensible worlds, such tradi-tions were also their only means of knowing anythingabout the essential nature of this event. However, therewere certain initiates who still possessed the old natural


ability to perceive the supersensible world and whosedevelopment allowed them to enter a higher world inspite of the fact that they disregarded humankind’s newintellectual and emotional powers. They created a transi-tion from the old form of initiation to the new one. Peo-ple like this were also present in subsequent periods.However, the essential characteristic of the fourth post-Atlantean period was that human powers of intellect andfeeling were strengthened by being cut off from directinteraction with the world of soul and spirit. The soulswho incarnated then and greatly developed these powersthen carried the results of their development over intotheir incarnation during the fifth period. As compensa-tion for having been cut off from the spiritual world, themighty traditions of ancient wisdom were available,especially those having to do with the Christ event.Through the very power of their content, these traditionsprovided human souls with a confident knowledge of thehigher world.

There were also always human souls, however, whodeveloped their powers of higher cognition in addition totheir faculties of intellect and feeling. It was incumbentupon them to experience the realities of the higher worldand especially the mystery of the Christ event by meansof direct supersensible knowledge. They always allowedas much of this to flow into other human souls as wascomprehensible to them and good for them.

In harmony with the purpose of Earth’s evolution, thefirst expansion of Christianity was meant to take placeat a time when most of humankind had not developed


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faculties of supersensible cognition. This is why the forceof tradition was so powerful at that time. An extremelypowerful force was needed to make people confident inthe supersensible world if they themselves were not ableto behold this world. With the exception of a brief timeduring the thirteenth century, there were almost alwaysindividuals who were capable of lifting themselves up intothe higher worlds through imagination, inspiration, andintuition. In the Christian era, these people were the suc-cessors of the initiates of antiquity who had been leadersand members of the centers of mystery wisdom. The taskof these new initiates was to recognize once again, throughtheir own faculties, what had once been comprehendedthrough ancient mystery wisdom and to add to this aknowledge of the essential nature of the Christ event.

Thus the knowledge arising among the new initiatesencompassed all the subject matter of ancient initiation,but from its center radiated the higher knowledge of themysteries of the Christ event. As long as the human soulsof the fourth post-Atlantean period were meant to be con-solidating their faculties of intellect and feeling, thisknowledge was only able to flow into general life to a lim-ited extent, so during that time it was really quite hidden.Then the new age of the fifth cultural period dawned. Itsmain feature was the further development of intellectualabilities, which blossomed exuberantly then and will con-tinue to unfold in the present and future. A gradualbuildup to this period began in the twelfth and thirteenthcenturies, and its progress accelerated from the sixteenthcentury onward into the present.


Under these influences, cultivating the forces of reasonbecame the chief concern of evolution in the fifth culturalperiod. In contrast, traditional knowledge of and confi-dence in a supersensible world lost more and more of itspower over human souls. However, it was replaced bywhat we may call an increasingly strong influx intohuman souls of knowledge derived from modern super-sensible consciousness. “Hidden” knowledge was nowflowing, although imperceptibly to begin with, into peo-ple’s ways of thinking. It is self-evident that intellectualforces have continued to reject this knowledge right intothe present. But what must happen will happen in spite ofany temporary rejection. Symbolically, this hiddenknowledge, which is taking hold of humanity from theother side and will do so increasingly in the future, can becalled “the knowledge of the Grail.” If we learn to under-stand the deeper meaning of this symbol as it is presentedin stories and legends, we will discover a significantimage of what has been described above as the new initi-ation knowledge with the Christ mystery at its center.Therefore, modern initiates can also be known as “Grailinitiates.”

The path to supersensible worlds whose first stageshave been described in this book leads to “the science ofthe Grail.” A unique feature of this knowledge is that itsfacts can only be investigated by those who acquire themeans of doing so that are described in this book. Oncethese facts have been discovered, however, they can thenbe understood by means of the soul forces that have beendeveloping during the fifth cultural period. In fact, it will


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become increasingly evident that these forces will findtheir satisfaction in this knowledge to an ever greaterextent. At present, we are living in a time when more ofthis knowledge ought to enter common consciousnessthan was formerly the case. This book hopes to conveythe information it contains from this point of view. To theextent that human evolution will absorb Grail knowledge,the impulse supplied by the Christ event can become evermore significant. Increasingly, an inner aspect will beadded to the external aspect of Christian evolution. Whatwe can recognize through imagination, inspiration, andintuition about the higher worlds in conjunction with theChrist Mystery will increasingly permeate our life ofideas, feeling, and will. “Hidden” Grail knowledge willbecome evident; as an inner force, it will increasingly per-meate the manifestations of human life.

For the duration of the fifth cultural period, knowledgeof supersensible worlds will continue to flow into humanconsciousness; when the sixth period begins, humanitywill have been able to reacquire the non-sensory percep-tion it possessed in a dusklike way in earlier times—butnow on a higher level and in a form that is quite differentfrom the old perception. In ancient times, what our soulsknew about the higher worlds was not imbued with ourown forces of reason and feeling; it was received asinspiration from above. In the future, our souls will notonly receive these flashes of inspiration, but will alsocomprehend them and experience them as the essence ofhuman soul-nature. In future, when a soul receivesknowledge about a certain being or thing, the very nature


of the intellect will find this justified. If knowledge of adifferent sort asserts itself—knowledge of a moral com-mandment or a human behavior—the soul will tell itself:My feelings will only be justified if I act in accordancewith this knowledge. A sufficiently large number ofhuman beings are meant to develop this state of mindduring the sixth post-Atlantean cultural period.

In a certain way, what the third or Egypto-Chaldeanperiod contributed to humanity’s evolution is beingrepeated in the fifth. At that time, the human soul still per-ceived certain realities of the supersensible world,although this perception was waning as intellectual facul-ties prepared to emerge. These faculties were to tempo-rarily exclude human beings from the higher world. In thefifth cultural period, the supersensible realities that hadbeen perceived in a dusk-like state of consciousness arebecoming evident again but are now being imbued withour personal forces of intellect and feeling and with whathuman souls can gain through knowledge of the ChristMystery. This is why they are assuming different formsthan they did previously. In ancient times, impressionsfrom the supersensible worlds were experienced as forcesthat urged human beings on but emanated from an outerspiritual world that did not include them. In contrast,more recent evolution allows us to perceive these impres-sions as coming from a world we human beings are grow-ing into and are increasingly a part of. No one ought tobelieve that the Egypto-Chaldean cultural period will berepeated in such a way that our souls will simply be ableto take up what was then present and has come down to


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us from those times. If understood correctly, the effect ofthe Christ impulse is to make the human souls that receiveit feel, recognize, and conduct themselves as members ofa spiritual world, whereas formerly they were outsiders.

While the third cultural period is revived in the fifth inorder to be imbued with the totally new element in humansouls provided by the fourth period, something similarhappens in the sixth cultural period with regard to the sec-ond and in the seventh with regard to the first or ancientIndian cultural period. All the wonderful wisdom that thegreat teachers of ancient India could proclaim will be ableto reappear as life truths in human souls in the seventhcultural period.

Now, any transformations in things in the earthly worldoutside of human beings also have a certain relationshipto humankind’s own evolution. When the seventh culturalperiod has run its course, the Earth will be struck by anupheaval comparable to the one that took place betweenthe Atlantean and post-Atlantean ages. After this, evolu-tion will continue under transformed earthly circum-stances through seven more time periods. On a higherlevel, the human souls incarnating then will experiencethe same fellowship with a higher world that the Atlante-ans experienced on a lower level.

