The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Tenth Lecture

[ 1 ] We have seen that in the Apocalypse of John we have a description of the initiation processes, or perhaps better said, of the initiation experiences of those to be initiated into Christianity. After we have allowed the entire content of the Apocalypse to pass before our souls in the last lectures, we will still have to answer the question: What is this document, historically speaking? Why does it exist as such a document? — But now that we have reached that important point which was revealed to us last time, at the transition of our Earth into a spiritual, initially into an astral state, with the appearance of certain strange beings in what has thus condensed in matter and split off from the normal course of our Earth's evolution, it will now be good, before we go forward, to obtain, so to speak, a kind of general overview of certain things that lie at the foundation of our anthroposophical view of the world. For you have seen that certain numerical concepts play a role in everything we have considered so far. And now we are about to gain an understanding of what the seven-headed and ten-horned beast is and what the two-horned beast is.

[ 2 ] We must first orient ourselves to the outline of world evolution. This proceeds entirely in accordance with very specific numerical relationships. The layman in such matters will very easily say, when he hears that the number seven and other numbers play such an important role in our considerations: Well, these anthroposophists are reviving that old superstition associated with the numbers seven and twelve and the like. — And as soon as our dear contemporaries hear of such things, which progresses in a regular manner according to the number seven, they speak of superstition, although these contemporaries of ours actually live in exactly the same superstition with regard to what they understand, for our contemporaries speak, for example, of the rainbow having seven colors, the tonal scale having seven tones, since the eighth is only a repetition of the prime. And in many other areas, too, people speak of the number seven, and rightly so. In no other sense than the physicist does when he speaks of the seven colors, and just as one speaks in music of the seven tones, so do we speak when we consider the great world relationships in relation to the number seven. The number seven is nothing more than the result of occult experience. Just as a person stands and counts the seven colors, the occultist counts seven successive states of world development. And because the wisdom of the world has always known and spoken of these things, they entered into the general consciousness and something particularly meaningful was found in the number seven. Precisely because the number seven was grounded in worldly circumstances, it became part of general belief, including superstition, of course.

[ 3 ] If we remember what we have said about the mystery of the seven trumpets, the seven seals, the seven epistles, what we have said about the seven successive periods of the Atlantean era, we can already see that we actually have continuous periods in the development of the world that repeat themselves in accordance with the number seven, and as a blueprint for the development of the world, we want to keep in mind that the number seven governs all parts of the development of the world.

[ 4 ] We have heard that before the Earth was Earth, it was the Moon, before it was the Moon, it was a solar planet, and before it was a sun, it was Saturn. After it has been Earth, it will pass into the state of Jupiter, then into the state of Venus, and finally into the state of Vulcan, so that we have seven successive planetary incarnations of our Earth: Saturn, Sun, Moon, Earth, Jupiter, Venus, and Vulcan. These are now the greatest divisions within our entire development, which we can, to a certain extent, survey clairvoyantly. We have already described the three states that preceded the Earth.

[ 5 ] Now let us be clear about the meaning of the whole development, why the Earth passes through these seven states. These seven states coincide with the development of human consciousness. Each of these states—Saturn, Sun, Moon, Earth, Jupiter, Venus, and Vulcan—characterizes a particular state of human consciousness. Let us look back to the ancient Saturn period. We know that what is present in human beings today did not yet exist then, but only the very first beginnings of their physical body. This first rudiment could not, of course, develop the kind of consciousness that humans have today. Other beings had human consciousness; humans at that time had a consciousness similar to that of the mineral world here on the physical plane today. We call this a deep trance consciousness. This was the first human predisposition on Saturn. This Saturn development was undergone for the reason that human beings could gradually advance to their higher states of consciousness. At that time, they underwent the first stage. So we have the Saturn development coinciding with the deep trance consciousness. This is the first stage of consciousness.

