The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Eighth Lecture

[ 1 ] Although it has already been repeatedly stated that our seven cultural stages will come to an end through a war of all against all, we must actually imagine such a war of all against all quite differently from how we have been accustomed to imagining wars up to now. We need only consider what the foundation, the actual cause, of this war is. This foundation or cause is the prevalence of selfishness, self-centeredness, and the “I” in human beings. And we have now progressed so far in our reflections that we have seen what a double-edged, sharp sword this human “I” is. Anyone who does not grasp that this “I” is a double-edged sword will hardly understand the full meaning of human and world evolution. On the one hand, this “I” is the cause of people hardening within themselves, of their desire to bring everything at their disposal—whether external things or inner goods—into the service of this “I” of theirs. It is this “I” that causes all human desires to be directed toward satisfying this “I” as such. The way this “I” strives to appropriate a portion of the earth’s shared possessions as its own property, the way this “I” strives to drive all other “I’s” out of its territory, to wage war against them, to fight them—that is one side of the “I.” But on the other hand, we must not forget that this “I” is at the same time that which gives human beings their independence, their inner freedom—that which elevates human beings in the truest sense of the word. Their dignity is grounded in this “I.” It is the seed of the divine within human beings.

[ 2 ] This concept of the “I” poses a difficulty for many people. It has become clear to us that the human “I” developed out of a group-soul nature, out of a kind of all-encompassing “All-I,” from which it differentiated itself. It would be wrong for a person to once again feel the desire to merge their “I” into some kind of universal consciousness, some kind of collective consciousness. Anything that causes a person to strive to lose their “I” and merge it into a universal consciousness is a product of weakness. Only the one who knows that, having attained this “I” in the course of cosmic evolution, it is now imperishable truly understands the “I”; and above all, if a person understands the world mission, they must strive for the strong power to make this “I” ever more inner, ever more divine. True anthroposophists have nothing in common with that rhetoric that repeatedly emphasizes the dissolution of the “I” into a universal “I,” the merging into some primordial mass. The true anthroposophical worldview can only set as its ultimate goal the community of “I’s” that have become independent and free—the “I’s” that have become individual. This is precisely the mission of the Earth, expressed through love: that the “I” learns to stand freely before the “I.” No love is perfect if it arises from compulsion or from being chained together. Only when every “I” is so free and independent that it is not even compelled to love is its love a completely free gift. This is, so to speak, the divine plan for the world: to make this “I” so independent that, out of freedom, it can offer love to God itself as an individual being. It would mean leading people by the strings of dependence if they could somehow be compelled to love, even in the most remote sense.

[ 3 ] Thus, the “I” will be the pledge of humanity’s highest goal. But at the same time, if it does not find love, if it hardens within itself, it becomes the tempter that plunges humanity into the abyss. Then it is that which separates people from one another, that which calls them to the great war of all against all—not merely the war of nations against nations (for the concept of “nation” will then no longer have the meaning it has today)—but to the war of the individual against the individual in the most diverse spheres of life, to the war of social classes against social classes, of caste against caste, of gender against gender. In all spheres of life, therefore, the “I” will become a bone of contention, and hence we may say that the “I” can lead, on the one hand, to the highest and, on the other, to the lowest. That is why it is a sharp, double-edged sword. And the one who brought full self-consciousness to humanity—Jesus Christ—is, as we have seen, symbolically and rightly depicted in our Book of Revelation as the one who holds the sharp, double-edged sword in his mouth.

[ 4 ] We have, in fact, presented it as a great achievement of humanity that it was able to ascend to this concept of the free “I” precisely through Christianity. Jesus Christ brought this “I” to its fullest expression. Therefore, this “I” must be expressed precisely through the sharp, double-edged sword that you recognize from one of our seals. And the fact that this sharp, double-edged sword comes from the mouth of the Son of Man is understandable, for when human beings learned to articulate the “I” with full consciousness, they were given the ability to ascend to the highest heights and sink down to the deepest depths. The sharp, double-edged sword is one of the most important symbols we encounter in the Book of Revelation. (First Seal.)

