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Rudolf Steiner e.Lib
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An Outline of Occult Science
Rudolf Steiner e.Lib Document
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An Outline of Occult Science
THE EVOLUTION OF THE COSMOS AND MAN
After the conclusion of the Moon evolution described in the foregoing
sketch, all beings and forces concerned appear in a more spiritual
form of existence, a form that stands at a quite different level from
that of the Moon period and also from that of the subsequent Earth
evolution. A being who possessed such highly developed capacities of
cognition that he could perceive all the details of the Moon and Earth
evolutions would not necessarily be able also to perceive what happens
between the two evolutions. For such an individual, the beings and
forces at the end of the Moon period would disappear as though into
nothingness and after the lapse of an interim make their appearance
again out of the dim darkness of the cosmic womb. Only a being
possessing still higher faculties could follow up the spiritual events
that occur in this interim.
At the end of the interval of rest from outer activity, the beings who
had taken part in the evolutionary processes on Saturn, Sun, and Moon
appear with new abilities and faculties. The beings standing above men
have acquired, through their previous acts, the capacity to develop
the human being to such a point that, during the Earth period
following the Moon period, he can unfold in himself a degree of
consciousness that stands one stage higher than the
picture-consciousness possessed by him during the Moon period. Man,
however, must first be prepared to receive what is to be bestowed upon
him. During the Saturn, Sun, and Moon evolutions he invested his being
with a physical, life, and astral body, but these members of his being
have received only the capacities and forces that enable them to live
in a picture-consciousness; they still lack the organs and structure
enabling them to perceive a world of outer sense objects as it is
required for the Earth stage. Just as the new plant only develops what
is inherent in the seed coming from the old plant, so in the beginning
of the new stage of evolution the three members of human nature appear
with structures and organs that make possible the development of
picture-consciousness only. They must first be prepared for the
development of a higher stage of consciousness. This takes place in
three preliminary stages. In the first stage, the physical body is
raised to a level where it is possible to make the necessary
transformation that can be the basis for an objective consciousness.
This is a preliminary stage of the Earth evolution, which may be
termed a repetition of Saturn at a higher level, for during this
period, just as during the Saturn evolution, higher beings work only
upon the physical body. When the physical body has progressed far
enough in its evolution, all beings must again pass over into a higher
form of existence before the life or ether body can also advance. The
physical body must be remodeled, as it were, in order to be able, when
it unfolds again, to receive the more highly developed life body.
After this intermediate period devoted to a higher form of existence,
something like a repetition of the Sun evolution takes place on a
higher level for the purpose of developing the life body. Again after
an intermediate period something similar happens for the astral body
in a repetition of the Moon evolution.
Let us now turn to the events of evolution after the completion of the
third of the recapitulation periods just described. All beings and
forces have again become spiritualized. During this spiritualization
they have ascended into sublime worlds. The lowest of these worlds in
which something of these beings and forces can still be perceived
during this period of spiritualization, is the same world in which the
present human being dwells between death and re-birth. These are the
regions of the land of spirits. The beings and forces then gradually
descend again to lower worlds. Before the physical Earth evolution
begins, they have descended so far that their lowest manifestations
are to be perceived in the astral or soul world.
Everything human existing at this period still possesses its astral
form. In order to understand this state of humanity, special attention
should be given to the fact that man possesses a physical body, a life
body, and an astral body, but that the physical body as well as the
life body do not yet exist in a physical or etheric form, but in an
astral form. What at that time makes the physical body physical is not
its physical form but the physical laws that are present in it,
although it has an astral form. It is a being ruled by physical laws
appearing in soul form. This is also true of the life body.
At this stage of evolution the Earth stands before the spiritual eye
as a cosmic being that is wholly soul and spirit, and in which the
physical and life forces still appear in soul form. Within this cosmic
structure everything that is to be transformed later into the
creatures of the physical earth is contained in a germinal state. This
cosmic Earth being is luminous, but its light is not one that physical
eyes could perceive, even were they present, for it gleams with soul
radiance only for the opened eye of the seer.
In this cosmic being something now takes place that may be called a
condensation, which after a time results in a fire form appearing in
the midst of this soul structure, a form similar to Saturn in its
densest condition. This fire form is interwoven with the activities of
the various beings who participate in evolution. What may be observed
as a reciprocal activity between these beings and the celestial body
is like an emerging from the Earth fire-ball and a reimmersing in it.
Therefore the Earth fire-ball is by no means a uniform substance, but
something like an organism permeated with soul and spirit. The beings
who are destined to become human beings in our present form on the
Earth are still in a condition in which they participate the least in
the activity of immersion in the fire-body. They still remain almost
wholly in the non-condensed environment. They still are within the
bosom of the higher spiritual beings. At this stage they touch the
fire Earth only with one point of their soul form, with the result
that the heat causes a part of their astral form to condense. Through
this fact, Earth life is enkindled within them, but the largest part
of their being still belongs to the world of soul and spirit. Only
through the contact with the Earth fire does the warmth of life play
around them. If we wish to form a sensible-supersensible picture of
this human being in the beginning of the physical Earth period, we
must imagine an egg-shaped soul form, existing in the surroundings of
the Earth enclosed by a cup at its lower end like an acorn. But the
substance of the cup consists purely of heat or fire. The enkindling
of life within the human being was not the only result of this
enclosure in heat, but simultaneously with it a change in the astral
body occurred. Inserted into it is the primal nucleus of what later
becomes the sentient soul. Therefore, it may be said that at this
stage of his existence man consists of sentient soul, astral body,
life body, and physical body woven of fire. The spiritual beings who
take part in human existence surge up and down in the astral body;
through the sentient soul man feels himself bound to the body of the
Earth. At this time, therefore, he has a preponderant
picture-consciousness in which the spiritual beings manifest
themselves. He lies within their bosom, and the sensation of his own
bodily existence appears only as a point within this consciousness.
From the spiritual world he looks down, as it were, upon an earthly
possession about which he feels, That is mine. The
condensation of the Earth advances further and further and with it the
characterized organizing of man becomes ever more distinct. At a
definite point of time in its evolution the Earth becomes condensed to
such a degree that only a part remains fiery. Another part has taken
on a substantial form that may be represented as gas or air. A change
now takes place also in man. Not only the Earth heat touches his
organism, but air substance is drawn into his fire body. Just as heat
has enkindled life in him, so air playing about him produces an effect
that may be likened to spiritual tone; his life body resounds. At the
same time the astral body detaches a part of itself; this becomes the
primal nucleus of what appears later as the intellectual soul. In
order to form a picture of what is taking place at this time within
the human soul, we must realize that beings higher than men surge up
and down within the air-fire body of the Earth. In the fire Earth we
have first the Spirits of Personality who are of importance to man,
and when the latter is aroused to life by the Earth heat, his sentient
soul says to itself, These are the Spirits of Personality.
Likewise, the beings who have been called Archangels in the sense of
Christian esotericism proclaim themselves in the air body, and when
the air plays about the human being it is their activities that he
experiences in himself as tone; the intellectual soul says to itself,
These are the Archangels. Thus, at this stage man does not
yet perceive through his connection with the Earth what might be
called an aggregation of physical objects, but he lives in sensations
of heat arising in him and in sounding tone; in these heat streams and
tone waves he perceives the Spirits of Personality and the Archangels.
He cannot, however, perceive these beings directly; he can only sense
them through the veil of heat and tone. While these perceptions coming
from the Earth penetrate his soul, still rising and falling within it
are the images of the higher beings in whose bosom he feels his
existence.
The evolution of the Earth now advances further and its continuation
expresses itself again in condensing. The Earth receives the watery
substance into its body, which now consists of three members the
fiery, the airy, and the watery elements. Prior to this an important
event takes place. An independent cosmic body severs itself from the
fire-air Earth. This becomes in its subsequent evolution the
present sun.1
Previously, Earth and sun were one body. After the separation of the sun,
the Earth2
still contains within it all that comprises the
present moon. The separation of the sun takes place because exalted
beings can no longer endure the matter now condensed to water in their
own evolution and in their task for the advancement of the Earth. They
extract from the general Earth mass the substance alone suited to
their purposes and withdraw in order to establish a new habitation in
the present sun. They now send down their activities from the sun to
the Earth. Man, however, needs for his further development a place of
action in which substance continues to condense.
The incorporation of the watery substance into the Earth body is
accompanied by a change in the human being. Not only does fire stream
into him and air play about him, but watery substance is incorporated
into his physical body. At the same time his etheric part undergoes a
change and he perceives it now as a delicate body of light. Previously
he felt the streams of heat arising from the Earth, he experienced air
pressing upon him through tones. Now the watery element also
penetrates his fire-air body, and he perceives its instreaming and
outstreaming as a flashing up and dimming of light. In his soul also a
change has taken place. To the germs of the sentient and intellectual
souls is now added that of the consciousness soul. In the water
element the Angels are active; they are also the actual producers of
light. The human being feels as though they appeared to him in
light. Certain higher beings who were previously within the Earth body
now work down upon it from the sun; through all this there is a change
in the effects on the Earth. Man chained to the Earth would no longer
be able to sense the effects of the sun beings within himself if his
soul were constantly turned toward the Earth from which he has
received his physical body. An alternation now takes place in the
states of human consciousness. The sun beings tear the human soul away
from the physical body at certain times so that man now lives
alternately within the bosom of the sun beings, purely as a soul, and
at other times in a condition where he is united with the body and
receives the influences of the Earth. If he is in the physical body,
the streams of heat surge up to him; the air masses sound around him;
the waters flow in and out of him. If he is outside his body, his soul
is then permeated by the images of the higher beings in whose bosom he
lives. At this stage of its evolution the Earth experiences two
alternating periods. During the one, it is permitted to weave its
substances around the human souls and invest them with bodies; during
the other, the souls desert it and only the bodies remain. It,
together with the human beings, is in a sleeping state. It is entirely
possible to say that at this time of the far distant past the Earth
passes through a day and a night period. (This expresses itself
physically and spatially in the movement of the Earth in relation to
the sun as a result of the mutual action of the sun and Earth beings.
In this way the alternation in the characterized day and night period
is effected. The day period occurs when the Earth surface upon which
man is evolving is turned toward the sun. The night period, that is,
the time during which man leads a purely soul existence, occurs when
this surface is turned away from the sun. It should not, however, be
imagined that in that primeval epoch the Earth's movement around the
sun was at all like that of the present. The conditions were then
quite different. It is, however, useful to realize here that the
movements of the heavenly bodies arise as a result of the
relationships the spiritual beings inhabiting them bear to one
another. The heavenly bodies are brought into such positions and
movements through soul and spirit causes that the spiritual states are
enabled to unfold themselves in the physical world.)