However, only human beings embodying souls thathave become all that they could under the influence of theGreco-Latin cultural period and the subsequent fifth, sixth,and seventh periods of post-Atlantean evolution will beable to cope with these reconfigured earthly circum-stances. The inner nature of these souls will correspond to


what the Earth has then become. Other souls will have toremain behind at this stage, although earlier they couldstill have chosen to create the prerequisites for participa-tion in it. The souls mature enough to face the conditionsthat will exist after the next great upheaval will be theones who succeeded in imbuing supersensible knowl-edge with their own forces of intellect and feeling at thetransition from the fifth to the sixth post-Atlanteanperiod. The fifth and sixth periods are the decisive ones,so to speak. In the seventh period, although the soulswho have achieved the goal of the sixth will continue todevelop accordingly, the changed circumstances in theirsurroundings will provide little opportunity for the oth-ers to make up for lost time. The next opportunity willpresent itself only in the distant future.

This is how evolution is proceeding from one age tothe next. Supersensible cognition observes not onlyfuture changes involving the Earth alone, but also onesthat occur in interaction with the neighboring heavenlybodies. There will come a time when both the Earth andhumanity have made such progress in evolution that theforces and beings that had to separate from the Earth dur-ing Lemurian times to enable earthly beings to continueto progress will be able to reunite with the Earth. At thattime, the Moon will reconnect with the Earth. This willhappen because sufficient numbers of human souls pos-sess enough inner strength to make these Moon forcesfruitful for further evolution. This will take place at atime when another development that has turned towardevil will be taking place alongside the high level of


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development reached by the appropriate number ofhuman souls. Souls whose development has beendelayed will have accumulated so much error, ugliness,and evil in their karma that they temporarily form a dis-tinct union of evil and aberrant human beings who vehe-mently oppose the community of good human beings.

In the course of its development, the good portion ofhumankind will learn to use the Moon forces to transformthe evil part so that it can participate in further evolution asa distinct earthly kingdom. Through the work of the goodpart of humanity, the Earth, then reunited with the Moon,will become able to reunite with the Sun after a certainperiod of evolution, and also with the other planets. Afteran interim stage that resembles a sojourn in a higher world,the Earth will transform itself into the Jupiter state.

During the Jupiter stage, what is now called the mineralkingdom will not exist; mineral forces will have beentransformed into plant forces. The lowest kingdomappearing during the Jupiter stage will be the plant king-dom, which will have a form entirely different from whatit has now. Above that will be the animal kingdom whichwill have undergone a comparable transformation, fol-lowed by a human kingdom consisting of the descendantsof the evil union that came about on Earth. Above these,there will be a higher human kingdom consisting of thedescendants of the community of good human beings onEarth. A great deal of the work of this second humankingdom will consist of ennobling the fallen souls in theevil union so that they will still be able to find their wayback into the actual human kingdom.


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At the Venus stage, the plant kingdom will also havedisappeared, and the lowest kingdom will be the animalkingdom, transformed once more. Above that there willbe three human kingdoms of different degrees of perfec-tion. During the Venus stage, the Earth will remain unitedwith the Sun; in contrast, as evolution proceeds on Jupi-ter, the Sun will once again break away from Jupiter andinfluence it from outside. Then a reunification of the Sunand Jupiter will take place, and the transformation intothe Venus stage will gradually continue. During theVenus stage, a distinct cosmic body will break away, con-taining all the beings who have resisted evolution andconstituting an “unredeemable moon,” so to speak. It willmove toward an evolution that is so different in characterfrom anything we can experience on Earth that there areno words that can possibly express it. The part of human-ity that has continued to evolve, however, will move onto the Vulcan phase of evolution in a fully spiritualizedform of existence. Describing this state falls outside thescope of this book.

We see that the highest imaginable ideal of human evo-lution results from Grail knowledge—that is, the spiritu-alization that we achieve through our own work.Ultimately, this spiritualization will appear as the resultof the harmony that human beings were able to bringabout in the fifth and sixth cultural periods between theirforces of intellect and feeling and their knowledge ofsupersensible worlds. What they produced there in theirinmost souls will ultimately become the outer world. Thehuman spirit raises itself up to the mighty impressions of


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its outer world, first divining and later recognizing thespiritual beings behind these impressions, while thehuman heart senses the infinite loftiness of this spiritualelement. However, human beings can also recognize theirown inner experiences of intellect, feeling, and moralityas the seeds of a future spiritual world.

If we believe that human freedom is incompatible withforeknowledge and with predestination of the shape ofthings to come, we should think of it like this: Our freeaction in the future will depend as little on what predes-tined things will be like then as it does on our intention tobe living a year from now in a house we design today. Tothe extent that our inner nature permits, we will be free inthe house we have built for ourselves, and we will also befree in the circumstances that come about on Venus andJupiter to the extent that our own inner nature permits.Our freedom will not depend on what is predestined byprior circumstances, but on what our souls have made ofthemselves.

The Earth stage contains what evolved during the pre-ceding Saturn, Sun, and Moon phases of evolution.Earthly human beings find wisdom in the events takingplace around them; it is there as the result of what hap-pened previously. The Earth is the descendant of the oldMoon, which shaped itself and everything belonging to itinto the cosmos of wisdom. The Earth, which is the begin-ning of an evolution that will inject new force into thiswisdom, brings human beings to the point where theyexperience themselves as independent members of a spir-itual world. This is due to the fact that the human I was


fashioned by the Spirits of Form during the Earth phaseof evolution, just as the physical body was shaped by theSpirits of Will on Saturn, the life body by the Spirits ofWisdom on the Sun, and the astral body by the Spirits ofMotion on the Moon. What manifests as wisdom does sothrough the interaction of the Spirits of Will, Wisdom,and Motion. In wisdom, earthly beings and processes canexist in harmony with the other beings of their worldthrough the work of these three orders of spiritual beings.

In the future, the independent human I, which wasreceived through the Spirits of Form, will exist in har-mony with the beings of Earth, Jupiter, Venus, and Vul-can, because of the power that the Earth stage injects intowisdom. This is the power of love, which must begin inhuman beings on Earth. The “cosmos of wisdom” isdeveloping into a “cosmos of love.” Everything that the Ican develop within itself must turn into love. The exaltedSun being we were able to characterize in describingChrist’s evolution manifests as the all-encompassingexample of love, planting the seed of love in the inner-most core of the human being. From there, it is meant toflow out into all of evolution. Just as wisdom, whichformed earlier, discloses itself in the forces of the sense-perceptible earthly world, in present-day forces of nature,love itself will appear as a new natural force in all phe-nomena in the future. This is the mystery of all futureevolution: that our knowledge and everything we do outof a true understanding of evolution sow seeds that mustripen into love. The greater the power of the love thatcomes into being, the more we will be able to accomplish


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creatively on behalf of the future. The strongest forcesworking toward the end result of spiritualization lie inwhat will come from love. The more spiritual knowledgeflows into the evolution of humanity and the Earth, thegreater the number of viable seeds will there be for thefuture. Through its very nature, spiritual knowledgetransforms itself into love.

The whole process that has been described, beginningwith the Greco-Latin cultural period and extendingthroughout the present time, shows how this transforma-tion is to proceed. It also shows us the purpose of thisfuture evolution that is now in its beginning stages. Thewisdom for which the groundwork was laid on Saturn,Sun, and Moon works in the human physical, etheric, andastral bodies, presenting itself as cosmic wisdom. In the I,however, it becomes inner wisdom. Beginning with theEarth phase of evolution, the wisdom of the outer cosmosbecomes inner wisdom in the human being. Internalizedin this way, it becomes the seed of love. Wisdom is theprerequisite for love; love is the result of wisdom that hasbeen reborn in the I.

