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1. Preface
a. Who Is This Book For?
b. What’s Not in the Book
c. Code Samples
d. Conventions Used in This Book
e. O’Reilly Online Learning
f. How to Contact Us
g. Acknowledgments
2. 1. The Need for Machine Learning Design Patterns
a. What Are Design Patterns?
b. How to Use This Book
c. Machine Learning Terminology
i. Models and Frameworks
ii. Data and Feature Engineering
iii. The Machine Learning Process
iv. Data and Model Tooling
v. Roles

d. Common Challenges in Machine Learning

i. Data Quality
ii. Reproducibility
iii. Data Drift
 iv. Scale
v. Multiple Objectives
e. Summary
3. 2. Data Representation Design Patterns

a. Simple Data Representations

i. Numerical Inputs
ii. Categorical Inputs

b. Design Pattern 1: Hashed Feature

i. Problem
ii. Solution
iii. Why It Works
iv. Trade-Offs and Alternatives

c. Design Pattern 2: Embeddings

i. Problem
ii. Solution
iii. Why It Works
iv. Trade-Offs and Alternatives

d. Design Pattern 3: Feature Cross

i. Problem
ii. Solution
iii. Why It Works
iv. Trade-Offs and Alternatives
 e. Design Pattern 4: Multimodal Input

i. Problem
ii. Solution
iii. Trade-Offs and Alternatives

f. Summary
4. 3. Problem Representation Design Patterns

a. Design Pattern 5: Reframing

i. Problem
ii. Solution
iii. Why It Works
iv. Trade-Offs and Alternatives
b. Design Pattern 6: Multilabel

i. Problem
ii. Solution
iii. Trade-Offs and Alternatives

c. Design Pattern 7: Ensembles

i. Problem
ii. Solution
iii. Why It Works
iv. Trade-Offs and Alternatives

d. Design Pattern 8: Cascade

i. Problem
 ii. Solution
iii. Trade-Offs and Alternatives
e. Design Pattern 9: Neutral Class

i. Problem
ii. Solution
iii. Why It Works
iv. Trade-Offs and Alternatives

f. Design Pattern 10: Rebalancing

i. Problem
ii. Solution
iii. Trade-Offs and Alternatives
g. Summary
5. 4. Model Training Patterns

a. Typical Training Loop

i. Stochastic Gradient Descent
ii. Keras Training Loop
iii. Training Design Patterns

b. Design Pattern 11: Useful Overfitting

i. Problem
ii. Solution
iii. Why It Works
iv. Trade-Offs and Alternatives
 c. Design Pattern 12: Checkpoints

i. Problem
ii. Solution
iii. Why It Works
iv. Trade-Offs and Alternatives

d. Design Pattern 13: Transfer Learning

i. Problem
ii. Solution
iii. Why It Works
iv. Trade-Offs and Alternatives
e. Design Pattern 14: Distribution Strategy
i. Problem
ii. Solution
iii. Why It Works
iv. Trade-Offs and Alternatives
f. Design Pattern 15: Hyperparameter Tuning

i. Problem
ii. Solution
iii. Why It Works
iv. Trade-Offs and Alternatives

g. Summary
6. 5. Design Patterns for Resilient Serving
a. Design Pattern 16: Stateless Serving Function

i. Problem
ii. Solution
iii. Why It Works
iv. Trade-Offs and Alternatives

b. Design Pattern 17: Batch Serving

i. Problem
ii. Solution
iii. Why It Works
iv. Trade-Offs and Alternatives
c. Design Pattern 18: Continued Model
Evaluation
i. Problem
ii. Solution
iii. Why It Works
iv. Trade-Offs and Alternatives
d. Design Pattern 19: Two-Phase Predictions

i. Problem
ii. Solution
iii. Trade-Offs and Alternatives
e. Design Pattern 20: Keyed Predictions

i. Problem
 ii. Solution
iii. Trade-Offs and Alternatives
f. Summary
7. 6. Reproducibility Design Patterns
a. Design Pattern 21: Transform

i. Problem
ii. Solution
iii. Trade-Offs and Alternatives
b. Design Pattern 22: Repeatable Splitting

i. Problem
ii. Solution
iii. Trade-Offs and Alternatives

c. Design Pattern 23: Bridged Schema

i. Problem
ii. Solution
iii. Trade-Offs and Alternatives
d. Design Pattern 24: Windowed Inference

i. Problem
ii. Solution
iii. Trade-Offs and Alternatives

e. Design Pattern 25: Workflow Pipeline

i. Problem
 ii. Solution
iii. Why It Works
iv. Trade-Offs and Alternatives
f. Design Pattern 26: Feature Store
i. Problem
ii. Solution
iii. Why It Works
iv. Trade-Offs and Alternatives

g. Design Pattern 27: Model Versioning

i. Problem
ii. Solution
iii. Trade-Offs and Alternatives

h. Summary
8. 7. Responsible AI

a. Design Pattern 28: Heuristic Benchmark

i. Problem
ii. Solution
iii. Trade-Offs and Alternatives

b. Design Pattern 29: Explainable Predictions

i. Problem
ii. Solution
iii. Trade-Offs and Alternatives
 c. Design Pattern 30: Fairness Lens

i. Problem
ii. Solution
iii. Trade-Offs and Alternatives
d. Summary
9. 8. Connected Patterns

a. Patterns Reference
b. Pattern Interactions
c. Patterns Within ML Projects

i. ML Life Cycle
ii. AI Readiness

d. Common Patterns by Use Case and Data Type

i. Natural Language Understanding

ii. Computer Vision
iii. Predictive Analytics
iv. Recommendation Systems
v. Fraud and Anomaly Detection

10. Index
 Machine Learning Design
Patterns
Solutions to Common Challenges in Data
Preparation, Model Building, and MLOps

Valliappa Lakshmanan, Sara Robinson, and

Michael Munn
Machine Learning Design Patterns

by Valliappa Lakshmanan, Sara Robinson, and Michael Munn

Copyright © 2021 Valliappa Lakshmanan, Sara Robinson, and

Michael Munn. All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America.

