The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Eleventh Lecture

[ 1 ] At various points in our lecture cycle, we have attempted to present the facts of post-Atlantean development and have indicated that in our time a kind of repetition, a resurrection, is taking place of the experiences that humanity went through during the Egyptian-Chaldean culture. Now we will only outline schematically for these two periods what we have already indicated for the others. It has been said that the Indian period will repeat itself in the seventh period, the Persian in the sixth period, the Egyptian in our period, and that the fourth, the Greek-Latin period, stands alone, so to speak. Let us now schematically indicate, by connecting the Egyptian and our time with a line, why a certain resurrection of outer and inner experiences can be seen when we relate our time to the Egyptian time.

[ 2 ] We have seen that mysterious forces exist in the spiritual worlds, corresponding to certain other forces in the physical world, which cause these repetitions to occur. This gives rise to resurrections of outer and inner experiences. In between, in the middle, stands the Greek-Latin period, when Christ appeared on earth and the mystery of Golgotha was accomplished. Attention has also been drawn to the fact that not only have the external conditions of development on the physical plane changed, but that the conditions in the spiritual world have also become different. I have pointed out how different the human soul was in Egyptian times when it looked at the gigantic pyramids, how different the soul was when it was reincarnated in the Greek-Latin period, and how different the soul feels in our time. We have seen that not only does this take place, but that during the period between death and a new birth, in Kamaloka and Devachan, a kind of progress, of transformation, takes place, so that the soul does not experience the same thing when it enters Kamaloka or Devachan from an Egyptian or a Greek or a present-day body. Outwardly, the world of the physical plane changes, but inwardly, in the spiritual world, progress also takes place, and there too the soul experiences something different each time.

[ 3 ] Now, above all, we must consider the tremendous appearance of Christ on our earth today from the standpoint of this beyond, if we may call it that. Today we will ask ourselves in a much deeper way: What is the significance of Christ's appearance on our earth, what is the significance of Christ's appearance for the souls who have died, for life on the other side, on the spiritual side of existence? To answer this, we must first mention various things that happened for souls on this side and beyond the physical plane during the Egyptian period.

[ 4 ] From everything we have traced about the earlier great epochs of Earth's development, we can see that the Egyptian-Chaldean period offered a reflection of knowledge and experience of what took place in the Lemurian epoch, what took place on Earth during and after the departure of the Moon. What people experienced there, they experienced as a memory in what the Egyptian initiates gave to people. During their initiation, the Egyptian initiates themselves experienced events that people can otherwise only experience when they pass through the gate of death. However, the Egyptian initiate experienced this in a different way than an ordinary deceased human being. He experienced it differently and much more.

[ 5 ] It is now good to describe in a few words the nature of Egyptian initiation as a building block for these considerations. The nature of this initiation differs greatly from the nature of initiation in the time after Christ. For with his appearance, initiation was essentially changed. We have seen that human beings had to ascend more and more into the material world and had to become more and more interested in the physical world. But to the same extent, the experiences between death and a new birth in the spiritual world became shadowy and paler. The more alive people's consciousness became in the physical world, the more they liked being there, the more they discovered the laws of the physical plane, the more shadowy their consciousness became in the spiritual world. And consciousness in the spiritual world reached its lowest point in the Greco-Latin period. But before human beings had descended completely into this material depth, it was not possible for them to experience within the physical body everything that must be experienced if one wants to gain insight into the spiritual world during the period between birth and death.

