It is impossible to know anything in the occult sense of the present and future of human or planetary evolution without understanding that evolution in the past. For, that which presents itself to the occult student's observation when he watches the hidden events of the past, contains at the same time everything that he can learn of the present and future. In this book we have spoken of the Saturn, Sun, Moon and Earth evolutions. We cannot follow the evolution of the earth, as the occultist understands it, unless we observe the events of preceding evolutionary periods. For what meets us today, within the bounds of our earthly globe, comprises in a certain sense the facts of the evolution of the Moon, Sun and Saturn. The beings and things that took part in the evolution of the Moon have gone on developing, and all that now belongs to the earth, is the outcome of that development.
But not all that has evolved from the Moon to the Earth is perceptible to physical sense-consciousness. A part of what came over to us from the Moon evolution is revealed only at a certain stage of clairvoyant consciousness, at which knowledge of [pg 382] supersensible worlds is reached. When this knowledge is gained, the fact that our earthly planet is united to a supersensible world is recognized. The latter includes that part of lunar existence which is not sufficiently densified to be observed by the physical senses. In the first place it does not include it as it was at the time of the evolution of the original Moon. If this clairvoyant consciousness occupies itself with the perception of these things, which it can have at present, this latter gradually separates into two images. One presents the shape borne by the earth during the lunar evolution, the other shows itself in such a way, that we recognize as its content a form as yet in the germinal stage which will become a reality—in the sense in which the earth is now a reality—but only in the future.
On further observation it is seen that the results, in a certain sense, of that which is taking place on the earth are continually streaming into that future form, so that in it we have before us that which our earth will ultimately become. The effects of earthly existence will unite with the events in the world described, and out of this the new cosmos will arise, into which the Earth will be transformed as the Moon was transformed into the Earth. This future form is called in occult science the Jupiter condition. The clairvoyant observer of this Jupiter state sees the revelation of certain events which must take place in the future. The reason for this is that in the supersensible part of the Earth which had its origin in the Moon, beings and things are present which [pg 383] will assume definite form when certain events have actually happened in the physical world. Therefore there will be something in the Jupiter condition which was already predetermined by the Moon evolution and it will contain new factors, which can come into the whole evolution only in consequence of terrestrial events. In this way clairvoyant consciousness is able to learn something of what will happen during the Jupiter state.
The beings and facts observed in this field of consciousness have not the nature of sense-images; they do not even appear as fine air-structures from which effects might proceed which resemble sense-impressions. They give purely spiritual impressions of sound, light and heat. These are not expressed through any material embodiments. They can be apprehended only by clairvoyant consciousness. One may say, however, that these beings which at present manifest on the psycho-spiritual plane, possess a “body.” This body, however, appears like a sum of condensed memories which they carry within their souls.
One can distinguish within their being what they are now experiencing and what they have experienced and now remember. This last is contained within them like a bodily element. They are conscious of it in the same way that an earthly human being is conscious of his body.
At a stage of clairvoyant development higher than that just described as necessary for a knowledge of the Moon and Jupiter, the student is able to perceive [pg 384] supersensible beings and things which are, in fact, the more highly developed forms of those present during the Sun condition, but which have now reached stages of existence so lofty as to be quite imperceptible to a consciousness capable of observing the Moon forms only. During meditation the picture of this world also divides in two. The one leads to a knowledge of the Sun state of the past; the other represents a future form of the earth existence—namely, that into which the earth will have been transformed when the fruits of all that takes place on it and Jupiter have merged into the forms of that future world. What can thus be observed of this future world may be characterized in occult phraseology as the Venus condition.
In a similar manner, to a still more highly evolved clairvoyant consciousness, a future state of evolution is revealed, which we may call the Vulcan state. It stands in the same relationship to the Saturn state as the Venus condition does to that of the Sun, or the Jupiter state to the evolution of the Moon. Therefore, when we contemplate the past, present, and future of the earth's evolution, we may speak of the Saturn, Sun, Moon, Earth, Jupiter, Venus, and Vulcan evolutions.
Just as these far-reaching conditions of the evolution of our earth lie disclosed to clairvoyant vision, the same vision is also able to cover the nearer future. There is a picture of the future corresponding to every picture of the past. In speaking of such things, however, one fact must be emphasized which [pg 385] should be taken into strict account: that in order to recognize facts of this kind, one must absolutely do away with the idea that they can be fathomed through mere philosophical reflection. These things cannot, and never should be investigated by that kind of thinking. Anyone would be labouring under a prodigious delusion who, after becoming acquainted with the teachings of occult science regarding the Moon state, thinks that he could discover the future conditions of Jupiter by comparing those of the Moon and Earth. These conditions must be investigated only when the requisite clairvoyant consciousness has been attained; but once communicated to others after such investigation, they can be understood without clairvoyant consciousness.
