Lecture 1
Stuttgart, 27th December 1910
THE character of Spiritual
Science is such that the truths and data of knowledge contained in it
increase in difficulty the farther we descend from universal principles
to concrete details. You may already have noticed this when attempts
have been made in different groups to speak about historical details,
for example about the reincarnations of the great leader of the ancient
Persian religion, Zarathustra, or about his connection with Moses, with
Hermes, and also with Jesus of Nazareth.
[see Note 1]
On other occasions too, concrete questions of history have been touched
upon. As soon as we descend from the great truths concerning the universe
as pervaded and woven through by Spirit, from the great cosmic laws
to the spiritual nature of a particular individuality, a particular
personality, we pass from matters where the human heart will still accept,
comparatively easily, this or that questionable point, into realms teeming
with improbabilities. And, as a rule, those who are insufficiently prepared
become incredulous when they confront this abyss between universal and
specific truths.
Our study is intended
to be an introduction to lectures which belong to the domain of occult
history and will present historical facts and personalities in the light
of Spiritual Science. In these lectures I shall have many things to say
to you that will seem strange. You will hear many things that will have
to reckon upon the will-for-understanding promoted by all the
spiritual-scientific
knowledge brought before you in the course of the years. For, after
all, the finest, most significant fruit of the spiritual-scientific
conception of the world is that, complicated and detailed as the knowledge
is, we finally have before us not a collection of dogmas, but within
us, in our hearts and feelings, we possess something that carries us
beyond the standpoint we can reach through any other world-view. We
do not imbibe so many dogmas, tenets, or mere information, but through
our knowledge we become different human beings. In a certain respect,
the aspects of Spiritual Science we shall now be considering call for
more than a purely intellectual understanding — for an understanding
by the soul, which at many points must be willing to listen
to and accept intimations that would become crass and crude if pressed
into too sharp outlines.
The picture I want to
call up in your minds is that behind the whole evolutionary and historical
process, through the millennia up to our own times, spiritual Beings,
spiritual Individualities, stand as guides and leaders behind all human
evolution and human happenings, and that in the greatest, most significant
events in history, this or that human being appears with his whole soul,
his whole being, as an instrument of spiritual Individualities standing
and working with set purpose behind him. But we must familiarise ourselves
with many a concept unknown in ordinary life if we are to gain insight
into the strange and mysterious connections between earlier and later
happenings in the course of history
If you will remind
yourselves of many things that have been said through the years, you will
be able to picture that in ancient times — and in Post-Atlantean
times, too, if we go back only a few thousand years before what is usually
called the historic era — men fell into more or less abnormal
states of clairvoyance. Between our matter-of-fact waking consciousness,
limited as it is entirely to the physical world, and the unconscious
sleeping state, there was once a realm of consciousness through which
man penetrated into spiritual reality. And we know that what is nowadays
explained as poetic folk-fantasy by scholars who are themselves the
originators of so many scientific myths and legends, is to be traced
back to ancient clairvoyance, to clairvoyant states of the human soul
which in those times gazed behind physical existence and expressed what
it saw in the pictures contained in myths, fairy-tales and legends. So
that in old, genuinely old myths, fairy-tales and legends, more knowledge,
more wisdom and truth are to be found than in the abstract erudition
and science of the present day. Therefore when we look back to very
ancient times, we-find men who were clairvoyant; we know too that this
clairvoyance faded away more and more among the various peoples in the
different epochs. In the Christmas lecture to-day
[see Note 2]
I told you how in Europe, at a comparatively very late time, abundant
remains of this ancient clairvoyance still survived. The extinguishing
of clairvoyance and the advent of consciousness limited to the physical
plane occur at different times among the different peoples.
You can conceive that
through the culture-epochs after the great Atlantean catastrophe —
through the ancient Indian, ancient Persian, Egypto-Chaldean, Greco-Latin
culture-epochs and an into our own — the effects produced in the
plan of world-history by the activities of men have been very diverse
— inevitably so, because the peoples all stood in different
relationships
to the spiritual world. In ancient Persian and also in ancient Egyptian
times, what man inwardly felt and experienced extended upwards into
the spiritual world, and spiritual Powers played into his very soul. Not
until the Greco-Latin epoch did this living connection between the human
soul and the spiritual world cease in essentials; nor did it disappear
completely until our own times. As far as outer history is concerned,
the connection exists in our time only when, with the means that are
accessible to man to-day, the link between the human soul and the realities
of the spiritual worlds is sought consciously. Thus in ancient
times, when man looked into his own soul, this soul enshrined not only
what it had learnt from the physical world, had pictured according to the
pattern of the things of the physical world, but the spiritual Hierarchies
ranging above man up into the spiritual worlds were experienced as
immediate realities. All this worked down to the physical plane through
the instrument of the human soul, and men knew themselves to be connected
with these individual Beings of the higher Hierarchies. When we look back,
let us say, into the Egypto-Chaldean epoch — but it must be the
earlier periods of it — we find men who are, so to say, historical
personalities; but we do not understand them if we think of them as
historical personalities in the modern sense.