[ 6 ] The initiation process can be briefly characterized, and this applies to every initiation, both pre-Christian and post-Christian; only the conclusion is different. Initiation is nothing other than the human being gaining the ability to develop organs of perception in his higher bodies. Today, human beings see darkness at night; it is dark around them. This is because human beings have no organs of perception in their astral body. Just as the eyes and ears have developed as physical organs of perception, supersensible organs must develop from the higher members of the human being and be integrated into them. This happens when the student is given certain exercises in meditation and concentration. People do these exercises after they've gotten an overview of what initiates can tell them about the spiritual worlds. It's always been the case that students had to learn what we now call elementary spiritual science. People were much stricter about making sure students learned the truths in a regular step-by-step way. When sufficient theoretical preparation had been completed and the students were ready, they were given the exercises. These exercises have a very specific purpose. When people allow the impressions of the senses to affect them in their daily lives, these impressions are such that they bear fruit for ordinary life on the physical plane. These impressions continue in the astral body of the human being, and this transmits them to the ego. But these impressions are not such that the human being is able to hold on to them when he slips out of his physical and etheric bodies at night with his astral body and ego. What the human being receives in this way from the physical plane does not penetrate him so strongly that he can retain it as a lasting impression. But when the human being practises meditation and concentration, these exercises are so well established through thousands of years of experience that the astral body does not lose them but retains them when it slips out of the physical body at night. The astral body then receives plastic impressions that structure and shape it, just as the physical organs have been structured. In this way, the astral body is worked on through these exercises over a certain period of time. In this way, the supersensible organs of perception become imprinted on the astral body. However, human beings would still be unable to use their organs of perception for a long time if they were only imprinted on the astral body. More must happen so that when the astral body returns to the etheric body, it imprints what has been formed in it on the etheric body like a seal. Only at the moment when what has been formed in the astral body is imprinted on the etheric body does enlightenment occur, which makes it possible for the human being to see the spiritual world as he sees the physical world today.

[ 7 ] Here we begin to understand what we have received as an impulse through the appearance of Christ on earth. In the ancient initiations, the astral body only had the power to act on the etheric body when the etheric body was lifted out of the physical body. This was because at that time the etheric body, connected with the physical body, would have offered too much resistance for the astral body to imprint upon it what it had formed within itself. Therefore, in the ancient initiations, the initiate was placed in a death-like state for a period of three and a half days, during which the physical body was separated from the etheric body, and the etheric body, freed from the physical body, connected with the astral body. And this now imprinted upon the etheric body that which had been imprinted upon it through the exercises. When the hierophant then reawakened the initiate, he was enlightened and knew what was happening in the spiritual world, for he had undergone a remarkable journey during those three and a half days. He had been led through the realms of the spiritual world, he had seen what goes on there, he had experienced through experience what another person can only experience through revelation. Thus, someone who had been initiated could give an account of the beings that existed in the spiritual world beyond the physical plane from his own experiences.

[ 8 ] In this way, people became aware of what was experienced in the spiritual world when humans had not yet descended so deeply into the physical plane. The initiate became acquainted with the true form of Osiris, Isis, and Horus. The initiate saw what was myth during this journey into the spiritual world. He was now able to tell this to other people by clothing it in myths and legends. He saw all this; he saw how strangely the effects of Osiris had taken shape when the moon separated from the earth. They saw Horus emerge from Isis and Osiris; they saw the four types of human beings, the bull type, the lion type, the eagle type, and the actual human type. They also saw the destinies of human beings between death and a new birth. The Sphinx appeared to them as a real figure; they experienced it. He could say: Oh, I have seen the Sphinx, the human being when he still had an animal-like form, and his etheric body, human-like, protruding from this animal-like form. — The Sphinx was a real experience for the initiate. He also heard the Sphinx's question with its enigmatic content. He saw how the human body prepared itself out of animality at a time when the head was only etherically formed, the etheric head of the Sphinx. This was a truth for the initiate, but just as much a truth for him were the older god figures, which had taken a different path of development, so to speak.

[ 9 ] It was said in the previous consideration that certain beings undergo a different course of evolution. The individuality of Wotan, for example, follows such a different path. It goes along with the human being to a certain stage, but then it does not descend so deeply. The human being descends further into materiality and only later reunites with these beings who complete their evolution during the Earth time. We have seen how Wotan later no longer wandered around in our world on Earth. However, such beings were not beings like Osiris and Isis. These were beings who had branched off even earlier, who completed their evolution in a higher layer, in complete invisibility. These figures went through their special experiences.