Were we to turn our glance toward the Earth during its night period we
would see its body in a corpse-like state, for it consists in large
part of the decaying bodies of human beings whose souls dwell in
another state of existence. The organic, watery, and aeriform
structures constituting the human bodies fall into decay and resolve
themselves into the rest of the Earth mass. Only that part of the
human body, which at the very beginning of the Earth evolution took
form through the co-activity of fire and the human soul, and in
consequence became continually denser, remains in existence like an
outwardly inconspicuous germinal nucleus. What is said here about day
and night should, therefore, not be taken to be at all similar to what
is indicated by these terms at the present earth stage. If at the
beginning of the day period the Earth again is a participant in the
direct effect of the sun, then the human souls penetrate into the
realm of physical life. They come in contact with the nuclei mentioned
above and cause them to germinate so that the latter assume an
external form that appears like a copy of the human soul nature. It is
something like a gentle fructification that occurs between the human
soul and the germinal human body. These souls thus embodied now begin
also to draw in the surrounding air and water masses and to
incorporate them into their bodies. The air is expelled from the
organized body and then drawn in again; this is the first indication
of what is later to become the breathing process. The water is also
drawn in and then expelled; this is the origin of the process of
nutrition. These processes are not yet externally perceived. A kind of
outer perception occurs through the soul only in the already mentioned
fructifying process. Then the soul feels dully its awakening into
physical existence by coming in contact with the germinal body the
Earth offers it. It hears something that may be expressed in the
words, That is my form! and this feeling, which might also
be called a dawning of the ego-feeling, remains in the soul during its
entire connection with the physical body. The process of assimilating
air, however, is felt by the soul as something entirely of a
soul-spirit nature, entirely pictorial. It appears in the form of an
up and down undulating tone-configuration that gives shape to the
developing embryonic body. The soul feels itself surrounded completely
by undulating tone, and it is conscious of how it fashions its own
body according to these tone forces. Thus, at that stage, human forms
took shape that are not observable by present-day human consciousness
in an external world. They fashion themselves in plant and flowerlike
structures of delicate substance that are inwardly mobile, appearing
like fluttering flowers, and during the Earth period the human being
experiences the blissful feeling of being fashioned into such forms.
The absorption of the watery parts is felt in the soul as a source of
power, as an inner strengthening. Seen from without it appears as
growth of the physical human structure. With the waning of the direct
effect of the sun the human soul also loses the power to control these
processes. By degrees they are discarded. Only those parts remain that
permit the above characterized germinal nucleus to ripen. The human
being, however, forsakes his body and returns to the spiritual state
of existence. (Since not all parts of the Earth body are used in
fashioning human bodies, it should not be imagined that during the
night period the Earth consists solely of decaying corpses and
germinal nuclei awaiting to be wakened. All of these are embedded in
other forms that take shape from the substances of the Earth. The
condition of these will be shown later.)
The process of Earth-substance condensation now continues. The solid
element, which may be called earthy, is added to the
watery element. With this the human being also begins to invest his
body with the earthy element during his sojourn on Earth. As soon as
this investing process begins, the forces that the soul brings with it
from the time it is freed from the body no longer have the same power
as previously. Formerly, the soul fashioned the body for itself from
the fiery, airy, and watery element according to the tones sounding
around it and the light shapes playing about it. The soul is unable to
do this with the solidified form. Other powers now intervene in the
fashioning process. In the part of the human being that remains when
the soul abandons the body, now not only a germinal nucleus is
present, which is quickened by the returning soul, but an organism is
present that contains also the vivifying force itself. By its
severance, the soul does not leave behind on Earth merely a likeness
of itself, but It also implants a part of its vivifying power into the
likeness. When the soul reappears on Earth, it can no longer only
awaken the likeness to life, but the quickening must take place in the
likeness itself. The spiritual beings who affect the Earth from the
sun sustain the quickening force in the human body although man
himself is not on Earth. By incarnating, the soul feels not only the
resounding tones and light shapes in which it senses the presence of
the beings standing next above it, but through the intake of the Earth
element it feels the influence of the still higher beings who have
established their field of activity on the sun. Previously man felt
himself belonging to the beings of soul and spirit with whom he was
united when body-free. His ego still existed within their bosom. This
ego now confronts him during physical embodiment while at the same
time the surrounding world encompasses him. Independent likenesses of
the soul-spirit nature of the human being were now on Earth,
likenesses that, when compared with the present human bodies, were
structures composed of delicate substantiality, for the earthy parts
mingled with them only in the finest state, in a way comparable to the
modern human being's absorption of the finely diffused substances of
an object with his organ of smell. Human bodies were like shadows.
Since they were distributed over the whole Earth, however, they became
subject to the Earth influences, which varied at different points of
its surface. While previously the bodily likenesses corresponded to
the soul-men who animated them and, for that reason, were essentially
similar to one another over the whole Earth, now variations appear
among human forms. In this way what later emerged as race
differentiation was prepared. Coincident with the growing independence
of the human bodily being there was a loosening of the previous close
connection between the earth man and the soul-spirit world. When the
soul now left the body, the latter lived on in a sort of continuation
of life. If evolution had continued in this way, the Earth would have
had to harden under the influence of its solid element. Supersensible
knowledge, looking back upon these conditions, perceives how the human
bodies abandoned by their souls solidify more and more. After a time
the souls returning to Earth would have found no usable material with
which they might unite. All the substances suitable for the human
being would have been employed in filling the Earth with the woodlike
remains of incarnations.
An event then occurred that gave a different direction to the whole
process of evolution. Everything was eliminated that could contribute
to permanent induration in the solid Earth substance. At that time our
present moon3
withdrew from the Earth, and what had previously
contributed directly to the fashioning of permanent forms in the Earth
worked now indirectly in a diminished way from the moon. The higher
beings upon whom this fashioning of form depends had decided no longer
to bestow their effects upon the Earth from within it, but to bestow
them upon it from the outside. As a result there appeared a variation
in the bodily human structure that must be regarded as the beginning
of the separation into two sexes, male and female. The human
structures composed of fine substance that previously inhabited the
Earth, permitted through the co-operation within themselves of both
these forces, the germinal and the engendering force the new human
form, their descendant, to come into existence. These descendants now
transformed themselves. In the one group of such descendants, the
soul-spirit germ force was more effective; in the other group it was
the life-giving, engendering force that was more effective. This was
caused by the weakening of the power of the Earth element through the
withdrawal of the moon from the Earth. The interworking of both forces
became more delicate than it was previously when it occurred in a
single living individual. As a result the descendant, too, was more
delicate, finer. He entered
the earth4
existence in a
delicately formed structure and only by degrees did the more solid
substances pervade it. This gave the possibility for the
soul returning to earth to unite itself again with the body. Now the
soul quickened the body no longer from without, for this quickening
occurred on the earth itself, but it united itself with it and caused
it to grow. A certain limit, however, was set to this growth. As a
result of the moon separation, the body had for a time become
flexible, but the longer it continued to grow on the earth, the more
the solidifying forces gained the upper hand. Finally, the soul was
less and less able to participate in the organization of the body. The
latter decomposed as the soul ascended to soul-spirit existence.
It is possible to trace how the forces that man gradually appropriated
during the Saturn, Sun and Moon evolutions participate by degrees in
human advancement during the fashioning of the earth just described.
First, it is the astral body which also contains both the life or
ether body and physical body in a condition of dissolution within
itself that is enkindled by the earth fire. Then this astral body is
organized into a rarefied astral part, the sentient soul, and into a
coarser part, the etheric, which is now affected by the earth element.
With this the previously formed ether or life body makes its
appearance. While the intellectual and consciousness souls fashion
themselves within the astral human being, the coarser parts of the
ether body, which are susceptible to tone and light, organize
themselves within it. It is at the time when the ether body condenses
itself still further, so that it is transformed from a light body into
a fire or heat body, that the stage of evolution is reached in which,
as described above, the parts of the solid earth element are
incorporated into the human being. Because the ether body has
condensed itself to the density of fire, it is now able through the
forces of the physical body previously implanted in it to unite itself
with the substances of the physical earth that have become attenuated
to a condition of fire. It would, however, be unable by itself to
infuse the body, which has become more dense in the meantime, also
with the airy substances. Here, as indicated above, the higher beings
dwelling on the sun interpose and breathe the air into it. Whereas
man, by virtue of his past, has thus the power to infuse himself with
earthly fire, higher beings guide the instreaming breath of air into
his body. Before solidification, the human life body, as a receiver of
tone, was the guide of the air stream. It permeated its physical body
with life. This physical body now receives life from without. In
consequence of this, this life becomes independent of the soul part of
the human being who, by leaving the earth, not only leaves his
germinal form behind, but also a living likeness of himself. The
Spirits of Form remain united with this likeness; they lead the life
bestowed by them upon the individual over to the descendants also
after the human soul has left the body. Thus, what may be called
heredity is developed. When the human soul appears again on earth, it
feels itself in a body, the life of which has been transferred to it
from the ancestors. It feels itself especially attracted to just such
a body. As a result something is formed like a memory about the
ancestor with whom the soul feels itself at one. Such a memory passes
like a common consciousness through the line of descendants. The ego
flows down through the generations.
