LECTURE XXXI
Berlin, 5th November 1905
Our Fifth Root-Race, the present Post-Atlantean humanity, was preceded
by that of Atlantis, on the now submerged continent between Europe and
America. The Atlanteans can in no way be compared with the human
beings who today inhabit our Earth Globe. For even the remnants of
that old race have learnt a variety of things from the later
inhabitants of the Fifth Continent and we are therefore unable to
reconstruct from them the conditions of that civilisation. At the
beginning of the Atlantean civilisation there were no tools. By means
of clairvoyant forces it was possible for the Atlantean to make the
earth serve his needs. The preparation of metals for such uses only
appeared towards the end of the Atlantean Epoch.
A small group was separated off from the population of Atlantis, just
as now in the Theosophical Society a separation should once again take
place. It was their task to carry over a new civilisation into the
Fifth Root-Race. You would find the place where those who were chosen
lived, a small colony, in present England and Ireland. At that time
this was where the original Semites lived. They were the first people
who were in a position to think with their intellect. All the ideas of
the Atlanteans were still of the nature of pictures. The rounded shape
of the front of the brow, the formation of the part of the brain on
which thought depends, first appears with the population of the
original Semites, who were in no way similar to the present Semitic
race. This original Semitic people who, one can say, discovered
thinking, journeyed through Europe into Asia and there founded a
civilisation. They formed the Fifth Sub-Race of the Atlanteans.
The seven Sub-races of the Atlantean RootRace were as follows: Firstly
the Rmoahals, secondly the Tlavatlis, thirdly the original Toltecs,
fourthly the original Turanians, fifthly the original Semites, sixthly
the original Accadians, seventhly the original Mongolians.
The Fifth Root-Race therefore arose from the Fifth Sub-Race of the
Atlanteans. When we look towards Asia we find there as, the First
Sub-Race of the Fifth Root-Race, the Ancient Indian race, that people
who later journeyed in a more Southern direction and there became the
ancestors of the later Indians. The most essential characteristic of
this ancestral race, who had travelled towards the north of India, was
that it developed no real sense for material culture. It possessed
spiritual vision of the highest order combined with a completely
undeveloped sense for the material. The ancient Indians were turned
away from the world; their souls were completely similar to the
Atlanteans, in that they were able to develop a superlative, glorious
picture world. Through the practise of Yoga, working from within
outwards, they later evolved what today seems to us a learned
conception of the world. Of this, what has been handed down as
external tradition, only fragments remain. The Vedas and the Bhagavad
Gita no longer give any real picture of the mighty conceptions of the
Indians, but only echoes. In the Vedanta philosophy also there is only
an abstract remainder of the original teaching of the Indians, which
was handed down by word of mouth.
Think of the faculty which appeared in the later Kabbalistic teaching
in a form which elaborated matters in minute detail with subtle
intricacy, think of this faculty applied to lofty cosmic thoughts.
When later the Jew was able to apply thought to such things in the
Kabbalistic teachings, it followed that the later Jewish occult
teaching was only a decadent reflection, an echo of that finely
articulated thought system of the primeval Indians. And what the
teaching of the Brahmans became is by no means only religion in the
sense of later systems, but knowledge, poetry and religion in a single
great whole. All this was, as it were the finest flower, the extracted
essence of what had developed in the old Atlantean civilisation.
The Europeans also came over from Atlantis to Western and Central
Europe and here there developed a quite different teaching. Groups of
people settled who were not yet advanced enough to be chosen to found
new civilisations, but yet possessed in germinal form what in India
came to expression in so magnificent a way, but which here remained at
a much earlier stage. What had its start in Europe moved ever further
and further towards Asia. A common teaching formed its foundation, but
in Europe this remained at a somewhat primitive level.