[ 10 ] Let us look back to the Lemurian epoch. At that time, the etheric was not human-like; human beings were still animal-like in their etheric bodies, and the gods who descended had to condescend to appear in the same animal-like form in which human beings existed on Earth. If a being wants to enter into a certain plan, it must fulfill the conditions for that plan. This was also the case here. The divine beings who were connected with the earth during the passing of the sun and moon, who were on the earth, had to take on a form that was possible at that time, an animal-like form. And since the Egyptian religious view was, in a sense, a repetition of the Lemurian period, the Egyptian initiate looked up to the gods, for example, Osiris and Isis, as if they were animal-like forms. He still saw the higher deities with animal-like heads. Therefore, it was only right, from an occult point of view, that such figures were depicted according to what the initiates knew, with a sparrowhawk or a ram's head. The gods were depicted as they walked on Earth, in the form they had when they walked on Earth. The external images could only be similar to what the initiate saw, but they were very faithfully reproduced. These various divine beings changed greatly. The figures were different in Lemuria and different in Atlantis. The beings underwent much more rapid transformations in those times than they do now. At that time they were still spiritual figures, and when one looks back on these figures, one sees them in their three bodies, but illuminated and radiant with astral and etheric light. And this was depicted quite accurately in the pictures. People today find it easy to laugh at the figures that were depicted, because they do not know how realistic they were.

[ 11 ] There was one figure who rendered particular service during the period of human evolution when the combining intellect was incorporated into human beings through the cosmic-telluric forces. At that time, the physical brain was prepared in such a way that human beings could later develop intelligence. This ability was implanted in human beings and counted among the deeds of God. This was connected with what was incorporated into human beings as intelligence. When we look at a person today who has a keenly developed power of judgment and combination, when we look at them clairvoyantly, we find a strong expression and reflection of this in a green glitter and shine of the astral body, the astral aura. The ability to combine ideas shows itself in green color inclusions in the aura, especially in those who have a sharp, mathematical mind. The ancient Egyptian initiates saw the god who implanted the ability of intelligence in human beings, and they depicted him and painted him green because they saw his luminous astral and etheric form shimmering green. This is still the glittering auric color today when a person moves in intelligence. And much could be studied about these connections if people really wanted to study the wonderful realism of the Egyptian god figures. Because these representations of the gods are so realistic and not arbitrary, they had a magical effect; and those who could see more deeply would see how the colors of these ancient figures contain a high degree of mystery. One could look deeply into the workings of human evolution.

[ 12 ] We have seen how the Sphinx captures what the initiates saw. Although this is not captured photographically, it is realistic. But the figures changed again and again. The figure of the Sphinx reflects what human beings once were. Human beings have shaped their present form themselves. We know that various animal forms have been split off through evolution on Earth. What is an animal form anyway? It is a form that has remained unchanged while humans have continued to evolve. We see in them stages of human development that have remained unchanged, insofar as these stages have become physical. Something completely different has taken place in the spiritual realm. What man is spiritually has nothing to do with his physical ancestors. Only the physical has anything to do with it. But man does not descend from animals; rather, animal forms have remained behind. In man, however, the form has been transformed to a certain level. Animals are former physical human forms that have fallen into decadence.

[ 13 ] The situation is different for another area of evolution. Not only have the physical forms of animals remained unchanged, but also the predispositions for the etheric and astral forms. Just as the lion looked different when it split off, so too do certain soul-spiritual forms that remain at a certain stage become different over time; they degenerate. Yes, it is a law of the spiritual world that whatever remains at the spiritual or soul level increasingly falls into decadence.

[ 14 ] Let us say, for example, that if the sphinx remains standing, it then degenerates and takes on a form that is something like a caricature of its original form. The sphinx has therefore remained on the astral plane until our time. People who, as initiates or in some other regular way, ascend to the higher worlds are not very interested in these decadent figures, which are, so to speak, the degenerate rabble of the spiritual world. But those who, in exceptional cases, are led into the astral world equipped with a low clairvoyant gift, encounter such decadent figures.