At this stage of evolution, man felt himself during his earth
existence as an independent being. He felt the inner fire of his life
body united with the external fire of the earth. He was able to feel
the heat streaming through him as his own ego. In these currents of
heat, interwoven with life, the first tendency to form a blood
circulation is to be found. The human being did not, however, quite
feel his own being in what streamed into him as air. In this air the
forces of the already described higher beings were active. But that
part of the effective forces within the air streaming through him,
which belonged to him already by virtue of his previously created
ether forces, had remained. He was ruler in one part of these air
currents and to the degree that this was so, not only did the higher
beings operate in fashioning him, but he himself also assisted in his
own formation. According to the images of his astral body he fashioned
the air portions. While air thus streamed into the human being from
without, becoming the basis of his breathing, a part of the air he
contained developed into an organism that was then impressed into him;
this became the foundation of the later nervous system. Thus man of
that time was connected with the external world of the earth by warmth
and air. On the other hand, he was unconscious of the introduction
into his organism of the solid element of the earth; this element
co-operated in bringing about his incarnation on earth, yet he was
unable to perceive directly its infusion into himself, but could only
perceive it in a dull state of consciousness in the pictures of higher
beings who were active in this element. In such a picture form as an
expression of beings standing above him man had previously perceived
the introduction of the liquid earth elements into himself. As a
result of the densification of his earth form, these pictures have now
undergone a transformation in his consciousness. The liquid is admixed
with the solid element. The infusion of this latter element also must
thus be felt as something proceeding from higher beings acting from
without. The human soul no longer possesses the power to infuse this
element into itself, for this power must now serve the human body,
which is built up from outside. Man would spoil its form were he to
direct the introduction himself. What he infuses into himself from
outside appears to him to be directed by the command of the higher
beings who work on the fashioning of his bodily structure. Man feels
himself as an ego, he has his intellectual soul within himself as a
part of the astral body, through which he experiences inwardly in
pictures what is taking place externally, and which permeates his
delicate nervous system. He feels himself as the descendant of
ancestors by virtue of the life flowing, through generations. He
breathes and feels it as the effect of the higher beings, described as
Spirits of Form, and he accepts what is brought to him through their
impulses from the external world as nourishment. What is most obscure
to him is his own origin as an individual. In regard to this he is
only aware of having experienced an influence from the Spirits of Form
expressing themselves in the forces of the earth. He was directed and
guided in his relationship to the external world. This is expressed by
his possession of a consciousness of the activities of spirit and soul
taking place behind his physical environment. He does not perceive the
spiritual beings in their own form, but in his soul he feels the
presence of tone, of color, and other manifestations, and he knows
that the deeds of spiritual beings live in this world of mental
images. What these beings communicate to him, resounds to him; their
manifestations are revealed to him in pictures of light. Through
mental images received from fire and heat the earth man is most
inwardly conscious of himself. He already distinguishes between his
inner heat and the heat radiations of the earthly environment. In the
latter the Spirits of Personality manifest themselves. The human
being, however, has only a dim consciousness of what exists behind the
radiating outer heat. He feels in these radiations the influence of
the Spirits of Form. When powerful heat effects appear in the human
environment, the soul feels within itself: Now spiritual beings
are sending their glow around the earth; from this a spark has been
liberated, warming my inner being through and through. In the
phenomena of light, the human being does not yet differentiate in the
same way between the outer and inner worlds. When light images arise
in the surroundings, they do not always produce the same feeling in
his soul. There were times when he felt these pictures of light as
something external. This was at the time when he had just descended
from the body-free state into incarnation. It was his period of growth
upon the earth. When the time approached for the fashioning of the
germ for the new earth man, these pictures faded, and the human being
only retained something like memory pictures of them. In these light
pictures the deeds of the Fire Spirits, the Archangels, were
contained. The latter appeared to man as the servants of the beings of
heat who introduced a spark into his inner nature. When their external
manifestations were extinguished, he felt them as memory pictures in
his inner nature. He felt himself united with their forces, and this
was indeed the fact. For he was able to act upon the surrounding
atmosphere through what he had received from them. The atmosphere
began to shine through this influence. This was a time when nature
forces and human forces were not yet separated as they were later.
What occurred on the earth proceeded to a large degree from the forces
of man himself. Anyone who might have observed the processes of nature
on the earth from the outside would not have seen in them merely
something that was independent of the human being; he would have
perceived in them the effects of human activity. The perceptions of
tone took place in a different way for the earth man. From the
beginning of earth life they were perceived as outer tones. Whereas
the air images were perceived from without right up to the middle
period of human earth existence, the outer tones could still be heard
after this middle period. Only toward the end of life was the earth
man no longer sensitive to them. The tone memories remained with him.
In them were contained the revelations of the Sons of Life, the
Angels. If the human being toward the end of his life felt himself
united inwardly with these forces, then he was able by means of
imitation of these forces to produce powerful effects on the water
element of the earth. The waters surged in and over the earth under
his influence. The human being had notions of taste only during the
first quarter of his life, and even then they appeared to the soul
like a memory of the experiences passed through in the body-free
state. As long as he possessed this memory, the solidification of his
body through absorption of outer substances continued. In the second
quarter of earth life growth continued, although man's form was
already completely developed. At this time he could perceive other
living beings beside him only through their warmth, light, and tone
effects, for he was not yet capable of visualizing the solid element.
Only from the liquid element he obtained, in the first quarter of his
life, the described effects of taste.
The external bodily form was an image of this inner soul condition of
man. The parts that contained tendencies toward the subsequent head
form were developed most perfectly. The other organs gave the
impression of appendages. They were shadowy and unclear. The earth
men, however, were varied in regard to form. In some the appendages
were more or less developed according to the earthly conditions under
which they lived. They were varied according to the earthly dwelling
places of the human beings. Wherever the latter were entangled in the
earth world to a greater degree, the appendages appeared more in the
foreground. Those human beings who, as a result of their previous
development, were the most mature at the beginning of physical earthly
evolution, who right at the beginning before the Earth had condensed
to air experienced the contact with the fire element, could now
develop the head capacities most perfectly. These were the human
beings who were most harmonious in their nature. Others were ready to
come into contact with the element of fire only when the Earth had
already developed the air element. These human beings were more
dependent upon outer conditions than those described above who were
able to feel the Spirits of Form clearly by means of heat and who
during their earth life felt as though preserved in a memory that they
belonged to these spirits and were united with them in their body-free
condition. The second type of human being had only a slight memory of
the body-free state; this type felt its relationship to the spiritual
world chiefly through the light activity of the Fire Spirits, the
Archangels. A third type of human being was still more entangled in
earth existence; it was the type that could be affected by the fire
element only when the Earth was separated from the sun and had
received the watery element into its composition. The feeling of
relationship to the spiritual world was especially weak in human
beings of this type at the beginning of earth life. Only when the
effect of the activity of the Archangels, and chiefly of the Angels,
made itself evident in the inner mental life, did they feel this
connection. On the other hand, at the commencement of the earth epoch
they were full of active impulses for deeds that can be carried out in
earthly conditions. These human beings were especially strongly
developed in their appended organs.
Prior to the separation of the moon from the Earth, when the latter,
through the presence of the moon forces, tended more and more toward
solidification, it happened that because of these forces there were
some among the descendants of the abandoned germinal human beings left
behind on earth, in which the human souls, returning from the
body-free state of existence, could no longer incarnate. The form of
such descendants was too solidified, and, because of the moon forces,
had become too dissimilar to the human form to be able to receive a
human soul. Certain human souls, therefore, found it no longer
possible under such circumstances to return to the Earth. Only the
ripest and strongest souls were able to feel themselves equal to the
task of remodeling the Earth body during its growth so that it
blossomed forth bearing the form of a human being. Only a part of the
bodily human descendants attained the ability to bear the earthly man.
Another part, on account of the solidified form, was only able to
receive souls of an order lower than the human being. A number of the
human souls were compelled to forego Earth evolution at that time.
They were, therefore, led to another course of life. There were souls
who had been unable, even at the time when the sun separated from the
Earth, to find a place in the latter. In order to develop further they
were removed to a planet that, under the guidance of cosmic beings,
had been severed from the common universal substance that at the
beginning of physical Earth evolution was bound up with it, and from
which the sun also had detached itself. This planet is the one whose
physical expression is known to modern science as Jupiter. (We speak
here of the celestial bodies, planets, and their names in exactly the
same way as was the custom of a more ancient science. What is meant
becomes clear from the context. Just as the physical earth is only the
physical expression of a soul-spirit organism, so is that the case
with every other celestial body. The supersensible observer does not
intend to designate merely the physical planet by the name earth, not
merely the physical fixed star by sun, but he has in mind a much wider
spiritual connotation; this is also true when he speaks of Jupiter,
Mars, and the other planets. The celestial bodies have changed
essentially in regard to their configuration and task since the time
spoken of here; in a certain respect, even their location in heavenly
space has changed. Only someone who has traced back, with the
penetration of supersensible knowledge, the evolution of these
heavenly bodies right into the distant primeval past is capable of
recognizing the connection between the present-day planets and their
ancestors.) The souls described evolved further on Jupiter, and later
on, as the earth showed an increasing tendency to become more
solidified, still another dwelling place had to be fashioned for souls
who, although they found it possible to inhabit these solidifying
bodies for a certain length of time, could no longer do so when the
solidification had advanced too far. For these a place on Mars was
provided for their further evolution. Even at the time when the Earth
was still bound to the sun and its air element had been inserted into
its constitution, it became evident that certain souls proved to be
unfit to participate in Earth evolution. They were too strongly
affected by the earthly body configuration. Thus even at that time
they had to be withdrawn from the direct influence of the sun forces.
The latter had to act on them from without. For these souls, a place
on Saturn was created for their further development. Thus in the
course of Earth evolution the number of human shapes diminished;
configurations appeared in whom human souls did not incarnate. They
could receive only astral bodies in the same way the human physical
and life bodies had received them on the ancient Moon. While the earth
became a waste in regard to its human inhabitants, these beings
colonized it. All human souls would have been compelled to forsake the
earth finally, had not the withdrawal of the moon from the earth made
it possible for the human forms in which human souls at that time were
still able to incarnate to withdraw the germinal human being during
their earth life from the influence of the moon forces that came
directly from the earth and to let it mature within themselves as long
as necessary until it could be surrendered to these moon forces. As
long as the germinal human being then shaped Itself within the inner
human nature, it came under the influence of the beings who had, under
the guidance of their mightiest companion, separated the moon from the
earth in order to carry the evolution of the latter over a critical
point.
After the Earth had developed the air element within itself, there
were astral beings, as described above, left over from the ancient
Moon, who were greater laggards in evolution than the lowest human
souls. These became the souls of the forms that had to be forsaken by
human beings even before the separation of the sun from the Earth.
These beings are the ancestors of the present animal kingdom. In the
course of time, they developed the organs especially that were present
in the human being only as appendages. Their astral body had to affect
the physical and ether bodies in the same way that this was the case
for human beings on the ancient Moon. The animals thus created had
souls that could not reside in the individual animal. The soul
extended its nature upon the inheritors of the forebear's form. The
animals originating from a single configuration have a common soul.
Only when the descendant under especial influences departs from the
form of its forebear does a new animal soul commence its embodiment.
We may speak in this sense in spiritual science in regard to animal
souls of a species or group soul.
Something similar occurred at the time of the separation of the sun
from the Earth. Forms emerged from the watery element that were no
further evolved than the human being prior to evolution on the ancient
Moon. They were able to receive the effect of the activity of an
astral element only when this influenced them from outside. That could
only occur after the separation of the sun from the Earth. With every
repetition of the sun period of the Earth, the sun's astral element
animated these forms in such a way that they constructed their life
bodies from the Earth's etheric element. When the sun again turned
away from the Earth, this life body dissolved into the common body of
the Earth. As a result of the co-operation of the astral element of
the sun with the ether element of the Earth there emerged from the
watery element the physical structures that formed the ancestors of
the present-day plant kingdom.
Upon the earth the human being has become an individualized
soul-being. The astral body, which had flowed into him through the
Spirits of Motion during the Moon evolution, became tripartite as
sentient soul, intellectual soul, and consciousness soul upon the
earth. When his consciousness soul had advanced far enough so that
during earth life it could form a body fit to receive it, the Spirits
of Form endowed the human being with a spark of their own fire. The
ego, the I, was enkindled within him. Every time the human being left
the physical body he found himself in the spirit world in which he
encountered beings who had given him his physical body, his life or
ether body, and his astral body during the Saturn, Sun, and Moon
evolutions and had brought them up to the level of the Earth
evolution. Since the enkindling of the fire spark of the ego during
earth life, a change had taken place also for the body-free life.
