The Rudolf Steiner Archive

67. The Future of Humanity and the Great Initiates

[ 1 ] In his second lecture on Monday, Dr. Rudolf Steiner sought to shed light on theosophical views regarding the future of humanity and the influence of the “great initiates” on that future. After a lengthy introduction, the speaker felt compelled to point out that Goethe, for example, had also made use of the “terminology of practical mysticism” in the prologue to Faust set in heaven. According to the speaker’s explanations, the “Initiates”—that is, the great mystical philosophers and religious founders of humanity—have repeatedly sought to explain how the individual human being can attain a higher spiritual development through conscious work on oneself at an earlier stage. They, who proclaimed the great teaching of the resurrection of the divine spirit in human beings—which lies buried in matter—also taught the ideals of life whose realization leads human beings to this resurrection. Ideals of life that we find, for example, in the precepts of the Vedas, in Buddha’s “Eightfold Path,” in Jewish esoteric teachings, in Greek mystical philosophy, and in Christian mysticism. All these teachings point to the same ethical goals of development: detachment from the transitory, lower sensory world; universal love as the fruit of the realization of the unity of all being; and inner contemplation leading to the realization of the eternal, divine-spiritual being within the human being. Through this ethical training, the spiritual seed within human beings is brought to fruition; it is destined to blossom in all and to realize in advance the great ideal of humanity for the future—the ideal of the highest self-knowledge. The lecture, which was received with approval by the large audience, was followed by a lengthy discussion.