《灵性科学之门》

tlolaymen

《灵性科学之门》

这本资料是关於人智学的一概，是十分完整的西方神秘学宇宙论，非常推荐，作者是神秘学大师 Rudolf Steiner，这是他在 1906 年的演讲集，界绍了许多很完整的概念。书原名是 At the Gates of Spiritual Science，是英译本。

目前有一本<敏感詞>出版的完整中译本。

原地址 wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GateSpiSci/GateSS_index.html

[ 本帖最后由 影月 于 2010-6-19 10:07 编辑 ]

tlolaymen

At the Gates of Spiritual Science

By Rudolf Steiner

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[ 本帖最后由 影月 于 2010-6-19 10:07 编辑 ]

tlolaymen

CONTENTS
                 
Contents       
Prefatory Note       
Lecture I:         The Being of Man        August 22, 1906
Lecture II:         The Three Worlds        August 23, 1906
Lecture III:         Life of the Soul in Kamaloka        August 24, 1906
Lecture IV:         Devachan        August 25, 1906
Lecture V:         Human Tasks in the Higher Worlds        August 26, 1906
Lecture VI:         The Upbringing of Children. Karma.        August 27, 1906
Lecture VII:         Workings of the Law of Karma in Human Life        August 28, 1906
Lecture VIII:         Good and Evil. Individual Karmic Questions.        August 29, 1906
Lecture IX:         Evolution of the Earth        August 30, 1906
Lecture X:         Progress of Mankind Up To Atlantean Times        August 31, 1906
Lecture XI:         The Post-Atlantean Culture-Epochs        September 01, 1906
Lecture XII:         Occult Development        September 02, 1906
Lecture XIII:         Oriental and Christian Training        September 03, 1906
Lecture XIV:         Rosicrucian Training — The Interior of the Earth — Earthquakes and Volcanoes       
September 04, 1906

Notes from Answers to Questions — Stuttgart, 2 September, 1906       
Notes from Answers to Questions — Stuttgart, 4 September, 1906       
Complete Edition (ref.)       
References       
Other Works by Rudolf Steiner

tlolaymen

LECTURE ONE
THE BEING OF MAN


These lectures are intended to give a general survey of the whole field of theosophical thought. Theosophy has not always been taught as it is today, in lectures and books that are accessible to everyone. It used to be taught only in small, intimate groups, and knowledge of it was confined to circles of Initiates, to occult brotherhoods; ordinary people were meant to have only the fruits of this knowledge. Not much was known about the knowledge or the activities of these Initiates, or about the places where they worked. Those whom the world recognises as the great men of history were not really the greatest; the greatest, the Initiates, kept in the background.


In the course of the eighteenth century, on a quite unnoticed occasion, an Initiate made brief acquaintance with a writer, and spoke words to which the writer paid no special attention at the time. But they worked on in him and later gave rise to potent ideas, the fruits of which are in countless hands today. The writer was Jean-Jacques Rousseau. He was not an Initiate, but his knowledge derived from one.


Here is another example. Jacob Boehme, a shoemaker's apprentice, was sitting alone one day in the shop, where he was not allowed to sell anything himself. A person came in, made a deep impression upon him, spoke a few words, and went away. Immediately afterwards, Boehme heard his name being called: “Jacob, Jacob, today you are small, but one day you will be great. Take heed of what you have seen today!” A secret attraction remained between Boehme and his visitor, who was a great Initiate, and the source of Boehme's powerful inspirations.


There were still other means by which an Initiate could work in those times. For instance, a man might receive a letter intended to bring about action of some kind. The recipient might perhaps be a Minister, someone who had the power but not the ideas to carry out a particular project. The letter might be about something, perhaps a request, which had nothing to do with its real purpose. But there might have been a certain way of reading the letter. For example, if four words out of five were deleted and the last word left, these fifth words would make a new sequence conveying what was to be done, although the recipient, of course, was not aware of it. If the words were the right ones, they achieved their object, even though the reader had not consciously taken in their meaning. Trithemius of Sponheim, a German scholar who was also an Initiate and the teacher of Agrippa von Nettesheim, used this method. Given the right key, you will find in his works much that is taught today in Theosophy.


