The Rudolf Steiner Archive

30. Upcoming Rounds

[ 1 ] Because a core enters the shells during the fourth round, this core can be preserved while the shells fall away. Birth and death. This process of decay and constant regeneration in the fourth round is the mineral kingdom. Matter itself is now immortal. Because a core has been preserved—one that finds an external point of reference in the nervous system—Manas has been able to connect with human beings. Only human beings are Kama-manasic.

[ 2 ] On the one hand, there is now birth and death, and thus the duality of the sexes. Before the fourth round, a bisexual animal species did not exist. Only when Manas enters the nervous system does it deprive the physical forms of the power to produce something uniform. They must first be stimulated. What sexuality offers from the outside is what used to come from within. The combinatory activity of the intellect replaces the earlier productive creation from within; Manas removes unisexuality. Unisexual animals have no Manasic spark as of yet. By setting the animal species aside [gap in the transcript], humanity gave it the gift of sexual dimorphism as a token of gratitude. The Manasic principle seeks to act outwardly—hence, in the third round, the human race was mute and is still animal; only the animal that marks the transition becomes vocal. Voice and sexuality are two poles that are closely connected. In the fourth round, language will develop higher and higher—while the danger of sexuality is to lead ever deeper and deeper.

[ 3 ] The productive force moved inward into the core and was forced out as a word during the fourth round. Words and sexuality are the outward manifestations of human beings. Manas now has the task of becoming the ruler of the core, the regulator of what has now emerged outwardly—evil and passion.

[ 4 ] All of this is carried over as a seed into the fifth round. A new series of organs will become the means of expression. The lungs, the respiratory organ, had developed into the larynx, the organ of speech. The heart and circulatory organs will give rise to their own organ of expression in the fifth round. Just as he now radiates the word, he will radiate his entire inner being, and it will be impossible for a person to separate his own well-being from that of others. Just as Manas is now radiated through the word, Budhi will be radiated through the heart and will encompass everything directly.

[ 5 ] Those who haven't reached it yet will be savages! This is the normal course of development.

[ 6 ] Words can still wound, but the breath of the heart cannot. We must try to reshape the word so that it can no longer wound:

Before the masters can speak, the wounded must unlearn it.

[ 7 ] [This] is done so that the non-wounding word may withdraw into the core and the heart may develop. The heart thus steps outward—sexuality falls away, and it becomes a physical shell, which is now shaped through birth and death. Just as the productive force had driven sexuality outward and good and evil arose, so now it pushes evil outward. The outer form is woven from what are now the passions. The outer countenance will be precisely what it is now preparing as good and evil. [People] will be born bearing the mark of their passion. Just as evil is now their inner force, they will carry it outward in the fifth round.

[ 8 ] The fifth round will divide humanity into the descendants of Cain and the chosen ones through the revelation of the secret.

[ 9 ] This is the esoteric meaning, which is completely distorted in the Christian Last Judgment.

[ 10 ] The sixth round is more difficult to illustrate.

[ 11 ] That which has now become an organ—the heart—has expanded to the point where it pours outwards. In the fifth cycle, the Word is inner power; it propels the heart organ outward and is still the source of inspiration. In the sixth round, everything flows outward; the human being becomes entirely heart; the word is his outer body; the human being becomes a sound wave; the heart’s blood has pushed itself entirely outward; the sound will spring forth—the animal thought is realized; what pushes forth from within has become meaningful speech, living language.

[ 12 ] That is why we must learn to stand before the masters. The lifeblood has flowed outward; the person has become clay. [Gap in the transcript]

[ 13 ] In the sixth stage, the outer aspect is the word itself, the sound, and the inner aspect is the person himself, living life to the fullest.

[ 14 ] Now, in the seventh round, he is what he is: the self-assured thinker who is at peace within himself. A state of bliss; no distinction between the outer and the inner.

[ 15 ] So, during the fourth round, freedom entered the world, and it is up to us to [become] as few Cains as possible. Thus, Lucifer is the bringer of light, yet at the same time he brought evil into the world: it is up to you to become either Cain or Abel. This was presented to the Greeks in all its terrifying grandeur in the Mysteries.

[ 16 ] Without the possibility of perishing, human beings could never have become free.