The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Eighth Lecture

[ 1 ] Today I would like to speak to you about something that, in part, falls somewhat outside the ongoing framework of these lectures, but in another respect serves as a complement to them, in that some of what we have said in previous lectures will be repeated here, while other aspects can be better illuminated.

[ 2 ] We know, of course, that human beings, as they are today, have come into being through a long process of evolution, that they have developed through various planetary stages to reach their present level. We also know that in the future, humans will rise to higher stages of development. Now, we have already become acquainted with the idea that back when humans on ancient Saturn were still in a very dull state of consciousness, there were already beings who had reached the same level as humans have today; even then, there were beings who stood far higher than humans do today. We know that even today there are beings who have attained a stage of development that humanity will only reach in the future. Thus we can lift our gaze to what is called in occultism a “hierarchy” of beings superior to humanity, who are always one step higher than humanity. We refer to this next level of beings, who stand above humanity, by the esoteric-Christian term “angels,” “Angelos.” Thus, angels are beings who had already attained human consciousness on the lunar stage—the planetary predecessor of our Earth—and who today stand one level higher than humanity. Humanity itself will, at the stage of Jupiter existence, possess the very consciousness that is today the consciousness of these beings whom we call “angels,” “Angelos.” With this, we have already considered the first level of beings standing above humanity. We are already familiar with the following stages from certain other contexts. We know that, ascending from the angels, we have the “archangels,” “Archangeloi”; then we have the order of the “primordial forces,” which we also call “Archai”; then we know the “manifestations” or “powers,” “Exusiai”; then we have the so-called “powers,” “Dynamis,” the “dominions,” “Kyriotetes”; then the “thrones,” the “Cherubim,” and the “Seraphim.” Only then, beyond the Seraphim, would we speak of what is called, in the Christian sense, the actual “Deity.” For the true occultist, true spiritual science, or occultism cannot share the common, trivial notion that human beings could look up directly to the highest Deity; rather, we have the entire hierarchy of beings—which we, in the Christian sense, call angels, archangels, and so on—standing in between. And in a certain sense, we must regard it as a mental convenience when one often hears people say today: “Oh, what do we need this whole ladder of beings for? After all, human beings can enter into a direct relationship with the Deity!” The theosophist and occultist cannot go along with this complacency; for these beings are entirely real, and today we wish to speak a little about the task and work of these beings in the evolution of the world, as well as about their peculiarities and characteristics.

[ 3 ] First, let us try to form a conception of what are called the beings of the angels. The easiest way to form a concept of the consciousness of these beings is to bear in mind that human beings, in their outer physical consciousness today, encompass four kingdoms of nature that they can, so to speak, perceive: mineral beings, plant beings, animal beings, and the human kingdom itself; so that we can describe human consciousness, in terms of its content, as one that encompasses these four kingdoms perceptible to the external senses. Everything that a human being perceives through their senses, whatever it may be, belongs to one of these four kingdoms. If we now ask ourselves: What is the consciousness of the angelic beings like? — we receive the answer: In a certain sense, it is a higher consciousness, and it is characterized as such by the fact that it does not extend down to the mineral kingdom. Angelic consciousness does not extend as far as the stones, the minerals. On the other hand, this angelic consciousness encompasses plant beings, animal beings, human beings, and the realm of the angels itself, which plays the same role there as the human realm does for us. Therefore, we can say: with their consciousness, these angels also perceive four realms—the realm of plants, of animals, of human beings, and the realm of the angels.

[ 4 ] This is what is unique about angelic beings: they have no physical body, and for this reason, they also have no physical organs—no eyes, ears, and so on. Therefore, they do not perceive the physical realm. Their lowest form of being is their etheric body. Through this, they share a certain kinship with plants. They can therefore descend with their consciousness down to the level of plants; they can still perceive plants. In contrast, where there is a mineral, they perceive a void, just as we have described for human beings during the Devachan state, where the human being will also perceive the space that a mineral fills here on the physical plane as a void. Thus, wherever the physical realm exists, these angels perceive a void. In contrast, their consciousness reaches upward to places where human consciousness does not yet extend.

