Donate books to help fund our work. Learn more→

The Rudolf Steiner Archive

a project of Steiner Online Library, a public charity

Egyptian Myths and Mysteries
GA 106

2 September 1908, Leipzig

First Lecture

Spiritual Connections between the Culture-streams of Ancient and Modern Times

If we ask ourselves what spiritual science should be for men, then presumably, out of all sorts of reactions and feelings that we have developed in the course of our work in this field, we will place the following answer before our souls: Spiritual science should be for us a path to the higher development of our humanity, of all that is human in us.

Thus we set up a life-aim, which in a certain way is self-understood for every thinking and feeling person, a life-aim that includes the achieving of the highest ideals and also includes the unfolding of the deepest and most significant forces in our souls. The best men in all ages have asked themselves how man can rightly bring to expression what lies within him, and to this question the most diverse answers have been given. Perhaps none can be found that is terser or more telling than the answer Goethe gave out of a deep conviction in his Geheimnisse:

“From the power that binds all beings
That man frees himself who overcomes himself.”

Deep meaning lies in these words, for they show us clearly and pregnantly what lies at the heart of all evolution. This is that man develops his inner feeling through rising above himself. Thereby we lift ourselves, so to speak, above ourselves. The soul that overcomes itself finds the path that leads beyond itself to the highest treasures of humanity. This lofty goal of spiritual research should be borne in mind when we undertake to treat such a theme as the one that is to occupy us here. It will lead us beyond the ordinary horizons of life to sublime things. We will have to survey wide reaches of time if we take as our subject an epoch stretching from ancient Egypt down to our own day. We will have to pass millennia in review, and what we gain therefrom will really be something connected with the deepest concerns of our souls, something that grips our innermost soul-life. Only apparently does the man who strives toward the heights of life remove himself from his immediate surroundings; just through this he comes to an understanding of his daily concerns. Man must get away from the troubles of the day, from what his routine brings to him, and look up to the great events of the history of the world and its peoples. Then for the first time he finds what is most sacred for his soul. It may seem strange to suggest that connections, intimate connections, should be sought for between our own time and ancient Egypt, when the mighty pyramids and the Sphinx appeared. It can at first seem remarkable that one should understand his own time better by directing his gaze so far back. But just for this purpose we are going to look backward over much wider and more comprehensive epochs. This will bring the result we seek: The possibility of transcending ourselves.

To one who has already carefully studied the ideas of spiritual science, it will not seem strange that one should look for a connection between widely separated periods of time. It is one of our basic convictions that the human soul continually returns, that the experiences between birth and death occur repeatedly for us. The doctrine of reincarnation has become ever more familiar to us. When we reflect on this we may ask: Since these souls that dwell in us today have often been here before, is it possible that they were also present in ancient Egypt during Egyptian cultural epoch, that the same souls are in us which at that time looked up at the gigantic pyramids and the enigmatic Sphinxes?

The answer to this question is, Yes. Our souls have beheld the old cultural monuments that they see again today. The same souls that lived then have gone through later periods and have appeared again in our own time. We know that no life remains without fruit; we know that what the soul has gone through in the way of experiences remains within it and appears in later incarnations as powers, temperament, capacities, and dispositions. Thus the way we look on nature today, the way we take up what our times bring forth, the way we view the world, all this was prepared in ancient Egypt, in the land of the pyramids. We were then prepared in such a way that we now look at the physical world as we do. Just how these widely separated periods link themselves together is what we will now explore.

If we want to grasp the deeper meaning of these lectures, we must go a long way back in earthly evolution, We know that our earth has often changed. Before ancient Egypt there were still other cultures. By means of occult research we can see much further back into the gray primeval times of human evolution, and we come to times when the earth appeared quite other than it is today. Things were entirely different in ancient Asia and Africa. If we look back clairvoyantly into primeval times, we come to a point where a tremendous catastrophe, caused by water-forces, took place on our earth and fundamentally altered its face. If we go still further back, we reach a time when the earth had an entirely different physiognomy, when what now forms the floor of the Atlantic Ocean, between Europe and America, was above water, was land. We come to a time when our souls lived in entirely different bodies than today; we reach ancient Atlantis, of which our external science can as yet say little.

The regions of Atlantis were destroyed through colossal deluges. Human bodies had different forms at that time, but the souls that live in us today lived also in the ancient Atlanteans. Those were our souls. Then the water-catastrophe caused a movement of the Atlantean peoples, a great migration from west to east. We ourselves were these peoples. Toward the end of Atlantis all was in movement. We wandered from the west toward the east, through Ireland, Scotland, Holland, France, and Spain. Thus the peoples moved eastward and populated Europe, Asia, and the northern parts of Africa.

It must not be imagined that those who, in the last great migration, wandered out of the west into the regions that have gradually developed into Asia, Europe, and Africa, did not encounter other peoples. Almost all of Europe, the northern parts of Africa, and large parts of Asia were already inhabited at that time. These areas were not peopled from the west only; they had already been settled earlier, so that this migration found a strange population already established. We may assume that when quieter times set in, special cultural relations arose. There was, for instance, in the neighborhood of Ireland, a region where, before the catastrophe that now lies thousands of years behind us, there lived the most advanced portions of the entire population of the earth. These portions then migrated, under the special guidance of great individualities, through Europe to a region of central Asia, and from that point cultural colonies were sent out to the most diverse places. One such colony of the post-Atlantean time was sent from this group of people into India, finding a population that had been seated there from primeval times and had its own culture. Paying due heed to what was already present, these colonists founded the first post-Atlantean culture. This was many thousand years ago, and external documents tell us scarcely anything about it. What appears in these documents is much later. In those great compendiums of Wisdom called the Vedas, we have only the final echoes of a very early Indian culture that was directed by super-earthly beings and was founded by the Holy Rishis. It was a culture of a unique kind, and we today can form only a feeble idea of it because the Vedas are only a reflection of that primeval holy Indian culture.

After this culture there followed another, the second cultural epoch of the post-Atlantean time. Out of this the wisdom of Zarathustra flowed and the Persian culture arose. Long did the Indian culture endure, long also the Persian, reaching a culmination in Zarathustra.

Then arose, under the influence of colonists who were sent into the land of the Nile, the culture that is comprised under the four names, Chaldean-Egyptian-Assyrian-Babylonian. This third post-Atlantean culture arose in Asia Minor and northern Africa, and reached its summit, on the one side, in the wonderful Chaldean star-lore and, on the other, in the Egyptian culture.

Then comes a fourth age, developing in the south of Europe, the age of the Greco-Roman culture, which dawns with the songs of Homer and goes on to produce the Greek sculptures and the art of poetry that appears in the tragedies of Aeschylus and Sophocles. Rome also belonged to this period. The epoch begins in the eighth pre-Christian century, approximately in 747 B. C., and lasts until the fourteenth or fifteenth century A. D. After that we have the fifth period, in which we ourselves live, and this in turn will be followed by the sixth and seventh periods.

In the seventh period, ancient India will appear in a new form. We shall see that there is a remarkable law that enables us to understand the working of wonderful forces through the various epochs and the relationships of the epochs to each other. If we begin by looking at the first period, that of the Indian culture, we will find that this first culture later recrudesces in a new form in the seventh period. Ancient India will then appear in a new form. Mysterious forces are at work here. And the second period, which we have called the Persian, will appear again in the sixth period. After our own culture perishes, we will see the Zarathustra religion revive in the culture of the sixth period. And in the course of these lectures we will see how, in our own fifth period, there takes place a sort of reawakening of the third period, the Egyptian. The fourth period stands in the middle; it is peculiar to itself, and neither earlier nor later does it have a parallel.

