My Pleroma Esoteric Multiverse ...

THEOSOPHY

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE SUPERSENSIBLE KNOWLEDGE OF THE WORLD AND THE DESTINATION OF MAN

RUDOLF STEINER

TRANSLATED WITH THE PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR FROM THE THIRD GERMAN EDITION

BY
E. D. S. RAND McNALLY & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS CHICAGO I9I0 NEW YORK

CONTENTS

PAGE

Translator's Foreword ix Preface to the First Edition xi Preface to the Third Edition xv Introduction I

CHAPTER

I . THE CONSTITUTION OF THE HUMAN BEING . . . 9 I . THE CORPOREAL BEING OF MAN 15 2 . THE SOUL BEING OF
MAN 18 3 . THE SPIRITUAL BEING OF MAN 20 BODY, SOUL, AND SPIRIT . . . 22 4. II. RE-EMBODIMENT OF THE
SPIRIT AND DESTINY . . 59 RE-INCARNATION AND KARMA 59

[II. THE THREE WORLDS . . . 87 I . THE SOUL WORLD . . . . 87 2 . THE SOUL IN THE SOUL WORLD AFTER DEATH
1o9 3 . THE SPIRIT-LAND . . . 129 4. THE SPIRIT IN THE SPIRIT-LAND AFTER DEATH. ... 141

5 . THE PHYSICAL WORLD AND ITS CONNECTION WITH THE SOUL AND SPIRIT-LANDS 161 6. THOUGHT-FORMS AND THE
HUMAN AURA.. . . 178

IV. THE PATH OF KNOWLEDGE 195 Notes and Amplifications . 225 V11

TRANSLATOR'S FOREWORD

IT is significant of the movement of thought in our time that, although the previous works of Rudolf
Steiner, Ph.D. Vienna, such as his penetrating and suggestive "Erkenntniss Theorie" (Theory of Knowledge),
his works in the field of philosophy such as "Wahrheit and Wissenschaft" (Truth and Science), and

his volumes on the natural science of Goethe, are well known in Germany, it is another class of books by
him, "Die Mystik" (Mysticism), "Das Christentum als Mystische Tatsache" (Christianity as a Fact in
Mysticism), and his distinctively theosophic writings, which are the first to be called for by foreign
readers in their own language.

This work, though now appearing for the first time in English dress, has not only passed into three
editions in Germany, but has been translated into Russian, Swedish, Dutch, Czechish, and Italian, while a
French translation is being prepared.

It were perhaps well to mention that in ix

TRANSLATOR'S FOREWORD

this work the words "know" and "knowledge," when used in reference to the supersensible worlds, involve
actual experience of them gained by man through his higher organs of perception .

The names chosen by the author to describe the higher bodies of man, and other theosophic facts, have
been, as far as possible, retained here. Readers will find that they revert with primitive strength to the
ancient power of names, and are word pictures and also mnemonics of what they represent . They thus
constitute distinct forces too valuable to be

withheld from the English reading public.

Grateful acknowledgment must be expressed here to I. M. M. for her chivalrous help- which indeed made this
translation possible- and to others who have rendered invaluable and willing assistance. E. D. S.

PREFACE

TO THE FIRST EDITION

THIS book will give a description of some of the regions of the supersensible world. The reader who is
willing to admit the existence of the sensible world only will regard this delineation as a mere unreal
production of the imagination. He, however, who looks for paths that lead beyond this world of the senses
will soon learn to understand that human life only gains in worth and significance through sight into
another world. Such a man will not, as many fear, be estranged from the "real" world through this new
power of vision. For only through it does he learn to stand fast and firm in this life. He learns to know
theCAUSES of life, while without it he gropes like a blind man through their EFFECTS. Only through the
understanding of the supersensible does the sensible "real" acquire meaning. One therefore becomes more,
and not less, fit for life through this understanding. Only he who

PREFACE

understands life can become a truly practical man.

The author of this book describes nothing to which he cannot bear witness from experience, that kind of
experience which one has in these regions. Only that which in this sense has been personally experienced
will be dealt with.

One cannot read this book as one is accustomed ordinarily to read books at the present day. In certain
respects every page, and even many a sentence, will have to be WORKED OUT by the reader. This has been
intentionally aimed at. For only in this way can the book become to the reader what it ought to become .
He who merely reads it through will not have read it at all. Its truths must be experienced, lived. Only
in this sense has theosophy any value.

The book cannot be judged from the standpoint of science if the point of view adopted in forming such a
judgment is not gained from the book itself. If the critic will adopt this point of view, he will
certainly see that the presentation of the facts given in this book will in no way conflict with the truly
scientific

PREFACE

methods. The author is satisfied that he has been on the alert not to come into conflict with his own
scientific scrupulousness, even by a single word.

Those who feel more drawn to another method of searching after the truths here set forth will find one in
my "Philosophie derFreiheit" (Philosophy of Freedom), Berlin, 1892. The lines of thought taken in these
two books, though different, lead to the same goal . For the understanding of the one the other is by no
means necessary, although undoubtedly helpful for some persons.

He who looks for "ultimate" truths in this book will, perhaps, lay it aside unsatisfied . The primary
intention of the author has been to give the FUNDAMENTAL TRUTHS underlying the whole domain of theosophy.
It lies in the very nature of man to ask at once about the beginning and the end of the world, the purpose
of existence, and the nature and being of God. Anyone, however, who looks, not for mere phrases and
concepts for the INTELLECT, but for a real understanding of life, knows that in a work which deals with
the elements of wisdom, things MAY not be said which belong

xiv PREFACE

to the higher stages of wisdom. It is, indeed, only through a comprehension of these elements that it
becomes clear how higher questions should be asked. In another work forming a continuation of this one,
namely, in the

author's "Die Geheimwissenscha f t im Umriss"

(An Outline of Occult Science), further particulars on the subject here dealt with will be found.

PREFACE

TO THE THIRD EDITION

ON the appearance of the second edition of this book occasion was taken to preface a few remarks which may
also be said with regard to this third edition. "Amplifications and extensions," which seem to me
important for the more exact description of what is being presented, have again been inserted ; but in no
case have essential alterations of what was contained in the first and second editions seemed necessary.
What was said on the first appearance of the book regarding its aim, and what was added to this in the
second edition, also require, at present, no alteration. In the preface to the second edition the
following supplementary remarks were inserted.

Anyone who at the present time gives a description of supersensible facts ought to be quite clear on two
points . The first is that our age REQUIRES the cultivation of the different branches of supersensible
knowledge. The

xvi PREFACE

other is that the intellectual and spiritual life of the day is full of ideas and feelings which make such
a description appear to many an absolute chaos of fantastic notions and dreams . The present age requires
knowledge of the supersensible because all that a man can come to know by current methods about the world
and life arouses in him numerous questions which can only be answered by means of super- sensible truths.
For one ought not to deceive oneself in regard to the fact that the information concerning the fundamental
truths of existence given within the intellectual and spiritual currents of to-day is, for the souls that
feel deeply, a source not of answers but of QUESTIONS regarding the great problems of the universe and of
life. Some people may, for a time, hold firmly to the opinion that they can find a solution of the
problems of existence within the "results of strictly scientific facts," and within the conclusions of
this or that thinker of the day. But when the soul goes into those depths into which it must go if it is
to understand itself, what at first seemed to be a solution becomes evident as being only the incentive to
the true question. And an answer

PREFACE xvii

to THIS question is not intended to be brought forward merely as a response to human curiosity ; on it,
rather, depend the inner calm and completeness of the soul life . The attainment of such an answer does
not satisfy merely the thirst for knowledge ; it makes a man capable of practical work and fitted for the
duties of life, while the lack of a solution of these questions lames his soul, and finally his body also
. In fact, the knowledge of the supersensible is not merely something that meets a theoretical requirement
; it supplies a method for leading a truly practical life. Exactly on account of the nature of the
intellectual and spiritual life of the present time, therefore, theosophy is a domain of knowledge
indispensable for our age.

On the other hand, it is an evident fact that many to-day reject most strongly what they most sorely need.
The dominating influence exercised by many theories built up on the basis of "exact scientific experience"
is so great on some people that they cannot do otherwise than regard the contents of a book like this as a
boundless absurdity. The exponent of super- sensible truths can view such facts entirely

xvm PREFACE

free from any illusions. People will certainly be prone to demand from him that he should give
"irrefutable proofs" for what he states . 'But they do not realize that in doing this they are the victims
of a misconception, for they demand, although unconsciously, not the proofs lying within the things
themselves, but those which they personally are willing to recognize or are in a condition to recognize .
The author of this work knows that it contains nothing that any person taking his stand on the basis of
the natural science of the present day will be unable to accept. He knows that all the requirements of
natural science can be complied with, and FOR THIS VERY REASON the method adopted here of presenting the
facts of the supersensible world supplies its own justification. In fact, the manner in which a true
natural science approaches and deals with a subject is the very one in full harmony with this
presentation. And anyone accustomed to think in that manner will be moved by many a discussion to feel in
the way characterized in Goethe's deep and true saying, "A false teaching does not offer any opening to
refutation, for it is, in fact, based on the conviction that

PREFACE xix

the false is true." Discussions are fruitless with those who allow only such proofs to weigh with them as
fit in with their own manner of thinking. He who knows the true essence of what is called "proving" a
matter sees clearly that the human soul finds truth by other ways than discussion. It is with these
thoughts in mind that the author hands over this book for publication in its second edition.

Unfortunately, too long a time has elapsed between the date at which the second edition was exhausted and
the appearance of this third edition. Pressing work of other kinds, in the domain to which this book is
devoted, delayed the author in the examination he wished to give to the book, and prevented its appearing
as soon as he had hoped .

RUDOLF STEINER.

THEOSOPHY

INTRODUCTION

WHEN JOHANN GOTTLIEB FICHTE, in the autumn of 1813, gave to the world his "Introduction to the Science of
Knowledge" as the ripe fruit of a life wholly devoted to the service of truth, he said, at the very
beginning : "This science presupposes an entirely new inner sense organ or instrument, by means of which
there is revealed a new world which does not exist for the ordinary man." And he proceeded to give the
following comparison to show how incomprehensible this doctrine of his must be when judged by means of
conceptions founded on the ordinary senses : "Think of a world of people born blind, who therefore know
only those objects and relations which exist through the sense of touch. Go among them and speak to them
of colors and the other

a THEOSOPHY

relations which exist only through light and for the sense of sight. Either you convey nothing to their
minds, and this is the more fortunate if they tell you so, for you will in that way quickly notice the
mistake and, if unable to open their eyes, will cease the useless speaking. . . ." Now those who speak to
people about such things as Fichte deals with in this instance find themselves only too often in a
position like that of a man who can see among the born blind. But these are things that refer to man's
true being and highest goal, and to believe it necessary "to cease the useless speaking" would amount to
despairing of humanity. On the contrary, one should not for one moment doubt the possibility of opening
the eyes of everyone to these things, provided that he is in earnest in the matter . On this supposition
have all those written and spoken who felt that within themselves the "inner sense- instrument" had grown
by which they were able to know the true nature and being of man, which is hidden from the outer senses .
This is why from the most ancient times such a "Hidden Wisdom" has been again and again spoken of. Those
who have grasped some

INTRODUCTION

thing of it feel just as sure of their possession as people with normal eyes feel sure that they possess
the conception of color. For them this "Hidden Wisdom" requires no "proof." They know also that it
requires no proof for any other person who, like themselves, has unfolded the "higher sense." Such a one
can speak as a traveler can about America to people who have not themselves seen that country, but who can
form a conception of it because they would see all that he has seen if the opportunity presented itself to
them.

But not only to such has the investigator of the higher truth to speak. He must address his words to all
mankind . For he has to make known things that concern all humanity. Indeed he knows that without a
knowledge of these things no one can, in the true sense of the word, be a "human being." And he speaks to
all mankind because he knows that there are different grades of understanding for what he has to say. He
knows that even those who are still far from the moment in which they will themselves be capable of
spiritual investigation can bring a certain measure of understanding to meet him. For the FEELING for

THEOSOPHY

truth and the power of UNDERSTANDING it is inherent in EVERY human being. And to this UNDERSTANDING, which
can flash forth in every healthy soul, he in the first place addresses himself. He also knows that in this
UNDERSTANDING there is a force which, little by little, must lead to the higher grades of KNOWLEDGE. This
feeling, which perhaps at first sees NOTHING AT ALL of that which is told it, is itself the magician which
opens the "eye of the spirit." In darkness this feeling stirs ; the soul does not SEE, but through this
feeling it is seized by the POWER of THE TRUTH ; and then the truth will gradually draw nearer to the soul
and open in it the "higher sense ." For one person it may take a longer, for another a shorter time, but
everyone who has patience and endurance reaches this goal . For although not every physical eye can be
operated on, EVERY SPIRITUAL EYE can be opened,

and when it will be opened is only a question of time.

Erudition and scientific training are not essential to the unfolding of this "higher sense." It can be
developed in the simpleminded person just as in the scientist of high

INTRODUCTION

standing. Indeed, what is often called at the present time "the only true science" can, for the attainment
of this goal, be a hindrance rather than a help. For this science too often permits to be considered
"real" only what is perceptible to the ordinary senses. And however great its merit is in regard to the
knowledge of THAT reality, it creates at the same time a mass of prejudices which close the approach to
higher realities .

In objection to what is said here it is often brought forward that "insurmountable limits" have been once
and forever set to human knowledge, and that, since one cannot pass beyond these limits, all branches of
investigation and knowledge which do not take them into account must be rejected. And a person who wishes
to make assertions about things which many regard as proved to lie beyond the limits that have been set to
human capacities of knowledge, is looked upon as highly presumptuous. Those who make such objections
entirely disregard the fact that a DEVELOPMENT of the human powers of knowledge has to precede the higher
knowledge. What lies beyond the limits of knowledge BEFORE

THEOSOPHY

such a development is, after the awakening of faculties slumbering in each human being, entirelyWITHINthe
realm of knowledge. One point in this connection must, indeed, not be neglected. One could say, "Of what
use is it to speak to people about things for which their powers of knowledge are not yet awakened, and
which are therefore still closed to them?" But that is also the wrong way to look at it . One requires
certain faculties to FIND OUT the things referred to ; but if, after having been found out, they are made
known, EVERY PERSON can understand who is willing to bring to bear upon them unprejudiced logic and a
healthy instinct for truth. In this book the things made known are of no other kind than such as can
produce the impression that through them the riddle of human life and the phenomena of the world find a
satisfying explanation. This it can do on anyone who allows thinking that looks at all sides of a subject
and is unclouded by prejudice, and a feeling for truth that is free, and sets no reserves, to take effect.
Let one merely place himself in the attitude of asking, "If the things that are asserted here are true, do
they afford a satisfy

INTRODUCTION

ing explanation of life?" and one will find that the life of each human being supplies the confirmation.

In order to be a "teacher" in these higherregions of existence, it is by no means sufficientthat a person
has developed the sense for them. For that purpose "science" is necessary, just asmuch as it is necessary
for the teacher's callingin the region of ordinary reality . "Higherseeing" alone makes a "knower" in the
spiritualjust as little as healthy sense organs make a"scholar" in regard to the sensible realities . And
because in truth ALL reality, the lowerand the higher spiritual, are only two sides ofone and the same
fundamental essence, anyonewho is unlearned in the lower branches of knowledge will as a rule remain so in
regardto the higher. This fact creates a feeling ofresponsibility that is immeasurable in himwho, by a
spiritual call, is destined to be ateacher in the spiritual regions of existence. It creates in him
humility and reservedness . 'But it should deter no one from occupyinghimself with the higher truths, not
even himwhose other circumstances of life afford no opportunity for the study of ordinary science.

THEOSOPHY

For one can, indeed, fulfill one's task as a human being without understanding anything of botany,
zoology, mathematics, and other sciences ; but one cannot, in the full sense of the word, be a "human"
being without having, in some way or other, come near to a perception of the nature and destination of man
revealed in the "Higher Wisdom ."

The highest to which a man is able to look up he calls the "Divine." And he has in some way or other to
bring his highest destination into connection with this Divinity. For this reason the higher wisdom which
reveals to him his own being, and with it his destination, may very well be called "Divine Wisdom," or
THEOSOPHY.

From the point of view here indicated there will be sketched in this book an outline of the theosophical
interpretation of the universe . The writer of it will present nothing that is not a FACT for him, in the
same sense as an experience of the outer world is a fact for eyes and ears and the ordinary intelligence .
Indeed, experiences will be dealt with which become accessible to each person who is determined to tread
the "path of knowledge" described in a special section of this work .

CHAPTER I

THE CONSTITUTION OF THE HUMAN BEING

THE following words of Goethe's describe, in a beautiful manner, the starting point of one of the ways by
which the constitution of man can be known : "When a person first becomes aware of the objects surrounding
him, he observes them in relation to himself, and rightly so, for his whole fate depends on whether they
please or displease him, attract or repel, help or harm him. This quite natural way of looking at and
judging things appears to be as easy as it is necessary. Nevertheless, a person is exposed through it to a
thousand errors which often cause him shame and embitter his life. A far more difficult task do those
undertake whose keen desire for knowledge urges them to strive to observe the objects of nature in
themselves and in their relations to each other, for they soon miss the gauge which helped them when they,
as persons,

To THEOSOPHY

regard the objects in reference to THEMSELVES personally. They lack the gauge of pleasure and displeasure,
attraction and repulsion, usefulness and harmfulness ; this gauge they have to renounce entirely. They
should, as dispassionate and, so to speak, divine beings, seek and examine what is, and not what
gratifies. Thus the true botanist should not be affected either by the beauty or by the usefulness of the
plants . He has to study their structure and their relation to the rest of the vegetable kingdom ; and
just as they are one and all enticed forth and shone upon by the sun, so should he with an equable, quiet
glance look at and survey them all and obtain the gauge for this knowledge, the data for his deductions,
not out of himself, but from within the circle of things which he observes."

The thought thus expressed by Goethe directs attention to three kinds of things. First, the objects
concerning which information continually flows to man through the doors of his senses, those that he
touches, smells, tastes, hears, and sees. Second, the impressions which these make on him, and which
record themselves as his pleasure and displeasure, his

CONSTITUTION OF THE HUMAN BEING i i

desire or abhorrence, according as he finds one harmonious, another inharmonious, one useful, another
harmful. Third, the knowledge and the experiences which he, as a so-to-speak "divine being," gains
concerning the objects- the secrets of their activities and their being which unveil themselves to him .

These three regions are distinctly separate in human life. And man thereby becomes aware that he is
interwoven with the world in a threefold way. The first way is something that he finds present and accepts
as a given fact . Through the second way he makes the world into his own affair, into something that has a
significance for himself. The third way he regards as a goal toward which he has unceasingly to strive.

Why does the world appear to man in this threefold way? The simplest consideration will explain that. I
cross a meadow covered with flowers. The flowers make their colors known to me through my eyes. That is
the fact which I accept as given . I rejoice in the splendor of the colors. Through this I turn the fact
into an affair of my own. By means of my feelings I link the flowers with my own

THEOSOPHY

existence. A year after I go again over the same meadow. Other flowers are there. New joy arises in me
through them. My joy of the former year will appear as a memory . It is in me; the object which aroused it
in me is gone . 'But the flowers which I now see are of the same species as those I saw the year before ;
they have grown in accordance with the same laws as did the others. If I have enlightened myself regarding
this species and these laws, I find them again in the flowers of this year as I recognized them in those
of the former year . And I shall perhaps muse as follows : "The flowers of last year are gone ; my joy in
them remains only in my remembrance. It is bound up with MY existence alone. That, however, which I
recognized in the flowers of the former year and recognize again this year, will remain as long as such
flowers grow. That is something that revealed itself to me, but which is not dependent on my existence in
the same way as my joy is. My feelings of joy remain in me ;

the laws, the BEING of the flowers, remain outside of me in the world."

Man continually links himself in this threefold way with the things of the world. One

CONSTITUTION OF THE HUMAN BEING 1 3

should not for the time being read anything into this fact, but merely take it as it presents itself. It
makes it evident that man has THREE SIDES TO HIS NATURE. This and nothing else will for the present be
indicated here by the three words BODY, SOUL, and SPIRIT. He who connects any preconceived meanings, or
even hypotheses, with these three words will necessarily misunderstand the following explanations.
ByBODYis here meant that by which the things in the environment of a man reveal themselves to him, as in
the example just cited, the flowers of the meadow. By the wordSOUL is signified that by which he links the
things to his own being, through which he experiences pleasure and displeasure, desire and aversion, joy
and sorrow. By SPIRIT is meant that which becomes manifest in him when, as Goethe expressed it, he looks
at things as "a so-to-speak divine being." In this sense the human being consists of BODY, SOUL, and
SPIRIT.

Through his body man is able to place himself for the time being in connection with the things ; through
his soul he retains in himself the impressions which they make on him ; through his spirit there reveals
itself to him

THEOSOPHY

what the things retain in themselves. Only when one observes man in these three aspects can one hope to
gain light on his whole being . For these three aspects show him to be related in a threefold way to the
rest of the world.

Through his body he is related to the objects which present themselves to his senses from without. The
materials from the outer world compose this body of his ; and the forces of the outer world work also in
it. And just as he observes the things of the outer world with his senses, he can also observe his own
bodily existence. But it is impossible to observe the soul existence in the same way. All occurrences
connected with my body can be perceived with my bodily senses. My likes and dislikes, my joy and pain,
neither I nor anyone else can perceive with bodily senses. The region of the soul is one which is
inaccessible to bodily perception. The bodily existence of a man is manifest to all eyes ; the soul
existence he carries within himself as HIS world. Through the SPIRIT, however, the outer world is revealed
to him in a higher way. The mysteries of the outer world, indeed, unveil themselves in his

inner being; but he steps in spirit out of him

CONSTITUTION OF THE HUMAN BEING 15

self and lets the things speak about themselves, about that which has significance not for him but for
THEM. Man looks up at the starry heavens; the delight his soul experiences belongs to him ; the eternal
laws of the stars which he comprehends in thought, in SPIRIT, belong not to him but to the stars
themselves .

Thus man is citizen of THREE WORLDS. Through his BODY he belongs to the world which he perceives through
his body ; through his SOUL he constructs for himself his own world ; through his SPIRIT a world reveals
itself to him which is exalted above both the others.

It is evident that because of the essential differences of these three worlds, one can obtain a clear
understanding of them and of man's share in them only by means of three different modes of observation .

I . THE CORPOREAL BEING OF MAN One learns to know the body of man through the bodily senses. And the way
of observing it can differ in no way from that by which one learns to know other objects perceived by the
senses. As one observes min

i6 THEOSOPHY

erals, plants, animals, so can one observe man also. He is related to these three forms of existence. Like
the minerals he builds his body out of the materials in nature ; like the plants he grows and propagates
his species ; he perceives the objects around him and, like the animals, forms on the basis of the
impressions they make his inner experiences. One may therefore ascribe to man a mineral, a plant, and an
animal existence.

The difference in the structure of minerals, plants, and animals corresponds with these three forms of
existence. And it is this structure, this shape which one perceives through the senses, and which alone
one can call body . But the human body is different from that of the animal. This difference everybody
must recognize whatever may be his opinion in other respects regarding the relationship of man to animals.
Even the most radical materialist who denies all soul will not be able to avoid agreeing with the
following sentence which Carus utters in his "Organon der Natur anddes Geistes" : "The finer, inner
construction of the nervous system, and especially of the brain, remains as yet an unsolved problem to the

CONSTITUTION OF THE HUMAN BEING i7

physiologist and the anatomist ; but that this concentration of the structure increases more and more in
the animal, and in man reaches a stage unequaled in any other being, is a fully established fact, a fact
which is of the deepest significance in regard to the spiritual evolution of man, of which, indeed, we may
frankly say it is a sufficient explanation . Where, therefore, the structure of the brain has not
developed properly, where its smallness and poverty show themselves, as in the case of microcephali and
idiots, it goes without saying that one can as little expect the appearance of original ideas and of
knowledge, as one can expect propagation of species in persons with completely stunted organs of
generation. On the other hand, a strong and beautiful construction of the whole person, especially of the
brain, will certainly not in itself take the place of genius, but it will at any rate supply the first and
indispensable requirement for higher knowledge." Just as one ascribes to the human body the three forms of
existence, mineral, plant, animal, one must now ascribe to it yet a fourth, the distinctively HUMAN form.
Through his mineral form of existence man

THEOSOPHY

related to everything visible, through his

Cant- like form of existence to all beings that grow and propagate their species, through his animal
existence to all those that perceive their surroundings, and by means of external impressions have inner
experiences . Through his human form of existence he constitutes, even in regard to his body alone, a
kingdom by himself.

2. THE SOUL BEING OF MAN The soul being of man differs from his corporality through being his own inner
world . This inner world peculiar to each person faces one the moment one directs one's attention to the
simplest sensation. One finds, in the first place, that no one can know if another person perceives even
the simplest sensation in exactly the same way as one does oneself. It is known that there are people who
are color- blind. They see things only in different shades of gray. Others are partially color- blind.
They are unable, because of this, to perceive certain shades of colors. The picture of the world which
their eyes give them is different from that of so-called normal per

CONSTITUTION OF THE HUMAN BEING i9

sons. And the same holds good in regard to the other senses. It will be seen, therefore, without further
elaboration, that even simple sensations belong to the inner world. I can perceive with my bodily senses
the red table which another person also perceives ; but I cannot perceive his sensation of red. One must
therefore describe sensation as belonging to the SOUL. If one grasps this fact alone quite clearly, he
will soon cease to regard inner experiences AS MERE brain processes or something similar. The first result
of sensation is FEELING. One sensation causes man pleasure, another displeasure. These are stirrings of
his inner, his soul life. Man creates in his feelings a second world in addition to that which works on
him from without. And a third is added to this-the will . Through it man reacts on the outer world. And he
thereby stamps the impress of his inner being on the outer world. The soul of man, as it were, flows
outward in the activities of his will. The actions of the human being differ from the occurrences of outer
nature in that they bear the impress of his inner life . In this way the 'SOUL represents what is man's
own in

2o THEOSOPHY

contradistinction to the outer world. He receives from the outer world the incitements ; but he creates,
in responding to these incitements, a world of his own. The corporality becomes the foundation of the soul
being of man.

