[Naturwissenschaft und Theosophie]
Translation from the German by Robert Hütwohl[1]
One hears the expression so often: We live in the age of natural science. But it may be objected that it still has a strong influence on the lower stratum of the educated today, while the upper stratum has begun to turn to a higher than materialistic worldview.
The age of the great philosophers, Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Schopenhauer, and others, was followed in the second half of the last century by a counterattack, just as too strong an action is always followed by a reaction, as “positive” and “negative” alternate. There will always remain a natural opposition between science and metaphysics, because the former deals with the explanation of phenomena on the physical plane and seeks to explain this phenomenon with the human mind, while the really great philosophers interpret everything they say, they have gained through inner vision.
Therefore the methods of both schools of thought are quite different, even opposed to one another. Science is inductive: It starts from the individual and arrives at more general laws; but philosophy is deductive, i.e., it recognizes a truth in an inner way, “per intuitionem” [by intuition] and deduces the individual from it.
Therefore, science and philosophy must actually always coincide. For there can only be one truth, and it can be reached in the two ways just given. The difficulty lies only in the fact that someone meets someone else in the middle of the path and then, understandably, does not easily recognize that the other person is taking a different path to the same goal. It’s like when two railway carriages on a railway track meet, one going up and the other going down. Philosophy leads down, science up: The first was already at the goal, the other wants to reach it.
It is therefore understandable that both methods seek to be connected from a certain point. All natural scientists of genius have advanced hypotheses which were later proved by men of science. The greatness of a scholar shows itself precisely in the fact that he can think beyond his science, i.e., initially “inexactly.” The smallness can be recognized by the fact that someone does not want to recognize something that goes beyond their scientific (often quite low) conviction, which they think they have taken the truth as their hereditary lease through their self-formed “laws of nature” and therefore persistently deny something, which nevertheless is true. Thus, the Paris Academy did not want to assume that meteors fell from the sky, and the “men of science” still resist mesmerism, the miracles of Lourdes and everything which does not suit them.
If now theosophy sets up new theorems, gives new explanations, creates new thoughts, registers new facts, discovers new sources, then science should be very grateful to it, because in this convenient way it first receives “hypotheses,” which serve to complete today’s views and can expand the field of vision. But when science makes man self-sufficient and spiritually arrogant, it is a stumbling block to progress.
To what stupidity and brutality the so-called scientific view of the world can lead some people, I found out once when I visited an acquaintance and the topic I had just discussed turned to the topic. Then the good man (who himself was not even a man of science and had not attended a single university) got so angry that he said in great anger that with my views there could no longer be any intercourse between us. So far, then, has modern fanaticism come, that one is spiritually burned at the stake who refuses to accept as true whatever is proclaimed in certain circles that seem infallible. And these are the same people who rail against the “dark” Middle Ages and who cannot understand that a devout Catholic considers the head of what he considers to be the Holy Spirit to be infallible in matters of faith!
Many people simply lack the metaphysical sense; therefore they also cannot understand that there can be a higher knowledge than what has been recognized up to now. And yet there is a transcendental science which transcends and complements the ordinary. Just as du Prel accepted a transcendental psychology, one may also recognize an otherworldly, higher natural science. In any case, we’re well on the way to getting to her. Just think what can be discovered by somnambulists, by clairvoyants! The “men of science” may despise such methods as much as they like, nonetheless one will soon have to take seriously the inner experiences of such persons as Frau Hauffe, who was the Seer of Prevorst.
I have before me an interesting book by a woman who was raised very pious and gradually acquired the gift of inner sight and used it to gain certainty about transcendental things. The book is called: Die Enthüllung des Wesens der Seele. Erlebnisse, Beobachtungen und Erfahrungen auf dem Gebiete des Seelenlebens [The unveiling of the essence of the soul, experiences, observations and experiences in the field of mental life] by Elise Fassbender, published by Baumann in Schmiedeberg (price 2 marks).
“Whoever sets the goal of knowing the essence of life and sets out on the path with the resolution to achieve it, should not look back, but direct his gaze forward, until he not only reaches the very foundation of his spiritual being, but has also penetrated to the natural source of the continuous emergence of all natural things, where the light of truth comes to his aid — insofar as he does not allow himself to be diverted from his chosen path either by criticism or by the differences of opinion of those who think differently.
