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TABLE OF CONTENTS
TABLE OF CONTENTS...1

INTRODUCTION...4

CHAPTER I...5
ESOTERICISM - THE NON-SCIENTIFIC WAY TO CONSIDER REALITY
THE ESOTERIC WORLD CONCEPT
ESOTERICISM AS A PATH
THE HERMETIC PHILOSOPHY
THE LAW OF ANALOGY: AS ABOVE, SO BELOW
BODY, SOUL AND SPIRIT

CHAPTER II...19
HYPNOSIS – A CARICATURE OF REALITY
THE DISCOVERY OF HYPNOSIS AND OF PSYCHOANALYSIS
HYPNOSIS AS A PHENOMENON
A MODEL OF HYPNOSIS
HYPNOSIS AS THERAPY
CONSEQUENCES

CHAPTER III...30
POLARITY
LIFE IS RHYTHM
RECONCILIATION
THE PROJECTION OF GUILT

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THE LAW OF RESONANCE
THE ENVIRONMENT AS A MIRROR

CHAPTER IV...42
ASTROLOGY - A METAPHOR FOR REALITY
PRIMAL PRINCIPLES OF REALITY
THE HEAVENLY BODIES AS REPRESENTATIVES
THE QUALITY OF TIME
THE HOROSCOPE AS A MEASURING INSTRUMENT
THE HOROSCOPE: A STUDY PLAN FOR LIFE
POLARITY AND LEARNING
ASTROLOGY AND REINCARNATION
THE ACCOMPLISHMENT OF FATE
ILNESS AS INFORMATION
THE WAY TO FREEDOM

CHAPTER V...67
SICKNESS AND HEALING
ILLNESS AND DEATH AS SIGNS OF FATE
HOMEOPATHY
INFORMATION AS MEDICINE
THE PRINCIPLE OF SIMILARITY

CHAPTER VI...77
CREATION AND THE FALL OF MANIFESTATION
THE UNITY
THE THREE STEPS OF CREATION
THE BIBLICAL STORY OF CREATION
THE EXPULSION FROM PARADISE
ILLNESS AND ORIGINAL SINFULNESS
THROUGH ILLNESS TO HEALING

CHAPTER VII...91
REINCARNATION: THE RHYTHM OF LIFE
DEATH – ANOTHER FORM OF BEING
THE LAW OF KARMA
MATURING THROUGH REINCARNATION

CHAPTER VIII...100
REINCARNATION THERAPY - A PATH TOWARDS WHOLENESS
RE-EXPERIENCE OF BIRTH AND CONCEPTION
ENCOUNTER WITH THE PAST
GUILT AND RESPONSIBILITY
THE BASIC PROBLEM: POWER
EXPERIENCES OF THE BEYOND
EARTH-BOUND SOULS
STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT OF THE SOUL

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RELIGION AND REINCARNATION

CHAPTER IX...118
DAILY LIFE AS RITUAL
THE MEANING OF OCCULT TECHNIQUES
ESOTERICISM AND ESCAPISM
THE RETURN HOME

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INTRODUCTION
IN THE LAST few years the general public has taken an increasing interest in spiritual
matters. There has been a dramatic spreading of the realization that the purpose of life
consists in more than food, drink, sleep, sex and possessions. But what is that purpose? Can
we ever find it? Shall we return to the Church which we left in the first thrill of intellectual
expansion? Or is the answer to be found only in the teachings and religions of the East?
Such unanswered questions turn people into seekers. The seeking may be almost more
important than the finding. To seek is to question, to give up all fixed opinions, to become
flexible. Seeking unfolds people.
For some years, I have been giving regular evening and holiday courses on “Esoteric
Psychology” alongside my practice as a therapist. The great success of these courses shows
that the ideas explored in them have become signposts for many seekers. It was the people
who participated in them and more especially those unable to take part who encouraged me
to publish these ideas in a book. As a result the subject of the first term of the courses are
gathered together here. Books have the great advantage of wide dissemination; they reach a
large audience. But they also have a disadvantage – namely that much of the flavour of the
spoken word is lost. This is why in ancient times true initiation was only transmitted by word of
mouth.
Like the first term of the course, this book aims to be an introduction to the esoteric concept of
the world. Such an introduction does not presuppose any specialized knowledge, but merely
a willingness to cast aside prejudice and allow new and unaccustomed concepts to work
freely on the mind. This is more difficult than is usually thought. All too easily do we cling to
fixed and familiar habits of thought. Everything new unconsciously stimulates fear and triggers
off a defence mechanism. Many thoughts and assumptions in this book will meet with
resistance from the reader. No one finds it easy to give up ready-made points of view and
cherished attitudes and replace them with new insights. Yet we have to do this constantly if
development is not to come to a halt. Development and expansion are the concern of this
book. If it can be of some help to searching minds I shall be very please.

Thorwald Dethlefsen, Munich, October 1978

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CHAPTER I
ESOTERICISM - THE NON-SCIENTIFIC WAY TO CONSIDER REALITY

The notion of “chance occurrence” is an easy refuge for those who seek to exclude from the
universe all that is godly and meaningful, all that indicates a purpose behind the living world,
in favour of the barren myth that the universe came into existence not through the realization
of a deliberate plan but quite arbitrarily and entirely by itself. - Herbert Fritsche

OUR CENTURY's thinking is shaped by a world view which is called “scientific”. The adjective
“scientific” has become a criterion by which we try to measure the correctness of a statement,
a theory or a thought. All of us think in scientific categories even in areas which are not
connected with science proper. We become, to a large extent, “believers in science”, without
realizing that this term is self-contradictory.

Science seeks to penetrate by means of the intellect and to bring order into the manifold
world of appearances by finding laws. To this end the scientist is continually advancing
theories which attempt to define reality as precisely as possible.

Every theory, at the time of its formulation, is in itself a reflection of the level of consciousness
of its authors. Through continued investigation, this level of consciousness also evolves and
soon finds the earlier theory too restrictive; a new, more comprehensive theory becomes
necessary. And so it goes on. This results in the inevitable law that mankind's consciousness
in its continual expansion, sooner or later, outgrows every theory and must make room for
new realizations. Today's truth is tomorrow's error.

One glance at the history of science confirms this statement. The history of science is the
history of human errors. There is no reason to be ashamed about this, because everybody
knows that one learns from one's mistakes. But the absurd thing is that each generation is
absolutely certain that errors were committed only in the past. Every age, therefore, believes
itself to have found the absolute and final truth and will not be shaken in this conviction. In this
respect, science commands a strength of faith that surpasses that of every religious sect:

The attitude towards those who, through fresh perceptions, challenge the “generally accepted
truth” of the day, shows also surprising similarity with religious fanaticism. In fact, it is one of
man's cardinal weaknesses to be fixed in his ideas and to defend his own viewpoint with all
his might to the end of his days. When science takes a stand in this way it is of course going
against its own (suspiciously) loud emphasis on objectivity.

Science originally set out to explore the visible external world. And it is in matter that the
visible world is encountered. Accordingly science adapted its working methods to the
requirements of matter. There is nothing wrong with that so long as the exploration is confined
to matter alone. The results obtained are, at best, valid within matter. At this point, however,
we come up against two fundamental errors, which permit us to voice doubts about science's
claim to be the sole guardian of truth.

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1 As I have said, the working methods of science were designed for the exploration of matter,
but today these methods are unconsciously extended to areas which do not necessarily relate
to matter.

2 The resulting situation leads to the assumption that one can only deal with matter. Only
matter can be measured. There is nothing beyond matter.

This vicious circle can be broken only by recognizing the limitations of one's methods or else
by meeting the non-material domain with adequate, non-scientific thinking. The time seems
ripe for such a step, since everywhere voices are heard who do not wish to accept science's
claim to be the sole representative of what is real. This feeling of a need to reach beyond
science can be understood if we ask ourselves the following questions, among others:

Has science, despite its undoubted successes in the technical sphere, made mankind
happier?

Can science help man to solve his problems?

Can science find answers to his innermost questions concerning his being?

Has the development of human consciousness kept abreast with technical development?

The answer to all those questions is an unequivocal and shattering negative.

The more aids man develops to save time, the less time he has. The wonders of so-called
modern medicine have not been able to reduce illness even by one per cent. Do not be
deceived by statistics which prove the decrease of infectious diseases or infant mortality
without mentioning the number of diseases that have during the same period increased or
even come into being.

Statistics in medicine are useful only if they deal with illness as a whole and not with particular
pathological phenomena. We have to reckon with the increase in psychological illnesses
which we have not yet succeeded in suppressing as effectively as those of a bodily nature.

All these observations, however, are not so much aimed at criticising science as at
demonstrating the need for us to turn henceforth to another method which at times is
diametrically opposed to the scientific way of thinking. This we call esotericism. The term, to a
large extent, synonymous with other designations, such as “secret doctrine”, “wisdom
teaching”, “occultism” etc. But most of the associations, which have long since been attached
to these terms, are false, and it will be the task of this book to introduce you, step by step, to
the true esoteric system of thought.

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THE ESOTERIC WORLD CONCEPT

Scientific thinking is solely functional and we tend to take it for granted that there is no other
way of thinking, unless we wish to risk opening the door to unbridled fantasy. Esoteric
thinking, however, works in terms of content. It asks not only “how” reality works but, more
importantly, “why” things are as they are. This “why”, this search for meaning, is the real link
between man and the world of manifestation.
This meaning can only reveal itself to each individual. It shies away from public recognition.
Hence esotericism is asocial. Science sets itself the aim of being accessible to all. Everyone
sufficiently gifted can pick up a bit of science if he is willing to invest a bit of hard work in it.
Scientific knowledge is transferable. Inner knowledge, by contrast, is not. Unfortunately, we
often confuse true inner knowledge with those disordered clusters of unimportant information
that accumulate in our minds. The latter is transferable. Inner knowledge, however, is never
the fruit of diligence but comes from a highly personal individual act of insight which is
metaphysical in nature, and steers well clear of any mass demand for “knowledge for all”.
Knowledge can only be the outcome of personal experience; it can neither be taken over nor
transmitted.
Whatever I take over from others I can never know, but only believe. It does not matter
whether or not I have good reasons to believe something. To believe is not to know. Not even
calculations of probability can change that. Seen in this light science reveals itself as a large
congregation of believers who devour the breadcrumbs of a few true men of knowledge and
regurgitate them in a totally unrecognisable form.
In saying this I do not mean to devalue belief, since it is belief which is the most important
prerequisite for obtaining knowledge. To believe is basically to consider possible; without
considering something possible one can never experience it. Belief and knowledge are
different steps. They affect each other and both have their justification, but one should not
confuse them.
As knowledge is always a matter for the individual, so esotericism has always been the
domain of the few. Those few who have walked the narrow path of realization to become men
of knowledge, make up the so-called esoteric, inner circle (Greek: esoteros = inside). This
small inner circle is surrounded by the far bigger exoteric circle (Greek: exoteros = outside).
Later, when we consider the law of polarities, it will become clear that the two circles
complement each other, and that each owes its existence to the other.
From this it follows that it can never be the aim of the esoteric circle to be missionaries to the
world. True esotericism works in obscurity and takes more care to veil its existence to the
outside that to hunt for followers. In fact, whenever any club or society strains to expand and
acquire new members you can be sure that it is not a true esoteric association, even if its
name and advertising proclaim it to be one.
Maintaining the secrecy of esotericism has nothing to do with secret-mongering, but is
something that arises in the natural order of things. Esoteric teachings remain secret without
any special efforts being made. A man can gain knowledge and make use of it only when his
own level of consciousness is commensurate with such knowledge. A man who is not versed
in physics cannot really understand the significance of even an epoch-making formula. The
formula remains secret to the uninitiated in physics. Therefore no one needs to keep it secret
deliberately. Only when the observer himself has attained a high degree of knowledge in
physics can this formula be a dramatic step in the advancement of his understanding. Exactly
the same applies to esoteric knowledge and the so-called secret doctrine.

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Esoteric wisdom is accessible to anyone who knows the code, but it cannot be recognized by
the ignorant. The general public does not recognize the significance of the symbols and
considers them worthless nonsense. Before one can see, one must first learn to see. (“Light
came into the darkness, but the darkness did not recognize it”, John 1).
If I cannot read music I am not thereby entitled to demand of music that it ought to be
recorded in letters or numbers which I can read. Rather I have to decide either to make the
effort to learn to read musical notation or to renounce for good the possibility of gaining
deeper insight into music. The same applies to esoteric knowledge. It is not the duty of the
knowledgeable to adapt themselves to the level of comprehension of the ignorant. They can
only be willing to help those who wish to learn and who ask for such help. “Ask and you shall
receive, knock and the door shall be opened.”
From the examples I have given it will be apparent that esoteric knowledge is not a field of
learning like any other which one can pick up through hard work. Esoteric knowledge is not a
collective name for a set of data, facts or formulae, which one only has to learn off by heart in
order to understand.
Esoteric thinking is a route or path. Now a route always leads to a destination. Let us take as
an example the road from Munich to Vienna. We can study this road carefully on the road
map, count the miles, read up in the relevant books about the particular places along this
road, look at pictures, discuss the details with others who have already traveled the route, and
so on.
Studying the road from Munich to Vienna in this way may be very inspiring and interesting.
One thing, however, we do not achieve by it: namely, getting to Vienna. If ever we want to
reach Vienna, we have to put ourselves on the road and start moving. All the preliminary
considerations and information may then prove useful, but no amount of theory can replace
walking along the road. What I am trying to point out by this example is the difference
between the esoteric teaching as a path and as a mere collecting of facts. Esoteric thinking
leads to a destination that one can only reach if one actually travels the length of the road.
This is where many people go wrong. They loudly proclaim their allegiance to the esoteric
world concept, yet neglect ever to set a foot on the path itself. To follow the path means to
translate every realization, however small, into reality, to be always ready to change one's
manner of life and one's attitudes, to transform oneself continually into something different
and new. In short, esotericism means the process of evolving.
This process of transformation is necessary because esoteric teaching leads to obligations in
our lives. This is something that does not apply to the material sciences. The analytical
chemist, for example, can make a sensational discovery nowadays and yet continue to beat
his wife, pursue a law-suit against his brother, rail against society, and so on. His life and
behaviour remain completely untouched by his chemical discovery.
The situation is completely different when we make an esoteric “discovery”, even the tiniest
one. It has a direct effect on all areas of our existence; it forces us to take a different view of
the world and to cast aside old habits. If, for instance, one has grasped astrology, one can
never again look for culprits in the outside world, nor ever again file law-suits, and so on.
(Though here it has to be emphasized that to practice astrology and to understand it are two
very different things. Regrettably they rarely come together.)
This always has been the reason why the forces of the exoteric world fight so passionately to
prevent esoteric truth seeping through, for unconsciously they realize that such truth brings
with it a commitment to overwhelming changes. It is easy enough to accept a discovery as
long as it can be confined to its own technical sphere, but not so easy when it challenges us

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to change the way we live.
For some time certain people have been trying to elude this conflict with a trick; this trick is
called parapsychology. In parapsychology an attempt is made to muffle the challenge of the
esoteric world view by wrapping it up in the sterile methodology of science; its archives are
filled with calculations of probability and significance, but none of it ever does anything –
thank God – to change human beings. Parapsychology is mendacious and cowardly because
it has neither the courage of purely materialistic science, which simply denies all non-material
phenomena, nor the readiness to confront its own findings and bear the consequences.
Parapsychology constantly sniffs around and discusses what it has sniffed, but never takes a
bite out of it. The irony of fate sees to it that we pass judgement on ourselves as does
parapsychology by choosing this term for itself (Greek: para = beside), which means that it
by-passes the psyche.

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ESOTERICISM AS A PATH

Having made it clear how our approach differs from that of both science and parapsychology,
we can now turn to the esoteric path. In taking this path we are aiming at completeness,
wisdom, the joining of polarities, union with God, the unio mystica, the chemical marriage,
cosmic consciousness. All these terms are attempts to give an idea of the ultimate goal of the
human path. At this point such terms probably still sound rather rhetorical, but I hope that
further reflections will increasingly imbue them with meaning.
To reach the goal it is necessary to recognize the esoteric laws of this universe and also to
learn to understand them. As well as gaining in knowledge we must change, become more
conscious in order to acquire an increasingly better understanding of our true task and
destiny. As we follow our path it is very useful to have aids to orientation, signposts that
indicate which direction to take at a cross-roads. We find such aids in the esoteric techniques
and disciplines, of which there are many. Only the most important are mentioned here, as for
example: astrology, Qabalah, tarot, alchemy, magic, yoga, meditation, I Ching. None of these
systems and disciplines is an end in itself. They are, as I have said, aids to orientation,
signposts on the path.
A common danger is that of confusing the signpost with the path. That is why there are
astrologers who are only astrologers, dowsers who are only dowsers and a host of other
specialists who believe themselves to have found in their special field the key to the world.
Unfortunately, these people stop at a signpost they have grown fond of and forget about
continuing on the path. Esoteric disciplines should free us from our old fixation, but all too
often happens that a person believes that he or she has progressed when all that has
happened is that one fixation has been exchanged for another.
At this point I must say another word about eastern and western techniques. At the end of
every process of esoteric development is the realization of truth. There is only one truth. It is
independent of time, culture and religion. The methods of reaching this truth have shaped
themselves individually in different times and cultures, and all of these methods are equally
useful as aids. At the same time, each person is closest to the systems and symbols of his or
her own culture. It makes things more difficult, and as a rule longer, if a western person walks
the path using eastern aids. I only mention this because it is currently fashionable to turn to
eastern esoteric systems and religions, and this leads many people to overlook the fact that
we in the West also have a rich supply of esoteric systems which have the advantage of
being better adapted to our way of thinking and our mode of life.
This is the only reason why, in my own works, I rely almost exclusively on the four great pillars
of western esotericism, namely: astrology, Qabalah, alchemy and magic. These systems are
also often called the science of the first order, out of which only in th course of time the
sciences of the second order (astronomy, chemistry etc.) developed.
Esotericism is as old as mankind. It has always existed and always shall exist. It has
preserved, from the beginning, the sum total of knowledge about this universe which is
accessible to man. Esoteric teachings are independent of time; they have never been
corrected or modernized, and they never age.
Our modern science does not understand that all knowledge is always present. Science
labours under the delusion that each new discovery brings us closer to the truth and that it is
therefore only a matter of time until we know “everything”.
From the esoteric viewpoint the opposite is the case. Knowledge is always present, but the
individual has to evolve towards it in order to recognize it. To give an example: Homer's

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poems have existed for a very long time. But a schoolchild who wants to read them has to
evolve, through study, to the point where he or she can understand ancient Greek. For that
child it is unimportant how many other people have read Homer before. Homer has been read
for many thousands of years, but as far as the child is concerned it is happening for the first
time.

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THE HERMETIC PHILOSOPHY

Let us compare reality with a circle. Science divides the circle at the periphery into many
segments, many special disciplines (medicine, physics, chemistry, biology, etc) Scientists
hope that by research into all these specialized areas, they can eventually reach the centre
where all the disciplines meet. In practice the scientific approach makes this goal unattainable
because, as specialization increases, inter-disciplinary communication becomes more and
more difficult.
Esotericism does not start at the periphery, but goes straight to the centre. Esotericism
explores universal law – once we have recognized this law we need only project it on to the
different areas of specialization. Such knowledge is superior to that of the specialist because
it can relate to all areas and enable one to see how every specialized area fits into universal
reality.
Esoteric thinking rests on a set of basic principles originally put into words by the progenitor of
esotericism, Hermes Trismegistos, after whom it is called “Hermetic philosophy”. This “Thrice-
greatest Hermes” was a priest and initiate in Egypt. His exact biography is lost in the
darkness of history. He summarized the quintessence of all wisdom in fifteen propositions
written on a slab of green corundum from the orient. This long-lost tablet has gone down in
history as the “Tabula Smaragdina”. The text of this emerald tablet reads, in English, as
follows:

The Tabula Smaragdina of Hermes Trismegistos

1 True it is without mendacity, certain and most true

2 That which is below is like that which is above: and that which is above is like that which is
below for performing the miracles of the one thing
3 And as all things are from One, by the evocation of the One: so all things arose from this
one thing in imitation
4 The father of it is the sun, the mother of it is the moon
5 The wind carried it in its belly
6 The wet nurse of it is the earth
7 In it is the father of all perfection of the entire world
8 The power of it is integral when it is turned into earth
9 Earth thou shalt separate from fire, the subtle from the gross, gently, with much sagacity
10 It ascends from earth to heaven and again descends to earth and receives the power of
the superior and the inferior things
11 So thou shalt have the splendour of the entire world. Therefore let all darkness flee before
thee. This is of all fortitudes the strongest fortitude, because it will overcome all subtleties and
penetrate all solidities
12 In this way the world is created
13 Hence there will be prodigious imitations, the way and manner of which are described
herein
14 Thus I am called Hermes Trismegistos who owns the three parts of the wisdom of the
entire world
15 What I have said about the operations of the sun is short of nothing, it is complete.

At first glance this text seems irrelevant to modern man. Not because of its content, but

12
because of our understanding. The fifteen propositions sum up all knowledge that man can
ever attain. The text describes both the creation of the universe and the making of the
alchemical Stone of the Wise. For him who understands this text completely all libraries have
become superfluous, because he possesses all wisdom which is “short of nothing, it is
complete”.
Such assertions may sound far-fetched and may even prompt some readers to abandon all
interest in esotericism at this point. But anyone who makes the effort to study the language
and symbolism of hermeticism and thus learns to penetrate to its deeper levels, will sooner or
later experience the significance of this text for himself.

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THE LAW OF ANALOGY: AS ABOVE SO BELOW

Let us first look at proposition 2: “That which is below is like that which is above: and that
which is above is like that which is below, for performing the miracles of the one thing.” This
statement, which most of the time is rendered in the shortened version “as above so below” is
the key to the hermetic philosophy. It implies that the same laws rule everywhere in this
universe, above as below, “in heaven as on earth”, in macrocosm and microcosm, on all
planes of manifestation.
Let us look at it in relation to human perceptions. We can encompass in our area of
perception only a section of a continuum. We can see only a small part of the light spectrum,
hear only the frequencies which lie within a certain field. Some animals can perceive sounds
and colours which are inaccessible to man without the aid of instruments. We can only
visualize relatively moderate dimensions: when something is very small or very large we may
apprehend it in formulae, but we cannot visualize it. For example, we know today that a block
of iron consists of space in which particles revolve. The distances between the actual
particles correspond to the distances between the planets of our solar system. Even if we
know this to be certain, it is difficult for us to visualize it as we look at a seemingly solid block
of iron.
A virus is likewise too small for our capacity of visualization, whereas a distance of 10 million
light years is too large. We are, in our perception, dependent on a “moderate” order of
magnitude that is appropriate to man. All that lies beneath or above it is either accessible only
by instruments or not accessible at all.
Here the ingenious formulation “as above so below” comes to our mind. It permits us to learn
about the laws of the realm that is accessible to us and then to transfer our knowledge
analogically to the other level which are inaccessible. This thinking by analogy gives man a
marvellous freedom in learning to comprehend the entire universe. Analogical thinking is not
based on cause and effect and can therefore seem strange to the modern mind. Later on we
shall deal concretely with the use of this method, taking astrology as an example.
The analogy “as above so below” is applicable only if we are willing to recognize this universe
in its entirety as a cosmos (Greek: kosmos = order). A cosmos, however, is governed by laws
and there is no room for chance occurrence.
Chance occurrence, being something unaccountable and random, would transform every
cosmos into chaos. When we build a computer it represents in itself a small cosmos: it is built
according to laws and its functioning is dependent on the observance of such laws. If we
solder into its circuit a few transistors, condensers and resistors which are not in accordance
with the laws governing the circuit design, then these built-in random elements will transform
its entire cosmos into chaos and the computer will stop working properly. The same applies to
our world. With the very first random even our world would cease to exist.
Science also relies most of the time on the laws of nature, yet at the same time does not shy
away from the concept of accident. If you drop a stone from a certain height it does not fall at
random but in accordance with law. If this stone hits Mr X on the head, Mr X has not been hit
at random by a stone, but also in accordance with law. Neither the fact that a stone falls on Mr
X's head nor the time when this happens is accidental. And in fact, no one is ever accidentally
ill, nor accidentally hit by a car, nor accidentally born to poor or rich parents and so on.
I repeat: there is no accident. Behind every event there is a law in operation. We may not
always recognize the law at first sight, but this does not permit us to deny its existence.
Stones fell even in the days when people had not yet discovered the law of gravity.

14
It is ironic that those professional defenders of accident, statisticians, actually prove with
methodical precision how untenable their concept of accident is. A statistician believes that
when you throw a dice it will be pure accident whether it shows 3 or 5 or any other number.
But if you throw the dice often enough, the sum total of all numbers yields a law-abiding
graph, which we call average distribution. What a miraculous phenomenon! The sum total of a
series of individual random occurrences reveals a law-abiding structure. The trajectory of a
body in motion is, after all, not composed of a succession of random movements. If the
statisticians were right, then the following statement would be correct: the more often one
miscalculates the more one arrives at the correct result. Similar logic is shown by Darwinists,
who try to explain evolution as the sum total of genetic accidents.
The orderly pattern that emerges when you take a large number of instances clearly
demonstrates that each individual instance is in itself governed by laws. At best we can say
that a single throw of dice is too small an event to allow us to perceive immediately the laws
behind it. We humans still need a certain minimum quantity of information before we are able
to deduce a truth.
If we observe the world attentively we are bound to recognize that we are dealing with a
cosmos in which accident plays no part. The word “accident” itself has a different literal
meaning from the one we are used to. It derived from the Latin ad-cadere, meaning to “fall
towards” and signifies that which befalls man in accordance with law. If the cosmos
represents an orderly entity, then the same law structure must be present everywhere, in the
great as in the small... as above so below.
This analogy justifies Paracelsus in equating man as microcosm, with macrocosm. Man in the
faithful reflection of the macrocosmic univerve – we cannot find anything outside that is not by
analogy inside man or vice versa. Therefore it is written above the temple of Delphi: “Know
thyself in order to know God.”

15
BODY, SOUL AND SPIRIT

If we observe man, the microcosm, somewhat more closely, we first perceive his body. This
body, in the case of the living human being, is not just he total of all the chemicals of which
the body consists. All of them are subject to a common idea and serve the total entity that we
call a “human being”.
This is not self-evident. Much more self-evident is the process which we can observe in the
disintegration of a corpse. Here all the individual chemical components are not subjected to
an overall concept. In the case of the living human being there must be within him or her an
authority in operation which possesses the power to coordinate the physical diversity. This
authority must be peculiar to the living human being, because we do not find it working in a
dead body.
It is known that on the physical plane nothing vanishes at the death of a human being.
Therefore the authority we are looking for can never be of a physical nature – this we would
not expect anyway, for if the essential attribute of this authority is the ability to coordinate
matter, it can hardly be itself made of matter.
Everybody knows from experience that at the death of a human being consciousness and life
fade away. It is therefore likely that our pursued authority is identical with one of two concepts.
But what is consciousness? Man is conscious of himself. He experiences himself as a living,
perceiving individual, from birth to death. This consciousness forms a continuity which the
cell-building and -destroying body does not have.
Another, older, term is soul. Soul is consciousness, individuality, that authority which gathers
and coordinates the diverse physical constituents of the body into one whole. Soul is an
independent authority, which differs qualitatively from the physical body.
Most of our modern psychologies, unfortunately, do not know the soul. They boast
vociferously in technical terminology, giving the impression of knowledge about the soul, even
about its depth and layers, but, in fact, have not succeeded so far in making even a faint
contact with the soul of man.
Psychology investigates the “psyche” in man. Yet that is not the soul, but a by-product of this
science. In confusing these two things, soul and psyche, mainstream modern psychology
makes the mistake of claiming that the soul of man is a product of the brain and the nervous
system and that therefore, when these cease to function, the “soul” ceases to exist. The
confused concepts and sloppy thinking of modern science make it often very difficult to
straighten things out again, but let us be clear about the following:

1 When I speak of soul or consciousness, I mean an independent, non-material authority

which is neither a product of matter (like the brain or the central nervous system), nor in any
way dependent on it. Men of religion, initiates and occultists have known from time
immemorial of this soul and its survival after physical death. But today the general public and
our scientists apparently consider it a sensational surprise when researchers such as the
American Dr Moody and others publish accounts of people who have clinically died and been
reanimated and who have unanimously reported how they left their bodies, remained in the
room, invisible to others, and continued to see, hear and perceive everything that went on.

2 The psyche or soul recognized by psychology (including so-called depth psychology) is in

no way identical with the entity that I have just described, but is merely a by-product of it. The
soul as seen by psychologists is the scene of urges, fears, conflicts and complexes. In other

16
words, what they are describing is a collection of the soul's outward effects, but they never
come anywhere near the source of those effects. That source is supposed to be in the brain
or in the nervous system. But here the argument becomes circular. Who commands the
workings of the brain or the nervous system? It is known that matter always needs information
if it is to become active. The information, however, is always immaterial. In Chapter IV I
describe in more detail the difference between information and the bearer of information. I
only mention it here in order to discourage anyone from looking for such information in the
genes.

Finally I should mention that wherever in nature a shaping process is in progress, information,
that is to say consciousness or soul, must always be present. Every animal, every plant,
every human being has a soul. Within the physical realm the soul also needs a physical
carrier, which is composed of a more subtle form of matter. This is referred to in occult circles
as the astral body.
In this connection it is worth mentioning some recent investigations by the American
researcher Harald Saxon Burr, a professor at Yale University. Using impressive technical
resources Burr investigated the electric field that surrounds living organisms. He found, for
instance, around a seed, a field the area of the mature, fully grown plant, and could prove the
existence around a frog's egg of a field in the shape of a fully grown frog.
From this he concluded that all living creatures possess such an electro-magnetic field. In
these invisible but measurable three dimensional images every new cell has its place. These
experimental results may confirm the esoteric assertion that all living creatures develop into a
predetermined form.
One should, however, guard oneself from mistaking those electro-magnetic fields for the soul.
They are, in fact, the physical correlates of astral bodies. A similar confusion let to the
assumption that in so-called Kirlian photographs the astral body becomes visible. In fact what
Kirlian photography shows is merely the interaction between an electrical field and the
emanation of energy from the organism.
Now that we have clarified somewhat the concepts of body and soul, we are still left with a
very important concept, namely that of “life”. Life cannot possibly be identical with
consciousness, for our very language makes a distinction between unconsciousness and
death. Life is also not to be looked for in matter, because only the outward effects of life are
visible in matter. Life is probably the biggest mystery to man.
If science knows little of the soul, it knows even less about life. Science is always only
concerned with material consequences, but is ignorant of life itself. Man cannot produce it,
nor destroy it. Life is a quality which completely eludes his grasp.
Probably everyone knows from hearsay the classical division into three parts: body, soul and
spirit. Hermetic philosophy teaches that spirit is life. Life (spirit) is, by contrast with soul,
impersonal, anonymous. There is only one spirit, one life. When one is linked to the spirit, and
the spirit works through one's physical being, then one is alive. When the “earthly life” is over
then the physical connection is simply relinquished, but in no way is any of life itself
destroyed. There is only one spirit, and therefore the life in us also represents unity – it is the
“divine spark” which is to be found in every living creature.
Hence man, like every product of nature, consists of the trinity body, soul and spirit. He
experiences himself as unity and calls this unity “I”. When we look closely we discover that
the physical unity “man” can himself be subdivided into further “unities”. As for instance, into
organs. An organ is also an individual unity. Otherwise one could not distinguish a heart from

17
a liver. This functional individuality, however, presupposes that every organ has an individual
consciousness. This thought might seem strange, seeing that we only ascribe a
consciousness to ourselves. True, most people might be willing to grant their dog a
consciousness, although the consciousness of a dog is undoubtedly very different from that of
a person. To suggest that a fly has consciousness would probably provoke more resistance.
Yet it is questionable whether there is any justification for such a line of distinction. In fact
every living thing that develops and shows individuality has consciousness, however difficult it
may be for us to imagine our consciousness existing in life-forms entirely different from our
own.
We have no choice but to recognize that our organs have this consciousness too. The liver,
for example, experiences itself as a self-contained and individual unity. Its task is solely and
exclusively to perform its law-governed function as a liver. If it fails in this task its superior
authority, the whole person, into which it is integrated, will suffer.
If we continue to analyze the entity that we call liver, we come up against smaller unities
called cells. Every cell is also an individuality. It lives; it can reproduce. Therefore it too
possesses and experiences itself as “I”. Its task is nothing more than to be a “liver cell”.
If it is not content in this task and discovers a personal urge for freedom, so to speak, it may
develop into a cancerous cell, because it has departed from the overall plan. A man who has
in him such rebellious cells does not usually congratulate them on their newly found freedom,
but rather tries to eliminate them in order to preserve his own existence.
Just as the entity that we call a cell forms part of the entity called the organ, so the organ is
itself only part of the entity known as man. But man in turn is only part of a still larger entity.
He is only a cell in an organism which we call planet earth. Just like all plants, the earth is an
intelligent being which possesses not only a body but also consciousness, otherwise it would
not be a functioning planet but merely the corpse of a planet. Just as a dead human body
disintegrates, so the body of a dead planet disintegrates, as we find, for instance, in the
asteroid belt.
We must eventually get used to looking beyond the corporeal manifestations of things. Every
body, whether it be stone, plant or animal also possesses a soul and a spirit, otherwise we
would be dealing with a corpse which would very quickly lose its shape. A planet is also an
organ of a higher being called the solar system, and so on. When man reflects a little on such
organization, then he becomes aware that he, as a cell, has also the task of doing his allotted
duty to the whole and nothing else. He has to try and be as useful a cell as possible, just as
he expects his body cells to be, so that he does not become a cancerous cell in the organs of
the world. If he still abandons the plan willfully in order to taste his mistaken freedom, he
should not be surprised if he is eliminated. Remember: as above, so below.

