RUDOLF STEINER

The Mission of
Folk-Souls
in relation to
Teutonic Mythology
Eleven lectures given in Christiania (Oslo)
from 7th to 17th June, 1910

Translated by A. H. Parker
 Notes
The following lectures were given by Rudolf Steiner to
an audience familiar with the general background of his
anthroposophical teachings. He constantly emphasized
the distinction between his written works and reports
of lectures which were given as oral communications
and were not originally intended for print. It should
also be remembered that premises were taken for
granted when the words were spoken. These
premises, Rudolf Steiner writes in his biography, in-
clude at the very least anthroposophical knowledge of
Man and of the Cosmos in its spiritual essence; also of
what may be called anthroposophical history, told as
an outcome of research into the spiritual world.

* * *

Readers will find it helpful to devote particular attention

to the Preface written by Rudolf Steiner in 1918 as an
introduction to the sketch of the psychology of the de-
velopment of peoples given eight years previously in
the following lectures. That many of the intervening
years were clouded by the tragedy of war demonstrates
the relevance of such a theme not only when the lec-
tures were given but again now, after many decades,
when symptoms of disruption are so strongly in evi-
dence in the world. It is surely high time for the spiri-
tual significance of the missions of the Folk Souls and
of the Time Spirit to become part of men's conscious-
ness and made effective in the life of the peoples of the
Earth.

* * *

A list of publications in English translation suggested

for study and a summarized plan for the Complete Edi-
tion of Rudolf Steiner's works in the original German
will be found at the end of the present volume.
 CONTENTS

Preface (written in 1918)

Synopses
1. Angels, Folk Spirits, Time Spirits: their part in the
Evolution of Mankind
2. Normal and abnormal Archangels and Time Spirits.
The Spirits of Language and of Modes of Thought
3. The inner life of the Folk Spirits. Formation of the
Races
4. The Evolution of Races and Civilization.
5. Manifestation of the Hierarchies in the Elements of
Nature. The Mission of the planetary Epochs of Old Saturn,
Old Sun, Old Moon and Earth
6. The five Root Races of Mankind
7. Advance of Folk Spirits to the Rank of Time Spirits.
Monotheism and Pluralism. Exoteric and Esoteric Christianity
8. The five post-Atlantean Civilizations. Greek and
Teutonic Mythology
9. Loki. Hodur and Baldur. Twilight of the Gods
10. The Mission of individual Peoples and cultures in the
Past, Present and Future. Solovieff
11. Nerthus, Freyja and Gerda. Twilight of the Gods.
Vidar and the new Revelation of Christ
Appendix by translator
Odin; Odin and the Fenris Wolf; Odin and Thor
 PREFACE
written in 1918 as an introduction to these lectures
given in 1910.

In these lectures, which were given in Christiania

(Oslo) in June 1910, I ventured to give a sketch of the
psychology of the development of peoples. The lec-
tures are based upon the teachings of Anthroposophy
which can be found in my books Theosophy, Occult
Science an Outline, Riddles of Man, Riddles of the
Soul, [ Riddles of Man is not yet (1970) published in
English. (yes it is, click the link e.Ed) A translation of
a section of Riddles of the Soul is published with the
main title of The Case for Anthroposophy, with an In-
troduction by Owen Barfield.] etc. I was able to build
upon this foundation because my hearers were familiar
with the scientific views which are presented in my
publications. That is the external reason for the choice
of my point of view; there is however a further reason,
an inner reason. The orthodox study of anthropology,
ethnology, or even history cannot provide an adequate
framework for a true psychology of the various folk
characters. Neither the information provided by ortho-
dox science, nor the study of anatomy and physiology
suffice for an understanding of the psychic life of man.
If we wish to understand the inner life of an individual
we must study the soul as well as the body, and if we
desire to gain real insight into national characteristics
we must explore the psychic and spiritual element un-
derlying them. This psychic and spiritual element, how-
ever, reflects not merely the activity of individual hu-
man souls working in concert, but has its origin in a
higher order. The higher spiritual element is a province
in which modern science is a total stranger. Before the
bar of science it is paradoxical to speak of Folk Souls as
real entities in the sense that we speak of the reality of
thinking, feeling and willing in individual human be-
ings; and it is equally paradoxical to relate the evolution
of peoples on Earth to the forces of the heavenly bodies
in space. But the matter ceases to be paradoxical if we
recall that one does not look for the forces which deter-
mine the north-south direction of a magnetic needle in
the needle itself. One attributes the deflection of the
needle to the effect of the Earth's magnetic field but
looks to the Cosmos for the causes of this deflection.
Shall we not therefore have to seek the reasons for the
development of folk characters, folk migrations, etc. in
the Cosmos outside the peoples themselves? Apart
from the anthroposophical view which considers higher
spiritual Beings to be a reality, a totally new element is
introduced into these lectures which sees a higher spir-
itual reality behind the evolution of peoples and seeks
the forces which direct this evolution in this spiritual
reality. We then investigate the facts which are mani-
fested in the life of the peoples and we find that these
facts become intelligible on this basis. The conditions
in the life of the various peoples, as well as their mutual
relationships, can thus be clearly understood, whereas
without this basis there can be no true understanding
of this approach. Either one must seek a basis for the
psychology of peoples in a spiritual reality or one must
abandon such a psychology in toto (altogether).
I have not hesitated to use the traditional names of
the early centuries of Christianity to describe the higher
spiritual Beings. An Oriental would choose other
names. Nevertheless, although the use of this terminol-
ogy may be regarded as rather unscientific today, there
seems to be no reason to fight shy of it. In the first
place, we thereby acknowledge the essentially Chris-
tian character of our Western civilization, and secondly,
if entirely new names were chosen, or if an oriental ter-
minology were adopted whose real meaning could only
be fully comprehended by one who is spiritually at
home in that civilization, we should be in danger of
misapprehension. It seems to me that whoever wishes
to investigate these spiritual relationships, assuming he
does not reject our whole approach, will not object to
names such as Angels, Archangels, Thrones, etc. any
more than physical science objects to terms such as
positive and negative electricity, magnetism, polarized
light, etc.
Whoever relates the content of my earlier lectures to
the painful trials of mankind at the present time will
find that what I then said throws a flood of light upon
what is taking place now. (February 1918.) Were I to
give these lectures now you could well imagine that in
the light of the present world-situation these earlier in-
vestigations were a necessity. Thus for example on
page 23 of the first lecture you will find the following
passage: ... we have every reason, especially at the
present time, to speak quite impartially about the mis-
sion of the individual Folk Souls. Just as it was justifi-
able to maintain complete silence about their mission
hitherto, so it is in order today to begin to speak of this
mission. This is particularly important because the des-
tiny of mankind in the near future will bring men to-
gether in far greater measure than has hitherto been
the case in order to fulfil a mission common to all
mankind. But the members of the individual peoples
will only be able to offer their proper, free and positive
contributions if they have, above all, an understanding
of their ethnic origin, an understanding for what we
might call the self-knowledge of the folk. No doubt
the time has now come when the fate of humanity it-
self demonstrates the truth of this view.
Perhaps it is precisely the theme of the Folk Souls
which shows how spiritual investigation which pene-
trates into the super-sensible reality of existence pro-
vides at the same time a practical view of life which
also throws light upon the most diverse problems of
life.
This is not possible for a view of life which only uses
such concepts as are valid in the sphere of natural sci-
ence in order to describe the nature and development
of peoples. This mechanistic-physical science has been
highly successful in exploiting the mechanical, physical
and chemical resources for the benefit of civilization;
but in order to promote the spiritual life of mankind we
need a science which is spiritually orientated. Such a
science is the first demand of our age.

Berlin, 8th February, 1918

Rudolf Steiner
 SYNOPSES

The purpose of the following synopses is to facilitate

reference to the particular themes and subjects dealt
with in the different lectures.

Lecture One
Homelessness stage in spiritual development.
The reality of Beings who cannot be apprehended
through sense perception, e.g. Folk Souls or the Spirits
of Nations. These invisible Beings work through visible
beings. The Spirit of the Swiss people. The anthropo-
sophical view of man: physical body, etheric body, as-
tral body and ego. In future time man will transmute
these three members into Spirit Self (Manas), Life Spirit
(Buddhi) and Spirit Man (Atma). The ego works
through the three bodily members and develops in
them the threefold soul: Sentient Soul, Intellectual Soul
(Mind-Soul) and the Spiritual Soul (Consciousness-
Soul). The task of certain epochs or nations is to de-
velop one of these soul-members. The three former
cosmic stages of man: Old Saturn (creation of rudiment
of physical body), Old Sun (etheric body), Old Moon
(astral body). The higher Beings Angels, Archangels,
Archai. Archai are guiding Spirits of civilization epochs,
also called Time Spirits: they influence national charac-
ter and temperament. Angels mediate between the
Archangels and the single human being. In future man
will be able to direct his body from outside. In order to
know what a nation is we must understand the mis-
sions of these Beings.

Lecture Two
Climate, nature of the soil, plant-cover, etc. are the
physical expression of a spiritual reality. A geographical
region has not only a physical, but also a psychic and
spiritual topography or aura. This aura is the sphere of
activity of the Folk Spirit. Every people or nation has its
particular etheric aura which is dependent upon the
etheric emanations of the soil and the people domiciled
in the particular area. This aura changes with the migra-
tions of peoples.
Archangels cannot intervene where physical laws are
operative. The Archangel sometimes withdraws: then
the nation perishes. The etheric aura works into the
etheric body of an individual and creates national tem-
perament. It affects only the sanguine, choleric and
phlegmatic temperaments, but not the melancholic.
The sequence of the Hierarchies above man. Beings
who can remain behind as a deed of sacrifice are called
abnormal Beings. Abnormal Archangels responsible for
the language of nations. Normal Archangels, abnormal
Time Spirit and abnormal Archangel working in concert
are responsible for the Old Indian temperament, sacred
(holy) Sanscrit language and spiritual philosophy of an-
cient India. Spirits of Form create the present physical
body of man which becomes the vehicle for the con-
scious ego. Backward Beings responsible for the
present form of the brain. Normal Archai work in the
thought life, give impulse to creative thought of the
age, e.g. Galileo.
Emphasis upon Christ's relationship with the Beings
of normal evolution. Before the coming of Christ men
worshipped the Jehovah Being.

Lecture Three
Characterization of the inner life and consciousness of
the Archangels, e.g. Folk Spirits. Archangels have three
modifications of their etheric body which correspond
to the three members of the human soul. Archangels
do not share in the Sentient Soul and lower part of the
Intellectual Soul, but in the realm of pure thought and
moral feeling, i.e. in the Spiritual Soul and higher part
of the Intellectual Soul. Influences of art and religion.
The Archangel perceives rise and fall of peoples; incar-
nates in the springtime of a people and withdraws in its
decline. Relation of Archai (Time Spirits,) Archangels
(Folk Spirits) and Angels (guardians of the destiny of
the individual). Sometimes normal Time Spirit inter-
venes in the field of the Archangel; a part of the nation
is suddenly detached and forms a new nation, e.g. the
Dutch detached from the Teutonic people, the Por-
tuguese from the Spanish.
Interplay of abnormal Spirits of Movement with nor-
mal Spirits of Form creates the races of mankind. Dif-
ference between the concept of nation and that of race.
Differentiation of mankind into races is the work of the
abnormal Spirits of Form (or Movement). Racial differ-
entiations enter more deeply into the physical.

Lecture Four
Important to understand how nations and folk com-
munities arise out of races. Earth passed through three
states or conditions before the present Earth condition.
Ego-consciousness made possible by the Spirits of
Form or Exusiai. The seven-year periods of man's de-
velopment. Spirits of Form only interested in ego-devel-
opment, i.e. man at age of twenty to twenty-one. Rea-
son for man's dependence on Earth during the third of
the seven-year periods.
Races began to be formed in early Atlantis. Racial
types determined by locality of birth and transmitted by
heredity. Diverse regions of Earth diversely receptive to
cosmic influences. Importance of migrations. Centres
of cosmic influence (diagram). Africa (here work forces
which influence childhood), Asia (forces which influ-
ence adolescence), Europe (forces which influence ma-
turity), North America (forces of decline). Today race is
less predominant.
The civilization-epochs of post-Atlantis: India, Persia,
Egypt-Chaldea, Greece, Rome and Europe of today.
Westward movement brings decline of creative powers
an aging process. The geographical areas narrowed
from continents to islands and peninsulas. Need for re-
juvenation from forces of the East, but man must find
his spiritual resources within himself. Rosicrucianism
implies evolution of all mankind. Evolution of races by
evolution of nations. Plato's ancestry and race. Nation
occupies an intermediate position between race and
the individual.

Lecture Five
The lecture first enumerates the spiritual Hierarchies.
Their working is manifested in the material surface of
the Earth, e.g. the rocks of Norway. This is (outer)
Maya. Two kinds of spiritual forces meet here the
forces of the Spirits of Will raying outward from within
the Earth and the forces of the Spirits of Movement
streaming in from the Universe. Formerly the Earth was
in a semi-fluid state. The Alps and eminences of the Bo-
hemian plateau resemble dammed up waves which
have solidified. Spirits of Form brought the fluctuating
forms to rest. The elements in which these Beings
work: the Thrones in the Water-element, the Cherubim
in the Air-element and the Seraphim in Fire. The Beings
of the second Hierarchy work in the three Ethers; the
third Hierarchy (Angels, Archangels and Archai) in the
intermediate realm.
Each of the planetary epochs of the Earth has its spe-
cial mission. Man owes his physical body and life of
Will to Old Saturn, his etheric body and life of Feeling
to Old Sun, astral body and life of Thought to Old
Moon. The mission of the Earth epoch is to bring about
the harmony of the three from within. The element of
Love is added. Spirits of Form, creators of the Ego, are
called Spirits of Love. The contributions of the different
Spirits to Earth evolution. The need for man to raise his
consciousness to higher planes.
The attendant Nature-spirits of the normal Beings of
the highest Hierarchy: Undines, Sylphs and Salaman-
ders.

Lecture Six
For a full understanding of cosmic evolution it is nec-
essary to correlate the contents of the different lec-
tures. The creation of races described in detail. The dif-
ferent races are the product of the co-operation be-
tween the seven Elohim and the abnormal Spirits of
Movement. The abnormal Spirits are centred in the five
planets and create the five root races: Mercury, the Ne-
gro race; Venus, the Malayan race; Mars, the Mongo-
lian race; Jupiter, the Caucasian race; Saturn, the Red
Indians. This took place in Atlantis.
The planetary forces also work in man's organic sys-
tem. Mars works in the blood. The abnormal Spirits of
Movement in conjunction with the Elohim on the Sun
and Jahve on the Moon create the Semitic race. Where
they work in opposition to the Sun and Moon forces
the Mongolian race is the outcome.
Venus and Jupiter work in the nervous system via the
breathing and senses, producing respectively the
Malayan racial type and the Caucasian or European
racial type. The Greeks under the Jupiter influence;
their idealization of the external world. Mercury and
Saturn work in the glandular system. Mercury is con-
nected with the growth forces of the body, hence Mer-
cury creates the Negro racial type. Saturn ossifies the
glandular system and creates the Red Indian; hence his
bony features. Dialogue between a Red Indian chieftain
and a European colonist.
Red Indians preserved a clairvoyant memory of At-
lantis before the separation of the races.
 Lecture Seven
In post-Atlantean times the Archangels advance to the
rank of Time Spirits or Archai. They are concerned with
the events of late Atlantis and the transition to post-At-
lantis. Distribution of races took place in early Atlantis;
in late Atlantis a second migration took place. Nuclei of
future peoples left behind in Asia, Africa, Europe.
Archangels became their guiding Spirits. Culture-
epochs named after those peoples whose Archangels
became the leading Time Spirits. Time Spirit of the first
post-Atlantean epoch was the ancient Indian Archangel.
In the second epoch the Persian Archangel became the
Time Spirit who inspired the original Zarathustra. In the
Egypto-Chaldean epoch the Archangel of the Egyptian
people became the ruling Time Spirit. In the third
epoch an Archangel acted on behalf of Jehovah who
had chosen the Semitic people as his own.
The two currents pluralism and monism. Semitic
race represent monotheism in religion and monism in
philosophy, cf. Rabbinism. Other peoples represented
polytheism and pluralism, cf. trinity of ancient India.
Both aspects are necessary.
Two acts of renunciation on the part of Beings of the
Hierarchies. The Greek Archangel remained as Time
Spirit and becomes guiding Spirit of exoteric Christian-
ity. Celtic Archangel remained as Archangel working
among peoples of Western Europe, Southern Germany,
Hungary and the Alpine countries. He was leader of es-
oteric Christianity. Mysteries of the Holy Grail, Rosicru-
cianism. Leading Time Spirit of fifth epoch chosen from
among Archangels of the Germanic peoples. In Europe
many Folk Souls acting independently: need to individ-
ualize peoples, hence late appearance of Time Spirit of
Europe. Time Spirit of present epoch subject to im-
pulses of ancient Egypt hence materialism.
In remote past there existed, before the Celtic
Archangel had established a new centre in the Castle of
the Grail, above the Earth a spiritual centre in the re-
gion of Detmold and Paderborn. According to legend
Asgard once situated here. From this centre the differ-
ent Archangels of Europe were sent on their different
missions. In later years its spiritual mission taken over
by the Castle of the Grail. No other mythology gives a
clearer picture of evolution than Northern mythology.
Germanic mythology in its pictures is close to anthro-
posophical conception of future evolution.

Lecture Eight
The characteristics of Teutonic mythology; contrast
with Greek mythology. Superficiality of analogies of
comparative religion. Relation between mythology and
successive civilization-epochs. In India high spiritual
level allied to dim ego-consciousness, cf. Vedas. Peo-
ples of old India closely associated with Spirits of
movement and Spirits of wisdom. Unable to apprehend
Christ Impulse. Western peoples, especially the Teu-
tonic, awakened to the ego at elementary level of psy-
chic development. Need to overcome old clairvoyance.
Effect of migrations. Persians looked to Spirits of Form,
Chaldeans to Archai or Time Spirits, Greeks and Ro-
mans to Archangels and Angels, normal and abnormal.
Teutonic peoples experienced transition from old vision
to new, perceived Divine Beings working directly upon
their souls.
The two races of gods in Teutonic mythology; the
Vanir and the Aesir. Odin: resigned his evolution to
give the gift of speech. His Initiation and the magic
draught at the fountain of Mimir. Hnir gives power of
thought; Ldur: blood and pigmentation. Vili and Ve,
abnormal Archangels. Thor, son of Odin. Remained be-
hind as an Angel; transmits to the I spiritual powers of
the Archangel. Speech lives in our breathing; ego incar-
nates in the blood: this is the hammer of Thor. In
macrocosm, winds and clouds related to breathing; in
microcosm, thunder and lightning to pulse-beat. Nordic
man recognized Odin and Thor in powers of nature.
Niflheim and the twelve cranial nerves Muspelheim and
the forces issuing from the human heart.
From Ginnungagap, the primeval abyss, a new Earth
emerges after the three Earth incarnations of Saturn,
Sun and Moon. Imaginative pictures of Teutonic
mythology replaced by concepts in Anthroposophy.

Lecture Nine
Cognition of ego different from other forms of cogni-
tion. When the ego knows itself subject and object of
cognition are the same. Importance of objective ego to
Western peoples. Relation between ego and spiritual
Beings Lucifer and Ahriman. Old Testament knows
only Lucifer, the serpent. Gospel writer (cf. St.
Matthew) spoke of Satan, i.e. Ahriman. Old Indians
looked up to the Devas; eschewed Asuras, beings of
darkness. Persians fear Luciferic powers within man.
Loki and his three offspring: the Midgard Snake, Fen-
ris Wolf and Hel.
Loki is Lucifer. Consequences of Lucifer influence:
selfishness in astral body (the Midgard Snake), false-
hood in the etheric body (the Fenris Wolf), in physical
body sickness and death (Hel).
Death of Baldur at hands of blind Hodur, an Ahri-
manic figure. Extinction of old clairvoyance. Man now
subject to Ahriman. Among Teutonic peoples clairvoy-
ant experience did not perish completely, but unable to
accept Christianity. Initiates taught them that attach-
ment to physical plane and loss of vision only an inter-
mediate time. Perception of spiritual world would re-
turn, but spiritual world would be changed. Lucifer
would be overcome. This is the vision of Ragnarok.
Connection between innate talents of Teutonic peoples
and the vision of the future.

Lecture Ten
Subject of this lecture is the history of the European
Folk Souls. Spiritual life of Europe a unity. Mission of
Europe before and after Christ, to educate and develop
the ego. Every single nation has its special contribution
to make to this task. For development of the ego a min-
gling of races and nations necessary. Tacitus describes
Germanic tribes as still immersed in Group-Soul. Celtic
Folk Spirit helped to awaken ego out of group-soul life.
The Druid priests and the Mysteries. Man had to be-
come more self-sufficient; hence Mysteries gradually
withdrew. The successive stages of post-Atlantean civi-
lizations. Relation of culture-epochs to members of
man's being summarized. Indians saw with forces of
etheric body; in Persians, organ of perception was the
astral body; in Egyptians and Chaldeans the Sentient
Soul; in Greeks and Romans the Intellectual Soul. In the
fifth epoch the forces of the ego are directed to the
physical plane. Romans were founders of civil law and
jurisprudence; Italy and Southern Spain subject to Sen-
tient Soul, France to Intellectual Soul, Great Britain to
Spiritual (or Consciousness) Soul. In Britain union of
ego and Spiritual Soul led to foundation of constitu-
tional rights and Parliamentary Government. Outward
orientation. Task of South Germanic peoples to prepare
Spiritual Soul more inwardly. Hegel and Fichte: subli-
mation of clairvoyant insight of old Germanic peoples.
Polarity of India and China. Chinese civilization a
static continuation of Atlantean wisdom. The Great
Wall of China. Oceanus. The Gulf Stream encircling the
old Atlantean continent. In the sixth culture-epoch
Spirit Self will irradiate the Spiritual Soul. This civiliza-
tion is being prepared by Slavonic peoples. Future po-
tentialities of Russian soul in Solovieff. Solovieff per-
ceives dual nature of Christ. His conception of a Chris-
tian Social State contrasted with Divine State of St. Au-
gustine. To Russian people is given the seed of the sixth
culture-epoch, but had to be nurtured by the Christian
Time Spirit (who had been the Time Spirit of ancient
Greece).

Lecture Eleven
Pictures or symbols of Teutonic mythology contain
occult truths. Reference to Occult Science an Out-
line which describes the descent of human souls from
the planetary spheres in late Lemurian and Atlantean
times and their incarnation in human bodies. This event
perceived clairvoyantly by those on Earth. The memory
of this event survived amongst Southern Germanic
peoples and was described by Tacitus in his Germania.
Worship of Goddess Nerthus. Evolution on physical
plane inspired by earlier stages of clairvoyance. Freyr,
continuer of old clairvoyance. Riesenheim. Marriage of
Freyr and Gerda. Symbols of Freyr's horse Bluthof and
his magic ship. End of Kali Yuga in 1899 and the sec-
ond coming of Christ. This will not be a physical mani-
festation, but will be etherically perceived at first by
a select few, then by increasing numbers of people.
Need for objectivity: occult teaching accepts neither
dogmas nor authorities. All teachings to be verified.
Dangers of new materialism which looks for Christ's
return in a physical body. False Messiahs, e.g. Sabbatai
Zevi in the seventeenth century.
Ragnarok again. Picture of relics of old clairvoyance in
Fenris Wolf. Forces of old Gods no longer avail. Danger
of survival of old clairvoyance in future. Old clairvoy-
ance must be transformed. The Christ in etheric form
will drive out old, dark clairvoyant powers, i.e. Vidar
will overcome the Fenris Wolf. Future mission of Teu-
tonic Archangel. Importance of Slavonic peoples for
spiritual development of all mankind. All nations to
contribute to united progress of mankind. Christ Im-
pulse overcomes separation: Christianity leads to ideal
of the brotherhood of man.
 LECTURE ONE

