LECTURE II
IF WE
turn our attention to what was said to the Greeks by the
teachers and leaders of ancient Egypt about the direction and
guidance of the spiritual life of their country, we may trace a
remarkable parallel between that which is manifested in the
individual life of man, and that which governs human evolution as a
whole. It is related that when a Greek once asked an Egyptian, who
had guided and led his nation from ancient times onwards, he
answered, ‘In the times of yore, the gods ruled and taught us,
and only afterwards men came to be our leaders.’ The Egyptians
named Menes to the Greeks as their first leader on the physical plane
to be recognized as a human leader. That is to say, the
directors of the Egyptian people alleged that in earlier times the
gods themselves — as Greek records confirm — guided and
led the Egyptian nation. Such an assertion, coming down to us from
ancient times, must, however, be rightly understood. What did the
Egyptians mean when they said, ‘Our kings and great teachers
were gods?’
The
man who thus answered the question of the Greek meant that if any one
had gone back into the ancient times of the Egyptian nation, and had
asked those people who felt something within them like a higher
consciousness, or wisdom from higher worlds: ‘Who are really
your teachers?’ they would have answered: ‘If I wanted to
tell you about my real teacher, I should not point to such and such a
person and say, ‘That is my teacher,’ but I should first
have to put myself into a clairvoyant state (it is known from
spiritual science that this was comparatively easier in ancient times
than it is now), and then I would find my real inspirer and teacher,
who comes to me only when the eyes of my spirit are opened.’
For in ancient Egypt beings who were not incarnated in a physical
human body came down amongst men. In those remote ages, it was the
gods who still ruled and taught the Egyptians, and by “gods”
they understood beings who had preceded man in evolution.
According
to spiritual science, the earth passed through an earlier planetary
condition, called the Moon-state, before it became Earth.
During this condition man was not yet human in the present sense of
the word. On the old Moon were present beings not possessed of
the present human forms and differently constituted, who nevertheless
were then at the evolutionary stage which man has now attained on
earth. We may therefore say, that on the ancient Moon-planet
which has perished, and out of which the Earth afterwards
originated, there lived beings who were man's predecessors. In
Christian esoteric language they are called Angel-beings (Angeloi).
The beings immediately above them, Archangels (Archangeloi), were
human at a still earlier period. The angels, or angeloi in Christian
esotericism, Dhyanic beings in eastern mysticism, were ‘men’
during the Moon-period. Now these beings, during the
present Earth-period, are a stage farther advanced than
man — those of them, that is to say, who completed their
evolution on the Moon. Only at the end of the Earth's
evolution will man have arrived at the stage which those beings
had reached at the end of the Moon-period.
When
the Earth-state of our planet began and man appeared on earth,
these beings were not able to appear in an external human form, for
the human body of flesh and blood is essentially a product of earth,
and is only adapted to the beings who are now human. The beings who
are a stage farther advanced than man could not be incarnated in
human bodies. They were only able to take part in the government of
the earth by illuminating and inspiring those people in primeval
times who had attained the stage of clairvoyance. Indirectly, then,
through such clairvoyant persons the angels intervened to guide the
destinies of earth.
Thus
the ancient Egyptians still remembered a time when the leading
personalities of the nation were clearly conscious of their
connection with what are called gods, angels, or dhyanic beings. Now
what sort of beings were these, who were not incarnated in a human
form of flesh and blood, but who influenced mankind in the way we
have described? They were man's predecessors, advanced beyond
the human stage.
There
is in these days much misuse of a word which may in this connection
be applied in its true meaning, the word “Superman.” If
we really wish to speak of “Supermen,” it is these beings
who may rightly be so called. Human during the Moon-period,
the planetary stage preceding our Earth, they had now outgrown
humanity. They were only able to appear in an etheric body to
clairvoyants. It was thus that they came down to earth from spiritual
worlds and ruled here even as late as post-Atlantean times.
