Man became an individualized soul-being on earth. His astral body, which

had been poured into him on the Moon through the Lords of Motion, now

became organized on earth into the sentient-intellectual-and

consciousness-souls. And when the consciousness-soul had progressed so far

that it was able to form for itself during earth-life, a body adapted to

that life, the Lords of Form endowed that body with a spark from their

fire. The “ego” was enkindled within it. Every time man left the physical

body he was in the spiritual world, in which he met the beings who, during

the Saturn, Sun, and Moon evolutions, had given him his physical, etheric,

and astral bodies, and who had developed them as far as the earth-stage.

Since the spark of ego had been enkindled during earth-life, there had

also come about a change in the disembodied life. Up to this point of

evolution, man had had no independence in the spiritual world. Within that

world he did not feel himself a separate being, but as though he were a

member of the exalted organism which was composed of the beings superior

to him. The “ego experience” on earth now takes effect also in the

spiritual world. Henceforth man feels himself to be, to a certain degree,

a unit in that world. But he feels also that he is unceasingly linked with

it. In the disembodied state he again finds the Lords of Form, in a higher

aspect, and this aspect he had perceived in their manifestation on earth

by means of the spark of his ego.

At the separation of the moon from the earth, the disembodied soul began

to have experiences in the spiritual world which were connected with that

separation. To develop such human forms upon earth which could receive

soul individuality, only became possible through the fact that a part of

the shaping forces passed over from the Earth to the Moon. Thus human

individuality came within the sphere of the Moon-beings. And in the

disembodied state the reminiscence of earthly individuality could only

operate because, even in that state, the soul remained within the sphere

of those mighty spirits who had brought about the separation of the moon.

The process worked in such a manner that immediately after leaving the

earth-body the soul could only see the exalted Sun-beings as though in a

lustre reflected from the Moon-beings. And it was only when sufficiently

prepared by gazing at that reflected splendor, that the soul attained to

the vision of the exalted Sun-beings themselves.

The mineral kingdom of the earth also arose out of what was ejected from

human evolution in general. Its structures are what remained solidified

after the moon was detached from the earth. The only soul-element which

felt attracted to those structures was that which had been left behind at

the Saturn stage, and was therefore only adapted for developing physical

forms. All the occurrences treated of here and in what follows were

enacted in the course of exceedingly long periods. But the question of

chronology cannot be entered into here.

The events described, present the evolution of the earth from without.

Seen spiritually from within, the facts present themselves as follows: The

spiritual beings who drew the moon out of the earth and incorporated their

own existence with the moon,—thus becoming earth-moon beings,—brought

about a certain formation of the human organism by means of the forces

which they sent to the earth from the moon. Their influence affected the

“ego” which man had acquired, and made itself felt in the interplay of

that “ego” with the astral, etheric, and physical bodies. They made it

possible for man to reflect within himself consciously and to reproduce

within his cognition, the wisdom revealed in the cosmos. It will be

remembered that during the old Moon-period man, owing to the separation

from the sun at the time, acquired a certain independence in his organism,

a more unfettered stage of consciousness than that which he had been able

to derive directly from the Sun-spirits. This free, independent

consciousness—a heritage from the old Moon-evolution—appeared again during

the earth-period in question. But it was just this consciousness which,

through the influence of the described earth-moon beings, could again be

brought into union and harmony with the universe and be made a reflection

of it. This would have happened if no other influence had asserted itself.

Without that influence, man would have become a being whose consciousness

would not have reflected the world in pictures of cognition, through his

own free volition, but through natural necessity. But things did not

happen in this way. At the time when the moon split off, certain spiritual

beings interposed in human evolution who had retained so much of their

Moon nature that they could not take part in the exodus of the sun from

the earth, and were shut out from the influence of the spirits who from

the earth-moon had exerted their activity upon the earth. These spirits

with the old Moon nature were, so to say, banished to the earth, but with

an irregular development. In their Moon-nature was that which had rebelled

against the Sun-spirits during the old Moon-evolution, and which had so

far been a blessing to man that it had led him to a free, independent

state of consciousness. The consequences of the peculiar development of

these spirits during the earth-period entailed their becoming adversaries

of the spirits who, acting from the moon, desired to make human

consciousness an automatic reflector of the universe. What had helped man

to a higher state of development of the old Moon, proved to be in

opposition to the possibilities which had arisen through the evolution of

the earth. The opposing forces had brought with them from their Moon

nature the power of working upon the human astral body, namely,—as above

indicated,—the power of making it independent. They exercised that power

by giving the astral body a certain degree of independence—even throughout

the earth-period—compared with the automatic (involuntary) state of

consciousness which had been brought about by the spirits of the

earth-moon.

It is difficult to express in the language of to-day the effects on man,

in that far-off time of the spiritual beings referred to. They must not be

thought of as analogous to natural influences of the present time, nor yet

as similar to the influence of one human being on another, when the first

awakens in the second inner powers of consciousness by words which help

the second person to understand something, or which stimulate him to

virtue or vice. The effect referred to as operative in that primeval age

was not a force of nature but a spiritual influence, conveyed in a

spiritual way, which descended upon man as a spiritual influx from higher

spirits, conformable with man’s state of consciousness at that time. If we

think of this influence as a force of nature we altogether miss its

essential reality. If we say that the spirits with the old Moon nature

tempted man in order to lead him astray for their own ends, we are using a

symbolical expression, which is good as long as we remember that it is but

a symbol and are at the same time clear in our minds that a spiritual fact

underlies the symbol.

The influence brought to bear on man by the spirits who had remained

behind during the Moon-evolution had a two-fold result. Man’s

consciousness was divested of the character of being merely a mirror of

the universe, because the possibility was aroused in the human astral body

of regulating and controlling, by means of this astral body, the images in

the consciousness. Man became the ruler of his own knowledge. But on the

other hand it was the astral body that was the starting point of that

rulership, and consequently the ego set over the astral body came to be

continually dependent upon it. Hence man was from this time forth exposed

to the lasting influences of a lower element in his nature. It was

possible for him in his life to sink below the height on which he had been

placed by the spirits of the earth-moon in the course of the world’s

progress. And subsequently he was open to the lasting influence on his

nature of the irregularly evolved Moon-spirits. We may call these

Moon-spirits Luciferian, to distinguish them from the other spirits who,

from the earth-moon, made consciousness into a mirror of the universe,

without bestowing free will. The Luciferian spirits endowed man with the

possibility of developing free activity in his consciousness, and at the

same time created the possibility of error and evil.

As a result of these events man was brought into a different connection

with the Sun-spirits from that which had been destined for him by the

spirits of the earth-moon. These wished to develop the reflecting human

consciousness in such a manner that within the whole life of the human

soul, the influence of the Sun-spirits would have become dominant. These

purposes were thwarted, and an opposition was thus created in human nature

between the influence of the Sun-Spirits and that of the spirits who were

irregularly developed on the old Moon. Owing to this opposition, the

inability to recognize the physical Sun-influences as such also arose in

man; they were hidden by the earthly impressions of the outer world.

Filled with these impressions, the astral part of man was drawn into the

sphere of the ego. This ego,—which otherwise would have felt only the

spark of fire bestowed on it by the Lords of Form, and which would have

submitted to the bidding of those spirits in everything that had to do

with external fire,—henceforth worked upon external heat phenomena through

the element with which it had itself been inoculated. A bond of attraction

was thereby established between the ego and the earth-fire.

In this way man became more involved in earthly materiality than had been

ordained for him, which was effected through the earth-moon spirits in

man’s body. The real individual ego was thereby set free from the mere

earth-ego so that although man during earth-life only partially felt

himself to be an ego, he at the same time felt his earth-ego to be a

continuation of that of his ancestors through the generations. The soul

was conscious of a kind of “group-ego” in earth-life, dating back to

remote ancestors; man felt himself to be a member of this group. Only in

the disembodied state could the individual ego be conscious of itself as a

separate being. But this state of isolation was impaired because the ego

was still burdened with a memory of the earth-consciousness (earth-ego.)

This memory clouded its vision of the spiritual world, which began to be

covered as with a veil between death and birth just as it is hidden from

physical vision upon earth.

The many changes which took place in the spiritual world while human

evolution was passing through the conditions just described, found

physical expression in the gradual adjustment of the mutual relations

existing between the sun, moon, and earth (and, moreover, between other

celestial bodies).