“The knowledge of God does not exclude the knowledge of nature. On the contrary, it is an important part of the knowledge of God. The trinity of man consisting of spirit, soul and body, the trinity of the universe consisting of primordial light, primordial ether and primordial matter, and the trinity of the divine being, emerge most definitely from the knowledge of God as universal consciousness, universal sensation and omnipresence. And finally, the knowledge of God tears down the bulwark of error which mankind, who are afraid of the light, has placed as an apparently insurmountable dividing wall between the natural world and the world of spirits, by allowing us to recognize in the light of truth that the natural world is the pedestal constructed by the sublime Creator himself, upon which the immortal being of the Spirit, exalted above all change, is enthroned (John 3:11).”
That a seer has a much clearer idea of the inside of his body than the greatest physiologist, I want to give a proof here in the form of a passage from the remarkable book cited.
“One day I was inspired by the desire to get to know the mechanics of my body better, so I received the instruction: “Close your eyes and look up calmly and firmly.”
There, my brain lay before my mental eyes like a living world divided into five continents, surrounded by a slimy substance, held together by the pineal gland, animated by innumerable flickering, tiny dots. The large lobes of my forebrain began to glow imperceptibly under the influence of the faint glimmer of light emitted by the pineal gland (which mediates the connection of the mind organs, or special atoms of consciousness, with the organs of sense of touch), and this faint, oscillating glimmer of light propagated continuously to the rest of the brain, and from there to the spinal cord, and on to the medulla of all the pith.
I felt this process like a strengthening bath: It put me in a mood that I would like to call an incomparable Sabbath rest. I was in the holy of holies of my soul. I was all eyes and ears. I felt with Paul (1 Cor. 6:19) that our body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in us, whom man has received from God, and whom we should serve. I heard my pulse beat like a clock and my heart beat like a second clock of eternity.
I saw my blood flowing in my veins like a spring illuminated by innumerable shining dots, which arose in my heart. I saw the connection of all parts of the brain by means of shiny, hair-thin lines with my heart and its branch organs, and also the connection of the brain and the heart with the spleen, the kidneys, the digestive and genital organs, and saw how these hair-thin luminous threads spread over the spread throughout the organism and were connected to all the individual cells that make up the organism and connected to form a unified network. Also, in the midst of whole groups of nucleated cells, I saw larger unnucleated cells, with which the former seemed to form a family of their own. I saw how these sucked nourishment from the fluorescent liquid contained in the larger, anucleate cells through barely perceptible threads, which were more than hair-thin, and I was instructed that the nucleated cells could do just as little without the warming liquid contained in the anucleate one able to function like man or any organic creature without water and light.
But how amazed I was at the wisdom-filled nature of the cells, millions of trillions of which are part of the structure of the human phenomenon. They seemed to me like glass palaces that seemed to be constantly changing and, in addition to their work performance as members of the overall organization, still retained the functions of which the interlocking of all movement processes in our organism and the possibility of transmitting electrical currents from one part of the body to the other depends on the other. These important functions consist in the fact that the nuclei in the nucleated cells, which have the form and also the mobility of a magnetic needle in a compass, move in regular tact against the lighter dots filled with nutrient fluid which share the cells with them and which also have two polar poles, so tend that the positive and negative poles of the two organs of the cells touch at regular intervals, and in this way the life magnetism produces the magnetic current identical to the energy discovered by Robert Mayer. (See also J. Reinke, “Die Welt als Tat,” who calls the two organs mentioned the head and the heart of the cellular animal, as it is in fact).
In this knowledge is contained the secret of the beneficent influence of the magnetic transmission of power by a godly man upon a man suffering from a lack of vital energy, from physical and mental weakness.
Under the influence of the divine light on my spiritual organs of perception, I also recognized that the regularity of our heartbeat and pulse, i.e. the regularity of our blood flow depends on the regularity of the oscillating movements of all the cell nuclei in the nucleated cells, the combination of which makes up our organism. Furthermore, that our normal blood heat is the direct result of this activity.
