“But the whole thing is: how?” he said. “It is necessary to know a great deal in order to understand that. What is war? It is the result of PLANETARY influences. Somewhere up there two or three planets have approached too near to each other; tension results. Have you noticed how, if a man passes quite close to you on a narrow pavement, you become all tense? The same tension takes place between planets. For them it lasts, perhaps, a second or two. But here, on the earth, people begin to slaughter one another, and they go on slaughtering maybe for several years. It seems to them at the time that they hate one another; or perhaps that they have to slaughter each other for some exalted purpose; or that they must defend somebody or something and that it is a very noble thing to do; or something else of the same kind. They fail to realize to what an extent they are mere pawns in the game. They think they signify something; they think they can move about as they like; they think they can decide to do this or that. But in reality all their movements, all their actions, are the result of PLANETARY influences. And they themselves signify literally nothing. Then the moon plays a big part in this. But we will speak about the moon separately. Only it must be understood that neither Emperor Wilhelm, nor generals, nor ministers, nor parliaments, signify anything or can do anything. Everything that happens on a big scale is governed from outside, and governed either by accidental combinations of influences or by general cosmic laws.” Fragments: One

“There are periods in the life of humanity, which generally coincide with the beginning of the fall of cultures and civilizations, when the masses irretrievably lose their reason and begin to destroy everything that has been created by centuries and millenniums of culture. Such periods of mass madness, often coinciding with geological cataclysms, climatic changes, and similar phenomena of a PLANETARY character, release a very great quantity of the matter of knowledge. This, in its turn, necessitates the work of collecting this matter of knowledge which would otherwise be lost. Thus the work of collecting scattered matter of knowledge frequently coincides with the beginning of the destruction and fall of cultures and civilizations. Fragments: Two

“Only thought as theoretical and as far removed from fact as modem European thought could have conceived the evolution of man to be possible apart from surrounding nature, or have regarded the evolution of man as a gradual conquest of nature. This is quite impossible. In living, in dying, in evolving, in degenerating, man equally serves the purposes of nature — or, rather, nature makes equal use, though perhaps for different purposes, of the products of both evolution and degeneration. And, at the same time, humanity as a whole can never escape from nature, for, even in struggling against nature man acts in conformity with her purposes. The evolution of large masses of humanity is opposed to nature’s purposes. The evolution of a certain small percentage may be in accord with nature’s purposes. Man contains within him the possibility of evolution. But the evolution of humanity as a whole, that is, the development of these possibilities in all men, or in most of them, or even in a large number of them, is not necessary for the purposes of the earth or of the PLANETARY world in general, and it might, in fact, be injurious or fatal. There exist, therefore, special forces (of a PLANETARY character) which oppose the evolution of large masses of humanity and keep it at the level it ought, to be. Fragments: Three

“But, at the same time, possibilities of evolution exist, and they may be developed in separate individuals with the help of appropriate knowledge and methods. Such development can take place only in the interests of the man himself against, so to speak, the interests and forces of the PLANETARY world. The man must understand this: his evolution is necessary only to himself. No one else is interested in it. And no one is obliged or intends to help him. On the contrary, the forces which oppose the evolution of large masses of humanity also oppose the evolution of individual men. A man must outwit them. And one man can outwit them, humanity cannot. You will understand later on that all these obstacles are very useful to a man; if they did not exist they would have to be created intentionally, because it is by overcoming obstacles that man develops those qualities he needs. Fragments: Three

“But organic life is also in the world. What then is ‘world’ for organic life? “To this we can answer that for organic life our planet the earth is ‘world.’ “But the earth is also in the world. What then is ‘world’ for the earth? ” ‘World’ for the earth is the PLANETARY world of the solar system, of which it forms a part. Fragments: Four

“If we take one of the many worlds created in the Absolute, that is, world 3, it will be the world representing the total number of starry worlds similar to our Milky Way. If we take world 6, it will be one of the worlds created within this world, namely the accumulation of stars which we call the Milky Way. World 12 will be one of the suns that compose the Milky Way, our sun. World 24 will be the PLANETARY world, that is to say, all the planets of the solar system. World 48 will be the earth. World 96 will be the moon. If the moon had a satellite it would be world 192, and so on. Fragments: Four

