The Rudolf Steiner Archive

9. The Apocalypse and Theosophical Cosmology VI

[ 1 ] Today I would like to continue the reflections from the past few hours and then move on to the Apocalypse, which can now be covered very briefly if we approach the text with the background knowledge we have gained in recent hours. These are the ideals of the Initiate: to view everything with the conviction that it will come true. But it must also be possible to bring it into being—not just out of thin air.

[ 2 ] Our discussion will conclude with an exploration of the mineral kingdom; then, in the next session, we will examine the plant kingdom as the lowest kingdom —

[ 3 ] Everything that can be seen is physical; everything mineral is subject to chemical and physical laws. All other beings in nature are also mineral beings; plants, too, undergo a chemical process.

[ 4 ] All realms are mineral. Therefore, the fourth round is the mineral one.

[ 5 ] The fifth round will no longer contain anything mineral; at the lowest level, there will be only the plant kingdom. A moral world order will take shape in the fifth round. The well-being of the individual will be nothing other than ensuring that all other beings also enjoy such well-being. Karma will be fulfilled. It will already be fulfilled in the next race—the sixth—of the fourth round. It will be realized in the fifth round—no more crystals—everything will be a great garden in the manner of things sprouting into one another [gap in the transcript]

[ 6 ] Everything has been transformed into a growing being.

[ 7 ] In the fourth stage, the intellect is developed. As long as a person perceives things with the intellect [gap in the transcript]

[ 8 ] What is living cannot be grasped by the intellect; only those of a purely spiritual nature will understand this. One must learn to think without making use of one’s senses. Goethe and Plato possessed such a way of thinking. This is the path leading up to the fifth round. We are currently living in the fifth root race.

[ 9 ] The Atlanteans did not yet possess a clear, rational mind. Their lives were permeated by a dull form of clairvoyance.

[ 10 ] The first root race, the Polar race, could only live as it did; the Earth was composed of a finer substance and had a high temperature. It was a fine, ethereal substance. Souls incarnated within this substance. They were human beings of a different kind—etheric human beings.

[ 11 ] Reproduction took place as follows: Humans were elongated; hands had not yet developed—the beings divided themselves; one being gave birth to another. This was not yet death. Death did not occur until the second race. The first race lived in the region around the pole. The thermal conditions were different. Every being was filled with soul. There was no such thing as death. The Earth grew colder and colder, and matter could no longer reproduce in the same way. The soul lost the ability to act upon matter in the original way and created new organs for reproduction. The offspring were now smaller, and the beings could now absorb more matter to bring about division. The daughter beings, however, were very small at first; but then they grew very quickly. The chemical aspect dies off. The beings now had to develop new organs. For with the second race, sensation arises. In the first race, only the sense of hearing was present. The entire environment was sound. The sound was perceived.

[ 12 ] The second race also developed the sense of touch. Humans began to distinguish between different levels of heat. This is the Hyperborean era. The second race consists of the Hyperboreans. The third race, the Lemurians, developed something quite special. Previously, humans were sustained by external heat, but now the Earth had grown increasingly colder, and a kind of reaction set in. Humans now possessed their own internal heat; previously, these beings could not generate their own heat.

[ 13 ] Internal heat, then, for the third race.

[ 14 ] The soul now became a stage for its own life—an expression of Kama in the physical body. Through their emotional life, beings were able to absorb external warmth. Thus, human beings now became flames. —

[ 15 ] Back then, before humans were able to generate internal heat, their instincts and passions were still undeveloped, driven by the external world.

[ 16 ] In the early days of the Lemurian race, beings were hermaphroditic—male and female, of dual sex. Then the being split, and man and woman emerged.

[ 17 ] The Atlanteans led a select group to the Gobi Desert; from this group arose the fifth root race—our present-day root race—which was specifically tasked with developing the intellect. The first subrace of this fifth root race was sent out from the Gobi to various parts of the South, including India.

[ 18 ] The first subrace is the Indian; we still find traces of this people’s advanced culture in the echoes of the Vedas. The second subrace is the Medo-Persian, the people of the Near East. Dual deism emerged.

[ 19 ] The third, the Near Eastern-Egyptian race.

[ 20 ] The trinity emerged.

[ 21 ] The fourth—the Greco-Latin culture, as well as the Celtic culture—Southern Europe, Central Europe, Christian culture.

[ 22 ] The fifth is our Aryan race, and it must focus primarily on developing the intellect. — This race must descend all the way down to the physical plane. The following sixth subrace—and this can only be stated in broad terms—will emerge from none other than the Slavic race. There is no other race suitable for a further subrace than the Slavic; in the East, it is the “oppressed” race.

[ 23 ] This subrace, in its dull childishness today [gap in the transcript]

[ 24 ] The concept is being embraced by Eastern peoples; it will then take on a more spiritual meaning. It may seem like a pipe dream, but the foundation for this understanding is already in place.

[ 25 ] The fifth root race will come to an end through destruction—the third root race was destroyed by fire, the fourth root race by water—the fifth root race will be destroyed by evil, by war, strife, and evil.

[ 26 ] But we are approaching the moral root race, the sixth.