Angels, Folk Spirits, Time Spirits: their part in the

Evolution of Mankind

It affords me great pleasure to speak at greater length

for the third time to our friends in Norway and I should
like to say briefly, in response to the cordial greetings
of our friend Mr. Eriksen, that I reciprocate them in an
equally cordial and heartfelt manner.
I hope that the course of lectures, which I am about
to undertake, will contribute in some degree to the
general understanding of Anthroposophy. In the course
of these lectures I should like to draw your attention to
the fact that they must of necessity incorporate much
that touches upon the fundamental truths of Spiritual
Science and, at the same time, something that, as yet,
is rather remote from man's thinking today. I therefore
beg especially those of our friends who are less familiar
with the wider questions of Anthroposophy to bear in
mind that we should not make progress in our field of
investigation if, from time to time, we did not repeat-
edly take a great leap forward into those regions of
spiritual knowledge which are really somewhat remote
from the thinking, feeling and perception of man today.
From this point of view it will sometimes be neces-
sary to ask you to accept what I shall have to say with a
certain amount of good-will, since to provide the
necessary evidence and proof for my statements in the
forthcoming lectures would demand more time than I
have at my disposal. We should not break new ground
in this sphere if I did not appeal to a modicum of good
will in you and to your sympathetic spiritual under-
standing. Indeed the province we touch upon here is
one which hitherto has been more or less eschewed
particularly by occultists, mystics and theosophists, and
has been eschewed for the very reason that greater ob-
jectivity is necessary if we are to accept the information
I propose to offer without occasionally arousing a cer-
tain degree of opposition.
Perhaps the implications of this will be best under-
stood if you recall that at a certain stage of mystic or
occult development one is called a homeless man.
This is a technical expression. And if we wish to charac-
terize without further ado since we are not dis-
cussing the path of knowledge what we understand
by the term homeless man we may briefly say that a
homeless man is one whose understanding and grasp
of the great laws of humanity cannot be influenced by
whatsoever a person acquires through association with
his native country. Furthermore, a homeless man is
one who is able to identify himself with the great laws
of human evolution without allowing the particular
shades of feeling and sentiment associated with his na-
tive country to colour his outlook. It follows then that a
certain degree of maturity in mystical and occult devel-
opment demands an unprejudiced attitude towards our
heritage that we justifiably consider to be an ines-
timable boon and which, on the other hand, in relation
to the individual human life, we describe as the mission
of the individual Folk Spirits who, by drawing upon the
hidden roots and the spirit of the individual peoples
make their individual concrete contributions to the col-
lective mission of humanity.
We propose therefore to describe this heritage from
which the homeless man must liberate himself to
some extent. Now the homeless men of all times,
from primeval ages down to our own day, have always
known that if they were to describe in detail the state
of homelessness they would meet with little under-
standing. In the first place the voice of prejudice would
reproach them for having severed their connection with
their native soil, for having sacrificed their heritage.
This is not so, however. In reality, homelessness is, or
may be, a detour, so that, once this sanctuary, the state
of homelessness, has been reached, the homeless
man may rediscover the quintessence of the folk and
achieve a harmonious relationship with the stable ele-
ment in the evolution of mankind. From the outset it is
necessary to draw attention to this. On the other hand,
we have every reason, especially at the present time, to
speak quite impartially about the mission of the
individual, Folk Souls. Just as it was justifiable to
maintain complete silence about their mission hitherto,
so it is in order today to begin to speak of this mission.
It is particularly important because the destiny of
mankind in the near future will bring men together in
far greater measure than has hitherto been the case in
order to fulfil a mission common to all mankind. But
the members of the individual peoples will only be able
to offer their proper, free and positive contributions if
they have, above all, an understanding of their ethnic
origin, an understanding for what we might call the
self-knowledge of the folk. The injunction Know thy-
self! played an important part in the Apollonian Mys-
teries of ancient Greece. In the not too distant future
the following injunction will be addressed to the Folk
Souls: Know yourselves as Folk Souls. This maxim
will have a certain significance for the activity of
mankind in the future.
Now in our age it is particularly difficult to admit the
existence of Beings who are inaccessible to sense per-
ception. Today, however, we may be more prepared to
acknowledge that certain members of man's being are
super-sensible and invisible. The idea that beings such
as man, who at least in their external aspect can be ap-
prehended physically, may also have invisible, super-
sensible members will be more readily accepted by the
modern materialist outlook. But it is asking a great deal
of our present age to believe in the existence of beings
who, from the ordinary point of view, have no reality.
For what is meant by the term Folk Soul or Folk Spirit
which one hears from time to time? At best it is some-
thing that is acknowledged to be a common character-
istic peculiar to hundreds and millions of people con-
centrated in a certain geographical area. It is difficult to
persuade the man of today that, in addition to the
teeming millions in this area, a living reality exists
there, a reality that he would find to be identical with
the conception of the Folk Spirit and which underlies
this conception. If we were to ask to take a case that
is non-controversial what do we understand today
by the Swiss Folk Spirit, we would describe in abstract
terms a few characteristics peculiar to the people in-
habiting the Swiss regions of the Alps and Jura. It would
be perfectly clear to us that this description bears no
relation to anything that might be known through exter-
nal cognition. The first steps towards the understanding
of this living reality is the frank admission that it is pos-
sible to envisage the existence of real Beings who are
not immediately perceptible to the senses; that there
exist amongst the beings perceptible to the senses
other Beings invisibly at work, who express themselves
through visible beings just as the human being ex-
presses himself through his fingers and hands. We may
therefore speak of a Swiss Folk Spirit in the same way
as we speak of the Spirit of a man. We can just as
clearly distinguish between the Spirit of man and his
ten fingers which are organs of this Spirit as we can dis-
tinguish the Swiss Folk Spirit from the millions of peo-
ple living in the mountains of Switzerland. The Folk
Spirit is something quite different from the people, but
nevertheless a spiritual Being, just as man himself is a
spiritual being. The difference between man and the
Folk Spirit is that man's external form is known through
the medium of the senses. Whilst the human being is
known through sense-perception, a Folk Spirit has no
external manifestation; it is not something that can be
known through sense-experience or sensory impres-
sions and yet it is unmistakably a real Being.
Today we shall endeavour as far as possible to form
an idea of such a Being. How do we proceed in Spiri-
tual Science if we wish to form an idea of a real Being?
I propose to illustrate this by a characteristic example.
First, we study the being of man. From the point of
view of Anthroposophy we distinguish the physical
body, etheric body, astral or sentient body and I or
ego which we look upon as the highest member. We
know therefore that the man of the present day con-
sists of these bodies. Now you already know that we
look forward to an evolution of mankind in the future
and that the ego works upon the three lower members
of the human being, spiritualizes them and transmutes
them from the present lower form into the higher form
of the future. The ego will transmute the astral body
into Manas or Spirit Self, so that it becomes something
different from what it is today. In the same way, at a
higher level, the ego will refashion and transmute the
etheric or life-body into Life Spirit or Buddhi. Finally the
highest achievement of man that we can envisage at
present is the spiritualisation of the physical body, the
most intractable member of his being. When our
present physical body, the densest and most material
member, is transmitted into Atma or Spirit Man it will
be the highest member of man's being. Thus we are fa-
miliar with three members of the human organism
which were developed in past epochs, the organism in
which we are at present incarnated and three others
which the ego will fashion into something new in the
future.
Between the initial development of the higher mem-
bers in the past and their further development in the
future there lies an intermediate stage. We know that
we must think of the ego itself as inwardly organized.
The ego works upon a kind of intermediate being.
Therefore, between the astral body which man has in-
herited from the past and the Spirit Self or Manas
which he will fashion out of the astral body in the dis-
tant future, there are the three preparatory members;
the Sentient Soul, the lowest member in which the ego
has already worked, the Intellectual or Mind Soul and
the Spiritual or Consciousness-Soul. But very little of
Spirit Self or Manas that we are in process of develop-
ing is present in man today, at most only the first indi-
cations. On the other hand man has laid the founda-
tions of this future development by having learnt to
control his three lower members to some extent. He
learned to control the astral body by permeating it with
his ego and forming the Sentient Soul within it. Just as
the Sentient Soul stands in a certain relationship to the
sentient body, so does the Intellectual Soul or Mind-
Soul to the etheric body, so that the Intellectual or
Mind-Soul is a feeble foreshadowing of what the Life
Spirit or Buddhi will be a feeble foreshadowing, it is
true, but none the less a foreshadowing. And in the
Spiritual Soul (or Consciousness-Soul) the I has
worked down into the physical body to a certain extent.
Therefore the Spiritual Soul is a feeble foreshadowing
of what will one day be Spirit Man or Atma. Thus, apart
from the limited transformation of his astral body
which he has already achieved as a first step towards
the development of Spirit Self or Manas, we recognize
in man today four different members. We can distin-
guish:
1. the physical body,
2. the etheric body,
3. the astral body,
4. the ego that works within them, and further as a
foreshadowing of the higher members:
the Sentient Soul, the Intellectual or Mind-Soul, the
Spiritual Soul or Consciousness-Soul.
Such is man as we know him today; such is our un-
derstanding of man at the present stage of his evolu-
tion. We clearly see the ego fashioning the higher
members after the Sentient, Intellectual and Spiritual
Souls have already prepared the ground. We see the
ego working with the forces of the Sentient, Intellectual
and Spiritual Souls upon the astral body, upon the em-
bryo of Spirit Self. We see man participating in this
stage of his development.
Those of you no doubt the majority of you who
have concerned yourselves with researches into the
Akashic Record, with the evolution of man in the
primeval past and the prospect for the distant future,
will know that man, such as I have portrayed him in the
brief sketch I have given you, has evolved. We can look
into a distant past when man required long epochs of
time for his evolution in order to prepare the founda-
tions, first for his physical body, then for the etheric
body and finally for the astral body, and then to de-
velop these three members further. You will also be
aware, no doubt, that man did not complete the earlier
evolution of his being, the evolution of his astral body,
for example, at a time when the Earth was in the same
condition as it is today, but that he developed his astral
body in an earlier Earth cycle, the Old Moon epoch.
Just as we recognize that our present life is the conse-
quence of earlier incarnations, so too do we realize that
the Earth itself has known earlier incarnations. The Sen-
tient Soul and the Intellectual Soul were first created
during our present Earth epoch, the astral body during
the epoch of the Old Moon, the etheric body in a still
earlier stage, that of the Old Sun, and the physical body
during ancient Saturn. Thus we look back to three in-
carnations of the Earth and in each of these incarna-
tions we see one of the members which man bears
within him today implanted first as a seed and then
perfected further.
In speaking of Old Saturn, Old Sun and Old Moon
conditions another factor must be borne in mind. We
human beings (on Earth) are now living through the
stage of self-consciousness which other Beings under-
went during the earlier stages of our Earth-evolution,
the stages of Old Moon, Old Sun and Old Saturn. It is
immaterial whether we adopt the terminology of the
East or the more familiar terminology of the West in or-
der to describe these Beings. Those Beings who under-
went their human stage on Old Moon and who there-
fore are one stage above Man were called in Christian
esoteric terminology, Angeloi or Angels. They are one
stage higher than man because they completed their
stage of human evolution one epoch earlier. Their
mode of existence on the Old Moon differed from that
of man on Earth today. They were Beings at the human
stage, but were not incarnated in a physical body. Their
stage of evolution corresponded to the human stage
which man is experiencing today. In the same way we
find Beings of a higher order who underwent their hu-
man stage on the Old Sun. These Beings are the
Archangeloi or Archangels who are two stages beyond
man and who underwent their human stage two
epochs earlier. If we go still further back to the first in-
carnation of our Earth-existence, to Old Saturn, we find
that those Beings whom we called the Spirits of Person-
ality or Archai underwent their human stage on Old
Saturn. If we take our starting-point from those Beings
who were men in the primeval past, on Old Saturn, and
follow the incarnations of the Earth down to our own
time, we have a picture of the stages of evolution of the
various Beings down to the present day. To summarize:
the First Beginnings, the Archai, were men on Old Sat-
urn, the Archangels or Archangeloi were men on Old
Sun, the Angels or Angeloi were men on Old Moon and
men are men on our Earth.
Since we know that we continue our evolution into
the future and that we further develop our present as-
tral body, etheric or life-body and our physical body,
the question arises: is it not equally natural that the Be-
ings who have already experienced the human stage
have now reached the stage when they are transmuting
their astral body into Spirit Self or Manas? Just as dur-
ing the next incarnation of the Earth, the Jupiter stage,
we shall complete the transmutation of our astral body
into Spirit Self or Manas, so the Angeloi who under-
went the human stage on Old Moon have completed
the transmutation of their astral bodies into Spirit Self
or Manas, or will do so during our Earth evolution, a
stage that we shall first have to undergo in the next in-
carnation of the Earth. If we look still further back to
the Beings who underwent the human stage on Old
Sun, we realize that they already experienced on Old
Moon the stage we shall have to experience for the first
time in the next incarnation of the Earth. They are per-
forming the work which will be the prerogative of man
when, in his ego, he transmutes his etheric or life-body
into Life Spirit or Buddhi. These Archangels, therefore,
are Beings who are two stages beyond man; they have
reached the stage that will one day be ours when from
within our ego, we shall transform the life-body into
Life Spirit or Buddhi. When we contemplate these Be-
ings, we recognize them as Beings who are two stages
beyond ourselves, who foreshadow what we ourselves
will experience in the future; they are Beings who are
now working upon their etheric or life-body and are
transmuting it into Life Spirit or Buddhi. In the same
way we are aware of yet higher Beings, the Spirits of
Personality (Archai). They are at a still higher stage than
the Archangels, a stage which man will reach in a still
more distant future when he will be able to transmute
his physical body into Atma or Spirit Man.
As surely as man is at the present stage of develop-
ment, so surely are these higher Beings at the respec-
tive stages of development which I have just character-
ized. We doubt their reality as little as we doubt their
superiority to ourselves. Now this reality is not unre-
lated to our life on Earth; it penetrates into it and acts
upon it. The question now is: what form does the activ-
ity of these higher Beings take? In order to understand
this, we must bear in mind that from a spiritual aspect
the activity of such Beings will be different from that of
man today. Indeed there is a considerable difference
between these Beings who are higher than man and
those who are now only at the human stage. Strange as
this may seem, it will become perfectly clear to you in
the course of the following lectures. True spiritual in-
vestigation shows that man, such as we know him to-
day, is, to a certain extent, at an intermediate stage of
his existence. His ego will not always work upon his
lower vehicles in the same way as it does today. The
whole human entity at the present time is to some ex-
tent an interrelated whole and forms, as it were, an un-
broken unity. This situation will be considerably modi-
fied in the future evolution of mankind. When ulti-
mately man will have developed so far that he will be
able to work upon his astral body in full consciousness
and, by means of his ego, transmute his astral body
into Spirit Self or Manas, then he will experience in full
consciousness a condition akin to the unconscious or
subconscious state of man during sleep.
Consider for a moment the condition of man in sleep.
His astral body and ego relinquish his physical and
etheric bodies which he leaves behind in the bed, and
float outside them. Now imagine that in this condition
man awakens to self-consciousness, that he is as fully
conscious in his spiritual body as in his waking life.
How remarkable would be man's impression of him-
self! At one moment he would feel: Here am I; below
me, perhaps some distance away, are lying my physical
and etheric bodies which are part of me, whilst I with
my other members am floating outside and above
them. If, at the present time, man becomes conscious
in his astral body, i.e. outside his physical and etheric
bodies, then he is limited to the free and random
movements of his astral body and can be active in the
world independently of his physical body, activities
which are denied to his physical and etheric bodies. In
the distant future, however, he will be able to direct
them from outside for example, from a place in the
north of Europe to some other place; he will be able to
command their movements and direct them externally.
That is not yet possible at present, but it will be a possi-
bility when he has evolved from the stage of Earth-evo-
lution to that of Jupiter, the next stage in the evolution
of man. We shall then feel that we can direct ourselves
from without. That is the essential step. And this im-
plies a transformation of man's present condition. Here
materialistic consciousness is at a loss. It is unable to
realize that the spiritual activities now at work to some
extent in the external world will also be active within
the human being at some future time.
 Such phenomena exist already and man could per-
ceive them if only he would give heed to them. He
would then see that there are certain entities, for exam-
ple, who have developed prematurely. Just as man, if
he waits for the appropriate moment, will attain the
Jupiter state at the right time so that he will then be
able to direct his physical and etheric bodies, so there
are beings who in a certain respect have developed
prematurely. Such prematurely developed beings are to
be found amongst the birds, especially the migratory
birds. Here we have an example of the group-soul to
which the etheric body of each individual bird is re-
lated. Just as the group-soul directs the regular migra-
tions of birds, so will man, after he has developed Spirit
Self or Manas, command his physical and etheric bod-
ies; he will control and direct them. He will do this in a
still higher sense from without when he has so far per-
fected himself that he is still in the process of transmut-
ing his etheric or life-body. The Beings who can already
do this today are the Archangels or Archangeloi. They
are Beings who can already do what man will be able to
do some day, Beings who are able to compass what is
called directing the physical and etheric bodies from
without, but who are able at the same time to work
upon their own etheric body.
Try to form an idea of Beings living and working as it
were with their ego in the spiritual atmosphere of our
Earth, whose ego has already transformed the astral
body and who with their fully developed Spirit Self or
Manas continue to work on our Earth and into human
beings, transforming our etheric or life body; Beings
who are themselves at the stage of transmuting their
etheric or life-body into Buddhi or Life Spirit. If you
imagine such Beings who are at the Archangel stage
among the spiritual Hierarchies, you will then have an
idea of what are called the Folk Spirits, the directing
Folk Spirits of the Earth. The Folk Spirits belong to the
rank of the Archangels or Archangeloi. We shall see
how they, for their part, direct their own etheric or life-
body, and how they thereby work down into mankind
and thus draw mankind into the sphere of their own
activity. If we survey the various peoples on Earth and
select out individual examples, then we see in the life
and activity of these peoples, in the characteristic at-
tributes peculiar to these peoples, a reflection of what
we regard as the mission of the Folk Spirits.
When we recognize the mission of these Beings for
they are inspirers of the nations we are then able to
say what a nation really is. A nation is a homogeneous
group of people directed by one of the Archangels. All
that the individual members of a nation perform or un-
dertake is inspired by them, i.e. the Archangels. Hence
if we can conceive that these Folk Spirits, like human
beings, betray individual differences, we shall have no
difficulty in understanding that the individual peoples
reflect the Particular mission of their individual
Archangels. If we have a Clear mental picture of how in
the history of the world nation succeeds nation, how
peoples work side by side, we can then imagine, at
least theoretically and we shall have more and more
concrete evidence in the following lectures how all
these changing circumstances are inspired by these
spiritual Beings. But at the same time it will be clear to
us that, in addition to this activity of successive peo-
ples, something else takes place in human evolution. In
the period of time which we reckon from the beginning
of the great Atlantean catastrophe and which so com-
pletely changed the face of the Earth that the continent
which lay between the Africa, America and Europe of
today was submerged, one can distinguish the epochs
of the post-Atlantean cultures the old Indian, the
Persian, the Egypto-Chaldean, the Graeco-Latin and our
present culture which in the course of time will pass
over into the sixth cultural epoch. We also realize that
various inspirers of the peoples have successively been
at work in these civilizations. We know that the Egypto-
Chaldean civilization continued long after the Greek
civilization had begun, and that this in its turn perished
after the birth of the Roman Civilization. We are in a
position therefore to observe the coexistence and conti-
nuity of the peoples.
But in addition to the evolution of the peoples and all
that is associated with their evolution, a progressive
evolution of mankind takes place. Whether we consider
one particular civilization to be superior to another is of
no consequence. To express a preference for the old In-
dian culture is a matter of personal opinion. But he
who is not swayed by personal opinions will be indif-
ferent to value judgments. Human progress follows in-
eluctably upon the necessary course of events, al-
though some may later regard this as a decline. When
we compare the various periods, 5,000 BC, 3,000 BC
and AD 1,000 we are aware of the existence of some-
thing that transcends the Folk Spirits, something in
which the several Folk Spirits participate. You can ob-
serve this at the present time. How is it that so many
persons are able to sit together in this hall, people who
have come here from many different countries and who
understand each other or try to understand each other
when they touch upon vital questions that have
brought them together here? They come from the
spheres of activity of widely different Folk Spirits and
yet they have some common ground of understanding.
In the same way various people were able to under-
stand one another in Atlantean times because in every
age there is something that transcends the Folk Soul,
which can bring the various Folk Souls together,
something that is more or less universally understood.
This is the Zeitgeist or Time Spirit, the Spirit of the Age,
to use an unfortunate term which is in common usage.
Each epoch has its particular Zeitgeist; the Zeitgeist of
the Greek epoch is different from that of our own age.
Those who understand the Spirit today are drawn to-
wards Spiritual Science. It is this Spirit which, reflecting
the Spirit of the Age, transcends the individual Folk
Souls. At the time when Christ Jesus appeared on Earth,
His forerunner John the Baptist characterized the Spirit,
which might be described as Zeitgeist, in these words:
Repent, change your mental attitude, for the kingdom
of heaven is at hand.
Thus for every epoch we can discover the Spirit of the
Age, which is something that permeates the activity of
the Folk Spirits, an activity we have already described
as the activity of the Archangels. To the materialist of
today the Spirit of the Age is an abstraction, devoid of
reality; still less would he be prepared to accept the
Spirit of the Age as an authentic entity. Nevertheless
the term Spirit of the Age conceals the existence of a
real Being, who is three stages above man. It conceals
the identity of the Beings, the Archai, who underwent
their human stage on Old Saturn and who at the
present time are working from the spiritual aura of the
Earth at the transformation of the Earth and are thus
undergoing the last stage in the transformation of their
physical body into Spirit Man or Atma. We are here
dealing with exalted Beings and the contemplation of
their attributes might well overwhelm us. They are the
Beings who might be described as the inspirers or if
we choose to use the technical expression of occultism
the intuitors of the Spirit or Spirits of the Age.
They work in such a way that they take over from one
another and mutually support each other. From epoch
to epoch they pass on their mission to their successor.
The Spirit of the Age who was active in the Greek
epoch handed on his mission to his successor, and so
on. As we have already observed, there are a number
of such Time Spirits, of such Spirits of Personality who
work as Spirits of the Age. These Spirits of Personality,
these inspirers of the Spirit of the Age, are of a higher
order than the Folk Spirits. In every epoch one of these
Spirits of Personality is predominant and sets his seal
upon the whole epoch, assigns to the Folk Spirits their
specific tasks, so that the whole spirit of the epoch is
determined by the special or individual characteristics
of the Folk Spirit. Then, in the following epoch, another
Spirit of Personality, another of the Archai, takes over.
 After a certain number of epochs have elapsed, a
Spirit of the Age has evolved further. We must picture
this in the following way: when we die, having com-
pleted our present stage of evolution, our personality
transmits the achievements of this Earth-life to the next
Earth-life. The same holds good for the Spirits of the
Age. In each Age we have one such Spirit of the Age,
and at the end of the epoch he hands over to his suc-
cessor, who, in his turn, hands over to his successor,
and so on. The earlier Spirits, meanwhile, continue
their own development. Then the original Spirit takes
over again, so that in a later epoch, whilst the others
are proceeding with their own evolution, he takes over
again and infuses intuitively into mankind what he him-
self has acquired for his higher mission, for the benefit
of the more developed humanity. We look up to these
Spirits of Personality, to these Beings who may be char-
acterized by the somewhat colourless term Spirit of
the Age. Now we human beings pass from incarnation
to incarnation; but we know for certain that, whilst we
ourselves progress from epoch to epoch, when we look
into the future, we see ever different Spirits of the Age
determining events on Earth. But our Spirit of the Age
will return too and we shall meet him once again. Be-
cause a characteristic feature of these Spirits of Person-
ality is to perform cyclic revolutions and return to their
starting-point, they are therefore called Spirits of
Cyclic Periods. (We shall justify the use of this expres-
sion by giving further details later.) These higher Spiri-
tual Beings then who issue their commands to the Folk
Spirits are also called Spirits of Cyclic Periods. We are
here referring to those cyclic periods which man him-
self has to go through when from epoch to epoch he
returns to earlier conditions and repeats them in a
higher form. Now this repetition of the characteristics
of earlier forms may surprise you. If you examine care-
fully the stages of man's evolution on Earth in the light
of Spiritual Science, you will find that these occur-
rences recur in many different forms. Thus the seven
consecutive epochs following upon the Atlantean catas-
trophe which we call the post-Atlantean culture-
epochs, are a repetition. The Graeco-Latin epoch marks
the turning point in our cycle and will not therefore be
repeated. This stage is followed by a repetition of the
Egypto-Chaldean epoch in our own age. This will be
followed by a repetition of the Persian epoch, but in a
somewhat different form. Then will follow the seventh
epoch which will be a repetition of the ancient Indian
civilizations the epoch of the Holy Rishis, so that in this
coming epoch certain aptitudes which had been im-
planted in ancient India will reappear in a new form.
The direction of these occurrences devolves upon the
Spirits of the Age.
In order that, distributed amongst the various peoples
of the Earth, the progressive development of successive
epochs may be realized, in order that the widely differ-
ing ethnic types may be moulded by a particular geo-
graphical area or community of language, in order that
a particular form language, architecture, art or sci-
ence may flourish and their various metamorphoses re-
ceive all that the Spirit of the Age can pour into
mankind for this we need the Folk Spirits, who, in
the hierarchy of higher Beings, belong to the
Archangels.
Now we require yet another intermediary agent be-
tween the higher missions of the Folk Spirits and those
beings here on Earth who are to be inspired by them.
You will readily perceive at least theoretically at first,
that the mediator between the two different kinds of
Spirits is the Hierarchy of the Angels. They are the in-
termediaries between the single human being and the
Archangel of the folk. In order that the individual may
receive into himself that which the Folk Spirit has to
pour into the whole people, in order that the single hu-
man being may be instrumental in fulfilling the mission
of his people, this intermediary agent between the hu-
man being and the Archangel of his people is indis-
pensable.
 Thus we have looked up to the Beings who attained
their human stage three stages above man and have
noted how they placed themselves consciously at the
service of mankind and influenced our Earth-evolution.
In the next lecture we propose to show how far the ac-
tivity of the Archangels working down from above,
from within their Ego which has already developed
Manas or Spirit Self and is perfecting the etheric or life-
body of man, is expressed in the achievements, at-
tributes and character of a people.
Man is directly associated with the work of the higher
Beings, for, as a member of a nation, he is an integral
part of it. It is true that man is, in the first place, an in-
dividual, a creation of his Ego being; but he is not only
an individual, he is also a member of a particular peo-
ple, something over which, as an individual, he has no
control. As a member of a particular people the individ-
ual has no choice but to speak the language of his peo-
ple. He does not acquire this by his own efforts, it does
not stem from his individual initiative, it is the legacy of
his inheritance. Individual human progress is some-
thing totally different. As we watch the life and activity
of the Folk Souls, we must bear in mind what is in-
volved in the progress of man and what is demanded of
him in order to achieve it. We shall see what deter-
mines not only his own particular development but also
the development of wholly different Beings.
Thus we see how man is integrated into the ranks of
the Hierarchies, how, from age to age, from epoch to
epoch, Beings whom we already know from another
aspect, cooperate in his evolution, And we have seen
how opportunities are provided for these Beings to ex-
press themselves in a variety of ways peculiar to them-
selves and that what they have to offer can be imparted
to man.
The guiding principles of the several epochs are deter-
mined by the Time Spirits (Zeitgeister). The single folk-
individualities are responsible for disseminating the
Spirit of the Age over the whole Earth. Whilst the Time
Spirits inspire the Folk Spirits, the Angels act as media-
tors between the Folk Spirit and the single human be-
ings, so that these individuals may fulfil the mission of
the Folk Spirits. One of the purposes of these lectures
will be to show how this wonderful pattern reveals the
working of the various folk-individualities, past and
present. In the next lecture we shall begin to throw
light upon how this pattern is woven which we have in-
dicated only sketchily today, that spiritual pattern
which represents our immediate destiny in the world.
 LECTURE TWO