Prior to this point in the evolution of his nature, man had no
independence in regard to the spirit world. Within this spirit world
he did not feel himself as an individual, but as a member of an
exalted organism composed of the beings standing above him. The ego
experience on earth now extends itself also into the spirit world. Man
feels himself now to a certain degree as a unity in this world, but he
feels also that he is constantly united with the same world. In the
body-free state he finds again in a higher configuration the Spirits
of Form whom he had perceived on earth in their manifestation through
the spark of the ego.
With the separation of the moon from the earth, experiences that were
connected with that separation developed also for the body-free soul
in the spirit world. Only because a part of the shaping forces had
been transferred from the earth to the moon was it possible to
reproduce, on the earth, the human shapes that were able to receive
the individuality of the soul. Through this fact the human
individuality entered the sphere of the moon beings. The reflection of
the earth individuality could only be effective in the body-free state
through the fact that in this state also the soul remained in the
sphere of the mighty spirits who had caused the moon separation. The
process took place in such a way that immediately after the soul had
forsaken the earth body it could perceive the exalted sun beings only
in the reflected splendor of the moon beings. It was only after gazing
at this splendor for a considerable length of time that the soul was
sufficiently prepared to behold the sublime sun beings themselves.
The earth's mineral kingdom also came into existence through having
been expelled from the general evolution of mankind. Its structures
are what remained solidified when the moon separated from the earth.
Only that part of soul nature felt itself attracted to these forms
that had remained on the Saturn stage and is thus fit only to fashion
physical forms. All events under consideration here and in the
following pages occurred in the course of vast lengths of time. We
cannot, however, enter here into a discussion of chronology.
The events described here present Earth evolution from the external
side. When observed spiritually it can be said that the spiritual
beings who withdrew the moon from the earth and united their own
existence with it, thus becoming earth-moon beings, caused a certain
configuration of the human organism to take place by sending forces
from this cosmic body down upon the earth. Their activity was directed
upon the ego acquired by the human being. This activity made itself
felt in the interplay between this ego and the astral body, ether
body, and physical body. As a result it became possible for man to
reflect within himself consciously the wisely fashioned configuration
of the world, to reflect it as though in a mirror of knowledge. It may
be remembered in our description how, during the ancient Moon period,
the human being acquired through the separation of the sun at that
time a certain independence in his organism and a less restricted
degree of consciousness than could be derived directly from the sun
beings, This free, independent consciousness reappeared during the
characterized period of Earth evolution as a heritage of the ancient
Moon evolution. But this very consciousness, brought again into
harmony with the cosmos through the influence of the earth-moon beings
referred to above, could be made into a copy of it. This would have
happened had no other influence made itself felt. Without such an
influence man would have become a being in whom the content of
consciousness would not have reflected the cosmos in the images of
cognitional life through his own free volition, but as a necessity of
nature. This did not occur. Certain spiritual beings took an active
part in the evolution of mankind just at the time of the moon
separation, beings who had retained so much of their Moon nature that
they could not participate in the separation of the sun from the
earth; they were excluded also from the activity of the beings who,
from the earth-moon, directed their activity upon the earth. These
beings with the ancient Moon nature were confined with their irregular
development to the earth. In their Moon nature lay the cause of their
rebellion during the ancient Moon evolution against the sun spirits, a
rebellion that was at that time beneficial to the human being by its
having led him to an independent state of consciousness. The
consequences of the peculiar development of these beings during the
Earth epoch entailed their becoming during that time enemies of the
beings who, from the moon, wished to turn human consciousness into a
universal mirror of knowledge under the compulsion of necessity. What
on the ancient Moon had helped man to a higher state proved to be in
opposition to the possibilities that had developed through Earth
evolution. The opposing powers had brought with them, out of their
Moon nature, the force to work on the human astral body, namely, in
the sense of the above descriptions, to make it independent. They
exercised this force by giving the astral body a certain independence
now also for the earth period in contrast to the compelled (unfree)
state of consciousness that was caused by the beings of the
earth-moon. It is difficult to express in current language how the
activity of the characterized spiritual beings affected human beings
in the indicated primeval period. We may neither think of this
activity as something like a present-day nature force, nor as
something like the action of one man upon another when with words the
first man calls forth in the second inner forces of consciousness,
through which the second learns to understand something or is stirred
to perform a moral or immoral deed. The effect described as taking
place in the primeval age was not a nature effect but a spiritual
influence, having spiritual effects, transferring itself spiritually
from the higher beings to the human being in accordance with his state
of consciousness at that time. If we think of this matter as a nature
activity then we miss entirely its true, essential character. If we
say, on the other hand, the beings endowed with the ancient Moon
nature approached the human being in order to seduce him
for their own ends, we employ a symbolic expression that is good as
long as we remain conscious of its symbolical character and are at the
same time clear in our own minds that behind the symbol stands a
spiritual fact, a spiritual reality.
The effect that proceeded from the spiritual beings who had remained
behind in their ancient Moon state had a twofold consequence for man.
His consciousness was divested of the character of a mere reflector of
the cosmos, because the possibility was aroused in the human astral
body to regulate and control, by means of it, the images arising in
the consciousness. Man became the master of his knowledge. On the
other hand, it was just the astral body that became the starting point
of this control, and the ego, set above this body, became thus
steadily dependent upon it. As a result the future human being was
exposed to the continuous influences of a lower element in his nature.
It was possible for him during his life to sink below the height at
which he had been placed by the earth-moon beings in the course of
world events. The continuous influence of the characterized
irregularly developed Moon beings remained with him throughout the
subsequent periods. These moon beings, in contrast to the others who
from the earth-moon satellite fashioned human consciousness into a
cosmic mirror but gave no independent will, may be called Luciferic
spirits. These spirits brought to the human being the possibility of
unfolding a free activity in his consciousness, but at the same time
also the possibility of error, of evil.
The consequence of these processes was that man came into quite a
different relationship with the sun spirits from the one for which he
was predestined by the earth-moon spirits. The latter wished to
develop the mirror of his consciousness in such a way that the
influence of the sun spirits would be the dominant one in the whole of
human soul life. These processes were thwarted, and in the human being
the contrast was created between the sun spirit influence and the
influence of the spirits with an irregular Moon evolution. Through
this contrast the human being became unable to recognize the physical
sun activity as such; it remained concealed behind the earthly
impressions of the outer world. The astral nature of man filled by
these impressions was drawn into the sphere of the ego. This ego,
which otherwise would have felt only the spark of fire bestowed on it
by the Spirits of Form, and in everything that concerned the outer
fire would have subordinated itself to the commands of these spirits,
this ego now because of the astral element injected into it exerted
its influence also upon the outer heat phenomena. Through creating a
bond of attraction between itself and the earth fire, the ego
entangled man in earthly matter more than was predestined for him.
Whereas previously he had a physical body, which in its principal
parts consisted of fire, air, and water, and to which was added only
something like a shadowy semblance of earth substance, now the body
became denser because of the presence of earth substance. Whereas man
existed previously like a finely organized being swimming, hovering
over the solid earth surface, he was compelled now to descend from the
earth's environment down upon such parts of the earth as were already
more or less solidified.
That such physical effects could result from the above described
spiritual influences becomes comprehensible through the fact of their
being of the sort described above. They were neither nature influences
nor soul influences acting from one human being upon another. The
latter do not extend their effects as far into the bodily nature as do
the spiritual forces that are here under consideration. Because the
human being exposed himself to the influences of the outer world
through his own visualizations subject to error, because he lived
under the impulsion of desire and passion that did not permit of
regulation by higher spiritual influences, the possibility of disease
appeared. A special effect of the Luciferic influence, however, was
that man could now no longer feel his single earth life as a
continuation of the body-free existence. He received now earth
impressions that could be experienced through the inoculated astral
element and that united themselves with the forces destroying the
physical body. Man felt this as the dying out of his earth life, and
through it death, caused by human nature itself, made its appearance.
With this a significant mystery in human nature is indicated, namely,
the connection of the human astral body with sickness and death.
Special relationships now appeared for the human life body. It was
placed in a relationship to the physical and astral bodies that, in a
certain sense, deprived it of the faculties the human being had
acquired through the Luciferic influence. A part of this life body
remained outside the physical body, so that it could not be controlled
by the human ego, but only by higher beings. These higher beings were
the same who, at the time of the sun separation, had forsaken the
earth under the leadership of one of their exalted companions in order
to take up another dwelling place. If the characterized part of the
life body had remained united with the astral body, man would have put
supersensible forces to his own use that formerly were his own. He
would have extended the Luciferic influence also to these forces. As a
result man would have thus gradually separated himself entirely from
the sun beings, and his ego would have become completely an earth-ego.
Consequently, after the death of the physical body indeed even during
its deterioration this earth-ego would have been obliged to inhabit
another physical body the body of a descendant without going through a
union with higher spiritual beings in a body-free condition. Man would
have become conscious of his ego, but only as an earth-ego. This was
averted by the above-mentioned event, involving the life body, caused
by the earth-moon beings. The actual individual ego was released from
the mere earth-ego to such a degree that man felt himself only
partially as his own ego during earth life; at the same time he felt
that his own earth-ego was an extension of the earth-ego of his
forebears throughout the generations. In earth life the soul felt the
existence of a sort of group ego right back to the earliest ancestor
and man felt himself as a member of the group. Only in the body-free
state was the individual ego able to feel itself as an independent
being. But this state of separateness was impaired because the ego was
afflicted with the memory of the earth consciousness, the earth-ego.
This darkened the vision of the spirit world, which began to cover
itself with a veil between death and birth as was the case for
physical vision on earth.
The physical expression of all the changes that occurred in the spirit
world while human evolution went through the described conditions was
the gradual regulation of the reciprocal relationships of sun, moon,
and earth, and in a broader sense also of the other heavenly bodies.
The alternation of day and night can be emphasized as being one
consequence of these relationships. (The movements of the heavenly
bodies are regulated by the beings inhabiting them. The movement of
the earth through which day and night occur was caused by the
reciprocal relationships of the various spirits standing above man. In
like manner also the movement of the moon was caused, in order that
after its separation from and the revolving around the earth the
Spirits of Form could act in the right way, with the right rhythm,
upon the physical human body.) During the day the human ego and astral
body worked in the physical and life bodies. At night this activity
ceased. The ego and astral body left the physical and life bodies.
They entered during this period entirely into the realm of the Sons of
Life (the Angels), of the Spirits of Fire (the Archangels), of the
Spirits of Personality, and the Spirits of Form. Besides the Spirits
of Form, the Spirits of Motion, the Spirits of Wisdom, and the Thrones
included at that time the physical and life bodies in their sphere of
action. It was thus possible that the injurious influences, which
during the day were exercised upon the human being through the errors
of the astral body, could be repaired.