If anyone is misled into believing that evolution as it hasbeen explained above bears a fatalistic stamp, this is aresult of having misunderstood the explanations. If wewere to believe that evolution condemns a certain numberof people to become members of the kingdom of “evilhumanity,” we would have failed to see how the interrela-tionship between the sense-perceptible and the soul-spiri-tual takes shape in the course of this evolution. Withincertain limits, these worlds, both the sense-perceptible and


the soul-spiritual, each constitute a separate evolutionarycurrent. Through forces inherent in the sense-perceptiblecurrent, the forms of “evil human beings” come about.However, it will only be necessary for any given humansoul to incarnate in such a body if it has created the neces-sary preconditions itself. It might also happen that theforms arising out of the forces of the sense-perceptibleworld find no reincarnating human souls to embody,because these souls have all become too good for suchbodies. In that case, the cosmos would have to ensoul theseforms with something other than formerly human souls.Such forms will be occupied by human souls only whenthese same souls have prepared themselves for such anincarnation. In this field, supersensible cognition is boundto report what it sees—for instance, that at a particularpoint in the future there will be two human kingdoms, onegood and one evil. However, this does not mean that thepresent state of human souls forces supersensible cogni-tion to the rational conclusion that this future state will bethe natural and inevitable result. Supersensible cognition’sways of investigating the evolution of human forms andthe evolution of the destinies of souls are and must be com-pletely separate, and to confuse the two in our worldviewwould be a remnant of a materialistic attitude that wouldseriously impinge on the science of the supersensible.

Details from the Field of Spiritual Science 399

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C H A P T E R 7

DETAILS FROM THE FIELD

OF SPIRITUAL SCIENCE

The Human Ether BodyWhen we perceive the higher members of our human

makeup through supersensible observation, this percep-tion is never completely similar to a perception we havethrough our outer senses. When we touch an outer objectand have a perception of warmth, we must distinguishbetween what comes from the object—what streams out ofit, so to speak—and what we experience in our souls. Ourinner soul experience of the perception of warmth is some-thing different from the warmth that flows out of theobject. Now let’s imagine this soul experience all by itself,without the outer object. Let’s imagine the experience of aperception of warmth in the soul with no physical outerobject to cause it. If this experience were simply presentwithout cause, it would be imaginary. However, studentsof the spirit do experience inner perceptions such as thisthat have no physical cause. Above all, they are not causedby the students’ physical bodies. But at a certain level ofinner development, these perceptions present themselves


in such a way that the students can tell that the inner per-ception is not imaginary but has been brought about by abeing of soul and spirit in a supersensible outer world, justas an ordinary perception of warmth, for example, isbrought about by an external physical, sense-perceptibleobject. (It was shown earlier how the experience itself letsus know that it is not imaginary.)

This is also true if we speak about perceptions of color.In that case, we have to distinguish between the color ofthe outer object and the inner sensation of color in thesoul. Let’s recall the inner sensation the soul has when itperceives a red object in the physical, sense-perceptibleouter world; let’s imagine that we vividly recollect theimpression while averting our eyes from the object. Let’sremember the inner experience of our mental image of thecolor. When we do this, we distinguish between the outercolor and our inner experience of it. Such inner experi-ences are definitely different in content from outer senseimpressions. They are much closer in character to whatwe experience as pain or pleasure than ordinary sensoryperceptions are.

Now let’s think of such an inner experience arising inthe soul without being caused by either an actual outer,physical, sense-perceptible object or a memory of one.People with supersensible cognition are able to have suchexperiences and to know that they are not imaginary butare expressions of beings of soul and spirit. If a soul-spir-itual being calls forth the same impression as a red objectin the physical, sense-perceptible world, it can be calledred. In the case of the physical object, however, the outer


impression is always present before the inner experienceof color, while in true supersensible perception in present-day human beings the reverse must always be the case—the inner experience is there first, like a mere shadowymemory of color, followed by an image that becomesmore and more vivid. This is how this process must takeplace, and the less attention we pay to this fact, the less weare able to distinguish between real spiritual perceptionand imaginary deceptions (illusions, hallucinations, andso on). The vividness of the image during soul-spiritualperception of this sort—whether it remains very shad-owy, as if dimly visualized, or whether its effect is stronglike that of an outer object—depends totally on the per-ceiver’s inner development.

The general impression that a clairvoyant observer hasof the human ether body can be described as follows:When people with supersensible cognition have devel-oped such strength of will that they are able to disregardwhat their physical eyes are seeing, in spite of the fact thata physical human being is standing in front of them, theyare then able to use supersensible consciousness to seeinto the space the physical person occupies. Naturally, itrequires an intense heightening of their will for them to beable to disregard not only what they are thinking but alsosomething that is standing right in front of them, and tosuch an extent that its physical impression is extin-guished. However, it is possible to bring this heighteningabout—it happens as a result of the exercises for achiev-ing supersensible cognition. When people first perceivein this way, they get a general impression of the ether


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body. The inner sensation that arises in their souls isapproximately the same as the one they get from seeingthe color of a peach blossom. This becomes increasinglyvivid and enables them to say that the ether body has thecolor of peach blossoms. After that, they also perceive theindividual organs and currents within the ether body.

However, the ether body could be described further bypresenting soul experiences that correspond to sensationsof warmth, sound, and so on, because the ether body ismore than just a color phenomenon. The astral body andthe other elements of our human makeup could also bedescribed in this same sense. Having considered this, wewill realize how spiritual scientific descriptions are meantto be understood (See chapter 2).

The Astral WorldAs long as we are only observing the physical world,

the Earth as our dwelling-place appears like a separatecosmic body. However, if supersensible cognition rises tothe level of other worlds, this separation ceases. This iswhy it was possible to state that imagination simulta-neously perceives both the Earth and the Moon stage as ithas continued to develop into the present time. In additionto the Earth’s supersensible aspect, other cosmic bodiesthat are physically separate from the Earth are embeddedin the world that we enter in this way. Those who per-ceive supersensible worlds do not observe only theEarth’s supersensible aspect but to begin with they alsoperceive the supersensible aspect of other cosmic bodies.(People who are tempted to ask why clairvoyants don’t


[3]

tell us what things look like on Mars, and so on, shouldkeep in mind that clairvoyants are primarily concernedwith observing the supersensible aspects of cosmic bod-ies, while they themselves, in asking this question, havephysical, sense-perceptible conditions in mind.) That’swhy this book has been able to present certain relation-ships between the Earth phase of evolution and the simul-taneous evolution of Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, and so on.

When the human astral body is carried off into sleep, itbelongs not only to earthly conditions but also to worldsin which still other cosmic domains (the worlds of thestars) take part. Indeed, these worlds work into the humanastral body even during the waking state, which is whythe name astral body seems justified.1

Human Life after DeathThis book has described the time after the death of the

human being when the astral body still remains unitedwith the ether body. During this time, a memory of theentire life that has just ended is present but graduallyfades (see chapter 3). The length of this period of time isdifferent for different people and depends on howstrongly an individual’s astral body clings to the etherbody—that is, on how much power the astral body hasover the ether body. Supersensible cognition can get animpression of this by observing individuals whose state ofbody and soul dictates that they actually ought to beasleep, but who are keeping themselves awake through

1. From the Greek astron and the Latin astrum, meaning “star.”


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sheer inner effort. It becomes evident that the length oftime individuals can keep themselves awake withoutbeing overcome by sleep varies from person to person.After death, our recollection of our past life—that is, thetime of the astral body’s connection to the ether body—lasts approximately as long as we would formerly havebeen able to remain awake in a case of extreme need.

. . . . . . . .

When the ether body is released from a human beingwho has died, something that can be described as anextract or essence of it still persists throughout this indi-vidual’s later evolution. This extract contains the fruits ofthe life that has just ended and is the vehicle of everythingthat unfolds, like a seed for the next life, during thehuman being’s spiritual development between death anda new birth (see chapter 3).

. . . . . . . .