Normal and abnormal Archangels and Time Spirits

The Spirits of Language and of Modes of Thought

I stated yesterday that those Beings who are to be

considered as Folk Spirits have reached a stage of de-
velopment when they work from within the I upon
their etheric or life-body, when they fashion this body
from out of the inmost depths of the soul.
Now it will be said, of course, that the work upon the
etheric body is not immediately perceptible to the
senses or to external observation but only to clairvoy-
ant consciousness, and this must be admitted. None
the less, if the activity of these Beings, of these Folk
Spirits, invades the life of man, then there must be on
the other hand some visible indication, some tangible
evidence, some kind of impression or reflection of this
work of the Folk Spirits or Archangelic Beings, in proof
of this. Furthermore these Beings must also possess in
a certain sense a physical body. They must be able to
express their corporeality in some form or other. And
these Beings whose activity is expressed in this physi-
cal form must give some indication of their presence in
the world of man, for in the final analysis the human
body must be associated with the work of these spiri-
tual Beings.
Let us begin with the etheric body of these Beings and
their work in the transformation of this body. Here we
must first of all refer to the investigations of clairvoyant
consciousness. Where does clairvoyant research find
evidence for the existence of the etheric body of these
Archangelic Beings? And how are we to understand this
work? You all know that the surface of the Earth shows
different configurations and that the different regions of
the Earth provide widely differing conditions for the un-
folding of attributes peculiar to the various peoples.
The materialist believes that climate, vegetation, or per-
haps water availability and other factors determine the
distinctive features or characteristics of a particular
people. That such is the outlook of the materialist is not
surprising, for his consciousness is limited to the phe-
nomenal world. Clairvoyant consciousness presents a
different picture. Whoever is endowed with clairvoyant
consciousness and visits the various countries is aware
that his familiarity with the particular kind of vegeta-
tion, with the characteristic configuration of the rocks,
does not exhaust his knowledge of that country or pro-
vide a complete picture of a particular geographical
area. To speak of a particular aroma and aura associ-
ated with a certain region is, in the eyes of the material-
ist, to deal in unrealities. To clairvoyant consciousness
there extends over every region of the Earth a peculiar
spiritual cloud-like formation that we call the etheric
aura of that particular region. This etheric aura varies
according to the landscape: in Switzerland it is different
from Italy and again different in Norway, Denmark or
Germany. Just as every man has his own etheric body,
so a kind of etheric aura hovers above every region of
the Earth's surface.
This etheric aura differs considerably from other
etheric auras, from that of man, for example. The
etheric aura of the human being is part of him as long
as he lives. It is united to his physical body and only
undergoes modification in so far as man progressively
develops during his lifetime and lifts himself to a higher
moral and intellectual plane. Then we are always con-
scious that this etheric aura begins to be inwardly
transformed, develops a certain inner light, a luminous
quality. The etheric auras that can be perceived over
the various countries are of a different nature. Admit-
tedly they preserve a fundamental tone or quality
which persists over long periods of time. But, at the
same time, these etheric auras are prone to rapid
changes, and in this respect they differ from the human
auras which change slowly and gradually, and only
from within. These auras extending over the various
countries change in the course of human evolution
when a people migrates and occupies new territory.
The strange feature is that the etheric aura over a cer-
tain region depends in fact not only upon the etheric
emanations from the soil, but also upon the people
which was last domiciled there.
Those, therefore, who wish to follow how the des-
tinies of our human race are shaped on Earth, endeav-
our to follow the interpenetration of this aspect of the
etheric auras which is peculiar to the different geo-
graphical regions. The various etheric auras of Europe
underwent considerable change at the time of the mi-
grations of the peoples. Thus the etheric aura of a par-
ticular, region is subject to change, to sudden transfor-
mations which may even have their source in external
factors to some extent. Every one of these etheric auras
is, in a certain respect, a fusion of the emanations from
the soil and the inheritance of the migrations of the
peoples. When we observe this aura we must clearly
understand that the saying, everything in the external
world apprehended by the senses is only maya or illu-
sion, which is so freely quoted by Theosophists is sel-
dom grasped in its fullest implications. Though often
repeated, its implications are largely ignored, and it
rarely leads to a change of attitude to life. It becomes
virtually an empty phrase; in face of the stern realities
of life it is forgotten and people cling to their old mate-
rialistic outlook. The green vegetation, the peculiar
configuration of the landscape which we see around us
is, in reality, only maya or illusion; it is a precipitation,
as it were, of the active principle in the etheric forces.
Indeed only that aspect of the external world is depen-
dent upon this etheric aura, upon which this aura, i.e. a
living, organizing principle, can exert an influence. The
Archangels who embody the spiritual laws cannot inter-
vene in the physical laws. Where, therefore, only physi-
cal laws are operative, as in the configuration of moun-
tain ranges, in the contours of the landscape and so on,
in all cases where physical conditions determine the
great changes in a people, the influence of the
Archangels cannot take effect. They are not sufficiently
advanced in their evolution to be able to intervene in
purely physical conditions. Because they are unable to
do this, because they are not free agents, they are com-
pelled at certain times to wander over the surface of
the Earth, They incarnate somewhat after the fashion of
a physical incarnation, in that which is represented by
the configuration of the landscape, in that which is sub-
ject to physical laws. The etheric body of the people
cannot as yet enter into this domain, cannot, as yet,
penetrate into it and organize it. Therefore a suitable
territory is selected and from this union of the etheric
body now permeated with spiritual soul-forces, and the
geographical area, is born that charm or fascination
which a people radiates, which is dimly sensed by one
who is not clairvoyant, but which a clairvoyant who
sees into the secret hearts and minds of the people is
able to discern.
Now how does the activity of the Archangels, the Folk
Souls, work into the etheric aura that extends over a
country? What is the function of the Archangel, how
does he work into the people who inhabit this country
and live within this aura of the Folk Spirit? This influ-
ence expresses itself in three ways. The etheric aura of
the people interpenetrates, permeates man; it affects
three aspects of his being. The interplay of these three
aspects creates the peculiar characteristic of the person
who lives in this etheric aura of the people. This etheric
aura acts upon the three temperaments, the choleric,
phlegmatic and sanguine temperaments, which are
themselves rooted in his affective life, but not upon the
so-called melancholic temperament. In general, there-
fore, the potent influence of the etheric aura of a peo-
ple streams into these three temperaments. In the sin-
gle individual these three temperaments may be vari-
ously commingled and interact in a wide variety of
ways. There are infinite possibilities of interaction, as
when one temperament influences another or domi-
nates it, and so on. Here lies the source of the multi-
plicity of types we meet with in Russia, Norway and
Germany. The national characteristics of an individual
are determined by that which works into the tem-
peraments. The difference between the several
individuals depends entirely upon the extent to which
the three temperaments are commingled. National
temperaments, therefore, vary in accordance with the
extent of the interpenetration of the folk-aura.
Thus the Folk Spirits are active everywhere. They fol-
low, however, the path peculiar to them. The fact that
they work into the temperaments is not vital for their
own development; they only do so because they are in-
volved in the interplay of cosmic and terrestrial forces.
It is a volitional act, a necessary part of their mission. At
the same time their own ego-development must be
taken into account. They themselves must further their
evolution, move across the face of the Earth and incar-
nate in a particular region. This is central to their mis-
sion; their influence upon the temperaments of men is
of secondary importance. Naturally, man himself also
benefits through their work; it reacts upon him. And
equally, the activity of man reacts upon the Folk Spirits.
We shall discuss later the significance of the individual
human beings for the Folk Spirit. This is important. But
it is essential that we should be able to follow the
progress of one of these Folk Spirits and see how he in-
carnates on Earth, lives again for a time in the spiritual
world and then incarnates again elsewhere. When we
observe these recurrent changes we are still only
observing the ego-interests of these Beings. Picture to
yourselves quite realistically the etheric body of the hu-
man being embedded in the etheric body of the peo-
ple; then picture the interaction of the human etheric
body and the etheric body of the people, and think too
of how the latter is reflected in the temperaments of
the people, in the mingling of temperaments in the sin-
gle individuals. Therein lies the secret of how the Folk
Spirit or Nation Spirit reveals his character within a par-
ticular people. Having said this, we have, in effect, de-
scribed the full scope of the most important work of
the true Archangels or Folk Spirits.
We should by no means have exhausted the charac-
teristics of a people if we were to take into considera-
tion only the character of an individual member of this
people. This is the function of the Archangelic Beings,
who are the real Spirits of the indigenous groups of the
same language-stock.
Now, as you can readily imagine, this does not com-
plete the picture of a people, for if the Archangel, the
guiding Folk Spirit, did not contact other Beings on the
same territory and did not work in conjunction with
them in the etheric body of man, many of the charac-
teristics of a people would not originate at all. Man is
the stage upon which the Archangels meet with yet
other Beings who cooperate with the Archangels and,
so to speak, work in conjunction with them. From this
cooperative endeavour something totally different
emerges.
When, with clairvoyant consciousness, we study the
different peoples, we find, strange to relate, besides the
Archangelic Beings already described, other mysterious
Beings who are related to the Archangels in certain re-
spects, but who are otherwise totally different from
them, in that they are more potent Beings than the
Archangels themselves. In this weaving into the tem-
peraments the Folk Spirit works in an extremely subtle
and intimate way upon the individual human soul. But
there are other Beings who exercise a much more po-
tent influence. From our general knowledge of the Hi-
erarchies we must be quite clear about these Beings;
we shall then be able to name these other Beings who
are perceived by clairvoyant consciousness. You must
think of the sequence of the Hierarchies of Spirits in
the following way:
I. Man
II. Angels
III.Archangels
IV.First Beginnings, Archai or Spirits of Personality
 V. Powers (Exusiai) or Spirits of Form
There are yet other Spirits of a higher order who do
not concern us today.
If you recall what we spoke of yesterday and you
will find a detailed description in the information con-
tained in my books Cosmic Memory [Original title: Aus
der Akasha Chronik. Published with the title of Cosmic
Memory by Rudolf Steiner Publications, Inc., New York.
(Obtainable from Rudolf Steiner Press, London. See the
list of literature at the end of this volume.)] and Occult
Science an Outline you will know that it was the
Archangels who underwent their human stage on Old
Sun. At that time those Beings whom we call Spirits of
Form or Powers, who are now two stages higher than
the Archangels, were at the Archangel stage; they were
Beings such as the Folk Spirits we have described to-
day. That was their normal stage of evolution.
Now there is a strange mystery attaching to evolution
the law of deferred development. In accordance
with this law certain Beings remain behind at each
stage of evolution, so that in the succeeding stage they
have not reached their normal rank. They retain the
characteristics which belong to earlier stages. Through-
out the evolution of mankind there have always been
Beings who remained behind and amongst them are
also certain Spirits of Form or Powers. Their deferred
development took a very singular form. Whilst they are
Spirits of Form or Powers in terms of certain attributes,
and by virtue of certain attributes are able to exercise
the powers that belong at the present time solely to the
Spirits of Form who have bestowed the ego upon man
at the Earth-stage, they cannot, as yet, realize this com-
pletely because they do not possess the necessary at-
tributes. They have remained behind, with the result
that they did not undergo their Archangelic stage on
the Old Sun, but are now experiencing it in the Earth-
stage. Hence they are Beings who are now at the stage
of the Folk Spirits, but endowed with quite different at-
tributes. Whilst the Folk Spirits work in a subtle way
into the life of man because they are two stages above
him and are consequently still related to him, these
Spirits of Form are four stages above the human stage.
They possess, therefore, a vast array of potent forces
which would not be suitable for working so intimately
into man. They would act more vigorously and would
have no other sphere for their activity than that in
which the normal Folk Spirits work.
The difficulty is that one must first learn to discrimi-
nate in the spiritual world. Those who imagine that a
few ideas suffice for the understanding of the higher
worlds are very much mistaken. With a few superficial
ideas they would certainly contact the Archangels. But
one must distinguish between the Archangels who
have reached the Archangel stage in the normal way
and those who ought to have reached that stage during
the Old Sun condition of the Earth. Thus, other Beings
are at work in the same domain as the Folk Spirits or
Archangels, Beings who stand at the same level as the
Archangels, but are endowed with very different, with
more robust attributes such as are possessed by the
other Spirits of Form and who are able therefore to
penetrate deeply into human nature. In what respects
has man been influenced by the Spirits of Form during
his Earth existence? He could not have developed ego-
consciousness if the Spirits of Form had not given the
brain its present form. Beings such as these are able to
work even into the configuration of the human form al-
though they are only at the stage of the Archangels.
They compete with the Folk Spirits in the domain
where the Folk Spirits are active.
The first and major effect of this contact between
these Spirits with their different approaches is the birth
of language which could not arise without the fully de-
veloped form and structure of the human body. In the
structure of man we see the activity of these other Folk
Spirits who are associated with the forces of Nature
and with man. We must not ascribe the birth of lan-
guage solely to these Beings who subtly work into the
folk temperament and who, as Beings two stages above
man, imprint their formal configuration upon a people.
The Beings who are responsible for language are Beings
of great creative energy for they are in reality Powers,
i.e. Spirits of Form. They exercise effective influence
upon the Earth because they have remained on Earth,
whereas their colleagues, the normal Spirits of Form,
work in the I, work from the Sun into the cosmic spa-
ces. Before the advent of Christ Jesus men worshipped
Jahve, or the Jehovah Being; thereafter they worshipped
the Being of Christ as the One who shed His Spirit
upon them from the Cosmos. As to the Spirits of lan-
guage, we must say that man cherishes precisely that
aspect of language which has remained on Earth. We
must learn to accustom ourselves to new points of
view. Man is in the habit of projecting his own ideas
into the universe. He would be wrong to regard the
sacrifice these higher Beings have made in their evolu-
tion after the fashion of a schoolgirl who has failed to
gain promotion. They do not remain behind because
they have neglected their studies, but from motives of
higher wisdom which is omnipresent in the world. If
certain Beings had not renounced their normal stage of
development on Old Sun and had not undergone their
evolution on Earth, we should never have known the
birth of language on Earth. In certain respects man
should feel deep affection for his native language be-
cause it was from motives of love that higher Beings re-
mained behind with him and renounced certain at-
tributes in order that man should be able to evolve in
accordance with the decrees of higher wisdom. Just as
we must regard hurrying forward as a kind of sacri-
fice, so we must also look upon remaining behind at
earlier stages of evolution as a kind of sacrifice and we
must clearly realize that man could not have acquired
certain attributes if such sacrifices had not been made.
Thus we see how two kinds of Beings of different rank
work alternately in the etheric body of man and in that
of the Folk Spirit in question, namely, the Archangels
who have followed a normal development and those
Spirits of Form who have remained behind at the
Archangel stage and have sacrificed their own evolution
in order to implant in man during his life on Earth his
native language. They had to be endowed with the
power to transform the larynx and the organs of speech
in such a way that these organs could manifest physi-
cally as speech. National sentiments, national tempera-
ment, together with the national language must be seen
as the result of the cooperation of these Beings. Lan-
guage, speech and national characteristics, these can
be compassed solely by the Folk Spirits in conjunction
with the Spirits of Form, because with their greater en-
ergy and superior powers the latter had remained
behind at the Archangel stage. Cooperation of this na-
ture takes place therefore in the realms where the Folk
Spirits are active. Similar cooperative activity is also to
be found in yet another domain.
I pointed out yesterday that other forces also are ac-
tive the First Beginnings, the Archai or Spirits of Per-
sonality, who during the Earth-existence represent what
is called the Zeitgeist, the Spirit of the Age. These work
in such a way that from their own ego, from their psy-
chic organization, they work into the physical body and
thus activate the forces of the physical body. If, at a
certain moment, something arises as a result of the ac-
tivity of the Zeitgeist, something manifests itself in the
Spirit of an Age which furthers the progress of
mankind, we must assume that this corresponds to the
utilization of physical forces in our Earth life. A mo-
ment's reflection will show that definite prior condi-
tions of a physical order are necessary in order to pro-
vide for certain contingencies in the Spirit of the Age.
Kepler, Copernicus and Pericles could not possibly
have lived in any other age or under other circum-
stances. Personalities are the product of the specific
conditions of their time, conditions which at a definite
moment of time are created and determined by the
higher Beings working on the physical plane. Now
these physical conditions must not be regarded as iso-
lated phenomena, but as particular configurations in
the physical constitution of our Earth. Sometimes these
configurations stand out in bold relief; at other times,
when the Spirit of the Age directs his influence in a cer-
tain direction, physical objects will inevitably take on a
quite definite pattern. You will recall that on one occa-
sion, when for the first time specially polished lenses
were used, some children playing in the glass pol-
isher's workshop assembled them in such a way as to
create the optical effect of a telescope, so that the in-
ventor of the telescope, having discovered from obser-
vation the underlying principle, only needed to apply it
to achieve practical results. This is an historic fact.
Imagine the number of physical processes involved be-
fore this result could be achieved. The lenses had first
of all to be invented, polished and then assembled in
the appropriate manner. Chance would account for
this, you might say, but only on condition that you
refuse to acknowledge the law that operates in such
circumstances. This concatenation of outward circum-
stances is the work of the Archai, the Primal Forces.
Their work is the consequence of focusing their activity
at a particular place, an activity which otherwise, as
Spirit of the Age, is expressed in a variety of ways.
Think of how many inventions would remain forever
unknown if this work of the Archai had not taken place
in their etheric bodies. It is really the work of the Archai
which acts in this way and is directed to this end.
Now if the activity of the Archai takes this form and is
responsible for directing the Spirit of the Age, the ques-
tion arises: how do these Spirits of the Age intuitively
sense the progress of mankind? They create a situation
in which man appears to be stimulated fortuitously by
external circumstances. It must not be accounted as
pure fiction if this sometimes occurs. I need only re-
mind you of the swinging lamp in the cathedral at Pisa
where, by observing the regular oscillations of the
lamp, Galileo discovered the law of the pendulum and
how, later on, Kepler and Newton were stimulated to
make their discoveries. I could quote innumerable
cases of the coincidence of external events and human
thought which would explain how the prevailing ideas
of an age are intuitively sensed by the Archai, ideas
which influence man's development, determine his
progress and subject it to law. In this domain also,
those Beings who have normally become Spirits of Per-
sonality during our Earth-existence, work in conjunc-
tion with other Beings, who, because they remained
behind on the Old Moon, are at present not Spirits of
Form or Powers as they ought to be on Earth, but are
now for the first time working as Spirits of Personality.
 Thus those Beings who remained behind in their evo-
lution not at the Old Sun stage, but only at the Old
Moon stage, are now Spirits of Personality. They do not
possess the attributes which they should normally
have, i.e. they do not intuit in the manner of the
backward Spirits of Form. They do not stimulate man
from without; they work more subtly, they leave it to
man himself to observe the changes in his physical be-
ing; they stimulate inwardly, fashion the inner configu-
ration of the brain and encourage a certain trend of
thought. Hence the thought-life of man at different
epochs is motivated from within, so that each epoch
has its own definite mode of thought. This depends
upon the delicate configurations of the thought-life,
upon its inner patterns. Here the backward Spirits of
Form who preserve the characteristics of the Spirits of
Personality work within man and create a certain way
of thinking, a quite specific pattern of ideas. Thus, from
epoch to epoch, man is not only guided according to
the will of the intuiting Spirits of Personality who in-
duce him of his own volition to follow a certain course
of action, but he is impelled as if by inner forces, so
that thought starts from within and manifests itself ex-
ternally in a physical form, just as language, on the
other hand, is a manifestation of the backward Spirits
of Form. Thus the way of thinking is an expression of
those Spirits of Form who in our age are known as Spir-
its of Personality. These are not, therefore, Spirits of
Personality who work in a subtle and intimate way and
leave man to his own devices; they take possession of
him and drive him irresistibly on. Hence you can al-
ways find in those men who are stimulated by the Spirit
of the Age, these two types. Those persons who are
stimulated by the true Spirits of the Age at their normal
stage of development are the true representatives of
their time. We can look upon them as men who were
destined to appear; we feel certain that their activities
were predestined. There are also others, however, in
whom are active those Spirits of Personality who are, in
reality, Spirits of Form. Those are the Spirits whom we
called the Thought Spirits, who during the Old Moon
cycle advanced to their present rank. Man is the stage
upon which the activities of these Beings are coordi-
nated. This is demonstrated by the mutual interaction
between language and thought, by the reciprocal rela-
tionship not only between the Spirits at the same stage
of development, but also by the reciprocal relationship
between the normal Archangels who determine na-
tional sentiment and temperament and those just de-
scribed i.e. not only between the Spirits of Form
who are at the Archangel stage, but also between those
Spirits of Personality who, in reality, are backward
Spirits of Form.
These two kinds of Beings are reflected in the make-
up and being of man. It is extremely interesting to ob-
serve this relationship when, with occult knowledge
and insight, we study the different peoples. We are
then able to follow the way in which the normal Folk
Spirits work and take their directions from the Spirits of
the Age; how these Folk Spirits work in the inner being
of man in conjunction with the Spirits of language and
also with the Spirits of thought who work into the
thoughts of man. Within man there are not only normal
and abnormal Archangels, but also the Archangels in
contrast to the abnormal Spirits of Personality who
from within determine the pattern of thought of a par-
ticular epoch. I have already mentioned that I proposed
to touch upon conditions which you must accept with
your spiritual understanding and which must be
clothed in ordinary language because no language has
as yet been invented which would make all this clear
and credible. I am therefore obliged to use a terminol-
ogy which is somewhat figurative. None the less MY
description of the situation accords with an important
fact in the evolution of mankind. It is most interesting
and instructive to follow the evolution of humanity in
recent times and to discover that a mutual agreement
was once arrived at between one of the guiding Folk
Spirits who is a normal Archangel, and an abnormal
Spirit of Personality who works in the inner being of
man as Spirit of the Thought-forces. The far-reaching
consequences of this agreement are reflected in a par-
ticular epoch of history. In order to make this agree-
ment fully effective a harmonious relationship was es-
tablished with the corresponding normal Archangel
who was the guiding Spirit of language at that time.
Thus there was a moment in the evolution of mankind
when the normal and abnormal Archangels worked to-
gether and when; furthermore, the mode of thinking
which was brought about from within by an abnormal
Spirit of Personality, was super-added. The harmonious
relationship between these spiritual Beings is reflected
in the ancient Indians of the first post-Atlantean epoch.
It was owing to the concatenation of circumstances at
the time of the ancient Indian culture that these Beings
were able to work in closest harmony. This is the
source of the historical role of the Indian people. The
prolonged effects of this concerted action could still be
felt in those later epochs when records of ancient In-
dian tradition were still extant. That is the reason why
the sacred Sanscrit language exercised such a powerful
influence and had such telling effects upon culture,
both in the past and in later epochs. This power was
the work of the Archangels who were responsible for
language. The strength of the Sanscrit language de-
pends upon that harmonious relationship of Beings of
which I have just spoken. It accounts for the unique-
ness of Indian philosophy which, as creative thought
expressive of the inner life, is unsurpassed by any other
people, and it also explains the inner perfection of
thought so characteristic of the Indian culture. In all
other continents different conditions prevailed. The pic-
ture I have just presented refers only to the Indian cul-
ture of that epoch. Hence it is so infinitely fascinating
to follow up these trains of thought which assume their
characteristic pattern because they have resulted, not
from the predominance of the normal Archangel over
the abnormal Archangel, but from the harmonious in-
teraction of these Beings, because every thought was
literally assimilated by the temperament of the people
and elaborated with loving care at the time when the
Indian people represented the first flowering of the
post-Atlantean culture. And the language preserved its
powerful influence because conflict had not arisen
there which otherwise might have arisen, because the
normal and abnormal Archangels acted in concert.
Thus language, the spontaneous overflow of a pure, un-
corrupted temperament, is itself an expression of that
temperament. That is the secret of the first post-At-
lantean civilization.
 And we must also bear in mind that in all other peo-
ples these Beings or forces cooperate in their diverse
ways the normal Folk Spirit or Archangel, the abnor-
mal Archangel and the abnormal Time Spirit who works
through the brain (working. not as a normal Time
Spirit, but from within the body); and finally the true
Time Spirit who transmits intuitively the thought-life to
the people. We shall really understand a people when
we feel intuitively the activity of these Beings or forces
and estimate; the contribution each makes to the con-
stitution of a people. It is difficult, therefore, for those
who do not take into consideration the occult forces in
the evolution of mankind, to provide a satisfactory defi-
nition of the word folk. If you look up the word folk
or people in a book on ethnology you will find the
strangest assortment of definitions. The authors must
of necessity give different interpretations because one
will respond more to what stems from the normal
Archangels, another to what stems from the, abnormal
Archangels and a third to what stems from the several
personalities of the people. Each has a different re-
sponse which will modify his definition. But we have
learned through Spiritual, Science that these definitions
need not of necessity be false; they are simply subject
to maya or illusion. A writer's statements will betray
how far he is the victim of Maya or how far he has left
out of account the various forces at work. If, from the
anthroposophical standpoint, we compare a people
such as the Swiss who occupy the same territory and
are trilingual with peoples who are uni-lingual we shall
inevitably have widely different conceptions of what
constitutes a people.
We shall discuss later why it is that in some peoples
the Spirit of Personality is the more active agent, that is,
why their mode of life is determined by the coopera-
tion of the several personalities. We shall also meet
with peoples on Earth whose life is largely determined
by the abnormal Spirit of Personality. These Spirits of
Personality do not contribute to the further develop-
ment of the peoples. A study of the character of the
North American people shows a people who, for the
time being, are under an abnormal Spirit of Personality.
We shall therefore only understand world history, in so
far as it consists of the history of peoples, if we observe
the normal and abnormal Archangels, the normal and
abnormal Spirits of Personality in their mutual relation-
ships and cooperative activity and at the same time fol-
low up their influence upon the successive peoples in
the course of the world's history.
 LECTURE THREE

The inner Life of the Folk Spirits. Formation of the

Races

In the course of these lectures we shall undertake in-

vestigations that will readily strike a responsive chord
in all of you because they will stimulate your immedi-
ate and lively interest. But since the picture would oth-
erwise be incomplete we must first embark upon such
inquiries as are necessary in order to ensure a full and
complete understanding and which you will find rather
more difficult to grasp than the central theme of our
lectures. Today, for instance, we shall be obliged to
turn our attention to the inner life of the normal Folk
Spirits, those Archangelic Beings of whom we have
spoken in the two preceding lectures.
We have already described them in their external as-
pect as Beings two stages beyond man, Beings who, at
the present time, are engaged in transmuting their
etheric bodies into Buddhi or Life Spirit. Now man is
also involved in this activity. In so far as he is involved
in the progressive evolution of these Archangelic Be-
ings, this Folk Spirit is reflected in the human individu-
ality itself as the folk-characteristic of the individual hu-
man being.
 We must now look a little more closely into the inner
life of the Folk Soul. If we wish to throw light upon the
inner being of man today, we must picture it as com-
posed of three members:

the Sentient Soul which is the lowest member,

the Intellectual Soul or Mind-Soul, the central mem-
ber, and
the Spiritual Soul or Consciousness-Soul, the highest
member, in which the human ego first becomes con-
scious.

Self-consciousness is first developed in the Spiritual

Soul. Nevertheless the I of man is active in all three
members of his inner life, in the Sentient Soul, in the
Intellectual or Mind-Soul and in the Spiritual Soul (Con-
sciousness-Soul).
In the Sentient Soul man is hardly aware of his ego
and in consequence is the victim of his passions and
desires. The I stirs feebly in the Sentient Soul, strug-
gles to free itself, emerges for the first time in the Intel-
lectual Soul and only becomes fully conscious in the
Spiritual Soul. If we wish to examine these three mem-
bers of the inner being of man independently of each
other, we must regard them as three modifications, as
three members of the astral body. These modifications
prepare the transformation of the astral body itself, of
the etheric body and of the physical body. These trans-
formations, however, are not to be confused with the
real inner being of man. The psychic life, the inner be-
ing of man, consists of three modifications of the astral
body. The three modifications can manifest themselves
only through the agency of the lower bodies the
Sentient Soul through the astral body, the Intellectual
Soul through the etheric body and the Spiritual Soul
through the physical body. We can thus distinguish the
inner being of man from his outer sheath or envelope.
Man's inner being therefore consists of three modifica-
tions of the astral body.
Just as man's inner life which is the field of ego-activ-
ity is manifested in these three modifications of the as-
tral body, so the true inner life of the Folk Spirits, or
that which corresponds to the inner life of man, is man-
ifested in three members, three modifications of the
etheric body. In man we distinguish Sentient Soul, In-
tellectual Soul, Spiritual Soul; in the Archangelic Beings,
the normal Folk Spirits, we distinguish three modifica-
tions of the etheric body and since these three modifi-
cations are situated not in the astral, but in the etheric
body, they differ fundamentally from the three modifi-
cations in the soul-life of man. Therefore, you must
think of the form of consciousness, of the entire soul-
life of these Folk Spirits, as different from that of man.
Let us now, turn aside from an external description to
look more closely into the inner life of these Folk Spir-
its. That will not be very easy, but we must be prepared
to make the endeavour. We must take our starting-
point from some familiar conception, a conception that
bears a close relation to the inner life of the Folk Spirits.
In the normal life of man such conceptions are few and
far between; man's consciousness has very little in
common with that of the Folk Spirits. It may help you
towards an understanding of the consciousness of the
Folk Spirits if you will bear with me in the following ob-
servation.
Now you have all learnt at school that the sum of the
three angles of a triangle is equal to two right angles.
You know that this axiom could not in any way be
demonstrated from external experience. Picture, for ex-
ample, the wooden or metallic triangles in your box of
geometrical instruments. If you measure the three an-
gles of a triangle with the aid of a protractor you will
never discover from external experience alone that the
sum of these three angles is equal to 180 degrees. But,
irrespective of whether you construct a triangle or
merely imagine it, you will know at once from inner ex-
perience that the sum of the three angles is 180 de-
grees. This must be an inner experience, it must spring
from the inner power of your own soul. In order to re-
alize this one need only reconstruct mentally the fol-
lowing. (The diagram is intended only as a symbolic
representation of the thought.)
In order to realize this one need only reconstruct men-
tally the following. (The diagram is intended only as a
symbolic representation of the thought.)

