part more and more in the progress of man during the described formative

periods of the earth. The first part to be kindled by the earth’s fire is the astral body, still containing within it the etheric and physical bodies in a state of solution. Then the astral body is organized into a more subtle astral part, the sentient soul, and into a grosser etheric part, which henceforth is in contact with the earth-element; when this occurs, the etheric or vital body, already fore-shadowed, makes its appearance. And while the intellectual and consciousness-souls are being evolved in the astral man, there are incorporated into the etheric body those coarser parts which are susceptible to sound and light. At the time when the etheric body still further densifies and changes from a light-body into a fire or heat-body, the stage of evolution has been reached at which, as described above, parts of the solid earth-element are incorporated into man. Because the etheric body has condensed to the consistency of fire, it is now able, by means of the forces of the physical body previously implanted in it, to combine with those substances of the physical earth attenuated as far as the fire-state. But by itself it would no longer be able to introduce air substances into the body which has meanwhile become more solidified. Then, as indicated above, the higher beings dwelling on the sun interpose, breathing air into the body. While man, by virtue of his past, is able of himself to become permeated with earthly fire, higher beings direct the breath of air into his body. Heretofore the etheric body of man, as a receiver of sound, had been the director of the air current. It permeated man’s physical body with life. Now the physical body gets life from without. The result is that this life becomes independent of the soul part of man. On departing from the earth, the soul leaves behind not only the seed of its form, but also a living image of itself. The Lords of Form now remain united with that image, and the life they have bestowed, they transfer to man’s descendants, when his soul has left the body. Thus comes about what may be called heredity, and when the human soul once more appears on earth it feels that it is in a body animated by the life of its ancestors. It feels itself especially attracted to just that kind of a body. In this way something like a _memory_ is formed of the ancestor with whom the soul feels itself to be at one. This memory passes through the line of descendants in the form of a consciousness possessed in common. The ego thus flows down through the generations. At this stage of evolution man, during his life on earth, was conscious of himself as an independent being. He felt the inner fire of his etheric body to be combined with the external fire of the earth. He could feel the heat that was streaming through him as his own ego. In those heat currents, interwoven with life, are to be found the first beginnings of the circulation of the blood. But in what flowed into him as air, he did not exactly feel as his own being. Indeed, it was the forces of the higher beings we have described that were working in that air. But still there was left to him, within the air that flowed through him, that part of the active forces which belonged to him by virtue of his previously formed etheric powers. He was master in one part of those air currents. And to that extent, it was not only the higher beings who were shaping him, but he himself. He formed the air parts of his being in accordance with the images of his astral body. While air was thus flowing into his body from without, a process which became the basis of respiration, part of the air was formed within him into an organism which became fixed and was the basis of the subsequent nervous system. Thus man at this period was connected with the external earth by heat and air. On the other hand, he was not conscious of the introduction within himself of the solid element of the earth. Although it contributed to his own embodiment, he could not perceive directly what was being supplied but could only do so through a dim consciousness in the image of the higher beings who were active in the process. In the same kind of picture-form, as an expression of the beings above him, man had previously perceived the introduction of the fluid element into the earth. Through the densification of his earthly form the pictures have now undergone a change in his consciousness. The solid element has been mixed with the fluid. This incoming of the solid element must also be seen to be the work of higher beings operated from without. It is no longer possible for the human soul to have the power of directing the supply for that supply has now to serve his body, which is being built up from without. He would spoil its form if he were to direct the influx himself. What, therefore, reaches him from without appears to him to be directed by authoritative orders issuing from the higher beings who are at work on the shaping of his body. Man feels himself to be an ego; he has within him, as part of his astral body, his intellectual-soul, through which he inwardly perceives, in the form of pictures, what is happening externally, and by means of which he permeates his delicate nervous system. He feels himself to be descended from ancestors, by virtue of the life flowing down through the generations. He breathes, and feels it to be the effect of the higher beings who have been described as the Lords of Form. He is likewise subject to their impulses in all that which comes to him from the outside (as his food). What he finds most obscure is his origin as an individual. As to that, he only knows that he has been under the influence of the Lords of Form expressing themselves in earth-forces. In his relations with the outer world, man was guided and ruled. This finds expression through the fact that man has a consciousness of the psycho-spiritual activities operating behind his physical environment. It is true that he does not see the spiritual beings in their own form, but he is conscious in his soul of sounds and colors. He knows, however, that it is the actions of spiritual beings that are realized through that world of images. What those beings communicate to him, reaches him as sound; their manifestations appear to him in light-pictures. The innermost concepts, of which earthly man becomes conscious, are those conveyed to him by the element of fire or warmth. He can already distinguish between his own inner heat and the heat currents of the earth’s periphery. In these latter are manifested the Sons of Personality. But man has only a dim consciousness of what is behind the currents of external heat. It is in those very currents that he feels the influence of the Lords of Form. When powerful effects of heat are produced in man’s environment, the soul feels that spiritual beings are now heating the earth’s circumference—beings, from whom a spark has been detached, which warms his inner being. In the effect of light, however, man does not yet distinguish in quite the same manner between the outer and the inner. When light-pictures appear around him, they do not always produce the same feeling in the soul of the earth-man. There were times when he felt them as external images. This was during the period when he had just descended from the disembodied state into incarnation. It was the period of his growth on earth. As the time approached for the embryo to be developed those images faded, and man only retained something like inner memory-pictures of them. The actions of the Sons of Fire (Archangels) were contained in those light-pictures, which appeared to man to be the servitors of the Fire-spirits who sent down a spark into his own inner being. When their outer manifestations died away, man felt them inwardly in the form of images (memories). He felt himself united with their forces. And so indeed he was. For by means of what he had received from them, he was able to work upon his surrounding atmosphere. This, under his influence, began to emit light. At that time nature forces and human forces were not as yet separated from each other as they subsequently became. What happened on earth still emanated to a great extent from human forces. Viewing nature processes on the earth from the outside, one would then have seen in them not only something independent of man, but also the effect of human activity within those processes. Sound-perceptions assumed a still more different form to the earth-man. From the beginning of earth-life they had been perceived as outer tones. Whereas the external air pictures were perceived up to the middle of earth existence, the external tones could be heard even after that middle period. And only toward the end of his life did the earth-man become insensible to them. But the memory-pictures of those sounds remained. In them were contained the manifestations of the Sons of Life (Angels). When, toward the end of his life, man felt himself inwardly united with those forces, he was able, by imitating them, to produce mighty effects in the earth’s watery element. The waters surged in and above the earth under his influence. Man had perceptions of taste only during the first quarter of his earth-life, and even then they seemed to the soul like a memory of the experience of his disembodied state. As long as they lasted, his body continued to grow more and more solid by assimilating external substances. In the second quarter of earth life growth still continued, but the form was already fully developed. At this time man could perceive other living beings near him only through their heat, light, and sound effects; for he was not as yet capable of imagining the solid element. During the first quarter of his life he received the taste-impressions described, only through the watery element. Man’s external bodily form was an image of this inner psychic condition. Those parts were most fully developed which contained the first fore-shadowing of the later form of the head. The other organs appeared only as appendages. These were shadowy and indistinct. Yet earth-beings varied with regard to form. There were some in whom the appendages were more or less developed, according to the earth-conditions under which they lived. This varied with people’s different dwelling places on the earth. Where they were more involved in the things of earth, the appendages became more prominent. Those human beings who at the beginning of physical development on earth were the ripest, owing to their previous evolution, having come in contact with the fire-element at the very beginning before the earth had been condensed into air, were those now able to develop the first beginnings of the head most completely. They were those persons possessing most inner harmony. Others were ready for contact with the fire-element only when the earth had already evolved air within it. They were more dependent upon outer conditions than the first mentioned, who distinctly felt the Lords of Form through heat, and during their earth-life felt as though they retained a memory of having belonged to those spirits and of having been connected with them in the disembodied state. The second species of human beings only had the memory of the disembodied state to a more limited degree; they were conscious of their fellowship with the spiritual world chiefly through the light-influences of the Sons of Fire (Archangels). A third type of human beings was still more entangled in earthly existence. It was they who were unable to come in contact with the fire-element until the earth was separated from the sun and had absorbed the watery element within itself. Their feeling of fellowship with the spiritual world was especially slight at the beginning of earth-life. Only when the activities of the Archangels, and more especially of the Angels, influenced the inner imaginative life, did they feel this connection to any degree. On the other hand, at the beginning of the earth-period they were full of active impulses for performing deeds which can be accomplished under earthly conditions only. In them the extremities were particularly strongly developed. When the Moon-forces, before the separation of the moon from the earth, tended more and more to harden the latter, it happened that among the descendants of the embryos left behind upon the earth by man, there were some in whom human souls returning from the disembodied state could no longer incarnate in consequence of the Moon-forces. The form of these descendants was too much solidified and through the Moon-forces, had become too unlike the human form to be able to reassume it. Consequently certain human souls no longer found it possible, under these circumstances, to return to earth. Only the ripest and strongest of these souls felt competent to transform the earth-body during its growth, so that it could blossom into a human form. Only a portion of the bodily descendants of man became the vehicles of earthly human beings. Another part, because of its solidified form, was