The length of time that elapses between death and anew birth (see chapter 3) is determined by the fact that anI usually returns to the physical, sense-perceptible worldonly after enough change has taken place there for it to beable to experience something new. While the I is in thedomains of the spirit, its earthly dwelling is changing. Ina certain respect, this change is linked to all the greatchanges going on in the cosmos, such as changes in theEarth’s relationship to the Sun. However, these are allchanges in which certain repetitions appear in connectionwith new conditions. For example, they are expressed


outwardly in the fact that the point on the celestial spherewhere the Sun rises at the beginning of spring makes acomplete circle in the course of approximately 26,000years. During this period of time, therefore, the vernalequinox moves from one celestial region to another. Inthe course of one twelfth of this 26,000 year period, orapproximately 2,100 years, circumstances on Earth havechanged enough so that human souls will be able to expe-rience something that is different from their precedingincarnations. But since people’s experiences differdepending on whether they incarnate as women or asmen, as a rule two incarnations—one male, one female—take place during a period of this length.

These things also depend, however, on the character ofthe forces we take with us from earthly existence intodeath, so everything indicated here should only be takenas the general rule. The details can vary in many differentways. How long a human I spends in the spiritual worldbetween death and a new birth depends on the above-mentioned cosmic conditions in only one respect. Inanother respect, it depends on the evolutionary condi-tions a particular individual undergoes during this time.After a certain time has elapsed, evolution leads the I toa state of spirit that can no longer be satisfied by innerspiritual experiences. It then begins to long for a changedstate of consciousness that finds satisfaction in beingreflected by physical experience. The individual’s reen-try into earthly life results from the interaction of thisinner thirst for embodiment and the possibility the cos-mos offers of finding a suitable bodily organism. Because


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these two things have to work together, incarnation maytake place in one instance when this “thirst” has not yetpeaked but an approximately suitable embodiment canbe realized. In another instance, it takes place when thethirst has already exceeded its normal intensity becausethere was no possibility of embodiment at the appropriatetime. A person’s general attitude toward life, which isdue to the makeup of his or her bodily nature, is relatedto these circumstances.

The Course of a Human LifeThe life of a human being, as expressed in the succes-

sions of conditions between birth and death, can be fullyunderstood only when we consider the changes that takeplace in the supersensible aspects of a person’s makeup,and not merely the physical, sense-perceptible body. Wecan look at these changes as follows: Physical birth rep-resents an individual’s breaking away from the shelter-ing physical body of the mother. After birth, the forcesthat the embryonic human being formerly shared withthe mother’s body are present only as independent forceswithin the newborn being. Later on in life, supersensibleevents similar to the events of physical birth take placeand can be perceived by means of supersensible percep-tion. Until a child begins to lose his or her baby teeth inthe sixth or seventh year of life, the ether body is sur-rounded by an etheric covering, which falls away at thistime, when the “birth” of the ether body takes place.However, the human being remains surrounded by anastral covering that falls away at puberty, sometime


between the twelfth and sixteenth years, when the “birth”of the astral body takes place. Still later, the actual I isborn. (These supersensible facts yield some fruitfulviewpoints on education, which are presented in mybooklet The Education of the Child from the Viewpoint ofSpiritual Science.2 This booklet also provides furtherexplanations of things that can be mentioned only brieflyhere.)

After the birth of the I, we find our way into the circum-stances of life and the world around us, and we becomeactive within them in accordance with the aspects of ourmakeup that work through the I—the sentient soul, themind soul, and the consciousness soul. After that comes atime when the ether body reverses its development; itundergoes the reverse of its developmental processesfrom the seventh year onward. Previously, the astralbody’s development had initially consisted in developingthe potentials latent in it at birth; later, after the birth ofthe I, it enriched itself through experiences of the outerworld. After a certain point, however, it begins to nourishitself spiritually by feeding off its own ether body; itgnaws on the ether body. As life continues, the ether bodyalso begins to feed off the physical body. The decline ofthe physical body in old age is related to this.

2. Die Erziehung des Kindes vom Gesichtspunkte der Geisteswissen-schaft first appeared as an article in Lucifer-Gnosis (no. 33, 1907),the magazine founded and edited by Rudolf Steiner (in GA 34); con-tained in The Education of the Child: and Early Lectures on Educa-tion, Anthroposophic Press, Hudson, NY, 1996.


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Thus, the course of a human life can be divided intothree parts—one period when the physical and ether bod-ies are unfolding, a second when the astral body and the Iare developing, and a third when the ether and physicalbodies are reversing their development. However, theastral body is involved in all the processes that take placebetween birth and death. Because, spiritually, it is actu-ally born sometime between the twelfth and sixteenthyears of life and because it has to feed off the forces of theether and physical bodies during the last period of life,what it is able to accomplish through its own forcesdevelops more slowly than it would if it were not takingplace within the physical and etheric bodies. As a result,after the physical and etheric bodies are cast off at death,the development during the purification period takes onlyabout one-third as long as life between birth and death(compare chapter 3).

The Higher Domains of the Spiritual WorldThrough imagination, inspiration, and intuition, super-

sensible cognition gradually ascends into the domains ofthe spiritual world where it has access to the beingsinvolved in human and cosmic evolution. This alsoenables it to trace the process of human developmentbetween death and a new birth in a way that makes thisprocess understandable. However, there are still higherdomains of existence that can be mentioned only brieflyhere. When supersensible cognition has raised itself tothe level of intuition, it lives in a world of spiritual beingswho are also undergoing evolutions of their own. The


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concerns of present-day humanity reach right into theworld of intuition, so to speak. In fact, we also experiencethe effects of still higher worlds in the course of ourdevelopment between death and a new birth, but we donot experience them directly; the beings of the spiritualworld bring them to us. So by observing these beings, wecan discover everything that happens to the human being.However, what actually concerns these beings, what theythemselves need in order to guide human evolution, canonly be observed by means of a mode of cognition thattranscends intuition. This points to worlds whose lowestspiritual concerns can be viewed as including Earth’shighest spiritual concerns. For example, rational conclu-sions are among the highest concerns within the earthlydomain, while the effects of the mineral kingdom areamong the lowest. In these higher realms, rational conclu-sions are the approximate equivalent of mineral effects onEarth. Beyond the domain of intuition lies the domainwhere the cosmic plan is fashioned out of spiritual causes.

The Aspects of Our Human MakeupWhen it was said in chapter 2 that the I works on the

lower aspects of our makeup—the physical body, theether body, and the astral body—and transforms them inreverse order into the spirit self, the life spirit, and thespirit body, this refers to how the I works on the nature ofthe human individual through the highest human facul-ties, which have only begun to evolve during the variousstages of the Earth phase of evolution. However, thistransformation is preceded by one that takes place on a


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lower level, giving rise to the sentient soul, the mind soul,and the consciousness soul. When the sentient soul isforming in the course of a person’s inner development,changes are taking place in the astral body. Similarly, thedevelopment of the mind soul is expressed in transforma-tions in the ether body, while that of the consciousnesssoul is expressed in changes in the physical body. Detailsof these processes were included in this book’s descrip-tion of the Earth phase of evolution.

In a certain respect, therefore, we can say that even thesentient soul is based on a transformation of the astralbody, the mind soul on a transformation of the ether body,and the consciousness soul on a transformation of thephysical body. But we can also say that these three soulaspects are parts of the astral body, because the con-sciousness soul, for example, can exist only because it isan astral entity within a physical body that is adapted toit. It leads an astral life in a physical body that has beenmodified to become its dwelling place.