3. THE SPIRITUAL BEING OF MAN The soul being of man is not determined by the body alone. Man does not
wander aimlessly and without a goal from one sensation to another; neither does he act under the influence
of every casual incitement directed on him either from without or through the processes of his body. He
THINKS about his perceptions and his acts . By thinking about his perceptions he gains knowledge of things
; by thinking about his acts he introduces a reasonable coherence into his life. He knows also that he
will fulfill his duty as a human being only when he lets himself be guided by CORRECT THINKING in
knowledge as well as in acts . The soul of man, therefore, faces a twofold necessity. The laws of the body
govern it in accordance with the necessities of nature, but it allows itself to be governed by

CONSTITUTION OF THE HUMAN BEING 21

the laws which guide it to exact thinking because it voluntarily acknowledges their necessity. Nature
subjects man to the laws of the change of matter, but he subjects himself to the laws of thought. By this
means he makes himself a member of a higher order than that to which he belongs through his body. And this
order is the SPIRITUAL. The soul is as different from the body as the body is different from the soul. So
long as one speaks only of the particles of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen which stir in the body,
one has not the soul in view. The soul life begins only when within the motion of these particles
sensation arises, and one can say : "I taste sweetness" or "I feel pleasure." Just as little has one the
SPIRITUAL in view when one considers merely the soul experiences which course through a man who gives
himself over entirely to the outer world and his bodily life . Rather is this soul life merely the basis
for the spiritual, just as the body is the basis of the soul life. The naturalist, or investigator of
nature, has to do with the body, the investigator of the soul (the psychologist) with the soul, and the
investigator of the spirit with the SPIRIT. To

THEOSOPHY

realize what one is in oneself, and thus become clear as to the difference between body, soul, and spirit,
is a requirement which must be demanded from those who wish by thinking to enlighten themselves regarding
the constitution of man.

4. BODY, SOUL, AND SPIRIT Man can enlighten himself in a correct way concerning himself only when he
grasps the significance of THINKING within his being. The brain is the bodily instrument for thinking.
Just as man can only see colors with a properly constructed eye, so the suitably constructed brain serves
him for thought. The whole body of man is so formed that it receives its crown in the organ of the spirit,
the brain . One can understand the construction of the human brain only by observing it in relation to its
task, which consists in being the instrument or tool for the thinking spirit . This is borne out by a
comparative survey of the animal world. Among amphibians we find the brain small in comparison with the
spinal cord, in mammals it is proportionately larger, in man it is largest in comparison with the

CONSTITUTION OF THE HUMAN BEING 23

rest of the body. There are many prejudices prevalent regarding such statements about THINKING as are
brought forward here. Many persons are inclined to undervalue THINKING, and to place higher the "warm life
of feeling" or "emotion." Some, indeed, say it is not by "dry thinking" but by warmth of feeling, by the
immediate power of "the emotions," that one raises oneself to higher knowledge. Persons who speak thus
fear to blunt the feelings by clear thinking. This certainly results from the ordinary thinking that
refers only to matters of utility. But in the case of thoughts that lead to higher regions of existence,
the opposite is the result. There is no feeling and no enthusiasm to be compared with the sentiments of
warmth, beauty, and exaltation which are enkindled through the

pure, crystal-clear thoughts which refer to the higher worlds. For the highest feelings are, as a matter
of fact, not those which come "of themselves," but those which are gained by energetic and persevering
thinking. The human body has a construction adapted to THINKING. The same materials and forces which are
present in the mineral kingdom are

THEOSOPHY

so combined in the human body that by means of these combinations thought can manifest itself. This
mineral construction, formed as a suitable instrument for its work, will be called in the following pages
the PHYSICAL BODY of man. (In theosophical literature it is called "Sthula sharira .")

This organized mineral construction with the brain as its center comes into existence by. PROPAGATION, and
reaches its developed form through GROWTH. Propagation and growth man has in common with plants and
animals . Propagation and growth distinguish what is living from the lifeless mineral. What lives comes
forth from the living by means of the germ. The descendant follows the forefathers in the succession of
the living . The forces through which a mineral originates we must look for in the materials themselves
which compose it. A quartz crystal is formed by the forces united in it, and inherent in the silicon and
oxygen. The forces which shape an oak tree we must look for in a roundabout way in the germ in the mother
and father plants. The FORM of the oak is preserved through propagation from forefathers to

CONSTITUTION OF THE HUMAN BEING 25

descendants. There are INNER DETERMINING FORCES INNATE in all that is living. It was a crude view of
nature which held that lower animals, even fishes, could evolve out of mud . The form of the living passes
itself on by means of HEREDITY. The manner in which a living being develops depends on what father and
mother beings it has sprung from or, in other words, on the SPECIES to which it belongs. The materials of
which it is composed change continually; the SPECIES remains during life, and is transmitted to the
descendants. Thus the SPECIES is that which conditions the organizing and molding of the materials. This
species-forming force will here be called LIFE-FORCE (in theosophical literature it is called "Prana") .
Just as the mineral forces express themselves in crystals, so the life-force expresses itself in the
species

or form of plant and animal life .

The mineral forces are perceived by man by means of the bodily senses . And he can only perceive that for
which he has such senses. Without the eye there is no perception of light, without the ear no perception
of sound . The lowest order of organic beings has only a

THEOSOPHY

kind of sense of touch. For these there exist only those mineral forces of which the sense oftouch enables
them to become aware. In proportion as the other senses are developed inthe higher animals is the
surrounding world richer and more varied for them . It depends, therefore, on the organs of a being
whetherthat which exists in the outer world exists also for the being itself, as perception, as sensation
. What is present in the air as a certain motionbecomes in man the sensation of hearing . Man does not
perceive the manifestations ofthe life-force through the ordinary senses. He SEES the colors of the plants
; he SMELLS their perfume ; the life-force remains hidden fromTHISform of observation. But the ordinary
senses have just as little right to deny theexistence of the life-force as has the man born blind to deny
that colors exist . Colors are there for the person born blind just as soon ashe has been operated upon ;
in the same way, the life-force, as creating the various species ofplants and animals created by it, is
presentto man as an object of perception as soon asthe necessary organ unfolds within him. An entirely new
world opens out to man through

CONSTITUTION OF THE HUMAN BEING 27

the unfolding of this organ . He now perceives, not merely the colors, the odors, etc., of the beings, but
THESE BEINGS THEMSELVES. In each plant, in each animal, he perceives, besides the physical form, the
LIFEFILLED SPIRIT-FORM. In order to have a name for this spirit-form let it be called the ETHERBODY, or
LIFE-BODY.

To the investigator of spiritual life this matter presents itself in the following manner : The ether-body
is for him not merely a product of the materials and forces of the physical body, but a real independent
entity which first calls forth these physical materials and forces into life. One speaks in harmony with
spiritual science when one says : a mere physical

body, a crystal for example, has its form by means of the physical formative forces dwelling within it. A
living body does NOT have its form by means of THESE forces, for in the moment in which life is extinct in
it, and it is given over to the physical forces ONLY, it falls to pieces. The ether-body is an organism
which preserves the physical body every moment during life from dissolution. In order to SEE this body, to
perceive it in another

THEOSOPHY

being, one requires the awakened "SPIRITUAL EYE." Without this, one can accept its existence as a fact on
logical grounds ; but one can SEE it with the spiritual eye as one sees a color with the physical eye. One
should not take offense at the expression "ether-body." "Ether" here designates something different from
the hypothetical ether of the physicist . One should regard the thing simply as a name for what is
described here. And just as the physical body of man is constructed in conformity with its set task, so is
it also in conformity with the ether-body of man . One can understand it also only when one observes it in
relation to the thinking spirit. The ether- body of man differs from that of plants and animals through
being organized so as to serve the requirements of the thinking spirit. Just as man belongs to the mineral
world through his physical body, he belongs through his ether-body to the life-world . After death the
physical body dissolves into the mineral world, the ether-body into the life-world . (In theosophical
literature the human ether-body is called "Linga sharira.") By the word "body" is designated what in any
way gives a

CONSTITUTION OF THE HUMAN BEING 29

being "shape" or "form." The word used in this sense must not be confused with the word body when used to
designate physically sensible bodies. Used in this sense the term body can also be applied to forms which
soul and spirit may assume.

In the life-body we still have something external to man. With the first stirrings of sensation the inner
self responds to the excitations of the outer world. You may trace what one is justified in calling the
outer world ever so far, but you will not be able to find the sensation. Rays of light stream into the
eye, penetrating till they reach the retina. There they call forth chemical processes (in the so-called
visual-purple) ; the effect of this stimulus is passed on through the optic nerve to the brain ; there
further physical processes arise. Could one observe these one would see more physical processes, just as
elsewhere in the physical world. If I am able to observe the ether- body, I will see how the physical-
brain process is at the same time a life-process . But the sensation of blue color which the recipient of
the rays of light has, I can find nowhere in this manner. It arises only within the soul of the

THEOSOPHY

recipient. If, therefore, the being of the recipient consisted only of the physical body and the ether-
body, sensation could not exist . The activity by which sensation becomes a fact differs essentially from
the operations of the life-force. By that activity an inner experience is called forth from these
operations. Without this activity there would be a mere life-process, such as one observes in plants. If
one tries to picture how a human being receives impacts from all sides, one must think of him at the same
time as the source of the above-mentioned activity which streams out toward every point from which he
received these impacts. Sensations respond in all directions to the impacts. This fountain of activity is
to be called the SENTIENT-SOUL.

(It is the same as that which in theosophical literature is called "Kama.") This sentient- soul is just as
real as the physical body. If a man stand before me and I disregard his sentient-soul by thinking of him
as merely a physical body, it is exactly as if I were to call up in my mind, instead of a painting-merely
the canvas.

A similar statement has to be made in

CONSTITUTION OF THE HUMAN BEING 31

regard to perceiving the sentient-soul as was previously made in reference to the ether- body. The bodily
organs are "blind" to it. And blind to it is also the organ by which life as life can be perceived. But
just as the ether- body is seen by means of this organ, the inner world of sensation itself can be seen
through a still higher organ. A man then not only senses the impressions of the physical and life worlds,
but he BEHOLDS the sensations themselves. Before a man with such an organ the world of the sensations of
another being is spread out like an open and, for him, a legible book. One must distinguish between
experiencing one's own sensation world and looking at the sensation world of another. Every man of course
can see into his own sensation world ; only the SEER with the opened "spiritual eye" can SEE the sensation
world of another. Unless a man be a seer he knows the sensation world only as an "inner" one, only as the
peculiar hidden experiences of his own soul ; with the opened "spiritual eye" there shines out before the
external spiritual gaze what otherwise lives only in the "inner" being of another.

THEOSOPHY

The sentient-soul depends, as regards its activity, on the ether-body because it draws from it that which
it will cause to gleam forth as sensation. And since the ether-body is the life within the physical body,
the sentient- soul is indirectly dependent on the latter. Only with correctly-functioning and well-
constructed eyes are correct color sensations possible. It is in this way that the corporality affects the
sentient-soul . The latter is thus determined and limited in its efficaciousness by the body. It lives
therefore within the limitations fixed for it by the corporality. The BODY accordingly is built up of
mineral materials, is vitalized by the ether-body, and itself limits the sentient-soul . He, therefore,
who has the above-mentioned organ for "seeing" the sentient-soul, sees it limited by the body. But the
limits of the sentient-soul do not coincide with those of the physical body . The soul extends somewhat
beyond it. By this one sees that it proves itself more powerful than the physical body. But the force
through which its limits are set proceeds from the physical body. So that between the physical body and
the ether-body on the one hand,

CONSTITUTION OF THE HUMAN BEING 33

and the sentient-soul on the other, there inserts itself another distinct member of the human
constitution. This is the SOUL-BODY, or sentient body. (It is called in theosophical literature "astral
shape," or "Kama Rupa ;" "Rupa" signifies form or shape.) One can also say: a part of the ether-body is
finer than the rest, and this finer part of the ether-body forms a unity with the SENTIENT-SOUL, whereas
the coarser part forms a kind of unity with the physical body. Nevertheless, the sentient- soul extends,
as has been said, beyond the soul- body.

What is here called sensation is only a part

of the soul being. (The expression sentient- soul is chosen for the sake of simplicity.) Connected with
sensations are the feelings of desire and aversion, impulses, instincts, passions. All this bears the same
character of individualized life as do the sensations, and is, like them, dependent on the corporality .

Just as the sentient-soul enters into mutual action and reaction with the body, so does it also with
thinking, with the spirit . Thought, among other things, is of immediate service to it. Man forms thoughts
about his sensations.

THEOSOPHY

In this way he enlightens himself regarding the outside world. The child that has burnt itself thinks it
over, and reaches the thought "fire burns." Also man does not follow blindly his impulses, instincts,
passions ; his thought over them brings about the opportunity by which he can gratify them . What one
calls material civilization moves entirely in this direction. It consists in the services which thinking
renders to the sentient-soul. Immeasureable quantities of thought-power are directed to this end. It is
thought-power that has built ships, railways, telegraphs, telephones ; and by far the greatest proportion
of all this serves only to satisfy the needs of the sentient-soul . Thought-force permeates the sentient-
soul in a similar way to that in which the life-force permeates the physical body. Life-force connects the
physical body with forefathers and descendants, and thus brings it under a system of laws with which the
purely mineral body is in no way concerned. In the same way thought-force brings the soul under a system
of laws to which it does not belong as mere sentient-soul. Through the sentient-soul man is related to the
animals .

CONSTITUTION OF THE HUMAN BEING 35

In animals, also, we observe the presence of sensations, impulses, instincts, and passions . But the
animal obeys these immediately. They do not, in its case, become interwoven with independent THOUGHTS,
transcending the immediate experiences. This is also the case to a certain extent with undeveloped human
beings. The mere sentient-soul is therefore different from the evolved higher member of the soul which
brings thinking into its service. This soul that is served by thought will be designated the intellectual-
soul. One could call it also the emotional thought-soul. (Theosophical literature calls it "Kama manas.")

The intellectual-soul permeates the sentient- soul. He who has the organ for "seeing" the soul sees,
therefore, the intellectual-soul as a separate entity, distinct from the mere sentient- soul .

By thinking man is raised above and beyond his own personal life. He acquires something that extends
beyond his soul . He comes to take for granted his conviction that the laws of thought are in conformity
with the laws of the world. And he feels at home in

THEOSOPHY

the world because this conformity exists. This conformity is one of the important facts through which man
learns to know his own nature. Man searches in his soul for truth ; and through this truth it is not only
the soul that speaks, but the things of the world. That which is recognized as truth by means of thought
has an INDEPENDENT SIGNIFICANCE, which refers to the things of the world, and not merely to one's own
soul. -My delight in the starry heavens is part of my own inner being; the thoughts which I form for
myself about the courses of the heavenly bodies have the same significance for the thinking of every other
person as they have for mine . It would be absurd to speak of MY delight were I not in existence ; but it
is not in the same way absurd to speak of my thoughts, even WITHOUT REFERENCE to myself. For the truth
which I think to-day was true yesterday also, and will beTRUE to-morrow, although I concern myself with it
only to-day. If a piece of knowledge gives me joy, the joy has significance just so long as it lives in
me. The TRUTH of the knowledge has its significance quite independently of the joy. By grasping the truth
the

CONSTITUTION OF THE HUMAN BEING 37

soul connects itself with something that carries its worth in itself . And this worth does not vanish with
the feeling in the soul any more than it arose with it. What is really truth neither arises nor passes
away ; it has a significance which cannot be destroyed. This is not contradicted by the fact that certain
human "truths" have a value which is transitory, inasmuch as they are recognized after a certain period as
partial or complete errors . For man must say to himself that truth after all exists in itself, although
HIS conceptions are only transient forms of manifestation of the eternal truth. Even he who says, like
Lessing, that he contents himself with the eternal striving toward truth because the full pure truth can,
after all, only exist for a God, does not deny the eternity of truth, but establishes it by such an
utterance. For only that which has an eternal significance in itself can call forth an eternal striving
after it. Were truth not in itself independent, if it acquired its worth and significance through the
feelings of the human soul, THEN it could not be the ONE COMMON GOAL for all mankind. One con

THEOSOPHY

cedes its INDEPENDENT BEING by the very fact that one wishes to strive after it.

And as it is with the truth, so it is with the TRULY GOOD. The moral good is independent of inclinations
and passions, inasmuch as it does not allow itself to be commanded by them, but commands them. Likes and
dislikes, desire and loathing belong to the personal soul of man. Duty stands higher than likes and
dislikes. Duty may stand so high in the eyes of a man that he will sacrifice his life for its sake. And a
man stands the higher the more he has ennobled his inclinations, his likes and dislikes, so that, without
compulsion or subjection, they themselves obey the recognized duty. The moral good has, like truth, its
eternal value in itself, and does not receive it from the sentient-soul .

In causing the self-existent true and good to come to life in his inner being, man raises himself above
the mere sentient-soul . The eternal spirit shines into this soul. A light is kindled in it which is
imperishable. In so far as the soul lives in this light, it is a participant, of the eternal. It unites
its own existence with an eternal existence . What the soul

CONSTITUTION OF THE HUMAN BEING 39

carries within itself of the true and the good is IMMORTAL in it. That which shines forth in the soul as
eternal is to be called here CONSCIOUSNESS- SOUL. CONSCIOUSNESS can be spoken of even in connection with
the lower soul stirrings. The most ordinary everyday sensation is a matter of consciousness. To this
extent animals also have consciousness. The kernel of human consciousness, that is, THE SOUL WITHIN THE
SOUL, is here meant by CONSCIOUSNESS- SOUL. The consciousness-soul is accordingly differentiated from the
intellectual- soul as yet another distinct member of the human soul. The intellectual-soul is still
entangled in the sensations, the impulses, the passions, etc. Everyone knows how at first a man holds that
to be true which he, owing to his feelings, prefers. Only THAT truth, however, is PERMANENT which has
freed itself from ALL taint of such feelings as sympathy and antipathy. The truth is true, even if all
personal feelings revolt against it. The part of the soul in which THIS truth lives will be called
consciousness-soul.

So that even as one had to distinguish three members in the body, one has also to distin

THEOSOPHY

guish three in the soul;SENTIENT-SOUL, INTELLECTUAL- SOUL, CONSCIOUSNESS-SOUL. And just as the corporality
works from below upward with a LIMITING effect on the soul, so the spiritual works from above downward
into it, EXPANDING it. For the more the soul fills itself with the True and the Good, the wider and the
more comprehensive becomes the eternal in it. To him who is able to "see" the soul, the splendor which
goes out from a human being, because his eternal is expanding, is just as much a reality as the light
which streams out from a flame is real to the physical eye. For the "seer" the corporeal man is only a
part of the WHOLE MAN. The body as the coarsest structure lies within others, which interpenetrate both it
and each other. The ether-body fills the physical body as a double form; extending beyond this on all
sides is to be seen the soul-body (astral shape) . And beyond this, again, extends the sentient-soul, then
the intellectual-soul, which grows the larger the more it receives into itself of the True and the Good.
For this True and Good cause the expansion of the intellectual-soul . A man living only and entirely
according to his

CONSTITUTION OF THE HUMAN BEING 41

inclinations, his likes and dislikes, would have an intellectual-soul whose limits coincide with those of
his sentient-soul. These organizations, in the midst of which the physical body appears as if in a cloud,
are called theHUMAN AURA.

In the course of the childhood of a human being, there comes a moment in which, for the first time, he
feels himself to be an independent being distinct from the whole of the rest of the world. For persons
with finely-strung natures it is a significant experience. The poet Jean Paul says in his autobiography,
"I shall never forget the event which took place within me, hitherto narrated to no one, and of which I
can give place and time, when I stood present at the birth of my self-consciousness. As a very small child
I stood at the door of the house one morning, looking toward the wood pile on my left, when suddenly the
inner revelation `I am an I' came to me like a flash of lightning from heaven and has remained shining
ever since. In that moment my ego had seen itself for the first time and forever . Any deception of memory
is hardly to be conceived as possible here, for no narrations by outsiders could have

THEOSOPHY

introduced additions to an occurrence which took place in the holy of holies of a humanbeing, and of which
the novelty alone gavepermanence to such everyday surroundings ." It is known that little children say to
themselves, "Charles is good," "Mary wishes tohave this." They speak of themselves as ifof others because
they have not yet become conscious of their independent existence, because the consciousness of the self
is not yetborn in them. Through self-consciousnessman describes himself as an independentbeing, separate
from all others, as "I." In his "I" man brings together all that he experiences as a being in body and
soul. Body andsoul are the carriers of the ego or "I ;" in them it acts. Just as the physical body has its
centerin the brain, so has the soul its center in the ego. Man is aroused to sensations by impactsfrom
without ; feelings manifest themselves asthe effects of the outer world ; the will relates itself to the
outside world in that it realizes itself in external actions. The ego as thepeculiar and essential being
of man remainsquite invisible. Excellently, therefore, doesJean Paul call a man's recognition of his ego

CONSTITUTION OF THE HUMAN BEING 43

an "occurrence taking place only in the veiled holy of holies of a man," for with his "I" man is quite
alone. And this "I" is the man himself. That justifies him in regarding his ego as his true being. He may,
therefore, describe his body and his soul as the "SHEATHS" or "VEILS" within which he lives ; and he may
describe them as his TOOLS through which he acts. In the course of his evolution he learns to regard these
tools ever more and more as the servants of his ego. The little word "I" (German ich) as it is used, for
example, in the English and German languages, is a name which differs from all other names. Anyone who
reflects in an appropriate manner on the nature of this name will find that it forms an avenue to the
understanding of the human being in the deeper sense. Any other name can be applied to its corresponding
object by all men in the same way. Anybody can call a table "table" or' a chair "chair," but this is not
so with the name I . No one can use it in referring to another person ; each one can call only himself
"I." Never can the name "I" reach my ears from outside when it refers to ME. Only from

THEOSOPHY

within, only through itself, can the soul refer

to itself as "I." When the human being

therefore says "I" to himself, something

begins to speak in him that has nothing to do

with anyone of the worlds from which the

"sheaths" so far mentioned are taken .

The I becomes ever more and more ruler

r of body and soul. This also comes to visible

expression in the aura. The more the I is

lord over body and soul, the more numerous

and complex are its members, and the more

varied and rich are the colors of the aura.

This effect of the I on the aura can be seen by

the "seeing" person. The I itself is invisible,

even to him. This remains truly within the

"veiled holy of holies of a man ." But the I

absorbs into itself the rays of the light which

flames forth in a man as eternal light. As he

gathers together the experiences of body and

soul in the I, he also causes the thoughts of

truth and goodness to stream into the I. The

phenomena of the senses reveal themselves to

the I from the one side, the SPIRIT reveals

itself from the other. Body and soul yield

themselves up to the I in order to serve it ; but

the I yields itself up to the spirit in order that

CONSTITUTION OF THE HUMAN BEING 45

it may be filled by it. The I lives in body and soul ; but the spirit lives in the I . And what there is
of spirit in the I is eternal. For the I receives its nature and significance from that with which it is
bound up . Inasmuch as it lives in the physical body, it is subject to the laws of the mineral world ;
through its ether- body to the laws of propagation and growth ; by virtue of the sentient and intellectual
souls to the laws of the soul world ; in so far as it receives the spiritual into itself it is subject to
the laws of the spirit. That which the mineral laws and the life laws construct comes into being and
vanishes ; but the spirit has nothing to do with becoming and perishing .

The I lives in the soul. Although the highest manifestation of the I belongs to the consciousness- soul,
one must nevertheless say that this I, raying out from it, fills the whole of the soul, and through the
soul affects the body. And in the I the spirit is alive . It rays into it and lives in it as in a "sheath"
or veil, just as the I lives in its sheaths, the bc4y and the soul. The spirit develops the I from within,
outward ; the mineral world develops it from without, inward. The spirit forming

THEOSOPHY

an I and living as I will be called SPIRITSELF, because it manifests as the I, or ego, or "self" of man.
("Spirit-self" signifies the same as that which in theosophical literature is called "Higher manas." The
Sanscrit word "manas" is related to the English word "man," and the German word "Mensch," and signifies
the human being in so far as he is a spiritual being.) The difference between the "spirit-self" and the
"consciousness-soul" can be made clear in the following way. The consciousness-soul is the bearer of the
self- existent truth which is independent of all antipathy and sympathy, the spirit-self bears within it
theSAMEtruth, but taken up into and enclosed by the I, individualized by the latter and absorbed into the
independent being of the man. It is through the eternal truth becoming thus individualized and bound up
into one being with the I, that the I itself

attains to eternity.

The spirit-self is a revelation of the spiritual world within the I, just as from the other side
sensations are a revelation of the physical world within the I. In that which is red, green, light, dark,
hard, soft, warm, cold, one

CONSTITUTION OF THE HUMAN BEING 47

recognizes the revelations of the corporal world ; in what is true and good, the revelations of the
spiritual world. In the same sense in which the revelation of the corporal world is called SENSATION, let
the revelation of the spiritual be called INTUITION . Even the most simple thought contains intuition, for
one cannot touch it with the hands or see it with the eyes ; one must receive its revelation from the
spirit through the I . If an undeveloped and a developed man look at a plant, there lives in the I of the
one something quite different from that which is in the ego of the other. And yet the sensations of both
are called forth by the same object. The difference lies in this, that the one can make far more perfect
thoughts about the object than the other can. If objects revealed themselves through sensation alone,
there could be no progress in spiritual development. Even the savage is affected by nature, but the laws
of nature reveal themselves only to the thoughts, fructified by intuition, of the more highly developed
man. The excitations from the outer world are felt even by the child as incentives to the will ; but the
commandments of

THEOSOPHY

the morally good disclose themselves to him in the course of his development only as he learns to live in
the spirit and understand its revelations.

Just as there could be no color sensations without physical eyes, there could be no intuitions without the
higher thinking of the spirit- self. And as little as sensation creates the plant on which the color
appears, does intuition create the spiritual realities about which it is merely giving information.

The I of man, which comes to life in the soul, draws in messages from above, from the spirit world through
intuitions, just as through sensations it draws in messages from the physical world. By doing this it
makes the spirit world the individualized life of its own soul, even as it does the physical world by
means of the senses. The soul, or the I flaming forth in it, opens its portals on two sides, toward the
corporal and toward the spiritual . Now as just the physical world can only give information about itself
to the ego, because it builds out of physical materials and forces a body in which the conscious soul can
live and possess organs for perceiving the corporal world out

CONSTITUTION OF THE HUMAN BEING 49

side itself, so the spiritual world builds, withits spiritual materials and spiritual forces, a spirit-
body in which the I can live and through intuitions perceive the spiritual . (Itis evident that the
expression SPIRIT-BODY contains a contradiction, according to the literal meaning of the word . It is only
to be used in order to direct attention to what, in the spiritual regions, corresponds to the body ofman
in the physical.)