As the human beings now multiplied again on earth, there was no longer
any reason why human souls should not have incarnated in their
descendants. The influence of the earth-moon forces of that time
permitted human bodies to develop, that were thoroughly fit to embody
human souls. The souls who previously were removed to Mars, to
Jupiter, and to other planets, were led to the earth. There was in
consequence a soul present for every human descendant born within the
cycle of generations. This continued through long periods, so that the
soul migrations to the earth corresponded to the increase in the
number of human beings. The souls who left the body at death retained
in the body-free state the echo of the earthly individuality like a
memory. This memory acted in such a way that when bodies corresponding
to the souls were born on earth, they reincarnated in them. As time
went on, there were among, the human offspring human beings who had
souls coming from the outside, who had for the first time since the
earliest ages of the Earth appeared again upon it, and there were
others having earthly-reincarnated souls. In the subsequent period of
the Earth evolution, there were fewer and fewer of the young souls
appearing for the first time and more and more of the reincarnated
souls. Nevertheless, for long ages the human race consisted of the two
kinds of human beings resulting from these facts. On earth, man felt
more united by a common group-ego with his forebears. The experience
of the individual ego was, however, all the stronger in the body-free
state between death and a new birth. The souls who came from celestial
space and entered human bodies were in a different position from those
who already had one or more earth lives behind them. The former
brought along with them for the physical earth life only the
conditions to which they were subjected by the higher spiritual world
and by their experiences made outside the earth region. The others had
themselves in previous lives added new conditions. The destiny of the
former souls was determined only by facts that lay outside the new
earth relationships. The destiny of the reincarnated souls was also
determined by what they themselves had done in previous lives under
earthly conditions. With reincarnation there appeared at the same time
individual human karma. Through the fact that the human life body was
withdrawn from the influence of the astral body, in the manner
indicated above, the conditions of reproduction also were not within
the scope of human consciousness, but were subject to the dominion of
the spiritual world. If a soul was to sink down to the sphere of the
earth, the reproductive impulses of the human earth being appeared. To
earthly consciousness the entire process was to a certain degree
enveloped in a mysterious obscurity. But the consequences of this
partial separation of the life body from the physical appeared also
during earth life. The capabilities of this life body could be easily
increased by means of spiritual influence. In the life of the soul
this expressed itself through an especial perfection of memory.
Independent, logical thinking was at this period only in its very
beginnings. The capacity of memory was, on the other hand, almost
limitless. Externally, it was evident that the human being had direct
knowledge tinged with feeling of the active forces of every living
thing. He was able to employ in his service the forces of life and
reproduction of animal nature, and chiefly those of plant nature. He
could extract, for example, the force that causes plant growth and
employ it in much the same way that the forces of inanimate nature are
used at the present time, for example, the way the forces slumbering
in coal are extracted and employed to set machines in motion. Also the
inner soul life of man was changed through the Luciferic influence in
the most manifold way. Many examples of feelings and sensations due to
it could be given. Only a few instances, however, will be described.
Prior to the advent of the Luciferic influence, the human soul carried
out all its activities in line with the intentions of higher spiritual
beings. The plan of all that should be accomplished was determined
from the beginning, and to the degree that human consciousness was
developed it could foresee how, in the future, evolution would be
compelled to proceed in accordance with the preconceived plan. This
prophesying consciousness was lost when the veil of earthly
perceptions was woven over the manifestation of higher spiritual
beings and the real forces of the sun nature concealed themselves in
these perceptions. The future now became uncertain. With this
uncertainty, the possibility of the sense of fear implanted itself in
the soul. Fear is the direct result of error. But we also see how
under the Luciferic influence man became independent of certain forces
to which he previously submitted himself without will. Now he could
make decisions by himself. Freedom is the result of this influence,
and fear and similar feelings are only the accompanying phenomena of
the progress of man to freedom.
Seen spiritually, the way fear appears indicates that within the earth
forces under the influence of which the human being had come through
the Luciferic powers other powers were active that had followed an
irregular course in evolution much earlier than the Luciferic powers.
With the earth forces man absorbed the influence of these powers into
his being. They gave the character of fear to feelings that would have
manifested quite differently without the presence of these powers.
These beings may be called Ahrimanic. They belong to the
category called, in the Goethean sense, Mephistophelian.
Although the Luciferic influence made itself felt at first only in the
most advanced individuals, it soon spread out also to others. The
descendants of these advanced human beings intermingled with the less
advanced described above. By this means the Luciferic power injected
itself also into the latter. But the ether body of the souls returning
from the planets could not receive the same degree of protection
enjoyed by the ether body of the descendants of those who had remained
on earth. The protection of these latter life bodies came from an
exalted Being in whose hands rested the leadership of the cosmos at
the time the sun withdrew from the Earth. This Being appears in the
realm here under consideration as ruler of the kingdom of the sun.
With Him exalted spirits who through their cosmic evolution had
attained the necessary maturity migrated to the sun abode. There were,
however, other beings who had not, at the time of the sun separation,
attained such heights. They were compelled to seek other abodes. It
was through these very beings that Jupiter and the other planets broke
loose from the common world substance that originally composed the
physical Earth organism. Jupiter became the dwelling place of the
beings who had not reached maturity enough to attain the heights of
the sun. The most advanced of these became the leader of Jupiter. In
just the same way that the leader of the sun development became the
higher ego that was active in the life body of the descendants of the
human beings who had remained on earth, this Jupiter leader became the
higher ego that permeated, as a common consciousness, the human beings
who had originated from an interbreeding of the offspring of those who
had remained on the earth and those other human beings who, in the way
described above, had appeared upon the Earth only at the time of the
advent of the air element and who had then gone over to Jupiter as a
dwelling place. These human beings are designated by spiritual science
as Jupiter men. They were human descendants who in that
ancient time still had received human souls into their nature, but who
at the beginning of Earth evolution were not mature enough to come in
contact with the fire. They were souls standing at the stage midway
between the realm of human and animal souls. There were also beings
who under the leadership of one of their most exalted members had
separated Mars from the common world substance as a suitable dwelling
place. They exerted their influence upon a third kind of man, who had
come into existence through interbreeding, the Mars man.
(From this knowledge a light is thrown upon the origin of the planets
of our solar system. For, all bodies of this system have originated
through the various stages of maturity of the beings dwelling on them.
It is, however, not possible here to enter into a discussion of all
the details of cosmic organization.) The human beings who, in their
life body, perceived the presence of the lofty Sun Being Himself may
be designated sun men. The Being Who lived in them as
Higher Ego naturally only in the whole race, not in the
individual is the One to Whom later, when man acquired a conscious
knowledge of Him, various names were given. He is the Being in Whom
the relationship that the Christ has to the cosmos manifests itself to
the human beings of our time. We can, in addition, distinguish
Saturn men. With them there appeared a being as higher ego
who with his associates had been compelled to forsake the common world
substance prior to the sun separation. In this species of human being
not only the life body had remained partly untouched by the Luciferic
influence, but also the physical body.
In the case of the inferior kinds of human beings, however, the life
body was not sufficiently protected to enable it to withstand the
Luciferic influence. These human beings could extend the unruly power
of their ego's fire spark to such a degree that they were able to call
forth in their environment powerful, destructive fire effects. The
consequence was a tremendous terrestrial catastrophe. The fire storms
caused a large part of the inhabited earth of that time to perish and
with it the human beings who had lapsed into error. Only the smallest
part who had remained partly untouched by error was able to escape to
a district of the earth that had remained until then protected from
corrupting human influence. Such a dwelling place, which was
especially appropriate for the new mankind, appeared in the land that
existed on the spot of the earth now covered by the Atlantic Ocean. It
was to this place those human beings withdrew who were most untouched
by error. Only scattered human groups inhabited other regions of the
earth. The earth region existing at that time, situated between modern
Europe, Africa, and America, is called Atlantis by
spiritual science. (In the corresponding literature reference is made,
in a certain way, to the phase of human evolution characterized above
that precedes the Atlantean period. The name Lemurian age
is given to the period of the earth that preceded the Atlantean age.
On the other hand, the age in which the moon forces had not yet
unfolded their chief activity is designated the
Hyperborean. Preceding this age there was still another
that coincides with the very first period of the physical Earth
evolution. In the biblical tradition, the period before the influence
of the Luciferic beings was active is described as the age of
Paradise, and the descent of the human being out of this region to the
earth, and his subsequent entanglement in the world of the senses, as
the expulsion from Paradise.)
Evolution on Atlantis is the time of the actual separation of mankind
into the Saturn, Sun, Jupiter, and Mars men. Before that, there had
been only the predisposition toward this separation. The division into
waking and sleeping states had special consequences for the human
being that appeared especially in Atlantean humanity. During the
night, man's astral body and ego were in the realm of the beings
standing above him right up to the realm of the Spirits of
Personality. By means of that portion of the life body not united with
the physical body, the human being was able to have a perception of
the Sons of Life (the Angels), and the Spirits of Fire (the
Archangels). For he was able to remain united during sleep with the
part of the life body not permeated by the physical body. The
perception of the Spirits of Personality remained indistinct because
of the Luciferic influence. Beside the Angels and Archangels, other
beings also became visible to man when in the state described above,
beings who, having remained behind on the sun and moon, could not
enter earth existence. They had to remain in the world of soul and
spirit. Man, however, drew them by means of the Luciferic nature into
the realm of his soul that was separated from the physical body. Thus
he came in contact with beings who worked upon him in a corrupting
way. They increased the urge toward error in his soul, especially the
urge toward the misuse of the forces of growth and reproduction that
were under his control through the separation of the physical and life
body.
It was possible, however, for individual men of the Atlantean period
to entangle themselves to a small degree in the realm of the senses.
Through them the Luciferic influence was transformed from an obstacle
to human evolution into an instrument of higher advancement. Through
this Luciferic influence they were in the position of unfolding the
knowledge of earthly things earlier than would otherwise have been
possible. In doing so, these human beings sought to remove erroneous
ideas from their thought life, and through the phenomena of the world
to fathom the original purposes of spirit beings. They kept themselves
free from the impulses and desires of the astral body, which were only
inclined toward the world of the senses. In this way they became ever
freer from the errors of the astral body. This produced conditions in
them by means of which they perceived only with that part of the ether
body that was separated from the physical body in the manner
described. In these conditions the physical body's power of perception
was practically extinguished and the body itself was as though dead.
These human beings were then completely united through the ether body
with the realm of the Spirits of Form and were able through them to
learn how they were being led and guided by the exalted Being Who held
the leadership at the time of separation of sun and Earth. Later,
through this exalted Being an understanding of the Christ unfolded
itself in human beings. Such men were initiates. But since the
individuality of man had, as already described above, entered the
region of the moon spirits, these initiates also remained, as a rule,
untouched directly by the Spirit of the Sun. He could be shown to them
only by the moon spirits as though in a reflection. Thus they did not
see the Being of the Sun directly, but saw only His splendor. They
became the leaders of the other portion of mankind to whom they could
communicate the mysteries they beheld. They trained disciples to whom
they indicated the paths leading to the state resulting in initiation.