[ 15 ] Oedipus encountered the true Sphinx, but she has not died even today. She has not died yet; she only appears to people in a different, special form. When people in rural areas, who are at a certain stage of development, rest in the hot sun at midday in the fields and fall asleep, and something happens to them that could be called latent sunstroke, and when this effect on the physical body causes the astral body and the etheric body to detach themselves from part of the physical body, then such people are transported to the astral plane, and they see these decadent last descendants of the sphinx. This phenomenon is given various names. In some regions, it is called the midday woman. Some people in the countryside say that they have encountered the midday woman. She is present everywhere in various regions, under various names. She is a descendant of the ancient sphinx. And just as the ancient sphinx asked questions of the people who encountered it, so too does the midday woman ask questions. One hears stories of how the Midday Woman approached people and asked them endless questions. This torment of questions is itself a decadent descendant of the ancient Sphinx. The Midday Woman has become the ancient Sphinx. All this points to how evolution proceeds, even behind the physical world, how entire tribes of spiritual beings descend and ultimately become only shadows of what they originally were. Here we see again a feature of the nature of the connections in evolution. This has been said in order to show how manifold evolution actually is.

[ 16 ] Now, in order to understand everything correctly, we must remember that in the course of time, human beings have incorporated into what they brought with them at the beginning of Earth's development as their physical body, etheric body, and astral body, the fourth member, the I. I have shown how this I permeates the astral body, claiming it for itself in such a way that it exercises the dominion that higher spiritual beings exercised in the past. It is an act of the higher beings that this I was implanted into the astral body. If evolution had then continued in the sense of certain higher beings, a different evolution would have taken place than the one that actually did. But certain beings remained behind at that time. They had not become capable of cooperating in implanting the ego into the astral body.

[ 17 ] When human beings first entered the earth, they consisted of the physical body, the etheric body, and the astral body, and they continued to develop these bodies. Now, certain exalted beings, who lived primarily on the sun and the moon, gave him the ego. These beings worked on the ego, so to speak. But there were certain other beings who, during the Saturn, Sun, and Moon evolutions, had not risen high enough to be able to participate in this incorporation of the ego. They could only do what they had learned on the moon. They had to limit themselves to working on the astral body of the human being, so that something was incorporated into the astral body that did not belong to its noblest part, that did not come from the exalted higher beings, but from the late, backward intruders. If these beings had done this on the moon, it would have been the highest possible achievement. But by doing it on Earth as latecomers, they incorporated something into the astral body that made it lower than it could otherwise have been. It was endowed with instincts and passions and with egoism.

[ 18 ] We must bear in mind that humans were influenced from two sides, that humans also received impacts in the astral body, which degraded it. However, something that affects the astral body does not only affect the astral body. In earthly human beings, the effect on the astral body continues through the astral body itself to the etheric body, and the etheric body continues the effect on the physical body. The astral body works everywhere, and so those spirits work through the astral body on the etheric body and the physical body. If these spiritual beings had not been able to exert such an effect, then what came into human beings at that time would not have occurred in human life. This is an increased selfhood of the human being, an increased sense of I. What this caused in the etheric body is everything that arose in terms of clouding of judgment and the possibility of error. Everything that was thus caused by the astral body in the physical body is the basis of what arose as disease. This is the spiritual cause of human diseases; in animals, becoming sick is something else.

[ 19 ] We see how illness is transplanted into human beings. Illness is connected with the causes that have been indicated here. And since the physical and etheric bodies are connected with heredity, the principle of illness passes through the line of heredity. It should be emphasized once again that we must distinguish between what are internal illnesses and what are external injuries. If a person is run over, this has nothing to do with it. Certain internal illnesses can also be related to external causes. If a person eats something that upsets their stomach, this is of course also something external. Before these beings gained influence over humans in the course of evolution, humans were organized in such a way that they reacted much more strongly than today to the evil that affected them from outside. But to the same extent that these beings gained influence, humans lost their instincts for what was wrong. Previously, human beings were still organized in such a way that they had a keen instinct for what was not right for them, so that if anything wanted to enter the stomach that today remains there and then causes harm, it was simply denied entry by their instincts. Looking back, we are increasingly coming to times when human beings were in a subtle relationship with the forces of their environment and reacted in a subtle way to the forces of their environment. But human beings became increasingly uncertain and incapable of rejecting what was not good for them.