Diagram 1

This figure shows conclusively that the sum of the

three angles is equal to two right angles. You need only
visualize this figure and it will confirm this axiom for all
triangles. You can hold this figure in your mind's eye
without the need to draw it. You thus perform an oper-
ation in pure thought by the power of your own inner
activity; there is no need to go outside yourself. You
can imagine for a moment that the world of sensation
and the world of sense-impressions no longer exist.
Imagine the external world as non-existent and space a
creation of thought; then, in this space, the sum-total
of the angles of every triangle would amount to 180 de-
grees. In order to arrive at geometrical and mathemati-
cal knowledge sense-data are superfluous; inner experi-
ence, what takes place in consciousness itself, suffice.
I selected this example because it is the simplest and
most practical and confirms what people have learnt at
school. I could also give you the example of Hegelian
logic, which would also provide you with a number of
inner concepts. But here you would find much with
which you are unfamiliar, since Hegelian logic is only
known to the few. From this it is evident that man can
arrive at knowledge purely from within, without the
stimulus of external motivation.
If you can imagine that which can only be arrived at
externally through the logic of mathematics you will
have some idea of how the consciousness of the
Archangels works. They do not perceive the external
world of colours and tones, such as the ordinary man
experiences. These sensations are unknown to a Being
of this kind; it is impossible for him to receive tactile
impressions of objects. Such experiences are foreign to
him. But his experiences can be expressed in these
words: Something is now streaming into me from the
world of inspiration and this inspiration permeates my
consciousness and takes full possession of it.
Now the Archangels are not Beings who are limited to
mathematical concepts only; rather is it the conse-
quence of man's limitations that he can only conceive
of the activity of the Archangels in terms of abstrac-
tions, such as the truths of mathematics. These truths
are the normal experiences both of man and the Folk
Spirits. From this you may infer that the Archangels are
not interested in the phenomenal world perceived
through the senses. The external world as experienced
by man, and his sense-derived knowledge of that
world, is a world unknown to the Archangels. If you ex-
clude, therefore, from your picture of the world all sen-
sations and perceptions of the physical world, then you
exclude precisely that which does not concern the
Archangels. The question then is: what facet of con-
sciousness is still common to man and the Archangels,
to the Folk Spirits? All experiences of the Sentient Soul,
the normal joys or sorrows of life, all colours and
sounds, in fact all sensory perceptions of the external
world none of this concerns these Beings. Eliminate
therefore the entire contents of the Sentient Soul of
man and remember that the world-picture which is the
product of the Sentient Soul is of no importance to the
Archangels; they cannot participate in it.
Even one part of the Intellectual Soul that is stimu-
lated by external sensations has no significance for the
Archangels. That which is triggered off by external mo-
tivation, man's intellectual preoccupations and emo-
tional experiences, these too do not concern the
Archangels. But in the Intellectual Soul of man there
are, however, certain things which he experiences in
common with the Archangels. We are fully aware of
this when we see, for example, how our moral ideals
are born within us. There would be no moral ideals if
our sentient responses, our joys and sorrows and our
thought-life were dependent upon our sense percep-
tions of the external world. In that event no doubt we
might delight in the flowers of the field or in a beautiful
landscape, but our hearts could never be fired with en-
thusiasm for an ideal that may illumine us from beyond
the external world, an ideal that we can inscribe in our
hearts and to which we arc passionately devoted. But
we must not only glow with enthusiasm and respond
with sensibility in the Sentient Soul; we must also learn
to reflect. The person who only feels and does not
think may well be an enthusiast, but he is never a prac-
tical man. We must not receive ideals into our Sentient
Soul from outside; we must allow them to stream into
us from out of the spiritual world and we must work
upon them in the intellectual or Mind-Soul. Artistic and
architectural ideals and so on are present in the Intel-
lectual Soul and in the Spiritual Soul. They are related
to that which man cannot perceive externally, but
which pervades and illumines his inner being so that it
becomes a part of his life.
As we follow the life of peoples from epoch to epoch
we note how new ideas have continually arisen and
how new sources of hidden knowledge have been re-
vealed from time to time. From what source could the
Greeks have taken their conceptions of Zeus and
Athene if they had relied solely upon external percep-
tion? Everything that is included in the traditional wis-
dom, in the mythologies, religions and sciences of peo-
ples was born of inner spiritual experience. Thus one
half of our inner life, that of our Intellectual Soul and of
our Spiritual Soul is nourished from within. Indeed to
the extent to which man is inwardly permeated with
what I have just described, to that extent the
Archangels can penetrate into the inner being of man
and this defines the extent of their actual participation.
You must therefore exclude from the inner life that
which the Sentient Soul receives from outside and
which the Intellectual Soul elaborates. Then we come
to the Ego which to us is the highest member of our
being. What we introduce into our moral conscious-
ness are ideals, moral and aesthetic ideals. Whilst
man's perception of the inner world is screened from
him, he is able through the medium of the senses to
perceive the external world of colours, sounds, cold
and warmth. At the same time he is aware that behind
these colours, sounds, warmth and cold there exists a
fundamental reality, namely, the Beings of the animal,
plant and mineral kingdoms. And so man can think of
the world in the way I have indicated as having conti-
nuity in higher realms. The vision of these higher
realms is denied the ordinary person and it is this loss
of vision that accounts for the growth of materialism. If
man could have a clear view over the realm extending
beyond the Intellectual Soul and Spiritual Soul, then it
would be as foolish to doubt the existence of the spiri-
tual world as it would be foolish today to doubt the ex-
istence of the animal, plant and mineral kingdoms.
You will recall how man's I, his highest member,
embraces the Sentient, Intellectual and spiritual Souls.
Now the soul-life of the Archangel first begins with the
existence of its soul-life in the Intellectual or Mind-
Soul; it then rises into the I which embraces a world
of higher realms, a realm of spiritual realities in which it
dwells, as man dwells in the kingdom of the animals,
plants and minerals. We must realize therefore that the
soul-life of this Archangelic Being may possess what we
call human I; nevertheless the ego of the Archangel is
not of the same nature, it is not identical with the hu-
man I. The I of the Archangel is, in fact, two stages
higher, so that the Archangel and his I are rooted in a
higher world. Just as man sees colours and hears
sounds by means of his sense-perception, so the
Archangel looks down upon the world that embraces
the I as objective truth; but around this I is still gath-
ered some of that part of the astral nature which we
human beings call the Intellectual or Mind Soul. Think
of these Beings as gazing into a world which does not
extend to minerals, plants and animals. Instead of this,
imagine their spiritual gaze to be directed towards their
world-picture and that they perceive therein centres or
focal points. These centres are the human egos around
which again is gathered something that appears as a
kind of aura. This picture illustrates how the
Archangelic Being looks down upon those personalities
of the folk belonging to him and who constitute his par-
ticular people. His world consists of an astral field of
perception in which there are certain centres; these
centres, these focal points, are the individual human
personalities, the individual human egos. Just as to us
colours, sounds, warmth and cold lie within our field of
perception and constitute a world of reality, so to the
Archangelic Beings, to the Folk Spirits, we ourselves
with a part of our inner life are their field of perception;
and just as we set out to conquer nature and transform
it to serve our purposes, so we, in our turn, in so far as
we belong to a particular Folk Spirit, are the raw mate-
rial to be moulded by the Archangels or Folk Spirits.
Thus we gain insight, strange as it may appear, into a
higher epistemology of the Archangels. This is entirely
different from the epistemology of man; the Archangels
start from a datum of a different order. For man the da-
tum is everything appertaining to spatial extension and
which we know through sensory apprehension as
colour, sound, warmth, cold, hardness and softness.
The datum for Archangels is what appears in the field
of human consciousness; to them that is an aggregate
of centres or focal points round which the inner experi-
ences of man are grouped, in so far as these experi-
ences take place in the Intellectual or Mind-Soul. Their
activity is, by comparison, of a higher order.
What are the specific characteristics of the world of
the Archangels or Folk Spirits? The world of man is
characterized by the fact that he feels an object to be
warm or cold when he takes hold of it. The Archangel
experiences something similar when he meets with hu-
man individualities. He meets with some who respond
more actively to the quickening powers of the soul,
men with a richer inner life; these make a deeper im-
pression on him. Others he finds casual, lethargic, and
psychically empty. He feels them as warm or cold re-
spectively, just as the human soul responds to impres-
sions of warmth and cold. Such are the characteristics
of the world of the Archangel who, according to cir-
cumstances, can make use of the individual men and
work on their behalf by weaving out of his own being
that which has to guide the whole people. But there is
another way in which the life of this Archangel is re-
lated to the life of the particular people he is leading.
Just as the graph of man's life shows an ascending an
descending curve, the springtime of youth and the win-
ter of old age, so the Archangel experiences his youth
and old age in, the rise and fall of a people's culture.
We must now look again into the inner life of such an
Archangel. From what I have said you will have ob-
served no doubt that what man receives from without,
the Archangel receives from within; hence when the
Archangel experiences the individuals members of a
people as centres within him, he feels that this, experi-
ence does, in effect, originate in his consciousness, but
nevertheless is alien to him. It resembles the sudden
ideas that flash into our consciousness its influence
upon him is in inverse proportion to the influence of
youth and age upon man. In youth man feels his limbs
to be young and supple, to be growing) and develop-
ing. In old age they become flaccid and atrophy That is
something which man feels to be an expression of his
organic life. Now the Archangel, it is true, feels every-
thing to be an expression of his inner life, but the rise
and fall of a nation nevertheless seems something for-
eign to him. It is something which he feels to be inde-
pendent of him and for which he is not directly respon-
sible, but which gives him the occasion to incarnate in
a particular people at a definite time. When the oppor-
tunity for incarnation occurs, when a people can be
found in the full vigour of youth, in the creative period
of its life, then the Archangel incarnates in that people
just as man incarnates after passing through the period
between death and rebirth. Equally the Archangel
senses his impending death, feels the need to withdraw
from the people in question when he perceives the in-
dividual centres beginning to be less productive, less
active and to lose their inner vitality. Then comes the
time when he withdraws from the particular national
community, enters into his Devachan, the life between
death and rebirth, in order on a later occasion to seek
out another community. Thus the springtime of a peo-
ple, its youthful vigour and vitality testifies to the youth
of the Folk Spirit, which he experiences as a living, vi-
talizing force within him. He experiences the decline of
the life of a people as the withering of the centres in his
inner field of perception. This should give to some ex-
tent an insight into the inner being of a particular Folk
Soul.
In the light of this information we may say that in cer-
tain respects a Folk Soul is rather far removed from the
individual human being, for man's Sentient Soul and
the lower part of his Intellectual Soul are beyond the
immediate perception of the Folk Spirit or Archangel.
For man, however, it is something very real, something
that he feels to be intimately associated with the very
core of his own life. In a certain respect the Archangel
Being, the guiding Spirit of a nation, is something
which hovers above the individual members. Man's
personal experiences which derive from his sense per-
ceptions are wholly foreign to the Archangel who is
guiding the people. But there are intermediaries, and it
is important that we should realize that such intermedi-
aries exist. They are the Beings we call Angels and they
mediate between Archangels and man. You must un-
derstand quite literally, that Folk Spirits are Archangels,
Spirits who have completed the transformation of their
astral bodies into Spirit Self or Manas and are now in
process of transmuting their etheric body into Life
Spirit. Intermediate between those Beings and man are
the Angels. These are Beings who are engaged in trans-
muting their astral body into Spirit Self or Manas, but
have not yet completed their task. At the present time
man stands at the initial stage of this task; the Angels
are nearing the end of this task but are by no means
finished with it. Therefore these Beings are more
closely related to the life and activities of man; with
their whole soul-nature they feel more drawn to the as-
tral body. Hence they have the fullest understanding for
the joys and sorrows of man. But because they possess
a higher Ego than the human ego, because they are
able to reach up into the higher worlds, their con-
sciousness extends into those spheres where the con-
sciousness of the Archangels is active. They are there-
fore the true intermediaries between the Archangels
and the individual human being. They transmit the be-
hests of the Folk Spirits to the individual souls and
thereby help to determine what the individual can do,
not only for his own evolution, but also for his whole
people.
In the life of man these two streams flow side by side.
The one stream carries him forward from incarnation to
incarnation it is concerned with his personal destiny,
which he has to fulfil in order to discharge that duty
which is to him the most solemn and sacred because it
is peculiarly his own. He cannot afford to stand still be-
cause his latent capacities would otherwise lie fallow if
he failed to cultivate them. Such is his individual des-
tiny by virtue of which he progresses from incarnation
to incarnation.
 But his contribution to his own people, all that
touches upon the affairs of his immediate community,
stems from the inspiration of the Angel who transmits
the behests of the Archangel to the individual.
We can easily picture therefore a people in inhabiting
a certain territory; over this people extends the etheric
aura of the people into which the forces of the Folk
Spirit work, modifying the etheric body of man in ac-
cordance with the three types of force. In this Folk-aura
the Archangel is at work. We must think of him as a
higher Being, two stages higher than man in evolution,
hovering over the whole people, issuing directives con-
cerning what this people as a whole has to fulfil. The
Archangel knows what steps must be undertaken dur-
ing the creative period of a people when its youthful
vigour and vitality are strongest. He knows what aims
must be pursued by a people during the period of tran-
sition from youth to age in order that his directives may
function in the right way.
This grandiose plan is the work of the Archangels.
Here on the physical plane the individual human being
must ensure that these great aims are realized. Be-
tween the individual and the Archangels are the Angels
who mediate between them. The Angels impel him to-
wards the locality ordained for him, so that the feelings
of the people should concur in the great ordinances of
the Archangels. We shall see this in the proper per-
spective if we take what I have been describing not
simply as an allegory, but as a close approximation to
reality.
Now the whole pattern of events woven by the
Archangels is subject to the influence of the abnormal
Archangels, the Spirits of language, as I described yes-
terday. We have also described how the abnormal Spir-
its of Personality, the Archai, exercise their influence.
We can now turn our attention to the domain in which
the Archangels issue their directives, in which they ap-
portion the various tasks which are then transmitted by
the Angels to the separate individuals. But the
Archangels are also able to work into the sphere of the
abnormal Spirits of Personality, and in the mutual co-
operation of the Archangels with the abnormal Spirits
of Personality since the latter are pursuing totally dif-
ferent aims it is possible that the plans of the
Archangels are in certain respects frustrated. When this
occurs, when these abnormal Spirits of Personality
thwart the designs of the Archangels, groups with spe-
cially appointed tasks arise within the nation itself. Un-
der these circumstances the activity of the Spirits of
Personality is visible externally. This may last for cen-
turies. In Germany, for example, where there is an ur-
gent need today for anthroposophical work, you have
seen for centuries this interplay of the Archangel of the
Germans and the sometimes opposing separate Spirits
of Personality. The fragmentation of the one German
nation into the many smaller ethnic groups illustrates
the interplay of the abnormal Spirits of Personality with
the Archangel.
Nations like this are little centralized; they look more
to the development of individuality. In some ways this
is good, for a variety of shades within the national char-
acter can thereby find expression.
One may also take the other case where not the ab-
normal Spirit of Personality, but the normal, Spirit of
Personality expressing himself in the Spirit of the Age,
assumes for a certain time greater importance than
would normally follow from the ordinary course of
events.
In studying a people we regard the Archangel as its
guiding principle. Then follows the influence of the
Spirit of the Age who gives his directives to the
Archangel of the different nations and these in turn give
them to the Angels who transmit them to the separate
individuals. Because, as a rule, we see only what is ob-
vious, so in this concerted action the activity of the
Archangels is seen to be the most important element.
Circumstances, however, may arise when the Spirit of
the Age has to issue more important, more momentous
directives, when he is compelled, so to speak, to take
over some of the authority of the Archangel, because
he must detach a portion of the people in order that the
task of the Age, the mission of the Spirit of the Age may
be fulfilled. In such a case national groups split off from
the rest; the Spirit of the Age visibly gains the upper
hand over the influence of the Archangel. A case in
point occurred when the Dutch people severed its con-
nection with the kindred German people. Holland and
Germany shared originally an Archangel in common;
the separation occurred because the Spirit of the Age
detached a portion of the people at a given moment
and then transferred to this portion what have become
the vital interests of the modern Spirit of the Age.
Dutch history is simply a reflection of this inner
process in reality all history is only an external ex-
pression, a Maya, of an inner process. In the present
case we see the separation of the Dutch people from
the common Teutonic stocktaking place externally. But
the inner reality is that the Spirit of the Age required an
instrument with which to fulfil his mission overseas.
The entire mission of the Dutch people was in the
hands of the Spirit of the Age. The purpose of the sepa-
ration was to enable the Spirit of the Age to enlist this
portion of the people in his service in order to execute
important tasks at a specific moment in history. What
the historians describe is only Maya; it conceals rather
than reveals the true facts.
You can meet with other examples which afford a
striking illustration of this situation, namely, the sever-
ance of Portugal from Spain, where a portion of the
people had to separate from the main body of the peo-
ple. You may look in vain for other explanations; you
will find that in this case it is simply a question of a vic-
tory of the Spirit of the Age over the Archangel. If you
analyse the events individually you will find that the op-
portunity was taken and such opportunities were
few and far between to form a special people. The
Spanish people formed with the Portuguese a homoge-
neous group. The external reason for this severance
was perhaps that the rivers were only navigable up to
the Portuguese frontiers. There is no other geographical
explanation. The inner reason, on the other hand, was
that the specific tasks which had to be fulfilled by the
Portuguese were different from those of the united
Spanish people. Here we see the Spirits of the Age de-
veloping a more intense activity than they normally dis-
play. The harmony which had prevailed hitherto is re-
placed by a new relationship. Instead of giving his di-
rectives to the Archangel, the Spirit of the Age inter-
venes directly in the history of the people, and other
Spirits seize this opportunity to incarnate. When such a
people is detached from its racial group, then, in that
initial enthusiasm which overtakes the individual mem-
bers of that people, the Spirit of the Age discharges for
a time the functions of the Archangel so completely
that scarcely any evidence of the severance survives
save an atmosphere of bustling excitement and ferment
in this people. This vigour and vitality, this spirit of ob-
jectivity, stem from the mission of the Spirit of the Age.
Then a normal and abnormal Archangel have the op-
portunity to incarnate in that section of the people
which has broken away. Thus we see the growth of the
Dutch and Portuguese peoples who are now under the
guidance of their own normal and abnormal
Archangels. And the influence of these spiritual Beings
is seen in the difference in temperament which is re-
flected in the individual personalities of these two peo-
ples. The work of these spiritual Beings is quite remark-
able, and we now recognize that the external events of
history are simply an expression of their activity.
Gradually the saying that the external world is Maya
or illusion is seen to have increasing importance. The
external events of history are simply the outer reflec-
tion of the super-sensible Beings, just as man is the
outer reflection of the inner man. For this reason I had
to insist, and I must emphasize this again and again,
that the saying the world is Maya is so vitally impor-
tant. It is not sufficient to emphasize this in an abstract
way; we must be in a position to apply it to every as-
pect of life.
Now, as we know, other Spirits and Hierarchies are
active in the world. We have already spoken of the nor-
mal and abnormal Archangels. The abnormal
Archangels have shown themselves to be, in reality,
Spirits of Form or Powers who have only renounced in
part the attributes of their evolution. The question that
now arises is what is the position of the normal Spirits
of Form? The normal Spirits of Form are four stages be-
yond man we shall have more to say about them in
our next lecture. In the hierarchical order mentioned
yesterday the Spirits of Form do not occupy the highest
rank. Above them are the Spirits of Movement, Dy-
namis or Mights; beyond these again are the Spirits of
Wisdom, Kyriotetes. I have referred to these different
spiritual Beings in my books, Cosmic Memory and Oc-
cult Science an Outline
Now you must understand that the law of renuncia-
tion, of deferred development, applies also to the
higher Beings, that the Spirits of Movement who are
five stages beyond man may also remain behind with
certain attributes, that certain Spirits of Movement are
today bound up with human evolution as if they were
now only Spirits of Form or Powers. In respect of cer-
tain attributes they are really Spirits of Movement,
whereas in respect of other attributes which they have
sacrificed, they are Spirits of Form. Thus there are nor-
mal Spirits of Form four stages beyond man and other
Beings working in the same sphere as the Spirits of
Form, but who are really Spirits of Movement. Just as
there is a sphere in which the normal and abnormal
Archangels cooperate so we have here a sphere in
which the normal and abnormal Spirits of Form, the ab-
normal Spirits of Movement, cooperate. Through this
interplay are formed the races of mankind. Race must
not be confused with nation.
If we approach the matter in this light we shall avoid
confusion and our ideas will be more elastic. A nation
is not a race. The concept of nation has nothing to do
with that of race. A race may be divided into many dif-
ferent nations; races are different from folk communi-
ties. We rightly speak of a German, Dutch or Norwe-
gian nation; at the same time we speak of a Germanic
race. Now what lies behind the concept of race? Those
Beings whom we describe as normal Spirits of Form
work in conjunction with those Beings whom we have
come to know as the abnormal Spirits of Form, but
who are Spirits of Movement in reality, entrusted with
the mission of Spirits of Form. This is the reason why
mankind is divided into races. That which gives man
his human stature, which makes every man, irrespec-
tive of his race, a member of the human species this
is the work of the normal Spirits of Form. That which
divides the whole of mankind into races is the work of
the abnormal Spirits of Form who made an act of re-
nunciation so that instead of a single human family a
wide diversity of types could exist on Earth.
Thus we gain an insight into the spiritual background
from which the individual peoples emerge and are thus
able to follow their evolution over the whole Earth. We
find that, by virtue of the normal Spirits of Form, one
common Humanity should exist on Earth; that the
backward Spirits of Movement enter into the sphere
belonging to the Spirits of Form and as abnormal Spirits
of Form are responsible for differentiating mankind the
whole world over into races. When we look into the
purposes of these Spirits, when we inquire closely into
the aims and objects of these normal and abnormal
Spirits of Form, then we shall understand the designs
they entertain for the races of mankind and how
through these races a foundation is laid for that which
shall emerge from them. If we take the example of a
particular people and study it, then, in the light of what
we have said, we shall have understood and compre-
hended this people
 LECTURE FOUR

The Evolution of Races and Civilization

If we wish to understand the relationship of the races

of mankind to one another and the origins of the indi-
vidual folk communities, we must realize that man as
we know him today is a highly complex being and that
his present form and inner being could only have arisen
through the cooperation of countless numbers of cos-
mic Beings. From the study of the Akashic Record and
other observations on the evolution of man we know
that in prehistoric times our Earth, before reaching its
present condition, had to pass through three condi-
tions, in the course of which the three so-called mem-
bers or vehicles of man, the physical body, the etheric
body and the astral body were prefigured, gradually re-
alized and developed until they reached their present
state. It is only during his present Earth incarnation that
man has been able to develop a fourth member, an
ego. These four members testify to the activity of the
spiritual Beings during the three or four incarnations of
our Earth Old Saturn, Old Sun, Old Moon and the
Earth period itself up to the present moment. If you will
call to mind all the Beings who worked together during
those incarnations, the Spirits of Will or Thrones, the
Spirits of Wisdom, of Movement, of Form, of Personal-
ity, the Archangels down to the Angels and above
the Thrones, the Cherubim and Seraphim it is clear
that man's present organization could only have been
created through a complex interplay of spiritual forces.
We have seen that not only was the cooperation of
many Beings and nature-forces in the Cosmos a neces-
sity, but that for the creation of man it was also neces-
sary that at certain epochs, certain Beings should re-
nounce the normal course of their evolution and re-
main behind in order to be able to participate in the or-
ganization of man in a way that would have been im-
possible in the normal course of their evolution.
And so when we seek to understand man as he is to-
day, we find a richly varied and much patterned fabric.
Only when we examine this fabric closely and watch
the activity of the several Beings do we begin to under-
stand how man first came into existence through the
cooperation of these Beings. The chief Being who is of
importance for contemporary man is the one who has
gradually made ego-consciousness possible. The op-
portunity to develop ego-consciousness was first pro-
vided by the Spirits of Form, the Beings whom we call
Powers or Exusiai. If we follow the activity of these Be-
ings alone and ask ourselves how man would fare if the
normal Spirits alone were predominantly active in him,
we shall find that they are the donors of the ego-organi-
zation. And this implies that their chief interest is to
further man's ego-development, which can only be re-
alized in the man of today at a certain age.
If you recall the teachings of Spiritual Science on the
subject of the education of the child you will know that
in the first seven-year period of life, between birth and
the change of teeth, man develops principally the phys-
ical body. The Spirits of Form have no particular inter-
est in the development of the physical body since this
is really a recapitulation of what man underwent on
Old Saturn (which has often been repeated) and which
from the last physical birth up to the age of seven has
for the time being been recapitulated in a particular
way for the last time. The second seven-years period of
life from the ages of seven to fourteen, the age of pu-
berty) is also a period which holds little interest for the
Spirits of Form since it is a recapitulation of what man
underwent on Old Sun. In reality the Spirits of Form
only wished to embark on their chief activity, the be-
stowal of an ego, during man's life on Earth. The third
seven-year period covers the years between fifteen and
twenty-one. During this period man recapitulates the
development of the astral body that normally belongs
to the Old Moon epoch. And again the normal Spirits of
Form show no interest. The three life-periods, then,
that precede the actual birth of the ego at the age of
twenty approximately, have no immediate appeal. The
Spirits of Form only intervene on their own initiative at
the age of twenty approximately. On reflection, there-
fore, you will not be surprised to learn that the Spirits
of Form intended, in fact, that man should incarnate
only at the normal developmental stage of twenty or
thereabouts.
In the eyes of these Spirits of Form all that has been
developed in man hitherto is, in reality, a kind of em-
bryonic state, a sort of germinal condition. And if I may
speak somewhat figuratively I might say that the Spirits
of Form who have developed normally would far prefer
it if things proceeded with almost clock-work regular-
ity, if hitherto no-one encroached upon their province.
If these Spirits of Form had free rein until man's twenti-
eth year, then in the first seven years of his life man
would have the consciousness pertaining to the physi-
cal body, namely, the very dim consciousness of the
mineral kingdom. In the second seven years, between
the ages of seven and fourteen, he would have a sleep-
consciousness. From the fourteenth to the twentieth
year he would be very active inwardly, but would live
in a kind of dreamlike consciousness of the Old Moon
evolution. Not until the age of twenty-one approxi-
mately would he awaken to ego-consciousness. If he
followed the normal course of development therefore
he would only awaken to ego-consciousness at that age
and perceive the external world in the form that is fa-
miliar to us today.
If we only take into account the activity of the Spirits
of Form it is clear that man attains his present-day con-
sciousness much too early. Now in modern man this
consciousness, as you know, awakens to some extent
soon after birth. He would not develop a clear and dis-
tinct perception of the external world if other Spirits, in
reality Spirits of Movement, had not remained behind
and renounced the development of certain capacities
which they could otherwise have acquired up to the
time of the Earth-evolution, so that they could inter-
vene in man's development in a particular way during
this present Earth-evolution. Because their evolution
followed a different path they are in a position to be-
stow upon man prematurely that which he ought to ac-
quire only in his twentieth year approximately. These
are spiritual Beings who renounced the possibility of
continuing their evolution normally up to the stage of
their Earth-evolution Beings who might have been Spir-
its of Movement during the Earth-evolution, but who
remained at the stage of the Spirits of Form and are
now active in the Earth-evolution as Spirits of Form.
Thus they are able, during the Earth-evolution, to be-
stow upon man, who is by no means mature enough to
receive it and has much to redeem from an earlier
epoch, the ego-consciousness that would normally be
his only around the age of twenty. Hence the abnormal
Spirits of Form endow man with capacities which oth-
erwise he would have received about his twentieth year
only.
The consequences are highly significant. Let us as-
sume for a moment that evolution had followed its nor-
mal course. If these abnormal Spirits had not inter-
vened, man would have incarnated on the physical
plane in the condition which is natural to him at the
age of twenty approximately and would have to go
through a totally different embryonic development. In-
deed through these abnormal Spirits of Form, man's
development from birth to the age of twenty, that is,
for about the first third of his life, is subject to the
forces of the external world. The first third of our Earth-
life therefore is not controlled by spiritual Beings who
determine Earth conditions, but by other abnormal
spiritual Beings. And because these abnormal Beings
participate in evolution, we do not possess therefore
the form that we should have if we had incarnated in
the condition natural to us at the age of twenty. To
compensate for this man must spend the first third of
his life (up to the age of twenty) under the powerful in-
fluence of these abnormal Beings. In the course of his
whole development man is subject to the influence of
these abnormal Beings. And the penalty he has to pay
for this is that after the middle third of life which is un-
der the influence of normal Spirits of Form only, a pro-
gressive decline sets in and the etheric and astral orga-
nizations begin to disintegrate. Life therefore is divided
into three periods or thirds an ascending third, a
middle third and a descending third. It is only in the
middle third that man is a fully integrated person in his
Earth-life. In the last third of his life man has to give
back what he received during the first, the ascending
third; he must repay the debt in kind.
If man had been wholly subject to the influence of the
normal Spirits of Form all that he experiences today up
to the twentieth year would take on a different com-
plexion, a totally different form. The situation would
have been totally different, so that everything associ-
ated with the development of man during the first of
his three life-periods is fundamentally an anticipation of
much that belongs to the later epochs. In consequence,
up to the second life-period man has become a more
material being than he would otherwise have been. He
would have experienced up to this time purely spiritual
conditions and would have incarnated on Earth only at
that period of his development which he undergoes in
his twentieth or twenty-first year when he would find
himself Earth-bound. We learn from Spiritual Science
that if his development had proceeded in this way man
would have incarnated only in the condition which he
now attains in his twentieth or twenty-first year. He
would not have been able to go through the preceding
conditions on Earth; he would have been obliged to go
through them in the spiritual spheres surrounding the
Earth.

