The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Chapter III

[ 1 ] In accordance with the preceding explanations, the spiritual guidance in the development of human evolution can be sought in the beings who went through their humanity during the previous embodiment of the earth planet - during the old lunar time. This guidance is opposed by another, inhibiting the former and yet in inhibiting it again in a certain respect promoting it, which is exercised by the beings who did not complete their own development during the lunar period. This refers to the guiding entities that stand directly above the human being. To those who lead forward as well as to those who promote by causing resistance and thereby strengthening and consolidating the forces that arise through the forward-moving entities, giving them weight and a nature of their own. In the sense of Christian esotericism, these two classes of superhuman beings can be called angels (Angeloi). Above these beings, in ascending order of rank, are those of the higher hierarchies, the Archangeloi, Archai and so on, who also participate in the guidance of humanity. Within the classes of these various entities there are all sorts of gradations in terms of degrees of perfection. For example, in the category of the Angeloi at the beginning of the present earth evolution, there are the highest and the least high. The former have gone far beyond the minimum of their lunar evolution. Between these and those who had just reached this minimum level when the lunar evolution ended and the earth evolution began, there are all possible gradations. According to these gradations, the intervention of the respective beings in the guidance of the earth evolution of mankind takes place. Thus, in the Egyptian cultural development, the leadership was exercised by beings who had become more perfect on the moon than those who were leaders in the Greco-Latin period. And these were again more perfect than those who lead in the present time. In the Egyptian or Greek period, those who intervened later in the leadership have meanwhile trained themselves and thus made themselves ready to lead the culture that has come further.

[ 2 ] A distinction is made between seven successive cultural epochs from the time of the great Atlantean catastrophe onwards: the first is the ancient Indian cultural period, followed by the Urperian, ^{1"Urperian" here does not refer to what is called "Persian" in ordinary history, but to an ancient Asian prehistoric (Iranian) culture that developed on the soil on which the Persian Empire later expanded.} The third is the Egyptian-Chaldean, the fourth the Greek-Latin and the fifth is our own, which has gradually developed since around the twelfth century and in which we are still in the middle. However, the first facts that will lead to the sixth post-Atlantean cultural period are already being prepared in our time. For the individual periods of development overlap. The sixth epoch will be followed by a seventh. A closer look reveals the following for the leadership of humanity. Only in the third cultural period, the Egyptian-Chaldean, were the angels (or lower dhyanic beings in the sense of oriental mysticism) the leaders of mankind to a certain degree independent. This was not the case in the Urperian period. There the angels were subject to a higher leadership to a much greater degree than during the Egyptian period and arranged everything in such a way that it corresponded to the impulses of the next higher hierarchy, so that everything was indeed under the direction of the angels, but these themselves again submitted to the order of the archangels or the Archangeloi. And in the Indian cultural period, in which the post-Atlantean life had such a height in spiritual relationship as it did not have again for the time being afterwards - a natural height under the guidance of the great human teachers - the archangels themselves were again subject in a similar sense to the guidance of the Archai or primal beginnings.

[ 3 ] So if we follow the development of humanity from the Indian period through the Urperian and Egyptian-Chaldean cultures, we can say that certain beings of the higher hierarchies withdrew more and more, so to speak, from the direct guidance of humanity. And what was it like in the fourth post-Atlantean cultural period, the Greco-Latin period? In a certain sense, man had become completely independent. The leading superhuman beings did intervene in the development of mankind; but their guidance was such that the reins were tightened as little as possible, that the spiritual leaders had as much for themselves through the deeds of men as they had through them. Hence that peculiar, entirely "human" culture in the Greco-Roman period, in which man is completely left to his own devices.

