The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Tenth Lecture

[ 1 ] We have seen that the Book of Revelation contains a description of the initiation rites—or perhaps it would be better to say, the initiation experiences—of the Christian initiate. Now that we have allowed the entire content of the Book of Revelation to pass before our souls in the last few lectures, we still have to answer the question: What, historically speaking, is this document? Why does it exist as such a document? — But now that we have reached that important point which was revealed to us last time—the transition of our Earth into a spiritual, and initially astral, state; the appearance of certain remarkable beings within what has thus condensed in matter and split off from the normal course of our Earth’s evolution— now it will be good, before we proceed further, to gain, so to speak, a kind of general overview of certain things that lie at the foundation of our anthroposophical worldview. For you have seen that in everything we have been considering, certain numerical concepts play a role. And now we are about to form a concept of what the seven-headed, ten-horned beast is and what the two-horned beast is.

[ 2 ] We need to get a sense of the outline of world evolution. For it proceeds entirely in accordance with very specific numerical relationships. The layperson, unfamiliar with such matters, will very easily say, upon hearing that the number seven and other numbers play such a major role in our considerations: “Well, these anthroposophists are just reviving that old superstition tied to the number seven, the number twelve, and the like.” — And as soon as our dear contemporaries hear of something that progresses in a regular pattern based on the number seven, they speak of superstition, even though these very contemporaries of ours actually live in exactly the same superstition with regard to the things they understand, for our contemporaries speak, for example, of the rainbow having seven colors and the musical scale having seven notes, since the eighth is merely a repetition of the fundamental. And in many other fields as well, people speak of the number seven—and rightly so. In no other sense than the physicist does when he speaks of the seven colors, and just as one speaks in music theory of the seven notes, so do we speak of the number seven when we consider the great cosmic relationships. The number seven is, in this context, nothing other than a result of occult experience. Just as a person stands and counts the seven colors, so the occultist counts seven successive stages of world evolution. And because the wisdom of the world has always known and spoken of these things, this entered into the general consciousness, and people found something particularly significant in the number seven. Precisely because the number seven was grounded, for example, in cosmic relationships, it became part of popular belief—and, of course, superstition as well.

[ 3 ] If we recall what we have said about the mystery of the seven trumpets, the seven seals, and the seven epistles, and what we have said about the seven successive periods of the Atlantean era, we can already see that, in the course of world evolution, we actually have continuous periods that repeat themselves in accordance with the number seven, and as a blueprint of world evolution, let us bear in mind that the number seven governs all aspects of world evolution.

[ 4 ] We have heard that the Earth, before it was the Earth, was the Moon; before it was the Moon, it was a solar planet; and before it was the Sun, it was Saturn. After it has been Earth, the Earth will transition into the Jupiter state, then into the Venus state, and finally into the Vulcan state, so that we have seven successive planetary incarnations of our Earth: Saturn, Sun, Moon, Earth, Jupiter, Venus, and Vulcan. These are the major phases within our entire evolution that we can oversee to a certain degree through clairvoyance. We have, of course, described the three states preceding that of Earth.

[ 5 ] Now let us be clear about what the purpose of this entire evolution is—why the Earth passes through these seven states. These seven states, in fact, coincide with the evolution of human consciousness. Each of these stages—Saturn, Sun, Moon, Earth, Jupiter, Venus, and Vulcan—characterizes a specific state of human consciousness. Let us look back to the ancient Saturn era. We know that what currently exists in human beings did not yet exist at that time; rather, there was only the very first rudiment of their physical body. Naturally, this earliest rudimentary form could not develop in human beings the kind of consciousness that humans possess today. Other beings possessed human consciousness; at that time, human beings had a consciousness similar to that which the mineral world possesses today here on the physical plane. We call this a deep trance-like consciousness. This is what the first human embryo possessed on Saturn. This Saturn development was undergone for the purpose of enabling human beings to gradually ascend to their higher states of consciousness. At that time, they went through the first stage. Thus, we have the Saturn development coinciding with the deep trance consciousness. This is the first stage of consciousness.

