On the Astral World and Devachan

GA 88 — 4 November 1903, Berlin

2. The Higher Worlds and the Human Part in Them

Thoughtful people might perhaps take an event which has occurred quite surprisingly in the last few days as a proof that many unknown things can be in the space in which we all find ourselves, of which we suddenly perceive effects without having had any idea of their existence before. You will already guess that I am referring to an event that took place last week: On a beautiful noon, it was last Saturday, all telegraph lines in France suddenly stopped working; one could not telegraph or telephone to any place in France, and no physicist could get an idea of what this was due to. In the evening, the power went on again as before. This disturbance was felt all over the world. One had no idea before that something like that could happen on our earth, that suddenly all telegraphic lines stand still. Science will find the cause. But one will have to be clear that a force can work continuously in the world, of which we can have no idea - connections of which we know nothing, whose mode of action we do not know in advance.

We human beings belong to the astral world just as we belong to the physical world. We also belong to other worlds, but we understand the existence of these worlds only when we see what forces from the higher existence play in. To the one whose eyes are opened to the astral world, a new existence opens up: the world in which we see all the drives and instincts, all the passions and temperaments before us in the same way as we see the things around us in the physical world. But this astral world is not the highest. It is the one which is one step higher than our physical world, it is a finer world which permeates our whole world. Then our world is also permeated by an even higher world, the actual spiritual world, which we call in Theosophy the devachanic or mental world, and which, when we have opened our eyes to it, makes it possible for us to see thoughts, which are not permeated by feelings and desires, that is, which are pure thoughts, like things. These are the three worlds to which man belongs, these are the three worlds which he passes through in his lives from embodiment to embodiment. So it is not the highest world that we are dealing with in the astral world. A special lecture shall be devoted to the spiritual world.

So we now consider this intermediate world, which, however, because it lies first of our physical world, is of quite special importance for us. To him whose eye is open to this sphere, we attribute a so-called psychic vision. Not only physical things appear to him, but also everything that lives in people as drives, desires and passions, appears to him as things. This astral world is graded. It is so great that our physical world cannot be compared with it. I can only give a sketchy description of it. Who has opened the eye for it, he sees things, which the ordinary man indeed perceives, but which he cannot unravel yet. That is psychic seeing.

But there is a still higher seeing, the spiritual seeing. This is like the view from the top of a mountain, i.e. from a lofty vantage point or from the slope of a mountain, to the places and objects lying in the valley. Think of a village, a city, its surroundings, but seen from below, from the ground on which you are standing, you can compare this with the physical seeing of the ordinary average man. Climb up the mountain and stop at about the middle of the mountain, then you can compare the overview you get there with psychic seeing. If you climb all the way up the mountain, you can compare the overview with spiritual seeing. Only a few people have this spiritual seeing in our age. Later, more people will have it. Those people have it who have acquired it through previous embodiments by leading a pure, mental life, those who have sought in the field of thought the ways of pure, crystal clear recognition of the world. That man for whom the pursuit of the pure moral deed was as natural as for the ordinary man the pursuit of his everyday occupations, pleasures, passions and urges, that man for whom the life of pure thought was natural, he then brings with him in the next life the ability to see around him these things to which he has given himself in the former lives as other men see physical things. He sees through the world, he looks, as it were, from above, not only into the physical world, but also into that which I have described as the astral world. He can describe it in broad outlines, as it appears from above, but he can describe it more clearly than he who has only psychic vision.

Parts of psychic seeing are what we have through hypnotism and magnetism. Part of the psychic seeing is also the somnambulistic seeing. But still, if we stop on the psychic level, we do not stand on the summit. There will still be a possibility of error. Only the one who has spiritual vision can see the world from all sides. Only he who sees things from above has a free view over the things of the psychic world. The one who is able to see into this psychic world knows as a fact that man's origin, his beginning, does not lie within the physical world. He knows that what is found in man as a physical body has been chosen by a higher body, by something that was there earlier than the physical body.

Two views are possible, the materialistic and the spiritual. The materialistic view is the one which believes that man creates his physical existence consisting of physical substances and that then, so this view believes, these material substances produce the spiritual. This view then pursues some material phenomenon by asking, for example: What is going on in the organism, what is going on in the fine functions that take place in the brain, when a feeling, when a conception is in us? He who has psychic vision knows that this body has not built itself; he knows that the body has been chosen by its own higher man who dwells in it. "Creating" does not mean what we call creating today, but it means choosing. That is: the soul of man, the psyche, which comes from other regions, has chosen this body so that it can be an instrument for it in the pursuit of those goals which come from a higher world.

