XII
In my last lecture
here I spoke of how man is related to the Spiritual Hierarchies
during the different periods of his life. — I should like to
repeat that the aim of all these lectures is to lead us to a better
and better understanding of how karma works in human life and in
human evolution. Everything is really a preparation for
this.
I told you that
from a man's birth until about his 21st year, the Third
Hierarchy is related to him in a special way; at the age of puberty
the Second Hierarchy — Exusiai, Dynamis, Kyriotetes —
begins to work. These Hierarchical Orders continue to work from
puberty until the 21st year in the first period of their influence;
in the second period they work until the 28th year, and in the third
period until the 35th year. But from the 28th year onwards, an inner
relationship begins with the First Hierarchy — Seraphim,
Cherubim, Thrones. These Beings of the First Hierarchy continue
working, in the first phase of their influence until the 35th year
(during which period they co-operate with the Second Hierarchy), in
the second phase until the 42nd year, and in the third phase until
the 49th year.
Now the influences
exercised directly by the Hierarchies during the various periods of
man's life interweave, as it were, with the influences which
play, as reflections, into these periods of life from the Spiritual
Beings of the planetary spheres. As we look at the outer, physical
radiance of the planets, we know that each of these heavenly bodies
is but the sign that in the direction where we behold it there is a
colony of spiritual Beings in the cosmos.
Our constitution
as human beings is such that within the physical body we have an
etheric body. The moment a man acquires the faculty of super-sensible,
Imaginative Knowledge, he is able to perceive everything that can be
revealed to him through the etheric body. And then, as he looks back
over the tableau of his earthly life since birth, all the events he
has lived through and the forces that have influenced his development
and determined his organisation of body, soul and spirit, lie
manifest before the eye of soul in a mighty panorama, as if time had
become space.
At this stage of
Imaginative Consciousness on the path of Initiation, life can be
surveyed in this way.
When, however, the
stage of Inspiration, Knowledge through Inspiration, is reached, a
higher revelation is added to the memory-tableau of the earthly life.
This higher revelation is possible because in Inspired Consciousness
the Imaginations are suppressed and the pictures of the events of
earthly life, even when they have been perceived through the etheric
body, are no longer there.
If by means of a
diagram I were to represent this backward survey as a stream (drawing
it as if presented to physical sight, not to the eye of soul) you
must picture that the several phases are blotted out in Inspired
Consciousness and manifestation of a different character
revealed.
| Diagram 1 Click image for large view | |
First of all,
something is made manifest as a kind of revelation within this first
phase and if we can find our bearings in the sphere of Inspiration,
we become aware of what it is that is actually
appearing.
Please understand
me. — We gaze at a tableau of the whole of earthly life. Part
of this tableau is obliterated, blotted out as it were, when Inspired
Consciousness has been attained on the path of Initiation — in
this case the phase in the memory-tableau from birth until the 7th
year. This is blotted out and in its place the deeds resulting from
the connection between the Moon Beings and man after death lie
manifest before the eye of soul.
I told you, for
example, how the life after death undergone by the personality who
was the model for Strader in the Mystery Plays, was experienced. What
happens in such a case is that one looks, first of all, at the
memory-tableau; then, in Inspired Consciousness, this memory-tableau
is obliterated. When the part of the tableau corresponding to the
period from birth until the 7th year is obliterated, the deeds of
which I have told you are made manifest — the deeds wrought by
the Moon Beings in connection with the human being after death. Such
experiences are possible when the course of life from birth until the
7th year becomes transparent and the Moon Beings and their deeds are
revealed. Vision of the revelations connected with this phase of life
is possible for every Initiate and is indeed the easiest to
attain.
As you will
readily understand, Initiation is possible at any age in life, with
the exception of early childhood. Children up to the age of seven are
not, as a rule, initiated. And if what I am now describing is to be
seen and understood, one must, in the present earthly life, have
passed beyond this age. Everyone who is initiated has passed the age
of seven. That is why vision of what is disclosed by this first phase
of life is comparatively easy to attain. What is here revealed are,
as we have heard, the experiences undergone by a human being after
death during the backward journey which lasts for a third of the time
of his earthly life.
