“My ballet is not a ‘mystery,’” said G. “The object I had in view was to produce an interesting and beautiful spectacle. Of course there is a certain meaning hidden beneath the outward form, but I have not pursued the aim of exposing and emphasizing this meaning. An important place in the ballet is occupied by certain dances. I will explain this to you briefly. Imagine that in the study of the movements of the heavenly bodies, let us say the PLANETS of the solar system, a special mechanism is constructed to give a visual representation of the laws of these movements and to remind us of them. In this mechanism each planet, which is represented by a sphere of appropriate size, is placed at a certain distance from a central sphere representing the sun. The mechanism is set in motion and all the spheres begin to rotate and to move along prescribed paths, reproducing in a visual form the laws which govern the movements of the PLANETS. This mechanism reminds you of all you know about the solar system. There is something like this in the rhythm of certain dances. In the strictly defined movements and combinations of the dancers, certain laws are visually reproduced which arc intelligible to those who know them. Such dances are called ‘sacred dances.’ In the course of my travels in the East I have many times witnessed such dances being performed during sacred services in various ancient temples. Some of these dances are reproduced in The Struggle of the Magicians.’ More-over there are three ideas lying at the basis of “The Struggle of the Magi­cians.’ But if I produce the ballet on the ordinary stage the public will never understand these ideas.” Fragments: One

“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

This was all I heard. Only much later I understood what he wished to tell me — that is, how accidental influences could be diverted or transformed into something relatively harmless. It was really an interesting idea referring to the esoteric meaning of “sacrifices.” But, in any case at the present time, this idea has only an historical and a psychological value. What was really important and what he said quite casually, so that I did not even notice it at once, and only remembered later in trying to reconstruct the conversation, was his words referring to the difference of time for PLANETS and for man. Fragments: One

Somewhere about this time I was very much struck by a talk about the sun, the PLANETS, and the moon. I do not remember how this talk began. But I remember that G. drew a small diagram and tried to explain what he called the “correlation of forces in different worlds.” This was in connection with the previous talk, that is, in connection with the influences acting on humanity. The idea was roughly this: humanity, or more correctly, organic life on earth, is acted upon simultaneously by influences proceeding from various sources and different worlds: influences from the PLANETS, influences from the moon, influences from the sun, influences from the stars. All these influences act simultaneously; one influence predominates at one moment and another influence at another moment. And for man there is a certain possibility of making a choice of influences; in other words, of passing from one influence to another. Fragments: One

What interested me in this talk was that G. spoke of the PLANETS and the moon as living beings, having definite ages, a definite period of life and possibilities of development and transition to other planes of being. From what he said it appeared that the moon was not a “dead planet,” as is usually accepted, but, on the contrary, a “planet in birth”; a planet at the very initial stages of its development which had not yet reached “the degree of intelligence possessed by the earth,” as he expressed it. Fragments: One

This attracted my attention at once. Nothing had ever seemed to me more artificial, unreliable, and dogmatic than all the usual theories of the origin of PLANETS and solar systems, beginning with the Kant-Laplace theory down to the very latest, with all their additions and variations. The “general public” considers these theories, or at any rate the last one known to it, to be scientific and proven. But in actual fact there is of course nothing less scientific and less proven than these theories. Therefore the fact that G.’s system accepted an altogether different theory, an organic theory having its origin in entirely new principles and showing a different universal order, appeared to me very interesting and important. Fragments: One

“In order to understand the law of man’s evolution it is necessary to grasp that, beyond a certain point, this evolution is not at all necessary, that is to say, it is not necessary for nature at a given moment in its own development. To speak more precisely: the evolution of mankind corresponds to the evolution of the PLANETS, but the evolution of the PLANETS proceeds, for us, in infinitely prolonged cycles of time. Throughout the stretch of time that human thought can embrace, no essential changes can take place in the life of the PLANETS, and, consequently, no essential changes can take place in the life of mankind. Fragments: Three

“What is ‘world’ for all the PLANETS taken together? The sun, or the sphere of the sun’s influence, or the solar system, of which the PLANETS form 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

“In our system the end of the ray of creation, the growing end, so to speak, of the branch, is the moon. The energy for the growth, that is, for the development of the moon and for the formation of new shoots, goes to the moon from the earth, where it is created by the joint action of the sun, of all the other PLANETS of the solar system, and of the earth itself. This energy is collected and preserved in a huge accumulator situated on the earth’s surface. This accumulator is organic life on earth. Organic life on earth feeds the moon. Everything living on the earth, people, animals, plants, is food for the moon. The moon is a huge living being feeding upon all that lives and grows on the earth. The moon could not exist without organic life on earth, any more than organic life on earth could exist without the moon. Moreover, in relation to organic life the moon is a huge electromagnet. If the action of the electromagnet were suddenly to stop, organic life would crumble to nothing. Fragments: Five