Having said this, let me show in brief how man prepares his earthly pilgrimage. Let me now show how man comes into being, and in another hour we will show his cosmic origin. Today only what leads to the existence of man in our epoch. I say facts, because I already said that the one who lectures about the astral world must weigh every word, that he must examine it not once but many times. Do not take my words as spoken at random, but in such a way that I feel completely responsible for what I say. What I put as facts, you can take just like what the natural scientist puts as facts which he can see with the telescope, with the telescope and so on.

Man is a being who does not live once, but who lives in many, many embodiments over and over again. Man often assumes the physical shell. This physical shell is the outermost of the shells in which the actual human being is wrapped. This actual human being who passes from incarnation to incarnation, who carries guilt and atonement from one incarnation to another, is called the higher self. At birth, this higher self enters our body. After death, this higher self leaves the body to appear again in the world in a new incarnation in one and a half to two millennia. In the meantime, this higher self dwells in the higher worlds, and, after this self has passed into a kind of state of maturity, it seeks to embody itself again. There lives in it, as it were, the desire to be active again within the material, earthly existence, to learn again a lesson within the earthly existence.

Now we have to consider a twofold, a double coming into being of man. This consideration provides us with two series of facts: the one which takes place within our physical world, the other which takes place in the higher world. I will outline only this higher world for the time being.

In the meantime, [between death and a new birth], man is in the purely spiritual world - in the mental world or devachan -, in a world which has two regions, a purely spiritual, higher world and a lower one. The higher spiritual world, which we also call the "Arupa sphere," man always enters between two embodiments. The undeveloped person stays in it for a shorter time, the developed person for a longer time. Every human being has to pass through this region. We will see later why. From this region he must go to the lower region, to the one in which for us is the subjective thought, the thought-matter. In this region the self takes on a thought body. It surrounds itself with thought matter, so that we can follow this self as it now enters the thought matter world from the higher region. These spheres are actually not one above the other, but pushed into each other. It is like a living organism, only this is more active than our physical organism. After the self has entered this thought region and has formed an organism of thought matter there, a desire drives it further down. It surrounds itself with substance from the astral or psychic world, so that before the higher self enters the physical organism, it is already a higher organism. Each of us was a higher organism in the higher regions. It was thought matter, and this in turn was woven into the astral matter. Such an organism we were before we entered the physical body. This astral world is as clear and transparent to the seer who can investigate in the psychic sphere as the physical world is to the eyes of the physical investigator.

In the physical world we distinguish three kinds of existence, three kinds of states of aggregation: solid, liquid and gaseous; moreover, the so-called ether, the etheric materiality, which is the reason why light passes through space, heat and so on. This is the finest state on the physical plane. Exactly the same in terms of division, but quite different in terms of quality, in terms of properties, it is in the astral world. In the astral world we are dealing with different astral materiality. Something penetrates into our world that we know, something penetrates all of us human beings, and we call it the astral world. In the astral world we see, without being able to grasp it properly, the astral substances. Even in the Middle Ages, the people who knew something about it spoke of substances through which the drawing in of the self [into the physical] takes place, and they called these substances "humores." What in our physical world these different states of matter are, solid, liquid, gaseous and ethereal, these are in the psychic world the four humores, but we can only name them according to their reflection, as they are in us, as they live in us. To the physical states of matter solid, liquid, gaseous, ethereal corresponds in the astral world what we call the four temperaments. That which causes in us that we have this or that temperament, corresponds to a quite certain state of matter. Whoever has a choleric temperament in the astral body will find that one of the humors particularly developed which corresponds to the state of matter of the choleric - cholae. Thus in the astral world we have the temperaments as correspondence for the four states of matter. As the ancients spoke of earth, water, air, fire, so they also spoke of four states of matter in the astral, and these consist of astral substances. Depending on the predominance of one or the other astral substance, man carries one or the other temperament.