[ 6 ] Of course, you must not imagine that the degree of consciousness remains the same throughout the entire Saturn evolution, but essentially it is true that the degree of consciousness of human beings on Saturn can be characterized by deep trance consciousness. It is duller than even what humans have today in dreamless sleep, because today humans have the consciousness they went through on the second stage, during the solar evolution. So during the second stage, during the Sun's development, human beings went through dreamless sleep consciousness. It is the same consciousness that the plant world around us has today on the physical plane.

[ 7 ] Then came the Moon stage in evolution. During this stage, human beings experienced a consciousness that is easier to understand because human beings still have at least a remnant of this lunar consciousness in their dream consciousness. Today's dream consciousness is an intermediate state between dreamless sleep and the ordinary, bright, waking consciousness that lasts from morning to evening. So the third state of consciousness was reached on the moon, and it can be compared to today's dream-filled sleep, but with a completely different liveliness and vividness. Dream-filled sleep gives a consciousness that is composed of individual fragments of ideas and images and has only a slight degree of connection to the real external world. The lunar consciousness, which was a dream image consciousness, had very significant relationships with the external world. It corresponded exactly to what was present in the soul-spiritual environment. This was repeated during the Atlantean period of human evolution. We call it dream image consciousness, but we could also call it somnambulistic consciousness.

[ 8 ] The fourth consciousness is attained and experienced on our Earth, and it is the consciousness we call bright daytime consciousness or object consciousness.

[ 9 ] Human beings will ascend to a higher level of consciousness, of which most people today have no idea, during the Jupiter age, when everything we have already described and what is yet to be described following the Apocalypse of John has come to pass. Then, when human beings have emerged, so to speak, saved from the abyss and escaped decay, when they have ascended into the astralized and spiritualized Earth, this will be the basis for their attainment on Jupiter of what we can call conscious image consciousness. If one is to describe it, this can only be done from the experience of the initiated. For initiation is nothing other than the acquisition of the ability to attain in an earlier stage of development what normal humanity attains at a later stage. In conscious image consciousness, the human being is just as self-aware as he is today from morning to evening, but he does not only perceive external objects; in the field of vision of his soul he has images, and these are not images associated with a certain dullness, but rather embedded in bright daytime consciousness. So bright daytime consciousness and lunar consciousness together make up Jupiter consciousness. Man retains what he now has and acquires the ability to perceive the soul-spiritual.

[ 10 ] Today, the initiate not only sees the physical human being, but also perceives all kinds of spiritual formations surrounding and radiating from the human being, which are the expression of passions, instincts, thoughts—in a word, the aura. It surrounds and envelops the human being like fine flames, partly like a mist of light. Everything that can be seen in this way in the human astral body by the initiate, just as the physical body with its limitations is seen by the ordinary physical eye, is an image of what is going on in the souls. In such an initiated soul there is a consciousness that we can describe as lunar consciousness plus earth consciousness.

[ 11 ] Then, on Venus, a sixth state of consciousness arises, which we can describe as inspired consciousness, the consciousness of inspiration, consciousness of inspiration because at this level of consciousness the initiate is not only able to perceive what is inherent in the soul in terms of feelings, drives, passions, and so on, but because he perceives the entire inner character of the soul in a unified tone. He begins to perceive that which permeates the world of, let us say, color and form structures like the music of the spheres, so that every single entity within what was previously perceived as an astral image appears as a sound structure. The seventh level of consciousness, which will exist on the volcano, we can call intuitive consciousness. Intuition is not the trivial thing that is commonly understood today, where someone believes they can recognize something through a vague feeling; that is a misuse of the word. In the schools of the initiated, intuition is used for the highest conceivable stage of consciousness, where the soul is one, identical with the beings, where it is within the beings and identifies with them. Although the soul remains completely individual, it is contained within all the things and beings in its field of vision.