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CHAPTER II
HYPNOSIS – A CARICATURE OF REALITY

Only he who is completely aware of how difficult it is to wake up can understand that for this
awakening long and hard work is necessary. - G. I. Gurdjieff

THE SUBJECT of hypnosis is not necessarily the province of esotericism. If I nonetheless

deal with it at this point, it is for several reasons:

1 Hypnosis exercises a particularly strong fascination over all who are interested in the occult.
2 Among the public of today hypnosis is once again hailed as a specially effective means of
healing and many people are not averse to giving hypnotherapy an esoteric halo.
3 If we use the state of hypnosis as a metaphor we can draw important conclusions
analogically about reality.
4 Last, but not least: I made my first exercises in the field of reincarnation with the aid of
hypnotically induced regression. The fact that I used hypnosis only in the first experimental
stages, and have not used it ever again, has not been sufficiently widely reported, so that
among the public my name is often still very strongly linked with hypnosis.

There are many books on what is called “scientific-medical hypnosis”, wherein one invariably
learns in the very first chapters that the history of hypnosis started around the year 1775. At
that time there lived a doctor by the name of Friedrich Anton Mesmer in Vienna. This doctor
tried to cure illnesses and pains by applying iron magnets. Actually, this idea is very old; we
find it in Paracelsus and even in the Bible (see Mahrah by Dr Stark).
Mesmer, who achieved good results with his magnet method, tried one day to replace the iron
magnet with the human hand. Since this hands-on treatment also proved successful, Mesmer
concluded that within man there was a power similar to that of the magnet. He called this
property “animal magnetism”. “Animal” in this context means that which is alive and
conscious. He only intended the term to express the difference between the ferromagnetism
of the iron and the analogous power of the human hand. It indicates considerable stupidity
that “animal magnetism” has sometimes been interpreted as meaning something to do with
animals.
Mesmer wrote a sizeable oeuvre, wherein he demonstrates the theoretical foundations of
animal magnetism. Thanks to his considerable success as a healer he came to be hailed as
the miracle-doctor of his age, and was as much celebrated as he was hated. He had to leave
Vienna and took up residence in Paris where he treated the world's prominent figures with the
method which was called after him “mesmerism”.
The French Academy of Science finally started a scientific investigation into the controversial
subject of animal magnetism in order to bring the public discussion on this new method of
healing to a definite conclusion. After careful examination the scientific body came to the
decision the the magnetic power, which Mesmer claimed existed, was not detectable. With
this, Mesmer's scientific death sentence was pronounced and, after once again changing his
residence, he eventually died, lonely and in poverty.
Today science is attempting to posthumously reinstate Mesmer, prompted possibly by a not

19
unjustified feeling of guilt. Hence he is nowadays celebrated in the textbooks as “the original
father of hypnosis, whose tragic fate it was to have discovered the magical power of hypnosis,
yet to have quite erroneously interpreted it as magnetism”. Thus Mesmer is scientifically
crucified for the second time. The poor man had in fact nothing to do with hypnosis. It is
wrong to proclaim a dead man the progenitor of a cause he could not have cared less about
during his life.
Science did not understand magnetism in those days and still does not understand it.
Magnetism is an original method of treatment which today, as in the past, is practiced by
specialized healers. Magnetism has nothing to do with hypnotism. Medicine would profit by a
thorough study of Mesmer's work on magnetism in order to close finally a very old gap in
medical knowledge. The day will come when this will happen, for already we are exploring the
healing powers of magnetic fields. Thus, little by little and in certain areas, we move towards
the degree of evolution that someone like Paracelsus reached over four centuries ago.

20
THE DISCOVERY OF HYPNOSIS AND OF PSYCHOANALYSIS

Now that we have acquitted Mesmer of the discovery of hypnosis, we can turn to another
man, the English eye specialist Braid, who made the following discovery in 1843:
If you ask a person to stare fixedly for a few minutes at a glittering object which is held slightly
above eye-level at a distance of about 20 centimetres, the eyelids close automatically and a
strange, sleep-like condition is induced.
Because of the similarity between the induced condition and sleep this phenomenon was
called 'hypnosis' (Greek: hypnos = sleep) by Braid. So if we are looking for a progenitor for
hypnosis Braid is the most likely candidate – though, in fact, the history of hypnosis goes right
back to the “holy sleep in the temple”.
The next important events in the history of hypnosis in modern times took place in Nancy and
Paris. In Nancy, Liebeault and Bernheim worked on the further development and investigation
of hypnosis in the years 1866-1884. They were successful in inducing hypnotic sleep by
verbal suggestion. Suggestion is the essential factor at the centre of their theoretical
reflections. Today we would call it a “motivational trigger”.
At around the same time the famous neurologist and brain physiologist Charcot, of the
psychiatric clinic at the Salpetriére in Paris, was making his experiments in hypnosis. As was
typical for his time, his patients consisted mainly of hysterics, and he was struck by the
similarity between the phenomena which appeared in hypnosis and the symptoms of hysteria.
At that time hysteria was defined as unknown affliction of the brain, which was the definition of
all psychosis. Obviously Charcot looked for the theoretical explanation of hysteria in certain
physiological processes of the brain.
Sigmund Freud, as a young unsuccessful doctor, visited both Bernheim in Nancy and Charcot
in Paris, in order to learn the technique of hypnosis. Back in Vienna Freud obtained no special
success with his own patients in the newly acquired technique of hypnotherapy, which did not
suit him. Although a good hypnotist is not dependent on innate, supernatural gifts, he
nevertheless requires a certain talent for hypnosis, much as a musician does for music. The
technique of hypnosis can be acquired like the technique of playing the piano, but the
technique alone does not make the master.
However, through Bernheim, Freud became acquainted with an experiment which turned out
to be the point of departure for other fundamental considerations. Bernheim ordered his test-
subjects to carry out certain actions during hypnosis. Then he tried, by post-hypnotic
suggestion, to induce a state (called post-hypnotic amnesia) in which they forgot the actions
and incidents that had occurred during hypnosis. When these people had been brought back
to a waking state and were questioned they had no recollection whatsoever of the time spent
in hypnosis. Bernheim then stepped up the psychological pressure on his patients; they were
asked to try very hard to recall the forgotten period of time. After a while the first fragments of
memory appeared and gradually the test-subjects recalled all the incidents that had taken
place during hypnosis.
Freud applied what he had learned in Nancy to the case history of neurotics. He supposed
that in the life history of a mentally ill person there might likewise be an incident or a number
of incidents which he or she does not want to recall and has pushed out of his or her memory.
Just as one can cancel out hypnotically produced loss of memory by psychological means, so
by the same token it should be possible to call back into consciousness those forgotten and
repressed episodes from the patient's life. This technique of bringing forgotten material back
into consciousness was developed further by Freud and is well known today as the

21
“psychoanalytical method”.
In his later writings Freud spoke in rather negative terms about hypnosis and, as
psychoanalysis grew, the role of hypnotherapy was increasingly restricted. This is not,
however, the case in Eastern bloc countries where, because psychoanalysis could not gain a
foothold, hypnosis as a psychotherapeutic method took up a position of undisputed strength.

22
HYPNOSIS AS A PHENOMENON

Hypnosis usually consists of three or four stages:

1 Inducing a state of hypnotic sleep.

2 Experiments conducted during the hypnotic state.
3 Bringing the subject out of hypnosis.
4 Possible execution by the subject of post-hypnotic commands.

Hypnotic sleep is usually induced by suggesting verbally that the subject is tired or sleepy.
Often these suggestions are reinforced by asking the subject to fix his gaze on a glittering
object, a pencil, say, a small coloured disc or a metal spiral. Duration of the first phase varies
depending on the subject and on whether or not this is their first experience of hypnosis.
Once a state of deep hypnosis has been reached, the induction period with subsequent
hypnosis is often less than one minute, whereas on the first occasion it may be up to fifteen
minutes. Once the subject is hypnotized he or she will obey every command of the hypnotist.
Furthermore the hypnotist can produce any desired hallucination. For example, if the
hypnotist suggests that it is unbearably cold, the test-subject will start to shiver. If , on the
other hand, he suggest that it is getting very hot, the subject will start perspiring until beads of
sweat appear on the forehead. In the same way the subject's limbs can be made to feel stiff,
lame or insensitive through suggestion.
It is even more surprising to watch when the subject is ordered to open his eyes during
hypnosis. When this happens the hypnotic state is in no way interrupted or disturbed. The
subject can be made to see whatever the hypnotist wishes. It is possible, for example, to
make a subject see a lonely forest when in fact he is looking at a crowded lecture room. An
unlimited number of experiments can be carried out in hypnotism, as anyone who has
attended a hypnotist's show knows.
Let me describe just two physiological experiments. If you place a coin in the palm of a
subject and at the same time suggest that it is a piece of glowing hot iron a blister will develop
after a short time. Similarly, if you take a diabetic who is used to insulin injections, put him
under hypnosis and inject him with a physiologically neutral salt solution, suggesting to him
that it is insulin, the level of blood sugar will drop within the usual period of time to the same
degree as if an injection of insulin had been given. With these examples we already touch
upon the therapeutic possibilities of hypnosis, the value of which will be discussed later.
I shall briefly elucidate here the term “post-hypnotism”. It is possible either to make a
suggestion to a hypnotized subject, in such a way that the effect of the suggestion continues
into the waking state or else to couple a command given in hypnosis with a signal which can
be given after the subject has been woken up.
In this way anything that happens under hypnosis can be triggered off again in the waking
state provided that the right signal is used. Simple examples of these two kinds of post-
hypnotic effect are as follows.
Let us suppose that during hypnosis a stiffness of the right arm and an inability to move it are
suggested to the subject. At the same time it is suggested that the subject can move the arm
only when the hypnotist claps his hands three times. The subject is then woken up. Although
he or she is now completely awake, the right arm cannot be moved. This effect can only be
lifted by means of the clapping signal.
Another, more complex post-hypnotic suggestion would be the following: “When I wake you

23
now you will feel completely fresh and rested. You will feel wide awake. However, the moment
you notice me lighting a cigarette you will hear a knock at the door. You will go to the door and
open it. To your great surprise you will see Father Christmas and an angel at the door. You
will find that very strange because it is summer. You will suspect that somebody is playing a
trick on you and has dressed up. Therefore you will grab Father Christmas at his beard to see
whether it is real. Whatever you do, you will realize with astonishment that he and the angel
are absolutely real. You will be able to talk to him, and he will give you a present. After a short
while Father Christmas and the angel will leave the room again. Now I shall wake you and
everything will follow as I have told you. But in the waking state you will remember nothing of
what we have been saying now.”
After this the subject can be woken up, and he or she will not remember anything of what has
been said. But when after a while the hypnotist lights a cigarette the suggested sequence of
events will take place in all its detail, although in fact what the subject sees and hears at the
door is purely imaginary.
The suggestion just described is very complex because it contains hallucinations which are
only acoustic (knocking, talking) but also optical (Father Christmas, angel, present) and tactile
(touching of beard). Besides that there is suggested doubt about appearance (“... you will
suspect somebody is playing a trick on you”) which, however, can be quickly dispelled by
verification.
There is another important phenomenon that can usually be observed in post-hypnotic
suggestion: the tendency to rationalize. Every command implanted during hypnosis is
subsequently carried out in the waking state: the subjects do something simply because they
have to do it, yet they do not know why. If it is a rather illogical command they will, during its
execution, observe their own action with perplexity.
There is a deeply rooted conviction in man that, whatever he does, he does only because he
wants to do it. That is the reason why all test-subjects, when asked whey they did this or that,
never guess that they were merely executing a command. Rather they will desperately
attempt to find a “plausible reason” proving that they carried out the action of their own free
will.

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A MODEL OF HYPNOSIS

I shall later discuss in detail the significance of these phenomena with regard to my general
theme. Before that, however, I shall try to explain what hypnosis actually is and how such
unlikely phenomena come about. Science has no generally valid theory of hypnosis, and I do
not wish to add my own to the large number that exist. Instead I shall just give a few
illustrative examples in order to throw some light on what happens in hypothesis.
Let us imagine that we are in a theater. The performance has not yet started and we are
observing the hustle and bustle around us. Our attention is not yet focused on one point, so a
lot can be taken in at once. We notice the people, the interior of the theater, how our
neighbors are dressed. We take a few glances into the program and at the same time we
hear the tuning of the instruments. We are aware that it is Saturday night and consider having
dinner at a restaurant after the theater as tomorrow morning there will be time for a good, long
sleep.
The lights go out, the curtain rises and the performance begins. The story is gripping. Our
attention, which a few moments earlier was roaming freely about, now concentrates more and
more on the action depicted on stage. At the same time everything else in the vicinity loses its
importance, and we become indifferent to it. As we share despair and hope with the hero on
stage, we no longer think about the day of the week or about dinner after the theater. We
literally forget that there are other people around and, for a time at least, that we are in the
theater at all. Only when the curtain drops and the lights are back on do we return to the “here
and now”.
What happens in such a situation is simply that consciousness is concentrated on one point.
In this process the focus of consciousness is narrowed down to the particular object of
interest. At the same time everything else disappears from our consciousness and field of
perception. This process happens every day with varying intensity. We all know the
experience of being so absorbed in the reading of a book that we do not hear when someone
calls or talks to us. We make use of the same effect in the case of a child who has hurt
himself and is crying. We try to distract him by showing him something interesting. He forgets,
literally within seconds, all pain, because the pain moves outside the zone of perception.
The common factor in these examples is the narrowing of consciousness to one point. As an
analogy, picture a source of light which illuminates a relatively large area by means of a wide-
angle lens. If the wide-angle lens is replaced with a converging lens, the light is concentrated
and a strongly focused lightbeam picks out a tiny point, plunging the surrounding area into
darkness. The intensity of light at this point is far greater than when the light was diffused. Not
only does this concentrated light illuminate one point intensely, but it can also burn a hole and
thereby penetrate a new dimension of depth – think of a burning glass and a laser beam.
In the analogy light stands for consciousness. Our diurnal consciousness is usually
comparable with a wide-angle lens. But when we concentrate, the focus narrows and picks
out one point exaggeratedly. Then it may happen that our consciousness penetrates to a
deeper layer and a new, previously unconscious, dimension is reached. This breakthrough to
a new level is the turning point, where what was at first a narrowing of consciousness is
transformed into a widening of consciousness.
In all ages there have been people who tried to induce this process at will in themselves and
in others, developing the most varied techniques for that purpose: concentration, meditation,
hypnosis of various kinds, biofeedback and so on. Hypnosis is therefore just one of the
possible techniques for obtaining access to an unconscious level.

25
At this layer of the unconscious we find, among other things, those “programs” that are
responsible for the control of all autonomous actions of the body. Most of us do not
consciously control the body temperature, the secretion of the hormones, the level of blood
sugar, the heartbeat, and so on; all these functions are controlled by programs in the
subconscious. During hypnosis we suddenly gain access to the “program center” which
otherwise is inaccessible, and certain programs may be exchanged for other ones. The effect
of the newly implanted program can be immediately observed.
Let us think of a big house with a continuous stream of music in all rooms. If somebody gains
access to the room where the sound equipment is and changes the cassette the music
throughout the house is also suddenly changed. This is exactly what happens in hypnosis. If
we insert the program “heat” the entire body perspires. The program “insulin” decreases the
level of bloodsugar.

26
HYPNOSIS AS THERAPY

At this point there inevitably comes to mind the possibility of using hypnosis therapeutically.
Our point of departure is the realization that every symptom of illness is based on a faulty
program. In hypnosis it is possible by suggestion to replace such a program for another more
desirable one and thus make the symptom disappear. I am using intentionally here the word
“symptom” although the hypnotherapist would rather call it an “illness”.
This is precisely the weak point of hypnotherapy. Like every other method in orthodox
medicine it can cause symptoms to disappear, but fails to cure the “sick person” as such.
Where the crucial difference lies may become clear only at the end of this book. At this point I
merely want to warn against any over-optimistic tendency to see in hypnosis the key to curing
disease.
From the esoteric viewpoint “healing through hypnosis” can never be justified because
suggestive hypnotherapy does not achieve “healing” in the real sense. It can remove pains
and symptoms and is therefore comparable with, for instance, surgery. I do not dispute the
success of hypnotherapy, any more than I dispute the success of an appendectomy. Both can
prove necessary and helpful in certain cases. But neither of the two methods can ever touch
the essential realm of illness and therefore cannot “heal” in the real sense.
From the experience of hypnotherapy developed the methods of autosuggestion, positive
thinking and finality thinking. These systems teach how man can heal illnesses, gain eternal
health, earn money, obtain possessions and so forth, by repeating positive thoughts an
picturing them mentally.
One of the great pioneers of autosuggestion was the non-medic Emile Coué from Nancy
whose teachings and formulae (“Every day, in every way, I feel better and better”) started an
entire movement in all Europe known under the name “Couéism”. The basic axiom of Coué
was: “It is only our imagination which makes man healthy or sick; if we can direct our
imagination we obtain the power to make man healthy or sick, because man is what he
thinks”. Since this basic axiom is wrong, the method founded on it is wrong too. It would be
more correct to say: “Man is not what he thinks, but what he was thought up to be” (Hans
Blüher).
Coué missed the metaphysical aspect of illness with the same obstinacy that modern day
medicine displays. Like modern medical experts, he firmly believed that his method only
required a wider dissemination to eradicate illness in the world. This kind of thinking is
endearing but not adequate in meeting the problem of illness. Suggestions can never heal
because they are always lies. Healing can only take place through an encounter with truth.
What I have said applies to all suggestive procedures and systems which evoke health,
happiness and wealth.
I am not disputing the possibility of achieving the promised effects by means of such
practices, but I must certainly contest the ever-spreading opinion that these methods are
consonant with the teachings of esotericism. From the mere effectiveness of an action we
cannot deduce its justifiability.

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CONSEQUENCES

The importance of hypnosis is not to be found in its use, be that in therapy or in experiments.
For those of us on the esoteric path hypnosis can be seen rather as a danger because it
involves a strong power whose use can get in the way of our true intentions. Yet close
observations of hypnosis phenomena allow us some insight if we understand them as
analogies.
Hypnosis produces nothing fundamentally new, but merely exaggerates existing facts. It gives
us a caricature of reality. In spite or because of their exaggeration caricatures have the
advantage of showing up essentials faster and more clearly than other forms of illustration.
Thus hypnosis demonstrates the relative nature of sensory perception. Man's perception is
not so much dependent on the environment as on his own programs.
You can give a man the post-hypnotic suggestion that he will see everyone without hair. In the
waking state that man has the same perception of the environment as everybody else with
the difference that he sees all people as bald. This perception is for him incontestably real. If
he is in the company of ten other people he will clash with them over his opinion about their
baldness because they are convinced that everyone present has hair on their heads. In this
example the ten people are in the better position because they are the overwhelming majority.
It seems obvious that that one person is not quite normal.
Now we suggest this program post-hypnotically to ten people and bring them together with
only two others. Here ten people perceive the baldness of those present whereas two
maintain they can see hair on everyone's head. Who is right now? As we are used to taking
the opinion of the majority as the criterion for truth, the two “normal” people are suspected
of not being quite normal.
I recommend pondering on this example. In doing so we realize how carefully we ought to
approach the questions of objectivity and reality and how little bearing the opinion of the
majority has on the truth. The first thing we have to learn is not to concede to our perception
of the phenomenal world too high a level of reality.
That is why the Indians call this world “Maya”, the world of illusion. The ancient Egyptians
spoke of “the veil of Isis”. Plato, through his cave metaphor, tried to illustrate how we human
beings do not see reality but only shadows. As long as we take these shadows for reality we
shall remain victims of illusion. Not until we leave the cave can we discover reality. But initially
the reality is so blinding that we cannot endure it. If, however, we persist in our confrontation
with reality we shall learn to see. But if we cannot stand the light we fall prey to illusion which
is not the same as the old illusion because we have briefly glimpsed the true light.
This illusion, which follows the confrontation with truth, we call today “neurosis”. Neurotics
have experienced more than those who have not yet ventured forth from the shadowy cave,
but they cannot endure the truth.
Furthermore our experiments with hypnosis teach us that man is a product of his programs.
The fact that all our perceptions, opinions, attitudes and even critical faculties can be replaced
at will, shows that all of these are merely programs. Not only is man a product of programs,
but there is also a special program which ensures that he says of all workings of the program
“I am doing that only because I want to.”
When I described the example of the imaginary Father Christmas in such great detail my
intention was to show that even critical considerations, doubts and reservations are
themselves effects of programming, but the rationalizing tendencies built into the program
inhibit us from realizing this. We believe that we act when, in fact, we are acted upon. Or, as

28
Pascal put it: “If a stone hurled through the air were to have consciousness it would say 'I fly
because I wish to.'”
The only reason we are particularly struck by the programs of hypnotized people is because
they are unusual.
The person who has not been hypnotized also obeys programs but these are less noticeable
because we are so used to them. We are all in fact hypnotized and “asleep”. But as long as
we are asleep it is impossible for us to tell that we are asleep, and furthermore it is impossible
to tell that everyone around us is asleep. If we are asleep we cannot recognize those who are
awake. First we must wake up – and only then will we suddenly realize that we have been
asleep, that nearly everyone else is asleep and that there are only a few who are awake.
“AWAKE!” is therefore the order of the day. Release yourselves from your comfortable
hypnotic sleep in which you follow suggestions like machines. To be a human being is an
undertaking that can only be brought to fulfillment by each individual. It is therefore necessary
to leave the shadowy platonic cave and dare to look directly at the glare of reality. It may be
strange and unfamiliar and yet it is the truth for which all people secretly yearn. Hypnotized
man is a slave, a puppet dangling from invisible threads; he shows us the poverty of our own
reality; he is a mirror-image of the as yet unconscious man. In this mirror function lies the only
true significance of hypnosis.
The esoteric path leads out of the twilight of our collective sleep into the full consciousness of
true humanity. Esotericism stirs into wakefulness those who are already somewhat less
deeply asleep and are ready to open their eyes. How, therefore, can esotericism make any
use of hypnosis? How can we take it upon ourselves to put man into an even deeper sleep?
The man or woman who wishes to walk the path of esotericism does not need to believe
anything, nor to look for anything – they need only to wake up and to learn to see, for reality is
everywhere.

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CHAPTER III
POLARITY

Everything is two-fold; everything has two poles; everything has its pairs of opposites; equal
and unequal are the same thing. Contrasting things are identical in their nature and differ only
in degree; extremities touch each other; all truths are only half truths; all contradictions can be
brought into harmony with one another.
Kybalion

THE LAW of polarity is the foundation of Hermetic philosophy. Many human errors could be
avoided if this law were better understood. Humanity's path traverses a realm where polarities
must be tackled. The goal of the path is the overcoming of polarity.
“What is it that in the morning walks on four legs, at midday on two legs, and in the evening
on three legs?” Thus ran the riddle of the Sphinx. Death and annihilation awaited the person
who could not solve it. Oedipus knew the answer: man. As a baby he crawls on all fours, in
the midday of his life he walks on two legs, and in his old age he uses a stick as his third leg.
But this is only the exoteric answer to the question. It would hardly have been appropriate to
impose the death penalty for failure to answer a joke question. In fact the riddle deals with the
main stages of human path. Failure to master these is literally fatal. Four has been since very
ancient times a symbol for matter, which can be seen as the cross of humanity. Through
tackling the physical and material realm, which is the beginning of evolution (morning), man
can learn to understand polarity, which is symbolized by the number two (midday). But only
when the polarity is resolved by means of a third does man arrive, in the evening, at
completeness. Only the person who fulfills this task will gain eternal life.
The law of polarity seems at first too simple and too obvious to make it worth our while
examining it more closely. Everything that man perceives in the world of appearances and
everything that he can imagine reveals itself in two poles. It is impossible for man to imagine a
unity outside polarity. In terms of numerological symbolism this means that the number one is
not imaginable as long as the number two has not yet been created. One presupposes two.
This can more easily be followed in terms of geometry. The geometrical symbol for one is the
point. A point takes up no space, nor does it have extension – otherwise it would not be a
point but a sphere or a disk. A point has no dimension. And this means that it cannot be
imagined by the human mind, for any visual conception of a point always involves dimension,
however small. This unity therefore cannot be grasped by the human mind.
Human consciousness obeys the laws of polarity. Hence we have plus and minus, man and
woman, electric and magnetic poles, acid and alkali, sharp and flat, good and evil, light and
dark. The list can be extended indefinitely, for every concept has its counter-pole. Such pairs
of concepts we call contrasts, and we are accustomed, when dealing with them in a tangible
way, to think in terms of “either... or”. We always know how to arrange phenomena into pairs.
Something is either large or small, light or dark, good or bad. We believe that these
contrasting pairs exclude one another – and herein lies our mistake.
Reality consists of unities, which nonetheless reveal themselves to human consciousness
only as polarities. We cannot perceive unity as a unity. But from this we should not deduce
that it does not exist. The perception of polarity presupposes the existence of unity. Two can

30
only exist as a consequence of one. We always see unity only in two aspects, which appear
to us as contrasting. But these very contrasts form a unity and are dependent on one another.

31
LIFE IS RHYTHM

Our basic experience of polarity is through breathing. Here we can study the laws of polarity,
laws which can then be extended to the entire universe. Remember: as above, so below.
When we breath in there follows, with absolute certainty, a breathing out. And this breathing
out is followed, with equal certainty, by another breathing in. The continual alternation
between the two poles produces a rhythm.
Rhythm is the basic matrix of all life. If rhythm is destroyed, life is destroyed. Rhythm always
involves two poles. It is therefore a process of “both … and” rather than “either … or”. If you
refuse to breathe out you cannot breathe in again, and vice versa, for for each pole exists by
virtue of the other pole. If I do away with one, the other disappears. This may seem obvious to
everyone in the case of breathing, but in all other spheres it is overlooked.
As long as human beings, in their attitude and outlook, take up a position of being “for” one
thing and “against” another thing they destroy unities. Human beings are for health and
against illness, but they fail to understand that health and and illness are, as a polarity,
conditional upon one another. Health derives its existence from illness. Health can only arise
through illness. Thus all preventive medicine is an illusion.
Anyone who has understood the law of polarity knows that every goal can only be
reached via its opposite pole and not via the direct way which most people vainly try to follow.
If you want to throw a stone as far as possible you do not stretch as far forward as possible;
on the contrary, you lean back as far as you can in the opposite direction. The gardener does
not fertilize his roses with fragrant perfume so that they smell good the following year; rather
he fertilizes them with stinking manure which nevertheless enables them to grow sweet-
smelling blossoms. Thus the Tibetan Book of the Dead teaches “He who has not learnt to die
cannot learn to live”. Similarly Christ teaches that only through death can man attain to life. All
traditions of wisdom teach that man can only be free by submitting himself to universal law.
Yet human beings will not grasp this law. Everywhere they seek the direct way and do not
even learn much from their failures.
Every position for or against something is a fixation. Life is rhythm and therefore movement.
“Everything flows” says Heraclitus. Fixation hinders movement and is therefore inimical to life.
Every time that someone adopts a fixed opinion or view, on whatever subject, he hinders
development. If we were to analyze ourselves honestly we would realize that we are made up
almost entirely of such fixations. Nothing seems to be so difficult to a human being as to
change his or her opinion.
There is an old technique in the esoteric schools which depends on systematically reversing
all opinions and attitudes. I have described this technique in my book Voices from Other
Lives. It consists in taking steadfastly the opposite view to every opinion one has held up till
then, until the point is reached when the poles have equal weight. That is the moment when
one is released from polarity, and from the perspective of a higher, third point, begins to see
polarity as a totality.
Every human utterance can express only one aspect of the truth. In order to describe the
whole truth one always needs the opposite pole as well. Thus every statement about the truth
is a paradox. Unambiguous statements about reality do not exist in human language. An
utterance that lacks the element of paradox in incomplete and reflects only a fragment of
truth. Hence the downfall of all scientific efforts to produce statements that are completely
clear and free of contradiction. People have been all too hasty in scorning the contradictory
formulations of ancient teachings such as those of the Tao Te King or the alchemists.

32
The turning point in science came with research into light. There were two contradictory
theories about the nature of light rays: the wave theory and the particle theory. Each theory
apparently excluded the other. If light consisted of waves it could not consist of particles,
and vice versa. Either … or. In the meantime, however, it has been discovered that this
either... or was based on a false formulation of the question. Light is both waves and particles.
The fact that a phenomenon can simultaneously take two such apparently contradictory forms
is something that is beyond normal human understanding, but nevertheless true. Thus these
two aspects of the nature of light, the wave aspect and the particle aspect, can only be proved
by using a different experimental framework in each case; for human beings can understand
polarities only in sequence and not simultaneously. We should always keep in mind the dual
nature of light when we are thinking about philosophical problems.
For example: throughout history we have been passionately debating the question “Is life
predetermined, or do we have free will?” Here again we fail to recognize that the question is
wrongly framed. The truth will elude us until we can put aside this either... or and realize that
man's life is both predetermined and totally free.
From the law of polarity it follows that everything which exists has the right to exist. Within a
cosmos that functions according to laws, we can never say of anything that it “ought not to
exist”. It is only human beings who have divided the world into things that should exist and
other things that should not. In taking this attitude, moreover, we are setting ourselves against
reality. Every manifestation has its purpose, otherwise it could never come into being in the
first place. Anyone who does not accept this must fall back on the concept of chance
occurrence.
When a person is against something, this usually means that, by the same token, he or she is
“for” the opposite. Thus people are for peace and against war, for the good and against the
bad. They overlook the fact that all these concepts are pairs, and each pair forms an
inseparable unity which no human being can put asunder. If I refuse to breathe out I can no
longer breathe in. If I take away the negative pole of a magnet the positive pole disappears as
well. In the same way peace determines war, good enforces bad, and bad fertilizes good.
Thus Mephistopheles declares in Goethe's Faust: “I am a part of that power which always
wills the bad and always works the good”.
These consideration are in no way a justification for people to act in an arbitrary manner but
only a reminder that they should guard against the notion of opposites when they are looking
at the world of manifestation. Certainly we should make a distinction between that which has
already manifested itself and that which has not yet become reality. If a murder has taken
place it is a part of reality and has its own reason and meaning, otherwise it would not have
happened. It makes no sense to refuse to accept the murder that has happened, unless we
want to set ourselves against the universal order. But this does not mean that we should
judge the murder as right and good, let alone commit one ourselves.
To acknowledge reality merely means to acknowledge the right of all things to exist. If we set
ourselves against reality we do not alter anything objectively. Every time we push against
reality we engender an apparently opposite push which in turn has its effects on us. The
greater part of human suffering arises from our own opposition to the circumstances of
manifest reality.
All things are in themselves of neutral merit. It is only our attitude which creates out of them
the contrasting categories of joy or suffering. Thus loneliness is neither nor bad, neither
pleasant nor unpleasant. One person will experience loneliness as torment, while another will
see it as a welcome precondition for contemplating and taking stock of oneself. For one

33
person possessions are the highest object of his endeavours, for another they are
cumbersome ballast. It is never the circumstances themselves which affect our state of mind
but only our attitude towards the circumstances.

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RECONCILIATION

If we learn the first important rule, that everything which exists is good because it exists, then
we will gain an increasing measure of peace and tranquility. Only in such peace and
tranquility will we learn to consider things deeply, so that they reveal their meaning to us. One
can release oneself gradually from the fixed notion of always having to fight for or against
something, without thereby becoming inactive. In fact the man who believes he can affect the
world through his own activity usually does not realize that he is in reality a slave of the
conditions that affect him.
True activity is born in quietness. It is a sign of maturity when a person can allow something to
happen, without immediately wanting to interfere. It is at this point that most people begin to
rebel again. People think that by following this rule they are in some way surrendering their
“cleverness”, becoming the passive plaything of someone else and thus abandoning
themselves to a hopeless doom. They would rather not give up the habit of struggling and
arming themselves. They would prefer to exercise power and to show the opponent “who's
who”. Even the disciple Peter, when Christ was taken prisoner in the Garden of Gethsemane,
could not forbear to draw a sword, thereby proving that he had not yet fully grasped the
teachings of his master. He who is not prepared to live in harmony with things as they are will
find that the gateway to the esoteric path is closed to him.
Most people drag a great burden from the past around with them by remaining in a state of
conflict with events and people that belong to years gone by. A good way to get rid of this
ballast is by practicing the following exercise.
Choose a quiet hour and sit or lie down in a relaxed position. Close your eyes and allow to
pass before your inner eye those situations from the past which you would rather had never
happened. Look at these “negative” moments of fate, along with the people by whom you
believe yourself to have been treated wrongly and wish you had never met. As you inwardly
re-examine an event of this kind and the people that go with it be aware that this is only a step
which has its rightful place along the road of your personal destiny and without which you
would not be where you are. The point of trying to understand the sense of the things that
have happened is so that one gradually becomes grateful that things were as they were.
Only when you succeed in smiling at a particular event and the people connected with it and
thanking them because they were ready to help in the unfolding of your destiny – only then
are you ready to go on to another event and repeat the process. You can let the individual
events rise up of their own accord, without having to use the intellect. You must also accept all
those happenings that come to mind under the heading “Events that I am at loggerheads
with”, not suppressing any memories, even those that you think you have come to terms with
long ago.

