Theosophy and Occultism

GA 90c — 30 October 1903, Berlin

XII. The Three Logoi and Man, the Seven Stages of Consciousness

Today we want to start from the question: Do only the beings of the physical plane that are close to human beings have consciousness? Or how does the consciousness of human beings relate to the other beings on the physical plane, to the consciousness of animals, of plants, and of so-called dead stone? Can we also speak of a consciousness of the other kingdoms of nature?

Imagine a small creature that could only see something of a person, for example, a finger moving. [That is all this little creature would see; but it cannot] form a concept of what underlies this movement. This little creature would also have no idea of the human soul and would only see and describe the expressions of his strength. But it could also be the same for a person in relation to other entities. The materialist sees the things, but does not speak of the actual soul of the earth. Could it not be the same for him as for the little creature, which walks around the human being and only sees and describes the details? The little creature itself has no soul consciousness and therefore cannot speak of the soul of the human being. Just like that little creature, the materialist also lacks the soul, therefore he does not recognize the soul of the earth.

The soul of the earth is higher than the human soul. All beings of the physical plane have consciousness. But the consciousness of man differs from that of the other beings in that he lives here on the physical plane with his consciousness.

But during sleep, the human consciousness is also on other planes. In so-called dreamless sleep, the human consciousness lives on the devachan plane, where plant consciousness is always at home. The animal's consciousness lies somewhere between humans and plants on the astral plane. The human being is the being that has its consciousness on the physical plane.

The animal has its consciousness on the astral plane. The plant has its consciousness on the devachan plane. Consciousness on the astral and devachan planes differs significantly from consciousness on the physical plane. For consciousness on the physical plane can only receive ideas and thoughts through the physical organs. Consciousness on the devachan and astral planes only perceives through images and imagination, as was the case with people in prehistoric times.

The conscious astral being has yet another peculiarity: It is not separate from other beings in the same way as the being that has consciousness on the physical plane is separate, but it lives much more behind and within other beings. For the being that has consciousness on the physical plane, it is necessary that everything be conveyed to it through the senses. If its consciousness of an object were astral, the eye would not convey the things; one would perceive nothing at all of an object. On the other hand, an image would arise from which one could deduce from its colors and configuration whether the object is pleasant or unpleasant. The images that previously arose from the objects and hovered in the soul are now completely obscured in today's people, because the physical consciousness is drawn over the objects directly. This is how sense consciousness arises.

Consciousness on the physical plane is a strictly defined circle, something solid that the other beings cannot enter. Consciousness on the astral plane is a cloudy, spiritual thing. Just as liquid, like water, differs from solid, so on the astral plane there is a flowing together of the different contents of consciousness.

Man has formed his physical body himself. Before that, an ancient animal kingdom existed. If one were to see these creatures, they would appear to today's humans like caricatures. The original astral body was able to transform those animals, to refine and develop them into humans. This earlier human being first had an astral consciousness. This first formed and shaped the physical body.

What was the purpose of this next evolution in the physical? Without passing through the physical, that earth creature with the dull consciousness would never have learned to say “I” to itself. The God who dwells in man today, the divine germ, could not enter the astral body other than by condensing it into the physical human body. Before that, the spirit of God was still completely outside the astral body; the “I” was the spirit of the deity. The astral consciousness was similar to water: “The spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters”. The “I” spirit hovered over the original waters of consciousness, over the astral bodies.

The nature kingdoms differ in the occult sense in the way the outer physical body relates to consciousness. Man has brought down consciousness to the physical plane, the animal to the astral plane and the plant to the devachan plane.

The plant becomes an animal when it has brought down consciousness to the astral plane, the animal becomes a human being when it carries consciousness down to the physical plane. The consciousness of the rock is on the higher parts of the devachan plan, namely on the fourth level. The Akashic Records are also located there on the border. The beyond is the plane of silence, a completely different form of existence than the Arupa region of devachan. In this realm lies the consciousness of the entire mineral world. In order to engage with the occult truths in a way that is not only constructive, it is necessary to get a sense of what the mineral actually is. The mineral is essentially different from all other creatures around man. And with mere manasic knowledge, one cannot come to a deeper understanding of the mineral world.

One must gain a moral relationship to the mineral world. To this end, the Rosicrucian schools drew people's attention to the chastity of the mineral world. Through its chastity, the mineral world is a model for man. Man is still flooded with desires and passions.

But imagine a human being so purified that his inner nature is as chaste, as unassuming and as self-contained as the mineral. One cannot say that the mineral kingdom is on a lower level than man. Man here on the physical plane only knows the skin of the mineral kingdom, which is related to the real mineral as the skin of man is to man himself. The mineral is a human being who lives only on the higher parts of the devachanic plane.

