17th Lecture on the Apocalypse of John (Documentation)

We are now standing before the throne in heaven. The image from the Apocalypse is read aloud: "After that I could see, behold an open door in heaven, a throne stood in heaven, jasper and carnelian, emerald, 24 thrones, 24 elders in white robes, twitching lightning, 7 flaming torches, 7 divine creator spirits, glassy sea as if it were crystal, ...4 living creatures, lion, bull, man, eagle, 6 wings, full of eyes, ...holy the divine ruler of the universe, who was, who is and who is to come." Go to for full quotation see episode 16.

With the throne, which is surrounded by 24 other thrones, on which 24 elders sit, we will have to see in a moment what it is about these 24 elders. 7 flaming torches in front of the throne, these stand for the 7 divine creative spirits, these are those entities or communities of entities - I explained last time that in the case of spiritual entities, they actually consist of other spiritual entities, i.e., they are subdivided into the spiritual entities. exalted spiritual entities are divided into entities that are subordinate to them in a certain way, that is now the similar but still different to the human being: The human being is not only this physical, fleshly, material human being that one can touch and look at sensually, but in truth there is much more in us, the body is (hopefully) animated, so there is also life in us and life is a force of its own, which in truth cannot be reduced to the physical, life force, a life body is virtually in us, which above all has something to do, to shape the temporal development and change of the body, R. Steiner calls it the ether. Steiner also calls it the etheric body or the temporal body, because temporal laws play a role, e.g. that the first childhood is strongly connected with old age, that is reflected in a certain way around the middle of life; often with people, when they are already older, memories from youth, from childhood emerge, from earlier childhood even, up to the third year of life, one cannot get beyond that, what is even earlier, but one can get up to there. Such memories tend to emerge in old age, people may forget what happened yesterday if they suffer from dementia or slight forgetfulness, it is difficult to remember what happened recently, but more and more memories of childhood emerge, because age and youth are connected with each other, it is normally reflected around midlife through the laws of the etheric body. It is connected and works together, that is the interesting thing. That which emerges in old age is already present in childhood in a certain way. It is not yet visible, but it is there underground! It works together. In the temporal, in the etheric, as R. Steiner calls it,  the past and the future are strongly connected, they are basically there at the same time, seen from the etheric it is simultaneous, only we experience it here in the outer world as the passage of time, where we can remember, but we can no longer change anything in the past, in the etheric it is different. In the etheric everything is there at the same time, and one can, when one experiences it in the etheric, look over it as in a panorama, one can move in that, one can look back, one can look forward to about where one is now, one can also look into the future, but that one sees only an abundance of possibilities that exist. Not true, what is behind us narrows down to what has just happened, but if we look from here into the future, we have a rich field of possibilities. In the etheric the world is richer, something always dies out of that, that is what becomes physical. Because our body is constantly renewing itself, new substances are absorbed and hopefully excreted again to the same extent, if not, then we become larger and larger, but ethereally there is also a process that something dies out of the etheric and manifests itself physically. That is the state we are always in. It is a collision, in front of us very many, one cannot say infinitely many, but very many possibilities, what lies behind us has become immobile in a certain way, yes, dead, i.e. we have discarded it, i.e. in truth we die all our lives. 

We are basically continuously depositing a corpse. With every breath, we take in breath, transform it into us, excrete it again. That's what we put down, that's what separates from us. This happens throughout life. This is also an important experience for our consciousness. It is precisely these processes of dying off, of discarding, of rejecting something, that we become really conscious of. An amoeba or a single-celled organism divides, it does not reproduce like a human being, but reproduces through division, always remains as a primordial being. Such a being has no past and also no future in a certain sense. It is very important for us to be able to die during life, because we become aware of the skin that flakes off, the hair that falls out, that is all part of it, but it is also very important internally. 

This is the life body, the etheric body, the second of a total of 7 bodies, 1st physical body, 2nd etheric body, a total of 7, these are the 7 divine creative spirits, they are responsible for the 7 body shells, for forming these principles, these essential principles of the human being. In truth, there are whole groups of beings behind them. Not just one is enough for this, but whole groups work together to make it work. In the physical body, for example, there are very high entities called thrones. Thrones are the master builder of this throne. From their substance, from the substance of their will, the whole of creation has ultimately come into being, one can ask: From where does all this come? That which we can attack as solid substance. Where does it come from? Where did it originate from? Well, you can go back, then it becomes finer, liquid, at some point even finer, gaseous, even further back it is actually no longer material, it can be grasped as heat, warmth, energy, that is nothing other than the outside of the will power of those thrones, i.e. where they become active will-wise, it is a sacrificing with every act of will, that remains first of all as warmth, but that is already enough, as power that makes itself independent, as heat power, as heat energy. 

That is where the origin is, that lies far back, but that is still in all matter today and forms the innermost core. Therefore, all matter can and will one day completely dissolve again into warmth, into willpower. Everything. We are tickling out a little of this today with nuclear power technology, so you get an impression of how much is in there. I always show my pupils a small piece of chalk when I show them all the heat, warmth and energy that is in there,  could release - fortunately we can't do that yet - then the whole of Vienna would be in ruins, there's so much energy in there, it's about the same as the energy of the atomic bomb that fell on Hiroshima. In other words, the reality on which we can tap firmly (Wolfgang taps his fingers on the table) is in fact warmth, but it is trapped, locked up in there. The adversary forces help, especially Ahriman, so that this energy is bound. We are glad about that, because in the intense heat we could not exist at all. In the sun a lot of this energy is released, that's why it shines, everything happens much faster. All development happens much faster in the sun, we wouldn't be able to keep up spiritually. We wouldn't be able to have our bodies. We could only exist as a gas flow. Find an I-consciousness when you are a hot draft in the sun, that is difficult. But higher spiritual beings can. They can inhabit the sun, but they are not in a body like us. At best, they embody themselves in gas currents that form the sun's atmosphere. We can't even say that the interior of the sun is gas, it's already a transition to the plasma state, to the pure energy state, there's the highest speed, the highest willpower inside. So that the denser things, that is air, water, solid, earthy things, can come into being, for that they have to be captured, the ahrimanic forces help with that, but also other higher hierarchies, higher angelic beings, a whole hierarchy of angels, nine choirs of angels, of which the well-known ones are our "angels", that is the lowest level, just above us and closely connected with us, especially the lower angelic beings, they are particularly closely connected with us. In Vienna there is a church called "Zu den neun Engelchören". 

