The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Eighth Lecture

[ 1 ] A seer such as the writer of the Apocalypse is already able to see the future of human development in the astral world. What will happen after the war of all against all is already being prepared. The people who are called upon to carry over the development for the future from the war of all against all are already being prepared through theosophical wisdom teaching. The spiritual stream of wisdom will increasingly assert itself in a comprehensive manner.

[ 2 ] When clairvoyant vision observes human beings today, it sees the etheric body protruding slightly beyond the physical upper body. The etheric body of the man is female and that of the woman is male. The astral body, on the other hand, is a fluid structure, highly changeable in color and form, varying according to the inner life of the human being. When we raise a hand, the impulse must come from the astral body; when we walk, when we cry or laugh, these are impulses from the astral body that influence the physical body. But what has the most essential influence on human beings is their I. The I works entirely indirectly through the astral body.

[ 3 ] In ancient Atlantean times and in Lemurian times, human beings were not only able to stretch out their limbs, but they could also extend and inflate them. At that time, the physical body was only a very small enclosure; the etheric body and the astral body, on the other hand, were enormous. The astral body sometimes looked like this animal form, sometimes like that. Human beings constantly changed their physical form, depending on the desires and impulses they carried within themselves. At that time, the air was filled with dense mist, much denser and more watery than our mountain mists today. The physical body of humans had the most diverse colors and shapes, and one could already see hints of its physical organization, such as the blood and bone systems, in its gelatinous substance. Towards the end of Atlantis, the air was cleansed of the dense watery masses. Only then could humans become the creatures of air and earth that they are today. As Atlanteans, people did not see the sun as we do today, but as a powerful ring of sunlight. Since the air was never free of water at that time, there were no rainbows. Only when water and air separated did rainbows become possible. The entire process of the Atlantean flood is described in the story of Noah and the rainbow. (Genesis 9:12-17)

[ 4 ] Now it was also necessary that the beings on earth develop in such a way that they went through their stages of development at completely different times. If part of humanity had not waited to descend into the denser physical body during the first Atlantic epoch, the human form would have remained as it was then, with everything that was still expressed in physical form as the impulses, desires, and passions of the astral body. At that time, there were beings who had become solidified and hardened. The animal groups are nothing more than beings that hardened too early. What human beings today carry in their astral bodies as desires and passions has expressed itself in the physical bodies of various animals. Each of these animal groups has developed a particular instinct and has become fixed in it. During the Lemurian era, it was the mammals; they are human passions that have become fixed. What we carry within ourselves is represented in the image of the various animals. In us humans, the instincts are gradually refined, and we can hide them in our hearts. Thus, in the earliest times, during the wild outbursts of Lemurian forces of nature, the lowest instincts of the human being first shot into the physical body. The apes are, so to speak, the representatives of the last lower instincts that shot into physical matter before human beings themselves hardened their souls in matter. In some animals, for example in horses, we still find today, as a peculiarity, the etheric body of the head protruding above the physical head. This was also the case with the Atlantean human being. A certain point in the human etheric body only moved into the corresponding place in the physical head in the last third of the Atlantean epoch. Only then did human beings become capable of forming their spiritual form.

[ 5 ] There are sixteen groups of human instincts and passions, and there are also sixteen groups of animals. Zoology will one day recognize how all this gradually emerged. We can easily indicate how the various members of the mammalian nature had to separate. The formation of hooves, for example, came about because the nature of the animal closed itself off from the outside world in a very special way. The claws or paws were formed through aggression. The clawed nature expresses a completely different stage of development from that of the hoofed animals. We also see this contrast expressed in the figures of the centaur and the sphinx.

[ 6 ] In the second part of “Faust,” an occult book of great importance, this is depicted when the sphinxes encounter Mephistopheles and laugh at him because of his horse's hoof, a sign of nature hardened in the hoof, a nature that has closed itself off selfishly from the world.

[ 7 ] When we cut our finger, we feel it through pain; this is shown to us by the bearer of sensations, the astral body. In earlier times, when the whole of human nature was still soft, hair growth was also permeated by astral forces. We are told that Esau had thick hair; he was simply backward in his development and in his power of judgment. Jacob was able to outwit him because he was already further advanced in the development of his power of judgment, his ego. Such forces are still at work in human beings today, working more outwardly. The more the ego gains control over the astral body, the more the physical body will be able to be remodeled. Today, human beings have their karma within themselves as a life account, as the balance sheet of everything that human beings have prepared in their various incarnations. But because the human physical body expresses very little of the ego, human beings have their karma internally, immediately; later, however, it will be expressed on their faces. In the future, humanity will develop in such a way that it will carry its karma on its face. It will no longer be being born into a particular race or climate that will determine one's outward appearance; instead, there will be a class of good people and a class of evil people. Let us understand correctly what Paul means when he says, “I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me.” (cf. Gal. 2:20) What is called the absorption of the Yahweh-Christ nature will later show itself in the outer appearance of human beings. Today it is still possible for people to be scoundrels and hide it, but in the future people will bear the mark of their inner nature on their foreheads.

[ 8 ] Let us look at human beings after the war of all against all. We can imagine them as people with radiant, good features and a noble, benevolent expression. This will be granted to those who have taken up the spiritual impulses at the right time. In the future, all moral, intellectual, and spiritual forces will be visible to us in the outer appearance of human beings. What is taken up today is sealed in the souls; but this will be unsealed in the seventh period, after the war of all against all.

[ 9 ] This is what the apocalyptic writer sees in the seven seals that are gradually being broken. The “book with seven seals” is not meant in the sense of our books or ancient scrolls. It refers to a sequence of events. The sequence of epochs is the concept of the apocalyptic “book,” just as, for example, the evangelist Matthew speaks of the sequence of generations, of the descent of Jesus of Nazareth. This is how sequences emerge. This is depicted in the book that can be unsealed by the power of the Lamb.

[ 10 ] This gives us an idea of what is meant by the seven seals.