change your view how you see things after witnessing the chains. you are not marked. surviving and working and buying things out of love for family or yourself or others is not participating in it.

go through the cashier instead of self checkout. bring humanity back into the fold. make things human again

Hello,

I have a question or rather a theme of thoughts that has been sticking around for a while, regarding online communication in the light of Anthroposophy. I am interested if you have any thoughts on this matter.

It was a month or so ago that it dawned on me. The fact that we understand each other. Even tho the letters on the screen you are reading now do not contain the meaning in themselves. RS talks about it or uses it as a example on multiple occasions (sorry I do not have any particular GA). So the fact that I am able to point to the inner soul state of mine in this moment via these letters and you are able to understand, for me it just seems like a whole another realm opens up. Like what takes place in reality when two people interact via internet? What is the nature of the interaction and just how?

I am now writing this with the knowledge that you are reading this and it just seems like even tho it is „internet communication“ there is something so intimate in the act. It may be elementary, yet so strange.

What is in the background of these thoughts is contemplation of Christs name as the I am, that you and me have in common. That it is Him in me a Him in you that connects us. So to me the question is what is this „internet communication“ with Him in it…?

this is how it worked in me. i first had to confront the authority. this is Christ covenant. you need to seek what the authority is. why are you fearful. this is step 1. there is no jumping straight to Christ right away. anything is possible, may already be there. this is a strong impulse. you would know if you are tied in now. even a small bit of faith is alot. fear is not accepting authority. you need to accept his Authority. He is powerful even the best of us can struggle. once you work past the center of the sin. and step out you must embody what you learn from this. you must embody a choice. you have to. you are carrying a living message. you have to become a new center of axis. your choice. this will on its own work towards Christ covenant. you have to stick with it but it becomes easier and easier.

you need to see the chains that bind you. the world is living for you. you circle the sin. you worship or submit to what is going on. fear. this is what we are against. this is what is shaking the world. ive seen the connections. i escaped the world and still i was running. you can choose the light and it will overpower the darkness. you have to wintess your chains to break them. you have to witness the pain the darkness. that is the dark before the dawn.

we all see christ in each of us we see his suffering in us. we reject that he died for our sins. we are rejecting his suffering that he did for us. we can only see his suffering in us.

we cannot see his glory but we see his pain and his suffering. thats the only thing we can relate to here and not fall short. we see his suffering in others. people are afraid of Christ they are afraid of his suffering. they reject his authority that he died for your sins. why are you living in fear of others if Christ died for all of our sins. love your neighbor

Some American Occultist Authors declared her a "gnostic secret chief" , but she died on welfare in America

steiner climbed too high and fell hard. he had it right but he was too focused on the heavens. alexander was not present. this place is a mirror. he was right its duality but you are in the middle. the blood between both worlds. you cant save heaven but you can save this place. the further depths of hell you would go to save your mother the higher you go. sacrifice it all. its being reborn its not climbing out. stand up for your mother. the earth. shes was forced upon by adam and adam was forced the world upon him. the world has a choice to make also. adam has a choice also. he needs to show getting the light was worth it. show the mother it was worth it all the pain it took to get it. you can only see christ through confronting the world. not anyone in particular just the world. screw karma what would the light be for if it was for nothing? to show the light leaves when its darkest?

steiner never saw this. there is a core inside christ. the center has a cord in the middle. figure it out

the now is here. there is no running. the pain in you is self evident enough you have interacted with christ. you have to engage it. we all fall short of christ but we suffer like him. you have to stand up to the world for your mother. thats how you see christ here. cant chase angels in the dirt. we need to bring Christ here to the mother. its essential. these orbs are angels balls of light. they can only go to certain places we need to give earth some breath. these angels can wake more people up. confront the world. this is urgent. there is no getting out of here this now is the whole point.

its both. ask Christ to show you where your home is in his Kingdom. for me Christ showed me here by the river walking through the marsh reeds blowing sun shining. for some its better to see as far off place thats mythic in size. its both its here and there. you can have it in you and express it outward or seek it outward and bring it inward. or both. up to you. also Christ is coming back soon. its getting clearer and clearer heads up. took me a while to tap in but i see it now. war pain its hard to see it but its here now. hope against the fear of the world. in kingdom of Christ everything is innocent and young eternally. so its always seeds sprouting there. same here a seed sprouting is enough but it can grow here. keep it watered keep it growing. if the world seems like its crashing down on you even a mustard seed can move mountains. guess thats what that pesky mustard seed was upto, hanging out in kingdom.

what type of the soul does one receive the grail and sword without trying? kinda wanna know the higher levels of it for no odd reason.

So some people consider Jordan Peterson this rhetoric and psychological expert.

However it REALLY bothers me how he consistantly overlooks or fails to mention Anthroposophy.

