The Spiritual Guidance of Mankind
GA 15
Lecture II
[ 1 ] If we turn our attention to what was said to the Greeks by the teachers and leaders of ancient Egypt about the direction and guidance of the spiritual life of their country, we may trace a remarkable parallel between that which is manifested in the individual life of man, and that which governs human evolution as a whole. It is related that when a Greek once asked an Egyptian, who had guided and led his nation from ancient times onwards, he answered, ‘In the times of yore, the gods ruled and taught us, and only afterwards men came to be our leaders.’ The Egyptians named Menes to the Greeks as their first leader on the physical plane to be recognized as a human leader. That is to say, the directors of the Egyptian people alleged that in earlier times the gods themselves—as Greek records confirm—guided and led the Egyptian nation. Such an assertion, coming down to us from ancient times, must, however, be rightly understood. What did the Egyptians mean when they said, ‘Our kings and great teachers were gods?’
The man who thus answered the question of the Greek meant that if any one had gone back into the ancient times of the Egyptian nation, and had asked those people who felt something within them like a higher consciousness, or wisdom from higher worlds: ‘Who are really your teachers?’ they would have answered: ‘If I wanted to tell you about my real teacher, I should not point to such and such a person and say, ‘That is my teacher,’ but I should first have to put myself into a clairvoyant state (it is known from spiritual science that this was comparatively easier in ancient times than it is now), and then I would find my real inspirer and teacher, who comes to me only when the eyes of my spirit are opened.’ For in ancient Egypt beings who were not incarnated in a physical human body came down amongst men. In those remote ages, it was the gods who still ruled and taught the Egyptians, and by “gods” they understood beings who had preceded man in evolution.
[ 2 ] According to spiritual science, the earth passed through an earlier planetary condition, called the Moon-state, before it became Earth. During this condition man was not yet human in the present sense of the word. On the old Moon were present beings not possessed of the present human forms and differently constituted, who nevertheless were then at the evolutionary stage which man has now attained on earth. We may therefore say, that on the ancient Moon-planet which has perished, and out of which the Earth afterwards originated, there lived beings who were man's predecessors. In Christian esoteric language they are called Angel-beings (Angeloi). The beings immediately above them, Archangels (Archangeloi), were human at a still earlier period. The angels, or angeloi in Christian esotericism, Dhyanic beings in eastern mysticism, were ‘men’ during the Moon-period. Now these beings, during the present Earth-period, are a stage farther advanced than man—those of them, that is to say, who completed their evolution on the Moon. Only at the end of the Earth's evolution will man have arrived at the stage which those beings had reached at the end of the Moon-period.
When the Earth-state of our planet began and man appeared on earth, these beings were not able to appear in an external human form, for the human body of flesh and blood is essentially a product of earth, and is only adapted to the beings who are now human. The beings who are a stage farther advanced than man could not be incarnated in human bodies. They were only able to take part in the government of the earth by illuminating and inspiring those people in primeval times who had attained the stage of clairvoyance. Indirectly, then, through such clairvoyant persons the angels intervened to guide the destinies of earth.
[ 3 ] Thus the ancient Egyptians still remembered a time when the leading personalities of the nation were clearly conscious of their connection with what are called gods, angels, or dhyanic beings. Now what sort of beings were these, who were not incarnated in a human form of flesh and blood, but who influenced mankind in the way we have described? They were man's predecessors, advanced beyond the human stage.
[ 4 ] There is in these days much misuse of a word which may in this connection be applied in its true meaning, the word “Superman.” If we really wish to speak of “Supermen,” it is these beings who may rightly be so called. Human during the Moon-period, the planetary stage preceding our Earth, they had now outgrown humanity. They were only able to appear in an etheric body to clairvoyants. It was thus that they came down to earth from spiritual worlds and ruled here even as late as post-Atlantean times.
[ 5] These beings had, and still have, the remarkable quality of not being obliged to think; in fact, we might even say that they cannot think at all as man does. How then does man think? More or less in this way. He starts from a certain point and says, “I understand this or that,” and from that point he then tries to understand various other things. If this were not the method of human thought, school-life would not be such a difficult period for many. We cannot learn mathematics in a day, because we have to begin at a certain point and go slowly forwards. This takes a long time. We cannot survey a whole world of thought at a glance, for human thought runs its course in time. A system of thought does not enter the mind in a flash. We have to make an effort and have to exert ourselves, in order to find the sequence of thought. The beings described above are without this human peculiarity. A far-reaching train of thought comes into their minds with the same rapidity with which an animal makes up its mind that it will snatch at something which its instinct tells it is eatable. Instinct and reflective consciousness are in no wise distinct in these beings; they are one and the same. Just as animals have instinct at their stage of evolution, in their kingdom, so these dhyanic beings or angels have direct spiritual thought and conceptions. By virtue of this instinctive inner life of conception they are of an essentially different nature from human beings.
[ 6 ] Now we can easily understand why it is impossible for these beings to use a brain or physical body like ours. They have to use an etheric body, because the human body and brain only allow of thoughts in time, whereas these beings do not develop their thoughts in time, but feel the wisdom that is approaching them blaze forth, as it were, spontaneously within them. It is impossible for them to think erroneously in the sense in which man does. The process of their thought is a direct inspiration. Hence the personalities who were able to come into contact with these super-human or angelic beings were conscious that they were in the presence of unerring wisdom, Therefore, even as late as ancient Egyptian times, when the man who was the human teacher or king was in the presence of his spiritual guide, he felt thus the command which he is giving, the truth which he is enunciating, is literally right and cannot be wrong. This was also felt by those to whom the truths were passed on.
[ 7 ] The clairvoyant guides of the human race were able to speak in such a manner that in their words people believed they were receiving exactly what came down from the spiritual world. In short, there was a direct current down from the higher spirit-hierarchies which were directing humanity. [ 8 ] Thus what works on the individual in early childhood may be seen working on humanity at large in the form of the next world of spirit-hierarchies which hovers over human evolution as a whole. This is the next kingdom of the angels or super-human beings, standing a step higher than man, and extending directly into spiritual spheres. They bring down to earth from those spheres what is worked into human civilization. In the child, it is on the formation of the body that the higher wisdom leaves its impress; in human evolution of past ages, it was civilization that was so matured.
[ 9 ] Thus the Egyptians, who described themselves as being in connection with divinity, felt that the soul of humanity was open to the action of spirit hierarchies. Just as the soul of a child opens its aura to the hierarchies up to the time mentioned in the preceding pages, so, through its work, did the whole of humanity open its world to the hierarchies with which it was connected.
[ 10 ] This connection was most important in those teachers whom we call the holy teachers of India, the great teachers of the first post-Atlantean or Indian civilization, which unfolded itself in southern Asia. When the Atlantean catastrophe was over, and the physiognomy of the earth had changed, so that the new conformation of Asia, Europe, and Africa had evolved in the Eastern hemisphere, the civilization led by the ancient great teachers of India began. This was before the time we have mentioned as reported in ancient records. The man of today is apt to get quite a wrong idea about these teachers. If, for example, one of the great Indian teachers were to be confronted with an educated man of the present day, the latter would gaze upon him with astonishment, and perhaps say, “Is that a great teacher? I should never have thought it.” The words “clever” or “learned” in the sense of modern culture could not be applied to the holy teachers of ancient India. They had nothing clever to say. They were simple, homely people, who would have answered even questions of everyday life in the simplest fashion possible. And there were many periods during which scarcely anything could be elicited from them but what would seem, to an educated man of today, insignificant. On the other hand, there were certain times when these holy teachers were revealed as something more than simple, homely men. At these times they were obliged to be together to the number of seven, because what each individual was able to feel had to combine harmoniously with the feelings of the other six teachers, as though in a consonance of seven sounds. For it was then possible for each one to see something according to his particular gift and degree of development. Assuming that we know how to decipher the real occult records, we find that from the harmony of the separate parts which each individual was able to see, there arose the primeval wisdom which comes down to us from ancient times. These records are not the revelations of the Vedas, however much we may admire them. What the Indian holy teachers taught is of much earlier date than the composition of the Vedas, and it is only a feeble echo of their wisdom which lies before us in those mighty works. But when each of these men was in the presence of a super-human predecessor of humanity, was gazing clairvoyantly into higher worlds, and listening clairaudiently to what was being taught through that predecessor, it was as though the sun shone from their eyes. What they were then able to say worked with overpowering force on their environment, so that all who heard them knew that it was not human life or wisdom that was speaking, but that gods, super-human beings, were influencing human civilization.
[ 11 ] The ancient civilizations had their rise in this sounding to mankind of the knowledge of the gods. Only by degrees in post-Atlantean times was the door closed into the divine spiritual world which in the Atlantean period had still been wide open for the human soul. And in the various countries and nations it was felt that man was thrown ever more and more on his own resources. What is revealed in the case of a child appears in humanity in a different way. The divine spiritual world is first diffused into the unconscious soul of a child, and the soul works upon the formation of the body. Then comes the moment at which the child learns to feel itself an ‘ego’ and this is the moment to which its memory goes back in later life. This is what makes it possible to say that the wisest of men may still learn something from the soul of a child. From this point, however, the individual is left to himself. The ego-consciousness comes into being, and everything combines to make it possible for him to remember his experiences.
So, too, in the life of nations there came a time when they began to feel themselves shut off from the divine inspiration of their early forefathers. Just as the child becomes gradually shut off from the aura that floats about its head in its earliest years, so in the life of nations did the divine ancestors withdraw themselves more and more, and mankind was left to its own research and to its own knowledge. When history speaks in this manner, the fact of the guidance of humanity is realized Menes was the Egyptian name of him who inaugurated the first human civilization, and it is at the same time hinted that man thereby became liable to error, for thenceforward he was left to look for guidance to the instrument of his brain. That man was liable to fall into error is symbolically indicated by the fixing of the date of the construction of the labyrinth at the time when humanity was abandoned by the gods; for the labyrinth is an image of the convolutions of the brain as the instrument of man's own thoughts—windings in which the thinker is able to lose himself. The Orientals called man, as a thinking being, Manas, and Manu stands for the first great thinker. The Greeks called the first organizer of the human principle of thought Minos, and with him is associated the myth of the labyrinth, because it was felt that, since his time, mankind had gradually passed from the direct guidance of the gods to a guidance in which the “ego” feels the influence of the higher spirit-world in a different way.
[ 12 ] Besides those predecessors of man, the true supermen, who had completed their humanity on the Moon and had become angels, there are, however, other beings who did not perfect their evolution on the Moon .The beings called dhyanic in Oriental mysticism and angelic in Christian esotericism, consummated their evolution on the ancient Moon, and when man began his earthly career were already a stage higher than he was. But there were other beings who had not finished their evolution on the ancient Moon, any more than the higher categories of Luciferic beings had finished theirs. When the Earth-state of our planet began, man as we have described him was not the only being there. He felt also the inspiration of divinely-spiritual beings; otherwise, like a child, he would have been unable to progress. Accordingly, besides these childlike human beings, and acting through them, there must have been also present on the earth beings who had completed their evolution on the Moon. But between these and man there were yet other beings who had not finished their evolution on the Moon—beings of a higher order than man, because, even as early as the ancient Moon-period, they might have become angels or dhyanic beings. At that time, however, they had not come to full maturity. They were angels in a backward state, yet they far outdistanced man as regards everything which man called his own. Generally speaking, they are beings occupying the lowest grade in the ranks of Luciferic spirits. They hold a middle position between men and angels, and with them begins the kingdom of Luciferic spirits.
[ 13 ] Now it is extremely easy to get an erroneous idea of these spirits. We might ask why did the divine spirits, the regents of good, allow them to fall short, and thereby admit the Luciferic principle into humanity? And it might further be objected on this ground, that surely the good gods turned everything to good. This question is obvious. And another misunderstanding which might arise, is expressed in the idea that these are “evil” spirits. Both ideas are merely misunderstandings; for these spirits are by no means purely “evil,” although the origin of evil in human nature is due to them. Since they stand midway between man and superman, they are, in a sense, more perfect than men. In all the qualities which human beings have to acquire for themselves, these spirits have attained a high standard, and they only differ from man's predecessors described above in being able to incarnate in human bodies whilst man is being evolved on Earth. This is because they did not consummate their humanity on the Moon.
The dhyanic or angelic beings proper, who are the great inspirers of humanity, and to whom the Egyptian referred as being still their teachers, did not appear in human bodies. They could only manifest themselves through human beings. On the other hand, the beings in a mid-position between men and angels were still able, in very early times to incarnate in human bodies. Hence amongst the human race inhabiting the earth in the Lemurian and Atlantean periods, we find people whose innermost soul-nature was that of an angel in a backward state. Not only ordinary people were going about the earth, who through their successive incarnations were to arrive at the ideal of humanity, but beings who only outwardly appeared like them. These had to bear a human body, for the outward form of a human being in the flesh is dependent on earthly conditions. Especially in more ancient times did it happen that beings belonging to the lowest category of Luciferic individualities were present amongst men. And so at the same time that the angel-beings were working on human civilization through man, Lucifer-beings were also incarnated and founding human civilizations in various places. And when in the old folk legends it is related that in some place there lived a great man who was the founder of a civilization we are not to understand that such a Lucifer-being was necessarily the vehicle of evil but rather that human civilization was to receive countless blessings from him.
[ 14 ] Now it is known through occult science that in ancient times, particularly in the Atlantean period, there existed a kind of primitive human language, a manner of speech, which was the same all over the earth, because “speech” in those days came much more out of the depths of the soul than it does now. This may be gathered from the following: In Atlantean times, people felt all outward impressions in such a way that if the soul wished to express anything outward by a sound, it was constrained to use a consonant. What existed in space pressed for imitation in a consonant. The blowing of the wind, the murmur of the waves, the shelter given by a house were felt and imitated by man in consonants. On the other hand, the sorrow or joy which was felt inwardly, or was observed as feeling in another being, was imitated in a vowel. From this we can see that the soul became one, in speech, with outer events or beings. [ 15 ] The following instance is taken from the Akashic Records: A man drew near a hut, which was arched in the ancient fashion and gave shelter and protection to a family. He noticed this, and expressed the protective arch by a consonant; and by a vowel he expressed the fact, which he was able to feel, that within the hut the embodied souls were comfortable. Thence arose the thought “shelter”; “there is a shelter for me—shelter for human bodies.” The thought was then poured forth in consonants and vowels, which could not be otherwise than they were, because they were a direct impression of experience and had but one meaning. [ 16 ] This was the same all over the earth. It is no dream that there was once an original human root-language. And, in a certain sense, the initiates of all nations are still able to feel that language. Indeed there are in all languages certain similar sounds which are the remains of that universal language.
