CHAPTER VIII
P to the present we have given special attention to the way in which the soul
of man in the course of evolution approaches and experiences those beings which
are either to be taken as belonging to the Kingdom of Christ or to
the Kingdom of Lucifer. We pointed out, for instance, that the way to
those cosmic beings which in pre-Christian times had the Christ as
their central figure, led outwards; but that the way into the Kingdom
of Lucifer penetrated within the soul, breaking through the veils of
the soul itself. And we pointed out how through the appearance of
Christ on the earth, this has altered in such a way that there has
been a transposition of these realms, and that mankind has advanced
to an age wherein Christ must be sought within and Lucifer without.
In order to establish harmony between various statements already
familiar to many readers in regard to the Luciferic beings we must
again say a few words about the nature of the Lucifer.
Everything
in this world is complicated and may be looked at from many different
points of view. It will, therefore, sometimes appear as if statements
are not always in accord; light must be thrown upon a certain fact
sometimes from one side and sometimes from another. Just as it is
correct to describe a leaf first from the upper side and then from
the lower, while it is one and the same leaf, in the same way do we
describe the Luciferic principle correctly when as in previous
chapters we speak of it by pursuing the path which the soul has to
take to encounter this Luciferic principle. But naturally one may
also consider the evolution of our earth and of the world in general
more from a super-terrestrial standpoint, and characterise the
position of Luciferic beings in the progress of the world from
another point of view. We will devote a few words to this subject.
We
know that our earth, sun and moon were once one being; that the sun
separated itself from the earth in order to be a dwelling place for
beings of a higher evolutionary stage, who could then work in upon
our earth from outside; that after the withdrawal of the sun from the
earth, beings of a still higher order remained united with the earth
in order to bring about the separation of the moon; and if we think
of the fact that the beings who separated the moon from the earth
were those who stimulated a new inner life in man, arousing in him a
soul-life and thus preserving him from mummification we shall soon be
able to establish harmony between things already familiar to us and
things we have been considering in the preceding chapters. We shall
realise that as far as those beings which left the earth with the sun
are concerned, it is natural that man in his further evolution should
find them in the first place by turning his gaze to where they went
with the sun. Therefore man had to seek for the realm and activity of
the sun-beings with all their sub-beings, along the path leading
outward into the world behind the tapestry of sense phenomena. Those
beings, however, which to a certain extent were still greater
benefactors of mankind and who through the withdrawal of the moon
stimulated man's inner soul-life, had to be sought by descending into
man's inner life, into a sub-earthly soul region, in order to find
what was hidden from the external sight, and are the sub-terrestrial
gods. These are they who separated the moon from the earth and
aroused the soul-life of man. Within the life of the soul was sought
the way leading to those gods who were associated with the beneficent
event of the withdrawal of the moon. If at first we look only at
these two kingdoms, of the Sun-gods and of the Moon-gods, we may
define the beings as gods to be found outside in the heavens and gods
to be found within the soul; and we may designate the way leading
outwards as the Sun-path, and the way leading inwards into the soul,
as the Luciferic path. The beings of Lucifer are those who did not
participate in the withdrawal of the sun from the earth. And certain
other beings, who are the highest benefactors of mankind, but who at
first had to remain hidden, and who did not accompany the sun in its
withdrawal, belonged, strictly speaking, to neither of those
kingdoms. Those were the beings who remained behind during the old
moon evolution, who did not attain to that grade which as spiritual
beings, standing at that time much higher than men on the moon, they
might have reached. Thus it was impossible for them to participate in
the withdrawal of the sun, during the earth-evolution which followed.
In a certain sense their destiny was to go out, as did the
Sun-spirits and to work down upon the earth from the sun; but that it
was not possible for them to do. It therefore came to pass that these
beings, in a certain way, made an endeavour to separate themselves
from the earth with the sun, but that they could not keep pace with
the conditions of evolution of the sun, and fell back again upon the
earth.
These
beings, then, did not from the beginning remain behind with the
earth, when the sun separated from it; they could not exist in the
sun-evolution and fell back again to be reunited with the earth
evolution. Now what did these beings do in the course of the earth
evolution? They tried with the help of human evolution upon the earth
to continue their own quite individual evolutionary course. They
could not approach the human Ego; and those beings who had brought
about the separation of the moon could approach the human Ego from
within. The beings who had fallen back from the sun approached the
human soul when it was not yet ripe to receive the revelation to the
higher benefactors who had brought about the separation of the moon.
They approached the human soul too soon. If man had fully awaited the
beneficial influence of those spiritual beings who worked from the
moon, that is to say, from the inner part of his being, then that
which actually came to pass at an earlier epoch would have come to
pass later. These Moon-gods would have slowly ripened the souls of
men until a corresponding evolution of the Ego had become possible.