Now the occultist finds himself in quite a different position, with regard to observations concerning the future, from that in which he stands with regard to those of the past. It is impossible at first for man to contemplate future events as impartially as he does those of the past. Future events excite human will and feeling; while the past affects us in quite a different way. He who observes life knows how true this is of everyday existence; but how enormously this truth is enhanced, and what an intimate bearing it has upon the hidden facts of life, can only be realized by one who has some knowledge of the supersensible world. That is the reason why those who know such things are very definitely limited as to what they are allowed to give out. Certain things bearing on the future can, in fact, be imparted only [pg 386] to those who have themselves determined to follow the path leading to the supersensible worlds. Such people by their mental attitude have acquired something which gives them the disinterestedness necessary for the reception of these teachings. For this reason certain secret facts, even of the past and present, can be spoken of only to those who are prepared for them in this way. These are facts so closely connected with future evolution, that their effect on the human soul is similar to that produced by communications regarding the future itself.
This explains, also, why the information in this book concerning the present and the future is given in the merest outline as compared with the more detailed descriptions of the evolution of the world and of humanity in the past. What is said here is not intended to appeal to the love of sensation in the smallest degree; not even to awaken it. We shall only state where the answer can be found to vital questions which naturally present themselves to one who holds a certain definite attitude of mind.
Just as the great cosmic evolution can be portrayed in the successive states, from the Saturn to the Vulcan period, so also is this possible for shorter periods of time; for example, for those of the evolution of the earth. Since that mighty upheaval which terminated the ancient Atlantean life, successive periods of human evolution have followed one another which have been called in this work the ancient Indian, the ancient Persian, the Egypto-Chaldean, and the Greco-Roman. The fifth period is that in [pg 387] which humanity finds itself to-day,—it is the present time. This period gradually took its rise in the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteen centuries a.d., after a period of preparation commencing in the fourth and fifth centuries. The Greco-Roman period preceding it began about the eighth century b.c. When one-third of this period had elapsed, the Christ-event took place.
During the transition from the Egypto-Chaldean to the Greco-Roman period, the attitude of the human mind and, indeed, all human faculties, underwent a change. In the first of these two periods what we now know as logical thinking, as a mere intellectual concept of the world, was still wanting. The knowledge which a man now acquires through his intelligence, he then gained in a manner suited to that time,—directly through an inner, in a certain sense, clairvoyant cognition. He perceived the things around him, and while perceiving them there arose within his soul the percept, the image that was needed. Whenever knowledge is gained in this way, not only pictures of the physical sense-world come to light, but from the depths of consciousness a certain knowledge of facts and beings arises which are not of the physical world. This was a remnant of the ancient dim clairvoyance, once the common property of the whole of humanity.
During the Greco-Roman period an ever-increasing number of individuals appeared without these capacities. Intelligent reflection concerning things took their place. Mankind was more and more shut [pg 388] off from the immediate perception of the psycho-spiritual world, and was more and more restricted to forming a picture of it through intelligence and feeling. This condition lasted more or less during the whole of the fourth division of the post-Atlantean period. Only those individuals who had preserved the old mental state as an inheritance could still become directly conscious of the spiritual world. But these were stragglers from an earlier time. Their manner of gaining knowledge was no longer suitable for later conditions. For, as a consequence of the laws of evolution, old faculties of the soul lose something of their former significance when new faculties appear. Human life then adapts itself to these new faculties, and can no longer use the old ones properly.
There were individuals, however, who began in full consciousness to add to the powers of intelligence and feeling already gained, the development of other and higher powers, which made it possible for them once more to penetrate into the psycho-spiritual world. To this end they were obliged to set to work in a different way from that in which the pupils of the old Initiates had been trained. The latter had not been obliged to take into account those faculties of the soul which were developed only in the fourth period. The method of occult training which has been described in this work as that of the present age, began in its first rudiments in the fourth period. But it was then only in its beginning, it could not attain real maturity until the fifth period [pg 389] (from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries onward). Those who sought to rise into supersensible worlds in this manner could learn something of the higher regions of existence through the exercise of their own imagination, inspiration, and intuition. Those who went no further than the development of the faculties of reason and feeling could learn only through tradition what had been known to ancient clairvoyance. This was handed on, either by word of mouth or in writing, from generation to generation.
Neither could those born later know anything of the real nature of the Christ-event save by such traditions, if they did not rise to the level of the supersensible worlds. Certainly there were such Initiates who still possessed the natural faculties of supersensible perception and yet who, through their development, had ascended into the higher worlds, in spite of their disregard of the new powers of intelligence and feeling. Through them a transition was effected from the old method of Initiation to the new. Such persons lived in later times as well. The essential characteristic of the fourth period is that, by the exclusion of the soul from direct communion with the psycho-spiritual world, the human faculties of intelligence and feeling were thereby strengthened and invigorated. The souls whose powers of intelligence and feeling had at that time developed to a great extent as the result of former incarnations, carried over with them the fruits of this development into their incarnations during the fifth period. As [pg 390] a compensation for this exclusion from the higher worlds, mighty traditions of Ancient Wisdom then existed, especially those of the Christ-event, which by the power of their content gave men confident knowledge of the higher worlds.
