The Origin and Goal of the Human Being

GA 53 — 30 March 1905, Berlin

The Future of Humanity

In my lecture on “The Great Initiates” two weeks ago, I took the liberty of point out that the great initiates are essentially the bearers of humanity's future ideals and that their power and mode of action consist in the fact that they hold within themselves as their secret, as their mystery, that which will only become apparent to the rest of humanity in the future, and that they incorporate it into the ideals of humanity in the way that seems appropriate to them. So that in what we call the idealism of humanity, the future ideals of our race, we mostly have expressions of what emerges from the great initiates from the depths of their knowledge of the great spiritual laws of the world. And I said at the time that the theosophical ideals that emerge from the Masters differ from what one calls ideals in life, that they arise from a real knowledge of the laws of nature and not from feelings such as: this is how it should be, this is right, and so on. I pointed out at the time that this is not prophecy in the bad sense of the word. It is a kind of indication of the future, as we also have in the natural sciences. Just as we know from our knowledge of the material laws of hydrogen and oxygen that under certain conditions they combine to form water, so it is with the spiritual laws, so that we can say what the ideals of the human future will be. The law of evolution leads human beings into the future. The initiate must consciously draw what he wants for the future from his knowledge of the great laws of the world. That was one indication of today's lecture given two weeks ago. The other indication was the one I gave eight days ago in the lecture on “Ibsen's Mind,” where I showed how Ibsen points out in such a sharp and magnificent way the development of personality in our time, and how, precisely by characterizing in a meaningful way what has become so pronounced in our time, he points to something higher that goes beyond personality, what we call individuality in the theosophical worldview.

We are truly at a turning point today. The great successes of natural science have shown us how, on the one hand, the materialistic view has borne the highest fruits, how Darwinism and materialism have influenced our time and how we owe them a great cultural progress; but on the other hand, there are also currents that are preparing the future. New ideals are emerging, especially in the most outstanding minds. These minds, which point to a distant future, are not the so-called practical minds, but world history also takes a different course than the practitioners' mental image. I have already referred to one column of idealism, Tolstoy. Today, however, I would like to refer to a Western mind, Keely, the great mechanic, who, even if he has not yet been able to bring us any practical results with his mechanical ideas, will nevertheless lead us forward. This raises questions that seem fantastical to the materialist. But at the same time, we want to get to know a kind of idealism that is different from what we usually encounter in everyday life. It is the same idealism that used to live in the mysteries. Until the founding of the Theosophical Society in 1875, what we now spread in popular lectures lived in the so-called secret schools. I have often referred to the Rosicrucians, and also to the fact that nothing can be found about the actual secrets of the Rosicrucians through scholarly means. Goethe himself was connected with the Rosicrucians; he clearly expressed this in his poem “The Secrets.” We have learned all this from previous lectures.

Today we want to deal with those great world laws that have been proclaimed in the mysteries as the world laws of the future, as those world laws by which man must guide himself if he does not want to stumble blindly into the future, but rather — like the natural scientist who goes into the laboratory, knowing that if he mixes and combines certain substances, he will obtain certain results — he is aware that he will encounter this or that event in the future. Explained in popular terms, this has only been possible since 1875, since the founding of the Theosophical Society. Therefore, we should not be surprised that what is scientific literature today still contains nothing of these ideals of the future.

Now the question may arise, and it has often been asked: Is it really the idealists who are detached from the world, who seem to be removed from all practicality, who first spin out the ideas of the future in their minds that will shape life? Can it be them? Must life not be born out of practice? They only spin thoughts, they are fantasists, and want to give birth to the future? Only those who know how to handle everyday matters can intervene, and it is up to them to intervene in practical life. As a little interlude, let me pick out some examples of the practical and the idealistic and show that it is not the practical people who have made the great and true advances, but the theorists who created from the wealth of ideas and who also brought about the future in everyday life.

