Contents:
Introduction by the Editor
Translator's Preface
Lecture 1. 26th September 1905
Significance of the symbol of the snake. Invertebrate and vertebrate
animals System of the solar plexus and the spinal chord. Inner
study of man with the help of the Kundalini fire. Twelve stages of
consciousness: seven appertaining to man, five to the creative gods.
The Twelve apostles as the twelve Christ-permeated stages of
consciousness.
Lecture 2. 27th September 1905
Activity, wisdom, will: three leading concepts in esotericism. Life
after death. The appearance of the Guardian of the Threshold as the
Double. The significance of Christ's death of atonement. The influence
of Ulfilas on the German language. The chaos of the activity of the
West and the tranquillity of the wisdom of the East.
Lecture 3. 28th September 1905
Stages of Consciousness in the three kingdoms of Nature and of Man.
The plant world as sense organ of the Earth. The organ of orientation
in the root of the plant and the corresponding organ of orientation in
the human ear. The cross as the symbol of the evolution of direction
in man, animal and plant. Plant consciousness on the Mental Plane;
that of sensitive plants, idiots and animals on the Astral Plane, of
minerals on the Higher Mental Plane. Human consciousness on the
Physical Plane and its development to higher stages. The riddle of the
Sphinx as indication of the future form of man.
Lecture 4. 29th September 1905
Consciousness of the bees and ants. Alchemy and the Philosophers'
Stone. Relationship of the kingdoms of Nature to each other. The being
of man in the future.
Lecture 5. 30th September 1905
The conditions of bodies: solid, liquid, gaseous; the four kinds of
ether: warmth, light, chemical and life ether and their life on the
seven planes. Relationship between the passive and active organs: ear
and speech i.e. larynx; heart and pituitary gland (hypophysis); eye
and pineal gland (epiphysis). The development of the hypophysis into
an active warmth-organ, the epiphysis to an active organ of vision.
Tolstoi. Ulfilas.
Lecture 6. 1st October 1905
The difference between receptive and creative beings in connection
with the Blavatskian sequence of seven stages of being, to which man
belongs: 1. receptive elemental beings; 2. man as a receptive and
creative intermediate being; 3. the pure man of the pre-Lemurian
Age: Adam Cadmon and the development of the warm and cold-blooded
animals; 4. Bodhisattvas: human beings who have become creative for
the purpose of regulating the continuity of evolution; 5.
Nirmanakayas: creative beings reaching out beyond the Earth who are
able to bring new impulses into Earth evolution; 6. Pitris (Fathers):
beings able to sacrifice themselves; 7. The actual gods. Heart and
gall.
Lecture 7. 2nd October 1905
Development of the beings on the Old Moon. Moon Cosmos of
Wisdom. Jehovah a rank of the hierarchies. Transition from the Old
Moon to the Earth. Beginning of human incarnations: union of two
different kinds of beings (spiritual & physical parts) resulting
in birth and death; the degree of balance in the gradual reciprocal
adaptation of the spiritual and physical parts. Past and future
development of speech in connection with consciousness, life and form.
Lecture 8. 3rd October 1905
Reincarnation, development of civilisation and the zodiac.
Christianity and the teaching of reincarnation. Water or the drinking
of wine in relation to knowledge of reincarnation. The Trappist
Orders. The Augustinian teaching of predestination.
Lecture 9. 4th October 1905
The physical body as the oldest and most perfected part of the
fourfold human organism. Self-awareness and sense-observation. The
seven senses in relation to the seven planes and conditions of
substance. The nature of the future Jupiter as the result of the
thoughts, feelings and will impulses of present-day man. Materialism,
a karmic result of earlier idealistic periods. The founding of towns
and the Lohengrin saga. Causes of illnesses.
Lecture 10. 5th October 1905
The formation of the etheric body as the opposite of the physical
body: the feminine etheric body of the man, and the male etheric body
of the woman. The forms and colours of the astral body and its sheath:
the auric egg. The development of the human auric egg through seven
conditions of form of the earth. The membering of the human auric egg.
The individualised astral light. Reading in the Akasha.
Lecture 11. 6th October 1905
Man's participation in the physical, astral and mental world. The
development of self-consciousness during the descent to the physical
plane. The re-ascent to the higher planes through schooling towards
selflessness in wishes and thoughts. The possibility of development
towards freedom on the physical plane. Action and reaction as the
technique of karma.
Lecture 12. 7th October 1905
The origin of the physical body. The Kundalini fire as means of
investigation into occult anatomy. The work of the Deva-forces on the
bodily sheaths and the gradual loosening of the Deva-forces through
the ego. The working of the Devas in the life after death. Sojourn in
Devachan and re-embodiment. Life after death in the case of suicide
and death by violence.
Lecture 13. 8th October 1905
Dionysius the Areopagite and his teaching about the Gods. The
structure of the Church, an outer image of the inner hierarchical
ordering of the world. Alteration in the forms of the flora, fauna and
mineral kingdom through the work of man after death. The activity and
nature of the Devas and the Planetary Spirits.
