The Rudolf Steiner Archive

22. Zarathustra, His Teachings, and His Mission

[ 1 ] It is difficult to communicate with someone who expresses himself differently than we do. To shed light on the mysteries of our own souls, it is important to measure our own thoughts, feelings, and desires against those of minds very different from our own.

[ 2 ] Even modern historical research is unable to determine the exact time period in which Zarathustra lived; some place him during the time of the Buddha, while the ancient Greeks place him 5,000 years before Christ: as far back as possible—or not very far at all. Theosophy places him within the pre-Asian cultural sphere, yet his influence can be observed all the way into the Christian era.

[ 3 ] All aspects of spiritual life have undergone profound changes; the development of what has emerged is now a most satisfying field of study. Human spiritual development would need to be subjected to the same examination in order to shed light on the subject; one must go back to earlier states of consciousness, when people perceived a different environment than they do now. There was a kind of clairvoyant consciousness—a term often misused—a visual consciousness. The images rising and falling in connection with ordinary forms have little significance; they are a remnant of an entirely different state of consciousness. This earlier visual consciousness relates to the external reality in the spiritual world beyond the sensory world—at a time when object consciousness was still in its infancy—in an intermediate realm between waking and sleeping, through symbols that referred to the real spiritual world.

[ 4 ] One particular ability develops at the expense of another. We must ascend once more, but to a form of clairvoyance imbued with intellectuality. First, the intellect was lost. Myths, sagas, and legends are the oldest records of ancient clairvoyance. The images of the gods in mythology were, at first, merely images. There were two spiritual currents: one from ancient India, the other—more northern—from ancient Persia. These ran parallel to one another in the earlier millennia, converging in ancient Greek culture. This is why the pessimism of the ancient Indians is so characteristic. The ancient Indian found it eerie when he saw spiritual beings behind external things. He called them asuras. The final impulse of this tradition—which was therefore so significant—appeared in the Buddha. Due to a non-spiritual inclination toward the inner world, he was plunged into Maya; thus, he had to escape into Nirvana. Nirvana has none of what the senses offer; Nirvana is the final great call of this human development, which is perceived as a descent. This, too, is permeated by a pessimistic, anti-realistic numbness.

[ 5 ] In ancient Greece, this immersion was not perceived quite that way. The Greeks, within the culture of Dionysus—when they had not yet acquired the intellectual capacity—experienced the ancient Indian culture that had been transplanted into Greece. Zoroaster developed precisely the opposite; the Persians sought to take hold of immediate reality, a transition to a new, joyful future for humanity. He had gained something new: new powers of the human soul. Zoroaster pointed out to the Persian people that the physical world was not merely Maya. To him, the external world was like the garment of a spiritual world, and the sensory world like a carpet. The spiritual world lies behind the sensory world; everywhere behind it is the spiritual world. This is not meant merely as a pantheistic allusion to spiritual wisdom, but as a concrete gaze into the spiritual world. Behind what is most important in the sensory realm [the real?] lies spiritual importance [reality?]. And just as the sun has its great aura, so too does man have his small aura: Ahura Mazdao, later Ormuzd. Through mere mystical insight, he no longer finds the good. These are dying forces; therefore, the Devas are evil to him, and the Asuras are what is right.

[ 6 ] This reversal can thus be explained in terms of cultural development. The Ahuras are the Indian Asuras. The spiritual is within and behind all that is sensory, especially behind the center. The Greek Apollo is the Greek interpretation of the Mazdaic culture. Both currents converged when humanity’s greatest impulse came to pass in Christ.

[ 7 ] Back then, in Zarathustra’s time, people needed entirely different symbols, an entirely different script, to give this a tangible form. This ancient script was found in the celestial bodies. Zarathustra traced both of these opposites back to a higher source. He needed symbols. During the day, the sun traverses a portion of the zodiac; the daytime sun is Ormuzd, the nighttime sun is Ahriman. One half of the zodiac signs represents Ormuzd, the other half Ahriman. It is a common source of good and evil. In an ever-widening arc, the circle becomes flatter and flatter, finally a straight line—infinity. A circle with an infinite diameter is an image of the infinite passage of time. The past holds us back; the future is for progress, lifting us up. The entire zodiac is actually a line, visualized as a miniature circle. “Zaroana akarena” is the image of infinite time.

[ 8 ] Thus, the stars contain the writing that reflects what exists in the spiritual world. Zoroaster is not an abstract spirit who moves only in generalities; therefore, there are lesser spirits under Ormuzd. People today are lazy; they want to ascend directly to the highest God. The six or seven Ameshaspands were, as it were, messengers. Goethe mentions in his *Faust*: “Sons of the gods, preserve beauty,” and so on. It is the same thing. Likewise, Ahriman has five or six evil spiritual beings; that makes twelve in all.

[ 9 ] Each constellation is an expression of one of these forces. Ormuzd, for example, acts through [the] Lion as a good disposition, and through Aries as wisdom. In this way, the spiritual beings enter into human beings, as it were. But human beings are not as wise as their little finger, which knows that it is nothing on its own without the whole organism. Thus, the human soul forces penetrate into the human being, continue within the human being, and condense materially into what is within the human being. A human being can therefore be an Ormuzd-type or an Ahriman-type human being. The new physiology, which dissects the human being, states [anatomically and physiologically]: Twelve pairs of cranial nerves extend from the brain. Thus, after millennia, the materialized twelve Amshaspands have been rediscovered. The two eras join hands.

[ 10 ] Thus, there are 28 to 31 Izeds, spirits that perform subordinate functions and are active in the cosmos and in human nature. These are, in the human head, the spiritual faculties [= the Amshaspands] and the faculties that emanate from the spinal nerves and, so to speak, return again [the Izeds]. Then, in the Feroars, we see the spiritual archetypes that underlie everything else.

[ 11 ] Plato says: All sensory things are based on archetypes. But here, the meaning is already more abstract. Plato speaks of the world of the mind; Zoroaster of the world of spirits. Yet Plato still had a vivid sense of these concepts compared to today’s views. Zoroaster saw in the outer light what is wisdom within—just as spiritual science does today.

[ 12 ] Pythagoras learned from the Persians the proper attitude toward the spiritual and moral worlds. This is quite different from the situation in Egypt or in the Dionysian Mysteries. There, the masculine and feminine are emphasized: Osiris—Isis, Apollo—Aphrodite. Such gender opposites exist everywhere. Even among the ancient Hebrews, Lucifer—the embodiment of evil—is symbolized by the feminine. Only Zoroaster took a different approach; he expressed the organic, moral contrast between good and evil through imagery, not through the natural world.

[ 13 ] That is why Zoroaster must be important in our time, so that we do not attribute everything to gender differences, as we do today. Hence the aura that emanates from Zoroastrianism. Through purification, through moral cleansing, heroic, moral strength develops—not the philistine morality of today. The ancient Persian is not contemplative; he is hardworking and puts his hand to the treasures of the earth. Thus he becomes the comrade of Ormuzd, who has always struggled against Ahriman. Such was the case with this simple, cultured people. Through moral purification, obstacles are overcome.

[ 14 ] I will speak—come and listen—of what is supreme in the world. I do not speak of it with a malicious tongue, nor of its opposite. Listen to what I mean, or else you will suffer misfortune at the end of the world. — Thus speaks Zoroaster. It is not enough to study the Gathas literally; one must put oneself in Zoroaster’s shoes and understand his feelings and thoughts. This requires a sense of history. One should be grateful to Ahriman.