The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Ninth Lecture

[ 1 ] The fact with which we concluded our reflections yesterday must necessarily remain somewhat incomprehensible when it first presents itself to human beings. It belongs to the mysteries of numbers. And the mysteries of numbers are among those that are relatively most difficult to grasp.

[ 2 ] It has been said that there is a certain relationship between the numbers seven and twelve, and that this relationship has something to do with time and space. Now, it is possible that the mystery expressed here may gradually be understood by all human beings, but in the sense of the only knowledge currently recognized, the matter is a mere assertion. It should first be explained. As has already been pointed out, one finds oneself in the world's machinery when one distinguishes between those relationships that are primarily spatial and those that are primarily temporal. We initially understand the world around us in terms of space and time. However, if we do not limit ourselves to speaking abstractly about space and time, but want to understand how relationships are ordered in time and how individual entities relate to each other in space, then there is a thread that runs through the relationships of time on the one hand and the relationships of space on the other. From a spiritual scientific perspective, we first consider the development of world phenomena. We look back at earlier incarnations of human beings, at earlier incarnations of races, of cultures, at earlier incarnations of the earth itself. We gain an idea of what is to happen in the future, that is, also in time. But we always find our bearings when we say to ourselves: we will judge temporal development from a framework that we construct for ourselves using the number seven. We must not construct or speculate and give all kinds of interpretations to the number seven, but should first of all follow the facts from the point of view of the number seven. This is initially only a means of facilitating our observation. Take, for example, a person whose spiritual eye is open to such an extent that they can examine the facts of the Akashic Records in the past. The number seven will guide them by telling them: What happens in time is built up according to the framework of the number seven; what repeats itself in different forms can be clearly seen by taking the number seven as a basis and then looking for the corresponding forms. So it is good to say to oneself: Because the earth goes through different incarnations, we look for its seven incarnations: Saturn, Sun, Moon, Earth, Jupiter, Venus, and Vulcan. Because human cultures undergo seven incarnations, we seek their connection by again taking the number seven as our basis. — We go, for example, to the first culture in the post-Atlantean period. The ancient Indian cultural period is the first, the second is the ancient Persian, the third the Chaldean-Egyptian, the fourth the Greek-Latin, the fifth our own, and we await the two following, which will replace ours as the sixth and seventh. Here again we have taken the number seven as our basis in successive cultural embodiments. However, we can also find our way in a person's karma if we try to look back on their three previous incarnations. If we take the incarnation of a person in the present and look back from this present on the three previous incarnations, it is possible to draw certain conclusions about the three next incarnations. The three previous incarnations and the present one, together with the three following ones, again make seven. Thus, the number seven is a guide for all temporal events.

[ 3 ] In contrast, the number twelve is a guide for everything that exists side by side in space. This has always been felt by a science that was at the same time wisdom. Therefore, when it comes to world phenomena that belong to our Earth, it has said: We find our way around when we relate the spatial relationships of anything that happens on Earth to twelve permanent points distributed in space. These twelve permanent points are indicated by the twelve signs of the zodiac in the world space. These should be twelve basic points to which everything in space is related. But this is not merely an arbitrary construct of human thinking; rather, human thinking has learned from reality and developed this relationship as a guide, namely that one finds one's way best in space by relating to twelve members. Where changes are concerned, that is, temporal phenomena, an older science takes the seven planets as its basis. The number seven is the guiding principle here.

[ 4 ] Now we ask ourselves: How does this apply to human life in its development? We have said that up to the point in human development marked by the advent of the Christ principle, when human beings looked within themselves, they sought the way to the world of the gods through the veil of their inner being and entered the Luciferic world. And we have been able to describe everything that human beings find there with a collective name: the Luciferic world. In those earlier times, this was also the path on which human beings sought wisdom, on which they sought a higher knowledge of the world than could be found behind the curtain of the outer sensory world. Man sought by immersing himself in his inner world; from this inner world, further intuitions and inspirations of moral and ethical life had to rise, just as the intuitions of conscience rose from this inner world. All other intuitions and inspirations relating to morality and the soul in general naturally arose from the soul. Therefore, those high individualities who were the leaders of humanity in those ancient times had to turn first to the human inner life if they wanted to enlighten people about the highest things. The holy rishis had to turn to the human soul life, to the human inner life, as did the great teachers of humanity in all older cultures. But the human inner life is not spatial, it is temporal. The soul life proceeds in time. That which surrounds us externally is grouped in space; that which proceeds internally is grouped in time. Therefore, everything that wants to speak to the human inner life is tested by the guiding principle of the number seven. How, then, can we best understand a being that wants to speak to the human inner life? How can we best understand the fundamental characteristics of those beings whom we call, for example, the holy Rishis? We can best understand them when we grasp them in the relationship that is related to the temporal soul life. Therefore, in those ancient times when the great sages spoke, the question arose above all: Where do they come from? — as we ask of a son: Who is his father and mother? People asked about the temporal, about the relationship of descent. When one had a sage before one, one was interested above all in the question: Where does he come from? What was the being that was there before? Where does he come from? Whose son is he? So when we speak of the Luciferic world, we must take the number seven as our basis and be interested in whose child is the one who speaks to the human soul. We speak of the children of Lucifer in this sense when we speak of the older proclaimers of the spiritual world, who lie hidden behind the veil of soul life, behind the temporal.