We must continue with the physical body, the physical body, the etheric body. The etheric body, the etheric powers do not come from the thrones, because the thrones created the basis of our physical body, the thrones are inside all matter and also underlie our physical body. An idea of what man was in ancient times, long before the earth existed in the form we know today, because it was only warmth. Only warmth. We were also only warmth, we can imagine that our human body also has a certain warmth, namely a blood warmth, it goes with the blood, it is very differentiated, it is shaped in itself, sometimes warmer, sometimes colder, in the liver a little warmer, in digestive processes and in the metabolism there is more warmth, in fever the temperature rises because then the willpower is stimulated to cope with the illness, then everything goes faster, we then become more sunny, become warmer, then the illness, for example pathogens, can attack more strongly. Then the illness, e.g. pathogens, can be fought more strongly, a living, changing warmth organism, that was us at the very beginning.

Because to these same 7 divine creative spirits, with whom the 7 body shells of man are created, or the 7 body members, the 7 essential members of man are created,  to which correspond 7 states of transformation of the earth. It begins with a state that is only warmth, nothing else, in the beginning everything, sun, moon and earth were united into one entity, but at first only as warmth. Then something slowly emerges from this. The state of warmth was still dark, cosy warmth, but not luminous, then it goes on to a state of the sun, which is not yet our sun, but a preliminary stage, everything is still united in itself, what will later be our earth, the moon, the planets that belong to our planetary system, they are all still in there, now two things happen: a) it condenses into gas, into air, and at the same time it begins to glow. Heat is something dull, but at the same time it is a tremendous driving force in itself, with light it becomes something finer, as a counter-image the gaseous comes into being, the light shines in the air, one could say it begins to shine, the etheric body of the human being comes into being, entities are involved which can produce this shining, this glowing: What is the inside of the glow? Externally we say it is light. Inwardly it is wisdom, therefore it is entities that can radiate this wisdom, that can Spirits of wisdom. They are one step below the thrones, first the will, which brings out the warmth, then wisdom, which is one step lower, with that it begins to shine. 

Then it must condense further to a liquid to viscous state, thus a further condense, but to this condense there is also again a finer state upwards, it always separates, from the warmth that forms the centre there is a path to ever increasing condense, upwards to an ever further refinement, first from warmth to light and now to what one could call sound ether. Sound ether is that which begins to harmonise everything, produces harmonies, sound harmonies, it begins to produce natural laws, previously chaotically disordered, then one cannot yet speak of natural laws, now during the third state, where the liquefaction begins, only now do the natural laws come into being, these are in truth also harmonies, number harmonies, therefore the sound ether is the number ether, mathematics ether, physics scratches at that, interestingly enough, just where it tries to penetrate it mathematically, physics tries to get at the secret of the composition of which our world consists, only in this fluid state do the laws of nature gradually arise, it is composed. 

When that is finished, then the actual development of the earth as we know it today begins, with the partly solid earth, it is not completely solid, we still have a lot of liquid, apart from the water on the surface, there is a lot of liquid viscous inside, that is also something liquid, even if it looks very solid to us. Glass is actually a stagnant liquid, but not really a crystalline substance yet, it flows so slowly that we don't notice it, but nevertheless it is actually a liquid in truth. It is the same in the interior of the earth. Our continents float on a viscous mass. That's why they move. Continental drift. Plate tectonics. The big continental shelves float on the, push under each other, when they collide, then mountains fold up, like the Himalayas, the collision takes millions of years. Enormous amounts of energy. It's not just a mechanical, physical process, there are also spiritual entities behind it, the willpower, the thrones are involved, the spirits of wisdom are inside, but it also works according to laws. 

These harmonies, that is, these natural laws, are again other spiritual entities which Spirits of the MovementThere is always movement in sound, sound cannot stand still, it must always change, move, oscillation, rhythm, from these spirits of movement we have also received that which gives our sound its own character. Astral body our body of consciousness, which is also the basis of movement. Animals have this too, we have it in common with animals. Only ours is more refined. For the animals have come into being precisely because we have put the too coarse astral forces out of ourselves. These are the animals, from the lower up to the higher. And we are not quite at the end yet either. Until the end of physical development there is still the danger that something will drop out of human development. The physical form in which we are now does not have to be the end of development. And development is accelerating. By the 6th - 7th millennium it will begin that humanity will no longer incarnate, at least it will become less and less. We should then be to the point where we no longer need at least the physical body for our further development. And then pass into another state in which we have been in the past before we became physical beings. If you look at evolution in the past, what do you see first, the animals that were excreted, they are the first to solidify in physical form, where the development in themselves no longer continues, but higher and higher animals come out, which are already closer to the human being, until finally once we physically stand there too. Spiritually we are at the beginning, we have been there from the beginning, we were already there with the warmth, at the beginning, when it was only warmth, there was already the disposition of our physical body. But only for this, not yet for life, not yet for consciousness, at least not for the consciousness that the astral body has. 

The physical already had a consciousness. That is something interesting, something very important. Everything that exists, everything that is, all being also has consciousness. Being is consciousness. But in different degrees. It can be very dull, the consciousness of the physical, of the physical body that we had at that time, when it only consisted of warmth, but also the consciousness of the mineral, as it is today, is incredibly dull. We wouldn't call it consciousness at all. We say at night, that's when we have dreams, then we fall into deep sleep, that's when we are unconscious (sleep consciousness). But there is still a consciousness in there! Only, we are too weak to realise it. The consciousness of the physical body, or of the physical in general, is even duller than our deep sleep. But people can get into such a state when they are put into a trance or fall into a trance themselves. E.G. Mediums who are completely out of it (speaking mediums, writing mediums), they don't get anything of what they are doing, nevertheless a consciousness is there, they don't get it, this consciousness senses very far out into the world, it is interestingly the farthest consciousness, in the last consequence it encompasses the whole cosmos, but quite dully, interestingly, because the very high spiritual entities - who are still above the thrones, who have brought forth this warmth, who are even still above the zodiacal beings, the cherubim - these are the seraphim, these seraphim have a consciousness of the whole cosmos. But they have an alert consciousness of the whole cosmos. You can't even imagine that. Beings who have a consciousness of all the stars, of the spiritual entities that are connected with them, who put that in order. That is not even the Trinity, which is above it. They are the expression, when one speaks of the omniscience of God, that is actually represented by the seraphim. God's omniscience consists concretely in spiritual entities that belong to the category of seraphim. But they are part of God, because all spiritual beings are part of God. So are we! 

