The Rudolf Steiner Archive

12. The Adept School of the Past: The Mysteries of the Spirit, the Son, and the Father

[ 1 ] The spiritual science movement is not something that has come into our time through the arbitrary act of one individual, this or that person, this or that society. It is connected with the entire development of humanity and, as such, can be regarded as one of the most important cultural impulses. If we want to find our way into this mission of the spiritual science movement, we must put ourselves in the place of humanity's past and future. Just as individual human beings have undergone a process of development since they first descended from the bosom of the Godhead as individual souls, so too has humanity as a whole undergone a process of development. Consider for a moment the differences, the changes, and the developments that can be observed on the surface of the Earth over the course of millennia — how thoroughly everything has changed! What we are accustomed to calling “humanity” is only a result of the so-called fifth root race. This was preceded by another humanity, the fourth root race, whose continent, Atlantis, we would have to look for somewhere between today's Europe and America. This Atlantis saw our ancestors in a completely different form. A completely different culture prevailed there. The ancient Atlanteans were not educated in intellect and thought, but were equipped with subtle somnambulistic and clairvoyant powers. Logic, combinatorial intellect, science, and art as we know them today did not exist in ancient Atlantis, because people's imaginations, thoughts, and feelings were completely different there. People at that time would not have been able to combine, calculate, count, or read as we do today. But certain somnambulistic-clairvoyant spiritual powers lived within them. They could understand the language of nature, what God said to them in the lapping of the waves, what the thunder rolled, what the forest rustled, what the delicate scents of the flowers expressed. They understood this language of nature and were in harmony with all of nature. There were no laws or legal systems at that time to communicate between neighbors. No, the Atlantean went out and listened to the sounds of the trees and the wind, and they told him what he had to do.

[ 2 ] The memory of ancient Atlantis, Nibelheim, has been beautifully preserved in folk legends, which are never random or invented, for example in the Song of the Nibelungs. The word “Nibel” or “Nifel” suggests that the Rhine and all these rivers are remnants of the waters from the foggy masses of ancient Atlantis. And the wisdom that remains from it is hinted at as the treasure hidden within them. In this continent between America and Europe, we must also seek the plant school of the ancient adepts, where those who were suitable to become disciples of the great individualities, whom we call the Masters of Wisdom and Harmony of Feelings, resided.

[ 3 ] The location of this school of adepts, whose heyday fell in the fourth subrace of ancient Atlantis, can be found in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. There, the disciples were taught in a very different way than today. It was very different; it was possible to exert a powerful influence from person to person through the power that still lay in words at that time. What still lives on in the people today is a subtle feeling for the inner spiritual, occult power of words. The power of words today cannot be compared at all with that of the past. It was something very powerful: the word itself awakened powers in the soul of the student. A mantra today no longer has the power it had back then, when words were not so imbued with thoughts. When these words took effect, the soul forces of the student blossomed. One could call it a human initiation through the language of nature with a powerful effect. A clear language was also spoken there through the burning of substances such as incense and so on.

[ 4 ] There was a much more direct connection between the soul of the teacher and that of the student. And what existed as written characters in the adept school of ancient Atlantis were reproductions of natural processes that were drawn by hand in the air and had an effect, even a lasting effect, on the minds of the population at that time. They awakened powers in the soul.

[ 5 ] Thus, each race has its task in the development of humanity. The task of ours, the fifth main or root race, is to add to the four limbs of the human being what is called the Manasic, that is, to awaken understanding through concepts and ideas. Each race has its task: that of the Atlantean race was the development of the ego. Ours, the fifth root race, the post-Atlantean period, has to develop the Manas, the spirit self.

[ 6 ] With the demise of Atlantis, however, its achievements did not perish, but the most essential of all that was present in the Atlantean plant school of the adepts was taken away by a small core of people. Under the leadership of Manu, this small group moved to the area of today's Gobi Desert. And this small band now prepared replicas of the earlier culture and teachings, but more in the intellectual realm. These were the earlier spiritual forces translated into thoughts and symbols. From there, from this center, the various cultural currents spread out like rays, like radiations. First, the wonderful ancient pre-Vedic culture, which for the first time translated the inflowing wisdom into thought.