In earlier times, only a few who had undergone adequate preparation could be initiated. Why was this secrecy necessary? In order to ensure the right attitude towards knowledge, it had to be restricted to those who were adequately prepared; the others received its blessings only. This knowledge was not intended to satisfy idle curiosity or inquisitiveness; it was meant to be put to work, to have a practical influence on political and social institutions in the world. In this way all the great advances in the development of humanity owe their origin to impulses issuing from occultism. For this reason, too, all those who were to be instructed in theosophical teachings were obliged to undergo severe tests and trials to prove their worthiness; and then they were initiated step by step, and led upwards quite slowly.


This method has been abandoned in modern times; the more elementary teachings are now given out publicly. This is necessary because the earlier methods, whereby only the fruits of the teaching were allowed to reach humanity, would fail. Among these earlier methods we must include religions, and this wisdom was a constituent part of all of them. Nowadays, however, we hear of a conflict between knowledge and faith. What is necessary today is to attain to higher knowledge by the paths of learning.


The decisive event which led to the making public of this knowledge, however, was the invention of printing. Previously, theosophical teaching had been passed on orally from one person to another, and nobody who was unripe or unworthy would hear of it. But knowledge of the material world was spread abroad and made popular through books; hence arose the conflict between knowledge and faith. Issues such as this have made it necessary for much of the great treasure of occult knowledge of all ages to be made accessible to the public. Whence does man originate? What is his goal? What lies hidden behind his visible form? What happens after death? — all these questions have to be answered, and answered not by theories and hypotheses and surmises, but by the relevant facts.
The purpose of occult science has always been to unravel the riddle of man. Everything said in these lectures will be from the standpoint of practical occultism; they will contain nothing that is mere theory and cannot be put into practice. Such theories have found their way into theosophical literature because in the beginning the people who wrote the books did not understand clearly what they were writing about. This kind of writing may indeed be very useful for curiosity-addicts; but Theosophy must be carried into real life.


Let us first consider the nature and being of man. When someone comes into our presence, we first of all see through our sense-organs what Theosophy calls the physical body. Man has this body in common with the whole world around him; and although the physical body is only a small part of what man really is, it is the only part of which ordinary science takes account. But we must go deeper. Even superficial observation will make it clear that this physical body has very special qualities. There are plenty of other things which you can see and touch; every stone is after all a physical body. But man can move, feel and think; he grows, takes nourishment, propagates his kind. None of this is true of a stone, but some of it is certainly true of plants and animals. Man has in common with the plants his capacity to nourish himself, to grow and propagate; if he were like a stone, with only a physical body, none of this would be possible. He must therefore possess something which enables him to use substances and their forces in such a way that they become for him the means of growth and so forth. This is the etheric body.


Man has a physical body in common with the mineral kingdom, and an etheric body in common with the plant and animal kingdoms. Ordinary observation can confirm that. But there is another way whereby we can convince ourselves of the existence of an etheric body, although only those who have developed their higher senses have this faculty. These higher senses are no more than a higher development of what is dormant in every human being. It is rather like a man born blind being operated on so that he can see. The difference is that not everyone born blind can be successfully operated on, whereas everyone can develop the spiritual senses if he has the necessary patience and goes through the proper preliminary training. A very definite form of higher perception is needed to understand this principle of life, growth, nutrition and propagation. The example of hypnotism can help us to show what this means.


