The Rudolf Steiner Archive

17. The Mind as a Gift from Lucifer and Its Future Transformation into a New Form of Clairvoyance

[ 1 ] Today we want to talk about the functions attributed to certain spiritual entities known as Luciferic beings. We will encounter some remarkable connections they have with humanity. We’ll start with the fact that the science of thought and reasoning dates back no further than eight hundred to nine hundred years before Christ. Anyone who studies the history of philosophy knows that it begins with Thales, who lived around 600 B.C. and once predicted a solar eclipse based on scientific observations—something that was still quite extraordinary at the time. We have had the philosophy of Western logic only since Aristotle. Before that, there was no doctrine of thought, for thought itself—the abstract intellect—did not begin to emerge until 600 to 800 B.C. The seeds of this were, of course, already present in the Atlantean race. We do, however, find astronomy among the Chaldeans, the ancient Egyptians, and other Eastern peoples, though this stemmed from the deeper faculties of clairvoyance.

[ 2 ] It was not until half a millennium before Christ that reason began to emerge, and this fact is linked to the transformation of all forms of kinship and marriage. These were quite different from what they are today. Even among the indigenous peoples of the Americas, scholars have observed that the kinship relationships between cousins are much more complex than ours. The Iroquois, for example, refer to paternal cousins as siblings, but not to maternal cousins, for the reason that men of the same age within a family could marry any woman of the same age; thus, within a family, one might know exactly who a child’s mother was, but not who the father was. The Iroquois still maintain these kinship relationships and terms today. Only occultism can provide the correct explanation for these circumstances. From 800 to 900 B.C., we have records of events that indicate that consanguineous marriage gave way to exogamy. Previously, the head of the family was the father of the tribe. Even among the Germanic peoples, we find these institutions in much later times, while in Africa and in the countries around the Mediterranean, the transition to exogamy had already taken place. In the Middle Ages, we find this transition to exogamy glorified in German legends, for example in the Gudrunlied. Tacitus, in his Germania, still speaks of Germanic tribes with a common ancestor. This custom was later abandoned, and in the Gudrunlied, kings travel to distant lands to seek their wives. In the Siegfried saga, we find a depiction of how the new order rebels against marriage within the bloodline: Siegmund and Sieglinde, whose marriage is rejected by Frigga. Wotan is the founder of exogamy. Among the various peoples, exogamy was introduced at different times, but there is a peculiar connection between the transition to exogamy and the development of the intellect. It is an occult principle that exogamy has a destructive effect on a part of the etheric body: the forebrain is stimulated, while the old form of clairvoyance—which grows through consanguineous marriage—is suppressed. The intellectual grasp of things awakens. Today, humanity has adapted to exogamy, just as it once adapted to endogamy. Endogamy today has a detrimental effect on the mental activity of children, especially on the sense organ associated with intellectual development—the eye. This is why there are so many blind people in endogamous marriages. Only through marriage between unrelated individuals is the brain improved. This physiological fact is closely connected to human evolution. It was necessary to prepare for the emergence of Christianity. Could Christianity have arisen under different conditions? It brings about love of soul to soul, the influence of soul upon soul. The love based on blood kinship first had to be overcome. Nations will only become truly ready for Christianity once they have overcome kinship-based love. The ancient initiates of Egypt always came from the same family across many generations. Ancient wisdom was of an intuitive nature, a fact that becomes all the more evident the further back one traces human history. Rational reflection is connected to the foundation of Christianity.

[ 3 ] What, then, was the relationship between the gods and humans? In the course of their evolution, humans will become gods, and the gods have undergone a kind of human evolution—different from ours, on other planets, but nonetheless something similar. The higher beings continue to develop on the basis of the lower ones: humans and animals live off plants, and plants live off minerals. The gods could never exist if humans did not. The same relationship exists between them. What, then, do the gods need from us? They feed on our love. The division of the sexes comes into being. The true meaning of nectar and ambrosia, the food of the gods, is the love between man and woman. This is the expression of an occult fact.