[ 20 ] Now this is connected with something else. It is connected with the fact that the more inner the human being became, the more something happened outside in the world: that what we know as the other three kingdoms of nature came into being. The three kingdoms around us came into being only gradually. At first, only the human being existed. Then the animal kingdom joined it, then the plant kingdom, and only then the mineral kingdom. If we were to look back to the primordial earth, when the sun was still united with it, we would find a human being in whom all the substances of the physical world still flowed in and out. At that time, human beings still lived in the bosom of the gods, and human beings could, so to speak, still tolerate everything. Then they had to leave behind what was separated as the animal kingdom. If they had taken this with them, they would not have been able to develop further. They had to expel the animal kingdom and later also the plants. What is outside in the animals and plants is nothing other than temperaments, passions, certain characteristics of human beings that they had to expel. And when human beings formed their bones, they expelled the mineral world. After some time, human beings were able to look at their surroundings and say: In the past, I could tolerate you; in the past, you moved in and out of me like the air does now. When I was still living in the watery earth, I could tolerate you; I processed you. Now you are outside, I can no longer tolerate you, no longer process you. When the skin enclosed humans, when they became separate beings, they saw the realms around them to the same extent.

[ 21 ] Let us assume that this had continued, then these beings would not have had an effect on humans, then something else would not have come about. As long as humans are healthy, they will have a normal relationship with the outside world. If they have disturbed forces within themselves, these must be driven back by the forces that humans possess. If his forces are too weak for this, then something must be instilled in him against that which he cannot resist normally, but against which he must take something from outside. Something must then be implanted in him so that the resistance he offered when the forces from outside were still flowing in and out of him is called upon. When a person is ill, it may be necessary to instill in him the forces of a metal, for example. This is why it is justified to instill metals, plant juices, and the like into a person, to use something as a remedy with which he was previously connected.

[ 22 ] At the time when the Egyptian initiates could look back on the entire course of world development, they knew exactly how the individual organs of the human body corresponded to the substances outside, which plants and which metals had to be administered to the sick, and one day a tremendous treasure of occult wisdom will be unearthed in the field of medicine that humanity once possessed. Today, not only is there a great deal of bungling in the field of medicine, but also a great deal of error where special healing powers are attributed to one thing or another in a one-sided manner. The true occultist will never be one-sided. How often do we have to shake off attempts to compromise with spiritual science? Spiritual science cannot support a one-sided method; rather, it seeks to establish the universality of research. It is one-sided to say: Away with all poisons! Those who say this do not know the true healing powers. Of course, nonsense is being perpetrated today, because most experts are unable to see the whole picture. And a certain tyranny in medical science excludes anything that might come from occultism. If no campaigns were waged against the oldest areas of medicine, against metal dissolution, then reform could take place. Modern experimentation will find nothing that can really stand up to the tried and tested remedies, which only laymen's ignorance can combat so harshly, as is often the case. The ancient Egyptian initiates were particularly knowledgeable about these secrets. They were able to gain insight into the real connections of development. And when certain doctors today speak in a condescending tone about Egyptian medicine, one can very quickly tell from their tone that they know nothing about it. This hints at some of what one needs to know about Egyptian initiation.

[ 23 ] Such things passed into the consciousness of the people. Now we must remember that the same souls that are in our bodies today were also incarnated in those ancient times. Let us think that the same souls saw all the images that the initiates had made of what they knew through seeing in the spiritual world. We know that what the soul takes up from incarnation to incarnation always bears fruit in some way. Even if human beings cannot remember it, it is nevertheless true that what lives in the soul today lives there because it was placed there in the past. The soul has been shaped on this side and beyond physical life. When it was between birth and death, when it was between death and a new birth, Egyptian ideas had an effect: that is why today's ideas have arisen from them. Today, certain ideas are developing out of Egyptian ideas. What we now call Darwinism did not arise for external reasons. It is the same souls that received the images of the animal forms of human ancestors in Egypt. All these views have reawakened, only man has descended even deeper into the material world. He remembers being told that his ancestors were animal figures — but he does not remember that they were gods. This is the psychological reason why Darwinism arose. The god figures appear in materialistic form. Thus, there is an intimate spiritual connection between the old and the new, the third and the fifth cultural periods.