Hypnotism, which has always been known to the Initiates, implies a condition of consciousness different from that of ordinary sleep. There must be a close rapport between the hypnotiser and his subject. Two types of suggestion are involved — positive and negative. The first makes a person see what is not there, while the second diverts his attention from something that is present and is thus only an intensification of a condition familiar enough in everyday life when our attention is diverted from an object so that we do not see it, although our eyes are open. This happens to us involuntarily every day when we are wholly absorbed in something. Theosophy will have nothing to do with conditions where consciousness is dimmed and dulled. To grasp theosophical truths a man must be quite as much in control of his senses when investigating higher worlds as he is when investigating ordinary matters. The serious dangers inherent in Initiation can affect him only if his consciousness is dimmed.


Anyone who wants to know the nature of the etheric body by direct vision must be able to maintain his ordinary consciousness intact and “suggest away” the physical body by the strength of his own will. The gap left will, however, not be empty; he will see before him the etheric body glowing with a reddish-blue light like a phantom, but with radiance a little darker than young peach blossom. We never see an etheric body if we “suggest away” a crystal; but in the case of a plant or animal we do, for it is the etheric body that is responsible for nutrition, growth and reproduction.
Man, of course, has other faculties as well. He can feel pleasure and pain, which the plant cannot do. The Initiate can discover this by his own experience, for he can identify himself with the plant. Animals can feel pleasure and pain, and thus have a further principle in common with man: the astral body. The astral body is the seat of everything we know as desire, passion, and so forth. This is clear to straightforward observation as an inner experience, but for the Initiate the astral body can become an outer reality. The Initiate sees this third member of man as an egg-shaped cloud which not only surrounds the body, but permeates it. If we “suggest away” the physical body and also the etheric body, what we shall see will be a delicate cloud of light, inwardly full of movement. Within this cloud or aura the Initiate sees every desire, every impulse, as colour and form in the astral body. For example, he sees intense passion flashing like rays of lightning out of the astral body.
In animals the basic colour of the astral body varies with the species: a lion's astral body has a different basic colour from that of a lamb. Even in human beings the colour is not always the same, and if you train yourself to be sensitive to delicate nuances, you will be able to recognise a man's temperament and general disposition by his aura. Nervous people have a dappled aura; the spots are not static but keep on lighting up and fading away. This is always so, and is why the aura cannot be painted.


But man is distinguished from the animal in still another way. This brings us to the fourth member of man's being, which comes to expression in a name different from all other names. I can say “I” only of myself. In the whole of language there is no other name which cannot be applied by all and sundry to the same object. It is not so with “I”; a man can say it only of himself. Initiates have always been aware of this. Hebrew Initiates spoke of the “inexpressible name of God”, of the God who dwells in man, for the name can be uttered only by the soul for this same soul. It must sound forth from the soul and the soul must give itself its own name; no other soul can utter it. Hence the emotion of wonder which thrilled through the listeners when the name “Jahve” was uttered, for Jahve or Jehovah signifies “I” or “I AM”. In the name which the soul uses of itself, the God begins to speak within that individual soul.


This attribute makes man superior to the animals. We must realise the tremendous significance of this word. When Jean Paul had discovered the “I” within himself, he knew that he had experienced his immortal being.


This again presents itself to the seer in a peculiar form. When he studies the astral body, everything appears in perpetual movement except for one small space, shaped like a somewhat elongated blue oval, situated at the base of the nose, behind the brow. This is to be seen in human beings only — more clearly in the less civilised peoples, most clearly of all in savages at the lowest level of culture. Actually there is nothing there but an empty space. Just as the empty centre of a flame appears blue when seen through the light around it, so this empty space appears blue because of the auric light streaming around it. This is the outer form of expression of the “I”.


Every human being has these four members; but there is a difference between a primitive savage and a civilised European, and also between the latter and a Francis of Assisi, or a Schiller. A refinement of the moral nature produces finer colours in the aura; an increase in the power of discrimination between good and evil also shows itself in a refinement of the aura. In the process of becoming civilised the “I” has worked upon the astral body and ennobled the desires. The higher the moral and intellectual development of a man, the more will his “I” have worked upon the astral body. The seer can distinguish between a developed and an undeveloped human being
Whatever part of the astral body has been thus transformed by the “I” is called Manas. Manas is the fifth member of man's nature. A man has just so much of Manas as he has created by his own efforts; part of his astral body is therefore always Manas. But a man is not able to exercise an immediate influence upon the etheric body, although in the same way that he can raise himself to a higher moral level he can also learn to work upon the etheric body. Then he will be called a Chela, a pupil. He can thus attain mastery over the etheric body, and what he has transformed in this body by his own efforts is called Buddhi. This is the sixth member of man's nature, the transformed etheric body.


