The Rudolf Steiner Archive

29. Introduction to Theosophy IV

[ 1 ] Tonight we will speak of sin, original sin, illness, and so on. Let us first look back at the past, and then let the future pass before our mind’s eye. Before our own time, we have the era of Rome and Athens, preceded by the Egyptian-Chaldean period; further back, actual historical records are lacking. For even older eras, we have two sources from which we can draw information: the ancient religious teachings, if one knows how to decipher them, and the retrospective images that the clairvoyant consciousness can perceive. Let us speak of the latter.

[ 2 ] Everything on earth is subject to the laws of evolution; this applies in a very special way to human spiritual life. In ancient times, the life of the soul was different from what it is today. In prehistoric times, people in Europe, Asia, and Africa had a spiritual life that was quite different from that of the modern human soul. If we look back thousands of years, we find that the forebears of modern humanity had a much broader spiritual horizon than the one we have today. Although they did not possess the intellect that enables us to read and calculate, they did, on the other hand, possess a primitive clairvoyance and, moreover, an immense memory of which ours cannot even give a faint inkling. We shall yet see how this was possible. To give you an idea of how the world appeared to them, I will say, for example, that when they awoke in their waking consciousness, they saw everything as if surrounded by an aura. A flower, for instance, appeared to them surrounded by a circle of light similar to the one we see around streetlamps in the evening mist. During sleep, however, these people could actually perceive spiritual beings. Gradually, humans learned to see the outlines of things more clearly. At the same time, however, conscious contact with the spiritual world and the beings within it became increasingly rare, until it finally ceased entirely as the “I” became individualized within each individual being. Before this individualization, people were not separated from one another.

[ 3 ] The Earth, too, had a completely different configuration in those times than it does now. Humanity lived on other regions—continents—and our ancestors in particular lived on a continent that is now occupied by the Atlantic Ocean. Tradition calls this continent Atlantis. The myths of all peoples tell us of the disappearance of this part of the world, and the legend of the universal flood refers precisely to this. The Atlantean culture was magnificent, and through its downfall, humanity lost many important insights that it must now laboriously regain. Just as we know how to use the forces hidden in fossilized plants—coal—for trade and industry, so the Atlanteans knew how to use the driving forces in seeds to propel, for example, their airships, which moved slightly above the ground in an atmosphere that was much denser than our own.

[ 4 ] Let us now look at the physical organism of the Atlanteans. It exhibited a significant peculiarity, namely that the etheric body was not entirely similar to the physical body, and the etheric head extended beyond the physical head. This peculiarity is precisely connected to the clairvoyant abilities of the Atlanteans, to their extraordinary memory, and to their magical powers. The etheric head had a special point of perception [...].

[ 5 ] In the course of evolution, this etheric head withdrew more and more into the physical head, thereby altering its profile. Now, at that very point, we have the organ whose development will restore clairvoyance to humanity: the pineal gland. Thus, the clairvoyant power of the Atlanteans gradually disappeared, along with their immense memory and magical powers, and our capacity for thought and calculation developed.

[ 6 ] If we go back even further, we find other catastrophes. Entire continents were destroyed by fire. Our present-day volcanoes are the last remnants of that epoch. The continent that perished at that time is known as “Lemuria” and was the region now largely occupied by the Pacific and Indian Oceans. The inhabitants of that continent had a form very different from our own, one that would even seem grotesque to us by our standards. Their physical and astral bodies related to one another differently. The crown of the head was open, and rays of light penetrated this opening, so that the head was surrounded by a radiant aura and the people looked as if they had a lantern on top of their heads.

[ 7 ] The body was enormous and formed of a fine, almost gelatinous substance. We see the last trace of the Lemurians’ cranial structure in the head of a newborn child, namely the small opening at the top, which remains open until about one year of age or slightly longer.

[ 8 ] At that time, human beings were not at all independent; they could only do what was inspired in them by the spiritual forces in whose midst they were, so to speak, embedded. They received everything from them and acted as if driven by a spiritual instinct. This revealed the power of spiritual beings who had not descended into physical incarnation. These were beings who were not well-disposed toward humanity and who acted upon it in such a way that it attained the independence it lacked. According to the divine plan, humanity was eventually to attain this independence, but these beings brought it about earlier. Together with the other forces, they slipped into the astral body of the human being, who had not yet entered into close connection with his own being, and gave the human being a kind of willpower which, because it was only astral and not guided by reason, enabled him to do evil. These forces are called the Luciferic forces. As we can see, the influence of these forces has a good and an evil side, because on the one hand they seduced humanity, but on the other hand they gave it freedom.