[ 12 ] Thus, the seven stages of the entire evolution of the earth represent seven successive states of consciousness. Each state of consciousness must in turn be attained in seven stages. We call these seven stages, which must be passed through each time, stages of life, so that we distinguish between seven stages of consciousness and seven stages of life in each stage of consciousness. It is difficult to find words in our language for these seven stages of life. If we consider only our Earth, we can describe the stages of life by speaking of the seven kingdoms, for the stages of life on Earth coincide with the seven kingdoms. We designate the first stage of life as the first elemental kingdom, the second as the second, the third as the third elemental kingdom, the fourth as the mineral kingdom, the fifth as the plant kingdom, the sixth as the animal kingdom, and the seventh as the human kingdom. Now we could say: At each of these stages of consciousness, seven such stages of life are passed through or seven kingdoms are completed. But if we were to describe the seven stages of life on Saturn in the same way, as the first, second, and third elemental kingdom, as the mineral, plant, animal, and human kingdoms, this would only give rise to false ideas, because the terms for these kingdoms are based on our earthly experiences, and in those ancient times the kingdoms were structured very differently from what is the case today on Earth. We can only say: analogous to these realms, there were seven realms on Saturn and seven on the sun. The seven realms of the moon were already closer, and what the seven stages of life on Earth are has become the seven realms on Earth. And on Earth, we can describe them more easily, although it is extremely difficult today to give people an idea of the three elemental realms. People believe they have a healthy conception of the mineral, plant, animal, and human kingdoms, although this is not the case.

[ 13 ] Perhaps you will succeed in forming some kind of conception of the three elemental kingdoms if you say the following to yourself. Imagine stones, metals, and so on, and these members of the mineral kingdom becoming finer and finer, so that you see less and less of them, so that they dissolve, as it were, into ever finer substance. Let us suppose that you allow them all to evaporate, so that they are actually only very fine substance through which you can see, but which is no longer visible to you. From such formations, if they were refined even further, something would emerge that is ultimately no longer a mineral kingdom, but the third elemental kingdom. Then we would ascend to the second, to the first elemental kingdom. It is difficult for today's sensibilities to imagine these kingdoms that are hidden and condensed within our world. It is as if these elemental realms had disappeared into our world in a condensed form. They precede our mineral realm. We have seen when this mineral realm itself was formed. In earlier periods of the Earth's development, this mineral realm existed in the state of the elemental realms.

[ 14 ] Now to the other four kingdoms. You see the mineral kingdom around you, and likewise the plant, animal, and human kingdoms. But we must be clear that these names are not entirely correct in the true esoteric sense. The layman calls today's minerals belonging to the mineral kingdom, plants to the plant kingdom, animals to the animal kingdom, and humans to the human kingdom. This is correct in layman's terms and is perfectly adequate for all trivial things in life, but in the occult sense it is incorrect. For today, human beings are only complete in the mineral kingdom. Only in future periods of development will he ascend to the plant, animal, and human kingdoms. We can certainly call human beings human today because they have an ego consciousness, but we cannot yet say that they are embodied in the human kingdom in the sense of secret science, because something else is necessary for that. We must discuss this.

[ 15 ] What can human beings comprehend today? That is what matters. Today they can only understand the mineral kingdom. As soon as they come to the plant kingdom, they no longer understand. They can understand the mineral kingdom; from the forces of the mineral kingdom they can assemble machines, houses, and so on. Only when they learn to see through what forces in a plant make that plant grow will their consciousness lift them into the plant kingdom. And when they learn to understand how an animal feels—now they can only get an external view of this—that makes them members of the animal kingdom. And when he understands not only his own self, but also another, when he understands a human being completely inwardly, only then does he belong to the human kingdom.

[ 16 ] You will understand best that human beings today can only understand the mineral kingdom if you consider the following. Consider that a large number of scholars say: Yes, plants and animals are nothing more than complicated minerals. And these scholars are waiting to be able to combine substances in such a way that they become plants and animals. They give themselves over to the illusion that plants can be understood as mineral beings because they have no idea that there is anything else besides the mineral kingdom. Many say: You anthroposophists dream that there is an etheric body, something that goes beyond the merely mineral, but you should stop dreaming when we succeed in the laboratory in constructing a living being from individual substances, from carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen, and so on, just as sulfuric acid is composed today. — People believe that living beings can be constructed in the same way that sulfuric acid can be synthesized; they believe that purely materialistic science will one day be able to do this. They believe that anthroposophists are foolish to doubt that a time will come when plants will actually be produced in the laboratory.

