The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Sixth Lecture

[ 1 ] In materialistic science, it is generally accepted—with the exception of a few circles that have recently opted for a different explanation—that our present solar system originated from a kind of primordial nebula that extended beyond the Neptune boundary, that is, all the way to the orbit of the outermost planet in our solar system. And there, it is assumed, our Sun and the planets orbiting it gradually formed through a process of condensation. As mentioned, a few scholars today hold a slightly different view, but they still offer nothing of substance to us who stand on the ground of a spiritual worldview. So our Sun would have bulged outward, with the planets orbiting it. In connection with this, a charming analogy has always been used—and is still used today in schools—to illustrate quite vividly how an entire planetary system can arise through rotation. You take an oily substance that floats in water and shape it into a sphere. Then you cut a small piece of paper that you can push all the way through the equator of this oily sphere so that it is split into two halves. You insert a pin into the top, and then you place it in water so that it floats. You then see that when you rotate this small sphere, a drop first breaks away and, as it were, orbits the larger sphere as an outer body; then a second and third drop break away, and finally a large drop remains in the center, around which many smaller ones revolve. A planetary system in miniature! — people say. Why, they wonder, couldn’t our solar system have once formed from that primordial nebula through such a process of spinning off, if we can now replicate it with such a miniature solar system?

[ 2 ] This comparison usually strikes people as incredibly plausible, and now they understand how Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Earth, Venus, and Mercury once split off from such a primordial nebula. But the whole story—not just the analogy, but the entire conception—stems from the short-sightedness of all contemporary thinking. For the men in question—who are at times quite learned—and who present this analogy so convincingly, forget only one thing: namely, that they themselves are there, turning that needle up above! Now, self-forgetfulness is certainly a good thing in certain areas of life, but in this case, the experimenter has forgotten the very most important thing—without which the drop of oil would not spin at all. At the very least, the scholar who is imbued with such superstition—this superstition is known as the Kant-Laplacean system—should have at least a little consistency in his thinking. He would have to assume, at the very least, that back then some being had placed a giant chair out into outer space and set a giant axis in motion. One would have to assume that much, at the very least. But human thought has gradually become so accustomed to focusing solely on the material that one no longer even notices the contradiction inherent in such a comparison.

[ 3 ] In fact, there is a certain truth to this so-called Kant-Laplacean model of the universe, even if this truth behaves differently than the materialist explanation would have us believe. There is a certain truth to it because, to the clairvoyant eye, everything in our present solar system does indeed appear to have emerged from such a primordial nebular mass. Yet to anyone who is truly capable of historical research, it becomes clear that the merit of the Kant-Laplace hypothesis stems from occult traditions. This was forgotten when the word “occultism” became something to be feared, just as children fear the bogeyman. But what actually happened during the formation of our solar system did not occur without the influence of spiritual beings and forces. Matter does nothing without spiritual beings underlying it.

[ 4 ] It would take us too far afield today if, building on yesterday’s discussion, we were to cover the entire explanation of our solar system. Let us set aside planets such as Saturn, Jupiter, and so on, and focus only on what is of primary importance for human life and human development.

[ 5 ] Indeed, there once was such a primordial nebula, and within it were all the parts of our solar system, as if dissolved. But connected to this primordial nebula—so that they were part of it—were the beings we became acquainted with during yesterday’s discussion. For example, connected to that cosmic nebula were all the beings who had passed through the 24 stages leading to the human stage. Other beings, too, were connected to it. They all dwelt in that primordial nebula, which—if one does not conceive of it in connection with these beings—is a fanciful abstraction. As the materialistic chemist might imagine it, for example, it is impossible. It exists only in thought, separated from reality. In reality, it exists in such a way that it is inhabited by a host of spiritual beings. For when that primordial nebula rose to its new visibility, all the beings who once inhabited the ancient Saturn were connected to it—beings who had then passed through the various stages of development via the Sun and the Moon, all the way up to Earth, where, after a long interval, the Earth’s primordial nebula rose, so to speak. And the other beings as well, whom we first encountered on the Sun, were connected to this primordial nebula. And these beings—the entire chorus that was within it, that permeated this primordial nebula—are the ones who brought about the movements. For it is the beings themselves who create their own stage.

