Reading the Pictures of the Apocalypse
GA 94
14 June 1906, Paris
Appendix: Cosmogony
In the course of these lectures we have said repeatedly that Christianity constitutes the decisive midpoint of human evolution. All religions have their right to exist—they were partial revelations of the Logos—but none has changed the face of the world as much as Christianity. One can feel this influence in the words of John's Gospel, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.” (John 20:29) The words, “those who have not seen,” refer to those people who had no knowledge of the mystery religions. An essential part of the ancient mysteries is made public through Christianity, for example, the most important commandments concerning morality, and the teaching concerning the immortality of the soul through resurrection or rebirth.
Before Christianity, one could see super-sensible truth in the revelations, rites, and dramatic presentations of the mysteries. Now, however, one can believe in the super-sensible thanks to the divine person of Christ. There had always been a difference between the esoteric truth known to initiates, and its exoteric form—appropriate for the great masses—which came to expression through the various religions. The same holds true for Christianity. What is found in the Gospels is the new good tidings, promulgated for all to hear. But there was a deeper teaching. It is contained in the Apocalypse in the form of symbols.
There is a way to read the Apocalypse that can be made public only in our time. It was cultivated in the Middle Ages in the occult schools of the Rosicrucians. At that time historical questions concerning the book were considered unimportant. These were questions concerning its composition and the identity of the author; in short, all that which occupies the sole interest of theologians today, who seek nothing more than historical facts in this book. Modern critical theology knows only the external shell of this book and ignores the kernel. The Rosicrucians stayed with the prophetic aspect, the eternal truth of the book.
Occultism is not usually concerned with the history of a single century or a single era, but rather with the inner history of human evolution as a whole. This is true when it delves into the first manifestations of our planetary system, when it looks into the distant past at the vegetative and animal conditions of humanity, and when its perspective expands over millions of years forward to a future when humanity will have become divine. The earth itself will have changed then both in form and substance. But how can the future be guessed? Is prophecy really possible? It is possible because all that is to take place physically in the future already exists in seed form in the womb of the archetypes whose thoughts form the plan for our evolution. Nothing appears on the physical plane that was not already planned and preformed in general outline in the region of devachan. Nothing happens in the depths that did not exist before in the heights. That is the way things are realized. They depend upon the freedom and initiative of the individual.
Esoteric Christianity is not based on vague and sentimental idealism but rather on a concrete ideal that originates in knowledge of higher worlds. This is the knowledge that the writer of the Apocalypse had, the great seer of Patmos, who sketched the future of humankind in Christian perspective.
Let us consider this future according to the laws of world creation just described. The Rosicrucians first revealed to their pupils some visions from the past and the future. Then the pupils were given the Apocalypse to interpret these visions. Let us do the same and observe how humanity has become what it is, and what future will open for it.
We have, for example, spoken of the ancient Atlantean continent and of the Atlanteans whose etheric body was far more developed than their physical body. Their preliminary consciousness of self, their I-consciousness, came to them only at the end of their culture. The successive post-Atlantean cultures were: First, the pre-Vedantic culture in southern Asia, in India. That was the beginning of the Aryan cultures; second, the epoch of Zarathustra, including the culture of ancient Persia; third, the Egyptian culture, the epoch of Hermes, to which are attached the Chaldean and Semitic cultures. The first seeds of Christianity were sown during this age in the womb of the Hebrew peoples; fourth, the Greco-Latin cultural epoch that experienced the birth of Christianity; and fifth, a new epoch was prepared at the time of the mass migrations and wars of conquest in the fourth through the sixth centuries.
The legacy of the Greco-Latin culture was taken over by the northern races: Celts, Germans, and Slavs. This is the epoch in which we are now still living. It is a slow transformation of the Greco-Latin cultural heritage brought about through the powerful element of the new peoples under the mighty impulse of Christianity. This impulse has also been mixed with the leaven of the East brought to Europe through the Arabs. The actual goal of this cultural epoch is to adapt the human being fully to the physical plane. This occurs when our reason, our practical commonsense is developed and our intellect delves into physical matter in order to understand and master it. In the course of this hard work, this astonishing achievement that has culminated in our time, human beings have momentarily forgotten the higher worlds of their origin. By comparing our spiritual soul constitution with that of the Chaldeans, for example, it is easy to see what we have won and what we have lost. When Chaldean magicians observed the heavens, which present for us nothing more than a problem in celestial mechanics, they had an entirely different idea, an entirely different feeling, one could say, a totally different experience than we. Where a modern astronomer sees nothing more than a soulless machine, the ancient magicians felt the harmony of the heavens depths as a divine, living being. When they observed Mercury, Venus, the moon, or the sun, they saw not only the physical light of these heavenly bodies, they perceived the planets' souls as belonging to living beings, and they felt their own souls in connection with these great beings of the firmament. They perceived the influence of heavenly bodies as attraction and repulsion, like a wonderful concert of streaming, flowing divine will; and the symphony of the cosmos sounded forth in the magicians like a harmonious echo of the human microcosm. In this way the music of the spheres was a reality that united human beings with heaven.