[ 17 ] That time will come. But those who stand on occult ground have always said so. They know that the time will come when human beings will absorb plant life into their own nature in the same way as they have absorbed the mineral kingdom today. And just as he builds houses from minerals, just as he uses the forces of the mineral kingdom today, so will he one day create plant structures and even higher forms in the laboratory from the forces of the plant kingdom, which will then be well known to him, without having to resort to seeds or call upon the forces of nature in their incomprehensible manner. But if this possibility of creating a living being in the laboratory were to arise prematurely, it would be what is called black magic for those who stand on the true ground of occult science. Human beings must first become ripe for each step of development.

[ 18 ] There is an occult saying that goes: Only when the laboratory table has become an altar and chemical work a sacramental act will human beings be able to produce living beings on the experiment table in the same way that they now produce mineral products. This is an occult saying that has always been spoken. Truly, as long as people go into the laboratory and believe that they can do the same thing with unholy feelings as with holy ones, they will never be able to create a living being in the laboratory with the will of those who are rightly guiding evolution. This will only be possible when people realize that a mineral product can indeed be produced, even if a villain is standing at the laboratory table, but that a living being can never be produced if this is the case. For when a living being is assembled, something flows into it that is within the human being himself. If the human being were a villain, the villainy would flow over and the being that came into being would be an imprint of villainy. Only when we understand what it means that the human being as a whole, with his entire inner being, works in what he creates, only then will the world be ready to create living beings, plants, animals, and human beings in free activity. Then humans will have ascended into the plant kingdom when they understand the plant world as well as they now understand the mineral world. They will have ascended into the animal kingdom when they understand sensation so well that they can create a sentient being through their own spiritual power, just as they now create an object. And he will have ascended to the human kingdom when he can freely recreate the human being.

[ 19 ] Thus, human beings exist today in the mineral kingdom, and this being that we are as human beings is, in essence, the only being that has already developed completely in the mineral kingdom, while the other kingdoms are in many respects at a much lower level than that which occultism refers to as the mineral kingdom. Thus, plants show us a kind of preliminary stage of what humans will experience when they themselves are in the plant kingdom. But plants are not in the plant kingdom; they are at most models, not archetypes, but indications of a future kingdom in which humans will be, in which they will experience plant nature inwardly as they experience mineral nature today.

[ 20 ] This plant kingdom in which human beings will exist will be distinguished by other things as well. Above all, it will be distinguished by a moral principle that is sometimes expressed today with the intellect, but is still far from being understood. Today, human beings live in such a way that one can say: the individual, even if he does not admit it, is convinced that the happiness of the individual is possible even if the unhappiness of another prevails alongside it. It is quite possible today for one person to feel happy even though other people are unhappy. Even if it is conceded intellectually that the highest morality is that which makes all people happy, in practice people are convinced that the happiness of the individual is quite possible without others being as happy as they are. When humans reach the plant kingdom, they will have attained a stage of moral development where it will be impossible for them to feel happy as individuals if others like them are unhappy. “The happiness of the individual is inseparably linked to the happiness of all”: this statement will prevail when humans are accepted into the plant kingdom. No human being could feel happy if his happiness were to fall outside the happiness of all.

[ 21 ] You see, then, that very few of today's sensibilities are capable of grasping such subtle concepts as we must have in occultism if we want to understand everything. But you also see that human beings still have a long series of developments ahead of them. They must achieve all this, and very little of it is yet present.

