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1 EXOTERIC WORLD VIEW AND LIFE VIEW

THE WILL TO UNITY


1.1 THE WILL TO UNITY The individualist will to power leads to division. The universalist will to unity shows the value and viability of our individualism. 2 When world views and life views are shattered like so many other things that have seemed certain and reliable to us, burst like the soap-bubbles they are but which it is always hard for us to admit they are, then the sense of solidarity and the need for unity become vitally important factors. 3 The will to unity is no will to uniformity, no standardization into robotism. The will to unity does not fight against other views or against dissidents. It is so rational that it need never fear criticism. It leaves everybodys fiction in peace, for it knows how to find unity in diversity. The individual has a natural right to exist, to be different from all others, to be an individual with individuality. In its deepest sense, freedom is individuality. Without freedom there is no individual character, no self-reliance, no self-determination, no development. The will to unity is the strongest defence of freedom, for this will must be built on freedom as its basis. True unity cannot be enforced and cannot be won at the expense of freedom. The will to unity is incomparably superior to any psychosis that unifies all temporarily. It needs no compulsion, no force, for it is an indestructible sense of belonging together and solidarity proved in action. The will to unity makes any nation as strong and as great as it can be. Every part, no matter how small, of a nation is a part of the whole, a whole part of the whole. The will to unity brings about a whole and gigantic power for outer unity; a power different from any dictatorial enforcement, which always bears the seed of division in it. Oppression fosters no will to unity and no faith in the oppressors ability to fulfil his promises of paradise. 4 Life need not be a struggle. Struggle may be a factor of development for lower forms of life. At higher stages of development, however, struggle is irrational. Even competition a sublimation of the urge to struggle has been superseded by co-operation. Conflict cannot possibly be connected with culture. Where there is struggle, culture is absent; the technological advances may be however great. Reason finally learns to recognize that the law of the jungle, the war of all against all, belongs in the jungle. Life, viewed as a totality, is a great collective, whose individual units, when once they have attained the common sense level of development, will be united in a concerted endeavour to reach ever clearer consciousness from ignorance and impotence, to acquire the freedom and power that are in understanding. 5 Also political parties demonstrate the importance of solidarity. But solidarity within a certain party, within a certain social class, always leads to disunion within the community. The whole has been divided and disintegrates more and more. It is forgotten that class interests are justified only if and as long as they are subservient to the whole. 6 To remove everything which divides, and to come to an agreement on everything which one can agree about and this in all fields is the first step towards the goal of unity, is the first condition of the welding of all individuals, of all parties, into that inseparable unity which the will to unity can realize. 7 The will to unity is perhaps not the only way of solving the social and economic problems. But it is the best, simplest, most secure, and perhaps necessary way. If the majority begin to doubt the possibility of achieving a result on a voluntary basis, then they will try to achieve it in another, worse way. The will to unity is the only rational basis, and the only basis tenable in the end, of society and of culture. That idea is the basic idea of this book. 8 The will to unity is not least the will to a national culture. Such a culture must emerge from
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that collective self-reliance and self-determination which the will to unity fosters in a nation. 9 To create a culture man must first find Man. Culture is impossible before he is discovered. For man is always the measure of culture. Man creates his culture himself. Nobody else does him that service. Where man is not naturally respected as a man because just as a man he is above, superior to, everything else there the human is absent, the conditions of the human are absent, and thus the conditions of culture are absent. 10 Everybody has a right to his share but not to more. The demand for more has the result that others have to go without their requisite share. The individual insatiability counteracts the striving after unity. When nobody demands more than his share, then everybody else will get his share too. Of course this does not imply that all shares are equally great, for the tasks are not equally great. When everybody gets his share, then the stage of material culture has been reached. 11 The stage of emotional culture has been reached when everybody serves and nobody feels like a master. When everybody serves something higher, something beyond himself, something for several, for many, for all together, then that harmony will present itself which is the expression of cultured emotion. The present intellectual possibilities of man have been overrated, and his emotional ones undervalued and neglected. It is also easier to realize emotional culture, with the sense of unity as its highest value. 12 We shall have social culture when individuals feel that they exist for the community, and the community feels that it exists for the individual; when everybody regards service as his foremost task. 13 The prerequisite of the stage of intellectual culture is a rational and non-contradictory world view and life view, which is free of dogmas and has been made available for all. This presupposes a system of education that develops the power of judgement. 14 Emotional and mental culture are the kinds of culture most important for the realization of unity. Material culture will follow as a matter of course when the good will to mutual assistance is made the highest value and norm. 15 Mental culture presupposes mental self-reliance and mental self-determination. Intellectual independence implies the ability critically to sift the material which culture has afforded us, to judge the kind of certainty and degree of probability accruing to the ideas we find. 16 School imparts certain skills languages for instance which are intended to make it possible to acquire a true education, or a knowledge of facts. For all too many people the very skill is the same thing as education the skill at expressing oneself on everything and judging everything one has incidentally picked up, with a semblance of knowledge of facts that skill which is the opposite of reliability. When leaving school, the young people who are declared mature appear rather to be disoriented, ignorant of life, unable to feel independently and to judge objectively. Their self-activity has been hampered by overloading their memory with unessentials this memory which should only absorb knowledge of laws, principles, and methods, not details obtainable in easily accessible reference books. The true purpose of the school is to educate the power of judgement. The goal of rational upbringing and education is brotherhood. 17 Common sense is critical reason, everybodys highest reason. Common sense relativizes, strives for objectivity, corrects itself, hardly ever expresses final opinions, and does not base opinions on incomplete facts and insufficient experience. 18 The lumber room of the history of ideas is crammed with superstitions that were once called truth. The world is still a chaos of innumerable ideologies based on fictions and illusions. No wonder that the man who has come to know them thoroughly ends up a skeptic. 19 The systems of belief are built on emotional conviction absolutified. The systems of speculation prove untenable when scrutinized critically. And both kinds of system come into conflict with the facts of reality. 20 The knowledge of reality is the one rock bottom of a world view and life view. Natural 2

science has mapped but a fraction of reality, it is true. It has been possible for it, however, to make clear that whatever conflicts with the facts of reality cannot claim to be called truth. 21 Many people regard it as a hopeless task to search for a unifying bond in all the cultural factors that are in a state of dissolution, conflicting in disunion, or groping in uncertainty. It is impossible to achieve it without a concerted striving, will to unity, although what separates people is almost always unessentials both in emotional and mental respects. We must learn not to concentrate on what separates, but to direct our attention to whatever unites, and regard everything that separates as unessential.

EMOTIONAL CULTURE
1.2 MAN AS AN EMOTIONAL BEING At his present stage of development, man is an emotional being with a possibility of intermittent use of his still undeveloped reason. 2 Sense perceptions excepted, emotionality can be said to include everything psychological that does not belong to the purely rational, and the purely rational does not embrace much. Our consciousness is centred in emotionality, which colours sense perceptions as well as thoughts. Once in a while, consciousness makes a temporary excursion into the sphere of unemotional thought, when we remove everything that can be emotionalized, everything that concerns our desires and needs, everything that is included in the personal. 3 Emotion is without measure. It absolutifies and is subjectively sovereign. Emotion requires certainty, wants something unshakably firm and certain, even though heaven and earth perish, turns relative into absolute, probability into absolute truth. 4 In the struggle between emotion and reason emotion wins, since it is perceived as being absolute and since reason recognizes the relativity of its content. Emotion dictates most opinions. The fact that an idea wins is no proof of its rationality, correctness, or viability, but all too frequently a proof of its emotional usefulness. 5 Emotional thinking imitates whatever it finds sympathetic, and copies trains of thought attractive to emotion. From the objective point of view, emotional thinking is uncritical and undiscerning, and has an especial predilection for resorting to fictions that are inaccessible to rational criticism. Emotional thinking decides the choice of authorities, the choice of particularly important viewpoints and standpoints, the choice of world view and life view. Emotional thinking reacts against any kind of criticism, as though realizing that the strength of its mainly emotional conceptions would be subverted by objective analysis in the long run. 6 The fact that dogmas are hard to eradicate depends on their being woven into emotional complexes. They have thereby become needs. Emotion must have an indestructible certainty. Destruction of dogmas leads to a dissolution of the corresponding complexes, and thereby to emotional chaos that is painful and hard to overcome for many people. 7 The fact that the art of formulation belongs to emotional thinking is clear from the power of the pertaining emotions over thought, the romance and atmosphere created by the choice of words, the glow of form which fires imagination, and the suggestive power of catchwords by which they can incite to emotional intoxication or psychosis. 8 Emotion dominates not only thought but also the will. One wills whatever emotion decides one shall will. The essential of the volition that directs our activity is affects or, expressed in terms more modern, vitalized emotional complexes. An action is determined by its strongest motive, and the strongest motives are emotional factors. 9 The four temperaments the choleric, melancholic, sanguineous, and phlegmatic affect our emotional thinking as well as our emotional volition, and are visible expressions of our modes of emotional reaction. If emotion is absent, action is easily deferred. Reason wavers between standpoints if it does not recognize the need for immediate action. Since most standpoints seem arbitrary to a certain extent, reason tarries until emotion intervenes and decides. 10 With an insight into this immense importance of emotion to thinking and to volition, one understands the significance of emotional culture. Emotional culture is the essential of all culture. Without emotional culture the cultures will destroy themselves and one another, and mankind will never reach up to a true and predominantly mental culture, that which some time will make men rational beings. 11 Four of the most important factors in the field of emotional culture will be critically examined
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in the following. It is only by an unprejudiced scrutiny of them that we can hope to see clearly enough eventually to remedy the deficiencies in concerted work. 1.3 RELIGION The purpose of religion is to lighten the burdens of life, not to make them heavier. 2 The purpose of religion is to ennoble man and thereby to afford him joy, peace, and harmony. 3 The purpose of religion is not to issue commands or prohibitions, but to ennoble and strengthen feelings so as to make all commands superfluous. 4 The purpose of religion is not to mitigate the wrath of any cosmic being, but to unite us with our fellow men in a brotherly bond. 5 The purpose of religion is, therefore, to ennoble our feelings, to preach brotherhood, and to practise service.
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1.4 The Essence of Religion In essence religion is feeling. It is an instinctive and spontaneous feeling of life without any rational conceptions and theoretical constructions with an unreflective, natural certainty of the inseparable and inescapable unity of all life, a longing and a striving to participate in this unity. This feeling of life contains in it: confidence in life, reliance on life, certainty about life, courage in life, joy of life, and the will to live. 2 This feeling of life is also a need for, and an ever more conscious striving after, ennoblement of all feelings susceptible of ennoblement. It is a need to love and admire, revere and worship everything it can and may. The feeling of unity appears nowhere as strongly as in true religion. This feeling of unity, which fills the man engrossed in devotion with a peace that atones for everything, does not only extend towards the invisible, but contains and embraces everything, even his bitterest enemies. 3 Where this feeling of unity is allowed to express itself, is fostered and encouraged instead of being stifled, where this unity is allowed to be realized undisturbed, we find those live individuals whom we spontaneously call real people. 4 In its own sphere, feeling is will as well as power and reality. The spontaneity and certainty of feeling are destroyed when feeling is divided against itself. For reason to be able to harm or vanquish a feeling, it is necessary that a feeling assists on the side of reason against another feeling, that a feeling has regarded itself to be in need of, and has sought, the support of reason. If the feeling that has appealed to reason is connected with conceptions that are untenable in the long run, then that feeling loses its support and is wasted away. 5 Religion is feeling and this feeling is a driving force in the acts of service.
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1.5 Religious Mysticism Consciousness is probably not limited to our five senses, but has perhaps unlimites possibilities of contact with an immense series of vibrations from a universe which in the main is still unexplored. If we could apprehend and interpret all the cosmic vibrations pervading our own body, it is conceivable that we would be omniscient. 2 Christian mysticism, sufism, and bhakti yoga are different names for that mystic experience which, in states inaccessible to introspective analysis, has found the supreme states. Because of the danger of self-deception, these predispositions should be balanced by a special training in common sense with a strict demand for purposefulness. The true mystic has always been a rare phenomenon, and appears to be so more and more. To outsiders, he is characterized by that feeling of the unity of all life, that striving after union with life, that absorption into unity not to be confused with quietism, paralysing thought, feeling, and will of which the Indian Ramakrishna,
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portrayed in a number of biographies, is a typical example. 1.6 Religious Intellectual Constructions It has not yet been possible to make any system of thought unchangeable. Viewed historically, intellectual systems consist each of a series of systems; thus they are reconstructions. 2 True religion is not any matter of reason and has nothing, if anything, to do with theories. It is not the purpose of religion to give us a world view and life view. Religious dogmatics is neither religion nor a rational life view. It harms religion. 3 A conception that has no counterpart in reality is a fiction. If reason takes charge of the fiction, then the fiction will be continually adapted through new definitions or increased experience. If emotion, which requires immutability, takes charge of the fiction, then the fiction is turned into a dogma. If a religious feeling is connected with untenable rational constructions, then both are harmed. Doubt in the individual, discord between individuals, schisms resulting in more and more sects, are the inevitable consequences. When the dogma is destroyed, the entire emotional life is shaken. Many people are then seized with panic and see themselves wandering on a bottomless quagmire. 4 The fact that religion can do without dogmas is proved by Buddhism, whose tolerance is a consequence of this. A Buddhist synod laid down as its first thesis: Whatever conflicts with common sense cannot accord with Buddhas doctrine. If a Christian Council had adopted a similar thesis, then a considerable part of the hapless human race would have been spared ghastly sufferings, endless disputes, and endless doubt. 5 Religious dogmas reform nobody. It is the ennoblement of feeling that reforms. The cultivation of noble feelings, such as admiration, affection, sympathy, would contribute in an entirely different manner to the uplift of mankind. The wasting away of religious feeling is a better testimony than any other to the harm done by connecting religion with untenable views. 6 Beliefs does not belong to the essence of religion. This appears best from the fact that Buddha seriously warned his disciples not to believe (accept blindly). The question is whether Jeshu by faith did not mean will, although faith from meaning will was distorted so as first to mean trust, and later blind acceptance or irrational conviction. 7 Bible criticism frightens many people. But anyone who doubts that Pilates question What is truth? is the word of god, is already practising Bible criticism. If every word of the Old Testament is the word of god, then Judaism is as infallible and as divine as Christianity. The question is whether the Jews have not also lost the key to their Testament by becoming Westerners and slaves to the dead letter from having been Easterners and symbolists. 8 The words that men can understand are the words of men and not the words of a cosmic being. God does not preach any truth, nor does he protect the truth from falsification and deception. Man has been given his reason to use it so that he may seek and find the truth himself. 9 Religious dogmatics as a rule suffers from three misleading conceptions: an erroneous idea of god, an erroneous idea of sin, and an erroneous idea of atonement. 10 The idea of god has changed continually over the ages. It, as well as all other religious ideas, will always be a matter of dispute. But then ideas without ground are superfluous to a religion possessed of psychological insight. 11 Our idea of god must be assumed to be false as long as man is being crucified, abused, and despised. Of course, our idea of god does not affect the possible existence of a cosmic being. Savages adore the spirit of idols they have constructed, and somewhat less primitive intellects adore the spirit of ideas they have constructed. 12 When the idea of god has been sublimated into the idea so unattractive to those lulled into the belief in arbitrary grace of the universal causal law, which is also valid psychologically, the law of sowing and reaping the inevitability of which Jeshu intimated; then that idea will have
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reached its highest rational expression. The highest expression of the sense of divinity is the unifying omnipotence of love. 13 Anyone who is not perfect like god, who is not like god, who therefore is not god, is regarded as a sinner. Man, or the relative, must be god, or the absolute; otherwise he is condemned for eternity. 14 The engrafting of the idea of sin which was the true fall into sin and the infection of mankind with that irrational complex of an inevitable and ineffaceable burden of sin, that complex which hampers life and promotes hatred, is the most heinous crime befitting for a devil ever perpetrated on mankind. The foreign missions spread the doctrines of sin and of eternal punishment. 15 They soon realized, of course, that the unbearable burden of sin must be lifted off in some manner. To this end various religions have salaried medicine-men who have their special tricks. Christianity a thing totally different from Christs teaching made faith in the irrational and incomprehensible a condition of the remission of sins. 16 According to the doctrine of the Church, sin is a crime committed against an infinite being, and thus requires infinite punishment. Quite naturally they sought to explain away the idea that this infinite being could be infinite love, could be infinitely able to forgive and not hate eternally the victims of ignorance and inability. According to common sense, sin would rather be a crime committed against others and clearly recognized as such by the offending individual, or an obstacle to his own development raised by the individual. Such a sinner needs psychiatric treatment. When sin will be whatever separates a man not from a cosmic being but from another man, whoever he be, then we shall become humanized. Then we shall begin to discover what is still undiscovered, namely Man. True culture appears in the fact that it reconciles man with his fellow men. This, however, seems to be the most difficult thing of all. 17 The idea of atonement is equally absurd. A gleam of common sense, however, succeeded in penetrating this darkness of unreason: God is not wrath. There is no passage in the Old or New Testament that makes god the object of atonement, the one to be atoned. On the contrary, god is the subject of atonement, the one from whom atonement emanates. It is man who becomes incensed at the seeming iniquities of life and goes away from god in his hatred. God need not be atoned with man, but man with god. 18 Mans longing for unity with life perceived as with the mystics always and everywhere the reality of this unity. 1.7 MORALITY No idea is as vague, indeterminate, and ambiguous, no everyday word is as abused, as morality. One just knows that it is an infallible absolute, which always is good enough as a weapon. But in order to be efficiently useful as a murder weapon it must indeed be as incomprehensible as possible. 2 Each new life view that appears results in a new moral view with new rules of conduct and new values set according to new bases of valuation. These rules and values survive independently a long time after the life views and bases of valuation have been abandoned. They are slowly being eliminated at random, it is true, but there will always be some convention persisting, which nobody can explain and which seems mysterious and taboo. There would not be such an ignorance as to what morality is, if there were a demand for it. 3 They have tried to save morality in numerous ways. Absolute commands, absolute conventions, absolute rules of conduct, absolute motives, absolute norms of valuation, and the voice of conscience everything has been vainly attempted. However, no philosophic systems of morality have stood up to rational criticism.
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When using the word morality as a fiction in every possible sense, finally nobody knew what the word stood for. Through this abuse the word acquired an air of sanctity, of supernatural mystery. Every now and then they arrange prize competitions in morality. Befogged by all the swindle of ideas practised with this fiction, they search in vain for a rational explanation. There exists no rational moral science, but only a history of moral constructions. 5 Where Mr Average is concerned, morality is whatever is approved of, and immorality whatever is disapproved of, by other people. Other peoples valuations are Mr Averages basis of valuation. The fear of being different from other people and, therefore, of being the object of contempt and persecution by the undiscerning as a result, is Mr Averages moral motive. 1.8 Conventions Conventions should be rational and integrated. They are often irrational and mutually contradictory. 2 Conventions should have a scientific basis in physiological, psychological, and social respect. Often they are an outright insult to everything scientific. 3 Conventions should be humane and allow man the freedom he can claim and to which he has a right. They are often cruel and antihuman. 4 Conventions should help people to live. They are almost always hostile to life in some respect. 5 Conventions should be unnecessary. The laws of the community should be sufficiently normative. Conventions would indeed be superfluous, if people were not so conventional, insecure, so without taste and tact, and undiscerning. 6 Conventions should be made available for those who are helpless without them. Some time in the future international conventions on good manners will perhaps be compiled. As it is now, every country and part of a country has its customs, manners, and prescriptions as to what may be done and how, or must not be done. 7 Those who wish to practise certain conventions should join together in conventionalist orders where they could meet people of a like mind and at about the same intellectual and cultural level.
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1.9 Rules of Conduct No rule must be undiscerningly applied anytime, anyhow, or anywhere. A rule of conduct presupposes three abilities in the man acting: the ability of analysis, of judgement, of application of both the rule and the case. More often than not these abilities are absent, and if they exist, they are seldom used. The conditions of moral rules are absurd. Right conduct presupposes omniscience. They are moreover unpsychological. We act automatically, instinctively, and habitually. The end determines the conduct. 2 A rule of conduct is a theory made from constructed cases. But these seldom occur in real life. At the moment of action and only then, if ever, are all the factors for judgement available it is often found that no rule is applicable. Life itself carries all rules to the absurd. No maxim can be made a general law, because no maxim can be applied in all circumstances. Situations would always arise in which its application were absurd. 3 With a table of compulsory rules the intelligent man would soon stop acting at all. The narrow-minded, who would not be able to realize the difficulties in this, which amount almost to impossibility, and who would fail to understand the great importance of adaptation, would need a strong motive appealing to his egoism in one way or other: vanity, fear, hope of reward, etc. In other words, he would be unselfish from selfish motives. 4 A rule makes the individual free of responsibility. Who shall be able to blame anyone who has obeyed a moral rule now, if rules and judgements are allowed to be valid? He was equally respectable and inhuman. 5 People want commands and prohibitions in order to feel free of responsibility. If these
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necessarily nave commands are applied just sufficiently and if the prohibitions are not disobeyed, then they have indeed done their part, feel very solid and good, and thank god that at least they have a clear conscience. They have fulfilled all righteousness unaware of their equally hopeless and grotesque self-deception. 6 To sum up: rules are useless in practice, are applied without discrimination and make their practiser free of responsibility. 7 Just one rule has held true over the ages, the principle of reciprocity: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. 8 The one moral command if some such were possible would be the command of love. But love cannot be commanded. Love requires freedom and grants freedom. 1.10 Motives When rules were found to be unsuitable, a substitute was sought for in ethics, which made the motive the norm of action. Intention and motive became the essential things. The disposition of mind and the direction of will were to bear the responsibility. 2 It has been found that where two people do the same thing, yet it is not the same thing they do, that two people could say and do the same thing from different motives, nay from diametrically opposite motives, the one from a noble, and the other from an ignoble, motive. From the moral point of view, both were equally respectable and commendable. From the ethical point of view, the one was commendable and the other reprehensible. 3 Regrettably, ethics proved to be impracticable. Because for one thing the motive was inaccessible to objective assessment, and self-deception was considerable and impossible to avoid safely, and people were incapable of judging their motives, and finally the basic motive existing in the subconscious escaped even the most downright honest analyst. 4 Even though ethics is impracticable as a general method, yet many people accord to it a definite superiority to convention, since it makes action the object of the individuals independent examination, and makes the individual responsible but to himself.
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1.11 Moral Valuations There are neither any absolute nor any objective values. All valuations are subjective emotional valuations let them be individual or collective. Emotion decides what is right or wrong. Morality, or the conception of right, has had little to do with rationality, at least hitherto, but has been determined by emotionality. 2 Valuations change. Just as our mental development consists in a continual rethinking, so our emotional development consists in a never-ending revaluing. Fobbing ones valuation off on other people, wishing to make it final, is proof of presumption. In respect of values, the entire evolution is a continual process of revaluation. We can follow this process through all the stages of civilization and culture. The qualities and actions admired by savages are wholly different from those admired by cultural people. We still have a long way to go before the weights and measures by which people measure are good for standard measures, before they have reached the level of generosity or humanity. 3 A valuation is based on given religious, philosophic, scientific, political, economic, social, etc. conditions, and changes with these conditions. If the valuation survives its condition, it becomes an obstacle to a more purposeful valuation, a mysterious relic, the object of superstitious veneration. 4 Conventions can contribute with their norms, reason can supply its opinions. It is feeling, however, that values, that decides their value. Valuation is subjective and probably more often collectively than individually subjective. There are almost always a few individuals who value a
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certain quality or action more or less than the majority do. 5 Feeling does not just value but also gives life to the thing valued by weaving it into emotional complexes that decide opinion or action. 1.12 The Voice of Conscience The hypothesis of the heathen who have not the law, yet do what the law prescribes, is exploded by research, which has found that they have the law, or enforced conventions, but that the content of the law is of very varied, contradictory, and dubitable description. Conventions of duty and conventions of virtue change with different races, different nations, different epochs. 2 The hypothesis of the voice of conscience has been confuted logically and psychologically. The voice of conscience is the voice of convention, an automatized logical reaction from the inferiority complexes that were established in childhood and overstimulated in adolescence by unpsychological unceasing inculcation of the notions of sin, guilt, and shame, which are hostile to life and which later in life are turned into depression complexes and often grow into anxiety complexes. 3 The hypothesis of the voice of conscience is also refuted by the fact that there has not been anything true that has not been denied, nor anything rational that has not been silenced, nor anything absurd that has not been accepted, nor any kind of iniquity that has not been approved of, nor any kind of cruelty that has not been commended; by this voice of conscience. 4 Those who speak most of conscience are usually the ones to be the least embarrassed by self-criticism. They walk with waves of their own across the ocean and hurl their spears unconcernedly, with the warriors lawful intent to injure and kill, at the defenceless they find in their way. 5 An English bishop, South, rightly said: By all means follow thy conscience, but first take heed that thy conscience is not the conscience of a fool!
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1.13 Religious Morality Religious morality has nothing to do with reason. For it is supposed to be the demands of some kind of cosmic being. Inasmuch as such a being is considered absolute, it is thought that its demands on the imperfect also should be absolute, or demands for perfection. Absolute demands, however, are logically absurd and psychologically preposterous. 2 Faced with a demand for absolute truth, for instance, nobody nobody, that is, who understood what this meant would dare utter a word, would hardly dare move from the spot. Because for one thing we make mistakes in what we say and do and, moreover, we are guilty of making ourselves misunderstood. From the logical point of view, absolute truth means that mere truth is not truth. Therefore truth must be something else, any kind of thing, perhaps even untruth. Thus truth cannot be given a higher degree of truth by being called absolute. Demands are hostile to life. In any case they are unjustified. Absolute demands make us more blind to ourselves and strengthen our cult of appearances. 3 A wise man once wrote: God does not demand more from us, poor helpless things, than a mother from her newly born child. There is more understanding of life in that utterance than in religious morality of whatever kind.
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1.14 Sexual Morality To many people, the curious sexual morality is morality proper. The true state of things can be drastically expressed thus: sexual morality is the condemnation of the erotic people by the unerotic. 2 So-called sexual morality has been dictated by the sexless, erotically indifferent or impotent, in
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whom both the physiological and emotional conditions were absent. They have made a virtue of necessity. Monkish asceticism and puritan fanaticism, which falsify life, have made a disability a merit and a physiological function an object of contempt. Nothing can be more divorced from reality and hostile to life than the monkish morality that calls eroticism fornication, a natural function shameful, and the very fact of conception original sin. 3 The sexual function is a natural and probably necessary one, with the exception of the impotent or of those who can sublimate their sexual urge. The rest of mankind can be classified into those of weak and strong eroticism, respectively. 4 The problem of sexuality is a medical and social one. The abolition of prostitution would be the first move towards a raising of the sexual problem from that brutal level to which the idiotizing outlook of contempt has delegated it. Even such an expression as a fallen woman illustrates unsurpassably the moral in morality, evidences the crudity, brutality, and inhumanity of morality. In this matter more than in any other social problem, ennoblement is an imperative social demand. 5 When studying the eroticism of the lovable primitive peoples in its perfect justice and innocence, one realizes more easily what unspeakable suffering sexual morality, poisoning everything, has drawn upon Christendom. 1.15 Honour Honour is a monstrous moral fiction from the times of scuffle morality. This fiction has survived here and there with an undiminished intensity. 2 Honour is inherited or acquired merit of which anybody can be deprived by anybody else, and the reconquest of which often exacts the blood and life of him who was so easily deprived of it, perhaps by a villain paid to do so. If this fiction had any rational life value, then of course the insulting man, and not the victim of the stupidity or vulgarity, would be the one to lose his honour. 3 Anyone who needs to defend his honour, has no honour to defend. Other peoples depreciatory opinions, offensive judgements, or similar expressions of hatred, can never degrade the person intended, but only the calumniator. Anyone who wants to be invulnerable, always is so. 4 Honour and violence are a pair of twins so like one another that they have almost always been confused. Might is honour, right, and wisdom. There are many kinds of honour: soldiers honour of fighting and murder, diplomats honour of guile and deceit, money-makers honour of usury and exorbitant profits. The whole of history is a temple to honour.
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1.16 Right and Wrong, or Good and Evil Man is neither good nor evil. He is, at his present stage of development, an undeveloped being with primitive instincts, egoistic interests, and unreal world views and life views. 2 To social man, right, or good, is what the laws of the community prescribe or, in case of their absence, what the spirit of the laws aims at. Wrong, or evil, is what these laws prohibit. In the community, it is the collective in its entirety that decides what it will consider right and wrong. 3 To anyone who wishes to seek his basis of valuation in the unity of brotherhood and service, right, or good, is everything that promotes this unity; wrong, or evil, everything that harms it. Everything that unites individuals, family, society, nation, and mankind is then looked upon as valuable. The greatest contribution a man can make is then considered to be that of gathering and unifying, the greatest harm that of dividing and separating. 4 To anyone who seeks his basis if right and wrong in the scientific outlook, the laws of nature furnish determining norms of good and evil. 5 To anyone who in life sees development albeit often apparently interrupted right, or good, is whatever serves the development of all and everyone. Wrong, or evil, is everything that hinders
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development. 6 It should be clear from what has been said that, in its rational sense, morality is the conception of right and (possibly) the application of this conception. 1.17 The Art of Living Morality is the infantile version of the art of living, a guide of social intercourse for the primitive and undiscerning designed to make their life together with others as free of friction as possible. Morality is social convention and obedience to the laws of the land. Thus morality is enforced conventions for the subjectively minor. When, in addition to this, morality lays down any kind of thou shalt or thou shalt not, it violates personal freedom or individual sovereignty. Morality has not any right whatsoever to do so. Without his sovereignty the individual will never find the law that he will himself become. Man does not exist for the sake of convention. As long as convention is above man, as long as man can be judged according to convention, so long man is deprived of his human right and human dignity. The slaves to convention regard their slavery as the purpose of life. 2 The art of living is tact, duty, and virtue. Tact is the inability to hurt. Duty is to fulfil ones task. Virtue is the golden mean between the extremes. The art of living is far from self-torture and moral complexes. The art of living requires the insight that commands do not raise the level of culture, that life grants freedom and men issue commands, since they deny each other freedom. The art of living is (also from the collective point of view) the art of the possible.
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POLITICS
1.18 Introduction Politics belongs to emotionality. Political ideas still belong, in most cases, to emotional thinking, and political action to emotional will. All the more important, therefore, is the demand for common sense, that is, sense of facts; all the more necessary it is to rid the political problems of unessentials that confuse judgement. In times of political psychoses, especially, one cannot reflect too calmly, nor judge too matter-of-factly. 2 Politics is partly theoretical, partly practical attempts at solving the socio-economical, social, national, and supranational problems. Politics is and will remain hypotheses and experiments. Evils, iniquities, and poverty must be remedied. Something has to be done, and the game of chance begins.
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1.19 Political problems It can be disputed whether the more profound political problems are solvable. The optimist believes so, whereas the pessimist doubts. Man is not governed by his reason, and reason is unable to show the path. The problems are probably unsolvable without the will to unity. It may be asserted without exaggeration, however, that the problems cannot be formulated in a purely intellectual manner, cannot like mathematical problems be worked out at the writing-table, and cannot be solved in some constructional fashion. The human intellect is all too primitive an instrument for a task thus presupposing omniscience. In his acute Introduction to Sociology, Herbert Spencer demonstrates with numerous examples, some of them drastic, that human reason does not even suffice to survey the consequences of apparently rather simple legislative measures. The result is all too often totally different from what was originally intended. Add to this the fact that the world is ruled with a very little measure of wisdom, and there is little hope of arriving at enduring solutions without the good will and concerted endeavour of one and all. 2 The right man in the right place is a daily recurring problem that is more or less unsolvable. When many people do not even know themselves what they are suited to, and most people choose jobs that a long time later they realize do not suit them, then one should not demand that appointments to posts be more rational. Undoubtedly, something would be gained of personal relations, inconsiderate elbowing, or party zeal were not regarded as qualifications. 3 The relation between the peoples freedom, or its power, and government power is one of the many problems that are unsolvable without the will to unity. That of forestalling abuse of power individually and collectively is another.
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1.20 Political Systems All political systems have gone bankrupt, not once but many times. In that respect, history is just one long chronicle of bankruptcy. The political systems succeed one another and reappear as in a circle. Every time a certain system reappears, they believe that only now is it constructed correctly, only now can it show what it is worth, only now do those people exist who have the insight and ability to realize the ideal and accomplish the impossible. And the hapless human race hopes and believes, toils, practises self-denial, and suffers. In due course of time it despairs, revolts, and turns to the next system in rotation. Under dictatorship the people is ruled through violence, under democracy through promises. 2 All forms of government are unsuitable as long as the nations are not ripe for self-government, and as long as the governments are incapable of wielding power competently. 3 The nations must, however, discover for themselves by experiments the system they desire and believe suits them.
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Democracy presupposes a general interest in political issues along with strong instincts of freedom and a will to solidarity. Dictatorship seems to be justified for primitive nations with an antisocial instinct among the majority, or for nations that are incapable of self-rule on account of insuperable tendencies to division. 5 No system is intrinsically good and suitable for all men in all conditions. A system is a product of a number of different factors, of the general developmental level of the nation, of a certain mentality, of national distinctive traits. It is the same with the system as with everything else: its justification is relative. That system is the best which can be best adapted to prevalent conditions. 6 Even if it were possible which it is not to construct a truly ideal system, this would collapse, since the nations cannot adapt themselves to or uphold other systems than those which they have formed themselves and which they have developed from their own experience. An ideal form of government presupposes of necessity ideal people. If people change so far as to rate unity highest and value it more than anything else, then the worst system would do. For it is people who make up the content of the system. 1.21 Freedom, Equality, and Brotherhood Unity must be based on freedom. Any attempt on the part of the government to deprive the individual of his inalienable rights as an individual is abuse of power, and must lead to the decline of government authority. The inalienable rights of the individual include the right to form his own views and act on them as long as he does not infringe the right of others to that same inviolable freedom. 2 There are many different kinds of freedom. True freedom, however, has not been realized as yet. Freedoms guaranteed by the government, such as freedom of thought, of expression, of the press, are very valuable, being as many freedoms from government tyranny. But this does not by any means amount to a guarantee of freedom of expression, for example. Anyone who freely speaks what he thinks, will soon learn what this freedom of his is worth. Only those who possess some sort of power may express their own opinions. Almost everything is arranged so as to deprive people of their freedom: arbitrary conventions and peoples lack of independence, their intolerance and arrogance. Independence, the refusal to let oneself be enslaved, results in the individual having almost the whole world against him. To this conscious oppression is added the immense unconscious pressure which is brought to bear by public opinion and which, by the aid of a free press that is also free from responsibility, practically abolishes freedom. 3 Abuse of the freedom of the press and the exploitation of the undiscerning and gullible might be considered one of the still unsolved problems of democracy. The spreading of false statements, distortion of facts, misrepresentation of the opinions of dissidents, casting of suspicion on the motives of others, vilification of undesirable persons, refusal to comply with just demands for correction, should be prohibited, also for the press. Here is an important task for an ombudsman of the freedom of the press, one invested with extensive powers, as well as duties, to start prosecutions. The demands for correction raised by individual citizens could thereby be dispensed with. 4 Power factors too often become obstacles to freedom, means of pressure and oppression for the unscrupulous. Thereby they are corruptive elements. The experience of life makes it clear that power is always abused in some way. Power always leads to arbitrariness that is above the law in some respect. Private power is lawlessness. Man without law personifies human reason without humanity, which Goethe so vividly depicted in Mephisto of his drama, Faust. Only he is ready for power who grants other people freedom. The legal norm of freedom remains unchangingly: live and let live.
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Freedom, equality, and brotherhood are a combination of three ideas that are not quite equivalent. Freedom and brotherhood presuppose one another. Without freedom there is no brotherhood, and without brotherhood no freedom. Equality has but minor points in common with these two. By equality was meant the right to human dignity, the right to open competition, the right to be judged by competence alone, equality before the law, and the abolition of all privileges that is, private power. Although the demand for equality has not yet been fulfilled, yet that demand belongs to a lower cultural level than freedom and brotherhood. The ambiguity of the word equality confused weak minds, who drew the monstrous conclusion that all men are equal equally ingenious and competent in all respects not understanding the fact that two such equals have not yet existed. The question is whether the modern inferiority complex could not be more correctly termed an equality complex. 1.22 Political Unity The task of the state is also to work for political unity on the basis of free conviction, since the will to unity alone can bring about an enduring solution of the political, social, and politicoeconomical problems. Unity, solidarity with the community at large, the co-operation and mutual assistance of all, is the only rational and in the long run tenable ground. That path of hatred and division which mankind has pursued with so desperately meagre results should have a sufficiently illuminative and sufficiently deterrent effect. We should be able to learn at least something from history. 2 Divide and rule was the motto of short-sighted politics, rating power higher than unity. Such politics would be impossible if political parties collaborated instead of opposing each other. The party institution means division and antagonism, poisons public spirit, and counteracts political unity directly and indirectly. 3 If the will to unity cannot grow strong enough in a nation to overcome egoistic class politics, then values are easily destroyed which it would have been possible to save with good will. There are more rational ways in which to achieve unity than through dictatorship, which, constantly in fear of non-existent dangers, brutally watches over its own security and which, moreover, does what a small, temporary power clique arbitrarily sees fit. Freedom is easily lost and is very had to regain. There exist possibilities of disregarding whatever separates, of choosing such individuals as are able to animate discussions and decisions with the spirit of unity. There exist relatively simple resources for making political fighting organizations as well as class parties superfluous by means of wise legislation and by government power as a watchful assistant.
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* Power abolishes freedom. Arbitrary power abolishes or restricts arbitrarily the freedom of others. Anyone who strives after power over others for another reason than to liberate others, is an enemy of others. No nation has any right but arbitrary right to rule other nations. And anyone who seeks to dominate the world is an enemy of mankind. 5 The individuals will to unity and their right to freedom are the rational justification of the state. All attempts to defend the possibilities of oppression by temporary power that is: possibilities of arbitrary justice remain arbitrary. The foremost task of the individual as a member of society is to contribute to the realization of unity and freedom in a state organized as rationally as possible. 6 All rights must be based on the individuals right to the greatest possible freedom within the limits of the equal right of others to freedom. Any kind of oppression, persecution, or violation of the right of others is a crime. No collective has more right within the limits of the equal right of all than has one single man. Any kind of organization formed for the purpose of feathering its own 15
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nest at the expense of others is criminal. Undue advantage of any kind is a crime. 7 The right of the state in relation to the individual his necessary obligations to the state disregarded can only be its right to social education of antisocial individuals who violate the laws of he state and the right and freedom of others. The state has no right to do evil that good may come thereof. 8 Political racial problems breed racial hatred since to most people the idea of race is an emotion, and in this case hatred. 9 Action presupposes a standpoint. All standpoints are more or less temporary, since they are temporarily conditioned by the necessity of action. 10 We are all of the masses when emotion decides our standpoint, when in each particular case we cannot make an independent and rational standpoint clear to ourselves. 1.23 Practical Politics Nowhere is the stereotyped thinking of formal theorists as fatal as in politics. Statesmanship is not the art of combining minorities or of log-rolling, not the art of generalization but of individualization. Statesmen must of course possess the watchfulness, adroit adaptability, and practical skill of conjuncture politicians. They realize the value of political theories as being attempts at orientation. But they never put them into practice, since they have comprehended the essential difference between theory and reality. 2 Societies that are built according to constructions lack that elasticity in life which characterizes evolutionary societies. Society is a collective of individuals to whom freedom is their vital air and the condition of their best achievement. Society is a collectivity that is unlike any other in its individual character. 3 Concentration of power facilitates abuse of power. A central administration that regulates everything is as great a failure as a doctor who makes his diagnoses by telephone. A balance of power between legitimate or necessary group interests in society is the best guarantee of freedom. The majority seldom meets the demands for the true interest of the state, and is far from always right. No party should be allowed to oppress the others or to make laws without consideration for the legitimate interests of minorities. If the legislative assembly also becomes the executive power, decides the current matters of the day, makes laws for individual cases, then the respect of law is in danger through the temporary fancies and passions of party politics. To base power on undiscerning mass opinion is perhaps democracy but is no proof of infallible judgement. 4 Government organizations gradually become less purposeful, unless there is a continual adaptation to the constantly changing outer conditions and to the individual capacities of new functionaries. The question is whether it would not be better for government posts to be personal instead of permanent. A bureaucratic organization of society tends to become a civilian counterpart to the military bureaucracy with its superiors and subordinates, the leading principle of which is allegiance. Just different emblems distinguish such a society from the slave society. Herbert Spencer prophesied that future socialist societies must end up in a tyranny which the world had never seen. 5 In a bureaucracy, initiatives must never come from below, because this offends the omniscience of all higher authorities. Moreover, initiatives involve certain risks. If they turn out well, then the unnecessary trouble leaves a general dissatisfaction behind it. If they fail, your career is ruined. The point is to be on the safe side, not showing enterprise, always adhering to the letter of statutes with formalism as the consequence. Bureaucracy is the most rigid, unwieldy, clumsy, initiative-killing, expensive system, and implies an immense waste of talents hampered by it. The official is restricted to show his competence in routine matters.
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The question which social system is the most expensive and thus brings about the heaviest burden for everybody, is not as difficult to answer as is generally believed. A greater population of public servants is immensely burdensome. Compared with that, the cost of private capitalism is negligible. 7 Private capital is the greatest factor of increasing production. The abolition of private capital makes all steady people poorer and eventually turns all into government slaves. The only way of raising the standard of living is to increase production, not to confiscate the private capital which makes initiatives possible, not to lower the standard of those groups who best benefit society by their voluntary contributions, not by restrictions to impede enterprise which benefits productivity. All these measures are like killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. 8 Enforced equalization of property results but in a temporary rise of the standard of certain groups. Trying to raise the general standard of living in a more rapid tempo than that of production is like living beyond ones means. 9 It is really more difficult to find ways of determining peoples share in the national income according to their contribution to production, society, and culture, than to regulate the pay for various kinds of work according to the economic law of supply and demand? 10 Taxation is a complex of still unsolved problems. The state has not more right than any other to exploit individual capacity unduly. The ends of the state do not justify its means. Unwise taxation policy promotes wasteful practices. It is part of socialist sophistry that you benefit society by near-confiscational taxation of geniuses in business and industry who have a capacity for increasing production and creating values. 11 The free social system will in the end prove to be the incomparably superior one. State capitalism will never be able to compete with private capitalism in efficacity and productivity. The state is suited, not to run business, nor to be a distributor or manager, but just to be an efficient auditor. One of its foremost tasks is to ensure that no class interest may have an opportunity of encroaching on the other ones. 12 Government enterprise will never be able to compete with private enterprise in the matter of efficacy and profitability. That proposition may pass as an axiom, as that of Rousseau, saying that there will never exist a true democracy. 1.24 AESTHETICS Aesthetics is a theory of beauty. Formerly they meant the theory, a unitary theory and preferably an infallible theory, the only true one. They started from an idea. On the basis of the aesthetic viewpoints that could be obtained from this idea they made more or less profound reflections, which were put together into a seemingly unitary theory. 2 In the following, partial connexions will be made with old, well-known viewpoints on very trite subjects. But there is perhaps no harm in scrutinizing them once more, in connection with the significance of art for emotional culture. Its significance for this is too often forgotten, which is to be regretted. True art fills man with joy. And true joy makes man good.
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Nowhere are the division and fumbling of our times as manifest to everybody as in everything connected with art architecture being the sole exception. Perhaps the unique position of architecture depends on the fact that the handling of materials requires a certain moderation, that people cannot live in any kind of house, and also that the technical problems have caused enough headache. 4 They say that art is seeking new paths. But does it find, does it have the least chance of finding, any new paths? Contempt for the old is no source of inspiration. The attempts made 17

appear forbidding more than anything, least of all encouraging, offering very little hope. Hopelessness and weariness now even seem to have affected the technical skill. 5 Presumably, all this is a consequence of the impoverishment of feeling, its lack of certainty and a goal. When feeling withers, is being dulled and coarsened, then no art worthy of the name is born. 6 It appears as if the art of our times starts by creating chaos, hoping that an orderly cosmos will emerge from it. It is likely that the very term create has added to confusion. Shape would of course be a more appropriate term. The great artist does not create. He seeks to represent the irreplaceable, matchless, visionary, in all its splendour. What our time calls art has forgotten everything it has learnt from the experiences had in times past. It returns to the savages howling and leaping, noise and row, naive wooden and stone idols, glaring colours, and formlessness. Only palm huts are missing for the savage to feel at home in our culture. 7 New art is obtained when a new art idea is fused with the previous ones. The artistic geniuses do not reject the old. They take it as their basis. They assimilate it and perfect it. They possess the true ability of synthesization. They know that the new must develop organically from the old, and that there must be an intermediary stage and a connection. 8 Art affords power when giving satisfaction, joy, harmony, and calm. We hardly get anything of that from the art of our times. Our minds are whipped up and torn to pieces by all the unreal, improbable, impossible, unsolved, immature, disharmonious, and immoderate things. Impressions entail expenditure of force, since they require tension for assimilation and energy for digestion. If impressions release the positive emotions referred to above, then the expediture of force is outbalanced by the positivization of consciousness and the increased vitality obtained. Only the negative tires and depresses. 9 Art is the culture of form. The artist who shatters all forms is a fantast just like the philosopher who ignores reality. Art is freedom but not arbitrariness. Also the artist must be able to find the middle path between bondage and lawlessness. Being a factor of culture, art exists no more for its own sake than does anything else. Everything has a purpose, and art too. Just as it can be said that you become whatever you assimilate in some manner or other by eating, reading so it can be said that you become whatever you observe. One of the purposes of art is to beautify life. Of ugliness we have more than enough as it is. By enhancing beauty, art unifies us in a concerted striving for beauty, increases our understanding of beauty, refines our perception of everything beautiful, and affords the joy you feel before everything beautiful. All art has a common purpose in the universal cultural development: to ennoble us. It can do this in many ways. 10 Everybody assimilates, even if unconsciously, whatever he can. A conscious interest in art may be lacking. But the greatest significance of art lies in the unconscious. 11 The fact is overlooked that all ideas in art, science, and in all spheres of life, are prepared in the unconscious. What we call consciousness that is, the waking consciousness can be compared to what the eye sees at a given moment. And the unconscious corresponds to a world that is mainly unexplored. As a rule it takes a long time for an original, a new idea to become conscious. The idea is prepared through a multiplicity of impressions, which coalesce into an idea complex. Years pass away and this idea complex grows slowly and unconsciously. The waking consciousness perhaps never pays any attention to these impressions. Impressions flow in, are assimilated by the complex which constantly works. The impressions are regrouped in a neverending process, until all conceivable combinations have formed, dissolved, and formed again. With each new impression the process starts all over again, until one day some idea is crystallized which penetrates to the threshold of consciousness. Then we get a new idea of some kind, as a new concept of beauty, a new way of looking at things. 12 The laymans ideas of beauty are often the result of such an unconscious process. Art can perform one of its many functions in that process. The artists message is lost, however, if he will 18

not be grasped. In order to receive attention and be understood, he must keep within the limits which life has set itself for its forming and which reality indicates. Not even the unconscious can avail itself of an arbitrary and purposeless subjectivism. Whatever one wishes to be assimilated by the unconscious must not have a repulsive effect but should be instinctively attractive. By captivating attention art also develops that concentration of consciousness called the power of observation. * In aesthetics they have been able to find at least negative merits in the works of art that have stood over all ages, and have been looked upon as immortal. These works do not war against our knowledge of reality, do not contain any unsolved problems, do not hurt our feelings, and do not exhort us to action. Thus no disturbing factors have been allowed to counteract the absorption into that contemplative observation in which one most intensely assimilates whatever the work of art can give and oneself can receive. 14 Positive merits that they have found in the art called classical are: moderation, strong effects with small means, a unifying tendency. 15 Great art represents the universal in the particular, that is, what is common to a unitary group of similar objects. And this is precisely the ideal. The ideal is the real without the defects of the real, or the casual. The ideal is no arbitrary construction. Often it is much truer to the real than the real so styled. The ideal is the universal concrete, not the particular concrete. Natures works of art a beautiful human body, for instance are seldom perfect. Almost always there is in them what we call a flaw. We perceive this flaw because we possess a more general conception, a generalization, a type. Otherwise we would be bound to the particular, casual concretion, and would not notice the flaw. Idealism is the demand of beauty for perfection. In some measure it can be said that idealism consists in the elimination of flaws, correction of the failed attempts of nature, corresponding to the photographers retouching of his film. 16 Art exists in order to afford us beauty. Reality affords us truth. Truth the lifelike representation of reality is seldom beautiful. And beauty is seldom true. To confuse truth and beauty in art is to misunderstand the purpose of art. 17 A work of art has its inevitable limitation. In this limitation appears the true humility of the artist. Within a given framework he is to not create but accomplish a truly difficult and great thing solve all problems, master all difficulties, give out in a princely manner of the abundant richness of his soul, present something of the splendour visioned, communicate to the spectator the spontaneous feelings that filled him. 18 Idealism is a primary abstraction. The secondary abstraction from the primary still with the realists adherence to concretion is the visionary. The great artist is always clairvoyant in some respect. Sometimes the vision emanates from nowhere, as it were; sometimes it is instantly seen like an aura enveloping reality; sometimes a long and careful observation of reality (that is, contemplation) is required. The vision from which the work of art was born always surrounds the great work as its aura, and appears before the devout spectator, absorbed in contemplation, as the wondrous prototype out of which the work has crystallized. 19 The true realist depicts the concrete with all its defects, flaws, and deformities. Lifelikeness is his motto. But he seldom adheres to it. Missing the inspiring vision he unconsciously seeks for some substitution for it, and thereby he abandons the tyrannical concretion. He takes liberties, he too, and starts abstracting. At first, perhaps, he just discards whatever may be left of the pleasant. But one thing easily leads to another, and the particular is coarsened into caricature. One more step, and he ends up in formlessness. Realism, which was supposed to be truth above all and which made such a fuss about falsity, has found a truth that often bears a repulsive likeness to 19
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its opposite, and a reality that is not like anything. 20 The relationship between idealism and realism can be drastically summed up thus: idealism shows what reality should look like, and realism what it should not look like. * Greek art has been exemplary in certain respects. Its foremost creations show us that idealism which constitutes the perfect ideal realism. 22 The Greek type of beauty, however, must not be regarded as an ideal fixed for all time to come. If the body structure changes, then art must follow suit. And the body structure is probably not unchangeable. The race is changing. Nobody can tell whether the womans shoulders will not be wider than her hips, whether the womans legs will not be proportionally as long as the mans. If the racial strains change as much, then our ideal of beauty changes too, because it is never something fixed for all time to come. The racial type of beauty is always the universal in the particular, and so-called beauty is a concretion of the universal. *
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The purpose of literary art is also to ennoble our feelings. The purpose of literature in cultural respect is to help people to live, to choose ideals for us to admire, characters to revere and to love, to grant beauty, joy, and trust in life, to give a knowledge of mans possibilities of developing good, noble qualities also under trying and adverse conditions of life. 24 One of the most important factors of ennoblement is admiration. Admiration of something one-sided easily leads to imitation and a need for divergence, appearing in the inability of adaptation which often makes life unnecessarily awkward to others. The feeling of admiration of everything admirable, however, preserves the individual character and prevents imitation. The very admiration not just of something great in particular, but of everything that is in some respect greater than ourselves, than the average, mediocre liberates, elevates, ennobles. Anyone who has acquired the art of admiration has thereby found access to one of the great secret powers of life. 25 The influence of literature can hardly be exaggerated. Its direct influence is obvious to anyone who realizes the power of ideas, particularly the power of emotional ideas and ideas that incite to action. The influence of literature on the unconscious is probably less considered. Without our noticing it literature lays the basis of moods and complexes that can decide our entire emotional attitude, our valuation of conventions, and our view of life. English literature in the Victorian epoch is a typical example. Non-tendentious and naive to an almost pathetic extent, it was a masked agitation and propaganda for conventional norms and valuations, which its contemporaries were suggested to view as eternally unchangeable and which to this day determine the habits of the English gentleman. Without our noticing it literature can lace us up with the ties of narrow conventions that are hostile to life, falsify the outlook of the inexperienced, engraft illusions that are divorced from life and have fatal consequences, and make the undiscerning expect miracles or the improbable. 26 Great literature gives us real life with problems of life, conflicts and their solution. It gives us a greater knowledge of ourselves and of man. It has an encouraging, stimulating, atoning effect by depicting the dogged struggle against restricting conditions and adverse destinies, the liberating power of humour in the midst of the tragedy of life. 27 A true work of art is obtained when the individual characters in their very concretion express something universal, superindividual, characteristic of their epoch; and when the individual conditions depicted afford understanding of an epochs way of thinking, attitude to life, limitation,

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and final emancipation. *


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Music has its own sphere within the emotional sphere, and its means of expression are rhythm, harmony, and melody. Discord is aesthetically allowed as enhancing harmony. 29 Music is purely subjective, albeit not individually but collectively subjective. It is the wordless emotional language of the national, racial soul. And it must not be translated. By making it something that can be apprehended by reason, by introducing objective musical pictures with conventional interpretations this is supposed to be storm, rain, wind, calm after storm, sunrise, moor landscape, etc. in ever greater, seemingly endless extent they have led music away from its proper sphere into one of convention incomprehensible to the uninitiated. Introducing music of convention they have abandoned the proper sphere of musical emotion and led music into a world of reason and reflection where it does not belong. Musical pictures are therefore on the whole doomed to failure. Music cannot paint the very thunderstorm, that gigantic natural phenomenon, can hardly evoke the same feelings as a thunderstorm, and as a rule cannot even create understanding of the feelings a thunderstorm arouses. The similar is true of musical drama. Dramatic music does not act, cannot represent the import of an action, hardly even the feelings of the persons acting, but arouses in us individually subjective feelings. Also in this musical domain conventions are necessary to understanding, although it is true that dramatic action makes it somewhat easier to understand these conventions. 30 Nearest related to music is lyric poetry, since conventions are unnecessary in it. Musical feeling and lyric feeling do not merge, however, but form two parallel emotional currents that can strengthen one another. 31 There is little to say of modern so-called musical art. Atonalism, noise and din are not music. Shouting, squeaking, howling, roaring, whining, crowing, wailing are not singing. 32 Singing to a complete orchestra destroys euphony if the voice is not made an instrument among the others and then by no means dominates. The experiments made with new types of singing technique have usually led it astray. 33 Music requires ever new forms and has too great a tendency to become set in traditional forms. Like feeling music is by nature rhapsodical. Liszts rhapsodies were the desperate protest of genius against tyrannical divisions and partitions, against those conventionally, logically constructed symphonies with their prescribe movements. Pot-pourris, sneered at by connoisseurs, are often the most enjoyable form of symphony to an unprejudiced mind, thus not an overeducated or conventionalized mind. There is much work to be done by reformers within all domains of music. Opera with speech dialogue in classical style has probably new prospects. As it is now, operettas, being rich in melodies, often are musically superior to operas. Rhapsodical symphonies, continuing without movements, possibly with features of lyric singing, in which the voice or voices merge with the instrumental music, are perhaps possible too. 34 Melody is the heart of music. Any musical carpenter can learn the contrapuntal handicraft of theoretical music. The melodies of genius, however, are the work of inspiration and do not fall to everybodys lot. As usual, artistic inability makes a virtue of deficiency. 35 We need a renewer of musical art, one who will make harmonious notes enwrap wondrous melodies in free forms, who will make melody assume its rightful place in the great works, who will make melody fulfil the central task due to it. The melody in its orchestral setting, when at its highest point, also marks the acme of musical art. The technique of orchestration makes its strongest impression when a certain instrument is made to emphasize the melody distinctly, while the other instruments pursue their own successions of notes, intended to weave, like a fine piece of chased work, a congenial pattern of tones round the monogram.

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MENTAL CULTURE
1.25 PHILOSOPHY The task of philosophy is to develop reason, that of science is to know reality, and that of religion and art is to ennoble emotion. The sooner they learn to co-operate, the sooner the day will dawn for true culture. 2 The history of philosophic ideas is he history of fictions. Philosophy becomes fictionalism when it stops being criticism, and makes attempts at constructions, which have always had a confusing effect on the sense of reality. Philosophy is the attempt of reason to explain the given reality from existing conditions. Philosophy is immanent and must not, no more than science, for its explanations resort to facts inaccessible to the normal individual. The philosophers or scientists personal opinion about the unexplored is not philosophy. 3 The history of philosophy shows the various attempts of speculative thought to form a view of reality on the basis of principles. Without a knowledge of reality a knowledge that is essentially a result of the work of the natural sciences or an acquaintance with the very nature of thinking, it was probably inevitable that this speculation became subjectivist not even understanding that it was subjectivist. 4 Whether problems concerning principles are real problems or just pseudo-problems often cannot be decided until the problems have been solved or been proved unsolvable. Until the problems are solved even their formulation is problematic. Most philosophic problems have been demonstrated to be pseudo-problems. 5 An objective problem of reality is that of the totality of knowledge. Either we know everything or there is something unexplored. And only when nothing remains unexplored will this problem cease to be a problem. As long as there exists something unexplored, we only possess knowledge of a part of reality. The unexplored, and probably greater, part of reality belongs to the world of intellectual constructions to the extent that we form conceptions, or put forward hypotheses, of it. 6 The intellectual experiments of philosophy have been very important. They have developed the very ability to think, satisfied the need for surveys and for clarity, and supplied material for ideas. They have demonstrated the one-sided pursuit of but one train of thought at a time in logical thinking, demonstrated the limitation of learning, and counteracted the tendency to turn relative ideas into absolute and fixed ideas. 7 The views of reason show the attempts and ways of thought to orient itself, the value and limitation of our subjectivism.
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1.26 Ideas Idea means discovery, suggestion, new insight, a greater and deeper understanding, a wider outlook. Idea implies acquisition of knowledge, supposed or actual. Ideas can be said to include generalizations, syntheses, judgements, theories, hypotheses, fictions. However, a formal logical deduction is no idea, for such a deduction does not increase our knowledge or widen our outlook. 2 The majority of our reasons constructions are ideas or are based on ideas, which are incorporated with the intellectual heritage of mankind if they are handed down to posterity. Otherwise the discovery must be made anew. The history of ideas is the history of intellectual discoveries. 3 Usually the ideas are received from the unconscious. They can arise through telepathy which explains why they appear in several persons simultaneously or be the result of the work of ones own unconscious. The unconscious includes everything that has once passed through the waking consciousness. By far the most of it the waking consciousness has forgotten, often not even apprehended clearly. All these impressions enter into similar complexes, and lead their own lives
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under the cover of the unconscious. The work of the complexes can be pictured as an association and disconnection of impressions to form innumerable combinations, this going on until in the waking consciousness an idea has crystallized, emerged, as it were, apparently from nothing. Ideas are summaries, turned into original units, of innumerable similar and mutually according experiences within a particular domain. Kants pure apperception and Fichtes intellectual outlook are unsuccessful attempts at explaining the conception of ideas in the unconscious. 4 The work of the unconscious is incomparably quicker, safer, more efficient, than that of conscious reflection. That the result is negative where most people are concerned, depends on the fact that they supply their unconscious with useless material. The work of the unconscious is mechanical and uncritical. If the unconscious is supplied mainly with fictions, suppositional facts, erroneous opinions, then the result of its work will just be mainly emotional impulses, fancies, freaks, vagaries. 5 Ideas are instruments for comprehending reality. Just as the richness of life consists in relations, so the richness of thinking consists in ideas. We must have ideas. We need as many as we can get. We can never get too many of them. With each new idea we have a greater prospect of understanding a world that is extremely hard to comprehend. The more ideas we have, the more we see and discover. People will remain hostile to knowledge until they come to see that each new idea only increases our insight and understanding, our power of judgement. 6 If we do not have any rational ideas, then we have irrational ideas. The less ideas we have, the more certain it is that we are slaves to them. Without knowing it, most people are victims to their all too few and primitive ideas. The more ideas we have, the freer we are, the greater our possibility of choosing between different ideas. 7 Reality can accord with an idea, but seldom or never with the so-called logical consequences of the idea, unless ideas are developed from those envelopes of ideas into which they have been previously wrapped up. Whenever we begin theorizing, we leave the firm ground of reality. That does not prevent us theorizing. But it should prevent us fanaticizing. 8 Usually we attach too great an importance to conceptions once acquired, which are soon superseded by more expedient or more rational ones in the striving for ever greater exactness and clarity in the seemingly endless process of intellectual development. 9 Ideas can sometimes be dangerous to uncritical people, who do not realize their relativity, or to idea fanaticists, who exaggerate the importance of ideas. In the idea-cultured people, who have worked through the idea material of our culture, as it were, each idea acquires the limited importance due to it. Thereby man has become a master of ideas. Ideas are not any longer causes of unrest but afford the calm that any clear survey will give. 10 We are on an infinite voyage of discovery through reality. Each scientific discovery gives a reality content to a new idea. The discovery of a new law of nature provides a new idea of a constant relation. Many ideas are analogies from different domains of experience. Many ideas are the common heritage of culture, although we sometimes forget their origin and look on them as new ideas. 11 Often we miss the opportunity of making a discovery or finding a new idea by our rooted habit of explaining new experiences by old ideas, identifying new experiences with things we know and are used to. 12 Emotional thinking deplores that ideas have just a relative or temporary validity. We get the feeling of no bottom whenever we must discard ideas we have woven into emotional complexes. This also shows how important it is to handle ideas with care. More easily than you think they are turned into ides fixes that nobody must upset. It is always a difficult matter when emotion takes charge of ideas. Emotion supplies the power of action, and should be directed to the world of action. When emotion is in any way made to decide in the world of thought, then reason is deprived of rationality.

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1.27 Clear Concepts Most people do not feel the need for clear concepts. They are content with suggestions and unclear, diffuse conceptions. Their thinking is an imitative repetition of words they think stand for something. The conceptions accompanying the words are seldom concrete. They lack that individualized content of reality which is only obtained through experience. The emotion accompanying the conception is often viewed as much more important. The word has from the beginning been connected with an emotion and not with a clear conception. When the emotion appears in the waking consciousness, then the word presents itself; and the word is certainly all you need for communication with other people. To be able to think you must set the word free from emotion and connect the word with a memory picture of graphic reality or experience had. Without clear conceptions you will lead an instinctual emotional life. And without these clear conceptions, rationally ordered into a logical whole, you will live in a mental chaos. 2 Thinking appears strenuous and meaningless when the result is so vague as to be unusable. When conceptions are like little clouds, then their agglomeration will be just a bigger cloud. The fact that a definition of concepts is necessary is most clear from the chaos of concepts that most people are satisfied with not a very grand result of intellectual education. 3 Before concepts are combined one ought to see that the conceptions are clear and distinct and the words are unambiguously defined. Nobody can think clearly without clear concepts. When concepts are clear, thinking is a mere play, an almost automatic procedure, and the solution comes of itself, so to speak. Divergent opinions are in most cases due to indistinctness or fictions existing. 4 The definition of concepts related to material reality is done by resorting to this reality and examining it objectively, matter-of-factly, critically. Without experience of this material reality, the concept is hardly better than a fiction. In concept thinking a unitary group of objects is surveyed, in principle thinking a group of concepts, in system thinking the objects of an entire system. Most people, however, lack the power of visualization and must resort to auxiliary constructions. Thus by concepts many people understand words which have been connected with memory pictures of characteristic common qualities, the so-called essential qualifications of the concepts. In that case definition of concepts means that the conventional reality content connected with the word is made clearer or is changed altogether. 5 Almost all our conceptions require a critical examination. Our entire life of ideas abounds in fictions: conceptions without any counterparts in reality. They are auxiliary concepts and, like hypotheses, indispensable. But they should without hesitation be replaced by more expedient ones. Concepts which are obviously unusable or positively false must be continually eliminated. This elimination hardly requires more work than the assimilation of new ideas. But you must proceed cautiously when doing this. Many constructional concepts are necessary aids to comprehension until we have acquired objectively determined consciousness of the corresponding reality. Auxiliary concepts make orientation possible and are among the aids to understanding. To reject these aids, without replacing them by more exact, efficient ones, is to impede development. 6 Philosophy is criticism of concepts, and as such it is necessary. Intellectual development is a continual, never-ending examination and definition of concepts as a result of an increased knowledge of reality.
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1.28 Logic Logical proofs have had an irresistible suggestive influence on reason. They fascinated not just the antiquity but also scholasticism. Euklides mathematical induction was for a long time looked upon as a model of scientific presentation. As Schopenhauer has demonstrated, the graphic evidence of geometry is superior to its logical evidence, which makes the directly certain
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indirectly certain. To this day Aristotelian formal logic misleads those who think that formal logic is a path to knowledge. But no knowledge is gained by that kind of logic. By logic you can only prove what you already know. 2 Logicists make reason the master of sense, and logic superior to facts. The reality value of logical necessity is clear from the absolute proofs of the Eleats, sophists, and scholastics. 3 Logical deduction goes from universals to particulars. This procedure has the appearance of discovery. But deduction merely demonstrates what the universal has been previously made to include. Even Leibniz at his time demonstrated that logical and mathematical induction consists in following a chain of identities step by step. The proof brings to light what is potentially included in the proposition. He asserted that generalization is not logical but psychological, that induction is scientific to the extent that it is calculation of probability, and that logic does not lead to scientific discoveries (which result from momentary inspiration). 4 In his work, The Quantitative View in Logic, Phaln demonstrated that it was improper to differentiate form and content in the concept, or the logical, that this differentiation had made it possible to construct the so-called third law of thought, had entailed a quantitative instead of qualitative or objective view, and had allowed the familiar irrefutable sophisms. Accordingly, space and time, spatial and temporal magnitudes, as concepts only, are not quantitative products. Division into greater or lesser units (infinite space, infinitesimal particles, etc.) are mathematical constructions. 5 There is no universal logic productive of knowledge. Any kind of formal, schematic, mechanical, mathematical logic implies or presupposes quantification. Logic is the inherent logic of the subject-matter, and every qualitative domain has its own logic. What you obtain through schematic logic is some sort of intellectual play with trivial or insoluble propositions, or dissolution of concepts. Immense mischief has been wrought by means of deductive and inductive as well as mathematical logic. Recognition could be granted to the significance of logic as mental gymnastics, if it did not at the same time stereotype and dogmatize the faculty of thinking. The history of philosophy is just one great example that the philosophers have not comprehended the problems of reality, and that logicalization has resulted in irremediable dogmas. 6 According to Leibniz, logical truths were analytical and their self-evidence a consequence of the definitions used. He called empirical judgements synthetic, and asserted that mathematical propositions are synthetic a posteriori, and also that there were no synthetic judgements a priori. In this he was undoubtedly right unlike Kant who made his fictitious construction later. 7 The law of thought can be regarded as one, although it can be formulated in two ways; as an identity or a non-identity. 8 Logical thinking is sometimes a work of imagination, sometimes automatic, sometimes unconscious. If it is presented as formal logical thinking, then the mode of inference is a rationalization. Nobody thinks as formal logic teaches. Formal logic includes all modes of inference that refer to the so-called third law of thought. True logic is objectivity. 9 The logical process is a pretty simple process that works with similarities and divergences, points of agreement and deviations. This process of clarification can also be said to include those processes of presentiment or instinct which seek out similarities under divergences and divergences in points of apparent agreement. The results are subsequently tested out in objective experience if one wishes to be convinced. Without that control the logical will easily be erroneous. Logic has been accorded a significance far beyond its true one. Any mental work is simply called logical, although it should rather be called psychological. The preparatory work done by the subconscious, its contribution to the work of reflection, has been overlooked. There are strong indications for the truth of the hypothesis saying that man thinks more unconsciously in 24 hours than he does consciously in a whole year. The pertaining realities have been very little considered. When consciousness works at some problem, ideas suddenly emerge and are fitted

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into the mental constructions. You often do not notice that you try to construct a logical process from an idea received, and to present the idea as a result of logical inference. Whether the idea is presented as a result of induction or deduction will in that case be a matter of constructional expediency. Philosophers have constructed entire systems of thought intended to lead to that inevitable conclusion which they originally had as an idea. Juggling with inferences holds the fascination of a piece of legerdemain, and paralyses the power of discrimination. By means of logical proofs you can convince the ignorant of anything whatsoever. 10 Logic is also the name of that technical process of concatenation which links different moments up into a continuous chain of thoughts, and that method of subsequent testing which sees that the demand for logical definition has been met, that the thing to be proved has been proved. The more convincingly this can be done, the stronger too an apparent proof will be. 11 Logic includes the demonstration of the illogical. True refutation consists in demonstrating the falsity of ideas or objective untenability of conclusions. 12 Many people think that refutation is done by pointing out formal contradictions. Usually, however, these are due to unsuitable formulations, carelessness in the linguistic expression, insufficient elaboration of the material. They need not at all imply any error as to facts or erroneous reasoning. Opposite statements sometimes acquire validity through the limitation they confer on one another. It is this relativization that often makes paradoxes justified. 13 The most common refutation is done by starting from other premisses and other assumptions, by criticizing from other points of departure. Using that method you can refute anything. 14 There are no such antinomies of reason as Kant maintained existed. Hegelian thesisantithesis-synthesis dialectic also depends on either objective ignorance and thence possible contradictory hypotheses, or on confusion of absolute and relative, or on confusion of the logical and linguistic mode of expression. We express ourselves in absolute instead of relative statements. If language contained a number of handy relativisms, then the absence of relativization would be seen to be depend on objective ignorance. Presumably, logical formalism has retarded the understanding of the general significance of relativity. The criterion of reason is relativity. Contradiction implies misapprehension, ignorance. Reason is full of contradictions because of its faulty working up of the content of sense. If subjectivity and objectivity contradict one another, then the fault is with subjectivity. Our subjectivity in connection with our objective ignorance has the effect that reality appears illogical to us, in the same way as the logic of a deeper insight often seems illogical to the simpler logic of ignorance. 15 Finally a few words about the logic of proverbs, these proverbs which make up a stupidizing treasure of ancient wisdom. They were the first attempts of primitive thought at making theories. They are still used by simple minds as logical arguments to confirm the truth of all manner of assertions. They are excessively wide generalizations, can be applied in any way whatsoever and prove everything you want to prove; thus they prove too much and therefore nothing at all. 1.29 Criticism Criticism is a method of scientific research. This criticism is objective, matter-of-fact, impersonal analysis of the content of knowledge. Criticism, being reasons unceasing improvement of its mental constructions, is an inescapable demand of reason. 2 Criticism is an assertion of the right of reason against all dogmatic claims. Our entire intellectual life abounds in fictions, in all kinds of dogmas that are unfit for life or hostile to life. Dogmas exist in all domains of human thought. Thus there are religious, moral, political, scientific, philosophic dogmas. Dogmas are the antithesis of intellectual freedom and counteract the striving after free and correct thinking. One can call a dogma a construction of thought which
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is declared to be valid for all time to come, which must not be doubted or disputed, or which is adhered to despite its having obviously outlived its day. The necessity of criticism is best realized when studying the immense number of intellectual constructions that have been accepted and rejected in succession over the ages. It would be a rewarding enterprise to examine the average life-time of these infallible opinions, theories, hypotheses. In such an enterprise one must of course leave such constructions out of account as have been dictated by fear or desire and thus have met emotional needs. They are essentially devoid of reason and are thereby intellectually unassailable. Unceasing critical examination has managed to prove that fully 99 per cent of the others are faulty constructions. 3 Critical, matter-of-fact reason makes a distinction between belief, opinion, comprehension, and learning, as well as between assumption and knowledge. 4 Belief is incorrigible conviction made absolute by emotion, blind acceptance without insight and understanding. Belief is a dogma which has been laid down for all time to come and which must not be doubted or examined. Belief is out of reach of reason, is the enemy of reason and criticism. The whole world is full of fools who believe. Everything is believed. All mistakes are defended by I believed. Fully 90 per cent of everything believed would be rejected if people learned to distinguish between what they know and do not know. 5 Opinion is not learning. Few people think but everybody wants to have opinions. They want to have ready-made opinions on as many things as possible in order to know what they should think and say. These possessors of opinions make up public opinion with its fictions, sentiments, conjectures, guesswork, spurious facts, exploded hypotheses and theories, fragmentary learning, and subjective valuations. 6 Comprehension is the mastering of a material of thought in a gradual logical process, or in an ordering of unsystematized learning into scientific learning. It need not have anything to do with knowledge. Logic and the sense of reality have nothing in common. Logicism puts inference above facts and regards the absence of contradictions as a proof of infallibility. Reason, however, is an instrument for processing facts, and is no criterion of truth. 7 Learning is no guarantee of knowledge. Learning is ideas, spurious facts, real facts, hypotheses, theories, etc. methodically obtained and systematically ordered. Formerly they used to rate learning higher than knowledge. Scholarly learning afforded clarity. It did not need to bother about any knowledge of reality, because reality was just one great illusion. Logical certainty was the one essential thing. There still exist disciplines that are chiefly occupied with fictions. 8 Assumption is part of the critical method. Assumption is always an emergency, a resort taken for the time being. The believer and the doubter, the dogmatic and the skeptic, are equally uncritical. The critical man examines everything of which he desires knowledge, or he refrains on principle from having any opinion on it at all. He starts from the idea that learning is a necessary preliminary to knowledge and is needed for orientation (the sand that must be washed for the grains of gold to be found), that it can have a relative validity. He defers his final judgement until new facts in the matter will be out of the question. 9 Knowledge is knowledge of facts and consists of definitively established facts that have been systematized. Facts of natural science are obtained from material reality, psychological facts from the reality of consciousness. Knowledge affords insight, which is the discrimination of the sense of reality in matters that concern knowledge. Insight appears in the correct prediction and faultless technical application. 10 There are two kinds of criticism: the positive and the negative. 11 Positive criticism wants to reach a positive result. It desires insight and clarity, to acquire ideas if possible, to assimilate whatever it can. It tries to understand the authors intention, to help him reconcile apparent contradictions. It willingly recognizes merits.