The knowledge, previously revealed through Christ, could be attained
by human beings only who belonged in the way described to the order of
sun men. They cultivated their mysterious wisdom and the
functions leading to it in a special place on the earth, which will be
called here the Christ or Sun oracle — oraculum meaning the place where
the purposes of spiritual beings are heard. What is said here about
the Christ will only be understood if we keep in mind the fact that
supersensible knowledge perceives in His appearance on earth an event
that was foreseen for ages by wise men as taking place at some future
time, wise men who were familiar, long before this event, with the
meaning of Earth evolution. We would be in error were we to presuppose
in the case of these initiates a connection with the Christ that was
made possible only through this event. But they could comprehend
prophetically and make their disciples understand that whoever is
touched by the power of the Sun Being sees the Christ approaching the
earth.
Other oracles came into being through the members of the Saturn, Mars,
and Jupiter humanities; their initiates directed their vision only up
to the beings who could reveal themselves in their ether bodies as the
corresponding higher egos. There thus arose adherents of Saturn,
Jupiter, and Mars wisdom. Besides these methods of initiation, there
were others for human beings who had acquired too much of the
Luciferic nature to allow as large a portion of their ether body to be
separated from the physical body as was the case with the sun men.
Their astral body retained a greater part of the life body in the
physical body, nor could they be brought, by means of the described
state of initiation, to a prophetic revelation of the Christ. On
account of their astral body, which was considerably influenced by the
Luciferic principle, they were compelled to go through more
complicated preparations, and then, in a less body-free state than the
others, they were unable to behold the manifestation of the Christ
Himself, but only that of other higher beings. There were certain
spiritual beings who at the time of the sun separation had forsaken
the Earth, but who had not yet attained a sufficiently high
development to enable them to participate permanently in the sun
evolution. After the separation of sun and Earth they withdrew a
portion of the sun as a dwelling place. This we know as Venus. The
leader of these spiritual beings became the higher ego of the above
described initiates and their adherents. Something similar occurred in
regard to the leading spirit of Mercury for another kind of human
being. In this way the Venus and Mercury oracles had their origin.
Certain human individuals who were affected most by the Luciferic
influence were able to reach up only to a certain being who, with his
associates, had been the earliest to be expelled from the sun
development. This being has not a special planet in the cosmos, but
lives in the environment of the earth itself, with which he has been
again united since his return from the sun. The human beings to whom
this being manifested himself as higher ego may be called members of
the Vulcan oracle. Their eyes were turned more toward
earth phenomena than was the case with the other initiates. They laid
the first foundation for what appeared later on among human beings as
science and art. The Mercury initiates, on the
other hand, laid the basis for the knowledge of the more supersensory
things, and to a still higher degree, this was done by the Venus
initiates. The Vulcan, Mercury, and Venus initiates distinguished
themselves from the Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars initiates through the
fact that the latter received their mysteries more as a revelation
from above, in a more finished state, whereas the former received
their knowledge revealed more in the form of their own thoughts, of
their own ideas. In the middle stood the Christ initiates. They
received, together with the direct revelation, the ability to clothe
their mysteries in the form of human concepts. The Saturn, Jupiter,
and Mars initiates had to express themselves by way of symbols; The
Christ, Venus, Mercury, and Vulcan initiates were able to make their
communications in the form of definite concepts.
What was attained in this manner by the Atlantean humanity came about
in an indirect way through the initiates. But the rest of humanity
also gained special abilities through the Luciferic principle, because
through the lofty cosmic beings certain faculties, which might
otherwise have led to disaster, were transformed into a blessing. One
such faculty is speech. It was bestowed upon man through his
solidification within physical matter and through the separation of a
part of his ether body from the physical body. During the time after
the moon separation the human being felt himself at first united to
his physical forebears through the group ego. This common
consciousness, however, which united descendants with forefathers, was
gradually lost in the course of generations. The later descendants had
then an inner memory reaching back only to a not very distant
ancestor, not any longer to the earlier forebears. Only in a state
similar to sleep, in which the human beings came in touch with the
spiritual world, did the picture of this or that ancestor emerge again
in memory. Human beings, in certain instances, then felt themselves at
one with this ancestor whom they believed had reappeared in them. This
was an erroneous concept of reincarnation, which emerged chiefly in
the last part of the Atlantean period. The true teaching about
reincarnation could only be learned in the schools of the initiates.
These latter perceived how, in the disembodied state, the human soul
passes from one incarnation to another, and they alone could impart
the truth about it to their disciples.
The physical form of man was, in the primeval past that is under
discussion here, still widely different from the present human shape.
It was to a high degree still the expression of soul faculties. The
human being consisted of a finer, softer substance than the one he
acquired later. What today is solidified was in the limbs soft,
supple, and easily molded. A human being who expressed more intensely
his soul and spiritual nature had a delicate, active and expressive
body structure. Another with less spiritual development had crude,
immobile, less easily molded bodily forms. Advancement in soul
qualities contracted the limbs; the figure remained small. Retardation
in soul development and entanglement in the world of the senses
expressed itself in gigantic size. While man was in the period of
growth, the body, in accordance with what occurred in the soul,
assumed forms of a certain kind that to the present-day human mind
must appear fabulous, indeed, fantastic. Moral corruption through
passions, impulses, and instincts resulted in an enormous increase in
the material substance in man. The present-day human physical form has
come into existence through contraction, condensation, and
solidification of the Atlantean; whereas before the Atlantean age the
human being was a faithful copy of his soul nature, the processes of
the Atlantean evolution bore the causes in themselves that led to the
post-Atlantean human being who in his physical shape is solid and
little dependent on soul qualities. (The animal kingdom became denser
in its forms at much earlier periods of the earth than the human
being.) The laws that lie at present at the foundation of
form-fashioning in the kingdoms of nature are not valid under any
circumstances for the more distant past.
Toward the middle of the Atlantean period of evolution a great evil
gradually began to manifest itself within mankind. The mysteries of
the initiates ought to have been carefully guarded from individuals
who had not purified their astral bodies of error through preparation.
When such human beings acquire a certain insight into mystery
knowledge, into the laws by which the higher beings guide the forces
of nature, they then place these laws at the service of their
perverted needs and passions. The danger was all the greater, since
human beings, as already described, came into the realm of lower
spiritual beings who, unable to carry out the regular Earth evolution,
acted contrary to it. These spiritual beings influenced human beings
constantly by arousing in them interests that were, in truth, directed
against the welfare of mankind. But human beings had still the ability
to use the forces of growth and reproduction of animal and human
nature for their own purposes. Not only ordinary human beings, but
also a number of the initiates succumbed to the temptations of lower
spiritual beings. They went so far as to use the described
supersensible forces in a way that ran counter to the development of
mankind, and for this activity they sought associates who were not
initiated and who for lower ends seized upon the mysteries of the
supersensible working of nature. The consequence was a great
corruption of mankind. The evil spread further and further, and since
the forces of growth and reproduction, when diverted from their
natural functions and used independently, stand in a mysterious
connection with certain forces that work in air and water, mighty,
destructive nature forces were unfettered by human deeds. This led to
the gradual destruction of the Atlantean region through terrestrial
catastrophes of air and water. The Atlantean humanity insofar as it
did not perish in the storms was compelled to emigrate. At that time
the earth received through these storms a new face. On the one side,
Europe, Asia, and Africa received gradually the shapes they bear
today. On the other side, America. To these lands went great
migrations. For our present day the most important of these migrations
were those that went eastward from Atlantis. What is now Europe, Asia,
Africa, became gradually colonized by the descendants of the
Atlanteans. Various folk established their abode in these continents.
They stood at varying degrees of development, but also at varying
degrees of depravity. In the midst of these migrating peoples marched
the initiates, the guardians of the oracle mysteries. These guardians
founded in various regions of the earth institutions in which the
services of Jupiter, Venus, and other oracles were cultivated in a
good, but also in an evil manner. The betrayal of the Vulcan mysteries
exercised an especially adverse influence, because the attention of
their adherents was chiefly directed toward earthly matters. Mankind,
through this betrayal, was made dependent upon spiritual beings who,
in consequence of their previous development, held a negative attitude
toward everything that came from the spiritual world, which had
evolved through the separation of the Earth from the sun. According to
the capacity thus developed, they acted in the element that was formed
in the human being through his having perceptions of the sense world,
behind which the spirit is concealed. These beings acquired henceforth
a great influence over many human inhabitants of the earth, and this
influence made itself evident through the fact that the human being
was more and more deprived of the feeling for the spirit. Since in
these times the size, form and flexibility of the human physical body
was still affected to a large degree by the qualities of the soul, the
consequence of this betrayal of the mysteries came to light in changes
in the human race in this respect also. Where the corruption of the
human beings became especially evident through the placing of
supersensible forces at the service of lower impulses, desires, and
passions, grotesque human shapes were created, monstrous in size and
structure. These were not able to continue in existence beyond the
Atlantean period. They died out. The post-Atlantean humanity has
fashioned itself physically after the model of the Atlantean ancestors
in whom already such a solidifying of the bodily shape had taken place
that this did not surrender to the influence of soul forces that had
become contrary to nature. There was a certain period of time in the
Atlantean evolution in which, through the laws holding sway in and
around the earth, conditions prevailed for the human form under which
it had to solidify itself. To be sure, the human racial forms that had
solidified prior to this period were able to reproduce themselves for
a long time; nevertheless, the souls incarnating in them gradually
became so narrowly confined that such races had to die out. Many of
these racial forms, however, continued in existence on into the
post-Atlantean period; certain forms that had remained sufficiently
supple continued to exist in a modified form for a long time. Human
forms that had remained flexible beyond the characterized period now
became chiefly the bodies for souls that experienced intensively the
detrimental influence of the betrayal of the Vulcan mysteries as
already indicated. They were destined to die out quickly.
Thus, since the middle of the Atlantean period of evolution, beings
had asserted themselves within the realm of human development whose
activity affected mankind in such a way that it became acquainted with
the physical sense world in a non-spiritual manner. In certain
instances this went so far that instead of the true shape of this
world manifesting itself, it appeared to the human being in phantoms,
chimeras and illusions of all sorts. Not only was man exposed to the
Luciferic influence, but also to the influence of the other beings
about whom we have spoken above, and whose leader may be called
Ahriman in accordance with the designation he received later on in the
Persian cultural period. (Mephistopheles is the same being.) After
death man came through this influence under powers that allowed him to
appear also in that realm only as a being who is inclined toward
earthly-sensory conditions. The free view into the processes of the
spiritual world was by degrees taken away from him. He was obliged to
feel himself in the power of Ahriman and to a certain degree had to be
excluded from union with the spiritual world.