[ 6 ] Of course, you need not imagine that the level of consciousness remains the same throughout the entire Saturn evolution, but essentially, the level of human consciousness on Saturn can be characterized by a deep trance-like state. It is more dull than even what humans experience today in dreamless sleep, for in that state, humans today possess the consciousness they underwent on the second stage, during the Solar evolution. Thus, during the second stage, during the Solar evolution, humans underwent the consciousness of dreamless sleep. It is the same state of consciousness that the plant world around us possesses today on the physical plane.

[ 7 ] Then came the lunar stage of evolution. During this stage, human beings experienced a state of consciousness that is easier to understand, because in dream consciousness, people retain at least a faint remnant of this lunar consciousness. Today’s dream consciousness is, after all, an intermediate state between dreamless sleep and the ordinary, bright, waking daytime consciousness that lasts from morning to evening. Thus, the third state of consciousness was attained on the Moon, and it can be compared to today’s dream-filled sleep, but with a completely different vitality and liveliness. Dream-filled sleep produces a consciousness composed of individual fragments of imagination and images and has only a slight connection to the real external world. Lunar consciousness, which was a consciousness of dream images, had very significant connections to the external world. It corresponded exactly to what existed in the soul-spiritual environment. This was repeated during the Atlantean epoch of humanity. We call it “dream-image consciousness”; we could also call it “somnambulistic consciousness.”

[ 8 ] The fourth level of consciousness is attained and experienced here on Earth, and it is the level of consciousness we call “bright daytime consciousness” or “object consciousness.”

[ 9 ] People will ascend to a higher level of consciousness—one of which most people today have no idea—during the Age of Jupiter, once everything we have already described, and everything that remains to be described following the Apocalypse of John, has taken place. Then, when humanity has, so to speak, emerged saved from the abyss and escaped decay, when it has ascended into the astralized and spiritualized Earth, this will form the foundation for its attainment on Jupiter of the consciousness we may call “conscious image consciousness.” If one is to describe this, it can only be done from the perspective of the experiences of the initiated. For initiation is, after all, nothing other than the acquisition of the ability to achieve at an earlier stage of development what normal humanity achieves at a later stage. In conscious image-consciousness, the human being is just as self-aware as he is today from morning to evening, but he perceives not only external objects; rather, within the field of vision of his soul, he has images—images that are not associated with a certain dullness, but are instead embedded in bright daytime consciousness. Thus, bright daytime consciousness and lunar consciousness together constitute Jupiter consciousness. Human beings retain what they now possess and, in addition, acquire the ability to perceive the soul-spiritual realm.

[ 10 ] Today, the initiate not only sees a person as he or she is physically, but also perceives, surrounding the person and radiating from him or her, all manner of spiritual formations that are the expression of passions, instincts, and thoughts—in a word: the aura. It shines around and glows around the human being like delicate flames, and in part like a mist of light. Everything that can be seen in this way in the human astral body by the initiate—just as the physical body with its boundaries is seen by the ordinary physical eye—is a reflection of what is taking place in the soul. In such an initiated soul, there is a consciousness that we can describe as lunar consciousness plus earthly consciousness.

[ 11 ] Then, on Venus, a sixth state of consciousness arises, which we may describe as inspired consciousness—the consciousness of inspiration—because at this level of consciousness, the initiate is not merely able to perceive the soul’s feelings, drives, passions, and so on, but because he perceives the entire inner character of the soul in a unified tone. He begins to perceive that which permeates the world of, let us say, color and form structures like the music of the spheres, so that every single being within what was previously perceived as an astral image appears as a tonal structure. The seventh level of consciousness, which will be present on the volcano, we can call intuitive consciousness. Intuition is not that trivial concept commonly understood by that term today, where someone believes they can recognize something through a vague feeling; that is a misuse of the word. In the schools of initiation, intuition is applied to that conceivably highest level of consciousness where the soul is one with, and identical to, the entities; where it is within the entities and identifies with them. Although the soul remains completely individual, it is present within all the things and entities within its field of vision.