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Negative criticism is the more common one. It wants to criticize, dismiss, reject. That kind of criticism is the criticism of emotional thinking, dogmatic rejection under the pretence of unbiassed criticism. Only uncritical people regard it as refutation. Emotional thinking has no right to express its opinions before the forum of critical reason. Any negative attitude is uncritical and also has a restrictive influence on the intellect. To criticize is easy enough. Every reader who has that intention can do it. Both dogmatism and skepticism belong to emotional thinking. 13 It is important that we should not restrict ourselves to what has been explored, that we should not reject any one idea just because it seems alien, improbable, or unprofitable to us. It is important to investigate every new possibility of knowledge. We know too little to be able to afford to neglect the least chance of expanding our domain of knowledge. Everything new and unfamiliar appears improbable to most people at first sight. People must get used to the new outlook, no matter how correct it might be. By being constantly dinned into peoples minds, even absurdities eventually become well-known, familiar, and seem probable or correct. The majority do not want to hear anything but what they have heard before. Those who deem themselves critical do not want to accept anything that cannot be fitted in with their previous system of thought. One moments reflection should tell them that if their system is so correct, they should be all but omniscient. Anyone who has stopped assimilating whatever knowledge may be found in that which contradicts his own thought system, is captive in the prison of his own thinking, and has concluded his intellectual development. 14 All abandoned superstitions, all discarded hypotheses, have once been declared by authorities to be truth. In all ages, in all domains, authorities have with absolute certainty proclaimed the latest truth as the ultimate truth. 1.30 What Is Truth? To most people, truth is everything they want to believe. From the rational point of view, truth is the agreement of thought and reality, that is: knowledge of reality. Truth as an integrated whole, the total knowledge of the entire reality, is the ultimate goal of research. 2 The abuse of the word truth has of course resulted in the usual confusion of concepts, so that quite a number of truths must be distinguished for the sake of clarity. Some of them are enumerated here:
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Truths of mathematical disciplines Truths of experimental disciplines Truth of descriptive disciplines Truths of speculative disciplines Historical truths Political truths Truths of public opinion Religious truths Personal truths Different levels of intelligence, so to speak, can be distinguished in the acceptance of truths, from the level characterized by the uncritical acceptance of everything said up to the greatest critical ability. 4 The lowest kind is uncritical acceptance. A thing is believed because somebody has told one, or read it in the paper. It is believed because it seems attractive and reasonable. It is believed because the authority appears sympathetic and trustworthy. It is believed because others believe it. From the logical point of view, belief in authority is a regressus in infinitum: A believes it because B has told it, B believes it because C has told it, etc. ad infinitum. Belief in authority and contempt 28
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of authority are equally dogmatic. Judgements are of course worthless without first-hand knowledge or personal examination of the matter. The highest kind of judgement is the scientific demand for experimental proof or for facts ascertainable by everybody. 5 In the matter of judgement they have sought to differentiate the concepts of possibility, probability, and reality. Quantitative probability is merely a mathematical frequency formula, the limit of a relative frequency. Logically, probability coincides with possibility, in addition being a vague attempt to afford a certain reality value to insufficient experience, or to introduce a gradation from the rationally defensible to the truly rational. Probability is supposed to be possibility with qualifications, thus possibility with a good reason for it, assumption based on certain, although insufficient, facts. 6 As for personal truths, also called pragmatic truths, truths in life; their usefulness, emotional value, value in life, decides their value. This kind of subjective (possibly also collective) truth has occasionally been confused with truth as that concept defined by the theory of knowledge. According to Schopenhauer, most students of philosophy do not seek for a knowledge of reality in philosophy but for a proof or defence of their personal convictions, their previously formed belief systems. 7 Everything affording certainty is called truth. In order to judge truth it should consequently be possible to examine the different kinds of certainty. Certainty can be divided into absolute certainty, objective certainty, and subjective certainty; also into emotional certainty, certainty of sense, and certainty of reason. 8 Mathematical and deductive proofs afford examples of absolute certainty. They prove just what you already know. 9 The experience of material reality affords objective certainty, because that reality furnishes reason with its content of reality. Exact knowledge is impossible without experience. Even mathematics would be inconceivable without empirical axioms. Geometry is made up of spatial relations obtained through abstraction. These relations are summed up into a number of propositions, the correctness of which is proved by reference to still more basic propositions, until those propositions are obtained which cannot be proved, the axioms. Lobachevsky demonstrated that geometry was not an aprioristic discipline and that the Euklidean axioms were certainly not the only true ones, by constructing a new, non-contradictory, and fully usable geometrical science. Experience affords objective certainty by discovering laws of nature. Without experience a conception formed may be a fiction. Anyone who does not test his judgement in objective experience, lacks the greatest possible certainty of the correctness of his judgement. The truths of descriptive disciplines are instances of justified objective certainty. The fact that a great portion of reality is beyond objective experience, perhaps beyond the possibility of such experience, does not in the least lessen the demand for experience as the highest possible criterion of truth. If this demand is given up, there is nothing to guarantee that what is given out as real is actually real. 10 Belief and assumption afford subjective certainty. Belief is the emotional blind acceptance of and adherence to an opinion, independently of its degree of rationality. Belief is unchangeable and forbids criticism. Assumption is based on rational arguments, is just temporarily valid, until a more rational hypothesis appears, presupposes rational criticism, and rejects emotional thinking and dogmatizing. 11 Emotional certainty is individual and lacks any objective value. Of course emotion apprehends its certainty as absolute. There is no distinction between possibility and reality where emotion is concerned, but it quite simply decides what shall be true. 12 The certainty of sense is incomparably more reliable than the certainty of reason. The certainty of sense is an expression of individual experience, whereas on the other hand the certainty of reason can be based on fictions, dogmas, hypotheses. Dogmatic certainty can, from the objective point of view, be regarded as improbable certainty and erroneous certainty. Political

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theory, public opinion, traditional views, are examples of the former. The latter includes superstition. 13 Necessity, or inevitability, can be absolute, objective, and subjective. Absolute necessity is found in the law of thought. Wherever in addition absolute necessity is obtained, its inevitability depends on the this is this of thought, as in the matter of mathematical proofs. The laws of nature afford instances of objective inevitability. An example of subjective (psychological) necessity is determinism: action is determined by the strongest motive. 14 The path to the truth for mankind is by and large the path of discarded mistakes. Truth is what remains after all mistakes have been made. Almost every mistake has sometime been called truth. 15 Where other disciplines are concerned, people realize that they must acquire a knowledge of the necessary facts before they express their opinions. As regards philosophy, however, they fancy themselves capable of giving opinions offhand on the most difficult problems. 1.31 Sense and Reason Sense is objectivity. Reason is subjectivity. Sense is the immediate, direct, unreflective experience of reality, the reality of matter as well as that of motion and consciousness. The content of sense is the facts of reality. Reason is the instrument for working up the content of sense. Through sense perceptions sense is objectively determined, directly determined by material reality. The fancies of diseased minds are not sense perceptions but mental constructions. The mistakes of subjectivists lie in subjectivizing the experiences of sense, which identifies. In animals sense predominates. The animals capacity for existence, their superiority in apprehending reality (keener eyesight, hearing, smell, touch) often exhibited do indeed suffice as proofs of the priority of sense. 2 Reason is the faculty of conception (memory pictures), reflection, abstraction (concepts), inference, judgement (construction), and systematization. 3 Conceptions can be divided into two kinds: real conceptions and constructed conceptions. A real conception is a reproduction of reality experienced, of a sense perception. A constructed conception is a construction of more or less fictitious notions, imaginative constructions. 4 Concepts are of two kinds: real concepts and constructed concepts. A real concept is a comprehensive survey of the related real conceptions of some certain unitary group. Constructed concepts are of innumerable kinds, ranging from the most real to the most fictitious. Constructed concepts include abstract concepts, constructed from more or less essential, demonstrable qualities, properties, characteristics of some certain conception or of the conceptions of some certain unitary group. If just one fictitious qualification is included in the construction, the construction will be unreal. Constructed concepts of course include all concepts that lack clear ideas of reality, that lack such ideas altogether, or have more or less forgotten them. Many people think by words to which they have attached vague, conventional qualifications. Principles are constructed concepts, are as though concepts of concepts, abstractions from abstractions. They can also be called unitary, comprehensive, or system concepts.
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* Through the activity of its sense the child, even during its first year, automatically develops correct instinctive apprehensions of a number of qualities belonging to material reality, which qualities will later be formed into concepts through the activity of reason. The automatism of sense is that mainly instinctive, mechanical process one among the many continually going on in the subconscious which turns the multiplicity experienced into those perceptual units that make the activity of sense possible or facilitate it. These units have caused philosophers to distinguish between the logically and psychologically primary. At a higher stage of the development of 30
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reason, that activity corresponds to the conception of ideas, which is also a process finding unity. 6 The apprehension of space, for instance, develops by observing the forms of matter, and the apprehension of time by observing the different kinds of time-intervals. As a mathematical concept, space is constructed by the determinations of its three dimensions in the same way as the other mathematical basic concepts are constructed from the elements of experience that sense supplies. 7 Sense supplies the necessary conditions of, the reality material for, describing reality or ascertaining facts. Reason works this material up by reflection. If the result is not correct, this is the fault not of sense but of reason. Sense observes the suns passage in the heavens. The explanation of reason that this is because the sun moves while the earth stands still, is not correct. Certain misleading optical refractions (optical contradictions) sense will correct by continued observation. Reasons correct explanations have usually come long afterwards. Reason obtains all its reality material and knowledge material from sense. Reason is our ability to elaborate, clarify, and construct. Subsequent testing always proves sense right. Our mistakes begin with reasons elaboration, with hypotheses, theories, and all other kinds of explanation. 8 The subjectivists have made the cardinal mistake of making apprehension by objective consciousness subjective. Thought is subjectivist and takes charge of everything subjective. Once subjectivity has been conjured into subjectivity, then thought is sovereign and the path has been cleared for subjectivist fantasy, such as: nothing exists but consciousness; or: everything exists by means of consciousness. Subjectivism concentrates on consciousness to the exclusion of everything else, as if consciousness were merely subjective; and does not distinguish between the apprehension of consciousness as subjectively or objectively determined. Consciousness can be subjectively or objectively determined. Consciousness is objectively determined by material reality. Thinking is objectively determined when thought adheres to the experience of material reality. 1.32 Reality Reality consists of the following three immediately given and self-evident absolutes: matter, motion (force, energy), and consciousness. They are the ultimate explanatory elements of everything. They explain themselves by their modes of being, and cannot be further explained, only be ascertained by everybody. Neither dualism nor psycho-physical parallelism can explain events, since energy, being necessary, is absent in these systems. 2 Natural science, being our source of objective knowledge, and technology have fully proved (the demand for further proofs is the best evidence of how the subjectivists have managed to disorganize thinking) that the visible and also the invisible, the as yet just partially explored, reality is material reality. There is no legitimate reason for doubting that the as yet unexplored part would be anything else. Of course the subjectivists denied that invisible reality could also be material. They accepted the traditional conjecture, that if material reality was visible, then invisible reality (its ground) must be something else and thus subjective. 3 Why they have had such difficulty in identifying the three immediately given realities, depends on the fact that the self-evident is the most difficult thing to discover and that the subjectivist theories have misled and confused their power of discrimination. To the ancients, who conceived of reality as it is immediately given, the so-called problem of reality of the theory of knowledge was no problem, which, assuredly, it is not. Philosophers who exclusively cultivate their reason, eventually and unnoticeably end up in subjectivism. Those who do not constantly use their sense as a criterion of truth, run the risk of removing themselves from reality more an more. The only criterion of truth is the facts of reality. The scholastic contempt for sense resulted in total disorientation. Theories and fictions finally become self-evident and inevitable. Moreover, students of philosophy are hypnotized by the power of language over thought into accepting
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subjectivism, since the current philosophic terms have been coined by subjectivists. 4 Subjectivist philosophy starts from a dogmatic doubt of the given reality, the most self-evident of all evident things, the material objects. To assume their existence before philosophy has permitted it, subjectivists call dogmatic realism!! First material reality is to be conjured away. This is done by declaring philosophy unconditioned. Thereupon reality is to be conjured up again, as a mere product of consciousness. They must prove the reality of reality (!!) and the absoluteness of the absolute (!!). They have constructed difficulties from fancies of psychotic minds and idiotic fictions of undeveloped minds, and in order to avoid them the subjectivists accept the absurd constructions of overeducated philosophic minds. The subjectivists call this method critical reason. 5 Philosophy is no more unconditioned than anything else. It must start from the immediately given reality. Its purpose is to provide us with knowledge of that reality. The subjectivists cannot do that; they just conjure reality away. They replace reality or the self-evident with their arbitrary fictions, which are often constructed so as to be incomprehensible. 6 If objective reality were merely subjectively determined reality, then there would be no objective reality, and objective knowledge would be impossible. If the knowledge of the objects of material reality were not immediate, then knowledge of external objects, nay knowledge of whatever kind, would be impossible. If consciousness were pure subjectivity, then the subjective reconstruction of material reality would make knowledge illusory. Without being constantly confronted with material reality, the concepts we derive from that reality would soon lose their reality content. The subjectivity or objectivity of consciousness is determined by the content of consciousness. When consciousness observes material reality, its content is objective. When consciousness is filled with abstract ideas (concepts), emotions, etc., its content is subjective. Consciousness can be simultaneously objective and subjective. 7 Reality is such as sense apprehends it. We have no reason whatsoever for abandoning the sense apprehension of reality. If we nevertheless do so, then reality can be falsified into almost anything. And that has been done. No absurdity has been left untested in the effort to make reality a mere product of consciousness. To the subjectivists matter is an abomination that must be explained away be every possible means. The sense apprehension of reality must be called correct as far as it reaches. Natural research shows us that material objects contain much more than can be immediately apprehended by sense. However, that does not in the least refute the apprehension of sense. What is added through the further scientific discoveries of the unknown properties of matter just increases our knowledge of the objects. Matter is the necessary explanatory element of objective reality. Matter is absolute. If the properties of matter were categories in consciousness the absurd attempt at explanation made by the subjectivists then there would be no need for us to discover them by natural research; it would not be possible to reconcile or explain contradictory sense apprehensions in further objective research; the difference between individual apprehensions would be still greater; and the incomparably strongest certainty of all, the objective certainty obtained from results definitively established in experiments, would not furnish any certainty at all. * The subjectivists commit several basic errors of thought when making their attempts at constructing the problem of reality, as it is formulated in the theory of knowledge. They try to explain away the material reality that is immediately and directly given to consciousness. They deny the objective existence of the objectively given reality. They make the absurd demand that reality must be susceptible of a logical proof of its existence in order to be called reality; that is, it must be possible to prove that the absolute is absolute. The absolute is always immediately given
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and cannot be proved, can just be ascertained as reality immediately given. 9 Subjectivism is either logicist or psychologicist. Logicism wants to explain reality logically, as though it were a product of logic. The concept of reality, however, is a collective: the sum total of the different kinds of reality immediately apprehended or ascertained through research. Psychologicism seeks for an explanation in a psychological examination of sense perceptions, which of course has resulted in attempts to prove that the objective material reality consists of subjective sense perceptions. However, they cannot in this way explain those new qualities of matter which modern science discovers by instruments almost daily. Neither can they explain the real existence of objects, their existence independent of consciousness. The objects are no more inherent in consciousness than in the photographic film. All the attempts made by subjectivism at subjectivizing the objectively given have failed, because being absurd they must fail. 10 The manner in which a physical object becomes perceptible through nerve and brain cell processes is a physiological problem, which psychologists may try to solve. It is not a problem of the theory of knowledge. Objects are what they are, not anything else. Sense apprehends physical objects according to the law of thought, or of identification, which says this is this. The assertion, we do not see the object as it is, is logically and factually erroneous no matter if the psychologists have their theory of light vibrations. Into the question whether objects are what they appear to be the idea of appearance has already been introduced deceptively. From the logical point of view, the objects of material reality are immediately given, and that cannot possibly give rise to any logical problem. Facts are facts and cannot be explained away or refuted by theories, as philosophers have always believed. As long as reality is interpreted by theories and logical proofs instead of being experienced, so long subjectivism, logicist and psychologicist, will continue to lead the sense of reality astray. 11 Subjectivism began with Locke, who had the brainwave that if you started from a psychological examination of the knowledge obtained objectively, you would be able to ascertain the objective correctness and logical tenability of this knowledge. That idea was to lead the philosophers astray from 1690 onwards. None but Hedvall, in 1906, realized the basic mistake of turning material reality into psychology. And this fiction is sill haunting. The objects are no sense perceptions, however, and only scientific research can afford us an intimate and more profound knowledge of them. 12 Lockes division of reality into primary and secondary qualities, Kants division of it into phenomenon and thing in itself, are fatal errors. Locke started from the familiar fact that the apprehension of certain qualities of matter can vary, and diverge from the normal in a few individuals. He thought he was justified in concluding from this that colours, sounds, smells, etc. were subjectively conditioned. Even if this state of things can be the fact in some respect, since a divergent apprehension can depend on defects in the organs of apprehension, it is nevertheless incorrect to try to deprive matter of the corresponding properties merely because they are differently apprehended by different individuals. In order to uphold that erroneous supposition, Locke made the fatal mistake of differentiating between primary and secondary qualities, properties of matter. The primary ones were those apprehended identically by all; the secondary ones, those which could be apprehended differently. The primary ones were to be regarded as objective, the secondary ones as subjective. This erroneous theory of knowledge gave subsequent philosophers their suggestion to construct absolute subjectivity. Once the start was made by declaring some of the qualities of matter to be solely subjective apprehension in the individual, the final result was of course that matter was deprived of all its qualities, until Kant viewed matter as just something devoid of quality (!!) about which nothing could be known and which already Fichte regarded as a superfluous hypothesis!! Kant also made the mistake of making an essential distinction between the visible and the unexplored qualities of objects. Only thanks to fictions and untenable constructions did Kant manage to avoid the conclusion, logically necessary after his

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erroneous supposition, that we cannot know anything about the very things which are the objective ground and criterion of our knowledge: the very objects. 13 Concerning Kant, the basis and source of the immediately subsequent subjectivists, it should also be added that he has contributed to the disorientation of philosophy more than anybody else. Kant is the best proof that without knowledge (the facts of research), acuity and the art of logical inference just produce untenable or misleading constructions. 14 Finally a remark about the little known Uppsala philosopher, Karl Hedvall. He showed, before anybody else, that the immediate, unreflective apprehension of reality by sense is the only correct one. Regrettably, however, sense has a great disadvantage in being defenceless against the theories of reason. This immediately self-evident realization marked a new epoch in the history of philosophy, and entailed a revolution of thought by elucidating the logical untenability and factual error of subjectivism. 1.33 The Limits of Knowledge We are still very far from omniscience. Technology, the applicatory disciplines of natural science, is the one criterion of our knowledge of reality. The other criterion is infallible prediction. We still have much to achieve before we shall be in a position to predict everything that will happen. Application shows what we know, prediction mostly shows what we do not know. 2 Each new scientific discovery moves out the limits of knowledge. The more we discover, the deeper become our realization and understanding that our knowledge is limited or relative. If we had sufficient knowledge, life would appear to us as a series of necessities and not as an endless series of coincidences. 3 Still the wise must agree with Sokrates. The oracle declared him the wisest man in Greece. The oracle is right, Sokrates considered, for I am the only man in Greece who knows that he knows nothing (worth knowing). If we know just a fraction of reality, then we know nothing of the whole as a totality. And we do not know before we know that. The fact that we know much about the fraction is quite another matter. Domains of knowledge thoroughly gone through show daily the limitation of these domains, show us how little we know. Life is still an unsolved problem, an unsurveyable complex of unsolved problems.
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1.34 World View and Life View The first thing we discover is material reality. Relatively late we begin to discover the existence and significance of consciousness. Its significance is so great that we very easily overestimate it. 2 From the psychological point of view we lead a subjective life. Consciousness is its own world. Feelings and thoughts make up the content of this subjective world, which has a subjective existence and a subjective validity. 3 Most people lead an emotional life, being content with the simplest possible orientation of reason for the sake of a livelihood. Those who begin reflecting on life thereby acquire ideas and begin to lead a self-conscious subjective life. Certainly they little suspect that thereby they have entered into an unexplored world of consciousness, as real subjectively as the material world is real objectively. 4 The very realization that, from the psychological point of view, consciousness is our self and that which observes reality, should be sufficient to demonstrate the inevitability of subjectivity. The criticism of the subjective is not aimed at subjectivity as such, but at the arbitrary subjective, or the confusion of subjective and objective. 5 In its particular expressions the subjective is individual, and in its universal expression it is collective. The totality of this collective subjectivity we call culture. Objectivity leads to science with technology, and to civilization, which is certainly compatible with subjective primitivity and
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lack of culture. 6 It is in this world of subjectivity, of fiction, that so many philosophers have belonged, although they have not realized it themselves. In this world they have found a sphere for their imagination, and have bestowed on mankind mental treasures of enduring value and beauty. 7 The world of thought is filled with ideas of relative validity. Now and then thought takes stock of its ideas. If disorder is then found to exist, thought seeks to order the ideas by some uniform method, and thereby constructs a system. Thus system is the manner in which the multiplicity of ideas is made a rational whole. The system is a pedagogic method of making an ordered survey according to the possibilities of grouping inherent in the very subject-matter. The system fulfils its purpose by making a clear survey and a quick orientation possible. The system is superseded by a new system whenever such ideas are added as cannot be fitted into the old systems. 8 A world view or a life view is such a system. World view is a summation of the knowledge of material reality and furnishes the basis of the life view. Life view is a summation of mans more or less rational attitude to life its meaning and goal and to men and human matters. Life view includes the conception of right, that is, that which people vaguely call morality. From his life view man takes norms for his valuation and standpoints for his action. 9 We can make infallible constructions. We make them in mathematics, since in that discipline we know everything about the thing we construct. A world view and a life view cannot reach that exactness, cannot afford the same clarity, even though the mental constructions can be formed so as to reach the same clarity. That clarity, however, is often deceptive, which the philosophic systems have showed. They demonstrate how difficult it is to think in accordance with reality, how easily we make erroneous constructions, how difficult it is for us to set our reason free from mental constructions that we have ingeniously put together and have impressed on ourselves. Certainly it is more difficult still, if not impossible altogether, to eliminate emotional complexes that have been engrafted on us in childhood. Mental constructions often lead us away from, and obstruct our understanding of, reality or of constructions more correct that those we have accepted. The more complicated, the more ingenious, acute, profound they are, the greater the labour bestowed on comprehension, the more difficult to replace do they appear to be. Experience has shown that it is wise to be a little skeptical of complicated constructions, since the expediency and superiority of a construction is greater the simpler it is. Science strives after simplification. Strange as it may seem, the extremely simple, the almost immediately self-evident, is the most difficult to discover. Even the most difficult problems can finally be formulated so simply that the uncritical man thinks their solution is so obvious that it need not even have been given. 10 Many people say they can do without a system. As you can think without clear concepts, so you can do without a clearly elaborated system. The result, however, is the same in both cases: vagueness, disorder, uncertainty. Without a firm system feeling is rootless, emotional thinking is given greater scope, and the individual falls more easily prey to fictions and psychoses. The system is of greater significance than most people realize. 11 Every rational system makes it easier to comprehend reality from that level of scientific development on which the system has been constructed. It is true that, at the same time, the system limits thought and makes it more difficult for the majority to go beyond the limits of the system. But systems are just the temporary boundaries of research, and supersede one another as research advances. 12 The world view should preferably be built on the firm facts and unbiassed results of research. Moreover, the construction must not conflict with the direct conception of reality by sense. Like each new scientific hypothesis, each new system must be able to afford better explanations than the old explanations. Where the life view is concerned, it must be possible to claim freedom of thought, feeling, and action within the limits set by the right of others to that same inviolable freedom.

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New systems should be constructed whenever new ideas appear that ought to be considered, to their service who do not themselves have the opportunity or ability to form such systems. Perhaps it will some time be possible to make the system so general that new ideas need not burst its framework, but can be fitted into the system. Thereby firmness would be gained for a universal view, and understanding would come more easily, not just between contemporary individuals but also between the different generations. Such a system would meet a real need and would counteract irrationality and superstition. For a culture it is an admission of intellectual failure that those who wish to have a world view and a life view to orient themselves by must devote a large part of their lives to such things as one should be able to learn in school. Most people remain disoriented, however, and their need for clarity is never met. 1.35 SCIENCE Natural science is the systematized study of the explored part of reality. In the proper sense of the word, science is research into causes. The hypothesis that explored reality is only a fraction of total reality is corroborated by the fact that new scientific discoveries continually revolutionize the view taken on a matter instead of substantiating the assumptions made. To all appearances, most things still remain to be discovered and explored. Most laws are still discovered as though by accident. It will still be a long time before all constant relations have been ascertained. There is still much to be done before the scientific view has been fully achieved. Science, starting from everythings conformity to law, has a long way to go before it has demonstrated the inevitable relatedness of everything. Because if everything in nature conforms to law, then there are neither coincidences nor probabilities. Both terms demonstrate with sufficient obviousness the still great limitation of our study. 2 To make a principal difference between the explored and the unexplored (for example, when dividing reality into phenomenon, that is, illusory reality, and the inner essence of things) is to practise that arbitrary speculation called metaphysics. 3 Science is mental constructions, hypotheses, and theories based on facts ascertained and systematically ordered. Hypothesis and theory are the methods by which we seek to comprehend and explain facts, seek to comprehend reality. 4 Hypotheses are preliminary assumptions, temporary explanations resorted to in order to facilitate the comprehension of things and events. They are indispensable to apprehension. The more kinds of things the hypothesis explains, the greater its value as a basis of explanation. It is replaced by a new hypothesis if the latter can explain better, explain more kinds of things. Only ignorance takes the hypothesis for some kind of final explanation or is surprised at its defectiveness or insufficience, manifest sooner or later. 5 Theories are summations of a limited number of experiences. When correctly formulated they make experience already acquired easily accessible and make a quick orientation possible. Anyone who has all the correct theories within some domain of research possesses mankinds collected experiences within that domain. Theories facilitate the research into reality that is necessary to insight. Independent thought within some certain domain must always result in personal theories. Since the theory seldom applies in all apparently similar cases, it often needs to be individualized, must not be assumed to be generally valid, and must not be applied without examination. The theory must be continually adjusted to never-ending practical discoveries. 6 Theories and hypotheses furnish us with the mental gymnastics we need in order to continually improve on theories and hypotheses. Without them and the mental training they make possible, scientific thought would be impeded and made considerably more difficult. Attempts have been made to replace theory and hypothesis by a logic of facticity, which would be limited to the ascertainment of facts, compilation of these facts, and description or the things studied. By discarding theory and hypothesis, our study would gain a certain uniformity and the appearance of
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perfect knowledge. But the unexplored would nevertheless remain in reality, even though its existence might not be invoked. Such a logic of facticity, rejecting the method of hypothesis, would deprive us of a working method that has a psychological value. The hypothesis provides imagination with a material to work on besides the facts previously known, that is to say: possible facts and possible factors. When imagination is always occupied with all the pertaining conceivable possibilities, this breeds presentiments which lead to valuable ideas. It is by the endless succession of hypotheses that science advances. They underestimate the significance of mental constructions if they believe that research can safely omit them. In actual fact, we would be pretty helpless without those constructions. Objective facts are of little value without a previous mental working up of them. Museums can be filled with ascertained facts, and libraries with descriptions, and the only result of this would still be increasing chaos. It is thought that discovers the laws and combines them into a surveyable and conceivable whole. 7 We are immersed into an ocean of ignorance. Everything is a problem, strictly speaking. Explanations seldom take us far. Just a few steps, and we bump against the wall of ignorance. We are able to follow the causal chain but a short way. How do we know this, we ask and soon we stand without an answer. There are such people, however, who cannot perceive of any problems, the matter-of-fact people to whom everything is clear. 8 The greatest shortcoming of the matter-of-fact man is his ignorance of 1) all the facts necessary for a final judgement, and 2) whether facts are facts indeed. The facts of natural science belong to the first category; to the second category all those facts belong which can be included among historical facts. * Space relations, time relations, and constant relations are reasons determinations of the relations of matter and the relations of the process of matter. 10 Conformity to law defines the immutability of the process of matter, or the process of nature, better than causality. Conformity to law indicates the existence of constant relations, or natural laws. It indicates the fact of immutability: if all the conditions are given, then a certain result will come inevitably. All conditions are true causes. It is arbitrary to select some particular cause as the true cause. 11 Conformity to law implies that nature always repeats itself in the universal. It does not imply that similar processes in similar things are absolutely identical in all respects. The universal, characteristic, essential is constant. An absolute identity of any conceivable least particular does never exist in nature. It is the universal that is expressed in a constant relation. 12 The universal conformity to law cannot be disputed. To do so would require something entirely different from those hasty conclusions by all too speculative minds which we have seen hitherto. Conformity to law must be termed absolute. If there were no conformity to law, the stone would not fall, no working machine could be constructed, no scientific formula could be set up, no prediction could be made, and the cosmos would be chaos. One could indefinitely go on enumerating incontrovertible reasons for conformity to law being inevitable. We do not have any rationalreason for assuming any kind of arbitrariness in nature. That scientific metaphysics, which denies conformity to law because it does not at once discover laws, is as unscientific as philosophic metaphysics ever was. Those natural philosophers still do not seem even to have learnt to realize the unreliability of logical consequences, so styled. 13 The difficulty begins with the particular laws: to decide whether they are true laws or not. Because there exist relations which could be termed possible laws of nature. They include, among others, the probable, or statistical, laws that indicate a general tendency of a process, though not any discovered, true natural law susceptible of formulation.
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A true natural law is absolutely valid, that is, it is without exception and immutable. Those laws which, after innumerable experiences of them, have been so recognized, must be regarded valid as natural laws, until exceptions are met with where each particular law is concerned. Such an exception has not been found as yet. The only thing they have been able to ascertain is that some law did not have the general validity they assumed originally, but was valid for a more limited sphere. 15 If the sun explodes tomorrow, then the astronomical prediction of the next solar eclipse will not come true. Of the explosion we know nothing, for it is part of the unexplored. But this does not make matters any different as regards those natural laws which make it possible to predict the eclipse, does not alter anything as to the absolute validity of the natural laws valid in this case. It does not turn these natural laws into probability laws. 16 Natural science is occupied with the search for natural laws as well as the formulation of such laws. Without a knowledge of all the conditions, true natural laws cannot be formulated. On the other hand, according to the nature of the very matter, it is theoretically impossible to prove that a series of things is not subject to laws. 17 They have made an improper division of natural laws into qualitative and quantitative laws. The qualitative laws were supposed to be found in the descriptive disciplines, and the quantitative laws in the mathematical disciplines. The quantitative laws are easier to handle thanks to their mathematical formulation. This handiness, however, entails evident dangers and risks. Formulas are produced almost mechanically, and are handled as though they represented anything but largely trivialities or fictions. 18 Using statistics they produce in all domains apparent constant relations that can be formulated mathematically. The result of this is an immense mischief, as though these formulas expressed essential realities. However, to be able to formulate a natural law you must know all the factors. In most cases, they do not know whether unknown conditions exist, or the number of unknowns. Quantitative investigations by means of calculation of probability therefore do not yield more than frequencies. Heterogenous, qualitatively indeterminate realities cannot be explained, represented, or exhaustively determined by quantitative investigations. Statistics cannot prove the existence of a natural law. Just infallible prediction is a proof. In experiments systematically varied all conditions will eventually be known. * The history of science and philosophy has by and large been the history of superstitions, but also that of the struggle of untiring criticism against the preconceived opinions of ignorance. The development of science can be summed up in relatively few propositions. But to search out these basic propositions is hard work even today. The essentials are drowned in the mass of unessentials. Of course, only the expert knows how much incredible toil, sometimes by many generations, the evident propositions have cost, how many sacrifices they have exacted, not least from those who were in authority and therefore had the patent for the truth. In the following, only the propositions most essential to the conception of reality will be briefly commented upon. 20 Galilei was the pioneer of modern science and thought. He introduced the principle of relativity, demonstrated the necessity of observing nature, established that theories of reality cannot be accepted without investigation but must continually be corroborated anew by experience. He deduced causes from effects, that is, the principles of a theory from the objects. He showed that motion is a relational concept, that the orbit or trajectory is different depending on which system of co-ordinates you use, and, when doing this, that continuity, acceleration, and force parallelograms must be ascertained. He combined the hypothesis method with the mathematical and experimental methods.
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Next to Galilei Newton was the founder of our conception of reality. Newton maintained that we cannot know anything of the essence of things and the true causes of processes. These problems are the favourite metaphysical problems of the philosophers, and the object of guesswork in perpetual re-constructions. Science, however, cannot answer the questions of What? and Why?, only that of How?. Natural science is a generalization of experience. Subsequent investigation is always necessary. The purpose of science is, starting from the empirically given reality, to discover and formulate those exact laws which make prediction possible. Newton made astronomy (celestial mechanics) an exact science. Using Keplers laws of planetary orbits (calculated from Tycho Brahes careful observations), he discovered the law of gravitation (the attraction of bodies is directly proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of their distance), and thereby he was able to prove that Cusano was right in his hypothesis and Copernicus in his theory of the planets revolution round the sun. 22 Probably, there are no basic propositions that do not sooner or later prove to be parts of still more general propositions. This does not gainsay their correctness, however, and without them the more general ones could not be discovered. By his general theory of relativity Einstein appears to have made the physicists reject the old conception of time and space, since it has proved to be insufficient in some few cases. It is still too early, however, to draw these conclusions from his theory. For it seems to be possible to give the theory a simpler formulation; and also there may exist different kinds of space and even more than four dimensions. So we can safely keep threedimensional space for most cases. It is not impossible that there may exist an entire series of different kinds of reality, and that the different conceptions of reality are equally correct, each in its particular domain. 23 Leibniz, who corresponded with Newton and other contemporary scientists, adopted their views and realized that the knowledge of reality must be derived from experience, that the mechanical conception of nature is a manner in which to describe reality, that prediction is sufficient proof that reality exists, that conformity to law is the criterion of reality, but also that Newtons theory of absolute space and absolute time was meaningless. 24 The following propositions of the theory of biological evolution can be regarded as basic ones. All forms of life have an inner continuity and a common natural origin, in the last resort through spontaneous generation. The species are changeable. New species originate from older ones through transformation. The eliminating factors include, among others, inability of adaptation to changed conditions of life, inability to endure hardships and climate changes, a more rapid degeneration, and inability of reproduction. The purposive evinces its superiority in, among other things, its very endurance, the fact that it most easily adapts itself, and most easily passes on its characteristics by heredity. * The history of science can be divided into dogmatic and skeptic periods. When the questions which during a certain scientific era have been regarded as essential are answered, it will seem as though the principal research work were accomplished. The universal human need for a firm and certain basis for thought entails a striving after simplification and systematization, which results in a world view. In such epochs it is out of fashion to be a skeptic and question the correctness of the system. Then there is a general aversion to new hypotheses that can upset the mental structure built up with so much toil, an aversion that can find such drastic expression that they refuse to study such facts as cannot be fitted into the system. 26 It is continually seen, however, that new problems appear; that the old formulations can be questioned. The well-constructed system is exploded. A new period begins, one of new discoveries in various fields of research. All things change, are in a state of flux, and again seem
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uncertain. In such periods it is out of fashion to be a dogmatic and express cocksure opinions on hypotheses and theories. 27 Formerly, those whose thinking was emotional and who needed certainty, could find it in a philosophical system. Ever since science took over the former task of philosophy, however, that of explaining the given reality, it has been the business of science to build systems. The world is full of believers who have had to content themselves with irrationalities for want of anything better. Even for science it is important to have a system that makes orientation easier and furnishes an overall view. It is inevitable that those whose knowledge and power of comprehension suffice but to learn the system become dogmatic believers. However, it is better to be a dogmatic about a rational system than an irrational or less rational one. It could perhaps be of some profit to point out that all systems are temporary, are summations of the latest results of research, and no final products. 1.36 HISTORY History is the opinions of the historians about the past, about facts and courses of events. History as a discipline ought to be able to provide us with the experience of mankind in its universal applicability, proceeding from the individual to the typical and universal. It ought to be able to give us, not merely the history of political ideas and systems, but also the lessons that can be derived from these matters. 2 The accidental is unreliable a priori, and the individual, which people find the most interesting, mainly belongs to the realm of fiction. Opinions and ideas are individually or collectively subjective and not objective. When psychology eventually achieves a knowledge of human nature, a science of character, and a historical analysis, then history as a shaper of legends will probably yield very valuable data for research. 3 If history cannot give to its data such a universal form that we will be able to learn from these experiences, so that we may be spared having the same experiences over and over again, then history hardly increases our insight into life and understanding of life, but only satisfies that studious attitude which could better be called nosey and which at best can supply literary art with its select material. 4 Only the studies that are necessary to understand the present can justly claim to be included in so-called general education. If history cannot afford us this understanding, then it should be relegated to a place among the specialist disciplines. The fact that history is indispensable to research is quite another matter. But in that case that arbitrary mixture called universal history should be divided into its many different branches with the boundaries between them marked out. Only then will history fulfil its purpose for the specialist who needs to know every accessible knowable thing within his special domain. And he is able better to judge the value of historical study for his needs, to sift the given material critically and take just what is essential to him.
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1.37 Historical Facts The hypotheses of natural science rest on facts and therefore they are always realistic in some respect. Their weak point is the missing facts. The unreliability of historical truth depends on the mass of spurious facts, and on the impossibility of eliminating them. 2 Facts can be divided into actual and alleged facts, controlled and uncontrolled, controllable and uncontrollable, objective and subjective, and objectively or subjectively compiled facts. 3 If we could group facts into known and unknown ones, then the number of unknown facts would show us our ignorance of the past also of that past which we believe we know the best. 4 If we could judge the facticity of so-called historical facts, then our knowledge of the past would prove to be more imaginary than anybody would dare to dream.
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History is hardly the story of truthful witnesses. Anybody who has experienced how difficult it is to establish the true facts of some course of events when all parties concerned are anxious to reach an objectively correct result, realizes that it must be almost impossible to reach the same thing when all parties concerned as is mostly the case in history are anxious to revise the facts, correct the events, and misrepresent the motives. The unreliability is manifest to all who in actual life have had opportunities to study how witnesses unconsciously reconstruct their experiences into the form desired. Add to this the fact that the initiated often are silent and that the opinions of uninitiated outsiders are suppositions, that testimonies by challengeable, biassed, and uncritical witnesses must be regarded as improbable or unreliable; then the faith in historical facts will not be great. 6 Just as the philosopher is distinguished by his critical attitude to philosophy, so the historian is characterized by his critical attitude to history. A more profound criticism of history looks on socalled historical truths with a good share of skepticism and considers that word of wisdom saying that nothing is so easy to arrange as facts to prove whatever you wish to prove. Of all the kinds of so-called facts, historical facts are the most dubious ones. As a matter of principle, only objective facts controllable by posterity should be accepted as facts. 1.38 Historical Factors The process of history is, like all processes, the result of a great number of factors. Despite all the attempts made to elucidate these factors, it could yet be said without exaggeration that most factors are unknown. Historical science can but exceptionally ascertain which factors have contributed, and which causes have been decisive. The factors we think we know have often been spurious factors. And these latter ones give the impression of chance rather than of conformity to law. Most causal connexions all too often remain inaccessible, despite the most refined methods used. The causality of history allows itself to be ascertained but incidentally and exceptionally. 2 To estimate the relative significance of ascertainable factors in their co-action, counteraction, re-action, and subsidiary action, to estimate the relative effects all the different social, political, nationalist, economic, religious, psychological, personally determined, etc. factors have had on the formation of state, society, or the process of history in each particular case or generally, to evaluate correctly all these combinations in their unsurveyable multiplicity; all this would probably too often be beyond both learning and judgement. To emphasize certain factors at the expense of all the others, both known and unknown ones, is more or less arbitrary. 3 A common error is to confuse causal connexion and temporal connexion. Two processes developing similarly and running parallel in time are often looked upon as causally connected. A great number of processes, however, run parallel without having anything to do with each other. The fact that they touch on one another need not at all imply a causal relation. To use a medical simile: the fact that a sick person recovers as he takes some medicine does not prove that the medicine caused the recovery to health. Only when you can exclude or include some factor at will and infallibly predict the result of each particular experiment, only then have you ascertained the existence of a causal connexion. 4 The unreliability of historical learning is clear from the continually revised views occasioned by each thoroughgoing re-investigation of domains of historical research; and also from the new and often revolutionary historical discoveries we make whenever new ideas emerge, and these hitherto unknown factors are found and can be traced like differently coloured threads in the variegated fabric of history.
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1.39 Historical Views Historical views include historical constructions, historical derivations, historical conditionings, and other views. They appear mostly in times of disorientation or conservative efforts. 2 Typical historical constructions are the well-known views of history taken by Hegel, Marx, and Spengler, among others. Being specimens of historical construction, they are fantastically arbitrary enough to serve as warning examples. It must be admitted that history as a discipline almost invites, or in any case is a rewarding field of, such constructions. With a little good will history affords possibilities of being re-constructed as you like it, and leaves the field open to an almost boundless number of views. Historical hindsight does not consist as much in knowledge gained of processes and causal connexions as in arbitrary rationalization. We lack the necessary criterion of the correctness of any kind of historical view. Objective judgement is possible only exceptionally. That finality or purposiveness in history which many people think they can trace often remains unprovable personal assumptions. On the whole, history demonstrates but the results of that ignorance which all ages have called knowledge. 3 Typical historical derivations are, among others, the attempts made to base social, governmental, or economic rights on their existence in past epochs of history. The fact is that a historical derivation of, for example, human law and human rights involves a return to barbarous, inhuman, long overcome views. However, this concerns the fanatic of historical derivation but little. He arbitrarily starts from the historical heritage as an inevitable thing, as some sort of ineradicable original sin, the only true, only possible real basis and norm of law and right. It seems impossible for him to grasp that human law is sky-high above Roman law or Teutonic law or other more or less inhuman legal conceptions. He cannot possible see that human right still awaits its realization. We have a civilization but no culture. For the unfailing proof of culture is that man is regarded and treated as Man, which means: superior to any other value. 4 In making the historically derived or historically conditioned some kind of norm, they have deprived the historically accidental of its accidentalness, given to the historically accidental a significance it does not possess, a significance in reality that is far beyond its rationally justified one, made the historically accidental something universal, inevitable, and necessary. You make the process of history something absolute if you accord to it an appearance of necessary process, inevitability, the deeper sense of philosophist profundity. Such an historical view makes you dependent on obsolete views, which fetter thought to ideas once formulated and once possibly justified, but which viewpoints have long since been overcome. What has some time in particular cases contributed to a given result or some certain view is overestimated and overemphasized if its historical accidentalness is made the basis of a permanently conserved view of reality. 5 The historical view, which inevitably becomes dogmatic, thinks tradition represents what is fit for life, as though tradition were a product of experience and knowledge of life, a product of a rational process. But the process of history in its individual formation is no rational process. It is rather a play of coincidences, a product of factors which were formerly fit for life, later unfit for life; with a large admixture of unjustified separate interests, ignorance, and arbitrariness. Historians of that kind regard everything historical as well founded, however irrational it may be. 6 The historically conditioned is essentially irrational and, therefore, cannot be made a basis for reason or be used as a viewing method. Such a method testifies to the helplessness and mental disorientation of ignorance, and amounts to declaring our own reason bankrupt.
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1.40 Culture of History Nothing is new, says the philosopher, and rightly. Everything is new, says the expert. Just as nature repeats itself in the universal but never in the individual, so the various cultures are similar repetitions with individual shapes.
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What is individual in previous cultures makes up their individual characters, and cannot become a new culture by being imitated or copied. 3 Living in the past, becoming a museum of useless relics inherited from all past epochs, involves certain risks. Not everything has a life value merely because it once existed. Not all obsolete views are important because they once were of current interest. Almost anything can be made the object of scientific study, once enough time has passed for it to become historical. None of the previous cultures regarded man as Man. Calling the pertaining studies humanistic in the proper sense of that word is positively misleading. We overestimate that which once was and do not consider the question whether its death was a proof of its viability. Not everything inherited from our fathers is exemplary. No new culture is produced by conserving tumble-down things. 4 Tradition and classicism can also have a restrictive effect. They can have so great an influence that everything new is suspect a priori if it is not historically conditioned, and that just whatever is dead and incorporated with history is proved valid and has a life value. 5 We re-construct the past and fill up the glaring gaps with fictions. They are often of fantastic dimensions and never have had any reality, but upset our sense of proportions, and obscure our view of the present; and it costs us hard and unnecessary labour ever to rid ourselves from such fictions. The erroneous view prevalent in ones own age is largely a historical heritage. History has too often become a rear door through which fictions happily scotched slip in to haunt again. If a constant battle shall be fought against the delusions and superstitions of the past, then it will perhaps be necessary in the end to relieve at least general education of this useless luxury. If we were in possession of true knowledge, then history would benefit us by preserving that knowledge for future generations. But as long as we use mainly hypotheses and fictions, history chiefly does us a disservice in conserving these fictions. If the history of ideas were called what it is a history of superstitions then the interest shown in it would decrease considerably. Our present culture is essentially a history of culture and a culture of history. Our culture in too large a measure consists in reproduction. Primitive people lack independent opinions, and their thinking consists in attempting to perceive what others mean in order to imitate it. Representing cultural nations, we ought to have passed that stage, as that where we must carefully know what the ancients said they believed. To know what people in all ages believed they knew leaves not much space for real knowledge. Parrotry is not independent thinking. 6 If we are to create our own culture and we have the prerequisites then a historical limitation is necessary. You can drown in history. What does not afford a greater understanding of life and fitness for life has its place in the various archives of specialist research. That which we have not as yet been able to assimilate of things long since past, both for own culture and for the needs of Mr Average, is part of the subjectivist revelling in unessentials, and has too small a significance for the whole. Culture is individual culture, independence, and individual creation, not imitation and parrotry. Historicist culture worship of dead cultures does not create any new culture.

The above text constitutes the essay Exoteric World View and Life View by Henry T. Laurency. The essay is part of the book The Philosophers Stone by Henry T. Laurency. Copyright 1979 by the Henry T. Laurency Publishing Foundation.

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2 ESOTERIC WORLD VIEW


INTRODUCTION TO THE ESOTERIC KNOWLEDGE OF REALITY
2.1 Introduction There exists a vast literature of which, amazingly, the general public appears to be entirely ignorant. This literature is about the knowledge of reality. It is a knowledge that has only been taught in secret knowledge orders over the ages. 2 It was necessary to keep this knowledge secret for at least three reasons: persecution, misinterpretation, abuse of the power it conferred. Torture and burning at the stake awaited those who dared to doubt theological fictionalism. The esoteric knowledge cannot be comprehended by others than those who are able to think independently and not just parrot others. What outsiders have managed to pick up of it has always been misinterpreted or ridiculed or distorted intentionally. The knowledge that confers power has always been abused. 3 Even in the 1880-s a so-called free-thinker (one who dared to think freely and not just as the theologians prescribed) was regarded as almost a criminal. In any case he was impossible socially. However, natural science had made such progress and exploded so many theological absurdities (Bible legends and The Story of Creation) that they began in scientific circles to demand the right to free expression and also assumed that right, to such an extent that the authorities did not consider it suitable to start a prosecution for blasphemy whenever somebody declared himself dubious about the theological dogmas. 4 Since, thanks to natural science, the condition existed of making the knowledge comprehensible without a circumstantial preparation, it was decided that certain parts (which could be understood and not be abused) of esoterics should be permitted for publication after the year 1875. 5 It has proved desirable that, from the very beginning, the readers attention be called to the fact that the following outline deals with matters totally different from anything generally known. 6 This introduction represents a transition from exoteric ignorance to esoteric knowledge, from the unreal world of imagination, which mankind lives in, to the world of reality. 7 Most people wander through life without asking themselves: Why am I here? What is the meaning of life? How is reality made up? 8 The answers to the eternal questions of the Sphinx: Whence? How? and Whither?, are given in the following presentation, which is not a new doctrine but has always been available for serious seekers, for whom the answer has been vitally important. 9 The researchers into reality inquired into the inmost essence of things and the true causes. They searched for answers to the questions What? and Why?. These questions, however, neither philosophy nor science will ever be able to answer. All attempts of ignorance to construct a metaphysics must fail. Esoterics alone can offer an explanation of the world. Science must be content with searching for answers to the question How?. Research shows that much can be achieved pursuing that path. 10 Neither scientific research nor philosophic speculation has been able to offer a rational explanation of the problem of existence, since they both lack the possibility of a knowledge of reality. As should be clear from the esoteric facts about the composition of matter, physical science can never explore the whole of material reality. Neither do the hypotheses and assumptions of philosophy provide any knowledge. However much you analyse the concepts, you cannot extract more from them than you once put into them. You either know the facts and factors
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or you do not know the facts. If you know the facts, it is sufficient to present them in order. If you do not know the facts, constructions are useless and proofs just persuasion to believe. Only facts can prove that you know and that knowledge is knowledge. There is no other possibility of knowing reality than the knowledge of facts. The intricate subtleties of philosophy are abortive attempts at substituting incomprehensible imaginative constructions for the missing facts. The true knowledge of reality is always immediately self-evident as soon as the necessary facts are available. People will never in the long run be content with a positivist, agnostic, or skeptic standpoint. They will always search after a rational explanation of existence. A rational world view is a need of reason. Such a world view is necessary merely because it releases man from the emergency solution of contenting himself with irrationalities or superstition. It is necessary also because it always furnishes the basis for the life view and for the conception of right. 11 Subjectivist philosophy, in order to counteract all too arbitrary speculations, has been obliged to demand universality and necessity of the theories capable of being accepted. Moreover, it has thought that the absence of logical contradictions was a criterion of truth. And all this for want of facts. 12 The esoteric knowledge furnishes facts that only those who have hastened ahead of evolution have been able to ascertain. Until all mankind will in due time have acquired that objective consciousness of the material existence of higher worlds, esoterics will remain authoritative. 13 Those who reject authoritative knowledge without further ado confuse self-determination with self-sufficience. Acute minds have accepted esoterics as being the most rational of all hypotheses. As far as we can see, it is rational and does not present any contradictions. As far as we can practically test it, it has proved to accord with reality. We shall reject it if this would not be the case in the future. We shall accept a more rational, a more correct view, if some such will appear. Such an argument needs no defence and is above criticism. 14 When examined esoterics proves to be equivalent to almost all metaphysical views that have appeared in the West. Esoterics is a synthesis of the science of the will (the magic of immemorial origin), of idealism, and materialism. The esoteric science of consciousness includes all the essential of philosophic idealism and spiritualism, and this it does, moreover, in an incomparably superior way. The esoteric science of matter gives a rational explanation entirely different from anything that philosophic materialism can offer. Esoterics shows the rationality of the hylozoics taught in the Greek mysteries. It gives a rational content to the gnostic trinitism, to Leibniz monadology, to Spinozas pantheism, to Schopenhauers idea of omnipotent blind will as the primordial force, to Hartmanns idea of the unconscious, to Spencers and Bergsons idea of evolution. Esoterics explains more than any other hypothesis, and this makes it more probable than any other hypothesis. Esoterics does not seek any believers. It appeals, by the concordance of its hypotheses and its explanations without contradictions, to everybodys common sense. Anyone who believes, who asks who has said it?, who needs an authority, and who on the word of authority can accept irrational views, shows by this that he is unable to judge for himself. The esoterician does not accept any other opinions than those which logically accord with the rational fundamentals of his system. 15 The esoteric system of knowledge is the common sense view of reality, the objective attitude in the use of esoteric facts. Reality is such as reason uncorrupted by subjectivism apprehends it. This remains an indispensable logical requirement. Such as we see reality it is not an illusion. Our apprehension is correct as far as we see reality. The knowledge of objects is the immediate, direct, objective apprehension of objects by consciousness. Consciousness apprehends the object directly and immediately in its material reality. Objective consciousness or more exactly: objectively determined consciousness is consciousness determined by the material object. 16 Esoterics teaches that material reality consists of a series of different atomic states, a series of successively higher kinds of matter. To them corresponds a series of different, successively higher 2

kinds of objective consciousness. Thus a whole series of different kinds of logically correct apprehension of reality is obtained. Each kind of objective consciousness can acquire a correct apprehension of its own material reality. All the different radically different kinds of apprehension of reality are equally determined by reality, each kind within the given limits of its kind of matter. Anyone who lacks the exact apprehension of reality within a lower kind of matter cannot acquire an exact apprehension of reality within higher kinds. 17 The esoteric world view must remain an hypothesis for those who lack higher objective consciousness. Even as an hypothesis, however, it makes up a logical system that by its freedom from inner contradictions, by its simplicity, clarity, rationality, universality is incomparably superior to any other metaphysical system. It demonstrates the suffocating narrowness of prevalent horizons and furnishes a total picture of reality that far surpasses the speculative resources of science and philosophy. But it does not pretend to be anything but a superstructure above the level of knowledge possible for man. On no single point does it conflict with reason based on facts, with the objective results of scientific research. On the contrary, it presupposes that research will some time achieve a direct connection to this superstructure. 18 It is true that esoterics becomes exoteric in being published, but it still deserves its name. One reason is that from the historical point of view it has long been esoteric. A second reason is that essential parts of it still remain esoteric, since people are far from ripe for the knowledge that confers real power. A third reason is that even in its published state it stands a good chance of remaining unknown to all but the independent, to all those who always resort to authorities, who reject everything they do not already know or have not been taught to comprehend. 19 The esoteric knowledge has been imparted in exclusive societies to the few who have had the qualifications. Such societies have existed in all ages and in all nations. It is perhaps possible to derive from reminiscences of them the widely spread predilection for secret orders with their parodic efforts of feigning to possess the mysterious symbols of a superior knowledge. The esoteric knowledge that was communicated in the various secret schools almost always found expression in a vast literature. As a precaution lest this literature were to fall into the hands of the uninitiated, the knowledge was deliberately disguised and thus made unintelligible to the unworthy, by which term they meant those who were too undeveloped as well as those who could abuse the power that the knowledge conferred. Exact concepts were protected against being comprehended by outsiders through carefully elaborated symbols, which were often intentionally wrought so as to be mistaken for actual facts and occurrences related. It stands to reason that this symbolism still remains esoteric without the necessary key to it. 20 During the years 1875-1950 increasingly more facts about the superphysical reality have been published by disciples of the planetary hierarchy, that fifth kingdom in nature which has hastened ahead of the rest of mankind in the development of consciousness. The planetary hierarchy has found that the time has come to liberate a totally disoriented mankind or at least serious seekers from the prevalent illusions and fictions. 21 Regrettably, these facts have been put together by incompetent people in such a manner that esoterics has been brought into ridicule and everything so-called occult has fallen into disrepute, which circumstances have been duly utilized by the enemies of truth. 22 Those who have taken pains to examine hylozoics critically have found that it is not just logically incontrovertible but also the only satisfactory working hypothesis. It cannot be anything else at mankinds present stage of development. But as one of the chiefs in the planetary hierarchy expresses the matter: The doctrine we promulgate, being the only true one, must, supported by such evidence as we are preparing to give, become ultimately triumphant as every other truth. 23 Also readers acquainted with occultism should find quite a number of as yet little known facts, which do not always agree with dogmas already fixed. The enormous material has been concentrated as much as possible, with the effect that this part of the book makes heavy reading, 3

the more so as it has not been possible to present the facts in the desirable consecutive order. Therefore the Esoteric World View must be read several times over. No acuity is necessary to comprehension, but certainly the ability to retain all the facts. Diffuse terms have been avoided, and the new, uniformly applied terminology has been reduced to a minimum, which is easily learned. Only a basic outline, a first schematic picture of reality, has of course been possible. The esoteric knowledge thoroughly different from the exoteric must be mastered gradually. No one could grasp, no one could present to the uninitiated a comprehensible, final esoteric world view. The principles must be understood first. This Esoteric World View contains the basic principles. Without a gradual understanding intelligibility would be precluded. Each step offers increasingly greater difficulties, which would be unsurmountable without the help of the preceding simple facts. One must avoid adhering too early to theories based on insufficient facts. 24 The following outline thus is given for the benefit of those who have seen the irremediable limitation of speculative philosophy, and who can liberate themselves from traditional views. It is a summary of the common content of the doctrines of the various secret societies of knowledge together with complementary facts. The world view presented diverges from prevalent occult systems in important respects. 25 Since all the chapters presuppose one another, the best method of study is probably to read the Esoteric World View several times over, each time at one sitting and not dwelling on any chapter, until all the facts combine in your subconscious. Using this method you will master the system, which makes it possible to solve a great number of problems otherwise unsolvable. 2.2 Matter It is the same with the history of philosophy as with all other history. It is a construction of scanty, dubitable pieces of information and assumptions. When the esoteric history will some time be written, it will be seen that what is called history belongs to the realm of fiction in important respects. 2 The most ancient philosophers were initiates of esoteric schools, the so-called mysteries. What was taught in these remained secret. Historians have tried to construct some sort of first attempts at thinking from some of the philosophers misunderstood statements that were accidentally preserved. As though thinking made its start only in 600 B.C. The lite of Atlanteans, Indians, Chaldeans, Egyptians and other nations possessed esoteric knowledge. They had no use of philosophy, which is the speculation of ignorance. The Greek term for esoterics was hylozoics. According to hylozoics, matter consists of atoms that have proper motion and consciousness. Potential and actual consciousness were distinguished. One hylozoic tenet read: Consciousness sleeps in the stone, dreams in the plant, awakens in the animal, and becomes self-conscious in man. This indicates the original unconsciousness (potentiality of consciousness) as well as the activation of consciousness into increasingly higher kinds (the idea of development). 3 Of course, such tenets made hylozoics known only in an extremely fragmentary form. Demokritos, who was an initiate, attempted an exoteric theory within the limits of the permissible. His matter lacked both proper motion and consciousness. And thus begins the speculation of ignorance, or the history of philosophy. 4 The mystery schools declined. As they decayed they began to substitute speculation for a traditional knowledge of reality. Platon, who foresaw the decline, made attempts to save as much of the knowledge as possible through hints. Aristoteles failed, like all the subsequent philosophers, in his attempt to give mankind a tenable system of knowledge without esoterics. 5 Hylozoics is the only rational materialism. It presupposes that consciousness is a quality of all matter, also inorganic. This doctrine has been superficially rejected by the philosophers. Kants summary verdict, hylozoism would be the death of all natural philosophy, is typical. As though chemistry, physics, geology, or astronomy would be affected by this fact in their methods
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of research. As though physiology and biology would be the worse for having a new factor to allow for. Natural philosophy is a subject that we have fortunately been spared ever since natural research superseded speculation. Hylozoics does not in the least prevent a mechanical conception of natural processes. It does in no way alter the objective view taken by science. 6 On the other hand, philosophical materialism suffers from incurable defects and is not usable even as a working hypothesis. It cannot explain consciousness, its origin, its unity. It cannot explain motion. It has not fully understood that matter makes up a continuum, although this has been assumed by some scientists and has been given its most appropriate formulation in Poincars thesis: atoms are just voids in the ether. The fact that the physicists have rejected this primitive theory of the ether shows a greater knowledge of the nature of matter. 7 Natural science and technology have fully demonstrated that visible reality and also the invisible, the as yet only partially explored, part of the physical reality are material reality. The subjectivists also denied that the invisible could be matter. They accepted the traditional conjecture that since matter was visible and its basis apparently invisible, then that invisible must be something different from matter, something subjective. Of course they soon went a step further and denied the objective existence of matter. There are subjectivists of two kinds psychologicists and logicists. Esoterics deprecates both, of course. 8 In contrast to such arbitrary speculations esoterics maintains that matter is alive and possesses all the known or as yet unexplored properties of life. All qualities of reality are properties of matter. All matter is life and there is no life but material life. 9 The visible material reality must from the physical point of view be regarded as the most real of everything. Matter is the objective reality and the coarsest kind of matter is the most objective. The unknown and unexplored cannot possibly be declared more real than the observable and explored. 10 In order to arrive at a correct conception of matter science must make two discoveries: that energy has a material nature; and that invisible matter, which is beyond the matter at present accessible by instruments, is matter still. 2.3 Matter and Energy Only natural science provided reason with facts about reality. Before it, the inevitable conjectures of ignorance held sovereign sway. As far as science can ascertain facts about matter and energies, its concepts of these are of course correct. The hypotheses and theories that complement the observations are, however, erroneous. 2 Matter is enormously more composed than the boldest hypotheses have ever dared to assume. Science knows of three states of aggregation of physical matter: solid, liquid, and gaseous. In actual fact, there are seven states of physical matter, and where physical matter ends a new kind of matter begins, which is inaccessible even to scientific instruments. Without the esoteric explanation the composition of matter remains an unsolvable problem. 3 The energy theory of physics is erroneous. Principally thermodynamics suggested the immediate, fascinating, and erroneous idea of the indestructibility of energy. There is no energy without matter, independent of matter, or acting through anything but matter. Energy is energy only as long as it is motion. When motion ceases, energy as force is annihilated. Energy cannot be converted. No form of energy can be turned into another form. The apparent conversions thought to be observed are not processes of conversion but of parallelism. The latter concept is as yet lacking in scientific physics. 4 What science calls force, or energy, is matter. Energy is matter, the action of higher matter on lower matter. All higher kinds of matter are energy in relation to lower kinds. Any kind of matter relates to its next lower kind as energy to matter. Matter dissolves, not into energy but into higher kinds of matter.
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2.4 Matter and Consciousness Matter and consciousness, body and soul, is the ordinary, immediately given opposition and union. Dualism appears to be the natural, the correct view. If, like Descartes, you call matter and consciousness different substances, or, like Spinoza, one substance with two attributes, yet matter and consciousness remain two different principles, two different aspects. In dualism can also be included the theory of psycho-physical parallelism, or duplicism, which quotes Spinoza as its authority. 2 If consciousness could be thought to exist without matter, then consciousness itself must be something substantial. Therefore Descartes conceived of immaterial substance as a substratum for consciousness, whereas Spinoza correctly assumed the same as hylozoics teaches, namely that the known matter is the bearer of consciousness, that without matter there cannot be any consciousness. 3 It may be pointed out against Descartes that immaterial substance is a fiction. There is no substance but matter. There is nothing immaterial. Therefore, this dualism should, strictly speaking, be just another name for materialism. Science attributes consciousness, not to all matter but only to nerve cells, or possibly all organic matter. A consistent dualism cannot attribute to some matter a quality that must belong to all matter. The two different aspects, matter and consciousness, cannot be made identical or parallel. A monism obtained in that way is just a play on words. The different aspects are always abstractions from a reality that is unitary in itself. Neither can consciousness be explained by or from matter. And that which cannot be explained by something else is itself original and its own basis. Consciousness is as absolute as matter. 4 Psycho-physical parallelism deprives both matter and consciousness of all independence. Moreover, it lacks the possibility of explaining satisfactorily force, energy, proper motion, will. Consciousness without will is passive. 5 According to esoterics reality has three aspects. None of these three can be omitted or explained away without the result being unclear, contradictory, misleading. The three aspects are:
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the matter aspect the motion aspect the consciousness aspect. Moreover, as regards the theory of knowledge, everything is above all what it appears to be, but besides that, always something different and immensely more. 2.5 Visible and Invisible Material Reality It is just an insignificant part of the invisible material reality that science has succeeded in exploring by instruments. Thus science has been able to discover the existence of chemical atoms and energies. When, in the future, the resources of exploring reality by instrumental means have been exhausted, the total reality will certainly not have been explored thereby. Just the resources of instrumental science will have reached their limit and, with them, those of scientific research. The greater part of material reality remains inaccessible even by the most perfected physical methods of research. 2 Esoterics maintains that there is an unexplored material world and that there is a boundary for all beings between perceptible and imperceptible material reality. However, this boundary is always just temporary and conditioned by the stage of development reached by consciousness. Impelled by the will, consciousness gradually expands its domain of objective consciousness. At mankinds present stage of development, being the lowest, most people are objectively conscious of the three lower states of physical matter. Mans objective consciousness is at its first stage of
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development. Consciousness possesses, however, all the necessary conditions of gradually acquiring objective consciousness of the entire invisible, as yet imperceptible, material reality. All reality can be apprehended by sufficiently developed objective consciousness. 3 The greater part of the matter aspect of reality is invisible at present. If we include the entire manifestation, then circa 99 per cent of matter is invisible. If we confine our discussion to the worlds of man, then circa 85 per cent of matter is invisible to others than those who have acquired higher objective consciousness. And only a small fraction of the matter in these worlds is subjectively, or psychically, perceptible to the normal individual. Much of what is solely subjective to the normal individual is thus what he cannot as yet be objectively conscious of and, consequently, cannot refer to material reality. 4 If we were reduced to our knowledge of the visible world only and that accessible by instruments, we should finally realize that reality was incomprehensible. We should be forced to refrain from all explanation, all comprehension, and exclusively content ourselves with description. But without being able to explain the causal relationships and what goes on in that which goes on, we would never find an explanation of the world to satisfy reason with. Reason demands an explanation and is not content with statistics. Everything that exists is a fact for anyone who can ascertain it. 2.6 Biological Evolution and Finality Nature is a vast experimental workshop. In it, originally given constituents are being eternally combined and dissolved under the action of originally given factors. There is in everything a tendency to transformation depending on, among other things, the eternal attraction and repulsion of the atoms and the mechanical striving of the lowest atomic consciousness towards adaptation. 2 Esoterics agrees with biological science in asserting that species are changeable, that new species arise from older ones through transformation, that all forms of life have an inner continuity and a common, natural origin, in the last resort through spontaneous generation (generatio spontanea, or aequivoca), the natural transition from the mineral to the vegetable kingdom. Acquired qualities are inherited through the predispositions that made their acquisition possible. In contrast to Darwin, esoterics maintains that biological struggle for existence is certainly not a necessary factor of evolution, but what is unfit for life is rejected in accordance with natures order. 3 That methodical view, which regards the finality, or purposiveness, of nature as a product of blind necessity and mechanical processes, must be assigned a definite superiority to any other attempt at explanation, and must always be applied when possible. The immutability of the laws of nature is the condition of a systematic process of life. The mechanical process is a condition of evolution, but is insufficient as a sole basis of explanation. 4 The purposive structure of organisms is obtained through functional self-formation. The never-ending mechanical repetition makes possible a relatively enduring change of the structure of matter through proficiency gained and brought to automatization. 5 Evolution and finality are partially the common result of interaction between mechanical repetition and atomic consciousness, and largely depend on automatization of matter and its consciousness. Atoms have the possibility of consciousness. Consciousness manifests itself to begin with as a tendency to repetition, which becomes a tendency to habit, and can gradually result in organized habit, or nature. When consciousness increases, a striving towards adaptation arises. 6 The relative finality of nature does not aim at the perfection of every material form. Nature is content to safeguard the continuance of the species. Self-realization is a law of life, valid at all stages of development. That law grants freedom, or the possibility of choice, and, thereby, of individual character. The seeming waste of life affords ever greater possibilities of choice the
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more consciousness increases and the further mechanical proficiency advances through automatization. Nature makes experience possible. And the atomic consciousness learns, even though slowly, from all experiences, not least from the failures of its temporary form of life.

