LECTURE 2.
THE INNER ASPECTS OF THE
SATURN-EMBODIMENT OF THE EARTH.
31st. October, 1911.
If we wish to pursue
the studies we have carried on in our Lodge evenings in former years,
it will be necessary to acquire still other concepts and views than
those that have been discussed. We know that what we have to say
about the Gospels and other spiritual documents of humanity would not
suffice if we did not pre-suppose the evolution of our whole cosmic
system, which we describe as the incorporation of our planet itself,
through the Saturn existence, the Sun-existence, the Moon-existence,
on to our present Earth-existence. Anyone who recollects how often we
have had to start from these fundamental conceptions will know how
necessary they are for all occult observations of human evolution. If
we now turn to the accounts given, for instance, in my Occult
Science about Saturn, Sun and Moon evolution, to that of the
Earth, you will admit that nothing but a sketch could be given,
(indeed even if it were much more amplified it would still be no
more) nothing but a sketch from one side, from one point of view. For
just as the Earth-existence comprises an immense number of details,
it is quite obvious that the former embodiments are equally detailed,
and that it would never be possible to give more than a merely rough
charcoal drawing, just an outline of these. It is however
necessary for us to describe evolution from yet another
side.
If it be asked, whence
arise all the accounts given here, we know that they arise from the
so-called register of the Akashic Record. We know that what has once
taken place in the course of the world's evolution is in a sense to
be read as though registered in a delicate spiritual substance, the
Akashic substance. There is a register there of everything that has
taken place, by which we can discover how things once were. Now it is
natural that just as the ordinary vision contemplating anything on
our physical world sees the details of objects in its vicinity more
or less clearly, and that the further away they are the less clear do
they appear, so we may alert admit that those things that are near us
in time, belonging to the Earth or the Moon evolutions can be more
minutely observed; while on the other hand those further removed from
us in time take on more or less indistinct outlines — as for
instance when we look back clairvoyantly into the Saturn or Sun
existence.
Why do we do this at
all, why do we set value on following up an age so far behind our own
l It might well be objected: for what reason do theosophists bring up
such primeval subjects for discussion at the present day? In the
world we really do not need to trouble ourselves about these ancient
matters, we have quite enough to do with what is going on
now!
It would be wrong to
speak in this way. For what has once happened is fulfilling itself
continuously even at the present day. What occurred in the time of
Saturn did not only take place then, — it goes on even to-day;
only it is covered over and made invisible by what to-day surrounds
man on the physical plane. And the ancient Saturn existence which
played its part very, very long ago, has been made very, very
invisible to us; but it still somewhat concerns man even now, this
old Saturn-existence. And in order that we may form a conception of
how it concerns us to-day, let us place the following before our
souls.
We know that the
innermost core of our being meets us in what we call our Ego. This
ego, the innermost core of our being, is, in reality, for people of
the present day an absolutely super-sensible and imponderable entity.
This can be seen in the fact that there are to-day teachings
regarding the soul, so-called official psychologies which no longer
have the slightest inkling that such an ego is to be alluded to. I
have often drawn your attention to the fact that in the German
psychology of the 19th century the following expression has come into
use, ‘Soul-teaching without soul.’ In the celebrated
School of Wundt, which is considered decisive not only in German
countries, but everywhere where psychology is discussed, it is
mentioned with great respect. This school was well known for the
‘soul-teaching without soul’ although it did not coin the
expression. This teaching insisted, without taking an independent
soul-being into consideration, that all the qualities of the soul are
gathered into a sort of focus, — into the ego. It would be
impossible to think of greater nonsense, yet the psychology of the
present day is absolutely under the influence of this nonsense. This
‘soul teaching without soul’ is to-day famous throughout
the world. Future writers on the history of civilisation will have
much to do to make it appear plausible to our successors that in the
19th century and well on into the 20th it was possible that such a
thought could have arisen as the greatest production of the
psychological field. This is only mentioned to point out how vague is
official psychology respecting what we designate as the central point
of the human being.