But I also recognized that the magnetic current, which is caused by the contact of the cell nuclei consisting of imponderable substance (which are the representatives of the spiritual and soul-sensing life principle) with the granules consisting of ponderable substance which share the cell with them (which are the Representatives of the formal principle that are material forms) corresponds to the energy reserve in healthy people and animals, to the lack of energy in weak people and animals. The consumption of this energy, i.e., this human magnetism takes place with every mental or natural work performance, but is always produced again in sufficient quantity, insofar as man’s consumption does not exceed the measure of his life energy store, or the animals are not granted the necessary food and the necessary time to produce new life energy after greater exertion.
It was no secret to me that the brain is the seat of our conscious mind. Further, that the heart and its branch organs is the central seat of our sensitive soul. Finally, that the spleen, the kidneys, the stomach, the sex organs and all the organs of digestion and drainage associated with them are the seat of our physical forces and life elements, so that in every organism, whether small or large, whether plant, animal or human being, even in the simplest cell a) the spiritual, b) the soul, c) the formal, material principle of life face each other in the same order as is the case in the organism of the universe, where the conscious spiritual principle takes the first place and that Law dictated by which the organism of the universe moves in all its parts.”
According to the great natural philosophers, the world is a cosmos, i.e., an organically perfect, self-contained being, which is the thought (“the word”) of God, which in all parts reflects the original principle, but which only in its entirety reveals the infinite sublimity of the deity. I have a friend who is a born mystic, and although (or because?) he has no actual scientific education, has extremely astonishing insights into the workings of the world: he once told me many years ago that the world was a great human being, whose limbs formed the individual stars even the ancients, when they spoke of makro-anthropos, the great human being, in contrast to the small human being on earth, who is his image. Frau Fassbender means something similar:
“If every organism of living beings consists of many individual cells, each of which is in constant organic life movement, then it may be assumed that the organism of the universe is also a cell state of gigantic dimensions, and that all cells forming its organism, as under standing by the universal law of organic life, also in constant life movements corresponding to their size and their positions in the universe. It may also be assumed that both the material condition of the world and celestial bodies (which are to be regarded as cosmic cells) and their positions in relation to their suns and their dependence on the light radiating from them, as well as their vital functions and their stronger and weaker luminosity on the legally regulated combinations of the characteristic atoms of the three basic forms of the universe are based on their quantity as well as on the different positions and compositions of them to each other, which are the basis of their formation.
After the visions of Mrs. Faßbender one comes to the knowledge: 1) that the primordial light, the primordial ether and the primordial matter are the three pillars of eternity on which the entire world structure rests; 2) that primordial light, primordial ether, primordial matter is the eternal support of a) omniscience, b) omnisensation, c) omnipresence of God, and 3) that both the primordial light, the primordial ether, and the primordial matter consist of indivisible, indestructible, immutable atoms, each of which has a specific character (like our letters), from which a very specific effect emanates.
One sees that although Frau Fassbender knows neither the more recent theosophical works nor the ancient Indian ones, she arrives at the same conclusion as the former. Anyone who manages to absorb the forces from Prana and Akasha also understands more easily how the world is composed than someone who does not have the ability. Hence it is evidently also the case that mostly very simple natural people, such as e.g., Schäfer, have such an insight into nature. They have developed their bodies differently than a parlor teacher, so they see things that others do not see and can have a direct effect on sick people through magical influence. The great healing powers which Germanic women used to possess were also based on this principle. They were closer to nature and therefore took prana, that is, the principle of universal energy, the life force, the universal fluid, and Akasha, that is, up the general ether into their physical body. It may perhaps be said that matter (akasha) is concentrated prana, condensed energy, that prana is condensed intelligence deriving from chita [citta], the divine mind.
With her German expressions, Ms. Faßbender evidently means roughly the same thing that is otherwise described differently with Indian expressions (according to Caillet “Traitement mental [Mental traits],” Paris 1912): Urlicht = Chita, Uräther = Prana, Urstoff = Akasha, corresponding to Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva, Atma, Budhi, Manas The world is then composed by the three Gunas in such a way that different phenomena arise from the original monads.
The monad inhabits the second plane, commonly called the paranirvanic (or anupadaka),[2] after Leadbeater. Of course, it is impossible for a mere mortal to soar to such high climes. We can only surmise that sparks, as it were, emanate from the divine sun, making their way through all the kingdoms of nature, finally returning home after a long odyssey. These sparks go through all of creation, because man should get to know everything, but never identify himself with the things around him, not even with his body or his feelings and passions. Had man always remained in higher regions, he would not have had the experience which he gradually gained through the sojourn of the monad in the mineral, vegetable, animal and human kingdoms.
