The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Fourth Lecture

[ 1 ] The seven epistles, or seven letters, of the Apocalypse depict the great main era of post-Atlantean cultures, from the massive Atlantean flood to the event known as the war of all against all.

[ 2 ] We will now examine some key passages from the letters to illustrate the breadth of the apocalyptic writer’s perspective. After all, he came from a cultural context in which many things were still taken for granted that might seem forced to the average person today.

[ 3 ] The leading power of these cultural epochs is depicted as holding the seven stars in its hand. Looking at the cultural epoch that viewed the outer world as Maya or illusion, we find there the choir of the seven holy Rishis, who point upward toward Vishva Karman; the apocalyptic writer sees him as the being who holds the wisdom of the seven stars in his hand. Above all, the apocalyptic writer must look into the future. But since he is speaking to the descendants of the Atlantean cultural epochs, he speaks by referring to what lived on in their memory. Thus he calls the Nicolaitans the representatives of black magic, who are excluded from this community that has preserved its “first love.” He says of those who have always guarded themselves against becoming entangled in matter that they will evolve into the future. Those who heed these admonitions will easily find their way back into the spiritual world.

[ 4 ] And now he speaks to the people of the second cultural epoch, the age of Zarathustra—to the successors of the great Zarathustra, who have set down their wisdom in the teachings of Hermes, and who preserve for us an echo of Zarathustra’s teachings. Everywhere there, it is pointed out that people should not develop a love of wandering and that they should learn to cherish physical and sensory life. They should look up to the sun as an expression of the solar spirit and to the stars as the bodies of the spirits that inhabit space. That is why it was Zarathustra’s aim to show the material physical realm as an expression of the spirit. Thus, tilling the soil should be like working into the physical body of God, who stands behind the physical world and to whom the ancient Hebrew people—whose culture ran parallel to that of the ancient Persians—also looked up. They, too, had a Zarathustra-based service; this is hinted at in the encounter between Abraham and Melchizedek.

[ 5 ] This shows us that remnants of this second cultural epoch have survived. We know how powerfully the great Zarathustra warned that while people should indeed cultivate the earth, they must not become slaves to matter. He called this force—which seeks to delude people into believing that only physical matter exists—Ahriman, the Ahrimanic forces. For it is through him that the danger arises that human beings will grow too attached to physical life.

[ 6 ] In Hebrew wisdom, Ahriman was referred to by two names joined together: Mephiz-Tophel, Mephistopheles, who calls out to Faust—who believes in the spirit and is setting out on his journey to the “Mothers,” that is, into the spiritual world—“You are coming to nothing.” — Like Faust, those seeking the spirit call out to the materialists: “In your nothingness, I hope to find the universe.” Thus the apocalyptic writer must say: “Fear not... some of you Tophel will weave into the prison of matter” (cf. Rev. 2:10)—these are those who have become too intimately entwined with matter.

[ 7 ] We know how human beings must descend to Earth through various incarnations; there they lived out such lives in a physical body. Every life on Earth is always followed by one in the spiritual world. One day, this cycle of reincarnations will come to an end. The deeper meaning of reincarnation—if we are to properly understand the second letter of the Apocalyptic writer—is that human beings are meant to attain self-awareness, or awareness of the “I.”

[ 8 ] How much more did the soul see in ancient Indian times; how much did the soul see later in other incarnations! Today we perceive things quite differently than in earlier incarnations. As the soul ascends from stage to stage, we gain an understanding of what we call history. The thinking person must tell himself: There is a history of life in the spiritual world. We usually describe life in Devachan and Kamaloka only in general terms, for in the elementary theosophical teachings we cannot describe life between death and a new birth in greater detail. And yet it is different each time, depending on the various cultural epochs; for the soul always had something different to experience. We can describe this history only in terms of its characteristic features.

[ 9 ] Let us look back to ancient Atlantis; there, human beings were still within their spiritual and soulful homeland during their life on Earth. But in ancient India, human beings were only within it at night and when they passed through the gate of death. In this primordial homeland, everything around them became light and bright. To the same extent that human beings grew fonder and fonder of this physical world, they lost their ability to see into the spiritual world; it became darker and darker to them.

[ 10 ] During the Egyptian civilization, human beings were already so deeply rooted in the physical world that they had to be taught to live here in such a way that they could find Osiris on the other side; only in this way could the disciples still perceive the light between death and a new birth. The teachings of the “Book of the Dead” and the “Judges of the Dead” are to be understood in this way: only through connection with the light of Osiris—the Osiris impulse—could human beings hope that the spiritual world would be bright and luminous for them.

[ 11 ] Let us now turn to the Greco-Roman era, when people—who had grown so fond of physical matter—were able to create ideal forms in the physical world. That is why a person of that time could say: “Better to be a beggar on earth than a king in the realm of shadows.” It is not merely a legend that people entered into darkness when they descended into Hades. Humanity was in danger of losing itself in the sensory world. That is why the God who descended into this sensory world, into sensory existence, had to redeem them.

