LECTURE TWELVE
September 16, 1924
View the blackboard drawing from the German edition for this lecture
Of
course today we can remember that it is a favorable karmic
situation that we are together again on the day when the first
act of consecration of man could be performed here two years
ago. We have a rather strange order in the main points in the
development of the spiritual life here, as it were. The act of
consecration of man two years ago, the burning of the
Goetheanum, the laying of the foundation stone of the
Anthroposophical society a year later and now after the second
year we have gathered together here in order to look at the
Apocalypse in accordance with your needs.
As
I mentioned at the, beginning, a study of the Apocalypse is
very closely connected with what is contained in the act of
consecration of man; and therefore every day that we spend on
the Apocalypse is really a memorial festival for what we
permitted to live amongst us two years ago in order to bring
what wanted to reveal itself from the spiritual world into this
life as the present, modern cultic ritual.
With respect to the coincidence of events, it will perhaps be
appropriate today that we will have a point in the Apocalypse
before us which is very difficult to understand, but which
really leads into the whole heart of the Apocalypse and which
is connected most closely with the mystery of the act of
consecration of man, because it is objectively connected with
the being of Christ. It is really only possible to speak about
this point in connection with the Apocalypse. For the
Apocalypse bears the fundamental Christian character on its
forehead to such an extent that there is no doubt that we
cannot get anything out of what is connected with this
Apocalypse in a natural way which deviates from the Christian
viewpoint. And you may be assured that what I will have to say
about this point which we want to discuss today arises in a
very striking way from the views of the Apocalypticer.
We
look around us at the turning point of our era and we find
ourselves in the fifth post Atlantean period since the
beginning of the 15th century, and in this period we have the
beginning of a renewed battle which Michael will have to fight
in connection with everything which has to happen in the near
future, and we look back from there to the fourth post
Atlantean period which immediately preceded our present
one.
We
know that this fourth post Atlantean age began about the year
747 before the Mystery of Golgotha, that the Mystery of
Golgotha fell in this fourth post Atlantean age and that it can
be placed approximately in the center of this age, if we take
the slight displacements which always occur in world evolution
into account. Thus we can make a schematic sketch of what is
connected with our spiritual development as follows (drawing).
So that we can say, the 5th post Atlantean age is here, and it
was preceded by the fourth, third, second, first back to the
Atlantean catastrophe, which as we know essentially transformed
the shape of the earth's surface, and which gave a new face to
our earth, as it were.
Now
let's take a look at what this fourth Atlantean epoch is. It
was preceded by what I have often called the Lemurian epoch in
earth evolution, and then by what we can call the second and
the first epochs in earth evolution. These first three epochs
up to the Atlantean one are repetitions of the Saturn, Sun and
Moon periods of evolution, respectively, whereas the fourth,
Atlantean epoch is something new. The first three are
definitely repetitions; it's true that they are repetitions on
a higher level, but they are repetitions nevertheless.
The
fourth or Atlantean epoch is something new. What happened
during the Atlantean epoch occurred while the earth had forms
which were quite different from the later ones. The earth's
crust wasn't nearly as solid in the middle of the Atlantean
epoch as it is today. The long geological periods of time which
were presumably necessary for these events are illusions. The
earth solidified from a relatively fluidic condition during the
Atlantean epoch. The human race was quite different during the
Atlantean period. It didn't have the present solid skeleton yet
in the middle of the Atlantean epoch. As far as their material
makeup is concerned men were more or less similar to lower
animals. This doesn't apply to their form, for their forms were
magnificent, but the substances were soft and cartilaginous and
similar to those in jelly fish. Thus we can say that all
physical conditions on earth have changed since that time and
that the radical transformations which were still possible on
the physical plane in the middle of the Atlantean epoch no
longer occur.
It
was even possible for men to make rapid metamorphoses, since
the materials in their physical bodies were soft; so that
depending on their inner soul life they became larger or
smaller with various shapes; for every emotion immediately
became imprinted in the physical body. In the middle of the
Atlantean epoch, if someone wanted to grab something that was a
little distance away, his will worked into his gelatinous
organs so that they became quite long; so the way that shorter
and longer range physical events and processes occurred was
different then than it is today. There was an image of the real
spiritual events in all physical processes, transformations and
metamorphoses. This is not the case today. When we look outside
today we don't perceive the working of the spirit in the course
of the seasons or in other events anymore. When these rapid
transformations occurred in the ancient Atlantean period men
did not doubt that this world contained divine, spiritual
things. Although the Atlantean continent was still quite
mobile, it was beginning to get a fairly constant shape. It was
enclosed by a kind of woven, dense fluid, and yet one can't
call it semi-fluidic. It consisted of a viscous material which
could support soft bodies and soft, mobile plants which floated
or glided in this substance and were not yet attached to the
ground. So the physical conditions were quite different.