Peterson is always blathering about Christ in this kinda (to me) abstract way.

But in anthroposopy and Steiners life + work, there is an example of a very nuts + bolts, down-to-earth, pragmatic application of Christianity/Christ.

It just seems to me a glaring omission.

Here is a video on the similarity of some of their arguments (Steiner and Peterson).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XKbdxBgm9s

Anybody have any theories as to why Peterson never aknowledges Steiner?

Is we going back to Atlantis?

Some critics have stated that the idea of free energy is a materialistic take on spirituality. However, this ignores the fact that humanity’s dependency on oil is unsustainable and leaves us vulnerable. The global economy is based on oil, and those who control our energy source ultimately have control over our lives.

Where “free energy” comes from is the unified etheric field, which surrounds the whole Cosmos. It is the basis of how astrology “works” and why the planets i.e. the higher kingdoms of life, influence us. This force is known as ether, Fohat, the Christ-force, etc. The theory of ether was dismissed by science in the late 19th century and the world saw only developments in electromagnetism after that.

Mechanistic occultism has been confused with techno-occultism, when they are in fact drawing upon completely different energy sources. The ethers exist on the four highest subplanes of the physical plane, whereas electromagnetism comes from the three lower, denser subplanes of the physical plane (which corresponds to the lower astral plane.)

Keep in mind, when Steiner was lecturing, the transistor had not been invented yet. The world had not seen a shift from electric to electronic. All the technological developments we have recently seen such as AI and neuralink are the exact opposite of what mechanistic occultism is, which would be analog machines run by spiritual energy, ether. 

The closest representation of this in fiction would probably be steampunk, an alternate timeline where analog technology has been developed to an advanced degree, and electronics do not exist. My prediction is that ether will be re-discovered in Egypt and identified as the type of electricity being used in ancient times.

A forerunner to mechanistic occultism was the Keely motor, an etheric-force machine mentioned by different esotericists.  

In the West, if I may put it like this, we have Keely and his engine as a rough, crude mechanistic forerunner of a future culture. 

GA 197 8 November 1920, Stuttgart, Polarities in the Evolution of Mankind Lecture IX https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA197/English/RSP1987/19201108p01.html

Keely set his engine in motion with vibrations created in his own organism. Such vibrations depend on a person's moral nature.

GA 97 12 February 1906, Cologne, The Christian Mystery III. The Gospel of John as an Initiation Document I https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA097/English/CMP2000/19060212p02.html

Mme Blavatsky, “The Secret Doctrine - The Coming Force” 

…the etheric Force, discovered by the well-known (in America and now in Europe) John Worrell Keely, of Philadelphia, is no hallucination. Notwithstanding his failure to utilize it, a failure prognosticated and maintained by some Occultists from the first, the phenomena exhibited by the discoverer during the last few years have been wonderful, almost miraculous, not in the sense of the supernatural* but of the superhuman…Mr. Keely, of Philadelphia, was, and still is, at the threshold of some of the greatest secrets of the Universe…

https://sacred-texts.com/the/sd/sd1-3-10.htm

Alice Bailey, “The Consciousness of the Atom”

Before long we shall harness the energy of atomic matter for every conceivable purpose, for heating, for lighting, and for what I might call the motivation of everything that is carried on in the world. That force, as some of us know, was nearly discovered in the United States fifty years ago by a man called Keely, but he was not allowed to give it out to the world because of the danger thereby involved.

The Boddhisattva Maitreya is a messianic figure that has been mentioned by many esotericists including Steiner. Steiner specifically mentions he was incarnated as Jeshu Ben Pandera one hundred years before the birth of Christ, and and will be a forerunner to Christ in the etheric.

According to Islamic eschatology, he's known as Imam al Mahdi and is a forerunner to the return of Jesus (the distinction between Jesus and Christ is not well understood in the exoteric forms of religion)

It is interesting because the future advent of Imam al Mahdi is an undercurrent of Iranian politics, known as Mahdism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahdism Notably, it is believed he will appear in Iran and will be the twelfth and final imam.

It is also believed by Shia Muslims he is born but currently in occultation (hidden from public view) which also agrees with Steiner that he is currently incarnated.

I am writing a post about this topic, which also goes into the divide between the Islamic and Christian world, and how the transition into the sixth cultural age explains the geopolitical shift of power to Iran and Russia.

Also, many people are aware of the Ahrimanic forces present in the technocratic movement, but little is known how these same forces were present in the Neoconservative movement, particularly in the 90s and 2000s which led to an aggressive interventionist policy.

If you were older around that time, you would remember how war with Iran was a huge topic, pushed by Washington think tanks such as PNAC and others.

