The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Eighteenth Lecture

[ 1 ] After we familiarized ourselves eight days ago with how a person’s inner life is expressed through very specific everyday details—in laughter and tears—we will now turn our attention to the conditions of our immediate and broader surroundings, on which this inner life, and thus a person’s entire development, depends to a certain extent. The study of humanity in its broadest sense has indeed been the focus of our series of lectures here this winter, and the study of humanity in its most diverse fields will continue to be what occupies us. If you take a moment to survey your knowledge of earthly conditions, you will realize right away—even upon a relatively superficial examination—that human beings take on different forms in different regions of our Earth. Outward physical characteristics differ according to the various regions of our Earth. Recall how there are “races”—the black, red, yellow, and white races—and how these races are originally linked to certain regions of our Earth. You will find this confirmed as well when you look back at your knowledge of history—whether it be what is taught in schools today based on a purely physical and material perspective, or what we have already learned through anthroposophical science itself. There we look back into the distant past and see how the human soul—and indeed the human body as well—has unfolded throughout the various epochs of Earth’s development. In the fields of spiritual science, we have looked back at ancient India, ancient Persia, Egypt, and so on. We have seen how the individual abilities that humanity possesses today gradually came into being. All of this already gives you an idea of how external conditions are connected to the unfolding of the inner human being. Now let us ask ourselves: If even the current conditions on our Earth bring about such human diversity, what kind of differences in human beings must have been brought about since the beginning of our Earth’s evolution—when Earth’s evolution had actually only just begun, after it had passed through the Saturn, Sun, and Moon stages? We have described various aspects of this. However, we will again consider what we have to describe today from a different perspective. For it is precisely by viewing the conditions of the human being from ever-new perspectives that we come to understand them.^{1See Special Note}

[ 2 ] As you know, when this Earth was in the early stages of its development, it was still a single body with the Sun and the Moon. So back then, the conditions within our entire development must have been quite different. How very different must the human being have been who unfolded within our Earth’s evolution when the Earth was still connected to the Sun; and how different, in turn, must the human being have become when first the Sun and then the Moon separated from the Earth! Now we know, of course, that the period following the separation of the Sun and the Moon from the Earth is also the period of the so-called Lemurian evolution, during which human beings, in essence, only began—albeit very tentatively—to take on a form somewhat similar to their present one. We have often expressed this by saying: It was actually only then that human beings descended from higher regions to Earth. When the Sun was still connected to the Earth, human beings were indeed in a physical body, but not one like the one they have today. At that time, their physical body was roughly like this: imagine that a person today did not stand with their feet on the Earth, but rose into the air, and furthermore, did not have any bone structure within them, but still belonged to the regions of air and water—whereby we must imagine the water dissolved in the air. There, they would exist like a transparent being in the vicinity of the Earth. A modern eye would be unable to distinguish this human being from their surroundings, just as a modern eye cannot distinguish certain sea creatures from their surroundings, because they essentially look just like their surroundings. One can imagine such a human being as a being gliding through the air. It was only after the separation of the Sun and the Moon that human beings became as we know them today. What, then, was the condition that allowed human beings to develop into what they are today? For this to happen, it was necessary for the Sun’s power to act upon the Earth not from within, but from without. That was, after all, the purpose of the separation of the Sun and the Moon: that these two celestial bodies would send their forces—just as the Sun sends its light—to the Earth from the outside. It was only through this that human beings could take on their present form—because the light of the Sun did not shine up from below, from the center of the celestial body, but rather from the side. Imagine, if we were to accept such a hypothesis—that the Moon would fall back onto the Earth today, and the Sun would reunite with the Earth—then, if humanity were to survive, it would have to surround itself once again with a body as airy as it was back then; it would have to be able to behave like a fleeting being in the environment in which it now lives. Thus, humankind owes its present existence to the radiation of the sun and moon from the outside. Today, let us set aside all other forces.