Diagram 2

The whole course of human development through

childhood and adolescence should now be clear to you.
If the line BC represents life on Earth between twenty
and forty, it would have been the intention of the Spir-
its of Form that man should incarnate only at B (the age
of twenty to twenty-one). Having come down to Earth
at this age he would have left it again after his fortieth
year (at C) and have spent the last third of his life in a
spiritualized state. Through the abnormal Beings man
was forced to descend upon the Earth at A and begin
his life cycle. That is the secret of our existence. Thus it
is only in the middle third of life that we are wholly un-
der the influence of these Beings who actually control
us; the periods of our maturity and decline are subject
to entirely different Beings who in one way or another
have renounced their normal development.
If man had lived through the first and last thirds of his
life in the spiritual sphere surrounding the Earth and
had incarnated only during the second third, thereby
becoming a totally different being, he would not have
become Earth-bound to the extent that he is today. If
man's development had followed this course, then all
those incarnating on Earth would be alike in (physical)
form and inner being, they would be standardized.
Only a single, uniform humanity would exist. That
which determines the racial types with their specific
characteristics is unrelated to the middle third of life.
Through the circumstances of the earlier years, through
the influences of the first third of life, we, with all our
forces, are more Earth-bound than the normal Spirits of
Form had intended. In consequence man has become
more dependent upon the Earth than he would other-
wise have been; he has become dependent on the lo-
cality where he lives. Because of his premature incarna-
tion in opposition to the intentions of the Spirits of
Form, so to speak he becomes dependent upon the
locality of his birth, he unites with his physical environ-
ment in a condition which is not designed for him. It
would have been of no consequence whether he had
incarnated in the middle third of his life or whether he
had been born in the north, south, east or west. But be-
cause he has become dependent on his environment,
because his youth is lived in the way I have described,
he becomes Earth-bound, he becomes closely associ-
ated with, and an integral part of the geographical area
where he was born. He cannot escape the environmen-
tal conditions of that locality the incidence of the
sun's rays, the proximity of the region to the Equator or
to a more temperate zone, whether he is born in the
lowlands or on a high plateau. The rate of respiration in
the plains is different from that in the mountains. Man
therefore becomes wholly dependent upon the envi-
ronmental conditions of his birthplace. He becomes
wholly identified with his native soil through his close
association with the locality of his birth. He is moulded
by those attributes which he thus receives because
these etheric formative forces of the Earth associated
with the particular locality where he is born are active
in him. All these factors determine his racial character,
and the abnormal Spirits of Form, those Spirits or Pow-
ers who are responsible for our present consciousness
not between the ages of twenty-one and twenty-
three but at some other time are indirectly the
source of the racial differences in mankind everywhere,
for these differences depend upon the particular local-
ity where a man is born.
During the first third of life when, in effect, he is un-
der the dominion of the abnormal Spirits of Form, man
reaches sexual maturity and develops his capacity for
reproduction. His reproductive capacity is acquired
during the period when he is not wholly under the di-
rection of the normal Spirits of Form. It is possible
therefore that a man is not only dependent on the lo-
cality of his birth, but that the characteristics thus ac-
quired may also be inherited by his descendants. Thus
racial homogeneity is reflected not only in the influence
of the habitat, but also in the racial inheritance. This ex-
plains why racial characteristics can be inherited and
why, as we shall learn from Spiritual Science, it was
only in the past that racial characteristics were deter-
mined by the locality where man was born. In the latter
part of the Lemurian epoch and in the early Atlantean
epoch, for example, man was directly dependent upon
his physical environment. In later times race was no
longer associated with locality, but was bound up with
heredity. In race therefore we see something that was
originally associated with a particular geographical re-
gion, was later passed on via inheritance, but became
increasingly independent of a particular locality.
The period of evolution when one can justifiably
speak of the idea of race will be clear to you from what
I have just said. One cannot speak of race in the true
sense of the term before the Lemurian epoch, for only
then did man incarnate on Earth. Before that time he
lived in the spiritual environment of the Earth. He then
incarnated and racial characteristics were hereditary
from the beginning of the Atlantean epoch up to our
post-Atlantean epoch. We shall learn later how, in our
own time, the national characteristics prepare in their
turn the break-down of the racial characteristics and
begin to eradicate them.
We must carefully avoid seeing evolution in the form
of a perpetually revolving wheel, for this idea which is
widely canvassed in many a mystical world-view serves
only to confuse the true picture of evolution. If one pic-
tures evolution as a wheel, revolving round a fixed cen-
tre and divided into so many races, then we fail to
grasp that everything is in a state of evolution and that
the races are evolving too. Races are born and will at
some future time cease to exist. They do not repeat
themselves in the same way as Sinnett mistakenly
claims in his Esoteric Buddhism. We must look for the
origin of racial characteristics in the old Lemurian
epoch; we must follow their propagation down to our
own day; at the same time we must realize that when
our fifth post-Atlantean epoch is superseded by the
sixth and seventh, race as such will have ceased to ex-
ist. But if we picture evolution as the mechanical,
steady, continuous revolution of a wheel, then we carry
the picture of a mill wheel in our mind and have not
the slightest understanding of evolutionary processes.
The evolution of races begins therefore only in the
Lemurian epoch through the activity of the abnormal
Spirits of Form, who permit the etheric forces from the
soil to intervene at the locality where man has to spend
the first years of his life. And this influence is carried
over to some extent into his later life because man is
endowed with a memory, through which he still re-
members even in his later life, the time spent under the
influence of the abnormal Spirits before his twenty-first
year on Earth. Man would be a totally different being if
he were subject only to the influence of the normal
Spirits of Form. Through the influence of the abnormal
Spirits of Form he is dependent upon the particular lo-
cality in which he lives. I have already described how
man departed from the laws of the normal Spirits of
Form, with the result that the locality of his birth during
a particular incarnation was of importance to him.
 These relationships will become clearer to us if we
take into account the following factor. To a certain ex-
tent the etheric forces emanating from the soil perme-
ate the human organism so that man becomes depen-
dent upon the soil of a particular geographical area. In
this connection I should like to refer to certain regions
of the Earth that are connected with the historical de-
velopment of the human being. We shall discuss these
relationships in more detail later on. I now propose to
describe them in general.

Diagram 3

Here is for example a point or a centre of cosmic in-

fluence situated in the interior of Africa. At this centre
are active all those terrestrial forces emanating from the
soil which can influence man especially during his early
childhood. Later on their influence diminishes; man is
less subject to these forces. Nevertheless their forma-
tive influences make a powerful impression upon him.
The locality where a man lives exercises its most potent
influence in early childhood and thereby determines for
their whole life those who are completely dependent
on these forces so that the particular locality impresses
the characteristics of their early childhood permanently
upon them. This is more or less typical of all those
who, in respect of their racial character, are determined
by the etheric formative forces of the Earth in the
neighbourhood of that particular locality. The black or
Negro race is substantially determined by these child-
hood characteristics.
If we now cross over to Asia, we find a point or centre
where the formative forces of the Earth impress perma-
nently on man the particular characteristics of later
youth or adolescence and determine his racial charac-
ter. Such races are the yellow and brown races of our
time.
If we continue northward and then turn in a westerly
direction towards Europe, a third point or centre is
reached which permanently impresses upon man the
characteristics of his adult life. In this way man is deter-
mined by the etheric forces emanating from the Earth.
When we look more closely into these separate points
or centres we find that they follow a line which takes
an unusual direction. These centres still exist today.
The centre in Africa corresponds to those terrestrial
forces which imprint on man the characteristics of early
childhood; the centre in Asia corresponds to those
which give man the characteristics of youth, and the
corresponding centre in Europe imprints upon man the
characteristics of maturity. This is simply a universal
law. Since all men in their different incarnations pass
through the various races the claim that the European
is superior to the black and yellow races has no real va-
lidity. In such cases the truth is sometimes veiled, but
you see that with the help of Spiritual Science we do af-
ter all light upon remarkable truths.
If we continue this line (see diagram) still further
westward we come to America, where the forces of old
age, of the final third of life, are active. These forces
I beg you not to misunderstand what I am about to say,
it only refers to man in so far as he is dependent upon
the forces which determine his physical organism, the
terrestrial forces of his environment, forces unrelated to
his fundamental being these forces are associated
with the decline of man. This line which in reality de-
scribes a curve obeys a cosmic law and does in fact ex-
ist; it is a reality and expresses the law according to
which our Earth acts upon man. The forces, which de-
termine man's racial character, follow this cosmic pat-
tern. The American Indians died out, not because of Eu-
ropean persecutions, but because they were destined
to succumb to those forces which hastened their ex-
tinction. [This last sentence causes a lot of controversy
and needs explaining: the translator did not give an ac-
curate translation. The original German text is, Nicht
etwa deshalb, weil es den Europern gefallen hat, ist
die indianische Bevlkerung ausgestorben, sondern
weil die indianische Bevlkerung die Krfte erwerben
mute, die sie zum aussterben fhrten. A more accu-
rate transalation is, The Native American population
did not die out because this pleased the Europeans, but
because the Native American population had to acquire
such forces as lead to their dying out. A computer
translation, using Google Translate, is, It was not for
the sake of the Europeans that the Indian population
died out, but because the Indians had to acquire the
forces that led them to extinction. Use the Compare
feature to see for yourself: http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lec-
tures/GA121/Compare/index.php e.Ed] The destiny of
the races and the changes wrought by the forces which
are not under the influence of the normal Spirits of
Form are determined by the peculiar characteristics of
these different centres of cosmic influence. When de-
termining racial characteristics these Spirits work in this
way; but in our age the racial character is gradually be-
ing overcome. The first steps in this direction were un-
dertaken for the most part in the earliest period of the
Earth's history. If we were to go back to the old
Lemurian epoch we would find that the very first indi-
cations of racial development could be traced back to
the regions of present-day Africa and Asia. Later, a mi-
gration westward sets in and as we follow westward
the forces which determine race we note their decline
amongst the American Indians. The death of races be-
gins with their westward migration. In order to seek the
rejuvenating forces, races migrate eastward, from At-
lantis across Europe to Asia. Then the westward migra-
tion is repeated, but on this occasion we witness, not
the movement of races but, as it were, a higher stage of
racial development of civilizations. Thus in a certain
way we see that the evolution of civilizations is charac-
terized by a continuation of the racial development on
a higher plane. For instance, the old Indian civilization,
the first post-Atlantean civilization, to which we have
already given due recognition in this lecture, corre-
sponds to early childhood, the period when man's re-
sponse to physical nature is still dormant, when he is
receptive to the manifestations of a spiritual world.
The first Indian civilization is in fact a revelation from
spiritual worlds and could only manifest in man be-
cause he came under the influence of the terrestrial
forces of India to which he had already been subject
from earliest times. In the primeval past men owed
their racial characteristics to the etheric formative
forces of the soil; now, they owed that disposition of
soul peculiar to the ancient Indians to their continuous
presence in the same geographical region. Through the
migration from West to East they received those fresh,
youthful forces which made possible the emergence of
that peculiar spiritual configuration so typical of the
original Indian civilization. Thus a very ancient Indian
civilization which has not yet been studied and of
which the Indian civilization now known to science is
only an offshoot, can be explained by the fact that the
Atlantean civilization is repeated to a certain extent in
the primeval Indian civilization.
When we consider the successive civilizations of the
post-Atlantean epoch, we can see that they represent
successive recapitulations of conditions experienced
earlier in the physical body, but which have been trans-
formed through the forces of rejuvenation. Thus the
Persian civilization shows a conflict between the virile
forces of early manhood, when man is still subject to
the influences of the abnormal Spirits of Form, and the
forces which stem from the normal Spirits of Form. In
the Persian civilization this dualism is reflected in the
polarity of light and darkness, of Ormuzd and Ahriman.
The farther we move westward the more we see that
the civilization bears the impress of the characteristics
of a more mature age. We must admit that up to the
present time the creations of man are still dependent to
a large extent upon the abnormal forces and Beings of
the universe. Nevertheless we can now understand that
racial characteristics are no longer decisive factors as
man moves westward and also that, to a certain extent,
the tendency of civilization is such that its youthful
vigour, its creative potentialities, decline more and
more the further it moves towards the West.
To the unprejudiced observer a variety of factors
serves to show that our contemporary civilization is
also determined in this way in accordance with a fixed
law. But people are not disposed to be objective. If you
bear in mind that, in reality, all civilization is in a state
of flux, you will then realize that the further we move
westward, the less productive civilization becomes. As
civilization it is already moribund. The further West one
goes, the more civilization becomes externalized; it is
no longer vitalized by the forces of youth, but is given
over to the hardening forces of old age. Western man
will still be able to benefit mankind by making valuable
and important contributions in physics, chemistry and
astronomy and in all fields which are independent of
the rejuvenating forces of youth. But that which calls
for creative energy requires a different configuration of
those forces which work upon man.
Let us take the example of a man growing up from
childhood to the stage when his spiritual life matures.
He first develops physically. The forces concentrated
within the youthful organism must be allowed to ex-
pand physically. Later, when growth is completed,
these physical forces are turned inwards. Mankind in
general undergoes a similar process. The curve of de-
velopment which we have already described reveals a
remarkable law which applies even to the continents.
First of all we observe the first signs of man's develop-
ment in Africa; then his native territory expands far
afield. Characteristic of this expansion is the wide-open
spaces of Asia where man inhabits vast tracts of coun-
try.
Let us now glance at the repetition of race develop-
ment in the post-Atlantean civilizations. Just as in his
youth man looks out with curiosity upon his environ-
ment, so does the man of the old Indian civilization
look out into the world. This is associated with the
fresh, youthful forces which help man to grow until he
reaches his full stature when the spiritual life must be-
gin to unfold and the physical must be compressed. As
civilization advances westward into Europe it is remark-
able that the geographical area which mankind inhabits
is narrowed down to smaller and smaller lands. We ob-
serve that Europe is the smallest continent, and the fur-
ther civilization moves westward the more it tends to-
wards delimitation, and finally in its westward course is
confined to peninsulas and islands.
All this is connected with the spiritual course of evolu-
tion. Here we have a unique insight into the mysteries
of spiritual evolution. But with this narrowing of the ge-
ographical area a critical situation arises; on account of
this crisis a more unproductive element begins to oper-
ate. Creative activity dies out to some extent in the
peninsulas the further westward one goes. This creative
impoverishment is illustrated in what I have already de-
scribed, namely that civilization itself, the further it
moves westward, becomes progressively more rigid
and senile, and slowly declines. This was always known
in the Mystery Schools. You will now understand why I
said that what I had to communicate might be some-
what dangerous because people might take offence. By
no means everything can be revealed that would enable
man to command the higher members of his being so
that he may perceive the terrestrial forces that deter-
mine the race, forces that later on determine the char-
acter of the civilization and which in a still later epoch
will have lost their significance when man rediscovers
his spiritual vision. Thus you will understand that the
whole process of the evolution of mankind is con-
nected with the spiritual evolution which has always
been known to those who were initiated into the
deeper secrets of existence. The truth of what I have
just said does not depend upon whether one approves
or disapproves; it depends upon evolutionary neces-
sity. To deny this necessity is pointless; it serves only
to put obstacles in the way of understanding. Therefore
it is only natural that those w ho migrate to areas lying
more to the West must seek rejuvenating power, spiri-
tual substance, from the East; but Central Europe must
call to mind its own creative activity as it existed before
the formation of peninsulas and islands. That is why
precisely in Europe in the region embracing our two
countries, Scandinavia and Germany man has to
draw upon the resources of his own soul-life and why,
on the other hand, we must look especially in the West
for that part of humanity which is to receive spiritual
nourishment from the East. This urge is deeply rooted
in the nature of all mankind. You see this repeated in
the development of Spiritual Science. We witness it
again in the fourth post-Atlantean civilization, amongst
the Greeks and Romans. The Romans, it is true, are in
certain respects more advanced than the Greeks, but
they took their spiritual life from the people they con-
quered, who lived more towards the East.
The further countries lie to the West the more is the
law thus revealed to us confirmed. Now these impor-
tant truths can only be indicated; they reveal what ac-
cords with the inner nature of the future mission of
mankind in every corner of the globe. We must under-
stand therefore the task that lies before us if we wish to
raise ourselves to the level of the all-human. Here lies
the great responsibility which we take upon ourselves if
we wish to participate in the spiritual evolution of
mankind. In this realm neither personal sympathy nor
personal enthusiasm may play a part. They are of no
consequence; only what is determined by the great
laws of humanity is decisive. The great laws themselves
must apprise us of this; we must not allow ourselves to
be prejudiced in favour of any particular law.
That is the fundamental characteristic of Rosicrucian-
ism. Rosicrucianism implies acting in accordance with
the evolution of all mankind. If we are aware of the
configuration of the landscape we inhabit, including is-
lands and peninsulas, then we shall realize what senti-
ments must fill our hearts if we seek to work for the
benefit of the evolution of humanity.
In the remote past man descended to Earth under the
guidance of the abnormal Spirits of Form and was asso-
ciated with his particular geographical region. Thus the
foundations were laid for the development of the races.
Then a progressive intermingling of the races takes
place. The evolution of races is interrupted to make
way for the evolution of nations; i.e. nations develop
out of races. And the development of nations enters
even into the evolution of the individual human being.
Behind the question, who was Plato, what was his ori-
gin and ancestry, a great mystery is concealed. He was
an individual who grew up in the lineage of Solon, was
a member of the Ionian tribe, the Greek nation and the
whole Caucasian race. The realization that Plato was a
descendant of Solon, an Ionian, a Greek, a Caucasian,
expresses a profound mystery if we understand the law
behind it. It shows us how the normal and abnormal
Spirits of Form whose major concern is to prepare
man's incarnation on Earth work in concert over the
whole Earth, how, by this cooperative activity, the hu-
man race is subdivided and how then those other Be-
ings intervene of whom we have already spoken when
describing the characteristics of the several peoples.
Each individual is intimately associated with these pro-
cesses by means of which all these higher Beings, these
higher Spirits, determine the evolution of the world by
their cooperative activity.
We cannot understand the individual if we do not see
how he owes his whole development to the coopera-
tion of these Beings. Because a Caucasian race was
once created on Earth through the mysterious interplay
of the normal and abnormal Spirits of Form the stage
was set for the incarnation of a Plato. And because we
are aware of the intervention of the normal and abnor-
mal Archangels down to the Angels, we realize the
steps which were necessary to bring forth a Plato
whom we could recognize as a human being endowed
with the specific human attributes of thinking, feeling
and willing. The nation occupies an intermediate posi-
tion between the race and the individual.
It was first necessary therefore to outline the condi-
tions fundamental to the evolution of race. Tomorrow
we shall discuss the emergence of nations out of races,
the intervention of other Spirits of the Hierarchies and
especially their intervention in the activity of the Spirits
of Form.
 LECTURE FIVE

Manifestation of the Hierarchies in the Elements of

Nature
The Mission of the Planetary Epochs of Old Saturn,
Old Sun, Old Moon and Earth

It will be seen from the last lecture that if we wish to

make an impartial study of the facts underlying our
present investigation we must transcend those preju-
dices which might easily arise on matters which I must
now describe objectively. So long as one has the slight-
est tendency to take personally an objective description
of a particular race or people, it will be difficult to reach
an unprejudiced understanding of the facts presented
in this lecture course. For this reason these matters can
only be discussed in the light of Spiritual Science. For
however deeply one may be involved emotionally in a
particular people or race, as Anthroposophists we have
an adequate counterpoise in the teaching of karma and
reincarnation, when rightly understood. This teaching
opens a vista into the future and reveals that our inte-
gral Self is incarnated in successive ages in different
races and peoples. When we contemplate the destiny
of our integral Self we may be sure that we shall share
not only the positive or perhaps also the negative as-
pects of all races and peoples; but we may be sure that
in our inmost being we shall also receive the countless
blessings of all races and all peoples since we are incar-
nated in different races at different times.
Our consciousness, our horizon, is enlarged through
these ideas of karma and reincarnation. Only through
these teachings therefore do we learn to accept what is
revealed to us at the present time concerning the mys-
terious relations of race and nation. If we rightly under-
stand the theme of these lectures we shall harbour no
regrets at having incarnated in a particular people or
race. But an objective survey of national and racial
characteristics may, nonetheless, provoke dissension
and disharmony unless it is accepted in the spirit I have
already suggested. The aspirant for spiritual knowledge
will learn through the teachings of karma and reincar-
nation how every nation, even the smallest nation, has
to contribute its share towards the total evolution of
humanity. In the second part of this lecture-course I
propose to show and herein lies its real importance
how the particular influences of the missions of the
several peoples are merged in the whole of humanity
and how even isolated ethnic groups which are scat-
tered here and there amongst larger national groups
have their part to play in the great harmony of human
evolution. This, however, will only become apparent to
us step by step.
In order to acquire a full understanding of the charac-
teristics of the individual Folk Souls we shall have to se-
lect examples which are clearer to us in certain re-
spects than the folk characteristics of our own times.
On the other hand, we shall perhaps have to deal with
folk characteristics which belong to a more distant
epoch, in order to have a yardstick for determining the
characteristics and tasks of the different nations. But
this will be nothing more than a general outline of the
racial or folk characteristics.
In the course of the last lectures we have learned that
a race is the product of the cooperative activity of a
normal and abnormal Spirit of Form, and a people the
product of a normal and abnormal Archangel; and we
now understand how the Beings of the spiritual Hierar-
chies intervene in evolution.
The question now arises; how do the Beings of a
higher order work into the external world? It would be
as well to begin by acquiring today an understanding of
the Hierarchies of which man is the lowest member.
You will recall that we placed man on the lowest rung
of the Hierarchical ladder. Below him are the three
kingdoms of nature, the animal, vegetable and mineral
kingdoms. Above him are the Angels, the Archangels
and the Archai or First Beginnings. This is the Hierarchy
immediately above man the third Hierarchy. The
second Hierarchy is as follows:

Spirits of Form Powers (Exusiai)

Spirits of Movement Mights (Dynamis)
Spirits of Wisdom Dominions (Kyriotetes)

Then we have the highest of the three Hierarchies

the first Hierarchy:

Spirits of Will Thrones

Cherubim
Seraphim

Since all spiritual Beings manifest in some form or

other and are to be found therefore in the phenomenal
world, the realm of Maya or illusion, we must ask our-
selves where we must look for them at the lowest stage
of manifestation, at the stage of illusion. In his normal
perception of Nature and the Spirit man knows only the
realm of Maya, the most external manifestation of
these spiritual Beings. I propose to illustrate this by
means of an example.
Let us suppose a person is traveling on foot over the
bare, rugged landscape of Norway. His first impression
will be of a rocky expanse spread out before him. He
will describe this solid rock formation in terms of his
first impression, namely as hard rocky substance. But
he who penetrates into the being of natural phenomena
has a totally different conception of this rocky sub-
stance. What is the real nature of that upon which we
stand and which offers resistance? The external surface
of the Earth which man believes to have a real exis-
tence does not exist at all, it is an illusion. In reality
spiritual forces are at work radiating from below, from
within the Earth; they emanate from certain Beings.
Thus in a particular locality we see a manifestation of
forces emanating from the Earth and raying outward in
all directions. But if these forces alone were present,
clearly man would not have solid ground under his
feet, for of themselves they would project him with
maximum velocity into space. He owes his ability to
stand on solid ground to the circumstance that other
forces stream in from all sides from universal space.
Where the forces streaming in from the Universe en-
counter the forces raying outward from within the
Earth there arises, so to speak, a frontier or boundary
which is the apparent surface of the Earth. The surface
one sees, therefore, is only an illusion; it is a result of
the activity of the in-streaming and outward streaming
forces which neutralize each other at the apparent sur-
face in question.
 The forces raying outward in all directions are the
forces of the Thrones, the Spirits of Will. The forces
streaming in from the Universe are essentially the
forces that proceed from the Spirits of Movement. Thus
these two forces meet at this frontier and this interplay
of the Thrones with the Spirits of Movement since
the activity of the Thrones is neutralized by the Spirits
of Movement produces the diversified contours of
the Earth's surface. What is seen externally as the
Earth's surface is wholly unreal; it is simply illusion. In
reality it is the product of a balance of forces; an agree-
ment, as it were, is concluded between the Spirits of
Will and the Spirits of Movement as a consequence of
which the Earth assumes its highly diversified configu-
rations.
Nevertheless through this interplay alone our Earth
could not arrive at its present planetary form. The
forces of the Spirits of Will and the Spirits of Movement
acting and reacting upon each other would not be suffi-
cient for this; the resultant effect would be something
totally different. If, for example, only the Spirits of Will
were to ray outwards from within the Earth and were
opposed by the Spirits of Movement alone, then the
Earth would be in a continual state of flux, the ever
moving forms could not be brought to rest. In that
event, it is true, it would not be as fluid as the ocean in
its present state; it would not be of a liquid consistency
like water that is ruffled at the slightest breath of wind,
but of a viscous, semi-fluid consistency.
If you wish to form an idea of how the Spirits of Will
and the Spirits of Movement originally worked in con-
cert, I would like to give you an example and would ask
you to follow me on the sketch. In the first place let me
draw your attention to the Alps, which today form a
solid mountain chain so that the solid barrier of the
Alpine Massif divides the Italian peninsula in the South
from the rest of Europe. How is one to account for this
alpine chain? There was a time in the far distant past
when the Alpine Massif did not as yet exist, but to the
North and West there were already older eminencies
which at that time had already become solidified.
Waves of semi-fluid consistency were then thrown up
from the South. We may picture the situation some-
what as follows:
 Diagram 4

Here at A we have the Bohemian Plateau. Now imag-

ine a huge wave thrown up from the South which di-
vided and spilled over the Bohemian Plateau on the
right (to the East) and over the central plateau of France
on the left (to the West). In primeval times this mighty
wave formed the Alpine Massif. It is possible to arrive
at this conclusion without specialist knowledge. Any-
one who has once stood on the summit of one of the
Alpine peaks and surveyed the unique configuration of
the Alpine chain has observed even if he were un-
aware of it what Spiritual Science has long estab-
lished and which even the present-day geologists have
confirmed that peculiar wave-like formation which
dates from the time when the primeval mass of the
Earth was still in a semi-fluid condition.
Such would be the configuration of the Earth today
through the cooperation of the Spirits of Will and the
Spirits of Movement but for the intervention of another
activity which is remarkably persistent and which is
manifested on the surface of our Earth by the inter-
weaving of the activity of the Spirits of Form with the
Spirits of Will (the Thrones) who work in conjunction
with the Spirits of Movement. You may picture there-
fore that these Spirits of Form, dancing as it were upon
the waves, brought the ever moving forms to rest and
moulded them into form. We can therefore point to the
cooperative activity on the part of three different forces
which proceed from three kinds of Beings. On the one
hand we see the activity of the Spirits of Form who
work inward from the cosmic sphere and unfold their
activity in the realms of the Spirits of Will below them
as well as in that of the Spirits of Movement above
them. That which on our Earth appears externally for
the most part as a fluid element not the liquid water
we see around us today, but the primal semi-fluid ele-
ment which was brought to rest by the Spirits of Form
this we must look upon as the most external mani-
festation of the Spirits of Will. But another element is
always associated with this activity. The Spirits of Will
(or Thrones) are assisted by the Cherubim or Seraphim.
The Cherubim work in the air element, in everything
aeriform which permeates the apparent solid substance
of the Earth. Air is an illusion behind which stand the
mighty Beings we call Cherubim. The Seraphim work in
fire, they operate in whatsoever manifests as heat.
Thus we see how the radiations from the centre influ-
ence our Earth planet. Our planet therefore is so consti-
tuted that the Spirits of Will (or Thrones), the Seraphim
and the Cherubim work from the centre. We must look
upon our planet in this way: at the meeting-place of the
boundaries of air and heat or warmth for the atmos-
phere is just as much part of our planet as the water or
dry land a surface is formed. Upon this surface the
Spirits of Form literally dance upon the waves and bring
them to rest and mould them into form. It was for this
reason that they were given their name. Behind them
are the Spirits of Movement and in their element again
is mingled what we called the Spirits of Wisdom. When
therefore we look inward towards the centre of our
planet we are aware of the presence of Divine Beings,
Thrones, Cherubim and Seraphim. When we look out-
ward we perceive first of all beyond the realm of the
Spirits of Form who permeate the air and heat with
their element, the Spirits of Movement and the Spirits
of Wisdom. When we gaze out into the periphery of
the Earth, when we lift our eyes to the Cosmic Spheres,
all the nature-forces and natural phenomena we en-
counter there are fundamentally the work of the sec-
ond Hierarchy. Everything we see when we look into
the depths of the Earth we ascribe to the Beings of the
first (highest) Hierarchy. It is to the unique cooperative
activity of these two Hierarchies that we owe the con-
figuration of our environment.
We have stated that the three elements, water, air and
fire are related to the Spirits of Will, the Cherubim and
Seraphim. In which of these elements do the Spirits of
Form manifest themselves? They are the Beings nearest
to us and they dance upon the surface of the Earth
where we live and have our being. They work inward
from universal space, but now unfold their forces in the
emanations issuing from the Earth. To us they are con-
centrated in the rays of the Sun. Light, therefore, is the
element in which the Spirits of Form first weave and
work. Since, however, the activities of light and every-
thing related thereunto manifest themselves at the fron-
tier where the Spirits of Movement and Spirits of Will
work in concert, it is at this meeting-place that solid
forms are created. Man has, at first, no organs that
would enable him to see what lies beyond these forces
of light, which we call the Spirits of Form, no organs
with which to perceive that which is woven into the
light. Everything which on our Earth determines cre-
ation and destruction, all the chemical forces active in
the Earth, is still interwoven with light and this is princi-
pally the domain in which the Spirits of Movement op-
erate. When man learns to perceive something of that
which he otherwise looks upon simply as Maya, in the
action of chemical synthesis and analysis, then he hears
these Spirits of Movement, he perceives the Music of
the Spheres of which the Pythagorean and other occult
schools speak. That too is what Goethe describes when
he speaks of the Sun, not as the giver of light, but when
he says:

The Sun, in ancient guise, competing

With brother spheres in rival song,
With thunder-march, his orb completing
Moves his predestin'd course along.

