The Rudolf Steiner Archive

First Lecture

[ 1 ] The Revelation of John tells us what will happen over time. The Apocalypse is written in images. These images are expressions of the manifestation of the eternal world spirit, revealing the highest mysteries. These highest mysteries are to be recorded by John, who beheld them.

[ 2 ] First, there are seven churches, which are symbolically referred to as seven lampstands and seven stars. The stars are the guardian spirits of the churches.

[ 3 ] In a second vision, John sees, surrounding a throne on which the Spirit of God is seated, the four apocalyptic beasts: the lion, the cow, the man, and the eagle. Twenty-four elders are seated around the throne of the Spirit of God. “And I saw in the right hand of the One seated on the throne a book, written on the inside and on the outside, sealed with seven seals.” (Rev. 5:1) The Lamb opens the book. The book contains what is symbolically expressed by the four apocalyptic horsemen when the first four seals are opened; when the fifth seal is opened, the martyrs appear—these are those who have risen to knowledge and life in the Spirit. When the sixth seal is opened, a terrible earthquake occurs. But with the seventh, the Revelation also becomes audible: the seven trumpets sound. Mysterious images are then revealed, such as a being whose legs are like two pillars; one foot stands on the sea, the other on the earth. “And I saw another mighty angel coming down from heaven; clothed with a cloud, with a rainbow over his head; his face was like the sun, and his feet like pillars of fire; and he had a little book open in his hand.” (Rev. 10:1–2) John must devour the mystery of this book. Then a woman appears, clothed with the sun, with the moon at her feet.

[ 4 ] And it goes on to say: “Then I stood on the sand of the sea, and I saw a beast rising out of the sea. It had seven heads and ten horns, and on its horns were ten crowns, and on its heads were blasphemous names.” (Rev. 13:1) The sound of a trumpet accompanied this. This image shows us the victory of good over evil. A beast appears, representing, in a certain sense, the principle of evil. It is the beast with seven heads and ten horns.

[ 5 ] Then a beast with two horns appears, resembling a lamb, which is to appear in the future. Only those who have wisdom will recognize it. “And I saw another beast rising out of the earth; and it had two horns like a lamb, and it spoke like a dragon. And it exercises all the authority of the first beast before it... And it causes all—small and great, rich and poor, free and slave—to receive a mark on their right hand or on their forehead, so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name. Here is wisdom! Let anyone who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number is 666.” (Rev. 13:11, 16–18)

[ 6 ] It also reveals how all enemies are vanquished: Michael binds the dragon, the forces of evil; then a new world emerges.

[ 7 ] In the early centuries of Christianity, this was prophesied and consistently interpreted as a reference to the future. Of course, exegetes soon found themselves at a loss; yet time and again, interpreters emerged, including during the Middle Ages. The year 1000 was often interpreted as the time of the beast’s appearance. The further time went on, the more nonsensical the interpretations became, especially in the 19th century. The early interpreters were viewed as children who could still believe in visions of the future. The Apocalypse was regarded as a historical document, as if all of this had already happened by the time John wrote it down. After all, there were wars even after the advent of Christianity; so those could have been represented by the red horse in John’s account. The white horse, then, might symbolize the martyrs. Earthquakes, which John describes when the sixth seal is opened, were occurring at that very time in Asia Minor. And locust plagues were not difficult to document either. For the interpreters, however, a cross was the key to the two-horned beast. One person had heard something about the way numbers are read; this had seeped in from the occult. How does one read in numbers? Every letter also represents a number; the esotericists wrote in numbers when they wanted to conceal something. For each number, one had to use the correct letter, be able to read the letters, and then also know what the resulting word meant. So who is the beast whose number is 666? The commentators believed it must refer to something from the past. People wrote the Hebrew letters—but incorrectly—in place of the numbers: this resulted in “Nero.” The horns were then associated with Roman generals or enemies of the Romans, such as the Parthians. However, if one had written it correctly [from right to left] using Hebrew letters [and also read it from right to left], the following would have resulted: 60 ס Samech, 6 ו Waw; but 600 was written by the esotericists as 200 + 400: 200 ר Resh + 400 ת Tav. Thus, the result is: 666 סורת Sorat. Sorat is also the corresponding word in Greek. Sorat has meant “demon of the sun” since ancient times. Every star has its good spirit—its intelligence—and its evil spirit—its demon. The adversary of the good solar powers was called Sorat. Christ has always been the representative of the sun, specifically the intelligence of the sun. Sorat is therefore the adversary of Christ Jesus. The symbol for Sorat looks like this:

[ 8 ] The sign of the Sun's intelligence is:

[ 9 ] This is also the occult sign of the Lamb. The Lamb receives the book with the seven seals. “And I looked, and behold, in the midst of the throne and of the four living creatures and among the elders stood a Lamb as though it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent out into all the earth.” (Rev. 5:6) The seven corners of the symbol are called “horns.” But what do the “eyes” signify? — In occult schools, the symbols of the seven planets are inscribed on the seven eyes. The seven eyes signify nothing other than the seven planets, and the names of the planets denote the spirits incarnated within them as intelligence. “Saturn” is the name of the Saturn soul. The names of the planets are the seven planetary spirits that surround the Earth and influence human life. The Lamb, Christ, contains all seven. Christ is the Alpha and the Omega; the seven planets relate to him as the limbs relate to the whole body. The intertwining of the lines in the symbol wonderfully represents the interplay of the seven planets. From Saturn one ascends to the Sun, from there descends to the Moon, then to Mars, Mercury, and so on. The same concept is expressed in the names of the seven days of the week: Saturday — Saturn; Sunday — Sun; Monday — Moon; Tuesday, Mardi — Mars; Wednesday, Mercredi — Mercury; Thursday, Jeudi — Jupiter; Friday, Vendredi — Venus. Christ is the ruler of all these celestial spheres; they are merely aspects of him, and he unites them all. In Rosicrucian schools, a lamb is often painted as a symbol of the solar intelligence.

[ 10 ] We determine time based on the movement of the celestial bodies. But has the method of calculating time always been the same as it is today? Important things have changed. If we look back a little into the past, we see the Atlantean civilization on Earth before the time of the great flood. It was preceded by the Lemurian era. If we go back even further, the Earth, Sun, and Moon were still united in a single body. Back then, time had to be measured differently than it is today. Day and night were also quite different. In Lemuria, conditions once prevailed across the entire Earth as they do today at the North Pole: half a year of night and half a year of day. When the Sun, Moon, and Earth were still one, this united mass moved through the heavens. Even then, occult teachings were able to calculate its movement, just as we calculate time by the Sun today. The Sun moves across the sky through the signs of the zodiac. In 800 B.C., the Sun was in the sign of Aries. Christ was first worshiped under the sign of the cross, at the foot of which lies a lamb; it was not until the 6th century that the cross bearing the figure of Christ came into use. Previously, people worshipped Taurus, the sign in which the sun stood at that time; even earlier, they worshipped Gemini, particularly in Persia. But the animals—the billy goats that form the team of Donar—also signify the same thing. Before that, Cancer was worshipped, and so on. |

[ 11 ] Before the Lemurian era, the Sun, Moon, and Earth—united as a single body—continued their movement through the zodiac. This made it possible to measure time. That is why the twelve signs of the zodiac were referred to as the “celestial clock” and were also depicted as such.

[ 12 ] A planet alternately undergoes a Pralaya, a cosmic night, and a Manvantara, a cosmic day, just as we experience day and night. During Pralaya, the planet passes through the signs of the zodiac just as it does during a Manvantara; that is why the twelve signs of the zodiac are counted twice, just as we count 2 times 12 = 24 hours. The hours symbolize the signs of the zodiac. The united Sun, Moon, and Earth also moved through the cosmic days and nights according to the celestial clock. Then came the separation. But human beings were not immediately as they are today; the soul descended only gradually, and little by little, human beings developed from a generic being into an individual. If one had taken the generic souls of humans from the Lemurian and Atlantean periods and combined them, one would have perceived something very peculiar in the aura of these people. The human aura is, of course, constantly changing; like all astral beings, it is in perpetual motion. The group souls were reflected in animal forms, for example in sphinxes and so on. The ancient Atlantean and Lemurian group souls are now also constantly changing, but they express themselves again and again in four distinct ways. This fourfold nature of the human group souls is referred to as the four apocalyptic beasts: lion, cow, human, and eagle. These four beasts represent the lower human, and the lamb symbolizes the human in its perfection—that is, the fifth beast.

[ 13 ] Twice twelve celestial bodies and four animals were once the rulers of the world. Great cosmic powers animated the zodiacal figures and the four animals. The 24 elders of the Apocalypse are the two sets of twelve stars of the world clock that once ruled. Human evolution can be represented by this figure (see illustration on page 23).

[ 14 ] The lowest point represents the clear consciousness of the day. In the pre-Lemurian era, human beings possessed a dim form of clairvoyance. At that time, human beings were closer to the Divine than they are today. Then they acquired waking consciousness. As human beings continue to evolve, they will carry this consciousness with them upward when they draw near to the Divine once more and become clairvoyant. Every point on the descending line corresponds to a point on the ascending line. If we could relive the past, we would all see the things that we will see in the future in a different, more lucid way. In the future, we will see the twelve planetary spirits again, and the Sun, Moon, and Earth will one day unite once more. “And the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became like blood,” and so on. (Rev. 6:12)

[ 15 ] When the soul once descended from the bosom of the Divine, it found a human-animal on Earth; these human-animals looked grotesque; they still had to be transformed and overcome; in the future, such an animal will also have to be overcome. That is what the animal with the two horns means.

[ 16 ] Only those who interpret the Apocalypse within its full context can truly understand it. The Apocalypse is a cosmic explanation of the world. The author was an initiate. He pointed to the laws of the world that govern from beginning to end, from Alpha to Omega.

[ 17 ] We should allow the sacred symbols given to us through the Book of Revelation to take effect within us. The sign of the solar intelligence, for example, should not remain a mere symbol to us; we should immerse ourselves in it until we feel that it is no longer a lifeless symbol, but rather a surge of life. The signs should serve as gateways connecting us from the physical to the spiritual world. Then we will have fulfilled our duty: to bring the physical and spiritual worlds into connection with one another.