Such a Chela can be recognised by a certain sign. An ordinary man shows no resemblance either in temperament or form to his previous incarnation. The Chela has the same habits, the same temperament as in the previous incarnation. This similarity remains because he has worked consciously on the etheric body, the bearer of the forces of growth and reproduction.


The highest achievement open to man on this Earth is to work right down into his physical body. That is the most difficult task of all. In order to have an effect upon the physical body itself, a man must learn to control the breath and the circulation, to follow consciously the activity of the nerves, and to regulate the processes of thought. In theosophical language, a man who has reached this stage is called an Adept; he will then have developed in himself what we call Atma. Atma is the seventh member of man's being.


In every human being four members are fully formed, the fifth only partly, the sixth and seventh in rudiment only. Physical body, etheric body, astral body, “I” or Ego, Manas, Buddhi, Atma — these are the seven members of man's nature; through them he can participate in three worlds.

tlolaymen

LECTURE TWO
THE THREE WORLDS


When one speaks of the knowledge of higher realms posssed by Initiates but not yet accessible to ordinary people, one often hears an objection to the following effect: What use to us is this knowledge you say you have of higher worlds if we cannot look into these worlds for ourselves?
I will reply by quoting some beautiful words by a young contemporary whose destiny it has been to become widely known — Helen Keller. In her second year she became blind and deaf, and even in her seventh year this human child was little more than an animal. Then she met a teacher of genius, a woman who gave her love, and now, at the age of twenty-six, Helen Keller is certainly one of the most cultured of her compatriots. She has studied the sciences and is astonishingly well read; she is acquainted with the poets, both classical and modern; she also has a good knowledge of the philosophers, Plato, Spinoza and so on. Although the realms of light and sound are for ever closed to her, she retains an impressive courage for living and takes delight in the beauty and splendour of the world. In her book, Optimism, there are some memorable sentences. “Night and darkness lay around me for years and then came one who taught me, and instead of night and darkness I found peace and hope.” Or again, I have won my way to heaven by thinking and feeling.” Only one thing could be given to her, deprived as she was of sight and hearing, with the sense-world accessible to her only through the communications of others. The lofty thoughts of men of genius have flowed into her soul, and through the reports of those who can speak with knowledge she shares in our familiar world.


That is the situation of anyone who hears of higher worlds only through the communications of others. From this comparison we can see how important such communications are for a person who is himself not yet able to see into these higher worlds. But there is a difference here. Helen Keller has to say to herself: “I shall never be able to see the world with my own eyes.” But every normal person can say to himself: “I shall be able to see into the higher worlds when the eyes of my spirit are opened.” The spiritual eyes and ears of everyone can be opened, if he brings enough patience and perseverance to the task.


Others again ask: How long will it take me to achieve this faculty of spiritual sight? To this an admirable reply has been given by that notable thinker, Subba Row. He says: One man will achieve it in seventy incarnations, another in seven; one in seven years, another in seven months or seven days or seven hours; or it will come, as the Bible says, “like a thief in the night”. As I have said, the eyes of the spirit can be opened in every person, if he has the necessary energy and patience.

Everyone, accordingly, can derive joy and hope from the communications of another, for what we are told about the higher worlds is not mere theory, unrelated to life. As its fruits it brings us two things we must have if we are to lay hold of life in the right way — strength and security — and both are given in the highest measure. Strength comes from the impulses of the higher worlds; security comes when we are consciously aware that we have been created from out of the invisible worlds. Moreover, nobody has true knowledge of the visible world unless he knows something also of two other worlds.