“The chain of worlds, the links of which are the Absolute, all worlds, all suns, our sun, the planets, the earth, and the moon, forms the ‘ray of creation’ in which we find ourselves. The ray of creation is for us the ‘world’ in the widest sense of the term. Of course, the ray of creation does not include the ‘world’ in the full sense of the term, since the Absolute gives birth to a number, perhaps to an infinite number, of different worlds, each of which begins a new and separate ray of creation. Furthermore, each of these worlds contains a number of worlds representing a further breaking up of the ray and again of these worlds we select only one — our Milky Way; the Milky Way consists of a number of suns, but of this number we select one sun which is nearest to us, upon which we immediately depend, and in which we live and move and have our being. Each of the other suns means a new breaking up of the ray, but we cannot study these rays in the same way as our ray, that is, the ray in which we are situated. Further, within the solar system the PLANETARY world is nearer to us than the sun itself, and within the PLANETARY world the nearest of all to us is the earth, the planet on which we live. We have no need to study other planets in the same way as we study the earth, it is sufficient for us to take them all together, that is to say, on a considerably smaller scale than we take the earth. Fragments: Four

“On the earth we are very far removed from the will of the Absolute; we are separated from it by forty-eight orders of mechanical laws. If we could free ourselves from one half of these laws, we should find ourselves subject to only twenty­four orders of laws, that is, to the laws of the PLANETARY world, and then we should be one stage nearer to the Absolute and its will. If we could then free ourselves from one half of these laws, we should be subject to the laws of the sun (twelve laws) and con­sequently one stage nearer still to the Absolute. If, again, we could free ourselves from half of these laws, we should be subject to the laws of the starry world and separated by only one stage from the immediate will of the Absolute. Fragments: Five

“The souls that go to the moon, possessing perhaps even a certain amount of consciousness and memory, find themselves there under ninety-six laws, in the conditions of mineral life, or to put it differently, in conditions from which there is no escape apart from a general evolution in immeasurably long PLANETARY cycles. The moon is ‘at the extremity,’ at the end of the world; it is the ‘outer darkness’ of the Christian doctrine ‘where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ Fragments: Five

“The seven worlds of the ray of creation represent seven orders of materiality. The materiality of the moon is different from the materiality of the earth; the materiality of the earth is different from the materiality of the PLANETARY world; the materiality of the PLANETARY world is different from the materiality of the sun, and so on. Fragments: Five

“This is ordinary man,” he said, “man number one, two, three, and four. He has only the physical body. The physical body dies and nothing is left of it. The physical body is composed of earthly material and at death it returns to earth. It is dust and to dust it returns. It is impossible to talk of any kind of ‘immortality’ for a man of this sort. But if a man has the second body” (he placed the second body on the diagram parallel to the planets), “this second body is composed of material of the PLANETARY world and it can survive the death of the physical body. It is not immortal in the full sense of the word, because after a certain period of time it also dies. But at any rate it does not die with the physical body. Fragments: Five

“There was a question about war. How to stop wars? Wars cannot be stopped. War is the result of the slavery in which men live. Strictly speaking men are not to blame for war. War is due to cosmic forces, to PLANETARY influences. But in men there is no resistance whatever against these influences, and there cannot be any, because men are slaves. If they were men and were capable of ‘doing,’ they would be able to resist these influences and refrain from killing one another.” Fragments: Six

“Those who dislike war have been trying to do so almost since the creation of the world,” said G. “And yet there has never been such a war as the present. Wars are not decreasing, they are increasing and war cannot be stopped by ordinary means. All these theories about universal peace, about peace conferences, and so on, are again simply laziness and hypocrisy. Men do not want to think about themselves, do not want to work on themselves, but think of how to make other people do what they want. If a sufficient number of people who wanted to stop war really did gather together they would first of all begin by making war upon those who disagreed with them. And it is still more certain that they would make war on people who also want to stop wars but in another way. And so they would fight. Men are what they are and they cannot be different. War has many causes that are unknown to us. Some causes are in men themselves, others are outside them. One must begin with the causes that are in man himself. How can he be independent of the external influences of great cosmic forces when he is the slave of everything that surrounds him? He is controlled by everything around him. If he becomes free from things, he may then become free from PLANETARY influences. Fragments: Six