Take the discoveries of the 19th century. Today, we can find nothing that does not remind us at every turn of steam power, the telegraph, the telephone, the postal system, the railroad, and so on. But the railroad was not invented by a practitioner. And how did the practitioners react to it? Here's an example: When the first railroads were to be built in Germany, when the railroad was to run from Berlin to Potsdam, this caused the Prussian Postmaster General von Nagler a great deal of concern. He said: I already have six to seven mail cars going to Potsdam every day, and they are not even fully occupied. Instead of building a railroad there, they might as well throw the money out the window. — And the vote of the Bavarian Medical Association, which was asked about the sanitary effects of the railroad, was something like this: “No railroads should be built, because people could cause themselves serious harm.” But if they were built anyway, at least wooden walls should be erected on both sides so that those passing by would not become dizzy at the sight of the fast trains. That was in 1830. Take the penny post, for example. Rowland Hill, a private citizen in England, was the first to come up with this idea, not a postal service practitioner. When this proposal was to be debated in Parliament in London, the chief postal official objected that the post office buildings would become too small with the increase in letter traffic, and the practitioner had to be told that the post office buildings had to be adapted to the traffic, and not vice versa. The telephone is also not an invention of a practitioner. It was invented by the teacher Philipp Reis in Frankfurt am Main. It was then further developed by the deaf-mute teacher Graham Bell. It was invented by theorists. The same was true of the telegraph. It was invented by two scholars, Gauss and Weber in Göttingen.

I have tried to show, using a few major examples, that it is never practitioners who bring about real progress for humanity. Practitioners have no judgment about what belongs to the future. They are the real conservatives, who oppose every idea that looks to the future with every possible obstacle. It is easy to sense a certain emphasis on their exclusive abilities and their sense of authority in practitioners.

This has been said in advance to show that ideals do not arise from practicality, but are carried by those who are filled with a higher spiritual reality. However, this was only an interlude.

Now remember the lecture on the “Origin of Man,” where we as theosophists attributed a very early origin to humanity. We seek this origin much further back than even scientific documents can lead us. It may seem fantastic that this ancestry has been traced back to the separation of the Earth from the Sun and the Moon: but those who delve deeply into the method provided by Theosophy will find that these are not fantastic ideas, but tangible realities like the tables and chairs in this room. Those who delve deeply into the laws of the past and at the same time sharpen their gaze on spiritual development can learn from the knowledge of the past the laws that belong neither to the past, nor to the present, nor to the future, but to all time. Once one has progressed to the point of attaining the degree of initiation that I described in my lecture on the great initiates, the laws of the world lie open before the spiritual gaze, laws of the world according to which development takes place, but which require human beings in order to be realized. Just as the chemist must first mix the substances in order to allow the laws of nature to take effect, so too must human beings mix the substances in order to bring about the great world laws. Based on these world laws, we should focus on two things today: the distant future, so we don't get stuck in the few millennia we can see back in history, and a short span of time when we look into the future with our everyday view.

Let us look into the distant future, as we have looked into the distant past. Let us also understand our task in the future from a theosophical point of view. We have seen that our present humanity was preceded by another. We have gone back to the older races, which lived under different conditions and with different abilities. The task of our race is to develop the combining mind. While we have logical thinking, arithmetic, and counting, which enable us to learn the laws of external physical nature and use them in the service of technology and industry, it was quite different for the Atlantean race. The fundamental power of this race was memory. People today can hardly form a mental image of the extent of the Atlanteans' memory. They could do very little arithmetic. Everything was based on the connections they formed from memory. For example, they knew three times seven from memory, but they could not calculate it. They did not know their multiplication tables. Another power that they had developed, but which is even more difficult to understand, was that they had a certain influence on the life force itself. Through a special training of the will, they were able to gain a direct influence on living things, for example on the growth of a plant. — If we go back even further, we come to a continent that we call Lemuria. Natural science acknowledges this continent, which was located roughly where the Indian Ocean is today, although it does not assume that it was populated by humans, but rather by lower mammals.

We now come to completely different stages of development. Anyone who followed the lecture on the development of the Earth a few weeks ago will know that we are coming to a period when humans were still hermaphroditic, when the individual being was both male and female at the same time. In myths and legends, this original hermaphroditism has remained in the consciousness of peoples. The Greeks originally attributed dual sexuality to Zeus. He was said to be a beautiful man and at the same time a beautiful maiden. In the mysteries of the Greeks, the dual-sexed human being still played an important role; he was presented as a unity of the human being. It was only through the process I described at that time that the single-sexed human being emerged. Now let us continue to follow the process as it appears to the seer in the worlds that grant insight into these things; that is, to the one who surrenders to the means of practical mysticism indicated above, which will be explained in more detail another time.