[ 4] All peculiarities in art, in state life during the Greek and Roman period can be traced back to the fact that man was supposed to live out his own nature, so to speak. So if we look back to the earliest times of cultural development, we find leading beings who had completed their development up to man in earlier planetary states. The fourth post-Atlantean cultural epoch was there to test man most of all. It was therefore also the time in which the entire spiritual leadership of humanity had to establish itself in a new way. People today live in the fifth post-Atlantean cultural epoch. The leading Beings of this epoch belong to the same hierarchy that was dominant among the ancient Egyptians and Chaldeans. In fact, the same Beings who led then are beginning their activities again in our time. It has been suggested that certain entities remained behind during the Egyptian-Chaldean culture, and that these can be found in the materialistic feelings and sensations of our time.

[ 5 ] The progress, both of the advancing and of the inhibiting entities belonging to the class of angels (or lower dhyanic entities), consists in the fact that they were able to be leaders among the Egyptians and Chaldeans through those qualities which they themselves had acquired in ancient times, but that they also developed further through their work as leaders. Thus the advancing Angeloi enter the leadership of the fifth post-Atlantean cultural development with abilities which they had acquired during the third, the Egyptian-Chaldean. Through this progress they now acquire very special abilities. For they make themselves capable of allowing the forces to flow into them which emanate from the most important being of all earthly development. The power of Christ works on them. This power not only affects the physical world through Jesus of Nazareth, but it also affects the superhuman beings in the spiritual worlds. The Christ exists not only for the earth, but also for these beings. The same beings who led the ancient Egyptian-Chaldean culture were not then under the guidance of the Christ, but only since the Egyptian-Chaldean period have they placed themselves under the guidance of the Christ. And therein lies their progress, so that they now lead our fifth post-Atlantean cultural period under the influence of the Christ; they follow him in the higher worlds. And the lagging behind of those beings of whom it has been said that they act as restraining forces is due to the fact that they have not submitted themselves to the guidance of the Christ, so that they continue to work independently of the Christ. Therefore, the following will emerge more and more clearly in the culture of mankind. There will be a materialistic current under the leadership of the backward Egyptian-Chaldean spirits; it will have a materialistic character. Most of what can be called today's materialistic science in all countries is under this influence. But alongside this another current is making itself felt, which aims at man finally finding what may be called the Christ principle in everything he does. There are people today, for example, who say that our world ultimately consists of atoms. Who instills in people the idea that the world consists of atoms? These are the superhuman angelic beings left behind during the Egyptian-Chaldean period.

[ 6 ] What will now be taught by the beings who have reached their goal in the old Egyptian-Chaldean cultural area and who got to know the Christ at that time? They will be able to instill in man other thoughts than that there are only material atoms; for they will be able to teach man that substance is permeated by the spirit of the Christ right down to the smallest parts of the world. And as strange as it may seem, in the future chemists and physicists will come who will not teach chemistry and physics as they are taught today under the influence of the Egyptian-Chaldean spirits who have been left behind, but who will teach them: Matter is constructed in the sense in which the Christ has gradually arranged it! - The Christ will be found in the laws of chemistry and physics. A spiritual chemistry, a spiritual physics is what will come in the future. Today this certainly seems to many people to be a dream or worse. But what is often the reason of the times to come is foolishness for the times before.

[ 7 ] The factors that intervene in the development of human culture in this sense are already noticeable to those who look closely. But such an observer also knows quite well what, from a current scientific or philosophical point of view, can be objected to with apparent justification against this supposed folly.

[ 8 ] From such premises, one also understands what the leading superhuman beings have ahead of humans. Humans in the post-Atlantean period came to know the Christ in the fourth post-Atlantean cultural period, in the Greco-Latin period. For it was during the course of this cultural epoch that the Christ-event took place. It was then that people came to know the Christ. The superhuman leading beings got to know him during the Egyptian-Chaldean period and worked their way up to him. They then had to leave people to their own fate during the Greco-Latin period, only to intervene again later in the development of humanity. And if one practises Theosophy today, this means nothing other than recognizing the fact that the superhuman beings who have guided humanity are now continuing their leadership in such a way that they themselves are under the guidance of the Christ. - So it is with other entities.

