The Rudolf Steiner Archive

27. The Apocalypse of John II

[ 1 ] What Christianity has become in the world was a long time in the making. The central tenet of Christianity is: “Blessed—filled with joy—are those who believe, even though they do not see.”

[ 2 ] In ancient times, everything was imbued with a religious spirit. Anyone who was to learn about the mysteries of the world was prepared for his divine calling in mystery schools. There, he was initiated into the mysteries of existence. The Egyptian mystery schools also served this purpose. Above all, the one who was to be initiated had to have attained a certain maturity in life. Then one had to undergo very specific exercises that prepared a person to free themselves from the sensory realm and purify their passions, so that they would no longer cling to the perceptions that come through the gates of the senses. They had to free themselves from these and attain a certain maturity. In the mystery schools, one received scientific, occult instruction. In this instruction, it was made clear to the student how the spirit had developed. One imagined a sleeping god in stone, then a god with a little more consciousness in a plant, and so on. The World Spirit then fully awoke within the human being. All sciences were permeated by these concepts. People knew how the human being had developed through the various realms. Goethe also depicted this in the development of the homunculus. Everything that is spread out in nature is, as it were, a human being spread out. Every single part of the human being is related to something out there in the world.

[ 3 ] The physician, in the sense understood by Paracelsus, recognized the connection between a remedy and the human organism; that human beings were related to something in nature. He saw the divine spread out throughout nature and brought together again within human beings. Once a person had attained this insight, and after undergoing certain exercises, they were brought into a different state of consciousness within a completely enclosed space. There, the person went through a very specific process that lasted three and a half days. In the realm of the soul, they now experienced in reality what they had learned in class: namely, the emergence of Horus from Isis and Osiris. The god truly descended to Earth, and as he descended, he was spread throughout the realms of nature.

[ 4 ] Human beings then learned to perceive themselves as spiritual beings. In all religious mysteries, the initiate experienced a burial, a resurrection, and an ascension. The profound myths, which are symbolic representations of great universal truths, are not contrived.

[ 5 ] The Germanic myths also illustrate, in wonderful detail, what the mystery student experiences. The stories told about Wotan and the others were symbolic experiences within the mysteries. In the astral realm, the initiate experienced the descent of the god, the god’s expansion, burial, resurrection, and ascension. All of this always takes place in the astral realm. It is a well-known experience in the astral realm. What the initiates in antiquity were able to witness, people in Christianity were expected to believe, even if they did not witness it themselves. Christianity was a mystical reality.

[ 6 ] What took place for the initiate in the astral realm occurred on the physical plane as the Incarnation of Christ. The initiate had foreseen all of this. The physical realm is merely a denser manifestation of what takes place in the realm of the soul.

[ 7 ] Every external action that takes place in the physical world is merely a condensation of an action that has been repeated many times in the astral realm. There, rhythmic repetitions of what is to happen physically take place beforehand. Nothing happens in the physical realm that has not been repeated many times beforehand in the astral realm. The physical realm is the manifestation on the physical plane of what preceded it in the astral realm. The Incarnation of Christ was the physical manifestation of an astral experience.

[ 8 ] Paul was the first to experience the Incarnation of God within himself, to experience it inwardly. For him, this conviction arose solely from his journey to Damascus. Following the Incarnation of Christ on the physical plane, it became possible to become a mystic of nature, in contrast to the mystics of the soul of antiquity. Because Christ was there, something came into being that had not existed before. Mystics such as those of Christianity did not exist before. Budhi, grace, or gnosis—the second faculty of the higher Trinity—could only be attained through the mysteries. Christ could only come to life within through the Logos incarnated in the flesh.

[ 9 ] In ancient times, the initiates of the mysteries were called prophets. They recounted their experiences in the astral realm, which first played out there repeatedly before becoming physical reality. Everything that is a mystery today will become reality in the future. Everything that is secret will one day be revealed. The fulfillment of the ancient mystery is the Incarnation of Christ. This made it possible to speak of something new that is to happen in the future, when the time is fulfilled.

[ 10 ] Human beings have evolved through several root races during this cycle; they are now in the fifth root race. It is within this race that the development of the intellect is to take place. The preceding root race was the Atlantean race, which lived on the sunken continent of Atlantis. It did not yet possess our rational intellect; it still had an [intuitive] capacity for perception.

[ 11 ] In occult terminology, the inner spiritual life—as understood in the context of the material age—is called a “sealed book.” One has the ability to conceal one’s inner self. A lion or a fish will openly display its character; but human beings do not do this now. Ever since they began processing external impressions through their passions, they have been a sealed book. This began with the fifth root race. It first emerged in Indian culture. In the Vedas, we still find a faint reflection of this ancient Indian culture. The second culture was the Persian, the third the Egyptian-Babylonian-Assyrian—but specifically the ancient Semites. Judaism is a major expression of this. The fourth culture is the one that began around 800 B.C., which is related to the Druidic and Celtic cultures. Christianity was founded within the fourth sub-race.