[ 3 ] But the sun and moon exert their influence in different ways from the outside. How differently the sun acts in the region of the North Pole compared to the equator! This gives us a picture of enormous differences that began to make sense from the moment the sun began to shine on Earth from outside. As you know, the farther we go toward the North Pole, the more different the conditions are with regard to winter and summer. And at the North Pole, for example, there is literally half a year of day and half a year of night. If you consider these conditions, what spiritual science has to say about these matters will become clear to you. It tells us that, particularly around the North Pole, the conditions on Earth during the Lemurian epoch were still most similar to those that existed on Earth when the Sun and Moon were still united with it. Today, however, these conditions have become quite different. But even today, it is still true in a certain sense that around the North Pole the strongest influence from the Earth’s center on its surface is present, and that there the influences of the Sun and Moon are the very weakest. What has come to pass since the Lemurian era—namely, that external radiation has gained such a great influence—has been least evident around the North Pole; thus, the effect of the Earth’s interior on the surface and on everything living on the surface is greatest around the North Pole. In contrast, the influence of the Sun and Moon is strongest around the equator. This was already the case in Lemurian times. From the Akashic Records, we can conclude that conditions on Earth became entirely new as a result of the separation of the Sun and Moon. This, however, also gave rise to a very specific effect. Something arose that is of fundamental importance for the entire development of the Earth. It was precisely for this reason that, around the North Pole, it was least possible for human beings—so to speak—to descend and incarnate in a physical human form in such a way that they found their best expression within it. Consequently, in the ancient Lemurian era, it was precisely at the North Pole of the Earth that there was a gathering of those beings who—if I may put it this way—had not yet felt the need to descend very deeply onto the Earth, but preferred to remain above in the regions where the air was permeated with water vapor. So, around the North Pole during the Lemurian era, there was a kind of spirit race that paid little attention to the physical bodies swarming down there on Earth—a race that, from a spiritual perspective, appeared to modern eyes as transparent and therefore not actually visible forms, which were highly developed as such, but in terms of their physical forms displayed a lower form of humanity. They lived in an etheric body; they were more etheric beings and maintained a loose connection to the primitive bodies that were developing down on Earth and had not yet attained any particular density. These bodies were too dependent on the earth, and the spiritually higher beings used them as their vehicles only to a very limited extent. Therefore, if a person today, with his or her sensory perception, had been able to visit the North Pole during the time of the Lemurians, he or she would have said something like the following about the population there: “What a most peculiar population that is! These people are actually quite underdeveloped in terms of their physical bodies, but there must be something special about them, for the population is skilled and intelligent—it is as if they were being directed from above by strings! —Yes, that is how it was there, because the true human being had not yet descended to the Earth’s surface. That is why, at that time, the people around the North Pole were, to the highest degree, etheric beings with highly developed etheric bodies but poorly developed physical bodies, beings who, so to speak, could bring all the wisdom of the world to life in their etheric bodies through high clairvoyant powers, who looked out at the starry sky and understood what kinds of beings animated space throughout the vastness of the worlds. But their physical bodies were, one might almost say, dormant. Nevertheless, because they were guided from above as if by strings, they performed highly intelligent deeds.

[ 4 ] In the equatorial regions, however, the situation was different. There, the influence of the sun and moon from outside became more and more active. The air was, so to speak, permeated and warmed by the sun’s rays. All the phenomena taking place in the atmospheric region became dependent on the sun and the moon. And the result was that in these regions—particularly in ancient Lemuria—human beings descended deepest into their physical bodies, so that the etheric bodies permeated the physical bodies to the greatest extent. Conversely, a person today, looking with physical eyes, would regard these beings as the most highly developed physical human forms, while viewing the northern peoples as those who are less developed. Another difference arose that is particularly significant.

