Earthly and Cosmic Man
GA 133
20 May 1912, Berlin
7. The Signature of Human Evolution. The Advancing Individuality. The Dawn of the New Power of the Spirit-Self in Man.
The last lecture dealt with the subject of how the Christ Impulse will unfold in future times, and also, of course, in our own epoch. We heard that sheaths will weave themselves as it were around the Christ Impulse: Wonder into an Astral Body; feelings of love or Compassion into an Ether-Body; the power of Conscience into what corresponds to a Physical Body. Thereby that Ideal Being Whose “ I ”—the Christ Impulse Itself—passed into the Earth through the Mystery of Golgotha, will reach completion in the course of the time still remaining to Earth-evolution. The fundamental character of the future Ideal of humanity was described in one of its aspects and the present lecture will endeavour to add yet another, different picture.
The Christ Impulse came, so to say, in the middle of the epoch following upon the great Atlantean catastrophe. This epoch may be said to extend from the time of the Atlantean catastrophe to the next great catastrophe of which you may read in the lectures on the Apocalypse. (Nuremburg, 1908.) In the middle of this period, the most important of all events in Earth-evolution takes place—the coming of the Christ Impulse. As the last lecture indicated, it is not necessary to turn our eyes to Palestine in order to realise that something of the highest importance was taking place at that time in Earth-evolution. We have only to study the Graeco-Latin epoch of culture, lying as it does in the middle of the Post-Atlantean period, and recall one of its characteristic features; this again can be compared with a similar feature in the preceding Third epoch and in our own epoch.
The essential and fundamental character of a Greek Temple has often been described. Its form stands there as a complete, self-contained, independant whole, even when it is not actually before our eyes, even when we conceive of no human being anywhere near it. Inside a Greek Temple, human beings always seem to be a disturbing element; they do not really belong to it, they do not belong inside it. For what, in reality, is a Greek Temple? We can only understand it in its whole form and structure, if we think of it as the dwelling-place of a living, invisible God who has come down to the physical plane. That is the reason why every Temple is dedicated to one particular God. And when we picture the God in the Temple—with no human beings present—the God for whom a dwelling-place has been built on Earth ... then we have grasped the “idea” embodied in the Greek Temple. Human beings really have no place there. This was the idea underlying the whole architecture of a Greek Temple. Such architecture could only arise in an epoch when the Divine Spiritual was known to pervade all existence on the physical plane. Men whose paths appeared to be everywhere steeped in the Divine could feel all the depth of meaning contained in words uttered by one of themselves: “Better it is to be a beggar in the Upper World than a king in the realm of the Shades!” ... that is to say, in the world lying on the other side of the Gate of Death. It was the period when human beings experienced, in greatest intensity, their union with the physical plane and with the Spiritual pervading the physical plane.
Let us compare a Greek Temple with a building of the same character in the preceding epoch—and with buildings which, in our own epoch, indicate its fundamental attitude and trend. Think of an Egyptian Temple, even of the Pyramids: they become intelligible only when we see them as expressions of man's aspiration to the Divine—to the Divine Godhead who has not yet descended to the physical plane. In the architecture of the Egyptian time, every line, every form, expresses the striving of man towards the Divine-Spiritual. But these mysterious and deeply symbolical buildings indicate in themselves that men must have undergone preparation before the architectural forms could help them to find the way to the Divine-Spiritual. They needed preparation: they must have reached the first stage of Initiation. The same applies to the architecture of Asia Minor. In our own epoch, Gothic architecture gives the keynote. This is an occult fact. It is impossible to have the same conception of a Gothic Cathedral as of a Greek Temple; for a Gothic Cathedral is incomplete without the congregation of believers. It is simply not complete without the human beings within it! All its forms seem to convey that they are there to receive the prayers of the believers—the “believers,” in contrast to the “Initiates” in ancient Egypt. Anyone who can discern what these things mean, realises from the course taken by the evolution of Form from the Egyptian Temple, through the Greek Temple, to the Gothic Cathedral, that the impulse leading to the unfolding of the human “ I ” entered at a certain point into the process of earthly existence. Wherever we look we can perceive how the Christ Impulse lays hold of man, leaves its stamp and signature upon all happenings, all development, and it seems grotesque when philosophical or theological thought declares that acceptance of such an Impulse rests upon the basis of historical records. It does not rest upon any historical record whatever, but simply and solely upon a discerning, clear-sighted observation of human evolution; for no matter where we look, we see that development follows the same course as that revealed in Architecture. The Initiate who alone was capable of understanding the architectural forms of the Egypto-Chaldean epoch—the Third Post-Atlantean epoch—knew that he must raise himself above the level of ordinary manhood: then and only then could he ascend into the region of Divine Spiritual life. The Initiate of the Fourth Post-Atlantean epoch knew that in the physical world he was living together with the Divine, but he had very little connection with what the Greeks called the World of Shades, because by that time man had descended more deeply into physical existence. And when the Gods did not mingle with men in the Temples, the Greeks felt no connection with that other world.
Since the Fourth Post-Atlantean epoch these conditions have changed—changed in the sense that it is possible now for every single soul to find the path to the Divine-Spiritual. It is extremely important to realise this for it is the most concrete expression of the fact that in ancient times men were much nearer to the Spiritual in their consciousness, in their knowledge and in their life of soul. Then came the descent to the physical plane and now there must be a gradual re-ascent. We are living in the age when the re-ascent must be undertaken consciously—whereas, to begin with, the Christ Impulse worked unconsciously in men.
Our own epoch is a kind of recapitulation of the Egypto-Chaldean period. Of the Graeco-Latin epoch there is no recapitulation, for it lies in the middle of the seven consecutive periods. The Third epoch is being recapitulated, in a certain form, in our own age; the Second epoch, that of ancient Persian culture, will be recapitulated in the Sixth epoch by which our own will be followed; and in the far distant Seventh epoch, before a stupendous catastrophe, the First epoch, that of ancient Indian culture, will be recapitulated—not, of course, in the same form, for the recapitulation will everywhere bear the imprint of the Christ Impulse.
A certain consciousness existed, especially in olden times, of what has come to pass in the evolution of mankind. Olden times, of course, were paramountly conscious of the descent of humanity, the descent to the physical plane from the heights of Divine-Spiritual existence. But for every process there must be preparation. There had been preparation, too, for the Impulse given by the Mystery of Golgotha in the Fourth epoch—the Impulse for the re-ascent. This Impulse had its “forerunners”—in Elijah, John the Baptist and others. But consciousness of the fact that mankind has descended from Divine-Spiritual existence and in the future must re-ascend into the worlds of Divine Spirit, was present not only in the culture which eventually made its way into the West; evidences of such consciousness are to be found in every civilisation.
A very widespread and characteristic idea finds expression in the traditions of practically all the peoples—an idea which may, it is true, have very ramified applications, but can finally be associated with a definite and specific tradition. It is a tradition upon which there has been much reflection and upon which occult knowledge alone can shed light, namely, the tradition of the “Flood.” Much that is connected with this tradition refers, of course, to far earlier times, but the following is brought clearly to light by occult investigation. Nearly all the peoples who have left reliable historical records or legends refer to the Flood as having taken place about three thousand years before the Mystery of Golgotha; that is the period indicated by the legends. There is not enough time today to explain why this last Flood which was supposed to have occurred three thousand years before our era, cannot be taken to indicate a great physical catastrophe or deluge. Obviously it does not refer to the Atlantean catastrophe, for that took place very much earlier. The “Flood,” therefore, must mean something entirely different. Yet the fact should not be lost sight of that the traditions of all the peoples in question place the Flood in the fourth millennium before our era. Although the dates vary a little, they tally in the main essentials.
At this point I will ask you to remember that in the First Post-Atlantean epoch, when the Holy Rishis were the great teachers of men, culture was inspired, paramountly, by the human ether-body; during the ancient Persian epoch, culture was inspired by the astral body, the sentient body; in the Egypto-Chaldean epoch by the sentient soul; in the Graeco-Latin epoch by the mind or intellectual soul; in our present epoch by the consciousness soul (or “spiritual soul”). And now the time is approaching when the powers of the Spirit-Self will gradually be imbued into culture. In that development proceeded in this way, the experiences arising in man's life of soul underwent deep and far-reaching change. Just think of it. The picture of the world presented to a man of the earliest Indian epoch, of which even the Vedas have no knowledge, received its essential character and stamp from the working of the ether-body. Through the ether-body man cannot direct his gaze to the outer world in the way that is customary in our time. His perception, his picture of the world cannot be as they are today; where the forces of the ether-body are in operation, everything arises from within. A man of today can only have an idea—dim and lifeless at that—of perception which derives from the ether-body, when he recalls the character of his dreams. But the dreams and visions through which, during the ancient Indian epoch, one human being became known to another, were living and real in the very highest degree. To imagine that when one human being met another, the outer perception of him was the same as it is today, would be quite erroneous. The man of ancient India saw pictures—but in those times the other human being physically before him was enveloped in an auric cloud, shrouded in a kind of mist. The character of perception was altogether different compared with perception as it is at the present day, these pictures, although full of the greatest spiritual import, were blurred and hazy. The forces streaming down from Cosmic Space, from the world of the stars—it was these forces that were seen in such clarity and brilliance in those ancient times. In the Second Post-Atlantean epoch the power to look outwards gradually unfolded but, strangely enough, the faculty for gazing into the great Cosmic Spaces remained. Whereas perceptions of the world below were still hazy and without definition, the ancient Persian gazed with lucid clarity into the world of the stars. It is therefore intelligible that Zarathustrianism should point directly to Cosmic Space, to the light of the Sun, to “Ahura Mazdao” or Ormuzd. This was because the astral body was paramountly active. By the end of the ancient Persian epoch, the faculty of looking outwards into the physical world was already in its preparatory stage. The impulses leading to perception as it is in our day have been developing for long, long ages. Thus the impulse to look out into the physical world was gradually instilled into man, leading him to the entirely new mode of perception which began to light up by slow degrees.