Published by O’Reilly Media, Inc., 1005 Gravenstein Highway

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The views expressed in this work are those of the authors, and
do not represent the publisher’s views. While the publisher and
the authors have used good faith efforts to ensure that the
information and instructions contained in this work are
accurate, the publisher and the authors disclaim all
responsibility for errors or omissions, including without
limitation responsibility for damages resulting from the use of
or reliance on this work. Use of the information and
instructions contained in this work is at your own risk. If any
code samples or other technology this work contains or
describes is subject to open source licenses or the intellectual
property rights of others, it is your responsibility to ensure that
your use thereof complies with such licenses and/or rights.

978-1-098-11578-4

[LSI]
Preface
Who Is This Book For?
Introductory machine learning books usually focus on the what
and how of machine learning (ML). They then explain the
mathematical aspects of new methods from AI research labs
and teach how to use AI frameworks to implement these
methods. This book, on the other hand, brings together hard-
earned experience around the “why” that underlies the tips
and tricks that experienced ML practitioners employ when
applying machine learning to real-world problems.

We assume that you have prior knowledge of machine learning

and data processing. This is not a fundamental textbook on
machine learning. Instead, this book is for you if you are a
data scientist, data engineer, or ML engineer who is looking for
a second book on practical machine learning. If you already
know the basics, this book will introduce you to a catalog of
ideas, some of which you (an ML practitioner) may recognize,
and give those ideas a name so that you can confidently reach
for them.

If you are a computer science student headed for a job in

industry, this book will round out your knowledge and prepare
you for the professional world. It will help you learn how to
build high-quality ML systems.
What’s Not in the Book
This is a book that is primarily for ML engineers in the
enterprise, not ML scientists in academia or industry research
labs.

We purposefully do not discuss areas of active research—you

will find very little here, for example, on machine learning
model architecture (bidirectional encoders, or the attention
mechanism, or short-circuit layers, for example) because we
assume that you will be using a pre-built model architecture
(such as ResNet-50 or GRUCell), not writing your own image
classification or recurrent neural network.

Here are some concrete examples of areas that we

intentionally stay away from because we believe that these
topics are more appropriate for college courses and ML
researchers:

ML algorithms
We do not cover the differences between random forests
and neural networks, for example. This is covered in
introductory machine learning textbooks.

Building blocks
We do not cover different types of gradient descent
optimizers or activation functions. We recommend using
Adam and ReLU—in our experience, the potential for
 improvements in performance by making different choices
in these sorts of things tends to be minor.

ML model architectures
If you are doing image classification, we recommend that
you use an off-the-shelf model like ResNet or whatever the
latest hotness is at the time you are reading this. Leave the
design of new image classification or text classification
models to researchers who specialize in this problem.

Model layers
You won’t find convolutional neural networks or recurrent
neural networks in this book. They are doubly disqualified—
first, for being a building block and second, for being
something you can use off-the-shelf.

Custom training loops

Just calling model.fit() in Keras will fit the needs of
practitioners.

In this book, we have tried to include only common patterns of

the kind that machine learning engineers in enterprises will
employ in their day-to-day work.

As an analogy, consider data structures. While a college course

on data structures will delve into the implementations of
different data structures, and a researcher on data structures
will have to learn how to formally represent their mathematical
properties, the practitioner can be more pragmatic. An
enterprise software developer simply needs to know how to
work effectively with arrays, linked lists, maps, sets, and trees.
It is for a pragmatic practitioner in machine learning that this
book is written.

Code Samples
We provide code for machine learning (sometimes in
Keras/TensorFlow, and other times in scikit-learn or BigQuery
ML) and data processing (in SQL) as a way to show how the
techniques we are discussing are implemented in practice. All
the code that is referenced in the book is part of our GitHub
repository, where you will find fully working ML models. We
strongly encourage you to try out those code samples.

The code is secondary in importance to the concepts and

techniques being covered. Our aim has been that the topic and
principles should remain relevant regardless of changes to
TensorFlow or Keras, and we can easily imagine updating the
GitHub repository to include other ML frameworks, for
example, while keeping the book text unchanged. Therefore,
the book should be equally informative if your primary ML
framework is PyTorch or even a non-Python framework like
H20.ai or R. Indeed, we welcome your contributions to the
GitHub repository of implementations of one or more of these
patterns in your favorite ML framework.
If you have a technical question or a problem using the code
examples, please send email to [email protected].

This book is here to help you get your job done. In general, if
example code is offered with this book, you may use it in your
programs and documentation. You do not need to contact us
for permission unless you’re reproducing a significant portion
of the code. For example, writing a program that uses several
chunks of code from this book does not require permission.
Selling or distributing examples from O’Reilly books does
require permission. Answering a question by citing this book
and quoting example code does not require permission.
Incorporating a significant amount of example code from this
book into your product’s documentation does require
permission.

We appreciate, but generally do not require, attribution. An

attribution usually includes the title, author, publisher, and
ISBN. For example: “Machine Learning Design Patterns by
Valliappa Lakshmanan, Sara Robinson, and Michael Munn
(O’Reilly). Copyright 2021 Valliappa Lakshmanan, Sara
Robinson, and Michael Munn, 978-1-098-11578-4.” If you feel
your use of code examples falls outside fair use or the
permission given above, feel free to contact us at
[email protected].

Conventions Used in This Book

The following typographical conventions are used in this book:
Italic
Indicates new terms, URLs, email addresses, filenames, and
file extensions.

Constant width
Used for program listings, as well as within paragraphs to
refer to program elements such as variable or function
names, databases, data types, environment variables,
statements, and keywords.

Constant width bold

Shows commands or other text that should be typed
literally by the user.

Constant width italic

Shows text that should be replaced with user-supplied

values or by values determined by context.

TIP
This element signifies a tip or suggestion.

NOTE
This element signifies a general note.
 WARNING
This element indicates a warning or caution.

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Acknowledgments
A book like this would not be possible without the generosity of
numerous Googlers, especially our colleagues in the Cloud AI,
Solution Engineering, Professional Services, and Developer
Relations teams. We are grateful to them for letting us
observe, analyze, and question their solutions to the
challenging problems they encountered in training, improving,
and operationalizing ML models. Thanks to our managers, Karl
Weinmeister, Steve Cellini, Hamidou Dia, Abdul Razack, Chris
Hallenbeck, Patrick Cole, Louise Byrne, and Rochana Golani for
fostering the spirit of openness within Google, giving us the
freedom to catalog these patterns, and publish this book.