[ 5 ] But we know that even today, people already stand in a certain relationship to one another—those who lead and those who are led. I am referring to nothing other than children and their adult educators: Children must be guided until they are as mature as their adult educators. In their present stage of development, human beings are growing into Jupiter consciousness. This will be the same consciousness that the angels already possess today. Because angelic consciousness is what it is, the angels are in fact the guides of human beings today—they lead them and prepare them—and there is an intimate connection between what is gradually developing within the human being and the task of these angelic beings. What, then, is developing within human beings for the remainder of their earthly existence? We have discussed this on several occasions. We have said that human beings have a physical body, an etheric body, an astral body, and an “I,” and that they are currently in the process of transforming their astral body so that it will gradually become the spiritual self in its entirety. It is true that human beings are already working on their other constituents; but the essence of earthly evolution lies in the full development of the spiritual self. The angels have already developed the spiritual self; they had already developed it when earthly existence began. Therefore, in the hierarchy of evolution, the angels are those spirits who guide this work—the transformation of the astral body into the spiritual self—in human beings.

[ 6 ] Now let’s ask ourselves: How do they do that? — Let’s recall that we said that when a person dies, they are initially surrounded by what we have called the “long tableau of memories” of the life that has just passed. This lasts two to three days; it varies somewhat from person to person. As a rule, it lasts about as long as the person in question was able to go without sleep during their lifetime. People vary greatly in this regard. One person is accustomed to sleeping every twelve hours, and their eyes then close; others, on the other hand, can stay awake for four to five days. As long as a person can remain awake without sleeping, that is how long their tableau of memories lasts. Then the etheric body dissolves, and only an extract of it remains—the fruit of the past life. This is carried over into all subsequent lifetimes, incorporated into the person’s being, and forms the basis upon which the person can build their physical body in the next incarnation. This enables them to construct their next body more perfectly, because they can use the fruits of their past life for that purpose. Thus, the person possesses this life essence and uses it to form their next body in the following life.

[ 7 ] Now we know something else as well. We know that human beings not only form this physical body of theirs, but that they are by no means idle in Devachan either. It is a misconception to believe that human beings have only themselves to concern themselves with. The world is not built on such selfishness at all. It is built in such a way that human beings must contribute to the Earth in every situation; and during that time in Devachan, they work toward the transformation of the Earth’s surface. We know ourselves that, for example, the ground on which we stand here today looked quite different just a few centuries ago than it does today. The Earth is constantly being reshaped. At the time when Jesus Christ still walked the Earth, there were vast forests here; there were entirely different plants and animals. Thus, the face of the Earth is constantly changing. Just as human beings, by working on the physical plane—building cities and so on—are constantly working with the forces active in the physical realm, so too do they work from Devachan with those forces that reshape the Earth’s physiognomy, including the plant and animal kingdoms. That is why, in a new incarnation, a person once again encounters a landscape that presents a completely different picture, so that he or she always experiences something new. For one is not born into a new incarnation in vain, but rather so that one may experience something new. Human beings themselves contribute to reshaping this Earth; but they cannot do so without guidance. They cannot determine their subsequent incarnations, for then they would not need to first experience what is to happen in the future. And the next guiding beings who instruct human beings—from the forces of Devachan—to collaborate in the transformation of the Earth, who create harmony between the individual human personalities and the evolution of the Earth as it corresponds to these individual personalities—these spiritual beings are the angels. They cannot work on the stones or the solid Earth’s crust, for their consciousness does not extend down to the level of the stones. However, it does extend down to the plant kingdom that sustains the Earth. There they cannot act creatively, but they can still bring about transformation.

[ 8 ] And indeed, it is true that a such angelic being works with every human individual, guiding and directing the person in their work of developing the spiritual self within the astral body until it is fully developed. This is why part of Christian teaching speaks of human guardian angels. This is a concept that corresponds entirely to the reality of the laws of nature. These are the beings who create harmony between the individual human being and the course of Earth’s evolution, until, at the end of Earth’s evolution, the human being will have reached a point where he can take the place of his angel, because he will then possess the same kind of consciousness that an angel has.

