The Sevenfold Cosmic Signature: Reading Earth's Spiritual Letters

GA 266III — 18 May 1913, Stuttgart

Esoteric Lesson

Record A

The esotericist can only make progress if he becomes increasingly aware of certain things. He must thoroughly and seriously absorb what was discussed yesterday in the public lecture. It must become a real experience for him that, just as the air in our lungs is part of the atmosphere surrounding us, which we take in through the process of breathing, so too does the spiritual-soul element within us belong to the entire spiritual-soul environment. He must also become very clear that waking up and falling asleep are nothing other than the inhaling and exhaling of the soul. The esotericist must understand more and more the reality of the world surrounding him.

Let us assume that a person in exoteric life has no awareness of the air surrounding him; he can only perceive minerals, plants, animals, solids and liquids, mountains, etc. He might also see the clouds and perceive lightning and thunder or similar phenomena occurring within them, but he would have no awareness of the air that is in between: Such a person would be similar to how the occultist perceives the exotericist, who knows nothing of the spiritual world surrounding him. In the present epoch, it is indeed right and in accordance with the meaning of Earth's development that the exotericist regards the physical world surrounding him as reality, in which he is to work consciously. The esotericist, however, should perceive the physical world in a completely different way. What is the difference?

It is right for the exotericist to judge physical things everywhere according to cause and effect, and modern science has made it a point of pride to prove cause and effect in all external processes. For the esotericist, this should be different. When he looks at history, for example, it should not appear to him as a series of facts and events that are the effect of one another, but rather these physical events are only signs of spiritual events. He must learn to connect these signs with one another and, through this connection, to read them correctly. Just as a person cannot read properly if he only knows the individual letters, but a person who can read correctly, when he sees the word “but,” does not ask whether the letter ‘b’ follows the letter “a,” but connects the two in a meaningful way, so too must the individual signs of external history, of external events, be read in the right way. This is the true essence of the esotericist, that he learns this more and more. Let us consider this with a specific example, namely life itself, which is so difficult for human beings to understand.

We know that in human life between birth and death, the essential thing is consciousness, which connects individual experiences. We have an awareness of the past in our lives back to that point in our childhood when our memory reaches. This consciousness is the important thing in our lives. In certain abnormal cases, people lose this consciousness. For example, it has happened that a person, let us say in a city in Central Europe, went to the train station; there he bought a ticket to another city; when he arrived there, he bought another ticket for the next city, and so on; he even traveled by ship. After some time, he found himself in North Africa. He has forgotten everything that happened between his point of departure and the present moment, even his entire life since birth—yet he acted completely sensibly and intelligently when purchasing the tickets and traveling from one place to another, perhaps even more sensibly than other people when he reached Morocco. This shows that reason and consciousness are not one and the same. For example, a student can learn many things at school and grasp them with his intellect, but his consciousness is not involved. He cannot then use what he has learned; it is like someone who has a tool that lies unused somewhere. What about people like the one described above, who lose their coherent consciousness in abnormal states?

When such cases are investigated, it becomes apparent that such a person already had the characteristic of not observing external things accurately in their previous life. For people today, it is very natural to look at things in terms of how they evoke sympathy or antipathy in their soul. Some people — such as the one described above — were already like this before, in that they could, for example, travel extensively through many countries and notice only what they liked or disliked. But this is a great deficiency, for we should develop and strengthen our ego-consciousness precisely by observing all things and processes accurately and with interest. It is very necessary to remind theosophists of this in particular, because they are especially prone to becoming one-sided through their theosophical interests and losing interest in many physical things; but they should observe all processes and things with interest, love, and participation. For the spiritual-soul element in us, which is breathed into the body when we awaken from the spiritual world, attains full self-consciousness by observing external processes and beings with interest and love. The esotericist should become increasingly aware of this. They should realize that this is the important side of life, this spiritual-soul life that enters the physical world from the spiritual-soul world and ignites into self-awareness in it. The esotericist then gets to know this part of his life like a letter in the world's history. Like a sign or letter, the I-consciousness is the spiritual-soul core of the human being, but now something else comes into play.