[ 22 ] We are therefore speaking of seven realms through which human beings themselves pass. On Jupiter there will again be seven realms, which are still somewhat similar to the seven realms of Earth, but already very different from them. On Venus there will again be seven, and on Vulcan again. Here they can no longer be called realms; the term realm no longer fits here. When we consider all this, we must say: we have first of all seven stages of consciousness, the Saturn, Sun, Moon, Earth, Jupiter, Venus, and Vulcan stages, and on each stage of consciousness there are seven stages of life through which every being must pass as it progresses through the degrees of consciousness. Each stage of life must in turn pass through seven stages of form, in such a way that you must regard the so-called physical stage of form, which you now have around you, as the middle one. Before something becomes physical, it is astral; before it becomes astral, it is on a certain spiritual stage called the lower Devachan; and before something descends to this stage, it is in a higher Devachan stage. So we have three stages of form. The first can still be called formless, then the next is a form stage that we call the lower Devachan stage, then we come to the astral stage. When the astral becomes denser, it becomes physical. Then the physical dissolves again and returns to a more perfect astral, which goes to a more perfect lower Devachan and this to the higher Devachan. The physical state of form is the middle one.

[ 23 ] Every realm passes through seven states of form. You must distinguish between the physical and the mineral; they are not the same thing. Because today the physical coincides with the mineral in appearance, it is easy to confuse the two. The mineral realm passes through all stages of form. It can be predisposed as a mineral realm at the highest Devachanic stage. It then descends to the lower spiritual stage and is always a mineral realm, then to the astral realm, where it is preformed as astral, and then it condenses into the physical. Thus, we have seven states of form in each realm (see diagram).

[ 24 ] Each state of consciousness can only be passed through by passing through seven states of life. Each state of life passes through seven states of form. This gives 7 times 7 times 7 states. In fact, an entire development, such as that of the Earth, passes through 7 times 7 times 7 states. Our Earth was once Saturn; it went through 7 states of life, each state of life having 7 life forms or form states. So you have 49 form states on Saturn, 49 on the sun, 49 on the moon, and so on, 7 times 49 = 343 form states. Man passes through 343 states. When Saturn was at the very beginning of its development, it began first in the highest spiritual realm that we can reach, as a structure that existed in the highest Devachan. That was the first state of form; it was entirely mineral. It descended as such a being into the physical realm, then ascended again to the upper Devachan. And here the great difficulty begins, because you would now have to say, if you want to use the terms mentioned: Man passes into the next realm. But these terms do not apply to Saturn. In this way, the human being passes through 49 states on Saturn. The strange thing is that you can now ask: Surely the human being must pass through states of life on Saturn. But he only receives an etheric body on the Sun. How can one say that he passes through states of life? — They are not yet as they will be later, when he has a life body; they are representative. This is brought about by the influence of higher beings. Man has no independent life on Saturn, but higher beings permeate him with their etheric body, their astral body, their I, and so on.

[ 25 ] In any case, you must understand that human beings have passed through 49 states on Saturn, 49 on the Sun, and 49 on the Moon. On Earth, human beings have only passed through the first three states of life out of these 49. Today, they are in the fourth state of life, namely in the mineral kingdom. In the first state of life, they were in the first elemental kingdom and went through seven form states; in the second state of life, they were in the second elemental kingdom and went through seven form states; in the third elemental kingdom, they went through the seven form states and are now in the fourth elemental kingdom, which is the same as the mineral kingdom, and are approximately in the middle of it. It is slightly beyond the middle of the mineral kingdom.

[ 26 ] In any case, from all that we have considered as a basic outline, you have seen that the whole earth passes through 343 states. I ask you now to imagine this: Saturn comes into being and passes through 49 states. Saturn is first a fiery, warm mass and passes through various states, but it is always the same sphere that passes through these 49 states. Likewise, the sun is always one and the same sphere that passes through the 49 states. There are only intermediate states. It is as if there were a kind of spiritual space between the individual incarnations. It is the same with planets as with human beings. Thus, the planets also pass through such a spiritual intermediate stage, which lies everywhere between these states.