Of special significance was one oracle sanctuary that in the universal
decline had preserved the ancient cultus in its purest form. It
belonged to the Christ oracles, and on account of this it was able to
preserve not only the Christ mystery itself, but also the mysteries of
the other oracles. For through the manifestation of the most exalted
Sun Spirit, the regents of Saturn, Jupiter, and other oracles, were
also revealed. The sun oracle knew the secret of producing, for this
or that individual, the kind of human ether bodies that were possessed
by the highest initiates of Jupiter, Mercury, and other oracles. With
the means at their disposal, which are not to be discussed any further
here, counterparts of the most perfect ether bodies of the ancient
initiates were preserved and later implanted into the individuals best
fitted for the purpose. Through the Venus, Mercury, and Vulcan
initiates, such processes could take place also for the astral bodies.
There came a time when the leader of the Christ initiates found
himself isolated with some of his associates to whom he was able to
communicate the mysteries of the world only to a very limited degree.
For the associates were the kind of human beings upon whom nature had
bestowed physical and etheric bodies with the least degree of
separation between them. Such men were the best suited, in this epoch,
for the further advancement of mankind. Gradually they had fewer and
fewer experiences in the realm of sleep. The spiritual world had
become more and more closed for them. But they were also lacking the
understanding for all that had unveiled itself in ancient times when
man was not in his physical but only in his ether body. The human
beings in the immediate neighborhood of this leader of the Christ
oracle were the most advanced in regard to the union of the physical
body with that part of the ether body that previously had been
separated from it. This union appeared by degrees in mankind in
consequence of the transformation of Atlantis and the earth generally.
The physical and ether bodies of human beings coincided more and more
with one another. As a result, the previous unlimited faculty of
memory was lost and human thought life began. The part of the ether
body bound to the physical body transformed the physical brain into
the actual organ of thought, and only from that time onward did the
human being feel his ego in the physical body. Only then did
self-consciousness awake. At the outset, this was the case with a
small portion of mankind only, chiefly with the immediate companions
of the leader of the Christ oracle. The other groups of human beings
who were scattered over Europe, Asia, and Africa, preserved in the
most varied degrees the remnants of the ancient states of
consciousness. They, therefore, experienced the supersensible world
directly. The companions of the Christ initiate were human beings with
highly developed intelligence, but of all human beings of that time
their experiences in the realm of the supersensible were the least.
With them, this Christ initiate migrated from west to east, toward a
certain region in inner Asia. He wished to protect them from coming in
contact with the people of less advanced states of consciousness. He
educated these companions in accordance with the mysteries revealed to
him, and chiefly worked in this way upon their descendants. Thus he
trained a host of human beings who had received into their hearts the
impulses that corresponded to the mysteries of the Christ initiation.
From this host he chose the seven best in order that they might have
ether and astral bodies corresponding to the counterparts of the ether
bodies of the seven greatest Atlantean initiates. He thus trained
initiates to be the successors of the Christ initiate, of the Saturn,
of the Jupiter, and of the other oracle initiates. These seven
initiates became the teachers and leaders of the people who in the
post-Atlantean epoch had settled in the south of Asia, chiefly in
ancient India. Since these great teachers were endowed with the
counterparts of the ether bodies of their spiritual ancestors, what
was contained in their astral bodies, that is to say, their own
self-wrought knowledge and understanding, did not extend to what was
revealed to them through their ether body. They had to silence their
own knowledge and understanding when these revelations strove to
manifest in them. Then out of them and by means of them the high
beings spoke who had spoken also for their spiritual ancestors. Except
during the periods when these high beings spoke through them, they
were simple men gifted with the degree of understanding and sympathy
that they themselves had acquired.
In India there lived at that time a kind of human being which had
preserved chiefly a living memory of the ancient soul state of the
Atlanteans, a state which permitted experiences in the spiritual
world. In a large number of these human beings there was also present
a tremendous urge of the heart and mind to experience this
supersensible world. Through the wise guidance of destiny the main
body of this kind of men, representing the best sections of the
Atlanteans, had reached South Asia. Besides this main body, other
sections had settled there at various times. The Christ initiate
already mentioned appointed his seven great disciples as teachers for
this assemblage of human beings. They gave their wisdom and their laws
to this people. For many of these ancient Indians little preparation
was needed to arouse in them the scarcely extinct faculties that led
to a perception of the supersensible world. For the longing for this
world was a fundamental mood of the Indian soul. The Indian felt that
in this supersensible world was the primeval home of mankind. From it
he was removed into a world that is revealed only through the
perceptions of the outer senses and grasped by the intellect bound to
these perceptions. He felt the supersensible world as the true one and
the sensory world as a deception of human perception, an illusion
(Maya). By all possible means the human being strove to gain insight
into the true world. He was unable to develop any interest in the
illusory sense world, or at least only insofar as it proved to be a
veil over the supersensible world. It was a mighty power that the
seven great teachers exercised upon such people. What could be
revealed through this power penetrated deeply into the Indian souls.
Since the possession of the transmitted life and astral bodies endowed
these teachers with sublime powers, they were able to act magically
upon their disciples. They did not actually teach. They produced their
effects from person to person as though through magic powers. Thus a
culture arose that was completely permeated by supersensible wisdom.
What is contained in the books of wisdom of India in the Vedas is not
the original form of the exalted wisdom, which in the most primeval
ages was fostered by the great teachers; it is but a feeble echo of
this wisdom. Only supersensible retrospection can discover an
unwritten primeval wisdom behind the written records. A particular
characteristic of this primeval wisdom is the harmonious concordance
of the wisdom of the various oracles of the Atlantean age. For each of
these great teachers was able to unveil the wisdom of one of these
oracles, and the different aspects of wisdom produced a perfect
concordance because behind them stood the fundamental wisdom of the
prophetic Christ initiation. The teacher, however, who was the
spiritual successor of the Christ initiate did not present what this
Christ initiate himself was able to reveal. The latter had remained in
the background of evolution. At the outset, he could not transmit his
high office to any member of the post-Atlantean civilization. The
difference between the Christ initiate of the seven great Indian
teachers and the Christ initiate of the Atlantean sun oracle was that
the latter had been able to transform completely his perception of the
Christ mystery into human concepts, whereas the Indian Christ initiate
could only represent a reflection of this mystery in signs and
symbols. This was so because his humanly acquired conceptual life did
not extend to this mystery. But the result of the union of the seven
teachers was a knowledge of the supersensible world, presented in a
great panorama of wisdom, of which in the ancient Atlantean oracles
only the various parts could be proclaimed. Now the great regencies of
the cosmic world were revealed, and the one great Sun Spirit, the
Concealed One, was gently alluded to He Who was enthroned
above those other regents who were revealed by the seven teachers.
What is meant here by the ancient Indians, is not what is
usually understood by the use of that term. There are no external
documents of that period of which we are speaking here. The people
usually designated as Indian corresponds to an evolutionary stage of
history that came into existence a long time after the period under
discussion here. We are able to recognize a primal post-Atlantean
epoch in which the characterized Indian culture was dominant. Then a
second post-Atlantean epoch began in which the dominant culture, as
spoken of in this book, was the ancient Persian; still later, the
Egypto-Chaldean culture evolved; both of these have still to be
described. During the unfolding of these second and third
post-Atlantean cultural epochs, ancient India also experienced a
second and a third cultural period. What is usually spoken of as
ancient India originated in this third epoch. Therefore, what is
presented here should not be confused with the ancient India of
history.
Another aspect of this ancient Indian culture is what later led to a
division of men into castes. The inhabitants of India were the
descendants of Atlanteans who belonged to various human races: Saturn
men, Jupiter men, and other planetary men. By means of supersensible
teaching it was understood by these ancient Indians that it was not by
accident that a soul was placed in this or that caste, but rather by
self-determination. Such a comprehension of the supersensible teaching
was facilitated especially through the fact that many human beings
could arouse the above characterized inner remembrance of their
ancestors, which, however, led easily to an erroneous idea of
reincarnation. Just as in the Atlantean period the true idea of
reincarnation could be acquired only by coming in contact with the
initiates, in the most ancient India it could be obtained only by
becoming in direct contact with the great teachers. The
above-mentioned erroneous idea of reincarnation was spread most widely
among the peoples who, as a result of the submergence of Atlantis,
were scattered over Europe, Asia, and Africa, and because certain
initiates, who during the Atlantean evolution had followed false
paths, had also communicated this mystery to immature disciples, human
beings mistook more and more the false doctrine for the true. In many
instances these human beings retained a sort of dreamlike clairvoyance
as an inheritance of the Atlantean period. Just as the Atlanteans
entered the region of the spiritual world during sleep, so their
descendants experienced this spiritual world in an abnormal
intermediate state between waking and sleeping. Then there arose in
them images of an ancient time to which their ancestors had belonged.
They considered themselves reincarnations of human beings who had
lived in such an age. Teachings about reincarnation that were in
contradiction to the true ideas of the initiates spread over the whole
earth.
In the regions of the Middle East a community of people had settled as
a result of the long continued migrations that had spread from the
west eastward since the beginning of the destruction of Atlantis.
History knows the descendants of these people as the Persians and
their related tribal branches. Supersensible knowledge, however, must
go back much further than the historical periods of these people. At
the outset we have to consider the earliest ancestors of the later
Persians, from whom after the Indian the second great cultural period
of the post-Atlantean evolution arose. The peoples of this second
period had a different task from the Indian. In their longings and
inclinations they did not turn merely toward the supersensible; they
were eminently fitted for the physical-sensory world. They grew fond
of the earth. They valued what the human being could conquer on the
earth and what he could win through its forces. What they accomplished
as warriors and also what they invented as a means of gaining the
earth's treasures is related to this peculiarity of their nature.
Their danger did not lie in the fact that because of their love of the
supersensible they might turn completely away from the
illusion of the physical-sensory world, but because of
their strong inclination toward the latter they were more likely to
lose their soul connection with the supersensible world. Also the
oracle establishments that had been transplanted into this region from
their homeland, ancient Atlantis, carried in their methods the general
character of the Persians. By means of forces, which man had been able
to acquire through his experiences in the supersensible regions and
which he was still able to control in certain lower forms, the
phenomena of nature were employed to serve personal human interests.
This ancient people still possessed, at that time, a great power with
which it controlled certain nature forces that later were withdrawn
from all connection with the human will. The guardians of the oracles
controlled inner powers that were connected with fire and other
elements. They may be called Magi. What they had preserved for
themselves from ancient times as heritage of supersensible knowledge
and power was, to be sure, insignificant in comparison with what the
human being had once been able to do in the far distant past. It took
on, nevertheless, all sorts of forms, from the noble arts whose
purpose was only the welfare of mankind, to the most abominable
practices. In these people the Luciferic nature ruled in a special
manner. It had brought them into connection with everything that led
the human being away from the intentions of higher beings who, without
the Luciferic influence, would have simply advanced human evolution.