We know that there are a certain number of people on Earth today; in some time, the sons and daughters of these people will be here; before that there were others—the parents of those who are here today. We know that through this line of descent comes the inheritance of the body, the inheritance of powers and characteristics. For the esotericist, it becomes more and more a conscious reality that these powers flowing through the line of descent are the other important side of life. At birth or conception, the soul coming from the spiritual worlds connects with the forces of the physical line of inheritance. These forces thus form the second letter, and the esotericist becomes increasingly able not only to see these two letters of his being individually, but also to read them correctly.

Occultism also provides an outwardly recordable symbol for the connection between two letters or signs. If we use this [symbol] to designate the ego entering from the spiritual world, it is therefore consciousness that is formed by magnetically attracting the forces of heredity in the physical world and surrounding itself with them. This is represented by the circle with the point at its center.

Now, however, this symbol already exists in the world. The gods have drawn it, and we find it in the sky. If we regard the earth as the ® [point] drawn above, then the © [circle] is the path of the moon, and we must therefore see in this constellation a sign written by the gods that the earth is the place of the developing ego-consciousness, while the moon's orbit with the physical moon, which turns the earth toward its changing states of new moon, first quarter, half moon, and full moon, is the outer sign for the forces working in the line of heredity. Through the physical sun casting its light upon the earth and this light being reflected back from objects, self-consciousness can be kindled in the soul of man. If the sun were to cease shining, even for a moment, the possibility of self-conscious life for human beings would cease. And without the forces of the moon, physical heredity could not continue. If the moon were pushed just a little out of its orbit, the forces necessary for the physical heredity of human beings would cease to work. Humans would continue to live for a while with their inherent forces, but then physical reproduction would cease. And indeed, a time will come in the future when the forces of the Earth will have become so strong that the Earth will take the moon back into its body. Then the forces that now act from the moon upon the Earth and bring about heredity will no longer exist. Human beings will cease to be producers [of offspring], and the physical human race will cease to exist.

All this must become more and more real to the esotericist. He must learn to understand this · [point] with the ○ [circle] correctly in the manner described.

Just as a person who can read does not write the word “ab” by placing the b and the a next to each other in any way, but first writes the a and then the b em>; so it is with these two signs, the dot and the circle, which the occultist correctly combines and which the esotericist can then read as the sign for his being, in which the spiritual-soul element comes to consciousness through the connection with the forces of heredity.

But there are other forces at work to bring about human life as it is. If we go back in human history to the distant times of the Egyptians and Persians, we see how, as everywhere, human beings advance through their thinking. Human beings themselves have had to contribute to all advances in development through their thinking, through living on earth as intelligent beings. But these forces do not come from human beings themselves. Only a materialistic science that likes to talk people into believing in its fantasies could believe that. Nor do these forces come from the moon. They come from regions beyond the moon's orbit, and we must represent them in our symbol by a second circle, which we also find in our cosmos, placed there by the gods. This second circle is the apparent orbit of Mercury (today's Venus). In the spiritual forces that find their physical expression in Mercury, we must see what gives human beings their intellect. Mercury

The esotericist must learn to understand this. While in ordinary life we only gaze at the moon and Mercury from the outside, he should not merely try to grasp Mercury with his intellect, but see in it the outward sign of the spiritual forces through which the intellect is given to human beings. He should look up at the planets with a feeling of awe and gratitude. If the forces of Mercury were to cease, human beings would still have consciousness on Earth, but they would be without intellect. But even this is not all. Other forces must also be added to bring about human life and development. If only the intellect had been at work in all the past epochs of humanity, no progress would have taken place. People would have thought, but no new thoughts would have ‘entered’ into development. In truth, however, we see how new thoughts are constantly flowing into humanity. Today, children learn things in school that were foreign to human thinking in the time of Pythagoras. Without such new thoughts, all inventions and progress would be impossible. Where do these thoughts come from? From an even higher sphere, which we represent by a further circle, the apparent orbit of Venus. Venus is the physical expression of the spiritual forces through which the mind in humans is fertilized with new ideas that go beyond ordinary brain thinking.