These
beings had, and still have, the remarkable quality of not being
obliged to think; in fact, we might even say that they cannot think
at all as man does. How then does man think? More or less in this
way. He starts from a certain point and says, “I understand
this or that,” and from that point he then tries to understand
various other things. If this were not the method of human thought,
school-life would not be such a difficult period for many. We cannot
learn mathematics in a day, because we have to begin at a certain
point and go slowly forwards. This takes a long time. We cannot
survey a whole world of thought at a glance, for human thought runs
its course in time. A system of thought does not enter the
mind in a flash. We have to make an effort and have to exert
ourselves, in order to find the sequence of thought. The beings
described above are without this human peculiarity. A far-reaching
train of thought comes into their minds with the same rapidity with
which an animal makes up its mind that it will snatch at
something which its instinct tells it is eatable. Instinct and
reflective consciousness are in no wise distinct in these beings;
they are one and the same. Just as animals have instinct at their
stage of evolution, in their kingdom, so these dhyanic beings or
angels have direct spiritual thought and conceptions. By virtue of
this instinctive inner life of conception they are of an essentially
different nature from human beings.
Now
we can easily understand why it is impossible for these beings to use
a brain or physical body like ours. They have to use an etheric body,
because the human body and brain only allow of thoughts in time,
whereas these beings do not develop their thoughts in time,
but feel the wisdom that is approaching them blaze forth, as it
were, spontaneously within them. It is impossible for them to think
erroneously in the sense in which man does. The process of their
thought is a direct inspiration. Hence the personalities who were
able to come into contact with these super-human or angelic beings
were conscious that they were in the presence of unerring wisdom,
Therefore, even as late as ancient Egyptian times, when the man who
was the human teacher or king was in the presence of his spiritual
guide, he felt thus the command which he is giving, the truth which
he is enunciating, is literally right and cannot be wrong.
This was also felt by those to whom the truths were passed on.
The
clairvoyant guides of the human race were able to speak in such a
manner that in their words people believed they were receiving
exactly what came down from the spiritual world. In short, there was
a direct current down from the higher spirit-hierarchies which were
directing humanity. Thus what works on the individual in early
childhood may be seen working on humanity at large in the form of the
next world of spirit-hierarchies which hovers over human evolution as
a whole. This is the next kingdom of the angels or super-human
beings, standing a step higher than man, and extending directly into
spiritual spheres. They bring down to earth from those spheres what
is worked into human civilization. In the child, it is on the
formation of the body that the higher wisdom leaves its impress; in
human evolution of past ages, it was civilization that was so
matured.
Thus
the Egyptians, who described themselves as being in connection with
divinity, felt that the soul of humanity was open to the action of
spirit hierarchies. Just as the soul of a child opens its aura to the
hierarchies up to the time mentioned in the preceding pages, so,
through its work, did the whole of humanity open its world to the
hierarchies with which it was connected.
This
connection was most important in those teachers whom we call the holy
teachers of India, the great teachers of the first post-Atlantean or
Indian civilization, which unfolded itself in southern Asia. When the
Atlantean catastrophe was over, and the physiognomy of the earth had
changed, so that the new conformation of Asia, Europe, and Africa had
evolved in the Eastern hemisphere, the civilization led by the
ancient great teachers of India began. This was before the time we
have mentioned as reported in ancient records. The man of today is
apt to get quite a wrong idea about these teachers. If, for example,
one of the great Indian teachers were to be confronted with an
educated man of the present day, the latter would gaze upon him with
astonishment, and perhaps say, “Is that a great teacher? I
should never have thought it.” The words “clever”
or “learned” in the sense of modern culture could not be
applied to the holy teachers of ancient India. They had nothing
clever to say. They were simple, homely people, who would have
answered even questions of everyday life in the simplest fashion
possible. And there were many periods during which scarcely anything
could be elicited from them but what would seem, to an educated man
of today, insignificant. On the other hand, there were certain times
when these holy teachers were revealed as something more than simple,
homely men. At these times they were obliged to be together to the
number of seven, because what each individual was able to feel had to
combine harmoniously with the feelings of the other six teachers, as
though in a consonance of seven sounds. For it was then possible for
each one to see something according to his particular gift and degree
of development. Assuming that we know how to decipher the real occult
records, we find that from the harmony of the separate parts which
each individual was able to see, there arose the primeval wisdom
which comes down to us from ancient times. These records are not the
revelations of the Vedas, however much we may admire them. What the
Indian holy teachers taught is of much earlier date than the
composition of the Vedas, and it is only a feeble echo of their
wisdom which lies before us in those mighty works. But when each of
these men was in the presence of a super-human predecessor of
humanity, was gazing clairvoyantly into higher worlds, and listening
clairaudiently to what was being taught through that predecessor, it
was as though the sun shone from their eyes. What they were then able
to say worked with overpowering force on their environment, so that
all who heard them knew that it was not human life or wisdom that was
speaking, but that gods, super-human beings, were influencing
human civilization.
