History of the Physical Plane
and Occult History
October 23, 1908
“History” refers to the external physical world:
By means of external documents and information we look back
into past ages in the history of nations, of humanity. You
know that through the recent discovery of many a document we
can look back to thousands of years before the birth of
Christ. Now from the lectures you have heard in the domain of
Spiritual Science you can gather that by means of occult
documents we can look back still further into unlimited
distances of the past. Thus we know of the outer physical
world by means of external history. When we speak regarding
the habits of life, the knowledge above all, regarding the
experience of the nations which lived in the centuries
immediately behind us, when we speak of their discoveries and
inventions we know that we must use a different language than
we do when we go back one or two thousand years and speak of
the habits and customs, the learning and power of discernment
of nations which belong to the distant past. The further we
go back into ages, the more different does history become. It
behooves us perhaps to ask whether the word
“history”, historical development, has only a
meaning for this external physical world, whether only in the
course of time the events, the aspect of events alters; or
whether perhaps the word history can also have a significance
for the other side of existence, for that side which we
describe by means of occult science and which man has to live
through in the time between death and a new birth.
At first from
a purely external point of view, we must say that from all we
know, the life of man in those other worlds, invisible to man
today, is a longer life than that in the physical world. Has
the word “history” a significance for that world,
for that other side of existence? Or are we to fall in with
the idea that in the regions in which man lives between death
and re-birth, everything remains permanently the same, that
it is the same if we go back through the 18th and 17th
centuries into the 8th, 7th and 6th centuries after the
appearing of Christ Jesus upon the earth and even further
into the centuries before Christ? The people who enter
earthly existence meet with different conditions upon the
earth at each new birth. Let us imagine ourselves within the
soul of a man incarnated in ancient Egypt or ancient Persia,
— Let us picture vividly the conditions of a man born
in ancient Egypt facing the gigantic Pyramids and Obelisks
and all the conditions of life which present themselves to us
in ancient Egypt. Let us imagine these conditions during the
time between birth and death. Now let us suppose that the man
dies he goes through the period between death and a new birth
and is then reborn in the 7th or 8th century of the
post-Christian epoch. Let us compare the ages. In earthly
existence how differently is the world presented to the soul
in the ages before the external appearance of Christ Jesus on
the physical plane! Further let us enquire into the
experiences of a soul appearing in the first centuries of
post-Christian times and then entering our physical plane at
the present time. It now finds modern political arrangements
of which at that time there was no question. It experiences
that which our modern means of civilisation have brought
about, in short, a very different picture is offered to such
a soul. If we compare these separate incarnations we become
conscious of how they differ from one another. Then is it not
justifiable to enquire into the life conditions of a man
between death and re-birth-between two incarnations? If a man
previously lived in ancient Egypt and after death passed into
the spiritual world, there he found definite facts, definite
beings; then if he again entered physical existence during
the first Christian centuries, and again died and passed into
the other world, and so on, are we not justified in asking
whether on the other side of existence “history”
is not being enacted in all the experiences a man goes
through there, does not something take place there as time
rolls on? You know that when we describe the life of man
between death and re-birth, we give a general picture of what
this life is. Starting from the moment of death, we describe
how after the man has developed the great memory tableau
before his soul, he enters into a period in which the
impulses, longings, passions, to be found in the astral body,
in short, everything which still connects him with the
physical world and is still present within him, how he passes
through what is usually called “Kamaloca”, and
how after he has stripped off that connection he passes on
into Devachan, into a purely spiritual world. We further
describe what is developed for the man in this period between
death and re-birth, in this purely spiritual existence. You
have seen that what we describe is always at first spoken of
in connection with the fact that it is always related to the
present, to our immediate life, as indeed it is. We must
naturally have some starting point for our descriptions. Just
as in describing the present we must start from the
observations and experiences of the present, so also in
descriptions of the spiritual world it is necessary to
describe the picture which is offered to clairvoyant vision
of the life between death and re-birth approximately as
things are enacted in the present.