[ 5 ] Where the sun had the least influence, human beings developed in such a way that, essentially, they all looked alike across vast regions. For among those beings who had not descended there and were still ethereal, one ethereal being always belonged to many down below. There were group souls up there, whereas the souls around the equator were much more individual souls—each one was much more fully present in its own body. Thus, to the highest conceivable degree, the inhabitants of those regions that we see today around the North Pole were, during the Lemurian epoch, characterized by group soul-ness. A whole host of people looked up to their group soul. And if we regard these group souls as souls, they were far more highly developed than the souls that entered physical bodies in the equatorial regions during the Lemurian epoch. We can therefore say: Around the North Pole dwelt a population that we must actually seek, as in a kind of paradise, in the aerial regions—a population that had not yet descended to Earth. What we have thus come to understand as something that appears to be a necessary consequence of what we have already learned—compare this now with what you encounter here and there in theosophical literature: that those higher beings who were once the teachers of humanity descended from a cold northern region! We have now formally identified them: the group souls around the North Pole. If they wished to become teachers of those who were lesser souls and entered more fully into physical bodies, they also had to descend further and, in their etheric bodies, confront the hellish conditions of the Lemurian era; or they simply had to make a sacrifice and assume the physical human form of the Lemurian population.

[ 6 ] If we had traveled from the equator to the North Pole during the Lemurian era, we would have found the Earth’s population to have become spiritualized. We can, as it were, distinguish between two types of people during this period: one that had remained spiritual—for whom their earthly physicality essentially appeared merely as an addition to their spiritual nature—and another that had already descended into the material, into the physical. What would have happened if no change had occurred in the course of Earth’s evolution? Then even the best of the souls from the polar regions would not have been able to enter into a physical body at all. And on the other hand, the population around the equator would, so to speak, have fallen more or less into ruin. Because they had descended into physical embodiment too early, they fell precisely into those vices and vices that led to the downfall of Lemuria. And the result was that the best part of the population migrated to those regions lying between the equator and the northern lands. For in the Lemurian era, the most promising members of humanity were found in the intermediate regions between the equator and the North Pole. It was precisely in those regions of ancient Atlantis—which lay in what is today called the temperate zone—that human bodies developed most favorably, enabling them to once again become vessels for the finest human souls.

[ 7 ] Well, remnants remain, so to speak, from all the various stages of development, and remnants have also been left behind from those ancient times. Admittedly, of what we call the Lemurian population of the Earth—that peculiar population of the North, which had highly developed etheric bodies and poorly developed physical bodies, and that other equatorial population, which had highly developed physical bodies and poorly developed etheric bodies—nothing remains of them; they have perished. For these bodies were such that we cannot even find their remains; the substance was still so soft that there can be no question of any remains. — As for their descendants in Atlantis, the main point was that the seed of the “I,” of self-consciousness—which, after all, had already been predisposed since the ancient Lemurian era—emerged more and more, developing ever further on Earth. Had people not, for the most part, migrated to Atlantis, there could not have been such vigorous development of the “I.” For the Lemurian population would have gradually perished; it would have succumbed to all manner of passions, and the finest souls of the North would not have descended to Earth at all, since they would not have been able to find suitable bodies. The imperfect bodies of earlier times would not have offered them the opportunity to develop a strong sense of self within their physical existence. Because the better elements of the Lemurian population migrated to Atlantis, the human body transformed into a form capable of becoming the bearer of self-consciousness to the proper degree. And in the regions of today’s temperate zone, the human body only gradually attained this form. For during these periods of development, the human body was still undergoing transformation. In the Atlantean era, the human body was not yet fixed in rigid forms as it is today; rather, it was still the case that spiritually significant, highly developed people of that time were physically small—they were small people. In contrast, those who were not very spiritually significant in the Atlantean era had a physically enormous body. And if one encountered such a giant back then, one could say to oneself: “This person does not stand on a very high level of spirituality, for he has poured his entire being into his body!” - Everything contained in the legends about the “giants” is based entirely on an understanding of the truth. Therefore, if a genuine memory of those times has been preserved in the Germanic legends, we perceive it—from the standpoint of spiritual science—as entirely accurate that the giants are stupid and that the dwarves are actually very clever. This is entirely due to the fact that one could say of the Atlantean population: Here are small people, yet they possess great intelligence; there, on the other hand, is a race of great people, and they are all stupid! Where human intelligence had entered the flesh, not much of the spiritual had remained behind. Thus, physical size was an expression of the fact that spirituality could not be held back. In a certain sense, the body was still quite capable of transformation back then. Precisely at the time when Atlantis began to sink, there was a great difference between the people who were good in their soul qualities—and who were of small stature—and the giant figures who were depraved, in whom everything had become embodied. You could even find echoes of this fact in the Bible, if you were to look for them.