The alternation of day and night stands out as one result of those

relations. (The motions of celestial bodies are regulated by the beings

who inhabit them. The earth’s motion, of which day and night are the

result, was induced by the mutual relations of various spirits superior to

man. The moon’s motion had been brought about in the same way, in order

that after the separation of the moon from the earth, the Lords of Form

might, by means of the revolution of the former around the latter, work

upon the human physical body in the right way, and with the right rhythm.)

The ego and astral body of man now worked within the physical and etheric

bodies by day; at night that activity ceased: for the ego and the astral

body then left the physical and etheric bodies and came wholly within the

sphere of the Sons of Life or Angels, the Sons of Fire or Archangels, the

Sons of Personality, and the Lords of Form. Besides the Lords of Form, the

Lords of Motion, of Wisdom and the Thrones also included the physical and

etheric bodies in their sphere of influence at this time. The injurious

effects produced on man by the errors of his astral body during the day,

could thus be counter-balanced.

As people upon Earth now again multiplied there was no reason why human

souls should not incarnate in their descendants. The earth moon-forces now

acted in such a way that under their influence the human bodies became

entirely capable of incarnating human souls. The souls who had previously

removed to Mars, Jupiter and the other planets were now guided to earth,

and there was thus a soul ready for each human being born in the physical

line of descent. This went on through long periods so that the immigration

of souls to earth corresponded to the increase of human beings. Souls now

leaving their bodies at physical death retained the echo of their earthly

individuality as a memory in the disembodied state. This memory acted in

such a way that whenever a body was born on earth suitable for them, they

again incarnated it. Consequently there were among the human descendants

some whose souls came from without and who appeared on earth for the first

time since its very earliest periods, and there were others whose souls

had continually incarnated on the earth. In subsequent periods of earthly

evolution the number of young souls appearing for the first time grows

ever smaller and smaller, and the reincarnated souls become more and more

numerous; yet for long ages the human race was composed of the two types

of beings conditioned by these facts.

Henceforth man on earth felt himself united with his forefathers through

the group-ego which he had in common with them. On the other hand, the

experience of the individual ego was all the stronger in the disembodied

state between death and a new birth. The souls which entered human bodies

from celestial space were in a different position from those which had one

or more earthly lives behind them. The former, as souls entering upon the

physical earth-life, brought with them only the conditions to which the

higher spiritual world and their experiences outside the sphere of earth

had subjected them. The others had, by their actions in former lives,

added conditions of their own. The fate of the first was determined only

by facts lying outside of the new earth-conditions; that of the

reincarnate souls is also determined by what they themselves have done in

former lives under earthly conditions. Individual human Karma makes its

first appearance simultaneously with reincarnation.

Because the human etheric body was withdrawn from the influence of the

astral body in the manner above indicated, the generative faculty was not

included in the sphere of human consciousness, but was under the sway of

the spiritual world. When the time had come for a soul to descend to

earth, procreative impulses arose in the human being. The entire process,

to a certain degree was veiled in mysterious obscurity as far as earthly

consciousness was concerned. The consequences of this partial separation

of the etheric from the physical body were felt during earthly life also.

The qualities of the etheric body were capable of being especially

heightened by spiritual influence. In the life of the soul this expressed

itself through a special perfection of memory. Independent logical thought

was at this period only in its most rudimentary stage in man; on the other

hand, the faculty of memory was almost unlimited. Externally it appeared

as though man had direct knowledge of the working forces of every living

being. He had at his disposal the vital and generative forces of the

animal and, more especially, of the vegetable kingdom. He was able, for

instance, to draw out of a plant the force which impels it to grow, and to

use that force, just as we now use the forces of inanimate nature; for

example, the power dormant in coal which is extricated and used for

propelling engines.(22)

The inner soul life of man was also transformed in many different ways by

the Lucifer influence. Many kinds of feelings and emotions due to it might

be instanced. Of these only one can be mentioned. Previous to this

influence, the human soul acted, in that which it had to shape and to do,

according to the purposes of higher spiritual beings. The plan of

everything that was to be carried out was determined from the beginning.

And in proportion to the degree to which human consciousness was evolved,

it was able to foresee how things must develop in the future in accordance

with that preconceived plan. That consciousness of the future was lost

when the veil of earthly perceptions was woven across the manifestations

of higher spiritual beings and in these the real forces of the Sun-spirits

were hidden. Henceforth the future became uncertain, and in consequence of

this the possibility of fear was implanted in the soul. Fear is a direct

result of error.

It is however evident that through the Luciferian influence, man became

independent of certain definite forces to which he had previously

submitted without the exercise of his will. Henceforth he was able to form

resolutions of his own. Freedom is the result of the Luciferian influence,

and fear and similar feelings are only the phenomena attendant on the

evolution of human freedom.

Spiritually seen, fear makes its appearance in this way. Within the

earth-forces, under whose influence man had come by means of the

Luciferian powers, other beings were operating, which had developed

irregularly much earlier in the course of evolution than the Luciferian

powers. With the earth-forces man admitted into his nature the influence

of these other beings. They gave the quality of fear to feelings, which

without them would have operated quite differently. They may be called

Ahrimanic beings. They are the same that Goethe calls Mephistophelian.

Although the Luciferian influence manifested itself at first only in the

most advanced individuals, it soon spread to others. The descendants of

the advanced individuals intermingled with the less progressive described

above, and in this way the Luciferian force was conveyed to the latter.

But the etheric body of these souls returning from the different planets

could not be protected to the same extent as that of the descendants of

those who remained on earth. The protection of the etheric body of these

descendants emanated from an exalted Being in Whom was vested the

leadership of the cosmic when the separation of the sun from the earth

took place. That Being is the Ruler of the Kingdom of the Sun. With him

those lofty spirits, whose cosmic development was sufficiently matured,

departed for their dwelling-place in the Sun. But there were other beings

who had not reached such a height at the separation of the sun; these were

obliged to seek other spheres. It was through their instrumentality that

Jupiter and other planets became detached from that general cosmic

substance of which, at the outset, the earthly physical organism

consisted. Jupiter now became the abode of those beings who were not

highly enough developed to live on the sun, and the most advanced of these

became the leader. As the Leader of the Sun evolution became the “higher

ego” which worked in the etheric body of the descendants of those who had

remained on earth, so the Jupiter leader became that “higher ego” which

manifested as a common consciousness in certain other human beings. Those

were the human beings descending from the intermixing of those who had

only appeared on earth at the time of the air-element and had gone over to

Jupiter. These human beings may be called, in conformity with occult

science, “Jupiter-humanity.” They were scions of the human race which had

adopted human souls far back in that ancient time; but who, at the

beginning of earthly evolution, were not yet mature enough to take part in

the first contact with fire. They were souls midway between the human and

animal soul-kingdoms.

Now there were other beings who, under the leadership of the greatest one

among them had detached Mars from the general cosmic substance, to make it

their dwelling place. Under their influence there arose a third kind of

humanity, formed by interbreeding,—the “Mars-humanity.” (This knowledge

throws light upon the origin of the formation of the planets of our solar

system; for all the members of that system originated through the various

stages of maturity reached by the beings inhabiting them. But of course it

is not possible to enter into all the details of cosmic differentiation

here.) Those people who felt in their etheric body the influence of the

exalted Sun-being Himself may be called “Sun-humanity.” The Being Who

lived in them as the Higher Ego—of course only in the race, not in the

individual,—is the same to Whom various names were given in later times,

when man had gained conscious knowledge of Him. It is he Who appears to

the human race today as the Christ.

“Saturn-humanity” is also to be distinguished at that time. The “higher

ego” of this race appeared as a being who, with his associates, had been

forced to leave the general cosmic substance before the separation of the

Sun. In these individuals not only the etheric body but also the physical

body was partly exempt from the Luciferian influence. But the etheric body

was nevertheless not well enough protected in the less developed races of

mankind to be able to sufficiently resist the influences of the Luciferian

beings. These individuals could arbitrarily use the spark of the ego

within them to such a degree that they were able to call forth mighty and

destructive effects of fire around them. The result was a mighty

terrestrial catastrophe. A large part of the inhabited earth was wrecked

by fiery storms, and with it the human beings that had fallen into sin.

Only a very small part of those who had remained untouched by sin, were

able to take refuge in a region which had so far been shielded from the

fatal human influence.

