Myths and Legends, Occult Signs and Symbols

GA 101 — 21 October 1907, Berlin

V. White and Black Magic

It has been requested that we also talk about what is usually called “white and black magic” and that this be linked to some other concepts that theosophists are familiar with.

Now, what needs to be touched upon here is a very wide-ranging and extensive field of occult and spiritual-scientific observation, and it will therefore only be possible to touch on a few elementary things in this area, so to speak. But even these presuppose that what we are now considering is taken up as if it were meant only for students of spiritual science and not for anyone else who is not equipped with a spiritual scientific attitude and way of thinking. Certain conditions must be met if one is to speak about such a subject.

The words “white and black magic” are often used in theosophical circles, and we are confronted with the term “black magician” as an accusation all too often, even from those who work in the theosophical tradition. Some of you will have heard it said with a light heart that this or that is “black magic”. Yes, it has even happened that after reading our “Mitteilungen” - as it seems to me it was the first issue - people in one place said: What happened at that general assembly and was reported in the “Mitteilungen” is black magic. At the time, some people had actually claimed that an evil spell must have been cast over the proceedings of that general assembly. This is just one example of something that occurs more often and that stems from a rather trivial conception not only of the term “black magic” but of the term “magic” in general.

We must first be clear about what is meant by “magic” in order to then understand what is meant by “black magic”. Many people believe the following: They say that occult powers can be acquired, and usually have in mind quite inferior, elementary occult powers. This is because those who talk about such things usually know nothing about higher occult powers; they generally have no idea at all of what occult powers actually are. Usually people then add that someone is practising black magic if they use such powers in the service of personal selfishness. Such a statement is one of those of which it cannot even be said that it is wrong. But it does not matter much that it is said to be right, because nothing special is said with it. It is the outgrowth of a completely abstract way of thinking. He who wishes to speak of such things must, above all, stand firmly on the ground of reality, whether it be physical or spiritual reality; he must know what is real, and then he will no longer prattle about all kinds of things that have no connection with reality.

Does such a statement, that occult powers should not be used for personal selfish ends, not in some respects represent an impossible demand for people in the present day? This question must be answered first. Of course, those who say this make “Thou shalt not be selfish” their first commandment! That is certainly a supreme commandment. But for the real thinker, the question is not whether such commandments should be established, but whether such commandments can be fulfilled at all. And anyone who believes that the commandment not to be selfish can be fulfilled by people of the present day without further ado is labouring under a very great illusion. He who recognizes it as his duty to dispel illusions must also dispel the illusion that such a commandment can easily be fulfilled.

Perhaps someone will say: I want to work in the world in an entirely selfless way! - At first he cannot know that among the forces with which he works, there are a great many occult forces. Occult forces emanate from every human being. If someone says they want to work in the world in a selfless way, that is a very, very beautiful ideal. But if you try to ask further: Why do you want to be selfless, why do you impose this commandment on yourself, to be selfless? - you will get strange answers, for example: Through selflessness I gradually ascend to higher levels of perfection; I cannot bear to be a worthless person; I want to be a person who is valuable in the world. If you were to analyze this feeling, you would discover that behind the reasons for selflessness there is often the most incredible selfishness, often much greater selfishness than is found in people who do not want to be selfless at all, but simply give in to their selfish instincts. Imagine the thought, and you will see how much selfishness there is in the urge for selflessness.