[ 9 ] Now you will easily understand that the archangels have a consciousness that no longer extends down into the plant kingdom, but only as far as the animal kingdom. The plants, so to speak, are no longer part of their realm; for them, the plant kingdom is too subordinate, too insignificant. In the animal realm, they still have points of contact; they perceive the animal kingdom. They do not have an etheric body, but rather, as the lowest link in their being, they have an astral body. Animals also have an astral body; therefore, the archangels do indeed influence the astral bodies of animals. Then they perceive the human kingdom, the kingdom of the angels, and their own kingdom. That which they refer to as “I”—which is analogous to the human “I” for human beings—is the realm of the archangels. These beings, too, have an essential mission, and you can already understand—since they possess a consciousness two levels higher than that of human beings—that this mission must be a very lofty one. For the consciousness of the archangels is so high that they have fully developed the buddhi, the life spirit, and can therefore guide and direct Earth’s evolution based on an insight that corresponds to the life spirit, the buddhi. This manifests in the fact that these archangels are, first and foremost, the guides and leaders of entire tribes. What is called the “spirit of a people”—that is, the collective spirit of a people—is, in concrete terms, one of the archangels. Now you will also find it understandable that those peoples who still had an awareness of such a spiritual connection did not immediately look up to the highest being, but rather focused, so to speak, on the nearest beings who guided and directed them.

[ 10 ] Let us consider the ancient Hebrew people. They worshiped Yahweh—or Jehovah—himself as the supreme God. But for them, this God Yahweh belonged to the order of “revelations.” He was a sublime being whom they recognized as their God. But they said: The one who guides and leads us on behalf of Jehovah as his true archangel is “Michael,” one of the archangels—whose name in German means “he who stands before God.” In ancient Hebrew, he was also called the “Face of God,” because when the followers of the Old Covenant looked up to God, they sensed that Michael stood before God and expressed His essence, just as the human face expresses the human being. He was therefore literally called the Face of God.

[ 11 ] When one speaks of the “national spirit,” one is not, in the occult sense, referring to an incomprehensible conceptual entity. When one speaks of the national spirit today, in our materialistic age, one does not actually mean anything by it; for one means by it an abstract, external summary of the characteristics of the people. In truth, there is a spiritual representative, called an archangel, who guides and directs the entire people as a whole. This being extends all the way down into the animal kingdom. The peoples sensed this as well. For it is, one might say, easy to perceive out of a kind of national instinct. One people lives here, another there. Depending on the different regions in which the peoples lived, they had to make use of this or that animal, and the peoples instinctively felt that this was assigned to them by their national spirit. This spirit extended even into the animal kingdom, so that the ancient Egyptian, who sensed this very clearly, said: When we observe the development of plants, angels are at work there; when we observe animals, they are assigned to us by the guiding spirit of the entire people! Therefore, they regarded the power that led the animals to them as a sacred power, and the way they related to the animals was an expression of this awareness. They did not speak of archangels; yet they had the same sense of this connection. This is the very sense that the Egyptians associated with the worship of animals; and this, in turn, is the basis for the fact that where there was an awareness of this entire spiritual context, these spirits were depicted—not with images of earthly animals, but with images of animals such as the Sphinx, winged creatures, and so on—which you find in the various depictions of different peoples. It was as if the guiding archangels were shining through them. You can therefore see in the various groups of animals the esoteric expression of the ruling archangels, and many of the Egyptian idols can be traced back to this idea that the archangel—the guiding spirit of the people—reaches down into the animals. This is essentially the task of the archangels; but there is another as well.

[ 12 ] Uriel, Gabriel, Raphael, and Michael are still known to modern human consciousness, much like a legend from distant prehistory; but you need only look in the Book of Enoch to find the names of other archangels as well. For instance, one of the archangels was Phanuel; he is an important archangel whose task was not merely to guide a particular tribe, but also to fulfill another mission. We know, of course, that initiation consists in the human being striving to ascend to an ever-higher level of consciousness, and that even now, in the course of Earth’s evolution, humanity is already ascending to an ever-higher level of consciousness. Now, the people in the places of initiation knew very well that this process also requires guiding and directing forces. Therefore, they placed those who were to be initiated under the protection of the archangel known as Phanuel. He was the protector invoked by those who sought initiation.

[ 13 ] Other spiritual beings at this level, in turn, have different tasks. For example, the entire course of the world, the entire evolution of the world, is truly underpinned by a sum of forces guided by certain beings. There is, for instance, an archangel—formerly known as Surakiel—whose task is to eradicate particularly pervasive vices in a city or an entire region and transform them into virtues. Anyone familiar with this context can see from it how what is generally and abstractly termed “Providence” is actually guided. Once one is eager to learn about the spiritual worlds, one should not be content with general abstractions but should delve into these details. For the highest beings, whom human beings can still intuitively conceive of, guide the course of world evolution through such intermediary beings as we have just come to know. This is what can be described as the various tasks of the archangels.