My theory is the same Western occult brotherhoods that were mentioned by Steiner with regards to WWI basically found their way into American politics via the Zionist movement in the 20th century to accomplish their ideological goals in the Middle East

The profoundest impelling forces in Western occultism is fostered by nothing more powerfully than by the development of feelings that are untrue but are sensed as in some way holy, and that can represent the people of the East and especially those of the Central countries as barbarians.

The potentialities of material occultism, for example, are fostered by the attitude of mind constituting the so-called crusading temperament in America. This consists in the feeling that America is called to spread over the whole earth freedom and justice and I know not what other beautiful things.

GA 186 1 December 1918, Dornach The Challenge of the Times https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA186/English/AP1941/19181201p01.html

Gradually, the conservative movement shifted away from neoconservatism to populism so many people don't remember how war hawkish everything was for decades.

The takeaway is, Ahriman has worked through different movements, and this war is a last ditch effort and byproduct of an earlier movement that has gradually been supplanted by the technocrats who prefer to work with the populist current. The side of evil has many factions, and basically one faction does not want to give up their power. This war was set into motion a long time ago and not really caused by any one political figure like many people believe.

Given that Neptune has transitioned into Aries from Pisces, I believe the theme of "Holy War" will become extremely prominent on the world stage in the coming years and everyone should be prepared for interfaith dialogue.

I want to hear stories from people who have treated themselves with anthroposophic medicine and whether if they recommend it, whether it has been helpful to them, their particular experience with it, or even a bad situation that happened. That’s all, thank you and have a good week everyone.

"Even in the allurements of playing, the adepts have known how to introduce the great cosmic laws, so that, even in play, people have at least a smack of wisdom."

-Rudolf Steiner

Life as a Metaphor for Intuitive Navigation

In this essay, we are using Chess to stand in for any life activity in which we intelligently navigate toward specific goal states based on our intuition, which is shaped by past experiences and their lawful patterns. In modern times, this intuitive navigation applies to virtually all aspects of life except our period of sleep. Even if we are immersed in passive entertainment, as soon as we begin thinking about its meaning, like what may happen to our favorite character in a movie, we are once again intuitively navigating toward an imaginative goal state. This navigatory experience is something we rarely reflect upon in our time, and instead, we often take it for granted as an unquestioned capacity. Yet that is a recipe for disaster. It is no exaggeration to say that all of our modern confusions and predicaments, all our pathological states of thinking and being, are born out of our lack of conscious orientation to the intuitive navigation we continuously use to pursue our goals, as individuals and collectives.

For animal consciousness, the navigation unfolds automatically from inborn instinct. Shortly after birth, the animal seamlessly develops an orientation to what is edible and inedible, what is safe and unsafe, how to build a shelter, what to do in a storm, where to migrate as the seasons change, how to sacrifice itself for the benefit of its young, and so on. The wasp soul, for example, ‘invented’ paper to construct its nest long before humans.1 Modern human souls, on the other hand, must effortfully cultivate their navigation skills across many domains of life, from maintaining physical health to pursuing philosophical and scientific inquiries to carrying out philanthropic deeds. What human can draw the knowledge of how to make paper directly out of their physical organism shortly after birth, without any learning curve? The human soul, in this way, begins its life as a much more helpless and dependent creature, and can sometimes remain that way if not imbued with proper socialization and a healthy thinking capacity.

The palette of potential experience that can be navigated by the animal, for that same reason, is fundamentally constrained by its instincts. The latter leads the animal soul into the same experiential pathways centered around myopic interests, again and again. Since many of the skills that the animal draws directly out of its physical organism must be intuitively cultivated by the human, a certain leeway is opened up for the human imagination. The latter becomes more plastic and pliable, capable of adapting itself to novel circumstances and developing corresponding novel intuitions of its place within the experiential flow. The human imagination is no longer so tightly bound to what the senses, urges, and passions dictate for its flow. Thus, there is no instinctual ceiling on what experiential pathways can be navigated. In that sense, we have been given the unique responsibility of navigating our individualized experiential flow with a modicum of intention, conscious awareness, and corresponding intuition that can open into limitless possibilities for engaging with experience.

An occult education is the process of unveiling the deeper dynamics that make this navigation of the experiential flow possible, becoming more sensitive to those dynamics, and gradually participating in their unfoldment, creatively and ethically. This path of education is quite orthogonal to what we normally experience as ‘acquiring knowledge’, i.e., the accumulation and clever arrangement of mental pictures that point to a reality ‘out there’ or ‘back then’. The reality we investigate is certainly beyond our personal consciousness at any given time, and it is understood as a shared experiential space that can be objectively observed and experimented with, but this investigation doesn’t leave our personal navigating perspective out of its purview, in the blind spot. In fact, we become more and more intimately familiar with that perspective, the way that it takes shape and is steered by various influences through vectors of experience. Our flow of philosophizing mental pictures is experienced as one such vector, an inseparable ‘frequency band’ of the wider flow, which we aim to investigate more and more consciously.