Although this exercise may seem very difficult at first, you only need to keep repeating it and
you will experience for yourself that something eases within you, and an inner pressure
disappears. If you push with all your might against a solid brick wall you feel how the wall
resists you with equal intensity. If you increase your pressure, the wall seems to press back
even more strongly. The solution consists in taking your hands away from the wall; then the
pressure of the wall will disappear automatically. The comparison may sound banal, yet nearly
all human beings are standing against such a wall, pushing with all their might and
complaining at the same time about the pressure of the wall. To give up one's own resistance
is theoretically so simple, but most people find it unbelievably hard to do so. They are deeply

35
convinced that, in order to keep in the swim of things, they must keep pushing against the
wall because the wall is pushing against them. This is where the illusion lies. Test the example
of the wall for yourself and it will help you to understand the real problem. In fact one only has
the impression that the wall is about to topple over and therefore increases one's own
resistance. In order to see through the illusion one must have the courage to let go. A person
who recognizes the wall's right to exist does not have to push against it and will not be
troubled by it.

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THE PROJECTION OF GUILT

This problem is of infinite importance. We human beings have developed the habit of
attributing everything disagreeable to causes in the outside world. Society, relatives, the
government, the circumstances of the time – these are among the host of scapegoats that the
individual uses to avoid responsibility for his own fate. This projection of guilt has even been
given scientific status and, in the form of psychology or sociology serves to sanction a
collective error.
Everyone speaks of how human beings are influenced and marked by factors in the
environment. Psychoanalysis and Primal Scream Therapy try to explain a neurotic condition
by looking for the causes in childhood, in the method of upbringing or in traumatic tensions
between parent and child. It will not be long before psychotherapy officially adopts regression
techniques, and then people will suddenly believe they can find the causes they are looking
for in pre-natal experiences.
However different the various theories and methods of treatment may be, they all have one
thing in common: namely, they all seek in the outside world the causes of a malaise or
complex. Ask an individual to talk about the course of his life, and he will always be able to
say which person or circumstance was responsible for a given situation.
It will be difficult, in this sociology-ridden age, to get rid of the myth of environmental
influences, for any theory that permits the projection of guilt will inevitably find majority
support. What esotericism has to offer here is much less palatable and practical, but on the
positive side it does teach the individual how he can actually change his fate. It shows him a
way out of illness and thus delivers something that other systems can only promise.
Human beings are not formed by an environmental influences. The adult is not shaped by his
upbringing, and no one is to blame for the fate of the individual. Illness is not caused by any
bacteria or viruses. Those who believe they can disprove these controversial statements
overlook an important point: all so-called proofs are in fact merely correlations. Such a
correlation exists, for example, in the case of an infectious illness where a certain virus is
always present. Similarly it can be shown that definite characteristics are found in the family
background of juvenile delinquent and that a certain kind of neurotic individual is liable to
have had problems in relation to his mother. All that these correlations tell us is that when a
particular phenomenon is present another phenomenon is also to be found.
Now comes the next step, so beloved of science and yet so totally unscientific: namely the
step from correlation to causality. Starting with the observation “When there is phenomenon a,
then phenomenon b is also present”, science inserts on the sly the proposition “b is the cause
of a”. But this step is false. That certain viruses go together with certain illnesses in
undeniable, but to deduce from this that the virus is the cause of the illness is to draw a
conclusion that later generations will find as laughable as we find the flat-earth theory. So it is
not so easy after all to disprove our assertion that there are no influences from the
environment.

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THE LAW OF RESONANCE

We all know from physics the concept of resonance (from the Latin resonare, to resound). A
tuning fork will vibrate to a note only if the note corresponds to the frequency of the fork. If this
is not the case then, as far as the tuning fork is concerned, the note is not there since the fork
cannot pick it up. A radio receiver which is tuned to medium wave will, because of its
resonance, pick up only medium-wave programs. It cannot receive short-wave and long-wave
programs and therefore they do not belong to its “world-picture”. Similarly a human being, in
order to perceive something, needs to have some corresponding vibration in himself, and his
resonance makes the perception possible. Goethe expressed it this way: “If the eye were not
sun-like it could never glimpse the sun; if God's own power were not present within us, how
could we be stirred by the divine?”
This statement of Goethe's has already taken the law of resonance out of the purely physical
plane and transferred it analogically to the sphere that interests us here. Any human being
can only reach those parts of reality with which he can resonate. This applies not only to the
realm of purely sensual perception, but also to the perception of reality in general. Everything
that lies outside our capacity to resonate cannot be perceived by us and therefore does not
exist for us. This is why each person believes that he or she knows what reality is and that no
other kind of reality exists. Often when we read a book we believe we understand it fully, even
though we can only assimilate from what we read that which is in resonance with our level of
awareness at that time. This becomes most obvious when we read certain books after a lapse
of some years. Our consciousness has become enlarged during the interval and therefore we
are able to understand the book “even better”.
All these examples are to some extent familiar and understandable to everyone, and will
therefore serve to illuminate the principle that we wish to apply to human fate in general. We
can only make contact with those people, ideas and situations with which we feel a resonance
or, as we shall call it in future, an affinity. No manifestation can come about without the
corresponding affinity. If a person finds himself involved in a quarrel or brawl, this never
happens by chance but always because of the person's own affinity with the events. He bears
responsibility for whatever consequences he may suffer from the brawl, even if he believes
himself to have been accidentally involved as a totally innocent party. Without the appropriate
affinity he would never have become involved. If someone is run over in the street, it may be
true that legally speaking the driver was to blame, but this does not alter the fact that the
person who was run over must in some way have been ready for this event, otherwise it
would not have been able to enter his field of experience.

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THE ENVIRONMENT AS A MIRROR

I know that this way of looking at things may at first be very unfamiliar, but the familiarity of an
utterance should not be seen as a measure of its truth. The so-called environment is in reality
a mirror, in which each person experiences only himself. He can never see anything other
than himself in it because, out of that objective totality which is the same for all of us he filters
out only that for which he has an affinity. Anyone who is not aware of this fact falls inevitably
into erroneous attitudes.
When I look in my mirror in the morning and see a face looking at me in an unfriendly manner,
I can, if I wish, scold this face because of its unfriendliness. The face will however, in no way
be influenced by this but will merely scold back with equal vehemence. In this way it is easy to
escalate matters mutually until eventually I hit out at the grim face in front of me and shatter
the mirror. In fact no one would do such a thing in the case of a bathroom mirror because we
know how a mirror works. Yet nearly all of us do the same thing resolutely in everyday life. We
struggle against our enemies in the world, against unpleasant neighbors and relatives,
against unjust treatment from our superiors, against society as a whole and much else.
In fact what they are all fighting against is themselves, and therefore there can be no winners,
only losers, for who can be the winner in a fight against a mirror-image?
The law of resonance applies in both a positive and a negative way. If, in our considerations,
we cite only negative examples it is because this area is where human suffering arises. Most
people come to terms quite happily with the positive side of fate. Once a person has become
aware of the mirror-function of his environment, he finds an unsuspected source of
information available to him. Even if we can only see ourselves in the mirror we nevertheless
use the mirror because it can show us parts of ourselves that we could not see without its
help.
Similarly the observation of our own environment and of the events with which we are
confronted is one of the best methods of self-knowledge, for everything that upsets us in the
outer world merely shows that we are not yet reconciled to the corresponding principle in
ourselves. This is something that human beings are unwilling to recognize. Yet the fact that
someone becomes angry over the greed of another shows with certainty that he himself is
greedy. Otherwise it could not bother him. If he himself is generous why should he be
concerned about the greed of others? He would be able to accept it without becoming worked
up and upset.
When we look at the world objectively things are simply what they are. Grass is naturally
green. Of course one an imagine grass to be red. But, in fact, it is green and this has its
reason. No one gets excited about grass being green because it does not stir up any problem
in human beings. That war exists in the world is a fact just like the fact that grass is green. But
this is something that disturbs people; and so they begin to fight for peace. Always people
“fight”' for things: for peace, justice, health, humanity.
Yet how much more simple and effective it would be if people were to create peace in
themselves. Herein lies one of the most powerful tools for the one who knows how to use it.
Each person is in a position to change and shape the world according to his or her
conception, without struggle and without external force. Humanity needs only to change itself
and the whole world will change with it. When I see the unfriendly face in the mirror I need
only to smile and it will smile back – with absolute certainty. People always want to change
the world but how many use the means that lead to real success? If a person changes his
affinity he receives a new program and perceives a different world.

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Every person lives in his own “world”. There are as many of these worlds as there are human
beings. All these worlds are only fragments, aspects of the real world. The latter follows iron
laws and is not impressed when mankind clamours for change. The external world is the most
reliable source of information for the personal situation in which we find ourselves at any
given time. When a person learns to take everything that happens to him and look for its real
meaning, he will not only come to understand himself and his problems better but also
discover the possibilities for changing things.
Whatever happens to us we should always immediately ask “Why is this particular thing
happening at this particular time and to me in particular?” As long as we are not accustomed
to formulating the question in this way the finding of the answer will appear difficult but with
practice we soon learn to recognize the sense of events and to relate to it.
Psychologists use the term “paranoia” to describe a tendency found mostly in schizophrenics
to relate every happening in the world to themselves. This pathological paranoia has,
however, a non-pathological counterpart which we might call “positive paranoia”, that is, the
ability to recognize that everything that occurs has meaning for the person who experiences
it.
The more conscious someone becomes, the more he learns to see the pattern of things and
to enquire about their deeper message. Thus the most important requirement is to be in
harmony with everything that is. Whenever we fail to be in harmony we should look in
ourselves for the reason. Man is a microcosm and therefore an exact reflection of the
macrocosm. Everything that I can perceive I can find also in myself.
If I am in harmony with the different areas of reality within me I cannot be disturbed by
phenomena corresponding to these areas in the outer world. If something unpleasant occurs
to me this is merely a demand to turn the attention to the corresponding area within myself.
All those evil man and disagreeable events are in reality only messengers, mediums whose
function is to make the invisible visible. Anyone who grasps this and is prepared to assume
the responsibility for his own fate will lose all fear of being harmed by chance occurrence.
One of the main obsessions of our age is the need to have security against the eventualities
of fate. The many forms that this security takes – from insurance policies to socialist political
systems – share one goal: to prevent or alter the influence of fate through external measures.
What stands behind all these efforts is fear. Yet it is only when we are prepared to confront
fate, as human beings responsible to ourselves, that we lose our fear. A person cannot be
murdered accidentally nor become rich accidentally. Neither can happen unless the person is
ripe and possess the appropriate affinity. People strive for riches and at the same time neglect
to make themselves ripe for wealth. Th esoterically-minded seek high and low for the right
guru and the best system, forgetting that the guru comes of his own accord to the one who is
ready.
It is enough for us to really need something and we shall receive it. Many will have
experienced this on a small scale. Sometimes in life we are suddenly confronted by a subject
whose existence we have previously ignored or even been hardly aware of. We might, for
example, meet a specialist on the love life of ants and be astonished that there should be
someone interested in such an out-of-the-way subject. Then somebody “coincidentally” sends
us a book on this very subject. Soon afterwards we read an article in a magazine about the
same thing. What is more we visit a friend of many years standing and learn for the first time
that he is interested in the very same subject but has never spoken of it before.
Behind such “chains of coincidence”, which most of us have experienced in one form or
another, lies nothing more nor less than the law of affinity and resonance. In this way one will

40
receive, with absolute certainty, every book, every piece of information, every contact that one
needs – if one really needs it and is ready for it. Without this necessary readiness all seeking
and striving in the outer world is in vain.
Whoever changes himself changes the world. There is nothing in the world that needs
changing but a great deal in ourselves which does. The esoteric way is a way of continual
change, of transmutation from lead to gold. The wise man is in harmony with all areas of
being and therefore lives in the best of all possible worlds. He sees reality and recognizes that
everything that is, is good. He no longer seeks happiness; he has found it – in himself.

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CHAPTER IV
ASTROLOGY - A METAPHOR FOR REALITY

Even as the sun and planets stood, to salute one another, on the day you entered the world –
even so you began straightaway to grow and have continued to do so, according to the law
that prevailed over your beginning. It is thus that you must be, you cannot escape yourself –
the Sybils and Prophets said the same thing long ago; and no time or power can destroy the
shape that has been impressed upon evolving life. - Goethe, First and Last Words, Orphic:
Destiny (Translated by David Luke)

IF WE NOW EXAMINE astrology in greater detail it is for the following reasons:

1 Astrology is the esoteric system best known to the public. The debate between supporters
and opponents of astrology is continually flaring up with renewed passion.
2 Most conceptions about astrology found among laymen are basically false, and this stands
in the way of a true understanding both for supporters and opponents.
3 Following the Zeitgeist, astrologers have been increasingly attempting to sever astrology
from its esoteric origins and to adapt it step by step to the scientific way of thinking in the
hope that this would bring recognition from official science. This process has resulted in the
original astrology being degraded to a mere technique.
4 The original astrology is, in its inner structure and way of thinking, a typical esoteric
discipline. It therefore serves here to represent all other mantic techniques. From the
philosophy that lies at the root of astrology we shall develop further considerations to do with
fate and illness.

Before we proceed to certain abstract considerations that may help in giving us a deeper
understanding of our theme, I would ask the reader to try the following tests:
Find the overall factor common to the following: (a) dog, starling, ant, crocodile, bear,
elephant, trout; (b) lead, goat, teeth, ivy, monastic cell, miner.
There will be certainly no difficulties in answering question (a), for the overall category
“animal” will immediately occur to everyone. Question (b) will be somewhat more difficult
since the examples given appear to have little in common. Let us now look step by step at
what lies behind these two questions.
When we confront the multiplicity of forms in the world of appearances we feel the need to
bring order into this multiplicity. All systems of philosophy and science arise from this
fundamental human wish. Yet from the beginning there have been two entirely different ways
of bringing order into this daunting multiplicity:
The first way is to create overall categories (e. g. plant, animal, miner) into which we can fit
individual phenomena which have characteristics in common. In this way there emerges a
division of reality into levels (such as the animal -, vegetable -, mineral kingdom).
The second way is to seek units from which multiplicity arises through a varied mixing of the
basic ingredients. Both the doctrine of the four elements and the presocratic atomic model are
based on this approach. The most impressive modern example of this way of thinking is the

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periodic table of the elements. Such systems make it possible to reduce the manifold forms
around us to a few basic qualities. Thus we are enabled to make more sense of the structure
of the manifold reality around us, a reality which is produced by things interacting in different
mixtures and proportions.

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PRIMAL PRINCIPLES OF REALITY

This second procedure, which in the case of the periodic table is valid only for the material
plane, we shall now apply to the whole of reality. Here again we start from the realization that
behind manifold reality lies a limited number of units. But as we wish to encompass the whole
of reality with our system, we must find units which apply to all realms: animal, vegetable and
mineral, and to all planes: material and psychic. We spoke in the first chapter about how
matter always needs information in order to acquire form. Thus it is the idea rather than the
form which is primal and real.
Unfortunately, in our materialistic age it is the opposite view which has established itself. Thus
it is believed that the stone comes first and that subsequently mankind, in observing it,
develops the concept and invents the world “stone”. In reality the reverse is true. Without the
idea of stone a tangible stone can never manifest itself. Concepts and language are always
present much earlier than their material representatives. (“In the beginning was the word...”)
An artist wishing to paint a picture first forms an idea and then translates it into material
reality. It is not the picture which creates the idea but the idea that condenses into the picture.
Thus if we wish to design a “periodic table of reality” our hypothetical units must be archetypal
ideas.
Such primal images must exist as the basic constituents of reality, but access to the world of
pure concepts is very difficult for man. So for the time being, what we have to do is to
formulate purely hypothetical units and give them abstract symbols. It is not important at this
stage which symbols we choose. The symbols x, y, z for example, would be appropriate for
our time. Here x stands for a certain basic concept in the realm of ideas. But since this realm
of ideas is reflected in our visible and perceptible reality the primal concept x must also be
present in the manifest world.
To put it more precisely, our primal idea x must have a particular representative on every level
of reality. Thus we shall find among animals, plants, minerals and human beings some
concrete example that represents x on the plane of reality. If x cannot be found on every
plane then it does not deserve the title “primal idea”. On this basis we can construct a matrix
consisting of the various levels which run vertically from the primal ideas or principles.

Primal Idea x y
Primal principles

nature of principle structure, hindrance energy, impulse

resistance, time
sky ? ?
mineral lead, calcium iron
plant ivy, thistle, horsetail stinging nettle
animal raven, goat predator, rodent
body skeleton, teeth muscles, arterial blood
illnesses hardening of the arteries inflammation, injuries
degenerative diseases,
gallstones
locality prison, monastery smithy, battlefield
old people's home, cemetery

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area mountain, cold desert volcanic area
social category miner, old person soldier
colour black, dark blue red

In this matrix we already find some representatives of x and y on different levels of reality. The
sense or justification of this arrangement will not yet at this stage be clear. For the time being
it will be enough to accept these correlations, for their accuracy is not yet the subject of our
consideration.
Rather let me make it clear that a primal principle runs vertically through all levels of manifest
form. The number of planes is, in fact, unlimited; those shown here are only a tiny selection
and can be extended almost indefinitely by the addition of other categories such as types of
vegetable, shares in the brewery companies, musical instruments, architectural styles ans so
on. Returning to the questions posed earlier in the chapter, some readers will have already
recognized the examples from question (b) in the column x of our table.
Now it will be apparent how questions (a) and (b) differ from each other. Question (b),
however, contains various examples from a single plane, namely the animal kingdom. This is
something that all of us have been trained to recognize. Question (b), however, contains
concepts arranged in a vertical chain of principles whose common factor lies in the as yet
undefined principle that we are provisionally calling x. In trying to answer question (b) we
should recognize that we are not accustomed to thinking vertically and are therefore not
aware of any common factor although such a factor is present, as we shall discover by and
by.
It is important to understand that there are horizontal categories as well as a vertical chain of
principles. The first is used almost exclusively in science, the second almost equally
exclusively in esotericism, for the axiom “as above so below” leads inevitably to a vertical way
of thinking. Thus the scientific and esoteric systems of thought diverge from each other by
exactly 90 degrees, which is why we should not be surprised that both parties almost
invariably talk at cross purposes.
Further conclusions can be drawn from the matrix which we have outlined. For instance: if a
primal principle were to be modified in some way then this modification would have to become
apparent in all its representatives on the different levels of reality. Similarly any interaction or
mutual influence between the principles would have its analogical effect on all planes of the
physical world. Just as we can observe representatives of a given principle on any level of
reality so, by the reverse process, these correlations make it possible for us to draw
conclusions about otherwise inaccessible primal principles.
To be more concrete, every primal concept must have its counterpart in the world of animals.
If I know the correlations I can take an animal representing each principle and put all the
animals together in a zoo. By observing how animals behave towards each other we can
learn about the plane of primal principles and about all other planes.
The prerequisite for such a procedure are an exact knowledge of the vertical correspondence
and the ability to translate concrete observation analogically from one plane to another. Thus
theoretically one could from observing draw conclusions about plants, social conditions or the
fluctuation of brewery shares. This way of thinking we call deduction by analogy and it has
absolutely nothing to do with causality.
To put it in terms of a banal example: if I know from experience that every Sunday I must go
to church an that every Sunday there is roast pork for lunch, then I can deduce that if today is
a day for going to church then it is also a day for roast pork. This conclusion is correct

45
although the going to church has nothing whatsoever to do with lunch and there is no causal
connection between the two things. In fact, the correctness of the conclusion has to do with a
common factor, namely that both events are linked with Sunday.
Let us return to our “matrix of reality”. Basically it does not matter which plane I take as the
point of departure for an observation and onto what plane I translate it analogically. In
practice, however, not all planes are equally suitable. So, for most practical purposes, I would
not advise anyone to carry out the experiment with the zoo which I mentioned earlier as an
example. But we shall see later that there is hardly any plane of reality where such
correlations have not been explored at some time of history.
One plane, however, that seemed particularly suitable when man was looking for the ideal
plane to observe, was the starry sky. The celestial plane is not mixed up with other planes,
and the behaviour of the heavenly bodies, being mathematically calculable, offers a reference
for past and future without necessitating constant observation. As the sky with its stars and
planets is a plane of reality like any other it was concluded that there, too, could be found
representatives of all primal principles. Therefore the heavenly bodies were given names
corresponding to the principles they represented.
We now return to the principles that we provisionally called x and y. Ancient man did not, of
course, use x, y and z; he employed signs that were not chosen at random but already
existed as hieroglyphs representing the principles.
To understand how these hieroglyphs were framed we must remember what was said at the
outset, namely that everything in nature consists of three components: body, soul and spirit.
In antiquity the circle was used as the symbol for spirit, since it was felt to represent the unity
and perfection of the spiritual principle. For soul the ancients chose a semi-circle or cup,
suggesting the receptivity and retaining quality of the soul principle. Finally for body they used
the cross which, being a four-fold symbol, represented the essence of matter. By putting
these three basic symbols (circle, cup, cross) together in different ways it was possible to
form the glyphs representing the primal principles.
The wise men of antiquity were able, through considered observation, to discern seven primal
principles. It would be a digression to discuss here how these seven were arrived at, but it is
worth remembering that there are seven colours in the rainbow, seven days in the week,
seven parts in the Lord's Prayer and so on, and the people of antiquity knew seven heavenly
bodies. Although in more recent times these have been extended to ten, this has not
devalued the classical seven.
The Sun has come to represent the spiritual principle and has been given the symbol of a
circle with a dot in the middle: (). The Moon represents the receptive soul principle: (). The
cross +, as the symbol for matter, does not stand alone, as matter is not viable without the
other two principles. The symbol for Mercury, () shows us that all three principles are here
united in harmonious balance. The symbol for Mars, (), (this is the original glyph although
today the cross has been replaced by an arrow to avoid confusion with Venus: () ) shows us
matter dominating spirit but being motivated by spirit from below. Venus is exactly the reverse:
(), with spirit clearly dominating matter. In the case of Jupiter, (), the soul dominates matter,
but the Saturn glyph, (), clearly shows matter weighing down on the soul.
Thus we know that in ancient times the seven primal principles were assigned to Sun, Moon,
Mercury, Mars, Venus, Jupiter, and Saturn. Each of these seven principles was linked with a
heavenly body which was given the same name. Furthermore they were personified and
depicted as deities. Therefore we must fill out our matrix as follows.

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Primal principle x (Saturn) y (Mars)
Idea

Definition structure, hindrance, energy, impulse

of principle resistance, time

Sky Saturn Mars

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THE HEAVENLY BODIES AS REPRESENTATIVES

This system, which teaches the seven primal principles and studies their effects on the
different levels of reality, is called astrology. In astrology, when we speak of Saturn we really
mean the primal principle that Saturn stands for. Only in purely practical work does the
astrologer resort to observing the actual planet in the sky. Astrology is about primal principles,
not about stars and planets. The planets are a practical vocabulary, though not the only
possible way of expressing the principles. Someone who knows astrology very well will find
that in time he hardly needs the planetary level any longer, since he will have learnt to
recognize the principles on all levels.
At this point we should dispose of some of the most common misconceptions about astrology.
Opponents of astrology deny that the heavenly bodies can have a concrete influence on
mankind. By now it will be clear to the reader that this objection is not pertinent to astrology
which does not, in fact, assume a direct influence on human beings. But confusion has arisen
from the fact that there are still astrologers who believe in an influence of this kind. Some of
then even consider themselves particularly progressive and scientific and are fond of quoting
discoveries and correlations between planetary movements, sunspots and so forth on the one
hand and the electromagnetic fields of living cells on the other. Nobody doubts this
correlation, but a correlation is not the same as an influence. These facts only confirm how, as
we saw earlier, the same principles operate analogically on different planes. It is easy to
correlate things but that does not prove a causal connection.
So let us not talk any longer about astrology being the study of celestial influences on our
lives. Many astrologers cast horoscopes for the founding of states, the signing of contracts,
the laying of foundation stones and so on. In such cases what is the use of clever talk about
electro-magnetic influences on our cells? Much of an astrologer's work deals with theoretical
planetary positions which cannot be traced in the sky at the times when they come into effect
(transits, progressions, solar return and so on). Let us sum up as follows:

1 Astrology deals with archetypal principles which on the plane of ideas represent the primal
constituents from which reality, in all its manifestations, is formed.

2 These primal principles run vertically through all planes of manifestation. Thus chains of
analogy are formed, whose individual components belong to different levels but are linked by
a common principle.

3 An observation on one plane can, with the help of analogy, be transformed to any other
plane. The plane of reference for astrology is the sky.

4 The primal principles in astrology are called Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and
Saturn. The planets bearing these names are merely representatives of these principles.
In more recent times astrologers have worked with three further principles, namely: Uranus,
Neptune and Pluto.
5 There are no causal connections between the heavenly bodies and the various levels of
reality.

6 The planets are a scale on which we measure reality with relative exactitude. But they do
not influence reality any more than mercury in a thermometer produces a temperature.

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7 Astrological thinking is vertical, according to the esoteric axiom: as above, so below.

This verticality is typical of all esoteric systems and is the main reason why esoteric thinking
appears so nonsensical to outsiders. Outside esotericism there is only horizontal thinking. Yet
with the help of our vertical chains of analogy many otherwise incomprehensible connections
suddenly become clear. Here are a few examples:
It is a favourite habit of our interior designers to deck living-rooms in black and chrome, as
one can see by looking through a few magazines devoted to home decoration. Without
exception all rooms decorated in this way will feature a parlour palm. Naturally this is
attributed to the unerring stylistic flair of the interior designers. In fact, they are unconsciously
following the Saturnian chain of symbols. A black room embodies the principle of Saturn, and
only a plant which also represents this principle is felt to be suitable for such a room.
Let us take an example from everyday speech which might be more readily grasped. We use
the expression “wise old owl”. Unless we know the chain of analogies, this idiom is difficult to
explain, but for someone versed in astrology the connection is obvious. On the animal plane
the owl represents the Jupiterian principle, which is also strongly associated with the quality of
wisdom, because Jupiter is, among other things, the planet of study and philosophy.
As another Jupiterian example, let us take the expression “touch wood”, which we say to
ensure the good outcome of an expectation. Wood, as a material, belongs to the Jupiterian
principle. Hence, by touching wood, we invoke Jupiter, which is also the planet of good
fortune.
As a final example consider the expression “as cunning as a fox”. The fox is part of the
symbolic chain of Mercury, the planet of cleverness, adroitness and quickness of wit.
These simple examples will, for the time being, suffice to suggest to the reader the value of a
vertical way of thinking. Later, when I come to the subject of astrological therapy, I shall deal
with the practical uses of our matrix.

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THE QUALITY OF TIME

In order to learn to understand astrology better as a measuring instrument, we must consider

another, less familiar, concept. When we speak of time we usually think in terms of
quantitative measurements. We ask how long something has lasted, how long ago an event
took place, how much time has elapsed. In other words we are accustomed to considering
only the amount of time. According to the law of polarity this quantitative aspect of time must
have, as its opposite pole, a qualitative aspect. The Greeks called these two aspects
respectively chronos and kairos.
Time has not only quantity but also quality. But very few people today can form any
conception of what is meant by the quality of time. In ancient times the situation was
reversed. Then people observed only the quality and neglected the quantity aspect. Quality in
this context has nothing to do with duration. When we speak of the quality of time we mean
that each moment or section of time, whether it be a second, an hour or a century, possesses
a definite quality, so that only events commensurate with that quality can occur.
To put it another way: at any given point of time only those events can be realized whose
qualitative content corresponds to the quality of the moment. What time does is to create
openings for latent tendencies, enabling those tendencies to enter reality and manifest
themselves. An aeroplane crash, for example, will only take place when the prevailing time-
quality allows it to do so. Time is also a plane of reality, and therefore time-qualities are simply
expressions of our primal principle. Thus any given point in time is “ruled” by a particular
principle or rather a mixture of principles.
There is another law which was known to the ancients but which, in the meantime, has
unfortunately been forgotten: “Every beginning carries its own end within itself”. This law
states that at the moment when something begins, its future course and ultimate end are
already laid down. We cherish the idea that it is possible to intervene in a sequence of events
and influence its outcome. But in each beginning the end is latent, just as in each seed the
complete plant is latent, including the new seed.
Having this knowledge, the men of former times laid great emphasis on the importance of
beginning an undertaking “at the right moment”, for every undertaking unfolds according to
the time-quality under which it was begun. Thus, if one desires an undertaking to follow a
particular course and to have a good outcome, one must seek a favourable moment for its
beginning. In ancient times the determining of this time-quality was one of the tasks of the
priesthood. When they were asked a question the priests would examine “the hour” in order to
find out its quality. Hence the word “horoscope”, meaning a “looking into the hour” (from the
Greek hora = hour, and skopein = to look). A horoscope is thus nothing more nor less than a
snap-shot of the sky at a particular point in time.
Such horoscope-casting was originally concerned primarily with events and with important
undertakings such as declarations of war, the concluding of treaties and so on. So-called
natal horoscopes, dealing with the birth of an individual, are a somewhat later development
and are by no means the most interesting aspect of astrology.
We should remember that looking at the sky was not the only method by which the priests
determined the quality of a given moment. They also scrutinized entrails, examined the flight
of birds and watched the feeding behaviour of sacred hens. In these examples, which we
know from the history of ancient Rome, instead of the sky, they took the animal kingdom as
their field of observation from which to determine the dominant principles at a given point in
time.

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In the history of mantic techniques we find many different levels being used for this purpose,
all equally valid since they all conform to the law of vertical analogy. Thus the laying out of
Tarot cards for divinatory purposes is no more “unscientific” or “superstitious” than the casting
of a horoscope. Because mathematical tables are involved in drawing up a horoscope, many
astrologers insist on the “scientific” nature of astrology and distance themselves from all
“unserious” systems such as Tarot and the I Ching. Such a posture is ludicrous. All mantic
and divinatory systems work on the same principle, and the planes of reference are
interchangeable.
The only criterion for judging the seriousness of a system is whether or not the person using it
can take what he learns from his chosen plane of observation and translate it to other planes.
This translation process, which astrologers call “interpretation”, is the most difficult part of any
system. Numerically, in fact, “unserious” practitioners outweigh “serious” ones, whether in
laying out cards or in astrology.
Returning to the subject of astrology, we have seen that a horoscope is a graphic
representation of the situation in the sky at a particular point in time and with reference to a
particular place. Thus each horoscope is a time-place equation. A horoscope always relates
to the place where the event under consideration takes place, and it examines the sky from
this point of view.
Here we should answer the common objection that astrology works within a geocentric view
of the universe. This is just as it should be, since for human beings a geocentric universe is
the only appropriate one. In terms of our lived experience a heliocentric universe is wrong, for
if we ignore the calculations of astronomy we find that each day the sun rises up in the
morning and goes down in the evening. For the human psyche this experience is much more
important than the objective knowledge that the earth orbits the sun. This fact cannot be
experienced by man in the depth of his psyche and is therefore totally irrelevant to him.
Thus the heliocentric view is correct for astronomy and for astronauts. But for humanity in
general and for the astrologer in particular it is only the earth that can be taken as the central
point of reference. It is there that human life takes place. Bonn is the capital of the Federal
Republic of Germany, but that is no reason for me, as a resident of Munich, to put a Bonn
address on my visiting card. Every human being experiences himself as the center of the
universe. If he does not do this, he loses his “standpoint” and becomes spiritually uprooted.
Herein lies the deeper reason why the Church for so long opposed the heliocentric view of the
universe.