The superiority of the modern scholar is rooted in knowledge of the physical world, of matter. Spiritual science has descended to the physical plane we know so well. However, we must now be concerned with again achieving knowledge of the astral plane through clairvoyance.
This descent into matter was necessary for the fifth epoch to fulfill its mission. Astral and spiritual clairvoyance had to be veiled so that the intellect could develop itself on the field of the sense world through minute, mathematical observation of the physical world.
Now we must supplement natural science with spiritual science. Here is an example: Ptolemy's map of the heavens is usually placed next to that of Copernicus and then the former is declared to be false. This is, however, not true. They are equally justified. Ptolemy's map is concerned with the astral plane wherein the earth forms the center point of the planets and the sun is itself a planet. Copernicus's map is concerned with the physical plane where the sun is in the middle. All truths are relative according to time and place. Ptolemy's system will be rehabilitated in an epoch yet to come.
After our fifth epoch another will come, the sixth, which will be related to ours as a spiritually minded soul is related to a rationally inclined soul. This epoch will bring genius, clairvoyance, the creative spirit, to development. How will Christianity appear in the sixth epoch? There was a harmonious union of science and faith for the ancient priests of the pre-Christian age. Science and faith were one and the same thing. When the ancient priests observed the firmament they knew and felt that the soul was a drop of water that had fallen from the heavenly ocean and had been led down to earth by immeasurable rivers of life that flow through space. Today, when our sight is directed only to the physical world, faith needs a free space, a religion. For this reason science and faith are separated. The faithful reverence of the person of Christ, the god of the human being on the earth, has for a certain time taken the place of occult science and the mysteries. But the two streams will be united in the sixth epoch. The mechanical science of the physical plane will be elevated to the heights of spiritual creative power. That will be gnosis or spiritual knowledge. This sixth epoch will be radically different from ours. Great, tumultuous catastrophes will precede it, for the sixth epoch will be just as spiritual as ours is materialistic, but such a transformation can only occur through great, physical upheavals. Everything that will be formed in the course of the sixth epoch will call into existence the possibility of a seventh epoch which itself will form the end of these post-Atlantean cultures and will know completely different conditions of life from our own. This seventh epoch will end with a revolution of the elements, similar to the one that brought an end to the Atlantean continent. The condition of the earth that will then appear will have a spirituality prepared through the last two post-Atlantean epochs.
The Aryan cultures encompass seven great epochs. We see the laws of evolution slowly unfolding. Human beings always carry within themselves what they will see around them in future times. All that presently exists around us actually came forth from us in preceding ages when our being was still united with the earth, the moon, and the sun. This cosmic being, from which the present human being together with all the kingdoms of nature have arisen, is called in the Kabbala, “Adam Kadmon.” All of the manifold forms of men and women presently represented by ethnic groups and races were contained in this human archetype.
What human beings possess today as their inner soul life, their thoughts, their feelings, will similarly be revealed externally and become the environment in which people live. The future resides in the hearts of men and women. The choice is ours to decide for a future of good or of evil. Just as it is true that the human being once left behind something that then became the world of animals, so too, what is evil in the human being will one day form a kind of degenerate humanity. At the present time we can more or less hide the good or evil within us. A day will come when we can no longer do this, when the good or the evil will be written indelibly on our forehead, on our body, and even on the face of the earth. Humanity will then be split into two races. In the same way that we encounter boulders or animals today, in the future we will encounter beings of pure evil and ugliness. When a human being's facial features become an expression of that individual's karma, then people will separate themselves according to the stream in which they apparently belong. Everything depends on whether human beings have conquered the lower nature within them or whether this lower nature has triumphed over the spirit.
Beginning in the past we can see the lines of a future reality beginning to form. To the extent that we are prepared to understand the past and to work in the present we can realize the ideal of this future reality. A new race will be formed that will constitute the connecting link between present-day humanity and the spiritualized human being of the future. But one must distinguish between the evolution of races and the evolution of souls. It lies within the freedom of every single soul to develop itself toward this external form of a race, whose character corresponds to the good that it will incarnate. Individuals will belong to this race only through the exercise of their free will and through a great exertion of their soul forces. Membership in a race will no longer be forced upon a soul, but rather it will be the result of an individual's evolution.