The Dream StateIn this book, the dream state has already been described

from a certain point of view in chapter 3, “Sleep andDeath.” On the one hand, because the progress of evolu-tion is such that earlier states play into later ones, weshould think of the dream state as a remnant of the ancientpictorial consciousness that human beings possessed dur-ing both the Moon phase of evolution and a large part ofthe Earth phase. During our dreams, a remnant of whatwas formerly our normal state of consciousness appears


[10]

in us. On the other hand, this state is also different fromancient pictorial consciousness. Ever since the I firstdeveloped, it has been playing into the processes in theastral body that take place during sleep while we aredreaming, so what manifests in our dreams is a pictorialconsciousness altered by the presence of the I. Since the Iis not conscious of acting on the astral body, however,nothing belonging to the domain of dreaming should beconsidered part of what can truly lead to knowledge of thehigher worlds in the sense of spiritual science. The sameis true of so-called visions, premonitions, or “secondsight.” These come about when the I eliminates itself as afactor; as a result, remnants of ancient states of conscious-ness arise. Such states of consciousness are of no directuse to spiritual science, and what can be observed duringthem cannot be considered results of spiritual science inany true sense.

Acquiring Supersensible KnowledgeThe path to acquiring knowledge of supersensible

worlds that has been described in greater detail elsewherein this book can also be called the direct path of knowl-edge. In addition to this path, there is also another that canbe described as the path of feeling. However, it would bequite wrong to believe that the first path has nothing to dowith educating our feelings. On the contrary, it leads tothe greatest possible deepening of our feeling life. Thepath of feeling, however, turns directly and exclusively tofeeling as its starting point in its efforts to rise to spiritualcognition. It is based on the fact that if the soul surrenders


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completely to a feeling for a certain period of time, thisfeeling is transformed into cognition, into a pictorial per-ception. For example, if the soul completely fills itself forweeks or months or even longer with the feeling of humil-ity, the content of this feeling is transformed into a per-ception. It is indeed possible to discover a path to super-sensible domains by making one’s way through such feel-ings one step at a time. However, it is not easy for present-day human beings to actually carry this out under life’sordinary circumstances. Solitude and withdrawal frommodern life are almost indispensable, because the impres-sions of daily life disrupt what the soul accomplishes byconcentrating on specific feelings, especially in the earlystages of inner development. In contrast, the path toknowledge that this book describes can be followed underany circumstances of contemporary life.

Observing Specific Beings and Eventsin the Spiritual World

One can ask whether meditation and other methods ofacquiring supersensible knowledge permit only a generalobservation of the human being between death and rebirthand other spiritual processes, or whether they also make itpossible to observe very specific processes and beings—for example, a particular person who has died. Theresponse to this must be that those who have acquired thefaculty for observing the spiritual world through the meth-ods described here can also reach the point of being ableto observe detailed events in that world. They make them-selves capable of establishing a connection to human


beings who are living in the spiritual world between deathand a new birth. However, we need to keep in mind that,in the sense of spiritual science, this should happen onlyafter we have gone through a genuine training in supersen-sible cognition. Only then are we capable of distinguishingbetween deception and reality with regard to specificevents and beings. Anyone attempting to observe detailswithout the right training may fall victim to many decep-tions. Even the most elementary things, such as under-standing how to interpret impressions of specific realitiesin the supersensible world, are not possible withoutadvanced spiritual training. The training that leads tosupersensible observation of the things described in thisbook also leads to the ability to trace the life of an individ-ual human being after death. It also leads to being able toobserve and understand all the individual beings of theworld of soul and spirit who work from this hidden worldinto the outer manifest world.

It is only possible for us to observe details with cer-tainty, however, if we base this observation on our knowl-edge of the great general cosmic and human realities ofthe spiritual world, which concern all human beings. If wedesire the one without the other, we will go astray. We aregranted access to the particular domains of supersensibleexistence that we long for above all else only after wehave struggled with the serious and difficult paths leadingto issues of general knowledge in our efforts to find thekey to the meaning of life. This is a necessary part of whatwe must undergo to observe the spiritual world. Only ifwe have taken these paths out of a pure and unegotistical


urge for knowledge are we mature enough to observe thedetails that would formerly have served only to satisfy anegotistical need, even though we might have convincedourselves that we were only striving for insight into thespiritual out of love—love for someone who has died, forexample. Insight into details is granted only to thosewhose serious interest in general spiritual scientificknowledge has given them the possibility of acceptingeven the details as objective scientific truth without anyegotistical desire.

Appendix 415

APPENDIX

Included here are introductions written by Rudolf Steiner for the

various German editions of Die Geheimwissenschaft im Umris.

Introduction to the First Edition

When a book such as this one is handed over to the pub-lic, it should be possible for its author to imagine all pos-sible contemporary criticisms of its contents with no lossof composure. For example, if people whose thoughts ona certain subject have always been in line with the resultsof scientific research begin to read how this subject ispresented here, they might come to this conclusion:

It’s astounding that assertions like this are even pos-sible in this day and age. The author throws aroundthe simplest scientific concepts in a way that dem-onstrates an altogether incomprehensible unfamil-iarity with even the most basic scientific knowledge.For example, he uses concepts like “heat” in waysthat show no trace of having been influenced at allby any modern thinking in the field of physics. Any-one knowing even the basics of this science wouldbe able to tell him that what he says here doesn’teven deserve to be labeled “amateurish,” but canonly be described as absolute ignorance.


This criticism is certainly possible, and many moresuch statements could be made. On the other hand, itwould also be possible to conclude that the book’s read-ers will put it aside after a few pages—either with a smileor in indignation, depending on their temperaments—and say, “Fallacious thinking certainly does producestrange aberrations nowadays. We’d better just add theseexplanations to the collection of strange things we’veencountered.”

But what would the author of this book say if he actuallyexperienced criticism like this? From his point of view,wouldn’t he simply have to see this critical reader as inca-pable of sound judgment or lacking the goodwill to cometo a discerning conclusion? Certainly not in every case.The author of this book is capable of imagining that hiscritic is a very intelligent person, perhaps even a compe-tent scientist who is very conscientious in how he or shearrives at conclusions. The author is able to think his wayinto the soul of such a person and into the reasons that leadhim or her to such criticism. However, in order to clarifyhis actual position, the author must do something that hegenerally finds inappropriate but that does seem urgentlynecessary in the case of this book—namely, discussingpersonal matters—although nothing that does not relate tothe decision to write this book will be included. What issaid in a book like this would certainly have no right toexist if it were strictly personal in character. It must con-tain accounts that anyone could arrive at, and it must relatethem in a way that is free of personal coloring to the great-est possible extent. Thus it is not “personal” in this sense,

Appendix 417

but only in the sense of explaining how the author finds theabove-mentioned criticisms understandable and yet wasstill able to write the book.

It would be possible to avoid bringing in such a per-sonal element by demonstrating explicitly and in detailhow the statements in this book actually concur with allthe progress modern science has made. In that case, how-ever, the present book would have required many vol-umes of introduction. Since it was impossible to producethose volumes, the author found it necessary to describethe personal circumstances justifying his belief that aconvincing agreement between his own thinking andmodern science is possible. He would certainly neverhave published what is said in this book about heat pro-cesses, for example, if he were not able to state that thirtyyears ago he had been fortunate enough to make a thor-ough study of the various branches of physics. Of partic-ular interest to him, and the focus of his studies at thatpoint, was the so-called “theory of thermodynamics.”The author was involved in ongoing studies of the histor-ical development of explanations associated with nameslike Mayer, Helmholtz, Joule, and Clausius.1 His studiesthus laid an ample foundation for him to understand all

1. Julius Robert von Mayer (1814–1878), physician and physicistwho discovered the law of the conservation of energy. Hermann vonHelmholtz (1821–1894), pioneering physician, anatomist, physiolo-gist and physicist; James Prescott Joule (1818–1889), English physi-cist who calculated the quantity of heat produced through mechanicalwork; Rudolf Emanuel Clausius (1822–1888), physicist; founder ofthe theory of thermodynamics.


later developments of thermodynamic theory in the fieldof physics; he encounters no obstacles in investigatingwhat science has achieved in this field.