The Indian teaching was expressed in the Vedas. Veda means the same
as Edda, only the content of the Vedas is more finely developed than
that which remained here in Europe in a more primitive form as the
Edda, which was only written down at the end of the Middle Ages. We
must realise that this great primal spiritual teaching underwent a
certain modification brought about by the migrating peoples. Its
original greatness consisted in grasping the mighty divine unity which
was recognised by the spiritual vision of the (ancient) Indians. This
was no longer so with the next, the (ancient) Persian Race. In the
wisdom arising from this primeval Indian vision the concept of time
was almost entirely absent. It was with the Second Sub-Race, the
ancient Persian, that the concept of time made its appearance. Time,
it is true, was recognised by the Indian but was more uniform; the
concept of history, the progression from the imperfect to what is more
perfected, was lacking. Thinking was governed by the idea that
everything has emanated from divine perfection.
Persian thinking was governed by the concept of time. Zervan Akarana
is one of the most important Divinities of the Persians and this is in
fact Time. How did one arrive at the concept of time? Whoever seeks
above all the primal unity of the Godhead, as in the case of the
ancient Indians, must conceive it as the absolute Good. Evil, the
imperfect in the world, was for the ancient Indian nothing but
illusion; illusion was a very important concept. These ancient
people said: Nothing whatever exists in the world that is imperfect
and evil. If you believe that something evil exists, you have not
looked at the world in a way sufficiently free from illusion. Rust,
for instance, which eats into iron, is elsewhere very beneficial: you
must only consider where it is. When you look at a criminal through
the veil of illusion, he will appear to you as such; if however you
turn away from illusion you will realise that there is no such thing
as evil. This teaching is inwardly connected with a turning
away from the world.
It was otherwise with the Second Sub-Race. There, with the earliest of
the Persian peoples, the Good was given a particular place in the
World-process, was regarded as the goal. It was said: The Good must be
sought for. The world is good and evil, Ormuzd and Ahriman; and what
conquers the evil is Zervan Akarana, Time. This is how good and evil
came into the early Persian world-conception as the principle of
evolution. The Zarathustran teaching rests on the placing of evil in
the world, and on the time-concept. Man is placed into life in order
to conquer evil. This conception is connected with the fact that the
Second Sub-Race was not one that was estranged from the world, but
worked within it. Active, productive in various branches of human
work, attention directed to the outer world, concerned as to how
someone could himself create good out of the world: this was the
Second Sub-Race. With the Persians therefore a whole company of Gods
makes it appearance; not characteristics of one God, but a plurality
of Gods; because the world, if not regarded as illusion, but as
reality, presents a plurality, a multiplicity. The Gods which were
venerated there were more or less personal-spiritual Divinities.
The earliest initiates, who founded the ancient Indian teaching, were
also the teachers of the Second Sub-Race, the ancient Persian Race.
Here they adapted the whole teaching to a working people. They created
that religion which was brought to fruition by the various
Zarathustras.
(82)
A further initiation advanced towards the Near East: to Egypt, to the
Babylonians, Assyrians, Chaldeans, these forefathers of the Arabs.
There the Third Sub-Race was developed. This Third Sub-Race was such
that it now sought to bring both directions the inner nature of
man and the outer world into harmony with each other. Whether
you look for the fundamental conception of this Third Sub-Race in
Chaldea or Egypt, everywhere you will find a pronounced awareness of
the connection between human work and the forces of Nature. This is an
essential difference when compared with the Persian Race. In Persia
you have two powers, the good and the evil, which do battle with one
another. Now man tries to bring the different nature forces or beings
into his service. What developed as Persian religion was mainly built
up on human morality and industry. Now in the Third Sub-Race the
consciousness developed that one does not master nature only by means
of bodily strength and moral behaviour, but best of all through
knowledge. In those lands where a skillful agriculture was pursued as
in Egypt and Chaldea, there developed a co-ordination of
heavenly-spiritual powers with what was carried out by human work.
