Lessons for the Participants of Cognitive-Cultic Work 1906–1924

GA 265a — Munich

Paracelsus

Notes by Ita Wegman, Munich

Paracelsus, who was murdered. However, his etheric and astral bodies were not lost. His astral body passed into Goethe in [1797]. In the meantime, from Paracelsus' death until [1797], the astral body was in the devachan, in order to gain strength there. This astral body of Paracelsus, which was developed to such a high degree, had to enter into a human being again, so that it could continue to intuit from this human being. In “Faust” one notices the influence of Paracelsus.

In life, we often do not understand many things if we do not know the context. So there are now two directions in the outer world:

1) Rationalism or, as it is also called, modern monism. Here, everything is to be grasped by reason; everything spiritual is tried to be grasped by the intellect. It is the male principle that prevails here.

2) the direction, which carries the name spiritualism and related branches, modern occultism mysticism. Here the intellect is eliminated and things are grasped only with the mind. It is the female principle that rules here.

Now there is a saying in esotericism: Just as a man cannot have a child without a woman, so a woman cannot have a child without a man. According to this saying, it would not be possible for the two directions, which have only one-sided principles, to produce spiritual children; these directions would have to die out gradually.

Now this is not the case. What has happened now? There has been spiritual fornication.

In earlier times, preserved in myths, the sons of the gods sometimes connected with the daughters of the earth, they took a liking to these daughters of the brutalized people, connected with them and committed moral fornication with them. It was a very unfortunate generation that grew out of it. The goddess Hera did the same, allowing herself to be led to slaves and committing moral fornication with them.

Fornication has also been committed in the directions mentioned, in that entities from the spiritual world embodied themselves in the two currents and thereby furthered them; these are retarding forces in the host of Lucifer that do this.