[ 5 ] But the question is different with Christ. Christ did not come down to earth in a temporal way; Christ, in appearing temporally, also came into the earthly world from outside, in terms of space. Zarathustra saw him when he looked up at the sun and addressed him as Ahura Mazdao. More and more, Ahura Mazdao drew closer to human vision in space until he descended and became human. So it is not only the temporal sequence that is of interest here, but also the spatial approach. The spatial approach, this approach of Christ from the infinity of space to our earth, has an eternal value, not merely a temporal value. This is also connected with the fact that Christ does not have to work on earth in a way that corresponds solely to the relationship of time, that Christ does not bring something to earth that corresponds to the relationship between father and child, between mother and child, which takes place in time, but rather he brings something into the world that takes place in coexistence. Brothers live side by side. Father, mother, and grandchild live one after the other in time, and the temporal relationship expresses their actual relationship. But Christ, as the spirit of space, also brings something spatial into the earthly culture. What he brings in is the juxtaposition of human beings in space, and the relationship that is now to pass over more and more from one soul to another in their coexistence, regardless of how the temporal relationship is regulated. Our Earth is the planet in our cosmic system that has the mission of introducing love into the world. In ancient times, it was the task of the Earth to introduce love with the help of time. Through the relationships of descent, the “blood flowed from generation to generation, from father to child and grandchild, and that which was related through time was at the same time that which loved each other. The family connection, the blood connection, the flow of blood through successive generations in time, was what established love in ancient times. And even where love took on a more moral character, it was based on a temporal relationship. People loved their ancestors, those who had gone before them in time. Through Christ, love came from soul to soul, so that what stands spatially next to each other comes into a relationship, as was first exemplified by siblings standing next to each other at the same time, as the brotherly love that people should show each other in space, from soul to soul. Here, spatial coexistence begins to take on its special meaning.

[ 6 ] That is why, in earlier times, when it came to the great matters of humanity, people spoke of what was connected according to the rule of seven: seven rishis, seven wise men! That is why Christ is surrounded by twelve apostles as models of people living side by side in space. And this love, which will encompass everything that is side by side in space, regardless of the sequence of time, is to enter into the social life of the earth through the Christ principle. He is a follower of Christ who loves what is around him in brotherhood. Therefore, when we speak in older times of the children of Lucifer, the Christ principle is the reason why we say: Christ is the firstborn among many brothers. — And the brotherhood relationship to Christ, the feeling of being drawn to him not as to a father, but as to a brother whom one loves as the first of brothers, but still as a brother, is the fundamental relationship to Christ.

[ 7 ] These are, of course, only quotations, which do not prove but illustrate and clarify what constitutes the relationship between the numbers seven and twelve. The more the Christ relationship shines down into the world, the more one speaks of groupings in the sense of the twelve tribes of Israel, the twelve apostles, and so on. From this, the number twelve gains its mystical, mysterious meaning for the development of the earth.

[ 8 ] This, so to speak, indicates the outer aspect, the outer appearance of this great change that has taken place through the Christ principle in relation to the development of the earth. We could now talk at length about the relationship between the number seven and the number twelve and still leave many things incomprehensible in this deep mystery of our world existence. If you take what has been said as an explanation of the numbers seven and twelve as a guide to time and space relationships, you will be able to penetrate more deeply into the mysteries of the universe. For us, however, this relationship between the numbers seven and twelve should first be that which points us to everything else and shows us how profoundly the Christ event was for the world, how we must, so to speak, seek another numerical guide if we want to find our way there.