However, there are other forces that do not act directly on the Earth and on human beings, but indirectly through their radiation to Venus: these are the forces of Mars. So that the forces of Mars, when they radiate onto Venus and indirectly onto the Earth, do not have a warlike effect, a sublime divine force flows onto Mars from the even further spiritual sphere of Jupiter. This is even more difficult to describe in words; but it can be described as spiritual light, which is not physically perceptible, but which human beings can experience inwardly as a force of love when they look with reverence and gratitude toward this world being and become aware of the grace that streams down upon us from there. The fact that these forces of loving light act upon Mars prevents the forces of Mars from exerting a warlike influence on Venus and Earth. And finally, forces come from an even higher sphere, from the sphere of Saturn, which we can conceive of when we think of the warmth of enthusiasm. These forces of warmth stream toward Jupiter and combine with its light. And now we must draw the sun's path between Venus and Mars. We then have the three paths of the moon, Mercury, and Venus between the sun and the Earth; these are the directly acting forces, and the three acting from outside, those of Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, which only act indirectly on the Earth through Venus.

From the spiritual forces of the sun, however, human beings receive the ego force, self-consciousness, which connects with the forces of the moon and so on to bring about the whole human being. But first we have two suns, the spiritual one, which gives the I, and the physical one, which animates the physical Earth through its rays of light and heat. But then we must grasp a third sun, namely the mediator of the highest spiritual forces, which connects the extra-solar forces with the intra-solar ones and has been sending its graceful forces to the Earth since the Mystery of Golgotha. This spiritual sun is the Christ principle, which human beings can experience within themselves when they grasp the Pauline statement: “Not I, but Christ in me.”

This third sun was always revealed to the initiates in Christian initiation centers. It was a great tragedy that one man knew about this third sun and yet could not experience it fully within himself: Julian the Apostate.

So we have the sphere of this triple sun, outside of which are the three circles representing the higher, indirectly acting forces, and within the circle of the sun are the three forces that act directly upon the earth. In each of these seven circles stands one of the seven heavenly bodies, and so we can also see the Rosicrucian cross with the seven roses as a symbol of this sevenfold heavenly rose. From the three inner spheres, that which gives birth to the human being streams down to the earth: Ex Deo nascimur.

The three outer circles represent the high spiritual forces through which his higher nature is founded: Per Spiritum Sanctum reviviscimus.

The connection between the two is formed by the middle semicircle, the sun's path of the physical, spiritual, and Christ sun: In --- morimur.

Record B

If the esotericist wants to make progress, it is good for him to understand the full meaning of a sentence such as: “Just as the lungs breathe in air, so the physical and etheric bodies breathe in the spirit in the morning when they awaken,” and to meditate on it. Our materialistic age only wants to accept what it can perceive with the senses, but just as it denies the spirit, someone could deny the air because it is perceived with the finer senses. The esotericist should get used to viewing external events only as letters, as signs of a world word. For example, when encountering the word “but,” the esotericist would not ask, “Is b the effect of a?” Instead, he knows that this combination of letters is necessary to form the word. Thus, the esotericist should ask less about cause and effect and tell himself that things and events are necessary to form world words.

The exotericist is only too inclined to view everything from the perspective of sympathy and antipathy. He is very quick to accept and pay attention only to what pleases him, and possibly not to observe the rest at all. There is a special kind of mental illness that has been observed: an otherwise normal person suddenly travels from place to place and finally, in one of these places, awakens, reflects on himself, and remembers nothing that has happened since his departure. If one investigates the past of such a person occultly, one may find that he previously passed by many things in this world with the greatest indifference, thereby greatly weakening his ego. It is a weakening, almost like a temporary loss of the ego.

