Supplements to Member Lectures

GA 246 — 28 December 1908, Berlin

15. On the use of the Etheric and Astral Bodies of Important Personalities. The Atlantean Mysteries

1. introduction

2. on the value of the Bible and the correctness of what it says about the origin of man. Adam and Eve. The first human couple. They were the first human couple to reach a certain stage of development. Scientific objections to the accuracy of the Bible. When Cain had slain Abel, he moved to another country and took a wife. There were other people at that time who had not yet reached the level of development of Adam and Eve.

3. So there were many people at that time, which falls roughly in the middle of the Lemurian race. However, there were nowhere near as many people as there are today.

4. Many souls lived on the celestial body of that time before the separation of the sun. When the sun separated, a number of souls were not yet developed enough to go with the sun. They therefore had to stay behind.

5. But when the influence of the moon became very strong and brought matter closer and closer to solidification, only the strongest souls were able to embody themselves and conquer matter. The others had to choose other areas of activity. Many therefore went over to the other celestial bodies that belonged to the solar system - to Vulcan, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn, Mars, Mercury - and went through a stage of their development there.

6-7. Of the congealing influence of the moon. 8. the state of the Moon-Earth before the Moon split off. The earth was then desolate and empty. Only a few beings were able to embody themselves in the physical body. Most were forced to leave the scene of the earth.

1. Of life on Jupiter. The special development they underwent there.

2. about life on Mars

3. of the various etheric bodies which were formed thereby.

4. When the present moon had detached itself from the earth, it was again possible for the souls on the various planets of the solar system to return to earth. This is why the most diverse types of human races were embodied in the beginning of the Atlantean race. There were Mercury-, Mars-, Jupiter-, Venus-, Saturn-, Vulcan-men and so on embodied on earth; men who had thus developed their etheric bodies on quite different planets.

5. Hephaestus, for example, was one who had developed his etheric body on Vulcan and was therefore extraordinarily skillful in technical matters. Just as the etheric bodies formed on Vulcan were particularly suitable for technical work.

14-15. Of the initiates of ancient Atlantis. At that time there were initiates for the various planetary spirits. There were: Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, Venus, Vulcan initiates, Sun initiates, Moon initiates. Each of these had its own special cult and its own special form of initiation. However, the entire Atlantean continent perished as a result of the abuse they made of the secrets handed down to them by the initiates. Thanks to their organization, the Atlanteans still had it in their power to extract the life forces, the seed forces, from plants and animals. They then used these to propel their vehicles, which enabled them to fly at low altitudes above the earth. Today, we only have the power to extract the lifeless from the minerals, but not the ability to extract the seed forces. By extracting the seed forces from animals and plants, they have brought them into a relationship with air and water. They filled the air and water with the spirits thus released, which subsequently rebelled against them in the wind and water and brought about their downfall.

1. This can be described as a betrayal committed against the secrets of the initiates. The initiates gradually became less and less fit to be initiates. The students of the esoteric schools were made of worse and worse material and were not afraid to exploit the secrets entrusted to them for their personal advantage and benefit.

2. These were then their black magic arts.

3. Finally, the oracles of the various planetary gods became more and more shattered. Only the oracle of the Christ Spirit, the Sun Spirit, remained. The highest initiate of the solar oracle then, when the floods had extended the Atlantic Ocean over the Atlantean continent, took imprints of the etheric bodies of the most important initiates of the various planetary oracles and went with a few more followers of the sun worshippers to the Indian highlands, where he lived in complete seclusion, took seven people from among the people and incorporated into them the imprints of the etheric bodies of the Atlantean initiates. After they were thus prepared, they were in a very special way suited to absorb the influences of the spirits of the various planets, for each individual had a highly developed etheric body of an initiate of the Atlantean period from one of the various oracles of the planetary spirits.

4. These seven men, who were outwardly quite simple men and indistinguishable from the others, were thus made suitable to be the mouthpiece of the great planetary spirits. Through their influence, the pre-Vedic culture was founded.

5. They spread the teachings and wisdom of the seven planetary spirits in a uniform, harmonious manner, which then also found harmonious expression in the beginning of the development of the Indian people.

6. The art of the initiates of taking impressions from the etheric bodies of former personalities, preserving them and later reincorporating them into a human being.

22-23. This art has been preserved in the students of occultism down to our time. The initiates of our day are still able to preserve the etheric bodies and to transfer the bodies thus preserved to future personalities.

24-25. On the peculiar effect of the re-embodiment of personalities. The procedure of reincarnation is not as simple as it is usually described. Various possibilities can occur. Not only the etheric body, but also the astral body of a person can be preserved and incorporated into a later person. It can therefore also be made possible through this trick of the initiates that the etheric body of an earlier important man is incorporated into a later man, whereby the characteristics of the etheric body, memory and so on, are combined with a new ego and a new astral body and often work in this new composition in an apparently quite different way. In this way, the astral body can also be preserved and later incorporated. However, correct reincarnation only occurs when the ego is incarnated again in the new body. These possibilities have given rise to many errors, both among seers who regarded these incomplete incarnations as complete incarnations, and among people who remember their incarnation as the incarnation of the bearers of these bodies as a result of an incorporated etheric or astral body.

1. For example, the etheric body of Nicholas Cusanus (Suso) was incorporated into Copernicus, who then expressed the great ideas of Cusanus in a completely different way.

27-28. Thus Galileo, through the incorporation of his etheric body into the Russian poet Mikhail Lomonosov, became effective again in this man through his etheric body.