And how could it be otherwise? Selfishness is a force that was not planted in human nature by the gods for man to so readily deny or negate. Selfishness is one of the most essential things through which man works. When we inquire into the reasons for selfishness, when we ask ourselves why the gods, the kind gods, have implanted selfishness in man, Since this is something so abominable in the opinion of so many people, we are born out of real occultism the answer that selfishness is a very powerful protection against what would happen to man in the world if he did not have this selfishness. Do you know what best protects man from using certain rather evil powers, which we will talk about in a moment? It would be easy today for someone who wanted to practice black magic themselves to take on a student and teach them certain techniques and machinations of real black magic; they would be able to work in the most horrific ways in the world. But most people won't do that without further ado. And do you know why not? Not for the simple reason that they are afraid, because they fear for their personality. They perceive a little of the consequences in spirit and fear selfishly. And that is quite good, that they are afraid and therefore leave it at that. If, at the beginning of the development of the earth, people had received everything that exists in terms of forces to affect the astral, the etheric and the physical body, then these people would have done terrible things in the world. But selfishness was given to them, and that causes man to first take care only of himself, and to be completely absorbed in caring for himself. The gods have erected selfishness around people like a protective wall. It is selfishness that veils man's insight into the things that lie behind the world of appearances. It is extremely important to consider this. It is one of the wise brakes that the gods have set up so that man does not intrude too quickly into the spiritual realms. So that is egoism; it is a good protective device.

So we should not be throwing words around like that, because there is still a long way to go before man can become selfless, before he can become ripe for selflessness. There is no need to point out how all preaching of selflessness looks so strange in our age, in the age of the most potent egoism, where everyone wants to grab as much as they can of what is established in the social order. So this “selflessness” leads to surrounding oneself entirely with a whirlwind of illusions. You wouldn't believe, if you didn't think about it thoroughly, how people today wrap themselves in a whirlwind of illusions, how, in particular, “theories” allow our contemporaries to wrap themselves in a whirlwind of illusions. Social theories are being shaped and preached by professors and non-professors alike. But a large part of the theories about the social remedies of the social body are nothing more than an expression of “professorial psychopathy”. You can see it in practice, how people think and act wrongly. Wherever you go, in any society or community, you will find people pondering this or that remedy, for example against unemployment. When there is unemployment, there is hunger. But how do we go about remedying this? Then the decision is made: people have to be given work. And now we invent something to give people work, to keep them busy, so that they get money and can buy what they want. This seems to be a very effective way of averting social damage: giving people something to do. But giving people work at any price is a very dangerous strategy, as long as we don't distinguish between productive and unproductive work. As long as this distinction between productive and unproductive employment is not made, this is even a terrible means in its effect on society. Imagine the radical case: someone wanted to quickly provide work and bread to a number of people in a certain area because a new machine had been invented that had left a number of people without work. He invents an article in which he uses worthless waste products for toilet articles. The people can then earn something and buy bread. But this is only a means of transferring poverty from one side to the other, because nothing is produced in this way, nothing is created. Everyone can consider the following case for themselves: someone sits down in a restaurant in the countryside and says, “Waiter, give me ten postcards!” and sends them off without considering how many postmen have to go up four or five floors to deliver them, and without considering that this does not set any real power in motion in the world. No thought is given to the fact that nothing real is achieved that benefits the mind and body. If you tell the person concerned this, he will of course have an excuse. He could say, for example, that new postmen could be hired, thus giving more people work. But no thought is given to the fact that if new people are hired, nothing new is created by their work, but that poverty is only redistributed. This shows that people must first know something about the distribution of work on earth before they can begin with the smallest idea of reform. In the context of the world, ignorance that wants to reform is terrible. It is terrible that people often do not have the patience to wait until they have learned to have an overview of how to help, but instead engage in clubby activities to get this or that done. These are all illusions with which people shroud themselves. And it is also an illusion when people speak of selflessness in trivial theosophy. If we want to teach ourselves about white and black magic, we must first bring to mind some of the concepts of “magic”, of which those who have heard the last lectures already know something. I have also touched briefly on the nature of magic in public.

What is magic? In all the old occult schools, there were three ways of ascending to the highest realms of knowledge. The first way was that of the initiate, the second way was that of the clairvoyant, and the third way was that of the magician. These are three fundamentally different things: initiation, clairvoyance and magic. Let us first make clear to ourselves, by means of a simple comparison, what an initiate, what a clairvoyant and what a magician is. Imagine some region where no one has ever heard of railways, steamships and so on, where people live without railways and without steamships. In such a region, the fact that there are railways and steamships is pure occultism. Occult means something like secret, something that people know nothing about. Now when someone from the area where there are no railways and so on travels to another area where he sees railways and steamships, and then returns to his homeland, he tells his people that there are railways and steamships. He knows it from his own experience, because he has seen into a world that is still a secret for others.