Just as within the physical world eachhuman body is built up as a separate being, so is the spirit-body
within the spirit world. In the spirit world there is for man an inner and an outer, just as there is in
the physicalworld. As man takes in the materials of the physical world around him and assimilatesthem
within his physical body, so does he takethe spiritual from the spirtiual environmentand make it into his
own. The spiritual isthe eternal nourishment of man. And as man is born of the physical world, he is also
bornof the spirit through the eternal laws of theTrue and the Good . He is separated fromthe spirit world
outside of him, as he isseparated from the whole physical world, as

THEOSOPHY

an independent being. This independent spiritual being will be called SPIRIT-MAN .

(It is the same as that which is called ATMA in theosophical literature.)

If we examine the human physical body, we find the same materials and forces in it as we find outside it
in the rest of the physical world. It is the same with the spirit-man . In it pulsate the elements of the
external spirit world. In it the forces of the rest of the spirit world are active. As a being within the
physical skin becomes a self-contained entity, living and feeling, so also in the spirit world. The
spiritual skin which separates the spirit man from the uniform spirit world makes him an independent being
within it,

living a life within himself and perceiving intuitively the spiritual content of the world. This
"spiritual skin" will be called SPIRITSHEATH. (In theosophical literature it is called AURIC SHEATH.) It
must be kept clearly in mind that the spiritual skin expands continually with the advancing human
evolution, so that the spiritual individuality of man (his auric sheath) is capable of enlargement

to an unlimited extent.

CONSTITUTION OF THE HUMAN BEING 51

The spirit-man LIVES within this spirit- sheath. It is built up by the spirtual LIFEFORCE in the same way
as is the physical body by the physical life-force. In a similar way to that in which one speaks of an
ether-body one must therefore speak of an ether-spirit in reference to the spirit-man. Let this ether-
spirit be called LIFE-SPIRIT. The spiritual being of man therefore is composed of three parts, SPIRIT-MAN,
LIFE-SPIRIT, and SPIRITSELF. (Atma, budhi, manas are the corresponding expressions in theosophical
literature. For Budhi is the separated special life-spirit which is formed by the SPIRITUAL LIFE-FORCE, or
Budhi.)

For him who is a "seer" in the spiritual regions, this spiritual being of man is a perceptible reality as
the higher, truly spiritual part of the AURA. He "sees" the spirit-man as life-spirit within the spirit-
sheath, and he "sees" how this "life-spirit" grows continually larger by taking in spiritual nourishment
from the spirtual external world. Further, he sees how the spirit-sheath continually increases, widens out
through what is brought into it, and how the spirit-man becomes ever

THEOSOPHY

larger and larger. For the difference between the spiritual and the physical being of man is that the
latter has a limited size while the former can grow to an unlimited extent. Whatever of spiritual
nourishment is absorbed has an eternal worth. The human aura is accordingly composed of two
interpenetrating parts . Color and form are given to the one by the physical existence of man, and to the
other by his spiritual existence. The ego forms the separation between them in this way that, while the
physical after its own manner GIVES ITSELF to building up a body which allows a soul to live and expand in
it, and the ego GIVES ITSELF to allowing to live and develop in it the spirit which now for its part
permeates the soul and gives it the goal in the spirit world. Through the body the soul is enclosed in the
physical ; through the spirit- man there grow wings for its moving in the

spiritual world.

In order to comprehend the WHOLE man, one must think of him as formed of the components above mentioned.
The body builds itself up out of the world of physical matter in such a way that the construction is
adapted

CONSTITUTION OF THE HUMAN BEING 53

to the requirements of the thinking ego. It is penetrated with life-force, and thereby becomes the ether
or life-body. As such it opens itself through the sense organs towardthe outer world and becomes the soul-
body. This the sentient-soul permeates and becomes one with. The sentient-soul does not merelyreceive the
impacts of the outer world as sensations. It has its own inner life which it fructifies through thinking
on the one hand, as it does through sensations on the other . In this way it becomes the intellectual-soul
. It is able to do this by opening itself up to intuitions from above, as it does to sensations from
below. Thus it becomes the consciousness-soul . This is possible to it because the spirit worldbuilds into
it the organ of intuition, just asthe physical body builds in it the sense organs . As the senses transmit
sensations by means ofthe soul-body, the spirit transmits to it intuitions through the organ of intuition.
The spirit-man is therefore linked into a unitywith the consciousness-soul, just as the physicalbody is
with the sentient-soul in the soul-body. Consciousness-soul and spirit-self form a unity. In this unity
the spirit-man LIVES as

THEOSOPHY

life-spirit, just as the ether body forms the

bodily life-basis for the soul-body . And as the physical body is enclosed in the physical skin, so is the
spirit-man in the spirit-sheath . The members of the WHOLE man are as follows

A. Physical-body. B. Ether-body. C. Soul-body. D. Sentient-soul. E. Intellectual-soul. F. Consciousness-
soul. G. Spirit-self . H. Life-spirit. I. Spirit-man. Soul-body (C) and sentient-soul (D) are a unity in
the earthly man ; in the same way are consciousness-soul (F) and spirit-self (G) a unity. Thus there come
to be seven parts in the earthly man. The expressions used in theosophical literature are as follows

i. Physical-body (Sthula sharira) . 2. Ether or life-body (Linga sharira) . 3. Sentient-soul-body (Astral
body, Kama rupa) . 4. Intellectual-soul (Lower manas, Kama manas) . CONSTITUTION OF THE HUMAN BEING 55

5. Spirit-filled Consciousness-soul (Higher manas) . 6. Life-spirit (Spiritual-body, Budhi) . 7. Spirit-
man (Atma) . The "I" flashes forth in the soul, receives the infusion from out the spirit and thereby
becomes the bearer of the spirit-man. Through this, man participates in the "three worlds," the physical,
the soul, and the spiritual . He takes root in the physical world through his physical body, ether-body,
and soul-body and flowers through the spirit-self, life-spirit, and spirit-man up into the spiritual
world. The STALK, however, which takes root in the one and flowers in the other, is the soul itself .

One can express this arrangement of the members of man in a simplified way, but one entirely consistent
with the above . Although the human I flashes forth in the conscious- ness-soul, it nevertheless
penetrates the whole soul-being. The parts of this soul-being are not as distinctly separate as are the
limbs of the body; they penetrate each other, in a higher sense. If then, one hold clearly in view the
intellectual-soul and the conscious

THEOSOPHY

ness-soul as the two members united to form the bearer of the I, and this I as their kernel, one can
divide man into physical body, life- body, astral-body, and I. The expression astral-body designates here
what is formed by soul-body and sentient-soul together, although the sentient-soul is in a certain respect
energized by the I. When now the I penetrates itself with spirit-self, this spirit- self comes into
evidence in the transmutation of the astral-body by a force within the soul . In the astral-body there are
primarily active the impulses, desires, and passions of man, in so far as they are felt by him ; the
physical perceptions also take effect in it. Physical perceptions arise through the soul-body as a member
in man which comes to him from the external world. Impulses, desires, and passions, etc., arise in the
sentient-soul, in so far as it is energized by the soul before the latter has yielded itself to the
spirit. If the I penetrates itself with spirit-self, the soul proceeds to energize the astral-body with
this spirit- self. This expresses itself in the illumination of the impulses, desires, and passions by
what the I has received from the spirit. The I has

CONSTITUTION OF THE HUMAN BEING 57

then, through the power it gains as partaker of the spiritual world, become ruler in the world of
impulses, desires, etc. In proportion to the extent to which it has become this the spirit-self appears in
the astral-body. And the astral-body becomes thereby transmuted. The astral-body itself then becomes
visible as a two-membered body, an untransmuted and a transmuted. One can therefore designate the spirit-
self, as manifested in man, as transmuted astral-body.

A similar process takes place in a person when he receives the life spirit into his 1 . The Life-body then
becomes transmuted . It becomes penetrated with the life-spirit. And the Life-spirit reveals itself in
that the life- body becomes quite other than it was. For this reason one can also say that life-spirit is
transmuted life-body. And if the I receives the spirit-man, it thereby receives the strong force with
which to penetrate the physical body. Naturally, that part of the physical body thus transmuted is NOT
perceptible to the physical senses . It is, in fact, just that part of the physical body which has been
spiritualized that has become the spirit-man .

THEOSOPHY

The physical body is then present to thephysical senses as physical, and in so far as this physical is
spiritualized, it has to beperceived by spiritual faculties of perception. To the external senses the
physical, even whenpenetrated by the spiritual, appears to bemerely sensible.

Taking all this as a basis, one can have alsothe following arrangement of the members of man

r. Physical-body. 2. Life-body. 3. Astral-body. q.. I, as soul kernel. 5. Spirit-self as transmuted
astral-body. 6. Life-spirit " " life-body. 7. Spirit-man " " physical-body. CHAPTER II

RE-EMBODIMENT OF THE SPIRIT

AND DESTINY

REINCARNATION AND KARMA

IN the midst between body and spirit lives the SOUL. The impressions which come to itthrough the body are
transitory. They arepresent only as long as the body opens itsorgans to the things of the outer world. My
eye perceives the color of the rose only solong as the rose is opposite to it and my eyeis itself open.
The PRESENCE of the things ofthe outer world as well as of the bodily organsis necessary in order that an
impression, asensation, or a perception can take place. But what I have recognized in my spirit as TRUTH
concerning the rose does not pass with the present moment. And, as regardsits truth, it is not in the
least dependent on me. It would be true even although I had

6o THEOSOPHY

never stood in front of the rose. What I know through the spirit is timeless or ETERNAL. The soul is
placed between the present and eternity, in that it holds the middle place between body and spirit. But it
is also the INTERMEDIARY between the present and eternity. It preserves the present for the REMEMBRANCE.
It thereby rescues it from impermanence, and brings it nearer to the eternity of the spiritual. It stamps
eternity on the temporal and impermanent by not merely yielding itself up to the transitory incitements,
but by determining things from out its own initiative, and embodying its own nature in them by means of
the actions it performs. By remembrance the soul preserves the yesterday, by action it prepares the

to-morrow.

My soul would have to perceive the red of the rose always afresh if it could not store it up in
remembrance. What remains after an external impression, what can be retained by

the soul, is the CONCEPTION. Through the power of forming conceptions the soul makes the corporal outer
world so far into its own inner world that it can then retain the latter

RE-EMBODIMENT AND DESTINY

in the memory for remembrance and, independent of the gained impressions, lead with it thereafter a life
of its own . The soul-life thus becomes the enduring result of the transitory impressions of the external
world .

But an action also receives permanence when once it is stamped on the outer world. If I cut a branch from
a tree something has taken place by means of my soul which completely changes the course of events in the
outer world. Something quite different would have happened to the branch of the tree if I had not
interfered by my action . I have called forth into life a series of effects which, without my existence,
would not have been present. What I have done TO-DAY endures for TO-MORROW ; it becomes permanent through
the DEED, as my impressions of yesterday have become permanent for my soul through memory.

Let us first consider memory. How does it originate? Evidently in quite a different way from sensation or
perception, because these are made possible by the corporality. Without the eye I cannot have the
sensation "blue." But in no way do I have the

THEOSOPHY

remembrance of "blue" through the eye. If the eye is to give me this sensation now, a blue thing must come
before it. The corporality would always allow impressions to sink back into nothingness if it alone
existed. I remember; that is, I experience something which is itself no longer present . I unite a past
experience with my present life. This is the case with every remembrance . Let us say, for instance, that
I meet a man and recognize him again because I met him yesterday. He would be a complete stranger to me
were I not able to unite the picture perception with my impression of him to-day . The picture of to-day
is given me by the perception, that is to say, by my corporality .

But who conjures that of yesterday into my soul? It is the same being in me that was present during my
experience yesterday, and that is also present in that of to-day . In the previous explanations it has
been called SOUL. Were it not for this faithful preserver of the past each external impression would be
always new to a man.

As preserver of the past the soul continually gathers treasures for the spirit . That

RE-EMBODIMENT AND DESTINY

I can distinguish right from wrong follows because I, as a human being, am a thinking being, able to grasp
the truth in my spirit . Truth is eternal ; and it could always reveal itself to me again in things, even
if I were always to lose sight of the past and each impression were to be a new one to me . But the spirit
within me is not restricted to the impressions of the present alone ; the soul extends its horizon over
the past. And the more it is able to bring to the spirit out of the past, the richer does it make the
spirit . In this way the soul transmits to the spirit what it has received from the body. The spirit of
man therefore carries each moment of its life a twofold possession within itself, firstly, the eternal
laws of the good and the true ; secondly, the remembrance of the experiences of the past. What he does, he
accomplishes under the influence of these two factors. If we wish to understand a human spirit we must
therefore know two different things about him, first, how much of the eternal has revealed itself to him ;
second, how much treasure from the past is stored up within him.

THEOSOPHY

The treasure by no means remains in the spirit in an unchanged shape . The conceptions which man extracts
from his experiences fade gradually from the memory. Not so, however, their fruits. One does not remember
all the experiences one had during childhood when acquiring the arts of reading and writing. But one could
not read or write if one had not had the experiences, and if their fruits had not been preserved in the
form of abilities . And that is the transmutation which the spirit effects on the treasures of memory. It
consigns the pictures of the separate experiences to their fate, and only extracts from them the force
necessary for enhancing and increasing its abilities . Thus not one experience passes by unused ; the soul

preserves each one as memory, and from each the spirit draws forth all that can enrich its abilities and
the whole content of its life. The human spirit GROWS through assimilated experiences. And, although one
cannot find the past experiences in the spirit preserved as if in a storeroom, one nevertheless finds
their effects in the abilities which the man has acquired.

RE-EMBODIMENT AND DESTINY

Thus far spirit and soul have been considered only within the period lying between life and death. One
cannot rest there. Anyone wishing to do that would be like the man who observes the human body also within
the same limits only. Much can certainly be discovered within these limits. But the HUMAN FORM can never
be explained by what lies between birth and death. It cannot build itself up unaided out of mere physical
matter and forces. It takes rise in a form like its own, which has been passed on to it by propagation.
Physical materials and forces build up the body during life ; the forces of propagation enable another
body, inheriting its form, to proceed from it ; that is to say, one which is able to be the bearer of the
same life-body. Each life-body is a repetition of its forefathers. Only BECAUSE it is such does it appear,
not in any chance form, but in that passed on to it. The forces which have given me human form lay in my
forefathers. But the spirit also of a man appears in a definite form . And the forms of the spirit are the
most varied imaginable in different persons. No two men have the same spiritual

THEOSOPHY

form. One ought to make investigations in this region in just as quiet and matter-of-fact a manner as in
the physical world . It cannot be said that the differences in human beings in spiritual respects arise
only from the differences in their environment, their upbringing, etc. No, this is by no means the case,
for two people under similar influences as regards environments, upbringing, etc., develop in quite
different ways . One is therefore forced to admit that they have entered on their path of life with quite
different predispositions. Here one is brought face to face with an important fact which, when its full
bearing is recognized, sheds light on the nature of man.

Human beings differ from their animal fellow-creatures on the earth as regards their physical form. But
among each other human beings are, within certain limits, the same in regard to their physical form .
There is only one human species . However great may be the differences between races, peoples, tribes, and
personalities as regards the physical body, the resemblance between man and man is greater than between
man and any

RE-EMBODIMENT AND DESTINY

brute species. All that expresses itself ashuman species passes on from forefather todescendants. And the
human form is bound to this heredity. As the lion can inherit its physical form from lion forefathers
only, so the human being inherits his physical bodyfrom human forefathers only.

Just as the physical similarity of men isquite evident to the eye, the DIFFERENCE of their spiritual forms
reveals itself to theunprejudiced spiritual gaze. There is one very evident fact which shows this clearly
. It consists in the existence of the biography ofa human being. Were a human being merelya member of a
species, no biography couldexist. A lion, a dove, lay claim to interest inso far as they belong to the
lion, the dove genus. One has understood the separate beingin all its ESSENTIALS when one has described
the genus. It matters little whether one has to do with father, son, or grandson . What is of interest in
them, father, son, and grandsonhave in common. But what a human beingsignifies begins, not where he is a
mere member of a genus, but only where he is a separatebeing. I have not in the least understood the

THEOSOPHY

nature of Mr. Smith of Crowcorner if I have described his son or his father. I must know his own
biography. Anyone who reflects accurately on the essence of biography becomes aware that in regard to
spiritual things EACH MAN IS A SPECIES BY HIMSELF . Those people, to be sure, who regard a biography
merely as a collection of external incidents in the life of a person, may claim that they can write the
biography of a dog in the same way as that of a man. But anyone who depicts in a biography the real
individuality of a man, grasps the fact that he has in the

biography of ONE human being something that corresponds to the description of a whole genus in the animal
kingdom.

Now if genus or species in the physical sense becomes intelligible only when one understands it as the
result of heredity, the spiritual being can be intelligible only through a similar SPIRITUAL HEREDITY. I
have received my physical human form from my forefathers. Whence have I that which comes to expression in
my biography? As physical man, I repeat the shape of my forefathers. What do I repeat as spiritual

RE-EMBODIMENT AND DESTINY

man? Anyone claiming that what is comprised in my biography requires no further explanation has to be
regarded as having no other course open to him than to claim equally that he has seen, somewhere, an earth
mound on which the lumps of matter have aggregated quite by themselves into a living man.

As physical man I spring from other physical men, for I have the same shape as the whole human species.
The qualities of the species, accordingly, could be bequeathed to me within the genus . As spiritual man I
have my own shape as I have my own biography. I therefore can have obtained this shape from no one but
myself. Since I entered the world not with undefined but with defined predispositions ; and since the
course of my life as it comes to expression in my biography is determined by these predispositions, my
work on myself cannot have begun with my birth. I must, as spiritual man, have existed before my birth. In
my forefathers I have certainly not been existent, for they as spiritual human beings are different from
me . My biography is not explainable through

THEOSOPHY

theirs. On the contrary, I must, as spiritual being, be the repetition of one through whose biography mine
can be explained. The physical form which Schiller bore he inherited from his forefathers. But just as
little as Schiller's physical form can have grown outof the earth, so little can his spiritual being have
done so. It must be the repetition ofanother spiritual being through whose biography his will be
explainable as his physical human form is explainable through humanpropagation. In the same way,
therefore, thatthe physical human form is ever again and

again a repetition, a reincarnation of the dis

tinctively human species, the spiritual human

being must be a reincarnation of the SAME

spiritual human being. For as spiritual human

being, each one is in fact his own species.

It might be said in objection to what hasbeen stated here that it is pure spinning ofthoughts, and such
external proof might bedemanded as one is accustomed to in ordinarynatural science. The reply to this is
that thereembodiment of the spiritual human beingis, naturally, a process which does not belongto the
region of external physical facts, but

RE-EMBODIMENT AND DESTINY

is one that takes place entirely in the spiritual region. And to this region no other of our ORDINARY
powers of intelligence has entrance, save that of THINKING. He who is unwilling to trust to the power of
thinking cannot, in fact, enlighten himself regarding higher spiritual facts . For him whose spiritual eye
is opened the above train of thoughts acts with exactly the same force as does an event that takes place
before his physical eyes. He who ascribes to a so-called "proof," constructed according to the methods of
natural science, greater power to convince than the above observations concerning the significance of
biography, may be in the ordinary sense of the word a great scientist, but from the paths of true
SPIRITUAL investigation he is very far distant.

One of the gravest prejudices consists in trying to explain the spiritual qualities of a man by
inheritance from father, mother, or other ancestors. He who contracts the prejudice, for example, that
Goethe inherited what constitutes his essential being from father or mother will at first be hardly
approachable with arguments, for there lies

THEOSOPHY

within him a deep antipathy to unprejudiced observation. A materialistic spell prevents him from seeing
the relations of phenomena in the true light.

In such observations as the preceding, the presuppositions are supplied for following the human being
beyond birth and death. Within the boundaries formed by birth and death the human being belongs to the
three worlds, of corporality, of soul, and of spirit . The soul forms the link between body and spirit
because it penetrates the third member of the body, the soul-body, with a capacity for sensation, and
because it permeates the first member of the spirit, the spirit-self, as consciousness-soul . In this way
it takes part and lot during life with the body as well as with the spirit. This comes to expression in
its whole existence. It will depend on the construction of the soul-body how the sentient-soul can unfold
its capabilities . And, on the other hand, it will depend on the life of the consciousness-soul to what
extent the spirit-self can develop itself in it. The more highly developed the soul-body is, the more
complete is the intercourse which the sentient

RE-EMBODIMENT AND DESTINY

soul will be able to develop with the outer world. And the spirit-self will become so much the richer and
more powerful, the more the consciousness-soul brings it nourishment. It has been shown that during life
this nourishment is supplied to the spirit-self through assimilated experiences, and the fruits of these
experiences. For the interaction of soul and spirit described above, can, of course, only take place where
soul and spirit are within each other, penetrating each other, that is, within the union of "spirit-self"
with "consciousness-soul ."

Let us consider, first, the interaction .f the soul-body and sentient-soul . The soul- body is, as has
become evident, the most finely elaborated part of the corporality ; but it, nevertheless, belongs to it
and is dependent on it. Physical-body, ether-body, and soul-body compose, in a certain sense, one whole.
Hence the soul-body is also drawn within the laws of physical heredity through which the body receives its
shape . And since it is the most mobile and, so to speak, volatile form of corporality, it must also
exhibit the most mobile, volatile manifestations of heredity . While,

THEOSOPHY

therefore, the difference in the physical bodyis smallest, corresponding to races, peoples, and tribes ;
and while the ether-body presents, on the whole, a preponderating likenessalthough a greater divergence in
single individuals, in the soul-body the difference is a very great one. In it is expressed what
onealready feels to be the EXTERNAL, PERSONAL, uniqueness of a man . It is therefore also the bearer of
that part of this personal uniquenesswhich is passed on from parents, grand-parents, etc., to descendants.
The soul as such leads, as has been explained, a completely self- contained life of its own ; it shuts
itself up withits inclinations and disinclinations, its feelingsand passions ; but, as a whole being, it
isnevertheless active, and therefore this whole comes to expression also in the sentient-soul . And
because the sentient-soul penetrates and, as it were, fills up the soul-body, the latterforms itself
according to the nature of thesoul and can in this wav, as the bearer of heredity, pass on tendencies,
passions, etc ., from forefathers to children. On this fact rests what Goethe' says : "From my fatherI
have stature and the serious manner of life,

RE-EMBODIMENT AND DESTINY

from the little mother the joyous disposition and the love of romance." Genius, of course, he did not
receive from either . In this way we are shown what part of a man's soul qualities he hands over, as it
were, to the line of physical heredity.

The matter and forces of the physical body are in the whole external physical nature around us. They are
continually being taken from it and given back to it . In the space of a few years the matter which
composes our physical body is entirely renewed. That this matter takes the form of the human body, and
that it always renews itself again within this body, is due to the fact that it is held together by the
ether-body . And the form of the latter is not determined by events between birth-or conception-and death
alone, but is dependent on the laws of heredity which extend beyond birth and death . That soul qualities
also can be transmitted by heredity, that is, that the process of physical

heredity receives an infusion from the soul, is due to the fact that the soul-body can be influenced by
the sentient-soul .

Now how does the interaction between body

THEOSOPHY

and soul proceed? During life the spirit is bound up with the soul in the way shown above. The soul
receives from it the power of living in the Good and the True, and of thereby bringing in its own life, in
its tendencies, impulses, and passions, the spirit itself to expression . The spirit-self brings to the 1,
from the world of the spirit, the eternal laws of the True and the Good. These link themselves through the
consciousness-soul with the experiences of the soul's own life. These experiences themselves pass away,
but their fruits remain. The spirit-self receives an abiding impression by having been linked with them.
When the human spirit approaches an experience similar to one with which it has already been linked, it
sees in it something familiar, and is able to take up a different attitude toward it than if it were
facing it for the first time . This is the basis of all learning. And the fruits of learning are acquired
capacities. The fruits of the transitory life are in this way graven on the eternal spirit. And do we not
see these fruits? Whence spring the innate predispositions and talents described above as characteristic
of the

RE-EMBODIMENT AND DESTINY

spiritual man? Surely only from capacitiesof one kind or another which the human beingbrings with him when
he begins his earthlylife. These capacities, in certain respects, resemble exactly those which we can
alsoacquire for ourselves during life. Take the case of a genius. It is known that Mozart, when a boy,
could write out from memory a long musical composition after hearing it only once. He was able to do this
only because hecould survey the whole at one glance . Within certain limits a man is also able during
lifeto increase his capacity of rapid survey, ofgrasping combinations to such an extent thathe then
possesses new faculties . Lessing, indeed, has said of himself that by means ofa talent for critical
observation he had acquired for himself something that camenear to being genius . One has either to
regardsuch abilities founded on innate capacitieswith wonder as miracles, or one must consider them as
fruits of experiences which the spirit- self has had through a soul . They have beengraven on the spirit-
self. And since they havenot been implanted in this life, they havebeen in a former one. The human spirit
is

THEOSOPHY

its own species. And just as man as a physical being belonging to a species bequeaths his qualities within
the species, so does the SPIRIT within ITS species, that is, within itself . IN EACH LIFE THE HUMAN SPIRIT
APPEARS AS A REPETITION OF ITSELF WITH THE FRUITS OF ITS FORMER EXPERIENCES IN PREVIOUS LIVES. This life
is consequently the repetition ofanother, and brings with it what the spirit- self has, by work, acquired
for itself in theprevious life. When the spirit-self absorbssomething that can develop into fruit, it
penetrates itself with the life-spirit. Just as the life-body reproduces the form, from genus togenus, so
does the life-spirit reproduce the soulfrom personal existence to personal existence .

Thus the experiences of the soul becomeenduring not only within the boundaries ofbirth and death, but out
beyond death. But the soul does not stamp its experiences onlyon the spirit which flashes up in it, it
stampsthem, as has been shown, on the outer world, also, through the DEED. What a man did yesterday is to-
day still present in its effects . A picture of the connection between cause andeffect is given in the
simile of sleep and death .