[ 9 ] In the Urperian period, the archangels were involved in the guidance of humanity. They submitted to the Christ even earlier than the beings below them in rank. It can be said of Zarathustra that he pointed his followers and his people to the sun and said something like: "In the sun lives the great spirit Ahura Mazdao, who will come down to earth! - For the beings from the region of the archangels, who guided Zarathustra, pointed him to the great leader of the sun, who had not yet come down to earth at that time, but had only started on his way there in order to intervene directly in the earth's development later. And the leading beings who presided over the great teachers of the Indians pointed them to the Christ of the future; for it is a mistake to think that these teachers had no inkling of the Christ. They said that he was "above their sphere", that they "could not reach him".

[ 10 ] As it is now the angels in our fifth cultural period who carry the Christ down into our spiritual development, so in the sixth cultural period those beings from the class of archangels will lead the culture who led the primordial Persian cultural period. And the spirits of the primordial beginning, the Archai, who guided humanity during the ancient Indian period, will have to guide humanity under the Christ in the seventh cultural epoch. In the Greco-Latin period the Christ descended from spiritual heights and revealed himself in the fleshly body of Jesus of Nazareth. He descended into the physical world. He will be found in the next higher world when humanity has matured. He cannot be found in the physical world in the future, but only in the next higher worlds. For people will not have remained the same; they will have matured and found the Christ, just as Paul found him in the spiritual world through the event before Damascus, prophetically foreseeing the future in this respect. And just as in our time it is the same great teachers who already guided people in the Egyptian-Chaldean culture, they will also be the ones who in the twentieth century will lead people up to a vision of the Christ as Paul saw him. They will show people how the Christ not only works on earth, but also spiritualizes the entire solar system. And as a spirit which was foreshadowed by the unified Brahman, but into which the right content can only enter through the Christ, those who will be the re-embodied holy teachers of India in the seventh cultural period will also proclaim the great mighty spirit of which they said at that time that it ruled over their sphere. In this way, humanity will be led upwards from stage to stage into the spiritual world.

[ 11 ] To speak of the Christ as a guide in the successive worlds, also for the higher hierarchies, is taught by the science which has entered our culture under the signature of the Rosy Cross since the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and which has been shown to have become necessary since that time. If we take a closer look at the Being who lived in Palestine, and who then accomplished the Mystery of Golgotha, in the sense of this view, the following becomes apparent.

[ 12 ] There have been many ideas about the Christ right up to the present day. There was, for example, the idea of certain Christian Gnostics of the first centuries who said that the Christ who lived in Palestine was not present in any physical fleshly body at all; he only had an apparent body, an etheric body that had become physically visible; so that even his death on the cross was not a real death, but only an apparent one, because only an etheric body was present. Then one finds the various disputes among the followers of Christianity, for example the well-known dispute between the Arians and Athanasians and so on, and also among them the most diverse interpretations of what the Christ actually was. Right up to the present day, people have the most diverse ideas about the Christ.

[ 13 ] Spiritual science must recognize in Christ not merely an earthly, but a cosmic being. In a certain sense, man is a cosmic being in general. He lives a twofold life. A life in the physical body from birth to death, and a life in the spiritual worlds between death and a new birth. If the human being is embodied in a physical body, then he lives - because the physical body is dependent on the conditions of existence and forces of the earth - in dependence on the earth. However, the human being not only absorbs the substances and forces of the earth, but is integrated into the entire physical earth organism, belongs to it. When he has passed through the gate of death, then he does not belong to the forces of the earth; but it would be wrong to imagine that he then belonged to no forces at all, but he is then connected with the forces of the solar system and the other star systems. He lives in the cosmic realm between death and rebirth, just as he lives in the earthly realm from birth to death. From death to the new birth he belongs to the cosmos, just as on earth he belongs to the elements air, water, earth and so on. By living through life between death and rebirth, he enters the realm of cosmic influences. From the planets come not only the physical forces that physical astronomy teaches, gravity and the other physical forces, but also spiritual forces. And man is in contact with these spiritual forces of the cosmos; each man in a special way, depending on his individuality. If he is born in Europe, he lives in a different context with the heat conditions and so on than if he were born in Australia, for example. In the life between death and rebirth he is in a similar relationship: the one more to the spiritual forces of Mars, the other more to those of Jupiter, some more to those of the whole planetary system in general, and so on. And it is also these forces that lead man back to earth. Thus he lives the time before a birth in connection with the entire starry space.