The meaning of Manichean teaching is that, from now on, souls should prepare themselves to transform into good the evil that will appear in its full strength in the sixth epoch. Indeed, it will be necessary for human souls to become strong enough to protect, through a spiritual alchemy, the good from the evil that will come to light.
The evolution of our planet earth will lead it back through the former phases of its development in reversed order. First the earth will unite with the moon, then a union—a reunion—of this mixed-world body with the sun will occur. The reuniting of the moon with the earth will coincide with a high tide of evil on the earth. In contrast to this, the union of the earth with the sun will mark the beginning of blessed happiness, the reign of the chosen people.
Human beings will bear the mark of the seven great phases of earth evolution. The book of the seven seals spoken of in the Apocalypse will be opened. The woman dressed in the sun and with the moon under her feet is related to the time when the earth will be united again with the sun and the moon. The trumpets of the last judgment will sound forth, for the earth will have arrived in a devachanic condition, where tone, not light, will rule. The end of earthly evolution will stand in the sign of the Christ principle that will permeate all of humankind. Human beings will have become similar to Christ; they will gather around Christ like a multitude around the lamb, and the New Jerusalem will arise as the fruit of this evolution. It represents the crowning of the world.
Kosmogonie XVIII
Wir haben im Laufe dieser Vorträge zu wiederholten Malen gesagt, daß das Christentum den entscheidenden Mittelpunkt der menschlichen Entwickelung bildet. Alle Religionen haben ihr Daseinsrecht und waren Teiloffenbarungen des Logos, aber keine hat das Gesicht der Welt so verändert wie das Christentum. Man kann diesen Einfluß zum Beispiel in dem Evangelienwort erfühlen: «Selig sind, die nicht gesehen und doch geglaubt haben.» Die nicht gesehen haben, das sind diejenigen, die keine Kenntnis von den Mysterien hatten. Durch das Christentum wurde ein wesentlicher Teil der alten Mysterien öffentlich, so die Hauptgebote der Moral, die Unsterblichkeit der Seele durch die Auferstehung oder Wiedergeburt.
Vor dem Christentum konnte man die übersinnliche Wahrheit sehen in den Offenbarungen, den Riten, den dramatischen Vorführungen der Mysterien. Nun aber durfte man daran glauben dank der göttlichen Person des Christus. Zu allen Zeiten gab es aber einen Unterschied zwischen der den Eingeweihten bekannten esoterischen Wahrheit und ihrer exoterischen Form, wie sie der großen Masse angepaßt war und durch alle Religionen hindurch zum Ausdruck kommt. Ebenso verhält es sich mit dem Christentum. Was in den Evangelien geschrieben steht, das ist die gute neue Botschaft, verkündet für die Allgemeinheit. Aber es gab eine tiefere Lehre, und diese ist beschlossen in der Apokalypse in der Form von Symbolen.
Es gibt eine Art, die Apokalypse zu lesen, die man erst zu unserer Zeit öffentlich bekanntgeben kann. Aber man hat sie im Mittelalter in den okkulten Schulen der Rosenkreuzer gepflegt. Man schätzte die historische Seite des Buches gering, das heißt die Art seiner Abfassung, die Frage nach seinem Verfasser, kurz, all das, was heute einzig und allein das Hauptinteresse der Theologen bildet, die in diesem Buch lediglich historische Tatbestände herausfinden wollen. Die heutige kritische Theologie kennt nur die äußere Schale dieses Buches und ignoriert den Kern. Die Rosenkreuzer hielten sich an seine prophetische Seite, seine ewige Wahrheit.
Der Okkultismus beschäftigt sich allgemein nicht mit der Geschichte eines einzigen Jahrhunderts oder einer einzigen Periode, sondern mit der inneren Geschichte der menschlichen Evolution im Ganzen. Wenn er untertaucht in die ersten Manifestationen unseres Planetensystems, wenn er zurückgeht bis zum pflanzlichen und tierischen Zustand des Menschen, dehnt sein Gesichtskreis sich aus über Millionen von Jahre bis zu einer künftigen vergöttlichten Menschheit. Alsdann wird die Erde selbst Substanz und Form gewechselt haben. Aber wie läßt sich die ferne Zukunft erraten? Ist Prophetie möglich? Sie ist möglich, weil alles, was physisch geschehen soll, bereits im Keim, im Schoß der Urbilder existiert, deren Gedanken den Plan unserer Evolution bilden. Nichts erscheint auf dem physischen Plan, das nicht zuvor in großen Linien auf dem Gebiet des Devachan vorgesehen und vorgeformt war. Nichts geschieht in der Tiefe, was nicht vorher in der Höhe existiert hat. Das ist die Art und Weise, wie sich die Dinge verwirklichen. Sie hängt ab von der Freiheit und der Initiative der Individuen.