When the ancient Persian epoch was drawing to its close and the next period was glimmering like a dawn of the future, men felt: “We shall no longer be able to experience with such intensity the Divine heritage that has come to us from the olden days of Atlantis, when with their power of inner, clairvoyant vision, men lived in communion with the worlds of Divine Spirit ” ... The gaze was turned back to the past. What mattered most for these men were their remembrances in which living pictures arose like dreams—dreams of how the Gods had fashioned the world through the ages of Lemuria and Atlantis. They felt that these remembrances were withdrawing, were fading away from humanity and that conditions were approaching when man must work with a faculty which tells him of the outer world, clouds the bright light of the inner world of the Spirit, and compels him to look from within-outwards, if he is to master the external world. This age was drawing nearer and nearer. Those who had the deepest, clearest perception of the dawn of the new epoch were men who at that time were the knowers and sages in ancient India. They felt it in the form, as it were, of a Divine Impulse, compelling the human being to think for himself, through inner activity, about what confronts him in the physical world to which he was descending. Picturing this Impulse as a Divine Being, the successors of the first, very ancient Indian culture—those who were living now during the Second Post-Atlantean epoch—called this Being “Pramathesis.” These men felt: “The God Pramathesis is drawing near, snatching human beings away from the guidance given by the ancient Gods; God Pramathesis is causing the disappearance of all that ancient clairvoyance revealed concerning the world and is forcing man to look outwards into the physical plane. Darkness is creeping over the world of the ancient Gods. A time is approaching when in their life of soul men will no longer be able to gaze into the world of the Gods, but when their eyes will be turned to the outer world. Kaliyuga, the ‘Black Age’ is approaching; the bright age of ancient Divinity is giving place to the age when the Gods of old withdraw. It is the age inaugurated by the God Pramathesis!”
Kaliyuga was said to begin at a time which lies 3,101 years before our own era; this is the time of the “Flood” according to Indian tradition. For it was said that the Flood coincides with the coming of Kaliyuga, and Kaliyuga was conceived to be the offspring of the God “Pramathesis”.
Kaliyuga broke in upon the world, reaching its close in our own age. Now that the ascent to the spiritual world must begin, a spiritual science has come to mankind. Kaliyuga began 3,101 years before our era, and ended in the year 1899 A.D. That is why 1899 is a year of such importance. The re-ascent to the spiritual worlds—this must be the ideal of the future.
The age preceding the onset of Kaliyuga was, however, an age characteristic of the ancient Persian epoch when the old remembrances rose up within man via the astral body. Now he was to turn to the world outside. This was a great and epoch-making transition. In the case of many human beings it came about in such a way that for a time all vision departed from them and darkness spread over their souls. This condition of darkness did not last for long periods, actually only for weeks. But men passed into this condition of sleep, and many never came out of it. Many of them perished and only relatively few were left in widely scattered regions. There is not enough time today to describe the conditions actually prevailing at that time. It can only be said briefly that owing to so large a number of human beings having succumbed, conditions were dark and sinister in the extreme and at only a few scattered places did men awaken from the great spiritual deluge that spread over their souls like a sleep. This condition of sleep was felt by most souls as a kind of “drowning” and by only a few as a re-awakening. And then came the “Black Age,” the age devoid of the Gods.
Were these things known to other human beings on the Earth? They were indeed. To our astonishment we find widespread evidence of knowledge among the peoples that a deluge had submerged the consciousness of men and that in the Third Post-Atlantean epoch, through the development of the sentient soul—in other words, outward-turned vision—an entirely new power must have been inaugurated. The Indians divined this when they said: Kaliyuga is the offspring of Pramathesis. And what did the Greeks say? In Greece, “Pramathesis” becomes, “Prometheus”—which is exactly the same. Prometheus is the brother of Epimetheus. The latter represents one who still “looks back” into ancient times. Epimetheus is the one whose thoughts turn backward; Prometheus sends his thoughts forward, to the world outside, to what takes place there. Just as Pramathesis has his offspring in Kaliyuga, so, too, Prometheus has his offspring. The Greek form of “Kaliyuga” is “Kalion.” And because the Greeks felt it to be the age of Darkness, the “ d ” is prefixed and the word becomes “Deukalion”—which is really the same word as “Kaliyuga.” This is not ingenious fancy, but an occult fact. It is clear, therefore, that the Greeks possessed the same knowledge as the Indian sages. This is quoted merely as an example, indicating that in their conditions of old clairvoyance, knowledge of these truths came to men and they were able to express them in majestic pictures. The Greek legend tells how, on the advice of his father Prometheus, Deukalion builds a wooden chest; in this he and his wife Pyrrha alone are saved from destruction, when Zeus proposes to exterminate the human race by a deluge. Deukalion and Pyrrha land on Parnassus, and from them issues the new human race. Deukalion is the son of Prometheus—and in the intervening period comes the flood, denoting among manifold peoples, a condition of consciousness.
These wonderful pictures which have been preserved in the traditions of so many of the peoples, show us how truths concerning the evolution of mankind have survived among them.
As men lived on gradually into the age of Kaliyuga, into the Third Post-Atlantean epoch, the ancient clairvoyant knowledge faded away. We who have to recapitulate the Third epoch, must bring this kind of knowledge to life once again, but in an entirely new form. The lecture given a fortnight ago (The Idea of Reincarnation and its Introduction into Western Culture) dealt with this subject. Western culture, the beginnings of which were mingled with the ancient Hebrew culture, has to concentrate primary attention on the single personality living on the physical plane between birth and death; Western culture cannot focus its main attention on the Individuality who passes through the different epochs, but concentrates upon the existence of the one personality, whose life between birth and death runs its course on the physical plane, not in the higher worlds. Now that Kaliyuga has come to an end, consciousness must be imbued with the forces necessary for the further evolution of the human race; what was lost during Kaliyuga must be raised again from the depths. Our eyes must be directed more and more to the onflowing life of the Individuality. I have spoken of a series of lives in the West—Elijah, John the Baptist, Raphael, Novalis—and have shown how by the addition of knowledge derived from the spiritual worlds, we can perceive the continuous thread of the soul, the onflowing life of the one Individuality in Elijah, John the Baptist, Raphael, Novalis.
In our Movement, development of this insight must be a conscious aspiration, for it is a necessity in the evolution and culture of the Earth. No progress would be possible by the mere continuation of the old experiences, the old knowledge. I have emphasised often enough all that it means for the minds of men to enrich and make fruitful the heritage of ancient times by means of the new knowledge now available. It must, however, be realised that just as the transition from life inspired by the astral body to a spiritual life of soul, primarily in the sentient soul, was fraught with deep significance, so, now, we must work our way from life in the consciousness soul to life in the Spirit-Self. I have intimated how this will take place by saying that during the next three thousand years, an increasing number of human beings will experience the Appearance of the Christ Impulse, will be able to experience the Christ Impulse in the spiritual worlds. But actual realisation of the influences streaming in from the spiritual world will have to unfold in greater intensity in the times lying ahead of us. It will not suffice to know, in theory, that “generally speaking” the human being lives on after death; man's whole picture of life must carry the sure conviction that when the human being passes through the Gate of Death, he lives on still, death being merely a transition. We must realise, not as a theory, but as actual knowledge, that while a human being is alive, he works upon us physically, through his body; after his death he works spiritually, out of the spiritual world, upon our physical world. He is present in very truth. We must learn to see life in the light of such a fact and to reckon with what it involves.
Suppose it is our task to educate children.—Anyone acquainted with these things is well aware that to educate children who up to their twentieth year still have parents living, is a very different matter from having to educate children whose fathers died when they were four or five years old. When education is taken in deep earnestness, and the individuality of the child really studied (it is not a matter of speculation!)—especially in the case of a child whose father is dead, we shall often discern that there is something unusual at work here, something we cannot, at first, quite get hold of. Moreover we shall not succeed in getting to the root of it, if we adopt the modes of thought drawn from materialism. But here and there the thought may occur: “Here is a strange current of the times. Most people regard those who belong to it as fools; but it may be worth while to find out what these Theosophists have to say about the destiny of human beings after death. The Theosophists tell us that although human beings discard their physical bodies at death, the content of their life of soul, their hopes, aspirations and so forth, live on, and are not inactive. Indeed they are often more active after death than when the human being was living on the physical plane, enclosed in his body” ... Those who speak like this, have paid attention to the results of spiritual research and will realise that the father is working upon the child from the spiritual world; moreover that he has definite hopes and longings which make their way into the life of the child! With this knowledge, success may come where it was not possible before, and we know how to deal with sympathies and antipathies which may express themselves in the child. To succeed with children we need to know more than that the air affects them, and that when the air is chilly they may catch cold. We must have knowledge of the influences playing from the spiritual world into the physical, and of the form they take.
These things are still regarded as nonsense, but the time is not far distant when the very facts of life will compel people to take account of them and to reckon with what endures in the form of live and potent impulses after human beings have passed through death. Not until then will the concrete reality contained in the spiritual conception of the world be grasped.
Naturally, these influences from the spiritual world are not at work in the case of children only; influences also come from individualities in the spiritual world who were connected with human beings at a later age of life. To begin with, a man may be quite unaware of these influences. (Again I am not inventing but telling you of actual observations, confirmed by spiritual investigation.) After a time a man may say to himself: “I do not know why I am impelled to this or that action, why I have this impulse; something is urging me to think quite differently now, about certain things.” Subsequently he may have a very striking dream. Little heed is paid to things of the kind nowadays, but men will gradually become aware that it is not the “form” but the content of the dream that is of importance. From this you may conclude that if Edison had made his discoveries in a dream, they would have been just as effective! Suppose a man dreams that some unknown person comes to him, someone he cannot even think of as an acquaintance, indeed cannot place at all. This person comes into his life of dream and various things happen ... Finally he realises that this person whom he cannot recall, who died perhaps fifteen years before, is working into and influencing his life. Whereas previously he felt that certain impulses were urging him on, he is now fully aware that these impulses, in the form of a dream-picture, are working into his night-consciousness. This is often characteristic of the connection between impulses within us and influences working upon us in the shape of dreams. Such experiences will become increasingly familiar.
And now, in conclusion, let us see how they will become familiar.
Suppose someone today reads one of the many biographies of Raphael. He will get the impression that in a certain respect Raphael stands there as a phenomenon, complete in himself, giving forth the highest and best that was in him, but so enclosed within his particular sphere of work that it is difficult to imagine him rising still higher or transcending the level he had actually reached. And again: Raphael's creative genius seems to have been alive in him from the the very beginning ... On the subject of its phenomenal manifestation in Raphael's early boyhood the biographies have nothing to say. And why?
The biographies give the information that Raphael's father was Giovanni Santi who, among other activities, was also a writer; he died when Raphael was eleven years old, but before his death he had placed the boy under the tuition of a painter. It is also known that Giovanni Santi was himself a talented painter but that there was something in him which he could not bring to expression. We feel that there was something in the soul of Giovanni Santi which did not make itself manifest because his outer nature frustrated it. He died when the boy Raphael was eleven years old. From the very way in which Raphael develops we can discern the source of the powers which enabled him to reach maturity and perfection so rapidly they are the influences playing into him from his father, forces coming from the spiritual worlds. Anyone who tries to write a true biography of Raphael in the future will have to emphasise the point that Giovanni Santi, the father of Raphael, died in 1494, when the boy was only eleven years old. Giovanni Santi was a distinguished man, who during his life on Earth aspired to great things. And his aspirations continued when, living on without frustration in the spiritual world, he was sending down to his beloved son—in the form of delicate and intimate spiritual influences—forces which his own constitution had prevented him from bringing to expression in the physical world.
