Πλανητικές Ενσαρκώσεις της Γης σύμφωνα με τον Rudolf Steiner

 Πλανητικές Ενσαρκώσεις της Γης σύμφωνα με τον Rudolf Steiner

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μέγεθος

Our Atlantean Ancestors (Rudolf Steiner - Cosmic Memory)

Rudolf Steiner - Cosmic Memory (Prehistory of Earth and Man)

These early lectures reconstruct events between the origin of the earth and the beginning of recorded history and include a core investigation of the origins, achievements and fate of the Atlanteans and Lemurians. These remarkable “lost” root races developed the first concepts of “good” and “evil,” manipulated the forces of nature, laid the groundwork of all human legal and ethical systems, and defined and nurtured the distinctive yet complementary powers of men and women that brought humankind, many centuries ago, to its highest artistic, intellectual, and spiritual attainments.

Chapter 3 - Our Atlantean Ancestors

Our Atlantean ancestors differed more from present-day man than he would imagine whose knowledge is confined wholly to the world of the senses. This difference extended not only to the external appearance but also to spiritual faculties. Their knowledge, their technical arts, indeed their entire civilization differed from what can be observed today. If we go back to the first periods of Atlantean humanity we find a mental capacity quite different from ours.

Logical reason, the power of arithmetical combining, on which everything rests that is produced today, were totally absent among the first Atlanteans. On the other hand, they had a highly developed memory. This memory was one of their most prominent mental faculties. For example, the Atlantean did not calculate as we do, by learning certain rules which he then applied. A "multiplication table" was something totally unknown in Atlantean times. Nobody impressed upon his intellect that three times four is twelve.

In the event that he had to perform such a calculation he could manage because he remembered identical or similar situations. He remembered how it had been on previous occasions. One need only realize that each time a new faculty develops in an organism, an old faculty loses power and acuteness. The man of today is superior to the Atlantean in logical reasoning, in the ability to combine. On the other hand, memory has deteriorated. Nowadays man thinks in concepts; the Atlantean thought in images. When an image appeared in his soul he remembered a great many similar images which he had already experienced, He directed his judgment accordingly.

For this reason all teaching at that time was different from what it became later. It was not calculated to furnish the child with rules, to sharpen his reason. Instead, life was presented to him in vivid images, so that later he could remember as much as possible when he had to act under particular conditions. When the child had grown and had gone out into life, for everything he had to do he could remember something similar which had been presented to him in the course of his education.

He could manage best when the new situation was similar to one he had already seen. Under totally new conditions the Atlantean had to rely on experiment, while in this respect much has been spared modern man due to the fact that he is equipped with rules. He can easily apply these in those situations which are new to him. The Atlantean system of education gave a uniformity to all of life. For long periods things were done again and again in the same way. The faithful memory did not allow anything to develop which was even remotely similar to the rapidity of our present-day progress. One did what one had always "seen" before. One did not invent; one remembered.

He was not an authority who had learned much, but rather he who had experienced much and therefore could remember much. In the Atlantean period it would have been impossible for someone to decide an important matter before reaching a certain age. One had confidence only in a person who could look back upon long experience.

What has been said here was not true of the initiates and their schools. For they are in advance of the stage of development of their period. For admission into such schools, the decisive factor is not age, but whether in his previous incarnations the applicant has acquired the faculties for receiving higher wisdom.

The confidence placed in the initiates and their representatives during the Atlantean period was not based on the richness of their personal experience, but rather on the antiquity of their wisdom. In the case of the initiate, personality ceases to have any importance. He is totally in the service of eternal wisdom. Therefore the characteristic features of a particular period do not apply to him.

While the power to think logically was absent among the Atlanteans (especially the earlier ones), in their highly developed memory they possessed something which gave a special character to everything they did. But with the nature of one human power others are always connected. Memory is closer to the deeper natural basis of man than reason, and in connection with it other powers were developed which were still closer to those of subordinate natural beings than are contemporary human powers. Thus the Atlanteans could control what one calls the life force.

As today one extracts the energy of heat from coal and transforms it into motive power for our means of locomotion, the Atlanteans knew how to put the germinal energy of organisms into the service of their technology. One can form an idea of this from the following. Think of a kernel of seed-grain. In this an energy lies dormant. This energy causes the stalk to sprout from the kernel.

Nature can awaken this energy which reposes in the seed. Modern man cannot do it at will. He must bury the seed in the ground and leave the awakening to the forces of nature. The Atlantean could do something else. He knew how one can change the energy of a pile of grain into technical power, just as modern man can change the heat energy of a pile of coal into such power. Plants were cultivated in

the Atlantean period not merely for use as foodstuffs but also in order to make the energies dormant in them available to commerce and industry.