If we continue to follow human beings in this way, we see that they are now only consciously going through what they have already completed unconsciously in earlier periods. We encounter human beings at that time with a thin outer material shell. The earth was still at a high temperature at that time, and human beings still had a thin shell. Matter simply flowed in and out, like a kind of inhaling and exhaling. Human beings lived without perceptions passing through the senses; sensory impressions passed by them like a kind of undulating images, as in a dream. When such a human being, who was essentially a soul human being, approached an object or being in a dreamlike, clairvoyant manner, he could not perceive this object or being with his eyes, he could not smell it with his sense of smell, but he approached the being, and it was through a force that I cannot describe further today that a dream image arose in him. A world in his soul responded to what was happening outside. It was something like when you have a clock in front of you and you do not perceive the clock, but you hear the ticking of the clock. Or you knock over a chair in your sleep and dream of a duel. Today, this is chaotic, so it has no meaning for us. But this must be transformed into clairvoyance, then it has meaning again. If you approached a person who had an evil feeling in them at that time, an image arose in your soul that was held in dark shades of color and was a reflection and not a perception of external reality. The sympathetic relationship was reflected in light shades. That is how people lived. It was only when they received the gates of the senses that the soul images were transformed into perceptions. They connected their ability to form color images with external reality. Physicists today say that nothing else exists but the vibration of matter, and that color is the soul's response to these vibrations. When the human eye was developed, humans transferred what fluctuated as images in the soul to external objects. Basically, everything they perceived in their environment was nothing other than an extension of the soul images over the external world.

The further development of human beings now consists in their consciously, rather than in a twilight state, ascending to the higher worlds, where they perceive the soul world around them. Initiation is nothing other than an ascent to this level. What the mystic can already develop within himself today through certain methods will be developed in all human beings in the future. That is the essence of the initiate: that he already develops today what will become apparent in all human beings in the future, and that he can at least already indicate the direction of humanity's future ideals. This gives the ideals of the initiates a value that unconscious ideals can never have. Human beings will then move between soul beings as they move today between tables and chairs. I would like to emphasize again and again that it is necessary for those who want to work their way up to this level today to be completely firm in their understanding of the stage of development at which humanity now stands: they must be people who can distinguish fantasy from reality. Those who indulge in every kind of fantasy cannot be led into the higher world, but only those who stand firmly on the standpoint of development that humanity has reached.

Another state is that in which human beings begin to see spiritually, or rather to hear spiritually, what constitutes the depth, the essence of things. This is the so-called inner word, through which things themselves tell us what they are. Just as today only human beings themselves can tell us what they are, so there is an inner essence to all things. We cannot recognize this inner essence of things with our intellect; we must crawl into things, become one with them. We can only do this with the spirit. We must therefore connect ourselves with things in spirit. This transforms the world into the resounding world of which Goethe speaks and which I have often referred to, so that human beings are lifted up into the higher regions, as it were, into the spiritual world or into Devachan; into the world in which human beings dwell in the time between death and a new birth. These are the worlds in which human beings participate between death and a new birth.

Our Earth is currently in its fourth cycle or fourth round; it has three rounds behind it. The three rounds that still lie ahead will bring about the development of higher abilities in human beings. What I have just described will soon come into being, and the root race that will follow ours will have significantly different characteristics. In the middle of this cycle, it will produce a human race that will not descend as deeply into the physical world as ours and that will have shed its single-sex nature and become dual-sexed. Then it will develop further, until it reaches the point where its development comes to an end. That will be in the astral realm. Then it will go through another cycle, and another. Humanity must therefore complete three such cycles. But today we can only touch on the next and the second next.

First of all, we must clarify what the task of the present human cycle is. The best way to do this is to ask ourselves the question: What is the task of human beings on earth with their combinatory intellect? Clairvoyance and clairaudience are states that belong to earlier and later stages of development. Now humanity has the task of standing firm in physical life, and basically this is only in order to show humanity its goal. Theosophy should not lead us away from the physical foundation; theosophy rises above the physical earth only because it is also the expression of the soul and spirit world. We do not want to lead people into something vague and unclear; we do not want to lead them away from physical reality, but rather we want to bring them to a correct understanding and comprehension of this physical reality. Then what lies behind physical reality will point to the task that human beings have in the present cycle of development.

Consider what is happening now. We call the present cycle the mineral cycle because human beings are dealing with the mineral world in it. The natural scientist says: We cannot yet comprehend the plant world — because he regards the plant as a sum of mineral processes — and he does the same with animals. Even if this is a caricature of a worldview, there is something fundamental to it. He combines with his intellect what is side by side in space and one after the other in time. Everywhere it is the intellect that works on the dead, the inanimate, that puts the parts together. Start with the machine and carry it through to the work of art: this is the task of human beings in the current cycle of development, and they will carry it through to the point where they transform the whole earth into their work of art. This is the task that human beings have for the future. As long as there is still an atom that man has not worked through with his powers, the human task on earth is not yet complete. Anyone who follows the latest advances in electricity knows how natural scientists can examine even the smallest parts of the mineral world because they have mastered the electrical power that was still almost unknown fifty years ago. Their task is to transform the inanimate into a great work of art. That is why works of art existed long before historical times, long before the Egyptians. Follow this, and you will understand that the current cycle signifies the spiritualization of the entire mineral world. Even the intelligent natural scientist tells us that, based on what we know today, it is not inconceivable that a time will come when humans will be able to delve even deeper into the essence of matter. That is a certain perspective for the future.