One
can say that sea and land were not as distinct then as they
were later, that is, one passed over into the other. The people
who saw the conditions at that time could say that the gods
were working harder in the bordering ocean, where what was
being transformed became more manifest than in the solid,
fluidic land. One saw the gods at work all around Atlantis; no
one doubted that these gods were at work; one perceived the
spiritual and psychical everywhere, even in a physical way. One
saw psychical and spiritual things in the physical world.
The
peculiar thing about the earlier, Greek part of the fourth post
Atlantean epoch was that one could clearly see the gods working
in everything which goes on in the air; this became more
indistinct in the centuries just before the fifth post
Atlantean period. In ancient Atlantis one saw the gods at work
in fluidic solids, and in the fourth post Atlantean age one saw
them at work in the aeriform fluids in cloud formations, in the
formation of twilight conditions, etc.
We
don't find any descriptions of these things that are like
definitions, for people's consciousness wasn't as clear yet,
but they were there, because I'd like to know how an
open-minded person can understand those wonderful paintings of
clouds up to the early Renaissance where something spiritual is
born out of the clouds in any other way than that one feels
that there is a divine, spiritual activity in the aery cloud
beings or in the aery, watery beings. You see, at that time men
were constituted in such a way that they didn't look at the
physical part of cloud formation, but they felt that something
was being revealed through the clouds. This is a very beautiful
feeling but it is very difficult to reconstruct for modern
consciousness. When someone from even as late as the 8th and
9th centuries looked at the morning sky and saw how the
twilight or the glimmering cloud formations at twilight stood
before his soul, he really felt that the aurora or red dawn was
alive; and he had the same feeling at dusk. The same applied to
other things.
So
that we can say that people saw the spirit in a physical way in
ancient Atlantis. After Atlantis came the post Atlantean epoch
with its seven ages. A repetition of the physical happenings in
Atlantis at a soul level really occurred in the fourth post
Atlantean age. The mighty upheavals of which I spoke: 333, 666,
which are soul shocks in the evolution of mankind, definitely
correspond to physical upheavals in the Atlantean epoch. And
the seers in the Græco-Roman period definitely felt that
when they saw something like soul revelations in fluidic,
aeriform things, there was something in their souls which was a
repetition of earlier earth conditions that occurred in the
physical world. Only a dim awareness of this was present, for
all consciousness was dimmer at that time.
As
I recently mentioned in Anthroposophical lectures, the teachers
at the school of Chartres and in other schools showed that the
soul experiences of this Græco-Latin age were a psychical
repetition of more condensed physical experiences and events in
the Atlantean epoch.
And
now we are in the consciousness age. The direct soul
experiences in aeriform fluids have disappeared. One could say
that the fifth post Atlantean age began through a kind of a
catastrophe, and that this was a preparation for the further
development of the consciousness soul of humanity. We're still
in the chaos of this development of the consciousness soul to
some extent with respect to our outer civilization. But the
dawn of the Michael age will bring perception into this
chaos.
This perception will consist of something like memories or
Fata-Morgana mental formations which will arise in men in an
entirely spiritual way — no longer in a physical way as
in the Atlantean epoch, or in a psychical way as in the
Græco-Roman age, but in a completely spiritual way —
and this will begin after the appearance of the etheric Christ.
Human thoughts will have a visionary character and will be like
inner mirages, but they will be completely conscious in the age
of the consciousness soul. Just as one sees a mirage in the
desert which is brought about by the warm air, so men's
thoughts will be carried by warmth and they will help men to
understand aeriform-fiery and aeriform-warm things.
We
can say that man perceives divine things in solids and fluids
during the Atlantean epoch (of course this is more in outer,
physical matter), that in the fourth post Atlantean or
Græco-Roman age man perceives spiritual things in
wonderful aeriform, fluidic formations, and that now in the
fifth post Atlantean age men's consciousness souls will become
aware of aeriform, fiery things and aeriform, warm things which
will appear more and more. This will permit something to arise
before men in mighty pictures which the Greeks experienced in a
soul way and the inhabitants of Atlantis experienced in a
physical way.
Thus a time is approaching in human evolution when visions
which have the clarity of thought will arise concerning past
times on earth and thereby concerning the origin of man and
everything which is connected with this. The appearance of the
Darwinistic view which gave man a lowly origin on the basis of
mere inferences precedes the inner perception of evolution, the
wonderful Imaginations which will arise from the inner warmth
which is connected with man's breathing process; they will
arise like concrete, significant, colored visionary thoughts.
Man will know what he was when he looks into a kind of a
reflection of the Græco-Roman age and then behind this
into what existed in Atlantis. This perception that is of
considerable interest for us because it will begin soon is
something where we look right into the Apocalypticer's heart,
because it is so close to us. For this kind of perception which
is almost upon us is what he indicates in a picture: a woman
clothed with the sun, a dragon under her feet, giving birth to
a baby boy.