Having to confess to any inability in this area wouldhave been sufficient reason for the author to leave unsaidand unwritten what he presents in this book. He hasreally made it a matter of principle to speak or writeabout things in the field of spiritual science only when hewould also be able to formulate to his own satisfactionwhat current science knows about these same things.This is not intended as a universal requirement, becauseothers may legitimately feel compelled to communicateand publish anything their feelings, their powers of judg-ment, and their healthy sense of the truth lead them to,even if they do not know what can be said about thesesame things from the viewpoint of contemporary sci-ence. However, the author does intend to abide by thisprinciple himself. For example, the few sentences in thisbook about the human glandular and nervous systemswould not have been written if he had not also been in aposition to attempt to speak about them as someone witha modern scientific education.

Thus, although readers may come to the conclusionthat anyone who speaks about heat in this way knowsnothing of the basics of modern physics, the author ofthis book believes that what he has done is fully justifiedbecause he really has made an effort to be aware of mod-ern research; in fact, if he were not aware of it, he wouldstop speaking in this way. He knows that his motive inexpressing this principle might very easily be mistaken

Appendix 419

for lack of modesty. With regard to this book, however,such things must be expressed so that the author’s truemotives are not mistaken for something still worse thanlack of modesty.

It would also be possible for people to criticize thisbook from a philosophical standpoint. A philosophermight wonder whether its author had slept through all thework that has been done recently in the field of episte-mology, and whether he had never heard of the existenceof Kant, who would say that it is simply philosophicallyinadmissible to advance such views.2 Again, it would bepossible to go on and on in this vein. For the philosopher,the conclusion might be that uncritical, naive, and ama-teurish stuff like this is intolerable, and that it would be awaste of time to go into it further.

For reasons indicated above, and in spite of all misun-derstandings that might arise as a result, the author wouldagain like to present something personal. He began tostudy Kant at the age of sixteen and now truly believeshimself capable of a completely objective assessment ofthis book’s contents from the Kantian perspective. Here,too, he would have had reason to leave this book unwrittenif he had not known what might move a philosopher apply-ing modern standards of criticism to find it naive. Theauthor really is capable of knowing that he is going beyond

2. Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), German philosopher, professor oflogic and metaphysics; his best known works are Critik der practis-chen Vernunft (1788, Critique of Practical Reason) and Critik derUrtheilskraft (1790, Critique of Judgment).


the limits of possible knowledge in the Kantian sense, andthat Herbart might discover in this book a “naive realism”that is not yet able to “elaborate concepts,” and so forth.3

He is even capable of knowing that the modern pragma-tism of James and Schiller would find that this book over-steps the limits of “true mental images” that “we can makeour own, assert, put into effect, and verify.”

In spite of knowing all this, and even because ofknowing it, he can still feel justified in writing the expo-sitions presented here. The author of this book has dealtwith philosophical trends of thought in several of hisbooks: The Science of Knowing; Truth and Science; Intu-itive Thinking as a Spiritual Path: A Philosophy of Free-dom; Goethe’s Worldview; Views of the World and ofLife in the Nineteenth Century; and The Riddles of Phi-losophy.

Many other types of possible criticism could still becited. Readers of one of the author’s earlier works, suchas Views of the World and of Life in the Nineteenth Cen-tury or the little booklet Haeckel and His Opponents,4

might say: It’s absolutely incomprehensible how one andthe same person could write these books and then publish

3. Johann Friedrich Herbart (1776–1841), German philosopher andinfluential educator; he developed a metaphysical theory of “pluralis-tic realism” as related to pedagogical psychology, which rejectedconcepts of faculties and innate ideas; he followed along the lines ofthe educator Johann Pestalozzi and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.4. Haeckel und seine Gegner, 1900. Reprinted in the essay collectionMethodische Grundlagen der Anthroposophy 1884–1901, RudolfSteiner Verlag, Dornach, Switzerland, 1989 (GA 30), pp. 152–200.

Appendix 421

Theosophy and this present volume.5 How can anyonefirst take Haeckel’s side so strongly and then give a slapin the face to all the healthy “monism” resulting fromHaeckel’s research? I could understand it if the author ofthis Esoteric Science had fought Haeckel tooth and nail,but that he defended Haeckel and even dedicated Viewsof the World and of Life in the Nineteenth Century to himis absolutely outrageous. Haeckel would certainly havedeclined this dedication emphatically if he had knownthat its author would one day write stuff like this EsotericScience with its crass dualism.

The author, however, takes the point of view that it isquite possible to understand Haeckel very well withoutbelieving that this means we have to think that every-thing not derived from Haeckel’s own concepts andhypotheses is nonsense. Furthermore, he is of the opinionthat it is only possible to understand Haeckel by explor-ing what he achieved on behalf of science, rather than byfighting him tooth and nail. And what the author—whodefended the great natural philosopher against his oppo-nents in a booklet entitled Haeckel and His Opponents—believes least of all is that Haeckel’s opponents are right.That the author goes beyond Haeckel’s hypotheses andplaces a spiritual view of the world alongside Haeckel’smerely natural view truly does not mean that he necessar-ily shares the opinions of Haeckel’s opponents. Anyonewho makes an effort to look at this in the right way will

5. Theosophy: An Introduction to the Spiritual Processes in HumanLife and in the Cosmos, Anthroposophic Press, Hudson, NY, 1994.


realize that the author’s current writings do in fact agreewith his earlier ones.

The author also understands completely that some crit-ics might quite generally regard the descriptions in thisbook as the outpourings of a crazed fancy or of a dreamygame of thoughts. Anything that needs to be said inresponse is contained in the book itself, which shows towhat a great extent rational thinking can and mustbecome the touchstone for what is presented. Only thosewho apply the test of reason to this book as objectivelyas they would apply it to scientific facts will be able todecide what reason has to say in such a test.

Now that so much has been said about people whoreject this book from the outset, a word to those who havereason to agree with it: for them, the essentials are con-tained in the first chapter, “The Character of Esoteric Sci-ence.” However, there is still a minor matter that needsmentioning here. Although the book deals with researchthat cannot be carried out by intellects that are bound tothe sense-perceptible world, it presents nothing that can-not be understood by any person choosing to apply thegifts of unbiased reasoning and a healthy sense of truth.The author states quite frankly that he wants, above all, tohave readers who are not willing to accept what is pre-sented here on blind faith but who will make an effort totest these accounts against the knowledge in their ownsouls and their own life experience. (What is meant hereis not only spiritual scientific testing by means of super-sensible methods of research, but primarily testing—andit certainly is possible—by means of healthy, unbiased

Appendix 423

thinking and common sense.—R. STEINER.) Above all, hehopes for cautious readers who accept only what is logi-cally justifiable. The author knows that his book would beworth nothing if it depended only on blind faith and thatit is viable only to the extent that it can be verified byunbiased reason. It is so easy for blind faith to confusefoolish superstition with the truth. Many who prefer to besatisfied with a mere belief in the supersensible will feelthat this book expects too much of their thinking. But inthe case of what this book communicates, the fact thatsomething is being communicated is not the only impor-tant thing. It is also important that the communication isas it is because it conforms to a conscientious view of thedomain of life in question. This is the domain where thehighest things come into contact with unscrupulous char-latanism. It is where knowledge and superstition so easilymeet in real life, and where, above all, they can so easilybe confused with each other.

Anyone acquainted with supersensible research willnotice in reading this book that it attempts to clearlyrespect the boundaries between the contents of domainsof supersensible knowledge that can and should be com-municated at present and those that will need to be pre-sented at a later time or at least in another form.