Anyone who is introduced to the higher worlds through occult training is, in this respect, a clairvoyant. He knows from his own experience that there are spiritual worlds and beings, spiritual forces. The spiritual worlds have different levels. A person at one level can be clairvoyant, can see some phenomena but not others. Now you have to remember something that has been said here often: to find and independently explore occult truths, clairvoyance is needed. But clairvoyance is not needed to understand these truths. For that, ordinary human understanding is sufficient, if it is only applied correctly in a sufficiently comprehensive way. Anyone who says that they can only understand what is communicated in occult reports if they are a clairvoyant is simply not using their mind sufficiently. Man cannot find the occult truths with the mind, but he can see them. Everything that is told from spiritual research can be understood if one is willing to think about it thoroughly. However, one cannot find the occult truths without clairvoyance; clairvoyance is needed for that. So what is proclaimed by Theosophy can also be understood by those who think about it thoroughly.

You can receive the stories up to the highest realms of occult experiences, and then you can understand them. So there were always clairvoyants in the occult schools who learned to see into the spiritual worlds through the methods that were used. These were often very lengthy methods. But besides these clairvoyants, there were always initiates. These were those who, through their comprehensive and willing application of their powers of mind, had come to understand the facts and laws of the higher worlds. These were initiates. Today, this relationship between initiates and clairvoyants is hardly possible anymore because today every person is afflicted by the great selfishness of wanting to see for themselves. People today can hardly imagine the love and trust that prevailed in the occult schools of the past. There was the clairvoyant, who perhaps through incarnations, in a self-denying way, applied the methods and trained himself to look into the higher worlds, who could see much in these higher worlds, and who refrained from learning the laws of these higher worlds, in order not to be held back by laws, but to prove a greater service to humanity through a more rapid development of clairvoyant abilities. This renunciation is not to be taken lightly. It is a great and mighty step when anyone decides to become a seer without at the same time becoming acquainted with the whole system of laws in the higher worlds; and if he waits, perhaps for thousands of years, before he attains this, he can only do so on condition that he places himself under the strict care of a chosen guru or teacher. For if he approached the things of the spiritual world as a mere clairvoyant, without knowing its laws, he would soon go astray and into the most dreadful errors if he did not accept the guru's advice in all important matters.

There were others who renounced the development of higher clairvoyant gifts altogether because they wanted to be initiated into the laws of the higher worlds. They trusted in love and devotion what the seers told them, but they knew the laws. To explain this, one can cite an example from the ordinary world. Imagine a person who sees extremely well, who can see all kinds of phenomena with his eyes, but who understands nothing of the laws of light phenomena. And imagine another person who is very short-sighted and can hardly see a few centimetres in front of his eyes, but who is well acquainted with the physical laws of light phenomena. The two can work well together, one person knowing the laws and the other not knowing them at all, but instead seeing the phenomena. And this applies even more to the higher spheres. It is possible for one to become an initiate of higher degrees without laying claim to clairvoyant powers. In the old occult schools it was quite usual for these two classes to be side by side. Clairvoyants willingly accepted the advice of initiates who were not clairvoyant at all. This was especially necessary for cases where a high degree of clairvoyance and a high degree of initiation were required, for example, for everything related to the astrological field. It was the case that those who wanted to fully comprehend the complicated laws of astrology usually had to do without the high level of clairvoyance that the astral clairvoyants had to acquire. They complemented each other. Only in recent times, when man thinks and feels in a materialistic way, must it be realized that it is impossible to separate these two fields strictly, and therefore no distinction has been made between the two classes since the fourteenth century, so that the teacher gives no one an initiation without at the same time giving a certain degree of clairvoyance. This is necessary because it cannot be reconciled with the selfishness and lack of trust that prevail today. Therefore, no distinction is made between the two, because people today cannot be selfless.