[ 12 ] In a profound myth, the triumph of the fourth subrace over the third is expressed through the Trojan War. Homer was a mystic, a “blind seer”—that is the term mystics consistently used to describe the seer. The Trojan War is the external, symbolic representation of the replacement of the third subrace by the fourth subrace, the replacement of the priestly culture by the kings. It was not until the fourth subrace that the synthetic intellect fully developed. What enabled humanity in the fourth subrace to overcome the third subrace was the combinative intellect—the cunning of Odysseus. The horse is the symbol of the intellect. It is also the symbol of any subrace within the fifth root race.

[ 13 ] What has been sealed within the first four sub-races is the intellect in its most diverse forms. Through Christianity, the intellect is internalized and spiritualized. The mission of Christianity will not be fulfilled until the sixth sub-race. This mission is foretold: by the sixth subrace, humanity will have developed to such an extent that what is now hidden within human beings will be unsealed. The seals will gradually fall through the mystical Lamb at the throne of God. During the sixth subrace, six seals will be broken. This illustrates how the intellect gradually emerges.

[ 14 ] The first seal: a white horse appears. This is what happened to the first subrace, which set out to populate regions of Asia, and to the first secular culture. The opening of the second seal signifies the entire culture of the second root race, which is based on war. Occultism does not regard these conditions as a thing of the past. Even today, alongside other cultures, we still have the culture of the second subrace—the red horse. This, too, is a veiled intellectual standpoint.

[ 15 ] When the third seal is opened, the black horse appears, the symbol of the third subrace—in which the law and justice are expressed. Paul writes about this law in contrast to grace. The god of the third subrace was a god of justice. The rider on the black horse holds a set of scales in his hand as a symbol of this.

[ 16 ] The fourth horse, a pale horse, signifies the passing away of the lower nature and the understanding of what the higher life is. With the fifth seal, the higher life begins. No horse appears again. The white robe of the souls is the outer garment they receive when their inner being is awakened. The sixth seal is the last one that can be opened.

[ 17 ] In the fifth Atlantean subrace, it was the Proto-Semites who set out to found the subrace of the fifth root race. All subraces of the fifth root race bear the imprint of these Proto-Semites. In the seventh subrace, human beings will not only feel Christ mystically but will also recognize Him. This recognition is symbolized by spiritual sounds. The spiritual human being will then be able, through initiation, to hear the inner word, which is a foreshadowing of clairaudience. This is expressed by the trumpets. The seven sub-races of the sixth root race are symbolized by the sound of the angels’ trumpets resounding out into the world. The sixth root race is the antithesis of the Lemurian root race. In it, individual karma ceases once more. A higher state emerges. Then human beings consciously attain what they had previously experienced in a dreamlike state. - In the sixth root race, the decision is made. One unites completely with the material, the other completely with the spiritual. The angel of the abyss pulls down the human being who burdens himself with an affinity for matter. The human being has made his affinity with the material so great that he is drawn down by it.

[ 18 ] The separation of the Sun, Earth, and Moon unfolds in reverse in the sixth subrace. The Sun and Moon are depicted as the two witnesses of earthly evolution.

[ 19 ] With the seventh root race, the Earth transitions into the astral state. This is described in the Apocalypse. Everything is born forth within the astral globe. Then everything on Earth will radiate and express itself in a soulful manner. The Sun and the Moon will then emerge in a soulful way. This is the woman, clothed with the Sun, with the Moon at her feet. She carries within her body the state that the Earth will undergo.

[ 20 ] The astral body evolves from the human-animal. The seven-headed beast is what remains of the seven races. The seven parts are the seven parts of the human, and the three are the hidden higher parts, the Logoi.

[ 21 ] The two-horned beast: The horn always symbolizes a globe. The seven globes are seven horns. For the occultist, the Earth represents two such globes. For him, Mars and Mercury together form the Earth. In the astral realm, Mars and Mercury are the two-horned beast.

[ 22 ] The occultist places the globes in the hundreds place. He places the sub-races in the ones place, the root races in the tens place, and the globe in the hundreds place. Johannes pauses at the sixth sub-race of the sixth root race on the mental globe, the sixth one. He says that this is where the human animal has arrived—namely, at wisdom, the number 666.

[ 23 ] What now develops throughout a Manvantara, the apocalyptic writer calls a new Earth, a new Jerusalem. He calls the old one Babylon. This is what was central to the entire cycle: Kama-Manas, the defining characteristic of the entire fourth Earth cycle. Babylon is overcome in the fifth round; Kama is then overcome.

[ 24 ] In the fifth round, the results of karma become apparent. People will bear on their faces what has taken shape within them. Most will then reach a stage in their development where they have resolved their karma; but those who have acquired higher knowledge for selfish purposes will be excluded from the process of development. They will enter the eighth sphere. Those who exclude themselves out of selfishness will fall into it.

[ 25 ] During the fifth round, the process of separation cannot yet be fully completed. The Manichaean principle gives rise to the cognitive aspect. But that which creates and endures can arise only from the Budhi element. During the fifth round, it is determined what will be separated. But during the sixth round, the complete separation takes place. This takes place only during the buddhic development of the sixth round. The separation of evil from the earth is described in Chapter 17, Verse 10 of the Apocalypse. Five have fallen, one is—the sixth round—and one is to come—the seventh round. The beast that once was goes to ruin; this is the separation of evil into the eighth sphere.