[ 14 ] Now we come to the order of the primal forces. These are even more exalted beings whose consciousness does not even extend down to the animals. When the initiate rises to commune with the primordial forces, he does not convey to them, from his human consciousness, what the forms of the “animals” on Earth are like. For their own consciousness extends only down to the human beings. They know the realm of the angels, the realm of the archangels, and their own realm; they refer to themselves as “I,” and it is human beings who perceive them last. Just as the stone—the mineral kingdom—is to human beings, so is the human being to the primordial forces: the lowest kingdom. This alone shows that they guide the course of humanity from a very great height. People sense here and there that there is such a thing as a kind of “spirit of the times,” which varies according to the different epochs. People sense that there is a “spirit of the epochs.” We have often spoken here of the spirit of the epochs. We have said, for example, that in the first culture of the post-Atlantean era—among the ancient Indian people—the spirit of the epoch consisted in the fact that people were conscious of longing to return to the old Atlantean times, when they dimly perceived higher realms around them. This developed into the system of yoga, through which they sought to ascend once more into the higher worlds. Linked to this ancient consciousness was the fact that people held the outer reality—the physical plane—in low regard. Maya, or illusion, became the physical plane for them. The ancient Indian culture, so to speak, had very little interest in the physical plane. It may seem strange to you, but it is truly so: Had ancient Indian culture persisted, there would never have been railroads, telephones, and such things as exist today on the physical plane; for it would not have seemed at all important to concern oneself so deeply with the laws of the physical world in order to populate that physical world with all that appears to us today as cultural achievements.

[ 15 ] Then came the spirit of the Persian epoch. Through it, humankind came to recognize in matter a resistant element that it had to work through. It allied itself with the good spirit Ormuzd against the spirit of matter, Ahriman. But the Persians were already interested in the physical plane. Then came the spirit of that epoch, which found expression, on the one hand, in Babylonian-Assyrian-Chaldean culture and, on the other, in Egyptian culture. Human science was established. Through geometry, people sought to make the Earth suitable for human habitation. People sought to understand the meaning of the movements of the stars through astrology and astronomy, and they aligned what happened on Earth with the movements of the stars. In ancient Egypt, social life in particular was very much guided by the movements of the stars. People guided their lives according to what they discovered as the mysteries of the stars. While the ancient Indian sought to eavesdrop on the path to the gods by completely diverting his attention from external reality, the Egyptian studied the laws governing external reality in order to investigate how the will and spirit of the gods are expressed in the laws of external nature. That was yet another epoch. Thus, each epoch has a specific spirit, and development on Earth comes about through one spirit of the epochs succeeding another. This is the case in detail. People rise to the perspectives of the ages, but they do not know that behind this entire course of time stand epochal spirits; and people do not know that here on Earth, in order to express the spirit of their epoch, they are, so to speak, merely the instruments of these epochal spirits standing behind them. Consider Giordano Bruno, for example. Had Giordano Bruno been born as he was in the 8th century, he would not have become the person he became in the age in which the spirit of the epoch reigned—the very spirit of which he then became the expression. He was the instrument of the spirit of his age, and the same is true of other spirits. And the reverse is also true: If Giordano Bruno had been born in the 8th century, it would have been impossible for the spirit of the epoch to find such an expression as it did in Giordano Bruno. In these things we see how human beings are the instruments of the spirits of the epochs—who are the guiding entities of the great epochs—and also of the “spirits of opinions and views” of the smaller epochs. These are the primal forces. They extend all the way down to human beings. They do not guide anything that connects human beings with other realms of nature; for their consciousness no longer extends as far as the animal kingdom. The orders according to which, guided by the spirits of the age, human beings organize their lives, establish states, found sciences, and cultivate their fields—everything that originates from human beings—this entire course of culture from beginning to end stands under the guidance of the primal forces. They guide human beings insofar as human beings are concerned with human beings themselves.