[ 7 ] The second of the cultures emanating from the ancient school of adepts was the ancient Persian culture. The third was the Chaldean-Babylonian culture with its wonderful star wisdom and its magnificent priestly knowledge. The fourth to blossom was the Greek-Latin culture with its personal coloring, and finally, the fifth was our own. We are now moving toward the sixth and seventh. With this, I have outlined our task in human development: to translate into thought, to bring down to the physical plane that which has been cosmic wisdom until now.

[ 8 ] When the ancient Atlantean listened to the intermediate tone among the tones that resounded to him, he heard the name of what he had recognized as the divine: Tao. In the Egyptian mysteries, you translated this tone into thought, into writing, into symbols—into the Tao symbol, the Tao books. Everything that is knowledge, writing, thought, only came into the world in the post-Atlantean period. In earlier times, this would never have been written down. The understanding for it would not have been there. Now we stand in the middle of the Manasic development. Our race is concerned with bringing intellectual culture, but also egoism, to the utmost. It is fair to say, even if it sounds grotesque: There has never been so much intellectual power in the world and so little inner vision as there is today. Thought is furthest removed from the inner essence of things, far removed from inner, spiritual vision.

[ 9 ] When the Atlantean priest wrote a sign in the air, the effect was mainly the inner soul experience of the student. In the fourth, the Greco-Latin epoch, the personal comes more to the fore. In Greece, personal art develops. In Rome, we find the personal in state regulation and so on. In our time, we experience egoism, the dry personal, the dry intellectual. But our task today is to grasp the occult in Manas, in the purest element of thought. Grasping the spiritual in this finest distillate of the brain is the real mission of our time. To make this thought so powerful that it has something of occult power is the task set before us in order to be able to fill our place for the future.

[ 10 ] The ancient Lemuria was destroyed by powerful masses of fire, and the ancient Atlantis by powerful floods of water. Our culture will also perish, and that is through war of all against all: that is what lies ahead of us. Thus our fifth root race will perish through egoism raised to the highest degree. At the same time, however, a small group of people will form who, through the power of thought, will develop the power of Buddhi, the spirit of life, in order to carry it over into the new culture. Everything productive in the striving human being will become greater and greater until his personality has risen so high that it has reached the summit of freedom. In our time, each individual will have to find within themselves a kind of guiding spirit within the soul, the Buddhi, the power of the spirit of life. If we were to approach the future in such a way that we could only absorb cultural impulses as in former times, we would be heading for a fragmentation of humanity.

[ 11 ] What do we have now in the present? Everyone wants to be their own master: egoism, selfishness, has been taken to extremes. The time is coming when no authority will be recognized other than that which people voluntarily acknowledge, whose power is based on free trust. Those mysteries that were built on the power of the spirit are called the mysteries of the spirit. Those that will be built in the future on the basis of trust, on the power of trust, are called the mysteries of the Father. With these we conclude our culture. This new impulse of the power of trust must come, otherwise we are heading for fragmentation, a general cult of the ego and selfishness.

[ 12 ] In the times of the mysteries of the spirit, which were based on the justified power, authority, and force of the spirit, there were individual great sages. They possessed wisdom, and only those who underwent the harsh trials could be initiated by them. Now, in the future, we are moving toward the mysteries of the Father and must work more and more toward everyone becoming wise. Will this help against egoism and fragmentation? Yes! For only when people attain the highest wisdom, in which they cannot vary, in which there is no personal opinion, no personal point of view, but only one view, can they become united. If people remained as they are otherwise, with their different points of view and so on, they would always separate again. But the highest wisdom always produces the same view in all people. True wisdom is one, which brings people together again with the greatest possible freedom, without any coercive authority. Just as the members of the great white brotherhood are always in harmony with each other and with humanity, so will all people one day become one through this wisdom. Only this wisdom will establish the true idea of brotherhood. Spiritual science therefore needs set itself no other task than to lead people to this idea, now through the unfolding of the spirit itself and later through the spirit of life. To enable people to become free, to become truly wise, that is the great goal of the spiritual scientific movement; to allow this truth and wisdom to flow into people, that is its mission.

