Moral Development and Entry into Higher Worlds

GA 266III — 14 May 1913, Strasburg

Esoteric Lesson

Record A

Our meditations should gradually enable us to penetrate the higher worlds without our physical bodies and learn to perceive and see there. However, it is not only important that we enter the higher worlds, but also how we do so; the state of soul in which we enter the higher worlds must be a good, moral one. Now it is the case that human beings, as sensual-physical beings on earth, are initially deprived of goodness. They no longer feel the moral, good that could and should speak to them from the whole of creation. In order to give human beings freedom, Lucifer has, so to speak, removed morality; human beings must now first awaken it within themselves, rediscover it, and then bring it back to the spiritual-divine worlds.

When human beings today look at the sun rising and setting, they feel no moral impulse flowing from it toward them. If Lucifer did not exist, they would feel that forces were flowing from the sun that pulsed through them so that they knew and felt themselves as themselves. When humans observe the moon with the means provided by astronomy, they know that between the new moon and the full moon, certain constellations of equilibrium prevail, so that the moon appears illuminated first by a quarter, then by half, and then by its entire surface. What humans no longer feel is that if the constellations were completely different, if the moon were to change its position even slightly, living beings such as humans would no longer be able to exist in their physical bodies. For the reproductive forces flow from the moon. When humans look at Mercury, their staring and gazing no longer gives them the ability to recognize that without Mercury there would be no connection between the forces of the sun and the moon, between the forces of the ego and the forces of generation. Similarly, with Venus, they do not feel that without its mild light all those love relationships between humans that make them happy would not exist.

Lucifer has completely permeated the human astral body with egoism. This is necessary for the development of the individual toward freedom and independence. However, it must not be allowed to go so far that humans become insensitive to morality. This is the case, for example, in relation to nature and the elements. Human beings must feel from air, fire, water, and earth that they are there to create a punitive balance for human sins; that in them, the elemental forces, there lives a “force of sickness” and a “force of offense” which we must and should allow to affect us in order to purify ourselves. The same words are true and false, depending on whether they come from this mouth or that. In Lucifer's mouth, the words “nature is sin — spirit is devil” are a mockery; in the sense just developed, that material nature is supposed to punish us for sin and we are supposed to feel the spirit in nature as something that makes us sick and causes us suffering, they are true. For pain and suffering are the God-given means of recognizing and overcoming egoism. In Lucifer's mouth, the words “You will be like God” are a lie; correctly understood, they are true. Christ says, “You are gods” — sons of the Godhead. Man is called to deification.

Modern materialism, which breaks the world down into atoms, into physical matter, what does it want and what does it do? It wants to perpetuate sinful forces. For matter is condensed injustice. The material must be dissolved back into spirit through spiritual development. We must wrest back from nature the morality that has been placed in it by divine world wisdom. Rosicrucian wisdom foresaw this entire materialistic development, which is why it provided means and showed ways to higher morality, without which one should not enter the higher worlds for salvation and blessing. Otherwise, one may well enter, but then one will not find Lucifer there as he should appear as a guide in the knowledge of the higher worlds, but rather as a tempter who then presents all kinds of spiritual-divine things that are not really so.

Ex Deo nascimur—this is what we should say—while looking up at the moon in spiritual exaltation as the giver of the opportunity to incarnate again and again and to perfect ourselves on earth in a physical body. In Christo morimur, looking up at the sun, in order to feel oneself from there, as it were, as an I-being, as a spiritual-divine being through Christ, the sublime spirit connected with the sun. Per Spiritum Sanctum reviviscimus, looking up to Mercury and Venus, which do not manifest themselves in physical images, but reveal themselves purely spiritually. For it is upon them and the other planets (Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn) that the power of the spirit is distributed, which educates human beings to spiritual love.

Plato still felt in retrospect that human beings are good at heart, that goodness lives withdrawn in the depths of the bosom of the deity, bound and at rest. He said: God is good, and Christ Jesus said that goodness has, so to speak, withdrawn from human beings. He says: “No one is good except God alone!”