We were in 3 states, heat, air, liquid, now it becomes earth. Crystallisation is typical for the development of the earth in the narrower sense, it is necessary for us to be able to have a self. It is precisely the crystalline element that is essential, we need this reflection, this support of the solid, in order to be able to develop our I, in order to become aware of our I. That is the essence of it. That is the essence of it. An I would already be possible without the crystal element, but then it doesn't get this I-consciousness that the human being has. It is also interesting that these spiritual beings who stand above us, who have this enormous consciousness, who are of course also individual spiritual beings, who also have an I, but it is nevertheless different from our human I. Because they do not incarnate. Because they don't incarnate in something that holds the crystalline element, we have that, we have salts in us, the lime in the bones, many salts that are dissolved, crystallise again, dissolve again, these are important processes in which we experience our I-consciousness, and secondly, the solid, the crystalline element, gives us the support, we can stand upright. That is also very important for the I-consciousness. Try it once: stand up, close your eyes, observe yourself attentively, you notice that you have to balance yourself continuously. That alone gives us, subconsciously, but that gives us the background for our I-consciousness. Animals essentially don't need that. They stand on their four legs. They hang in their bone system more than they support themselves. If you look at a monkey, which is relatively close to a human being, but the monkey hangs in its skeleton, the skeleton carries it. 

We carry ourselves, we also need the bones so that this doesn't run together like a jelly, but it is not the bone system that carries us but we carry ourselves with the help of the bone system and with the help of the musculature. We do it. Therefore, when we faint, when consciousness fades, then we fall down. For us, the crystalline element is quite essential, but the crystalline element actually takes its forces from the whole cosmos, when I said that the mineral has the widest consciousness, indeed, it takes all its forces from there. That's why it was very wise, people in the Middle Ages really still knew that, they spoke of the crystal sky, that's where the crystal-forming forces really come from, and just beyond that it passes over into the spaceless and timeless, i.e. into the actual spiritual realm, which no longer has any counterpart in the outer world, up to there it still has a counterpart through the stars, the sun, but what is beyond that is really completely beyond space and time. That is where the spiritual actually begins. That is where our I comes from. It is the next thing beyond the crystal sky, if I translate it into a spatial image. That is where the forces come from, that is why our I is strongly connected with the crystal-forming forces and with the solid crystal element. That is why our embodiment is so important, into this densest material, so that we thereby develop our free I-consciousness. The angelic hierarchies above us also have an I-consciousness, but it is different, it does not have the one thing, the freedom, that man has.

With all the positive and negative sides that this entails, because the privilege of man is that he can err. We can err, do stupid things, we can even choose evil if we want to. The spiritual hierarchies above us cannot. Even the adversaries have, in a certain sense, been appointed to this role by divine decree. So that we have a sphere here on earth where we can err, where we can become evil, etc. Because we have to be able to do that, because only then can we choose out of freedom between good and evil. If we were always to be good by nature, then there would be no more freedom. We are thereby highly risky beings, because even the divinity has given up power over us. No other freedom is possible. The old question: Why is there evil in the world?  For the good of the human being! So that he can become a free spiritual being. There must be the possibility of real aberration, otherwise freedom is not possible. That is what we have to wrestle with all the time, but through which we basically have the potential to become a spiritual being, which brings in a completely different new quality, which otherwise only the source of creation, the Trinity itself, has. This freedom in the creative. These high spiritual entities, even the seraphim, the thrones, etc., they receive their impulses from the Godhead.  They continue to work, they continue to flow, but they do not have the freedom to stray from what the Godhead gives. 

Even the adversaries are actually in the plan. That is very important. The theologians have a hard time with that. God is only good. Yes, eh! It is not a question of evil and good being in God. But he creates a creation in which both are possible for the benefit of man. Because a greater task is planned for him than all the other higher spiritual hierarchies have been able to fulfil up to now. Creation does not mean that everything repeats itself in the same way. But there is also a process of development in it. We are called upon to have a say and to help shape it. It is already the case that essentially how the earth will continue to develop depends very much on us. Therefore, it would be quite wrong, because man today destroys a great deal, i.e. first chooses the evil side, often out of ignorance, out of error, but it is precisely from this that we must learn to give nature that which it continues to develop. It is now flowing through us, more and more. More and more we are invited to be participants in creation. Already now! The theme of the Apocalypse is to look at the next state that will come after our present Earth. We have spoken of the warm state (old Saturn), the air state (old Sun), the liquid state (old Moon), the present crystalline Earth, and then a new state will come, of a different kind again. What that state will be, what is called the New Jerusalem in the Apocalypse, that will be essentially up to us already, we are already working to create a whole world, not yet the whole cosmos, but at least the world we will then inhabit, certainly not in such bodies as we have now. We will come to this subject later. Nor is the New Jerusalem the last state; two more will follow. Then the development of man or humanity will have progressed so far that it will have become completely free and independent to bring forth a cosmos itself. As a perspective. That, at least, is the goal. To what extent we will achieve it is another question, because for the first time there is a risk that the plan of creation will also go wrong. In an extreme case. 