[ 8 ] So we see how, during the Atlantean era, the human body was still able to take shape according to spiritual qualities. That is why it was also able to assume the form that enabled it to structure all its organs—the heart, the brain, and so on—in such a way that they became the expression of a true “I” being, of a self-aware being. However, these abilities and qualities developed to a wide variety of degrees. There were people who were just right in terms of their inner life—just normal—who had not taken selfishness to an excessive degree and had not developed their sense of self in a purely base way. In them, devotion to the outer world and the sense of self were in balance. Such people were scattered everywhere. But these were the ones with whom the Atlantean initiates could work most effectively. In contrast, there were other people in whom a terribly strong sense of self had developed—far too early, of course; for humanity had not yet reached the stage where it could form an instrument within the body for such a strongly developed sense of self. As a result, the body became, so to speak, hardened in egotism; it was impossible for it to develop beyond a certain degree. Other peoples, on the other hand, had not reached a certain normal sense of self because they were more easily influenced by the outside world than they should have been—peoples who were completely devoted to the outside world. Thus, normal human beings were best suited for the Initiates as material for future development, and they were also the ones whom the great Solar Initiate, the Manu, gathered around him as the people most capable of development. Those peoples in whom the ego impulse was too strongly developed—penetrating the whole human being from within and imprinting upon him egoism—gradually migrated westward, and they became the population whose last remnants appear today as the Native American peoples of the Americas. The people whose sense of self was underdeveloped migrated to the East, and the remnants of these people became the later Black population of Africa. This becomes evident even in physical characteristics when one views these matters from a truly spiritual-scientific perspective. When a person fully expresses their inner being in their physiognomy, on the surface of their body, this inner quality permeates their outer appearance, as it were, with its own color. The color of egoity, however, is red—copper-red or even yellowish-brown. Therefore, even today, excessive egoity stemming from a wounded sense of honor can, so to speak, make a person turn yellow with anger from within. These are phenomena that are certainly interconnected: the coppery color of those peoples who migrated westward, and the yellow in a person whose “bile is boiling over,” as the saying goes—whose inner state thus manifests itself right down to their skin. But those people who had developed their “I”-ness too weakly, who were exposed too intensely to the effects of the sun, were like plants: they deposited too many carbon-like substances beneath their skin and turned black. That is why Black people are black. - Thus, on the one hand, east of Atlantis among the black African population, and on the other hand, west of Atlantis among the copper-red peoples, we find remnants of such people who had not developed a sense of the “I” to a normal degree. Normal human beings presented the greatest challenge. They were therefore also chosen to spread out from the well-known location in Asia into the various other regions.