To make this mysterious law somewhat clearer, we should add the following. We know that India has something that strikes our humanitarian consciousness as strange. This is the division into definite castes, into priests, warriors, merchants, and laborer. This strict segregation is foreign to our modern views. In the first post-Atlantean culture it was not strange, it was entirely natural; in those times it could not be otherwise than that the souls of men should be divided into four grades according to their capacities. No harshness was felt in it for men were distributed by their leaders, who had such authority that what they prescribed was accepted without question. It was felt that the leaders, the seven Holy Rishis who had received their instruction from divine beings in Atlantis, could see where each man should be placed. Thus such a classification of men was something altogether natural. An entirely different grouping will appear in the seventh period. The division in the first period was effected by authority, but in the seventh period men will group themselves according to objective points of view. Something similar is seen among the ants; they form a state which, in its wonderful structure as well as in its capacity to perform a relatively prodigious amount of work, is not rivaled by any human state. Yet there we have just what seems to be alien to us, the caste system; for each ant has its particular task.

Whatever we may think of this today, men will see that the salvation of humanity lies in division into objective groups, and they will even be able to combine division of labor with equality of rights. Human society will appear as a wonderful harmony. This is something we can see in the annals of the future. Thus ancient India will appear again; and in a similar way certain traits of the third period will appear again in the fifth.

Glancing at the immediate implications of our theme, we see a large domain. We see the gigantic pyramids, the enigmatic Sphinx. The souls that belonged to the ancient Indians were also incarnated in Egypt and are again incarnated today. If we follow our general line of thought into detail, we will discover two phenomena that show us how, in superearthly connections, there are mysterious threads between the Egyptian culture and that of today. We have observed the law of repetition in the different periods of time, but it will seem far more significant if we follow it in spiritual regions. We are all familiar with a painting of great importance that has surely passed before all our souls at least once. I mean Raphael's famous painting of the Sistine Madonna, which by a chain of circumstances has come to be located among us in central Germany. In this picture, which is available in countless reproductions, we have learned to admire the wonderful purity poured out over the whole form. We have all felt something in the countenance of the mother, in the singular way the form floats in the air, perhaps also in the deep expression of the child's eyes. Then, if we see the cloud-forms round about from which numerous little angel-heads appear, we have a still deeper feeling, a feeling that makes the whole picture more comprehensible to us. I know it seems daring when I say that if one gazes deeply and earnestly on this child in the arms of the mother and on the clouds in the background forming themselves into a number of little angel-heads, then he has the feeling that this child was not born in the natural way, but that it is one of those that float round about in the clouds. This Jesus child itself is such a cloud-form, only become a little denser, as though one of the little angels had flown out of the clouds onto the arm of the Madonna. That would be a healthy feeling. If we make this feeling live within us, then our view will expand and free itself from certain narrow conceptions about the natural connections of life. Just out of such a picture our narrow vision can be expanded to see that what must happen in a certain way according to modern laws could at one time have been different. We will discern that there was once a form of reproduction other than the sexual one. In short, we will perceive deep connections between what is human and the spiritual forces in this picture. This is what lies in it.

If we allow our gaze to wander back from this Madonna into the Egyptian time, we are met by something similar, by an equally sublime picture. The Egyptian had Isis, the figure connected with the words: I am what was, what is, and what will be. No mortal has yet raised my veil.

A deep mystery, heavily veiled, manifests itself in the figure of Isis, the lovable goddess who, in the spiritual consciousness of the ancient Egyptian, was present with the Horus child as our Madonna is present today with the Jesus child. In the fact that this Isis is presented to us as something bearing the eternal within it, we are again reminded of our feeling in contemplating the Madonna. We must see deep mysteries in Isis, mysteries that are grounded in the spiritual. The Madonna is a remembrance of Isis: the Isis appears again in the Madonna. This is one of the connections that I spoke of. We must learn to recognize with our feelings the deep mysteries that show a superearthly connection between ancient Egypt and our modern culture.

Still another connection can be brought before you today. We recall how the Egyptian handled the dead; we remember the mummies, and how the Egyptian concerned himself that the outer physical form should be preserved for a long time. We know that he filled his tombs with such mummies, in which he had preserved the outer form, and that as mementos of the past physical life he gave to the deceased certain utensils and possessions suited to the needs of physical life. Thus what the person had had in the physical was to be retained. In this way the Egyptian bound the dead to the physical plane. This custom developed more and more and is a special earmark of the old Egyptian culture. Such a thing is not without consequences for the soul. Let us remember that our souls were in Egyptian bodies. This is quite correct; our souls were incorporated in these bodies that became mummies. We know that when man, after death, is freed from his physical and etheric bodies, he has a different consciousness; he is by no means unconscious in the astral world. He can look down from the spiritual world, even though today he cannot look up; he can then look down on the physical earth. It is not then indifferent to him whether his body has been preserved as a mummy, has been burned, or has decayed. A definite kind of connection arises through this. We shall see this mysterious connection. Through the fact that in ancient Egypt the bodies were preserved for a long time, the souls experienced something very definite in the period after death. When they looked down they knew—that is my body. They were bound to this physical body. They had the form of their body before them. This body became important to the souls, for the soul is susceptible to impressions after death. The impression made by the mummified body imprinted itself deeply, and the soul was formed in accordance with this impression.

These souls went through incarnations in the Greco-Latin period, and in our own time they are living in us. It was not without effect that they saw their mummified bodies after death, that they were repeatedly led back to these bodies; this is by no means unimportant. They attached their sympathies to these bodies, and the fruit of their looking down upon them appears now, in the fifth period, in the inclination that souls have today to lay great weight upon the outer physical life. All that we describe today as the attachment to matter stems from the fact that the souls at that time, out of the spiritual world, could look upon their own embodiment. Through this man learned to love the physical world; through this it is so often said today that the only important thing is the physical body between birth and death. Such views do not arise out of nothing.

This is not a criticism of the practice of mummifying. We only want to point to certain necessities that are connected with the repeated incarnating of the soul. Without this pondering on the mummies men would not have been equal to developing further. We would by now have lost all interest in the physical world had the Egyptians not had the mummy-cult. It had to be thus if a proper interest in the physical world was to be awakened. That we see the world as we do today is a consequence of the fact that the Egyptians mummified the physical body after death.

This cultural stream was under the influence of initiates, who could see into the future. Not through any whim did men make mummies. Particularly in those days mankind was led by high individualities who prescribed What was right. This was done under authority. In the schools of the initiates it was known that our fifth epoch was connected with the third epoch. These mysterious connections stood at that time before the eyes of the priests, who instituted mummification so that the souls might acquire the disposition to seek spiritual experience in the external physical world.

The world is guided through wisdom; this is a second example of such connections. That men think as they do today is a result of what they experienced in ancient Egypt. Here we glimpse deep mysteries that reveal themselves in the cultural streams. We have barely touched these mysteries, for what has been shown of the Madonna as a remembrance of Isis, together with what we have seen of mummification, gives only a feeble hint of the real spiritual connections. But we will throw more light upon these relationships; we will consider not only what appears outwardly, but also what lies behind the external.

External life runs its course between birth and death. Man lives a much longer life after death, in what we know as kamaloca and the experiences of the spiritual world. The experiences in the super-sensible worlds are no more uniform than the experiences here in the physical world. What did we experience as ancient Egyptians in the other world?