We have an infinite amount of help. We can access the hierarchies, but they will only take action if we want them to. More and more this is becoming so! It is even the case that today the development of these spiritual Hierarchies, up to the Seraphim, also depends on us. Because the development should take place in such a way that we slowly begin to take over very specific spiritual tasks that were previously carried out by higher beings. If we neglect these tasks, we hold back these higher entities in their development, because then they still have to work for us. This concerns first of all, of course, the angelic entities that are very closely connected with us, what is rightly called guardian angels in the broadest sense, that is, the angelic entity that accompanies us, that guides us above all through our various incarnations on earth. We assume that there are repeated earth lives, precisely so that we can develop. It is plausible: if we assume that the human being is something that is supposed to develop further, please, how much do we really get further in an earthly life? Can we say with a clear conscience, now I have lived 70, 80, 90 years and now I am perfect. Everything is done! I don't think anyone really dares to say that. But we have to get to that state one day. Then it would be the right time to say: Thank you, I don't need another earthly incarnation. I can now continue my development on another level. That doesn't mean we'll be perfect, but at least we won't have to incarnate again on earth. Instead, we will pass into another state. 

In truth, the time perspective is incredibly short. It begins in the 6th to 7th millennium that the first people start to no longer incarnate because they are ready. R. Steiner gives a date where this begins, it begins for the first people around the year 5700 AD. That is a moment in the development of the earth. If we look back 5000 years, we are at the beginning of Egyptian culture. That far into the future, that's when it starts, first individuals. There are already some who don't need it any more. There are high initiates. These are individual cases, and among them there are still some who incarnate in order to help others, although they actually no longer need it for themselves.

We are already working on the development of this New Jerusalem, this future earthly world, then two more states will follow. These future states now also correspond to developmental elements or developmental processes that are taking place in our being limbs, until now we have had physical body, etheric body, astral body and our I, the centre of the whole, this centre, the I is called upon to create itself for once. What is the I? The I is something purely spiritual, a force that comes from beyond the crystal sky, from this spaceless and timeless world, and it creates itself. I can't even grasp the I under the concept of being, it's not, if someone says the spirit, it doesn't exist, it doesn't exist, then you can say: yes anyway, it doesn't, because it doesn't exist in the sense of an object, nor like a liquid, gas or heat, but it creates itself continuously and produces effects, through these effects it shapes creation, it shapes itself. At least a little bit. We are already doing that, because otherwise we would not have an I. Our real I is that which continuously creates itself. The image of the phoenix that rises again and again from its own ashes. This happens continuously, in timelessness we renew our I, it always creates itself anew and yet is always the same, it is paradoxical, yet we are always ourselves, precisely because of this. But it is not to be grasped. 

It develops further, i.e. it acquires more effective power, more creative power. You can't grasp the I yourself, but I can recognise it in its ability to do creative deeds, you can see that beautifully in an artist, how he develops, the works of art don't develop themselves, but he develops, if I look, 10 years later, something new has been expressed in his work, something has been added. That is the case with every artist, if he is really an artist. Then something develops and new perspectives are added. One has learned something. If I take the energy that creates these works of art, then I have the I in there. The I is in the energy and in order for it to be able to work in the physical world, it needs all the rest, it needs the physical body, otherwise it could not hold a brush or speak or write, it needs the etheric body, because the physical body must be able to live, it needs the astral body as a carrier of consciousness, that is first the lower consciousness, and then the I comes in, which now really becomes creatively active and becomes aware of itself in the physical outer shells and in the sensual outer world. That is what we learn here. That's why we need the solid element, we need this standing firmly on it, and the raising ourselves up, holding ourselves up, so that we always have the I-consciousness in the background, we need the ability to distinguish ourselves from other people and from nature outside, the clear confrontation of ourselves, which is difficult as a gas flow. There I am and there you are! 

This is not possible in the soul, in the spiritual world. In the spiritual world or already in the soul world, the souls are in each other, with each other. I can't say, "Goodbye soul! You look pale today! That doesn't work. It is a soul experience, spaceless, where I cannot say: Is it in me? Him in me? Me in him? In all of them? It is a soul experience and I have to find out, for example, when we cross over after death, experiences emerge, it pervades them, who am I? who are they? One is in a way one with them and yet one learns to distinguish oneself if one has brought enough I-consciousness. The experience of death also helps. I said before: these processes of elimination are important for our consciousness. What is the greatest process of elimination? When we discard our entire body shells. That is a tremendous impulse of consciousness! It is a tremendous light that shines. That carries us through to the next birth. It lights us up. It is so strong at the beginning that one can be blinded by it. You don't notice anything. You don't see the spiritual world or the world of the soul because you are blinded. Because you are blinded by brightness. That is your own light that you take with you. In the spiritual world you only see as much as the light you bring with you. First I have to shine so that I can see the other in the spiritual. The I must shine beyond itself and illuminate its spiritual surroundings. Then I get something! If it doesn't radiate much, then I don't notice much. That is our radiance, which illuminates the other souls that are there. Otherwise we are trapped in ourselves, we experience that as darkness. We are thrown back on ourselves. Through that, you can connect with someone else spiritually. 

Here in earthly life we are a little bit above that, but over there it is very strong. That we live in the real soul of the other. But in the real soul. Why do I emphasise the real from the spiritual? Because we normally do not even suspect the whole extent of our real soul in our earthly life! We have a little that we become aware of, in that we reflect ourselves in the physical body. The life body and the astral body also play a role. But in reality we only see our reflection. The reflection is much paler and above all ineffective. A mirror does not give me a slap in the face. If I want to see it in the mirror, I have to give it to myself. It's the same with the consciousness we experience in everyday life. Everyday consciousness is actually mirror consciousness. Either through spiritual training or then after death, we first dive into the spiritual reality, our own and that of others. This is something that we can already anticipate through spiritual training. That we dive into the reality of the soul, both our own soul and that of our fellow human beings. But into the real soul, not into the mirror image! 

What is the reality of the soul in contrast to the mirror image of the soul? This has been going on since the Greek cultural epoch, that we confuse the mirror image with the truly spiritual. Not to speak of the spiritual. This has caused many problems! How does the spiritual affect the physical? How does the mirror image, which is actually powerless, affect the physical? The mirror image has no effect at all! The real soul, it works in a completely different way. But at first we only get to see it externally through the mirror image. We also need that to develop our self-awareness, that in truth we also only experience the outside world as a mirror image. There is much more behind it. We only see the outer reflection of it. It is not yet reality. There is more behind it, there are many spiritual entities behind it. That would be reality! The mineral is the deadest! Nothing works there any more. It is dead. The dead has become reality but no longer reality. A stone no longer does anything on its own. It has to be moved from the outside, it can be shattered, it can fall down, but it doesn't actually do anything on its own. Just as physics describes it: The body is moved by external forces. 