Now, however, the magician differs from both the clairvoyant and the initiate. For someone who can see into the higher worlds, it does not follow that he can already control and apply the forces that are at work in the material world. Or do you think that a person who has brought knowledge of the locomotive, the steamship and the steam engine to a region could also build such a machine? He can tell them what such things look like, but he will not immediately understand how to build them. The fact that the clairvoyant can see into the higher worlds does not yet mean that he also knows how to control and apply the forces that work in the sensory world. Only he is a magician or adept who knows how to apply the higher forces, of which all physical events are an expression, in the world here, who is thus able not only to call upon the physical forces and powers when something is at stake in his actions, but who can set the higher forces in motion. In our time, it is no small thing to be a magician or adept. There has never been a time in the development of humanity when the path of the magician or adept was so completely opposed to our own as it is today. And today, under certain circumstances, one best serves humanity by limiting oneself to spreading the knowledge of the higher worlds, and even - perhaps with a bleeding heart - refraining from it in cases where the application of magical powers might be appropriate. For today's public life is so alien to the concept of magistery that under certain circumstances the influence of higher worlds on this world would mean a setback if magical powers were applied directly. He who has practised the use of these powers to a certain extent, and who has acquired the knowledge of the mechanism as well, must in certain cases refrain from using these powers, for the simple reason that it is impossible today to go against the current of the world. Not only clairvoyance and initiation belong to the magician, but also practice. That is what it is all about. The magician must practice certain tasks with great dedication over a long period of time. Just think about how much you can know - even in the physical world - without being able to actually do what you can talk about, what you know something about. You can be initiated into many things. You can know exactly how a locomotive is constructed, but without anyone giving you the order to build a locomotive, because he would risk throwing the money out the window. It is the same in the higher realms. Practice makes the magician, perception in the higher worlds makes the clairvoyant, knowledge and realization of the laws in the higher worlds makes the initiate.

In times gone by, it was absolutely forbidden to perform any magical operation without being in harmony with the leaders of the world, the “earthly government”, also known as the great masters of the so-called white lodge. All occult schools, all schools that exist at all and all teachings can only be the lowest step towards higher development; on this step, higher and higher steps must be built up, right up to the actual leaders of earthly development. Those who not only know wisdom but also “rule” the earth in its development, who let wisdom flow into earthly evolution, are on the highest level. They alone are able to indicate for each individual action, based on spiritual forces, whether it disturbs or does not disturb in the whole context. When you build a house and lay out the plan for the house, each individual workman on the house must work in harmony with the plan. And if someone comes along and decides to make a window different from what is provided for in the plan, no matter how beautiful and magnificent that window may be, the whole house is disturbed. If anyone in the world wants to accomplish something through spiritual powers, no matter how significant and grandiose it may be, if it does not fit into the original plan of earthly development, it disturbs earthly development and sometimes throws it back for a long time. A man who applies no spiritual forces can never disturb this plan of earthly development. And why not? Because in relation to spiritual forces, what people do without knowledge of the higher worlds is to natural phenomena as a house is to a house. Whatever is ruined by the weather, by heat and sunlight, must be ruined; that is self-evident in a certain sense. So it is with the intentions of those who have no connection with the higher world. But the actions of those who have some connection with the higher worlds behave, when they do something that is not in harmony with the spiritual world, like someone who hits something with a hammer. So what is necessary for the progress of the human race to take place? When occult forces are applied, it is absolutely necessary that the connection with the central spiritual powers of the world be maintained, and it is absolutely necessary that the spiritual forces not be delivered to anyone who does not want to seek this connection. It is connected with this that in all real occult schools a secret is held over the imparting of spiritual forces, and that no secrets are delivered to anyone who does not undertake to maintain the connection with the leading spiritual entities. Only the “central government” of the earth has the possibility of knowing what is at stake. And this must be known if one is to apply spiritual forces. If one imparts anything to another in an unauthorized manner, whereby this other person can oppose the great plan of earth development, then one commits the first kind of black magic act. Therefore, the following is a basic principle: The first black magic act is the betrayal of occult secrets. Gossip and divulging of occult secrets is the first case of black magic, because in doing so you surrender the occult secrets to those who oppose the central leadership of the earth's development because you do not know the context. Where does this occur, where does it become real? It becomes real wherever occult secrets are used in the service not of the entire earthly leadership but of some limited body that does not want to have any connection with the earthly leadership that serves humanity. If, for example, a person receives the things that he is only allowed to use when he has overcome all national and racial prejudices, earlier delivered, he uses them before he has overcome these prejudices and before he has an idea of what it means to be a “homeless person”, then exactly the same thing that is otherwise white magic goes into the service of black magic. Exactly the same. If that which is intended to serve humanity is used in the service of a separate race, for example to give that race supremacy over the earth, then on a large scale that is black magic, because it does not happen in accordance with the way the earth is run. It is the first requirement: to go beyond what connects us only to one part of humanity. For a modern white magician, this is the first principle. Man should not strive for unselfishness, but for love for all mankind. He can extend the field of his love. He can do that, and that is what it is all about.