The country occupying that part of the earth now covered by the Atlantic

Ocean proved to be peculiarly well fitted for the abode of the new human

race. Thither that part of humanity repaired which had preserved purity.

Only stray groups of humanity inhabited other regions. Occult science

gives the name of “Atlantis” to that part of the earth which once existed

between the present continents of Europe, Africa, and America. (This

particular stage of human evolution has its special nomenclature in

theosophical literature. The period preceding the Atlantean is called the

Lemurian age, whereas that during which the Moon-forces had not yet fully

developed is called the Hyperborean age. This is preceded by yet another,

which coincides with the earliest period of the evolution of the physical

earth. Biblical tradition describes the period before the influence of the

Lucifer-beings came into play as the Paradise time, and the descent to

earth, or entanglement of humanity in the sense-world, as the expulsion

from Paradise.)

The Atlantean period of evolution was the real time of separation into the

Saturn, Sun, Jupiter, and Mars humanities. Up to that time only

predispositions for this separation had been developed. The division

between the state of waking and sleeping had special consequences, which

appeared particularly in the Atlantean race. During the night the human

astral body and ego were in the sphere of the beings superior to man, as

far up as the Sons of Personality. Man could perceive the Sons of Life

(the Angels) and the Sons of Fire (the Archangels) through that part of

his etheric body which was not united with the physical body. For he was

able to remain united, during sleep, with that part of his etheric body

which was not interpenetrated by the physical body. It is true, his

perception of the Sons of Personality was vague, owing to the Luciferian

influence; but not only the Angels and Archangels became visible to man in

this condition but also those beings who were not able to enter upon

earthly existence because they had lagged behind on the Sun or Moon, and

were therefore obliged to remain in the psycho-spiritual world. But man,

by means of the Luciferian influence, drew them into his soul which was

separated from his physical body during sleep. Thus he came in contact

with beings whose influence was highly corrupting. They increased in his

soul the propensity for error; especially the tendency to misuse the

powers of growth and reproduction, which since the separation of the

physical and etheric bodies were now under his control.

Certain human beings of the Atlantean period however became entangled in

the sense world only to a very limited degree. Through them, the

Luciferian influence became, instead of a hindrance to human evolution, a

means of further progress. It enabled them to develop knowledge of earthly

matters sooner than would otherwise have been possible. They sought to

expel error from their imaginative life and to interpret, by means of

cosmic phenomena, the original purposes of spiritual beings. They kept

themselves free from those impulses and desires of the astral body which

were directed merely toward the sense-world. Hence they became more and

more free from the errors of the astral body. This resulted in a condition

through which they were able to confine their perceptions to that part of

the etheric body which was separated from the physical body in the manner

described above. Under these conditions the capacity of the physical body

for perception was practically extinguished and the physical body itself

was as though dead. For through the etheric body, these individuals were

wholly united with the kingdom of the Lords of Form, and were able to

learn from them how they were being guided and directed by that exalted

Being the “Christ,” who was the Leader at the time of the separation of

sun and earth. These people were Initiates. But since human individuality

had been brought into the sphere of the Moon-beings, as described above,

these Initiates could not as a rule come into direct contact with the

Christ-Being, they could only see it as a reflection, shown them by the

Moon-beings. Thus they did not see the Christ-Being directly, but only the

reflection of its glory.

They became leaders of the rest of humanity, to whom they were able to

impart the mysteries they had seen. They attracted disciples, to whom they

communicated the methods for attaining the condition which leads to

Initiation. Only those could attain knowledge of the Christ who belonged

to the Sun-humanity mentioned above. They cultivated their mystic

learning, and the occupations which promoted it, at a particular spot

which, in occult science terminology may be called the Christ oracle, or

Sun oracle, the term “oracle” being used to denote a place where the

purposes of spiritual beings are unveiled.

Other oracles were called into being by the members of the Saturn, Mars,

and Jupiter humanities. The intuitive vision of their Initiates was

confined to seeing those beings who were revealed to them in their etheric

bodies as their respective “higher egos.” Thus adherents of the Saturn,

Jupiter, and Mars wisdom arose. Besides these methods of Initiation, there

were others for those who had assimilated too much of the Luciferian

spirit to allow as large a part of the etheric body to be separated from

the physical body as was the case with the Sun humanity. Nor could they be

brought to the revelation of the Christ through these conditions. Because

their astral body was more influenced by the Lucifer principle, they were

obliged to undergo a more difficult preparation, and then, in a less

disembodied state than the others, they were able to receive the

revelation, not indeed of the Christ Himself, but of other exalted beings.

There were beings who, although they had left the earth at the separation

of the sun, did not stand on such a high level that they were able to

continue taking part in the Sun evolution. They formed an abode for

themselves away from the sun, after its separation from the earth: this

was Venus. Their leader was the being who now became a “higher ego” to

these Initiates and their adherents. A similar thing happened with the

leading spirit of Mercury for another group of people. In this way the

Venus and Mercury oracles arose. One kind of human beings, who had most

completely absorbed the Luciferian influence, could reach only one of the

higher beings who, with his associates, had been the first to be expelled

from the Sun evolution. This being has no particular planet in cosmic

space, but still lives within the periphery of the earth, with which he

was once more united after the return from the sun. The group of people,

to whom this being was revealed as its “higher ego” may be called the

followers of the Vulcan oracle. Their attention was more directed to

earthly phenomena than that of the other Initiates. They laid the first

foundations of what afterwards became the human arts and sciences. On the

other hand, the Mercury Initiates established the study of the more

super-sensible things; and the Venus Initiates did this to a still greater

extent.

The Vulcan, Mercury, and Venus Initiates differed from those of Saturn,

Jupiter, and Mars in the manner of receiving their Mysteries; the latter

received them more as a revelation from above, and in a more finished

state; whereas the former gained their knowledge more in the form of their

own thoughts—in the form of ideas. The Christ Initiates occupied a middle

position. While having a direct revelation, they acquired the capacity for

clothing their Mysteries in a human form of conception. The Saturn,

Jupiter, and Mars Initiates were obliged to express themselves more in

symbols; the Christ, Venus, Mercury, and Vulcan Initiates were able to

impart their knowledge more through ideas or concepts.

Whatever knowledge of this kind reached Atlantean humanity came indirectly

through the Initiates. But the rest of mankind also received special

faculties through the Lucifer principle; for, through the intervention of

lofty cosmic beings, what otherwise might have wrought ruin was

transformed into good. One of these faculties was that of speech. This was

brought about by the condensation of man’s physical body and by the

separation of part of his etheric from his physical body. For some time

after the separations of the moon, man felt himself connected with his

physical ancestors through the group-ego. But this common consciousness,

linking posterity with its ancestors, was gradually lost in the course of

generations. Later descendants had an inner memory of only their more

recent ancestors, no longer of their earlier forefathers. It was only in

conditions akin to sleep, during which mankind came in contact with the

spiritual world, that the remembrance of one ancestor or another again

emerged. Then people thought of themselves as one with that ancestor whom

they believed to be reappearing in them. This was an erroneous idea of

reincarnation, which arose especially in the later Atlantean period. The

true doctrine of reincarnation could be learned only in the schools of the

Initiates. They could see how the human soul passes through the

disembodied state on its way from one incarnation to another, and they

alone were able to impart the real truth of the matter to their disciples.

In the remote past which is now under consideration, man’s physical form

was very different from his present form. It was still, to a great extent,

the expression of the qualities of his soul. Man was composed of a softer

and more delicate substance than that which he has since acquired. That

which is now solidified in the limbs was then soft, flexible, and plastic.

The bodily structure of the more psychic and spiritual human beings was

delicate, supple, and expressive. These less evolved spiritually possessed

coarser, heavier, less mobile bodily structures. A high degree of psychic

maturity contracted the extremities, and the Stature remained small;

backwardness of the soul and entanglement in sensuality were outwardly

expressed by gigantic size. While man was growing to maturity his body was

being formed in accordance with what was developing in his soul, in a way

which would appear incredible and fabulous to contemporary ideas. Depraved

passions, impulses, and instincts brought in their train a colossal

increase of matter. Man’s present physical form has come about through a

contraction, thickening, and consolidation of the Atlantean human form.