When as men of the
materialistic age we speak of historical personalities, we are convinced
that it is only the impulses, the intentions, of the actual personalities
in question that take effect in the course of history. But with this
conception we can in reality understand only the men of the last three
thousand years: that is — approximately of course — the men
of the millennium which ended with the birth of Christ Jesus, and those of
the first and the second Christian millennia in which we ourselves are
living. Plato, Socrates, possibly also Thales and Pericles, are men
who can still be understood as having at any rate some resemblance to
ourselves. But farther back than that it is not possible to understand
human beings if we attempt to do so merely by analogy with those living
to-day. This applies, shall we say, to Hermes, the great Teacher of the
Egyptian epoch, also to Zarathustra, and even to Moses. When we go back
before the thousand. years preceding the Christian era we must reckon
with the fact that wherever we have to do with historical personalities,
higher Individualities, higher Hierarchies stand behind and take possession
of these personalities — in the best sense of the word, of course.
And now a strange phenomenon comes to light, without knowledge of which
the process of historical evolution cannot really be understood.
Five culture-epochs
including our own, have been enumerated. Many, many thousands of years ago
we come to the first Post-Atlantean culture-epoch, the ancient Indian;
this was followed by the second, the ancient Persian; this by the third,
the Egypto-Chaldean; this by the fourth, the Greco-Latin; and this by
the fifth, our own epoch. When we go back from the Greco-Latin to the
Egyptian epoch we must change our whole way of studying history: instead
of looking at the purely human aspect — which it is still possible
to do in connection with the figures of the Greek world as far back
as the age of the Heroes — we must now apply a different criterion
by looking behind the single personalities for the spiritual Powers
which represent the super-personal and work through the personalities
as their instruments. We must have These spiritual Individualities always
in mind, so that working behind some human being an the physical plane
we can discern discern a Being of the higher Hierarchies who, as it
were, takes hold of him from behind and Sets him at the appropriate
place in evolution.
From this point of view
it is highly interesting to perceive the connections between the really
significant happenings — those which were determinative factors
in the course of history — in the Egypto-Chaldean epoch and in
the Greco-Latin epoch. These two culture-epochs follow one another, and
to begin with we go back, let us say to the years from
2800 to 3200–3500 B.C.
— which comparatively speaking is not so very far. Nevertheless we
shall not understand happenings then — of which ancient history is
already able to tell something to-day — unless behind the historical
personalities we discern the higher Individualities. But then it also
becomes evident to us that in the fourth, the Greco-Latin epoch, there
is a kind of repetition of the really important happenings of the third
epoch. It is almost as if things that in the earlier epoch an be explained
through higher laws, must be explained in the following age through
laws of the physical world, as if everything had sunk down, had become
a stage more material, more physical. There is a kind of reflection
in the physical world of great events of the preceding period.
By way of introduction,
I want to draw your attention to how one of the most important happenings
of the Egypto-Chaldean epoch is presented to us in a significant myth,
and how this event is reflected, but at a lower stage, in the Greco-Latin
epoch. I shall therefore be speaking of two parallel happenings which
in the occult sense belong together, the one taking place half a plane
higher, as it were, and the other entirely on the physical earth but
like a kind of shadow-image on the physical plane of a spiritual event
of the earlier epoch. Outwardly, it is only in the form of myths that
humanity has ever been able to tell of events behind which stand Beings
of the higher Hierarchies. But we shall see what lies behind the myth
which describes the most significant event of the Chaldean epoch.
[see Note 3]
We will look only at the main features of this myth.
There was once a great
king, by name Gilgamish. From the name itself, one who understands such
matters will recognise that here we have to do not merely with a physical
king, but with a divinity standing behind him, a spiritual Individuality
by whom the king of Erech is inspired, who works and acts through him.
Thus we have to do with one who in the real sense must be called a god-man.
