Notes from Mathilde Scholl 1904–1906

GA 91 — 31 August 1906

9. Christ and Lucifer

In the descent to physical condensation we find that first the physical body was predisposed - Saturn - but was still in close connection with the rest of the physical world, mulberry state. Then the etheric body was predisposed, but also in close connection with the environment - on the sun, sounding. Then the astral body was predisposed, but in close connection with the environment - on the moon, shining. On the earth, after the fertilization with the Monad, and after the development of the disposition of the physical, etheric and astral body had been repeated and consolidated through the three first root races - the Polar, the Hyperborean and the Lemurian - the fabrication of the physical body followed. Only in the fourth root race the correct development and shaping of the physical human body could follow. And only after the physical human body had been formed could the I gain dominion in it. In order for the I to become the ruler, everything must first be eliminated from the astral body which is an obstacle to the emergence of the I, or which would bind the I on a low level. In the astral body lies the power of further development. It is the principle through which the kama, the intrinsic warmth, came into man. Without self-warmth, without self-power, man could not have developed into an independent free being. The development to freedom was conditioned by kama, inherent warmth. On the moon this had prepared itself. What was outside on the moon as wisdom, as light, as fire, the Luciferic, that moved into the individual human being on earth, expressed itself first as reproductive power. What would have been too much of it for the spiritual development of man was expelled from the earth in the moon. But the earth and the human being kept enough own warmth for the further development. The earth did not have its own light; with it the light has condensed to the warmth; therefore it receives the light from the sun, is dependent on the light of the sun. Thus it has also lost its own wisdom. As men on earth received light from the sun, so they received wisdom from higher beings.

Through the purification of the astral body, it becomes the mental body; the I must transform it for this purpose through purification - catharsis. Then the astral body itself becomes luminous. The heat is then transformed into light again. Then the human being has his own light and wisdom again. The purification of the astral body comes from selflessness. Everything that man has in him of selfishness is an impurity of the astral body. He should be there only for the world, not for himself. As long as he kamishly wants something for himself, his astral body is unpurified. As soon as he desires nothing for himself, the kama of selfish passion transforms into the warmth of enthusiasm, of love.

The possibility of the transformation of the kama from the fire of passion into the warmth of love, of compassion, comes into the world through Christ, Budhi, the Love Principle. That has been sunk into man. The purified warmth is love, it is the other pole of wisdom, of light, of the Luciferic principle.

First the heat appears as Kama and uses the Manas for its selfish purposes. Then kama becomes the purified heat, love. After man emanates this purified heat, then the astral body begins to transform into light; love is united with wisdom:

Christ with Lucifer.

Christ and Lucifer, love and wisdom, are basically one, two poles of the same entity, the same force. This purified Kama can now be used by the I to make the etheric body completely self-sufficient. This happens for all people only in the sixth round, but for some, who are ahead in development, already now. Now the further development takes place in such a way that the I, the real human being, the free human being, uses his astral body for the actuation of the manas, the wisdom, the light, in order to work with it into the etheric body, to supply it with forces, to supply Budhi to it, to imbibe it.

Since the etheric body is the spiritual form of the physical body, the life-giving of the physical body, just as the astral body is the life-giving of the etheric body, so also with the transformation of the etheric body the physical body is transformed and prepared to receive Atma, which until then still hovered around it. Then the completion of the physical body also occurs. This happens for all human beings in the seventh round and then to a greater extent on the seventh planet. If man achieves this even now, he has attained the stage of mastery.

First the physical body predisposes itself, [but it is] accomplished last. Then, secondly, the etheric body was predisposed, [but it is] accomplished last but one. Thirdly, the astral body was predisposed, [it is completed as] first. This completion is something different from the outer formation. As far as the external formation is concerned, the physical body was formed first, born out of the environment, then the etheric body, then the astral body - everything in the disposition. Of these, first the astral body became subject to the I, then the etheric body, then the physical body. This ascension will repeat itself to an ever-increasing degree, just as the descent has repeated itself, through planets, rounds, root races, races, and in the individual human being in every life and in the states of sleeping and waking. The reverse repetition will follow in the Ascension:

Waking - sleeping (ascension)
Incarnation - intermediate state (higher worlds)

Ascension in every race, in every root race, in every round, on every planet. The main moment in the conversion to Ascension is the transformation of the Kama into Love and thereby return to the Light, to Wisdom. When man achieves this, he guides himself from then on; he is then no longer dependent on higher entities,

Christ and Lucifer are thus the two poles which hold together the whole development of the earth, between which mankind hovers and to which it must develop upward.