December 1909


Introduction to the Fourth Edition

Whoever undertakes to present results of spiritual sciencesuch as those recorded in this book must consider that mostpeople nowadays see results of this sort as an impossibility.After all, the supposedly rigorous thinking of our times pre-sumes that the things talked about here “can never be deter-mined by human intelligence.” Anyone who knows andrespects the reasons that lead many serious people to makethis claim will want to try again and again to point out themisunderstandings underlying this belief that our humanunderstanding is denied entry into supersensible worlds.

Two things beg to be considered. First, if human soulsreflect deeply, in the long run they will never be able toshut themselves off from the fact that their most importantquestions about life’s purpose and meaning would have toremain unanswered if there were no access to supersensi-ble worlds. We can deceive ourselves about this fact in the-ory, but the depths of our soul-life refuse to cooperate withthis self-deception. Of course those who choose not to lis-ten to these depths of soul will reject reports of supersensi-ble worlds. Yet there are people—and not just a few ofthem—who cannot possibly remain deaf to the demands ofthese soul-depths and must constantly knock at the gateswhich, in the opinion of others, keep “the inconceivable”under lock and key.

Appendix 425

Secondly, explanations resulting from “rigorous think-ing” are not to be underestimated, and those who becomeinvolved with them will certainly appreciate their serious-ness when they need to be taken seriously. The author ofthis book does not want to be seen as someone who light-heartedly dismisses the tremendous amount of thoughtthat has been applied to determining the limits of thehuman intellect. This effort cannot be dismissed with afew platitudes about “academic wisdom,” and so on,because in many instances it has its source in genuineacumen and a true struggle for knowledge.

But in fact, we ought to admit that reasons have beenpresented to show why the knowledge we now considerscientific cannot penetrate into the spiritual worlds, andthat in a certain sense these reasons are irrefutable.Since the writer of this book readily admits this, it maywell seem strange that he still attempts to give an accountof supersensible worlds. It seems almost impossible thatsomeone could accept, at least in a certain sense, the rea-sons why supersensible worlds cannot be known and yetcontinue to talk about these worlds.

And yet, this attitude is possible. And it is equally pos-sible to understand that it may seem contradictory. Afterall, not everyone is preoccupied with the experiences peo-ple have when they approach the supersensible realmwith their human intellect. To those who are, however, itbecomes evident that although intellectual proof mayindeed be irrefutable, this is not necessarily decisive withregard to reality. Here, in place of theoretical arguments,an attempt will be made to bring about understanding by


means of a comparison, while readily admitting that com-parisons in themselves do not constitute proof. In spite ofthis, however, they can often make it possible to under-stand something that needs to be expressed.

As it functions in everyday life and in ordinary science,human cognition really is structured in a way that does notpermit it to penetrate supersensible worlds. This can beproved irrefutably, but for a certain type of soul-life thisproof is of no more value than proving that the unaidedhuman eye cannot penetrate the cells of a living thing orthe makeup of distant heavenly bodies. The claim thatordinary cognition cannot penetrate supersensible worldsis just as correct and provable as the claim that ordinarysight cannot penetrate cells. And yet the proof that ordi-nary sight is forced to stop short of seeing cells says noth-ing conclusive against cellular research, so why should theproof that ordinary cognition is forced to stop short of see-ing supersensible worlds say anything conclusive againstthe possibility of spiritual research?

We can appreciate how this comparison makes somepeople feel. We can even empathize with their doubt thatsomeone who uses such comparisons to counter the seri-ous thought and effort expended in determining the limitsof the intellect could have even the slightest idea of the fullseriousness of that effort. However, not only is the personwriting this imbued with that seriousness, he also experi-ences that effort as one of humanity’s noblest achieve-ments. While it would not be necessary to begin byproving that unaided human sight cannot penetrate thestructure of cells, using precise thinking to become aware

Appendix 427

of the nature of thinking itself is indeed a necessary spiri-tual activity. It is all too understandable that those whodevote themselves to this activity do not notice that realitycan rebut them. And although this introduction is certainlynot the place to go into the various “rebuttals” of earliereditions of this book by people who lack all understandingof what it is attempting to do or who level untrue personalattacks at its author, it must be emphasized that only thosewho choose to close their eyes to this book’s entire mannerof presentation will imagine that it underrates the efforts ofserious scientific thought.

Human cognition, like sight, can be strengthened andenhanced. However, methods of strengthening cognitionare completely spiritual in character; they are purely innerfunctions of the soul. They consist of what is described inthis book as meditation and concentration or contempla-tion. Our ordinary soul-life is bound up with bodilyinstruments, but a soul-life that has been strengthenedfrees itself from them. To certain modern schools ofthought, this claim necessarily seems totally senseless andbased only on self-deception. From their point of view, itcan easily be demonstrated that all soul-life is bound tothe nervous system. Those subscribing to the viewpoint ofthis book certainly understand such proofs. They under-stand those who say it is superficial to claim that any soul-life is possible independent of the body and who aretotally convinced that the experiences of a strengthenedsoul must still have some connection to the activity of thenerves, a connection that “spiritual scientific amateurs”simply fail to perceive.


What is described in this book is in such sharp contrastto certain entirely understandable habitual ways of think-ing that in many instances there is no prospect of comingto an understanding at present. At this point we mightbegin to wish that it were no longer considered compati-ble with spiritual life in this day and age to immediatelydenounce a line of research as fantastic and visionarybecause it deviates substantially from one’s own. On theother hand, however, it is already a fact that a number ofpeople do have a certain understanding of the type ofsupersensible research presented in this book. These peo-ple realize that the meaning of life is not revealed byspeaking in general terms about the soul, the self, and soon, but only by really going into the results of supersen-sible research. The need for this edition, the fourth withina relatively short time, is deeply felt by the author, not outof lack of modesty but with joy and satisfaction.

In being so immodest as to emphasize this, the authoris only too aware of how little even the new edition cor-responds to what an outline of a supersensible worldviewought to be. In preparing this new edition, he reworkedthe entire book, adding to it at important points for thesake of completeness and clarity. And yet he could feel inmany passages how unbending the means of expressionavailable to him are in comparison to what supersensibleresearch yields. This is why it was scarcely possible to domore than point out a way of arriving at the concepts thisbook supplies about the Saturn, Sun, and Moon evolu-tions. In this edition, an important perspective on thissubject has been given a new treatment. But experiencing

Appendix 429

these things is so very different from any experiences inthe sensory domain that it is necessarily a constant strug-gle to find even somewhat adequate expressions for them.However, if you are willing to really go into the descrip-tion attempted here, you may notice that although manythings are impossible to say in dry words, the style of thedescription succeeds in approaching them. How this isdone is different in the case of the Saturn evolution, forexample, than for the Sun evolution, and so forth.

A great deal of supplementary and complementarymaterial that seemed important to the author has beenadded to the second part of the book, which deals withthe knowledge of higher worlds. The author hasattempted to clearly describe the type of inner soul pro-cesses that free cognition from its limitations in thesense-perceptible world and adapt it to experiencing thesupersensible world. He has also attempted to show thatalthough this world is experienced entirely through innerways and means, this experience is not merely of subjec-tive significance to the individual who achieves it. Thisaccount was intended to make it clear that the soul’suniqueness and personal qualities are stripped awaywithin the soul itself, so that the experience that isachieved happens in the same way for each person whoeffects personal inner development out of subjectiveexperiences in the right way. Only when we think ofknowledge of higher worlds as having this character arewe able to distinguish it from all experiences of mere sub-jective mysticism, and so on. It can certainly be said thatsuch mysticism is the more or less subjective concern of


the individual mystic. However, as it is meant here, spir-itual scientific training of the soul aspires to objectiveexperiences. Recognizing the truth of such experiences isa purely inward process, and yet the universal validity ofthese experiences is apparent for this very reason. Again,this is a point on which it is very difficult to come to anunderstanding with many of our current habitual ways ofthinking.