Just as space with its three dimensions is inherent in our physical existence, so there is also an astral space, but it is of a different nature than our physical space. And because it is of a different nature, it will be difficult for the beginner to find his way around there. Something corresponding to the physical dimensions also exists in the astral. Just as our physical space has height, width and depth, there are also certain dimensions in the astral field. And now there is a strange connection between the dimensions on the astral field and what we call "time" in physical life. Past, present and future in the physical are only projections, shadowy images of those dimensions which are the dimensions in the astral world. There is also something like past, present and future as dimensions in the astral world. But this distinguishes the astral world from our physical world, that there is still a dimension unimaginable for our physical existence, which exists apart from present, past and future, which is often counted as the fourth dimension. This is a figurative, but not completely unsuitable expression. No one should speak of the fourth dimension who does not have a view of it.

The astral world is confusing for the one who takes a look into it for the first time. It also differs from the physical world in that things are not solid, but permeable. Therefore we call it the region of permeability. There are no boundaries of the body there for the astral eye as in the physical world; of every body its back side is just as visible as the front side. Basically, in the astral world we don't see from the outside at all as in the physical. You know, in the physical we see things as they place themselves before us, so to speak; for example, in an avenue departing from us we see the trees in perspective. The space offers us a perspective looking. The more distant trees seem to be closer to each other, the closer trees seem to be further away from each other. This way of looking stops completely in the astral. There we look at things from the inside. If you look at a cube from the outside, the sides of the cube appear to you in perspective. The astral looking is as if you would stand in the middle of the cube and could look at it on all sides from the inside. This is what Leadbeater said in his "Astral Plane". We can only give a kind of symbol, a kind of projection of it. Our words refer only to the physical plane; we must therefore first translate what we see astrally into physical language. When we say that in the astral we look at things from within, this is only a translation of what is present in the astral into the physical projection. For the beginner, this creates a kind of confusion, that he sees things from a different side [than the one he is used to]. His point of view changes completely. All beginners have this experience in common. For example, when you look at a number in the astral, for example 265, you see it according to old habit as you see it in the physical from the outside. In the astral, however, you have the point of view of seeing things from the inside. The number must be read 562 in the astral, because the point of view is from the inside, so it must be read symmetrically reversed from the other side. These are the reasons for the confusion that first appears in beginners to whom the eye is opened. However, it is a theosophical principle that no one's eye may be opened unless it is done at the hand of an adept, as we call the connoisseurs in this field. He who is guided by masters cannot possibly be exposed to such errors.

This is the world in which man finds himself before his physical embodiment, before his physical body has formed. Let us now consider that which rushes from the physical world towards the astral organism, man's physical corporeality, which is born through physical, through physiological forces. I call your attention to a fact which at the same time concerns the mystery of birth and death. By moving into the physical world, by taking possession of the physical world and weaving physical matter into it, man is subject to the laws of procreation, to the laws of birth and death as we know them in the physical world today. It is true that there is another birth and death; but the birth and death which we know exist only in our epoch of mankind within the Atlantean time and a part of the Lemurian time. These three epochs of mankind [root races] were preceded by two others in which men did not have such a dense body as we have. They had a fine, not yet coarse body, and with this body was not yet connected what we now know as the physical process of reproduction. This does not occur until within the third root race, [in the Lemurian period]. Before that, there was a kind of reproduction within living beings, which we are still reminded of today by the lowest natural beings, which reproduce simply by cell division. A cell constricts and divides; this is asexual reproduction. Humans reproduced during the first and second root races, [in the Polar and Hyperborean periods], by such division of the etheric body. These two races of men, which preceded the third, reproduced in such a way that one body let the other emerge from itself. This kind of reproduction is only a reminder of these oldest epochs.

You may know that the most ancient time had the worship of Adam Kadmon. You know this from the Indian secret teachings, and you also know from the Bible the double creation story. In the first creation story it is told: God created man, and - as it literally says there - He created man male-female. - Sexual reproduction was not the first. That, what one often feels as a contradiction with an external view of the Bible, the double creation history, is not a contradiction, because the first creation history tells about those human races, with which there was still no sexuality, which were still male-female. Only in the third root race, in the Lemurian time, the division of the sexes occurred and what we call in the physical sense today birth and death. But also something else occurred [in this time], which was not there before: The people did not have the capacity of imagination [in the today's sense] yet. That we can imagine an object today, that is something that only became so in the fifth epoch. I can create a mental image, for example, of a bottle. The [earlier people] could not do that yet. Simultaneously with the physical materiality the ability of imagining developed.

