or theosophy, which reveals to man in a new form his connection with the
whole macrocosm. Certainly, in order to gain a true knowledge of the
Christ, those inspiring forces are absolutely necessary which are now
being bestowed by those same superhuman beings who formerly guided the
Egypto-Chaldæic epoch and who have now put themselves under the Christ.
There is need of a new inspiration of this kind, of an inspiration which
the great esoteric teachers of the middle ages had prepared from the
thirteenth century onwards, and which from this time forth must ever come
more and more into publicity. When man, according to the meaning of this
science, prepares his soul aright for the knowledge of the spirit-world,
he can then hear clairaudiently and he can see clairvoyantly what is
revealed by the old Chaldæic and Egyptian angel beings who are now again
acting as spiritual leaders under the guidance of the Christ. That
which humanity will some time later actually gain thereby could only be
_prepared_ in the first centuries of Christianity and up to our times.
Consequently we may say that in the future there will live in the
hearts of men an idea of the Christ incomparable in greatness with
anything which humanity has so far recognized. That which arose as a
first impulse through the Christ, and has lived as an idea of Him up to
the present time--even in the case of the best representatives of the
Christ-principle--is only a preparation for the true understanding of the
Christ. It would be strange indeed if, against those who in the West gave
expression in such a way as this to the Christ-idea, it were brought as
a reproach that they do not stand on the foundation of western Christian
tradition, but it is quite possible, for this western tradition does not
by any means suffice to help us to comprehend the Christ of the near
future.
From the hypothesis of eastern esotericism we can see the spiritual
direction of humanity gradually flowing into what may be in a real, true
sense called the guidance, which comes from the Christ-impulse. That
which is appearing as the new esotericism will flow slowly into the
hearts of men, and the spiritual guidance of men and of humanity will
ever more and more be consciously seen in such a light. We realize to
ourselves how at first the Christ-principle flowed into the hearts of
men because the Christ had gone about Palestine in the physical body of
Jesus of Nazareth. Later men gradually surrendered themselves entirely
to a reliance on the world of sense, and could only receive the impulse
which corresponded to their perception. Afterwards that same impulse so
worked through the inspiration of the new esotericism that such spirits
as Nicholas Cusamus, Copernicus and Galileo were able to be inspired
and Copernicus, for instance, was enabled to make this assertion: “That
which is evident to the senses cannot teach the truth about the solar
system; if we want to find the truth we must investigate behind sense
appearances.” At that time men, even spirits like Giordano Bruno, were
not yet ripe enough to join _consciously_ to the new esoteric stream. The
spirit of the movement had to work in them _un_consciously. Yet powerful
and magnificent was the announcement of Giordano Bruno: “When a human
being enters into existence by means of birth, then it is something
macrocosmic that concentrates itself as a monad; and when a human being
passes through death the monad spreads itself out again; that which was
enclosed within the body spreads itself out in the cosmos in order to
draw itself together again in other stages of existence, and again to
spread itself out.” There Bruno gave expression to mighty conceptions
which, even if expressed in stammering tongue, were yet in entire accord
with the sense of the new esotericism.
The spiritual influences which lead humanity need not work in such a way
that man is always conscious of them. For example, they put Galileo in
the cathedral of Pisa. Thousands had seen the old church lamp there, but
they have not seen it as did Galileo. He saw the church lamp swinging;
compared the time of its oscillation with the beat of his own pulse;
found that the church lamp swung in a regular rhythm resembling his
pulse-beat; and from this discovered the laws of the pendulum in the
sense of modern physics. Anyone acquainted with contemporary physics
knows that these would not be possible without Galileo’s principle. In
this way the force was then working which is now appearing as spiritual
science; Galileo was placed in the cathedral of Pisa before the
oscillating church lamp, and modern physics gained its principles. In
such a mysterious way do the guiding spiritual forces of humanity perform
their work.
We are now approaching the time when people are to become conscious
of these guiding powers. We shall always come to a better and better
understanding of what has to happen in the future if we rightly
understand what is working inspirationally as the new esotericism, and
which shows that the same spiritual beings, indicated by the ancient
Egyptians when the Greeks asked them about their teachers, who then ruled
as gods, are now again assuming control, through having placed themselves
under the leadership of the Christ. Ever more and more will men feel how
they can cause to reappear in a brighter lustre, in a nobler style and on
a higher level, that which was pre-Christian. The consciousness necessary
for the present time, which must be an intensified consciousness, ought
to give us a feeling of our high duty and great responsibility in
reference to the recognition of the spiritual world, and this can only
penetrate into our soul when we have recognized in the sense indicated,
what is the task of spiritual science.
[2] By “Ancient Persian” is not meant “Persian” in the usual historic
sense, but a pre-historic Asiatic (Iranian) civilization which developed
in that land over which, later on, the Persian Kingdom extended.
THE END.