Now it happens very often that people try to force through some machinations to get something that can never be communicated to them otherwise. Now we come to the actual methods, to the machinations that are necessary to carry out in order to gain possession of black magic powers. This is something that can be described in great detail. You have seen the first means, the first way to gain possession of black magic powers; it is to let the appointed powers and beings communicate the means to you. Yes, what are they then, these magical means? They are the means by which we can use the spiritual powers to work here in the world of the senses, to achieve results and success here. These are such means. But there are no other effects in the material world than those that emanate from the spiritual worlds. All effects, successes and deeds in the material world emanate from the spiritual worlds. Therefore, anyone who does not want to come to these things by the rightful way of slow study - through those who are initiates or clairvoyants or even adepts or magicians - can only choose another way, and that consists in , instead of turning to those who are the embodiments of higher spiritual entities, he turns to nature itself and tries to eavesdrop on nature and to discern how the spiritual forces have flowed into it. For everything in nature flows into it from the spiritual worlds, and we can again divine these spiritual forces through certain machinations and activities. But the moment we do not let nature act in regard to what we do not know, but instead carry out what we want ourselves, thus acting where we know nothing, in that moment we are also able to obtain forces from the realm of black magic. If we do not want to obtain the inner forces of nature indirectly through wisdom and insight, and if we avoid everything that happens through wisdom and insight on the path of developing inner forces, but choose other means, then we are always on the way to black magic through these other means.

You see, anyone who wanted to become a black magician today would have a large fund for black magic activities from the outset if they were a terrible coward and had a dreadful fear of everything that could happen to them. Such fear within a person is a very good starting point for a black magician, because this fear is only compressed selfishness. Suppose a person intends to practice black magic on a large scale. He would first look around in the world for individuals who are as cowardly as possible. For this stock of fear is a good material that can be so transformed and converted that the cowardly individuals in question acquire certain other powers and strength, without knowledge or insight, to a much greater extent than a person can otherwise have. What would such a magician have to do who wanted to have such arts? He would first have to set up a laboratory in which he trained these cowards to do so. I am speaking radically, but it will be most clear to you this way: to harden themselves completely by the means of constantly cutting into living flesh and seeing blood run. What the hare foot has to a high degree in terms of fear as a certain outward force can be converted into something opposite if one teaches people to harden themselves by cutting into living flesh. For a person who has no fear, this procedure would be of no use at all.