[ 14 ] The forces that lead a person to this or that pair of parents, to this or that region, are also determined by these special relationships of a person to the cosmic system. The drive, the impulse to incarnate here or there, in this or that family, in this or that people, at this or that time, depends on how a person is integrated into the cosmos before birth.

[ 15 ] In older times in the German-speaking world, there was an expression that was extraordinarily indicative of the birth of a human being. When a person was born, it was said that he had become young here or there. This is an unconscious reference to the fact that in the time between death and a new birth a person continues to be subject to the forces that made him old in the previous incarnation, and that these are then replaced before birth by forces that make him "young" again. Thus Goethe still uses the expression "became young in the land of fog" in "Faust", "Nebelland" being the old name for medieval Germany.

[ 16 ] The truth underlying the horoscope is that the connoisseur of these things can read the forces according to which man finds his way into physical existence. A person is assigned a certain horoscope because it expresses the forces that brought him into existence. If, for example, Mars is above Aries in the horoscope, this means that certain Aries forces are not allowed to pass through Mars, that they are weakened. Thus the human being is placed in physical existence, and the horoscope is what he is guided by before he enters earthly existence. This matter, which seems so daring in our day, should not be touched upon without pointing out that almost everything that is now being done in this direction is the purest dilettantism - a true superstition - and that for the outer world the true science of these things has for the most part been completely lost. One should therefore not judge the things of principle that are said here according to what at present often leads a questionable existence as astrology.

[ 17 ] What drives man into physical embodiment are the effective forces of the starry world. When the clairvoyant consciousness observes a human being, it can perceive from his organization how this is actually a result of the interaction of cosmic forces. This will now be illustrated in a hypothetical form, but one that corresponds completely to clairvoyant perceptions.

[ 18 ] If one were to take out the physical brain of a human being and examine it clairvoyantly as it is constructed, so that one would see how certain parts sit in certain places and send out extensions, one would find that the brain is different in every human being. No two people have the same brain. But imagine if you could photograph this brain with its entire structure, so that you had a kind of hemisphere and all the details were visible, this would give a different picture for each person. And if you photographed a person's brain at the moment he was born and then also photographed the celestial space that lies exactly above the place of birth of this person, this picture would show exactly the same as the human brain. Just as certain parts are arranged in the brain, so are the stars in the celestial image. Man has within him an image of the celestial space, and indeed each one has a different image, depending on whether he was born there or there, in this or that time. This is an indication that man is born out of the whole world.

[ 19 ] If one considers this, one can also rise to the idea of how the macrocosmic manifests itself in the individual human being, and on this basis gain the idea of how it manifests itself in Christ. If one imagined the Christ after the baptism of John as if the macrocosmic had lived in him as in another human being, one would get the wrong idea.

[ 20 ] First, consider Jesus of Nazareth. He had very special conditions of existence. At the beginning of our era, two baby boys were born. One came from the Nathanian line of the house of David, the other from the Solomonic line of the same house. These two boys were not born at exactly the same time, but approximately. In the Solomonic Jesus-child described in the Gospel of Matthew, the same individuality incarnated that had previously lived on earth as Zoroaster, so that in this Jesus-child of Matthew's Gospel we have before us the re-embodied Zoroaster. Thus, as Matthew describes him, the individuality of Zoroaster grows up in this infant Jesus until his twelfth year. In this year Zoroaster leaves the body of this boy and passes over into the body of the other boy Jesus described in the Gospel of Luke. That is why this child suddenly becomes something completely different. The parents are astonished when they find him again in the temple in Jerusalem after the spirit of Zoroaster has entered him. This is indicated by the fact that the boy, after he had gone astray and was found again in the temple in Jerusalem, spoke in such a way that the parents did not recognize him, because they only knew this child - the Nathanian Jesus-boy - as he was before. But when he began to speak to the scribes in the temple, he was able to speak in this way because the spirit of Zarathustra had entered him. - The spirit of Zoroaster lived in the young Jesus, who came from the Nathanian line of the House of David, until he was thirty years old. In this other body he matured to an even higher perfection. It should also be noted that in this other body, in which the spirit of Zarathustra now lived, it was peculiar that the Buddha allowed his impulses from the spiritual world to radiate into his astral body.