Then a great deal was elucidated for me by the idea that each center was not only a motive force but also a “receiving apparatus,” working as receiver for different and sometimes very distant influences. When I thought of what had been said about wars, revolutions, migrations of peoples, and so on; when I pictured how masses of humanity could move under the control of PLANETARY influences, I began to understand our fundamental mistake in determining the actions of an individual. We regard the actions of an individual as originating in himself. We do not imagine that the “masses” may consist of automatons obeying external stimuli and may move, not under the influence of the will, consciousness, or inclination of individuals, but under the influence of external stimuli coming possibly from very far away. Fragments: Six

“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

“If we begin with vibrations of world 48, we can say that one note of the vibrations in this world contains an octave or seven notes of the vibrations of the PLANETARY world. Each note of the vibrations of the PLANETARY world contains seven notes of the vibrations of the world of the sun. Each vibration of the world of the sun will contain seven notes of the vibrations of the starry world and so on. Fragments: Seven

“Organic life represents so to speak the earth’s organ of perception. Organic life forms something like a sensitive film which covers the whole of the earth’s globe and takes in those influences coming from the PLANETARY sphere which otherwise would not be able to reach the earth. The vegetable, animal, and human kingdoms are equally important for the earth in this respect. A field merely covered with grass takes in PLANETARY influences of a definite kind and transmits them to the earth. The same field with a crowd of people on it will take in and transmit other influences. The population of Europe takes in one kind of PLANETARY influences and transmits them to the earth. The population of Africa takes in PLANETARY influences of another kind, and so on. Fragments: Seven

“All great events in the life of the human masses are caused by PLANETARY influences. They are the result of the taking in of PLANETARY influences. Human society is a highly sensitive mass for the reception of PLANETARY influences. And any accidental small tension in PLANETARY spheres can be reflected for years in an increased animation in one or another sphere of human activity. Something accidental and very transient takes place in PLANETARY space. This is immediately received by the human masses, and people begin to hate and to kill one another, justifying their actions by some theory of brotherhood, or equality, or love, or justice. Fragments: Seven

In saying this G. drew our attention in particular to the nonconformity of time, that is, of the duration of events in the PLANETARY world and in human life. The significance of his insistence on this point became clear to me only later. Fragments: Seven

“I mentioned before about fate and accident in man’s life. We will now take the meaning of these words in more detail. Fate also exists but not for everyone. Most people are separated from their fate and live under the law of accident only. Fate is the result of PLANETARY influences which correspond to a man’s type. We will speak about types later. In the meantime you must grasp one thing. A man can have the fate which corresponds to his type but he practically never does have it. This arises because fate has relation to only one part of man, namely to his essence. Fragments: Eight

AT ONE lecture G. began to draw the diagram of the universe in an entirely new way. “So far we have spoken of the forces that create worlds,” he said, “of the process of creation proceeding from the Absolute. We will now speak of the processes which take place in the already created and existing world. But you must remember that the process of creation never stops, although, on a PLANETARY scale, growth proceeds so slowly that if we reckon it in our time PLANETARY conditions can be regarded as per­manent for us. Fragments: Nine

“Seven cosmoses, taken together in their relation to one another, alone represent a complete picture of the universe. The idea of two analogous cosmoses, accidentally preserved from a great and complete teaching, is so incomplete that it can give no idea whatever of the analogy between man and the world. “The teaching on cosmoses examines seven cosmoses: “The first cosmos is the Protocosmos — the first cosmos. “The second cosmos is the Ayocosmos, the holy cosmos, or the Megalocosmos, the ‘great cosmos.’ “The third cosmos is the Macrocosmos — the ‘large cosmos.’ “The fourth cosmos is the Deuterocosmos — the ‘second cosmos.’ “The fifth cosmos is the Mesocosmos — the ‘middle cosmos.’ “The sixth cosmos is the Tritocosmos — the ‘third cosmos.’ “The seventh cosmos is the Microcosmos — the ‘small cosmos.’ “The Protocosmos is the Absolute in the ray of creation, or world 1. The Ayocosmos is world 3 (‘all worlds’ in the ray of creation). The Macro-cosmos is our starry world or the Milky Way (world 6 in the ray of creation). The Deuterocosmos is the sun, the solar system (world 12). The Mesocosmos is ‘all planets’ (world 24), or the earth as the representative of the PLANETARY world. The Tritocosmos is man. The Microcosmos is the ‘atom.’ Fragments: Ten