Theosophists also often tend to turn away from the outside world. However, a loving interest in our surroundings is absolutely necessary if we want to make progress. That is why we must not neglect what we strive for in theosophy.

The ego thus perceives itself in memory, and higher beings have given us the ego and memory. The ego that perceives itself in memory is like a letter that the esotericist must learn and that the gods have written in the space of the world. The higher beings who bestow the ego have their seat on the sun; they give us what passes from incarnation to incarnation. We received our physical body from forces that work down through the generations, and these forces work on us from the circle described by the moon's orbit. What passes from generation to generation is like a second letter. We can draw this schematically. We draw the ego that becomes conscious in memory as the Earth, as a point, and around it the moon's orbit as a circle. If the moon were moved to another position by some force, what would happen to the Earth? The reproductive forces working through the generations would dry up. Humanity would no longer reproduce and would die out. The true esotericist must therefore look up with reverential gratitude to the beings who influence him from outside through the forces of the moon, and tell himself that he owes his development through the generations to them. When the moon, through the gravitational forces of the earth becoming so strong, enters into it, as is to happen in the future, humanity will have reached the end of its physical development.

From the sun we receive the forces that strengthen our ego, and we should not just stare at the sun, but let the thoughts arise within us: You glorious world body, through you, through your sun's graceful forces, I received my ego and all the forces connected with it. In shy reverence, I thank you! — We can draw the forces of the sun as a second circle. But in order for what comes from the generations and what comes from the series of incarnations to come together, forces that lie above the sun's path, the forces of Mercury, also come into play. Through them we also received our intellect, which is bound to the brain. And when we look in the direction of Mercury, and indeed whenever we need our powers of understanding, we should fill ourselves with gratitude toward these beings who have given them to us.

But there is something even higher than the mere intellect. Development would not have been able to progress; it would have remained at the same level if new creative thoughts had not constantly flowed in. Today, children learn things in school that the Pythagoreans, in all their wisdom, did not know, and this constant influx of new knowledge comes from a sphere above Mercury, from Venus. Through this sphere, creative thoughts flow into development, expressing themselves, for example, in inventions. Only in this way is progress possible. This thinking does not pass through the intellect, is not bound to the brain, but is lighter, more emotional.

Beyond the sphere of Venus lie sublime forces that no longer act directly on humanity. They work through the forces of Venus and fertilize them. These are the forces of Mars. So that these forces do not have a warlike effect in their interaction with Venus, a sublime divine light force flows in from an even further circle, that of Jupiter, the spiritual light that is imperceptible to ordinary human beings and is darkness to them. Esotericists can gain a sense of this when they look up in gratitude to these sublime world beings who shower their grace upon us. And this inner spiritual light, which can only be perceived inwardly, is also felt as warmth when one can concentrate on even higher heights, on the orbit of Saturn, whose beings send warmth down through the other spheres.

Between the interaction of Mars and Venus is now the solar circle of the third sun. This third sun was taught in all mysteries. The first is the creative physical sun, which sends us its warming rays. The second is the spiritual sun behind it, which gave us the I, and the third is the high bearer of the Christ principle, the Christ, who gives us the higher I with his graceful sun forces. Since the time of the mystery of Golgotha, a connection to the earth has been coming from this third sun. It is the sun of which Paul speaks when he says, “Not I, but Christ in me,” the Christ that every human being can receive since then. This third sun was revealed to those who were initiated into Christianity through initiation, and the tragedy of Julian Apostata's fate is that he knew the third sun but could not identify it with Christ.