[ 21 ] The Oriental tradition is correct that the Buddha was born as a "bodhisattva" and only ascended to the Buddha dignity during his time on earth, in his twenty-ninth year.

[ 22 ] Asiatic, the great Indian sage, came weeping to the royal palace of the Buddha's father when Gautama Buddha was a small child. This was because, as a seer, he was able to know that this royal child would become the Buddha, and because he felt like an old man who would not live to see the son of Suddhodana become the Buddha. This sage was reborn in the time of Jesus of Nazareth. He is the same one who is presented to us in the Gospel of Luke as the temple priest who sees the Buddha revealed in the Nathanian boy Jesus. And because he saw this, he said: "Lord, let your servant depart in peace, for I have seen my Master!" What he could not see at that time in India, he saw through the astral body of this boy Jesus, who confronts us as the one in the Gospel of Luke: the Bodhisattva who had become Buddha.

[ 23 ] All this was necessary for the body to come into being, which then received the "baptism of John" at the Jordan. Thus the individuality of Zarathustra left the threefold body - physical body, etheric body, astral body - of that Jesus who had grown up in such a complicated way so that the spirit of Zarathustra could be in him. The reborn Zarathustra had to pass through two possibilities of development that were given in the two Jesus-boys. Thus the body of Jesus of Nazareth stood opposite the Baptist, and the cosmic individuality of the Christ now worked into it. With another human being the cosmic-spiritual laws only work in such a way that they place him in earthly life. These laws are then countered by those which originate from the conditions of earthly development. In the case of Christ Jesus, after the baptism of John, the cosmic-spiritual forces alone remained effective, without any influence from the laws of earthly development.

[ 24 ] While Jesus of Nazareth walked the earth as Christ Jesus in the last three years of his life from the thirtieth to the thirty-third year in Palestine, the entire cosmic Christ-being continually worked into him. The Christ was always under the influence of the whole cosmos; he never took a step without the cosmic forces working into him. What took place here with Jesus of Nazareth was a continual realization of the horoscope; for at every moment that happened which otherwise only happens at the birth of man. This could only be the case because the whole body of the Nathanish Jesus had remained influenceable in relation to the totality of the forces of the cosmic-spiritual hierarchies that govern our earth. If the whole spirit of the cosmos beckoned into Christ Jesus, who then went to Capernaum, for example, or anywhere else? What walked the earth as a being did indeed look like another human being. But the active forces in it were the cosmic forces that came from the sun and stars; they directed the body. And depending on the overall nature of the world, with which the earth is connected, what Christ Jesus did took place. This is why the constellation of the stars for the deeds of Christ Jesus is so often quietly alluded to in the Gospels. Read in the Gospel of John how the Christ finds his first disciples. There it is stated: "Now it was about the tenth hour"; because the spirit of the whole cosmos expressed itself in this fact in accordance with the time conditions. Such allusions are less clear in other Gospel passages; but anyone who can read the Gospels will find them everywhere.

[ 25 ] From this point of view, for example, the miracles of the healing of the sick are to be judged. Consider just one passage, the one where it says: "When the sun had set, they brought the sick to him, and he healed them." What does that mean? The evangelist draws attention to the fact that this healing was connected with the whole constellation of the stars, that such a constellation of the world was present at the corresponding time, which could only have been brought about when the sun had set. What is meant is that at this time the corresponding healing powers could manifest themselves after sunset. Christ Jesus is portrayed as the mediator who brings the sick person together with the forces of the cosmos that could have a healing effect at that particular time. These forces were the same forces that worked as Christ in Jesus. The healing took place through Christ's presence, because as a result of it the sick person was exposed to the healing powers of the cosmos, which could only work in the way they did under the relevant space and time conditions. The forces of the cosmos acted on the sick person through their representative, the Christ.