Everything is divine. But we as monads are older than the rest of creation. So, as elder brothers, we must lead by example. We must ascend again, personality to ego, ego to monad, monad to solar logos.
When Frau Fassbender claims that the individual monads are like the letters of a script, one can perhaps assume that all the monads together make up the mysterious name of God. One could picture this in the way one sometimes sees an artificial line-up of people at festivities, e.g., represent the name of a prince by their figure. When it says in the “Our Father” it says “hallowed be thy name,” this ultimately means that the ineffable name, i.e. the image of the power and beauty of God, should not be soiled by human impurity. Because every soul is evident from the beginning, in a way, a letter (a number or a name) has been assigned, which is, so to speak, calculated on the final tableau and everyone must strive to get so far that the great peace is not disturbed by him. A passage in “Revelation,” where reference is made to a stone bearing the mystical name of the recipient at least makes such a thought seem possible.
According to the views of theosophists, the development of the world proceeds in such a way that after a period of rest (“Brahma’s night”) the deity awakens again, so to speak, and conceives the human thought anew (“Brahma’s day”). It goes on like this, Manvantara follows Pralaya, one Logos after another.
“The new human thought or humanity is the heavenly man, Christ, the Son of God, He who was born of the Father, the Deity, from the beginning of creation.
The work of creation therefore has its starting point in the heavenly man; for the consciousness that was active in him worked further than the consciousness of the new world. As a result, however, it forms the basis of all world events, and it was impressed on nature from the outset as a plan and model; for consciousness is inseparable from matter; they are both the one divine being. Every thought that arises in the world-consciousness is therefore also formed in the world-matter, and this thereby receives a specific vibration, a form and a special character. All thoughts are consequently material or essential, and thereby they became the basis of the things of the world and these themselves. All world phenomena are therefore embodied thoughts in the divine creative mind. On the other hand, all world phenomena are also gifted with life and consciousness, because the divine trinity — spirit, life, matter — resides in everything.” (Wachtelborn, Hat der Mensch eine Seele? [Does man have a soul?])
In any case, through the theosophical contemplation of nature, everyone gets a much higher idea of everything. The difference between Theosophy and natural science could perhaps be stated in such a way that the former understands the cosmos as an ensouled being and presents all appearances only as earthly reproductions of personalities, i.e. as representations of spirit, while profane science is more concerned with the lower side of things. In other words, Theosophy is spiritual science, i.e. the higher level, i.e. occult natural science, transcendental knowledge.
In the past, theosophical considerations also predominated among people, and only slowly did they come to understand a purely mechanical system. If you look at the ancient Chaldeans, Egyptians, Indians, etc., you can only understand their conception if you realize that they really still regarded nature as divine and believed that it was inhabited by spirits, demons, gods. Such views still reach into the age of Luther and Hans Sachs.
“According to Hippocrates, the brilliant natural scientist Jezek says in his writing “Die Heil wissenschatt nach den neuesten Lebensforschungen [The healing sciences according to the latest life research],” Volkskraft-Verlag Berlin-Neuenhagen — breath and soul are two words for one and the same enigma of life. With every breath he let the soul become new. Vesal (1535), who still regarded the arteries as the conductors of the life spirits, caused the spirits of the air to enter the arteries through the lungs with every breath, in order to enliven man. However, this uncanny ghost concept of breathing fell into disrepute in the 17th century. In its place (1772) was put the life air, the oxygen. From now on it was no longer said: “We breathe in spirits of life,” but “We breathe in the oxygen of the air.”
The oxygen in the air then suddenly took the place of the previously valid mystical life spirits, and one immediately concluded that without oxygen, life would be unthinkable. According to this materialistic school of thought, the inhaled oxygen in the bloodstream should have a chemical effect on the combustible bodies and thereby indirectly generate the life-giving body heat. The mysterious life spirits were thus done away with and oxygen dominated respiratory research.”
The material is and remains what is taken as a basis today. One just fails to recognize that the term “matter” is already an abstract one which points to a spiritual world. Nature and spirit: Only together do the two give true unity, correct monism.