[see Note 4]
The story narrates that he oppresses the city of Erech. The city turns
to its deity, Aruru, and she causes a helper to arise out of the earth.
These are pictures of the myth. We shall see what deeply significant
historical events lie behind it. The Goddess of the City produces Eabani
out of the earth. Eabani is a kind of human being who, in comparison
with Gilgamish, seems to be of an inferior nature, for we are told that
he was clothed in the skins of animals, was covered with hair, was like
a wild man. Nevertheless in his wild nature there was divine Inspiration,
ancient clairvoyance, clairvoyant knowledge, clairvoyant perception.
Eabani comes to know a
woman of Erech and is attracted by her into the City. He becomes the
friend of Gilgamish and this brings peace to the city. Gilgamish and
Eabani together are now the rulers. Then Ishtar, the Goddess of Erech,
is stolen by a neighbouring city. There upon Eabani and Gilgamish go
to war with the marauding city, conquer the king and bring the Goddess
back again to Erech. Gilgamish lives near her, and here we come to the
strange fact that he has no understanding of the essential nature of
the Goddess. A scene takes place, directly reminiscent of a Biblical
scene described in the Gospel of St. John. Gilgamish confronts Ishtar,
but his conduct is very different from that of Christ Jesus. He upbraids
the Goddess for having loved many other men before she had encountered
him, reproaching her particularly for her most recent attachment. Thereupon
the Goddess carries her complaints to that deity, that Being of the
higher Hierarchies, to whom she belongs. She goes to Anu. And now Anu
sends a bull down to the earth; Gilgamish has to engage in combat with
it. Those who recall Mithras's fight with the bull will see a
resemblance here. All these events — and when we come to explain
the myth we shall see what depths it contains — have led meanwhile
to the death of Eabani. Gilgamish is now alone. A thought comes to him
that gnaws at the very fibres of his soul. Under the impression of what
he has experienced, he becomes conscious for the first time of the thought
that man is mortal; a thought to which he had previously paid no heed
comes before his soul in all its terror. And then he hears of the only
man of earth who has remained immortal, whereas all other human beings
in the Post-Atlantean epoch have become conscious of mortality: he hears
of the immortal Xisuthros far away in the West. And because he is resolved
to fathom the riddle of life and death, he sets out on the perilous
journey to the West.
[see Note 5]
— I can tell you at once that this journey to the West is nothing
else than the search for the secrets of ancient Atlantis, for happenings
prior to the great Atlantean catastrophe.
Gilgamish sets out on
his journey. The details are interesting. He has to pass through an
entrance guarded by giant scorpions; the spirit leads him into the realm
of death; he enters the kingdom of Xisuthros and there learns that in the
Post-Atlantean epoch all men will inevitably be more and more penetrated
with the consciousness of death. Gilgamish now asks Xisuthros whence
he has knowledge of his eternal being; how comes it that he is conscious
of immortality? Thereupon Xisuthros says to him: “You too can
have this consciousness, but you must undergo all that I had to experience
in overcoming the terror, anxiety and loneliness through which it was
my lot to pass. When the god Ea had resolved to let perish” (in
what we call the Atlantean catastrophe) “that part of humanity which
was to live no longer, he bade me to withdraw into a kind of ship. I was
to take with me the animals that were to remain, and those Individualities
who are truly to be called the Masters. By means of this ship I outlived
the great catastrophe.” Xisuthros then tells Gilgamish: “What
was there undergone, you can experience only in your innermost being;
but you can attain the consciousness of immortality if for seven nights
and six days you refrain from sleep.” Gilgamish wishes to submit
to the test but soon falls asleep. Then the wife of Xisuthros baked
seven mystic loaves which by being eaten are to be a substitute for what
would have been attained in the seven nights and six days without sleep.
With this “life-elixir” Gilgamish continues his journeying,
bathes as it were in a fountain of youth, and again reaches the borders
of his own country in the region of the Euphrates and the Tigris. A
serpent deprives him of the power of the life-elixir and so he reaches
his country without it, but all the same with the consciousness that
there is indeed immortality, and filled with longing to see the spirit
at least, of Eabani. The spirit of Eabani appears to him, and from the
discourse which then takes place we can glean how, for the culture of
the Egypto-Chaldean epoch, a consciousness of the link with the spiritual
world could arise. — This relationship between Gilgamish and Eabani
is very significant. I have now outlined pictures from the significant
myth of Gilgamish which, as we shall see, will lead us into the spiritual
depths lying behind the Chaldean-Babylonian culture-epoch. These pictures
show that two individualities stand there: the individuality of one —
Gilgamish — into whom a divine-spiritual being has penetrated;
and an individuality who is more of a human being, but of such a nature
that he may be called a young soul, who has had few incarnations and
for that reason has carried over ancient clairvoyance into later times
— Eabani.