Those who have studied physics will remember a sentence: a future perspective is gained by the fact that a large part of our technical work is done by applying heat, by converting heat into work. The heat theorist shows us that only a certain part of the heat can be converted into work or into something that is technically useful. When you heat a steam engine, you cannot use all the heat to create propulsive forces. Now consider that heat is always consumed for work, but part of the heat cannot be converted into work and remains. This is the state of heat that the heat engineer, the heat theorist, can present as a kind of death state of our physical earth. Those who study the phenomena of life argue that the time may then have come for life itself to intervene: that living machinery which controls molecules and atoms in a completely different way, through which we move our arms and set our brains in motion. When our powers of transformation are no longer sufficient, this force could then work deeper into material nature than even the forces we can form a mental image of today are capable of.

This shows you a perspective which, however, for the clairvoyant who is able to follow the spirit of development, is not just an image but something concrete and real: he sees how the whole earth will have been transformed into a work of art. Once this has been achieved, however, human beings will have nothing more to do in the mineral world; they will be free on all sides and able to move freely, their souls no longer coming into conflict with objects. This is the time when the earth will enter what is known as the astral state. Just as today the mechanic masters the outside world when he builds a machine imbued with his spirit, so it is with man. Everything that exists will be the direct product of his actions. We do not need to perceive what our actions are, what we ourselves have created. The senses will then have been transformed, and the astral state will have been entered. This is the perspective: the mineral world ends with our earth cycle. We therefore call the next cycle that humans will complete the cycle of plant existence. The whole earth will have shed its mineral nature, and humans will intervene in living things with their soul power, just as they now intervene in mineral things with their intellect. They will then be masters of the plant world on a higher level, just as they are now masters of the mineral world. Then we will reach the stage where human beings will live on a completely living Earth. But let us regard this image as only an approximation; let us be content with having gained a glimpse into the next cycle.

You have thus seen that human beings are on a path that leads to a state that is completely different from ours, that there are forces within them that are of such a nature that they can take on completely different forms in the future. For those who can see through this, however, it is connected at the same time with a feeling, a sensation that is fundamental to our whole life: What will human beings become if we regard them as a source of such future powers? We approach human beings quite differently when we know that the seed of this future human being lies dormant within them. Our attitude toward them is transformed into the feeling that in every human being we have before us something like an unsolved riddle. We want to descend deeper and deeper into the layers of human nature, because we know that they conceal such depths. It is not theories that are important, nor is it imagining what the plant circle will look like one day, but rather that we develop a great reverence for every human individuality. When we approach human beings in such a way that we stand before them as before a god who wants to break out of his shell, then we have understood something of theosophical life; and it is theosophical life, not theories, that matters. When we have certain ideas that show us what human beings can become and what they carry within themselves, then our hearts are filled with that genuine love for the divine human being that the theosophical worldview seeks to bring forth. And when we think this way, we begin to understand the first principle of the Theosophical Society: to form the core of a universal brotherhood of humanity, without distinction of sex, color, or creed. For what are these differences here?

Now ask yourself further: What significance do these images of humanity have for the future? How does the great ideal relate to what is incumbent upon us? Is it not something that ultimately belongs to a cloud cuckoo land, because it belongs to a future in which we have practically no place? What man develops within himself, he must utilize within himself. It is not all the same whether he continues to live with the feelings I have just developed, or whether he merely gropes his way into the future. Just as a plant already carries within itself the seed of what it will be next year, so man must carry the future within himself as his seed, and he cannot make this seed meaningful or large enough. And this also has its application in the immediate present. Since you have largely concerned yourselves with what are conceived as social ideals, as plans for the near future of humanity, you know that almost everyone who thinks about these things has their own social ideal. Now, when one looks more deeply into these matters, one asks oneself: Why do these ideals have so little persuasive power? None of them work and none of them fit together. Both those who try to establish future ideals in a utopian way and those who try to do so with a practical spirit cannot possibly arrive at truly great and decisive points of view. All of this—and this can be asserted from a deeper perspective—every social idea, even the beliefs of large global parties, that is preached solely from an awareness of the sensory world can never have any practical value. In fifty years' time, people will be amazed at these fantasies. The social ideal cannot be conceived. Neither our thoughts nor what we gain from our opinions and our intellect can form the basis for any social ideal; it must be said plainly: no social theory, whatever it may be, is suitable for serving the welfare of humanity.