To say this is no disparagement of Raphael's genius, for the ground must naturally have been there. We know that he was the reincarnation of John the Baptist and had only to receive into himself those forces which it was his particular mission to bring into manifestation at that time. Thinking of this, we can perceive the interplay between the spiritual world and the physical plane. Future study of the life of Raphael will have, at every turn, to concern itself with the influences which poured from the Spiritual into the Physical. Then we shall have a picture of “wholeness”—of forces working around us, through us, in us. Thus will spirituality again be instilled into culture. But it must not surprise us if those who are unwilling today to listen to any suggestion of the introduction of spirituality into culture, are contemptuous of this spiritual conception of the world; for it is something completely new. It is a dawning of the new power of the Spirit-Self. And a time will come—I ask you to write this deeply into your souls—when men will think of the materialistic culture which is now on the way to its close, as they once thought about the age preceding the Flood, yearning and longing for the future culture which, when it came, was something wholly and essentially new. Theosophists, however, should not merely strive for this ideal in theory, but receive it into their very souls; they should regard it as their good Karma to know about the course of human evolution and therewith of human culture.
These things will have to be pondered over for a time, because I am not yet in a position to say exactly when the next lecture can take place.1Between the date of this lecture and the next of the series (18th June, 1912), Dr. Steiner had given two lectures in Copenhagen: On the Meaning of Life, 23rd and 24th May, 1912; three lectures in Norrköping: Anthroposophical Ethics, 28th and 29th May, 1912; and two lectures in Christiania: Man in the Light of Occultism, Theosophy and Philosophy, 2nd June to 12th June, 1912. But we know well that time is required to make Spiritual Science an integral force and impulse in our hearts and minds; and we know, too, that it is part of spiritual development not only to understand the truths but actually to unfold all that the great ideas born from a spiritual conception of the world can say to our hearts.
Siebenter Vortrag
In der vorigen Woche haben wir eine Betrachtung darüber angestellt, wie sich im Laufe jener Erdenentwickelungsepochen, die auf die unsrige folgen werden, und in unserer selbst natürlich, der ChristusImpuls innerhalb der Menschheit entwickeln wird. Wir haben gesehen, daß dadurch, daß gleichsam um diesen Christus-Impuls sich wie Leibeshüllen herumgliedern: Verwunderung oder Erstaunen wie ein astralischer Leib, die von der Menschheit geübten Empfindungen des Mitleides oder Mitgefühles wie ein Ätherleib, und alles, was unter dem Einfluß der Impulse des Gewissens geschehen ist, wie ein physischer Leib, dadurch eigentlich im Laufe der uns noch während der Erdenentwickelung zur Verfügung stehenden Zeit jene ideale Wesenheit völlig ausgebildet wird, die in bezug auf ihr Ich, können wir sagen, das ja der Christus-Impuls selber ist, mit dem Beginne unserer Zeitrechnung — oder mit dem Mysterium von Golgatha - in diese Erdenentwickelung eingetreten ist. So war es uns darum zu tun, gleichsam die Grundnuance, den Grundcharakter der Ideale der Menschenzukunft einmal von einer Seite her zu charakterisieren. Wir wollen heute versuchen, noch von einer andern Seite her eine Farbe zu diesen Auseinandersetzungen vom letzten Male hinzuzufügen.
Erinnern Sie sich, daß der Christus-Impuls sozusagen gerade in die Mitte jener Zeit fiel, welche auf die große atlantische Katastrophe folgte. Wir können diese Zeit gleichsam als diejenige auffassen, die von der großen atlantischen Katastrophe bis zu jener nächsten großen überwältigenden Katastrophe geht, von der ja zu lesen ist in den Vorträgen über die Apokalypse. Wenn wir in die Mitte dieser Zeit hineinstellen wollen das wesentlichste Ereignis der ganzen Erdenentwickelung, so haben wir da eben den Christus-Impuls. Wir brauchen nicht einmal — wie wir aus den Auseinandersetzungen der letzten Zeit erkannt haben - unbedingt unsere Blicke sozusagen nach Palästina hinwenden, um einzusehen, daß in diesem Zeitpunkte etwas Wichtigstes in der Erdenentwickelung vorgeht. Wir können einfach die griechisch-lateinische Kulturepoche ins Auge fassen, die gerade in die Mitte, also in den vierten nachatlantischen Zeitraum fällt, und wir brauchen uns nur irgendeines charakteristischen Umstandes in diesem Zeitraume zu erinnern, dann können wir diesen charakteristischen Umstand zum Beispiel mit dem vergleichen, was auf einem ähnlichen Felde in dem vorhergehenden dritten Kulturzeitraum geschehen ist, und mit dem, was in unserem jetzigen Zeitraume geschieht. Ein Ihnen bekannter Umstand soll gleich hervorgehoben werden.
Wir haben öfter das Wesentliche eines griechischen Tempels charakterisiert. Wir haben hervorgehoben, worinnen das Wesentliche des griechischen Tempels besteht, haben erklärt, daß der griechische Tempel durch seine ganze Form, durch seine in sich beschlossene Ganzheit so ist, daß man ihn empfindet als etwas In-sich-Bestehendes, wenn man bei der Betrachtung selber nicht dabei ist, ja im Grunde genommen, selbst wenn man sich denkt, daß gar kein Mensch in der Nähe ist. Menschen, die man sich in einen griechischen Tempel hineindenkt, sind eigentlich immer etwas Störendes; sie gehören nicht dazu, gehören nicht da hinein. Denn, was ist der griechische Tempel? Er ist in seiner ganzen Form nur gedacht und kann nur verstanden werden, wenn man ihn als die Wohnung des bis zum physischen Plan heruntergestiegenen, unsichtbaren lebendigen Gottes betrachtet. Daher sind die einzelnen Tempel die Tempel dieser oder jener Gottheit. Und wenn wir uns den Gott hineindenken und keinen Menschen darinnen, sondern nur den Gott, der auf der Erde, auf dem physischen Plane ein Wohnhaus gebaut hat, so haben wir das, was wir nennen können die Idee des griechischen Tempels. Den Menschen müssen wir so weit als möglich weg denken: das.machte die ganze Architektur des griechischen Tempels notwendig. Das konnte nur in einem Zeitraume auftreten, in dem sozusagen alles, was auf dem physischen Plane lebte, durchdrungen sein mußte von dem Göttlich-Geistigen. Von Menschen, denen sozusagen die Erde unmittelbar überall durchdrungen erschien von dem Göttlichen, konnte so empfunden werden, von Menschen, unter denen das uns so tief zu Herzen gehende Wort entstehen konnte: Lieber ein Bettler sein auf der Oberwelt als ein König im Reiche der Schatten! — das heißt in der Welt, die man betritt, nachdem man durch die Pforte des Todes gegangen ist. Es war derjenige Zeitraum, in dem die Menschen am allermeisten mit dem physischen Plane und seinem ihn durchdringenden Geistigen verbunden waren.
Vergleichen wir den griechischen Tempelbau mit irgendeiner ähnlichen Sache in der vorhergehenden Zeit und mit dem, was in unserer Zeit den Ton, die eigentliche Grundnuance angegeben hat. Wir könnten irgend etwas nehmen aus der vorhergehendenZeit, die ägyptischen Tempel, ja die Pyramide: sie sind nur zu verstehen, wenn wir sie auffassen als das Streben der Menschen zum Göttlichen hinauf, dem Göttlichen, das noch nicht heruntergestiegen ist bis zum physischen Plan. In jeder Linie, in jeder Form können Sie das Hinaufstreben der Menschen zum Göttlich-Geistigen sehen, wenn Sie die Architektur jener Zeiten ins Auge fassen. Aber man sieht dem Geheimnisvollen und tief Symbolischen dieser Bauwerke an, daß die Menschen sozusagen erst etwas brauchten, um den Weg zu finden durch diese Architektur hinauf zu dem Göttlich-Geistigen. Sie brauchten dazu eine Vorbereitung: sie mußten auf der ersten Stufe der Einweihung sein. So ist auch die Architektur Vorderasiens zu verstehen.
Und für unsere Zeit konnten wir sagen, daß die Grundnuance für die Architektur abgegeben worden ist durch die Gotik. Das ist eine okkulte Tatsache. Einen gotischen Dom sich zu denken wie einen griechischen Tempel ist unmöglich. Denn ein gotischer Dom ist gerade unvollkommen, wenn die gläubige Gemeinde nicht da ist. Da läßt sie sich nicht wegdenken! Und alle Formen sind so, daß sie aufnehmen sollen die Gebete der Gläubigen, aber der Gläubigen im Gegensatze zu den Eingeweihten bei den alten Ägyptern. Wer solche Dinge beurteilen kann, der weiß aus dem Gange, den die Entwickelung der Form genommen hat von dem ägyptischen Tempel durch den griechischen Tempel bis zu dem gotischen Dome hin: Da ist eingetreten, hat Platz gegriffen der Impuls, der hinaufgeführt hat bis zum menschlichen Ich! Das ließe sich auf allen Gebieten zeigen, wie der ChristusImpuls die Menschen erfaßt, wie er sich einprägt in alles Geschehen und alles Werden, und es erscheint geradezu grotesk, wenn allerlei philosophische und theologisierende Weltanschauungen glauben sagen zu können, es hinge die Annahme eines Christus-Impulses ab von irgendeiner historischen Urkunde. Sie hängt gar nicht ab von irgendwelchen historischen Urkunden, sondern nur von einer verständnisvollen, sinnvollen Betrachtung der Menschheitsentwickelung. Denn, wo man sie anfaßt, da merkt man, daß derselbe Gang stattgefunden hat, der in bezug auf die Architektur stattgefunden hat. Der Eingeweihte, der allein die Architekturformen der ägyptisch-chaldäischen Zeit, der dritten nachatlantischen Periode verstehen konnte, wußte, daß ex sich zuerst über das gewöhnliche Menschentum erheben muß: dann konnte er hinaufkommen in die Region des göttlich-geistigen Lebens. Der Eingeweihte, der im vierten nachatlantischen Kulturzeitraum lebte, wußte: er lebt in der physischen Welt mit dem Göttlichen zusammen, aber er hat die geringste Verbindung mit dem, was die Griechen die Schattenwelt nannten, weil eben die Menschen weiter heruntergestiegen sind in die physische Welt. Und wenn sich die Götter nicht vereinigten mit den Menschen in den Tempeln, so gäbe es für die Empfindungen der Griechen keine solche Verbindung.