[ 9 ] But there is also an inner relationship in relation to space and time; I can only hint at this very sketchily. And I will do so as was usually done in the mysteries to indicate the cosmic in the relationship between twelve and seven. It has been said: If you do not view the world space as something abstract, but rather relate earthly conditions to this world space, then you must relate these conditions to that circumference by thinking of the twelve basic points of the zodiac as Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, and Pisces. These twelve fundamental points of the zodiac were at the same time the real, actual symbol of the world for the most ancient divine-spiritual beings, in which reality was conceived in a certain way. Even when the Earth was embodied in ancient Saturn, the forces coming from these twelve directions were already acting upon this ancient Saturn; they continued to act during the ancient Sun era, during the ancient Moon era, and will continue to act. They are therefore, in a sense, permanent and far above what arises and passes away within our Earth's evolution. That which is symbolized by the twelve signs of the zodiac is exalted above that which passes away in the course of the evolution of our planet from ancient Saturn to the Sun, from the ancient Sun to the ancient Moon, and so on. While what is happening there arises and passes away, that which is conditioned by the zodiac has outlasted the planetary events, that is, it outlasts the conditions on the old Saturn, on the old Sun, on the old Moon. It is also what is symbolized by the cardinal points of the zodiac, elevated above what takes place on our Earth as the opposition of good and evil. Remember that in the first lesson of this cycle I drew your attention to how, when one enters the astral realm, one has to deal with a world of transformation, where what may appear good from one point of view may appear evil from another. These differences between good and evil have their meaning within the process of becoming. And the number seven is an orienting guide for this meaning. That which is symbolized by the gods in the twelve points of space, in the twelve points of time, is exalted above good and evil. And therefore, within the circle of the twelve points of time, we have that which is exalted above good and evil. Out there, we must seek, as it were, the symbols for those divine-spiritual beings which, when viewed in themselves, without interfering in our earthly sphere, are above the differences between good and evil.

[ 10 ] Now, however, that which is to become our earth begins to stir in time. This can only happen through a division within these eternal deities, so that what proceeds enters into a different relationship with these eternal gods, dividing them into two spheres, a sphere of good and a sphere of evil. In themselves, neither one nor the other is good or evil, but insofar as they act upon the earth in its becoming, they act sometimes as good and sometimes as evil, so that everything that participates in the one may be called the sphere of good, and everything that participates in the other may be called the sphere of evil. However, the underlying idea is that anything that participates only a little in the sphere of good must also be called good. As soon as that which, as I have said, has duration in the spiritual world, which has nothing to do with time, intervenes in time, it divides into good and evil. Of the twelve points of permanence, five remain for the good, those located purely in the sphere of good, and two at the boundary; that makes seven. That is why we speak of what remains as seven of the twelve. If we want to seek the good, the excellent, the leading in time, we must speak of seven sages, of seven rishis; and this then corresponds to reality. Hence also the idea that the light world, the upper world, has seven signs of the zodiac; that the lower five, beginning with Scorpio, belong to the dark world.

[ 11 ] This is only a sketchy indication that when space, so to speak, leaves its sphere of eternity and takes in creations that run their course in time, it divides itself into good and evil, and that by emphasizing the good, by emphasizing the seven out of the twelve, the seven is the good number for the conditions of time. If we want to seek the truths of time, we must regard the number seven as a guide; for what remains as the number five would lead us into error. There you have the inner meaning of this matter.

[ 12 ] Do not say to yourself at this moment that this is difficult to understand, but say to yourself: The world is deep, and there must also be things that are difficult to understand.

[ 13 ] But Christ came into the world to sit with the tax collectors and sinners. He came to take in what would otherwise have to be eliminated from the world. In Oedipus, the same thing had to be excluded that was taken in during the life of Christ as a ferment; this was confirmed for you by the legend of Judas. Just as new bread must take in a small part of the old as a ferment in order to continue to rise, so the new world, in order to flourish, in order to become truly good, had to take in something as a ferment that came out of evil. Therefore, Judas, who was excluded everywhere, who had made himself impossible even at Pilate's court, could be accepted where Christ was working, who had come to heal the world again so that the seven could be transformed into the twelve, so that what had been understood under the number seven could now be understood under the symbol of the number twelve. First of all, the number twelve is represented to us by the twelve brothers of Christ, by the twelve apostles.

[ 14 ] All this, as I said, should only be discussed as an indication of how profound the change was that this brought about for our entire earthly existence. The significance of the Christ principle and its impact on earthly existence can be explained from many points of view, and the one we have touched upon here is one of them.

