The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Transition from the Fourth into the Fifth Root Race

[ 1 ] The following messages refer to the transition of the fourth (Atlantean) root race into the fifth (Aryan), to which the present civilized humanity belongs. Only those will understand them correctly who can penetrate the idea of evolution in its full scope and meaning. Everything that man becomes aware of around him is in development. And also the characteristic of the people of our fifth root race, which lies in the use of thought, has only just developed. Indeed, it is precisely this root race that slowly and gradually brings the power of thought to maturity. The present man decides (in thought) to do something, and then he carries it out as the result of his own thought. The Atlanteans first developed this ability. It was not their own thoughts that influenced their will, but those flowing to them from higher beings. This was thus to a certain extent directed from outside. - Whoever familiarizes himself with this idea of development in man and learns to admit that he was a completely different kind of being in prehistoric times - as an earthly man - will also be able to ascend to the idea of the completely different beings spoken of in the messages. Enormously great periods of time were taken up by the development that is reported. What has been said in the foregoing about the fourth root race, the Atlanteans, refers to the great mass of mankind. But these stood under leaders who towered high above them in their abilities. The wisdom which these leaders possessed and the powers which they commanded could not be acquired by any earthly education. They had been given to them by higher beings who did not belong directly to the earth. It was therefore only natural that the great mass of people perceived these leaders as beings of a higher kind, as "messengers" of the gods. For with the human sense organs, with the human intellect, it would not have been possible to achieve what these leaders knew and could carry out. They were revered as "messengers of God" and received their orders, commandments and also their teaching. Humanity was instructed in the sciences, arts and the manufacture of tools by beings of this kind. And such "messengers of the gods" either led the communities themselves or taught people who were sufficiently advanced in the arts of government. It was said of these leaders that they "communed with the gods" and were themselves initiated by them into the laws according to which humanity had to develop. And this corresponded to reality. This initiation, this communion with the gods, took place in places of which the masses knew nothing. These places of initiation were called mystery temples. So it was from them that the administration of the human race took place.

[ 2 ] What happened in the mystery temples was therefore also incomprehensible to the people. And neither did they understand the intentions of their great leaders. The people could only understand with their senses what happened directly on earth, not what was revealed for their salvation from higher worlds. Therefore, the teachings of the leaders had to be written in a form that was not similar to the messages about earthly events. The language which the gods spoke with their messengers in the Mysteries was not an earthly one either, and the figures in which these gods revealed themselves were just as little earthly. The higher spirits appeared to their messengers "in fiery clouds" to tell them how to guide people. Only a human being can appear in human form; beings whose abilities transcend the human must reveal themselves in forms that are not to be found among the earthly ones.

[ 3 ] The fact that the "messengers of God" were able to receive these revelations stems from the fact that they themselves were the most perfect among their human brethren. They had already gone through on earlier stages of development what the majority of people still have to go through. Only in a certain respect did they belong to this fellow humanity. They were able to assume human form. But their soul-spiritual qualities were of a superhuman nature. They were therefore divine-human dual beings. They could therefore also be described as higher spirits who had taken on human bodies in order to help humanity on its earthly path. Their actual home was not on earth. - These beings guided people without being able to tell them the principles according to which they guided them. Until the fifth sub-race of Atlanteans, the Ursemites, humans had no ability to understand these principles. Only the thinking power that developed in this sub-race was such an ability. But this ability developed slowly and gradually. And even the last sub-races of the Atlanteans could still grasp very little of the principles of their divine leaders. They began, imperfectly at first, to sense something of such principles. Therefore, their thoughts and also the laws spoken of in their state institutions were more imagined than clearly thought out.

[ 4 ] The chief leader of the fifth Atlantean sub-race gradually prepared it so that in later times, after the demise of the Atlantean way of life, it could begin a new one, one governed entirely by the power of thought.

[ 5 ] Now we must realize that at the end of the Atlantean period we are dealing with three groups of human-like beings. 1. the so-called "messengers of the gods", who were far ahead of the great mass of people in their development, who taught divine wisdom and performed divine deeds. 2. The great masses themselves, in whom the power of thought was in a dull state, although they possessed faculties of a natural kind which have been lost to mankind today. 3. A smaller group of those who developed the power of thought. This group gradually lost the original abilities of the Atlanteans, but they trained themselves to think and grasp the principles of the "messengers of the gods". — The second group of human beings was doomed to gradual extinction. The third, however, could be called upon by the beings of the first species to take their leadership into their own hands.