Full essay - https://spiritanalogies.substack.com/p/an-occult-education-through-chess?r=rlafh

(the pictures do not do the size of this justice btw)

My dear friends, it is not the Osiris, but the Isis legend that has to be fulfilled in our time. We cannot lose the Christ and what He gives...but we can lose, and we have lost...the Mother of the Saviour, the Divine Wisdom, Sophia.

...It is not the Christ we lack, my dear friends, but the knowledge and wisdom of the Christ, the Sophia of the Christ...Christ, Who remains hidden in darkness if we do not illuminate Him with divine wisdom.

Wisdom, the virgin Sophia, purifies our selfish desires, thereby harmonizing our free-will with destiny as indicated by the stars. How else can one play their part in destiny, through their own free-will, if they do not strive for Wisdom?

This is reflected within the human being, when the unselfish Will of the heart center becomes active, over the selfish Will of the navel center (the second initiation.)

* * * * *

Lucifer strives to sever all moral forces from the world-picture; he only allows the laws of nature...a wisdom of the world in which the stars move according to a purely mechanical necessity, devoid of morality.

Morals only have significance in a world where man struggles with sin. Luciferic wisdom is a remnant of an ancient world-conception where sin does not exist.

This is demonstrated, for example, when knowledge of the stars interferes with man's capacity to be free in his will, therefore the opportunity to develop his morals. Ahriman takes advantage of this state of nescience, to corrupt man's morals and his will.

Thus the polarity of Ahriman-Lucifer, is challenged by that of Christ-Sophia. Out of worldly wisdom (Sophia), virtue can be attained (Christos.) And if Ahriman represents the anti-Christ, then Lucifer can be considered the anti-Sophia.

* * * * *

The impression I personally get from Her is of a Mother fiercely protective of her Son. She is Theotokos. She intercedes before us; in some ways we must go through Her first, for she loves her Son more than anyone else.

It may be that "mysterious and secret feelings" are behind the underhanded way She has been cut out in some Christian denominations.

Without Sophia's interference and Her stern presence, Christ's revelations are subject to profanation by the selfish, deceptive, and willfully ignorant - and precisely this state of affairs is advantageous for them.

She is not wrathful per se but I feel she can take it there, like any mother protects her child. Perhaps that is why some people have an underlying fear of the Virgin.

There are also those who venerate Her, but pay little respect to her Son. But what can be more ridiculous than loving a woman but not her child? She will never accept this.

* * * * *

The Search for the New Isis, Divine Sophia GA 202 II. The Quest for Isis-Sophia https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA202/English/MP1983/19201224p02.html

An audio collage I made loosely inspired by Steiner

Tl;Dr

In the primeval living earth globe, two kinds of compounds were first segregated from each other (i.e. decomposed) within the Planetary Being, ones that could support evolution of complex living organisms, and those that would form the purely mineral crust underneath the fossil layers.

Now physical lifeforms could rapidly evolve atop of this layer (the Cambrian explosion) allowing for life in the subtle non-physical spheres of the earth to descend and take up residence in these forms over time, from simple to more complex, culminating in man.

No science which assumes that the earth was once a dead globe in which only chemical and physical processes were active will be able to explain how life could arise out of this dead globe…

Generally people ask: How could “life” have developed out of the lifeless?—But that is not how it is: the living is not preceded by the lifeless, but the reverse is the case; the lifeless is preceded by the living. 

We come to a period of which we must say: It is true that on the earth's surface the heat is so great that life cannot develop; but in the environment life is developing which wants to, but cannot descend. 

...under conditions of intense heat—it is there that what the living organism of our earth segregates out of its system as our living organism segregates the hard parts…

Originally the material which the granite contains—quartz, feldspar and mica…the great living being “Earth”...needs for its development to discard these substances: it segregates them and lets them fall to earth.

…the possibility arose for certain new forms to develop, capable of responding to spiritual functions of a new order…such cerebral instruments could develop in living beings which enabled them to become “inwardly” aware of the spirit, inwardly able to form thoughts and produce feelings.

The development of these finer organisms is in the ascendancy…through having segregated the coarsest material as in a mighty process of elimination, which then became the surface of the earth, they were in a position to isolate themselves more or less from the earth and its inner processes—and are now open to cosmic influences streaming towards the earth from outside.

They are now exposed to the more spiritual effects of the cosmos and it is to this that they owe the ascent from primitive forms of life to that of man.