THE MATTER ASPECT OF REALITY

THE SEPTENARY The 49 cosmic worlds are divided into seven series of seven worlds in each series. The division into septenaries is due to the fact that the three aspects of existence can be combined in seven different ways as shown below. The table makes it easier to analyse the composition of matter, the relations of the aspects, the seven types and departments.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

123 12 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3

1 = the will aspect (the motion aspect) 2 = the consciousness aspect 3 = the matter aspect

2.7 Introduction The following is an attempt, using the scientific concepts of our time, to describe our existence in the cosmos according to the basic facts that were taught in the Pythagorean order of esoteric knowledge. That order was founded considering the future independent exploration of reality by natural science starting from the matter aspect. 2 In the present expos of Pythagorean hylozoics, all the ingeniously elaborated symbols have been finally discarded, being misleading and of course misinterpreted. The consistent mathematical nomenclature presented here explains in part the Pythagorean mystical interpretation of numbers. 3 The uninitiated, who does not have the knowledge latently from previous incarnations, enters seemingly into a strange world, the world of reality. May the reader be able to quickly orient himself in it.
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2.8 Involvation Primordial matter is limitless space, spaceless and timeless, beyond space and time, or whatever expression you choose. 2 In the endless chaos of primordial matter there is room for an unlimited number of cosmoses. 3 Innumerable cosmoses are in the making, innumerable cosmoses have accomplished their purpose and are being dismantled. 4 A cosmos can be likened to a globe in primordial matter. Its original dimensions are small, but it grows incessantly, being supplied with primordial atoms from the inexhaustible store of primordial matter. 5 Our cosmos can be said to have reached such a stage of development that one is justified in speaking of a perfect cosmic organization. 6 A cosmos fully built out consists of a series of interpenetrating material worlds of different degrees of density, which worlds occupy the same space in the cosmos (space originates only with the cosmos) and fill up the cosmic globe. 7 The cosmic worlds are 49 in number, a necessary number but also the greatest possible number, the limit of dimensional capacity. 8 The cosmos with its worlds arises through the composition of primordial atoms (monads) into 49 different kinds of atoms. This process of composition is called involvation. The lower the kind of atom, the more involved are the primordial atoms. Involvation implies a process of enormously increasing condensation of more and more primordial atoms. 9 The involvation of the atomic kinds is done in such a manner that the next lower atomic kind in the series is formed out of the next higher kind. Primordial atoms are of atomic kind 1. Atomic kind 2 is formed out of atomic kind 1, 3 out of 2, 4 out of 3, etc. The highest atomic kind is 1, the lowest atomic kind is 49. The greater the number of primordial atoms composing the atom of a lower kind, the coarser its kind of matter. 10 The lowest atomic kind (49) thus contains atoms of all the 48 higher kinds and possesses the greatest number (billions) of involved primordial atoms. In physical matter exist all other kinds of matter as well as primordial matter. Without an uninterrupted continuity of the different atomic kinds the atoms could neither function nor even exist. 11 Each atomic world has (besides its own kind of atoms) its own kind of space (dimension), time (duration, continuous existence), motion (energy), and consciousness with its own apprehension of space and time. 12 The 49 atomic kinds are divided into a continuous series of seven groups of seven atomic kinds in each: 17, 814, 1521, 2228, 2935, 3642, 4349. Although there are no terms for these 49 atomic kinds, yet it would be meaningless to attribute a name to each of these realities not ascertainable by man. Since it is desirable to have an international, universally acceptable
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terminology that would not present linguistic obstacles, the mathematical nomenclature has been used consistently. Since the worlds are built out from above, the numeration has also been made to start from the highest world. 13 The numbers three and seven, which recur in various contexts, are explained thus. Three is determined by the three absolute aspects of existence: the motion aspect, the consciousness aspect, and the matter aspect, which are indissolubly united without any confusion or conversion. Seven is the number of possible combinations of three: one combination where the three aspects are equal and strong, and six combinations where the aspects dominate one another in succession (see the diagram prefacing this section). 14 The process of involvation is of course paralleled by a process of evolvation, of dissolution of matter. These terms can also be used when discussing incarnation and discarnation: involvation is descent into lower worlds and evolvation is ascent to higher worlds. 15 All the atomic worlds exist everywhere in the cosmos. The terms higher and lower atomic worlds thus bear on the mathematical notations (and mainly imply differences in primordial atomic density, dimension, etc.). The higher worlds penetrate the lower ones. The 49 atomic worlds form one integrated sphere, our cosmos. The molecular worlds form spheres of their own within the solar system, starting from the centres of the planets. 16 The planetary worlds are globular. The spherical formation of matter is due to the fact that the kinds of matter have been ordered concentrically round an original centre of force. Each higher molecular kind has a somewhat greater radius (as measured from the centre of the planet) than the next lower one. 17 In every world there exist involvatory matter, involutionary matter, and evolutionary matter, of the respective atomic and molecular kinds. The worlds are always populated by material beings who have envelopes, or envelopes, composed of the matter of the worlds and consciousness corresponding to that matter. 18 The three lowest atomic worlds (4749) make up five different molecular worlds, which have been called the worlds of man, since man has envelopes composed of the matter of these five worlds, and since the evolution of human consciousness takes place in these worlds. During incarnation, man is an organism with an etheric envelope in the physical world, a material emotional being in the emotional world, a material mental being in the mental world, and a material causal being in the causal world. It should be evident from this that there cannot exist immaterial spiritual beings of any kind. There exists nothing immaterial. 19 The causal world (47:2,3) has also been called the world of ideas and the world of knowledge; the mental world (47:4-7), the world of fictions; and the emotional world (48:2-7), the world of illusions. The physical etheric world is the world of etheric energies. 20 The physical etheric world is an exact replica of the visible world (49:5-7) in etheric matter. The material forms of the visible world (the organisms of the natural kingdoms, for example) are replicas of the physical etheric forms. On other planets, also the life forms of the visible world are composed of molecules only and not of cells. In reality, the physical etheric world and the visible world make up one single world. However, before mankind has acquired physical etheric objective consciousness, the etheric world appears to be a world of its own, and this justifies the division of the physical world into two worlds. 21 Without the etheric forms there would be no visible or dense forms, without etheric matter no physical life, no physical motion, and no physical consciousness. 22 The causal world is sometimes called the formless world, a misleading expression. The causal world is filled with the forms of the natural kingdoms existing in that matter. The term formless has been assigned to that world, since the vibrations of evolutionary beings in causal matter do not form any material aggregates, as occurs in the emotional and mental worlds. The manifestations of causal consciousness do not produce any forms but rather colour phenomena that dissolve at

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lightning speed. 23 In every world there is a distinction between the sphere and the envelope. Spheres and envelopes of the same kind of matter occupy the same space in the concentric formation of matter. The sphere denotes the rotatory matter of the world. The envelope is the part of the world consisting of involutionary and evolutionary matter. Envelopes make up unitary elementals, which are activated by collective beings. Envelopes thus correspond to the aggregate envelopes of evolutionary beings. 2.9 Involution Involution begins after the molecular matters of the solar system and their naturally grouped concentric worlds have been completely formed. 2 Involvation and evolvation, involution and evolution, are four different processes of matter, which condition one another. Every atomic kind undergoes these four processes. Involvation concerns the composition of matter to form ever coarser kinds; evolvation, the corresponding process of dissolution. Involvation and evolvation should not be confused with involution and evolution. 3 Involution is a second process of involvation undergone by matter already involved once before. Thus involvatory matter (primary matter) and involutionary matter (secondary matter) are distinguished. In the first involvation the atoms of primary matter acquire rotatory motion, the same kind of motion as has the primordial atom. In due time, this primary matter is dissolved, whereupon in a second involvation primary matter is transformed into involutionary matter. 4 Primary matter is rotatory matter. The atom rotates round its axis with enormous rapidity. To this motion is added, through the process of involution, a cyclic spiral motion (which the ancients called the elemental essence), in which the atom revolves round a central, focal point in a constantly ascending spiral. 5 The rotatory motion of the atom of primary matter makes the formation of molecules possible. The rotatory cyclic spiral motion of secondary matter makes it possible to form aggregates, material forms. This makes it possible to construct and progressively differentiate the series of ever higher, ever more refined forms of life, which serve to afford consciousness, step by step, with the different organs it needs for the slow activation of molecular consciousness. 6 Secondary matter is called involutionary or elemental matter. In the process of involution, the unconsciousness of the atom is awakened to passive consciousness in and of the material kind into which the atom is involved. 7 In all the worlds of the solar system there exists primary matter; and in all the worlds except the physical molecular, also involutionary matter. The composition of matter is the same for both kinds: one atomic state and six molecular states. The condition of becoming involutionary matter in a lower world is to have been involutionary matter in a higher world.
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2.10 The Solar System After the cosmos has been built out with its 49 atomic kinds, solar systems can be formed by means of a further involvation of the seven lowest atomic kinds (4349) to form molecular matter. Each solar system accomplishes this process of involvation by itself. 2 Each one of the seven lowest atomic kinds (4349) furnishes the material for six increasingly involved molecular kinds, in which process like the composition of atomic matter the next lower kind is composed out of the next higher kind, so that each lower kind has an increasingly condensed content of primordial atoms. Molecular matter is composed in such a manner that the atomic kinds with their molecular kinds form a continuous series of states of aggregation. Thus, a total of 42 molecular kinds is obtained, and these make up the solar system.
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The seven atomic kinds 4349 are the basis of the division of the worlds of the solar system. For reasons of convenience these seven worlds have been given names beside the mathematical notations: 43 44 45 46 47 48 49
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the manifestal world the submanifestal world the superessential world the essential world, the world of unity, wisdom, and love the causal-mental world the emotional world the worlds of man the physical world

The six molecular kinds involved from each atomic kind have been given analogous names and mathematical notations: (1 atomic) 2 subatomic 3 superetheric 4 etheric 5 gaseous 6 liquid 7 solid The figure for each molecular kind (state of aggregation) is put after that denoting the atomic kind. Thus the physical gaseous molecular kind is written 49:5. 6 The three higher solar systemic worlds (4345) are common to all the planets. The four lower worlds (4649) are called planetary worlds. 7 When involution has reached its goal, the emotional world (48), the involutionary atoms pass to the mineral kingdom of the physical world (49), and evolution begins. There is no involutionary matter in the physical molecular world. But of course there are involutionary beings in the emotional world, which penetrates the physical world. Likewise, however many beings from as many different worlds can gather in the same space. 2.11 Elementals All primordial atoms have potential consciousness, which is called to life (passive, reflective consciousness) in the process of involution. 2 Being bears on the matter aspect. All material forms with a unitary consciousness are beings. 3 Involutionary beings, or elementals, are aggregates of involutionary atoms and involutionary molecules. Permanent, semipermanent, and shortlived elementals are distinguished. The permanent ones are material envelopes of evolutionary beings, the temporary ones are other vibrational products. 4 The elemental kingdoms are named after their kinds of matter, after the worlds they belong to. The boundaries between the elemental kingdoms are thus determined by their kinds of matter. 5 Viewed from the consciousness aspect, involution is the process that actualizes consciousness, and evolution is the process that activates consciousness. The consciousness of primary matter is potential. To begin with, primordial atoms have just the possibility of consciousness. In involutionary matter, unconsciousness awakens into passive consciousness, which means that this matter lacks the possibility of will and self-activity, that the will is just potential. Through the
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process of evolution, evolutionary matter acquires the possibility of will and self-activity, and passive consciousness is activated into active consciousness. 6 In the worlds of man the following main kinds of elementals belonging to three involutionary kingdoms are found: causal elementals mental elementals emotional elementals Elementals are formed by vibrations in involutionary matter. By itself this matter lacks the possibility of self-initiated activity and cannot itself form aggregates, affect matter, or produce vibrations. On the other hand, it is extremely easily affected by the faintest vibrations. 8 A mans thought produces a vibration in his mental envelope and ejects out of this envelope a portion of its involutionary matter into the mental world surrounding the envelope. The matter ejected immediately assumes a particular form determined by the subject-matter of the thought, a concrete image formed by the thought. This form has its own capacity of vibration, which is of the same quality as the original vibration in the man. The vibration of the thought-form communicates itself to the surrounding mental elemental matter, which is affected by it and is attracted to the thought-form. The original form will then be the nucleus of a greater aggregate with the same kind of form and with similar vibrations and qualities. This aggregate is a mental elemental, which floats about freely and soon dissolves, being reduced to its previous constituents. Correspondingly, an emotional elemental is formed by the emotions of a man or some other evolving being, and a causal elemental by an intuition. Even the faintest unconscious initial impulse is obeyed with perfect precision. Elementals are material forms with activated consciousness and energy. Elementals act as perfect robots automatically copying the original vibration. The vitality and durability of the elemental are directly proportional to the act of consciousness that formed it. Through the never-ending process of formation and dissolution of elementals, which continues for seven eons in each elemental kingdom, the atoms and molecules of involutionary matter learn to form aggregates at lightning speed, to respond to all vibrations existing in matter, to reproduce in molecular composition and material form the faintest vibrational variations with unerring precision. 9 The process of involution is activation of consciousness from without. Elemental matter at rest, that is: not activated, can only be passive. The elemental, however, is always active. To cease to be active is the same as to dissolve. 10 The expression physical elementals often met with in occult literature is improper. What is meant are emotional elementals that have been clothed in physical etheric matter. There are no elementals in physical molecular matter (49:2-7). They exist, however, in physical atomic matter (49:1). 2.12 Evolution The process of involution concluded, the potential consciousness of the involutionary monads has been actualized into passive consciousness. Then follows the process of evolution, which begins with the involvation of the emotional elementals into physical molecular kinds (into subatomic, superetheric, etheric, gaseous, liquid molecules, and finally into minerals). This entire process of involvation is regarded as part of the process of mineralization, and the pertaining beings are classed among the mineral kingdom. 2 The process of evolution means that passive consciousness is being activated until, in the human kingdom when it has acquired self-consciousness, it can continue the activation of consciousness methodically and systematically by itself.
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Evolution implies for the matter aspect the beginning of an ascent from physical matter to less composed, ever finer, ever higher matter; a return of primordial atoms to the highest atomic kind. Evolution means a continual transformation towards perfection: for the matter aspect, into full automatization, so that dynamis (the dynamic energy of primordial matter) functions automatically without being supervised by consciousness; for the will aspect, into full activity; for the consciousness aspect, into full objective self-consciousness in ever higher worlds. From the biological point of view, evolution means development of physical matter towards more purposive organic forms of life. 4 The human evolution the path of development from mineral to man is the term for the transmigration of the triads through the mineral, vegetable, animal, and human kingdoms. With man, evolution in the five lowest worlds (4749) has reached its goal and expansion begins. Evolution is by the time-standards of ignorance a slow process. Its tempo is to some extent determined by that of involution, since both processes condition one another. 5 The explanations of the origin of species given by the biological theory of evolution are by no means the only ones, though they are correct in many respects. One factor is the cellular consciousness in the collective cell formations of the organisms, which works as though instinctively, under the impulses of the will. This consciousness displays power of activity, selectivity, and adaptability. 6 Involution means the involvation of the monads into the lowest cosmic world (49); evolution, their return to the highest cosmic world (1). 7 All life has a form, from atom, molecule, aggregate, to planet, solar system, and cosmic worlds. These forms are subject to the law of transformation, change continually, dissolve, and reform. Change is the condition of life. All forms endure thanks only to the fact that every moment primordial atoms (primary matter) pour through them, which atoms circulate from the highest to the lowest atomic world and back to continue their cycle as long as the cosmos exists. No forms of matter can be built so as to withstand the wear of the cosmic material energies in the long run. Besides, the consciousness development of the individual would be impeded by the permanence of his form. Continually new experiences in always new forms are an accelerating factor of great importance. This can be seen in those beings in nature that have the same envelopes during thousands of years. Their tempo of development is accordingly slow. 8 The monads (primordial atoms) make up as viewed from the physical an ascending series of ever higher forms of life, in which lower ones enter into and make up envelopes for the higher ones. The entire cosmos makes up a series of increasingly refined forms of life, which serve gradually to furnish the monad consciousness with the organs it needs for its further expansion. 9 Evolution presents a series of ever higher natural kingdoms with enormously increased capacity of consciousness, intensively and extensively. 10 Every monad is found somewhere on this immense ladder of development, where depending on its age: the moment of its introduction into the cosmos, or its transition from a lower to a higher natural kingdom. 11 Evolution is divided into five natural kingdoms and seven divine kingdoms. The planetary worlds (4649) contain the natural kingdoms; the solar systemic worlds (4349), the lowest divine kingdom; and the cosmic worlds (142), the other six. 2.13 Evolutionary Beings Purposive material forms are necessary to the activation of consciousness. In all manifestation there are material basic forms representing different paths of development, different modes of evolution, different form-beings. The material basic forms necessary to manifestation are as many permanent paths of evolution. All of them offer possibilities of activating consciousness. Mans
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belief that he is the supreme product of existence and that everything exists of this sole purpose, is one of the countless errors of ignorance. 2 Every primordial atom will some time become an independent being, a self. All compositions of matter are collective beings. The unit of consciousness dominating in each being is an atom at a higher stage of development than the other atoms in the collective. Atoms and molecules develop by forming constituent parts of various material forms, wherever a form is required. Evolution makes up one single uninterrupted series of beings, from the lowest to the highest stage of development. 3 Evolutionary beings in the worlds of man (4749) belong to either of the following groups divided according to their kinds of matter: physical beings, inorganic physical beings, organic physical beings, etheric emotional beings mental beings causal beings Nature takes no leaps. The evolutionary kingdoms have subdivisions according to the different states of aggregation. Each molecular kind means the lowest material form for some kind of evolutionary beings. In respect of matter, a being is named after its lowest material envelope. In respect of consciousness, a being is named after its most active kind of consciousness. All envelopes that are not organic (that is: most beings in the physical world and all beings in the higher worlds) are aggregate envelopes. 5 All physical matter (inorganic, organic, etheric) belongs to evolution. From of old the visible natural kingdoms have been divided into inorganic and organic kingdoms. The boundary between mineral and organism is not insuperable. Organic beings develop through the vegetable, animal, and human kingdoms, being equipped with or rather limited by special sense organs. 6 Existence can be compared to a gigantic laboratory and an experimental field with inexhaustible resources. Through various compositions of matter new kinds of manifestational beings can be formed, with possibilities of individually unique experiences resulting in new qualities and abilities. All manifestations resemble each other in their basic methods, which are determined by law. None of them resemble any other in its details. The innumerable possibilities of combination inherent in matter are utilized, and no practicable way is left untested. 7 The entire cosmos makes up one continuous process of manifestation, in which all monads participate with their consciousness expressions, unconsciously or consciously, involuntarily or voluntarily. The higher the world and kingdom, the higher the kind of consciousness; the greater the contribution to the process of manifestation made by the monad. 8 When the monad has gone through involution and evolution of the process of manifestation, emancipated itself from its involvation into matter, then it becomes conscious of itself acquired and discarded its envelopes in world after world, and, finally, in the highest cosmic world has as a monad. Until then it will identify itself with one or other of the envelopes which it has acquired and activated. 2.14 The Natural Kingdoms All evolutionary beings form natural kingdoms. To make the subject easier to understand, it has proved desirable to orient in it according to the accepted division.
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The following six natural kingdoms are found in the solar system: the first, the second, the third, the fourth, the fifth, the sixth, the mineral kingdom the vegetable kingdom the animal kingdom the human kingdom the essential kingdom the manifestal kingdom

in worlds 4749 in worlds 45 and 46 in worlds 43 and 44

When the individual has acquired full subjective and objective self-consciousness in his causal envelope in the causal world and thus has become a causal self, then his consciousness development in the four lower natural kingdoms is concluded. Thereupon begins the individuals consciousness expansion in the fifth natural kingdom. 4 The monads in the fifth and sixth natural kingdoms are termed, according to their respective kinds of world consciousness: essential selves, or superessential selves, or submanifestal selves, or manifestal selves, or
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46-selves 45-selves 44-selves 43-selves

As a 45-self, the superessential world of the solar system, common to all the planets, is at the individuals disposal; as a 43-self, all the systemic worlds are at his command. When, subsequently, the individual conquers 42-consciousness, he enters into the first cosmic kingdom, or the second divine kingdom; and this marks the beginning of his career through the interstellar, cosmic, worlds. 6 The individuals in both the essential and manifestal kingdoms are members of the planetary hierarchy, the task of which is to supervise consciousness development in the four lower natural kingdoms. 7 The planetary hierarchy is subordinate to the planetary government, which sees to it that all processes of nature in the planet go on with perfect precision. Into this government can enter individuals who have attained the second divine kingdom (worlds 3642). 8 The planetary government, in its turn, belongs under the solar systemic government, which has all the planetary governments of the solar system under its jurisdiction. The members of the solar systemic government belong to the third divine kingdom (worlds 2935). 9 Although the present Esoteric World View has been confined to evolution in the worlds of the solar system (4349), yet the following survey is given of the further, cosmic, evolution, divided among six different cosmic kingdoms: Worlds 3642 2935 2228 1521 814 17 Cosmic kingdoms first, second third fourth fifth sixth, with 42-selves to 36-selves, etc.

with 7-selves to 1-selves

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Seven divine kingdoms are enumerated in esoterics, the manifestal kingdom being considered the first divine kingdom, since manifestal selves are omniscient and omnipotent in the worlds of the solar system (4349). The highest kingdom (17) is consequently called the seventh divine kingdom. 11 When a sufficient number of monads have succeeded in working their way up to the highest divine kingdom, then this collective being is able to leave its cosmic globe in order to begin to build out a cosmic globe of its own in primordial matter, the material being primordial atoms taken from the inexhaustible store of the primordial manifestation. 2.15 The Chain of Triads The evolution leading up to man is characterized by the development through triads, which makes it possible to have consciousness in several worlds simultaneously. 2 The chain of triads, called even more expressively the monad ladder, consists of three triads linked together. 3 The chain of triads forms a chain of consciousness, as it were, linking the physical atom (49) of the lowest triad to a manifestal atom (43), and can be compared to a ladder which the monad is to climb from world 49 to world 43. The three units of the three triads form the nine coils of this ladder. 4 The triad is a permanent unit consisting of one molecule and two atoms. The molecule is of the fourth (etheric) molecular kind of a kind of matter with an odd number. The atoms are of the two next lower kinds. 5 The triad is called so because it consists of these three units.
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The first, or lowest triad consists of: a physical atom (49:1) an emotional atom (48:1) an etheric mental molecule (47:4) The second triad consists of: a mental atom (47:1) an essential atom (46:1) an etheric superessential molecule (45:4) The third triad consists of: a superessential atom (45:1) a submanifestal atom (44:1) an etheric manifestal molecule (43:4)

The triads are enclosed in envelopes (envelopes) of involutionary matter. The envelope of the first triad is the causal envelope (47:1-3). The envelope of the second triad is of superessential elemental matter (45:1-3). The envelope of the third triad consists of manifestal involutionary matter (43:1-3). 10 The triad units are held together mutually by a magnetic line of force similar to an electric arc (which the ancients called the silver cord). Along this path the exchange of energies is conveyed between the triad units and through the latter between the envelopes and the kinds of matter of the different worlds.

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The monad is enclosed in: the first triad during its sojourn in the fourth natural kingdom (as a man, a first self), the second triad in the fifth kingdom (the second self), the third triad in the sixth kingdom (the third self).

The triad units and their material envelopes affect each other mutually. The experiences of the envelopes become those of the triad, and the vibrations of the triad unit determine the envelopes composition of coarse or fine molecular matter. Vibrational capacity indicates the level of development attained. An envelope fully developed and perfectly organized presupposes the corresponding perfection of the triad. The vibrations in the triad units attract and repel, among other activity, so as to make the action of the emotional and mental envelopes a rhythmic suction and ejection of matter, similar to the action of a heart or lung. 13 Some of the tasks of the triad units are: to form and maintain the envelopes, to be centres of the exchange of energies, to make up an indestructible memory (although accessible only indirectly), to make it possible to preserve ability acquired, to make it easier to assimilate experience gained, to centralize and synthesize threefold consciousness. The triads mental molecule is the most important unit. It is the prerequisite of sense and reason as well as it makes it possible for the triad collective consciousness to gather sense perceptions, emotions, and thoughts into a conceivable whole. It makes it possible for the monad in the triad to turn mental vibrations into concrete thoughts; to think in the organism via the mental, emotional, etheric envelopes, and the cerebro-spinal nervous system; to work up the experiences of the envelopes in their worlds; to apprehend vibrations comprehensibly; to turn intuitions into concrete thought. 14 The triad units are part of evolutionary matter. The triad is put together out of loose evolutionary atoms and molecules, which develop to some extent by entering into various compositions and being activated in them by more developed atoms and molecules. The triad makes up an envelope and serves as an instrument for the monad, by analogy with the service of the aggregate envelope to the triad. The triads are self-active to some extent, since they are evolutionary beings, but this self-activity is negligible as compared with that of the monad and is totally dominated by the latter, conforming to it. 15 The method of triads facilitates evolution in the solar systemic worlds with their enormous atomic density. The monad has an opportunity of living in up to five worlds (4749) simultaneously in the first triad already. A collective system is also produced that makes the work of the individual beneficent to many. In the relatively free cosmic worlds the triad method is superfluous. 16 When triad activity is mentioned in the following, this always implies monad activity in and through the triad. 2.16 The Monad The monad is a primordial atom. The monad is the smallest possible part of primordial matter and the smallest possible firm point for individual consciousness. The monads are the sole indestructible things in the universe. 2 By the term monad is meant the individuals matter aspect; and by the term self, the individuals consciousness aspect. 3 The monad (atomic kind 1) is involved into a manifestal atom (atomic kind 43), which of course implies that the monad is involved into the atomic kinds of the entire series of 243. Once liberated from systemic involvations, the monad ascends through this series of atoms contained in the 43-atom. The monad retains this 43-atom until it has returned to its original condition (atomic kind 1) from cosmic involvation. The monad is dominant (the incomparably farthest developed and most active primordial atom) in all the atomic kinds into which it is involved.
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Before the primordial atom can become a monad in a triad, it has experienced three total involvatory and evolvatory processes. In the first process it is part of rotatory matter; in the second process, of involutionary matter; in the third process, it has been part of various kinds of aggregates or triads as a free evolutionary atom; finally to become, in the fourth process, a monad in a triad. Thereby it has got the prerequisite of being objectively self-conscious in triads as well as activating them and, through them, all kinds of matter to which it will successively belong. 5 In the solar system the monad is involved into one of its three triads. In the mineral kingdom of the physical world it is involved into the physical atom (49:1) of its lowest triad. At the end of evolution in the vegetable kingdom, the monad evolves out of the triad physical atom into the emotional atom. In the process of causalization, the monad can evolve into the mental molecule and subsequently disposes of the three units of the lowest triad. During evolution in the human kingdom, the monad remains centred mostly in the emotional atom of the triad, only at the mental stage of the human kingdom (as a mental self) centring itself in the mental molecule; and, at the end of human evolution (at the causal human stage), in the inmost centre of the causal envelope. The classification of human monads (also in the physical world) into physical, emotional, mental, and causal selves indicates what kind of consciousness dominates. The transfer of the monad between the triad units is always possible, since an atom is never an unchangeable unit, but on the contrary there is in it a constant exchange of higher atoms in the continuous circulation of energy between the different worlds, in such a manner, however, that the atoms character of individual unit is preserved. 6 The monad is mans true self. The term self is also applied to the triad into which the selfconscious monad is involved, as well as to the envelopes that have been able to acquire selfconsciousness through the activity of the monad. According as the monad eventually centres in its higher triads, they too become self-conscious. Through evolution the monad gradually acquires the ability to activate the different kinds of matter into which it has been involved. When fully activated in atomic kind 43, the monad has learnt to dominate all the lower atomic kinds (4449) and, consequently, all systemic matter. Emancipated from the dependence on its triads it can subsequently, if need be, attract one atom of each lower atomic kind and through them influence the lower kinds of matter. 7 Pythagoras was the first to use the term monad for the primordial atom. Moreover, he was the only teacher from the planetary hierarchy to explain the three aspects of reality, thereby laying the basis for the science of the future. 8 Thereupon ignorance took charge of the matter, as usual, so that the word monad has been made to stand for pretty well anything. 9 Since the term monad appears in many different contexts also in esoterics, it is desirable to define what is meant in each particular case, for example mineral monad, vegetable monad, animal monad, human monad, all of which are evolutionary monads. 10 It is seen from the account of the triads that men are also called first selves; individuals in the fifth kingdom, second selves; and those in the sixth kingdom, third selves. 11 To sum up: Man is a monad (primordial atom) which, having been introduced into the cosmos, has experienced the processes of involvation and involution, passed through the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms and finally has acquired a permanent envelope (the causal envelope), in which his monad will remain (and which incarnates) until he succeeds in attaining the fifth kingdom. 2.17 Group-souls and Transmigration Evolutionary matter develops by combining into collective units (aggregates). The monads in the mineral and vegetable kingdoms develop in many ways, following one or other of the seven
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parallel paths of evolution. 2 Group-soul is the term of the material common envelope for a group of monads. This combining of uniform groups into common involutionary material envelopes greatly facilitates the evolution of the monads through the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms, as well as their transmigration from one natural kingdom to the next higher one. 3 The three units of the triad are evolutionary atoms and evolutionary molecules which develop by serving as envelopes for more highly developed primordial atoms monads. In the triad is a monad. Any primordial atom that is sufficiently self-active to be able to activate less developed atoms with a prospect of success is involved into a triad, which subsequently serves as an envelope and an instrument for the monad. 4 There are three kinds of group-souls: mineral, vegetable, and animal group-soul. Mineral group-souls are enclosed in three different common envelopes, namely a mental envelope, an emotional envelope, and a physical envelope. Vegetable group-souls are enclosed in two envelopes of mental and emotional matter, respectively. Animal group-souls are enclosed in but one common envelope, of mental matter. The boundaries between these natural kingdoms are determined by the number of envelopes enclosing the triads. 5 Whenever the monad leaves the common envelope in order to involve, it is enclosed by envelopes from the common envelope with which it is still connected magnetically. Upon the end of an involvation, it returns to the common envelope and its own temporary ones merge with this envelope. The higher up the scale of evolution an animal is, the fewer are the monads that go to its group. In the course of evolution the group-soul is broken up into smaller and smaller groups. Thus quadrillions of flies go to form one group-soul, millions of rats one, hundreds of thousands of sparrows one, thousands of wolves one, hundreds of sheep one. 6 Only the monkey, elephant, dog, horse, and cat, being animals sufficiently developed to belong to group-souls of very few monads, are able to causalize. 7 During its involvation into physical matter, the monad is enclosed in envelopes formed out of the common envelopes of the group-souls. At the end of its involvation the monad is returned, and with it its borrowed envelopes, which merge with the common envelopes. In doing this, the monad brings with it molecules from the kinds of matter that it has been able to activate, those of the lowest molecular kinds to begin with. Insofar as the monad has during its involvation succeeded in raising by its own activity the vibrational capacity of the group-units, the molecules retrieved by the monad are of higher kinds than those it brought with itself. These higher molecules are mixed in the group-soul with the previous ones and benefit henceforth all the monads. This facilitates the activity of the monad in its subsequent involvations. By the gradual substitution of higher molecules for lower ones, the entire group as well as each individual monad is raised to ever higher levels with ever finer vibrations and ever higher consciousness. When the envelope of the group-soul mostly consists of the highest molecular kind necessary for the group, the time approaches for the bursting of the lowest envelope and for the transmigration of the enclosed monads to the next higher natural kingdom. 8 Within the originally immensely comprehensive group-souls a differentiation takes place. The monads that have had common experiences and have thereby developed similar predispositions are attracted to each other and form their own groups within the common envelope. At the reunion after involvation, the individual monad envelope has a tendency to contract. This tendency is strengthened after each involvation and by the other monad envelopes belonging to the small groups. It is increasingly difficult for these envelopes to merge entirely with the common envelope, and they form within it sub-envelopes, which gradually enclose fewer and fewer monad groups and which finally have grown strong enough to serve as their own common envelopes themselves. The greater group is in this way broken up into smaller groups of fewer monads. 9 Their transition to the vegetable kingdom frees the mineral monads from the group-souls

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common envelope of physical matter. The new vegetable monads thus produced are sufficiently active to form by self-activity envelopes of their own consisting, in the beginning at least, of the lowest etheric matter (49:4). When the vegetable monads transmigrate to the animal kingdom their common envelope of emotional matter dissolves. Thus the animal has three individual envelopes: an organism, an etheric envelope, and an emotional envelope, whereas the mental envelope belongs to the group envelope. After causalization, the triad mental molecule forms an individual mental envelope. 2.18 Causalization The transmigration from the animal to the human kingdom is termed causalization. In causalizing the animal receives an individual soul, namely a causal envelope. 2 The condition of causalization is that the animal is sufficiently highly developed to belong to a group-soul of very few monads. Moreover, an extreme effort of emotional and mental consciousness is necessary on the part of the animal. 3 For some reason or other a tension has arisen between the mental molecule of the animal monads first triad and the mental atom of its second triad. If this tension results in a sufficiently forceful vibration between these two centres of force, if a kind of vortical motion in causal matter occurs momentarily between them, so that an envelope with a vacuum is formed, then the animal monad in its lowest triad can be sucked into this causal envelope. The causal envelope has been formed, the animal has causalized and entered into the human kingdom. 4 From this description it should be entirely clear that a man can never be reborn as an animal, no more than an animal can become a plant, or a plant a mineral. Transmigration cannot work backwards. A being that has entered into a higher kingdom cannot return to a lower one. Only ignorance can confuse the esoteric knowledge of reincarnation with the metempsychosis of popular superstition. 5 The next higher kingdom after the human or causal kingdom is the essential kingdom in worlds 46 and 45. After it follows the manifestal kingdom in the worlds 44 and 43, and after it expansion continues in the cosmos (worlds 421). The individual transmigrates to the next higher kingdom as soon as he has concluded his development in the next lower one. This transmigration can take place at any time. 6 In the following, monad refers to the human monad in the lowest triad in the causal envelope.
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2.19 The Envelopes of Man When a man is incarnated in his organism, that is, when his first triad is involved into dense physical matter, his envelopes are five in number: two physical envelopes (the organism and the etheric envelope), the emotional envelope, the mental envelope, and the causal envelope. All the envelopes except the organism are aggregate envelopes. You can express the same thing saying that man consists of five beings. 2 The aggregate envelopes consist of atoms and molecules held together magnetically. The etheric envelope consists of evolutionary matter and all the higher envelopes of involutionary matter. Their magnetism is a joint product of the triad activity and the attraction of all the envelopes. The magnetic attraction is so strong that the entire aggregate would be put together again instantly would the envelope be blown to atoms. The matter in an aggregate envelope is constantly circulating through the entire envelope like the blood in the organism, and is constantly renewed like the air in the lungs. 3 The etheric envelope is the more important of the two physical envelopes. Without the etheric envelope the organism could neither be formed nor have any life. The etheric envelope is the
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vehicle and conveyor of the various functional energies, which the ancients gave the common name of vital force. Functional deficiencies of the etheric envelope react upon the organism. 4 The emotional, mental, and causal envelopes enclose and penetrate all the lower envelopes. In ordinary cases, each higher envelope forms outside the next lower one just an indiscernible layer. They are oval and extend between 30 and 45 cm beyond the organism. Approximately 99 per cent of the matter of these envelopes is attracted to the organism and held together within its periphery, so that these envelopes form complete replicas of the organism. In their totality they form the socalled aura, mans own world of matter and consciousness, which contains in it all kinds of matter and thus also all kinds of systemic and cosmic consciousness, the higher kinds of course being passive. 5 The emotional envelope is formed by the activity of the monad in the triad emotional atom. The vibrations of the emotional atom have an attractive or repulsive effect on the surrounding emotional involutionary matter. The vibrational capacity, qualities, organization, etc. of the triad atom determine the material composition, molecular percentages, and organization of the emotional envelope. This envelope thus becomes a sort of replica of the atom, reflecting its level of development. The corresponding is true of the triad mental molecule in relation to the mental envelope. 6 The causal envelope, which is mans one permanent envelope, can justly be regarded as the true man. It is the causal envelope that incarnates together with the lowest triad which it always encloses. All the envelopes, the causal envelope excepted, are renewed at each new incarnation and dissolve after each involvation. 7 The higher an individual has attained in his development, the more purposively organized are his aggregate envelopes and the centres of these envelopes. The centres mentioned above have tasks that correspond approximately to those of the organismal organs and consist of evolutionary matter. They perform various functions of consciousness and activity in different molecular kinds. This organization has the effect that the different molecular kinds are concentrated into definite areas. Higher development increases the percentage of higher molecular kinds, causing increasingly finer and stronger vibrations. 8 The organic body and etheric envelope consist of evolutionary matter. Viewed separately, as individual beings, the emotional, mental, and causal envelopes belong to involution, and from that point of view they are called elementals. Having passive consciousness, elementals lack the ability of self-activity. But they can easily be activated by vibrations coming from without or produced by the triad. They are unsurpassably sensitive receptive and reproductive apparatuses, which render the finest vibrational nuances with unfailing precision. Their activity is part of mans subconscious when their vibrations are not strong enough to be attended to by waking consciousness. They always receive innumerable vibrations from without when they are not activated by the monad, and they never rest. 2.20 Mans Etheric Envelope The matter of the etheric envelope is made up of the four physical etheric kinds (49:1-4): atomic, subatomic, superetheric, and etheric physical matter. The etheric envelope is the physical envelope proper. Without it, cell-formation would be impossible, and the cells and the organism would be without life. 2 The etheric envelope penetrates the organism, and should it occasionally leave the organism it becomes a complete replica of the latter. In mans incarnated state it penetrates the organism, the cells of which are then enclosed by etheric matter. Every cell, as well as every solid, liquid, or gaseous molecule, has its etheric counterpart and is enclosed by a minute etheric envelope as long as the great etheric envelope is united with the organism. 3 The etheric envelope conveys vibrations between the organism and emotional envelope. It
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depends on the composition of the etheric matter of the etheric envelope and on the functional capacity of the nervous system to what extent or in which manner these vibrations can be apprehended and reproduced by physical man. If a certain portion of nerve-cells is destroyed, undeveloped, or made unserviceable in some other way, there is no possibility of apprehending or reproducing in the organism the vibrations that these cells were intended to receive or express. 4 The etheric envelope has centres (Sanskrit: chakras) of different kinds of etheric molecular matter. These centres correspond to nerve-centres or organs in the organism. The most important ones in respect of consciousness are seven in number. Their positions in relation to the organism are defined by the following names: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
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crown centre eyebrow centre throat centre heart centre navel centre sacral centre basal centre

These names indicate the approximate locations outside the organism. Only the basal centre is within the organism, between the caudal vertebrae and the skin. The centres 37 (throat basal centres) are in direct contact with the spinal marrow. 6 From the solar plexus originate 14 etheric stems in 75,000 radiations. Seven of these main stems belong to the sense organs, seven to the motion organs. The etheric counterpart of the spinal marrow forms three etheric currents. The central one of these canals is in contact with the pineal gland. The two other currents spiral round the central one. 7 The etheric envelope is faintly luminous in its entirety and violet-blue-grey in colour. 8 Five vitalizing energies pervade the etheric envelope by turns during 24 minutes, returning every two hours. An example of the periodicity of the functional energies that can be ascertained by everybody is the rhythmic change of breathing. Breathing is done mainly with one lung and through one nostril at the time. Every two hours breathing changes from right breathing to left breathing, or vice versa, unless special obstacles occur. In right breathing body temperature rises somewhat; in left breathing it sinks. Colds seldom occur in right breathing. Fever is characterized by prolonged right breathing. 9 The navel centre is in contact with the emotional atom of the first triad. The throat centre is, via the causal envelope, in contact with the first triad mental molecule. The heart centre is, via the causal envelope and the first triad emotional atom, in contact with the second triad essential atom; and the crown centre, via the first triad physical atom, with the second triad superessential molecule. 10 The etheric envelope is enclosed by an enormously dense film of physical atomic matter. This film forms a protective wall without which man (especially when asleep) would be almost defenceless against all sorts of phenomena in the emotional world. This arrangement has also a disadvantage, however. The etheric, emotional, and mental envelopes have corresponding centres, which are so closely interconnected that they form common organs. The atomic film, however, prevents the direct transmission, to and from the centres of the etheric envelope, of vibrations from the centres of the other envelopes. When the energy from the base of the spine becomes fully active and runs up the central canal, then this energy bursts the atomic film and thereupon forms a sufficiently strong protective guard.

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2.21 Mans Emotional Envelope The emotional envelope is an aggregate envelope composed of all the seven emotional kinds of matter (48:1-7). The proportion of the different states of aggregation varies considerably in different individuals, depending on their level of development. In the recently causalized man, the two lowest kinds of matter (48:6,7) amount to over 90 per cent. In a civilized Mr Average, the four lower molecular kinds (48:4-7) make up about 95 per cent. In a perfected emotional self, about 99 per cent belong to the two highest kinds of matter (48:1,2). When the emotional envelope consists of the three highest kinds (48:1-3) about 50 per cent, then man can begin being called Man. Until then, the name subman would be more proper. 2 The material composition depends on the ability of the triad emotional atom to vibrate in the different molecular kinds, and results from the interaction of the three aspects: will, consciousness, and matter. The more the will can assert itself and the clearer consciousness is, the greater is the proportion of higher molecular kinds in the envelope. The higher the percentage of higher molecular kinds, the greater the receptivity to, perceptivity and expressivity of, the corresponding vibrations. 3 The emotional envelope conveys vibrations between the etheric and mental envelopes. At the present stage of mankinds development, the emotional and mental envelopes of most people are so interwoven that they make up one single envelope during incarnation. Vibrations in the one envelope are automatically repeated in the other. 4 Like the etheric envelope, the emotional envelope has seven centres with the corresponding functions. These centres, or organs, for consciousness and instruments for the will in different molecular kinds are as though replicas in emotional matter of the centres of the etheric envelope. They are closely connected with the etheric centres and have the same names.
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2.22 Mans Mental Envelope The mental envelope, or mental aggregate envelope, consists of the four lower kinds of mental molecular matter (47:4-7). For practical reasons we are, as a rule, content with this principal division. Each molecular kind consists of three successive series of molecular subdivisions. These different kinds of matter correspond to as many different main kinds of vibrations and different kinds of consciousness. 2 The material composition of the mental envelope is determined by the monads activity in the triad mental molecule. The percentage of higher mental matter increases according as man develops intellectually. In the recently causalized man, 99 per cent of his mental envelope consist of the lowest mental matter (47:7), in the average individual about 85 per cent. The three factors (matter, vibrations, and consciousness) co-operate and interact, so that a higher kind of mental matter is paralleled by finer and stronger mental vibrations and by freer and clearer mental consciousness. 3 The mental envelope conveys the vibrations and the exchange of energies between the emotional and causal envelopes. When man receives thoughts from without or thinks himself, there is quite a complex procedure of interaction of vibrations in the mental envelope with vibrations in the etheric envelopes of brain cells. This transmission is effected via emotional vibrations in the emotional envelope and etheric vibrations in the etheric envelope. To what extent the procedure is undisturbed and efficient, depends on how well all these envelopes function in their respective molecular kinds. Distortion through emotional colouring is extremely common. 4 When man thinks, mental matter is ejected from his mental envelope into the mental world surrounding this envelope. This molecular mass immediately assumes a concrete, plastic form. The clearer and the more distinct the thought, the more finely chiselled is the thought-form. Most thought-forms mental elementals are diffuse clouds, muddy in colour, of the lowest molecular kind. Independent thinkers shape forms infinitely varied in form and colour. The form is
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determined by the subject-matter of the thought; the definition of its outlines, by the clarity of the thought; its colour, by the quality of the thought. 5 The centres of the mental envelope correspond to those of the emotional envelope. 2.23 Mans Causal Envelope The causal envelope, mans one permanent envelope, is an envelope of involutionary causal matter (47:1-3). It is this causal envelope, this causal being, that represents the human consciousness proper. Its lifetime lasts from causalization to essentialization. It is the bridge between the first and second triads. 2 The causal envelope obtained at causalization gradually develops four centres, each consisting of three permanent evolutionary mental atoms. The first centre is during incarnation, or involvation, magnetically connected to the heart, throat, and eyebrow centres of the etheric envelope. The second centre is in contact with the centres of the emotional envelope corresponding to those mentioned of the etheric envelope. The third centre is connected to three centres in the mental envelope. The fourth centre (the inmost centre) connects the first and second triads. The first triad is regarded as a fifth centre. 3 The causal matter obtained at causalization is retained in the causal envelope and remains there during the stages of barbarism and civilization. The influence of the environment at the animals causalization, the character of emotional and mental stimulus received, are of a certain significance as they strengthen or weaken the attractive or repulsive basic tendency of the individual character already existing. It should be noted, however, that in this the animal, according to the law of affinity, is as a rule attracted to the environment satisfying its basic tendency. As long as the causal envelope just serves as a collector of matter sparingly supplied from its involvations, it cannot itself exercise any active functions but on the whole just conveys the triad functions. It develops activity of its own only at the end of the monads existence as a man, when the causal envelope has been systematically activated. 4 Many animals causalize as pets under the influence of human vibrations. Otherwise mass causalization under the influence of intense animal mass psychosis and special essential vibrations is the commonest also in our eon, which is unsuitable for both causalization and essentialization. 5 The causal envelope of the recently causalized man is even from the beginning somewhat larger than the other envelopes. Its material density is minimal, however, so that the causal envelope, enclosing the lower envelopes, more resembles a thin film than anything else. Towards the end of its existence, when once filled up, organized, and penetrating the lower envelopes, it can grow tremendously in size. 6 During incarnation the first self has two causal envelopes. This condition lasts until the monad becomes a causal self. At the time of involvation the causal envelope is divided into two. The greater part, serving as a collector of matter supplied, remains in the causal world. The smaller part (the triad envelope), containing the lowest triad, encloses the lower envelopes. When the involvation of the first self is concluded and the personality is dissolved, the two separate parts amalgamate to form one single causal envelope. The four centres of the causal envelope do not belong to the involving triad envelope. It is these two causal envelopes that have been called the twin souls, a term that has occasioned fantasies of all sorts. 7 Among the functions of the lower envelopes is to contribute to the development of the causal envelope, by supplying it with causal matter as well as by influencing this matter into activity. This is done by involvation of causal matter into the lower envelopes and by vibrations from these envelopes. The causal matter involved from the causal envelope can, by attractive vibrations at the stage of culture, attract other causal matter, which it can bring with it later at the amalgamation of the two causal envelopes. In order to reach the causal envelope without fail and be able to activate its matter, the vibrations must belong to the superetheric molecular kind: physical 49:3, emotional
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48:3, mental 47:5. As long as these lower envelopes are so undeveloped that such vibrations do not occur, there is no such influence. As for consciousness, this implies that superconscious causal consciousness remains almost inaccessible to lower consciousness. When the emotional envelope is able to vibrate in the third molecular kind (48:3) and the mental envelope in the fifth (47:5) and man thus becomes subjectively conscious in these molecular kinds, then the activation of the causal envelope and of causal consciousness begins eventually, and that makes it possible for man to receive lower causal ideas (from 47:3). The causal envelope, originally consisting of the lowest kind of causal matter (47:3), is able under this influence to activity to incorporate such matter with itself. The relatively empty causal envelope slowly begins to be filled up with this matter. During all the time the causal envelope is composed of the lowest kind of causal molecular matter, it serves almost exclusively as a passive receiver of matter supplied to it. When the subatomic matter of the emotional envelope (48:2) begins being activated and the causal envelope is affected by these vibrations, then the development of the causal envelope has entered upon a second phase. Its superetheric molecules (47:3) can be exchanged for subatomic ones (47:2). Then the causal envelope becomes incipiently self-active and can by itself acquire causal matter from without. The monad can establish itself momentarily in the inmost centre of the causal envelope, stimulating the atoms of this centre into still greater activity in addition to that resulting from the impulses from below. Thereby the monad gains causal understanding of life, is able to receive and concretize causal ideas in mental consciousness. Thereby it wins instinct of reality, subjective knowledge of reality, and purpose in action. 8 When the causal envelope has been filled up with subatomic causal matter (49:2), then the exchange of these molecules for mental atoms (47:1) begins. This becomes fully efficient only in connection with the activation of the highest mental matter (47:4). When 25 per cent of the matter of the causal envelope consists of mental atoms, then the closer connection with the second triad mental atom begins, and concurrently the normal objectivation of physical etheric and emotional consciousness. 9 When the atomic content of the causal envelope has increased to 50 per cent, then the monad is able to enter into the inmost centre. Thereby the man acquires mental objective consciousness in his waking state. This also entails unbroken continuity of causal consciousness for all time during all future incarnations. The self has become a causal self, the man it strived to become. The envelope of the mental atom is, to begin with, a replica of the old causal envelope with its memory, knowledge, faculties, qualities, understanding, even idiosyncrasies still remaining. When the content of mental atoms of the causal envelope amounts to 100 per cent, then the causal development is concluded. The monad is able to establish itself in the second triad mental atom, which can subsequently form by itself a causal envelope with causal objective consciousness in the waking state. Thereby the collector envelope is made superfluous and is finally dissolved. 10 The condition of the monads final activation of the causal envelope is its almost full sovereignty in its first triad and its refinement of the lower envelopes until they consist of atomic matter to some extent. The causal process can be speeded up by proceeding methodically. The causal envelope connects the first self with the second self, and is the highest part of the first self and the lowest part of the second self. The causal envelope of the mental atom belongs to the second triad. During the development of the second self the causal envelope grows continuously in extent until the limit of the vibrational capacity of the mental atom has been reached.

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THE CONSCIOUSNESS ASPECT OF REALITY


2.24 Consciousness From the material point of view, everything is matter, even empty space. The entire cosmos is a being. 2 The primordial atom is the firm point for individual consciousness, the firm point that makes centralized consciousness possible. 3 There is no consciousness without matter. Every kind of consciousness is paralleled by its own kind of matter. There are as many kinds of consciousness as there are kinds of matter. The sense perceptions, emotions, and thoughts of physical man are three different kinds of consciousness corresponding to physical, emotional, and mental matter. Without a physical body man has no sense perceptions in the usual meaning of the word, without an emotional envelope no emotions, without a mental envelope no thoughts. 4 Quite a number of accepted absurdities could be discarded if, when discussing the awakening of consciousness, the following different stages were clearly distinguished: unconsciousness (potential consciousness), actualized (passive) consciousness, inactive (latent) consciousness, active subjective and active objective consciousness, and finally self-consciousness. Selfconsciousness makes it possible to acquire objective consciousness of the entire material reality, that is to say: apprehension of the cosmos as the selfs own world. 5 The three aspects of existence, or of reality, are matter, consciousness, and will. Matter is the carrier of consciousness and the material for the will. In order to be able to think in accordance with reality, you must always take all three aspects into account. Every kind of matter is paralleled by its own kind of consciousness and by its own kind of will. The differentiation of consciousness (when fully activated) is as great as the differentiation of matter. Each higher kind of matter implies a higher kind of consciousness in relation to the lower kinds, and a greater ability of the will to dominate matter. The will cannot be perceived; it just expresses itself in events and processes. The will is motion, the dynamical in mechanical processes. 6 All higher consciousness appears non-existent to lower consciousness. Beings in higher worlds cannot be ascertained by lower beings. All lower consciousness appears unimportant to higher consciousness. A consciousness that denies the possibility of higher consciousness is hardly likely to win that higher one. The coarser, the more composed the matter, the coarser and the fainter are the vibrations, and the more limited is the consciousness. In respect of consciousness, the invisible and visible physical world are a unity.
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2.25 The Unity of Consciousness Primordial matter is not conscious but is the true unconscious. Consciousness can be actualized only in atoms. 2 All involutionary and evolutionary matter possesses a common consciousness. Consciousness is one. There is only one consciousness: the consciousness of matter, in which every primordial atom, as soon as its consciousness is actualized, has a common share that can never be lost. Every solar system is a systemic unit of consciousness. Every material globe is a unit of consciousness. 3 Every atom has its own consciousness. Every atom in addition has a share in the common consciousness of its aggregate. Every composition of matter, however loose its consistence, however temporary and transitory in composition, has a common consciousness. Wherever two or more atoms are however loosely connected, a common consciousness is obtained. Thus there are as many different kinds of consciousness as there are kinds of matter, atomic kinds, molecular kinds, as well as all kinds of aggregate consciousness, from the simplest molecular consciousness to global consciousness. All kinds of consciousness atomic, molecular, aggregate consciousness,
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from the lowest to the highest, from the individual to the universal form (as seen from above) one continuous, unitary consciousness. 4 The unity of consciousness is always primary and immediately given. The unity of a being is above all its unity of consciousness. However composed an aggregate may be (the limits of this are the limits of the composition of matter), the aggregates unity of consciousness is always primary, whereas the diversity of consciousness in its subdivisions is secondary. Usually, there are several different kinds of consciousness in each unit of consciousness. As seen from the consciousness point of view, however, this diversity is always derived and presupposes, in a selfanalyzing consciousness, a self-conscious division of itself. 5 Every primordial atom has an indestructible memory and a share in all the memories of aggregates to which it successively belongs. When the aggregate dissolves, the collective consciousness of the aggregate also dissolves. But every atom in the aggregate (every primordial atom in the atom) has a latent memory, which can never be lost, of everything that formed the content of this collective consciousness. The memory of the solar system consists in the collective consciousness of all the atoms that enter into its total involutionary and evolutionary matter. This memory is accessible, within the solar system, to anyone who has the necessary objective selfconsciousness. Every aggregate has its particular memory. Every primordial atom, thus every individual being, has a share in the universe of consciousness, is like a drop in the ocean of consciousness. The higher the individual develops, the higher the matter in which the monad can be active, the greater its participation in the different kinds of collective consciousness. Consciousness starts from the little sphere of ones own physical atom. Perfection means cosmic consciousness. It is the unity of consciousness, the participation of all in the cosmic consciousness, that is the basis of the unity of all. This unity cannot be divided against itself. 6 Every globe as well as every world has its own total consciousness. The total consciousness is a collective consciousness, a unity of the consciousness of all primordial atoms. The total consciousness is also an indestructible memory of all expressions of life within the globe area ever since the globe came into being. The universe makes up one single cosmic consciousness, in which every primordial atom has a share. Every primordial atom has a potential universal consciousness, which through the processes of manifestation finally becomes cosmic omniscience. 2.26 Active and Passive Consciousness In developmental respect, consciousness is divided into potential, passive, and active consciousness. In involved primary matter consciousness is potential (unconscious). Involutionary matter has actualized passive consciousness. As seen from the consciousness aspect, the process of involution is the process of actualizing consciousness. Evolutionary matter has active consciousness. The process of evolution is intended to bring about the activation of passive consciousness into self-activity in physical, emotional, mental, and causal matter. 2 Potential consciousness should not be confused with latent consciousness. Both passive and active consciousness become latent when activity ceases: for elemental matter when the elemental dissolves, for the monad in the triad when its own activity ceases. For the normal individuals monad this occurs at the annihilation of the personality upon the conclusion of an involvation, since his monad has not acquired the ability of permanent causal activity in the causal envelope, and thus permanent causal consciousness. Consciousness awakens as soon as activity begins anew. 3 Passive consciousness cannot be self-active. It is unfailingly activated, however, under the influence of the faintest vibrations. All kinds of matter and of consciousness can be influenced from without. Active consciousness develops by self-activity. Active consciousness is not selfconsciousness. The highest self-activity possible within some kind of matter is the prerequisite of total self-consciousness in that matter.
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Passive as well as active consciousness is collective. A common passive consciousness forms an involutionary being; a common active consciousness, an evolutionary being. The condition of the monads self-conscious participation in some collective consciousness is the monads ability of self-activity in that aggregate. The participation of an individual consciousness in the collective consciousness does not extend further than his ability of activity in that material aggregate. 5 For active consciousness to arise in an envelope, interaction, tension must be brought about between envelope and triad unit. The monads active consciousness in any matter depends on its ability of activity in this matter and does not extend higher than the consciousness of the molecular kind activated. Every increase in the monads ability to activate higher molecular matter entails a corresponding increase in the monads capacity of consciousness and will. The monad is only fully active in some kind of matter when, through the attractive power of its triad activity, it can supply its respective envelopes with the highest kind of their respective molecular matters. 6 Activation is done from below up, step by step, through the different subdivisions of the different molecular kinds of matter. In each new incarnation, or form of life, activation begins anew from below, from the lowest molecular kind of the aggregate. Every being entering into a new kingdom must begin in this kingdom from the very beginning, from the lowest molecular matter of its lowest world, and work its way up to ever higher levels by continually, in each involvation, activating anew the matter and consciousness of the different kinds of matter of all its envelopes. The ability of activation is developed by activity in continually new, often radically changed, compositions of matter. The monad will have countless opportunities of similar and dissimilar experiences: in the triad physical atom in the mineral, vegetable, animal, and human kingdoms; in the emotional atom in the vegetable, animal, and human kingdoms; in the mental molecule in the animal and human kingdoms. 2.27 Objective and Subjective Consciousness Consciousness is the very self. Objective consciousness is the selfs apprehension of things external to the self, as opposed to the self which is the subjective. 2 Principal clarity as to the essential difference between objective and subjective consciousness is necessary because of the subjectivist misapprehension prevalent both in the East and the West. Misinterpreting the physiological manner in which the lowest consciousness apprehends the lowest matter (49:5-7) by sense perceptions, the subjectivists have tried to make the material reality a solely psychological reality. As long as reality is interpreted by theories instead of being experienced, subjectivism will go on misleading the sense of reality. 3 Consciousness is objective when its content is determined by material reality. Objective consciousness is direct, immediate, and unreflecting apprehension of matter, the forms of matter, and motion. Objective consciousness is the only possible source of all knowledge, the ultimate proof of a correct conception of reality. Objectivity and materiality are the same thing as seen from the aspects of consciousness and matter, respectively. Objectivity is identification, identity of consciousness, with the material object. 4 The waking consciousness of the normal individual can apprehend objectively just the forms of the three lowest physical molecular kinds of the visible world (49:5-7), as well as the opposition of consciousness and material reality. 5 Subjective consciousness arises when consciousness is not objectively determined by material reality. Consciousness is subjective when its content is made up of emotions and abstract ideas, of imaginative and mental constructions. Consciousness is also subjective when its content is determined by material reality that is out of reach of the objectivity of waking consciousness. This content can be called a fragmentary, preliminary apprehension of material reality. A great number of vibrations from the physical etheric, emotional, and mental kinds of matter we perceive as our own states of consciousness without being able to explain their causes, nor being able to attribute
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them to material reality. Consciousness in higher molecular kinds that are as yet insufficiently activated is apprehended as subjective when activation begins. Consciousness in a particular kind of matter always begins as subjective before it can be objective. Full objective consciousness of all the molecular kinds of any world is only obtained at the automatization of the individuals envelope of that kind of matter. 6 The five main kinds of objective consciousness of material reality possible for the first self are: gross physical, etheric physical, emotional, mental, and causal objective consciousness. In any matter it is the corresponding objective consciousness that can directly and correctly apprehend its own matter and the material realities in it. The tabulation below specifies the eighteen different kinds of objective consciousness about the corresponding molecular kinds: gross physical, of three kinds (49:5-7) etheric physical, of three kinds (49:2-4) emotional, of six kinds (48:2-7) mental, of four kinds (47:4-7) causal, of two kinds (47:2,3) Aggregate envelopes have their own special centres of perception and motion (Sanskrit: chakras). However, these are instruments of the triad. The various kinds of collective consciousness in the envelopes have no organs of their own. In aggregate envelopes that have objective consciousness, each molecule has objective consciousness in its particular molecular kind. The collective consciousness of the envelope is a synthesis of the consciousness of all the atoms and molecules of the envelope. Full objective consciousness in all three states of aggregation of the etheric envelope provides an objective apprehension also of the three lower physical molecular kinds, furnishes an incomparably more correct apprehension of these three lower kinds than the five senses of the organism are able to do. Full objective consciousness in some kind of matter (which includes seven states of aggregation) provides a knowledge of 2401 compositions of matter. 8 Immaterial vision exists no more than anything immaterial at all. Vision, hallucination etc., are attacks of spontaneous objective consciousness of physical etheric, emotional, or mental material reality, in most cases unconsciously formed through the individuals own emotional or mental consciousness activity. 9 It is misleading to call objective consciousness of material molecular states invisible to the eye, vision. Objective consciousness of material reality that is independent of the sense organs of the organism implies a consciousness of immensely wider areas of matter and vibration than just those of vision. The total objective consciousness of the atom (and of all the atoms in the aggregate as long as they are part of the aggregate envelope) is immediate, direct apprehension of all the vibrations within the atoms own kind of matter that reach the aggregate envelope. The expression clairvoyance is a misnomer. Regrettably, clairvoyants seldom see clearly. Selfdeception is inevitable for anyone who is inexperienced in the emotional and mental worlds. No self-tutored seer ever saw correctly is an esoteric axiom. This depends on two distinct grounds: 10 Emotional objective consciousness does not make the emotional world more comprehensible than is the physical world to the ignorant man. Not even mental objective consciousness confers the ability to immediately comprehend reality. You just see what you already know is a rule that applies to physical, emotional, and mental reality. The theories of ignorance just provide fictitious knowledge. If what you believe you know is an erroneous hypothesis or theory, you see incorrectly, that is, you misapprehend. You will take the part to be the whole. And the theories of ignorance are constructed on the basis of too few facts. 11 Emotional and mental matter obeys the faintest expressions of consciousness. Any
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preconceived opinion, presumption, expectation, desire, even if unconscious or unintentional, shapes the matter in those worlds, so that emotional and mental reality always corresponds to the ideas made about it. The ignorant or inexperienced has no possibility of deciding whether what exists there is his own or some other beings creation, or permanent reality. Theories, prejudice, superstition, imagination of all sorts shape the matter in the emotional and mental worlds. That is why those two worlds are called the worlds of illusion. Anyone who wishes to study material reality in those worlds must assume a watchful attitude and learn to distinguish carefully between temporarily formed, permanently formed, and unformed matter. The reason why the physical world is also included in the great illusion is that in all these worlds subjective consciousness lacks satisfactory criteria of truth, of which fact the history of subjectivism and of still prevalent scholastic logicism is sufficient proof. In contrast, causal and higher matter is of such a nature as to make self-deception impossible. The causal world cannot be comprehended, apprehended, or interpreted by theories. It must be causally experienced. 2.28 Group Consciousness By group consciousness is meant the synthesization, made possible through the group, of physical, emotional, and mental consciousness. 2 Group-soul implies a collective consciousness, manifesting itself in a common instinct. The group-soul facilitates evolution by allowing a whole group at these lower stages of consciousness to participate of the ability of activity and general experiences of all the individuals composing the group. These experiences benefit the group in the instinct, which develops ever more strongly and which becomes ever more important the higher the activated molecular kinds entering into the collective envelopes. 3 In the consciousness activation of the first triad, four different kinds of collective consciousness can be distinguished, corresponding to consciousness in the four natural kingdoms: mineral, vegetable, animal, and human consciousness. The tabulation below shows the developmental stages of consciousness:
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potential consciousness: rotatory atom without spiral motion actualized passive consciousness: elemental actualized incipient active consciousness: mineral actualized active subjective consciousness: plant actualized active objective consciousness: animal actualized active objective self-consciousness: man All the kinds of actualized consciousness mentioned above exist in man. Mineral consciousness perceives the vibrations in the three lowest physical molecular kinds (49:5-7) relatively strongly, the next higher kind (49:4) more faintly. Its emotional consciousness is embryonic (48:7:7:7). 6 Vegetable consciousness can apprehend a considerably greater number of physical vibrations in 49:2-7 and, in addition, faintly the vibrations in the lowest emotional molecular matter (48:7). 7 The highest animals possess fully developed physical consciousness (49:2-7), strongly developed emotional consciousness (48:5-7), apprehend more faintly the vibrations in the fourth emotional molecular kind (48:4), as well as the lowest mental kind (47:7). 8 This is said as an orientation. In actual fact, there are no clearly marked dividing lines. The different monads have acquired individual characters by their own experiences. Surprising exceptions are met with everywhere. On the whole, however, the zones indicated can be regarded as the maximal ones, at the upper limits temporarily activated under strong influence, thus with the possibility of subjective consciousness within them. All the utterly differentiated intermediary
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stages are represented in nature, from the lowest to the highest active consciousness within each particular molecular kind. Minerals, plants, animals, and men form one uninterrupted series of all the possible kinds of states of consciousness, from incipient consciousness up to fully self-active self-consciousness and complete domination of the envelopes through automatization. 9 The greater the vibrational capacity receptive and, especially, self-active within a particular molecular kind, the greater the extent of that consciousness. The ability of sporadic experience of the vibrations in higher molecular kinds can always extend further than in normal activity, through external influence or ones own spontaneity. The more often such influence or impulses occur, the greater the activity in the molecular kinds already activated and the easier for the next spontaneous experience to appear. 10 The monad activates the different envelopes through the triad units. The triad physical atom dominates both the etheric envelope and the organism and is, in its turn, controlled by the emotional atom through automatization. All the atoms of a material kind possess consciousness of the six molecular kinds and their consciousness, since the molecular kinds have been composed of these atoms. The triad consciousness is the synthetic consciousness, the common consciousness (centralized in the monad) about the different kinds of lower consciousness in the molecular matter of the different envelopes. The triad activity unites the physical, emotional, and mental envelopes and makes it possible to synthesize the consciousness of these envelopes. 11 The triad units ability of self-activity is minimal: they have a faint active subjective (dreamlike) consciousness. This consciousness is always dependent on the monad and always agrees with the monads intentions, which increases the experiences of the triad units. 2.29 Self-Consciousness Self-consciousness, individual consciousness, depends on the monad consciousness, the central consciousness in all individual consciousness. Every primordial atom must by itself acquire its own self-consciousness. This primordial atom is for self-consciousness its firm point in the cosmos and in the cosmic total consciousness. 2 The self-consciousness of the normal individual is still undifferentiated, due to his insufficient objective consciousness and lack of the possibility of a more extensive ascertainment of the opposition between consciousness and material reality. Man identifies himself objectively with his organism and subjectively with all kinds of consciousness perceived by him. He is objectively conscious only in his waking consciousness in the material reality visible to him, comprising the three lowest physical states of aggregation. This visible reality is the only one he knows of. This he regards as the only one existing. He is subjectively conscious, to a certain extent only, but not objectively conscious, of emotional and mental reality. He apprehends the emotional and mental as being something solely subjective. He apprehends the vibrations in the matter of his emotional envelope as being solely emotions, etc., and lacks the ability to decide whether these emotions are produced by himself or are the result of vibrations from without. 3 The condition of self-consciousness is objective consciousness in some kind of matter. Finding the opposition between consciousness and material reality self-evident, we quite naturally have difficulty in comprehending what incredible toil the process of objectivation and individualization has cost. Tremendously slowly through the mineral, vegetable, animal, and human kingdoms, the monad consciousness has reached the insight of its being something separate from everything else. This hard-earned experience, which has made the entire process of manifestation necessary, the subjectivists gladly throw out of the window, declaring it to be an illusion. In the higher worlds, the matters of which we with our limited apprehension of matter would call spiritual, the process of objectivation is infinitely more difficult. To enable the apprehension and understanding of that opposition in higher matters, there is the possibility of a special experimental process of condensation. Sooner or later, however, physical experience is
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necessary. Even those who have acquired objective consciousness in the physical world find it difficult to adhere to it and, especially in higher worlds, not to confuse objectivity with subjectivity. The outer resistance becomes tangible only in dense physical matter; only there is consciousness forced to reflect on the opposition between the outer and the inner, matter and consciousness, objective and subjective. 4 The monad consciousness extends in matter just as far as its ability of activity in the aggregates into which it is involved. What it cannot activate is part of its superconscious. The monad is not completely conscious in a kind of matter that it does not fully dominate and cannot activate into automatization. 5 The collective consciousness of the triad as well as of the envelopes instinctively expresses itself as self-consciousness, as long as the monad belongs to the triad and the triad belongs to the envelopes. 2.30 Mans Consciousness The consciousness of the individual is a synthesis of the different kinds of active consciousness of his different envelopes. Even in the molecular kinds that are activated in some respects there are considerable domains that are not even subjectively conscious at the normal individuals present stage of development. The fact that, in the three lowest physical molecular kinds, just a part of material reality can be apprehended objectively is due to the limited possibilities of the five senses of the organism. As a rule, the development of an envelope has not been completed until the envelope has become wholly automatized and its consciousness functions have been taken over by the next higher consciousness. The consciousness of the organism and of the etheric envelope has to some extent been taken over by that of the emotional envelope. 2 Consciousness can be divided into waking consciousness and the unconscious; the unconscious, into subconsciousness and superconsciousness. Physical waking consciousness can be compared to what the eye sees of the lowest physical world at a given moment. The unconscious has the possibility of contact with the five worlds of man (4749). Not even a quadrillionth part of the vibrations pouring through his envelopes from these worlds can be apprehended by the normal individuals waking consciousness. Some of these are perceived as vague moods, elation, anxiety, depression, etc. 3 The subconscious contains everything that has ever passed through objective and subjective waking consciousness. By far the most of it the individual has forgotten, often not even apprehended clearly. But the subconscious never forgets anything. The subconscious of the normal individual can be said to include the consciousness of all activated molecular kinds: physical (49:2-7), emotional (48:4-7), mental (47:6,7). The vaster the domain of activated consciousness, the greater is also the extent of the subconscious. The subconscious of the normal individual is chiefly emotional. 4 The superconscious includes all vibrations in molecular kinds not yet activated by the monad; in the normal individual: the two higher emotional (48:2,3), the two higher mental (47:4,5), and the three causal (47:1-3), as well as all the higher kinds of consciousness. At the stage of culture, the individual begins to be sporadically subjectively conscious of vibrations from the emotional kind 48:3 and the mental kind 47:5. Causal consciousness is the silent witness, which at the stage of culture begins to learn to see and understand. 5 All the kinds of active consciousness indicated above thus belong to the subjective consciousness of the normal individual, with the exception of certain domains within the three lowest physical molecular kinds (49:5-7), which make up his objective consciousness in the current epoch of our globe period. This can to some extent explain the otherwise incomprehensible cardinal logical mistake of subjectivism under the influence of Indian
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philosophy. Despite its relative insignificance, physical objective consciousness is of fundamental importance, since higher objective consciousness is acquired in it. 6 Man has four memories: physical, emotional, mental, and causal memory. The memory of the causal envelope is out of reach of the normal individual. The memories of the triads are mainly latent. They are roused to remembrance anew through similar experiences in the new envelopes. The memories of the envelopes depend on the ability of the envelopes to reproduce vibrations once apprehended by waking consciousness. Physical memory depends on the quality of the cells of the memory centre of the brain and on the corresponding etheric molecules. If these cells are insufficiently active, devitalized by strain or shock, or too quickly replaced by new cells, reproduction is obstructed or made impossible. 2.31 Mans Emotional Consciousness Emotional consciousness is the consciousness in the emotional envelope and in the emotional atom of the triad. All the molecules of the envelope have their share in the common consciousness within their respective molecular kinds. Emotional consciousness arises through the monads activity in the triad emotional atom and through the monads ability to apprehend the vibrations in the six emotional molecular kinds (48:2-7) and to turn these vibrations into consciousness. 2 At mankinds present stage of development, human consciousness is mainly emotional. The normal individual is the most receptive to emotional vibrations of all kinds. During the emotional eon emotional consciousness is the most developed, most active, most intense, and, therefore, the most important kind of consciousness. Emotional vibrations are stronger and more differentiated than mental vibrations. Emotional will dominates mental will, which is still just faintly developed. The normal individual identifies himself with his emotional being, which he perceives as his true self. The monad is centred in the emotional atom of the triad. 3 A mental life independent of emotional life is still a rare thing, and is possible only for those who have by systematic training liberated the mental envelope from its coalescence with the emotional envelope. The mental envelope is activated by the emotional. Activation results in coalescence. The affected matter in the higher envelope is attracted to the affecting matter in the lower. During this time their connection is so intimate that the emotional and mental envelopes function as though being one single envelope. It is this that makes it possible for the monad to be centred in the triad emotional atom. When the emotional and mental envelopes are no longer in this condition of coalescence, the monad can dominate the whole triad from the triad mental molecule, since emotionality has then been automatized. Only when the mental envelope has been half activated and begins to take over its further activation itself can the mental envelope slowly liberate itself from its dependence on the emotional envelope and gravitate towards the causal envelope. The coalescence has as its results that most people think only under the influence of emotional impulses and that emotionality dominates mentality. 4 Pure emotionality is desire. As long as the emotional envelope is in coalescence with the mental envelope, the amalgamation of desire and thought produces two new kinds of consciousness, namely feeling and imagination. If desire preponderates, feeling is obtained, which is desire coloured with thought. If thought preponderates, imagination is obtained, which is thought coloured with desire. Desire is mentally blind. If it is strongly vitalized, reason is blinded. Desire also has the effect that emotions can never be quite impersonal. It is desire that makes imagination powerful. 5 Desire is either attractive or repulsive. From this it follows that all feelings of necessity have the same tendency and must belong to either of the two basic emotions: love or hatred. Everything with a unifying tendency is love. Everything with a separative, repulsive tendency is hatred. 6 The vibrations of the spontaneously attractive emotions belong to the three higher kinds of emotional matter (48:1-3). The spiritual life of the normal individual at the stage of culture
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belongs to this higher emotional consciousness, for example devotion, admiration, adoration, enthusiasm, self-sacrifice, respect, trust, reverence. Of course admiration, affection, sympathy, etc., occur at lower stages, but then in conjunction with egoism. 7 Every kind of matter, every kind of consciousness, makes it possible to acquire a discriminative principle that subsequently cannot be lost: in physical reality, discrimination between objectivity and subjectivity; in emotional reality between harmony and discord; in mental reality between identity and non-identity. In vibrational respect everything can be said to consist of vibrations. Every kind of matter, aggregate, condition of matter, has its peculiar vibration. Harmony, unison, concord becomes understanding. Dissonance divides. The emotional principle has an undreamt-of significance. It is the basis of the conception of all true art (which becomes possible only at the stage of culture), of the estimation of the beauty of form, the understanding of everything refining, ennobling, the ability to distinguish in many respects between what is genuine and spurious, true and false. 8 Since certain occult sects and also some schools of yoga have made a veritable cult of clairvoyance, some information about it is necessary. 9 Clairvoyance is the popular term of emotional objective consciousness. By this faculty you see material phenomena in the emotional world. However, since there are no possible criteria of reality, everybody interprets his experiences according to his own knowledge. In the emotional world the dictum of the sophist, Protagoras, can be applied saying that all apprehension is both subjective and individual. What you see in the emotional and mental worlds is no permanent reality and no knowledge of reality can be acquired in those worlds. That is an esoteric axiom. 2.32 Mans Mental Consciousness Mental consciousness is the consciousness of the triad mental molecule and of the mental envelope. This consciousness is of four main kinds corresponding to the four mental molecular kinds (47:4-7). 2 The lowest kind (47:7) is discursive thinking, the ability to infer from ground to consequence. 3 The next kind (47:6) is principle thinking, characteristic of philosophers and scientists. 4 The third mental ability (47:5) is perspective thinking, of wide views that survey things. Thinking in terms of relativity and percentages belongs to it. 5 The fourth ability (47:4) is system thinking, as a rule the result of a causal intuition concretized. It could be called mental intuition. 6 In most people the consciousness of the two higher mental molecular kinds (47:4,5) belongs to their still inactivated superconsciousness. Add to this the fact that the mental activity of the normal individual is seldom free from influence by emotionality. Even really intellectual people are content with the products of imagination. 7 At the mental stage, the mental envelope begins to liberate itself from its coalescence with the emotional envelope, although only those who have acquired incipient causal consciousness (its lowest kind, 47:3) succeed in this. As long as the coalescence persists, the individual is influenced in his thinking by emotional vibrations, unless the domain of his thinking lies wholly within the sphere of mentality (mathematical problems, for example). Theological, philosophical, historical, etc. thinking is to a great extent emotional thinking, as is everything relating to things personal and human. 8 Where knowledge is concerned, mental consciousness is sense and reason. Sense is objective consciousness, that is, consciousness about matter and everything relating to matter. Reason is subjective consciousness, that is, partly the ability to apprehend the content of ones own consciousness, partly the working up by reflection of the content of sense. If reason has developed the faculty of abstraction, the construction of concepts begins. At the stages of ignorance these abstractions are largely the fictions (conceptions without reality content) of world view or the
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illusions (false prospects) of life view. 9 At a primitive stage of mentality, conception works slowly with one detail after the other. By means of a knowledge of facts acquired at the cost of much labour one thought is joined to another to form a totality ordered according to qualitative grounds (not according to logically or mathematically quantitative grounds) inherent in the subject-matter itself. Gradually, the rapidity in conceiving, comparing, conjoining increases. Higher mental ability is more and more surveying, more and more exact, more and more summarizing. In concept thinking a unitary group of things is surveyed simultaneously; in principle thinking, the things of a group of concepts; in system thinking, the things of an entire system. Most people lack the power of visualization and must have recourse to auxiliary constructions. Therefore many people mean by concepts words to which have been attached memory pictures of characteristic qualities, so-called essential qualifiers, of the concepts. 10 The mental life of the normal individual is a life of reason. Sense (objective apprehension of material objects) is limited to the objects of the visible world. Only when sense can observe all the five material worlds of man (4749) will it be possible for reason to form a conception of reality that is subjectively correct. Until then, reason will, in default of facts about material reality, be a victim to arbitrary imaginative constructions, as has been the case with subjectivism in philosophy. Reason is an instrument for the working up of facts. If it is supplied with facts, then this working up is faultless. If there is just one fiction among all the facts, however, then the result is false. There is no need of any logic for anyone who is thoroughly familiar with all the facts pertinent to the subject in question. Logic cannot replace or produce facts. But the products of philosophic ignorance have of course been of some importance as mental gymnastics for the activation of mental consciousness. 11 Mentality lies between emotionality and intuition. Emotionality apprehends by feeling the vibrations. Intuition surveys things. Mentality concretizes, apprehends through working at concretion. The very work at concretion is a condition and a result of comprehension. In its activity mental consciousness forms concrete mental objects in mental matter. The clearer, the more distinct the thought, the more chiselled is the concretion. 11b Four different kinds of concretion, corresponding to the four kinds of mental consciousness (47:4-7), can be distinguished: the massive, chiselled, refined, and etheric kinds. At the stage of barbarism, not even the lowest concretion is completely activated. Incomprehensibility is always a sign of massivity, formlessness. In default of facts, profundity often enough loses itself in more and more massive concretions, until there is immobility and the constructor no longer comprehends what he originally meant. On the higher levels of the stage of civilization, the ability to concretize the second molecular kind from below (47:6) is acquired. This makes it possible to think with facts by means of principles and methodically. The concretions of the stage of culture (47:5) are apprehended as inspiration. The etheric ones (47:4) of the stage of humanity border on intuition, which belongs to causal consciousness. 12 When memory pictures, say, a tree, thought forms in mental matter a miniature replica of it that is more or less exact. Therefore, the artist who observes intensely is the one to form the best replicas. To objective consciousness abstractions resemble, more than anything, symbols with their individually characteristic deviations. If objective mental consciousness (improperly called clairvoyance) is directed to a distant object, this object will appear for observation as though it were present. And courses of events in bygone times will go past as though they were live images in a stereoscopic colour picture (to use a comprehensible metaphor) in the tempo you choose. 13 Some people confuse the rapidity of mental apprehension with intuition. But the two faculties work radically differently. If man possessed intuition, or causal ideas, there would be no need for him to learn what to think, there would be no divergence of opinion as regards such intellectual problems as have occupied mankind heretofore.

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In the matter of real knowledge, mentality is of the greatest importance as an instrument for causal consciousness. The knowledge ideas belong to causal consciousness. The causal idea always agrees with reality. To be apprehended mentally, the causal ideas must be concretized into mental ideas. In correct concretization, the causal idea is broken up into a number of mental ideas of the highest mental activity (47:4). Not all causal ideas can be concretized in this way. Too much is lost in this procedure, and nothing can be a fully adequate substitute for causal objective consciousness. When understanding of essentials awakens, form becomes an obstacle. 2.33 Mans Causal Consciousness Causal consciousness is the consciousness of the causal envelope or of the mental atom of the second triad. It is the common name of the three different kinds of consciousness of the three higher mental kinds of matter (47:1-3). 2 Causal consciousness is the intuitional consciousness as opposed to the discursive, concretizing form consciousness of mental consciousness. Intuitions lie beyond the possible experience of the normal individual, surpass everything he can imagine about intuition. The word intuition has been idiotized to term freak, vagary, emotional impulse faintly mingled with the lowest kind of mental vibrations. In the cultural individual, intuitions occur a few times during his life, making epochs in it. Objective causal consciousness is necessary in order to have selfacquired (non-authoritative) knowledge of the five worlds of man (4749). 3 As subjective consciousness the content of causal consciousness is infallible causal ideas. These are by themselves the proofs of their truth, always agreeing with reality without any possibility of fictitiousness. Hypotheses, assumptions, suppositions, guesswork, creeds, do not exist for causal consciousness. It is not omniscient in the five lower worlds. What it does know, however, is infallible as far as its content of ideas extends, since it knows from its own experience. 4 Experiencing an intuition resembles more than anything a transport to the Mount of Transfiguration where you look out over worlds and ages. Anyone who has had such an experience has a sufficient material for an epoch-making work, which he will also achieve. Intuition implies a clarification of things, facts, events, etc., with a simultaneous ascertainment of both the constant and temporary relations between them, independently of space and time. 5 This kind of consciousness expression can be compared to an illumination in a flash of a whole landscape of concepts, with a simultaneous photographing of every detail, a content of infinitude momentarily condensed which requires weeks, months, years of work to concretize or express in concepts. It can be compared to a momentarily frozen chord of the world orchestra, in which chord each particular tone in the greatest opera works stands out in its tonal relief. It can be compared to the action of a mental volcano, which in one single moment launches out of its crater all that has during millennia been joined together as causes and effects into some causal chain. 6 Intuitions do not form any objectively permanent shapes but are light and colour phenomena that dissolve with lightning rapidity and a content of ideas that is apprehended with the same lightning rapidity. 7 There is complete, immediate understanding between beings in the causal world. The solidarity and brotherhood of all is a self-evident thing. 8 A fully activated causal consciousness (47:1) can produce more in an hour, in quality and in quantity, than the most efficiently working discursive mentality (47:6,7) manages in a hundred years. 9 Mistakes are precluded. If causal consciousness has once been directed to a problem, then the result is correct as far as it is exhaustive. Another characteristic of it is that it always knows what it knows and what it knows not. The relations between cause and effect are completely clarified for causal consciousness. A thing never stands isolated, but is always included both as cause and effect in its causal connection.
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According to esoterics, it is only as a causal self that the individual can claim to have common sense, since this self can never be misled but always sees reality as it is. 11 Where causal consciousness is concerned there is no distance nor past time in planetary respect and in the worlds of man (4749). The causal self has of course its special opportunities of studying all its incarnations ever since its causal envelope was formed at the transmigration from the animal to the human kingdom, since it has its own memory of these past lives. It should be pointed out that the memory of past lives is also preserved in the subconscious of the triad, but this memory is more difficult to contact and, above all, less reliable, since its being placed in the emotional or mental envelope causes the pertaining kinds of consciousness to interfere all too easily, and what they see simultaneously in the collective memories of their respective worlds are subjective phenomena. There is every reason for taking reports of such experiences with a good share of healthy skepticism. 2.34 Essential Consciousness The individual becomes an essential self when, as a causal self and conscious in the mental atom of his second triad, he acquires incipient consciousness in the essential atom of that triad, and thus automatically an essential envelope in the essential world. 2 The essential world has six dimensions (if three are assigned to the physical) and the capacity of essential consciousness thus is six-dimensional. This ability to apprehend six-dimensionality also in the reality of the lower dimensions of course affords a sovereign insight wholly different from that possible for lower kinds of consciousness. Worlds 4649 appear as one world. 2b Essential consciousness is the lower consciousness of unity. Discursivity, the successive external apprehension, even though with lightning rapidity, has disappeared. Even the most compounded thing has been resolved into unity, the diversities being ever so many. Objects are not apprehended as external realities, as the results of external vibrations, but are apprehended from within. Objects are part of ones own consciousness. This is also true of the consciousnesses of others, which become, if and whenever you wish, part of your own consciousness. 3 Essential consciousness is group consciousness. The incurable loneliness of the soul is cured for ever. Separate consciousness has ceased, but not therefore the individual monads self-identity, which can never be lost. The individual is his own self together with other selves. He has a consciousness of community into which others enter to make up a unity. The drop consciousness has united with the ocean consciousness. 4 The planetary hierarchy calls essential consciousness a union of wisdom and love. 5 Wisdom means that the all-round experience worked up by the collective consciousness of the group is accessible to everyone as his own experience. 6 Love means inseparable unity with all. The opposition between me and you is incomprehensible, impossible. 7 Essential consciousness is the consciousness of essential matter and of the whole essential world. It has access to the essential memory of our seven-globe, which memory includes all the lower ones. Thus it is possible for essential consciousness to study the past of the six lower worlds (4649). The apprehension of time undergoes a radical change. Past, present, and future appear to exist in the present. The explanation for this is simple. All events are dynamic, are the result of cause and effect; cause in the past, effect in the future. Cause and effect appear as a unity. If no new factors join in, then the certainty of a prediction will be one hundred per cent.
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2.35 Superessential and Higher Consciousness The superessential is a kind of consciousness completely beyond the possibility of man (the mental self) either to comprehend or understand. Every attempt to describe it would thus be
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meaningless and would just provide imagination with fresh material for idiotizing speculation. 2 Through the ever vaster participation in the total consciousness of the planetary, systemic, and cosmic worlds, and the ever greater ability to apprehend what exists in the consciousness of these worlds, also the possibility of knowing the reality content of the three aspects of life increases. 3 It is true that the atomic kinds are regarded as belonging to the cosmos, but it is improper to call the 45-selfs ability of consciousness in the four lowest atomic kinds (4649), cosmic consciousness, for it begins only with 42-consciousness. 4 There are two kinds of consciousness expansion: the incorporation of new facts with selfconsciousness, and the increasing participation in the common consciousness. The density of primordial atoms decreases with each higher atomic world, so that, to begin with, the consciousness aspect can assert itself more and more, and subsequently, the will aspect. The consciousness aspect dominates in the second self, the will aspect in the third self. 5 In all the superhuman kingdoms every individual is a trained specialist in some sphere of knowledge, quite apart from the fact that he is a joint owner of the common consciousness of higher worlds. In those higher worlds dwell not just those individuals who were once men, but also all those who have pursued other paths of evolution. The devas (angels, etc.) specialize particularly in everything relating to the matter aspect; the former human monads specialize in the consciousness aspect; a third evolution, in the motion aspect. This arrangement has the advantage that everything requiring a special knowledge can be immediately obtained without any waste of time. 6 Also the individuals in higher kingdoms explore their worlds by deducing effects from causes and causes from effects. The capacity of consciousness increases enormously with each higher world, but also the difficulty of the problems of reality of those worlds (which means that they become simpler and simpler!!).