[ 6 ] From this third group, the aforementioned main leader, whom occult literature refers to as Manu, took out the most capable in order to let a new humanity emerge from them. These most capable were present in the fifth sub-race. The thinking power of the sixth and seventh sub-race had already gone astray in a certain way and was no longer suitable for further development. - The best qualities of the best had to be developed. This was done by separating the chosen ones in a special place on earth - in Inner Asia - and freeing them from any influence of those who had remained behind or had gone astray. - The task the leader set himself was to bring his flock so far that their members could grasp in their own souls, with their own power of thought, the principles according to which they had hitherto been guided in a way they had sensed but not clearly recognized. Men were to recognize the divine powers which they had unconsciously followed. Hitherto the gods had guided men through their messengers; now men were to know of these divine entities. They were to learn to regard themselves as the executive organs of divine providence.

[ 7 ] The separated group was faced with an important decision. The divine leader was in their midst, in human form. From such messengers of the gods, mankind had previously received instructions and orders on what to do and what not to do. They had been instructed in the sciences that related to what they could perceive with their senses. Men had suspected a divine world government, had felt it in their own actions; but they had known nothing of it clearly - now their leader spoke to them in a completely new way. He taught them that invisible powers govern what they had visibly before them; and that they themselves were servants of these invisible powers, that they had to carry out the laws of these invisible powers with their thoughts. Men heard of a supernatural divine. And that the invisible spiritual was the creator and sustainer of the visible physical. They had previously looked up to their visible messengers of the gods, to the superhuman initiates, one of whom was the one who spoke to them in this way, and they were told what to do and what not to do. But now they realized that the messenger of the gods was speaking to them from the gods themselves. The speech was powerful, which he repeatedly inculcated in his flock. "Until now you have seen those who lead you; but there are higher leaders whom you do not see. And to those leaders you are subject. You shall carry out the commands of the God whom you do not see; and you shall obey one of whom you cannot make an image." Thus sounded from the mouth of the great leader the new highest commandment, which prescribed the worship of a God to whom no sensual-visible image could resemble, of whom therefore none should be made. An echo of this great original commandment of the fifth human race is the well-known: "You shall not make for yourself an idol, nor any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth..." ^{5Book of Moses, 10th chapter 51}

[ 8 ] The main leader (Manu) was assisted by other messengers of the gods, who carried out his intentions for the individual branches of life and worked on the development of the new race. For it was a matter of organizing the whole of life according to the new concept of a divine world government. The thoughts of people everywhere were to be directed from the visible to the invisible. Life is determined by the forces of nature. The course of human life depends on day and night, winter and summer, sunshine and rain. How these influential visible facts are connected with the invisible (divine) forces and how man should behave so that he arranges his life according to these invisible powers: this was shown to him. All knowledge and all work should be done with this in mind. In the course of the stars and the weather conditions, man was to see the divine counsel, the outflow of divine wisdom. Astronomy and meteorology were taught in this sense. And man should organize his work and his moral life in such a way that they correspond to the wise laws of the divine. Life was ordered according to divine commandments, just as the divine thoughts were explored in the course of the stars, in the weather conditions and so on. Through sacrifices, man was to bring his works into harmony with the providence of the gods. — It was Manu's intention to direct everything in human life towards the higher worlds. All human activity, all institutions should have a religious character. In this way, Manu wanted to initiate what is the real task of the fifth root race. It should learn to guide itself through its thoughts. But such self-determination can only lead to salvation if man also places himself at the service of the higher powers. Man should make use of his power of thought; but this power of thought should be sanctified by looking to the divine.