Das esoterische Christentum beruht nicht auf einem vagen und sentimentalen Idealismus, sondern auf einem konkreten Ideal, das aus einer Kenntnis der höheren Welten geschöpft ist. Es ist jene Kenntnis, die der Verfasser der Apokalypse hatte, der große Seher von Patmos, der die Zukunft der Menschheit in christlicher Perspektive aufgezeigt hat.
Versuchen wir diese Zukunft nach den Gesetzen der Weltentstehung zu betrachten, wie wir sie im Vorhergehenden dargelegt haben. Bei den Rosenkreuzern enthüllte man dem Schüler zuerst einige Schauungen aus der Vergangenheit und einige aus der Zukunft. Dann überantwortete man ihm zur Deutung dieser Schauungen das Buch der Apokalypse. Machen wir es ebenso und betrachten wir, wie der Mensch allmählich das geworden ist, was er ist, und welche Zukunft sich vor ihm öffnet.
Wir haben zum Beispiel vom alten atlantischen Kontinent gesprochen und von den Atlantiern, deren Ätherleib weit mehr entwickelt war als der physische Leib und die erst am Ende ihrer Kultur ein erstes Ich-Bewußtsein hatten. Die aufeinanderfolgenden nachatlantischen Kulturen waren:
Erstens: Die vorvedische Kultur im Süden Asiens, in Indien. Das war der Beginn der arischen Kulturen.
Zweitens: Die Epoche des Zarathustra, umfassend die Kultur des alten Persien.
Drittens: Die ägyptische Kultur, die Epoche des Hermes, an die sich anschließen die chaldäischen und semitischen Kulturen. Die ersten Samenkörner des Christentums wurden in dieser Zeitepoche in den Schoß des hebräischen Volkes versenkt.
Viertens: Die griechisch-lateinische Kulturepoche, welche die Geburt des Christentums erlebt.
Fünftens: Eine neue Epoche bereitet sich zur Zeit der Völkerwanderung und der Eroberungszüge vor. Das Erbe der griechisch-lateinischen Kultur wird von den Rassen des Nordens übernommen: den Kelten, den Germanen, den Slawen. Es ist die Epoche, in der wir jetzt noch leben. Es ist eine langsame Umbildung des griechisch-lateinischen Kulturerbes durch das kraftvolle Element der neuen Völker, unter dem mächtigen Impuls des Christentums, mit dem sich der Sauerteig des Ostens vermischt hat, der durch die Araber nach Europa gebracht wurde. Das eigentliche Ziel dieser Kulturepoche ist, den Menschen völlig dem physischen Plan anzupassen, indem seine Vernunft, sein praktischer Sinn entwickelt wird und sein Intellekt in die physische Materie untertaucht, um sie zu begreifen und zu beherrschen. Unter dieser harten Arbeit, dieser erstaunlichen Errungenschaft, die heute an ihr Ende gelangt ist, hat der Mensch augenblicklich die höheren Welten vergessen, aus denen er stammt. Indem wir unsere geistige Verfassung beispielsweise mit derjenigen der Chaldäer vergleichen, ist leicht einzusehen, was wir gewonnen, was wir verloren haben. Wenn ein chaldäischer Magier den Himmel betrachtete, der für uns lediglich ein Problem der Himmelsmechanik darstellt, so hatte er dabei eine ganz andere Idee, ein ganz anderes Gefühl, ja man könnte sagen, ein ganz anderes Erlebnis als wir. Da wo der moderne Astronom nichts als eine seelenlose Maschine sieht, empfand der Magier die tiefe Harmonie des Himmels als eines göttlichen, lebendigen Wesens. Betrachtete er Merkur, Venus, den Mond oder die Sonne, so sah er nicht nur das physische Licht dieser Himmelskörper, er nahm ihre Seelen wahr als solche von lebenden Wesen, und er fühlte die eigene Seele in Zusammenhang mit diesen großen Seelen des Firmaments. Er nahm ihre Einflüsse als Anziehung und Abstoßung wahr, gleichsam als ein wunderbares Konzert göttlicher Willensströmungen, und die Symphonie des Kosmos tönte in ihm als harmonischer Widerhall des menschlichen Mikrokosmos zurück. So war die Sphärenmusik eine Realität, die den Menschen mit dem Himmel verband. — Die Überlegenheit des modernen Gelehrten wurzelt in seiner Kenntnis der physischen Welt, der stofflichen Materie. Die Geisteswissenschaft ist herabgestiegen auf den physischen Plan. Den kennen wir gut. Jetzt aber handelt es sich darum, die Kenntnis des Astralplans und der Geisteswelt durch Hellsichtigkeit wiederum zu erlangen.