If we could have a
clear grasp of the ego and place it before us like the external
physical body; if we could look for the environment upon which the
ego depends in the same way as the physical body is dependent upon
what is seen by the eyes and perceived by the senses, — if we
could look for the environment of the ego in the same way as we
do for that of the physical realm, in the clouds, mountains, etc.,
or, in the same way as the physical body does for its means of
nourishment we should come at last to an expression of the cosmos, to
a cosmic tableau, which even to-day is, as it were, imprinted upon
our environment and is invisibly within it, similar to the
cosmic appearance of ancient Saturn. This means that a man who wishes
to learn to know the ego in its own world must represent to himself a
world such as ancient Saturn. This world is hidden; to man it is a
super-sensible world. At the present stage of his evolution man could
not possibly bear the perception of it. It is veiled by the Guardian
of the Threshold Who conceals it from him. And it requires a certain
grade of spiritual development to support such a vision. It is indeed
a vision to which we have to become accustomed. — And above all
you must form a conception of what is necessary, to be able to feel
such a cosmic tableau as reality. You must think away everything that
can be perceived by the senses, you must even think away your own
inner world, in so far as this consists of the wonted working of the
mind. Further, you must think away everything that is in the world;
all the concepts you have within you. Thus you must remove from the
external world all that the senses can perceive, and from the inner
world all the workings of the mind, all conceptions. And now, if you
wish to form an idea of that soul-disposition which a man must have
if he really holds the thought that everything is taken away and man
alone remains, we cannot say otherwise than that he must learn to
feel dread and fear of the infinite emptiness yawning around him. He
must be able to feel, as it were, his environment tinged and
saturated with that which inspires dread and fear wherever he turns,
and at the same time he must be able to overcome this fear by inner
firmness and certainty.
Without these two
frames of mind, — dread and fear of the infinite emptiness of
existence and the overcoming of this fear it is impossible to have
the faintest conception of the ancient Saturn existence underlying
our own world. Neither of these feelings is much cultivated by people
in themselves. Hence in literature we find but few descriptions
of this condition. It is naturally only known to those who in course
of time endeavour to seek the origin of things by means of
clairvoyant forces. In external literature, however, whether written
or printed, you will find but few indications of man having felt
anything like the dread of the infinite emptiness or the overcoming
of this. In order to obtain a sort of insight into this, I have tried
to investigate some of the more modern literature where the
consciousness of this dread of the immeasurable emptiness might be
found. The philosophers are as a rule extremely clever and speak in
clear concepts — they avoid speaking of the mighty,
awe-inspiring impressions; it will not be easy to find anything of
the sort in their writings. Now I shall not speak of those in which I
have found nothing. But I once found one small echo of these
feelings, and this was in the Day-Book of Karl Rosenkrantz, the
writer on Hegel, in which he sometimes describes intimate feelings
produced in him by engrossing himself in the Hegel philosophy. I came
upon a remarkable passage, which is simply expressed and noted in his
Day-Book. It had become clear to Karl Rosenkrantz that this
philosophy proceeds from pure being. This ‘pure being’ of
Hegel is much discussed in philosophical literature of the 19th
century but we must say that it was very little understood. We might
almost say, though of course this can only be mentioned in the most
intimate circles, that the philosophy of the second half of the 19th
century understood just as little of the ‘pure being’ of
Hegel as the ox understands of Sunday, when he has eaten grass all
the week. This concept of the ‘pure being’ of Hegel is
one that has been sifted again and again, (not existing but Absolute
Being); it is a concept which indeed is not quite what I have
described as the dreadful emptiness into which flows fear. But all
space in Hegel's sense is tinged with the quality containing nothing
that can be experienced by man; it is infinity filled with
‘being.’ Karl Rosenkrantz once felt this to be as a
dreadful shuddering recoil from a coldness, tinged with nothing but
‘being.’
In order to understand
what underlies the world it does not suffice to speak of it in
concepts, or to form concepts and ideas on it; it is far more
necessary to call up an impression of the feeling aroused by
the infinite emptiness of the ancient Saturn existence. A feeling of
horror accompanies the mere hint of it. If we wish to ascend
clairvoyantly to the state of Saturn, we must prepare ourselves
by-acquiring a feeling that may be compared to the giddiness
experienced on a mountain, when a man stands at the edge of an abyss
and feels that he has no sure footing under him, that he cannot
retain it in any place and wants to give way to forces over which he
has no longer any control. But that is only the most elementary of
these apprehensive feelings. Next he loses not only the ground
beneath him, but also what eyes can see, ears hear and hands grasp;
in fact all spatial environment. And he can do no other than lose
every thought that may come to him, in a sort of condition of dimness
or sleep; and then he can arrive at having no perception at all. He
may be so deeply absorbed in this impression that he can do no other
than come to the condition of dread, which often is like a giddiness
not to be overcome.