RE-EMBODIMENT AND DESTINY 79

Sleep has often been called the younger brother of death. I get up in the morning. Night has interrupted
my consecutive activity . Now, under ordinary circumstances, it is not possible for me to begin my
activity again just

as I like. I must connect it with my doings of yesterday if there is to be order and coherence in my life
. My actions of yesterday are the conditions predetermining those I have to do to-day. I have created my
fate of to-day by what I did yesterday. I have separated myself for a while from my activity ; but this
activity belongs to me and draws me again to itself after I have withdrawn myself from it for a while. My
past remains bound up with me ; it lives on in my present, and will follow me into my future. If the
effects of my deeds of yesterday were not to be my fate to-day, I should have had, not to AWAKE this
morning, but to be newly created out of nothing. It would be absurd if under ordinary circumstances I were
not to occupy a house that I have had built for me.

The human spirit is just as little newly created when it begins its earthly life as is a man newly created
every morning . Let us try

8o THEOSOPHY

to make clear to ourselves what happens when an entrance into this life takes place. A physical body,
receiving its form through the lawsof heredity, comes upon the scene. This bodybecomes the bearer of a
spirit which repeats a previous life in a new form. Between the two stands the soul, which leads a self-
contained life of its own. Its inclinations and disinclinations, its wishes and desires minister to it ;
it takes thought into its service. As sentient-soul it receives the impressions of the outer worldand
carries them to the spirit, in order that the spirit may extract from them the fruits that are for
eternity. It plays, as it were, the part of intermediary; and its task is fully accomplished when it is
able to do this. The body forms impressions for the sentient-soul whichtransforms them into sensations,
retains them in the memory as conceptions, and hands them over to the spirit to hold throughout eternity.
The soul is really that through which man belongs to his earthly life. Through his body he belongs to the
physical human species . Through it he is a MEMBER of this species. With his spirit he lives in a higher
world.

RE-EMBODIMENT AND DESTINY 8i

The soul binds the two worlds for a time together.

But the physical world on which the human spirit enters is no strange field of action to it. On it the
traces of its actions are imprinted. Something in this field of action belongs to the spirit. It bears the
impress of its being. It is related to it. As the soul formerly transmitted the impressions from the outer
world to the spirit in order that they might become enduring in it, so now the soul, as the spirit's
organ, converts the capacities bestowed by the spirit into deeds which are also enduring through their
effects. Thus the soul has actually flowed into these actions. In the effects of his actions man's soul
lives on in a second independent life. And it is inevitable that the human spirit should meet again the
effect of these actions. For only the one part of my deed is in the outer world ; the other is in myself.
Let us make this clear by a simple example taken from natural science . Animals that once could see
migrated to the caves of Kentucky, and have, through their life in them, lost their powers of sight. The
existence in darkness has caused the eyes to

THEOSOPHY

be inactive . Consequently the physical and chemical activity that is present when seeing takes place is
no longer carried on in these eyes. The stream of nourishment which was formerly expended on this activity
now flows to other organs. These animals CAN NOW live only in these caves. They have by their act, by the
immigration, created the conditions of their later lives . The immigration has become a part of their fate
. A being that once acted has united itself with the results of the action. It is so also with the human
spirit. It is only by having been active that the soul could have transmitted certain capacities to it .
And these capacities correspond to the actions.

By means of his actions, therefore, the human spirit has really carved his fate. In a new life he finds
himself linked to what he did in a former one. One may ask, "How can that be, when the human spirit on
reincarnating finds itself in an entirely different world from that which it left at some earlier time?"
This question is based on a very superficial conception of the linkings of fate. If I change my scene of
action from Europe to America I find myself in entirely new surroundings .

RE-EMBODIMENT AND DESTINY

Nevertheless, my life in America depends entirely on my previous life in Europe . If I have been a
mechanic in Europe, my life in America will shape itself quite differently from the way in which it would
had I been a bank clerk. In the one case I should probably be surrounded in America by machinery, in the
other by bank offices. In each case it is my previous life that decides my environment ; it attracts to
itself, as it were, out of the whole surrounding world, those things that are related to it. So it is with
the spirit-self . It inevitably surrounds itself in a new life with that to which it is related from
previous lives . And it is on this account that sleep is a good likeness for death. For the man during
sleep is withdrawn from the field of action in which his fate waits for him. While one sleeps events in
this field of action pursue their course. One has for a time no influence on this course of events.
Nevertheless, our life on a new day depends on the effects of the deeds of the previous one . Our
personality actually embodies or incarnates itself anew every morning in our world of action. What was
separated from us at night is on the next

THEOSOPHY

day, as it were, spread out around us . So it is with the actions of the former embodiments or
incarnations of man. They are bound to him as his destiny, as the life in the dark caves remains bound up
with the animals who, through migration into them, have lost their powers of sight. Just as these animals
can only live in the surroundings in which they have placed themselves, so the human spirit CAN only live
in the surroundings which by its acts it has created for itself. There can be no more appropriate
comparison than that of sleep with death. That I find in the morning a state of affairs which I on the
previous day created, is brought about by the immediate progress of the events themselves . That I, when I
reincarnate myself, find surroundings which correspond with the results of my deeds in a previous life, is
brought about by the relationship of my reincarnated spirit with the things in the world around. From this
it stands out clearly how the SOUL forms a member of the constitution of man . The physical body is
subject to the laws of heredity. The human spirit, on the contrary, has to incarnate over and over again,
and its law consists in its

RE-EMBODIMENT AND DESTINY

bringing over the fruits of the former lives into the following ones. The soul lives in the present. But
this life in the present is not independent of the previous lives . For the incarnating spirit brings its
destiny with it from its previous incarnations, and this destiny decides the kind of life. Whatever
impressions the soul will be able to have, with what wishes it will be able to be gratified, what sorrows
and joys spring forth for it, depend on the nature of the actions in the past incarnations of the spirit.
The life of the soul is therefore the result of the self-created destiny of the human spirit. The course
of man's life between birth and death is therefore determined in a threefold way. And he is by these means
dependent in a threefold way on factors which lie ON THE OTHER SIDE of birth and death . The body is
subject to the laws of heredity ; the soul is subject to the self-created fate. One calls this fate
created by the man himself his KARMA. The spirit is under the law of reembodiment or reincarnation. One
can accordingly express the relationship between spirit, soul, and body in the following way as well. The
spirit is ETERNAL ; birth and death have domin

THEOSOPHY

ion over the corporality according to the laws of the physical world ; the soul-life, which is subject to
destiny, links them together during an earthly life.

All further knowledge of the being of man has to be preceded by acquaintance with the "three worlds" to
which he belongs. They are dealt with in the following chapters .

Thinking which takes up an unprejudiced attitude toward the phenomena of life, not afraid to follow the
thoughts resulting to their final consequences, can, by pure logic, arrive at the conviction of the law of
karma and reincarnation. Just as it is true that for the seer with the opened "spiritual eye," past lives,
like an opened book, face him as EXPERIENCE, so is it true that the TRUTH of it all becomes obvious to the
unprejudiced REASON.

CHAPTER III

THE THREE WORLDS

i. THE SOUL WORLD OUR study of man has shown that he belongsto three worlds. From the world of
physicalcorporality are taken the materials andforces building up his body. He has knowledge of this world
through the perceptions ofhis external physical senses. Anyone trusting to THESE senses ALONE, and
developing his perceptive abilities alone, can gain for himself noenlightenment concerning the two other
worlds, the SOUL and the SPIRITUAL. A man's ability to convince himself of the reality of athing or a
being depends on whether he has anorgan of perception, a sense for it . It may, ofcourse, easily lead to
misunderstandings if onecall the higher organs of perception spiritual SENSES, as is done here, for in
speakingof "SENSES" one involuntarily connects with

THEOSOPHY

them the thought "physical ." The physicalworld is in fact designated the "sensible," incontradistinction
to the "spiritual." In order to avoid this misunderstanding, one must takeinto account that "higher
senses" are spokenof here only in a comparative or metaphorical sense. As the physical senses perceive
thephysical world, the soul and spiritual sensesperceive the soul and spiritual worlds . The expression
"sense" will be used as meaningsimply "organ of perception." Man would have no knowledge of light and
color had henot an eye able to sense light; he would know nothing of sound had he not an ear able tosense
sound. In this connection the German philosopher Lotze rightly says, "Without alight-sensing eye, and a
sound-sensing ear, thewhole world would be dark and silent . There would be in it just as little light or
sound asthere could be toothache without the pain- feeling nerve of the tooth." In order to see what is
said here in the right light, one needonly think how entirely different the worldmust reveal itself to man
on the one hand, and on the other to the lower forms of animal life that have only a kind of touch sense
or sense of

THE THREE WORLDS

feeling spread over the whole surface of theirbodies. Light, color, and sound certainlycannot exist for
them in the same way as forbeings gifted with ears and eyes . The vibrations which the firing of a gun
causes mayDave an effect on them also if they reach them. But in order that these vibrations of the air
should present themselves as a report an earis necessary. And an eye is necessary in orderthat certain
processes in the fine matter thatone calls ether should reveal themselves as light and color. Man knows
something abouta being or thing only because through one of his organs he receives its EFFECTS.

This relationship of man with the world ofrealities is excellently brought out by Goethewhen he says : "It
is really in vain that we tryto express the nature of a thing. We become aware of EFFECTS, and a complete
history ofthem would indeed embrace the nature of that thing. We endeavor in vain to describe the
character of a man, but if instead we systematically correlate his actions and deeds, a picture of his
character will present itself to us . Colors are the actions of light, actions andsuffering . . . colors
and light are indeed

THEOSOPHY

linked in closest relationship, but we mustthink of them both as belonging to the whole of nature ; for
through them the whole ofnature is engaged in revealing herself to thesense of the eye especially. In like
manner nature reveals herself to another sense nature thus speaks downward to OTHER SENSES, to known,
MISUNDERSTOOD, UNKNOWN senses ; she thus speaks with herself and to us througha thousand phenomena. TO THE
ATTENTIVE SHE IS NOWHERE EITHER DEAD OR SILENT." It would not be correct were one to interpretthis saying
of Goethe's as though by it thepossibility of knowing the ESSENTIAL NATURE of a thing were being denied .
Goethe does not mean that one perceives only the effects ofa thing, and that the being hides itself
behindthem. He means rather that one should not speak at all of a "hidden being." The beingis not behind
its revelation ; it comes, on the contrary, into view through the revelation. But this being is in many
respects so RICH that it can reveal itself to other senses in yet otherforms. THAT which reveals itself
belongs tothe being ONLY-on account of the limitations of the senses-it is not the WHOLEbeing. This

THE THREE WORLDS 9 1

point of view of Goethe's is entirely the theosophical one.

As in the body, eye and ear develop intoorgans of perception, into senses for corporaloccurrences, so is
man able to develop in himself soul and spiritual organs of perception, through which the soul and
spiritual worlds will be opened to him . For those who have not such higher senses, these worlds are
"deadand silent," just as for a being without eyesand ears the corporal world is "dark andsilent." It is
true that the relation of man to these higher senses is rather different from hisrelations to the corporal
senses . It is goodMother Nature who sees to it as a rule that these latter are developed in him. They
come into existence without his help . But on the development of his higher senses he must workhimself. If
he wishes to perceive the soul andspirit worlds, he must develop soul and spiritas nature has developed
his body so that hemight perceive the corporal world aroundhim and guide himself in it. Such a development
of the higher organs not yet developedfor us by nature herself is not unnatural ; for in the HIGHER SENSE
all that man accom

THEOSOPHY

plishes belongsALSO to nature. Only he who wishes to maintain that man should remain standing at the stage
at which he left the hand of nature could call the development of the higher senses unnatural . By him the
significance of these organs is misunderstood, as indicated in the quotation from Goethe . Such a one
might just as well oppose all education of man, for it also develops further the work of nature. And he
would have to oppose especially operations upon those born blind. For almost the same thing happens to him
who awakens his higher senses in himself as to the person born blind and operated upon . The world appears
to him with new qualities, events, and facts, of which the physical senses reveal nothing to him. It is
clear to him that through these higher organs he adds nothing arbitrarily to the reality, but that without
them the essential part of this reality would have remained HIDDEN from him. The soul and spirit worlds
are nothing ALONGSIDE or OUTSIDE the physical world ; they are not separated in space from it. Just as for
persons born blind and operated upon, the previously dark world rays out light and colors, so the things
which

THE THREE WORLDS

previously were only corporal phenomena reveal their soul and spirit qualities to him who is, soul and
spirit, AWAKENED. In addition to this, however, this world then becomes filled with still other
occurrences and beings that remain completely unknown to him whose soul and spirit senses are not awakened
. The development of the soul and spirit senses will be spoken of in a more detailed way further on in
this book. Here these higher worlds themselves will be described. Anyone who denies the existence of these
worlds says nothing more than that he has not yet developed his higher organs. This is still the case with
the greater part of mankind at the present stage of the world's evolution . But the evolution of man is
not terminated at any one stage ; it must always progress. What will be here called the SOUL WORLD, is
called in current theosophical literature the "astral," the spirit world is called in it the "mental"
world.

One often involuntarily pictures the "higher organs" as too similar to the physical ones. One should
understand quite clearly that in these organs one has to do with spir

THEOSOPHY

itual or soul formations. One ought not to expect, therefore, that what one perceives inthe higher worlds
is only a vaporous, rarefied matter. So long as one EXPECTS something of this kind, one can come to no
clear idea as to what is exactly meant by "higher worlds ." For many persons it would not be at all as
difficult as it actually is to know something aboutthese higher worlds, the elementary part, thatis to
say, if they did not form the idea thatwhat they are to see is again merely physical matter rarefied .
Because they presuppose something of this kind they, as a rule, do notat all wish to acknowledge the
reality of thatwhich is the essential part. They look uponit as unreal, refuse to acknowledge it as
something that satisfies them, and so on . The higherstages of spiritual development are certainlynot
easily accessible; but the lower, and that is already a great deal, would not be at allso difficult to
reach if people would from thefirst free themselves from the prejudicewhich consists in picturing to
themselvesthe soul and spiritual merely as a finer physical.

Just as we do not wholly know a man when

THE THREE WORLDS 95

we have formed a picture of his physical exterior only, so also we do not know the world around us if we
only know in it what the physical senses reveal to us . And just as a photograph becomes intelligible and
living to us when we have become so intimately acquainted with the person photographed as to know his
soul, so we can really understand the corporal world only if we learn to know its soul and spiritual
basis. For this reason it is advisable to speak here, first about the higher, the soul and spirit worlds,
and only then judge of the physical from the theosophical standpoint .

Certain difficulties are met with at this present stage of civilization by anyone speaking about the
higher worlds. For this age is great above all things in the knowledge and conquest of the physical world
. Our words have, in fact, received their stamp and , significance through being applied to this physical
world. Nevertheless we have to make use of these current words so as to form a link with something known .
This opens the door to many misundertandings on the part of those who wish to trust to their external
senses

THEOSOPHY

only. Much also can be expressed and indi

cated only by means of similes and resemblances. This must be so, for such similes are a means by which a
man is at first directed to these higher worlds, and through which his own ascent to them is furthered .
(This will become evident in a later chapter, in which the development of the soul and spiritual organs of
perception will be spoken of. To begin with, one MUST gain knowledge of the higher worlds by means of
similes. Only then is man ready to acquire for himself the power to see into them.)

As the matter and forces which compose and govern our stomach, our heart, our brain, our lungs, etc., come
from the physical world, so do our soul qualities, our impulses, desires, feelings, passions, wishes,
sensations, etc., come from the soul world. The soul of the human being is a member of this world, just as
his body is part of the physical world of bodies. Should one wish to begin by pointing out a difference
between the corporal and soul worlds, one would say that the latter is in all its objects and entities
much finer, more mobile, and plastic than the

THE THREE WORLDS

former. But it must be kept clearly in mind that on entering the soul world one enters a world entirely
different from the physical. If, therefore, "coarser" and "finer" be spoken of in this respect, readers
must be fully aware that one SUGGESTS by means of a comparison what is fundamentally different. It is the
same with all that is said about the soul world in words borrowed from the world of physical corporality.
Taking this into account, one can say that the formations and beings of the soul world consist in the same
way of soul materials, and are directed in the same way by soul forces, as is the case in the physical
world with physical materials and physical forces .

Just as spacial extension and spacial movement are peculiar to corporal formations, so are excitability
and impelling desire peculiar to the things and beings of the soul world . For this reason one describes
the soul world as the world of desires or wishes, or as the world of longing. These expressions are
borrowed from the human soul world . One must therefore hold clearly in view that the things in those
parts of the soul world which lie outside the human soul are just as different from

THEOSOPHY

the soul forces within it as the physical matter and forces of the external corporal world are different
from the parts which compose the physical human body. (Impulse, wish, longing are names for the material
of the soul world. To this matter theosophical literature gives the name of "astral ." If one wishes to

refer specifically to the FORCES of the soul world, one speaks in Theosophy of "kama ." But it must not be
forgotten that the distinction between "matter" and "force" cannot be as sharply drawn as in the physical
world . An instinct, an impulse, can be called "force" just as well as "matter.")

On him who obtains a view of the soul world for the first time, the differences between it and the
physical have a bewildering effect. But that is also the case when a previously inactive physical sense is
being opened . The

man born blind, when operated upon, has first to learn to guide himself through the world which he has
previously known only by means of the sense of touch. Such a one, for example, sees the objects at first
IN his own eyes, then he sees them outside himself, but at first they appear to him as if painted on a
flat

THE THREE WORLDS

surface. Only gradually does he grasp perspective and the spacial distance between things. In the soul
world entirely different laws prevail from those in the physical. Now there are many soul formations bound
to those of the other worlds. The soul of man, for instance, is bound to the human body and to the human
spirit. The occurrences one can observe in it are therefore influenced at the same time by the bodily and
the spiritual worlds. One has to take this into account in observing the soul world, and one must take
care not to ascribe to a law of the soul world occurrences due to the influence of another world. When,
for example, a man sends out a wish, it is produced by a thought, a conception of the spirit whose laws it
accordingly follows. One can formulate the laws of the physical world while ignoring, for example, the
influence of man on its occurrences, and the same thing is possible with regard to the soul world.

An important difference between soul and physical occurrences can be expressed by saying that the
interaction in the former is much more INWARD than in the latter. In phys

ioo THEOSOPHY

ical space there reigns, for example, the law of "impact." When an ivory ball strikes another which is at
rest, the latter moves in a direction which can be calculated from the motion and elasticity of the first
. In the soul space the interaction of two forms which meet depends on their inner qualities. If they are
in affinity they mutually interpenetrate each other and, as it were, grow together. They repel each other
if their beings conflict . In physical space there are, for example, definite laws of vision . One sees
distant objects perspectively diminishing. When one looks down an avenue, the distant trees appear,
according to the laws of perspective, to stand at shorter distances from each other than the near ones .
In the soul space, on the contrary, all objects near and far appear to the clairvoyant at those distances
from each other which are due to their inner nature . This is naturally a source of the most varied
mistakes for those who enter the soul world, and wish to become at home

there by the help of the rules which they bring with them from the physical world.

One of the first things that a man must do in order to make his way about the soul world

THE THREE WORLDS ioi

is to realize that one distinguishes the various kinds of its forms in a similar manner to that in which
one distinguishes solid, liquid, air, or gaseous bodies in the physical world. In order to be able to do
that it is necessary to know the two basic forces which are the most important in it. They may be called

SYM

PATHY and ANTIPATHYThe order to which

a soul formation belongs is decided by the manner in which these basic forces work in it. The force with
which one soul formation attracts others, seeks to fuse with them, to make its affinity with them
effectual, must be desig

nated as _ SYMPATHY. ANTIPATHY, on the

other hand, is the force with which soul formations repel, exclude each other in the soul world, with
which they assert their separate identity. The part played in the soul world by a soul formation depends
upon the proportions in which these basic forces are present in it. One has to distinguish, in the first
place, between three kinds of soul formations according to the manner in which sympathy and antipathy work
in them. These kinds differ from each other in that sympathy and antipathy have in them definitely fixed
mutual rela

THEOSOPHY

tionships . In all three BOTH basic forces are present. Let us take, to begin with, a formation of the
first kind. It attracts other formations in its neighborhood by means of the sympathy ruling in it ; but,
besides this sympathy, there is at the same time present in it antipathy, through which it repels certain
things in its surroundings. From the outside such a formation appears to be endowed with the forces of
antipathy ONLY. This, however, is not the case . There is sympathy and antipathy in it, but the latter
predominates . It has the upper hand over the former. Such formations play a SELF-SEEKING role in the soul
space. They repel much that is around them, and lovingly attract but little to themselves . They therefore
move through the soul space as unchangeable forms. The force of sympathy which is in them appears GREEDY.
This GREED appears at the same time insatiable, as if it could not be satisfied, because the predominating
antipathy repels so much of what approaches that no satisfaction is possible . (Here we have to do with
what is described in theosophical literature as the lowest part of the astral world.) Should one wish to

THE THREE WORLDS

compare this kind of soul formation with something in the physical world, one can say that it corresponds
with the solid physical bodies. This region of soul matter may be called BURNING DESIRE. The manner in
which this Burning Desire is mingled in the souls of animals and men determines in them what one calls the
lower sensual impulses, their dominating selfish instincts .

The second kind of soul formations is that in which the two basic forces preserve a balance, in which,
accordingly, antipathy and sympathy act with equal strength. They approach other formations with a certain
neutrality and act on them as if related, but without especially attracting or repelling. They, as it
were, erect no solid barrier between themselves and their surroundings . They constantly allow other
formations in their surroundings to act on them ; one can therefore compare them with the liquids of the
physical world. And there is nothing of greed in the way in which such formations attract others to
themselves. The activity meant here is in process, for example, when the human soul receives the sensation
of a certain color.

THEOSOPHY

If I have the sensation of a red color, I receive to begin with a NEUTRAL EXCITATION from my surroundings.
Only when there is added to this excitation pleasure in the red color does another soul activity come into
play . That which effects the NEUTRAL EXCITATION is the action of soul formations standing in such mutual
relationship that sympathy and antipathy preserve an equal balance. One will have to describe the soul
matter which comes under observation here as perfectly plastic and flowing. Not self-seeking like the
first does it move about the soul space, but in such a way that its being receives impressions from all
directions, and that it shows itself to have affinity with much that approaches it. Anâ?¢ expression that
may be used to designate it is FLOWING EXCITABILITY.

The third stage of soul formations .is that in which sympathy has the upper hand over antipathy. Antipathy
produces the self- seeking self-assertion ; this, however, retires in face of the liking for the things in
the surroundings. Let us picture such a formation within the soul space. It appears as the center

point of an attracting sphere which spreads

THE THREE WORLDS 105

over the objects in its surroundings . Such formations one must designate in a special sense as WISH
SUBSTANCE. This designationappears to be the right one, because the attraction so acts, even through the
existing antipathy, as to bring the attracted objects within thesoul formation's own sphere. The sympathy
thus receives a tone of selfishness. This wish substance may be likened to the air or gaseousbodies of the
physical world. As a gas strivesto expand on all sides, so does the wish substance spread itself out in
all directions.

Higher grades of soul substance render themselves distinguishable by the fact that inthem one of the basic
forces, namely antipathy, retires completely, and sympathy alone showsitself as the one really effective.
Now this is able to make its power felt within the parts ofsoul formation itself. These parts
mutuallyattract each other. The force of sympathywithin a soul formation comes to expression inwhat one
calls LIKING. And each lessening ofthis sympathy is DISLIKING. Disliking is onlya lessened liking, as cold
is only a lessenedwarmth. Liking and disliking compose whatlives in man as the world of EMOTIONS in

rob THEOSOPHY

the narrow sense of the word. FEELING is the life and activity of the soul within itself. What one calls
the COMFORT of the soul depends on the way in which the feelings of liking and disliking-attraction and
repulsion- interact within the soul.

A still higher grade is occupied by those soul formations whose sympathy does not remain enclosed within
the region of their own life. They differ from the three lower grades, as does in fact the fourth also, in
that in them the force of sympathy has no antipathy opposing it to overcome. It is only through these
higher orders of soul substance that the manifold variety of soul formations can unite and form a common
soul world. In cases where antipathy comes into play, the soul formation strives toward another thing for
sake of its own life, and in order to strengthen and enrich itself by means of the other. Where antipathy
is silent the other thing is received as revelation, as information. This higher form of soul substance
plays in the soul space a similar role to that played by light in physical space. It causes a soul
formation to suck in, as it were, the being or essence of others for

THE THREE WORLDS

their sakes ; one could also say to let itself be rayed upon by them . Only by drawing upon these higher
regions are the soul beings awakened to the true soul life . Their dull life in the darkness opens
outward, and begins itself to shine and ray out into the soul space ; the sluggish, dull movement of the
inner life which wishes to shut itself off through antipathy when the substances of the lower regions only
are present, becomes force and mobility which arises from within, and, streaming, pours itself outward .
The Flowing Excitability of the second region is only effective when formations meet each other . Then,
indeed, the one streams over into the other . ButCONTACT is here necessary. In the higher regions there
prevails a free out-raying and out-pouring. (Rightly does one describe the essential nature of this region
as an "out-raying," for the sympathy which is developed acts in such a way that one can use as symbol for
it the expression taken from the action of light .) The soul pines from lack of the soul substances of the
higher regions which give it life, as a plant degenerates in a dark cellar.

SOUL LIGHT, ACTIVE SOUL FORCE and the

rob THEOSOPII Y

true SOUL LIFE in the narrower sense belong to these regions, and thence pour themselves out to the soul
beings.

One has therefore to distinguish between three lower and three higher regions of the soul world. These are
linked by a fourth, so that there results the following division of the soul world

i . Region of Burning Desire. 2. " Flowing Excitability. 3. " Wishes. Attraction and Repulsion. 4â?¢

5. " Soul Light. 6. " Active Soul Force. " " Soul Life. 7â?¢

Through the first three regions the soul formations receive their qualities according to the proportion of
sympathy and antipathy in them ; through the fourth region sympathy is prevailingly active within the soul
formations themselves ; through the three highest, the power of sympathy becomes ever more and more free ;
illumining and quickening, the soul substances of this region waft through the soul space, awakening that
which, if left to itself, would lose itself in its own separate existence.

THE THREE WORLDS log

For the sake of clearness it is here emphasized, though it should be superfluous, that these seven
divisions of the soul world do not represent regions separated from one another . Just as in the physical
regions solid, liquid, and air or gaseous substances interpenetrate, so do Burning Desire, Flowing
Excitability, and the forces of the World of Wishes in the soul world. And as in the physical world,
warmth penetrates bodies and light illumines them, so is it the case in the soul world with desire and
aversion, and with the Soul Light. Something similar takes place with regard to the Active Soul Force and
the true Soul Life .