The
ancient civilizations had their rise in this sounding to mankind of
the knowledge of the gods. Only by degrees in post-Atlantean times
was the door closed into the divine spiritual world which in the
Atlantean period had still been wide open for the human soul. And in
the various countries and nations it was felt that man was thrown
ever more and more on his own resources. What is revealed in the case
of a child appears in humanity in a different way. The divine
spiritual world is first diffused into the unconscious soul of a
child, and the soul works upon the formation of the body. Then comes
the moment at which the child learns to feel itself an ‘ego’
and this is the moment to which its memory goes back in later life.
This is what makes it possible to say that the wisest of men may
still learn something from the soul of a child. From this point,
however, the individual is left to himself. The ego-consciousness
comes into being, and everything combines to make it possible for him
to remember his experiences.
So,
too, in the life of nations there came a time when they began to feel
themselves shut off from the divine inspiration of their early
forefathers. Just as the child becomes gradually shut off from the
aura that floats about its head in its earliest years, so in the life
of nations did the divine ancestors withdraw themselves more and
more, and mankind was left to its own research and to its own
knowledge. When history speaks in this manner, the fact of the
guidance of humanity is realized Menes was the Egyptian name
of him who inaugurated the first human civilization, and it is at the
same time hinted that man thereby became liable to error, for
thenceforward he was left to look for guidance to the instrument of
his brain. That man was liable to fall into error is symbolically
indicated by the fixing of the date of the construction of the
labyrinth at the time when humanity was abandoned by the gods; for
the labyrinth is an image of the convolutions of the brain as the
instrument of man's own thoughts — windings in which the
thinker is able to lose himself. The Orientals called man, as a
thinking being, Manas, and Manu stands for the first great thinker.
The Greeks called the first organizer of the human principle of
thought Minos, and with him is associated the myth of the labyrinth,
because it was felt that, since his time, mankind had gradually
passed from the direct guidance of the gods to a guidance in which
the “ego” feels the influence of the higher spirit-world
in a different way.
Besides
those predecessors of man, the true supermen, who had completed their
humanity on the Moon and had become angels, there are,
however, other beings who did not perfect their evolution on the
Moon .The beings called dhyanic in Oriental mysticism and
angelic in Christian esotericism, consummated their evolution on the
ancient Moon, and when man began his earthly career were
already a stage higher than he was. But there were other beings who
had not finished their evolution on the ancient Moon, any more
than the higher categories of Luciferic beings had finished theirs.
When the Earth-state of our planet began, man as we
have described him was not the only being there. He felt also the
inspiration of divinely-spiritual beings; otherwise, like a child, he
would have been unable to progress. Accordingly, besides these
childlike human beings, and acting through them, there must have been
also present on the earth beings who had completed their evolution on
the Moon. But between these and man there were yet other
beings who had not finished their evolution on the Moon —
beings of a higher order than man, because, even as early as the
ancient Moon-period, they might have become angels or dhyanic
beings. At that time, however, they had not come to full maturity.
They were angels in a backward state, yet they far outdistanced man
as regards everything which man called his own. Generally speaking,
they are beings occupying the lowest grade in the ranks of Luciferic
spirits. They hold a middle position between men and angels, and with
them begins the kingdom of Luciferic spirits.