Man of to-day has two
possibilities. The first is that he may have understood the
Gospels, or the Mystery of Golgotha. Anyone who has really
understood these in their full depths — naturally not as
modern theologians speak of them, but in such a way that he has drawn
from them the deepest that can be expressed in them — will take
something with him into that emptiness, which seems to expand from a
given point and fills emptiness with something similar to courage. It
is a feeling of courage, of protection through being united with that
Being Who accomplished the sacrifice on Golgotha. The other way is to
penetrate into the spiritual worlds without the Gospels through a
real true Theosophy. This is also possible. (You know that we
emphasise the fact that we do not start from the Gospels when we
consider the Mystery of Golgotha, but that we should arrive at it
even if there were no Gospel at all). It would not have been possible
before the Mystery of Golgotha took place; but it is the case to-day,
because something entered the world through the Mystery of Golgotha
which enables a man to understand the impressions of the spiritual
world directly through his own impressions. This is what we call the
ruling of the Holy Spirit in the world, the ruling of cosmic thought
in the world. Whether we take one or the other of these two ways, we
cannot lose ourselves and we cannot, so to say, fall into the
bottomless abyss when we stand before the dreadful emptiness. If we
now approach this dreadful emptiness with the other preparations
given us by the various methods, for instance, those in my book,
The Knowledge of Higher Worlds etc. and other methods
dependent on these — and enter a world born from that which has
so shaken our minds, which can now be grasped by our conceptions when
we live into that world, when we place ourselves, so to say, in the
Saturn existence, then we learn to know Beings — not in the
least similar to those we perceive in the animal, plant or mineral
kingdoms but Beings. This is a world where there are no clouds, no
light, it is quite devoid of sound, but we become acquainted with
Beings — indeed those Beings, called in our terminology,
Spirits of Will or Thrones. We learn so to know them that the surging
sea of courage becomes a true objective reality for us.
What at first can only
be pictured in thought, becomes through clairvoyance, objective
reality. Think of yourself as immersed in this sea — but now
immersed as a spiritual being, feeling one with the Christ-being,
carried by the Christ-Being, swimming — though not in a sea of
water but in a sea filling infinite space, a sea (there is no other
description for it) of flowing courage, flowing energy. This is not
simply an indifferent and undifferentiated sea, but we meet herewith
all the possibilities and diversities of what we call a feeling of
courage. We become acquainted with beings who consist of courage, but
it is not as though they consisted of courage alone, they are really
concrete beings. Naturally it may appear strange to say that we meet
beings just as real as man who is made of flesh, and yet they are not
of flesh but consist of courage. Yet such is the case. Of such a
nature are the Spirits of Will. To begin with, we shall only
designate as Saturn-existence what the Spirits of Will, consisting of
courage, represent, — and nothing else. Saturn is this to
commence with. It is a world of which we cannot say that it is
spherical, hexagonal or square. None of these definitions of space
apply to it, for there is no possibility of any end being
discoverable. If we revert to the simile of swimming, we may say it
is not a sea in which one would come to any surface, but on all sides
and in all directions are to be found Spirits of Courage or
Will.
In later lectures I
shall describe how we do not at once come to this: for the present I
will keep to the same order as formerly: Saturn-Sun-Moon; though it
is much better to keep to the reverse direction; from Earth to
Saturn. I am now describing the other way round, but it is of no
importance.
When we have lifted
ourselves to this vision, something meets us of which it is extremely
difficult to form an idea, except for one who has taken the trouble,
slowly and gradually to attain to such conceptions. For something
ceases, which is more intimately connected with our ordinary human
ideas than anything else: space ceases! It no longer has any meaning
to say — we swim ‘up’ or ‘down,’
‘forward’ or ‘backward,’ ‘right’
or ‘left,’ these have no longer any meaning. In this
respect it is all alike But the important thing is when we reach
these first ages of the Saturn existence even time ceases, there is
no longer ‘earlier’ or ‘later.’ It is
naturally very difficult for man to imagine this to-day, because his
ideas themselves flow in time. On Saturn no thought is before or
after another. This again can only be described by a feeling that
time ceases. This feeling is certainly not pleasant. Imagine that
your concepts are benumbed, that everything that you can remember,
everything to which you look forward is benumbed into a rigid state,
so that you feel yourself held in your conceptions and are no longer
able to move, then you will no longer be able to say that what you
formerly experienced you experienced formerly; you are fastened to
it; it is there, but it is benumbed: time ceases to be of
significance, it is absolutely no longer there. On this account it is
rather foolish for anyone to say: ‘you describe the Saturn
existence, the Sun existence etc, now tell us what was before
Saturn.’ ‘Before’ has no longer any meaning because
time ceases to exist; we have done with all definitions of time. It
is true of the old Saturn existence, speaking very comparatively,
— our ordinary world must be non-existent for us, in the fact
that thought must be absolutely still: It is the same with
clairvoyance, ordinary thoughts must be left behind, they do not
extend so far. By way of a comparison and expressing it in image, we
must say that our brain is frozen. And when we realise this condition
of rigidity, we shall have a comparative conception of the
consciousness no longer enclosed in time.
