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The Testament of Astrology - 2002, All Rights Reserved

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The Testament of Astrology

Introduction to Astrology as an Esoteric Science

First Sequence:General Foundation of Astrology

Seven Esoteric Lecturesby

Dr. Oskar Adler

June 4, 1875 May 15, 1955


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The Testament of Astrology

Introduction to Astrology as an Esoteric ScienceFirst Sequence: General Foundation of Astrology

First Electronic Edition, 2002

Copyright 2002, Amy ShapiroAll Rights Reserved

ISBN: Pending

Produced in the United States of America byONLINE College of AstrologyE-Publishing DivisionP.O. Box 85

Basye, Virginia 22810http://www.astrocollege.org/

Translated from original German by Zdenka Orenstein

Desktop publishing production and illustrations by Tuxedo Cat Enterprises,Las Vegas, NV

Copyediting by Amy Shapiro


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Table of Contents

Foreword.................................................................................. 06

Authors Introduction ................................................................ 10

First Lecture ............................................................................. 14

General Idea of Astrology as Esoteric Knowledge

What is Esoteric Knowledge?

Natural Science and Esoteric Doctrine

Man and the Universe

The Human Body and Number as a Bridge to the Cosmos

Astronomy and Astrology

The Self as Key to Esoteric Knowledge

Second Lecture ......................................................................... 26

Living Community Between Man and Universe

Macrocosmos and Microcosmos

One-ness and the Number OneSuffering and Sorrow as a Further Link to the Cosmos

The Idea of Fate

Natural Law and Moral Law

Third Lecture ........................................................................... 40

The Enigma of Evolution in the Light of Esoteric Wisdom

The Zodiac

Fourth Lecture .......................................................................... 50

Evolution and Alchemy

The Four Elements

Their Relationship to Inner Life and to the Road of Mans Development

The Riddle of the Sphinx


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Sixth Lecture ............................................................................ 77

The Three Cosmic Perspectives

The Cosmic Importance of the Moment of Birth

Heredity and Self-Development

The Second Birth

Seventh Lecture ........................................................................ 91

Zodiac-segments and Zodiac-symbols

The Precession of the Vernal Point

Eternity and Temporality

The Road to the Neighbor

Table of Contentscontinued

Fifth Lecture ............................................................................ 60

Cosmic Numbers and Human Development

The Numbers 4, 7 and 12

Zodiac and Planets

Periodicity and the Law of RhythmPlanetary Symbols and Digit-Symbols

Appendix................................................................................. 104


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with a cleansing spiritual result. Since then, great changes in my life, including theHitler episode, which tore our circle apart, in many continents, to our great grief,taught me to realize how much I owed to Dr. Adlers teachings. It gave mestrength to cope with many difficulties-----and I am forever grateful. This realiza-tion, and this gratitude, and maybe, an impulse from the beyond, from Dr.

Adlers spirit, caused me to start the translation. I had hoped that somebody else,somebody better qualified, would make the attempt. But since nobody seemed

willing, I started, I dont remember when, but it must have been around 1959orso. My husband was still alive, and rather skeptical. Youll never finish this washis opinion. I only interrupted when he became fatally ill, in 1961, when I spentmy days in the hospital with him, and for some time after his final release. Butthe work on it was a wonderful experience, and I truly consider the time I spent

with it the most valuable and rewarding time of my long life. I hope you willexperience something similar! No money can buy anything like it.

[1983] Dr. Adler insisted that we spend our lives as if in class, proceedingfrom lesson to lesson, and if we did not pass one of them, we had to repeat,until we finally solved our problem. That is why I consider it much moreprofitable to have to pass several severe tests than to lead a seemingly happylife which gives us no chance to advance spiritually. That my life seems tohave been rich in such tests makes me feel sort of proud. I hoped I have

worked off a lot of bad karma! Dr. Adler truly was an inspired person,although he never called himself initiated.

[1984] As I look back over my long life, I find the ONEthing meritorious I did wasthe Adler preservation attempt. But it remains an unfinished labor withoutYOUR

efforts. Thus we are truly intertwined in one of the most important matters-----thecontinued efforts to rescue Dr. Adlers wisdom from becoming lost, con-taminated or diluted. I cant imagine a closer tie than this effort. I am awarethat it means placing a heavy burden on you-----the responsibility towards theauthor is a demanding task. I have felt it strongly, and I believe, you too aresensible to it. Please, even when it should become truly burdensome, dontdesert it! Even in difficult circumstances! I firmly believe that your role in thisdid not come about by accident, that you are CHOSENfor this work-----yourdedication has deep roots somewhere----maybe in Dr. Adlers spirit? As Ibelieve I was pushed and upheld in my long labor by inspirations from thebeyond. I consider myself a mere tool, like the chisel in the sculptors hand.Something beyond my insignificant self has driven and sustained me throughthe years of my devoted efforts. The only reward I had hopes for was generouslygiven me through your recognition of the special importance of Dr. Adlers

wisdom and your willingness to prevent it from falling into oblivion, to keep italive and available to deserving students. If there will be a publication in bookform or otherwise it will be due to your efficient efforts. It must have been Dr.

Adlers spirit who led to our thus meeting, and who inspired you, as I was inspired.


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[1987] Although I did not seem to profit by Dr. Adlers lectures, never did Ileave one of them without feeling a spiritual uplift. And I did not realize howdeeply his teachings have influenced and developed me. Only many yearslater, was I able to recognize that. Owing to the political events our lives had

to pass many severe tests; that we managed unharmed was due-----at least toa great part, to Dr. Adlers teaching. Many times I felt a higher guidance indecisive moments. I hope you and your students will be spared such severetests, but it may well be that you too are going to have such experiences, addI hope that you too will have the moral and spiritual strength gained by HISteachings. It is not just astrology that is revealed in them, it is a guidance andsupport-----at least that is how I experienced it. I see them as a sort of moralarmor against any evil influence.

[1988]Looking back on these long years, I am sure that the one thing to my

credit is the translation of Dr. Adlers lectures. That was a gift bestowed onme-----I was only the vehicle, honored by this choice. I have been blessedwith higher guidance several times-----always in precarious situations. For thisI am deeply grateful. To you, dear Amy, my deepest gratitude! It is a greatcomfort to know Dr. Adlers message is in your competent hands. I trust that

you will finally succeed in your goal of publishing the MS;it may take longerthan you wish, but be patient and dont lose courage. A firm conviction that

you will finally succeed may be a help. ...thanks again for yourgreathelpand affection. We may meet again in the future, dont you think?

After countless rejections in the next thirteen years, all hopes of finding a publisher had died.

In 2001, I began the new century with renewed purpose, determined to self-publish theselectures and fulfill my promise to Zdenka. Within weeks of embarking on this mission, EnaStanley of Online College of Astrology phoned by complete surprise and offered to publishthis work. With gratitude and awe, I accepted. The larger story of this multifaceted journeyis chronicled in my biography of Dr. Adler,Dr. Oskar Adler: A Complete Man 1875 --1955.

Amy Shapiro, M.Ed.

May these remarks from the original German book jacket flaps of The Testament of Astrology,translated by Zdenka Orenstein, serve to prepare you for your journey:

The entire secret of astrologys role in ancient times, and of the path leadingto it, lies in these words of one of the Hermetic Fragments (The DivinePymander):

Listen to your innermost core, and lift your eyes to the immensity of time and space;


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then you will hear the song of the stars, the voice of numbers and the harmony ofthe spheres. Each sun is a thought of God, and each planet a special expression ofthis thought. To perceive the divine thought, oh ye souls, did you descend, and withsufferings and pains do you regain the path of the seven planets and their seven

heavens. What is the message of the stars, what do the numbers tell us, and whatthe circling spheres? Oh ye lost and ye saved souls! They talk, they sing, theycircle----they weave your fate.

This book originated in the longing to follow this path, to rediscover theinterior in the exterior, and the exterior in the interior. For this reason thestaff of Hermes (Caduceus), with the two intertwining ascending anddescending ways, and the pentacle-pentagram with the mystery of reflection ofthe exterior in the interior, and vice versa, have been chosen to symbolize thepath of the human soul, reaching for clarity in all humility.