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ESOTERIC ANTHROPOLOGY
2.36 The Races On each globe in each eon mankind in its development runs through seven different stages, in principal races, or root-races. From each of the seven root-races seven sub-races develop, and from each sub-race, seven branch-races, or nations; in total 343 different races in each globe period. 2 Each root-race on our globe has had its continent in which to develop and build its civilization, which in due course of time is annihilated by continental cataclysm. Actually, the principal epochs of the root-races are separated by great natural catastrophes and geological processes that remodel the surface of the Earth. Thus the third, or Lemurian, root-race lived in the continent, Lemuria, over which the waves of the Pacific now heave. The fourth, or Atlantean, root-race inhabited a continent that extended over what is now the Atlantic. The last remnant of this continent, the island of Poseidonis, was submerged in the year 9564 B.C. Both these continents will again see the light of the day: Lemuria as the abode of the sixth root-race and Atlantis as that of the seventh root-race. 3 The first three root-races of the current emotional eon were a recapitulation of the general course of development in the root-races of the previous three eons, and a quick repetition of the seven root-races of the eon immediately before. Thus they fulfilled the tasks of organism formation, etc. 4 The fourth root-race of the current globe period is termed the emotional root-race, the fifth the mental, the sixth the essential, the seventh the superessential root-race, with regard to certain affinities to the corresponding consciousness development in the various races. The same rule applies to the sub-races. The fourth sub-race of each root-race is particularly emotional; the fifth mental; the sixth has its accentuation on unity; and the seventh, on will. 5 The first root-race was begun about 300 million years ago. The lowest envelopes of its individuals consisted of physical etheric matter. They had mainly emotional consciousness. 6 The second root-race was begun about 150 million years ago. Also that race was etheric. Its physical consciousness was casual and vague. The transition from the etheric to the organic took place in this root-race, between its fifth and sixth sub-races. 7 The third, or Lemurian, root-race is about 40 million years old. It presented from its very beginning a fully developed organism, although far from what we would call human. Only its third sub-race slowly changed into being unisexual, having been hermaphroditic, or bisexual, and assumed forms more human. This change can be said to have been fully accomplished about 18 million years ago. A nervous system and a brain were developed, which made mental consciousness possible, although of course emotional consciousness was still the incomparably more important. 8 The races now living on Earth belong to either the third, fourth, or fifth root-race. The few degenerate remnants of the third bushmen, veddahs, the pygmy races, etc. are fast dying out. The majority of mankind can still be counted among the fourth. All races now existing are mixed races. Pure races do not exist any more. The life-time of a nation has been calculated at 30,000 years on the average. 9 The fourth, or Atlantean, root-race was developed from the seventh sub-race of the third rootrace and was begun about twelve million years ago. The colour of the skin of this root-race changed with its different sub-races from dark red to reddish-brown, yellowish-white, and yellow. Its most important sub-races were the third, the coppery-red Tolteks; the fifth, the yellowish-white Original Semites; and the seventh, the yellow Mongols. From the Tolteks originate, among others, the Indians of America; from the Original Semites, the Jews and Kabyles of modern times. The
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mixed descendants of the Mongols are the Chinese, the Japanese, and the Malays. 10 The fifth, or Aryan, root-race was developed from the fifth sub-race of the fourth root-race during a period of about one hundred thousand years. Its first sub-race, the Hindu race, is about 60,000 years old. Its second sub-race, the Arabian, is about 40,000 years old. Its third sub-race, the Iranian, arose about 30,000 years ago. Its fourth sub-race, the Celtic, and its fifth sub-race, the Teutonic, are of the same age, about 20,000 years old. Only remnants exist of the second and third sub-races; of the former, Arabs and Moors; of the latter, the Parsis of modern times. From the fourth sub-race, which was the ancient Greeks of prehistoric times, originate, among others, the various Romance nations. The descendants of the Teutons in historic times are Slavs, Germans, and Anglo-Saxons, among others. 11 A new racial formation is impending, the sixth sub-race of the fifth root-race. It has been calculated that the fourth branch-race of this sixth sub-race will be able to acquire physical etheric objective consciousness. Between the second and third sub-races of the sixth root-race the transition from the organism to the etheric envelope will take place, which latter envelope will henceforth be mans lowest envelope. The entire seventh root-race will of course be etheric. The period of incarnation, or the life-time of the personality, of the individual in the etheric races equals the age of a branch-race. A good bit into the fourth globe period of the mental eon mentalcausal consciousness will become fully activated and the mental and causal envelopes will become fully automatized, resulting in full objective consciousness in those envelopes. 2.37 The Age Classes of Mankind Classes are the natural order of things. The classes of nature indicate different age classes, in the human kingdom as well as in all other natural kingdoms, both lower and higher ones. 2 The total number of individuals belonging to the mankind of our seven-globe amounts to circa 60,000 million, most of them asleep in their causal envelopes. They can be divided into four main groups. The first group includes those who causalized normally in the previous seven-globe. This group can be divided into four classes (those who causalized in the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh eons of that seven-globe). To the second main group those belong who in that globe causalized too early through artificial stimulation because of the imminent reduction of the seven-globe. The third main group includes those who causalized in the third, the fourth main group in the current eon, of our seven-globe. The oldest age class of the first main group incarnate on our planet in the seventh root-race of the current eon, and the second oldest in the sixth root-race. Before then, the so-called cultural conditions are all too unsuitable. The third and fourth classes began incarnating in the fourth root-race in Atlantis. A few clans of the two oldest classes incarnated too, having since then made up that lite the task of whom has been to guide the rest of mankind.
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2.38 The Levels of Human Development The mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms, and the first three root-races of the human kingdom have developed sense, objective consciousness, the ability to apprehend the material reality surrounding us. In the animal kingdom also emotional consciousness is activated from below, from the lowest molecular kind. The individual, left all to himself in his lone individuality, must by himself acquire everything from the very bottom. 2 The monads consciousness development from causalization to essentialization is divided into five stages or 777 levels. The five stages of development are the stages of barbarism, civilization, culture, humanity, and ideality. The first three stages can also be commonly termed the emotional stage; the stage of humanity, the mental stage; and the stage of ideality, the causal stage. It is typical of the emotional stage that mentality is dependent on emotionality, that the mental envelope is in coalescence with the emotional. Of the levels, 400 belong to the stage of barbarism, 200 to that of civilization, 100 to that of culture, 70 to that of humanity, and 7 to the stage of
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ideality. 3 Both emotional and mental consciousness can be divided into higher and lower kinds. Of the 777 levels, 600 on the whole belong to the lower emotional (48:4-7), 100 to the higher emotional (48:2,3), 70 to the lower mental (47:4-7), and 7 to the higher mental, or causal, consciousness (47:1-3), which at the stage of civilization still slumbers as inactive ability. 4 At the stage of barbarism, the individual is on the whole subjectively conscious within the three lower emotional molecular kinds (48:5-7) and the lowest mental kind (47:7). At the stage of civilization, consciousness moves within the four lower emotional (48:4-7) and two lowest mental (47:6,7) regions. At the stage of culture, emotional consciousness moves mainly within the three middle regions (48:3-5) and the two lowest mental (47:6,7), though it can exceptionally, as in the mystics, also develop the highest emotional kind (48:2). 5 At the stage of culture, the vibrations from 48:3 can reach the causal of 47:3, which makes it possible to experience causal inspirations and to begin activating the lowest causal consciousness. 6 At the stage of humanity, the higher mental consciousness of 47:5 and 4 is conquered, and at the stage of ideality the causal of 47:2,3. 7 Of the individuals belonging to our seven-globe, about 36 billion causalized in the previous seven-globe and 24 billion in our seven-globe. The difference in age between the oldest and youngest groups amounts to circa seven eons. The difference in respect of consciousness between a newly causalized man and one about to essentialize is as great as that between the lowest and highest species of the animal kingdom. The age of the causal envelope corresponds on the whole to a certain level of development. Of the mankind incarnating on our planet in periodically recurring clans, in root-races three to five, the majority (circa 60 per cent) in about 1920 were at the stage of barbarism, circa 25 per cent at the stage of civilization, and circa 15 per cent at the higher stages. These conditions can easily change, with a greater or smaller prospect for public opinion of understanding life. Many individuals could belong to higher levels if they had not all too willingly allowed themselves to be led by the authorities of public opinion and so themselves had impeded their development. Mankind belongs almost exclusively to the two lowest stages because the clans who have attained the stage of culture will not, with certain exceptions, incarnate until in the sixth and seventh root-races. Their presence would obstruct the selfrealization of the others, promoting imitation instead. 8 The lower the level of development, the longer it takes to activate consciousness. The higher the level, the more rapid is the tempo of development and the greater are the distances between the different levels. The crescendo of the races increases with the third root-race and still more with the sixth. Those who cannot keep up in the heightened tempo are transferred to the globe best suited to them in the seven-globe. This transfer (judgement day) ignorance has as usual embellished with terrors of all sorts. 9 Only second selves can define the individuals level of development. Not even the stages, especially not the higher ones, can be ascertained. The presumptuous who try to classify people always make grotesque mistakes. 10 The stage, but not the level, of development can be indicated in terms of the highest, most frequent, strongest, and lowest areas of vibration of any individual consciousness, in emotional and mental molecular kinds. Consciousness is a continuous whole susceptible of elastic extension and spontaneous expansion, which fact remains a mystery to the ignorant. The levels merge in each other in an equally incomprehensible manner. The possibility of differentiating the vibrations within some one molecular kind appears to be practically unlimited. The vibrations of any molecular kind move within a series of 343 levels and can be individually varied. The differences between the levels appear in unnoticeably subtle nuances. And yet, these infinitely fine tinges indicate the differences. The finer they are, the more delicate are they. A brutal upbringing or

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milieu will easily efface them, irrevocably for that incarnation. Another circumstance that also makes it impossible to judge the level is that the same level can appear utterly different in different individuals, depending on their respective departments, the special formation of their individual characters through unique experiences, and the factors of the law of reaping. 11 It is perhaps easier to comprehend the difference of levels if you think of the individual as a conglomeration of qualities and abilities divided into degrees. One ability is developed 25 per cent, another 50, a third 75, and a fourth is perfected, 100 per cent. Different abilities have different points. The total score of the total number of abilities acquired is calculated, and the average indicates the level. 2.39 The Involvations of the Causal Envelope Mans form of existence alternates between involvation into an organism in the visible world and evolvation to the causal world. At incarnation, the causal envelope together with the triad clothes itself in a mental envelope in the mental world, an emotional envelope in the emotional world; to unite with an etheric envelope and an organism, the true product of reaping, in the physical world. At evolvation the causal envelope with the triad leaves those envelopes in reverse order. 2 The total number of incarnations is not fixed. The number depends on many factors. The most important ones are individual character, with its attractive or repulsive basic tendency, and selfinitiated self-activity. The repulsive tendency always sows bad sowing, inevitably resulting in bad reaping, which can swell the number of incarnations boundlessly. There are those who, on account of the one-pointed purpose and attractive tendency of their individual characters, can pass through the human kingdom in one eon; and there are others who will use seven eons or more to achieve the same. 3 At lower stages the individual always incarnates in series; one series for each developmental level. The number of incarnations at the stage of barbarism amounts to one hundred or more in each series. As a rule, the number decreases with each higher stage. Seven incarnations are calculated the normal for the last seven levels. 4 According to the law of self-realization, the individual must himself seek, himself find, himself acquire everything, all knowledge, all qualities and abilities, and finally, he must himself actualize his potential godhead. Everything that is innate is self-acquired. Everything that you can grasp, comprehend, you have a sense of, all qualities and abilities, everything is previously acquired in previous existences through innumerable experiences and toilsome working up of these experiences. Everything that is really new for the first time, is more or less strange, improbable, hard to understand. There are no innate ideas. But the immediate understanding of concepts that have already been worked up is innate, as are the predispositions of a rapid reacquisition of qualities and abilities previously acquired. This re-acquisition, however, is dependent on the character of the new organism and etheric envelope. What is freely given to the individual by means of upbringing, education, chances of private studies, he can make use of only if he has previously acquired the necessary insight and understanding. The collected cultural heritage of the nations makes it possible to renew the contact with domains of knowledge previously acquired, and thus to have that remembrance anew without which a previous knowledge would remain latent. The greater the ability, the more incarnations work it has cost. Qualities and abilities once acquired but not cultivated in some incarnation remain latent. The latent includes the incomparably greater part of the experiences the self has once had, the qualities and abilities it has once acquired. A rapid change, an apparent leap in development, is the sudden retrieval of a level of development previously attained. The law of good says that the individual always follows the highest thing of which he has acquired an understanding and an ability to realize, through a sufficient experience of life and working up of this experience, because it is a
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need and a joy for him to do so. 5 With each new eon cosmic vibrations vitalize one more molecular kind of each kind of matter. In the emotional eon, mankind on the whole activates only the four lower physical and emotional and the two lowest mental molecular kinds. Vibrations in these molecular kinds act repulsively. The envelopes are elementals, independent beings that react upon all vibrations, whether these originate from within or from without. At lower stages those coming from without are the stronger ones. Only when the self has acquired the ability to normally produce vibrations that in strength supersede those penetrating from without, only then will the self be free to think, feel, and act independently, according to its own insight and understanding. As a rule, this becomes possible only at the stage of culture. 6 The time has come for rebirth when all the necessary conditions are present, which they by no means always are where individuals of higher stages are concerned. Involvation does not take place should the circumstances be such that there is no prospect for the self to learn, thus if the general stage of development existing is too high for a primitive view-point, or too low for a consciousness already developed. Because every incarnation is a speculation with risks taken. When a failure, it swells the number of involvations considerably. Not all incarnations are equally important, equally instructive, equally joyful, equally painful. 7 Perhaps we understand that man is not a envelope that has a soul, but a soul that has envelopes. When mankind understands that the meaning of life is consciousness development, then the matter aspect will lose some of its importance and the will to unity will make even the physical world a paradise. 8 Rightly it has been said that our fictions blind us against seeing reality as it is. 2.40 The Dissolution of the Envelopes of Incarnation Life in between incarnations, life after the death of the organism, can be divided into three different periods: life in the emotional world, life in the mental world, and life in the causal world. 2 The first self is mans causal envelope with the monad in the first triad. Man incarnated consists of a triad envelope (the lesser causal envelope), mental and emotional envelopes, and an etheric envelope with an organism. The envelopes of incarnation proper dissolve in three different processes: the organism with the etheric envelope is separated to begin with, after that the emotional envelope, and finally the mental envelope, whereupon the triad envelope merges with the greater causal envelope in the causal world. The incarnation is concluded. 3 With the separation of the organism and the etheric envelope the selfs ability of physical sense perception ceases; with the separation of the emotional envelope, the selfs desires and feelings cease. When the mental envelope dissolves, whatever remains of the selfs possibility of consciousness is annihilated. The self sinks into dreamless sleep in its triad in its causal envelope, and awakens to consciousness only at the next incarnation. 4 Mans self-conscious emotional life as a rule begins when the triad physical atom leaves the etheric envelope and pupates in the causal envelope. When the etheric envelope liberates itself from the organism, the emotional envelope simultaneously liberates itself from the etheric envelope. The latter remains in the proximity of the dead organism and dissolves in exactly the same tempo with it. Thus the etheric envelope too dissolves in the quickest possible way when the organism is cremated. When the emotional envelope liberates itself from the etheric envelope, there is, as a rule, unconsciousness for a while, varying from a minute or so up to several hours. After that, self-consciousness becomes fully subjectively conscious, and usually to some extent objectively conscious, in the emotional envelope. Emotional life has come to its end when the triad envelope with the triad emotional atom, which will then pupate, finally leaves the emotional envelope. The latter, which subsequently is just an elemental, dissolves gradually. 5 After the separation from the emotional envelope, the triad mental molecule continues its
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activity alone, and the sojourn of the mental envelope in the mental world begins in an absolutely subjective mental self-consciousness. When the mental envelope finally dissolves through the pupation of the triad mental molecule, the so-called personality is annihilated. The triad in the causal envelope is to wait in the causal world for a new period of activity by means of a new involvation. Causal activity and consciousness are precluded where the normal individual at mankinds present stage of development is concerned. 6 The life-time of the emotional envelope can vary as much as that of the physical envelope. The rule is that there is no rule. Countless factors co-operate, with the result that every individual in most respects departs from the norm, of course within reasonable limits. In esoterics, dogmatism is a proof of ignorance. Each particular case must be investigated individually. Some people can leave the emotional to dissolve immediately. Statistical investigation has thought itself able to ascertain that it can be considered normal for a primitive savage to have five years of emotional life (without a subsequent mental life). Where the civilized man is concerned, 25 years can be considered the average life-time. It rarely exceeds 100 years for anybody. The independent existence of the mental envelope can vary from some hours to thousands of years. Where the average individual is concerned, one thousand years can be reckoned an average. Life in the causal world is for most people an unconscious existence. The conscious causal life of the intellectual lite can be estimated at 100 years. It rarely exceeds 250 years. The unconscious state in the causal world can last an unlimited time: thousands, millions of years. Those who will enter on a new period of incarnations in the sixth root-race of our globe period may have slept for about four eons. Others reincarnate immediately upon the dissolution of the mental envelope, depending on the fact that all the prerequisites stipulated by the law of development and the law of reaping are there. There is a possibility of involving in other globes, in case special experiences are desirable. 7 Life in the emotional world (improperly called the astral world) can be either a dream-state, a subjective, introvert, meditative life; or an objectively conscious life. Objective consciousness is in most cases limited to the consciousness domain of one molecular kind at the time. According as the lower molecular kinds of the emotional envelope gradually dissolve, the consciousness in higher molecular kinds is objectivated. 8 In most people the emotional envelope dissolves in five stages: first the lowest molecular kind (48:7), then the next higher (48:6), etc., until finally the two highest (48:2,3) remain for the fifth dissolution. The more the individual has cultivated the consciousness belonging to some certain molecular kind, the greater is the amount of this matter existing in the envelope, the more vitalized is the matter, and the longer it takes to dissolve it. This gradual separation of the lower molecular kinds implies a gradual heightening of emotional consciousness. The personality is ennobled, as it were, in five stages. In this it is typical of self-judgement that the individual ascertains the ennoblement of his environment but not that of himself. He was the same noble individual all the time. 9 Contact with emotional beings still retained in their physical organisms is possible only as long as the emotional envelope has anything left of its three lower molecular kinds (48:5-7). 10 Many people in the emotional world are occupied with speculative problems and have introvert consciousness, like day-dreamers in physical existence. Rousing them to an extravert life is doing them a disservice. The experiences of emotional life are on the whole worthless for the intellectual man. Becoming conscious of all disturbances there are in the emotional world counteracts that inner composure which liberates the mental envelope from the emotional in the most rapid way. Extravert activity vitalizes the emotional envelope and prolongs its life. Those who are awake in the emotional world find that they have entered into a new, unknown, incomprehensible world. The physical ways of looking at things that they have brought with them just make orientation still more difficult. They barely have the time to make themselves at home tolerably in some one environment before they find themselves in another, that of the next higher

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molecular kind. A factor adding to their disorientation is their formative imagination, which constantly plays tricks on them. Anyone who has believed in the tales of Hell, finds his fears realized, and many people suffer from these self-created terrors. It is true that they can get information from emotional beings who already have a scanty orientation. But since most people prefer to believe in their dogmas, believe that they know and comprehend, rather than let themselves be informed, they will learn slowly by their own experience. What you do not know or comprehend is substituted with and proved by imaginative constructions even more easily in the emotional world than in the physical. Intellectually, the individuals in the emotional world are in an decidedly worse situation, since objective research there has difficulties to surmount that are incomparably greater than those in the physical world. (In the emotional world you communicate by means of the peculiar emotional forms of language, so that a knowledge of languages is necessary for communication. Mental consciousness, however, immediately deciphers all mental vibrations.) 11 Suffering is always within reach in the emotional world with its emotional states intensified thousandfold. In emotional respect, the emotional world can be divided into two heavens (48:2,3) and four hells (48:4-7). As physical beings, most people live in someone of those four repulsive states, the physical conditions disregarded. When they leave physical life, those additional conditions are removed. Any emotional suffering can be cured by an act of determined will, by refusing to pay regard to whatever causes suffering, by refusing to suffer. Only those who have tried to escape suffering by suicide suffer irremediably in the emotional world. They realize their fatal mistake but too late. Their consciousness remains in those emotional states which they wanted to escape, during the time that would normally have been left of their physical existence. The experience of such a period, without a chance of dulling, relaxation, or even momentary forgetfulness, may very well have caused the legend of eternal Hell. 12 In the mental world, consciousness leads an absolutely subjective mental illusory existence, not having the possibility of objectivity or even suspecting its subjectivity. The selfs long sojourn in the mental world explains why subjectivists have their fantastic feeling that matter is unreal and illusory. The condition in the mental world agrees with their theory. Philosophers in the mental world cannot possibly realize their inability of objectivity and hence must be subjectivists (solipsists). Many people already in physical existence lead an unreal imaginative life in important respects, a life full of arbitrary constructions. They refuse to consider the criteria of material reality. All that the mental being is conscious of in the mental world, with a sense of absolute reality that is incomprehensible to us, is absolute bliss and perfection. Everything is there as soon as you think of it. Your friends speak and act exactly as you think it perfect yourself. At a hint from thought all circumstances are changed, and everything is quite natural. Where the normal individual is concerned, objective mental consciousness is precluded and thus also any contact with mental beings. The ways of looking at things that you have brought with you from the physical world (three-dimensional apprehension of space, for instance) remain unaltered. New facts cannot be added (in default of objectivity), and therefore a wider insight is precluded. The individual is dependent on the fictions and illusions collected during physical existence. 13 Being in his absolutely subjective state, man believes that he is omniscient and omnipotent, unless he confines himself by dogmas of his impotence, etc., and spends his time thanking and praising god for his beatitude. You always have your superstitions confirmed in the emotional world as well as in the mental. 14 In the undisturbed existence of the mental world, the self is able to survey its latest earthly life and analyse its mental experiences over and over again, sublimating them into ideas which are utilized by the causal superconsciousness. After that it is of inestimable value for the first self to lose the idiosyncrasies, crystallized fictions and views, useless stupidities of its personality, to be allowed, in due time, to begin a new existence enriched by the possibility of wider insight and

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understanding and without the burden of the past to hamper the self. 15 The first self of the normal individual loses its consciousness through its inability of activity in causal matter. The selfs consciousness becomes latent. When the self can activate its causal envelope for an unlimited time, the self becomes immortal, since the monads consciousness can then never more become latent. Becoming latent, the selfs continuity of consciousness ceases, and also its memory becomes latent. The new envelopes of the self do not have any memory, and therefore the monads memory, which cannot contact the memories of the previous envelopes, remains latent. Thus the latent state depends on the inactivity of the previous envelopes and on the inability of objective atomic consciousness. Remembrance anew is subjective and objective. When subjective, it is immediate understanding. When objective, it is in the normal individual, in case it occurs at all, dependent on a temporary or partial activation of the atomic consciousness of the triad physical atom. 2.41 The Individual Self The basis of individual character is laid through all the experiences of the atom and individual influences on it all of them from the very beginning always different in innumerable kinds of material combinations as primary and secondary matter. Individual character is strengthened through the individuals experiences when being mineral, vegetable, and animal life. During eons of influences into adaptation, of dim feeling and groping, of instinctive reaction, instinctive discernment and selection, individual character crystallizes as an individual total synthesis of all unconscious and conscious experiences ever since the primordial atom was involved into cosmic matter. 2 For the monad the entire process of manifestation is the further individualization of its individual character. Its sojourn in the human kingdom, which gives the monad selfconsciousness, is neither the beginning nor the end of the formation of its individual character. But this period of isolation, the most difficult of all developmental phases, is necessary to the confirmation of its individuality; for it to remain self-determined in the collective expansion. 3 Matter undergoes total involvation and evolvation in four phases. In the first process it becomes rotatory matter; in the second, elemental matter; in the third (tertiary matter) it becomes evolutionary matter; and in the fourth, individual matter, the matter that acquires selfconsciousness. Tertiary matter consists of loose evolutionary atoms and evolutionary molecules that develop through being connected with monads. This matter enters into more or less permanent aggregates, for example triad units, centres in aggregate envelopes, etc. But it can also form temporary material forms, which are dissolved when their task is fulfilled. These cannot be formed unconsciously as is the case with involutionary matter, but at least superessential knowledge and ability are required for this. They are of course more active and purposeful than elementals and fulfil perfectly the missions they are charged with in accordance with the wisdom and irresistible will that formed them. 4 Thus the monad has a long journey behind it. Apart from its participation in cosmic processes preparatory to solar systemic concretion (4349), it has been both primary and secondary matter in various solar systems. After that, as an evolutionary atom, it has acquired incipient subjective consciousness, which manifests itself as vague instinct. Finally, with the development of selfactivity, it has been able to involve into triads in order to acquire in them the ability of activity, which is a prerequisite of objective consciousness and self-consciousness. 5 During the course of evolution the monad in its first triad acquires full objective selfconsciousness in all the different kinds of matter, and full ability of vibration by means of its triad envelopes in these same kinds of matter. Step by step through each molecular kind, the monad acquires the requisite abilities, solves in succession the seemingly endless series of problems of consciousness and will. The monad learns to dominate matter from below up and does not
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definitively leave any kind of matter until the consciousness functions of the corresponding envelope have been taken over by the next higher envelope through automatization. 6 When the triad mental molecule can vibrate in all four mental molecular kinds, the monad passes to a superetheric mental molecule (47:3) in the causal envelope, from there to a subatomic molecule, and finally to a mental atom, from which it will in due time pass to the mental atom of the second triad. The first triad can subsequently be dispensed with. In case it is separated, it is broken up into its three constituents. The monad has acquired omniscience and omnipotence in the five lower worlds (4749) and can, at need, form a temporary triad for activity in the lower worlds. 7 The monads human evolution is completed when it has, in waking consciousness, acquired objective consciousness of the physical etheric, emotional, mental, and causal worlds; organized and automatized the emotional, mental, and causal envelopes; acquired the ability of full vibrational power in these envelopes; and centred itself in the second triad. What follows after that is part of expansion, first through worlds 4643 within the solar system, then through worlds 422 in the six progressively higher cosmic kingdoms. When the monad has reached atomic kind 1, it will for the first time be conscious of being the ultimate self it always was. 8 Being in its primordial atomic state free from all involvation, having acquired cosmic omniscience and omnipotence, the self enters into a state unknown to lower consciousness. The ancients called this to enter into the unmanifested. The monad is then able to let itself be dissolved and to merge with the homogeneity and unconsciousness of primordial matter. This is the true nirvana, hopelessly misunderstood. The prerequisite of universal expansion and emancipation from all involvation is to serve life, to enter into a globe, a seven-globe, and ever greater global formations in cooperation with other selves. To seek knowledge and power for other purposes than to serve life results in renewed involvations in the ever coarser matter of ever lower worlds. When life is at its best it is work in inconceivable bliss in the service of the process of manifestation, without any thought of ones self. Helping the primordial atoms, unconscious in the primordial manifestation, to acquire consciousness, self-consciousness, collective consciousness, omniscience, and omnipotence in the quickest possible way is the only path to the longed-for final goal: eternal rest. To continue to live after that is to offer the true sacrifice. 9 At the emotional stage the self identifies with its emotional being; at the stage of humanity, with its mental being. At the stage of ideality, the individual knows that his causal being is not his true self, but just an envelope, permanent in the human kingdom, for the self. His true self the individual will not know until he has reached the primordial atomic stage as a free monad. Until then he will be one with his envelopes, particularly with the most active one. 2.42 The Collective Selves The monad is the self. The first triad becomes a self when the monad has acquired selfconsciousness in it. After that, self-consciousness is always the self, whatever stage of development the self is at. The second triad becomes a second self and the third triad a third self when the monad with its self-consciousness and individual character takes possession of them. In the first triad the monad acquires self-determined self-consciousness. In the second and third triads its individuality expands into a collective embracing more and more, through the unity with life that it has itself acquired. The first self is the individual self. All higher selves are collective selves. Thus the individual becomes a collective self when he has entered into the common consciousness. 2 The second self consists of four different beings: the higher superessential being (45:1-3), which embraces the three lower envelopes: namely, the lower superessential being (45:4-7), an essential being (46:1-7), and a causal being (47:1-3). The developmental levels of the second self are 14 in number; one level for each molecular kind of the essential and superessential kinds of
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matter. The three kinds of causal consciousness the monad has already acquired as a first self. The third self consists likewise of four beings: a superessential (45:1-3), a submanifestal (44:1-7), and two manifestal (43:4-7 and 43:1-3) beings. 3 The activity of the higher triads commences when they are activated from below. They become fully active when the monad has centred itself in them. The activation of the causal envelope begins at the stage of culture. The activation of the second triad commences when the causal envelope of the first self consists 25 per cent of mental atoms. The activation of the second triad mental atom keeps pace with the monads ability of activity in the inmost centre of the causal envelope. When the causal envelope consists exclusively of mental atoms after, as calculated, seven incarnations, then it has been possible to activate the essential atom of the triad so that this atom has formed an essential envelope with active consciousness in the two lowest essential molecular kinds (46:6,7). With the activation of the third molecular kind (46:3) begins the activation of the triad superessential molecule (45:4). After, as calculated, seven more incarnations, the monad will be able to centre itself in the envelope of the second triad (45:1-3). The activation of the third self begins when the second self has become subjectively conscious in its higher superessential envelope, which corresponds to the envelope of the third triad superessential atom (45:1). 4 As long as the collective selves (the second and third selves) are inactive, the second and third triads lack the corresponding envelopes in their worlds. The envelopes are formed when these selves are activated by the monad in the lowest atom of the respective triad. 5 To the extent that the esoteric knowledge deals with the aspects of existence and the necessary basic facts, it is authoritative also for second and third selves, and is confirmed through the entire series of higher beings in ever higher worlds. This knowledge has been communicated as being necessary for solar systemic selves in order to understand existence. This does not mean, however, that anything may be accepted without examination. Everybody must examine and ascertain the facts for himself. The knowledge is to be regarded as hypothetical until the individuals own experience transforms it into being apodictic. This is done through all-round experience of the different globe memories, which always exist in the present, with their content, not just of all processes and events, but also of everybodys consciousness expressions. 6 As a collective being the self has countless kinds of such beings to choose between. Some selves prefer to have experiences in different kinds of aggregates. Others continue in one and the same collective. There are degrees also within collective beings, and promotion depends on the individuals further self-acquisition of qualities and abilities.

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ESOTERIC COSMOLOGY
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2.43 The Manifestations The following four material realities are distinguished: primordial matter (chaos) primordial manifestation cosmos (atomic matter) solar systems with planets (molecular matter)

Primordial matter is both matter proper and true, unlimited space. The primordial manifestation the product of blind will consists of primordial atoms formed in primordial matter, and thus is the inexhaustible store of free, uninvolved primordial atoms. The primordial atoms, the original material for all other matter, are indestructible and constitute the only really indestructible matter. All other matter is formed and dissolved. In every primordial atom the eternally blind, eternally dynamic will of primordial matter, the inexhaustible source of all power, is ever present and is the source of the boundless power that is at the disposal of every primordial atom. 4 The cosmos as an extension in space corresponds in a certain manner to what is called a galaxy, the aggregation of millions of solar systems. Each cosmos is its own galaxy. The number of cosmoses is unlimited. Each cosmos has its own atomic matter. Being originally of insignificant extent, the cosmos grows with the number of solar systems. 5 Each solar system has its own molecular matter. The solar system is like a replica of the cosmos. With an intimate knowledge of the solar system (its matter, composition, consciousness) you can draw analogies in many respects about the cosmos. The old saying about the analogy between macrocosmos and microcosmos has a thorough justification for it that extends down to many details. 6 The word manifestation also denotes globe systems with their worlds and natural kingdoms.
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2.44 The Seven-Globes The solar system is a vast globe filled up with lesser globes. A three-dimensional conception of space is insufficient for a correct idea of the globes. Our solar system consists of the 49-globes, each of which consists of seven seven-globes. 2 The seven-globe forms a unitary system of its own. Seven seven-globes form a unitary system of their own in involutionary and evolutionary respect, a 49-globe. Anyone who has fully comprehended the principles of a seven-globe and a 49-globe can by analogy apply these principles to cosmic globe aggregations. 3 The seven-globe consists of seven globes that are tangent to each other; the 49-globe of seven seven-globes. In any seven-globe, the first corresponds in materiality to the seventh, the second to the sixth, the third to the fifth. The fourth globe in a seven-globe has always the lowest matter existing. The kinds of matter indicated refer as must always be the case to the lowest kind of matter existing, all the higher kinds being included. The lowest kind of matter is always the most important one in respect of objectivity. 4 The seven-globe we belong to is a seven-globe of the lowest kind, having the grossest kinds of matter. It has three globes of physical matter. Globes 1 and 7 in our seven-globe are mental globes (47:4-7). Globes 2 and 6 are emotional globes (48:1-7). Globes 3 and 5 are invisible physical etheric globes (49:1-4). Our globe 4 is a dense physical globe (49:5-7). This last mentioned globe (4) is always the only globe in a 49-globe that is visible to the normal individual. All the planets
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enter into the corresponding seven-globe of their respective 49-globes. 5 Our planet (4) has five material worlds: the dense physical, physical etheric, emotional, mental, and causal worlds. Our globe has four unitary envelope consciousnesses with their corresponding envelope memories. Of these, the total memories of the physical and emotional worlds are practically inaccessible because of the chaotic condition of the consciousness of all individuals at the pertaining stages of evolution. The globe memory proper is the causal, being the highest one in the globe. The essential world (essential matter, consciousness, and memory) of our globe belongs to the seven-globe. 6 In order to travel without aid to any other lowest seven-globe in our solar system it is necessary to have higher superessential objective consciousness. Thus only perfected second selves are able to visit other planets in our solar system. 7 (In their writings the ancients called the three seven-globes preceding ours in our 49-globe Neptune, Venus, and Saturn; and the three seven-globes that will in turn supersede ours, Mercury, Mars, and Jupiter. Globe 1 in our seven-globe was called Vulcan, 2 Venus, 3 Mars, 5 Mercury, 6 Jupiter, 7 Saturn. These names were keys that indicated certain relationships.) 2.45 Involution and Evolution in the Seven-Globes The process of matter goes on in all globes. The processes of involution and evolution go on chiefly in one of the seven-globes of any 49-globe at a time. Matter acquires in each seven-globe those qualities which the material composition of this very seven-globe intends to make possible. Each seven-globe thus means a certain phase of development in involutionary and evolutionary respect. Anyone who has understood the processes in a seven-globe is able to conclude by analogy about the processes in other kinds of seven-globes. 2 In each seven-globe each natural kingdom reaches the perfection that makes it possible for it to continue its development in the next higher kingdom in the next seven-globe. 3 Involution and evolution make up a process that implies, among many other things, the transportation of both involutionary and evolutionary matter from one seven-globe to another. This process takes seven eons for each natural kingdom. 4 When being transported from one seven-globe to another, all natural kingdoms transmigrate, both the involutionary and evolutionary kingdoms. For the elemental kingdoms, this implies one step down towards the mineral kingdom of the physical world; for the evolutionary kingdoms, one step up, to the next higher natural kingdom. All material forms dissolve, their kinds of matter continue their development in the next seven-globe while preserving, in latent state, qualities and abilities acquired. 5 As for involution, the causal elementals in a seven-globe become mental elementals in the next seven-globe, emotional elementals in the succeeding seven-globe, and pass to the mineral kingdom in the still next seven-globe. 6 As for evolution, the mineral group-souls in a seven-globe, when they pass to the next sevenglobe, are liberated from their group envelopes of physical etheric matter and thereby pass to the vegetable kingdom automatically. The vegetable group-souls are liberated from their envelopes of emotional matter and pass to the animal kingdom. The animal group-souls are stimulated so that the common envelopes burst and every animal triad gets its own causal envelope. Thus also the triads (evolutionary monads in triad envelopes) need as a rule a seven-globe to reach the next higher natural kingdom. 7 This is the programmatic procedure, and the description intends to show the general process of evolution. In actual fact, not all the triads of any kingdom pass to the next kingdom exactly at the time of their transfer to the new seven-globe. Many triads have reached their next goal already before that, while others are as yet far from ready for a new transmigration, and remain in their lower kingdoms also after their transportation to the next seven-globe.
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It should be added that transfers of monads from one solar system to another, from one planet to another, often take place. In fact, human monads that have completed their evolution in the human kingdom within the same globe are rather rare. 9 Involution and evolution are comprehensive terms of a great number of different processes, which in the future will give rise to several new disciplines necessary to a scientific understanding of the whole. Until then, the most important thing is that the two ideas be comprehensible, and so they will be through the schematic description of the procedure. It must be expressly emphasized that all too few facts are at hand for imaginative speculation to elucidate the matter any further. When the scientific authorities some time will realize the incomparable superiority of hylozoics as a working hypothesis, then their interest will be satisfied with the facts necessary to scientific elucidation. The planetary hierarchy wish nothing more than be allowed to liberate mankind from its ignorance of (or, rather, perfect disorientation as to) the superphysical reality. 10 The knowledge of these involutionary and evolutionary processes explodes definitively the Indian doctrine of metempsychosis, saying that it is possible to relapse from a higher kingdom into a lower. 2.46 The Eons The life-time of a seven-globe is divided into seven seven-globe periods (eons), or 49 globe periods. By seven-globe period (eon) is meant the time for the transportation of life activity from globe to globe round the seven globes of the seven-globe. When the life that is, the majority of the mass of triads has in this way been transported seven times round the seven-globe, the seven-globe is emptied of the greater part of its involutionary and evolutionary matter, which is transferred to the next seven-globe. 2 Three journeys have already been completed round the seven globes of our seven-globe. We are in the fourth eon, the activity of which has continued for a total of more than 2,000 million years. Thus there is full life activity on our planet for the fourth time. 3 In the first eon of our seven-globe our planet was gaseous; in the second eon, liquid physical matter. In the third eon, a solid crust had formed which in the present eon has already reached its greatest solidity and thickness with symptoms of incipient etherization. 4 The seven eons of our seven-globe can be divided into three involutionary and four evolutionary eons. 5 The three involutionary eons can be termed:
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1 the elementalization eon 2 the mineralization eon 3 the organism eon


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The four evolutionary eons can be termed: 4 5 6 7 the emotional eon the mental-causal eon the essential eon the superessential eon

These terms indicate that involution is regarded from the material point of view; and evolution, from the consciousness point of view. They also intimate the most dominant tendency of the eons. It is true that during the periods of activity, there are all kinds of activity everywhere. The first three eons, however, can be regarded as chiefly stimulating involution and thereby preparing for greater possibilities of evolution. 53

The first eon was characterized by a general stabilization of newly formed kinds of matter in conjunction with an efficient elementalization through special involutionary vibrations. During this period of involution was prepared the formation of etheric envelopes for the typical kinds of organisms and other forms of life of the new system. 9 In the second eon the triads were transferred from the previous seven-globe. The evolutionary forms of life were involved more and more towards the density of the solid state of matter. This was true especially of the mineral kingdom. 10 In the third eon organic life became possible on our planet. All physical life had hitherto been etheric. The vegetable kingdom reached its greatest differentiation during this period. 11 In the current fourth eon the life activity in our globe has been in progress for more than 320 million years, or about half the time of our globe period of 600 million years. This, the emotional, eon is the special period for the animal kingdom and is particularly for the animal kingdom a period of the greatest activity, with new impulses of life and experiments of differentiation in all conceivable directions. The automatization of the organisms is perfected and that of the etheric envelopes is accelerated. Since a large part of the mankind from the previous seven-globe have not concluded their emotional development with the automatization of their emotional envelopes, they are still involving. 12 The next, the mental, eon will be the special one for man. Then about 60 per cent of mankind will succeed in attaining at least subjective causal consciousness, and most of them will take possession of their proper world as causal selves. At the same time, the highest animal species will approach that developmental stage at which they are able to causalize collectively. 13 The sixth and seventh eons are intended for the transmigration of the lower natural kingdoms, expansion of the second selves, formation of collectives, and preparations for future tasks. 14 In the seventh eon, the seven globes are reduced in turn, according as the mass of triads leaves one globe after the other. The filling up of a subsequent seven-globe with involutionary and evolutionary matter takes place simultaneously with the reduction of the previous seven-globe. 15 When the triads were moved for the last time from globe 1 to globe 2 of the previous sevenglobe, the remaining involutionary and evolutionary matter (rotatory matter exists everywhere) was transferred from that globe to globe 1 of our seven-globe to be further involved. The corresponding applies to the other globes. Our globe 2 was filled up with matter from the older globe 2, our globe 3 with matter from the older globe 3, etc. Our globe 4, our planet, was filled up with involutionary and evolutionary mental and emotional matter as well as physical matter from globe 4 of the previous seven-globe. 16 The life activity in our seven-globe began in globe 1, proceeded from there to globe 2, and further to globe 3, etc. round the seven globes. The transition of evolution from the previous seven-globe to ours began with those mineral triads which had not been able to transmigrate into vegetable group-souls, and the analogous is always the case in the other natural kingdoms. Those who have fallen behind and have not been able to keep up with the general evolution are in this way given an extra refresher course, which is intended to make it possible for them to catch up with their companions. When the vegetable triads make their entry into globe 1, mineral triads are ready to go on to globe 2. The animal triads stream into globe 1 at the same time as mineral triads from globe 2 are transferred to globe 3 and vegetable triads from globe 1 go on to globe 2. When finally the human triads enclosed in their causal envelopes are transferred to globe 1, mineral triads have reached to globe 4, vegetable triads to globe 3, and animal triads to globe 2. The majority of the triads, however, accompany the human triads. With mans entry into any globe begins a rapid development of new forms of life from such ones as possibly already exist, and a rapid differentiation of the types takes place. The life activity delays in each globe until mankind has gone through its seven root-races. 17 At the same time the other forms of life have reached a state of relative perfection for these

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forms, a state that continues for those who have been left behind when the great mass of triads leaves the globe. The life left behind does not develop any new forms, since new impulses of life are absent. When the mass of triads is transferred to the next globe in order to begin a new development of life, triads are always left behind for two different reasons. Some cannot continue to develop in the same tempo, some have sped before in development and have managed to go round the seven-globe. The former await the return of the life in order to resume their work. The latter wait for their transportation at a more suitable time. 18 With the return of the life the new impulses of life come and new forms of life suddenly appear in immense multiplicity. Most of these soon disappear upon having fulfilled their function of being the experiments of life to find the most purposeful forms, and thus they become the missing links of biological evolution, which in the domains of all forms of life constantly present problems to the scientist. 19 Life in the six higher globes of our seven-globe approximately corresponds to life in the higher worlds of our planet. The difference lies chiefly in the fact that a new world is added and a former is omitted according as the life is transported from one globe to another.

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2.47 The Processes of Manifestation The process of manifestation can be divided into four simultaneous, inseparable, continuous and constant processes. During the passive periods of a system they are, however, reduced to a minimum where that system is concerned. 2 The four processes of manifestation are: the processes of involvation, involution, evolution (in the four lower natural kingdoms), and expansion (in the higher natural kingdoms). 3 The systemic process of involvation also includes the combination of the cosmic atomic states 43-49 to form the seven different kinds of molecular matter, each kind of which has six molecular states. That is done in the forming of the globe systems. 4 The process of involution includes, among other processes, the transformation of primary matter (which has rotatory motion) into secondary matter (which has rotatory-cyclic spiral motion). 5 The process of evolution includes the evolution of the forms of life, the formation of the triads and their combination into group-souls, transmigration, causalization, essentialization, and other processes. The process of expansion is a continuation in higher worlds of the process of evolution. 6 The process of manifestation can be viewed as both a cyclic and a continuous process. It is cyclic because of the continually repeated involvation into more composed matter accompanied by evolvation towards the relatively uncompounded initial stage. It is continuous, since the different processes cooperate to reach the goal in the shortest possible way: the actualization, activation, objectivation, and expansion of consciousness in order to acquire omniscience and omnipotence in all the worlds. 7 Although the three aspects of reality are always equally important, yet the matter aspect dominates in the process of involution. The process of evolution entails the transition from the matter aspect to the consciousness aspect as apparently the most important one. In the process of expansion the consciousness aspect dominates to begin with, but is gradually superseded by the will aspect. 8 The process of manifestation as past time is the true universal history. Not until we experience the past causally shall we be able to interpret history correctly, shall we realize that the truth-value of so-called universal history is as fictitious as the philosophic or scientific metaphysics. The knowledge of the matter aspect, of the process of nature, or of matter; and that of the consciousness aspect, are inseparable and presuppose each other. 9 The processes of manifestation result in a perfect organization with an effected distribution of work. A cosmos fully built out is an immensely complicated organization, which works with unfailing precision. The primordial manifestation is the work of dynamis. The other manifestations are the works of monads who have themselves gone through involution, evolution, and expansion and thus have traversed the path from unconsciousness to cosmic omniscience. All manifestation is of necessity a process conditioned by law. In its individual formations, however, it is in addition a perpetual improvising and experimenting with the inexhaustible possibilities of the originally given conditions.
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2.48 The Periods of Manifestation Manifestation can also be called motion in time. The duration of manifestation is determined by a great number of factors. One important factor is evolution. This applies to both the cosmos and solar systems. In this, the principle is that all primordial atoms involved into the fully built-out cosmos shall acquire objective self-consciousness of the entire cosmos; that is, cosmic omniscience and omnipotence. The definitive dissolution of manifestational matter is done
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gradually from the coarsest matter up towards the original state, atomic kind 1, in such a tempo that also the laggards will manage to develop normally. 2 No life is always equally active. The law of periodicity applies to all life. In manifestation, periods of activity and passivity interchange. Thus, for example, the states in between incarnations are rather to be viewed as periods of passivity where the first self is concerned. A period of activity means increased and relatively all-round activity, a period of passivity means decreased life activity. 3 The length of the various periods of manifestation can be exactly calculated by those who have the requisite facts. The exoteric periods, known in India for a long time past, are mostly fictitious, being used to mask the real ones. It is known for certain that the periods vary for different globes as well as for different root-races, that the life-time of a solar system as given in years is expressed by a fifteen digit number, and that one eon (called by the Indians a kalpa, or day of Brahma) amounts to 4,320 million years. The globe period for our globe in the current emotional eon is estimated at about 600 million years. 4 The periods of passivity imply, in lower worlds, dissolution of matter and liberation for more purposive compositions of matter for the different natural kingdoms, and, in higher worlds, increased activity involving preparations for the next period, and other things. 2.49 The Three Kinds of Solar System Of the ten 49-globes of the solar system three are greater and seven lesser. The three greater prepare for evolution in the lesser, gather up the results of evolution, and send forth newly formed collective beings. In the seven lesser globes evolution is specialized. When evolution in the latter has been concluded, the harvest is gathered in to the three greater globes. Thereupon the seven lesser globes undergo a remoulding of their physical, emotional, and mental matter. When they have again reached the stage of habitability, a distribution and specialization of evolution is begun again. Thereupon the three greater globes undergo a remoulding. The procedure is repeated two more times, resulting in three different kinds of solar system; whereupon the entire solar system is dissolved and the laggards are transferred to other solar systems. 2 Each of the seven lesser 49-globes, being a unit in involutionary and evolutionary respect, represents one of the seven main types. Each 49-globe has of course its own seven departments. Circulation between the seven lesser 49-globes can occur insofar as development is furthered by this. Many individuals need at least for some time to have experiences in the special system of their own type, or experiences of another system than their own. The transfer between the systems is easily made. 3 A total solar systemic manifestation thus requires three solar systemic periods to conclude its evolution. The first two kinds of solar system are to be considered as preparing for the third, the real mass expansion. In the first solar system, physical and emotional matter is mentalized, which makes possible mental apprehension, mental synthesization of sense perceptions and emotions, of all vibrations in the lowest three kinds of matter (4749) with their enormous atomic density. Especially physical matter is of an atomic density that makes the mechanization of matter necessary preparatory to the automatization, in the second solar system, of all physical, emotional, and mental envelopes. The third solar system presupposes the complete automatization of these kinds of matter, because all the lower evolutionary matter is to be manifestalized. The kinds of matter that have not concluded their development are transferred to other solar systems. Also our solar systems of the first and second kinds have taken over much such remnant matter. The first solar system is the particular manifestation of the matter aspect; the second, that of the consciousness aspect; the third, that of the will aspect.
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2.50 The Departments The organization of manifestation is based on the division into seven departments. The seven departments have been given different names in the various esoteric schools: the seven rays, the seven types, etc. Their purpose is, as is that of many other things, differentiation, multiplicity in unity, the purposeful distribution of work, the education of specialists. In them, seven main kinds are educated for various functions in the process of manifestation. 2 The division into departments has the result that every involutionary and evolutionary atom belongs to one of the seven departments. The departments form seven different, parallel, lines of development and seven different main types. Within each department the septenary division is repeated in such combinations that there exists something more or less of all the types in all beings, although one of the types dominates in each being. This makes it possible for an individual to change his type as a developed causal self and move to another department by means of special training. 3 There is a certain affinity between kinds of matter and types. Each type asserts itself following the law of least resistance most strongly in some particular kind of matter. To characterize the types is a difficult matter, because mankind has not come so far in its evolution that the types have as yet become pronounced. This is true especially of the first three types. 4 The first department type, of superessential emphasis, is the man of will, the leader. The second department type, of essential emphasis, is the unifier, the wisdom type. The third department type, of causal emphasis, is the all-round thinker type. The fourth department type, of mental-causal emphasis, is a union of logic and intuition, which in the normal individual often takes an aesthetic-artistic-dramatic expression. The fifth department type, of mental emphasis, is the scientist. The sixth department type, of emotional emphasis, is the vibration type who perceives and understands by feeling the vibrations. The seventh department type, of physical emphasis, is the organizing man of law. 5 The first three departments are the main ones corresponding to the three aspects: will, consciousness, matter; the first three processes of manifestation; and the three collective beings: guardians of law (supervisors of balance), guides of evolution, and formers of matter. 6 The types having odd numbers develop most easily during periods having odd numbers. Consequently, in our fourth eon, the types belonging to the second, fourth, and sixth departments follow the law of least resistance. 7 All special activity occurs in ordered cycles. A special activity develops in each of the seven departments in turn and involves all the types, even though it is more or less characteristic of some one type. The departmental activity that in the year 1898 was initiated in the seventh department succeeded that of the sixth department, which had then been going on for about 2,500 years. 8 As pure types the departmental types correspond to different temperaments, and this is the grain of truth there is in the hopeless speculation of ignorance as to that problem.
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2.51 Expanding Collective Beings All essential and higher beings are part of expanding collective beings. Those who follow the human path of development have their own collectives as well as those who belong to other evolutions. Man becomes aware of his own collective of consciousness (group of other second triads) only at essential consciousness expansion. As a rule, those individuals belong to the same collective being who essentialize in the same root-race, or causalize together, or belong to the same clan. If the monads evolution proceeds normally, the monad remains within its collective and expands as a second self, a third self, etc. in it. Every individual is free to pass into other collective beings with other tasks. Those are few, however, who avail themselves of this, since, as a rule, the individual prefers to stay with the clan with which he has been collaborating ever since
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he causalized. 2 An expanding collective being is a unity of individual beings. Every collective being is a unitary being, that is, has a common consciousness. Every individual in such a being is, in his own collective consciousness, this being himself. Thus in respect of consciousness every individual is both an individual and a collective. 3 There are innumerable kinds of collective beings embracing larger and larger groups of individual beings. Everything that can form a collective is automatically a collective being. Thus every material world, planet, solar system, the entire cosmos, is a collective being. Collective beings form a continuous series of ever higher natural kingdoms. In this thorough-going continuity of ever higher, ever larger collective beings, unity finds expression. Those beings who approach cosmic omniscience and omnipotence through cosmic expansion thus are no lonely individuals erring through the cosmos at random but collectives that enter into ever higher and larger units, until, in the highest cosmic world, they make up one single total being. 4 The entire manifestation participates in the process of manifestation, unconsciously or consciously, unwittingly or intentionally, involuntarily or voluntarily. 5 The life of collective beings is a life of service. Individually as well as collectively they acquire in this the qualities they need for their further expansion. The individuals of collective beings expand together and are by each collective expansion ever more intimately united with one another and with ever more individuals. In a collective being, all collaborate in common tasks with functions individually distributed. Collective beings are composed according to a great number of principles of division. Every individual is at the same time a specially trained expert. 6 When merging into higher collective beings, those retiring entrust their tasks to those succeeding, and in their turn assume those of their predecessors. All depend on all. The expansion of the lower is a necessary condition of that of the higher. 7 In every collective being there is some one individual who in respect of consciousness could belong to a higher being. This individual is the connection, as regards consciousness, with higher collective beings. The subconsciousness and consciousness, respectively, of the higher, are the superconsciousness of the lower. By remaining in the lower he can pass on to his collective consciousness the knowledge of the higher, insofar as this higher can be comprehended at all by the lower. It is in this manner that the knowledge becomes authoritative, since the knowledge of the higher can always be passed on to the lower to the extent that this knowledge is necessary for the lower. 2.52 The Tasks of Collective Beings The tasks of collective beings can be summed up in three main groups on the basis of the three aspects: the matter aspect, the consciousness aspect, and the will aspect. Accordingly we have formers of matter, supervisors of evolution, and restorers of balance. 2 Formers of matter put the whole of manifestational matter together, shape the globes and the forms of life of the natural kingdoms. 3 Leaders of evolution supervise involution and evolution and everything that goes with those processes. Where rational, self-responsible beings are concerned, they may influence (inspire) those who by their work really serve evolution. As for the rest, they must try to prevent that the whole human race goes astray definitively. 4 Supervisors of balance, restorers of harmony, guardians of causality, see that causality, the law of cause and effect, sowing and reaping, the interplay of concurrent and counteracting forces, does not make the continuance of life impossible, that material forces do not result in chaos through individual arbitrariness. 5 All matter has its own causality: all compositions, kinds of matter, all forms everything from a globe to the lowest molecule. The same is true of all natural kingdoms, races, nations,
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groups, individuals. In repercussions according to the law of reaping, all the various combinations produced through constant or temporary connections must be taken into account. 6 No supreme power can reach that omnipotence of dynamis which is required to produce primordial atoms in primordial matter. This work can only be done by the dynamic energy of primordial matter. Even the highest beings are subject to the Law. The very nature of primordial matter and of dynamis is the basis of the conformity to law of everything and makes arbitrary omnipotence impossible. The law finds expression in the immutability of the process of matter and in the inevitable constant relationships of matter and energy. Every law is a part of still more general constant complexes, which finally merge into that fundamental law which derives from the nature of matter. Expressed differently: natural law is the mechanical mode of action of dynamis. The more the process of matter progresses and, with it, differentiation, the more laws appear. If there were no law, then the stone would not fall, no technology would be possible, no prediction could be made, and the cosmos would be a chaos. The assumption that law is absent is an evidence of ignorance. According to the fundamental esoteric axiom, there are laws in everything and everything is expressive of law. Anyone who possesses a knowledge of all the laws, is omniscient. Omnipotence is possible only through absolutely faultless application of the laws in their entirety. 2.53 The Relations of Collective Beings to Mankind The law of self-realization through self-activity is universal and is valid for all life, from the lowest to the highest. It is up to man to acquire knowledge of reality and life and a conception of right in harmony with the laws. Mankind as a collective also has its problems which it must try to solve on its own. As necessary as it is that the individual works for his own development, as necessary is the assistance of higher evolutions. Collective beings themselves develop by their work at manifestation. The envelopes of lower evolutions are part of the envelopes of collective beings. The lower ones are given nearly all of the material automatization for nothing is due course of time. The human individual does not need alien guidance. His higher triads belong to collective beings, his own superconsciousness is part of the waking consciousness of these collective beings. It is true that the consciousness of his first triad is at the human stage isolated from the consciousness of other first triads. This temporary solitude, however, is necessary in order that he acquire self-reliance (as a potential godhead with the rights that this implies) and self-determination. In this solitude the individual is given all the assistance that he is entitled to according to the laws of unity and reaping. The individual develops by learning from his own experiences and by reaping what he has sown. Everything good and evil that the individual meets with is his own doing. Life need not be the hell that men have made it. But as long as men hold unity in contempt, tread their brothers under foot, set themselves up as laws and judges on others, they must reap what they have sown until they learn that the responsibility of freedom means brotherhood and not self-will. 2 In serving evolution and unity the individuals of the collectives have found the only life worth living, have become one with life. Man can, just as they, reach that goal by striving after unity. Essential consciousness makes it clear that all are one. The sooner man realizes his unity with all life, the sooner he will be consciously united with those who have thus attained. They, too, have trod the path from impotence to freedom. They know man: his ignorance, conceit, inability, errors. They administer the sowing and reaping of causal law. Besides this incorruptible justice they feel sympathy for that brave being who following the law of self-realization erring blindly gropes his way towards an unknown goal. Nobody can identify a causal self or suspect the essential self in its humble human shape. Nobody would benefit in the least from doing it. They do not make themselves known. For magical tricks they refer to professional illusionists. They leave authority wholly to professors and prophets. The causal world is the common meeting ground for all, where
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all are known and all will find each other in the end. The worlds of the personality, of the illusion of life (with the ignorance of life, ineradicable self-deception, and unending misunderstandings) do not interest the collective selves. Anyone who in a life of service shows that all the illusions of life (power, wealth, honour, etc.), which hamper and separate, have been annihilated for evermore, speeds quickly towards his anticipated goal. 3 By denying his own potential godhead man does not gain any favours with the collective being that supervises human evolution. The only thanks for their toil that they may possibly expect is that man will seek to use purposefully the prospects of development and of the good sowing of unity that life offers daily. If you think you affect them in any other way, it would be tantamount to imputing to them unlawful arbitrariness. In that respect you are more correct to view them as impersonal laws of nature than arbitrary deities. Those beings are incorruptibly objective. Just one action by anyone of them against the Law would throw something out of gear and, besides, would be impossible without the assent of all the individuals of the collective and also of higher instances. According to the law of freedom, the right of any being to self-acquired freedom must not be violated, which freedom is unlimited as far as it is not abused to the detriment of any other being. The law of freedom also implies that you cannot demand anything to which you have not acquired the right. No higher being has any right to help arbitrarily. Everything is done under law, and infallible justice is inevitable. Injustice at any stage of life whatsoever is impossible. The general talk about the injustice of life is part of ignorance and envy. Those who know the Law are divinely indifferent to whatever happens to them. 4 Ignorance has been wont to regard some aspects of life as proof of the non-existence of an allwise and all-good supreme power. In atoms of repulsive basic tendency, development can take the wrong course, which becomes apparent already in the parasitism of the vegetable kingdom and predacity of the animal kingdom. Unconscious and, to a still higher degree, conscious violation of the law of freedom (encroachment on the individuals inalienable, inviolable divine freedom, limited by the equal right of all life) results in the struggle for existence and the cruelty of life. Natures waste with the seeds of life is also in conformity with the law of reaping, which affects all life automatically and mechanically. The mechanical makes arbitrariness impossible and in this also serves finality.

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GENERAL ESOTERIC KNOWLEDGE OF REALITY


2.54 Space and Time Primordial matter is without space and time. Space and time only arise with the cosmos. 2 Space in the cosmic sense is dimension (kind of space: the closest simile you can choose). Empty space is a higher kind of matter with a lesser density of primordial atoms. 3 There are as many kinds of space as there are dimensions and atomic kinds. The lowest atomic kind (the physical) has one dimension (line and area are not counted), the world of the highest atomic kind has 49 dimensions. 4 With each higher dimension it appears as though space contracted. Thus, the solar system appears as a single point to 7-dimensional vision, the cosmos as a single point to 49-dimensional vision. In all kinds of matter all the dimensions are accessible to a perfected primordial atomic being (1). 5 Higher worlds appear to penetrate lower worlds; and higher kinds of matter, to penetrate lower kinds (the most adequate explanation possible, although improper as a description). 6 Time is the unbroken continuity of the cosmic process of manifestation. Where manifestation is concerned, there is no absolute space or time. The manifestation is limited as a globe in the primordial manifestation. Also time is limited, since it is expressive of manifestational processes. 7 Time is a manner of measuring processes, changes in the matter and motion aspects. Each atomic world has its own kind of time. The physical time of our planet is determined by the rotation of the Earth and its revolution round the Sun, these being points of motion in relation to other solar systems. 8 The eternal present in the highest cosmic world is limited with each lower atomic world. In the essential world (46), mans division of time into past, present, and future appears an unwieldy concept. For causal consciousness, there is, as far as our globe 4 is concerned, no distance and no past time. 9 Time has no dimension. All mans speculations as to space and time have proved to be irrational. It is high time that man realized his immense limitation and were content with the endeavour to explore the physical world. To be able to speak with authority of higher worlds, you must have become at least a causal self. They have learnt to see their own limitations and to distinguish between what they know and what they know not, what they can comprehend and what they cannot. Very few people have as yet learned this. According to esoterics, no speculation can discover the truth. A contact with reality is not achieved in that way but through experience prepared methodically and systematically (with esoteric methods).
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2.55 Dynamis, Energies, Vibrations All three terms dynamis (the dynamic energy of primordial matter), energy, vibration are necessary to avoid vagueness. The more concepts we have, the more distinctions are possible for the full understanding of a reality that is extremely complex and hard to comprehend. We do not benefit the least from the strange method of trying to clarify by discarding the auxiliary concepts that are necessary. 2 Energies are the action of higher kinds of matter upon lower kinds. Each higher kind of matter can act as energy on each lower kind of matter. The three fundamental energies, the initial energies of the constant solar systemic energies, are three cosmic kinds of matter: of the atomic kinds 28, 35, 42. (The prana of the Hindus is not one, but these three.) 3 In order to reach lower kinds of matter, the higher energies do not need to go down via all the successive molecular kinds, but they pour down directly through the molecular kinds, one in each kind of matter, which correspond to them numerically.
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Energy, or force, manifests itself as motion, vibration. Vibrations arise in matter through the penetration of lower matter by higher matter, transportation of higher matter through lower matter. This transportation, which follows the law of least resistance, manifests itself as various kinds of motion (wave, spiral motion, etc.). Each kind of matter has as energy its own kind of motion, or vibration. When studying this transportation or penetration, you should notice that each molecular kind has its material subdivisions. 5 Thought does not just form a mental elemental in mental matter, but also emits vibrations in all the five dimensions (three if line and area are not counted) of the mental world. Being a material form the elemental can be localized, but not the vibrations, which reach all and can be apprehended by those who are tuned in to the corresponding wave-length. 6 From the vibrational point of view, everything can be said to consist of vibrations, and consciousness can be called the apprehension of vibrations in matter. The different kinds of sense perceptions are vibrations in the etheric envelope within certain definite areas. Desires and feelings are vibrations in the emotional envelope. Thoughts are vibrations in the mental envelope. 7 Vibrations in a certain molecular kind vitalize this molecular kind. Every repetition intensifies. For active consciousness in a certain molecular kind to be activated by the vibrations, it is necessary that consciousness can be active in this matter. 8 In connection with the study of vibrations, the study of periodicity will open up new fields for scientific research. Periodicity, or rhythm, is a quality of molecular matter. Periodicity implies, among other things, a continuous succession of periods of activity and passivity. One of the conditions of infallible prediction is a knowledge of the periodicity, or time-cycles, of the various pertaining realities. 9 Without matter there would be no motion or vibration, no power or energy, no material for dynamis. Dynamis acts by setting matter in motion. The ultimate initial impulse is always dynamis. Dynamis in the primordial atoms is independent of consciousness; in manifestational matter, until consciousness is activated. Dynamis is at the disposal of every primordial atom. Consciousness cannot affect matter. All affection is the work of dynamis. Active consciousness is the ability of consciousness to let dynamis act through it. Consciousness activity in some matter depends on the ability of consciousness to utilize dynamis in that matter. In respect of dynamis, the process of evolution is the unconscious and automatic acquisition of dynamis by consciousness; and the process of expansion, the conscious acquisition of dynamis by consciousness. 2.56 Higher Kinds of Matter Are Luminous Higher kinds of matter have the qualities of light and colour luminous colour which are perceptible to the objective consciousness that corresponds to the respective kinds of matter. This was one of the reasons why the ancients denoted higher matter symbolically by astral light, cosmic fire, etc.
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2.57 The Atom The atom of science is the chemical atom, the physical etheric molecule (49:4). When the true physical atom (49:1) is split (its spiral motion momentarily stopped), 49 emotional atoms (48:1) are obtained. 2 The atom has a globular form. The atomic globe consists of ten endless seeming threads drawn in a spiral three thick and seven fine ones which at no point touch one another. These threads in their turn have still finer threads wound round them (like an electric flex). Each of the seven threads evinces an affinity for one of the seven molecular kinds of that kind of matter to which the atom belongs. The function of the thread is to act as a conveyor of the special energies of its
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molecular kind, to produce or receive vibrations. The threads are vitalized through the cosmic energies mentioned above. The atom is either positive or negative. In the positive atom, energy flows in from the next higher world and through the atom into the world of the atom. In the negative atom, energy flows from the world of the atom through the atom forth into the next higher world. With each new eon in the seven-globe, one more spiral in the atom is vitalized. In the emotional eon, four threads in the atom (4-7) are vitalized. The higher layers of consciousness of the atom remain inactive. The threads that are not vitalized cannot receive any vibrations. Anyone who wishes to conquer consciousness in the higher molecular kinds, must be able by himself to vitalize the corresponding spirals in the units of his triad. The vibrations in the four lower molecular kinds are mainly repulsive; those in the higher three, attractive. The individual must acquire self-initiated ability of producing vibrations in the three units of his triad lest he be a slave to the vibrations from without. 2.58 The Origin of Material Forms and Forces of Nature Physical life has its physical etheric, emotional, mental, etc. material counterparts. The physical is just like a condensation, coarsening, scaling down, of the emotional; the emotional, the same of the mental, etc. Planets, natural kingdoms, etc., have their correspondences, their origins, in higher worlds. The process of involvation does not just imply an involvation of the atoms but moreover of the forms which are thought in the second cosmic kingdom (2935), which forms assume their lowest shapes in the physical world. The physical world is the result, the effect, of the activity in matter of the higher worlds. We seek in vain in the physical for the true causes of physical processes. The process of involvation is a successive repetition of higher matter, and that which exists in higher matter, in ever coarser, ever more composed matter. Without first existing in higher matter, no enduring forms can exist in lower matter. The higher the matter to which the form originally thought belongs, the more enduring, differentiated, viable is the final form. And the forms that are required for evolution must be of the highest possible viability. It was this basic and universal principle of form-furnishing that Platon had in mind when using his metaphor of ideas as the origin of everything. 2 This explains why the solar system can be called a replica of the cosmos, why analogy is the principal method of inference in esoterics; what the analogy of higher and lower, of macrocosmos and microcosmos, depends on. When making such inferences by analogy, you must of course proceed cautiously, since analogy can never be quite exact. That which exists in finer, higher matter can never be exactly represented in coarser, lower matter. In being coarsened, the next higher must be adapted to the material possibilities of the next lower. And the greater the distances in respect of kinds of matter between the realities compared, the more erroneous is an analogy pushed too far. Without the greatest possible likeness between higher and lower, however, friction would increase and automatism would be made more difficult, not to say impossible altogether. The laws of least resistance, highest efficiency, fullest automatism, greatest possible likeness to the ideal, are one and the same universal law of matter. 3 The material forms that constitute the four natural kingdoms of our globe the mineral, vegetable, animal, and human kingdoms derive their first origin in worlds 2935. In those worlds they are constructed as forms serviceable for future evolutions in lower worlds. These material forms are condensed when passing through each lower kind of matter. Each transportation from higher to lower matter entails a progressive experimental adaptation to coarser kinds of matter. The most essential involutionary work done in the lower worlds is that of rectifying tendencies to deviation in this adaptation. The purposive energies from the higher worlds act with a pushing force that is irresistible. From atomic kind 43 down the forming is also done in molecular matter. These involving material forms are elementals that are reproduced in ever lower kinds of matter, until the physical etheric kind of matter has been reached where the
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moulding of organic forms becomes possible. This formation in solid physical matter (49:7) becomes dependent on the functional auto-formation of organic life all the way from the primordial cell. In this process the direct impulses originate in the etheric matter of the cells. Material forms are either involutionary or evolutionary beings. They are involutionary beings until taken possession of by active evolutionary monads. 4 The first self finds its ideal in the causal world. The form of causal matter is the highest form, the ideal form, for this self. The artist who, when watching a physical form of nature, can have a vision of the corresponding causal form, sees that which Platon called the idea of beauty. 5 The forces that act automatically were divided by the ancients into mechanical and final (purposive) forces. In actual fact, there are two kinds of purposefulness, or finality: the kind explained above and that finality which is the outcome of coaction of mechanical forces of nature with the instinctive striving of consciousness after adaptation. The greater this adaptation, the more the mechanical forces act with a seeming finality. Physical and emotional evolutionary matter acquired this instinctual finality through the mentalization in the previous (or first) solar system. 6 The natural forces that act mechanically are functional energies, which are constantly emitted from the automatized envelopes of collective beings. The differentiation of the forces depends on the fact that each molecular kind becomes its own kind of energy and also that every collective being emits its specialized energy. 7 All triads, forms of nature, the entire involution and evolution, exist all the time in worlds 2935, that origin of causality whence and whither all chains of causality ultimately extend. Those worlds can be called the experimental laboratories of the forms. Every atom passes through the different stages of nature in many different processes in the cosmos before it reaches its final form in a solar system. All life is an infinite repetition until perfection is achieved through the expansion of atomic consciousness. Only primordial atoms are, if they so wish, immortal. Everything lower dissolves according as the final evolvation attains ever higher through the process of manifestation. 2.59 The Three Aspects of Reality There are three kinds of reality: the reality of matter, motion, and consciousness. The same idea can also be expressed thus: the three equivalent aspects of reality are matter, motion, and consciousness. This is the esoteric explanation of trinitism: the doctrine of trinity. Matter, motion, and consciousness are indissolubly and inseparably united without any confusion or conversion. None of these aspects is possible, can exist, without the other two. The world of matter is at the same time the world of motion and the world of consciousness. All three aspects are equivalent and inescapable if you wish to have a correct total view of reality. 2 Anyone who has understood the trinity of reality has solved the basic problem of existence. The three immediately given and therefore self-evident absolutes: matter, motion, and consciousness, are the ultimate basics to explain everything. They explain themselves by their modes of being, their manifestations, and cannot be further explained, just be ascertained by everybody. Motion, becoming, or the process of nature, is also termed force, energy, activity, will. 3 Also viewed separately, each of the three aspects of reality constitutes in its totality an indivisible unity in which unity is the primary thing. Matter is one and a unity. Primordial energy is one and a unity. Primordial consciousness is one and a unity.
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2.60 Primordial Matter Primordial matter is spaceless and timeless. Space only originates with the cosmos, which can be likened to a gas bubble in a boundless ocean. Primordial matter is matter proper. Primordial matter is not atomic but of homogenous consistency, with the two seemingly
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contradictory qualifications: absolute density and absolute elasticity. In primordial matter exist potentially all known and unknown qualities of life, which find expression in atomized manifestational matter. 2 By the dynamic activity of primordial matter eternal primordial atoms are produced without end in primordial matter. This activity of dynamis in primordial matter and in the primordial atoms does never change. 3 Primordial atoms are as though bubbles in primordial matter. Primordial atoms can be likened to gas bubbles in water, water to primordial matter, and the bubble to the atom. Primordial atoms are voids in primordial matter. This explains how solidity and hardness arise. The voids of primordial atoms make manifestation possible, are the condition of the existence and indestructibility of the primordial atoms. The primordial atom is indissoluble, is dynamis itself. 4 Primordial matter is unconscious. Primordial atoms possess potential consciousness, the possibility of consciousness. The kinds of consciousness actualized and activated in primordial atoms through manifestation of course remain finite, even though by expansion they can extend across an entire cosmos and build a universe. 5 The primordial atoms are the building materials for all composed matter, for manifestational matter. Manifestational matter is put together by dynamis, possibly through active consciousness. Primordial matter is the highest matter and all other matter is lower matter. 6 The primordial atom is the smallest possible part of primordial matter and the smallest possible point, but also a firm point, for individual consciousness (unlosable self-identity after the acquisition of collective consciousness). 2.61 The Dynamic Energy of Primordial Matter (Dynamis) This energy, which Pythagoras called dynamis, is one, is a unity, the one force, the primordial force, the source of all power, unlimited, inexhaustible, the basic cause of the perpetuum mobile of the universe, dynamic, eternally self-active, omnipotent within the limits set by the possibilities of matter. It is also called will, since it can act through consciousness, can be conquered by consciousness and become the omnipotence of omniscience. Dynamis makes the primordial manifestation (the primordial atoms) an eternally dynamic motion. Dynamis is in every primordial atom. Dynamis is eternally unconscious. 2 Dynamis produces the primordial atoms in primordial matter (the chaos of the Greeks), confers on the atoms their original motion, the possibility of all other motion, makes the primordial atoms eternal and indestructible by eternally maintaining their dynamic motion, impels the primordial atoms to manifestation, impels matter to act in accordance with the law, or nature, of matter itself. 3 Dynamis is the one force. It should not be confused with so-called forces of nature, or energies of physical science. Energy is matter. Various energies are various kinds of matter. Matter can act as energy on other matter. Energy is the action in or effect on lower matter by higher matter. In the last resort it is dynamis that impels higher matter to act on lower matter as energy. Matter is energy as long as dynamis wills. When dynamis acts no longer, matter ceases to be energy and, with that, energy as energy is annihilated. Thus dynamis is the sole indestructible force. Any other force is annihilated. 4 Dynamis is the dynamical and matter as energy is the mechanical. Dynamis affects matter directly. Dynamis is always the initial impulse that sets matter as energy in motion. Energy acts directly only on its own kind of matter and cannot act on other matter but through matter. There are as many different kinds of energy (more correctly: modes of activity or expression of energy) as there are different kinds of atomic matter. Dynamis acts directly only in primordial matter and in the primordial atoms, or the primordial manifestation, and indirectly through active consciousness. Primordial matter is both matter and energy for manifestational matter.
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The primordial manifestation is the dynamic process of primordial matter, and all other manifestation is of necessity simultaneously both primordial manifestation and primordial matter. The blind dynamic force of primordial matter keeps everything in perpetual motion. Nothing can or may stand still. Should the rotatory motion of the primordial atom cease but for a fraction of a second, then the atom would dissolve. The bubble would no longer be a bubble but be annihilated. The entire primordial manifestation is motion, and every primordial atom is eternally dynamic. 6 Will is dynamis acting through active consciousness. Active consciousness is thus the power of consciousness to let dynamis act through it. There are as many kinds of modes of action of the will as there are different kinds of modes of active consciousness. 7 Dynamis executes the work, brings about whatever happens, the process of nature. In manifestational matter it is consciousness that directs, forms, determines the mode. Dynamis is everywhere the primary factor. Yet this is most evident when consciousness is not active. Dynamis is both primary and secondary. As primary, dynamis in time exists before consciousness, and is independent of it. As secondary, dynamis is dependent on active consciousness, then being will. Whatever in addition to this we call will is just traditional names for various thing that can be directly or indirectly connected, but also not connected at all, with the will: terms such as desire, aspiration, energy, vitality, determination, perseverance, choice of motive, freedom or power of action, etc. 8 Only two of the three aspects of reality are treated in this Esoteric World View: the aspects of matter and consciousness. The part of the esoteric doctrine that treats of the channeling of dynamis through active consciousness, remains esoteric. Dynamis is and will remain an unsolved mystery, which fact cannot possibly be too strongly emphasized. The unspeakable suffering, the hell on earth, that men cause each other and all other living beings, is great enough as it is. The knowledge that confers real power the criterion of real knowledge must as far as possible be reserved for those who cannot possibly abuse power. Such as men are constituted, power unfailingly entails its own abuse, and becomes the enemy of freedom and life, at best only because of ignorance. Those who seek to acquire the knowledge of the will (magic) through obstinacy, must take the inevitable catastrophic consequences, and yet fail. 2.62 Esoteric Terms, Exoteric Fictions, Addenda, Etc. Most traditional religious terms were originally esoteric symbols. Being misinterpreted by the ignorant they have lost their original meaning and have thereby become fictions (conceptions without counterparts in reality). The result is a confusion of ideas that is irremediable without the explanations of esoterics. When being liberated from the fictions we are at the same time relieved from the superstitions based on them. After that we stand a chance of formulating the pertaining problems correctly. 2 Each esoteric school that eventually came into existence elaborated its own symbolic terminology, adapting that terminology as far as possible to prevalent exoteric conceptions. This has proved to be inexpedient. The kinds of matter and consciousness of unknown worlds should not be denoted by terms of common usage that are already idiotized and therefore misleading. 3 In the opposition, spirit-matter, spirit denoted will as well as consciousness and higher matter. The Chaldean magians used spirit to denote the greatest secret of all, namely the will. Indian philosophers by spirit meant the same as higher consciousness. This is connected with the overemphasis of the consciousness aspect in subjectivism. The most prevalent tendency was to term the three higher atomic kinds, globes, worlds, or kinds of consciousness of any septenary spirit; and the four lower ones, matter. Also the opposition good-evil (the same as higherlower) appeared here: 1-3 were termed good, 4-7 evil. 4 The term spiritual has always been particularly usable because of its vagueness. Men have no experience of essential consciousness (46), and only the lite have any experience of causal
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consciousness (47:1-3). The spirituality of the normal individual belongs to the higher emotional (48:2,3). 5 Of course the terms body, soul, and spirit occur with different meanings, such as: the three triads; the two lower triads (where body termed the physical, emotional, and mental envelopes; soul the causal envelope, and spirit the essential (46) and superessential (45) envelopes); the lowest triad (envelope = the organism, soul = the emotional body, spirit = the mental envelope). 6 The following expressions were originally gnostic. God is spirit = the lowest matter for the collective unity is essential matter. The union of the soul with god = the entrance into nirvana of Buddhism = the centring of the monad into the third triad. The fall of spirit into matter = the Fall = the transition from essential to causal matter in involution. Spirits = all higher material beings (and other beings than material ones do not exist) from essential beings (or possibly causal beings) up. Of course, this word was eventually used to denote emotional beings. 7 Reality is an illusion. Illusionist philosophy (vedanta, advaita, yoga) is Indian exoteric philosophy, and no esoterics. The first Shankara (several persons carried that name, which even became a title) lived shortly after the Buddha. His doctrine, intended as a preparation for the sannyasis initiation into esoterics, was utterly distorted by his successors, as usual. It degenerated into subjectivism and became an inexhaustible source for the speculation of ignorance. 8 Propedeutic esoterics taught that it is an illusion to think that the visible reality is the total reality, or that the coarsest matter is the only reality. This illusion disappears according as consciousness becomes objectively determined by material reality in higher worlds. Propedeutic esoterics taught that there are many different kinds of material reality, many different worlds; that you do not have as infallible criteria of reality (everythings conformity to law) in the worlds of the first self as in still higher worlds. 9 Degenerated this doctrine resulted in a diversity of opinions, all of them erroneous, some of them absurd. The most important ones should be pointed out. Illusionist philosophy calls whatever changes, whatever is subject to the law of transformation, illusion. Reality is said to be independent of this law. The law of transformation applies, however, to all cosmic reality. Also relatively permanent reality changes. In actual fact, the concept of illusion does not belong in the world view but in the life view, not in the matter aspect but in the misconception of the meaning, goal, and means of life. In that respect, the physical, emotional, and mental worlds, being the worlds of the ignorance of life, can quite rightly be termed the worlds of illusion. 10 Of course different views were brought up concerning where the boundary between illusion (= maya = apparent reality) and reality was. Some thought that everything conscious was part of the illusion and that everything superconscious belonged to reality. Others considered that everything solely subjectively apprehended was real and that everything objectively apprehended was illusory. The boundaries of illusion and reality were moved according as you acquired higher objective consciousness. Lower consciousness was an illusion to higher consciousness, or to express it esoterically: the worlds of the first self were an illusion to the second self; the worlds of the second self were an illusion to the third self, etc. Finally, of course, the absurd view was brought up that all reality was a mere product of consciousness. Matter itself was declared an illusion. 11 These misleading and confusing terms (illusion and reality) obviously gave rise to erroneous mental constructions. If they had used the correct terms: a lower and a higher kind of reality, instead of the terms illusion and reality, these misconceptions would have been avoided. It is in any case improper to judge the worlds of the first self by the second selfs view of reality, as the yoga philosophers do. 12 A further confusion of ideas has been caused by terming the material reality invisible to the normal individual subjective, as opposed to the visible reality as objective. There is no subjective