The three worlds are:
The physical world, the scene of human life.
The astral world or the world of soul.
The devachanic world or world of spirit.


These three worlds are not spatially separate. We are surrounded by the things of the physical world which we perceive with our ordinary senses: but the astral world is in this same space; we live in the other two worlds, the astral and devachanic worlds, at the same time as we live in the physical world. The three worlds are wherever we ourselves are, only we do not yet see the two higher worlds — just as a blind man does not see the physical world. But when the “senses of the soul” are opened, the new world, with its new characteristics and new beings, emerges. In proportion as a man acquires new senses, so are new phenomena revealed to him.


Let us turn now to closer study of the three worlds. The physical world need not be specially characterised. Everyone is familiar with it and with the physical laws which obtain there.


We get to know the astral world only after death, unless as initiates we are already aware of it.

Anyone whose senses are opened to the astral world will at first be bewildered, because there is really nothing in the physical world with which he can compare it. The astral world has a whole range of characteristics of its own and he has to learn many new things. One of the most perplexing aspects of this world is that all things appear reversed, in a sort of mirror-reflection, and he has to get used to seeing everything in a new way. For instance, he has to learn to read numbers backwards. We are accustomed to read the figures 3, 4, 5, as 345 but in the astral world we have to read them backwards as 543. Everything appears as its mirror-reflection, and it is essential to be aware of this.


The same law applies also to higher things — in the field of morality, for instance. People do not at first understand this. It may happen that they see themselves surrounded by black, malignant forms which threaten and terrify them — this happens with very many people and they mostly have no idea what it signifies. The fact is that these figures are their own impulses, desires and passions, which live in what we call the astral body. Ordinary people do not see their own passions, but these may sometimes become visible as a result of processes active in the brain and soul, and then they appear as mirror-images. You see the mirror-images of your desires in the same way as when looking into a mirror you see reflected images of the objects around you. Everything that comes out of you seems to be going into you. Further, time and events move backwards. In the physical world you see first the hen and then the egg. In the astral world you see the egg and then the hen that laid it. Time in the astral moves backwards: you see first the effect and then the cause. This explains how prophecy is possible — if it were not for this reversal of the time-sequence it would be impossible to foresee events.


It is by no means useless to recognise these peculiarities of the astral world. Many myths and legends are concerned with them in a wonderfully wise way — for example, the story of the choice of Hercules. Hercules, we are told, once felt himself to be in the presence of two female forms, one beautiful and seductive who promised him pleasure, good fortune and happiness, the other plain and serious, who promised him hard work, weariness and renunciation. The two forms represent vice and virtue, and the story tells us quite rightly how the two natures appeared to Hercules in the astral, one urging him to evil, the other to good. In the mirror-picture they appear as the forms of two women with opposite qualities — vice as beautiful, voluptuous and fascinating, virtue as ugly and repulsive. All such images appear in the astral world reversed. Scholars attribute these legends to the folk-spirit (Volksgeist) but that is not true. Nor do these legends grow up by chance: the great Initiates created them out of their wisdom and imparted them to humanity. All myths, legends, religions and folk-poetry help towards the solution of the riddles of the world, and are founded on the inspiration of Initiates.


The higher worlds convey to us the impulses and powers for living, and in this way we get a basis for morality. Schopenhauer once said: “To preach morality is easy, to find a foundation for it, difficult.” But without a true foundation we can never make morality our own. People often say: Why worry about the knowledge of higher worlds so long we are good men and have moral principles? In the long run no mere preaching of morality will be effective; but a knowledge of the truth gives morality a sound basis. To preach morality is like preaching to a stove about its duty to provide warmth and heat, while not giving it any coal. If we want a firm foundation for morality, we must supply the soul with fuel in the form of knowledge of the truth.