Now
it is extremely easy to get an erroneous idea of these spirits. We
might ask why did the divine spirits, the regents of good, allow them
to fall short, and thereby admit the Luciferic principle into
humanity? And it might further be objected on this ground, that
surely the good gods turned everything to good. This question is
obvious. And another misunderstanding which might arise,
is expressed in the idea that these are “evil”
spirits. Both ideas are merely misunderstandings; for these spirits
are by no means purely “evil,” although the origin of
evil in human nature is due to them. Since they stand midway between
man and superman, they are, in a sense, more perfect than men. In all
the qualities which human beings have to acquire for themselves,
these spirits have attained a high standard, and they only differ
from man's predecessors described above in being able to incarnate
in human bodies whilst man is being evolved on Earth. This
is because they did not consummate their humanity on
the Moon.
The
dhyanic or angelic beings proper, who are the great inspirers of
humanity, and to whom the Egyptian referred as being still their
teachers, did not appear in human bodies. They could only manifest
themselves through human beings. On the other hand, the beings
in a mid-position between men and angels were still able, in very
early times to incarnate in human bodies. Hence amongst the human
race inhabiting the earth in the Lemurian and Atlantean periods, we
find people whose innermost soul-nature was that of an angel in a
backward state. Not only ordinary people were going about the earth,
who through their successive incarnations were to arrive at the ideal
of humanity, but beings who only outwardly appeared like them. These
had to bear a human body, for the outward form of a human being in
the flesh is dependent on earthly conditions. Especially in more
ancient times did it happen that beings belonging to the lowest
category of Luciferic individualities were present amongst men. And
so at the same time that the angel-beings were working on human
civilization through man, Lucifer-beings were also incarnated and
founding human civilizations in various places. And when in the old
folk legends it is related that in some place there lived a great man
who was the founder of a civilization we are not to understand that
such a Lucifer-being was necessarily the vehicle of evil but rather
that human civilization was to receive countless blessings from him.
Now
it is known through occult science that in ancient times,
particularly in the Atlantean period, there existed a kind of
primitive human language, a manner of speech, which was the same all
over the earth, because “speech” in those days came much
more out of the depths of the soul than it does now. This may be
gathered from the following: In Atlantean times, people felt all
outward impressions in such a way that if the soul wished to express
anything outward by a sound, it was constrained to use a
consonant. What existed in space pressed for imitation in a
consonant. The blowing of the wind, the murmur of the waves, the
shelter given by a house were felt and imitated by man in consonants.
On the other hand, the sorrow or joy which was felt inwardly, or
was observed as feeling in another being, was imitated in a vowel.
From this we can see that the soul became one, in speech, with
outer events or beings. The following instance is taken from the
Akashic Records: A man drew near a hut, which was arched in the
ancient fashion and gave shelter and protection to a family. He
noticed this, and expressed the protective arch by a consonant;
and by a vowel he expressed the fact, which he was able to feel,
that within the hut the embodied souls were comfortable. Thence arose the
thought “shelter”; “there is a shelter for me —
shelter for human bodies.”
The thought was then poured forth in consonants and vowels,
which could not be otherwise than they were, because they were a
direct impression of experience and had but one meaning. This was the
same all over the earth. It is no dream that there was once an
original human root-language. And, in a certain sense, the
initiates of all nations are still able to feel that language.
Indeed there are in all languages certain similar sounds which are
the remains of that universal language.
This
speech was prompted in human souls by the inspiration of the
super-human beings, man's true predecessors, who had perfected
their evolution on the Moon. From this it may be seen that if
that evolution alone had taken place, the entire human race would
practically have remained one great unity, and there would have been
uniformity of speech and thought all over the earth. Individuality
and diversity could not have been developed, nor at the same time
could human freedom. In order that man might become individual,
cleavages had to take place in humanity, and the difference of
language in different parts of the world is due to the work of those
teachers in whom a Luciferic spirit was incarnated. According as a
particular angel-being, who had fallen short in his evolution, was
incarnated in a particular race, was he able to instruct its people
in a particular language. Thus the ability to speak a separate
language is, in all races, traceable to the illuminating presence of
these great beings who were angels in a backward state and who stood
far above the people of their immediate environment. For instance,
the beings described as the original heroes of the Greeks and other
nations, and who worked in a human form, were those in whom an angel
who had fallen short was incarnated. Therefore these beings must by
no means be characterized as entirely “evil.” On the
contrary, they brought to man that which predestined him to be a free
human being all over the globe, and they differentiated what
otherwise would have constituted a uniform whole everywhere on earth.