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matter. Just the first apprehension of matter is subjective. Everything that belongs to the consciousness aspect is subjective, everything that belongs to the matter aspect is objective. 13 The esoteric axiom about the unity and collectivity of consciousness led to the subjectivism of the advaita philosophy with its subtleties resulting from its hopeless attempts to explain away the existence of matter. Anyone familiar with esoterics will easily see that the many absurd theories of subjectivism are esoterisms misunderstood. 14 Indian philosophy is interspersed with esoterisms and is incomparably closer to esoterics than is Western philosophy. Even it, however, is on the whole made up of the constructions of ignorance. In Indian speculation, the consciousness aspect has been over-emphasized and the matter aspect neglected. In the West they have principally cultivated the lowest matter aspect and are profoundly ignorant of almost everything pertaining to the consciousness aspect and the higher matter aspect. 15 On account of the great number of attempts at interpretation of it, Indian symbolism has degenerated into chaotic mythology. The Indian predilection for unessential subtleties, for using the same term for different things and different terms for the same thing, for drawing arbitrary boundaries between various realities, and for using the term unmanifested arbitrarily, has conduced to this. Had they, when making their distinctions, referred to the different kinds of matter instead, then clarity and order would have been obtained in the simplest way. 16 Man is god. Man, like every atom, is divine in essence. However, the entire process of manifestation comes between the potential and actual god. Man is a first self that unconsciously or consciously aspires to become a second self. 17 The expression everything is ensouled is vague and misleading, as though matter were provided with a soul. Consciousness is a quality of the atom, which quality becomes latent when ceasing and awakens (with the possibility of capacity once acquired) when activity sooner or later begins anew. 18 Not all secret knowledge societies are known to exoteric research even by name. And of the known ones little more is known but the fact that they have existed. Of course, this has not prevented the publishing of academic studies of the content of their doctrines, as for instance has been the case with gnostics. It existed, with prospering lodges in Asia Minor, Persia, Arabia, and Egypt, three centuries before Christ and about five centuries before Christianity, which arose from gnostics through popularization. Ignorance quite logically distorted the gnostic symbols into Christian dogmas. Something similar is happening in our days in the matter of the Rosicrucian Order. It was instituted in 1375 by Christian Rosencreutz. The doctrine of this order has remained secret. No Rosicrucian has even made himself known to outsiders. This has not prevented the spreading of exoteric Rosicrucian sects, which have fraudulently usurped the original name. 19 Magianism, hermetics, hylozoics, gnostics, Platonism, kabbalism, Maltesianism, Rosicrucianism, etc., have remained esoteric because their symbolic literature has been unintelligible to the uninitiated. 20 In our days many societies have appeared, claiming to be in possession of the one true doctrine. They offer more or less successful presentations of available esoteric facts. Out of an understandable desire to arrange these facts into a comprehensible whole they have (in order to fill up the gaps of their knowledge) made their own attempts at interpretation, which are not always exact, of symbols previously not elucidated. These exoteric societies have all in common that they admit anybody without examining whether the prerequisites of understanding are there. As an inevitable consequence of this proselytizing they have got dogmatic sectarianism that fosters belief in the infallible authority of the sect founder, an even more infallible proof of their own lack of judgement. 21 Esoterics has no use for believers. The esoterician must be able to discriminate between the individual and the general (the ideas), between the person and the thing (objectivity), between

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fiction (theory) and reality. He must understand what the moralist never can; that the knowledge of reality is one thing and the ability to realize the ideal is quite another. No literary work is improved by invoking authorities. Every book stands or falls by its own contents. Anyone who cares for the signature (asks who said that?) is unfit for esoterics. Anyone who has comprehended does not quote any authorities but thinks for himself. So many facts are extant that this has nowadays become possible in basic respects. No esoterician is infallible. There are even for essentialists (46-selves) not yet fully activated layers of consciousness in the highest molecular kinds of the three lower worlds (4749). Superessentialists need never be mistaken. That their personalities sometimes do so depends on the fact that the first self as an independent being has not consulted the second self, which is occupied elsewhere. Perfected third selves, serving mankind and thus keeping their two lower triads, can be active in several different worlds at the same time, though not of course with full capacity. It is part of esoteric training to try to do two things at the same time. The different kinds of consciousness can, when the coalescence is dissolved, work separately, mechanically and in a routine manner as robots sporadically inspected by the self. 22 In the old esoteric schools they avoided exact concepts. One purpose, among others, of the symbols was to force the seeker to develop his intuition. Clarity came with the attainment of causal consciousness. After the requirements for understanding have nowadays been lowered below a minimum, the vagueness of symbolism in respect of concepts has of course led to charlatans, mystagogues, and divers coxcomb prophets springing up like mushrooms. At last a profitable industry! Impressing the gullible by mysterious intimations as to their superior knowledge of the secret wisdom and by miscellaneous tricks with breathing exercises, mirrors, pendulums, crystal balls, formulas, ceremonies, divinations, they propagate their superstitions, everybody according to his own infallible method, with belief in miracles, witchcraft, suspension of the laws of nature, intervention of exalted spirits (for hard cash) in egoistic matters, instruction in how to utilize the powers of the overself, and other nonsense. Their attempts at interpretation of ancient symbols evidence their lack of true insight. Should they, when making their attempts, come in contact with the unexplored powers of emotional-mental superconsciousness (which are capable of much designed to confuse and deceive), the result will be worst for the conceited and curious who always think they are chosen and never let themselves be cautioned lest they like fools rush in where angels fear to tread. Of course there are still undiscovered laws of nature governing unexplored forces in nature. But ignorance will always become their victim. Any ambiguity has proved to make it easier for mystagogues to deceive. The fact that superstition gains ground more and more and the general disorientation is more and more aggravated has demonstrated the need for an unshakably concrete mental system. In due course of time the system will be broken up at the stage of ideality. What occult research should concentrate on in the first place is gaining a wider insight into the nature of matter through physical etheric facts. By this the acquisition of the pertaining objective consciousness is prepared. 23 Emotional objective consciousness at best (for causal selves) furnishes knowledge but of the emotional world, and mental objective consciousness but of the mental world. Through this, however, you do not get the facts necessary to a correct total comprehension of reality, but you remain ignorant on the whole. Mental objective consciousness is never innate in the emotional eon. The method of its acquisition is not given out and the bungling attempts of ignorance in certain modern secret orders inevitably lead if any results are obtained at all to catastrophe. If the methods of activation were not to remain esoteric, the war of all against all and the total annihilation of mankind would be unavoidable. The nobility of good intention is certainly not sufficient, it being nothing but the mask of self-deception everlasting. The self as a personality is egoistic. Only essential consciousness precludes abuse of any kind. The Indian secret yoga schools with their methods of objectivation handed down for thousands of years succeed but with 70

physical-etheric and emotional objectivity, and then physiological conditions inherited through generations are a prerequisite. 24 Avatar (divine incarnation) is a title with which the Indians are generous, like mahatma (great spirit). There are five kinds of avatars: perfected second or third selves, and selves from the first (worlds 43, 44), second (3642), and third (2935) divine kingdoms. Avatars of the two higher kinds cannot incarnate in organisms, since the latter cannot sustain the direct, formidable vibrations. As a rule, these two kinds do not involve into lower worlds than the essential (46). They are called in when the existing staff of workers is insufficient for impending changes. The task of the lower avatars is to prevent mankind from going astray and to arouse new essential (46) impulses. 25 There is good reason to call attention to the mischief practised with the so-called Akashic Records. All worlds have their collective memories. Everything that has taken place within the different worlds is preserved in the passive, reflective consciousness of the involutionary matter of these worlds. But as regards the collective memories of the emotional world, there is no possibility of correctly differentiating between subjective and objective reality for others than those who have acquired consciousness in the atomic memory of that world. Mankind is at the emotional stage, and the dynamic activity of the emotional envelopes of all makes the involutionary matter of the whole emotional world rather resemble a boiling gigantic cauldron where molecular matter is being constantly re-formed. 26 Only what is repeated over and over again in human mass consciousness is made sufficiently permanent to be perceived as enduring material reality, representing the past in concrete emotional forms. 27 Only an essential self (46-self) can decide what in all this is or has been objective reality, by comparing the molecular memories of the emotional world with the atomic memory of that world. 28 The basic ideas of esoterics are in full accordance with the scientific world view. All processes obey the eternal, immutable laws of matter. Without them, cosmos and development would be impossible. Laws are the condition of knowledge, are the enduring in all knowledge. 29 Development is a process conditioned by nature. The individual can accelerate it for himself by applying the laws rationally, by hygiene, diet, noble emotions, noble thoughts, by acquiring noble qualities. Attempts at artificial forcing-house development, as for instance the exertions of Indian fakirs and others, amount to roundabout ways with delays. The ability of the envelopes to vibrate in higher and higher molecular kinds is increased automatically by living naturally. The results will inevitably show in due course of time. According to esoterics, 25 per cent of all disease depends on misdirected mentality, 50 per cent on misdirected emotionality, and just 25 per cent on physical conditions. 30 Esoterics gives us a basis of reality, makes it possible for us to develop our sense of reality, shows us the way that stretches before us, frees us from fictions and illusions. The value of this alone cannot be overestimated.

The above text constitutes the essay Esoteric World View by Henry T. Laurency. The essay is part of the book The Philosophers Stone by Henry T. Laurency. Copyright 1979 by the Henry T. Laurency Publishing Foundation.

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3 ESOTERIC LIFE VIEW


3.1 LIFE VIEW The world view is our total knowledge of the matter aspect of reality. The world view includes the physical and natural sciences and their offshoots. The life view concerns the consciousness aspect of existence and is the sum total of mans attitude to life, to its meaning and goal, and his view of mankind and mans ways. 2 Without a world view, a knowledge of reality, the necessary basis of life view is lacking. A rational conception of reality is all the more important since the life view is of fundamental, indispensable importance. It is from his life view that man derives the bases of his valuations, his viewpoints for judgement, motives for action. The life view includes the conception of right and what is contained in the concept of culture. 3 The present expos of a life view means to orientate in the jungle of life, to be Ariadnes thread in the labyrinth of life. Never before has the need for such a view been greater, for never before has disorientation been greater. People recognize more and more clearly the fictitious and illusory, the arbitrary constructions of ignorance, in traditional conceptions and historical views. The all-demolishing powers, which frantically work for a return to the stage of barbarism, have unveiled their destructive tendency manifestly enough. The universal disorientation has resulted in a general sense of lawlessness and arbitrariness in all domains of life, also in the world of material reality. A working hypothesis has been lacking, one unifying the scientists realistic view of existence with that of the seeking cultural man who strives to find a synthesis. Such an hypothesis would incorporate the essential of mankinds general experience of life and the indispensable idealism advocated by Platon. 4 In the heritage from our fathers there are esoteric axioms of life which ignorance has misinterpreted. These pearls can now be inserted again in their original setting. The ideas have thereby regained their import, and have become understandable. 5 This Life View is termed esoteric since it is based on the esoteric world view and on esoteric facts about the goal of life. There is no such life view that suits everybody on any level of development. What is common to them all is the knowledge of the laws of life, which everybody applies according to his understanding of life. Anyone who in addition wishes to practise all manner of conventions may certainly do so for his own part. 6 There are laws in everything: laws of life, or laws of consciousness, in the consciousness aspect. Anyone who knows about the laws has an insight into reality and an understanding of life. Before you can say how things ought to be you must know how things are. The laws of life grant freedom. The laws of life are no prohibitions. Those who need prescriptions do not have a knowledge and judgement of their own. In understanding the laws of life we make it possible for us to solve our problems of life rationally. By that the conditions of individual development are clarified. 7 Esoteric life views satisfy legitimate demands of intellectuality and ideality. Everybody has to decide for himself. Nobody who knows what responsibility means will take on him the responsibility for prescribing to others. You can always say: This is my view of the matter. Sooner or later the individual must form his own view, one suited to his understanding of life. Everybody is responsible himself for his own vision of life. Responsibility means the individuals settling up with the laws of life, and has consequences in future incarnations. The individual must himself develop his concepts of right, must himself seek his ideals. The wise man refrains from constructing concepts of right for others. Everybody is somewhere on the gamut of development, and has the conception of right that corresponds to his level. 8 The life view of another can be of interest as a synthesis of individual experience. Its value for others can possibly be that it shows an individual vision of life liberated from paralysing
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traditional ways of looking at things, and is able to give impulses to other people to form their own attitudes to life. Of course, there is nothing to prevent you from accepting the life view of another person. Most people will probably lack the necessary possibilities or opportunities of forming their own ones. But this is a temporal emergency. That day will come in some life when the individual is brought face to face with the necessity of making his own view clear to himself. 9 In incarnation upon incarnation, from the cradle to the grave, life is a series of problems. His first tottering steps apart, everybody has to solve his own problems without any help, problems that cannot be solved by another in the one right way. The wise man discovers the problems and finds their solutions. Most people see neither problems nor solutions, and many people do not care about them, or bungle them away from themselves by means of authorities. 10 What an author wishes above all is to have readers who desire to understand even when he fails in making himself understood. Old words and expressions have their conventional meaning. Certainly there are difficulties in trying to describe new things by these words, to give a new import to the old words. More often than not it is only from the total view that you will have a chance of understanding the meaning intended. 3.2 LAWS OF LIFE Law is the condition of freedom. Law is the condition of unity. Law is the unity that man has always sought. 2 No universe is built without law. Conformity to law characterizes the world of matter as well as the world of consciousness. Conformity to law is a condition of the possibility, existence, evolution, and continuance of life. 3 The concept of law contains the attributes of immutability and impersonality as the two most valuable ones. The concept of law is a let there be light in the chaos of arbitrariness and lawlessness. Conformity to law is the cliff on which we can build our faith and trust in life. Conformity to law makes a rational view of reality possible, makes it possible to realize the meaning of life rationally. Admitted that nature appears cold and hard; it is nevertheless true, just, and incorruptible. It thereby affords us the basis of knowledge, freedom, and power. It grants to human reason the position due to it. All these things are invaluable realities, possibilities, and rights. 4 The number of laws appears to be unlimited. The more the boundaries of consciousness expand and the vast our knowledge of reality becomes, the more laws we discover. And this gives us greater and greater confidence in the rationality of life. If laws were lacking, we would be victims of arbitrariness. If we lack a knowledge of laws, we fall victims to fictions and superstition. Like the knowledge of the laws of nature grants us power over nature, so the knowledge of the laws of life shows us how we can shape our lives. 5 The laws of life are the legislation of life. Before mankind realizes this, it will speculatingly devise more or less abortive legal systems according to the stage of development it has attained. 6 The laws of life are all one with our being. According as we discover ourselves and realize ourselves, we discover laws as the condition of our realization. We become these laws by liberating ourselves from the fictions and illusions of our ignorance. 7 Laws indicate that forces act, the ways in which forces act, and the conditions under which they act. As regards the three aspects of reality, all laws can be brought together into three main groups: the laws of matter, will, and consciousness. Only those required to comprehend the Life View outlined here are enumerated below. 8 The fundamental law, the law of dynamic primordial matter, the natural law proper from which all other laws can be derived and on which the immutability of all laws depends, has several names, for example: the law of balance, harmony, restoration, or stability. 9 The causal law, or the law of causality, says that if all conditions are present, then a certain
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course of events follows inevitably; that given causes have their bases in manifested forces; that the effect, or event, is a resultant of a great number of forces. 10 The law of reaping, the law of sowing and reaping, is also a law of consciousness. 11 The law of development is a law of purposiveness, or finality. It says that all life, from the lowest to the highest, develops; that forces act in certain ways towards certain ends. Every primordial atom is a potential god and will some time, through the process of manifestation, become an actual god (= the highest kind of consciousness). 12 The law of form says that every form of life is adapted to the stage of development of its indwelling life, that each higher kind of consciousness requires a higher form of life, a more purposive possibility of acquiring increased consciousness. 13 The law of transformation says that the form of life constantly changes and dissolves only to be renewed. 14 The law of re-formation says that every being, when its form is renewed, receives a similar form of life, until its consciousness expansion requires a specifically different higher form. 15 The law of destiny indicates what forces are to influence the individual in each form of life with respect to the need of his individual character for necessary experiences and to its endeavour to acquire the requisite qualities and abilities. 16 The law of freedom says that every being is its own freedom and its own law, that freedom is gained through law. Freedom is the right to individual character and to activity within the limits of the equal right of all. 17 The law of separation, or isolation, says that every being must in order to develop the selfreliance and self-determination of individual character become conscious of itself as something separate from everything else. The human stage marks that phase of development during which the atomic consciousness is isolated from the consciousness of other beings. 18 The law of unity says that all beings form a unity and that every being must realize its unity with all life in order to attain super-individual consciousness expansion. 19 The law of self-realization says that every being must itself acquire all the qualities and abilities requisite for omniscience and omnipotence, that it must itself realize its divinity. 20 The law of activation says that life is activity, that life develops through activity, that individual development is only possible through self-initiated activity of consciousness.

THE LAW OF FREEDOM


THE INALIENABLE DIVINE FREEDOM
3.3 Freedom and Law Freedom is a mystery to ignorance. Because if freedom is viewed as arbitrariness, then it abolishes itself both in the individual and in the collective. If freedom abolishes itself, then it is an illusion. 2 To the ignorant of life, the supreme being is supreme arbitrariness. Little do they suspect the necessity of law and of finality, the fact that just one arbitrary will would make all development, all laws of life, impossible. Absolute freedom would be arbitrariness and would abolish itself. 3 Without a knowledge of the worlds of material reality, of the worlds of consciousness corresponding to these worlds, and of the laws of life, rational or purposive action in life is impossible. 4 Freedom is law. Full freedom is the law of unity. Before there can be outer freedom there must be inner freedom (spontaneous conformity to law). 5 Without law no freedom. Without freedom no law. Freedom without law would be arbitrariness, chaos. Law without freedom would be freedom from responsibility, mechanicality killing individuality. Freedom and law are equally necessary. 6 Freedom is omniscience and omnipotence, since it is omniscient and infallible in its application of law. Bondage is ignorance and impotence. 7 Consciousness feels free when not encountering any obstacles to its activity. Through manifestation it eventually learns that activity unrestrained leads to chaos. Having acquired omniscience it knows that law is the condition of freedom, since the greatest possible freedom can only be acquired by omniscient application of the laws of life, that conformity to law is a condition of a cosmos that does not degenerate into chaos. 8 Man wins freedom by discovering and applying the laws of life by himself. 9 The individual is potentially free being a potential godhead. Full freedom is godhead actualized.
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3.4 Freedom through Insight and Understanding Ignorant intellectualism believed that man can be rapidly reformed just by enlightenment or other tricks. This is a cardinal mistake. Conditions of insight, of understanding and ability can only be acquired slowly during a great number of incarnations. 2 Before there can be any question of insight and understanding at all, man must acquire a vast general experience of life as a basis to build on. That basis is laid during the 400 developmental levels of the stage of barbarism. 3 There are no innate ideas, no innate knowledge, no innate abilities. But there are greater or lesser predispositions, conditions of a more or less rapid acquisition of knowledge or ability. 4 Premising these facts we understand what Platon meant when, through the mouth of his Sokrates, he formulated the axioms: Virtue is knowledge. Anyone who knows the right, does the right. By knowledge Platon meant a sufficient experience of life; the conditions of insight, understanding, and the power of realization. Suggestion will be enough for anyone who has in previous lives acquired knowledge and ability. He immediately catches the hint, sees the obvious, and then does the right automatically. 5 By these sentences Platon has formulated the law of good, saying that man always obeys the highest good he really sees and understands, because he cannot do otherwise, because it is a need and a joy for him to do so. This law is valid at all levels of development. 6 Ignorance preaches the same conception of right to all. But it is impossible to follow
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prescriptions that are alien to your being, that conflict with your destiny, or are chosen arbitrarily; it is impossible to impress someone with understanding of a level too high to be conceived by him as purposive. 7 The ignorant and impotent are unfree within the sphere of their ignorance and impotence. The individual is free to the extent that he has acquired insight, understanding, and ability. Every limit to insight, understanding, or ability is a limit to freedom. Total freedom presupposes total knowledge and is the same as total power and total law. 8 In all our doings there is a constant choice, even though we be unaware of it. Most people are on those levels where the conscious choice is replaces by parrotry and mimicry, habits and complexes of various kinds. 9 The highest reason to the individual is his own common sense, which is developed by being applied. The opportunities of free choice multiply with each higher level. On the highest level the choice is always free. 3.5 Freedom of Choice The term freedom of will is misleading. It meant the arbitrary choice of consciousness between different actions. But the question is not of the choice of action but of the choice of motive. Because action is determined by the strongest motive. 2 This problem is connected with that of the freedom of consciousness (mental and emotional life). Anyone who can always cherish, is free. Anyone who thinks uncontrolled thoughts and feels uncontrolled emotions, is unfree. In most people, thoughts and emotions come and go as they please, except when attention is occupied with, fascinated by, a certain content. When concentration ceases, however, the consciousness content is just sporadically controlled. 3 The freedom of consciousness is determined by the laws of life, especially the laws of development, reaping, and activation. 4 The freedom of choice depends on the knowledge of reality, insight, and understanding. Lack of freedom, or impotence, indicates either a low level of development or a bad reaping. 5 You can, by proceeding methodically, make any motive whatsoever the strongest. In the ignorant, his strongest motive is unsuspectedly determined by seemingly accidental occurrences, which have actually been caused by factors of the law of reaping. 6 The strongest motive at the stage of barbarism generally consists in emotional impulses; at the stage of civilization, in the strongest subconscious emotional complexes. The ability of freedom to choose increases with each higher level of development. The ability of selfdetermination in the cultural individual is the result of his foresight, of his methodical work at strengthening his motives by cultivating purposive complexes. 7 The primitive man neither seeks nor finds any possibility of choice. The intelligent man prepares his choice. The wise man has predetermined his motive for ever.
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3.6 Freedom and Responsibility Like the essential knowledge of material reality is the knowledge of the laws of nature, so the knowledge of the laws of life is the sum of the knowledge of life. Laws of nature and of life are similar expressions of the immutable conformity to law of existence. 2 Only men domineer and prohibit. No power of life may do so, for that would conflict with the law of freedom and with the individuals divine sovereignty. The law of freedom grants to man the right to be his own freedom and his own law, as long as he does not infringe the right of all beings to that same inviolable freedom. This right of the individual is inalienable and divine. All life has its freedom on the hard conditions of its own responsibility. Mens abuse of the word responsibility demonstrates that they have no idea of its meaning. Would it not be incomparably easier to conform just sufficiently to a number of poor commandments? Every mistake as to the
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laws of life (known and unknown ones) entails inevitable consequences in lives to come. The number of incarnations is unlimited, until all the bad sowing has been reaped unto the last grain. None will escape his self-formed destiny. Most people blithely continue sowing their daily seed of hatred in thoughts, emotions, words, and actions. They need grace to go on abusing freedom with impunity. Nobody has told them the truth, just lulled them into the absurd belief in the possibility of escaping the consequences. The simplest reason ought to tell them that freedom of responsibility would abolish freedom, that arbitrariness of any kind would abolish all conformity to law. 3 Philosophers construct moral laws and moralists increasingly more prohibitions. Life does not know of any moral law, nor of any prohibition. Commandments are circumvented by means of Jesuitical casuistry and arbitrary grace. Life does not know of any grace, only of unerringly just law. Prohibitions are psychological blunders of moralists, abortive attempts of the helpless to force the unwilling into obedience. The moralists in their ignorance of life make the mistake of turning human fabrications into divine dictates, something akin to blasphemy. The gods are no dictators but incorruptible administrators of the immutable laws of life. The moralists greatest idiocy on life, however, is their self-assumed right to judge. In their presumption they think themselves capable of acquitting and convicting, to which not even any god has a right. And these blind leaders of the blind who daily crucify man, these fault-finders ignorant of life who every now and then make the most fatal mistakes as to the laws of life appoint themselves guides of mankind. 4 Individual development takes place under the balancing of freedom and law. Freedom abused limits, abolishes freedom. Freedom rightly used affords increasingly greater freedom. The individuals freedom is secured by the freedom of all, and is perfected by the individuals realization of unity. 5 Men believe they are free, being ignorant of the fact that since long time ago they have by their idiocies on life forfeited the right to and possibility of freedom for many lives to come. In the compulsion of the hard circumstances of life is hidden a purpose, which slowly but with unerring certainty will teach those most defiant towards life. Men are to learn under increasingly harder conditions of life, until they have learnt that freedom does not exist for the pursuit of arbitrary self-will. Everybody has a right to the most erroneous view of life for his own part, naturally to take the consequences in respect of life. Here mankind has never cared about the cost to itself. But then men have developed a monstrously perverted instinct, so that, when making a choice, they will inevitably choose the one wrong thing. They still do hardly anything but make life harder for others and for themselves. Mans ability of causing suffering to living beings is phenomenally well developed. His inability of spreading cheer, joy, happiness around him is as manifest. Mankinds misdeeds in the past are an accumulated gruesome sowing that must be reaped. Men are anxiously eager to see that justice is done. If they could imagine how efficiently it is done, they would be anxious about their own blunders instead. More than a hundred thousand human beings die every day, most of them downtrodden by their fellow-beings and crushed under the merciless lashes of their self-formed destiny. It is not he fault of life that men prefer learning only through painful experiences. 6 Mankind, in its ignorance of life and presumption, has preferred the path of hatred. The consequence has been that man is a wolf unto man, that life is a war of all against all. All violate every now and then the right of others to inviolable freedom and all are accessaries, also those who impartially witness to the violation of freedom. Only when the individuals freedom is not violated any more, only then can development continue quietly and harmoniously, and life grant to every being its greatest possible joy and happiness. The only way to regain a lost right to happiness is to make others happy and not to increase the hardship of living for anyone. People are a long way short of the self-evident understanding of life.

3.7 Freedom and Development The meaning and goal of existence is the actualization of the potential consciousness of the atoms and the activation, subjectivation, objectivation, and expansion of atomic consciousness. Through this process atomic consciousness acquires knowledge of the kinds of matter of all the different worlds, of the different kinds of consciousness corresponding to these kinds of matter, and of the laws of life. 2 The process implies, in respect of knowledge, development from ignorance to omniscience; in respect of will, from impotence to omnipotence; in respect of freedom, from bondage to freedom conditioned by law; in respect of life, from isolation to unity with all life. 3 The path of development is self-realization. The atom is to actualize by itself its potential divinity in all respects. Self-realization is to have experiences and to learn from them. Individual character, knowledge, insight, and understanding, as well as all requisite qualities and abilities are acquired through experience. 4 Ignorance acquiring knowledge is a search that for aeons means a roving, until insight and understanding finally find the way to apply the knowledge of reality and life purposefully. 5 The life of ignorance is a life of fictions and illusions. Fictions are the attempts of ignorance to explain reality. Through his illusions the individual is enticed to get the necessary experiences. The path to knowledge is a continual replacement of fictions and illusions of lesser reality content by others of greater reality content. The illusions that cause suffering finally prove to be so manifestly unserviceable as to be discarded without regret. 6 In the negative, freedom is freedom from fictions and illusions. In the positive, freedom is knowledge of the laws and the ability to apply them unfailingly. Until this goal has been reached, freedom is the right to have experiences within the limit of the equal right of all.
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3.8 Freedom and Guidance The self incarnates in order to have experiences and to learn from them, to acquire knowledge of the world and of life, to acquire qualities and abilities. In the lower kingdoms, the individual atom is guided in this by the common instinct of its group-soul. In the human kingdom, the individual must himself, according to the law of self-realization, develop his own instinct of life and try to find his way by means of it. Of course he will get some meagre orientation from the experiences of mankind. But his own experiences and his own working up of them remain the determining factor of his development. Through thousands of personalities (incarnations) the self gathers more and more experiences. They are utilized in two ways. Firstly, they are preserved latently in the self. Secondly, their quintessence is sublimated into causal superconsciousness. When this is activated it first becomes unfailing instinct, subsequently guidance through inspirations, and, finally, directly accessible in the waking consciousness. 2 The path is long, going through many stages of development. At the lowest stage, the individual learns slowly through his own experiences, so slowly that these involvations must appear unsuccessful on the whole to a superficial observer. As time goes on, however, that fund of experiences of life is formed, which is the condition of the development of the power of reflection and, with it, the possibility for the individual to work up his experiences. At this stage, the individual has no need for any guidance but that by his desires. With the next stage, the individuals thought begins to be his guide. Reflection grows increasingly stronger and the advances of his reason strengthen his confidence in his ability to think for himself. It is only when he begins to be interested in life as a problem, in the meaning and goal of life, that he begins to suspect the fact of his ignorance of life, to recognize his inability and to feel the need for guidance. The authorities of public opinion are his guides to begin with. Eventually, their hypotheses and theories appear all too short-lived and uncertain as well as incapable of answering the basic questions. The various dogmatic systems, which more and more manifestly conflict
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with the definitely established facts of scientific research and with a purposeful common sense view of life, cannot any longer satisfy his methodical principle thinking. When he has reached the stage of culture, and begins striving to ennoble his personality, then his own instinct of life and the inspirations from his unconscious prove more and more reliable. He begins to acquire a conception of life of his own, which accords with that of the great humanist geniuses. 3 Those beings who have left the human kingdom to continue their development in higher kingdoms, do not lead men. Instead they become administrators of the laws of life. In this they see to it that implacable justice is done to all. That injustice of life which ignorance complains about, is the injustice of the individual himself; bad reaping from bad sowing. Higher beings take no responsibility for mankinds misdeeds and idiocies in life. Consequently, they can do nothing to mend the distress into which men have put themselves by their own doing. According to the law they can help but those who have acquired a right to be helped. The individual receives help according to the law of reaping. It is his good reaping from his good sowing. 4 The doctrine of prayer in the accepted sense is the doctrine of arbitrariness and miracle (special divine intervention). What is mistaken for the granting of prayer is the fulfilment of desire. A desire is always fulfilled, however, if it is not counteracted by some other power, by an obstacle raised by a bad sowing. The intense desire found in ardent prayer is a considerable power, and the concerted emotional power, led by one-pointed will, of a congregation closely united, is certainly capable of bringing about the apparently inexplicable effect of a so-called miracle. 5 We do not need to fear life, however forbidding it may appear, because the purpose of life, like its end, is always good. Anyone who distrusts life, deprives himself of the power that is born from confidence in the laws of life. Ideals are our lodestars on the boundless sea of life. They are the powers of life that lead him aright who follows their prompting.

THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE COLLECTIVE


3.9 Ideal Law and Right Ideal right is the right of the individual. The fact that it will be generally understood and recognized only in cultures of the future does not nullify its absolute validity. 2 The laws of life grant freedom. Because only freedom in relation to the laws of life can involve full responsibility for mistakes as to the laws of life. The laws of life can never be invoked when measures are taken to restrict freedom. 3 Divine right is individual sovereignty. Man is a potential godhead. No power has any right to take away the freedom that life grants to the individual. The individual has an inalienable, divine right to think, feel, say, and do whatever pleases him, as long as, in so doing, he does not violate the right of anybody else, and the equal right of all to that same inviolable freedom. 4 The state (society, the community, the people) has no greater right than the individual. State, collective, religion, morality, science, etc., are no authorities of superior right. The state exists in order to defend the right of the individual. The individual has no right to have a disposal of the individual. The individual can only demand legal protection from the state. The state has no ideal right to outlaw anything but violations of the equal right of all. The individual has no duty to sacrifice himself for the community when so commanded. The individual has a right to decide for himself what he will regard as useful or conducive to happiness. 5 Power is the enemy of freedom when used to any other end but to defend ideal right. Any power that is not based on ideal right lacks a legal basis and is power abused. All laws that do not conform to ideal right violate justice. Abuse of power includes all government measures that do not benefit all, that are not to the interest of all, that are not of advantage to all. Patronizing of any kind is abuse of power. 6 The principles of reciprocity (measure for measure) is the legal principle of justness. All rights and obligations, all relations between individuals, rest on the basis of reciprocity, which can never be disputed. Duty is the obligation incident to the rights. Nobody can claim rights that do not correspond to as binding obligations. Nobody has any right to demand more from the state than what corresponds to his own contribution.
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3.10 The Individual and the State The state is a collective of individuals formed to furnish a common protection against outer and inner enemies, to safeguard the individuals freedom in relation to other individuals and collectives, to regulate matters which the individual has no possibility of controlling, to make it possible for the civilization of the civilizational individual, the culture of the cultural individual, the humanism of the humanist individual, and for the idealism of the idealist individual to arise and to be preserved. 2 It is the task of the state to further social unity and counteract tendencies to division, corruption, and abuse of power. The danger of corruption at the stage of civilization is always greater than ignorance thinks. Corruption is counteracted by guarantees against insecurity and arbitrariness. Incorruptibility and justness are the most eminent state virtues. It is the task of the state to work for international unity. Nationalism as opposed to other nations can no more be defended than violent is superior to the state. If the state does not fulfil ideal requirements, then it is ruled by individuals ignorant of life. The basic tasks of the state are given, being unchangeable and independent of the demands of the spirit of the times. 3 It is the task of the state to furnish the individual with opportunities of education, to protect him against helpless destitution by welfare organizations, to guarantee him the greatest possible freedom within the frame of everybodys right to the same inviolable freedom. The state lacks the right to infringe the individuals freedom of opinion (that ideal right always violated by barbaric
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states), to try to reform otherwise lawabiding citizens, to disrespect the needs and just demands of existing minorities, to demand more from the individual than what is inevitable for the continuance and serviceability of the state, to exploit the individual unreasonably. It is true that conditions can become so complicated that there can be doubt about what is necessary or reasonable. But these principles hold good. 4 The state is not any kind of superior being, Those certainly would be strange superior beings, which throughout world history have committed such an unbelievable amount of idiocy and violation. The collectives that are legal power factors in a civilized state consist of very imperfect individuals who have a limited insight, a conventional conception of right, idiosyncrasies, preconceived opinions, conflicting interests; in whom the will to unity is but faintly developed. Ignorance of life does not become knowledge by being multiplied by however great a number, or by being given titles or decorations. The state is a very imperfect institution. The essence of the state is its laws. No state reaches higher than its laws. As yet, no state has lived up to the name of cultural state. Until this will be the case, all attempts at constructing an ideal society must fail. Every such attempt only results in unnecessary suffering for a considerable portion of the members of the state. Change is not the same as development. The will to unity is destroyed through abuse of power. 5 The slogans which always rule the masses at the stage of civilization include in our times democracy and equality. Democracy presupposes ideal men. There can never be any equality. Classes are the natural order of things in all kingdoms of nature, lower as well as higher ones. The natural classes indicate different age classes. The difference in age between human individuals can amount to seven aeons. The immense difference on experience of life is greater than ignorance can possibly grasp. That nobody really believes in equality appears in the fact that although pride refuses to recognize anyone as its superior, yet contempt always sees untold multitudes below itself. The principle of equality implies a denial of development, of the difference between potential god and actual god. Democracy counteracts development by continually lowering all requirements of ability, knowledge, insight, and understanding; by allowing the incomparably more numerous younger part of mankind to oppress those at the stages of culture, humanity, and ideality. Democracy is no guarantee of freedom, no more a guarantee against abuse of power than any other kind of government: one-man rule, clique rule, rule by a class, or by the majority. Freedom is in danger anywhere where power is concentrated. The lower level of development, the greater the risks. It is true that there are no ultimate guarantees against oppression if corruption is allowed to eat away public spirit. But the greatest guarantee will be afforded by those systems in which the political influence of the various social classes are balanced against each other, and the supreme level of power is a discerning authority that demands responsibility and has an absolute veto against arbitrary legislation. 6 In normal epochs, individuals are born into the social classes that correspond to their developmental levels. The division of labour in society is facilitated thereby, and the social balance thus obtained prevents the elements of eternal discontent and rebellion from giving vent to their hatred. However, in that condition of discord in our epoch of division, which has characterized the past twelve thousand years of world history, the castes have been mixed and the arbitrariness of ignorance has ruled, with results familiar to all. 7 As a citizen the individual has no other natural right but that of legally protected freedom. Every other right must be earned through the corresponding obligations. In principle, rights without obligations are a social error, which just results in continually increasing claims to new rights. The more society does for the individual, the greater the service that it has a right to demand in return. Of course, this is equally true of the individual in relation to society. 3.11 The Individual and the Laws

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The concept of law is the most important of all concepts. Law is the condition of all life. Law is necessary to freedom, unity, development, to society, and to culture. The state is built through laws. At mankinds present stage of development, laws are so necessary that - if the state did not exist - it should have to be formed just for the sake of the laws. Education which does not inculcate the inevitability of law does not live up to its name. Only law prevents arbitrariness and chaos. 2 Laws indicate the developmental stage of the nation in civilizational, cultural, humanitarian respect. The condition of an international conception of right is to understand that the super-state is superior to the state. 3 The nation has the laws that it deserves. Laws made by beings so ignorant of life are by no means sacrosanct. It can be said that the conditions of really purposeful legislation are still lacking. To seek to invest the products of frailty with some kind of sanctity is blasphemous. Anyone who wishes to uphold a respect of the law must not contribute to arbitrary legislation and arbitrary interpretation of law. Too often, the laws are abused by the dictatorial tendency. In addition, they reflect idiosyncrasies of the legislators and dogmas of the ignorance of life. If the laws are inhuman and if it is impossible to bring about a change, then the individual may defy them, willingly to take the consequences. To omit taking advantage of all opportunities to ennoble the laws implies missing opportunities to strengthen good and weaken evil (that is, to sow a good sowing), and entailed implication in the collective responsibility for bad laws. 4 Too many laws are likely to diminish the sense of solidarity and to increase the unwillingness to comply with law. The prohibitory mentality has a destructive effect on the ideas of right, breeds contempt of law, defiance, desire to damage; and stunts the sense of social responsibility. Defiance appears in the inclination to act against the law when penal consequences are deemed unlikely. In addition, it is a psychological error to try to check through laws all possible mischief wrought by barbaric individuals (which laws such individuals never care about) and for this reason to pester loyal citizens with unnecessary and irritating regulations. It is safer to counteract lawlessness by enlightenment and education. The state has in its various organs of propaganda, and especially in its neglected educational system, a means of arousing and developing a loyal public spirit. It does not seem to be understood that this spirit is destroyed when political antagonists spitefully cast suspicion on each other. The simplest rules for living together without friction and the respect for the equal right of all can, at all events, be instilled in a more efficient way than through catechism. 5 The laws can be considerably simplified, especially the penal laws. Those who infringe the right of others need a special social education, to be continued until it leads to concrete results. Here is a marked inability of taking the individually different kinds of asociality and prospects of reformation into necessary consideration. Clumsy penal execution often increases hatred by the meaningless psychological torture it implies. To try to circumvent absurd punishment by declaring as many delinquents as possible mentally deranged is to make propaganda for the psychiatric superstition that everybody is insane. The fact that nobody is considered fully same is a clear proof of how thoroughly the ignorance of life fails to understand individual character. 6 Truly rational laws will be possible only at the stage of culture. Then the laws will be in harmony with the laws of life. Until then, an ever continuing principal investigation as to what can be done to ennoble the laws will always be necessary. 7 Necessary laws are such laws as are required to the protection of the individual and the continuance of the state, and to the furtherance of the respect for law and right. Unnecessary laws are such laws as could better be replaced by information, general directions, and instructions by the police. 8 Just laws guarantee to the individual his freedom against the injustices of the state (including the legal ones). Such injustices can never be defended by claiming some kind of superior right of the collective. 11

Good laws generally coincide with necessary laws. They are as few and as simple as possible. They accord as much as possible with ideal right. They are purposeful, principal, general, also stating the spirit and purpose of the law. Thereby formalism is counteracted and interpretation is simplified. Assuredly, this demands very much of the capability of the courts, and presupposes the education to be completely different from the current one and particularly to aim at common sense. 10 Bad laws are: too many laws, badly prepared, arbitrary, continually changed laws; such as conflict with the general conception of right; have a brutalizing effect and counteract education into humanity; work changes without making anything really better; abolish justified differences; confer rights without duties and power without responsibility; satisfy social envy, intolerance, fanaticism, indignation; become weapons for the majority to oppress the minority; such as confer authority on ignorance and power on incompetence; obstruct development; counteract unity. Loyalty presupposes reciprocity. Bad laws or arbitrarily interpreted laws destroy loyalty, arouse resentment and contempt of the law. A bad law is worse than no law at all; ought to be the motto of every legislator. 3.12 The Individual and Social Freedom Rights guaranteed by law are illusory if they are not upheld by a public spirit defending the law. That is demonstrated by the various freedoms of liberalism. Freedom of thought is restricted by the dogmas that rule in all domains of life. Often, the freedom of speech is dangerous on account of the arrogance and aggressiveness of intolerance and fanaticism, and is recommendable just in case you have a strong party behind your back, or are willing to be a martyr to your opinions. The freedom of the press does not exist for an individual ho lacks a publisher or a private capital. Moreover, he is defenceless against persecution by the printers, should he happen to become the object of their malevolence. Without a general justness both freedom and justice are but empty appearance. The whole of societys cult of appearances and its lies of life would not be so radically worked out if freedom existed. 2 Legislative assemblies are dominated by prohibitioners and patronizers. They would prefer having everything prohibited. The tendency to prohibit is strengthened with each new prohibition. Because there are madmen at the stage of barbarism who delight in abusing freedom, all other citizens must be pestered with all sorts of ridiculous prohibitions. They make laws for the law-abiding, who do not need directions, without in the least influencing just those lawless elements who do whatever pleases them, in obvious defiance of every law. Often enough, the disadvantages of prohibition are greater than its advantages. The psychological perversity of the mania for prohibition is best seen when considering that the innumerable prohibitions only the more incite the lawless, but paralyse initiative and joy of enterprise in the law-abiding, if not nursing in them - in their desperation - contempt for both laws and legislators. 3 The ones to be blamed for the increasing general lawlessness are mainly the pedagogues, the educators, the schools, the gangster writers, and the politicians. Modern coddling pedagogy, with its idiotic harping on complexes and other ridiculous subtleties, has so completely paralysed the power of discrimination in parents that they no longer dare to bring their children up, but let them grow up savages. Primitive types, which it is about in most cases, are not so easily affected with any dangerous complexes of inhibition, but the more easily with complexes of self-will. Undiscerning pedagogical sharp-sightedness can discover symptoms that do not exist, and is as often blind before the most obvious. The imaginative speculations of some psycho-analysts are given out as definitely established scientific results. These uncalled-for pedagogic twaddlers, who compete in spreading all manner of fictions, are ignorant of the most essential things. They have no idea of human consciousness development, the stages of human development, and the immense differences there are in psychological respect. Idiotized by the nonsensical talk about
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the equality of all, they believe that the individuals at the stage of barbarism must be treated with that subtlety, seldom found in the pedagogues themselves, which is required for exceptional people at the stage of culture. As regards school, it has wholly neglected everything belonging to the building of character and has not conveyed to the young even the simplest conception of right (which a catechism cannot do), but rather, by glorifying the brutalities and intrigues of times past, it has done its utmost to confuse their ideas of right and wrong. Seductive literature with its criminal madmen, all manner of lawlessness and sadism, must bear a large share of the blame. Politicians and the press have contributed to barbarization by their poisonous propaganda of hatred against people of other opinions and social classes than their own. 4 At the stage of barbarism, there are not even the simplest concepts of freedom. Such individuals, born into civilizational nations, conceive of freedom, about which they hear others talk so much, as a right to self-will and lawlessness. They would never even have felt the need for freedom if not the democratic propaganda of equality had put a hatred of everything superior into their heads. The entire religious, psychological, pedagogical and jurisprudential system of education has sufficiently unveiled its absurdity and uselessness. Asocial elements, who lack the simplest conception of right, need to be given a special treatment and an efficient education by medico-social educators. They should by appropriate means be impressed with the necessity of respecting the equal right of others, until they clearly recognize the inevitability and rationality of that conception of right. These educators must have a sufficient sound judgement for them to see the illusoriness of the ruling psychological fictions, and possess that vast experience of life which liberates from the idiotization wrought by the complex fanatics of today. 5 Freedom is necessary to development. Without freedom the individuals will not learn to realize what freedom is, recognize its immense importance, and never learn to use freedom rightly. Neither can there, without freedom, be any rational conception of right. The bounds of freedom and right are where the understanding and respect of the equal right of all end. According to Schopenhauer, the concept of right actually gains its correct content in being contrasted with the concept of wrong. Wrong simply consists in doing harm to somebody in some manner; and human rights, in everybodys right to do everything that cannot harm anybody. 6 It is the duty of the state to protect the citizens against encroachment by public officers. They have greater possibilities than others of causing harm to individuals. Their motive is often to try to check undesirable, displeasing opinions. Therefore, it is important that the state by firm constitutional laws guarantees the freedom of opinion, is itself neutral in all matters of opinion, and does not favour any particular opinion. From this follows, among other things, adherence to no creed. 7 All power is abused. Therefore, those in power should be put under a law that exacts a real responsibility from them; the greater their power, the more effectively this should be done. If this is not observed, then arbitrariness is inevitable even in societies which regard themselves as highly civilized. Only he is ripe for power who wields it to defend freedom. 8 Power and freedom are the enemies of one another. The enemies of freedom have always been religion, morality, state, caste, and wealth. They will always demonstrate this anew, whenever they are again allowed to have an undue influence, which rational constitutional laws must prevent. 9 The state should be the individuals protection also against inner enemies. Only as regards criminal elements can the state be said to fulfil its task. But it does nothing to protect the individual from the hatred of other individuals. It does little or nothing to counteract the terrible institution of sacrifice. It often supports power factors in society which oppress or ruin individuals. 10 Freedom is lifes greatest gift to men. It is abused to deprive others of their freedom. When seeing how easily and willingly they sacrifice their freedom for all manner of chimeras, you understand that they would prefer slavery if only guaranteed the flesh-pots. Also this is part of the 13

irremediable illusions of life. Having lost their freedom, they will gradually lose everything else.

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THE LAW OF UNITY


3.13 THE LAW OF UNITY The law of unity, the most obvious of all the laws of life, is the last one we discover, because there is no law that men care less about in their egoistic self-glory. Everything else seems to them more essential than the one essential thing. The law of unity is without comparison the most important to mans development, harmony, happiness. The law of unity is the law of salvation, service, brotherhood. Unity is everybodys freedom, everybodys law, everybodys goal. Insofar as the individual realizes unity, he approaches the final goal, superman, who is one with the all. This law implies that good is everything that furthers the development of all and everybody. Evil is everything that counteracts the development and ennoblement of the individual, the group, mankind, and of all other life. Everything that unites has an irreplaceable value. All the pertaining factors are normative. The greatest contribution a man can make is to rally and unite; the greatest harm, to divide and disunite. Anyone who seeks his own ends does not know what unity is. 2 The basis of unity is the potential divinity of all life. The only difference between individuals is that their paths from potential to actualized divinity are of different length. But the final goal of all life is given. The life we see in this world, the lowest and to the normal individual the only visible of all the material worlds, has the same task: to develop. The very fact that this life is divine in essence, secures the divine and eternal right of every individual life against any attempt of disparagement. Unity is not based on equality, which is a fiction of envy. In the entire universe there will be no equality until all have attained the highest divinity. 3 The demands of compulsory conventions have the effect that we concentrate on them as though they were essential, whereas they are but temporary and more or less unessential. Through this erroneous attitude of ours, we strengthen everything which divides and separates, and we become unable to appreciate the good qualities of an individual. Without these the individual could never have become a man. Hatred can never discover anything good, just deny and dissolve unity. Compulsory conventions may have their function at a primitive stage, if there are no other ways out and if aggressive asociality violates the right of others. It is a mistake, however, to prescribe moral laws to people of a higher type. The so-called moral law is a fiction of ignorance. The law of reaping takes charge of those who abuse freedom. Love can never be commanded either in outer or inner respect, it can just be lived forth. Norms of action are at best bases for judgement to be used when orientation yourself in life, and are no imperatives. When reason assumes dictatorial manners, it is on the wrong track. When the spontaneous urge to do the right as far as one sees is hampered by demands and directions, then the right is replaced by its opposite. 4 We all make up a unity, and anyone who excludes somebody from unity has thereby excluded but himself, until he has learnt, through the bitter lessons of life, to recognize the universality of the law of unity. There is no mistake in life more serious, more fatal to our future lives here on earth, than that of excluding anyone from his divine right to our heart. By excluding each other men become accessaries to that war of hatred, which perpetually rages on this planet of sorrow. How immensely far from unity we are is clear from the fact that, in the eyes of others, the individual has scarcely a right to exist. The striving after unity is always counteracted by the massive resistance, dullness, and need for disunion of the compact majority. There is much separating man from man. At the lowest developmental level everything does. At the highest nothing can separate. Our insight into and understanding of unity, our striving to realize unity, indicate our level of development. To strive after unity is the way to reach our goal as men in the shortest possible time. The will to unity is expressed in, among other things, the will to help matter-of-factly, efficiently, where help is needed. It has nothing to do with the sentimentality of masked egoism.
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Unity is the greatest mission in life for the individual as well as the collective. No mission in life which counteracts unity lives up to its name. 6 Mankind is a collective unity. By contributing to unity the individual acquires the right to conditions that favour a more rapid development. If we do not try to realize unity, our selfrealization does not reach far. If man does not sense his unity with all life, he will remain a stranger with a sense of antagonism and fear of everything in life. The law of unity also makes itself felt in the collective responsibility. We make up a unity, whether we know it or not. It is a lengthy record of misdeeds from lives past which we increase daily by our so-called truths, our indifference before inhuman social and economic conditions, etc., and our spreading of hatred of all kinds. 7 One step beyond the human unity is the union with all life. The first step on this long path is the wilful resolve to confide in unity, despite everything, the unity which is the power of life. By weaving this confidence into his conscious, and thereby gradually also into his unconscious, mental and emotional life, the individual will approach nearer and nearer to reality. The more confidence he acquires, the more often his experience will bear out the power of confidence. Anyone who has become one with things, cannot be injured by them. But the most insignificant exception can be turned into a Baldurs mistletoe or an Achilles heel. If our life view were true, unity would long since have been a clearly recognized fact, and union would not, as it is now, be an absurd and grotesque thought. The individual who sets about work for unity on his own, takes on him all the labours of Hercules. But that is the path to superman and to the gods. 8 The individual is an indispensable part of unity. The law of unity demonstrates the infinite value of the individual. Throughout history the value of man has been the least value (in religion not in theory but always in practice). The mad ideas of power, glory, wealth, etc., have held sway. And men are slaves to their ideas, that is, their superstitions. It is inevitable that with this attitude to human dignity history will always be the history of suffering. 9 Consciousness is one, only one, a unity, the unity of all. Development means, as seen from the consciousness point of view, expansion of consciousness through the merging of the individual self with its self-identity intact into greater and greater units of consciousness, until cosmic consciousness has been achieved. Unity does not imply any abolition of individual freedom. On the contrary, it means increased freedom. Because the merging into ever vaster units of consciousness means a greater insight into the worlds of material reality, greater understanding of life and its expressions, a greater knowledge of the law. 10 Of course, unity is a mystery to those who have not experienced it. The advaitee imagines that the self is absorbed by and drowned in the ocean. But the self can never be lost. Union with the universe means that the individual has himself become the universe. 3.14 Individualism and Collectivism The individual is the primary unit, and individualism is a condition of collectivism. Individualism is necessary for the individual as an individual, and collectivism for the individual as a part of the collective. Both individualism and collectivism are conceptions made by the individual. Collectivism is an ideal and a reality. To the ignorant it remains an ideal. To the primitive it appears a utopy, which can only be realized through dictatorship. To the esoterician it is an inevitable reality, the goal of mankind, the kingdom of superman and of happiness. 2 We all make up a unity. Mankind constitutes a collective of consciousness, a collective on different levels of development. At the same time man is an individual, a group being and a unit in mankind. The individual belongs to a group, whether he know it or not. As an individual he has his own isolated self-consciousness; as a group being, a potential group consciousness; and as a human collective being, a collective consciousness, which embraces all mankind. During the course of development this group and collective consciousness is activated. The basis of unity is
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the individuals second self collective. The individuals path to the worlds of the second self, the kingdom of superman, goes via his realization of collective consciousness. 3 Insofar as the individual sees his participation in the collective and realizes his community with it, his freedom as well as responsibility increase. He becomes responsible for his collective, independently of the insight and striving of others, and nobody can prevent him from trying to realize collectivism. Nor can he relieve himself of his responsibility, or free himself from his implication in the collective destiny, even if for his part he has done everything in his power to do. 4 Individualism secures the individuals right against the collective. The individual has always a right to individuality, to freedom within the collective, against all the demands of others of selfsacrifice, against claims violating the individuals right. The collective can never assert collectivism against the ideals, in which the higher ideals have priority over possible lower ones. The fundamental principle of the collective is ideality, which is always the supreme right. Else the collective nullifies itself. There are individuals who are on a higher level of development, either because they are elder brothers or because they have hastened ahead of the others through devotion to their purpose. Many ideas are rejected as freaks, utopies, fantasies, and are treated as illusions hostile to the collective. But even if fantasts mistake vagaries for ideals because of their deficient sense of reality, yet it is their own business, if they do not violate the right of others. Nor has the collective any privilege of being infallible. There are always individuals who can be in the right where the greatest collectives are not. To ignorance ideals are always madness. The ideals, which like signposts have marked out the course of development, have always appeared as irrealities to ignorance. 5 Individualism is justified until the individual has acquired a certain fund of self-reliance and self-determination. The same applies to egoism, within certain, narrower, limits. Without it, the individual could give up his individuality, not acquiring the qualities necessary to independence. When the individual has developed his individual character, however, egoism becomes selfassertion at the expense of others. If his abilities are not put at the service of the collective, he will counteract unity and his own consciousness development. There are those to whom individuality is the one essential thing, and who principally and with all means fight unity. They eventually form a special group. 6 There are two kinds of collectivism: the unfree and the free one. 7 Compulsory union abolishes individualism, has a hampering and a debasing effect. Egoistic group collectivism, which desires solidarity in order to line its own pocket at the expense of society or of other groups and individuals, counteracts unity and has a destructive effect. In such a collective, the mottos of hatred may rule, the psychoses of hatred may influence misdirected loyalty, and compel the most reasonable and noble members to remain passive before actions which they, as free outsiders, would dislike and condemn. 8 True collectivism is based on individualism, freedom, unity, and ideality, and understands the necessity of the collective. 9 The individuals increasingly greater understanding of others is the sign that his activated collective superconscious begins to be conscious to himself. Thereby the first step is taken towards culture. 10 The individual always sacrifices something for the collective: some of his sovereignty, among other things. The higher level the collective is at, the less it encroaches on this sovereignty, because all compulsion hampers activity and initiative, and because everybody is himself the best judge of his contribution. The more ideal the collective is, the more the individual puts the ends of the collective before his own ends and interests. The more the individuals live for the collective, all serve all, with benevolence, understanding, interest, sympathy, and mutual appreciation, the more important will it be to cooperate for the common cause. The result depends on the spirit of solidarity. A collective with their emotionality and 17

mentality closely welded can accomplish stupendous work, to say the least of it. Regrettably, the conditions of such an insight are non-existent at lower stages of development. 11 The group is an harmonious association of individuals united in their concerted aspiration for a given mission in life. The group individuals superconsciousnesses increase the insight, clarity, power of everybody in the group and compensate for he individual failings. Also the work on self-realization is made easier through the group work. It is a great mission in life to search out your group, help it form itself, establish its goal, and try to realize it. 3.15 Collectives As seen from the supreme point of view, all life makes up one single collective. The condition of development is unity in diversity. Consequently, collectives are of very different kinds. Mankind makes up a collective, every race and nation too. All have as their mission to contribute their share to universal development. The task of the fourth root-race is to ennoble emotionality. The fifth root-race is to intellectualize emotionality and to direct imagination towards the ideal. The task of the sixth root-race will be to realize unity in social forms. Also the nations are expected to make their contributions. Hitherto, in their relations with each other they have hardly seen any other purpose than to rule, oppress, exploit. The human kingdom is the only natural kingdom made up of isolated individuals. According as the individual develops, he will recognize his solidarity with greater and greater collectives: family, clan, class, nation, race, mankind. His development towards unity is his self-acquired realization of the necessity of collectivity. 2 The nation is the most tangible collective: geographically defined, formed throughout history, with a common language and traditions handed down. In the present world-epoch, the individuals in any one national collective are found at all the different developmental levels, and, from that point of view, they have little in common except language and public opinion. The nation makes up a collective of collectives, however. And in this the differentiation of consciousness finds expression. The differentiation is always the essential one in developmental respect. The more collectives of consciousness there are, the better, since then all the more ideas activating consciousness contribute to the individual differentiation. These collectives can be determined by external conditions, common interests, psychological factors, etc., and form social classes; occupational groups; social, economic, scientific, artistic, literary, etc. associations. The most important ones are the collectives of consciousness which rally to common ideals. They need not therefore belong to external associations. Suffice it to mention the ever unknown lite of culture, humanity, ideality, and unity, respectively. The silent work done by this lite is invaluable. Their exactly chiselled, lucid thought forms make it easier to think for the mentally untrained and counteract the bad suggestions of mass opinion. After them in importance follow consciousness collectives of similar world views and life views, philosophic schools, etc. 3 During periods of stability the social classes form collectives that preserve culture. In times of social disruption (so-called democratic times) they lose their roothold. In such times it is essential that initiatives are taken in forming associations for common emotional-mental needs. 4 The caste institution estate and class society is expressive of the different levels of development in the human kingdom. Estates and classes in a purposively organized society form meeting-grounds for individuals on the same levels of development. This facilitates understanding between individuals. Within domains of similar knowledge, the linguistic means of expression gain the realness of personal experience. This is also true of common emotional domains, such as religion, art, social, and other group ideas, as well as common fictional domains, such as hypotheses and theories of all kinds. Even if, as a rule and where most people are concerned, just the superficial layers of consciousness are involved in this, yet the isolation of loneliness is removed and ennobling collective needs are developed.
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Estates and classes make it possible to preserve and cultivate the cultural heritage. Culture is heritage. If this heritage is scattered, no culture can arise, or decay sets in. Only very slowly, through assiduity and reverent tradition the conditions that make culture possible are eventually gathered. Culture has its true soil in the family. The family is too few in number, however, to guard in the long run those treasures of tradition, which one day will make culture possible. Only the class is sufficiently numerous for this. The class is then held together by similar emotional and mental interests as well as closely related social tasks. The sense of unity is fostered more easily in the class. If these classes are dissolved, then the first tender signs of culture are ruined, and the individuals become socially rootless and culturally disoriented. If conditions were normal, which they have not been in historical times, then we would find a society in which all classes co-operated harmoniously for the welfare of all. The ruling caste has abused poser to oppress and exploit instead of serving life by guarding, helping, raising. Abuse of power leads to loss of power. The castes are split by the incarnation of more highly developed individuals into lower castes and of undeveloped ones into higher castes, which results in social mobility and that social upheaval called democracy. In our period of equality it passes for an axiom that all are equal. Thereby they nulligy all the distance there is between a man recently causalized from the animal kingdom and a man standing on the border of the next higher kingdom, that of superman. They do not suspect the fact that it is the same distance (embracing a difference in age of up to seven aeons) as between the lowest and highest animal species. By equality the social philosophers meant equality before the law, the right to human dignity, the right to open competition, the right to be judged from competence alone. But the ignorance of life took charge of that slogan, incapable to discern distances between different stages and levels of development. All are regarded as having the same prospects of insight into life, discernment, competence, ability. The proclamation of equality is one of the greatest, most serious mistakes of mankind, because it leaves the power to ignorance and incompetence. We shall all reach the goal some time in the future. The time for this is not the same for all, however. 6 Like the classes in societies normally differentiated would be found on different levels of development, so the different races and nations would correspond to different stages of development. Thereby the different individual needs would best be satisfied. The same is true of various kinds of art and music performance, etc. 7 Exoteric knowledge or history does not afford us any facts by which to judge this development. To do this it is necessary to have the facts of the esoteric world view.