[ 7 ] This speech was prompted in human souls by the inspiration of the super-human beings, man's true predecessors, who had perfected their evolution on the Moon. From this it may be seen that if that evolution alone had taken place, the entire human race would practically have remained one great unity, and there would have been uniformity of speech and thought all over the earth. Individuality and diversity could not have been developed, nor at the same time could human freedom. In order that man might become individual, cleavages had to take place in humanity, and the difference of language in different parts of the world is due to the work of those teachers in whom a Luciferic spirit was incarnated. According as a particular angel-being, who had fallen short in his evolution, was incarnated in a particular race, was he able to instruct its people in a particular language. Thus the ability to speak a separate language is, in all races, traceable to the illuminating presence of these great beings who were angels in a backward state and who stood far above the people of their immediate environment. For instance, the beings described as the original heroes of the Greeks and other nations, and who worked in a human form, were those in whom an angel who had fallen short was incarnated. Therefore these beings must by no means be characterized as entirely “evil.” On the contrary, they brought to man that which predestined him to be a free human being all over the globe, and they differentiated what otherwise would have constituted a uniform whole everywhere on earth. This is not only true of languages but of many other departments of life. Individualization, differentiation, freedom, we may say, come from the beings who fell short in their Moon-evolution. It is true that it was the purpose of the wise rulership of the cosmos to bring all beings in planetary evolution to their goal, but if this had been done in a direct way particular ends would not have been attained. Certain beings were therefore arrested in their development because they were to have a special mission in the progress of humanity. Since the beings who had fulfilled their mission on the Moon would only have been able to educate a uniform human race, beings who had fallen short on the Moon were set against them, and it thereby became possible for these backward ones to turn into good what appeared as a defect.
[ 18 ] This opens up the question, why do evil, wickedness, imperfection, and disease exist in the world? This problem should be looked at from the point of view from which we have just considered the imperfect angel-beings. Everything which at any time exhibits imperfection or backwardness will be turned into good in the course of evolution. It is obvious that this affords no justification for bad actions on man's part.
[ 19 ] Why does a wise Providence allow certain beings to lag behind and not reach their goal? There will be good reason for it at the time following the formation of such a purpose. For it was when nations were not yet able to guide and govern themselves that the teachers of particular periods and individuals arose. And all the different race-teachers, Cadmus, Cheops, Pelops, Theseus, etc, are, in one aspect, angel-beings in the depths of their souls. From this it appears that in this respect also, humanity is really subject to direction and guidance.
[ 20 ] Now at every stage of evolution there are beings who lag behind and do not attain the possible goal. Let us look once more at the ancient Egyptian civilization which ran its course thousands of years ago in the Nile valley. Super-human teachers manifested themselves to the Egyptians, who said that these teachers guided mankind like gods. At the same time, however, other beings were also at work, who had only half or partially attained the angelic stage. Now we must fully understand that the souls of people of the present day had attained a definite stage in the Egyptian period. But it is not only man who gains by letting himself be guided; the beings directing him attain thereby something which furthers their evolution. For instance, an angel is something more after he has guided humanity for a while, than he was before that guidance began. His guiding work helps him to progress, and this is true not only of one who has completed his evolution as an angel, but also of one who has lagged behind. All beings are able continually to advance; everything is in a state of perpetual development; but at every stage beings are left behind. Thus, in accordance with what has just been said, there can be distinguished in the ancient Egyptian civilization the divine leaders or angels, the semi-divine leaders who did not quite attain the angelic stage, and the men. But certain beings in the ranks of the angels again lag behind; they do not bring all their powers into expression when guiding humanity, but remain behind as angels during the ancient Egyptian stage of civilization. Similarly some of the incomplete angels lag behind. Thus while men below were progressing, certain of the beings above, the dhyanic spirits or angels, fell behind in their evolution. When the Egypto-Chaldæic civilization came to an end, and the Graeco-Roman period began, certain guiding spirits from the former period, who had fallen behind in their evolution, were present. But they could not use their powers, for other angels or half-angelic beings had replaced them, and that meant that their own evolution was at a standstill.
[ 21 ] Hence there comes under our notice a category of beings who might have used their powers during the Egyptian period, but did not at that time use them fully. In the ensuing Graeco-Roman period they were not able to use them, because they were replaced by other guiding spirits, and all the conditions of that time made their intervention impossible. But just as the beings who had not reached the angelic stage on the old Moon were, during the Earth-period, once more allotted the task of interposing actively in human evolution, so also the beings who, as guiding spirits in the Egypto-Chaldæic civilization, had stopped short in their development, had lagged behind, later received the mission of intervening again in civilization. We shall be able to watch a later period of civilization in which beings sent to be guides are certainly there to direct the normal progress of evolution, but in which, at the same time, other beings are intervening who were left behind at an earlier stage, and more particularly those who fell behind during the ancient Egyptian period. The civilization to which we are referring is our own. We live at a time when, side by side with the normal directors of humanity, others are interposing who were left behind in the ancient Egyptian and Chaldæic period.
[ 22 ] Now we have to look upon the evolution of events and beings in such a way that occurrences in the physical world must be considered only as effects or manifestations, the true causes of which are to be sought in the spiritual world. On the one hand our civilization is in the main marked by an upward movement towards spirituality, and this tendency of certain people towards spirituality is the manifestation of the spiritual directors of our contemporary humanity, who have attained their own normal stage of development. In everything which tends to lead man up to the great spiritual wisdom-truths transmitted to us by theosophy, these normal guides of our evolution are manifested. But the beings out-distanced during the Egypto-Chaldæic civilization are also affecting the tendencies of our age. They are manifest in much that is being thought and done at the present and will again be manifest in the near future. They are revealed in everything which gives a materialistic stamp to our civilization, and may often be seen even in aspirations after spiritual things. In our age we are virtually experiencing a revival of Egyptian civilization. The beings who are to be looked upon as the invisible directors of that which takes place in the physical world fall accordingly into two classes. The first includes those spiritual individualities who have passed through their own normal course of development up to the present time. They were able to interpose in the guidance of our civilization, whilst the directors of the preceding Graeco-Roman period were gradually finishing their task of guiding civilization during the first thousand years of Christianity The second class, who work simultaneously with the first class of beings, are spiritual individualities who did not complete their evolution during the Egypto-Chaldæic civilization. They were obliged to remain inactive during the ensuing Graeco-Roman period, but are now able to resume their activity because our present age has points of resemblance to the Egypto-Chaldæic period. It thus comes about that many things arise in contemporary humanity which look like a revival of ancient Egyptian forces, but there is also much which is like a materialistic resuscitation of forces which then worked spiritually. To illustrate this, we may point to an example of the way in which ancient Egyptian knowledge has been revived in our days.
Let us think of Kepler. He was quite possessed by the feeling of the harmony of the cosmos, and this idea was expressed in his important mathematical laws of the mechanism of the heavens, the so-called laws of Kepler. These are outwardly very dry and abstruse, but in Kepler they were the outcome of an understanding of the harmony of the universe. We may read in Kepler's writings that in order to discover what he did, he was obliged to go to the sacred Egyptian mysteries, purloin their temple-vessels, and by this means bring knowledge into the world, the importance of which to humanity would only be known in later times.
This utterance of Kepler's is by no means an empty phrase, but contains a dim consciousness of a revival of what he had learned in the Egyptian period, during a former incarnation. We may certainly entertain the idea that Kepler assimilated the ancient Egyptian wisdom during one of his previous lives, and that it reappears in his soul in a new form, adapted to a later age. That a materialistic impulse should enter our civilization through the Egyptian spirit is quite intelligible, for Egyptian spirituality had a strong materialistic tendency, which found expression, for instance, in embalming the physical bodies of the dead. This meant that the Egyptian attached value to the preservation of the physical body. This has come down to us from the Egyptian period in a different form, but in one corresponding to our time. The same forces which had not then run their course, affect our age, but in a different way. The temper of mind which embalmed dead bodies gave rise to that which idolizes the merely material. The Egyptian embalmed dead bodies and thereby preserved what he accounted valuable. He thought that the development of the soul after death was connected with the preservation of the physical material body. The modern anatomist dissects what he sees, and thinks that in this way he understands the laws of the human organism. Thus in our modern science are living the forces of the ancient Egyptian and Chaldæic world. At that time progressive forces, they now lag behind, and must be recognized for what they are if a correct estimate is to be formed of the character of the present time. These forces will injure a man of the present day if he does not know their real significance. If he knows their effect and thereby brings himself into the right relation to them, he will take no harm from them, but will turn them to good account. They must be used, for without them we should not have the present great achievements in technology and industry. They are forces belonging to Luciferic beings of the lowest stage, and the danger lies in the fact that if they are not recognized aright, the materialistic impulses of the present time are thought to be the only possible ones, and the other forces, which lead up to the spiritual world, are not taken into consideration. For this reason any clear diagnosis is certain to discern two currents of thought in the present age. [ 23 ] Now if a wise Providence had not allowed certain beings in the Egypto-Chaldæic period to fall short in their evolution, our contemporary civilization would have been wanting in necessary weight. In that case only those forces would be operative which would bring man into the spiritual world by main force. People would be only too ready to yield themselves up to those forces, and would become dreamers. The only life they would wish to know about would be one which is being spiritualized as fast as possible, and their standard of action would be a view of life showing a certain degree of contempt for what is physical and material. But the present epoch of civilization can only fulfill its mission if the forces of the material world are brought to the fullest perfection, and if thus by degrees their sphere too is won for spirituality. Just as the fairest things may become corrupters and tempters of mankind if pursued in a one-sided way, so if this one-sidedness took root, there would be great danger that all kinds of good efforts would come into manifestation as fanaticism, True though it is that humanity is helped forward by its noble impulses, it is also true that wild and fanatical advocacy of the noblest impulses may bring about the worst of results as far as true evolution is concerned. Only when people strive after the highest modestly and sensibly, not out of wild fanaticism, can anything beneficial to the progress of humanity take place. In order that the work done on earth at the present day may have the necessary weight, and that material beings of the physical plane may be understood, the wisdom which directs the government of the world left those forces behind which would normally have completed their evolution during the Egyptian period; and it is these which are now directing man's attention to physical life.
[ 24 ] It is obvious from the foregoing that evolution takes place under the influence both of normally progressive beings and of those who lag behind. Clairvoyant vision is able to trace the co-operation of both classes of beings in the super-sensible world, and hence is able to comprehend the spiritual events of which the physical facts surrounding humanity are the manifestations.
[ 25 ] We observe that, in order to understand cosmic events, it is not enough to have spiritual eyes and ears opened to the spiritual world by some kind of exercise. This only means that we see what is there, that we are cognizant of spiritual beings and know that they are entities of the soul-world or spirit-sphere. But it is also necessary to recognize what kinds of beings they are. We may meet some being of the soul or spirit world, but we do not necessarily know whether it is progressing in its evolution, or whether it belongs to the category of powers that have lagged behind; whether therefore it is pushing evolution onwards, or hindering it. Those people who acquire clairvoyant faculties and do not at the same time gain complete understanding of the conditions of human evolution which we have described may know absolutely nothing of the nature of the beings whom they meet. Mere clairvoyance must be supplemented by clear judgment of what is seen in the supersensible world. There is urgent necessity for this especially in our own time, but it had not always to be so much considered. If we go back to very ancient civilizations, we find different conditions. If in the most ancient Egyptian times a person was clairvoyant, and was confronted with a being from the supersensible world, the latter had, as it were, written on his forehead who he was. The clairvoyant could not mistake him. Now, however, the possibility of misunderstanding is very great. Whereas humanity in early times still stood very near the kingdom of the spiritual hierarchies and could see what beings it was meeting, it is now very easy to be mistaken. The only protection against being severely injured is the effort to gain ideas and conceptions like those indicated above.
[ 26 ] A person who is able to look into the spiritual world is called esoterically a “clairvoyant,” but merely to be clairvoyant is not enough, for such a man might be able to see well enough although unable to discriminate. He who has acquired the faculty of distinguishing the various beings and events of higher worlds, is called an “Initiate,” Initiation brings with it the possibility of distinguishing between different kinds of beings. It is possible to be clairvoyant in the higher worlds without being an initiate. In ancient times distinguishing between spirits was not specially important, for when the ancient occult schools had brought a pupil so far as clairvoyance, there was no great danger of error. Now, however, this danger exists to a high degree. Therefore in all esoteric training, care should be taken that initiation should be acquired in addition to clairvoyance. In proportion to the extent of his clairvoyance must a man become capable of distinguishing between the various kinds of supersensible beings and events.
[ 27 ] In modern times the powers guiding humanity are faced by the special task of bringing about a balance between the two principles of clairvoyance and initiation. Leaders of spiritual training had necessarily to pay attention to this at the beginning of the modern era. Therefore the esoteric spiritual movement which is adapted to present conditions, always makes a point of maintaining the right proportion between clairvoyance and initiation. This became necessary at the time when mankind was passing through a crisis with regard to its higher knowledge. That time was the thirteenth century. About the year 1250 was the point of time when mankind felt itself most shut out from the spiritual world. A clairvoyant looking back upon that period sees the following: The most eminent minds of that time who were striving after some kind of higher knowledge could only say to themselves: “What our reason, our intellect, our spiritual knowledge are able to find out is limited to the physical world around us. With all our human endeavor and power of perception, we cannot reach a spiritual world. We only know of it by accepting the information concerning it which our forefathers bequeathed us.” This was the time when direct view of the higher worlds was obscured. That this can be said of the era in which scholasticism flourished, is not without significance.
[ 28 ] About the year 1250 was the time when men were compelled to fix a boundary between what they were able to apprehend for themselves, and what they had to believe from the impression made upon them by the traditions which had been handed down. What they could find out for themselves then became limited to the physical world of sense. Afterwards, however, came the time when there was more and more possibility of again winning a view of the spiritual world. But the new clairvoyance was of a different kind from the old, which virtually became extinct just about the year 1250. In the new form of clairvoyance, western esotericism was obliged strictly to uphold the principle that initiation must be the guide of spiritual sight and hearing. This was the special task assigned to an esoteric current which then entered the stream of European civilization. As the year 1250 drew near there arose a new kind of guidance into the super sensible worlds.
