The Rudolf Steiner Archive

12. The School of Adepts of the Past: The Mysteries of the Spirit, the Son, and the Father

[ 1 ] The spiritual science movement is not something that came into our time through the arbitrary act of a single individual—this or that person, this or that society. It is connected to the entire development of humanity and, as such, must be regarded as one of the most important cultural impulses. If we are to understand this mission of the spiritual science movement, we must immerse ourselves in the past and future of humanity. Just as individual human beings have undergone a process of development since the time they first descended from the bosom of the Divine as individual souls, so too has humanity as a whole undergone a process of development. Just consider the differences, the changes, and the evolution that have taken place on the Earth’s surface over the course of millennia—how thoroughly everything has changed! What we are accustomed to calling “humanity” is only the result of the so-called fifth root race. This was preceded by another humanity, the fourth root race, whose continent—Atlantis—we would have to locate roughly between present-day Europe and America. Our ancestors saw this Atlantis in a completely different form. A very different culture prevailed there. The ancient Atlanteans were not developed in intellect or thought, but were instead endowed with subtle somnambulistic and clairvoyant powers. Logic, analytical reasoning, science, and art as we know them today did not exist in ancient Atlantis, for people’s imagination, thinking, and feeling were entirely different there. People back then would not have been able to reason, calculate, count, or read as we do today. But certain somnambulistic and clairvoyant spiritual powers lived within him. He could understand the language of nature—what God said to him in the lapping of the waves, what the thunder rolled, what the forest rustled, and what the subtle scents of the flowers expressed. He understood this language of nature and was in harmony with all of nature. There were no laws or legal systems back then to mediate between neighbors. No, the Atlantean would go out and listen to the sounds of the trees and the wind, and they would tell him what he had to do.

[ 2 ] The folk legend—which is never random or fabricated—has beautifully preserved the memory of ancient Atlantis, Nibelheim, for example in the Nibelungenlied. The word “Nibel” or “Nifel” suggests that the Rhine and all these rivers are residual waters from the mists of ancient Atlantis. And the wisdom that remains from it is symbolized as the treasure hidden within them. On this continent between America and Europe, we must also seek the training ground of the ancient adepts, where those who were suited to become disciples of the great individualities—whom we call the Masters of Wisdom and Harmony of Feelings—resided.

[ 3 ] The location of this school for adepts, whose heyday fell during the fourth subrace of ancient Atlantis, was in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. There, students were taught in a manner quite different from today. Quite differently—a tremendous effect could be exerted from person to person through the power that still lay in words back then. What still lives among the people today is a subtle sense of the inner, spiritual, occult power of words. You absolutely cannot compare the power of words today with that of the past. It was something truly immense: the word alone awakened powers in the student’s soul. A mantra today no longer possesses anywhere near the power it had back then, when words were not so permeated by thoughts. When these words took effect, the student’s soul forces blossomed. One could call this a human initiation through the language of nature, one of tremendous effect. A clear language was also spoken there through the fumigation of substances, the burning of materials such as incense, and so on.

[ 4 ] There was a much more direct connection there between the teacher’s soul and that of the student. And what existed as written symbols in the school for adepts of ancient Atlantis were representations of natural processes, drawn by hand in the air, which had an immediate and lasting effect on the minds of the people of that time. They awakened powers within the soul.

[ 5 ] Thus, every race has its task in the evolution of humanity. The task of our own, the fifth root race, is to add to the four members of the human being what is called the Manasic, that is, to awaken understanding through concepts and ideas. Every race has its task: that of the Atlantean race was the development of the “I.” Ours, the fifth root race, the post-Atlantean era, has the task of developing the Manas, the spiritual self.

[ 6 ] With the downfall of Atlantis, however, its achievements did not perish; rather, the most essential elements of everything that existed in the Atlantean school of the adepts were taken along by a small core group of people. Under the leadership of Manu, this small group migrated to the region of what is now the Gobi Desert. And this small group now prepared reproductions of the earlier culture and teachings, but in a more intellectual form. These were the earlier spiritual forces translated into thoughts and symbols. From there, from this center, the various cultural currents then radiated out like rays. First came the wondrous, ancient pre-Vedic culture, which for the first time translated the incoming wisdom into thoughts.