The author who speaks of himself as a seeker, attempts in the work herepresentedwhich will comprise of 115 lectures-----to contribute, step by step,to the gaining of insight into the knowledge which was once an all-embracing

wisdom, including not only the miracles of the universe, but also thoseof man.

Starting from the general premise, traditionally inherent in the humanmentality, Oskar Adler seeks to lead us on a path toward apperception,on which he is benignly accompanied by philosophers, poets, scientists andresearchers of all periods. Drawing the circles forever closer around man and

his close affinity to cosmic relations, he follows the artists and the scientistspath. This route leads thorugh all the high and low points of the human soul,but also through the long history of exertions to gain spiritual insights, and ofall the moral and psychological problems, as well as the evolution of thesingle individual and of humanity.

Thus the author arrives at a poetical presentation of the astrological world-picture, which tries to satisfy the demands of logical and scientific, but also ofartistic thinking. But beyond this, something more exalted results, whichshall here only be hinted at in the words of Goethe:

He who has science and art,He also has religion.


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These lectures were first given in Vienna during the years 1930 -- 1938to an intimate circle ofinterested people. As they are about to be presented to a wider public in sevensequences, this introduction is meant to prepare you, my friendly reader, for whatto expect when you become engaged in the study of this Testament of Astrology. It is the

work of a searcher, and is intended for all who are likewise searchers, who are filled with apressing desire for knowledge regarding the meaning of their existence within theimmeasurable and unimaginable greatness of this universe. Overawed by a sense ofour own inessentiality and by our short-termed existence on this grain of sand, Earth, assearchers we are nevertheless elated at the thought of being witnesses of the eternal riddle.It may be that in this conflict we experience the nucleus of all that has guided the humanspirit since the light of Reason was first kindled within.

Perhaps the words of the Eighth Psalm express this conflict within heart and soul mostclearly:

When I consider Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers,the moon and the stars, which Thou hast ordained:What is man, that Thou art mindful of him?and the son of man, that Thou visitest him?

For Thou hast made him little lower than the angels,and hast crowned him with glory and honour.

Out of such sentiments and thoughts may have been born the attempt to find access to thevery ancient wisdom, long in human possession. Fragments of this knowledge, embracingthe inner relationships between world and humankind, have been passed on to us today

under the name of astrology. Established in a variety of theories, these fragments ofknowledge are presented as old wisdom, yet also claiming acceptance as a modern science.

It is not my intention in this introduction to anticipate the contents of the following studies.The first sequence, General Foundation, shall clarify the kind of knowledge we areseeking. Let me caution all those who are about to delve into this Testament of Astrologyto leave both friendly and hostile prejudices behind, and to remember that those who are

Authors Introduction Authors Introduction


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willing to plunge deeply into very ancient wisdom must first fulfill two conditions.

The first condition is reverencefor the thinkers of former times and for their pure search fortruth. The second is to understand that the words in which these thinkers expressed their

wisdom cannot be interpreted as by todays standards. This difference in word usage mustbe borne in mind to avoid misjudging them as nonsensical, or as errors due to pastignorance.

As an example, according to tradition, Thales of Milet, (625--548BC), taught that everythingoriginated in water. But Anaximenes, 6thcentury, put the origin of everything into air;

Anaximander spoke of the apeiron, i.e., the uncognizable, out of which the cognizable isformed: Hieraclitus spoke of fire, the eternal flame, as basis of all world occurrences.

This is the old tenet of the four elements! In the opinion of modern chemistry, that would bepure nonsense since we know that neither earth, nor fire, nor water, nor air is an

element. But the significance of the word element in those days was completelydifferent from its meaning in todays chemistry.

The Bible offers another example.Lightwas created on the first dayof creation, yet the sunwas not created until the fourth day. If we believe that the biblical expression AURactually stands for light by todays physics, it becomes difficult for us to understand what

was meant. A similar problem applies to the use of the words day and night. We shallgo into this in more detail in the course of the following lectures.

Physical sciences recent history ought to alert us to not think of the current state ofknowledge as being so much truer than that of preceding eras. Scientific theories change

from generation to generation. As an example:

According to Aristotle, colors originated from a mixture of light and dark, or white andblack, but according to Newton, all colors are contained in the white sunlight, emergingfrom it by splitting. From there, the difference in theories continued: Goethe, Schopenhauer,Hering and Helmholtz all indicated the road of ever-changing tests to get to the core of theproblem, while each successive attempt at a solution fought against its predecessorsattempts as erroneous.

There are thousands of examples that mark the road of human struggle for truth liketombstones, whether in physics, medicine, philosophy or theology. According toSchopenhauer, each doctrine considers its primary duty to behead all rivals, like the

African despots, including their families.

If the fate of all those striving for truth should be to err again and again, to leave a legacy forno other future use than to learn its futility, and if all progress were nothing but substitutionof new errors for old ones, must not reason despair of its own power? Would it not be tragicto have to realize over and over again that we cannot know anything? In addition, is it not


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miraculous that we do not despair in spite of this? Is there perhaps alive in all of us theincomprehensible but imperishable hope, that a spark of that lightof the first day of creationis lighting our path, and that that light radiates through our inner core as well as through theuniverse? Perhaps the thought of seeing the history of human knowledge as nothing morethan a chain of consecutive errors is in itself a great error. Perhaps hidden in all of those

errors is the germ of an eternal truth, which we must first rediscover in order to understandhow those who lived before us walked the same path of learning and bequeathed its fruit tous in their own language.

If so, then there is really only one wisdom. That wisdom is simultaneously the onetruth, onephilosophy, onereligion, and the oneknowledge in which all errors and contradictions aredissolved. All sciences and philosophies with their continuous changes, all religions andmoral systems, even all arts, are but broken and diffused rays of color of the original light,and the human ego is but a sound in the great world symphony, though essential to its veryexistence.

By becoming ever more conscious of this, and by keeping ever alert to this consciousness,those who live in this conviction may secure a place in the testament of ancient wisdom,known today by the badly abused name of astrology.

May these lectures now find a wider audience. I thank my friends, without whose help thiscould not have happened. First, it was the farsightedness of my friend Ernst Orenstein, nowdoing valuable work in the field of music in Honolulu, who, while we were all gathered in

Vienna, insisted that my lectures be taken down, and so preserved. I am further grateful toa kind destiny, granting me the happiness to be active in three fields, which in their reciprocalsupplementation prepared the soil from which my development grew: I was physician,

musician, and teacher.

As a member of the board of directors of the Wiener Volksbildungshaus and Volksheim(institutes for adult education), I found opportunity to develop the basic elements of myphilosophy in my lectures. These were concerned with the boundary line between musicand philosophy, which I put forth in a book entitled The Critique of Pure Music,1

completed in 1918. It was the Baroness Hamar who interested me in the study ofastrology before and during World War I, a study that I began at first as a cautiousskeptic. Wishing to attain a clear understanding of the foundations of this doctrine, I soon

went my own way. Thus I learned to explore the esoteric side of this study, of whichastrology is a part. Without this esoteric foundation, it remains unsatisfactory. This esotericfoundation was the topic of a series of lectures, Introduction to Esoteric Thinking,concurrent with the ones you are about to read.

_________________________________________________________________________1Translators note: Analogous to Kants Critique of Pure Reason. Editors note:Kritik...was due to be published in Austria

in 1999, but financial, editorial and political problems halted the project. It is now being translated into English for futurepublication.


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I wish to wholeheartedly thank all those who have faithfully contributed to the publicationof this work. First of all, Olga Novakovic, a lady, and a great artist, who loyally fortified mein the belief that I was on the right path. She no longer inhabits this earth, and to her puresoul, the First Sequence shall be dedicated.

The whole work is dedicated to all the members of our circle, who since 1938 have beenscattered throughout the world. Some stayed at home, many, I among them, emigrated-----toEngland, America, Australia, South Africa, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark,Sweden...