Now, strangely enough, we meet here one of those important historical facts which then led to the foundation of the theosophical movement in the present time. In the last two decades of the nineteenth century natural science came to form ideas about sexual reproduction and about birth and death which the Theosophists had already had centuries ago. The last period, which we have all witnessed, has brought light into the physical reproduction of man and thus also of the higher animals. Today, natural science no longer stands on the same standpoint as twenty years ago, that bisexuality is necessary. You can read this today in works of natural science. Sure and authoritative researches have shown that today's way of reproduction has a completely different meaning than the one that was given to it until now. Because the nature could have been sufficient also with the unisexuality. Today it is quite scientifically proven that two sexes are not necessary for reproduction, that something else was intended with the bisexuality, because one sex would have been sufficient for reproduction. What is the meaning of the bisexuality? There the natural science tells us: The bisexuality has occurred so that a mixture of qualities takes place. Otherwise there would be a much smaller variety in the physical body; the later descendants would always show the same type as the earliest ancestors. In order to mix as many substances as possible, in order to bring about the mixture of properties, nature has given rise to two sexes. A diversity should be brought forth in the third race of mankind. And there also the first animals came into being. The purpose of nature was to bring forth beings as manifold as possible, so that the beings coming down from the spiritual and the astral would find bodies as manifold as possible. Man should find a new body, which has passed through the most manifold mixture, in order not to remain the old type. You see, natural science has investigated here what theosophy has also taught since ancient times.

Now that we have seen both the descent of the spiritual and how the physical comes to meet the descending spiritual, let us again consider the process. What I say are facts, it is quite certain. I will show from both sides the elements that are present in the process of becoming human. First we have to do with the development of the germ, which looks like a small fish in the first days. I need only sketchily indicate this germ; it is something like this. (It was drawn on the blackboard; the drawing has not been preserved). To this comes the astral being about the seventeenth day; and this astral being the psychic investigator knows as well as the physical investigator knows the physical. The seer sees in the astral many funnel-shaped figures. These are the nascent human beings; these are the entities seeking their physical embodiment. Animated by the urgent desire to embody themselves, these entities rush through the astral space with great speed, seeking physical materiality. Who has read the second part of the "Faust" and remembers the scene with the Homunculus, will understand it only if he knows that Goethe wanted to represent this process. These astral formations have the most different colorations, of which we can hardly get an idea. Within this astral body there is a stripe, which loses itself into the indefinite. It is of light yellow color. This astral body connects with the physical body chosen by itself, when the embryo has approximately the shape of a little fish. Then a change occurs. The ray of light splits into two parts, into two brightly shining ray stripes. This is the case with the majority of human beings, and this is how it would appear to you if you could follow human beings as they come into being. Only a few people show a slightly different process. Only a few people show a permanent bright stripe, which, however, fades somewhat at the moment when it disappears completely in other people, but it still remains. These are the people who have spiritual vision.

First of all, we hold on to the usual process, where the light stripe divides. Now the astral entity unites with the physical human germ. From the one droplet everything is flowed through, as it were by a light-yellow liquid. This later grows into the so-called sympathetic nerve plexus, which supplies the physical nervous system of man. Apart from the brain and spinal cord system, we have another nervous system, the sympathetic one, which directs the lower functions. One drop flows through the sympathetic nervous system, the other through the brain and spinal cord system. This is how the human being is animated. Lawfully, the two cones of light pass into the physical and spiritualize it. In every human being, this light appears again, which passes through the brain in particular. When the moment has occurred, what man has brought with him from the former life and what he has from the physical world are actually united. In this way, the two entities that make up the full human being come together.

We have lived in previous incarnations; we have passed through the spiritual world; there we were spirit. The spirit goes down through the astral world and surrounds itself with the astral matter. This is what man brings with him from the former life and what he attracts from the astral sphere. These two things are what man brings with him, the spiritual and the astral. The luminous, these are the abilities that we brought with us from previous lives. These move in after the being has satisfied the burning desire to be connected with an astral organism. From now on, the human germ grows not only by the physical force, but also from within. What he has gained in previous lives, that now works from within to make the body. Not your organism builds your soul, but your soul builds your organism. The human germ is only a few days old when it is united with the soul. It is the only thing that is given to us from outside. It is given to us by very specific laws. We will discuss them in more detail.

In fact, we understand man's birth and death only when we know what two entities he consists of and how these two entities have flowed together, forming the whole man. So it is that we ourselves work on our external organs; they are not a product of the external world, they are a reflection of what we have brought with us.