“But the concept ‘materiality’ is as relative as everything else. It we recall how the concept ‘man’ and all that refers to him — good, evil, truth, falsehood, and so on — is divided into different categories (‘man number one,’ ‘man number two,’ and so on, it will be easy for us to understand that the concept ‘world,’ and everything that refers to the world, is also divided into different categories. The ray of creation establishes seven planes in the world, seven worlds one within another. Everything that refers to the world is also divided into seven categories, one category within another. The materiality of the Absolute is a materiality of an order different from that of ‘all worlds.’ The materiality of ‘all worlds’ is of an order different from the materiality of ‘all suns.’ The materiality of ‘all suns’ is of an order different from the materiality of our sun. The materiality of our sun is of an order different from the materiality of ‘all PLANETS.’ The materiality of ‘all PLANETS’ is of an order different from the materiality of the earth, and the materiality of the earth is of an order different from the materiality of the moon. This idea is at first difficult to grasp. People are accustomed to think that matter is everywhere the same. The whole of physics, of astrophysics, of chemistry, such methods as spectroanalysis, and so on, are based upon this assumption. And it is true that matter is the same, but materiality is different. And different degrees of materiality depend directly upon the qualities and properties of the energy manifested at a given point. 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

“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

“The Absolute or All (world 1) will be do; all worlds (world 3) — si; all suns (world 6) — la; our sun (world 12) — sol; all PLANETS (world 24) — fa; the earth (world 48) — mi; the moon (world 96) — re. The ray of creation begins with the Absolute. The Absolute is All. It is — do. Fragments: Seven

“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

“The conditions to insure the passage of forces are created by the arrangement of a special mechanical contrivance between the PLANETS and the earth. This mechanical contrivance, this ‘transmitting station of forces’ is organic life on earth. Organic life on earth was created to fill the interval between the PLANETS and the earth. Fragments: Seven

“Organic life is the organ of perception of the earth and it is at the same time an organ of radiation. With the help of organic life each portion of the earth’s surface occupying a given area sends every moment certain kinds of rays in the direction of the sun, the PLANETS, and the moon. In connection with this the sun needs one kind of radiations, the PLANETS another kind, and the moon another. Everything that happens on earth creates radiations of this kind. And many things often happen just because certain kinds of radiation are required from a certain place on the earth’s surface.” Fragments: Seven

At the same time he constantly emphasized the fact that no matter what took place in the thin film of organic life it always served the interests of the earth, the sun, the PLANETS, and the moon; nothing unnecessary and nothing independent could happen in it because it was created for a definite purpose and was merely subordinate. Fragments: Seven

“In the present instance sol begins to sound as do. Descending to the level of the PLANETS this new octave passes into si; descending still lower it produces three notes, la, sol, fa, which create and constitute organic life on earth in the form that we know it; mi of this octave blends with mi of the cosmic octave, that is, with the earth, and re with the re of the cosmic octave, that is, with the moon.” Fragments: Seven

We at once felt that there was a great deal of meaning in this lateral octave. First of all it showed that organic life, represented in the diagram by three notes, had two higher notes, one on the level of the PLANETS and one on the level of the sun, and that it began in the sun. This last was the most important point because once more, as with many other things in G.’s system, it contradicted the usual modern idea of life having originated so to speak from below. In his explanations life came from above. Fragments: Seven

“The action of the Absolute upon the world, or upon the worlds created by it or within it, continues. The action of each of these worlds upon subsequent worlds continues in exactly the same way. ‘All suns’ of the Milky Way influence our sun. The sun influences the PLANETS. ‘All PLANETS’ influence our earth and the earth influences the moon. These influences are transmitted by means of radiations passing through starry and interplanetary space. 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

“The relation of one cosmos to another is different from the relation of one world to another in the astronomical ray of creation. In the ray of creation worlds are taken in the actual relation in which they exist in the universe for us, from our point of view: the moon, the earth, the PLANETS, the sun, the Milky Way, and so on. Therefore the quantitative interrelation of the worlds one to another in the ray of creation is not permanent. In one case or on one level it is greater, for instance, the relation of ‘all suns’ to our sun; in another case, on another level, it is less, for instance, the relation of the earth to the moon. But the interrelation of the cosmoses is permanent and always the same. That is to say, one cosmos is related to another as zero to infinity. This means that the relation of the Microcosmos to the Tritocosmos is the same as that of zero to infinity; the relation of the Tritocosmos to the Mesocosmos is that of zero to infinity; the relation of the Mesocosmos to the Deuterocosmos is that of zero to infinity; and so on. 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

In our conversations about this diagram we very soon agreed to take “angels” as PLANETS and “archangels” as suns. Many other things gradually became clear to us. But what used to confuse us a great deal was the appearance of “hydrogen” 6144 which was absent altogether in the previous scale of “hydrogens” in the third scale which ended with “hydrogen” 3072. At the same time, G. insisted that the enumeration of “hydrogens” had been taken according to the third scale. Fragments: Sixteen

Examining the enneagram further I saw that the seven points could represent the seven PLANETS of the ancient world; in other words the enneagram could be an astronomical symbol. And when I took the order of the PLANETS in the order of the days of the week I obtained the following picture: Fragments: Eighteen