We should remember these seven spheres when we look at the seven roses of our Rosicrucian cross; they are a symbol of them. Through the circle of Christ, the effects of the spheres are divided into two parts, a lower part consisting of four circles, whose forces act from below, and an upper spiritual part consisting of three circles, which act indirectly. The saying applies to the spiritual upper part: “Per Spiritum Sanctum reviviscimus — in the Holy Spirit I am reborn,” and to the lower part: Ex Deo nascimur. And Christ establishes the connection between the two: In --- morimur.¹

Record C

Only then can the esotericist achieve anything in his occult development if he seriously and truthfully strives to perceive himself in the physical world as a soul-spiritual being from a soul-spiritual world. Yesterday's public lecture already discussed how we should perceive the state of falling asleep as an exhalation and the state of awakening as an inhalation of the spiritual being, just as we inhale and exhale the air that surrounds us. This is what the esotericist must feel. This is what must distinguish him in his feelings from the exotericist.

People today look at animals, plants, minerals, look up at the sun, at the starry sky, and want to find the causes of all phenomena in the environment. In a certain sense, this is justified and necessary for our age. But the esotericist must go further and not only recognize the outer laws in all things, but when he looks at animals, plants, minerals, up at the sun and the stars, he must see in all these phenomena the expression of the spirit behind them. He must come to be able to read the words written in the sky, composed of individual letters, just as one composes a word from individual letters and thereby gives it its meaning. Occult characters are to be found everywhere in the universe, and they must be deciphered.

Let us imagine such an occult character before us. First of all, we must consider the human being as a self-contained, self-conscious ego. Every human being has the ability to remember back to a certain point. This happens because he is conscious of his ego. This consciousness of the ego is the normal state of human beings. However, there is a pathological state in which people lose this self-awareness. For example, a person may buy a ticket to a random destination. This happens while they are still in a completely normal state. But then they suddenly travel from station to station, only to recognize themselves again at some point in Africa, to find themselves again. These people have actually lost their sense of self for a period of time. This can be seen very clearly through spiritual science. They travel from city to city, often in a more practical way than other people. Their intellectual activity is not switched off, but their sense of self, the important component of the self, has been lost. This sense of self can be strengthened by taking an interest in everything we encounter in the outside world.

Some theosophists, for example, become one-sided in their endeavors. But that is not right. One must not become indifferent to the things and facts around oneself; one must take everything in. Many people immediately feel sympathy or antipathy toward everything they see. They immediately say, “I like that, I don't like that.” And what they don't like, they don't pay attention to. If this happens only with the intellect, it is less dangerous. Then it remains objective. But through feeling it becomes subjectively colored. We should look at and pay attention to everything, even what we do not like and are not interested in. In this way, the consciousness of the self becomes more and more strengthened.

Let us now imagine this self, established within itself, as this point in space: · In order for such an ego to experience itself in a physical body and to be active, forces must be added, which we imagine as this ○ [circle] drawn around the point ⊙. The great world spirit has placed this symbol in the universe for a long, long time: the Earth with the Moon. From the moon, the forces of reproduction and heredity shine down upon human beings, passing from generation to generation. The moon moves in a very specific orbit around the earth: first quarter, second quarter, third quarter, full moon, new moon. And if this course were interrupted even once, if the moon were torn from its orbit, the human race would perish. At the end of the Earth's career, when the Earth exerts too strong a gravitational pull, it will draw the moon back into itself, and human beings must perish [as physical human beings]. Thus we look with gratitude to the moon, which sends its forces into human development, forces that reveal themselves to us as generative forces. We must see in the moon, as it moves around the earth, a sign of occult writing placed in the world space by sublime beings as the lowest expression of their high activity. But the moon and the earth must be irradiated by the sun, which shines into the inner being of human beings and in which the human ego is reflected.

