LECTURE TWO
KRISTIANIA —
May 10, 1909
NOW THAT WE HAVE SEEN WHAT
Theosophy has to say concerning the historical evolution of humanity,
we will consider what the Apocalypse can tell us about it.
To understand this we
must go beyond our culture back to the Greco-Latin cultural epoch, the
fourth in our great post-Atlantean epoch. In spiritual science we calculate
it to have begun in the eighth or ninth century of the pre-Christian
age. Further back in the past we arrive at the Egypto-Chaldean cultural
epoch, then the most ancient Persian age, concerning which the historical
research of our day knows only the last faint echoes. Then we go further
back to the primal holy age of the ancient Indian culture. In this way
we finally arrive back at the time of the great Atlantean culture which
is reported to us by all ancient religious writings. Before the great
Atlantean water catastrophe, between Europe and America there existed
the ancient Atlantean continent. That is where the precursors of humanity
lived, those whom we call the Atlanteans.
We want to consider now
the spiritual life of the Atlanteans; for, of course, the same souls
who are present today lived there, but they were equipped with other
soul abilities or states of consciousness that are of interest now to
the spiritual researcher.
During the fullest
blossoming of the Atlantean culture, we find the modern human being's
capacity for perception present only in its first rudiments. The ancient
Atlanteans did not see external objects as we do today, with sharply
defined contours; they saw them rather surrounded by an aura. When they
fell asleep at night, the external picture disappeared for them but they
were conscious in the spiritual world. They had a dim form of clairvoyance.
But they did not have any of what we today call counting and computation,
the power of judgment or logical thinking. They had none of the mental
abilities that our present-day culture has created; for example, they did
not know about the power hidden in coal. Instead, they had magical
abilities with which they could awaken the powers hidden in plant seeds
and then put these powers in their service. In this way they possessed
clairvoyant and magical powers. Those people in Atlantis best able to
make use of their magical powers were the best technicians and engineers.
What our present-day scholars and natural scientists represent, we can
compare to the people most highly gifted with powers of clairvoyance in
Atlantean times.
There were great mystery
centers at that time. Our present-day mystery and occult schools work
much more secretly than theirs did. The mystery centers of Atlantean
times were generally known as both school and church. Piety and wisdom
were cultivated at the same time. The leaders of that time can be called
the great teachers of the mysteries. They taught in these Atlantean
oracles of which there were seven. Students who had become sufficiently
mature were initiated into the mastery of magical powers and into a
conscious vision of the spiritual world. Unlike our culture, which is
limited to the three lower kingdoms, Atlantean wisdom stretched over
the physical earth and beyond to spiritual realities. Present-day science
limits itself to the three kingdoms that do not go beyond the earth.
However, through clairvoyant development, the Atlantean initiate also
achieved a vision and experience of higher spiritual beings that work
beyond the earth, even up to the region of the stars.
During those times there
were mystery centers that were especially concerned with the various
planets in our solar system and the spiritual powers standing behind
them. For this reason there were Mars, Venus, Sun, Jupiter, Mercury,
Saturn, and Moon oracles. However, the greatest and loftiest was the
ancient sun oracle. The initiates of this sun oracle could survey all
the other oracles and watch over them. The great sun initiate of the
sun oracle stood at the top; he saw prophetically the water catastrophe
of Atlantis. Therefore, he had the task of seeing to it that the culture
was guided through and beyond the catastrophe.
Now those human beings
who had possessed the best talent for clairvoyance were of no use at
all for the post-Atlantean cultures. These new cultures required the
selection of people who had nothing left of the ancient magic. Like
a sunrise over the great post-Atlantean culture, they developed the
individual spiritual capacities of thinking and judgment in their first
primitive forms. The simplest people were precisely those best suited
for the future.
They were led by the great
sun initiate to a colony near present-day Ireland; later they were led
to the middle of Asia. Those were the people whose consciousness was
already then closest to our present-day consciousness. Furthermore,
for the sake of this advanced population copies of etheric bodies of
the greatest initiates of the Atlantean oracle were incorporated into
those individuals who came from the various oracles with the best aptitude
for present-day culture. This was necessary for the future.
It is a law of spiritual
economy that what has once been achieved for humankind is not lost.
If we were to survey the various oracles we would find everywhere what
is achieved through occult training; the etheric body is transformed
and organized through and through by the I. The etheric body of ordinary
people who have not undergone this transformation dissolves at death into
the world ether. However, with the highest initiate something different
happens. An etheric body transformed in this way is preserved for the
blessing and healing of humankind. The great sun initiate preserved
the etheric bodies of the seven great Atlantean initiates as spiritual
treasure and took them along to Asia. These were then imprinted into
seven of the very best individuals so that they grew up endowed with
the etheric bodies of the greatest initiates of ancient Atlantis. Through
many generations the great sun initiate exercised his educational skills
on the health and spiritual discipline of the people so that he developed,
so to speak, the very best human material.
These seven individuals
were in external life simple people; they had their I and their astral
body for themselves, but in certain states of consciousness their speaking
was inspired by higher powers. They were then sent by the great sun
initiate down to ancient India, to those still longing to return to
the true primal home of humanity and who characterized everything external
as maya or illusion. That was the chorus of the seven holy Rishis. What
this chorus harmonized together as a spiritual symphony was the primal
wisdom of the pre-Vedantic age. We are looking into an age much more
ancient than the Vedas. What is written in the Vedas is nothing more
than an echo; it reaches us only in broken rays through the wisdom of
the holy Rishis.