Salem Haykal, Benoit Dherin, and Khalid Salama reviewed

every pattern and every chapter. Sal pointed out nuances we
had missed, Benoit narrowed down our claims, and Khalid
pointed us to relevant research. This book would be nowhere
near as good without your inputs. Thank you! Amy Unruh,
Rajesh Thallam, Robbie Haertel, Zhitao Li, Anusha Ramesh,
Ming Fang, Parker Barnes, Andrew Zaldivar, James Wexler,
Andrew Sellergren, and David Kanter reviewed parts of this
book that align with their areas of expertise and made
numerous suggestions on how the near-term roadmap would
affect our recommendations. Nitin Aggarwal and Matthew
Yeager brought a reader’s eye to the manuscript and improved
its clarity. Special thanks to Rajesh Thallam for prototyping the
design of the very last figure in Chapter 8. Any errors that
remain are ours, of course.

O’Reilly is the publisher of choice for technical books, and the

professionalism of our team illustrates why. Rebecca Novak
shepherded us through putting together a compelling outline,
Kristen Brown managed the entire content development with
aplomb, Corbin Collins gave us helpful guidance at every stage,
Elizabeth Kelly was a delight to work with during production,
and Charles Roumeliotis brought a sharp eye to the
copyediting. Thanks for all your help!

Michael: Thanks to my parents for always believing in me and

encouraging my interests, both academic and otherwise. You
will be able to appreciate as much as I do the surreptitious
cover. To Phil, thank you for patiently bearing with my less-
than-bearable schedule while working on this book. Now,
I’mma be asleep.

Sara: Jon—you’re a big reason this book exists. Thank you for
encouraging me to write this, for always knowing how to make
me laugh, appreciating my weirdness, and for believing in me
especially when I didn’t. To my parents, thank you for being
my biggest fans since day one and encouraging my love of
technology and writing for as long as I can remember. To Ally,
Katie, Randi, and Sophie—thank you for being a constant
source of light and laughter in these uncertain times.

Lak: I took on this book thinking I’d get to work on it while

waiting in airports. COVID-19 made it so that much of the
work was done at home. Thanks Abirami, Sidharth, and Sarada
for all your forbearance as I hunkered down to write yet again.
More hikes on weekends now!

The three of us are donating 100% of the royalties from this

book to Girls Who Code, an organization whose mission is to
build a large pipeline of future female engineers. Diversity,
equity, and inclusion are particularly important in machine
learning to ensure that AI models don’t perpetuate existing
biases in human society.
Chapter 1. The Need for
Machine Learning Design
Patterns
In engineering disciplines, design patterns capture best
practices and solutions to commonly occurring problems. They
codify the knowledge and experience of experts into advice
that all practitioners can follow. This book is a catalog of
machine learning design patterns that we have observed in the
course of working with hundreds of machine learning teams.

What Are Design Patterns?

The idea of patterns, and a catalog of proven patterns, was
introduced in the field of architecture by Christopher Alexander
and five coauthors in a hugely influential book titled A Pattern
Language (Oxford University Press, 1977). In their book, they
catalog 253 patterns, introducing them this way:
 Each pattern describes a problem which occurs over and
over again in our environment, and then describes the core
of the solution to that problem, in such a way that you can
use this solution a million times over, without ever doing it
the same way twice.

Each solution is stated in such a way that it gives the

essential field of relationships needed to solve the problem,
but in a very general and abstract way—so that you can
solve the problem for yourself, in your own way, by adapting
it to your preferences, and the local conditions at the place
where you are making it.

For example, a couple of the patterns that incorporate human

details when building a home are Light on Two Sides of Every
Room and Six-Foot Balcony. Think of your favorite room in
your home, and your least-favorite room. Does your favorite
room have windows on two walls? What about your least-
favorite room? According to Alexander:

Rooms lit on two sides, with natural light, create less glare
around people and objects; this lets us see things more
intricately; and most important, it allows us to read in detail
the minute expressions that flash across people’s faces….

Having a name for this pattern saves architects from having to

continually rediscover this principle. Yet where and how you
get two light sources in any specific local condition is up to the
architect’s skill. Similarly, when designing a balcony, how big
should it be? Alexander recommends 6 feet by 6 feet as being
enough for 2 (mismatched!) chairs and a side table, and 12
feet by 12 feet if you want both a covered sitting space and a
sitting space in the sun.

Erich Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson, and John

Vlissides brought the idea to software by cataloging 23 object-
oriented design patterns in a 1994 book entitled Design
Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software
(Addison-Wesley, 1995). Their catalog includes patterns such
as Proxy, Singleton, and Decorator and led to lasting impact on
the field of object-oriented programming. In 2005 the
Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) awarded their
annual Programming Languages Achievement Award to the
authors, recognizing the impact of their work “on programming
practice and programming language design.”

Building production machine learning models is increasingly

becoming an engineering discipline, taking advantage of ML
methods that have been proven in research settings and
applying them to business problems. As machine learning
becomes more mainstream, it is important that practitioners
take advantage of tried-and-proven methods to address
recurring problems.

One benefit of our jobs in the customer-facing part of Google

Cloud is that it brings us in contact with a wide variety of
machine learning and data science teams and individual
Discovering Diverse Content Through
Random Scribd Documents
The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Spiritual
Guidance of Man and of Mankind
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the
United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where
you are located before using this eBook.

Title: The Spiritual Guidance of Man and of Mankind

Author: Rudolf Steiner

Editor: Harry Collison

Release date: February 28, 2017 [eBook #54260]

Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Chris Curnow and the Online Distributed

Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SPIRITUAL

GUIDANCE OF MAN AND OF MANKIND ***
The Spiritual Guidance
of Man and of Mankind

BY
DR. RUDOLF STEINER

EDITED BY H. COLLISON
The Authorized English Translation
COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY H. COLLISON
The copyright, the publishing rights, and the editorial responsibility
for the translation of the works of Rudolf Steiner, Ph.D., with the
exception of those already under the editorial supervision of Max
Gysi, are now vested in Mr. Harry Collison, M.A., Oxon.
 PREFACE
In the following pages are reproduced the contents of some
lectures delivered by me at Copenhagen in June last, in connection
with the General Meeting of the Scandinavian Theosophical Society.
What is here set forth was therefore spoken to an audience
acquainted with occult science, or theosophy. A similar acquaintance
is assumed in this work. It is throughout based on the foundations
given in my books, “Theosophy” and “An Outline of Occult Science.”
To anyone taking up the present work who is unacquainted with
these premises, it must needs appear the strange outpouring of
mere fancy, but the above-named books point out the scientific basis
of everything stated in this one.
I have completely re-written the shorthand report of the lectures;
nevertheless it has been my intention on publishing them, to
preserve the character given in oral delivery. This is specially
mentioned because it is in general my opinion that the form of work
intended for reading should be quite different from that used in
speaking. I have expressed this principle of mine in all my earlier
writings, as far as they were intended for the press. If in this
instance I have worked out my subject in closer connection with the
spoken word, it is because I have reasons for letting the work
appear at this juncture, and an adaptation completely in accordance
with the above rule would take a great deal of time.
Rudolf Steiner.
Munich, August 20, 1911.
The Spiritual Guidance of Man
and of Mankind
 LECTURE I.
A man reflecting on his own nature soon becomes conscious that
there is within him a second and more powerful self than the one
bounded by his thoughts, his feelings and the fully-conscious
impulses of his will. He becomes aware that he is subject to that
second self, as to a higher power. It is true that at first he will feel it
to be a lower entity as compared with the one limited by his
intelligent and fully-conscious soul, with its inclinations towards the
Good and True. And at first he will strive to overcome that lower
entity.
But closer self-examination may reveal something else about the
second self. If we often, in the course of our lives, make a kind of
survey of our acts and experiences, we make a singular discovery
about ourselves. And the older we are, the more significant do we
think that discovery. If we ask ourselves what we did or said at a
particular period of our lives, it turns out that we have done very
many things which are only really understood in later years. Seven
or eight, or perhaps twenty years ago, we did certain things, and we
know quite well that only now, long afterwards, is our intelligence
ripe enough to understand what we did or said at that earlier period.
Many people do not make such discoveries about themselves,
because they do not lay themselves out to do so. But it is extremely
profitable to hold such communion frequently with one’s own soul.
For directly a man becomes aware that he has done things in former
years which he is only now beginning to understand, that formerly
his intelligence was not ripe enough to understand them,—at a
moment such as this, something like the following feeling arises in
the soul: The man feels himself protected by a good power, which
rules in the depths of his own being; he begins to have more and
more confidence in the fact that really, in the highest sense of the
word, he is not alone in the world, and that everything which he
understands, and is consciously able to do, is after all but a small
part of what he really accomplished in the world.
If this observation is often made, it is possible to carry out in
practical life something which is very easy to see theoretically. It is
easy to see that we should not make much progress in life if we had
to accomplish everything we have to do, in full consciousness, with
our intelligence taking note of every circumstance affecting us. In
order to see this theoretically, we have only to reflect as follows: In
what section of his life does a human being perform those acts
which are really most important as regards his own existence? When
does he act most wisely for himself? He does this from about the
time of his birth up to that period to which his memory goes back
when in later life he surveys his earthly existence. If he recalls what
he did three, four or five years ago, and then goes farther and
farther back, he comes at last to a certain point in childhood, beyond
which memory cannot go. What lies beyond it may be told by
parents or others, but a man’s own recollection only extends to a
certain point in the past. That point is the moment at which the
individual felt himself to be an ego. In the lives of people whose
memory is limited to the normal, there must always be such a point,
but previously to it, the human soul has worked in the wisest
possible manner on the individual, and never afterwards, when man
has gained consciousness, can he accomplish such vast and
magnificent work on himself as he carries out, from subconscious
motives, during the first years of childhood.
For we know that at birth man takes into the physical world what
he has brought with him as the result of his former earthly lives.
When he is born, his physical brain, for instance, is but a very
imperfect instrument. The soul has to work a finer organization into
that instrument, in order to make it the agent of everything which
the soul is capable of performing. In point of fact the human soul,
before it is fully conscious, works upon the brain so as to make it an
instrument for exercising all the abilities, aptitudes, qualities, etc.,
which appertain to the soul as the result of its former earthly lives.
This work on a man’s own body is directed from points of view which
are wiser than anything which he can subsequently do for himself
when in possession of full consciousness.
Moreover, man during this period not only elaborates his brain
plastically, but has to learn three most important things for his
earthly existence. The first is the equilibrium of his own body in
space. The man of the present day entirely overlooks the meaning of
this statement, which touches upon one of the most essential
differences between man and animals. An animal is destined from
the outset to develop its equilibrium in space in a certain way; one
animal is destined to be a climber, another a swimmer, etc. An
animal is so organized from the beginning as to be able to bear itself
rightly in space, and this is the case with all animals up to and
including the mammals most resembling man. If zoologists would
ponder this fact, they would lay less emphasis on the number of
similar bones and muscles in man and animals, etc., for this is of
much less account than the fact that man is not endowed at the
outset with the complete equipment for his conditions of equilibrium.
He has first to form them out of the sum total of his being. It is
significant that man should have to work upon himself, in order to
make, out of a being that cannot walk at all, one that can walk
erect. It is man himself who gives himself his vertical position, or his
equilibrium in space. He brings himself into relation with the force of
gravitation. It will obviously be easy for anyone taking a superficial
view of the matter to question this statement, with apparently good
reason. It may be said that man is just as much organized for his
erect walk as, for instance, a climbing animal for climbing. But more
accurate observation will show that it is the peculiarity of the
animal’s organization that causes its position in space. In man it is
the soul which brings itself into relation with space and controls the
organization.
The second thing which man teaches himself, and that by means
of the entity which proceeds from one incarnation to another as the
same being, is speech. Through speech he comes into relation with
his fellow-men. This relation makes him the vehicle of that spiritual
life which interpenetrates the world primarily through man. Emphasis
has often been laid, with good reason, on the fact that a human
being removed, before he could speak, to a desert island, and kept
apart from his fellows, would not learn to talk. On the other hand,
what we receive by inheritance, what is implanted in us for use in
later years and is subject to the principles of heredity, does not
depend on a man’s dwelling with his fellows. For instance, his
inherited conditions oblige him to change his teeth in his seventh
year. If it were possible for him to grow up on a desert island, he
would still change them then. But he only learns to talk, when his
soul’s inner being, i.e., that which is carried on from one life to
another, is stimulated. The germ, however, for the development of
the larynx must be formed during the period at which man has not
yet acquired his ego-consciousness. Before the time to which his
memory goes back, he must plant the germ for developing his
larynx, in order that this may become the organ of speech.
And then there is a third thing: It is not so well known that man