[ 29 ] This guidance was prepared by the spirits then standing behind outer historical events, who centuries before had provided for the kind of esoteric training which would be rendered necessary by the conditions prevailing in 1250. If the term “modern esotericism” be not misused, it may be applied to the spiritual work of those very highly evolved personalities. External history knows nothing of them, but what they did is apparent in every form of civilization which has developed since the thirteenth century.
[ 30 ] The importance of the year 1250 for the spiritual evolution of humanity is specially apparent if we look at the result of clairvoyant research given in the following fact: Even those individualities who had attained high stages of spiritual development in previous incarnations, and who were re-incarnated about 1250, were compelled for a while to undergo a complete clouding over of their direct view of the spiritual world. Quite enlightened individuals were as though cut off from the spiritual world, and their only knowledge of it was through their remembrance of earlier incarnations. Thus we see how necessary it was that from that time onwards a new element should be brought into the spiritual guidance of humanity. This element was true modern esotericism. By its means it is for the first time possible rightly to understand how that which we call the “Christ-impulse” may intervene to guide in all eventualities, not alone the individual, but the whole of mankind.
[ 31 ] Between the accomplishment of the Mystery of Golgotha and the beginnings of modern esotericism, lies the first period of the working of the Christ-principle in human souls. During that period, people received Christ to a certain degree unconsciously as far as their higher spirit-forces were concerned, and this caused them afterwards, when they were obliged to receive them consciously, to make all kinds of mistakes, and to lose themselves in a maze instead of understanding Christ. In primitive Christian times we may trace the adoption of the Christ-principle by the lower soul- forces. Then came a new period, in which mankind of today is still living. Indeed, in a certain respect, people are only now beginning to understand the Christ-principle with the higher faculties of their souls. In the further course of this work it will be shown that the decline of supersensible knowledge down to the thirteenth century, and on the other hand its slow revival since that time, coincide with the interposition of the Christ-impulse in human evolution.
[ 32 ] We may therefore take modern esotericism to mean the raising of the Christ-impulse to be the motive power in the guidance of souls desiring to work their way to a knowledge of higher worlds, in accordance with the evolutionary conditions of modern times.
Kapitel II
[ 1 ] Man kann eine merkwürdige Parallele finden zwischen dem, was sich im einzelnen Menschenleben offenbart, und dem, was in der ganzen Menschheitsentwickelung waltet, wenn man ins Auge faßt, was den alten Griechen gesagt worden ist von den Lehrern und Führern des alten Ägyptens über die Lenkung und Leitung des ägyptischen Geisteslebens. Da wird erzählt, daß ein Ägypter, als er gefragt wurde, von wem er gelenkt und geleitet worden sei seit alten Zeiten her, den Griechen geantwortet habe: In alten, grauen Zeiten herrschten bei uns und lehrten die Götter, und dann kamen als Führer erst Menschen. - Menes nannten die Ägypter den Griechen gegenüber den ersten Führer auf dem physischen Plan, der als ein menschenähnlicher Führer anerkannt war. Das heißt: Die Leiter des ägyptischen Volkes beriefen sich darauf, daß früher die Götter selber - wie die griechischen Mitteilungen sagen - das Volk gelenkt und geleitet haben. Bei einer solchen Aussage, die uns aus alten Zeiten herübertönt, müssen wir nur immer das Richtige verstehen. Was meinten die Ägypter, die sagten: Götter waren bei uns die Könige, Götter waren bei uns die großen Lehrer? - Da hat der, welcher das zu dem fragenden Griechen gesagt hat, gemeint: Wenn man in die alten Zeiten des ägyptischen Volkes zurückgehen würde und diejenigen Menschen, welche in sich etwas empfanden wie ein höheres Bewußtsein, wie eine Weisheit von höheren Welten, fragen würde: Wer sind eigentlich eure Lehrer?, so würden sie antworten: Wenn ich von meinem eigentlichen Lehrer sprechen wollte, müßte ich nicht auf diesen oder jenen Menschen zeigen und sagen: dieser oder jener ist mein Lehrer; sondern wenn ich meinen Lehrer bezeichnen will, so muß ich mich erst in einen hellsehenden Zustand versetzen - es ist aus der Geisteswissenschaft bekannt, daß dies in älteren Zeiten verhältnismäßig leichter war als in der Gegenwart -, und dann finde ich meinen wahren Inspirator, meinen wahren Lehrer; der naht mir nur, wenn mein geistiges Auge geöffnet ist. - Denn im alten Ägypten stiegen aus den geistigen Welten solche Wesenheiten zu den Menschen herunter, die sich nicht im menschlichen physischen Leib verkörperten. Es herrschten und lehrten durch die physischen Menschen in grauen Zeiten Ägyptens eben noch die Götter; und unter «Göttern» verstanden die alten Ägypter die Wesen, die dem Menschen in seiner Entwickelung vorangegangen sind.
[ 2 ] Im Sinne der Geisteswissenschaft hat die Erde, bevor sie «Erde» geworden ist, einen anderen planetarischen Zustand durchgemacht, den man den «Mondzustand» nennt. Während dieses Zustandes war der Mensch noch nicht Mensch im heutigen Sinne; doch gab es andere Wesen auf dem alten Mond, die nicht die heutige Menschengestalt hatten, die anders geartet waren, die aber damals auf jener Stufe der Entwickelung standen, welche der Mensch jetzt auf der Erde erreicht hat. Man kann deshalb sagen: Auf dem alten Planeten Mond, der zugrunde gegangen ist, und aus dem später die Erde wurde, lebten Wesenheiten, welche die Vorgänger der Menschen waren. In der christlichen Esoterik bezeichnet man solche Wesenheiten als Engel-Wesenheiten, (Angeloi) -, die über ihnen stehenden dann als Erzengel (Archangeloi). Diese letzteren waren in einer noch früheren Zeit Menschen als die Engel. Was man in der christlichen Esoterik Engel oder Angeloi, in der orientalischen Mystik «dhyanische Wesenheiten» nennt, das waren «Menschen» während des Mondenzeitalters. Diese Wesen stehen nun während des Erdenzeitalters - insoferne sie auf dem Monde sich bis zu Ende entwickelt haben - um eine volle Stufe höher als die Menschen. Der Mensch wird erst am Ende der Erdenentwickelung dort angekommen sein, wo diese Wesenheiten am Ende der Mondentwickelung waren. - Als der Erdenzustand unseres Planeten begann, und der Mensch auf der Erde auftrat, konnten diese Wesenheiten nicht in einer äußeren Menschengestalt erscheinen. Denn der menschliche fleischliche Leib ist im wesentlichen ein Erdenprodukt; er ist angemessen nur den Wesenheiten, welche jetzt Menschen sind. Jene Wesenheiten, die um eine Stufe höher stehen als die Menschen, konnten sich, als die Erde im Beginn ihrer Entwickelung war, nicht in Menschenleibern verkörpern; sie konnten sich an der Erdenregierung nur so beteiligen, daß sie in dem Zustande, den die Menschen der Erdenvorzeit hellsehend erreichten, diese erleuchteten, inspirierten, und auf dem Umwege durch diese hellsehenden Menschen in die Lenkung der Erdengeschicke eingriffen.
[ 3 ] Die alten Ägypter erinnerten sich also noch an einen solchen Zustand, wo die führenden Persönlichkeiten sich lebendig bewußt waren ihres Zusammenhanges mit dem, was man Götter, Engel oder dhyanische Wesenheiten nennt. Was waren das nun für Wesenheiten, die sich da nicht selber als Menschen verkörperten, nicht menschliche fleischliche Gestalt annahmen, sondern auf die geschilderte Art in die Menschheit hereinwirkten? Sie waren die Vorgänger der Menschen, die hinausgewachsen waren über die Stufe der Menschheit.
[ 4 ] Es ist in dieser Zeit mit einem Worte viel Mißbrauch getrieben worden, das im rechten Sinne hier angewendet werden kann, mit dem Worte «Übermensch». Wenn man wahrhaft von «Übermenschen» sprechen wollte, so könnte man so diese Wesenheiten nennen, die schon während der Mondenzeit, der planetarischen Vorstufe unserer Erde, Menschen waren und jetzt über die Menschen hinausgewachsen sind. Sie konnten nur in einem ätherischen Leibe den hellsehenden Menschen erscheinen. So erschienen sie auch, stiegen also aus den geistigen Welten auf die Erde herunter und regierten selbst noch in den nachatlantischen Zeiten auf der Erde.
[ 5 ] Diese Wesenheiten hatten die merkwürdige Eigenschaft - und haben sie auch heute noch -, daß sie nicht zu denken brauchen; man könnte auch sagen, daß sie gar nicht denken können, wie der Mensch denkt. Wie denkt denn der Mensch ? Mehr oder weniger so, daß er von einem gewissen Punkte ausgeht und sich sagt: ich habe das oder jenes begriffen; und von diesem Punkte aus versucht er nun verschiedenes andere zu verstehen. Wenn das nicht der Weg des menschlichen Denkens wäre, so wäre der Schulweg für manches nicht so schwierig. Man kann nicht von einem Tage auf den andern Mathematik lernen, weil man an einem Punkte anfangen und langsam vorschreiten muß. Das dauert lange. Man kann nicht mit einem Blick eine ganze Gedankenwelt überschauen; denn das menschliche Denken verläuft in der Zeit. Es ist ein Gedankenbau nicht mit einem Schlage in der Seele gegenwärtig. Man muß suchen, muß sich anstrengen, um den Fortgang der Gedanken zu finden. Diese Eigentümlichkeit des Menschen haben die gekennzeichneten Wesenheiten nicht; sondern es tritt ein weiter Gedankenbau in ihnen mit derselben Geschwindigkeit auf, mit der etwa ein Tier sich klar ist, wenn es etwas für seinen Instinkt Eßbares vor sich hat, daß es darnach schnappen will. Instinkt und nachdenkerisches Bewußtsein zeigen in bezug auf diese Wesenheiten keinen Unterschied, sie sind ein und dasselbe. So wie die Tiere Instinkt haben auf ihren Stufen, in ihrem Reiche, so haben diese dhyanischen Wesenheiten oder Angeloi unmittelbares geistiges Denken, unmittelbares geistiges Vorstellen. Durch dieses instinktive Vorstellungs-Innenleben sind sie wesentlich anders geartet als die Menschen.
[ 6 ] Man kann sich nun leicht einen Begriff davon bilden, wie es unmöglich ist, daß diese Wesenheiten ein solches Gehirn oder einen solchen physischen Leib benutzen, wie sie die Menschen haben. Sie müssen einen ätherischen Leib benutzen, weil ein menschlicher Leib und ein menschliches Gehirn die Gedanken nur in der Zeit vermitteln, während diese Wesenheiten nicht die Gedanken in der Zeit ausbilden, sondern gleichsam wie von selbst die ihnen zukommende Weisheit in sich aufblitzen fühlen. Sie können unmöglich in dem Sinne Falsches denken, wie der Mensch. Ihr Gedankenablauf ist eine unmittelbare Inspiration. Daher hatten diejenigen Persönlichkeiten, welche an diese übermenschlichen oder Engel-Wesenheiten herankommen konnten, das Bewußtsein: da stehen sie der sicheren Weisheit gegenüber. Wenn also selbst noch im alten Ägypten der Mensch, der als Mensch Lehrer oder König war, diesem seinem geistigen Führer gegenüberstand, so wußte er: Das Gebot, das er gibt, die Wahrheit, die er sagt, sind unmittelbar richtig, können nicht falsch sein. Das empfanden dann wieder diejenigen, auf welche diese Wahrheiten übertragen wurden.
[ 7 ] Die hellseherischen Menschheitsführer konnten so sprechen, daß man aus ihren Worten selbst das zu empfangen glaubte, was aus der geistigen Welt herunterkam. Kurz, es war ein unmittelbarer Strom hinauf nach den höheren leitenden Geistes-Hierarchien.
[ 8 ] Was an der Kindheit des Menschen wirkt, das kann man im großen in der Welt der Menschheit arbeiten sehen als die über der ganzen Menschheits-Evolution schwebende nächste Welt der Geistes-Hierarchien, als das nächste Reich der Angeloi oder übermenschlichen Wesenheiten, die um eine Stufe höher stehen als die Menschen und unmittelbar in die geistigen Sphären hinaufragen. Sie tragen aus diesen Sphären das auf die Erde herunter, was in die menschliche Kultur hineinarbeitet. Beim Kinde ist es die Leibesgestaltung, in welcher sich die höhere Weisheit ihren Abdruck schafft; in der Menschheitsentwickelung der Vorzeit kam die Kultur in ähnlicher Art zur Ausgestaltung.
[ 9 ] So empfanden die Ägypter, welche schilderten, daß sie mit einem Göttlichen im Zusammenhang standen, das Geöffnetsein der Seele der Menschheit gegenüber den Geistes-Hierarchien. Wie die Kindesseele bis zu dem Zeitpunkt, der in den vorhergehenden Ausführungen angedeutet ist, ihre Aura den Hierarchien öffnet, so öffnete die ganze Menschheit ihre Welt durch ihre Arbeit den Hierarchien, mit denen sie im Zusammenhang stand.