Just as we have mechanisms for transforming the energy dormant in coal into energy of motion in our locomotives, so the Atlanteans had mechanisms in which they — so to speak — burned plant seeds, and in which the life force was transformed into technically utilizable power. The vehicles of the Atlanteans, which floated a short distance above the ground travelled at a height lower than that of the mountain ranges of the Atlantean period, and they had steering mechanisms by the aid of which they could rise above these mountain ranges.

One must imagine that with the passage of time all conditions on our earth have changed very much. Today, the above-mentioned vehicles of the Atlanteans would be totally useless. Their usefulness depended on the fact that then the cover of air which envelops the earth was much denser than at present. Whether in face of current scientific beliefs one can easily imagine such greater density of air, must not occupy us here. Because of their very nature, science and logical thinking can never decide what is possible or impossible. Their only function is to explain what has been ascertained by experience and observation. The above-mentioned density of air is as certain for occult experience as any fact of today given by the senses can be.

Equally certain however is the fact, perhaps even more at that time the water on the whole earth was much thinner than today. Because of this thinness the water could be directed by the germinal energy used by the Atlanteans into technical services which today are impossible. As a result of the increased density of the water, it has become impossible to move and to direct it in such be sufficiently clear that the civilization of the Atlantean period was radically different from ours. It will also be understood that the physical nature of an Atlantean was quite different from that of a contemporary man.

The Atlantean took into himself water which could be used by the life force inherent in his own body in a manner quite different from that possible in today's physical body. It was due to this that the Atlantean could consciously employ his physical powers in an entirely different way from a man of today. He had, so to speak, the means to increase the physical powers in himself when he needed them for what he was doing. In order to have an accurate conception of the Atlanteans one must know that their ideas of fatigue and the depletion of forces were quite different from those of present-day man.

An Atlantean settlement — as must be evident from everything we have described — had a character which in no way resembled that of a modern city. In such a settlement everything was, on the contrary, still in alliance with nature. Only a vaguely similar picture is given if one should say that in the first Atlantean periods — about to the middle of the third subrace — a settlement resembled a garden in which the houses were built of trees with artfully intertwined branches. What the work of human hands created at that time grew out of nature. And man himself felt wholly related to nature. Hence his social sense also was quite different from that of today. After all, nature is common to all men. What the Atlantean built up on the basis of nature he considered to be common property just as a man of today thinks it only natural to consider as his private property what his ingenuity, his intelligence have created for him.

One familiar with the idea that the Atlanteans were equipped with such spiritual and physical powers as have been described, will also understand that in still earlier times mankind presented a picture which reminds him in only a few particulars of what he is accustomed to see today. Not only men, but also the surrounding nature has changed enormously in the course of time. Plant and animal forms have become different. All of earthly nature has been subjected to transformations. Once inhabited regions of earth have been destroyed; others have come into existence.

The ancestors of the Atlanteans lived in a region which has disappeared, the main part of which lay south of contemporary Asia. In theosophical writings they are called the Lemurians. After they had passed through various stages of development the greatest part of them declined. These became stunted men, whose descendants still inhabit certain parts of the earth today as so-called savage tribes. Only a small part of Lemurian humanity was capable of further development. From this part the Atlanteans were formed.

Later, something similar again took place. The greatest part of the Atlantean population declined, and from a small portion are descended the so-called Aryans who comprise present-day civilized humanity. According to the nomenclature of the science of the spirit, the Lemurians, Atlanteans and Aryans are root races of mankind. If one imagines that two such root races preceded the Lemurians and that two will succeed the Aryans in the future, one obtains a total of seven. One always arises

from another in the manner just indicated with respect to the Lemurians, Atlanteans, and Aryans. Each root race has physical and mental characteristics which are quite different from those of the preceding one. While, for example, the Atlanteans especially developed memory and everything connected with it, at the present time it is the task of the Aryans to develop the faculty of thought and all that belongs to it.

In each root race various stages must also be gone through. There are always seven of these. In the beginning of a period identified with a root race, its principal characteristics are in a youthful condition; slowly they attain maturity and finally enter a decline. The population of a root race is thereby divided into seven sub-races. But one must not imagine that one subrace immediately disappears when a new one develops. Each one may maintain itself for a long time while others are developing beside it. Thus there are always populations which show different stages of development living beside each other on earth.

The first subrace of the Atlanteans developed from a very advanced part of the Lemurians who had a high evolutionary potential. The faculty of memory appeared only in its rudiments among the Lemurians, and then only in the last period of their development. One must imagine that while a Lemurian could form ideas of what he was experiencing, he could not preserve these ideas. He immediately forgot what he had represented to himself Nevertheless, that he lived in a certain civilization, that, for example, he had tools, erected buildings and so-forth — this he owed not to his own powers of conception, but to a mental force in him, which was instinctive. However, one must not imagine this to have been the present-day instinct of animals, but one of a different kind.