Das ist anders geworden nach dem vierten nachatlantischen Kulturzeitraum. Das ist so geworden, daß eine jegliche Seele, so wie sie ist, den Weg finden kann zum Göttlich-Geistigen. Es ist außerordentlich wichtig, daß wir dies ins Auge fassen, denn es ist ja nur der allerkonkreteste Ausdruck für die Tatsache, daß die Menschen in uralten Zeiten mit ihrem ganzen Bewußtsein, Wissen und Seelenleben noch näher dem Geistigen waren, dann heruntergestiegen sind auf den physischen Plan und nun wieder nach und nach hinaufzusteigen haben. Und wir stehen in jenem Zeitalter, in dem das Aufsteigen — während der Christus-Impuls zunächst unbewußt die Menschen getrieben hat — bewußt stattfinden muß.
Dann wissen wir, daß in unserer Zeit eine Art Wiederholung des ägyptisch-chaldäischen Zeitraumes vorhanden ist. Der griechisch-lateinische Zeitraum steht in den sieben aufeinanderfolgenden Kulturzeiträumen für sich da. Er kann nicht wiederkehren, denn er ist eine Mitte. Der dritte Kulturzeitraum kehrt in einer gewissen Weise in unserer Zeit wieder. Der zweite, urpersische, wird in der sechsten Kulturepoche wiederkehren, welche die unsrige ablösen wird. Und der erste, der urindische Zeitraum, wird in der siebenten Kulturepoche, zu der wir hinblicken in einer fernen Menschenzukunft, vor einer großen, ungeheuren Katastrophe wiederkehren, nicht in derselben Weise, doch so, daß dem allem, was vorher da war, bei der Wiederholung der Christus-Impuls aufgedrückt sein wird.
Ein Bewußtsein von dem, was mit der Menschheitsentwickelung geschehen ist, war im Grunde genommen namentlich in älteren Zeiten vorhanden. Ältere Zeiten konnten natürlich hauptsächlich sich bewußt sein des Herabstieges der Menschheit, des Herabstieges von den göttlich-geistigen Höhen zum physischen Plan. Nun bereitet sich ja alles vor. Alles geschieht nach und nach. Und auch der Impuls zum Wiederaufstieg, der ja allerdings erst mit dem Mysterium von Golgatha im vierten nachatlantischen Zeitraum gegeben ist, bereitete sich schon früher vor. Er hatte als Impuls seine Vorläufer. Wir haben eine gewisse Vorläuferschaft betrachtet mit den Gestalten des Elias, Johannes des Täufers unter anderen. Aber nicht nur innerhalb der Kultur, die dann ins Abendland eingelaufen ist, sondern innerhalb aller Kulturen finden wir ein Bewußtsein davon, daß die Menschheit heruntergestiegen ist von göttlich-geistigen Höhen und in der Zukunft schauen muß - insofern die Zukunft herankommt - einen neuen Aufstieg in die göttlich-geistigen Welten. Wenn wir eine charakteristische Anschauung der verschiedensten Völker ins Auge fassen wollen, die uns so recht erklären kann, wie die Menschen sich über das eben Genannte Vorstellungen machten in der Zeit, so brauchen wir nur eine Tatsache hervorzuheben, von der die Überlieferungen eigentlich aller Völker sprechen, die allerdings auf Verschiedenstes bezogen werden kann, die aber in ihrer letzten Phase eben auf etwas ganz Bestimmtes zu beziehen ist, eine Tatsache, über die viel nachgedacht worden ist und über die man erst ins klare kommt, wenn man im okkulten Sinne über sie nachdenken wird, nämlich die Sintflutüberlieferung. Gewiß, es verbindet sich mit dieser Sintflutüberlieferung vielerlei, was sich auf frühere Zeiten bezieht. Aber eines ist okkult zu verfolgen, daß die Völker - und fast alle Völker, die gute historische Denkmäler oder Sagen hinterlassen haben -— eine Zeit, die ungefähr dreitausend Jahre vor dem Mysterium von Golgatha liegt, ansetzen für das Stattfinden der Sintflut. So daß, wenn wir von da aus dreitausend Jahre zurückgehen, wir zu dem kommen, was die Sintflutsage als letztes Ereignis, das sie meinte, eben im Auge hatte. Nun würde heute die Zeit nicht hinreichen, um die Gründe darzulegen, daß mit dieser letzten Sintflut, die dreitausend Jahre vor unserer Zeitrechnung liegen soll, keine große Katastrophe, keine Überschwemmung im physischen Sinne gemeint sein kann. Daß damit auch nicht die atlantische Katastrophe gemeint ist, ist selbstverständlich, denn diese liegt ja noch weiter zurück. Es muß also damit etwas ganz anderes gemeint sein. Aber dennoch, die Tatsache sollte nicht aus den Augen verloren werden, daß die Überlieferungen aller Völker, die in Betracht kommen, in das vierte Jahrtausend vor unserer Zeitrechnung — die Zeiten stimmen zwar nicht genau, aber im wesentlichen überein — die Sintflut versetzen.
Warum das? Da bitte ich Sie, sich an eine Sache zu erinnern, die ich öfter ausgeführt habe: daß für die Anschauung der ersten nachatlantischen Kulturperiode, deren Lehrer die großen heiligen Rishis waren, der menschliche Ätherleib in Betracht kommt, der damals hauptsächlich tätig war, während in der urpersischen Kulturzeit der menschliche Astralleib, der Empfindungsleib besonders tätig war, in der ägyptisch-chaldäischen Zeit die Empfindungsseele, in der griechisch-lateinischen Zeit die Verstandes- oder Gemütsseele, in unserer heutigen Epoche die Bewußtseinsseele, und jetzt gehen wir der Zeit entgegen, in welcher nach und nach in der Kulturerscheinung das hervortritt, was wir das Geistselbst nennen. Indem sich der Mensch so entwickelte, ging mit dem, was seine Seele erlebte, etwas sehr Bedeutsames vor. Denken Sie nur einmal, daß der alte Inder, der Urinder, von dem die Veden nichts mehr wissen, sozusagen so die Welt anschaute, wie sich dieses Weltbild ergab, wenn vorzugsweise der Ätherleib tätig war. Denn durch den Ätherleib kann der Mensch nicht so nach außen schauen, wie er heute nach außen schaut. Er kann nicht eine solche Anschauung, ein solches Weltbild gewinnen, wie es das heutige ist, sondern durch den Ätherleib kommt alles von innen. Der heutige Mensch bekommt nur noch ein schwaches, mattes Bild von der Art, wie die Anschauung durch den Ätherleib zustande kommt, wenn er sich erinnert, wie seine Träume sind. Nur waren das im höchsten Grade lebendige Träume und Visionen, was in der urindischen Zeit die Menschen voneinander wußten. Begegnete ein Mensch dem andern auf dem Wege, so konnte er ihn nicht mit dem äußeren Auge so sehen wie heute. Das zu glauben, wäre ein Vorurteil. Allerdings, er sah ein Bild, das er vor sich hatte. Der Mensch war noch umgeben von einer Art aurischen Wolke, und was er physisch vor sich hatte, war wie in eine Art Nebel eingehüllt. Er nahm ganz anders wahr. Und bei dem, was gegenüber der heutigen Auffassung in verschwommenen Bildern wahrgenommen wurde - dieses Wahrgenommene hatte dagegen geistig die höchste Bedeutung -, war das Klare für die alten Zeiten das, was aus dem Weltenraume, aus der Sternenwelt herunterströmte.
Für die zweite nachatlantische Kulturperiode kam nach und nach die Fähigkeit durch, nach außen zu schauen, aber merkwürdigerweise blieb die Fähigkeit, in den Weltenraum hinauszuschauen, noch bestehen. Während nach unten noch alles verschwommen blieb, schaute der alte Perser klar in die Sternenwelt. Daher ist es verständlich, daß der Zarathustrismus die Menschen gleich auf das, was aus dem Weltenraume kommt, auf das Sonnenlicht hinwies in seinem Ahura Mazdao, dem Ormuzd. Das kam deshalb, weil dasjenige jetzt tätig war, was wir den astralischen Leib nennen. Am Ende dieses Zeitraumes bereitete sich schon das vor, nach außen zu schauen. Langsam kommen die Impulse heran, die Dinge so zu sehen, wie jetzt gesehen wird. Also der Impuls wurde der Menschheit gegeben, nach und nach auf den physischen Plan hinauszuschauen. Und dieser Impuls kam an die Menschen so heran, daß die Menschen allmählich zu einer ganz neuen Art des Anschauens übergingen, nach und nach dämmerte das bei der Menschheit auf. Und zwar in der folgenden Weise.
Wenn wir das, was die Menschen empfanden, was man als das Aufdämmern bezeichnen könnte, charakterisieren wollten, so könnten wir sagen: Als der urpersische Zeitraum zu Ende ging und der nächste wie eine Zukunftsmorgenröte heraufglänzte, da empfanden die Menschen: Wir werden nicht mehr so stark erleben, was als göttliches Erbstück aus alten Zeiten uns geworden ist, was innerliches menschliches Schauen ist, was visionäres Hellsehen ist, wo die Menschheit zusarmmengelebt hat in der atlantischen Zeit mit den göttlich-geistigen Welten. — Zurück haben die Menschen geschaut. Das Wichtigste für sie waren Erinnerungen, in denen auftauchte, gleich lebendigen Traumbildern, wie die Götter die Welt geformt hatten durch die lemurische und atlantische Zeit hindurch. Diese Erinnerungen wurden als etwas, was sich von der Menschheit zurückzog, empfunden, was allmählich verglomm. Und man empfand, daß jetzt etwas kommen wird, wo der Mensch eingreifen muß mit dem, was in ihm spricht über die Außenwelt, was ihm verdunkelt die Helle der inneren Geisteswelt, und was ihn zwingt, von innen nach außen zu schauen, um die äußere Welt als die seinige zu haben. Immer mehr kam diese Zeit heran. Und am meisten, am klarsten, möchte man sagen, empfanden es die, welche dazumal zu den Wissenden im alten Indien gehörten. Sie empfanden es wie eine Art von göttlichem Impuls, der da herankam an die Menschen, der so wirkte, daß er den Menschen nötigte durch sich selbst, durch das menschliche Hinaustreten in die physische Welt, in sich zu denken, was ihm da in der physischen Welt entgegenkam. Diesen göttlichen Impuls, als eine göttliche Wesenheit denkend, faßten die Nachfolger des alten Indertums - die also jetzt während des zweiten Kulturzeitraumes lebten — so auf, daß sie diese Wesenheit nannten Pramati. Und so etwa würde man mit einem alten Inder, der in jenem Zeitalter lebte, empfunden haben: Es kommt Gottheit Pramati heran. Sie entreißt den Menschen der alten Führung durch die alten Götter; sie macht verschwinden, was durch inneres Hellsehen von der Welt gewonnen worden ist, sie zwingt den Menschen hinauszusehen in den physischen Plan. Die alte Götterwelt verdunkelt sich. Heran kommt eine Zeit, in welcher die Menschen nicht mehr aus ihren Seelen heraus in die Götterwelt sehen können, sondern wo sie in die äußere Welt sehen werden. Heran kommt Kali Yuga, das «schwarze Zeitalter», das nicht mehr helle, weiße Zeitalter der alten Göttlichkeit, das Zeitalter, in dem sich die alten Götter zurückziehen, das da eingeleitet wird durch Gottheit Pramati!