When our eyes looked on the pyramids and the Sphinx, how completely different was the course of our lives, how differently did our souls live between birth and death! That life cannot be compared to the life of the present day; such a comparison would have no meaning, and the experiences between death and a new birth have been far more dissimilar than the experiences of outer life. During the Egyptian epoch the soul experienced something quite different than in the Greek world, or in the time of Charlemagne, or in our own time. Also in the other world, in the spiritual world, evolution takes place, and what the soul experiences today between death and a new birth is something quite different from what the ancient Egyptian experienced when he laid aside his outer form at death. Just as mummification worked on in its peculiar way, causing the mood of the present day, just as this external life repeats itself from the third into the fifth period, so does evolution continue in those mysterious worlds between death and birth. This also we will have to study and here again we will find a mysterious connection. Then we will be able to grasp what lives in us as the fruit of that ancient time. We will be led into deep recesses of the labyrinth of the earth's evolution. But just through this we will recognize the full connection between what the Egyptian built, what the Chaldean thought, and what we today live. We will see what was then achieved flaring up again in what surrounds us, in what interests us in our environment. Physically and spiritually we will obtain clues to this connection. It will also be shown how evolution proceeds, how the fourth period forms a wonderful link between the third and the fifth. Thus our souls will lift themselves to the significant connections of the world, and the fruit will be a deep understanding of what lives in us.

Erster Vortrag

Wenn wir uns fragen, was Geisteswissenschaft den Menschen sein soll, so werden wir wohl aus allerlei Empfindungen und Gefühlen heraus, die wir uns im Verlaufe unseres Arbeitens auf diesem Gebiete gebildet haben, eine Antwort immer wieder vor unsere Seele stellen: Es soll uns sein Geisteswissenschaft ein Weg zur höheren Entwickelung unserer Menschheit, des Menschentums in uns.

Damit haben wir ein in gewisser Beziehung für jeden denkenden und fühlenden Menschen selbstverständliches Lebensziel hingestellt, ein Lebensziel, das einschließt die Erreichung der höchsten Ideale, das aber auch einschließt die Entfaltung der bedeutsamsten, tiefsten Kräfte in unserer Seele. Im Grunde haben die Besten der Menschen zu allen Zeiten sich die Frage gestellt: Wie kann der Mensch das, was in ihm veranlagt ist, richtig zur Entfaltung bringen? — Und in der mannigfachsten Art sind Antworten gegeben worden. Man kann vielleicht keine, die kürzer und bündiger ist, finden als diejenige, die aus einer tiefen Gesinnung heraus Goethe gegeben hat in den «Geheimnissen»:

Von der Gewalt, die alle Wesen bindet,
Befreit der Mensch sich, der sich überwindet.

Ungeheuer viel und ein tiefer Sinn liegt in diesen Worten, denn klar und prägnant zeigen sie uns das, worauf es ankommt in bezug auf alle Entwickelung. Darauf kommt es an, daß der Mensch sein inneres Empfinden dadurch entwickelt, daß er über sich selbst hinauskommt. Dadurch finden wir, daß wir uns sozusagen über uns selbst erheben. Die Seele, die sich überwindet, die findet den Weg über sich hinaus und damit zu den höchsten Gütern der Menschheit.

Es darf an dieses hehre Ziel der Geisteswissenschaft erinnert werden, wenn wir im Begriffe stehen, gerade ein solches Thema zu behandeln wie das, das uns hier beschäftigen soll. Es wird uns zunächst hinausführen von dem gewöhnlichen Horizonte des Lebens zu hohen Angelegenheiten. Weite Zeiträume werden wir zu überblicken haben, wenn wir behandeln sollen unseren Gegenstand, eine Zeitepoche, die sich erstrecken soll von dem alten Ägypten bis in unsere Zeit. Jahrtausende sind es, die wir zu überblicken haben, und es wird das, was wir gewinnen wollen, wirklich etwas sein, was mit unseren tiefsten Seelenangelegenheiten zusammenhängen soll, was in das Innerste unseres Seelenlebens eingreift. Denn nur scheinbar ist es, daß der Mensch dadurch, daß er zu den Höhen des Lebens strebt, sich entferne von dem, was ihm unmittelbar gegeben ist; gerade dadurch kommt er zu dem Verständnis für das, was ihn stündlich beschäftigt. Der Mensch muß von der Misere des "Tages, von dem, was der Alltag bringt, abkommen und zu den großen Ereignissen der Welt- und Völkergeschichte hinaufschauen, dann erst findet er das, was die Seele als ihr Heiligstes bewahrt. Sonderbar könnte es scheinen, wenn angedeutet wird, daß Beziehungen aufgesucht werden sollen, intime Beziehungen zwischen dem alten Ägypten, den Zeiten, in denen die gewaltigen Pyramiden und die Sphinx entstanden, und unserer eigenen Gegenwart. Es könnte vorerst etwas merkwürdig erscheinen, daß man unsere Zeit dadurch besser verstehen will, daß man den Blick so weit zurückwirft. Nun werden wir gerade darum noch über viel umfassendere, weitere Zeiträume zurückblicken müssen. Aber auch das wird uns das Ergebnis liefern, das wir vor Augen haben, das wir suchen, das Ergebnis: die Möglichkeit zu finden, über uns selbst hinauszukommen.

Es kann demjenigen, der sich schon mit den elementaren Begriffen der Geisteswissenschaft gründlicher beschäftigt hat, gar nicht sonderbar erscheinen, daß man den Zusammenhang sucht zwischen weit auseinanderliegenden Zeiträumen. Denn das ist ja eine Grundüberzeugung von uns, daß die Menschenseele immer wiederkehrt, daß die Erlebnisse zwischen Geburt und Tod wiederholt für den Menschen ablaufen. Die Lehre der Wiederverkörperung ist uns immer vertrauter geworden. Indem wir das überlegen, können wir fragen: Ja, diese Seelen, die heute in uns wohnen, waren schon oft da; ist es nicht möglich, daß sie auch schon einmal im alten Ägypterlande da waren, zur Zeit der ägyptischen Kulturepoche, daß dieselben Seelen in uns sind, die damals aufgeschaut haben zu den gigantischen Pyramiden und den rätselhaften Sphingen im alten Ägypten?

Diese Frage ist zu bejahen. Es hat sich das Bild erneuert, und unsere Seelen haben aufgeschaut zu den alten Kulturdenkmälern, die sie heute wiedersehen. So sind es im Grunde dieselben Seelen, die damals gelebt haben, die durchschritten haben spätere Zeiträume und wieder erschienen sind in unserer Zeit. Und wir wissen, daß kein Leben ohne Frucht bleibt, wir wissen, daß dasjenige vorhanden ist und bleibt in der Seele, was sie an Erlebnissen und Erfahrungen durchgemacht hat, daß es in Form von Kräften, im Temperamente, in Fähigkeiten, Anlagen wieder erscheint in späteren Verkörperungen. So ist die Art, wie wir heute die Natur anschauen, wie wir das, was unsere Zeit hervorbringt, aufnehmen, die Art, wie wir heute die Welt anschauen, im alten Ägypten, dem Lande der Pyramiden, veranlagt worden. Damals sind wir so hergerichtet worden, wie wir heute hinausblicken in die physische Welt. Wie sich geheimnisvoll die weiten Zeiträume verketten, das wollen wir einmal ergründen.

Wenn wir den tieferen Sinn dieser Vorträge betrachten wollen, so müssen wir weit in unserer Erdenentwickelung zurückgehen. Wir wissen, daß unsere Erde sich oft verändert hat. Dem alten Ägypten gingen noch andere Kulturen voraus. Mit den Mitteln der okkulten Forschung können wir auch noch viel weiter zurückschauen, in graue Vorzeiten der Menschheitsentwickelung, und da kommen wir allerdings in solche Zeiten, in denen die Erde ganz anders aussah als heute. Es war ganz anders auf dem Boden des alten Asiens und Afrikas. Schauen wir hellseherisch hinab in uralte Zeiten, da kommen wir in jene Zeiten, wo eine gewaltige Katastrophe, durch Wasserkräfte bewirkt, auf unserer Erde stattgefunden und deren Antlitz gründlich geändert hat. Und wenn wir noch weiter zurückgehen, so kommen wir in uralte Zeiten, in denen die Erde eine ganz andere Physiognomie hatte; da kommen wir in Zeiten, wo das, was heute zwischen Europa und Amerika den Boden des Atlantischen Ozeans bildet, oben war, Land war. Da kommen wir in eine Zeit, in der unsere Seelen in ganz anderen Leibern lebten als heute, wir kommen in die alte Atlantis, in uralte Zeiten, von denen die äußere Wissenschaft uns heute noch wenig Kunde geben kann.