[ 6 ] For example, there were beings who needed a completely different place to live than humans if they were to undergo the development appropriate to them. The humans who lived on the ancient Moon as the ancestors of present-day humans initially had only a physical body, an etheric body, and an astral body. With these three aspects of their being, they emerged once again from the so-called Pralaya at the beginning of Earth’s evolution, just as a plant emerges from a seed. However, in its initial state, this entire system was unsuitable for the beings who had brought with them the predispositions characteristic of modern humans. Had the rapid pace of evolution that our solar system had in the beginning—when it emerged from the cosmic twilight—been maintained, human beings would not have been able to undergo their evolution. It would have been a process as if you were born now and then became old men in the shortest of times. If the rate of development characteristic of the Sun had been maintained, you would all age rapidly. You would not be able to proceed at that slow pace through the decades as you actually do. After a short time, you would have white hair. No sooner would you have been a child than you would already be an old person.

[ 7 ] It was not meant to be that way. There were, therefore, beings who needed a faster pace. These beings participated only in part of the evolutionary process; they then took for themselves that celestial body which today stands in the sky as the Sun, and made this Sun their dwelling place. They drew out the solar matter with their being. For this Sun, which sends its light to us today, is inhabited by spiritual \beings just as our Earth is. With every ray of sunlight that penetrates down, the deeds of those spiritual beings descend to Earth—beings who, in the course of the Saturn, Sun, and Moon phases of evolution, have advanced to the point where they can undergo such rapid development as is taking place on today’s Sun. High, exalted beings were connected to this solar existence at the beginning of our Earth’s evolution, and they split off. And what remained behind, you must imagine as if you had mixed today’s Moon and today’s Earth together in a large pot, and this mixture of Earth and Moon had initially orbited the Sun for a time.

[ 8 ] Thus, before we reach the point we referred to yesterday as the Incarnation, we must first note the separation of the Sun from the Earth—that is, the Earth as we know it today, plus the Moon as we know it today. The beings who are the spiritual guides of earthly events remained on the Sun. When they came over from the Moon, there were seven such beings. Genesis calls them Elohim, spirits of light. For a time, they underwent their development together with the Earth and then drew the Sun out, so that they can now work from the Sun down onto the Earth. These Elohim, these spirits of light, were thus seven in number. Six of them were such that they linked their existence to the actual cosmic Sun. One separated himself from them—one whom the Old Testament calls Yahweh. He separated himself and remained connected to the Earth for the time being. He guided and directed Earth’s development from within, while the others worked from the outside. This was the case for a while.

[ 9 ] But based on what was hinted at yesterday regarding the old moon, you will find it understandable that the sun’s departure was accompanied by a densification of everything that remained as Earth and Moon. A period in Earth’s evolution began in which all beings—and not just the substance—underwent a process of coarsening. The beings, for example, who later became human—and who at that time were still very soft and subtle—underwent this coarsening by adopting hideous instincts. A coarsening of all life took place.

[ 10 ] But this state of development could not remain as it was if human beings were to come into being. A coarsening would have set in; everything would have become denser and denser, and human beings would have frozen into mummies. Human beings would have become mummified, and very soon you would have had a planet on which something like—not exactly beautiful, but human-like—mummies, like statues, would have accumulated. The Earth would have become mummified. Another event had to occur. It was precisely through the governance of the cosmic Spirit Yahweh that what you now see as the Moon—that burnt-out lunar slag in the sky—was separated and extracted from this total mass of Earth and Moon. Not only were the coarsest substantial components separated out, but also the coarsest entities. Thus, the departure of the Sun had first ensured that humanity would not develop too rapidly, and the departure of the Moon now ensured that humanity would not develop toward withering, toward densification, toward mummification.