2. THE SOUL IN THE SOUL WORLD AFTER DEATH The soul is the connecting link between the spirit of man and
his body. Its forces of sympathy and antipathy which, owing to their mutual relationship, bring about soul
manifestations, such as desire, excitability, wish, liking, and aversion, etc., are not only active
between soul formations and soul formations, but they manifest themselves also in relation to the beings
of the other worlds, the physical

THEOSOPHY

110

and the spiritual. While the soul lives in the body it participates to a certain extent in all that takes
place in it. When the physical functions of the body proceed with regularity, there arise in the soul
desire and comfort. If these functions are disturbed aversion and pain arise. And the soul has its share
in the activities of the spirit also ; one thought fills it with joy, another with repulsion ; a correct
judgment has the approval of the soul, a false one its disapproval. The stage of evolution of a man
depends, in fact, on whether the inclinations of his soul move more in one direction or in another. A man
is the more perfect the more his soul sympathizes with the manifestations of the spirit ; he is the more
imperfect the more the inclinations of his soul are satisfied by the functions of the body.

The spirit is the central point of man, the body the instrument by which the spirit observes and learns to
understand the physical world and through it acts in it . But the soul is the intermediary between the two
. Out of the physical impression which the vibrations of air make on the ear, it awakens the sensing of
the sound ; it produces the PLEASURE in this

THE THREE WORLDS

tone. All this it communicates to the spirit, which thus attains to the UNDERSTANDING of the physical
world. A thought which arises in the spirit is changed by the soul into the WISH to realize it, and only
through this can it become DEED, with the help of the body as instrument. Now man can fulfill his destiny
only by allowing his spirit to direct the course of all his activity . The soul can (of itself) direct its
inclinations just as well to the physical as to the spiritual. It sends, as it were, its feelers down into
the physical as well as up into the spiritual . By sinking them into the physical world its own being
becomes penetrated and colored by the nature of the physical . 'But the spirit, because able to act in the
physical world only through it as intermediary, receives also in this way the direction toward the
physical . Its formations are drawn to the physical by the forces of the soul . Observe, for example, the
undeveloped man . The inclinations of his soul cling to the functions of his body. He feels pleasure only
in the impressions made by the physical world on his senses. His intellectual life also is thereby
completely drawn down into this region . His

THEOSOPHY

thoughts serve only to satisfy his demands on the physical life . The spiritual Self by living from
incarnation to incarnation is intended to receive its direction ever increasingly out of the spiritual ;
its knowledge to be determined by the spirit of eternal Truth, its action by the eternal Goodness .

Death, when regarded as a fact in the physical world, signifies a change in the functions of the body. It
ceases to be through its organization the instrument of the soul and the spirit. It shows itself
henceforth to be entirely subject, as regards its functions, to the physical world and its laws. And it
passes over into it in order to dissolve in it. Only these physical processes in the body can be observed
after death by the physical senses . What happens then to soul and spirit escapes them. For even during
life soul and spirit can be observed by the senses only in so far as they have external expressions in
physical processes . After death THIS kind of expression is no longer possible . For this reason
observation by means of the physical senses and science based on it, do NOT come under consideration in
reference to the fate of the soul and spirit AFTER DEATH . Here

iii

THE THREE WORLDS

a higher knowledge steps in, based on observation of the events in the soul and spirit worlds .

After the spirit has released itself from the body it continues to be united with the soul. And as, during
physical life, the body chains it to the physical world, the soul now chains it to the soul world. But it
is not in this soul world that the spirit's true primordial being is to be found. The soul world is

intended to serve merely as its connecting link with the scene of its actions, the physical world. In
order to appear in a new incarnation with a more perfect form it must draw force and strength from the
spiritual world. But through the soul it has become entangled in the physical world. It is bound to a soul
being which is penetrated and colored by the nature of the physical, and through this it has itself
acquired a tendency in this direction. After death the soul is no longer bound to the body, but only to
the spirit. It lives now within soul surroundings . Only the forces of this soul world can therefore have
an effect on it . And at first the spirit also is bound to this life of the soul in the soul world. It is
bound to it in the

rr4 THEOSOPHY

same way as it is bound to the body during physical incarnation. The time when the body is to die is
determined by the laws of the BODY. Speaking generally, in fact, it must be said it is not that the soul
and spirit forsake the body, but that the body is set free by them when its forces are no longer able to
act after the manner of the human organization . The same relationship exists between soul and spirit. The
soul sets the spirit free to pass into the higher, the spiritual world, when its forces are no longer able
to function as after the manner of the human soul-organism. The spirit is set free the moment the soul has
handed over to dissolution what it can only experience in the body, and retains only that which remains
over, which can live on with

the spirit. This retained extract, which, although experienced in the body, can, nevertheless as fruit, be
stamped on the spirit, connects the soul with the spirit in the pure, spiritual world.

In order to learn the fate of the soul after death, therefore, one has to observe its process of
dissolution . It had the task of giving the spirit its direction toward the

THE THREE WORLDS z ,_ 5

physical. The moment it has fulfilled THIS task the soul takes the direction to the spiritual. In fact,
the nature of its task would cause it to be henceforth only spiritually active when the body falls away
from it, that is, when it can no longer be a CONNECTING LINK. And so

it would be, had it not, owing to its life in the body, been influenced by it and in its inclinations
attracted to it. Were it not for this coloring received through the body it would at once, on being
disembodied, follow the laws of the spiritual soul world only, and manifest no further inclination to the
sensible world . This is what would happen if a man on dying lost completely all interest in the earthly
world, if all desires, wishes, etc ., attaching to the existence he has left had been completely
satisfied. To the extent to which this is not the case, the unsatisfied part of the soul persists in its
longings for the physical.

To avoid confusion we must here carefully distinguish between what chains man to the world in such a way
that it can be made good in any following incarnation, and that which chains him to ONE particular
incarnation, that is, to the immediately preceding one . The

THEOSOPHY

116

first is made good by means of the law of destiny or Karma ; but the other can only be got rid of by the
soul after death.

After death there follows, for the human spirit, a time during which the soul is shaking off its
inclinations toward the physical existence, in order once more to follow the laws of the spiritual soul
world only and set the spirit free. It is natural that this time will last the longer the more the soul
was bound to the physical. It will be short in the case of a man who has clung little to the physical
life, long, on the other hand, for one who has so completely bound up his interests with it that at death
many desires, wishes, etc., still live in the soul.

The easiest way to gain an idea of the condition in which the soul lives during the time immediately after
death is afforded by the following consideration. Let us take the somewhat crass example, the enjoyment of
the bon vivant. His pleasure consists in the tickling of the palate by food. The pleasure is naturally not
bodily, but belongs to the soul . The pleasure lives in the soul, as also does the desire for the
pleasure. But for the

THE THREE WORLDS 1 1 7

SATISFACTION of the desire the corresponding bodily organs, the palate, etc ., are necessary. After death
the soul has not immediately lost such a desire, but it no longer possesses the bodily organ which
provides the means for satisfying the desire. For another reason, but one which acts in the same way only
far more strongly, the man is now as if he were suffering burning thirst in a region in the length and
breadth of which there is no water. The soul thus suffers burning pain from the deprivation of the
pleasure because it has laid aside the bodily organ by which it can experience it. It is the same with all
that the soul yearns for and that can only be satisfied through the bodily organs. This condition (of
burning privation) lasts until the soul has learned not to long any more for that which can only be
satisfied through the body . The time passed in this condition is usually called in Theosophy "Kamaloca"
(region of desires, although it has of course nothing to do with a locality) .

When the soul enters the soul world after death it becomes subject to the laws of that world. The laws act
on it, and on their action

1 18 THEOSOPHY

depends the manner in which its inclinations toward the physical are destroyed. The waysin which they act
on it must differ accordingto the kinds of soul substances and soul forces in whose domain it is placed at
the time. Each of these kinds will make its purifying, cleansing influence felt. The process which
takesplace here consists in the gradual conqueringof all antipathy in the soul by the forces ofsympathy,
and in bringing this sympathy itself to its highest pitch. For through this highestdegree of sympathy with
the whole of the restof the soul world, the soul will, as it were, merge into it, become one with it ;
then is it utterly emptied of its self-seeking ; it ceases to exist as a being inclined to the
physicallysensible existence ; the spirit is set freethrough it. The soul therefore purifies itselfthrough
all the regions of the soul worlddescribed above until, in the region of perfectsympathy, it becomes one
with the wholesoul world. That the spirit itself is in bondageuntil the last moment of the liberation of
its soul is due to the fact that, through itslife with it, it has developed a completeaffinity. This
relationship is much greater

THE THREE WORLDS

than the one with the body. For the spirit is bound directly to the soul, but only indirectly through the
soul to the body. The soul is, in fact, the spirit's own life . For this reason the spirit is not bound to
the decaying body, though it is bound to the soul gradually freeing itself. On account of the immediate
bond between the spirit and the soul, the spirit can feel free with the soul only when the latter has
itself become one with the whole soul world.

In so far as the soul world is the abode of man immediately after death it is called "Kamaloca," the
"Region of Desires." The different religious systems which have embodied in their doctrines a knowledge of
these conditions know this "Region of Desires" by the name of "purgatory," "cleansing fire," and so on.

The lowest region of the soul world is that of Burning Desire. By it everything in the soul that has to do
with the coarsest, lowest, selfish desires of the physical life is rooted out of the soul after death. For
through such desires it is exposed to the effects of the forces of this soul region . The unsatisfied

THEOSOPHY

desires which have remained from physical life furnish the points of attack . The sympathy of such souls
extends only to what can nourish their selfish natures ; it is greatly exceeded by the antipathy which
floods everything else. Now the desires aim at physicalenjoyments which cannot be satisfied in the soul
world. The craving is intensified to its highest degree by this impossibility of satisfaction. But at the
same time owing to thisimpossibility it is forced to die out gradually . The burning lusts gradually
exhaust themselves, and the soul has learned by experiencethat the only means of preventing the suffering
that must come from such longings lies inkilling them out. During the physical lifesatisfaction is
constantly being repeated. Bythis means the pain of the burning lusts iscovered over by a kind of
illusion. After death, in the "fire cleansing," the pain comesinto evidence quite unveiled. The most
fearful sufferings are laid bare. A dark, gloomystate is it in which the soul thus finds itself . Of
course only those persons whose desiresare directed during physical life to the coarsestthings can fall
into this condition . Natures

THE THREE WORLDS

with few lusts go through it without noticing it, for they have no affinity with it. It must be stated
that, in general, souls are the longer influenced by the Burning Desire the more closely they have become
bound up with that fire during life, and the more they require on that account to be purified in it.

A second class of things in the soul world is of such a nature that sympathy and antipathy preserve an
equal balance in them . In so far as a human soul is in a similar condition after death it will be
influenced by these things for a time. The giving of oneself up entirely to the external glitter of life
and to joy in the swiftly-succeeding impressions of the senses, brings about this condition. Many people
live in it . They allow themselves to be influenced by each worthless trifle of everyday life ; but, as
their sympathy is attached to no one thing in particular, the influences quickly pass. Everything that
does not belong to this region of empty nothings is repellent to such persons . If the soul experiences
this condition after death without the presence of the physical objects which are necessary for its
satisfaction, the condition

THEOSOPHY

must needs die out ultimately. Naturally the privation which precedes its complete extinction in the soul
is full of suffering . This state of suffering is the school for the destruction of the illusion in which
such persons are completely wrapped up during physical life.

Thirdly there come under consideration in the soul world the things with predominating sympathy, those in
whose natures WISH predominates. The effects of their activity are experienced by souls that retain an
atmosphere of wishes after death. These wishes also gradually die out on account of the impossibility of
their being satisfied .

The region of Attraction and Repulsion which has been described above as the fourth, exposes the soul to
special trials . As long as the soul dwells in the body it shares all that concerns it. The inner surge
life of attraction and repulsion is bound up with the body. It causes the soul's feeling of well-being and
comfort, dislike and discomfort. Man feels during his physical life that his body is himself, what one
calls the FEELING OF SELF springs from this. And the more sensually inclined people are, the more does
their

THE THREE WORLDS

feeling of self take on this characteristic . After death the body, the object of this feeling of self, is
lacking. On this account the soul, with which the feeling has remained, feels as if EMPTIED OUT. A feeling
as if it had lost itself befalls it. This continues until the soul has recognized that the true man does
not lie in the physical . The operations of this fourth region on the soul accordingly destroy the
illusion of the bodily self. The soul, at length, learns to stop feeling that this corporality is an
essential reality. It is cured and purified of its attachment to embodiment . In this way it has conquered
that which chains it strongly to the physical world, and can unfold fully the forces of sympathy which
flow outward. It has, so to say, broken free from itself, and is ready to pour itself with full sympathy
into the common soul world .

It should not pass unnoted that the torments of this region are suffered to an especial degree by suicides
. They leave their physical body in an artificial way, while all the feelings connected with it remain
unchanged. In the case of a natural death the decay of the body is accompanied by a

T24 THEOSOPHY

partial dying out of the feelings of attachment to it. In the case of suicides there are, in addition to
the torment caused by the feeling of having been suddenly emptied out, the unsatisfied desires and wishes
on account of which they have deprived themselves of their bodies.

The FIFTH stage of the soul world is that of SOUL LIGHT. In it sympathy with others has already reached a
high degree of power. Souls are connected with it in so far as they have not during their physical lives
entirely devoted themselves to satisfying lower necessities, but have had joy and pleasure in their
surroundings. Enthusiasm for nature, for example, in so far as it has borne something of a sensuous
character undergoes cleansing here. It is necessary, however, to distinguish clearly THIS kind of love of
nature from that higher living in nature which is of the spiritual kind, and which seeks for the spirit
that reveals itself in the things and events of nature. This kind of feeling for nature is one of the
things that develop the spirit itself and establish something permanent in the spirit . But one must
distinguish between THIS feel

THE THREE WORLDS

ing for nature and such pleasure in nature as is based on the senses. In regard to this the soul requires
purification just as well as in regard to other inclinations based on the mere physical existence. Many
people hold, as a kind of ideal, arrangements which minister to sensuous welfare, and a system of
education which results above all in the production of sensuous comfort. One cannot say of them that they
further only their selfish impulses, but their souls are, nevertheless, directed to the physical world,
and must be cured of this by the prevailing force of sympathy in the fifth region of the soul world in
which these external means of satisfaction are lacking. The soul here recognizes gradually that this
sympathy must take other directions, and these are found in the outpouring of the soul into the soul
region, which is brought about by sympathy with the soul surroundings . Those souls also that demand from
their religious observances mainly an enhancement of their sensuous welfare, whether it be that their
longing goes out to an earthly or a heavenly paradise, are purified here. They find this paradise in the
"Soul-land," but only

THEOSOPHY

for the purpose of seeing through its worthlessness. These are, of course, merely a fewdetached examples
of purifications whichtake place in this fifth region. They couldbe multiplied indefinitely.

By means of the SIXTH region, that of Active Soul Force, the purification of soulsthirsting for action
takes place, souls whoseactivity does not bear an egotistical character, but springs, nevertheless, from
the sensuoussatisfaction it affords them. Such natures, viewed superficially, quite convey the impression
of being idealists ; they show themselvesto be persons capable of self-sacrifice. In a deeper sense,
however, the chief thing withthem is the enhancement of a sensuous feelingof pleasure. Many artistic
natures and such as give themselves up to scientific activitybecause it pleases them, belong to this class
. What binds these people to the physical worldis the belief that art and science exist for the sake of
such pleasure. They have not yetlearned to place these at the service of theworld's evolution, and thereby
to place themselves at its service.

The SEVENTH region, that of the real SOUL.

THE THREE WORLDS

LIFE, frees man of his last inclination to the sensibly physical world. Each preceding region divests the
soul of whatever has affinity with it. What now still envelops the spirit is the belief that its activity
should be entirely devoted to the physical world. There are individuals who, though highly gifted, do not
think about much over and above the occurrences of the physical world . This belief can be called
materialistic. It must be destroyed, and this is done in the seventh region . There these souls see that
they have no objects for their materialistic thinking. Like ice in the sun this belief of the soul melts
away. The soul being is now absorbed into its own world. The spirit, free from all fetters, rises to the

regions where it lives in its own surroundings only. The soul has completed its previous earthly task, and
after death any traces of this task that remained fettering the spirit have dissolved. 'By overcoming the
last trace of the earth, the soul is itself given back to its elements.

One sees by this description that the experiences in the soul world, and also the conditions of the soul
life after death, gain an ever

128

THEOSOPHY

friendlier appearance the more a man has shaken off the low elements that adhere to him from his earthly
union with the physical corporality. The soul will belong for a longer or shorter time to one or another
region according to its physical life. Where the soul feels itself to be in affinity, there it remains
until the affinity is extinguished. Where no relationship exists, it goes on its way untouched.

It was intended that only the fundamental characteristics of the soul world, and the outstanding features
of the life of the soul in this world, should be described here . This applies also to the following
descriptions of the spirit land. I would exceed the prescribed limits of this book were further
characteristics of these higher worlds to be gone into . For the special relationships and the lapse of
time, which are quite different there from those in the physical world, can only be spoken about
intelligibly when one is prepared to deal with them in full detail. References of importance in this
connection will be found in my "Outline of Occult Science" ("Geheimwissenschaft im Umriss," Altmann's
Verlag, Leipsig) .

THE THREE WORLDS

3. THE SPIRIT LAND Before the spirit can be observed on its further pilgrimage the land which it enters
must first be examined. It is the "World of the Spirit." (In theosophical literature this is called the
"mental" world. Here, the expression "World of the Spirit" or "Spirit-land" will be used.) This world is
so unlike the physical that all that is said about it will appear fantastic to him who is willing to trust
his physical senses only. And what has already been said in regard to the world of the soul holds good
here to a still higher degree ; that is, that one has to use analogies in order to describe it. For our
speech, which for the most part serves only for the realities of the senses, is not richly blessed with
expressions for the "Spirit-land." It is therefore especially necessary here to ask the reader to
understand much that is said as an INDICATION only. For everything that is described here is so unlike the
physical world that it can only in this way be depicted. The author is ever conscious of how little this
account can really resemble the experiences of this region owing

THEOSOPHY

to the imperfection of our speech, calculated, as it is, to be our medium of expression for the physical
world.

It must above all things be emphasized that this world is woven out of the material of which human thought
consists . But thought, as it lives in man, is only a shadow picture, a phantom of its true being. As the
shadow of an object on the wall is related to the real object which throws this shadow, so is the thought
that springs up in man related to the being in the spirit land which corresponds to this thought. Now when
the SPIRITUAL sense of man is awakened he really perceives this thought-being just as the eye of the
senses perceives the table or the chair. He goes about in a region of thought-beings. The corporeal eye
perceives the lion, and the corporeal thinking THINKS merely the thought "lion" as a phantom, a shadow
picture. The SPIRITUAL eye sees in Spirit-land the thought "lion" as really and actually as the corporeal
eye sees the physical lion. Here we may refer to the analogy already used regarding the soul land. Just as
the surroundings of a man born blind and operated upon appear all at once with the new

THE THREE WORLDS

qualities of color and light, so are the surroundings of the person who learns to use his SPIRITUAL eye
seen to be filled with a new world, the world of LIVING thoughts or SPIRIT BEINGS.

There are to be seen in this world, first, the SPIRITUAL ARCHETYPES of all things and beings which are
present in the physical and in the soul world. Imagine the picture of a painter existing in the mind
before it is painted. This gives an analogy to what is meant by the expression ARCHETYPE. It does not
concern us here that the painter has perhaps not had such an Archetype in his mind before he paints, and
that it only gradually develops and becomes complete during the practical work. In the real "World of
Spirit" there are such Archetypes for all things, and the physical things and beings are COPIES of these
Archetypes. When any person who trusts only his outer senses denies this archetypal world, and holds
Archetypes to be merely abstractions which the intellect, by comparing the objects of the senses, arrives
at, it is quite to be understood ; for such a one simply cannot see in this higher world ; he

THEOSOPHY

knows the thought world only in its shadowyabstractness. He does not know that the person with spiritual
vision is as familiar with thespirit beings as he is with his dog or his cat, and that the archetypal
world has a far more intense reality than the world of the physical senses.

The first look into this "Spirit-land" is stillmore bewildering than that into the soul world. For the
Archetypes in their true form are very unlike their sensible copies. Theyare, however, just as unlike
their SHADOWS, the abstract thoughts. In the spiritual worldall is in continuous, mobile activity, a
ceaselesscreating. A state of rest, a remaining in oneplace, such as one has in the physical world, does
not exist here. For the Archetypes are CREATIVE BEINGS. They are the master builders of all that comes
into being in the physical world and the soul world. Their forms change rapidly ; and in each Archetype
liesthe possibility of assuming myriads of specialized forms. They, as it were, let differentshapes well
up out of them, and scarcely is oneproduced than the Archetype prepares to pourforth the next one. The
Archetypes are

THE THREE WORLDS

related to each other in varying degrees of closeness. They do not work singly. The one requires the help
of the other in its creating. Often innumerable Archetypes work together in order that this or that being
in the soul or physical world may arise .

Besides what is to be perceived by "spiritual sight" in this "Spirit-land," there is something else
experienced that is to be regarded as "spiritual hearing." As soon, that is to say, as the clairvoyant
rises out of the soul world into the spirit world the Archetypes that are perceived become sounding as
well . The observer feels as if he were in an ocean of tones. And in these tones, in these spiritual
chimes, the Beings of the spirit world express themselves. The primordial laws of their existence express
their mutual relationships and affinities in the intermingling of their sounds, their harmonies, melodies,
and rhythms. What the intellect perceives in the physical world as law, as idea, reveals itself to the
"spiritual ear" as a kind of music. (Hence the Pythagoreans called these perceptions of the spiritual
world the "music of the spheres ." To the possessor of the "spiritual ear" this "music of the

1 34 THEOSOPHY

spheres" is not something merely figurative, allegorical, but a SPIRITUAL REALITY well known to him.) If
one wishes to gain a conception of this "spiritual music" one has to lay aside all ideas of the music of
the senses as perceived by the material ear. For it is here a matter of "spiritual perception" and
therefore of a kind which must remain silent for the "ear of the senses." In the following descriptions of
the "Spirit-land" reference to this "spiritual music" will for the sake of simplicity be omitted. One has
only to form a mental picture in which everything described as "Type," as "shining with light," is at the
same time SOUNDING. Each color, each perception of light represents a spiritual tone, and every
combination of colors corresponds with a harmony, a melody, etc. For one must hold clearly in mind that
even where the sounding prevails, perception by means of the "spiritual eye" by no means ceases. The
sounding is merely added to the shining. Where, therefore, Archetypes, the Primal Types, are spoken of in
the following pages, the Primal Tones are to be thought of as also present .

Now it is necessary in the first place to

THE THREE WORLDS

distinguish the different kinds of Archetypes . In the "Spirit-land" also one has to differentiate
numerous grades or regions in order to steer one's way among them. Here also, as in the soul world, the
different regions are not to be thought of as laid one above the other like strata, but mutually
interpenetrating and suffusing each other. The FIRST region contains the "Archetypes" of the physical
world in so far as it is not endowed with life . The Archetypes of the minerals are to be found here- also
those of the plants ; but the latter only in so far as they are purely physical, that is, in so far as one
does not take into account the life in them. In the same way one finds here the physical forms of the
animals and of human beings. This does not exhaust all that is to be found in this region, but merely
illustrates it by the readiest examples. This region forms the basic structure of the "Spirit-land ." It
can be likened to the solid land of our physical earth. It forms the continental masses of the "Spirit-
land." Its relationship with the physical, corporal world can only be described by means of an
illustration. One gains some idea of it in the following way. One has to

THEOSOPHY

picture a limited space filled with physical bodies of the most varied kinds . Then think these bodies
away and conceive in their place cavities in space having their forms. The intervening spaces, on the
other hand, which were previously empty one must think of as filled with the most varied forms, having
manifold relationships with the former bodies . This is somewhat like the appearance presented by the
lowest region of the Archetypal world. In it the things and beings which become embodied in the physical
world are present as "spacial cavities." And in the intervening spaces the mobile activity of the
Archetypes (and the "spiritual music") plays out its course. During their formation into physical forms
the spacial cavities become, as it were, filled up with physical matter. He who looks into space with both
physical and spiritual eyes sees the physical bodies and, in between, the mobile activity of the creative
Archetypes.

The SECOND region of the "Spirit-land" contains the Archetypes of life . But this life forms here a
perfect unity. It streams through the world of spirit like a fluid ele

THE THREE WORLDS

ment, as it were, like blood pulsating through all. It may be likened to the sea and the water systems of
the physical earth. The manner in which it is distributed, however, is more like the distribution of blood
in the animal body than that of the seas and rivers. One could describe this second stage of the
"Spiritland" as Flowing Life, formed of thought material. In this element are the creative Primal Forces
producing everything that appears in the physical reality as living being. Here it is evident that all
life is a unity, that the life in me is related to the life of all my fellow creatures.

The Archetypes of all soul formations must be designated as the THIRD region of the "Spirit-land." Here
one finds oneself in a much finer and rarer element than in the first two regions. To use a comparison,
one can call it the AIR or atmosphere of the "Spiritland." Everything that goes on in the souls of both
the other worlds has here its spiritual counterpart. Here all feelings, sensations, instincts, passions,
etc ., are again present, but in a spiritual way. The atmospheric events in the air region correspond with
the sorrows

138

THEOSOPHY

and joys of the creatures in the other worlds . The longing of the human soul is here perceived as a
gentle zephyr ; an outbreak of passion is like a stormy blast . He who has the ability to perceive here
notes the sigh of every creature should he direct his attention to it . One can, for example, observe at
times something like a loud storm with flashing lightning and rolling thunder ; and, if one investigates
the matter, one finds that the passions of a battle waged on earth are expressed in such "spirit
tempests."

The Archetypes of the FOURTH region are not immediately related to the other worlds. They are in certain
respects Beings who govern the Archetypes of the three lower regions and render possible their working
together. They are accordingly occupied with the ordering and grouping of these more subordinate
Archetypes. From this region, therefore, a more comprehensive activity issues than from the lower ones .