[ 24 ] Now, it is not the sole destiny of our time that human beings see in a material way what they used to see in the spiritual realm. That would have been our destiny if the Christ impulse had not entered human evolution in the meantime. This has not only had significance for life on the physical plane. Today we want to bring before our souls the significance that the events in Palestine had for the other side of life, where the souls of the ancient Egyptians were after death. Here on the physical plane, what has already been discussed took place. But the three years of Christ's activity, such as the events at Golgotha and the baptism in the Jordan, were just as significant for the souls incarnated on earth as for those who were in the state between death and new birth.

[ 25 ] We remember the fact that the outer physical expression of the I is the blood. That which works physically in the forces of the blood is the physical expression of the I. Now, in the course of evolution, too much egoism had come into being, that is, the I had become too strongly imprinted on the blood. And this “excess” of egoism must be removed from humanity if humanity is to be given back its spirituality. At Golgotha, the impulse was given for this removal of egoism. And at the very moment when the blood of the Savior flowed on Golgotha, other processes were taking place in the spiritual world. The blood of the Redeemer flowed down into the material world, but what was there in excess of egoism passed over into the spiritual world. The excess egoism had to disappear from the world, and the impulse for this was given at Golgotha. In addition, general love for humanity is taking the place of egoism in the present human race.

[ 26 ] But what was this event at Golgotha? This event of a three-and-a-half-day death on the physical plane? It was that which had been experienced in spiritual evolution by the one who was initiated, carried out on the physical plane. He was dead for three and a half days. The one who had undergone this symbolic death could say to humanity: Death has been conquered. There is something eternal in the world. Death was conquered by the initiates, and they felt themselves to be the conquerors of death. The event of Golgotha means that what often took place in the mysteries of ancient times became a historical event: the defeat of death by the spirit, which was now carried out on the physical plane, out into the world. When we allow this to work upon the soul, we feel what happened with the mystery of Golgotha, the new, as an image of the old initiation. Having entered the world historically, we feel this unique event.

[ 27 ] And what was the result of this? What was the initiate able to do? He was able to say to his fellow human beings from his experiences: I know that there is a spiritual world, that one can live in the spiritual world. I have lived there for three and a half days and bring you news from there. I bring you the gifts of the spiritual world. These gifts were useful and for the good of humanity. Conversely, those who had lived in the physical world as initiates could bring nothing similar to the dead. They could only say to the dead: Everything that happens on the physical plane is so that human beings may be redeemed. This was the case when the ancient initiates in the spiritual world communicated with the dead, to whom they could only give the teaching: Suffering is life, only redemption is salvation.

[ 28 ] This is what the Buddha still taught. This is what the initiate taught the living and the dead. But through the event at Golgotha, death has been conquered in the physical world, and this means something for the deceased who are in the spiritual world. Those who take Christ into their hearts illuminate the shadowy life in Devachan once again. The more a person experiences Christ here, the brighter it becomes in the spiritual world. After the blood flowed from the wounds of the Redeemer — something that belongs to the mysteries of Christianity — the Christ Spirit descended to the dead. This is one of the deepest mysteries of humanity. Christ descended to the dead and said to them: Something has happened over there that is not such that one must say: what happens over there is not as much as what happens here. What human beings bring with them into the spiritual realm, based on this event, is a gift that can be brought from the physical world into the spiritual world. This is the message that Christ brought to the dead during the three and a half days; he descended to the dead in order to redeem them.

[ 29 ] In the old initiation, one could say: We reap the fruits of the spiritual in the physical! Now an event had taken place in the physical world that bore fruit and had an effect in the spiritual world. And one can say: It was not in vain that man completed his descent to the physical plane. He completed it so that fruits could be reaped here in the physical world for the spiritual world.

[ 30 ] The fact that the fruits can be reaped is due to Christ, who was present among the living and the dead, who gave an impulse so intense and so powerful that it shook the whole world.