able to receive only souls on a lower level than those of men. But there was one group of human souls, however, which was prevented from participating in the earth-evolution of that time. In this way they were driven to embark on another course. There were souls who, as far back as the separation of the sun from the earth, found no place on the latter. For their further evolution they were removed to a planet which, under the guidance of cosmic beings, was detached from the universal world-substance,—that substance of which the earth formed a part at the beginning of its physical evolution, and from which the sun had separated. This planet, in its physical expression, is the one known to outer science as “Jupiter.” (Here we are speaking of celestial bodies, planets, and their names exactly in the sense of a more ancient science, and as is in harmony with occult science. Just as the physical earth is only the physical expression of a great psycho-spiritual organism, so is every other celestial body. And as the seer does not denote only the physical planet by the word “earth,” nor only the physical fixed star by “sun,” so when speaking of “Jupiter,” “Mars,” and the other planets, he signifies far-reaching spiritual relationships. The form and mission of the heavenly bodies have, in the nature of things, been essentially changed since the times of which we are here speaking,—in a certain respect even their position in celestial space has been changed. It is possible only for one who follows with the seer’s vision the evolution of those celestial bodies back to remote ages of the past, to apprehend the connection of contemporary planets with their predecessors.) On Jupiter the souls that have been described continued their evolution. And later, when the earth was tending more and more toward solidification, still another abode had to be prepared for souls who even though they were able to occupy the solidified bodies for a time, could no longer do so when this solidification had progressed too far. An appropriate place for their further evolution was prepared on “Mars.” Even as far back as the time when the soul was still united with the sun, and was incorporating the sun’s air elements within itself, certain souls were proving unfit to participate in the earth’s evolution. They were too powerfully affected by the earthly bodily form. Accordingly, even at that time, they had to be withdrawn from the direct influence of the Sun-forces. These had to influence them from without. The planet Saturn became the scene of their further evolution. Thus, in the course of the earth’s evolution, the number of human forms decreased, and forms appeared which had not embodied human souls. These were able to receive only astral bodies as the human physical and etheric bodies on the old Moon had done. While the earth was becoming depopulated as far as human beings were concerned, these other beings were colonizing it. Eventually all human souls would have been compelled to leave the earth if, by detaching the Moon from it, a way had not been provided to preserve those human bodies which at that time could still harbor human souls. It was made possible for these, during their earth life, to withdraw the human ego from the effects of the Moon-forces coming directly from the earth, thus allowing it to mature sufficiently within themselves until it could be exposed directly to those forces. As long as the embryo was developing within man, it was under the influence of those beings who, under the leadership of the mightiest of their number, had detached the moon from the earth in order to conduct the evolution of the latter over a critical point. When the earth had developed the air element within it, astral beings were present as described above, who had belonged to the old Moon and who had been left behind. They had fallen short even of the lowest human souls in their evolution. They became the souls of those forms which already before the separation of the Sun had to be abandoned by man. These beings are the ancestors of the animal kingdom. As time went on, they developed especially those organs which in man thus far only existed as appendages. Their astral body had to work on the physical and etheric bodies in the same way as did the human astral body during the old Moon-period. Now the animals which had thus come into existence had souls which could not dwell in the individual animals. The soul extended its being also to the descendant. Virtually, animals descended from one form have a soul in common. Only when the descendant diverges from the ancestral type through special influences, does a new animal soul become incarnated. In this sense, in accordance with occult science, we can speak of a species or group-soul, in animals. Something of a similar nature took place at the time of the separation of sun and earth. There came forth from the watery element, forms no further evolved than man was before the old Moon-evolution. They could only receive an impression from anything of an astral nature when the latter influenced them from without. This could not happen until after the departure of the sun from the earth. Whenever the sun-period of the earth set in, the astral element in the sun stimulated these forms in such a way that they formed their vital body out of the etheric part of the earth. When the sun turned away from the earth, that etheric body was again dissolved into the common earth-life. And as a result of the co-operation of the astral part of the sun with the etheric part of the earth, there emerged from the watery element those physical forms which became the ancestors of the present vegetable kingdom. Man became an individualized soul-being on earth. His astral body, which had been poured into him on the Moon through the Lords of Motion, now became organized on earth into the sentient-intellectual-and consciousness-souls. And when the consciousness-soul had progressed so far that it was able to form for itself during earth-life, a body adapted to that life, the Lords of Form endowed that body with a spark from their fire. The “ego” was enkindled within it. Every time man left the physical body he was in the spiritual world, in which he met the beings who, during the Saturn, Sun, and Moon evolutions, had given him his physical, etheric, and astral bodies, and who had developed them as far as the earth-stage. Since the spark of ego had been enkindled during earth-life, there had also come about a change in the disembodied life. Up to this point of evolution, man had had no independence in the spiritual world. Within that world he did not feel himself a separate being, but as though he were a member of the exalted organism which was composed of the beings superior to him. The “ego experience” on earth now takes effect also in the spiritual world. Henceforth man feels himself to be, to a certain degree, a unit in that world. But he feels also that he is unceasingly linked with it. In the disembodied state he again finds the Lords of Form, in a higher aspect, and this aspect he had perceived in their manifestation on earth by means of the spark of his ego. At the separation of the moon from the earth, the disembodied soul began to have experiences in the spiritual world which were connected with that separation. To develop such human forms upon earth which could receive soul individuality, only became possible through the fact that a part of the shaping forces passed over from the Earth to the Moon. Thus human individuality came within the sphere of the Moon-beings. And in the disembodied state the reminiscence of earthly individuality could only operate because, even in that state, the soul remained within the sphere of those mighty spirits who had brought about the separation of the moon. The process worked in such a manner that immediately after leaving the earth-body the soul could only see the exalted Sun-beings as though in a lustre reflected from the Moon-beings. And it was only when sufficiently prepared by gazing at that reflected splendor, that the soul attained to the vision of the exalted Sun-beings themselves. The mineral kingdom of the earth also arose out of what was ejected from human evolution in general. Its structures are what remained solidified after the moon was detached from the earth. The only soul-element which felt attracted to those structures was that which had been left behind at the Saturn stage, and was therefore only adapted for developing physical forms. All the occurrences treated of here and in what follows were enacted in the course of exceedingly long periods. But the question of chronology cannot be entered into here. The events described, present the evolution of the earth from without. Seen spiritually from within, the facts present themselves as follows: The spiritual beings who drew the moon out of the earth and incorporated their own existence with the moon,—thus becoming earth-moon beings,—brought about a certain formation of the human organism by means of the forces which they sent to the earth from the moon. Their influence affected the “ego” which man had acquired, and made itself felt in the interplay of that “ego” with the astral, etheric, and physical bodies. They made it possible for man to reflect within himself consciously and to reproduce within his cognition, the wisdom revealed in the cosmos. It will be remembered that during the old Moon-period man, owing to the separation from the sun at the time, acquired a certain independence in his organism, a more unfettered stage of consciousness than that which he had been able to derive directly from the Sun-spirits. This free, independent consciousness—a heritage from the old Moon-evolution—appeared again during the earth-period in question. But it was just this consciousness which, through the influence of the described earth-moon beings, could again be brought into union and harmony with the universe and be made a reflection of it. This would have happened if no other influence had asserted itself. Without that influence, man would have become a being whose consciousness would not have reflected the world in pictures of cognition, through his own free volition, but through natural necessity. But things did not happen in this way. At the time when the moon split off, certain spiritual beings interposed in human evolution who had retained so much of their Moon nature that they could not take part in the exodus of the sun from the earth, and were shut out from the influence of the spirits who from the earth-moon had exerted their activity upon the earth. These spirits with the old Moon nature were, so to say, banished to the earth, but with an irregular development. In their Moon-nature was that which had rebelled against the Sun-spirits during the old Moon-evolution, and which had so far been a blessing to man that it had led him to a free, independent state of consciousness. The consequences of the peculiar development of these spirits during the earth-period entailed their becoming adversaries of the spirits who, acting from the moon, desired to make human consciousness an automatic reflector of the universe. What had helped man to a higher state of development of the old Moon, proved to be in opposition to the possibilities which had arisen through the evolution of the earth. The opposing forces had brought with them from their Moon nature the power of working upon the human astral body, namely,—as above indicated,—the power of making it independent. They exercised that power by giving the astral body a certain degree of independence—even throughout the earth-period—compared with the automatic (involuntary) state of consciousness which had been brought about by the spirits of the earth-moon. It is difficult to express in the language of to-day the effects on man, in that far-off time of the spiritual beings referred to. They must not be thought of as analogous to natural influences of the present time, nor yet as similar to the influence of one human being on another, when the first awakens in the second inner powers of consciousness by words which help the second person to understand something, or which stimulate him to virtue or vice. The effect referred to as operative in that primeval age was not a force of nature but a spiritual influence, conveyed in a spiritual way, which descended upon man as a spiritual influx from higher spirits, conformable with man’s state of consciousness at that time. If we think of this influence as a force of nature we altogether miss its essential reality. If we say that the spirits with the old Moon nature tempted man in order to lead him astray for their own ends, we are using a symbolical expression, which is good as long as we remember that it is but a symbol and are at the same time clear in our minds that a spiritual fact underlies the symbol. The influence brought to bear on man by the spirits who had remained behind during the Moon-evolution had a two-fold result. Man’s consciousness was divested of the character of being merely a mirror of the