[ 10 ] Am bedeutsamsten war dieser Zusammenhang bei denjenigen Lehrern, die wir als die heiligen Lehrer der Inder bezeichnen, den großen Lehrern der ersten nachatlantischen Kultur, jener ersten indischen Kultur, die sich ausgebreitet hat im Süden Asiens. Als die atlantische Katastrophe vorübergegangen war, und die Physiognomie der Erde sich verändert hatte, so daß die neue Gestaltung Asiens, Europas und Afrikas auf der östlichen Halbkugel sich entwickelt hatte, da wirkte - und zwar noch vor der Zeit, auf die hier als in den alten Berichten erwähnte hingedeutet wurde -, die Kultur der alten großen Lehrer Indiens. Der heutige Mensch wird sich im allgemeinen eine recht falsche Vorstellung von diesen großen Lehrern Indiens machen. Denn wenn zum Beispiel einem heutigen Gebildeten einer der großen Lehrer Indiens gegenübertreten würde, so würde der Gebildete der Gegenwart sonderbare Augen machen und vielleicht sagen: Das soll ein ˂Weiser˃ sein? So habe ich mir nie einen Weisen vorgestellt! - Denn im Sinne dessen, was bei dem heutigen Gebildeten klug oder gescheit ist, haben die alten heiligen Lehrer Indiens nichts Gescheites zu sagen gewußt. Sie waren im heutigen Sinne einfältige, schlichteste Menschen, die in der allereinfachsten Weise geantwortet hätten, selbst auf Fragen des alltäglichen Lebens. Und es gab für sie viele Zeiten, in denen man aus ihnen kaum anderes herausbringen konnte, als dieses oder jenes Wort, das einem heutigen Gebildeten recht unbedeutend scheinen würde. Aber es gab auch wieder für diese heiligen Lehrer bestimmte Zeiten, in denen sie sich als etwas anderes denn als bloße schlichte Menschen darstellten. In diesen Zeiten mußten sie dann in der Siebenzahl beieinander sein, weil das, was jeder einzelne von ihnen empfinden konnte, harmonisch wie in einem Zusammenklang von sieben Tönen mit den anderen sechs Weisen zusammenwirken mußte, so daß also jeder nach seinem besonderen Instrument und seiner besonderen Entwickelung die Möglichkeit hatte, dies oder jenes zu schauen. Und aus dem Zusammenklang dessen, was jeder einzelne erschaute, entstand das, was als die Urweisheit aus alten Zeiten heraufklingt, wenn man die wirklichen okkulten Urkunden zu entziffern versteht. Jene Urkunden sind nicht die Offenbarungen der Veden - so sehr wir auch diese Veden bewundern können; sondern was die heiligen Lehrer Indiens gelehrt haben, das liegt noch viel früher, als die Abfassung der Veden, und nur ein schwacher Nachklang davon ist das, was man in diesen gewaltigen Werken vor sich hat. Aber wenn diese Männer gegenüberstanden, ein jeder einem übermenschlichen Vorfahren der Menschheit, wenn sie hinschauten hellsehend in die höhern Welten, hinhörten hellhörend auf das, was sie durch diesen Vorgänger der Menschheit vernahmen, so leuchtete es wie die Sonne aus ihren Augen. Und dann wirkte das, was sie sagen konnten, überwältigend auf ihre Umgebung, so daß alle Hörenden wußten: Jetzt spricht nicht das, was menschliches Leben oder menschliche Weisheit ist, sondern jetzt wirken herein in die Menschenkultur Götter, übermenschliche Wesenheiten.
[ 11 ] Von diesem Hereinklingen dessen, was die Götter wußten, nahmen die alten Kulturen ihren Ausgang. Erst nach und nach in der nachatlantischen Zeit schloß sich sozusagen das Tor gegenüber der göttlich-geistigen Welt, die ja während der atlantischen Zeit noch völlig offen war für die menschliche Seele. Und man empfand in den verschiedenen Ländern, bei den verschiedenen Völkern, wie der Mensch immer mehr und mehr auf sich selber angewiesen wurde. So zeigt sich in anderm Sinne an der Menschheit, was sich am Kinde offenbart. Erst ragt die göttlich-geistige Welt herein durch die unbewußte Seele des Kindes, die leibgestaltend schafft; dann kommt der Augenblick, in welchem der Mensch sich als «Ich» fühlen lernt, bis zu dem er sich dann im späteren Leben zurückerinnert. Da liegt das, von dem gesagt werden kann, daß der Weiseste noch lernen kann von der Seele des Kindes. Dann aber wird der einzelne sich selbst überlassen, das Ich-Bewußtsein tritt auf, und alles fügt sich jetzt so zusammen, daß man sich an das Erlebte zurückerinnern kann. - So kam auch im Leben der Völker die Zeit, wo sie anfingen, sich mehr abgeschlossen zu fühlen von der göttlichen Inspiration der Urväter. Wie das Kind abgeschlossen wird von der Aura, die das Kindeshaupt in den ersten Jahren umschwebt, so traten auch im Leben der Völker immer mehr und mehr die göttlichen Urväter zurück, und die Menschen wurden angewiesen auf ihr eigenes Forschen und ihr eigenes Wissen. Wo die Geschichte so spricht, da wird das Hereindringen der Führung der Menschheit empfunden. «Menes» nannten die Ägypter den, der die erste «menschliche» Kultur inauguriert hat; und sie deuten zu gleicher Zeit an, daß der Mensch dadurch auch in die Möglichkeit kam, zu irren. Denn von da ab war er angewiesen auf das Werkzeug seines Gehirns. Daß der Mensch in Irrtum verfallen konnte, wird dadurch symbolisch angedeutet, daß in die Zeit, in welcher die Menschen von den Göttern verlassen wurden, die Stiftung des Labyrinthes versetzt wird, das ein Abbild ist der Windungen des Gehirns als des Werkzeuges für die eigenen Menschengedanken, in welchen sich der Träger dieser Gedanken verlieren kann. Manas nannten die Orientalen den Menschen als denkendes Wesen, und Manu heißt der erste Hauptträger des Denkens. Minos nannten die griechischen Völker den ersten Ausgestalter des menschlichen Gedankenprinzips, und auch an Minos knüpft sich die Sage vom Labyrinth, weil die Menschen fühlten, wie sie seit seiner Zeit von der unmittelbaren göttlichen Leitung allmählich in eine solche Leitung übergingen, durch welche das «Ich» in anderer Art die Einflüsse der höheren Geisteswelt erlebt.
[ 12 ] Außer jenen Urvätern der Menschen, den wahren Übermenschen, die auf dem Monde ihre Menschheit absolviert hatten und nun Engel geworden waren, gibt es noch andere Wesenheiten, die auf dem Monde ihre Entwickelung nicht vollendet haben. Die Wesenheiten, die man in der orientalischen Mystik dhyanische Wesenheiten, in der christlichen Esoterik Angeloi nennt, haben ihre Entwickelung auf dem alten Monde vollendet und sind, als der Mensch auf der Erde sein Werden begann, schon um eine Stufe höher gewesen als die Menschen. Aber andere Wesenheiten gab es, die ihre menschliche Entwickelung auf dem alten Monde nicht abgeschlossen hatten, gerade wie die höheren Kategorien der luziferischen Wesenheiten nicht ihre Entwickelung abgeschlossen hatten. Als der Erdenzustand unseres Planeten begann, war in dem gekennzeichneten Sinne nicht nur der Mensch vorhanden; sondern er empfing auch die Inspiration der göttlich-geistigen Wesenheiten, denn sonst hätte er - ähnlich wie das Kind - nicht vorwärts kommen können; und dadurch waren außer diesen kindlichen Menschen auch die Wesenheiten mittelbar für die Erde vorhanden, die auf dem Monde ihre Entwickelung abgeschlossen hatten. Zwischen diesen aber und den Menschen waren noch solche Wesenheiten, die ihre Entwickelung auf dem Monde nicht abgeschlossen hatten, Wesenheiten, die höherer Art waren als die Menschen, weil sie schon während der alten Mondenzeit Engel, dhyanische Wesenheiten hätten werden können. Aber sie sind damals nicht bis zur vollen Reife gekommen, sind zurückgeblieben unter den Engeln, ragten aber doch in bezug auf alles, was der Mensch sein Eigen nannte, weit über den Menschen hinaus. Das sind im Grunde genommen diejenigen Wesenheiten, die in den Scharen der luziferischen Geister die unterste Stufe einnehmen. Mit diesen Wesenheiten, die zwischen den Menschen und den Engeln mitten drinnen stehen, beginnt eben schon das Reich der luziferischen Wesenheiten.
[ 13 ] Von diesen Wesenheiten kann man außerordentlich leicht irrtümlich denken. Man könnte fragen: Warum haben die göttlichen Geister, die Regenten des Guten, zugelassen, daß solche Wesenheiten zurückgeblieben sind und dadurch das luziferische Prinzip in die Menschheit hereinkommen lassen? - Man könnte auch einwenden, daß die guten Götter alles zum Guten lenken. Diese Frage liegt nahe. Und das andere Mißverständnis, das entstehen könnte, drückt sich in der Meinung aus: Diese Wesenheiten seien eben «böse» Wesenheiten. Beides ist nur ein Mißverständnis. Denn diese Wesenheiten sind durchaus nicht bloß «böse» Wesenheiten, obwohl der Ursprung des Bösen in der Menschenentwickelung bei ihnen gesucht werden muß, sondern sie stehen mitten zwischen den Menschen und den Übermenschen. Sie ragen in gewisser Art an Vollkommenheit über die Menschen hinaus. In allen Fähigkeiten, die sich die Menschen erst erwerben müssen, haben diese Wesenheiten schon eine hohe Stufe erlangt, und sie unterscheiden sich von den früher geschilderten Vorfahren der Menschen dadurch, daß sie - weil sie ihre Menschheit auf dem Monde nicht abgeschlossen haben -, noch fähig sind, während sich der Mensch auf der Erde entwickelt, sich in Menschenleibern zu inkarnieren. Während die eigentlichen dhyanischen oder Engelwesenheiten, welche die großen Inspiratoren der Menschen sind, und auf die sich die Ägypter noch beriefen, nicht in Menschenleibern erscheinen, sondern sich nur offenbaren konnten durch die Menschen, sind die Wesenheiten, die zwischen Menschen und Engeln mitten drinnen stehen, noch in der Vorzeit fähig, sich in menschlichen Leibern zu verkörpern. Daher findet man in der lemurischen und atlantischen Zeit unter den Menschen auf der Erde solche, die in sich tragen als innerste Seelennatur eine zurückgebliebene Engelwesenheit, das heißt: es gehen in der alten lemurischen und atlantischen Zeit unserer Erde nicht nur gewöhnliche Menschen auf der Erde herum, die durch ihre aufeinanderfolgenden Inkarnationen zu dem kommen sollen, was dem Menschheitsideal entspricht, sondern es gehen unter den Menschen früherer Zeiten solche Wesen herum, die äußerlich wie die anderen Menschen aussehen. Sie müssen den menschlichen Leib tragen, denn die äußere Gestalt eines Menschen im Fleisch ist abhängig von den irdischen Verhältnissen. Aber namentlich in den älteren Zeiten befanden sich unter den Menschen solche Wesen, die zu der untersten Kategorie der luziferischen Individualitäten gehörten. Neben den Engelwesenheiten, die auf die menschliche Kultur durch die Menschen wirkten, inkarnierten sich auch solche luziferische Wesenheiten und begründeten an verschiedenen Orten Menschheitskulturen. Und wenn in den Legenden alter Völker geschildert wird, daß da oder dort der eine oder der andere große Mensch lebte, der eine Kultur begründete, so ist eine solche Individualität nicht damit zu kennzeichnen, daß man sagt: Da ist eine luziferische Wesenheit verkörpert, die muß Träger eines Bösen sein; - sondern in der Tat kommt unendlich viel Segensreiches in die menschliche Kultur durch diese Wesenheiten.
[ 14 ] Aus der Geisteswissenschaft ist bekannt, daß in den alten Zeiten, namentlich in der atlantischen Zeit, so etwas wie eine Art menschlicher Ursprache vorhanden war, eine Art von Sprechen, welche über die ganze Erde hin ähnlich war, weil «Sprechen» in jenen Zeiten viel mehr aus dem Innersten der Seele kam als heute. Das kann schon aus folgendem entnommen werden. In den atlantischen Zeiten empfanden die Menschen alle äußeren Eindrücke so, daß die Seele, wenn sie etwas Äußeres ausdrücken wollte mit einem Laut, gedrängt wurde zu einem Konsonanten. Was also im Raume vorhanden war, drängte dazu, konsonantisch nachgeahmt zu werden. Das Wehen des Windes, das Rauschen der Wellen, das Geschütztsein durch ein Haus empfand man und ahmte es nach durch Konsonanten. Was man dagegen innerlich erlebte an Schmerz oder Freude, oder auch, was ein anderes Wesen empfinden konnte, das ahmte man nach im Vokal. Daraus kann man sehen, daß die Seele im Sprechen zusammenwuchs mit den äußeren Vorgängen oder Wesenheiten.
[ 15 ] Aus der Akasha-Chronik ergibt sich das folgende. Einer Hütte, die sich nach der alten Art über eine Familie wölbte und dieser Schutz und Schirm gab, näherte sich zum Beispiel ein Mensch, beobachtete die Hütte in der Art, wie sie sich wölbte als Form räumlich über der Familie. Das schützende Sichwölben der Hütte drückte er durch einen Konsonanten aus, und daß darinnen Seelen in Leibern sich wohl befinden - was er mitfühlen konnte -, drückte er durch einen Vokal aus. Da entstand der Gedanke: «Schutz», «Schutz habe ich», «Schutz über menschlichen Leibern». Dieser Gedanke ergoß sich dann in Konsonanten und Vokale, die nicht anders sein konnten, als sie waren, weil sie eindeutig ein unmittelbarer Abdruck des Erlebnisses waren.
[ 16 ] Das war über die ganze Erde hin so. Es ist kein Traum, daß es eine menschliche «Ursprache» gegeben hat. Und in einem gewissen Sinne verstehen die Eingeweihten aller Völker noch nachzuempfinden diese Ursprache. Ja, in allen Sprachen sind gewisse Lautanklänge, die nichts anderes sind als Reste dieser menschlichen Ursprache.