Lecture 14. 9th October 1905
Man's sojourn in Devachan between death and a new birth. The formation
of devachanic organs on Earth through spiritual activity and soul
relationships (Life in the Groups). The physical world as world of
causes, Devachan as world of effects. Three stages of pupil-ship. The
eighth sphere. The twelve Nidanas or forces of Karma.
Lecture 15. 10th October 1905
The impulse given through the Rosicrucians to European history from
the 14th century to the time of the French Revolution. In the
Rosicrucian schools basic Theosophy was taught. The three basic
concepts, Wisdom, Beauty, Power, in connection with the transformation
of the mineral, plant and animal kingdoms. The twelve forces of Karma
(Nidanas).
Lecture 16. 11th October 1905
How Karma works in relation to deeds, words and thoughts. The opposite
of Karma: creation out of nothing. The experience of Nirvana.
Lecture 17. 12th October 1905
The three stages of thought-life: Abstract Thoughts, Imagination, and
Intuition. Father, Son (Word) and Holy Spirit or First, Second, Third
Logos Karma and the five Skandhas.
Lecture 18. 16th October 1905
The human beings of the Atlantean and Lemurian Ages. The two-fold
origin of human nature and their union in the Lemurian Age. The Eighth
Sphere. The two-fold structure of the physical, etheric and astral
body of present-day man.
Lecture 19. 17th October 1905
Certain species of Elemental Beings in the Astral World Asuric
Beings Jehovah as the God of the descending Kama-principle;
Christ, the ascending Buddhi-Principle Black and White Magic.
Natural and induced Elemental Beings.
Lecture 20. 18th October 1905
Beings and experiences in the Astral World. Black and White Magic.
Necessity of a strict schooling for forming judgements about the
Astral World. Technique of reincarnation. The memory tableau
immediately after death and the vision of the future preceding new
birth.
Lecture 21. 19th October 1905
The technique of reincarnation: the law of effect and counter-effect
in relation to actions, feelings and thoughts. The necessity for
artistic activity in theosophical life. The passage through the Astral
and Devachanic World in the life after death and the preparation for
the next Earth life.
Lecture 22. 24th October 1905
The problem of death as a question of consciousness. The duality:
inner kernel of being (Monad) and physical-astral man; their various
forms of development until their unification in the Lemurian Age. The
beginning of Karma. Wisdom, Beauty, Strength as reflection of Manas,
Buddhi and Atma.
Lecture 23. 25th October 1905
Fructification with the Spirit (Monad) in the Lemurian Age. The
previous stages of Earth evolution: Old Saturn, Sun and Moon. The Sun
and Moon ancestors of Man. Opposition between the intentions of
Jehovah and the Luciferic Principle. The coming into being of the two
sexes as also of birth and death. The changing direction of the Earth
axis. Arising of original (Ur) Karma. Conflict between Jehovah and
Lucifer. Christianity and the teaching of Reincarnation and Karma.
Lecture 24. 26th October 1905
Survey of Earth evolution I: Races, Globes, Rounds.
Lecture 25. 27th October 1905
Survey of Earth evolution II: Planets or states of consciousness,
Rounds or elemental kingdoms, Globes or conditions of form; in
Christian terminology: Power, Kingdom and Glory.
Lecture 26. 28th October 1905
Survey of Earth evolution III: The Fourth Earth Round. Separation of
Sun and Moon. The Union of the human astral body with the Monad.
Intervention of the impulse of Luciferic Beings and the battle between
Jehovah and Lucifer. Elemental beings in the Atlantean Age. The origin
of metals. Names of the days of the week and their connection with the
planetary evolution of the Earth.
Lecture 27. 30th October 1905
The Three Logoi, or Form, Life and Consciousness (Creation out of
Nothing) as three stages of evolution. Elemental Beings and the
arising of Astral Beings through the physical deeds of man.
Lecture 28. 31st October 1905
The senses in connection with the different ethers. Connection between
microcosm and macrocosm. The development of different stages of
consciousness during the epochs of the Post-Atlantean Age.
Lecture 29. 3rd November 1905
Karmic connections in the relationships of peoples. Illnesses
connected with particular times and nations. Class opposition and
national morality. Michael's battle against the God Mammon in the
seventies of the nineteenth century. The War of All against All and
its remedy in the basic principle of brotherhood. The origin of
oxygen, breathing. Connection of freedom with birth, death and
illness. Origin of fever. The Riddle of the Sphinx, a secret of the
future.
Lecture 30. 4th November 1905
Development of the different forms of nourishment; origin and
significance of drinking wine. The social aspect of West and East in
regard to production and consumption.
Lecture 31. 5th November 1905.
Concerning Old Atlantis and the formation of the Fifth Root-Race or
the Post-Atlantean Age. Development of the Post-Atlantean Age through
the Indian, Persian, Chaldean and European civilisations. Present-day
materialism. Preparation for a new civilisation the task of Central
Europe.
Schematic survey of the stages of World-Evolution.
Further diagram of evolution
Short list of relevant books and lecture cycles by Rudolf Steiner
Notes
Glossary of Indian-Theosophical terms
Index of personalities mentioned