Dieser Abstieg in die Materie war notwendig, damit die fünfte Epoche ihre Mission erfüllen könne. Astrales und geistiges Hellsehen mußte verschleiert werden, damit der Intellekt auf dem Felde der Sinneswelt durch genaue, minuziöse, mathematische Beobachtung der physischen Welt sich entwickeln konnte.
Aber wir müssen die Naturwissenschaft durch die Geisteswissenschaft ergänzen. Hier ein Beispiel: Man stellt gewöhnlich die Himmelskarte des Ptolemäus derjenigen des Kopernikus gegenüber, wobei man die erstgenannte für irrtümlich erklärt. Das ist falsch. Beide sind gleicherweise wahr. Nur bezieht sich die Karte des Ptolemäus auf den Astralplan, und auf diesem Plan ist die Erde im Mittelpunkt der Planeten, und die Sonne ist selbst ein Planet. Die Karte des Kopernikus bezieht sich auf den physischen Plan, da steht die Sonne im Zentrum. Alle Wahrheiten sind relativ, je nach Zeit und Ort. Das System des Ptolemäus wird in einer folgenden Epoche rehabilitiert werden.
Nach unserer fünften Epoche wird eine andere kommen, die sechste, die sich zu der unsrigen verhält wie die spirituell gesinnte Seele zur rational eingestellten Seele. Diese Epoche wird die Genialität, die Hellsichtigkeit, den schöpferischen Geist zur Entwickelung bringen. Wie wird das Christentum in dieser sechsten Epoche aussehen? Für den alten Priester der vorchristlichen Zeit bestand eine Harmonie von Wissenschaft und Glauben. Wissenschaft und Religion waren ein und dieselbe Sache. Indem der Priester das Firmament betrachtete, wußte und fühlte er, daß die Seele ein Wassertropfen war, der vom himmlischen Ozean herabgefallen und durch die unermeßlichen Lebensströmungen, die den Raum durchziehen, auf die Erde herabgeführt worden war. Heute, wo der Blick sich auf den physischen Plan gesenkt hat, bedarf der Glaube einer Freistatt, einer Religion. Daher kommt die Trennung von Wissenschaft und Glauben. Die gläubige Verehrung der Person des Christus, des Menschengottes auf der Erde, ist für eine gewisse Zeit an die Stelle der Geheimwissenschaft und der Mysterien getreten. Aber in der sechsten Epoche werden die beiden Strömungen sich vereinigen. Die mechanische Wissenschaft des physischen Planes wird sich zur Höhe spiritueller Schöpferkraft emporheben. Das wird dann die Gnosis oder geistige Erkenntnis sein. Dieser sechsten, von der unsrigen radikal verschiedenen Epoche, werden große, umwälzende Katastrophen vorausgehen. Denn diese Epoche wird ebenso spirituell sein, wie die unsrige materialistisch war, aber diese Umbildung kann nur durch physische Umwälzungen vonstatten gehen. Wiederum wird alles, was sich im Verlaufe der sechsten Epoche gestalten wird, die Möglichkeit einer siebenten Epoche herbeiführen, die das Ende dieser nachatlantischen Kulturen bilden und völlig andere Lebensbedingungen als die unseren kennen wird. Diese siebente Epoche wird enden mit einer Revolution der Elemente, ähnlich derjenigen, die dem atlantischen Kontinent ein Ende setzte, und der Zustand, der dann in Erscheinung tritt, wird ein Zustand sein, dessen Spiritualität durch die zwei letzten nachatlantischen Perioden vorbereitet sein wird.
Insgesamt umfassen diese arischen Kulturen also sieben große Epochen. Wir sehen langsam die Gesetze der Entwickelung sich entfalten. Der Mensch trägt immer zuerst in sich, was er in der Folgezeit um sich herum sieht. Alles, was gegenwärtig um uns existiert, ist in einer vorhergehenden Evolution von uns ausgegangen, damals, als unser Wesen noch verbunden war mit der Erde, dem Monde und der Sonne. Dieses kosmische Wesen, von dem miteinander der gegenwärtige Mensch samt allen Naturreichen entsprungen ist, wird in der Kabbala Adam Kadmon genannt. In diesem Menschentypus waren alle die vielfältigen Ausgestaltungen vom Menschen enthalten, die gegenwärtig die Völker und die Rassen repräsentieren.