[ 17 ] Diese Sprache ist angeregt in der menschlichen Seele durch die Inspiration der übermenschlichen Wesenheiten, der wahren Vorgänger der Menschen, die ihre Entwickelung auf dem Monde vollendet hatten. Man kann nun daraus sehen: Wenn es bloß diese Entwickelung gegeben hätte, so würde das ganze Menschengeschlecht im Grunde genommen eine große Einheit geblieben sein; über die ganze Erde hin würde man einheitlich gesprochen und gedacht haben. Die Individualität, die Mannigfaltigkeit hätte sich nicht ausbilden können - und damit auch nicht die menschliche Freiheit. Daß der Mensch eine Individualität werden konnte, dazu mußten Spaltungen in der Menschheit eintreten. Daß in den verschiedensten Gegenden der Erde die Sprachen verschieden wurden, das rührt von der Arbeit solcher Lehrer her, in denen eine luziferische Wesenheit inkarniert war. Je nachdem diese oder jene - zurückgebliebene - Engelwesenheit bei diesem oder jenem Volke inkarniert war, konnte sie in dieser oder jener Sprache die Menschen unterweisen. Also die Fähigkeit, eine besondere Sprache zu sprechen, führt bei allen Völkern zurück auf das Vorhandensein solcher großen Erleuchter, die zurückgebliebene Engelwesen waren und weit höher standen als die Menschen ihrer unmittelbaren Umgebung. Die Wesen, die zum Beispiel geschildert werden als die ursprünglichen Heroen der griechischen oder sonstigen Völker, die in menschlicher Gestalt wirkten, das sind solche, in denen eine zurückgebliebene Engelwesenheit inkarniert war. Man darf also diese Wesenheiten durchaus nicht etwa bloß als «böse» Wesenheiten bezeichnen. Im Gegenteil. Sie haben den Menschen das gebracht, was sie über den ganzen Erdball hin zu freien Menschen vorbestimmt hat, was dasjenige differenzierte, das sonst ein gleichförmiges Ganzes über die ganze Erde hin gebildet hätte. So ist es bei den Sprachen, so ist es in vielen Gebieten des Lebens. Die Individualisierung, die Differenzierung, die Freiheit - können wir sagen - kommt von diesen Wesenheiten, die zurückgeblieben waren auf dem Monde. Zwar war es die Absicht der weisen Weltenführung - so könnte man sagen -, alle Wesenheiten in der planetarischen Entwickelung bis zu ihrem Ziele zu bringen; aber wenn dies in unmittelbarer Art geschähe, so würden gewisse Dinge nicht erreicht. Es werden gewisse Wesenheiten in ihrer Entwickelung zurückgehalten, weil diese eine besondere Aufgabe in dem Werdegang der Menschheit haben. Weil die Wesen, welche ihre Aufgabe auf dem Monde voll erreicht hatten, nur eine einheitliche Menschheit hätten erzeugen können, deshalb wurden ihnen entgegengestellt jene Wesen, die auf dem Monde zurückgeblieben waren und die dadurch die Möglichkeit bekamen, dasjenige, was eigentlich ein Fehler bei ihnen war, zum Guten zu wenden.
[ 18 ] Von da aus eröffnet sich auch die Aussicht auf die Frage: Warum besteht in der Welt das Böse, das Schlechte, das Unvollkommene, das Krankhafte? - Man betrachte dies unter dem Gesichtspunkt, unter dem eben die unvollkommenen Engelwesen betrachtet worden sind. Alles, was zu irgendeiner Zeit ein Unvollkommenes, ein Zurückgebliebenes darstellt, wird in der Entwickelung doch zu einem Guten gewendet. Daß in einer solchen Wahrheit keine Rechtfertigung der bösen Handlungen des Menschen gesehen werden darf, braucht wohl nicht erst erwähnt zu werden.
[ 19 ] Damit ist auch schon die Frage beantwortet: Warum läßt die weise Weltenregierung gewisse Wesenheiten zurückbleiben, so daß sie nicht ihr Ziel erreichen? Das geschieht eben deshalb, weil es in der Zeit, die auf solches Zurückbleiben folgt, seinen guten Sinn hat. Denn als die Völker sich noch nicht selber lenken und leiten konnten, da lebten die Lehrer der Zeiten und der einzelnen Menschen. Und alle die einzelnen Völkerlehrer - Kadmos, Cheops, Pelops, Theseus und so weiter - haben in gewisser Beziehung eine Engelwesenheit in dem Grunde ihrer Seele. Daraus ist ersichtlich, wie in der Tat die Menschheit auch in dieser Beziehung einer Leitung, einer Führung untersteht.
[ 20 ] Nun bleiben aber auf jeder Stufe der Evolution Wesenheiten zurück, die nicht das Ziel erreichen, das erreicht werden kann. Man fasse noch einmal die alte ägyptische Kultur ins Auge, die sich vor mehreren Jahrtausenden im Nil-Lande abgespielt hat, wo sich übermenschliche Lehrer den Ägyptern offenbarten, von denen diese selbst sagten, daß sie wie Götter die Menschen leiteten. Daneben aber wirkten auch solche Wesenheiten, die nur halb oder zum Teil ihre Engelstufe erreicht hatten. Nun muß man sich klar darüber sein, daß der Mensch im alten Ägypten eine bestimmte Entwickelungsstufe erreicht hat, das heißt die Seelen der gegenwärtigen Menschen haben in der ägyptischen Zeit die entsprechende Stufe erreicht. Aber nicht allein der geführte Mensch erlangt etwas dadurch, daß er sich führen läßt, sondern auch bei den leitenden, führenden Wesenheiten bedeutet dieses Leiten etwas, das sie weiterbringt in ihrer Entwickelung. Ein Engel zum Beispiel ist mehr, nachdem er die Menschen eine Zeitlang geführt hat, als er war, bevor diese Führung angefangen hat. Durch seine Arbeit in der Führung kommt auch der Engel weiter, und zwar sowohl der, welcher ein voller Engel ist, als auch der, welcher in seiner Entwickelung zurückgeblieben ist. Alle Wesen können immer weiterkommen; alles ist in fortwährender Entwickelung befindlich. Aber auf jeder Stufe bleiben wieder Wesenheiten zurück. Man kann in der alten ägyptischen Kultur im Sinne des Vorstehenden unterscheiden: die göttlichen Führer, die Engel, dann die halb-göttlichen Führer, welche die Engelstufe nicht ganz erreichten, und dann die Menschen. Aber gewisse Wesen aus der Reihe der Übermenschen bleiben wieder zurück, das heißt sie führen nicht so, daß sie alle ihre Kräfte zum Ausdruck bringen, bleiben als Engel während der alten ägyptischen Kulturstufe zurück. In derselben Art bleiben die unvollendeten Übermenschen zurück. Während also die Menschen unten vorrücken, bleiben oben unter den dhyanischen Wesenheiten oder Engeln gewisse Individualitäten zurück. Als die ägyptisch-chaldäische Kultur zu Ende ging und die griechisch-lateinische begann, sind zurückgebliebene leitende Wesenheiten aus der ersteren Kulturepoche vorhanden. Diese können aber nun ihre Kräfte nicht anwenden, denn sie werden in der Führung der Menschheit von anderen Engeln oder halbengelhaften Wesenheiten ersetzt. Das heißt aber: sie können dadurch auch ihre eigene Entwickelung nicht fortsetzen.
[ 21 ] Damit ist der Blick gewendet auf eine Kategorie von Wesenheiten, die ihre Kräfte hätten anwenden können während der ägyptischen Zeit, sie aber in dieser Zeit nicht voll angewendet haben. In der darauffolgenden griechisch-lateinischen Zeit konnten sie sie nicht anwenden, weil sie damals von anderen führenden Wesenheiten abgelöst wurden und die ganze Beschaffenheit dieser Zeit ihr Eingreifen unmöglich machte. So wie diejenigen Wesenheiten, die auf dem alten Monde ihre Engelstufe nicht erreicht hatten, später die Aufgabe hatten, während der Erdenzeit wieder tätig einzugreifen in die Entwickelung der Menschheit, so haben nun jene Wesenheiten, welche in der ägyptisch-chaldäischen Kultur als führende Wesenheiten zurückgeblieben sind, auch die Aufgabe, später wieder in die Kultur, als zurückgebliebene Wesenheiten, einzugreifen. Wir werden also erschauen können eine spätere Kulturepoche, in welcher zwar dann zur Führung gekommene Wesenheiten da sind, welche die normal fortschreitende Entwickelung lenken, in welcher aber neben diesen noch andere Wesenheiten eingreifen, welche früher zurückgeblieben sind, und namentlich solche, die während der alten ägyptischen Kultur zurückgeblieben sind. Diese damit angedeutete Kulturperiode ist unsere eigene. Wir leben in einer Zeit, in welcher neben den normalen Lenkern der Menschheit noch eingreifen solche zurückgebliebene Wesenheiten der alten ägyptischen und chaldäischen Kultur.
[ 22 ] Man hat die Entwickelung der Tatsachen und Wesenheiten so anzusehen, daß die Vorgänge in der physischen Welt als Wirkungen (Offenbarungen) gelten müssen, deren wahre Ursachen in der geistigen Welt liegen. Unsere Kultur ist im großen und ganzen nach der einen Seite durch eine Aufwärtsbewegung nach der Spiritualität gekennzeichnet. In dem Drang gewisser Menschen zur Spiritualität offenbaren sich diejenigen geistigen Lenker der gegenwärtigen Menschheit, welche für sich ihre normale Entwickelungsstufe erlangt haben. In allem, was heute den Menschen hinaufführen will in das, was uns die Theosophie überliefert von den großen spirituellen Weistümern, offenbaren sich diese normalen Lenker unserer Entwickelung. Aber auch die während der ägyptisch-chaldäischen Kultur zurückgebliebenen Wesenheiten greifen ein in unsere Kulturtendenzen; sie offenbaren sich in vielem, was gegenwärtig und in nächster Zukunft gedacht und geleistet wird. Sie treten in allem in die Erscheinung, was unserer Kultur das materialistische Gepräge gibt, und sind oft selbst in dem Streben nach dem Spirituellen bemerkbar. Wir erleben eben im wesentlichen ein Wiederauferstehen der ägyptischen Kultur in unserer Zeit. Die Wesenheiten, welche als die unsichtbaren Leiter dessen anzusehen sind, was in der physischen Welt geschieht, zerfallen demnach in zwei Klassen. Die erste Klasse enthält diejenigen geistigen Individualitäten, welche bis in unsere Gegenwart herein für sich eine normale Entwickelung durchgemacht haben. Sie konnten daher in die Lenkung unserer Kultur eingreifen, während die Leiter der unserer Epoche vorangehenden griechisch-lateinischen Zeit ihre Mission für die Kulturführung in dem ersten christlichen Jahrtausend allmählich beendeten. Die zweite Klasse, welche ihre Arbeit mit den Wesenheiten der ersten Klasse zusammenfließen läßt, sind geistige Individualitäten, welche in der ägyptisch-chaldäischen Kultur ihre Entwickelung nicht vollendet haben. Sie mußten während der folgenden griechisch-lateinischen Zeit untätig bleiben und können jetzt wieder tätig sein, weil unsere Gegenwart eben Ähnlichkeiten mit der ägyptisch-chaldäischen Zeit hat. So kommt es, daß in der gegenwärtigen Menschheit vieles auftaucht, das sich wie ein Wiederauferstehen der alten ägyptischen Kräfte ausnimmt, darunter ist aber auch vieles wie ein Wiederauferstehen solcher Kräfte, die damals geistig wirkten und die jetzt in materialistischer Umprägung wiedererscheinen. Man kann, um dies zu kennzeichnen, auf ein Beispiel hinweisen, wie alte ägyptische Erkenntnisse in unserer Zeit wieder auflebten. Man denke an Kepler. Er war ganz durchdrungen von der Harmonie im Weltenbau; und dies ist zum Ausdruck gekommen in seinen bedeutsamen mathematischen Gesetzen der Himmelsmechanik, in den sogenannten Keplerschen Gesetzen. Diese sind scheinbar recht trocken und abstrakt; aber bei Kepler sind sie herausgeboren aus einem Vernehmen der Harmonie des Weltalles. Man kann in Keplers Schriften selbst lesen, wie er sagt: damit er finden konnte, was er gefunden hat, mußte er hingehen zu den heiligen Mysterien der Ägypter, diesen ihre Tempelgefäße entwenden und durch sie das in die Welt bringen, wovon erst spätere Zeiten wissen werden, was es für die Menschheit bedeutet. Solche Worte Keplers sind durchaus nicht eine bloße Phrase, sondern in ihnen war das dunkle Bewußtsein vorhanden von einem Wiedererleben dessen, was er in der ägyptischen Zeit - während seiner damaligen Verkörperung - kennengelernt hat. Wir dürfen durchaus die Vorstellung hegen, daß Kepler in die alte ägyptische Weisheit während eines seiner früheren Leben eingedrungen ist, und daß in seiner Seele diese ägyptische Weisheit in jener Form neu gestaltet auftrat, die der neueren Zeit angemessen ist. Es ist erklärlich, daß mit dem ägyptischen Genius in unsere Kultur ein materialistischer Zug hereinkommt, denn die Ägypter hatten einen starken Materialismus als Einschlag ihrer Spiritualität, der sich zum Beispiel darin einen Ausdruck gab, daß man den physischen Leib der Verstorbenen einbalsamierte, das heißt man legte einen Wert auf die Erhaltung des physischen Leibes. Das ist aus der ägyptischen Zeit in entsprechend anderer Form zu uns herübergekommen. Dieselben Kräfte, die damals nicht ihren Abschluß gefunden hatten, greifen in verwandelter Art in unsere Zeit wieder ein. Aus der Gesinnung, welche die Leichen einbalsamierte, wurden die Anschauungen, welche heute bloß den Stoff anbeten. Der Ägypter balsamierte seine Leichen ein und bewahrte damit etwas, was ihm wertvoll war. Er meinte, daß die Entwickelung der Seele nach dem Tode in Zusammenhang stehe mit der Erhaltung des physisch-materiellen Leibes. Der moderne Anatom seziert dasjenige, was er sieht, und glaubt dadurch, die Gesetze der Menschheitsorganisation zu erkennen. - In unserer heutigen Wissenschaft leben die Kräfte der alten ägyptischen und chaldäischen Welt, die damals fortschreitende Kräfte waren, jetzt aber zurückgebliebene darstellen, und die man erkennen muß, wenn man den Charakter der Gegenwart richtig würdigen will. Diese Kräfte werden dem Menschen der Gegenwart schaden, wenn er ihre Bedeutung nicht kennt; er wird keinen Schaden durch sie nehmen, sondern sie zu guten Zielen führen, wenn er sich ihres Wirkens bewußt ist und sich dadurch in das rechte Verhältnis zu ihnen bringt. Diese Kräfte müssen ihre Verwertung finden; man würde sonst nicht die großen Errungenschaften in der Technik, Industrie und so weiter in der Gegenwart haben. Es sind Kräfte, die luziferischen Wesenheiten der untersten Stufe angehören. Wenn man sie nicht in richtiger Weise erkennt, dann hält man die materialistischen Impulse der Gegenwart für die einzig möglichen, und sieht nicht die anderen Kräfte, welche hinaufführen in das Spirituelle. Aus diesem Grunde muß ein klares Erkennen von zwei Geistesströmungen in unserer Zeit sprechen.