But these other beings approached man and poured their influence, not
into the Ego, but into the human astral body from within, just as the
Moon-gods do; these beings sought the same way, through the inner
being of the soul, upon which later the real Moon-gods worked; that
is to say, these beings settled down in the kingdom of Lucifer. These
are the beings which are symbolised in the old biblical writings by
the serpent. They are the beings which approached the human astral
body too soon and worked in the same manner as all other beings which
work from within. And since we designate beings whose influence is
from within, as Luciferic, we include also those beings which
remained behind. They came to man when he was still unripe for such
an influence they are on the one hand his seducers, but they also
create freedom for him, create the possibility of his astral body
becoming independent of those divine beings which would otherwise
have taken his Ego under their protection and would have poured into
it all that can be poured into the essence of the Ego from divine
spheres. Thus these Luciferic beings came to the astral body of man,
and filled it with all that can give him enthusiasm for the sublime,
the spiritual; they worked upon his soul, and, although they were
beings of a higher spiritual order than men, they were in a certain
sense his seducers. That which in the course of the evolution of the
earth came to man, and which on the one hand brought him freedom and
on the other the possibility of evil, came from within, from
Lucifer's kingdom. For these beings could not manifest themselves
from without, they had to insert themselves into the inner part of
the soul; for that which approaches man's Ego can come from without,
but nothing external in this sense can come to his astral body only.
In the great kingdom of the Light-bearer, of the beings of Lucifer,
there are sub-species of which we can well understand that they might
become the seducers of man. And we can also well understand that just
on account of these beings strenuous discipline was practiced when it
was a question of leading man into those realms which lie on the
other side of the veil of the soul-world; for if he was led along the
inner path of the soul he met there not only the good Luciferic
beings who had given him inner light, but also and first, those
Luciferic beings who were his seducers and who spurred him on by
imparting pride, ambition and vanity to his soul.
It
is very important to realise that we should never try to encompass
the worlds behind the sense world and behind the soul-world with the
intellectual concepts of modern culture.
If
we speak of the Luciferic beings, we must become acquainted with the
whole range of their kingdom, with all their species, categories and
variations. We should then see that when at times mention is made of
the danger of a certain species of Luciferic being the speaker is not
always aware of the whole extent of the kingdom in question. It may
be right to speak of certain species of Luciferic beings in the sense
of some ancient script, but we must at the same time take into
consideration the fact that the reality is infinitely deeper than men
can generally realise. At a time when both outward turning and inward
turning contemplation were, in people of a certain period of culture,
still very keen, man perceived that the outward path led to the
realisation of ‘That thou art’ and that the inner path
led to the realisation of ‘I am the All,’ that the outer
and the inner path both led to the Ego as an unity. In that first
post-Atlantean epoch of civilisation man was able to think and feel
quite differently about what underlay the spiritual realms than was
possible at a later time. It is on that account extraordinarily
difficult for ordinary consciousness to transport itself into that
wonderful post-Atlantean culture and to identify itself with a soul
living at that time.
We
have seen how completely different man's feeling life was at that
early time; how he felt the soul of the light stream in from all
sides through his skin, as it were; and how through this he was able
to collect out of the surrounding world experiences which are hidden
from him today. But something else was connected with all this.
Those
familiar with my
‘Outline of Occult Science,’
will know
that human evolution in the post-Atlantean era is divided into the
Old Indian, the Old Persian, the Chaldean-Egyptian, the Graeco-Latin,
and the present cultural epochs; in the Graeco-Latin period came the
Christ Event. Our culture epoch will be followed by another and this
in its turn by the last, after which the earth will again undergo a
change somewhat as it did at the time of the Atlantean catastrophe.
We have therefore seven epochs of civilisation. In these seven we
have a central one standing alone, the Graeco-Latin epoch of
civilisation with the Christ Event. The other epochs of civilisation
bear a certain relationship to one another. The Chaldean-Egyptian
civilisation repeats itself in certain phenomena of the fifth, i.e.
of our own epoch. Certain phenomena, facts and conceptions apparent
in the Chaldean-Egyptian epoch reappear, but wearing of course a
somewhat different form, because they are permeated by the
intervening Christ impulse. This is not a simple repetition of the
Chaldean-Egyptian civilisation, but a repetition wherein everything
is steeped in what the Christ brought to the earth. It is in one
sense a repetition and yet in another it is not. Men who have had a
deeper understanding for the course of human evolution, and who have
taken part in it with their souls have always felt something of the
kind. Many such persons even if they have not advanced to occult
knowledge, are pervaded by something like a recollection of old
Egyptian experiences. The wonderful knowledge of the stars in their
courses which the wise men of Egypt brought through into their
Hermetic science has revived in our fifth epoch of civilisation in
another and more material form. And those who participated in the
revival felt this with special emphasis. Let me give one example
only.
When
that individuality who once in the mystery places of Egypt raised the
eyes of his soul up to the stars, and sought to unravel their secrets
in celestial space after the manner of those clays, under the
guidance of the Egyptian sages, lived again in our own epoch as
Kepler, that which had existed in another form in his Egyptian soul,
appeared in a newer guise as the great laws of Kepler which today are
such an integral part of Astro-physics. It came to pass also that
within the soul of this man there arose something which forced these
words to be uttered — words which may be read in the writings
of Kepler — ‘Out of the holy places of Egypt I have
brought the sacred vessel; I have transported it to the present time,
so that men may understand something in these days of those
influences which are able to affect even the most distant future.’