A second
revelation is possible when that part of the backward survey which
corresponds to the years between 7 and 14 — that is to say, to
the time of puberty — becomes visible to Inspired
Consciousness. The experiences lived through by the human being after
death as he ascends from the sphere of the Moon to that of Mercury
are then revealed.
Having traversed
the sphere of the Moon, man ascends to the sphere of Mercury. But in
order to establish relationship with human beings in the
Mercury-sphere, the phase of life between the 7th and 14th years,
between the time of the change of teeth and that of puberty, must be
obliterated from the memory-tableau.
If in Inspired
Consciousness, the next phase of life is obliterated, enabling what
can become visible here to shine through, the experiences undergone
by man in the sphere of Venus after death are
revealed.
Thus in looking
back with the Inspired Consciousness of Initiation over these first
periods of life, one beholds what is happening in the macrocosm, the
spiritual macrocosm, to the Dead, the so-called
Dead.
You will realise
from what I am saying that infinite wisdom is contained in the
terminology used by ancient science. For the element of love is
associated with the name of Venus. Vision of the Venus-sphere
corresponds to the period of human life following the onset of
puberty.
Then there is a
period lasting from the 21st until the 42nd year of life. When this
period is revealed in Inspired Consciousness, one experiences —
or can at any rate experience — what a dead man undergoes in
the period that is by far the longest — in his life between
death and a new birth, when he is living together with the Sun
Beings. The Sun-existence between death and rebirth is now
revealed.
The Sun is a
heavenly body of such might, embracing such a multitude of spiritual
forces and spiritual Beings, that in order to perceive all the
influences of the spiritual Sun-sphere upon the human being between
death and rebirth, a period three times as long as the others must be
obliterated from the memory-tableau, namely the whole period between
the 21st and 42nd years. You will realise from this that Initiates
themselves must have passed the age of 42 before they are able to
look back upon man's connection with the Sun Beings between
death and a new birth. This connection cannot be perceived in its
fullness before then. To grow older, you see, has an important
bearing upon spiritual vision itself. There are realities for the
perception of which a certain maturity of years, not only a certain
degree of Initiation, must have been reached.
We come now to the
period between the 42nd and 49th years. This is the point to which I
tried to lead in the last lecture, for when man reaches his 49th year
the possibility of direct relationship with the Hierarchies ceases.
You will have gathered this from what I have said. We shall consider
presently how it is with men who have passed the age of
49.
If our attention
is focussed upon influences which interweave with this phase of the
tableau — we ourselves must of course have reached the age of
50 or more — and we look back at the span of time between the
42nd and the 49th years, we can behold the experiences a man
undergoes after death in connection with the Beings of the
Mars-sphere.
But in this sphere
the spiritual world begins to impart a strongly individualised
character to the karma of the human being when he is on earth. You
have heard that a man's karma is prepared during the period
which immediately follows death and lasts for a third of the time of
the earthly life. Karma is then gradually elaborated, and I have
already indicated how this takes place. Karma is elaborated, wrought
out, in union with higher Beings.
Now there are men
whose karma is elaborated mainly in the Mercury-sphere, or in the
Venus-sphere, or in the Sun-sphere; and again there are others whose
karma is elaborated mainly in the sphere of Mars. Human beings who by
virtue of their earlier earthly lives bring into the spiritual world
something that must be elaborated chiefly in the sphere of Mars, give
evidence of this during their next life on earth. Let me give you an
example. —
At the time when
the influence of Mohammedanism upon civilisation had already spread
across Asia, Northern Africa and into Spain, there lived a
personality whose spiritual development proceeded, to begin with, in
Northern Africa, in a School which in spite of having become
decadent, was similar to the School in which, very much earlier, St.
Augustine had spent the same phase of his life. The study in which
this personality engaged in Northern Africa was entirely similar in
character and trend.