Was der Mensch heute als sein Seeleninneres besitzt, seine Gedanken, seine Gefühle, wird sich ebenfalls nach außen offenbaren und wird seine Umwelt werden. Die Zukunft ruht in der Brust des Menschen. An ihm liegt es, die Wahl zu treffen, eine Zukunft zum Guten oder zum Schlechten daraus zu machen. Ebenso wie es wahr ist, daß der Mensch einst dasjenige, was heute die Tierwelt bildet, hinter sich gelassen hat, wird dasjenige, was heute an Schlechtem in ihm ist, eine Art degenerierter Menschheit bilden. Wir können gegenwärtig noch mehr oder weniger das Gute oder Böse, das in uns ist, verbergen. Ein Tag wird kommen, wo wir es nicht mehr können, wo dieses Gute oder dieses Böse unauslöschlich auf unserer Stirne geschrieben sein wird, auf unserem Leib und sogar auf dem Angesicht der Erde. Dann wird sich die Menschheit in zwei Rassen spalten. Wie wir heute Felsen oder Tieren begegnen, werden wir alsdann Wesen von reiner Bosheit und Häßlichkeit begegnen. In unseren Tagen liest nur der Hellseher die Güte oder die moralische Häßlichkeit in den Wesen. Wenn aber die Gesichtszüge des Menschen Ausdruck seines Karma sein werden, werden die Menschen sich von selbst teilen, je nach der Strömung, der sie offensichtlich angehören: je nachdem in ihnen die niedere Natur besiegt sein oder ob sie über den Geist triumphieren wird. Diese Unterscheidung beginnt allmählich schon wirksam zu werden.
Sofern man aus der Vergangenheit die Zukunft begreifen und daran arbeiten will, um das Ideal dieser Zukunft zu verwirklichen, sieht man also die Linien sich abzeichnen. Eine neue Rasse wird sich bilden, die das Bindeglied sein wird zwischen den gegenwärtigen Menschen und den vergeistigten Menschen der Zukunft. Man muß aber unterscheiden zwischen der Entwickelung der Rassen und derjenigen der Seelen. Es ist der Freiheit einer jeden Seele anheimgestellt, sich zu dieser äußeren Form einer Rasse hinzuentwickeln, deren Charakter dem Guten entspricht, das sie verkörpert. Nur aus der Freiheit des Willens und durch die Anstrengung der seelischen Individualität wird man dieser Rasse angehören. Die Zugehörigkeit zu einer Rasse wird für eine Seele nicht mehr zwangsläufig sein, sondern das Ergebnis ihrer Entwickelung.
Der Sinn der manichäischen Lehre ist, daß die Seelen sich von jetzt an dazu vorbereiten sollen, das Böse, das in der sechsten Epoche in voller Stärke in Erscheinung treten wird, in Gutes zu verwandeln. In der Tat wird es nötig sein, daß die menschlichen Seelen stark genug sein werden, um das Böse, das zutage kommen wird, durch eine spirituelle Alchimie vom Guten abzuwenden.
Wenn dann die Entwickelung unseres Erdplaneten die vorhergehenden Phasen seiner Entwickelung im umgekehrten Sinne durchlaufen wird, wird sich zuerst eine Vereinigung der Erde mit dem Mond vollziehen, alsdann eine Verbindung, Wiedervereinigung dieses gemischten Weltkörpers mit der Sonne. Die Wiedervereinigung mit dem Mond wird dann mit dem Höhepunkt des Bösen auf der Erde zusammenfallen. Im Gegensatz dazu wird die Vereinigung des Erdkörpers mit der Sonne den Anbruch der Glückseligkeit, die Herrschaft der Auserwählten bezeichnen.
Der Mensch wird das Zeichen der sieben großen irdischen Phasen an sich tragen. Das Buch mit den sieben Siegeln, von dem die Apokalypse spricht, wird geöffnet sein. Das Weib, mit der Sonne bekleidet, das den Mond unter den Füßen hat, bezieht sich auf die Zeit, wo die Erde aufs neue mit der Sonne und dem Monde vereinigt sein wird. Die Posaunen des Jüngsten Gerichts werden ertönen, denn die Erde wird im devachanischen Zustand angelangt sein, wo nicht mehr das Licht, sondern der Ton herrschen wird. Das Ende der Erdenentwickelung wird im Zeichen des Christus-Prinzips stehen, das die ganze Menschheit durchdringen wird. Dem Christus ähnlich geworden, werden die Menschen sich um ihn versammeln wie die Scharen um das Lamm, und als Frucht dieser Entwickelung wird das Neue Jerusalem erstehen, das die Krönung der Welt darstellt.
Cosmogony XVIII
We have said repeatedly in the course of these lectures that Christianity forms the decisive center of human development. All religions have their right to exist and were partial revelations of the Logos, but none has changed the face of the world as much as Christianity. One can sense this influence, for example, in the words of the Gospel: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” Those who have not seen are those who had no knowledge of the mysteries. Through Christianity, an essential part of the ancient mysteries became public, such as the main commandments of morality and the immortality of the soul through resurrection or rebirth.
