V
If we observe with
clairvoyant consciousness the present form of a human being, composed as
it is of physical body, etheric body, astral body, and ego, there emerges
most clearly the important fact that as regards size and shape — at
least in the upper portions — the physical and etheric bodies
are approximately equal. The head in particular, if we think of it as
it appears physically, coincides almost completely with its etheric
counterpart: the latter protrudes only slightly beyond the physical
head. This is by no means the case in animals. Even in the higher animals
there is a tremendous difference between the shape and size of the etheric
head and the physical head. If you observe, for example, a horse
clairvoyantly, you see that the etheric head extends far beyond the
physical head and has a decidedly different shape. If I were to draw a
picture of what hovers above the trunk and head of an elephant you would
be greatly astonished at the true being of that animal; for all that
physical perception sees of such an animal is merely the solidified part
in the center.
Let us examine this fact.
The degree of man's perfection on our physical plane is basically due
to the fact that his etheric body so nearly coincides with his physical
body, that they so nearly cover. But that was not always the case. There
have been periods in the evolution of our Earth, treated in
the foregoing lectures, in which man's etheric body by no means thus
coincided with his physical body, as it does today. In fact, man's progress
during the course of his development is due to the circumstance that
gradually his protruding etheric body crept into his physical body,
as it were, until in time the two came to coincide. Here it is essential
to keep in mind that this interpenetration of the etheric and physical
bodies had to take place at a very special moment in Earth
evolution if mankind was to achieve its development in the right way.
Had it occurred earlier, man would have reached a certain stage of development
too soon: he would have hardened there, and not been able to proceed.
But a possibility for him to develop resulted from the fact that his
etheric and physical bodies came to coincide at just the right time.
In order to understand
this, let us examine more closely evolution as we viewed it in its larger
outlines yesterday and the day before. Visualize once more how, at the
beginning of our Earth evolution, the earth was united with
the sun and the moon. At that time man had arisen again out of the potential
germ that comprised the physical, etheric, and astral bodies. He existed,
so to speak, in his first earth form, that is, the only form possible
for him at a time when the Earth still contained both sun and
moon. In spiritual-scientific literature this period of Earth
evolution which man passed through, together with his planet, is usually
called the Polarian period. It would lead too far afield today
to explain this name, so let us simply accept it. Then came the time
when the sun prepared to withdraw from the Earth, and when
the beings that could not continue, so to speak, with the denser and
constantly solidifying substances of the Earth departed with the finer
substances of the sun. This period we call the Hyperborean.
And then followed an epoch in which only the moon remained united with
the Earth, a time in which increasing barrenness spread over our Earth
life. Yesterday we learned how human souls abandoned this Earth and
only withered human forms remained. In spiritual-scientific literature
this period is called the Lemurian. It is the period in which
the splitting off of the moon occurred, resulting in a revival on earth
of all the kingdoms established there. The mineral kingdom stood least
in need of reanimation, the plant kingdom more, and still more, the
animal kingdom, while the further development of the human race called
for the most outstanding and powerful forces.
This revival commenced
with the moon's exit. As mentioned yesterday, only a handful of human
beings were left, and these consisted of the three principles acquired
during the Saturn, Sun and Moon evolutions,
to which the potential ego was added on the Earth. But at the
time of the moon's exit the human being did not bear the flesh substance
in which we encounter him later: he was composed of the most tenuous
matter of that time. In the Lemurian period the solid minerals of today
were still liquid, dissolved in the other substances that nowadays are
segregated as aqueous matter, like water. The air was still saturated
with dense vapors composed of a great variety of substances. Pure air
and pure water, as we know them today, did not exist at that time except
in very limited areas of the earth.
It was out of the purest
substances of the period, then, that man molded his evanescent, tenuous
body. Had he employed coarser substances his body would have acquired
a form with definite outline, with sharply defined contours; and these
contours would have been inherited by the descendants, and the human
race would there have come to a standstill. But it was not intended
that man should create his form in matter of that sort: rather had he
to see to it that he could freely move his corporeal substance according
to the impulses of his soul. The matter forming his body was at that
time so soft that it obeyed the impulses of will in all directions.
Nowadays you can stretch out your hand, but by no effort of the will
can you make it ten feet long. You cannot coerce matter because form,
as it is today, is bequeathed. At the time of which we are speaking
that was not the case. The human being could be shaped at will, could
build the form according to the dictates of his soul. His further development
demanded, so to speak, that he incorporate himself, after the withdrawal
of the moon, in the softest possible substances, leaving his body plastic
and flexible, capable of obeying the soul's every wish.