But there were still certain human beings existing who had evolved the higher powers of cognition in addition to the faculties of reason and feeling. It devolved upon them to learn the facts of the higher worlds, and especially of the Mystery of the Christ-event, by direct supersensible perception. From these individuals there always flowed into the souls of other men as much as was intelligible and good for them.
The first spreading of Christianity was to take place just at a time when the capacities for supersensible cognition were undeveloped in a great part of humanity. And this is why tradition at that time possessed such mighty power. The strongest possible force was necessary to lead mankind to a faith in a supersensible world which they themselves could not perceive. How Christianity worked during that period has been shown in previous pages. There were always those, however, who were able to rise into higher worlds through imagination, inspiration, and intuition. These men were the post-Christian successors of the old Initiates, the teachers and members of the Mysteries. Their task was to recognize again, through their own faculties, what man had been able to perceive through ancient clairvoyance, and through the methods of ascent into higher worlds [pg 391] taught in the old Initiations; and in addition to this, to acquire the knowledge of the real nature of the Christ-event.
Thus there arose, among these “New Initiates,” a knowledge embracing everything contained in the old form of Initiation; but the central point of this teaching was the higher knowledge concerning the Mysteries of the coming of the Christ. Such teaching could only filter through into the general life of the world in scanty measure while the human souls of the fourth period were further developing the faculties of intellect and feeling; therefore, while this lasted, the doctrine was in truth secret. Then began the dawn of the new period designated as the fifth. Its essential characteristic lay in the progress made in the evolution of the intellectual faculties, which were then developed to a very high degree, and will unfold still further in the future. This process has been slowly going on from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, becoming ever more rapid from the sixteenth century up to the present time.
Under these influences the evolution of the fifth period became an ever-increasing endeavour to foster the powers of intellect, while, on the contrary, the knowledge by faith of former times, and traditional wisdom, gradually lost its hold over the human soul. On the other hand, however, from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries on, there developed that which may be called an ever increasing flow of cognition born of modern clairvoyant consciousness. This “hidden knowledge” flows even though [pg 392] at first quite imperceptibly, into the human concepts of that period. It is only natural that even up to the present time the purely intellectual forces should have maintained an antagonistic attitude toward this knowledge. But that which must come to pass will do so in spite of all temporary antagonism. That “hidden knowledge” which is taking possession of humanity more and more may be called symbolically, the “wisdom of the Holy Grail.”
For he who learns to understand this symbol in its deeper meaning, as it is told in story and legend, will find that it symbolizes the nature of what has been called above, the knowledge of the new Initiation, with the Christ Mystery as its central point. Modern Initiates may therefore be called “the Initiates of the Grail.” The preliminary stages of the path to the supersensible worlds described in this book, leads to the “Wisdom of the Grail.” It is a peculiarity of this wisdom that its facts can be investigated only when the necessary means, as described in this book, have been acquired. Once investigated, however, these facts can be understood by means of those very soul-forces which are the result of the evolution of the fifth period. Indeed, it will become more and more evident that to an ever increasing extent those forces find satisfaction through this knowledge. We are now living at a time in which this knowledge must be absorbed by human consciousness in general to a much fuller extent than was formerly the case. And it is from this point of view that the teachings contained in this [pg 393] Christ-event will grow ever more powerful in proportion as human evolution assimilates the Wisdom of the Grail. The inner side of the development of Christianity will more and more keep pace with the exoteric side. That which may be learned through imagination, inspiration and intuition, concerning the higher worlds, in connection with the Christ Mystery, will penetrate ever more and more human thinking, feeling, and willing. The “hidden wisdom of the Grail” will be revealed, and as an inner force will more and more permeate the manifestations of human life.
Through the whole of the fifth period, knowledge concerning the supersensible world will flow into human consciousness; and when the sixth period begins, humanity will be able to regain on a higher level that clairvoyance which it possessed at an earlier epoch in a dim and indistinct manner. Yet the new acquisition will take a form quite different from the old. What the soul knew of higher worlds in ancient times, was not permeated by its own forces of intellect and feeling. Its knowledge was instinctive. In the future it will not only have instincts, but it will understand them, and feel them to be the essence of its own nature. When the soul learns a fact concerning some other being or thing, its intellect will find this fact verified through its own nature. Or when some fact regarding an ethical law or human conduct presents itself, the soul will say to itself: “My feeling is only justified when I carry out what is implied in this knowledge.” Such a [pg 394] condition of soul will have to be developed by a large part of humanity in the sixth period.
