66. Gross Matter, Ethereal Matter, Radiations, Space And Time
There were many enquiries about the concept of my expressions coarse matter and ethereal matter. Coarse matter is everything that man can see with his earthly eyes, that he feels and hears earthly. This also includes what he sees through earthly means and will see with further inventions. For example, everything seen through the microscope. The gross material is only a certain kind of materiality. But the great field of all materiality comprises several kinds which are fundamentally quite different from each other and therefore never mix with each other.
The different kinds of materiality lie one above the other, at the very bottom or end of Creation. Again, as in all Creation, beginning at the top with the lightest kind and ending downwards with the heaviest and densest. All these types of materiality merely serve as aids to the development of all that is spiritual, which plunges into them as a germ, as into a fertile soil. Just as a seed needs the earth to germinate and grow.
Materiality itself is inactive, helpless, in the individual layers by itself. Only then, when it is penetrated and bound by Essentiality resting above it, does it receive warmth and liveliness, serves as envelopes or bodies of the most diverse forms and kinds.
As I have already said, the different types of materiality cannot be mixed, but they can be bound by the essentials and also connected several times. In this bond and connection, warmths and radiations arise. Each individual species of materiality produces its own particular radiation, which mixes with the radiations of the other species connected with it and together results in a halo of radiation, which is already known today and is called Od or radiation for short. Thus every stone, every plant, every animal has its own radiation, which can be observed and which is quite different depending on the condition of the body, i.e. the envelope or form. This is why disturbances in the radiation halo can be observed and points of illness in the envelope can be recognized.
The halo of radiation thus gives each form a special aura, which forms a protection in defence, but at the same time also a bridge to the wider environment. It also strikes the inner being in order to participate in the development of the core of the being, in the grossest sense; for in reality many things are added to the actual work in Creation, which I may only unfold very slowly, step by step, in order to make it easy for serious seekers to penetrate the Laws of Creation.
Without being permeated by essentiality, materiality is nothing. What we have been looking at, however, was only the connection of the essentials with the different kinds of materiality, and this in turn provides the soil for the spirit! Essentiality binds, connects and animates the material, but the spirit controls the material with the essentials. As soon as the spirit, i.e., the spiritual, plunges into the union animated by essentiality for its development, essentiality readily subordinates to it out of the nature of the thing.
The dominion is thus offered to the spiritual in the most natural way. Sad when it uses it badly or wrongly! The actual equipment of the spirit for its development in materiality now results from the radiations we have just discussed. The ground for the development of the spirit is already carefully prepared before its immersion by the essentials. The envelope automatically closes around it in a protective manner, and its task is to use the equipment given to it correctly, for its benefit and ascent, but not for its harm and downfall.
It is not difficult to understand that the kind of materiality of the spirit’s envelopment, which is most strongly represented, must also be decisive for the kind of radiation mixture; for, in it, the radiation of the existing strongest kind of materiality will naturally always predominate. But the predominant element is also the most influential, both inwardly and outwardly.
The radiation mixture, however, has a much greater significance than mankind has yet been able to explore. Not even the tenth part of their actual task has been guessed at yet!
The nature of the radiation ring is decisive for the strength of the wave, which has to absorb vibrations from the radiation system of the entire Universe. The listener and reader should not pass over this lightly, but should immerse himself in the thought, and he will quite suddenly see all the nerve fibres in Creation lying before him, which he should learn to tap and use.
Think of the Primordial Force radiantly poured out on the work of Creation! It flows through it, through every part and every kind. And every part and every kind of it will transmit it radiantly in altered form. The different nature of the parts of Creation thus brings about change in the original radiation, which also changes the colour of this radiation. Thus the whole of Creation shows a wonderful picture of the most marvellous colour radiations such as no painter could reproduce. And every part of Creation itself, and every star, even every individual body, no matter how small and tiny, is like a finely polished prism that radiates every ray it receives in many different colours. The colours in turn give rise to a resounding sound that reverberates like a rushing chord. Not the tones have colours, but colours have tones. That is, the radiating colours, not the dead colours imposed by human hands. Dead in relation to the radiant colours.
The human spirit with its armoury of radiations from the envelopes given to it now stands opposite this immense realm of radiation. Until the awakening of the sexual power, the process is like that of an infant. The material envelopes absorb, through their radiations, only what they need to mature. With the coming of the sexual power, however, the spirit is fully equipped, the gates to it are opened, the direct connection is created. It now receives increased contact with the powers of the radiations in the great Universe!
Just as the human being, i.e. the spirit, develops and governs the colours of his own radiations, so, as with the radio, he also sets his waves to the same colours and then receives them from the Universe. This reception can just as well be called attraction, or the force of attraction of the same kind. No matter how it is called, the process itself remains the same. The colours only designate the species, and the species gives the colour. Herein lies the lost key to the true, royal art, astrology, as well as the key to the in-depth healing of herbs, and also to the controversial art of physical and spiritual healing magnetism, the key to the art of living, as well as to the ladder of spiritual ascent. For by the stepladder, that is, the so-called ladder of heaven, is meant nothing more than a simple tool to be used. The meshes of this network of radiation in Creation are the rungs of this ladder. Everything lies in it, all the knowledge and the ultimate secret in creation.