[ 12 ] Through the veil of sensuality, Zarathustra proclaims Ahura Mazdao. In the burning bush, Jehovah revealed Himself to Moses through the veil of sensuality. Then that same power revealed itself as Christ in the body of Jesus of Nazareth. And then something happened that has significance not only for the physical world but also for the spiritual world.

[ 13 ] At the very moment that blood flows from the Savior’s wounds, Christ appears in the underworld to the souls who stand there between death and a new birth. Down below, in the material world, the blood flows, and as it flows, the realm of the dead begins to grow brighter and brighter. As our culture now ascends toward a spiritual understanding of the reality of Golgotha, the brightness increases.

[ 14 ] History is everywhere, in the physical and in the spiritual; the entire post-Atlantean cultural development is intended to guide humanity through the physical world while keeping alive within it the faith in the spirit. It is always the same principle that manifests itself in successive cultural epochs.

[ 15 ] What the apocalyptic writer focuses his visionary gaze upon is the fact that there are people who become one with matter, who exhaust the spiritual powers they possess as an ancient heritage without aligning themselves with Christ. Such a person would gradually lose the Devachan; the Kamaloka would last longer and longer, and the person would be bound, tied to the heaviness of the earth.

[ 16 ] Only the black magicians do this today; the ordinary person cannot yet shut themselves off from all wisdom. The apocalyptic writer, however, must place everything in perspective to point out that it is the impulse of Christ that saves them. The Second Epistle therefore states that this would be the “second death”—the “spiritual death,” as Paul calls it. Because we are referred to the second cultural epoch in the Second Epistle, this admonition had to be given; in the first cultural epoch, it did not yet need to be addressed to humanity.

[ 17 ] In the second letter, the guiding spirit describes itself as “I am the Alpha and the Omega.” (Rev. 1:8) Certain symbols prevail in all forms of occultism, and they always signify the same thing. In ancient Egypt, emphasis was placed on shaping wisdom through the word; this marks the first appearance of science expressed in strictly defined terms. The Indian world did not yet place value on science, nor did the Zoroastrian culture. Therefore, this human divine power of the word is universally symbolized by the “sword”; we find the sword everywhere as a symbol of the humanization of divine power. “And to the angel of the church in Pergamum write: Thus says he who has the sharp, double-edged sword.” (Rev. 2:12) Yet it is through knowledge that human beings are most easily led astray into black magic.

[ 18 ] In the Bible, people experience the divine power that flows to them as “manna.” Let us now consider the full characteristics of this period: Jehovah reveals Himself on Mount Sinai in the burning bush. “Then Yahweh said to Moses, ‘I am who I am.’ And He said, ‘Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel: “I am has sent me to you.”’” (See Exodus 3:14) Thus, people were told: “I am has sent me to you!” Yahweh is the name of the ineffable God. The name “I” can never be heard by humans from the outside; it is the intimate name of God, which humans were permitted to receive only in a sacred manner within their hearts. It was inscribed on the altar of the Tabernacle. Therefore, it is written: “To the one who overcomes, I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone with a new name written on it...” (Cf. Rev. 2:17) Those who received the “I” learned, through inner spiritual power, to recognize the name along with the hidden manna. Through Christ’s revelation in human form on earth, people were to learn not to despise physical existence as the ascetics do; they were to learn that this earth has something to give them. Therefore, one should not quench the thirst for existence; one should only purify one’s desires. The West should say to itself: “Here one works; here one’s hands are set to work, and what one earns here, one takes with oneself through the gate of death.” We do not wish to recount miracles, but rather to use legends to make clear to ourselves what has been given to humanity as a teaching of wisdom.

[ 19 ] We are told: The Buddha had a prominent disciple named Kassapa; he was the one who did the most to spread the Buddha’s teachings. Legend has it that he did not die but disappeared into a cave, and that his physical body was preserved there until the day the Maitreya Buddha appears; then Kassapa’s mortal remains would be touched by the fire of heaven and dissolved.

[ 20 ] Let us reflect on this teaching. How will there be people in the future who will understand the teaching of the Maitreya Buddha? It is because, after three and a half days, the Savior’s mortal remains will be carried up to heaven by him. This means that whoever connects with the Christ impulse will take with them what they have earned as the fruit of their life and carry it over into the spiritual world.

[ 21 ] And so we will see how, through union with the Christ principle, all the fruits of earthly existence are carried up with us. Eastern teachings have always foretold the coming of Christ, even in their legends. Because here, in the fourth period, we learn how the earthly-physical realm transitions directly into the spiritual world, this is illustrated to us by the description that He has “eyes like a flame of fire” (Rev. 1:14), and we are told: “his feet are like burnished bronze” (Rev. 1:15); and later it says: “And all the churches shall know that I am he who searches the hearts and minds...” (Rev. 2:23) Here we are told that it is the Christ who brings us the “I Am.” One must simply read this unassuming little word. It means that the principle contained in the “I Am” becomes the Savior who leads humanity out of the material world. Thus, one can explain it word for word, line by line.

[ 22 ] What is written in the fifth letter (Apk. 3:1–6) is of particular concern to us. It states that we have received the mystery of the Name through the teaching of the evolution of the Earth, which is given to us by the “Masters of Wisdom and the Harmony of Feelings.”