Before Christianity, one could see the supersensible truth in the revelations, the rites, the dramatic performances of the mysteries. But now one was allowed to believe in it thanks to the divine person of Christ. At all times, however, there was a difference between the esoteric truth known to the initiates and its exoteric form, as adapted to the masses and expressed throughout all religions. The same is true of Christianity. What is written in the Gospels is the good news proclaimed to the general public. But there was a deeper teaching, and this is contained in the Apocalypse in the form of symbols.
There is a way of reading the Apocalypse that can only be made public in our time. But it was cultivated in the Middle Ages in the occult schools of the Rosicrucians. Little importance was attached to the historical side of the book, that is, the manner of its composition, the question of its author, in short, everything that today is the sole focus of theologians who want to find only historical facts in this book. Today's critical theology knows only the outer shell of this book and ignores its core. The Rosicrucians adhered to its prophetic side, its eternal truth.
Occultism is generally not concerned with the history of a single century or a single period, but with the inner history of human evolution as a whole. When it delves into the first manifestations of our planetary system, when it goes back to the plant and animal state of man, its horizon expands over millions of years to a future deified humanity. By then, the earth itself will have changed substance and form. But how can we guess the distant future? Is prophecy possible? It is possible because everything that is to happen physically already exists in embryo, in the womb of the archetypes whose thoughts form the plan of our evolution. Nothing appears on the physical plane that was not first foreseen and preformed in broad outlines in the realm of Devachan. Nothing happens in the depths that did not first exist in the heights. That is the way things come to pass. It depends on the freedom and initiative of individuals.
Esoteric Christianity is not based on vague and sentimental idealism, but on a concrete ideal drawn from knowledge of the higher worlds. It is the knowledge possessed by the author of the Apocalypse, the great seer of Patmos, who revealed the future of humanity from a Christian perspective.
Let us try to view this future according to the laws of world creation, as we have outlined above. Among the Rosicrucians, the student was first revealed some visions from the past and some from the future. Then he was given the Book of Revelation to interpret these visions. Let us do the same and consider how human beings have gradually become what they are and what future lies ahead of them.
We have spoken, for example, of the ancient Atlantic continent and of the Atlanteans, whose etheric body was far more developed than their physical body and who only had their first sense of self at the end of their culture. The successive post-Atlantean cultures were:
First: the pre-Vedic culture in South Asia, in India. This was the beginning of the Aryan cultures.
Second: the epoch of Zarathustra, encompassing the culture of ancient Persia.
Third: Egyptian culture, the era of Hermes, followed by the Chaldean and Semitic cultures. The first seeds of Christianity were sown in the bosom of the Hebrew people during this era.
Fourth: The Greco-Latin cultural epoch, which witnessed the birth of Christianity.
Fifth: A new epoch is preparing itself at the time of the migration of peoples and the conquests. The heritage of Greco-Latin culture is taken over by the races of the north: the Celts, the Germanic peoples, the Slavs. This is the epoch in which we still live today. It is a slow transformation of the Greco-Latin cultural heritage by the powerful element of the new peoples, under the mighty impulse of Christianity, with which the leaven of the East, brought to Europe by the Arabs, has mixed. The real goal of this cultural epoch is to adapt human beings completely to the physical plane by developing their reason and practical sense and immersing their intellect in physical matter in order to understand and master it. Under this hard work, this amazing achievement, which has now come to an end, man has momentarily forgotten the higher worlds from which he originates. By comparing our spiritual constitution with that of the Chaldeans, for example, it is easy to see what we have gained and what we have lost. When a Chaldean magician looked at the sky, which for us is merely a problem of celestial mechanics, he had a completely different idea, a completely different feeling, indeed, one could say, a completely different experience than we do. Where the modern astronomer sees nothing but a soulless machine, the magician felt the deep harmony of the heavens as a divine, living being. When he looked at Mercury, Venus, the moon, or the sun, he saw not only the physical light of these celestial bodies, he perceived their souls as those of living beings, and he felt his own soul in connection with these great souls of the firmament. He perceived their influences as attraction and repulsion, as it were, as a wonderful concert of divine currents of will, and the symphony of the cosmos resounded within him as a harmonious echo of the human microcosm. Thus, the music of the spheres was a reality that connected man with the heavens. — The superiority of the modern scholar is rooted in his knowledge of the physical world, of material matter. Spiritual science has descended to the physical plane. We know that well. But now it is a matter of regaining knowledge of the astral plane and the spiritual world through clairvoyance.
This descent into matter was necessary so that the fifth epoch could fulfill its mission. Astral and spiritual clairvoyance had to be veiled so that the intellect could develop in the field of the sensory world through precise, meticulous, mathematical observation of the physical world.