[ 11 ] Thus the Earth was set apart from the entire mass, and now the course of human evolution is guided over the Earth under the influence of these two celestial bodies—which, of course, does not mean under the influence of the celestial bodies themselves, but rather of their beings: the six solar spirits and the lunar spirit, which had set itself apart for the sake of humanity. And it is guided in such a way that, in essence, these two forces maintain a balance. Through the emergence of both the solar forces and the lunar forces, the precise pace of human development was achieved.

[ 12 ] Just imagine—to illustrate this point from a different angle—that only the sun had an effect on human beings. As you know, human beings undergo their evolution on Earth through many, many incarnations. They began with their first incarnation on Earth and continue to receive new bodies again and again until they undergo their final incarnation. Human beings go through a series of incarnations. Through this process, they develop slowly and progress upward from one incarnation to the next. Human beings first set foot on the surface of our Earth as true spiritual infants. Since the separation of the Sun and Moon from our Earth, they have ascended to their present level. All these souls will return in other bodies until the end of Earth’s evolution. Now imagine that only the Sun were active for human beings. Then people would have to go through everything they experience in so many incarnations in a single one. The proper pace of these many incarnations is brought about by the external balance of forces between the Sun and the Moon.

[ 13 ] It was during the time when the sun and moon emerged that modern humankind gradually began to emerge. That is when the first seeds of modern humanity were sown. This was at a time when human beings were by no means already walking the earth as they do today. You must not under any circumstances believe that, once the moon had been separated, human beings were already walking the earth in physical form as they do today. First, all the forms that had existed earlier reappeared, as if in a repetition. And when the Earth was freed from the Sun and the Moon, it looked roughly like the old Moon—it was even softer. And if an eye organized like today’s had looked upon the Earth, it would not yet have been able to see human beings. In contrast, there were certain other beings who were not mature enough to wait for the later time. While the stage of development was still imperfect, they had to evolve, had to take on physical form, so that certain forms of lower animals at that time—some time after the Moon’s departure from the Earth—could already be seen in physical condensation. Humanity had not yet descended, nor had even the higher mammals. Humanity was still a spiritual being; it still hovered around the Earth as a spiritual entity. It absorbed the finest matter from the Earth’s surroundings. Gradually, humanity condensed to such an extent that it could descend to where the Earth had already solidified and individual islands had formed.

[ 14 ] Thus we see that the first human beings appeared relatively late and that they were of a completely different nature back then than modern humans. I cannot describe to you the forms of those human beings who, so to speak, first emerged from the spiritual realm. Even though you have already had to endure much that is hard to believe, you would be far too shocked if I were to describe to you the grotesque-looking forms of the bodies in which your souls were incarnated. You would not be able to bear such a description. At a later time, however, when these things—which are only now beginning to enter human consciousness through the anthroposophical spiritual movement—increasingly take hold of human consciousness, then this will eventually have to be revealed, and it will have an immense impact and immense significance for the entire life of humanity. For only by coming to understand how the human being has developed physically—how the organs that exist today have gradually evolved from entirely different forms—will people sense that remarkable kinship between organs in the human body that today seem to be far apart. Then they will understand the correspondence that exists between certain organs—for example, between the appendix and the trachea—which, in their earlier form, had grown together in those remarkable beings. Everything that makes up the human being today is the unrolled past, which has been taken apart in the most varied ways. Organs that are now separated were once fused together, yet they have retained their kinship. This kinship often becomes apparent in diseases, revealing how the illness of one organ necessarily entails that of another. Those who truly study medicine will have many discoveries to make—discoveries that today’s medicine, which is merely a collection of notes, cannot even begin to imagine. Only then will this medicine truly learn something about the true nature of the human being. All of this is merely to point out how completely different the human form used to be.

[ 15 ] It was only gradually that the solid parts became integrated into this human form. Originally, even after the human body had already descended, there were still no bones in it. The bones developed from soft, cartilage-like structures that ran through the human body like strands; these, in turn, had arisen from very soft substances, and these soft substances from liquid ones, which in turn arose from gaseous ones, the gaseous ones from ethereal ones, and the ethereal ones from astral ones—all of which had condensed from spiritual substance. Ultimately, all that is material has sprung from the spiritual. Everything is preformed in the spirit. It was only during the period we have already referred to as the Atlantean era that human beings gradually came to develop their skeletal system, the predisposition for which had already existed earlier.