Eabani is depicted as
being clothed in skins of animals. This is an indication of his wild
nature; but because of this very wildness he is still endowed with ancient
clairvoyance an the one hand, and an the other hand he is a young soul
who has lived through far, far fewer incarnations than other souls who
have reached a high level of development. Thus Gilgamish represents
a being who was ready for initiation but was not able to attain it,
for the journey to the West is the journey to an initiation that was
not carried through to the end. On the one side we see in Gilgamish
the actual inaugurator of the Chaldean-Babylonian culture, and working
behind him a divine-spiritual Being, a kind of Fire-Spirit.
[see Note 6]
And beside Gilgamish there is another individuality — Eabani —
a young soul who descended late to earthly incarnation. If you read
the book
Occult Science,
you will find that the individualities
returned only gradually from the planets. — The exchange of the
knowledge possessed by these two is the root of the Babylonian-Chaldean
culture, and we shall see that the whole of this culture is an outcome
of what proceeds from Gilgamish and Eabani. Clairvoyance from the divine
man, Gilgamish, and clairvoyance from the young soul, Eabani, penetrate
into the Chaldean-Babylonian culture. This process, enacted by two beings
working side by side, each of whom is necessary to the other, is then
reflected in the later, fourth culture-epoch, the Greco-Latin, and in
fact reflected on the physical plane. We shall of course only very
gradually reach complete understanding of such a process. A more spiritual
process is thus reflected on the physical plane when humanity has
descended very far, when men no longer feel the relation of human
personality to the divine-spiritual world.
These
secrets of the divine-spiritual
world were preserved in the places of the Mysteries. So, for example,
many of the ancient, holy secrets which proclaimed the connection of
the human soul with the divine-spiritual worlds were preserved in the
Mysteries of Diana of Ephesus and in the Ephesian temple. A great deal
in these Mysteries was no longer comprehensible in an age when human
personality had come into prominence. And like a token of how little
the purely external personality understood what had remained spiritually,
there stands the half-mystical figure of Herostratus, who has eyes only
for the superficial aspect of personality — Herostratus who flings
the burning torch into the temple of Ephesus. This deed is like a token
of the clash between the personality and what had survived from ancient
spirituality. And on the very same day when a man, merely in order that
his name might go down to posterity, throws the burning brand into the
sanctuary of Ephesus, there is born the man who has achieved more than
all others for the culture of personality — and on the very soil
where the culture of were personality was meant to be overcome. Herostratus
flings the burning torch on the day when Alexander the Great is born
— the man who is all personality! Alexander the Great stands there
as the shadow-image of Gilgamish.
[see Note 7]
A profound truth lies behind this. In the Greco-Latin epoch, Alexander
the Great stands there as the shadow image of Gilgamish, as a projection
of the spiritual on to the physical plane. And Eabani, projected on to
the physical plane, is Aristotle, the teacher of Alexander the Great.
Here indeed is a strange
circumstance: Alexander and Aristotle standing, like Gilgamish and Eabani,
side by side. And we see how in the first third of the fourth
Post-Atlantean
epoch there is carried over, as it were, by Alexander the Great but
transformed into the laws of the physical plane — that which had
been imparted to the Babylonian-Chaldean culture by Gilgamish. This
comes to wonderful expression in the fact that, as a result of the deeds
of Alexander, there was established an the scene of Egypto-Chaldean
culture Alexandria itself, the city founded by Alexander in 332
B.C.
in order that the great achievements of the Egypto-Babylonian-Chaldean
culture-epoch might be brought together in one centre. And gradually
all the streams of Post-Atlantean culture that were intended to come
together did indeed converge on Alexandria, the city established an
the scene of the third culture-epoch but with the character of the fourth.
Alexandria outlasted the
beginnings of Christianity. Indeed it was in Alexandria that the factors
of greatest significance in the fourth culture-epoch developed, when
Christianity was already in existence. There the great scholars were
working; there the three most important streams of culture flowed together:
the ancient Pagan-Grecian stream, the Christian stream and the
Mosaic-Hebrew stream. They interpenetrated one another in Alexandria.