In a certain manner, that which human evolution accomplished during the third period—the Egypto-Chaldean—is repeated in the fifth. At that time the soul could still perceive certain facts of the supersensible worlds, but this perception was disappearing. For the intellectual faculties were at that time beginning to develop and it was their mission to at first exclude man from the higher worlds. In the fifth period supersensible facts which in the third period were perceived in hazy clairvoyance, are again becoming manifest; but they are now interpenetrated by the intellectual and emotional life of the individual man. They are also imbued with what may be imparted to the soul by a knowledge of the Christ Mystery; therefore they assume a form totally different from that which they had previously.
Whereas in ancient times impressions from the higher worlds were felt as forces acting from out a spiritual world to which man did not properly belong, through development in later times these impressions are felt as those of a world into which man is growing, of which he more and more forms a part. Let no one suppose that a repetition of the Egypto-Chaldean civilization can take place in such a way that the soul would merely regain what then existed, and which has been handed on from that time. The Christ-impulse, rightly understood, impels the human soul which has experienced it, to feel and conduct itself as a member of a spiritual world, [pg 395] now recognizing it as a world to which it belongs, outside of which it previously existed.
In the same way that the third reappears in the fifth period, in order to become penetrated with those new qualities which the human soul gained during the fourth, so similarly the second period will revive within the sixth and the first, the ancient Indian, during the seventh. All the marvelous wisdom of ancient India which the great teachers of that day were able to proclaim, will reappear in the seventh period, as living truth in human souls.
Now the changes in the earthly environment of man take place in a manner which bears a certain relationship to his own evolution. When the seventh period has run its course, the earth will experience an upheaval which may be compared with the one which separated Atlantean from post-Atlantean times. And the transformed earth will again continue its evolution in seven divisions of time. The human souls which will then incarnate will experience, on a more exalted level, the kinship with the higher worlds which was possessed by the Atlanteans at a lower stage. But only those individuals will be able to cope with the new conditions of the earth who have built into their souls the qualities made possible by the influences of the Greco-Roman age, and of the periods following it,—the fifth, sixth, and seventh of the post-Atlantean evolution.
The inner nature of such souls will correspond to that which the earth has become by that time. All other souls must then remain behind, although up to [pg 396] that point they had been able to choose whether or not they would create for themselves the conditions necessary to advance with the others. Those souls alone will be ripe for the conditions arising after the next great catastrophe, who at the point of transition from the fifth to the sixth post-Atlantean period have attained the capacity for penetrating supersensible cognition with the forces of intelligence and feeling. The fifth and sixth are in a way the decisive periods. Those souls which have attained the goal of the sixth period will continue to develop accordingly in the seventh; but the others will, under the altered conditions of their surroundings, find but little opportunity to proceed with their neglected task. Only in a distant future will conditions again appear which will permit of this being done.
Thus evolution proceeds from period to period. Clairvoyance observes not only those changes in the future in which the earth alone takes part, but those also which take place in conjunction with the heavenly bodies in its environment. A time will come in which the terrestrial and human evolution will be advanced so far that those forces and beings which were compelled to detach themselves from the earth during the Lemurian period, so as to afford to earth-beings the possibility of further progress, will be able once more to unite with the earth. Then the moon will again be united with the earth. This will happen because a sufficiently large number of human souls will then possess the inner powers [pg 397] which will enable them to render the Moon forces fruitful for further development. And this will occur at a time when, side by side with the high development of a certain number of human souls, another development, that of those who have chosen the path of evil, will parallel it. These straggler-souls will have accumulated in their Karma so much sin, ugliness and evil, that at first they will form a separate community, a perverse and erring section of humanity, keenly opposing what we understand as “good.” The “good” humanity will acquire little by little the power of using the Moon forces, and will thereby so transform the evil section as to enable it to keep pace with the advance of evolution as a separate earth kingdom. Through these labours of the good part of humanity, the earth, then reunited with the moon, will be able, after a certain period of development, to again unite with the sun and also with the other planets.
After an intermediate state, which will be a sojourn in a higher world, the earth will be transformed into the Jupiter condition. That which we now call the mineral kingdom will not exist on Jupiter; the forces of this mineral kingdom will be transformed into plant forces and the plant kingdom, which will have quite a new form compared with its present one, will appear in the Jupiter state as the lowest of the kingdoms, while above it, we find the animal kingdom, likewise transformed. Next comes a human kingdom—the descendants of the evil earth humanity. And then will appear the descendants [pg 398] of the good earth humanity, as a human kingdom on a higher level. A great part of the work of this last human kingdom consists in ennobling the souls which have sunk into the evil community, so that they may still gain admittance into the true human kingdom.
