[Detailed development of the twelve world-outlooks summarized below. The adoption of any of these outlooks is more dependent upon individual karma than on their exclusive truthfulness:

Materialism: Sole belief in the crudest impressions, valid for the material world and its laws.

Spiritism: Sole belief that material reality is only illusion and that all genuine reality is found only in the Spirit.

Realism: Sole belief in what can be perceived and thought about as the external world.

Idealism: Sole belief in ideas manifesting through reality and giving it purpose.

Mathematism: Sole belief in the mathematical ordering of reality.

Rationalism: Sole belief in the ideas discovered in external reality.

Psychism: Sole belief in the need for ideas to be embodied in beings to be real.

Pneumatism: Sole belief that beings with ideas need to embody an active spirit able to do things.

Monadism: Sole belief in abstract spiritual monads with varying powers of perception.

Dynamism: Sole belief in the power of external and internal forces in reality.

Phenomenalism: Sole belief in sensual phenomena as representing a world of appearance to be thought over.

Sensationalism: Sole belief in sensual phenomena as the basic reality, with thought a mere addition.

(67, pp. 30-39, précis by RSWB))

22 Jan. 1914

“We had better arrange the twelve world-outlooks in the form of a circle (Materialism, Sensationalism, Phenomenalism, Realism, Dynamism, Monadism, Spiritism, Pneumatism, Psychism, Idealism, Rationalism and Mathematism) , and quietly observe them. They are possible, and one must know them. They really stand in such a relation to one another that they form a mental copy of the Zodiac with which we are now so well acquainted. As the sun apparently passes through the Zodiac, and as other planets do the same, so it is possible for the human soul to pass through a mental circle which embraces twelve world-pictures. Indeed, one can even bring the characteristics of these pictures into connection with the individual signs of the Zodiac, and this is in no wise arbitrary, for between the individual signs of the Zodiac and the Earth there really is a connection similar to that between the twelve world-outlooks and the human soul. I mean this in the following sense.

“We could not say that there is an easily understandable relation between, e.g. the sign Aries and the Earth. But when the Sun, Saturn, or Mercury are so placed that from the Earth they are seen in the sign Aries, then the influence is different from what it is when they are seen in the sign Leo. Thus the effect which comes to us out of the cosmos from the different planets varies according as the individual planets stand in one or other of the Zodiacal signs. In the case of the human soul, it is even easier to recognise the effects of these twelve 'mental-zodiacal-signs'. There are souls who have the tendency to receive a given influence on their inner life, on their scientific, philosophic or other mental proclivities, so that their souls are open to be illuminated, as it were, by Idealism. Other souls are open to be shone upon by Materialism, others by Sensationalism. A man is not a Sensationalist, Materialist, Spiritist or Pneumatist because this or that world-outlook is - and can be seen to be - correct, but because his soul is so conditioned that it is predominantly influenced by the respective mental-zodiacal sign. Thus in the twelve mental-zodiacal signs we have something that can lead us to a deep insight into the way in which human world-outlooks arise, and can help us to see far into the reasons why, on the one hand, men dispute about world-outlooks, and why, on the other hand, they ought not to dispute but would do much better to understand why it happens that people have different world-outlooks. How, in spite of this, it may be necessary for certain epochs to strongly oppose the trend of this or the other world-outlook, we shall have to explain in the next lecture. What I have said so far refers to the moulding of human thought by the spiritual cosmos of the twelve zodiacal signs, which form as it were our spiritual horizon.

“One can be a Gnostic in connection with all twelve world-outlook signs. Hence, if we want to put Gnosis in its right place, we must draw a circle, and the whole circle signifies that the Gnosis can move around through all the twelve world-outlook signs. Just as a planet goes through all twelve signs of the Zodiac, so can the Gnosis pass through the twelve world-outlook signs. Certainly, the Gnosis will render the greatest service for the healing of souls when the Gnostic frame of mind is applied to Spiritism. One might say that Gnosis is thoroughly at home in Spiritism. That is its true home. In the other world-outlook signs it is outside its home.”

“The special mark of Logicism consists in its enabling the soul to connect thoughts, concepts and ideas with one another. Logicism is again something that passes like a planet through the twelve zodiacal signs.

“The forces of nature, the hardness of a stone, have this character for him; the whole of reality is a manifestation of will. This outlook can once more be regarded as a planet which passes through all twelve zodiacal signs. I will call this world-outlook, Voluntarism.

“Through all twelve constellations one can be an empiricist, a man with a world-conception based on experience. Empiricism is the fourth psychic mood which can go through all twelve constellations.

“But when the soul has become quiet and seeks inwardly for the divine Light, this soul-mood can be called Mysticism.

“Again, one can be a mystic through all the twelve mental constellations.

“Now the soul may be so attuned that it cannot become aware of what may arise from within itself and appear as the real inner solution to the riddle of the universe. A person who takes this standpoint is a Transcendentalist - perhaps that is the best word for it. He accepts that the essence of a thing is transcendent, but that it does not enter into the soul - hence, 'Transcendentalism', The Transcendentalist has the feeling: 'When I perceive things, their nature approaches me; but I do not perceive it. It hides behind, but it approaches me."

“We should be Transcendentalists if we said: 'The world is spread out all around us, and this world everywhere proclaims its essential being.' This we do not say. We say: 'This world is Maya, and one must seek the inner being of things by another way than through external sense-perception and the ordinary means of cognition.' 'Occultism'! The psychic mood of Occultism!

