Reading the Pictures of the Apocalypse

LECTURE TEN

KRISTIANIA — May 19, 1909

WE HAVE SEEN HOW THE WRITER of the Apocalypse indicates that in the fifth age, after the war of all against all, people will appear in white garments, that the sixth age is characterized by the earth's enduring great tremors and earthquakes as the result of materialism, and that spiritual human beings will be the sealed ones.

We must point out that just as the angels or angeloi underwent their human stage in earlier planetary incarnations, humanity must also ascend through its development. What confronts us today as nature is the achievement of the gods. In the future, the human being will also accomplish divine spiritual deeds. We are speaking of the time when the human being will already have begun to work with magic from the periphery of the earth out of the realm of the invisible. However, in contrast to the sealed human beings there will also be those who have chained themselves to matter. These materialistic people will have been pushed down. This is why the writer of the Apocalypse sees the spiritualized people hovering above with the others bound to matter below. He sees this very clearly the moment the seventh seal is broken to reveal a vision of the future.

Then comes the next epoch of seven ages. Here the writer of the Apocalypse sees devachan and hears it prophetically proclaimed in the blowing of trumpets. Human beings will look down upon the earth itself as it becomes increasingly material; only the coarsest humankind will have consciously reacquired clairvoyance. In the age of the trumpets the Lemurian age will resurrect; human beings will be close to God, they will have completely spiritualized themselves. In the Lemurian age the earth still existed entirely within the element of fire. Human beings lived in fire before descending into a dense bodily nature — this will be repeated in a spiritual state. When the seventh trumpet sounds forth a kind of blessed state will come upon humanity. Then we come to a repetition of the time when the sun was separated from the earth. The human being, together with the earth, will have advanced to the time when the sun again unites with the earth. The earth will pass over into what is called an astral state. Human beings able to live in the astral world will raise up the finer part of the earth and then be united with the sun. The portion of the earth that has remained coarse will be united with the moon to form a new kind of moon. The kind of conditions prevailing during the Hyperborean age will enter in again, but at a higher stage of evolution. This is characterized by the woman clothed with the sun and having the moon at her feet. The beasts that rise up out of the sea or fall from heaven also belong to this whole stream of evolution that is pictured, as if captured in a moment of time. (given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent.
\ 12:15 And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood.
\ 12:16 And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth.
\ 12:17 And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.
\ 13:1 And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.
\ 13:2 And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.
\ 13:3 And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.
\ 13:4 And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?
\ 13:5 And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months.
\ 13:6 And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven.
\ 13:7 And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.
\ 13:8 And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
\ 13:9 If any man have an ear, let him hear.
\ 13:10 He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity: he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints.
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Zarathustra also referred to the Christ being, who has been working in the central regions of the earth from the event of Golgotha onward. After working on the earth from the sun in earlier times, he has united with the planet earth. It is the power of Christ that has descended from the sun and retrieved the useful part of earthly humanity, uniting it with the sun again. But he has an adversary — every such being has an adversary. Christ is the good spirit, the intelligence of the sun; the adversary is the demon of the sun. Certain forces that are constantly working on the human astral body come forth from the demon of the sun. This demon of the sun is the opponent of the Christ spirit and is called Sorat. Earlier, in cabalistic sections of occultism, the custom of writing letters with numbers prevailed. The letters of the name Sorat, the demon of the sun, have the value 666. In the picture found at Rev. 13:11 – 18 the sun demon becomes visible.

It has two horns like a lamb. The writer of the Apocalypse describes the sign of the beast. Already at the beginning of the Apocalypse he clearly stated he was describing everything in signs and then adds: Wisdom is necessary in order to solve this riddle. In this way, the number of the beast has been explained in occult schools by real experts who do not explain it materialistically. We hear how the worst and coarsest elements are thrown out and how the noblest, spiritualized portion of humanity remains united with the sun. The newly spiritualized human body can then again be a temple for the soul.