The Venus condition will be of such a nature that the plant kingdom will have disappeared also; the lowest kingdom will be the animal kingdom once more transformed, and above that there will be three successive human kingdoms of different degrees of perfection. The earth will remain united with the sun during the Venus period; while during that of Jupiter it will have happened that, at a certain point, the sun separates from Jupiter, the latter receiving its influence from outside. Then there is again a union between the sun and Jupiter, the transformation gradually passing into the Venus state. During that state another planet detaches itself from Venus, containing all kinds of beings which have opposed evolution, an “irredeemable moon,” as it were, following a path of evolution which is of a character impossible to describe, because it is too unlike anything which man can experience on earth. But evolved humanity will pass on in a fully spiritualized state of existence to the Vulcan evolution, a description of which lies beyond the scope of this work.
We see that from the fruits of the “Wisdom of the Grail” springs the highest ideal of human evolution conceivable for man: spiritualization attained by him through his own efforts. For in the end this [pg 399] spiritualization appears as a product of the harmony which he wrought out in the fifth and sixth periods of the present evolution, between the faculties of reason and emotion which he had then attained and cognition of supersensible worlds. That which he thus achieves within his soul will finally become in itself the outer world. The human spirit rises to the mighty impressions of its outer world and at first divines, later recognizes spiritual beings behind these impressions; the human heart senses the unspeakable exaltedness of the Spirit. Man can, however, also recognize that his inner experiences of intellect, feeling and character are but the germs of a nascent spirit world.
He who thinks that human liberty is not compatible with a foreknowledge and predestination of future conditions, ought to consider that man's freedom of action in the future depends just as little on the arrangement of predestined things as does his liberty of action with regard to inhabiting a house a year hence, on the plans for which he is now settling. He will be as free as his innermost being will permit, within the house he has built; and he will be as free on Jupiter and on Venus as his inner life permits, even under the conditions which will arise there. Freedom will not depend on what has been predetermined by antecedent conditions, but on what the soul has made out of itself.
In the earth condition is contained that which has developed within the preceding Saturn, Sun and [pg 400] Moon states. Earth-man finds “wisdom” in the processes going on around him. This wisdom is there as the fruit of what has happened in the past. The Earth is the descendant of the “old Moon”; and the latter developed with all that belonged to it, into the “Cosmos of Wisdom.” The Earth is now at the commencement of an evolution, which will introduce a new force into this wisdom. It will cause man to feel himself an independent member of a spiritual world. This will come to pass because his ego will have been formed within him during the Earth period by the Lords of Form, as was his physical body on Saturn by the Lords of Will, his vital body on the Sun by the Lords of Wisdom, and his astral body on the Moon by the Lords of Motion.
By means of the co-operation of the Lords of Will, Wisdom and Motion, that which manifests as wisdom is brought forth. Through the labours of these three classes of spirits, the beings and processes of earth can harmonize in wisdom with the other beings of their world. It is the Lords of Form who bestowed on man his independent ego. In the future this ego will harmonize with the beings of Earth, Jupiter, Venus, and of Vulcan, by means of the force added to the existing wisdom during the Earth period. It is the force of love. This force must begin to arise within earth-humanity and the Cosmos of Wisdom develop into a Cosmos of Love. Everything which the ego is able to unfold within itself must give birth to love. The all-embracing archetype of love is set forth in the revelation of [pg 401] that lofty Sun-spirit indicated in the description of the Christ Mystery. Through Him the germ of love is planted in the innermost core of the human being; and from this starting-point it must flow through the whole of evolution. Just as the wisdom previously formed manifests in the forces of the earthly sense-world, in the “elementary forces” of to-day, so love itself will manifest in the future, in all phenomena, as the new “elementary force.”
The secret of all future development is a recognition that everything achieved by man from a right comprehension of evolution is a sowing of seed which must ripen into love. And the greater the amount of love-force, so much the greater will be the creative force available for the future. In that which will grow from love, will lie the mighty forces leading to that culminating point of spiritualization described above. The greater the amount of spiritual knowledge that flows into human and terrestrial evolution, so much more living and fruitful seed will be stored up for the future. Spiritual knowledge is transmuted through its own nature into love. The whole process which has been described, beginning with the Greco-Roman period and extending throughout the present time, shows how this transformation, for which the beginning has now been made for future times, is to take place and to what end. That which has been prepared as wisdom on Saturn, Sun and Moon, is active in the physical, etheric and astral bodies of man; it shows itself there as the “Wisdom of the World”, but within the [pg 402] “ego” it becomes intensified. The wisdom of the outer world becomes inner wisdom in man from the Earth period onward and when it is concentrated in him, it becomes the germ of love. Wisdom is the necessary preliminary condition for love; love is the fruit of wisdom, reborn in the ego.