[ 16 ] Now we must take a closer look at these Lemurian people so that we may better understand the author of the Apocalypse. I need only point out that in the early days, when the Moon was still separate from Earth and humanity was descending, human beings were of an entirely different nature with regard to their willpower than they were later. Human willpower had a magical effect back then. Through their will, people could influence the growth of flowers. When a person exerted their will, they could cause a flower to shoot up rapidly—an ability that today can only be achieved through an abnormal developmental process. Therefore, the entire natural environment at that time depended on the nature of human will. If it was good, it had a soothing effect on the surging of the waters, on storms, and on the fiery formations that prevailed over a wide area at that time, for the Earth was largely volcanic in nature back then. Humanity had a soothing effect on all of this through a good will, and a destructive effect through an evil will. Entire islands could be shattered by an evil will. Thus, human will was entirely in harmony with the environment. Essentially, the landmasses where humans lived at that time were destroyed by the evil will of humans, and only a small portion of the people of that era—here we must again distinguish between racial and soul development—survived into the period that we can accurately describe, because we can find words in our language that reflect the Hellesian perception.

[ 17 ] Following this catastrophe, we arrive at the ancient Atlantic era—that period during which the human race developed primarily on a continent that today forms the floor of the Atlantic Ocean, between present-day Europe and America. Human beings lived at that time under entirely different physical conditions—and under entirely different circumstances in general. At first, human beings were beings who perceived the world quite differently from people today. We have already alluded to this in the first lecture and again later. Today we would like to examine this entirely different way of perceiving the world by people of that time in somewhat greater detail.

[ 18 ] Human beings still possessed a form of ancient clairvoyance, primarily because the structure of their physical limbs was different from what it is today. The etheric body was not yet so closely connected to the physical body. The etheric body of the head extended far beyond the physical body. It was not until the last third of the Atlantean era that this protruding etheric body receded and took on the form of the physical human head as we know it today. Because this ancient Atlantean was so completely different in form from modern humans and had a different structure of limbs, the entire life of consciousness, the entire soul life of this ancient Atlantean, was also different. And here, if we are to truly understand the Apocalyptic writer, we must touch upon a very important, yet also very mysterious chapter.

[ 19 ] If you were to visit this ancient Atlantis, you would find that it was not surrounded by air as pure as that of today’s Earth, but by air saturated with mist and masses of water. This air becomes more transparent and clearer the further Atlantis develops. But the mists were thickest where the aforementioned, more highly developed Atlantean culture flourished. That is where the densest mists were found, and out of these mists the foundation for later cultures developed. Atlantis was permeated far and wide by such mists. There was no distribution of rain and sunshine like there is today. Therefore, what you know as the rainbow could not come into being in ancient Atlantis. You can search the entire Atlantis, and you will hardly find it. Only when the condensation of water led to the flood, when the Deluge had swept over the Earth, only then could the rainbow physically come into being. And here you have a moment when, from the perspective of spiritual science, you will feel the deepest reverence for the religious texts. For when you are told that after the Flood, Noah—the representative of those who saved the human race—was the first to see the rainbow appear, that is truly a historical event. After the Flood, humanity saw the first rainbow. Previously, it was physically impossible.

[ 20 ] There you see how profound, how literally true the religious texts are. Today, some people are troubled when it is said that the religious texts are literally true. Some quote a saying that is true, but which the complacent quote not as a true word, but out of convenience. The saying is: “The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” — From this they derive the justification for no longer paying any attention at all to what is written in the texts, for no longer having to make the effort to discern what is really written there, for that, they say, is the letter that kills. And so they let their spirit shine, conjuring up all manner of fantasies. These people may indeed be very witty in their explanations, but that is not what matters; what matters is that we truly see in the documents what is actually written there. “The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life”—this phrase has the same meaning in mystical language as Goethe’s saying:

And as long as you don't have that,
This: Die and be reborn!
You are but a gloomy guest
On this dark earth.

