The Rudolf Steiner Archive

79. Past and Future Rounds

[ 1 ] When speaking of the following cycles, it might seem as if one is recounting something that is not known. However, [what is being described] is beyond doubt insofar as it relates to the laws. Human beings must play their part in shaping the future and familiarize themselves with these laws. Water must always form when water and oxygen come together. The laws are eternal, and insofar as they are lawful, the future reveals itself.

[ 2 ] In the coming cycles, we know that the kingdoms will be absorbed and that humanity will become fully human in the seventh cycle. The question arises as to what the outer form of the future plant kingdom will be. For form accompanies consciousness and life. We have become acquainted with the form of the first round, the second, the third, and now that of the fourth, which consists in the mineral human being being subject to birth and death. The third kingdom was characterized by elective affinity. The second was characterized by number.

[ 3 ] What will be the form of the next cycle? It is determined by the fact that human beings will then be much more malleable, with no rigid mineral realm standing in their way. On what basis is this form shaped? Always on the basis of that which remains behind—at the expense of which it continues to develop. That is now evil. Humanity evolves toward the good through karma. It overcomes karma entirely by the fourth round; it extracts the good and leaves the evil behind. Thus, the forms of the next, the fifth round, are formed from this evil. Thus, the fifth round will outwardly bear the malleable imprint of all the evil deeds of the fourth round. The New Testament presents us with an image of this truth in the Last Judgment. Evil will be visible. People will bear on their faces the goodness they have acquired and will give birth to beings as a result of their previous evil deeds. The karmic ledger will lie open.

First Round: The Abyss; Seeing Oneself in the Mirror
Second Round: Number, Measure, Weight
Third Round: Elective Affinities
Fourth Round: Birth and Death
Fifth Round: Evil.

[ 4 ] This has a revealing effect, showing that human beings cannot hide their evil. They will find it as if buried—a new realm that inserts itself between the animal kingdom and the human realm; inferior human beings who bear the deeds of the guilt of present-day humanity. Now, a person can only reabsorb what he has projected from within himself. This is how he deals with the realms, with birth and death, and with the evil he projects—only to reabsorb it in that form. On a personal level, he will be able to atone for it and make amends already in this cycle, but his deeds will be buried in a new realm, in objectivity. He can liberate himself because, at the expense of the evil he has cast out, he can attain innocence.

[ 5 ] Everything related to Kama that is imbued with evil is now outside of him. This evil makes it impossible for him to attain the Higher Self. It is now outside of him. The higher self can now shape his aura; the outer can shape the inner. When the outer then fully shapes the inner without any hindrance from kama, we have the immediate mental itself. Thus, in the sixth round, humanity possesses the mental body.

[ 6 ] The inner self is expressed outwardly when we entrust what we speak to the waves of air. That is what we will do in the sixth round. No longer is the inner self concealed; the human being radiates what he is, and his entire soul lies open. As the human being expresses himself through his entire being, the sixth round is that of the word. The word does not become flesh—that could only happen in Christ—but it does take on form and shape. It was similar in the second round; only then were the sounds inarticulate, and the beings did not speak; now, however, the names are spoken. Every human being speaks his name into the being of the world. In this regard, Novalis’s writings are like premonitions of great theosophical truths. Union with the heavenly Sophia is then consciously attained.

[ 7 ] In the seventh round, complete union is now achieved. The human soul does not lose itself in the whole; every person has their own name, but these names resonate together in a great harmonic unity. And this name is that of the Earth Deity. No level of consciousness that has been attained can be lost, but together all these names resonate and form the name of the Earth Deity. Goethe: “It is woven” [gap in the transcript]

[ 8 ] This is the immortal garment that remains, and in esoteric language it is called “divinity.” So the

First Form: Reflection in the Other, Objectivity
Second Form: Number, Measure, and Weight
Third Form: Elect Affinity
Fourth Form: Birth and Life
Fifth Form: Evil
Sixth Form: The Word—Logos
Seventh Form: Divinity

[ 9 ] These are the seven forms through which the Pitri passes during a planetary evolution.

[ 10 ] Why does evolution continue even if a particular kingdom were to reach a dead end? This question coincides with the following: Why is [gap in the transcript] inserted? Because: The moment a given kingdom exists in two forms, it recognizes itself. Human beings have set aside the mineral kingdom and cannot recognize it; in the second stage, the plant kingdom; in the third stage, the animal kingdom. But when a person can say to himself, “I am,” then he is also able to influence himself through his will. He cannot do this while asleep. When he can say “I am” to the astral, pranic, and mineral realms, he will recognize them. Because he is a mineral being, he recognizes himself as an “I.”

[ 11 ] In the next round, he will be able to say, “I will and shape.” In the sixth round, he will be able to say, “I feel myself in,” and his entire being will flow out in wavy lines—his word.

[ 12 ] In the seventh round, he pours out his essence in such a way that his self becomes one with the entire earthly sphere.

[ 13 ] Once a trinity has emerged in which the Self sets itself apart, a trinity arises as it takes it in. I am. This is the achievement of the fourth round. If the Self understands itself correctly, it must withdraw its own essence. The Luciferic principle wanted to lead it further. The eighth sphere is what sought to surge beyond the point at which it had to withdraw.

[ 14 ] It is in its highest form—self-knowledge.

[ 15 ] In a certain sense, the future cycles will be what the previous ones were, except that each person will have their center within themselves. What used to be automatic will become life.

[ 16 ] Inarticulate sounds, which resound as the harmony of the spheres in the second round, become names. God himself speaks his name in the first round, and all beings speak it in the last.