The Rudolf Steiner Archive

13. Occult History

[ 1 ] Once one has studied theosophy for some time, one is able to take in more [of what] one would have considered, about two years ago, to be the product of wild fantasies.

[ 2 ] Is what lies between an Egyptian incarnation and a Greek one exactly the same as what lies between a Greek one and a later one? That is what we will examine today.

[ 3 ] Humanity evolved from clairvoyance to its present state of consciousness. Between death and rebirth, human beings were companions of the gods, and even life between birth and death was filled with memories of the gods. All the gods—Wodan, Baldur, and so on—were very real beings to people back then. In the state of sleep, the spiritual worlds opened up to people. This state of consciousness gradually faded away, and awareness of this world here developed more and more.

[ 4 ] Indian culture is closest to Atlantis: Indians still consider themselves citizens of the higher worlds; for them, the earthly realm is Maya.

[ 5 ] Second: Persian culture. There, people have already grown somewhat attached to the physical world.

[ 6 ] Third: the Egyptian cultural epoch. Human beings became increasingly attuned to the physical world. Geometry was already being cultivated. The Chaldeans were the great astronomers. The Egyptians had their bodies mummified; they were concerned with preserving the physical body for as long as possible. This has an influence on the soul. The soul remains connected to the body, which is held together here with all manner of artistry.

[ 7 ] Fourth: The Greek-Latin cultural epoch. In Greece, human beings delve even deeper into the physical realm. What did the Greeks build in their temples? These are something entirely different from Gothic cathedrals. If one traces the columns—they bear the weight. There are masses of force in space; [this] is known to those who can explore it occultly. The Greek temple represents what also exists spiritually. It was constructed from the lines that exist in space.

[ 8 ] When a man and a woman provide an opportunity for a soul to incarnate in the physical realm, the physical realm reaches out to the spiritual realm, giving the spiritual realm the opportunity to connect with the physical realm.

[ 9 ] This was also the case in Greek architecture, albeit in a different sense. The physical was modeled after the spiritual forces. The god dwells in the Greek temple; there is no need for humans to be present. A Gothic cathedral is something entirely different; it is only complete when it is filled with a devout congregation.

[ 10 ] The Greeks were bound to the physical plane. And the Romans were even more intertwined with the earthly plane. It was only among them that the concept of citizenship—the sense of personality—emerged. The individual feels left to fend for themselves on the earthly plane. In Greek thought, beauty resided on the physical plane; spirit was woven into the physical plane. To the same extent that human beings conquer the physical world, consciousness in the life between death and rebirth grows ever paler and paler.

[ 11 ] The Indian still loved the spiritual world and thus felt himself to be a citizen of that world. The more a person loves the physical world, the more he becomes estranged from the other world. The Persians became more skilled in this world, and as a result, they became, so to speak, less adept at handling the instruments of the other world. People gradually began to feel like strangers in that world—as was the case with the Egyptians. The task was to conquer the physical plane. And hand in hand with this, the afterlife became increasingly shadowy.

[ 12 ] A soul that had been drawn out of a body lying down there as a mummy still felt drawn to the physical realm. This was deliberately arranged by the Higher Power. The Indians’ longing for the afterlife was to be extinguished. Instead, the soul was to feel connected to the physical plane. This was most pronounced during the Greek era. The other side of life appeared so bleak that one of the greatest thinkers of the time said: “Better to be a beggar in this world than a king in the realm of shadows.” It cast a shadow over his life in Kamaloka. The connection to the physical realm, as well as life in Devachan, has a certain shadowy quality.

[ 13 ] The worlds were mediated by initiates. An initiate can consciously leave his body and act consciously in the spiritual worlds. He can visit the dead; he is the mediator between the physical and the spiritual world. They were able to follow developments in the spiritual world and see how the souls became increasingly shadowy over there in the spiritual world.

[ 14 ] The Buddha could do the greatest good for the world by pointing out the futility of earthly existence. The more the world was permeated by the substance of existence, the less it was connected to the spiritual.

[ 15 ] If, for example, an initiate had told Achilles [in the underworld] about Greece, Achilles would have missed all the more the fact that he was no longer in the physical world; it would have been a source of pain for the soul there in the afterlife.

[ 16 ] The event at Golgotha is just as momentous for the spiritual world as it is for the physical plane. The fact that Christ appeared in the spiritual world for three and a half days is a fact established through spiritual research. He penetrated into the souls like a spiritual ray of light. He was the first to bring the news to the dead that life conquers death, [that it] must triumph. He brought this news to the souls.

[ 17 ] This is an event that has never occurred before and will never occur again. This gives rise to the physical evolution of the Earth, which leads back upward. Through the Mystery of Golgotha, the possibility was created for the physical to experience something subphysical. The spiritual was not poured into the physical; rather, Christ brought something from the physical plane into the spiritual plane.

[ 18 ] It was here, for the first time, that something was brought over from the physical plane to the spiritual plane. Until then, the initiates had only been able to bring things from the spiritual plane to the physical plane—elevating them, and so on—but not the other way around: Christ was the first who could do this. He could say that something had taken place over there in the physical realm that had an influence on the spiritual plane. Here, the soul absorbs from Christ what it takes with it to the spiritual plane. In this way, the realm of shadows became more and more alive. The Christian life provides a person with something for life after death.

[ 19 ] If, with the eye of a seer, one transports oneself into the spiritual world today upon seeing a Greek temple, it vanishes; there is nothing in it for spiritual life. But the Gospel of John is experienced on the physical plane just as much as on the spiritual one; indeed, here it is merely a seed for an even deeper understanding on the other side.

[ 20 ] We must not treat what lies beyond as static; history exists there as well. A true historical decline can be observed there up to the Greek era, followed by a turning point brought about by the event at Golgotha. Something momentous occurred for the physical world in this event, and something even more momentous for the spiritual worlds.