This is, of course, difficult to prove. But consider the moment in which we find ourselves: the present has brought forth the personality. The personal is what is characteristic and significant in human beings. All other differentiations, even those between men and women, are overcome. Today, there is only personality, without any other differentiation. Let us bear in mind that humanity had to pass through this transition point; and let us bear in mind that what we call personality here is called lower manas in the theosophical worldview: it is the power of thought that relates to the immediate world. Human beings are therefore personalities insofar as they belong to the sensory world, and the combining intellect also belongs to this sensory world. Everything that human beings can think with their intellect, everything that elevates their personality, must be raised to a higher level if we want to understand it in its true essence. That is why we also distinguish between personality and individuality, between lower and higher manas. What exactly is this lower manas?

Consider the difference between us and a simple barbarian who grinds grain between two stones to make flour, then bakes bread from it, and so on, compared to a modern human being. With very little effort of thought, the barbarian accomplishes what meets his physical needs. But culture has progressed, and what do we basically do in our time? We telegraph America and have the same products sent to us that the barbarian ground himself. — All technical understanding, what is it other than a detour to satisfy animal needs? Just think, does the mind do much more than satisfy ordinary physical needs? Does the mind become something higher by building ships, railroads, telephones, and so on, when it produces nothing more than the satisfaction of man's ordinary needs?

The mind is therefore only a detour and does not lead out of the sensory world. But where the spiritual world shines into this world: in great works of art, in original ideas that go beyond everyday needs, or where something of what we call the theosophical worldview shines in, then something higher shines in; then the human spirit becomes not merely a processor of what is around it, but a channel through which the spirit flows into the world. It brings something productive into this world. Every single human being is a channel through which a spiritual world pours forth. As long as human beings seek only to satisfy their needs, they are personalities. When they do what goes beyond that, they are individuality. We can only find this source in the individual; the human being is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual world, the human being mediates between the two. That is the twofold way in which we can approach the human being.

As personalities, we are basically all the same: one person may have a slightly more developed intellect than another. But this is not the case with individuality. Here, human beings become special characters, each bringing something special to their mission. If I want to know what he is supposed to do in the world as a personality, if I want to know what he can be through his originality as an individual, then I must wait until something from the spiritual world flows into this world through this channel. If this influence is to take place, we must regard every human being as an unsolved mystery. Through each individual personality, the original spiritual power flows to us. As long as we regard human beings as personalities, we can regulate them: when we speak of general duties and rights, we are speaking of the personality. But when we speak of individuality, we cannot force human beings into a mold; they must be the bearers of their own originality. What will come to humanity in ten years' time will be known to those who live out their individuality. I must not determine the child I am raising on my own, but must draw out of its mysterious inner being what is completely unknown to me. If we want a social order, then the individual personalities must work together, then everyone must be able to develop in their freedom. If we establish a social ideal, we tie this personality to this place and that personality to that place. The sum of what is available is simply thrown together: but nothing new comes into the world as a result. That is why individualities must be included, the great individualities must make their mark. There must be no laws, no social programs based on intellectual ideals, but rather a social spirit of brotherhood must arise. Only a social spirit can help us, the spirit of treating every being as an individual. Let us always be aware that every human being has something to say to us. Every human being has something to say to us. We need a social attitude, not social programs. This is entirely real and practical. It is something that can be expressed at this moment in time, and it is what theosophy presents as a great ideal for the future. This gives theosophy an immediate practical significance. When Theosophy flows into life, we will break the habit of constricting everything with rules and regulations, we will break the habit of judging according to norms, we will accept people as free and individual human beings. We will then be clear that we are fulfilling our task when we put the right person in the right place. We will no longer ask whether the best teacher is the one who has the best command of the subject matter, but we will ask, what kind of person is this? One must have a keen sense, perhaps a clairvoyant gift, to know whether the person in question is in the right place with his or her nature, whether he or she is in the right place as a human being. One can have a complete grasp of one's subject matter, one can be a living, walking encyclopedia, and yet be unsuitable for teaching because one does not know what emanates from human beings, what brings out the individuality in other people. Only when we disregard rules and regulations and ask what kind of person someone is, and put the best person in the place where they are needed, do we fulfill within ourselves the ideals that Theosophy has brought. One can also know a great deal as a doctor, but ultimately it depends on how one faces the patient, what kind of person the doctor is. When theosophy intervenes directly in life, then it is what it should be.