[ 26 ] But they could only work in this way during Christ's time on earth. Only then was there such a connection between the cosmic constellations and the forces in the human organism that a cure could occur for certain illnesses when the cosmic constellation acted on the human being through Christ Jesus. A repetition of these conditions in the cosmic and earthly becoming is just as impossible as a second embodiment of the Christ in a human body. Seen in this way, the walk of Christ Jesus appears as the earthly expression of a certain relationship between the cosmos and the powers of man. The presence of a sick person at the side of Christ means that this sick person was in such a relationship to the macrocosm through the proximity of Christ that it could have a healing effect on him.

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[ 27 ] This indicates the points of view that show how the leadership of humanity has placed itself under the influence of Christ. But the other forces that were left behind in the Egyptian-Chaldean period continue to work alongside those permeated by Christ. This can also be seen in the way the present day often relates to the Gospels themselves. Literary works appear which endeavor in a strange way to show that the Gospels can be understood by interpreting them astrologically. The greatest opponents of the Gospels invoke this astrological interpretation, so that, for example, the path of the archangel Gabriel from Elizabeth to Mary should mean nothing other than the passage of the sun from the image of the Virgin to another. This is something that is correct in a certain sense; only these thoughts are instilled into our time in this way by the entities that remained behind during the Egyptian-Chaldean period. Under such influence they would have us believe that the Gospels were only allegories for certain cosmic conditions. The truth is that the whole cosmos expresses itself in Christ, so that the life of Christ can be expressed by citing the cosmic conditions for its individual processes, which continually work through Christ into earthly existence. Thus a correct understanding of this matter will have to lead to the full recognition of the earthly-living Christ, while the characterized error, when it becomes aware that the Christ-life is expressed in the Gospels by cosmic constellations, thinks that this proves that only these constellations are treated allegorically and that there was no earthly-real Christ.

[ 28 ] If a comparison may be used, one could say: Think of every human being under the image of a reflecting sphere. If you think of a spherical mirror, it shows images of its entire surroundings. Suppose we were to trace the outlines with a pencil, which depict the whole environment. We could then take the mirror and carry the image everywhere. This is a symbol for the fact that when a person is born, he carries an image of the cosmos within him and then carries the effect of this one image with him throughout his entire life. But you could also leave the mirror so that it reflects the surroundings wherever you take it. Then it always gives an image of the entire surroundings. That would be the symbol of Christ from St. John's baptism to the Mystery of Golgotha. What flows into the earthly existence of another person at birth flows into the Christ Jesus at every moment. And when the Mystery of Golgotha took place, that which was radiated from the cosmos passed into the spiritual substance of the earth and has been connected with the spirit of the earth since that time.

[ 29 ] When Paul became clairvoyant before Damascus, he was able to recognize that what was formerly in the cosmos had passed into the spirit of the earth. Anyone who can bring their soul to relive the event of Damascus will be able to see this for themselves. In the twentieth century, the first people will appear who will experience Paul's Christ event in a spiritual way.

[ 30 ] While up to this time only those people who have acquired clairvoyant powers through esoteric training have been able to experience this event, in the future, through the natural development of humanity, it will be possible for the progressive powers of the soul to see Christ in the spiritual sphere of the earth. This will - as an afterlife of the event of Damascus - be possible for some people from a certain point in time in the twentieth century; then their number will increase until it will be a natural ability of the human soul in the distant future.