Kali Yuga: es wurde empfunden, indem man es anfangen ließ 3101 vor unserer Zeitrechnung, also gerade in der Zeit, in welche die indische Überlieferung auch die Sintflut versetzt. Denn sie sagte, die Sintflut fällt zusammen mit dem Herankommen des Kali Yuga. Und Kali Yuga wurde aufgefaßt als die Nachkommenschaft des Gottes Pramati.
Kali Yuga ist hereingebrochen. Wir wissen, daß erst in unserer Zeit das Kali Yuga zu Ende gegangen ist, und daß wir jetzt den Aufstieg finden müssen in die geistige Welt und daß es deshalb eine geistige Wissenschaft gibt! Denn, wie das Kali Yuga 3101 vor unserer Zeitrechnung begonnen hat, so hat es geendet im Jahre 1899. Deshalb ist 1899 ein wichtiges Jahr. Daher muß die Menschheit ihr Zukunftsideal so auffassen, daß sie jetzt wieder hinaufsteigen muß in die geistigen Welten.
Jenes Zeitalter, das dem Heraufkommen des Kali Yuga voranging, war aber auch dasjenige, das charakteristisch ist für die urpersische Zeit, wo man durch den Astralleib noch hinaufempfand die alten Erinnerungen. Jetzt aber mußte man sich nach außen wenden. Das war ein gewaltiger Übergang. Der vollzog sich bei vielen Menschen so, daß sie eine Zeitlang überhaupt nichts sahen, daß Finsternis durch die menschlichen Entwickelungskräfte sich ausbreitete über die Menschenseelen. Nicht durch lange Zeiten hindurch, sondern in der Tat nur durch Wochen währte diese Verfinsterung, dieser Schlafzustand, den die Menschheit durchgemacht hatte. Aber sie machte eben diesen Schlafzustand durch, und aus demselben kamen viele nicht wieder heraus. Es gingen viele dabei zugrunde, und nur wenige blieben zurück an den verschiedensten Punkten der Erde. Es reicht heute die Zeit nicht aus, um zu schildern, was für Zustände da auftraten. Kurz kann nur gesagt werden, daß die Zustände dadurch, daß eine große Anzahl von Menschen zugrunde ging, sehr, sehr unheimliche waren, und nur an wenigen Punkten der Erde wachten die Menschen aus der großen geistigen Flut wieder auf, die sich wie ein Schlaf über die Seelen ausbreitete. Und diesen Schlafzustand empfanden die meisten Seelen wie ein Ertrinken - und nur wenige wie einen Wiederaufgang. Dann kam eben das «schwarze Zeitalter», das entgötterte Zeitalter.
Haben noch andere Menschen auf der Erde von dieser Tatsache gewußt?
Ja! Wir könnten herumgehen bei den verschiedenen Völkern und würden zu unserem Erstaunen finden, wie in den weitesten Kreisen die Menschen allerdings gewußt haben, daß die Sache so ist, daß eine Überflutung des Bewußtseins stattgefunden hat und daß im dritten nachatlantischen Kulturzeitalter durch die besondere Entwickelung der Empfindungsseele - das heißt durch das Schauen nach außen - etwas ganz Neues eintreten mußte. Die Inder haben es empfunden, indem sie sagten: Kali Yuga geht hervor als eine Nachfolgeschaft von Pramati. Wie haben die Griechen gesagt? Ganz dasselbe. Bei ihnen heißt Pramati nur Prometheus, was ganz dasselbe ist. Er ist der Bruder von Epimetheus. Dieser repräsentiert noch, was zurückschaut in die uralten Zeiten. Epimetheus ist der«Nachdenkende», Prometheus ist der, welcher schon vorherdenken muß in seinen Gedanken was draußen ist und draußen sich vollzieht. Und ebenso wie Pramati die Nachkommenschaft im Kali Yuga hat, so hat Prometheus seine Nachfolgeschaft: wir brauchen uns nur das Wort «Kali Yuga» dem Griechischen entsprechend zu bilden; da ist es «Kalion», und weil die Griechen empfanden, daß es das Zeitalter des schwarzen Göttlichen ist, müssen wir das «Deu» — deus - vorsetzen und wir bekommen «Deukalion». Das ist dasselbe Wort wie Kali Yuga. Wir haben es dabei nicht mit einer Ausspintisiererei zu tun, sondern mit einer okkulten Tatsache. Daraus sehen wir also, daß die Griechen dasselbe wissen, was auch die Inder wissen. Das sei nur als ein Beispiel angeführt, das uns zeigen kann, wie die Menschen in ihren uralten hellseherischen Zuständen wohl wußten, um was es sich handelt, und wie sie in gewaltigen Bildern zum Ausdruck zu bringen wußten, was vorging. Denn die griechische Sage erzählt uns, wie Deukalion sich auf den Rat seines Vaters Prometheus einen hölzernen Kasten baute; in diesem rettete er sich und seine Gattin Pyrrha allein aus dem Untergange, als Zeus das Menschengeschlecht durch eine Flut vertilgen wollte. Deukalion und Pyrrha, die dann auf dem Parnaß gelandet wurden, sind so für die Griechen der Ausgang des neuen Menschengeschlechtes. Deukalion ist der Sohn des Prometheus. Und dazwischen fällt die «Flut», die für die verschiedensten Völker sich zugetragen hat als ein Vorgang im Bewußtseinszustand.
Das ist gerade das Eigenartige, daß wir, wenn wir uns in diese wunderbaren Bilder vertiefen, die uns die Überlieferungen der verschiedenen Völker erhalten haben, darauf kommen, wie bei diesen verschiedenen Völkern die Wahrheit über die Entwickelung der Menschheit lebte.
Damit nun, daß die Menschen allmählich herauskamen zu dem Zeitalter des Kali Yuga, daß sie eintraten in den dritten nachatlantischen Kulturzeitraum, gingen die alten hellseherischen Erkenntnisse verloren. Und wir, die wir den dritten Kulturzeitraum zu wiederholen haben, müssen eben diese Erkenntnisse nun in einer neuen Form wiedererstehen sehen. Wir haben ein charakteristisches Beispiel vor vierzehn Tagen angeführt, wie sich diese Erkenntnisse wieder ergeben. Wir haben gezeigt, wie diejenige Kultur, die wir als die abendländische, aber mit ihrem Ausgangspunkte in die althebräische hineinlaufend zu denken haben, zunächst die einzelne Persönlichkeit ins Auge gefaßt hat, wie sie, weil ja auf dem physischen Plan nur die einzelne Persönlichkeit zwischen Geburt und Tod gegeben ist, ihr Hauptaugenmerk nicht auf das richten kann, was durch die verschiedenen Epochen geht, sondern nur auf das Dasein der Einzelpersönlichkeit, da ja das Leben zwischen Geburt und Tod nicht auf den höheren Planen verfließt, sondern auf dem physischen. Jetzt müssen wir empfinden: weil das Kali Yuga zu Ende gegangen ist, deshalb ist es als ein Gebot der Entwickelung der Menschheit, zu empfinden, daß wir uns zum Bewußtsein bringen müssen, was für die Menschheit notwendig ist: daß wir nach und nach heraufbringen müssen aus den Tiefen der Forschung, was während des Kali Yuga verlorengegangen ist. Ich habe gezeigt, wie wir nach und nach wieder die fortlaufende Individualität betrachten müssen, habe gezeigt, wie das Abendland eine auseinanderfallende Individualreihe hatte — Elias, Johannes der Täufer, Raffael, Novalis - und wie wir jetzt, indem wir hinzufügen, was uns aus den geistigen Welten wird, den fortlaufenden Faden der Seele, die fortlaufende Individualität uns vor Augen führen, die dieselbe ist in Elias, Johannes dem Täufer, Raffael und Novalis.
In dieser Beziehung müssen wir uns nur ganz klar sein, daß wir innerhalb unserer geistigen Bewegung bewußt diese Mission anstreben müssen und daß die Erdenentwickelung, die Erdenkultur diese Mission braucht. Denn durch das bloße Fortleben der alten Ereignisse und der alten Erkenntnisse würde die Fortentwickelung der Kultur nicht geschehen können. Ich habe auch genügend hervorgehoben, was es für das menschliche Gemüt bedeutet, zu bereichern, zu befruchten, was aus den alten Zeiten gekommen ist, mit dem neu wieder zu Gewinnenden. Aber wir müssen uns klar sein, daß wir uns allerdings — wie es für die Menschen ganz außerordentlich bedeutsam wat, einen Übergang zu erleben von dem Leben im Astralleibe zu dem geistigen Leben der Seele vorzugsweise in der Empfindungsseele — jetzt allmählich herausarbeiten von dem Leben in der Bewußtseinsseele zu dem Leben ins Geistselbst hinein. Ich habe es öfter angedeutet, wodurch das Eintreten in das Geistselbst erscheint. Ich habe darauf hingewiesen, daß die Leute, welche die Erscheinung des ChristusImpulses erleben werden in den nächsten dreitausend Jahren, immer zahlreicher werden, daß die Menschen allmählich fähig werden, in den geistigen Welten den Christus-Impuls zu erleben. Aber das ganze Erleben und Hereinströmen der geistigen Welt wird etwas sein, mit dem sich die Menschen im Verlaufe der nächsten Epoche immer mehr und mehr werden bekanntzumachen haben. Und es wird nicht genügen, daß man zum Beispiel theoretisch wisse, daß die Menschen im allgemeinen nach dem Tode fortleben, sondern man wird empfinden, daß das ganze Leben, die ganze Lebensbetrachtung, das ganze Lebensbild in jene Anschauung gestellt werden muß, die da weiß: Wenn der Mensch durch die Pforte des Todes schreitet, lebt er weiter fort; es ist nur ein Übergang. Wenn ein Mensch noch nicht gestorben ist das wird man immer mehr und mehr zeigen, nicht als eine Theorie, sondern als ein Wissen -, so wirkt er physisch auf uns durch seinen Leib, wenn er gestorben ist, so wirkt er geistig aus der geistigen Welt auf unsere physische Welt. Er ist da. Die Menschen werden lernen, das Leben in das Licht solcher Tatsache zu stellen und mit den entsprechenden Tatsachen zu rechnen.