Dann haben dutch große Wasserkatastrophen diese Länder der Atlantis ihren Untergang gefunden. Andere Formen hatten damals die Leiber der Menschen, andere Formen haben diese später angenommen. Aber die Seelen, die heute in uns wohnen, wohnten auch in den alten Atlantiern. Das waren unsere Seelen. Dann bewirkte die Wasserkatastrophe eine innere Bewegung der atlantischen Völker, einen großen Völkerzug vom Westen nach dem Osten. Diese Völker waren wir selbst. Gegen das Ende der Atlantis wurde es recht bewegt, wir selbst wanderten von Westen nach Osten, durch Irland, Schottland, Holland, Frankreich und Spanien. So wanderten die Völker nach dem Osten und bevölkerten Europa, Asien und die Nordteile von Afrika.

Nun darf man nicht glauben, daß das, was herüberzog aus dem Westen als letzter großer Völkerzug, daß dieser auf den Gebieten, die sich nach und nach als Asien, Europa, Afrika gebildet haben, keine Völker angetroffen hätte. Fast ganz Europa, die Nordteile Afrikas und große Teile Asiens waren damals schon bevölkert. Es wurden diese Landesteile nicht nur von Westen her bevölkert, sondern sie waren schon füher bevölkert worden, so daß eine im Grunde genommen fremde Bevölkerung es war, die schon da war, auf welche dieser Völkerzug stieß. Wir können uns denken, daß, als ruhigere Zeiten eintraten, sich besondere Kulturverhältnisse heraushoben. Es war zum Beispiel in der Nähe Irlands ein Gebiet, da wohnten vor der Katastrophe, die Jahrtausende hinter uns liegt, die vorgeschrittensten Teile der ganzen Erdbevölkerung. Diese Teile zogen dann durch Europa unter besonderer Führung von großen Individualitäten bis in ein Gebiet Mittelasiens, und von dort aus wurden Kulturkolonien nach den verschiedensten Gegenden gesandt. Eine solche Kolonie der nachatlantischen Zeit, die dadurch entstand, daß von jener Gruppe von Menschen eine Kolonie nach Indien geschickt wurde, traf dort schon eine Bevölkerung, die seit uralten Zeiten da war, die auch eine Kultur hatte, und indem die Kolonisten das schon Vorhandene berücksichtigten, gründeten sie die erste nachatlantische Kultur, die viele Jahrtausende alt ist, von der äußere Dokumente kaum etwas vermelden. Das, was diese sagen, liegt Jahrtausende später. In jenen bedeutsamen Sammlungen von Weisheit, die wir bezeichnen als die Sammlungen des Veda, in den alten Veden haben wir nur die letzten Nachklänge von dem, was geblieben ist von einer sehr frühen indischen Kultur, die von überirdischen Wesen geleitet wurde und begründet wurde von den heiligen Rishis. Es war eine Kultur einziger Art, von der wir uns heute nur schwache Vorstellungen machen können, denn die Veden sind nur der Abglanz jener uralt heiligen indischen Kultur.

Auf diese Kultur folgte eine andere, die zweite Kulturepoche der nachatlantischen Zeit, die Kultur, aus der später die Weisheit des Zarathustra geflossen ist, die Kultur, aus der die persische hervorgegangen ist. Lange hat die indische Kultur gedauert, lange dauerte die persische Kultur, die einen Abschluß in Zarathustra erreichte.

Dann entsteht, wieder unter dem Einfluß von Kolonisten, die ins Nilland geschickt wurden, die Kultur, die wir zusammenfassen können mit den vier Namen: Chaldäisch-ägyptisch-assyrisch-babylonische Kultur. In Vorderasien, in den Nordteilen Afrikas, bildete sich jene Kultur, die wir als die dritte der nachatlantischen Zeit zu bezeichnen haben, die auf der einen Seite ihren Höhepunkt in der wunderbaren chaldäischen Himmelskunde, der chaldäischen Sternenweisheit, und auf der anderen Seite in der ägyptischen Kultur erreicht hat.

Dann kommt ein viertes Zeitalter, das sich im Süden Europas entwickelte, das Zeitalter der griechisch-lateinischen Kultur, deren Morgenröte sich ausprägt in den Gesängen des Homer, die uns zeigt, was in den griechischen Bildwerken oftenbart werden konnte, die uns zeigt eine Dichtkunst, die so Bedeutsames hervorgebracht hat wie die Tragödien des Äschylos und Sophokles. Auch das Römertum gehört dazu. Es ist eine Epoche, die anfängt etwa im 8. Jahrhundert, 747 vor Christus, und die dauerte bis zum 14. und 15. Jahrhundert, 1413 nach Christi Geburt. Von da ab haben wir den fünften Zeitraum, in dem wir uns befinden, und dieser wird abgelöst werden von einem sechsten und siebenten Zeitraum. In diesem siebenten Zeitraum wird das alte Indertum in neuer Form auftreten.

Wir werden sehen, daß ein eigenartiges Gesetz besteht, das uns verständlich macht das Wirken wunderbarer Kräfte durch diese Zeiträume hindurch und den Zusammenhang verschiedener Kulturepochen untereinander. Blicken wir zuerst auf den ersten Zeitraum, den der indischen Kultur, so werden wir finden, daß wir später diese erste Kultur wieder aufleuchten sehen in einer neuen Gestalt im siebenten Zeitraum. In einer neuen Form wird da das alte Indertum auftreten. Ganz geheimnisvolle Kräfte wirken da. Und den zweiten Zeitraum, den wir den persischen nannten, den werden wir im sechsten Zeitraum wieder aufleuchten sehen. Wir werden, nachdem unsere Kultur untergegangen sein wird, in der Kultur des sechsten Zeitraums aufleben sehen die Zarathustra-Religion. Und in unseren Vorträgen werden wir sehen, wie in unserem fünften Zeitraum eine Art Wiedererweckung stattfinden wird des dritten, des ägyptischen Zeitraums. Der vierte Zeitraum steht mitten darinnen; er ist etwas für sich, er hat nach vor- und rückwärts nicht seinesgleichen.

Um dies geheimnisvolle Gesetz begreiflicher zu machen, soll noch folgendes gesagt werden. Wir wissen, daß das Indertum etwas hat, was den heutigen Menschen in seinem Humanitätsbewußtsein fremd berührt; das ist die Einteilung in bestimmte Kasten, die Einteilung in die Priesterkaste, Kriegerkaste, Händler und Arbeiter. Diese strenge Scheidung ist dem heutigen Bewußtsein fremd. In der ersten nachatlantischen Kultur war sie nicht etwas Fremdes, sondern etwas Selbstverständliches. Es konnte damals gar nicht anders sein, als daß nach den verschiedenen Befähigungen der Seelen die Menschheit eingeteilt wurde in vier Grade. Eine Härte wurde dabei keineswegs empfunden, denn die Menschen wurden durch ihre Führer eingeteilt, und die waren eine solche Autorität, daß dasjenige, was sie anordneten, selbstverständlich maßgebend war. Man sagte sich, daß die Führer, die sieben heiligen Rishis, die in der Atlantis selbst ihren Unterricht von göttlichen Wesen empfangen hatten, sehen konnten, an welchen Platz der Mensch gestellt werden mußte. So war eine solche Einteilung der Menschen etwas ganz Natürliches. Ganz anders wird eine Gruppierung der Menschen im siebenten Zeitraum eintreten. War es im ersten Zeitraum die Autorität, die die Einteilung bewirkte, im siebenten Zeitraum wird es etwas anderes sein: die Menschen werden sich gruppieren nach sachlichen Gesichtspunkten. Etwas Ähnliches sehen wir bei den Ameisen; sie bilden einen Staat, der in seinem wunderbaren Aufbau sowie auch in der Fähigkeit, eine verhältnismäßig ungeheure Aufgabe zu leisten, von keinem Menschenstaat erreicht wird. Und doch haben wir dort gerade das vertreten, was heute dem Menschen so fremd erscheint, das Kastenwesen; für jede Ameise gibt es eine partielle Aufgabe.