[ 15 ] Now let us once again bring before our souls what has emerged from all this. That something very special entered into the development of the earth with Christ is something that is felt and recognized in spiritual science where it has its true home. It is felt and recognized in the places of true spiritual science that there is something that initially passes through all cultures of the post-Atlantean period; something that has already passed through the ancient Indian, Persian, Chaldean-Egyptian cultures, and so on, and something that will also pass through the cultures that follow these until the next great catastrophe and beyond. When we ask ourselves: Where can we find a truer form of what runs through the entire development of humanity than we can find through sensory perception or the human intellect? — we must turn to spiritual science and ask: What do we call that which can be discovered in the spiritual world and which moves through all these seven cultures like a continuous spiritual stream? In Eastern wisdom, a word has been coined for what runs through all these cultures; when viewed in reality, it is not something abstract, but something concrete, a being. And if we want to describe this being more precisely, of which all other beings, whether they be the seven holy Rishis or even higher beings who do not descend to physical embodiment, are messengers, we can describe it with a name that the Orient has coined correctly. All proclamation, all wisdom in the world, leads back to this one source, to the source of primordial wisdom, which possesses a being that develops through all cultures of the post-Atlantean era, that appears in every epoch in this or that form, but that is always a being, a fundamental carrier of wisdom that has appeared in the most diverse forms. When I described to you yesterday how the holy rishis grasped this wisdom concretely, as if breathing it in, what was spread out there like the soul of light and breathed in as light-wisdom by the holy rishis was the outflow of that sublime being of which we are speaking here. And for other ages, what we mentioned yesterday as their wisdom — for example, in that completely different view expressed in the ancient Persian cultural epoch — flowed down again from this one being, who is the great teacher of all cultures. That being, who was the teacher of the holy Rishis, the teacher of Zarathustra, the teacher of Hermes, who can be called the great teacher and who manifested himself in various ways in various epochs, who of course remains deeply hidden from the outer gaze at first, is described with an expression coined from the East as the totality of the Bodhisattvas. The Christian view would call it the Holy Spirit. When we speak of the Bodhisattva, we are speaking of a being that transcends all cultures and can reveal and manifest itself to human beings in one way or another. This is the spirit of the Bodhisattvas. All looked up to the bodhisattvas, the holy rishis, Zarathustra, Hermes, Moses, regardless of how they perceived and named the entity in question. They can be given this one name, they are “the great teacher,” and those who want to and are able to receive the teachings of the post-Atlantean era look up to him. This Bodhisattva spirit of our post-Atlantean time has taken on human form several times, but one of these forms interests us above all others. A Bodhisattva took on a human form that shone far and wide, regardless of how he otherwise manifested himself, in that being known as Gautama Buddha. And it was a step forward for the corresponding bodhisattva when he no longer needed to remain in the higher spiritual regions, but had progressed so far through his training within the spiritual regions that he was able to conquer physical corporeality to such an extent that he could become a human being in Buddha. Thus, in the Buddha we see one of the incarnations of a Bodhisattva, one of the incarnations of the all-encompassing figures of wisdom that underlie becoming on earth. In the Buddha we have, so to speak, the embodiment of that great teacher who can simply be called essential wisdom itself. This is the correct way to view the Buddha: he is the incarnation of the Bodhisattva on earth. And it is not necessary to believe that a Bodhisattva has incarnated only in the Buddha, but that such a being has also incarnated wholly or partially in other human personalities. But we must not understand all such embodiments according to a template; rather, we must be clear that just as a bodhisattva lived in the etheric body of Gautama Buddha, so too did one live in the bodily members of other human individuals. And because the essence of the Bodhisattva who had inherited the astral body of Zarathustra flowed into the limbs of other individualities, for example Hermes, one can – but only if one understands the matter in this way – also call other individualities, who in turn are great teachers, an embodiment of a Bodhisattva. One can speak of an ever-recurring embodiment of the Bodhisattva, but one must know that the Bodhisattva stood behind all the people in whom he embodied himself as part of that entity which is itself the personified omniscience of our world.