[ 7 ] The second of the cultures that emerged from the ancient school of adepts was the ancient Persian culture. The third was the Chaldean-Babylonian culture, with its marvelous astrological wisdom and its magnificent priestly knowledge. The fourth to flourish was the Greco-Latin culture with its distinctive character, and finally, the fifth was our own. We are now moving toward the sixth and seventh. With this, I have outlined our task in human evolution: to transform into thought and bring down to the physical plane that which has existed until now as cosmic wisdom.

[ 8 ] When the ancient Atlantean listened for the intermediate tone among the sounds resonating around him, he heard the name of that which he had recognized as the Divine: Tao. - In the Egyptian mysteries, you translated this sound into thought, into writing, into symbols—into the Tao symbol, the Tao books. Everything that constitutes knowledge, writing, and thought first came into the world in the post-Atlantean era. Before that, no one would ever have written such things down. The understanding for it would not have existed. Now we stand in the midst of Manasic development within it. Our race is concerned with cultivating intellectual culture, while at the same time taking egoism to the very extreme. One might well say—even if it sounds grotesque—that there has never been as much intellectual power in the world and as little inner vision as there is today. Thought is as far removed as possible from the inner essence of things, far removed from inner, spiritual insight.

[ 9 ] When the Atlantean priest wrote a symbol in the air, the effect was primarily an inner spiritual experience for the student. In the fourth, the Greco-Latin epoch, the personal comes more to the fore. In Greece, personal art developed. In Rome, we find the personal in state regulation and so on. In our time, we experience egoism, the dryly personal, the dryly intellectual. But our task today is to grasp the occult in the manas, in the purest element of thought. Grasping the spiritual in this finest distillate of the brain is the true mission of our time. To make this thought so powerful that it possesses something of occult power—that is the task set before us so that we may fulfill our place in the future.

[ 10 ] Ancient Lemuria was destroyed by mighty fires, and ancient Atlantis by mighty floods. Our civilization, too, will perish—specifically through a war of all against all: this is what lies ahead for us. Thus, our fifth root race will perish as a result of egoism heightened to the utmost degree. At the same time, however, a small group of people will form who, through the power of thought, will develop the power of Buddhi—the life spirit—in order to carry it over into the new culture. Everything productive within the striving human being will grow ever greater and greater, until his personality has risen so high that it has reached the summit of freedom. In our time, every single individual will have to find within themselves a kind of guiding spirit within the soul—Buddhi, the power of the life spirit. If we were to approach the future in such a way that we could absorb cultural impulses only as we did in earlier times, we would be heading toward the fragmentation of humanity.

[ 11 ] What do we have now in the present? Everyone wants to be their own master: egoism, self-interest, has been taken to the extreme. The time is coming when no authority whatsoever will be recognized except that which people voluntarily acknowledge, whose power is based on free trust. Those mysteries that were built upon the power of the spirit are called the mysteries of the spirit. Those that will be established in the future on the foundation of trust, on the power of trust, are called the Mysteries of the Father. With them, we bring our culture to a close. This new impulse of the power of trust must come; otherwise, we are heading toward fragmentation, toward a general cult of the self and egoism.

[ 12 ] In the era of the Mysteries of the Spirit, which were founded on the Spirit’s power, authority, and might—which were, admittedly, well-founded—there were a few great sages. They possessed wisdom, and only those who endured the rigorous trials could be initiated by them. Now, as we move toward the Mysteries of the Father in the future, we must work ever more toward ensuring that every single person becomes wise. Will this help combat selfishness and fragmentation? — Yes! For only when people attain the highest wisdom—in which they cannot vary, in which there is no personal opinion, no individual standpoint, but only a single perspective—can they become united. If people remained as they usually are—different, holding various viewpoints, and so on—they would continually drift apart. The highest wisdom, however, always produces the same perspective in all people. True wisdom is one and the same, bringing people back together with the greatest possible freedom, without any coercive authority. Just as the members of the Great White Brotherhood are always in harmony with one another and with humanity, so too will all people one day become one through this wisdom. Only this wisdom will establish the true idea of brotherhood. Spiritual science therefore needs set itself no other task than to lead people to this idea—now through the unfolding of the spiritual self and later through the life spirit. To enable human beings to become free and to attain true wisdom—that is the great goal of the spiritual science movement; to allow this truth and wisdom to flow into people—that is its mission.