We might give hundreds of such examples to show how that which
existed in the Chaldean-Egyptian epoch of civilisation lives over
again in a new form.
We
are now in the fifth epoch of civilisation of the post-Atlantean era.
This will be followed by the sixth, which will be very important. It
will be a repetition of and at the same time an advance upon the old
Persian civilisation of Zarathustra. Zarathustra looked up to the sun
and saw behind the physical sunlight the Christ spirit whom he called
Ahura Mazdao, and drew men's attention to Him. This Christ
Being has now descended to earth; Christ must penetrate so deeply
into the innermost part of those souls who in the course of the sixth
period of civilisation have made themselves sufficiently ripe, that
numbers of men on looking into the innermost part of their souls will
be able to feel that powerful emotion arise within them which
Zarathustra formerly was able to arouse when he pointed to Ahura
Mazdao. For in the sixth epoch there will come about in a great
number of men through contemplation of their own inner being, through
a new recognition of the Sun Being who was revealed in ancient
Persia, something like a recapitulation but of an infinitely more
sublime, more spiritual and more intimate character. I have already
said that when the Greeks, in their way and after their own fashion
spoke of Ahura Mazdao, they called him Apollo. In their Mysteries
they allowed men to become acquainted with the deeper essence of this
Apollo. Above all they saw in Apollo the spirit who not only directed
the physical sun forces, but who also guided and directed the
spiritual sun-forces to the earth. And when the teachers in these
Apollonian Mysteries desired to speak to their pupils of the
spiritual and moral influences of Apollo, they said that Apollo
filled the entire earth with the holy music of the spheres, that is
to say, he sent down rays from the spiritual world. And they saw in
Apollo a being accompanied by the Muses, his assistants. A wonderful
and deep wisdom is wrapped up in Apollo and his nine-Muses. Man's
being consists of physical body, etheric body, astral body, sentient
soul, intellectual soul, consciousness soul and so on; man is an
ego-centre, having seven or nine members around it, all of which are
parts of its being. Let us ascend from a human being to a divine
being, and think of the Ego as this divine being, and of the members
as his helpers, each helper being a single individuality. Even as in
man the different members, physical body, etheric body, astral body
and so on are gathered together and grouped around his Ego, so were
the Muses grouped around Apollo. What was said in connection with
this subject to those about to be initiated into the Apollonian
mysteries is of a deep significance. A secret was confided to them,
and the secret was this: that the god who in the second epoch had
spoken such wonderful words to Zarathustra, would speak to men in the
sixth epoch in a very special way This was the intention and meaning
of the saying that in the sixth period the Song of Apollo upon earth
would attain its goal. In this saying which was frequently quoted by
the pupils of the Apollonian mystery-schools was expressed the fact
that during the sixth epoch the second period of the earth-evolution
would be recapitulated on a higher stage. The first epoch will
reappear in a higher form during the seventh period.
It
is the highest possible ideal for present day man to attain to the
knowledge of the first post Atlantean epoch as permeated by the
Christ to regain a way of feeling, of looking at things, which
characterised the first post-Atlantean epoch though at a lower stage.
Once again at the conclusion of our post-Atlantean period shall the
man who takes the path out into the external sense-world and who
wrestles with what is revealed in his own soul-world, recognise that
both these paths lead him to an unity. It is therefore good to
transpose ourselves to some extent into that which for us today —
for we are in the intermediate epoch — is the somewhat alien
feeling and thinking of ancient Indian times. Even if we only find a
few traces we nevertheless perceive something of the quite different
character of feeling and thinking, of the quite different attitude to
wisdom and life existing at that time, when the Ego-consciousness did
not exist in human feeling in such an awakened form. What was written
clown in the Vedas was the teaching of the great teachers of ancient
India, the holy Rishis, and when we state that the holy Rishis were
inspired by the high individuality who guided the peoples of old
Atlantis through the Europe of today over into Asia, we are only
recording a fact. In a certain way the holy Rishis were the pupils of
this high individuality, of Manu. And what did Manu communicate to
them? Manu communicated to them the way in which they had at that
time attained to the first post-Atlantean wisdom, knowledge and
cognition. For our modern methods of acquiring knowledge, whether by
observing external nature or by descending into the inner life of the
soul in the way that it has become today, would have had no meaning
at that time.
During
the first period of civilisation of the post Atlantean time among the
old Indian people, the etheric body was to a far greater extent
outside the physical body than is the case today. The old Indian
could make use of this etheric body and of its organs if he gave
himself up to it, if he did not go out into the external life of the
physical body, and as it were forgot that he was in a physical body.
When he did this he felt as if he were being lifted out of himself,
like a sword out of a scabbard. In this experience he became aware of
something which may be described as follows: ‘I do not see with
eyes or hear with ears, or think with the physical organ of
understanding; I make use of the organ of the etheric body.’