We must picture to
ourselves that in those days the pursuit of knowledge was something
very different from what it is to-day. Little is to be heard at the
present time about the kind of study that was pursued so many
centuries ago in Northern Africa by St. Augustine, or, later on, by
the personality of whom I am now speaking. But at that time,
particularly in Northern Africa, studies connected with the Mysteries
were still possible although the Mysteries were in the throes of
decline. The personality to whom I am referring had pursued such
studies, had imbibed all that could be learned from them concerning
the independence of the human soul, the realms experienced by the
soul when liberated from the body, and so forth. Then this
personality joined in the Mohammedan campaigns and went over to
Spain. There he absorbed much Mohammedan-Asiatic learning in the form
into which it had already been re-cast in Spain; also much of the
lore that had been spread far and wide by the Jews — it was
not, however, the Cabbalism that was so universally cultivated later
on, in the Middle Ages, but an older form of Cabbalism. And so in the
early years after the Mohammedan campaigns we find this personality
steeped in Mohammedanism but working along particular lines:
reckoning, calculating, according to Cabbalistic
principles.
All this was lived
through again in a later incarnation as a woman, when it was inwardly
deepened, received by the heart rather than by the
head.
Then, later on, in
the 18th century, this same individuality passed over into a man who
has become a world-famous figure in French culture, namely
Voltaire. This individuality appeared again in Voltaire.
When our gaze is
directed to the experiences lived through by this individuality
between death and a new birth, before he became Voltaire —
experiences that were the outcome of his previous earthly lives
— we find that the fruits of his studies in Northern Africa,
with their subsequent Cabbalistic trend, were wrought out in the
sphere of Mars during the second half of his life between death and
rebirth. And with the results of the metamorphosis that can be
wrought in the Mars-sphere, Voltaire came again in the 18th century
as Voltaire. I am therefore able to bring him forward as an example
of the elaboration of karma in the sphere of Mars between death and a
new birth.
Now the Mars
Beings imbue everything with an element of aggressiveness — be
it in the domain of physical, psychical or spiritual qualities. Nay
more, they make a man combative, warlike by nature. This warlike
element is compatible not only with attack but also with retreat
— otherwise wars could not be waged! I think this was obvious
enough during the World War.
Look at the whole
life of Voltaire. — It was a life in which splendid qualities
of soul were developed, but it was a life of attack, of aggression,
and also of withdrawal and retreat — at times engaging in
attacks with almost foolhardy daring, at others evincing actual
cowardice in retreat.
It is much better
to study these things from examples where the whole character and
tenor of the life can be discerned than to study them in theory. That
is why I am taking examples of this kind.
And now when a man
penetrates with the Inspired consciousness of Initiation into the
phase of life between the 49th and 56th years — he must be
considerably older than was necessary for the vision connected with
the earlier periods — he attains knowledge of what the Beings
of the Jupiter region can bring about in human beings during their
life between death and a new birth.
Acquaintance with
the Beings of the Jupiter-sphere makes a very remarkable impression.
— One must of course have passed the age of 56 before this
experience is possible. — The first impression is one of
astonishment that Beings like those belonging to the Jupiter-sphere
can exist at all. — I mean that as a man on earth one is
astonished, not as a man between death and rebirth; for then, of
course, one is actually connected with these Jupiter Beings. They are
Beings who need not ‘learn’ anything, because the moment
they take form — I cannot say ‘the moment they are
born’ as you will presently see — they are already wise,
supremely wise. They are never stupid, never unwise. They are as men
on earth would often like to be — men who do not appreciate the
blessings of being taught and would prefer to be wise directly they
are born. These Beings on Jupiter are not ‘born’; they
simply arise out of the whole organism of Jupiter. Rather in the way
that we see clouds forming out of the atmosphere, so do these Beings
arise out of Jupiter, and once they are there they can be regarded as
embodied wisdom. Neither do they die; they are merely transformed,
they undergo metamorphosis. Jupiter is in essence weaving
wisdom. Picture yourselves standing, let us say, on the Rigi, and
looking down at the clouds. And now imagine that you are looking, not
upon weaving clouds of water-vapour but upon weaving wisdom itself,
weaving thought-images which are actually Beings. — Then
you will have an impression of Jupiter.