Theosophical writings call the first subrace of the Atlanteans that of the Rmoahals. The memory of this race was primarily directed toward vivid sense impressions. Colors which the eye had seen, sounds which the ear had heard, had a long after-effect in the soul. This was expressed in the fact that the Rmoahals developed feelings which their Lemurian ancestors did not yet know. For example, the attachment to what has been experienced in the past is a part of these feelings.

With the development of memory was connected that of language. As long as man did not preserve what was past, a communication of what had been experienced could not take place through the medium of language. Because in the last Lemurian period the first beginnings of memory appeared, at that time it was also possible for the faculty of naming what had been seen and heard to have its inception. Only men who have the faculty of recollection can make use of a name which has been given to something.

The Atlantean period, therefore, is the one in which the development of language took place. With language a bond was established between the human soul and the things outside man. He produced a speech-word inside himself, and this speech-word belonged to the objects of the external world. A new bond is also formed among men by communications through the medium of language. It is true that all this existed in a still youthful form among the Rmoahals, but nevertheless it distinguished them profoundly from their Lemurian forefathers.

The soul powers of these first Atlanteans still possessed something of the forces of nature. These men were more closely related to the beings of nature which surrounded them than were their successors. Their soul powers were more connected with forces of nature than are those of modern man. Thus the speech-word which they produced had something of the power of nature. They not only named things, but in their words was a power over things and also over their fellow-men. The word of the Rmoahals not only had meaning, but also power.

The magic power of words is something which was far truer for those men than it is for men of today. When a Rmoahals man pronounced a word, this word developed a power similar to that of the object it designated. Because of this, words at that time were curative; they could advance the growth of plants, tame the rage of animals, and perform other similar functions. All this progressively decreased in force among the later sub-races of the Atlanteans. One could say that the original fullness of power was gradually lost.

The Rmoahals men felt this plenitude of power to be a gift of mighty nature, and their relationship to the latter had a religious character. For them language was something especially sacred. The misuse of certain sounds, which possessed an important power, was an impossibility. Each man felt that such misuse must cause him enormous harm. The good magic of such words would have changed into its opposite; that which would have brought blessings if used properly would bring ruin to the author if used criminally. In a kind of innocence of feeling the Rmoahals ascribed their power not so much to themselves as to the divine nature acting within them.

This changed among the second subrace, the so-called Tlavatli peoples. The men of this race began to feel their own personal value. Ambition, a quality unknown to the Rmoahals, made itself felt among them. Memory was in a sense transferred to the conception of communal life. He who could look back upon certain deeds demanded recognition of them from his fellow-men. He demanded that his works be preserved in memory. Based upon this memory of deeds, a group of men who belonged together elected one as leader A kind of regal rank developed.

This recognition was even preserved beyond death. The memory, the remembrance of the ancestors or of those who had acquired merit in life, developed. From this there emerged among some tribes a kind of religious veneration of the deceased, an ancestor cult. This cult continued into much later times and took the most varied forms. Among the Rmoahals a man was still esteemed only to the degree to

which he could command respect at a particular moment through his powers. If someone among them wanted recognition for what he had done in earlier days, he had to demonstrate by new deeds that he still possessed his old power. He had to recall the old works to memory by means of new ones. What had been done was not esteemed for its own sake. Only the second subrace considered the personal character of a man to the point where it took his past life into account in the evaluation of this character.

A further consequence of memory for the communal life of man was the fact that groups of men were formed which were held together by the remembrance of common deeds. Previously the formation of groups depended wholly upon natural forces, upon common descent. Man did not add anything through his own mind to what nature had made of him. Now a powerful personality recruited a number of people for a joint undertaking, and the memory of this joint action formed a social group.

This kind of social communal life became fully developed only among the third subrace, the Toltec. It was therefore the men of this race who first founded what a a state. The leadership, the government of these communities, was transmitted from one generation to the next. The father now gave over to the son what previously survived only in the memory of contemporaries. The deeds of the ancestors were

not to be forgotten by their whole line of descent. What an ancestor had done was esteemed by his descendants.

However, one must realize that in those times men actually had the power to transmit their gifts to their descendants. Education, after all, was calculated to mold life through vivid images. The effectiveness of this education had its foundation in the personal power which emanated from the educator — He did not sharpen the power of thought, but in fact, developed those gifts which were of a more instinctive kind. Through such a system of education the capacities of the father were generally transmitted to the son.

Under such conditions personal experience acquired more and more importance among the third subrace. When one group of men separated from another for the foundation of a new community, it carried along the remembrance of what it had experienced at the old scene. But at the same time there was something in this remembrance which the group did not find suitable for itself, in which it did not feel at ease. Therefore it then tried something new. Thus conditions improved with every one of these new foundations.