When the higher principles of man are observed with clairvoyant vision, the mode of perception is never precisely the same as that which comes from the outer senses. If we touch an object, and experience a sensation of warmth, we must distinguish between that which comes from the object, that which, as it were, streams out from it, and our own psychic experience. The inner psychic experience of perceiving warmth is something distinct from the heat which streams from the object. Now let us imagine this psychic experience quite by itself without the outer object. Let us call up the experience of a sensation of heat in our soul, without the presence of any external physical object to cause it. If such a sensation simply existed without cause, it would be mere fancy. The student of occult science experiences such inner perceptions without any physical cause. But at a certain stage of development they present themselves in such a manner that he knows (it has been shown that by the very nature of the experience he can know) that the inner perception is not fancy, but is caused by a psycho-spiritual being [pg 404] belonging to a supersensible world, just as the ordinary sensation of heat, for example, is caused by an external physical-sense object.
It is the same with the perception of colour in the supersensible world. Here we must distinguish between the colour associated with the outer object, and the inner colour-sensation in the soul. Let us call up the soul's inner sensation when it perceives a red object in the physical, outer world of the senses. Let us imagine that we retain a very vivid recollection of the impression, but that we are looking away from the object. Let us imagine what we still retain as a memory-picture of the colour, to be an inner experience. We shall then distinguish between that which is an inner experience of the colour, and the external colour itself. These inner experiences differ entirely in their content from impressions of the outer senses. They bear much more the impress of what is felt as joy and sorrow than that of normal physical sensation. Now let us imagine an inner experience of this kind arising in the soul, without any suggestion from an outer sense object. A clairvoyant may have an experience of this kind, and may know too, in that case, that it is no fancy, but the expression of a psycho-spiritual being. Now if this psycho-spiritual being excites the same impression as does a red object of the physical-sense world, then that being is red. There will, however, always be the external impression first, and then the inner experience of colour, in the case of the physical-sense object; in that of the genuine clairvoyance [pg 405] of a man of to-day, it must be the contrary,—first the inner experience, shadowy, like a mere recollection of colour, and then a picture, growing more and more vivid. The less heed we pay to this necessary sequence of events the less we are able to distinguish between actual, spiritual perception and the delusions of fancy (illusion, hallucination, etc.).
The vividness of the picture in a psycho-spiritual perception of this kind, whether it remains quite shadowy, like a dim concept, or whether it impresses us as intensively as an outer object, depends altogether upon the clairvoyant's stage of development. Now, the general impression obtained by the clairvoyant of the etheric body, may be thus described. When the clairvoyant has strengthened his will power to such a degree that, in spite of the fact that an individual stands before him in a physical body, he can abstract his attention from what the physical eye sees,—he is then able to see clairvoyantly into the space occupied by the man's physical body. Of course, a great increase of will power is necessary, in order to withdraw the attention not only from something in the mind, but from something standing before one, in such a way that the physical impression is quite extinguished. But this increase of will is possible, and is brought about by exercises for the attainment of supersensible cognition. The clairvoyant can then first have a general impression of the etheric body. Within his soul there arises the same inner sensation which he has, let us say, at the sight of a peach blossom; then [pg 406] this becomes vivid, so that he is able to say that the etheric body has the colour of peach blossoms. He next perceives the separate organs and currents of the etheric body. A further description of the etheric body may be given by relating the psychic experiences which correspond to sensations of heat or of sound-impressions, etc., for this etheric body is not merely a colour phenomenon. The astral body and the other principles of the human being, may also be described in like manner. He who takes this into consideration will understand just how descriptions should be taken which are given by occult science.
The Astral World
As long as we observe the physical world only, the earth, as man's dwelling place, appears like a separate cosmic body. But when supersensible cognition rises to higher spheres, this separation ceases. Thus one can say that the imagination, when beholding the earth, at the same time also perceives the Moon condition as it has developed up to the present time.
Now that world which is entered in this way is one to which not only the supersensible part of the Earth belongs, but is one in which also other cosmic bodies are imbedded, which in a physical sense are entirely separate from the earth. Therefore, the observer of supersensible worlds thus beholds not only the supersensible part of the earth, but also the supersensible part of other cosmic beings. If one should be impelled to ask why clairvoyants do not [pg 407] describe the appearance of Mars, etc., he should bear in mind that it is primarily a question of observing supersensible conditions of other planetary bodies, whereas the questioner is thinking of physical sense conditions. Therefore in this work it was possible to speak of certain relations of the earth's evolution to the simultaneous evolution on Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, etc. Now when the human astral body has been drawn away by sleep, it belongs not only to the earth, but to worlds of which still other regions of the universe (stellar worlds) are a part. Indeed, these worlds extend their influence to man's astral body even when he is awake. For this reason the name “astral body” appears to be justified.
Of Man's Life After Death
Mention has been made, in the course of this book, of the time during which the astral body still remains joined to the etheric body of man after death. During this time there exists a slowly paleing recollection of the whole earth life just ended. The duration of this time varies in different individuals. It depends upon the strength with which the astral body clings to the etheric body, on the power which the former has over the latter. Supersensible cognition can gain an idea of this power by observing a person who, judging from his degree of fatigue, must of necessity fall asleep, but, by sheer inner force, keeps awake. It then appears that different people can keep awake for different lengths of time without being overpowered by sleep. The memory [pg 408] of the past life, in other words the connection with the etheric body, lasts about as long after death as the length of time a man can keep awake when, in the most extreme case, he is compelled to.