This is not only true of languages but of many other departments of
life. Individualization, differentiation, freedom, we may say, come
from the beings who fell short in their Moon-evolution. It is
true that it was the purpose of the wise rulership of the cosmos to
bring all beings in planetary evolution to their goal, but if this
had been done in a direct way particular ends would not have been
attained. Certain beings were therefore arrested in their development
because they were to have a special mission in the progress of
humanity. Since the beings who had fulfilled their mission on the
Moon would only have been able to educate a uniform human
race, beings who had fallen short on the Moon were set against
them, and it thereby became possible for these backward ones to turn
into good what appeared as a defect.
This
opens up the question, why do evil, wickedness, imperfection, and
disease exist in the world? This problem should be looked at from
the point of view from which we have just considered the imperfect
angel-beings. Everything which at any time exhibits imperfection or
backwardness will be turned into good in
the course of evolution. It is obvious that this affords no
justification for bad actions on man's part.
Why
does a wise Providence allow certain beings to lag behind and not
reach their goal? There will be good reason for it at the time
following the formation of such a purpose. For it was when nations
were not yet able to guide and govern themselves that the teachers of
particular periods and individuals arose. And all the different
race-teachers, Cadmus, Cheops, Pelops, Theseus, etc, are, in one
aspect, angel-beings in the depths of their souls. From this it
appears that in this respect also, humanity is really subject to
direction and guidance.
Now
at every stage of evolution there are beings who lag behind and do
not attain the possible goal. Let us look once more at the ancient
Egyptian civilization which ran its course thousands of years ago in
the Nile valley. Super-human teachers manifested themselves to the
Egyptians, who said that these teachers guided mankind like gods. At
the same time, however, other beings were also at work, who had only
half or partially attained the angelic stage. Now we must fully
understand that the souls of people of the present day had attained a
definite stage in the Egyptian period. But it is not only man who
gains by letting himself be guided; the beings directing him attain
thereby something which furthers their evolution. For instance, an
angel is something more after he has guided humanity for a while, than he was
before that guidance began. His guiding work helps him to progress,
and this is true not only of one who has completed his evolution as
an angel, but also of one who has lagged behind. All beings are able
continually to advance; everything is in a state of perpetual
development; but at every stage beings are left behind. Thus, in
accordance with what has just been said, there can be distinguished
in the ancient Egyptian civilization the divine leaders or angels,
the semi-divine leaders who did not quite attain the angelic stage,
and the men. But certain beings in the ranks of the angels again lag
behind; they do not bring all their powers into expression when
guiding humanity, but remain behind as angels during the ancient
Egyptian stage of civilization. Similarly some of the incomplete
angels lag behind. Thus while men below were progressing, certain of
the beings above, the dhyanic spirits or angels, fell behind in their
evolution. When the Egypto-Chaldæic civilization came to an
end, and the Graeco-Roman period began, certain guiding spirits from
the former period, who had fallen behind in their evolution, were
present. But they could not use their powers, for other angels or
half-angelic beings had replaced them, and that meant that their own
evolution was at a standstill.
Hence
there comes under our notice a category of beings who might have used
their powers during the Egyptian period, but did not at that time use
them fully. In the ensuing Graeco-Roman period they were not able to
use them, because they were replaced by other guiding spirits, and
all the conditions of that time made their intervention impossible.
But just as the beings who had not reached the angelic stage on the
old Moon were, during the Earth-period, once
more allotted the task of interposing actively in human evolution, so
also the beings who, as guiding spirits in the Egypto-Chaldæic
civilization, had stopped short in their development, had lagged
behind, later received the mission of intervening again in
civilization. We shall be able to watch a later period of
civilization in which beings sent to be guides are certainly there to
direct the normal progress of evolution, but in which, at the same
time, other beings are intervening who were left behind at an earlier
stage, and more particularly those who fell behind during the ancient
Egyptian period. The civilization to which we are referring is our
own. We live at a time when, side by side with the normal directors
of humanity, others are interposing who were left behind in the
ancient Egyptian and Chaldæic period.