Now when we have got
as far as this we become aware of a remarkable alteration in the
whole picture. It can now be observed that out of this rigidity, this
timeless character of the infinite sea of courage with its Beings
Whom we call the Spirits of Will, come the Beings of other
Hierarchies, as though striking into it and playing into it. We can
only notice that there are other Beings here at play when we become
aware of the cessation of time. We notice an indefinite life of which
we cannot say that we ourselves experience it, but that it is there.
We can say that it is within the whole infinite sea of courage. We
observe something passing through this like a flashing-up, like a
becoming lighter, but not a real illumination, more like a glimmer.
This glimmer does not give the impression of a glimmering light, but
as we must understand these things in various ways and we desire to
make this comprehensible, we must imagine the following.
Suppose a man says something to you and you think, ‘how clever
he is!’ and as he talks on further, this feeling increases and
the thought comes: ‘he is really wise, he must have had endless
experience, to say such wise things’ ... Besides this feeling,
the person makes an impression upon you like a breath of enchantment.
Imagine this breath of enchantment enormously enhanced — and
within it clouds, which do not flash up but glimmer; if you take this
altogether you will have a conception of how Beings consisting
entirely of Wisdom interact with the hierarchy of the Spirits of
Will. Their Wisdom is not Wisdom alone, but streams which are
actively radiant. In short, you then become clairvoyantly aware how
the Cherubim are radiantly active there.
Now imagine yourself
surrounded by nothing but what I have described. I have already said,
and have laid certain stress upon it, that we cannot say of it:
‘we have it around us,’ we can only say, ‘it is
there.’ We must think ourselves into this. And concerning the
conception that something is there flashing up, I said it was not a
flash but a glimmering. It is not as though something arose and
vanished again; everything is simultaneous. Now, however, the feeling
comes that there is some connection between these Spirits of Will and
the Cherubim. The feeling comes to us that they have established a
relationship between themselves; we become conscious of this.
And indeed we become conscious too that the Spirits of Will or
Thrones sacrificed their own being to the Cherubim. That is the last
conception to which we can attain when we approach Saturn in
retrospect, that of the sacrificing Spirits of Will offering their
sacrifice to the Cherubim. This is the first scaffolding of our
world. And we can experience the sacrifice that the Spirits of Will
make to the Cherubim; something is wrung from our being, which
we can only express by saying, through the sacrifice made by the
Spirits of Will to the Cherubim, time is born. But ‘time’
here is not the abstract time of which we usually speak, but
independent being. We can now first speak of something that begins.
Time begins with the birth of time-beings — whose nature is
pure time. Beings are born consisting only of time. These are the
Spirits of Personality, known to us as Archai in the hierarchy of
spiritual beings. In the Saturn existence they are nothing but time.
We have also described them as Time-Spirits, as Spirits who rule
time. But there they are born as spirits, they are really beings
consisting of nothing but time.
It is extremely
important to take part in this sacrifice of the Spirits of Will to
the Cherubim, and in the birth of time. For it is only now, when time
is born, that something else appears — something that makes it
possible for us to speak of the Saturn condition as having anything
in the least similar to our environment. What we call the element of
heat in Saturn is as it were the sacrificial smoke of the Thrones
giving birth to time. Hence I have always said, in describing the
condition, that it was one of beat. Of all the elements we have
around us now, the only one we can speak of as being on ancient
Saturn is heat. And this heat consists of the sacrificial heat
offered by the Spirits of Will to the Cherubim. This should give us
an indication of how we should really look upon fire. Wherever we see
fire, wherever we are aware of heat, we should not think in so
materialistic a fashion as is natural and usual to the man of to-day.
But wherever heat is present we should feel that what is at the
spiritual foundation of our life is present, though it is not yet
visible, namely the sacrifice of the Spirits of Will to the Cherubim.
The world only acquires its truth when we know that behind every
development of heat, there is sacrifice.
In Occult
Science, in order not to rack people's brains too much, I have
begun by describing the more external condition of ancient Saturn.