We imagine it that way, too. The parts somehow interact with each other. Who controls that? Some people have noticed that the mirror image in the head has no power. You only have to take the difference between the inner reflection and the outer experience. When you look at the world and then close your eyes. Then I have the idea of what I have seen. That is, the memory. How detailed is it? You have to practise well so that it comes closer to the outside. Even that is pale! Reality is only the outside. I don't see the actual reality, the life that is inside. I only see the emotion that is inside - if at all - in the outer reaction. There I only see the outer side, that is not yet reality either. Therefore, all attempts to explain how my mental reflection affects the physical were doomed to failure. Namely not at all. Just as the image that shows itself in the mirror also has no effect. It does not change the mirror. 

The truly spiritual works in the body! Of course it does! Therefore, it is a decisive thing how I adjust myself mentally to certain things. Covid - if I am afraid of infection all day, then I weaken my whole organism. Because the soul has an effect on the etheric forces, on the life body, i.e. the immune system, which is behind it, it weakens it completely, and then I get my infection because I have basically systematically prayed for it. Of course, there are always strokes of fate where people's etheric bodies are weakened, and then there is naturally also a danger that this will happen. There are many forces of influence. But one thing that certainly works is to be scared to death of it. Because viruses are omnipresent. We need them. They have an important role in evolution because they exchange genetic material back and forth between species, they are one of the most important engines of evolution. Externally in the physical. Just as we need bacteria. What would we do without gut bacteria? Once we swallow antibiotics > intestinal flora broken > nausea, stomach ache, diarrhoea - we live on the little things. Viruses are on the borderline between a crystalline and a living being, they are actually not living beings, they can't do anything on their own, but a virus is a splinter of a living being, that's how they came into being. They are splinters from the genetic material, from the cell nucleus of living beings, when the cell nucleus is destroyed, the genetic material is splintered, then they spread out and some of these splinters get a protein shell - that is the virus. Something like that is created again and again. They have a great task, because they have this genetic material, transport it and bring it out into the whole world. Other living creatures have the chance to take it up and use the positive material inside for themselves. 99 percent of viruses are actually positive and they have an indispensable role. That's why the motto can't be, we'll eradicate all viruses that exist. Can a vaccination be successful where viruses have a very fast rate of change? There is always something in motion. Every vaccination actually lags behind. 

In doing so, I give the immune system a ready-made immune response. Do not encourage it in its own development. The immune system is the apex of the life forces of the etheric body. In the immune system, the etheric body collides with the physical, where it regulates what should go in and what should not go in. What should be excreted, what should be decomposed or what should be intergated. This is also very important for the development of individuality, although deeply subconsciously. Especially in the immune system, each person is an individuality. The environments and viruses they have to deal with are their own biography. It creates a unique individual immune system. Acquiring this also has a repercussion on the I-consciousness. Even if it is still quite dull, it forms a background. Just as we need the bone system to help us raise ourselves up, the immune system helps us find ourselves. Therefore, dealing with viruses is important and good. Even with those that then create problems. It ultimately makes us stronger. In some cases, vaccination can make a difference if the disease has already broken out and the person's immune system is too weak. Mostly with killed germs. With many things today, we don't know how much we are bungling into a much wiser activity. Today we have so much pride in our knowledge. But the biological-medical knowledge of all libraries is a trifle compared to the wisdom that takes place in every tiny cell.

Our I is very challenged, but it becomes stronger because of it. Even where it stumbles and has to get up again. It becomes especially strong when it does so. It is an unpleasant truth at first, but we learn from the difficulties we overcome. We learn where we take a step out into new territory. As long as we live in our habits, we don't need our "I". The real test is always the one step beyond the limit, beyond the limit of the abilities I have up to now. To go beyond one's own limits. That is why there is a wonderful sentence in Goethe: Faust II: Walpurgis Night: What does the Manta say? "I love the one who desires the impossible". Who desires what is still impossible at the time. Exactly the step beyond. To go where the abilities I have now are not enough. The I does this all the time, only there is the I active. If you always move in the small circle of the front garden, you don't make your I active. It is always this going out. Then sometimes you stumble, that can't be avoided. Stumbling is part of it. That is the good news: there is immense power in the I, the whole power of Christ. 

We only have to want to make them effective, to make them our own. That is then our own deed. No one else does it for us. The sentence was spoken in the 4th church in Asia Minor, which corresponds to the Greek-Latin period, which goes until the end of the Middle Ages, which still has an effect today. Towards the end of the Middle Ages there is a break, that is the 5th church. In the 4th church, God becomes man, it is about God becoming man and this happens step by step in every human being. At the turn of the times it is the great deed that happens once, on a small scale it happens in every human being, that the power that has always come from outside, that now comes from our I-centre, and is now active as our power, not that then the compulsion comes from within, but then when we want it: "The same authority of the I, shall be his own, which I have received of my Father." That is what the Christ says! Full power is available to us in principle. But we must conquer it little by little, we have it because we work for it, it is not simply given to us, but it is made possible for us to acquire it in the course of our development. It is not said that you may not ascend up to here and beyond. No! No limit is set for us! We draw the line every time and hopefully cross it. The crossing is "desire the impossible". Again and again.

Back to the throne: "...before the throne something like a sea of glass, as if it were formed of crystal"., the sea of glass is the mineral world. The crystal world. I.e. now - the earth development, that is now addressed with it, where exactly that can become with the I, that these crystal forces become aware of themselves, they are in truth the same forces, the same forces that form the crystal outside as a mineral, that we have in our I. When we really take hold of the I-power in ourselves and become active from it, then we next spiritualise all our body shells. We begin to work on the astral body, the etheric body, the physical body. The I is that which creates itself, but now also begins to re-create. To transform the astral body into a creation of its own. We were first given it for our earthly life, now we begin to change it so that it becomes our own. Then it is no longer called the astral body, or rather this power that creates it anew, that is now called the Spirit Self = the transformed astral body, or rather, the creative power that could completely transform an astral body, in the last resort even create it out of nothing, when we have fully developed the spirit self. Then our creative power would be such that we could not create an outer world, but we could at least create an astral body out of nothing. That's something, that has great significance for the future, because we must have this ability in order to dissolve our karma. Because our destiny mainly makes stains in our astral body. We get an astral body at birth. It can already be somewhat burdened by the incarnation conditions, the parents play a role, the time situation, today it can be assumed that the astral body is burdened. Simply because compared to the external environmental pollution, we have even more mental environmental pollution.  A lot has been deposited there. This started early on and continues unabated. It has already made conditions more difficult. 