And
in fact the eyes of many human beings will be opened by this
Imagination during the course of this century. Much
understanding will radiate from this picture, and it is one
which shines back into the Græco-Roman age where it was
prepared at the soul level and brought into the shape in which
it will appear in the near future, and where it took on a great
variety of forms. There was Isis with the Horus child, and
metamorphoses of this as the Christ-bearer with the Christ
child, that lived in a wonderfully profound way precisely in
the Græco-Roman age. They have been handed down through
traditions.
In
the near future men will look back at the way in which people
saw such things in the clouds, that is, in aeriform-fluidic
things during the fourth post Atlantean age. And they will also
look back even further to what lived in physical, Atlantean
events. It will be as if this picture of a sun-clad woman who
gives birth to a little boy and who has a dragon under her feet
was like the eyepiece of a spiritual telescope which points to
something physical lying far back in the past which occurred
between the earth and the planets and the sun sphere; earthly,
physical things were connected much more closely with cosmic
things at that time.
For
you see, we know that when the ancient Saturn period was
repeated, many of the events which were peculiar to ancient
Saturn evolution occurred again during earth evolution, albeit
in a condensed form. During the repetition of ancient Sun
evolution in the second period, the sun separated from the
earth with all the beings who belong to the sun, whereas it was
still connected with the earth during the repetition of Saturn
evolution. During the third, Lemurian period of earth evolution
the moon separated also, so that the next earthly-reality is a
•trinity of earth, sun and moon. You will find a
description of the way the planets were added to this in
Occult Science. You can also find all the events which I
described there which are connected with the return of human
souls during the Atlantean period. These are earthly events
which are seen from an earthly perspective.
Now
let's add something else to this. Someone who grasps the
world's secrets since the Mystery of Golgotha with initiation
science will look upon the Christ as the sun being who was
united with the sun before the Mystery of Golgotha. When the
priests in the mysteries wanted to connect themselves with the
Christ in pre-Christian times they looked up to the sun. Christ
has become an earth spirit since the Mystery of Golgotha. We
must look for Christ the sun spirit in earthly life and in
earthly activities. Those who wanted to see him and commune
with him before the Mystery of Golgotha had to raise themselves
up to the sun.
However, this sun spirit which we must look upon as a male
being when it came down to earth, is described in a brilliant
way in the Apocalypticer s vision, through a vision that stands
before us in an almost material form; similar events in earlier
ages can also be described in this way, and I have often done
so. It stands there as a splendid physical vision in the middle
of the Atlantean epoch. After this point in time the wise men
in the mysteries looked up to the sun, and they saw the Christ
developing and becoming mature in the sun until he could go
through the Mystery of Golgotha. However, when they looked back
to this point in Atlantean evolution they saw a birth taking
place outside in the cosmos in the sun.
For
the priests who saw the Christ as a male being in the sun after
his birth in the middle of the Atlantean period saw a female
being in the sun before that. This is the important change that
occurred in the middle of the Atlantean period. Before the
middle of the Atlantean epoch one saw a cosmic woman in the
sun's spiritual aura, the woman who was clothed with the sun.
This woman who was clothed with the sun corresponded to what
was happening in the heavens above the earth at that time, and
as the Apocalypticer rightly describes it, she gives birth to a
little boy, who is the same being that went through the
Mystery, although it went through other forms beforehand. A
kind of a birth which was really just a complicated
metamorphosis took place at that time in the Atlantean period.
One could see how the female sun gave birth to something that
was male — to her son. Now what does this mean for the
earth? Of course in the middle of the Atlantean period one felt
much differently about something like the sun existence than
one did later.
Today one looks upon the sun as if it were a collection of
craters and burning masses; the present-day descriptions of
this by physicists are really horrible. But at that time one
saw something like what I just described: a real sun-woman with
a dragon at her feet, giving birth to a little boy. The ones
who saw something like this and understood it said: For the
heavens this is the birth of Christ, and for us it is the birth
of our ego.
Even though this ego only entered man's inner nature much
later; since this point in the middle of Atlantis evolution
occurred in such a way that although men were not as conscious
of their ego in an elemental way as they are today, they became
ever more conscious of it because the mysteries drew their
attention to it. The sun enkindled the ego in man. And the
sun's action continually enkindled the ego from outside through
the birth which had happened along the lines of this
Imagination, until the fourth post Atlantean age, when the ego
entered into man. People felt this and they felt that man
really belongs to the sun; this was a feeling which made a deep
impression upon the human soul.