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THE HOROSCOPE AS A MEASURING INSTRUMENT

Astrology is not the belief in the influence of the heavenly bodies on human beings, but rather
a system for illustrating reality. Other systems do the same thing. Physics, for example, uses
numbers and letters as its symbols for illustrating reality, but no one is asked to believe that a
formula made up of these letters and numbers actually influences, shall we say, the force of
gravity.
A horoscope is a measuring instrument gauged to register the quality of a given moment. It
works with varying degrees of accuracy, depending on certain technical factors, but the
measurability of the time-quality itself is not in question. The situation is the same as with the
quantitative measurement of time, which is likewise dependent for its accuracy on our
technical capacity. When we only had sundials we could not measure nearly as accurately as
with a modern atomic clock, which can record time to an accuracy of one millionth of a
second.
Similar discrepancies can be seen in astrology. In its practical application astrology is often a
rather crude instrument and leaves much to be desired as regards accuracy. But any
improvement in accuracy depends on the technical skills of astrologers and the further
development of the measuring instruments. Thus any limitations exist in human capacity
rather than in astrology itself.
Unfortunately some sheer nonsense is to be found among the statements that have been
appearing in astrological textbooks for generations. Take, for example, the dictum that “the
planets create inclinations, but they do not compel”. This statement, which is usually intended
as an expression of moderation and seriousness, contains several errors of thinking. First of
all it would be more correct to say that the planets do neither of those things. When the
mercury in a thermometer shows 30 degrees one cannot say that it indicates an inclination
towards this temperature, which may, nevertheless, not be reached.
The heavenly bodies neither compel nor incline. They indicate how reality is constituted at a
particular moment, albeit with compelling accuracy. If the sentence I have quoted were true it
would be a waste of time to devote even five minutes to astrology, for every astrological
statement would have a probability factor of 50 per cent – in other words it might be true or it
might not. The same result could be obtained much more easily by tossing a coin.
Another claim of equal absurdity is that human fate is a combination of inherited
characteristics, upbringing, environmental influences and cosmic factors. This again shows
confused thinking. The first question it raises has to do with the nature of these “cosmic
factors”. What is meant by this term? How does a person experience the working of a cosmic
factor? What events in their destiny does it effect? They would have to be events in which the
environment played no part, otherwise we would be talking about environmental influences.
A statement of this kind is based not so much upon mature considerations as on a desire to
conform to scientific theory and somehow to smuggle astrology into the precincts of science.
A moment's reflection reveals that upbringing and environment are merely concrete levels on
which the primal principles are manifested. The environment is the organ without which these
principles could not be carried out; for how can a person experience a “cosmic factor” (our
“primal principle”) if not through the medium of the environment? How could anyone be run
over if there were no cars, or fall ill if there were no viruses, or get murdered if there were no
murderers? Yet these environmental factors are never causes. They are nothing more than
“executive officers” of fate.
Inherited factors are again another plane of reality on which one can find representations of

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the primal principles. On the level of information carriers in the cells we can read reality just
as we can on the heavenly plane. Human geneticists and astrologers are really colleagues if
they only knew it. And if even astrologers believe in a casual influence from the planets, we
cannot easily hold it against experts in human genetics when we find they are adamantly
convinced that genes are the “cause” of inherited characteristics. A human being carries his or
her “horoscope” in each individual cell, for the whole is always to be found in every detail, just
as the plant is to be found in the seed.
This is demonstrated vividly by acupuncture, which began with the body as a whole, then
discovered the entire human being reflected in the ear. Later it made the same discovery
about the nose, the hand, the foot and so on. Similarly each person carries his horoscope in
his eye, in his foot, in each cell of his body. The symbolic language is different, but the
message is always the same, for it is the same single reality that is being illustrated.
It is not without reason that in former times astrology was known as the “royal science”; for
astrology embraces the whole of reality and can be applied to all levels with equal success. In
a word, it is universal. It is also not without reason that Kepler wrote a book with the very
significant title: A Warning to Opponents of Astrology. Nor is it without reason that Paracelsus
declared that any doctor who did no know astrology was a charlatan and a quack. But all of
these testimonies refer exclusively to a form of astrology which was still firmly rooted in the
esoteric world-view and which was still the true celestial knowledge – not the all-too-familiar
caricature which passes for astrology today.
True astrology was and is a path of initiation which leads via self-knowledge and knowledge
of nature to knowledge of God. Thus true astrology finally makes itself superfluous. True
astrology is a form of philosophy and has nothing to do with delving around in other people's
future. In order to understand astrology one must learn it for oneself. True astrology teaches
us to approach the world and our fellow men with an understanding of the cosmic factors
proper to each individual situation and thus be inwardly at peace with everything and
everyone around us. How can we be angry with a person if we really understand them? Real
astrology teaches us to perceive a new dimension of reality.
In natal astrology a horoscope is cast for the moment of birth, or more precisely the first
breath. Here, as with any other process, the beginning contains the pattern of unfoldment – in
this case of a human life. The horoscope evaluates the time-quality under which a life begins
and thus indicates the path of that life. A natal horoscope shows three different things:

1 It indicates what psychologists call character- or personality-structure.

2 Add to the character-structure, which is a static thing, the dynamic factor of time, and you
arrive at the course of the individual's destiny. The time factor tells us at what point in a
person's life a particular problem area is activated.
3 The natal horoscope also indicates the actual course of labour and delivery in the birth of an
individual.

This third aspect has often been overlooked – which is surprising when one considers what
far-reaching consequences are attributed to the events of delivery. The same horoscope is
valid for both the birth event and the course of the individual's life. In other words someone's
life is merely their own birth writ large. Everything that is to happen in a person's life must
already be present by analogy in the birth, which is a telescoped version of the entire life.
Looking at it the other way round, this means that nothing can happen in the life of an
individual (be it positive or negative) that has not already been present in the birth process.

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This way of looking at things, however, goes against the idea that we can find “causes” for
illnesses and other events in a human life. In fact with the right methods it can be shown that
every problem in a human life can be tracked back to the birth even. For in every beginning
the end is already present.

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THE HOROSCOPE: A STUDY PLAN FOR LIFE

The horoscope shows in symbolic form the quality of the moment at which an individual
enters the world, in other words, how the primal principles are weighted and interrelated at
that moment. This horoscope is his task and study plan which is there for him to carry out
during the course of his life. Every so-called constellation (by which astrologers mean a
grouping of principles) embodies a particular task or problem.
At this point let me make a few observation about the term “problem”. In reality there are no
problems. A certain situation only becomes a problem for a person when he cannot integrate
it into his consciousness. Multiplication, for example, is a great problem for a six-year-old
child, but by the time a person has reached the age of thirty he will have learned how to
multiply with ease. Every learning process is also an extension of consciousness enabling us
to fulfill a task. Every time we solve a problem it ceases to be a problem and becomes an
accomplished task. This process has the consequence that the accomplished task can never
again present itself as a problem.
Let us never forget that a problem only represents the gap between a given situation and our
level of consciousness. It should therefore be seen as a way of challenging us to bestride the
gap by extending ourselves. Unfortunately in everyday life most people behave as if problems
existed “per se” and were a condition of the environment that could simply be removed.
We said earlier that each constellation symbolizes such a problem and that the horoscope is
a study plan for a person's life. All these constellations are there to be made manifest in life
and transcended through apprenticeship and early participation. Constellations are still
“problems” at the time of birth but the aim should be, if possible, to have transcended them by
the end of one's life. Life is a learning process – though for many of us this is unfortunately
not as self-evident as it should be.
What is the essential trait, common to all things in nature? It is that they develop. For
esotericism as for science, evolution is the goal of all life. But whereas science tends to
regard evolution as a product of “chance” mutations of genes, esotericism sees it as a
development towards a definite goal. Both parties are agreed, however, that everything which
lives develops. How does this development occur? Only by a process of learning. This is just
as true of a worm as it is of a human being.
Learning can only take place through the solving of problems. But as this is always a
strenuous process, human beings do not usually seek problems out, they have to be
confronted with them. Seen in this light, problems emerge as the driving wheels of evolution.
What we call “fate” is the force which continually confronts us with problems and ensures that
we never stop learning. And, since our horoscope reveals the study plan for an incarnation, it
is said that in the horoscope we can read the fate of an individual. This sounds as though
each individual were fitted with a strait-jacked of fate. But if we think in terms of a study plan
or an allotment of tasks we discover a little more of the underlying meaning.

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POLARITY AND LEARNING

All this gives rise to the questions: to what extent is fate, or rather the fulfillment of these
tasks, a matter of determinism? And to what extent are we free to alter things? These are very
difficult questions, but we can approach the answers step by step.
As regards the learning plan, this is undoubtedly determined and must be carried out. Yet,
within the determined framework, the law of polarity still applies. It confronts us with the
choice of how to carry out the learning plan, which path to tread as apprentices and how to
solve the problems that we are set. So, a distinction must be made, between the problems
themselves, which are fully determined, and the manner of their solution. Here the law of
polarity gives us two possibilities:

1 Conscious learning. This possibility requires of a person that he should be constantly ready
to meet the challenges of fate and to resolve willingly and actively every problem that should
arise.

2 Unconscious learning. This comes automatically into force when a person fails to resolve a
problem consciously.

The majority of mankind restricts itself largely to the second possibility. Unconscious learning,
however, is always accomplished through suffering. As long as a person is ready to question
old standpoints and fixations, to risk new experiences and to keep extending his
consciousness, so that he masters all the tasks brought to him by fate – as long as he is
ready to do these things he need fear no great illness or blows of fate. But as soon as he
pushes problems aside and tries to escape or deny them (in psychology this would be called
either repression or suppression), fate begins to push him into the unconscious learning
process. He becomes the victim of a situation in which he is forced to resolve at least part of
the problem through experience. In such situations the learning process is usually incomplete
because the resistance of the sufferer is too great. Not until a person is reconciled to a
situation can he fully grasp its meaningfulness. Thus the unresolved remnant of a problem will
necessitate another hard lesson. Here is an example:
Let us suppose that a person's horoscope contains the aspect which, in astrological
terminology, is called “Saturn square Mars”. In technical terms this means that the planet
Saturn formed an angle of 90 degrees to the planet Mars when the person was born. This
Saturn-Mars aspect is, however, just a symbol for a particular task that has to be
accomplished as part of the learning process. The reader will remember the keywords that
are linked with the Saturn principle: resistance, structure, restraint. Mars, on the other hand,
we associated with energy and thrust. If in a horoscope these two primal principles form the
aspect that we call a “square”, it means that, in the case of this individual, energy and
restraint are coupled and cannot be separated. This can be summed up in the term “energy-
restraint-syndrome”. Whenever this individual is about to expend energy he simultaneously
comes up against restraint.
Such a person will complain bitterly about the world around him and believe that malicious
forces are constantly hampering him. The more he projects “blame onto the environment the
less he will solve his problem. It is quite true that the environment is the medium through
which these restraints operate, but the problem lies with the person concerned because of the
tendencies in him which, by the law of affinity, contact the corresponding parts of the

56
environment. One can even say that he is unconsciously seeking part of himself. In reality he
needs these restraints, since without them his energies could never be stretched. Such
individuals grow in proportion to the obstacles they encounter, and this can lead to a search
for ever-increasing restraints.
The aspect in question represents a task. In itself it is neither good nor bad. It is there merely
to be translated into reality by the individual and thereby resolved.
Let us suppose furthermore that this person is in the habit of rigorously suppressing the
problem. Wherever he encounters it he projects it outwards and unloads the responsibility
onto the environment, but he himself does nothing to resolve it. He does not consider it as
“his problem” at all.
In astrology there exist certain techniques by which one can determine the moment when a
particular aspect is activated for the individual. Most astrologers are inclined to designate
some aspects as bad or dangerous and would urge anyone seeking advice on one to take
particular care around the time when the aspect in question is triggered off. Regardless of any
such (quite senseless) advice, our individual will now find himself in a situation where he
experiences as a victim the “energy-restraint” problem that he has been avoiding. To use an
analogy that corresponds to the same primal principles, it is as though he were to drive at 100
miles an hour against a tree. If he did this he would experience what energy (100 miles an
hour) and restrain (tree) mean. He would have learned directly what these primal principles
are.
From such events lessons are learned, even if not always with the desired thoroughness. A
happening of this kind appears to justify astrologers in speaking of dangerous and negative
aspects in a horoscope. But in reality what has happened in a case like this is that a
completely neutral aspect has become dangerous because the task which it indicates has not
been consciously fulfilled by the person concerned.
What would the conscious solution be in this case? It would mean looking for an activity or
occupation in which the principles indicated (energy and restraint) could be continually
realized on some level of reality. For the person in this example, the sport of karate would be
a possibility. In this sport one learns how to deal blows of high intensity and at the same time
how to control the force of a blow with great exactitude if one wishes to avoid killing the
opponent. The enormous forces exerted in this type of hand-foot-combat are demonstrated by
the fact that a karate expert can shatter a brick or thick wooden board with his bare hand.
Thus, the two salient characteristics of this sport are the use of powerful blows and the
precision with which these blows are controlled. Karate therefore aptly corresponds to our
Mars-Saturn aspect. The otherwise undirected energy of Mars is brought here into unison
with the structured nature of Saturn. If the individual we have been considering were to learn
this sport he would, through his daily training, be constantly expressing his particular Mars-
Saturn combination. By experiencing and confronting the problem he would come to
understand it better. And this understanding would transfer itself naturally to the other levels of
his being.
This person would then need to have no fear in regard to the working out of his configuration.
He would not hit a tree even if he did drive his car at 100 miles an hour. Certainly this
configuration will manifest itself for him at the appropriate time, but it will not endanger it. For
instance, he might at that moment win a karate contest or gain a new dan.
This example should make it clear to what extent the fulfillment of the task is determined and
to what extent there is a choice between the conscious and the unconscious part. Fate has to
do with the end result not with the way leading to it. What is important is the completion of the

57
learning process, not the amount of suffering that a person burdens himself with en route by
continually refusing to learn.
This example should also throw light on the question of the exactitude of astrological
prognosis. Astrology works with the exactitude on the level of the principles, but these
principles can be manifested on any number of different planes. The determining of the plane
of manifestation is to a large extent impossible for astrology. I say: “to a large extent” because
it is, in fact, possible to recognize the dominance of particular planes, and it may be that a
refinement of this possibility will come as astrological techniques develop further. Modern
astrological systems can to some extent determine the plane of manifestation but the multi-
leveled nature of such systems makes the application of prognosis practically impossible. It
should be made clear, however, that this is not due to a lack of exactitude, but is a
consequence of vertical thinking. As fate does not care about the specific plane of
manifestation we should not give it too much importance either.
Later we shall see how this very interchangeability of planes opens up valuable therapeutic
possibilities. It may, of course, seem strange to the layman that for the astrologer the car
crash should be equated with the practice of karate, but precisely this way of thinking makes it
possible to discover entirely new interconnections within reality.
Illnesses and blows of fate nearly always represent the passive aspect of a lesson that has
not been learnt voluntarily. To put it in a nutshell: he who does not learn, suffers. We human
beings tend to make peculiar demands on life and fate. We behave as though we had the
right to be fortunate, rich, healthy and happy. What a grotesque misconception of reality!
What entitles us to make such a claim?
We are not incarnated into this world to idle in the sunshine but to develop ourselves and to
serve the world to the best of our abilities. The person who does this consciously will also find
happiness. What I have said is not intended to be life-negating but merely to set the priorities
right.
Man is continually in search of happiness. This is not only his birthright, but the deepest
motivation of his actions. Yet the paths that he chooses are generally the least likely to lead
him to his goal. Man chases after happiness without having any precise conception of what
this happiness really is. Thus he identifies objects of one kind or another in the outer world
with the longed-for feeling of happiness and believes that only when he possesses these
things will he be truly happy.
Now begins an endless and senseless chase. For as soon as he attains the desired objects
he finds that they reveal themselves as incapable of bestowing the promised fulfillment. A
hungry man believes he will be the happiest man in the world when he has eaten his fill. Give
him enough to eat and he will believe that his happiness will only be complete when he has
somewhere to live. Give him somewhere to live and he will long for his own house and
garden. Give him these and he will want fame and recognition. When he has attained these
aims, he will find that a chronic illness stands between him and happiness. Cure the illness
and he will feel lonely and will now only need company to make him happy. “Happily” death at
last releases him temporarily from this exhausting pursuit of happiness.
His mistakes lies in the belief that happiness is dependent on outside things. Man overlooks
the fact that external objects are only alluring as long as he does not possess them. One
cannot chase after or possess happiness. One can only be happy. Happiness is a state of
consciousness, a condition of the soul. It is fully independent of the outside world. It takes root
where individuals are in harmony with the universe; it blossoms when they are conscious of
their task and recognize the grace of being able to serve.

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Suffering is the polar opposite of happiness and therefore, in the last analysis, the same thing.
“Happily” for mankind, suffering is there to make sure that we do not remain wandering
forever on false paths. Suffering prevents stagnation and ensures that we do not give up the
quest. Suffering is always a roundabout way – yet it is a way.

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ASTROLOGY AND REINCARNATION

Let us return to our natal horoscope. We have seen that it represents a person's study plan
for life and as such reveals a person's fate. The course of a person's life is already evident at
birth. In living out his life he is merely bringing a latent pattern into realization. In human life
there is no coincidence.
The question arises whether someone would have had a different study plan and therefore a
different fate if he or she had “by chance” been born a few hours earlier or later. The answer
is yes, for a different time would be of a different quality and would therefore indicate a
different course of life.
My readers may think that we have gone to a lot of trouble to eliminate chance from human
life only to encounter it again in a concentrated form at the moment of birth. Can the chance
factor of the moment of birth determine a person's fate? Let us not forget that nothing in this
world happens by chance and that therefore the event of a birth is also subject to higher laws.
Every event is only a formal expression of some inner content. Form and content must
correspond. From the form one can recognize the content and vica versa. A typical error of
youth is to imagine that, in looking for meaningful content, one can neglect form. A birth is a
formal event which takes place at a moment of a certain quality and which expresses the
content of that moment. So what is this content?
At this point we must jump ahead a little to the subject of reincarnation. A new-born individual
is not a blank sheet of paper, that is to say a pure and virgin soul, as we imagine children to
be, dependent only on the fortune of his moment of birth. If we look backwards through the
biography of a person's soul, we find, as we shall see later, that it has a long chain of earthly
existences behind it. In each new life it was confronted with a specific study plan which it was
free to tackle properly or not.
When a person dies it is rare for him to have fully grasped and fulfilled all the demands and
tasks presented to him by fate. Nearly always something remains unredeemed and
unassimilated. This can be compared with a commercial balance sheet where the bottom line
shows a debit which is carried over. This figure is, as it were, the soul's code number. This
code number is indicative of the soul's degree of maturity and therefore of the quality it
possesses at any given time. A soul can only reincarnate when the quality of the moment
corresponds to its own quality.
Earlier I said that if an event is to manifest itself it can only do so at a moment when the time
quality is commensurate with the latent content of the event. The same is true of a soul. The
time quality is the gateway to material reality and will only open when the soul's quality of
content corresponds to it. Such is the law of resonance! The moment of incarnation is the
moment of conception. But, according to the law we have already studied, there is a
correlation between conception and birth. Hence we can say: the quality of the moment of
birth is expressive of the nature of the incarnating soul.
The horoscope is nothing but an intermediate reference, showing the stage that an individual
has reached on the journey through their series of earthly existences. It is therefore neither
random nor unjust. The horoscope shows us the individual's karma – it is the study plan that
has become necessary for his present incarnation.
Here it becomes apparent how fundamental is the connection between astrology and the
doctrine of reincarnation. Without reference to reincarnation astrology is untenable nonsense.
No astrologer can deny reincarnation and give a satisfactory answer to the question of why
one person's horoscope should be different from another's. Without reincarnation the

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horoscope would become a product of chance occurrence or of fate's capriciousness. But if
we accept that fate is random and arbitrary our preoccupation with astrology becomes
senseless because we can then use it only to calculate the patterns of chance occurrence.
The horoscope represents what each of us has acquired through his or her deeds. One
cannot complain about it. There are no good horoscopes or bad horoscopes, but certainly
there are tasks which can be more easily or less easily accomplished.
Unfortunately more and more erroneous ideas are spreading among astrologers because of a
tendency to mix up astrology with the mechanistic thinking of our age. And thus there is an
increasing danger that a person who seeks advice in astrology will come to more harm than
good. A particularly dangerous notion is that the planets exert an influence, for this
encourages people to turn the heavenly bodies into a new kind of projection screen for their
feelings of guilt and inadequacy. Previously it was the environment, the family, the profession
or the state that served this purpose. Now it may be Saturn who is the scapegoat. The victims
of this attitude blame all their difficulties in life on the fact that they have “bad horoscopes”,
and they envy successful people for their “good horoscopes”.
When astrology drops to such low standards we should not be surprised that accusation of
superstition are still heard. This fundamentally wrong attitude gives rise almost automatically
to what is probably the most widely disseminated error among followers of astrology: namely
that astrology is a method for correcting one's fate. Almost universally astrology is used with
the intention of outwitting fate a little to the advantage of the astrologer or his client.
As a result of this attitude there are consultations where people are, for example, strongly
recommended to be extremely careful for the next few months, not to undertake anything
important during that period and, if possible, to stay in bed on three particular days, because
at that time a wicked and dangerous configuration of planets will be operating. However, the
astrologer goes on to add, his client need not completely despair because six month later
Jupiter will be in trine with the Sun and things will be looking much rosier. This is the time for
carrying out projects; anything undertaken then should meet with happy and profitable results.
Better no astrology at all than thus misleading mankind! This sort of thing produces astrology
addicts who, before taking a decision or even making a car journey, have to consult the
astrologer in order to hear whether the planets are favourably inclined or not. Astrology should
not be evaluated by the aberrations of those who use it – otherwise it would soon have to be
classified among the worst addictions.
Mankind is fascinated by the idea of cheating fate and each of us tries it his own way: doctors
with their intensive care units, astrologers with their charts. The same gulf that stands
between orthodox medicine and true healing also separates modern-day astrology from true
knowledge of the starts and planets.

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THE ACCOMPLISHMENT OF FATE

Astrology is not a means of cheating fate but a tool for accomplishing it. The Romans and
Greeks still looked upon the planetary principles as gods. Each primal principle was
personified and its characteristics were portrayed as attributes of a particular deity. The
Olympus of antiquity was, like astrology, a system for illustrating reality. At this point it is worth
mentioning en passant that the Bible is also firmly built on the seven planetary principles, but
this will be dealt with in a separate chapter.
The Greeks knew a simple formula for avoiding friction with the gods: as long as sacrifices
are made to the divine powers they do not harm man. If no sacrifices are made the godhead
snatches a victim by force. This formula is still valid and is actually the key to astrology. In fact
it is closer to reality to imagine the primal principles as gods than to see them as dead
heavenly bodies.
The concept of “sacrifice” means to allow space for a primal principle within one's own sphere
of experience, to integrate it into one's consciousness. The various principles will confront a
human being at different times in his life, and each will demand its due, challenging him to
come to terms with it. But he who locks the door when he hears the gods knocking and
refuses to allow them in can be certain that sooner or later he will be forced to make the
sacrifice that he has refused to yield willingly. He who meets that challenge by letting the
godhead into his personal sphere and becoming familiar with it need not fear it.
The path of a human life should lead to completeness; every advancement in learning,
however small, makes the human being more complete. We move towards completeness
when we add that which is still missing, when we integrate the as yet unknown. Thus, in
accordance with the laws, a human being is always confronted by fate with those principles
which he has hitherto not realized, those which have remained alien to him, those which are
still missing from his experience.
This is the dangerous point where so many people make the mistake of closing themselves
up and resisting the sacrifice that is demanded of them. This is where the fight begins
between fate and the individual, with fate's victory as a foregone conclusion. As the loser, the
individual complains about how he has been ruined by the wickedness of fate, overlooking the
fact that he was the one who refused fate's invitation.
This is where astrology comes into its own. Astrological counseling should show the human
being which study plan he has to accomplish in this incarnation and should explain to him the
particular principles with which he has to come to terms. The astrologer, if he does not want to
steal his client's own development, should not tell him the future. But he can inform him when
a particular godhead will knock at his door and which attitude is required in order to get to
know and love this god. Unfortunately we all too often forget that everything which we really
get to know well we also automatically learn to love. To hate something invariably means not
to know it.
Vertical thinking makes it possible for the astrologer to show his client the possibilities that
exist on various levels for assimilating whatever principle has to be encountered for resolving
the corresponding configuration of planets. Genuine astrological counseling never involves
warning someone against a principle or its configuration. Rather the aim is always to give
advice and encouragement in the confronting of it.
Herein lie the possibilities of a true “astrotherapy”. This form of therapy, as I have developed
and consolidated it in recent years, uses as its basis a “reality-matrix” of the kind which I
outlined at the beginning of this chapter. This enables us to translate the ten primal principles

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and their various configurations on to many different planes. We have seen how problems
and diseases are examples of the way in which a configuration on the primal plane will claim
its due on some other plane such as the mental or physical realm.
It is the task of every illness to acquaint the human being with some particular principle which
he has not willingly tried to assimilate. With the help of a reality-matrix it is possible to make
an illness superfluous by pointing out other planes on which the same principle can be
assimilated, provided one stays on the same vertical alignment in moving from one plane to
another. With this method there is no need to fight against a symptom. Indeed the symptom
itself becomes superfluous, since the confrontation with the corresponding principle takes
place on another plane. This is what we might call conscious vertical symptom-displacement.
Let us take another example to illustrate what has been said.
It is possible to calculate that somebody will shortly enter a Saturn phase; in other words, that
a configuration featuring the planet Saturn will become manifest in his chart. I choose the
Saturn principle again for two reasons: first, because it is considered particularly “bad” and is
therefore generally feared; secondly because we have already become acquainted with this
principle to some extent as well as with its analogous correlations on other planes (see matrix
on page...)
Many an astrologer would warn a client about this configuration and the things that it implies:
loss, restriction, accidents, illness and so on. Such a warning does not help the client in any
way, who will only be frightened and feel victimized by the apparently malign planet. In fact
the impending Saturn configuration means only that the time is ripe for getting to know the
principle of Saturn better, for integrating that principle into one's life, for assimilating the
Saturnian god in order to become more complete.
In order to make this process easier and reduce the client's resistance, we should first explain
the principle and make clear that it represents an ingredient in the structure of reality and has
its own justification. Following that we would give our client several pieces of advice as to how
he or she can actively translate this principle into living experience. These pieces of advice
might, in the beginning, sound a bit odd, but our matrix helps us to illustrate their significance.
They might be as follows:
During the next few weeks try to reduce any activities of an expansive, outgoing nature. Avoid
parties and social gatherings, amusement and lavishness. Try during that time to wear
predominantly black clothing and go for frequent walks in cemeteries. If at all possible
organize a room where you can retire and be alone. This room should be sparsely furnished,
containing only essentials, and should be painted either all white or all black. Place on the
wall, if you wish, the thirteenth Tarot card (death) and on your desk a skull or an hour-glass.
Retreat as often as you can to this meditation room. Read the Tibetan Book of the Dead and
certain passages in the Bible. Avoid copious meals – you could try a macrobiotic diet or,
better still, fast. Drink, preferably horsetail tea. Suitable medicines would be lead or calcium
taken in homeopathic form in a single dose of high potency. Listen to serious, classical music.
Pay great attention to orderliness in everything you do during this time. Try to restructure
many areas of activity in your life. Learn to know and love the blessings of quietness and
solitude.
It is easy to see that all these recommendations come from the vertical chain of analogies
belonging to the Saturn principle: structure, lead, horsetail, the colour black, cemeteries,
symbols of death, and so on. The possibilities can be extended to many other planes and can
be adapted to the individual in question. If our client follows a reasonable number of these
recommendations he or she will inevitably learn to know and understand the Saturn principle.

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One simply cannot do these things without experiencing a change within.
Because our client is doing all this voluntarily no resistance will be produced and he will learn
to love, in all its meaningfulness, the Saturnian attributes of limitation, renunciation, structure
and reduction to bare necessities. Afterwards he will realize that by putting himself in touch
with such problems as death, loneliness and stillness – which he so painstakingly avoided
before – he has made himself more mature and aware of new dimensions of reality. He was
able during this period, to do actively what he needed to do: namely to learn how to assimilate
an aspect of reality hitherto unfamiliar to him. He accomplished his study plan and solved the
problem.
If he does not follow these recommendations because he thinks renunciation, reduction and
solitude are “not for him”, if he rejects such things and continues in his habitual way of life,
then the Saturnian configuration may become for him a “bad” one. It will claim its “victim” by
force. This could mean our client ending up in hospital owing to an accident. Here he is
obliged to do without parties, social gatherings, copious meals, entertainments – all the things
that we have recommended him to give up willingly! His hospital room is reduced to the bare
essentials – the sort of room we advised him to organize for himself. Every now and then he
witnesses how dead patients are wheeled out of the corridor, and he himself is absorbed in
the thoughts of how close to death he was in the accident – we, too, advised him to reflect on
the subject of death. He is alone a great deal and has time to think.
As we see, the end result is the same. We have said earlier that what has to be learned is
already determined. The difference lies in the choice, in “how” we learn, whether willingly or
by force.

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ILLNESS AS INFORMATION

In the same manner illnesses and problems which have already manifested themselves can
be resolved. A therapy which looks at things in this way always begins by asking: what is the
illness trying to teach the patient? What is it that this person still has to learn? A therapy
always has to replace the learning process, which was originally aimed at by the illness –
otherwise it cannot heal.
We shall see that this requires a homeopathic attitude. (More about the “simile” principle
when we look at homeopathy in the next chapter.) Therefore it is useless to try to amuse or
distract a depressive patient. He would do better to confront the Saturnian principle actively –
black colour, solitude, death and so on – if he wants to be healed. But nowadays we are
constantly going against this basic law. The patient is given a colourful, friendly sick-room and
humorous books to read, which is as inappropriate as trying to amuse a person in mourning
by cracking jokes.
In all matters we oppose the will of fate instead of supporting it. Some methods of therapy
happen to obey the law of analogy, but those who use them are unsuspecting. They usually
fabricate complicated theories in order to explain the effectiveness of the method which in fact
merely obeys the law of analogy. The principle of Neptune signifies that which is veiled and
unconscious, the dissolution of all that stands, concrete and tangible, in the foreground. Its
chain of analogy contains,inter alia the following things: alcohol, drugs, poison, deception,
water, the colour bottle-green, feet, dreams, visions, mysticism, esotericism. This chain
explains, moreover, why on the one hand the public finds it difficult to separate deception and
illusion from esotericism, and on the other hand why in esoteric circles cheating and
deception, of both oneself and others, is so common.
When the Neptune principle becomes prominent in a person's life it highlights the background
of experience and gives access to the unconscious. But for this to happen the foreground,
with its consciousness, logic and intellect, must temporarily weaken and become permeable.
This state also brings slackened concentration, day-dreaming and the like.
Faced with this unaccustomed surfacing of the unconscious the individual begins by going to
his doctor, who prescribes certain drugs. These will help a little because they are “poison” and
therefore belong to the same chain of analogy. At a later stage he may, perhaps go to a
psychotherapist for treatment. Here, at last, he is able to do what Neptune is trying to teach
him: confront the unconscious, the dream world, the irrational. But what helps him is the mere
contact with these levels rather than any explanation that psychoanalytic theory can offer. A
holiday by the sea or the reading of an esoteric novel would do the same thing as would
footbath treatment or colour therapy with bottle-green light.
Such examples can be multiplied ad infinitum, but what should be underlined here is the
importance of having a matrix of reality which enables us to recognize the structure of
astrological and, in the widest sense, esoteric correlation.

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THE WAY TO FREEDOM

Using the example of astrology, I have tried to make clear the concept of fate and the correct
way to work with it. Astrology was only an aid to better understanding of fate. We could
equally well have reached the same result by other means.
There remains only the question of predestination and freedom of will. Any attempt to answer
this question can easily end up in a cul-de-sac if one ignores the law of polarity.
Determinism and free will are two poles which condition one another and belong together and
which are not mutually exclusive as is widely believed. As with every polarity our
understanding finds it difficult, if not impossible, to grasp how these two poles can exist
simultaneously. Yet one cannot live without the other and vice versa. They depend on each
other like light and darkness, breathing in and breathing out. Therefore the way to freedom is
through the accomplishment of the law of fate.
The paradoxical truth is: only by submitting to law can one be free. Yet the majority try to
achieve freedom through arbitrary wilfulness, not realizing that this way leads to loss of
freedom. Suffering is merely the friction that arises between the human being and the laws of
the world. To fulfill the law means to no longer experience friction. These then are the golden
rules for attainment of absolute freedom:

1 Know thyself (the microcosm)

2 Recognize universal law (the macrocosm)
3 Know that this law is good (and thus be in harmony)
4 Place yourself voluntarily and completely under it.

He who takes these four steps will reach the Quinta Essentia which is called: freedom. He
who places himself voluntarily under the law becomes one with the law, becomes himself the
law – there is nothing more above him that can hinder him. Thus Crowley writes: “Every
human being should be like a star and follow his own path”. A star is free so long as it follows
its trajectory. The loss of freedom only begins with departure from the path.
Likewise every human being has a path to follow in this cosmos of ours. But one must
recognize it in order to avoid the friction that comes from following the false path. Thus we
advocate neither activity nor passivity – only the two together can create a rhythm. A person
must begin by being still and listening in order to become aware of his path, but after that he
must actively follow it. Such activity arises from trust, not from the egomania of “I will, I do”. A
human being attains his highest freedom when he can speak the words:
“Lord, not my will, but Thy will be done”.