To the extent that I have spirit self, I am not dependent on what is there, but I can create something new, can at least incorporate better elements into the astral body that is given to me, at first very delicately, very little. And I can, if I can create the astral, always at the same time also have the ability to dissolve what is there. Being able to create from nothing also means being able to dissolve into nothing. That means that I can not only purify and change bad astral things as far as it is possible, but I can also dissolve them. Purification originally means: I expel the negative forces from my astral body, yes, but then they are not gone, they are still present in the world, they are present in the soul, i.e. they have an effect in the soul that accompanies the earth in the soul of the people inside, in the soul forces that are connected with nature, these are these forces inside, it is like a soul waste, through this a kind of soul environmental pollution arises. We have deposited something like (atomic) waste barrels on earth in the form of our karma anyway. Every time we leave the earth, that is, when we pass into the spiritual world with death, the negative mental things caused by our karma remain temporarily stored in the earthly sphere. Because up there in the spiritual world they are useless. In the next incarnation we have to take up these forces again. What is karmic, what cannot be dissolved, is usually very close to the earth. The lunar sphere surrounds the earth sphere. The earth sphere is in this sense a part of the moon sphere. The worst things tend to be deposited close to the earth, the lighter things that don't actually go into karma, that's the point, they don't go into karma. Kamaloka = purgatory in the church, a purification time, Kamaloka is connected with the lunar sphere, there we purify ourselves of certain things, i.e. we get rid of them, they don't enter our karma, we don't take them up again one to one later, but there are some that we can't get rid of in Kamaloka, they remain in a sphere very close to the earth as karma packages, these are the packages that we have to take up again in a new incarnation and determine our karma. 

The things that we can get rid of in the Kamaloka, in Purgatory, there is a purification process in the soul, namely a process where we develop the I-power so that we really get rid of it and then it is no longer in our karma, that we no longer have this tendency in us, because it is not by chance that we repeat certain things when we come to earth to which we have a strong attraction, because they belong to us, they are certain soul forces, we have not managed to transform them, we have to take them up again, we have to work on them. Karma consists in finally eliminating these damages in the astral body. And not just to eliminate them, but to really dissolve them. Because as long as they are not dissolved, development cannot go beyond the present earth development. Not to form the New Jerusalem. Or if part of the people do that, but another part does not, then it will be the case that this New Jerusalem, Steiner also calls it New Jupiter, will be very poorer if there are not enough people who have discarded everything that would disturb it. But there will then be a kind of secondary planet from those who have not done so. Just as we are now orbited by the moon, there will then be a subsidiary planet where the people who have not managed to fully work up their karma will also be found. That is the problem. People who were not open enough to be supported by getting more favourable incarnation conditions. It will become an ever greater task, because one part of humanity is progressing spiritually, another tends to harden itself in the physical, does not find the strength to become active out of the I, then these people will need help.

But the help does not consist in my taking away their karma and sparing them. But I can create better conditions for them, up to the point that I make my body shells available to them for incarnation, and voluntarily accept the "bad" body shells that they could build for themselves out of their destiny, because karma also means: I have a problem with my astral body, that's the main problem, but I also have a problem with the etheric body and with the physical body, which perhaps has a handicap. The outer conditions, the environment I am born into, the problem is the longer I neglect to work up my karma, the more difficult the conditions I come into. The way it works is not that you then make it easier for the person. We have to take care of that. By developing himself less, man rides himself deeper and deeper into it. And if he neglects to work through his destiny in one incarnation, it is even more difficult in the next. The point is, there is, precisely in order to guarantee the freedom of the human being, that one pushes around working up one's karma, at least for a long time, which should actually be in the incarnation in which I ally myself with the adversaries, it is possible for me to get around skipping the task that I should have undertaken in this incarnation. Then the situation comes again in the next incarnation, and it comes even worse as far as the external conditions are concerned. And it still doesn't work forever to get around it, but it becomes more and more difficult. 

I.e. one then needs help, that people are there, well, I take your very difficult conditions upon myself, and give you mine, which are good conditions through spiritual work, right into the body shells, I give you that and take over your environment and your body shells, and struggle with that, But I can't dissolve his karma because of that, he still has to do that himself, but he has better conditions, support, then grows up in a more suitable environment, is physically fitter for it, the life forces are better, the astral, apart from the karmic shots, is better. That also makes a difference. The karma is already his own, he has to shoulder that. But if the astral body is otherwise largely unencumbered, it is easier than if it already has quite dark forces. When we come down to earth during incarnation, like attracts like, so like and like go together. In other words, if someone is behind in his development, then he also attracts lower astral forces, that is the problem. There will be many problems. 

That is why R. Steiner says: "There will be this separation of spirits, it is only a question of how many will fall on the negative side? Who will then ultimately no longer be able to get out of the whirlpool. They will then have to unite with the adversary powers and, together with them, prepare themselves at the end of the earth's development not to be there in the next state, in the New Jerusalem, but to go with the adversaries to their own planet. There is another very important possibility, which is not yet so clearly stated by Steiner: one must consider one thing! How did the adversary forces come into being in the first place? They have been commanded to their role, appointed to it by divine decree, but it has something to do with it, they have already been specially chosen because they have advanced their regular development as spiritual entities too slowly, at least in individual abilities, thus holding back all the other entities with whom they are in their environment. This is the case with the adversary forces. 