Nehmen wir einmal an, man hat Kinder zu erziehen. Wer solche Tatsachen kennt, der weiß, daß es etwas ganz anderes ist, Kinder zu erziehen, die bis zum zwanzigsten Jahre ihre Eltern haben, oder solche Kinder, deren Vater gestorben ist, als sie vielleicht drei oder fünf Jahre alt waren. Wenn man die Erziehung ernst nimmt und auf die Individualität der Kinder eingeht — das ist keine Spekulation -, besonders wenn man es zu tun hat mit Kindern, die man zu unterrichten hat, nachdem der Vater gestorben ist, dann wird man sich manchmal klar werden können: Es ist etwas Eigentümliches da, womit man nicht zurecht kommt. — Und man wird damit auch nicht zurecht kommen, wenn man die gewöhnlichen Denkgewohnheiten aus dem Materialismus nimmt. Aber der Mensch kann sich jetzt denken: Da gibt es eine so sonderbare Zeitströmung. Die meisten sehen ja die Menschen, welche sich dazu bekennen, als eine Art Narren an; aber wir wollen doch einmal sehen, was diese Theosophen sagen über die Schicksale von Menschen in der Zeit nach dem Tode. Da kann man finden, daß diese zwar mit dem Tode ihre physischen Leiber abgeworfen haben, daß aber das, was Inhalt ihrer Seele ist, was ihre Hoffnungen sind und so weiter, noch da ist, daß es aber auch wirkt, daß es nicht unwirksam ist. Ja oftmals ist es viel wirksamer nach dem Tode, als es beim Menschen ist, solange er auf dem physischen Plane ist, wo er durch seine Leiblichkeit eingeschlossen ist. — So, jetzt hat man es nachgesehen, was durch die Geistesforschung gesagt wird und weiß: also wirkt ja der Vater von der geistigen Welt aus herein auf die Kinder! Er hat bestimmte Hoffnungen und Sehnsuchten in bezug auf die Kinder; die strömen ein in das Leben der Kinder. Wenn man das nun nimmt, was man wissen kann, dann kommt man mit dem, womit man vorher nicht zurecht kam, nun zurecht und weiß, welche Sympathien und Antipathien da bei den Kindern auftreten, und womit man zu rechnen hat. Man kommt erst zurecht mit Kindern, wenn man nicht nur weiß, daß die Luft auf die Menschen wirkt und daß man sich bei kühler Luft erkälten kann, sondern wenn man weiß, was alles aus der geistigen Welt hereinspielt in die physische und wie es hereinspielt.
Heute gilt das, was ich jetzt gesagt habe, noch als eine Nartetei. Aber die Zeit wird nicht ferne sein, da die Tatsachen des Lebens die Menschen zwingen werden, mit diesen Tatsachen zu rechnen, lebendig zu beobachten und mit dem, was übrigbleibt, wenn die Menschen durch die Pforte des Todes gegangen sind, als mit wirksamen Ursachen zu rechnen. Dann wird man in das Konkrete der spirituellen Weltanschauung erst hineinkommen.
Dieses Hereinwirken von Menschen aus der geistigen Welt ist natürlich nicht nur bei Kindern der Fall, sondern auch bei denen, die einen Menschen umgeben haben im späteren Alter ist es so, daß die Individualitäten hereinwirken, die in einer geistigen Welt sind. Zunächst weiß der Mensch gar nicht, daß sie hereinwirken. Ich erzähle wieder nicht irgend etwas Ausgedachtes, sondern etwas, das real beobachtet ist, das tatsächlich geisteswissenschaftlich konstatiert ist. Da wird sich ein Mensch bewußt: Ich weiß nicht, warum ich jetzt zu diesem oder jenem gedrängt werde, weshalb ich diesen oder jenen Impuls habe, ich muß jetzt über gewisse Dinge anders denken als früher! — Nach einiger Zeit hat er einen sehr bedeutsamen Traum. Heute wird man noch nicht viel darauf geben, aber darauf kommt es nicht an. Man wird nach und nach merken, daß es auf die Form des Traumes nicht ankommt, sondern auf seinen Inhalt. Das können Sie daraus entnehmen: wenn Edison seine Erfindungen im Traume gemacht hätte, so wäre es in bezug auf die Erfindungen geradesogut. — So denken wir uns, es habe jemand den Traum, es erscheine ihm eine Persönlichkeit, die ihm unbekannt ist, an die er gar nicht denken könnte wie an eine bekannte, eine Persönlichkeit, von der er nicht weiß, wo er sie hinbringen soll. Sie tritt in sein Traumleben herein, und es geschieht dies und das. Und jetzt weiß er, daß die Persönlichkeit — nicht daß er sich an sie erinnern könnte -, die vielleicht schon vor fünfzehn Jahren gestorben ist, in sein Leben hereinwirkt. Früher hat er es an den Impulsen gemerkt, durch die er getrieben worden ist, jetzt merkt er es, daß sie als Traumbild in sein nächtiges Bewußtsein hereinwirkt. Das ist oft charakteristisch für den Zusammenhang von Impulsen, die in uns leben, und dem, was als Traum auf uns wirkt. Diese Dinge werden sich einleben. Und jetzt zum Schluß noch, wie sie sich einleben werden.
Nehmen Sie an, es liest jemand heute noch eine der vielen Biographien von Raflael. Dann wird er den Eindruck bekommen, daß Raffael in einer gewissen Beziehung wie eine Erscheinung dasteht, in sich abgeschlossen, aus sich ihr Bestes gebend, aber auf dem Gebiete, wo sie wirkt, eben so abgeschlossen, daß sie sich nicht gesteigert denken läßt, daß sie nicht über das betreffende Niveau hinausgehend gedacht werden kann. Und wieder: wenn wir die eigentümliche Art von Raffaels Schaffen betrachten, so ist sie auf einmal da. Und wie sie ganz merkwürdig beim jungen Rafael entsteht, darüber läßt die Biographie eine Lücke. Warum?
Die Biographen erzählen, daß Raffael den Giovanni Santi zum Vater hatte, der neben anderm auch ein Schriftsteller war, und der starb, als Raffael elf Jahre war, den Knaben aber vorher zu einem Maler in die Lehre gebracht hatte. Wir wissen auch, was für ein Maler, von was für einer Begabung in der Malerei Giovanni Santi war. Wir wissen aber auch, daß in ihm etwas steckte, was bei ihm nicht herauskommen konnte. Wenn man ins Auge faßt, was in seiner Seele lebte, so hat man das Gefühl: in ihm steckte etwas, was nicht herauskam, weil die äußere Natur dafür ein Hindernis war. Nun stirbt er, als der Knabe Raffael elf Jahre ist. Wenn wir nun verfolgen, wie die Entwickelung Raffaels weitergeht, so wissen wir, woher die Kräfte kommen, die Raffael dahin bringen, so rasch zur Vollendung zu kommen, eine Ganzheit zu werden, wir wissen, es sind die Kräfte, die aus der geistigen Welt von seinem Vater hereinkommen! Und wer künftig eine Biographie Raffaels geben will, der wird schreiben müssen: Giovanni Santi war der Vater Raffaels, und Raffael war elf Jahre alt, als sein Vater 1494 starb. Dieser Vater war ein ausgezeichneter Mensch, der zeit seines Lebens Außerordentliches wollte. Und viel wollte er, als er ungehindert in der geistigen Welt war und zu dem geliebten Sohne seine Impulse — bis in die feinsten, intimen geistigen Dinge hinein — über das sandte, worüber ihn selbst seine äußere Organisation das auszusprechen in der physischen Welt hinderte.
Das ist natürlich keine Herabwürdigung des Genies Raffaels, denn selbstverständlich mußte der Grund vorhanden sein. Wir wissen, daß er die Wiederverkörperung von Johannes dem Täufer war, daß also nur das Spezifische hineingegossen werden mußte, was da herauskommen sollte. Wenn wir das ins Auge fassen, dann sehen wir das Zusammenwirken von der geistigen Welt und dem physischen Plan. Auf Schritt und Tritt wird man in der Zukunft bei der Betrachtung des Lebens Raflaels dasjenige einfügen müssen, was aus der geistigen Welt in die physische hereinwirkt. Dann wird man vor einem Ganzen der Welt stehen, die in uns, um uns, durch uns wirkt. So führen wir die Spiritualität wiederum in unsere Kultur ein. Deshalb dürfen wir uns aber auch nicht verwundern, wenn die, welche heute nichts von dieser Einführung der Spiritualität in unsere Kultur hören wollen, eben recht schnöde noch diese spirituelle Weltanschauung behandeln; denn es ist etwas völlig Neues. Es ist ein Auftauchen der neuen Kraft des Geistselbst des Menschen. Und es wird eine Zeit kommen — und ich bitte Sie, diese Tatsache recht sehr in Ihr Gemüt hineinzuschreiben -, in welcher die Menschen über die jetzt zu Ende gehende materialistische Kultur gerade so denken werden, wie man einst gedacht hat über die der Sintflut vorangegangene Zeit und nach der kommenden Kultur sich sehnte, als etwas ganz Neues da kam. Die Theosophen aber sollen sich nicht nur ein theoretisches Verhältnis zu solchem Ideal suchen, sondern es aufnehmen in ihr Herz, in ihr Gemüt; sie sollten sich klar sein, daß es ihr gutes Karma ist, zu wissen von dem Gange der Menschheit, der der Gang der menschlichen Kultur ist.
Solche Empfindungen wollen wir in unsere Seelen einschreiben, da ich jetzt noch nicht sagen kann, wann wir diese Betrachtung fortsetzen können. Aber wir wissen ja, daß viel Zeit dazugehört, um das, was uns auf dem Felde der Geisteswissenschaft entgegentritt, einfließen zu lassen in unsere ganze Gemütsentwickelung und Gemütsimpulse, und daß es zu unserer spirituellen Entfaltung gehört, daß wir die großen Wahrheiten nicht nur verstehen, sondern daß auch in unserem Gemüt das entwickelt wird, was die großen Ideen einer geistgemäßen Weltanschauung unserem Gemüte sagen können.
Seventh Lecture
Last week we considered how the Christ impulse will develop within humanity during the epochs of Earth's evolution that will follow our own, and also within ourselves. We have seen that, because these things are structured around the Christ impulse like bodily envelopes—wonder or astonishment as an astral body, the feelings of compassion or empathy practiced by humanity as an etheric body, and everything that has happened under the influence of the impulses of conscience as a physical body— Thus, in the course of the time still available to us during the Earth's evolution, that ideal being will be completely formed which, in relation to its I, we can say is the Christ impulse itself, which entered into this Earth's evolution at the beginning of our calendar — or with the Mystery of Golgotha. It was therefore our task to characterize, as it were, the basic nuance, the basic character of the ideals of the future of humanity from one side. Today we will try to add another color to these discussions from last time from a different perspective.