[ 9 ] Of course, among that small group that Manu gathered around him, there were once again the most varied intermediate stages—all the way to the extremes—with regard to this development. These, of course, also came into play. Some of these intermediate stages were exceptionally well-suited to the further development of Earth’s culture. For example, during the migration from the West to the East, a population remained behind in the European regions that had developed a strong sense of self but was, at the same time, largely impervious to the influence of its surroundings. Just imagine what a unique blend must have emerged in Europe in particular. Those who migrated eastward and became the black population were highly susceptible to influence from the outside world, especially to the sun’s influence, precisely because they had a weak sense of self. Now, however, peoples who possessed a strong sense of self migrated into the same regions—or at least in that direction. This was a population that had, so to speak, preferred the eastern direction over the western one. This mitigated the copper-red color they would have acquired had they migrated westward. And from this arose that population which possessed a strong sense of self, which maintained a balance with its openness to the outside world. This is the population of Europe, of which we were able to say in the last public lecture that a strong sense of personality was essential to it from the very beginning.

[ 10 ] Thus we see how, in human beings, external conditions influence inner states, and how the Earth—through the various ways in which its surface is exposed to solar radiation—has given rise to the most diverse degrees of soul development. Depending on where the souls turned at that time, they found the most diverse opportunities to undergo their development within the physical body. It is very significant that we consider the connection between the sun’s influence on the Earth and the development of humanity. If you will follow these matters further with me, right down into the details of later times, you will see how much can be explained even in later times by the fact that the most diverse nuances have arisen. For example, we have the portion of the population that remained in Europe, which was as I have just described, and which was left to its own devices well into later times. They paid no heed to others, but the portion of this population that then migrated to regions already settled by people who had become darkened to varying degrees—and who subsequently intermingled with them—now exhibited all possible shades of the other skin color. Look at these colors, ranging from Black people all the way to the yellow-skinned population found in Asia. Therefore, you have bodies there that are, in turn, vessels for the most diverse souls—ranging from the entirely passive Black soul, which is completely devoted to its surroundings and the external physical world, to the other levels of passive souls in the various regions of Asia.

[ 11 ] You will now be able to understand various aspects of the development of Asian and African peoples in terms of their distinctive characteristics: they represent a blend of devotion to their environment and a strongly expressed sense of self. Thus, we essentially have two groups of people who represent different proportions of this blend: on European soil, there are those who formed the foundation of the white population—those who had developed the strongest sense of self—but who did not turn toward a state where the sense of self permeated the entire body, but rather toward one where the sense of self became more internalized. Consequently, in Western Asia—and to some extent also in earlier times in North Africa and in certain regions of Europe—you find a population that possesses a strong sense of self internally but, outwardly, is essentially not greatly influenced by its surroundings; they are strong and steadfast in character internally, yet have not imprinted this inner character upon their external physicality. In contrast, in Asia we find populations that are passive and devoted, in whom precisely this passivity is expressed to a greater degree. As a result, the population becomes dreamy, and the etheric body penetrates deeply into the physical body. This is the fundamental difference between the European and Asian populations.

[ 12 ] Wedge in the middle of it all was Manu with his ordinary people. He had to provide the appropriate culture for every single nuance of this population. He had to adapt the wisdom and teachings in a way that was appropriate to the external circumstances of the population. And so we see how the people of Asia are given a teaching designed to satisfy them in their passivity, in their devotion. This Asian-African population does not emphasize the “I.” To some extent, the Negro would not emphasize the “I” at all. When this population looked up to the Divine, it said: I do not find my innermost being within myself, but I find it in Brahman, by flowing out of myself, by surrendering myself to the universe!