Knowledge of the meteorological environment and the heavenly bodies
evolved there. Strength for work was sought for in the knowledge of
Nature. So it came about that man directed his gaze to the stars, and
astronomy was brought into connection with humanity on the Earth.
Man's origin was sought for in the stars. Thus, in this sense we have
for the first time to do with science. Now in the Third Sub-Race,
instead of inner perception, we have practical knowledge. So we hear
of great initiates who taught geometry, the practice of surveying,
technical skills. The fructification of human activity with cosmic
wisdom brought down from the spiritual world makes its appearance in
the Third Sub-Race. With this, something was given which translated
the whole conception of human life into a kind of heavenly science.
With the different peoples this found expression in various ways. In
the case of the Egyptians, Osiris, Isis and Horus were conceived of as
representatives of astronomical phenomena.
Three different Sub-Races developed in Asia. Taking their start from
Atlantis, a colony led by initiates traveled over to Asia. A special
result of this was the ancient Indian civilisation, a second, the
ancient Persian; the third result was the Egyptian-Chaldean
civilisation: they all had a common initiation-source. In Europe
however groups always remained behind which fell away from what
culminated with such magnificence in the three great civilisations.
These separate cultural streams were distributed in Europe in the most
varied way. In Europe too there were initiates who formed Mystery
Schools towards the end of the period of which we are speaking: they
were called Druids: Drys means Oak. The strong oak was the symbol of
the early European priest-teachers, for what dominated the peoples in
the North was the thought that their old form of culture would
necessarily have to decline. There the Twilight of the Gods was taught
and the future of Christianity came to magnificent expression through
these Northern prophets in what later became the Siegfried Saga.
(83a)
This may be compared with the Achilles Saga.
(83b)
Achilles is invulnerable in his whole body with the exception of the
heel, Siegfried with the exception of the spot between the shoulders.
To be invulnerable in such a way signifies to have been initiated. In
Achilles you have the initiate of the Fourth Sub-Race which lies on
the ascending curve of man's cultural development: therefore all the
upper parts of Achilles are invulnerable; only the heel the lower
nature is vulnerable, just as Hephaistos is lame. The German Siegfried
was also an initiate of the Fourth Sub-Race, but vulnerable between
the shoulder blades. This is his vulnerable spot, first made
invulnerable by the One who bore the cross. With Siegfried the Gods
reach their downfall, the Northern Gods approach their end (Twilight
of the Gods). This gives the Northern saga its tragic note, for it not
only points to the past, but to the Twilight of the Gods, to the time
which is to come. The Druids gave to man the teaching of the declining
Northern Gods. Thus in what was still symbolic form, the battle of St.
Boniface
(84)
with the Oak represents the battle of the Druids with
the old Priesthood.
Everywhere in the North one can point to the traces of what came to
expression over in Asia. For instance Muspelheim and Niflheim are a
counterpart of Ormuzd and Ahriman. The giant Ymir,
(2)
out of whom the
whole world is made, corresponds to the cutting into pieces of Osiris.
In the most detailed way one can follow the connection between the
European peoples of the North and the other civilisations. When in the
South of Europe the Fourth Sub-Race was developing, the Northern
tribes had also made the transition into the Fourth Stage so that in
the Germanic peoples Tacitus
(85)
found much that was related to the Southern culture. Irmin
(86)
for example is the same figure as
Hercules. Tacitus also tells us of a kind of Isis worship there in the
North. So the older stages of civilisations progressed towards what
was to come as Christianity.
So think of Europe, Central Asia and Egypt as sown with the seed of
what had developed under the influence of the Initiation Schools.
These Initiation Schools sent out from their midst the founder of the
Fifth [Fourth] Sub-Race, who had long been prepared in the shelter of the
Mysteries. This is the personality who in the Bible is called Abraham.
