The bringing forth of the secrets of the Mysteries

In perceiving the objects in our environment with our sense-perception, we distinguish three kingdoms, that of minerals, plants, and animals; but the ancient Hebrew did not make this distinction, he regarded them as one and summed them up in the one conception, that of the Kingdom. In the same way as our outer eye perceives animals, plants, and minerals when we direct our glance to the sense-world in which our ego is conscious, so the eye of those able to sink down into their inner nature can perceive everything that is to be perceived in the astral body. These things are not as yet beheld consciously by man through his ego, but the ego makes use of the instruments of the astral body in order to perceive them. What a man sees when he makes use of other powers of perception—that is, when his ego is active in a world with which he is connected through his astral organs—was always described in the ancient Hebrew language by three words. Just as we speak of an animal, plant, and mineral kingdom, they expressed this trinity of the astral body in the three words: Nezach, Jesod, and Hod. If these three expressions are to be made in some way conformable to our language we must enter more deeply into the old Hebrew feeling for language than is possible with the aid of an ordinary lexicon. We must call to our aid the sense for language that existed in pre-Christian times. For example, the combination of sounds in the word Hod sought to express the idea of something spiritual appearing outwardly. Try to picture this something spiritual that desires to make itself known outwardly, to express itself outwardly, but a spirituality that must be conceived of as astral in nature. This desire for outward expression is implied in a much stronger form in the word ‘Nezach.’ What is here striving to reveal itself might perhaps be rendered as ‘Something that appears to be impenetrable.’