When the etheric body is detached from the individual after death, something of it nevertheless remains for man's whole subsequent development; this may be described as an extract, or the essence of it. This extract contains the result of the past life, and is the vehicle of all that which, during man's spiritual development between death and a new birth, unfolds like a germ for the following life.
The duration of time between death and a new birth is determined by the fact that the ego, as a rule, returns to the physical sense-world only when that world has been so transformed that the ego can experience something new. During its sojourn in spiritual regions, its dwelling place on earth undergoes a change. But this change is connected with the great changes in the universe, with changes in the constellation of the earth, sun and so forth. These are changes in which certain repetitions take place, in connection with new conditions. They find an external expression in the fact, for example, that the point in the vault of heaven at which the sun rises at the beginning of spring makes a complete circuit in the course of about twenty-six thousand years. Hence this vernal point, in the course of the period mentioned, moves from one region of the [pg 409] heavens to another. In the course of the twelfth part of that time, that is to say, in about twenty-one hundred years, conditions on the earth have changed sufficiently for the human soul to experience something new upon it since its previous incarnation. However, since the experiences of an individual vary according to whether he is incarnated as a woman or as a man, there are, as a rule, two incarnations within the time stated, one as a man and one as a woman. But these things are also dependent upon the nature of the forces which man carries with him from his earthly existence through death. Therefore all the statements given here are to be taken only in a general sense, but can be subject to the greatest variations in special cases.
The Course Of Human Life
Man's life, as it manifests itself in the sequence of events between birth and death, can be fully understood only by taking into account both the physical body with its senses and the changes undergone by man's supersensible principles. Occult science views those changes in the following manner. Physical birth is seen to be the detachment of the human being from its maternal covering. Forces which before birth the embryo shared in common with its mother's body, are present independently in the child after birth. But in later life supersensible events, similar to those of the sense-world at physical birth, become perceptible to supersensible observation. That is, the etheric body of the human being up to the change [pg 410] of teeth (the sixth or seventh year) is still enveloped in an etheric sheath. The etheric sheath falls away at that period, and then the “birth” of the etheric body occurs. But man is still surrounded by an astral sheath, which falls away between its twelfth and sixteenth year (at the time of puberty). This is the “birth” of the astral body; and at a still later period the real ego is born.33
Now after the birth of the ego, man lives in such a way that he adapts himself to the conditions of the world and of life, and occupies himself within them, in accordance with the principles active through his ego,—the sentient,- the intellectual- and the consciousness-soul. Then there comes a time in which the etheric body retraces the process of its development from the seventh year onward, in reverse order. At first the astral body has so developed itself that it unfolds that which was present within it at birth as a germ. After the birth of the ego, this astral body enriches itself by experiencing the outer world. Finally, at a definite time, it begins to nourish itself spiritually by consuming its own etheric body; it actually lives upon the etheric body. The decay of the physical body in old age is a consequence of this.
The course of human life therefore falls into three divisions: a time of unfoldment for the physical and [pg 411] etheric bodies, then one in which the astral body and the ego develop, and lastly that in which the etheric and physical bodies are changed back again. But the astral body plays a part in all the events that take place between birth and death. Since it is really born in a spiritual sense only between the twelfth and sixteenth years and must, during man's declining years, draw upon the forces of the etheric and physical bodies, that which it is able to perform by its own powers will develop more slowly than if it were not within a physical and an etheric body. After death, when the physical and etheric bodies have fallen away, evolution, during the time of purification, proceeds in such a manner that it occupies about one-third of the duration of life between birth and death.
The Higher Regions Of The Spiritual World
By imagination, inspiration, and intuition, supersensible cognition gradually ascends into those regions of the spiritual world within which it can reach the beings who have to do with human and cosmic evolution. And thus it also becomes possible to trace human evolution between death and a new birth in such a way that it becomes comprehensible. Now there are still higher regions of existence, which can only be briefly indicated here. When supersensible cognition has risen to intuition, it lives in a world of spiritual beings. These too, are evolving. That which concerns humanity of the present day extends upward, in a certain sense, as far as the [pg 412] world of intuition. True, man receives impulses from yet higher worlds in the course of his evolution between death and re-birth. But he does not experience these impulses directly; they are brought to him by beings belonging to the spiritual world. And if these are considered, everything that happens reveals itself to man. But the special conditions of these beings, that which they themselves require in order to guide human evolution, can only be observed by means of a cognition that transcends intuition. We thus have a glimpse of worlds which we must so picture that within them the most highly spiritual features of the earth are there among the lowest. Logical decisions, for example, count among the highest things within the earthly sphere; while the activities of the mineral kingdom are among the lowest. Now in those higher spheres, logical decisions correspond to about what the mineral activities are on earth. Above the domain of intuition, lies the region in which the cosmic plan is woven out of spiritual causes.