(Faust. Prologue in Heaven.

Tr. Anna Swanwick)

This Music of the Spheres is still there, but it is inaudi-

ble to ordinary consciousness. It is a reality; it ap-
proaches all men from without as an astral effect. Man,
however, does not hear it. If in relation to this he were
to experience an alternation similar to that of light and
dark at certain times, then there would also be times
when he could hear the Music of the Spheres. It
sounds forth both day and night and therefore he can
only hear it if he undergoes a certain occult training
and development. Whereas the light streams towards
us during the day as light and during the night contin-
ues to operate as a reservoir of assimilated light, the
Music of the Spheres sounds forth continually both day
and night. In this situation man is in the same position
as the miller who is aware of the sound of his mill
wheel only when it is no longer working.
The last of the Beings of the Second Hierarchy are the
Spirits of Wisdom, who work from the surrounding
Cosmos into the weaving light and into the Music of
the Spheres operating throughout the Universe. That is
the Life of the universal Ether, raying in on to the Earth.
For Life is pouring in on to the Earth from cosmic spa-
ces and is received by living creatures here on Earth. It
comes from the Spirits of Wisdom.
Thus we gaze out into cosmic spaces and perceive
first of all the Sun in which these threefold forces are
concentrated for our spiritual vision. We perceive how
instreaming Life, weaving Sound, formative Light, the
trinity of the second Hierarchy, are working in from
universal space. The highest of the Hierarchies, the
Seraphim, the Cherubim and the Thrones, work up-
wards from below, from the centre of the Earth. The
third Hierarchy (the Hierarchy immediately above man)
is interwoven with all terrestrial activity and works
chiefly in the inner being of organic life. To this Hierar-
chy belongs, in the first place, the Archai acting as the
Time Spirits. These Time Spirits work in the material
prepared for them by the higher Hierarchies; they lay
the foundation of what we call the history of mankind,
the evolution of civilization on Earth. Then in our im-
mediate environment we find the Archangels, the tribal
Folk Spirits, and finally the Angels who mediate be-
tween the individual human beings and the
Archangels.
To sum up, therefore: In the forces of Nature upon
our planet, in earth, water, air and fire are the Beings of
the first or highest Hierarchy who stream forth to meet
the activity of the Spirits of Form working in from the
cosmic sphere. From outside, the Beings of the second
Hierarchy stream in, and in the environment of the
Earth are the Beings of the third Hierarchy who, for the
moment, are the weakest of the forces. Just imagine for
a moment how powerful are the forces of those exalted
Beings whom we call the Spirits of Will, who fashion
the very ground under our feet. Then we have those
forces which stream in from outside, the Spirits of
Form who are nearest to us, and who mould the con-
tours of the Earth in their plastic state. And finally we
have Angels, Archangels and Archai who work more in-
timately into human souls. And so in the first (highest)
Hierarchy we have those forces of Nature which we
recognize as the strongest the Nature-forces ema-
nating from the centre of the Earth, the forces of the
solid Earth beneath us. In the second Hierarchy we
have the cosmic forces which live and weave around us
in the ether and in the third Hierarchy we have that
which lives and weaves in the inner recesses of our
soul.
If we observe the cooperative activity of these three
Hierarchies and see how they operate in our Earth
planet, how they form it out of the totality of the Uni-
verse, then we have some indication of what was nec-
essary in order to create our Earth. The Earth had to
pass through the planetary epochs of Old Saturn, Old
Sun, and Old Moon before it could become our present
Earth. If you refer to my books Cosmic Memory and
Occult Science, you will find that, even during the ear-
lier incarnations of our Earth, these various spiritual Be-
ings worked together, but that the nature of this coop-
erative activity was different from that of today. With
each new incarnation in the Saturn, Sun, Moon and
Earth states the cooperative activity of those Hierarchi-
cal Beings assumed a different form because in each of
these planetary epochs of the Earth the Hierarchical Be-
ings had their specific task to fulfil. We may confidently
affirm that each of the conditions through which our
Earth has passed and those which still lie before it, rep-
resent, and have represented, a particular stage in the
process of cosmic evolution.
Since all conceptions change from one planetary con-
dition to another it is extremely difficult to define what
were the tasks of the Old Saturn, Old Sun and Old
Moon epochs. This is not easy because we must first
characterize the mission of our Earth in a very general
way. The simplest way to conceive of it is to call to
mind the nature of the various forces which manifest
themselves in space. Man's inner life consists of think-
ing, feeling and willing; his outer vehicles consist of the
physical body, etheric body and astral body. So that if
we take a man of the present day and ignore for the
moment his ego, we can envisage him as a tapestry
consisting of the physical, etheric and astral bodies into
which are woven as into an outer envelope think-
ing, feeling and willing.
Now these forces in man, both in the outer and the
inner man, are always related to some earlier mission
which was connected with a former incarnation of the
Earth. If, for example, we wish to form an approximate
idea of the Saturn mission, we may think of it as being
related, on the one hand, to the human physical body
and, on the other, to the human will. Now if there had
been no Saturn incarnation of our Earth, neither the life
of will in man, no r his physical body could have at-
tained their present form. A man owes his physical
body and life of will to Old Saturn. He is indebted to
the Akashic Records for this knowledge. The after-ef-
fects of each Earth incarnation, however, are reflected
in the forms of the succeeding incarnations. Hence the
life of will as we know it today can be traced back to
the after-effects of the Saturn element. Consequently
the Saturn element is reflected in the inner life of man
as will. You will have an idea of the mission of the Old
Sun epoch if you study the etheric body and also the
later development of the sentient life. You already
know that the etheric body can be traced back to the
Old Sun. The after-effects however are such that man
was able to develop later the inner life of feeling. Fi-
nally, we find that the Old Moon condition was related
to the astral body of man and the inner life of thought.
Thus three successive incarnations of the Earth were
necessary in order that these forces of the inner and
outer man physical body, etheric body and astral
body; thinking, feeling and willing could so develop
that they are now an integral part of his physical and
spiritual life. In order that the task of the three succes-
sive incarnations or planetary epochs of our Earth could
be fulfilled and that man could be endowed with his
present constitutional make-up, those Beings whom we
have described as belonging to the Hierarchies were
obliged to work together in each of these planetary
epochs in a way appropriate to each Earth incarnation.
The mission of Old Saturn therefore had to be fulfilled
otherwise man's physical body and the life of will could
not have been bestowed upon him. To the Old Sun he
owed his etheric body and sentient life, and finally to
the Old Moon he owed the astral body and the power
of thought. Thus, each of the three preceding incarna-
tions of our Earth were especially devoted to one of the
salient aspects of our individual being, our I. In effect
the external physical body which stems from the activ-
ity of the Spiritual Beings of Old Saturn, from the Spirits
of Will, is simply Will that is externalized. Today the
will is an expression of the inner life. These words are
carefully chosen; they are no flight of fancy, but fit the
facts completely. You can learn much from them. The
Earth passed through the Old Sun epoch in order, on
the one hand, to lay the foundation of the etheric body
through the influence of the Spirits of Wisdom, and, on
the other hand, through the continued operation of the
element of wisdom, to endow us inwardly with Feeling,
the inner element of Wisdom. The mission of Old
Moon is associated with the astral body and the inner
life of Thought.
The problem, which now confronts us, is this: what
particular mission has been chosen by the Spirits of
Form who work chiefly on the Earth and fashion it?
Now the task before the Spirits of Will or Thrones
who worked chiefly on Old Saturn was to endow man
with that element which later, during Earth-evolution,
manifests itself as Will. The great task of Old Saturn,
then, is to implant the will, the forces of will. When we
contemplate this gift to man, we are filled with admira-
tion and reverence for the ruling cosmic Powers. They
command our deep respect when we realize that for
the skilful interweaving of outer Will, which resides in
our physical body, and of inner Will, a special planetary
mission was necessary. The whole world of the Hierar-
chies had to suffer the birth and death of a planet in or-
der to bring about the condition which we experience
as the outer and inner element of Will. In the same
way, the Old Sun universe was necessary in order to
endow us with the etheric body and the element of
Feeling, the inner element of Wisdom. And the Old
Moon mission was necessary in order to endow us
with the astral body and the inner life of Thought.
What, then, is the mission of the Spirits of Form? What
is the real Mission of the Earth? If one associates the
Old Saturn mission with the endowment of the ele-
ment of Will, the Old Sun mission principally with the
endowment of the element of Feeling, and the Moon
mission chiefly with that of the element of Thought
with the astral body of man then the mission of the
Earth is to bring about a perfect harmony between
these three elements, each of which had been predom-
inant in an earlier incarnation of our Earth. The mission
of our Earth is to resolve the conflict between these ele-
ments and restore a proper harmony between them.
Man is involved in this mission of the Earth in order
that he may establish this harmony between thinking,
feeling and willing, first of all in his own inner being. At
the beginning of the Earth period man was in this re-
spect a patchwork of thought, feeling and will. Every-
one who possesses a little self-knowledge can feel that
the man of today has not yet achieved inner harmony;
he is frequently a victim of conflict and discord. Man is
called upon first of all to strike a balance between
thought, feeling and will within himself by means of
which he himself as an Ego-being can demonstrate and
communicate to his fellow men what this harmony sig-
nifies.
In occult symbolism this Earth-mission has always
been expressed in a special way by means of a geomet-
rical figure. Amongst geometrical figures you will find
none which corresponds so exactly to the balance or
harmony of these three activities as the equilateral tri-
angle. If you draw an equilateral triangle you will find
the three sides are equal, the three angles equal, the
vertices are equidistant from each other and all are
equidistant from the centre. The centre of an equilateral
triangle is a complete symbol of a balance of forces, so
that when the occultist looks at an equilateral triangle
he perceives in it a symbol of the perfectly balanced co-
operation of those elements, each of which held for a
time the upper hand in the three earlier incarnations of
our Earth. The deeds of the I in man signify simply the
creation of an active centre in his nature whereby this
state of harmony can be prepared from within. Man
therefore is called to high destiny on Earth to bring
about from within, first of all through his whole being,
a balance between what was predominant for a time in
earlier planetary epochs in various ways and at various
times.
Now that is a very general definition of our Earth mis-
sion, but this mission is exactly as I have described it.
The secret of this mission is that through this coopera-
tion, through this balance or harmony of the three
forces, the inner being really creates something new. A
fourth element, which is the element of Love, is thus
added to the three preceding elements. Love can only
develop in the busy work-a-day world when an abso-
lute harmony exists between the three forces, which in
earlier epochs were each in turn, the dominating influ-
ence. We shall have more to say about this in the next
few days. For the moment you must accept it as a gen-
eral description.
Thus our planet is the planet of Love and therefore the
result of this balance or harmony which is reflected in
the cooperation of the three forces is the active spirit of
Love, and this spirit of Love is to be woven into the
whole of evolution throughout all the successive incar-
nations of the Earth by the fulfillment of the Earth's
mission. In this way the Trinity becomes a Quaternary:
the latter begins with its fourth element at the lowest
stage, with the most elementary or primitive form of
love which is so purged and purified that at the close of
the Earth-evolution Love will appear as an element en-
joying to the full equal status with the others. To fulfil
the mission of balance or harmony ordained for our
Earth planet implies, in reality, transforming the Trinity
into a Quaternary. To make the Trinity into a Quater-
nary is therefore an occult formula for the Earth's se-
cret. Inevitably the fourth element is today still very im-
perfect. But when the Earth shall have fulfilled its mis-
sion, it will appear as luminous as the Sacred Triangle
which, with its state of perfect balance, shines forth as
the highest symbol we possess for our Earth ideal in
so far as we can remember the past of the Earth.
This correspondence between the elements of think-
ing, feeling and willing is such that the inmost being of
man becomes the substance of Love and this is what
one may call the really creative, the inwardly creative
element in earthly existence. We must therefore de-
scribe the Spirits of Form in their totality (because their
particular mission is to harmonize the three former
conditions) as the Spirits of Love.
In considering Earth-existence in this way we first de-
scribed thinking, feeling and willing and the working of
Love outside our Earth planet and we described as the
special task of the Spirits of Form the implanting of
Love which results from balance or harmony. This is
the whole mission of the Earth. In order to realize this
power of Love that shall permeate the Earth, the inter-
play and interaction of the lowest Hierarchies was nec-
essary. As we began to indicate in our previous study,
the network of Love must be woven by these Hierar-
chies and Love must be woven in such a way that the
principal threads are woven by the normal Spirits of
Form, for that is their fundamental mission. Then the
abnormal Spirits of Form, who are in reality Spirits of
Movement, weave into the tapestry that which creates
the different races. Then the normal and abnormal
Time Spirits weave into it the historical evolution, and
the normal and abnormal Archangels the evolution of
the individual peoples and languages; and finally the
Angels who determine man's rightful place on Earth
participate in this activity. In this way the mighty tapes-
try of Love is being woven. Yet of this tapestry of Love
which is being woven as the real mission of Earth only
the Maya, the outer reflection, is visible on Earth.
The nearest realm above the physical world in which
it is possible to perceive this tapestry is the astral
world. In order to see the working of the Hierarchies
more and more clearly in the truths underlying our ex-
ternal Maya we must raise our consciousness from the
astral plane to the planes of lower and higher De-
vachan. We then perceive how this tapestry is woven.
If we raise our consciousness to the astral plane, the
Beings normally working from the depths, namely, the
Spirits of Will (Thrones), Cherubim and Seraphim are
not yet visible. If we wish to perceive these Spirits at
work we must raise our spiritual vision to still higher
realms. But already in the astral world we find the ab-
normal Spirits of Form who, if they had fulfilled their
normal evolution, would be working from without. The
Spirits of the second Hierarchy, as we already know,
ought to work from without, from the celestial spheres,
but here they are working from within, from the centre
of the Earth. Thus into this tapestry of Love in which
the Spirits of Movement, the Spirits of Form and the
Spirits of Wisdom are working from without, and the
Spirits of Will, the Seraphim and Cherubim from
within, there are also other Beings working from within
who should really be working from without. They work
secretly, however, after the manner in which the silk-
worm spins its cocoon. What is seen first of all in the
astral world are Beings working from the depths. These
singular Spirits of Movement who have transposed
their sphere and are fallen Spirits, are the first Beings to
become visible amongst those spiritual Beings weaving
and surging in the spiritual atmosphere of the Earth.
These Beings who are the first to become visible on the
astral plane, even before the normal Angels, are the
Spirits who in a sense falsify clairvoyant perception
despite the fact that they are vitally necessary for the
propagation of the races. These Spirits, each of whom
has many attendant spirits, because each one begets
many spiritually subordinate beings, are surrounded in
the spiritual world by a number of spiritual beings who
are always subordinate to their respective Hierarchies.
The higher Spirits also have their attendant Nature-spir-
its the Spirits of Will: the Undines; the Cherubim:
the Sylphs; the Seraphim: the Salamanders. The abnor-
mal Spirits of Form who are really Spirits of Movement
and who appear as hideous spiritual Beings on the as-
tral plane also have their subordinate spirits. They are
the spirits who are actively engaged in whatsoever is
associated with the genesis of the human races, in that
which in man is associated with the earth-bound, with
the propagation of race and the like. These beings, in-
deed this whole domain is one of the most variegated
and dangerous of the astral world and this is the ap-
propriate moment to call attention to it it is the one
most easily contacted by those who attain to clairvoy-
ant vision by erroneous methods. The hosts of these
spirits who are associated with the propagation of the
race, who serve that purpose, are those most easily
perceived. Many a one who has entered into the occult
realm prematurely or in the wrong way has had to pay
dearly for it because he encountered this host of spiri-
tual beings without the harmonizing influence of the
other spiritual Beings.
Thus we have been able to throw light upon that
which weaves on the loom of Reality in order to pro-
duce this tapestry from which the pattern of man's psy-
chic life emerges. Tomorrow we will discuss in further
detail how this cosmic pattern which we have touched
upon today is reflected in the origin and development
of races and peoples.
 LECTURE SIX