universe, because the possibility was aroused in the human astral body of regulating and controlling, by means of this astral body, the images in the consciousness. Man became the ruler of his own knowledge. But on the other hand it was the astral body that was the starting point of that rulership, and consequently the ego set over the astral body came to be continually dependent upon it. Hence man was from this time forth exposed to the lasting influences of a lower element in his nature. It was possible for him in his life to sink below the height on which he had been placed by the spirits of the earth-moon in the course of the world’s progress. And subsequently he was open to the lasting influence on his nature of the irregularly evolved Moon-spirits. We may call these Moon-spirits Luciferian, to distinguish them from the other spirits who, from the earth-moon, made consciousness into a mirror of the universe, without bestowing free will. The Luciferian spirits endowed man with the possibility of developing free activity in his consciousness, and at the same time created the possibility of error and evil. As a result of these events man was brought into a different connection with the Sun-spirits from that which had been destined for him by the spirits of the earth-moon. These wished to develop the reflecting human consciousness in such a manner that within the whole life of the human soul, the influence of the Sun-spirits would have become dominant. These purposes were thwarted, and an opposition was thus created in human nature between the influence of the Sun-Spirits and that of the spirits who were irregularly developed on the old Moon. Owing to this opposition, the inability to recognize the physical Sun-influences as such also arose in man; they were hidden by the earthly impressions of the outer world. Filled with these impressions, the astral part of man was drawn into the sphere of the ego. This ego,—which otherwise would have felt only the spark of fire bestowed on it by the Lords of Form, and which would have submitted to the bidding of those spirits in everything that had to do with external fire,—henceforth worked upon external heat phenomena through the element with which it had itself been inoculated. A bond of attraction was thereby established between the ego and the earth-fire. In this way man became more involved in earthly materiality than had been ordained for him, which was effected through the earth-moon spirits in man’s body. The real individual ego was thereby set free from the mere earth-ego so that although man during earth-life only partially felt himself to be an ego, he at the same time felt his earth-ego to be a continuation of that of his ancestors through the generations. The soul was conscious of a kind of “group-ego” in earth-life, dating back to remote ancestors; man felt himself to be a member of this group. Only in the disembodied state could the individual ego be conscious of itself as a separate being. But this state of isolation was impaired because the ego was still burdened with a memory of the earth-consciousness (earth-ego.) This memory clouded its vision of the spiritual world, which began to be covered as with a veil between death and birth just as it is hidden from physical vision upon earth. The many changes which took place in the spiritual world while human evolution was passing through the conditions just described, found physical expression in the gradual adjustment of the mutual relations existing between the sun, moon, and earth (and, moreover, between other celestial bodies). The alternation of day and night stands out as one result of those relations. (The motions of celestial bodies are regulated by the beings who inhabit them. The earth’s motion, of which day and night are the result, was induced by the mutual relations of various spirits superior to man. The moon’s motion had been brought about in the same way, in order that after the separation of the moon from the earth, the Lords of Form might, by means of the revolution of the former around the latter, work upon the human physical body in the right way, and with the right rhythm.) The ego and astral body of man now worked within the physical and etheric bodies by day; at night that activity ceased: for the ego and the astral body then left the physical and etheric bodies and came wholly within the sphere of the Sons of Life or Angels, the Sons of Fire or Archangels, the Sons of Personality, and the Lords of Form. Besides the Lords of Form, the Lords of Motion, of Wisdom and the Thrones also included the physical and etheric bodies in their sphere of influence at this time. The injurious effects produced on man by the errors of his astral body during the day, could thus be counter-balanced. As people upon Earth now again multiplied there was no reason why human souls should not incarnate in their descendants. The earth moon-forces now acted in such a way that under their influence the human bodies became entirely capable of incarnating human souls. The souls who had previously removed to Mars, Jupiter and the other planets were now guided to earth, and there was thus a soul ready for each human being born in the physical line of descent. This went on through long periods so that the immigration of souls to earth corresponded to the increase of human beings. Souls now leaving their bodies at physical death retained the echo of their earthly individuality as a memory in the disembodied state. This memory acted in such a way that whenever a body was born on earth suitable for them, they again incarnated it. Consequently there were among the human descendants some whose souls came from without and who appeared on earth for the first time since its very earliest periods, and there were others whose souls had continually incarnated on the earth. In subsequent periods of earthly evolution the number of young souls appearing for the first time grows ever smaller and smaller, and the reincarnated souls become more and more numerous; yet for long ages the human race was composed of the two types of beings conditioned by these facts. Henceforth man on earth felt himself united with his forefathers through the group-ego which he had in common with them. On the other hand, the experience of the individual ego was all the stronger in the disembodied state between death and a new birth. The souls which entered human bodies from celestial space were in a different position from those which had one or more earthly lives behind them. The former, as souls entering upon the physical earth-life, brought with them only the conditions to which the higher spiritual world and their experiences outside the sphere of earth had subjected them. The others had, by their actions in former lives, added conditions of their own. The fate of the first was determined only by facts lying outside of the new earth-conditions; that of the reincarnate souls is also determined by what they themselves have done in former lives under earthly conditions. Individual human Karma makes its first appearance simultaneously with reincarnation. Because the human etheric body was withdrawn from the influence of the astral body in the manner above indicated, the generative faculty was not included in the sphere of human consciousness, but was under the sway of the spiritual world. When the time had come for a soul to descend to earth, procreative impulses arose in the human being. The entire process, to a certain degree was veiled in mysterious obscurity as far as earthly consciousness was concerned. The consequences of this partial separation of the etheric from the physical body were felt during earthly life also. The qualities of the etheric body were capable of being especially heightened by spiritual influence. In the life of the soul this expressed itself through a special perfection of memory. Independent logical thought was at this period only in its most rudimentary stage in man; on the other hand, the faculty of memory was almost unlimited. Externally it appeared as though man had direct knowledge of the working forces of every living being. He had at his disposal the vital and generative forces of the animal and, more especially, of the vegetable kingdom. He was able, for instance, to draw out of a plant the force which impels it to grow, and to use that force, just as we now use the forces of inanimate nature; for example, the power dormant in coal which is extricated and used for propelling engines.(22) The inner soul life of man was also transformed in many different ways by the Lucifer influence. Many kinds of feelings and emotions due to it might be instanced. Of these only one can be mentioned. Previous to this influence, the human soul acted, in that which it had to shape and to do, according to the purposes of higher spiritual beings. The plan of everything that was to be carried out was determined from the beginning. And in proportion to the degree to which human consciousness was evolved, it was able to foresee how things must develop in the future in accordance with that preconceived plan. That consciousness of the future was lost when the veil of earthly perceptions was woven across the manifestations of higher spiritual beings and in these the real forces of the Sun-spirits were hidden. Henceforth the future became uncertain, and in consequence of this the possibility of fear was implanted in the soul. Fear is a direct result of error. It is however evident that through the Luciferian influence, man became independent of certain definite forces to which he had previously submitted without the exercise of his will. Henceforth he was able to form resolutions of his own. Freedom is the result of the Luciferian influence, and fear and similar feelings are only the phenomena attendant on the evolution of human freedom. Spiritually seen, fear makes its appearance in this way. Within the earth-forces, under whose influence man had come by means of the Luciferian powers, other beings were operating, which had developed irregularly much earlier in the course of evolution than the Luciferian powers. With the earth-forces man admitted into his nature the influence of these other beings. They gave the quality of fear to feelings, which without them would have operated quite differently. They may be called Ahrimanic beings. They are the same that Goethe calls Mephistophelian. Although the Luciferian influence manifested itself at first only in the most advanced individuals, it soon spread to others. The descendants of the advanced individuals intermingled with the less progressive described above, and in this way the Luciferian force was conveyed to the latter. But the etheric body of these souls returning from the different planets could not be protected to the same extent as that of the descendants of those who remained on earth. The protection of the etheric body of these descendants emanated from an exalted Being in Whom was vested the leadership of the cosmic when the separation of the sun from the earth took place. That Being is the Ruler of the Kingdom of the Sun. With him those lofty spirits, whose cosmic development was sufficiently matured, departed for their dwelling-place in the Sun. But there were other beings who had not reached such a height at the separation of the sun; these were obliged to seek other spheres. It was through their instrumentality that Jupiter and other planets became detached from that general cosmic substance of which, at the outset, the earthly physical organism consisted. Jupiter now became the abode of those beings who were not highly enough developed to live on the sun, and the most advanced of these became the leader. As the Leader of the Sun evolution became the “higher ego” which worked in the etheric body of the descendants of those who had remained on earth, so the Jupiter leader became that “higher ego” which manifested as a common consciousness in certain other human beings. Those were the human beings descending from the intermixing of those who had only appeared on earth at the time of the air-element and had gone over to Jupiter. These human beings may be called, in conformity with occult science, “Jupiter-humanity.” They were scions of the human race which had adopted human souls far back in that ancient time; but who, at the beginning of earthly evolution, were not yet mature enough to take part in the first contact with fire. They were souls midway between the human and animal soul-kingdoms. Now there were other beings who, under the leadership of the greatest one among them had detached Mars from the general cosmic substance, to make it their dwelling place. Under their influence there arose a third kind of humanity, formed by interbreeding,—the “Mars-humanity.” (This knowledge throws light upon the origin of the formation of the planets of our solar system; for all the members of that system originated through the various stages of maturity reached by the beings inhabiting them. But of course it is not possible to enter into all the details of cosmic