[ 27 ] So when you realize that we have seven states of consciousness in the course of our development, you will also understand how this relates to what you find described in various books of theosophical literature. These are cosmic systems. It is said that our Earth once had a beginning and developed from an ancient planetary system called the Moon. One would have to go further back from the Moon to the Sun, from the Sun to Saturn. Each of these states breaks down into the seven states of life, usually called “rounds.” “Rounds” are the same as states of life. And what are called states of form here are usually called “globes.” This is extremely misleading. People have imagined these seven globes as spheres lying next to each other:

[ 28 ] These states, from the outermost, still bordering on the formless, through the physical, and back up to the formless, are not seven spheres existing side by side, but seven successive states. First, what is physical today existed as the same sphere in a spiritual form, then it became denser and denser. It is the same sphere, simply condensed. Then part of it became astral, then part physical; it is always the same sphere. It dissolves again like salt in lukewarm water and becomes astral once more. We have ascended to this astral realm, where the “bowls of wrath” are described to us in the Apocalypse. There, the earth becomes astral again.

[ 29 ] So you see how the number seven dominates the entire development, and what we have described in the past through various images — sometimes with quite grotesque images and in any case with images that differ greatly from what what human beings can see today in the physical world — we have now presented as a skeleton, as a framework. When you present it in this way, it is roughly like erecting the framework of a house, the outermost part, the part intended for the bricklayers. This has nothing to do with the thing itself; these are, so to speak, only thoughts about the thing. We must ascend from this pure thought scheme, which helps us to understand, to the living structure, for example by using the images that can be seen in the astral world for the various states; only then do we have what is called “occult wisdom.” As long as you build such a framework, you remain with the thinking you are accustomed to in the physical world. The entire scheme we have outlined is merely physical thinking. It bears no more relation to complete reality than the internal framework of a house bears to the finished building, but only to the scaffolding outside on which the builders stand. This must be torn down again when the building is finished. And so the framework of thought must be torn down again if one wants to see the truth as it really is. If one regards this abstraction as reality, then one is not talking about real occultism at all, but only about the idea that people in the present age can form of occult facts. The way people today tailor occult facts to suit themselves is contained in such a scheme. But that is fruitless. I had to present it because we also need such a scheme. But basically, it is of no help whatsoever to those who want to advance on a truly occult path. If you describe the whole world, right up to the highest occult facts, by means of such schemes, this has only meaning for your present incarnation. In the next one, you have to learn such a scheme again. You can only think this by using your brain; it is only tailored to the brain. But since this is broken down at death, this whole description according to the scheme is completely scattered. If, on the other hand, you grasp what really happens, what we have described as the succession of seal images, what the clairvoyant consciousness gives, if you grasp this, initially in the imagination, then this is something that is not bound to your physical brain, something that remains with you after death, because it does not arise from physical thinking, but gives the facts clairvoyantly. One must therefore be careful not to regard what is sought today according to the pattern of physical comprehensibility, which also seeks to schematize the higher worlds, as real occultism. That is description by means of the ordinary physical mind. Of course, the physical mind must play a role. It is therefore useful to set up such a scheme, and we can go even further in our scheme.

[ 30 ] We have seen that we pass through 343 states. But now the matter becomes complicated when we realize that this is not the end of the story, but that human beings must also pass through various states within a form state. The present physical form state has been preceded by three others and will be followed by three others. But now the physical state in turn passes through seven states, and these are the seven we spoke of in the previous days: the first, where the sun is still connected to the earth; the second, where it detaches itself; the third, where the moon disappears; the fourth, that of the Atlantean humanity. The Atlantean humanity lives in the fourth period of development of the physical form state. And so you have seven so-called race states for each form state, although the term “race” only applies to our middle state. And now we ourselves have the fifth state, the one in which we live: the post-Atlantean time between the great Atlantean flood and the great war of all against all. We live in this period. Then another follows, the sixth, then the seventh. The sixth period is hinted at in the Apocalypse of John through the seven seals, the seventh through the seven trumpets. Then it passes into the astral. This is a new form state, which in turn will have seven states. Our scheme is not yet complete. We must divide each such state, as it flows between an event such as the great flood and the great war of all against all, into seven states. For the fifth state, these are called: the Indian cultural epoch, the Persian cultural epoch, the Chaldean-Babylonian-Assyrian-Egyptian-Jewish epoch, the Greek-Latin epoch, our epoch, then the sixth, indicated in the Apocalypse by the church of Philadelphia, and the seventh cultural epoch, which in turn replaces it.