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CHAPTER V
SICKNESS AND HEALING

Without a Redeemer there is no redemption from sickness. The restoration of the biological
norm is never healing in the higher sense. Healing is making whole.

•Herbert Fritsche

SICKNESS IS the most common way of discharging fate. Just as in society as a whole we
experience increasingly severe and intractable problems, so we can observe a similar
process when it comes to the sickness and health of an individual. On the one hand we see
an almost breathtaking development of medicine in the technical sphere, on the other, the
number of sick people is increasing, and being ill is becoming more and more expensive.
If we consider the great interest in the problem of disease and the manifold discussion about
it, we cannot help being surprised at the simplistic and trivial way in which this subject is
approached. How much heavier must the pressure of events become before people begin to
grasp the fact that hitherto accepted theories of medicine are quite inadequate to deal with
the phenomenon of disease, which lies on a totally different level? We tend to forget that
errors of thinking are not put right by being more widely disseminated.
Modern medicine can be traced back to Hippocrates (400 BC). Hippocrates belonged to the
tribe known as the Asklepeans, who followed the famous cult of Asklepios, god of healing.
Over the centuries they erected in Greece many sanctuaries (Asklepeions) where the priests
healed the sick through rituals and magical chanting. Hippocrates, who himself set great store
by his descent from the Asklepeans, nevertheless broke with their tradition of priestly
medicine. He began to study disease on its own, outside any religious context, and to develop
appropriate cures by observing how diseases ran their courses. In this way he laid the
foundation for the method which is still obligatory today for modern medicine.
This medicine has hardly changed since Hippocrates and has not developed when one
weighs the gains in some areas against the losses in others. Before the break-away by
Hippocrates healing was a matter for the priesthood and therefore was part of religion. Illness
was an expression of God's anger and was healed by the priest acting as a bridge-builder
(this is the meaning of the Latin word for priest, pontifex). He called the sick person to
repentance and thus reconciled him with God once again. From the point of view of priestly
medicine, illness is always connected with guilt, and healing with repentance and a
willingness to change one's ways.
When Hippocrates turned away from this tradition he was also turning away from the concept
of “being ill” and towards the concept of “illness” per se. Thus, up to the present day, medicine
has concerned itself with the diagnosis and treatment of “illness” and thereby overlooks the
real problem of “being ill”. Instead of saying that a person has an illness it would be much
more accurate to say that he is ill.
Modern medicine, however, instead of treating the patient, merely treats his illness, his
symptoms. And, however successful it may be on this level, it never touches the sick man
himself. Through looking at illnesses in isolation, we have developed impressive ways of
dealing with individual groups of symptoms (which we call infectious diseases, deficiency
illnesses, and so on). But we fail to realize that this does not in any way alter the state of

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“being ill” in itself. Thus Hans Blüher, who has thrown more philosophical light on this question
than anyone else, writes in his Treatise on the Healing Art:

Illnesses are a load that mankind bears; the sum total of the world's illness remains the same;
at any rate it cannot be changed by any human intervention. When a doctor heals a sick
person he does not thereby eliminate a piece of illness form the world, any more than you can
eliminate matter by burning it. What he does is to take away this man's share of illness and
unwittingly load it on to someone else.

As our theme is man's fate we must also deal with illness, this “load that mankind bears”. The
symptoms themselves are of minor interest to us in this connection. This way of looking at
things makes it necessary to link medicine with philosophy and religion, even if this
connection is anxiously avoided by scientific medicine. And understandably we shall come to
different conclusions about the healing of illnesses.
In order to avoid any misunderstanding, let me emphasize form the outset that I do not wish
to attack anyone or condemn anyone's actions. It remains totally indisputable that our
medicine does in many cases provide necessary help, which the patient accepts gratefully in
his particular need. But we are looking at things not on the level of mere aid but on the level of
illness and the healing of it. Medical therapy has its blessings and its justifications, but it has
nothing to do with healing.
To heal is to make “whole”, and it takes place on a level which is unknown to scientific
medicine. In clarifying these concepts and connections I am not offering criticism but rather
trying to indicate where we behave too unconsciously. The unconscious is always the
necessary forerunner of the conscious.
Everything has its justification in its own time. But time is what takes this justification away
again. Error is lack of understanding. Thus every error awaits its transmutation, for all lead
must one day be changed into gold. Just as a dream of summer is latent in winter, and just as
the night paves the way for the day, so in every error a bright kernel of truth lies concealed. It
is our task to free that kernel.

ILLNESS AND DEATH AS SIGNS OF FATE

We have seen that illness usually represents a passive learning process whose purpose is to
familiarize an individual with a reality that he or she has not yet accepted. Illnesses are
always bearers of information. There are no meaningless illnesses. They show us where we
have wandered from our true path; they force us to leave the false path; they compel us to
ask questions.
Healing consists in freeing the information that is contained in illness. To do this it is
necessary to ask what the illness means. And here lies the danger of modern medicine, which
tries to explain illness in a purely mechanical way. By providing apparent answers, it presents
the patient from asking the real question “why?”
Every sick person feels deep down that his illness must have something to do with the way he
is. He experiences a certain sense of guilt, for he knows that his illness signifies more than
just a malfunctioning of his body. But this approach is immediately stifled by the doctor with
the assurance that the whole thing is “nothing but...”. Thus illness loses its role as bearer of
information, as a partner on the difficult path of evolution. Instead it is labelled as an enemy
that must be fought with every possible means.

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It is striking that in medicine one always speaks of the fight against illness. Small wonder,
then, that it is precisely these doctors who can never understand the state of being ill. It is
impossible to know and understand an enemy as long as one “fights” against him. As long as
medicine keeps up this fight it will have to endure the fate of being incompetent in matters of
illness because it lacks understanding. The first and most important task of the patient is to be
in harmony with illness and to learn to say “yes” to it. But how can he do this when his doctor
regards himself as a fighter against illness? Resistance always produces resistance, struggle
is always met by struggle.
As with governments engaged in war, who tell their people only about victories and remain
silent about defeats, so in medical circles we hear only of victories over illness. After so many
reported victories one would expect that gradually all trace of the enemy would vanish. Yet the
enemy is so strong – thank God – that he is not influenced by injections, pills and surgical
knives. I say “thank God” because if illness were to disappear the possibility of human
development would also disappear. Only if a man is sick can he be made whole. Without
sickness there is no healing.
The second great and self-appointed enemy of medicine is death, which likewise medicine
attempts to conquer. But this attempt militates against a closer understanding of life. So far
we have not gone beyond observing a few of life's mechanical workings. Life itself as an
independent quality is relatively unknown to medical circles. This is not surprising, when one
considers that medicine has gained its knowledge largely from corpses and is therefore more
a science of death than of life. Here the same primal law applies as in the unfolding of an
individual's fate: the more one struggles against something, the more intensively one is forced
to occupy oneself with it.
This struggle against illness and death is, when we look at it more closely, questionable in a
profession whose declared goal is to help others. To struggle against something means in
effect not being reconciled to it, and this again can be traced back to unconscious fears. This
kind of helping reveals itself as a battle taken into the outside world but essentially directed
against one's own problems, against unresolved fears of illness and death. He who has really
comprehended illness can no longer speak of a “struggle against diseases”. Likewise he who
has reconciled himself with dying does not speak of a “race against death” when a person's
bodily functions have been kept going through intensive care.
Not long ago there was a newspaper article about “despairing” doctors. The cause of their
despair was a young man who, having suffered an accident, used his short period of
consciousness to refuse a blood transmission on religious grounds. One wonders why the
doctors were so despairing. It ought to be because they lacked their patient's strength of
belief.
If the doctor's thirst for power continues to grow at its present rate it will soon be necessary to
introduce a constitutional right to illness and death. Help always has a strange aftertaste
when it is given at any price, particularly when it is against the will of the person concerned.
What I have been saying should no, of course, be interpreted in a one-sided way, I am not
maintaining that doctors are to blame for the fact that the unfortunate patients can no longer
come to terms with illness and death. According to the law of resonance, each person
receives what he deserves – which means in this case that sick people receive the treatment
they deserve. This is true of each individual case. Each patient will come into contact with the
therapist for whom he is ready, and vice versa – which is why every therapist is so deeply
convinced that his method alone is the effective one.
When a society has forgotten how to live with fate and is unwilling to take responsibility for

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illness it acquires expectation that breed the kind of medicine that we have today. Therefore
one cannot change medicine. One can only change the patients themselves – and that is
what we are dealing with here. When a person is ill it means that he has strayed from a
certain state of order and is no longer living in conformity with inner law. This condition will
manifest itself through symptoms. Symptoms are signals and – if they are rightly understood –
can show us how, through the process of being ill, we can be healed. Getting rid of the
symptoms is therefore the least important task.
An analogy can be found in the warning system that modern technology has created. A deep
freeze, for example, has a red light that goes on whenever the temperature in the freezer
becomes too high. No intelligent person would believe that by unscrewing the bulb he could
repair the deep freeze. Yet in the “repairing” of human beings this absurd procedure is
followed repeatedly. Hardly has a symptom appeared than the doctor causes it to vanish and
then proudly record this trick as a piece of successful therapy.
Thus the paradox arises that the statistical success of medicine rests on the fact that it cannot
heal; for every time you suppress a symptom in an individual you cause him to avoid
confronting his illness, which is thus forced to manifest itself in another way. The new
symptom is again suppressed, and medicine claims another successful treatment. And so it
goes on. It is true that this phenomenon is known to medicine as symptom displacement. But
in our highly specialized medicine, where the patient goes from one expert to another, this
effect becomes increasingly less obvious.
A person can only become ill on account of a primal principle, never on account of bacteria,
viruses, toxins and the like. To heal means making the person more whole, that is to say
bringing him nearer to wholeness and holiness. Healing is bound up with a process of
becoming conscious, a process through which he becomes reconciled to the primal principle
(godhead) from which he is ailing. Healing in this sense is self-evidently not a matter of
producing better and better technical aids, more and more chemical remedies, increasingly
refined diagnostic systems. Healing is always a priestly act which takes place on a level
beyond the material. Therefore only to a very limited extent can healing be learned. A true
healer must be initiated by nature into the priestly office. Paracelsus and Hahnemann are
examples of such initiates. There have been others, often less famous than these. But the
truly wise ones are always few in number. It is these few who bear the stamp of priesthood
and who really change the world.
Thus the doctor Vladimir Lindenberg, in his book Inward Journey, has his character Buturlin
say: “...but the world can least exist without the wise ones, the holy ones, the worshippers.
One does not see them and one hears nothing of them; yet they are more real than all others,
for they are the only constant ones.”
In view of the millions of sick people, such a view of healing may seem unrealistic and starry-
eyed. In reality it would scarcely be possible to staff our huge medical establishment with true
healers. Even an ordinary local surgery today is not the right place to care for the spiritual
health of a patient. It is not part of our task in this book to find out whether these conditions
are the determining factors or the consequences of our medicine. But I wish to show that
there are ways, if the will is there, to act according to the fundamental principles of healing, to
follow the example of the great healer-initiates and to be guided by their teachings.

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HOMEOPATHY

One of the most fundamental developments that have taken place in the field of healing is
homeopathy, which, in its most valid form, was developed and promulgated by Samuel
Hahnemann (1755-1843). From the time of its appearance to the present day homeopathy
has been passionately attacked by its opponents and equally passionately defended by its
advocates. In the next few pages I shall try to throw some light on this subject. This is
desirable because, at a time when homeopathy is threatened by hostile legislation, it is vital
that there should be an understanding of it in non-medical circles. More importantly, it is
relevant here, since homeopathy is much more than a mere therapeutic method.
On closer examination, homeopathy reveals itself as based on the true universal healing
principle. It is only by virtue of this higher significance that its application as a physical healing
method is justified. Furthermore, the example of homeopathy will serve to show how the
esoteric world can reveal, quite clearly and simply, the workings of laws that to the person of
materialist outlook seem totally unbelievable.
Opponents have directed their attack mainly against the method of preparing homeopathic
medicines. They maintain that such medicines are “so diluted” that they can no longer contain
anything effective. The press, with astonishing lack of understanding, has tried to prove the
point to the public by putting a drop of some liquid into Lake Constance or the North Sea,
stirring it in symbolically and then claiming that a bottle of full water from the opposite shore
would represent a homeopathic dilution of D30. Others have attempted a more “scientific”
demonstration by purchasing five different homeopathic remedies and analysing these down
to their atomic structures, using modern equipment, only to discover that all five bottles
contain nothing but alcohol with a few impurities in it. Thus, it is claimed, the deception is
exposed, and voices are raised calling for it to be controlled by law.
To defend homeopathy against these totally irrelevant arguments, let us first examine how a
homeopathic remedy is produced. The raw material for a medicine can be almost any
substance in the world, but normally the choice is restricted to natural substances, whether
animal, vegetable or mineral.
Let us take deadly nightshade, or Belladonna (Bell.) to use its botanical name. From the fruit
of this plant a tincture is produced. This tincture is the substance we start with and is therefore
called the primary tincture, designated by the symbol *. Now we take one part of this primary
tincture and add it to 9 parts of a solvent such as alcohol, shaking the two together. This
should, strictly speaking, be done with a specific number of shakes – a procedure which is
called potentising. What we have now produced we call Bell. D1, that is to say the first
decimal potency of Belladonna. Next we take one portion of this Bell. D1 and again shake it
together with 9 portions of solvent, thus obtaining Bell. D2. This potentising procedure can be
carried forwards repeatedly, leading to the following table.

1 part Bell. * +9 parts alcohol = Bell. D1 (proportion 1 in 10)

1 part Bell. D1 +9 parts alcohol = Bell. D2 (proportion 1 in 100)
1 part Bell. D2 +9 parts alcohol = Bell. D3 (proportion 1 in 1000)
1 part Bell. D3 +9 parts alcohol = Bell. D4 (proportion 1 in 10,000)
1 part Bell. D4 +9 parts alcohol = Bell. D5 (proportion 1 in 100,000)
1 part Bell. D5 +9 parts alcohol = Bell. D6 (proportion 1 in 1 million)
1 part Bell. D6 +9 parts alcohol = Bell. D7 (proportion 1 in 10 million)

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And if we proceed a few more stages we get:

1 part Bell. D29 +9 parts alcohol = Bell. D30 (proportion 1 in 1 quintillion)

We shall stop at D30, although in fact the potentising of a remedy does not by any means
have to end here. Every remedy can be carried to any number of potencies. You can have
Bell. D12, D30, D200, D500, D1000, D10,000, and so on. With Belladonna D200 the number
of parts of alcholo + one part of the primary tincture would be written with a figure one
followed by 200 noughts.
Now we know that, even with D23, the dilution is so thin that not a single molecule of the
original substance (in this case Belladonna) can be traced. Any potencies beyond that can
only be a ritual shaking up of alcohol. Chemically speaking, there is absolutely no difference
between Bell. D30 and Bell. D200. Both are pure alcohol and in chemical terms do not
deserve the name Belladonna. Yet homeopaths do work with these “higher potencies”.
Hahnemann, in carrying out his cures, used almost exclusively the thirtieth potency.
This pleases the opponents of homeopathy, as it seems to prove that the homeopaths are
working with “nothing”. The truth of the matter is, however, that the genuine homeopath uses
D30 precisely in order to be sure that he is no longer working with matter.
For the sake of completeness we should mention here that there exist also the so-called C-
(centessimal) potencies. Here the dilution increases in steps of 100 instead of 10. In the case
of the C-potencies – which in fact preceded the D-potencies and are therefore preferred – one
obviously leaves the material plane much more quickly. From C12 no speck of the original
substance remains. A later development of Hahnemann were the so-called LM-
(quintcentessimal) potencies. These correspond to the higher potencies, but are easier to
handle in treatment. However this is not the place to enter into a technical discussion of such
specialized matters.
We have seen how homeopathic medicines contain little or nothing of the prescribed
substance. If this seems paradoxical, even greater confusion is caused by the method of
administering a dosage. If, for example, a patient is prescribed D6, he may have to take a
dose every two hours, a dose consisting always of 7 drops or globules. (Homeopathic
medicines are not only liquids but also some in the form of small milk-sugar pellets, called
globules, where the milk-sugar corresponds to the alcohol solvent.) If our patient is prescribed
a potency of D30 he is allowed to take one dose per day, whereas with D200 he takes one
single dose and then no further medicine for six weeks. For someone used to swallowing pills
one after another, it is very strange to be given seven drops of a medicine and then to hear
that he can report again in six weeks time, especially when he knows that what he has taken
contains nothing of the substance prescribed.
The confusion increases when one learns that a homeopath might, for example, prescribe the
same medicine for a woman with varicose veins as he prescribed for her husband with
tonsillitis. And when the woman comes down with tonsillitis she is given a quite different
remedy again. Thus it appears that there is not rhyme or reason to the choosing of
medicaments.

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INFORMATION AS MEDICINE

Faced with such apparent illogicalities, it is not surprising that the scoffers have an easy time
presenting homeopathy as a superstition. But on the other hand the successes of
homeopathy are so unmistakeable that attempts to explain them away in terms of placebo-
effect, spontaneous healing, autosuggestion, and so on, do not sound very convincing.
Anyone who can say of a doctor who has worked exclusively with homeopathy for thirty years
that he has been relying all that time on the suggestibility of his patients, must be naïve in the
extreme. If such a thing could be true, orthodox medicine would have to be ashamed of itself
for not being able to achieve the same degree of success with the placebo-effect. But in any
case, if homeopathy works through suggestibility, how is it that it can be used successfully on
animals? This question has not yet been satisfactorily answered by science.
Here I could mention a whole series of purely experimental tests proving the effectiveness of
homeopathy, carried out by Pfeiffer, Kolisko, Voll and others. But my purpose is not to
convince the ignorant of something that they cannot and will not understand. I would simply
point to the fact that the effectiveness of homeopathy far exceeds that of all orthodox medical
techniques. This is a fact which anyone can verify for himself if he wishes. Instead of
concentrating on experimental proofs it is more profitable to ask how and why homeopathy
heals in the way it does and why it goes against all the conception of ordinary medicine.
The contradictions rapidly dissolve if we make a distinction between two things: information
and the bearer of information. Consider a cassette of tape for making recordings. This
consists of a plastic casing containing a reel of coated plastic tape. With this cassette one can
record, say, a concert or a lecture. The music or the words are the information. If you look at
two cassettes, one containing a lecture, the other music, there is nothing to distinguish them
unless they have different labels.
The same is true of a book. A book consists of paper, glue and printing ink. The contents
might be, for example, a history of Europe. If you analyzed this book down to its atomic
structure you would end up with a list of data about the volume: its weight, its exact
dimensions, its chemical composition and so on. But one thing would not emerge from the
analysis, namely the history of Europe. The contents of the book, the real information in it,
would have been lost in the process.
From the standpoint of the opponent of homeopathy the multiplicity of books that are available
is a pure fraud since all books contain broadly the same physical material and are
distinguished only by their titles. The the different titles also represent different contents is
something that is not proved by this limited analysis.
Information is always something non-material and needs a material bearer in order to be
disseminated. Such a bearer can be made of many different substances – magnetic tape, the
plastic of a record, paper, wood, stone, metal, air and so on – yet still perform the same task.
Similar information-carriers can disseminate different messages. By the same token different
bearers can carry the same message. Usually the important thing is the information rather
than the bearer. If I wish to acquaint myself with Goethe's Faust it is a secondary
consideration whether the text is printed on paper, etched on metal or recorded on tape. What
is essential is the information itself. And if I acquire a copy of Faust in book form, this one
copy is sufficient. Ten more copies would give me no further information.
Now let us apply these simple examples to the problem we have been discussing. We have
already said that when an illness takes place it is the person who is ill not the physical matter
from which he is made. Matter as such can never become ill, since all matter is already “ill”. In

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the body it is only the footprints of illness that are visible. If healing is to take place this can
only happen – as we already emphasized – through an extension of consciousness, that is to
say an influx of information. If a medical preparation claims to be a healing remedy (i.e. a
transmitter of wholeness) then it must convey to the person concerned the information he
lacks.
We have seen that man as a microcosm is a reflection of the macrocosm. Thus everything
that is lacking in an individual must be present in the macrocosm. All macrocosmic principles
are individualized as minerals, animals or plants. The essential thing about a medicinal plant
is precisely its nature as a representative of a primal principle, the quality of soul that is
expressed in its physical organism. If a person is lacking in one of the primal principles it can
be looked for in the macrocosm, and the relevant information can be transmitted to the sick
person. In order to do this, however, it is necessary to separate the information contained in a
mineral or plant from its physical manifestation, to free it from its material bonds. This
released information can then be transferred to a suitable information-carrier in order to be
transmitted.
This is precisely what happens in the homeopathic process of potentising. In the procedure
that we have described the individual essence of the plant is released step by step from its
corporeal form, and as it is freed the information is simultaneously transferred to a different
and neutral carrier – such as alcohol or milk-sugar. The longer one goes on doing that and
increasing the potency, the more the essence is released from its material prison and the
more strongly can it transmit its information in the non-material realm.
The effectiveness of a remedy increases so steeply with the potency that in the case of D200
a mere two drops or globules suffice to dispel hitherto incurable illnesses for ever. If, instead
of two globules, one were to swallow a whole pound of the stuff it would make no difference,
for, as I have already said, ten copies of the same book contain no more information than one
copy, and a hundred visiting cards the same address as one single card, and no more
information about that address. As a true homeopath is concerned only with information he
will work almost exclusively with potencies over D30, since the lower potencies still have a
material component and therefore take the more indirect, physical route to the cure. Hence
they often have to be given in more numerous doses.
Anyone who has understood that potentising is a process of spiritualising matter will also
recognize the distinction between diluting and potentising a substance. Homeopathy, in
Hahnemann's sense, is not a therapy “using miniscule doses of medicine” but rather a
therapy that uses material medicine not at all.
This must be emphasized in view of the fact that recently a group called themselves “critical”
homeopaths have spoken out loudly against the high potencies and wish to make the lower
potencies conform to the materialistic thinking of orthodox medicine. Any attempt by
incompetent followers to adapt esoteric disciplines in this way is an act of betrayal and bears
witness only to the shallowness of those responsible. It was Paracelsus who said: “Medicine
is not something that can be chewed with the teeth; no one can see medicine. It is not a
matter of the body but a matter of power.”

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THE PRINCIPLE OF SIMILARITY

Having tried to throw some light on the production and working of homeopathic remedies, we
now come to the kernel of the matter: how can I determine what information is lacking in a
sick person? And how do I know where the missing information exists in the macrocosm? We
find the answer in Hahnemann's famous motto: Similia similibus curatur, like is cured by like.
The similarity principle is the cornerstone of homeopathy and by far the most important factor
in the healing process. Now let us look at its practical application. Nearly every substance
found in nature is poisonous. The toxicity of different substances varies only according to the
size of dose that is needed to bring about a poisonous effect. A considerably bigger dose of
cooking salt, than mercury for example, is required in order to poison someone. But any
substance, given in a certain quantity, will produce symptoms of poisoning in the human
organism.
Homeopathy tests its remedies on healthy people. A person takes enough of a substance so
that he becomes ill. All the symptoms that appear are then observed down to the minutest
detail and recorded. In this way it is possible to arrive at the toxicity profile as well as the
medicinal profile of any given substance. It is true that individual reactions to a given dosage
of poison are subjective and variable. Nevertheless, by repeated testing of the same
substance on many different people it is possible to determine the characteristic effect of that
substance.
In the testing process, as I have said, a healthy person takes a quantity of some substance
and becomes ill. Now if the doctor is faced with a patient whose symptoms correspond to
those produced in the healthy person by a particular substance, then he knows that this
substance is the “simile”, that is to say the correct remedy for healing this patient. In the case
of the patient, of course, the remedy is administered in its potentised form, not in its material
toxic form.
To give a specific example, let us say that Belladonna when given to a healthy person,
produces symptoms A, B and C. If the patient shows a similar set of symptoms then this
indicates that Belladonna, in its potentised form, is the correct remedy – remembering the
motto similia similibus curantur, like is cured by like.
Here again we see the law of polarity at work. That which is poison to the healthy person is
medicine to the sick person. It is no coincidence that in Greek the word pharmakon means
both poison and medicine.
Using the method I have prescribed, the pioneers of homeopathy tested several thousand
medicinal substances on their own bodies to determine their toxic qualities. Thus the doctors
made themselves ill and became co-sufferers – the word homeopath comes from the
Greek homoion, similar, andpathein, to suffer. Thus, just as a remedy is created out of poison
by potentising, so the doctor who voluntarily descends into illness becomes the true healer
because he is prepared to share the suffering of the patient. Here there comes to mind the
example of Christ who, as God, willingly became a suffering man in order homeopathically –
by similar suffering – to redeem mankind.
Although an unbelievably large number of substances has been tested for medicinal effects it
is necessary to go on testing ever more substances, even though this makes it more and
more difficult to find the right “similar” remedy in each case. This work will not be at an end
until the contents of the entire macrocosm have been tested for their toxic effects and thus for
their healing potential.
If we remember what has been said, in connection with astrology, about falling ill on account

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of a primal principle, we find that the method used in homeopathy becomes clearer. Man as
microcosm contains within himself the sum of all primal principles in the form of non-material
units.
The macrocosm likewise contains all of these primal principles, but in their fallen, sinful form,
bound in the darkness of material manifestation. The plunge form the realm of ideas into the
realm of matter makes the principles poisonous, for poison is the polar opposite of that which
is healing, whole-making, holy. This is why we say that material substances can never heal
since they themselves are not yet redeemed.
If a healthy person takes a primal principle in its material form he poisons himself and
becomes ill. In the sick person, what happens is that one of his “own” primal principles falls
into material form, “becomes dense” as Fritsche puts it, and manifests itself in the body as
matter. This materialized primal principle poisons him, and he becomes ill. He is now lacking
this particular principle on the non-material plane, and hence he experiences its poisonous
effect on the physical plane.
The homeopath has the difficult task of finding out which primal principle is involved in the
illness. Having done that, he gives this to the patient as medicine – a medicine that is taken
from the macrocosm but has been sublimated through potentizing and turned back into non-
material form. In this way the patient receives the information that he is lacking. This
information ensures that the primal principle, in its material and toxic form, is discharged from
the body, and this discharge can be measured experimentally. If a patient is given a dose of
sulphur D200 it will be found that his body will suddenly discharge about 600 times as much
sulphur as is normal – about 5.76 grams per day.
In formulating his simile principle, Hahnemann was expressing a primal law. Healing can only
take place through similarity. Consequently one can evaluate any therapeutic system by the
criterion of whether or not it is true to the homeopathic principle. Orthodox medicine is
allopathic, that is to say it seeks to heal per contraria, by counteracting with an opposite force.
This opposition strategy goes against the cosmic law. Opposition always creates opposition.
One can obtain effects that way, but never heal. All the great doctors have known this. Two
hundred years before Hahnemann, Paracelsus said: “An illness can never be cured per
contraria – that is, with contrasting means – but only with the help of a like influence” (sed
quodlibet suo simile).
In his Paragranum Paracelsus writes: “If you see that an illness has the features of arsenic,
this will show you the cure. For arsenic heals arsenic; anthrax heals anthrax; in short, poison
heals poison. Thus one man can heal another of similar anatomy. Things possessing the
same anatomy heal each other mutually”. Paracelsus knew about the simile principle but not
about the preparation of remedies through potentising. Instead he prepared his remedies
alchemically. In the alchemical preparation the same transmutation from poison to medicine
takes place as in potentizing, but in a different way.
Finally, I should like to remind readers of the astrotherapy system which I outlined in the
previous chapter. The homeopathic nature of this system will now be more readily
understandable. If someone is suffering on account of the Saturn principle he is given a
Saturnian remedy. This is why the depressive requires a dark room, sombre colours and so
on. The common factor is the realization that every illness is a repetition of what we call the
Fall. Hence every healing is a process of redemption in miniature.

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CHAPTER VI
CREATION AND THE FALL OF MANIFESTATION

The avoidance of suffering, however and wherever it may manifest itself, always indicates
that he who practices it is fundamentally of the un-initiated.

•Herbert Fritsche

This you must ken!

From one make ten,
And two let be
Make even three,
Then rich you'll be.
Skip o'er the four!
From five and six,
The Witch's tricks,
Make seven and eight,
'Tis finished straight;
And nine is one,
And ten is none,
That is the witch's one-times-one!

Goethe: Faust, Part I, Scene 6, translated by George Madison Priest.

GOETHE'S WITCH'S multiplication table is hardly comprehensible any longer to the person of
today. It is widely supposed that this is a mere word-play with not much sense behind it – a
supposition which surely cannot be taken seriously with a man like Goethe.
We have already spoken of the polarity of time, of its quantitative and qualitative aspects. Just
as today we tend to consider only the former aspect of time, so we regard numbers only in
terms of quantitative measurement. The number 3 is for us always linked with the conception
of quantity – 3 apples, 3 litres, 3 degrees and so on. But numbers too possess the polar
aspect of quality.
If one learns to understand the quality of numbers, they reveal themselves as the archetypes
and primal symbols of creation. Pythagoras, an initiate of the ancient Egyptian esoteric
disciplines, taught that number is the ultimate foundation stone, the root of this world. If he
gave to mathematics theorems that are still valid today, he also considered all numbers and
mathematical connections in a primarily qualitative way as metaphor for higher reality.
This is exactly the criterion that distinguishes a genius from his followers. When Isaac Newton
had discovered the law of gravity he took to translating the Bible and also wrote, among other
things, books about the prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John. He used the
law of gravity merely as an example and thereby followed the vertical way of thinking. His
followers and successors used the law of gravity to satisfy their curiosity and, in doing so,
proved their lack of understanding.
Numbers, like language, are not something which humans have invented or created but

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something that they have discovered. Numbers are primal qualities, belonging to a reality of a
higher order. When properly interpreted, numbers reveal the laws and secrets of creation –
they illustrate the process of creation.
Let us, therefore, insofar as it is helpful and necessary for our further reflections, consider
some of the qualitative characteristics of numbers, without claiming to exhaust the vast
territory of number mythology.
When dealing with numbers esotericism uses primarily two methods of calculation:
theosophical reduction and theosophical addition. Theosophical reduction consists in taking a
number of two or more digits and reducing it by adding the digits of the number and of any
resulting number until a single digit is reached. Here are some examples:

10=1+0=1
11=1+1=2
12=1+2=3
13=1+3=4
2311=2+3+1+1=7
666=6+6+6=18=9

From this operation it follows that all numbers without exception are but different
representations of the first 9 figures. There are only 9 figures. When we have exhausted
these we write that the first cycle (0) is complete: 10. Then the sequence from 1-9 begins
again, but on another plane. Thus the numbers 1-9 form the basic pattern of every process of
development and creation.
Theosophical addition consists in counting up to the number in question, adding up the digits
as you go. Again, some examples:

The theosophical value of the number 3 is 1+2+3=6

The theosophical value of the number 4 is 1+2+3+4=10
The theosophical value of the number 7 is 1+2+3+4+5+6+7=28
28 reduced to 2+8=10=1+0=1
Therefore: 4=10=1
7=10=1
4=7

If we apply these two operations systematically we find that an inner structure reveals itself in
the building up of numbers. We see that the numbers, 1, 4, 7, 10 are all equal to 1, for these
numbers are built up as follows.

1=1
4=1+2+3+4=10=1
7=1+2+3+4+5+6+7=28=1
10=1

Thus it can be seen that the building up of numbers can be reduced to steps of three, for the
number 4 represents 1 on a higher plane. We therefore arrive at the following table:

123

78
456
789
10 11 12
13 14 15 and so on.

We see that all numbers in the first vertical row (1, 4, 7, 10, 13, 16, 19 etc.) are only
extensions of the number 1. To recapitulate:

1=1
4=1+2+3+4=10=1
7=1+2+3+4+5+6+7=28=10=1
10=1+0=1
13=1+3=4=1
16=1+6=7=1
10=1+9=10=1 and so on.

Every process of creation and development consists of three steps with the fourth step
leading to a repetition of the previous three on a new level. In esoteric circles this knowledge
is very ancient and has been handed down in various formulations: for example in the
doctrine of the four elements, in the Pythagorean Tetractys, in the
Qabalistic Tetragrammaton “Jod He Vau He,” and so on. These first 4 numbers are allocated
to the following primal ideas:
Number 1 represents the original, impulse-giving unity. It is therefore the active, creative,
masculine principle.
Number 2 is the feminine, receptive, passive principle, which is able to absorb the creative
impulse of 1. With 2 comes opposition and antagonism.
Number 3 is the result of the relationship between 1 and 2 and is neutral.
Number 4 in itself is nothing new. It is bi-polar since, on the one hand, it is the passive sum of
the first 3 numbers (4 is even and therefore feminine and negative) while, on the other hand, it
is the active beginning of a new level (4, by theosophical addition, equals 1, which is
masculine and positive).
In our own times we find this primal law in the dialectic: thesis – antithesis – synthesis. But the
classical theory of the elements expresses the same law. Fire is the active, creative principle.
It is followed, as its opposite pole, by the passive, receptive, adaptive water. The air element
is a neutral mediator which creates equilibrium between the first two elements. Fire, water
and air are the three primal principles, which are followed by the fourth element, earth. Earth,
however, is not a pure principle but a mixture of the first three, which is both the sum of all
other principles and a new beginning on another level. Thus the classical elements are primal
principles which should not be confused with their concrete forms as fire, water, air and earth,
although these forms are also representatives of the respective elements.
In order to help us recognize this fourfold primal principle in the manifold systems and
symbols that exist the following matrix shows the various symbolic analogies of the four
primal principles, set out vertically.
This table (page *) will serve to show how, in the last analysis, all systems, cultures and
religions represent the same universal correspondences and are differentiated only in their
choice of language and symbol.