Seekers, reach into the meshes of this network of radiation! Consciously, but with good will and in humble recognition of your God, who gave you this wonderful Creation, which you can master as if in childlike play, if you now finally want honestly and throw off all arrogance of knowledge. First the false burden must come down from your shoulders, your spirit, otherwise you cannot rise up firm and free.
Harmony must also prevail in the radiation mixture of the human body, in order to give the spirit full means of protection, development and ascent, which are destined for it in the normal evolution of Creation. It is precisely through the choice of food and physical activity, as well as through the whole conditions of life in many respects, that these radiations have been one-sidedly shifted, which calls for a balance if ascension is to be possible. Today everything is ill. Nothing can be called healthy. ––
Man can now imagine what effect the choice of food alone has on this radiation system. By the choice of food for the nourishment of the body, he can help to balance, to strengthen, to weaken some, and also to shift the predominant radiation, if it has a favourable or inhibiting effect, so that the radiation which is favourable for him becomes leading one, and thus also normal; for only that which is favourable is a normal condition.
But all this cannot cause the ascent itself, nor bring it about, but only offers healthy ground for the full activity of the spirit, whose will is reserved to determine the way up, the way to the side, or also the way down.
But the body, like the spirit, must grow stronger as soon as one is able to pay attention to it. But now, almost everywhere, in ignorance, grave sins are committed in it. ––
When I speak of coarse matter and of ethereal matter, it must not be assumed that ethereal matter means the refinement of the coarse matter. The ethereal is of a completely different kind, of a different nature. It can never become coarse matter, but forms a transitional stage upwards. Ethereal matter, like coarse matter, is only an envelope which must be connected with essentiality, in order to be animated by it.
As soon as I pass on to these Laws, I must mention that the divisions are by no means exhausted. For this reason I wish to make it known today that, in addition to the conscious and unconscious spiritual and spiritual essentiality, there are also currents of force of various kinds running through Creation, which, according to their nature, contribute just as differently to its development and advancement. The currents of force are again only the next thing that joins the activity of the spiritual and the essential, or rather prepares the field of their activity beforehand. There will be more, much more, the further we dissect and go into details.
One thing follows another in order to produce ever new gradations in connection with what existed before it. Everything, however, can also be explained logically, for only that which was logical could come into being after the first Creation. Nothing else exists. And this fact necessarily also guarantees a complete solution, a clear overview. In my lectures I now offer the key! Each listener can then open up the whole of Creation for himself.
But everything at once would have to result in a work whose versatility could confuse people. If, however, I allow one thing to emerge calmly from the other, as I have done up to now, in the course of coming decades, it will be easy to follow and in the end also to survey everything calmly and consciously quite clearly. Easy for those who want to follow me until then. In the beginning, I will first clarify the strongest foundations of Creation before touching on all the subtleties.
The listener and the reader will probably be like a creature to whom I first show the skeleton of a human being and then place a living human being in his full power and activity next to it. If it had no idea of the human being, it would not recognize the skeleton in the living human being, perhaps it would even say that they do not belong together at all, or that they are not the same. This is exactly what will happen to those who do not calmly follow my explanations to the end. He who does not seek to comprehend with earnest eagerness from the beginning cannot then grasp the whole of Creation when I have come to the last clarifications. He must seek to follow in it only step by step. ––
Since I had to speak in broad strokes, I will now move on slowly to the new things. Otherwise I would be too erratic. In any case, I have often been told, that in everything I offer only the core, which is not so easily comprehensible to the large general public. But I cannot help it if I want to present everything I have to say. Otherwise we would have to end in the fourth part, because with a broader explanation one earth time is hardly sufficient for still more. Others will come who can write one or more books from each of my lectures. I am not able to stop myself now. ––
Since ethereal matter, as I have said, is of a different kind from coarse matter, something follows from this which I have not yet touched upon. In order not to confuse, I have so far used popular expressions in some things, which I must now expand. These include, for example, the expression: “Standing above time and space!”
This always concerned the supernatural. With a view to going further, we must now say from today on: Life in the ethereal is “above earthly concepts of space and time”; for, in the ethereal there is also a concept of space and time, but of a different kind again, adapted to the ethereal. The concept of space and time even lies in the whole of Creation, but it is always bound to the particular species! Creation itself has its limits, so a concept of space also applies to it.
Even all basic Laws, which run uniformly through the whole of Creation, are always influenced in their effects by the respective type of Creation, dependent on its peculiarities! Therefore, the consequences of a certain Law must also show themselves differently in the various departments of Creation, which led to great misunderstandings, contradictions, doubts about the uniformity of the Laws of Creation or the Divine Will, and also to the belief in arbitrary acts of the Creator. Basically, however, everything was and is due to man’s ignorance of Creation itself.
Nevertheless, I will come to these things in more detail much later, as they would have to distract and cloud the attention of listeners and readers today. I will bring it to further understanding as soon as it becomes necessary. No gap will remain. ––
