Lecture 2:
THE
CONTRAST BETWEEN CAIN AND ABEL
Berlin, 10th June 1904
[See the
Notes for this Lecture]
I
mentioned already
(Note 1)
last time that a great number of occult secrets
lie hidden in the story of Cain and Abel. I wish to point out certain
things today, but right at the beginning I would stress that the
relationship between Cain and Abel — with regard to its deeper
aspect, of course — is an allegory for very profound mysteries
(Note 2)
which we will only be able to reveal in part on the basis of the
conceptions we hold.
If we
take the five books of the Pentateuch, we shall find therein many
things which indicate the development of mankind since the Lemurian
Epoch. The story of Adam and Eve and their descendants is not simply
to be taken literally, in a naive fashion. I would ask you to take
into account that in the Pentateuch, in Enoch,
(Note 3)
in the Psalms and some important chapters in the Gospels, in the Epistle
to the Hebrews and some Epistles of Paul and in the Apocalypse, we are
dealing wholly with the work of initiates, so that in these writings it
behoves us to search for an occult meaning. If the Bible is not just
read thoughtlessly — thoughtlessly in a higher sense — many things
will become apparent. And I should like to draw your attention to
something which may easily be overlooked, but must be taken quite
literally if we are to see that nothing is without a meaning in the
Bible and that it is quite easy for this meaning to escape us.
Take the
first sentence from the fifth chapter of Genesis:
(Note 4)
‘This is the book of the generations of man. In the days that God
created man, in the likeness of God made he him; male-female created he
him; and blessed him, and called his name Adam, in the day when he was
created. And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son
in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth:’
One must
take the literal rendering. Adam himself was simply called a man.
Male-female created he him; not yet sexually defined, asexual. And
how was he created? In the likeness of God.
And
moreover, in the second sentence, ‘In so
and so many years’ — that indicates a long span of time —
‘Adam begat a son Seth, after his likeness’. In the
beginning of the time of Adam we have men in the likeness of God; at
the end of Adam's time after the likeness of Adam, after a human
likeness. Earlier, man was made in the likeness of God: later, in
Adam's likeness.
We thus have,
to start with, human beings who are all similar in appearance and all
created after the image of God. They were propagated by asexual means.
We must be clear about the fact that they all retained the same form which
they had at the beginning, so that father looked like son and grandson
also looked like son. What first caused mankind to change, to become
differentiated? In what way did it change? Through the fact that two
were engaged in propagation. The son or daughter looked like the
father on the one hand, like the mother on the other.
Now just
imagine you have a race of people which were originally similar to
God in appearance and they were propagated not by sexual means, but
asexually: the descendants are all similar in appearance to their
forebears. There is no mixing of the race. The differentiation first
came about in the Seth period. But between the times of Adam and Seth
something else occurred. Namely, before the transition from Adam to
Seth two others were born, who were important representatives: Cain
and Abel. They came between and represent a transitional stage. They
were not born at a time when propagation had already taken on a
strongly marked character of sexuality. We can infer this from the
meaning of the names Cain and Abel. Abel is the same as
‘pneuma’ in Greek,
(Note 5)
which means ‘spirit’,
and if we look at that from the point of view of sexuality, it denotes
a decidedly female character. Cain, on the other hand, means almost
literally ‘the masculine,’ so that in Cain and Abel the
masculine and feminine principles confront one another. Not yet on an
organic level: they tend to differentiate on a spiritual level.
Now I
would ask you to hold that fast in your minds. Originally mankind was
male-female. Later on it was divided into a male and a female gender.
The male, the more material race, was represented in Cain, the
female, the more spiritual, in Abel-Seth. A differentiation has
occurred. That is symbolised in the words: ‘Abel was a keeper
of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.’
(Genesis 4, 2)
‘Ground’ (Boden) has the significance of the ‘physical
plane’ in all ancient languages and the three aggregate
conditions of the physical plane are: the solid earth, the water and
the air. ‘Cain was a tiller of the ground’ in its
original sense means: he learnt to live on the physical plane, he
became a man on the physical plane. That was the male characteristic.
It consisted of being strong and robust in order to cultivate the
soil and then retire again from the physical to the higher planes.
‘Abel
was a keeper of sheep.’ As a shepherd one accepts life
as the Creator has presented it. One does not cultivate the herds,
one tends them. Therefore Abel is the representative of the sex which
does not reach spirituality through its own individual effort of
understanding, but only receives it as a revelation of the Godhead
and then merely tends it. The keeper of flocks, the guardian of that
which has been placed on the earth, that is Abel. The one who creates
things for himself, that is Cain. Cain lays the foundation of zither
playing and other arts
(Genesis 4, 21–22).
Now comes
a contrast in their attitude towards the Godhead. Abel receives from
the spirit and offers up the best, the highest fruits of the spirit.