Of those remaining in Austria, my special thanks go to Mr. Ernst Forster and ProfessorErwin Ratz, who took upon themselves the final proofreading of this work, to Mr. FelixDeutsch, now in New York, who critically reviewed the first sequences and made some ofthe drawings, and to the young artist Helene Grunwald, for her drawings. I remember with

gratitude the aid of Professor Franz Strunz, court-councilor, and Mrs. Schmidt, widow of thelate and revered Master Franz Schmidt, with whom I was privileged to spend never-to-be-repeated hours of bliss in playing quartet together.

And now another word to the reader...

This work does not contain technical instruct ions for calculat ing or constructing ahoroscope. This was not necessary since there are already many excellent works onthe subject in existence to which the reader may refer.

London, September 1949


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First Lecture

Were not the eye akin to Sun,The Sun it never could perceive.

~ Goethe, Plotin

We have come together to study one of humankinds oldest sciences. Since the most remote

of times, astrology has been surrounded by a halo of holiness. This is largely because thisall-embracing subject emerged into being as revelation, and through experiment andcareful observation. The nature of astrologys suppositions were of a much more intimatenature than anything we today call scientific observation. As such, I must emphasize to thebeginner that you are about to enter a realm whose essence is entirely founded in esoteric

wisdom.

To make this clear, let us first define astrology. Astrology is the doctrine of the absoluteand inviolable cohesion of all occurrences on Earth, and especially the human occurrence.It is not only concerned with humanity in general, and the history of our development, but

also with each individuals existence and entire history. This includes external events as wellas subjective experiences with pain and joy, fear and hope, love and hate, error andperception, with sickness and death-----in short-----with ones fate!

This tentative definition already indicates that the science of astrology cannot follow thepath of todays exact science, nor could it have originated in our time. For modern sciencefollows the opposite path, stemming from single phenomena and individual observation,rather than from the concept of a general cosmic cohesion. It proceeds from the particularto the general, and verifies its results by experiments whenever possible. Todays scienceseeks to prove the validity of its insights, gained by observation, of artificial material thathas been arbitrarily freed from outside influence, as a substitute for the natural existing

material of experience. Since its detailed and diversified research never comes to an end,we can understand why such a science could never concur with the basic idea of astrologyas explained above; the experiment would encounter insurmountable obstacles.

Ironically, however, we are confronted now with the odd fact that, today, this exact scienceshows an interest in the teachings of astrology. Exact researchers, filled with the spirit ofmodern science, are turning to this old doctrine, and include it in their circle of physical


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intimate and secret inner core. Like all esoteric knowledge, this knowledge of the fact of ourperson-ality is direct and incommunicable! Everyones self, with all that moves and fills it,is ones own secret!

In contrast, and forever strange to this self within us, is the objective world, discernible only

from the outside. Moreover, in it the thou too is forever strange and separated, without apossible entrance to our inner life.

Into the core of nature no created spirit penetrates!Blessed is he to whom she merely shows her gates.

teaches Albert Von Haller.

Yet, if we could penetrate into the core of nature, as into our own self, then we wouldhave an inner, esoteric knowledge of the outside as we have of ourselves. This has been the

desire of all who sought the light since the beginning of time, the great longing of GoethesFaust:

So that I may perceive whatever holdsThe world together in its inmost folds,See all its seeds, its working power,

And cease word-threshing from this hour.

Is there really no bridge between the inside and the outside? Is all esoteric wisdom butimagination? There isa bridge, a bridge whose nature is such that it is ever available foreach of us in the same manner in which only our self is given us-----the human body.

I see my body outside as one among many other bodies, obeying all the physical laws asrevealed to natural scientists. Yet, at the same time, my body is ego-bound. While naturalscience is limited in knowing the body only as something contained outside, I know itfurther as something within, as something that lives in me emotionally and mentally.

Therefore, I know my body in an esoteric way.

If I could enlarge this body such that all of the strange things outside become part of myinwardly experienced body, then I would have the same secret knowledge of all the strangethings outside, as I know myself; an esoteric knowledge that can be systematized as scientificknowledge. I would then be inpossession of cosmic esoteric knowledge!

Upon closer examination, this thought loses much of its initial fantastic quality. We see thistransition in abundance in everyday life. Our common sensory perception is already full ofthis secret of how an outside becomes an inside and how an inside can show itself as anoutside.

As an example, consider the thunderstorm fright. Thunderstorm fear is not fear of the


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lightening and fire of the thunderstorm itself. The revolt in nature is concurrent with anemotional revolt within us, of the same elementary power. The thunderstorm is inside andoutside simultaneously.

Or, think of the fragrance of the rose! That which lives within the blossom of the rose

becomes a fragrance experience within me. I have only to become deeply absorbed in this soulexperience in order to experience the rose blossoms essence. Or, think of commiseration, alienmisery, which becomes our own-----the esoteric knowledge of anothers sorrow!

One of the most impressive parables ever applied to the problem of perception comes fromthe Indian sage Rama Krishna. It carries this thought farther to a possible esotericknowledge of the universe.

Rama Krishna likens the esoteric process of perception to what happens when one throws asalt doll into water, in contrast to what happens when a stone is thrown into water. Water

washes around the stone, touching only its surface. Unable to penetrate it, the water mustremain foreign and outside of the stone; the stone cannot unite with it. This is a simile fornatural sciences exact perception of outward matter.

The salt doll dissolves in the water. It weds it, penetrating the water to its farthest extremes.Even if the whole ocean were involved, the salt doll would penetrate it completely, becomingone with it, so that it would be impossible to say whether the salt had been dissolved in the

water, or the water in the salt. This wedding act is a simile for esoteric perception, where-upon the self has been wedded to the universe; it has been so widened that it now lives inthe cosmos, as if in its own body. We then perceive this universe-body in the same manneras we perceive our body in everyday life, when inwardly we feel it as the emotional and

mental fulfillment of our self.

Let us clarify this concept using the geometrical figure (see Figure 1 on page 18) of thepentagram, also called the Druids foot. This is a very ancient mystical figure, built byextending the sides of a regular five-angled figure (pentagon), until they touch. When thesepoints of juncture are connected by straight lines, a new five-angled figure is formed in anenlarged measure. This procedure can be continued indefinitely: the five-pointed star(Pentagram) grows towards the outside. The same procedure can be reversed toward theinside: drawing the diagonals in the original five-angled figure gives us a diminished five-pointed star, which again encloses a five-angled figure where the diagonals can be drawnagain, and so forth, ad infinitum.


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Figure 1

The five-pointed star has the remarkable faculty of growing toward the outside as well as theinside, according to its own laws. It mirrors the outward growth in its interior.

Let us now imagine that the original five-angled figure is our ordinary, everyday self. If itwere possible to draw within us all that is spread around us by a mysterious act of openingour ego, as the salt doll in the simile of Rama Krishna allowed the water to enter into it, then

we need merely to look into ourselves to find the immeasurably diminished image of the

outside in ourselves. Or, to use the phrase of the ancients: the macrocosm in the microcosm,the great world outside in the inside world.

Once the barriers that hold it imprisoned are broken, the self becomes the primary sourceof all esoteric perception. For this reason were these words inscribed above the entrance ofthe temple of Apollon in Delphi: Know Thyself-------and in the inner temple (readable only tothose allowed to enter there, after fulfillment of the above commandment), thecontinuation of the sentence: And Thou wilt know God!2

Some of you will interpret this as poetic imagination, or as eastern mysticism. Consider thethoughts of Gustav Theodor Fechner, a German philosopher who was also an eminentrepresentative of the exact sciences. The main doctrines of his philosophy are containedin two works, the larger, more comprehensive of which is titled Zend-Avesta,----living

word-----living perception-----the smaller one: The Day View as Opposed to the Night View.In

________________________________________________________________________________2 Leadbeater


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titling his main work, Zend-Avesta, he implies that he does not want to deal with deadwords and notions, but to find knowledge in the immediate experience. Fechner startsfrom the fact that our body is composed of millions of tiny living beings known as cells.Each of these cells leads a comparatively independent life, experiencing all the lifeprocesses of digestion, food intake, elimination, growth, propagation and finally death.