The FIFTH, SIXTH, and SEVENTH regions differ essentially from the preceding ones. For the Beings in them
supply the Archetypes with the IMPULSES to their activity. In

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them one finds the creative forces of the Archetypes themselves. He who is able to rise to these regions
makes acquaintance with the PURPOSES which underly our world. The Archetypes lie here, as yet, like living
germ- points, ready to assume the most manifold forms of thought-beings. If these germ-points are guided
into the lower regions they well out, as it were, and manifest themselves in the most varied shapes. (It
is for this reason that in theosophical literature these three higher regions of the "Spirit-land" are
called the Arupa, in contrast with the four lower, which are called the Rupa regions. Arupa means
formless; Rupa, having form.) The ideas through which the human spirit manifests itself creatively in the
physical world are the reflection, the shadow, of these Germ Thought-beings of the higher spiritual world
. The observer with the spiritual ear who rises from the lower regions of the "Spirit-land" to these
higher ones, becomes aware that sounds and tones are changed into a "spiritual language." He begins to
perceive the "spiritual word" through which the things and beings do not now make known to him their

140 THEOSOPHY

nature in music alone, but express it in "words." They say to him what one calls in "spirit science" their
"eternal name ."

One must picture to oneself that these Germ Thought-beings are of a composite nature. Out of the element
of the thought world only the germ-sheath, as it were, is taken. And this surrounds the true LIFE KERNEL.
With it we have reached the confines of the "three worlds." For the "KERNEL" has its origin in still
higher worlds . When man was described above according to his components this "Life kernel" of the human
being was mentioned, and its components were called "life spirit" and "spirit man." (Theosophical
literature applies to these the names budhi and atma.) There are similar "Life kernels" for other Beings
in the Cosmos. They originate in higher worlds and are placed in the three described, in order to
accomplish their tasks in them.

The human spirit will now be followed on its further pilgrimage through the "Spiritland" between two
embodiments or incarnations. While doing this the relationships and

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141

distinguishing characteristics of this "land" will once more come clearly into view .

4. THE SPIRIT IN SPIRIT-LAND AFTER DEATH When the human spirit on its way between two incarnations has
passed through this "world of souls" (Kamaloca), it enters the "Land of Spirits" to remain there until it
is ripe for a new bodily existence. (The theosophical name for this region is "Devachan.") One can only
understand the significance of this sojourn in "Spirit-land" when able to interpret in the right way the
aim and end of the pilgrimage of man during his incarnations. While man is incarnated in the physical body
he works and creates in the physical world. And he works and creates in it as a SPIRITUAL BEING. He
imprints on the physical forms, on corporeal materials and forces, that which his spirit thinks out and
develops . He has therefore, as a messenger of the spiritual world, to incorporate the spirit in the
corporal world. Only by being embodied can a man work in the world of bodies. He must wrap physical matter
around his spirit

THEOSOPHY

so that, through the body, he can act on the other bodies around, and so that they can act on him. But
what acts through this physical corporality of man is the SPIRIT. From it flow the PURPOSES, the direction
its work is to take in the physical world. Now, as long as the spirit works in the physical body, it
cannot as a spirit live in its true form . It can, as it were, only shine through the VEIL OF THE PHYSICAL
existence. For, as a matter of fact, the thought life of man really belongs to the spiritual world ; and,
as it appears in the physical existence, its true form is veiled . One can also say that the thought life
of the physical man is a shadow, a reflection of the true, spiritual being to whom it belongs. Thus,
during physical life, the spirit, through the physical body as an instrument, interacts with the earthly
corporal world.

Now, although it is exactly in action on the physical corporal world that one of the tasks of the spirit
of man lies as long as he is proceeding from incarnation to incarnation, it could not by any means carry
out this task as it ought if it led an embodied existence only . For the purposes and goals of the earthly
task are

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just as little developed and gained within the earthly incarnation as the plan of a house comes into
existence on the site on which the laborers work. Just as this plan is worked out in the offices of the
architect, so are the aims and purposes of the earthly creative activities worked out and developed in the
"Land of Spirits." The spirit of man has always to live again in this land between two incarnations in
order to be able to equip himself with what he takes with him on leaving it and, armed with that, to
approach the work in the physical life. As the architect without working with brick and mortar designs the
plan of the house in his workroom in accordance with architectural and other rules, so has the architect
of human creations, the spirit or Higher Self, to develop in the "Spiritland" capacities and aims in
accordance with the laws of this land, in order to bring them over into the physical world . Only if the
human spirit sojourns over and over again in its own region will it be also able to bring the

spirit, by means of the physical corporal instruments, into the earthly world. On the physical scene of
action man learns

THEOSOPHY

to know the qualities and forces of the phys

ical world. He gathers there during his creative activity experiences regarding the demands made by the
physical world on any one wishing to work in it. He learns there to know, as it were, the qualities of the
matter in which he wishes to embody his thoughts and ideas. The thoughts and ideas themselves he cannot
extract from the matter, so that the physical world is both the scene of his creating and of his LEARNING.
What has been learned is then transmuted in the "Spirit-land" into living faculties of the spirit.

One can carry the above comparison further, in order to make the matter clearer . The architect designs
the plan of the house . It is carried out. While this goes on he gains a number of the most varied
experiences. All of these experiences enhance his capacities . When he designs his next plan all these
experiences have an influence on it. And this plan, when compared to the first, is seen to be enriched
with all that was learned through the first. It is the same with the successive human lives. In the
interval between the incarnations the spirit lives in its own sphere . It

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can give itself up entirely to the requirements of the spirit life ; freed from the physical corporality,
it develops in every direction . And it calls to its aid in this development the fruits of its experiences
in former earthly careers. In this way its attention is always directed to the scene of its earthly tasks.
And in this way it works continually at making the earth, its present field of action, more and more
perfect. It works upon itself, so as to be able in each incarnation to carry out its service during its
earthly pilgrimage more and more perfectly.

This is of course only a GENERAL OUTLINE of the successive human lives . The reality will never be quite
the same, but will only more or less correspond with it. Circumstances may bring it about that a
subsequent life of a man is much less perfect than a previous one. But taken as a whole such
irregularities equalize themselves in a natural manner during the course of the succession of lives.

The development of the spirit in "Spiritland" takes place through the man's throwing himself completely
into the life of the

THEOSOPHY

146

different regions of this land. His own life, as it were, dissolves into each region successively; he
takes on, for the time being, their characteristics. Through this they penetrate his being with theirs, in
order that his may be able to work, strengthened by theirs, in his earthly life.

In the FIRST region of the "Spirit-land" man is surrounded with the spiritual Archetypes of the earthly
things. During life on earth he learns to know only the shadows of these Archetypes which he grasps in his
thoughts. What is merely THOUGHT on earth is in this region experienced, LIVED. Man moves among thoughts ;
but these thoughts are REAL BEINGS. What he has perceived with his senses during life on earth acts on him
now in its thought form. But the thought does not appear as the shadow which hides itself behind the
things ; it is on the contrary the life-filled reality producing the things. Man is, as it were, in the
thought workshop in which the earthly things are formed and constructed. For in the "Land of Spirits" all
is vital activity and mobility. Here, the thought world is at work as a world of living beings, creative
and con

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147

structive. One sees how that which one has experienced during the earthly existence is CONSTRUCTED. Just
as in the physical body one experiences the things of the senses as reality, so now as spirit one
experiences the spiritual constructive forces as real. Among the thought-beings to be found there is also
the thought of one's own physical corporality . One feels separated from this . One feels only the
spiritual being as belonging to oneself. And when we no longer regard the body as physical but as thought-
being, there already enters into our view of it its relation to the external world. We learn to look at it
as something belonging to the external world, a member of this external world. We consequently no longer
separate our OWN corporality from the rest of the external world as something more nearly related to
ourself. We feel the unity in the whole external world including our own bodily incarnations. Our own
embodiments dissolve here into a unity with the rest of the world. Thus we here look upon the ARCHETYPES
of the physical corporal reality as a unity, to which we ourselves belong. We learn therefore gradually to

T48 THEOSOPHY

know our relationship, our unity with the surrounding world by observation. We learn to say to it, "That
which is here spread out around thee, thou art that thyself." And that is one of the fundamental thoughts
in the ancient Indian Vedanta Wisdom. The "sage" accustoms himself to do, even during his earth life, what
others experience after death ; namely, to grasp the thought that he himself is related to all things, the
thought "Thou art that." During the physical life this is an ideal to which the thought life can be
devoted ; in the "Land of Spirits" it is a plain fact, one which grows ever clearer to us through
spiritual experience. And the man himself comes to know ever more and more clearly in this land that he in
his own inner being belongs to the spirit world. He perceives himself to be a spirit among spirits, a
member of the Primordial Spirit, and he will feel concerning himself, "I am the Primal Spirit." (The
Wisdom of the Vedanta says "I am Brahman," i .e., I belong as a member to the Primordial Being, in Whom
all beings have their origin.) One sees that what is grasped during earthly life as a shadowy

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thought and toward which all wisdom strives, is in the "Spirit-land" an immediate experience. Indeed, it
is only THOUGHT during the earth life because it is a FACT in the spiritual existence.

Thus man during his spiritual existence sees the relationships and facts in the midst of which he stands
during his earthly career from a high watch tower, as if from outside. And during his life in the lowest
regions of "Spirit-land" he has this attitude toward the earthly relationships immediately connected with
the physical corporal reality. On earth man is born into a family, a race ; he lives in a certain country.
His earthly existence is determined by all these relationships. He finds this or that friend because
relationships in the physical world bring it about . He carries on this or that business. All this decides
the conditions of his earthly life . All this presents itself to him during his life in the first region
of "Spirit-land" as LIVING thought being. He lives it all through again in a certain way. But he lives it
through from the active spiritual side. The family love he has extended, the friendship he has offered,
are

THEOSOPHY

made living from within, made to spring from inner sources, and his capacities in this direction are
enhanced. The force in the spirit of man which acts as the power of love of family and friend is
strengthened. He enters his earthly existence later a more perfect man in these respects. It is to a
certain extent the everyday relationships of the earth life which ripen as the fruitage of this lowest
region of the "Spirit-land." And those persons whose interests are wholly absorbed by these everyday
relationships will feel themselves in affinity with this region for the greater part of their spiritual
life between two incarnations .

The next region is that in which the COMMON LIFE of the earth world flows as Thought- being, as the fluid
element, so to speak, of the "Spirit-land." So long as we observe the world during physical embodiment
life appears to us to be confined within separate LIVING BEINGS. In "Spirit-land" it is loosed from them
and, like life blood, flows as it were through the whole land. It is there the living Unity which is
present in everything. Of this also only a reflection appears to us during the earthly life. And this
reflection expresses

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itself in every form of reverence we pay to the Whole, to the Unity and Harmony of the universe. The
religious life of man is derived from this reflection. Man becomes sensible of the fact that the
significance of existence does not lie in what is transitory and separate . He regards the transitory as a
"similitude," a likeness of an Eternal, of a harmonious Unity. He looks up to this Unity in reverence and
worship. He offers up before it religious rites and ceremonies. In "Spiritland" appears, not the
reflection, but the real form, as living Thought-being. Here man can really unite himself with the Unity
that he has reverenced on earth. The fruitage of the religious life and all connected with it appears in
this region. Man now learns through spiritual experience to recognize that his individual fate is not to
be separated from the community to which he belongs. The capacity to know oneself as a member of a whole
develops itself here. Religious natures, and such as have already during life striven after a pure and
noble morality, will draw strength out of this region during a great part of their spiritual life between
incarnations .

THEOSOPHY

And they will reincarnate with heightened capacities in this direction .

The THIRD region of "Spirit-land" contains the Archetypes of the soul world. All that lives in this world
is present as living thought- being. One finds in it the Archetypes of desires, wishes, feelings, etc .
But here, in the spirit world, nothing of self-seeking attaches itself to the soul . Like all life in the
second region, in this third region all longings, wishes, all likes and dislikes, form a unity . The
desires and wishes of others are not separable from my desires and wishes. The sensations and feelings of
all beings are a common world enclosing and surrounding everything else, just as our physical atmosphere
surrounds the earth. This region is, as it were, the atmosphere or air of the "Spirit-land." All that a
person has carried out in his -life on earth in the service of the community, in selfless devotion to his
fellowmen, will bear fruit here. For through this service, through this self- giving, he has lived in a
reflection of the third region of the "Spirit-land." The great benefactors of the human race, the
philanthropists who render great services to communities,

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153

have gained their ability to render them in this region, after having made themselves worthy of a special
relationship with it during their previous earthly careers .

It is evident that the three regions of "Spiritland" above described have a certain connection with those
below them, the physical and the soul worlds. For they contain the Arche

types, the living Thought-beings that take up their corporal and soul existence in these worlds. Only the
FOURTH region is the "pure Spirit-land." But even it is not that in the fullest sense of the word. It
differs from the three lower regions owing to the fact that in them we meet with the Archetypes of those
physical and soul relations which man finds existing in the physical and soul worlds before he himself
begins to take any part in them. The circumstances of the ordinary everyday life link themselves with
things and beings which man finds already present in the world the transitory things of THIS WORLD direct
his gaze to their eternal primal foundation ; nor do the fellow creatures of man to whom he selflessly
devotes himself owe their existence to him. But it is through him that there are

THEOSOPHY

in the world all the creations of the arts, sciences, engineering, states, governments, etc. ; in short
all that he has embodied in the world as original works of his spirit. Without his cooperation none of the
physical reproductions of all these would be in the world. The Archetypes of these purely human creations
are in the fourth region of the "Spirit-land ." What man during the earthly life develops in the way of
scientific discoveries, of artistic ideas and forms, of technical conceptions, bears fruit in this fourth
region. It is out of this region, therefore, that artists, scientists, great inventors, draw nourishment
during their stay in "Spirit-land" and increase their genius, in order, during another incarnation, to be
able to assist with greater weight the further evolution of human progress. It has been said above that
even this region cannot be called the "pure Spirit-land" in the FULL sense of the word. This is because
the stage at which men have left civilization on earth continues to influence their spiritual existence .
They can enjoy in "Spirit-land" only the fruits of that which it was possible for them to carry out in
accordance with their gifts and the stage of

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development of the race, state, etc ., into which they were born.

In the still higher regions of the "Spiritland" the human spirit is freed from every earthly fetter. It
rises to the "pure Spirit- land" in which it experiences the intentions, the aims, which the spirit set
itself to accomplish by means of the earthly life. All that has been realized in the world brings into
earthly existence only a more or less weak copy of the highest intentions and aims. Each crystal, each
tree, each animal, and all that is being realized in the domain of human creations, all this only gives of
that which the spirit intends. And man, during his incarnations, can only set to work with these imperfect
copies of the perfect intentions and aims. Thus during one of his incarnations he himself can only be a
copy of that which, in the kingdom of the spirit, he is intended to be. What he as spirit in "Spirit-land"
really is comes therefore into view only when he rises in the interval between two incarnations, to the
fifth region of "Spirit-land." What he is here is really he himself, that which receives an external
existence in the numerous

THEOSOPHY

and varied incarnations. In this region the true Self of man can freely live its true life and expand in
all directions . And this Self is that which appears ever anew in each incarnation as the one . This Self
brings with it the faculties which have developed in the lower regions of the "Spirit-land ." It carries,
consequently, the fruits of former lives over into those following. It is the bearer of the results of
former incarnations. Therefore one can call it the "BEARER OF CAUSES."

(In theosophical literature it is for this reason called the "Causal Body.")

When the Self lives in the FIFTH region

of the "Spirit-land" it is accordingly in the kingdom of intentions and aims. As the architect learns from
the imperfections which show themselves in his work, and as he only brings into his new plans what he was
able to change from imperfections to perfections, so the Self, in the fifth region, shakes off the results
of its experiences in former lives related to the imperfections of the lower worlds, and fructifies the
purposes of the "Spirit-land"-purposes with which it now lives-with the perfect results of its

THE THREE WORLDS

former lives. It is clear that the force which can be drawn from this region will depend upon how much the
Self, during its incarnation, has acquired in the form of results suited to being received into the world
of Purposes. The self that has sought to realize the purposes of the spirit during the earthly life
through an active thought life or through wise love expressed in deeds, will establish a strong claim to
this region. The self that has expended itself entirely on the events of the everyday life, that has lived
only in the transitory, has sown no seeds that can play a part in the purposes of the eternal World Order.
Only that small portion of the activities of the self which had extended beyond the interests of everyday
life can unfold as fruitage in this higher region of the "Spirit-land." In general it will hold good that
a man's affinity with this region will be the greater the more developed he is. Since a man in this region
lives in his own true Self, he is raised above everything that, as a part of the lower worlds, envelops
him during his incarnations. He is what he ever was and ever will be during the course of his
incarnations. He lives in the

THEOSOPHY

governing power of the Purposes which prevail during these incarnations, and which he grafts into his own
Self. He looks back on his own past, and feels that all that he has experienced in it will be brought into
service in the purposes he has to bring to realization in the future. A kind of remembrance of his earlier
lives and the prophetic vision of his future ones flash forth. We see, therefore, that what in this book
(pp. 46 et seq.) is called "spirit self" lives in this region, as far as it is developed, in that measure
of reality with which it is able to unite itself ; it develops itself still further and prepares itself to
make possible in a new incarnation the fulfillment of the spiritual purposes in the region of earthly

reality.

If this "spirit self" has evolved so far during a succession of sojourns in "Spirit-land" that he can move
about quite freely in this land, he will evermore seek his true home in it . Life in the spirit will be as
familiar to him as life in the physical reality is to the earthly man . The viewpoints of the spirit world
can from now on be the only ones which he makes his own during his succeeding earth lives . Such

THE THREE WORLDS

a Self feels himself uninterruptedly to be a member of the divine World Order. The limitations and laws of
the earthly life affect him in his innermost being no more. Power for all that he carries out comes to him
from this spiritual world. But the spiritual world is a Unity. He who lives in it knows how the Eternal
has produced the past, and he can, from out the Eternal, discern which direction the future is to take.
The view over the past widens into a perfect one. A man who has reached this stage sets before himself the
aims which he should carry out in the approaching incarnation. From out the "Spirit-land" he influences
his future so that it runs its course in harmony with the true and the spiritual. Such a man during the
stages between two incarnations is in the presence of all those exalted Beings before whose gaze the
Divine Wisdom lies spread out unveiled. For he has climbed up to the stage at which he can understand
them. And, should he return to the earth, he acts in harmony with them. His word is itself a reflection of
divine revelation and his deed a link in the divine World Order.

Only

ly he who during an earth life has freed

i6o THEOSOPHY

himself to a high degree from the transient trifles and the worthless turmoil of existence can hope that
he shall rise in "Spirit-land" into the SIXTH region, through which he shall receive a "DIVINE MISSION"
for a coming earth life. Through this divine mission he becomes "a stranger on this earth" only in so far
as he himself in his innermost being is not moved by inclinations and disinclinations springing from the
transitory nature of things, but allows himself to be guided by what the spirit recognizes as necessary.
Because he does this, he will accomplish through all his actions that which is most in conformity with the
TRUE BEING OF THE UNIVERSE. For he has reached the point of seeking not that which will be of use to him
but only and entirely that which ought to take place ; that which is in accordance with the true progress
of the World Order. His interest in the world, his devotion to it, are the greater the less he himself is
attached through his sympathies and antipathies to transient matters. His understanding of all that goes
on around him will be great because his soul observes all without

desires and in quiet composedness .

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The SEVENTH region of the "Spirit-land" brings one to the confines of the "three worlds ." The man who can
feel himself attracted to it stands here in the presence of the "Life kernels" which are transplanted from
the higher worlds into the three which have been described, in order that in them they may fulfill their
missions. When a man therefore is on the confines of the three worlds he recognizes himself in his own
Life kernel. This implies that for him the problems of these three worlds have been solved. He has a
complete view of the entire life of these worlds . He has solved the great "Why" of existence. (The great
guides of the human race who will be spoken of in the chapter on "The Path of Knowledge" are recognized by
means of forces originating in this region of the "Spiritland.")

5. THE PHYSICAL WORLD FIND ITS CONNECTION WITH THE SOUL AND SPIRIT LANDS

The formations of the Soul World and the "Spirit-land" cannot be the objects of external sense perception.
The objects of THIS per

THEOSOPHY

ception are to be added to the two already described as a third world. Man lives during his bodily
existence simultaneously in the three worlds. He perceives the things of the sensible world and acts upon
them . The formations of the soul world act on him through their forces of sympathy and antipathy ; and
his own soul excites waves in the soul world by its inclinations and disinclinations, its wishes and
desires . The spiritual being of things, on the other hand, mirrors itself in his thought world and he
himself is, as thinking spirit being, citizen of the "Spirit-land" and participant of all that lives in
this region of the universe . This makes it clear that the sensible world is only a part of that which
surrounds man. This part stands out from the general surroundings of man with a certain independence
because it can be perceived by senses which leave disregarded the soul and spiritual parts which belong
just as much to the surrounding world. Even as a piece of ice floating on the water is of the same matter
as the surrounding water but stands out from it owing to particular qualities, so are the things of the
senses matter of the surrounding soul and spirit

THE THREE WORLDS

worlds; and they stand out from these owingto particular qualities which make them perceptible to the
senses. They are, to speak halfmetaphorically, condensed spirit and soul formations ; and the condensation
makes it possible for the senses to acquire knowledge of them. In fact, as ice is only a form in which
thewater exists, so are the objects of the senses only a form in which soul and spirit beingsexist. If one
has grasped this, one can alsounderstand that as water can pass over into ice, so the spirit world can
pass over into the soulworld, and the latter into that of the senses. Looking at the matter from this
point of viewleads us to the reason why man can formthoughts about the things of the senses . For there is
a question which everyone who thinkswould have to ask himself, namely, in whatrelation does the thought
which a man hasabout a stone stand to the stone itself? This question rises in full clearness in the minds
ofthose persons who look especially deeply intoexternal nature. They feel the consonance ofthe human
thought world with the structureand order of nature. The great astronomerKepler, for example, speaks in a
beautiful

THEOSOPHY

164

way about this harmony, "True it is that the divine call which bids man study astronomy is written in the
world, not indeed in words and syllables, but in the very fact that human conceptions and senses are
fitted to gauge the relationships of the heavenly bodies and their conditions." Only because the things of
the sensible world are nothing else than condensed spirit beings is the man who raises himself through his
thought to these spirit beings able by thinking to understand the things . Sense objects originate in the
spirit world ; they are only another FORM of the spirit beings . And when man forms thoughts about things
he merely looks up from the sensible form to the spiritual Archetypes of the things. To understand an
object by means of thought is a process which can be likened to that by which a solid body is first
liquefied by fire in order that the chemist may be able to examine it in its

liquid form.

The spiritual Archetypes of the sensible world are to be found (pp. 131 et seq.) in the different regions
of the "Spirit-land ." In the fifth, sixth, and seventh regions these Archetypes remain in the condition
of living Germ

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points ; in the four lower regions they shape themselves into spiritual formations. The human spirit
perceives a shadowy reflection of these spiritual formations when, by thinking, he tries to gain
understanding of the things of the senses. How these formations have condensed until they form the
sensible world is a question for him who strives toward a spiritual undertsanding of the world around him.
For human sense perception this surrounding world is divided into four distinctly separated stages, the
mineral, the plant, the animal, and the human.

The mineral kingdom is perceived by the senses and comprehended by thought. Thus when one forms a thought
about a mineral body one has to do with two things, the sense object and the thought. In accordance with
this, one is brought to the conception that this sense object is a condensed thought being. Now one
mineral being acts on another in an external way. It impinges on it and moves it ; it warms it, lights it
up, dissolves it, etc . This external kind of action can be expressed through thoughts. A man forms
thoughts as to the way in which mineral things act on each

166

THEOSOPHY

other externally and in accordance with their laws. By this means his separate thoughts expand to a
thought picture of the whole mineral world. And this thought picture is a gleam, a reflection of the
Archetype of the whole mineral world of the senses. It is to be

found AS A COMPLETE WHOLE in the spirit world.

In the plant kingdom there is added to the external action of one thing on another, the phenomena of
growth and propagation. The plant grows and brings forth from itself beings like itself. LIFE is here
added to what man meets with in the mineral kingdom. A simple recollection of this fact leads to an
expression which is enlightening in this connection . The plant has in itself the power to give itself its
LIVING shape, and to reproduce this shape in a being of its own kind. And in between the shapeless kinds
of mineral matter, as we meet them in gases, liquids, etc., and the living shape of the plant world, stand
the forms of the crystal. In the crystal we have the transition from the shapeless mineral world to the
plant kingdom, which has the capacity for forming living shapes. In this externally

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sensible formative process in both kingdoms, the mineral and the plant, one sees condensed to its sensible
expression the purely spiritual process which takes place when the spiritual Germs of the higher regions
of the "Spiritland" form themselves into the spirit shapes of the lower regions. The process of
crystallization corresponds to its Archetype in the spirit world, the transition from the formless spirit
Germ to the SHAPED FORMATION. If this transition condenses so that the senses can perceive it, it exhibits
itself in the world of the senses as the process of crystallization .

Now there is in the plant being a shaped spirit Germ also. But here the living, shaping capacity is still
retained in the shaped being. In the crystal the spirit Germ has lost its constructing power during the
process of shaping. It has exhausted its energies in the shape produced. The plant has shape and, in
addition to that, it has the capacity of producing a shape. The characteristic of the spirit Germs in the
higher regions of the "Spiritland" has been preserved in the plant life. The plant is therefore shape, as
is the crystal, and, added to that, shaping or formative force.

THEOSOPHY

Besides the form which the Primal Beings have taken in the plant shape there works at the latter yet
another form which bears the impress of the spirit being of the higher regions. Only that which expends
itself on the produced shape of the plant is sensibly perceptible ; the formative Beings who give life to
this shape are present in the plant kingdom in a way not perceptible to the senses. The physical eye sees
the lily small to-day, and after some time grown larger . The forming force which elaborates the latter
out of the former cannot be seen by this eye. This formative Force Being is that part of the plant world
which acts imperceptibly to the senses . The spirit Germs have descended a stage in order to work in the
kingdom of shapes. In Theosophy, Elementary Kingdoms are spoken of . If one designate the Primal Forms,
which as yet have no shape, as the FIRST ELEMENTARY KINGDOM, then the sensibly invisible Force Beings, who
work as the craftsmen of plant growth, belong to the SECOND ELEMEN

TARY KINGDOM.