And when we look up at the sun, we must say: O, you glorious star in the firmament, you send your rays into the innermost being of the human being and reflect back this innermost being, the human ego!—

And yet other forces stream to us from the heavenly bodies. From Mercury, the powers of the intellect flow into human development. And if we investigate further, we must ask ourselves: where do the powers come from that gave the intellect what we call the progress of the human race? How many thoughts have flowed into the various epochs up to our own as inventions? Now children learn in school what could not be taught before the Greek-Latin period: the Pythagorean theorem. These forces, which slowly weave their way into the human intellect and are expressed in the inventions of all ages, come from Venus. And the forces of Mars flow into them, reinforcing and creating. Jupiter sends loving currents down from even higher worlds to guide these Martian forces into the right channels, so that the creative mind does not reign alone. And when love becomes stronger and stronger in the human soul, it becomes warmth that flows down to us from Saturn. Between Mars and Venus stands the Sun, but there is not just one Sun, but three: a physical Sun, the spiritual Sun behind it, and an even more spiritual Sun, which we call Christ.

The mantric sentences given in the last esoteric lesson here² can be meditated upon in the sense and with the feelings that have arisen from what has been said today. It must be the task of every esotericist to grasp this most spiritual sun, the Christ, more and more, to awaken him more and more strongly within themselves and to feel him. There was an initiate of the post-Christian era who could not ascend to this Christ, who could not grasp him, and whose tragic end is based on this fact. It was Julian the Apostate.

Thus, through meditative reflection on what has been given in this hour, we must come to understand more and more the words of our Rosicrucian motto: Ex Deo nascimur — In Christo morimur — Per Spiritum Sanctum reviviscimus — and the saying given to us by the Masters of Wisdom and Harmony of Feelings [and which we hear] at the end of every esoteric hour:

In the spirit lay the seed of my body.
In my body lies the seed of the spirit. Lead — Beech - Saturn
Gold - Ash - Sun
Silver - Cherry - Moon
Iron - Oak - Mars
Mercury - Elm - Mercury
Tin - Maple - Jupiter
Copper - Birch - Venus Moon - Wisdom
Mercury — Reason and receptivity to the divine
Venus - Religiosity, inventions, morality
Sun - Love
Mars - combativeness, resilience
Jupiter - strengthening of the powers of thought, so that they have a creative effect
Saturn - willingness to make sacrifices

Record D

The esotericist should take everything that is said into his soul with deep seriousness. Thus, what was said yesterday in the public lecture [on “Questions of Life and the Mystery of Death”] also has a very deep meaning. The example given there, that just as we breathe in the air that surrounds the whole earth, we also breathe in the spiritual and soul elements that surround us on all sides when we wake up and breathe them out when we fall asleep, should be deeply considered by the esotericist. The exoteric person asks about cause and effect in everything; indeed, all of today's science is based on this. Our age prides itself on being as exoteric as possible and on bringing everything into a relationship of cause and effect. But the esotericist should behave differently. He does not ask about the cause or effect of phenomena, but about their meaning and what they represent in the whole universe. For the esotericist, everything becomes a sign, a letter, a word. Just as when we see or hear a word, for example the word “but,” we do not ask whether the b is the effect of the a, so too we cannot do this in reality with other phenomena. The esotericist is an esotericist because he regards things as letters of a script which he seeks to connect into a whole.

Thus, the esotericist may have two experiences that are signs of something else for him. One is that we are aware that we experience ourselves as souls because we can remember ourselves from a certain point in our lives and perceive ourselves as I. If this memory were to be erased, as can happen in pathological states, we would be erased as I, as souls. For example, someone might buy a ticket to a city in Central Europe. On the way there, their memory of themselves is erased; nevertheless, such a person can continue their journey and may even act in a much more intelligent manner than in normal life. They can continue traveling until they find themselves again, for example in a place in North Africa. It is as if a letter in the word of the world that represents this soul has been lost. And if one follows such people to see what else is missing from this word, one usually finds that they already lacked interest in normal life. Esotericists should develop a universal interest in what is happening around them. They must not remain at the level of “I like this, I don't like that,” that is, at the level of sympathy or antipathy. This position is not so dangerous if one judges with the intellect alone, but it becomes dangerous when the emotions come into play.