Remember that the Christ impulse fell, so to speak, right in the middle of the period following the great Atlantean catastrophe. We can regard this period as extending from the great Atlantean catastrophe to the next great overwhelming catastrophe, which is described in the lectures on the Apocalypse. If we want to place the most essential event of the entire Earth's development in the middle of this period, we have the Christ impulse. We do not even need to turn our gaze to Palestine, as we have recognized from recent discussions, in order to see that something most important is happening in the Earth's development at this point in time. We can simply consider the Greco-Latin cultural epoch, which falls right in the middle, that is, in the fourth post-Atlantean period, and we need only recall any characteristic circumstance of this period. Then we can compare this characteristic circumstance, for example, with what happened in a similar field in the previous third cultural period, and with what what is happening in our present period. A circumstance familiar to you will be highlighted immediately.
We have often characterized the essence of a Greek temple. We have emphasized what constitutes the essence of the Greek temple, explaining that the Greek temple, through its entire form, through its self-contained wholeness, is such that one perceives it as something existing in itself when one is not there to observe it, indeed, even when one imagines that there is no one else nearby. People who imagine themselves inside a Greek temple are actually always something disturbing; they do not belong there, they do not fit in. For what is the Greek temple? In its entire form, it is only imagined and can only be understood if one regards it as the dwelling place of the invisible, living God who has descended to the physical plane. Therefore, the individual temples are the temples of this or that deity. And when we imagine God inside, and no human beings, but only God, who has built a dwelling place on earth, on the physical plane, then we have what we can call the idea of the Greek temple. We must think away human beings as far as possible: that made the entire architecture of the Greek temple necessary. This could only occur in a period when, so to speak, everything that lived on the physical plane had to be permeated by the divine spirit. People who felt that the earth was immediately permeated by the divine could perceive this, people among whom the words that touch us so deeply could arise: Better to be a beggar in the upper world than a king in the realm of shadows! — that is, in the world one enters after passing through the gate of death. It was the period in which human beings were most closely connected with the physical plane and the spiritual that permeated it.
Let us compare Greek temple architecture with something similar in earlier times and with what has set the tone, the actual basic nuance, in our time. We could take something from the previous era, the Egyptian temples, even the pyramids: they can only be understood if we perceive them as the striving of human beings toward the divine, the divine that has not yet descended to the physical plane. In every line, in every form, you can see humanity's striving toward the divine-spiritual when you look at the architecture of those times. But you can see from the mysterious and deeply symbolic nature of these buildings that people first needed something, so to speak, to find their way through this architecture to the divine-spiritual. They needed preparation for this: they had to be on the first stage of initiation. This is also how the architecture of the Near East is to be understood.
And for our time, we could say that the basic tone for architecture was set by the Gothic style. This is an occult fact. It is impossible to imagine a Gothic cathedral as a Greek temple. For a Gothic cathedral is incomplete when the faithful congregation is not there. It is inconceivable without them! And all the forms are designed to receive the prayers of the faithful, but the faithful in contrast to the initiates of the ancient Egyptians. Anyone who can judge such things knows from the course of development that the form has taken from the Egyptian temple through the Greek temple to the Gothic cathedral: there the impulse has entered and taken hold, the impulse that has led up to the human I! This can be shown in all areas, how the Christ impulse grips people, how it imprints itself on all events and all becoming, and it seems downright grotesque when all kinds of philosophical and theological worldviews believe they can say that the acceptance of a Christ impulse depends on some historical document. It does not depend at all on any historical documents, but only on an understanding, meaningful observation of human development. For wherever one touches it, one notices that the same process has taken place as has taken place in architecture. The initiate, who alone could understand the architectural forms of the Egyptian-Chaldean period, the third post-Atlantean epoch, knew that ex must first rise above ordinary humanity: then he could ascend to the region of divine-spiritual life. The initiate who lived in the fourth post-Atlantean cultural period knew that he lived in the physical world together with the divine, but that he had the slightest connection with what the Greeks called the shadow world, because human beings had descended further into the physical world. And if the gods did not unite with humans in the temples, there would be no such connection for the feelings of the Greeks.
This changed after the fourth post-Atlantean cultural period. It became so that every soul, just as it is, can find its way to the divine-spiritual. It is extremely important that we take this into account, for it is only the most concrete expression of the fact that in ancient times, human beings were still closer to the spiritual with their entire consciousness, knowledge, and soul life, then descended to the physical plane, and now have to ascend again little by little. And we are living in an age in which this ascent must take place consciously, whereas the Christ impulse initially drove people unconsciously.
Then we know that in our time there is a kind of repetition of the Egyptian-Chaldean period. The Greek-Latin period stands alone in the seven successive cultural epochs. It cannot return, for it is a midpoint. The third cultural epoch is returning in a certain sense in our time. The second, the ancient Persian epoch, will return in the sixth cultural epoch, which will replace our own. And the first, the original Indian period, will return in the seventh cultural epoch, toward which we look in the distant future of humanity, before a great, immense catastrophe, not in the same way, but in such a way that everything that was before will be imprinted with the repetition of the Christ impulse.
An awareness of what has happened in human evolution was basically present, especially in earlier times. Earlier times were, of course, mainly aware of the descent of humanity, the descent from the divine-spiritual heights to the physical plane. Now everything is preparing itself. Everything is happening gradually. And the impulse for the ascent, which was only given with the Mystery of Golgotha in the fourth post-Atlantean period, was also prepared earlier. It had its precursors as an impulse. We have considered a certain precursorship with the figures of Elijah and John the Baptist, among others. But not only within the culture that then entered the West, but within all cultures we find an awareness that humanity has descended from divine-spiritual heights and must look to the future—insofar as the future approaches—for a new ascent into the divine-spiritual worlds. If we want to consider a characteristic view of the most diverse peoples that can really explain to us how people conceived of what has just been mentioned at that time, we need only highlight one fact that is actually mentioned in the traditions of all peoples, which can, however, be related to many different things, but which in its final phase can be related to something very specific, a fact that has been thought about a lot and that can only be understood when you think about it in an occult sense, namely the tradition of the Flood. Sure, there's a lot connected to this Flood tradition that relates to earlier times. But one thing can be traced occultly, namely that the peoples—and almost all peoples who have left behind good historical monuments or legends—set the time of the Flood at approximately three thousand years before the Mystery of Golgotha. So that if we go back three thousand years from there, we come to what the Flood legend had in mind as the last event it referred to. Now, time would not suffice today to explain the reasons why this last Flood, which is supposed to have taken place three thousand years before our era, cannot have meant a great catastrophe, a flood in the physical sense. It goes without saying that this does not refer to the Atlantean catastrophe, for that lies even further back in time. It must therefore mean something quite different. Nevertheless, we should not lose sight of the fact that the traditions of all peoples that come into consideration place the Flood in the fourth millennium before our era—the dates are not exact, but they are essentially the same.
Why is this? I would ask you to remember something I have often pointed out: that the human etheric body, which was mainly active at that time, is relevant to the view of the first post-Atlantean cultural period, whose teachers were the great holy Rishis, while in the original Persian cultural period the human astral body was particularly active, the sentient body was particularly active, in the Egyptian-Chaldean period the sentient soul, in the Greek-Latin period the intellectual or emotional soul, in our present epoch the consciousness soul, and now we are approaching the time when, little by little, what we call the spirit self is emerging in cultural phenomena. As human beings developed in this way, something very significant happened with what their souls experienced. Just think that the ancient Indians, the original Indians, of whom the Vedas know nothing, viewed the world, so to speak, as this world picture presented itself when the etheric body was predominantly active. For through the etheric body, human beings cannot look outward as they do today. They cannot gain such a view, such a world picture as we have today; rather, through the etheric body, everything comes from within. Today's human being only gets a faint, dull picture of the way in which perception comes about through the etheric body when he remembers what his dreams are like. Only, what people knew about each other in the ancient Indian period were dreams and visions that were highly alive. When one person met another on the road, they could not see them with the outer eye as we do today. To believe that would be a prejudice. However, they saw an image that was before them. People were still surrounded by a kind of auric cloud, and what they saw physically before them was enveloped in a kind of mist. They perceived things quite differently. And in contrast to today's perception, what was perceived in blurred images had the highest spiritual significance. For the ancient peoples, clarity was what streamed down from outer space, from the world of the stars.
During the second post-Atlantean cultural period, the ability to look outward gradually emerged, but strangely enough, the ability to look out into the universe remained. While everything below remained blurred, the ancient Persians looked clearly into the world of the stars. It is therefore understandable that Zoroastrianism immediately pointed people to what comes from outer space, to sunlight, in its Ahura Mazdao, the Ormuzd. This came about because what we call the astral body was now active. At the end of this period, the preparation to look outward was already underway. Slowly, the impulses to see things as they are now seen are coming. So the impulse was given to humanity to gradually look out onto the physical plane. And this impulse came to people in such a way that they gradually transitioned to a completely new way of seeing; little by little, it dawned on humanity. And it happened in the following way.
If we wanted to characterize what people felt, what could be called the dawning, we could say: When the ancient Persian period came to an end and the next one dawned like a future dawn, people felt: We will no longer experience so strongly what has been handed down to us as a divine inheritance from ancient times, what inner human vision is, what visionary clairvoyance is, where humanity lived together in the Atlantean era with the divine-spiritual worlds. — People looked back. The most important thing for them were memories in which, like living dream images, the gods appeared who had shaped the world throughout the Lemurian and Atlantean ages. These memories were felt as something that was withdrawing from humanity, gradually fading away. And people sensed that something was coming where humans would have to intervene with what spoke within them about the outer world, what obscured the light of the inner spiritual world, and what compelled them to look outward in order to have the outer world as their own. This time was drawing ever closer. And most clearly, one might say, this was felt by those who belonged to the knowledgeable people of ancient India. They felt it as a kind of divine impulse coming toward human beings, which had the effect of compelling them, through themselves, through their stepping out into the physical world, to think within themselves about what they encountered there in the physical world. The followers of ancient India — who were now living during the second cultural epoch — conceived this divine impulse as a divine being and called this being Pramati. And this is how an ancient Indian living in that age would have felt: The deity Pramati is approaching. It snatches people away from the old guidance of the old gods; it makes disappear what has been gained from the world through inner clairvoyance; it forces people to look out into the physical plane. The old world of gods is darkening. A time is coming when people will no longer be able to see into the world of gods from their souls, but will look into the outer world. Kali Yuga, the “black age,” is approaching, no longer the bright, white age of the old divinity, the age in which the old gods withdraw, which is ushered in by the deity Pramati!
Kali Yuga: it was sensed by allowing it to begin in 3101 BC, precisely at the time when Indian tradition also places the Flood. For it said that the Flood coincided with the coming of Kali Yuga. And Kali Yuga was understood as the offspring of the god Pramati.
