[Der Bildner und seine Gebilde.]
Translation from the German by Robert Hutwohl[1]
It does not require a great deal of keenness to recognize that everywhere in nature the spirit is the creator and the material is the stuff from which it creates its structures. It is true that the artist or the craftsman creates his work by means of his hands, but behind these stands the spirit which guides the work and moves the hands. The spirit is the creator who draws his thoughts from the depths of his own being and gives them form using the tools at his disposal. On the intellectual level, this tool is the intellect, by the action of which ideas become concepts; on the physical level, visible matter is required to make these formations visible. Man is his own creator, i.e., that is to say, the spirit of man creates the forms in which he inhabits himself in his reincarnations; his biological parents are only the tools by means of which his spiritual individuality creates a new material personality, which he then inhabits himself. We can see the analogy of this process in ourselves. First comes intention, then idea, then thought, which becomes conception, and finally execution or embodiment through word or deed. Likewise, in reincarnation, first the instinctive desire for existence in the senses arises, then the “thought body” arises, then the “astral body,” [etheric body] and finally birth takes place in the material body. If man creates a spiritual form, he is an inhabitant of the spirit world; if he creates a material form, he inhabits the material world.
All forms which man creates through his will, thought and imagination are a part of himself and inhabited by him; the objects which he creates through his desire and thinking are also material, although not visible to everyone, but made of finer material. In a frequently mentioned letter from an Adept it says: “Every thought which has matured in a human being enters another world and forms there a temporary, independently living form.” Through our willing and thinking we can create both angels and devils, and these are created from ourselves and are parts of ourselves. In this way we create our own heaven or hell with its inhabitants.
It is therefore in our power to create what is good and to improve it. We are the makers; the forms we make are our fabrications. We inhabit them through our feeling and thinking, but we are not enclosed in them; we can change them, just as a builder can change and improve the house in which he lives. By base desires we create base forms; noble forms are produced by noble thoughts. Man is destined to be in the image of God, and the forms he creates should not be animal or devilish in character, but the expression of true humanity.
If we don’t create things ourselves that are a hindrance to our ennoblement, then we have nothing to fear. Nothing hostile can approach the light that shines within us; in this light we find our refuge, and from it emerge our ennobled forms.
Note:
[1] The Creators, and Their Formations. [Der Bildner und seine Gebilde. Von Dr. Franz Hartmann. Theosophischer Wegweiser 5, no. 7 (April 1903), 195-196] {This article was reformatted from the original, but with the content unchanged other than fixing minor typos. Translation from the German by Robert Hutwohl, ©2025}