The other experience is that we feel ourselves to be standing within the line of generations. Before us was the generation of our parents, grandparents, and so on here on earth; after us comes that of our children, grandchildren, and so on. We owe our bodies to this stream of generations. If we take these two thoughts together, we can symbolically draw this as follows: The center is our I, and the ring around it is the effect of the generations that gave us our bodies.

The gods have written this symbol for us, and we can see it when we look at the Earth with the moon orbiting around it. And for the self, we look up to the sun, and we know that without the sun there could never be a self in human beings, just as without the moon or with a displacement of the moon, the human race would have to wither away.

And when we rise to Mercury – in the sense of spiritual hierarchies, that is, occultly speaking – then we see in it the one who made the development of the earth possible by giving man thinking. Without this, man, endowed with the I and the body, could do nothing. But through thinking alone, nothing new could arise in evolution; there could be no progress. For this, discoveries and new thoughts are necessary, and we owe their existence to Venus. Today, children already learn in school what was once considered the deepest wisdom, for example, the theorem (of Pythagoras; this is precisely what progress consists of).

Now let us rise above the influence of the Sun to that which comes from Mars; this is what, by connecting with Venus, makes new creative thoughts possible. Mars gives us inspiration for the progress of humanity. But we owe our thanks to Jupiter for ensuring that these Martian forces, in their connection with the Venusian forces, do not lead to warlike consequences. Those who attune themselves to the forces of Jupiter feel themselves in a sphere of light that gives them wisdom. And when they immerse themselves in this light, they can distinguish between cold and warm rays. This is what emanates from Saturn.

Between the two rows: Moon, Mercury, Venus, and Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, stands the Sun. Their effects: The lower planets have a direct effect on humans and earthly conditions, while the upper planets have an indirect effect. Mars acts by connecting with Venus, as if giving inspiration so that humanity can progress. Jupiter acts like a grace, influencing the forces of Mars so that they do not become warlike; and Saturn gives enthusiasm.

The Sun stands in the middle between these two rows and also has a double, even triple nature. It is one of the secrets of occultism that there are three suns. The sun is the bringer of light; this is the first sun, whose light makes physical objects on earth visible to us. And this light contains something spiritual that comes from the second sun, the sun that gave us the I, through which we have memory, so that we can have a self-contained soul life. But behind this lies something even more spiritual, the third sun, the sun spirit, Christ. It is he who gives the ego, which exists only through memory, the possibility of passing from incarnation to incarnation and thus attaining eternal life. This third sun has been united with the earth since the mystery of Golgotha. The Rosicrucian Order has preserved the knowledge of this. Julian the Apostate still had an inkling of the three suns. The fact that he could not find Christ in the third, most spiritual sun, proved fatal to him in the time in which he lived.

If we take the moon and the Earth as one, as we should, or if we do not count the Earth, then we have in the seven planets the seven roses of light that Rosicrucianism presents to us. And with the moon, the sun, and the other planets, it connects the three-part Rosicrucian motto:

Ex Deo nascimur In Christo morimur Per Spiritum Sanctum reviviscimus.

Record E

Occult symbol: ⊙ Vordermark with lotus flower Everything that surrounds us is the outer expression of a spiritual reality behind it. The esotericist must be able to read the words written in the sky, which are composed of individual letters. He must learn to read this occult script. Occult characters can be found everywhere in the universe. The esotericist has the task of deciphering them. One such occult character, which has the most manifold and tremendous meaning, is: 0. If we want to decipher its one meaning, we must consider the human being as a self-contained, self-conscious ego. Every human being has the ability to remember back to a certain point. This happens because he is aware of his ego in the normal way. However, there is a pathological condition in which people lose this self-awareness. Such people appear to act quite rationally, for example, they go on a trip in a practical manner, but without any purpose or destination; they know nothing about themselves, often not even their own name. Their intellectual activity is not switched off, but their self-awareness is. This then returns suddenly. You can strengthen your sense of self by treating everything you encounter in the outside world with loving interest. You should never be one-sided or indifferent toward things, facts, or people around you. You should take everything in, but without immediately feeling sympathy or antipathy toward it. Do not immediately say, “I like that,” “I don't like that,” and ignore the latter. One should try to recognize everything without subjective feelings, even everything we do not like. This strengthens the ego more and more.