To
comprehensive occult observation it is absolutely proved that
for that world also in which man lives between death and
rebirth, the word “history” has a real
significance. Even there something takes place just as here
in the physical world. We relate distinctive events following
one another, beginning from the 4th century before Christ and
describing the events on into our post-Atlantean epoch. In
the same way there is a “history” for the other
period of existence, we must be aware that the life between
death and a re-birth at the time of the Egyptian, the ancient
Persian, the ancient Indian civilisations was not just as it
is in our time. If in the first place we form a preliminary
conception of our present time of the life in Kamaloca and of
that in Devachan, it is well to extend these descriptions and
advance to a historical consideration. We will bring forward
something regarding the chapter of “occult
history” and in order to make these matters clear we
will keep to quite definite spiritual facts. In order to be
able to understand we must begin far back, right back in the
Atlantean period. Today we have progressed so far that when
we speak of such an epoch we assume something known to you
all.
We ask
ourselves how in that age when birth and death could first be
spoken of, how the life of man played its part beyond the
veil. The difference between that life and this was not the
same as today. When the man of Atlantis died, what happened
to his soul? It passed over into a condition in which it felt
itself absolutely one with a spiritual world, in a world of
higher individualities.
We know that
even here upon this physical earth the life of the Atlantean
was quite different from our present life. The present
alternation of waking and sleeping and the unconsciousness of
the night, as it has often been described, did not exist in
the Atlantean age. When man fell asleep and when the
knowledge of physical things around him withdrew from his
consciousness, he entered a world of the spirit. There
appeared to him the vision of spiritual beings. Just as here
by day he is together with plants, animals, and human beings,
so over there during the sleep-consciousness there appeared a
world of higher and lower spiritual beings according to the
depth of his sleep. Man grew accustomed to this world; and
when at death the Atlantean passed into the world beyond,
this world of spiritual Beings, spiritual events, appeared
all the more clearly. The man with his complete consciousness
felt himself at home in these higher worlds in these worlds
of spiritual events and spiritual Beings. If only we were to
go back into the first Atlantean age we should find that
people looked upon this physical existence — all your
souls did so — as a visit to a world in which one
tarries for a while and which is quite different from the
real home. In the Atlantean Age there was however one
peculiarity of this life between death — a re-birth
— of which it is difficult for present day man to gain
an idea, because he had so completely lost it. The capacity
of saying “I” to oneself, of feeling oneself as a
self-conscious being, of feeling oneself as an
“Ego” which is the essential thing in present day
man, was completely lost to the Atlantean on leaving the
physical world. When he passed up into the spiritual world
whether in sleep or to a higher degree in the life between
death and re-birth, in place of the self-consciousness,
instead of the feeling: “I am a self-conscious being, I
am in myself,” arose the consciousness: “I am one
with higher Beings, I plunge, as it were, into the life of
these higher Beings”. The man felt himself one with the
higher beings and in this feeling of oneness with them he
there experienced an immense bliss. This bliss increased more
and more the further he withdrew from consciousness of the
physical sense existence. This was a life of bliss the
further we go back into the ages. We have often heard wherein
the purpose of the evolution of humanity in earthly existence
consists. It consists in man becoming more and more enmeshed
in the physical existence on our earth. In the Atlantean
epoch, during the sleep condition man felt himself completely
at home in the spiritual world, he felt that world to be
bright, clear, and friendly, so his consciousness on this
side was still partially dreamlike. There was as yet no real
taking possession of the physical body. On waking he forgot
to some extent the Gods and Spirits who were his companions
during sleep but he did not enter so completely into physical
consciousness as he does today. The objects around him had no
clear outlines. To the Atlantean it was just as it is to us
on a foggy evening when the street lamps appear surrounded by
a halo, an aura of all sorts of colours; all the objects of
the physical plane were indefinite. The consciousness of the
physical plane was only dawning. The strong consciousness of
the “I am” had not yet entered into man. Only
towards the end of the Atlantean epoch did the human
self-consciousness; the consciousness of the personality
developed gradually in proportion as man lost his blissful
consciousness during sleep. Man gradually conquered the
physical world, as he learnt the use of his physical senses
— the objects of the physical world gained firmer and
more definite outlines. In proportion as man conquered the
physical world, the consciousness in the spiritual world
altered.