Looking backward from those beings which from our human point of view we call perfect today, we come to ever less and less perfect forms of life on the earth with a mixture, at times, of grotesque forms as, for instance, the various Saurian types such as Ichthyosaurus, Plesiosaurus, Dinosaurus, Archaeopteryx.

We then find creatures without any vertebrate skeleton, and so, with clairvoyant vision, we do indeed come to a tellurian epoch in which we cannot find such beings as are now living on our earth. We must admit, therefore; that drawing from its own sources, spiritual-scientific research also reveals this gradual advance in degrees of perfection.

Geologists everywhere get to a certain point—and then put a question-mark. Arriving at those question-marks, one can take them as a starting-point for spiritual research.

The further we go back the more this would be the case. So that we could go back to the epoch to which we assign granite-formation and reflect: There the earth is essentially a mighty, living body, containing multifarious and varied life within it.

This life was originally in the outer atmosphere encircling the earth; then it descended as it were.

Geological ages and their correlation with the planetary epochs:

Hadean-Archean-Proterozoic: Polarian

Paleozoic: Hyperborean

Mesozoic: Lemurian

Cenozoic: Atlantean and current

When you go on to the primeval forms, to the original mountains, you have the polar period. The Paleozoic corresponds to the Hyperborean, but you may not take the individual animal forms pedantically. 

Then you have the Mesozoic, which generally corresponds to Lemuria. And then the first and second levels of mammals, or the Cenozoic, that is, the Atlantean age. The Atlantean period was no more than about nine thousand years ago. 

You can draw parallels from these five periods, the primitive, the Paleozoic, the Mesozoic, the Cenozoic, and the Anthropozoic.

In very primitive times, human beings consisted almost entirely of etheric substance. They lived among other things but had as yet no density. 

The human being became more dense during the Hyperborean period. Only those animal forms that had precipitated out…Human beings…only gained an external density during the Cenozoic period. 

~

Answers of Spiritual Science to the Great Questions of Existence GA 60 What Has Geology to Say About the Origin of the World https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA060/English/SOL2025/19110209p01.html

Faculty Meetings with Rudolf Steiner GA 300a Third Meeting https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA300a/English/AP1998/19190926d01.html

Rosicrucian Esotericism GA 109 8. Stages in the Evolution of our Earth. Lemurian, Atlantean, Post-Atlantean Epochs https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA109/English/AP1978/19090610p01.html

https://anthroposophy.eu/Book_of_Revelation#/media/File:FMC00.258.jpg

To study Anthroposophy is to know that the writer is here referring to the fifth age of human evolution in the post-Atlantean epoch, to know that in our age, when man has descended most deeply into matter, we are again to ascend to spiritual life by following the great individuality who gives for our guidance the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars, in order that we may rightly proceed on our path.

And if we follow this path we shall bring into the sixth age the true spiritual life of wisdom and of love. The spiritual wisdom we have acquired will become the impulse of love in the sixth age, which is represented by the community expressing itself even in its name, the community of brotherly love, or Philadelphia. All these names are carefully chosen. Man will develop his “I” to the necessary height, so that he will become independent and in freedom show love towards all other beings in the sixth age, which is represented by the community at Philadelphia. In this way the spiritual life of the sixth age will be prepared. We shall then have found the individual “I” within us in a higher degree, so that no external power can any longer play upon us if we do not wish it; so that we can close and no one without our will can open, and if we open no opposing power can close. These are the Keys of David. For this reason he who inspires the letter says that he has the key of David: And to the Angel of the community in Philadelphia write: These things saith he that is holy, he that is true, he that hath the key of David, he that openeth, and no man shutteth; and shutteth and no man openeth. ... Behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it” (Rev. iii. 7)—the “I” that has found itself within itself.

In the seventh age those who have found this spiritual life will flock around the great Leader; it will unite them around this great Leader. They will already belong so far to the spiritual life that they will be distinguished from those who have fallen away, who are lukewarm, “neither cold nor hot.” The little flock which has found spirituality will understand him who may then say, when he makes himself known, “I am he who contains in himself the true final Being towards which everything is steering.” For this final Being is described by the word, Amen. “And unto the Angel of the church of Laodicea write: Thus saith the Amen, he who in his being presents the nature of the end” (Rev. iii. 14).

1908-06-20-GA104

This is only mentioned as a symptom of the future age when the spirituality of the East will unite with the intellectuality of the West. From this union will proceed the age of Philadelphia. All those will participate in this marriage who take into themselves the impulse of Christ Jesus and they will form the great brotherhood which will survive the great War, which will experience enmity and persecution, but will provide the foundation for the good race. After this great War has brought out the animal nature in those who have remained in the old forms, the good race will arise, and this race will carry over into the future that which is to be the spiritually elevated culture of that future epoch. We shall also have the experience that in our epoch, between the great Atlantean flood and the great War of All against All, in the age represented by the community at Philadelphia, a colony is being formed, the members of which will not emigrate but will be everywhere; so that everywhere there will be some who are working in the sense of the community of Philadelphia, in the sense of the binding together of humanity, in the sense of the Christ-principle.