[ 4 ] Between the gods and humankind there now stand beings who did not complete their evolution at the same time as the gods—who, so to speak, were held back in the school of evolution—but who are far ahead of humankind. These are the Luciferic beings. They are the instigators of higher spiritual independence in human beings. They incited humanity to revolt against the gods; they developed that part within humanity that does not nourish the gods. In the Paradise legend, Lucifer therefore appears as a serpent, and Jehovah’s punishment is: “In pain you shall bring forth children.” Lucifer’s hosts continued to work on the development of the intellect. What they had not achieved, they made up for when marriage at a distance arose. Love is no longer brought about by the bond of blood, but comes from outside through the harmony of souls. When we consider this, Jehovah’s governance also becomes clear to us: He regulates kinship through just laws. The old law creates order among human beings. Lucifer was set free eight hundred to nine hundred years before Christ, and the inner power of the soul began to unfold. Christ is the representative of the new order. The external law was given on Mount Sinai; the inner law—grace—is given to those who have been set free through Christ. Such is the progress of humanity: the Luciferic principle had to develop more and more within human beings. External science is to be liberated through theosophy: science deepened into wisdom. The name Lucifer alludes to the principle of independence; that is why Madame Blavatsky named her first journal thus, and that is why ours bears the same name—to document this principle. More and more, the differences between individuals and peoples will be smoothed out, and the first sentence of the Principles of the Theosophical Society will come into effect: to form the nucleus of a brotherhood of humanity. The love of blood kinship will be increasingly overcome, and people will seek spiritual connections more and more. Souls will come together from the greatest distances. The further development and transformation of the intellect will bring us a new form of clairvoyance in the future. Overcoming sexual love initially means isolation. The chela must be uprooted—the great overcoming of all feelings of kinship; that is the function of the Luciferic principle.

Q&A

Questions not recorded.

[ 5 ] The Indian caste system is based on the concept of karma. The clairvoyant leaders of the Indians foresaw which caste karma would assign to each person, so that everyone was born into the caste that corresponded to them. As their intellect rises through remote marriage, people will attain conscious clairvoyance, and at the end of the sixth subrace they will organize themselves into moral castes. With the next subrace, all love based on blood kinship will fade away. With this, the gods’ sustenance will diminish, and they will withdraw more and more from humanity to higher stages of development. Humanity will be guided forward by their Masters, who have served humanity from the very beginning, so to speak, but have consciously developed more rapidly. These divine guides do not need human love as sustenance; therefore, sexual love will cease.

[ 6 ] If the Luciferic principle had not come into effect, the Earth, like the Moon, would have gradually turned into slag—dead and desolate. That is not to be; humanity itself will preserve it from this fate and transform it. When human beings first appeared, the Earth did not yet look as it does now. In Lemuria, there were no dead, solidified metals or stones; everything flowed—rivers of metal coursed through the mountains, something that can still be clearly seen today. Miners, who come into such intimate contact with the Earth’s interior, understand this and are therefore always the best spiritualists. Many plants were still animals back then, and milk, on which humans subsisted, also flowed in free streams. As children, we unconsciously go through this stage once more. But we are meant to consciously return to this way of eating. This is also encapsulated in the saying: “Unless you become like little children.” — Milk and a plant-based diet awaken occult healing powers; therefore, a doctor of the future must nourish himself in this way—that is, by consuming everything that reaches toward the sun. Indian doctors make themselves immune to snake bites by allowing snakes to bite them, so that they can then heal such bites in others. Our food will be mineral-based. Physiological initiates already nourish themselves with minerals. There are different kinds of initiates: those who teach wisdom, and among others, those who work on improving the blood of humanity—the physiological initiates. These need not be particularly wise in other areas; merely their sense of physiology is highly developed. We should eat only that part of plants and animals that does not contain their life force—that is, not the roots, not the meat, but the fruits, the milk, and the leaves. What grows above the earth, what the cow eats—that is proper nourishment—what thrives in the sun. As for minerals, one should not eat what settles—that is, no salt, only water. Physiological occultists watch over the transition of blood to the next race.

[ 7 ] Over the past century, since Frederick the Great, we have evolved ten times faster than we did during the millennium from Charlemagne to Frederick the Great, and this evolution will continue at a correspondingly faster pace. In Russia, the sixth subrace is emerging. Disbelief is a major obstacle to evolution.

[ 8 ] Mercury is the body of certain great entities, one of which incarnated as Gautama Buddha.

[ 9 ] As human development progresses, people will control their bodies from the outside, carrying them with them, as it were, just as a snail carries its shell; they will work on them and transform them, just as they already do unconsciously while asleep.