It was only natural that what was better was imitated. These are the facts which explain the development of those flourishing communities in the period of the third subrace, described in theosophic literature. The personal experiences which were acquired found support from those who were initiated into the eternal laws of spiritual development. Powerful rulers themselves were initiated, so that personal ability might have full support. Through his personal ability man slowly prepares himself for initiation. He must first develop his powers from below in order that the enlightenment from above can be given to him. In this way the initiated kings and leaders of the Atlanteans came into being. Enormous power was in their hands, and they were greatly venerated.

But in this fact also lay the reason for decline and decay. The development of memory led to the pre- eminent power of a personality. Man wanted to count for something through his power. The greater the power became, the more he wanted to exploit it for himself. The ambition which had developed turned into marked selfishness. Thus the misuse of these powers arose. When one considers the capabilities of the Atlanteans resulting from their mastery of the life force, one will understand that this misuse inevitably had enormous consequences. A broad power over nature could be put at the service of personal egotism.

This was accomplished in full measure by the fourth subrace, the Primal Turanians. The members of this race, who were instructed in the mastery of the above-mentioned powers, often used them in order to satisfy their selfish wishes and desires. But used in such a manner, these powers destroy each other in their reciprocal effects. It is as if the feet were stubbornly to carry a man forward, while his torso wanted to go backward.

Such a destructive effect could only be halted through the development of a higher faculty in man. This was the faculty of thought. Logical thinking has a restraining effect on selfish personal wishes. The origin of logical thinking must be sought among the fifth subrace, the Primal Semites. Men began to go beyond a mere remembrance of the past and to compare different experiences. The faculty of judgment developed. Wishes and appetites were regulated in accordance with this faculty of

judgment. One began to calculate, to combine. One learned to work with thoughts. If previously one had abandoned oneself to every desire, now one first asked whether thought could approve this desire. While the men of the fourth subrace rushed wildly toward the satisfaction of their appetites, those of the fifth began to listen to an inner voice. This inner voice checks the appetites, although it cannot destroy the claims of the selfish personality.

Thus the fifth subrace transferred the impulses for action to within the human being. Man wishes to come to terms within himself as to what he must or must not do. But what thus was won within, with respect to the faculty of thought, was lost with respect to the control of external natural forces. With this combining thought mentioned above, one can master only the forces of the mineral world, not the life force. The fifth subrace therefore developed thought at the expense of control of the life force. But it was just through this that it produced the germ of the further development of mankind. New personality, self-love, even complete selfishness could grow freely; for thought alone which works wholly within, and can no longer give direct orders to nature, is not capable of producing such devastating effects as the previously misused powers. From this fifth subrace the most gifted part was selected which survived the decline of the fourth root race and formed the germ of the fifth, the Aryan race, whose mission is the complete development of the thinking faculty.

The men of the sixth subrace, the Akkadians, developed the faculty of thought even further than the fifth. They differed from the so-called Primal Semites in that they employed this faculty in a more comprehensive sense than the former.

It has been said that while the development of the faculty of thought prevented the claims of the selfish personality from having the same devastating effects as among the earlier races, these claims were not destroyed by it. The Primal Semites at first arranged their personal circumstances as their faculty of thought directed. Intelligence took the place of mere appetites and desires. The conditions of life changed.

If preceding races were inclined to acknowledge as leader one whose deeds had impressed themselves deeply upon their memory, or who could look back upon a life of rich memories, this role was now conferred upon the intelligent. If previously that which lived in a clear remembrance was decisive, one now regarded as best what was most convincing to thought. Under the influence of memory one formerly held fast to a thing until one found it to be inadequate, and in that case it was quite natural that he who was in a position to remedy a want could introduce an innovation. But as a result of the faculty of thought, a fondness for innovations and changes developed.

Each wanted to put into effect what his intelligence suggested to him. Turbulent conditions therefore began to prevail under the fifth subrace, and in the sixth they led to a feeling of the need to bring the obdurate thinking of the individual under general laws. The splendor Of the communities of the third subrace was based on the fact that common memories brought about order and harmony. In the sixth, this order had to be brought about by thought-out laws. Thus it is in this sixth subrace that one must look for the origin of regulations of justice and law.

During the third subrace, the separation of a group of men took place only when they were forced out of their community so to speak, because they no felt at ease in the conditions prevailing as a result of memory In the sixth this was considerably different. The calculating faculty of thought sought the new as such; it spurred men to enterprises and new foundations. The Akkadians were therefore an enterprising people with an inclination to colonization. It was commerce, especially, which nourished the waxing faculty of thought and judgment.

Among the seventh subrace, the Mongols, the faculty of thought was also developed. But characteristics of the earlier sub-races, especially of the fourth, remained present in them to a much higher degree than in the fifth and sixth. They remained faithful to the feeling for memory. And thus they reached the conviction that what is oldest is also what is most sensible and can best defend itself against the faculty of thought.