As a striking example of what has been said, I want to point out the role of the sun according to theosophical and scientific views. According to the beliefs of all ancient peoples, the sun is a god, according to the scientific ones merely a ball of fire that revolves “soulless,” as Schiller says, who was entirely on the side of the “gods of Greece.”
That is why the ancients also worshipped the sun, the sun spirit (later the Christ spirit). Caesar already says of the Germans that they worshipped the sun. Therefore, sacred white horses were kept in honour of the sun god, among the Persians as well as among the Germans. Hence the horse in the coat of arms of the old Saxons, in Westphalia, Hanover and Brunswick. The sacred bird was also considered a representative of the sun god, the eagle, the swan and the falcon, and if the rooster still sits on our churches today, it is because of this. Likewise, the lion is the sun animal. The ancients would not have adopted these badges and displayed them on their standards (like the cross and sun wheel) had they not been imbued with mystical meaning. They were still Theosophists.
As another example, the doctrine of what is called instinct could also be cited. “The term instinct” — says Raoul Francé in the second volume of the „Wunder der Natur” [“Wonders of Nature”] — has only linguistic descriptive value. When we describe an action as instinctive and as an expression of instinct, we have not yet said anything about its causes and by no means what action traced back to something known. For about 150 years, science has only become accustomed to describing animal actions as instinctive, the cause of which cannot lie in the personal experiences of the performer, and it has left it open as to how such actions are to be explained The more recent interpretation that instincts are inherited and unconscious repetitions of habits that were once conscious fails in view of the impertinence it places on us.
The instinctive life of animals will undoubtedly be one of the most pressing problems in our children’s natural sciences. For our sex it is one of those things that Goethe once said so beautifully: It is so wonderful to investigate nature ever more deeply to the limits that are set for the human spirit. Of course, what is beyond that should be worshiped in silence as something that is still unfathomable. It is true that the “century of the natural sciences” broadened and deepened the view of man — and not only the intellectual one — in an unexpected way; for us there is no longer any quantity of space and time which we cannot calculate, which we cannot determine numerically; We calculate in billions of miles and measure thousandths of a second; in water and air our eyes have discovered thousands and thousands of living beings of whose existence we previously had no knowledge. But beyond these things there are still mysteries which will only be solved in the distant future.”
Theosophists need not wait for the distant future. You know quite well that every animal group has a group soul, i.e., that it is spiritually held together by the unifying bond of a great being in the “beyond.” When one wanders through the afterlife, one can see these beings as personalities which have something of the peculiarities of the animal in question in their appearance, similar to how Plato may have imagined it. Instinct is, therefore in fact, something unconscious for the individual animal, but it is something conscious for the spiritual force behind it. Animals are often ascribed mental or moral qualities that they do not possess. In truth one writes to the dog, for example, only shows fidelity, while his attachment is actually based on egoism. He loves his master’s odor—that’s all. A cat easily jumps on someone’s lap and is apparently affectionate with him: but in reality she wants to be stroked in order to receive the Od emanating from her hands.
That snakes have something magical, even devilish, is evident to the eyes. I once read that natives caught and tied a giant snake after eating a goat. Then the owner of the goat hit her on the head with a club; but he immediately jumped back in horror, because the snake had given him a truly devilish look. One could explain it theosophically in such a way that—as the Old Testament already indicates—an evil entity (“the devil”) underlies the group of snakes. One then understands the superstitious fear that most people instinctively have of snakes, because they scent a kind of evil principle behind them. The snake cult is also related to this.
Another example. Everyone admires gemstones and incredible sums are sometimes paid for them. But no one knows today what their real value is based on. Dark legends, which today are regarded as “superstition,” tell of a spiritual influence, of a magic. So you can still find in some jewelers’ shops, which months the individual gemstones are good for.
But theosophy alone gives the key here too. The gemstones are, so to speak, the materialized eyes of the angels. There is indeed something angelic and therefore auspicious about them. But everyone must know the kind of stones that affect his astral body favorably. Then such a stone can become a talisman. It has also been noticed that some stones lose their color, i.e., change upon wearing them. So here the human being influences the stone through his aura.
Since every natural object has a certain “aura,” it is obvious that it is by no means irrelevant which objects from the mineral or vegetable kingdom one surrounds oneself with. It is just as important in which season and by which person a medicinal plant is picked. The Indians have very precise rules for this from ancient times.