[ 16 ] This is how we view the element of wisdom that communicated itself to humanity in ancient times from the Luciferic worlds. When we look at this, we look at the bodhisattvas. Now, however, in relation to post-Atlantean development, there is a being who is fundamentally different from the Bodhisattvas, who is something fundamentally different from a Bodhisattva, and who must not be confused with the Bodhisattva, because he was once embodied in a human individuality that also had the inflow of the Bodhisattva as Buddha at the same time. Because there once lived a human being in whom Christ was incarnated and at the same time the rays of the Bodhisattva entered into this human individuality, one must not regard it as the main thing in this incarnation that the Bodhisattva incarnated in that personality. This is Jesus of Nazareth. During the last three years, the Christ principle, which is fundamentally different from the Bodhisattva principle, predominates. How can we now distinguish between the Christ principle and the Bodhisattva principle? It is extremely important to know why Christ, who was once incarnated in a human body, can only be incarnated once, not before or after, as Christ in a human body. Since that time, he can be reached on the path into the inner soul of the human being; before that, he could be reached by looking out into the world, as Zarathustra did. How does Christ, this principle, this being to whom we must attribute such a central position, differ from a bodhisattva? The fundamental difference between Christ and the bodhisattva is that we must call the bodhisattva the great teacher, the embodiment of wisdom that passes through all cultures and embodies itself in the most diverse ways. But Christ is not merely a teacher, that is the essential point! Christ does not merely teach human beings; Christ is a being whom we understand best when we seek him where we can find him at dizzying spiritual heights as an object of initiation, and where we can compare him with other spiritual beings.

[ 17 ] We can best characterize it in the following way: There are regions of spiritual life where, so to speak, stripped of all earthly dust, one can find this high being, the Bodhisattva, in his spiritual uniqueness, and where one can find Christ, stripped of all that he has become on earth and in its vicinity. There one finds the following: one finds, so to speak, the foundation of humanity, that from which all life springs: the spiritual source. One finds not only one Bodhisattva, but a series of Bodhisattvas. As we have pointed out with regard to the Bodhisattva who lies at the foundation of our seven successive cultures, there is a Bodhisattva who lies at the foundation of the Atlantean cultures, and so on. In spiritual heights, you find a series of bodhisattvas who are the great teachers of their times, not only of human beings, but also of those beings who do not descend into the region of physical life. We find them all sitting there, if we may speak comparatively, as the great teachers; they gather together what they are to teach, and in their midst we find a being who is not only something because he teaches: and that is the Christ. He is not only something because he teaches, but he is in the midst of the bodhisattvas as a being who influences the surrounding bodhisattvas by their seeing him; he is looked upon by the bodhisattvas, to whom he reveals his own glory. If the others are what they are because they are great teachers, then Christ is what he is to the world through what he is in himself, through his essence. One need only look at him, and the revelation of his own essence is something that merely needs to be reflected in his surroundings; then the teaching arises from this. He is not merely a teacher, he is life, a life that pours itself into other beings, who then become teachers. Thus, the Bodhisattvas are those who derive their teaching from the fact that they enjoy the bliss of having the vision of Christ in their spiritual height. And if we find incarnations of Bodhisattvas in the course of our earthly development, we call them that because the Bodhisattva is the essence in them, great teachers of humanity. Christ does not merely teach. We learn about Christ in order to understand him, to recognize what is in him. Christ is more the object than the subject of learning. He is therefore a being of a fundamentally different nature than the bodhisattvas who pass through the world. The difference between Christ and the bodhisattvas is that he is what he is to the world through the fact that the world enjoys beholding him. The bodhisattvas are what they are to the world through the fact that they are great teachers.

[ 18 ] If we therefore want to look to the living entity, to the source of life on our earth, we must look to that embodiment where not merely a bodhisattva is embodied, so that this is the essential thing, but where that which did not need to leave behind any written work, which did not leave behind any teaching of itself, but gathered around itself those who spread messages and teachings about it throughout the world, has incarnated itself. It is essential that there is no written document from Christ himself, but that the teachers are around him and speak about him, so that he is the object of the teaching, not just the subject. This is expressed in the peculiar circumstance, which here signifies a necessity in the Christ event, that nothing has been preserved from him himself, but that others have written down his essence. It is therefore no wonder that it is said that we can find everything we find as the teachings of Christ in other creeds as well, because Christ is not merely a teacher, because he is a being who wants to be understood as a being, because he does not want to instill something in us merely through his teachings, but through his life. Therefore, we can bring together all the teachings of the world that are accessible to us, and we will still not have everything that can comprehend Christ. If the present human race cannot turn directly to the Bodhisattvas in order to see Christ with the spiritual eyes of the Bodhisattvas, then humanity must go to school with these Bodhisattvas in order to learn what can ultimately make Christ comprehensible. If we do not want merely to participate in Christ, but want to understand Christ, then we must not just look comfortably at what Christ has done for us, but we must go to school with all the teachers of the West and the East, and it must be sacred to us to acquire the teachings of the entire sphere of vision; and it must be sacred to us to use these teachings in such a way that we can fully understand Christ through the highest teachings.