It is true that they also lost the mastery over the life forces, but what developed in them as the thinking faculty also possessed something of the natural might of this life force. Indeed they had lost the power over life, but they never lost their direct, naive faith in it. This force had become their god, in whose behalf they did everything they considered right. Thus they appeared to the neighboring peoples as if possessed by this secret force, and they surrendered themselves to it in blind trust. Their descendants in Asia and in some parts of Europe manifested and still manifest much of this quality.

The faculty of thought planted in men could only attain its full value in relation to human development when it received a new impetus in the fifth root race. The fourth root race, after all, could only put this faculty at the service of that to which it was educated through the gift of memory. The fifth alone reached life conditions for which the proper tool is the ability to think.

The Gospel of St. John By Rudolf Steiner - Lecture XI: Christian Initiation

The Gospel of St. John By Rudolf Steiner - Lecture XI: Christian Initiation

This method of initiation has to do exclusively with the feelings, and I shall now have to enumerate seven experiences of the feeling-life; seven stages of feeling, through the experiencing of which the astral body is actually so affected that it develops its organs during the night.

The first stage is what is called “Washing the Feet.”

At the second stage, the pupil is told: "Thou must develop within thyself yet another feeling. Thou must picture how it would be were all the suffering and sorrow possible in the world to come upon thee; thou must feel how it would be wert thou exposed to the piling up of all possible hindrances, and thou must enter into the feeling that thou must stand erect even though all the adversity of the world were to bear down upon thee!"

In the third exercise, the pupil had to imagine that the holiest thing that he possesses, which he defends with his whole ego-being, is subjected to jeers and gibes. He must say to himself: — “Come what may, I must hold myself erect and defend what is holy to me.” When he had accustomed himself to this, he felt something like pricking upon his head, and he experienced the “Crown of Thorns” as an astral vision. Again it must be said that the important thing is not the symptoms; they appear as a result of the exercises. Care was also taken that there was no question of suggestion and auto-suggestion.

In the fourth exercise, the pupil's body must become as foreign to his feelings as any external object — a stick of wood for example — and he must not say “I” to his body. This experience must become so much a part of his feelings that he says: “I carry my body about with me as I do my coat.” He connects his ego no longer with his body. Then something occurs which is called the Stigmata. What in many cases might be a condition of sickness is in this case a result of Meditation, because all sickness must be eliminated. On the feet and hands and on the right side of the breast appear the so-called Stigmata; and as an inner symptom, he beholds the “Crucifixion” in an astral vision.

The fifth, sixth and seventh grades of feeling, we can only briefly describe. The fifth grade consists of what is called “The Mystical Death.” Through feelings which the pupil is permitted to experience at this stage, he feels as though, in an instant, a black curtain were drawn before the whole physical, visible world and as though everything had disappeared. This moment is important because of something else that must be experienced, if one wishes to push on into Christian initiation, in the true sense of the word. The pupil then feels that he can plunge into the primal causes of evil, pain, affliction and sorrow. And he can suffer all the evil that exists in the depths of the human soul, when he descends into Hell. That is the “Descent into Hell.” When this has been experienced, it is as though the black curtain had been rent asunder and he looks into the spiritual world.

The sixth step is what is called the “Interment and Resurrection.” This is the stage at which the pupil feels himself one with the entire earth-body. He feels as though he were laid within and belonged to the whole earth planet. His life has been extended into a planetary existence.

The seventh experience cannot be described in words; only one could describe it who is able to think without the physical brain instrument — and for that there is no language, because our language has only designations for the physical plane. Therefore, only a reference can be made to this stage. It surpasses anything that the human being can possibly conceive. This is called the “Ascension” or the complete absorption into the spiritual world.

The Development of Anthroposophy since Rudolf Steiner's Death: An Outline By T.H. Meyer,Paul V. O'Leary