[ 23 ] Wären durch die weise Weltenführung während der ägyptisch-chaldäischen Zeit solche Wesenheiten nicht zurückgeblieben, so würde es der gegenwärtigen Kultur an der nötigen Schwere fehlen. Es würden dann nur die Kräfte wirken, welche den Menschen mit voller Gewalt ins Geistige bringen wollen. Die Menschen würden nur allzusehr geneigt sein, sich diesen Kräften zu überlassen. Sie würden Schwärmer werden. Solche Menschen würden nur etwas wissen wollen von einem Leben, das so schnell wie möglich sich vergeistigt; und eine Gesinnung wäre für sie maßgebend, die eine gewisse Verachtung des Physisch-Materiellen zeigte. Die gegenwärtige Kulturepoche kann aber ihre Aufgabe nur erfüllen, wenn die Kräfte der materiellen Welt zur vollsten Blüte gebracht und so allmählich auch ihr Gebiet der Geistigkeit erobert wird. Wie die schönsten Dinge zu Verführern und Versuchern der Menschheit werden können, wenn ihnen der Mensch einseitig folgt, so wäre, wenn die gekennzeichnete Einseitigkeit Platz griffe, die große Gefahr vorhanden, daß alle möglichen guten Bestrebungen als Fanatismus sich kundgeben würden. So wahr es ist, daß die Menschheit durch ihre edlen Impulse vorwärts gebracht wird, so wahr ist es auch, daß durch die schwärmerische und fanatische Vertretung der edelsten Impulse das Schlimmste für die richtige Entwickelung bewirkt werden kann. Nur wenn man in Demut und in Klarheit und nicht aus der Schwärmerei heraus nach dem Höchsten strebt, kann Heilsames für den Fortgang der Menschheit geschehen. Damit die Gegenwarts-Leistung die nötige Schwere auf der Erde habe, damit man Verständnis habe für das Materielle, für die Dinge des physischen Planes, deshalb hat die Weisheit, welche in der Weltenlenkung wirkt, diejenigen Kräfte zurückgelassen, die ihre Entwickelung hätten während der ägyptischen Epoche vollenden sollen, und die jetzt die Blicke der Menschen hinwenden auf das physische Leben.
[ 24 ] Aus dieser Darstellung ist ersichtlich, wie die Entwickelung unter dem Einfluß normal fortschreitender und auch zurückbleibender Wesenheiten geschieht. Der hellseherische Blick kann das Zusammenarbeiten der beiden Klassen von Wesenheiten in der übersinnlichen Welt verfolgen. Er begreift dadurch das geistige Geschehen, von dem die physischen Tatsachen, innerhalb welcher der Mensch der Gegenwart steht, die Offenbarung sind.
[ 25 ] Man bemerkt, daß es nicht genügt zum Verständnis der Weltvorgänge, wenn durch irgendwelche Übungen das geistige Auge, das geistige Ohr geöffnet sind gegenüber der geistigen Welt. Man hat dadurch nur erreicht, daß man sieht, was da ist, daß man die Wesenheiten wahrnehmen kann und weiß: da sind geistige Wesenheiten der Seelenwelt oder des Geistgebietes. Aber es ist auch notwendig, zu erkennen, welcher Art diese Wesenheiten sind. Irgendeine Wesenheit des Seelen- oder Geistgebietes kann einem begegnen; man weiß dann aber noch nicht, ob sie in fortschreitender Entwickelung ist, oder ob sie zur Kategorie der zurückgebliebenen Mächte gehört; ob sie also vorwärts schiebt oder die Entwickelung hemmt. Diejenigen Menschen, welche sich die hellseherischen Fähigkeiten aneignen und nicht zugleich sich das volle Verständnis für die charakterisierten Entwickelungsbedingungen der Menschheit erwerben, können im Grunde genommen niemals wissen, was für eine Art von Wesenheiten ihnen begegnet. Das bloße Hellsehen muß ergänzt werden durch eine klare Beurteilung des in der übersinnlichen Welt Geschauten. Diese Notwendigkeit ist im höchsten Maße gerade für unsere Zeit vorhanden. Sie war nicht in gleichem Maße zu allen Zeiten zu berücksichtigen. Geht man zurück in sehr alte Menschheitskulturen, so findet man andere Verhältnisse. Wenn im ältesten Ägypten ein Mensch hellsehend war, und es trat ihm eine Wesenheit der übersinnlichen Welt entgegen, so hatte diese gleichsam an der Stirne geschrieben, wer sie ist. Der Hellsehende konnte sie nicht mißdeuten. Dagegen ist die Möglichkeit des Mißverständnisses gegenwärtig eine sehr große. Während die alte Menschheit dem Reiche der geistigen Hierarchien noch nahe stand und sehen konnte, welchen Wesen sie begegnete, ist die Irrtumsmöglichkeit heute eine sehr große, und der einzige Schutz gegen schwere Schädigung ist nur die Bemühung um solche Vorstellungen und Ideen, wie sie in dem Vorhergehenden angedeutet sind.
[ 26 ] Einen Menschen, der in die geistige Welt zu schauen vermag, nennt man in der Esoterik einen «Hellseher». Aber nur Hellseher sein, ist nicht genug. Ein solcher könnte wohl sehen, aber nicht unterscheiden. Derjenige, welcher sich die Fähigkeit erworben hat, die Wesen und Vorgänge der höheren Welten zu unterscheiden voneinander, wird ein «Eingeweihter» genannt. Die Einweihung bringt die Möglichkeit, zu unterscheiden zwischen den verschiedenen Arten von Wesenheiten. Es kann also jemand hellsehend sein für die höheren Welten, braucht aber kein Eingeweihter zu sein. Für die alten Zeiten war die Unterscheidung der Wesenheiten nicht besonders wichtig; denn wenn die alten Geheimschulen die Schüler zum Hellsehen gebracht hatten, war die Gefahr des Irrtums keine sehr große. Gegenwärtig aber ist die Irrtumsmöglichkeit in hohem Maße vorhanden. Daher sollte in aller esoterischen Schulung darauf Rücksicht genommen werden, daß immer zu der Fähigkeit der Hellsichtigkeit hinzuerworben werde die Einweihung. Der Mensch muß in dem Maße, als er hellseherisch wird, fähig werden, zu unterscheiden zwischen den besonderen Arten der übersinnlichen Wesenheiten und Vorgänge.
[ 27 ] Die besondere Aufgabe: ein Gleichgewicht zu schaffen zwischen den Prinzipien des Hellsehens und dem der Einweihung, trat in der neueren Zeit an die führenden Mächte der Menschheit heran. Notwendigerweise mußten Führer der geistigen Schulung das Gekennzeichnete mit dem Beginne der neueren Zeit ins Auge fassen. Diejenige esoterische Geistesrichtung, welche der Gegenwart angemessen ist, macht es sich daher zum Prinzip, zwischen Hellsehen und Einweihung stets das richtige Verhältnis herzustellen. Es wurde dies notwendig in der Zeit, als die Menschheit eine Krisis durchmachte in bezug auf ihr höheres Erkennen. Diese Zeit ist die des dreizehnten Jahrhunderts. Etwa um das Jahr 1250 herum haben wir das Zeitalter, in welchem die Menschen sich am meisten abgeschlossen fühlten von der geistigen Welt. Für den hellseherischen Rückblick auf dieses Zeitalter ergibt sich folgendes. Es konnten sich damals die hervorragendsten Geister, die nach einem gewissen höheren Erkennen strebten, sagen: Was unsere Vernunft, unser Intellekt, was unser geistiges Wissen finden kann, ist beschränkt auf die Welt, die uns als physische umgibt; wir können mit unserm menschlichen Forschen und Erkenntnisvermögen nicht eine geistige Welt erreichen; wir wissen von dieser nur dadurch, daß wir die Nachrichten über sie, welche uns die Menschen der Vorwelt hinterlassen haben, in uns aufnehmen. Es war damals eine Zeit der Verfinsterung des unmittelbaren geistigen Einblickes in die höheren Welten. Daß dies gesagt wurde in der Zeit, als die Scholastik blühte, hat seinen guten Grund.
[ 28 ] Ungefähr das Jahr 1250 ist die Zeit, in welcher die Menschen dazu kommen mußten, die Grenze zu ziehen zwischen dem, was man glauben muß nach dem Eindrucke, den die überkommenen Überlieferungen machten, und dem, was man erkennen kann. Das Letztere blieb auf die physische Sinneswelt beschränkt. Und dann kam die Zeit, wo immer mehr und mehr die Möglichkeit sich ergab, wieder einen Einblick zu gewinnen in die geistige Welt. Aber dieses neue Hellsehen ist von anderer Art als das alte, das eben mit dem Jahre 1250 im wesentlichen erloschen war. Für die neue Form der Hellsichtigkeit mußte die abendländische Esoterik streng das Prinzip aufstellen, daß Einweihung die geistigen Ohren und geistigen Augen zu führen habe. Damit ist die besondere Aufgabe charakterisiert, welche sich eine in Europa in die Kultur eintretende esoterische Strömung stellte. Als das Jahr 1250 heranrückte, begann eine neue Art der Führung zu den übersinnlichen Welten.
[ 29 ] Diese Führung wurde vorbereitet von den Geistern, welche damals hinter den äußerlichen geschichtlichen Ereignissen standen und schon Jahrhunderte früher die Vorbereitungen trafen für das, was für eine esoterische Schulung durch die 1250 gegebenen Bedingungen notwendig wurde. Wenn mit dem Worte «moderne Esoterik» kein Mißbrauch getrieben wird, so kann es für die geistige Arbeit dieser höher entwickelten Personen angewendet werden. Von ihnen weiß die äußere Geschichte nichts. Was sie taten, trat aber doch in aller Kultur zutage, die sich im Abendlande seit dem dreizehnten Jahrhundert entwickelt hat.
[ 30 ] Die Bedeutung des Jahres 1250 für die geistige Entwickelung der Menschheit tritt besonders dann zutage, wenn man das Ergebnis der hellseherischen Forschung berücksichtigt, das in folgender Tatsache gegeben ist. Selbst solche Individualitäten, die in den vorhergehenden Inkarnationen schon hohe geistige Entwickelungsstufen erreicht hatten und die um das Jahr 1250 herum wieder inkarniert wurden, mußten eine Zeitlang eine vollständige Trübung ihres unmittelbaren Einblickes in die geistige Welt erleben. Ganz erleuchtete Individuen waren wie abgeschnitten von der geistigen Welt und konnten von ihr nur aus der Erinnerung an frühere Verkörperungen etwas wissen. So sieht man, wie von jener Zeit an notwendig wurde, daß in der geistigen Lenkung der Menschheit ein neues Element auftrat. Das war das Element der wahren modernen Esoterik. Durch dasselbe ist erst im echten Sinne zu verstehen, wie in die Führung der ganzen Menschheit und auch des einzelnen Menschen eingreifen kann für alle Betätigungen dasjenige, was wir den Christus-Impuls nennen.
[ 31 ] Von dem Mysterium auf Golgatha bis zum Eingreifen der modernen Esoterik liegt die erste Zeit des Verarbeitens des Christus-Prinzips in den Menschenseelen. Die Menschen nahmen den Christus in dieser Zeit gewissermaßen für die höheren Geisteskräfte unbewußt auf, so daß sie später, als sie gezwungen wurden, ihn bewußt aufzunehmen, alle möglichen Fehler machten und in ein Labyrinth in bezug auf das Christus-Verständnis gerieten. Man kann verfolgen, wie in der ersten Zeit des Christentums das Christus-Prinzip sich in untergeordnete Seelenkräfte einlebte. Dann kam eine neue Zeit, in welcher die Menschen der Gegenwart noch darinnen stehen. Ja, sie sind in gewisser Beziehung erst im Anfange des Verständnisses des Christus-Prinzipes für die höheren Seelenfähigkeiten. Im weiteren Verlauf dieser Darstellung soll gezeigt werden, daß der Rückgang der übersinnlichen Erkenntnis bis in das dreizehnte Jahrhundert hinein und das andersartige langsame Wiederaufleben desselben seit jener Zeit zusammenfällt mit dem Eingreifen des Christus-Impulses in die Menschheitsentwickelung.
[ 32 ] So kann die moderne Esoterik aufgefaßt werden als die Erhebung des Christus-Impulses zum treibenden Elemente in der Führung jener Seelen, welche sich gemäß den Entwickelungsbedingungen der neueren Zeit zu einer Erkenntnis der höheren Welten durchringen wollen.
Chapter II
[ 1 ] We can find a curious parallel between what is revealed in individual human life and what prevails in the whole development of mankind if we consider what was said to the ancient Greeks by the teachers and leaders of ancient Egypt about the guidance and direction of Egyptian spiritual life. It is said that when an Egyptian was asked by whom he had been guided and directed since ancient times, he answered the Greeks: In ancient, gray times, the gods ruled and taught among us, and only then did men come as guides. - To the Greeks, the Egyptians called Menes the first leader on the physical plane who was recognized as a human-like leader. In other words, the leaders of the Egyptian people referred to the fact that the gods themselves - as the Greek records say - had previously guided and led the people. With such a statement, which resounds to us from ancient times, we only ever have to understand the right thing. What did the Egyptians mean when they said that the gods were our kings and the gods were our great teachers? - The one who said this to the questioning Greek said: "If one were to go back to the ancient times of the Egyptian people and ask those people who felt something like a higher consciousness, like a wisdom from higher worlds: Who are your teachers, they would answer: If I wanted to speak of my real teacher, I would not have to point to this or that person and say: this or that person is my teacher; but if I want to designate my teacher, I must first put myself into a clairvoyant state - it is known from spiritual science that this was relatively easier in older times than in the present - and then I find my true inspirer, my true teacher; he only approaches me when my spiritual eye is open. - For in ancient Egypt such beings descended from the spiritual worlds to human beings who did not embody themselves in the human physical body. The gods still ruled and taught through the physical humans in the ancient times of Egypt; and by "gods" the ancient Egyptians understood the beings that preceded humans in their development.