[ 5 ] Now that we are clear about what was revealed to us at the end of the last meditation—namely, that our present culture will be followed by the one characterized in the Epistles by the city of Philadelphia—we must first and foremost bear in mind that from this sixth cultural stage, those human souls will be taken who are to pass over into the following age. For, after the war of all against all—as we have often emphasized—what is being prepared in the souls of people in our time will indeed find its expression in their faces. The so-called seventh cultural stage will be of very little importance. We are therefore living in the fifth cultural epoch; this will be followed by the sixth, from which will emerge a number of people fully attuned to the spiritual world, imbued with that spirit of brotherly love that flows directly from spiritual knowledge. The ripest fruit of our present culture will appear in this sixth epoch. And what follows will be that which is lukewarm—neither warm nor cold. What follows as the seventh stage is, so to speak, something like an overripe fruit in the entire cultural context—something that survives the great war of all against all but contains no principle of progress within itself.

[ 6 ] That is exactly how it was when our culture first emerged. Let us think back to the time before the Atlantic Flood. We have said: It was during the last third of the Atlantic period—which humanity lived through on the land that is now covered by the Atlantic Ocean—that a small group formed near what is now Ireland, a group that had reached the highest cultural level of Atlantis and then set out toward the east, from where all later cultures originated. Let us really take this in: let us picture that patch of land—which today forms the sea to the west of Ireland—and from there, let us imagine a stream of people migrating eastward, from which numerous tribes set out to populate Europe. The entire European population traces its origins to that source. The most gifted portion of the Atlanteans migrated to Central Asia; from there, the various cultures we have described spread all the way to us. So you see that our present-day culture has its origins in a small group of Atlanteans.

[ 7 ] But this Atlantean culture, too, had seven successive stages, just as our culture has seven stages, which we know as the ancient Indian, ancient Persian, Assyrian-Babylonian-Chaldean-Egyptian-Jewish, the Greek-Latin, our own, and two others. And it was during the fifth stage of the Atlantean culture that this migration began, so that the most select population of ancient Atlantis—which forms the foundation of our culture—was drawn from the fifth Atlantean race—in Atlantis we may speak of races. A sixth and a seventh race followed. These were, so to speak, the lukewarm races. They, too, survived the great flood, but there was no vibrant, sprouting life force within them. Their relationship to the fifth culture was roughly the same as that of bark—which has become woody and hardened—to a succulent stem. Thus, the two races that followed the original ancestral race were incapable of further development; they were, so to speak, overripe.

[ 8 ] Even today, one can still see remnants of these ancient, overripe races, particularly among the Chinese people. The Chinese people are characterized by the fact that they did not align themselves with what had been revealed in the fifth race, the ancestral race. It was at that time, when the etheric body entered the physical body, that human beings first received the capacity to say “I.” They had missed this period. They had, however, thereby developed that high culture which is well known, but which was not capable of further development. The fifth Atlantean race sent its cultural bearers everywhere, and they created new, ever-improving, and growing folk cultures. Yes, it all grows, from ancient Indian culture to our own. The sixth and seventh races of Atlantis had become rigid and had therefore reached a stationary state. As I said, Chinese culture is a remnant of this. It cannot break free from itself. It had inherited a wonderful ancient Atlantean legacy in ancient Chinese culture, but it could not move beyond its zenith. Nothing remains unaffected by the other. Consider ancient Chinese literature: it has been influenced from all directions, yet its fundamental character clearly reveals the Atlantean nature. This self-contained nature, this inventing and sticking to what has been done—never being able to take it beyond a certain level—all of this still stems from the character of Atlantis.

[ 9 ] Just as it was in those days with the fifth race—which produced those capable of spiritual development—and with the sixth and seventh races—which fell into decline—so it will be in our time as well. At present, we still live with a deep longing for the sixth culture—that which must be described as arising from the spiritual union between the West and the East. There, the sixth cultural stage will be the foundation for what will emerge as new cultures after the great war of all against all, just as our cultures emerged after the Atlantean era. In contrast, the seventh cultural stage will be represented by the lukewarm. This seventh stage will carry over into the new era just as the sixth and seventh races of the Atlantean era carried over into our own epoch as hardened and ossified races. After the war of all against all, there will be two currents among humanity: on the one hand, the current of Philadelphia, with its principles of progress, inner freedom, and brotherly love—a small remnant composed of all tribes and nations—and on the other hand, the great mass of those who will be lukewarm, the remnants of those who are lukewarm now, the current of Laodicea. And after the great war of all against all, the task will be to gradually lead the evil current over to the good through the good race, through the good current. This will be one of the main tasks after the great war of all against all: to save what can be saved from those who, after the great war, will have only the desire to fight one another, to let the “I” run rampant in extreme selfishness. Within the sphere of occultism, provision is always made in the world for all such things.

