“In this way the ray of creation helps us to determine and to realize our place in the world. But, as you see, we have not yet come to questions about influences. In order to understand the difference between the influences of various worlds we must better understand the law of three and then, further, still another fundamental law — the Law of Seven, or the LAW OF OCTAVES.” Fragments: Four
“The next fundamental law of the universe is the law of seven or the LAW OF OCTAVES. Fragments: Seven
“The seven-tone scale is the formula of a cosmic law which was worked out by ancient schools and applied to music. At the same time, however, if we study the manifestations of the LAW OF OCTAVES in vibrations of other kinds we shall see that the laws are everywhere the same, and that light, heat, chemical, magnetic, and other vibrations are subject to the same laws as sound vibrations. For instance, the light scale is known to physics; in chemistry the periodic system of the elements is without doubt closely connected with the principle of octaves although this connection is still not fully clear to science. Fragments: Seven
“A study of the structure of the seven-tone musical scale gives a very good foundation for understanding the cosmic LAW OF OCTAVES. Fragments: Seven
“If we grasp its full meaning the LAW OF OCTAVES gives us an entirely new explanation of the whole of life, of the progress and development of phenomena on all planes of the universe observed by us. This law explains why there are no straight lines in nature and also why we can neither think nor do, why everything with us is thought, why everything happens with us and happens usually in a way opposed to what we want or expect. All this is the clear and direct effect of the ‘intervals,’ or retardations in the development of vibrations. Fragments: Seven
“All this and many other things can only be explained with the help of the LAW OF OCTAVES together with an understanding of the role and significance of ‘intervals’ which cause the line of the development of force constantly to change, to go in a broken line, to turn round, to become its ‘own opposite’ and so on. Fragments: Seven
“The LAW OF OCTAVES explains many phenomena in our lives which are incomprehensible. Fragments: Seven
“Upon the LAW OF OCTAVES in its three principal manifestations depend many phenomena both of a psychic nature as well as those immediately connected with our life. Upon the LAW OF OCTAVES depends the imperfection and the incompleteness of our knowledge in all spheres without exception, chiefly because we always begin in one direction and afterwards without noticing it proceed in another. Fragments: Seven
“As has been said already, .the LAW OF OCTAVES in all its manifestations was known to ancient knowledge. Fragments: Seven
“Even our division of time, that is, the days of the week into work days and Sundays, is connected with the same properties and inner conditions of our activity which depend upon the general law. The Biblical myth of the creation of the world in six days and of the seventh day in which God rested from his labors is also an expression of the LAW OF OCTAVES or an indication of it, though an incomplete one. Fragments: Seven
“Observations based on an understanding of the LAW OF OCTAVES show that ‘vibrations’ may develop in different ways. In interrupted octaves they merely begin and fall, are drowned or swallowed up by other, stronger, vibrations which intersect them or which go in an opposite direction. In octaves which deviate from the original direction the vibrations change their nature and give results opposite to those which might have been expected at the beginning. Fragments: Seven
“In the big cosmic octave, which reaches us in the form of the ray of creation, we can see the first complete example of the LAW OF OCTAVES. The ray of creation begins with the Absolute. The Absolute is the All. The All, possessing full unity, full will, and full consciousness, creates worlds within itself, in this way beginning the descending world octave. The Absolute is the do of this octave. The worlds which the Absolute creates in itself are si. The ‘interval’ between do and si in this case is filled by the will of the Absolute. The process of creation is developed further by the force of the original impulse and an ‘additional shock.’ Si passes into la which for us is our star world, the Milky Way. La passes into sol — our sun, the solar system. Sol passes into fa — the planetary world. And here between the planetary world as a whole and our earth occurs an ‘interval.’ This means that the planetary radiations carrying various influences to the earth are not able to reach it, or, to speak more correctly, they are not received, the earth reflects them. In order to fill the ‘interval’ at this point of the ray of creation a special apparatus is created for receiving and transmitting the influences coming from the planets. This apparatus is organic life on earth. Organic life transmits to the earth all the influences intended for it and makes possible the further development and growth of the earth, mi of the cosmic octave, and then of the moon or re, after which follows another do — Nothing. Between All and Nothing passes the ray of creation. Fragments: Seven