Again let me give
an example of the way in which karma can be elaborated in this
Jupiter-sphere.
There was a
personality who lived in the later period of Mexican civilisation and
was connected with the utterly decadent, pseudo-magical Mystery cults
of Mexico; with an intense thirst for knowledge he studied everything
with close and meticulous exactitude. My attention was attracted to
him through having made the acquaintance some years ago of a curious
man who is still engaged in a primitive form of study of the decadent
superstitions of the Mexican Mysteries. Such lore is of negligible
importance, because anyone who studies these things at the present
time is studying pure superstition; it has all become decadent
to-day. But the other personality to whom I am referring imbibed with
fervent enthusiasm all that could be learnt from the still
flourishing Mexican civilisation before the discovery, the so-called
‘discovery’ of America. In those days Mexican
civilisation was still influenced by the Mysteries but was already in
the throes of decline. When mention is made to-day of Taotl,
Quetzalcoatl, Tezcatlipoka — the Beings of the Mexican
Mysteries — little more is known than the names and a few
scattered images. But this personality still knew that Taotl is a
Being who as a cosmic, universal Spirit weaves in the clouds, lives
in the lightning and the thunder. He knew too that under certain
given conditions this Spirit could be invoked into consecrated water
by enactments of sacred ritual. And he knew that Quetzalcoatl was a
Divine Being who could take hold of man in his circulating blood, in
the working of his breath. Living reality of Being was experienced in
the Mexican Mysteries by the personality of whom I am speaking. He
was reborn in a later age without any intermediate life as a woman.
He had been a man in Mexico and was born again as a man. But in his
life between death and rebirth this individuality passed through the
super-sensible world in such a way that in the development of his
karma — this in turn was the outcome of still earlier
incarnations not in Mexico but elsewhere — he bore through the
Jupiter region all that he had experienced in Mexico: knowledge that
had degenerated into superstition but was nevertheless replete with
vitality, saturated with the fruits of older civilisations. In the
Jupiter-sphere all this assumed the form of wisdom, but a wisdom that
is in truth automatic, unconscious, when compared with the wisdom man
should make his own by individual effort.
When in the
elaboration of karma between death and a new birth, the living,
weaving wisdom of the Jupiter-sphere pours over what has been
experienced by a man in a previous earthly life, wisdom and its light
can still shine forth in the subsequent life. But the wisdom, then,
is founded on the experiences of earthly life.
The individuality
of whom I am speaking was born again in modern civilisation as
Eliphas Levi. Eliphas Levi, therefore, had spent his previous
incarnation in the Mexican civilisation, had then passed through the
sphere of Jupiter with its wisdom, and in this sphere of Jupiter
everything was worked through once again. But Mexican culture is a
decadent culture and if you read the books of Eliphas Levi to-day you
will find evidence of great wisdom spread out as it were over
something extremely primitive. And one who has insight into these
things will say: all this is Jupiter, but inferior
Jupiter!
When it is
possible to survey the period of life from the 56th to the 63rd year
— and I myself am now in this position — one gazes at the
influences exercised upon man between death and rebirth by Saturn, by
the Beings of Saturn. This is an even more startling vista, a vista
that causes bewilderment, nay indeed actual pain.
The Beings
associated with Saturn are Beings who by their very nature take no
heed at all of what they do in the immediate present; they act as it
were unconsciously, under the sway of much loftier Beings into whose
world they enter on reaching maturity. But as soon as they have done
something, it stands there in powerful, living
remembrance.
Try for a moment
to imagine yourselves in this position ... I am not referring to any
particular vocation or profession ... but just picture yourselves
doing something, no matter what, and not noticing anything at all
while you are actually doing it; but once you have done it, it stands
there in living remembrance as an intensely vivid picture. Take a
singer: he sings but is unconscious that he is doing so; he is simply
being used by the Gods to sing. Imagine a large audience listening to
him; as long as he is actually singing he is aware of nothing at all;
he knows nothing, either about himself or about what he is
experiencing. But the moment it is all over and the concert ended,
the whole event is there and does not fade away; it remains and forms
part of the content of his very life. On Saturn, man is the
past, only the past.