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[ 31 ] With the entry of the Christ into earthly development, a completely new impact was given to this development. The external facts of history also show the expression of this. In the first times of post-Atlantean development people knew very well that there is not only a physical Mars above us, but that what we see as Mars or Jupiter or Saturn is the expression of spiritual beings. In later times this view was completely forgotten. For human opinion, the world bodies became mere bodies that were judged according to physical relationships. And in the Middle Ages, people only saw what their eyes could see of the stars: the sphere of Venus, the sphere of the sun, Mars and so on up to the sphere of the fixed starry sky; and then came the eighth sphere, like a blue, solid wall behind it. Then came Copernicus and broke the view that only what the senses see could be authoritative. - Today's physical scientists can certainly say: There are such confused minds who claim that the world is Maya, is illusion, and that one must look into a spiritual world in order to recognize the truth, while true science is that which adheres to the senses and records what the senses say. - When did astronomers rely only on the senses? Back then, when astronomical science prevailed, which is being fought against today?

[ 32 ] When Copernicus began to think out what is present in the universe beyond the appearance of the senses, only then did today's modern astronomy begin as a science. And this is indeed the case in all fields of knowledge. Wherever science has arisen in the most modern sense, it has arisen against the appearance of sense. When Copernicus declared: "What you see is mysticism, is deception; rely on what you cannot see!", then science became what is recognized as such today. One could therefore say to the representatives of today's science: Your science itself only became "science" when it no longer wanted to rely on the senses. Giordano Bruno came along as a philosophical interpreter of Copernicus' teachings. He directed our gaze out into the universe and proclaimed: 'What has been called the limit of space, what has been put forward as the eighth sphere, which spatially limits everything, is no limit. That is maya, illusion; for a myriad of worlds has poured into world space. What was previously believed to be the boundary of space has now become the boundary of man's sensory world. Turn your gaze beyond the world of the senses: if you no longer see the world as only the senses show it, then you will also recognize infinity.

[ 33 ] It is evident from this that the course of human development is such that man started from an original spiritual view of the cosmos, and that he has lost this in the course of time. It was replaced by a purely sensual view of the world. Then the Christ-impulse entered into the development. Through this, mankind is led to impress the spiritual upon the materialistic view again. At the moment when Giordano Bruno broke through the shackles of sunshine, the Christ-development was so far advanced that the soul-power could be active in him, which was kindled by this Christ-impulse. This points to the whole significance of the Christ's living into all human development. To a development at the beginning of which humanity is basically only at present.

[ 34 ] What does spiritual science now strive for?

[ 35 ] It completes the work done by Giordano Bruno and others for external physical science by saying: Maja, illusion is what external science can recognize. Just as people used to look as far as the "eighth sphere" and believed that space was limited, today's thinking believes that man is enclosed between birth and death. Spiritual science, however, expands the view beyond birth and death.

[ 36 ] It is a closed chain in the development of mankind that can be recognized by such ideas. And in the true sense of the word, that which was carried out by Copernicus and Giordano Bruno for space as the overcoming of sensory illusion already emerged from the inspirations of that spiritual current which is also followed by the newer spiritual science or theosophy. What can be called the newer esotericism had a mysterious effect on Copernicus, Bruno, Kepler and others. And those who today stand on the ground of Giordano Bruno and Copernicus and do not want to accept Theosophy are being unfaithful to their own traditions by wanting to hold on to the semblance of meaning. Spiritual science, however, shows: Just as Giordano Bruno broke through the blue vault of heaven, so this science breaks through the boundaries of birth and death for man by showing how man, who comes from the macrocosm, lives in physical existence, and through death re-enters a macrocosmic existence. And what we see in each individual human being to a limited extent, we encounter on a large scale in the representative of the cosmic spirit, in Christ Jesus. And this impulse, which the Christ gave, could only be given once. Only once could the whole cosmos be reflected in this way; for this constellation, as it existed at that time, will not come again. This constellation had to work through a human body so that it could give the impulse on earth. As true as this same constellation does not occur a second time, so true is it that the Christ came to incarnation only once. Only if one does not know that the Christ is the representative of the whole universe, and one cannot come to terms with this idea of Christ, to which the elements are given through spiritual science, only then can one claim that the Christ can appear several times on earth.