Then came the time when
certain elements, indispensable for our present-day life — air
and water — were purged of all they contained in the way of dense
matter: what had formerly been dissolved in the water was now precipitated.
Just as dissolved substances precipitate in cooling water, so the dissolved
matter sank, as it were. The water became pure water and the air was
rid of denser matter: air and water were reconditioned, and man was
able to use this rarefied matter for his physical development.
From this third age human
beings gradually passed over into an evolutionary epoch we call the
Atlantean, because during that time the greater part of the
human race inhabited a continent, now submerged, situated in the area
now occupied by the Atlantic Ocean — between America, and Europe-Africa.
So after the Lemurian age had continued yet a while, the human race
carried on its evolution on the Atlantean Continent; and that was the
scene of all that I shall now describe, as well as of much that was
mentioned yesterday.
At the time the moon
withdrew from the earth only a small number of the human souls that were
to incarnate later were on the earth: most of them were distributed over
the various cosmic bodies; but during the last part of the Lemurian and
the first part of the Atlantean age these souls descended to the earth.
Only few human beings, as I told you, had been able to experience the
crisis of the Lemurian epoch, for only the most robust — those
capable of living in the ever hardening substance prior to the moon's exit
— had survived the moon crisis of the earth. But when everything
that had solidified during the moon crisis began to soften again, when
descendants appeared who were no longer compressed within fixed outlines
through hereditary exigency, but were mobile, then the souls gradually
descended from the various planets and moved into these bodies. Those
forms, however, that incorporated very soon after the withdrawal of the
moon retained their rigid form through heredity, and could not receive
human souls even after the separation.
We can visualize the process
accurately by imagining the craving of these souls to return to earth.
Down there, forms came into being in the greatest variety, descendants
of those that had been left over after the separation; and among these,
many different degrees of solidification obtained. Those human souls
— in fact, all soul beings — that in a certain respect felt
as yet the least urge to unite completely with a physical substance
now selected the softest forms for occupation, and soon abandoned them
again. But the others, those that united at this early stage with the
hardened forms, were imprisoned in them and consequently were compelled
to remain behind in evolution. In fact, the animals ranking closest
to man came into being as a consequence of this impatience on the part
of certain souls descending from cosmic space. These souls sought earth
bodies prematurely and made definitely bounded forms of them before
they could be wholly permeated by etheric bodies. The human form remained
plastic until such time as it could adapt itself completely to the etheric
body; and it was thus that the physical and etheric bodies came to cover,
as explained, approximately during the last third of the Atlantean age.
Previously, the human soul principle that descended kept the earthly
body in a fluid state and guarded against a complete amalgamation of
the etheric body with any part of the physical body. This interpenetration
of the etheric and physical bodies came about at a definite point in
time. The Atlantean epoch was already under way when the physical human
body assumed a definite form and began to harden.
Had nothing else occurred
at this point in the Atlantean development, had no other factor intervened,
evolution would have taken a different course: man would have passed
rather rapidly from an earlier to a later state of consciousness. Before
he became a complete unit as regards the principles of body and soul
he was a clairvoyant being, but his clairvoyance was dim and dull. He
was able to see into the spiritual world but he could not address himself
as “I”, could not distinguish himself from his surroundings.
What he lacked was self-consciousness, for this only entered during
the period of evolution in which the physical body united with the etheric
body.
Well, if nothing else
had intervened, the following is what would have occurred in a comparatively
short time: Hitherto man had had a consciousness of the spiritual world.
Plants, animals, and so on, he could not see distinctly, but what he
did see was spirit enveloping them. He would not have seen the form
of an elephant, for instance, very clearly, but he would have seen the
etheric principle extended over its physical body. This form of human
consciousness would have gradually disappeared, the ego would have evolved
along with the coincidence of the physical and etheric bodies, and man
would have seen the world confronting him as though from another side.
While previously he had beheld clairvoyant pictures he would thenceforth
have perceived an outer world; but at the same time he would have perceived
as well the spiritual beings and spiritual forces underlying this outer
world. He would not have seen the physical image of the plant as we
see it today: he would have perceived the spiritual being of the plant
coincident with the physical image.