[ 12 ] Thus, the seven stages of this entire earthly evolution represent seven successive states of consciousness. Each state of consciousness, in turn, must be attained in seven stages. We call these seven stages—which must be passed through each time—stages of life, so that we distinguish between seven stages of consciousness and, within each stage of consciousness, seven stages of life. It is difficult to find words in our language for these seven stages of life. If we consider only our Earth, we can describe the stages of life by speaking of the seven kingdoms, for the stages of life on Earth coincide with the seven kingdoms. Thus, we designate the first stage of life as the first elemental kingdom, the second as the second, the third as the third elemental kingdom, the fourth as the mineral kingdom, the fifth as the plant kingdom, the sixth as the animal kingdom, and the seventh as the human kingdom. Now we could say: At each of these stages of consciousness, seven such stages of life are passed through or seven kingdoms are traversed. — But if we were to designate Saturn’s seven stages of life in the same way—as the first, second, and third elemental kingdoms, and as the mineral, plant, animal, and human kingdoms—this would only give rise to misconceptions, for the terms for these kingdoms are shaped by our earthly experiences, and in that ancient time, the kingdoms were structured quite differently from how the earthly kingdoms are today. We can only say: analogous to these kingdoms, there were seven kingdoms on Saturn and seven on the Sun. The seven realms of the Moon were already closer in nature, and what the seven stages of life on Earth are—that is precisely what the seven realms on Earth have become. And on Earth, we can describe them more easily, although it is extremely difficult today to give people a conception of the three elemental realms. People believe they have a clear understanding of the mineral, plant, animal, and human kingdoms, although that is not actually the case.

[ 13 ] Perhaps you will be able to form some sort of idea of the three elemental kingdoms if you consider the following. Imagine stones, metals, and so on—and picture these components of the mineral kingdom becoming finer and finer, so that you see them less and less, until they dissolve, so to speak, into an ever-finer form of substance. Suppose you were to let them all evaporate, so that they would essentially consist only of a very fine substance through which you could see, a substance that would no longer be visible to you. If such formations were brought to ever greater refinement, something would emerge that is ultimately no longer a mineral kingdom, but the third elemental kingdom. Then we would ascend to the second and first elemental kingdoms. It is difficult for today’s sensibilities to form concepts of these kingdoms, which are veiled and condensed within our world. For it is as if these elemental realms had, so to speak, disappeared into our world in a condensed form. They precede our mineral kingdom. We have, after all, seen when this mineral kingdom itself came into being. In earlier periods of Earth’s development, this mineral kingdom existed precisely in the state of the elemental realms.

[ 14 ] Now for the other four kingdoms. You can see the mineral kingdom all around you, as well as the plant, animal, and human kingdoms. But we must be clear that, in the true esoteric sense, these terms are not entirely accurate. The layperson regards today’s minerals as belonging to the mineral kingdom, plants as belonging to the plant kingdom, animals as belonging to the animal kingdom, and human beings as belonging to the human kingdom. While this is correct in layman’s terms—and is certainly sufficient for all the trivial matters of life—it is incorrect in the occult sense. For today, human beings are only fully realized within the mineral kingdom. Only in future periods of evolution will they ascend to the plant, animal, and human kingdoms. We can certainly call human beings “human” today because they possess an “I”-consciousness, but we cannot yet say that they are embodied in the human kingdom in the sense of esoteric science, for something else is necessary for that. We must discuss this.

[ 15 ] What can human beings comprehend today? That is the crucial question. Today, they can understand only the mineral kingdom. As soon as they come to the plant kingdom, they no longer understand it. He can understand the mineral kingdom; from the forces of the mineral kingdom, he can construct machines, houses, and so on. Only when he learns to perceive the forces within a plant that cause it to grow will his consciousness be elevated into the plant kingdom. And when he learns to comprehend how an animal can feel—at present he can only gain an external impression of this—that is what makes him a member of the animal kingdom. And when he comprehends not only his own “I” but another’s, when he fully comprehends another human being inwardly, only then does he belong to the human kingdom.

[ 16 ] You will best understand that humans today can only begin to comprehend the mineral kingdom if you consider the following. Just imagine that a large number of scholars were to say: “Yes, plants and animals are nothing more than complex minerals.”—And these scholars are waiting to be able to combine substances in such a way that they become plants and animals. They succumb to the illusion that plants can be understood as mineral beings because they have no conception that there is anything else besides the mineral kingdom. Many people say: “You anthroposophists dream of an etheric body, something that goes beyond the merely mineral, but you will stop dreaming once we succeed in the laboratory—just as we synthesize sulfuric acid today—in constructing a living being from the individual elements: carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen, and so on.” — People believe that living beings can be constructed just as sulfuric acid can be synthesized; they believe that purely materialistic science will one day be able to do this. They believe that anthroposophists are so foolish as to doubt that a time will come when plants will indeed be produced in a retort.