Kali Yuga has dawned. We know that Kali Yuga has only come to an end in our time, and that we must now find our way up into the spiritual world, and that this is why spiritual science exists! For just as Kali Yuga began in 3101 BC, so it ended in 1899. This is why 1899 is an important year. Humanity must therefore conceive its ideal for the future in such a way that it must now ascend again into the spiritual worlds.
However, the age that preceded the advent of Kali Yuga was also characteristic of the ancient Persian period, when people could still feel their way up to the old memories through the astral body. Now, however, they had to turn outward. This was a tremendous transition. For many people, it took place in such a way that for a time they saw nothing at all, that darkness spread over the human soul through the forces of human evolution. This eclipse, this state of sleep that humanity went through, did not last for long periods of time, but in fact only for weeks. But it did go through this state of sleep, and many did not come out of it. Many perished in the process, and only a few remained behind at various points on the earth. There is not enough time today to describe the conditions that arose. In short, it can only be said that the conditions were very, very eerie due to the fact that a large number of people perished, and only at a few points on earth did people awaken from the great spiritual flood that spread like a sleep over the souls. And most souls experienced this state of sleep as drowning—and only a few as a rebirth. Then came the “dark age,” the age without gods.
Were other people on Earth aware of this fact?
Yes! We could go around among the various peoples and find, to our astonishment, that in the widest circles people did indeed know that this was the case, that a flood of consciousness had taken place and that in the third post-Atlantean cultural age, through the special development of the sentient soul—that is, through looking outward—something completely new had to come into being. The Indians sensed this when they said: Kali Yuga emerges as a successor to Pramati. How did the Greeks put it? Exactly the same. For them, Pramati is simply Prometheus, which is exactly the same thing. He is the brother of Epimetheus. The latter still represents what looks back to ancient times. Epimetheus is the “reflective” one, Prometheus is the one who must think ahead in his thoughts about what is outside and what is happening outside. And just as Pramati has descendants in the Kali Yuga, so Prometheus has his successors: we need only form the word “Kali Yuga” according to the Greek; there it is “Kalion,” and because the Greeks felt that it was the age of the black divine, we must prefix “Deu” — deus — and we get “Deukalion.” This is the same word as Kali Yuga. We are not dealing here with a figment of the imagination, but with an occult fact. From this we see that the Greeks knew the same thing that the Indians knew. This is just one example that shows us how people in their ancient clairvoyant states knew what was going on and how they were able to express what was happening in powerful images. For Greek legend tells us how Deucalion, on the advice of his father Prometheus, built himself a wooden chest in which he saved himself and his wife Pyrrha from destruction when Zeus wanted to wipe out the human race with a flood. Deucalion and Pyrrha, who then landed on Mount Parnassus, are thus the origin of the new human race for the Greeks. Deucalion is the son of Prometheus. And in between comes the “flood,” which occurred for various peoples as a process in the state of consciousness.
It is precisely this peculiarity that, when we immerse ourselves in these wonderful images preserved for us by the traditions of various peoples, we come to understand how the truth about the development of humanity lived among these different peoples.
Now, as human beings gradually emerged into the age of Kali Yuga, entering the third post-Atlantean cultural period, the ancient clairvoyant knowledge was lost. And we, who have to repeat the third cultural period, must now see this knowledge re-emerge in a new form. Two weeks ago, we gave a characteristic example of how this knowledge is reappearing. We showed how the culture that we think of as Western, but which has its origins in ancient Hebrew culture, initially focused on the individual personality, which, because on the physical plane only the individual personality exists between birth and death, it cannot focus its attention on what passes through the various epochs, but only on the existence of the individual personality, since life between birth and death does not flow on the higher planes, but on the physical plane. Now we must feel that because the Kali Yuga has come to an end, it is a requirement of human development that we must bring to consciousness what is necessary for humanity: that we must gradually bring up from the depths of research what has been lost during the Kali Yuga. I have shown how we must gradually look again at the continuous individuality, I have shown how the West had a series of individualities that fell apart — Elijah, John the Baptist, Raphael, Novalis — and how we now, by adding what comes to us from the spiritual worlds, the continuous thread of the soul, the continuous individuality, can see before us that it is the same in Elijah, John the Baptist, Raphael, and Novalis.
In this regard, we must be very clear that we must consciously strive for this mission within our spiritual movement and that the development of the earth and earthly culture needs this mission. For the mere continuation of old events and old insights would not allow culture to develop further. I have also emphasized sufficiently what it means for the human mind to enrich and fertilize what has come down from ancient times with what is newly to be gained. But we must be clear that, just as it was extremely important for human beings to experience a transition from life in the astral body to the spiritual life of the soul, preferably in the sentient soul, we must now gradually work our way out of life in the consciousness soul and into life in the spirit self. I have often hinted at what makes the entry into the spiritual self appear. I have pointed out that the number of people who will experience the appearance of the Christ impulse in the next three thousand years will increase, that human beings will gradually become capable of experiencing the Christ impulse in the spiritual worlds. But the whole experience and influx of the spiritual world will be something with which people will have to become more and more familiar in the course of the next epoch. And it will not be enough, for example, to know theoretically that human beings in general continue to live after death; rather, people will feel that the whole of life, the whole view of life, the whole picture of life must be placed in the perspective that knows: when a human being passes through the gate of death, he continues to live; it is only a transition. If a person has not yet died—and this will be demonstrated more and more, not as a theory but as knowledge—he or she still has a physical effect on us through his or her body, and when he or she has died, he or she has a spiritual effect on our physical world from the spiritual world. He or she is there. People will learn to view life in the light of such facts and to reckon with the corresponding facts.
Let us assume that one has children to raise. Anyone who knows such facts knows that it is quite different to raise children who have their parents until they are twenty, or children whose father died when they were perhaps three or five years old. If you take education seriously and respond to the individuality of children—and this is not speculation—especially if you are dealing with children whom you have to teach after their father has died, then you will sometimes realize that there is something peculiar about them that you cannot come to terms with. And you will not be able to come to terms with it if you take your usual habits of thinking from materialism. But now you can think to yourself: there is such a strange trend in the world today. Most people regard those who profess such beliefs as fools, but let us see what these theosophists say about the fate of human beings after death. There we find that although they have cast off their physical bodies at death, the contents of their souls, their hopes and so on, are still there, and that they are still active, that they are not ineffective. Indeed, it is often much more effective after death than it is in humans while they are on the physical plane, where they are confined by their physical bodies. So now we have looked into what spiritual research says and we know that the father does indeed influence his children from the spiritual world! He has certain hopes and longings for his children; these flow into the lives of the children. If we take what we can know, then we can now deal with what we could not deal with before, and we know what sympathies and antipathies arise in children and what we have to reckon with. You can only get along with children when you know not only that the air affects people and that you can catch a cold in cool air, but also when you know everything that comes in from the spiritual world into the physical world and how it comes in.
Today, what I have just said is still considered nonsense. But the time is not far off when the facts of life will force people to reckon with these facts, to observe them vividly, and to reckon with what remains when people have passed through the gates of death as effective causes. Then one will be able to enter into the concrete reality of the spiritual worldview.
This influence of people from the spiritual world is, of course, not only the case with children, but also with those who have surrounded a person in later life; it is so that the individualities that are in a spiritual world exert an influence. At first, people are not even aware that they are exerting an influence. I am not telling you something I have made up, but something that has been observed in reality and has actually been established by spiritual science. A person becomes aware: I don't know why I am now being urged to do this or that, why I have this or that impulse, why I now have to think differently about certain things than I did before! — After some time, they have a very significant dream. Today, people don't pay much attention to this, but that is not important. Gradually, people will realize that it is not the form of the dream that matters, but its content. You can see this from the following: if Edison had made his inventions in a dream, it would have been just as good in terms of the inventions themselves. — So we imagine that someone has a dream in which a person appears to him who is unknown to him, whom he cannot think of as someone familiar, a person whom he does not know where to place. This person enters his dream life, and this and that happens. And now he knows that this person—not that he can remember them—who may have died fifteen years ago, is influencing his life. Previously, he noticed it in the impulses that drove him; now he notices that it is influencing his nighttime consciousness as a dream image. This is often characteristic of the connection between impulses that live within us and what affects us as dreams. These things will settle in. And now, finally, how they will settle in.
Suppose someone reads one of the many biographies of Raphael today. They will get the impression that Raphael stands there in a certain way like an apparition, self-contained, giving his best, but in the field where he works, so self-contained that it is impossible to imagine him improving, that he cannot be thought of as going beyond the level he has reached. And again, when we look at the peculiar nature of Raphael's work, it is suddenly there. And how it arises so strangely in the young Raphael is something that biography leaves us in the dark about. Why?
Biographers tell us that Raphael's father was Giovanni Santi, who was, among other things, a writer and who died when Raphael was eleven, but had previously apprenticed the boy to a painter. We also know what kind of painter Giovanni Santi was and what talent he had for painting. But we also know that there was something in him that could not come out. When you look into his soul, you get the feeling that there was something in him that could not come out because external circumstances prevented it. Now he dies when the boy Raphael is eleven years old. If we now follow the further development of Raphael, we know where the forces come from that enable Raphael to reach perfection so quickly, to become a whole being; we know that these are the forces that come from the spiritual world of his father! And anyone who wants to write a biography of Raphael in the future will have to write: Giovanni Santi was Raphael's father, and Raphael was eleven years old when his father died in 1494. This father was an outstanding man who wanted extraordinary things throughout his life. And he wanted a lot when he was unhindered in the spiritual world and sent his impulses — even the most subtle, intimate spiritual things — to his beloved son, things that his own outer organization prevented him from expressing in the physical world.
This is not, of course, a disparagement of Raphael's genius, for there must have been a reason for it. We know that he was the reincarnation of John the Baptist, so only the specific elements that were to come out had to be poured in. When we consider this, we see the interaction between the spiritual world and the physical plane. In the future, when we look at Raphael's life, we will have to include at every turn what comes into the physical world from the spiritual world. Then we will stand before a whole world that works in us, around us, and through us. In this way, we reintroduce spirituality into our culture. Therefore, we should not be surprised if those who today do not want to hear about this introduction of spirituality into our culture treat this spiritual worldview with contempt, for it is something completely new. It is the emergence of a new power of the human spirit itself. And a time will come — and I ask you to take this fact very much to heart — when people will think of the materialistic culture that is now coming to an end just as people once thought of the time before the Flood and longed for the coming culture when something completely new came into being. Theosophists, however, should not seek only a theoretical relationship to such an ideal, but should take it into their hearts and minds; they should be clear that it is their good karma to know about the course of humanity, which is the course of human culture.
Let us inscribe such feelings in our souls, for I cannot yet say when we will be able to continue this reflection. But we know that it takes a long time to allow what we encounter in the field of spiritual science to flow into our entire mental development and mental impulses, and that it is part of our spiritual development that we not only understand the great truths, but that what the great ideas of a spiritual worldview can tell our minds is also developed in our minds.