And whereas man, before the Atlantean period, had been an exact image of

his soul-nature the events of the Atlantean evolution bore within them the

causes which lead to the formation of post-Atlantean man, whose physical

form is solid and comparatively independent of the qualities of the soul.

(The forms of the animal kingdom had solidified during far more remote

Earth periods than those of man.) The laws now governing the shaping of

forms in the kingdom of nature certainly did not prevail in the remote

past.

Toward the middle of the Atlantean evolution a calamity gradually befell

humanity. The Mysteries of the Initiates had to be carefully kept secret

from those who had not purified their astral bodies from sin. Had they

gained insight into that hidden knowledge, into the laws by means of which

higher beings directed the forces of nature, they would have employed

those forces thus placed at their disposal for their own perverted needs

and passions. The danger was all the greater because mankind was coming,

as has been described, into the sphere of lower spiritual beings, who

could not take part in the regular evolution of the earth and were

therefore working against it. These persistently influenced humanity in

such a way as to instil into it interests which were actually directed

against human welfare. But mankind still had the power to employ the

forces of growth and reproduction belonging to animal and human nature in

their own service.

Not only humanity in general, but even some of the Initiates yielded to

temptation from low spiritual beings. They were induced to employ the

supersensible forces mentioned above for a purpose which ran counter to

human evolution. And for this purpose they sought out associates who were

not initiated, and who made use of the secrets of the supersensible forces

of nature for low ends. The result was a great corruption of human nature.

The evil spread further and further; and since the forces of growth and

generation, if torn from their original sphere and used independently,

have a mysterious connection with certain forces working in air and water,

there were thus unchained, through human action, mighty, destructive

natural forces which led to the gradual ruin of the Atlantean territory by

the agency of air and water catastrophes. Atlantean humanity was obliged

to migrate—i. e., that portion of it which did not perish in the storms.

In consequence of these storms the surface of the earth was altered. On

one side, Europe, Asia, and Africa gradually assumed their present shape;

on the other, America appeared. Great migrations took place to these

countries. Those migrations which were directed eastward from Atlantis are

especially important for us of today. Europe, Asia, and Africa were

gradually colonized by the descendants of the Atlanteans. Various peoples

fixed their abode in these continents. They were at different stages of

development, and also at different levels of corruption. And with them

came the Initiates, guardians of the oracle-Mysteries. They established

sanctuaries in various parts, in which the cults of Jupiter, Venus, etc.,

were cultivated sometimes in a good, sometimes in an evil manner. The

betrayal of the Vulcan Mysteries exercised an especially unfavourable

influence, for the attention of their adherents was mostly centered on

earthly matters. By this betrayal, mankind was made dependent on spiritual

beings who, as a result of their past evolution, rejected everything

emanating from the spiritual world which had been evolved through the

separation of the earth from the sun. In accordance with the tendency they

had thus developed, they worked upon just that element in man which was

formed through his having perceptions of the sense-world, behind which the

spiritual world lies hidden. Henceforth beings acquired great influence

over many of the human inhabitants of the earth, and indeed their

influence asserted itself more and more by depriving mankind of the

feeling for spiritual things.

Since the size, form, and flexibility of the physical human body were

still largely affected by the qualities of the soul, the consequence of

the betrayal of the Mysteries also appeared in changes of the human race

in these respects. Wherever the corruption of humanity manifested itself

especially in the abuse of supersensible powers for the satisfaction of

lower inclinations, desires and passions, unsightly human shapes,

grotesque in form and size were the result. These were not able to survive

the Atlantean period, and became extinct. Post-Atlantean humanity was

formed physically from those Atlantean ancestors in whom such a

solidification of the bodily form had taken place that it no longer

yielded to those powers of the soul which had now become perverted.

There was a certain period in the Atlantean evolution during which, by

means of the law ruling in and around the earth, just those conditions

prevailed which tended to solidify man’s bodily form. Those human racial

types which had been solidified before this period could, it is true,

reproduce themselves for a long time, yet the souls incarnating in them

gradually became so cramped that they had to die out. It is true that some

of these race-types survived into the post-Atlantean times; those which

had remained sufficiently agile lasted even for a very long time in

modified form. Human forms which had remained flexible, after the period

just described, became bodies for such souls as had, in a large measure,

undergone the pernicious influence of the betrayal described above. These

forms were destined to speedy extinction.

In consequence of what had thus happened, beings had brought their

influence to bear upon human evolution, since the middle of the Atlantean

period, beings whose influence tended to make mankind live in the physical

sense world in an unspiritual manner. This went so far that, instead of

man’s seeing the real form of that world, phantoms, hallucinations, and

illusions of every kind appeared to him. Mankind was exposed not merely to

the Luciferian influence but to that of those other beings mentioned

above, whose leader may be called Ahriman, according to the appellation

given him later in the Persian civilization. (He is the same as

Mephistopheles.) Through this influence man was subject, after death, to

powers which made him appear even then as a being adhering only to

material earthly conditions. He lost more and more the unobstructed vision

of the events of the spiritual world. He was forced to feel himself in

Ahriman’s power, and to a certain extent shut out from intercourse with

the spiritual world.

There was one oracle-sanctuary of special importance, which in the

universal decline had preserved the ancient cult in its purest form. It

was one of the Christ oracles, and on that account it was able to preserve

not only the Christ Mystery itself but those of the other oracles as well.

For in the manifestation of the loftiest of the Sun-spirits, were also

revealed the regents of Saturn, Jupiter, and the other planets. In the Sun

oracle the secret of producing in some particular human being, such human

etheric bodies as had been possessed by the best of the Jupiter, Mercury,

and other Initiates was known. By means of the methods used for this

purpose, which cannot be further dealt with here, impressions of the best

etheric bodies of the ancient Initiates were preserved, in order that they

might subsequently be stamped upon suitable individuals. The same process

could be employed with the astral bodies of the Venus, Mercury, and Vulcan

Initiates.

At a certain time the Leader of the Christ Initiates found Himself

isolated with a few associates, to whom He was able to impart, to a very

limited extent only, the mysteries of the cosmos. For those associates

were individuals who were endowed with the natural ability to permit the

least possible degree of separation between the physical and etheric

bodies. They were altogether, at that time, the best possible individuals

for promoting the further progress of humanity. Their experiences in the

realm of sleep had become rarer and rarer. The spiritual world was more

and more closed to them. Therefore they were also lacking in the

comprehension of all that had been revealed to man in ancient times when

he was not in his physical, but only in his etheric body. Those

immediately surrounding the leader of the Christ oracle were the farthest

advanced with regard to the union of the physical body with that part of

the etheric body which had previously been separated from it. This union

came about in the human being little by little, as a result of the

transformation which had taken place in the Atlantean continent and the

earth in general.

The physical and etheric bodies of man fitted more and more into each

other. Hence the memory lost its former unlimited capacity, and the human

life of thought began. That part of the etheric which was united with the

physical body transformed the physical brain into an actual instrument of

thought, and man from this time, first really felt his “ego” within his

physical body. Self-consciousness awoke. This was at first the case with

only a limited number of the human race, pre-eminently with the associates

of the leader of the Christ oracle. The bulk of humanity, scattered over

Europe, Asia, and Africa, retained in varying degrees the remnant of the

old conditions of consciousness. Hence they had direct experience of the

supersensible world.

The associates of the Christ Initiate were people of highly developed

intelligence but of less experience in supersensible spheres than any of

their contemporaries. The Initiate journeyed with them to a country in

central Asia. He wished them to be guarded as much as possible from

contact with those of less developed consciousness. He instructed his

followers along the lines of the mysteries which had been revealed to him

and especially did he do this with their descendants. Thus he gathered

round him a people who had received into their hearts the impulses

corresponding to the Mysteries of the Christ Initiation. Out of this

company he chose the seven best, that they might be endowed with the

etheric and astral bodies which bore the impress of the etheric bodies of

the seven best Atlantean Initiates. Thus he educated a successor to each

of the Christ, Saturn, Jupiter, etc., Initiates. These seven Initiates

became the teachers and leaders of the people who, in the post-Atlantean

period, had colonized the south of Asia, especially ancient India. Since

these great teachers were endowed with the etheric bodies of their

spiritual ancestors, the contents of their astral body, that is, the

science and knowledge they themselves had worked out, was far below what

was revealed to them through their etheric body. Therefore if these

revelations were to speak within them, they were obliged to impose silence

on their own science and knowledge. Then the exalted beings who had also

spoken to their spiritual ancestors spoke out of and through them. Except

during the times when these beings were speaking through them, they were

simple people, endowed with the measure of intelligence and feeling which

they had cultivated and worked out for themselves.