[ 19 ] But what people should do is prepared accordingly in the mysteries. Every age has its own special task; it is incumbent upon each age to receive the truth in precisely the form that this truth must take for the human epoch in question. The ancient Indian could not be given the same form of truth as is given today, any more than the ancient Persian. The truth had to be given to him in the form that was suitable for his sensibilities. Therefore, in the period that was suited by its other characteristics to receive Christ on earth—that is, in the fourth epoch, the Greco-Latin epoch—the truth about Christ and about the world connected with Christ had to be brought to humanity in the form that was appropriate to the humanity of that time. To believe that in the period immediately following the Christ revelation the whole truth about Christ was already available is to know nothing at all about the progress of the human race. Anyone who wants to preserve only the teachings of the first centuries after the Christ event, anyone who wants to regard only what has been written and preserved as genuine Christian teaching, knows nothing of human progress, knows not that the highest teacher of the first Christian centuries could have told people about Christ anything other than what they were able to receive. But because the people of the first Christian centuries were above all those who had descended, so to speak, to the lowest depths of the physical world, they were able to take in relatively little of the higher teachings about Christ with their understanding. Relatively little could be understood by the great masses of Christians about the Christ being.

[ 20 ] We have seen that in ancient India there was a high level of clairvoyance due to the position of the etheric body in relation to the other members of the human being at that time, but the time had not yet come for this clairvoyance to see Christ as anything other than a spirit lying in distant regions beyond the sensory world, to understand him as Vishvakarman. In the time of the ancient Persian culture, it was only possible to sense Christ behind the physical sun. And so it continued. With Moses, it was possible to see Christ as Jehovah in lightning and thunder, that is, already very close to the earth. And in Jesus of Nazareth, Christ was seen as incarnated in a human being. Humanity has progressed so far that in ancient India wisdom was still received through the etheric body, in the ancient Persian period through the sentient body, in the Chaldean-Egyptian period through the sentient soul, and in the Greek-Latin period through what we call the intellectual soul. And the intellectual soul is already bound to the sensory world through its understanding. It therefore lost sight of what lies beyond the sensory world. As a result, in the first centuries after Christ, people saw little more than what lies between birth and death and what immediately follows as the next spiritual realm. People knew nothing of what passes through many incarnations. This was due to human understanding. It was only possible to comprehend one part of the whole of human life: the earthly life and the spiritual life that follows it. This is what you find described for the broad masses. But this could not be preserved. Provision had to be made that people's view could be expanded beyond this piece of understanding; precautions had to be taken so that the comprehensive wisdom that was available at that time, in the Hermetic era, in the time of Moses, in the time of Zarathustra, in the time of the ancient Indian rishis, could gradually be revived, so that the opportunity would once again be offered to understand Christ in an ever broader sense.

[ 21 ] Thus, Christ had indeed come into the world, but the means of understanding were most limited at that time. Provision had to be made for the times that followed; all the ancient wisdom had to be revived so that it could gradually be placed at the service of understanding Christ. This could only happen in the following way. A mystery wisdom had to be created. The people who migrated from ancient Atlantis to Europe and beyond brought with them great wisdom. In ancient Atlantis, most people were instinctively clairvoyant; they could see into the spiritual realms. This clairvoyance could not develop further; it had to retreat into individual personalities in the West. It was guided by a being who lived in deep seclusion, withdrawn even behind those who were already withdrawn and disciples of a great initiate who had, so to speak, remained behind, preserving what could be brought over from ancient Atlantis and keeping it for later times. This high initiate, this preserver of the ancient Atlantean wisdom, which penetrated deeply into all the secrets of the physical body, can be called Skythianos, as was customary in the early Middle Ages. And those who are familiar with European mystery teachings look up to one of the highest initiates on earth when the name Skythianos is mentioned.

[ 22 ] But then, for a long time, the same being lived within this world, who, when viewed from his spiritual aspect, can be called the Bodhisattva. This Bodhisattva was the same being who, after completing his task in the West, was incarnated in Gautama Buddha approximately six hundred years before our era. So the being who then moved further east as a teacher was, so to speak, already at a more advanced stage. He was a second great teacher, a second great keeper of the seal of human wisdom, and became Gautama Buddha.