The five Root Races of Mankind

Please note: the original German language edition of

this lecture series uses the term Hauptrasse, and Haup-
trassen in this lecture and lecture title. The 1970 Eng-
lish translation by A.H. Parker mistakenly translates this
as Root race, and Root races. The correct transla-
tion should be Main Race, and Main Races. Please
refer to the original, 1929 English translation, The Mis-
sion of Folk-Souls, Lecture 6, and the German original,
Die Mission einzelner Volksseelen, Sechster Vortrag.
It is a very complicated matter, as you may well imag-
ine, when the Spirits of the different Hierarchies have
to coordinate their forces in such a way that the mis-
sion of the Earth can be fulfilled and ultimately a state
of balance or equilibrium be achieved. You will under-
stand therefore that statements such as those made in
our last lecture are valid only in so far as they refer to a
definite period in evolution and that the whole picture
changes immediately one depicts evolution at another
period. Hence in order to arrive at a fuller understand-
ing of these complex problems a particular course of
lectures cannot be isolated from the rest.
I shall here draw attention to one point only and what
I am about to say is to be taken as footnote or adden-
dum to the lectures on the Spiritual Hierarchies. [This
lecture-course was given in Dusseldorf, in April 1909,
and was entitled: Spiritual Hierarchies and their Reflec-
tion in the physical World. Zodiac, Planets, Cosmos.] In
creating the harmony or equilibrium of our Earth the
whole cooperation of the Hierarchies is involved and
we must envisage the Spirits of Will, the Cherubim and
Seraphim, which we described yesterday as the highest
Hierarchy, as raying outward from the Earth. We must
envisage these Beings as originally working inward
from the Universe towards the centre of the Earth. Man
does not become aware of these forces in the former
aspect but only in the latter aspect when they are re-
flected from the Earth's centre.
You will only be able, therefore, to form a complete
picture of the very intimate processes which here take
place if you compare what was said in my last lecture
with the more detailed information about the Hierar-
chies in the lecture-course given at Dusseldorf, in
which a comprehensive picture was given of the cos-
mic activity of the three Hierarchies. These things are
by no means so simple, and in order to make the mis-
sion of the Earth comprehensible we must approach
this problem in such a way that we are prepared to ac-
cept that the Spirits of these Hierarchies are reflected in
the elements of Earth existence. If you bear this in mind
then you will also sense the infinite wisdom inherent in
a universe of relationships. To a certain extent you will
also feel that the field of knowledge must be continu-
ally enlarged, that it is unlimited, since things are so
complicated that when we imagine we have grasped
one point of view we immediately reject it in favour of
another which throws light on the problem from a dif-
ferent angle. We can only advance step by step in our
knowledge: Nevertheless from the indications given in
the last lecture) especially at the close of that lecture,
you will have a clearer understanding of the coopera-
tion between the normal and abnormal Spirits of Form,
a cooperation which ensures that the population of the
Earth should not be limited to a single homogeneous
species spread over the whole Earth, but that a diver-
sity of individual races should be possible. In order to
achieve that corporate humanity, which is only possible
to man in the course of Earth-evolution, it would have
been necessary for the normal Spirits of Form to act in-
dependently. These are the same spiritual Beings who
in Genesis are called the Elohim. In the whole Universe
which surrounds the Earth and together with the Earth
forms a single whole, we can distinguish seven of these
normal Spirits of Form. There are therefore seven Spir-
its of Form or seven Elohim. If we wish to form a con-
ception of these seven Elohim with their various mis-
sions and their task of establishing Harmony or Love as
the ultimate mission of the Earth, we must clearly un-
derstand that these seven Spirits of Form cooperate in
such a way that what we described in Lecture Four as
man in the second third of his life would become a
reality. Thus, if all these seven Spirits of Form could
work in accordance with their declared intention, then
collectively they would fashion the real Ego-being. But
as other spiritual Beings cooperate with them and di-
versify this uniform humanity, it was found necessary
to make special preparations in the Cosmos. If today
you wish to find in the Cosmos the sphere of activity of
the normal Spirits of Form those Beings who, as I
described yesterday, shine down upon us in the light
from our present Cosmos then you must seek for
them in the Sun. You must always look towards the
Sun sphere for that cosmic Lodge, that community in
the Universe, where these Spirits of Form plan to es-
tablish the earthly harmony and to fulfil the mission of
Earth-evolution. Lest the activity of the abnormal Spirits
of Form should provoke too great a disharmony
amongst mankind, one of the Spirits had to detach
Himself from the community. In reality, therefore, only
six Spirits of Form or Elohim work from the Sun; one of
these Spirits had to detach Himself lest the simultane-
ous activity of the abnormal Spirits of Form, who are
really Spirits of Movement should disturb the balance
or harmony. It was the Spirit who in the Bible, in Gene-
sis, is called Jahve or Jehovah. If you wish to follow His
activity in the Universe you must look for it, not in the
Sun sphere, but in the Moon sphere at a particular
epoch. I have touched upon this in my Occult Science
an Outline from another angle, where I have shown
that the Spirits of Form withdraw with the separation of
the Sun, but in the special disposition following upon
the separation of the Moon, the preliminary conditions
were first established for the further evolution of man.
For if the Moon had remained united with the Earth the
evolution of man could not have taken place. This fur-
ther evolution of man has only been made possible be-
cause one of the Elohim, Jahve, accompanied the sepa-
ration of the Moon while the other six Spirits re-
mained in the Sun and because Jahve cooperated
with His six colleagues to counteract the forces of the
backward Spirits of Movement.
Now the separation of the Sun was a necessity for the
following reasons: after certain older Spirits of Move-
ment who possessed more potent forces than the Spir-
its of Form for they stand higher in the rank of the
Hierarchies had decided to remain behind, the nor-
mal Spirits of Form were obliged to modify their activ-
ity by detaching one of their members, otherwise they
would not have been able to establish the balance or
harmony necessary for further evolution.
If we wish to have a clear idea of the activities of
these normal Spirits of Form it is best to think of them
as streaming down to us in the sunlight. If, however,
we wish to understand how the abnormal Spirits of
Form cooperate with the normal Spirits of Form who
are centred in the Sun (for Jahve withdrew towards the
Moon sphere solely for the purpose of establishing the
equilibrium), then we must imagine that a certain Sun-
force, which streams towards us in the normal Spirits
of Form is modified by the force that rays down to us
from the abnormal Spirits of Form who are really Spirits
of Movement. These have their centre in the other five
planets, in Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus and Mercury,
speaking in terms of the seven heavenly bodies of an-
cient astronomy.
When you look out into the Cosmos you have now a
picture of the distribution of the normal and abnormal
Spirits of Form. Six of the normal Spirits of Form are
centred in the Sun and one of them, Jahve or Jehovah,
from the sphere of the Moon acts as a counterpoise by
virtue of this function as Regent and Guide of that
sphere. The activities of these Spirits of Form are influ-
enced by the activities proceeding from Saturn, Jupiter,
Mars, Venus and Mercury. The forces of the abnormal
Spirits stream down upon the Earth are arrested by the
Earth and ray outward again from the Earth-centre as
was described at the close of the last lecture.
Thus if the Elohim or normal Spirits of Form, operat-
ing from the Sun, are active in a particular region of the
Earth's surface, then only the normal I, that which de-
termines man's normal being, his general make-up,
would come into existence in that particular region.
Now the forces of Mercury, for example, mingle with
these forces of the normal Spirits of Form which, but
for the state of equilibrium, would dance upon the
surface of the Earth. Hence in that which here mani-
fests in the potent forces of the Spirits of Form, there
dance and vibrate not only the normal forces but also
that which intermingles with the normal forces of the
Elohim or Spirits of Form, namely that which emanates
from the abnormal Spirits of Form who are centred in
the several planets. Thus we see that through these ab-
normal Spirits of Form there are five potential centres
of influence where these reflected planetary forces are
concentrated and produce in effect what we know as
the five Root Races of the Earth.
Let us now look more closely into the centre which, in
Lecture Four, we situated in the interior of Africa. If we
state that the Negro race was born of the cooperation
between the normal Spirits of Form and the abnormal
Spirits of Form centred in Mercury) then from an occult
standpoint we are perfectly correct in describing the
Negro race as the Mercury race.
Let us now continue along the line joining the centres
or focal points from which the individual races spread
outward. We then come to Asia, which is the seat of
the Venus race or the Malayan race. We then move
northward across the wide expanse of Asia and we find
the Mongolian race, which is formed by the Mars
forces. Then we cross over into Europe and find the Eu-
ropeans who in their original racial character are
Jupiter men. If we cross the ocean to America which
is the centre where civilizations or races die, we find
there dark Saturn's race, the original Red Indian race.
The American Indian race is the Saturn race. Thus if
you look into the matter more closely from an occult
standpoint you will become aware of the five centres
where the planetary forces are concentrated and are
manifested in the external world.
With a progressively more definite and concrete con-
ception of this racial distribution you will develop an in-
ner understanding of the racial characteristics peculiar
to the peoples spread over the Earth, an understanding
of this unique cooperation of the normal and abnormal
Spirits of Form. We have thus sketched the picture, as
we are able to capture it at a definite moment in time.
But what I have said about the different centres on the
Earth is again only valid for a specific epoch of evolu-
tion. It is valid for the epoch when, at a definite mo-
ment of time in the old Atlantean evolution, the peo-
ples began to migrate from a centre in Atlantis and
sought the particular centre where they could receive
the: training appropriate to their race. Hence in my
book Occult Science, I pointed out that in old Atlantis
specific Mystery Centres called the Atlantean Oracles
were responsible for directing this distribution of peo-
ples over the Earth, so that in effect that state of bal-
ance or equilibrium could be achieved which led to the
proper distribution of the races. In one such Mystery
Oracle the truths of which we are now speaking were
always investigated and originally man took his direc-
tion entirely from them. In this manner the events on
Earth were determined in accordance with these spiri-
tual centres.
The wave of peoples who swept across Africa and
crystallized into the Ethiopian race is an expression of
an impulse from the Mercury Oracle in which one
could clearly observe the cooperation of the normal
Spirits of Form (the six Elohim and Jahve or Jehovah)
and also the participation of the abnormal Spirits of
Form working from the Mercury Centre. The Centre of
equilibrium on Earth was selected in accordance with
the right astrological conjunction of planetary forces at
the various centres and the point of radiation for the
race in question was determined thereby.
The formation of the other races was determined in a
similar way. In accordance with these determining fac-
tors the grand design is drawn up, charting the cosmic
influences in relation to peoples, families, etc. It is an
image of cosmic activity and reflects the planetary
forces which stream down into the Earth, ray outwards
from the Earth and determine man's destiny.
Now how do we look upon a member of the
Ethiopian race, of the Mercury race? We see him as
one who was originally chosen, who was predestined
by the Elohim to express the quintessence of the all-hu-
man. But from the Mercury Centre the potent influ-
ences of the abnormal Spirits of Form intervened and
modified the form of man to such an extent that the
Ethiopian race arose. And such was the case with each
individual race. The migrations of the peoples were
specifically directed from the original centre; this is in-
dicated by the line linking the focal points or centres in
my diagram a few days ago. You must therefore imag-
ine the Spirits of Form radiating from a centre, which,
we must assume, existed at a definite moment of time
in old Atlantis. These Spirits of Form rayed down into
the Atlantean continent and fashioned it in such a way
that the human souls were brought under the dominion
of the corresponding abnormal Spirits of Form.
In this way the broad foundations of the races were
laid, and when man looks up into the infinite expanse
of the Macrocosm he must seek there the forces out of
which he was built up. He is fashioned by their spiritual
rays reflected from the Earth-centre. And when he
looks up to the normal Spirits of Form, the Elohim, he
is looking up to that which actually makes him into
man. When he looks up to the forces concentrated in
the individual planetary Spirits (with the exception of
the Sun and Moon) he perceives the forces which de-
termine his membership of a particular race.
Now how do these Race Spirits work in and upon
man? They work in a very unique way; they permeate
his vital energies, they penetrate even down into his
physical body. Now you know that the four fundamen-
tal members of man find their impress and are reflected
in corresponding parts of the physical body: the I
finds its impress in the blood, the astral body in the
nervous system, the etheric or life-body in the glandu-
lar system. Only the physical body is self-sufficient; it is
a reflection of its own inner being which for the man of
the present is subject to its own fixed laws.
Now those spiritual Beings who are stirring in man
and determine his racial character cannot at first work
directly into his higher vehicles. They are active first of
all in these reflections of the higher vehicles in the
physical body. They cannot as yet enter directly into
the physical body, but they are active in the three other
members, in the blood which is the reflection of the I;
in the nervous system, the reflection of the astral body;
and in the glandular system which is the reflection of
the etheric body. The Race Spirits, the abnormal Spirits
of Form, are active in these three systems, which are
part of man's organic system, but are reflections of the
higher vehicles.
Thus the physical body of man is determined from
within. These various spiritual Beings invade those
members of the physical body, which are the prelimi-
nary drafts, the suggestions of the higher vehicles. Now
where, for instance, does Mercury make his influence
felt? Under Mercury, I include all the abnormal Spirits
of Form to be found in Mercury. He makes his influ-
ence felt by cooperating with others, especially in the
glandular system. He is active in the glandular (or lym-
phatic) system where are manifested the forces born of
that preponderance of the Mercury forces which are
present in the Ethiopian race. Everything which gives
the Ethiopian race its distinctive character stems from
the ferment of the Mercury forces in the glandular sys-
tem of this people. What transforms the undifferenti-
ated universal human from into the distinctive
Ethiopian type with his black pigmentation and woolly
or frizzy hair is the consequence of their activity.
If you now move over to Asia you will find there like-
wise the planetary forces of Venus, an abnormal devel-
opment of the Spirits of Form. By transferring their
point of attack principally to what we call the impress
of the astral body, these Venus forces work in the ner-
vous system. They work upon the nervous system
however in a peculiar way, not directly as Venus spirits.
For the nervous system can be worked upon indirectly
in two ways. One way is through the respiration. By
working especially upon the respiration, these activities
of the Venus Spirits are localized in the respiratory and
nervous system and give it a definite form. In this indi-
rect way the abnormal Spirits of Form whom we may
call Venus Beings work through the respiratory and
nervous system in the Malayan race, in the yellowish-
brown races found in Southern Asia and in the direc-
tion of the Malay Archipelago. Just as the glandular type
is found distributed over Ethiopia, so in these regions is
found the type of man in whom the abnormal Spirits of
Form work upon the nervous system indirectly through
the respiratory system. In the nervous system is pre-
pared that which, with special modifications, produces
the more or less yellow skinned racial types. The trans-
formation wrought in these races manifests itself more
in that part of the nervous system covered by the term
solar plexus not in the higher or central nervous
system therefore, but in that mysterious part of the ner-
vous system which runs in two cords parallel with the
spinal medulla and branches out in various directions
to form a network. This part of the nervous system
therefore which from our point of view is not yet asso-
ciated with higher mental activity, is worked upon indi-
rectly through the respiratory system. The unconscious
organism is deeply stirred by these Venus forces which
work in these racial types.
Let us now move northward to the wide Mongolian
plains where are largely concentrated those Spirits of
Form who work indirectly through the forces of the
blood. In this geographical area is prepared in the
forces of the blood that which brings about a modifica-
tion of the human species and determines the basic
character of the race. There is however a very peculiar
feature attaching to the Mongolian race; the Mars Spir-
its enter into the blood. But they work in the blood in a
specific manner. They are able to counteract the influ-
ence of the six Elohim who are centred in the Sun. In
the Mongolian race, therefore, they work in opposition
to these six Elohim. At the same time they actively op-
pose the influence of Jahve or Jehovah who has with-
drawn His field of action from that of the six Elohim.
But apart from this interaction of the Mars Spirits with
the six Elohim and Jahve which produces the Mongo-
lian race there is another factor of paramount impor-
tance which must be taken into consideration. Just as
in the one case, the Mars Spirits in opposition to the six
Elohim from the Sun and Jahve from the Moon create
the Mongolian race, so in another case, we must as-
sume that the Jahve forces from the Moon sphere meet
and cooperate with the Mars Spirits and thus a special
kind of modification arises, namely, the Semitic race.
Here is the occult explanation for the origin of the
Semites. The Semitic people are an example of a modi-
fication of collective humanity. Jahve or Jehovah shuts
Himself off from the other Elohim and invests this peo-
ple with a special character by cooperating with the
Mars Spirits, in order to bring about a special modifica-
tion of his people. You will now understand the pecu-
liar character of the Semitic people and its mission. In a
profound occult sense the Biblical writer was able to
claim that Jahve or Jehovah had made this people his
own. If you add to this the fact that Jahve cooperated
with the Mars Spirits who worked principally in the
blood, you will understand why racial continuity
through the blood-stream was of particular importance
to the Semitic-Hebrew people and why Jahve describes
Himself as the God who is present in the blood of the
generations, in the blood of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
When he declared himself to be the God of Abraham,
Isaac and Jacob, He proclaimed that He was present in
the blood stream of the Patriarchs. Whatsoever works
in the blood, whatsoever must be determined through
the blood the cooperation with the Mars Spirits
that is one of the mysteries, which give us a deep in-
sight into the wise guidance of all mankind.
The blood of mankind is thus subject to a twofold in-
fluence; two races emerge, the Mongolian race and the
Semitic race. This points to the existence of an impor-
tant polarity in mankind and we must emphasize the
immense importance of this polarity if we wish to
plumb the depths of the Folk Souls.
We must now turn our attention to the Western cen-
tre and trace the way in which dynamic forces of the
Spirits and Beings who are centred in Jupiter operate in
man. These elect to work directly upon the nervous
system via the outer life of the senses. This is the one
way. In the other, the planetary forces work into the
sympathetic nervous system, entering indirectly into
the solar plexus through the respiratory system. Now
the Jupiter forces work indirectly through the sense-im-
pressions and from there radiate to those parts of the
central nervous system which are situated in the brain
and spinal cord. Here is the seat of those forces which
determine the particular racial character of those races
belonging to the Jupiter humanity. This applies more or
less to the Aryans, to the peoples of Asia Minor and Eu-
rope whom we regard as members of the Caucasian
race. In these peoples the modification of the generic
character which stems from the abnormal Spirits of
Form is accounted for by the influence upon the senses
of the abnormal Spirits whom we may describe as
Jupiter Spirits. The Caucasians therefore are determined
through the senses.
Now you will also understand why a people like the
Greeks who were consciously under the special influ-
ence of Jupiter or Zeus and who felt themselves to be a
focal point for the Zeus influence, were predominantly
determined by what flows into the nervous system via
the senses. The Greeks, of course, were also influenced
by the forces of the Elohim, which stream in from the
Sun. But the Greeks dedicated everything that acts
upon the senses to the service of Jupiter or Zeus and so
achieved greatness. To them all external forms, all
forms of external life were imbued with deeper mean-
ing. They perceived the spiritual in the physical and
hence became the chief exponents of sculpture and ar-
chitectonic forms. We have here indicated the very spe-
cial mission of the Greek people who are so preemi-
nently the people of Jupiter or Zeus. Even at the time
when) especially under the influence of the new plane-
tary constellation, the cooperation of the Jupiter or
Zeus forces with the universal Elohim forces took
place, they felt themselves to be the people of Zeus.
All the peoples of South-West Asia, and especially the
European peoples are, on the whole, modifications of
this Jupiter influence and you can well imagine that as
man has many senses, many modifications are possible
and that in the formation of the individual peoples
within this root race, peoples who were formed by the
influence of the senses upon the nervous system, one
or other of the senses may predominate. Consequently
the various peoples may assume the most diverse
forms. According as the eye or the ear or one of the
other senses predominates, so will the different peo-
ples respond in this or that way to the particular na-
tional tendency within the racial character. In conse-
quence of this they are faced with quite specific tasks.
The particular task of the Caucasian race is to find the
way to the spirit through the senses, for this race is ori-
entated chiefly towards the sense-world.
Here is disclosed something that introduces us to the
deeper secrets of occultism; it shows how, in those
peoples who are subject to the Venus forces, the initial
steps in development, even in occult development,
must be concentrated on the respiratory system.
Amongst the peoples living more in the Western Hemi-
sphere, on the other hand, the initial steps must start
from an enrichment and a spiritualisation of the life of
the senses. This is experienced by those peoples inhab-
iting countries more towards the West in their stages of
higher cognition, in Imagination, Inspiration and Intu-
ition, in so far as the Jupiter Spirit originally modified
the character.
Hence these two geographical centres were always
present in human evolution; the one presided over by
the Spirits of Venus, the other by those of Jupiter. The
Jupiter Spirits in particular were perceived in those
Mysteries in which as those of you will know who
attended my lecture-course in Munich last year [ The
East in the Light of the West. The Children of Lucifer
and the Brothers of Christ. Nine lectures given in Mu-
nich, 23rd 29th August, 1909.] the three Individu -
alities ultimately came together, the three spiritual Be-
ings, Buddha, Zarathustra or Zarathas in his later incar-
nation, and that great leader of humanity, Skythianos.
This is the Council or spiritual conference which, un-
der the guidance of One still greater, set itself the task
of investigating the mysterious forces which must be
developed for the evolution of humanity, forces which
originated from that centre initially connected with the
Jupiter forces and which was pre-ordained in the chart
of the cultural centres already mentioned.
Finally, the abnormal Spirits of Form who have their
centre in Saturn work indirectly via all the other sys-
tems into the glandular system. In the Saturn race,
therefore, in everything to which we must ascribe the
Saturn character, we must expect to find the combina-
tion of the forces leading to the twilight of mankind,
forces which set the seal upon its development and
sow the seeds of its ultimate decline. This action and its
effect upon the glandular system can be seen in the
American Indian race and was the cause of its ultimate
extinction. The Saturn influence finally works via all the
other systems into the glandular system which secretes
the hardest parts of man. This slow decline is charac-
terized by a kind of ossification which is clearly re-
flected in the external form. If you look at the pictures
of the old American Indians the process of ossification
described above is evident in the decline of this race. In
a race such as this everything pertaining to the forces
of the Saturn evolution has become realized in a special
manner; then Saturn withdrew into itself, abandoned
man to his bony system and thus hastened his decline.
One feels something of this truly occult activity if one
observes how, in the nineteenth century, a representa-
tive of these old American Indians still preserves a
memory of that great Atlantean civilization which could
not adapt itself to later evolution. There exists a de-
scription of a beautiful scene in which a chieftain of this
moribund Red Indian race confronts a European
colonist. Imagine the conflicting emotions when two
such men confront each other, the one representing
those who came from Europe, and the other those
who, in the earliest ages, at the time of the separation
of the races, moved Westward. The Red Indian brought
over to the West all that was great in the Atlantean cul-
ture. What the Red Indian valued most highly was that
he was still able dimly to sense something of the for-
mer greatness and majesty of a period which existed in
the old Atlantean epoch when the separation of the
races had hardly begun, when man could look up to
the Sun and perceive the Spirits of Form through a sea
of mist. Through an ocean of mist the Atlantean was
clairvoyantly aware of the seven Spirits of Form acting
in concert. And this cooperative activity was called by
the Atlanteans the Great Spirit who revealed himself to
man in ancient Atlantis. The Atlantean had not assimi-
lated all that the Venus, Mercury, Mars and Jupiter Spir-
its brought about in the East, to whom we owe all the
civilizations which reached their zenith in Europe in the
middle of the nineteenth century. The descendant of
the brown race did not participate in this development.
He held firm to the Great Spirit of the primeval past.
He became aware of achievements of the Europeans
(who, in a remote past, had also known the Great
Spirit) when a piece of paper was laid before him on
which were many little symbols, letters, of which he
understood nothing. All that was alien to him, for in his
soul still dwelt the Great Spirit. The speech he made
has been preserved to us and it is noteworthy because
it provides evidence of what we have already indicated.
It runs somewhat as follows: Here in the soil, tram-
pled beneath the feet of the conquerors the bones of
my brothers lie buried. Why are the feet of our con-
querors allowed to desecrate the graves of my broth-
ers? Because they are in possession of that which
makes the White Man great. But there is something
else which makes the Brown Man great; it is the Great
Spirit who speaks to him in the soughing of the wind,
in the murmuring of the forest, in the surging of the
waves, in the purling of the brook, in thunder and in
lightning! That is the Spirit who to us speaks truth. Yes,
from the lips of the Great Spirit comes truth. But your
spirits here on paper and who express what to you is
great, they do not speak the truth. Thus spoke the In-
dian chieftain from his point of view. Redskin is ser-
vant of the Great Spirit; Paleface is servant of the spirits
who, in black shapes resembling pygmy beings he
was referring to the letters dance on the paper;
they do not speak the truth. This dialogue of historic
importance was exchanged between the conqueror and
the last of the great chieftains of the Red Indians. Here
we have an example of the Saturn forces and their ac-
tivity and of what follows from the cooperation be-
tween Saturn and other Spirits at such a moment as
this when two contrasting civilizations meet.
Thus we have seen how here on Earth the birth of
universal humanity was prepared by the Elohim or the
normal Spirits of Form, how then the five principal
races of human evolution detach themselves from the
collective body of mankind, from the teaming mass of
humanity, and how these five races are related to the
guiding Spirits in the Hierarchy of the abnormal Spirits
of Form, races whom we must name after the five plan-
ets, whereas the normal Spirits of Form are centred in
the Sun and in the Moon. From here we shall pass on
to something which will be easier to understand, be-
cause we shall be able to relate it to something familiar
to us, namely, to tribes and peoples.
 LECTURE SEVEN

Advance of Folk Spirits to the Rank of Time Spirits

Monotheism and Pluralism
Exoteric and Esoteric Christianity

If you enter into the spirit of the lectures given here in

the last few days you will be able to accept the idea
that not only do the Beings and forces of the various
Hierarchies guide and direct events upon our Earth and
especially the course of human evolution, but also that
the Beings of these Hierarchies themselves undergo
evolution or development. We spoke of how the Beings
of a particular Hierarchy intervene in order to direct the
evolution of a particular race, how, for example, as nor-
mal and abnormal Spirits of Form they cooperate to or-
ganize the various races.