[ 17 ] That time will come. But those who are versed in the occult have always said this. They know that the time will come when human beings will incorporate the plant kingdom into their own nature just as they have today incorporated the mineral kingdom. And just as he builds houses from minerals, just as he uses the forces of the mineral kingdom today, so will he one day—using the forces of the plant kingdom, which will then be well known to him—create plant forms and even higher beings in the laboratory, without resorting to seeds and without having to call upon the forces of nature in their incomprehensible ways. But if this possibility of creating a living being in the laboratory were to arise prematurely, it would be, for those standing on the true ground of esoteric science, what is called black magic. Human beings must first become ripe for each step of development.

[ 18 ] There is an occult saying that goes: Only when the laboratory table has become an altar and the chemical process a sacramental act will people create living beings on the experimental table just as they produce mineral products today. — This is an occult saying that has always been spoken. Truly, as long as one enters the laboratory believing that one can accomplish the same things with unholy feelings as with holy ones, one will never be able to create a living being in the laboratory in accordance with the will of those who rightly guide evolution. This will only be possible when one comes to understand that, while a mineral product can indeed be produced even if a scoundrel stands at the laboratory table, a living being can never be brought into being if that is the case. For when a living being is assembled, something flows into it that resides within the human being himself. If a human were a scoundrel, that scoundrelly quality would flow over into the being, and the resulting being would be an imprint of that scoundrelly nature. Only when people come to understand what it means for a human, as a whole being with his entire inner life, to act within what he creates—only then will the world be ready to bring forth the living—the plant, animal, and human realms—through free activity. Then human beings will have ascended into the plant kingdom when they can perceive the plant realm just as clearly as they perceive the mineral realm today. He will have ascended to the animal kingdom when he understands sensation to such an extent that he can create a sentient being through his own spiritual power just as he now manufactures an object. And he will have ascended to the human kingdom when he can freely reshape human beings.

[ 19 ] Thus, human beings exist today within the mineral kingdom, and this being—the human being that we are—is, in essence, the only being that has already fully developed within the mineral kingdom, whereas the other kingdoms, in many respects, are at a much lower level than that which is designated in occultism as the mineral kingdom. Thus, the plants show us a kind of preliminary stage of what human beings will experience once they themselves are in the plant kingdom. But the plants are not in the plant kingdom; rather, they are at most models—not archetypes, but indications of a future kingdom in which human beings will exist, in which they will inwardly experience plant nature just as they experience mineral nature today.

[ 20 ] This plant kingdom, in which humankind will dwell, will be distinguished by other things as well. Above all, it will be distinguished by a moral principle that, while sometimes articulated intellectually today, is still far from being fully understood. Today, people live in such a way that one can say: The individual—even if he does not admit it to himself—is convinced that the happiness of the individual is possible even if the unhappiness of another prevails alongside it. — It is entirely possible today for one person to feel happy even while other people are unhappy. Even though reason acknowledges that the highest morality is that which brings happiness to all people, in practice, people are convinced that the happiness of the individual is quite possible without others being just as happy as they are. When humans enter the plant kingdom, they will have reached a stage of moral development where it will be impossible for them to feel happy as individuals while others like them are unhappy. “The happiness of the individual is inseparably linked to the happiness of all”: this principle will prevail when humanity is incorporated into the plant kingdom. No human being could feel happy at all if his or her happiness were to be excluded from the happiness of all.

[ 21 ] As you can see, there are very few ways today to perceive such subtle concepts as we must have in occultism if we are to understand everything. But you can also see that humanity still has a long path of development ahead of it. It must achieve all of this, and very little of it exists as yet.