He came from Ur in Chaldaea and developed as an extract of the three
older civilisations. The task which was represented in Abraham was to
carry into the human realm all that had been held in veneration in the
outside world; to create initiates who laid great value on what was
human, in order to found the cult of the personality. This brought
about personal attributes in the Jewish patriarchs. Here we have to do
with duplicity and cunning. Jacob gains his inheritance by employing
ruse and cunning in order to take what he wants from his brother. This
is the reality out of which our present-day civilisation developed: it
is founded on intelligence and possessiveness. In the stories of the
Old Testament this is magnificently expressed as a kind of dawning of
the new. It would be impossible to present this origin in a more
powerful way. Esau is still a hairy man, that means he represents the
human type which is still more enmeshed in the physical; Jacob
represents one who relies on his intelligence and guile and thereby
achieves what is now actually developing in human nature. The
overcoming of physical force through intelligence is here inaugurated.
The initiators do not always introduce something great into the world,
but what must of necessity come about. Israel means: He who leads
man to the invisible God, who dwells within. Isra-el: El means the
goal; Isra = the invisible God. Until then God was visible, whether it
was the one who gave the urge towards Good and Evil as with the
Persians, whether the God who had his body in the stars, in the
Universe: This God was experienced as something visible.
And now we have the Jewish initiation portrayed in Joseph and his
twelve brethren. It is a beautiful and powerful allegory. The
allegorical now makes its appearance: the intellect, when it wishes to
be effective, becomes the recounter of allegories.
How Joseph was initiated was first recounted. He was removed from his
normal surroundings, sold for twenty pieces of silver and cast into a
pit, where he remained for three days. This indicates an initiation.
Then he comes to Egypt where his activities bring new life. And now we
have finally indicated the transition which began at that time from the
knowledge of God in the stars to the knowledge of man. Joseph was
rejected because he had dreams. He had the following dream: Sun, Moon
and eleven stars bowed down before him. The eleven stars are the
eleven signs of the Zodiac. He felt himself to be the twelfth. The
symbolism of the Star-Religion was now led over into the human. In the
twelve brothers, the starting point of the twelve tribes' the
knowledge of God in the stars was led over into the personal.
Now you surely do not wish to assert, said his father
that your brothers will bow down to you. Here the
change is given us. The divine knowledge of the stars is replaced by a
knowledge attached to the personal human. This finds its form in the
Mosaic law.
Out of the three Ancient Civilisations, through the initiation of the
Jewish Patriarchs, this Fourth Civilisation, the primal Jewish, was
derived. This we have as the Fourth Sub-Race, for there belong to it
also the civilisations of Ancient Greece and Rome. The civilisations
of Greece and Rome (Roman law) both become great just through this
personal element, until eventually this thought incarnated, reaching
its culmination in Christianity. So it is in this lesser racial branch
that the actual stream of the Fourth Sub-Race makes its appearance.
The Graeco-Latin stream is a higher form of the Judaic; here the cult
of the personal is intensified. There is no contradiction between this
descent to the deepest point and then the ascent.
Everywhere [within the Fourth Sub-Race] we can observe this. The
personal had actually to come to expression in the way described in
the Esau and Jacob Saga in order to find its purification in the
beauty of the human culture of the Greeks and the greatness of the
human culture of the Romans. In the Odysseus Saga the ancient
civilisation of the priests was conquered by cunning. It was out of
the civilisations that arose from this that Christianity could first
develop, which in truth contains all the ancient cultures in itself
and can therefore also absorb them. In accordance with his parentage
Jesus Christ was a native of Galilee ... Galilean means: The
Stranger, someone who does not really belong; Galilee means a small
isolated territory where someone could be brought up who, in his
native milieu had to take into himself, not only the Jewish, but also
all the ancient forms of culture.