We have
followed the various epochs of the post-Atlantean age. We
have looked back into the ancient Indian civilisation. We
have seen how man then had so far conquered the external that
he perceived it as “Maya” — he longed for
the spheres of the ancient spiritual country. We have seen
that in the Persian epoch the conquest of the physical plane
had advanced so far that man wished to connect himself with
the good forces of Ormuzd, in order to develop the forces of
the physical world. Further we have seen that in the
Egypto-Babylonian-Chaldean-Assyrian epoch in the art of
measuring the land, which led to working upon the earth, also
in star law, men found the means of advancing in the conquest
of the external world. Finally we saw that the Graeco-Latin
age went still further, that in Greece that beautiful union
took place between man and the physical world, in the
formation of Grecian cities and also in Greek Art. We saw too
that in the fourth epoch the personal element which then came
into existence for the first time, appeared in the ancient
Roman laws. Whereas formerly man had felt himself part of a
whole, part of a reflection of earlier spiritual Beings, the
Roman for the first time felt himself to be a citizen of the
earth. The concept “citizen” arose — the
physical world was conquered little by little, therefore it
had become dear to man. The desires and sympathies of man
were connected with the physical world and in proportion as
sympathy for the physical world grew, his consciousness was
connected with physical things. In the same degree the
consciousness of man was darkened on the other side, in the
time between death and re-birth. That blissful feeling of
being part of the existence of higher spiritual Beings was
lost to man on the other side to the same extent as this side
became dear to him in the course of the conquest of the
physical world. Stage by stage man's conquest of the physical
world advanced, he was always discovering new forces of
Nature, he was always inventing new instruments. Life between
birth and death gained an increasing value, and the old dim
clairvoyant consciousness of that other world became
obscured. It never completely ceased but darkened. As man was
conquering the physical world, the history of the other world
shows a decline. This descent is in connection with the
ascent of civilisation; we observe man in early primitive
stages of civilisation, when he grew his corn between two
stones, and then see how he ascended stage by stage, how he
made the first discoveries, learnt to make and to use
implements, and continued to advance in the course of time.
Life on the physical plane became ever richer. Man learnt to
construct gigantic buildings. In following history through
the Egypto-Babylonian-Chaldean-Assyrian age, through the
Graeco-Latin age into our own time, we must realize a parting
of the ways, if we wish to describe a progress in historical
civilisation. In proportion we have to describe a declining
path between the upper Gods and that which man was to render
to them, that which he performed according to the spiritual
world and in the midst of the spiritual world. We see how in
later times man continued to lose his connection with the
spiritual world and in the spiritual capacities. We have to
describe for the other side a history of decline with regard
to man, just as for this side we can describe a history of
advance, of progressive conquests of the physical world. So
may the physical world and the spiritual world be said to
supplement one another, or rather to qualify one another.
There is as
you know a connection between the spiritual world and our
physical world. We have often spoken of the great
intermediaries between them, of the Initiates; those who
certainly were incarnated in physical bodies, but whose souls
towered up into the spiritual world between birth and death,
when as a rule man is completely shut off from it; even in
this period they were able to have experiences in the
spiritual world, and be at home in it. What sort of men were
these greater or lesser messengers of the spiritual world,
the ancient holy Rishis of India, Buddha, Hermes,
Zarathustra, Moses, or all those who in more ancient times
were the great “messengers of the Gods”? When we
speak of all these who were messengers of the Gods or spirits
to men, what was their relation to the Physical world and the
spiritual world?