[ 22 ] So we are speaking of seven realms through which human beings themselves pass. On Jupiter, there will again be seven realms that are somewhat similar to the seven earthly realms, but which already differ greatly from them. On Venus there will again be seven, and on Vulcan as well. Here, however, one can no longer even call them realms; the term “realm” no longer applies here. When we take all of this into account, we must say: We first have seven stages of consciousness—the Saturn, Sun, Moon, Earth, Jupiter, Venus, and Vulcan stages—and at each stage of consciousness, seven stages of life through which every being that passes through the degrees of consciousness must develop. Each stage of life, in turn, must pass through seven stages of form, such that you must regard the so-called physical stage of form—which you now experience around you—as the middle one. Before something becomes physical, it is astral; before it becomes astral, it is at a certain spiritual stage called the lower Devachan; and before something descends to this stage, it is in a higher stage of Devachan. There we have three stages of form. The first can still be called formless; the next is a stage of form that we refer to as the lower Devachan stage; then we come to the astral stage. When the astral condenses, it becomes physical. Then the physical dissolves again and returns to a more perfect astral state, which leads to a more perfect lower Devachan state, and this, in turn, to the higher Devachan state. The physical state of form is the middle one.

[ 23 ] Every kingdom passes through seven stages of form. You must distinguish between the physical and the mineral; they are not the same. Because the physical and the mineral appear to coincide to the eye today, it is easy to confuse the two. The mineral kingdom passes through all stages of form. It can be predisposed as the mineral kingdom at the highest level of Devachan. It then descends into the lower spiritual level—where it remains the mineral kingdom—then into the astral, where it takes on an astral form, and finally condenses into the physical. Thus, we have seven states of form in every kingdom (see diagram).

[ 24 ] Every state of consciousness can only be experienced by passing through seven life states. Each stage of life unfolds through seven states of form. That makes 7 times 7 times 7 states. In fact, an entire cycle of development, such as that of the Earth, passes through 7 times 7 times 7 states. Our Earth was once Saturn; it went through 7 stages of life, each stage comprising 7 life forms or states of form. That gives you 49 states of form on Saturn, 49 on the Sun, 49 on the Moon, and so on—7 times 49 equals 343 states of form. Human beings pass through these 343 states. When Saturn was at the very beginning of its evolution, it first began in the highest spiritual realm we can attain, as a being that existed in the highest Devachan. That was the first state of form; it was entirely mineral. It descended as such a being all the way down into the physical realm, then ascended again to the upper Devachan. And here the great difficulty begins, for you would now have to say—if you wish to use the terms mentioned—that the human being passes over into the next realm. But these terms do not apply to Saturn. In this way, the human being passes through 49 states on Saturn. The peculiar thing is that you might now ask: Surely the human being must pass through life states on Saturn. Yet it is only on the Sun that he first receives an etheric body. How, then, can one say that he passes through life states? — They are simply not yet as they will be later, when he has a life body; they are representative. This is brought about by the influence of higher beings. The human being has no independent life on Saturn, but higher beings permeate him with their etheric body, their astral body, their I, and so on.

[ 25 ] In any case, you must understand that humankind has gone through 49 states on Saturn, 49 on the Sun, and 49 on the Moon. On Earth, humankind has so far gone through only the first three of these 49 states. Today, humankind is in the fourth state of life, namely in the mineral kingdom. In the first stage of life, they were in the first elemental kingdom and passed through seven stages of form there; in the second stage of life, they were in the second elemental kingdom and passed through seven stages of form there; they were in the third elemental kingdom and passed through the seven stages of form there; and they are now in the fourth elemental kingdom—which is the same as the mineral kingdom—and are roughly in the middle of it. It is slightly beyond the middle of the mineral kingdom.

[ 26 ] In any case, from all of this—which we have considered here as a kind of outline—you have seen that the entire Earth passes through 343 states. I now ask you to imagine it this way: Saturn comes into being and passes through 49 states. Saturn is at first a fiery, heat-filled mass and passes through various states, but it is always the same sphere that undergoes these 49 states. Likewise, the Sun is always the same sphere that undergoes the 49 states. There are, however, intermediate states. It is as if there were a kind of spiritual interval between the individual incarnations. It is the same with planets as it is with human beings. Thus, the planets also pass through such a spiritual intermediate stage; it lies everywhere within these states.