Now
we have to look upon the evolution of events and beings in such a way
that occurrences in the physical world must be considered only as
effects or manifestations, the true causes of which are to be sought
in the spiritual world. On the one hand our civilization is in the
main marked by an upward movement towards spirituality, and this
tendency of certain people towards spirituality is the manifestation
of the spiritual directors of our contemporary humanity, who have
attained their own normal stage of development. In everything which
tends to lead man up to the great spiritual wisdom-truths transmitted
to us by theosophy, these normal guides of our evolution are
manifested. But the beings out-distanced during the Egypto-Chaldæic
civilization are also affecting the tendencies of our age. They are
manifest in much that is being thought and done at the present and
will again be manifest in the near future. They are revealed in
everything which gives a materialistic stamp to our civilization, and
may often be seen even in aspirations after spiritual things. In our
age we are virtually experiencing a revival of Egyptian civilization.
The beings who are to be looked upon as the invisible directors of
that which takes place in the physical world fall accordingly into
two classes. The first includes those spiritual individualities who
have passed through their own normal course of development up to the
present time. They were able to interpose in the guidance of our
civilization, whilst the directors of the preceding Graeco-Roman
period were gradually finishing their task of guiding civilization
during the first thousand years of Christianity The second class, who
work simultaneously with the first class of beings, are spiritual
individualities who did not complete their evolution during the
Egypto-Chaldæic civilization. They were obliged to remain
inactive during the ensuing Graeco-Roman period, but are now able to
resume their activity because our present age has points of
resemblance to the Egypto-Chaldæic period. It thus comes about
that many things arise in contemporary humanity which look like a
revival of ancient Egyptian forces, but there is also much which is
like a materialistic resuscitation of forces which then worked
spiritually. To illustrate this, we may point to an example of the
way in which ancient Egyptian knowledge has been revived in our days.
Let
us think of Kepler. He was quite possessed by the feeling of the
harmony of the cosmos, and this idea was expressed in his important
mathematical laws of the mechanism of the heavens, the so-called laws
of Kepler. These are outwardly very dry and abstruse, but in Kepler
they were the outcome of an understanding of the harmony of the
universe. We may read in Kepler's writings that in order to
discover what he did, he was obliged to go to the sacred Egyptian
mysteries, purloin their temple-vessels, and by this means bring
knowledge into the world, the importance of which to humanity would
only be known in later times.
This
utterance of Kepler's is by no means an empty phrase, but
contains a dim consciousness of a revival of what he had learned in
the Egyptian period, during a former incarnation. We may certainly
entertain the idea that Kepler assimilated the ancient Egyptian
wisdom during one of his previous lives, and that it reappears in his
soul in a new form, adapted to a later age. That a materialistic
impulse should enter our civilization through the Egyptian spirit is
quite intelligible, for Egyptian spirituality had a strong
materialistic tendency, which found expression, for instance, in
embalming the physical bodies of the dead. This meant that the
Egyptian attached value to the preservation of the physical body.
This has come down to us from the Egyptian period in a different
form, but in one corresponding to our time. The same forces which had
not then run their course, affect our age, but in a different way.