Professor Dr Gustav Jäger, in his monumental work “The Discovery of the Soul, has compiled a wealth of material that shows the importance of the aura (the “Od,” “the smell”) of an object. There is hardly a work that would be more suitable to give an introduction to the study of Theosophy from the standpoint of natural science than Jäger’s brilliant work, which is dead silent from professional science, but which represents a great stone in the mighty structure of Natural philosophy of the present and future.
One of the strangest discoveries is known to be that of Baron Reichenbach’s “Od” (physiological polar energy, animal magnetism, nerve radiation, metaorganism of Hellenbach, Archaeus of von Helmont), a fluid which surrounds the body and is known by many names, such as Electroid Rychnowski, Somatoid after Plato, and others.
“Of course — Friedrich Feerhow remarks in his readable little work “Der Einfluß der erdmagnetischen Zonen auf den Menschen” [“The influence of the earths’ magnetic zones on man”] (published by M. Altmann, Leipzig 1912) — if one speaks of the ode to a modern-day student of physics, one gets the answer accompanied by a superior shrug: “Reichenbach has long since been refuted and dismissed!” — No one knows who disproved him; unfortunately it is only true that hitherto it has always been forcibly suppressed from one chair to the next by the suggestion of authority. But we believe with Reichenbach that this, even if it is being disseminated for the moment, does not harm the truth of the facts and the conclusions built on the Od theory.” Because “the Od is patient and can wait until the old stupid pride goes home and the following generation will do him justice.” („Der sensitive Mensch“ [“The sensitive man,”] § 2121.)
A dark area for psychologists is also the theory of dreams, since they do not yet accept internal bodies. However, the Theosophists have carried out experiments to influence sleeping people and, as clairvoyants, have been able to determine the effect. So I want to share the following, which I take from Leadbeater’s interesting book “Träume” [Dreams] (Leipzig, Verlag von Altmann, 2nd edition 1912, p. 50).
“The first experiment was made with an everyday man of little education and rough appearance, a man of the Australian shepherd type, whose astral body hovered over his body as an almost shapeless ring of fog. Consciousness of the body, both dense and ethereal, was dull and ponderous. The former responded to some degree to external stimuli, e.g. For example, sprinkling with 2 to 3 drops of water (though somewhat slowly) evoked in the brain the image of a heavy rain shower. The etheric brain, on the other hand, passively let an endless stream of incoherent thoughts pass through as usual, but every now and then it responded to some of the vibrations, but in a rather sluggish way, it seemed. A conscious thought of another person could affect the floating astral body at any time with unbelievable ease. An attempt was then made to draw him some distance from the body, which was lying on the bed. The result, however, was that at a distance of more than a few yards both vehicles were clearly uneasy, and the attempt had to be abandoned, as evidently any further moving would have awakened the man, probably in a state of great fright.
Further, a tropical landscape was chosen—a grand, magnificent vista from the top of a mountain—and a vivid image of it was projected by the experimenter into the dreaming consciousness of the ego, which he absorbed and watched, albeit in a dull, apathetic, indifferent manner Way. After this image had been held before him for some time, the man was awakened to see if he could remember it as a dream. His memory had retained not a trace of the picture, and apart from a few comical impulses of a more animal nature, he had brought back no recollection at all from his sleep.”
Our university science today considers alchemy and astrology to be superstition and fraud. But more advanced minds see both as quite valid views that will later be shared by chemists and mathematicians. The English in particular are superior to us in this area. Colonel Jasper Gibson wrote in “Modern Astrology” recently demonstrated that the cosmic forces can affect the cells of living organisms. He sees the universe as a kind of battlefield where electric waves rule. Man is a kind of magnet exposed to these waves. Now the horoscope shows us how the magnet (the aura, the inner bodies) is electrically charged, and the astrologer can calculate how it becomes polarized—in other words, he can determine its character and probable destiny.
In his publications, Alan Leo tries to make astrology scientific. According to him, man’s aura contains the results of all previous lives and the possibilities of the future. Each of the human tattvas is centered around a permanent atom in which is stored all the vibratory possibilities during past incarnations. In this way man is guided by this influence into the course which is for him the path of least resistance. Considering that every cosmic tattva has a spiritual conduit in the Hereafter, it is evident how the vibrations of each atom correspond to its own planet, and how man’s consciousness within corresponds to matter outside him.