[ 31 ] So if we think of the whole evolution as consisting of such small states — which are still long enough — we have 7 times 7 times 7 times 7 times 7 such stages of development as the ancient Indian or the ancient Persian. Humans go through so many different states between Saturn and Vulcan.

[ 32 ] So you see how the number seven dominates the entire development in successive periods. Just as musical tones progress from octave to octave, so the whole process of becoming flows in octaves of becoming.

[ 33 ] Now let us remember that we have seven of these states from the 16,807 in our time between the great Atlantic flood and the great war of all against all, and that we also had seven in the Atlantean time. But we also remember that man went through four of these seven states of the Atlantean era under completely different circumstances than the three later ones. So now we know what these states are and how we are to count them. Man went through four of these states of the great number during the Atlantean era in such a way that he felt himself to be a group soul, as we have indicated in the forms of the eagle, the lion, the bull, and man. He gradually formed these four group souls during the four root races of the Atlantean era. Because races always remain, as the Indian race has remained, for example, even though later ones have developed — things live within each other — the four heads that represented the group souls also remained at the beginning of the fifth Atlantic cultural epoch. We have this four-headed animal.

[ 34 ] Now, at the same time as human beings began to harden from the etheric into the physical, they formed four different body members in accordance with their fourfold soul. And because what was formerly group soul consciousness has been transformed into individual consciousness, human beings at the beginning of the fifth epoch of Atlantis have a confluence of the former fourfold nature. They carry the four heads within themselves, which are summed up in their head, which gradually emerges. This is composed of the four group heads as they develop during the fifth period. Corresponding to these four heads, human beings have four parts of their physical body. These are, first of all, the four “horns,” so that you can imagine: because human beings were etheric beings, they had four heads, four animal heads—only the last one is already human—for that is what is meant. They were four-headed, and each force system corresponding to one of these heads formed physical organs. Yesterday we saw that it was a force system that formed our heart, namely the one connected with the lion's head. The individual organs of the human being are like condensations of the corresponding limbs of the etheric body.

[ 35 ] This is how the apocalyptic thinker thinks. He says to himself: That which is physical is a thickening of the etheric. — Just as you would think: This skin thickens and forms a callus, so the apocalypticist thinks: The human being exists etherically, and this thickens and becomes physical. — And because the human being exists fourfold as four group souls, four such thickenings form. These make up his physical body. That is why what corresponds to the etheric body in the physical body is called “horn.” Horn is a calloused thickening. Man, as he has just become in the fourth period of the Atlantean epoch, is described as an animal with four heads and four horns.

[ 36 ] Now it develops further into the individual human being. This begins in the vicinity of present-day Ireland. The human being goes through three final periods in such a way that he has the potential to become an I-human being. If you follow their physical development externally, you will see that they no longer form animal bodies, but have ascended to the human stage. They develop humanity more and more until they take in the Christ principle. When we look at human beings today, we say: They were not always as they are now. In order to become what he is, he had to pass through four animal group souls, he had to be embodied in bodies corresponding to the present-day forms of the lion, the bull, the eagle, and the human being. Then he rose higher and became more and more human-like, and the form of the earlier group soul disappeared. It is no longer there; the human being has become human-like.

[ 37 ] Now, however, you must also become clear about an important event that occurred at that time when the human being became human-like, and without understanding which you can never comprehend the Apocalypse of John, an event of the greatest importance. Until this event, when man passed into human soul life, what later became apparent was completely hidden from human sight. Man had a kind of dull, dim consciousness. When he woke up in the morning, he saw everything as if surrounded by mist, and when he fell asleep, he was in the spiritual world. This appeared to them in images, for that is the nature of the spiritual world. Now I will describe to you something that took place before human beings physically entered the human state, before they emerged from group soulhood into full ego consciousness.