There lived at this time in India a race of people who had retained a

particularly vivid remembrance of the ancient soul-condition of the

Atlanteans, which permitted experiences in the spiritual world. Moreover,

the heart and soul of a great number of these people were powerfully

attracted by such experiences. By a wise decree of fate, the majority of

the race had come to southern Asia from among the best portions of the

Atlantean population. Besides this majority, other Atlanteans had migrated

thither at different times. The Christ Initiate, referred to above,

appointed his seven great disciples to be the teachers of this association

of people, to whom they imparted their wisdom and precepts. Many of these

ancient Indians needed but little preparation for reviving within them the

scarcely extinct faculties leading to observation of the supersensible

world. For longing after that world was really a fundamental quality of

the Indian soul. It was felt that man’s original home was in that world.

He is transplanted out of it into this one, which offers only outer

sense-observation and the intelligence connected with it.

The supersensible world was felt to be the _real_ world, and the

sense-world to be a deception of the human power of observation, an

illusion (Maya). By every possible means these people strove to open up a

view of the real world. They could take no interest in the illusory

sense-world, or at any rate only so far as it proved to be a veil for the

supersensible. The power going out from the Seven Great Teachers to such

people as these, was a mighty one. What they were able to reveal entered

deeply into the Indian soul; and since the possession of the transmitted

etheric and astral bodies invested the teachers with lofty powers, they

were also able to work magically on their disciples. They did not really

teach; they worked as though by magic power from one personality to

another. Thus there arose a civilization completely saturated with

supersensible wisdom. The contents of the books of wisdom of the Hindus,

the Vedas, do not give the original form of the lofty wisdom imparted by

the great teachers of most ancient times, only a feeble echo of it. Only

the seer’s eye, looking backward is able to find unwritten primeval wisdom

behind the written words.

A particularly prominent feature of this ancient wisdom is the harmonious

accord of the various wisdom oracles of the Atlantean time. For each of

the Great Teachers was able to unveil the wisdom of one of these oracles,

and these different aspects were in complete harmony, because behind them

all was the fundamental wisdom of the Christ Initiation. It is true the

teacher who was the successor of the Christ Initiate did not impart to his

disciples what the Christ Initiate himself was able to reveal. The latter

had remained in the background during this period of evolution. At first

he was unable to entrust his high office to any post-Atlantean. The

difference between him and the Christ Initiate of the Seven Great Indian

Teachers was that the former was able to work his vision of the Christ

Mystery completely into the form of human ideas, whereas the Indian Christ

Initiate could only offer a reflection of the Mystery in signs and

symbols; for his humanly cultivated power of conception did not suffice

for such a Mystery. However, from the union of the Seven Teachers there

resulted a knowledge of the supersensible world, presented in one great

wisdom-panorama, of which only separate portions could be imparted in the

ancient Atlantean oracles. The great Regents of the cosmos were revealed,

and the One great Sun-spirit, the Hidden One, ruling over those who were

manifested through the seven teachers, was delicately indicated.

What is here meant by “ancient Indians” is not the same as what is usually

understood by that term. No outer documents exist of the period in

question. The people usually known as “Indians” belong to a stage of

historical evolution which was developed long after the time spoken of

here. We have to distinguish a first post-Atlantean period of the earth,

in which the Indian civilization now described was the predominant one;

then came a second post-Atlantean period in which the prevailing

civilization was that which later in this work is called the “ancient

Persian,” and still later was developed the Egypto-Chaldean civilization,

also to be described. During the evolution of these second and third

post-Atlantean epochs, “ancient” India also went through a second and

third epoch, and to this third epoch belongs what is usually related of

ancient India. What is described here must therefore not be applied to the

“ancient India” mentioned elsewhere.

Another feature of this ancient Indian civilization is that which

afterward led to the division of the race into castes. The inhabitants of

India were descendants of Atlanteans who belonged to the various types of

Saturn and Jupiter humanities, etc. By means of supersensible teachings it

was seen that it is not by chance that a soul is incarnated in a

particular caste, but that the soul itself has determined its lot. Such an

understanding of supersensible teachings was made much easier, because it

was possible to revive in many people the inner remembrance of their

ancestors which has been described above; this, of course, might also

easily lead to an erroneous idea of reincarnation. Just as, in the

Atlantean age, it was only through the Initiates that the true idea of

reincarnation could be realized, so in India, in most ancient times, it

was possible only through direct contact with the great teachers. It is

true that the erroneous idea of reincarnation mentioned above found the

widest acceptance imaginable among the bands of people who were dispersed

over Europe, Asia and Africa in consequence of the Atlantean catastrophe.

And because the Initiates who had gone astray during the Atlantean

evolution had imparted the mystery of reincarnation to immature souls,

mankind began to confuse more and more the true with the false ideas. Many

of these people indeed retained a kind of dim clairvoyance, as a heritage

from the Atlantean period. Just as the Atlanteans had entered the

spiritual world during sleep, their descendants had experience of it in

abnormal states, intermediate between sleeping and waking. Then there

arose in these people the images of the ancient times of their

forefathers. They believed themselves to be reincarnations of people who

had lived in those times. Teachings about reincarnation, which were at

variance with the true ideas of the Initiates, were widely spread over the

earth.

As a result of the long-continued migrations which had taken place from

west to east since the beginning of the Atlantean catastrophe, a group of

people settled in western Asia whose posterity is known to history as the

Persian race and the tribes related thereto. Here we look back to a much

earlier period than the historical times of these peoples. Next after the

Indian period, we have first to do with the very early ancestors of the

later Persians, among whom arose the second great civilization of

post-Atlantean evolution. The peoples of this second era had a different

mission from that of the Indians. Their longings and inclinations were not

fixed on the supersensible world alone; they were also directed toward the

physical sense-world, and the earth became dear to them. They valued what

man is able to acquire on it, and what he is able to win by means of its

forces. Their achievements as a warlike people, and the methods which they

discovered of acquiring the earth’s treasures, are connected with this

peculiarity of their nature. There was no danger of their turning their

backs upon the “illusion” of the physical senses in their yearning after

the supersensible, but rather of their entirely severing the connection of

their souls with the supersensible world, through their appreciation for

the physical world.

The oracle-sanctuaries, which had been transferred hither from the ancient

Atlantean territory, also reflected, in their own way, the general

character of the people. In them forces were present which it had formerly

been possible to acquire through experiences in the supersensible world,

and which could still be controlled in certain lower forms; these forces

were used in the sanctuaries to direct the phenomena of nature in such a

way as to make them subservient to man’s personal interests. This ancient

people still had a great mastery over those forces of nature which

subsequently withdrew from the influence of the human will. The guardians

of the oracles mastered certain inner forces connected with fire and other

elements. They can be called magicians. What supersensible knowledge and

force they had retained as a heritage from ancient times was certainly

slight in comparison with man’s powers in the remote past. But it

nevertheless took all kinds of forms, from the noble arts, the only object

of which was the welfare of humanity,—down to the most reprehensible

transactions.

The Luciferian influence held sway over these people in a peculiar manner.

It had brought them into connection with everything which diverts mankind

from the purposes of those exalted beings who alone would have guided

human evolution, had not the Luciferian influence interposed. Even those

members of this race who were still gifted with some remnant of the old

clairvoyant condition, described above as a state intermediate between

sleeping and waking, felt themselves powerfully attracted by the lower

beings of the spiritual world. In order to counteract these characteristic

qualities it was necessary that a spiritual impulse should be given to

this people. A leadership was established among them by the guardian of

the Mysteries of the Sun oracle, from the same source from which the

spiritual life of ancient India proceeded.

The leader of ancient Persian civilization, who was sent by the guardian

of the Sun oracle to the people now under consideration, may be designated

by the same name as the historical Zarathustra, or Zoroaster. Only the

fact must be emphasized that the personality indicated belongs to a much

earlier period than the historical possessor of the name. In this

connection it is not a question of outer historical research, but of

spiritual knowledge. And any one who instinctively thinks of a later time

in connection with the bearer of the name Zarathustra may reconcile this

idea with occult science on learning that the historical character

represents himself as a successor of the first great Zarathustra, whose

name he took, and in the spirit of whose teaching he worked.