learns this of himself, from that part of his inner being which he
carries on from one incarnation to another. It is the life within the
world of thought itself. The elaboration of the brain is undertaken
because the brain is the instrument of thought. At the beginning of
life, this organ is still plastic, because the individual has to form it for
himself as an instrument of thought, in accordance with the
intention of the entity which is carried on from one life to another.
The brain immediately after birth is, as it was bound to be, in
accordance with the forces inherited from parents and other
ancestors. But the individual has to express in his thought what he is
as an individual being, in accordance with his former earthly lives.
Therefore he must re-model the inherited peculiarities of his brain,
after birth, when he has become physically independent of his
parents and other ancestors.
We thus see that man accomplishes momentous things during the
first years of his life. He is working on himself in the spirit of the
highest wisdom. In point of fact, if it were a question of his own
cleverness, it is possible that he might not accomplish what he does
without that cleverness during the first period of his life. Why is all
this accomplished in those depths of the soul which lie outside
consciousness? This happens because the human soul and entire
being are, during the first years of earthly life, in much closer
connection with the spiritual worlds of the higher hierarchies than is
afterwards the case. A clairvoyant who has gone through sufficient
spiritual development to be able to witness actual spiritual events,
sees something exceedingly significant at the moment when the ego
acquires consciousness, i.e., the earliest point to which the memory
of later years goes back. Whereas what we call the child’s aura floats
round it in its earliest years like a wonderful human and superhuman
power, and, being really the higher part of the child, is everywhere
continued on into the spiritual world,—at the moment to which
memory goes back, this aura sinks more into the inner being of the
child. A human being is able to feel himself a continuous ego as far
back as that point of time, because then that which was previously
in close connection with the higher worlds, passed into his ego.
Henceforward the consciousness is at every point brought into
connection with the external world. This is not the case with a very
young child, to whom things appear only as a surrounding world of
dreams.
Man works on himself by means of a wisdom which is not within
him. That wisdom is mightier and more comprehensive than any
conscious wisdom of later years. The higher wisdom becomes
obscured in the human soul, which in exchange receives
consciousness.
The higher wisdom works from out of the spiritual world deep into
the bodily part of man, so that man is able by its means to form his
brain out of spirit. It is rightly said that even the wisest may learn
from a child, for in the child is working the wisdom which does not
pass later into consciousness. Through that wisdom man has
something like telephonic connection with the spiritual beings in
whose world he lives between death and re-birth. From that world
there is something still streaming into the aura of a child, which is,
as an individual being, immediately under the guidance of the entire
spiritual world to which it belongs. Spiritual forces from that world
continue to flow into a child. They cease so to flow at the point of
time to which memory goes back. It is these forces which enable a
child to bring itself into a definite relation to gravitation. They form
the larynx, and so mould the brain that it becomes a living
instrument for the expression of thought, feeling and will.
What is present in childhood to a supreme degree, so that the
individual is then working out of a self which is still in direct
connection with higher worlds, continues to some extent even in
later years, although the conditions change in the manner indicated
above. If at a later stage of life we feel that we did something years
before which we are only now able to understand, it is just because
we previously let ourselves be guided by higher wisdom, and only
after the lapse of years have we attained to an understanding of the
reasons of our conduct.
From all this we can feel that, immediately after birth, we had not
escaped so very far from the world in which we were before entering
upon physical existence, and that we can never really escape from it
wholly. Our share in higher spirituality enters our physical life and
accompanies us throughout it. We often feel that what is within us is
not only a higher self which is gradually being evolved, but is
something higher which is there already, and is the motive cause of
our so often developing beyond ourselves.
All ideals and artistic creations which man is able to produce, as
well as all the natural healing forces in his own body, by means of
which he is continually able to adjust the injuries that befall him in
life,—all these powers do not proceed from ordinary intellect, but
from those deeper forces which in our earliest years are at work on
our equilibrium in space, on the formation of our larynx and on the
brain. For these same forces are still at work in man in later years.
When sickness attacks us, it is often said that external forces cannot
help us, but that our organism must develop the healing powers
latent within it: by this is meant that there is a profoundly wise
activity present in humanity. Moreover, it is from the same source
that proceed these best forces whereby knowledge of the spiritual
world is attained, i.e., true clairvoyance.
The question now suggests itself, why do the higher forces which
have been described work upon human nature only during early
childhood? One-half of the answer may be easily given as follows: If
those higher forces went on working in the same way, man would be
always a child. He would not attain the full ego-consciousness. From
within his own being must proceed the motive power which
previously worked on him from without. But there is a more
important reason, which explains still more about the mysteries of
human life than what has just been said, and that is the following:
It is possible to learn through occult science, that the human
body, as it exists at its present stage of evolution, must be regarded
as having arrived at its present form under different circumstances.
It is known to the occultist that this evolution was effected by means
of the working of various forces on the sum-total of man’s being;
certain forces worked on the physical body, others on the etheric,
others on the astral body. Human nature has arrived at its present
form through the action of those beings whom we call the Luciferic
and Ahrimanic. By their means it has, in a certain way, become
worse than it need have been if those forces only had been active
within it which proceed from the spiritual rulers of the cosmos who
desire to evolve man along straight lines. The causes of sorrow,
disease and even of death are to be sought in the fact that, besides
the beings who are evolving man in a straight line forwards, there
are also ruling the Luciferic and Ahrimanic spirits, who are
continually crossing the line of straightforward, progressive
development.
There is something in what man brings into existence at birth,
which is better than what he can make out of it in later life. This is
so, because the Luciferic and Ahrimanic forces have but little
influence over man during early childhood; they are virtually only
operative in what man makes out of himself by his conscious life. If
he were to retain in full force beyond early childhood that part of his
being which is better than the rest, he would be unable to endure its
influence, because his whole being is weakened by the opposite
forces of Lucifer and Ahriman. Man’s organism in the physical world
is so constituted that it is only when he is, so to speak, as soft and
pliable as a child, that he can endure within him those direct forces
of the spiritual world which operate within him during early
childhood. He would be shattered, if during his later life there were
still directly working in him those forces which underlie the faculty of
equilibrium in space, and the formation of the larynx and the brain.
Those forces are so tremendous that, if they were to go on working,
our organism would pine away under the influence of their holiness.
Man must only have recourse to such forces for the purpose of that
kind of activity which brings him into conscious connection with the
supersensible world.
But out of this there arises a thought which is of great
significance, if rightly understood. It is expressed in the New
Testament in the words “Except ye become as little children, ye
cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.” What then becomes
manifest as man’s highest ideal, if what has just been said be rightly
received? Surely this,—the drawing ever nearer and nearer to what
we may call a conscious relation to the forces which work in man
unknown to him during early childhood. Only it must be borne in
mind that man would collapse under the power of those forces, if
they were at once to operate in his conscious life. For this reason,
careful preparation is necessary for the attainment of those faculties
which induce the perception of supersensible worlds. The object of
such preparation is to qualify man to bear what he is unable to bear
in ordinary life.