In the animal world sensation and impulse are added to the capacities for growth and

THE THREE WORLDS i69

propagation. These are externalizations of the SOUL WORLD. A being endowed with these belongs to the soul
world, receives impressions from it and reacts on it. Every sensation, every impulse, which arises in an
animal is brought forth from the foundations of the animal soul . The shape is more enduring than the
feeling or impulse. One may say the sensation life bears the same relation to the more enduring living
shape that the self-changing plant shape bears to the rigid crystal. The plant to a certain extent
exhausts itself as the shape-forming force ; during its life it goes on constantly adding new shapes to
itself . First it sends out the root, then the leaf structure, then the flowers, etc. The animal possesses
a shape complete in itself and develops within this the ever-changing life of feeling and impulses. And
this life has its existence in the soul world. Just as the plant is that which grows and propagates
itself, the animal is that which feels and develops its impulses. They constitute for the animal the
formless which is always developing into new forms . Their Archetypal processes when traced to their
primal source are found in the highest regions of

THEOSOPHY

"Spirit-land." But they carry out their activities in the soul world. There are thus in the animal world,
in addition to the Force Beings who, invisible to the senses, direct growth and propagation, others that
have descended into the soul world, a stage still deeper . In the animal kingdom formless Beings, who
clothe themselves in soul sheaths, are present as the master builders, bringing about sensations and
impulses. They are the real architects of the animal forms. In theosophy one calls the region to which
they belong the THIRD ELEMENTARY KINGDOM.

Man, in addition to having the capacities named as those of plants and animals, is furnished also with the
power of working up his sensations into ideas and thoughts and of controlling his impulses by thinking.
The thought which appears in the plant as shape and in the animal as soul force makes its appearance in
him in its own form as thought itself. The animal is soul ; man is spirit. The Spirit Being, which in the
animal is engaged in soul development, has now descended a stage deeper still. In man it has entered into
the world of sensible matter itself. The spirit

THE THREE WORLDS

is present within the human sensible body. And because it appears in a sensible garment, it can appear
only as that shadowy gleam or reflection which the thought of the Spirit Being affords. The spirit
manifests in man through the apparatus of the physical brain mechanism. But at the same time it has become
the inner being of man. The animal feels and moves as it chooses, but exhibits no thoughts . Thought is
the form which the formless Spirit Being assumes in man just as it is shape in the plant and soul in the
animal . Consequently man, in so far as he is a thinking being, has no Elementary Kingdom constructing him
from without. His Elementary Kingdom works in his physical body. Only in so far as man is shape and
sentient being, do Elementary Beings work at him in the same way as they work at plants and animals . The
thought organism of man is developed entirely from within his physical body. In the spirit organism of
man, in his nervous system which has developed into the perfect brain, we have sensibly visible before us
that which works on plants and animals as supersensible Force Being. This brings about the fact that the

THEOSOPHY

animal shows feeling of self, but man consciousness of self. In the animal, spirit feels itself to be soul
; it does not yet comprehend itself as spirit. In man the spirit recognizes itself as spirit, although,
owing to the physical apparatus, merely as a shadowy gleam or reflection of the spirit, as thought.

Accordingly, the threefold world falls into the following divisions : i. The Kingdom of the Archetypal
formless Beings (First Elementary Kingdom) ; 2. The Kingdom of the Shape-creating Beings (Second
Elementary Kingdom) ; 3. The Kingdom of the Soul Beings (Third Elementary Kingdom) ; 4. The Kingdom of the
Created Shapes (crystal forms) ; 5. The Kingdom that becomes perceptible to the senses in shapes, but in
which the Shape-creating Beings are working (Plant Kingdom) ; 6. The Kingdom which becomes sensibly
perceptible in shapes, on which work the Shape-creating Beings, and also the Beings that expend all their
activities in the soul life

(Animal Kingdom) ; 7. The Kingdom which becomes sensibly perceptible in shapes on which work the Shape-
creating Beings and also the Beings that expend all their activities

THE THREE WORLDS

in soul life, and in which the spirit itself takes shape in the form of thought within the world of the
senses (Human Kingdom) .

From this can be seen how the basic constituents of the human being living in the body are connected with
the spiritual world. The physical body, the ether body, the sentient soul body, and the intellectual soul,
are to be regarded as Archetypes of the "Spirit-land" condensed in the sensible world. The physical body
comes into existence in that the Archetype of man is so condensed that it can manifest itself to the
senses . For this reason one can call this physical body also a Being of the First Elementary Kingdom,
condensed to sensible perceptibility. The ether-body comes into existence in that the shape that has
arisen in this way has its mobility retained by a Being that extends its activity into the kingdom of the
senses but is not itself visible to the senses . If one wishes to characterize this Being fully, one must
say it has its primal origin in the highest regions of the "Spirit-land" and then shapes itself in the
second region into an Archetype of life. It works in the sensible world as such an Archetype of life . In
a similar

THEOSOPHY

way the Being that constructs the sentient soul- body has its origin in the highest regions of the
"Spirit-land," forms itself in the third region of the same into the Archetype of the soul world and works
as such in the sensible world. But the intellectual soul is formed in that the Archetype of thinking man
shapes itself in the fourth region of the "Spirit-land" into thought, and as such acts directly as
thinking human being in the world of the senses. Thus man stands within the world of the senses ; thus
works the spirit on his physical- body, on his ether-body, and on his sentient soul-body. Thus comes this
spirit into manifestation in the intellectual soul . Archetypes in the form of Beings who in a certain
sense are external to man work upon the three lower components of his being; in his intellectual soul he
himself becomes a (conscious) worker on himself. The Beings working on his physical- body are the same as
those who form the mineral nature. On his ether-body work Beings living in the plant kingdom, on his
sentient soul-body work Beings who live in the animal kingdom imperceptible by the

THE THREE WORLDS

senses, but who extend their activity into these kingdoms.

Thus do the different worlds combine in action. The universe in which man lives is the expression of this
combined activity.

When a person has thoroughly grasped this view of the sensible world he gains also an understanding of
Beings of another kind than those that have their existence in the above mentioned four kingdoms of nature
. One example of such Beings is what one calls the Folk Spirit, or National Spirit . This Being does not
manifest himself directly in a sensibly perceptible way. He lives and carries on his activities entirely
in the sensations, feelings, tendencies, etc., which one observes as those common to a whole nation. He is
therefore a Being that does not incarnate physically, but forms his body out of the matter of the soul
world, even as man forms his body out of sensibly visible matter. This soul body of the National Spirit is
like a cloud in which the members of a nation live. The effects of his activity come into evidence in the
souls of the human beings concerned, but he does not originate in these souls themselves . The National

THEOSOPHY

Spirit remains merely a shadowy conception of the mind without being or life, an empty abstraction, to him
who does not picture it in this way. And the same may be said in reference to what one calls the Spirit of
the Age(Zeitgeist) . The spiritual outlook, in fact, is through this, extended over a variety of other
beings, both lower and higher, who live in the environment of man without his being able to perceive them
with his bodily senses . But those who have powers of spiritual sight perceive such beings and can
describe them. To the lower kinds belong those designated by the spiritual investigator, as salamanders,
sylphs, undines, and gnomes. It is quite to be understood that anyone who is inclined to admit the
validity of physical vision only, regards such beings as the offspring of a wild hallucination and
superstition. They can of course never become visible to the physical eye for they have no physical
bodies. The superstition does not consist in regarding such beings as real, but in believing that they
appear in a way perceptible to the physical senses. Beings with such forms cooperate in the building of
the world, and one comes into connection with

THE THREE WORLDS

them as soon as one enters the higher regions closed to the bodily senses. Mention must also be made of
those beings who do not descend to the soul world, but whose vestment is composed of the formations of the
"Spiritland" alone. Man perceives them and becomes their companion when he opens his spiritual eye and
spiritual ear to them. Many things at which without these organs man can only gaze uncomprehendingly,
become, when he has brought them into use, understandable to him. It becomes bright around him, he sees
the Primal Causes of that which is working itself out as effects in the world of the senses. He
comprehends what he either denied entirely when he had no spiritual eye, or in reference to which he had
to content himself with saying, "There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in thy
philosophy." People with fine-with spiritual- feelings become uneasy when they begin to have a glimmering,
become vaguely aware of another world than the sensible one around them, and one within which they have to
grope about as the blind grope among visible objects. Nothing but the clear

178 THEOSOPHY

vision of these higher regions of existence anda thorough understanding and penetration of what takes
place in them can really fortify aman and lead him to his proper goal . Only through insight into that
which is hidden fromthe senses does the human being understand the world and himself.

6. THOUGHT-FORMS AND THE HUMAN AURA It has become evident that the formations of any one of the three
worlds can have realityfor a man only when he has the capacities or the organs for perceiving them . A man
perceives certain occurrences in space as lightphenomena only because he has a correctly- constructed eye.
It depends on the receptivityof a being how much of what really is, reveals itself to it. Never therefore
may a man say that only what he can perceive is real. There can be much that is real, for the perception
ofwhich he has no organs. Now the soul world and the spirit world are just as real as the sensible world,
indeed they are real in a muchhigher sense. No physical eye can see feelings and ideas; but they are real.
And as man

179

THE THREE WORLDS

by means of his outer senses has the corporal world before him as an object of perception, so do feelings,
impulses, instincts, thoughts, etc., become objects of perception for his spiritual senses. Exactly as
occurrences in space can be seen with the sensible eye as color phenomena, the above-named soul and
spiritual occurrences can become, by means of the inner senses, perceptions which are analogous to the
sensible color phenomena. To understand perfectly in what way this is meant is only possible for one who
has trod the path of knowledge described in the following chapter and has thereby developed his inner
senses. For such a one the soul phenomena in the soul region around him and the spiritual phenomena in the
spiritual region become super- sensibly visible. For him, feelings ray out from the feeling being as light
phenomena ; thoughts surge through the spiritual space. For him, the thought of one man about another is
not something imperceptible but a perceptible occurrence. The thought streams out as an actual reality
from one human being and flows to the other. And the way in which this thought acts on the other person
becomes

ISO THEOSOPHY

similarly a perceptible occurrence in the spiritual world. Thus the physically perceptible human being is
only part of the whole man for him whose spiritual senses are unfolded. This physical man becomes the
center of soul and spiritual outpourings. It is impossible to do more than faintly indicate the richly
varied world which discloses itself here to the seer. A human thought, for example, appears as a
spiritually perceptible color phenomenon. Its color corresponds with the character of the thought. A
thought which springs forth from a sensual impulse in a person has a different color from a thought
conceived in the service of pure knowledge, noble beauty, or the eternal good. Thoughts which spring from
the sensual life course through the soul world in red shades of color. A thought by which the thinker
rises to higher knowledge appears in beautiful light yellow. A thought which springs from devoted and
unselfish love rays out in glorious rose pink. And just as the content of a thought comes into expression
in its supersensibly visible form, so also does the greater or less degree of its definiteness . The
precise thought of the thinker shows itself as

THE THREE WORLDS

a formation with definite outlines ; the confused idea appears as a wavering, cloudy formation.

In this way the soul and spirit being of man appears as the supersensible part of the WHOLE human being.

The color effects which the "spiritual eye" can perceive raying out round the physical man and enveloping
him like a cloud (somewhat egg-shaped) are called the HUMAN aura. The size of this aura differs in
different people. But one can form an idea of it by picturing that the WHOLE man is in the average twice
as long and four times as broad as the physical man.

The most varied tones of colors surge in the aura. And this surging is a true picture of the inner life of
the man . Single color-tones are just as changing. But certain permanent qualities, such as talents,
habits, traits of character, express themselves in a foundation of permanent color-tones.

The aura varies greatly according to the different temperaments and dispositions of people ; it varies
also in accordance with the stages of spiritual development. A man who

THEOSOPHY

yields completely to his animal impulses has an entirely different aura from one who livesmuch in the
world of thought. The aura of a nature with a religious tone differs essentially from one that expends
itself on the trivialexperiences of the day. In addition to this, all varying moods, all inclinations,
joys and pains, find their expression in the aura.

One has to compare the auras of differenthuman types with each other in order to learnto understand the
meaning of the color-tones. Take, to begin with, people who have strongly marked passions. They may be
divided intotwo kinds; those who are impelled to thesefeelings by the animal nature chiefly, andthose with
whom these passions take a moresubtle form in which they are, so to speak, strongly influenced by thought.
In the first kind of person brown and brown-red streamsof color in every shade surge through the aurain
definite places. In persons with more subtle passions there appear in the same placestones of brighter red
and green. One can notice that as intelligence increases the greentones become more and more abundant .
Persons who are very intelligent, but who quite

THE THREE WORLDS

give themselves over to the satisfying of their animal impulses, have much green in their aura. But this
green will always have more or less of an admixture of brown or brownish red. Unintelligent people show a
great part of their aura coursed through by brownish red or even by dark blood-red streams .

The auras of quiet, deliberate, thoughtful people are essentially different from those of such passionate
natures . The brownish and reddish tones become less prominent, and different shades of green come out.
With thoughtful natures the aura shows a pleasing green undertone. This is to an especial degree the
appearance of those natures of whom one can say, "They know how to adapt themselves to every condition of
life."

Blue tones of color appear in natures full of devotion. The more a man places his Self in the service of a
thing the more pronounced become the blue shades. In this class, also, one finds two quite different kinds
of people . There are natures with a mediocre power of thought, passive souls who, as it were, have
nothing to throw into the stream of events in the world but their "good nature ." Their aura

THEOSOPHY

glimmers with beautiful blue . One observes the same in the auras of religious and devotional natures.
Compassionate souls and those who find pleasure in giving themselves up to a life of benevolence have
similar auras. If such people are intelligent in addition to this, green and blue currents alternate, or
the blue itself perhaps take a greenish shade . It is the peculiarity of the active souls in contrast to
the passive, that their blue saturates itself from within with bright color-tones. Richly inventive
natures, such as have fruitful thoughts, ray out bright tones of color as if from an inner point. This is
the case in the highest degree with those persons whom one calls "wise," and especially with those full of
fruitful ideas . Generally speaking, all that implies spiritual activity takes more the form of rays which
spread out from within, while everything that arises from the animal life has the form of irregular clouds
which surge through the aura .

Auric formations show colorings which differ according to whether the conceptions which spring up in an
active soul are placed at the service of the person's own animal

THE THREE WORLDS

impulses or of an idealistic interest outside of himself. The inventive person who applies all his
thoughts to the satisfaction of his sensual passions shows dark, blue-red shades ; he, on the contrary,
who places his thoughts selflessly at the service of an interest outside of himself, shows light reddish-
blue color-tones. A spiritual life combined with noble devotion and capacity for sacrifice shows rose pink
or light violet colors.

Not only does the fundamental disposition of the soul show its color surgings in the aura but also
transient passions, moods, and other inner experiences. An anger that breaks out suddenly creates red
streams . Feelings of injured dignity which expend themselves in a sudden welling up can be seen appearing
in dark green clouds. Color phenomena, however, do not appear only in iregular cloud forms but also in
distinctly defined, regularly shaped figures. A fit of terror, for example, shows the aura lined from top
to bottom by undulating stripes of blue color suffused with a reddish shimmer. In a person who expects
with anxiety some particular event, one can see continuous red

THEOSOPHY

blue stripes like rays streaming from within the aura to the circumference .

Every sensation which a man receives from without can be observed by one who has developed a faculty of
exact spiritual perception . Persons who are greatly excited by every external impression show a
continuous flickering of small reddish spots and flecks in the aura. In people who do not feel intensely,
these flecks have an orange yellow or even a beautiful yellow coloring. So called "absentminded" people
show bluish flecks more or less changing in form.

A highly developed spiritual seer can distinguish three species of color phenomena within the aura,
radiating and surging round a man. First there are the colors which bear more or less the character of
opaqueness and dullness, although if we compare them with those that our physical eyes see, they appear in
comparison fugitive and transparent. But within the supersensible world itself they make the space which
they fill comparatively opaque ; they fill it like mist forms . The second species of colors consists of
those which are, as it were, light itself . They light up the

THE THREE WORLDS

space which they fill so that it becomes itself, through them, a shining or lighted space. The third kind
of color phenomena is quite different from these two. They have a raying, sparkling, glittering character.
They fill space not merely with light but with glistening, glittering rays . There is something active and
inherently mobile in these colors . The others are somewhat quiet and lack brilliance. These on the
contrary continuously produce themselves out of themselves, as it were. By the two first species of
colors, the space is filled up with a subtle fluid which remains quietly in it. By the third it is filled
with life ever enflaming itself anew with never-resting activity.

Now these three species of colors are not ranged, as it were, strictly alongside each other in the human
aura ; they are not each enclosed in a separate section of space. On the contrary, they interpenetrate and
suffuse each other in the most varied ways . One can see all three species playing through each other in
one region of the aura, just as one can simultaneously hear and see a physical body such as a bell. The
aura thereby becomes an

THEOSOPHY

exceedingly complicated phenomenon, for one has, as it were, to do with three auras within each other and
interpenetrating each other. One can, however, overcome the difficulty by directing one's attention to the
three species alternately. One then does in the supersensible world something similar to what one does in
the sensible, for example, when one closes one's eyes in order to give oneself up fully to the impression
of a piece of music. The "seer" has, as it were, three different organs for the three species of colors .
And, in order to observe undisturbed, he can open or close to impressions any one of the organs . As a
rule only the one kind of organ can at first be developed by a "seer," namely for the first kind of colors
. A person at this stage can see only the one aura. The other two remain invisible to him. In the same way
a person may be accessible to impressions from the two first but not the third. The higher stage of the
"gift of seeing" consists in a person's being able to see all three auras and, for the purpose of study,
to direct his attention to the one o1' the other.

The threefold aura is the supersensibly

THE THREE WORLDS

visible expression of the being of man . The three members,body, soul, and spirit,come to expression in
it.

The first aura is a mirror of the influence which the body exercises on the soul of man ; the second
signifies the life of the soul itself, the soul that has raised itself above what affects the senses
directly, but is not yet devoted to the service of the eternal ; the third mirrors the lordship which the
eternal spirit has won over the transitory man. When descriptions of the aura are given, as here, it must
be emphasized that these things are not only difficult to observe but above all difficult to describe. No
one, therefore, should see in a description like this anything more than a stimulus to thought.

The "seer" therefore can judge the stage of development of a person by the nature of his aura. When an
undeveloped person approaches him, one who is given up entirely to his impulses, passions, and momentary
external incitements, he sees the first aura in the loudest colors . The second, on the contrary, is only
slightly developed . He sees in it only scanty color formations, while the third is barely indicated.
Only, here and there, a

I9o THEOSOPHY

small, glittering spark of color shows itself, indicating that even in this human being the eternal
already lives as a germ, but that it will require a long course of evolution, extending over many
incarnations, before it can gain a predominating influence on the outer life of its bearer. The more the
man puts from him his lower impulses, the less obtrusive becomes the first part of the aura. The second
part grows larger and larger, filling the color body within which the physical man lives, ever more and
more completely, with its illumining force. And the highly developed persons, "Servants of the Eternal,"
show the wonderful third aura, that part which bears witness how far the human being has become a citizen
of the spiritual world. For the divine Self rays through this part of the human aura into the earthly
world. Persons in whom this aura is developed are the flames through whom the Divine illumines this world.
They have learned to live not for themselves but for the eternally True, the nobly Beautiful and Good ;
they have wrung from their narrower self the power to offer themselves up on the altar of the great World
Work.

THE THREE WORLDS 191

Thus there comes to expression in the aura what the man has made of himself in the course of his
incarnations.

All three parts of the aura contain colors of the most varied shades. But the character of these shades
changes with the stage of development of the man. One can see in the first part of the aura of the
undeveloped man of impulse all shades from red to blue. With him these shades have a dull, dirty
character. The obtrusive red shades point to the sensual desires, to the fleshly lusts, to the passion for
the enjoyments of the palate and the stomach . Green shades appear to be found especially in those lower
natures that incline to obtuseness and indifference, greedily giving themselves over to each enjoyment but
nevertheless shunning the exertions necessary to satisfy them . Where the desires are passionately bent on
any goal beyond the reach of the capacities already acquired, brownish-green and yellowish- green colors
appear. Certain modern modes of life actually breed this kind of aura .

A personal conceit which is entirely rooted in low inclinations, that is to say the lowest stage of
egoism, shows itself in tones from

THEOSOPHY

dirty yellow to brown. Now it is clear that even the animal life of impulse can take on a pleasing
character. There is a purely natural capacity for self-sacrifice, a high form of which is to be found in
the animal kingdom. This development of an animal impulse finds its most beautiful consummation in the
natural mother love. These selfless natural impulses come to expression in the first aura in light reddish
to rose-red shades of color. Cowardly fear and timidity in the face of external causes show themselves in
the aura in brown-blue and gray-blue colors.

The second aura also shows the most varied grades of colors. Brown and orange colored formations point to
strongly developed conceit, pride, and ambition. Inquisitiveness also announces its presence through red-
yellow flecks. A bright yellow mirrors clear thinking and intelligence, green expresses understanding of
life and the world. Children who learn easily have much green in this part of their aura. A green yellow
in the second aura seems to betoken a good memory. Rose- red indicates a well-meaning affectionate nature.
Blue is the sign of piety. The more

THE THREE WORLDS

the piety approaches to religious fervor, the more does blue pass over into violet. Idealism and an
earnest view of life in a higher sense one sees as indigo blue .

The fundamental colors of the third aura are yellow, green, and blue . YELLOW appears here if the thinking
is filled with lofty, wide- reaching ideas that comprehend the details as part of the whole of the divine
World Order. If the thinking is intuitive and is also completely purified of all conceptions springing
from the world of the senses, the yellow has a golden brilliance. GREEN indicates love toward all beings ;
BLUE is the sign of a capacity for selfless sacrifice for all beings. If this capacity for sacrifice is
brought to the height of the strong Willing, which devotes itself to the active service of the world, the
blue brightens to light violet. If pride and desire for honor as last remnants of personal egoism are
still present in a more highly developed person there appear beside the yellow shades others verging on
orange. It must, however, be remarked that in THIS part of the aura the colors are very different from the
shades one

THEOSOPHY

is accustomed to see in the world of the senses . It displays to the "seer" a beauty and an exaltedness
with which nothing in the ordinary world can be compared.

CHAPTER IV

THE PATH OF KNOWLEDGE

KNOWLEDGE of the truths made known by Theosophy can be gained by EACH man for himself. Descriptions of the
kind given in this book present a thought-picture of the higher worlds. And they are in a particular
respect the FIRST STEP toward personal vision. For man is a thought-being. He can only find his path of
knowledge when he makes thinking his starting point. A picture of the higher worlds given to his intellect
is not unfruitful for him even if for the time being it were only as an account of higher facts into which
he has not yet gained insight through his own vision. For the thoughts which are given him represent in
themselves a force which continues working in his thought world. This force will be active in him, and it
will awaken slumbering capacities. He who is of the opinion that it is superfluous to make oneself
receptive to such a thought-picture is mistaken .

195

THEOSOPHY

He regards thought as something unreal and abstract. But thought is a living force. It is for him who has
the higher knowledge a direct expression of what can be seen in the spirit, and it therefore acts in him
to whom it is communicated like a GERM, which brings forth from itself the fruit of knowledge.

Anyone disdaining the application of strenuous intellectual exertion to the attainment of the higher
knowledge, and preferring to make use of other forces in man to that end, fails to take into account that
thinking is the highest of the faculties possessed by man in the world of the senses.

To him who asks, "How can I gain personal knowledge of the higher truths of Theosophy?" the answer must be
given, "Begin by making yourself acquainted with what is communicated by others concerning such truths."

And should he reply, "I wish to see for myself, I do not wish to know anything about what others have
seen," one must answer, "It is in the very assimilating of the communications of others that the first
step toward personal knowledge consists." And if he should answer, "Then I am forced to have blind faith

THE PATH OF KNOWLEDGE

to begin with," one can only reply that in regard to something communicated it is not a case of belief or
unbelief but merely of an unprejudiced consideration of what one hears . The theosophist never speaks with
the intention of awakening blind faith in what he says . He merely says, "I have experienced this in the
higher regions of existence, and I narrate these my experiences." But he knows also that the reception of
these experiences by another and the penetrating of his thoughts with such an account are living forces
making for spiritual development .

One cannot, in fact, emphasize strongly enough how necessary it is that anyone who wishes to develop his
capacity for higher knowledge should undertake the earnest cultivation of his powers of thinking . This
emphasis must be all the stronger because many persons who wish to become "seers" actually estimate
lightly this earnest, self -denying labor of thinking. They say, "Thinking cannot help me to reach
anything ; the chief thing is `sensation, feeling,' or something similar." In reply it must be said that
no one can in the higher sense (and that means in

THEOSOPHY

truth) become a "seer" who has not previously accustomed himself to the life of trained thought. In this
connection a certain inner laziness plays an injurious role with many persons. They do not become
conscious of this laziness because it clothes itself in a contempt of "abstract thought" and "idle
speculations," etc.

But one completely misunderstands what thinking is if one confuses it with a spinning of idle, abstract
trains of thought. For while this "abstract thinking" can easily kill super- sensible knowledge, vigorous
thinking, full of life, must be the groundwork on which it is based.

It would indeed be more comfortable if one could reach the higher power of seeing while shunning the labor
of thinking. Many would like this. 'But in order to reach it there is necessary an inner firmness, an
assurance of soul to which thinking alone can lead. Otherwise there merely results a meaningless
flickering of pictures here and there, a distracting display of soul or astral phenomena, which indeed
gives pleasure to many, but which has nothing to do with a true penetration into the

THE PATH OF KNOWLEDGE

higher worlds. Further, if one considers what great changes take place in the man who really enters the
higher world, one will understand that the matter has still another aspect. Absolute HEALTHINESS of the
soul life belongs to the condition of being a "seer." There is no better means of developing this
healthiness than the true kind of thinking. In fact, it is possible for the health to suffer seriously if
the exercises for higher development are not based on thinking. Although it is true that the power of
spiritual sight makes a healthy and correctly thinking man still healthier and more capable in life, it is
also true that vague dreamings about these things, all attempts to develop while shirking the effort of
thought, are dangerous to the health both of body and soul. No one who wishes to develop himself to higher
knowledge has anything to fear if he pay heed to what is said here, but the attempt should only be made
under the above conditions.

Unfounded disbelief is injurious . It works in the recipient as a repelling force. It hinders him from
receiving the fructifying thoughts. Not faith, but just this reception

zoo THEOSOPHY

of the theosophic conceptions and teachings, is the requisite for the development of the higher senses.
The theosophist approaches his scholar with the injunction, "You are NOT required to BELIEVE what I tell
you but to think about it, make it part of the contents of your own thought world, then my thoughts will
work in you and of themselves enable you to recognize them as true." This is the attitude of the teacher
of Theosophy. He gives the stimulus ; the power to accept as true what is given him springs forth from the
inner being of the learner himself. And it is with this attitude of mind that the theosophic views of life
should be studied. Anyone who has the self-control to steep his thoughts in them may be sure that in a
shorter or longer time they will lead him to personal vision .