According to the Mazdaznan doctrine, every possibility and thus every progress is in the blood, because it contains everything that was ever on earth. Thus, by awakening previously latent powers within ourselves, we can gradually achieve anything.
That’s what alchemy wants too. There is in nature, said the alchemists, a kind of matter which, artificially perfected, makes perfect all imperfect bodies it touches. “The making of gold — says Edison — is only a question of suitable connections and treatment of the matter. All matter is equal. The only difference between gold and silver is that their matter is combined differently and treated differently. One day the newspapers will report the discovery of an element more powerful than radium, capable of transforming a cheaper metal into a more expensive one.”
Shouldn’t even more revolutionary discoveries be made soon, proving that our seers know more about the workings of the world than our “taught ones?” The philosopher du Prel once prophesied that “The Seer of Prevorst” would be among the most widely read books in our century. Then one will also read other writings that are still unknown in Germany today, such as that of the seer Lake Harris, who was born 90 years ago and died on March 23, 1906, author of “The Wisdom of the Adepts, or Esoteric Science in Human History” (1884).
It is not possible to explain everything in anthropology without the help of an etheric body. “Up until now, modern science has not accepted the existence of an etheric body in the human being. However, research on radioactivity has established that the physical atom consists of fine ether atoms, the so-called electrons, is constructed in such a way that a number of ether atoms have always joined together to form a physical atom. However, only a small number of the ether atoms entered into the formation of the actual physical atom; From these a kind of nucleus developed, and this was then surrounded by the other atoms only in the form of a shell. Every physical atom, therefore, bears an etheric envelope just as the earth bears an envelope of air. As a result, according to the calculations of the naturalist Lenard, even in a cubic meter of platinum there is no more true mass than a cubic millimetre.
In the course of research into radioactivity, science has established that the ether atoms, or as they are called electrons, are the carriers of electrical forces. Owing to their electrical nature, therefore, these are in the first place able to establish the connection between the physical atoms and to give inner support to the tissues; for it is only the mutual electrical attraction of the electrons on which the inner cohesion and solidity of physical things depend.
These forces of the ether atoms are also what is behind the process in the body which we call metabolism; for they attract and repel the different substances in the body according to the kinship of things. Thus they are excreted in some organs, and excreted in the other by their repulsive powers; but through their attractive forces, they provide the various organs with the necessary substances and nourish the body by filling it with new substances which, by breaking down into electrons, give it new electrical tension.
And what we call nervous activity takes place in the electrical forces; because in them the sense impressions flow as electric currents from the outside in and the impulses of the will from the inside out, while the nerves are only the paths along which the electric currents move.
So, the etheric body stands behind every process in the body; it is therefore just as much its directly enlivening, animating principle as is electricity in the electrically operated machine, through which it becomes the — life body.”
(Karl Wachtelborn. Hat der Mensch eine Seele? [Does man have a soul?] Leipzig, Vollrath 1912.)
Natural philosophy was despised for a long time because its representatives seemed to indulge themselves too much in fantasies, since they were neither rooted in the soil of natural science nor could they, even earlier, have any inkling of the basic truths of modern-day Theosophy. But now new life is beginning to bloom from the ruins again.
The theosophist should also pursue natural science in order not to rise too soon into the air, from which falling down is not pleasant. Icarus wanted to fly, but he fell. Even some little Icarus among the theosophists should first learn to stand on the ground of facts. There are now glorious works of science which everyone will read with pleasure and benefit. I want to point out three that seem to me to be particularly suitable for forming a real basis for the study of natural philosophy.
The first is entitled: Himmel und Erde, Unser Wissen von der Sternenwelt und dem Erdball [Heaven and Earth, Our Knowledge of the Star World and the Globe,] edited with the participation of colleagues from Prof. Dr. Plassmann, Prof. Dr. Pohle, P. Kreichgauer and Dr. Waagen. Anyone who reads this interesting book will fall in love with it, however little interest they may have in science. The equipment can be described as exemplary. The 2 volumes in encyclopedia format have no fewer than 1215 illustrations in the text as well as 123 multicoloured and single-coloured plates and supplements.