And this he did. Then, however, living wisdom rose before him; not
thoughts which men may think or have thought, but thoughts according
to which the gods without had fashioned the world. Deeply immersed in
spiritual life, the Indian knew nothing about what we today call
thought, fabricated as it is by the instrument of the brain. He never
thought things out intellectually, or reasoned about them; he rose
out of his physical body into his etheric body, and from there he
looked all around him at the cosmic totality of the thought of the
gods, whence the world sprang forth. He saw in a flash the gift
proceeding from the divine world. With his etheric organs he saw the
thoughts of the gods depicted in the design of all things. He had no
need of logical thinking. Why must we think logically? For the reason
that we must find truth through logical thinking, because we might
otherwise make mistakes in linking up chains of thought. If we were
so organised that right thoughts coalesced of themselves, we should
not require logic. The old Indian did not require logic for he looked
at the thoughts of the gods, which were right of themselves. He wove
around himself an etheric, cosmic net, wove it out of the thoughts of
the gods. He looked into this web of thought, which appeared to him
like a soul-light pervading the world, and in it saw the primordial,
eternal wisdom. This highest stage of perfection, which I have just
described to you, was of course only possible for the holy Rishis,
and with this vision they could proclaim great world realities. What
kind of feeling did their visions arouse? They felt that into this
world-web of wisdom, in which everything was written in living
prototype, which was entirely woven of and irradiated by the soul of
the light, truth and knowledge poured. Just as man of a later time
feels something stream into him when he draws a breath, so the old
Indian felt that the gods sent out wisdom to him and that he drew it
in, even as the air is sent out to us in the breath that we draw in.
Soul-light, and moreover soul-light pervaded by spiritual wisdom, it
was that the ancient holy Rishis drew in, and this they were able to
teach to their disciples. They were justified in saying that
everything which they proclaimed was breathed out by Brahman himself.
That is the meaning of the deep expression, an expression which is
verbally correct: ‘It is breathed out by Brahman and breathed
in by men.’ That was the position of the holy Rishis as regards
the wisdom of the world, as regards the things which they made known.
These were then written down in the different portions of the Vedas,
in pictorial form, if the expression may be permitted; yet these
forms were but feeble reproductions of the original visions. We must
always bear that truth in mind when reading the Vedas today, and not
imagine that we are contemplating in its fullness the original sacred
wisdom beheld by the ancient Rishis. We must understand that the
Vedas are of a different character to other writings. Many documents
of many kinds are to be found in the world. Speaking from our
particular standpoint, for instance, we may say: ‘We find an
inward soul-life pervaded and filled with the Christ in the Gospel of
St. John.’ But if we consider the manner in which that Gospel
is expressed, if we regard its exterior form, we find it less closely
expressive of its contents, than the medium used to embody the wisdom
of the Vedas. There is a close connection between the outward
expression and the inner content of the Vedas, because that which was
breathed in was expressed in the Vedic words simultaneously, as it
were; whereas the writer of St. John's Gospel had its deep wisdom
imparted to him at one time and wrote it down later; consequently the
vision and the expression are further separated than in the Vedas.
We
must understand these things clearly if we really wish to comprehend
the evolution of the world. We must value the Gospel of St. John more
highly than anything else but it is also natural that a Christian
should not be satisfied with the mere letter, but should penetrate
through, as spiritual science does, into the spiritual content of the
Gospel according to St. John. It is natural that he should say: ‘It
only becomes what it ought to be to me when I pierce through into
that of which it is the outer expression.’ But anyone who
wishes to adopt the right attitude towards the Vedas must feel as did
the man of ancient India that what was to be found in the Vedas was
not written down later by any man as the expression of divine wisdom.
Therefore the Vedas, especially the Rig Veda, are not only records of
something holy, but are themselves sacred to those who perceive what
they are. And hence arose the infinite veneration for the Vedas
themselves in olden times, a reverence such as is offered to a divine
being. That is the fact we must understand. And we must gain this
understanding by contemplating the souls of the old Indian people.
There are many things to be learned because we are advancing towards
an ideal; the ideal of the first period of civilisation at a higher
stage, and of its reestablishment. We must learn to understand, for
instance, what is said of Bharavadscha, that he studied the Vedas for
three hundred years. A man of the present day would think he
possessed mighty knowledge if he had studied the Vedas for three
hundred years; he would think he knew a good deal even if he had
studied them for a much shorter time. Yet it is related that one day
the God Indra came to Bharavadscha and said to him: ‘Thou hast
now studied the Vedas for three hundred years; see, there are three
very high mountains yonder. The first one represents the first part
of the Vedas, the Rig-Veda; the second one represents the second part
of the Vedas, the Sama-Veda; and the third one represents the third
part of the Vedas, the Jagur-Yeda. Thou hast studied these three
parts of the Vedas for three hundred years.’ Then Indra took
three small lumps of earth out of these mounts, Just so much as could
be held in the hand, and said: ‘Look at these lumps of earth;
thy knowledge of the Vedas is as these lumps in proportion to yonder
towering mountains.’ If what is here said be transposed into a
feeling, it is this: that if, in approaching the highest wisdom
(whether it be in this or any other form, even in the form in which
we find it today when we are called by the Rosicrucian method to seek
for it not in books but by observation of what is to be found in the
world) we can apply this story, we are taking the right attitude.