Moreover, connected with all these outward criteria of life we must imagine some kind ofinward life, perhaps in the form of a vague feeling of consciousness, such as the primitiveemotions of attraction and repulsion. No single cell in itself can have a clear perception ofthe life content of another cell in the same human body. Yet, we as human beings, in whosebody all these cells are integral parts, have in our life experience the life experience of allour bodys cells----not as each separate cell, but as the sum of the life experience of all cells

joined together. This sum is not merely the total of separate experiences, but of their higherunity: their concentration on a higher level, which is as much higher as the humanconsciousness is above the cell consciousness. The consciousness of all the cells iscontained in the consciousness of the human being as a higher unit. The constant

replacement of dying cells by their successors does not mean a rift in the consciousnessof the entire human being; in the continuity of our emotional vitality, there is room for thevitality of all the millions of cells. Likewise, every change of vitality of the total rulingorganism will, in reverse, somehow find its way to those individual cells. This includes ourevery upset or thought as it happens by contact with our surroundings, every mood ofsentiment or mind: joy, anger, sorrow, love, contentment or restlessness, calmcontemplation, healthy or sick feelings; in short, everything that human consciousness onits level, in a human manner, experiences. This will be expressed in the cell consciousnessas a dimly felt alteration of the cells vitality-----as an increase of this vitality in the case ofelevated human consciousness, as a lessening, if depressive emotions of the human beingare involved.

Now let us assume that such a cell had the critical thinking faculty of the human being ofwhose total organism it is only an infinitely small part. It would nevertheless have noconception of the entire human body, either its outward appearance, which it could neversee, or its interior. It would also have no idea where its own vitality changes really camefrom. It could believe nothing else but that the cause of these variations should lie in itself,or result from contact with its immediate cell-neighbors. The conception that it is physically,emotionally and mentally contained within a higher organism together with millions ofother cells would have to appear fantastic and unacceptable, as incompatible with its ownexact thinking. What it had heretofore understood as its independent, individual life, wasonly a small part, owing existence and purpose only to its being built into a higher organismout of which, unknown to itself, all the impulses and energies of its supposedly independentlife flow.

But if this single cell could break through the limits of its cell-consciousness and rise to thehigher human consciousness, then from this newly won perspective, it would learn tounderstand the law, which determines its cohesion with the totality of the person. Thisthought may be further enlarged. Humanity, too, is but a cell in a higher organism. As the


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single cells have been built into the human body, participating in our higher life in their ownmanner, we too are built into a higher organism. We participate in a human way in a higherlife, even though we may never be able to see it or to recognize it.3

Where is this mighty organism, this higher being, in which we each represent merely a tiny

cell? A single, perishable cell of its giant body! This giant organism, which comprises allhumankind as part of its being, in which all thoughts, emotions, experiences, perceptions-----indeed in which the complete physical, emotional and mental life of all people on earthare contained-----is the Earth. Human life is contained in Earth not as a mere sum total, butas a higher unit of all these life contents. Earths level of consciousness supersedes that ofhumankind as our own consciousness supersedes the dull consciousness of our cells.

Earth is an enormous living being, which not only contains all people, but also all fauna, allflora, all the mineral substances, the water, air and fire-----in short, everything we see aroundus. All this lives as an integral and organic part in Earths body, participating in its immense

life. Inside Earths life, every person, with all thought and feeling, is just a fleeting thought,which burgeons in an incomprehensibly higher connection. All human wisdom and artinside of this life is but a letter in a higher word, which only Earth can think.

We can extend this thought of the onegreat, united life, still further. Earth, to whom Fechnerascribes the rank of an archangel, is also only a cell in a still greater body. Together withother similar cells-----the other planets of our solar system-----Earth is built into the solarsystem from which all the planets with their moons receive the laws and meaning of theirlives.

And further...! All these millions of sun-worlds are again united in a highest being, in whose

consciousness each single sun world is but a letter of the universal word, which has beensince the beginning. Thus, we are all members of an immense organism, of the universe, or,if you want, of GOD, within whom we live, reciprocally. It is, therefore, a knowledge fromthe inside-----or, as we said, an esotericknowledge of all which is outside-----possible onlybecause it is an immersion in the knowledge of God. Full of such thoughts, the old mysticsays:

Were not the eye akin to Sun,The Sun it never could perceive;

If not Gods power lived in us,How could the Divine delight us so?

~ Goethe, Plotin

_________________________________________________________________________3Editors note: Whereas this text predates the Space Age and New Age, it is interesting to pause at the thought of how

our relatively new-found capacity to witness the Earth from beyond her physical limits is concomitant with our capcity togo beyond the boundaries of our limiting ego-separated selves. In this ideas, as in many others, Dr. Adler was well aheadof his time.


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To summarize, we have used Rama Krishnas simile of the salt doll and the figure of thefive-pointed star to indicate how the human body can be considered a bridge between thehere and the beyond. Thus, we have an important starting point for the foundation ofesoteric knowledge in general, and especially for astrology.

This human body, which we now know as a physical link between the profane and theesoteric doctrines, is not the only bridge. There is still another bridge between the here andthe beyond, one purely intellectual in nature. It too is a form of knowledge that iscommonplace in one sense, but which, when perfected into a science, is considered theultimate exactitude. This science, which in a way shows a double face-----a secret one,turned inward, and a profane one, turned outward-----is mathematics.Mathematics actuallypossesses all the criteria of secret wisdom since in complete purity, all its findings can onlybe inwardly won. Therefore, mathematical knowledge is immediate, not based on out-

ward experience. Its truth is immediately witnessed by anyone in whose mind its findingsare repeatedly reproduced autonomously. Like the fact of our self, mathematical perceptionsneed no outward proof.

Now someone could get the idea that mathematical perceptions, in spite of their close innerconnections, are mere products of the imagination. Nevertheless, we are faced with the factthat the results of this imagination, miraculous as it appears, can be applied not only tothis strange outside world; they also disclose to us the lawfulness of exterior occurrences.

These derive their scientific value through the quality of being expressible in mathematicalformula. This fact gives to mathematics its merit as a bridge between the interior and theexterior. For, just as the crystal forms of the cube, tetrahedron, octahedron, etc. meet us inthe outer world as natural forms, grown through exterior influence, so grow the geometrical

idea forms on which the crystals are based, through a mental process by purely intellectualmeans in ourselves. Thereby, they indicate the secret connection between the outside andthe inside, as by a common source. Mathematics is the living revelation of the secret life ofnumbers. All parts grown out of the oneness-----partes-----are born as the cell grows, throughpartition (partus =birth) out of the one. In this sense Lao-Tzu says of numbers: The onebegets the two, those two engender the three, and the three all the other numbers.

All mathematical perception is uniform living esoteric wisdom, born out of the One. Withinthe limits of this secret number knowledge, these numbers present themselves, not asmeasures of space and time, but as the natural system of the living organic cohesionbetween the original one and the parts grown from it, into which it is inwardly divided.

What is thus lived inwardly through number is the consciousness of the harmony betweenthe universe as the large, and the ego as the small, unit: the general form of the absolutecosmic connection, of which we spoke at the beginning: of the one and its parts.For thisexperience too there exists an everyday example, a semi profane earthly echo of thatcosmic harmony: music. Music is the immediate inner experience of number. It is a messageof the inner connection of the universe. In this sense the ancient sages spoke of the harmonyof the spheres, and Goethe through the mouth of Raphael in Faust:


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The Sun intones, in ancient tourney,With brother spheres, a rival song.

Now it is not surprising that the great Johannes Kepler arrived at a similar line of thought. In

his main work, Harmonices Mundi (Harmony in the Universe), he, like Fechner, soughtto demonstrate that the Earth is a huge, living being, with digestion, elimination, etc. LikeEarth, the other planets are also living beings, with whom Earth is in continuous mutualrelation, like each person to another within our environment. When, in a certain moment, achild is born on Earth, delivered out of the Earths womb, it then bears as a dowry thefundamental mood that permeated the planetary world in this moment. Whatever thoughtthe Earth at this moment held in the dialogue with her cosmic surroundings is now carried

within the newborn as the law that governs his or her future life. It is thus the permanentkeynote of ones life-----an expression of the law, according to which we each enter it.

As on the day that gave thee to the world,The Sun did stand in greeting to the planets,Hast thou immediately and ever more been thriving,According to the law, obeying which thou started.