Now we are getting very close to our 24 elders. These are not the adversary forces, but just as the human being has received his I on earth and has thereby really become an independent individual spiritual being, after his astral, his etheric and his physical body had already been prepared beforehand, but here we have become I. So on the stages before that, when our earth was not yet solid, but was in a liquid state, there were other beings who went through their humanity stage, they ascended there to spiritual beings and thereby got an individual I, under other conditions, in the liquid it is not possible to develop this freedom that the human being has. Imagine a free stream of water in the ocean. Difficult. Those were the entities that today are the angelic entities. 

But some have stayed behind and have not quite brought this development up to the necessary level. Today they act as adversaries, namely as the Luciferian adversary. They go out from there. I.e. they were human beings before us under different conditions. Now they are Angel. The Luciferic ones are retarded angels. In terms of certain individual abilities. That is what makes them so dangerous. On the one hand, they are superior to human beings, because they have many powers that the angelic beings also have, they do not have the scruples to use them with restraint and not to the detriment of human beings, but they use them according to other criteria. Although they do not have quite the same freedom as human beings. But they are close to it. The Luciferic ones in particular are close to it. That is a separate point. It began with the fact that with the luciferic angelic beings it was to a certain extent their own decision: do I go the way in the luciferic direction or not? That is where a certain free choice begins. But this is then final at first. You cannot say of your own accord that being a Lucifer is no longer good for me, that it is insufficient, that I want to return. But there is a certain free decision in it, but also the decision to connect with the human being and to lead him or to seduce him. Both and, after all, they don't only have bad qualities. Good ones too. 

But they are former humans who have become adversaries. On the liquid planet they were human beings under different conditions externally. Human beings in the sense that they got their I. Before that, on the gaseous state, what R. Steiner calls the Old Sun, where there was the gaseous on the one hand and the light on the other, there were also beings who got their I at that time, because such developments always serve to give certain beings their I, that is, to become spiritual beings, that is what these states are there for. These beings are today, when they have gone through their regular development, the ArchangelThere were also some who did not quite reach their development goals, these are the angels. ahrimanic entities. They used to be retarded, so they have had a longer development, they are stronger, they are essentially at archangel level, except for individual abilities where they are not so developed. 

If one goes back even further, to the first state, to the world of warmth, then beings have also received their I there, these are the UrengelThe spirits of the personality, the Archai. They are the angels of the primordial beginning, archei: = origin, of the world at all, before the heat world there was nothing in that sense, that is also where time originates. Archangels = Archangeloi, they are messengers of the origin, they tell of how the origin was, Angeloi = messenger, Archangeloi = messenger of the origin. Among the primal angels who have received their I in the world of warmth, there are also some who have remained behind. Asura's retarded primal angels. There is a lot to say about them. They have many different facets, both positive and negative. On the positive side, just to remind you of the creation account in the Bible, Genesis 1. There are the 6 days of creation. The 7th day is the day of rest. The days of creation, these are the primal angels. The 7 days of creation are 7 primal angels who are in the service of the 7 Elohim, in the beginning the Elohim created the heavens and the earth, then light is created, finally a day and a night, Yom Echat: the first day comprises a day and a night, spirits of the day are called Yom, these are the truly advanced primal angels, if Yom = day is meant in Hebrew, then this is not a calendar day, but spiritual entities are meant by it, namely those entities that got their I at the very beginning of the development, who were human beings there at that time, and are now much higher and are ministering spirits of the Elohim at the creation of the earth. 

There are day spirits Yom and on the other hand night spirits Leila, dark spirits, asuras. But they are very important for development. You can't have day without night, they belong together, it would be terrible if it were only day, as terrible as if it were only night, they belong to it too. But they have a restraining power that is even stronger than that of the ahrimanic forces in the narrower sense. They are especially spirits of darkness, because on this world of heat there was no light yet. It was still a dark world. Today's asuras, the retarded ones, work in the darkness. Very strong! Those who have progressed further are very luminous beings today. They have got over this state of darkness. But the asuras carry it on. But it is also necessary for our development on earth. Also for our development - every day. They make sure that during the night the life forces are replenished that we have ruined during the day, through our consciousness activity above all, which actually destroys the body. 

The asuras, the night spirits, work on this and revive it. But they work in a deeply hidden way, they can also control people in a negative sense without them noticing. It's a broad subject. We need this contrast. We just have to become aware that it causes us difficulties. We can decide. Above all, we have the power to dissolve this darkness, sometime in the distant future, the power of light is the stronger one, we should work on this power. We do a little for this if we develop our spirit self now, that is, if we free our astral body from its dark shadows, dissolve it. Later we will be able to do this with the etheric forces, to free the etheric body. The etheric body is also the love body. Love is more than a mere feeling or emotion. Real love is life force. Love gives life. If we can permeate ourselves more strongly with it, if we can purify it, dissolve the negative, then one day we will be so far along that we will be able to create an etheric body even out of nothing. We will not succeed in this during the earth's development. But these are future states. Then we will develop what is called the life spirit, which the Indians also knew, in Indian: Buddhi, i.e. to ascend to the dignity of the Buddha, whoever succeeds in doing that has already developed this power, he has this life force, which is entirely drawn from the spiritual. 

The last would be the spiritualisation even of the physical. How can I spiritualise the physical? The actual physical would be completely supersensible, that it is as it looks, is opaque, that is due to the effect of the adversaries, they see to that. In truth, it would also only be a supersensible body. We do not see that there are enough spiritual entities that are physical but are not visible to our sensual eyes. These include, for example, the elemental beings, or some elemental beings, especially those that are called dwarfs or gnomes, who work precisely in the physical, but we do not see them with our physical eyes. Children can see them because they still see the spiritual, they still have this supersensible vision, they see deeper. Once we spiritualise the physical body, it is not visible to the physical eyes. But it still has a task. It then has the meaning that we are a completely separate spiritual entity that gives itself its own form, it is then a spiritual-physical structure that has a very specific individual character. It is difficult to imagine. It is, when it is spiritualised, apart from space and time. But this power, when I have acquired it, is then sufficient to be creatively active later on into the physical. Just as in the creation of the earth it was not only created in the soul, but it goes right into the life forces, right into the physical, so we can then also be directly active in shaping right into the physical. 