But we must supplement natural science with spiritual science. Here is an example: Ptolemy's map of the heavens is usually contrasted with that of Copernicus, with the former being declared erroneous. This is wrong. Both are equally true. Only Ptolemy's map refers to the astral plane, and on this plane the Earth is at the center of the planets, and the Sun itself is a planet. Copernicus' map refers to the physical plane, where the Sun is at the center. All truths are relative, depending on time and place. Ptolemy's system will be rehabilitated in a subsequent epoch.
After our fifth epoch, another will come, the sixth, which will relate to ours as the spiritually minded soul relates to the rationally minded soul. This epoch will develop genius, clairvoyance, and the creative spirit. What will Christianity look like in this sixth epoch? For the ancient priests of pre-Christian times, there was harmony between science and faith. Science and religion were one and the same thing. As the priest gazed at the firmament, he knew and felt that the soul was a drop of water that had fallen from the heavenly ocean and been carried down to earth by the immeasurable currents of life that permeate space. Today, when our gaze has descended to the physical plane, faith needs a sanctuary, a religion. Hence the separation of science and faith. The devout worship of the person of Christ, the God-man on earth, has for a time taken the place of secret science and the mysteries. But in the sixth epoch, the two currents will unite. The mechanical science of the physical plane will rise to the height of spiritual creativity. This will then be gnosis, or spiritual knowledge. This sixth epoch, radically different from ours, will be preceded by great, cataclysmic catastrophes. For this epoch will be as spiritual as ours was materialistic, but this transformation can only take place through physical upheavals. Once again, everything that takes shape during the sixth epoch will bring about the possibility of a seventh epoch, which will mark the end of these post-Atlantean cultures and will know living conditions completely different from ours. This seventh epoch will end with a revolution of the elements, similar to the one that brought an end to the Atlantean continent, and the state that will then emerge will be one whose spirituality will have been prepared by the last two post-Atlantean periods.
In total, these Aryan cultures thus comprise seven great epochs. We are slowly seeing the laws of development unfold. Human beings always carry within themselves what they subsequently see around them. Everything that currently exists around us originated in a previous evolution, back when our beings were still connected to the Earth, the Moon, and the Sun. This cosmic being, from which present-day human beings and all the kingdoms of nature have sprung, is called Adam Kadmon in Kabbalah. This type of human being contained all the diverse forms of human beings that currently represent the peoples and races.
What human beings possess today as their inner soul, their thoughts and feelings, will also manifest itself outwardly and become their environment. The future rests in the breast of human beings. It is up to them to make the choice to turn it into a good or a bad future. Just as it is true that humans once left behind what today constitutes the animal world, so too will the evil that is within them today form a kind of degenerate humanity. At present, we can still more or less hide the good or evil that is within us. A day will come when we will no longer be able to do so, when this good or evil will be indelibly written on our foreheads, on our bodies, and even on the face of the earth. Then humanity will split into two races. Just as we encounter rocks or animals today, we will then encounter beings of pure malice and ugliness. In our day, only the clairvoyant can read the goodness or moral ugliness in beings. But when the features of the human face become an expression of their karma, people will divide themselves according to the current to which they obviously belong: depending on whether the lower nature is defeated in them or whether it triumphs over the spirit. This distinction is already beginning to take effect gradually.
If one wants to understand the future from the past and work towards realizing the ideal of this future, one can see the lines beginning to emerge. A new race will form, which will be the link between the people of the present and the spiritualized people of the future. However, one must distinguish between the development of races and that of souls. It is up to the freedom of each soul to develop into this outer form of a race whose character corresponds to the good that it embodies. Only through the freedom of will and the effort of soul individuality will one belong to this race. Belonging to a race will no longer be compulsory for a soul, but the result of its development.
The meaning of the Manichean teaching is that souls should prepare themselves from now on to transform the evil that will appear in full force in the sixth epoch into good. Indeed, it will be necessary for human souls to be strong enough to avert the evil that will come to light through a spiritual alchemy of good.
When the development of our planet Earth then goes through the previous phases of its development in reverse, first a union of the Earth with the Moon will take place, then a connection, a reunification of this mixed world body with the Sun. The reunification with the Moon will then coincide with the height of evil on Earth. In contrast, the union of the Earth with the Sun will mark the dawn of bliss, the reign of the elect.
Humanity will bear the sign of the seven great earthly phases. The book with the seven seals, spoken of in the Apocalypse, will be opened. The woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, refers to the time when the Earth will be reunited with the Sun and the Moon. The trumpets of the Last Judgment will sound, for the Earth will have reached the devachanic state, where sound, not light, will reign. The end of the Earth's development will be marked by the Christ principle, which will permeate all of humanity. Having become like Christ, people will gather around him like the multitudes around the Lamb, and as a result of this development, the New Jerusalem will arise, representing the crowning glory of the world.