A continuation of this work is the magnificent work Der Mensch aller Zeiten, Natur und Kultur der Völker der Erde [Man of all times, nature and culture of the peoples of the earth], published by the same publishers (Allgem. Verlags-Gesellschaft Berlin). The contemporary, beautiful, also very richly illustrated work gives everything worth knowing about the prehistory of the human being, anthropology (e.g. in great detail about the human body) and ethnography according to the latest state of research and written by the greatest capacities.
An excellent addition to the standard works just mentioned is the wonderful three-volume work Die Wunder der Natur, Schilderungen der interessantesten Natur-Schöpfungen und Erscheinungen in Einzeldarstellungen [The wonders of nature, descriptions of the most interesting natural creations and phenomena in individual representations] (Berlin, Deutsches Verlagshaus Bong). The first men of the entire scholarly world have joined forces here to show the most beautiful things in all areas of the natural sciences in a way that is also understandable for the layman. It has become a book of joy and will certainly bring great joy to anyone who even leafs through it, how much more study. The colourful pictures are impeccable. They alone can awaken the joy of nature in anyone whose sense of nature has hitherto been dormant.
Which artist could create marvellous works like the silicic acid skeletons of the radiolarians, whose richness of form was first introduced to us by Häckel! The play of colours of the peacock’s feathers is not full of such mysterious wonders! How thousandfold are the wonders of that mysterious force which we call electricity! What wonders the lens of the microscope and the telescope reveal to us! If nature can be called the robe of God, then one must infer His sublimity from His glorious robe. If Kant once said that contemplating the starry sky proved to him the existence of a higher power, one can also say that anyone who is persuaded by such beautiful books to look at the world around him with wide-open eyes of admiration may perhaps be called a better Christian than some who, blind and sour, sneak past the wonders of nature to pray in church to the God they do not know.
Since then we have lived in an age of metaphysical wantlessness and so the opinion could spread that there was a “scientific world view.” But lately the voices have been increasing that a bridge can and must be built between the sensual and the supernatural. Recent discoveries by great researchers pave the way. Gustave Le Bon in Paris, author of “L’Évolution des forces” and “Evolution de la matière”), believes that energy and matter are one and the same, matter is just energy in motion. If it has emerged from energy, i.e. only converted power, then the way to unity is established in this way. In England, it is said that chemists (Sir William Ramsay and others) have already managed to produce matter. The new school dealing with psychoanalysis will soon make great discoveries which will give grist to the mill of Theosophy.
A common black dung beetle was seen by the ancient Egyptians as a symbol of eternity. It is the scarab that is seen everywhere, its body covered with hieroglyphs, in mummy coffins and on statues. This can be a parable for us for a spiritual process. A natural being is viewed by the anticipating folk spirit as a spiritual being. “As above, so below,” reads the famous hermetic dictum on the emerald tablet. “The heavens glorify the Lord, and the work of his hands shows the firmament,” sings the psalmist. “Everything which is ephemeral is just a parable,” says Goethe. Everywhere in our visible world there are correspondences to events in the otherworldly. It’s all about concentration. If you concentrate on something with all devotion, you gradually get behind the appearance: You receive intuition and inspiration. Only love is required. If God is love, then every great love also leads to his kingdom.
The upper becomes visible to us through deduction, through induction we must connect the lower with it. Therefore, in the schools (as I have already said in my reform paper, “Der neue Kurs im Unterichtswesen” [The New Course in Education], natural science, love of the environment, should essentially be pursued in the lower classes, and spiritual science, the love of ideas, in the upper classes. i.e. literature, history and philosophy. The world is one, and to the extent that one realizes this, one becomes one. Christ commanded his disciples to preach the gospel to all creatures: This applies only to the more advanced; but what everyone can do is to proclaim the glory of God in his works to all creatures: that is also a gospel, “the gospel of nature.”
Note:
[1] Natural Science and Theosophy [Naturwissenschaft und Theosophie. Franz Hartmann, M.D. Neue Lotusblüten 6, no. 5-6 (May-June 1913), 138-176] {This article was reformatted from the original, but with the content unchanged other than fixing minor typos. Translation from the German by Robert Hütwohl, ©2025}
[2] {R.H.—More correctly, as per the previous note, upapāduka.}