[ 13 ] Such a teaching would not have been understood in Europe. Europe was far too oriented toward the North Pole for that, and a certain similarity remains among the countries, even throughout the various eras. Let us recall that we once found, around the North Pole, a population that had not yet descended fully into their physical bodies—whose physical bodies were, in a sense, even stunted. Indeed, the people of Europe had not yet fully descended into their physical bodies. They internalized their sense of personality. And we would find this the further back we go into Europe’s ancient past. Imagine how this internalized sense of personality persisted into later times, when people perhaps no longer even understood the reason for it. Someone from the East would have said: “I unite with the One, the all-encompassing Brahman!” ‘You unite with Brahman! The other unites with Brahman, the fiftieth, the hundredth—they all united with the one Brahman!’—With what did the European unite when he had to acknowledge it as something valid in his worldview? There he united with the one Valkyrie, with the one higher soul. And, so to speak, the Valkyrie is there for everyone at the moment of death. There, everything is individual; there, everything is personal. And at the border between the two regions—only there could something like the Moses-Christ religion arise. Right in the middle, between the Orient and the Occident—only there could it take root. And while it could not take root to the east, where the concept of God did indeed exist as a unified one—albeit at a previous stage—it was able to establish itself as a conception of the personal God—who is already Yahweh and who is Christ—among those peoples who already carried within themselves a sense of personality. Thus it spread westward, and we see how it was able to find understanding here as the concept of a personally conceived God. That is why we see it emerging almost as a necessity precisely in this region. The sense of personality was there, but it was still inner, spiritual—just as with the ancient Lemurians, when everything was still spiritual and the physical was poorly developed. Here, although the physical aspect was developed, the personal aspect—to which human beings attached the greatest value—was inward; and through the inward, they also sought to conquer the outward. Therefore, even there, people understood best the God who, in His outward form, possessed the greatest inner depth—Christ. In Europe, everything was prepared for the Christ. And because these were regions where people had not yet fully descended to the earthly stage—and thus something like the last remnants of spiritual perception still existed—something had also remained of the ability to see spiritual beings, of the ancient European clairvoyance.

[ 14 ] This ancient European clairvoyance had also led to the existence, throughout Europe and even into Asia, of an ancient conception of God, about which modern scholarship may not learn anything until it discovers it in the legends of certain remote regions of Siberia. For there appears a curious term, long before the development of Christianity, when nothing was known of what was happening “down there”—that is, of what is described in the Old Testament, of Greco-Roman development, or of Oriental development. A curious concept emerges there, one that gave rise to a name that has now largely faded from use: the “Ongod”; and the Ongod is a name that, so to speak, still echoes today in the concept of the “one God.” The Ongod would be something like the divine presence within all spiritual entities that we perceive. Thus, even in this direction, the concept of a personal God was something quite familiar to the people who inhabited precisely this belt of the Earth. Therefore, we can understand why it was precisely in this belt of the Earth that this view bore its most significant fruits. For, so to speak, this belt of the Earth, with its population, had unraveled the mystery of the “I.” Essentially, all development since the Atlantean era has been based on the fact that either certain segments of the population maintained a sense of the “I” in just the right balance, or that they had developed the “I” too strongly or too weakly. None of the peoples who had developed the “I” to any degree—whether too strongly or too weakly—could achieve anything remarkable. The peoples described above—the populations of the Near East, as well as the peoples of certain regions of Africa and, above all, Europe—had developed it in a unique way.

[ 15 ] These were the fundamental conditions for the culture that later developed, roughly since the beginning of our calendar. The “I” had to reach a certain stage of development, so to speak, but then not go too far in one direction or the other. And our task today is to understand this precisely in the right sense. For in a certain respect, all spiritual science must appeal to what is called the development of a higher “I” out of the lower “I.” When we look back at those times now, we can say: From the fact that certain segments of the Earth’s population did not find the means to keep pace with Earth’s evolution in the development of their “I,” we can learn a lesson about how much can go wrong with regard to the development of the higher “I” from the lower “I.” For example, in ancient Atlantis there were peoples who later became Native Americans—peoples who, so to speak, became estranged from the rest of the Earth’s population. What would they have said if they had been able to articulate what was, in their case, a fact of their development? They would have said: Above all, I want to develop my inner self—my inner self, which is my highest essence when I look within myself! — And they developed this “I” so strongly that it even affected their skin color: they became copper-red. They developed in a state of decadence. These are the ones among the Atlantean population—where everything still manifested in the flesh and the skin—who cultivated what one might call “brooding within the ‘I’,” who, so to speak, held the conviction: I find everything that needs to be developed within myself! The other extreme was those who said: Oh, the “I” is worthless! The “I” must lose itself completely, must dissolve entirely, must let everything be dictated to it from the outside! — In reality, they didn’t say it, because they didn’t think that way. But these are the ones who denied their “I” to such an extent that they turned black, because the external forces coming from the sun to the earth made them black. Only those who were able to maintain a balance with regard to their “I”—those were the ones who were able to develop into the future.