This is, so to speak, the ABC, the very first thing done in black magic. And when that was done, what had formerly been fear in man would change into powers by which he could indeed gain a certain influence over his surroundings; and he who would make use of such assistants would be able to perform the most incredible atrocities in the world. But he who, without assistants, wants to become a great black magician himself sometimes does something quite different. Such a black magician once wanted to become a man of the 15th century, Gilles de Rais, whom the profane world called “Knight Bluebeard”. This man sought to gain powerful occult powers, not by the rightful path of learning, but by transforming certain deeply-held selfish feelings. At the same time, he was an excellent observer of himself. Please excuse me if I use a word that will sound strange. This man was what one might call 'the most radical Christian egoist' or 'egoistic Christian'. There have been and still are people like that. They are the kind of people who see Christianity above all as a bridge to gain as much as possible for themselves, because it is clear to them that a good Christian can go far in bliss. Through self-knowledge he noticed this in his nature and when he had noticed it in himself, he already knew the best means by which one could transform this into incredible magical powers. He was indeed stopped early. He was put on trial and it was shown that the man had started to murder one child after another in 1432 in order to develop his special occult powers. He saw the destruction of life as a special means of extracting from nature the knowledge that he could not obtain himself. During the trial it came to light that the man had murdered 800 children in a short period of time. Now some of you who have read the novel by Mabel Collins, Flita: True Story of a Sorceress, will understand why there is a murder at the beginning. It is part of it. The novel “Flita” was written by someone who knows this. What the black magician wanted could only be developed under the influence of this murder, which is at the starting point of the story.

And now take a serious look at this story and ask yourself what could protect most people from these procedures that I have mentioned, and through which man could certainly be led to the mastery of black magic powers. Selfishness is a very good means of protection against it. Not everyone will be able to overcome themselves to cut into living flesh; most people would faint, and fainting is nothing more than an expression of selfishness. So, in its physical effect, it is a good means of being deterred from practising black magic. It is also difficult to become a Bluebeard; most people are protected from that by their perfectly healthy selfishness; it acts as a barrier to putting oneself in the shoes of the means of acquiring black magic powers.

Well, you see, I just wanted to mention that so as not to use empty phrases. That is not my style. I prefer to talk about real facts. I wanted to show you by example what the acquisition of machinations in the field of black magic consists of. The betrayal of occult secrets to the profane is the first and simplest kind. But the actions I have just characterized are among the teaching methods of black magic, they are, so to speak, the ABCs. And what comes after these ABCs, in which black magic students are taught to “read” – if I were to tell you about that, several of you here would probably faint. So we will stop at this first stage. These things are not at all something to be trifled with, not even in words; they are something most serious; and they are, unbeknownst to people, unfortunately all too widespread in the world. Most people do not even have the will to consider how these things are spread in the world.

Now the development of such things is intimately connected with the whole evolution of the earth, indeed with the evolution of a planet, and we understand such a thing in the right way only when we have an idea of the fact, a planet spiritually affects its successor, the next planet, how, for example, the moon affected the earth, and how, in turn, the earth affects its successor, Jupiter. You all know that the Earth is, in a sense, led by the so-called 'white lodge', in which certain highly developed human individuals are united with individuals of an even higher kind. What are they doing? They are working, they are guiding the evolution of the Earth. While guiding the evolution of the Earth, they are working out a very specific plan. It is actually the case that a specific plan is worked out by the guiding powers during the evolution of each planet. While the Earth is evolving, the plan for the details of how Jupiter, which is replacing the Earth, must be, is being drawn up in the so-called “white lodge” of the Earth. The entire plan is developed in every detail. And herein lies the blessing and the good fortune of progressive development: that we act in accordance with this plan. When a planetary development comes to an end, when our Earth has reached the end of its planetary development, then the Masters of the Wisdom and of the Harmony of Sensations will also have completed the plan they have worked out for Jupiter.