And it is impossible
to conceive that the culture of Alexandria which was built entirely
on the foundation of personality — could have been inaugurated
in any other way than through the being who was inspired by personality
— Alexander the Great. For now, through the very existence of
this centre of culture, everything that formerly was super-personal,
extending from the human personality upwards into the spiritual world,
assumed a personal character. The personalities we find in Alexandria
have, as it were, everything within themselves; the Powers from higher
Hierarchies who guide the personalities and set them in their allotted
places, are very little in evidence. All the sages and philosophers
working in Alexandria seem to be embodiments of ancient wisdom transformed
into human personality; it is the personal element that speaks out of
them. The singular fact is that everything in ancient Paganism that
could be explained only by the teaching of how gods came down and united
with daughters of men in order to bring forth heroes — all this
is transformed into personal forcefulness in the men in Alexandria.
And the forms which Judaism, the Mosaic culture, assumed in Alexandria
can be described from what is in evidence precisely during the period
when Christianity was already in existence. Nothing is to be found of
those deep conceptions of a link between the world of men and the spiritual
world which were present in the age of the prophets and are still to
be found in the last two centuries before the beginning of our era.
In Judaism too, everything has become personality. There are gifted,
able men in Alexandria, men possessed of extraordinarily deep insight
into the secrets of the ancient occult teachings ... but everything
has become personal; personalities are working in Alexandria.
And it is there that to begin with, Christianity appears, shall we say,
in a distorted, debased state of infancy. Christianity, whose real function
is to lead the personal element in man upwards into the impersonal,
made its appearance in Alexandria in a very ruthless form. Christian
personalities, in particular, acted in such a way that we often have
the impression: their deeds are anticipations of later actions by bishops
and archbishops working on a purely personal basis. This applies both
to Archbishop Theophilus in the fourth century and to his kinsman and
successor, St. Cyril.
[see Note 8]
We can judge them only an the basis of their human failings. Christianity,
which was to give to mankind the greatest of all gifts, reveals itself to
begin with in its greatest failings and from its personal side. But
in Alexandria a sign and token was to stand before the whole evolution
of humanity.
There again we have a
projection on the physical plane of earlier, more spiritual conditions. In
the Orphic Mysteries of ancient Greece there was a wonderful personality,
one who was initiated in the Mystery-secrets and was among the most
loveable, most interesting pupils of these Mysteries, well prepared
by a certain Celtic occult training undergone in earlier incarnations.
This individuality sought with deepest fervour for the secrets of the
Orphic Mysteries. The pupils of these Mysteries had to live through
in their own soul what is described in the myth of Dionysos Zagreus,
who was dismembered by the Titans but whose body was carried away by
Zeus into a higher life. How, as the result of a certain path taken
in the Mysteries, man's life is surrendered to the outer world, how
his whole being is torn in pieces so that he can no longer find his
bearings within himself — this was to become an actual, individual
experience in the pupils of the Orphic Mysteries.
When in the ordinary way
we study animals, plants and minerals, what we learn is merely abstract
knowledge because we remain outside them; but anyone who wishes to obtain
knowledge in the occult sense must train himself to feel as if he were
actually within the animals, plants and minerals, in air and water,
in springs and mountains, in stones and Stars, in other human beings
— as if he were one with them. all. Nevertheless, a pupil of the
Orphic Mysteries had to develop the inner strength of soul which would
enable him, re-established as a self-based individuality, to triumph
over the disintegration of his being in the external world. When all
this had become an actual human experience, it represented in a certain
sense one of the very highest secrets of Initiation. And many pupils
of the Orphic Mysteries had undergone such experiences, had lived through
this disintegration in the world and, as a kind of preparation for
Christianity, had therewith attained the highest experience within reach
in pre-Christian times.
Among the pupils of the
Orphic Mysteries was the loveable personality of whom I am speaking,
whose earthly name has not come down to posterity, but who stands out
clearly as a pupil of these Mysteries. Already in youth and then for
many years, this person was closely connected with all the Greek Orphics
during the period preceding that of Greek philosophy — a period
of which no account is given in books an the history of philosophy.
For what is recorded of Thales and Heraclitus is an echo of what the
Mystery-pupils had accomplished in their way at an earlier period. And
one of the pupils of the Orphic Mysteries was the individual of whom
I have just spoken, whose pupil in turn was Pherecydes of Syros, referred
to in the lecture-course given at Munich last year:
The East in the light of the West
[see Note 9]
Investigation of the Akasha
Chronicle reveals that the individuality of that pupil of the Orphic
Mysteries was reincarnated in the 4th century
A.D.