[ 9 ] Our present-day consciousness stems from clairvoyant consciousness, and we find the latter becoming increasingly developed the further back we go in human evolution. The Lemurians could perceive only through their souls. Of a flower, for example, they perceived neither its form nor its color, nor its external characteristics. What appeared to them was a luminous astral form, which they perceived with a kind of inner organ. According to the divine plan, human beings were not supposed to begin perceiving with the external sense organs until the middle of the Atlantean epoch. But the Luciferic forces brought this about earlier, while human instincts were still pure. This is the “Fall of Humanity.” The religious texts say that the serpent opened the eyes of man. Without the interference of the Luciferic influence, the human body would not have become as solid as it is now, and Atlantean humanity would have seen the spiritual side of all things. Instead, humanity fell into sin, illusion, and error.

[ 10 ] To make matters worse, the influence of Ahrimanic forces was added around the middle of the Atlantean era. The Luciferic forces had acted upon the astral body, whereas the Ahrimanic forces acted upon the etheric body, particularly the etheric head. As a result, human beings fell into the error of regarding the outer physical world as the true world. “Ahrimanic” comes from Ahriman, the name the Persians gave to this principle. Zoroaster spoke of him to his people and told them to guard against him and to strive for union with Ahura Mazda—Ormuzd. Ahriman is the same as Mephistopheles and has nothing to do with Lucifer. Mephistopheles derives from the Hebrew words: Me-phis-to-phel, meaning “the liar,” “the deceiver.” Satan in the Bible is also Ahriman and not Lucifer.

[ 11 ] Over the course of centuries, ancient Atlantis gradually perished in floods, and the surviving inhabitants retreated to regions that had been spared from the catastrophe—in Asia, Africa, and the Americas. The first region where Atlantean culture continued to develop was the one later called “India.” There, people retained a clear memory of their former clairvoyance and perception of the spiritual world. Consequently, it was not difficult for their teachers, the Rishis, to direct their attention to the spiritual side of the world, and initiation was an easy matter. Clairvoyance was never completely lost, and there were always clairvoyants up until the time of Christ. We see a remnant of this primitive clairvoyance in mythology, the core of which refers to beings who truly lived, such as Apollo, Zeus, and so on. Although the Ahrimanic influence, as we have said, began in the Atlantean epoch, it did not fully assert itself in humanity until later. The ancient Indians were sufficiently protected against it, and the physical world was never anything other than Maya, illusion, to them. It was not until the era of Zarathustra, the ancient Persian era, that the physical world began to have value for people, who thereby fell prey to the power of Ahriman. In this way, Zarathustra’s warning, of which we have already spoken, becomes clear to us.

[ 12 ] Thus the evolution of humanity continued until the Greek era. Then a different force approached humanity, which began to drive it back up toward the spiritual world from which it had, so to speak, been driven out since the Lemurian era. This new force was the Christ principle, which entered into Jesus of Nazareth, permeating his three bodies—physical, etheric, and astral. When the human soul is fully imbued with the Christ principle, the Ahrimanic and Luciferic forces are overcome, and through this principle a reversal in evolution takes place. Yet Christ could not have influenced humanity had his coming not been foretold to them long beforehand. He has, however, always guided them inwardly; we see this in the magnificent images through which it was prophesied to humanity that he would come. Who else could have given them the power to form such powerful imaginings?

[ 13 ] A magnificent transformation takes place in the physical, etheric, and astral bodies of humanity through the incarnation of the Christ, immediately after the Mystery of Golgotha was accomplished, as the blood flowed from the five wounds and the Christ penetrated into the lowest realms. His etheric and astral bodies multiplied like a seed, and the spiritual world was filled with these images. So that, for example, from the fifth and sixth centuries up to the tenth century, those human beings who had attained a sufficient degree of development received at birth such an image of the Christ incarnation of Jesus of Nazareth. The person in whom such a participation in the etheric body of Christ is most clearly evident is Augustine. The great significance of his life is attributable to this fact. From the tenth century until about the sixteenth century, the astral body of Christ is incorporated. To this we owe the appearance of people such as Saint Francis of Assisi and the great Dominicans, full of humility and virtue, who precisely reflect the great astral qualities of Christ. Therefore, they possessed such a clear image of the great truths within themselves, which they practiced in their lives, in contrast to Augustine, who was never free from doubts and was always caught in a conflict between theory and practice. Among the great Dominicans, St. Thomas deserves special mention, in whom the influence of the astral body of Christ was manifested to a high degree, as we shall see later. With the sixteenth century begins the era in which the images of the Christ-I are ready to weave themselves into the I of individual personalities. One of these was Christian Rosenkreutz, the first Rosicrucian.

[ 14 ] It is precisely to this fact that we owe the possibility of a deeper connection with Christ, as the esoteric teaching reveals to us. The Christ-force will make humanity ever more perfect, will spiritualize it, and lead it back into the spiritual world. Humanity developed its reason at the expense of clairvoyance; the Christ-force will enable humanity to learn here on Earth and to ascend again with what it has acquired. Humanity originates from the Father, and the Christ-force leads it back to the Father.