We may ask why, in the
course of evolution, the dim, clairvoyant form of consciousness was
not simply superseded by a consciousness of objects which at the same
time would have provided perception and knowledge of spirit. That is
because precisely during the moon crisis, when man was reviving, he
began to be influenced by beings that must be characterized as retarded,
although they are on a higher plane than man. We have already acquainted
ourselves with a. number of such higher beings and we know that some
of them ascended to the sun, others to various planets. But there were
also spiritual beings that had failed to complete the tasks they were
obligated to perform on the moon. These beings, ranking lower than the
Gods and higher than man, we designate Luciferic beings after their
leader, Lucifer, the highest and most powerful among them.
At the time of the moon crisis man had evolved to the point of possessing
a physical body, etheric body, astral body, and ego. For his ego, he
was indebted to the influence of the Spirits of Form; for his astral
body, to the Spirits of Motion; for his etheric body, to the Spirits
of Wisdom; and for his physical body, to the Thrones. The Spirits of
Form — Exusiai, or Mights, in Christian esotericism — were
those who made it possible for the germinal ego to join the other principles.
Now, if man had been involved only in the normal stream of development,
and if all the beings surrounding him had properly absolved their tasks,
certain beings would have worked on his physical body, others on his
etheric body, others on his astral body, and still others on his ego
— as they should have done, to put it that way — each being
working on the principle assigned to him. But here were those beings
that had lagged behind on the Moon, the Luciferic beings. If they had
been able to carry on their work in the right way they would have been
appointed to work on the ego; but on the Moon they had only learned
to work on the astral body, and that entailed a significant consequence.
Had it not been for these Luciferic spirits man would have received
his ego principle; and his further development would have taken a course,
in the last third of the Atlantean age, involving the exchange of his
dim, clairvoyant consciousness for the consciousness of outer objects.
As it was, however, the effects of the Luciferic spirits penetrated
his astral body like powerful rays.
And the nature of these
effects? Well, the astral body is the vehicle of impulses, desires,
passions, instincts, and so forth; and in the constitution of his astral
body man would have developed quite differently had he not been affected
by the Luciferic spirits. He would have developed only such impulses
as would have guided him surely and advanced him unfailingly. The spirits
would have led him to see the world as consisting of objects behind
which the spiritual beings revealed themselves. But what would have
been lacking is freedom, enthusiasm, the sense of independence —
a passion for these loftier considerations. Man would have lost his
former clairvoyant consciousness and would have regarded the glories
of the world as a sort of God, for he would have become a component
part of divinity. Furthermore, such a view of the world would have induced
a perfect reflection of itself in his mind, but in all his perfection
he would have remained a reflection of the universe.
But before this could
occur the Luciferic spirits filled his astral body with passions, instincts,
desires which merged with all that became part of him in the course
of his evolution. This meant that he was able not only to perceive the
stars, but at the same time to warm to a rapturous enthusiasm in beholding
them; not merely to follow the divinely inspired instincts of his astral
body, but to unfold impulses of his own through freedom. That is what
the Luciferic spirits had infused into man's astral body; but it implied
another factor, something else that they had given him as well: the
potentiality of evil, of sin. This would not have existed had he been
led forward step by step by the more sublime Gods. The Luciferic spirits
made man free and endowed him with the capacity for enthusiasm; but
at the same time they created the eventuality of base desires. Given
a normal course of development, man would in every case have associated
the normal sensations with whatever cropped up, so to speak. As it was,
however, he derived greater pleasure from things of the sense world
than he should, he clung to these with undue interest. And the result
was that the process of physical solidification set in at an earlier
stage than it would have done otherwise.
So man attained to a solid
form sooner than the divine-spiritual beings had intended, so to speak.
It was in the last third of the Atlantean age that he really should
have descended from a gaseous to a solid form; as it was, however, he
descended prematurely and became a solid being. That is what the Bible
describes as the “fall of man”.
But during the period
just considered there were also lofty spiritual beings at work on the
ego with which they had endowed man. In the same measure as these human
beings descend again and unite with human bodies, the spiritual beings
infuse the forces that advance man on his cosmic path: they hold a protecting
hand over him. But on the other hand we have the activity of those beings
who failed to learn to work on the ego, who now work on the human astral
body, and there develop quite special instincts.
Observing the physical
life of man in this period we see an image of these two mutually antagonistic
powers: the divine-spiritual powers at work upon the ego, and the Luciferic
beings. Let us now trace the spiritual factor of this process. During
the time of desolation on earth the human souls ascended to the various
cosmic bodies belonging to our solar system. Now they returned in as
far as they were able to find bodies in the line of physical heredity.