And now, at the end of such a planetary development, something highly peculiar happens. This plan is simultaneously infinitely reduced and infinitely multiplied by a procedure, so that an infinite number of copies of the entire Jupiter plan are available, but in miniature. It was the same on the moon. The plan of the evolution of the Earth was there, infinitely multiplied and infinitely reduced. And do you know what it is that was worked out by the Masters of Wisdom on the Moon at that time? These are the atoms, the atoms of the Earth. And it is the atoms of the Jupiter evolution whose plan is being worked out by the leading “white lodge” on our planet. That is the real atom, and all other talk about an atom is nothing. Only he recognizes the atom of a planet who recognizes in it the reduced plan of the evolution of the planet. If you want to gradually recognize this atom, which underlies the earth, then the very measures that emanate from the great magicians of the world will confront you with the knowledge of this atom. Now, of course, we can only hint at these things, but we can at least get to know something that gives us an idea of what this is about. In a certain sense, the Earth is composed of these atoms of hers, and every being, all of you yourselves, are in a sense composed of such atoms; and you are in harmony with the whole evolution of the Earth in that you carry within you, in infinite numbers, the reduced-scale plan of the Earth planet, which was worked out earlier. This plan for the earth could only be worked out on the preceding planetary state of our earth, on the moon, and thus on the planet that preceded our development on earth, through the activity of leading beings in harmony with the entire planetary development of Saturn, the sun, the moon, and so on. Now, however, the point is to give the infinite number of atoms that which brings them into the right relationships, arranging them in the right way. The leading spirits of the moon were only able to give them this if they steered the development of the earth in very specific directions. I have already described the paths into which they steered the development of the earth. When the earth emerged again after the development of the moon, it was actually not yet our present earth. It was the earth plus the sun plus the moon. These were one body. If you were to mix today's Earth with the Moon and the Sun and make a single body out of it, you would have what the Earth was at the beginning of its development. First the Sun separated from the Earth, and with it all those forces that were too thin, too spiritual, for man, under whose influence he would have spiritualized too quickly. If man had only been under the influence of the forces contained in this sun-moon-earth body, he would have spiritualized very quickly, he would not have developed down into physical materiality, and he would not have been able to attain a self-awareness, an I-consciousness, which he had to attain.

You all know that there is imaginative knowledge and occult characters [in which imaginative knowledge is expressed]. I can only give you two occult characters now. To discuss further would take us too far. The occult symbol for those forces that would have worked and given direction to the whole evolution of the earth if the sun had remained united with the earth, the occult symbol for those forces that would have spiritualized the earth too soon, is this: in this symbol, the one who is a student of occultism can recognize the forces that quickly lead humanity to spirituality. On the other hand, if humanity had separated from the sun with the whole earth but remained united with the moon, it would very quickly have become ossified and hardened. If the earth had kept the moon within itself, people would very soon have become a kind of puppet, a marionette. They would have descended too deeply into matter, as on the other hand they would have spiritualized too quickly, if the Sun had remained connected with the Earth. Therefore the Moon had to come out of the Earth. And all those forces that have been transported out and that today rule from the Moon and work in from the outside on the Earth, all these forces are represented together in this sign, which looks like a double hook. This is the sign of the beast or the lamb with two horns from the Apocalypse.

The one symbol is called Nachiel, the other Sorat. This second symbol is also called the symbol of the demonic element on earth. All the forces that the black magician develops by using such hideous methods lead to an occult increase on earth of the forces that belong to the demonic nature of the earth and that lead to the hardening of the earth. If many people became black magicians, the result would be that the earth would become more and more like the moon, while through the forces of white magic the earth would become more and more like the sun, like the forces that are in the sun's rays.

So what would an increase of black magic on our earth lead to? It would lead to the hardening of the globe, to the globe becoming a moon. The same forces that were eliminated with the moon, that had developed out of the substance of the earth, are still present in the layers of the earth as an inclination. In addition to all the forces that have the good inclination to become solar forces, the forces that have the inclination to become lunar forces are also still present. Through white magic the earth is more and more approximated to the nature of the sun; through the forces of black magic it is approximated to the nature of the moon. Through white magic everything must be conquered that does not lead to the control of spiritual forces on the path of enlightenment, of wisdom. For all such procedures, such activities, as they have been called, do not lead to the mastery of spiritual forces on the path of wisdom, of insight, not by really looking into them, but they are the nature of the trickery and procedures by which forces are to be gained without enlightenment. Thus the apocalyptic seal is at the same time the sign for the conquest of black magic by white magic. Through the human powers that are transformed, solar powers are born of man himself, so that the lunar powers lie at man's feet.