Now we come to the ancient
Persian culture. In place of the seven Indian teachers came the first
Zarathustra. He was himself an initiated student of the great sun initiate,
who stood behind the Rishis. Because of this he could proclaim the great
teaching concerning the spiritual being of the sun, concerning Ahura
Mazdao. We see here how the great teachers of humanity guided the evolution
of human development in wisdom.
From the beginning the
ancient Indians were protected from falling into materialism. Their longing
for clairvoyance, for the spiritual, for the feeling of connectedness
with God was still too great. The Persians, on the other hand, were
farmers and fighters. Therefore, in order not to fall into materialism,
they had to receive the teaching concerning the great Ahura Mazdao,
the spirit of the sun, the highest being. Zarathustra initiated one
of his students in such a way that he brought the student's astral body
to a higher stage of development. With another student he developed
the etheric body to the highest stage of clairvoyant consciousness so
that the student became able to read the Akashic chronicle by means
of this etheric body which is, of course, always the vehicle for our
memory.
Now, the first of these
two students was reborn as Hermes, the great impulse giver for the Egyptian
culture; his astral body was especially well developed. When he was
reborn as the Egyptian Hermes, he bore within himself the astral body
of the great Zarathustra and was therefore able to work with the intentions
of Zarathustra.
The other student also
became one of the most important personalities of post-Atlantean culture
when he was born again as Moses. That is why Moses already as a child
had to be brought to the point where his etheric body and I could be
wholly influenced by Zarathustra's etheric body. For this reason
he had to be placed in a basket deep in the water at a tender age;
[See Note 1]
this is a symbol for his calling. And so he became the great Akashic
visionary who could write down the pictures he perceived in the Akashic
chronicle. These are the majestic images found in Genesis. In these
ways events of the past are led over into the future — behind
the scenes of the physical, external development of humankind.
Zarathustra was also able
to become the greatest teacher of the fourth post-Atlantean cultural
epoch. Living in the Near East in the sixth century before Christ's
birth he was known as Zarathos or Nazarathos. He was the teacher of
the most important Greek teachers and initiates — Pythagoras,
for example, was his student.
These four post-Atlantean
cultures were inspired by the great sun oracle of ancient Atlantis, and
the culture of the ancient Hebrew nation continued to develop uninterupted
on a parallel course — a subgroup of this Hebrew nation always
living contemporaneously with one of the named cultural epochs. The
ancient Indian culture was initiated in the secrets of the spiritual
world and the planetary states; the ancient Hebrew ...
[gap in the manuscript.]
Then, living contemporaneously with the Persian culture of Zarathustra,
the Hebrew ancestors developed a teaching much like that in Persia
concerning Ormuzd and Ahriman, a teaching concerning good and evil. The
third, the Egypto-Chaldean culture, then followed. The exodus out of Egypt
under Moses' leadership took place at the same time. Then the Greco-Latin
culture developed during the time of the great Hebrew initiate-prophets,
Elijah, Jeremiah, and so forth. Already in primal ancient times these
prophets had been given the idea of the great being, Ahura Mazdao,
announced to them by Melchizedek. In this way, the same nuances were
at work simultaneously in the Hebrew culture as in the other nations
through the epochs.
Now, such cultures always
had their second blossoming. That of Hermes soon encountered a decline.
It had contained deep mysteries for the ancient Egyptian culture but
had fallen in the worst way and entered into the most terrible decadence
as black magic. The ancient Indian culture had fallen into decadence
the least.
So we see how all that
had appeared successively was still maintained in the ancient Hebrew
nation. In various groups they preserved the feeling and the states
of consciousness of various other cultures. These groups could be addressed
with the names of the ancient cultures, according to how their states
of consciousness had been maintained.
When the writer of the
Apocalypse speaks of the “community at Ephesus” he means the
representative of the first, the Indian culture; the Persian finds its
representative in the “community at Smyrna”; the
Egypto-Chaldean in the name of the “community at Pergamon”;
and finally, the fourth, the Greco-Latin culture in the “community
of Thyatira.” He was able to address the representatives of the
four ancient cultural epochs in concurrently existing groups.
Then he looked further
into the future and saw our cultural blossoming in the “community
at Sardes.” The “community” following ours —
for which we are consciously preparing through the theosophical movement
— he characterizes with the name “Philadelphia.” After
that, humanity will finally reach the “community at Laodicea,”
where new impulses can no longer be brought forward. When we work and
act in the fifth epoch as conscious representatives of the theosophical
spiritual life we are introducing the age of Philadelphia or
brotherhood.
The seven spirits of God,
the seven stars, are what we find in theosophical teachings concerning
the evolution of the earth through the planetary states. These teachings
should lead us up to an understanding of the secrets of the stars and their
spirits. In this way we enter consciously the community of Philadelphia
when we absorb the teachings of spiritual science.
Notes:
Note 1. In
Exodus 2:3
we read: “And
when she could hide him no longer she took for him a basket made
of bulrushes, and daubed it with bitumen and pitch; and she put
the child in it and placed it among the reeds at the river's
brink.” RSV.
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