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THE LAW OF DEVELOPMENT


3.16 CONSCIOUSNESS DEVELOPMENT The law of development in its limited application to the human consciousness indicates the universal conditions, the different stages and levels, and the final goal: the merging of the first self with the second self. The subject is of course inexhaustible. It will be reserved for future sciences to furnish an all-round elucidation of the pertaining realities. The intention here has been to demonstrate the reality of the stages and to prepare for a new view of the most important cultural factors. In a period which fancies about equality in all respects, the discussion of different developmental stages is likely to arouse indignation. Our modern psychologists probably will not tarry to refute this esoteric fact by an overwhelming evidence. Future epochs, however, will present psychologists of quite another kind. 2 Consciousness development is a very slow process. The individual spends seven aeons on the average in each one of the natural kingdoms preceding one another. The human kingdom can be accomplished in one aeon if the individual does not fail in any single incarnation, but develops in each one the highest possible consciousness activity, and with an instinct that senses the goal strives to realize unity. 3 In the human kingdom consciousness development can be divided into five stages or 777 levels. On 700 of the levels, or at the stages of barbarism, civilization, and culture; emotional consciousness is the dominant one. Emotional thinking rules in all domains that can directly or indirectly affect personal interests. 4 Consciousness is conditioned by the vibrations in emotional (48:2-7) and mental (47:4-7) molecular kinds. Consciousness domains that are mainly superconscious are, at the stage of barbarism 48:2-4, 47:4-6; at the stage of civilization, 48:2,3; 47:4,5; at the stage of culture, 48:2; 47:4,5. The emotional vibrations at the stage of culture are mostly found within the middle regions, 48:3-5. The two lowest ones have then disappeared for lack of the pertaining interests, being expressive of the grossest egoism. Superconscious domains depend on the fact that they are not vitalized in the emotional aeon by interstellar or interplanetary vibrations, and that the individual is still incapable of vitalizing by himself the corresponding spirals of his triad units, and also that the individual has not acquired the ability of self-initiated consciousness activity within the layers of consciousness accessible to him. 5 The emotional vibrations are either attractive or repulsive. The vibrations in the higher two (48:2,3) molecular kinds have an attractive effect; those in the lower four (48:4-7), a repellent effect. In the first four aeons the repellent vibrations predominate, unless their individual characters have acquired an attractive tendency. All emotional expressions can be divided into two basic, principal groups: attractive (love) or repellent (hatred). Everything that is not love is hatred. Love includes all altruistic feelings and qualities, hatred all egoistic ones. Emotions are woven into complexes which are easily vitalized and are unfailingly intensified if attended to. At lower stages the state of hatred is the normal one. Hatred lends life and colour to existence, which would be dreary, empty, meaningless if it were not for the emotions. Hatred stimulates like an elixir of life without which people cannot live. The tendency of hatred always seeks for motives that stimulate it, and almost everything can be made a motive. Religious and moral, social and political, philosophic and scientific fictions, all kinds of personal relations, all barriers to egoism, can inflame hatred. Two examples may be cited to demonstrate the reality of hatred. To destroy an individuals good appearance (good name and reputation) is, with the moralist cult of appearances which still prevails, about the same thing as to assassinate him. He then becomes a social leper, an outcast from society. Gossip and slander are vital needs for almost everybody. Nobody omits to spread the pestilence more and more abroad. Another sign of hatred is the total absence of that respect and veneration for every living creature that typifies attraction. The fact
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that mankind speaks of love as of a familiar thing, evidences a total blindness in life. Just the selfdeceptive locutions are familiar. In most cases even admiration, affection, compassion, are dictated by egoism. What the Christians call love is not love but sentimentality. The moralist, with his indignation and unending judgements, makes the most fatal mistakes as to two of the most important laws of life, the laws of freedom and unity. 6 Religion and art need no introductory remarks. The conception of right, on the other hand, requires an introduction on account of the confusion of concepts caused by the illusory morality ignorant of life. 7 The individuals conception of right is determined by his individual character, and belongs to his level of development. The understanding of a certain conception of right is innate. When the individual again comes into contact with a conception of right previously acquired by him, it immediately appears correct to him. What belongs to his level expresses itself instinctively and spontaneously. The individual lacks an understanding of conceptions of right and ideals that are above his level, but he can of course be drilled to conform to a higher pattern of behaviour. 8 Good and evil (right and wrong) are and are not absolute, relative, objective, and subjective; depending on different viewpoints and standpoints. They are absolute in their opposition on each level. For the individual there must be an opposition between good and evil, which must not be made relative if the individual does not want to end up in a chaos of right and wrong. They are relative inasmuch as good and evil on one level are not necessarily good and evil on another. They are objective as a synthesis of universal human experience, laid down in social convention and legal code. They are subjective in so far as the understanding of right and wrong depends on the individuals self-acquired experience of life, and therefore is part of his individual character. 9 There must be some kind of conception of right. Otherwise communities could never arise. Without a conception of right a war of all against all would rage, and mankind would be annihilated. The individual who lacks the understanding of basic concepts of right and wrong, is so primitive or asocial that his social education comes under the self-defence of the community. A defence of any violation of the right of others, lawless arbitrariness, or self-will. Anyone who does not want to understand the right of others, must be taught to respect it without understanding it. To give assistance in the prosecution of every violation of the individuals freedom and right is to the social interest of all and everybody. The rules which are necessary if we are to live together without friction are so simple that the most stupid man can be taught to see that they are just, inevitable, rational, and purposive. No catechism is needed for this, a catechism which presupposes a religious conviction and loses its power when reason revolts against the religious fictions. 10 For the individual, good is the steps above his level, and particularly the immediately higher step. Evil is the lower, that which is below his level and, usually, in particular degree just the one he has recently left. In this is the subjectivity of the conception of right but not any relativity, which nullifies the necessary opposition between good and evil. Good is everything that furthers the development towards unity, evil is everything that counteracts unity, that becomes obstacles to the achievement of the goal. Every mistake as to laws of life can also be called wrong. All these mistakes fall under the law of reaping, the law of infallible justice. 11 Ideals are models for life, examples, goals of life that man sets up to himself, milestones on the individuals path towards unity, truths of life that indicate the shortest path to the world of ideals, developmental factors of an importance seldom understood. Without ideals there is no realization. All ideals will be realized some time. Not all ideals are suited to all. There are physical, emotional, mental ideals. For every conception of right there is an ideal corresponding to it. In the understanding of a certain ideal he level appears. Ideals must be realizable. Therefore, they must not be set too high, out of reach of the individuals vision, so that they lose their attractive power, are regarded impractical, do not urge to action, discourage by their remoteness, lead to a cult of appearances and to self-deception; but, on the contrary, are set up so as 21

immediately to attract, encourage, inspire, enthuse, spontaneously to arouse admiration and rapture, with a certainty that the ideal can be realized. Freedom is the vital air of the ideals. Ideals ought to be understood as rights and favours. Ideals must never be demands, for thereby they become complexes hostile to life. Ideals are brought into ridicule if they are preached to those who do not understand the ideal, do not desire it, do not long for it. You must never demand that anyone shall come up to his ideals. Just having an ideal is a great thing. In certain cases, many incarnations can intervene between wish and realization. Many people deceive themselves by their ideals. 3.17 THE STAGE OF BARBARISM Those individuals of our mankind who belonged to the lowest barbaric levels, left our globe with the second root-race. With the exception of the remnants of the third root-race, who are rapidly dying out, there are no opportunities of studying the most primitive men. Nor can the developmental stages of different races be determined. Pure races do not exist. The mixture of races is nowadays so efficient that most of the original physiological and psychological distinctive traits of the races have been levelled out. Barbaric clans incarnate into civilized nations. The white nations have so much outraged savage peoples that the latter are allowed, according to the law of reaping, to incarnate into civilized nations and to make up their slums. Besides, social conditions in civilizational nations are often so primitive that the simplest intellects can orientate themselves in them. Many civilizational individuals are found among uncivilized nations, incarnating because of bad reaping. 2 More than half of all the levels of development are at the stage of barbarism. The distance between the different levels is minimal as compared to those at higher stages. Nevertheless, each level requires a much greater number of incarnations. This is due to the faint self-initiated consciousness activity. The barbaric individual lives in the physical. Any kind of work, any unnecessary exertion, disgusts him and is considered foolish by him. Only urgent physical needs or excited affects cause him to abandon the indolence which to him is happiness and the meaning of life. Typical is the inability to learn from anything but physical experiences. Everything remains to be learnt. The personality is exclusively a product of reaping, since there is no need for considering consciousness development specially. The difference between the lowest and highest barbaric levels existing appears principally in a more rapid apprehension of sense and in the increased fund of general experience of life, which fact of course facilitates the activity of reason and makes more differentiated emotional states possible. 3 For individuals with a repellent basic tendency of their individual characters it is necessary to have egoistic interests to neutralize their instinctively inflammable hatred, and to have stronger motives the stronger this tendency is. The emotions of hatred express themselves as envy, bitterness, fear, contempt, cruelty, vengefulness, suspiciousness, disrespect, malicious pleasure, irreverence, anger. The higher the level, the more differentiated are these emotions, which fact also appears in their modes of expression. There are many degrees between brutality, cunning, or egoism inclined to show some consideration. At low levels, before feelings have been developed, emotionality is mostly the desire to own, rule, destroy, annihilate. Naturally, the activation of emotionality mainly depends on the individuals general circumstances and special experiences. In savages of attractive basic tendency the globe vibrations have not the same effect. The two opposite basic tendencies appear, for example, in one individual wishing to rule by strength, violence, fear, etc.; the other by admiration, affection, etc., aroused by joviality, kindness, generosity, etc., which can also be egoistically motivated (desire to be loved, etc.). In general, individuals of different basic tendencies belong to different clans. Thus, entire ethic groups can, even at the lowest levels, display either predominantly attractive or repellent qualities. 4 There is no absolute ignorance as to life. Even the atoms of involutionary matter have
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experiences, although they are unable to work them up. In plants and animals organized experiences become instincts. In an animal on the border of causalization, instinct is almost infallible within the limits of the animals necessary experiences. Because of this, however, one must not credit the animals with the ability to judge humans. Those on higher levels cannot be correctly judged by those on lower ones. On the other hand, it is correct that plants and animals perceive whether they are loved or hated. Reason, the ability to use reflection to work up the content of sense, is gradually activated through the routine matters of experience and the adaptation to the conditions of physical existence. At the stage of barbarism, the activity of reason is predominantly imitative, and thinking is some sort of tribal collective thinking. The enforced conventions counteract attempts at independent reflection. Superstitions are handed down from the fathers and are made ineradicable by being engrafted from early childhood. The individual is born into his milieu of opinion, religion, etc. Where divergent opinions do not exist, the possibility of seeing through the absurdities is precluded. The expositions of fables satisfy the need for explanation. The arbitrariness of existence is sovereign. Thus thinking is based on tradition, conformity, and the simplest analogy. The character of faith appears early as blind acceptance and conviction made absolute by emotion. Emotion reacts against departures from habits and ways of thinking once acquired. Should doubt appear, aroused by foreign opinions, doubt would of course be as absolute and indiscriminate. On the highest levels of the stage of barbarism, and in civilizational nations, mental activity can reach a certain strength. Then the need for knowing what ought to be thought and said is characteristic. The content of reason is determined by ruling authorities or by class thinking. The toilsome work in trying to grasp correctly the opinions of others is the emotional proof of the correctness of your opinion. Then if you can account for your opinion in your own words, you have given proof of independent judgement. 5 Religions at the stage of barbarism are mostly animistically coloured. Also simple intellects seek some sort of explanation of what is and happens. These explanations vary with everyday notions within the limits of tribe and language. But they accord in certain basic traits, which fact is due to universal human experiences. Primitive conceptions of god are analogies with arbitrary, cruel rulers, and often intensify into terror the understandable dread of unknown powers of nature, which are regarded as wrathful, blood-thirsty, jealous, and vengeful, but can also be bribed and appeased by sacrifice and adoration, so that their assistance can be counted on in all egoistic matters, victory over enemies, etc. It is easy to see that such and similar superstitions can always be in some manner exploited by the powerhungry and the more cunning. In order to exact obedience to taboos and enforced rules, and to raise them above all discussion, an absolute and arbitrary power is required as an authority, ruthlessly punishing every departure or presumptuous individual opinion. This fiction of terror is engrafted through suitable mumbo-jumbo, until it completely dominates the emotional thinking of the tribe. Then the time is come for the teaching, revealed through an appropriate mouthpiece for a being otherwise inaccessible. This prophet, invested with divine authority, announces rules of primitive social life and lays down dubious manners and customs. This lays the foundation of a superstructure. For this dreadful being can, of course, announce new decrees as he chooses, if the successors of the prophet would consider it advisable. (The fact that it has been possible for philosophers to search for rational grounds of such fictions gives sufficient evidence of their discrimination. On the wings of abstraction they rose to the highest abstraction ever and invented moral law, that divine dictate void of any content, useless.) 6 The regulations necessary to the continuance of the tribe: those against homicide, theft, etc., apply but to the tribe. Out in the jungle the law of the jungle, or the right of violence and of the stronger force, still prevails. The absurdities of traditional conventions remain intact, since nobody dares to question changes of what nobody comprehends. Characteristic of the stage of barbarism is the contempt for man. Human dignity, human right, human happiness, are not only 23

unknown but also unimaginable concepts. Only the members of the tribe have a right to exist, and this only on condition that they observe taboos and other superstitions. All other living beings are possibly allowed to live if it is deemed suitable, desirable, useful. Might is right and right is maintained, if need be, by terror. Punishment is brutal. Robbers expeditions against and attacks on weaker tribes are lawful enterprises. Rather early haunts the fiction of outraged honour, etc. 7 At this stage of development, ideals coincide with idols, understandable only as qualities in legendary heroes. Matchless in crude strength, the idol always conquers in battle, triumphs in cunning over his enemies, wins a rich booty, becomes the chief of the tribe, and exterminates all nearby tribes, or makes them his slaves. If the barbarian is born into a civilized nation, certain external traits of his idol are changed, but he remains the triumpher, outshining, outwitting all. The idol satisfies the needs of vanity and pride, the desire to rule and dominate, etc.

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THE STAGE OF CIVILIZATION


3.18 Emotionality at the Stage of Civilization At the stages of barbarism, civilization, and culture, the individual in the emotional aeon is in all essence an emotional being, determined by emotional motives in his feeling, thinking, and acting. The qualities acquired by individual character which automatically make themselves felt belong to any of the 700 emotional levels, 600 of which belong to the lower emotionality (48:47). 2 Every expression of emotional consciousness brings about vibrations in the emotional world. Those who are reached by these vibrations are unwittingly influenced by them. if the expression is repellent, then repellent emotions are called forth in the receiver. if such emotions are attended to by the receiver, then subconscious complexes are vitalized, resulting in affects. At the same time, new vibrations of the same qualities are emitted, influencing other people. It can be said without exaggeration that more than 90 per cent of all consciousness expressions are in some respect repellent. One understands the symbolic expression of the gnosticians, saying that the world is in the power of evil. 3 The individual identifies with his dominant being. The emotional individuals emotional consciousness is his being. It is his true self. If his emotions are not active, the individual feels dry, listless; life seems grey, empty, meaningless. He wishes that something would happen, so that vitalized affects might lend colour to life. Most people are the sport of their emotions and are dependent on a periodical emotional intoxication. The purpose of amusements is to satisfy this need. Parties, music, literature, art have the same purpose where most people are concerned. The taste of choices in these matters depends on the level. 4 Perhaps it is not strange that the experiences of life hitherto have resulted in the view that man is incurably evil. It is certainly possible to drill the individual to put on the external respectability and the characteristics of sanctimoniousness, which always deceive the ignorance of life. And this is important as counteracting overt ruthlessness and brutality. But just the ignorance of life believes in any of the boasted and patented panaceas. There is only one way of becoming good and that is to strive to reach higher levels. 5 For those at lower levels, the lower emotionality remains the dynamic force of their consciousness expressions. Envy, vengefulness, malicious pleasure, are efficient motives. There is much at the stage of civilization which ignorance believes to exist only at the stage of barbarism. Civilized hatred appears most clearly in the prevailing intolerance and morality. Intolerance has many degrees from antipathy and tactlessness to arrogant aggressiveness. The reason why religious intolerance has not appeared violently in the last decades is that religion has lost its powerful position, and that a common world view and life view have not been agreed upon. Freedom of speech, so much boasted about, is not even one hundred years old. Already the signs of the times are beginning to presage the end of this short period. After the abuse of power by religion and morality, the political lies begin their tyranny of thought. 6 The intellectualization of crude barbaric desire at the stage of civilization has resulted in the more and more differentiated and nuanced modes of expression of egoism. It is increasingly difficult for the psychologist to trace these back to their true origin. But the change is merely superficial and does not deceive the man experienced in life. The emotional illusions lying near to barbarism reveal their undiminished strength on suitable occasions. Imagination has served the barbaric instincts with wars and revolutions, which incessantly ruin anew what has been built up, and destroy values that could have contributed to emotional ennoblement. 7 At higher civilizational levels, imagination (the intellect) develops powerfully. This has entailed a grotesque over-estimation of the discerning power of the still undeveloped intellect. The emotional thinking of imagination has ended up in absolute subjectivism. It has flooded
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mankind with its fictions within all domains - not just those of aesthetics and philosophic speculation fictions emancipated from all criteria of reality. Naturally, such an intellect and its humanism ignorant of the prerequisites of the stage of humanity - must evince its impotence. 8 The striving by the lite to raise mankind through humanist ideas has failed in important respects. Only when faced with the danger of total annihilation, the conscience of the world begins to wake up, in panicky psychosis seeking for possibilities of preventing war. The ideals of higher stages have of course survived to be abused as stupidizing adages and fair promises, blinding those who measure themselves by their Sunday theories, and who, moreover, use the ideals as motives for moralist hatred for condemning other people. 3.19 Mentality at the Stage of Civilization It is necessary to survey millions of years in order to ascertain consciousness development, individual and collective. Historical periods correspond in mental respect to what the recapitulation of biological evolution by the embryo is in physiological respect. Historical development is just a repetition on other conditions. An inevitable source of error for the exoteric researcher is his ignorance of the different stages of development of the clans incarnating periodically. 2 The power of discrimination is poorly developed at the stage of civilization. Most intellectuals think according to crammed-up theories without being able to judge the relative or temporary validity of these theories, or how the theories have originated. Study, or learning, is not the same as insight and understanding. They have not learnt to discriminate between what they know and do not know, but still defend their opinion by the fact that they believe it. General credulity is so great that anyone who is not protected by fictions already deeply rooted or by egoistic interests, will unfailingly be a victim to any cleverly planned propaganda. 3 The stage of barbarism is characterized by belief (opinion), the stage of civilization by comprehension (study). Comprehension is the result of the logical process of reflection. This process need not at all result in knowledge (correct apprehension of reality). But never resting reflection is a prerequisite of searching and of the struggle against tyranny of thought. Increased reflection brings with it the ability of abstraction, of generalization, of searching after the causes of events, of laying down rules, etc. Reflection finds patterns of thought, develops schematic methods of inference, and demands increasingly more material to work on. This marks the beginning of the long period termed sophistry, scholasticism, conceptual romance, and the rule of logic. Reason becomes sovereign, decides what is true and false, constructs philosophic systems, and comprehends reality. Empiricism did not furnish ignorance with logical certainty, and, consequently, did not really have a justification. Reality was even slighted. Mathematics demonstrated that absolute knowledge was possible. They overlooked the fact that this infallible construction of the space and time axioms dealt with these real facts. These facts were conceived as merely constructed fictions. Facts which already existed and which were not serviceable were replaced by fictions without any contact with a thing as unreliable as matter. If reality did not agree with the logically constructed, infallible system, then the fault was with material reality. Still many people do not see that logic cannot conjure up knowledge of the qualitative properties of matter. Constructivists of all sorts live unconcernedly in the illusory world of their fictions. Even scientists still make the mistake of compensating for missing facts by constructions. The prevalent world views and life views can still be termed fictional systems. 4 Scientific discoveries and technological progress are often mistaken for intellectual development. But the former have nothing in common with the latter. The innumerable discoveries that natural science and its technological offshoots have made ever since Galilei united natural research (ascertainment of facts) with experimentation and the mathematical method, have continuously increased our knowledge of physical material reality. Gradually,
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research has liberated us from the fictions and superstitions handed down from our fathers; it has expanded our horizon, and developed our sense of reality. But the ability of inference and conceptual comprehension is the same. They do not comprehend better, although in a totally different way, namely in accordance with the explored. An ever deeper realization of the absolute conformity to law of existence begins to make itself felt. Without conformity to law research would be utter nonsense. They begin to see that ignorance depends on ignorance of the laws, or of the constant relations. 5 Sense provides us with knowledge of material reality, objective infallible facts. If reason, being subjectivity, just worked up the content of sense, then learning would be exact. For the most part, however, the content of reason is still made up of fictions. The criterion of truth of sense is reality. To logicians, the absence of logical contradictions is reasons criterion of truth. To most people, the proof of truth is that the idea accords with the prevailing opinion, that it is possible to insert it into their fictional systems. The real proof of knowledge is the tenability of the hypothesis and theory in technical application, and the infallibility of prediction by means of knowing all the conditions of a process. Knowledge consists of facts put into their causal, logical, or historical contexts devoid of fictions. Insufficient facts have the effect that the part is taken for the whole. Often even basic propositions just sum up groups of facts belonging to a still greater, unknown group. 6 The distances between the different levels of the stage of civilization are somewhat greater than those at the stage of barbarism, but they are of course unnoticeable to ignorance. A race that can indulge in fancies of equality of course lacks all the prerequisites of insight into these matters. Psychologists fail to notice any difference where a developmental lead of one or two aeons may be the fact. Not suspecting the importance of the latent experience of life, they judge the results of tests on principles conditioned by hereditary dispositions from ancestors, intellectual milieu during childhood, education, etc. The results of education are as illusory. Discursive intellects (47:7) working laboriously can be taught the technique of logical inference and of mathematical formulation. If in addition they are given the results of scientific research in an easy-to-grasp exposition, then the ability of intellectual imitation is all that is needed to be splendid logicians without any sense of reality and glib speakers on subjects they do not understand. Intellects who deal with ideas (47:5), who later in life get opportunities of actualizing their latent experience of life; can prove to be impossible in school, since their mental activity takes other paths than that of slow discursivity. Memory geniuses are nearly always brilliant in school. Besides, the factors of the law of reaping make all judgement impossible. 3.20 Religion at the Stage of Civilization Religion is a matter of emotion and not one of reason. Therefore, it can be wholly devoid of reason. Intangible spirituality is undifferentiated emotional ecstatic or mood states. True spirituality is essentiality, out of reach of the individual at the stage of civilization. At this stage, religion satisfies the repellent emotions, which manifest themselves in intolerance, tyranny of opinion, and persecution when circumstances so permit. The Christian religion is totally ignorant in all matters of world view and life view. It knows nothing about consciousness development and its different stages, about reincarnation and the laws of life. It cannot furnish a rational explanation of trinity, soul, or spirit, nor describe the hereafter. Fancy such ignorance of reality speaking of truth! One thing it has made perfectly clear: the absence of any criterion of truth in certainty of belief, individual as well as collective. That it is the faith of our fathers is certainly not enough. All university faculties gradually correct their erroneous doctrines, with the exception of the theological faculty, which cannot possibly see that there is no religion higher than truth, than the knowledge of reality. 2 All religions are nowadays based on historical documents. These are all, without any
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exception, falsifications. When they demand to be recognized as the true and unadulterated word of god, the absurdities of which you must believe in lest you be eternally condemned, then the truth must be spoken out. Fortunately, esoterics has documents of another kind at its disposal, namely the esoteric archive, which is accessible to researchers with higher objective consciousness. 3 All religions originally had their mysteries. In these secret schools of knowledge, the intellectual lite were taught the knowledge of reality and the interpretation of the symbols of the exoteric religion. The mysteries declined on account of persecution by the ignorant, fanaticized masses, which were led by the unworthy who had been refused initiation into the mysteries. Esoteric research has in our time investigated the mystery schools, thereby ascertaining that no initiate of the third degree, the only one to afford real knowledge, ever broke his pledge of silence. What the history of religions teaches on these matters is thus the speculation of ignorance. The falsification of history begins with the rumour-mongering of today, thereafter never to cease. Another example is the canonical books of the Jews (the Old Testament of the Bible) They are wholly modern in their mixture of fiction and historical facts. Only hopelessly disoriented historical research attempts to solve problems of historical authenticity by philological examination of so-called original texts. The history of religions occupies itself with sheer fictions, and is the most chimaeric of all historical disciplines - quite apart from the unconscious falsification that is the inevitable result when you judge things by a dogmatics previously accepted. 4 The history of the Christian religion can be called the neverending systematic falsification of history. They still give the ignorant the description of gnostics as philosophic speculation on a Christian basis. Apart from the fact that all the documents of the New Testament are gross falsifications, the history of religions has moreover methodically incorporated with the Christian doctrine everything that has been deemed suitable. Without hesitation they have put on the Christian patent stamp to everything that paganism (common sense and nobleness in union) has produced. Everything great, noble, ingenious, everything that unresting critical reason has brought into the light and succeeded in forcing to a final recognition, despite furious resistance and bloody persecutions, has eventually been incorporated with Christian views and been given out as an eternal truth and merit of Christianity, as a necessary result of the belief in the Christian absurdities. A history of the tyranny of thought would clarify to the amazing ignorance of history the unbelievable obstacles that Christianity has put in the way of truth, and the horrifying intolerance that has tried by all the means of barbarism to suppress all attempts to find the truth. This falsification goes on continuously. It is falsification when those who at the universities have profited by the result of the hard, unrewarding struggle of the humanist geniuses for tolerance, humanity, brotherhood, ascribe the merit of this enlightenment and ennoblement to Christianity. The falsification also appears in the fact that the preachers of the word steel ideas from the cultural people wherever they get a chance, and incorporate them with their preachings as being Christian views. 5 The so-called historians of religions ought to meditate on the words of the father of the church, Augustine (in De Civitate Dei): The identical thing that we now call the Christian religion existed among the ancients, and has not been lacking from the beginnings of the human race until the coming of Christ in the flesh, from which moment on the true religion, which already existed, began to be called Christian. 6 At the stage of civilization, that man reaches farthest who, abandoning all the fictions of belief, lives but to help and serve without claims and expectations. Thereby the higher emotionality is awakened and shows the path. The egoists religion is self-deception. 7 The Christian religion is a typical civilizational phenomenon. Like philosophy it is a product of imaginative ignorance. It has been called a Jewish sect, which originally it was not. It has become one because the canonical books of the Jews, called the Old Testament, were put 28

together with the new Testament to make a Bible (the Book of Books). This Bible has been declared to be the pure and unadulterated word of God. The fact that the Old Testament, contradicting the New, is also the word of god, means that the Old is as infallible as the New, and that the contradictions are also the work of god. You are equally godly of you murder your enemies as if you forgive them. The Old Testament has in all essentials directly counteracted Jeshus teaching. But then those who understand make a sharp distinction, in contrast to the Christian churches, between Jeshus teaching (the Sermon of the Mount) and Christianity. 8 A few words on the origin of the Old Testament to begin with. The Jews were an uncivilized pastoral nation, living to a certain extent by robbery. They had a tribal god, Yahweh, who demanded bloody sacrifices, jealously watching to see that no other gods were also given sacrifices. The captivity in Babylon was the Jews first contact with a more rational world view and with culture. Upon returning to their country they concocted their canonical books. They had learnt that canonical documents were necessary to religious authority. Yahweh was given other attributes, qualities with a cosmic touch. By means of historical facts acquired and, partly, their own oral traditions, a history of the Jews was constructed. The writings of their prophets were their own adaptations of what they had picked up from various sources during their captivity. A by no means insignificant portion of it was of remarkable antiquity, excerpts from Atlantean records. 9 The New Testament has a similar eclectic origin. Throughout the Bible there are many esoteric axioms and adages, pearls in a very imperfect setting. It will be a task of future research to pick these out and give them a worthier framework. 10 Gnosticians were called the members of a society of esoteric knowledge. They were called so because they possessed the Gnosis (the knowledge of reality). This society had lodges in Egypt, Arabia, Persia, Asia Minor, etc. Its actual time of prosperity was in the third century before Christ. The initiates belonged to the lite of their time. They were very prolific writers, and elaborated very carefully selected, profound symbols, often personified, often depicted as historical events. The gnostic symbols include, among others, trinity: the father (also called the great carpenter), the son Christos (the carpenters son), the holy ghost. These three terms were made additionally unintelligible when, in different contexts, they were given different interpretations, those already mentioned as well as the three aspects, the three triads, the three beings of the second triad. 11 A quasi-gnostic literature arose from this genuine gnostic literature. A Jewish gnostic by the name of Matthew was present when the governor of Palestine, Pontius Pilate, executed the leader of a social revolutionary movement. The occurrence furnished him with a literary idea. He resolved to write a religious novel based on reality. Into it he worked together gnostic symbols, what oral tradition had preserved of the parables of Jeshu (born in 105 B.C.), an ancient Egyptian tale of man crucified on the cross of rebirth, some facts about the communist agitator. Not being content with his work, he sent it to a good friend of his, who was the prior of a gnostic monastery in Alexandria, asking him to let the brethren try to improve on his novel. The monks were interested, being educated literary men, and set about the work, and some fifty adaptations came into existence. The novels of the monks met with a tremendous success. Innumerable copies were spread in all directions and brought about a religious mass movement, which gained ground quickly and had its name from the gnostic symbol, Christos, the son of god. The doctrine caught on especially with the socially discontent, the destitute and enslaved. At long last, after some 300 years, the most realistic and mutually most harmonious novels were put together in the so-called New Testament, as being true accounts of the life of Jeshu, along with an equally fabled account of the first Christians in Jerusalem, and excerpts from a kabbalistic document in the form of letters, distorted beyond recognition. 12 The gnostic doctors realized in terror the danger of this degeneration. They tried to the best of their ability to give the distorted symbols a more rational interpretation. But the ignorant 29

masses had got what they needed, a doctrine they thought they grasped. Ignorance regarded the doctors as superfluous, to say the least of it, and voted them out of the congregations according to that well-known principle which says that the majority know everything better. Thereby the doctrine was established and continued its march to victory. The gnosticians were persecuted, the genuine gnostic scriptures were systematically destroyed, and gnostics disappeared. It has remained secret. What has been given put as historical gnostics is the confusing accounts of the church fathers. With the loss of gnostics, Christianity lost its mysteries, its basis of knowledge. The gnostic terms became names of fictions. The result was the familiar, irremediable confusion of ideas. 3.21 The Striving at Art at the Stage of Civilization Characteristic of the stage of civilization is the rule of subjectivism. Reason becomes sovereign and proclaims, without a knowledge of reality, the dictatorship of reason. But without a knowledge of the laws of life, reason is arbitrariness. Subjectivism is that principle of arbitrariness which must lead to lawlessness, formlessness, and chaos. Aesthetics is as divorced from reality, as disoriented, as the rest of philosophy. That sense of beauty which is uncorrupted by art theories sees the degeneration of art in our times as just one more confirmation of the esoteric axiom saying that the prerequisites of understanding the essence of art exist only at the stage of culture. 2 Everything in nature would be perfect in form if the tendency of the atoms were attractive instead of repulsive. The repulsive tendency is always a mistake as to the law of unity. As a rule, it also entails mistakes in respect of the law of freedom through infringement of the equal right of all. The inevitable consequence of this is has been that beauty as well as all other benefits of life come under the law of reaping. Deformity is bad reaping. The bad sowing may have innumerable causes. The most obvious ones are. abuse of a formative talent, envy of the beauty of others, abuse of ones own beauty, ruining the beauty of others. Those who purposely misrepresent reality and cultivate ugliness at the expense of beauty, those who revel in disgusting things, they will have their desires granted according to the law of freedom. How common the sowing of ugliness is can be seen from the rarity of beauty. And there is nearly always some flaw, some imperfection, even in the otherwise beautiful. 3 Form is the mode of existing of matter. Thus form is the general, that which determines. Art is the culture of form. The purpose of art is to show us the perfect form, such as it should have been, would have been if no other factors but those of beauty had contributed. 4 The few genuine artistic geniuses who have appeared in the course of centuries, have worked at the perfection of art. Those eternal seekers have instinctively strived to express the beauty. Those eternal seekers have instinctively strived to express the beauty they have apprehended in the forms of nature, being upheld by their certainty that their goal will be reached some day and the essence of art be revealed. The geniuses were misunderstood by their contemporaries. All bunglers live on this fact. But the geniuses are misunderstood still, and will remain so at the stage of civilization. If they were understood, the artists and art doctors of the modern sort would be impossible phenomena. That the geniuses are tolerated at all is due to the fact that, over the centuries, cultural and humanist geniuses in other spheres have established the greatness of the artistic geniuses so solidly that the art doctors are compelled to keep their inability of appreciation to themselves in order not to make them selves still more ridiculous. By praising the inferior, however, they witness to their incompetence. 5 So-called art experts have their art theories by which they judge everything. But those who try to apprehend art by concepts never understand art. They try to comprehend the incomprehensible. All art shall be experienced. Visual art shall be apprehended by contemplative observation.
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The geniuses had no masters to teach them. They had behind them many incarnations of hard work and frustrated efforts. They had a self-acquired latent apprehension, so that they instinctively got everything without effort. Talents study models. They observe the individual artifices of the geniuses, what appeals in the geniuses, and assimilate it by reflection. The result is reflective art, eclecticism, when not imitation or mannerism. The art produced by comprehension never rises above the level of handicraft. Modern bunglers in the profession lack the most elementary talent for copying. They can but ruin even what nature perfected. Being ignorant of the immense technical difficulties they think they are gods who arbitrarily create as they please. Their art is aimless activity, play, whims, freaks. By deforming the beautiful forms of nature they ruin all sense of beauty of form. By adoring ugliness, crudeness, formlessness, the lowest expressions of life, they follow out the democratic envious striving to annihilate everything that rises above vulgarity. Form is despised. Colour is precisely what arbitrariness and incompetence have use of. In the objects of nature colour varies with light and shade. But when colour becomes the principal thing, and form of secondary importance, then we get parody of art. Modern painting is the self-assertion of ignorance, incompetence, arbitrariness, presumption. To call it barbarous would be to depreciate savage peoples sense of beauty of form and colour, evident from their art handicraft. 7 When nations approach their decline, ugliness appears in their art. Long before the war began I saw it in the art museums and heard it in the concert halls and in the theatres. The eminent esoterician prophesied only too correctly. When a world epoch approaches its end, the destroyers of form appear and vandals ruin the acquisition of culture. The striving of art in our times is destructive and counteracts development intentionally, besides making it clear that also in art the arbitrariness of subjectivism leads to dissolution and chaos. Disorienting sophists suddenly appear in all domains like mushrooms out of the ground, and preach the wisdom of the day with the mien of experts. These authorities understand everything impure, ugly, false, wrong. They appoint bunglers and charlatans geniuses. They bewilder the discernment of taste in the every uncertain people by praising the inferior and turning attention away from the genuine. The fact alone that doctors of literature, art, and music are created is typical of our time. As though art and understanding of art could be taught. Formative talent is replaced by oratory excesses. A doctor of music could certainly read a hundred papers on the counterpoint of Jingle Bells. It seems necessary to point out that art twaddle stupidizes. Bilde, Knstler, rede nicht (Shape, artist, speak not. Goethe). 8 Literature becomes art by cultivation of the higher emotionality. Poetry, novel, drama, are beautiful when genius has formed their characters. Art can ennoble. It can also, in a horrifying degree, further stupidity, crudeness, ugliness. Modern literature works frantically at tearing down everything sublime, noble, beautiful. Murders and horrors of all kinds are described with sadistic revelling in all disgusting details. Primitive types are depicted as though there existed no others. Nobler types are apparently beyond the experience of the authors. The work is called nontendentious when its intention is masked. As if the types of settings and happenings have not often been chosen with hatreds intention of arousing envy, ridicule, or contempt of entire social classes. Particularly disgusting are the scandalous writings about and intellectual plundering of deceased geniuses by the doctors of literature. The former have certainly paid a high price for their geniuses. The slander and calumny of rumour during their life-time follow them into the next world. Also the hyenas of posterity must have their fill of it. Hatred must drag everything great into the dirt. Highness must come down so that democratic equality may reign. 9 Like all art at the stage of civilization, music may also be said to belong to the experimental stage, or to handicraft. The harmonies and melodies of the musical geniuses are exceptions to this. The products of the majority, using dissonance or meaningless monotony, evidence immature experimentation. Sense of art is a sum total of many different abilities previously acquired. It takes many incarnations to educate the sense of music, the understanding of the 31

essence of music (rhythm, harmony, and melody). The sense of harmony is ruined by learning to understand, to enjoy, dissonance, atonalism, noise. The corresponding applies to all art. Once ruined, this sense is difficult to regain. In this respect, music is in the lucky position of being able to determine mathematically the tones that are mutually harmonious. Such a resource does not exist for those who have learnt to apprehend the ugly as beautiful, the disgusting as pleasing. 3.22 The Conception of Right at the Stage of Civilization At the stage of civilization, dictatorships and democracies succeed one another. The continual social changes are due to the fact that the human intellect is unable to solve social problems permanently, that men lack the will to unity, that men are never content with their conditions, that they always blame society for their own shortcomings, that social envy creates eternal discontent, that ignorance always believes that society can raise the standard of living for everybody without further ado, that power-hungry demagogues always succeed in making the credulous believe in their false promises of paradise. Dictators believe that people will let themselves be enslaved indefinitely. Democrats believe in the equality of all, that education can abolish the inequalities of nature. Anarchists believe that men are angels who are corrupted by being brought up to lead orderly lives, etc., that if the stage and the laws are abolished, then man will be perfect. Fantasts believe in the ideal state, that societies can be constructed and the established order of things can be safely overthrown. All are believers, and with belief you can prove anything. 2 Public spirit, the basis of the conception of right and of the solidity of society, develops but slowly from permanent conditions and unaltered social prescriptions. If these are changed arbitrarily, then public spirit is dissolved and, with it, the confidence in the sanctity of law, and thereby the obedience to law. These indispensable values can be preserved by carrying out social changes in a long-term policy, so that the social outlook has ripened for reforms, and the generation has been given time to prepare for the adaptation, which otherwise causes unnecessary suffering to many people. Public spirit is also destroyed by the attempt to base society on the principle of envy, or by granting rights without duties, by giving people social benefits that do not correspond to their contribution to society, by giving way to unjustified demands of the eternally discontent. According to the law of reaping, there must always be some people who are better off than others, since they have already earned that right. If they fail to use their benefits according to the law of unity, then the result is a bad sowing. 3 The conception of right develops slowly step by step. More and more actions are eventually stamped as improper to begin with, then to be prohibited under certain circumstances. Finally they are prohibited altogether within ones social territory under normal conditions, or in time of peace. Atrocities, murder, plunder, in time of war, are deemed appropriate and justified. War and revolution are not as yet outlawed, since the states still prepare for war, and since social minorities are allowed to openly prepare for violent social subversion. 4 The stage of civilization is characterized by the striving (with continual relapses into barbarism) to eliminate brutality. Slowly the insight is reached that barbarous punishment fosters barbarians. Likewise it is gradually realized that sympathy and understanding considerably reduce the effects of unsuitable penal provisions. In legal judgement, they begin to consider the circumstances, the individuals level and motive. But all expressions of egoism that have not been prohibited by law are regarded by many people, possibly by the majority, as fully justified. The development of the judicial system by the continually increasing number of legal fictions is also a characteristic thing. The entire judicature becomes more and more complicated, difficult to survey, hard to comprehend; more and more fictitious. The arbitrariness of the legal definitions of crimes and punishments they nowadays try to mask through international harmonization. How slow development is can be seen from the fact that Roman Law is still studied. Rational and unitary principles are lacking, being necessary bases of humane and purposeful legal concepts. It
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is still not understood that historical traditions do not furnish any rational bases of legal norms. The judicial bureaucracy with its cult of fictions, its circumstantial and unwieldy apparatus, counteracts legal reforms. They use a pompous ceremonial trying to surround the judicial procedure with the halo of infallibility, although it is clearly recognized that no court is able to define the truth, but can only judge the legal case on circumstantial evidence that is often very unsatisfactory. Those who deny in principle that might is right still regard might as a condition of right. The necessity of violence in a nation shows the remoteness of the stage of culture. 5 Whenever the conscience of the world reacts, it still is the result of propaganda in each particular case. Without such a psychosis it prefers to sleep. Its reliability, besides, is never greater than the egoists conscience. The institution of sacrifice is dreadful in its dimensions. A hundred thousand people die every day, most of them in some respect the victims of the egoism or indifference of universal hatred. Only exceptionally people act more unselfishly than outer or inner compulsion, interests or advantage, bid. 6 The laws of society and their spirit are not, as a rule, above the general conception of right, especially not in times of continual changes of the laws. The seemingly higher level of conventions deceives but the inexperienced. Their rules are applied when judging others. The appearance of outer respectability is the essential thing. If you do not give anyone an obvious reason to blame you, then you have fulfilled all righteousness. You console yourself by I am only human, after all. The general conception of right appears only during the most severe hardships of life, when social conditions are radically overthrown, when the laws of society lose their force, the moral cloak of decency (hypocrisy) can be put off without any risks of consequences. 7 The concepts of right and wrong change with different view-points: the religious ones with different manners and customs, the social ones with class egoism or altered definitions of criminal actions, the national ones with nationality (my country, right or wrong), the scientific ones with changed scientific hypotheses and theories. The great number of mutually contradictory ideologies is typical. Almost all conceptions of right have their advocates, even such conceptions as obviously belong to the stage of barbarism. The brutality and inhumanity of the Old Testament thrive splendidly in the book that contains the idealism of the Sermon of the Mount. Hatred and love alternate in the everyday locutions: an eye for an eye, and turning the other cheek. The looseness of the entire conception of right appears in that panicky confusion with followed upon the belated discovery of the subjectivity of the concepts of right and wrong. It was thought that this furnished the proof of the illusoriness of any conception of right. 8 The purposeful ideal is always the next higher stage of development. Ideals that cannot be realized become set phrases and fair promises, which nobody takes seriously and which but enhance self-deception. The ideal of the stage of civilization is culture, but true culture, not that masked barbarism which is called culture. 9 Typical of the stage of civilization is the general recognition of the justification of egoism. The egoism of the civilizational individual is insatiable. All the gold of the earth is not enough to satisfy one man. (Buddha) When having such ideals as power, wealth, fame, loafing, love of amusement, etc., striving after unity or self-realization must of course appear as foolish utopianism.

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THE STAGE OF CULTURE


3.23 Emotionality at the Stage of Culture Emotionality at the stage of culture is characterized by the realization of the necessity to cultivate, as well as to strive to acquire, attractive emotions. Universal hatred can only be overcome by making admiration, affection, compassion, and other noble emotions determine our view of people. Those who have already reached this stage belong to the lite of mankind. The stage of culture is the goal of those who are at the stage of civilization. There are always exceptional cases, since the tempo of development is individual. Many people would be able to reach higher levels relatively quickly, many people who never try on account of ignorance, or are prevented by the theories of ignorance, which are hostile to life, from seeing the path that they are to wander. Many people at the stage of barbarism, whose individual characters of the attractive tendency make it easier to get a one-pointed fixity of purpose, of course succeed in their striving. 2 All development is the result of work and toil (voluntary or involuntary), and higher levels are not reached just through theories, adages, good resolutions, and assumed patterns of behaviour. Such appearances always deceive the ignorant of life. Worse still is that the individual deceives himself by them. Egoism entails an incurable tendency to judge your splendid character from noble feelings you have had or good resolutions you have made. The motive is falsified whenever the emotions determining the action must be influenced by reflection or persuasion. Emotions of the corresponding quality have been acquired when they make themselves felt unreflectingly, automatically, spontaneously, unconditionally. Self-blinding is also the flaming enthusiasm that results from the mutual influence when being together with other people. Everybody feels noble and capable of achievements. Everything appears obvious and natural. When intoxication is superseded by the tiring grey humdrum routine of everyday life, then the good resolutions are as far from their realization as ever. However, the memory of how noble you were is retained, so that thing is settled. You do not suspect the fact that through the psychosis you were temporarily raised some hundred levels. Higher levels are reached through the perseverant activation of higher consciousness, through the acquired ability to apprehend and to produce yourself the vibrations in higher molecular kinds, and through the continual cultivation of this ability until it has become automatic. 3 The cultural man is still an emotional being. However, it is not any longer the lower but the higher emotionality that is the dynamic force in his thought and action. The vibrations within the lowest two molecular kinds (48:6,7) have dropped out for want of the pertaining interests, being expressive of the grossest egoism. When the third emotional kind (48:3) is activated, the vibrations of the fourth kind (48:4) become mainly attractive, and those of the fifth kind (48:5) remain perceptible, it is true, but are not any longer expressive of his true being. It is inevitable, with the moral fictionalism ruling, that these lowest ones are particularly attended to by the civilizational individuals, are the object of gossip and slander poisoning everything; are particularly emphasized in the biographies by the doctors of literature. The feelings and outlooks corresponding to the higher vibrations are apprehended ever more intensely with each higher level, and result in a further ennoblement. They become most important, however, in the activation of causal consciousness, previously inactive. This finds expression in the strengthening of the right instinct of life, the development of the sense of reality, and inspirations that guide. 4 As long as residual barbaric views have any power in the civilizational nations, visits by small cultural clans will be but sporadic. Historians seek in vain to account for those brief glorious periods in the life of a nation. The treatment those advanced individuals got demonstrates that they were not welcome. When a considerable minority has reached the stage of culture, it becomes possible for more and more cultural clans to gather in a nation, which will thereby deserve its name of cultural nation. Then life becomes easier to live also for the non1

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cultural. Those who strive after self-realization need not any longer use up the greater part of their powers to counteract the innumerable influences of lower kinds and unserviceable suggestions. The struggle for existence comes to an end. Where there is struggle there is no culture, technological advances be as great as they may. The cultural individuals feel their solidarity and regard it their mission in life to help and not hinder each other. The serving attitude to life becomes instinctual and spontaneous. Egoistic calculation is superseded by the urge to help where help is needed, without demands, reservations, or expectations. In working for the welfare of all and ill of none, the individual grows beyond his personal limitation. The natural prerequisite of group solidarity does not exist until then. The collective, at lower stages rather hampering and counteracting the individuals development, facilitates its subsequently in an unsuspected degree. Universal joy of life supersedes that anxiety, depression, agony, which had paralysed the courage of life. Even the animals give up their fear and spontaneously seek refuge with man. 3.24 Mentality at the Stage of Culture At the stage of civilization, reason takes the fictitious world of its own subjectivity to be reality. This unrealistic attitude is but gradually forced to yield as the facts of experience come into direct opposition to all the fictions of traditional views. The realization of the impossibility to explain the process of nature entails the assumption that we have explored just a fraction of reality. It is quite natural that, after the metaphysical excesses of ignorance, more and more people refuse to have anything to do with such barren speculation and with anything that lies outside the range of the normal individuals experience. But even if the range of consciousness of sense be enlarged to include the physical etheric molecular kinds, yet science will soon enough ascertain the limits of possible research. Neither will reason be contented in the long run with a positivistagnosticantimetaphysical standpoint. It is this attitude that prevents the scientists from examining the tenability of esoterics. Besides, everything new and unknown is rejected by those who have already incorporated into complexes a conception laboriously acquired. Radically new truths never find grace with the adult generation. 2 The philosophers of enlightenment held the view that if mankind could be taught their opinions, then everybody would thereby be instantly raised to the level of humanity. Nowadays we laugh at that amazing ignorance of life. Only esoterics, however, explains how enormous that mistake was. 3 Belief (opinion) is typical of the stage of barbarism; comprehension, of the stage of civilization; understanding, of the stage of culture. Thousands of incarnations, in which the experience of life increases continually, intervene between each one of these developmental stages. Comprehension requires but power of reflection, whereas understanding presupposes power of judgement. Understanding is immediate, an instantaneous recognition of what is essential in permanent general relations in life, independently of what is typical of the period in ever changing outer conditions. Understanding requires an enormous latent fund of ones own experience of life, of things experienced and entered into. Characteristic of understanding is also the life instincts marked sense of reality, which immediately rejects the fictitious, illusory, false, spurious. The intolerance and fanaticism of the fictionalist are alien to it. Understanding grasps without any words, in any case a hint will suffice. The civilizational individual needs explanations and elucidations, connections with all manner of relations, generalizations and particularizations. The understanding man has done all this ready long ago. Philosophers in all ages have comprehended everything, but have understood little or nothing of everything comprehended. 4 Those who believe, comprehend, and understand, speak different languages, even though they use the same expressions, since the content of latent experience of sense and reason, which is put
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into the words, is of different characters, qualitatively and quantitatively. The faculty of intellectual imitation, which is considerable even on the higher barbaric levels, can easily avail itself of phrases and theories, along with all the external characteristics that always deceive the ignorant. The understanding man discovers at once whether the experiences of life necessary to understanding are lacking. However, this faculty of imitation facilitates the outer culturing of those on lower levels. 5 The piteous fiasco of the philosophy of enlightenment, which fiasco entailed the revolution which is still in progress, confirms the truth of the experience of the ancients that truth is intended for those who are able to understand, that truth is harmful when forced on those without understanding, that anyone who does not understand idiotizes everything he believes he has grasped, that the undiscerning must not be given occasions to pronounce their opinions, that truth must not be given out to the contempt and scorn of hatred, that truth cannot be kept from those who are prepared to receive the knowledge and have a right to it (When the pupil is ready, the teacher appears). 6 You do people a disservice by depriving them of opinions that meet a need in them, correspond to their level, make it possible for them to learn to comprehend. They are harmed by being taught opinions that they cannot understand, and therefore misunderstand, or that intensify their conceit. It is a mistake to foster an artificial proficiency in independent thinking, which in the obtrusive results in that over-estimation of themselves which later, in positions of power, often characterizes those corrupters of men or of culture who ruin the nations. It is perhaps not always a blessing to spread literacy among those who are incapable of understanding anything but fairy tales, who misunderstand everything rational, who helplessly become victims of all superstitions. Schiller gave expression to the danger of bringing to the eternally blind the heavenly torch of light, which does not enlighten them, but can only kindle and lay cities, nations in ashes. Even on the civilizational levels knowledge often increases the power of hatred. Literacy breeds a conceited faith in ones own power of judgement, faith which borders on idiocy. How thoroughly unjustified the individuals confidence in his judgement is can be seen from Bacons observation, that in the philosophic schools the adepts learn to believe. If they had ever understood, then philosophy, at least the one we have had hitherto, would have been unmasked long ago. Anyone who really comprehends discovers the errors in thinking of the thinkers. 7 Esoteric truths belong in exclusive societies of individuals who have shown that they understand, in which the cultural individuals can find each other, and do not have to live in that cultural loneliness which is the result of the impossibility of making themselves understood, and which has hitherto been the lot of all serious seekers. Esoterics is not for those who are content with their opinions, who do not long for truly rational views, or lack the prerequisites of judging the justification of the esoteric knowledge (at least as a working hypothesis). The avatar comes ever to his people, the small lite who possess the prerequisites of understanding him. 8 At the stage of culture man begins to deserve his name of rational being. Till then, his intellect has all too easily been idiotized by all manner of fictions and illusions. Cultural men are also influenced by emotionality. But this influence is in the direction of unity. They understand more and more clearly that the life view must contain and provide for all ideals that reason is able to grasp, that emotional ennoblement is more important than the ability to make mental constructions, that emotional culture alone makes it impossible for ever existing barbarism to attempt its never-ending revolutions. They grow more and more keenly aware of the stupidizing and brutalizing influence of civilizational so-called cultural products in the form of literature, art, and music. 9 The few who have hitherto attained the cultural levels have been compelled to form their world view and life view by themselves, without the broader basis of judgement and the vaster content that is the result of a more general cultivation of all human spheres. Of course they must 36

be critical of the opinions of the day as a matter of principle. The cultural man holds no opinions. He makes himself acquainted with the ruling fictions within most domains of general importance. He follows all so-called cultural activities, being keenly alive to the illusions of masked barbarism, in order to be able to help the seekers, to follow the general development, to get material of ideas for mental activity and analysis. But he does not believe anything. He is careful even in his critical assumption for the time being. He does not commit himself by temporary standpoints forced by circumstances. He does not recruit any partisans of opinion, who deceive themselves and others with their crammed-up views. Now and then he takes stock of his store of ideas, discarding the fictions that have crept in without his noticing it. He provides his subconscious with nothing but facts, and receives his reward in the form of more and more realistic ideas. According as his superconscious is activated, its ideas are more and more easily available. The more of them he experiences, the greater is his confidence in the hitherto inaccessible experience of life there is in his superconscious. 3.25 Religion at the Stage of Culture The normal individual lacks the prerequisites of forming his world view and life view by himself. The individual is therefore dependent on authority. It is important that this authority on matters of life view remains stable. It must be impossible for any justified criticism to find points of attack. It must be impossible for any authority to contradict any other in important respects. Religion must not proclaim truths that conflict with the results of scientific research. 2 The task of religion is to ennoble emotion, counteract hatred, comfort the distressed, calm the anxious; give courage to face life to those who fear, certainty to the doubting who need certainty, confidence in life to the timid; support those who stagger, supply ideals that are attractive and realizable. 3 Religion is emotion. Spirituality is the sum total of all noble feelings belonging to the higher emotionality, such as admiration, affection, sympathy, respect, veneration, devotion, adoration. They are expressions of the striving of attraction after the unity of life. Religion thus is particularly suited to the devout. But also men and women of action need emotion as an impelling force. At the emotional stage, action is dictated by emotion, necessarily following from emotion when this has been sufficiently activated. 4 The individual belongs to someone of the seven departments. Religion finds different expressions in these seven main types. The first and seventh departmental types are particularly people of action for whom the path of service is the most purposeful one. Those who belong under the second, fourth, or sixth department strive after unity through devotion. The third and fifth departmental types pursue the path of reason. 5 Feeling contains a rational element, which is sometimes overlooked, sometimes overemphasized. This element can be more or less important depending on the type. Reason is least essential to the sixth departmental types, the mystics proper. The mystic does not deny or disdain reason. He has no need for reason. In states out of reach of the conceptions of reason he seeks union with the ineffable one in all. He uses symbols that he alone understands. Anyone who tries to imitate or parrot the mystic deceives himself. Studies of mysticism are studies of originality and utter individualism. Mysticism is not subjectivism in the ordinary sense, since all concepts are unessential. The mystic strives after union with the god within, whom he often places without him, then calling him the all. He attains the essential consciousness of the second self by availing himself of all the means of expression of attraction, and renunciating all personal desires. When unity is attained, the activation of mentality begins for him. Therefore his short-cut does not mean that the mystic can omit any stage of development, just that he assimilates the experiences and abilities of mental levels more easily afterwards. 6 With the exception of the mystics there is a mental need in the religious. And religion must
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supply this need. The mental needs are different, due to different individual characters and stages of development. The difficulty of a universal religion is for it to be able to meet these different needs. Not all teachings are suited to all. The historical forms of religion have supplied existing needs, otherwise they could not have arisen. The more everything is internationalized and all learning is made available to all, the more and the stronger do the common mental needs become. A religion suiting all at the stage of culture must seek to supply this common need but also to find possibilities of reaching those at lower stages. 7 The following points would be considered in a religion that is to agree with the esoteric knowledge. 8 The demand for blind faith must be given up. Nobody shall have to accept any view whatsoever of which he is doubtful. Doubt is a divine right incident to our freedom. Doubt is always preferable to blind conviction. Anyone who denies his own reason makes a cardinal mistake. Instead of the demand of faith it can be required that the religious accept the principles of tolerance and of universal brotherhood. 9 No absurdities must be contained in the religion, no statements that conflict with the definitively established fundamentals of science. The demands of reason that the religious views accord with reality must be met. 10 No demands must be made for absoluteness or perfection. Such demands are unreasonable and hostile to life, evidence a total lack of understanding of life, and must result in falsification of life and self-deception. Everyone strives after self-realization, everyone to his ability. Sincerity, earnestness, intensity of purpose, are up to the individual. You serve god by trying to reach and arouse the god who still slumbers in the individual. When the self in the personality has achieved contact with, and activated, superconscious causal consciousness, then religion has fulfilled its purpose where that individual is concerned. 11 The laws of life are of course contained in the creed of an esoteric religion. 3.26 Art The aesthetics (theory of beauty) of the philosophers has led to the intellectualization of art. However, art belongs to the higher emotionality, and its purpose is to ennoble feeling and imagination into ideality. Without a knowledge of reality the art theories of aesthetics remain nothing but fictions. Discussing art as well as nay other aspect of culture, religion, esoterics with those who have not reached the stage of culture is as meaningless. Art must be understood by experience and cannot be comprehended. Reflection is part of handicraft, not of art. Reflection evidences absence of an instinct of reality. Reflection is detrimental to that formative ability, which appears in the unerring sureness of aim, unreflective spontaneity, and unintentional purpose. 2 At the stage of culture, the principle of harmony becomes the determining norm of all art. Harmony is the means of unity of expressing itself in emotionality. Harmony is the basis of the appreciation of all beauty and makes it possible to understand the true form of beauty, the causal form. 3 Quality, ability, insight, and understanding are not simply to be assumed by oneself or to be learned. Everything genuine must be innate, acquired in previous lives. Understanding of art is not acquired by studying art theories in just one life. True understanding of art presupposes a certain level of development, as well as practice of art during several lives. Without your working up of all matters in a certain domain of life you lack the necessary experience of this particular domain. Not all studies promote the development of the individual or of the collective. If studies divert from reality, it may take many wasted incarnations to remedy the idiotization of the intellects conception of reality. 4 An artistic genius at the stage of civilization also has, because of his instinct for the essence
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of art, the certainty of anticipation that he is striving to express something that is finally attainable. But this will not be possible until at the stage of culture. Not until the pertaining levels are attained is a contact achieved with the superconscious world of beauty, or of the ideas. Art is the culture of form. What do those know of the beauty of form who value colour more than form? Without refinement, ennoblement of feeling and imagination, and understanding of life, no genuine sense of beauty or ideal conception of art is acquired, which particularly for the artist represents the highest conception of reality. Art is the quickest means of activating the superconscious for personalities belonging to the fourth department. Artistic humility supersedes the ignorant insolence and self-willed presumption that imagines itself to be a creative god. Gods do not create. They shape out of that which exists, conforming to the eternal, imperturbable laws of existence. The self-glory which does what pleases it, is alien to the artist. All arbitrariness is easy. It is more difficult to be faithful to the ideal, and to disclaim all false pretensions. 5 Art requires both a perfected technique and the ability to apprehend beauty. As long as the artist is at the stage of technical experimentation, the conditions are absent for this very reason. To learn to master the technical handicraft at any stage whatsoever always takes a long time. Those difficulties are not overcome until the test of mastership has been passed by reproducing reality in such a manner that the work of art appears lifelike. This presupposes intense contemplation of reality and requires much labour. To be able to concretize ideally, the artist must have perceived the general, universal, typical, unloseable, in the forms of reality; that, for example, which makes a pine a pine, but not just any pine. If one is a newcomer into the world of art, then thousands of pines must be studied. Perhaps it is not to be wondered at that several lives are needed to study the forms of nature and to experiment. After that it is possible for the artist to perceive at once in the rapidly volatilized vision the ideal of the concretized pine, as well as of all other forms. 6 The artist is a herald and as such he is conscious of his responsibility. Ugliness in art is equivalent to blasphemy in religion. His mission is to spread beauty and joy, thereby contributing to ennoblement and refinement. Nothing in life exists for its own sake in the universal development. Everything has a mission, and art has one also. It is in the artists power to communicate to the spectator the understanding, veneration, and devotion that filled him. 7 The artist is a former and ennobler. He ennobles the imperfect forms of physical reality, confers to the physical forms their original perfection of form, and makes them what they should have been. 8 The artist is a discoverer. He discovers the forms of ideal reality in physical reality, and puts purpose and harmony into the seemingly irrational and disharmonious. He reveals beauty and shows that the imperfect is something that can be perfected. By reproducing the ideal the artist performs his worship. By discovering the ideal form he gives to the spectator a knowledge of the ideal world and its beauty, and intimates that the ideal forms are also symbols of secrets not discovered by us, he arouses aspiration to, and understanding of, the world of ideals, the goal of all human endeavour. 9 The artist is a visionary. Vision or inspiration is necessary to art. It is in the vision that the artist beholds the individual ideal form of every individual thing. Every causal form is individual. In his inspiration the artist suddenly knows how he will shape that which he has been striving to reproduce. Vision belongs to formative art, inspiration to all art. Vision or inspiration comes via the higher emotionality (48:1-3), which consequently must be activated. Being sporadic and spontaneous to begin with, inspiration presents itself whenever the artist becomes absorbed in the exercise of his art. 10 The cultural writer possesses a knowledge of reality, life, and men at higher levels. The fictitious characters formed by genius are truer than those of history, since they have been stripped of the unessentials of deceptive appearances, and are expressions of the characteristic, essential, universally human, and typical. He does not try, like the doctors of literature, to seek 39

out the worst in the geniuses. He understands that descriptions of the trivialities of Mr Average belong to handicraft, not to art. It is not the vulgarities or brutalities of the barbaric levels, which are below the levels overcome, but the insight and understanding of higher levels that raise and ennoble. He does not seek to arouse disgust, contempt, indignation, or envy. He finds it his mission to teach men to appreciate the good, noble, and beautiful. To make life easier to live is to accelerate development. 3.27 The Conception of Right at the Stage of Culture Culture is freedom. Patronizing is alien to the spirit of culture in its entirety, therefore also to its political views. The individuals at the stage of culture have learnt that that social system which is in all respects the most free is the best one; that every infringement of the individuals freedom of thought, speech, and action; of his initiative and enterprise; impedes cultural development and its material conditions. 2 International political formations arise through associations of nations. Wars, revolutions, national chauvinism belong to the past. The knowledge of reincarnation has demonstrated the idiocy of racial hatred, religious hatred, sex hatred, etc. As we know, the individual alternates in being born a man or woman; with white, yellow, red, or black colour of his skin; a Buddhist, Jew, Christian, or Moslem; sometimes in the highest social stratum, sometimes in the lowest. According to the law of reaping, the fanatic is born (often immediately) into the race, religion, nation, etc. that he intensely hates, in order to have the experiences necessary to him. Then he goes on throughout many incarnations, hating alternately all races, religions, the opposite sex, etc. 3 No nation of historical times has attained the stage of culture. Efforts have been made, but the cultural lite have been all too few in number to assert themselves. What has been called culture has been the realization of a uniform style, a typical phenomenon at the stage of civilization. The overestimation of style (also in literature) degenerates into a purposeless mania for originality and revelling in subtle, sophisticated unessentials. A considerable minority of the nation must reach the stage of culture in order for public spirit, or the striving after unity, to assert itself. That stratum in society which sets the tone, leads, must regard it their duty to serve the other classes of society, to organize society so that living together without friction becomes the natural thing, and so that no demagogues shall be able to arouse the discontent of hatred by their false prospects of Eldorado. Institutions and laws agree with the conception of right attained by the determining portion of the nation. Only with this are the possibilities obtained of realizing the purposeful in what has been dreamt of the future state as depicted in the utopias. 4 Knowledge, insight, and ability, not party zeal or glibness, entitle to posts in society or in the legislative assembly. Rights are balanced by duties. All get their share of the national income according to their competence and contribution. What is necessary to subsistence and education is guaranteed to all. Everybody is helped to get his place in the social organization, since unsuitable work is regarded as a waste of those national assets to be the most valued. All who work for the advancement of culture receive a state pension. Culture is attained by relieving the individual of his worries of livelihood and giving him the opportunity to dedicate all his power to consciousness development and unpaid cultural work. Everything that belongs to the life domains and modes of expression of attraction becomes a standard of what is to be regarded right and proper. 5 At the stage of civilization, the conception of right is generally connected with legal concepts as embodied in enactments. Legislation is dictated by accepted usage and conventions already commonly applied, and sanctions (with the exception of the actions of fanaticism and panic) what has been incorporated with the promote culture and humanity. Disputes are settled without legal proceedings. Decision in court is regarded as a final emergency. The judge rather becomes the
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mediator, defender, helper of the erring. Nobody is caused unnecessary suffering through government measures. Lawyers are public employees and regard it their duty to help, console, and support even in personal trouble those seeking legal assistance. The higher the level, the more rational the legal concepts, the more purposeful the directions, and the greater the prospect of their influencing the individual to respect the law. The inevitability of law is recognized, and this all the more easily since only immutable constitutional laws exist, and the public is informed as for the rest by directions without penal threat. The laws aim at the individuals actions. But the conception of right at the stage of culture looks to his motive. The intention, thought, feeling, becomes the essential thing. The moral fictionalist with his arbitrary taboos is regarded as an atavistic phenomenon. 6 The cultural individual stands up against evil by legal means. He does not passively witness that freedom and right are violated by any power whatsoever. He knows that all share in the responsibility for the violation of freedom; that anyone who does not uphold freedom also for his own part, gives up power to evil; that we are all at the mercy of evil, since we have all contributed to it and still allow it to continue. We have lost all our original rights through our own negligence, and we can regain them only through our own doing. 7 At the stage of culture, man is regarded as more important than anything else. Whatever at the stage of civilization was considered worth striving for (power, wealth, honours), has lost its charm after the knowledge of life has demonstrated the greater responsibility bound up with these things. The individual does not any longer regard it his mission in life to make a career in society, elbow his way along, push others aside; but considers the right of the stronger to help and assist the weaker. 8 Humanity has become the universal ideal of the stage of culture. 3.28 THE STAGE OF HUMANITY The prerequisite of attaining the stage of humanity is to have activated the two highest kinds of emotional consciousness (48:2,3). This does not mean that all layers in the emotional molecular kinds become fully activated. There are still domains due to the absence of vitalizing cosmic vibrations that remain inactive until the second self sets about fully automatizing its emotional and mental envelopes and, with that, its lowest triad. The second self cannot dispense with its first triad, nor be sovereign in the lower worlds, until all the pertaining problems have been solved. 2 Like the stage of civilization brings with it an intellectualization of barbaric emotionality, so the stage of humanity entails the same as regards cultural emotionality. Intellectualization implies that feeling, poor in intelligence, becomes increasingly more rational, and the latter in its turn by clear ideas. Intellectualization occurs at the same time as mental consciousness becomes selfactive and the mental body emancipates itself from its dependence on and coalescence with the emotional body. The process begins with the activation of the fifth molecular kind (47:5). When the higher layers in this matter are activated, then also the mental body can assist in activating the causal body. Until then, the contribution to this by the mental has been limited to the faint impulses at the end of the existence of the personality in the mental world, when the experiences of the life just concluded have been sublimated into causal ideas that the causal has been able to assimilate. The now double influence soon makes consciousness self-active. A consequence of this is that causal ideas become increasingly easily accessible to mental consciousness; inspiration and vision, to emotional consciousness. 3 If the higher emotionality is developed exclusively by cultivating devotional intense longing for, aspiration towards merging in, essential unity (46), then the mental activation is neglected. The mystic remains mentally undeveloped. This is the cause of the infantile, rationally helpless trait of most mystics. They appear undeveloped, and are therefore totally misjudged by always
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presumptuous ignorance. The mystic who has succeeded in his efforts, however, has developed an understanding that has no need for comprehension, that in respect of life is incomparably superior to the greatest mental ingenuity. The higher remains esoteric to the lower. Understanding presupposes both the activation of the requisite domain of consciousness and the corresponding latent experience, qualitatively and quantitatively. If understanding is lacking, there is always a risk of misunderstanding even by those who have comprehended clearly. 4 The stages of barbarism and civilization are those of ignorance, fictions, subjectivism. With the advent of research, sense began to prevail over arbitrary reason. And with that the foundation of culture is laid. At the stage of humanity, the higher two kinds of mental consciousness (47:4,5) are activated, which at the stage of civilization have been part of the superconscious. With that man begins to deserve his name of rational being. His latent experience of life, acquired during thousands of incarnations, eventually makes itself felt. Higher mental thinking (47:5) is acquired partly by research, partly by meditative activation of the superconscious. Research, ascertaining the facts and laws of material reality, formulating axioms and basic propositions, develop the sense of reality and thereby the power to see through more clearly the fictitiousness of the lower mentality. 5 At the stage of humanity, causal consciousness systematizes ideas received for subjective orientation, and studies their causality objectively. During this process of orientation, the causal being has little time for the personality, lest its problems are important to the knowledge of reality. With the activation of the highest mental consciousness (mental intuition, 47:4) follows a mutual influence. The mental supplies the causal with its worked up experiences, and the ideas of the causal are concretized into mental ideas. 6 Humanist nations are realized when the individuals are servers and nobody feels a master. When all serve something higher, something above themselves, something for several, for many, for all together, everybody to his vision and ability, then that harmony of living together is obtained which can be called humanity. The individual knows that he exists for the community, and the community for the individual. Social systems are purposeful, legislation shows understanding, the application of the law is dictated by good-will and the desire to help. Nobody needs to defend his right against the authorities. To protect the rights of the individual is a selfevident official duty. 7 The idea of brotherhood, at the stage of civilization a fair locution, becomes self-evident and realized. That brotherhood which is limited to race, creed, sex, etc., is not universal, and is part of the self-delusions of egoism. Mankind makes up a unity, which fact appears in the responsibility of all for all. The humanist has always waged an unremitting struggle for the never realized ideas of human dignity, tolerance, and the right to a self-acquired view. He knows that genuine religion is the path of feeling to unity, like true humanism is the path of reason to the same goal. He does what he can to teach mankind a world view and a life view that is free of all dogmas, and scientifically acceptable. But he also knows that the ruling fictional systems can be changed only gradually. Of course it is harder still to overcome all the expressions of masked hatred. The humanists tolerance is not that of indifference. He does not in the least wish others to share his views. The higher the level and the greater the exact knowledge, the greater the differences of the subjective modes of expression of individual character. He helps everyone to acquire his own views by himself and to view in his own way everything that belongs to the subjective alone. He knows that ideals are incompatible with outer or inner compulsion. Noble feelings, thoughts, qualities, are strived after as means to reach unity. He knows that if egoistic motives contribute, then the result is moralism and self-deceptive appearances. 8 The nearer the individual approaches the stage of ideality, the more strongly the ideals influence him and appear as necessary factors of development. Ideas rule the world. This sentence of Platon is an esoteric axiom. At the stage of humanity the humanist ideas are sovereign. Right becomes the ruling power. The entire human development appears more and 42

more clearly as an instinctual groping towards freedom and unity. 3.29 THE STAGE OF IDEALITY The causal consciousness of the first self is originally passive. It is gradually activated according as the selfs personality at the stages of culture and humanity acquires the ability of activity in the consciousnesses of the highest two emotional (48:2,3) and highest two mental (47:4,5) molecular kinds. According as the lower bodies are automatized, the self becomes able to centre itself in the next higher ones, until it finally enters into the inmost centre of the causal body, and thereby becomes a perfected causal being possessing a knowledge of the laws of matter and of consciousness as well as the ability to apply these laws. The relations between causes and effects of events in the five worlds of man (47-49) are entirely elucidated to causal consciousness. Causal ideas reproduce these realities undistorted. 2 As an undeveloped causal being man in becoming is imperfect. As a perfected causal being man is always a disappointment to the moralists, since he clearly sees through the illusoriness and self-deception of moral fictionalism. He knows that man is not improved by nagging homilies and passing the judgements of moralist hatred, but only by loving forth the good; that the moralist with his morality counteracts the end he thinks he promotes. Neither does he witness to himself before a mankind that is ignorant of all higher reality. That would just evoke the ridicule of the ignorant, obtrusiveness of the curious, insatiable demand for more sensations of the sensationalists. When mankind has reached the stage of culture, has overcome hatred, has acquired respect for life and veneration for the unknown, only then will it be possible for it to walk with noble beings without detriment to itself. 3 At the stage of ideality, the ideals are realities. Only there is it known that ideals are the most important factors of consciousness development. Until this stage one does not understand their power, their purpose, their necessity. Only when ideals and reality coincide, one has, in accordance with the law of self-realization, realized unity and that freedom which is a law. We are all wandering towards the world of ideals, and we shall some time enter into possession of it. In that connection it matters but little whether, at the stage of civilization, that world appears an absurd, impractical fiction; at the stage of culture, an unrealizable ideal; at the stage of humanity, still remote. We are guided by our superconscious as it becomes an instinct guiding the personality step by step towards this goal. 4 The causal self allows freedom to all beings, recognizes the importance of individual character for the collective, perceives the harmony of the dissimilar. Ignorance strives after standardization, a similar view and attitude. 5 The self, having been involved into envelope upon envelope of ever coarser matter, strives back to its original home, disposing envelope upon envelope as it acquires active objective selfconsciousness in ever higher worlds, and through its knowledge of the laws learns to master every envelope in its particular world. This emancipation is done through a more and more intimate union with all life in an ever greater extent, that life whose freedom becomes greater and greater the more the self-consciousness of the monad expands to include an ever greater self. When it embraces the universe, it is finally emancipated.
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3.30 THE STAGE OF UNITY The stage of unity is attained when the self acquires essential consciousness. The stage of unity is beyond the scope of the life view here presented, limited as it is to the consciousness domains of the first self, man I becoming. Still loftier, incomprehensible ideas are of little avail to a mankind at the stage of civilization, for the majority of which the stage of culture lies in a distant future, their highest stage attainable in the current emotional aeon. But some prevalent misconceptions require correction. Gnosis, the knowledge of gnostics, has been replaced by
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fictions. Without esoterics it is absolutely impossible to understand the realities underlying the generally symbolical accounts of the gospels. 2 According to immemorial wisdom, it is more than dubious to give out knowledge to those who either abuse it or misinterpret it, and to proclaim too lofty ideals to those at the stage of hatred, who disdain everything they do not comprehend and ridicule everything they do not understand, an attitude that has consequences according to the law of reaping. 3 Essential consciousness is for those who are ripe for brutally frank self-effacement, who are without personal desires and who have as their one need to sacrifice everything in order to unite all. The essential self is one with the essential total self, which embraces all the lower worlds. To reach this state is the salvation (from evil, or the lower) and the atonement (with all life). It is obvious that a self that does not wish to live for this unity, only to serve all and everybody, but has its own pretensions, desires, and needs, as yet excludes itself from this unity. With his discordant, atonal noise, a civilizational individual would appear as a cacophony in that world of eternal harmony. 4 Essentiality is freedom and unity. Demands, claims, force, everything in the line of the desire to rule and dominate, infringe and restrict, are alien to it. Personalities with such tendencies need the experiences of the stage of civilization. Essentiality is attraction, but of a kind totally different from emotional attraction. Emotionality always contains some sort of egoism, as the desire to own. The gnostician called the higher emotionality eros (caritas), and essentiality agape. Without understanding these terms, Christianity, as usual, patented them. 5 The attraction of essentiality desires but to give, help, serve, in order to bring everything together into unity. It cannot demand anything for itself, because it has everything worth having. It can but afford of its own inexhaustible abundance. It does not say - as the ennobled personality does - that to understand all is to forgive all, for it has overcome those illusions to which the concept of forgiveness has any meaning. It responds to all vibrations of hatred with vibrations of such a kind, that if the hater could but perceive them in his receiver, he would be elevated into a sphere of bliss where hatred would be impossible. They are beyond his power of reception. When the self has become an essential self, it has become one with life, it has entered into that state which gnostic symbolism termed Christos.