Was man auch heute denken mag, die Menschen werden einsehen, daß in der Teilung in sachliche Gruppen das Heil der Menschen liegt, und sie werden die Möglichkeit finden der Arbeitsteilung und doch Gleichberechtigung. Die menschliche Gesellschaft wird erscheinen wie eine wunderbare Harmonie. Das ist etwas, was wir in den Annalen der Zukunft sehen können. So wird das alte Indien wieder erscheinen. Und in einer ähnlichen Art werden gewisse Eigenarten des dritten Zeitraums wieder erscheinen im fünften Zeitraum.

Wenn wir nun zunächst auf das blicken, was unmittelbar unser Thema einschließt, so sehen wir da auch ein gewaltiges Gebiet: Wir sehen die gigantische Pyramide, die rätselhafte Sphinx; wir werden sehen, daß die Seelen, die den alten Indern angehörten, auch in Ägypten verkörpert waren, auch heute verkörpert sind. Und wenn wir jene allgemeine Charakteristik etwas im einzelnen verfolgen, so sollen uns zunächst zwei Erscheinungen vor Augen treten, die uns zeigen werden, wie wir schon in den überirdischen . Zusammenhängen zwischen der ägyptischen und der heutigen Kultur geheimnisvolle Fäden verfolgen können. Wir haben das Gesetz der Wiederholung in den verschiedenen Zeiträumen gesehen, unendlich bedeutungsvoller wird es uns aber erscheinen, wenn wir es in der geistigen Region verfolgen.

Wir alle kennen ein Bild von tiefer Bedeutung, das uns gewiß allen einmal vor die Seele getreten ist, jenes berühmte Bild des Raffael, das durch eine Verkettung verschiedener Umstände in bedeutungsvoller Art gerade bei uns in Mitteldeutschland sich befindet: ich meine die Sixtinische Madonna. Wir haben vielleicht in diesem Bilde, das ja in unzähligen Nachbildungen vor vieler Augen treten kann, bewundern gelernt die wunderbare Reinheit, die über die ganze Gestalt ausgegossen ist; wir haben vielleicht auch in dem Antlitz der Mutter, in dem eigenartigen Schweben der Gestalt, etwas empfunden, vielleicht auch etwas empfunden in dem tiefen Augenausdruck des Kindes. Und wenn wir dann rundherum die Wolkengebilde sehen, aus denen zahlreiche Engelsköpfchen erscheinen, dann haben wir ein noch tieferes Gefühl, ein Gefühl, das uns begreiflicher erscheinen läßt das ganze Bild. Ich weiß, daß ich etwas Gewagtes ausspreche, wenn ich sage: Sieht jemand ganz tief und ernstlich dieses Kind im Arme der Mutter, hinter ihm die Wolken, die sich gliedern zu einer Summe von Engelsköpfchen, dann hat er die Vorstellung: Dieses Kind ist nicht auf natürliche Art geboren, es ist eins von denen, die daneben in den Wolken schweben. Dieses Jesuskindlein ist selbst solch eine Wolkengestalt, nur etwas dichter geworden, als wenn ein solches Engelchen aus den Wolken auf den Arm der Madonna geflogen wäre. Das wäre gerade ein gesundes Empfinden. Wenn wir diesen Gefühlsinhalt in uns lebendig machen, dann wird sich unser Blick erweitern, er wird sich befreien von gewissen engen Auffassungen über die natürlichen Zusammenhänge des Daseins. Gerade aus einem solchen Bilde heraus wird sich der enge Blick erweitern können dazu, daß auch das, was nach heutigen Gesetzen geschehen muß, einmal anders gewesen sein könnte. Wir werden einsehen, daß einstmals eine andere als die geschlechtliche Zeugung bestand. Kurz, wir werden tiefe Zusammenhänge des Menschlichen mit den geistigen Kräften in diesem Bilde erblicken. Das liegt darinnen.

Wenn wir den Blick zurückschweifen lassen von dieser Madonna in die ägyptische Zeit, da begegnet uns etwas ganz Ähnliches, ein gleich hehres Bild. Der Ägypter hatte die Isis, jene Gestalt, an die sich das Wort knüpft: Ich bin, das da war, das da ist, das da sein wird. Meinen Schleier hat noch kein Sterblicher gelüftet.

Ein tiefes Geheimnis, unter einem tiefen Schleier verborgen, offenbart sich in der Gestalt der Isis, der lieblichen Gottesgeistigkeit, der Isis, die in dem geistigen Bewußtsein des alten Ägypters, ebenso wie unsere Madonna mit dem Jesuskinde, mit dem Horuskinde dastand. In der Tatsache, daß uns diese Isis vorgeführt wird als etwas, was das Ewige in sich trägt, werden wir wieder erinnert an das Empfinden bei dem Anblick der Madonna. Tiefe Geheimnisse haben wir in der Isis zu sehen, Geheimnisse, die im Geistigen begründet sind. Eine Wiedererinnerung an die Isis ist die Madonna, die Isis erscheint wieder in der Madonna. Das ist ein solcher Zusammenhang. Wir müssen mit dem Gefühl die tiefen Geheimnisse erkennen, die einen überirdischen Zusammenhang zwischen der ägyptischen und der heutigen Kultur darstellen.

Noch einen anderen Zusammenhang können wir heute hinstellen. Wir erinnern uns, wie der Ägypter seine Toten behandelte, wir erinnern uns an die Mumien, wie der Ägypter etwas darauf gab, daß die äußere physische Form lange konserviert werde, und wir wissen, daß der Ägypter seine Gräber anfüllte mit solchen Mumien, in denen er die äußere Form erhalten hatte, und daß er dem Verstorbenen in das Grab mitgab gewisse Gerätschaften, Besitztümer, als Erinnerungen an das verflossene physische Leben, Gerätschaften, die den Bedürfnissen des physischen Lebens entsprachen. So sollte das, was der Mensch im Physischen gehabt hat, erhalten bleiben. So verband der Ägypter seine Toten mit dem physischen Plan. Dieser Brauch bildete sich immer mehr heraus. Gerade das zeichnete die alte ägyptische Kultur aus.

So etwas ist aber nicht ohne Folgen für die Seele. Denken wir daran, daß unsere Seelen in ägyptischen Körpern waren. Das ist durchaus richtig, daß unsere Seelen in diesen zu Mumien gewordenen Leibern verkörpert waren. Wir wissen aus den Darstellungen, die früher gegeben worden sind, daß dann, wenn der Mensch von seinem physischen Leib und seinem Ätherleib nach dem Tode befreit ist, daß er dann ein anderes Bewußtsein hat, daß er dann keineswegs in einem bewußtlosen Zustande in der astralischen Welt lebt. Er kann hinunterschauen aus der geistigen Welt, wenn er auch heute nicht hinaufschauen kann, er kann aber dann hinunterschauen auf die physische Erde. Da ist es nicht gleichgültig, ob der Leib als Mumie konserviert ist, oder ob dieser Leib verbrannt ist oder verwest. Es entsteht dadurch eine bestimmte Art von Zusammenhang. Wir werden den geheimnisvollen Zusammenhang sehen. Dadurch, daß im alten Ägypten eine lange Zeit die Leiber konserviert geblieben sind, haben die Seelen in der Zwischenzeit nach dem Tode etwas ganz Bestimmtes erlebt. Sie wußten, wenn sie herabschauten: das ist mein Leib. Sie waren an ihn gebunden, an diesen physischen Leib, sie hatten vor sich die Form ihres Leibes; wichtig wurde den Seelen dieser Leib, denn die Seele ist eindrucksfähig nach dem Tode. Der Eindruck, den der mumifizierte Leib gemacht hat, prägte sich tief ein, und die Seele wurde nach diesem Eindruck geformt.