During their
initiation and by means of it they experienced the conditions
of the spiritual world. Not only could they see with their
physical eyes and perceive with their physical intellect the
events of the physical world but through their enhanced
powers of perception they could also perceive those of the
spiritual world. The Initiate not only lives on the physical
plane with mankind but he can also trace what the dead are
doing in the period between death and re-birth. To him they
are just as familiar forms as are men upon the physical
plane. From this you see that everything related as occult
history flows from the experience of the initiates — A
mometuous turning point for all history including that of our
own time appeared upon the earth through the Coming of the
Christ. And we gain an idea of the progress of history in the
other world if we ask ourselves: What significance has the
deed of Christ for the Earth? What significance has the
mystery of Golgotha for the history of the other side? In
many lectures at many places I have been able to point out
the incisive significance of the Event on Golgotha for the
evolution of the history of the physical plane. Now let us
ask: How does the Event of Golgotha present itself when we
observe it from the perspective of the other side? — We
gain an answer to this question if we fix our eyes upon the
point of time in evolution on the other side when men had
reached the utmost height of development on the physical
plane, when the consciousness of the personality was most
strongly developed; the Graeco-Latin epoch. That was the
point of time of the appearing of Christ Jesus upon the
earth. On the one hand there was the most intense
consciousness of the personality, the most intense joy in the
material world, and on the other hand the strongest, the
mightiest summons towards the other world in the Event of
Golgotha, that great deed which represents the conquest of
death by life. These things completely coincide if we fix our
attention on the physical world. In the Grecian epoch there
was truly great joy in external existence and enhanced
sympathy with it. Such people alone were capable of building
those wonderful Grecian Temples in which the Gods dwelt. Such
a life was needed to produce those works of art and
sculpture, showing a wonderful union of spirit with matter.
Joy in the physical plane and sympathy with it contributed
towards this. This only developed gradually and we plainly
trace the advance in history if we compare the arising of the
Greek in the physical in with the exalted conception of the
world which the people of the first post-Atlantean epoch
received from their holy Rishis. They had no interest in the
physical world, they felt at home in the spiritual world;
enraptured, they looked to the world of spirit to which they
endeavoured to attain through the teachings and exercises
given them by the holy Rishis. Between this disdain of the
pleasures of the senses and the great joy in the sense-world
of the Graeco-Latin age — that point of union of spirit
and the sense-world, in which both had their rights —
between these two points lies a long stretch of human
history, yet did such counterpart of this conquest of the
physical plane exist within the spiritual world in the
Graeco-Latin age? He who is able to look into the spiritual
world knows that it is no myth, but is actually founded on
truth, related to us by the Greek Poets of the foremost men
of their civilisation. How did the latter feel in the
spiritual world, they who had been so completely in truth and
sympathy with the physical world? It is absolutely in
conformity with truth when the sages attributed the words to
them: Better be a beggar in the upper world than a king in
the realms of shades:! The dimmest weakest conditions of
consciousness existed at this period between death and
re-birth. With all his sympathies in the physical world man
did not understand the existence in the world beyond. He felt
as if he had lost everything and the spiritual world appeared
valueless to him. In proportion as sympathy for the physical
world increased did the Greek heroes feel themselves lost in
the spiritual world. An Agamemnon, an Achilles, felt himself
to be a depleted being, a Non-being in this world of shades.
Of course there were intermediate periods — for the
connection with the spiritual is never completely lost,
— in which even these people took part with spiritual
Beings and spiritual activities, but the condition of
consciousness which has just been described certainly
existed. Thus we have a history of the world on the other
side, a history of descent, just as we have a history of
ascent on this side.
Those who
were called the messengers of the Gods or spiritual
messengers always had the power of going to and fro, from one
world to the other. Let us try to picture what the spiritual
messengers were upon the physical plane in the pre-Christian
ages of humanity. They were those who from their experiences
in the spiritual world were able to tell the people of the
ancient world what the spiritual really was. Of course there
they also experienced the extinguished consciousness of the
physical earth man, but as compensation the whole spiritual
world in its resplendent abundance was also open to them and
they were able to bring to the men on earth the information
that there was a spiritual world and what it looked like.