The impulse which Zarathustra had to give to his people was to show them

that the physical world of sense is not merely the lifeless material,

devoid of spirit, which it appears to a man who gives himself up

exclusively to the influence of the Luciferian being. To this being man

owes his personal independence and sense of freedom; but it should work

within him in harmony with the opposite spiritual being. With the

pre-historic Persians it was a question of keeping alive the sense of this

last-named spiritual-being. Through their inclination toward the physical

sense world they ran the risk of complete amalgamation with the Luciferian

beings. Now Zarathustra, through the guardian of the Sun oracle, had

received an Initiation that enabled him to receive the revelations of the

great Sun-spirits. In particular states of consciousness, brought about by

his training, he was able to see the Regent of the Sun-spirits, who, as

described above, had taken under His protection the human etheric body.

Zarathustra knew that This Spirit directs the course of human evolution,

but that He must first, at a certain time, descend to earth out of cosmic

space. For this purpose it was necessary that He should be able to live in

a human astral body, just as in man. He had worked in the etheric body

since the entrance of the Luciferic nature. It was therefore necessary

that a man should appear who had retransformed the astral body to the same

level that it would have reached in the middle of the Atlantean evolution,

had there been no Luciferian influence. Had Lucifer not appeared, mankind

would certainly have attained this level before, but without personal

independence or the possibility of freedom. Now, however, in spite of

those qualities he should again arise to this height. Zarathustra, endowed

with prophetic vision, could see that in the future it would be possible,

within human evolution for a personality to exist, who would have a

suitable astral body for that purpose. But he also knew that the great

Sun-spirit could not appear on earth before that time, though He could be

perceived by a seer in the spiritual part of the Sun. When as a seer he

turned his attention to the Sun, Zarathustra was able to see This Spirit,

whom he proclaimed to his people. He announced that the Sun-spirit was at

first to be found only in the spiritual world, but that later He would

descend to earth. This was the great Sun-spirit, or Spirit of Light (the

Aura of the Sun, Ahura-mazdao, or Ormuzd). He was revealed to Zarathustra

and his followers as the Spirit who, for the time being, was turning the

light of His countenance on man from the spiritual world, and that it was

He Who might be expected to appear in a human body amongst men in the

future. It was the Christ, before his appearance on earth, whom

Zarathustra proclaimed as the Spirit of Light. On the other hand he

represented Ahriman (Angra mainju) as a power working injuriously on the

life of the human soul, when it engrosses that soul completely. This power

is none other than the one previously described, which had acquired

special dominion over the earth since the betrayal of the Vulcan

Mysteries. Together with the message concerning the Light God, Zarathustra

proclaimed teachings about those spiritual beings who were revealed to the

seer’s purified perception as associates of the Spirit of Light. These

were in strong contrast to the tempters who appeared to that unpurified

clairvoyance which was left over from the Atlantean period. It had to be

made clear to the ancient Persians that in man’s soul, so far as it is

engaged in work and endeavor in the physical sense world, a conflict is

going on between the power of the Light God and his adversary. It had also

to be shown them how man must act so as not to be engulfed by Ahriman, and

how to turn his influence to good through the power of the Light God.

The third era of post-Atlantean civilization began among the peoples who

finally gathered together in western Asia and northern Africa after the

migrations. This civilization was developed among the Chaldeans,

Babylonians, and Assyrians on the one hand, and among the Egyptians on the

other. In these peoples the taste for the physical world of sense

developed in a different form from that which it had taken among the

Persians. The former had acquired the quality of mind lying at the root of

the faculty of thought which has arisen since Atlantean times, that is,

the gift of reason. Indeed, it was the mission of post-Atlantean humanity

to develop within itself those faculties of the soul which it was possible

to acquire through the newly awakened powers of thought and feeling. These

powers cannot be directly stimulated from the spiritual world, but result

from man’s observing the sense-world, becoming familiar with it, and

working upon it. The conquest of the physical world of sense by these

human faculties must be regarded as the mission of post-Atlantean

humanity. Step by step that conquest proceeded. It is true that even in

ancient India, man, through the condition of his soul, was already turned

toward that world; but he still looked upon it as illusion, and his spirit

turned to the supersensible world. In the Persian race, on the contrary,

there sprang up the endeavour to conquer the physical world of sense, but

the attempt was still largely made with those powers of the soul which had

been left over as an inheritance from the time when man could still reach

the spiritual world directly. Among the peoples of the third epoch of

civilization, the soul had for the most part lost the supersensible

faculties. It was obliged to seek manifestations of the spiritual in the

surrounding world of sense, and to continue its development by discovering

the means of civilization existing in that world. Men sought to

investigate, through the physical world, the spiritual laws underlying it,

and in this way human sciences arose. Human technical skill, artistic

work, and their tools and means came about through the recognition and use

of the forces of the physical world. To a man of the Chaldaic-Babylonian

race the sense-world was no longer an illusion but a manifestation, in its

different kingdoms, in mountains and seas, in air and water, of the

spiritual activity of powers existing behind it, whose laws man was

striving to learn.

To the Egyptian, the earth was a field of work, given to him in a

condition which he must, by his own powers of intelligence, so transform

that it should bear the impress of human power. From Atlantis,

oracle-sanctuaries, originating chiefly from the Mercury oracle, had been

transplanted to Egypt. Yet there were others as well,—for example, Venus

oracles.

In that which was fostered, in their oracle-sanctuaries, among the

Egyptian peoples, the germ of a new culture was planted. This germ

proceeded from a great leader who had received his training in the Persian

Zarathustra Mysteries, who was the reincarnated individuality of a

disciple of the great Zarathustra himself. Let us call him “Hermes.”

Through acceptance of the Zarathustra Mysteries he was able to find the

right way to guide the Egyptian people. This people had so turned its

attention to the physical sense-world, during earthly life between birth

and death that it was able only to a limited extent to directly behold the

spiritual world behind the physical phenomena, although it recognized the

spiritual laws of the world. Thus it could not think of the spiritual

world as the one in which it could live while on earth, but on the other

hand, it could be shown how man will live, in the disembodied state after

death in the world of those spirits who, during earthly life, appear

through their impressions upon the sense-world.

Hermes taught that man qualifies himself for union with spiritual forces

after death, in proportion as he uses his powers on earth for furthering

the purposes of those spiritual forces. Those especially, who had worked

most zealously in this way between birth and death would be united with

the lofty Sun-God Osiris. On the Chaldaic-Babylonian side of this stream

of civilization the direction of the human mind toward the physical

sense-world was more conspicuous than on the Egyptian side. The laws of

that world were being investigated and from its reflection in the

sense-world these people looked up to the corresponding spiritual

prototypes. Yet in many respects the nation remained wedded to physical

things. Instead of the star-spirit, the star was put first, and instead of

other spiritual beings their earthly counterparts were made prominent.

Only the leaders attained to really deep knowledge concerning the laws of

the supersensible world and its connection with the physical. The contrast

between the knowledge of the Initiates and the perverted beliefs of the

people became more apparent in these nations than anywhere else.

Very different conditions existed in those parts of Southern Europe and

western Asia where the fourth epoch of post-Atlantean civilization was

unfolded. In occult science, it is called the Greco-Roman period.

Descendants of peoples inhabiting widely distant parts of the older world

had met together in these countries. Here were oracle-sanctuaries which

conformed to the various Atlantean oracles; here were people with the

heritage of ancient clairvoyance as a natural gift, and others who were

able to acquire it, with comparative ease, by training. The traditions of

the ancient Initiates were not only preserved in special places, but

worthy successors to them arose, who attracted disciples capable of rising

to lofty levels of spiritual vision. Moreover, these races had within them

the impulse to create a domain within the sense-world which expresses the

spiritual in perfect form through the physical.