differentiation here.) Those people who felt in their etheric body the influence of the exalted Sun-being Himself may be called “Sun-humanity.” The Being Who lived in them as the Higher Ego—of course only in the race, not in the individual,—is the same to Whom various names were given in later times, when man had gained conscious knowledge of Him. It is he Who appears to the human race today as the Christ. “Saturn-humanity” is also to be distinguished at that time. The “higher ego” of this race appeared as a being who, with his associates, had been forced to leave the general cosmic substance before the separation of the Sun. In these individuals not only the etheric body but also the physical body was partly exempt from the Luciferian influence. But the etheric body was nevertheless not well enough protected in the less developed races of mankind to be able to sufficiently resist the influences of the Luciferian beings. These individuals could arbitrarily use the spark of the ego within them to such a degree that they were able to call forth mighty and destructive effects of fire around them. The result was a mighty terrestrial catastrophe. A large part of the inhabited earth was wrecked by fiery storms, and with it the human beings that had fallen into sin. Only a very small part of those who had remained untouched by sin, were able to take refuge in a region which had so far been shielded from the fatal human influence. The country occupying that part of the earth now covered by the Atlantic Ocean proved to be peculiarly well fitted for the abode of the new human race. Thither that part of humanity repaired which had preserved purity. Only stray groups of humanity inhabited other regions. Occult science gives the name of “Atlantis” to that part of the earth which once existed between the present continents of Europe, Africa, and America. (This particular stage of human evolution has its special nomenclature in theosophical literature. The period preceding the Atlantean is called the Lemurian age, whereas that during which the Moon-forces had not yet fully developed is called the Hyperborean age. This is preceded by yet another, which coincides with the earliest period of the evolution of the physical earth. Biblical tradition describes the period before the influence of the Lucifer-beings came into play as the Paradise time, and the descent to earth, or entanglement of humanity in the sense-world, as the expulsion from Paradise.) The Atlantean period of evolution was the real time of separation into the Saturn, Sun, Jupiter, and Mars humanities. Up to that time only predispositions for this separation had been developed. The division between the state of waking and sleeping had special consequences, which appeared particularly in the Atlantean race. During the night the human astral body and ego were in the sphere of the beings superior to man, as far up as the Sons of Personality. Man could perceive the Sons of Life (the Angels) and the Sons of Fire (the Archangels) through that part of his etheric body which was not united with the physical body. For he was able to remain united, during sleep, with that part of his etheric body which was not interpenetrated by the physical body. It is true, his perception of the Sons of Personality was vague, owing to the Luciferian influence; but not only the Angels and Archangels became visible to man in this condition but also those beings who were not able to enter upon earthly existence because they had lagged behind on the Sun or Moon, and were therefore obliged to remain in the psycho-spiritual world. But man, by means of the Luciferian influence, drew them into his soul which was separated from his physical body during sleep. Thus he came in contact with beings whose influence was highly corrupting. They increased in his soul the propensity for error; especially the tendency to misuse the powers of growth and reproduction, which since the separation of the physical and etheric bodies were now under his control. Certain human beings of the Atlantean period however became entangled in the sense world only to a very limited degree. Through them, the Luciferian influence became, instead of a hindrance to human evolution, a means of further progress. It enabled them to develop knowledge of earthly matters sooner than would otherwise have been possible. They sought to expel error from their imaginative life and to interpret, by means of cosmic phenomena, the original purposes of spiritual beings. They kept themselves free from those impulses and desires of the astral body which were directed merely toward the sense-world. Hence they became more and more free from the errors of the astral body. This resulted in a condition through which they were able to confine their perceptions to that part of the etheric body which was separated from the physical body in the manner described above. Under these conditions the capacity of the physical body for perception was practically extinguished and the physical body itself was as though dead. For through the etheric body, these individuals were wholly united with the kingdom of the Lords of Form, and were able to learn from them how they were being guided and directed by that exalted Being the “Christ,” who was the Leader at the time of the separation of sun and earth. These people were Initiates. But since human individuality had been brought into the sphere of the Moon-beings, as described above, these Initiates could not as a rule come into direct contact with the Christ-Being, they could only see it as a reflection, shown them by the Moon-beings. Thus they did not see the Christ-Being directly, but only the reflection of its glory. They became leaders of the rest of humanity, to whom they were able to impart the mysteries they had seen. They attracted disciples, to whom they communicated the methods for attaining the condition which leads to Initiation. Only those could attain knowledge of the Christ who belonged to the Sun-humanity mentioned above. They cultivated their mystic learning, and the occupations which promoted it, at a particular spot which, in occult science terminology may be called the Christ oracle, or Sun oracle, the term “oracle” being used to denote a place where the purposes of spiritual beings are unveiled. Other oracles were called into being by the members of the Saturn, Mars, and Jupiter humanities. The intuitive vision of their Initiates was confined to seeing those beings who were revealed to them in their etheric bodies as their respective “higher egos.” Thus adherents of the Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars wisdom arose. Besides these methods of Initiation, there were others for those who had assimilated too much of the Luciferian spirit to allow as large a part of the etheric body to be separated from the physical body as was the case with the Sun humanity. Nor could they be brought to the revelation of the Christ through these conditions. Because their astral body was more influenced by the Lucifer principle, they were obliged to undergo a more difficult preparation, and then, in a less disembodied state than the others, they were able to receive the revelation, not indeed of the Christ Himself, but of other exalted beings. There were beings who, although they had left the earth at the separation of the sun, did not stand on such a high level that they were able to continue taking part in the Sun evolution. They formed an abode for themselves away from the sun, after its separation from the earth: this was Venus. Their leader was the being who now became a “higher ego” to these Initiates and their adherents. A similar thing happened with the leading spirit of Mercury for another group of people. In this way the Venus and Mercury oracles arose. One kind of human beings, who had most completely absorbed the Luciferian influence, could reach only one of the higher beings who, with his associates, had been the first to be expelled from the Sun evolution. This being has no particular planet in cosmic space, but still lives within the periphery of the earth, with which he was once more united after the return from the sun. The group of people, to whom this being was revealed as its “higher ego” may be called the followers of the Vulcan oracle. Their attention was more directed to earthly phenomena than that of the other Initiates. They laid the first foundations of what afterwards became the human arts and sciences. On the other hand, the Mercury Initiates established the study of the more super-sensible things; and the Venus Initiates did this to a still greater extent. The Vulcan, Mercury, and Venus Initiates differed from those of Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars in the manner of receiving their Mysteries; the latter received them more as a revelation from above, and in a more finished state; whereas the former gained their knowledge more in the form of their own thoughts—in the form of ideas. The Christ Initiates occupied a middle position. While having a direct revelation, they acquired the capacity for clothing their Mysteries in a human form of conception. The Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars Initiates were obliged to express themselves more in symbols; the Christ, Venus, Mercury, and Vulcan Initiates were able to impart their knowledge more through ideas or concepts. Whatever knowledge of this kind reached Atlantean humanity came indirectly through the Initiates. But the rest of mankind also received special faculties through the Lucifer principle; for, through the intervention of lofty cosmic beings, what otherwise might have wrought ruin was transformed into good. One of these faculties was that of speech. This was brought about by the condensation of man’s physical body and by the separation of part of his etheric from his physical body. For some time after the separations of the moon, man felt himself connected with his physical ancestors through the group-ego. But this common consciousness, linking posterity with its ancestors, was gradually lost in the course of generations. Later descendants had an inner memory of only their more recent ancestors, no longer of their earlier forefathers. It was only in conditions akin to sleep, during which mankind came in contact with the spiritual world, that the remembrance of one ancestor or another again emerged. Then people thought of themselves as one with that ancestor whom they believed to be reappearing in them. This was an erroneous idea of reincarnation, which arose especially in the later Atlantean period. The true doctrine of reincarnation could be learned only in the schools of the Initiates. They could see how the human soul passes through the disembodied state on its way from one incarnation to another, and they alone were able to impart the real truth of the matter to their disciples. In the remote past which is now under consideration, man’s physical form was very different from his present form. It was still, to a great extent, the expression of the qualities of his soul. Man was composed of a softer and more delicate substance than that which he has since acquired. That which is now solidified in the limbs was then soft, flexible, and plastic. The bodily structure of the more psychic and spiritual human beings was delicate, supple, and expressive. These less evolved spiritually possessed coarser, heavier, less mobile bodily structures. A high degree of psychic maturity contracted the extremities, and the Stature remained small; backwardness of the soul and entanglement in sensuality were outwardly expressed by gigantic size. While man was growing to maturity his body was being formed in accordance with what was developing in his soul, in a way which would appear incredible and fabulous to contemporary ideas. Depraved passions, impulses, and instincts brought in their train a colossal increase of matter. Man’s present physical form has come about through a contraction, thickening, and consolidation of the Atlantean human form. And whereas man, before the Atlantean period, had been an exact image of his soul-nature the events of the Atlantean evolution bore within them the causes which lead to the formation of post-Atlantean man, whose physical form is solid and comparatively independent of the qualities of the soul. (The forms of the animal kingdom had solidified during far more remote Earth periods than those of man.) The laws now governing the shaping of forms in the kingdom of nature certainly did not prevail in the remote past. Toward the middle of the Atlantean evolution a calamity gradually befell humanity. The Mysteries of the Initiates had to be carefully kept secret from those who had not purified their astral bodies from sin. Had they gained insight into that hidden knowledge, into the laws by means of which higher beings directed the forces of nature, they would have employed those forces thus placed at their disposal for their own perverted needs and passions. The danger was all the greater because mankind was coming, as has