In occultism there is a saying which can now be made known: In the astral world, every lie is a murder. The full significance of this saying can be appreciated only by someone who has knowledge of the higher worlds. How readily people say: “Oh, that is only a thought or a feeling; it exists only in the soul. To box someone's ears is wrong, but a bad thought does no harm.” No proverb is more untrue than the one which says: “You don't have to pay for your thoughts.” Every thought and every feeling is a reality, and if I let myself think that someone is a bad man or that I don't like him, then for anyone who can see into the astral world the thought is like an arrow or thunderbolt hurled against the other's astral body and injuring it as a gunshot would. I repeat: every thought and every feeling is a reality, and for anyone with astral vision it is often much worse to see someone harbouring bad thoughts about another than to see him inflicting physical harm. When we make this truth known we are not preaching morality but laying a solid foundation for it. If we speak the truth about our neighbour, we are creating a thought which the seer can recognise by its colour and form, and it will be a thought which gives strength to our neighbour. Any thought containing truth finds its way to the being whom it concerns and lends him strength and vigour. If I speak lies about him, I pour out a hostile force which destroys and may even kill him. In this way every lie is an act of murder. Every spoken truth creates a life-promoting element; every lie, an element hostile to life.

Anyone who knows this will take much greater care to speak the truth and avoid lies than if he is merely preached at and told he must be nice and truthful.
The astral world is composed in the main of forms and colours similar to those of the physical world, but the colours float freely, like flames, and are not always associated with a particular object, as they are in the physical world. There is one phenomenon in the physical world — the rainbow — which can give you some idea of these floating colours. But the astral colour-images move freely in space; they flicker like a sea of colours, with varying and ever-changing forms and lines.
The pupil gradually comes to recognise a certain resemblance between the physical and astral worlds. At first the sea of colour appears uncontrolled, unattached to any objects; but then the flakes of colour merge together and attach themselves, not indeed to objects but to beings. Whereas previously only a floating shape was apparent, spiritual beings, called gods or devas, now reveal themselves through the colours. The astral world, then, is a world of beings who speak to us through colour.


The astral world is the world of colours; above it is the devachanic world, the world of spirit. The pupil learns to recognise the spiritual world through a quite definite event: he comes to understand the profound utterance of Indian wisdom, “Tat tvam asi” — “That thou art”. Much has been written about this saying, but to the pupil its true meaning becomes clear for the first time when he passes from the astral world into the world of Devachan. Then for a moment he sees his physical form outside himself and says, “That thou art”; and then he is in the world of Devachan. And so another world appears to him; after the world of colours comes the world of musical sounds which in a certain sense was there already without the significance it now has. The world of Devachan is a world of sounds the sounds which Pythagoras called the music of the spheres. The heavenly bodies as they pursue their courses can be heard resounding. Here we recognise the harmony of the Cosmos and we find that everything lives in music. Goethe, as an Initiate, speaks of the Sun resounding; he indicates the secret of Devachan. When Faust is in heaven, in the spiritual world, surrounded by Devas, the Sun and the spheres speak in music:


The day-star, sonorous as of old
Goes his predestined way along,
And round his path is thunder rolled,
While sister-spheres join rival song.

Faust, Part I, Act I. Prologue in Heaven.
Translation by Philip Wayne.
Penguin Classics, 1949.
Goethe means the spirit of the Sun, which really does sound forth to us in music if we are in the world of Devachan. We can see that this is indeed what Goethe means because he keeps the same image later, in the Second Part of Faust, when Faust is again caught up into this world:
Hark! the Hours, with furious winging,
Bear to spirit-ears the ringing
Rumour of the new day-springing.
Gates of rock grind back asunder,
Phoebus comes with wheels of thunder:
Light spreads tumult through the air.
Loud are trump and timbrel sounded,
Eyes are dazed and ears astounded,
Sounds unheard of none may hear.

Faust, Part II, Act I.
Translation by Philip Wayne.
Penguin Classics, 1959.