Now the passing of the individual through successive incarnations

is of importance for the collective evolution of the human race. The
latter has advanced through successive lives in the past, and is still
advancing, and parallel with it the earth too is moving forwards in its
evolution. The time will come when the earth will have reached the
end of its career. Then the earthly planet will fall away as a physical
entity from the sum-total of human souls, just as the human body
falls away from the spirit at death, when, in order to continue living,
the soul enters the spiritual realm which is adapted for it between
death and re-birth. When once this is realized, it must appear as
man’s highest ideal to have progressed far enough at earthly death,
to be able to reap all possible benefits which may be obtained from
earthly life.
Now those forces which prevent man from being able to endure
the forces working upon him during early childhood come out of the
substance of the earth. When this has fallen away from a human
being, the latter, if he has attained the aim of his life, must have
advanced far enough to be able actually to give himself up, with his
whole being, to the powers which at present are only active in man
during childhood. Thus the object of evolution through successive
earthly lives is gradually to make the whole individual, including
therefore the conscious part, into an expression of the powers which
are ruling in him under the influence of the spiritual world,—though
he does not know it,—during the first years of his life. The thought
which takes possession of the soul after such reflections as these,
must fill it with humility, but also with a due consciousness of the
dignity of man. The thought is this: man is not alone; there is
something living within him which is constantly affording him proof
that he can rise above himself to something which is already
growing beyond him, and which will go on growing from one life to
another. This thought can assume more and more definite form; and
in that case it affords something supremely soothing and elevating,
at the same time filling the soul with corresponding humility and
modesty. What is it that man has within him in this way? Surely a
higher, divine human being, by whom he is able to feel himself
interpenetrated, saying to himself, “He is my guide within me.”
From such a point of view, it is not long before we arrive at the
thought that by all the means in our power we should strive to be in
harmony with that within our being which is wiser than conscious
intelligence. And we shall be referred on from the directly conscious
self to an enlarged self, in the presence of which all false pride and
presumption will be extinguished and subdued. This feeling develops
into another, which opens the way to accurate understanding of the
nature of present human imperfection; and the consciousness of this
leads to the knowledge that man may become perfect, if once the
larger spirituality ruling within him is allowed to bear the same
relation to his consciousness which it bore to the unconscious life of
the soul in early childhood.
If it often happens that memory does not go back as far as the
fourth year of a child’s life, it may nevertheless be said that the
influence of the higher spirit-sphere, in the above sense, lasts
through the first three years. At the end of that span of time a child
becomes capable of linking its impressions of the outer world to the
ideas of its ego. It is true that this coherent ego-conception can only
be reckoned as existing as far back as memory extends. Yet we must
say that virtually memory extends to the beginning of the fourth
year, only it is so weak at the beginning of distinct ego-
consciousness as to be imperceptible. It may therefore be granted
that those higher powers which dispose of a human being in the
early years of childhood can be operative for three years; therefore
man, during the present middle period of the earth, is so organized
that he can receive these forces for only three years.
Supposing a man now stood before us, and that some cosmic
powers could cause his ordinary ego to be removed. (For this
purpose we must assume that it would be possible to remove from
the physical, etheric and astral bodies the ordinary ego which has
gone through the incarnations with the man.) And now suppose that
an ego could then be introduced into the three bodies which is
working in connection with spiritual worlds, what would happen to a
person thus treated? At the end of three years his body would
necessarily be shattered. Something would occur, through cosmic
karma, which would prevent the spirit-being which would be in
connection with higher worlds, from living more than three years in
that body.[1] Only at the end of all his earthly lives will man have
that within him which will enable him to live more than three years
with that spirit-being. But then, it is true, man will be able to say to
himself, “Not I, but that Higher One within me, Who was always
there, is now working in me.” Till that time comes, he is not able to
say this. The most he can say is that he feels that higher being, but
has not yet progressed far enough with his real, actual human ego,
to be able to bring the other to full life within him.
Supposing then that, at some time in the middle earth-period, a
human organism were to come into the world, and later in life be
freed from his ego by the action of certain cosmic powers, receiving
in exchange the ego which usually only works in man during the first
three years of life, and which would be in connection with the
spiritual worlds in which man exists between death and re-birth:
how long would such a person be able to live in an earthly body?
About three years. For at the end of that time, something would
arise through cosmic karma, which would destroy the human
organism in question.
What is here supposed is, however, a historical fact. The human
organism which stood in the river Jordan at John’s baptism when the
ego of Jesus of Nazareth left the three bodies, contained, after the
baptism, in complete conscious development, that higher Self of
humanity which usually works with cosmic wisdom on a child
without its knowledge. At the same time, the necessity arose that
this Self which was in connection with the higher spirit-world could
only live for three years in the appropriate human organism. Events
had then to take place which brought the earthly life of that being to
a close. The outer events in the life of Christ Jesus are to be
interpreted as absolutely conditioned by the inner causes just set
forth, and present themselves as the outward expression of those
causes.
We are now able to see the deeper connection existing between
that which is man’s guide in life, which streams in upon our
childhood like the dawn and is always working below the surface of
our consciousness as the best part of us, and that which once upon
a time entered the whole of human evolution and was able to dwell
for three years in a human frame.
What then is manifested in that “higher” ego, which is in
connection with the spiritual hierarchies, and which in due time
entered the body of Jesus of Nazareth? This entrance being
symbolically represented by the sign of the Spirit descending in the
form of a dove, and by the words, “This is my well-beloved Son, to-
day have I begotten him” (for so stood the words originally). If we
fix our eyes upon this picture, we are contemplating the highest
human ideal. For it means nothing else than that the history of Jesus
of Nazareth is a statement of this fact: “The Christ can be discerned
in every human being.” And even if there were no Gospels and no
tradition, to tell us that once a Christ lived on earth, we should yet
learn through knowledge of human nature that the Christ is living in
man.
The recognition of the forces working in human nature during
childhood is the recognition of the Christ in man. The question now
arises, does this recognition lead to the further perception of the fact
that this Christ once really dwelt on earth in a human body? Without
bringing forward any documents, this question may be answered in
the affirmative. For genuine clairvoyant knowledge of self leads the
man of the present day to see that powers are to be discovered in
the human soul which emanate from the Christ. These powers are at
work during the first three years of childhood without any action
being taken by the human being. In later life they may be called into
action, if the Christ be sought within the soul by inner meditation.
Man was not always able, as he is now, to find the Christ within
himself. There were times when no inner meditation could lead him
to the Christ. This again we learn from clairvoyant perception. In the
interval between that past time when man could not find the Christ
in himself, and the present time when he can find him, there took
place Christ’s earthly life. And that life itself is the cause of man’s
being able to find the Christ in himself in the manner that has been
pointed out. Thus to clairvoyant perception the earthly life of Christ
is proved without any historical records.
It is just as if the Christ had said, “I will be such an ideal for you
human beings as, raised to a spiritual level, will show you that which
is fulfilled in each human body.” In his early childhood man learns
from the spirit how to walk physically, i.e., he is shown by the spirit
his way through earthly life. From the spirit he learns to speak, i.e.,
to form truth; or in other words, he develops the essence of truth
out of sound during the first three years of his life. And the life too,