[ 10 ] Do not regard this as a harsh aspect of the plan of creation, nor as something that could be used to argue against the plan of creation—namely, that humanity will be divided into those on the right and those on the left—but rather regard it as something that is supremely wise within the plan of creation. For consider this: it is precisely because evil is thus separated from good that good will retain its primary strength in goodness itself; for after the great war of all against all, good will have to make every possible effort to draw the wicked back over to its side during the period when it is still possible to do so. This will not be an educational task as educational tasks are today, but occult forces will be at work, for in this coming great period, people will know how to set occult forces in motion. The good will have the task of influencing their fellow human beings who belong to the evil current. And all of this is being prepared within the occult world currents. Yet it is the deepest of all occult world currents that is understood the least. The cosmic current that is preparing this says the following to its disciples: People speak of good and evil, yet they do not know that it is necessary in the cosmic plan for evil to reach its peak, so that those who must overcome this evil may, precisely in the act of overcoming it, use their strength in such a way that an even greater good emerges. — But the most chosen of people must be prepared to survive the age of the great war of all against all, in which they will face people whose faces bear the signs of evil; they must be prepared for the fact that as much good force as possible must flow into humanity. It will still be possible for bodies that are, to a certain degree, weak to be transformed after the great war of all against all by the converted souls—by those souls who are still being led toward the good during this final period. Much will be achieved through this. The good would not be such a great good if it did not grow in this way through the overcoming of evil. Love would not be so intense if it did not have to become such a great love in order to overcome even the ugliness in the faces of evil people. This is already being prepared in advance, and the students are told: Therefore, you must not believe that evil is not grounded in the Creator’s plan. It is part of that plan so that, through it, the great good may one day come to be.

[ 11 ] Those whose souls are prepared through such teachings so that they may one day fulfill this great educational task are the disciples of the spiritual movement known as Manichaeism. The Manichaean movement is usually misunderstood. Whenever you hear or read anything about it, what you hear is mere rhetoric. It is said that the Manichaeans believed there had been two principles—good and evil—from the beginning of the world. This is not the case; rather, it is the teaching that has just been explained to you. This teaching and its application for the future—along with the disciples who are being guided so that they may fulfill such a task in future incarnations—is what is meant by the term “Manichaeism.” Manes is that exalted individuality who has incarnated on Earth time and time again, who is the guiding spirit of those who are here to convert the forces of evil. When we speak of the great leaders of humanity, we must also remember this individuality, which has set itself this task. Although in the present this principle of Manes has had to recede very much into the background—because there is little understanding of spiritualism—this wonderfully glorious Manichaean principle will win over more and more disciples the more we move toward an understanding of spiritual life.

[ 12 ] Thus you can see how present-day humanity will survive into the new, later era beyond the war of all against all, just as that ancestral race of the Atlanteans survived into our time and laid the foundations of our culture. In seven successive stages, humanity will unfold after the great war of all against all. And we have already seen how what is said about the unsealing of the seven seals in the Apocalypse of John reveals to us the character of the successive seven root cultures—the seven cultural stages following the great war. Then, when this culture—which modern humanity can perceive only as an initiate in the astral world and through its symbolism—has run its course, a new period in Earth’s evolution will begin, in which new forms will once again emerge. And this new period, which follows the one just described, is symbolized for us in the Book of Revelation by the seven trumpet blasts. Just as the culture following the great war of all against all is characterized by the seven seals—because the seer can perceive it today only from the astral world—so, for the same reason, the cultural stage that follows it is characterized by the sounds of the trumpets, because human beings can perceive it only from the truly spiritual world, where the sounds of the spheres resound. Just as human beings perceive the world in images and symbols on the astral plane, so do they perceive the world in Devachan through the inspiring music of the spheres; and in this Devachan lies, so to speak, the pinnacle of what will be revealed following the great war of all against all.

[ 13 ] So, to illustrate this once more, in the diagram shown here we have our seven cultural stages along the line a-b, such that we have ancient Indian culture as the first, ancient Persian as the second, the Assyrian-Babylonian-Chaldean-Egyptian-Jewish culture as the third, the Greek-Latin culture as the fourth, and our own as the fifth cultural stage of the post-Atlantean era. Line IV would represent the Atlantean era, a the great flood that brought it to an end, and b the great war of all against all. This is followed by a seven-stage culture (VI), represented by the seven seals, and then by another seven-stage culture, represented by the seven trumpets. This marks the very limit of our physical earthly evolution.