God regards the offering of Abel with satisfaction — of course,
because it is what He Himself has bestowed on the earth. Cain makes a
different claim. He turns to God with the products of his own
intelligence. That is something quite foreign to the nature of God,
because it is something which man has achieved out of his own freedom.
Cain is
the type of man who aspires to the arts and sciences. That has
nothing to do with the deity to begin with. A profound truth is
expressed here. He who has occult experience knows that the arts and
sciences, in spite of having made man free, do not lead him to the
spirit. Rather are they the things which lead him away from what is
truly spiritual. The arts have sprung up from man's inner being,
which have their roots in the earthly plane. That has no immediate
appeal for the deity. It produces the conflict which arises when the
smoke of Abel's offering, the spirit implanted in the earth by God
himself, is accepted by the divine worlds, but the smoke from Cain's
offering is rejected and remains on the earth. What is independently
produced remains on the earth, like the offering of Cain.
That,
too, is the same as the contrast between male and female. Female is
inspired by what is received directly from God. ‘Pneuma’
is achieved through conception. What Cain has to offer is human work
on the physical plane itself. That is the contrast between female and
male spirit. Here these two are fundamentally opposed to one
another.
Man is
not only a physical being but is spiritually both male and female at
the same time: he is both the one who receives and allows himself to
be inspired and the one who works upon the inspirations and combines
them through his intellect. These two functions were now separated —
we can regard male and female simply as a symbol from now on — from
now on the principle of inspiration was transferred to those who were
like Abel, who remained shepherds and priests. It was not transferred
to the others. They dedicated themselves to the worldly things of
science and the arts and confined themselves purely to earthly
activities.
That
could not have taken place without a change
occurring in the human being. While man was still male-female, it was
impossible for him to separate spiritual wisdom and scientific
knowledge. Only through a definite separation into the two sexes
could man's brain be brought to the pitch where it could function.
The brain became male,
(Note 6)
the deeper nature became female. Mankind
can only be productive through his physical nature. Through that he
produces something — namely, descendants. But a spirit, inasmuch as
it is connected with the brain, is male and
confined to productivity on the physical plane. Therefore Cain and
Abel are the representative types of these two kinds of thinking.
Through
this separation, it came about that in the
propagation of the human species the offspring ceased to be merely
identical copies of their parents and became differentiated. I would
ask you to visualise the following. The greater the importance
attached to sex, the more the differentiation that resulted. If we
were dealing with purely asexual propagation then the new generation
would look just like the one that had gone before. A variation would
not occur in the sequence of the generations. Variation only
comes about when a mixture occurs. And how was this
mixture made possible? Through the fact that the masculine element
committed itself to the earth. Cain was the one who became a tiller
of the soil and transformed it. This outward difference in the
generations would not have come about in man if a part of humanity
had not descended onto the physical plane. It was no longer as it had
been before when propagation had descended on mankind from the higher
planes. Something was now introduced into man's make-up because
he had extracted something from the physical earth. Now man takes on
the likeness of what he has won for himself on the physical plane and
he carries it up with him to higher planes. The physical is the mark
of Cain. The physical plane and the effect it has on man is the mark
set upon Cain.
Now man
is fully united with the earth so that there is a contrast between
Cain and Abel, a contrast between the Sons of God and the sons of the
physical plane, between the Abel-Seth generation who are the Sons of
God and the Cain generation, the sons of the physical plane.
You will
now understand how it is that the episode of Cain and Abel falls into
the period between Adam and Seth. A new principle entered into
mankind, the principle of heredity, the original sin consisting of
being dissimilar to the generation which had gone before.
But there
still remain some Sons of God. Not all of those belonging to the Abel
line were eradicated. And now we see what took place when to the
question: ‘Where is Abel, thy brother?’ Cain answered:
‘Am I my brother's keeper?’ No man would have said that
previously. That can only be said by an understanding which reacts as
though acoustically [?] to the spiritual. Now the principle of
struggle, of opposition, is added to the principle of love; now
egoism is born: “Am I my brother's keeper?”
Those who
still remained of the Abel line were Sons of God, they remained akin
to the divine. But they now had to guard themselves against entering
the earthly sphere. And from this resulted what was to become the
principle of asceticism among those who dedicated their lives to the
service of God. It became a sin for such a dedicated one to have
anything to do with those who had committed themselves to the affairs
of earth. It was a sin when ‘The Sons of God
(Note 7)
saw the daughters of men that they were fair’ and took them wives;
they took them wives from the daughters of Cain.