Remembering that the earth was most sparsely populated precisely at
the time of the moon's withdrawal, you can imagine that the expansion
of the human race started from a mere handful of people. Gradually the
number increased, more and more souls descended and occupied the bodies
coming into being on earth. Throughout a long period there were descendants
only of the few who were present at the time of the moon's exit, and
upon these the lofty sun forces themselves acted: these human beings
had retained sufficient vigor to present to the sun forces a point of
contact, even during the moon crisis. They and their descendants felt
themselves to be sun men, so to say.
Let us understand this
clearly. For simplicity's sake, imagine that during the moon crisis
there existed all told but one human couple. (I do not wish to decide
whether this was actually the case.) This couple has descendants, these
in turn have descendants, and so on; and thus the human race branched
out. Now, as long as there existed only the progeny, in the narrower
sense, of the old sun men, all these enjoyed a quite special form of
consciousness by reason of their ancient clairvoyance. At that time
human memory included not only experiences that had occurred since birth,
or as is the case today, since a certain point of time after birth,
but everything that the father, grandfather, and even early progenitors,
had experienced. Memory reached back to the ancestors, to all with whom
a man was related by blood. That was because in a certain sense the
sun forces held a protecting hand over those of blood relationship,
those who traced their descent to the human beings who had survived
the moon crisis. The sun forces had engendered the ego consciousness
and maintained it throughout the line of blood generation.
Now the human race multiplied
and the souls that had ascended into cosmic space returned to earth.
Those souls, however, in whom the sun forces were strong enough still
felt these forces, although they had descended and become related to
spheres quite different from those of the sun. But then came the time
when these souls, as later descendants, lost that connection, and with
it the common ancestral memory. The more the human race multiplied,
the dimmer became this living consciousness that was connected with
blood heredity. This was because the powers that led men forward and
implanted the ego in them were opposed by the Luciferic powers that
influenced the astral body. The Luciferic powers obstructed everything
that cemented men into a unit. What they wanted to teach them was freedom,
self-consciousness.
So the oldest survivors
of the moon's withdrawal thought of the word “I” as referring
not only to what they experienced themselves, but to what their ancestors
had experienced. They felt the common sun being that worked in their
blood. And even after this state, too, had passed, those who had come
down, for instance, from Mars felt the bond that united them with the
protecting Spirit of Mars. Having been recruited from Mars souls, the
descendants of those who had come down from Mars felt the protecting
hand of the Mars Spirit.
It was against this group
feeling, in which love held sway, that the Luciferic spirits attempted
their attack. They learned how to cultivate the individual human ego,
as opposed to the common ego developed by such groups. The farther back
we seek, the more firmly we find the community consciousness bound up
with consanguinity, and passing on in time we see it decreasing: man's
feeling of independence becomes ever stronger, and he senses the necessity
for developing an individual ego, as opposed to the common ego.
Thus two realms were at
work in the human being, the realm of the Luciferic spirits and that
of the divine-spiritual beings. The divine-spiritual powers brought
men together, but did so by means of blood ties, while the Luciferic
beings sought to separate them, to segregate them individually. These
two forces were active throughout the Atlantean age, and they remained
so even after the Atlantean Continent perished through the great catastrophies,
and Europe, Asia, and Africa on one side, and America on the other,
had assumed their present form. They are still active in the fifth earth
epoch, right into our own time.
Thus we have described
five earth epochs: the Polarian, in which the earth was still united
with the sun, the Hyperborean, in which the moon was still united with
the earth, and the Lemurian; then the Atlantean; and finally, the post-Atlantean,
our own age. We learned how the Luciferic spirits intervened and worked
against the divine-spiritual powers that drew men together, and we have
come to understand that something very different would have occurred
had the Luciferic spirits not taken a hand in human evolution. In the
last third of the Atlantean epoch the old form of clairvoyant consciousness
would have been exchanged for a consciousness of objects — but
an object consciousness permeated by spirit. As it was, however, the
Luciferic spirits brought about a premature hardening of the physical
body, enabling man to get his bearing in the physical world at an earlier
stage than would otherwise have been the case; and the result of all
this was that man entered upon the last third of the Atlantean age in
a totally different state than he would have done if the divine-spiritual
beings alone had guided him. Instead of an outer world aglow and spiritualized
by higher beings, he now beheld a physical world only, for the divine
world had withdrawn from him.
