# Self-Knowledge and God-Knowledge I

## GA 90a — 30 June 1904, Berlin

### XL. Planetary Chains

To fully understand the evolution of our planet, we need to take another evolution into account. The purpose of development is to bring the Pitri host forward by a certain step. From Kama to the Manasic, through Kama-Manas. The purpose is to do everything that helps the Pitris to develop their consciousness. They had a dull consciousness, quite without M. similar [gap in the transcript]

The intellectual consciousness is now to be developed throughout all 7 x 7 races. So that the earthly [gap in the transcript]

We have become acquainted with the 7x7 levels to a certain extent. Many levels of evolution were needed to bring man to this point. This level of consciousness is also not simply there, but is subject to a certain development.

...higher animal - divine man...

So we have come to know people from the level of consciousness of Pitris - animal man - to that of Mahatma - God man. Three levels precede the consciousness of the animal man, three follow that of the God man. The first in relation to the last is in some respects lower, in others higher.

1.-2.- 3. - 4. our level of consciousness  
5.-6.-7. the coming.

The first is one in which they know everything, but with tremendous dullness. Nothing could happen that they did not know, but dull. Dull omniscience, deepest trance. When the yogi no longer perceives with the brain, but with the bone system. Everything in him is still except for the chemical processes; it is a dull all-consciousness, a stage long since overcome; when it is evoked atavistically, it produces a kind of face of our entire universe. In female individuals, it is even more possible to evoke mineral consciousness through intoxication, pathological means and the like.

The second state of consciousness, where only euthanization is practiced or is not yet developed, is animal consciousness, where only the consciousness associated with the digestive and respiratory systems is developed. It was that of the second Pitris; only the gastric organs perceive; it is plant consciousness, not so omniscient and not so dull, perceiving with the organs of life.

The carbon content within stimulates vegetative life, while oxygen stimulates animal life. By impregnating the body with carbon, the yogi acquires knowledge of all life on earth.

The third level of consciousness is the animal level, which the Pitris go through until they are delivered to us in earthly evolution. Dream trance is the animal consciousness. The animal has a similar one, artificially achieved through / gap in the transcript]

So we have now gone through three levels of consciousness. The fourth is our earthly one. So must

Seven rounds with seven races to develop mineral consciousness,  
seven rounds with seven races to develop plant consciousness,  
seven rounds with seven races to develop animal dream consciousness,  
seven rounds with seven races to develop intellectual consciousness.

Now come the future stages:

7 rounds with 7 races to psychic consciousness - a repetition of the animalistic at a higher level. The medium is

transferred back, the clairvoyant is brought out. Clair consciousness with dream perception. This is why Theosophy frowns upon mediumship.

7 rounds with 7 races in hyperpsychic consciousness, where the

human perceives all life directly, but with an alert

consciousness.

7 rounds with 7 races in spiritual consciousness. The mind

remains, but is expanded to see everything.

These are the seven planetary chains, and when the ancient scriptures speak of seven planets, this is what is meant. The fourth is the earth, esoterically and, of course, exoterically as well. The third was the moon, where the Pitris developed. We have to look at it esoterically, from the point of view of the old mysticism.

The fifth is Mercury, esoterically.

Then we have the two esoteric planets; the Sun, not understood as the Sun, but as an esoteric planet.

Then the sixth esoteric planet, Venus, hyperpsychic, where everything is connected with love, Budhi.

The first esoteric planet is Mars, the seventh is Jupiter. Names for the 7x7 rounds in question. We now know what the astrologers are talking about, seven different levels of consciousness corresponding to seven different cosmological states.

This is the solar system to which our Earth belongs. Each time such a planetary round development takes place, it enters the physical state seven times. The second planet, the Sun, the third, the Moon, and so on, always entered a physical state once.

Always arupa, rupa, astral, physical and upward first.

As a human being on Earth, looking up at the sky, we see the stars that are currently in the physical state in their round development. In addition, countless others are visible to those who are at a different level of consciousness. The present Mars is at the /unreadable] stage of 7x7 round development.

So we have to distinguish between the sevenfold Pitri development – at sevenfold levels of consciousness. This Pitri in this series of development is called the esoteric microcosm. If we imagine it at its first level of consciousness, everything else passes through it. On each planet, all the kingdoms of nature are brought to the Pitri. We call these kingdoms of nature the macrocosm.

So that we can say:

Occult sentence: Our present development consists in the macrocosm meeting the microcosm for the fourth time. In our present development, the macrocosm has been married to the microcosm for the fourth time.

Now we must be clear about what is happening: the cosmos has now united for the fourth time, and this awakens the manas. This alone awakens evil. Manas had to descend into the special being, to awaken the intellectual. When the macrocosm meets the microcosm for the fourth time, four is married to five.

Postscript: Now that Manas is in the particular, he can work on matter out of himself and throw a part out of evolution. The third occult sentence follows from this:

When the macrocosm meets the microcosm for the fourth time, four is married to five and as a result, some of the matter is hurled into space, so that it accompanies the planet as a satellite. This satellite is called the 'Eighth Sphere', and everything that makes it related to it here, parts ways with earthly development.