Hardly anyone can say that he has heard as much about spiritual
knowledge as had Bharavadscha about the Vedas; but everyone can make
this comparison between himself and Bharavadscha, and he will then
have put himself in the right relationship as far as his feelings are
concerned, with the all-embracing wisdom of the world. And he will be
aware of something infinite of which we can only possess a small
fraction. In this way, too, we get the right kind of yearning to go
forward and to have patience until another little fraction of wisdom
is added. Much may be learned from the ancient wisdom of the East;
but among the most valuable things which can be learnt from the Light
of the East are those which are connected with our feelings and our
perceptions, and something of this can be learned in what the God
Indra gave to Bharavadscha by way of instruction as to the right
attitude to assume towards the Vedas. Feelings of holy awe and
reverence such as were felt in those ancient days must again be
acquired by us, if we would advance to an epoch wherein we may once
more, through the disclosures made in the newer mysteries, penetrate
into that veil of wisdom which is woven of divine and not of human
thoughts. These feelings are the very highest we can acquire. But we
must not think that we already possess them, we must clearly realise
that knowledge alone leads up to these highest feelings. And if we
avoid thinking, if we take life too easily and decline to seek the
feelings that are to be found on the ethereal heights of thought, we
shall experience only ordinary trivial feelings and mistake them for
what is obtained by the soul when it steeps itself in contemplation
of divinity. Feelings such as were to be found among the old Indians
were the essential means of approach to all the wisdom of the first
post-Atlantean epoch, and to the ability to assume a right attitude
towards the world in that age as well as to perceive that unity which
is to be found in the spiritual worlds, whether upon the outward or
the inward path. But in each successive civilisation something new
must come to light.
Whereas
the old Indians realised that both paths led to the same goal, the
old Persian, the Chaldaic-Egyptian and the Graeco-Latin epochs came
to regard the two revelations from within and without as being in
different directions. On the one hand we have the revelation coming
from outside, and on the other the manifestation from within. This is
already observable during the second epoch of the post-Atlantean
civilisations. There we have on the one side not only the path of the
people, but also the path of the mysteries, leading externally as
well as inwardly to the realm of Ahura Mazdao, That which was still a
living reality in old Indian thought, the one-ness which was to be
found in both the spiritual worlds, had already disappeared from the
eyes of the second post-Atlantean civilisation. That unity which had
already withdrawn into impenetrable depths of existence could still
be dimly sensed, but it could no longer live in the soul. The old
Indian felt: ‘Whether on the one side I go outwards or on the
other side I go within, I come to the unity.’ The Persian, in
so far as he followed the teachings of Zarathustra, in following the
outward path said: ‘I come to Ormuzd’; or if he took the
inward path, ‘I come to the being of Mithras.’ But in his
consciousness these two paths were no longer united. At most he dimly
sensed that they must be united somewhere. Therefore he spoke of that
being who could then be sensed but dimly, as the Unknown in Darkness,
the unknown primeval God. This God then, was a primeval spiritual
being whose existence was not doubted, but whom men could no longer
find. Zaruana Akarana was the name of this god existing in the
darkness. That which could be attained to lay behind the tapestry of
the external sense-world and Zarathustra's teaching laid special
emphasis upon this phase. It was therefore something deriving from
Zaruana Akarana, it was the God Ahura Mazdao, the Lord in the realm
of the Sun-spirits, in the realm whence the beneficent influences
came down, which in contradistinction to the physical may be
designated as the spiritual sun-influences. From this same spirit
also did the old Persian civilisation derive its moral precepts and
laws, which the initiate — for it was he who by means of
initiation raised himself to a knowledge of these precepts and laws —
brought through as codes of morality, and as laws for human conduct,
for human functions, etc. That was one path, and men who followed it,
saw in the very highest region, the spirit of the sun and his rule;
they saw the servants of the sun spirit, the Amshaspands, arrayed as
it were, around his throne, and who are his messengers. The
sun-spirit was lord over the whole realm; the Amshaspands directed
the various activities. Beings of a lower order, subordinate in their
turn to the Amshaspands, are generally called Izets or Izarads and
finally beings of whom it may be said that they correspond in the
spiritual world to the thoughts in the soul of man. Thoughts in the
human soul are only the shadow-reflections of realities; outside in
the spiritual world they are spiritual beings. According to the old
Persian conception these beings, called Fravashi (Feruers), were
immediately above man. Thus during the old Persian evolution it was
conceived that behind the covering of the sense-world there were
successive stages of spiritual beings rising higher and higher up to
Ormuzd.