Those sections of this people who were still endowed with the remnants
of ancient clairvoyance that is to say, with the remnants of the above
described intermediate state between waking and sleeping felt
themselves also much attracted to the lower beings of the spiritual
world. To this people a special spiritual impetus had to be given that
counteracted these characteristics. A leadership was given to this
people from the same source from which the ancient Indian spiritual
life had also sprung, that is, from the guardian of the mysteries of
the sun oracle.
The leader of the ancient Persian spiritual culture who was chosen by
the guardian of the sun oracle for the people now under consideration
may be called by the same name that history knows as Zarathustra or
Zoroaster. But it must be emphasized that the personality designated
here belongs to a much earlier age than the historical bearer of this
name. It is not a question here of outer historical research but of
spiritual science, and whoever must think of a later age in connection
with the bearer of the name Zarathustra, may reconcile this fact with
spiritual science by realizing that the historical character
represents a successor to the first great Zarathustra whose name he
assumed and in the spirit of whose teaching he worked. Zarathustra
gave his people an impulse by pointing out that the physical world of
the senses is not merely something devoid of spirit that confronts man
when he comes under the exclusive influence of the Luciferic being.
Man owes to this being his personal independence and his sense of
freedom, but this Luciferic being should work within him in harmony
with the opposing spiritual being. It was important for the
prehistoric Persian to be aware of the presence of this spiritual
being. Because of the Persian's inclination toward the physical sense
world he was threatened by a complete amalgamation with the Luciferic
beings. Zarathustra, however, had been initiated by the guardian of
the sun oracle and through this initiation the revelations of the
exalted sun beings could be imparted to him. In exceptional states of
consciousness, into which his training had brought him, he was able to
perceive the leader of the sun beings who had taken under his
protection the human ether body in the previously described manner. He
knew that this Being directs human evolution, but also that He could
descend to the earth from cosmic space only at a certain point in
time. In order that this might come about it was necessary that He
should affect the astral body of a human being to the same degree that
He affected the human ether body since the beginning of the
interference of the Luciferic being. For that purpose a human being
had to appear on earth who had retransformed the astral body to a
condition to which this body, without Lucifer, would have attained in
the middle of the Atlantean evolution. Had Lucifer not appeared, the
human being would have attained this same condition much earlier, but
without personal independence and without the possibility of freedom.
Now, however, despite these characteristics the human being was to
regain this same high condition. Zarathustra was able to foresee by
means of his clairvoyance that in the future of mankind's evolution it
would be possible for a definite human personality to possess such a
required astral body. He knew also that it would be impossible to find
the spiritual sun powers on earth prior to this future age, but that
it was possible for supersensible perception to behold them in the
region of the spiritual sun. He was able to behold these powers when
he directed his clairvoyant glance toward the sun, and he divulged to
his people the nature of these powers that, for the time being, were
to be found only in the spiritual world and that later were to descend
to the earth. This was the proclamation of the sublime Sun or Light
Spirit the Sun Aura, Ahura Mazdao, Ormuzd. This Spirit of Light
reveals Himself to Zarathustra and his followers as the Spirit who
turns His countenance from the spiritual world toward mankind and who
prepares the future within mankind. It is the Spirit who points to the
Christ before His advent on earth, whom Zarathustra proclaims as the
Spirit of Light. On the other hand, Zarathustra represents in
Ahriman Angra Mainju a power whose influence upon the life of the
human soul causes the latter's deterioration when it surrenders itself
one-sidedly to it. This power is none other than the one previously
characterized who, since the betrayal of the Vulcan mysteries, had
gained especial domination over the earth. Besides the evangel
concerning the Spirit of Light, Zarathustra also proclaimed the
doctrine of the spiritual beings who become manifest to the purified
sense of the seer as the companions of the Spirit of Light and to whom
a contrast was formed by the tempters who appeared to the unpurified
remnants of clairvoyance that was retained from the Atlantean period.
Zarathustra strove to make clear to the prehistoric Persian how the
human soul, as far as it was engaged in the activities and strivings
of the physical-sensory world, was the field of battle between the
power of the Light God and His adversary and how the human being must
conduct himself so as not to be led into the abyss by this adversary
but whose influence might be turned to good by the power of the Light
God.
A third post-Atlantean cultural period began with the peoples who, by
participation in the migrations from Atlantis, had finally assembled
in the Middle East and North Africa. Among the Chaldeans, Babylonians,
Assyrians on the one hand and the Egyptians on the other, this culture
was developed. Among these peoples the understanding for the physical
world of the senses was evolved in a way different from that of the
prehistoric Persians. They had developed, much more than others, the
spiritual capacity that is the foundation for the ability to think,
for intellectual endowment, which had come into existence since the
last Atlantean epochs. It was the task of the post-Atlantean humanity
to unfold in itself the soul faculties that could be gained through
the awakened powers of thought and feeling that are not directly
stimulated by the spiritual world, but come into existence by man's
observation of the sense world, by becoming familiar with it,
transforming it. The conquest of this physical-sensory world by means
of these human faculties must be considered the mission of
post-Atlantean humanity. From stage to stage this conquest advances.
Although in ancient India the human being was directed toward this
world by means of his soul state, he still considered this world an
illusion and his spirit was turned toward the supersensible world. In
contrast to this, there arose in the prehistorical Persian people the
desire to conquer the physical world of the senses, but this was
attempted, to a large measure, with the powers of soul that had
remained as heritage of a time when man could still reach up directly
into the supersensible world. In the peoples of the third cultural
epoch the soul had lost to a large degree its supersensible faculties.
It had to investigate the revelations of the spirit in the sensory
surroundings and by means of discovery and invention of the cultural
means, springing from this world, develop itself. Human sciences arose
by means of research within the physical sense world into the
spiritual laws standing behind it; human technique and artistic
activities and the tools and instruments used to advance them were
developed by recognizing the forces of this world and the need of
employing them. For the human being of ancient Chaldea and Babylonia
the sense world was no longer an illusion, but with its nature
kingdoms, its mountains and seas, its air and water, it was a
revelation of the spiritual deeds of powers standing behind these
phenomena, whose laws he endeavored to discover. To the Egyptian the
earth was a field of activity given to him in a condition which he had
to transform through his own intellectual capacity, so that it bore
the imprint of human power. Oracle establishments of Atlantis,
originating chiefly from the Mercury oracle, had been transplanted
into Egypt. There were, however, others also, for example, the Venus
oracle. A new cultural germ was planted into what could thus be
fostered in the Egyptian people through these oracle establishments.
It originated with a great leader who had undergone his training
within the Persian Zarathustra mysteries. He was the reincarnation of
a personality who had been a disciple of the great Zarathustra
himself. If we wish to adhere to a historical name, he may be called
Hermes. By absorbing the Zarathustra mysteries he could
find the right path on which to guide the Egyptian people. This folk,
in earth life between birth and death, directed its mind to the
physical sense world in such a way that although it could behold the
spiritual world behind the physical only to a limited degree, it
recognized in the physical world the laws of the spiritual world. Thus
the Egyptian could not be taught that the spiritual world was a world
with which he could become familiar on earth. But he could be shown
how the human being would live in a body-free condition after death
with the world of the spirits who during the earth period appear
through their imprint in the realm of the physical-sensory. Hermes
taught that to the degree the human being employs his forces on earth
in order to act within it according to the aims of spiritual powers,
it is possible for him to be united after death with these powers.
Especially those who have been most zealously active in this direction
during life between birth and death will become united with the
exalted Sun Being with Osiris. On the Chaldean-Babylonian side of this
cultural stream the directing of the human mind to the
physical-sensory was more marked than on the Egyptian side. The laws
of this world were investigated and from the sensory counterparts
perception was directed to the spiritual archetypes. The people,
nevertheless, remained stuck fast in the world of the senses in many
respects. Instead of the spirit of the star, the star itself, and
instead of other spiritual beings, their earthly counterparts were
pushed into the foreground. Only the leaders acquired really deep
knowledge of the laws of the supersensible world and their interaction
with the sense world. Here a contrast between the knowledge of the
initiates and the erroneous beliefs of the people came into evidence
more strongly than anywhere else.
Quite different conditions prevailed in Southern Europe and Western
Asia where the fourth post-Atlantean cultural epoch flourished. We may
call this the Greco-Latin cultural epoch. In these countries the
descendants of human beings of the most varied regions of the ancient
world had gathered. There were oracle establishments that followed the
example of the various Atlantean oracles. There were men who
possessed, as a natural faculty, the heritage of ancient clairvoyance,
and there were some who were able to attain to it with comparatively
little training. In special places the traditions of the ancient
initiates were not only preserved, but there arose worthy successors
who trained pupils capable of raising themselves to exalted stages of
spiritual perception. Simultaneously, these people bore the impulse in
themselves to create a realm within the sense world that expressed in
perfect form the spiritual within the physical. Beside much else,
Greek art is a consequence of this impulse. One need only penetrate
into the Greek temple with spiritual vision to recognize that in such
a marvel of art the physical material is transformed by the human
being in such a way that every detail is an expression of the
spiritual. The Greek temple is the dwelling place of the
spirit. In its forms is to be seen what otherwise only the
spiritual vision of supersensible perception can recognize. A Zeus or
Jupiter temple is shaped in such a way that for the physical eye it
represents a worthy abode for what the guardian of the Zeus or Jupiter
initiation perceived with the spiritual eye. Thus it is with all Greek
art. In mysterious ways the wisdom of the initiates poured into poets,
artists, and thinkers. In the cosmogonies of the ancient Greek
philosophers we find again the mysteries of the initiates in the form
of concepts and ideas. The influence of spiritual life and the
mysteries of the Asiatic and African centers of initiation flowed into
these peoples and their leaders. The great Indian teachers, the
companions of Zarathustra, and the adherents of Hermes had trained
their pupils. These or their successors now founded initiation centers
in which the ancient knowledge was revived in a new form. These are
the mysteries of antiquity. Here the pupils were prepared to reach
states of consciousness through which they were able to attain a
perception of the
spirit world.5
From these initiation centers wisdom flowed to those who
fostered spiritual impulses in Asia Minor, in Greece, and Italy. (In
the Greek world the important initiation centers of the Orphic and
Eleusinian mysteries arose. In the Pythagorean school of wisdom the
after-effects of the great doctrines and methods of the wisdom of
primeval ages appeared. In his wide journeying Pythagoras had been
initiated into the secrets of the most varied mysteries.)
Footnotes:
-
The early stage of our present sun, now spelt with small s. (Tr.)
-
Earth spelt thus, with a capital E, means the
cosmic body containing the moon and other planets after the sun
separation. (Tr.)
-
The early stage of our present moon, hereafter spelt
with small m. (Tr.)
-
The early stage of our present
earth, hereafter spelt with a small e. (Tr.)
-
More detailed descriptions of
these mysteries of antiquity are to be found in my book, Christianity
as Mystical Fact. More on this subject is given in the last chapter of
this book.
Last Modified: 07-Oct-2024
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