Their brains are quite puzzled enough by this, and people who can
only think in accordance with modern science look upon the book as
nonsense. Just think what it would mean if we were to say,
‘Ancient Saturn has in its innermost being — in its very
foundation — this fact, that the beings belonging to the
Spirits of Will offered sacrifice to the Cherubim, that in the smoke
of their sacrifice time came to birth as the sacrifice they brought
to the Cherubim, and that from this proceeded the Archai, the
Time-Spirits, and that external heat is nothing but maya as compared
with the sacrifice of the Spirits of Will!’ But so it is.
Externally heat is really only maya. And if we wish to speak truly we
must say that wherever there is heat we have in reality sacrifice,
sacrifice of the Thrones to the Cherubim.
And now an excellent
‘imagination’ is the following: In Knowledge of Higher
Worlds and elsewhere it is frequently said that the second stage
of Rosicrucian initiation is the forming of imagination. The
theosophist must build up these imaginations from the right
conceptions of the world. Thus we can think of what we have discussed
to-day as transformed into an ‘imagination’: we can
imagine the Thrones, the Spirits of Will, kneeling in absolute
devotion before the Cherubim, but so that their devotion does not
proceed from a feeling of littleness but from a consciousness that
they have something to offer. Imagine the Thrones, with this desire
of sacrifice underlying their strength and courage, kneeling before
the Cherubim and sending up their sacrifice to them. ... And they
send up this sacrifice as foaming heat, so that the sacrificial smoke
ascends to the winged Cherubim. So might we picture it. And
proceeding from this sacrifice (just as though a word of ours spoken
into the air became time — in this case it is time-beings) and
emerging from this sacrifice the Spirits of Time — Archai. This
sending forth of the Archai gives a grand and powerful picture.
— And this picture placed before our souls is extremely
impressive in certain imaginations, for it can lead us further and
further into the realm of occult knowledge.
This is precisely what
we have to attain; we must be able to transform the ideas we receive
into imaginations, into pictures. Even if the pictures are clumsily
formed, even if they are anthropomorphic, even if the beings appear
as winged angels etc., that does not signify. The rest will be given
to us later; and what they ought not to have will fall away. When we
yield ourselves to these pictures we penetrate into imaginative
perceptions.
If you take what I
have just endeavoured to describe you will see that the soul will
soon have recourse to all kinds of pictures unconnected with
intellectual ideas. These latter owe their existence to a much
later period, so that we should not at first take such things
intellectually. And you must comprehend what is meant when some
minds describe other than from the intellectual side; the
intellectualist will never be able to understand such minds. I will
give a hint to anyone who wishes for instruction on this point.
— Take out of the public library a book — which is quite
a good one, — the so-called ‘Old Schwegler,’
formerly much used by students for examinations, but now no longer
applicable since the ‘soul’ is dethroned; although this
book has been mutilated by way of improvement, it is not quite
spoilt. You can take old Schwegler's History of Philosophy and
you will have quite a good book. If you read there about the
philosophy of Hegel you will find everything splendidly described.
But now read the short chapter of Jacob Boehme, and try to obtain a
correct idea of how helpless a man is who writes an intellectual
philosophy when confronted with a spirit such as Jacob Boehme!
Paracelsus — thank God — he left out entirely; for
concerning him he would have written completely unjustifiable things.
But just read what he says about Jacob Boehme. Here Schwegler comes
to a spirit who simply proceeded to describe — not the Saturn
picture, — but the recapitulation of the Saturn picture taking
place in the Earth period; this he can only do in words and concepts
that cannot be approached by the intellect. To the intellectual man
all comprehension here ceases. It is not as though these things were
impossible of comprehension, but they cannot be understood if the
standpoint of the dry philosophic intellect is insisted
upon.
You see, what the
ordinary intellect cannot reach is for us precisely the most
important. Even though the ordinary intellect produces something as
excellent as The History of Philosophy by Schwegler, (for I
have expressly called this a good book) it is only an example by
which we must see how a splendid intellect is completely at a
standstill before a spirit such as Jacob Boehme.
Thus to-day we have
endeavoured in our consideration of ancient Saturn to penetrate more
inwardly, so to say, into this old planetary embodiment of our Earth.
We shall presently do the same with the Sun and the Moon-existence.
And in doing so we shall see that there too we come to ideas which
perhaps may not appear less impressive than the glimpse afforded us
when we look back to the old Saturn condition, and to the Thrones
sacrificing to the Cherubim and resulting in the creation of the
Beings of Time. For time is a result of sacrifice, and first arises
as living time, as a creation of sacrifice. Then we shall see how all
these things are transformed on the Sun, and other glorious events of
the cosmic existence will confront us, when we pass from Saturn to
the Sun, and then to the Moon-existence.
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