“In what way can control be attained? “The technical part of this is explained by the LAW OF OCTAVES. Octaves can develop consecutively and continuously in the desired direction if ‘additional shocks’ enter them at the moments necessary, that is, at the moments when vibrations slow down. If ‘additional shocks’ do not enter at the necessary moments octaves change their direction. To entertain hopes of accidental ‘shocks’ coming from somewhere by themselves at the moments necessary is of course out of the question. There remains for a man the choice either of finding a direction for his activities which corresponds to the mechanical line of events of a given moment, in other words of ‘going where the wind blows’ or ‘swimming with the stream,’ even if this contradicts his inner inclinations, convictions, and sympathies, or of reconciling himself to the failure of everything he starts out to do; or he can learn to recognize the moments of the ‘intervals’ in all lines of his activity and learn to create the ‘additional shocks,’ in other words, learn to apply to his own activities the method which cosmic forces make use of in creating ‘additional shocks’ at the moments necessary. Fragments: Seven
“The possibility of artificial, that is, specially created, ‘additional shocks’ gives a practical meaning to the study of the LAW OF OCTAVES and makes this study obligatory and necessary if a man desires to step out of the role of passive spectator of that which is happening to him and around him. Fragments: Seven
“The ‘man-machine’ can do nothing. To him and around him everything happens. In order to do it is necessary to know the LAW OF OCTAVES, to know the moments of the ‘intervals’ and be able to create necessary ‘additional shocks.’ Fragments: Seven
“It is only possible to learn this in a school, that is to say, in a rightly organized school which follows all esoteric traditions. Without the help of a school a man by himself can never understand the LAW OF OCTAVES, the points of the ‘intervals,’ and the order of creating ‘shocks.’ He cannot understand because certain conditions are necessary for this purpose, and these conditions can only be created in a school which is itself created upon these principles. Fragments: Seven
“How a school is created on the principles of the LAW OF OCTAVES will be explained in due course. And this in its turn will explain to you one aspect of the union of the law of seven with the law of three. In the meantime it can be said only that in school teaching, a man is given examples of both descending (creative) and ascending (or evolutionary) cosmic octaves. Western thought, knowing neither about octaves nor about the law of three, confuses the ascending and the descending lines and does not understand that the line of evolution is opposed to the line’ of creation, that is to say, it goes against it as though against the stream. Fragments: Seven
“In the study of the LAW OF OCTAVES it must be remembered that octaves in their relation to each other are divided into fundamental and subordinate. The fundamental octave can be likened to the trunk of a tree giving off branches of lateral octaves. The seven fundamental notes of the octave and the two ‘intervals,’ the bearers of new directions, give altogether nine links of a chain, three groups of three links each. Fragments: Seven
The LAW OF OCTAVES naturally gave rise to a great many talks in our group and to much perplexity. G. warned us all the time against too much theorizing. Fragments: Seven
This of course is true. But the difficulty was not only in this. Merely a “technical” understanding of the LAW OF OCTAVES requires a lot of time. And we returned to it continually, sometimes making unexpected discoveries, sometimes again losing what had seemed to us already established. Fragments: Seven
It is now difficult to convey how at different periods now one and now another idea became the center of gravity in our work, attracted the greatest attention, gave rise to most talks. The idea of the LAW OF OCTAVES became in its way a permanent center of gravity. We returned to it on every occasion; we spoke of it and discussed its various aspects at every meeting until we began gradually to think of everything from the point of view of this idea. Fragments: Seven
At one of the following meetings he gave us a very interesting picture of another meaning of the LAW OF OCTAVES which went deeply into things. Fragments: Seven
“In order better to understand the significance of the LAW OF OCTAVES it is necessary to have a clear idea of another property of vibrations, namely the so-called ‘inner vibrations.’ This means that within vibrations other vibrations proceed, and that every octave can be resolved into a great number of inner octaves. Fragments: Seven
Upon me personally the “table of hydrogens” produced a very strong impression which, later on, was to become still stronger. I felt in this “ladder reaching from earth to heaven” something very like the sensations of the world which came to me several years before during my strange experiments when I felt so strongly the connectedness, the wholeness, and the “mathematicalness” of everything in the world.1 This lecture, with different variations, was repeated many times, that is, either in connection with the explanation of the “ray of creation” or in connection with the explanation of the LAW OF OCTAVES. But in spite of the strange sensation it gave to me I was far from giving it its proper value the first times I heard it. And above all, I did not understand at once that these ideas are much more difficult to assimilate and are much deeper in their content than they appeared from their simple exposition. Fragments: Nine