[ 27 ] While the sixth subrace of our fifth root race is formed from the Slavic peoples, the seventh subrace is formed from the Americans. Remnants of the latter will then stand apart, much as the Chinese do today; these remnants are from the Mongolian, the seventh subrace of the Atlantean, the fourth root race. But the spiritual, the sixth subrace, will attain a different physical state; the substances will be finer, and the hardening of the solid will occur in a conscious manner; it will give rise to the first subrace of the sixth root race. Within this sixth root race—in the middle—a separation will take place. Male and female will cease to exist, marking a regression to earlier states of being. In the seventh root race, the mind will attain its highest perfection.

[ 28 ] Then comes the transition to the next globe, to the next cycle. Then comes a physical life [gap in the transcript]

[ 29 ] But a new sense will be added: the moral sense. By the time of our fourth round, a majority of people will already have attained this sense; they are, in a sense, artificial fifth-rounders. Anyone who cannot attain this elevated state will be unable to develop further.

[ 30 ] These people who have been left behind have a very special mission.

[ 31 ] Physical materiality is no longer present; it will have faded away in those who have not attained spirituality, who have remained at this stage—the stage of today’s fifth race of the fourth round.

[ 32 ] These beings have a certain inclination toward the physical, and they bring this inclination with them. The current cycle is the mineral cycle; the Earth will lose this composition.

[ 33 ] There would no longer be a physical state if it weren't for these holdovers [...] who are here to develop a new kind of mineral kingdom. The Earth will no longer enter a physical state. These “left-behind ones” will represent what was represented among the Lemurians as great beings who incarnated into this race—in the middle of the third race—and this gave rise to what the Bible refers to as the Fall; good and evil came into being; and the animals remained [gap in the transcript]

[ 34 ] And precisely when this heavy element comes to expression, the Earth becomes a manifest star, and humanity approaches its deification; this is how the planets came into being. Planetary formation occurs spontaneously—this is how new planets are formed.

[ 35 ] Just as some animals are soft on the inside and have a hard shell on the outside, these animals have already hardened—lunar animals—and have thereby become beings that can be perceived in the material world. Thus, people who have remained stuck at this material level—who are unable to develop further—will, in the fifth cycle, come to understand how to create material things—

[ 36 ] Then there is something else—a mystery. The time has come for it to be revealed, and every ordinary person will reach that point. People will bring their karma with them into the fifth round. This karma, which they accumulated at the end of the fourth round, will then be transferred to a being whose karma is destined to be completed—the ledger is closed, and the balance of their karma is settled.

[ 37 ] [Gap in the transcript]

[ 38 ] So far, only the “Sun-like Beings” have been listed.

[ 39 ] [Gap in the transcript]

[ 40 ] The sum of one's karma is expressed in one's outward appearance, on one's face.

[ 41 ] Today, human beings can hide; in the fifth round, they will no longer be able to be hypocrites—they will become the beings they have made themselves to be. In the sixth round, human beings will become like Budhi; they will perceive spiritually, at a much higher level, through superphysical clairvoyance.

[ 42 ] Human beings will come to have a relationship with the world—one that will displease the Essence. Self-consciousness attaches itself to and experiences, in a world grounded in sensation, the way it lives its inner self today.

[ 43 ] He will speak; man will have become the Word.

[ 44 ] In the sixth round, what he feels will be made real, though he will no longer speak—the outer form will be separated; that is why Christ says: “And the Word became flesh.”

[ 45 ] It is the human being of the sixth round of the Word [gap in the transcript]

[ 46 ] In the fifth round, emotional life takes on a definite form.

[ 47 ] In the sixth round, his surroundings will be filled with his life.

[ 48 ] In the seventh, he will have reached the point where he is godlike.

[ 49 ] All of nature has ceased to exist within him.

[ 50 ] Today, people say “I.”

[ 51 ] No one can say “I” to another; a person can only say “I” to themselves. The naming of all beings is the stage at which one’s “I” awakens.

[ 52 ] The “I” is used to refer to the deity.

[ 53 ] He then named him Jehovah, which means “unpronounceable.”

[ 54 ] In the seventh round, he will be like a grand presentation of the self—a complex of worlds centered on the self.

[ 55 ] In Genesis—the first four days correspond to the first four rounds, and the following three rounds correspond to Jupiter, then Venus, then Vulcan. And the Mars stage would already be here. Jupiter is said to be equivalent to Venus. The next planet—the fifth round—will be in the Mars stage; the seventh cannot yet be named, since one cannot imagine this state; for the time being, it is called Vulcan.

[ 56 ] Humanity will find the fifth planet at a stage that differs from the present one in that it is creatively active. It is an imaginative shaper, a creator—a creator in its own right. This is how it develops over the seven cycles of the Earth.

[ 57 ] But he will be more [gap in the transcript]

[ 58 ] He will be a creator; magical images will come into being, and the colorful images will become realities. Creating images separate from matter.

[ 59 ] The third elemental kingdom emerges from within the human being; it will be what Christian esotericism calls “glory.” The sixth planet will thus exist within the fourth elemental kingdom.

[ 60 ] Human beings will be able to do more than just weave the fabric of the imagination [gap in the transcript]

[ 61 ] For while in the fifth round humanity is only capable of creating as an illusion, as our Sun does today, in the sixth round this created image of color will, by contrast, be a productive being. On Venus today, such a state of living creation has been attained; one can only imagine this state.

[ 62 ] We cannot yet speak of the seventh.

[ 63 ] If a person could look at it—the sight is so harrowing that he cannot bear it. Only someone who can think without a physical brain can conceive of such a thing.