[ 9 ] One can only fully understand what happened at that time if one also knows that the development of the power of thought, beginning with the fifth sub-race of the Atlanteans, had something else in its wake. For from a certain side men had come into possession of knowledge and arts that were not directly connected with what the above-mentioned Manu must have regarded as his actual task. These knowledge and arts initially lacked a religious character. They approached man in such a way that he could think of nothing else but to place them in the service of self-interest, of his personal needs... ^{6It is not permitted for the time being to make public statements about the origin of this knowledge and art. Therefore, a passage of the Akashic Chronicle must be omitted here.} Such knowledge includes, for example, that of fire in its application to human activities. In the first Atlantean times, man did not need fire because the life force was at his service. But the less he was able to make use of this power as time progressed, the more he had to learn to make tools and implements from so-called inanimate things. The use of fire served him for this purpose. And it was similar with other forces of nature. So man had learned to make use of such natural forces without being aware of their divine origin. And so it should be. Man should not be forced by anything to relate these things, which are at the service of his thinking power, to the divine world order. Rather, he should do so voluntarily in his thoughts. Thus Manu's intention was to get people to relate such things to the higher world order independently, out of an inner need. People could, as it were, choose whether they wanted to use the knowledge they had gained purely for their own personal benefit or in the religious service of a higher world. - Whereas previously man was forced to regard himself as a member of the divine control of the world, from which, for example, the control of the life force flowed to him without him having to use the power of thought, he could now also use the forces of nature without directing his thoughts to the divine. - Not all the people whom Manu had gathered around him were equal to this decision, but rather only a small number of them. And only from this latter number could Manu really form the germ of the new race. He then withdrew with it in order to develop it further, while the others mingled with the rest of humanity. - It is from the small number of people who finally gathered around Manu that all the true germs of progress of the fifth root race are descended to this day. Hence it is also explicable that two traits run through the whole development of this fifth root-race. The one trait is peculiar to men who are inspired by higher ideas, who regard themselves as children of a divine world power; the other belongs to those who place everything only in the service of personal interests, of self-interest.

[ 10 ] So long remained the little band around Manu, until it was sufficiently strengthened to work in the new spirit, and until its members could go forth to bring this new spirit to the rest of mankind that remained of the preceding races. It is natural that this new spirit took on a different character in different peoples, depending on how they themselves had developed in different areas. The old traits left behind mingled with what the messengers of Manu carried to the different parts of the world. This gave rise to diverse new cultures and civilizations.

[ 11 ] The most capable personalities from the surroundings of Manu were chosen to be gradually and directly initiated into his divine wisdom, so that they could become teachers of the others. Thus it came about that the old messengers of the gods were now joined by a new kind of initiate. They are those who have trained their thinking power in the same earthly way as the rest of their fellow men. The previous messengers of the gods - including Manu - did not have this. Their development belonged to higher worlds. They brought their higher wisdom into earthly circumstances. What they gave mankind was a "gift from above". Before the middle of the Atlantean period, men were not yet ready to comprehend with their own powers what the divine decrees are. Now - in the time indicated - they should come to it. Earthly thinking was to rise up to the concept of the divine. Human initiates joined the superhuman ones. This meant an important change in the development of the human race. Even the first Atlanteans did not have the choice to regard their leaders as divine messengers or not. For what they accomplished imposed itself as an act of higher worlds. It bore the stamp of divine origin. Thus the messengers of the Atlantean period were beings sanctified by their power, surrounded by the splendor that this power bestowed upon them. The human initiates of later times are, outwardly speaking, human beings among human beings. However, they remained in connection with the higher worlds, and the revelations and apparitions of the messengers of the gods reached them. Only exceptionally, when a higher necessity arises, do they make use of certain powers bestowed on them from there. Then they perform deeds which people do not understand according to the laws known to them and therefore rightly regard as miracles. - The higher purpose of all this, however, is to put humanity on its own feet, to develop its power of thought to perfection. - The human initiates are today the mediators between the people and the higher powers; and only initiation enables them to deal with the messengers of the gods.

[ 12 ] The human initiates, the sacred teachers, now became leaders of the rest of humanity at the beginning of the fifth root race. The great priest-kings of prehistoric times, of whom not history but the world of legends bears witness, belong to the group of these initiates. Increasingly, the higher messengers of the gods withdrew from the earth and left the leadership to these human initiates, whom they support with help and advice. If this were not the case, man would never be able to make free use of his power of thought. The world is under divine guidance; however, man should not be forced to admit this, but should realize and understand it through free deliberation. Once he has reached this stage, the initiates will gradually reveal their secrets to him. But this cannot happen suddenly. Rather, the entire development of the fifth root race is the slow path to this goal. Like children, Manu himself first led his flock. Then the leadership gradually passed to human initiates. And today progress still consists of a mixture of conscious and unconscious human action and thought. Only at the end of the fifth root race, when a sufficient number of people through the sixth and seventh subraces are capable of knowledge, will the greatest initiate be able to reveal himself publicly to them. And this human initiate will then be able to take over the further main leadership just as Manu did at the end of the fourth root race. Thus the education of the fifth root race is that a greater part of humanity will come to follow a human Manu freely, as the germinal race of this fifth did with the divine one.