[ 21 ] This does not mean: “If you want to lead someone to higher knowledge, you must kill them”—but rather: “It is precisely through the cultivation of the physical world that human beings must rise to the spiritual.” — In the same way, the letter is the body of the Spirit, and one must first possess and understand it; only then can one say that one can find the Spirit within it. The letter—the letter as understood—must then die away so that the Spirit may rise from it. That word is not an instruction to fantasize arbitrarily about what is written in the religious texts. Precisely when we recognize the true meaning of this rainbow, for example, as we have described it, something enters our soul—a deep reverence for the religious texts—and we come to understand how, through this deepening of understanding brought about by the anthroposophical worldview, human beings first advance toward a true, genuine feeling and a true understanding of the will contained in the religious texts.

[ 22 ] Now let us look back to ancient Atlantis. We have already said that people there lived in a different state of consciousness, that their memory was different from what it is today. But the difference is even more significant. If we go back far—not just to the end of the Atlantean era, but to its beginning—we find that human consciousness was very different from what we have today.

[ 23 ] Let us once again bring to mind what is present today. During the day, a person makes use of the senses. In the evening, he falls asleep. The physical body lies in bed, while the etheric body, the astral body, and the “I” step out. The sphere of consciousness darkens. People today see nothing, hear nothing. In the morning, when the astral body, together with the “I,” merges back into the physical and etheric bodies, physical objects come into view once more. What was it like in the early Atlantean period? Let us consider that moment in the morning when a person merged back into the physical and etheric bodies. Back then, they did not have a physical world around them like the one we have today. All the objects of today that you see with clear boundaries—you would have seen them as if surrounded by an aura, with colored halos, completely blurred, just as you cannot see the streetlights clearly in a thick evening fog, but instead see such colored halos around the lights of the streetlamps. That is how it was in ancient Atlantis. All objects were seen only blurrily, without the boundaries and surfaces we have today; everything was as if shrouded in misty colors. Only gradually did the concept of a definite boundary emerge. If we had had a rose in front of us, in the early days of ancient Atlantis we would have seen a misty form rising, with a rose-red circle in the center, and only gradually would the outer colors have spread, as it were, across the surface. Objects did not acquire clear outlines until later.

[ 24 ] So you see, the physical environment is now quite different from what it was in ancient Atlantis. It was also different when, in the evening, you stepped out of your physical body and, let’s say, fell asleep. Actually, it wasn’t really falling asleep in the modern sense. However, the entire world of misty physical forms remained beneath you, while a spiritual world opened up. Without fixed boundaries, you immersed yourself in a spiritual world. The spiritual beings were your fellow inhabitants. Thus, day and night alternated with one another in the early Atlantean period. When a person immersed themselves in their physical body, they had only indistinct, blurred images of the physical world; but when they left their physical body at night, they had the opportunity—albeit somewhat hazily—to live spiritually among spirits, to walk among spirits. And above all, human emotional life was also different in the ancient Atlantean era. If you, let’s say, had stepped out of the innermost part of your physical and etheric bodies, you would not have felt fatigue, nor would you have had a need for rest. Nor would you have found rest; you had to enter the spiritual world, for that was the sphere of activity. When morning came, however, you felt the need for rest, and then you sought out, so to speak, your bed, which was your own body. There you lay quietly. You retreated into your own body and rested precisely during the day.