We find this individuality
amid the activity and life of those gathered together in Alexandria,
the Orphic secrets now transformed into personal experiences of the
loftiest kind. It is very remarkable how all the Orphic secrets were
transformed into personal experiences in this new incarnation. At the
end of the 4th century,
A.D.,
we find this individuality reborn as the
daughter of a great mathematician, Theon. We see how there flashes up
in her soul all that could be experienced of the Orphic Mysteries through
vision of the great mathematical, light-woven texture of the universe.
All this was now personal talent, personal genius. These faculties had
now to be of so personal a character that it was necessary even for this
individuality to have a mathematician as father in order that something
might be received from heredity.
Thus we look back to times
when man was still in living connection with the spiritual worlds, as was
this Orphic pupil; and we see the shadow-image of this pupil among those
who taught in Alexandria at the end of the 4th and the beginning of the
5th century
A.D.
This individuality had as yet experienced nothing that
enabled men at that time to see beyond the shadow-sides of Christianity
at its beginning. For all that had remained in this soul as an echo
of the Orphic Mysteries was still too powerful to enable any Illumination
to be received from that other Light, the new Christ Event. What arose
round about as Christianity, represented by men of the type of Theophilus
and Cyril, was in truth of such a nature that this Orphic individuality,
working now with personal faculties, had things far greater, far richer
in wisdom to say and to give than those who represented Christianity
in Alexandria at that time.
Theophilus and Cyril were
both filled with the deepest hatred of everything that was not Christian
in the narrow ecclesiastical sense in which these two bishops, in
particular,
understood it. Christianity had assumed in them such an entirely personal
character that these two patriarchs levied hirelings in their service;
men were collected from far and near to form bodyguards for them. Their
aim was power in its most personal sense. They were utterly obsessed
by hatred of what originated in ancient times and yet was so much greater
than the new that was appearing in caricatured shape. The deepest hatred
was directed by the dignitaries of Christianity in Alexandria against
the individuality of the reborn Orphic pupil. The fact that she was
branded as a black magician will not therefore surprise us. But that
was enough to incite the whole mob of hirelings against the noble, unique
figure of the reborn pupil of the Orphic Mysteries. She was still young,
but in spite of her youth, in spite of the fact that she was obliged
to undergo much that in those days, too, imposed great hardships an
a woman during a long period of study, she found her way upwards to
the light that outshone all the wisdom, all the knowledge existing in
those days. And it was wonderful how in the lecture halls of Hypatia
— for such was the name of this reincarnated Orphic pupil —
the purest, most luminous wisdom in Alexandria was presented to the
enraptured listeners. She drew to her feet not only the Pagans, bat
also Christians of deep and penetrating insight, such as Synesius. She
was an influence of outstanding significance, and the revival of the old
Pagan wisdom of Orpheus transformed into personality could be experienced
in Alexandria in the figure of Hypatia.
World-karma was working
in the truest sense symbolically. What had constituted the secret of
her Initiation was now projected, mirrored, on the physical plane. And
here we come to an event that is symbolically significant in the case
of many things that have taken place in historical times. We come to
one of those events that is seemingly only a martyrdom, but is in reality
a symbol in which spiritual forces, spiritual intimations are coming
to expression.
On a day in March in the
year 415
A.D.,
Hypatia fell victim to the fury of these who formed the
entourage of the patriarch of Alexandria. They resolved to rid themselves
of her power, of her spiritual power. The utterly uncivilised, wild
hordes were rushed in from the environs of Alexandria as well, and the
chaste young sage was fetched away under false pretences. She mounted
the chariot, and at a given sign the enflamed rabble fell upon her,
tore off her clothing, dragged her into a church, and literally tore
the flesh from her bones. The fragments of her body were then scattered
around the city by these hordes, completely dehumanised by their rapacious
passions. Such was the fate of the great woman philosopher, Hypatia.
Symbolically, so to say,
there is indicated here something that is deeply connected with the
founding of Alexandria by Alexander the Great — although it happened
a long time after the actual founding of the city. In this event, important
secrets of the 4th Post-Atlantean epoch are reflected. This epoch, destined
as it was to represent the dissolution, the sweeping-away, of the old,
contained so much that was great and significant, and with paradoxical
grandeur placed before the world a most pregnant symbol in the slaughter
— one can call it nothing else — of Hypatia, the outstanding
woman at the turn of the 4th-5th centuries of our era.
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