They could bear witness of this spiritual world. This was
specially important in the ages in which man stood forth more
and more on the physical plane with his interests in it. The
more man conquered the earth, the more his joy and sympathy
were centered in the physical world — the more these
messengers of the Gods had to emphasize the fact that the
spiritual world existed. They could always speak in this way:
You know this and that regarding the Earth, but there is also
a spiritual world; of which such can be said — In short
the complete picture of the spiritual world was revealed to
man by the messengers of the Gods. This was known in the
various religions. And always when the messengers of the Gods
returned after their initiation or after a visit to the
spiritual world, they could bring with them to the physical
world, which was becoming more and more beautiful to those
living on the physical plane — comfort and exaltation
from the spiritual world, something of the treasures of the
spiritual world. They brought the fruits of the spiritual
life into physical life. And it was always the case that
people were led into the spirit by means of that which the
messengers of the Gods brought to them. The physical world,
the world on this side, profited by the messengers of the
Gods and what they brought. But these spiritual messengers
could not work fruitfully in like measure for the world
beyond. You can picture it in this way. When the initiate,
the messenger of the Gods, passed over into the other world
the beings there were his companions just as were the beings
in the physical world. He could speak to them and give them
information as to what was happening in the physical world.
But the nearer the Graeco-Latin epoch approached, the less
could the initiate, when he passed over from the earth to the
other side, offer to the souls there anything of value, for
they felt too keenly the loss of that upon which they had
depended in the physical world. That which the initiate could
impart to them was no longer of any value to them. Thus in
pre-Christian times that which the initiates brought over as
their messages to men in the physical world was in the
highest degree fruitful, but that which they were able to
take over from the physical world to the deceased was
unfruitful for the spiritual world. Great as was the message
which Buddha, Hermes, Zarathustra brought to men of the
physical plane, they could accomplish but little on the other
side, for they could bring little of what was satisfactory or
animating as a message to the other side — Now let us
compare that which came about for the other side through the
Christ, that which took place in the period of deepest
decadence, in the Graeco-Latin period, with that which
previously came about by means of the initiates. We know what
the Event of Golgotha signifies for the history of the earth.
We know that it was the conquest of earthly death by the life
of the spirits, the overcoming of all death through the
evolution of the earth. Even if today we cannot enter into
all that the Mystery of Golgotha signifies, we can summarize
it in a few words: it signifies the final and incontestable
proof of the fact that life has conquered death. When upon
Golgotha life conquered death, spirit laid down the germ of
the final conquest of matter! That which is related in the
Gospel regarding that visit which Christ made after the Event
upon Golgotha to the dead in the underworld is not a legend
or a symbol. Occult investigation shows you that it is the
truth. Just as truly as Christ wandered among men during the
last three years of the life of Jesus, so did he cause the
dead to rejoice by visiting them immediately after the Event
of Golgotha. He appeared to the dead, to the souls of the
deceased. This is an occult truth. He could then tell them
that in the physical world spirit had incontestably gained
the victory over matter. To the souls of the departed on the
other side this was a flame of light which sprang up like
spiritual electricity, and the dying consciousness of the
Graeco-Latin age in the other world was stimulated, a
completely new phase began for man between death and
re-birth. And ever since that time clearer and clearer has
grown the consciousness of man between death and re-birth.
Thus if we
describe history, we can supplement the statements regarding
Kamaloca and the life in Devachan, and we must point out that
with the appearing of Christ upon the earth a completely new
phrase began for the life on the other side. The fruit of
that which the Christ accomplished for the evolution of the
earth was experienced in a radical change in the life beyond.
This visit of Christ to the other side signified a revival of
the life there between death and re-birth. since that time
the departed who at that important point of the Graeco-Latin
age, in spite of all the pleasure they had had in the
physical world, had felt themselves mere shadows, so that
they preferred to be beggars in the upper world rather than
kings in the realm of shades — now began to feel more
and more on the other side. Since that time man has grown
more into the spiritual world, and a period of ascent, of
blossoming, has dawned for the spiritual world. We shall
always see what we acquire for the observation of human life
upon the earth, if we place before us the true qualities of
the spiritual world.
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