[ 14 ] Now, the Atlantic culture—the culture that preceded our own—was itself preceded by other cultural stages. For our own culture, which follows the Atlantic one, is already the fifth cultural stage on our Earth. It is preceded by four cultural stages. However, we can hardly call the first one a cultural stage. There, everything is still finely ethereal and spiritual; everything is still such that, had it continued to develop in that way, it would never have become visible to the sensory organs of our kind. The first cultural stage developed when not even the Sun had yet moved away from the Earth. Conditions were entirely different then; one cannot speak of anything that resembled our present reality. This was followed by a period characterized by the Sun’s departure, and then by one characterized by the Moon’s emergence from the Earth. This is the third stage, which we call the ancient Lemurian era. It was then that modern humans first appeared on our Earth in their very earliest stages—of which I have hinted to you that their physical forms were so grotesque that you would be shocked if they were described to you. This Lemurian era was followed by the Atlantean era and finally by our own.

[ 15 ] So you see that we have seven cultural stages on our Earth, seven periods of the Earth’s evolution. We look back on two of them as being completely unlike our own time; on a third, which took place in part in a region between present-day Africa, Asia, and Australia—in ancient Lemuria. There, in turn, was a small group among the people of that time that comprised the most advanced individuals. This group was the very last of the races. Thus, the very last of the Lemurian races had a small handful of people who were able to emigrate and who subsequently founded the seven races of the Atlanteans. The last of the Lemurian races founded the Atlantean races. The fifth of the Atlantean races founded our culture. The sixth of the future cultures will establish the culture to come after the great war of all against all, and the very last of these cultures will be the one foretold by the seven trumpets.

[ 16 ] And after this culture, what will happen then? By then, our Earth will have reached the end of its physical development. By then, all things and beings on our Earth will have been transformed. For if we must already say that in the sixth period human beings will bear their good and their evil upon their faces, then we must say all the more of that seventh period that human beings in their form—and all beings in their form—will be an expression of good and evil to a much greater degree than in the sixth period. Everything that is matter will bear the stamp of the spirit. Nothing—absolutely nothing—in this seventh period will be such that it could be concealed in any way. Even for the inhabitants of the sixth period, it is already impossible to conceal anything from one who has the insight to see it. The evil one will express evil, the good one, goodness. But in the seventh period, it will not even be possible to conceal what is in the soul through language. A thought will no longer be a silent thought that can be hidden. When the soul thinks, it will also let the thought resound outwardly. It will then be just as this thought already is today for the initiate. For the initiate, the thought resounds today in Devachan. But this Devachan will have descended into the physical world, just as the astral world will have descended into the physical world in the sixth period. Even today, the sixth period can be found in the astral world, and the seventh in the heavenly world. The sixth period is the descended astral world—that is, its images, expressions, and manifestations. The seventh will be the descended heavenly world, the expression of the same. And then the Earth will have reached the goal of its physical development.

[ 17 ] Then the Earth transforms into an astral celestial body. Everything on Earth that exists as a being transforms into an astral celestial body. Physical substance ceases to exist as physical substance; that part of it which has by then found the opportunity to spiritualize passes over into the spirit, into astral substance. So consider this: All those beings on Earth who have by then found the opportunity to express, in their outer material form, the good, the noble, the intellectual, the beautiful—those who will bear the image of Christ Jesus in their countenance, who will express Christ Jesus in their words, who will resound as resonant thoughts—all of these will have the power to dissolve the physical matter within them, just as lukewarm water dissolves salt. All that is physical will pass into an astral sphere. But that which, by then, has not yet attained the point of being an expression of the noble, the beautiful, the intellectual, and the good in the material and the physical will not have the power to dissolve matter. For that, the matter will remain; it will solidify into matter; it will retain its material form. At this stage of the Earth’s evolution, an ascent into the spiritual realm will take place, involving all beings who will live in this astral realm and who will separate from themselves another material sphere—a sphere that will contain those beings who are unfit for the ascent because they cannot dissolve the material.