The Development of Anthroposophy since Rudolf Steiner's Death: An Outline 

By T.H. Meyer,Paul V. O'Leary

World War II dramatically  speeded up technological  and cultural developments. 
The mechanization  of death on an industrial  scale and the wholesale  slaughter of civilians by aerial bombing especially the bombing of Hiroshima    and  Nagasaki- released  asuric  forces  into  the  world  prematurely, forces which have now become part of our everyday life. Our ethical standards  continue to remain far behind our technological  achievements.
Steiner  forewarned  his  audiences  about  World  War I and the high likelihood  of a second,  larger conflagration. 
He also warned  that every new spiritual  impulse which enters evolution  faces the danger  of being turned  into its opposite.
The ultimate  purpose  of National  Socialism, the  polaric  counter-inspiration to Anthroposophy,  was the  annihilation of the Abrahamic  peoples,  to wipe  out the roots  of Western  Christian culture, of which  Anthroposophy   represented  an  esoteric  part,  and  to thwart the revelation  of the return of Christ in the etheric.
Although  the revelation  and  conceptual framework underlying the Second Coming was initially to be revealed through the Germanic peoples, it then ought to have spread throughout  humanity. 
The two world wars can be better viewed  as a single  conflict  waged  against  the Second  Coming  by the Sun Demon Sorat and the spiritual beings through whom he worked and continues to work: Lucifer, Ahriman, the Asuras, and their cadres. Thus, the twelve-year  Reich was only part of a far broader phenomenon of evil attacking  humanity  throughout  the twentieth  century  and continuing  to the   present   day.   Karmic   connections,   already   in   disorder   at the beginning  of the century, were further confused,  delayed, distorted, and prevented  by  the  millions  upon  millions  of dead  and injured  in  these apocalyptic  catastrophes. 
Has there  been a wide-spread experience of the  Etheric  Christ?  Did  the  end  of  the  twentieth century  produce a powerful  wave of  spirituality  brought  upon  by  the  return  of former Platonists uniting with reincarnating  Aristotelians? 
From the perspective of Rudolf  Steiner's time, the powers opposing the conscious  experience of the Second Coming seem  to have made great  progress in their mission. 
Steiner warned  us: "Evil will approach  the people  of the fifth post -Atlantean  Age  in all possible  forms, doing  it in such a way that people will have to resolve the nature, the essence, of evil in a scientific way.
On the other hand, it is just through such experiences  of loss, betrayal, imprisonment, powerlessness, and death that one's "I"  will develop the  spiritual   capacities  needed  to  courageously oppose  and overcome these powers in the future
 

Anthroposophy is a path of knowledge

 

Anthroposophy is a path of knowledge

 

'Anthroposophy is a path of knowledge to guide the spiritual in the human being to the spiritual in the universe.

It arises in the human being as a need of the heart, of the life of feeling. It can be justified only inasmuch as it can satisfy this inner need.

Only those can acknowledge anthroposophy who find in it what they themselves in their inner lives feel impelled to seek.

Only they can be anthroposophists who feel certain questions on the nature of the human being and the universe as an elemental need of life, just as one feels hunger and thirst.

Anthroposophy communicates knowledge that is gained in a spiritual way. Yet it only does so because everyday life, and the science founded on sensation and intellectual activity, lead to a barrier along life’s way – a limit where the life of the soul in the human being would die if it could go no further.

Everyday life and science do not lead to this limit in such a way as to compel the human being to stop short at it. For at the very frontier where the knowledge derived from sense-perception ceases, there is opened through the human soul itself the further outlook into the spiritual world.'

 

R. Steiner

Stainer about Christ

 

Stainer about Christ

But the Christ Being could find no body at that period; the bodies of that time would not have been suitable for Him.
When we come to the fourth post-Atlantean epoch, we can say of it: Now there is present a body in which the Christ can incarnate. It was not there in the preceding epochs; but now it is there. In this fourth epoch, however, men lack the possibility of finding their way to a real understanding of what is happening. Indeed a strange paradox, is it not? For the fact that confronts us is actually this: the Christ appeared on Earth in an epoch that was least adapted to understanding Him. 

And when we look at all the attempts that were made in subsequent centuries to understand the nature of Christ Jesus, we find endless theological wrangling; and finally in the Middle Ages a sharp distinction is drawn between knowledge and faith — which implies a complete abandonment of any knowledge about the being of Christ Jesus ... not to speak of modern times, which up to the present have remained powerless in face of this manifestation.

With this aim in view, let us ask again: Why would it have been so easy for the old Indian Rishis, with their scarcely conceivable wisdom, to understand Christ Jesus? It seems trivial, yet it is true to say — because they had the necessary concepts and gifts of wisdom, and in the fourth post-Atlantean epoch these were lacking. They had everything for which the Gnostics, and the anti-Gnostics, and the Apostolic Fathers, as they are called, thirsted in vain. 

They had it all, but in what form did they have it? Not as ideas that had been worked out, somewhat as the ideas of Plato and Aristotle were worked out, but as inspirations, as something that stood before them with the full power of concrete inspirations. Their astral bodies were laid hold of by that which streamed into them from the great Universe, and out of this working of the Cosmos on their astral bodies came the concepts which could have conjured up before their souls the Being of Christ Jesus. 

One might say that this was given to them. They had not worked it up for themselves; it came as though showered forth from the depth of the astral body. And with wonderful clarity it showered upon the holy Rishis and their pupils, and fundamentally speaking upon the whole Indian culture of the first post-Atlantean epoch. It became more and more narrowed down, but in the second and third post-Atlantean epochs it was still there, and the remains of it passed over into the fourth epoch. But what was this remainder?

If we were to examine what things were like in the third post-Atlantean epoch, we should find that at least those who had raised themselves to the height of their epoch — and proportionately there were many more spiritually developed persons than there are today had ideas about the interconnections of the super-earthly and the symbolic significance of the starry heavens. They could read world-secrets in the motions of the stars. It is quite certain that the third post-Atlantean epoch, if Christ had appeared on Earth then, would have known from the writing in the stars what relationship it had with Him. 