[ 23 ] But then there was a third individuality who was predestined for greatness. ^{1These beings are spoken of here as they were understood in the spirit of older worldviews and as, in a certain sense, is still justified today from a spiritual scientific point of view.} And we know this third individuality from various lectures. This is the one who was the teacher of ancient Persia, the great Zarathustra. We refer to three important spiritual beings and individualities when we utter the names Zarathustra, Gautama Buddha, and Skythianos. We speak of incarnations of bodhisattvas when we mention the names Skythianos, Zarathustra, and Buddha. What lived in them was not Christ.

[ 24 ] Now humanity had to be given time to experience the arrival of Christ, who had previously announced himself to Moses on Mount Sinai, for it is the same being: Yahweh and Christ, only in a different form. Now humanity had to be given time to receive Christ. This happened at a time when understanding of such things was at its lowest ebb. But provision had to be made for understanding to grow greater and greater, and Christ also made provision for this on earth.

[ 25 ] A fourth individuality is now mentioned in history, behind which many see something even higher and more powerful than the three beings mentioned above, namely Skythianos, Buddha, and Zarathustra. It is Manes, who is called a high messenger of Christ by many who see more in Manichaeism than is usually seen. Many say that Manes, a few centuries after Christ had lived on earth, gathered three important personalities of the fourth century AD in one of the largest assemblies that ever took place in the spiritual world belonging to the earth. This vivid description is intended to express an important spiritual cultural fact. Manes gathered these personalities for the purpose of consulting with them on how the wisdom that had lived through the turning point in the post-Atlantean era could gradually be revived in the future, ever further and further, ever more gloriously. Which personalities did Manes gather in that memorable assembly, which can only be reached through spiritual vision? One is the personality in whom Skythianos lived at that time, the reincarnated Skythianos of the Manes period. The second personality is a physical reflection of the Buddha who reappeared at that time, and the third is the reincarnated Zarathustra. Thus we have a collegium around Manes, with Manes in the middle, surrounded by Skythianos, Buddha, and Zarathustra. At that time, this collegium determined the plan by which all the wisdom of the Bodhisattvas of the post-Atlantean era could flow ever more strongly into the future of humanity. And what was decided at that time as the plan for the future development of Earth's culture was preserved and then carried over into those European mysteries which are the mysteries of the Rosicrucians. The individualities of the Scythian, the Buddha, and Zarathustra always moved in the mysteries of the Rosicrucians. They were the teachers in the schools of the Rosicrucians; teachers who sent their wisdom to the earth as gifts because through this wisdom Christ was to be understood in his essence. Therefore, in all spiritual training of the Rosicrucians, one looks up with deepest reverence to those ancient initiates who preserved the ancient wisdom of Atlantis: to the reincarnated Skythianos, in whom they saw the great revered Bodhisattva of the West; to the respective incarnated reflection of the Buddha, whom they also revered as one of the Bodhisattvas; and finally to Zarathas, the reincarnated Zarathustra. They looked up to them as the great teachers of the European initiates. Such representations should not be taken as external historical facts, even though they characterize the historical course of events more accurately than an external representation could.

[ 26 ] To mention just one example, it must be said that you will hardly find any country in the Middle Ages where a certain legend is not widespread. When no one in Europe knew anything about Gautama Buddha, when the tradition of Gautama Buddha had been completely lost, the following story was told. You will find it in many books of the Middle Ages; it is one of the most widespread stories of the Middle Ages. Once upon a time in India, a king had a son named Josaphat. At his birth, an important prophecy was made about Josaphat. Therefore, he was especially protected by his father; he was to know only the most precious things, was to revel in complete bliss, and was not to know the pain, suffering, and misfortune of life. Josaphat was protected from all of this. But one day Josaphat went out of the palace and found a sick man, a leper, an old man, and a corpse; this was reported to Josaphat! Deeply shaken, he returned to the royal palace, and there he found a man who was deeply moved by the mysteries of Christianity, Barlaam, who won Josaphat for Christianity. And Josaphat, who had experienced this, became a Christian. So tells the legend of the Middle Ages. And now you don't even need to consult the Akashic Records; the ordinary philologist is sufficient to examine the name Josaphat. Josaphat goes back to an old word, Joasaph; Joasaph goes back to Jodasaph; Jodasaph to Yudasaf, which is identical to Budasaf — both of the latter forms are Arabic, and Budasaf is the same name as Bodhisattva. Thus, European esotericism not only knows the “Bodhisattva,” but if it can decipher the name Josaphat, it also knows the meaning of this word. This legendary development of esotericism in the West knows that there was a time when the same being who lived in Gautama Buddha became a Christian. One can either know this or one cannot know it; but it remains true nonetheless! Just as traditions can remain behind the times, just as people today can believe what was believed thousands of years ago and what can be perpetuated in traditions, so too can one believe that it corresponds to the higher worlds that Gautama Buddha remained the same as he was six hundred years before our era. But this is not the case. He ascended, he developed. And in the true teachings of the Rosicrucians, what has been expressed in legend, as I have just told you, has been preserved. One must not confuse these true teachings of the Rosicrucians with all the foolishness that flows through questionable literature.