~ Goethe, Orphisch

The above is presented to give a general conception of the basic idea of astrology as anesoteric doctrine. Now let us compare this with the attitude of exact natural science inrelation to the cosmic world picture.

Here again we may refer to Fechner. Without knowing it, in his Zend Avesta, this ingenious

thinker disclosed to us the meaning of Rama Krishnas parable of the salt doll. He alsodisclosed the simile of the stone in another main work: The Day View as Opposed to theNight View. As day view, Fechner understands the above-developed fundamental viewof universal life, of which every single life is an organically integrated part, partaking in thetotality of light that radiates through the cosmos and shines both outside and inside of us.

The night-view conception of the world maintains that the total outside world can only beproperly understood if its appearance is freed from all contributions of human experience(consciously or unconsciously applied). These contributions of our individuality-----with all thatbelongs to emotion, to joy and sorrow-----attempt to transform the apparent into reality. Alsoincluded in this individuality are the sense qualities, as functional expressions ofthe sense organs: light, sound, and heat, smell and taste.

What then remains of this formerly so well known world? Nothing but the specter of anightly world, freed of all individuality, in which we ourselves no longer exist. This world isdark and mute, without soul or spirit; no bridge leads to this dead world but illusion. Trulya world not worth living in, if it were not wisdoms last comforting conclusion (resultingfrom this view of the world) that our own thoughts and feelings are but vain illusions-----


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unimportant, superfluous additions to the only real fact of a soulless occurrence ofvibrations-----the eternal dance of atoms.

There is then an antithesis between a purely objective, dark, soulless world, in which weourselves are merely automatically swinging atom complexes, and the live world, which is

flooded by warmth and light, of which we ourselves, with all that moves our innermostbeings, are organically united parts. The abyss between this night view of materialism,

which truly won an objective world but thereby lost its soul, and the esoteric world-pictureappears as grotesque as the contrast between the astronomy of our day and astrology as anesoteric doctrine. A writer of popular science wrote the following sentences to demonstratethe triumph of modern thinking: Formerly it was believed that the Sun was a divine being, butnow we know that it is a glowing ball of gas. Could not one say just as well: In former timesit was believedthat Beethovens symphonies were noble works of art, now we know that theyare merely vibrating masses of air. Or: once I believed that you, writer, were a thinking being,but now I know that you are merely a chemical combination of hydrogen, oxygen, carbon,

nitrogen, and some other mineral salts!

The grotesqueness of such science (which, as Goethe puts it, holds the parts in its hands, butlacks the courage to search their spiritual connections) goes even further: Look at this book!

We follow here an example used by the occult writer Papus. In what does its essence consistand how would you investigate it? It has so and so many ounces; it contains so and so manyletters of this or that size; the paper consists of so and so much carbon, oxygen, etc. Isnt that

wonderful science? Does this knowledge satisfy you? Now you knowabout this book? Haveyou never felt the urge to readthis book? You have omitted this, because you took its contentsto be metaphysical imagination. Take heart, try it, and you will experience something strange-----the dead book will talk to you as speaks one mind to another mind.

Astronomy also teaches nothing more than the outward measurements of a giant book,which it defines most accurately. It knows the measurements of all planets and their coursesalong with the period of their revolutions, the substances of which the remotest suns arebuilt. Is that science not wonderful? But, does this knowledge of the universe satisfy you?Do you know this universe now? Have you never had the desire to seek the meaningbeyond all these measurements and numbers, the meaning by which astronomy becameastrology so long ago? To reveal this meaning, we must have the courage to learn how touse the secret code key to this giant book, which we carry inside of us, never to be lost. It hasbeen offered to us in two ways: as our human body, and as numbers.

Out of these two fundamental elements, the sacred old wisdom of astrology may be rebuilt.Helped by these two auxiliary means, we shall seek to reconquer a knowledge which inancient times was alive in human hearts as the knowledge Katexochen-----the knowledgeof the vast cosmic interrelationships in which each of us in included. We are everlastingmembers of the immeasurable universe.

Let Goethes answer to Albert von Haller, (who thought the road into the core of nature


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closed) accompany and encourage us:

Nature has neither seed nor skin,She is everything at once.

Examine thou thyself severely,Whether thou be seed or merely skin.

and further:

You follow the wrong trail,Dont think we joke!Is not the core of natureIn the heart of men?

With this, we will close for today. Take with you as a fundamental mood the idea of the

great living ONE(whose witness is everyones ego, immediate and forever united) as aguide to humanitys oldest science-----astrology.


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Second Lecture

Brethren above the starry sky There must live a loving Father.

~ Schiller

In the last lecture, we formed a broad view picture of astrologys essence as part of esotericteachings and identified the source of those teachings, which flow from regions quitedifferent from the sources of exoteric knowledge. As was demonstrated in the last lecture,these inner sources have never been completely blocked. They flow today as ever, exceptthat they do not find general acceptance in regard to all that which todays science holds inhigh esteem. The whole of astrology stems from thatALL-feeling, which even today shapesthe tenor of life of primitive people who live in unison with nature both externally andinternally. This concord with nature is based on an organic feeling of sharing life within itscommunity, that is to say, upon the presentiment of the fact of being a part of the cosmic lifeof this universe, whose central parts are composed of the myriads of suns, planets andmoons, like the organs of a gigantic outer body. Upon one of these gigantic cells-----the Earth

-----a person who is close to nature also feels as a miniature cell, pulsing throughout with thelife stream of the total body. While within each persons narrow consciousness are thoughts,hopes, rejoicing, guiltiness and sorrow as well as a striving for faith and freedom, if you haveeven once felt like this at the sight of a starry sky, or have ever surrendered to such an all-feeling even as a mere presentiment, then you have awakened in yourself something which

was once the source of the wisdom of the stars. A primitive stage of nature-perceptioncorresponds to such a presentiment, a stage that had to be lost in the ascent to clearknowledge to enable that which had once been presentiment to be rediscovered later asconsciously acquired, permanent knowledge. In our last lecture, we followed this ascendingroad through three stages, as per the ingenious statements of Auguste Comte. The firststage, the theological, is comparable to primitive peoples feeling of closeness to nature, andthe third with the point of view of exact natural science. Beyond this, there is a fourth stage,

which condenses all detailed and statistical knowledge into a picture of the world, one thatis organically alive. This knowledge may be named the esotericor secret knowledge, incontrast to the body of natural science, which we will call exotericknowledge.

These two terms, which we will use from now on, originated with Pythagoras who dividedhis disciples into two groups of students: the exoteroi, the external, and the esoteroior internal


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or occult. To the exoteroi was taught everything which today constitutes the objectiveknowledge of systematic and practical science; the esoteroi learned to know the methodof inner absorption or meditation whereby the ego becomes the medium through whichuniversal knowledge flows. Before we continue the contemplations we began in the lastlecture, let us quote one of Chuang-Tzu wonderful parables-----a conversation between a

positivist and one who represents the fundamental cosmic idea-----the exoteric and theesoteric thinkers.

THE JOY OF THE FISH

Chuang-Tzu and Hui-Tse stood on the bridge over the Hao. Chuang-Tzu said: Look, howthe carp dart around! That is the joy of the fish. You are no fish, said Hui-Tse, How can

you know in what the joy of the fish consists? You are not I, answered Chuang-Tzu,How can you know that I know not in what the joy of the fish consists? I am not you,

acknowledged Hui-Tse, And I know you not. But I know that you are no fish; so youcannot know fish. Chuang-Tzu replied: Let us return to your question. You asked: Howcan you know what constitutes the joy of the fish? At heart, you know that I know, and yet

you asked. Never mind.I know it out of my own joy over the water.

We have clearly shown the divisionin these two conceptions of the world. Let us direct ourattention today to certain connectionsbetween them. In the last five or six decades, a thoughthas been emerging more and more clearly in spite of all modern sciences anti-metaphysicalendeavors. It is the thought of ascendancefrom the imperfect to the perfect, or more simply,evolution.