Now the whole nature
of old Persian humanity was different from that of the old Indian.
The characteristic of an etheric body which was still to a great
extent outside the physical body no longer obtained in the humanity
of old Persia; the etheric body had by that time slipped very much
further into the physical body. Therefore men of the old Persian
civilisation could no longer use the instruments of the etheric body
in such a way as did the old Indians. The instruments used by the old
Persians were the organs which originally formed part of what today
we call the sentient, or astral body.
The
nine constituent parts of man, as we know, are as follows:
Spirit
Man, Intellectual Soul, Life Spirit, Sentient Soul, Spirit Self,
Astral Body, Consciousness Soul, Etheric Body, and Physical Body.
As
we have seen, the old Indian made use of his etheric body when he
wished to raise himself up to realms of the highest knowledge. The
Persian was no longer able to do this; but he could make use of his
astral body, and this he did. Because he could no longer perceive
through the etheric body the highest unity was hidden from him, but
by means of the astral body he had still to a certain extent astral
vision. This was the case with many members of the old, Persian
people; astrally they saw Ahura Mazdao and his servants because they
were still able to make use of the astral body. Now you know from the
description in my book
‘Theosophy’
that the astral body
is bound up with the sentient soul. When, therefore, a member of the
old Persian nation made use of his astral body, his sentient soul
also was present; but he could not make use of it because it was
still undeveloped. He made use of his astral body in which the
sentient soul was always a factor, but he had to take that soul just
as it then was. Therefore he felt that when the astral body,
developed as it then was, raised itself up to Ahura Mazdao, the
sentient soul was there also. The latter, however, was felt to be in
some danger, that it would, when revealing its perceptions, send them
straight down into the astral body. The old Persian said to himself:
‘The sentient soul will not externalise that which it
encounters in the way of old Luciferic temptations, but it will send
their influences into the astral body.’ He realised that
influences from the sentient soul were working in upon the astral
body, presenting, as it were, a reflection from the outer world, of
what had been at work in the sentient soul from ancient times. This
is called the influence of Ahriman, of Mephistopheles. And so man
felt himself to be confronted by two powers. If he looked up to that
which could be attained by directing his gaze outwards, he saw the
mystery of Ahura Mazdao; if he looked inwards he found himself by the
help of the astral body, but through the influence of Lucifer working
in it, face to face with Ahriman, the opponent of Ahura Mazdao. There
was only one thing which could be any protection to him from the
temptations of the Ahrimanic beings, and that was to press onward to
initiation and the development of the sentient soul. By developing
and purifying it and thus striding in advance of humanity, he took
the path leading inwards, that did not lead to Ahura Mazdao, but to
Lucifer's realms of light. And that which permeated the human soul
upon the inward path was in later times called the God Mithras. Hence
the Persian Mysteries which cultivated the inner life were the
mysteries of Mithras. On the one side therefore we have the god
Mithras whom a man met when he took the inward path and on the other
the realms of Ahura Mazdao, which he found on the outward path.
Now
we will pass on to the next post-Atlantean civilisation, to the
Chaldaic-Egyptian period. There is good reason for giving it a double
name. For on the one side we have throughout this epoch of
civilisation, over in Asia, people belonging to the northern stream
of peoples who form the Chaldaic element; on the other side we have
the Egyptian element, representing the stream of people who went more
to the south. This is an epoch wherein two streams of nations
encountered one another. And if we remember that the northern stream
developed more particularly external vision, pursuing the reality of
beings to be found behind the sense-world, and that the Egyptian
peoples sought for the spiritual beings to be found upon the inward
path, we shall realise that two streams co-existed during this third
epoch. The outward path taken by the Chaldeans and the inward path
taken by the Egyptians came in contact. The Greeks were right when
they compared the Chaldaic gods with their own Apollonian realms;
they sought in their own way in their Apollonian mysteries for that
which came to them from the Chaldeans. But when they spoke of Osiris
and of that which was connected with him they sought for illumination
through the mysteries of Dionysos. At that time people still had a
consciousness of spiritual relationships. Now mankind in the course
of its evolution develops new members in the constitution of man. In
the old Indian period the etheric body and its organs were developed;
in the old Persian period men developed and used the astral body, and
in the Chaldaic-Egyptian period the sentient-soul, that is to say, an
inner member. Whereas the astral body is still directed outward, the
sentient soul is directed inward. Hence man drew further away from
the divine-spiritual worlds than was formerly the case. He lived an
inner life in the soul, and as regards that which is not within him,
life was limited to what the senses perceived. On the one side the
world of sense grew more and more dominant, and on the other, the
soul life established its independence. The development of the
sentient-soul belonged to the third epoch. But what the sentient-soul