[ 2 ] In the sense of spiritual science, the earth, before it became "earth", went through a different planetary state, which is called the "lunar state". During this state, man was not yet man in the modern sense; however, there were other beings on the old moon who did not have the human form of today, who were of a different nature, but who were then at the stage of development that man has now reached on earth. We can therefore say that on the old planet Moon, which perished and later became the Earth, there lived beings who were the predecessors of human beings. In Christian esotericism, such beings are referred to as angelic beings (Angeloi) and those above them as archangels (Archangeloi). These latter were human beings in an even earlier time than the angels. What in Christian esotericism are called angels or Angeloi, in oriental mysticism "dhyanic beings", were "humans" during the lunar age. These beings now stand during the earth age - insofar as they have developed to the end on the moon - a full step higher than humans. Man will only have arrived at the end of the earth evolution where these beings were at the end of the moon evolution. - When the earthly state of our planet began and man appeared on earth, these beings could not appear in an outer human form. For the human fleshly body is essentially an earthly product; it is only appropriate for the beings who are now human beings. When the earth was at the beginning of its development, those beings who are one level higher than human beings could not embody themselves in human bodies; they could only participate in the earth's government in such a way that they enlightened and inspired the people of the prehistoric times of the earth in the state they had reached through clairvoyance, and intervened in the guidance of the earth's destiny through these clairvoyant people.
[ 3 ] The ancient Egyptians still remembered such a state where the leading personalities were vividly aware of their connection with what are called gods, angels or dhyanic beings. What kind of beings were these that did not embody themselves as human beings, did not take on human fleshly form, but worked into humanity in the way described? They were the predecessors of humans who had grown beyond the level of humanity.
[ 4 ] A lot of abuse has been made in this time of a word that can be applied here in the right sense, the word "superhuman". If one truly wanted to speak of "superhumans", one could call these beings that were already human beings during the lunar period, the planetary preliminary stage of our earth, and have now grown beyond human beings. They could only appear to clairvoyant humans in an etheric body. And so they appeared, descended from the spiritual worlds to earth and ruled on earth even in the post-Atlantean times.
[ 5 ] These beings had the strange characteristic - and they still have it today - that they do not need to think; one could also say that they cannot think at all, as man thinks. How does man think? More or less in such a way that he starts from a certain point and says to himself: I have understood this or that; and from this point he now tries to understand various other things. If this were not the way of human thinking, the school path would not be so difficult for many things. You can't learn mathematics from one day to the next, because you have to start at one point and progress slowly. It takes a long time. You cannot survey a whole world of thought at a glance, because human thought proceeds in time. A structure of thought is not present in the soul at a single stroke. You have to search, you have to make an effort to find the progression of thoughts. This peculiarity of man does not exist in the beings described; instead, a broad structure of thought arises in them with the same speed with which an animal, for example, realizes when it has something edible for its instinct in front of it that it wants to snatch at it. Instinct and thoughtful consciousness show no difference in relation to these entities; they are one and the same. Just as the animals have instinct on their levels, in their realm, so these dhyanic entities or Angeloi have direct spiritual thinking, direct spiritual imagination. Because of this instinctive inner life of imagination, they are essentially different from humans.
[ 6 ] You can now easily form an idea of how it is impossible for these beings to use such a brain or such a physical body as humans have. They must use an etheric body, because a human body and a human brain only convey thoughts in time, whereas these beings do not form thoughts in time, but feel the wisdom that comes to them flash within them as if of its own accord. It is impossible for them to think wrong thoughts in the same way as humans. Their thought process is a direct inspiration. Therefore, those personalities who were able to approach these superhuman or angelic beings had the awareness that they were facing certain wisdom. So even in ancient Egypt, when a man who was a teacher or king faced his spiritual leader, he knew that the commandment he gave and the truth he spoke were directly correct and could not be wrong. This was then felt again by those to whom these truths were transferred.
[ 7 ] The clairvoyant leaders of humanity could speak in such a way that one believed to receive from their words what came down from the spiritual world. In short, it was a direct stream upwards to the higher guiding spiritual hierarchies.
[ 8 ] What works in the childhood of man can be seen working on a large scale in the world of humanity as the next world of spirit hierarchies hovering above the entire evolution of humanity, as the next realm of the Angeloi or superhuman beings, who stand one step higher than human beings and rise directly into the spiritual spheres. From these spheres they carry down to earth that which works into human culture. In the child, it is the bodily form in which the higher wisdom creates its imprint; in the development of humanity in prehistoric times, culture was formed in a similar way.
[ 9 ] So the Egyptians, who described that they were connected with a divine being, felt the openness of the soul of humanity towards the spiritual hierarchies. As the child-soul, up to the time indicated in the foregoing, opens its aura to the hierarchies, so all mankind, through its work, opened its world to the hierarchies with which it was associated.
[ 10 ] This connection was most significant in the case of those teachers whom we call the sacred teachers of the Indians, the great teachers of the first post-Atlantean culture, that first Indian culture which spread throughout southern Asia. When the Atlantean catastrophe had passed, and the physiognomy of the earth had changed, so that the new organization of Asia, Europe and Africa had developed in the eastern hemisphere, the culture of the ancient great teachers of India was at work - even before the time referred to here as mentioned in the old reports. People today will generally have a very wrong idea of these great teachers of India. For if, for example, one of the great teachers of India were to confront an educated person of today, the educated person of the present day would make strange eyes and perhaps say: "This is supposed to be a ˂wise man˃? I have never imagined a wise man like that! - For in the sense of what is wise or clever in today's educated people, the ancient holy teachers of India knew nothing clever to say. They were simple-minded people in today's sense, who would have answered in the simplest possible way, even to questions of everyday life. And there were many times when it was hardly possible to get anything out of them other than this or that word, which would seem quite insignificant to today's educated person. But there were also certain times for these holy teachers when they presented themselves as something other than mere simple human beings. At these times they had to be together in the number of seven, because what each one of them could feel had to work together harmoniously with the other six sages as in a harmony of seven tones, so that each one had the possibility of seeing this or that according to his particular instrument and his particular development. And from the harmony of what each individual saw arose that which resounds as the primal wisdom from ancient times, if one understands how to decipher the real occult documents. Those documents are not the revelations of the Vedas, however much we may admire them; but what the sacred teachers of India taught is much earlier than the composition of the Vedas, and only a faint echo of it is what we have before us in these mighty works. But when these men stood face to face, each with a superhuman ancestor of mankind, when they looked clairvoyantly into the higher worlds, listened clairaudiently to what they heard through this predecessor of mankind, it shone like the sun from their eyes. And then what they could say had an overwhelming effect on their surroundings, so that all who heard knew: Now it is not human life or human wisdom that is speaking, but now gods, superhuman beings, are working into human culture.
[ 11 ] The ancient cultures began with this resonance of what the gods knew. Only gradually in the post-Atlantean period did the gate close, so to speak, to the divine-spiritual world, which during the Atlantean period was still completely open to the human soul. And in the various countries, among the various peoples, it was felt how man became more and more dependent on himself. Thus, in another sense, mankind shows what is revealed in the child. First the divine-spiritual world penetrates through the unconscious soul of the child, which creates and shapes the body; then comes the moment in which man learns to feel himself as "I", to which he then recalls himself in later life. This is where it can be said that the wisest person can still learn from the soul of the child. But then the individual is left to himself, the ego-consciousness arises, and everything now comes together in such a way that one can remember what one has experienced. - Thus the time also came in the life of the peoples when they began to feel more closed off from the divine inspiration of the primal fathers. Just as the child is closed off from the aura that surrounds the child's head in the early years, so too in the life of the peoples the divine forefathers receded more and more, and people became dependent on their own research and their own knowledge. Where history speaks in this way, the intrusion of humanity's leadership is felt. The Egyptians called the one who inaugurated the first "human" culture "Menes"; and at the same time they indicate that this also gave man the opportunity to err. For from then on he was dependent on the tool of his brain. The fact that man could fall into error is symbolically indicated by the fact that the foundation of the labyrinth is placed in the time in which man was abandoned by the gods, which is an image of the windings of the brain as the tool for man's own thoughts, in which the bearer of these thoughts can lose himself. The Orientals called man as a thinking being Manas, and Manu is the name of the first main carrier of thought. The Greek peoples called Minos the first shaper of the human thought principle, and the legend of the labyrinth is also linked to Minos, because people felt how, since his time, they gradually passed from direct divine guidance to such guidance through which the "I" experiences the influences of the higher spiritual world in a different way.
[ 12 ] Apart from those forefathers of man, the true supermen, who had completed their humanity on the moon and had now become angels, there are other beings who did not complete their development on the moon. The beings that are called dhyanic beings in oriental mysticism and Angeloi in Christian esotericism completed their development on the old moon and were already one step higher than human beings when man began his development on earth. But there were other beings who had not completed their human development on the old moon, just as the higher categories of Luciferian beings had not completed their development. When the earthly state of our planet began, not only was the human being present in the sense indicated, but he also received the inspiration of the divine-spiritual beings, for otherwise he would not have been able to progress - like the child - and thus, in addition to these childlike human beings, the beings who had completed their development on the moon were also indirectly present for the earth. But between these and the human beings there were still such beings who had not completed their development on the moon, beings who were of a higher kind than the human beings, because they could have become angels, dhyanic beings, already during the old moon time. But they did not reach full maturity at that time, they lagged behind the angels, but still towered far above man in terms of everything that man called his own. Basically, these are the beings that occupy the lowest level in the hosts of Luciferian spirits. The realm of the Luciferic entities begins with these entities, which stand in the middle between humans and angels.
[ 13 ] It is extremely easy to think erroneously about these beings. One could ask: Why have the divine spirits, the rulers of good, allowed such entities to remain behind and thereby allow the Luciferian principle to enter humanity? - One could also argue that the good gods direct everything for the good. This question is obvious. And the other misunderstanding that could arise is expressed in the opinion: These entities are just "evil" entities. Both are just misunderstandings. For these entities are by no means merely "evil" entities, although the origin of evil in human development must be sought in them, but they stand in the middle between humans and superhumans. In a certain way they tower above human beings in terms of perfection. These beings have already attained a high level in all the abilities which human beings must first acquire, and they differ from the human ancestors described earlier in that - because they have not completed their humanity on the moon - they are still able to incarnate in human bodies while man is developing on earth. While the actual dhyanic or angelic beings, who are the great inspirers of men, and to whom the Egyptians still referred, do not appear in human bodies, but could only reveal themselves through men, the beings who stand in the middle between men and angels are still able to incarnate in human bodies in prehistoric times. Therefore, in the Lemurian and Atlantean times, one finds among the people on earth those who carry within them as their innermost soul nature a retarded angelic being, that is, in the ancient Lemurian and Atlantean times of our earth, there are not only ordinary people walking around on earth who, through their successive incarnations, are supposed to come to what corresponds to the ideal of humanity, but among the people of earlier times there are such beings walking around who outwardly look like other people. They have to wear the human body, because the external form of a human being in the flesh is dependent on earthly conditions. But in the older times in particular, there were beings among human beings who belonged to the lowest category of Luciferian individualities. In addition to the angelic beings who worked on human culture through human beings, such Luciferic beings also incarnated and founded human cultures in various places. And when in the legends of ancient peoples it is described that here or there lived one or the other great person who founded a culture, such an individuality is not to be characterized by saying: There is a Luciferic entity embodied, which must be the bearer of an evil; - but in fact an infinite amount of blessing comes into human culture through these entities.
[ 14 ] It is known from spiritual science that in ancient times, especially in the Atlantean period, there was something like a kind of primordial human language, a kind of speaking which was similar over the whole earth, because "speaking" in those times came much more from the innermost part of the soul than it does today. This can be inferred from the following. In the Atlantean times people perceived all external impressions in such a way that the soul, when it wanted to express something external with a sound, was urged to make a consonant. So whatever was present in space urged itself to be imitated consonantly. The blowing of the wind, the sound of the waves, being protected by a house was felt and imitated by consonants. On the other hand, what one experienced inwardly in pain or joy, or what another being could feel, was imitated in the vowel. From this we can see that the soul in speech grew together with the external processes or entities.
[ 15 ] The following results from the Akashic Chronicle. For example, a person approached a hut that arched over a family in the old way and gave it protection and shelter, and observed the hut in the way it arched as a form spatially above the family. He expressed the protective arching of the hut with a consonant, and the fact that souls in bodies are well inside - which he could feel - he expressed with a vowel. Then the thought arose: "Protection", "I have protection", "protection over human bodies". This thought then poured out in consonants and vowels that could not be anything other than what they were, because they were clearly a direct imprint of the experience.
[ 16 ] This was the case all over the world. It is not a dream that there was a human "original language". And in a certain sense, the initiates of all peoples still understand this original language. Yes, there are certain sounds in all languages that are nothing other than remnants of this primordial human language.
[ 17 ] This language is stimulated in the human soul by the inspiration of the superhuman beings, the true predecessors of human beings, who had completed their development on the moon. One can now see from this: If there had only been this development, the whole human race would basically have remained a great unity; people would have spoken and thought uniformly over the whole earth. Individuality, diversity would not have been able to develop - and therefore neither would human freedom. For man to become an individuality, divisions had to occur in humanity. The fact that languages became different in the most diverse regions of the earth is due to the work of such teachers in whom a Luciferic entity was incarnated. Depending on whether this or that - retarded - angelic being was incarnated among this or that people, it was able to instruct people in this or that language. So the ability to speak a particular language among all peoples can be traced back to the presence of such great enlighteners who were regressed angelic beings and stood far higher than the people in their immediate environment. The beings who are described, for example, as the original heroes of the Greek or other peoples, who worked in human form, are those in whom a regressed angelic being was incarnated. These beings should therefore not be described merely as "evil" beings. On the contrary. They have brought to mankind that which predestined them to be free men over the whole globe, that which differentiated that which would otherwise have formed a uniform whole over the whole earth. So it is with languages, so it is in many areas of life. The individualization, the differentiation, the freedom - we can say - comes from these beings who remained behind on the moon. It was indeed the intention of the wise world leadership - so one could say - to bring all beings in the planetary development to their goal; but if this were done in a direct way, certain things would not be achieved. Certain beings are held back in their development because they have a special task in the development of humanity. Because the beings who had fully achieved their task on the moon could only have produced a unified humanity, they were opposed by those beings who had remained behind on the moon and who were thus given the opportunity to turn that which was actually a mistake with them to the good.