[ 27 ] So, once you realize that we go through seven states of consciousness in the course of our evolution, you will also see how this relates to what is described in various books of theosophical literature. These are cosmic systems. It is said that our Earth once had a beginning and developed from an ancient planetary system known as the Moon. One would have to go further back—from the Moon to the Sun, and from the Sun to Saturn. Each of these states is subdivided into the seven states of existence, commonly called “rounds.” “Rounds” are the same as states of existence. And what is referred to here as “states of form” is usually called “globes.” This is tremendously misleading. People have formed the idea that these seven globes are spheres lying side by side:

[ 28 ] These states—ranging from the outermost form, which still borders on the formless, through the physical realm, and back up to the formless—are not seven spheres existing side by side, but rather seven successive states. At first, what is now physical existed as the same sphere in a spiritual form; then it became denser and denser. It is the same sphere, simply condensed. Then one part became astral, then one part became physical; it is always the same sphere. It dissolves again like salt in lukewarm water, becoming astral once more. We have ascended to this astral state at the point in the Apocalypse where the “bowls of wrath” are described. There, the Earth becomes astral again.

[ 29 ] So you can see how the number seven governs the entire process of development, and what we have described in the past few days through various images—sometimes quite grotesque ones, and in any case ones that differ greatly from what people can see in the physical world today—we have now presented as a skeleton, as a framework. When you present it this way, it is roughly like drawing the framework of a house—the outermost part, intended for the masons. This has nothing to do with the matter itself yet; these are, so to speak, merely thoughts about the matter. We must rise from this pure conceptual framework—which, of course, helps us understand—to the living structure, for example by using the images visible in the astral realm to represent the various states; only then do we have what is generally called “occult wisdom.” As long as you construct such a framework, you remain within the mode of thinking you are accustomed to in the physical world. The entire schema we have outlined is merely physical thinking. In relation to full reality, it is not even like the internal framework of a house compared to the fully constructed building, but rather like the external scaffolding on which the masons stand. That must be torn down again once the building is finished. And so the mental framework must be torn down again if one wishes to have the truth, as it actually is, before one’s eyes. If one regards this abstraction as the reality itself, then one is not speaking of true occultism at all, but only of the conception that people in the present age can form of occult facts. The way people today tailor occult facts to their own understanding is contained in such a schema. But this is fruitless. I had to present it because we also need such a schema. But fundamentally, it does not help at all those who wish to advance along a truly occult path. If you describe the entire world, all the way up to the highest occult realities, through such schemas, this has significance only for your present incarnation. In the next one, you will have to learn such a schema all over again. This can only be conceived by making use of the brain; it is tailored solely for the brain. But since the brain is dissolved at death, this entire description based on the schema is completely scattered. If, on the other hand, you grasp what actually happens—what we have described as the succession of seal images, what clairvoyant consciousness reveals—if you grasp this, initially in the realm of the imagination, then this is something that is not bound to your physical brain; it remains with you after death because it does not arise from physical thinking but presents the realities through clairvoyance. One must therefore be careful not to mistake what is sought today—based on the model of physical comprehensibility, which also seeks to schematize the higher worlds—for true occultism. That is a description using the tools of the ordinary physical intellect. Of course, the physical intellect must play a role. It is therefore also useful to present such a schema, and we can go even further in our schema.

[ 30 ] We have seen that we pass through 343 states. But now things really get complicated when we realize that this is not the end of the matter—that, rather, a human being must also pass through various states within a single state of form. The current physical state of form was preceded by three others and will be followed by three more. But now the physical state, in turn, passes through seven states, and these are precisely the seven we have spoken of in the preceding days: the first, where the Sun is still connected to the Earth; the second, where it breaks away; the third, where the Moon departs; and the fourth, that of the Atlantean humanity. The Atlantean humanity lives in the fourth period of development of the physical form. And for each form, there are in turn seven so-called racial states, although the term “race” applies only to our middle state. And now we ourselves are in the fifth state, the one in which we live: the post-Atlantean era between the Great Atlantean Flood and the Great War of All Against All. We are living in this period. Then another follows—the sixth—and then the seventh. The sixth period is foreshadowed for us in the Book of Revelation through the seven seals; the seventh through the seven trumpets. Then it transitions into the astral realm. This is a new state of form, which in turn will have seven states. Our outline is not yet complete. We must divide each such state—as it unfolds between an event such as the Great Flood and the Great War of All Against All—into seven sub-states. For the fifth state, these are: the Indian cultural epoch, the Persian cultural epoch, the Chaldean-Babylonian-Assyrian-Egyptian-Jewish epoch, the Greek-Latin epoch, our own epoch; then the sixth, alluded to in the Apocalypse by the church in Philadelphia; and the seventh cultural epoch, which in turn will succeed it.