Now
that we have become such delicate souls with respect to our
inner experiences, we have no idea how stormy and wild soul
experiences, were in earlier times. The fact that man's ego was
given to him from the cosmos made him feel that his nature had
changed completely. Before that he had mainly been dependent
upon what was in his astral body. What was in his astrality
worked into his soul and spirit, so that during this ancient
time man had the idea: He's standing here (drawing), the sun is
up there, the ego is not there yet, but the astral works down
from the sun. Man has his astral body from the sun, the astral
body which is not controlled by the ego and which has somewhat
refined emotions but nevertheless animalized ones in it. The
man who had become an ego and who had previously had nothing
but an astral body bubbling through him had become an entirely
different human being. However, all of this came from the
sun.
Let's place the picture of the sun as it was at the beginning
of the Atlantean period before us in a somewhat schematic way.
It was permeated by a lively luster, which bubbled through the
lower half of the sun being. Something was born out of this
above, and one felt that there was an indistinct face here. Man
felt that the emotions that seethed in his own astral body and
everything that gave him his spiritual and soul nature
originated in the lower part of the sun being. In the next
stage men saw the sun like this (drawing). Things develop more
clearly here, the face becomes more distinct, the figure begins
to look something like a woman, who is to bring man control
through the ego. The space down here where the animal elements
are wriggling becomes ever smaller. Finally, the time comes
when the woman is present in the sun and gives birth to a
little boy and now has what was previously further up here
under her feet, where the ego-bearing woman in the picture on
the sun demonstrates how one controls the dragon — the
astral world of the previous epoch — which is now under
her feet. The battle of Michael and the dragon began in the sun
at that time, and in fact this brought it about — one saw
this as a physical phenomenon — that everything which was
in the sun slowly moved towards the earth and became an
ingredient of the earth. It became an earth content which
thereby controlled man in his sub-consciousness, whereas the
ego entered ever more into his consciousness.
These cosmic, meteorological things that took place during the
Atlantean epoch had their counter image in the Græco-Roman
age when Isis with the Horus child became the Virgin with her
Jesus boy. This will appear in a vision to those who look back
in the next age which is almost upon us.
Man
will see the sun-clad woman in this picture, who has the dragon
under her feet that was thrown down to the earth by Michael, so
that it cannot be found in the heavens anymore. This
Imagination will appear in the age which will be followed by the
one where the dragon is turned loose and where what I described
to you yesterday will begin. It's a fact that deepened and
extensive perception of past times on earth, man's origins and
of the Christ being will soon arise in this Michael age. For
Michael will concern himself with what the Apocalypticer points
to and which will begin again in the Michaelic age, he will
concern himself again with that draconic beast in human nature
and in human evolution which he threw down.
Let's imagine what happens here in a vivid way. One will look
back into the Atlantean epoch — the Apocalypticer does it
in advance: he has the vision of the sun-clad woman who gives
birth to the little Jesus boy and who has the dragon at her
feet —, but this becomes fainter and fainter the closer
we get to the end of Atlantean evolution. New continents rise
out of the ocean at the end of Atlantean evolution the
continents which now contain the forces through which the post
Atlantean epoch entered into its various aberrations. The beast
with the seven heads rises up from the sea. Sevenfold land
rises up from the sea and pulls men down through the spiritual
elements which evaporate from the earth into their
emotions.
The
Atlantean catastrophe appears to the Apocalypticer in the form
of this seven headed beast which rises from the sea, and it
will appear in the future when what the Apocalypticer is
pointing to will begin again in the Michaelic age. The
Apocalypticer is speaking of very real events which concern us
a great deal, in connection with the spiritual life of
humanity. And the content of this Imagination is connected with
the being of Christ.
An
age will soon come when men's souls will again see how the
spirit lives in earthly things and therefore the spiritual
processes in transubstantiation will also be visible to them.
Then the earthly reflection of what has happened in heavenly
regions will appear in transubstantiation so that what has
occurred since the middle of the Atlantean epoch is a small
section of everything which is connected with the being of
Christ. One will understand how the kind of metamorphosis which
takes place in transubstantiation is possible when one will see
that the transubstantiation in what is physical and chemical at
the moment — which is only a passing episode — is
connected with something that is quite different than things
which are apparently material.
Thus we can deepen our remembrance of the first act of
consecration of man two years ago, this remembrance of the
Christ who shone down from the heavens and really descended
from the heavens during the Atlantean epoch, who appeared in
the clouds in the Græco-Roman age and walked on earth, and
who was understood by men in their visions, who is now walking
on earth in an etheric form in our age, and is understood by
men through visions and Imaginations. The Christ is present in
transubstantiation and will be present for human beings more
and more. The ways in which the Christ will gradually live in
events during earth evolution are connected with the events
that I described today. Let's take this in as a kind of festive
idea today in memory of the first act of consecration of man
which was celebrated in the Goetheanum two years ago.
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