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Number 1 2 3 4
principles active passive balance result
poles + - + -
elements fire water air earth
Indian terms tejas apas vaju prithivi
elemental beings salamanders undines sylphs gnomes
magical principles to will to dare to know to keep silent
signs of the zodiac Leo Scorpion Aquarius Taurus
animals of the
Apocalypse lion eagle angel bull
evangelists Mark John Matthew Luke
forms of sphinx cat-pawed eagle-winged human-headed bull-bodied
letters of the
Hebrew name
of God Yod He Vau He
Qabalistic worlds Aziluth Briah Yetzirah Assiah
Tarot suits wands cups swords pentacles (coins)
ordinary
playing
card suits clubs hearts spades diamonds
compass points east west south north

By analyzing how numbers are structured, I have tried to show that creation is always
accomplished in three steps; beyond these three steps nothing fundamentally new emerges –
there is merely a repetition of the initial triad. The same process, however, can be shown
geometrically. The geometric equivalent of the number three is the triangle. All further
geometric shapes corresponding to the numbers beyond 3 are built up exclusively from
triangles, demonstrating again that the triad is the basic ingredient of creation and that from
the number 4 onwards everything is repetition.

3=triangle *
4=square * made up of 2 triangles
5=pentagram * made up of 3 triangles
6=hexagram * made up of 2 triangles
7=heptagram * made up of 4 triangles
8=octogram * made up of 4 triangles
9=enneagram * made up of 5 triangles
10=decagram * made up of 6 triangles

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THE UNITY

If we regard the number sequence as an analogy for the process of creation it is not
surprising that since time immemorial the figure 1 has been identified with God the Creator,
the one-and-only God. The concept of God is our way of signifying the unity which, although
not accessible to man, is an inescapable conclusion from our experience of polarity. If man
recognizes himself as a being subject to polarity and with a limited consciousness, it follows
from the law of polarity itself that opposed to polarity there must be unity. If man can perceive
a duality it follows inescapably that this must have arisen from a unity. If there is no unity there
can also be no polarity. Without a creator there is no creation. Without a father there is no
child. Just as from a child's existence we can deduce the existence of a father, so from the
existence of a polarized world we can, with equal certainty, deduce the existence of an
upolarized single creator. This primal, inaccessible entity we call God.
From this definition it follows that every conception that we form of this God must necessarily
be false. For every human conception is subject to polarity and can never adequately express
something non-polar. Consider the first commandment: thou shalt make unto thyself no
graven image. The number 1, per se, can never be conceived except through its extension.
Likewise we can only conceive of God through his creation.
The number 1 can neither be multiplied nor altered, for 1*1=1 and 1/1=1. The number 1
contains within itself all possibilities. In it all subsequent numbers are latent. By the same
token, the number 1 remains present in all other numbers when these become manifest.
The same is true of God. In Him everything is contained, and at the same time He is
contained in all of creation. Nothing can exist outside of Him. Nothing can increase or reduce
Him. He is indivisible. God encompasses the universe, but the universe does not encompass
Him. If we speak of the one-and-only God He must encompass everything that exist in reality.
Nothing can exist outside of Him, otherwise He would not be the one-and-only. He must be
infinite in time and space, for that which is finite and limited, that which has a beginning and
an end, belongs to the world of polarity. All forms are subservient to the conditions of time and
space, are finite and limited. God, however, is pure infinite, living spirit.

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THE THREE STEPS OF CREATION

Thus the 2 is born as the feminine, passive, reflective number. Division has taken place; the
foundation of the polarized world of contrast has been laid. But out of the 2 there now arises
inescapably the 3, that third point which neutralizes the tension between the two polar
opposites. The 3 is the outcome of the preceding twofold potency and unites the duality that
has sprung from the 1, to form a new and higher unity, the trinity.
Eliphas Lévi expresses it in these words: “If God were only One He could never be Creator or
Father. If he were Two there would be an antagonism or separation in the infinite, and that
would also mean separation or death for all other things. Therefore He is Three, so that he
can create the infinite multiplicity of beings and numbers out of himself and in his own image.”
As we have already seen from our analysis of the pattern of numbers, the 3 represents
perfect creation which, however, has not yet entered the material realm. All religions attempt
to express in their different ways this mystery of the trinity: Father, Son and Holy Ghost;
Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva; Isis, Osiris and Horus.
In popular tradition as well the 3 is regarded as the perfect and complete number. We say:
“Third time lucky”, “I'll give you three guesses”, and “Everything happens in threes”. In fairy
tales the hero often has to accomplish three tasks, is granted three wishes, and so on. The 3
encompasses spatial dimensions of length, breadth and height. Time is divided into past,
present and future. There are three primary colours: blue, red and yellow and 3 states of
matter: solid, liquid and gaseous. In music we have the tonic triad and in alchemy the 3
essential substances: salt, sulphur and mercury.
These examples could be multiplied indefinitely, but by now it should be apparent that
creation on all levels takes place in three steps. All further differentiation is nothing but a
repetition of the trinity on a new level. God in the form of the trinity stands nearer to man's
experience than the as yet unrevealed God of the 1. God has become the Creator. He has
produced creation out of Himself, but creation remains within Him, encompassed by Him, and
can never stand in opposition to Him, otherwise God would no longer be the “all-one”.
This image seems paradoxical to man. From the fact that God gave birth to creation out of
Himself, we conclude that creation is separate and distinguishable from its Creator. But this
notion is false, since nothing exists outside the all-encompassing God.
If we take this idea to its logical conclusion we see that in reality the universe does not exist at
all. The universe is finite, changeable, polarized. God, however, is infinite, unlimited Oneness.
Therefore nothing can exist outside of Him. But, at the same time, He Himself cannot be
identified with the universe.
Certain religious traditions deal with this problem by saying that the whole of creation is only a
dream of the Creator, a creation of the mind, for everything is mind. A man can give birth to an
idea without that idea leaving him. Yet the idea is not identical with him nor a part of him.
Similarly this universe is the mental creation of a dreaming God. “The All, from its limitless
mind, creates innumerable universes that last for aeons, yet for the All creation and
procreation, the downfall and death of millions of universes is but the blinking of an eye.”
Let us return to the analogy of the number sequence and deal with the number 4, which
represents the physical, material plane. Its symbol is the square or cube. If we open out the
sides of a hollow cube we get a cross. Thus man is nailed to the cross of matter, crucified by
the polarity of time and space. Only at the point of intersection of the cross do time and space
come together, yielding freedom from polarity. This is why since time immemorial the cross
has been the symbol both of material bondage and of release from matter.

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If we have understood the qualitative meaning of the first 4 numbers we need not bother for
the time being with the other numbers. There are 9 figures, 3*3. This means that creation
manifests itself on three levels, corresponding to the 3 initial worlds of the Qabalah, which,
however, is too wide a field for us to enter into here. These 3 worlds are present in the
smallest as in the largest cosmos. Remembering our axiom “as above so below” we see that
this divine trinity can be translated analogically to all levels of manifestation, from the universe
down to man himself. Thus, in esotericism we speak of the mental, astral and physical planes,
which, in the human being, correspond to the mental, astral and physical bodies or, in other
words, to spirit, soul and body.

But, in this state of unity there is no cognition, for cognition is bound up with subject and
object and presupposes polarity. In human terms, one could say that the moment God
becomes aware of himself and wishes to know himself a process of creation has begun. The
1 cannot perceive itself as 1 as long as nothing exists that is not 1. The active 1 must create
out of itself a counter-pole which serves as its mirror.

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THE BIBLICAL STORY OF CREATION

In order to understand the story of the creation as told in the Bible, it is important to
distinguish between the different worlds. The opening chapter of Genesis, the first book of
Moses, describes how the world was created, how God in 7 days – remember the 7 primal
principles – created heaven and earth, light and darkness, plants, animals and man. In
chapter 1, verses 26 – 27 we read:

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image and likeness to rule the fish in the sea, the
birds of heaven, the cattle, all wild animals on earth, and all reptiles that crawl upon the
earth.” So God created man in his own image; in the image of God he created him; male and
female he created them.
This accounts of the 7-day creation process refers expressly not to the material world, but to
the world of primal ideas. God created the human being as man and woman, the image of the
pure human which at this stage is still androgynous. In the second chapter of Genesis we are
told of the creation of Adam as a living being with a soul. In chapter 2, verse 7 we read:

… then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils
the breath of life. Thus the man became a living creature.
In verse 19 the account continues:
So God formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds of heaven. He brought
them to the man.

Finally verse 21 tells of the creation of woman:

The Lord God put the man into a trance, and while he slept, he took one of his ribs and closed
the flesh over the place. The Lord God then built up the rib, which he had taken out of the
man, into a woman. He brought her to the man, and the man said: “Now this, at last – bone
from my bones, flesh from my flesh! - This shall be called woman, for from man was this
taken.”

(In the Hebrew isch = man, ischsa = woman). Verse 25 states:

Now they were both naked, the man and his wife, but they had no feeling of shame towards
one another.

These detailed quotations should serve to elucidate certain important points which often lead
to misunderstandings. Genesis tells of the different steps in the creation process. The 7-day
sequence of the first chapter refers to the world of ideas. At this point already “man” was
created. It was only a this stage that he was created in God's image. This is the “Adam
Kadmon” of the Qabalists, the primal idea of humanity, which cannot have had much in
common with physical humanity as known to us and embodied by us. The man whose
creation is described in the first chapter is the ideal image which has not yet plunged into a
fallen state and become material. The God-like image of man, so often alluded to, cannot be
applied to the physical man of our material world, but, at best, represents the goal towards
which mankind should be striving. As Jesus said: “Be ye perfect even as your Father in
heaven is perfect.”

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In the first chapter God created the human being as man-and-woman. Only much later are we
given the description of how God formed Adam from dust and subsequently woman from his
rib. Man on the first level, the level of the primal principles, is man and woman in one, an
androgynous being which has not yet entered the realm of polarity.
The first chapter describes both the creation of man and that of plants and animals. Not until
the second chapter, however, do we learn that the creation of these was carried out again in a
different way, this time through the moulding of forms out of the earth. In the first chapter the
whole creation process is finished by the seventh day, the day of rest. In the second chapter
this is repeated on another plane, in another world. While the first creation took place on the
plane of primal ideas, the second took place on the plane of forms. Only in the second
chapter does God create forms and turn man into a living being with a soul by breathing into
him the breath of life. Significantly the Greek word for soul, psyche, also means breath.
Although creation has by this stage been carried onto the plane of form, which the Qabalists
call Yetzirah, we are not as yet dealing with our own material plane, but rather with the astral
level on which the “souls” of things are formed, the patterns that will later determine the
nature of their physical being. On this level man is still androgynous, containing both sexes in
himself. This is made clear by the fact that woman was created from man and not from
outside him.
The fact that they were not aware of their nakedness shows us that at this stage man was
spiritually in a state of complete unity, that in his consciousness he was not yet able to
recognize polarity. Thus we are told that he was still in Paradise and could speak with God
and the animals, which is merely another way of saying that he was still at one with the All-
consciousness, that consciousness was not yet individualized, that his own consciousness
was not yet separated from cosmic consciousness. To be in a state of unity means to be one
with everything; only with polarity does the I become separate from the not-I. Paradise
symbolizes the unity in which man originally existed. He was not yet separated from God,
from his source. There was as yet no division of the sexes, no consciousness of individuality.

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THE EXPULSION FROM PARADISE

I have already mentioned that consciousness is bound up with polarity. That is why in
Paradise man was forbidden to eat from the tree of knowledge, on pain of becoming mortal.
In Paradise man possessed cosmic consciousness but no individual consciousness. The
snake crept from the tree and persuaded man to go the way of knowledge. Through eating
the forbidden fruit of knowledge man became aware of good and evil. He plunged from
oneness into polarity of consciousness, separating himself from oneness and thereby
becoming sinful. Sin is separation from the primal oneness. Consequently every human being
is sinful, for polarity and sin are the same thing. This state of affairs is what the Church calls
original sin. Sin is the pride we pay for knowledge. All too often we overlook this inseparable
connection between knowledge and sin.
The expulsion of man from Paradise or from cosmic consciousness is the fall into polarity
and, at the same time, into matter. Only material man is mortal, only the material world sinful.
This is what we meant when, in talking about the preparation of homeopathic remedies, we
spoke of the poisonous nature of the whole of creation. The entire material world is sinful, has
fallen from unity and longs to return. The coarsest matter represents the farthest departure
from the source, from the primal light. Matter symbolizes darkness. The Qabalists define evil
as “lack of light”. Therefore matter has always been associated with evil, dark and satanic
attributes. Thus Satan, as the polar opposite of light, has rightly been called “Lord of this
world”. Light falling into material darkness is an involution, a downward movement which
reaches a nadir and is then changed into an upward movement, an evolution, just as a
pendulum, when it reaches a certain point, begins to swing in the opposite direction. Thus in
all living beings there is an innate longing which constantly causes them to seek their true
home. Mankind calls this the longing for happiness, but happiness is synonymous with the
overcoming of polarity and the rediscovery of unity.
On the material and physical level the search for unity is called sexuality. Polarity, which
manifests itself physically as sexual division, is overcome through the sexual act, and the
blissful feeling of unity is experienced in the orgasm. In this physical unity people become
“god-like” and can do something that they cannot do as polarized beings: namely generate
life. However, the joy that goes with physical union is not lasting, which is why we try to regain
it again and again by frequent repetition of the sexual act. The physical world is subject to
time, which is why all material and physical joy is ephemeral.
If we translate the experience of sexuality onto the mental and spiritual plane it becomes clear
that the human longing for eternal happiness can only be stilled by a return to the unity from
which we originally came. This ultimate fusion with the great, all-embracing consciousness is
the goal common to many different religions and esoteric systems, and a variety of images
and terms are used to describe it: the Chemical Wedding of the alchemists, the conjunction of
opposites, the unio mystica, and so on.
All these images and terms indicate the same thing: the return to divine unity. This step is,
however, inseparably bound up with the task of the ego. As long as a person fortifies this ego-
dominance he will further reinforce polarity. As long as there is an “I” there is also something
that is “not I”. Every time we say “I will” we raise the wall that divides us from unity. This is why
all religions teach us to love our neighbour, for only love is able to overcome the dominance of
the ego.
The question arises why creation came into being at all, if the goal is to return to the original
unity. Any attempt to answer this question requires a certain degree of boldness as it takes us

86
into issues which are so remote from ordinary human consciousness that our minds are
hardly adequate to deal with them. Nevertheless by means of images and metaphor we can
at least approach the answer analogically. When creation returns to its origin, it returns richer
and more conscious than when it left the state of unity. It is precisely through the progress of
becoming separate and individual that the journey of apprenticeship is completed and unity is
ultimately enriched. Thus the myth of Lucifer, the light-bringer, states that God was especially
fond of him because he broke the law of unity, fell and sinned. One day he will return,
voluntarily, purified by experience, and God will rejoice like the father who, when his long-lost
son returned, slaughtered a calf and held a feast.
The central meaning of man's part in the story of creation lies precisely in his fall on account
of knowledge. Thus it is not a question of labelling the world as a devilish thing and
demanding that man escape from all earthly things as quickly as possible to seek his
happiness on a plane of pseudo-spirituality. Unfortunately there are groups that take this
attitude, believing that it is “esoteric” to flee from the world, even though one cannot solve a
problem by skirting around it, only by confronting it directly. Flight from the world has nothing
to do with overcoming or redeeming the world.
Jesus taught redemption by descending fully into mankind, a descent described in numerous
images in the Bible. Into darkness came light. That is why we celebrate Christmas, the birth of
the light at the time of greatest darkness, the winter solstice. Jesus was born into poverty in a
stable, he associated with tax gatherers and prostitutes, endured injustice, torture and death,
and descended into hell. Not until man has descended fully into darkness is he ready to begin
the upward ascent. This law is the stumbling block of all those who use esoteric teachings as
an excuse for the fact that they will not or cannot master their earthly life. As long as man
possesses a physical body he is bound to polarity. Every breach or infringement of polarity
brings inescapable downfall.
The crown of a tree can only spread and develop to the degree that the roots are extended. If
it neglects its root growth in favour of the crown it will be toppled by the first gust of wind. The
upward thrust must always be anchored in the opposite pole. You cannot escape darkness by
not looking at it; you have to transmute it into light if you do not want to drag it behind as your
shadow.
If one had to point out a salient difference between Christianity and the oriental religions, it
would surely lie in the life-affirming nature of the original Christianity, however much the
Church later distorted this into its opposite. Herein lie the strength and the secret of
Christianity: to recognize the world and mankind as sinful and yet to affirm them in their
sinfulness.
This profound connection between knowledge and sin, fall and redemption is brought out in
the Grail legend when it relates that the Grail cup in which Christ's blood was collected had
been carved from the gem the dropped out of the crown of Lucifer when he fell. The fall is the
descent from unity into polarity. Man per se is sinful only when he exists as a polarized being.
This is what is meant by the concept of original sin. Humanity cannot be released from guilt –
but it can be redeemed.

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ILLNESS AND ORIGINAL SINFULNESS

Illness is merely the accomplishment of the Fall on a microcosmic level. Man and the whole of
material creation are sick. There is no such thing as a healthy person – this is a medical
fiction. Hans Blüher writes: “The healthy, ideal man, hygienic and free from original sin, is a
hypothesis contrived by medicine, merely for the purpose of demonstration.” Hence the failure
of all medical systems, whose highest goal is the prevention of illness.
People still believe that illness is an avoidable misfortune. They do not comprehend that
illness is the most precious gift to mankind. Indeed one can say that it is precisely what
makes us human, since only the sick person can be healed. Illness makes man able to be
healed, but for this he must pass through it, not circumvent it. Just as illness is a microcosmic
version of the Fall, so healing must always be a microcosmic version of redemption. The sick
person is guilty – in both the concrete and the metaphysical sense – and must be confronted
with this guilt, if his or her illness is to be transmuted into health.
In connection with homeopathy we said that the primal principles become dense and may fall
into matter and thus poison the organism. Through homeopathic and alchemical methods of
preparing remedies nature is released from its materiality and can help the sick person to
“transpolarise” his sickness into a state of wholeness. Curing of an illness should always go
hand in hand with an increase in maturity and development. Parents know how a child is
strengthened every time a childhood illness is overcome – although, of course, one can avoid
this by inoculating in advance.
C. A. Meier and Herbert Fritsche have linked the motif of the tree encircled by the snake in
Paradise with the staff of Aesculapius. It was on account of the snake that man fell and
became ill – therefore it is likewise the snake which must be raised up again through the art of
healing – as on the staff of Aesculapius. Just as the poison becomes the remedy, so
redemption arises from confrontation with guilt, and so the poisonous snake becomes the
healing snake. Whereas on the tree of Paradise it is pointing downwards, on the staff of
Aesculapius it is turned round and is pointing upwards. Suffering must be outgrown by man,
not circumvented. So let us repeat here the passage from Herbert Fritsche which we quoted
at the beginning of the chapter: “The avoidance of suffering, however and wherever it may
manifest itself, always indicates that he who practices it is fundamentally of the un-initiated.”
Jesus became the Saviour because he did not avoid suffering. He did not demonstrate his
power by accepting the challenge: “Step down from the cross if you are the Son of God”.
Rather he took suffering – the sins of this world – upon himself. He became the doctor of this
world. Indeed when God made himself like man (though not equal to him) he himself became
the world's medicine. Since then the sick body and the spilled blood of Christ have been given
to human beings as a healing remedy in high homeopathic potencies, using material bread
and wine as carriers.

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THROUGH ILLNESS TO HEALING

We have traveled a long way in our thinking to show that illness is deeply rooted in mankind's
metaphysical provenance. In the light of this all the efforts to promote health, on the part of
both orthodox doctors and advocates of nature-cure and such methods, appear alarmingly
ineffective. Illness cannot be cured by inoculation any more than by positive thinking,
autosuggestion or a healthy diet.
A lot of quarreling goes on as to what is the best means of protection against illness, but no
one questions the legitimacy of his or her own system. Hence one finds all kinds of people –
positive thinkers as well as nature-cure apostles – wanting to place themselves under the
esoteric banner.
But the road to healing is not that simple. Healing cannot be achieved by eating raw
vegetables or whole-wheat bread, nor by going to bed early, nor by autosuggestion. All of
these health fanatics are attempting to counteract, by functional measures, a development
whose direction was already determined in Paradise. It is not a question of facing a choice
between illness and health. On the contrary, the way to health is through illness.
Some people hold up the example of the healthy, natural life of the animals, but this misses
the point of man's special tasks. Certainly it is possible to cultivate the sound and natural life-
style of a healthy animal. But man's path is a different one: he must pass through suffering to
knowledge, through sickness to health.
To avoid misunderstandings let me emphasize that I am not talking about leading an
“unhealthy” life. It is not a question of what one does as such but of the attitude with which
one does it. The body is the temple of the spirit, and it is part of esoteric development to purify
it and keep it pure. But that has nothing to do with protection against illness. One must make
a distinction between health and obedience to law. Health as a concept exists only in relation
to illness. For a sick person it may be necessary to follow a certain diet for a time, and thus
one could say that in this case the diet is healthy. But this does not mean that someone who
is not ill should follow such a diet in order to “remain healthy”. There are other ways of
adjusting one's physical life-style so as to conform better to cosmic law.
Let us take, for example, the subject of vegetarian food. It is fairly unimportant whether this is
healthier or less healthy than a meat diet, but it is very interesting to consider the rights and
wrongs of meat-eating. We should bear in mind that all carnivorous animals feed exclusively
on the flesh of vegetarian animals. Experience shows that aversion to the eating of meat
increases in proportion to consciousness. It is a good exercise to ask yourself, every time you
have a meal, whether you could prepare the food in all its stages with your own hands and
still be able to eat with a good appetite. Many people would do without their succulent piece of
veal if they first had to slaughter and cut up the unfortunate calf themselves. By contrast it
hardly spoils one's appetite if one imagines harvesting vegetables, fruit and corn.
Another yardstick for judging the purity of food is according to how long it remains preserved.
The purer a product, the longer it will keep. Compare, for example, the preservability of wheat
with that of offal or shell-fish. Through such considerations as these, the individual will arrive,
in the course of time, at a stage of consciousness that will of itself, and without any
compulsion, lead him to adopt a diet that is in greater harmony with cosmic law. But we must
always guard against extremes. Anyone who believes that he will lose his wholeness of soul
by eating a little bit of meat probably does not yet possess that which he fears losing.
In all of these matters it is much less a question of outward things themselves than of the
mode of consciousness that they express. Anyone who can swat a fly shows unmistakeably

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that he has not yet comprehended what “life” really is.
He is therefore more deserving of sympathy than the fly. A life that is in harmony with
universal law arises from recognition, whereas the efforts of the health fanatics arise from
fear. Fear, however, is always lack of knowledge.
We said earlier on that healing is exclusively a matter of religion and can never take place
within the framework of functional medicine. When we speak of religion we mean religio in the
original sense, that is the re-connecting of man with his original source. I am not referring to
any particular sectarian form of religion.
If I have quoted the Bible extensively it is because the store of ideas in it is closest to our own
cultural heritage and upbringing. But in the last analysis all religions teach the same thing: the
one single truth. Anyone who thinks that the world's religions are different is only looking at
the packaging. If one takes the trouble to unpack the contents one will see that they are the
same. While this is true of religions it is not true of churches, which are the work of men and,
like everything human, are imperfect and prone to errors.
Esotericism has room for all faiths and tendencies of belief, for esotericism points out the truth
and the laws that stand behind the different symbols and metaphors. The churches, on the
other hand, have no place for esotericism, since they cling to the concrete. The greater
always has room for the lesser, but never vice versa. The justification for the churches lies in
the fact that they bring the primal truths nearer to the exoteric circle of humanity by presenting
them in an accessible packaging.
Esotericism is for those who are ready to assimilate the primal wisdom for themselves. To be
a priest is, in the final analysis, not a matter of career but of initiation into the mystery of being
human. Only thus can a person become a pontifex, a bridge-builder, who can prepare the way
for man to return to his primal source. Healing is reconciliation with God. Thus Jesus healed
with the words: “Thy sins are forgiven thee.”

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CHAPTER VII
REINCARNATION: THE RHYTHM OF LIFE

Only he who has become wise through love is freed from the cross of cause and effect to
which he was nailed by ignorance. Only love ends the cycle of rebirths.
Hans Sterneder, The Song of the Eternal

EARLIER IN THIS book the law of polarity was discussed. We observed how every pole
presupposes a counter-pole and how, from the constant oscillation between two poles arises
rhythm, the basic pattern of all that lives. Thousands of years ago, in the Kymbalion, the wise
men put it this way:

Nothing is at rest, everything moves, everything is vibration. Everything flows out and in.
There is a time for all things, and all things rise and fall. The swing of the pendulum is visible
everywhere. The extent of the rightward swing is the measure of the leftward swing. Rhythm
always compensates.

Modern physics, too, would hardly object to the contention that “everything is vibration”. The
manifold phenomena of the universe are all subject to the same law of vibration and are
distinguished only by their degree of vibration. Let us take the rhythm of breathing as a case
in point. We can then translate the laws that we observe here analogically on to a somewhat
larger type of rhythm: the rhythm of waking and sleeping. Just as breathing in is inevitably
followed by breathing out, so the waking state is with equal certainty followed by sleep. By the
same toke sleep in due course gives way to its opposite pole, waking, and likewise the
outbreath gives way to a new inbreath.
A popular saying has it that “sleep is death's little brother”, a dictum which reveals a certain
ability to think in vertical chains of analogy. Life and death are also a rhythm, just like
breathing in and breathin out, waking and sleeping. It is just that the larger dimension makes
it difficult for human beings to take an overall view. Here also the experience confirms the law
that a pole always gives way to its opposite: life gives way to death. Death follows life with the
same certainty that the outbreath follows the inbreath.
Yet according to the same law death inevitably brings forth life. Thus we see that the change
from life to death and back to life evinces the same rhythm as the change from waking to
sleeping and back to waking. Life and death are polarities which, through their ceaseless
alternation, fall in with the rhythm of all things. All phenomena obey this law of rhythm: the
tides of the sea, the seasons of the year, electrical current, the periods of war and peace, the
times of day – everywhere we observe the same rhythmic alternation between the poles.
Why, of all polarities, should that of life and death be an exception? Why should a law which
is discernible everywhere stop short of the phenomenon of life?
This rhythmic movement of the soul between life and death has, since time immemorial, been
called transmigration of souls or reincarnation (literally a “re-entry into flesh”). Plato knew
about it just as Goethe did. I deliberately say “knew” and not “believed”, for reincarnation is
not a matter of belief but rather a matter of philosophical insight. Everyone is free to believe in
something other than reincarnation, but it should be borne in mind that any hypothesis without

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reincarnation has the stamp of absurdity, since only reincarnation is in harmony with all
universal laws.
How astonishing it is to hear people again and again demanding proofs of reincarnation.
Reality needs no outward proof since it proves itself by its very existence. The kind of
functional, outward proof, that has been made into he keystone of scientific argument, is, in
fact, the greatest enemy of true knowledge, for it seeks to enforce belief. To say “I have
proved it” is in essence tantamount to saying “You must believe me”. But reality does not
require proof because it is not a matter of belief. Reality is perceived through the individual's
experience, and thereby generates knowledge.
If one knows something one does not need to believe it and one is free of the need for proofs.
A statement such as “death is the end of everything” does require proof because this
statement forms no part of reality and therefore cannot be experienced. In no area of reality
can one point to a process of nature that ends abruptly in nothingness.

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DEATH – ANOTHER FORM OF BEING

We have defined soul as consciousness and have recognized that this I-consciousness
produces a continuity, such that the I always experiences itself as the same I, despite the
continual changing of the material body over the decades. But this continuity of identity is not
confined to the span of a single earthly life, for life and death are but phases of a wider
rhythm. The soul, in its changing physical garment, gathers experiences on earth, and is then
released to live through a compensatory non-material phase which we call “death”. Death is
not absence of being but merely a different pole of being. Thus dying is nothing more nor less
than the crossing of the threshold that divides the living from the dead.
Normally we think of the realm of corporeal life as “the here-and-now” and of the unknown
realm of the dead as “the beyond”. The here-and-now and the beyond are not two different
places but more like different stages of perception or consciousness. Just as the “land of
dreams” has no geographical location, so the beyond lies merely across a certain threshold of
perception. It is unprofitable to debate about the existence of the beyond, since its existence
follows inescapably from the existence of the here-and-now. The law of polarity states that for
what we call the here-and-now a polar opposite must exist. This we call the beyond.
This term is indicative of our point of view as physical human beings. When someone crosses
the threshold of death, the beyond becomes for him the here-and-now, since that is where he
is, whereas the realm of corporeal life, to which he no longer belongs, becomes for him the
beyond. Dying thus becomes a subjective experience, whose objectivity stand or falls with
polarity. Only our polarized consciousness compels us to experience the timeless flow of life
as being divided into the polarity of life and death. As an analogy, consider how an observer in
a different place sees it rising – yet the sun itself knows nothing of this, for in reality it neither
rises nor sets.
The situation is similar in the case of birth and death. What from our point of view appears as
a death is perceived in the beyond as a birth. And a death in the beyond is celebrated by us
on earth as the birth of a child. Anyone who lets go slightly of subjective perception will
recognize that the here-and-now and the beyond, birth and death are ultimately the same
thing. It is only in our polarized consciousness that unity splits into contrasting fragments and
what is simultaneous becomes sequential. The human soul having been ejected for the sake
of knowledge from the unity where there is neither time nor space, must wander through the
darkness of the material world, along the axis of subjective time, and learn to develop and
become more and more conscious. But always its ultimate goal remains the same: to return
to the original unity and thus complete its own circle.
This path of the human soul is a path of learning and must obey the higher laws. A learning
process of this kind, whose goal is perfection, is a long road, requiring many steps and
involving many mistakes and many corrections. Only the seemingly endless chain of
incarnations guarantees ultimate success.
Thus individual incarnations are comparable to the different classes that a child passes
through at school. What we call an earthly life corresponds to a school year with its attendant
problems, tasks, difficulties, successes and failures. A school also has its holidays, during
which the pupil has the opportunity to make good any deficient or neglected studies. After the
summer holiday the child returns to school and will either be promoted to the next class up or
will have to repeat a year, depending on how well he has assimilated the lessons from his
previous year.
Fate works on the same principle. The only difference is that fate shows an infinite patience. It

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is always willing to give man fresh opportunities to grasp that which has not been correctly
learned and to compensate for mistakes that have been made. To live means to learn,
regardless of whether the individual accepts this or not. Fate, with undeviating justice,
ensures that each individual learns the very thing that he least willingly accepts and against
which he has the greatest resistance.
Fate as a totality only makes sense against the background of reincarnation. If one looks at a
life in isolation it is easy to doubt that there is any coherent sense behind fate – and this often
causes despair. It is evident that in this life not all men start with equal advantages, and that is
certainly not the fault of society! Whether one is arguing from a religious or from an atheistic
standpoint, it is difficult, without reincarnation, to explain to someone why he of all people
should have been born dumb, lame, disfigured or mentally handicapped into this “best of all
possible worlds”. Even pointing to the unfathomable decisions of God does not help much in
such cases to impart any sense of meaning.
Yet without meaning life would be unbearable for human beings. The search for the meaning
of life is a fundamental need. Only when we are prepared to let go of the notion that each life
is an isolated event and to recognize it as a link in a long chain – only then will we learn to
comprehend the sense and justice of fate. For a life's destiny is the result of the learned and
unlearned lessons of the past.