[ 31 ] So if we imagine the entire process of evolution as consisting entirely of such small stages—which are, however, still long enough—we have 7 times 7 times 7 times 7 times 7 such stages of development as the ancient Indian or ancient Persian ones. Humans pass through that many different such states between Saturn and Vulcan.

[ 32 ] Thus you can see how the number seven progressively dominates the entire development over successive periods. Just as musical tones progress from octave to octave, so the entire process of becoming flows in octaves of becoming.

[ 33 ] Now let us recall that of the 16,807 such states in our era—between the Great Atlantean Flood and the Great War of All Against All—we have seven; and that we also had seven during the Atlantean era. But we also recall that humankind experienced four of these seven states of the Atlantean era under conditions entirely different from those of the three later ones. So now we know what these states are and how we are to count them. During the Atlantean epoch, humanity experienced four of these states—which are numerous—in such a way that it felt itself to be a group soul, as we have described them: the eagle, the lion, the bull, and the human. Humanity gradually developed these four group souls over the course of the four fundamental races of the Atlantean epoch. Since races always persist—as the Indian race, for example, has persisted even though later ones have developed—for things exist within one another—the four heads that represented the group souls at the beginning of the fifth Atlantean cultural epoch also remained. We have this four-headed animal.

[ 34 ] At the same time that human beings began to harden from the etheric into the physical, they developed four different types of bodily members in accordance with their four-grouped soul. And because what was formerly group-soul consciousness has transformed into individual consciousness, human beings, at the beginning of the fifth period of Atlantis, experience a convergence of the former fourfold nature. They carry within themselves the four heads, which come together in their head as it gradually develops. This head is composed of the four group heads as it develops over the course of the fifth period. Corresponding to these four heads, the human being has four parts of his physical body. These are, first of all, the four “horns,” so that you can imagine: Because the human being was an etheric human, he had four heads, four animal heads—only the last one is already a human-animal—for that is what is meant. He was four-headed, and each force system corresponding to one of these heads formed physical organs. We saw yesterday that it was a force system that formed our heart, namely the one associated with the lion’s head. The individual organs of the human being are like condensations of the corresponding members of the etheric body.

[ 35 ] This is how the apocalyptic thinker reasons. He tells himself: That which is physical is a thickening of the ethereal. — Just as you might think: “This skin thickens and forms a callus,” so the apocalyptic thinker thinks: “The human being exists in an etheric form, and that thickens and becomes physical.” — And because the human being exists in fourfold form as four group souls, four such thickenings are formed. These make up his physical body. That is why what corresponds to the etheric body in the physical body is called a “horn.” A horn is a calloused thickening. The human being, as he has just become in the fourth period of the Atlantean era, is described as an animal with four heads and four horns.

[ 36 ] Now he continues to develop into an individual human being. This process begins in the region of present-day Ireland. Humanity passes through three final periods in such a way that it possesses the potential to become a human being with an “I.” At this stage, if you observe its physical development from the outside, it no longer forms an animal body but has ascended to the level of a human being. It increasingly develops into humanity until it assimilates the Christ principle. When we look at modern human beings, we will say: He was not always as he stands before us today. In order to become what he is, he had to pass through four animal group souls; he had to be embodied in bodies corresponding to the present-day forms of the lion, the bull, the eagle, and the human. Then he ascended higher and became increasingly human-like, and the form of the earlier group soul disappeared. It is no longer there; the human being has become human-like.

[ 37 ] Now, however, you must also come to understand an important event that occurred back then, when humankind became human-like, and without an understanding of which one can never comprehend the Apocalypse of John—an event of the utmost importance. Up until this event—when human beings transitioned into the state of human soulhood—what later became apparent was completely hidden from human sight. Human beings had a kind of dull, twilight-like consciousness. When they woke up in the morning, they saw everything, so to speak, as if surrounded by misty forms, and when they fell asleep, they were in the spiritual world. This world appeared to them in images, for that is the nature of the spiritual world. Now I would like to describe to you something that took place before human beings physically transitioned into the human state, before they emerged from group-soul existence into full “I”-consciousness.