which man lives on earth as an ego-being, obtains its vital organ
through what is formed in the first three years of childhood. Thus
man learns to walk, i.e., to find “the way,” he learns to present
“truth” through his physical organism, and he learns to bring “life”
from the spirit into expression in his body. No more significant re-
interpretation seems possible of the words “Except ye become as
little children, ye cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven.” And
momentous is that saying in which the ego-being of the Christ
comes into expression thus, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.”
Just as, unknown to a child, the higher spirit-forces are fashioning its
organism to become the bodily expression of the way, the truth and
the life, so the spirit of man, through being interpenetrated with the
Christ, gradually becomes the conscious vehicle of the way, the truth
and the life. He is thereby making himself, in the course of his
earthly development, into that force which bears sway within him as
a child, when he is not consciously its vehicle.
This saying about the way, the truth and the life is capable of
opening the doors of eternity. It sounds to man out of the depths of
his soul, if his self-knowledge is true and real.
Such reflections as these open up, in a double sense, the vision of
the spiritual guidance of the individual and of collective humanity. As
human beings we are able, through self-knowledge, to find the
Christ within us as the guide Whom, since His life on earth, we can
always reach, because He is always in man. And further, if we apply
to the historical records that we have apprehended without them,
we discover their real nature. They express historically something
which is revealed of itself in the depths of the soul. They are
therefore to be accounted as guiding humanity in the same direction
as the soul itself is proceeding.
If we thus understand the suggestion of eternity in the words, “I
am the way, the truth and the life,” we cannot feel ourselves justified
in asking, “Why does a person who has passed through many
incarnations always re-enter life as a child?” For it becomes evident
that this apparent imperfection is an ever-recurring reminder of the
Highest that is in man. And we cannot be reminded often enough,—
at any rate each time we enter earthly life is not too often to be
reminded,—of the great fact of what man really is with reference to
that Being who underlies all earthly existence, without being touched
by its imperfections.
It is not well to make many definitions or summaries in occult
science or theosophy, or indeed in occultism generally. It is better to
give a description, and to try and call forth a feeling of what really
exists. On this account we are now attempting to induce a feeling of
what distinguishes the first three years of human life, and of the way
in which this is related to the light that streams from the cross on
Golgotha. The meaning of this feeling is that an impulse is passing
through human evolution, and that through this impulse the Pauline
saying, “Not I—but the Christ in me,” will become a fact. We have
only to know what man is in reality, in order to be able to proceed
from such knowledge to insight into the nature of the Christ. When
once, however, we have arrived at the Christ-idea through true
observation of humanity, we know that we discover the Christ in the
best way if we first look for Him in ourselves, and if we then return
to the Bible records, these are for the first time rightly valued. And
no one prizes the Bible more, or more consciously, than one who has
found the Christ in this way. It is possible to imagine a being, let us
say an inhabitant of Mars, descending to earth, without ever having
heard of the Christ and His work. Much that has taken place on
earth would be incomprehensible to the Martian; much that interests
people nowadays would not interest him. But it would interest him to
discover the central impulse of earthly evolution, i.e., the Christ-idea,
as it is expressed in human nature itself.
One who has grasped this, is able for the first time rightly to
understand the Bible, for he finds expressed there in a marvellous
way what he has previously observed in himself, and he says: It is
not necessary to have been brought up with any special reverence
for the Gospel; they need only be presented to me, a fully-conscious
human being, to stand revealed in all their greatness, by means of
what I have learnt through occult science.
It is indeed not too much to say that a time will come when it will
be recognized by people who have learned through occult science
rightly to appreciate the contents of the Gospels, that these are
guides of the human race in a sense which is more just to those
writings than people have hitherto been to them. It is only through
knowledge of human nature itself that humanity will learn to see
what is latent in those profound records. It will then be said: If there
is to be found in the Gospels that which forms an integral part of
human nature, it must have come from the people who wrote these
documents on earth. Therefore what genuine reflection brings home
to us about our own lives,—the more so the older we grow—must
hold especially good with regard to those writers. We ourselves have
done many things which we only understand years afterwards, and
in the writers of the Gospels may be seen people who wrote out of
the higher self which works in man during childhood, so that the
Gospels are writings emanating from the wisdom which moulds
human nature. Man through his body is a manifestation of spirit, and
the Gospels are such a manifestation in writing.
On this assumption the idea of inspiration regains its true and
loftier meaning. Just as higher forces are at work on the brain during
the first three years of childhood, so there were higher forces from
spiritual worlds impressed on the souls of the Evangelists, under the
influence of which they wrote the Gospels. The spiritual guidance of
humanity is expressed in such a fact as this. For the human race
must surely be guided, if within it there are people working who
write records under the influence of the same powers that are at
work on the moulding of man in profound wisdom. And just as the
individual says or does things which he only understands at a later
period of life, so collective humanity has produced in the Evangelists
means of revelation which can only be understood by degrees. The
farther humanity progresses, the greater will be the understanding
of these records. The individual can feel spiritual guidance within
himself; and collective humanity can feel it in those of its members
who work as did the writers of the Gospels.
The idea thus gained of the guidance of humanity may be
extended in many directions. Let us suppose that a man finds
disciples,—a few people who follow him. Such an one will soon
become aware, through genuine self-knowledge, that the very fact
of his finding disciples gives him the feeling that what he has to say
does not originate with himself. The case is rather this,—that
spiritual powers in higher worlds wish to communicate with the
disciples, and find in the Teacher the fitting instrument for their
manifestation.
The thought will suggest itself to such a man: when I was a child I
worked on myself by the aid of forces proceeding from the spiritual
world, and what I am now able to give, of my best, must also
proceed from higher worlds; I may not look upon it as belonging to
my ordinary consciousness. Such a man may in fact say: something
demonic, something like a “daimon”—using the word in the sense of
a good spiritual power—is working out of a spiritual world through
me on my disciples.
Socrates felt something of this kind. Plato tells us that he spoke of
his “daimon” as of the one who led and guided him. Many attempts
have been made to explain this “daimon” of Socrates, but it can only
be explained by supposing that Socrates was able to feel something
like that which results from the above reflections. Then we are able
to understand that throughout the three or four centuries during
which the Socratic principle was active in Greece, a state of feeling
permeated the Greek world through Socrates, which prepared the
way for another great event. The feeling that man, as he now is, is
not the whole of what comes through from higher worlds,—this
feeling went on working. The best of those in whom it was present
were those who afterwards best understood the words, “Not I, but
the Christ in me.” For they could say to themselves: Socrates used to
speak of a being working as a “daimon” from higher worlds; the
Christ-ideal makes clear what Socrates meant. Only Socrates could
not as yet speak of Christ, because in his time no one was able to
find the Christ-nature within himself.
Here again we feel something of the spiritual guidance of the race,
for nothing can be established in the world without preparation. Why
was it that Paul found his best disciples in Greece? Because the
ground had been prepared there by the teaching of Socrates and the
state of feeling that has been described. That is to say, what
happens in human evolution may be traced back to events which
operated previously, and made people ripe for what was afterwards
to be brought to bear upon them. Do we not feel here how far the
guiding impulse passing through human evolution extends and how
at the right moment it places people where they will be best used to
further evolution? In such facts is manifested the guidance of the
human race in a general way.