[ 38 ] What human beings experienced here on earth consisted only of a number of experiences. Then they fell asleep and during sleep were in a dull state of consciousness in a spiritual world where they lived among gods and spirits, echoes of which can be found in myths and legends. There they experienced powerful images, for example, the image of encountering two other beings who threw stones behind them, and from the stones that were thrown, other beings of the same kind grew out of the earth, beings like themselves. These were experiences that human beings had throughout the entire fourth period of the Atlantean epoch. If we want to express this clearly, we must say that all human reproduction took place not in waking consciousness, but in sleeping consciousness. When humans were outside their physical bodies and in the spiritual world, they set in motion, in this state of consciousness where everything appeared to them in images, the facts that had to happen for reproduction, and the entire act of reproduction was shrouded in the spiritual and appeared to them in the image of throwing stones behind them. The entire act of procreation was shrouded in spiritual consciousness, lay behind daytime consciousness. Man knew nothing of sexuality. In daytime consciousness, he did not see himself as existing in two sexes, and his soul was untouched by any thought of sexuality. Not that it did not exist. It existed, but it lay dormant in the darkness of spiritual consciousness. It did not exist for humans during daytime consciousness.

[ 39 ] With the attainment of the first seed of ego-consciousness, humans become aware of sexuality for the first time. This is the moment depicted in the Bible when Adam and Eve become aware that there is such a thing as sexuality. This is the momentous and dramatic moment in the evolution of the earth. And if you look back clairvoyantly to the time that preceded it, you see only those aspects of human beings that are the tools of the spirit. The rest was completely invisible. Human beings could only be seen in their upper form. And from the moment mentioned above, people began to see human beings in their entirety. We can now understand why people began to cover themselves. Before, they saw nothing that needed to be covered. Thus, human beings gradually emerged into the outer world.

[ 40 ] If we regard the outer human form as the condensation of the etheric, then in the fourth Atlantean stage we have the four horns corresponding to the four group soul heads. Now, however, a duality begins to develop in the physical realm for the last three Atlantean epochs. For each stage in which a group soul head was to develop further, a dual physical form, male and female, developed. For the first four stages, they formed the human being with four heads, the condensed etheric with four horns. Now we have three further heads, which are not visible because they are absorbed by the outer human form and cannot be represented. These three can only be perceived by clairvoyants: three etheric heads, the main human heads, each with two horns that are like shadows beside them, like double shadows. Thus, when the Atlantean flood came, we had seven generic or group soul heads, the last three of which always appear in such a way that they have their physical form in two forms, always as male and female. From this you can see that the entire group soul nature of the human being at the end of the Atlantean epoch, even if what comes later remains invisible, has seven heads and ten horns. The first four heads do not have male and female horns separately, but the last three do have male and female horns separately.

[ 41 ] Human beings have the seven heads and ten horns within themselves. They must now work on these through the acceptance of the Christ principle so that they are, so to speak, destroyed. For every time a human being dies today, the seven heads and ten horns can be clearly seen in their astral body. This is only held together like rubber that has been formed accordingly. Suppose that human beings hardened themselves against the Christ principle during our time and arrived at the time of the great war of all against all without having had the Christ experience, arrived and rejected Christ, then when the earth passes into the astral, what was there what it had brought about, what it should have transformed, would spring forth, spring forth in its old form. The beast would appear with seven heads and ten horns, while for those who have accepted the Christ principle, sexuality will once again be overcome. The hardened will probably preserve the six-horned sexuality and will appear in their entirety as the beast with the seven heads and ten horns, which were predisposed in the Atlantean era. They can be transformed by accepting the Christ impulse. But if Christ is rejected, they will remain and reappear in the time indicated by the pouring out of the bowls of wrath, when the earth appears, as it were, split into two parts: in the part where the Christ-people appear in white robes as the chosen ones, already at the time of the seals, and in the other part, where people appear in the form of the beast with seven heads and ten horns. Then another beast appears with two horns, symbolized by the number 666.