[ 18 ] This is how our Earth will move toward its future. This is how its matter will become increasingly refined as the soul gradually refines this matter from within, until it gains the power to dissolve it. Then the time will come when that which cannot be dissolved will be expelled into a special world sphere. Seven periods will pass while that which has hardened within matter is driven out, and the force that drives it out will be the opposite of the force that has propelled the good beings upward. What, then, will bring about the dissolution of matter? It is precisely the power of love, which is attained through the Christ principle. Beings will become capable of dissolving matter by absorbing love into their souls. The warmer the soul becomes through love, the more intensely it will be able to act upon the material realm. It will spiritualize the entire Earth, astralize it, and transform it into an astral sphere. But just as “love dissolves matter as lukewarm water dissolves salt,” so the opposite of love will push down—again through seven stages—everything that has not become capable of fulfilling this earthly mission.

[ 19 ] The opposite of divine love is called divine wrath. That is the technical term. Just as this love has become imprinted during the course of humanity’s fourth cultural stage, and just as it grows warmer and warmer through the final cultural stages of our time—the sixth and seventh—so, on the other hand, that which hardens matter around itself grows: divine wrath. And this activity of divine wrath—this repulsion of matter—is hinted at to us in the Book of Revelation through the pouring out of the seven bowls of divine wrath. Imagine how the whole thing will be, so to speak, figuratively: The Earth will become ever finer and finer in its matter, and human beings will also become ever more spiritual in their matter, and the coarsest parts will be visible only within the fine substance, like shells—as, for example, reptiles shed them or snails do. Thus, the hard parts will become more and more integrated into the refining matter. In the final period—the period of the trumpet blasts—you would already be able to see with clairvoyant eyes how human beings consist of subtle bodies, of spiritualized bodies, and how those who have hardened the material principle within themselves—who have retained within themselves what today are the most important constituents of matter— and how these will fall away like husks into this material sphere, which will remain as a remnant after this period signaled by the sounds of the trumpets.

[ 20 ] This is what the Apocalypse of John presents to us as a prophecy. And it is important that we empathize with this prophecy with our soul, so that it may inspire our will. For what will humanity have made of itself by the time this sixth and seventh period have passed? What will humanity have made of its body by then? When we look at the human body now, it is not yet an expression of the inner soul. But more and more, the body will become an expression of what the soul experiences within itself. Through this, the outer physical form will become an expression of the good, so that humanity may receive the highest message, the highest teaching that exists on this Earth—and this highest of teachings is the message of Christ Jesus on Earth. The highest thing that can be given to us is the message of Christ Jesus. Indeed, we must receive it—and not merely with the intellect. We must receive it into our innermost being, just as one receives nourishment into the physical body. And as humanity evolves through this stage of cultural development, it will increasingly take the good news into its inner being, and it will have to regard the reception of the message of love as the very result of its earthly mission. The Gospels, the “Book,” contain the power of love—all the power of love. And the seer can say nothing other than: I see in spirit a time ahead of me when what is in the Gospel will no longer be in a book out there, but will be absorbed by human beings themselves.

[ 21 ] The evolution of our Earth is based on two things. Our Earth was preceded by what we call the Cosmos of Wisdom, and that was preceded by what we call—the word doesn’t say much, of course, but we must use it because it has become commonplace—the Cosmos of Strength, of Power. Wisdom and strength are what the Earth has inherited from earlier stages of development, from the old Moon and the old Sun. We shall see how this is also expressed within our Earth’s evolution by the fact that we name the first half of Earth’s evolution after the representative of solar power, Mars. For now we need only consider that within our Earth’s evolution, we have in Mars that which implanted iron into the Earth. We see in Mars the bringer of strength. And in that which governs the second half of Earth’s evolution, we have the representative of the old lunar evolution, Mercury, which incorporates into the Earth the Moon’s ancient legacy: wisdom. Thus, Earth’s evolution is composed of Mars- and Mercury-based development. It has inherited two strong, mighty forces. What it has inherited from the cosmos of strength is expressed in Mars, and what it has inherited from the cosmos of wisdom is expressed in Mercury. The Earth itself is to bring forth love through its mission. This love is to reveal itself gloriously as the result of Earth’s evolution. This is a very profound thought of the Apocalyptic writer. It is the profound thought that, moreover, ties in with the rest of Earth’s evolution. (See the image of the fourth seal.)