In our next lecture, we will consider the subject of evolution. For today, the hint may suffice-----that wherever the theory of evolution appears in natural science-----it is secretly thought ofas being analogous to organicevolution. That is, as development from germs or germ-likestates within which are carried all the conditions of the future, even though they are not yetrecognizable since they are not yet realized-----as the plant is already contained in the seed, orthe animal in the egg-----as ready, but not yet manifest in form. Insofar as these make theirstart from the germ-cell, and advance by cell-splitting and further differentiation to thecompleted organism, they offer us something which, in full visibility of external reality, isaccomplished exactly as the mental origin of all numbers out of the unit, by constantdifferentiation and partition (pars Partus).

To be logical, therefore, the exact sciences should expunge the idea of evolution from theirvocabulary, since its motives remain an eternal riddle to them. They should replace theword with the phrase, succession of states, whose value is outside their interest. If exactscience should actually decide to see evolution as nothing but a succession of states, thenthis conception loses its meaning entirely.


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In spite of all these reflections, the idea of evolution continues to exist, and therebydemonstrates again and again what a deep, though unadmitted, connection really existsbetween the esoteric and the exoteric doctrines. For the astronomical idea of worlddevelopment, as it had been pronounced by Kant and Laplace, as well as the developmentof this thought, (rather its transposition into the biological, by E. Haeckel), are esoteric

occult findings, clad in the robe of exoteric knowledge. They both proclaim the unity ofall life in this cosmos.

The cosmogonical hypothesis by Kant and Laplace puts the common origin of the entireplanetary system into one heavenly body, which originally contained the entire substance ofthe solar system; its present state is known to us the Sun. All planets have been born out ofthe Suns body, either by compression of single nodes in this substance, or by the hurlingforth of their masses along the solar equator.

Therefore, all the planets, as well as our Earth, are parts of the Sun, are of its body, and, in

spite of the distance in space, are bound to it. They encircle it in narrower or wider orbitsaccording to inviolable laws. As an inheritance, they carry the solar nature in their core. Forexoteric science to admit this fact suggests that it could somehow be reconciled to the ideaof astrology.

Since the planets were born-----ejected-----by the Sun at varying epochs, they carry withinthem as an inheritance, various states of solar development, each of which represents theirspecific key note, determining their lives future direction. Thus, the aspect of the Sun at thetime of Saturns birth will remain in this planets keynote the whole life of its existence. Thisis true also of Jupiter, Mars, and of allthe planets, according to the epoch of their birth.

Since they are all brothers and sisters, children of the same parent, the same life pulsates in allof them, only tuned to different keynotes, according to the Suns own evolutionary history.Placed among the planets like a man among his older and younger brothers, Earth receivesthe full sum of the influences of its planetary siblings. These influences upon Earth are theresult of forces that remind it of events that are both of the past and of the future. Theyrepresent an infinite and orderly diversity of impulses in the continual change of their mutualpositions or constellations. The totality of these impulses indicates the great line of Earthsdevelopment, which is further transmitted to human beings and all that is part of the Earth.

We have now arrived at a second connecting link between modern science and astrology:the conception of the constellations, or the reciprocal points of energy.

In a brilliant lecture, the late Dr. Otto Bryck (also translator of Keplers works) pointed tothe fact that this conception plays an important role in todays chemistry. There are manychemical combinations whose elemental composition is identical along with their quantitativerelations in the molecule, but which are nevertheless physically and chemically completelydifferent. Such combinations are called isomer. For example, there are several differentcombinations of the formula: C

6H

4Cl

2, according to the different mutual positions of the


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H (hydrogen) and the Cl (chlorine) atoms. However, the variety of possible positionsbetween the Sun and the planets are inexhaustible, and though repeated in briefer or longerperiods between single groups of planets, they are never repeated in their totality!

Each horoscope, therefore, (consisting of the currently known planetary points of energy)

presents somewhat of an isomer picture of constellations. Their peculiarities show uniqueness,unrepeated in the immeasurable abundance of constellation possibilities in the course ofmillennia. Each horoscope records a fleeting moment of Earths evolution, owning to theindividuality of the person brought into existence at this moment as a lasting witness ofEarths inner life.

Music, which we spoke of previously as an earthly echo of cosmic unity, shows us also,quasi symbolically, how constellations and evolution present themselves to esoteric thinkingin their living interrelationship. For, what takes place externally in music is the constantchange of constellation pictures of its atoms, namely the twelve tones of the chromatic

scale, and in simpler cases, only the seven tones of the diatonic scale. The meaning of amusical composition can only be recognized in its development. The theme, unfolded littleby little, shines forth as the nucleus of the future, pregnant with yet unrealized pre-sentimentsand hopes, and then returns to the goal, already contained in the nucleus.

In every phase of this development, that which is already fulfilled combines with the yetunfulfilled, the past with the future. A tone is born as the fulfillment of past hopes and itripens toward the future, while the meaning of its fleeting existence is determined by thepresentiment that secures its existence and duration in the framework of the total composition.

Today we shall go a step beyond the topic of our last lecture.

We came to know two bridges, showing us the way to cosmic perception, the foundation ofall astrology: the human body as the physical bridge, mathematics as the mental bridge.

Now let us consider how we may enter these bridges. We will become acquainted with aesoteric fundamental experience, which, though placed at the beginning of all occultcosmology, appears childish to those unable to relive it.

Let us try with a feeling directed inwardly, to touch along the contours of our body: we thusobtain the conception of our limitedness in space. Yet, try to imagine further that in ourlimitedness we are but a part of the universe, which contains us inside of it as we contain itoutside of ourselves. Now let us transform this concept into a vivid feeling; then the exteriorskinof our body, guarding our small self, becomes at the same time the common border,

where the universe and my body touch.

Like the pentagon of the pentacle, so reflects the skins surface back and forth. Just as we touchalong the limits of our skin in our feeling, so the universe touches along this same skin. It is ourcommon surface. Thus each one of us becomes a pore, filled with human substance, of an


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enormousgiants body;the cosmos becomes the prototype of the human figure.

Eye in eye, mouth in mouth, nose in nose, hand in hand, back in back, chest in chest, heartin heart... thus the large being, macrocosm, surrounds the small, microcosm. Thus lives thesmall human in the large, united by the common mirrored surface of the human-cosmic

skin. And that which is inside this skin is as that which is outside of it, or as the ancientesoteric document, the Smaragdine Tablet, said: id, quod superior est, est sicut id, quodinferius est-----as above, so below!

We thus arrive at the conception of human beings radiated from the universe, and therewithat an ancient astrological axiom, which we call the doctrine of the general and absolutecorrelation between humanity and the universe. At this point, let us consider the medicalconcept of the ancients regarding the origin of the human sperm, known in medical historyas the pangenesis theory. They imagined the human sperm formed as the extract of allorgans, thus actually representing kind of a vital focus of man, just as he himself represents

a vital focus of the universe.

The human body, with all its parts, is thus cut out from the universe, turning the same faceto each other; therefore, everything that has become an organic particle of the human bodyhas a cosmic archetype. Head and limbs, heart and intestines, liver and kidneys receive thelaw of their organization and formation into the human figure from the macrocosmic archetype.

We ought to look upon the human body not with exoteric eyes only, but we ought toexperience it inwardly as the ego-filled pore of the universe.

That which embraces us, we can now feel as an envelope. It is called Holon or koilon inGreek; coelum in Latin; chol in Hebrew, hohl, All, in German. Accordingly, the human

figure appears like the heavenly archetype, enclosing us as something complete in itself.Returning in itself like the line of a circle with the upright figure of a human, so to speak, asthe rectified line of a circle, both ends being turned toward each other touching as head-and-feet ends of the human form.

The cosmic prototype of this circular human figure is called theZodiac. We will talk of thisin detail later.

Now let us view this fundamental esoteric experience from another angle. Do not think ofthe separationof macro- and microcosm by the common borderline of the skin; instead,think of their being in constant union with each other, in spite of and beyond this separation.Constantly, without interruption, particles of the macrocosm enter into the microcosm man.Inversely, human substance pushes out again. If we observe this constant exchange ofphysical substances between macrocosm and microcosm, and surrender to this feeling,(experienced most directly through our breathing), then we no longer feel separated from theuniverse by our skin, but unitedwith it by the very life function. This life function is, in fact,the constant renewal of the microcosm through the forces of the macrocosm, and vice versa.