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THE LAW OF SELF, OR OF SELF-REALIZATION


3.31 SELF-REALIZATION The law of self, or of self-realization, applies to all life from the lowest to the highest, to the individual and the collective. Self-realization is to actualize what you potentially are. Every atom is god potentially and will some time be god actually. In the great process of manifestation the atomic being gradually acquires everything its individual character, its freedom, and its divinity by developing its individual character. 2 This law says that the individuals development is his own business, that only the individual can develop himself. Everybody develops by experience, his own working up of individual experiences. It depends on the individual himself whether, when, how, to what extent he will develop. Infallible insight and understanding are acquired only through his own experience. What is freely given to the individual is lost again, unless the understanding he already has can by its own work incorporate this with his general fund of experiences of life. 3 The path of self-realization is the path of arduous work from ignorance to omniscience, from inability and impotence to omnipotence, from bondage to freedom. The path to truth is the path of your own experience of life through reality seen and lived. You must walk every step of that path yourself. Nobody else can walk it for you. 4 Everybody believes in his hypotheses, constructs his theories. By experiencing their fictitiousness himself, the individual feels his way forward. Erring is a necessary part of seeking and finding. Each level of development implies new problems of life to be solved by the individual on his own. Problems wrongly solved, unsolved, or solved by the help of others (even of avatars, if that would be the case), come up again, until the solution by individual character is conclusive. What in the problem is purposeful for the individual is only found by individual character. Of course, this should never prevent intellectual enrichment be exchanging different experiences of life and ways of looking at things. But to force ones opinion on others is meaningless or harmful. The individuals truths of life are self-evident to him with his individual character or on his level. To teach people to comprehend all too lofty ideals or drill in a certain pattern of behaviour is easy. But character is not changed in that way. What is taught to you, whatever you comprehend but lack the experience of life to understand, remains alien to your being and is often turned into something hostile to life in your subconscious. It is easily turned into the self-deception there is in the cult of appearances or into conscious hypocrisy, usually both. The refined egoism is extremely subtle, capable of true sacrifice and grandiose gesture, and it is impossible for self-analysis to distinguish it from altruism. Outer compulsion can have other harmful effects. Anyone who, for the sake of comfortable adaptation, waives his individual character and yields to unjustified infringement, makes his self-realization more difficult. 5 Self-realization is done by stages. With each higher level the possibility of perceiving finer vibrations increases, the individual is liberated from fictions and illusions ruling until then, a reappraisal of accepted valuations follows; the self acquires a stronger instinct of reality and life, and necessary qualities and abilities. 6 The first stages of self-realization are slow processes. It takes a long time before the self has acquired that fund of general experiences of life which is the prerequisite of incipient insight and understanding. The lower stages are largely the stages of ignorance and inability. Self-realization makes no leaps. The change of individual character requires solidly established experiences. On the other hand, the personality can evince marked changes for the better or worse. Overwhelming influences can break it down. A bad reaping can prevent an earlier attainment of the true level. The tempo of development depends on individual character and on its tendency, as well as on the stage of development. That one-pointed purpose which makes a rapid career possible is rarely seen before the self succeeds in contacting causal consciousness, which comprehends and
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understands reality. When the self begins to see the goal, the self strives to reach it, and thereby the tempo is heightened in a continuous crescendo. 7 Self-realization is to realize the ideals you begin to understand, to live your life in service, to ennoble your emotionality and develop your mentality, to strive towards unity. When finally you have gained an insight into reality and an understanding of life, you will be able to apply the laws of life without friction. 8 The perfection of the personality is the causal being of the first self. The perfection of the first self is the second self. The perfection of the second self is the third self. The third self can strive after divine perfection when it has actualized its divinity. Only the second self is perfect, or infallible, in the five worlds of man (47-49). The first self can certainly make mistakes. And there are always possibilities for the personality of making the most fatal blunders in life. Perfection can also be defined as the highest possible ability of vibration in the emotional, mental, and causal bodies. 3.32 Self-Reliance Self-reliance is understanding of life; knowledge and understanding of the fact that existence and all life are ruled by inflexible laws, which make any kind of divine arbitrariness impossible. 2 Self-reliance is reliance on the laws of freedom, unity, and self-realization; knowledge and understanding of the individuals potential divinity, inalienable right to freedom, and the indestructible unity of all life. 3 Self-reliance is reliance on the individuals unconscious as the source of all his light, of all his guidance. All powers of life are at his command. It is his task to find the ways in which these inexhaustible powers can be put to use. 4 Self-reliance is the prime factor of development, the basis of self-determination and selfrealization, a condition of that one-pointed purpose which implies an unwavering perseverance and efficiency in striving towards the goal. 5 Self-reliance is not anything you simply assume. As a latent, previously acquired quality it manifest itself in unreflective directness and spontaneity. If it is not innate it must be acquired through insight, be worked forth into a matter of will-power by using thought and feeling. 6 Self-reliance has nothing in common with life-ignorant conceit, self-important obtrusion and presumption. 7 Self-reliance is independent of success or failure, the illusions that are shattered when put to trial, the praise or blame of men, or ones own insufficient ability. 8 Self-reliance is courage (physical, emotional, mental). The individual having it dares to be as he is: simple, unstudied, spontaneous, dares to think, feel, act, dares to be ignorant, dares to defend freedom and what is right. 9 Self-reliance appears in the freedom from the always paralyzing fear of a wrathful, capricious god, the fear of the blows of fate, of bad reaping, of people, of making mistakes, of being deceived, of obeying noble impulses, of all hostile outer and inner powers. 10 Self-reliance is counteracted by all dogmas, which are hostile to life and paralyze the self. 11 It is a lie which says that man is irremediably evil and will be lost for ever without the grace of divine arbitrariness. It is satanic to declare the individual incurably corrupt and then to demand that he be perfect. It is satanic to deprive the individual of his self-reliance on his own potential godhood. All fictions that break the individual down, weaken, paralyse him; lead to resignation, despair, agony of life; are satanic. It is satanic to engraft the fear of a wrathful (evil, spiteful), capricious, condemning, jealous god. It is satanic to engraft the fictions of shame, sin, and guilt. 12 All life develops. All life is found on the ladder of development that stretches from ignorance and impotence to omniscience and omnipotence. On each level of development the individual is relatively perfect as compared with all lower, and relatively imperfect as compared
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with all higher. The individual has the imperfections that belong to his level. To judge is to blame a man for being where he is, for not having attained higher, for not having acquired the qualities missing in him. Any comparison with other individuals, higher or lower ones, is a proof of ignorance of life, is unjustified and erroneous. The individual is inferior to all on higher levels, which he will reach in due course of time. Only hatred, which is blind to life, has feelings of inferiority, envy, or superiority. To recognize ones limitation is a sign of greater insight and understanding. Nobody who desires what is right is on the wrong track. 3.33 Self-Determination Self-determination is to be determined as to that which you have experienced and examined yourself. Self-determination is either knowledge or critical assumption. Belief is not selfdetermination. Complete self-determination presupposes a total knowledge of mans five worlds of matter and consciousness. 2 Either you have a knowledge of reality or your have not. Study is not knowledge. Study, or learning, includes not just facts but also hypotheses and theories in such a mixture that even experts find difficulty in separating facts from fictions (assumptions, theories). The knowing man is either critical or uncritical. The comprehending man can be however uncritical, for comprehension alone does not suffice to differentiate facts and fictions. The believing man is cock-sure and allows emotion to absolutify whatever he wants to believe. He believes in fictions and defends them by proofs. He can accept almost any pseudo-facts, particularly the historical ones. 3 The critical man starts from the idea that we have explored but a tiny fraction of reality. He knows that all knowledge is fragmentary. He avoids all absolutifying. He accepts nothing but what has been ultimately explored, whereupon new facts are precluded. In practice this means that he is content with a provisional assumption (an hypothesis). Therefore, when faced with the choice between doubt and belief, the critical man will remain a doubter. To him, belief is an evidence of ignorance. The critical man is self-critical, for he is keenly aware of the suggestive power of the fictitious and illusory. 4 The more his intellect develops, enabling him to work up his study and experience, the less believing and the more critical the individual becomes. Individual working up is important for anyone who wishes to develop. Individual examination liberates from the dependence on others. A thorough examination demonstrates the insufficience of learning. 5 The condition of self-determination is a knowledge of reality, a critical examination as to what you know and do not know, what is knowledge, assumption, or belief. From time to time there arises the need for a new general stock-taking of the reality content of your opinions. Fictions often slip down into your subconscious as though they had been overlooked. The more strictly you proceed in this scrutiny, the more fictions are discarded, and the more easily you see through the fictitiousness of new truths. The examination demonstrates the dubious and faulty there is in prevalent views. The traditional views are largely imaginative constructions. The opinions and valuations of the civilizational individual are of such a kind that we should be grateful for being made independent of them. Public opinion is no source of information. The saying everybody says so, everybody does so, provides a very strong reason for examining whether we should not think, feel, say, and do differently. Scientific research has begun providing us with a knowledge of reality. But almost everything remains to be explored. 6 The law of self-realization compels the individual to seek by himself, find by himself, realize by himself. History shows that this seeking in many respects resembles a roving. The individual is to decide by himself what he wants to accept or doubt. He will also be the one responsible for the idiotization of his reason. Authorities may well go for what they are worth. But they must never be invoked as proofs, never be obstacles to our own thinking, and never be any final
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instances. Self-determination does not become possible to any greater extent until at the stage of humanity. Self-determination makes us independent of, but also tolerant to, the opinions of others. 7 Without self-reliance we have not the courage to think independently and form our own valuations, the courage to liberate thought and, above all, feeling from traditional views and the valuations of public opinion, the courage to avow our ignorance and inability, which are always profound. Anyone who does not believe, speak, and act as everybody else, has almost the whole world against him. Demands for that right to freedom which the laws of life grant, at the stage of civilization lead to a never-ending struggle against the powers that curtail freedom and restrict life. It can very well be said that freedom does not exist. The outer freedom is an illusion because of the general intolerance and tyranny of convention together with peoples lack of independence and their arrogance. 8 The philosophers live in a world of fiction, which does not have any correspondence in reality. Experience is the only path to knowledge and is necessary to understanding. Whatever cannot be experienced is a fiction. Fictions are necessary for the mentally undeveloped. Through fictions the individual learns to think or to acquire mental activity. But without experience he does not learn to think correctly, or in accordance with reality. The prerequisite of a total experience is sense (the ability of objective consciousness of reality) in the five worlds of man (47-49). In the matter of knowledge, reason (subjective consciousness) remains but a surrogate. Nobody who sees can explain to the blind that which must be seen in order to be grasped. His explanations are inevitably misunderstood. And sight is just one way of experiencing. Anyone who has acquired essential consciousness experiences reality in still another way, not by observation from without but from within, by the identification of consciousness with material reality. He no longer has any need for concepts, since he can instantly experience anew the reality referred to. And so he appears touchingly naive as a constructor of fictions when making his hopeless attempts at explaining even relatively simple matters to the fictionalists, especially so if he is unfamiliar with the fictionalism peculiar to certain nation. 3.34 The Tendency to Unity The tendency of self-acquired individual character can be attractive or repellent. The attractive one is an instinctive tendency to unity. The repellent one is a tendency to division. As to the repellent individual character, development consists in transforming his tendency into the attractive one. This is done by acquiring noble feelings and qualities, allowing imagination to be occupied with everything belonging to the world of ideas: everything good, true, beautiful. Thereby the receiver and sender of the emotional vibratory capacity are raised to the molecular kinds of the attractive vibrations. In the course of development, all mankind finally attains to the stage of culture. By this, the collective becomes a mutual help instead of a hindrance, as it is at lower stages. 2 He has the greatest difficulty in acquiring the tendency to unity, who has the opposite tendency and strives after ennoblement in an environment that is without understanding, egoistic (spiteful), and moralist (blaming). It is not easy for him to acquire esteem, admiration, devotion, respect, reverence, who has imbibed the disrespect and contempt for everything higher that is in the spirit of the times and in literature, which is apparent in the universal calumniation, casting of suspicion on everybodys motive, debasing of all greatness, and sullying of all geniuses in biographies. It is not easy to acquire trust in people when the spirit of the times tries to show how unreliable everybody and everything is. It is not easy to acquire directness, openness, and sincerity when the spirit of the times brings with it the abuse of these qualities, they being at the same time ridiculed as evidence of narrowness and stupidity. It is not easy to acquire generosity and magnanimity when the spirit of the times furthers the cultivation of all manner of pettiness
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and commonness. It is not easy to acquire kindness, affection, heartiness towards all when the spirit of the times is indifferent, negative, unkind. It is not easy to acquire tact, consideration, forbearance when the spirit of the times encourages tactlessness, obtrusion, arrogance. It is not easy to acquire noble qualities when the spirit of the times exhibits and fosters the diametrically opposite tendency. It is not easy and it is not done without our own methodical and systematic work for ennoblement. That work would be facilitated through mutual support in associations of like-minded people. 3.35 The Law of Understanding Understanding is the selfs actualized, latent knowledge and worked-up experience. The self in the personality is the self in its temporary limitation. The self has an incomparably greater experience of life than has the causal consciousness. The self has passed through all the preceding kingdoms (of involution and evolution). But just a tiny fraction of the selfs knowledge, qualities, and abilities, which have been acquired during all its involvations and have subsequently become latent, are actualized by the experiences of the new personality. The causal consciousness still slumbers in the individuals at the stage of civilization. It is brought to life momentarily at the end of the dissolution of the personality, when it receives the synthesized mental ideas, if such ones be there. Once self-active, causal intuition gains infallible knowledge of the five worlds of man (47-49). But that knowledge will be part of the superconscious until the self enters into the inmost centre of the causal body. 2 It depends on the quality of the etheric body (the envelope of reaping), whether understanding can be actualized or find expression. If the vibratory capacity in the corresponding physical molecular layers is lacking, then understanding will remain latent. If there is nothing to prevent it, the self in its new personality can rapidly re-attain its former level of development. 3 The law of understanding says that the understanding the self has once acquired is never lost. Understanding is instinctual, automatic, and instantaneous. The ignorant confuse the immediate recognition at the first experience with intuition. Without the necessary new experiences, acquired knowledge, qualities, and abilities remain latent. 4 The waking consciousness is a collector of experiences and material for knowledge. Everything the self has once acquired becomes understanding, predispositions, ability in its new personality. Memorized knowledge, study which is not worked up and synthesized into mental ideas, is on the whole useless. The more thoroughly the experiences are worked up, the clearer the ideas will be when remembered anew, the more marked the predispositions. The work that has been spent in this is done ready for the future. 5 It is necessary to have a solid fund of general and similar experiences before the impressions can be synthesized into ideas. Primitive man learns extremely slowly from all experiences. It is this that makes consciousness development at the stage of barbarism such a slow process. 6 In all their incarnations men have picked up fictions of all kinds. These they recognize immediately, and they can rapidly assimilate entire fictional systems as though the fictions were self-evident. If such a system has dominated the individual previously, then when met again it reassumes its former power by right of its evidence. Many people take this evidence as a proof of truth, divine inspiration, intuition. If the fictional system is assimilated anew, it will be a real obstacle to the development of the sense of reality, the understanding of reality; and this is typical of philosophers, theologians, jurists. 7 Misunderstanding arises when different contents of experience, different perspectives, different degrees of experience of life, different degrees of realization and understanding, are put into the same words. Those who do not take this into consideration in their relations with other people, will be misunderstood. Absolutely speaking, no personality can understand any other, just approach understanding. You understand most easily those at the same level; those in the same
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clan most easily of all. But there is no guarantee, because everybodys individual character differs from everybody elses. Essential consciousness brings with it a community of consciousness, and thus full understanding. 3.36 The Faults and Failings of Man Morality is the theories of the moralists and moralism is these theories put into practice. This probably covers the essential that should be said concerning the real value of the moralists view. Without a knowledge of reality, the laws of life, development, and of the method of achieving the goal of life you have a conventional morality, but not a rational conception of right. 2 Man is not basically an evil being. At the stage of barbarism, he is a primitive emotional being with an undeveloped reason, a helpless victim of the activity of his emotional elemental. This activity is determined by the influences of the environment: vibrations in the lowest kinds of emotional matter. These vibrations do not further his development. Those he emits himself cannot be nobler. During thousands of incarnations man has been like a wolf unto man in that war of hatred which still rages on our Earth. Also at the stage of civilization dominates the egoistic, spiteful attitude he has acquired long ago. It is not to be wondered at that man is evil. The guilt of it is the common guilt of us all. Everybody is to make good his part, which is large. The quickest way to make it good is to strive after unity. 3 In their ignorance the moralists do not suspect the importance to the individual of obvious failings and faults, which are also factors of development and helpers in life. Failings show a lack of the necessary insight and understanding, the need for the opposite good qualities, for balance and moderation. Failings teach us to recognize the errors in life of morality and moralism, and to discover in ourselves that which we persist in noticing only in other people. What the moralists see fit to call faults and failings need not conflict with the laws of life in any respect, but can be apparent or, especially, non-existent failings. 4 We need a new basic view of man (to supersede the one the moralists have engrafted, which is hostile to life), which will help us not to concentrate on faults and failings but on good qualities, will help us to accept the individual as he is, and thereby to help him in his struggle in life. For the heart knows its own bitterness, however deceptive appearances are. We do not help by blaming, just by embracing all with our goodness. By being the one he is, man (with all his obvious imperfections) is as perfect at his level of development as the rock in the sea, the lily on the ground, and the beast in the wood. He has left those kingdoms behind him in his development, and even though he is still far from the kingdom of the second self, yet he will some time, by the inalienable right of his potential godhood, reach that goal as well as the other goals of life. 5 Throughout the various natural kingdoms the individual has acquired innumerable qualities and abilities. The lower ones are prerequisites of the higher ones and are gradually superseded by new ones. Most of them the individual has no use of any further. The fact that numerous abilities that are still desirable cannot make themselves felt, can have various causes: the individual does not need them in this particular incarnation; they would be obstacles by diverting his interest from more important ones; the personality shall perhaps be forced to specialize in less developed or absent talents; inability can also depend on a bad reaping. If they are needed in the future for his further development, these qualities once acquired but now latent can be rapidly actualized. 6 Each level of development entails the acquisition of new qualities or abilities. They can be graded from zero to one hundred per cent, from the first fumbling efforts to perfection. Those achieved one hundred per cent are dropped. They have fulfilled their function and the pertaining experiences have been acquired and incorporated with the individuals understanding of life. 7 On every level we carry a great number of qualities, which through experience have the opportunity of slowly climbing the centigrade gamut. If they are found far down the gamut we
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call them failings, since they fail in perfection. These failings are remedied during the further development. 8 Failings do not necessarily depend on the level of development, on the fictions and illusions belonging to that level, or on the absence of positive qualities (undeveloped or inactive ones). They can be expressive of individual character or of virtues that (as in the moralists) have become vices through exaggeration. When they are obviously harmful to the individual, this always depends on a bad reaping. 9 As faults can be regarded everything that belongs to a lower level than the individuals true level. All faults are bad reaping. All obvious faults are very bad reaping. We have incurred them through deliberately making mistakes, not through making mistakes as to still unknown laws of life on account of ignorance. We have incurred them by our presumption, abuse of knowledge and power, crimes against unity. Ninety-nine per cent of them depend on our judging the faults of others or casting suspicion on the noblemen of life on higher levels. By our gossip and judging we counteract the individuals striving to be a better man. 10 Faults are forced on the individual. Only experience, often long and bitter experience, can efficiently teach the individual what he must learn but does not want to learn. In being ourselves affected with the faults we condemn, we finally learn to understand not to exclude anybody from unity. Of all faults, judging seems to be the most difficult one to cure. 11 It can be part of bad reaping that the individual cannot possibly recognize his own faults. Then they need to be intensified as to finally become sufficiently evident. 12 The individual can be relatively good, truthful, just, tolerant, magnanimous, etc. ad infinitum. At the same time he can be relatively evil, untruthful, unjust, intolerant, smallminded, etc. ad infinitum. One thing is known for certain: his ideas of right and wrong, good and evil, belong to his level and develop with each level. 13 Man at the stage of civilization is a totality of all the contradictory that he has inherited, that has been forced on him through education, that he has picked up automatically and learnt by himself. He is by and large a chaotic centre of reactions with opposite modes of thinking, feeling, speaking, and acting, of complexes arisen by chance. 14 The moralists try to classify people according to their faults. And even if you succeed in convincing the highest intellectual classes of the harmful effects of morality and moralism, yet there will always be moralists as long as hatred exists in the world. Therefore it should be emphasized once more that the individual cannot be classified according to his faults. The most serious faults can occur even at the stage of humanity, because they are bad reaping. And nobody can escape that. 3.37 Evaluating the Personality At the stage of ideality, man is home in his true world at last, the self as a causal being is free from the always great limitation of its personality. Before that, the self is that which has been revived through the experiences of new incarnations. When evaluating the personality you must consider the selfs latent knowledge, qualities, and abilities, which can be quickly revived by new experiences. 2 The essentialist can evaluate the personality. Because this requires not just a knowledge of the individual character, level of development, previous incarnations, meaning of the last incarnation, and reaping allotted, but also community of consciousness. 3 The psycho-analyst could analyse the personality for a hundred years without reaching clarity, since the selfs superconscious remains inaccessible. What can be brought out of the subconscious through interpreting dreams may be interesting, but still just concerns superficial layers of the ocean of consciousness. The analysis of consciousness, or characterology, can never reach farther than to a knowledge of types and to general inferences; it cannot judge the
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individual character. Analysis is a difficult enterprise, from which particularly the moralists with their ignorance, inability of objective judgement, fanaticism, and lack of the most elementary understanding of life, ought to desist. Even systematic generalizations easily become arbitrary derivations and divisions. Different individuals can gain the same qualities through totally different experiences. An examination of previous incarnations is inevitable. The superficiality is evident from the fact that the psychologists have not yet discovered the two opposite tendencies and their fundamental importance. Individuals who are older by aeons, and thus at a higher stage of development, can by the psychologists be assessed as on a lower level than an individual at the acme of the series of incarnations of his level, with the perfected qualities and accumulated good reaping of that level. The other personalities of a series are incarnations of specialization in which but a fraction of the selfs latent qualities appears. The personality that has been given an opportunity to improve imperfect, or to develop missing, qualities and abilities in new domains of life, may seem very lost and imperfect before his experiences have been synthesized in subsequent incarnations. 4 Evaluations made by the ignorance of life are always erroneous. Men judge from appearances, good or bad reaping and their manifestations, success or failure, the judgements of other people, and, above all, from themselves. Were it possible for us to evaluate, then the cult of appearances would not be so completely realized and so efficiently infatuating. 5 The appearances in which the individual stands out before his time and posterity can be as illusory as the Fata Morgana of the desert. Appearance, for as well as against him, can be a reaping determined by destiny. His appearance is often the role the individual has chosen to play at the masked ball of the world theatre. His appearance is often the pattern of behaviour he has been forced to assume in the milieu he has grown up in or is working in. What do men know of motives, which are often hidden even to the protagonist himself? They analyze a mask, a role, a robot of conventions, or, perhaps, an indignant protest against all the humbug. What do they know about those closest to them; parents, brothers and sisters, children? Still merciful life grants the hypocrites, the worldly wise, and the conventional people those who make a fetish of decency to have appearances for them. Those who refuse to participate in the cult of appearances, who appear as they are, often have appearances against them in a harder way than life meant. The meaning of the old saying, the world wants to be deceived, is that appearances deceive those who choose appearances themselves. The more the doctors of literature attempt to describe personalities truthfully, the more clearly they demonstrate their dependence on the appearances of accidental events, of trifling circumstances. Much would be gained if psychological interpretations and moralist evaluations in biographies were regarded as proofs of unreliability. 6 The worthlessness of judgement is evident from the often extremely contradictory evaluations bestowed on different incarnations of the same self, depending on the working out of the law of reaping. The failing is remedied through unsuccessful experiences, the fault is cured by bad reaping. Men do not suspect that on the whole they make nothing but mistakes, even when believing that they are very clever. 7 What do men know about motives? Just one example may give some indications. You can show your gratitude because it is good form, it is wise, it pays, doing the opposite would be foolish, people gossip and exaggerate, gratitude is a noble quality, you are of course grateful, you are of course very noble, etc. ad infinitum. Gratitude can be felt as a debt, a duty, a benefit. Qualities have different degrees. Degree, motive, level go together. Nothing is as easily falsified as your motive. Self-deception ascribes to itself the highest thing it has heard of. 8 The lack of independence in judgement is evident if you explore public verdict. What other people say about an individual is gossip and slander. Their uncertainty is clear from the fact that, with the eternal emotional instability of their judgements (when emotion is not directed by complexes), men wave to and fro like reeds in the wind as gossip blows. 52

The individual judgements of men are extremely subjective, made from their own level with its limited experience and perception, their individual idiosyncrasies (fictions and illusions which they have unsuspectingly accepted), and the manifestations of egoism (which they likewise regard as infallible). 10 The level of judgement appears in the extant that relativization is used. The judgements of most people are absolute. But the qualities of the individual are seldom developed one hundred per cent. Do not say that Caesar is brave. Say that he was brave on this occasion and on that. That was benevolence, judging from the best side. Hatred always sees but from the worst side. 11 The motives of egoism, antipathy, hatred are without number. Books could be filled with reasons and expressions. Fatal is the eagerness of hatred to find faults and failings with noble souls on higher levels, not to say avatars. The unreliability of the final verdict of history is clear from the fact that all descriptions of avatars are falsifications. Concerning them, that principle is true in a still higher degree which says that what is known about a man, living or dead, is but the legend of him. The just verdict of history is part of the price the geniuses pay for their opportunities of serving mankind. To be misjudged, to put it mildly, to be disdained by contemporaries and be vilifies by all of ever blameless posterity, is a phenomenon that perhaps should be considered when an elucidation of the concept of sacrifice is to be attempted. 12 It is impossible for us to evaluate the individual. On the other hand, it is possible to make those general summations which are implied in the concepts of types, stages of development, epochs, generations etc. The unattainable individual disappears, the typical or universal in the mass realities appears. Usually men proceed in the opposite way. They reject indignantly, for example Schopenhauers misanthropy, which was understandable, but are instantly ready blindly to believe any unbelievable evil thing that gossip has to tell, and they applaud enthusiastically Strindbergs caricatures. The general is rejected and the individual is accepted. The usual perverted mode of judgement. 13 When evaluating we move those on higher levels down, and those on lower levels up, to our own level. There are risks to this. Many noble characters have made the most fatal mistakes in judgement, presupposing in others their own idealism, respect for confidence given, inability of exploitation. 3.38 The Blindness to Ourselves The Delphic Oracle would never, not even in its most profound degeneracy, have given its motto (know thyself) that interpretation which ignorant posterity has accepted as obvious: gain wisdom by self-analysis. Its motto was no exhortation but the sign of recognition among the initiates of the highest mysteries, in which it was taught that only the second self can understand the first self. Not to seek to know yourself but to forget yourself and your comical insignificance is the essential thing. 2 Self-realization is to seek everything yourself, to find everything yourself, to experience, comprehend, understand everything (reality, life, and the laws of existence) yourself, and to realize everything yourself. It is a long, hard, heavy path to wander. And there is no short cut. 3 In order to know himself, man must know who he has been, his latent possibilities, the full meaning of his incarnation. Mans unconscious is his contact with all the worlds of man. These are not known through self-analysis. And he must know them in order to understand himself. Man is self-blind until he has become Man. Self-knowledge presupposes knowledge of everything else. The last thing he comes to know is himself. 4 At lower stages, man acquires self-activity through his instinct of self-preservation inciting him to struggle for existence, and he develops qualities and abilities that make it possible to increase his activity and intensify it in ever higher worlds. His development proceeds under the protection of the unconscious. If self-analysis could afford any knowledge, it would enhance self1

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centredness. The more man deliberately seeks to be unselfish, the more egoistic he becomes. The more he analyses himself in order to be good, the more self-opinioned he becomes. Only by forgetting the lower he is can he find the higher he will be. This is the meaning of that paradox: become the one you are. He learns to rely on his unconscious through his experience that in spontaneity and directness the highest realization and ability of his level find expression. 5 Self-analysis increases irresoluteness and helplessness. Self-blindness is a protection. If man could see himself as he is, in a truthful mirror (this ridiculous, ignorant, arrogant, disdainful creature), he would never get over that chock. His analysis is that he knows, comprehends, can do much, has achieved things, is very virtuous, noble, etc. ad infinitum. Without this self-esteem, most people would break down; and in this appears their ignorance of life. The deceptiveness of the confession of sins appears in the fact that what man believes to be sin is just very superficial manifestations, but not the cause, of evil: egoism and hatred. All admit their imperfection in theory. But they are deeply hurt when, at their own request, their imperfection most evident to all is pointed out to them. On the other hand they find lots of faults in their neighbour. If man calls himself mean, it is just because others are so much the meaner. He does not suspect that anyone who thinks he is better than others is very far off from unity. Self-deception is infinitely subtle. When the individual thinks he has rid himself of his self-importance, then he is important in that he does not feel important at all. 6 The following anecdote is typical of self-evaluation. Somebody wrote about a particular society that all its members except one were idiots. The society was flattered because every member thought he was the exception. One recalls Schopenhauers dictum that there is always one idiot more in the world than everybody thinks. 7 In his egotism man feels that he is the centre of the universe. Everything is valued according to its importance to himself. Wisdom begins where he ceases to be the centre of his circle, instead placing an ideal in it, not on order to become ideal but to forget himself. 8 The path to self-knowledge is the study of mankind. Ignorance says: so is that individual. Behold Man! That immemorial expression did not refer to any particular person but meant: so are you. You are such as the one you admire. You are such as the one you disdain. Such are your best and your worst possibilities. Such are you as bound up with mankind. Such have you been. Such you can become again. Such is your destiny. 9 Higher objective consciousness reads the consciousness expressions of other people: the emotional one, their emotions; the mental one, their thoughts. Most people would not stand those sights. It is however, the path to the knowledge of yourself through the knowledge of man. 10 On the base of the statue of Isis the inscription was read: No mortal has raised my veil. The self as just a personality can never raise that veil. When the self, become a causal self, is able to do this, it will discover itself. 3.39 Ennoblement of the Personality The ennoblement of the personality is the result of the work of the self. It is one of the ways the self uses to attain higher levels. 2 Like the diet is of significance for the organism, so what the individual sees and hears, and thus assimilates into his waking consciousness, is of importance. Impressions rapidly sink into the subconscious with an inevitable effect. They influence of course also the feelings and thoughts of waking consciousness. 3 It is not easy to acquire a new, positive quality. Each quality presupposes quite a number of other qualities. The greater their capacity, the greater is the possibility of having this new one. Obstructive, negative qualities make this task more difficult, especially where their bad sowing must first be reaped. The tension there is between the old and new qualities often results in a lack of balance, failings that are strengthened by the environment, which almost always is without
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understanding, and by the moralists with their indignation and malicious pleasure. 4 Everyone admires certain qualities, or finds them more desirable than others. Admiration facilitates their acquisition. Interest also guides. Through paying attention to it, a content of consciousness is impressed on the subconscious. Certain qualities have key positions in the unconscious, and foster others closely related to them. The abilities of admiration, affection, sympathy can from the very faint beginning embrace all other noble qualities. Some few desirable qualities are cited below as examples. Everybody can complete the list for himself. 5 Goodness is the sum total of all noble qualities. Of course ignorance abuses this word, a confusion of ideas and falsification of the conception of right and of the ideals being the result. 6 For the ideals to be realizable they must take the place of self-importance. This entails simplicity. You stop being what you are not, feeling anything else but what you recognize to be right and true, pretending in order to dupe or please others. Simplicity is the great manner of being great. Ignorance often takes simplicity as a recognition of the fiction of equality. The cultural individual must reckon on being misunderstood in everything he says or does, everything he does not say or do. 7 Directness is the instinctual genius of life, the spontaneous manifestation of the certainty and sureness of the unconscious. All deliberation, calculation, dissimulation, affection are alien to it. It is a wondrous quality that facilitates everything in life, splendidly simplifies and solves otherwise unsolvable problems. In directness the superconscious can find expression. Directness is destroyed by self-analysis, self-complacency, moralism. 8 Invulnerability is a quality that is absolutely necessary in the physical and emotional worlds with their repellent tendencies. Vulnerability makes attraction impossible, makes you dependent on the hatred (lack of appreciation, etc.) of others, is defenceless against baseness. Invulnerability must be unconditional and total, the armour must reach from head to feet. Balder the good was killed by the weak mistletoe spear, Achilles by his vulnerable heel. The vulnerable man poisons his own existence by his idiotic attitude. The first prerequisite of self-realization is the acquisition of an invulnerability complex. You never ask how it feels, and you become invulnerable because you want to. 9 Anyone who spreads joy is a true benefactor in the dreary, cheerless life of most people. Joy is the sun in the dark, the oasis in the desert. Kindness to all without exception is part of ordinary good manners and the most elementary tact. Mankind is in a bad way when needing such a reminder. Helpfulness in the countless little opportunities of every day makes life rich for everybody and for ourselves. By thinking well of everybody you become better yourself and help other people to become better. By thinking evil you become worse yourself and increase evil in the world. This is the reason why even the truth in slander harms everybody who concerns himself with it. Anyone who makes other people happy becomes happy himself. This is also the only way to acquire enduring happiness. 10 Justness means impartial, impersonal judgement independently of your advantage or disadvantage, sympathy or antipathy, friendship or enmity. The sense of fair play in sportsmanship, and chivalry, are kin to this quality. 11 Magnanimity is the expression of a generous and noble mind. That wondrous quality is alien to all pettiness, vengefulness, envy, calculation, meanness. The fact that it is necessary to the activation of the emotional superconscious makes it still more desirable. 12 Sincerity, loyalty, gratitude are noble qualities which have in common that they require reciprocity for anybody to be able to show them to other people. They must not be abused. Being abused they strengthen evil. To allow ruthless cynicism, daring latitude, or unscrupulous calculation to abuse noble qualities is to make goodness defenceless and contribute to its ruin. 13 Sincerity is an important factor in our searching, a response organ for the perception of what is genuine and spurious, true and false. It is blunted by fanaticism. Any self-deception whatsoever is positively destructive to the instinct. Untruthfulness is the greatest enhancer of illusoriness. 55

If loyalty and solidarity are abused as means of pressure against the ideals, then loyalty can be shown to the ideals only. Dutifulness is ordinary reliability quite simply. 15 Gratitude is an original feeling, which is easily hampered through demands. Now being subjected to charity, now to iniquitous treatment, does not breed any gratitude. In the epoch of hatred this quality is much rarer than the ignorance of life believes. Anyone who tries to unburden himself from his debt of gratitude by fair words, pays with counterfeit money. Words are vibrations in the air. 16 Without setting a good example all upbringing will be merely a tacit invitation to dissimulation. Ideals must never be sermonized. On the other hand, young people can be given noble characters (historical or fabulous) to admire. The goal of upbringing is not to establish good habits. Habit is an inhibition that makes a rational change or adaptation more difficult. Habit mechanizes and robotizes, dulls receptivity to valuable new things, makes one insusceptible to impressions, destroys the power of spontaneity. What is taught by force enslaves, or rouses the instinct of obstinacy. Nobody should be left in the dark about those ideals which he has even the slightest chance of understanding. With that, upbringing has made its part. After that everybody chooses for himself what corresponds to his level. Ideals are connected with the feeling of aversion by being sermonized. Kindness, as few rules as possible, and firmness are necessary. Any other punishment than the loss of privileges is unnecessary. Being allowed to assist in little household duties should be regarded a benefit. You cannot count on gaining confidence without showing confidence yourself. The immature cannot possibly judge and thus not criticize; the young cannot rightly judge for themselves. By cultivating the love of criticizing, you foster self-esteem, contempt, irreverence, and disrespect. Criticism presupposes a total knowledge of the pertaining particular sphere of knowledge. It befits nobody, least of all the young, to criticize the geniuses of the past. 3.40 The Art of Living The art of living is the application of an understanding of life acquired. Like the wisdom of life it has many degrees. It is the same with the art of living as with any other art: you acquire it through work and toil during many lives, without apparent result to begin with. Those who strive after ennoblement are put, according to the law of destiny, into such circumstances in future lives as benefit their development and facilitate their striving. 2 The bohemians, epicureans, bigots, moralists, pedants, and puritans of the stage of civilization lack the prerequisites of the art of living, which is not possible until at the stage of culture. It is equally radically wrong to believe that man is here on Earth in order to do nothing, enjoy himself, revel in luxury and amusement; as to preach meaningless asceticism and renunciation, not allowing himself his share in the good things of this life and opportunities of relaxation. We are not here in order to be happy but in order to have experiences and learn from them, get to know reality and life. Each personality has its special task in life, its goal in life, is a new attempt by the self to explore new domains of life. It is not to be wondered at that the personality at the stage of civilization often fails. The ignorant of life does not perceive that the meaning of life for the individual is the meaning that he can put into life himself. 3 A wrong attitude to life leads to demands on life and on other people, demands that life does not furnish any possibilities of satisfying, demands for happiness, which the individual alone can procure. Our circumstances are such as destiny has ordained according to the law of reaping. Life is not suffering. Suffering is bad reaping from bad sowing, and ceases when the sowing has been reaped. 4 The barbarian detests work. Civilizational amusements often tire more than work, make work disagreeable and the view of life superficial. When life is at its best, it is work and toil is an esoteric axiom of immemorial origin. Man is markedly little suited for amusement. Nos vrais
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plaisirs sont nos besouins (Our true pleasures are our needs). He has made a good choice who can be absorbed by his gainful occupation and find satisfaction in it, especially of his work benefits development and serves unity. 5 The art of living includes the art of being able to forget yourself, to be occupied with other things than yourself, to keep your attention away from yourself. This it is which provides the greatest satisfaction in diversion, although those people do not understand it who are not able to concentrate spontaneously on interests that require attention. It is because of this you are wise to have several varied interests - the more the better - if you cannot be absorbed by something particular. 6 The ignorance of life believes that happiness consists in external circumstances and outward things. To most people happiness consists in some illusion: being somebody, knowing how to do something, in their excellence, in glory, wealth, power, etc. That happiness which is never lost lies in the ability, acquired methodically, of forgetting your utterly, comically insignificant personality with all its insistent claims, never satisfied desires, and innumerable causes for alarm; and in cultivating the tendency to unity and in living for some ideal. Anyone who runs after happiness will never find it. Happiness comes to the man who does not need it, who lives to make other people happy. 7 The art of living includes the ability to enhance other peoples joy, to make life easier to live for everybody. Anyone who destroys other peoples joy, makes everything heavier and harder to bear and darkens his own life. 8 The art of living includes trust in life. To trust life is to trust the immutable, incorruptible laws of life. Everything can happen in life, at any time, anywhere. Anyone who has acquired trust in life can bear the hardest blows that destiny deals. The unprepared man is broken down by his own terrifying visions. Fear is our worst enemy, the traitor that paralyzes and blinds. The heroic attitude is the only rational one: to live tragically (the sowing must be reaped) but never to take it tragically. Any other attitude just increases suffering. It is part of the wisdom of life not to bereave yourself of the composure you have by fighting disasters in beforehand, not to enlarge disasters by concentrating on them. As a rule, nothing will be as good as you hope, nothing as bad as you fear. Imagination wallows in excesses, making life either into heaven or hell. Wisdom says: Take it easy, and everything will be all right. 9 Two difficult things are part of the art of living: to learn to love solitude and to acquire the need for being silent about what you know. Both things are necessary. It is in solitude that we profit by what our unconscious can teach us. Anyone who gossips, chatters away himself and other peoples confidence, and sows much bad sowing. To will, to know, to dare, and to keep silent is the sum of esoteric wisdom. 10 Life is made up of an infinite series of problems which nobody but the individual is able to solve in the one right way, in the same way as everybody must find his truths on his level before he is ripe for the next level. Rules of conduct, like hypotheses and theories, make orientation easier. With that they have served their purpose. The rule is generalized experience, the construction by post facto wisdom to explain a certain course of action, and belongs to a particular level. The rule must be individualized to fit the concrete case. Anyone who needs rules lacks the ability to judge the case and to adapt the rule. Rules of conduct belonging to all too high levels confuse and stupidize. The more rules you collect, the more irresolute you will be. If the rules are made compulsory, they lay the foundation of all manner of inhibitions, with a guilty conscience, neurosis, agony before life. Not even in deliberate action do you act according to rules, but matter-of-factly, purposively, and later instinctively, spontaneously. 11 People may very well be deprived of their fictions, but not illusions, unless they are obviously harmful. Blindness in life is often a veil of mercy, often necessary to achieve full efficiency. By depriving the individual too early of the illusions which make life worth living for him, which fill his life with interests and sources of joy, which raise and ennoble him; we do him 57

a most serious disservice. Many people have thus been deprived of their ideals, their joy of living, the content of their lives. The moralists are experts at such blunders in life.

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OBSTACLES TO SELF-REALIZATION
3.41 The Tendency to Division Individual character has its own tendency, acquired long before causalization. This does not mean, however, that the vibrations affecting the individual from without are unimportant. On the contrary they are determinant at lower stages. In the emotional aeon, the cosmic vibrations have mainly a repellent effect, and therefore the universal influences are unfavourable. Thus it can be said that the emotional instinct of the civilizational individual is more or less repellent. The Atlanteans were the fourth root-race, the emotional root-race. Their historical mission was to ennoble emotionality. In this they failed, as we know. The nations belonging to this root-race still cultivate the nationalism, intolerance, and arrogance of the tendency to division, being seduced into this to some extent by the still young Aryan root-race. But that is no defence. The older race should have been an example to the younger. Those who comprehend at all what is meant by collective responsibility can perhaps trace the results of this over the ages. It should be pointed out in this connection that the individuals bad reaping can cause him to be born into a race that has a bad reaping. Both race and individual are to be admired because of their heroic attitude to life, and are not to be hated, which is idiotic. 2 Of course the civilizational individual has attractive feelings. As long as he is in conditions that satisfy his egoism, he is sympathetically disposed to other people. The repellent tendency asserts itself whenever his well concealed egoism is not satisfied. Those who are able to do so, choose for themselves an agreeable environment and pleasant acquaintances. This facilitates selfdeception considerably. The individual feels filled with nobleness, good resolutions, etc. and is happily unsuspecting of the extent of his egoism. Besides, he would regard his egoism justified, and altruism romantic and absurd. 3 Pure emotionality is desire. Desire is mentally blind, is enlightened by reason and becomes united with thought. In this way feelings arise, which are desires coloured with thought where desire is the dynamic power. At the emotional stage, thought cannot dominate a feeling directly but only indirectly through another feeling, generally the diametrically opposite one. Any feeling whatsoever can be fostered by thinking methodically. Usually they arise unnoticedly (since the individual is uninterested in the control of consciousness) by attention being directed to them. Most of them are innate, latent, cultivated in many lives, and can easily regain their former strength. A feeling is developed by thought dwelling on a certain reason. Thus, for instance, man develops envy by constantly comparing his own conditions with those of better favoured people, and it can of course be so intensified as to get instantly inflamed whenever he sees or hears about somebody who has something, has succeeded in something, etc. The illusion of envy is connected with the fiction of the injustice of life, and can be weakened through the insight that all kinds of comparison between individuals are misleading. Malicious pleasure, which delights in other peoples bad reaping, is related to envy. The stronger the tendency to hatred is, the stronger those negative feelings become. Feeling is intensified by repetition, from the faintest, unnoticeable consciousness expression to the most intense affect. Just how subtle feeling can be is clear from Larochefoucaulds observation that in the misfortunes of our best friends there is always something that does not displease us. Envy is as common as the ignorance of life is great. Many people envy all who are better off than themselves, and grudge all their success. Envy is of course a fatal stupidity in life, because being victim of it you deprive yourself of that to which you would otherwise have got a right. Anyone who rejoices in and with other people, sows a good sowing for himself. 4 As long as moral fictionalism, that typical product of civilization and of the tendency to division, will dominate mankind with its dogmas, so long will the censure of other people continue, and the result will be the mutual, eternal judging. They forget in this that everybody has
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a right to be the one he is, as long as he allows the same right to others. Hatreds analysis of other peoples traits and behaviour is safeguarded by an indignant assurance that it is just a matter of trying to understand better. No analysis can afford understanding, which is always spontaneous. 5 One of the most serious consequences of moralism is the idiotic contempt, perhaps the only quality that all have perfected one hundred per cent. If it has become a habit, it is gradually extended and vented on more and more people. This fantastic sharpsightedness seeks and finds everywhere motives for ever more profound contempt. Also the language has quite a number of words denoting the different expressions of contempt: repudiation, scorn, superciliousness, condescension, disrespect, tactlessness, standoffishness, irreverence, etc. In the end, contempt is vented on all living beings and provides the basis of ruthlessness. On lower levels contempt finds more and more brutal expression: wickedness, cruelty, harshness, vengefulness, unforgivingness, insolence, tyranny, exploitation. 6 Another characteristic of the moralist is his self-righteousness. This smugness bears witness to a total blindness in life. We have a long way to go before we have got rid of our selfimportance. Anyone who witnesses for himself always bears false witness. 7 Misunderstandings are inevitable at the stage of civilization. The reasons for them are innumerable. A knowledge of human nature is lacking. Hatred wants to misunderstand, puts the worst construction on everything, breeds mistrust and suspicion, which in their turn result in bitterness, disappointment, vexation, displeasure. One way of avoiding misunderstandings is to seek your clan when choosing your company. The wise man simplifies his circumstances as far as possible, and by that his problems too. The unwise man complicates his conditions, and by that he makes everything more difficult for him. 8 Subjectivism, which has spread like an epidemic from philosophy to all domains of culture, has exalted arbitrariness into a principle. That suits excellently the go-ahead spirit of undiscerning boldness, the self-determination of self-will and obstinacy. Everybody is the master of his wisdom. The fiction of the intellectual and cultural equality of all proclaimed by democracy has even more strengthened the confidence of the general indiscrimination in the authority of its ignorance. We have the insight and understanding of our level, not what belongs to higher levels. This can of course annoy those who have all the other things. The selfsufficience of self-assertion, the presumption of self-glory, the conceit of self-importance, the whole of this all too common psychopathy, which always appears irresistibly comical to outsiders, is characteristic of the negative tendency, and originates in a wrongly constructed equality complex that seeks compensation in arrogant self-esteem. 9 Men always make the mistake of taking themselves too solemnly and others too seriously. We are not by a long way as important as we think. We are very far from the goal. Other people do not mean so to offend as suspiciousness imagines. Most people are unaware of their clumsy, tactless, and stupid sayings and doings, and are sincerely surprised when realizing that they could possibly offend or hurt other people. The general irritability has the effect that most people little notice their own behaviour. 3.42 Dogmas The freedom of thought is restricted by the ruling dogmas. Dogma is the opposite of intellectual freedom. Hypotheses are necessary. These provisional assumptions are the attempts of thought to explain reality and its processes. The rational attitude is to examine all theories in order to familiarize oneself with the results of scientific research, yet not to accept any theory, but await the new results that will inevitably come. It is through the endless succession of hypotheses that science progresses. Danger is at hand only when hypotheses are made into dogmas, are espoused by emotion, and thus are made absolute. 2 A dogma is a hypothesis which, having been put to the vote, has by the majority been
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declared to be valid for all time to come. Underlying the dogma is the principal axiom of public opinion, saying that if ignorance is multiplied by a sufficiently large number, then the result is knowledge. When an explanation is laid down to be valid for all time to come, or when it is adhered to despite its being evidently an obsolete view, then thinking has been prohibited. Dogmas (prohibitions of free and correct thought) can be divided into religious, philosophic, moral, scientific, and social ones. 3 The founders of religions have appeared in times of general disorientation following the dissolution of the fictional systems ruling till then, with chaos impending; in order to offer an outlook acceptable to the spirit of the times. These views were steps forwards from the viewpoint of epochal and national psychology, but of course were never understood by the majority, and after repression by the adherents of the old religion they were distorted so as to fit in with the ruling superstitions, and were made into dogmas. The rule is that no religious document is genuine, and the life of no founder of a religion has been truthfully described. However, it is not the spurious in all religions that is the point of fatal consequences; it is the patent mark of infallibility put on them. That patent mark is always false. There is no infallible knowledge. It is the patent mark that enforces blind belief and makes it possible to repress dissidents, to abuse authority, and to breed fanaticism. No literary work is improved by putting a patent mark on it. Every work must defend its justification by its content of reality, not by invoking infallible authorities. According to the implacable law of self-realization, everyone must seek and find the truth by himself. This would be brought to nothing unless everyone has the possibility of choosing, and of choosing wrong. Those who preach infallible knowledge take a heavy burden of responsibility on them, which is not an idle phrase even though it is abused by all irresponsible people in responsible positions. 4 A moral dogma is a prescription designed to apply for everybody under all circumstances. The fact that circumstances can radically change, that people are found at very different stages of development, that where two people do the same thing, yet it is not the same thing they do, is of no consequence where a moral dogma prevails, which ever presumes to maintain how things should be without knowing how things are. Moral dogmas reform nobody. But they afford spiteful people a longed-for and strived-after moral right to despise and condemn their fellow men. And this necessarily results in the generally accepted hypocrisy with its tacit supreme dogma: keep appearances up, for they are the only necessary thing. The dreadfully suggestive power of the moral dogmas sanctifies the most barbarous views. They are sacred because they have been prescribed by the holy spirit of public opinion, and their divine origin is proved by the principle of so do all. The guilt of the religious and moral dogmas is immense. 5 The only true moral command, if some such were possible, would be the command of love. But love cannot be commanded. And that should give the moralists food for thought. Love presupposes freedom and grants freedom. Want of love, however, can evidently be morality. Demands for morality violate the laws of freedom and unity. Morality is hostile to life. In adopting other peoples concepts of right and wrong with demands and threats that are alien to the individual, an inexplicable compulsion violating freedom establishes itself in his subconscious, and there it becomes a not-self, the other man in us, a destructive hostile power, an unsuspect source always of fear, often of neurosis, and sometimes of crime. Besides, moral commands are superfluous, since nobody asks for the right who does not know by himself, by his own accord, what is right, and since the divine legislation of life appears in the law of good. 6 The task of science is to explore the causal connections, to search for the laws. With a marvellously stubborn tendency science appears to forget ever anew that all theories and hypotheses are but temporary and limited. With all its immense learning it possesses a knowledge of just a tiny fraction of the total reality. It flatters itself that it is free of superstition and that its thought is free. The history of science, however, testifies differently. To reject without 61

examination the seemingly improbable, the strange and unknown (to which every revolutionary discovery once belonged), still is not incompatible with the scientific attitude. the unexplored is called god by the religious and fraud by the scientists. The instinct for the probable, or the positive sense of reality, is still in its initial stage. Every scientific world view will remain fictitious. There is no infallible knowledge of reality. The mental superstructure of esoterics is little more than a suggestion of this reality never suspected by the normal individual. There is, besides, no possibility of constructing an exact and comprehensible system of thought for an intellect having so utterly few reality concepts. All human knowledge, even the esoteric one, of necessity remains a partial knowledge, and as such, always misleading and defective in certain respects. 7 Also the social dogmas have their martyrs. For dogmas and martyrs are inseparable, as intolerance, envy, and the need for persecution provide the dogmas with their continuous raison dtre. The total ignorance of life not least the ignorance of all laws of the continuance and development of society in conjunction with the mad, blind belief of totalitarian rulers in their infallibility will, as long as irresponsible power is allowed to exist, continually and ever again bring mankind on towards the verge of destruction. 3.43 Dependence There is a conscious and an unconscious dependence. The conscious kind submits to authority. To it, the scientific hypotheses and theories of the day are gospel truth. 2 The unconscious kind is partially the result of the wisdom impressed on man in childhood. The trustful, open, sensitive, receptive mind of the child has been infected with all manner of fictions (conceptions without a reality content). The adult never suspects where he has got all the ineradicable superstitions which he has to put up with for the rest of his life, like innate ideas. He has forgotten how he got them. But he knows that he has them. 3 Much of what exists in the subconscious has come there by mistake, as it were, unnoticedly, unintentionally. You have read it or heard it once or twice without attending particularly to the matter. It just is there, and you accept it as something self-evident when it appears. 4 The more learning expands, the more we lose our survey and ability to orientate ourselves both in the world of study and in the world of reality, and the more dependent on the judgement of others we become. There are risks to this, as is clear from the expression narrow specialist. The partial knowledge so easily loses its eye for the dependence of the part on the whole, and of the parts on each other. The need for orientators, the exclusive task of whom would be to sum up the partial results into greater surveys, is felt more and more strongly. 5 We all need authorities. We must all have authorities. None but the fool knows, comprehends, and understands everything. In most cases it is not even possible for us to judge the reliability of the authority in question, to judge what is probable or reasonable. Just exceptionally are we able to decide whether the authority is based on facts or on fictions. We are to content ourselves with provisional assumptions at our own risk. For we must not throw the responsibility on anybody else. It is for us to choose authority, choose correctly, and accept when the authority is right. Also Buddha impressed on his disciples that the individual is himself responsible for what he will accept as true and right; that the responsibility must not be thrown on authorities, the sayings of wise men, sacred writings, traditions; that one should not unnecessarily accept whatever one does not comprehend, does not recognize to be correct, has not examined oneself. 6 One of the greatest obstacles to the general development of the collective is that kind of dependence which makes public opinion possible with its cult of dogmas in all domains. The infallible opinion of the majority has always been the resort of the masses, who lack independence. Parrotry is called public opinion and masks the general lack of judgement, something similar to that mimicry called fashion which masks the general lack of taste.
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Also in the learned world there is much dependence. It is seen in the immensely learned who know everything that others have written, and in those who do not dare to criticize ruling academic dogmas out of regard for their career, who are silent about what they know to be true and right, or even speak against their own better knowledge. 8 The papers foster dependence by teaching, day by day, how the judicious should think in order to think correctly. For the papers of course communicate but facts, but axiomatic truths for the day, the last wisdom. 3.44 Morality Morality is not based on the knowledge of reality and life. Morality is an historical product that over the ages has incorporated with it contradictory conventions, arbitrary rules of conduct, and false values from all directions. Morality is the sum total of the taboos of the ignorance of life, a monstrous mixture of commands and prohibition, which idiotizes, restrains, hampers, stifles life. Manners and customs change. But the tyranny of convention and intolerance remain eternally at the stages of barbarism and civilization as two of the numerous expressions of hatred. The moralist adopts conventions that are hostile to life as thoughtlessly as he does bad laws. His blindness in life is as great as his fanaticism. His condemnation of all who do not accept the fictions and illusions of convention shows that he is ruled by hatred. 2 It would be strange if man, who throughout history has demonstrated his total ignorance of life, would know how things should be without any knowledge of how things are. The moralists are ignorant of everything: the laws of life, the meaning and goal of life, the way of attaining this goal, the levels of development, individual character. And these people are the ones to prescribe for others what they should believe, think, say, and do. Nobody is as cocksure as he who knows nothing. In all ages they have sermonized morality without affecting the primitive, who regard murder as a suitable pastime. Morality has as little to do with humanity, nobleness, the art of living; as religion with a rational life view. By propaganda morality has become the atheists religion. The moralists can seldom explain what morality is, except that it is something that gives man a right to despise others. 3 Morality is but another word for the cult of appearances. Only the conventionalist, who reacts according to fixed patterns of behaviour, is regarded as normal by the moralist. Mr Averages fetish is so-called decency, and so he puts on this collectively fabricated social mask, playing excellently his part of levelled, uniform, statistical robot without an individual character. The expression to be born an original and to die a copy testifies to self-effacement by a being whose task it should be to develop his individual character. Commands and demands lead to the cult of appearances. We do not reach any levels by good resolutions and fair words. To the moralist, conventional blamelessness is the same thing as perfection. He does not in the least suspect that perfection means the faultless application of the laws of life. What need has he of laws of life who knows everything best? 4 The moralists false values of life depend on, among other things, the fact that he speaks about things he cannot possibly understand. They speak about that love of our neighbour, which nobody in the congregation can possibly experience. They profane sacred ideals by making them stock phrases, things familiar and used to. In order for the congregation to reach the higher emotionality, for it to give proof of the most elementary humanity, you must work on it with heart-stirring appeals. They cast pearls without heeding the intentionally biting formulation of that exhortation, which ought to have made at least some few pay attention. 5 Morality masks egoism. They strive after unity, not in order to liberate, but as a means of power, in order to bind and rule. They set up all manner of ridiculour taboos. But they overlook the one essential thing: attraction, which shall save the world. This they gladly leave to a superior being. What do they know of the tendency to unity, which is the true revelation of god? How
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about the respect for all living beings? They cultivate their fanaticism, intolerance, and private hatred complexes. Anyone who has fathomed the false life values and self-deception of moralism, perceives the justness of the eminent esotericians statement, that nearly two thirds of the evils that pursue mankind can be written up in the record of misdeeds of religion and morality. Morality has a monstrous capacity for poisoning, and has over all ages been the strongest motive for contempt. The moralist does not even realize that to moralize is to judge. 6 Morality is mistaken for social regulations for living together without friction. Those are unreflectingly assimilated in childhood and adolescence through the examples set by adults. The simplest mind can without quaint catechism prohibitions comprehend that murder, violence, persecution, theft, forgery, and calumny make the continuation of society impossible. 7 Many a moralist collects rules like stamps. The more of them he has, the more irresolute is he. they leave him in the lurch when they could be of use. They foster complexes in him and a bad conscience. Rules are artificial bungling attempts that restrain spontaneity, enhance selfdeception, and make the moralist imagine that he is somebody else than he is. Right action belongs to its level, is self-evident and spontaneous, and results from the necessary qualities, not from pleasant contemplations. 8 Everything genuine, direct, original, spontaneous the moralist considers reprehensible. He views man as a thoroughly corrupt being, evil without bottom and beyond cure, who is actuated but by evil impulses. When the bubbling inflow from the unconscious, that source of life, has ebbed away, when the individual has become an automation of all kinds of inhibitory complexes and mechanized habits, when the ability to live in the present and take in the vitalizing and liberating power of life impressions has been destroyed, when everything has become a wellordered system of rules, commands, prohibitions, and all manner of prescriptions, confession of sins, bad conscience, remorse, self-contempt, and anguish before life; then and only then is man saved and moral. The result of this madness is that the unimpressionable remain unchecked, and the noble characters are made unfit for life or are ruined. 9 The moralist distrusts life. He does not suspect the purposiveness of life or the inability of his ignorance to descry it. Fortunately, however, everything is so well arranged that even the most masterful moralist could not propose any improvement. Everybody develops by experiences the very qualities his incarnation is aimed at. Individual character and understanding of life determine the tempo. The moralists unwarranted encroachment on the right to self-determination causes disorder and increases the difficulties. 10 The hostility to life of morality appears also in quietism, being the selfs attempt at suicide by ceasing to act. All individual activity (thoughts, feelings, words, deeds) is then regarded as evil. This denial of the selfs potential godhood is that perversity of life called Satanism. Imperfection means that you are on your way and that your first self has not reached its final goal. Of course the attempted suicide fails. But it results in a delay, which can amount to millions of years, and in an elementary course on a lower level with activity forced on the self. 11 The moralist cannot reform man, but certainly he can change his external pattern of behaviour through compulsion and psychoses. When compulsion ceases, emotional intoxication has passed off, the individual is basically the same. The false ideas of morality include the idea saying that the individual will become good by obeying principles. Sure enough, they will be very solid and fine in their moral self-righteousness when blindly following rules the meaning of which they never understand. By obedience the individual learns to obey. That necessary quality is acquired at barbaric levels. At higher stages, however, its result is that blind obedience which tolerates everything and leaves to others to control your individual character. Compulsion poisons and makes good repugnant. Enforced commands with threat of punishment are turned into subconscious destructive complexes. What is to be assimilated without harm must elicit a response, be met with sympathy, and be willingly taken in. 12 Chacun a les dfauts de ses vertus. Everybody has the weak points of his good points. The 64

same idea has been formulated more pregnantly in the seeming paradox, Vices are exaggerated virtues and vice versa. Every virtue has its vice. Virtues and vices merge into one another. Virtues are whatever facilitates, vices what obstructs, living together with other people. What the moralists see fit to call virtues and vices are subjective notions of what should be regarded suitable or unsuitable. By their unessentials the moralists divert attention from the one essential thing: violation of unity. If the moralists fictions were rational, they would be self-evident, and it would not be necessary to keep them alive by propaganda, incessant sermonizing, and eternal condemnation. In all ages they have sermonized morality, and the history of the world shows the result of it. 13 The moralists argue that the doctrine of reincarnation would cause people to put off their striving after development (or becoming good) till their next life. This argument is quite in line with the rest of their fictions and illusions ignorant of life. 14 It is the experience of history that the individual is incorrigible. Real advances cannot be discerned in physical existence. The gain of an incarnation appears from the results of working up in the mental world. This demonstrates that the moralists methods of improvement were perverted. Results are not achieved by the resolutions of exerted will, rumination, desperate efforts to lift yourself by your hair; but by being simple, natural, spontaneous. 15 The man who would listlessly refrain from getting the necessary experiences of life and to learn from them, would not be any better as a moralist (rather the opposite), and would miss favourable circumstances of life in future incarnations, and would instead get into unpleasant compulsory conditions designed to teach him the necessary experiences of life. 16 The man who has a favourable incarnation (a good reaping, etc.), wishes development and thereby gets experiences which entail a definite rise of his level. 17 This is true of morality as of everything else: you do not understand just because you comprehend. That is the meaning of the famous metaphor: He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. 3.45 Moralism Moralism is a cult of the lie. The ignorance of life cannot see through the cult of the lie at the stage of civilization. But then, everything is lie within us and without us. Anybody who spoke what he thought would make himself impossible everywhere and be regarded as a madman, one dangerous to public safety. For such are the notions of hatred. Everything is permeated with lies: social life, business, politics, governments, the churches. The essential thing is not who you are but who you appear to be. An Indian sage who had studied Europe thoroughly asked: Why do all people of the West anxiously pretend to possess a virtue (sincerity) which nobody can practise in his intercourse with other people? During thousands of incarnations we have learnt to lie through self-preservation, until lying has become our true nature. 2 Moralism is hypocrisy. The stricter the conventional morality, the more tyrannical the custom, the greater the hypocrisy. Moralism tries to force people into being somebody else than they are. Since, fortunately, this is impossible, self-preservation forces the individual to make himself out to be somebody he is not. And in so doing he will unsuspectingly be a greater and greater humbug as time goes on. You apply convention if it is suitable, and conceal your crimes as best you can. But if luck is against you, you have offended against the supreme command (Thou shalt not let thyself be caught), and are condemned by all moralist keepers of appearances. There is a law of reaping, however, and life is merciful, finally opening up the eyes of these moralists by letting them be condemned themselves. 3 Moralism includes gossip and slander. Nobody is so black as he is painted, is the cynical admission of how fifteen fat hens can be made out of one feather. No pestilence is spread as rapidly as the evil talk about others. Nobody seems to be able to keep to himself the malicious
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talk he has heard. Most people slander everybody, people they personally know and do not know, friends and relatives. To talk about other peoples merits is not equally pleasant. 4 Moralism shows in self-poisoning. The moralist does not suspect how the process of moralist poisoning affects his own inner life. Nobody can free himself from the evil he has listened to. Whenever the memory of the slandered person suggests itself, their minds are filled with the dirt they have themselves imbibed so greedily. It is the moralists process of purification. The more you wash the dirt of others, the cleaner your own hands will be. 5 Moralism is self-blindness. Moralism is morality put into practice. Moralism is meant for others. Everybody is almost perfect in his own eyes, the imperfection inherent in everything human disregarded, of course. With that exception we are perfect, especially if we have procured the forgiveness of sins, But we will not be ridded of our faults as easily as that, not even by a public confession of sins. We just enhance our self-blindness. our actual faults, however, we cannot discern. We would be deeply offended should anybody dare to complete our confession of sins with essentials. We would easily convince ourselves that we had been totally misunderstood and wrongly judged. 6 Moralism shows in the cult of prohibition. The moralist is a subjectivist without the ability to distinguish between appearance and reality, unessentials and essentials. Only he knows what is right and best for everybody. Anyone who refuses to adapt himself to him is dangerous to society. He is the patronizing man who, cancelling the law of development, commands that the individual change his nature and immediately be perfect. According to him, everything should actually be prohibited. As many prescriptions and prohibitions as possible is his motto. 7 Morality is an expression of hatred. After religion has lost its power and thus its value for persecution, morality is hatreds best weapon. As long as morality is useful as a means of persecution, slander will be used as a means of poisoning. As such, it is convenient and infallible. Nobody must be above any suspicion. Not even superior beings find favour with the moralists. They said of Jeshu that he was a drunkard and glutton, sat at table with harlots, and loafed about with the rabble on the roads. It is a pity we have not got a more complete catalogue of pharisaic calumny. The moralists have of course denied their spiritual kinship to these gossip-mongers. 8 Moralism is, first and last of everything, judging. Judging is the most common of all human phenomena. It is an innate, ineradicable habit, which has become a need and a pastime. Judging is an expression of hatred. Men will continue to judge until they have reached a higher stage and will hate not longer. Judging is presumption. Nobody, not even a god, has any right to judge. Anyone who judges, judges but himself and nobody else. In judging they make mistakes as to both the law of freedom and the law of unity. Nobody seems to realize that all suffer under this mutual judging, which poisons all social life and dissolves all community. Jeshus parable about the mote (my neighbours faults, vices, and crimes) and the beam (my judgement on them) does not seem to have been clearly understood as yet. The only thing that Jeshu condemned was hypocrisy, phariseism, moralism. The judgement of posterity is moralism, as is all other judgement. There must not be any ideals in human shape. Everybody must be dragged down into the mire, so that there will be full equality and nobody will be superior to anybody else. And so nothing is forgotten in the biography that can make it clear what a wretch the hero actually was. The grotesque searching out of faults and failings in the great ones of mankind is called the demand of truth and is regarded as a proof of scholarly acuity. They overlook the fact that the valets inability of appreciation and admiration bears witness to the valet himself. The fictitious morality of monkish asceticism, that perversion of life, cannot be dispensed with, because it is part of the cult of appearances and provides the need for hatred with its necessary motives. 9 There are many ways of masking judgement, men being specialists in concealing their motives of hatred also to themselves. 10 Hatred has many degrees from assessment to criticism, rejection, and persecution. We have not right to assess and analyse our fellow men. Man has a right to be himself without any curious 66

meddling in his psychological life. According to the law of freedom, he has a right to keep the world of his own consciousness to himself and be left in peace for others. 11 Men have a need for criticizing others. Everything which does not appeal to them and their arrogance, which diverges from their fictitiousness or illusoriness, disposes them unsympathetically and must be censured. Hatred is intensified by being practised. originally being but a need for criticism, it grows into a need for rejection and persecution. And in order to bring others along with them, they will finally stick at nothing. 3.46 Public Opinion Public opinion believes itself to be omniscient. How a certain opinion has arisen is perfectly unimportant to it. In any case it is sufficient to have a witness who has heard a thing from A, who has heard it from B, who has heard it from C, etc. ad infinitum. Public opinion need not bother about so ridiculous a thing as investigation. A fact of public knowledge is as good as one witnessed, says indeed the proverb (which thereby obviously makes testimonies dubious). Then you know it for then everybody knows it. Especially proverbs are useful then for they are the voice of the people. And the voice of the people is the voice of god, especially when the people of Pilate clamour for crucifixion. 2 One of the chimaeras of public opinion is that in our enlightened age with its right of free speech and free press, its free propaganda for, and criticism of, all kinds of opinions, everybody is able to form an independent judgement. Here they overlook the fact that just a minority of the population have the intellectual prerequisites of acquiring a mediocre knowledge within a reasonable time-limit, that the capacities for knowledge and for judgement are two widely different abilities (the former relatively common, the latter rare), that opinions are not facts and are seldom even based on sufficient facts. Add to this the fact that the individual has but in the rarest exceptional cases any time, opportunity, possibility, or even a mind to familiarize himself with complex problems, to find out all the facts in the matter, and balance the different hypotheses and theories against each other. The layman becomes dependent on the expert. The experts often disagree. Many people pose as experts without being it. That leaves the possibility of choosing experts. The layman chooses the authority whom propaganda, ever biassed, appoints or who confirms the (irrelevant) fictional system and prejudices or egoistic interests he has already before. The expert himself, who realizes the immense difficulties, is in most cases able but to state that thus far has research advanced, that it is impossible to foresee future discoveries. Where political experts are concerned, it can without exaggeration be said that they are believers. They have been sworn to a political theory in which they believe blindly. All political theories, however, are no more than attempts at orientation, and prove to be untenable if put into practice without discrimination. Everything said here is best summed up in Kierkegaards seeming paradox, saying that whenever the masses embrace a truth, it is thereby made a lie. For the masses make everything absolute so as to be eternally valid in all circumstances. However, only (real) facts are such absolute truths. All the others have a limited applicability, being valid in certain conditions, which, they too, as a rule change. Ignorance is ignorant of all this. The Nazi minister of propaganda, Goebbels, a real expert on the discrimination of public opinion, knew what he was talking about when he claimed that, with all the propaganda resources of the Reich at his disposal, he could within a week convince all Germans of the truth of any lie whatsoever. And not just all Germans. 3 The intellectual standard of public opinion is the lowest mental level: the level of ignorance, lack of judgement, uncritical acceptance, rumour, the sum total of guesswork and supposition in all their innumerable expressions. Public opinion is a total picture of the prejudices, dogmas, superstitions, mistakes, and misunderstandings of the times. Public opinion knows nothing that is worth knowing. But it believes all the more.
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The emotional standard of public opinion is the lowest emotional level but one, with a great risk of rapidly sinking to the very lowest, if hatred with indignation or malicious joy can be aroused. To this level belongs mass fury, made blind and senseless by psychoses, and capable of any atrocities whatsoever. 5 Public opinion is a typical example of the value of opinions and of the value of most peoples opinions. Public opinion determines the opinions of the majority outside the domain of everybodys special knowledge. Within our speciality we laugh at the view of the public and recognize its absurdity. But we fail to draw from this experience the otherwise almost immediate conclusion that it must be the same matter with our opinions within the specialist domains of others. We fail to draw this conclusion since we participate ourselves in public opinion outside our speciality. 6 An acute man was surprised at the old saw, de gustibus non est disputandum (there is no disputing about tastes), wondering what else one should dispute about. For there ought not to be any need for dispute about anything else. The learning of our times is immense. The actual knowledge, however, to be found in this learning is immensely small. Sokrates knew that he knew nothing (worth knowing). His utterance shows that he comprehended more than others. Public opinion is omniscient. 7 Public opinion is often shaped quite accidentally, it is true. But nowadays it is more often shaped by newspapers, which often are the propaganda instruments of ignorance and unreliability, when not being those of deliberate, paid misrepresentation. If a power interest and the papers are owned by power interests has found an opinion to be valuable for its aims, then nothing is trusted to chance. Then the public is systematically fed with all the means that slander, propaganda, advertising have at their disposal, until all citizens are of the same absolutely infallible, unassailable opinion. Therefore it is nowadays characteristic of public opinion that the papers have become its authorities. From the newspapers people learn what they should think and feel in order to know and speak absolutely rightly. People have been brought up into deferring their own independent opinion until they learn it from their paper. then they know. But what they do not know is that the small minority who really know also know how uncertain or even erroneous their information is. this is that public opinion which is handed down to posterity as - history. 8 Often the newspapers do science a disservice by turning the hypotheses and theories of the day into dogmas. The assumptions of authorities are given out as being the last word of science. The comical in this lies in the fact that after such an affair, as a rule only the authority is uncertain, knowing how problematic the whole thing is. Public opinion is all the more certain. for the authority must know! Otherwise he would not be an authority!! And the authority whose authority is at stake does not give the show away. Downright discreditable to everything in the way of authority is certain experts dashing testimony to their own fictional systems, dogmas, idiosyncrasies, and superstitions as to all kinds of subjects outside their own domains of research and insight. Thereby the authority shows that he has not learnt to distinguish between what he knows and knows not. That must lead to a general contempt for authority. 9 Public opinion has two infallible methods of judging a man. The one is that of slander, which is always true. No smoke without fire, which always proves the truth of rumour. The other is almost even more ingeniously simple, and consists in judging by success or failure. To this can be added the statement of an eminent esoterician, that the tribunal of public opinion is the most flippantly cruel, prejudiced and unjust of all tribunals.