[ 25 ] In the early days of Atlantis, things were quite different from how they are now. The Atlantean era unfolds in such a way that human beings gradually transition from completely opposite states into the later ones. They make this transition to the extent that their etheric body is increasingly driven into the physical body. In the last third of the Atlantean era, the etheric body was driven into the physical body. Before this event, human beings felt themselves to be watchers in the spiritual world above. But as such, they did not say “I” to themselves; they lacked self-consciousness. When he stepped out of his physical and etheric bodies to enter the brightness of the night, he truly felt himself to be a member of the spiritual realm that existed above; he felt, so to speak, sheltered within his old group soul. Each time, the night around him grew bright, yet he felt dependent on others. Just as our fingers belong to our “I,” so did human beings feel they belonged to the group souls that are perceived clairvoyantly as depicted in the four heads of the lion, the ox, the eagle, and the man in the Book of Revelation. Human beings felt as though they were transported into one of these group souls. And only when he was within the shell of his physical body did he feel that he possessed something of his own. For the fact that human beings became independent beings stemmed from their ability to enclose themselves within their bodies. However, they had to pay for this enclosure within their bodies by the spiritual world gradually darkening for them, withdrawing from them entirely. In return, however, the world he saw below became ever brighter and clearer when he was in his physical body. Thus it dawned on him more and more that he was an “I,” that he possessed self-consciousness within himself. He learned to say “I” to himself.

[ 26 ] If we want to describe what happened back then, we can imagine the human being, as it were, crawling out of the shell of his physical body and into the spiritual world. There he finds himself among spiritual-divine beings. There, his name—that which he is—resounds to him from without. To one group resounds the word that, in the original language, was the word for that group; to the other, the word for the other group. Human beings could not name themselves from within; they had to receive their names as they were resounded to them from without. As they crawled out of their physical shells, they knew what they were because it was called into their souls. Now that he learned to perceive his physical surroundings within his body, he learned to feel himself as an “I”; he learned to feel within himself the divine power that had previously been proclaimed to him from without. He learned to feel God within himself. The one who was closest to him—this God, who at the same time signified his “I”—he called Yahweh; he was the guide of the “I.” At first, human beings felt the power of this God merge with their “I.”

[ 27 ] This was connected to external events. When the ancient Atlantean immersed himself in this way in his physical body, he probably also looked out into the sky, and there, as mentioned, he did not see a real rainbow, but something like a circle of color formed where the sun would later rise. The sun’s power had not yet broken through, but it was already working through the mist. Hindered and held back by the mist, its power was still acting upon the earth. It emerged more and more, so that everything that has been described—this dawning of outer consciousness—was linked to the sun’s emergence from the mist. What was up above—where the six other spirits who, together with Yahweh, were to guide the Earth’s development had their abode—gradually emerged and shone down upon the Earth through its deeds.

[ 28 ] What had happened to humankind? In the past, when a person had stepped out of their body—when, so to speak, it was night—they had, in terms of their true soul and spirit, entered an inner, astral brightness for which the outer sun was not necessary. This brightness surrounded them. It was the same light emanating from powerful spiritual beings that later shone down physically from the sun. As he increasingly confined himself within his physical consciousness, the gateway to inner vision was closed. Darkness surrounded him when, at night, he left his physical and etheric bodies and entered the spiritual world. To the same extent that he shut himself off, the outer light rose, representing the deeds of the spiritual beings of the sun. The light of the spiritual beings shone outward onto the Earth. Human beings prepared themselves to regard the outer light as something material. The light shone into their now-darkened inner being, but at first the light was not comprehended by their darkness.

[ 29 ] This is a world-historical, cosmic process. At that time, humanity earned its self-awareness through spiritual darkness. Thus, humanity emerged from the light of the group soul. But it was only the very first dawn of individuality. It took a long, long time before individuality truly took hold of humankind. The final Atlantean epoch came to an end; the flood swept in. The post-Atlantean epoch began, and the ancient Indian culture faded away. Self-consciousness had not yet flourished. Then came the Persian and the Egyptian-Babylonian epochs. Humanity matured more and more toward developing self-consciousness within itself. Finally, the fourth epoch arrived. Then something of immense importance took place, for which the events that had preceded it had served as preparation.