In what has been said here there is already indicated one of the first qualities which everyone wishing to
arrive at a personal vision of higher facts has to develop . It is the UNRESERVED, UNPREJUDICED, LAYING OF
ONESELF OPEN to that which is revealed by human beings or the world external to man . If a man approaches
a fact in the world around

THE PATH OF KNOWLEDGE 201

him with a judgment arising from his previous experiences, he shuts himself off by this judgment from the
quiet, complete effect which this fact can have on him. The learner must be able each moment to make
himself a perfectly empty vessel into which the new world flows. Knowledge is received only in those
moments in which every judgment, every criticism coming from ourselves, is silent . For example, when we
meet a person, the question is not at all whether we are wiser than he. Even the most unreasoning child
has something to reveal to the greatest sage. And if he approach the child with his prejudgment, be it
ever so wise, he pushes his wisdom like a dulled glass in front of what the child ought to reveal to him.
Complete inner selflessness is necessary for this constant accessibility to the revelations of the new
world . And if a man test himself to find out in what degree he possesses this accessibility he will make
astonishing discoveries regarding himself . Anyone who wishes to tread the path of higher knowledge must
train himself to be able each moment to obliterate himself with all his prejudices. As long as he
obliterates himself

202

THEOSOPHY

the other flows into him. Only a high grade of such selfless accessibility enables one to receive the
higher spiritual facts which surround man on all sides. One can develop this capacity in oneself of set
purpose. One tries, for example, to refrain from passing any judgment on people in one's neighborhood. One
should obliterate within oneself the gauge of good and bad, of stupid or clever, which one is accustomed
to apply, and try without this gauge to understand persons purely through themselves. The best exercises
can be made with people for whom one has an aversion. One should suppress this aversion with all one's
power and let everything that they do affect one unbiased . Or, if one is in an environment that excites
this or that judgment, one should suppress the judgment and, free from criticism, lay oneself open to
impressions. One should allow things and events to speak TO ONESELF rather than speak oneself about them.
And one should extend this even to one's thought world. One should suppress in ONESELF that which prompts
this or that thought and allow only what is outside to produce the thoughts. Only when such exer

THE PATH OF KNOWLEDGE

cises are carried out with holiest earnestness and perseverance, do they lead to the goal of higher
knowledge. He who undervalues such exercises knows nothing of their worth. And he who has experience in
such things knows that selfless accessibility and freedom from prejudice are true producers of force. Just
as heat conducted to the steam boiler is transformed into the motive power of the engine, the habitual
exercise of selfless, spiritual accessibility in man is transformed into the power of seeing in the
spiritual worlds .

By this exercise a man makes himself receptive to all that surrounds him . But to this receptivity correct
valuation must also be added. As long as a man is inclined to value himself too highly, at the expense of
the world around him, he closes up the approach to higher knowledge. He who in regard to each thing or
event in the world yields himself up to the pleasure or pain which they cause Him, is enmeshed by such an
overvaluation of himself . For through His pleasure and HIS pain he learns nothing about the things but
merely something about himself. If I feel sympathy with a man, I feel to begin with

THEOSOPHY

nothing but my relation to him . If I make myself entirely dependent on this feeling of pleasure, of
sympathy, as regards my judgment and my conduct, I place my personality in the foreground, I obtrude it
upon the world. I wish to thrust myself into the world just as I am, instead of accepting the world in an
unbiased way and allowing it to play itself out in accordance with the forces acting in it. In other
words, I am tolerant only of what harmonizes with my personality. Toward everything else I exercise a
repelling force . As long as a man is enmeshed by the sensible world, he acts in an especially repelling
way on all influences that are supersensible . The learner must develop in himself the capacity to conduct
himself toward things and people in accordance with their peculiar natures and to give to each its due
worth and significance. Sympathy and antipathy, liking and disliking must be made to play quite new roles.
There can be no thought of eradicating these, of blunting oneself to sympathy and antipathy. On the
contrary, the more a man develops in himself the capacity to refrain from allowing each feeling of
sympathy and antipathy to be

THE PATH OF KNOWLEDGE

followed immediately by a judgment, an action, the more fine will be the sensitiveness he develops in
himself. He will find that sympathy and antipathy of a higher kind awaken in him if he curb those which he
already has. Even something that is at first most unattractive has hidden qualities ; it

reveals them if a man does not in his conduct obey his selfish feelings. He who has developed himself in
this respect feels more finely in every direction than one who has not, because he does not allow his own
personality to lead him into lack of receptivity. Each inclination that a man follows blindly blunts the
power to see the things in his environment in their true light. By obeying inclination we thrust
ourselves, as it were, through the environment instead of laying ourselves open to it and feeling its true
worth.

A man becomes independent of the CHANGING impressions of the outer world when each pleasure and each pain,
each sympathy and each antipathy, no longer calls forth in him an egotistical response and egotistical
conduct. The pleasure one feels in a thing makes one at once dependent on it. One loses oneself in

THEOSOPHY

the thing. A man who loses himself in the pleasure or pain caused by each varying impression cannot tread
the path of higher knowledge. He must accept pleasure and pain withEQUANIMITY. Then he ceases to lose
himself in them ; he begins instead to understand them. A pleasure to which I surrender myself devours my
being in the moment of surrender. I ought to use the pleasure only in order through it to arrive at an
understanding of the thing that arouses pleasure in me . The important point ought not to be that the
thing has aroused the pleasure in me ; I ought to experience the liking and through it the NATURE of the
thing. The pleasure should only be an announcement to me that there is in the thing a quality calculated
to give pleasure . This quality I must learn to understand . If I go no further than the pleasure, if I
allow myself to be entirely absorbed in it, it is only that I am expending myself ; if the pleasure is to
me only the opportunity of experiencing a quality or property of the thing itself, I enrich my inner being
through this experience. To the learner pleasure and displeasure, joy and pain, must be OPPORTUNITIES for
learning

THE PATH OF KNOWLEDGE 207

about things. The learner does not become blunted to pleasure or pain through this, he raises himself
above them in order that they may reveal to him the nature of the things . He who develops himself in this
respect will learn to understand what instructors pleasure and pain are. He will feel with every being,
and thereby receive the revelation of its inner nature. The learner never says to himself merely, "Oh, how
I suffer" or "Oh, how glad I am," but always "How suffering speaks! How joy speaks !" He eliminates the
element of self in order that pleasure and joy from the outer world may work on him . By this means a
complete change takes place in the man. Formerly he responded to this or that impression by this or that
action, because these impressions caused him joy or dislike. But now he allows pleasure and displeasure to
become merely the organs by which things tell him how he should conduct himself toward them. IN HIM,
pleasure and pain change from being mere feelings to being organs of sense by which the external world is
perceived. Just as the eye does not act itself when it sees something, but allows the hand to act, so
pleasure and pain

208

THEOSOPHY

bring about nothing in the learner, but merely receive impressions ; and what is learned through pleasure
and displeasure is that which brings about the action.

When a man uses pleasure and displeasure in such a way that they become mere organs of transmission, they
build up for him within his soul the very organs through which the soul world opens up to view. The eye
can serve the body only by being an organ for the transmission of sensible impressions ; pleasure and pain
become the eyes of the soul when they cease to have any value in themselves and begin to serve one purpose
alone, that of revealing to the inner soul the souls outside it.

By means of the faculties mentioned the seeker of the Path places himself in such a condition as to enable
what is really present in the world around him to affect him without disturbing influences from his own
personality . But he has also to adapt himself to the spiritual world around him in the right way. For he
is, as thinking being, a citizen of the spiritual world. He can be this in a right way only if he guides
his thoughts in accordance with the eternal laws of truth, the laws of the

THE PATH OF KNOWLEDGE 209

"Spirit-land." For only in this way can that land act on him and reveal its facts to him. A man never
reaches the truth as long as he yields to the thoughts continuously coursing through his ego. For if he
does, his thoughts take a course imposed on them by the fact that they come into existence within the
bodily nature. The thought world of a man who is absorbed in an intellectual activity, determined
primarily by his physical brain, has an appearance of irregularity and confusion . In it a thought enters,
breaks off, is driven out of the field by another . Any one who tests this by listening to a conversation
between two people, or who observes himself in an unprejudiced way, will gain an idea of this mass of
will-o'-the-wisp thoughts. As long as a man devotes himself only to the calls of the life of the senses,
his confused succession of thoughts will always be brought into order again by the facts of the reality. I
may think ever so confusedly, but in my actions everyday facts force upon me the laws corresponding to the
reality. My mental picture of a town may be most confused, but if I wish to walk along a certain road in
the town I must accommodate myself

210

THEOSOPHY

to existing facts. The mechanic can enter his workshop with ever so varied a whirl of ideas, but the laws
of his engines compel him to adopt the correct procedure in his work. Within the world of the senses facts
exercise their continuous corrective on thought. If I think out a false opinion about a physical
phenomenon or the shape of a plant the reality confronts me and sets my thinking right . It is quite
different when I consider my relations to the higher regions of existence . They reveal themselves to me
only if I enter their worlds with already strictly controlled thinking. Unless my thinking shows me the
right, sure standpoint, I cannot find the proper paths . For the spiritual laws prevailing within these
worlds are not condensed into the sensibly perceptible kind, and therefore they do not exert on me the
compulsion referred to above . I am able to obey these laws only when they are related to those which
govern me personally as a thinking being. Here I must be my own sure guide. The seeker of the Path must
therefore make his thinking strictly regulated in character. His thoughts must by degrees dis- accustom
themselves entirely from taking the

THE PATH OF KNOWLEDGE alt

ordinary daily course. They must in their whole sequence take on the inner character of the spiritual
world.

The seeker of the Path must constantly keep watch over himself in this respect and have himself in hand.
With him one thought must not link itself arbitrarily with another but only in the way that corresponds
with the severely exact contents of the thought world . The transition from one idea to another must
correspond with the strict laws of thought. He must as thinker be to a certain extent constantly a copy of
these thought laws. He must shut out from his train of thought all that does not flow out of these laws.
Should a favorite thought present itself to him, he must put it aside if the correct sequence will be
disturbed by it. If a personal feeling tries to force upon his thoughts a direction not inherent in them,
he must suppress it. Plato required of those who wished to be in his school that they should first go
through a course of mathematical training. And mathematics with their strict laws, which do not yield to
the course of ordinary sensible phenomena, form a good preparation for the seeker of the Path. If he

212

THEOSOPHY

wishes to make progress in the study of mathematics he has to strike out all personal, arbitrary choice,
all disturbances . He learns by it to follow purely the requirements of the thought. And he has to learn
to do this in all his thinking. HisTHOUGHT-LIFE must itself be a copy of the unchanging mathematical
methods of stating premises and forming conclusions . He must strive wherever he goes and whatever he does
to think after this manner . Then the intrinsic lawfulness of the spirit world will flow into him instead
of passing over and through him without leaving a trace, as it does when his thinking bears the ordinary
confused character. Regulated thinking brings him from sure starting points to the most hidden truths.
What has been said, however, must not be looked at in a one-sided way. Although mathematics act as a good
discipline for the mind, one can arrive at pure, healthy thinking without the study of mathematics.

And what the Path seeker strives to have in his thinking, he must also strive to have in his actions.
These must obey the laws of the nobly Beautiful and the eternally True without any

THE PATH OF KNOWLEDGE

disturbing influences from his personality. These laws must constantly direct him. Should he begin to do
something that he has recognized as right and fail to content , his personal feelings, he may not FOR THAT
REASON forsake the road he has entered on . But, on the other hand, he may not pursue it because it gives
him joy if he finds that it is not in accordance with the laws of the eternally Beautiful and True. In
everyday life people allow their actions to be decided by what contents them personally, by what bears
fruit FOR THEMSELVES. In this way they force upon the course of the world's events a direction influenced
by their personality. They do not bring to realization the True that is already prescribed in the laws of
the spirit world, they realize the demands of their self- will. They act in harmony with the spiritual
world only when they follow its laws alone. The Path seeker may not ask, "What brings me advantages, what
will bring me success?" but only, "What have I recognized as the Good?" Renunciation of the fruits of
action in the interest of his personality, renunciation of all self-will, these are the weighty laws

THEOSOPHY

which he must prescribe for himself. Then he treads the paths of the spiritual world, his whole being
becomes penetrated by these laws . He becomes free from all compulsion from the sensible world ; his
Spirit-man raises itself out of the sensible sheath . Thus he makes actual progress on the path toward the
spiritual, and thus he spiritualizes himself . One cannot say, "Of what use to me are all my resolutions
to follow purely the laws of the True when I am perhaps mistaken as to what is the True?" The important
thing is the striving and the spirit in which one strives . Even he who is mistaken possesses in his very
striving after the True a force which turns him away from the wrong road. This force seizes him should he
be mistaken and guides him to the right road. The very objection, "But I can be mistaken," is itself
harmful unbelief. It shows that the man has no confidence in the power of the True . For the important
point is that he should not presume to decide on his aims and objects in life in accordance with his
egotistical views, but that he should selflessly yield himself up to the guidance of the spirit itself. It
is not the

THE PATH OF KNOWLEDGE 215

self-seeking will of man that can prescribe for the True ; on the contrary THIS TRUE ITSELF must become
lord in man, must penetrate his whole being, make him a copy of the eternal laws of the Spirit-land. He
must fill himself with these eternal laws in order to let them stream out into life. As the Path seeker
must hold strict guard over his thinking, so must he also over his WILL. Through this he becomes in life a
messenger from the world of the True and the Beautiful. And through becoming this he rises to be a
participant in the spirit world. Through this he is raised from stage to stage of development. For one
cannot reach the spiritual life by merely seeing it; on the contrary, one has to reach it by experiencing,
by living it.

If the Path seeker observes the laws here described his soul experiences will take on an entirely new
form. He will not longer live merely IN THEM. They will no longer have a significance merely for his
personal life. They will develop into soul perceptions of the higher world . In his soul the feelings of
pleasure and displeasure, of joy and pain, grow into soul organs, just as in his body eyes and ears

THEOSOPHY

do not lead a life for themselves merely, but selflessly allow external impressions to pass through them.
As a result CALMNESS and ASSURANCE become inherent qualities in the soul of the Path seeker. A great
pleasure will no longer make him jubilant, but will be the messenger to him of qualities in the world
which have hitherto escaped him . It will leave him calm, and through the calm the characteristics of the
pleasure-giving beings will reveal themselves to him . Pain will no longer fill him with grief, but will
tell him the qualities of the being which causes the pain. Just as the eye does not desire anything for
itself but shows man the direction of the road he has to take, so will pleasure and pain guide the soul
safely along its path . This is the state of balance of soul which the Path seeker must reach. The less
pleasure and pain exhaust themselves in waves which they throw up in the inner life of the Path seeker,
the more will they form eyes for the supersensible world. As long as a man lives in pleasure and pain he
cannot GAIN KNOWLEDGE through them. When he learns through them how to live, when he withdraws from

THE PATH OF KNOWLEDGE

them his feeling of self, then they become his organs of perception, then he sees by means of them, and
through them attains to knowledge. It is incorrect to think that the Seeker of the Path becomes a dry,
colorless being, incapable of pleasure or suffering . Pleasure and suffering are present in him but in a
transformed shape ; they have become "eyes and

ears."

So long as one lives in a personal relationship with the world, things reveal only that which links them
with our personality. But that is the transitory part of them. If we withdraw ourselves from the
transitory part of us and live with our feeling of self, with our "I," in our permanent part, then our
transitory parts become intermediaries for us ; and that which reveals itself through them is an
Imperishable, an Eternal in the things. This relationship between His own Eternal and the Eternal in the
things must be established by the seeker of the Path. Even before he begins other exercises of the kind
described, and also during them, he should direct his thought to this imperishable part. When

I observe a stone, a plant, an animal, a man, I

THEOSOPHY

218

should remember that in each of them an Eternal declares itself. I must ask myself what is the permanent
that lives in the transitory stone, what will outlast the transient, sensible phenomenon? One ought not to
think that such a directing of the spirit to the eternal

destroys the power of devoted observation and our feeling for the qualities of everyday affairs, and
estranges us from the immediate realities. On the contrary every leaf, every little insect will unveil to
us innumerable mysteries, when not our EYES only but THROUGH THE EYES the spirit is directed upon them.
Every sparkle, every shade of color, every cadence will remain vividly perceptible to the senses ; nothing
will be lost ; only an infinitude is gained. Indeed, the person who is not able to observe even the
meanest thing in nature with interest will only attain to pale, bloodless thoughts, not to spiritual
sight. All depends on the ATTITUDE OF MIND we acquire in this direction .

What stage we will succeed in reaching depends on our capacities . We have each moment to do what is right
and leave everything else to the future. It must be enough

THE PATH OF KNOWLEDGE 219

for us at first to direct our minds to the permanent. If we do this the knowledge of the permanent will
THROUGH THIS awaken in us. We must wait until it is given. And it is given at the right time to each one
who with patience waits and works. A man soon notices during such exercises what a powerful transformation
takes place within him. He learns to consider each thing as important or unimportant only in so far as he
recognizes it to be related to a Permanent, to an Eternal. He comes to a different appreciation and
estimate of the world from the one he has hitherto had. His whole feeling takes on a new relationship
toward the entire surrounding world. The transitory no longer attracts him for its own sake as formerly;
it becomes for him a member, an image of the Eternal. And this Eternal, that lives in all things, he
learns to love . It becomes familiar to him, just as the transitory was formerly familiar to him. This
again does not cause him to become estranged from life, he only learns to value each thing at its true
worth. Even the vain trifles of life will not leave him quite unaffected ; but the man no longer loses
himself in them, he recognizes

220

THEOSOPHY

them at their limited worth. He sees them in

their true light. He is a poor discerner who

prefers to go awandering in the clouds and

lose sight of life ; a true discerner from his

high summit, with his power of clear survey

and his just and healthy feeling for every

thing, will be able to assign to each thing its

proper place.

In this way there opens out to the Path seeker the possibility of ceasing to obey the incalculable
influences of the external world of the senses, which turn his will now here, now there. Through higher
knowledge he has seen the Eternal Being in things. By means of the transformation of his inner world he
has gained the capacity to perceive this eternal being. When he now acts from out himself, he acts also
from out the Eternal Being of the things. For the things give utterance IN HIM

to this being of theirs. He therefore acts in harmony with the eternal World Order when he directs his
action from out the Eternal living within him. He becomes in this way no longer impelled by the things, he
impels them according to the laws implanted within them which have become the laws of his own being .

THE PATH OF KNOWLEDGE

This ability to act from out his inner being can only be an ideal toward which one strives. The attainment
of the goal lies in the far distance. But the Path seeker must have the will to tread this road. This is
his WILL FOR FREEDOM. For freedom is action from out of one's inner being. And only he may act from out of
his inner being who draws his motives from the Eternal . He who does not do this acts according to other
motives than those implanted in the things. Such a one opposes the World Order. And this must prevail
against him. That is to say, what he plans to carry through by his will can not take place. He cannot
become free. The arbitrary choice of the individual annihilates itself through the effects of its deeds .

He who directs his inner life in such a way steps upward from stage to stage. The fruits of his exercises
will be that certain vistas of the supersensible world will unfold to his spiritual perception. He learns
the real meaning of the truth communicated about this world ; and he will receive confirmation of them
through his own experience. If this

222

THEOSOPHY

stage is reached, an experience comes to him which can only be his through treading this path.

Through Beings whose significance can now for the first time become clear to him through the "great Guides
of the Human Race" there is bestowed on him what is called consecration (initiation) . He becomes a
"Disciple of the Wisdom." What the Seeker of the Path now experiences can only be indicated here. He
receives a new home. He becomes a conscious dweller in the supersensible world . The River of Wisdom flows
to him now from a higher source. The Light of Knowledge from this time forth does not shine upon him from
without ; he is himself placed in the fountain eye of this Light. In it the problems which the world
supplies are solved. Henceforth he holds converse no longer with the things which are shaped through the
spirit, but with the Shaping Spirit itself. The separate life of the personality only exists now in order
to be a conscious image of the Eternal. Every lingering doubt that could formerly arise in him

vanishes ; for only he can doubt whom things delude regarding the spirit that rules in them.

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THE PATH OF KNOWLEDGE

And since the "Disciple of the Wisdom" is able to hold intercourse with the spirit itself, each false form
in which he had before imagined the spirit vanishes. The false form which man ascribes to the spirit in
his conceptions is superstition. The initiate is above all superstition, for he knows what the true form
of the spirit is. FREEDOM from personality, doubt, and superstition, these are the characteristics of him
who has attained to discipleship in the Path of the higher knowledge. One must not confuse this state in
which the personality becomes one with the comprehensive spirit of life with a DISAPPEARANCE OF THE
PERSONALITY in the "All-Spirit." Such a disappearance does not take place in a true development of the
personality. It remains preserved as personality at the highest stage of its perfection. It is not the
subjection of the personality but its highest development that takes place. If one wishes to have a simile
for this coincidence or union of the individual spirit with the "All-Spirit" one cannot choose that of
different circles which, coinciding, are lost in the One, but one must choose the picture of many circles
of which each has a quite

THEOSOPHY

distinct shade of color; these differently colored circles coincide, but EACH separate shade

preserves its existence within the whole. Not one loses the fullness of its individual power, and the
whole is the resultant of these individual powers. The further description of the Path will not be given
here. It is given so far as is possible in "Occult Science," which forms a continuation of this book. The
Way of Man passes through many lives (incarnations) . PATIENCE ought to flow out of the real understanding
of this fact. He

who uses his present incarnation for his development prepares for those stages in which he will attain to
(intuitive) seeing, to clairvoyance, to the full possession of his higher being

(Spirit-self, Life-spirit) as well as to the remembrance of his former lives and to still

higher experiences. It is possible for this to take place in his present life or perhaps, it may be, in a
following one.

THE END

NOTES AND AMPLIFICATIONS

i . To page 23. To speak of "life-force" (Lebenskraft) was regarded a short time back as the mark of an
unscientific mind. But one begins to find here and there in science to-day a tendency which is not averse
from the idea of a "life-force" such as was accepted in former times. Anyone who really understands the
course of contemporary science will, however, recognize that the superior logic lies with those who in
considering this tendency refuse to find any trace of "life-force." "Life-force" is by no means the same
as what is to-day called the "forces of nature (Naturkrafte)," and he who will not pass over from the
modes of thought and conception characteristic of modern science to higher modes ought not to speak of
"life-force." Only the mode of thinking and the presuppositions of spiritual science (Geisteswissenschaft)
or Theosophy make it possible to deal with such things without inconsistency. 225

THEOSOPHY

226

2. To page 26. When the "sense of touch" of the lower organisms is spoken of here, it is not intended to
convey what is expressed by this phrase in the ordinary expositions of the "Senses." From the theosophical
point of view much could, in fact, be urged in objection to the use of this expression . What is meant
here by "sense of touch" is rather a GENERAL BECOMING AWARE of an external impression, in contrast to the
SPECIAL becoming aware which consists in seeing, hearing, etc . 3. To page 35. It is necessary to read
theosophical presentations of a subject with strict accuracy. For it is only in the accurate statement of
ideas that they have a value . For example in the statement, "They (the sensations, etc.) do not in its
case (namely, that of the animal) become interwoven with independent thoughts transcending the immediate
experience," one could easily fall into the mistake of thinking that it was claimed here that there are no
thoughts contained in the sensations or the instincts of animals. Now Theosophy is actually based on a
knowledge which says that all inner experience on the part of animals (and all existence of any kind) is
NOTES AND AMPLIFICATIONS 227

interwoven with thought. But the thoughts of the animal are not those of an independent I, or ego, living
in the animal, but are those of the animal group ego, which must be regarded as a being governing the
animal from without . This group ego is not present in the physical world as is the I, or ego, of a man,
but works down into the animal from the soul world

described on pages 87 et seq. (Further details regarding this are to be found in my "Outline of Occult
Science.") The real point at issue in the case of man is that thoughts attain to an independent existence
IN HIM-that thoughts are not experienced immediately in sensation, but mediately as thoughts which are
experienced also in the soul.

4. To page 42 . When it is said that little children say, "Charles is good," "Mary wishes to have this,"
it must be carefully noted that the important point is not so much how soon children use the word "I" but
when they connect the proper conception with that word. When children hear adults use the word, they can
continually use it without having the conception of the"I." Nevertheless, the fact that the use of the
word begins late as a rule points THEOSOPHY

to an important feature of evolution, namely the gradual unfolding of the I-concept out of the vague I-
feeling.

S. To pages 47 and 48 . A description of the intrinsic nature of "Intuition" is to be found in my books "A
Way of Initiation" and "Occult Science." One might through inaccurate observation of the matter detect a
contradiction between the use of this word in those books and what is said in this book on page 47. This,
however, will be found not to exist when one takes into account that what reveals itself through intuition
in full reality to supersensible knowledge makes itself known, in its LOWEST revelation, to the spirit-
self, even as the external existence of the physical world makes itself known in sensation . 6. To page
qi. The subject of the spiritual organs of perception which is only alluded to shortly in the later
chapter in this book on The Path of Knowledge, is more fully dealt with in my books "A Way of Initiation"
and "Occult Science." (Berlin, Philosophisch- TheosophischerVerlag. Motz Strasse 17.) 7. To page 132. It
would be incorrect to imagine a ceaseless UNREST in the spiritual NOTES AND AMPLIFICATIONS

229

world because there is not in it "a state of rest, a remaining in one place, as in the phys-. ical world."
There, where the Beings are who create the Archetypes, there is not indeed what can be called "rest in one
place," but there is that rest which is spiritual in its nature, and consistent with active mobility. It
may be likened to the restful satisfaction and bliss of the spirit which is revealed in deeds and not in a
state of inaction .

8. To page 139. One is obliged to use the word "Purposes" in regard to the impelling or motive Powers of
the world evolution, although it opens the door to a temptation to conceive of these Powers simply as
human purposes. In the case of such words-which had naturally to be taken from the sphere of human life-
this temptation can be averted only by the raising of oneself when using them to a significance from which
every connection with human limitation is banished, and there is assigned to them what man approximately
imbues them with on those occasions in his life when he, to a certain degree, rises above himself. 9. To
page 139. Further particulars in THEOSOPHY regard to the "Spiritual Word" are to be foundin my "Outline
of Occult Science." MUNICH, August 28, 1910.

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