Question and Answer Session

Question: What do you think of Dr. Eugen Heinrich Schmitt?

He is sympathetic to theosophy and, after publishing his work on the secret of Hegel's dialectic, wrote extensively on theosophy himself. However, his way of thinking is too mathematical, too constructively mathematical, and based on too little intuition. His way of thinking is also not tolerant enough of other views.

Question: How do we know anything about the Atlanteans and Lemurians?

From the Akashic Records. These are traces left behind by every deed, which can be read back over long periods of time. These Akashic Records are quite real for those who can read them. However, they are difficult to read, and one is easily exposed to errors. To give a rough mental image of this, let me say the following. When I speak here, the words fill the air. The vibrations correspond to the words. Anyone who could not hear my words but was able to study the vibrations in the air would be able to construct my words from the vibrations. These vibrations remain in the air only for a short time. In astral matter, however, they last longer. If a person lives as a dreamer in the same way as a person lives in outer reality, then he can also see the soul in outer reality, then he can also follow the formation of the earth back to the astral formation of the earth. But if a person has achieved continuity of consciousness, and if they have this continuous consciousness during the night in their dreams, then they can see the chains of worlds, their formation and their passing away.

Question: What do you think of Karl Marx and his work?

What Karl Marx achieved applies to the period from the 16th century to the present day. It encompasses the era of emerging modern economic life and developing industrialism. As far as production, consumption, and related matters are concerned, theosophy can go hand in hand with Marx. However, the mistake Marxists make is that they attribute everything to class struggle. This is a misjudgment of the facts. It is man who shapes things, not the environment or the conditions of production. Can anyone claim that the invention of differential calculus depended on the conditions of production? Certainly not. But what has been achieved with the help of differential calculus?

Question: Can a theosophist be a social democrat?

Yes, if he is also a theosophist in every step he takes. Whether the Social Democratic Party is what is desirable for the near future is something everyone must decide for themselves.

Question: What is the role of art in relation to the spiritual development of humanity?

The same as other activities. It helps to transform the whole world into a work of art, even though individual works of art are transient. But we may ask whether these individual works of art have no meaning, and from a theosophical point of view we must say that two things come into consideration in such a work of art: first, the work of art in space, and second, the power of the human being who created it. Human power is what remains. Art means something that has an even higher significance.

Question: What is theosophy's view of the Last Judgment and eternal punishment in hell?

Eternal punishment in hell does not exist in the theosophical view. There are only stages of development, the effects of karma. The Last Judgment, however, has a completely different meaning. It signifies a certain point in time in the cycle I spoke about in my lecture. In this cycle, human beings will reach a certain stage where they no longer have any external impulses, where they will have completely overcome the sensual, where they will have spiritualized the mineral-physical. What they have conquered in spiritual life will appear, just as their mood appears in the spirit. Therefore, their mood will be expressed in their outer form. Human beings will take on the outer form that they have created for themselves through their karma. The Last Judgment means nothing other than that everyone will be imprinted with what they have predisposed in their soul. Today, human beings can hide what lives in their soul, but that will no longer be the case.

Question: How does patriotism fit in with universal brotherhood?

Patriotism is justified at a certain stage of development. But what we hold up as the ideal of human brotherhood is something more expansive. The two are compatible with each other. Intellectual activity can also have individual moments, and by thinking about individuality, a certain moment comes into play. Not every person has their own logic, because logic is something general, not individual. However, these intellectual activities take on an individual coloration. But the intellect is not the individual.

Question: Why can't a madman control himself?

The insane person is first and foremost physically ill. The opposite of insanity is sanity, which means being able to harmonize one's inner life with one's surroundings. Those who cannot achieve this harmony appear insane. If you wanted to behave on Mars as you do on Earth, you would be a Martian lunatic.

Question: What should we think of American books on hypnotism and magnetism?

What is really important cannot be found in these books. Moreover, these things are often detrimental to health and other aspects of life. From the standpoint of theosophical worldview, I can only advise against such things in the strongest possible terms.

Question: Did Christ really live a hundred years before the year one?

I stand here on the standpoint of orthodoxy. Others have made a mistake in my opinion.