developed during the Chaldaic-Egyptian period was no longer wisdom
which could be seen and read as it were from the external
environment. It was a process resembling man's present thinking
today, but it was much more alive, for the reason that man of today
has already attained to the consciousness-soul. Thoughts were then
much richer, more full of life than is the case today. Man in these
days does not experience his thoughts with the same intensity with
which he becomes aware of a taste or a scent. During the Egyptian
epoch, while the sentient soul was being intensively developed,
thoughts were as vivid in the soul as is today the perception of
colour, or scent, or taste. Today they have grown fainter and more
abstract. In the Egyptian epoch they were concrete. They were more
life visible thoughts; although not thoughts which could be said to
take objective shape in the physical world they were nevertheless
thoughts carrying with them a conviction that they had not been
puzzled out, but rose in the soul like inspirations, surging in
suddenly and presenting themselves in a flash. These people did not
say that they breathed wisdom in, but that they were permeated by
living thoughts, which sprang up out of the soul, which were impelled
from the spiritual world into our own. Thus does everything change in
the course of time. And so a man belonging to the Chaldaic-Egyptian
epoch no longer was conscious of the wisdom of the world spread out
as a tapestry of light around him, to be breathed in. He was
conscious of possessing thoughts which rose within him as
inspirations. And the content of the science thus rising in man's
being is Chaldaic astro-theology and Egyptian Hermetic wisdom. That
which lives in the stars and moves them in their courses, that which
pulsates in all things, could no longer be, as it were, read by man,
but it revealed itself to his innermost being in the form of the
ancient wisdom of the Chaldaic-Egyptian, period. Moreover old
Chaldean men had the following feeling:
‘That
which I know is not only my inmost being; it is a reflection of what
is taking place externally.’ The old Egyptian felt what thus
arises to be a reflection of the hidden gods whom men do not meet
between birth and death, but between death and a new birth. Thus did
the Egyptians and Chaldeans differ from each other, in that the
latter realised through their wisdom what lies behind the world in
which we live between birth and death, and the former, the Egyptians,
realised through their inspired wisdom the living beings whom man
encounters between death and a new birth. Necessarily, however, as
may be seen from the whole purpose of this evolution, these
inspirations from within, these massed thoughts arising as
inspirations, were far removed from the conception of a primordial
being in its unity. Men could no longer penetrate as far as during
the old Persian period when it was possible still to make use of the
astral body. Impressions had all grown fainter; they were not so
external, for the outer world had already withdrawn itself
considerably. Accordingly man experienced wisdom of the external
world within themselves, and no longer experienced the wisdom in the
external world itself. Nevertheless those who had learned to
appreciate the wisdom of the old Persian epoch in the right manner
entertained for it feelings of high respect and deep gratitude. And
if we need a short definition of the paradoxical wisdom with which
the Chaldeans expressed that which they saw in the spiritual
foundations underlying the physical world, we must call these
utterances ‘Chaldean Proverbs’; and the collection of
Chaldean Proverbs was a very highly valued treasure of wisdom in the
old times. World secrets of infinite importance are to be found
therein. They were valued as highly as the revelations experienced
between death and a new birth; and these were treasured as the source
of Egyptian wisdom.
But
that reality of which during the ancient Indian epoch there had been
direct cognition, became shadowy and dim; its deeper essence came to
be entirely hidden from the eyes of man. This highest reality was
still more shadowy to Chaldaic-Egyptian wisdom than Zaruana Akarana
had been to the vision of old Persian seers. The Chaldeans called it
Anu; Anu does in a sense express the unity of both worlds, but an
unity far above man's knowledge; they did not venture to penetrate
even into those regions into which the humanity of the time of
Zarathustra looked up, but they turned their visions to spheres which
were very near to human thought. Everything, they said, was to be
found there, for the highest is to be found even in the lowest; but
they also found something there expressive of the reality of a being,
a shadowy reflection of the highest. This they named Apason. Apason
seemed to them to be as a shadowy reflection of what we today
conceive of as substance below Spirit man, substance, as it were,
formed out of Life Spirit. To this they gave a name whose nearest
equivalent in English sound would be something like Tau-te. There was
also a reality to which they gave the name of Moymis. Moymis was
approximately that which spiritual science would describe as a
world-spirit, a being whose lowest principle is the Spirit Self. Thus
the old Chaldeans contemplated a trinity above them, but they were
conscious of the fact that this trinity only manifested its real
nature so far as its lower members were concerned, and that its
higher members were only shadowy reflections of the highest, which
had entirely withdrawn from them. And Bel, the god who as creator of
the universe was also the national god must be thought of as a
descendant of this Moymis who had entered the region of Ego-hood or
of Fire Essence.