Nun ging diese Seele durch Verkörperungen in der griechischlateinischen Kultur hindurch, und sie lebt heute in unserer Zeit in uns. Es ist nicht wirkungslos, daß diese Seelen nach dem Tode ihren mumifizierten Leib gesehen haben, daß sie dadurch immer wieder hingelenkt wurden auf diesen Leib; gar nicht unwesentlich ist das. Sie haben ihn in ihre Sympathie aufgenommen, und die Frucht dieses Hinunterblickens tritt heute auf, im fünften Zeitraum in der Neigung, die heute die Seelen haben, großen Wert auf das äußere physische Leben zu legen. Alles das, was wir heute das Hängen an der Materie nennen, das kommt davon, daß die Seelen anschauen konnten damals aus der geistigen Welt ihre eigene Verkörperung. Dadurch hat der Mensch die physische Welt lieben gelernt, dadurch wird heute so oft gesagt, daß nur wichtig ist dieser physische Leib zwischen Geburt und Tod.

Solche Anschauungen kommen nicht aus dem Nichts. Damit soll nicht etwa eine Kritik der Mumienkultur gegeben werden, sondern es soll nur hingewiesen werden auf Notwendigkeiten, die mit der immer wiederkehrenden Verkörperung der Seele verbunden sind. Die Menschen wären in ihrer Weiterentwickelung gar nicht ohne das Hinschauen auf die Mumien ausgekommen. Heute hätte der Mensch alles Interesse an der physischen Welt verloren, hätten die Ägypter nicht den Mumienkult gehabt. Es mußte so kommen, um ein berechtigtes Interesse an der physischen Welt zu erwecken. Daß heute der Mensch sich seine Welt so eingerichtet hat, daß wir heute die Welt so sehen, wie wir sie sehen, das ist eine Folge davon, daß der Ägypter den physischen Leib nach dem Tode mumifiziert hat. Denn auch diese Kulturströmung stand unter dem Einfluß von Eingeweihten, die vorausschauen konnten. Man hat nicht aus einem Einfall heraus Mumien gemacht. Gerade damals führten hohe Individualitäten die Menschheit, welche anordneten, was richtig war. Auf Autorität hin wurde das gemacht. In den Eingeweihtenschulen hat man gewußt, daß unser Zeitraum mit dem dritten Zeitraum zusammenhängt. Diese geheimnisvollen Zusammenhänge standen damals den Priestern vor Augen, und sie ordneten gerade die Mumifizierung an, damit die Seelen die Gesinnung aufnähmen, die aus der physischen, äußeren Welt geistige Erfahrung sucht.

So wird die Welt durch Weisheit geleitet; das ist ein anderes Beispiel solcher Zusammenhänge. Daß die Menschen heute so denken, wie sie denken, das ist das Ergebnis dessen, was sie erlebt haben im alten Ägypten. Da blicken wir in tiefe Geheimnisse hinein, die sich in den Kulturströmungen offenbaren. Wir haben diese Geheimnisse nur erst berührt, denn das, was gezeigt worden ist an der Madonna als einer Erinnerung an die Isis, und was wir gesehen haben an der Mumifizierung, berührt nur schwach die wirklichen geistigen Zusammenhänge. Aber wir werden noch tiefer hineinleuchten in jene Verhältnisse, wir werden nicht nur das zu betrachten haben, was äußerlich erscheint, sondern wir werden zu betrachten haben, was dem Äußeren zugrunde liegt.

Das äußere Leben verläuft zwischen Geburt und Tod. Ein viel längeres Leben lebt der Mensch nach dem Tode, was wir kennen als Kamaloka und die Erlebnisse in der geistigen Welt. Die Erlebnisse in den übersinnlichen Welten sind nicht etwa einförmiger als die Erlebnisse hier in der physischen Welt. Was erlebten wir denn als alte Ägypter in der anderen Welt?

Wenn wir den Blick an der Pyramide entlang schweifen ließen, wenn wir ihn richteten auf die Sphinx, wie ganz anders verfloß jenes Leben, wie ganz anders hat unsere Seele damals gelebt zwischen Geburt und Tod! Das läßt sich gar nicht vergleichen mit dem heutigen Leben, das hätte auch gar keinen Sinn. Und mannigfaltiger noch als die äußeren Erlebnisse sind die Erlebnisse zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt. Damals, als der ägyptische Zeitraum war, da erlebte die Seele etwas ganz anderes als in der griechischen Welt, als zur Zeit Karls des Großen und als in unserer Zeit. Auch in der anderen, in der geistigen Welt, findet eine Entwickelung statt, und das, was der Mensch heute zwischen dem Tode und einer neuen Geburt erlebt, ist etwas ganz anderes, als was der alte Ägypter erlebte, wenn er mit dem Tode ablegte die äußere Gestalt. Und ebenso wie die Mumifizierung in einer Eigenart sich fortgebildet hat, so daß sie die Ursache der heutigen Gesinnung ist, ebenso wie dieses äußere Leben vom dritten sich wiederholt in dem fünften Zeitraum, ebenso findet ein Fortgang der Entwickelung in jenen geheimnisvollen Welten zwischen Tod und Geburt statt. Auch das werden wir zu betrachten haben, auch da wird sich ein geheimnisvoller Zusammenhang ergeben. Und dann werden wir etwas zusammengetragen haben, um das wirklich zu begreifen, was in uns lebt, was in uns Frucht ist aus jener alten Zeit.

Allerdings werden wir da hinuntergeführt in tiefe Schächte des Labyrinthes der Erdenentwickelung. Aber gerade dadurch werden wir auch den vollen Bezug zwischen dem, was der Ägypter baute, der Chaldäer dachte, und dem, was wir heute leben, erkennen. Das, was damals gewirkt wurde, das werden wir wieder aufleuchten sehen in dem, was uns umgibt, in dem, was uns interessiert in unserer Umwelt. Physisch und geistig werden wir über diesen Zusammenhang Aufschlüsse erhalten. Dazu wird gezeigt werden, wie die Entwickelung fortschreitet, wie der vierte Zeitraum ein ganz wunderbares Verbindungsglied bildet zwischen dem dritten und fünften Zeitraum. Und so wird sich unsere Seele erheben zu den bedeutungsvollen Zusammenhängen der Welt, und die Frucht wird sein ein tiefes Verständnis dessen, was in uns lebt.

First Lecture

When we ask ourselves what spiritual science should be for human beings, we will probably find that all kinds of impressions and feelings that we have formed in the course of our work in this field will repeatedly bring one answer to our minds: Spiritual science should be a path to the higher development of our humanity, of the humanity within us.

In doing so, we have set ourselves a goal in life that is, in a certain sense, self-evident for every thinking and feeling human being, a goal that includes the attainment of the highest ideals, but also the unfolding of the most significant and deepest powers in our souls. Basically, the best of humanity in all ages have asked themselves the question: How can human beings properly develop what is inherent in them? — And answers have been given in the most varied ways. Perhaps none can be found that is shorter and more concise than the one Goethe gave from a deep conviction in his “Secrets”:

From the power that binds all beings,
The human being who overcomes himself is freed.

There is an enormous amount of meaning in these words, for they show us clearly and concisely what is important in relation to all development. What is important is that human beings develop their inner feelings by rising above themselves. In this way we find that we rise above ourselves, so to speak. The soul that overcomes itself finds the way beyond itself and thus to the highest goods of humanity.