The temper of mind which embalmed dead bodies gave rise to that which
idolizes the merely material. The Egyptian embalmed dead bodies and
thereby preserved what he accounted valuable. He thought that the
development of the soul after death was connected with the
preservation of the physical material body. The modern anatomist
dissects what he sees, and thinks that in this way he understands the
laws of the human organism. Thus in our modern science are living the
forces of the ancient Egyptian and Chaldæic world. At that time
progressive forces, they now lag behind, and must be recognized for
what they are if a correct estimate is to be formed of the character
of the present time. These forces will injure a man of the present
day if he does not know their real significance. If he knows their
effect and thereby brings himself into the right relation to them, he
will take no harm from them, but will turn them to good account. They
must be used, for without them we should not have the present great
achievements in technology and industry. They are forces belonging to
Luciferic beings of the lowest stage, and the danger lies in the fact
that if they are not recognized aright, the materialistic impulses of
the present time are thought to be the only possible ones, and the
other forces, which lead up to the spiritual world, are not taken
into consideration. For this reason any clear diagnosis is certain to
discern two currents of thought in the present age. Now if a wise
Providence had not allowed certain beings in the Egypto-Chaldæic
period to fall short in their evolution, our contemporary
civilization would have been wanting in necessary weight. In that
case only those forces would be operative which would bring man into
the spiritual world by main force. People would be only too ready to
yield themselves up to those forces, and would become dreamers. The
only life they would wish to know about would be one which is being
spiritualized as fast as possible, and their standard of action would
be a view of life showing a certain degree of contempt for what is
physical and material. But the present epoch of civilization can only
fulfill its mission if the forces of the material world are brought
to the fullest perfection, and if thus by degrees their sphere too is
won for spirituality. Just as the fairest things may become
corrupters and tempters of mankind if pursued in a one-sided way, so
if this one-sidedness took root, there would be great danger that all
kinds of good efforts would come into manifestation as fanaticism,
True though it is that humanity is helped forward by its noble
impulses, it is also true that wild and fanatical advocacy of the
noblest impulses may bring about the worst of results as far as true
evolution is concerned. Only when people strive after the highest
modestly and sensibly, not out of wild fanaticism, can anything
beneficial to the progress of humanity take place. In order that the
work done on earth at the present day may have the necessary weight,
and that material beings of the physical plane may be understood, the
wisdom which directs the government of the world left those forces
behind which would normally have completed their evolution during the
Egyptian period; and it is these which are now directing man's
attention to physical life.
It
is obvious from the foregoing that evolution takes place under the
influence both of normally progressive beings and of those who lag
behind. Clairvoyant vision is able to trace the co-operation of both
classes of beings in the super-sensible world, and hence is able to
comprehend the spiritual events of which the physical facts
surrounding humanity are the manifestations.
We
observe that, in order to understand cosmic events, it is not enough
to have spiritual eyes and ears opened to the spiritual world by some
kind of exercise. This only means that we see what is there,
that we are cognizant of spiritual beings
and know that they are entities of the soul-world or spirit-sphere.
But it is also necessary to recognize what kinds of beings they are.
We may meet some being of the soul or spirit world, but we do not
necessarily know whether it is progressing in its evolution, or
whether it belongs to the category of powers that have lagged behind;
whether therefore it is pushing evolution onwards, or hindering it.
Those people who acquire clairvoyant faculties and do not at the same
time gain complete understanding of the conditions of human evolution
which we have described may know absolutely nothing of the nature of
the beings whom they meet. Mere clairvoyance must be supplemented by
clear judgment of what is seen in the supersensible world. There is
urgent necessity for this especially in our own time, but it had not
always to be so much considered. If we go back to very ancient
civilizations, we find different conditions. If in the most ancient
Egyptian times a person was clairvoyant, and was confronted with a
being from the supersensible world, the latter had, as it were,
written on his forehead who he was. The clairvoyant could not mistake
him. Now, however, the possibility of misunderstanding is very great.
Whereas humanity in early times still stood very near the kingdom of
the spiritual hierarchies and could see what beings it was meeting,
it is now very easy to be mistaken. The only protection against being
severely injured is the effort to gain ideas and conceptions like
those indicated above.
A
person who is able to look into the spiritual world is called
esoterically a “clairvoyant,” but merely to be
clairvoyant is not enough, for such a man might be able to see well
enough although unable to discriminate. He who has acquired the
faculty of distinguishing the various beings and events of higher
worlds, is called an “Initiate,” Initiation brings with
it the possibility of distinguishing between different kinds of
beings. It is possible to be clairvoyant in the higher worlds without
being an initiate. In ancient times distinguishing between spirits
was not specially important, for when the ancient occult schools had
brought a pupil so far as clairvoyance, there was no great danger of
error. Now, however, this danger exists to a high degree. Therefore
in all esoteric training, care should be taken that initiation should
be acquired in addition to clairvoyance. In proportion to the extent
of his clairvoyance must a man become capable of distinguishing
between the various kinds of supersensible beings and events.