Greek art is, among other things, a result of this impulse. It is only

necessary to gaze with the eye of the spirit upon a Greek temple, in order

to see that in this marvel of art, material substance is so worked upon by

man that it appears in every detail as the expression of spirit. The Greek

temple is the “House of the Spirit.” One sees in its form what otherwise

only The Spiritual eye of the seer perceives. The temple of Zeus-(or

Jupiter) is so constructed as to present to the physical eye a fitting

shrine for what the guardian of the Zeus-(or Jupiter) Initiation saw with

spiritual vision. And it is the same with all Greek art. The wisdom of the

Initiates flowed in mysterious ways into poets, artists, and thinkers. The

Mysteries of the Initiates are found again, in the form of conceptions and

ideas, in the systems of thought by which ancient Greek philosophers

interpreted the universe. The influences of the spiritual life, the

Mysteries of the Asiatic and African sanctuaries of Initiation, flowed

into these nations and to their leaders. The great Indian teachers, the

associates of Zarathustra, and the followers of Hermes had attracted

disciples. These, or their successors, thereupon founded sanctuaries for

Initiation, in which the ancient wisdom was revived in a new form. These

were the Mysteries of antiquity. Here disciples were prepared to be

brought into the condition of consciousness through which they might

attain vision of the spiritual world.(23) From these sanctuaries of

Initiation the Mysteries flowed forth to those who cultivated Spiritual

Mysteries in Asia Minor, Greece, and Italy. (Important centres of

Initiation were formed in the Greek world in the Orphic and Eleusinian

Mysteries. In the Pythagorean School of wisdom, lingered the effects of

the great wisdom-teachings and methods of past ages. On his distant

travels, Pythagoras had been initiated into the secrets of the most varied

kinds of Mysteries.)

But human life between birth and death in the post-Atlantean period had

also an influence on the disembodied state after death. The more man’s

interests were fixed on the physical sense-world, the greater was the

possibility of Ahriman gaining a hold upon the soul during earthly life

and retaining his power of it after death. This danger was least among the

peoples of ancient India, for during earthly life they had felt the

physical sense-world to be an illusion, and thus had eluded the power of

Ahriman after death. The danger for the primitive Persian peoples, who

between birth and death had fixed their attention, with great interest,

upon the physical sense-world was much greater. They would have largely

fallen a prey to Ahriman’s wiles had not Zarathustra pointed out,

emphatically through his teaching concerning the Light of God, that behind

the physical sense-world there exists the world of the Spirits of Light.

In proportion to the ability of the people of this civilization to receive

something into their souls out of the world of thought thus created, were

they able to escape Ahriman’s clutches during earthly life, and thereby

elude him in the life after death, during which they were to be prepared

for a new earth-life. The power of Ahriman in earthly life tends to make

the physical sense-existence appear to be the only one, and thus to bar

the way to any vista of a spiritual world. His power in the spiritual

world leads man to complete isolation, and to the concentration of all his

interest upon himself. Those who, at the time of death, are in Ahriman’s

power, are born again as egoists.

It is now possible for occult science to describe life between death and a

new birth as it is, provided the Ahrimanic influence has, to a certain

degree, been overcome. It is in this sense that it has been described by

the author in the first chapter of this book as well as in other writings.

And it must be described in this way if that which can be experienced by

man during this form of existence is to be visualized and if he has

attained to purely spiritual perception for that which really exists. The

degree to which the individual experiences this, depends upon the extent

to which he has overcome the Ahrimanic influence.

Man is approaching nearer and nearer to what it is possible for him to

become in the spiritual world. How this progress is thwarted by other

influences must however be clearly brought out in our consideration of the

course of human evolution.

During the Egyptian period Hermes taught the people to prepare themselves

during earth-life, for communion with the Spirit of Light. But because at

that time human interests, between birth and death, were already so

constituted that it was only possible to a slight degree to see through

the veil of the physical sense-world, therefore the spiritual vision of

the soul after death was also clouded and the perception of the world of

light remained dim.

The obscuration of the spiritual world after death reached a climax in the

souls who passed into the disembodied state out of a body belonging to the

Greco-Roman civilization. During their earthly life they had brought to

perfection the cultivation of physical sense-existence, and had thus

condemned themselves to a shadowy existence after death. Hence the Greek

felt life after death to be a shadowy existence, and it is not mere

rhetoric but the realization of truth when the hero of that time, who is

given up to the life of the senses, says, “Better a beggar on earth than a

king in the realm of shades.” All this was still more marked in those

Asiatic peoples who had fixed their attention with veneration and worship

on material images instead of on their spiritual archetypes. A large

proportion of mankind was in this condition at the time of the Greco-Roman

era of civilization. It can be seen how man’s mission in post-Atlantean

times, which consisted in the conquest of the physical sense-world, must

necessarily lead to estrangement from the spiritual world. Thus greatness

in one respect necessarily involves deterioration in another.

Man’s connection with the spiritual world was kept alive in the Mysteries.

Through these the Initiates, in special states of the soul, were able to

receive revelations from that world. They were more or less the successors

of the guardians of the Atlantean oracles. To them was revealed what had

been hidden through the influence of Lucifer and Ahriman. Lucifer

concealed from man what had flowed from the spiritual world into the human

astral body, without his co-operation, up to the middle of the Atlantean

period. Had the etheric body not been partially separated from the

physical body, man would have been able to experience within himself this

part of the spiritual world as an inner revelation to his soul. As a

result of Lucifer’s encroachment, this could be done only in special

states of the soul. At those times a spiritual world appeared to man in

the guise of the astral. The corresponding spiritual beings manifested

themselves in forms which embodied only the higher principles of the human

being, and in those principles the symbols of their particular spiritual

forces were astrally visible. Superhuman forms were manifested in this

way.

After the encroachment of Ahriman, still another kind of Initiation was

added to this one. Ahriman concealed from man everything out of the

spiritual world which would have appeared behind physical

sense-perception, had he not interfered in human affairs from the middle

of the Atlantean period onward. The Initiates of the Mysteries owed the

revelation of what he had thus kept hidden, to the fact that they had

developed within their souls all those faculties which man had attained

since that time, beyond the degree necessary for physical

sense-impressions. Thus there were revealed to them the spiritual powers

lying behind the forces of nature. They could speak of the spiritual

beings behind nature. The creative might of those forces acting in nature

below man, was revealed to them. That which had been active since Saturn,

Sun and the old Moon and had shaped man’s physical, etheric and astral

body as well as the mineral, plant and animal kingdoms, formed the

contents of a certain kind of mystery-secrets,—namely those over which

Ahriman held his hand. That which had formed the sentient-, rational-and

consciousness-souls and which had been concealed from man by Lucifer, was

revealed in a second kind of Mystery-secrets.

But what the Mysteries could only prophesy was, that in time a man would

appear possessing an astral body which, despite Lucifer, could become

conscious of the light-world of the Sun-spirit through the etheric body,

apart from any special condition of the soul. And the physical body of

that human being must be of such a nature, that everything in the

spiritual world would be revealed to him, which Ahriman is able to conceal

from man up to the time of physical death. Physical death could bring no

change into the life of such a being, that is to say, could have no power

over it. The “Ego” so manifests in such a human being that the entire

spiritual life is at the same time contained in his physical life. Such a

being is the vehicle of the Spirit of Light, to whom the Initiate ascends

from two directions, being led, under special conditions of the soul,

either to the Superhuman Spirit or to the Being of the forces of nature.

When the Initiates of the Mysteries foretold the appearance in the course

of time, of such a human being, they were prophets of the Christ.

A personality arose, as the special prophet of this coming manifestation,

within a nation which possessed through natural inheritance the qualities

of the peoples of western Asia, and through education the learning of the

Egyptians—the Hebrew nation. This prophet was Moses. The influences of

Initiation had entered so deeply into his soul that in certain states of

consciousness the being who had undertaken in the regular course of the

earth evolution to shape human consciousness from the Moon, was revealed

to him. In thunder and lightning Moses realized not merely physical

phenomena, but manifestations of this Spirit. At the same time the other

kind of Mysteries had influenced his soul, so that he was able to

distinguish, in astral vision, how the superhuman becomes human by means

of the ego. Thus, from two directions, He Who was to come, was revealed to

Moses as the highest form of the Ego.

And in Christ the lofty Sun-spirit appeared in human form as the great

ideal for human life on earth. At His coming, all mystery-wisdom had in

some respects to take a new form. Up to that time this wisdom had existed

exclusively for the purpose of enabling man to put himself into such a

condition of soul in which he would be able to view the kingdom of the

Sun-spirit as something _outside_ of earthly evolution. Henceforth it was

the mission of Mystery-wisdom to make man capable of recognizing in the

incarnated Christ the Primordial Being. From this Primordial Being man was

enabled to understand the natural and spiritual worlds.(24)

At the point in His life at which the astral body of Christ Jesus

contained everything which it is possible for the Luciferian influence to

conceal, He came forward as the Teacher of humanity. From that moment, the

faculty was implanted in human earthly evolution for assimilating that

wisdom whereby the physical goal of the earth may gradually be reached. At

the moment when the Event of Golgotha was accomplished, human nature was

endowed with another faculty, that by which Ahriman’s influence may be

turned into good. Henceforth man was able to take with him through the

gate of death that which saves him from isolation in the spiritual world.