[ 22 ] Once again, join me in traveling back to the earliest Atlantean era—that time we spoke of when the air was still permeated with water. Human beings were still adapted to life in water. It was not until the middle of the Atlantean epoch that they had advanced far enough to break free from the water and set foot on solid ground. Up until the time when the Earth was in the middle of its development, we must regard water as the medium of human development just as much as we later regard solid earth. Solid earth, so to speak, only became the stage for human life relatively late. It is only half true to speak of the whole of Atlantis as if it were dry land. In many respects, it was not covered by the sea, but by a sort of intermediate state—such as air densely filled with water—and this water-air belonged to the element in which humankind lived. Only later did humankind become capable of living in the open air and standing on solid ground. This was, relatively speaking, not so long ago. So when we survey the Earth’s evolution, we can say, symbolically speaking: On one side we have the Earth, and on the other side we have water. That is the earlier period. And from the water emerges one of the forces up to the first half of evolution, and from the Earth emerges the other of the forces. Up to the middle of the fourth period, we speak of the forces of Mars—the forces provided, so to speak, by the water—and we speak of the forces of Mercury in the later period, when the solid earth provides the supporting forces. This fits quite well with the idea that human beings are supported throughout their entire earthly mission by two pillars—those two pillars that you saw symbolically in the hall at the Munich Congress. These two pillars represent the two parts of the earthly mission, the two legacies that human beings have inherited from earlier times. And above them is symbolized that which is to be achieved through the Earth itself: love, living itself out, revealing itself in all its glory, supported by these legacies.

[ 23 ] This is indeed how the apocalyptic writer describes it—as it appears to the person who ascends into spiritual realms. That is why what confronts us when we look beyond the Earth—what confronts us at the moment when the substance of the Earth dissolves its matter into the spiritual—is symbolically represented by what we see in the fourth seal. Of course, it must now appear in reverse, because it represents the future. We see the two forces that the Earth has inherited from the cosmos—wisdom and strength— and everything that manifests as the fulfillment of the Earth’s mission appears to us as the power of love that humanity cultivates; and the whole appears to us as the personification of the human being of the future, so that the human being of the future, supported by these two forces and permeated by this power of love, symbolically confronts us here. The message of love—the book he holds before him—is a book that not only exerts an influence from the outside but one that he is to devour. There we see set before us the mighty image that appears to us here. “And I saw another angel of power”—that is, a being depicted in this way because it already stands above modern humanity—“coming down from the spiritual spheres,” as the seer sees it, “clothed in a cloud, and his face was like the sun, and his feet like pillars, pillars of fire.” These are the two forces we have spoken of, which the Earth has received as an inheritance. “And he had a little book open in his hand; and he set his right foot on the sea and his left on the earth.” And John said to the angel, “Give me the little book.” “And he said to me, ‘Take it and eat it; and it will make your stomach churn, but in your mouth it will be sweet as honey.’ — And I took the little book from the angel’s hand and ate it; and it was sweet in my mouth as honey.”

[ 24 ] Here we have what must be revealed to us as the sensation that arises in the seer when he directs his gaze to the point where the Earth transitions from the physical-material to the astral-spiritual, where the Earth’s mission is fulfilled. And when the seer sees this, he learns what is truly connected to this message of love, which entered as an impulse on the fourth stage of civilization: he learns already in this present life, just as the apocalyptic writer learned, what bliss is and what can be set before humanity as bliss. But he learns it precisely in his present body; for even if a being of the highest order were to wish to live among human beings, it would have to incarnate in the flesh. And in many respects, the present body—precisely because it offers the spirit the possibility of ascending to great heights—also offers the possibility of suffering. Thus, while the soul of the seer—as described by the apocalyptic writer—can ascend into spiritual realms to receive the Gospel of love and can experience bliss in the spirit as sweet as honey, the seer nevertheless lives in a present-day body; and accordingly, he must express that the ascent within this present-day body evokes, in many respects, the opposite of that bliss. He expresses this by saying that the little book, even though it was as sweet as honey when he swallowed it, causes him fierce pains in his stomach. But this is only a faint reflection of what it means to be “crucified in the body.” The higher the spirit ascends, the more difficult it becomes for it to dwell in the body. And this is, first and foremost, the symbolic expression for these pains: “To be crucified in the body.”

[ 25 ] We have thus outlined in broad strokes what will happen in the course of Earth’s evolution and what lies ahead for humanity in this process. We have reached the point where humanity will be transformed—transformed into the astral realm—where the Earth, in its finest parts, will cease to exist as the physical Earth and pass into the spiritual realm, and where only a separate portion will be cast into the abyss by divine wrath. And we will see that even then the final stage has not yet been reached—from which salvation would be impossible—even though that which asserts itself in the abyss is characterized by the most terrible symbols: the seven-headed and ten-horned beast and the two-horned beast.