1908-06-24-GA104

We have represented it as a high achievement of man that just through Christianity he has been able to ascend to this concept of the free “I.” Christ Jesus brought the “I” in all its fullness. Hence this “I” must be expressed by the sharp two-edged sword which you already know from one of our seals. And the fact that this sharp two-edged sword proceeds from the mouth of the Son of Man is also comprehensible, for when man has learnt to utter the “I” with full consciousness it is in his power to rise to the highest or sink to the lowest. The sharp two-edged sword is one of the most important symbols met with in the Apocalypse.

Now if we understand what was said at the close of our last lecture, that after our present civilization will follow that which is characterized in our last lecture through the community of Philadelphia, we must particularly notice that from the sixth age will be taken those human souls who have to pass over into the following epoch. For, after the War of All against All—as we have already said—there will be expressed in the features all that is in our age being prepared in men's souls. The so-called seventh age will be of very little importance. We are now living in the fifth age of civilization; then follows the sixth, from which will proceed a number of people full of understanding for the spiritual world, filled with the spirit of brotherly love, which results from spiritual knowledge. The ripest fruit of our present civilization will appear in the sixth age. And that which follows it will be what is lukewarm, neither warm nor cold; the seventh age is something like an overripe fruit, which outlasts the War of All against All, but contains no principle of progress.

...

Just as it happened at that time with the fifth race, that it provided men who were capable of development and with the sixth and seventh, that they experienced a descent, so will it also be in our epoch. We are now looking with great longing towards the sixth civilization, to that which must be described as developing out of the spiritual marriage between West and East. The sixth stage will be the foundation for the new civilizations which will arise after the great War of All against All; just as our civilization arose after the Atlantean epoch. On the other hand, the seventh race of culture will be characterized by the lukewarm. This seventh age will continue into the new epoch, just as the sixth and seventh races of the Atlantean epoch continued into our epoch as races hardened and stiffening. After the War of All against All, there will be two streams in humanity: on the one hand the stream of Philadelphia will survive with the principle of progress, of inner freedom, of brotherly love, a small group drawn from every tribe and nation; and on the other hand the great mass of all those who are lukewarm, the remains of those who are now becoming lukewarm (Laodicea).

After the great War of All against All, gradually the evil stream will be led over to good by the good race, by the good stream. This will be one of the principal tasks after the great War of All against All; to rescue what can be rescued from those who after the great war will only have the impulse to fight one another and to allow the “I” to express itself in the most external egoism. Such things are always provided for in advance in the spiritual guidance of humanity.

Do not consider it a hard thing in the plan of creation, as something which should be altered, that humanity will be divided into those who will stand on the right and those who will stand on the left; consider it rather as something that is wise in the highest degree in the plan of creation. Consider that through the evil separating from the good, the good will receive its greatest strengthening. For after the great War of All against All, the good will have to make every possible effort to rescue the evil during the period in which this will still be possible. This will not merely be a work of education such as exists to-day, but occult forces will co-operate. For in this next great epoch men will understand how to set occult forces in motion. The good will have the task of working upon their brothers of the evil movement. Everything is prepared beforehand in the hidden occult movements, but the deepest of all occult cosmic currents is the least understood. The movement which is preparing for this, says the following to its pupils: “Men speak of good and evil, but they do not know that it is necessary in the great plan that evil, too, should come to its peak, in order that those who have to overcome it should, in the very overcoming of evil, so use their force that a still greater good results from it.” The most capable must be chosen and prepared to live beyond the period of the great War of All against All when men will confront those who bear in their countenances the sign of evil; they must be so prepared that as much good force as possible will flow into humanity. 

1908-06-25-GA104

Then an age will come upon the earth when the victors will be those who lead the war of all against all. But the souls who will have been preserved from the sixth age must found a new culture after the war of all against all. The seventh age will have neither people who glow with enthusiasm for the spiritual, nor those who glow with enthusiasm for sense existence; even for that these people will be too blase. Very little of the Indian, the first culture, will be perceptible on the earth in the seventh age. But these souls from the sixth age when earned up into the spiritual world, purified and “Christened, will walk as it were etherically, no longer touching the earth, while humanity then will be able to master what the entire culture of earth has to offer. The seventh age will be such that here below on the earth, people living in increasingly dense and hardened bodies will make the greatest discoveries and inventions. In the seventh age, human beings wholly entangled in matter will no longer have to fear much from Theosophy, for on earth there will no longer be much to find of those transformed human beings who will have increasingly spiritualized themselves in the sixth age by absorbing Theosophy. The people who have understood the call of the master today will be carried over into a distant future. The key will be turned in the sixth cultural epoch. Those who have heard the call will be the founders of a new humanity. If only a few people are entangled with matter, the community of Laodicea will not last long. It lies within the free will of every human being to belong to either the community of Philadelphia or the community of Laodicea.