Think of
yourselves walking over the earth. As you walk you see nothing of
yourself. But when you have gone a little further and look back, you
see a little snowman — he is a figure of yourself as you were
before you took the last step. Again you observe nothing, but walk
on, and another little snowman stands behind you. And so it
continues, with more and more little snowmen standing behind you. To
all of them you say “I”. — Now transpose this
imagery into the spiritual and you have the key to the nature of the
Saturn Beings. Between death and a new birth man has to encounter
these Beings — Beings who live wholly in the past. And there
are men who in the elaboration of their karma have a particularly
strong connection with these Saturn Beings.
The destiny of
such men can be intelligible only when one looks back upon the period
of life between the 56th and 63rd years. Again I will give an example
in order to show you how karmic events in life point back to
happenings in the super-sensible world between death and a new
birth.
When I was
speaking to you not long ago about the Hibernian Mysteries, I told
you how difficult it is to approach these Mysteries, how they seem to
thrust one back; and I spoke of the wonder and the sublimity of what
was experienced in these Hibernian Mysteries in Ireland. I described
how the pupil, having first learned to know the utmost depths of
doubt and uncertainty in life, was led before two statues. The first
consisted of a substance that was elastic throughout and the pupil
was exhorted to touch or to press this statue again and again. The
indents made in the statue gave rise to a feeling of overwhelming
dread: it was as if one had constantly to cut, I cannot say into a
corpse, but into living flesh — a horrifying experience for any
sensitive person.
The second statue
retained every indent made upon it by pressure and its form was only
restored, made intact, after an interval of time, when the candidate
for Initiation was led before the statue again.
I told you how
those who were initiated in these Hibernian Mysteries experienced the
glory and majesty of the microcosm, that is to say of man himself,
and of the great world, the macrocosm. The impressions were
tremendously powerful, of indescribable sublimity.
One of those who
had participated with intense fervour in the Hibernian Mysteries and
had reached a high degree of Initiation, was destined after death to
penetrate deeply into the Saturn-sphere. — His earthly life
within these Mysteries was the outcome of still earlier incarnations.
— He had been profoundly moved by the grandeur and majesty of
what he had experienced in the Mysteries of Hibernia. — When I
was describing them to you I told you that in spiritual vision,
without any kind of connection in physical space, the Initiates
beheld the actual Event of Golgotha.
The individuality
of whom I am speaking lived through all these experiences again with
great intensity of feeling and was subsequently born again in our own
period of civilisation.
Picture to
yourselves what this personality acquired by virtue of the fact that
the karma of his last life had been elaborated, wrought out in the
Saturn-sphere. Everything presented itself to him in the light of the
past. He beheld his experiences in the Hibernian Mysteries in the
light cast by the Saturn Beings over the far, far distant past, and
majestic pictures of pre-earthly times, of Moon periods and
Sun-periods came alive in him.
When he was born
again, all that before this earthly incarnation had been bathed in
the past, coloured by the past, transformed itself into mighty
pictures — idealistic, albeit visionary pictures which cast
their light into the future and came to expression in a
transcendental romanticism.
In short, this
individuality who had once been initiated in the Hibernian Mysteries,
was born in our epoch — our epoch in the wider sense — as
Victor Hugo. In its romanticism, in its whole configuration,
Victor Hugo's life bears the stamp of karma wrought out in the
Saturn-sphere.
These are small
contributions towards an understanding of how karma originates and
takes shape. As I said, the best way of getting to understand karma
is to study concrete examples. For the study of how karma is
elaborated in the case of men like Voltaire, Eliphas Levi, Victor
Hugo, is full of the deepest interest and leads to a knowledge of the
connection of the human being on earth with the macrocosmic,
spiritual being engaged in the elaboration of karma between death and
a new birth.
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