[ 13 ] The modern movement for spiritual science began with the most elementary teachings. Much that is important has been revealed in the years since the beginning of this movement, and even more important things will continue to be revealed. The work of the spiritual science movement is thus a gradual outpouring of the wisdom of the great white brotherhood, which has its origin in Atlantis. Such work has always been prepared over long periods of time. Thus, we have the entire work of the great founders of religion as preparation for the one great event of the unique appearance of Christ Jesus. Spiritual science wants to be the executor of Christianity. And it will be so. Once the Father Mysteries are fulfilled, that is, once the development of Buddhi is complete in each individual human being, then everyone will find their deepest essence, Atma, the spiritual human being, within themselves. The appearance of Christ Jesus was thus prepared by the series of religious founders, by Zarathustra, Hermes, Moses, Orpheus, and Pythagoras. All their teachings pursue the same goal: to infuse wisdom into humanity, but always in the form most suitable for the people concerned. So what Christ said is not really new. What is new about the appearance and teaching of Christ Jesus is that in Christ Jesus there was the power to bring to life what was previously only teaching.

[ 14 ] Through Christianity, humanity has gained the power to unite in the greatest possible individualization in the voluntary recognition of the authority of Christ Jesus, and through faith in him, his appearance, his divinity, people can unite in a brotherhood. Thus, between the mysteries of the Spirit and those of the Father stand the mysteries of the Son, whose seedbed was the school of St. Paul, whom he had appointed Dionysius Areopagita to lead. Under him, this school flourished, for Dionysius taught these mysteries in a very special way, while Paul spread the teaching exoterically.

[ 15 ] Now let us seek an explanation from another angle in order to understand what it means when it says: the mysteries of the Father are coming. The teachers of the ancient Atlantean school of adepts were not yet human beings, but higher beings than humans. They had completed their development on earlier planets. And they, who had come from ancient planetary developments, taught the mysteries of the Spirit to a select little group. In the mysteries of the Son, Christ himself appeared in person as a teacher on special occasions: thus also a teacher who was not human, but God. Only those who become teachers in the mysteries of the Father will be human beings. Such people, who have developed more quickly than the rest of humanity, will then be the true masters of wisdom and harmony. They are called the Fathers. In the Father Mysteries, the leadership of humanity thus passes from beings who have descended from other worlds into the hands of human beings themselves. That is what is significant.

[ 16 ] To prepare human beings to form a nucleus for this goal, to prepare them for a common wisdom, for an authority based solely on trust, and to develop an understanding of this, initially in a small nucleus of humanity: that is the task of spiritual science. The development of material culture reached its peak in the 19th century. That is why spiritual science made its impact on the world at that time. With it, the counter-impulse to materialism was created – and was there – the counter-direction towards spirituality. Spiritual science is nothing new, nor is the spiritual science movement; it is only the continuation of what was already there. Materialism and egoism lead to the fragmentation of humanity, with individuals overlooking their own interests. Wisdom must bring people who have been separated by this process back together again. In complete freedom, without any coercion, people are brought together in wisdom. That is the task of the spiritual science movement in our time. We must be clear that we have to acquire wisdom in concrete terms. We are all familiar with the example of the stove, whose task is to heat the room. If we describe the stove's task in the most eloquent words and ask it to heat the room, it will not do so. Only when we light it can it fulfill its task. Thus, all talk of brotherhood and charity is of little value. Only knowledge brings us closer to the goal. For each individual and for humanity in general, the path to wisdom and brotherhood can only be achieved through knowledge.

[ 17 ] We have now followed this path through three types of mysteries. Spiritual science must ensure that a small core of humanity understands what has been said in order to awaken understanding for it in the masses in the sixth race. This is the task that spiritual science must fulfill. A small part of the fifth root race will take the lead in development, spiritualizing manas and unfolding the spirit self. The greater part, however, will reach the peak of selfishness. That core of humanity which develops the spirit self will be the seed of the sixth root race, and the most advanced members of this core, the masters who have emerged from humanity, as we call them, will then lead humanity. The movement for spiritual knowledge strives toward this goal.