[ 27 ] Thus, within the spiritual life of Europe, we find from time to time the one who was the bearer of Christ, Zaratas or Nazarathos, Zarathustra; we find Skythianos again; we also find the third great disciple of Manes, Buddha, as he was after he had witnessed later times.

[ 28 ] Thus, the European connoisseur of initiation always looked back to the turning point of time, looking up to the true figures of the great teachers. From Zaratas, from Buddha, from Skythianos, he knew that through them the wisdom that had always come from the Bodhisattvas flowed into the culture of the future, and that this wisdom was to be used to understand the most worthy object of all understanding, the Christ, who is a being fundamentally different from the Bodhisattvas. which had always come from the Bodhisattvas and which was to be used to understand the most worthy object of all understanding, the Christ, who is a being fundamentally different from the Bodhisattvas and who can only be understood if one takes all the wisdom of the Bodhisattvas together. Therefore, the spiritual wisdom of Europeans contains, among other things, a synthetic synthesis of all the teachings that have been given to the world by the three great disciples of Manes and by Manes himself. Even if one has not understood Manes, a time will come when European culture will take shape in such a way that one will again associate meaning with the names Skythianos, Buddha, and Zarathustra. They will give people the teaching material to understand Christ. Through them, people will understand Christ better and better. The Middle Ages began, however, with a strange veneration and worship of Skythianos, Buddha, and Zarathustra when their names had leaked out a little; it began with the fact that anyone who wanted to profess himself a true Christian in certain Christian religious communities had to say the formula: “I curse Skythianos, I curse Buddha, I curse Zaratas!” This was a formula widespread throughout many areas of the Christian era, by which one professed to be a true Christian. But what people believed they had to curse at that time will be the college of teachers who will make Christ most understandable to humanity, to whom humanity will look up as the great Bodhisattvas through whom Christ will be understood.

[ 29 ] Today, humanity can hardly offer these great teachers of the Rosicrucians the least of two things, two things that can only be the beginning of what will stand in the future as great and powerful understanding of Christianity. This is to be done through today's spiritual science; it must begin to bring the teachings of Scythian, Zarathustra, and Gautama Buddha into the world, not in their old form, but in a completely new form that can be explored today. We begin by incorporating into our culture the elementary things we can learn from them. From Buddha, Christianity has to learn the teachings of reincarnation and karma, though not in an old form that is no longer appropriate today. Why are the teachings of reincarnation and karma flowing into Christianity today? They flow in because the initiated can learn to understand them in the spirit of our time, as Buddha, the great teacher of reincarnation, understood them in his own way. In this way, we will also begin to understand the Scythians, who not only teach the reincarnation of human beings, but also teach what reigns from eternity to eternity. In this way, the essence of the world, the essence of the center of our earthly world, the essence of Christ, will be understood more and more. Thus, the teachings of the initiates flow more and more into humanity. Today, the budding spiritual researcher can only bring two things as an elementary beginning to what must be the two elements of the future spiritual development of humanity. What sinks into the inner being as the Christ life will be the first element; what brings understanding of Christ in a comprehensive way as spiritual cosmology will be the second. Christ life in the heart, understanding of the world that leads to understanding of Christ—these will be the two elements. Today, as we stand at the beginning, we can start by having the right attitude within ourselves. That is why we gather together to cultivate the right attitude toward the spiritual world and everything that comes from it, toward human beings. By cultivating the right attitude, we gradually make our spiritual powers suitable for receiving Christ within ourselves, for the higher and nobler the attitude, the more nobly Christ will be able to live out his life. And we begin by teaching the elementary connections of our earth's development, by seeking anew what comes from Skythianos, Zarathustra, and Buddha, by taking it as they can teach it in our time, as these teachers themselves know it, having developed up to our time. We are now ready to begin spreading the elementary teachings of initiation.