1909-05-14-GA104a

We have another indication, as it were, of what the secret of the seven churches is in the seven seals. We will describe the other meaning of the seven seals later, but when the fourth seal is opened, it corresponds to a secret of the fourth post Atlantean epoch, for a pale horse appears, and there is talk about the death which has come into the world. This touches upon one of the most important secrets of the Apocalypse—at least, it is very important for our time. In a way, death really entered into humanity during the fourth Post Atlantean epoch. You should make this clear to yourselves. One finds out what human nature is if one contemplates something like this; one can really get to know it quite well.

If we go back to the first, second and third post Atlantean epochs we find that the way man felt about himself, and his whole frame of mind was different in these early times than it became later. Man had a distinct inner feeling that he was growing into his earthly abode. Even though this consciousness had dimmed considerably by the time of the Mystery of Golgotha, men had a distinct memory in their ordinary consciousness that they had lived up in the spiritual world before their life on earth. In the first, second and third post Atlantean epochs, everyone knew that they had been a spiritual being before they had become a child. One doesn't find this, in external documents very much, but the fact is that people, took the continuation of their stay upon earth backwards into the spiritual world for granted. Human beings only began to feel that their life on earth was closed off by the two portals of conception or birth and death in the fourth post Atlantean epoch, which coincided with the Mystery of Golgotha.

This consciousness or attitude of soul first arose in the fourth post Atlantean epoch, so that this consciousness of being strictly enclosed by the boundaries of earthly life developed from about the eighth century before Christ up to the 15th century after the Mystery of Golgotha. A new consciousness is being prepared in the present epoch, but we're only at the beginning of it. Only about five centuries have elapsed since then, and this corresponds to about the third pre-Christian century with respect to the preparation of the fourth post Atlantean consciousness. The consciousness which they had then was quite different from the one they had when the fourth post Atlantean consciousness was fully developed. Likewise, most men today are not wearing the clothes of the new consciousness yet, but they are still wearing the consciousness of the fourth post Atlantean epoch. Our whole civilization tends to create this situation.

Just think of how much has been carried over from the fourth post Atlantean epoch and of how much people are living in the fourth post Atlantean epoch in a matter of fact or coquettish way. The fourth post Atlantean epoch is still working on in our entire high school education. Scholars who use Latin are still back in the fourth post Atlantean epoch. People in public life still think in the way that they thought in the fourth post Atlantean epoch. We haven't arrived at full humanity with respect to the development of our consciousness soul, as it were, in the fifth post Atlantean epoch. And this is why men of the present still think that their earth life is closed off by the two portals of birth and death.

The consciousness soul is being developed, but this development only becomes evident in people who have a special talent for it. I have met quite a few talented people like this during my lifetime; but one usually doesn't notice them. There is an awareness that a man with this fifth post Atlantean consciousness doesn't completely fit into the period between birth and death, that death plays into earthly life, that one really dies a little bit every day, that we're dying continuously all the time and that death exists. Some people are very much afraid of death, because they feel that it is undermining their ability to be human on earth. On the other hand, I have also known people who loved death because it always accompanied them, and they were really longing for it.

This is something which will arise evermore during the fifth post Atlantean epoch, namely, people will see death walking alongside them. To put it even more concretely: men will perceive an intimate fire process in themselves which is connected with the development of the consciousness soul. They will experience this development of waking consciousness like a kind of fire process which consumes them, especially at the moments when they pass over from sleeping to waking consciousness. The consciousness soul is a very spiritual thing, and spiritual things always consume material ones. The consciousness soul consumes material and etheric things in human beings through a kind of intimate fire process or transformation process.

This is something which men will perceive more and more in the course of this fifth post Atlantean epoch. Except that you shouldn't think that it's like a burning candle flame; one shouldn't think of it in such a physical way. Rather he will incorporate this proximity of death into his moral soul.

The situation with most people today is as follows. If you see how the good resolves and firm intentions which they have disappear in the next moment, hour, day or month, then in accordance with the prevailing, materialistic world view, one considers this to be something which simply occurs. But one will gradually begin to feel differently about this. One will begin to feel that a good intention which one was too weak to carry out weakens one's life and reduces one's moral value, and one will see that one becomes morally lighter and less significant in the universe thereby.