[1] The vitality of the human organism is maintained at the

transition from childhood to later life, because the organism is
capable of change at that period. Later in life, it is no longer
susceptible of change, and on this account cannot continue to
exist with that other Self.
 LECTURE II.
If we turn our attention to what was said by the teachers and
leaders of ancient Egypt about the direction and guidance of the
spiritual life of their country, we may trace a remarkable parallel
between what is manifested in the individual life of man, and what
governs human evolution as a whole. It is related that when a Greek
once asked an Egyptian, who had guided and led his nation from
ancient times onwards, he answered, “In far off times of yore, the
gods ruled and taught us, and only afterwards men came to be our
leaders.” The Egyptians named Menes to the Greeks, as their first
leader on the physical plane to be recognized as a human leader.
That is to say, the directors of the Egyptian people alleged that in
earlier times the gods themselves—as Greek records say—guided
and led the Egyptian nation. Such an assertion, coming down to us
from ancient times, must, however, be rightly understood. What did
the Egyptians mean when they said, “Our kings and great teachers
were gods”?
The man who thus answered the question of the Greek meant
that if any one had gone back into the ancient times of the Egyptian
nation, and had asked those people who felt something within them
like a higher consciousness, or wisdom from higher worlds, “Who are
really your teachers?” they would have answered, “If I wanted to tell
you about my real teacher, I should not point to such and such a
person and say, ‘That is my teacher,’ but I should first have to put
myself into a clairvoyant state, (it is known from occult science that
this was comparatively easier in ancient times than it is now,) and
then I should find my real inspirer and teacher, who comes to me
only when the eyes of my spirit are opened.” For in ancient Egypt,
beings who were not incarnated in a physical human body came
down amongst men. In those remote ages, it was the gods who still
ruled and taught the Egyptians, and by “gods” they understood
beings who had preceded man in evolution.
According to occult science, the earth passed through an earlier
planetary condition, called the “Moon-state,” before it became
“Earth.” During this condition man was not yet human in the present
sense of the word; but there were on the old Moon other beings, not
possessed of the present human form and differently constituted,
who nevertheless were then at the evolutionary stage which man
has now attained on earth. We may therefore say, that on the
ancient Moon-planet which has perished, and out of which the earth
afterwards originated, there lived beings who were man’s
predecessors. In Christian esoteric language they are called Angel-
beings (Angeloi) and the beings immediately above them—
Archangels (Archangeloi). The latter were human at a still earlier
period than the angels. What are called angels or Angeloi in
Christian esotericism, and Dhyanic beings in Eastern mysticism, were
“men” during the Moon-period. Now these beings, during the
present earth-period, are a stage farther advanced than man,—those
of them, that is to say, who completed their evolution on the Moon.
Only at the end of the earth’s evolution will man have arrived at the
stage which those beings had reached at the end of the Moon-
period.
When the earth-state of our planet began, and man appeared on
earth, these beings were not able to appear in an external human
form, for the human body of flesh and blood is essentially a product
of earth, and is only adapted to the beings who are now human. The
beings, who are a stage farther advanced than man, could not be
incarnated in human bodies when the earth was beginning its
evolution. They were only able to take a part in the government of
the earth by illuminating and inspiring people in primeval times in
the condition to which these attained when clairvoyant. Indirectly,
then, through these clairvoyant people, the angels intervened to
guide the destinies of earth.
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