“The process of transforming the substances which enter the organism into finer ones is governed by the LAW OF OCTAVES. Fragments: Nine
“As it is known from the LAW OF OCTAVES mi cannot pass independently into fa in an ascending octave; an ‘additional shock’ is necessary. If an ‘additional shock’ is not received the substance mi 192 cannot by itself pass into the full note fa. Fragments: Nine
“All cosmoses result from the action of the same forces and the same laws. Laws are the same everywhere. But they manifest themselves in a different, or at least, in not quite the same way on different planes of the universe, that is, on different levels. Consequently cosmoses are not quite analogous one to another. If the LAW OF OCTAVES did not exist, the analogy between them would have been complete, but owing to the LAW OF OCTAVES there is no complete analogy between them, just as there is no complete analogy between the different notes of the octave. It is only three cosmoses, taken together, that are similar and analogous to any other three. Fragments: Ten
“This same process of the harmonious development of man can be examined from the point of view of the LAW OF OCTAVES. The LAW OF OCTAVES gives another system of symbols. In the sense of the LAW OF OCTAVES every completed process is a transition of the note do through a series of successive tones to the do of the next octave. The seven fundamental tones of the octave express the law of seven. The addition to it of the do of the next octave, that is to say, the crowning of the process, gives the eighth step. The seven fundamental tones together with the two ‘intervals’ and ‘additional shocks’ give nine steps. By incorporating in it the do of the next octave we have ten steps. The last, the tenth, step is the end of the preceding and the beginning of the next cycle. In this way the LAW OF OCTAVES and the process of development it expresses, include the numbers 1 to 10. At this point we come to what may be termed the symbolism of numbers. The symbolism of numbers cannot be understood without the LAW OF OCTAVES or without a clear conception of how octaves are expressed in the decimal system and vice versa. Fragments: Fourteen
“We have spoken earlier of the LAW OF OCTAVES, of the fact that every process, no matter upon what scale it takes place, is completely determined in its gradual development by the law of the structure of the seven-tone scale. In connection with this it has been pointed out that every note, every tone, if taken on another scale is again a whole octave. The ‘intervals’ between mi and fa and between si and do which cannot be filled by the intensity of the energy of the process in operation, and which require an outside ‘shock,’ outside help so to speak, connect by this very fact one process with other processes. From this it follows that the LAW OF OCTAVES connects all processes of the universe and, to one who knows the scales of the passage and the laws of the structure of the octave, it presents the possibility of an exact cognition of everything and every phenomenon in its essential nature and of all its interrelations with phenomena and things connected with it. Fragments: Fourteen
“The complete construction of this symbol which connects it with a complete expression of the LAW OF OCTAVES is more complicated than the construction shown. But even this construction shows the inner laws of one octave and it points out a method of cognizing the essential nature of a thing examined in itself. Fragments: Fourteen
that is, in one case x between mi and fa, and in the other between sol and la, where it is not necessary. “The apparent placing of the interval in its wrong place itself shows to those who are able to read the symbol what kind of ‘shock’ is required for the passage of si to do. “In order to understand this, it is essential to recollect what was said about the role of ‘shocks’ in the processes proceeding in man and in the universe. “When we examined the application of the LAW OF OCTAVES to the cosmos then the step ‘sun-earth’ was represented in this way: “In relation to the three octaves of radiation it was pointed out that the passage of do to si, the filling of the interval, takes place within the organism of the sun. It was pointed out in the cosmic octave in relation to the ‘interval’ do-si that this passage is accomplished by the will of the Absolute. The passage fa-mi in the cosmic octave is accomplished mechanically with the help of a special machine which makes it possible for fa, which enters it, to acquire by a series of inner processes the characteristics of sol standing above it, without changing its note, that is, to accumulate, as it were, the inner energy for passing independently into the next note, into mi. Fragments: Fourteen
“Now if we recall the LAW OF OCTAVES we shall see that a balanced process proceeding in a certain way cannot be changed at any moment it is desired. It can be changed and set on a new path only at certain ‘cross-roads.’ In between the ‘crossroads’ nothing can be done. At the same time if a process passes by a ‘crossroad’ and nothing happens, nothing is done, then nothing can be done afterwards and the process will continue and develop according to mechanical laws; and even if people taking part in this process foresee the inevitable destruction of everything, they will be unable to do anything. I repeat that something can be done only at certain moments which I have just called ‘crossroads’ and which in octaves we have called the ‘intervals’ mi-fa and sido. Fragments: Fifteen