The Rudolf Steiner Archive

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.