People today generally feel that what is present here is a weakness in their soul, and not something which works on in the universe. But this will change. Likewise, there will be certain intellectual qualities which people will increasingly feel are weakening them, as if a fire in their soul were consuming them. These phenomena are already here, and some of them exist on a large scale. But they are not being felt in an honest way.

There is a way to find one's way into the spiritual world where one goes step by step and where one also takes what is given in How Does One Attain Knowledge of Higher Worlds? and in other books into account; thereby one arrives at a harmony between spirit, soul and body. But through the way in which most people cultivate a spiritual life today without these exercises, namely, through the way in which people in various confessions pursue a religious life, the latter is active in them in such a manner that it reduces their moral value and makes them lighter.

These are things which people are becoming aware of more and more. People in this fifth post Atlantean epoch are changing a great deal. For it is a significant change if one feels that one's whole manhood is strengthened or weakened by what one is in one's soul. It's quite a change if one feels that destiny is not only a matter of circumstances which work upon one and which are present around one outside, but that it is something which makes one morally lighter or heavier. It's not as if one's physical body were protected against this, for one feels that one becomes lighter or heavier as a whole human being.

You see, this is the consciousness which is being prepared, and one can see externally and empirically that it is being prepared. The time is beginning today when the priesthood will have to think of these things, when the faithful are standing before them. For it's a question of dealing with what is rising in men's consciousness in such a way that a man is comforted and strengthened. These things are not fully conscious yet, and they are coming up together with all kinds of unrest, nervousness and disharmonious emotional contents.

You priests will find that it's becoming increasingly impossible to treat individual people in accordance with the general ideas which you have formed. Don't be offended by this, but in a certain sense clichés have been the decisive thing in the past and in many respects they still are today. If you ask what a priest did with someone who came to him with some kind of delusive ideas, one will hear that he tried to make him feel aware that he was a sinner, and that he did the same with a second case, and so on. Thus everything is pervaded by clichés.

…

Priests must begin to be able to look into the hearts of other human beings again.

Very few people can do this today. Human beings know terribly little about other human beings today. For you see, if one reads the passage about the white raiment which people who have fulfilled the task of the fifth cultural epoch will have to wear, and if one does this with a certain reverence—because one can't really read the Apocalypse without reverence—one gets the impression that here it's a question of looking deeply into the special kind of consciousness which each human being has with the eye of a priest. It's a question of their becoming acquainted with the people who appear before them in the fifth post Atlantean age. We are being admonished to become acquainted with each human being in his soul garment, and not just in the clothes which he wears through what he is in the outer world. This admonishment of the Apocalypticer is addressed to our present time through this letter.

....

The fact that we are living at a time when man and the way the world looks are being transformed is indicated in a number of ways but also by the fact that there is a relative uniformity in the description of the first four letters. The first letter is unsealed and a horse appears, a white horse. The second letter is unsealed and a red horse appears, but it's a horse. The third letter is unsealed and a black horse appears, but it's a horse. The fourth letter is unsealed and a pale horse appears, but again it is a horse.

The fifth letter is unsealed and no horse appears; there is no mention of horses anymore. The decisive thing here is indicated in an entirely different way. If we go on reading the letters, we find that a very important transformation which is occurring during our age is pointed to in this way.

We can only say that we must prepare ourselves to become the new, transformed community of Sardis. This new and transformed community in Sardis must realize that it's rather trivial to know plants, animals and rocks, for one only really knows these things if one finds the activities of the stars and planets in every stone and in every plant. The stars must fall down from heaven in a spiritual way. One can already begin to perceive this.

...

The power which the sun develops in its movement through a Platonic year lives in the colors of green emeralds, wine yellow topaz and red rubies. And so you see that if one begins to speak about the spiritual world people are no longer satisfied if one explains their questions about earthly things with the trivialities which come out of our laboratories and dissecting rooms. They want to know things, and they feel very satisfied if they know them in a Sardisian way or in a way where one brings in the stars and planets and their activities. After all, by placing Sardis into the present time, one is doing the same thing that the Apocalypse is doing.

You see, this is an example, but on the other hand, one has to begin to carry this sensing of the stars and their beings into the present People will have to begin to see that the Christ is a sun being again. But this is what they fight most of all. But if I tell you such things, namely, if I tell you that our modern, fifth post Atlantean epoch must be the resurrected Sardis, in the way that this is concisely and wonderfully described in the fifth community and in the fifth seal, when these things are unsealed, if I say this to you, you will feel that one of our tasks is to develop this particular understanding of the Apocalypse today, namely, to be able to understand the tasks which are demanding our heartfelt attention every day. It doesn't do any good to merely interpret the Apocalypse today. We must put the Apocalypse into practice in everything we do, otherwise we might just as well forget about it. A desire to interpret it in order to satisfy one's curiosity doesn't have much value.

1924-09-09-GA346