been described, into the sphere of lower spiritual beings, who could not take part in the regular evolution of the earth and were therefore working against it. These persistently influenced humanity in such a way as to instil into it interests which were actually directed against human welfare. But mankind still had the power to employ the forces of growth and reproduction belonging to animal and human nature in their own service. Not only humanity in general, but even some of the Initiates yielded to temptation from low spiritual beings. They were induced to employ the supersensible forces mentioned above for a purpose which ran counter to human evolution. And for this purpose they sought out associates who were not initiated, and who made use of the secrets of the supersensible forces of nature for low ends. The result was a great corruption of human nature. The evil spread further and further; and since the forces of growth and generation, if torn from their original sphere and used independently, have a mysterious connection with certain forces working in air and water, there were thus unchained, through human action, mighty, destructive natural forces which led to the gradual ruin of the Atlantean territory by the agency of air and water catastrophes. Atlantean humanity was obliged to migrate—i. e., that portion of it which did not perish in the storms. In consequence of these storms the surface of the earth was altered. On one side, Europe, Asia, and Africa gradually assumed their present shape; on the other, America appeared. Great migrations took place to these countries. Those migrations which were directed eastward from Atlantis are especially important for us of today. Europe, Asia, and Africa were gradually colonized by the descendants of the Atlanteans. Various peoples fixed their abode in these continents. They were at different stages of development, and also at different levels of corruption. And with them came the Initiates, guardians of the oracle-Mysteries. They established sanctuaries in various parts, in which the cults of Jupiter, Venus, etc., were cultivated sometimes in a good, sometimes in an evil manner. The betrayal of the Vulcan Mysteries exercised an especially unfavourable influence, for the attention of their adherents was mostly centered on earthly matters. By this betrayal, mankind was made dependent on spiritual beings who, as a result of their past evolution, rejected everything emanating from the spiritual world which had been evolved through the separation of the earth from the sun. In accordance with the tendency they had thus developed, they worked upon just that element in man which was formed through his having perceptions of the sense-world, behind which the spiritual world lies hidden. Henceforth beings acquired great influence over many of the human inhabitants of the earth, and indeed their influence asserted itself more and more by depriving mankind of the feeling for spiritual things. Since the size, form, and flexibility of the physical human body were still largely affected by the qualities of the soul, the consequence of the betrayal of the Mysteries also appeared in changes of the human race in these respects. Wherever the corruption of humanity manifested itself especially in the abuse of supersensible powers for the satisfaction of lower inclinations, desires and passions, unsightly human shapes, grotesque in form and size were the result. These were not able to survive the Atlantean period, and became extinct. Post-Atlantean humanity was formed physically from those Atlantean ancestors in whom such a solidification of the bodily form had taken place that it no longer yielded to those powers of the soul which had now become perverted. There was a certain period in the Atlantean evolution during which, by means of the law ruling in and around the earth, just those conditions prevailed which tended to solidify man’s bodily form. Those human racial types which had been solidified before this period could, it is true, reproduce themselves for a long time, yet the souls incarnating in them gradually became so cramped that they had to die out. It is true that some of these race-types survived into the post-Atlantean times; those which had remained sufficiently agile lasted even for a very long time in modified form. Human forms which had remained flexible, after the period just described, became bodies for such souls as had, in a large measure, undergone the pernicious influence of the betrayal described above. These forms were destined to speedy extinction. In consequence of what had thus happened, beings had brought their influence to bear upon human evolution, since the middle of the Atlantean period, beings whose influence tended to make mankind live in the physical sense world in an unspiritual manner. This went so far that, instead of man’s seeing the real form of that world, phantoms, hallucinations, and illusions of every kind appeared to him. Mankind was exposed not merely to the Luciferian influence but to that of those other beings mentioned above, whose leader may be called Ahriman, according to the appellation given him later in the Persian civilization. (He is the same as Mephistopheles.) Through this influence man was subject, after death, to powers which made him appear even then as a being adhering only to material earthly conditions. He lost more and more the unobstructed vision of the events of the spiritual world. He was forced to feel himself in Ahriman’s power, and to a certain extent shut out from intercourse with the spiritual world. There was one oracle-sanctuary of special importance, which in the universal decline had preserved the ancient cult in its purest form. It was one of the Christ oracles, and on that account it was able to preserve not only the Christ Mystery itself but those of the other oracles as well. For in the manifestation of the loftiest of the Sun-spirits, were also revealed the regents of Saturn, Jupiter, and the other planets. In the Sun oracle the secret of producing in some particular human being, such human etheric bodies as had been possessed by the best of the Jupiter, Mercury, and other Initiates was known. By means of the methods used for this purpose, which cannot be further dealt with here, impressions of the best etheric bodies of the ancient Initiates were preserved, in order that they might subsequently be stamped upon suitable individuals. The same process could be employed with the astral bodies of the Venus, Mercury, and Vulcan Initiates. At a certain time the Leader of the Christ Initiates found Himself isolated with a few associates, to whom He was able to impart, to a very limited extent only, the mysteries of the cosmos. For those associates were individuals who were endowed with the natural ability to permit the least possible degree of separation between the physical and etheric bodies. They were altogether, at that time, the best possible individuals for promoting the further progress of humanity. Their experiences in the realm of sleep had become rarer and rarer. The spiritual world was more and more closed to them. Therefore they were also lacking in the comprehension of all that had been revealed to man in ancient times when he was not in his physical, but only in his etheric body. Those immediately surrounding the leader of the Christ oracle were the farthest advanced with regard to the union of the physical body with that part of the etheric body which had previously been separated from it. This union came about in the human being little by little, as a result of the transformation which had taken place in the Atlantean continent and the earth in general. The physical and etheric bodies of man fitted more and more into each other. Hence the memory lost its former unlimited capacity, and the human life of thought began. That part of the etheric which was united with the physical body transformed the physical brain into an actual instrument of thought, and man from this time, first really felt his “ego” within his physical body. Self-consciousness awoke. This was at first the case with only a limited number of the human race, pre-eminently with the associates of the leader of the Christ oracle. The bulk of humanity, scattered over Europe, Asia, and Africa, retained in varying degrees the remnant of the old conditions of consciousness. Hence they had direct experience of the supersensible world. The associates of the Christ Initiate were people of highly developed intelligence but of less experience in supersensible spheres than any of their contemporaries. The Initiate journeyed with them to a country in central Asia. He wished them to be guarded as much as possible from contact with those of less developed consciousness. He instructed his followers along the lines of the mysteries which had been revealed to him and especially did he do this with their descendants. Thus he gathered round him a people who had received into their hearts the impulses corresponding to the Mysteries of the Christ Initiation. Out of this company he chose the seven best, that they might be endowed with the etheric and astral bodies which bore the impress of the etheric bodies of the seven best Atlantean Initiates. Thus he educated a successor to each of the Christ, Saturn, Jupiter, etc., Initiates. These seven Initiates became the teachers and leaders of the people who, in the post-Atlantean period, had colonized the south of Asia, especially ancient India. Since these great teachers were endowed with the etheric bodies of their spiritual ancestors, the contents of their astral body, that is, the science and knowledge they themselves had worked out, was far below what was revealed to them through their etheric body. Therefore if these revelations were to speak within them, they were obliged to impose silence on their own science and knowledge. Then the exalted beings who had also spoken to their spiritual ancestors spoke out of and through them. Except during the times when these beings were speaking through them, they were simple people, endowed with the measure of intelligence and feeling which they had cultivated and worked out for themselves. There lived at this time in India a race of people who had retained a particularly vivid remembrance of the ancient soul-condition of the Atlanteans, which permitted experiences in the spiritual world. Moreover, the heart and soul of a great number of these people were powerfully attracted by such experiences. By a wise decree of fate, the majority of the race had come to southern Asia from among the best portions of the Atlantean population. Besides this majority, other Atlanteans had migrated thither at different times. The Christ Initiate, referred to above, appointed his seven great disciples to be the teachers of this association of people, to whom they imparted their wisdom and precepts. Many of these ancient Indians needed but little preparation for reviving within them the scarcely extinct faculties leading to observation of the supersensible world. For longing after that world was really a fundamental quality of the Indian soul. It was felt that man’s original home was in that world. He is transplanted out of it into this one, which offers only outer sense-observation and the intelligence connected with it. The supersensible world was felt to be the _real_ world, and the sense-world to be a deception of the human power of observation, an illusion (Maya). By every possible means these people strove to open up a view of the real world. They could take no interest in the illusory sense-world, or at any rate only so far as it proved to be a veil for the supersensible. The power going out from the Seven Great Teachers to such people as these, was a mighty one. What they were able to reveal entered deeply into the Indian soul; and since the possession of the transmitted etheric and astral bodies invested the teachers with lofty powers, they were also able to work magically on their disciples. They did not really teach; they worked as though by magic power from one personality to another. Thus there arose a civilization completely saturated with supersensible wisdom. The contents of the books of wisdom of the Hindus, the Vedas, do not give the original form of the lofty wisdom imparted by the great teachers of most ancient times, only a feeble echo of it. Only the seer’s eye, looking backward is able to find unwritten primeval wisdom behind the written words. A particularly prominent feature of this ancient wisdom is the harmonious accord of the various wisdom oracles of the Atlantean time. For each of the Great Teachers was able to unveil the wisdom of one of these oracles, and these different aspects were in complete harmony, because behind them all was the fundamental wisdom of the Christ Initiation. It is true the teacher who was the successor of the Christ Initiate did not impart to his disciples what the Christ Initiate himself was able to reveal. The latter had remained in the background during this period of evolution. At first he