When we enter the devachanic world the astral world remains fully present; we hear the devachanic, and we see the astral, but under a changed aspect, offering us a remarkable spectacle. We see everything in the negative, as though on a photographic plate. Where a physical object exists, there is nothing; what is light in the physical world appears dark, and vice versa. We see things, too, in their complementary colours: yellow instead of blue, green instead of red.


In the first region of Devachan we see the archetypes of the physical world in so far as it has no life — the archetypes, that is, of the minerals — but also the archetypes of plants, animals and men in so far as their physical forms are concerned. This is the region which provides as it were the basic skeleton of Spirit-land. It can be compared with the solid land on Earth and is therefore called the “Continental Mass” of Devachan. When a man is observed over there by an Initiate, the physical space he occupies appears dark, but round him is a radiant halo.


When our senses have become more delicately organised, the archetypes of life are added: everything that has life flows over the Earth like water. Here the minerals cannot be seen because they have no vibrant life; but plants, animals and men can be seen very well. Life circulates in Devachan like blood in the body. This second region is called the “Ocean” of Devachan.


In a third region, the “Atmosphere”, we encounter feelings and emotions, pleasure and pain, wherever they are active in the physical. Physical forms then are like solid foundations, the Continents, of Devachan. Everything that has life forms its Ocean. Everything that pleasure and pain signify are its Atmosphere. The content of all that is suffered or enjoyed on Earth, by men or by animals, is displayed here. Thus to the Initiate a battle appears like a great thunderstorm, fiery flashes of lightning, powerful claps of thunder. He sees, not the physical actions that occur in the battle, but the passions of the opposing armies, and these appear to him like the heavy clouds and lightning-flashes of a thunderstorm.


The fourth region transcends everything that might still have existed even if there had been no mankind. It includes all man's original thoughts which enable him to bring something new into the world and to act upon it, no matter whether the thoughts are those of an ignorant or a learned man, of a poet or a peasant. They need not involve any great discoveries; they may belong to everyday life.


After these four regions we come to the boundary of the spiritual world. Just as the sky at night looks like a hollow globe encircled by stars, so it is with this boundary of Devachan. But it is a highly significant boundary; it forms what we call the Akasha Chronicle. Whatever a person has done and accomplished is recorded in that imperishable book of history even if there is no mention of it in our history books. We can experience there everything that has ever been done on Earth by conscious beings. Suppose the seer wants to know something about Caesar: he will take some little incident from history as a starting-point on which to concentrate. This he does “in the spirit”; and then around him appear pictures of all that Caesar did and of all that happened round him — how he led his legions, fought his battles, won his victories.


All this happens in a remarkable way: the seer does not see an abstract script; everything passes before him in silhouettes and pictures, and what he sees is not what actually happened in space; it is something quite different. When Caesar gained one of his victories, he was of course thinking; and all that happened around entered into his thoughts; every movement of an army exists in thought. The Akasha Chronicle therefore shows his intentions, all that he thought and imagined as he was leading his legions; and their thoughts, too, are shown. It is a true picture of what happened, and whatever conscious beings have experienced is depicted there. (Plants, of course, cannot be seen.) Hence the Initiate can read off the whole past history of humanity — but he must first learn how to do it.


These Akasha pictures speak a confusing language, because the Akasha is alive. The Akasha image of Caesar must not be compared with Caesar's individuality, which may already have been reincarnated again. This sort of confusion may very easily arise if we have gained access to the Akasha pictures by external means. Hence they often play a part in spiritualistic séances. The spiritualist imagines he is seeing a man who has died, when it is really only his Akasha picture. Thus a picture of Goethe may appear as he was in 1796, and if we are not properly informed we may confuse this picture with Goethe's individuality. It is all the more bewildering because the image is alive and answers questions, and the answers are not only those given in the past, but quite new ones. They are not repetitions of anything that Goethe actually said, but answers he might well have given. It is even possible that this Akasha image of Goethe might write a poem in Goethe's own style. The Akasha pictures are real, living pictures. Strange as these facts may seem, they are none the less facts.

Lyra

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