[ 38 ] What human beings experienced here on Earth consisted only of a series of experiences. Then they fell asleep and, during sleep, existed in a dim state of consciousness in a spiritual world where they lived among gods and spirits—a world whose echoes can be found in myths and legends. There they experienced powerful visions—for example, the vision of encountering two other beings, of those two throwing stones behind them, and of other beings of the same kind springing from the earth out of the stones that had been thrown—beings just like themselves. These were experiences that human beings continued to have throughout the entire fourth period of the Atlantean era. If we want to state this clearly, we must say: All human procreation took place not in the waking state of consciousness, but in the state of sleep. — When human beings were outside their physical bodies and in the spiritual world, they set in motion, so to speak, in this state of consciousness—where everything appeared to them in images—the events necessary for procreation, and the entire act of procreation was shrouded in the spiritual, appearing to them in the image of throwing stones behind them. The entire act of procreation was shrouded in spiritual consciousness, lying beyond waking consciousness. Human beings knew nothing of sexuality. In waking consciousness, he did not see himself as existing in two sexes, and his soul was untouched by any thought of sexuality. Not that it did not exist. It existed, but it lay in the darkness of a spiritual consciousness. It was not present to the human being during waking consciousness.

[ 39 ] It is only with the emergence of the first inclination toward self-awareness that human beings become aware of their sexuality. This is the moment depicted in the Bible when Adam and Eve become aware that such a thing as sexuality exists. We must place this significant, dramatic moment here in the development of the Earth. And if you look back clairvoyantly at the time that preceded it, you will see in human beings only those aspects that are the instruments of the spirit. The other aspect was not visible at all. Human beings could only be seen in their higher form. And from that point onward, people began to see human beings in their entirety. It is now understandable to us why people began to cover themselves. Before that, they saw nothing that they needed to cover. Thus, human beings gradually emerged into the outer world.

[ 40 ] If we regard the outer human form as the condensed manifestation of the etheric, then in the fourth Atlantean stage we have the four horns corresponding to the four group-soul heads. Now, however, a duality begins to take shape in the physical realm during the last three Atlantean epochs. For each stage in which a group soul head was to develop further, a dual physical form—male and female—took shape. For the first four stages, they formed the human being with four heads—the condensed etheric body with four horns. Now we have the following three heads, which are not visible because the outer human form absorbs them; they do not manifest. These three can only be perceived by the clairvoyant: three etheric heads—the main human heads—and, in addition, two horns each, which stand beside him like shadows, like double shadows. Thus, when the Atlantic Flood struck, we had seven group-soul heads, of which the last three always appear such that they have their physical form in a dual aspect, always as male and female. From this you can see that the entire group-soul nature of the human being at the end of the Atlantean era—even if what comes later remains invisible—consists of seven heads and ten horns. The first four heads do not have separate male and female horns, but the last three do have separate male and female horns.

[ 41 ] Human beings have within themselves the seven heads and ten horns. They must now work on these through the incorporation of the Christ principle so that they are, so to speak, destroyed. For every time a person dies today, the seven heads and ten horns can be clearly seen in their astral body. These are held together only like rubber that has been shaped accordingly. Suppose a person hardened his heart against the Christ principle during our time and arrived in the era of the great war of all against all without having had the Christ experience—suppose he arrived having cast Christ aside— then, when the Earth passes into the astral realm, that which was there—what he has brought about, what he should have transformed—would spring forth, spring forth in its old form. The beast would appear with the seven heads and ten horns, whereas for those who have taken in the Christ principle, sexuality will once again have been overcome. Those who have hardened their hearts will likely retain their six-horned sexuality and will appear in their entirety as the beast with seven heads and ten horns, traits that were imprinted during the Atlantean era. They can be transformed by receiving the Christ impulse. But if Christ is rejected, they will remain and reappear in that time, which is signified by the pouring out of the bowls of wrath and the earth appearing, so to speak, split into two parts: the part where the Christ-people appear in white robes as the chosen ones—as early as the time of the seals—and the other part, where people appear in the form of the beast with seven heads and ten horns. Then another beast with two horns also appears, symbolized by the number 666.