But  in accordance with the principle we have often mentioned with regard to the evolution of humanity it was necessary that the gift of entering into relation with the mysteries of the world through living pictures should recede more and more into the background of the astrality of man. These pictures became increasingly chaotic. That which flowed by this channel into the human soul became less and less authoritative — I am not saying that it lost all authority — but it became less and less authoritative as a means of fathoming the real mysteries of the Universe.

And so two quite different developments can be traced. On the one hand there was the world of concepts, let us say of Plato and Aristotle: a world of ideas which could be called the most attenuated form of the spiritual world, a world which had in it the least of spirit, a world grasped and explored directly by the Ego and no longer experienced through the astral body. 

For that is the distinguishing mark of Greek philosophy: there for the first time the spirit spoke out of the Ego, as it can do, in concepts that were perfectly lucid, but far removed from real spiritual life. But the Greek philosopher still felt that his thoughts emanated from the spiritual world, whereas a modern philosopher is by necessity a doubter, a sceptic, because he no longer feels any connection between his thoughts and the mysteries of the world.

.. the Christ, who through the Mystery of Golgotha infused the Earth's aura with His Being; thus He destroyed the Sibylline force in the souls of men and has driven it away.
And so on the ground of Spiritual Science we observe the remarkable fact that men with their wisdom have not understood much about the Christ Impulse: their concepts and ideas have turned out to be virtually powerless in this respect. 

But the essential thing is not that the Christ Impulse came into the world primarily as a teaching. The essential thing is the character of the facts, the direct impulse that flowed from the Mystery of Golgotha. And this we must look for not only in what is taught or understood, but in what is accomplished for human souls. And one of these deeds, the struggle waged by Christ, who had permeated the Earth-aura, against Sibyllism — it is this deed that I wished to bring before you today.

Yesterday we came to know about the threefold Christ-event which took place in Lemurian and Atlantean times. We saw how on three occasions the Being who appeared later as the Nathan Jesus-child was permeated by the Christ, but in such a way that he did not incarnate on Earth but remained in spiritual worlds. And when we look back over what happened then, we must say that what was accomplished in Atlantean times flowed over into the East.

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Thus did John behold the approach of Jesus of Nazareth, whose development he felt as his own increase, as the increase of the Sun. ‘I must henceforth decrease,’ he said, ‘as the Sun decreases after midsummer day. But He, the spiritual Sun, will increase and his Light will shine forth from out of the darkness.’ Thus did John the Baptist speak of himself and his mission. In this manner was the universal Ego of humanity reborn, and the condition fulfilled for the rebirth of the individual higher self in every human being.  

We have herewith described the most momentous event in the evolution of individual man: the rebirth of the immortal being which can issue from the ordinary Ego. This is inseparable from the greatest of all events, the Christ-event, to which we shall devote the following lectures. 

Christ in Relation to Lucifer and Ahriman by Rudolf Steiner

Christ in Relation to Lucifer and Ahriman

A Lecture by Rudolf Steiner
Linz, May 18, 1915 GA 159

This lecture, given in Linz on May 18, 1915, was translated from the German by Peter Mollenhauer, Ph.D. It is included in Das Geheimnis des Todes (Vol. 159-60 in the Bibliographic Survey 1961)

What is important is the actuality of the Christ and His real and visibly active power. Only in the science of the spirit do we begin to understand what the Christ impulse is.

Now it is no longer possible for the Christ impulse to penetrate the souls of men in this way, as if by natural initiation. Nowadays man must make a conscious effort and climb to initiation in a way similar to that achieved through the instructions given in my book Knowledge of the Higher Worlds. We are living in an age when natural initiations are becoming increasingly rare and will eventually disappear.

Just as the physical Christ appeared at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha, so the spiritual Christ will appear to mankind. He alone can give the answer, for He is not in some indefinite place; He must be recognised as a Being from beyond the earth Who has united Himself with earthly humanity.” 

People will have to understand that the question of cosmic man can be answered only if He Who unites Himself with the earth from out of the cosmos comes to their aid. This will be the solution of the most significant disharmony that has ever arisen in earth existence, the disharmony between man's feeling as an earthly being and his knowledge that he is a super-earthly being, a cosmic being. 

The fulfilment of this longing will prepare man to recognise how the Christ-Being will reveal Himself out of remote spiritual depths; He will speak to men spiritually, as at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha He spoke to them in the physical body.

The Christ will not come in the spiritual sense if men are not prepared for Him. But a man can be prepared only in the way I have just stated, by sensing the incongruity I have described, by feeling the discordance weigh heavily upon him: “Of course I must regard myself as an earth-being. 

It is the intellectual development of recent centuries that has created the conditions which make me appear an earth being. Yet I am no earth-being. 