What happened in Palestine was the central point, not only of human

physical evolution but also of the other worlds to which man belongs; and

when the “Mystery of Golgotha” had been accomplished, when the “death on

the cross” had been suffered, Christ appeared in that world where souls

sojourn after death, and set limits to the power of Ahriman. From that

moment the region which the Greeks had called the “realm of shades” was

illuminated by that flash of the Spirit indicating to its dwellers that

light was to return. What had been gained for the physical world by the

“Mystery of Golgotha” cast light also into the spiritual world.

Up to this event post-Atlantean human evolution had been a time of ascent

in the physical sense-world, but of descent as far as the spiritual world

was concerned. Everything which flowed into the sense-world proceeded from

what had been in the spiritual world from remote ages. Since the coming of

Christ, those who attain to the Mystery of Christ are able to take with

them into the spiritual world what they have won in the physical. And from

the spiritual world it then flows back again into the earthly sense-world,

since reincarnated souls, on re-entering earth-life, bring with them what

the Christ-impulse between death and a new birth, has bestowed.

What flowed into human evolution with the appearance of the Christ, acted

in it like a seed. Only slowly can this seed mature. Only the smallest

part of these profound new wisdom teachings, up to the present time, has

reached down into physical existence. Christian evolution has just barely

begun. During the successive periods of time following the appearance of

the Christ, this Christian Evolution was able to reveal only so much of

its inner essential nature as the humanity, the peoples of that time, were

capable of receiving; only as much as they could grasp with their

faculties of comprehension. The first form into which this essence of

Christianity could be poured may be described as a comprehensive ideal of

life. As such it was opposed to those forms of life which had been

developed in post-Atlantean humanity. The conditions operating in human

evolution since the repopulation of the earth in the Lemurian period have

been described above. Accordingly, humanity can be traced back to

different beings who, coming from other worlds, incarnated in the bodily

descendants of the ancient Lemurians. The various races of man are a

consequence of this, and the most diverse vital interests appeared in

these reincarnated souls, as a result of their Karma. As long as all this

was being worked out, there could be no ideal of “universal humanity.”

Human nature originated in unity, but earthly evolution up to the present

time has led to division. In the figure of the Christ, we see an ideal

which opposes all division, for in the man who bears the name of Christ

there lives the lofty Sun-being from Whom every human ego is descended.

The Hebrew nation still felt itself to be a nation, and each individual a

member of that nation. When once the idea was grasped that in Christ-Jesus

there lives the ideal Man who stands above all that tends to divide

humanity, Christianity became the Ideal of an all-Embracing brotherhood.

Above all individual interests and relations, the feeling arose in some

that the innermost ego of all human beings is of the same origin. (In

addition to all the earthly forefathers, the great common Father of all

humanity appears. “I and the Father are one.”)

In the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries after Christ, the era in which

we are still living was being prepared in Europe. It was gradually to

replace the fourth, or Greco-Roman civilization. It is the fifth

post-Atlantean period. The races which, after many wanderings and varied

fortunes, became the vehicles of this new civilization were descendants of

those Atlanteans who had remained less affected than others by what had

been going on meanwhile during the four preceding periods of civilization.

They had not penetrated into the countries in which those respective

civilizations took root. On the contrary, they had, in their way, handed

on Atlantean forms of civilization. There were many among them who had

retained in a high degree the inheritance of the ancient dim clairvoyance,

the state described above as intermediate between sleeping and waking.

Such people knew the spiritual world from their own experience, and could

reveal to their fellow-men what takes place there. Thus there sprang up a

great number of narratives of spiritual beings and events, and the

national treasures of legends and sagas had their origin in spiritual

experiences of this kind. For the dim clairvoyance lasted on, in many

people, into times not far removed from the present. There were other

people who, although they had lost clairvoyance, nevertheless developed

the faculties they acquired for use in the physical sense-world in

accordance with feelings and emotions which corresponded to clairvoyant

experiences. And even the Atlantean oracles had their successors in the

new civilization.

There were everywhere Mysteries, but in them that Mystery of Initiation

was most cultivated, which leads to the unveiling of that part of the

spirit-world which Ahriman keeps hidden. The spiritual powers existing

behind the forces of nature were here revealed. In the mythologies of

European nations are contained the remnants of what the Initiates of these

Mysteries were able to disclose to men. It is true that these mythologies

also contain the other kind of mystery, although in a more imperfect form

than that possessed by the Southern and Eastern Mysteries. Superhuman

beings were also known in Europe, but they were seen to be in perpetual

conflict with the associates of Lucifer. And the Light-God too was

proclaimed, but in such a form that it was doubtful whether he would

overcome Lucifer. On the other hand, these Mysteries were illuminated by

the figure of the coming Christ. It was announced of Him that His kingdom

would replace that of the other Light-God.(25)

From such influences as these, there came about a cleavage in the soul of

the people of the fifth epoch of civilization which still continues, and

is manifest in most diverse phenomena. The soul had not retained, from

ancient times a sufficiently strong attraction for spiritual things to

enable it to hold fast the connection between the worlds of spirit and

sense. The attraction existed only as a training of feeling and emotion,

not as direct vision of the spiritual world. On the other hand, man’s

attention was more and more directed toward the world of the senses and

its conquest; and the intellectual powers which had been awakened in the

latter part of the Atlantean period, all those human powers of which the

physical brain is the instrument, were concentrated upon the sense-world,

and upon gaining knowledge of and mastery over it. Two worlds, so to

speak, were developed within man: the one directed toward the life of

physical sense; the other susceptible to the revelation of the spirit in

such a way as to permeate with feeling and emotion even though lacking

clairvoyant vision. The tendency to this cleavage of soul already existed

when the teaching concerning the Christ was introduced into Europe.

This message from the spiritual world was received into men’s hearts, and

permeated feeling and emotion; but it was not possible to bridge the gulf

between this state of devotion and what human intelligence, concentrated

on the sense-world, was learning in the sphere of physical existence. What

is now known as the contradiction between external science and spiritual

knowledge is simply a consequence of this fact. The Christian mysticism

(of Eckhart, Tauler and others) is the result of Christianity becoming

permeated with feeling and emotion. Science, occupied as it is exclusively

with the world of sense and its results in life, is the consequence of the

other tendency of the soul, and all achievements in the sphere of outer

material civilization are entirely due to this divergence of tendencies.

Since those human faculties, of which the brain is the instrument, were

concentrated exclusively on physical life, they were able to reach that

pitch of perfection which makes contemporary science, technical skill, and

other forms of mental activity possible. Such a material civilization

could originate only among the nations of Europe, for they are those

descendants of Atlantean ancestors who converted their natural inclination

toward the physical sense-world into faculties only when it had reached a

certain degree of maturity. Previously they had allowed it to lie dormant,

and had lived on what remained in them of the Atlantean clairvoyance and

on the communications of their Initiates. While mental culture was

outwardly almost entirely given up to these influences, in them ripened

slowly the desire for the material conquest of the world.

Now, however, the dawn of the sixth post-Atlantean era of civilization is

already at hand. What is to arise at a certain time in human evolution has

ripened slowly in the preceding age. The first beginnings of that which

can even now be developed, is to be discovered in the thread which binds

together the two tendencies of the human breast, material civilization and

life in the spiritual world. To this end it is necessary, on the one hand,

that the results of spiritual vision should be understood; and on the

other, that in the observations and experiences of of the sense-world the

revelations of the Spirit be recognized. The sixth civilization-epoch will

bring to full development the harmony between the two.

Herewith the studies in this book have reached a point where we may turn

from the perspectives of the past to those of the future. But it will be

better to precede the latter by a study of the Knowledge of Higher Worlds

and of Initiation. Then, after this study and in connection with it, we

shall be able to indicate in brief the outlook for the future, in so far

as that can be done within the framework of this book.