One cannot deny consciousness to the series of physical beings, but one must ascribe different forms of consciousness to them: there is a consciousness

— which manifests itself in form three levels lower down: today mineral,

— a consciousness that manifests itself in its forms two levels lower: today plants,

— a consciousness that manifests itself in its forms one level lower: today animals,

— a consciousness that manifests itself at the same level as the being [: today man].

This is the descending line of evolution. In ancient times, man once stood at the level where he is at the level of today's mineral. At that time, he had to be guided by other beings. The purpose of man's development is to emancipate himself from all such entities on the higher planes and to become such an entity on the higher planes himself.

The first stage of consciousness that man has undergone can be called “deepest trance consciousness”. The second stage of consciousness that man has undergone is still found in plants, the “deep sleep consciousness”. The third stage of consciousness that man has undergone is the “dream-filled sleep consciousness”. This “dream-filled sleep consciousness” is still found today in the animal kingdom, but actually only in those animals that have not developed warm blood. The animals that came into being later already have a slightly different consciousness; for example, the apes have a consciousness similar to that of humans. From the consciousness of dream-filled sleep, from the images of this consciousness, a higher animal kingdom develops. The fourth stage of consciousness, which man has reached today, is “object or subject consciousness”.

Today, man has hardly any connection with the first stage of consciousness. But he experiences the second stage, the deep sleep consciousness, during the night; it is an atavistic remnant from the time when he was completely in the sleep consciousness. The third consciousness has remained atavistically present in the chaotic world of dreams. The fourth stage, the normal consciousness, is today's everyday consciousness. The further course of human development consists in the fact that he develops himself up to an even higher consciousness. The fifth stage, which every human being will reach in the future, is where the astral consciousness joins the object consciousness again, where the human being will move fully consciously between the images.

A being with only astral consciousness cannot see the human form, but it can see what is going on inside the human being, every pain, every suffering and so on, it perceives all this, expressed in colors and forms. If object consciousness were to develop in this being, the images would gradually take on fixed boundaries and be superimposed over an object; this would emerge and everything that previously appeared as pleasure and pain would disappear.

Then [in addition to mere astral consciousness] there would come an even higher stage, [something would be added that goes beyond everything that happens in pleasure and pain in the human being]. The medium must extinguish the consciousness of the day and thereby loses the certainty of control. The clairvoyant, however, does not extinguish the physical consciousness, he retains the physical mind and all his physical abilities and in addition develops the consciousness of images. Thus the fifth stage is the conscious consciousness, which in reality encompasses approximately that part of the world that extends to the boundary of the devachan world.

The sixth stage is the state where sleep consciousness becomes a conscious state and delivers not images but sounds. This consciousness occurs in the higher degree of clairvoyance; it is the “otherworldly sound consciousness”. The reality of this is the Pythagorean music of the spheres. This otherworldly sound consciousness arises when sleep becomes not only dreamless but consciously aware in sounds. The awakening of the inner word corresponds to this. This is not a symbol, but true inner reality, the moment when things express themselves as they are. Man lives on the physical plane because he has the power to express his being himself in the I. But at this level of clairvoyance, all beings tell him their name. The whole world takes on the character of flowing sound, and each being in the world of flowing sound is a note that is different from all other beings.

About the even higher seventh state of consciousness, one can only say that it is there. To understand this, a region of the soul must be separable from the physical consciousness.

A human being goes through these seven states of consciousness in his evolution and is now in the middle of the development, at the fourth state. If we were at the fifth, we would also be in the middle again, if we were at a previous level of consciousness, one of the later ones would have disappeared and on the other hand another one would have appeared. So there are always seven levels that can be observed.

In the past, people went through a completely different state of life. Every state of consciousness must pass through seven states of life and every state of life through seven states of form. Seven states of form thus always form a state of life, and seven states of life make up an entire planetary development.

In the first life state, consciousness is three levels higher. In the second life state, consciousness is two levels higher. In the third life state, consciousness is one level higher.

The seven life states are called the “seven realms”. These are the three elemental realms: the mineral, animal and plant kingdoms. The three elemental realms precede the present state of life; human beings had to pass through them before they could emerge from the mineral realm into the fourth state of life, in which they now find themselves.

The process of passing through such a state of life has been called a “round” so far, and this includes seven form metamorphoses. So, in each state of consciousness, one passes through seven states of life and in each state of life, seven states of form. A total of seven times seven times seven metamorphoses of form. In occultism, it is written: 343. A great deal depends on the ability to read this number 7x 7x7 =343. All form states are what is understood by the third logos. The forty-nine life states are the second logos. The seven states of consciousness are the first logos.