[ 18 ] This also opens up the prospect of the question: Why does evil, the bad, the imperfect, the pathological exist in the world? - Consider this from the point of view from which the imperfect angelic beings have just been considered. Everything that at any time represents an imperfection, a retardation, is nevertheless turned into something good in the course of development. There is no need to mention that such a truth cannot be seen as a justification for man's evil actions.
[ 19 ] This already answers the question: Why does the wise world government leave certain entities behind so that they do not reach their destination? This happens precisely because it makes good sense in the time that follows such lagging behind. For when the peoples could not yet direct and guide themselves, there lived the teachers of the times and of individual men. And all the individual teachers of the nations - Kadmos, Cheops, Pelops, Theseus and so on - have in a certain sense an angelic being at the bottom of their souls. From this it can be seen how, in fact, humanity is also subject to a leadership, a guidance in this respect.
[ 20 ] Now, however, at every stage of evolution there remain beings who do not reach the goal that can be reached. Consider once again the ancient Egyptian culture, which took place several millennia ago in the land of the Nile, where superhuman teachers revealed themselves to the Egyptians, who themselves said that they guided the people like gods. In addition, however, there were also beings who had only half or partially reached the level of angels. Now one must be clear about the fact that man reached a certain stage of development in ancient Egypt, that is, the souls of present-day men reached the corresponding stage in Egyptian times. But not only does the guided human being attain something by allowing himself to be guided, but also in the case of the guiding, leading beings this guidance means something that brings them further in their development. An angel, for example, is more after he has guided people for a while than he was before this guidance began. Through his work in guiding, the angel also progresses, both the one who is a full angel and the one who has fallen behind in his development. All beings can always progress; everything is in constant development. But at every stage beings remain behind. In ancient Egyptian culture we can distinguish between the divine leaders, the angels, then the semi-divine leaders who did not quite reach the angelic stage, and then the human beings. But certain beings from the series of supermen remain behind again, that is, they do not lead in such a way that they express all their powers, remaining behind as angels during the old Egyptian cultural stage. In the same way the unfinished supermen remain behind. Thus, while men advance below, certain individualities remain above among the dhyanic entities or angels. When the Egyptian-Chaldean culture came to an end and the Greco-Latin culture began, the leading beings from the former cultural epoch remained behind. However, they cannot use their powers now because they are replaced in the guidance of humanity by other angels or semi-angelic beings. This means, however, that they cannot continue their own development either.
[ 21 ] This turns our attention to a category of beings who could have used their powers during the Egyptian period, but did not fully apply them during this time. They could not use them in the subsequent Greco-Latin period because they were then replaced by other leading entities and the whole nature of that time made their intervention impossible. Just as those beings who had not reached their angelic stage on the old moon later had the task of intervening actively again in the development of humanity during the time on earth, so now those beings who remained behind as leading beings in the Egyptian-Chaldean culture also have the task of intervening again later in the culture as beings who have remained behind. We shall therefore be able to see a later cultural epoch in which, although there are beings who have come to lead and who direct the normal progress of development, other beings intervene alongside them who had previously remained behind, and in particular those who remained behind during the ancient Egyptian culture. The period of civilization thus indicated is our own. We live in a time in which, in addition to the normal rulers of humanity, such backward entities of the ancient Egyptian and Chaldean culture still intervene.
[ 22 ] The development of facts and beings must be viewed in such a way that the processes in the physical world must be regarded as effects (revelations) whose true causes lie in the spiritual world. On the whole, our culture is characterized on the one hand by an upward movement towards spirituality. In the urge of certain people towards spirituality, those spiritual rulers of present-day humanity who have reached their normal stage of development reveal themselves. In everything that today wants to lead man upwards into that which Theosophy hands down to us from the great spiritual wisdoms, these normal guides of our development reveal themselves. But the beings who remained behind during the Egyptian-Chaldean culture also intervene in our cultural tendencies; they reveal themselves in many things that are being thought of and accomplished at present and in the near future. They appear in everything that gives our culture its materialistic character and are often even noticeable in our striving for the spiritual. We are essentially experiencing a resurgence of Egyptian culture in our time. The beings who are to be regarded as the invisible directors of what happens in the physical world are thus divided into two classes. The first class contains those spiritual individualities which have undergone a normal development up to the present day. They were therefore able to intervene in the guidance of our culture, while the leaders of the Greco-Latin period preceding our epoch gradually ended their mission for the guidance of culture in the first Christian millennium. The second class, which merges its work with the entities of the first class, are spiritual individualities who did not complete their development in the Egyptian-Chaldean culture. They had to remain inactive during the subsequent Greco-Latin period and can now be active again because our present time has similarities with the Egyptian-Chaldean period. Thus it is that in the present humanity much appears that looks like a resurrection of the old Egyptian forces, but among them is also much like a resurrection of such forces that were spiritually active at that time and which now reappear in a materialistic reshaping. To characterize this, one can point to an example of how ancient Egyptian knowledge has been revived in our time. Think of Kepler. He was completely imbued with harmony in the construction of the world; and this was expressed in his important mathematical laws of celestial mechanics, the so-called Keplerian laws. These are apparently quite dry and abstract, but in Kepler's case they are born out of an understanding of the harmony of the universe. One can read in Kepler's own writings how he says that in order to find what he found, he had to go to the sacred mysteries of the Egyptians, steal their temple vessels and through them bring into the world that which only later times will know what it means for mankind. Such words of Kepler are by no means a mere phrase, but in them was present the dark consciousness of a re-experiencing of what he came to know in Egyptian times - during his embodiment at that time. We may well cherish the idea that Kepler penetrated the ancient Egyptian wisdom during one of his earlier lives, and that this Egyptian wisdom reappeared in his soul in a form appropriate to the newer time. It is understandable that with the Egyptian genius a materialistic trait enters our culture, for the Egyptians had a strong materialism as an influence on their spirituality, which was expressed, for example, in the embalming of the physical body of the deceased, that is, they attached importance to the preservation of the physical body. This has come down to us from Egyptian times in a correspondingly different form. The same forces that had not found their conclusion at that time are once again intervening in a transformed form in our time. The attitude that embalmed the corpses became the views that today merely worship the material. The Egyptian embalmed his corpses and thus preserved something that was valuable to him. He believed that the development of the soul after death was connected with the preservation of the physical-material body. The modern anatomist dissects what he sees and thereby believes he recognizes the laws of human organization. - In our present-day science live the forces of the ancient Egyptian and Chaldean world, which were then progressive forces, but now represent retarded ones, and which must be recognized if the character of the present is to be properly appreciated. These forces will harm the man of the present if he does not know their significance; he will not be harmed by them, but they will lead him to good ends if he is aware of their working and thereby brings himself into the right relationship with them. These forces must find their utilization; otherwise we would not have the great achievements in technology, industry and so on in the present. They are forces that belong to Luciferic entities of the lowest level. If one does not recognize them correctly, then one considers the materialistic impulses of the present to be the only possible ones, and does not see the other forces that lead upwards into the spiritual. For this reason, there must be a clear recognition of two spiritual currents in our time.
[ 23 ] If such entities had not been left behind by the wise guidance of the world during the Egyptian-Chaldean period, the present culture would lack the necessary gravity. Then only those forces would be at work which want to bring man into the spiritual with full force. People would be all too inclined to abandon themselves to these forces. They would become enthusiasts. Such people would only want to know something of a life that spiritualizes itself as quickly as possible; and an attitude would be decisive for them that showed a certain contempt for the physical-material. The present cultural epoch, however, can only fulfill its task if the forces of the material world are brought to their fullest flowering and thus gradually conquer its realm of spirituality. Just as the most beautiful things can become seducers and tempters of mankind if man follows them one-sidedly, so, if the one-sidedness characterized above were to take hold, there would be a great danger that all possible good aspirations would manifest themselves as fanaticism. As true as it is that mankind is brought forward by its noble impulses, it is also true that the worst thing can be done for its proper development by the enthusiastic and fanatical representation of the noblest impulses. Only if one strives for the highest in humility and clarity, and not out of enthusiasm, can salutary things happen for the progress of mankind. So that the present achievement may have the necessary gravity on earth, so that one may have understanding for the material, for the things of the physical plan, that is why the wisdom which works in the guidance of the world has left behind those forces which should have completed their development during the Egyptian epoch, and which now turn the eyes of men towards physical life.
[ 24 ] This illustration shows how development takes place under the influence of normally progressing and also lagging entities. The clairvoyant eye can follow the cooperation of the two classes of entities in the supersensible world. He thereby comprehends the spiritual events of which the physical facts, within which the human being of the present stands, are the revelation.
[ 25 ] It will be noticed that it is not enough to understand the processes of the world if the spiritual eye and the spiritual ear are opened to the spiritual world through some kind of exercise. In this way one has only achieved that one sees what is there, that one can perceive the entities and knows: there are spiritual entities of the soul world or the spiritual realm. But it is also necessary to recognize what kind of beings these entities are. One can encounter some entity of the soul or spirit realm; but then one does not yet know whether it is in progressive development or whether it belongs to the category of retarded powers; whether it therefore pushes forward or hinders development. Those people who acquire clairvoyant abilities and do not at the same time acquire a full understanding of the characterized developmental conditions of humanity can basically never know what kind of entities they will encounter. Mere clairvoyance must be supplemented by a clear judgment of what is seen in the supersensible world. This necessity is especially important for our time. It was not to be considered to the same extent at all times. If we go back to very ancient human cultures, we find different conditions. In ancient Egypt, when a person was clairvoyant and was confronted by a being from the supersensible world, this being had written on its forehead, as it were, who it was. The clairvoyant could not misinterpret it. In contrast, the possibility of misunderstanding is currently very great. While ancient mankind was still close to the realm of the spiritual hierarchies and could see which beings they encountered, today the possibility of error is very great, and the only protection against serious damage is to make an effort to avoid such conceptions and ideas as those indicated in the foregoing.
[ 26 ] In esotericism, a person who is able to see into the spiritual world is called a "clairvoyant". But just being clairvoyant is not enough. Such a person could see, but not discern. The person who has acquired the ability to distinguish between the beings and processes of the higher worlds is called an "initiate". Initiation brings the ability to distinguish between the different types of beings. So someone can be clairvoyant for the higher worlds, but need not be an initiate. In ancient times, the distinction between entities was not particularly important, for when the old secret schools had taught pupils to be clairvoyant, the danger of error was not very great. At present, however, the possibility of error is very great. Therefore, in all esoteric training, care should be taken that initiation is always acquired in addition to the ability of clairvoyance. To the extent that a person becomes clairvoyant, he must be able to distinguish between the particular types of psychic entities and processes.
[ 27 ] The special task of creating a balance between the principles of clairvoyance and those of initiation has in more recent times come before the leading powers of humanity. It was inevitable that the leaders of spiritual training would have to consider what had been identified at the beginning of the modern era. The esoteric school of thought which is appropriate to the present time therefore makes it its principle always to establish the right relationship between clairvoyance and initiation. This became necessary at the time when mankind was undergoing a crisis in regard to its higher cognition. This time was the thirteenth century. Around the year 1250 we have the age in which people felt most closed off from the spiritual world. A clairvoyant review of this age reveals the following. At that time the most outstanding spirits, striving for a certain higher knowledge, could say to themselves: What our reason, our intellect, what our spiritual knowledge can find, is limited to the world that surrounds us as a physical one; we cannot reach a spiritual world with our human research and cognitive faculty; we only know about it by absorbing the messages about it that men of the previous world have left us. It was then a time when direct spiritual insight into the higher worlds was obscured. There is a good reason why this was said at a time when scholasticism was flourishing.
[ 28 ] About the year 1250 is the time when men had to come to draw the line between what one must believe according to the impression made by the traditional traditions and what one can recognize. The latter remained limited to the physical sense world. And then came the time when more and more opportunities arose to gain insight into the spiritual world again. But this new clairvoyance is of a different kind than the old one, which had essentially died out by the year 1250. For the new form of clairvoyance, Western esotericism had to strictly establish the principle that initiation had to guide the spiritual ears and spiritual eyes. This characterizes the special task which an esoteric current entering the culture in Europe set itself. As the year 1250 approached, a new kind of guidance to the supersensible worlds began.
[ 29 ] This guidance was prepared by the spirits who stood behind the external historical events at that time and had already made the preparations centuries earlier for what became necessary for esoteric training through the conditions given in 1250. If the word "modern esotericism" is not misused, it can be applied to the spiritual work of these more highly developed persons. External history knows nothing of them. What they did, however, came to light in all the culture that has developed in the West since the thirteenth century.
[ 30 ] The significance of the year 1250 for the spiritual development of mankind becomes particularly apparent when one considers the result of clairvoyant research, which is given in the following fact. Even those individuals who had already reached high levels of spiritual development in previous incarnations and who were incarnated again around the year 1250 had to experience for a time a complete blurring of their direct insight into the spiritual world. Fully enlightened individuals were as if cut off from the spiritual world and could only know something about it from the memory of earlier incarnations. Thus we see how, from that time onwards, it became necessary for a new element to appear in the spiritual guidance of mankind. This was the element of true modern esotericism. Only through it can we understand in the true sense how that which we call the Christ impulse can intervene in the guidance of the whole of humanity and also of the individual for all activities.
[ 31 ] From the Mystery of Golgotha to the intervention of modern esotericism lies the first period of the processing of the Christ principle in human souls. During this time, people absorbed the Christ unconsciously, so to speak, for the higher spiritual forces, so that later, when they were forced to absorb him consciously, they made all kinds of mistakes and fell into a labyrinth with regard to the understanding of Christ. One can trace how in the first period of Christianity the Christ principle settled into subordinate powers of the soul. Then came a new time in which the people of the present still stand. Indeed, in a certain sense they are only just beginning to understand the Christ principle for the higher faculties of the soul. In the further course of this presentation it will be shown that the decline of supersensible knowledge up to the thirteenth century and the different slow revival of the same since that time coincides with the intervention of the Christ-impulse in the development of mankind.
[ 32 ] So modern esotericism can be understood as the elevation of the Christ-impulse to the driving element in the guidance of those souls who, in accordance with the developmental conditions of the newer time, want to bring themselves to a realization of the higher worlds.