From this
union resulted a race of men
(Note 8)
which is hardly even mentioned in
the published books of the Old Testament, but is only hinted at; it
is a race that is not perceptible to physical eyes. It is called
‘Rakshasas’ in occult language
(Note 9)
and is similar to the
‘Asuras’ of the Indians. It consists of demonic beings
who really did exist at one time and who acted seductively upon the
human race and caused its downfall. This flirtation of the Sons of
God with the daughters of men produced a race which worked
particularly seductively upon the Turanians, the members of the
fourth sub-race of the Atlanteans, and led to the destruction of
humanity. Some things were preserved and carried over into the new
world. The Deluge is the flood which destroyed Atlantis. Men who were
seduced by the Rakshasas disappeared by degrees.
And now I
have to tell you something which will in any case appear
extraordinary to you, which is particularly important. It has been an
occult mystery for the outside world for many centuries and will seem
incredible to most people, but is nevertheless true. I can assure you
that every occultist has often convinced himself of its truth through
what is called the Akashic Record. But so it is.
These
Rakshasas were real beings, they really existed — actively and
effectively — as seducers of mankind. They continued to influence
human desires until the time when Christ incarnated in Jesus of
Nazareth and the Buddhi principle itself became present on the earth
in a human body. Now you may believe it or not: this is something of
cosmic significance, of significance which reaches beyond the earthly
plane. It is not for nothing that the Bible expresses it thus:
(Note 10)
‘Christ descended into the forecourts of Hell.’ It was
not human beings He met there, He was confronted by spiritual beings.
The Rakshasa beings were brought thereby into a state of paralysis
and lethargy!
(Note 11)
They were at the same time kept in check so that
they became unable to move. They could only be tamed in this manner
because they were being opposed from two sides. That would not have
been possible if there had not been two natures combined together in
Jesus of Nazareth: on the one hand the old Chela nature, deeply
connected with the physical plane, which could also work effectively
on the physical plane and through its power could hold it in balance:
on the other hand there was Christ Himself who was a purely spiritual
being. That is the cosmic problem which is fundamental to
Christianity. Something occurred at that time in occult spheres; it
was the banishment of the enemies of mankind which has its echo in
the Saga of the Antichrist, who was put in chains but will make his
appearance again, if not opposed once more by the Christian principle
in its primal force.
The whole
occult striving of the Middle Ages was directed towards nullifying
the effect of the Rakshasas. Those whose vision extends to the higher
planes have long foreseen that the moment when this could happen
might be at the end of the nineteenth century, at the transition from
the nineteenth to the twentieth century. Nostradamus,
(Note 12)
who worked from a tower which was open to the heavens, who brought succour
during the Great Plague, was able to foretell the future. He wrote a
number of prophetic verses in which you can read about the war of
1870 and several prophecies about Marie-Antoinette
(Note 13)
which have already been fulfilled. In these ‘Centuries’ by
Nostradamus (Century 10, 75) the following prophecy can be found: At
the close of the nineteenth century a Hermes Brother will come from
Asia and bring unity to mankind. The Theosophical Society is nothing
less than a fulfillment of this prophecy of Nostradamus. The
annulment of the Rakshasas and the reestablishment of the primal
mysteries is an aim of the Theosophical Society.
You know that
Jesus Christ remained on the earth for ten years after His death.
(Note 14)
The Pistis Sophia
(Note 15)
contains the profoundest theosophical teachings, it is much more
profound than Sinnett's Esoteric Buddhism.
(Note 16)
Jesus incarnated again and again. His task was to renew the mystery wisdom.
This is no mere fact of cultural or historical interest, but it is the fact
I have described to you, which is well known to all occultists, namely, the
struggle against the Rakshasas. You see there is a deep and important occult
secret lying hidden therein.
You
might ask: Why is that said in allegorical
form and not stated openly? I must here remind you that the great
teachers of humanity such as Moses, the Indian Rishis, Hermes,
Christ, the first Christian teachers, all adhered to reincarnation.
And this allegorical way of communicating wisdom had a good reason.
When, for instance, the Druid Priest spoke of ‘Nifelheim’
or ‘Ymir the Giant’
(Note 17)
and so on, that was, of course, no mere piece of poetic folk lore. Rather,
it was because he knew that what he was then conveying to his pupil in the
form of a fairy story would, when that spirit reincarnated, have prepared
it to understand the truth in a more complete form. It is not faith, but
knowledge, which inspired these fairy stories, that is, the experience of
reincarnation. Even the denial of the reality of reincarnation —
from the third century
A.D.
onwards — was made on the
premises of reincarnation, because it was the intention to involve
man thoroughly in Kama-Manas
(Note 18)
so that practically all his spiritual life was taken up into incarnation.
For that reason Christianity had no knowledge of reincarnation for 1,500
years. If we were to deny man a knowledge of reincarnation any longer we
would be denying him this knowledge for a second time. That, however,
would be a great sin, a sin against mankind. But to deny him this knowledge
on the first occasion was necessary, for the value of the single
life between birth and death had to be acknowledged.
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