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Through breathing and digestion, we directly experience our livingincorporation intouniversal life. Just as the skin is the common touching surface between the universe and myself, so is my breathing the expression of the common life between the universe and myself.

When I inhale, the universe exhales into me at the same time, and reciprocally. The rhythmof my life function thus becomes analogous to the mirror event of the borders of my body.

Just as my body and its organization was the miniature picture of the cosmos, so is therhythm of my life function the image of the large cosmic life and its absolute counterpart.Now we understand that what is in us-----the rhythm of pulse and breath-----is the great rhythmof the circling of the stars. Rising and setting and solstices, planetary epochs-----all of thesemanifest the rhythmic pulse of the cosmos, in which Earth herself takes part with the tides,the change of the seasons, with the rhythm of day and night, morning, noon and evening.

The collection of all this in a deep inner feeling of vitality is the second form by which thehuman body becomes a bridge to the universe. The first form of the esoteric experience ofthe human body led us through the sensation of the organic correspondence to the vastprojection of the human body, bent into a circle, onto the sky: theZodiac. The second form

of this experience, as the cosmic life sensation, leads us to the movement of the stars, andespecially to the function of the planets, to the movementof the planets on the background ofthe Zodiac, along which their rhythmic wandering occurs. This suffices, for the moment,about one of the bridges.

Now we will contemplate the other, mental, bridge, of which we spoke in the last lecture:mathematics. We recognized in mathematics a bridge between the here and the beyond,because mathematical knowledge can be developed entirely out of the pure idea ofnumber. On the other hand, what is found by pure thought processes is proved to be themost general form of the lawfulness of physical experience-----the sole road to natural law.

Thus is formed, now in the realm of the intellect, the idea of complete correspondence-----on

the one side, between numbers and their functions, and on the other side, the lawfulness ofexterior phenomena and happenings.

Here an odd thought imposes itself upon us! If out of the one and its division, all of the othernumbers can actually be developed, should there not also be a complete correspondencebetween mathematical evolution and cosmic evolution? May we not then believe that thedevelopment of numbers out of the one could give us the key to the comprehension ofcosmogony?-----the key to the laws of the worlds origin and evolution?-----the esoteric key,

which concerns the occult-scientific comprehension of world origin and evolution?

Now I want to confront you with another esoteric experience-----a numerical experience. Itleads us directly to what may be the inner meaning of numbers: their inner face. Before wego into this in more detail, let us look upon the attitude of exoteric science toward theproblem of cosmogony-----the problem of world origin.

The idea of the origin of the world presupposes an era when the world did not exist;therefore, the nought.


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third, as the integration pole, plays a very special role, and one whose mathematical expressionis the number three itself. Since its function is to reestablish the oneness again and again, whatit does bears a resemblance to the process by which we move our attention. First, we applyour attention to bringing the identity of an object into our consciousness; then, by constantcomparison with its mirror image, we thus reconcile the conflict between the original and

its image.

The three thus becomes the oscillation, which constantly reconciles the division of the twoopposite phases. Threeis the oscillation, the best-known form of which is the rotation aroundone or more axes. All oscillation and rotation is, therefore, actually a striving to regain andpreserve the one-ness.

The most common expression for this strife is the mathematical formula:

Y=sinus; x = the sinus line - the serpentine

Oviddescribes this eternal strife in nature in magnificent words containing the mystery ofthe threeness: Rerum concordia discors-----The twofold concord of all things. (dichotomy)

Now please remember three technical expressions, which, coming from the Sanskrit, designatethe three principles described above, and which play an important role in astrology:

RAJASas the name for the active, positive principleTAMASas the name for the passive, negative principleSATTWAas the name for the reconciling principle (oscillation)

We have now won two important insights. From the bridge of the human body, we havewon the insight of the cosmic correspondence of macro and microcosm, as well as the factof rhythm as bearer of the life function and its all-permeating organizing power. From thebridge of mathematics, we have again found the fact of rhythm in another form, as the lawof all manifestation. All this will be dealt with in more detail later.

We will now turn our attention from these great cosmic perspectives toward the practicaleveryday life of everyday people.

We are considering neither the esoterically initiated nor the man who is devoted to purematerialism, but the great mass of individuals. They are equipped with neither a sharp,critical mind, nor a profound esoteric intuition, but they have a natural inclination emotionallyand mentally to devote themselves to the impressions of nature and life. We will now lookat such an individual in an everyday role, fulfilling and enduring ones fate, suffering and

joyful, in want and in opulence, hoping and despairing, ambitious and resigned. In otherwords, the ordinary person, which means allof us in our everyday lives. Even in this state,we are inwardly connected with the universe and are not left alone.


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Rama Krishna, to whom we owe those two magnificent parables of stone and salt dollmentioned in our last lecture, has given us a further simile, describing this connection of thecommon person to the universe. It is the simile of a piece of cloth, thrown into water. Thestone was shut off from the water; only its surface was washed around, while its insidesremained untouched. The salt was dissolved; it penetrated the water completely and vice

versa. The cloth does not shut itself off, nor does it dissolve; it only absorbs according to itscapacity. Only part of the water can penetrate the cloth, and it can only absorb part of the

water; it can only participate according to its capacity, in that which is represented by thewater in the simile.

As a tightened string can only vibrate with sounding around it attuned to its own tone, butremains unaffected by all others; as a red object is incapable of reflecting other than redrays; as the human eye is only able to see the colors in the spectrum between red and violet

while the infrared and ultraviolet rays remain invisible to it; so also can each person onlyfeel those universal forces which are suitable to his or her capacity. We see and experience

everything that happens to us according to the limited measure of what is accessible to us.Thus, the path by which the forces of the universe find us is at the same time our connectinglink with the universe. Viewed esoterically, this narrow path is what determines our indi-

vidual appointed fate.Fateis the special color in which we mustexperience the fact of ourunitedness with the cosmos, hourly and daily. The concept of fate is of such importance inastrology that we must have a clear perception of it even at this early stage in our lectures,

where we are only concerned with a general foundation of astrological thinking.

We cannot possibly explain or grasp what fate is by using the cold, critical intellect. Fate canonly be experienced, i.e., not the what of the occurrence, but the how; its essence is notthe objective content of event, but how I fare through them. When the cranes flew over the theater

of Corinth, this event was fate to nobody but the murderers of Ibykus 4. The emotionalcapacity of those two men caused the event of the cranes flight to come to them-----to havetocome to them in a different way than to the other spectators.

Fate has two components, one of which is the objective occurrence; the other is thereception of this occurrence by the subjective constitution. This we will call ones fatecapacity. What determines it? Where does the elective force come from, that which picks outof the multitude of occurrences special ones to modify and form a single fate-----saturated,as it were, with the particular color of the personality?

_______________________________________________________________________________4 In the Greek legend, two ruffians murdered the beloved poet, on his way to the Olympic competition that took place in

Corinth. He appealed to a flight of cranes, passing overhead, for justice. In the theater, the murderers gave themselvesaway at the sight of them and were apprehended, and Ibykus revenged. Schiller wrote a famous and beautiful balladabout this story.


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Let us return to the simile of the dream.

Who among us has not had the experience of being disturbed by recurring horrible dreams!They are, after all, nothing but the actions of sediment accumulations of our physical

constitution into the dream fate. We ourselves, unknown to the dreamer, prepare this fate.

When awakened from the dream, and when freed to purify this sediment by self-analysis,we can change the dreams. Their terrors vanish. What we have thus brought about inourselves is similar to the liquidation of guilt, the making soluble of an otherwise insolubleresidue, (or as the chemist says, the unlocking of a chemically resistant substance) leadingnecessarily to a change and transmutation of fate.

The inner, esoteric side of such a process of occult transmutation (without which no higherdevelopment is possible) forms the object of that part of occult sciences, which, in contrast

to astrology, may be called the esoteric doctrine of evolution, or by its old venerable name,alchemy. The person who can work consciously on the desedimentation of his/her ownbeing is already an alchemist in the same sense as Goethe once said of himself: I have beenan alchemist all my life.Only a few manage to be alchemists in this sense; most of us haveto be kneaded by fate, by the sufferers path of fate.