[ 13 ] The modern movement for spiritual science began with the most elementary teachings. Much of importance has been revealed in the years that have passed since the beginning of this movement, and even more important things will continue to be revealed. The work of the Theosophical Movement is thus a gradual outpouring of the wisdom of the Great White Brotherhood, which has its origin in Atlantis. Such work has always been prepared over long periods of time. Thus, as preparation for the one great event—the unique appearance of Christ Jesus—we have the entire work of the great religious founders. Theosophy seeks to be the executor of Christianity’s legacy. And so it will be. Once the Father Mysteries are fulfilled—that is, once the development of Buddhi is completed in every single human being—then everyone will find their deepest essence, the Atma, the spiritual human being, within themselves. The appearance of Christ Jesus was thus prepared by the succession of religious founders: Zoroaster, Hermes, Moses, Orpheus, and Pythagoras. All their teachings pursue the same goal: to infuse humanity with wisdom, but always in the form most suitable for the people in question. Thus, what Christ said is not actually new. What is new about the appearance and teaching of Christ Jesus is that in Christ Jesus lay the power to bring to life all that had previously been merely teaching.

[ 14 ] Through Christianity, humanity has gained the power to ensure that, even with the greatest possible individualization, all may be united in the voluntary recognition of the authority of Christ Jesus, and that through faith in him—his appearance and his divinity—people may join together in a brotherhood. Thus, between the mysteries of the Spirit and those of the Father stand the mysteries of the Son, whose cradle was the school of Saint Paul, and for whose leadership he had appointed Dionysius the Areopagite. Under him, this school reached its heyday, for Dionysius taught these mysteries in a very special way, while Paul disseminated the doctrine exoterically.

[ 15 ] Now let us seek an explanation from another perspective to understand what it means when it is said, “The mysteries of the Father are coming.” The teachers of the ancient Atlantean school of adepts were not yet human beings, but beings higher than humans. They had completed their evolution on earlier planets. And they, who had been there since ancient planetary evolutions, taught the mysteries of the Spirit to a select few. In the Mysteries of the Son, Christ himself appeared in person as a teacher on special occasions: thus, he too was a teacher who was not human, but God. Only those who become teachers in the Mysteries of the Father will be human. Such people, who have developed more rapidly than the rest of humanity, will then be the true masters of wisdom and harmony. They are called the Fathers. In the Mysteries of the Father, the leadership of humanity thus passes from beings who have descended from other worlds into the hands of human beings themselves. That is what is significant.

[ 16 ] To prepare people to form a core for this goal, to prepare them for a shared wisdom, for an authority based solely on trust, and to develop an understanding of this, initially within a small core of humanity: that is the task of spiritual science. The development of material culture had reached its peak in the 19th century. That is why the spiritual science made its impact on the world at that time. With it, the counter-impulse to materialism—the counter-direction toward spirituality—was created and was already present. Spiritual science is nothing new, nor is the spiritual science movement; it is merely the continuation of what already existed. Materialism and egoism lead to the fragmentation of humanity; the individual sees only his own interests. Wisdom must bring these separated people back together. In complete freedom, without any compulsion, people are brought together through wisdom. This is the task of the spiritual science movement in our time. We must be clear that we have to acquire wisdom in concrete terms. We are all familiar with the example of the stove, whose purpose is to heat the room. If we describe the stove’s task to it in words, no matter how eloquent, and ask it to heat the room, it will not do so. Only when we light it can it fulfill its purpose. Thus, all the talk of brotherhood and love of one’s neighbor is of little value. Only knowledge brings us closer to the goal. For each individual and for humanity as a whole, the path to wisdom and brotherhood can only be attained through insight.

[ 17 ] We have now traced this path through three types of mysteries. Spiritual science must ensure that a small core of humanity gains an understanding of what has been said, in order to awaken an understanding of it among the masses in the sixth race. This is the task that spiritual science must fulfill. A small portion of the fifth root race will anticipate this development; it will spiritualize Manas and unfold the spiritual self. The majority, however, will reach the height of selfishness. That core of humanity which develops the spiritual self will be the seed of the sixth root race, and the most advanced members of this core—the Masters, as we call them, who have emerged from humanity—will then lead humanity. The movement for spiritual knowledge strives toward this goal.