was unable to entrust his high office to any post-Atlantean. The difference between him and the Christ Initiate of the Seven Great Indian Teachers was that the former was able to work his vision of the Christ Mystery completely into the form of human ideas, whereas the Indian Christ Initiate could only offer a reflection of the Mystery in signs and symbols; for his humanly cultivated power of conception did not suffice for such a Mystery. However, from the union of the Seven Teachers there resulted a knowledge of the supersensible world, presented in one great wisdom-panorama, of which only separate portions could be imparted in the ancient Atlantean oracles. The great Regents of the cosmos were revealed, and the One great Sun-spirit, the Hidden One, ruling over those who were manifested through the seven teachers, was delicately indicated. What is here meant by “ancient Indians” is not the same as what is usually understood by that term. No outer documents exist of the period in question. The people usually known as “Indians” belong to a stage of historical evolution which was developed long after the time spoken of here. We have to distinguish a first post-Atlantean period of the earth, in which the Indian civilization now described was the predominant one; then came a second post-Atlantean period in which the prevailing civilization was that which later in this work is called the “ancient Persian,” and still later was developed the Egypto-Chaldean civilization, also to be described. During the evolution of these second and third post-Atlantean epochs, “ancient” India also went through a second and third epoch, and to this third epoch belongs what is usually related of ancient India. What is described here must therefore not be applied to the “ancient India” mentioned elsewhere. Another feature of this ancient Indian civilization is that which afterward led to the division of the race into castes. The inhabitants of India were descendants of Atlanteans who belonged to the various types of Saturn and Jupiter humanities, etc. By means of supersensible teachings it was seen that it is not by chance that a soul is incarnated in a particular caste, but that the soul itself has determined its lot. Such an understanding of supersensible teachings was made much easier, because it was possible to revive in many people the inner remembrance of their ancestors which has been described above; this, of course, might also easily lead to an erroneous idea of reincarnation. Just as, in the Atlantean age, it was only through the Initiates that the true idea of reincarnation could be realized, so in India, in most ancient times, it was possible only through direct contact with the great teachers. It is true that the erroneous idea of reincarnation mentioned above found the widest acceptance imaginable among the bands of people who were dispersed over Europe, Asia and Africa in consequence of the Atlantean catastrophe. And because the Initiates who had gone astray during the Atlantean evolution had imparted the mystery of reincarnation to immature souls, mankind began to confuse more and more the true with the false ideas. Many of these people indeed retained a kind of dim clairvoyance, as a heritage from the Atlantean period. Just as the Atlanteans had entered the spiritual world during sleep, their descendants had experience of it in abnormal states, intermediate between sleeping and waking. Then there arose in these people the images of the ancient times of their forefathers. They believed themselves to be reincarnations of people who had lived in those times. Teachings about reincarnation, which were at variance with the true ideas of the Initiates, were widely spread over the earth. As a result of the long-continued migrations which had taken place from west to east since the beginning of the Atlantean catastrophe, a group of people settled in western Asia whose posterity is known to history as the Persian race and the tribes related thereto. Here we look back to a much earlier period than the historical times of these peoples. Next after the Indian period, we have first to do with the very early ancestors of the later Persians, among whom arose the second great civilization of post-Atlantean evolution. The peoples of this second era had a different mission from that of the Indians. Their longings and inclinations were not fixed on the supersensible world alone; they were also directed toward the physical sense-world, and the earth became dear to them. They valued what man is able to acquire on it, and what he is able to win by means of its forces. Their achievements as a warlike people, and the methods which they discovered of acquiring the earth’s treasures, are connected with this peculiarity of their nature. There was no danger of their turning their backs upon the “illusion” of the physical senses in their yearning after the supersensible, but rather of their entirely severing the connection of their souls with the supersensible world, through their appreciation for the physical world. The oracle-sanctuaries, which had been transferred hither from the ancient Atlantean territory, also reflected, in their own way, the general character of the people. In them forces were present which it had formerly been possible to acquire through experiences in the supersensible world, and which could still be controlled in certain lower forms; these forces were used in the sanctuaries to direct the phenomena of nature in such a way as to make them subservient to man’s personal interests. This ancient people still had a great mastery over those forces of nature which subsequently withdrew from the influence of the human will. The guardians of the oracles mastered certain inner forces connected with fire and other elements. They can be called magicians. What supersensible knowledge and force they had retained as a heritage from ancient times was certainly slight in comparison with man’s powers in the remote past. But it nevertheless took all kinds of forms, from the noble arts, the only object of which was the welfare of humanity,—down to the most reprehensible transactions. The Luciferian influence held sway over these people in a peculiar manner. It had brought them into connection with everything which diverts mankind from the purposes of those exalted beings who alone would have guided human evolution, had not the Luciferian influence interposed. Even those members of this race who were still gifted with some remnant of the old clairvoyant condition, described above as a state intermediate between sleeping and waking, felt themselves powerfully attracted by the lower beings of the spiritual world. In order to counteract these characteristic qualities it was necessary that a spiritual impulse should be given to this people. A leadership was established among them by the guardian of the Mysteries of the Sun oracle, from the same source from which the spiritual life of ancient India proceeded. The leader of ancient Persian civilization, who was sent by the guardian of the Sun oracle to the people now under consideration, may be designated by the same name as the historical Zarathustra, or Zoroaster. Only the fact must be emphasized that the personality indicated belongs to a much earlier period than the historical possessor of the name. In this connection it is not a question of outer historical research, but of spiritual knowledge. And any one who instinctively thinks of a later time in connection with the bearer of the name Zarathustra may reconcile this idea with occult science on learning that the historical character represents himself as a successor of the first great Zarathustra, whose name he took, and in the spirit of whose teaching he worked. The impulse which Zarathustra had to give to his people was to show them that the physical world of sense is not merely the lifeless material, devoid of spirit, which it appears to a man who gives himself up exclusively to the influence of the Luciferian being. To this being man owes his personal independence and sense of freedom; but it should work within him in harmony with the opposite spiritual being. With the pre-historic Persians it was a question of keeping alive the sense of this last-named spiritual-being. Through their inclination toward the physical sense world they ran the risk of complete amalgamation with the Luciferian beings. Now Zarathustra, through the guardian of the Sun oracle, had received an Initiation that enabled him to receive the revelations of the great Sun-spirits. In particular states of consciousness, brought about by his training, he was able to see the Regent of the Sun-spirits, who, as described above, had taken under His protection the human etheric body. Zarathustra knew that This Spirit directs the course of human evolution, but that He must first, at a certain time, descend to earth out of cosmic space. For this purpose it was necessary that He should be able to live in a human astral body, just as in man. He had worked in the etheric body since the entrance of the Luciferic nature. It was therefore necessary that a man should appear who had retransformed the astral body to the same level that it would have reached in the middle of the Atlantean evolution, had there been no Luciferian influence. Had Lucifer not appeared, mankind would certainly have attained this level before, but without personal independence or the possibility of freedom. Now, however, in spite of those qualities he should again arise to this height. Zarathustra, endowed with prophetic vision, could see that in the future it would be possible, within human evolution for a personality to exist, who would have a suitable astral body for that purpose. But he also knew that the great Sun-spirit could not appear on earth before that time, though He could be perceived by a seer in the spiritual part of the Sun. When as a seer he turned his attention to the Sun, Zarathustra was able to see This Spirit, whom he proclaimed to his people. He announced that the Sun-spirit was at first to be found only in the spiritual world, but that later He would descend to earth. This was the great Sun-spirit, or Spirit of Light (the Aura of the Sun, Ahura-mazdao, or Ormuzd). He was revealed to Zarathustra and his followers as the Spirit who, for the time being, was turning the light of His countenance on man from the spiritual world, and that it was He Who might be expected to appear in a human body amongst men in the future. It was the Christ, before his appearance on earth, whom Zarathustra proclaimed as the Spirit of Light. On the other hand he represented Ahriman (Angra mainju) as a power working injuriously on the life of the human soul, when it engrosses that soul completely. This power is none other than the one previously described, which had acquired special dominion over the earth since the betrayal of the Vulcan Mysteries. Together with the message concerning the Light God, Zarathustra proclaimed teachings about those spiritual beings who were revealed to the seer’s purified perception as associates of the Spirit of Light. These were in strong contrast to the tempters who appeared to that unpurified clairvoyance which was left over from the Atlantean period. It had to be made clear to the ancient Persians that in man’s soul, so far as it is engaged in work and endeavor in the physical sense world, a conflict is going on between the power of the Light God and his adversary. It had also to be shown them how man must act so as not to be engulfed by Ahriman, and how to turn his influence to good through the power of the Light God. The third era of post-Atlantean civilization began among the peoples who finally gathered together in western Asia and northern Africa after the migrations. This civilization was developed among the Chaldeans, Babylonians, and Assyrians on the one hand, and among the Egyptians on the other. In these peoples the taste for the physical world of sense developed in a different form from that which it had taken among the Persians. The former had acquired the quality of mind lying at the root of the faculty of thought which has arisen since Atlantean times, that is, the gift of reason. Indeed, it was the mission of post-Atlantean humanity to develop within itself those faculties of the soul which it was possible to acquire through the newly awakened powers of thought and feeling. These powers cannot be directly stimulated from the spiritual world, but result from man’s observing the sense-world, becoming familiar with it, and working upon it. The conquest of the physical world of sense by these human faculties must be regarded as the mission of post-Atlantean humanity. Step by step that conquest proceeded. It is true that even in ancient India, man, through the condition of his soul, was already turned toward that world; but he still looked upon it as illusion, and his spirit turned to the supersensible world. In the Persian race, on the contrary, there sprang up the endeavour to conquer the physical world of sense, but the attempt was still