[ 37 ] This shows how an idea of Christ arises from the newer spiritual science or theosophy, which shows man his relationship with the whole macrocosm in a renewed way. In order to really get to know the Christ, we truly need those inspiring forces that are now appearing through the ancient Egyptian and Chaldean superhuman beings who are themselves guided by the Christ. Such a new inspiration is needed, the inspiration which the great esotericists of the Middle Ages prepared from the thirteenth century onwards and which must increasingly penetrate the public from now on. If, in the sense of this science, man prepares himself in his soul in the right way to recognize the spiritual world, then he can hear clairaudiently, see clairvoyantly, what the ancient Chaldean and Egyptian powers reveal, which have now become spiritual leaders under the guidance of the Christ-being. What will one day arise for mankind could only be prepared in the first Christian centuries up to our time. Therefore we may say: In the future a Christ-idea will live in the hearts of men, in greatness to be compared with nothing that mankind has believed to recognize so far. What has arisen as the first impulse through Christ and has lived as an idea of him until today - even among the best representatives of the Christ principle - is only a preparation for the real realization of Christ. It would be quite strange, but could happen, that those in the West who express the idea of Christ in this way would be accused of not standing on the ground of the Christian tradition of the West. For this Christian tradition of the West is by no means sufficient to understand Christ for the near future.

[ 38 ] From the premises of Western esotericism, one can see the spiritual guidance of humanity gradually flowing into one that can be called, in the true sense, the guidance coming from the Christ impulse. What appears as the newer esotericism will slowly flow into the hearts of men; and the spiritual guidance of man and mankind will be consciously seen more and more in such a light. Consider how the Christ principle first flowed into the hearts of men through the fact that the Christ walked in the physical body of Jesus of Nazareth in Palestine. There men, who had gradually surrendered completely to trust in the sensual world, were able to receive the impulse that corresponded to their conception. Then the same impulse worked through the inspiration of the newer esotericism in such a way that spirits such as Nicholas Cusanus, Copernicus, Galileo could be inspired, so that Copernicus, for example, could assert the proposition: Sense cannot teach the truth about the solar systems; if you want to find the truth, you have to investigate behind the sense. - At that time people were not yet mature enough, not even spirits like Giordano Bruno, to consciously integrate themselves into the newer esoteric current; they had to have the spirit of this current unconsciously active within them. Giordano Bruno proclaimed grandly and powerfully: When a human being comes into existence through birth, it is a macrocosmic thing that concentrates itself as a monad, and when a human being passes through death, the monad expands again; what was contracted in the body expands in the universe in order to contract and expand again in other stages of existence. At that time, Bruno spoke powerful concepts that are entirely in the spirit of more recent esotericism, albeit like a stammer.

[ 39 ] The spiritual influences that guide humanity need not be effective because man is always aware of them. For example, they put the man Galileo in the cathedral of Pisa. Thousands have seen the old church lamp there, but have not seen it as Galileo did. He saw the church lamp oscillate and compared the oscillation times with the course of his pulse beats. He found that the church lamp oscillated in a regular rhythm, similar to the rhythm of the pulse. From this he then found the "laws of the pendulum" in the sense of modern physics. Anyone familiar with modern physics knows that it would not be possible without Galileo's principles. - This is how what is currently occurring in spiritual science worked back then; it placed Galileo in the cathedral of Pisa in front of the swinging church lamp, and today's physics got its principles. This is how the leading spiritual forces of humanity work in a mysterious way.

[ 40 ] The time is now approaching when people will also become aware of these guiding forces. One will understand more and more what must happen in the future if one understands correctly that which has an inspiring effect as newer esotericism, and which shows that the same spiritual entities to which the ancient Egyptians pointed when the Greeks asked them about their teachers, that these same entities, which then ruled as gods, are now again becoming dominant, but now want to submit themselves to the guidance of the Christ. More and more people will feel how they can resurrect that which is pre-Christian in a higher splendor and style, on a higher level. - The consciousness that is necessary for the present, and which must be a strengthened consciousness, a high sense of duty and responsibility towards the knowledge of the spiritual world, can only enter our soul if the task of spiritual science is grasped in the sense described.