Let us now think of this ego, which is firmly established within ourselves, as a · [point] in the universe. The ego is such a point. In order for it to experience itself in a body, forces must be added. Let us think of these as a circle around the point. For a long, long time, the great world spirit has placed this symbol in the universe as the Earth with the Moon. From the moon, the forces of reproduction, heredity, and everything that passes from generation to generation radiate toward human beings. The moon moves in a very specific orbit around the earth, as first quarter, second quarter, third quarter, full moon, etc. If this course were interrupted just once, if the moon were torn from its orbit, the human race would have to perish. At the end of the Earth's career, when the Earth exerts too strong a gravitational pull, it will take the moon back, and human beings, as physical human beings, will have to perish.

So we look with gratitude at the moon, which sends its forces as gravitational forces into human development. We see in it a sign of the occult script, placed in the world space by sublime beings as the lowest expression of their high activity.

But the moon and the earth must be irradiated by the sun. It shines into the inner being of human beings, and the human ego is reflected in it. And when we look up at the sun, we must say: ⊙ O glorious star in the firmament, you send your rays into the innermost being of human beings and reflect back this innermost being, the human I—we thank you for this.

And still other forces stream to us from the heavenly bodies. From Mercury, the powers of the intellect flow into human evolution. And if we investigate further, we must ask: where do the forces come from that give the intellect what we call the progress of the human race? How many thoughts have flowed into the various epochs up to ours in the form of inventions? Now children learn in school what could not be taught before the Greek-Latin period: the Pythagorean theorem. These forces, which slowly work their way into the human mind and drive people to inventions, come from Venus, and, flowing into the creative inspiration in a strengthened form, they come from Mars. To guide these Martian forces into the right channels, so that the creative mind does not reign alone, loving streams are sent down from Jupiter, from even higher worlds. And when love becomes stronger and stronger in the human soul, it becomes warmth that flows down to us from Saturn.

There we see the seven roses of the heavenly space and, radiating in their midst, the eighth rose, the triple sun. For there is not only the one sun that we perceive physically; behind it stands the spiritual sun, of which the physical sun is only the outer garment, and behind this stands an even more spiritual sun, which we call Christ. To grasp this most spiritual sun, Christ, more and more, to awaken him more and more within oneself, must be the task of every esotericist of the Rosicrucians.

There were initiates in the post-Christian era who could not ascend to this most spiritual, third sun, the Christ. They could not grasp him, and this fact lies at the root of their tragic end. One of these was Julian the Apostate.

⊙ Human ego and its sheaths
⊙ Moon and Earth
⊙ Sun and I
⊙ the seven heavenly roses with the eighth. Moon: Wisdom - Silver — Cherry tree
Mercury: Receptivity to the divine - Mercury - Elm
Sun: Love - Gold - Ash
Venus: Religiosity - Morality - Copper - Birch
Mars: Combativeness - Resilience - Iron - Oak
Jupiter: ... - Tin - Maple
Saturn: Sacrifice - Lead - Beech

Record F

Introduction on inhaling and exhaling.
Waking: Inhaling the soul
Sleeping: Exhaling the soul.

The exotericist recognizes everything according to cause and effect. For the esotericist, it is like reading a script of the divine spirit. Thus, the esotericist must learn to distinguish between the seed of the human being and that which is spiritual within it. This is the twofold inheritance. That which develops and propagates through the generations, and that which runs through it as the spiritual. The core of the human being, surrounded by what has been inherited from the fathers, can be expressed in letters in this writing. The core: a point surrounded by a circle [..]

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