Not yet to the point where we can give away willpower, as the thrones once did, as it has come into the warmth that carries the whole, that is everywhere within. We are not that far, but we can shape it, spiritually shape it, not externally with our hands, but through our spiritual activity, just as the Elohim did when they created the earth. It was not the Elohim who brought forth this warmth that is inside, but they shaped it. That we have the forms today in nature, that is thanks to the Elohim. That is why they are the ones the biblical creation story speaks of. It does not speak of the thrones first. It is the Elohim who are a few levels below. They manage to bring forth these forms. In the end, it is the Arhiman who makes them visible to the senses with the help of Lucifer, who reflects this back, but that it becomes so dense, hard and impenetrable, that is the Ahriman who adds to it. They all work together. That's why Ahriman is necessary, we need him for our development. Just as we need the hierarchies above it first of all. It is not a question of railing against the adversaries, although we must always defend ourselves against them, but we also need them quite urgently. 

So we will one day become physically spiritualised, and that this is possible at all lies in the I-power, which will permeate us more and more, in the "the same authority lies within that I received from my Father." This means that the resurrection power also lies in it. The point is that at the turn of time, at the crucifixion on Golgotha, the Christ also permeated the entire physical body of Jesus of Nazareth, completely, and spiritualised it in such a way that the resurrection of the physical was possible. Not only the continuation of life after death, but a taking along of the physical, but not in an outwardly material form. But the resurrection body of Christ is only visible supersensually. Naturally, it looks different from a body that is filled with matter. That is why Mary Magdalene does not recognise him at first, but thinks he is the gardener. She is the first, she is the image for the soul that now experiences the Risen One supersensually in his resurrection form, which is a physical body, but he is only supersensually visible. But that is the very distant goal for us. 

The 24 Elders we can now explain: I have spoken of the entities that preceded us, precisely the angels, archangels and primal angels on the planetary states that preceded our Earth. In truth, there is not only one group of primal angels, but altogether 7 Urengelbecause this development of that first planet, which was a pure world of heat, which R. Steiner called the "world of warmth", was not a world of heat. Old Saturn This Old Saturn has gone through 7 great states, states of transformation, the number seven is always the number of temporal development, hence the week with the 7 days, many diseases have a 7-day rhythm, lunar phases are connected with this = 4 main phases are 7-day cycles, so every planetary development has 7 main states, states of transformation, states of life that one goes through. At each of these seven stages, primal angels evolve, some are faster, some finish earlier but are left behind by this, for example, others wait a very long time to complete their evolution but exploit it to the full, so there are great differences. But there are 7 great states of development, 7 rounds, as they are also called, i.e. 7 classes of primal angels come into being who have gone through their humanity at that time, i.e. have got their I. In other words, 7 human beings who preceded us. Today they are the primal angels, at that time they were not yet so powerful. 

The same game is repeated on the next state, this luminous sun-like state, which R. Steiner therefore also calls the Old Sun There, the present-day Archangel their I-development, again in 7 rounds, again 7 classes of archangels arising. 

On the next state, the liquid state, R. Steiner calls it the Old moon, make the Angel through their humanity level, again in 7 rounds. Therefore 7 classes of angels again. 

So we have 3 x 7 = 21. Now let's see where we are on earth. On earth we will again have 7 states, the only question now is: where are we today? We are in the middle, in the 4th state of transformation, in the 4th round. There have already been 3 previous rounds. Beings have already gone through their I-development there. Human beings. They have all gone before us. 7 on the Old Saturn, 7 on the Old Sun, 7 on the Old Moon = 21 and in addition 3 on our Earth development: these are the 24 Elders. Who are closely connected with our development, because they have also gone through their humanity stage at some point, who therefore have a close understanding of what it means to become a human being, because one must remember that the Elohim, the Creator Gods of the Earth's development, are above these, they were already long since beyond the humanity stage during our whole cycle. They are a different category, a different calibre. They do not have such a close understanding of our work to become human beings, therefore they need some as ministering spirits who understand this human development very well, therefore they need the days of creation who are actually spirits of creation, namely these present-day primal angels, on Old Saturn they have gone through their stage of humanity. That is to say, the Elohim could not have created man without the help of these primal angels, who were the first to go through the experiment of becoming human in their own way. We are standing in the middle of this experiment.

This preparation with the primal angels, with the archangels, with the angels, that is part of the experiment, that we are now people who can develop freedom, full freedom, we still realise little of it, but in any case we have the possibility. Schiller: "Man is free, even if he were born in chains". It is above all about spiritual freedom, from which we can overcome everything sooner or later, perhaps only in the next incarnation.

Questions: Dissolve karma and make medicine out of poison. The point is that the astral body is poisoned by the karmic transgressions. At the very end, karma must be dissolved, for the special reason that at the end of a planetary development, before we can go, for example, to the New Jerusalem, which is a completely new state, the earth must completely spiritualise itself, i.e. enter a spiritual state. Similar to the human being who goes through reincarnations. This poisoned astral must then also be dissolved, which can only be done by the one who created these astral forces. No one else can do that! That is why we have to dissolve our karma by then. What is not dissolved then remains as an excreted lump. It cannot be dissolved. It cannot pass through the spiritual world. This has happened again and again and is connected with why there are other planets and the moon, and so on. Ultimately, this dissolution must be possible, transformation first, but then dissolving the force.

The transformation of everything into truth, even into the physical, always takes place in such a way that it is actually leading into nothingness and creating something new out of nothingness. In other words, no substance passes through. Not even in the physical, as physicists already know today, that matter in the sense of a continuously existing material does not exist, but what appears to us as a substance is something that comes from a non-material realm, produces an effect, and disappears again. When an electron or atom flies, it is not really an electron that flies, but something is created, an effect, and is gone again. An effect is created again and is gone again. That is so ingenious because it is the pattern of how the spiritual works in general, how the spiritual stands in the background of everything, the same thing goes on the soul plane, astral plane, world soul, so to speak, because it is as big as the star world, but nothing exists there, but it passes and comes into being, passes and comes into being through the activity of the spirit. Spiritual activity carries it. If one believes that an astral substance exists continuously and transforms itself, this is only partly correct, because in reality it passes and comes into being, passes and comes into being in a slightly changed form, passes and comes into being in a new form, until in the end it no longer comes out at all, but remains in the purely spiritual. Then a new development begins.