I cannot but feel myself united with a Being Who is not of this earth; a Being Who, not untruthfully as the theologians do, but verily in truth can say: — ‘My kingdom is not of this world.’” For man will have to say to himself: — “My Kingdom is not of this world.” And to do it he will have to be united with a Being Who is not of this world.

Fragments from : http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/19150518p01.html

Η εποχή της Γης - επτά καταστάσεις / Earth stage - seven Form Conditions

Η  εποχή της Γης - επτά καταστάσεις /  Earth stage - seven Form Conditions

Έτσι, η παρούσα φάση της Γης αποτελείται ή χωρίζεται σε επτά "μικρούς κύκλους", υπό-εποχών: έναν Πύρινο ή η εποχή του παλαιού Κρόνου (που ανακεφαλαιώνει τις πρώτες εποχές), η Αέρια ή η Παλιά εποχή του Ηλίου, μια Υγρή ή η εποχή της Παλαιάς Σελήνης , και μια Γήινη (στερεά) ή η εποχή της Γης (σημερινή εποχή μας), και τρεις μελλοντικές (που προμηνύουν τις μελλοντικές εποχές).

Η λεγόμενη εποχή της Γης της Γήινης Μεταμόρφωσης με τη σειρά τις χωρίζεται σε επτά καταστάσεις-συνθήκες μορφής, παραπέμποντας, όπως προαναφέρθηκε, η κάθοδος του πνεύματος στην φυσική ύλη (παρούσα Γη), και μεταγενέστερα μια ανάβαση πίσω στο Πνεύμα.

Η παρούσα κατάσταση της Γης χωρίζεται σε επτά εποχές, σύμφωνα με τις φυλετικές ρίζες (μια άλλη έννοια από την Θεοσοφία που υιοθετήθηκε από τον Steiner) που υπάρχουν εκείνη τη στιγμή.

Αυτές είναι οι επτά εξελικτικές περίοδοι: Πολική, υπερβόρειος, Λεμουρια, Ατλάντια, "Μετα-Ατλάντια" (η σημερινή) και δύο μελλοντικές, δεδομένων των ανάλογων βιβλικών ονομάτων των "Σφραγίδα" και "Σάλπιγγα" (όπως αναφέρονται στο Βιβλίο της αποκάλυψης).

Κάθε εποχή διαρκεί ακριβώς 15.120 χρόνια, τον χρόνω ενός Πλατωνικού «Μεγάλου Έτους", ή η "Μετάπτωση της Ισημερίας". Σε συμφωνία με τις πεποίθησης του για την Κλασσική περίοδο, ο Steiner χρησιμοποιηθεί αυτό το παλιό ελληνικό χρονικό διάστημα ως το κεντρικό στοιχείο της χρονολογίας του.

Τέλος, κάθε μία από αυτές τις εποχές με την σειρά τις χωρίζεται σε επτά, δίνοντας άλλες επτά "περιόδους Πολιτισμού" ακριβώς κάθε 2.160 χρόνια.

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Thus the present Earth stage consists of or is divided into seven "Small Cycles", sub-eras: a fiery or Old Saturn era (which recapitulates the first eras), a gaseous or Old Sun era, a liquid or Old Moon era, and an earthy (solid) or Earth era (our present age), and three future ones (which presage the future eras). Each of these small cycles is the same as the "Round" of Theosophy.

The Earth era of the Earth Metamorphosis is in turn divided into seven Form Conditions (= "Globes" of Theosophy), referring to, as indicated above, the descent from spirit to physical matter (the present Earth), and subsequent ascent back to Spirit.

The present Earth condition is divided into seven eras, according to the Root Race (another Theosophical concept Steiner adopted) that exists at that time. These are the seven evolutionary periods: Polarian, Hyperborean, Lemurian, Atlantean, "Post-Atlantean" (the current one) and two future ones, given the appropriately biblical names of "Seal" and "Trumpet" (in reference to the Book of revelations). 

Each era lasts exactly 15,120 years, the time of the Platonic "Great Year", or "Precession of the Equinoxes". In keeping with his reliance on the Classics, Steiner used this old Greek time-frame as the central element of his chronology.

Finally, each of these eras is in turn divided into seven, giving seven "Culture Periods" of exactly 2,160 years each.

 

Metamorphosis of the Earth

Finally, each of these eras is in turn divided into seven, giving seven "Culture Periods" of exactly 2,160 years each.

1. Old Saturn: Solar System single mass; densest substance "warmth"

2. Old Sun: Sun, Moon, and Earth single mass; densest substance "air" (or gaseous)

3. Old Moon: Earth and Moon single mass; densest substance "water" (or liquid)

4. Earth: Present world; densest substance "earth" (or solid) during its densest substages

5. "Jupiter"     Future increasingly

6. "Venus"     Spiritualised worlds

7. "Vulcan"    Reverse of previous stages

 

     Cycles and Sub-Cycles

More : 

Anthroposophy: Rudolph Steiner's Cosmology