So let us strive unceasingly for high morality, so that we may become capable of feeling the moral impulses again from nature, from the sun, moon, and stars, and of bringing back to the spiritual world that which has been taken from it by Lucifer for the sake of our freedom.

Record B

Two things are necessary for the esotericist. First, that one devote oneself faithfully to one's exercises; second, that one develop a certain attitude, which can be described as follows: In ordinary life, no one thinks about why the sun rises again when they wake up, nor are people affected when they see the moon go through its regular phases from full moon to new moon and back again, or when they see the individual planets shining in the starry sky. People believe that they no longer need to attach any moral significance to these things. The moral and natural worlds have become separated. This means that we truly live in a world that has been abandoned by goodness. For the esotericist, both the moral and natural worlds must be reunited.

When he looks at a sunrise, he can never describe it as an astronomer does. He knows that without sunlight, there could never be an “I” pulsating within him. The influence of sunlight is always at work on human beings; even when they sleep at night, a spiritual influence emanates from the spiritual sun. When he sees the moon, he knows that if the moon did not pass through its apparent phases, humanity could not exist; it would have to cease to exist. If the moon were to move just a little out of its orbit in relation to the sun, the existing human race would wither away; it could no longer produce offspring, because the moon brings the power of reproduction. And the esotericist knows when he sees Mercury that it connects the forces of the moon and those of the sun. The ego forces of the sun could descend further and further, and the reproductive forces of the moon could continue to form a human being, but without the connecting force of Mercury, these forces would always remain separated from each other. And from Venus flows the power of love, which makes this connection possible.

The fact that we can no longer perceive these relationships as moral is due to the influence of Lucifer. This has transported us into a world that has truly been abandoned by goodness, because Lucifer has extracted morality and separated it from nature. This has brought sickening forces into matter, “forces of disease.” People today know so little about this that they only know the word ‘offense’ in connection with the soul, as we know it under the word “offense.”

Goodness is not to be found here in this world, but only outside the earth. Plato already said: “God is good,” and Christ Jesus also pointed this out when he said, “No one is good except God alone.” The good gods placed evil in matter so that human beings would learn to turn away from it voluntarily. This is something that can only be said in a special mood, for the meaning of what is said depends on the mood. Thus Lucifer said to humans: “You will be like gods,” — that was an assertion; and Christ Jesus said as the highest truth: “You are gods!”

Only in a special state of mind can it be said that substance, matter, is nothing other than concentrated injustice. Concentrated sin is matter!

The materialist imagines matter distributed in atoms that are supposed to have an eternal existence, but these atomic theories of the 19th century are based on nothing other than the desire: I want to condense sin into small atoms and then immortalize them, and I want to recognize nothing else in the world except this. From deep occult knowledge, Goethe spoke the words: “Nature is sin, spirit is the devil.” But he said it in mockery, because he knew that such truths cannot be spoken in the ordinary way.

Through the influence of Lucifer, egoism has also entered the astral body, and as a remedy for egoism, the gods have given something that is also egoistic, that is, something that is experienced in the ego, namely pain. The gods chose this remedy to help human beings overcome sin while still allowing them their freedom. That is why it is necessary for human beings to develop morality before they ascend to the higher worlds. From another quarter, our movement has been criticized for emphasizing the necessity of moral development so strongly. Without morality, it is indeed possible to ascend into the spiritual world, but if one does not know Lucifer, one will be deceived into seeing a spiritual world populated by the most beautiful beings, which is not reality.

Modern natural science regards human beings as consisting exclusively of matter, which is actually sin. Rosicrucianism foresaw that this would come and therefore introduced a different idea into the world through the phrase: Ex Deo nascimur. When we look at the moon, we can think that we are born from the forces connected with the moon. And the sun reminds us of the sun spirit, Christ, who was connected with it and who gave us the powers of the I: In Christo morimur. And when we say Per Spiritum Sanctum reviviscimus, we think of those beings who are connected with the five other planets and whom we address in their entirety as the Holy Spirit.