[ 30 ] Imagine yourself lifted away from Earth to a distant star, endowed with clairvoyant vision, and looking down upon Earth from that distant star. There you would see that this Earth, as a physical body, is indeed nothing more than a physical body, and that it possesses an etheric body and an astral body, just as a human being does. The Earth possesses all of this as well. You would see the Earth surrounded by its aura, and from that star you would be able to trace the development of the Earth’s aura over millennia; you would see this Earth enveloped by all manner of colors: at the center, the physical core, and flowing around it, the aura in various forms and colors, with the most diverse formations within this spiritual atmosphere of the Earth. You would see these colors and forms change in manifold ways over the course of millennia, but a moment would come—a moment of great importance—when the entire aura would take on a different form and color. The Earth would appear in a new light, at first when viewed from the outside. And this happens with tremendous speed, so that one must say: From this moment on, a fundamental transformation has taken place with the Earth; the Earth’s aura has been completely transformed. — What moment is this? It is the moment when, on Golgotha, blood flowed from the Saviour’s wounds. This moment is a most important one—the most important moment in the entire development of the Earth. The moment when the blood flows from the Saviour’s wounds is the very same moment when the Earth’s aura is reshaped. A completely new force enters—that force which is the most important impulse for the Earth’s development, for which everything we have seen so far was merely a preparation.

[ 31 ] To a chemist, the blood on Golgotha is no different from any other blood. But this blood is something entirely different. It means that the material substance of the blood flows down to the earth, and that the spirit corresponding to the blood fills the earth’s aura with new impulses and new forces that are significant for the future development of humanity. From there, the forces radiate out, transforming the earth; from there, they radiate through human beings. Only a small part of what flowed in at that moment has been fulfilled to this day. More and more, people will learn to understand what the Earth has become through that moment on Golgotha, and what the human being can become in the consciousness that he has attained in the manner described since the time of Atlantis.

[ 32 ] What, then, has humanity achieved since the time of Atlantis? Two things: self-awareness and the ability to perceive the external world. What was once open to them—the spiritual world—has now closed off from them. Truly, those early humans saw what later myths recount: Wotan—Mercury, Jupiter—Zeus—they saw all these figures at night. They were right there among them at night. The gate to these spiritual beings has closed. In exchange, humankind has conquered the modern world around them. The spirits have receded from their sight. Everything they were once able to see has receded. In the past, he saw the divine when he slipped out of the shell of his physical body; now he had to see the divine within the body if it was to appear before him. This means nothing other than that we must conceive of the divine in a bodily, visible form, because human consciousness had become such that it was oriented toward physical perception. That is why the Divine itself had to assume a physical form. That is why, at one point in the course of evolution, the Divine appeared in a physical body. It had to appear in this way because humanity had advanced to this stage of perception. It had to be presented to human perception in this way so that people could understand it. And all the events that had previously occurred for other stages of development had to converge in that greatest event in Earth’s evolution, which will shed light on the entire future that we shall now unveil from the Apocalypse: in that event which, physically speaking, appears as drops of blood streaming down to the Earth; which, when perceived clairvoyantly, appears as something rising up that transforms the Earth’s aura. The force that flowed in there will interact with the Earth into the distant future. Thus, something new had been instilled into the Earth soul, the spirit of the entire Earth. What the Christ principle is became united with the Earth at that time, and the Earth became the body of this Christ principle, so that the saying is literally true: “Whoever eats my bread tramples me underfoot.” When a human being eats the bread of the Earth, he eats the: body of the Earth, and that is the body of the Earth Spirit, which has been united with the Earth as the Christ Spirit ever since that event on Golgotha. And human beings walk upon this earthly body; they trample this body underfoot. Everything is to be understood literally, once we give ourselves the opportunity to grasp the wording in its true sense.

[ 33 ] For someone like the author of the Gospel of John, everything he knew—everything he could perceive through clairvoyant vision—became an impetus to understand the greatest event in the history of the Earth. Regarding what he could learn through clairvoyance, he told himself: I must use it to understand the figure of Christ and its effect. — The author of the Apocalypse was inclined to use all of esoteric science to explain the event of Golgotha. He wanted to see nothing else in what he could learn through esoteric science but a wisdom that would serve to understand this event, which he has so magnificently set before our souls and which we shall see what it has become for him.