[ 16 ] Let us now turn our attention to the population of our Earth. Even today, there are still people who say: “Oh, the anthroposophists talk about a spiritual world that they seek within themselves. But we look to our good, old religious traditions that have been handed down to us from outside.” We rely on what comes to us from the outside and don’t concern ourselves much with a higher world!—Today, of course, everything is more spiritual than it was in Atlantis. Today, one no longer “turns black” simply by relying on traditions, by saying: “Those to whom our spiritual salvation is entrusted—who work around us and are appointed to bring our souls to heaven—will take care of us!” - Today, one no longer “turns black” from that. But let’s not deny everything: there are still regions in Europe today where it is said that such a mindset will make one “turn black”! Today, everything is simply more spiritual! So those are the ones on one side. The others are those who, without first engaging with what spiritual science can offer us in every detail—the research from the Akashic Records, the nature of reincarnation and karma, the principles regarding the nature of the human being, and so on, and the effort required to understand it—are simply too complacent and say: “Why do I need all that! I look within myself; that is my higher self; there is the God-man within me!”—Such a mindset often develops even within the realm of theosophy. They don’t want to learn anything, don’t want to truly develop, and don’t want to wait until the “I” has encompassed all individual forms; instead, they run around waiting for the “God-man” to speak through them, and the “higher self” is emphasized again and again. Indeed, there is even a certain body of literature that says: You don’t need to learn anything at all! Just let the God-Man speak through you!” — Today, when everything is more spiritual, this no longer causes anyone to blush crimson. But one falls into a fate similar to that of the population that has always insisted only on its “I.”

[ 17 ] This is what we need: precisely a self that remains in motion, one that must not lose itself in external physical observation or external physical experience, but that also does not remain stationary at a single point, instead truly advancing toward spiritual forms. That is why the great masters of wisdom and harmony of feelings did not, from the very beginning of the Theosophical Movement, say to us, for example: “Let the God-man speak through you!”—but rather they gave us very specific impulses to discover the wisdom of the world in all its details. And we are not disciples of the great masters if we merely wish to let the God-man speak from within us, or if we believe that each individual carries his or her master within, but rather if we seek to understand the structure of the world in all its details. Spiritual scientific development means striving for knowledge of all the inner workings of world events. We reach our higher Self when we ascend step by step in our development. Our Self is expressed outwardly in the wonders of the world. For we are born out of the world and wish to live our way back into it.

[ 18 ] Thus we see how the conditions of today, into which human beings can fall, are, so to speak, merely newer, more spiritual manifestations of what we already encountered in the Atlantean era. Even then, there were these three groups among human beings: those who truly wanted to develop their “I,” who took in new things—and ever new things—and thereby truly became the bearers of post-Atlantean culture; those who wanted only to let their “God-man” speak through them, and whose “I” permeated them with a copper-red color; and the third group, who turned their attention solely outward, and this part of them turned black.

[ 19 ] We really must draw the right lessons for ourselves from what is revealed to us in these processes of Earth’s evolution. Then we will be able to find the right impulse, especially within the anthroposophical movement. What is happening has always happened in a certain way, but it is happening again in ever-new forms. This is what makes the anthroposophical movement something so great and significant: it continues to develop—in a more invisible way—in the regions of the Earth what visibly developed in Atlantis. Thus, humanity is moving from the culture of the visible toward a cultural epoch of the invisible and the increasingly invisible.