“Again, we can be an Occultist through all the mental-zodiacal signs. One can even be a thorough Occultist of Materialism. Yes, the rationally-minded scientists of the present day are all occultists of materialism, for they talk of 'atoms'. But if they are not irrational it will never occur to them to declare that with any kind of 'method' one can come to the atom. The atom remains in the occult. It is only that they do not like to be called 'Occultists', but they are so in the fullest sense of the word.”

“Apart from the seven world-outlooks I have drawn here there can be no others - only transitions from one to another. Thus we must not only distinguish twelve various shades of world-outlook which are at rest round the circle, so to speak, but we must recognise that in each of the shades a quite special mood of the human soul is possible. From this you can see how immensely varied are the outlooks open to human personalities. One can specially cultivate each of these seven world-outlook moods, and each of them can exist in one or other shade.

“What I have just depicted is actually the spiritual correlative of what we find externally in the world as the relations between the signs of the Zodiac and the planets, the seven planets familiar in Spiritual Science. Thus we have an external picture (not invented, but standing out there in the cosmos) for the relations of our seven world-outlook-moods to our twelve shades of world-outlook. We shall have the right feeling for this picture if we contemplate it in the following manner.

“Let us begin with Idealism, and let us mark it with the mental-zodiacal sign of Aries; in like manner let us mark Rationalism as Taurus, Mathematicism as Gemini, Materialism as Cancer, Sensationalism as Leo, Phenomenalism as Virgo, Realism as Libra, Dynamism as Scorpio, Monadism as Sagittarius, Spiritism as Capricorn, Pneumatism as Aquarius, and Psychism as Pisces. The relations which exist spatially between the individual zodiacal signs are actually present between these shades of world-outlook in the realm of spirit. And the relations which are entered into by the planets, as they follow their orbits through the Zodiac, correspond to the relations which the seven world-outlook-moods enter into, so that we can feel Gnosticism as Saturn, Logicism as Jupiter, Voluntarism as Mars, Empiricism as Sun, Mysticism as Venus, Transcendentalism as Mercury, and Occultism as Moon.

“The effect is specially good when a person has experienced, by way of exercises, the various Psychic moods Occultism, Transcendentalism, Mysticism, Empiricism, Voluntarism, Logicism, Gnosis - so that he can conjure them up in his mind and feel all their effects at once, and can then place all these moods together in the constellation of Phenomenalism, in Virgo. Then there actually comes before him a phenomena, and with a quite special magnificence, that which can be unveiled for him in a remarkable way as the content of his world-picture. When, in the same way, the individual world-outlook-moods are brought one after another in relation to another constellation, then it is not so good. Hence in many ancient Mystery-schools, just this mood, with all the soul-planets standing in the spiritual constellation of Virgo, was induced in the pupils because it was through this that they could most easily fathom the world.

“But there is one more thing. These world-pictures they have many nuances if you reckon all their combinations are modified yet again by possessing quite definite tones. But we have only three tones to distinguish.

“These three psychic tones are reflected in the cosmos, and their relation to one another in the soul of man is exactly like that of Sun, Moon and Earth, so that Theism corresponds to the Sun - the Sun being here considered as a fixed star - Intuitionism to the Moon, and Naturalism to the Earth. If we transpose the entities here designated as Sun, Moon and Earth into the Spiritual, then a man who goes beyond the phenomena of the world and says: 'When I look around, then God, Who fills the world, reveals Himself to me in everything.' or a man who stands up when he comes into the rays of the sun - they are Theists. A man who is content to study the details of natural phenomena, without going beyond them, and equally a man who pays no attention to the sun but only to its effects on the earth - he is a Naturalist. A man who seeks for the best, guided by his intuitions - he is like the poet whose soul is stirred by the mild silvery glance of the moon to sing its praises.

“Lastly there is a special thing. It occurs only in a single case, when a person, taking all the world-pictures to some extent, restricts himself only to what he can experience on or around or in himself. That is Anthropomorphism.” (67, pp. 41-54)

23 Jan. 1914

“Let us suppose that a person so lives in the world that among his natural predispositions we find the special forces through which he is influenced by the world-outlook of Idealism. We will say that he makes his world-outlook into a dominating factor in his inner life, so that the soul-mood which I designated yesterday as Mysticism, and called the Venus mood, flows towards Idealism and is nourished by its powers. Hence, if one speaks in the symbols of astrology, one would say that the spiritual constellation of such a man, according to his natural predispositions, is that Venus stands in Aries.

“I remark expressly, so that no misunderstanding may arise, that these constellations are of much greater importance in the life of a person than the constellations of the external horoscope, and do not necessarily coincide with the 'nativity' - the external horoscope. For the enhanced influence which is exerted on the soul by this standing of Mysticism in the sign of Idealism waits for the propitious moment when it can lay hold of the soul most fruitfully. Such influences need not assert themselves just at the time of birth; they can do so before birth, or after it. In short, they await the point of time when these predispositions can best be built into the human organism, according to its inner configuration.

“Hence the ordinary astrological 'nativity' does not come into account here. But one can say: A certain soul is by nature such that, spiritually speaking, Venus stands in Aries - Mysticism in the sign of Idealism. Now the forces which arise in this way do not remain constant throughout life. They change - that is, the person comes under other influences, under other spiritual signs and also under other moods of soul. Let us suppose that a man so changes that in the course of his life he comes into the soul-mood of Empiricism; that Mysticism has moved on, as it were, into Empiricism, and Empiricism stands in the sign of Rationalism. You see, as I drew it in the preceding lecture, going from inwards outwards in the symbolic picture, that Empiricism stands in relation to Mysticism as does the Sun to Venus. With regard to its mood the soul has progressed to Empi