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THE LAW OF DESTINY


3.47 THE LAW OF DESTINY The materialism of science, viewing the universe as ruled by eternal inflexible laws of nature, has in this very respect had the only correct conception of reality, and its superiority to all other views evolved in history has been brilliantly confirmed. Recognizing law as the supreme principle of existence, scientific explanations have liberated mankind from superstitions hostile to life, not least those accompanying the belief on the slavish dependence on the grace of divine arbitrariness. According to esoterics, the highest cosmic beings are subject to the Law. 2 Chaos means absence of purpose. In chaos the unconscious, eternally blind will of dynamic primordial matter rules in accordance with the dynamic law, or mode of expression, of primordial matter. The more manifestational matter is composed, the more composed are the constant complexes of manifestation. development is to discover and apply faultlessly the laws of manifestational matter. Everything is conditioned by causes, everything is conditioned by law. Arbitrariness is a mistake as to law, and results in chaos and formlessness. 3 Absolute freedom would be the freedom of arbitrariness and would abolish itself. Freedom is freedom by law, is limited by the Law. Supreme freedom is omniscience and omnipotence. Every atom has a possibility of, and a right to, supreme freedom. The temporary limitation to the freedom of any being depends on its ignorance of the laws of existence, its inability to apply these laws faultlessly, and the consequences of its mistakes about them. The higher a being has attained, the greater its freedom, its ability to solve the higher problems by itself. The freedom of the individual increases in a collective being in which, as a specialist in some function, he perfectly masters his function. 4 The Law (the sum total of all laws of nature and life) is the fundamental, unavoidable factor of destiny, and is valid for all beings, from the lowest to the highest one. It appears different at different stages of development. The higher a being has attained, the more differentiated is the Law, the more laws can be discerned, the more faultlessly can the laws be applied, the more clearly is seen the inevitability of all the laws. It is by the relatively faultless application of the Law (intentionally or unintentionally) in its faceting on each particular level that the individual reaches the next higher level and increases his freedom. 5 Destiny is the sum total of originally given conditions, and therefore limitations, with regard to the final goal. Every being develops under conditions that depend on the greater unit into which it enters as a part. Thus, for instance, the individual character and relative imperfection of the global being are a limitation for those who are dependent on its possibilities. All beings are moreover affected by the limitations resulting from everybodys freedom. 6 The process of manifestation is a process of freedom within the framework of the inevitable conformity to law. The only thing that is determined in this process is the final goal. Every being, every primordial atom, is potentially god. All the freedom the Law can grant follows from this. The inevitable, universal conditions disregarded, the process of manifestation is determined in its course by the evolving beings themselves. The process is the result of everybodys work. Every being, from the highest to the lowest, makes its contribution by all its consciousness expressions, intentionally or unintentionally, voluntarily or involuntarily. The higher a being develops, the greater is its purposeful contribution to the process. At lower stages of development, the human individual counteracts development or brings about disorder, everything on his own responsibility. According as consciousness expands in more and more individual characters, the total consciousness is enriched and the symphony becomes more fully vibrant. Nothing is finished. Everything is in becoming. The process is an eternal improvising and experimenting with the constantly new possibilities, which increase according as the process goes on. The process of manifestation is an enormously slow process to begin with; it gains greater speed the
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more beings that co-operate in it purposefully; and the final process will be a gigantic expansion of the totality. 7 The process of manifestation does not work according to any inflexible plan laid down in detail from the beginning, where each individual with his qualities predetermined were to have a function reserved for him. Such a plan is impossible. It is made impossible by the law of freedom alone, which grants to each being the right to choose its destiny in accordance with its individual character whose direction of development cannot be foreseen. 8 The chaos that ignorance, inability, and the repellent tendency brings about within a limited domain requires counter-measures. The representatives of the law of destiny see to it that the balance upset is restored, that cacophony is made into harmony. In most cases it is sufficient to refer the case to the representatives of the law of reaping. Only a tiny part of our consciousness expressions is limited to the present now. The greater part goes into the future with its causality as beginnings of, or contributions to, causal chains. These chains are gradually woven together to form the web of events in the future. The course of events of the present is the last link of a chain that was begun thousands of years ago. The destiny that man can at best foresee belongs to the very nearest release of his activity in the past. 9 The following additional remarks can perhaps contribute to make realistic thinking and foresight more comprehensible. 10 Without experience learning is dead knowledge. The ability to think objectively does not extend further than the ability of objective consciousness. The normal individual is a subjectivist in everything that goes beyond the lowest three physical molecular kinds. He must employ mental constructions (concepts, fictions). Anyone who has understood this makes the principle of objectivity a regulator of his subjectivism. Otherwise the result will be arbitrariness. Knowledge of higher worlds presupposes objective consciousness of their kinds of matter, since they must be experienced. Essential and higher consciousness have no need for any concepts, because these kinds of consciousness are at need instantaneously united with the realities sought. Anyone who thinks realistically thinks in the forms, modes of motion and of consciousness of reality. What has not as yet taken a form is beyond the grasp of consciousness. The higher the consciousness, the more of the future exists in the present. To manifestal consciousness the entire solar system its past, its meaning and goal, and all its causal chains already running into the future - exists in the present. To cosmic consciousness an ever greater part of the current processes of manifestation exists in the present, although to us they seem to belong to an ever more distant future. All higher beings live in the present. They do not worry about that future which is beyond their present. That is a matter for beings having a still vaster present. 3.48 Individual Character Individual character is the summation of the monads total experience of life during involvation, involution, and evolution. Each monad has its individual character, which develops by experience. Every experience has always some importance. Every experience always leaves some trace. Experience includes all kinds of affection, perception, individual activity. 2 The basis of individual character is laid in all the various kinds of affection during the first involvation into unconscious primary matter. The vibrations to which the monad is exposed differ from each monad. The combination of matter as well as their charges of energy, tensions, and series of vibrations are almost infinite in their variations. After some hundred aeons of such affection, every monad is in various respects different from every other. 3 Individual character is further differentiated by the experiences of passive consciousness in the evolutionary monad. The reflected images of passive vision from the infinitely varied conditions of life during aeons leave impressions. Every involutionary monad has had its particular experiences.
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Individual character is strengthened by the experiences of the evolutionary monad in the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms. During aeons of affection into adaptation, of dim groping and fumbling, of experiences rousing instincts, of instinctive reaction, of instinctive discerning and choosing, individual character crystallizes as an individual total synthesis of all unconscious and conscious experiences ever since the monad was introduced into the cosmos. 5 Anybody who is interested in plant and animal life can ascertain a more and more clearly marked individual character in the individuals of the species. This is of course especially manifest in the animals approaching the stage of causalization. 6 When the evolutionary monad has reached the human kingdom it brings with it an already fully developed individual character, which does not depend on any choice but is the product of the combinations of matter and the play of forces. 7 In every individual character two basic tendencies can be discerned, which pervade all nature; the opposition of positive and negative, active and passive, attractive and repellent. One of the two tendencies preponderates in every individual. In some, either tendency is driven to extremes. 8 The basic tendency appears more and more clearly with each higher evolutionary stage. Different individuals of the same animal species behave very differently. Some are kind, willing, teachable, strive to understand, etc. Others are proud, self-willed, domineering, cruel, etc. 9 In the animal ready to causalize, the qualities of the most dominant tendency sooner or later on a certain occasion become so eruptive emotionally and mentally that the animals first triad can achieve a contact with its second triad and thereby causalize. The qualities brought along in the newly formed causal body are those of the monad in the triad. They constituted the animals individual character, or individuality. 10 The influence of the environment at the animals causalization is of course an important factor, as are all other influences. Thus it can weaken or strengthen the basic tendency. It is not, however, the sole decisive factor. Besides, according to the law of affinity the individual is mostly attracted to the environment that satisfies his basic tendency. 11 Not all animals causalize as pet animals under the influence of human vibrations. Those which have causalized in periods of predominantly repellent vibrations are of course influenced by this in their individual characters. 12 The individual character is the individual, the first self, the individual self, is the selfs qualities and abilities, its insight and understanding, such as they find expression in the tendency and instincts of the personality. The personality is the self in the limitations of its incarnation. The wise man has respect for each individual character, however little he may sympathize with it. He knows that every individual is a potential godhead, which will some time in future aeons become an active divine being. This individual character will then be a particular power factor in the process of manifestation. Each being takes its own course of development through life and will reach the goal in the longer or shorter, more or less difficult, way assigned to it by its individual character. Every attempt at interference with the very individual character is presumption and blasphemy. The individuals failings appear in a wrong attitude to the laws of life, failings which the experiences of life gradually rectify. 13 Qualities and abilities can be divided into four groups: basic, or universally human; those belonging to the departmental types; those belonging to the stage or level of development; and the individual ones. The basic and departmental ones develop slowly throughout all the levels. The importance on life of the others increase or decrease. Unnecessary ones, those no longer cultivated, remain latent. Qualities and abilities develop in different orders and degrees of intensity, according to individual character and department. All qualities and abilities can be developed to perfection, the highest possible efficiency. The higher the stage of development, the more important are the abilities and the more other abilities are the prerequisites of the acquisition of new ones. Naturally, the civilizational individual lacks most, and the most important, qualities and abilities. 71

Qualities and abilities are acquired slowly, since they require a long experience of life. A fund of general experience of life is necessary before specialized experiences become possible. And even after the possibility exists, the specialization takes plenty of time and requires the work of several incarnations. Understanding has been acquired when one single experience of a certain kind on one life is sufficient to make it unnecessary to have a repeated experience of the same kind in the same life. 15 A certain quality corresponds to a certain feeling. Feeling and quality strengthen each other. By cultivating the feeling the quality is developed, and by attending to the quality the feeling is vitalized. A certain feeling belongs to a certain series of emotional vibrations, and the quality or complex is the ability to apprehend these vibrations or to produce them spontaneously. 3.49 The Basic Tendencies of Individual Character The two basic tendencies express themselves in attractive or repellent feelings and qualities: in devotion (admiration), affection, and sympathy; or in fear, anger, and contempt; in readiness to adaptation or in self-assertion. 2 When the self acts on the unconscious instincts of its basic tendency, it feels free. Ignorance with its illusions of life always feels free. When the illusions lose their power, freedom appears more and more clearly as conditioned by omniscience, and in the same extent the individual himself becomes the law, and thus free. Freedom is only won through law. 3 Those who walk the path of adaptation follow without friction the law of least resistance. They avoid any antagonism as far as possible. They go forward in life on paths which are on the whole straight and well beaten. They apply instinctively the life laws of freedom and unity. They avoid bad sowing and acquire the necessary insight and understanding relatively easy. They are the artists of life who follow the path of light. 4 Those whose individual character makes them resort to self-assertion, burst their way forward according to the law of greatest resistance. Of course all intermediary forms exist between the two opposite extremes. 5 Self-assertion, which actually is the inability to perceive unity, regards its own opposition to others as both unavoidable and essential. Their experience has made them look on others as strange, hostile beings. They fear, for they scent dangers, snares, cunning, deceit, treachery everywhere. They are angry, because they think they can find proof of malice or stupidity in all who oppose them or do not think or feel as they do. they despise, for they see but the levels below them, especially they being unable to find anything above them, and so all comparison must be in their favour. 6 Self-assertion refuses to learn in any other way than its own way. Those who act on that tendency, oppose as a matter of principle. They doubt, dislike, reject everything on which they have not put the stamp of their individual character, everything that does not dovetail with their fictions and illusions. They hate everything that affects them unpleasantly. 7 Self-assertion leads to complete self-blindness. They do not learn through ordinary mistakes, because the causes of their failures are always located in others. They learn only through painful experiences of insurmountable obstacles, insuperable resistance, of definite impossibility. In life after life they wander roundabout ways and reach impasses leading to nowhere. They orientate themselves in the jungle of life by choosing the path of discarded mistakes. 8 They do not understand that the happiness which consists in acting without obstacles is good reaping. Their satisfaction consists in breaking all obstacles down, carving their path without regard for the consequences to others. Unhesitatingly they transgress, when they can, the limits of the rights of others, violate the laws of freedom and unity, assert their will at the expense of all life. They go with waves of their own across the ocean. They fling their spears, with the warriors lawful intent to injure and kill, at even the most defenceless, who dare to stand just
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where they happen to make their way. 9 When this tendency is cultivated in life upon life, there are finally obtained those types who make world history. They get wealth and power by the right of might, of violence, and cunning. Unhesitatingly they plunge individuals and entire nations down into the most profound misery. Power is for them a means of oppressing and persecuting all who do not serve their aims, their whims, their hatred. But even such oppressors of life reach unity, although only after eons. 10 Those do not, however, who definitely refuse to give up self-assertion. Fortunately they are very few. They do not wish to enter into unity. They deny themselves the ever greater consciousness expansion of this unity. Of course his particular kind of self-assertion is not possible until objective knowledge of mans lower worlds had been acquired. And they know that, when the lower worlds will be dissolved, those who refuse to ascend higher will thereby lose their possibility of existence, or in any case their sphere of activity. Accordingly, they seek to arrest evolution in every conceivable way. They regard as their real enemies all who aspire higher, who serve evolution. According to circumstances they work for conservation of dogmas or for disorientating ideas, for revolutions or wars. Everywhere they attempt to create chaos. Only essential consciousness can identify them. They are the wolves in sheeps clothing, charming persons who in external respect lead saintly lives, truly honest men. 3.50 Self-Assertion and the Law of Compensation Those who pursue the path of self-assertion do so because that path is for them the one path and the right path. It is also the hardest, the heaviest path. It is the path on which the individual is gradually hammered out by suffering. 2 With the self-righteous presumption and arrogance that the moralists have chosen as their path of suffering, they condemn all who wander the path of self-assertion without hypocrisy. The wise man knows that admiration would be more becoming. For even though self-assertion develops man more slowly, yet his experiences are the more thorough and efficient. And according to the infallible justice of the causal law, those effects must manifest themselves. 3 In the worlds of unity, every individual is done justice to, every individual character asserts itself in the very manner that only it is able to, becomes a new instrument in the universal orchestra, a new power factor in the universal process. Each new factor enriches unity and benefits all. The greater, the stronger the individual character, the mightier also that collective being into which the individual will enter as a member after his opposition has been removed. The strange thing happens, to the moralists indignation, that what he named evil is transformed, not just into good, but into a greater good than the mediocre good. 4 Those who develop in the easiest way, sow less bad sowing, meet with less resistance, reap more happiness, lead more pleasant lives. Those who pursue the path of self-assertion, sow bad sowing, meet with resistance everywhere, reap more suffering. However, those who wander the path of suffering are not the meaningless victims of their past. The greater the resistance they overcame, the greater was the intensity of their experience, the keener were the abilities gained, the firmer the will and the stronger the power developed. 5 When in the worlds of unity the need arises for real capacities to fulfil particularly difficult tasks, it is not those who have wandered the happy path of light who are the possible choices at first hand. They play neither the first fiddle not the double bass in that orchestra. The law of compensation appears in that the last shall be first. 6 Those collective beings who out of the atoms of primordial matter shape manifestations in which evil is transformed, not just into final good, but moreover is calculated to make the worlds of manifestation richer, more fully vibrant, and the generation of power for good mightier, make the best possible of the inevitable conditions. The phrase the best of possible worlds sounds a deadly scorn to the ignorance of life. It is an esoteric axiom. Not the gods but men are responsible
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for the physical and emotional world of our planet deserving their name of hell. 3.51 The Destiny of the Self The final destiny of the self is the next higher self. Before that, the destiny of the self is the destiny of its various personalities (incarnations), the path the self wanders from causalization to essentialization. The self determines its destiny by itself in accordance with its individual character, department, and self-acquisitions. With each new developmental level, the self lays out its path of development by its own work at self-realization, by the general and particular trend and direction of its individual character. The number of incarnations is determined by the self through its indolence or intensity of purpose. No effort is ever wholly wasted. The greatest qualities have been developed from hopeless first attempts. 2 The personality (the envelopes of incarnation) is a product of the self. Every being shapes its future lives through its consciousness expressions. Every personality and its destiny are the work of the self in its previous personalities. 3 Destiny is the common term for the innumerable concurrent factors in the course of events. Every consciousness expression goes into that dynamic present, which to us is also the future. Every consciousness expression, together with is effects in words and actions, becomes a causal factor, a potential force, which awaits the moment of its re-action when the circumstances concerned will once again be in such a position that the balance disturbed can be restored. It can take many lives before this is possible. But it must come. And the individual never knows how and when. Our faults and merits, everything painful and pleasant, all weariness, anxiety, agony, etc. ad infinitum, are our own doing, even though others are the agents of destiny. It is by insignificant matters that the individual prepares his destiny. By thoughts, feelings, words, and actions, link is unnoticedly joined to link, to firmer and firmer links. The finest thread is twined together with new threads into an indestructible cable. And the cables are woven together into that web of causal chains which makes up the course of events. The nearer the moment of the release of the dynamic into mechanical events, the less probable is the introduction of new force factors that can alter the course of events. 4 By its previous incarnations the self has outlined its future personalities and their destinies in their basic features, not just those immediately following but a whole series of incarnations. In life upon life, the outline is filled more and more by the multitude of small details. Most consciousness expressions are not released into action. They go into the future and await their outlet in events through the impulses that release them. What does not find an outlet in some life will find it in a later one. Re-action is bound to come. All consciousness expressions are causes that have effects. The new personality goes forward in life on paths laid out and paved in previous lives. These paths are part of the selfs bondage. But this does not mean that our destiny is inflexibly predetermined. The course of events is like the result of force relations in a parallelogram of forces, which constantly is being shifted by newly introduced force moments. It can never be known whether a new inlet of force may not result in another direction of the outcome. The lower the stage of development, the less is the freedom, the less is the ability to introduce force factors that can alter the course of events. The cultural individual, by the change of his attitude to life, introduces quite a number of totally new force factors, which can in many respects completely change the otherwise fixed course of events. 5 The different personalities are the selfs attempts at orientation in a world that is originally incomprehensible, more or less a random gathering of experiences, a seeking that more resembles a roving. Of course life in the personalities at lower stages often appears meaningless, personalities with a bad reaping and in which the selfs latent possibilities have on the whole remained latent. The personality has never been given any opportunity to make a contribution of some kind, never been able to find a sphere of activity, never been able to find its bearings in an
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environment that is alien to its being. The higher the level, the more rational is the choice of experiences. The time and powers of the personality are limited. Most learning is fictitious and unessential to the self. 6 In each new personality the self must through its own work develop abilities already acquired, in order to reach its true level. The activation begins from bottom up and is done more easily in every incarnation, until the final automatization will some time be possible. Freedom increases with each higher level, since the instinct of the Law increases, the contact with the superconscious is more easily effected, and the reaping is more purposeful. The most important incarnations are seldom remarkable in external respect. Obscurity is the best soil for all growth of consciousness. 7 At lower stages, the destiny of the personality is principally determined by the factors of the law of reaping. The more primitive the individual, the less his ability of self-realization, the less important are the factors of development. At the stage of civilization, the individual, with his yet unformed individual character, his ignorance of life, his undeveloped qualities and abilities, needs most kinds of possible experiences. At the stage of culture, the factors of development have a greater influence and importance. Striving after development increases the selfs freedom in increasingly more respects. 8 There is a way of reducing to a minimum the importance of the law of reaping and the power of the factors of reaping. And that is that radically changed attitude which gives up all personal desires, all claims to a good reaping and personal happiness; which lives but to make others happy. The result of this good sowing is accelerated development, instead of the good reaping denied oneself. This explains the esoteric axiom saying that good reaping is a sign of ignorance of life: happiness is preferred to development. They do not realize that happiness intensifies egoism and they sow worse sowing thereby. 9 The sufferings of the personality are always hard to bear. The inexperienced always think that nobody can understand how much they suffer. The suffering man often thinks that no future bliss can compensate these agonies. Later, in the mental world, there seems to be no possible justification for his inconceivable bliss. The hardest thing to endure in suffering is the prospects of imagination that suffering is endless. Increased suffering prolongs the sojourn in the mental world. 10 Before the first self can finally become a perfected second self, it must have transformed its own past into relative perfection. This is possible since the past is never something inflexibly determined for eternity, but lives on in the dynamic present as an active factor in it. All the mistakes of the first self ever since it causalized must be effaced. This means a Sisyphean labour for those of repellent individual character. For instance, those who have gone astray because of actions by the self must be sought out, and through a patience that makes everything good they must be loved forth, until they have regained what they have lost. All the evil that the self has done must be cancelled from the globe memories. All discords in that symphony, which the self has to compose in his human life, are turned into enriching harmonies. 3.52 The Common Destiny of the Collective The collective destiny is the common final goal and the common path to the goal. Every collective is a community of destiny. The individual belongs to many kinds of collectives: mankind, his race, nation, social class, clan, family. 2 In a nation organized according to the age of the causal classes, the various social classes represent different developmental levels. Whenever the conditions exist for such an arrangement, the individuals are born into the classes to which they belong. These classes form different strata of acquired experience heritage benefits those incarnating, so that they get opportunities of activating their latent knowledge and are able to continue immediately from where they
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previously stopped. the social class will then be made up of clans (groups of families), the individuals of which have causalized together and are presumed to essentialize together in the future. They are brought together in order to acquire understanding of each others individual characters, to trust each other, to learn to co-operate, jointly to serve evolution and mankind, everything with a view to common tasks in the future as a unitary collective being. 3 In Atlantis, millions of years ago, mankind was lead by its true lite. The eternally envious and discontented lowest classes started a revolution, as always, assumed power, and drove the lite away. Ever since, mankind has had its own way: to look after its own affairs. Ignorance of life, arrogance, superstition, and barbarism have held sway. Awakening wiseacre reason which believes itself to possess knowledge when able to construct fictions, has been the guide of mankind. So-called universal history bears witness, at least in broad outline, to the result, and is the known part of the story of mankinds suffering. 4 The classes mixed at random according to the law of reaping have in succession got power in society, and have, as always of course, abused their dominating position to the detriment stratum in power. If the social and economic conditions of class stability are removed, then social chaos arises. Social mobility (also it in accordance with the law of reaping) accelerates social disintegration. The well-meaning ignorance of life, which confuses brotherhood with democracy, grants power to those masses which unfailingly become the victims of demagogues. 5 We are born into collectives on account of ancient relations with individuals in those collectives, to pay our debts, to help in our turn those who have helped us. We can always learn from common experiences. It is certain that we are in debt, debts that it is very wise of us to pay off, acting on the assumption that we are doing too little rather than too much. In tens of thousands of incarnations we have abused our power to the detriment of others, managed to violate the right of others in every respect, traded on others, participated in every respect through our idiocy and brutality in that war of all against all which has raged on our earth since millions of years. 6 The fact that all these mistakes have to a great extent been due to our ignorance of life, does not alter the Law. Mistakes are mistakes no matter what they concern. All life is a unity. This is the basis of brotherhood, not just where men are concerned. And mistakes against unity are always serious. The relation with a collective entails a responsibility for all in the collective. One for all and all for one as for a debt of their own does not just apply to personal guarantees. There is but one away of avoiding increased responsibility; and that is to take on ourselves the responsibility for evil heroically, and to sacrifice ourselves, if that should be necessary. We have so many times demanded sacrifice of others. People would not so heedlessly assume the burden of responsibility if they had any idea of what responsibility means. They greet the offer of it as an opportunity of self-assertion, and do not see any further than to illusory safety. 7 If we do not do what we can to fight evil (only with the weapons of good, of course), then we shall be born into evils similar to those we could have removed. It is on everyones responsibility that wrong may be done, evils may remain, any kind of power may be abused, lies of life may be preached unchallengedly, absurdities may be engrafted into the trustful minds of children and idiotize their dawning understanding of life, any kind of suffering may exist without measures being taken to remedy it. It is for us to refuse loyalty when injustice holds sway. it is not for us to decide whether our sacrifice is of any use. 8 Only the total ignorance of life and lack of discernment can cast the blame on superior beings for the distress of the world, for the horrifying misery of life; can demand that superior beings put everything right that we have caused, that they break the Law so that mankind shall be allowed to continue with its atrocities. No evil can befall anyone who has not done evil, who has ultimately reaped the bad sowing he has sown during tens of thousands of incarnations. It is men who have made life into a hell. That debt of life will not be paid off until we have all made life into a heaven, unassisted restored everything to what it is in higher worlds. 76

It is a dreadful blasphemy to cast the blame on those wondrous collectives of the unity of life, who live but to serve; to cast on them all the evil we have done, impute to them arbitrariness and hatred (wrath, threats of punishment, curses, etc.). Such accusations are boomerangs that return with the reinforced power that corresponds to the force field passed by them. 10 Superior beings administer the Law. They have no right to help those who have forfeited any right to help, to protect the truth when all spread lies, to defend innocence when all outrage it, to prevent wrong-doings when all do wrong. It is for us to set things right and avoid all such stupidity in the future. 11 In the happy epochs of mankind, the individual is born into his clan, where he can feel at home among none but friends, who facilitate everything for each other instead of, as now, seeking to hinder each others self-realization. In his clan he understands the importance of the group-being. All strive after unity, work concertedly for evolution, serve mankind. Common ideals inspire all, who wholeheartedly sacrifice their self-importance, prejudice, demands on others, desire to decide, to lead, to rule. Full tolerance reigns in everything that does not concern the ideal. Envy, suspiciousness, criticism, disharmony are precluded. Everybody cherishes absolute trust for everybody. In such a group, which regards the group as a higher unit, the group power is generated. That power raises the level of all its members and also facilitates the solution of individual problems. It brings about results that exceed a hundredfold the results which the members can achieve working separately.

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THE LAW OF REAPING


3.53 THE LAW OF REAPING The law of reaping, the law of sowing and reaping, the law of cause and effect in the domains of the causality of life, is a law consequential on the law of balance, or restoration. This law is absolutely valid in all world and for all beings. It applies to thoughts, feelings, various kinds of motives, as well as to words and actions. 2 The law of reaping is a law that acts with absolute necessity. It is no law of arbitrariness, reward, retribution, or of punishing vengeance. It is continually active in the most surprising, unexpected ways in all circumstances of life and in everything we meet with. The infinitely varied relations of life in each new situation offer to every individual a flexible working out of the unlimited variations of the law of reaping. 3 The law of reaping is the law of absolute justice. Injustice in any respect whatsoever is absolutely out of the question. Justice is done impersonally, objectively, incorruptibly. Debits and credits are balanced to the last penny. Injustice is a manner of speech of the ignorant and the envious. 4 Where mankind is concerned, this law acts in all human worlds. Reaping as well as sowing can be of a gross physical, physical-etheric, emotional, mental, or causal kind. 5 Reaping is of three principal kinds: 1) The not yet liquidated reaping remnant from all previous incarnations. Most people have already fixed their reaping in broad outline for many incarnations to come. 2) The reaping fixed for each particular incarnation. Everything of particular importance for the personality in a new life is part of what is already fixed. Whatever can appear as an immediate effect depends on similar circumstances in past lives. 3) Quick reaping according as an effect follows immediately on a cause in the lesser varied circumstances of life. 6 The law of reaping is as terrible as the individual is or has been. The law of reaping is merciful to those who have been merciful, and merciless to those who have been merciless. 7 By the standards by which man measures also he shall be measured. People are unsuspecting of what standards they use. Those of most people are the standards of hatred (of envy, smallmindedness, vengefulness, vulgarity). 8 The higher the level of development of a being, the greater is the effect of mistakes made by or against that being. 9 The law of reaping can wait an unlimited time. But a sowing must be reaped. 10 The law of reaping is the law of mechanical justice, the law of destiny is the law of development and of individual character.
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3.54 The Law of Reaping and Other Laws of Life If there were only good reaping, nobody would care about the meaning of life, nor do research or find any laws. We take happiness to be our natural right of life and all misfortunes to be the iniquities of life. And this we do because life is happiness and was never meant to be a hell. It is we men who have made life into what it s. Misfortune and suffering cause life to appear meaningless. It actually is, but it is we who have made it meaningless and still persist in our madness. 2 Every thinking man has pondered on the problem of evil. The most acute minds have declared that problem unsolvable. Others have exhausted all the possibilities of speculation to produce absurdities. The blame has been cast on god and the whole world, but never on ourselves. Their very self-importance has always hindered men to find the correct solution of their problems. 3 Anyone who has not discovered the law of reaping is hopelessly disorientated in the worlds of
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man. He becomes the victim of his fictions. That is part of bad reaping and becomes new bad sowing. We are responsible for idiotizing our power of judgement. We must be able to learn something from life ourselves, not just blindly parrot the guesswork of others. The fact that milliards of people have believed something, or that it appeals to our feelings, does not prove anything. The intellectual heritage of mankind is 99 per cent made up of fictions. It is not to be wondered at that we cannot learn anything from history. 4 Anyone who has discovered the law of reaping, has no difficulty in subsequently finding the laws of freedom, unity, and self-realization. They follow from the law of reaping as the simplest corollaries. Through sowing and reaping the individual acquires necessary experiences of life. He develops in life upon life, acquiring qualities and abilities. At the stage of culture, his causal superconscious becomes an instinct of life. Then he makes rapid progress. When he is able to experience the mighty revelations of causal intuitions, he cannot doubt any longer. For then he knows. 3.55 The Law of Reaping and the Ignorance of Life At the stage of civilization, the individual has developed so much power of judgement that he can be taught to comprehend that existence is an unsolvable enigma to his reason. But he often is unable to draw the conclusion from this that no human reason is able to solve that problem. Certainly, Buddha said that human reason could not solve the problems of the existence of god, the existence and immortality of the soul, and free will. But Buddha was a heathen, so you could not believe him. Many acute philosophers and famous scholars were needed to make people believe themselves able to understand that. 2 We could not know. Therefore we were right to believe. And thus we accepted the fictions that had become ineradicable ideas by being engrafted into the childish mind. We were in good company if believing what our fathers believed. And then there was a rich literature through which to be fortified in the one true faith. That solved the problem. After that it was not worthwhile for anyone to put forward any new hypotheses, for they had to be wrong. There was something said about sowing and reaping, though. But every farmer knew what that was. That you really could sow and never come to see the reaping, or reap without knowing anything about the sowing, that surely was so patently absurd that it must be something in the way of what the learned call a paradox. Besides, we had been taught that if only we clung really tight to the promise of divine arbitrary grace, then we would not need to worry anymore about the desert of our evil deeds. Our good deeds we should be paid for, of course. 3 Rather any absurd belief whatsoever than assuming something so painful and fatal as our responsibility for our future incarnations. Rather to blame the apple of knowledge, kids pinching apples, and gods punishing righteousness as the cause of all misery. The simplest judgement and sense of justice make it clear that in that story, it was the fancied monster, whom the theologians continue making into god, who made the mistake, and so he really should by angry with himself and not take his own stupidity put on countless milliards whom he goes on creating in order to gratify his insatiable vengefulness. Such a ghastly blasphemy entails responsibility. It is , however, wholly in character with a mankind that continues seeking reasons for casting suspicion on the noblest of beings, and finding out motives for he satisfaction of their mania for murder. 4 That faith is ignorant is possibly an explanation but no defence. Mistakes are mistakes no matter what they concern. You do not cancel any laws of nature or laws of life simply by denying their validity.
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To the ignorant of life who has a bad reaping, life appears either meaningless or unjust. It is meaningless when you cannot find satisfaction in any occupation, or find any aim to work for. It is unjust when you look at how well off others are. 2 They are radiant with health. You are feeble and ill. They have plenty of everything they can reasonably desire. You are poorly off. They are given opportunities of education and of learning everything they wish to, find it easy to profit by everything they learn, You have to remain ignorant, and fail in your studies. They get friends everywhere. You look for friends in vain. They have benefactors everywhere who help them in all ways. You meet with indifference, coldness, or opposition. They succeed in everything they set about. You fail in everything. They are happy. You are unhappy. With such experiences in one respect or other, life must certainly appear as simply one great injustice. 3 In comparison with others, was it not? But appearances are deceptive. Nobody perceives the torments behind the smiling mask. The heart alone knows its own bitterness. A few examples chosen at random. Benjamin Constant, who in all respects appeared exceptionally enviable to his contemporaries, wrote at the end that all his life he had continually gone through greater sufferings than the condemned man at the place of execution. Behold Man! Goethe - a sovereign genius, handsome, healthy, whose life was just one long triumph - at the age of eighty estimated the happy moments of his life at four weeks in all. It was he who wrote: When man in agony falls silent, a god grants me to utter how I suffer. 4 The deceptive illusions of life hold out the prospect to the ignorant that happiness is to be found where he is not. He avoids the present and drags along his miserable self everywhere. The wise man knows that he who does not find happiness within will never find it without. It is so easy to envy others, about whom you actually know nothing worth knowing. To envy those who, loaded with the bounties of life, miss extraordinary opportunities of serving life, and who waste the chances of their future lives in order to gratify their insatiable egoism, is to envy very bad sowing. 5 People have demands on life, not suspecting the fact that by their doings in thousands of incarnations they have forfeited every right to any demands whatsoever, even though those serious mistakes which belong to a certain level have been reaped at that level. 6 The only way of being spared the injustice of life in lives to come is to be just yourself. The just man makes no fatal mistakes about unknown laws of nature, because justness is an unerring instinct of life. The egoist makes mistakes as infallibly, at least about the law of unity. 3.57 The Law of Reaping and the Agents of Reaping All evil which the individual meets with is bad reaping. No evil can befall anyone who has not a bad sowing to reap. Not even his worst enemies can harm him the least if the law of reaping does not permit it. All people (or other beings or circumstances) who directly or indirectly, intentionally or unintentionally, benefit or harm us are the unwitting agents of reaping. If they do us great services or inflict real suffering on us, then there are usually personal relations since lives past. Clan individuals are given opportunities of helping each other by turns in life upon life. Spiteful individuals have possibilities of persecuting each other by turns in life upon life. Nobody can against his will be forced to be the voluntary agent of bad reaping. It is up to the individual whether he wishes to be the agent of good or of bad reaping. If adversities are predetermined, then misfortunes must come. But it is always fatal to the one who in this is the voluntary agent of reaping. Nobody can suspend the effects of the law of reaping. If an individual is to remain unhelped, then people will be incapable of helping him, no matter how they try. The will to help always becomes a good sowing. Neglect makes you lose an opportunity of good sowing, or it becomes a bad sowing. The proverbial phrase, as you make your bed, so on it you must lie, implies that you may lie when it is your turn to have made your bed.
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The man who is wise in life avoids becoming the agent of bad reaping. He will help as a matter of principle whenever and wherever he can, without reservations or expectations. It is not for the individual to administer justice or take justice into his own hands. Revenge is always a bad sowing. Such things are part of the acts of folly brought about by ignorance and hatred. 3 Other peoples hatred is not always due to bad reaping. The phrase, he had no enemies, is not unambiguous praise. Even avatars have enemies. Spiteful individuals who cultivate hatred, end up in being compelled to hate everybody. The hatred complex can stifle all other feelings. Such spiteful individuals avail themselves of every opportunity to bring others with them in their hatred. All they meet and all they hear about become their victims. Inevitably they spread the pestilence of hatred in ever wider circles, and infect all they can reach. If that tendency is cultivated in life upon life, then we have in the end those monsters in human shape, who as the agents of collective reaping have been called the scourge of god. 4 When, some time in the future, mankind has developed so far that many researchers can make use of the esoteric archive, then we shall have the authentic descriptions that make it possible to study the effects in history of the laws of destiny and of reaping. After that it is to be hoped that mankind will be able to avoid making the same mistakes that recur again and again. The fact is, however, that according to the law of self-realization, individuals of a repellent tendency follow the path of discarded mistakes, finding the truths only when they have already realized them. Those who choose to follow that path have chosen the hardest path. 3.58 The Law of Reaping and Suffering Happiness as well as suffering is our own doing. All suffering is consequences of mistakes about the life laws of freedom and unity. Nobody has to suffer who has not himself inflicted suffering on other beings. All suffering we cause others will in due time become our own suffering. If an individuals suffering is incurable, then he has inflicted incurable suffering on others. 2 Nobody can suffer for the sake of another. Nobody can exempt anybody from a bad reaping by taking his sufferings on him. We can take the sufferings of others on us, voluntarily suffer more than is intended for a particular incarnation, only in case we still have a bad reaping remnant. But by this we do not exempt others from their reaping, just put it off till a later occasion. 3 Suffering is of three kinds: physical, emotional, and mental. The physical suffering, which is the most difficult to cure, science tries to relieve. The emotional can be related to the elemental of reaping, hatred, or ignorance. The suffering of hatred is essentially fear. That of ignorance is connected with imagination and the will. Imagination can strengthen or weaken suffering almost to any extent whatsoever. Suffering can be dispelled by an act of will, by refusing to suffer, refusing to attend to anything which causes suffering, by noble indifference, stoicism, heroism. The mental suffering can depend on mental defects. But usually it is caused by brooding or concern as consequences of uncontrolled thinking, and it is removed by thinking of something else. 4 Despite the fact that all suffering is self-inflicted, it always carries with it some sort of compensation. It results in a prolonged sojourn in the mental world. Often it is also compensated for in the physical world, by success in some respect, deeper understanding, etc. Vagueness or inability in their younger days are part of the suffering of many geniuses. 5 The inevitable suffering according to the law of reaping is usually just a fraction of the actual suffering. Nine-tenths of the sufferings of the civilizational individual depend on his wrong manner of meeting suffering, and on his aversion to controlling his attention, imagination, and will. Anyone who has attained the stage of culture, has most of his suffering behind him. Anyone who has definitely placed himself under the law of unity, can never more be put in insuperable
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difficulties in future incarnations. 6 Suffering is seldom incurable. Most kinds of suffering are limited in time as well as in extent and intensity. Even an incarnation of suffering can present oases in the desert of life. 7 We should always seek remedies for suffering wherever help can be obtained; always, everywhere, in all respects fight all kinds of suffering, and never tire. Such efforts result in good sowing according to the law of unity, and counteract evil in the world. 3.59 The Sowing and Reaping of Consciousness Expressions People believe they are not responsible for what they think or feel. They have not done anything, have they? All self-initiated consciousness expressions in all worlds produce vibrations that affect, for better or for worse, all who are reached by them. Every consciousness expression has an effect. It is true that its action is minimal in most cases. But repetition strengthens the tendency as well as the effect. The accumulation of unnoticeable causes finally becomes measurable effects. 2 Thought is the greatest factor of reaping. It produces feelings, which result in words and actions. All mental vibrations can be apprehended by all mental bodies. The universal language of thought is understood immediately by all. The mental body is a sender and receiver working tirelessly, restlessly, and efficiently. Every subject-matter has its own wave-length. The greater the familiarity with a certain subject-matter, the greater the possibility of telepathy in it. Those whose mental receivers are momentarily tuned in to the wave-length of the same thought, are influenced by it. 3 At the emotional stage (the stages of barbarism, civilization, and culture), the emotional consciousness expressions (desire, feeling, and imagination) are the most activated and, consequently, the most dynamic ones (qualified by will). The emotional vibrations do not reach as far as the mental ones, due partly to the greater primordial atomic density of emotional matter, partly to the masses of vibrations crossing, disturbing, checking each other. The pressure of public opinion is enormous because of its standardized mass thinking and mass feeling. The emotional and mental worlds are the worlds of disorientation, because of the fictitiousness and illusoriness of the thought-forms existing in them. 4 At the stages of barbarism and civilization, the consciousness expressions of most people belong under bad sowing and bad reaping. You strengthen whatever you attend to. The moralists, who concentrate on the faults and failings of others, automatically strengthen the worst sides in all, transfer their evil thoughts to their victim, thereby strengthening the tendency to hatred that may be there and reducing his power of resistance. We sow much bad sowing and cause much suffering by our mere thoughts and feelings. 5 Most thoughts and feelings are egocentric. Everything is considered and judged with regard to how it concerns the fictions and illusions of ones personality, egoistic advantages and disadvantages. The result is of course more or less unreal, perverted, idiotic. 6 Hatred arouses hatred, is strengthened by each repetition, blinds, makes it impossible to understand life, prevents the contact with and reception of attractive vibrations, makes life harder for all, counteracts self-realization, increases the number of incarnations of suffering. 7 By giving way to feelings of depression we tune in the receiver of our subconscious to the wave-lengths belonging to the lowest regions of the emotional world, and thereby we easily become the victims of those horrible vibrations of the agony of life which the ancients symbolized by the chasing Furies. 8 The feelings of admiration, devotion, sympathy, etc., belonging to love, attraction; are the most powerful factor of development. Sympathy is necessary to understanding, attracts us to what we sooner or later must learn. Antipathy repels and separates us from unity. With love life can be made a paradise. With hatred it will always remain a hell. All this has been preached to mankind
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during millions of years. But it is only at the stage of culture that we understand and draw the consequences. 9 We communicate with other people by our words. Speech is an enormously efficient means of influencing others. Ignorance has not the faintest idea of its unconscious effect in the subconscious. Speech strengthens the vibrations of our thoughts and facilitates telepathy. By our speech we influence others for better or for worse, help them or hinder them in their striving, free or bind, unify or divide, heal or wound, spread the pestilence of hatred and seduce others to join us in hatred. 10 By thinking or speaking ill of others we make mistakes both as to the law of freedom and the law of unity, the most important laws in respect of reaping. According to the law of freedom, everybody has a right to have his personality and private life left alone, away from other peoples curiosity, obtrusiveness, desire to psychologize and judge. 11 You are not good because you perform good deeds. But if you are good, then good actions spring up automatically and spontaneously from your disposition of mind. We all make up a unity and exist in order to help each other. By hindering others we have set three different kinds of forces going: those acting according to the law of reaping, the law of freedom (which restrict freedom), and the law of unity (which separate). 3.60 Good Sowing Good sowing is to apply the laws of life without friction. Nature is dominated by applying the laws of nature. By applying the laws of life the individual becomes a master of life. 2 Good sowing is to cultivate the tendency to unity; to work for acquiring noble feelings and qualities, insight and understanding; to strive after self-realization. 3 By taking advantage of the possibilities of remedying existing social evils we get valuable experiences, reduce suffering in the world, get the right to greater possibilities of sowing a good sowing in the future. 4 Good sowing is to bring children up in love, is to bear suffering heroically, is indifference to other peoples expressions of hatred, is to counteract the cult of appearances, lie, and hatred. 5 Very good sowing and the quickest liberation from egoism is to do what is right simply because it is right, without any thought of your own advantage or disadvantage, of gratitude or reaping; and also to assist those on higher levels instead of, as hitherto, counteracting them. 6 By systematically cultivating the feelings of joy, happiness, by being like sunbeams for other people, we increase happiness in the world and especially for those around us. Nothing can brighten a grey and irritating life as much as just kindness. 7 By thinking good of all people, on principle and without exceptions, we strengthen the best tendencies in everybody, and make life easier to live for all. This also has the result that we become invulnerable and find refuge with all. 8 Only the speech that is true, benevolent, and helpful is good sowing.
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3.61 Good Reaping Good reaping includes the benefit of belonging to a civilized nation. There is a veritable competition for the places in the cultural families, for a purposeful milieu to grow up in, for ennobling company (teachers, superiors, friends), for chances of acquiring knowledge and abilities, insight and understanding. 2 Good reaping is health and all the good things that life grants to us without our doing, or makes it possible for us to gain from life. 3 The best reaping can be said to include opportunities offered of rapid development through experiences promoting unity, and of being together with geniuses of life, artists in living, and self-realizers.
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Without a good reaping we shall never find happiness, however much we pursue it. We are happy in so far as we have made others happy. 5 Power, glory, wealth are good reaping only at higher stages. Until then, the ignorance of life will not be able to avoid abusing those seeming favours of life. 3.62 Bad Sowing What good sowing is we comprehend easily enough. Bad sowing, however, belongs to our rooted habits, the erroneous notions and false life view of moral illusionism, our own blindness in life. Without suspecting it, we heave out our sowings of hatred by our consciousness expressions, thinking we are most excellent. This idiocy seems incurable, which it is at the stage of civilization. The examples of our mistakes in life cited below can, of course, be but a few of the most frequent ones. The moralist sets up a great number of taboos, observes them, and by that he has fulfilled all righteousness. But as easily as that will no one avoid his responsibility in life. At the present stage of development, we make on the whole nothing but mistakes. The best way of avoiding them is to try to reach higher levels with the greater understanding of life that they afford. 2 All mistakes as to the laws of life are both bad sowing and bad reaping. Interpreting the realities of life is a difficult matter, because of the very scant knowledge of life at present. The greater the ignorance of life, the greater the cocksureness. The mistakes cannot be classified according to the laws of life, since usually they fall under several of them simultaneously. 3 A common mistake under the law of self-realization is to quit working for your own development, to fancy you understand everything and are approaching the goal. Nobody has ever anything done is perhaps a paradox, but it shows an understanding of life. And you do not develop through just being nice. We all have, none excepted, infinitely much undone, an immense series of levels above us. Those who think they are ready have not reached far, though evidently as far a possible for them in that particular incarnation. With that idiotic attitude, however, there will never be any rapid career in life. 4 Bad sowing includes the entire cult of appearances, of lie, and of hatred, all manifestations of the tendency to separateness. All speech that is not true, kind, helpful belongs to it. This esoteric axiom of life alone would silence the moralists if they could control their hatred. The common contempt, especially in periods of democratic equality, for all on higher levels, belongs to it. To hate those who have placed themselves under the law of unity and are earnestly trying to serve mankind, is one of the many serious mistakes in life of the moralists. 5 All demands are hostile to life, kill the sense of unity, make the ideals repulsive, and arouses defiance. What is not brought forth in love is unfit for life. Judgement is everything by which we seek to exclude somebody from his right to unity, to the community of all, and to our hearts. By judging man loses that unity to which he would otherwise have a right. Anyone who does not desire unity, leaves it of his own accord. It is not for us to see that justice is done in the matter of the laws of life. There can be no peace on earth until people have understood that. 6 Suspiciousness is a great provocative factor. Many people form by it that illusory reality which confirms their distrust or produces the foreseen. Distrust poisons all community, grows and is directed to more and more people, destroys what trust has built up. 7 Abuse of knowledge leads to the loss of knowledge through such circumstances in future incarnations that no chances will be given to activate the latent capacity. The Atlanteans possessed knowledge. Atlantis went down. Mankind lost its intellectual heritage and was forced to begin anew gathering experiences. 8 All kinds of abuse of power are fatal mistakes as to the laws of freedom and unity. It will be a very long time before new opportunities of abusing power will be to hand again. And the intervening period of impotence or injustice is very bitter.
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Suicide is a serious mistake in life. It extends its effects over several incarnations, does not solve any problems (which must be solved), only complicates and aggravates them still more. 10 The worst sowing possible is to inflict suffering on other beings, to take revenge, to act the part of punishing providence. Those who do wrong that right may come thereof, expect good reaping from bad sowing. The suffering we have inflicted on others is returned to us regardless of our motive. 11 Finally, bad sowing includes the ordinary, wrong, perverted manner of meeting the bad reaping. 12 Bad sowing (individual and collective) is the greatest obstacle to development. 3.63 Bad Reaping Bad reaping includes most things in life, everything that cannot be called happiness, everything that torments and displeases us, not just obvious bad luck in life, The law of reaping is the law of individual adjustment, which considers the individual character, idiosyncrasies, complexes, and emotional states of the individual, with a well-balanced effect. In most circumstances of life the understanding of life is made easier if you take into account the significance of the levels in various respects, and, to avoid absolutifying, calculate with a gradation, for example on a percentage basis. The more your view of life is determined by a more profound conception of existence as being absolutely conditioned by law and absolutely devoid of divine arbitrariness, the less is the risk of erroneous views. 2 Not everything that the individual meets with in life is unavoidable, not everything is fixed and predetermined in detail. Not all bad reaping needs to be manifested in these ways, not always is misjudgement unavoidable for us. But the law of reaping acts in everything, and utilizes all possibilities and chances that arise. The higher the level the individual has reached, the greater are his possibilities of modifying the effects of the law of reaping in the particular cases. However, all sowing must be reaped sooner or later. The blow we deal to another will some time hit us with exactly the same effect. 3 Bad reaping includes a race, nation, class, family, teachers, superiors, friends, company, etc. that lower the individuals level. It includes all kinds of sufferings, defects, sorrows, disappointments, adversities, obstacles, losses, etc. ad infinitum. It includes missing possibilities of acquiring knowledge, insight, understanding, qualities, abilities, skills, etc. 4 Bad reaping at the stage of civilization often includes power, wealth, glory, etc. Brilliant success in life as a rule corrupts the favourite of luck. The ignorance of life, presumption, or self-importance imagines a lot of idiotic things about the infallible insight and understanding of its own capacity, and abuses opportunities offered by sowing a fatally bad sowing. 5 Misfortunes and sufferings at the stage of culture are always calculated so as to be borne and not to break the individual down. They can be tests, which, if passed, mean an extra good sowing, or a giant stride upwards. They are often intended to develop desirable qualities. Evident blindness in life in some respect is a bad reaping at the stage of culture, as are all faults. Failings, however, depend on missing qualities. 6 Consciousness development in the human kingdom could go on in an ever increased tempo. The fact that for most people it takes many times longer time than necessary, is due to their bad sowing, not so much through definite malice as by moralism, omission, and indifference. It takes a long time before all the bad sowing is reaped.
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3.64 Collective Sowing and Reaping Life is misery. And so it is because we have ourselves made the physical and emotional worlds into hells and still continue sowing hatred and the lies of life. Physical life is the hardest. Illness, disablement, hunger and thirst, cold and heat, exist in the physical world only. The
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emotional world is the world of desires, feelings, and imagination, intensified a thousandfold. In it, hatred and the terrible fictions of imagination rage without restraint. But anyone who relies on the sovereignty of his own will, remains inaccessible and invulnerable, and does not need to suffer. The unavoidable suffering belongs to the physical world. Both worlds will remain hells, however, until mankind has restored everything to what it was intended to be, and made them into the abodes of happiness for all. We shall remain unhappy on this planet of sorrow until we have accomplished that work, made the worlds of hatred into worlds of love, the worlds of division into worlds of unity, the worlds of lie into worlds of truth. Suffering will not be diminished until mens attitude to life will be radically changed. Men have done and still do whatever they can to let the frightful need of mankind continue. They circumscribe the freedom, ruin the joy, wreck the happiness, of other people. They spread daily their pestilence of hatred, infecting everything. They hinder, hamper, counteract, oppress, cast suspicions, slander, injure, revenge, etc. ad infinitum. An incredible blindness. And then they accuse life of the outcome of all the stupidity, iniquities, and outrages of human ignorance and egoism. The simplest power of judgement should, despite the prevalent idiocy, at last be awakened to see and understand. 2 The collective original sin is great. We inherit, as Goethe intimated, like a disease eternal, not only national debt and inhuman social systems, but also the fictions and illusions of ignorance in most domains of human life. We inherit ideologies of the one and only saving democracy, dictatorship, war, and revolution. We inherit ignorance and barbarism in power. The fact that the responsibility is shared by many does not mean that the individual share is less. Collective responsibility means unequivocally: one for all and all for one as for a debt of their own. We have all had temporary benefits at the expense of others. We have all contributed to the idiotization of mankind. 3 We are jointly responsible for allowing power to be abused, ignorance and incompetence to rule, men to be trodden underfoot, living beings to suffer unnecessarily, lies to be preached unchallengedly, wrong judgements to be passed, any kind of injustice to prevail without being criticized and corrected. Those who neglect to fight for truth and justice, contribute by their passivity to the resignation of power to the enemies of truth, justice, evolution, and unity. 4 We are responsible for the inhuman laws of society. Society has no right to administer justice. Only the law of reaping can do that. The right to punish is a self-assumed right. Society must of course protect itself against madmen. But it has no right to revenge, no right to do evil that good may come thereof. The inevitable arbitrariness of the legal system is defining criminal actions and fixing the terms of punishment, with its inability to judge (ascertain true facts and motives), exists because the hatred, indignation, and desire for revenge of public opinion demand victims. If society does violence to an individual, then society is in debt to that individual, and the law of reaping sees to it that the debt is paid off. Many social phenomena are explained by this. As long as society does not realize its own debt, it will be impossible for it to fight crime efficiently. 5 Every race, nation, class, clan, family has its own reaping. Anyone is implicated in it who has accepted and approved of the existing injustice, has derived any advantage of conditions existing and measures taken. Bad reaping has the result that the social classes do not correspond to the levels. Also social mobility is bad reaping, because individuals at higher levels are born into lower castes, and those at lower levels into higher castes. The ruling castes have always abused their position of power with their downfall as the result. Finally the lowest stratum of society come into power. Their incompetence and barbarism holds sway until the bad sowing of the other castes has been reaped.

3.65 The Factors of Reaping

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Man is the self in the personality striving to become a first self, thereupon a second self, etc. The self is not more advanced than its self-consciousness in its personality. When the self in the personality sows, and the self in the personality reaps. The fact that the self knows nothing about its previous personalities, is due to the fact that its own memory has become latent. When the selfs activity ceases, its continuity of consciousness becomes lost and its memory, latent. Therefore it must start all over again and call its dormant abilities to a new life through new experiences. When the self has acquired causal consciousness and can study its previous existences, it will remember everything. The disadvantage of the veil thrown over the past is outbalanced a thousand times by its advantages. That vision is more than the normal individual would stand. The knowledge of what remains to be reaped would paralyse without affording the least benefit, and would just complicate things. Everything will appear different to the self when a causal being. The selfs freedom is determined by the insight, understanding, and ability of the personality with the general limitations according to the law of destiny and the temporary ones according to the law of reaping. 2 The most important factors of reaping are the bodies of the personality, the affecting vibrations, the reaping elemental, and the surrounding world. 3 All the bodies of the personality are factors of reaping. Their acquired capacity of vibration (ability of reception and emission) can by the law of reaping be limited to any degree, and in any respect, whatsoever. 4 The organism (brain, nervous system) with its health or illhealth is a physiological inheritance from physical ancestors. You have the constitution, predispositions, etc. of the parents whom you are to have according to the law of reaping. 5 The etheric body is the physical vibrational body. As a rule it is the most important body in respect of reaping. It depends on its quality which emotional and mental (possibly causal) vibrations will reach the brain (nerves), as well as whether the selfs predispositions and abilities will be able to find expression. Understanding may be present but the possibility of using the talent may be absent. 6 The capacity of the emotional and mental bodies can be limited by the attachment to their centres of prepared molecules (skandhas), which cut off any vibrational area and reinforce others. They act in connection with the reaping elemental in such a manner that the foreseen destiny of life is fulfilled. 7 Defects can exist in all the bodies. Absence of mind can depend on a defect in any of the bodies of the personality. If the defect is mental, then also the life in the mental world is devoid of reason, and the entire incarnation is wholly wasted, thus solely an incarnation of reaping. 8 Vibrations are of fundamental importance for the individual. Vibrations are of cosmic (interstellar), solar systemic (interplanetary and telluric) kinds, and those emitted from other beings. The law of reaping determines the kinds of vibrations which shall, strengthened or weakened or not at all, affect the individual, as well as how they shall affect him. In the emotional aeon, the emotional vibrations are the strongest ones. Anyone who has refined his bodies so that they cannot be reached by the vibrations in lower kinds of matter, thereby has limited the possibilities of the law of reaping. 9 The reaping elemental is an emotional-mental being, which is formed according to the law of reaping. Attached to the aura it follows the man throughout his life, seeing to it that the part of his sowing intended to be reaped, is reaped. It discharges itself with unfailing precision and, if required, with an irresistible force, when occasions exist. It can make the individual say and do things that he does not mean. It affects him with faults which otherwise would be impossible. It can strengthen his complexes to reach any affective intensity whatsoever. Its vibrations can influence other beings to the advantage or disadvantage of the individual. It can also be regarded as a vibrational centre of the kinds of vibrations determined. Of course it can, when necessary, serve as a guardian spirit in such circumstances of life as do not belong to bad reaping, or call for 87

assistance from the central of aid. Such vain efforts can the individual thus spare himself. Everything is so well arranged that he cannot suggest any improvement. 10 The surrounding world includes all beings with whom the individual comes into contact or on whom he can become dependent, also indirectly; his milieu with its beneficent or restrictive influences, all circumstances and relations in life, everything that the individual meets with. 11 The law of reaping considers missing desirable experiences, qualities, abilities, opportunities utilized in previous lives, interests, striving after unity and development, etc. 12 The law of reaping also considers the surrounding world and takes into account the individuals previous relations with races, nations, classes, clans, individuals of all kinds belonging to all the natural kingdoms. Regard is paid to the possibilities of a beneficent or restrictive influence on the universal development, etc. In this connection it should be pointed out that the boasting about the geniuses of the nations is without any ground. The development of genius takes many incarnations, as a rule in different races and nations. Besides, the geniuses are badly treated in contrast to the perfectly harmless talents. 13 There is no escaping ones fate. By taking precautionary measures of all kinds you can manage to escape your reaping in one life. But it will come back. Foolhardiness is not defended here. The law of reaping considers the individuals level of development and ability of judgement, and presupposes his use of common sense. Common sense, balance, sobriety and moderation, a realizable ideal, are reliable lodestars in all circumstances of life. Unrealizable ideals are superstitions. 3.66 The Law of Reaping and Traditional Fictions The ground of the fiction of original sin is the individual and collective bad sowing we have not yet reaped. The collective reaping is everyones part in all the mistakes in all respects for which we have been jointly responsible. Original sin is every individuals evil thoughts, feelings, words, and actions in past lives. There is not other debt in life than bad sowing, and that we must reap. Anguish of sin, of life, etc. is a bad reaping, and as a rule is the result of having engrafted a complex of sin into others. 2 The ground of the fiction of the commandments of god is the laws of life. 3 The ground of the fiction of the promises of god is the good reaping from good sowing. 4 The ground of the fiction of wrath of god and the punishing righteousness of god is the bad reaping from bad sowing. 5 The ground of the fiction of sin is mistakes as to the laws of life. 6 The ground of the fiction of the granting of prayers is mans right, according to the law of freedom, to have all his wishes granted that are not neutralized by bad sowing in the past. 7 The reality underlying the fiction of satan is that collective of incarnating men who, having acquired esoteric knowledge and objective consciousness of at least the physical-etheric and emotional worlds, refuse to enter into unity, and abstain from developing any further. They are the actual rulers in the physical and emotional worlds. This implies that individuals at the stage of hatred easily become their unwitting and willing tools. Both the symbols (god and satan) thus stand for realities. 8 The ground of the fiction of the power of prayer is the effect of methodical and systematic meditation, especially emotional collective will closely welded. 9 The fiction of missionizing is without any ground. Giving knowledge to serious seekers after truth is a good sowing. It is, however, unwise to make that mistake described, illustratively and incisively, as casting pearls. It is not wisdom of life to give knowledge to those who lack the prerequisites of insight and understanding. That will strengthen their contempt for everything that passes their comprehension, for everything superior. 10 That god protects the truth on earth and preserves the innocent, are fictions without any
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ground. There is no other protection than the good reaping from god sowing. 11 The ground of the fiction of the guidance of god is the possibility of achieving contact with our superconscious. 12 To receive the holy ghost meant the transfer of the self from its lowest triad to its causal body or its second triad. 13 The kingdom of god was the term of the collective of second selves. 14 Most of the religious terms of Christianity are gnostic symbols, which the church, lacking the gnosis, has misinterpreted hopelessly.

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THE LAW OF ACTIVATION


3.67 THE LAW OF ACTIVATION Life is activity, motion. Absolute passivity results in disintegration of form. Every consciousness expression entails activity in some kind of matter. Active consciousness reinforces itself by consciousness expressions. Activity develops the ability of activation and strengthens the content of consciousness. 2 The law of activation says that: every expression of consciousness becomes a cause that has an inevitable effect; everything consciousness observes is affected; everything contained in consciousness takes shape in some way; without your own activity consciousness does not develop, nor are any qualities or abilities acquired; everything you strive for or wish to accomplish in order to obtain or realize it, must first be contained in your consciousness; everything you get you have desired at some time; everything you desire you will get some time (though seldom as you had imagined). 3 Consequential on the law of activation are the law of repetition, or reinforcement, and the law of habit. 4 The law of repetition says that: by each repetition the content of consciousness is reinforced and is continually easier to resuscitate; by each repetition the tendency to recur is strengthened; by repetition thought and feeling are reinforced more and more, until they are automatically expressed in action; by each repetition thought becomes ever more active, ever more firmly engraved in memory, an ever stronger factor in its complex, ever intenser in feeling and imagination; by each repetition the fictitiousness of thought and illusoriness of emotion become ever stronger, and seem ever more probable, legitimate, and necessary. 5 The law of habit says that a thought, feeling, phrase, action repeated is automatized, which usually results in immutability, imperviousness to new impressions, and inability of adaptation. 6 By attention we decide the content of our consciousness. By means of thought we acquire feelings and qualities. The more purposive and intensive the activity, the greater is the effect achieved. 7 In every (conscious) choice the result is determined by the strongest motive. This is determinism, still misunderstood. Thanks to this law, the individual can win freedom of choice by methodically strengthening his motive (any whatsoever), until it becomes the strongest. It is by our self-activity alone that we can liberate ourselves from the automatized dependence on those fictions and illusions of the ignorance of life which we have unsuspectingly incorporated with complexes ever since childhood. Ignorance believes it is free and does not suspect its dependence. The activity of most people is determined by arbitrary complexes or by influences from without. The latter can be unsuspectedly assimilated by the subconscious: emotional-mental vibrations from mass opinions and psychoses. 8 Our fictions and illusions in our complexes and fixed ideas are ineradicable because they have been automatized by being constantly repeated. Their power over us can only be limited by setting up counter-complexes. The fact that homilies and enforced habits produce effects contrary to those intended, is also due to their rousing a spontaneous defiance complex.
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3.68 The Unconscious of the Personality

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Man is a unity of five beings, his five bodies. Mans consciousness is of five kinds: dense physical, etheric physical, emotional, mental, and causal. What the ignorance call a split personality can be a lack of contact between these five beings. The self lives in someone of these five, and moves at will between those activated. Attention indicates the presence of the self. 2 Consciousness (everything pertaining to mind and soul) can be divided into the waking consciousness and the unconscious. The unconscious is divided into the subconscious and the superconscious. 3 It is hardly an exaggeration to call the unconscious the real man. The different kinds of consciousness of the personality belong to the unconscious, with the exception of the small camera opening of the waking consciousness, there the visual point of attention is in the field of vision. The waking consciousness is an exceedingly tiny fraction of the normal individuals total consciousness. 4 In vibrational respect everything can be said to consist of vibrations. Man is as though immersed into an ocean of physical, emotional, mental, and causal vibrations from the five worlds of man, which vibrations pour through his five bodies at every moment. Not even one quadrillionth of these are apprehended by the waking consciousness. The individuals bodies can be compared to receiving and transmitting stations. Their capacity depends on their ability of activity and selectivity. 5 The subconscious includes all impressions that have passed through the waking consciousness, the merging of these impressions into complexes, and the working up by the complexes themselves of new impressions from the waking consciousness and of direct vibrations from without. 6 The superconscious includes all experiences the individual has acquired (has had and worked up) in previous existences, as well as the apprehension and working up by causal consciousness itself, when activated. 7 There is a mutual reception between the waking consciousness and the unconscious. From the subconscious, waking consciousness receives emotional and mental impulses from without, from the complexes, and from memory centres. From the superconscious, the waking consciousness receives latent ideas that have been activated by remembrance anew, inspiration via higher emotional or mental domains of consciousness, and intuition from the individuals own causal consciousness. 8 At the stages of barbarism and civilization, the individual is dominated by his subconscious; at the stage of ideality, by that which to the normal individual is his superconscious. At the stage of culture, man learns to differentiate between self-determined vibrations, vibrations coming from without, and such coming from the sub- or superconscious. Without that ability the individual identifies himself with all impulses entering into his waking consciousness, regarding them as expressions of his own being. Self-determination means independence of the intensely activated emotional-mental vibrations of public opinion, which as a rule strengthen the tendency to hatred and all the individuals fictions and illusions. For ideas coming from without to be assimilated, the individual must have an insight and understanding corresponding to them. The more closely the idea is related to ones own domains of knowledge, the easier it is to apprehend it, especially if the thinker formed it with clarity and distinctness. 3.69 The Subconscious The subconscious consists of a vast number of domains of impression, association, and conception. In the following they are called complexes. Complexes can be divided into emotional, mental, and emotional-mental ones. The emotional complexes are on the whole formed by and decisive of physical and emotional needs and habits. The emotional-mental complexes are the most numerous in the normal individual. They consist of various domains of
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feeling and imagination, which the individual has paid attention to or been interested in. 2 The subconscious forgets nothing. In the subconscious exists everything that has ever existed in the waking consciousness. By far the most of it man has forgotten to remember no more; often he did not even apprehend it clearly. All impressions he has received, all fictions and illusions (beliefs, conjectures, dogmas, superstitions) he has been fed with since early childhood, everything he believes he has discarded and neutralized long ago; it all leads its own life under the cover of the unconscious and with an unsuspected power. Whether this power will be of grater advantage than disadvantage depends on the character of the impressions benefiting or restricting life , on the intensity of the impressions and the plasticity of the subconscious, and on the nature of the counter-powers that are at the individuals disposal. 3 Impressions stream in through the waking consciousness, are absorbed by the complexes, which work constantly. Complexes work mechanically, not critically. They work over what they get. The results of their work will be faultless only if they are supplied with nothing but facts and axioms. Complexes grow, are strengthened and vitalized through new impressions, through the attention of the waking consciousness to impulses from the complexes. The conception of ideas can occur rapidly or slowly. If impressions are clear, connected, purposeful, then the work of the complexes will be correspondingly efficient. Impressions are worked up in continually formed and dissolved combinations, until a new idea is crystallized, which by the power of its concentrated content releases impulses in the waking consciousness. If the material necessary to the solution of the problem has been supplied to the complex, then the problem will be solved. 4 At the stage of civilization, the content of most complexes is made up of unrealistic fictions and of illusions that are hostile to life and have a repellent tendency. Belonging to the same domains of vibrations as those of public opinion, they serve as good receivers of the pertaining mass vibrations, and make the selfs incipient self-determination more difficult or impossible altogether. Strongly developed self-activity is necessary in order to make yourself independent of these engrafted fictions and illusions. It is not enough to realize the falsity of the fictions and worthlessness of the illusions by acquiring a knowledge of reality and life. For the new ideas to be decisive in the waking consciousness they must be woven into the new complexes by being constantly attended to, until these complexes in strength surpass the old ones. 5 The complexes rule unconsciously and instinctively. The impulses coming from the subconscious into the waking conscious are automatic and irresistible. The power of the subconscious can be temporarily neutralized by some kind of psychosis. When the calm has returned, however, the complexes resume their authority. All faults and failings, as well as prejudices, aversions, fixed ideas, fear, a guilty conscience, anxiety, etc. are found in unsuitable complexes. 6 Only the most fatal of the moral complexes will be discussed below. If they are not being fought by efficient counter-complexes they will sure enough become the other man in us, a source of anxiety, agony, neurosis, despair. The connected complexes of moral superstition which poison life, are the illusions of sin, guilt, and shame. They are the traitors of our happiness. Conscience is called gods voice in man. But conscience is a complex, is the mechanical, automatic, logical reaction of the subconscious to everything that comes into opposition to engrafted prohibitions or accepted rules of conduct. The same mode of reaction can be seen in the higher animals, for example dogs and cats, etc. Conscience strengthens everything which man pays attention to but should not, and it can become a permanently guilty conscience, which makes the individual more or less unfit for life. 7 Fear is another fatal complex. The only evil that can befall us in life is our own doing, a bad sowing in a former existence. And that sowing must be reaped, the sooner the better. To learn to bear the inevitable heroically is part of the art of living. Thus there is never any reason for fear. But fear as a complex destroys self-reliance, weakens vitality, paralyses will-power, blinds judgement. The impulses of fear are the worst, the most harmful and irrational of them all. Fear 92

makes the individual defenceless and powerless. Fear strengthens its own complex into agony before life. Fear is fought by noble indifference, by never paying attention to the counter-complex of self-reliance. 8 The complex of shame, which senseless upbringing engrafts into the childs mind in order to enforce obedience in the most convenient way, often becomes a serious handicap in life. In sensitive minds this complex can result in timidity, anxiety, shyness, fear of people. It enhances the dependence on others, lays the basis of the fear of other peoples opinions, and can degenerate into a cult of appearances, of insincerity, and into hypocrisy, with cringing and fawning on all who are in dominant positions. It can take years of methodical work to counteract this complex effectively. In this situation, you should make it clear to yourself that no matter what you do, the keen eye of hatred will always find faults and failings and thus motives for condemnation. Many worldly wise people buy the benevolence of egoists, which will cease, however, when their means run out. 3.70 The Superconscious The self has followed the genesis of the third and second triads with faintly developed subjective consciousness without self-consciousness. These two triads remain on the whole inactive until the self has acquired objective self-consciousness and can definitely take possession of them. 2 The selfs objective self-consciousness does not reach higher than its ability of activity in the respective molecular kinds. The normal individual thus lacks both physical and emotional atomic consciousness in his first triad. 3 At the stage of civilization, both emotional and mental molecular layers are part of the selfs superconscious. As they become activated also causal consciousness is influenced. During thousands of incarnations at the stages of barbarism and civilization, causal consciousness has remained inactive except for its momentary activation at the reception of the harvest of incarnation upon the disintegration of the personality. 4 At the stage of culture, the higher emotionality, the spirituality of the normal individual, begins to be activated. It is true that at the stage of civilization he has been able, in moments of ecstasy or of rare experiences, to raise his consciousness temporarily to these heights, and such moments certainly produce effects in activation; they are, however, insufficient to influence causal consciousness appreciably. It is only when noble feelings are cultivated and noble qualities are developed that such experiences of everlasting value are had which causal consciousness can apprehend and profit by. 5 When, at the stage of humanity, the apprehension of reality is acquired and the liberation from the fictitiousness prevailing up to then is achieved, the activation of causal consciousness becomes effective. Causal consciousness begins to be able, objectively, to experience reality and, subjectively, to work up the experiences had in the past into causal ideas. Such ideas are units of enormously concentrated reality content with experiences synthesized from thousands of incarnations. 6 At the stage of ideality, the self becomes a causal being with the ability to assimilate previously superconscious causal knowledge of reality and causal understanding of life. By that the self has accomplished its stages of ignorance. The self has acquired the ability to make the personality into a perfect instrument for the causal being. The man has become Man and prepares to enter the kingdom of supermen. 7 Self-realization is the gradual conquest of instinct of life, instinct of reality, insight, and understanding. It coincides with the acquisition of vibrational ability in the ever higher molecular kinds and the raising of the corresponding kinds of consciousness. The subjective condition of this is he liberation from the fictions and illusions of ignorance by means of knowledge of reality.
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According as the superconscious is activated, the personality receives emotional inspirations and mental ideas from domains previously inactive, experiences which ignorance has in vain tried to explain by its imaginative constructions. 3.71 Control of Consciousness People think they are free when they let emotions and thoughts come and go at random, inadvertently let themselves be influenced by these vibrations from without or incidental emotional impulses from those more or less purposeless complexes which they have unsuspectingly allowed to be formed and grow strong in their subconscious. At the stage of civilization, scarcely five per cent of the content of consciousness is self-initiated, selfdetermined. Whenever your attention is not occupied with your necessary everyday cares and duties, your own activity grows weaker. Instead consciousness becomes receptive and, therefore, mostly the victim of negative influences. 2 Any content of consciousness that is attended to becomes vitalized and strengthened. By letting attention concern itself with this content, the intensity of its vibrations increases. Thereby the content becomes powerful both in the conscious and in the subconscious. Thereby you become implicated in the responsibility that is the consequence of having increased the power of vibrations to influence still more people. In this way most people involuntarily and unwittingly strengthen worthless, undesirable emotions and thoughts in themselves and others. 3 Attention not controlled has the result that accidental occurrences gain a decisive influence on mentality, emotionality, and actions. If the self has its attention centred in emotionality, then desire, feeling, and imagination are aroused. The power of emotionality decreases when attention is centred in mentality. If the self lives in emotionality, mentality loses its possibility of influencing. And as long as the lower emotionality dominates, so long any contact with causal consciousness is precluded. 4 There are two methods of counteracting this state of split consciousness, lack of will power. The one is to occupy consciousness by letting attention be absorbed by some interest. The other method is to pay constant attention to the content of consciousness. 5 This unceasing watchfulness would be tiring or unbearable if it would imply any sort of supervision, effort, or strain. It can preferably be accompanied by some simple relaxation exercise now and then. You observe as though unintentionally how your thinking picks up and drops the one line of thought after the other in an endless succession. The unconstrained attention with which you follow the restless flight of thought is not perceived as any fetter, which else would cause a reaction. Soon you have imperceptibly slipped into an unintentional control, as it were. You learn to distinguish between thoughts from the unconscious and thoughts from without. The entire procedure should be regarded as an amusing play of thought. Of course you relax attention at the first feeling of strain, fatigue or discomfort. You soon find that the very attentiveness alone automatically results in a rejection of undesirable thoughts. Being observed, attention is prevented from strengthening unserviceable impressions, thoughts, emotions, etc. The control of consciousness results in calm, quiets anxiety, makes the content of consciousness clearer.
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3.72 The Method of Activation All consciousness expressions in the waking consciousness are activated consciousness, and entail activation of the content of consciousness. The consciousness expressions of the normal individual are for the most part reception from without or impulses from his subconscious. His self-initiated thoughts (emotions) are dependent on these, on the daily work or interests of various kinds. Attention, concentration, the ability to clearly retain a given content of consciousness, slackens as this activity becomes habit and routine.
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The ability of activation is above all the ability of prolonged attention. Any other activation of consciousness is faint. Activation is made strongest by the emotional or mental initiative, your own reflection, mental working up of what is received by the waking consciousness. The power of impressions received is directly proportional to the attention paid to them. By keeping consciousness at the thing observed, impressions are vitalized and are given enough time to sink into the subconscious. Most people are content with fleeting impressions, and chatter away the rest of the already faint power of these impressions. It is typical of the genius that he will often be unable to give a prompt opinion, often be speechless before the overwhelming power or beauty or convincing objectivity of impressions. The genius needs time to allow the thing experienced to act in his unconscious, and his criticism is the ability to forget what should be forgotten, not to impress it into his memory. 3 A consciousness expression sinks into the subconscious, enters into and vitalizes complexes, which sooner or later feed the waking consciousness with whatever they have been made to receive. It is the complexes that rule us: unconsciously, instinctually, automatically. The individual at the stage of civilization is a set of habits: thinking according to ingrained views and conventions, feeling according to the need for hatred, talking according to inherited patterns of gossip, acting according to egoistic motives and interests. 4 Most of what we supply the subconscious with is useless in life, not to say hostile to life. All manner of fictions and illusions daily wash over us from everywhere, often becoming bad suggestions. Without suspecting it, we have ourselves made our subconscious our real enemy, a harmful power of great proportions, the other man in us, a source of irrational emotional and mental impulses of all sorts. 5 All this changes, however, according as mankind works its way up to the stages of culture and humanity. Anyone who does not do anything about the matter, will move along with the slow passing of millions of years. But anyone who wills to develop can begin the change at once. Our subconscious can become our benefactor. The method of activation teaches us how to do this. 6 We can improve ourselves in two different ways. Both are equally important. The one consists in starving out unserviceable complexes, the other in forming new complexes. 7 There are some difficulties to the method of activation. By proceeding ignorantly, you will strengthen the wrong complexes. The result can be the opposite of what is intended. Mistakes can have serious consequences. The really efficacious method is part of the science of the will, which will remain esoteric at the stage of civilization, no matter what religions intent on salvation and secret orders promise. 8 It cannot be too strongly emphasized that in the endeavour to reform the personality, activation must be effected via the unconscious. The intentional, deliberate resolution to become a mew man, to break with the past, to follow new directions; will lead to a hopeless struggle against existing ingrained automatized habit and reaction complexes, which dominate the individual, and will just enhance their vitality. By fighting complexes (faults and failings) directly you strengthen them. It is true that in individual cases results can be obtained in that way. Reflective action, however, is morally scamped work, and the infatuating self-righteousness that is the outcome of it makes confusion worse confounded. Reflective action is uncertain and fumbling, since it does not spring spontaneously from the right attitude to life. 9 The only way of weakening the complexes is not to supply them with fresh nourishment. If they are never attended to, they will finally grow so weak as to be unable to dominate. The traditional method is of course as perverted as possible, the usual psychological mistake of ignorance. By repenting, revelling in remorse, grieving for, and trying to rid yourself of faults, cultivating a bad conscience, waging a war against yourself; you strengthen the very things that you desire to free yourself from. They are strengthened because they are attended to and vitalized to a high degree by the intensity of remorse. The only way of reducing the power of complexes is to refuse to pay any attention at all to the emotions and thoughts belonging to the complexes. 95

Old complexes are counteracted by the formation of new complexes, partly such as are directly opposite to the old ones, partly such as you find the most desirable. When the mew counter-complexes have grown strong enough, they fulfil their function automatically. Upon a detrimental impulse its opposite follows automatically, which through its greater vitality repels the weaker impulse out of the waking consciousness. Gradually the detrimental complexes become less powerful, until they finally will not even be able to penetrate above the threshold of consciousness. By systematically and methodically attending to the thoughts and feelings that you want to cherish, new complexes are formed, which can be strengthened to any degree whatsoever. The more frequently, the more clearly, the more distinctly you fix your attention on them, the stronger the corresponding complexes grow. However, you will get efficient results only if you impress them daily in an uninterrupted contemplation during a few minutes or so. They must be vitalized until they feed the waking consciousness with noble impulses every now and then. 11 Next to the control of thought and systematic attention to desirable thoughts, feelings, and qualities, a positive attitude is the most important thing. Usually people distrust each other, criticize, belittle, brush aside everything that does not agree with their wrong emotionality and mentality. They discredit new things as though everything did not actually remain to be discovered. Instead of availing themselves of the wondrous criticism that life uses, forgetfulness, they impress anew the useless into their memory. This negativity is counteracted by the systematic exercise of attending to the good, disregarding as a matter of principle everything that is useless for yourself or others, disregarding faults and just paying regard to merits. 12 There are many general, harmless methods (several more will be discovered by psychological research) and there is certainly something to be learnt from each; from the noble, invulnerable indifference of the Stoics; from the Cou nethod, according to which autosuggestion has the greatest effect when not being deliberate; from the mystics unceasing contemplation of unity (the ideal) whenever thought must not be occupied with the necessary cares of life. What is needed is perseverance and a calm reliance on the law of undisturbed growth. The rest will come of itself. One day the result will show in unreflecting, direct spontaneity. 13 It is the qualities lacking that are essential and should be attended to by the indirect method of admiration, devotion, worship. By analyzing themselves and by being occupied with ridiculous imperfections, the moralists enhance self-centredness and fritter away their time and energy on unessential faults and failings, which disappear of themselves after they have fulfilled their purpose and have been finally reaped. 14 A good method of keeping attention away from useless impressions is to cultivate interests, hobbies of various kinds. Anyone chooses according to his tastes and attitudes. A hobby that particularly trains the powers of observation and concentration as well as imagination, is visualization. It consists in observing attentively all details in some object, a picture, etc., thereupon endeavouring to bring back to mind the object observed as graphically as possible. 15 It is we, not other people, who make ourselves happy or unhappy. It is true that circumstances can make happiness enormously easier or more difficult to attain. But in the end it all depends on ourselves. The purposeful illusions of imagination are important to our development. 16 The most powerful factor of activation is imagination. By means of it you can strengthen or weaken whatever feelings, thoughts, qualities you like. Imagination is our best friend and worst foe. Imagination makes life into heaven by embellishing it, and the same situation into hell by blackening life. If imagination is allowed to be occupied with everything that causes suffering, we shall soon perish. If you look on the difficulties as things soon passing off, they will be incomparably easier to bear. 17 Imagination can vividly represent desirable qualities. By idealizing you are attracted to the ideals more quickly. Every ideal is an evolutionary power. Thoughtlessly crushing the ideals of 96

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another is to deprive him of something that is perhaps irreplaceable. It is irrelevant whether the model corresponds to the ideal. It is the very work of imagination that ennobles (but also possibly destroys and brutalizes). If you have a dramatic turn you can work out an ideal type, to whom you attribute the qualities you wish to acquire. This ideal character is put into all conceivable situations, so that the hero is given opportunities of displaying his abilities, in which you allow yourself to be filled with admiration, devotion, worship. There will be authors to give mankind masterpieces of these kinds, which will be counted among the true devotional books. The creditable, although on the whole unsuccessful, attempts made by Carlyle and Emerson to rehabilitate their heroes, show the disadvantage of using historical personages, which have already been besmirched by the biographies of moralists. 18 The superconscious is activated through noble feelings and the countless little acts of kindness and services of everyday life. It is also activated by being constantly attended to. 19 It is by no means easy for the unaccustomed to learn to distinguish between the three different main kinds of life expressions from the unconscious. Only by training and a keen understanding can you identify the impulses from the subconscious, the external telepathic suggestions of public opinion, and the inspirations from the superconscious. In this, the most important thing is to avoid becoming helplessly dependent on inspiration. Waiting for it easily degenerates into the passivity of quietism, a general lack of enterprise, and undiscerning acceptance of all fancies as though coming from above. Your own initiative and activity must always remain the primary thing, and the self-determining discrimination of your own experience must be decisive. Mistakes are unavoidable if they are part of bad reaping. Besides, they are often intended to develop the power of discrimination. Passivity does not activate the unconscious but makes the individual inactive or a slave to the vibrations from without. 3.73 The Group Activity Through his causal body man is a unit which is isolated from other beings, an individual being with the purpose, not only of crystallizing individual character, but also of developing individuality into universality in perfect harmony with the laws of life, which he will himself discover. Life in the causal world is not an isolated life. The causal being is part of a group of individuals with common future tasks. In the epochs of unity, these individuals incarnate together into the same clans and families in order to cultivate their solidarity also in physical existence. In the epochs of discord, with their mixed races and social mobility, this would be meaningless. The sense of solidarity is then lacking even within the family. The individuals need for a group remains, however, and at the stage of culture it finds expression in idealist associations in the service of freedom, unity, and evolution (including research). Associations with egoistic interests further the tendency to division. 2 In such an idealist group everybody leaves off the fools hood of his self-importance, and all unite in complete harmony and mutual confidence, respecting each others full sovereignty in everything beside the one essential thing. 3 Under these conditions, the group activity becomes the collective, fully vibrant harmony, the incomparably mightiest power of which the individual is capable. That power, wisely directed with knowledge and purpose, is capable of much that ignorance does not suspect. It also benefits the group members themselves, strengthening their good complexes and activating their superconscious.
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The above text constitutes the essay Esoteric Life View by Henry T. Laurency. The essay is part of the book The Philosophers Stone by Henry T. Laurency. Copyright 1979 by the Henry T. Laurency Publishing Foundation.

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