In conclusion, the author would like to express thehope that well-intentioned readers will also accept thisaccount for what it contains. Nowadays attempts areoften made to apply ancient names to spiritual currents;only then do they seem valuable in the eyes of many peo-ple. However, we might well ask what the account in thisbook would stand to gain from being labeled “Rosicru-cian” or the like. The important point is that it attemptsto see into spiritual worlds by using means that are bothpossible and suitable for souls at this present stage ofevolution, and that it considers the riddles of human des-tiny and of human existence beyond the limits of birthand death by these means. The point is not that thisattempt bears some ancient name or other, but that it isaiming at the truth.

On the other hand, people with antagonistic intentionshave also applied certain names to the worldview pre-sented in this book. Aside from the fact that the onesintended to hit the author hardest and discredit him themost are absurd and objectively untrue, such terms dem-onstrate their unworthiness because they belittle awholly independent striving for truth by failing to judgeit on its own merits and because these antagonistsattempt to impose upon others their conclusion that this

Appendix 431

striving is dependent on one or the other school ofthought, a dependence that they either invented them-selves or assumed for no reason and carried further. Nec-essary as it may be to write these words in view of thenumerous attacks on the author, he is reluctant to take thematter any further at this point.

June 1913


Preface to the Seventh through Fifteenth Editions

For this new edition of my Outline of Esoteric Science Ihave almost entirely reworked the first chapter, “TheCharacter of Esoteric Science.” I believe there will nowbe less cause for the misunderstandings I saw arise as aresult of the earlier version. On all sides, I heard thatwhile other sciences provide proof, this would-be sci-ence simply says, “Esoteric science states this or that.” Itis natural for this prejudice to arise, since the proof thatsupersensible cognition offers cannot force itself upon usthrough its very presentation as is the case when relation-ships of sense-perceptible reality are described. That weare dealing with a mere prejudice is a fact that Iattempted to make clearer in the revisions of this firstchapter than I seem to have succeeded in doing in previ-ous editions.

I have made some additions to the contents of the restof the book for the sake of clarity. I have attempted tochange the wording of the content in numerous placesthroughout the book, wherever my repeated experienceof the subject seemed to call for it.

Berlin, May 1920

Bibliography 433

FURTHER READING

Essential Anthroposophic Works by Rudolf Steiner

Anthroposophical Leading Thoughts. London: Rudolf Steiner Press,1973.

Anthroposophy (A Fragment): A New Foundation for the Study ofHuman Nature. Hudson, NY: Anthroposophic Press, 1996.

Anthroposophy and the Inner Life. Bristol, UK: Rudolf Steiner Press,1994.

At the Gates of Spiritual Science. London: Rudolf Steiner Press,1986.

Christianity as Mystical Fact. Hudson, NY: Anthroposophic Press,1997.

The Christmas Conference for the Foundation of the GeneralAnthro-posophical Society 1923–1924. Hudson, NY: Anthropo-sophic Press, 1990.

Cosmic Memory. Blauvelt, NY: Garber Communications, 1990.The Effects of Esoteric Development. Hudson, NY: Anthroposophic

Press, 1997.The Evolution of Consciousness as Revealed through Initiation-

Knowledge. Sussex, UK: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1991.The Fall of the Spirits of Darkness. London: Rudolf Steiner Press,

1995.The Foundations of Human Experience. Hudson, NY: Anthropo-

sophic Press, 1996 (previous translation titled Study of Man).The Foundation Stone & the Life, Nature and Cultivation of Anthro-

posophy. London: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1996.The Four Mystery Plays. London: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1983.Goethe’s World View. Spring Valley, NY: Mercury Press, 1985.The Gospel of St. John. Hudson, NY: Anthroposophic Press, 1988.

434 AN OUTLINE OF ESOTERIC SCIENCE

How to Know Higher Worlds. Hudson, NY: Anthroposophic Press,1994.

Human and Cosmic Thought. London: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1991.

Individualism in Philosophy. Spring Valley, NY: Mercury Press,1989.

Mysticism at the Dawn of the Modern Age. Blauvelt, NY: RudolfSteiner Publications, 1960.

Polarities in the Evolution of Mankind. London: Rudolf Steiner Press,1987.

A Road to Self-Knowledge and The Threshold of the Spiritual World.London: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1975. (New edition is forth-coming in 1998 from Anthroposophic Press.)

Rudolf Steiner, An Autobiography. Blauvelt, NY: Garber Communi-cations, 1977.

Spiritual Beings in the Heavenly Bodies and in the Kingdoms ofNature. Hudson, NY: Anthroposophic Press, 1992.

The Spiritual Guidance of the Individual and Humanity. Hudson,NY: Anthroposophic Press, 1992.

The Spiritual Hierarchies and the Physical World: Reality and Illu-sion. Hudson, NY: Anthroposophic Press, 1996.

The Temple Legend: Freemasonry and Related Occult Movements.London: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1997.

Theosophy. Hudson, NY: Anthroposophic Press, 1994.

Truth and Knowledge. Blauvelt, NY: Rudolf Steiner Publications,1981. Also Truth and Science. Spring Valley, NY: MercuryPress, 1993.

Anthologies of Rudolf Steiner

Barton, Matthew (ed). Evil: Selected Lectures by Rudolf Steiner.London: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1997.

McDermott, Robert (ed). The Essential Steiner. San Francisco: Harp-erSanFrancisco, 1984.

Meuss, Anna (ed). Angels: Selected Lectures by Rudolf Steiner. Lon-don: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1996.

Bibliography 435

Querido, René (ed). A Western Approach to Reincarnation andKarma: Selected Lectures and Writings by Rudolf Steiner.Hudson, NY: Anthroposophic Press, 1996.

Seddon, Richard (ed). Understanding the Human Being: SelectedWritings of Rudolf Steiner. Bristol, England: Rudolf SteinerPress, 1993.

Other Authors on Rudolf Steiner and Anthroposophy

Barnes, Henry. A Life for the Spirit: Rudolf Steiner in the Crosscur-rents of Our Time. Hudson, NY: Anthroposophic Press, 1997.

Davy, John; Adams, George, and others. A Man Before Others,Rudolf Steiner Remembered. Bristol, England: Rudolf SteinerPress, 1993.

Easton, Stewart Man and World in the Light of Anthroposophy. Hud-son, NY: Anthroposophic Press, 1989.

—Rudolf Steiner, Herald of a New Epoch. Hudson, NY: Anthropo-sophic Press, 1995.

Lissau, Rudi. Rudolf Steiner: Life, Work, Inner Path and Social Initi-atives. Stroud, England: Hawthorn Press, 1987.

Prokofieff, Sergei, Rudolf Steiner and the Founding of the New Mys-teries. London: Temple Lodge Publishing, 1994.

Samweber, Anna. Memories of Rudolf Steiner. London: RudolfSteiner Press, 1991.

Schmidt, Paul E. Rudolf Steiner and Initiation. Spring Valley, NY:Anthroposophic Press, 1981.

Shepherd, A.P. A Scientist of the Invisible. Rochester, Vermont: InnerTraditions International, 1983.

Turgeniev, Assya and others. Reminiscences of Rudolf Steiner.Ghent, NY: Adonis Press, 1987.

Wachsmuth, Guenther. The Life and Work of Rudolf Steiner. Blauvelt,NY: Garber Communications, 1989.

Documents

An Outline of Esoteric Science - AbundantHope.orgkrishnamurti.abundanthope.org/index_htm_files...Die Geheimwissenschaft Im Umriss, which is volume 13 in the Biblio-graphic Survey,