Thus
we see how the essential nature of an entire people expressed itself
even in the naming of the gods. When a person belonging to the old
Chaldaic epoch took the path to his inner being, he spoke of having
passed through the veil of soul-life into a world of sub-human or
subterranean gods. Adonis is a later name for the beings found by
taking the inward path. This path was accessible to initiates only,
for it was beset with great dangers for a non-initiate. And when an
initiate trod this path, attaining on the one side to the world
beyond the senses, and on the other to the world that underlies the
veil of the soul world, he experienced something comparable to the
experiences encountered in initiation at the present day. Anyone
initiated in ancient Chaldea went through two separate experiences,
and care was taken to have them take place as nearly as possible at
the same time. One experience was that of entering the spiritual
world from the outer world, the other was being admitted into it from
the inner world; and these two had to coincide as far as possible in
order that the candidate might learn to feel that the same spiritual
forces were expressing themselves through spiritual life and
interaction both without and within. On the inward way he met the
spiritual being called Ishtar, who was known to be a beneficent moon
divinity, and who stood on the threshold that hides from man the
spiritual element standing behind his soul life. On the other side,
where the door opening through the outer sense world into, the world
of spirit is situated, stood the Guardian Merodach or Mardach, and he
stood there with Ishtar. Merodach (whom we may compare with the
Guardian of the Threshold, with Michael) and Ishtar were the pair who
imparted clairvoyance to the soul and led men by both paths into the
spiritual world. That experience is still expressed symbolically
today by the saying that ‘The shining cup is given to man to
drink from.’ That is, as if by a draught he learns to
experience the very first activities of his lotus flowers.
[See
“Knowledge of Higher Worlds, and its Attainment,”
by Dr. Steiner. Revised edition translated and published 1922–23.]
There after he made further progress. What we must bear in mind is
that it was necessary to step across a certain threshold even at that
time.
In Egypt the procedure
was not identical though similar. Then came the epoch which was to
prepare for the descent of the cosmic sun god upon the earth. The
spirit who previously had been external now had to enter into the
human soul, had to be found within it, even as formerly the Luciferic
divinities and Osiris were to be found there. The two paths clearly
shown in the contrasts between the Chaldeans and the Egyptians had to
make one another fruitful. Such an event was essential. How could it
take place? It could only occur after a ‘connecting link’
had been created. This proceeded from Ur of Chaldea, as the Bible
truly states. It takes up the revelation coming from without then it
passes on into Egypt, absorbs that which comes from within and unites
the two, so that for the first time in Jahve we have a being
heralding the Christ who unites the two paths. Jahve or Jehovah is a
divinity to be found on the inward path, but Jahve is not visible in
himself. He only becomes visible when illuminated from without.
Jehovah reflects the light of Christ. Here we can clearly see the two
paths we have been studying so intensely, running side by side and
each fructifying the other. And when this begins, quite a new process
becomes apparent in human evolution. The outward an the inward
fructify each other; the inward becomes the external and that which
formerly lived only inwardly and within time now spreads out into
space, so that the two paths continue side by side. Consider your own
soul life! It does not spread out in ‘space,’ it runs its
course in ‘time.’ Thoughts and feelings follow one
another (in ‘time’). That which is outside is spread out
in space, in simultaneous co-existence. Accordingly an event had to
happen which may be called the outflow into space and co-existence of
something which till then had only lived in time. And that event duly
took place; something which had hitherto lived only in time became
from that epoch onward a co-existing life in space. In this manner
occurred a change of profound importance and one to which expression
was given in an equally profound manner.
All
previous human spiritual evolution in leading out beyond the external
world of space led also into external time. Now everything that comes
under the laws of time is regulated by the measure and the nature of
the number seven. We learn to understand the evolution of the world
by basing it upon the number seven and counting, for example, the
seven stages of Saturn, Sun, Moon, Earth (or Mars-Mercury), Jupiter,
Venus and Vulcan. In everything which has to do with time we proceed
aright by making use of the number seven. In ‘time’ we
are everywhere led to the number seven. All the schools and lodges
whose teachings lead out of space into time have seven as a
fundamental number when they lead to the super-sensible. This number
seven is associated with the holy Rishis, and with the holy teachers
of other nations down to the seven wise men of Greece. But the
fundamental number of space is twelve, and in flowing into space,
time is revealed according to the number twelve. At the point where
time flows out into space the number twelve dominates. We have twelve
tribes in Israel, also twelve apostles at the moment when Christ, Who
had previously revealed Himself in time, poured out into space. What
is within time occurs in succession. Hence that which leads out of
space into time, to gods of the Luciferic realms, leads into the
number seven. If we would characterise anything in this realm
according to its essence, we find the being by going back to the
ancestry. In order to perceive that which develops itself in time we
pass from the later back to the earlier, as from child to father. On
going into the world of time, in which the number seven obtains, we
speak of children and of their origin, of the children of spiritual
beings, of the children of Lucifer; when we lead time out into space
we speak of beings existing simultaneously, in whose nature,
co-existence and also the flowing of souls, the impulses from one to
another in space demand our consideration.
Where
the number seven, through the fact that time pours out into space,
changes into twelve, the connotation of ‘children’ ceases
to have the same super-sensible meaning and the connotation of
‘brotherhood’ enters, for beings who live side by side
are brothers. The concept of sons of gods is changed in the course of
evolution into the concept of brothers living side by side.
Brothers
and sisters live side by side. Beings who descend from one another
live after one another. Here we see the transition, at a significant
epoch, from the sons or children of Lucifer's kingdom and of his
being to the brothers of Christ, a transition of which we shall speak
further.
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