The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Lecture Two

[ 1 ] Occult brotherhoods existed both before and after the establishment of Christianity. Even today, there are still brotherhoods in which occult practices are cultivated. The difference between pre-Christian and post-Christian occult brotherhoods lies in the fact that the pre-Christian ones were essentially tasked with preserving the sacred traditions, while the Christian ones were primarily dedicated to preparing for the future. For occult science is not an abstract, lifeless science, but an active and living one. The occult brotherhoods are capable of intervening in life, and their task is to participate in the course of human development.

[ 2 ] Christian occultism can be traced in large part back to the Manichaeans, whose tradition has remained alive. Their founder, Manes, lived three centuries after Christ. Augustine, the Church Father, had also originally belonged to the Manichaean community. A central tenet of Manichaean doctrine is the doctrine of good and evil. According to common belief, good and evil are two absolute, irreconcilable opposites, one of which excludes the other. In contrast, according to the Manichaeans, evil is an integral part of the cosmos; it contributes to its evolution and must ultimately be absorbed and transformed by good. Studying the meaning of good and evil, of pleasure and pain in the world, is the great, unique mission of the Manicheans.

[ 3 ] To understand the development of humanity, it is necessary to view it from a distance and from above, and to place it within a comprehensive whole. Only under this condition can we form a lofty, ideal conception of it. And it would be a grave error to believe that one could dispense with the ideal in this endeavor. A person without an ideal is a person without energy. The ideal plays the same role in life as steam does in a machine. Steam, in a sense, contains an infinite abundance of condensed space within a small volume, hence its intense expansive force. But the magical power of thought in life is of the same nature. Let us therefore rise to the intellectual ideal of humanity as a whole; let us sense the thread that guides its evolution through the ages.

[ 4 ] In the same way, worldview systems such as Darwin’s seek this underlying thread. There is no need to deny the greatness of Darwinism. But it does not explain the inner development of human beings; it sees only what pertains to the external. The situation is the same as with any purely physical explanation that disregards the spiritual nature of human beings. Thus, the evolutionary hypothesis, which is based purely on physical facts, attributes an animal origin to human beings because it has observed a low, underdeveloped forehead in fossil humans. In contrast, occultism—for which the physical human being is merely the expression of the etheric human being—views the matter quite differently. In fact, the human etheric body has roughly the same shape as the physical body, extending only slightly beyond it. But the further back one goes in history, the greater the disparity between the etheric head and the physical head, and the larger the etheric head becomes. This is indeed how it appeared during a period of Earth’s development that preceded our own. The people living at that time were called Atlanteans. In fact, geologists are beginning to discover traces of the ancient Atlanteans: minerals and plants from this ancient continent, which sank into the ocean that bears its name. No traces of humans have been found yet, but that will not be long in coming. Even in the journal Kosmos, which advocates Haeckel’s ideas, an essay by Theodor Arldt has appeared in which the traces of fauna and flora are used to hypothesize the existence of a sunken continent called Atlantis. Occult research is prophetic, and natural science follows in its wake.

[ 5 ] Among the European races that succeeded the Atlanteans, the forehead region of the head began to develop further. But among the Atlanteans, the point where consciousness was concentrated lay outside the forehead, in the etheric head. Today we find it inside the physical head, slightly above the nose.

[ 6 ] What Germanic mythology refers to as Niflheim, or Nebelheim (Land of Mist)—Land of Clouds—is the land of the Atlanteans. At that time, the Earth was indeed warmer and still shrouded in a constant veil of steam. The Atlantean continent was submerged by a series of torrential downpours, during which the Earth’s atmosphere cleared. Only then did blue skies, thunderstorms, rain, and rainbows come into being. For this reason, the Bible states that after Noah’s Ark came to rest, the rainbow became the new sign of the covenant between God and humankind.

[ 7 ] The “I” of the Aryan race was only able to attain self-awareness through the centralization of the etheric body in the physical brain. Only then did human beings begin to refer to themselves as “I.” The Atlanteans spoke of themselves in the third person. Darwinism has committed grave errors regarding the distinctions it established between the races actually found on Earth. The higher races do not descend from the lower ones; on the contrary, the lower races are degenerate forms of the higher races that preceded them. Let’s suppose we saw two brothers, one of whom is intelligent and handsome, the other ugly and limited in intellect. What would one say of a person who believed that the intelligent brother descended from the mentally deficient one? This is the line along which the error of Darwinism regarding the races lies. Humans and animals share a common origin. Animals are a sign of decadence stemming from a common ancestor, from whom humans represent the higher stage of development.

[ 8 ] This need not make us arrogant, for it is only thanks to the lower realms that the higher ones were able to develop.

[ 9 ] Christ washing the feet of the apostles (Gospel of John 13) is a symbol of the initiate’s humility toward those below him. The initiate owes his very existence to the uninitiated. Hence the profound humility of those who truly know toward those who do not know. It is the profound tragedy of cosmic evolution that one class of human beings must humble itself so that another may rise. In this sense, one can appreciate Paracelsus’s beautiful words: “I have contemplated all beings—stones, plants, animals—and they have appeared to me like scattered letters, in relation to which man forms the living and complete word.”

[ 10 ] In the course of human and animal evolution, the lower derives from the higher; that which falls and dies is shed from the living. It is claimed that the living arises from the dead. In reality, however, the dead arises from the living. Coal, calcareous shells, and other such substances are secretions of the living. We see this in humans as well: first there is cartilage, and then bone. Our bones are hardened forms of a softer cartilaginous framework. In the same way, stones are hardened forms of a living earth organism. Today, human beings still have something within them that they will leave behind. And this brings us back to Manichaeism.

[ 11 ] Just as there was once an animal nature within man, so now there are the two opposites—good and evil, truth and falsehood—within him. These contradictions, the way these elements intermingle within him, form his karma, his destiny. One day, he will leave evil behind as an objective entity. We find this in all apocalyptic depictions. And even today, Manichaeism trains its more highly developed disciples to become saviors of those who have been cast down. Who could deny that even today there is one trend driving people toward selfishness and another leading them toward selflessness? Just as humanity has freed itself from its animal nature, so will it free itself from evil. But never before has it gone through a more severe crisis than it is facing at this very moment.

[ 12 ] He who is master of all must become the servant of all. This must come about as a great necessity. True morality springs from the recognition of the great laws of the universe. Great ideas should generate the driving force that propels our ideals forward in the small things of life. In quiet moments of our lives, we must rise to the great ideas of evolution.