largely made with those powers of the soul which had been left over as an inheritance from the time when man could still reach the spiritual world directly. Among the peoples of the third epoch of civilization, the soul had for the most part lost the supersensible faculties. It was obliged to seek manifestations of the spiritual in the surrounding world of sense, and to continue its development by discovering the means of civilization existing in that world. Men sought to investigate, through the physical world, the spiritual laws underlying it, and in this way human sciences arose. Human technical skill, artistic work, and their tools and means came about through the recognition and use of the forces of the physical world. To a man of the Chaldaic-Babylonian race the sense-world was no longer an illusion but a manifestation, in its different kingdoms, in mountains and seas, in air and water, of the spiritual activity of powers existing behind it, whose laws man was striving to learn. To the Egyptian, the earth was a field of work, given to him in a condition which he must, by his own powers of intelligence, so transform that it should bear the impress of human power. From Atlantis, oracle-sanctuaries, originating chiefly from the Mercury oracle, had been transplanted to Egypt. Yet there were others as well,—for example, Venus oracles. In that which was fostered, in their oracle-sanctuaries, among the Egyptian peoples, the germ of a new culture was planted. This germ proceeded from a great leader who had received his training in the Persian Zarathustra Mysteries, who was the reincarnated individuality of a disciple of the great Zarathustra himself. Let us call him “Hermes.” Through acceptance of the Zarathustra Mysteries he was able to find the right way to guide the Egyptian people. This people had so turned its attention to the physical sense-world, during earthly life between birth and death that it was able only to a limited extent to directly behold the spiritual world behind the physical phenomena, although it recognized the spiritual laws of the world. Thus it could not think of the spiritual world as the one in which it could live while on earth, but on the other hand, it could be shown how man will live, in the disembodied state after death in the world of those spirits who, during earthly life, appear through their impressions upon the sense-world. Hermes taught that man qualifies himself for union with spiritual forces after death, in proportion as he uses his powers on earth for furthering the purposes of those spiritual forces. Those especially, who had worked most zealously in this way between birth and death would be united with the lofty Sun-God Osiris. On the Chaldaic-Babylonian side of this stream of civilization the direction of the human mind toward the physical sense-world was more conspicuous than on the Egyptian side. The laws of that world were being investigated and from its reflection in the sense-world these people looked up to the corresponding spiritual prototypes. Yet in many respects the nation remained wedded to physical things. Instead of the star-spirit, the star was put first, and instead of other spiritual beings their earthly counterparts were made prominent. Only the leaders attained to really deep knowledge concerning the laws of the supersensible world and its connection with the physical. The contrast between the knowledge of the Initiates and the perverted beliefs of the people became more apparent in these nations than anywhere else. Very different conditions existed in those parts of Southern Europe and western Asia where the fourth epoch of post-Atlantean civilization was unfolded. In occult science, it is called the Greco-Roman period. Descendants of peoples inhabiting widely distant parts of the older world had met together in these countries. Here were oracle-sanctuaries which conformed to the various Atlantean oracles; here were people with the heritage of ancient clairvoyance as a natural gift, and others who were able to acquire it, with comparative ease, by training. The traditions of the ancient Initiates were not only preserved in special places, but worthy successors to them arose, who attracted disciples capable of rising to lofty levels of spiritual vision. Moreover, these races had within them the impulse to create a domain within the sense-world which expresses the spiritual in perfect form through the physical. Greek art is, among other things, a result of this impulse. It is only necessary to gaze with the eye of the spirit upon a Greek temple, in order to see that in this marvel of art, material substance is so worked upon by man that it appears in every detail as the expression of spirit. The Greek temple is the “House of the Spirit.” One sees in its form what otherwise only The Spiritual eye of the seer perceives. The temple of Zeus-(or Jupiter) is so constructed as to present to the physical eye a fitting shrine for what the guardian of the Zeus-(or Jupiter) Initiation saw with spiritual vision. And it is the same with all Greek art. The wisdom of the Initiates flowed in mysterious ways into poets, artists, and thinkers. The Mysteries of the Initiates are found again, in the form of conceptions and ideas, in the systems of thought by which ancient Greek philosophers interpreted the universe. The influences of the spiritual life, the Mysteries of the Asiatic and African sanctuaries of Initiation, flowed into these nations and to their leaders. The great Indian teachers, the associates of Zarathustra, and the followers of Hermes had attracted disciples. These, or their successors, thereupon founded sanctuaries for Initiation, in which the ancient wisdom was revived in a new form. These were the Mysteries of antiquity. Here disciples were prepared to be brought into the condition of consciousness through which they might attain vision of the spiritual world.(23) From these sanctuaries of Initiation the Mysteries flowed forth to those who cultivated Spiritual Mysteries in Asia Minor, Greece, and Italy. (Important centres of Initiation were formed in the Greek world in the Orphic and Eleusinian Mysteries. In the Pythagorean School of wisdom, lingered the effects of the great wisdom-teachings and methods of past ages. On his distant travels, Pythagoras had been initiated into the secrets of the most varied kinds of Mysteries.) But human life between birth and death in the post-Atlantean period had also an influence on the disembodied state after death. The more man’s interests were fixed on the physical sense-world, the greater was the possibility of Ahriman gaining a hold upon the soul during earthly life and retaining his power of it after death. This danger was least among the peoples of ancient India, for during earthly life they had felt the physical sense-world to be an illusion, and thus had eluded the power of Ahriman after death. The danger for the primitive Persian peoples, who between birth and death had fixed their attention, with great interest, upon the physical sense-world was much greater. They would have largely fallen a prey to Ahriman’s wiles had not Zarathustra pointed out, emphatically through his teaching concerning the Light of God, that behind the physical sense-world there exists the world of the Spirits of Light. In proportion to the ability of the people of this civilization to receive something into their souls out of the world of thought thus created, were they able to escape Ahriman’s clutches during earthly life, and thereby elude him in the life after death, during which they were to be prepared for a new earth-life. The power of Ahriman in earthly life tends to make the physical sense-existence appear to be the only one, and thus to bar the way to any vista of a spiritual world. His power in the spiritual world leads man to complete isolation, and to the concentration of all his interest upon himself. Those who, at the time of death, are in Ahriman’s power, are born again as egoists. It is now possible for occult science to describe life between death and a new birth as it is, provided the Ahrimanic influence has, to a certain degree, been overcome. It is in this sense that it has been described by the author in the first chapter of this book as well as in other writings. And it must be described in this way if that which can be experienced by man during this form of existence is to be visualized and if he has attained to purely spiritual perception for that which really exists. The degree to which the individual experiences this, depends upon the extent to which he has overcome the Ahrimanic influence. Man is approaching nearer and nearer to what it is possible for him to become in the spiritual world. How this progress is thwarted by other influences must however be clearly brought out in our consideration of the course of human evolution. During the Egyptian period Hermes taught the people to prepare themselves during earth-life, for communion with the Spirit of Light. But because at that time human interests, between birth and death, were already so constituted that it was only possible to a slight degree to see through the veil of the physical sense-world, therefore the spiritual vision of the soul after death was also clouded and the perception of the world of light remained dim. The obscuration of the spiritual world after death reached a climax in the souls who passed into the disembodied state out of a body belonging to the Greco-Roman civilization. During their earthly life they had brought to perfection the cultivation of physical sense-existence, and had thus condemned themselves to a shadowy existence after death. Hence the Greek felt life after death to be a shadowy existence, and it is not mere rhetoric but the realization of truth when the hero of that time, who is given up to the life of the senses, says, “Better a beggar on earth than a king in the realm of shades.” All this was still more marked in those Asiatic peoples who had fixed their attention with veneration and worship on material images instead of on their spiritual archetypes. A large proportion of mankind was in this condition at the time of the Greco-Roman era of civilization. It can be seen how man’s mission in post-Atlantean times, which consisted in the conquest of the physical sense-world, must necessarily lead to estrangement from the spiritual world. Thus greatness in one respect necessarily involves deterioration in another. Man’s connection with the spiritual world was kept alive in the Mysteries. Through these the Initiates, in special states of the soul, were able to receive revelations from that world. They were more or less the successors of the guardians of the Atlantean oracles. To them was revealed what had been hidden through the influence of Lucifer and Ahriman. Lucifer concealed from man what had flowed from the spiritual world into the human astral body, without his co-operation, up to the middle of the Atlantean period. Had the etheric body not been partially separated from the physical body, man would have been able to experience within himself this part of the spiritual world as an inner revelation to his soul. As a result of Lucifer’s encroachment, this could be done only in special states of the soul. At those times a spiritual world appeared to man in the guise of the astral. The corresponding spiritual beings manifested themselves in forms which embodied only the higher principles of the human being, and in those principles the symbols of their particular spiritual forces were astrally visible. Superhuman forms were manifested in this way. After the encroachment of Ahriman, still another kind of Initiation was added to this one. Ahriman concealed from man everything out of the spiritual world which would have appeared behind physical sense-perception, had he not interfered in human affairs from the middle of the Atlantean period onward. The Initiates of the Mysteries owed the revelation of what he had thus kept hidden, to the fact that they had developed within their souls all those faculties which man had attained since that time, beyond the degree necessary for physical sense-impressions. Thus there were revealed to them the spiritual powers lying behind the forces of nature. They could speak of the spiritual beings behind nature. The creative might of those forces acting in nature below man, was revealed to them. That which had been active since Saturn, Sun and the old Moon and had shaped man’s physical, etheric and astral body as well as the mineral, plant and animal kingdoms, formed the contents of a certain kind of mystery-secrets,—namely those over which Ahriman held his hand. That which had formed the sentient-, rational-and consciousness-souls and which had been concealed from man by Lucifer, was revealed in a second kind of Mystery-secrets. But what the Mysteries could only prophesy was, that in time a man would appear possessing an astral body which, despite Lucifer, could become conscious of the light-world of the Sun-spirit through the etheric body, apart from any special