The Principles Of Man
When it is said that the ego works on the human principles, on the physical, etheric, and astral bodies, and transforms them in reverse order into Spirit-Self, Life-Spirit, and Spirit-Man, this statement relates to the work of the ego on the human being by means of the highest faculties, the development of which was begun only under earthly conditions. But this transformation is preceded at a lower level by [pg 413] another change, giving rise to the sentient-, the intellectual- or rational-, and the consciousness-soul. For while, in the course of human evolution, the sentient-soul is being formed, changes are taking place in the astral body; the growth of the intellectual-soul expresses itself in transformations in the etheric body; and that of the consciousness-soul in similar transformations in the physical body. Fuller information on this subject has been given in this book in the accounts of the evolution of the earth. Thus in a certain sense we may say that the sentient-soul itself is the result of a transformed astral body, the intellectual- or rational-soul of a transformed etheric body, and the consciousness-soul of a transformed physical body. But we may also say that these three divisions of the soul are parts of the astral body; for example, the consciousness-soul is only possible because it is an astral entity existing in a physical body suited to it. It lives an astral life within a physical body fashioned to be its dwelling place.
The Dream State
A description of the dream state has been given in another chapter of this book. On the one hand it is to be regarded as a relic of the old picture-consciousness peculiar to man during the Moon evolution, and also during a great part of the evolution of the Earth. Evolution goes forward in such a way that earlier conditions resolve themselves into later ones. And so, in the dream state, there now appears [pg 414] in man a relic of what was once his normal condition. But at the same time this condition from another aspect is different from the old picture-consciousness. For since its development, the ego also has taken part in those activities of the astral body which are carried on during sleep in the dream life. Thus through the presence of the ego there arises in dreams a transformed picture-consciousness. But since the ego does not consciously exercise its authority over the astral body during dream life, nothing belonging to the sphere of that life can be regarded as being really able to lead to a knowledge of higher worlds in an occult sense. Something similar holds good with regard to what is often called vision, premonition, or “second sight.” These arise through silencing the ego and the consequent appearance of remnants of the old condition of consciousness. In spiritual science these are of no value. What may be observed in them cannot in any real sense be regarded as a result of it.
The Attainment Of Supersensible Knowledge
The path to the attainment of knowledge of the higher worlds, which has been more fully described in this book, may also be called the “direct path of knowledge.” In addition to this path there is another, which we may designate as the “path of feeling.” It would be quite a mistake, however, to believe that the former had nothing to do with the development of feeling. On the contrary, it leads to the greatest possible deepening of the life of feeling. But [pg 415] the “path of feeling” addresses itself directly and solely to the feelings, and seeks from this point to rise to knowledge. It rests on the fact that when the soul entirely surrenders itself to a feeling for a certain length of time, the latter is transformed into knowledge, into imaginative perception. When, for example, the soul is filled for weeks or months, or even longer, with the feeling of humility, the content of the feeling becomes transformed into a perception. Now a path leading to supersensible regions may be found by devoting oneself to such feelings one by one; but for the man of today, bound by the ordinary circumstances of life, this is not easily carried out. Solitude, retirement from the life of the present day, is almost indispensable. For the impressions of everyday life disturb the soul especially at the beginning of development, through absorption in certain feelings. On the other hand, the path of knowledge described in this book can be pursued in every situation of present-day life.
Observation Of Special Events And Beings In The Spiritual World
The question may be asked whether inner concentration and the other means described for the attainment of supersensible cognition permit us to observe only in a general way what happens between death and a new birth or other spiritual events; or whether they furnish the possibility of observing quite definite events and beings, as, for example, any given deceased person. To this we must answer that one who has acquired the ability to see in the spiritual [pg 416] world by the methods explained, can also perceive particular events which occur there; he acquires the power of putting himself in communication with individuals living in the spiritual world between death and a new birth. It must be observed, however, that in an occult sense this ought to take place only after the proper training required for supersensible cognition has been undergone. For not until then is it possible to distinguish between illusion and reality, in regard to certain events and beings. A man who tries to observe particular cases without due instruction, may fall a victim to innumerable deceptions. The training which leads to the observation in higher worlds of what has been described in this book, also leads to the ability to trace the post-mortem life of any special individual, and no less does it lead to the observation and comprehension of all psycho-spiritual beings who, from the hidden worlds, work upon the visible ones. Correct observation of individual cases is only possible, however, on the basis of a knowledge of the universal great facts of the spiritual world,—facts regarding the world and humanity which concern every human being. The desire for the one without the other, leads one into error.