We should remember this noble goal of spiritual science when we are about to deal with a subject such as the one that concerns us here. It will first lead us beyond the ordinary horizons of life to higher matters. We will have to survey long periods of time if we are to deal with our subject, an epoch stretching from ancient Egypt to our own time. We have millennia to survey, and what we hope to gain will truly be something connected with our deepest soul concerns, something that touches the innermost core of our soul life. For it is only apparent that by striving for the heights of life, man distances himself from what is immediately given to him; it is precisely through this that he comes to understand what occupies him every hour. Man must depart from the misery of the day, from what everyday life brings, and look up to the great events of world and national history; only then will he find what the soul preserves as its most sacred treasure. It may seem strange to suggest that we should seek out intimate connections between ancient Egypt, the time when the mighty pyramids and the Sphinx were built, and our own present. At first glance, it may seem odd to want to understand our time better by looking so far back. But that is precisely why we must look back over much more comprehensive, longer periods of time. This will also provide us with the result we have in mind, the result we are seeking: the possibility of transcending ourselves.

To those who have already studied the basic concepts of spiritual science in depth, it will not seem strange at all to seek connections between periods of time that are far apart. For it is a fundamental belief of ours that the human soul always returns, that the experiences between birth and death are repeated for human beings. The doctrine of reincarnation has become increasingly familiar to us. As we consider this, we may ask: Yes, these souls that dwell in us today have been here many times before; is it not possible that they were also here in ancient Egypt, at the time of the Egyptian cultural epoch, that the same souls are in us that looked up at the gigantic pyramids and the mysterious sphinxes in ancient Egypt?

The answer to this question is yes. The picture has been renewed, and our souls have looked up at the ancient cultural monuments that they see again today. So it is basically the same souls that lived then, that passed through later periods and have reappeared in our time. And we know that no life remains without fruit, we know that what the soul has gone through in experiences and lessons remains in the soul, that it reappears in later incarnations in the form of forces, temperaments, abilities, and predispositions. Thus, the way we view nature today, the way we perceive what our time brings forth, the way we view the world today, was predisposed in ancient Egypt, the land of the pyramids. At that time, we were prepared to look out into the physical world as we do today. We want to explore how the vast periods of time are mysteriously linked.

If we want to consider the deeper meaning of these lectures, we must go far back in the evolution of our earth. We know that our earth has changed many times. Ancient Egypt was preceded by other cultures. With the means of occult research, we can look back even further, into the gray prehistory of human evolution, and there we come to times when the earth looked very different from today. It was very different on the soil of ancient Asia and Africa. If we look down clairvoyantly into ancient times, we come to a time when a tremendous catastrophe, caused by the forces of water, took place on our Earth and completely changed its face. And if we go back even further, we come to ancient times when the Earth had a completely different appearance; we come to times when what today forms the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean between Europe and America was above, was land. We come to a time when our souls lived in bodies completely different from those of today; we come to ancient Atlantis, to ancient times about which external science can tell us little today.

Then great water catastrophes brought about the downfall of these lands of Atlantis. The bodies of human beings had different forms at that time, and later they took on different forms. But the souls that dwell in us today also dwelt in the ancient Atlanteans. Those were our souls. Then the water catastrophe caused an inner movement among the Atlantean peoples, a great migration from west to east. These peoples were we ourselves. Towards the end of Atlantis, things became quite turbulent, and we ourselves migrated from west to east, through Ireland, Scotland, Holland, France, and Spain. Thus the peoples migrated to the east and populated Europe, Asia, and the northern parts of Africa.

Now one must not believe that what migrated from the west as the last great migration did not encounter any peoples in the areas that gradually formed Asia, Europe, and Africa. Almost all of Europe, the northern parts of Africa, and large parts of Asia were already populated at that time. These parts of the world were not only populated from the west, but had already been populated earlier, so that it was basically a foreign population that was already there when this migration encountered it. We can imagine that when calmer times came, special cultural conditions emerged. For example, there was an area near Ireland where, before the catastrophe that lies thousands of years behind us, the most advanced parts of the entire earth's population lived. These parts then migrated through Europe under the special leadership of great individuals to an area in Central Asia, and from there cultural colonies were sent to various regions. One such colony of the post-Atlantean period, which came into being when a colony was sent to India by that group of people, encountered a population that had been there since ancient times and also had a culture. Taking into account what already existed, the colonists founded the first post-Atlantean culture, which is many millennia old and about which external documents reveal very little. What they say lies thousands of years later. In those significant collections of wisdom that we call the Vedas, in the ancient Vedas, we have only the last echoes of what remains of a very early Indian culture that was guided by superhuman beings and founded by the holy Rishis. It was a unique culture, of which we can only have a vague idea today, because the Vedas are only a reflection of that ancient sacred Indian culture.

This culture was followed by another, the second cultural epoch of the post-Atlantean period, the culture from which the wisdom of Zarathustra later flowed, the culture from which the Persian culture emerged. Indian culture lasted a long time, as did Persian culture, which reached its conclusion in Zarathustra.

Then, again under the influence of colonists sent to the Nile region, a culture emerged that we can summarize with four names: Chaldean-Egyptian-Assyrian-Babylonian culture. In the Near East, in the northern parts of Africa, there developed the culture that we must designate as the third of the post-Atlantean era, which reached its peak on the one hand in the wonderful Chaldean astronomy, the Chaldean wisdom of the stars, and on the other hand in Egyptian culture.

Then comes a fourth age, which developed in southern Europe, the age of Greek-Latin culture, whose dawn is evident in the songs of Homer, which show us what could be revealed in Greek works of art, which show us a poetry that produced such significant works as the tragedies of Aeschylus and Sophocles. Roman culture also belongs to this period. It is an era that began around the 8th century, 747 BC, and lasted until the 14th and 15th centuries, 1413 AD. From then on, we have the fifth period, in which we find ourselves, and this will be replaced by a sixth and seventh period. In this seventh period, ancient humanity will reappear in a new form.

We will see that there is a peculiar law that makes us understand the workings of wonderful forces throughout these periods and the connection between different cultural epochs. If we first look at the first period, that of Indian culture, we will find that we will later see this first culture reappear in a new form in the seventh period. The old Indian culture will reappear in a new form. Very mysterious forces are at work here. And the second period, which we called the Persian period, will reappear in the sixth period. After our culture has passed away, we will see the religion of Zarathustra revive in the culture of the sixth epoch. And in our lectures we will see how, in our fifth epoch, a kind of revival will take place of the third, the Egyptian epoch. The fourth epoch stands in the middle; it is something unique, it has no equal either before or after.

To make this mysterious law more comprehensible, the following should be said. We know that the inner nature of humanity has something that strikes modern people as foreign in their sense of humanity; this is the division into certain castes, the division into the priestly caste, the warrior caste, the merchant caste, and the worker caste. This strict division is foreign to the modern consciousness. In the first post-Atlantean culture, it was not something foreign, but something self-evident. At that time, it could not be otherwise than that humanity was divided into four degrees according to the different abilities of the souls. This was by no means felt as harsh, for people were divided by their leaders, and these were such authorities that what they ordered was naturally authoritative. It was said that the leaders, the seven holy Rishis, who had received their instruction from divine beings in Atlantis itself, could see where each person belonged. Thus, such a division of people was something quite natural. The grouping of people in the seventh period will be quite different. Whereas in the first period it was authority that brought about the division, in the seventh period it will be something else: people will group themselves according to practical considerations. We see something similar in ants; they form a state which, in its wonderful structure and in its ability to perform a relatively enormous task, is unmatched by any human state. And yet there we find precisely what seems so foreign to humans today: the caste system; each ant has a specific task.