Out of the impact between the Romans and the Northern peoples there
now developed the Fifth Sub-Race in which we ourselves live. It has
still kept an impulse from the old Initiation Schools in the Moorish,
and Arabian influence which came over from Asia. It is always the same
influence, the same Initiation School. We can trace how the Irish
monks, as also those who work in scientific fields, are essentially
inspired by the Moorish-Arabian science. This gives the same
fundamental character in a new-form, in a way in which it could now be
received. It is here that Christianity first finds its real
expression. It has merely passed through the ancient Greek
civilisation for as long as the Fifth Period of Culture was being
prepared; and then finds here firm ground, embodying itself in a whole
range of nations. Everything at that time was permeated and inspired
by Christianity. Our present time with its materialistic culture is
the last radical expression of what was then inaugurated. The birth of
this new culture is symbolically presented in the Lohengrin Saga.
(37)
Lohengrin is the initiator of the city-state, and the city life
which leads up to a new cultural stage is symbolised by Elsa of
Brabant.
Into all these streams others penetrate, for instance the Mongolian
tribes. What originally came over from the West was related to what
came with the Huns from the East. So from East and West something came
together that was related: the Mongolian and Germanic tribes. Those
who originated from the West were left-behind descendants of the
Atlanteans, as were also the Mongolians from the East. Fundamentally
both streams were related. It is always one stream which crosses
another. Both, however, have a common native ground since they both
originated from Atlantis.
Now here in the North, everything that has remained from earlier times
took on a more established form. At the same time as the epoch of the
Jewish Prophets, in the centuries before Christ, we find here
indications of a great, primeval, Atlantean initiate. Wod-Wodha-Odin.
(87)
This is a modernised Atlantis, in a new form, an atavism, a
throwback into the Atlantean Age. And this happens everywhere, over in
Asia also. In Asia W, the sound V, becomes B, Wodha = Bodha = Buddha.
Buddhism appears as a throwback into the Atlantean Age. This is why we
find Buddhism most widespread with what has remained over from the
Atlanteans in the Mongolian peoples. And where the very pillars of its
greatness make their appearance in Tibet, there we have a modern,
monumental expression of Atlantean culture.
One must get to know such relationships between peoples, then one will
also understand history. When Attila,
(88)
the fighter for monotheism,
appears in Europe, it was Christianity which first halted him, because
there he was confronted with something greater than anything the Huns
possessed. The monotheism of the Huns was, as the outcome of an
Atlantean civilisation, of a magnitude which they found in no other
peoples that they encountered on their way. Christianity alone made a
forceful impression on them. Many things in historical development are
to be understood in the light of these great considerations.
The well-known traveler, Peters,
(89)
certainly feels that the old
Bodhism and the Wotanism can flow together, but he does not know that
we in Europe have not only to be representatives of what comes from
the ancient past, but something new, a new spiral. Into the old part
of the spiral there strikes the very newest, the wisdom pointing to
the future. This is related to the old wisdom as clear day
consciousness is related to trance consciousness. With completely
clear day consciousness future peoples will develop a spiritual
culture which will be different from the old. For this reason
Theosophy must not be only what is carried over from the old, from
Buddhism and Hinduism; this would certainly collapse. Something new
must arise out of the seeds which slumber in the East of Europe,
coming together with everything that is being worked out there.
The inherent culture of the future lies in the unfolding of what is
now in a seed condition in the Folk-elements of Eastern Europe. We
ourselves in Central Europe are the advance post. Eastern Europe must
provide the means, the human material for what is here being founded
in advance.
The Rosicrucian Schools always taught that Central and Western Europe
are only advance posts of what will develop in the European East, what
will proceed from the fructification of the Folk element and European
knowledge. With Tolstoi everything is fructified through the West
European culture, but in a way different from that of others before
him. With powerful simplicity he utters what no Kant and no Spencer
could have expressed. What there appears over-ripe appears in him as
something still unfulfilled. But it is always so with what is in a
seed condition. Not out of the fine perfected plant, but out of the
seedling does the new, future plant grow.
Whatever one may experience, one can look with complete trust towards
the future. For just as the crystal first develops out of an alkaline
solution only after it has been vigorously stirred, so also something
new can only develop after great upheavals.
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