Astrology gives us just the key to recognize these weak spots of our constitutional character,which present the points of attack to fate, as the analysis of the dream leads to the darkpoints of our soul.

This opens up a new perspective of the total cohesion, which we may now call, because of

the insights just won, the moral cohesion between microcosm and macrocosm. For are notmy pains and sufferings like an illness in the life of the total organism of which I am a small,insignificant cell? Is it not the highest moral duty to work on my own return to health forthe sake of the totality of life, out of which the powers of universal life come not only tome, but also to those closest and farthest away?! Pains and sufferings of the individual areprecursors of our awakening. Once we are awakened and we recognize our moral duty,

we also recognize the cosmicmeaning of thisforce of duty. With this cognizance, we winthe power to intervene in a change of the cosmic cohesion itself! The forces at work in theuniverse are the expression of the same law that determines in us our moral power: themoral law of world developmentitself.

Small as it may be, our moral share in the world occurrence places us thereby as a movingfactor in the totality of the world. The exoteric doctrine of the use of this force-----the thirdand last part of occult sciences-----is called magic.

Astrology is the doctrine of the integration of human beings in the totality of theuniverse.


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Alchemyis the doctrine of the transformation of the lower into the higher.

Magicis the doctrine of the use and direction of the forces, which guide evolution.

ASTROLOGY: Esoteric natural science.

ALCHEMY: Esoteric doctrine of evolution.MAGIC: Esoteric ethics.

To exoteric thinking, natural lawand ethicsseem without connection. They represent twoforms of law between which no bridge can be found. There lies between both, a somethingalien and senseless, the path of suffering, of human evolution, without starting point orgoal!

Immanuel Kant, before whose prophetic eyes the evolution of the solar system was revealed,shrinks from the incompatibility of these contrasts , which mere criti cal reason cannot

bridge. At the end of his powerful work, The Critique of Pure Reason,he writes thememorable words:

Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, theoftener and more steadily we reflect on them: the starry heavens above and themoral law within. I have not to search for them and conjecture them as thoughthey were veiled in darkness or were in the transcendent region beyond my horizon;

I see them before me and connect them directly with the consciousness of myexistence. The former begins from the place I occupy in the external world ofsense, and enlarges my connection therein to an unbound extent with worlds uponworlds and systems of systems, and moreover into limitless times of their periodic

motion, its beginning and continuance. The second begins from my invisible self,my personality, and exhibits me in a world which has true infinity, but which istraceable only by the understanding, and with which I discern that I am not in amerely contingent, but in a necessary and universal, connection as I am also therebywith all those visible worlds. The former view of a countless multitude of worldsannihilates, as it were, my importance as an animal creature, which after it hasbeen for a short time provided with vital power, one knows not how, must again

give back the matter of which it was formed to the planet it inhabits, itself a merespeck in the universe. The second, on the contrary, infinitely elevates my worth asan intelligence by my personality, in which the moral law reveals to me a lifeindependent on animality and even on the whole sensible world---at least so far asmay be inferred from the destination assigned to my existence by this law, adestination not restricted to conditions and limits of this life, but reaching into theinfinite.5

_______________________________________________________________________________5Quoted from translation by Thomas Kingsmill Abbot, B.D., London, 1889.


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Kant had to stop at this duality, but esoteric science helps to bridge the abyss by which thetwo worlds, the outward and the inward, are separated. Only when the sources of innerknowledge have been disclosed, from which Kant also drank (but about which he wiselykept silent) is a road shown to that astrology, which is not a profane and superstitious star

interpretation. It is an insight of the world, in which the starry heavens above and the morallaw inside of me are united into One Whole.

The moral law in me leads my glance to the heavens above me and gives me the presenti-ment of a connection. This turns into knowledgeafter I have recognized two things:

The starry heavens inside of me andThe moral law above me:both are only one.


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Third Lecture

Where brutal forces hold their sway,No artful form will wee the day.~ Schiller, The Lay of the Bell

We have come to know the human body and the mathematical function of numbers asessential communications with the universe. Once we can recognize them as such, they areopen to our highest and last arcanum, our egos. Both paths lead us to the recognition that weare enclosed as parts in the totality of this manifest world, and that by this enclosure, weforever remain in complete and inviolable, inextricable connection with this totality. Thisconnection must never be thought of as being causal in the sense of the older naturalsciences, but as an organically alive relationship. Its prototype is the connection of ourbodies living building blocks; the cells, or the mathematical relationship of numbers, bornout of the One, for which music gives us the most moving testimony as the spiritual-sensualform. Through number become tone, humans have kept alive, consciously or unconsciously,the experience of this cosmic unity since remotest times. For the secret connection of the

tones, through which music becomes possible at all, is the same kind as the unity of thecosmos itself, never a causal connection, but one born out of the oneness.

Harmony, the law that ordains the connection of separate tones within the frame of thewhole composition, seemed to the ancients, therefore, to be also the supreme law of thecosmic cohesion. It was in this sense that they spoke of the harmony of the spheres.

In the last lecture, we learned to know this universal cohesion from another side-----from theeveryday, ordinary side-----forced upon us daily and hourly in the form of our suffering theneed of being installed in the whole, or, in short, in the form of individual fate. The painfulpath of fate shall lead us from disharmony to harmony with the universe; as illness leads usfrom a state of disturbed physical harmony to physical harmony, or as the ancient Greekssaid, out of dyskrasy (the bad, unharmonious mixture of body fluids) to eukrasy.

We, like the chord of a musical instrument impurely tuned, may be attuned by fate, andso changed in our being, that we are brought closer to accordance with the harmony ofthe cosmos.

Thus, understood esoterically, the idea of fate led us to the demand for a transformation of


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our being, in the sense of a harmonious attuning. Transformation occurs through harmonizationof the inharmonious, or ennobling of the ignoble, for the purpose of becoming ever moreperfectly implanted in the higher life unit. The meaning of fate is transformation into thehigher through conquest of the lower, or as previously explained, the alchemical transformation.

Schiller magnificently explained this demand in the well-known quote:

Ever aspire to the whole, and if you cant be a whole,As a serving member, join yourself to a whole.

Exoteric science also knows this transformation as a rise from the less to the more perfect,under the name of evolution.

We have shown this concept to be a link between exoteric and esoteric thinking. Today wewill occupy ourselves with a new aspect of this concept of evolution; the absolute connection

of every being, and especially of humankind, with the entire cosmos. Before we think ofindividual human higher development, we will think of the rise of all humankind from thelower stages of life. In other words, the whole scale of organic life on Earth, which actuallyforms the main object of the scientific theory of evolution. According to it, humanity nowrepresents the last link in a chain of development many millions of years old, which hascarried humanity up from the fiery-liquid condition of earth matter, through numerousintermediate stages. From mineral condition, over primitive vegetal and later animal, lifeforms evolved to the present human stage of organization. Wherever natural science has triedto see the actual motivating forces of this evolution, there was never a doubt in its thinkingthat they must lie only in earthly conditions. Only these motivating powers themselvesremained absolute riddles, as we indicated previously.

The scientifically sounding word heredity does not help to answer even the simplestquestion, e.g. how it happened that a chicken emerged out of an egg. Had it not previouslyexisted, the egg would never have become a chicken: the finished chicken already existedas idea, to be realized only by the eggs development. The finished form already hovered,invisibly, as inspiring genius of the species chicken over the egg. (Aristotle)

In a marvelous intuition, comparable only to Kants vision of the planets birth out of theSun, Ernst Haeckel recognized this development of the chicken out of the egg. Heexpressed it as the ontogeneticevolution, a condensed repetition of the long history of theracial development of the species (in this case the species chicken)-----or its gradual riseover millions of years out of formerly lower forms of life to the organizational level of thespecies chicken. Haeckel maintains that the ontogenetic evolution of all creatures, theirdevelopment from egg to birth-----is a compressed repetition of the phylogenetic evolution.

Now to the naturalist, it might seem more pla

Testament of Astrology 1

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