condition of the soul. And the physical body of that human being must be of such a nature, that everything in the spiritual world would be revealed to him, which Ahriman is able to conceal from man up to the time of physical death. Physical death could bring no change into the life of such a being, that is to say, could have no power over it. The “Ego” so manifests in such a human being that the entire spiritual life is at the same time contained in his physical life. Such a being is the vehicle of the Spirit of Light, to whom the Initiate ascends from two directions, being led, under special conditions of the soul, either to the Superhuman Spirit or to the Being of the forces of nature. When the Initiates of the Mysteries foretold the appearance in the course of time, of such a human being, they were prophets of the Christ. A personality arose, as the special prophet of this coming manifestation, within a nation which possessed through natural inheritance the qualities of the peoples of western Asia, and through education the learning of the Egyptians—the Hebrew nation. This prophet was Moses. The influences of Initiation had entered so deeply into his soul that in certain states of consciousness the being who had undertaken in the regular course of the earth evolution to shape human consciousness from the Moon, was revealed to him. In thunder and lightning Moses realized not merely physical phenomena, but manifestations of this Spirit. At the same time the other kind of Mysteries had influenced his soul, so that he was able to distinguish, in astral vision, how the superhuman becomes human by means of the ego. Thus, from two directions, He Who was to come, was revealed to Moses as the highest form of the Ego. And in Christ the lofty Sun-spirit appeared in human form as the great ideal for human life on earth. At His coming, all mystery-wisdom had in some respects to take a new form. Up to that time this wisdom had existed exclusively for the purpose of enabling man to put himself into such a condition of soul in which he would be able to view the kingdom of the Sun-spirit as something _outside_ of earthly evolution. Henceforth it was the mission of Mystery-wisdom to make man capable of recognizing in the incarnated Christ the Primordial Being. From this Primordial Being man was enabled to understand the natural and spiritual worlds.(24) At the point in His life at which the astral body of Christ Jesus contained everything which it is possible for the Luciferian influence to conceal, He came forward as the Teacher of humanity. From that moment, the faculty was implanted in human earthly evolution for assimilating that wisdom whereby the physical goal of the earth may gradually be reached. At the moment when the Event of Golgotha was accomplished, human nature was endowed with another faculty, that by which Ahriman’s influence may be turned into good. Henceforth man was able to take with him through the gate of death that which saves him from isolation in the spiritual world. What happened in Palestine was the central point, not only of human physical evolution but also of the other worlds to which man belongs; and when the “Mystery of Golgotha” had been accomplished, when the “death on the cross” had been suffered, Christ appeared in that world where souls sojourn after death, and set limits to the power of Ahriman. From that moment the region which the Greeks had called the “realm of shades” was illuminated by that flash of the Spirit indicating to its dwellers that light was to return. What had been gained for the physical world by the “Mystery of Golgotha” cast light also into the spiritual world. Up to this event post-Atlantean human evolution had been a time of ascent in the physical sense-world, but of descent as far as the spiritual world was concerned. Everything which flowed into the sense-world proceeded from what had been in the spiritual world from remote ages. Since the coming of Christ, those who attain to the Mystery of Christ are able to take with them into the spiritual world what they have won in the physical. And from the spiritual world it then flows back again into the earthly sense-world, since reincarnated souls, on re-entering earth-life, bring with them what the Christ-impulse between death and a new birth, has bestowed. What flowed into human evolution with the appearance of the Christ, acted in it like a seed. Only slowly can this seed mature. Only the smallest part of these profound new wisdom teachings, up to the present time, has reached down into physical existence. Christian evolution has just barely begun. During the successive periods of time following the appearance of the Christ, this Christian Evolution was able to reveal only so much of its inner essential nature as the humanity, the peoples of that time, were capable of receiving; only as much as they could grasp with their faculties of comprehension. The first form into which this essence of Christianity could be poured may be described as a comprehensive ideal of life. As such it was opposed to those forms of life which had been developed in post-Atlantean humanity. The conditions operating in human evolution since the repopulation of the earth in the Lemurian period have been described above. Accordingly, humanity can be traced back to different beings who, coming from other worlds, incarnated in the bodily descendants of the ancient Lemurians. The various races of man are a consequence of this, and the most diverse vital interests appeared in these reincarnated souls, as a result of their Karma. As long as all this was being worked out, there could be no ideal of “universal humanity.” Human nature originated in unity, but earthly evolution up to the present time has led to division. In the figure of the Christ, we see an ideal which opposes all division, for in the man who bears the name of Christ there lives the lofty Sun-being from Whom every human ego is descended. The Hebrew nation still felt itself to be a nation, and each individual a member of that nation. When once the idea was grasped that in Christ-Jesus there lives the ideal Man who stands above all that tends to divide humanity, Christianity became the Ideal of an all-Embracing brotherhood. Above all individual interests and relations, the feeling arose in some that the innermost ego of all human beings is of the same origin. (In addition to all the earthly forefathers, the great common Father of all humanity appears. “I and the Father are one.”) In the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries after Christ, the era in which we are still living was being prepared in Europe. It was gradually to replace the fourth, or Greco-Roman civilization. It is the fifth post-Atlantean period. The races which, after many wanderings and varied fortunes, became the vehicles of this new civilization were descendants of those Atlanteans who had remained less affected than others by what had been going on meanwhile during the four preceding periods of civilization. They had not penetrated into the countries in which those respective civilizations took root. On the contrary, they had, in their way, handed on Atlantean forms of civilization. There were many among them who had retained in a high degree the inheritance of the ancient dim clairvoyance, the state described above as intermediate between sleeping and waking. Such people knew the spiritual world from their own experience, and could reveal to their fellow-men what takes place there. Thus there sprang up a great number of narratives of spiritual beings and events, and the national treasures of legends and sagas had their origin in spiritual experiences of this kind. For the dim clairvoyance lasted on, in many people, into times not far removed from the present. There were other people who, although they had lost clairvoyance, nevertheless developed the faculties they acquired for use in the physical sense-world in accordance with feelings and emotions which corresponded to clairvoyant experiences. And even the Atlantean oracles had their successors in the new civilization. There were everywhere Mysteries, but in them that Mystery of Initiation was most cultivated, which leads to the unveiling of that part of the spirit-world which Ahriman keeps hidden. The spiritual powers existing behind the forces of nature were here revealed. In the mythologies of European nations are contained the remnants of what the Initiates of these Mysteries were able to disclose to men. It is true that these mythologies also contain the other kind of mystery, although in a more imperfect form than that possessed by the Southern and Eastern Mysteries. Superhuman beings were also known in Europe, but they were seen to be in perpetual conflict with the associates of Lucifer. And the Light-God too was proclaimed, but in such a form that it was doubtful whether he would overcome Lucifer. On the other hand, these Mysteries were illuminated by the figure of the coming Christ. It was announced of Him that His kingdom would replace that of the other Light-God.(25) From such influences as these, there came about a cleavage in the soul of the people of the fifth epoch of civilization which still continues, and is manifest in most diverse phenomena. The soul had not retained, from ancient times a sufficiently strong attraction for spiritual things to enable it to hold fast the connection between the worlds of spirit and sense. The attraction existed only as a training of feeling and emotion, not as direct vision of the spiritual world. On the other hand, man’s attention was more and more directed toward the world of the senses and its conquest; and the intellectual powers which had been awakened in the latter part of the Atlantean period, all those human powers of which the physical brain is the instrument, were concentrated upon the sense-world, and upon gaining knowledge of and mastery over it. Two worlds, so to speak, were developed within man: the one directed toward the life of physical sense; the other susceptible to the revelation of the spirit in such a way as to permeate with feeling and emotion even though lacking clairvoyant vision. The tendency to this cleavage of soul already existed when the teaching concerning the Christ was introduced into Europe. This message from the spiritual world was received into men’s hearts, and permeated feeling and emotion; but it was not possible to bridge the gulf between this state of devotion and what human intelligence, concentrated on the sense-world, was learning in the sphere of physical existence. What is now known as the contradiction between external science and spiritual knowledge is simply a consequence of this fact. The Christian mysticism (of Eckhart, Tauler and others) is the result of Christianity becoming permeated with feeling and emotion. Science, occupied as it is exclusively with the world of sense and its results in life, is the consequence of the other tendency of the soul, and all achievements in the sphere of outer material civilization are entirely due to this divergence of tendencies. Since those human faculties, of which the brain is the instrument, were concentrated exclusively on physical life, they were able to reach that pitch of perfection which makes contemporary science, technical skill, and other forms of mental activity possible. Such a material civilization could originate only among the nations of Europe, for they are those descendants of Atlantean ancestors who converted their natural inclination toward the physical sense-world into faculties only when it had reached a certain degree of maturity. Previously they had allowed it to lie dormant, and had lived on what remained in them of the Atlantean clairvoyance and on the communications of their Initiates. While mental culture was outwardly almost entirely given up to these influences, in them ripened slowly the desire for the material conquest of the world. Now, however, the dawn of the sixth post-Atlantean era of civilization is already at hand. What is to arise at a certain time in human evolution has ripened slowly in the preceding age. The first beginnings of that which can even now be developed, is to be discovered in the thread which binds together the two tendencies of the human breast, material civilization and life in the spiritual world. To this end it is necessary, on the one hand, that the results of spiritual vision should be understood; and on the other, that in the observations and experiences of of the sense-world the revelations of the Spirit be recognized. The sixth civilization-epoch will bring to full development the harmony between the two. Herewith the studies in this book have reached a point where we may turn from the perspectives of the past to those of the future. But it will be better to precede the latter by a study of the Knowledge of Higher Worlds and of Initiation. Then, after this study and in connection with it, we shall be able to indicate in brief the outlook for the future, in so far as that can be done within the framework of this book.