In
modern times the powers guiding humanity are faced by the special
task of bringing about a balance between the two principles of
clairvoyance and initiation. Leaders of spiritual training had
necessarily to pay attention to this at the beginning of the modern
era. Therefore the esoteric spiritual movement which is adapted to
present conditions, always makes a point of maintaining the right
proportion between clairvoyance and initiation. This became necessary
at the time when mankind was passing through a crisis with regard to
its higher knowledge. That time was the thirteenth century. About the
year 1250 was the point of time when mankind felt itself most shut
out from the spiritual world. A clairvoyant looking back upon that
period sees the following: The most eminent minds of that time who
were striving after some kind of higher knowledge could only say to
themselves: “What our reason, our intellect, our spiritual
knowledge are able to find out is limited to the physical world
around us. With all our human endeavor and power of perception, we
cannot reach a spiritual world. We only know of it by accepting the
information concerning it which our forefathers bequeathed us.”
This was the time when direct view of the higher worlds was obscured.
That this can be said of the era in which scholasticism flourished,
is not without significance.
About
the year 1250 was the time when men were compelled to fix a boundary
between what they were able to apprehend for themselves, and what
they had to believe from the impression made upon them by the
traditions which had been handed down. What they could find out for
themselves then became limited to the physical world of sense.
Afterwards, however, came the time when there was more and more
possibility of again winning a view of the spiritual world. But the
new clairvoyance was of a different kind from the old, which
virtually became extinct just about the year 1250. In the new form of
clairvoyance, western esotericism was obliged strictly to uphold the
principle that initiation must be the guide of spiritual sight and
hearing. This was the special task assigned to an esoteric current
which then entered the stream of European civilization. As the year
1250 drew near there arose a new kind of guidance into the super
sensible worlds.
This
guidance was prepared by the spirits then standing behind outer
historical events, who centuries before had provided for the kind of
esoteric training which would be rendered necessary by the conditions
prevailing in 1250. If the term “modern esotericism” be
not misused, it may be applied to the spiritual work of those very
highly evolved personalities. External history knows nothing of them,
but what they did is apparent in every form of civilization which has
developed since the thirteenth century.
The importance of the
year 1250 for the spiritual evolution of humanity is specially
apparent if we look at the result of clairvoyant research given in
the following fact: Even those individualities who had attained high
stages of spiritual development in previous incarnations, and who
were re-incarnated about 1250, were compelled for a while to undergo
a complete clouding over of their direct view of the spiritual world.
Quite enlightened individuals were as though cut off from the
spiritual world, and their only knowledge of it was through their
remembrance of earlier incarnations. Thus we see how necessary it was
that from that time onwards a new element should be brought into the
spiritual guidance of humanity. This element was true modern
esotericism. By its means it is for the first time possible rightly
to understand how that which we call the “Christ-impulse”
may intervene to guide in all eventualities, not alone the
individual, but the whole of mankind.
Between
the accomplishment of the Mystery of Golgotha and the beginnings of
modern esotericism, lies the first period of the working of the
Christ-principle in human souls. During that period, people received
Christ to a certain degree unconsciously as far as their higher
spirit-forces were concerned, and this caused them afterwards, when
they were obliged to receive them consciously, to make all kinds of
mistakes, and to lose themselves in a maze instead of understanding
Christ. In primitive Christian times we may trace the adoption of the
Christ-principle by the lower soul- forces. Then came a new period,
in which mankind of today is still living. Indeed, in a certain
respect, people are only now beginning to understand the
Christ-principle with the higher faculties of their souls. In the
further course of this work it will be shown that the decline of
supersensible knowledge down to the thirteenth century, and on the
other hand its slow revival since that time, coincide with the
interposition of the Christ-impulse in human evolution.
We
may therefore take modern esotericism to mean the raising of the
Christ-impulse to be the motive power in the guidance of souls
desiring to work their way to a knowledge of higher worlds, in
accordance with the evolutionary conditions of modern times.
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