The Luciferic spirits
had taken a hand in the shaping of man's astral body; and now, because
he had united with the physical world, Zarathustra's “Ahrimanic
spirits”— we can also call them “Mephistophelian”
spirits — interfered with his outer perception, with the relation
of his ego to the outer world, with his ability to distinguish his ego
from the outer world. The constitution of his physical, etheric, and
astral bodies is not as it would have been had only the superior Gods
worked on them. Beings we term Luciferic gained access to his astral
body and expelled him from Paradise sooner than was intended; and the
consequence of this Luciferic activity was the interference of the Ahrimanic,
or Mephistophelian, spirits in his perception of the outer world, which
they now showed him in its physical form only, not as it is in reality.
That is why these spirits that dupe mankind with what is spurious are
called by the Hebrew People mephiz-topel: mephiz, the corrupter,
and topel, the liar. This eventually became Mephistopheles;
and it is merely another name for Ahriman.
Now, what did Ahriman
effect in man, as opposed to Lucifer? Lucifer brought about a deterioration
of the forces of the astral body greater than it should have been, as
well as the premature induration of man's physical substance though
it must be kept in mind that thereby the attainment of freedom was made
possible. The Mephistophelian spirits, on the other hand, prevented
man from discerning the spiritual basis of the world, tricking him instead
with a mere illusion of it. Mephistopheles induced in men the belief
that the outer world is nothing but a material existence, that there
is no such thing as spirit underlying and permeating all material substance.
The scene so beautifully portrayed in Goethe's Faust has been enacted
by mankind throughout the ages. On the one hand we see Faust seeking
the path into the spiritual world; on the other, Mephistopheles, who
calls that spiritual world “nothingness”, because it is
to his interest to represent the sense world as being all that exists.
Faust replies, as would every spiritual scientist in this case, “In
what is nothingness to thee I hope to find my all”. — Only
when we know that in every tiniest particle of matter there is spirit
and that the idea of matter is a lie; only when we recognize Mephistopheles
as that spirit in the world who vitiates our conceptions — only
then can the outer world appear to us as it really is.
What was needed to carry
mankind onward, to prevent its succumbing to the fate prepared for it
by Lucifer, by Ahriman? As early as in the Atlantean age the influence
of the Luciferic beings had to be checked. Even then there were men
who worked on themselves in such a way as to counteract the Luciferic
influence in their astral bodies, who were on the alert for what emanated
from Lucifer, who examined their own souls for Luciferic passions, instincts,
and desires. And as a result of eradicating these Luciferic qualities
they recaptured the capacity for seeing in its pure form what all men
would have seen had they not been exposed to the influence of the Luciferic,
and later of the Ahrimanic, spirits. By means of pure living and conscientious
self-knowledge certain human beings of the Atlantean epoch sought to
rid themselves of this Luciferic influence; and this enabled them, at
a time when remnants of the old clairvoyance still survived, to see
into the spiritual world and discern loftier things than could the others,
whose physical substance had hardened as a result of the Luciferic influence.
Such men — those that cast out the Luciferic influence by means
of strong-minded self-knowledge — became the leaders of the Atlantean
age. We can call them the Atlantean Initiates.
Now what, exactly, was
the nature of Lucifer's activity? In the main, Lucifer directed his
attack against everything that united human beings, against blood ties
that expressed themselves in love. But the leaders just mentioned knew
how to resist Lucifer's influence, and by doing so they acquired the
ability to envision this connection spiritually: they came to realize
that the factor conditioning man's progress lies not in separation,
in segregation, but in that which unites men. Hence these initiates
endeavored to restore, as it were, the ancient state of affairs in which
the upper spiritual world was not yet threatened by Lucifer's power.
They aimed at eradicating the personal element: Kill that which endows
you with a personal ego! Gaze back to olden times when the ties of blood
spoke so eloquently that a descendant experiened his ego as reaching
back to his earliest forebear; when the first ancestor, long since dead,
was still held sacred! — The age of the primeval human community
— that is the age into which the Atlantean leaders endeavored
to lead men back. Throughout this whole period of evolution there appeared
such leaders of mankind again and again, proclaiming, Endeavor to resist
the influences that would drive you to a personal ego; try to learn
what it was that bound men together in olden times! Then you will find
the way to the divine spirit.