[ 16 ] I have also been able to point out on various occasions how, from every hierarchy of spirits, certain beings remain behind—beings who have not ascended as far as the others, who, so to speak, have been left behind in the course of world history. Now you can easily imagine that there are beings who, so to speak, should have ascended during the lunar evolution to the order of the Revelations or Powers, but who have only reached the level of the Primordial Forces. These are Primordial Forces different from those that ascended to the rank of Primordial Forces in the regular course of evolution. There are, therefore, such Primordial Forces that are, in fact, disguised Powers on Earth. We are now learning about various things from a different perspective—things we have already come to know from another angle. Thus, hidden behind the primal forces are also those that could actually already be powers; and among the primal forces that are actually present unlawfully is—though only for those who view such things from the standpoint of spiritual science—that being rightly called “Satan,” Satan, the unlawful prince of this world, for the lawful one is a “power”: Yahweh or Jehovah; the unlawful one belongs to the order of the primal forces. He expresses himself by constantly throwing the spirit of the age into confusion among human beings, by causing them to continually contradict the spirit of the epoch. This is the true nature of the spirit also called the “spirit of darkness” or the illegitimate prince of this earth of ours, who lays claim to actually guiding and directing human beings. And you will now understand the profound significance of Christ’s appearance—to shed light through his mission on the entire course of evolution that followed—and that he had to wage battle against this unlawful prince of this world. Behind this lies the deepest wisdom, expressed in this wondrous passage of the Gospel.

[ 17 ] It is common these days to hear such things about Satan not only from materialistically minded people, but also from those who are still haunted by certain old notions, yet misunderstand those very notions; for people have been speaking of Satan rather scornfully for quite some time now. And even people who are willing to acknowledge other spiritual beings are reluctant to concede that Satan is real; they deny his existence. This stems from the fact that as early as the Middle Ages, people held quite peculiar views about Satan and said: He is, after all, actually a backward spirit from the hierarchy of powers; if he is a spirit from the hierarchy of powers, then he is backward. - Where are the spirits of the powers? They express themselves in whatever manifests as spirit in the world. Satan was called a spirit of darkness, but people said: Darkness is, after all, merely a negation of light. Light is real, but darkness is not real. - This was also understood in a spiritual sense. Thus, the spirits that manifest themselves in the light were certainly attributed reality; but Satan, who manifests himself in darkness, was denied reality. This is about as sensible as if someone who had listened to a physicist were to say: Cold is merely a lack of heat; it is not actually real. If we keep reducing the heat, it gets colder and colder, but even if we keep taking away more and more heat, the cold is not real; so let’s not think about winter! — But even though cold is merely a negation of heat, it can certainly be felt when the heat isn’t on. In the same way, Satan is very much real, even if he is only the negation of light.

[ 18 ] We have thus ascended to spirits that are already very high, known as “Revelations” or “Exusiai.” Among them is, for example, the being we have come to know in another context as Yahweh or Jehovah, as well as his companions, the Elohim. The spirits of light belong to the order of powers or revelations. We know that Yahweh had six companions who separated the sun for themselves. Yahweh himself went with the moon, which showers the Earth with the reflected light of the sun; but he is a companion of the other Elohim. If you now try to construct a conception of the consciousness of these manifestations by analogy with what has been said previously, you will say to yourself: These spirits no longer concern themselves with individual human beings. The individual human being is guided by the spirits we have called angels, archangels, and primal forces, up to what we have called epochal spirits. The entire picture in which human beings are embedded—the guidance and direction of the planet and what takes place on it—is now the domain of the revelations or powers. For we have said that the entire course of human development today could not have taken place were it not for the surging solar forces on the one hand and the restraining lunar forces on the other. The revelations or powers no longer have anything to do with the individual human being at all, but rather with groups of people. They direct the outer forces and beings that configure the planet and that humanity needs so that it can undergo its development on this planet. And so we finally look up to a high being who transcends everything we have just discussed—to the Christ Being Himself, who brings to Earth something that has nothing to do with the individual human being, but rather with the guidance of all humanity. And humanity must find its own path to the Christ; for it is compelled to be guided only by the primordial forces; it must come to the Christ of its own free will.

[ 19 ] Thus, we have first formed a conception of the lowest levels of the hierarchies superior to humankind—the angels, archangels, and, to some extent, the primordial forces and powers—and we can only intuitively look up toward an even higher being, Christ. - We can take the opportunity another time to consider what can be said about the “Thrones” and so on. Today I wanted to tell you something about the spiritual structure into which human beings are woven, insofar as angels, archangels, primordial forces, and powers are involved.