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THE LAW OF KARMA

This chain of effects linking the deeds of the past with the present cause of one's fate, is
generally called karma. Karma is the law of balance which ensures that an individual is
confronted again and again with the same type of problem until through his actions he has
solved the problem and put himself at one with the lawful order of things. Thus every action
and even every thought becomes immortal and inextinguishable. Each deed and idea waits
for the time when a counter-action will compensate for it.
The law of karma demands of someone that they assume full responsibility for their fate – a
step that modern people are unwilling to make. The widespread resistance against the
doctrine of reincarnation is all too comprehensible when one considers how much trouble and
expense we have gone to in order to fabricate apparently infallible theories that free man from
responsibility for himself and project the blame on society, infection or bad luck. It is
understandable that people become infuriated when they see an attempt to expose these
cunning and sophisticated theories as mere self-deception and to place the blame once again
fairly and squarely on ourselves.
All of these conceptual models work superbly well in theory and when they fail in practice this
is explained away with a great amount of progressive-sounding blarney. Yet when a man
begins to be honest with himself – and this is the most difficult form of honesty – he has to
recognize that only when he takes full responsibility for everything that happens to him will
meaning become clear to him. Responsibility and meaningfulness cannot be separated from
each other – each is conditional upon the other.
Most people of our time suffer from lack of a sense of meaning because they are trying to
keep responsibility at bay. The first thing you find when you look for meaning is guilt. Accept
the guilt and the meaning becomes clear.
The continual alternation between life and death is merely an enlargement of the day-night
rhythm. When we wake up in the morning, ready to begin a new day, what lies ahead is, in a
sense, virgin material, ready to be used and shaped as we wish. Thus, from one point of view,
it is in our power to decide what we are going to experience during that day. But, on the other
hand, the course of that day is also necessarily affected by our experiences and actions in the
days that have gone before. If someone has recently quarreled with his neighbours, incurred
large debts, neglected the care of his body or the development of his soul, then these things
will influence the day ahead of him, even though that day holds all possibilities latent in it.
Thus each day is simultaneously conditioned by past influences and future possibilities. And
the same can be said, analogically, of a new life. Each new life is indeed a fresh chance,
containing every possibility, and yet at the same time it is only a further link in the chain of
incarnations, a reflection of the problems, mistakes and assimilated lessons of the past. Just
as at the beginning of a new day we cannot un-make our past deeds and thoughts, so on the
threshold of a new incarnation we cannot cancel out the past but must continue to spin the
thread that we have spun in previous lives.

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MATURING THROUGH REINCARNATION

Some people raise the objection that it is rather senseless and impractical if all the knowledge
one has accumulated through many incarnations is forgotten each time one is reborn, so that
one has to begin all over again. Others argue exactly the reverse: they say that there is a very
good reason for not being able to remember earlier incarnations, and they believe that
consequently there should be a prohibition against bringing knowledge of the past into
consciousness.
The fact is, however, that one does not invariably forget previous incarnations and have to
start again from the beginning. On the contrary. In each incarnation we slot into the stage of
development that we have reached in our last life. The mistake we make is to confuse specific
knowledge with a general state of maturity that has grown out of past knowledge and ability.
To use an analogy: most of us have learned things at school which we have since forgotten.
Yet our involvement with these things at the time and the process of learning them had the
effect of shaping us in a certain way – an effect that continues to be felt even when the
specific knowledge itself has been lost. The effect of learning is an extension of
consciousness. Thus the original object of learning ceases to have great significance of its
own. A child's box of letters is there to help the child learn to read. Once it has served this
purpose it has no further value.
Now, everything that an individual has learned in earlier incarnations is reflected in the degree
of maturity and consciousness with which he is born into his present life. This is what lies
behind differences in intelligence, maturity, natural abilities, and so on. Psychologists continue
to argue about whether intelligence is acquired or inherent. The answer is: neither. The soul
brings with it a certain degree of development which is neither something inherited nor a
result of the much quoted environmental influences.
Men are not all equal – even if today the supporters of equality are making their voices heard
with increasing shrillness. Equality in their sense has nothing to do with justice. And
hierarchical thinking has nothing to do with dictatorship.
Pursuing the analogy between a series of incarnations and the different forms in a school,
each pupil is allotted to the appropriate class – no one gives a third-former a problem in
differential calculus to work out. Each has his task and problems appropriate to his grade at
the time. There are no objective problems, and therefore there can be no solutions that are
universally valid. Fractions appear insuperably difficult to the first-former, but are child's play
to the sixth-former. Both points of view are subjectively correct, but neither is pertinent to the
nature of fractions. It is the same with all human problems. When we try to make a particular
problem accessible to everyone and look for a universal solution to it we are forgetting the
different grades of awareness that exist among human beings.
Herein lies the root of all proselytizing. Any kind of proselytizing is wrong because it
disregards the varying grades of individual development and projects its own level of
development on to everyone. Esotericism recognizes these varying grades and therefore
never proselytizes. Esotericism only has anything to offer those who discover for themselves
an affinity with it. One should not try to foist a truth on someone who is still resistant to it.
The discrepancies between individuals are the result of experiences from previous
incarnations. We forget nothing of what is essential. We forget only the specific details, which,
however, are not important.
The same applies to capacities and inclination. The capacities from a previous life will be
brought into this incarnation as gifts if they are meaningful and useful for the task in hand.

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Otherwise they will be, so to speak, forgotten – which is good, otherwise they would merely
distract the individual from his study plan.
This is why I warn people against using reincarnation therapy to incorporate past abilities
(usually of an artistic nature) into present consciousness. Unfortunately, however from the
experimental point of view this is one of the most impressive proofs of reincarnation and is
highly valued by certain experimenters in the field. Some of them even see it as part of
therapy – a most dangerous mistake!
If an external influence is used to bring an earlier capability into the present life, when this
capability has not manifested itself naturally, then the effect is to distract the person from his
or her true path. By thinking too much in terms of utility, we value such abilities too much for
their own sake and forget that they are merely aids. To be able to paint or make music has no
value in itself but only in relation to the practitioner. Making music can be a source of deep
experience. But once such experience is integrated into consciousness the source is no
longer needed.
Just because one has been a gifted musician 500 years ago it does not necessarily mean that
music going to play a role in one's present life. If the soul has learned what it had to learn
from music, then music has no further use for the person. Instead, new areas will become
relevant. If he goes back to his old musical skill he may be setting up an anachronism that will
hinder him in his present apprentice's journey.
This does not, however, apply to child prodigies. A child prodigy is an eloquent example of
someone who has not yet finished with a particular theme. Rather the theme is approaching
the culmination of a long development.
Therefore one should rely confidently on fate and work with the talents that one has received,
instead of constantly glancing back at those that one no longer has. Nothing is lost in this
universe. This is true not only in physics but also in regard to a soul's process of maturing.
The tendency to forget past incarnations is no blunder on nature's part. The point of it is to
relieve the consciousness of accumulated ballast and enhance its receptivity in the here-and-
now. I do not believe that it would be better for everyone to be able to survey all of their past
incarnations, any more than I believe reincarnation therapy could ever be taken like a mass
inoculation. Particular items of knowledge apply to particular levels of development. The vast
majority of mankind has never read Dante's Divine Comedy, and it is right that this should be
so. Yet for certain individuals Dante's poem may be of supreme importance.
The esoteric path of ever-widening consciousness is not a “natural” path but an artificial
product of human development and knowledge. Likewise the alchemist in his laboratory
produced artificial things that do not occur in that particular form in nature. The yogi adopts
physical postures that no creature in nature could ever adopt willingly. Numerous other
examples can be cited. All of them merely serve to show that esoteric initiation, although
orientated to natural laws, is ultimately a kind of art, bound up as it is with human intelligence.
Being an art, it is therefore “arti-ficial” and not “natural”.
It is precisely in such artificially induced evolutionary process that the task of humanity lies:
the task of redeeming itself and the cosmos. Thus, the conscious surveying of past lives has
always been recognized as one of the steps on the path of development, a step which is
taken with the help of appropriate techniques or, occasionally, takes place of its own accord.
As there is no such thing as coincidence, one can be sure that no one is ever going to be
placed in the embarrassing position of learning about his past incarnations before he is ready.
There is a phenomenon whereby certain sensitive people can look clairvoyantly into the past
lives of others. This is generally known as “reading the Akashic records”. These records are

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comparable to a data bank in which is stored the sum total of all events, past, present and
future. Those who possess or have developed the ability to call up consciously information
from the Akashic records are able to see the incarnations of other people. As it is difficult if not
impossible to control the way such information emerges, one should not believe uncritically all
clairvoyant statements about past incarnations.
If a clairvoyant simply tells someone about a past incarnation, the information is of relatively
little use, since it will not by itself give the person access to the past, and he will not by itself
give the person access to the past, and he will not be able to identify with it. But obtaining
information from the Akashic records can be valuable therapeutically in cases where the
patient is unable to retrieve the information himself on account of his disability, such as a
speech defect or restricted faculty of comprehension.
At any rate one should always be clearly aware that mere curiosity should never be the
motive for wishing to learn about past incarnations. Curiosity is the plague of our age. It is
always a sign of immaturity and is the surest means of hindering true initiation.
The number of people, especially children, who remember past lives of their own accord, is
considerably greater than is generally supposed. Such memories are either not recognized in
our culture or else are hushed up and suppressed as signs of mental disturbance. Children up
to the age of six have a particular facility for remembering the past, but their parents, out of
fear and lack of understanding, tend to discourage them from talking about their memories.
This leads to a suppression of the entire complex. Then when the child is six, these
impressions from the past usually disappear of their own accord.
The situation is quite different in cultures where reincarnation forms part of the world picture.
In such communities children's memories of past lives are so accepted that they are not even
presented to the public as anything out of the ordinary.
A certain proportion of psychotic symptoms can also be attributed to the surfacing of
memories from past lives. Any number of situations, places or people can stimulate an
individual in such a way that fragments of memory from other incarnations break through
suddenly into consciousness and can no longer be separated from current experience. A
whole host of hallucinations and fantasies can be explained in this way.
But it is not only psychotic symptoms that become more explicable in terms of reincarnation.
One can say that every symptom of illness whether mental or physical, has its “cause” in
earlier incarnations. At the same time we should be careful in using the term “cause”, for it is
not possible for a person to find the ultimate cause of an illness unless he goes right back to
the original fall of man.
Unfortunately the concept of cause is used far too often and consequently is quite wrongly
applied. If we speak of “cause” here what we mean is the beginning of a recognizable theme.
At the same time we remain aware that this kind of cause is in turn determined by other
factors more remote, and so onad infinitum.
I maintain, therefore, that the cause (in the above sense) of a mental or physical illness never
lies in the present life. I know how provocative such an assertion will seem to many people,
considering how painstakingly we have grown accustomed to finding early childhood the
cause of so many ills. But remember how, in discussing the horoscope, I tried to make it clear
that an individual's birth is merely a résumé of his entire life and that no new theme can ever
arise in a life without having been present in miniature at birth.
Even without astrological arguments it should be evident that all problems encountered in life
can be attributed to previous experiences on the path of learning. But this path, if we follow it
backwards, does not end at birth, or at conception, but encompasses the totality of all

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incarnations.
This becomes clearer if we once again think of a day as being analogous to a lifetime. If a
problem occurs for an individual on a particular day, it would be naïve to expect to find the
cause of it on the same day. A day does not begin as a blank sheet. Rather, despite the
intervening period of sleep, it carries with it certain assets and liabilities from the period that
has gone before.
Similarly the beginning of an early life is not a completely fresh start. Already at conception
the individual is equipped with the karma he has accumulated over many lifetimes as well as
with his own particular learning program which he carries into the present incarnation. If he
fails to solve a problem in this program, or finds the sense of it beyond his understanding, it is
only by a conscious contemplation of the entire path which has led him to this point that he
can attain the insight necessary to find the solution to the problem.
From all that has been said the reader will have understood the concept that has evolved into
the present-day psychotherapeutic method which I call reincarnation therapy. Reincarnation
therapy, as developed and applied by me and my collaborators since 1975, is not a new
technique among the ever-increasing host of psychotherapeutic methods, but it deliberately
stands at the opposite pole from all other known methods and theories. It is not a form of
psychoanalysis that extends to past lives, nor a therapeutic treatment aiming to re-live earlier
traumas, nor a special kind of hypnotherapy. Reincarnation therapy is rather an attempt to
leave behind the untenable concepts of orthodox psychology and, building on the esoteric
view of man and universe, to develop a valid therapy. This stance leads, not surprisingly, to an
outlook and method of therapy that are diametrically opposed to all the familiar concepts in
psychology.

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CHAPTER VIII
REINCARNATION THERAPY - A PATH TOWARDS WHOLENESS

Again and again you descend into the ever-changing

bosom of the world,
Until you have learned to read in the light
that living and dying are one-times-one
And that all time is timeless -
Until the wearisome chain of things
Comes to rest within you
as an ever tranquil circle.
In your will is the will of the world.
Stillness is in you -
Stillness and eternity.

•Manfred Kyber

REINCARNATION therapy, as I practice it, emerged from a series of experiments which I

carried out in 1968. In these experiments, we succeeded by hypnotic regression in enabling
the subjects to re-live not only their own birth, their development in the womb and their
conception, but also earlier incarnations. My record of such experiments and my observations
about the possible consequences can be found in other books of mine, such as Voices from
other Lives (New York, M. Evans & Co.)
The technique used in these experiments was hypnosis, by means of which regression in
time was made possible.
Experiments of this kind are not new. In the nineteenth century they were carried out by Albert
de Rochas. Around 1956 the case of Bridey Murphy aroused great public interest. In England
Arnall Bloxham and Denys Kelsey have publicized experiments in hypnotic regression which
they carried out over decades. During the early stages of the purely experimental work in
regression which I carried ou, I discovered that there was an obvious connection between
current symptoms and previous lives. As this theory became more consolidated there
emerged the idea that there was a possible therapeutic value in bringing earlier incarnations
into consciousness. The decisive step towards realizing this idea came when I developed
methods which made possible regression into earlier incarnations without the subject having
to be hypnotized. By doing without hypnosis it was possible to open up conscious memory of
past lives to everyone.
As already mentioned in the chapter on hypnosis the capacity of a patient to be hypnotized is
dependent less on the hypnotist than on the patient's basic trust, and it is precisely in
psychotic patients that such trust is least to be expected. Apart from this, there are numerous
other reasons for avoiding a dependence on hypnosis. It is not for nothing that warnings and
critical observations about hypnosis have been frequently voiced in esoteric circles.
The technique of hypnosis works by suggesting feelings of tiredness and sleepiness in the
subject, and thereby goes against the very aim of esotericism. Man's problem is precisely the
fact that he is constantly in a state of sleep and moves about like a marionette, instead of

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waking up and become conscious. Everything that happens in a therapeutic session should
represent on a small scale what is expected of the patient in everyday life. Our goal is
therefore to make people more awake and more conscious, to teach them to see reality with
ever-increasing clarity, and not to encourage them further in their sleepiness and
unconsciousness.
Besides, hypnosis is always bound up with the problem of power, which, as we shall see later,
is the central theme of every therapy. Furthermore, hypnosis turns the patient into a passive
consumer, who expects it to provide an instant answer to his problem. These considerations
should suffice to show why I have tried, as far as possible, to dispense with hypnosis in
applying regression for therapeutic purposes.
The result is that in our reincarnation therapy we make the patient aware of earlier lives
without ever having to use hypnosis. The regressions take place in full waking consciousness.
To those unfamiliar with our methods, this sounds so unbelievable that the public continues to
associate reincarnation therapy with hypnosis. This no longer applies, for in the meantime
reincarnation therapy has become independent of hypnosis.
It is legitimate to ask how these new methods work. To describe them is difficult, if not
impossible. We always begin with a short period of relaxation which is intended to put the
subject into a meditative frame of mind. The relaxation serves to diminish external stimuli and
allows the person to listen in to himself. It switches the attention from the outer to the inner
pole, without either fatigue or sleepiness entering in. Through the help of the therapist,
sensations and images arise which the person learns to observe and describe at the same
time.

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RE-EXPERIENCE OF BIRTH AND CONCEPTION

After two or three sessions the subject is, as we say, tuned into birth. He experiences his first
regression in time as he re-lives his own birth, feeling again the pains, smelling, seeing,
hearing and perceiving all that took place before and after delivery.
When the patient has learned to experience his birth in all its details and stages (which
usually necessitates a number of repetitions), we then go back further in time to his
conception. Now he re-lives the experience of being present as a conscious and perceiving
entity at the conception of what was later to be his body. He can see the surroundings and his
future parents. He experiences their sexual union, suddenly feels himself being sucked in as
though through a funnel and finds himself once again confined in something limited, dark and
material. To be present at one's own conception would seem a grotesque idea to most people
of today, but it becomes entirely natural when we learn to distinguish consciousness and body
as two separate things. The human being is just as much present at the conception of his
material body as he is at its burial.
After the experience of conception we explore the span of time between conception and birth,
those months inside the womb which are the source of so many, mostly unpleasant,
experiences for the child. The fears and pains, not to mention abortion attempts, that the
foetus suffers during that period, cannot be believed by anyone who has not re-lived them.
Compared with these pre-natal traumas, the subsequent childhood experiences of the early
years are harmless episodes. A conscious survey of the period in the womb will shed more
light for the patient than a hundred hours of analysis.
More and more often it happens that people during ordinary therapy regress of their own
accord into birth and intra-uterine experiences. Thus, even in orthodox circles, it is becoming
gradually accepted that the pre-natal period can be consciously re-lived. In comparison with
earlier theories and therapeutic methods this discovery is sensational. The danger is,
however, that some people may become convinced that in the unpleasant experiences in the
womb and at birth lies the “true cause” of subsequent conflicts and disorders. In reality these
factors are not causes at all, any more than the childhood experiences that Freud and his
followers made so much of. Both childhood and pre-natal events are only links in a chain of
problems that stretches through many incarnations.
Here some readers may raise the objection that only in the third month of pregnancy does the
soul enter the body. The evidence against this is that up to now all patients and test subjects
without exception have been able to describe their conception and simultaneous entry into
flesh. In due course experiments may reveal how the theory about the third month arose, but
it seems to me a doubtful theory, since the cells require information form the onset in order to
develop according to plan.
The fact that from conception onwards a child is fully conscious of all that happens and is
spoken, has far-reaching implications for parents, midwives and doctors attending labour.
Fortunately the gentle-birth methods of Dr Leboyer are currently receiving increasing
sympathy, and clinics are gradually accommodating themselves to the demands of conscious
parents.
One could fill whole volumes with warnings and pieces of advice relating to pregnancy and
birth, but the important thing for the parents to realize is that it is only in terms of the body that
the growing embryo is so tiny, so helpless and so young. It is quite possible for a newborn
baby to be older in soul than its parents. There is absolutely no reason to talk to a baby in
meaningless babble. It understands every word and every sentence – even those things that

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are better not said in the presence of children.
All parents would be well advised to begin as early as possible with the education of their
children – namely on the very day when they learn that a child is expected. Eugenics – in the
sense of ante-natal education – consists in the parents talking to the child in the womb in a
perfectly normal way, encouraging it to look forward to its arrival, teaching it about birth,
exposing it only to good music, literature, films and plays. Telling the embryo clearly about
birth does more good than weeks of gymnastic exercises.
All difficulties and complications during delivery are attributable to the child's attempts to
prevent itself from being born. Fear of being born has to do not so much with the delivery
process itself as with the mastery of life, which begins here. The embryo does not possess its
own breathing rhythm and is therefore not fully caught in polarity. This means that it still has
access to past and future. It can survey the most important stages of its future life – compare
this with the “film” of life that a person sees at death.
The extinguishing of this knowledge occurs with the first breath, for it is through the breathing
rhythm that a human being enters fully into polarity and dependence on time. This is why a
horoscope is calculated in relation to the first breath or the first cry. Herein lies also the reason
for the great significance attached to breathing in esoteric training. The embryo views the
problems of its future life and knows that this knowledge will disappear when it is born. Hence
the fear of birth and the frequent attempts to prevent it happening. Appropriate pre-natal
conversations can help here more than all clinical techniques put together. By the same
token, parents who spend weeks discussing whether or not they should abort a child should
not be surprised later on if the child is disturbed, or rejects its parents.

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ENCOUNTER WITH THE PAST

Once the subject has become aware of the various stages of birth, conception and embryonic
development (this process takes about five hours of therapy) we regress him/her into a
previous incarnation. He now experiences himself as he was during that earlier life and learns
to survey it from birth to death. Naturally we always have him live consciously through dying
in a previous existence, so that he becomes reconciled to life's opposite pole, death, instead
of suppressing it as most people do.
After this therapy the subject no longer fears death, since fear has given way to knowledge
(fear is lack of knowledge!). One woman was heard to remark spontaneously during a
session: “It's funny, I never thought that dying could be so simple.” Our subjects' description of
death tally fairly exactly with the reports which Dr Moody, Dr Kübler-Ross and others have
received from people who have died clinically and been re-animated. Just as at conception
the consciousness becomes linked to the body, so at death it is once more released.
When the person has learned to survey some of his earlier lives, we then take up the thread
of a particular symptom and follow its appearances through their previous incarnations. In this
way we examine in each case only the specific situation linked with the symptom and leave
aside all the other details of this particular life. In that way we gain access relatively quickly to
very remote incarnations.
The actual number of previous incarnations is a subject of much misconception. Some people
boast for instance, that they know they have already lived four times. In fact the true number
of past lives is inestimably high. After only a few sessions the person loses any desire to
count the number of times he has lived before.
Equally difficult for the newcomer to imagine are the stretches of time that we cover in our
therapy. It is difficult to name figure, but we go much further back than modern historical
research reaches. Atlantean incarnations of 12,000 years ago are not considered by us as
particularly old.
We are fully aware of how incredible such claims may seem to some readers, but these
claims are merely the result of daily work with people who are no different from those treated
by other therapists. There was never any attempt to suggest or provoke particular
phenomena, and this is borne out by the fact that the initial results did not correspond at all to
our expectations.
In exploring the material plane we have likewise had to accustom ourselves to unfathomable
dimensions. Anyone who thinks he has lost the capacity for amazement should try going to a
planetarium and meditating on the inconceivable magnitudes that modern science deals with.
Not content with the undoubtedly impressive achievements of science in exploring the
material world, we have also begun to explore the world of the mind. On this level, however,
we have hardly taken the first step. Thus many quite unimaginable phenomena are waiting to
be grasped by the human consciousness.
We shall also have to revise our present ideas radically when it comes to the age and origin
of mankind. Mankind is considerably older than is generally assumed today, and has already
gone through many periods of high culture very similar to our own. Here also we see the law
of rhythm in operation: every high culture eventually yields to ruin and destruction, but
mankind still goes on building the tower of Babel.
Let us return to the subject of reincarnation therapy. When someone scans through the
history of a particular symptom over many lives he learns that his present-day problem or
symptom is ancient and has been present in similar form in almost every previous existence.

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Here again lies a danger of misinterpretation, which I myself initially fell prey to (see the
relevant chapter in Voices from other Lives).
When one finds in a previous life a traumatic situation corresponding in content to the
symptom in question there is a temptation to interpret the earlier situation as the primal
trauma and therefore as the “cause”. Here is an example: a patient cannot see with his left
eye. In an earlier life he experiences his left eye being pierced by an arrow. Another example
would be a person with vertigo who experiences having been thrown from a cliff in a former
existence. Someone confined within the conceptual system of modern psychology would tend
to regard these earlier experiences as having caused the symptoms. This conclusion is,
however, just as false as the attempt to find in childhood the cause of psychological disorder.
If we relate the thoughts we have developed in this life to an earlier incarnation we find that
the traumatic experience was certainly no chance occurrence but an expression of a problem,
which was brought into this life. Looking at it the other way round, the soul of a person who
drowns in one life is very likely to have a fear of water in the next. But we should not conclude
from this that the drowning was the cause of the later fear of water. The drowning was itself
part of a meaningful pattern, a demonstration of an inherent problem.
The more one goes back the more situations one finds that would seem to qualify as the
“primal” trauma. Thus, returning to one of our earlier examples, the patient with the arrow in
his left eye will find many more events in which he lost that eye. All these events are links in a
chain whose totality forms the problem common to all the situations.
When, in our therapy, we have followed a chain of symptoms right back as far as it seems to
go, we then take the decisive therapeutic step: we regress the patient back to the moment
when he himself originally set up the cause of the chain of suffering and introduced the basic
theme that was to emerge in many different forms. This is the step with which the individual
confronts his own karmic guilt by which he himself has made necessary all the painful
situation he has been through. Up to now he has always regarded himself as an unfortunate
victim. It is really all the same whether he blames his disorder on his mother or on some
unpleasant experience in an earlier life – in either case he is projecting the guilt outside
himself.
When, however, he is confronted with his own karmic guilt, something quite different happens.
The sufferer has to integrate his shadow. He experiences himself as an agent, doing to others
the very thing that he complained was being done to him over several thousand years. To
confront his own guilt is no easy matter for the patient, but it is a major step in the direction of
healing, if he is able to take it. If one wants to insist on looking for a “cause” then it is to be
found in karmic guilt.
Guilt of this kind, however, is not the ultimate source; one could easily go on searching for
other determinants. If we do not do this in therapy it is for the following practical reasons:
1 There is no definite source of guilt, a fact which the Church obscures with the concept of
original sin.
2 A karmic misdeed, in relation to a present-day problem, can at least be considered as the
beginning of a particular phase in the unending rhythm.

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GUILT AND RESPONSIBILITY

With the recognition of guilt the individual has to assume full responsibility for his fate – a step
which opens the door to healing. The uninitiated are often afraid of discovering past situations
of guilt and believe that they can hardly go on living with this knowledge. Some believe they
could never, for example, get over the discovery that they have killed someone. Such fears
are unfounded in regard to specific memories of this kind. There is an old saying: “Only that
which man suppresses, oppresses”. It is when the knowledge of guilt is unconscious that we
are afraid to confront it. But if we succeed in looking guilt in the face all the pressure
disappears immediately. The pressure was only there because we pretended not to know
about the guilt.
Nothing of which we are fully conscious can ever have a negative effect. In therapy the
confronting of guilt is entirely free of value judgment It is a looking into reality and is
incorporated into the past as a step in the learning process. Through integrating step by step
into his consciousness all his hitherto totally suppressed shadows, a person becomes
complete and whole. Confrontation with guilt is not the taking on of a burden but the giving up
of a burden. Although the confrontation itself is frequently not felt to be very pleasant,
afterwards the patient has an unfamiliar feeling of freedom and relief. Any dealings with guilt
should avoid any extreme. To suppress guilt or to project it onto others is to create sickness in
oneself, since one is retreating from reality. It is equally unhealthy to overload oneself with
guilt and self-accusation until one collapses under the burden. We must learn that we are
guilty because we are human beings and that this guilt is the price we pay for our learning
process. Without error there is no development. There is therefore no single person who has
not shouldered guilt at some time in the past. Only by going through the darkness can we
reach the light. Nobody is able to avoid hate without first having tackled it.
In the tradition of the Church we see another example of a balanced way of dealing with guilt.
First the believer is made aware of the fact that, as a man, he is sinful and has shouldered a
burden of guilt, then he is given absolution and the burden is removed.
Some people object that the principle of grace stands in direct contradiction to the law of
karma, which states that all guilt must be redeemed by the individual. But this contradiction
between karma and grace is illusory. Like all polar opposites, these two principles unite in the
middle and in fact determine each other. Grace only comes to the person who asks for it, and
to do that he must acknowledge his guilt. Hence grace can only become effective through
karma. Karma works to promote insight in a human being, and once this has been achieved
he is ripe for grace.

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THE BASIC PROBLEM: POWER

Within a process of therapy we follow up several chains of symptoms with their accompanying
karmic guilt. All of these chains ultimately lead back to a nodal point representing the basic
problem which so far the patient has failed to overcome. The problem was the same then as it
is now, though in the distant past it took a coarser and more clearly defined form. In his or her
present life such problems have mostly become refined and sublimated to the point where
they are no longer recognizable.
If we analyze the basic problem of any individual we find that it always boils down to the same
theme, namely power. Man becomes sick with the disease of power. In earlier lives this was
usually lived out in a very obvious way, whereas in the present life it is veiled and refined. But
always it is power that is man's downfall. The polar opposite of power is humility. Every time
we say “I must” or “I want” we are expressing a claim to power.
In terms of the present life, one of the commonest ways of exerting power is through being ill.
Today illness guarantees the individual a space in which he can exercise his unconscious
power-urges free of criticism. Herein lies the reason why sick people would really prefer not to
give up their illnesses. Any sick person would of course hotly deny this and would point out all
the measures that he or she had taken in order to become well again. But this piling up of
alibis does not reflect the individual's real state of mind. Naturally the patient himself believes
that he wishes to be cured, but only because he is not yet aware of the motive for his being ill.
Once he recognizes that he himself must decide either to remain ill or to renounce power, he
usually finds the choice a very difficult one.
Power is to be equated with ego-dominance. It is the attempt to impose one's will on others
instead of subordinating oneself. This power-urge was what led, in Paradise, to the biting of
the apple. The disobedience of Adam and Eve represented a refusal to subordinate
themselves to the law and an insistence on arrogating to themselves the knowledge of what
was good and what was evil. Man has always been willing to pay a high price for power. To
attain it he has even been willing to make a pact with Satan and to sell his soul.
Yet not until the patient has re-experienced, with full clarity, the power-urges of his earlier
incarnations will he begin to unmask them in the here and now. Only when he has seen how
over many thousands of years, he has heaped suffering upon himself in order to buy power,
will he slowly begin to be ready to understand the doctrine of humility. Such understanding
does not come about through an intellectual process, but through an experience of reality
which brings about a trans-polarization in the individual. The change in consciousness takes
place in the present, and thereby the person becomes healed. The symptoms, having
become superfluous, literally disappear of their own accord, although we have in fact not
treated them at all.
Reincarnation therapy is not a flight into the past but a way of using the past in order to guide
the patient into its opposite pole the present. As long as the past is suppressed and continues
to work on an unconscious level, the individual will not succeed in living consciously in the
here-and-now. He will be continually re-stimulated by past events and will confuse past and
present. Only when he has fully integrated the past into his consciousness can he put it aside
as over and done with and finally experience the present with a freshness he has hitherto not
believed possible. The reason why we look back into the past in our therapy is not because
we find the past interesting but to make it clear how unimportant it is.
The goal of any esoteric path is to attain a state of constant awareness in the present
moment. But in order to reach that state we must first isolate the present from the past and

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purify it. Reincarnation therapy follows the homeopathic law of similitude. By exploring the
chain of symptoms, the sick person is continually confronted with similar situations, until
finally he discovers the poisonous source of guilt. Through his act of recognition, he
potentises this poison, turning it into a medicine and solving his basic problem.
Reincarnation therapy is neither a means of satisfying curiosity about previous lives, nor is it
an “opium of the people” which gives consolation by promising a new existence.
Reincarnation therapy is a hard route to purification. In repeated reincarnations we see no
source of comfort but rather a challenge to develop towards completeness and thus become
free of the wheel of rebirth. We say “yes” to this earthly existence, as long as it is necessary
for our path of development. Our goal, however, lies beyond the material world. It lies in that
unity which we once left behind and to which every human being longs finally to return.

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EXPERIENCES OF THE BEYOND

People often ask whether, on our journey through a series of incarnations, we also pass
through the intervening stages between lives and, if so, what people report about the beyond.
Our experiences of the beyond and of the intermediary stages are at the time of writing
considerably wider than they were a few years ago, but they are by no means complete. In
our therapy we try to pass through only those stages that are relevant for the patient, and we
avoid enquiring about things merely to satisfy our own curiosity. This is why our experiences
of the beyond are still at a somewhat early stage.
It is difficult to make generally valid statements on this subject since the beyond does not
present a homogeneous picture but is just as differentiated as are the different stages of
human consciousness. The beyond is an astral world and therefore purely a plane of images
where the forms that a soul perceives will reflect the acquired content. The soul of a dead
person, by the law of resonance, will reach whatever plane of the beyond corresponds to this
soul's level of consciousness. These different levels make it difficult to give a unified picture. It
depends on the individual whether the beyond for him is heaven or hell. A deceased will often
experience the beyond as a landscape whose appearance and mood will reflect his own
quality of soul. One female patient who entered the beyond after a life (very remote in time)
as a cruel and powerful ruler, describes it as follows:

I die a painful, slow and lonely death. Above all I have a horrible fear of death which almost
takes me out of my senses. I hear dreadful noises and find myself within a dark sphere,
amidst a bizarre landscape. Everything is terrifying, everything is shivering with fear. The
landscape is inharmonious, everything is sharp, angular, cold and repellent. It is windy, the air
is filled with anguished groaning. Aimless and disorientated, I look for a hole or a crack
through which to crawl but find nothing. Even colours are threatening. There are also many
other beings, including some that resemble rats. I have to spend an agonizingly long time
here, ceaselessly looking for some corner to hide in. The worst thing is that one never gets
used to the horror of this place. After a long time I finally find a crack; I hastily thrust myself
into it and at the same time am pulled in.

Similarly unpleasant experiences could be related by others who have entered the beyond
after a life dominated by greed, cruelty and selfishness. Apart from these cases, the beyond is
described as pleasant and beautiful. For example, here is a description given by a dying child:

Slowly everything becomes lighter, and I begin to float. I am no longer myself, yet I am myself.
I can see everything: my mother, my father, the woman and myself in bed. I float higher, up
towards the ceiling, then down again until I am near my mother. I stroke her. Then I float up
once more and see the house and the garden. Someone is leading me by the hand. It is my
grandmother, the mother of my father. She is very sweet to me. She says she is going to take
me somewhere and show me everything. We come to a gentle, undulating landscape, and I
see other beings. We do not speak, but one can tell what they are saying, and they know
what I am saying. This is a place where one feels good and happy. There are soft, light,
gentle colours which somehow merge into one another.