That is the path the magician must take on our Earth. Then, through the nine steps, which you will get an idea of if you read my 'Theosophy', the forces become the nine stars. So what must the true black magician say to his disciple? Very simple:

Despise reason and science alone,
Let the lying spirit only encourage you
In works of deception and magic,
Then I have you absolutely already!—
To him fate has given a spirit
That always presses forward, unrestrained
And whose hasty striving
skips over the joys of the earth.
I drag him through the wild life,
through shallow insignificance,
he shall fidget, stare, stick,
and his insatiability
shall make food and drink float before greedy lips:
He will beg for refreshment in vain,
And even if he had not given himself over to the devil,
He would still have to perish!

And even if he had not given himself over to the devil, It would be easy, tremendously easy, and here we come to a very subtle chapter on the one hand of human development and on the other of magic - it would be easy to simply wait until all people would be able to see things correctly, which they must first see before they can progress on the path of magical development. That would be quite easy under certain circumstances. But then one would delay the course of human development. It must be possible in some way to put people in charge of the dissemination of occult truths — and in a sense this is always something of the dissemination of occult powers — and to use these so that they have the right effect in the world. People must be given more occult truths and teachings so that they can, in a sense, become occult teachers.

Now one might ask: But is not everyone who spreads occult teachings in some way a black magician? It is absolutely true that someone who spreads occult teachings today can easily become a black magician. This is the case when he is unable to grasp the full scope of the effects of his occult teachings. Therefore, the occult schools must ensure that no one spreads real occult teachings who is not able, through his own development, to grasp the scope and effect of occult truths. Today, occult teachings can be spread by one disciple repeating them to another or copying them from him. If the person wants to be a disciple or a disciple, that is all right, because in that way he spreads the original from which he has heard. But let us talk about the case when someone would spread occult teachings independently and even add his own judgment. If someone wants to spread occult truths in an independent way, then, above all, precautions must be taken to ensure that this person has the maturity to spread occult truths independently, and that does not depend on intellectual training, but the occult schools make it dependent on something quite different, namely on how the individual members of human nature develop gradually.

You know from the essay on “The Education of the Child” that at birth the physical body is born, that by the age of seven the etheric body comes out, by the age of fourteen the astral body, and by the age of twenty-one the I comes out. We can follow this up and see that by the age of thirty-five, or rather between the ages of thirty-five and forty, the etheric and astral bodies of the human being are so free that only then can the human being have the necessary sense of responsibility for the dissemination of occult truths. Therefore, all occult schools have the strict law that no one may act as a teacher of occult truths before reaching this age. And it is this law that the great poet Dante set forth when he says right at the beginning of his Divine Comedy: “It was in the middle of life that I lost my way in the forest...” and so on. If you do the math: In 1300, Dante was thirty-five years old. All these great things happened to his soul.

This is a strict law. If you look at this strict law and consider some of what is happening in the present, then you will simply know from this point of view that much of what is being spread does not come from occult sources. No occult school allows people to independently spread occult truths that have not reached that age. Of course, this does not mean that one cannot start learning something early enough. But to act as a teacher of occultism, one cannot start late enough. Much, much evil would be avoided if people really knew the occult and the strict laws that prevail.

These are things that must be considered in connection with the subject of “white and black magic,” which is not so easy to treat, and of which I have really only said a few words. If you take up some of the things that could only be hinted at here and develop them further in your meditation and serious study, you will see that even these imperfect suggestions provide the initial steps for many paths to further knowledge. Above all, you will have convinced yourself that one cannot talk about such things as white and black magic at all with ordinary, trivial terms, that one must even first formulate new terms if one wants to talk about such lofty or such hideous things. It is important today to know such things, because there is much in the world of which the ordinary person knows nothing, but which he should know in order to save himself from the influences of magical arts. People are also aware of some of it, but see it as something harmless. But it is not harmless at all.

We can only make a start when we discuss such a topic, and then we will make progress in this area. The beginning is best made when a sense of the seriousness and importance of such a matter could be awakened. Even though the presentations could only be incomplete in the short time available, I still hope that the fact that they were spoken in real terms has passed some of it on to you, in order to encourage you to consider the matter with the utmost seriousness.