This attitude had retained
its purest form among those we know as the ancient Hebrew People. Just
recall and try to understand the exhortations of the leaders of this
old Hebrew nation. They stood before their people and proclaimed: You
have reached a state in which each of you stresses the personal ego
in him — each of you seeks his being within himself alone. But
development will be furthered only by subduing the personal ego and
exerting all those forces that guide you to the consciousness of being
all connected, of having descended one and all from Abraham, of being
members of a great organism reaching back to Abraham. If you are told,
“I and Father Abraham are one”, and you take these words
to heart, ignoring all that is personal, then you have the right consciousness
that will lead you to the divine; for the path to the divine leads by
way of the original ancestor. — The vital impulse determining
the leadership of those who contended against the Luciferic influence
was preserved longest by the Hebrew People. But man had been entrusted
with the mission to develop and cultivate the ego, not to destroy it.
The old initiates had no quarrel with the personal ego, but they maintained
that the ascent to the old Gods should be made by way of the early forebears.
With the coming to earth
of the great impulse, as we characterized it yesterday — the Christ
impulse — a new utterance resounded for the first time clearly
and distinctly; and it was among the Hebrew People that it could be
heard with special clarity and distinctness, because this was the people
that had longest preserved what we may consider an echo of the old Atlantean
initiate teaching.
Christ transmuted that
teaching of the old initiates, and said: It is possible for man to cultivate
his own personality. He need not obey the physical bonds of blood brotherhood
alone: he can look into his own ego and there seek, and find, the divine.
— What we have characterized as the Christ impulse bears within
it the force which, if we unite with it, offers us the possibility of
establishing a spiritual bond of brotherhood among human beings, in
spite of the individuality of the ego. Thus the Christ force was very
different from the one prevailing in the community into which He was
placed. There the idea was, I and Father Abraham are one. That is what
I must know if I am to find the way back to the divine. — But
Christ said: There is another Father through Whom the ego will find
the way to the divine; for the ego, or the I am, is one with the divine.
There is something eternal thou canst find if thou remainest within
thyself.
That is why Christ could
characterize the force He would transmit to men with the words we find
in the Gospel of St. John, Before Abraham was, was the I am.
And the “I am” was nothing other than the name which Christ
called Himself. If men can enkindle the thought within them: Within
me there dwells something that existed long before Abraham; I have no
need to go back to Abraham, for I find the divine Father Spirit within
me — then they can turn into good all that Lucifer contributed
to the cultivation and fostering of the ego, which had proved an obstacle
in the path of humanity. The transformation of Lucifer's influence into
good: that was the deed of Christ.
Supposing that only the
high divine-spiritual beings had been at work, those who had restricted
love to blood ties, who kept demanding of men that they go back through
the whole line of descent if they would find the way to the Gods. Had
that occurred, mankind would have been herded together into one human
community without enjoying full consciousness; and never would men have
risen to a complete awareness of their freedom and independence. But
that is what the Luciferic spirits inoculated in man's astral body before
the advent of Christ. They segregated men, tried to make them independent
of each other. But Christ turned to good the evil that would inevitably
have resulted had the Luciferic influence become extreme. If the latter
had run its full course mankind would have lost its capacity for love.
Lucifer endowed man with freedom and independence; Christ transmuted
this freedom into love. And the bond Christ brought mankind is what
will lead men to spiritual love.
This point of view throws
a different light on the deeds of the Luciferic spirits. Are we still
justified in thinking of their once having lagged behind as due to indolence
and laziness? No indeed, for it was done in order to fulfill a definite
mission in Earth evolution: to prevent men from becoming fused
into a mere mass through purely natural ties, as well as to prepare
the way to Christ. It is as though they had said to themselves on the
Moon: We will renounce our present goal in order to be able
to work on the Earth in conformity with progressive development.
This is one of the examples that show how an ostensible evil, a seeming
error, can turn out for the best in the whole context of world events.
To enable the Christ to intervene in Earth evolution at the
right moment, certain Moon spirits had to sacrifice their Moon
mission and prepare for Him. This shows us that Lucifer's retardation
on the Moon can also be regarded in the light of a sacrifice.
In this way we come ever
closer to a truth which should be engraved in the human soul as a lofty
moral maxim: When you see something evil in the world, do not say, Here
is evil — that is, imperfection; ask, rather, How can I attain
to the enlightenment which will show me that on a higher plane this
evil is transformed into good by the wisdom of the cosmos? How can I
learn to tell myself: Here you see naught but imperfection because you
are as yet unable to grasp the perfection of this imperfect thing?
Whenever man sees evil
he should look into his own soul and ask himself, Why am I not yet able
to recognize the good in this evil that confronts me?
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