Descriptions of the world beyond present a wide variety of scenery, ranging from ultra-horrific
wasteland to magnificent countryside. And the beings that one encounters there correspond

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to the quality of the environment. It must be emphasized again that we are not talking about a
material plane but about a purely psychic world, which is nonetheless real.
The experiences we have discussed show that the beyond reflects the soul's level of
consciousness and that all other beings encountered there belong to roughly the same stage
of development. There is contact with other souls and entities, and evidently further learning
also takes place. Help from more highly developed beings only comes to those who ask for it.
Usually after physical death, the mistakes that an individual has committed during his life
become suddenly clear. Apart from such experiences as the dark sphere, the beyond is found
to be so pleasant that no one wishes to return to the material world. It is only when the
individual recognizes his own mistakes that he feels a desire to compensate and make good
and hence finally realizes that he must once again be incarnated.
The beyond is just as varied and many-faceted as the material world. As death alone does not
make a person essentially more intelligent or mature, in the beyond wisdom and stupidity are
distributed in much the same proportions as they are on earth – a fact which is often
overlooked by the followers of spiritualism. I am not trying to cast doubt on the “genuineness”
of spiritualistic phenomena but merely wish to warn against accepting any utterance and
giving it a halo of infallibility just because it comes “from the beyond”. The chance of obtaining
messages of really high spiritual quality through a medium is very small. One is much more
likely to receive only the private opinions and views of certain underdeveloped souls or even
non-human entities.

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EARTH-BOUND SOULS

We now touch on the subject of souls that are “earth-bound” - a subject which the public is
still ill-equipped to understand but which, because of its importance, we cannot entirely
ignore. By “earth-bound” I mean souls which, after leaving the body, remain for one reason or
another so concerned with earthly events that they neglect to follow their required path
through the world beyond. As in their lifetime, all their interest is focused on worldly
happenings. They therefore try to share in the activity of a living human body in order to
regain their own capacity for action.
The reason for this kind of earth-bound state is usually – however strange this may sound –
that the person concerned has not consciously perceived his or her own death. “Overlooking”
death in this way is frequently a consequence of believing firmly that after death everything is
finished. When someone of this conviction suddenly dies, he finds that subjectively so little
has changed for him that it simply does not occur to him that he is dead. The only perceptible
difference lies in his own inability to act, and this he quickly remedies by attaching himself to
another body and thus regaining the feeling of having the normal influence on earthly events.
There are other possible reasons for a soul being earth-bound. A person might, for example,
have committed serious mistakes and wish to correct them himself after death. Or there might
be grieving relatives who seek to keep the soul of the deceased chained to them. Sometimes
a living person can be possessed by several earth-bound souls, a condition that one should
not confuse with demonic or devilish possession.
The earth-bound souls are not intent on anything evil but are themselves in a regrettable
plight and are waiting for help. Beings in the beyond, however, cannot give such help until
these souls turn away from earthly happenings and ask for help. Thus it is the task of the
living to provide the necessary help. All the old-established religions, therefore, include rituals
and pleas for the dead. An impressive example of this is the Tibetan Book of the Dead, whose
rituals have the purpose of guiding the souls of the deceased.
Possession of a living person by deceased souls can take many forms, ranging from minor
symptoms to mental illness. It is significant that the majority of cases classified as
schizophrenic are characterized by the presence of earth-bound souls. In such cases it is the
intruding soul, and not the patient, that should be treated in order to bring about the release of
the soul and the freeing of the patient.
In the early part of the century the American psychiatrist, Dr Wickland, worked successfully for
over thirty years with this method of treating shizophrenics. Success in this difficult work was
made possible by the talents of his wife who was an outstanding medium. During the
sessions she placed her body at the disposal of the earth-bound souls, so that through her
they could speak and communicate.
The treatment of a soul consists in explaining the circumstances in which the person now
finds himself and retrospectively making him conscious of his death. He must learn to grasp
that he no longer possesses a body of his own and that earthly matters now have no
importance for him. He must literally turn himself around to face his new path and recognize
the help that lies in the world beyond.
In the past few years we have begun to collect our own experiences in this area. These
confirm Wickland's findings but also show how many problems and dangers attend such
procedures. Laymen should therefore be warned against any wild experimentation in this
field. Recently we have found possible ways, within our therapy, of contacting and treating the
earth-bound souls even without a medium. This form of therapy I call “release-therapy”,

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because the soul is freed from its bondage and guided on to its own true path.
A central role in release-therapy is played by the prayer which the soul desperately desires to
utter. Thus the greatest opportunity for the layman to help such souls lies in praying and
having masses read for the deceased – one could hardly recommend a better service. It also
follows that surviving relatives and friends should avoid any attempt to tie or call back the
deceased. Spiritualists and those who go in for recording voices on tape are involved mainly
with earth-bound souls. They should be clear in their minds that these souls need help but are
in now way the transmitters of heavenly wisdom.
We are still at the beginning of this research but what we have discovered so far shows that
by taking into account this type of problem we can open up completely new possibilities for
therapy and assistance.

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STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT OF THE SOUL

The length of a soul's sojourn in the beyond varies with the individual. It is certainly not true,
however, that several hundred or several thousand years lie between the incarnations, as is
widely maintained. It is significant that in the distant past intervening phases of a few hundred
years occurred. But at present the intervals between incarnations are usually less than ten
years. The shortening or lengthening of the
interval is the mechanism which controls population levels. The shorter the interval the
greater the number of people living on earth.
In this context one should not forget that humanity is not a closed realm with a constant
number of souls but something like a transit station. If we compare incarnations to forms in a
school we can think of humanity as a secondary school. Just as before and after the
secondary school there are other places of learning, so the soul passes through different
realms until it is mature enough for humanity; and when it has become a perfected human
being there awaits endless hierarchies with further tasks lying outside the human kingdom.
One also finds in the human soul memories reaching back into the animal, vegetable and
mineral kingdoms, but one should not equate these with incarnations in the narrower sense.
Only with humanity does the development of the individual soul begin, for in the animal
kingdom the group soul still reigns. Occasionally, however, a human soul can be demoted to
an animal kingdom. Such demotions probably apply to the beginnings of humanity and are by
no means the rule.
A common question in whether or not one's sex changes over the series of incarnations.
Although we know from experience that sex does change we still cannot throw much light on
this question since we are not yet clear about the law which governs this change. Having
tested many hypotheses I am at present of the opinion that a soul possesses a definite sex
but that it also has a double of the opposite sex. In most incarnations the individual has the
sex that the soul possessed in the beginning. Incarnations in the opposite sex only
occasionally intervene so that particular experiences can be undergone and karma cleared.
The soul frequently but not invariably meets its double since the two are dependent on one
another in their development.
The repeated encounter with the same person over long chains of incarnations is certainly an
astonishing phenomenon. Love and hate, attraction and repulsion are merely vestiges from
the past. The clearing of karmic debt always involves the same person on whom one inflicted
the wrong that originally brought about the guilt. One of the most deeply striking experiences
in reincarnation therapy is to realize how similar are the problems that occur throughout an
individual's incarnations and how many millenia go by without any change in his or her basic
pattern of behaviour.
Part of the therapy may owe its success to this very realization. By surveying spans of time
which to our consciousness seem enormous, we are able to see the overall structure of the
problem and the nature of the chain of errors with great clarity. Reincarnation therapy works
like a microscope, sharpening our perception of the personality structure in all its details.
Through confrontation with guilt we are forced to shoulder the responsibility for our own fate
and in doing so, to change ourselves. At first the patient expects only a change in his
symptoms, overlooking the fact that this can only take place in connection with a change in
himself. In reincarnation therapy we learn the meaningfulness and justice of fate. We learn
that with each action we harvest what we once sowed and sow what we shall one day
harvest. This recognition forces us to live in the here and now. We perceive that we are

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cradled in a cosmos guided by meaning and purpose and that our sole task is to serve it. This
reconnection with the primal purpose is re-ligio, the final goal of our therapy, for healing is a
matter of religion.

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RELIGION AND REINCARNATION

Our experience shows that one cannot exclude man's religious problems from psychotherapy.
It is only from lack of meaning the soul sickens. The person who is ill in his psyche has, in
fact, already touched on a reality which is, for the most part, totally unknown to the “average
person”. The neurotic sees more than his “normal” fellows, but cannot stand reality – he
sickens from the poison of truth. Looking at it in homeopathic terms, he can only become
healed through the truth that has made him ill. It can never be the aim of our path to bring the
patient back to the normality that he enjoyed before his illness. Rather, after a successful
therapy the patient must stand above normality to the same degree as his neurosis formerly
pushed him below it.
If one accompanies someone on this path of individuation one necessarily encounters
questions about meaning, God, redemption and so on. These themes are not – as many
people maintain – suggested by the therapist, but are, in fact, purposely avoided by most
threapists.
Therapy is not a medium for religious proselytising. Discussing the pros and cons of this or
that belief or denomination is not the same as a true encounter with re-ligio. Unfortunately in
most people the religious consciousness has a decidedly infantile character. This childishness
in matters of religion is just as pronounced among opponents of the Church as among its
supporters. It is alarming how seldom either group grasps the essence of religion. Thus there
is a wide gulf between what churches teach and what religions themselves teach – this has
always been so and will always remain so. Even ecclesiastical institutions are human
creations and just as fallible as all other institutions. The accumulation of power is part of the
essence of an institution, but power is the greatest enemy of all religion.
Thus from time to time true initiates appear among humanity and reassert the true,
unadulterated, eternally valid teaching – but they are invariably persecuted and crucified by
the official “Scribes and Pharisees” of the time. When we speak of religion here we always
refer to the pure teaching and not to churches and institutions. If during therapy a patient has
learned the true content of religion it is up to him whether he turns to a particular religion or
denomination or pursues his own individual way. Furthermore, he who has understood
religion will no longer feel angry about the mistakes of human society but will know how to
make them part of the ritual background to his own life.
This brings us to the question of reincarnation and Christianity. The official Christian churches
reject the doctrine of reincarnation with the exception of the Christian Community which is
influenced by the teachings of Rudolf Steiner and is an illustration of how Christianity and the
concept of reincarnation are fully compatible. Although it is hard to prove, there is much
evidence that at the time of Christ and in the early centuries of the Christian era belief in
reincarnation was taken absolutely for granted. Not until the year 533, at the Echumenical
Council under the emperor Justinian, was the doctrine of reincarnation anathematised: “He
who teaches the fabulous doctrine of the pre-existence of the soul and the monstrous idea of
restoration to life, let him be anathema.”
It is said that at the same time the relevant passages were deleted from the scriptures, though
confirmation of this could only come from the Vatican library. Nevertheless there remain
passages in the Bible which, although not sufficient to make reincarnation a definite part of
Christian teaching, do show quite clearly that the notion of reincarnation was taken for
granted by the disciples of Christ. In all four Gospels, for example, we find passages dealing
with the question of whether John the Baptist was a reincarnation of Elias. In Mark 8, 27 we

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read:

And Jesus went out, and his disciples, into the towns of Caesarea and Philippi: and by the
way he asked his disciples, saying unto them, Whom do men say that I am? And they
answered, John the Baptist: but some say, Elias; and others, One of the prophets.

Compare this with Matthew 16, 13-16 and with Matthew 17, 10, where we find:

And his disciples asked him saying, Why then say the scribes that Elias must first come? And
Jesus answered and said unto them, Elias truly shall first come, and restore all things. But I
say unto you, that Elias is come already, and they knew him not, but have done unto him
whatsoever they listed. Likewise shall also the Son of men suffer of them. Then the disciples
understood that he spake unto them of John the Baptist.

Compare also Mark 9, 11 and Matthew 11, 13 where we read:

For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John. And if ye will receive it, this is Elias,
which was for to come. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.

This question about Elias, which appears in all the Gospels, can only be understood in the
context of reincarnation. This applies particularly to the passage in St. John's Gospel 9, 1:

And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth. And his disciples
asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?
Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God
should be made manifest in him.

The question of whether the cause of the blindness lay in his own sin or in that of his parents
presupposes the acceptance of earlier incarnations. This is not affected by Jesus' answer,
which does not cast doubt on the validity of the question but merely reveals a third aspect that
was not taken into account by the questioner.
Many more statements about reincarnation are to be found in the writings of the Church
Fathers whose pronouncements on the subject are often unequivocal. K. O. Schmidt in his
book Wir leben nicht nur einmal (“We don't live only once”), has collected many relevant
quotations, some of which are worth repeating here. The great Origen writes:

If one wants to know why the human soul at one moment follows good and at another evil, we
must look for the reason in another life which precedes this one. - Each one of us hastens
towards completeness through a succession of lifetimes. - We are bound always to lead new
and better lives, be it on earth or in other worlds. Our surrender to God which cleanses us of
all evil, signifies the end of our reincarnations.

Other Church Fathers who clearly supported the doctrine of reincarnation were St Jerome,
Clement of Alexandria, Gregor of Nyssa, Rufinus, St Justin, St Hilary, Tertian, Philo, Nemesius
and others.
The Archbishop Louis Pasavali wrote:
In my opinion we would make a considerable step ahead if we could publicly support the

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concept of reincarnation, that is reincarnation on earth as in other worlds, for thereby many
riddles would be solved which at present cast a troubling mist of uncertainty over the mind of
man.

None of these names or quotations should give the impression that it is possible to prove
reincarnation to be a component of Christian doctrine. One could find sufficient passages and
authorities to support virtually any standpoint. I do not believe that the debate about
reincarnation should be carried out on the basis of Bible quotations. In my view it makes more
sense to examine seriously whether or not the theory of reincarnation contradicts the
Christian philosophy and the true teaching of Christ. An impartial investigation of this question
will reveal no such contradiction. The individual is therefore not faced with having to decide
between remaining a Christian and believing in reincarnation. A true Christian attitude has
always required the courage to go the way of one's conscience regardless of accepted views
– in this respect nothing has changed up to the present day. Even in Christ's time the scribes
were not to be counted among the disciples.

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CHAPTER IX
DAILY LIFE AS RITUAL

It is man's fundamental destiny to be sent out into danger and risk. Failure harms him less
than what he imagines to be safety. God does not want us to look for metaphysical
emergency exits but to contribute to the completion of mankind in all its aspects, from the
sensual to the transcendental.

•Herbert Fritsche

JUST AS SIMPLICITY must follow multiplicity, so we must now attempt to bring together all
our observations in many different areas, in order to obtain an overall view of the path we
have been following. At the beginning I pointed out that esotericism is a path and that this
path must be followed if we are to reach our goal.
After all our theoretical explorations the question again arises: what must we do if we are not
to remain inert observers but are actually to follow the esoteric path? Anyone who expects an
easy answer to this question will be deeply disappointed, but the person who is content with
certain hints will soon find more material than he can work through. For in fact there is nothing
that is not a hint pointing towards the goal.
Just as a small child cannot assimilate written information until it has learned to read, so we
must first learn the alphabet of reality before we can understand that everything visible is but
a symbol, a sigil representing a higher idea. This way of thinking and perceiving has to be
learned just like ordinary reading and writing.
The aim of this book has been to familiarize the reader a little with this way of looking at
reality. As it deals only with the early steps, it does not attempt to present all esoteric systems,
for to understand the whole range of such disciplines would demand a vast specialized
terminology.
Fate has been the sole object of our considerations – fate, the partner of all human beings, a
partner with whom they are forced to deal. A person's own fate is the most individual, made-
to-measure esoteric system that one could ever find. This is why we begin our path by
confronting our own fate. The aim of this confrontation is not to gain riches, happiness and
success in the usual sense, but to achieve a deeper understanding of reality, an extension of
consciousness, an encounter with the authority that man calls God.
The esoteric path does not promise outward fame, glamour and honour but rather work,
loneliness and ceaseless striving for truth. This path is narrow and stony, but unfortunately the
only one that leads to the strait gate of liberation. It is a steep path, and the danger of
stumbling and falling is great. According to the law of polarity, danger increases in proportion
to usefulness. With a knife one can both cut bread and kill someone. If one shapes the knife
in such a way that one can no longer use it to kill it will also no longer be suitable for cutting
bread. A small battery is harmless but it is also useless for supplying a town with electricity.
The higher one climbs up a mountain the further one can see and the further one can fall. It is
safer to stay down below on the plain crawling about on all fours – but the view form there is
commensurate. The esoteric path leads to the highest peaks and is therefore mortally
dangerous. Redemption and failure lie as close to one another as genius and madness.

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By biting the apple in Paradise, humanity has chosen the path of knowledge and must follow
it to the end if it wishes to find the way home again. It is the path traced out by Christ, which
leads even further downwards until “the great work” is completed and the light of redemption
shines from the depths.
At this point let me mention one of the stages on the esoteric path of initiation, a stage that is
reached by anyone who follows this path, namely loneliness. Loneliness is a necessary phase
that has to be passed through; in the Tarot it is symbolized by the ninth card, the Hermit. This
loneliness is not connected with one's outward activity; it is an inner experience which goes
together with not being understood by the world. A deep gulf of incomprehension and
alienation opens up between the individual and the world around him. He becomes a hermit,
even if he is surrounded by a hundred people. Just as this phase must be lived through, so,
with equal certainty, will it give way to other phases. Loneliness is only a transitional stage
which, among other things, is there to teach us how to listen and keep silent.
Before setting out on the path one should cast aside all illusions. All too many people become
involved in occult activity out of a wish to acquire abilities that will raise them above others
and make them more powerful. But where – overtly or covertly – the desire for power provides
the motivation, the way leads undeviatingly to the pole that is called “black magic”. Black
magic is simply any action that serves selfish or egotistical purposes. The essence of so-
called “white magic” is to illuminate the darkness, to transmute “lead” into “gold”, to participate
in the process of redeeming our planet, to serve the light. But as Fritsche puts it: “Only the
enlightened can give out light. Only the reborn can awaken others.” True power is power that
is possessed but not deployed. The infinite power of Christ revealed itself when he refused to
take up the challenge to descend from the cross. As long as we deploy power we remain the
slaves of power – and powerless.
As the public does not understand this principle it continually challenges occultists to prove
their claims and expects visible demonstration of miracles. True esotericism, however, will
never meet these expectations. The man in the street concludes from the refusal to produce
miracle that such things do not exist – but this is a reflection of his own shortsightedness and
we should not share in his limitation. When Jesus was in the wilderness the devil demanded
visible proofs of his power, but Jesus withheld them. (Luke 4, 1-13)
Here again we see the great difference between esotericism and parapsychology. As long as
man is motivated by mere curiosity the portal of initiation remains closed to him.
Once we have examined our true motivation and made sure that we are impelled neither by
curiosity nor by the desire for power, then we can begin to take the first steps on the new
path. We are soon given another warning: avoid haste! Many a traveler, in his enthusiasm
over the newly discovered territory of esotericism, tries to pursue its secrets at top speed. But
knowledge and development cannot be forced; they have their own rhythm and elude all
coercion.
For many years the warning words of Frater Albertus have stayed with me: “when seeking
becomes addiction”. Unfortunately it is all too easy to find people who insatiably consume
new systems and ideas without digesting or assimilating them. The path turns into a “trip”.
Fanaticism and intolerance are the hallmarks of those who try in their zeal to force God into
giving favours. Development requires stillness, but not the stillness of inactivity. Stillness
grows from the confidence that everything which is to happen will happen at the right time.
Just as the farmer must allow his seed to rest in the ground, so must we learn to wait until the
time is ripe. The motto “hasten slowly” reminds us of the golden mean between the extremes.
I do not consider it of prime importance to look around for esoteric societies and groups, or to

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go to India in search of a guru. There is at present a constantly growing number of groups,
varying in size, aim and traditional background. If one includes all the small clubs and circles
the number becomes astronomical. It is therefore impossible to arrive at a general judgement
as to their value or otherwise. Nevertheless it is worth making a few fundamental
observations on this subject.
Every group has its justification and can provide the individual seeker, at the appropriate time,
with a certain kind of impulse and stimulus. This impulse can be quite independent of the
inherent quality of the group itself. Nothing in this world is so bad that it cannot transmit
certain valuable information to a person who has learned to see consciously. The value of a
system or a group is hard to determine; it depends on the seeker's level of consciousness at
the time. If a person feels an affinity for a particular group, this obviously shows that he can
profit from its teachings. As long as he can do this the group is valuable to him.
Only in the rarest cases, however can this situation remain; for all groups, when they reach a
certain size, acquire a sluggishness that usually makes their own development slower than
that of the individual. Thus one day inevitably comes when the group has fulfilled its purpose
for the individual. He then feels a new affinity drawing him on, impelling him to take a further
step and to progress to a more advanced level of understanding.
The danger inherent in almost any group is the tendency to present its own teaching – which
of course can only represent a small section of reality – as the only truth that will bring
salvation. Thus a group's energies, instead of being devoted to its own development, are
frequently diverted into power struggles, proselytizing and rivalry with groups of other
persuasions. A system tends to become an end in itself and to take on an inert quality, instead
of bringing freedom from inertia. The group becomes a vehicle for mutual self-affirmation. A
coterie develops, consisting of disciples whose esoteric path goes no further than consuming
the Master's every utterance. In other words the path becomes a cul-de-sac.
Apart from this general danger which goes with all larger associations, it is possible to divide
groups qualitatively into three categories, corresponding to three basic tendencies:

1 Groups whose aims conform to white magic

2 Those with a tendency towards black magic
3 Those of an innocuous character which lead neither in one direction nor the other.

Leaving aside the third category, which is of no interest esoterically, we are left with the
question: how is it possible to distinguish between the white and the black path? Note that we
use the terms “white magic” and “black magic” here merely to denote a basic polarity,
regardless of whether any particular group actually uses the term “magic”.
The same polarity can be expressed by the terms “right-hand” and “left-hand” path. Each path
forms a pole to the other, and each has its justification. Thus is is not our intention here to
condemn the left-hand path as devilish; this path is necessary as a counterbalance and in
order to make the brightness of the right-hand path truly visible. Still, the individual who
wishes to set out on a path has to decide which path to choose, the dark or the light. Each
person is free to decide one way or the other, but, by the same token, each must bear – and
endure – the full consequences of his or her choice. The left-hand path lures with the promise
of power. The right-hand one demands sacrifice. To many, the decision seems to come easily.
One should remember, however, that everything was born from the light and therefore must
return to the light. Darkness is absence of light. Therefore the left-hand or dark path leads to
no genuine goal of its own. It is merely a wide detour which ultimately leads back to the light.

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It is not for nothing that since time immemorial truth, understanding, redemption and
enlightenment have been associated with light, whereas lying, deceit, falsehood, illness and
suffering have been linked with darkness. Each person must decide for himself, but it must be
emphasized here that when we talk about the esoteric path we mean the path of light, for the
dark path is ultimately not a path at all but merely the shadow of one.
There are many organizations and societies that serve the dark path, yet very few
acknowledge this officially. Before joining any group, therefore, one should check certain
points. Typical characteristics of the dark, left-hand path are: all striving for power – whether
through expansion, proselytizing or whatever; any attempt to tie a person to the organization
and make it difficult or impossible for him to leave; any form of drug-taking.
True esotericism, in so far as this exists in organized form, aims solely to help the seeker and
remains at his disposal as long as he needs its help and advice. True esotericism points the
way to freedom and never leads to dependence. True esotericism is not easy to organize,
which is why one should not look for it in large organizations. In the last resort each person
must go his or her own way alone. But if, along the path, he or she needs help, then this help
will come without the person having to ask. In order to receive help, all that is necessary is to
have a genuine need for it.

THE MEANING OF OCCULT TECHNIQUES

There are countless so-called exercises and techniques, and they vary greatly in
effectiveness and dangerousness. Here also, it is advisable to exercise moderation and not
attempt to accelerate one's own progress unduly through the simultaneous application of
many techniques. The value of most techniques lies more in regular practice than in the
actual form of the exercises involved. It does not really matter whether one stands on one's
head, holds one's breath or peels potatoes – what is important for success is the degree of
consciousness with which one does these things.
Thus even the best and most secret techniques remain completely ineffective if one practices
them in isolation from the rest of one's conduct and without an awareness of their symbolic
character. Those who practice a technique in this way can never integrate it into their lives. As
Goethe put it: “What use is the philosopher's stone if the stone lacks a wise philosopher?” By
the same token, any activity, however simple or banal, can be sanctified if one uses it
consciously and thus bestows it with meaning.
A ritual is the conscious, microcosmic reflection of a cosmic reality. Thus, in my view, the most
exciting esoteric exercise is to elevate daily life into a ritual. If we wish to overcome polarity
we must first get rid of the division between “esoteric exercises” and “normal life” - otherwise
we shall degrade esotericism to the status of a spare-time occupation. The aim of this effort is
to transform every handshake, every word, every action into something sacramental.
Consider the flower in the meadow, radiating the beauty of its blossom and the fragrance of
its scent. What is it doing other than constantly praising its creator? Similarly, what are the
songs of the birds and the sounds of the sea if not part of a continual hymn to God? It is only
we human beings who always imagine we have more important things to do and who make
ourselves into the central justification for our actions.

ESOTERICISM AND ESCAPISM

For the person who turns daily life into a ritual there is no danger that esotericism will become

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a form of escapism. Esotericism should not lead one away from the world but should help one
to transfigure and redeem earthly existence. Anyone who despises the realm of the earthly
and material as impure, dark and dirty, and who yearns only for the pure and heavenly world
above, is taking a highly dangerous course. Such an attitude to esotericism is usually a sign
that the person concerned is trying to escape from some area of life with which he or she can
no longer cope. Unfortunately esotericism has a great appeal for precisely those people who
cannot manage daily life and material problems. This is why, is esoteric circles, the true
initiates tend to be greatly outnumbered by the world-shy neurotics.
Dion Fortune in The Mystical Qabalah (Published by Williams and Norgate Ltd., London,
1935.) described this problem very precisely in the following words:

It is required of the mystic that he shall fulfill the requirements of the planes of form before he
is free to commence his withdrawal and escape from form. There is a Left-hand Path that
leads to Kether, the Kether of the Qliphoth, which is the Kingdom of Chaos. If he embarks
upon the Mystic Path prematurely it is thither he goes, and not to the Kingdom of Light. To the
man who is naturally of the Mystic Path the discipline of form is uncongenial, and it is the
subtlest of temptations to abandon the struggle with the life of form that resists his mastery
and retreat back up the planes before the nadir has been rounded and the lessons of form
have been learned. Form is the matrix in which the fluidic consciousness is held till it
becomes a nucleus of individuality differentiated out of the amorphous sea of pure being. If
the matrix be broken too soon, before the fluidic consciousness had become set as an
organized system of stresses stereotyped by repetition, consciousness settles back again into
formlessness, even as the clay returns to mud if freed from the supporting restraint of the
mould before it has set. If there is a mystic whose mysticism produces mundane incapacity or
any form of dissociation of consciousness, we know that the mould had been broken too soon
for him and he must return to the discipline of form until its lesson has been learned and his
consciousness has attained a coherent and cohesive organization that not even Nirvana can
disrupt.

A good way to learn this lesson of form is to examine one's own fate in the light of esoteric
laws. This exercise is what this book is primarily about, so it is worth surveying again the
foundations of this method of thought.
The aim of all our efforts is to wake up the sleeping individual and thereby give him the
capacity to see reality. When a person's consciousness awakens from its slumber and he
learns to open his eyes, he discovers step by step new dimensions of this reality –
dimensions of which he knew nothing while he was asleep. The desire to understand reality
ever more fully forces him to keep extending his consciousness and assimilating more and
more aspects of that reality.
The great problem encountered on this path is the fact that reality comes to our
consciousness divided into polarities. We find ourselves surrounded by nothing but contrasts,
yet at the same time we experience a deep longing for unity. If we wish ever to attain this
unity we must learn to bring together apparent contrasts, so that they become for us a
stepladder in our development. We experience ourselves as a limited consciousness that we
call “I”. Standing in contrast to this “I” is the outside world, which we experience as “not-I”.
The wise maintain that man, as microcosm, corresponds to the macrocosm. Thus the “outer”
is a mirror image of the “inner”. Consequently self-knowledge must lead to knowledge of the
world. At this stage man must learn that he is not, as he has always believed, a victim of

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outside circumstances, but that he himself creates his own environment by being the way he
is.
Thus he learns to apply the law of resonance consciously in order to change himself gradually
and thus make himself ripe for the things that he wishes to perceive and experience in the
outside world. In this way he reconciles himself with everything, and discovers that all that
exists is good.
When this reconciliation takes place is suddenly opens up for him new dimensions and new
connections which are closed to the person who puts up a resistance against reality. He no
longer sees the world as divided horizontally into planes instead he discovers that these
planes are linked by vertical chains of principles. As every manifestation is merely a particular
expression of a primal principle, the whole world of appearance becomes all at once a
metaphorical reflection of this higher reality – and one begins to understand what Hermes
Trismegistos meant by the statement: “That which is above is as that which is below.”
Wherever we look, nothing is still, everything flows, changes, transforms itself. As this
ceaseless transformation seems to be directed towards a goal, we call it development or
evolution. Development can only come about through a learning process, but any learning
process is bound up with the solving of problems. Thus we find that problems are the real
driving mechanism of all development, and that every problem presents a challenge to live
through it actively, to solve it and resolve it.

THE RETURN HOME

Fate, instead of being an anonymous force of blind coincidence that poses a threat to
mankind, now gradually reveals to the seeker its innermost law: fate is the authority which
ensures that the individual follows his prescribed path. Thus the supposed enemy becomes a
partner whose task is to make sure that our own inertia does not prevent our evolution. The
more a person refuses to resolve particular problems in a spirit of learning and the more he
puts up a resistance against fate, the more he will attract the negative aspect of fate, namely
suffering.
Suffering is the friction which arises because of the discrepancy between the individual's true,
prescribed path and the direction that he happens to be following at the time. Suffering only
becomes superfluous when we make the effort constantly to increase our understanding of
our own path and voluntarily to conform to it. Only the person who knows how to subordinate
himself to superior law will cease to experience that law in the form of compulsion. Total
freedom only comes to the individual who fits into the order of the cosmos and merges with its
law. In order to do this, however, it is necessary to overcome the ego's power-drive. The will
to power is man's greatest enemy – an enemy that is continually devising more subtle
disguises for itself.
The opposite pole to power is humility or love. On all levels of being it is love alone that can
overcome the polarity between the I and the not-I. It is only the power of love that can change
the lower into the higher and thus bring about a genuine transmutation. Struggle always
engenders struggle, hate engenders hate, pressure engenders pressure. Love teaches us
that the weak are the truly strong and the humble are the truly powerful.
This is the message conveyed by the eleventh, and central card of the Tarot trumps. It is
entitled Strength and depicts a gentle-looking woman, garlanded with roses, who with her
bare hands is holding open the mouth of a fierce lion. This card symbolizes the strength and
power of love, which cannot be conquered by any other force in the world.

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Anyone who has learned to realize the great power of service and humility has already made
a great step on his path. Love seeks to overcome polarity and contrast and to lead man back
into the unity of consciousness which he once relinquished through the original Fall.
In Paradise man was an androgynous being who still lived in a perfect state of unity. But he
followed the temptings of the serpent out of desire for knowledge of good and evil. He
separated himself from unity – and hence he now knows what is good and what is evil.
This knowledge became a poison to him, which is why it is also knowledge alone that can be
his medicine – for similia similibus curantur, “like cures like”. Man is ailing from the disease of
polarity and hopes for a cure. To be ill is to be human. Illness is man's opportunity, for it is only
because he is ill that he is capable of being made whole – and made holy. Illness is the Fall in
microcosm and is always a disunion with god. Healing is reconciliation with God. All external
healing measures can never provide but the mere formal conditions for this event.
Illness and suffering should not therefore be seen as unwelcome disturbances in our lives, to
be avoided s far as possible. Rather, they are the preliminary steps to liberation, which must
be lived through and endured if we are to find light in the depths. Illness has its impersonal
aspect, which we call original sin, and its personal aspect, which we call karma.
Living consciously means trying to redeem and cancel more and more of our karma, without
at the same time incurring more karmic debt. The point where the personal and impersonal
aspects of guilt meet is where illness turns into healing.
Not until we are prepared to assume full responsibility for everything that we experience and
that happens to us do we discover the meaningfulness of life. The sickness of our age is
meaninglessness, which has uprooted man from the cosmos. This lack of meaning is the
price that humanity has paid for the attempt to give up responsibility. But the signs of the
times indicate that this sickness is turning itself into healing, for increasing numbers of people
are setting forth on the quest for meaning.
He who is prepared to assume full responsibility for his fate has the experience of being
integrated into the universal order and loses all fear, for he has rediscovered his link with the
primal source. This link alone is what constitutes true re-ligio. Only by knowing his origin can
man recognize his goal. This goal is completeness. Completeness is the expression of unity.
Unity is what we call God.

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