“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 Magi-cians.’ But if I produce the ballet on the ordinary stage the public will never understand these ideas.” 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

“Everything in the world, from SOLAR SYSTEMs to man, and from man to atom, either rises or descends, either evolves or degenerates, either develops or decays. Bur nothing evolves mechanically. Only degeneration and destruction proceed mechanically. That which cannot evolve consciously — degenerates. Help from outside is possible only in so far as it is valued and accepted, even if it is only by feeling in the beginning. Fragments: Four

“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

“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

“For the sun, in its turn, ‘world’ is our world of stars, or the Milky Way, an accumulation of a vast number of SOLAR SYSTEMs. 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

“All the matter of the world that surrounds us, the food that we eat, the water that we drink, the air that we breathe, the stones that our houses are built of, our own bodies — everything is permeated by all the matters that exist in the universe. There is no need to study or investigate the sun in order to discover the matter of the solar world: this matter exists in ourselves and is the result of the division of our atoms. In the same way we have in us the matter of all other worlds. Man is, in the full sense of the term, a ‘miniature universe’; in him are all the matters of which the universe consists; the same forces, the same laws that govern the life of the universe, operate in him; therefore in studying man we can study the whole world, just as in studying the world we can study man. Fragments: Five

“The fourth body is composed of material of the starry world, that is, of material that does not belong to the SOLAR SYSTEM, and therefore, if it has crystallized within the limits of the SOLAR SYSTEM there is nothing within this system that could destroy it. This means that a man possessing the fourth body is immortal within the limits of the SOLAR SYSTEM. “You see, therefore, why it is impossible to answer at once the question: Is man immortal or not? One man is immortal, another is not, a third tries to become immortal, a fourth considers himself immortal and is, therefore, simply a lump of flesh.” 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

“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

“If we adopt this point of view, we shall have to admit that the relation of one cosmos to another is the relation of two bodies of different dimensions. If one cosmos is three-dimensional then the next cosmos, that is, the one above it, must be four-dimensional, the next — five-dimensional, and so on. If we take the ‘atom’ or ‘microbe,’ as you say, that is, the Microcosmos as a point, then relative to this point man will be a line, that is, a figure of one dimension. The next cosmos, the earth, will be a plane relative to man, that is, it will have two dimensions, as is actually the case for direct perception. The sun, the SOLAR SYSTEM, will be three-dimensional for the earth. The starry world will be four-dimensional for the sun. ‘All worlds’ are five-dimensional, and the Absolute or Protocosmos is six-dimensional. Fragments: Ten

“This means that all the possibilities of the ‘atom’ or ‘microbe’ are realized within the limits of the SOLAR SYSTEM. Fragments: Ten

“In this case all the possibilities of man are actualized in the sun. This corresponds to what has been said before, namely, that man number seven becomes immortal within the limits of the SOLAR SYSTEM. Fragments: Ten

“Beyond the sun, that is, beyond the SOLAR SYSTEM, he has not and cannot have any existence, or in other words, from the point of view of the next cosmos he does not exist at all. A man does not exist at all in the Macrocosmos. The Macrocosmos is the cosmos in which the possibilities of the Tritocosmos are realized and man can exist in the Macrocosmos only as an atom of the Tritocosmos. The possibilities of the earth are actualized in the Megalocosmos and the possibilities of the sun are actualized in the Protocosmos. Fragments: Ten

“The usual scientific view takes man as a three-dimensional body; it takes organic life on earth as a whole, more as a phenomenon than a three-dimensional body; it takes the earth as a three-dimensional body; the sun as a three-dimensional body; the SOLAR SYSTEM as a three-dimensional body; and the Milky Way as a three-dimensional body. Fragments: Ten

It would be curious to talk and become more closely acquainted with the psychology of a man whose capital depends entirely upon order in the SOLAR SYSTEM, which is hardly likely to be upset and whose interests for that reason prove to be higher than war and peace. . . . Fragments: Sixteen