“In reality this means that if, for instance, a man begins to feel the life of the planets, or if his consciousness passes to the level of the PLANETARY world, he begins at the same time to feel the life of atoms, or his consciousness passes to their level. In this way the broadening of consciousness proceeds simultaneously in two directions, towards the greater and towards the lesser. Both the great and the small require for their cognition a like change in man. In looking for parallels and analogies between the cosmoses we may take each cosmos in three relations: “1. in its relation to itself, “2. in its relation to a higher or a larger cosmos, and Fragments: Ten

“To ordinary knowledge,” he said, “organic life is a kind of accidental appendage violating the integrity of a mechanical system. Ordinary knowledge does not connect it with anything and draws no conclusions from the fact of its existence. But you should already understand that there is nothing accidental or unnecessary in nature and that there can be nothing; everything has a definite function; everything serves a definite purpose. Thus organic life is an indispensable link in the chain of the worlds which cannot exist without it just as it cannot exist without them. It has been said before that organic life transmits PLANETARY influences of various kinds to the earth and that it serves to feed the moon and to enable it to grow and strengthen. But the earth also is growing; not in the sense of size but in the sense of greater consciousness, greater receptivity. The PLANETARY influences which were sufficient for her at one period of her existence become insufficient, she needs the reception of finer influences. To receive finer influences a finer, more sensitive receptive apparatus is necessary. Organic life, therefore, has to evolve, to adapt itself to the needs of the planets and the earth. Likewise also the moon can be satisfied at one period with the food which is given her by organic life of a certain quality, but afterwards the time comes when she ceases to be satisfied with this food, cannot grow on it, and begins to get hungry. Organic life must be able to satisfy this hunger, otherwise it does not fulfill its function, does not answer its purpose. This means that in order to answer its purpose organic life must evolve and stand on the level of the needs of the planets, the earth, and the moon. Fragments: Fifteen

“We have no clues from which we are able to tell in what period of PLANETARY evolution we exist and whether the moon and the earth have time to await the corresponding evolution of organic life or not. But people who know may, of course, have exact information about it, that is, they may know at what stage in their possible evolution are the earth, the moon, and humanity. We cannot know this but we should bear in mind that the number of possibilities is never infinite. Fragments: Fifteen

“It was pointed out before when we spoke about the history of humanity that the life of humanity to which we belong is governed by forces proceeding from two different sources: first, PLANETARY influences which act entirely mechanically and are received by the human masses as well as by individual people quite involuntarily and unconsciously; and then, influences proceeding from inner circles of humanity whose existence and significance the vast majority of people do not suspect any more than they suspect PLANETARY influences. Fragments: Fifteen

We continued to walk and G. continued to speak trying to explain what there was in man that could depend upon PLANETARY influences and what could not. Fragments: Seventeen

“In examining the ray of creation or cosmic octave we see that ‘intervals’ should come in the development of this octave: the first between do and si, that is between world 1 and world 3, between the Absolute and ‘all worlds,’ and the second between fa and mi, that is, between world 24 and world 48, between ‘all planets’ and the earth. But the first ‘interval’ is filled by the will of the Absolute. One of the manifestations of the will of the Absolute consists precisely in the filling of this ‘interval’ by means of a conscious manifestation of neu­tralizing force which fills up the ‘interval’ between the active and the passive forces. With the second ‘interval’ the situation is more complicated. Something is missing between the planets and the earth. Planetary influences cannot pass to the earth consecutively and fully. An ‘additional shock’ is indispensable; the creation of some new conditions to insure a proper passage of forces is indispensable. Fragments: Seven

“Yes and no,” said G. “This is true in most cases, just as it is true in one life. But on a big scale new forces may enter. I shall not explain this now; but think about what I am going to say: Planetary influences also can change. They are not permanent. Besides this, tendencies themselves can be different; there are tendencies which, once they have appeared, continue and develop by themselves mechanically, and there are others which need constant pushing and which immediately weaken and may vanish altogether or turn into dreaming if a man ceases to work on them. Moreover there is a definite time, a definite term, for everything. Possibilities for everything” (he emphasized these words) “exist only for a definite time.” Fragments: Twelve