Whatever one may think today, humans will realize that the division into objective groups is the salvation of humanity, and they will find the possibility of division of labor and yet equality. Human society will appear as a wonderful harmony. This is something we can see in the annals of the future. Thus, ancient India will reappear. And in a similar way, certain characteristics of the third period will reappear in the fifth period.

If we now look first at what immediately encompasses our subject, we also see a vast area: we see the gigantic pyramid, the enigmatic Sphinx; we will see that the souls that belonged to the ancient Indians were also embodied in Egypt and are still embodied today. And if we follow these general characteristics in detail, two phenomena will immediately strike us, showing us how we can trace mysterious threads between the Egyptian and present-day cultures, as we have already seen in the super-earthly connections. We have seen the law of repetition in the various periods, but it will appear infinitely more meaningful to us if we follow it in the spiritual realm.

We are all familiar with an image of profound meaning that has surely touched our souls at some point, that famous painting by Raphael, which, through a chain of circumstances, has found its way to us in Central Germany: I am referring to the Sistine Madonna. In this image, which can be seen in countless reproductions, we have perhaps learned to admire the wonderful purity that is poured out over the entire figure; we have perhaps also felt something in the mother's face, in the peculiar floating of the figure, perhaps also something in the deep expression of the child's eyes. And when we then see the cloud formations around them, from which numerous little angel heads appear, we have an even deeper feeling, a feeling that makes the whole picture seem more comprehensible to us. I know that I am saying something daring when I say: if someone looks deeply and seriously at this child in its mother's arms, behind it the clouds forming a multitude of angel heads, then they have the idea that this child was not born in the natural way, but is one of those floating beside it in the clouds. This baby Jesus is himself such a cloud figure, only a little denser than if such a little angel had flown down from the clouds onto the Madonna's arms. That would be a healthy feeling. If we bring this feeling to life within ourselves, our view will broaden, it will free itself from certain narrow conceptions about the natural connections of existence. It is precisely from such an image that our narrow view can expand to the realization that even what must happen according to today's laws could once have been different. We will understand that there was once a form of procreation other than sexual reproduction. In short, we will see in this image the deep connections between the human and the spiritual forces. That is what lies within it.

When we turn our gaze back from this Madonna to Egyptian times, we encounter something very similar, an equally noble image. The Egyptians had Isis, the figure associated with the words: I am that which was, that which is, that which will be. No mortal has yet lifted my veil.

A deep mystery, hidden under a deep veil, is revealed in the figure of Isis, the lovely spirit of God, Isis, who stood in the spiritual consciousness of the ancient Egyptians, just as our Madonna stands with the baby Jesus, with the baby Horus. In the fact that this Isis is presented to us as something that carries the eternal within herself, we are reminded again of the feeling we have when we look at the Madonna. We see deep mysteries in Isis, mysteries that are rooted in the spiritual. The Madonna is a reminder of Isis; Isis appears again in the Madonna. That is the connection. We must recognize with feeling the deep mysteries that represent a supernatural connection between Egyptian and modern culture.

We can establish yet another connection today. We remember how the Egyptians treated their dead; we remember the mummies, how the Egyptians placed importance on preserving the outer physical form for a long time, and we know that the Egyptians filled their tombs with such mummies, in which they had preserved the outer form, and that they placed certain utensils and possessions in the tomb with the deceased as reminders of their past physical life, utensils that corresponded to the needs of physical life. In this way, what the person had had in the physical realm was to be preserved. In this way, the Egyptians connected their dead with the physical plane. This custom became increasingly widespread. It was precisely this that distinguished ancient Egyptian culture.

But something like this is not without consequences for the soul. Let us remember that our souls were in Egyptian bodies. It is absolutely true that our souls were embodied in these bodies that had become mummies. We know from earlier accounts that when a person is freed from their physical body and etheric body after death, they have a different consciousness and do not live in an unconscious state in the astral world. He can look down from the spiritual world, even if he cannot look up today, but he can then look down upon the physical earth. It is not irrelevant whether the body is preserved as a mummy or whether it is burned or decomposed. This creates a certain kind of connection. We will see the mysterious connection. Because bodies were preserved for a long time in ancient Egypt, souls experienced something very specific in the interval after death. When they looked down, they knew: that is my body. They were bound to it, to this physical body; they had the form of their body before them. This body became important to the souls, because the soul is impressionable after death. The impression made by the mummified body was deeply engraved, and the soul was shaped by this impression.

Now this soul passed through incarnations in the Greco-Latin culture, and today it lives in us in our time. It is not without effect that these souls saw their mummified bodies after death, that they were thereby repeatedly drawn back to these bodies; this is not insignificant. They took them into their sympathy, and the fruit of this looking down appears today, in the fifth period, in the inclination that souls now have to attach great value to the outer physical life. Everything we call attachment to matter today comes from the fact that souls were able to look down from the spiritual world at their own embodiment. This is how human beings learned to love the physical world, and this is why it is so often said today that only the physical body between birth and death is important.

Such views do not come out of nowhere. This is not meant to be a criticism of mummy culture, but only to point out the necessities associated with the recurring embodiment of the soul. In their further development, human beings would not have been able to do without looking at mummies. Today, humans would have lost all interest in the physical world if the Egyptians had not had the mummy cult. It had to happen in order to awaken a legitimate interest in the physical world. The fact that humans today have arranged their world in such a way that we see the world as we see it is a consequence of the Egyptians mummifying the physical body after death. For this cultural trend was also influenced by initiates who could see into the future. Mummies were not made on a whim. At that time, high individuals led humanity and decreed what was right. It was done on authority. In the schools of the initiates, it was known that our period is connected with the third period. These mysterious connections were clear to the priests at that time, and they ordered mummification precisely so that the souls would take on the disposition that seeks spiritual experience from the physical, outer world.

This is how the world is guided by wisdom; this is another example of such connections. The fact that people today think the way they do is the result of what they experienced in ancient Egypt. Here we glimpse deep mysteries that reveal themselves in cultural currents. We have only touched upon these mysteries, for what has been shown in the Madonna as a reminder of Isis, and what we have seen in mummification, only faintly touches upon the real spiritual connections. But we will shine even deeper into those conditions; we will not only have to consider what appears outwardly, but we will have to consider what lies beneath the outer appearance.

Outer life takes place between birth and death. After death, human beings live a much longer life, which we know as Kamaloka and the experiences in the spiritual world. The experiences in the supersensible worlds are not any more monotonous than the experiences here in the physical world. What did we experience as ancient Egyptians in the other world?

When we let our gaze wander along the pyramid, when we directed it toward the Sphinx, how different that life was, how different our soul lived between birth and death! This cannot be compared with life today; it would make no sense. And even more varied than the external experiences are the experiences between death and a new birth. Back then, during the Egyptian period, the soul experienced something completely different than in the Greek world, than in the time of Charlemagne, and than in our time. In the other, spiritual world, too, a development takes place, and what human beings experience today between death and a new birth is something completely different from what the ancient Egyptians experienced when they shed their outer form at death. And just as mummification developed in a peculiar way, so that it is the cause of today's attitude, just as this outer life is repeated from the third to the fifth period, so too is there a continuation of development in those mysterious worlds between death and birth. We will have to consider this as well; there too a mysterious connection will emerge. And then we will have gathered something to truly understand what lives within us, what is the fruit of that ancient time within us.

Admittedly, we will be led down into the deep shafts of the labyrinth of Earth's development. But precisely through this we will also recognize the full connection between what the Egyptians built, what the Chaldeans thought, and what we live today. What was wrought in those days, we will see shining forth again in what surrounds us, in what interests us in our environment. We will gain physical and spiritual insights into this connection. We will see how development progresses, how the fourth period forms a wonderful link between the third and fifth periods. And so our souls will rise to the meaningful connections of the world, and the fruit will be a deep understanding of what lives within us.