Now the question which confronts us is whether

these spiritual Beings themselves advance to a higher
rank. When we look back over the post-Atlantean times
we are conscious that in the course of their develop-
ment certain spiritual Beings advance to the next higher
rank. Since the Atlantean catastrophe, since the begin-
ning of the post-Atlantean evolution, we are living in an
Age when certain Archangels, certain Beings of the Hi-
erarchy of the Archangeloi, advance to the rank of the
Archai or Time Spirits. This is a most interesting phe-
nomenon, for when we observe how the Folk Spirits, or
Archangels in our terminology, rise to a higher rank,
only then do we have a true understanding of cosmic
events. This advance in rank is connected with the fact
that in late Atlantis and for some time after, the distri-
bution of mankind, the distribution of races, has been
followed by a second migration of peoples. If we wish
to understand the period when the division of mankind
into the five root races of which we have already spo-
ken took place, we must look far back into early At-
lantean times. If we wish to ascertain when those who
became the black or Ethiopian race migrated to a par-
ticular geographical area in Africa, when those who be-
came the Malayan race migrated to Southern Asia, then
we must look back to early Atlantean times. Later on,
other migrations followed upon these early migrations.
Whilst, therefore, the Earth was already colonized by
the nuclei of these peoples, other peoples were dis-
patched to those geographical areas of the Earth al-
ready colonized. Thus we meet with a second migra-
tion in later Atlantean times. If we wish to understand
the pattern and extent of the distribution of races in Eu-
rope, Africa, and America at the time of the gradual
submergence of Atlantis, and the later great migration
towards the end of the Atlantean epoch, when a small
band first set out during the post-Atlantean epoch, then
we must clearly realize that we are here dealing with
that mighty stream of humanity which pushed forward
into Asia, into Indian territory, and that, as has often
been pointed out, the nuclei of future peoples re-
mained behind at different points and from these nuclei
were developed the various peoples of Asia, Africa and
Europe. We are here concerned therefore with an ear-
lier distribution and a later expansion, with a second
wave. The purpose of this second wave was to dispatch
in a West-East direction those folk communities who
were each under the guidance of an Archangel. But
these Archangels who were the spiritual Powers direct-
ing these tribes or folk communities were at different
stages of development; in other words, some were
nearer than others to the rank of a Time Spirit or Spirit
of the Age. We have to look to the Far East for that
movement of peoples whose Archangel was the first to
attain the rank of a Time Spirit. This was the stream
which merged with the original inhabitants of India and
formed the ruling class of that country and so laid the
foundations of the first post-Atlantean civilization after
their Archangel had been promoted to be the first Time
Spirit or Archai-being of the post-Atlantean civilization.
Now this Time Spirit directed the sacred culture of an-
cient India and made it the leading culture of the first
post-Atlantean epoch. Meanwhile the other peoples of
Asia who were gradually developing, were for a long
time simply under the direction of Archangels.
The peoples of Europe also who had remained behind
during the migration from West to East had long been
under the guidance of Archangels when the Archangel
of India had already risen to the rank of an Archai-being
who then worked through intuition upon those great
teachers of India, the Holy Rishis. Through the media-
tion of this exalted and important Spirit the Rishis were
able to fulfil their high mission in the manner already
described. This Time Spirit worked on for a long time,
whilst the people lying to the North of ancient India
were still under the guidance of the Archangel. After
the Time Spirit of India had fulfilled his mission he was
promoted to lead the entire evolution of post-Atlantean
humanity.
In the Old Persian epoch the Archangel became the
Spirit of Personality, the Time Spirit, from whom the
great Zarathustra or Zoroaster, the original Zarathustra,
received his inspiration. This again is an example of an
Archangel, a Folk Soul who has risen to the rank of
Time Spirit. As we stated at the beginning of this lec-
ture, we are experiencing the same situation today)
namely, that the Archangels, in the course of fulfilling
their mission, advance to the rank of guiding and ruling
Spirits of the Age.
In the Egypto-Chaldean epoch, the Archangel of the
Egyptian people and the Archangel of the Chaldean
people, both rose to a higher rank. During this epoch
the Archangel of the Egyptian people rose to the rank of
a leading Time Spirit and took over the guidance and
control of that which formerly devolved upon the
Chaldean Archangel. The leader in the Egypto-Chaldean
age thus became the third mighty, guiding Time Spirit
who had gradually advanced beyond the rank of the
Egyptian Archangel But this was also the epoch in
which another important development took place, a de-
velopment which ran parallel with the Egypto-Chaldean
civilization and is related to the development to which
we drew special attention in our last lecture.
We have seen that everything associated with the
Semitic tribes assumed a special significance, and that
from amongst the Semitic race Jahve or Jehovah had
chosen a Semitic people to be his chosen people. Since
he had chosen a particular race to be his special peo-
ple, He needed at first, whilst this race was gradually
developing, a kind of Archangel to act as his vice-re-
gent. In ancient times, therefore, the evolving Semitic
people was guided by an Archangel who was under the
continuous inspiration of Jahve or Jehovah and after-
wards this Archangel himself grew to be a Time Spirit.
Apart from the ordinary evolving Time Spirits of the
Old Indian, Old Persian and Old Chaldean peoples
therefore, there was yet another Time Spirit who played
his own special part by working within a particular peo-
ple. This is a Time Spirit who, in a certain respect, ap-
pears in the mission of a Nation Spirit, a Time Spirit
whom we must call the Semitic Nation Spirit. His task
was of a very special kind You will understand this if
you bear in mind that, in reality, this particular people
was singled out from the normal course of evolution
for special guidance. Through these special arrange-
ments this people was entrusted with a mission which
was of particular importance for the post-Atlantean
epoch and which was distinguished from the missions
of all other peoples. One can best understand this mis-
sion of the Semitic people by comparing it with the
missions of the various peoples of the post-Atlantean
epoch.
Mankind is subject to two spiritual currents. The one
has its starting-point in monadology or pluralism [Note
by translator Pluralism: the theory which recognizes
more than one ultimate principle in ontology. Monadol-
ogy: doctrine of monads as formulated by Leibnitz.
Monism: the doctrine that attempts to explain the phe-
nomena of the Cosmos by one ultimate substance.] to
give it its correct name. This theory recognizes more
than one ultimate principle in ontology. Wherever you
turn you will find that in some form or other the peo-
ples of the post-Atlantean epoch started from a plurality
of aspects of the Divine the trinity of ancient India,
later symbolized in the figures of Brahma, Shiva and
Vishnu; the trinity of Odin, Hnir and Ldur of German
mythology. You will find a trinity everywhere and this
trinity subdivided into a plurality. This characteristic is
peculiar not only to myths and teachings about the
Gods, but also to philosophies where we meet it again
in the form of monadology. This is the one current
which, because it starts from pluralism or monadology
can offer the greatest possible variety. It was in the
post-Atlantean epoch that, starting from the farthest
East in India and following a wide curve through Asia to
Europe, this doctrine of pluralism which after all is ex-
pressed in Anthroposophy by our recognition of a num-
ber of widely differing Beings and Hierarchies, has
been represented in the most diverse ways and in a
wide variety of forms.
The polarity to pluralism was monism, the doctrine
that one principle of being or ultimate substance con-
stitutes the underlying reality of the physical world. The
real inspirers of the worship of a single divinity, those
who gave the impulse towards monotheism and
monism are the Semitic peoples. It is natural to them,
and if you recall what I said in this morning's lecture, it
is their mission to represent the one God, the Monon.
He who, surveying the Universe, persisted in explain-
ing the phenomena of the Cosmos by a single ultimate
principle, a monon, would remain prisoner of his limi-
tations. Monism or monotheism in itself can only rep-
resent an ultimate ideal; it could never lead to a real
understanding of the world, to a comprehensive, con-
crete view of the world. Nevertheless, in the post-At-
lantean age the current of monotheism also had to be
represented, so that the urge, the impulse towards
monotheism devolved upon a single people, the
Semitic people. The monistic principle is reflected in
this people by a certain rigidity or inflexibility, whilst all
the other peoples, in so far as their different divinities
are comprehended in a unity, receive the impulse to-
wards monism from them. The monistic impulse has
always come from the Semitic people. The other peo-
ples are inclined to pluralism.
It is extremely important that this should be borne in
mind and whoever is concerned with the continuance
of the old Hebraic impulse will find the extremes of
monotheism at the present day amongst the learned
Rabbis, in Rabbinism. The task of this particular people
is to propagate the doctrine that Single ultimate princi-
ple underlies the world. The task of all other nations,
peoples and Time Spirits was analytic; to represent the
one World-Principle as articulated into different Beings.
In India, for example, the ultimate abstraction of the
Unity underlying all things was divided into a tri-unity,
just as the one God of Christianity is divided into Three
Persons. The task of the other nations was to analyse
ultimate Reality and so to furnish particular aspects of it
with plentiful content, to fill themselves with rich mate-
rial for those representations which can apprehend
phenomena with sympathetic understanding The task
of the Semitic people was to eschew all pluralism and
to devote itself to synthesis, to the doctrine of one sub-
stance. Hence the power of speculation, the power of
synthetic thought which is illustrated by Cabbalism is
unsurpassed precisely because it stems from this im-
pulse.
Everything that could possibly be distilled from the
unitary principle by the synthesizing activity of the I
has been distilled by the Semitic spirit in the course of
thousands of years. This is the significance of the
Semitic influence in the world and illustrates the polar-
ity between pluralism and monism. Monism is not pos-
sible without pluralism. Pluralism is not possible with-
out monism. We must recognize the necessity for both.
The language of objective fact often leads to quite dif-
ferent conclusions from those which are motivated by
the prevailing sympathies or antipathies. Therefore we
must have a clear understanding of the tasks of the in-
dividual Folk Spirits. Whereas the leaders of the several
peoples in Asia and Africa had long since risen to the
rank of Time Spirits or Spirits of Personality and indeed
some of them were expecting to transform themselves
from Time Spirits to the next higher rank, to Spirits of
Form just as, for example, that Time Spirit who was
active in ancient India bad already risen in certain re-
spects to the rank of the Spirits of Form the several
peoples of Europe were for a long time still under the
direction of their individual Archangels. It was not until
the fourth post-Atlantean epoch that the Archangel of
ancient Greece rose above the various peoples of Eu-
rope who were still under the guidance of their
Archangels to the rank of a Time Spirit. He became the
leading Time Spirit of the fourth post-Atlantean epoch,
the Graeco-Latin epoch. Thus the Archangel of Greece
advanced to the rank of an Archai-being, a Spirit of Per-
sonality. After he had become a Time Spirit, the influ-
ence of this Greek Archangel extended far and wide
through Asia, Africa and Europe who looked to Hellas
for their culture.
Whilst the Archangel of the Greeks had developed
into an Archai-being, the Time Spirit of the Egyptians
and of the Persians had advanced in evolution towards
the Hierarchy of the Spirits of Form. We are now about
to touch upon something exceptionally interesting in
the course of post-Atlantean evolution. As a conse-
quence of his earlier development the Greek Archangel
was able to pass relatively quickly through that stage of
development which qualified him for a specially promi-
nent position as Spirit of the Age (Time Spirit). Some-
thing therefore of the greatest significance occurred in
the fourth post-Atlantean epoch.
Now at that time there took place, as we know, the
Mystery of Golgotha through which mankind received
the Christ Impulse. This Impulse was destined in the
course of the following centuries and millennia to
spread gradually over the whole Earth. Without this
consummation of Golgotha, without the activity of cer-
tain guiding and directing Beings from the ranks of the
Hierarchies, this could not have been achieved. A most
remarkable and interesting event now occurred. At a
definite moment of time which coincided approxi-
mately with the descent of Christ upon Earth, the
Greek Time Spirit renounced for our present epoch the
possibility of rising into the Hierarchy of the Spirits of
Form and became the guiding Time Spirit who then
works on through the successive epochs. He became
the representative guiding Spirit of exoteric Christianity,
so that the Archai-being himself, the guiding Spirit of
the Greeks, himself formed the vanguard of the Christ
Impulse. In consequence, ancient Greece rapidly de-
clined at the time of the expansion of Christianity be-
cause it had surrendered its guiding Time Spirit in order
that he might become the leader of exoteric Christian-
ity. The Greek Time Spirit then became the missionary,
the inspirer or rather the intuiting Spirit of the expand-
ing exoteric Christianity. Here we have a concrete ex-
ample of an act of renunciation such as we have spo-
ken of. Because the Greek Time Spirit had fulfilled his
mission in the fourth post-Atlantean age so admirably,
he could now advance in evolution towards a higher
Hierarchy. But he renounced this possibility and by so
doing became the guiding Spirit of the expanding exo-
teric Christianity, and in that capacity he continued to
work among the various peoples.
A similar act of renunciation took place on another oc-
casion, and this second instance is of particular interest
to students of Spiritual Science. Whilst in Asia, includ-
ing Egypt and Greece, the several Archangels were ad-
vancing to the rank of Time Spirits, there existed in Eu-
rope isolated peoples and tribes who were guided by
their several Archangels. Thus, whilst the correspond-
ing Archangels who had been sent in ancient times
from the West towards the East had advanced to the
rank of Time Spirits, there still existed in Europe an
Archangel who worked in the Germanic and especially
in the Celtic peoples, in those peoples who, at the time
of the founding of Christianity, were still spread over a
large area of Western Europe extending into Hungary,
Southern Germany and the Alpine countries. These
peoples had the Celtic Folk Spirit as their Archangel.
The peoples belonging to the Celtic Folk Spirit also in-
habited an area extending far into the North East of Eu-
rope. They were guided by an important Archangel
who, soon after the Christian impulse had been be-
stowed on mankind, had renounced the possibility of
becoming an Archai-being, a Spirit of Personality and
elected to remain at the Archangel stage and to subor-
dinate himself in future to the different Time Spirits
who might arise in Europe. Hence the Celtic peoples
also declined as a united people because their
Archangel had made a special act of renunciation and
had undertaken a special mission. This is a typical ex-
ample of how, in such a case, an act of renunciation
helps to initiate particular missions.
Now what became of the Archangel of the Celtic peo-
ples after he had renounced the possibility of becoming
a Spirit of Personality? He became the inspirer of eso-
teric Christianity. All the underlying teachings and im-
pulses of esoteric Christianity, especially of the real,
true esoteric Christianity, have their source in his inspi-
rations. The hidden sanctuary for those who were initi-
ated into these Mysteries was situated in Western Eu-
rope and there the spiritual impulse was imparted by
this guiding Spirit who had originally undergone an im-
portant training as Archangel of the Celtic people, had
renounced his promotion to a higher rank and had un-
dertaken another mission that of becoming the in-
spirer of esoteric Christianity which was destined to
live on further in the Mysteries of the Holy Grail, in
Rosicrucianism. Here is an example of an act of renun-
ciation, a sacrifice on the part of one of these Beings of
the Hierarchies. At the same time it offers a concrete
example illustrating the significance of this sacrifice. Al-
though this Archangel could have advanced to the rank
of an Archai-being, he remained at the Archangel stage
and in consequence was able to guide the important
current of esoteric Christianity whose influence is des-
tined to be furthered through the medium of the differ-
ent Time Spirits. No matter how these Time Spirits may
work, this esoteric Christianity will remain a living
source, able to be renewed and metamorphosed ever
and again under the influence of different epochs. Here
then is another example illustrating an act of renuncia-
tion, whilst we, on the other hand, are witnessing in
our age especially the mighty spectacle of Folk Spirits
advancing to the rank of Time Spirits.
Now the various Germanic peoples of Europe had
originally been guided by a single Archangel-being and
were destined to come gradually under the guidance of
many different Archangels in order to become differen-
tiated. It is of course extremely difficult to speak impar-
tially of these things without arousing jealousy and
emotional prejudice. Consequently certain mysteries
pertaining to this evolution can only be touched upon
lightly. From among these Archangels emerged the Ar-
chai-being, the leading Time Spirit of our fifth post-At-
lantean epoch, long after one of the Archangels of the
Germanic peoples had undergone a certain preparatory
training. The Time Spirit who was the Folk Spirit in the
Graeco-Latin age became, as you know, that Time Spirit
who was later concerned in the expansion of exoteric
Christianity. Later Roman history was also guided by a
kind of Time Spirit who had risen from the rank of
Archangel of the ancient Romans and had joined forces
with the Christian Time Spirit in order to coordinate
their activities. Both of these were the teachers of that
Archangel who guided the Germanic peoples, had been
one of their guiding Archangels and had then risen to
the rank of the Time Spirit of the fifth post-Atlantean
epoch. But much still remained to be done. It was es-
sential that the different folk elements in the peoples of
Europe should be mingled and individualized. This was
only possible for the following reasons: whereas, in
Asia and Africa the Archangels had long since advanced
to the rank of Time Spirits, Europe was still under the
guidance of the Archangels themselves. The individual
peoples, indifferent to the Time Spirits and guided by
their several Folk Souls, were wholly given up to the
impulses of the Folk Spirit. At the time when the Chris-
tian impulse began to pervade mankind, Europe was
the scene of the simultaneous activity of many Folk
Spirits, filled with a spirit of liberty, each acting inde-
pendently and who therefore made it difficult for a
Time Spirit of the fifth epoch to arise who could direct
the several Folk Spirits. The French people, for exam-
ple, was the product of the intermixture of Celts,
Franks and Latins, and in consequence the entire guid-
ance naturally followed a clearly defined pattern. It
passed from the several guiding Archangels, who had
been given other tasks, into the hands of others. We
have already indicated what was the mission of the
guiding Archangel of the Celts; in the same way we
could indicate what were the missions of the
Archangels of the other peoples. Hence amongst the
peoples who were products of miscegenation, other
Archangels appeared who took over when the various
elements intermingled. Thus, over a long period of time
 and even in the Middle Ages the leadership in
Central and Northern Europe was chiefly in the hands
of the Archangels who were only gradually influenced
by that common Time Spirit who was in the vanguard
of the Christ Impulse. The several Folk Spirits in Europe
frequently became the servants of the Christian Time
Spirit. The European Archangels placed themselves in
the service of this universal Christian Time Spirit whilst
the several peoples were hardly in a position to permit
any of the Archangels to advance to the rank of a Time
Spirit. Starting from the twelfth century, it was not until
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that the first
steps were undertaken towards the development of the
guiding Time Spirit of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch
who still directs us today. He belongs to the great lead-
ing Time Spirits, equally with those who were the great
directing Time Spirits during the Egypto-Chaldean-
Babylonian, Old Persian and Indian epochs. But this
Spirit of our fifth post-Atlantean epoch worked in a very
unique manner. He had, in effect, to enter into a kind
of compromise with one of the former Time Spirits
who were active before the birth of the Christian im-
pulse, namely, with the Time Spirit of ancient Egypt,
who as we have heard, had risen in a certain respect to
the rank of a Spirit of Form. Thus, our present fifth
post-Atlantean epoch is really governed by a Time Spirit
who in a certain way is very much subject to the influ-
ence and impulses of the Time Spirit of ancient Egypt
and who is a Spirit of Form at an elementary stage.
This was the source of the many cleavages and divi-
sions of our time. In the fifth post-Atlantean epoch our
Time Spirit is striving to lift himself to the Spiritual, and
to raise the fifth post-Atlantean epoch to a higher stage.
But this does not exclude a tendency or inclination to
materialism. According as the various Archangels, the
various Folk Souls are more or less inclined towards
this materialist tendency, so there emerges under the
guidance of this Time Spirit of the fifth post-Atlantean
epoch a more or less materialistic people who inclines
the Spirit of the Age more in the direction of material-
ism. On the other hand an idealistic people inclines the
Spirit of the Age more towards idealism.
Now from the twelfth to the sixteenth century some-
thing gradually developed, working (in a certain re-
spect) parallel with the Christian Time Spirit who
continues the activity of the Greek Time Spirit so
that in fact, in a remarkable manner, there streamed
into our culture the Christian Time Spirit united with a
Time Spirit proper of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch;
and again there was an influx of impulses from ancient
Egypt whose Time Spirit had advanced to a certain rank
among the Spirits of Form. Now precisely because such
a trifolium is at work in our whole culture it has been
possible for Folk Souls and cultural patterns of widely
differing kinds and complexions to emerge in the fifth
post-Atlantean epoch. It became possible for the Time
Spirit to manifest the greatest diversity. The Archangels
who took their orders from the Time Spirit worked in
many different ways.
Those of you who live in Scandinavia will be inter-
ested in something which we shall go into closely in
our next lectures. The following question will be of par-
ticular interest to you: What form did the activity of
that Archangel take who was once upon a time sent to
Norway with the Nordic peoples, the Scandinavian
peoples, and from whom the various Archangels of Eu-
rope, especially those of Western, Central and North-
ern Europe, received their inspirations? In the eyes of
the world it would be regarded as the height of folly to
speak of that spiritual centre on the continent of Europe
which at one time radiated the most powerful spiritual
impulses, the centre which was the seat of exalted Spir-
its before the Celtic Folk Spirit as Celtic Archangel had
established a new centre in the High Castle of the
Grail. The Archangel of the Northern peoples first re-
ceived his mission from that place which in ancient
times had been the spiritual centre of Europe. It must
seem the height of folly, as I said, if we were to indicate
as the central source of inspiration for the various Ger-
manic tribes that district which now lies over Central
Germany not actually on the Earth, but hovering
above it. If you were to describe an arc to include the
towns of Detmold and Paderborn, you would then de-
limit the region from where the most exalted Spirits
were sent on their several missions to Northern and
Western Europe. Hence, because the great centre of
spiritual inspiration was situated there, legend tells of
Asgard having been actually located at this place on
Earth. There, in the remote past, was the great centre of
inspiration; in later years its spiritual mission was taken
over by the Castle of the Grail.
The peoples of Scandinavia, with their first
Archangels, were at that time endowed with quite dif-
ferent potentialities, potentialities which at the present
time are reflected only in the peculiar configuration of
Scandinavian mythology. If we compare in the occult
sense, Scandinavian mythology with other mythologies,
we may know that this Norse mythology depicts the
native predisposition of the Archangel who was sent
upon his mission to Scandinavia, that native predisposi-
tion which has retained its original form and which is
peculiar to a child whose particular talents, latent gifts,
etc., remain at a childlike stage. The Archangel who
was sent to Scandinavia embodies those potentialities
which were later expressed in the peculiar configura-
tion of Scandinavian mythology. Here lies the signal im-
portance of Scandinavian mythology for the under-
standing of the real, inner being of the Scandinavian
Folk Soul. Herein, too, lies the great significance which
the understanding of this mythology has for the further
development of this Archangel who certainly has the
potentiality to rise to the rank of an Archai-being. But to
this end he must develop in a specific way those native
potentialities which (in certain respects) have been
overshadowed by the rising influence of that Time
Spirit who was in the vanguard of exoteric Christianity.
Although Germanic-Scandinavian mythology and Greek
mythology are in many respects curiously alike, I must
point out nevertheless that there is no other mythology
which, in its peculiar composition and characteristic
development, gives a deeper or clearer picture of cos-
mic evolution than does this Scandinavian mythology,
so that this picture may serve as a preliminary sketch
for the anthroposophical view of world-evolution.
Thus Germanic mythology, from the way in which it
was developed out of the native powers of the
Archangel, is in its pictures closely akin to the anthro-
posophical conception of the world such as it shall
grow to be in the course of time for all mankind. The
problem will be how those original, native potentialities
of an Archangel can be developed after be has been
nurtured by the Christian Time Spirit. These potentiali-
ties will be able to become an important element in the
guiding Time Spirit when, at a later stage in the evolu-
tion of a people, this people has learned how to de-
velop and perfect the potentialities with which it was
endowed at an earlier epoch. In this connection we
have only indicated an important problem, an impor-
tant evolution of an European Archangel. We have indi-
cated to what extent he has the potentiality to develop
into a Time Spirit. We shall stop at this point for the
moment. We shall then continue our investigations,
when we shall endeavour, by analysing the configura-
tion of the Folk Soul, to undertake an esoteric study of
mythology, and a special section will be devoted to a
description of the very interesting characteristics of
Germanic mythology, and also of Scandinavian mythol-
ogy in particular.
 LECTURE EIGHT

The five Post-Atlantean Civilizations

Greek and Teutonic Mythology

If we wish to study the development of Germanic-

Nordic history and the spiritual impulses embodied
therein, we must first of all bear in mind the fundamen-
tal character of Teutonic mythology. In the last lecture I
pointed out that this Teutonic mythology, despite its
many points of similarity with other mythologies, is
nevertheless something quite unique. It is true, how-
ever, that among the Germanic peoples and tribes of
Europe there was a large measure of agreement on fun-
damental conceptions of mythology so that in the re-
gions far to the South it was possible for a uniform
view of mythology to exist and, on the whole, a similar
understanding of the kindred relationships between
those mythologies. At one time there must have been
identical understanding of the unique character of the
Teutonic mythology throughout all the countries where
this mythology, in one form or another, existed. The
common features of Teutonic mythology are very dif-
ferent from the essential characteristic of Greek
mythology, to say nothing of the Egyptian. Everything
in Teutonic mythology is interrelated and differs widely
from the substance of Graeco-Roman mythology. At
the present time it is not easy to understand this essen-
tial element because on account of certain intellec-
tual assumptions which are outside the scope of the
present lecture there is a general tendency today to
embark on the study of comparative religion. But this is
a field in which it is possible to perpetuate the greatest
nonsense. What happens as a rule when a person com-
pares the mythologies and religions of various peoples
with one another? He compares the superficial aspects
of the stories of the gods and attempts to demonstrate
that the figure of a particular god which appears in one
mythology is also found in a like manner in another
mythology, and so on. To anyone who knows the real
facts this comparative study of religions shows a most
disquieting trend in the anthropological studies of the
present day, because it is everywhere the practice to
compare externals. The impression created by the com-
parative studies of religions upon one who knows the
facts is comparable to the impression made by some-
one who declares: Thirty years ago I made the ac-
quaintance of a man; he wore a uniform consisting of
blue trousers, red coat, and some kind of head-gear,
and so on. Then he rapidly adds: Twenty years ago I
became acquainted with a man who wore the same
uniform and ten years ago I met another who also wore
the same uniform. Now if the person in question were
to believe that, because the men with whom he be-
came acquainted thirty, twenty and ten years ago wore
the same uniform, they could therefore be compared
with one another in respect of their essential being, he
could be greatly mistaken, for a totally different person
might be wearing that uniform at those different times.
The essential thing is to know what sort of man is con-
cealed behind the uniform. This parallel may seem far-
fetched, yet in comparative religion it is tantamount to
comparing Adonis to Christ. One is merely comparing
externals. The apparel and the characteristics of the Be-
ings in the various legends may be very similar or even
alike, but the point is to know what is the nature of the
divine-spiritual Beings concealed behind them. If com-
pletely different Beings are present in Adonis and in
Christ, then we are merely comparing externals and the
parallel has only superficial value. Nevertheless this
comparative method is extremely popular at the
present day. Therefore the results of the extensive re-
search in the comparative study of religion with its
purely external approach are not of the least conse-
quence. The point is, rather, that one should learn to
know to some extent from an understanding of the spe-
cific differences of the Folk Spirits the manner in which
a particular people arrived at its mythology or other
teachings about the gods, or even at its philosophy.
We can scarcely understand the fundamental charac-
ter of Teutonic mythology unless we review once more
the five successive ages of civilization in the post-At-
lantean epoch. These five ages of civilization were
brought about by migrations from West to East, so that
at the end of these migrations the most mature, the
most advanced human beings pushed forward into In-
dian territory and founded there the sacred primeval In-
dian civilization. The next civilization, and nearer to our
own age, was the Persian which was followed by the
Egypto-Chaldean-Babylonian, then the Graeco-Latin
civilization and finally by our own.
The essential nature of these five civilizations can only
be understood if one realizes that in past ages those
who participated in them, including also the Angels, the
Folk Spirits or Archangels and Time Spirits, were all
quite different from one another. Today we propose to
devote more attention to the way in which the human
beings who participated in these civilizations differed
from one another.
The men who, in ancient India for example, founded
the ancient Indian civilization which then found its
literary expression in the Vedas and later Indian litera-
ture were totally different from the Graeco-Latin
peoples. They were different from the Persian, from the
Egypto-Chaldean peoples and most of all from those
peoples who were being prepared in Europe for the
fifth post-Atlantean civilization. In what respect did they
differ? The entire make-up of the members of the an-
cient Indian peoples was completely different from that
of the inhabitants of all the countries lying further
West. The peoples of ancient India had reached a high
stage of evolution before they developed the I. In all
other aspects of evolution they had made great strides.
Behind them lay a very long period of development,
but they had lived through it in a kind of dim con-
sciousness. Then the I entered in they awoke to
consciousness of the I. Amongst the Indians this came
comparatively late, at a time when the people was al-
ready to a certain extent very mature, when the had al-
ready undergone what the Teutonic peoples still had to
undergo when they had developed their ego. Bear this
carefully in mind. The Teutonic peoples had to experi-
ence with their fully developed I what the inhabitants
of ancient India had passed through in a dim state of
consciousness, without a developed ego-conscious-
ness.
Now what was the nature of the development which
humanity could undergo in the post-Atlantean epoch?
In the old Atlantean times human beings were still en-
dowed with a high degree of the old dim clairvoyance
with which they saw into the divine spiritual world.
They had an insight into the hidden workings of that
world. Now imagine yourselves for a moment in old At-
lantis before the migrations towards the East had be-
gun. The air was still permeated with water vapour and
misty exhalations. The soul of man was different too.
He could not yet differentiate between the various ex-
ternal sense perceptions; at that time he found the spir-
itual content of the world seemingly diffused around
him like a spiritual aura. Thus he possessed a certain
natural clairvoyance which he had to overcome. This
was achieved by the operation of the forces to whose
influence human beings were subject when migrating
from West to East. In the course of these migrations
man underwent many different stages of spiritual de-
velopment. There were peoples who, during their mi-
gration eastward, at first slept through, as it were, the
period of emergence from the old clairvoyance and had
already reached a higher stage of development when
their ego was still in a dim state of consciousness. They
went through various stages of development, but their
I was still in a dull, dreamlike condition. The Indians
were the furthest evolved when their ego awoke to full
self-consciousness. They were so far advanced that
they possessed a rich inner soul-life which no longer
showed any traces of that elementary stage in soul de-
velopment which still persisted for a long period of
time in the peoples of Europe. The Indians had already
undergone that elementary stage a long time before.
They awoke to self-consciousness when they were al-
ready endowed with spiritual powers and spiritual ca-
pacities which enabled them to penetrate deeply into
the spiritual worlds. Whence all the activity and posi-
tive influence of the various Angels and Archangels on
the human souls had become a matter of complete in-
difference to the more advanced members of the Indian
people in their efforts to emerge from their old twilight
conditions of clairvoyance. They had no direct con-
sciousness of the work of the Archangels and Angels
and all those spiritual Beings who were active, particu-
larly in the folk spirit. All the work of these higher Be-
ings upon their souls, upon their astral and etheric bod-
ies, was accomplished at a time when they were not
yet ego-conscious. They awoke to ego-consciousness
when their souls had already reached a very high stage
of development. The most advanced among them were
able, after a brief development, to read again in the
Akashic Record all that had formerly taken place in the
evolution of humanity, so that they gazed out into their
spiritual environment, into the Cosmos, and could read
in the Akashic Record what was taking place in the spir-
itual world and what they had undergone in a dim twi-
light state of consciousness. They were unconsciously
guided into higher spheres. Before their ego-conscious-
ness had awakened they had acquired spiritual capaci-
ties that were much richer than those of the Western
peoples. Thus the spiritual world could be directly ob-
served by these men. The most advanced among those
who guided the Indian people had risen to such high
spiritual levels that, at the time when their ego awoke,
they were no longer dependent upon the ego in order
to observe how human development sprang forth, so
to speak, from the Spirits of Form or Powers, but were
more intimately associated with the Beings we call Spir-
its of Movement or Mights and those above them in
the second Hierarchy, the Spirits of Wisdom or Domin-
ions. These Beings were of special interest to them. The
spiritual Beings of lower rank were, on the other hand,
Beings whose domain they had already shared in for-
mer times and who therefore were no longer of partic-
ular importance to them. Thus they looked up to what
later on they called the sum-total of the Spirits of
Movement and of the Spirits of Wisdom, to that which
was later characterized by the Greek expressions Dy-
namis and Kyriotetes. They beheld again these Beings
and called them Mula-prakriti, the sum-total of the
Spirits of Movement, and Maha-purusha, the sum-to-
tal of the Spirits of Wisdom, that which lives as if in a
spiritual unity. They could attain to this vision because
those who belonged to this people became ego con-
scious at such a late stage of development. They had al-
ready undergone what the later peoples still had to ex-
perience through their I.
The peoples belonging to the ancient Persian civiliza-
tion were less highly developed. Their development
was such that through their peculiar cognitive capacity,
and through the awakening of their I at a lower stage
of evolution, they looked to the Powers or Spirits of
Form. With these they were especially familiar; they
could understand them to some extent and they were
particularly interested in them. The peoples belonging
to the Persian communities awakened to ego-con-
sciousness one stage lower than the Indians, but it was
a stage which the peoples of the West still had to
reach. Hence the Persians were conversant with the
Powers or Spirits of Form, known collectively as the
Amshaspands. They were the radiations which we
know as Spirits of Form or Powers and which, from
their point of view, the peoples of the Persian civiliza-
tion were specially fitted to perceive clairvoyantly.
We then come to the Chaldean peoples. They were al-
ready aware of the Primal Forces, the directing Time
Spirits, the Spirits of Personality. Now the peoples of
the Graeco-Latin age also had a certain consciousness
of these Primal Forces or Spirits of Personality, but in a
different form. In their case there was an additional fac-
tor which may help to clarify our understanding. The
Greeks were nearer to the Germanic peoples. They be-
came ego-conscious at a higher stage than the Ger-
manic-Nordic peoples. The working of the Angels and
the Archangels in the human soul which the Northern
peoples still experienced was no longer directly experi-
enced by the Graeco-Latin peoples, though they still
had a distinct recollection of it. The difference between
the Germanic and Graeco-Latin peoples is that the lat-
ter still preserved a memory of the participation of An-
gels and Archangels in the development of their soul-
life. On the whole they had no clear recollection of this
stage for they were still in a state of diminished con-
sciousness. But now in clairvoyant memory they re-
called this experience quite distinctly. The creation of
this whole world, the working of the Angels and
Archangels, both normal and abnormal, in the human
soul was known to the Greeks. They preserved in their
souls vivid memory pictures of what they had experi-
enced. Now memory is much clearer, takes on sharper
outlines than the immediate experiences of the present
moment. It is no longer so fresh, no longer so youthful;
memory or recollection has sharper contours, sharper
outlines. Greek mythology is a memory-picture in bold,
clear outlines of the influence or positive activity of the
Angels and Archangels upon the human soul. If we do
not approach Greek mythology in this way, if we sim-
ply compare Greek names with other names in the var-
ious mythologies, if we do not take into account the in-
fluence of special forces, nor understand the Signifi-
cance of the figures that appear as Apollo and Minerva
and so on, then we are making a superficial study of
comparative religion; we are only comparing externals.
The manner or mode of perception in those days is the
important point.
When we have grasped this, we realize that Greek
mythology was built up from conscious memories. The
Egyptians and Chaldeans had only a dim recollection of
the activity of the Angels and Archangels, but they were
able to perceive the world of Primal Forces. It seemed
as if they were beginning to lose the memory of Angelic
beings. Persian mythology, on the other hand, had
completely forgotten the world of the Angels or
Archangels, but at the same time men were able to
look into the world of the Powers or Spirits of Form.
That which is to be found in Greek mythology had been
forgotten by the Persians and totally forgotten by the
Indians. When they looked into the Akashic Record
they perceived again the entire sequence of events of
the earlier epochs and created pictures of the earlier
events out of their knowledge which however was di-
vine knowledge which they owed to more highly devel-
oped spiritual powers. This also helps to explain the
great difficulty which the peoples of the East experi-
enced in understanding the spiritual life of the West
and that superior attitude which they adopted towards
the spiritual life of the West. They arc prepared to ac-
cept the materialistic civilization of the West, but the
spiritual culture of the West unless they come to it
indirectly through Spiritual Science remains more or
less closed to them. They had already reached a high
stage of evolution at a time when Christ Jesus had not
yet descended upon Earth. He only incarnated in the
fourth post-Atlantean epoch. That is an event which
could no longer be grasped with the forces which the
Indian people had developed. In order to apprehend
the coming of Christ one needed faculties belonging to
a less lofty station of the I a dwelling of the I in
more humble forces of the human soul.
The Teutonic peoples not only preserved a memory of
the working of the Angels and Archangels into the soul
of man, but even at the time when Christ Jesus walked
upon Earth were aware that they were still subject to
these influences and that they participated in the activ-
ity of the Angels and Archangels who were still active in
their souls. When they underwent these inner experi-
ences of the soul the Graeco-Latin peoples recalled
something which they had gone through in former
times. The Germanic peoples responded to these expe-
riences more personally. Their ego had awakened at
the stage of existence when the Folk Spirits and those
spiritual Beings who were still subject to the Folk Spir-
its were still active in their souls; hence these peoples
were nearest to the events that took place in old At-
lantis.
In old Atlantis man beheld the spiritual Powers and
spoke of a kind of unity of the Godhead, because he
enjoyed direct perception into the old primeval states
of human evolution. At that time one could still per-
ceive the dominion of the Spirits of Wisdom and of the
Spirits of Movement, a dominion which the Indians of a
later epoch perceived again in the Akashic Records.
These Germanic peoples of the West had raised them-
selves one stage above this level of perception, so that
they experienced directly the transition from the old
perception to the new. They perceived an active weav-
ing of real spiritual powers at a time when the ego was
not yet awake. But at the same time they saw the grad-
ual awakening of the I and the penetration of man's
soul by the Angels and Archangels. They were aware of
this direct transition. They preserved a clairvoyant
memory of an earlier weaving life, when everything
was seen through the dim mists of Atlantis and when,
from out of this sea of mist, there emerged what we
have come to know as the divine-spiritual Beings im-
mediately above man. The old Gods, however, who
were active before the Gods intervened in the life of
the human soul, and who could now be seen and with
whom men felt themselves to be united, those divine
Beings who were active in the very far distant past at
the time of old Atlantis, were called the Vanir. After At-
lantis men saw the weaving of the Angels and
Archangels whom they called the Aesir. They were the
Beings who as Angels and Archangels were concerned
with the I of man which then awoke at an elementary
level. These Beings took over the leadership of the Ger-
manic peoples. What the other peoples of the East had
slept through, namely, the perception of how the
soul, the inner life, was gradually developed by means
of the various forces which were bestowed upon it by
the normal and abnormal Angels and Archangels, this
had to be experienced by the peoples of Europe begin-
ning from the lowest stage. They had to be fully con-
scious in order that these soul-forces might gradually
develop.
Thus Nordic man perceived the figures of the Gods,
the divine Beings working directly upon his soul; he
saw the human soul wresting its way out of the Cos-
mos. This was direct experience to him. He did not re-
call in retrospect how the souls of men had been in-
formed into their bodies; rather did he see all this as
an immediate and present happening. He was there
with his own ego; he was a conscious witness of it.
Even until the eighth, ninth and tenth centuries AD he
retained this feeling, this understanding of how the
forces of the soul are gradually formed and crystallized
into the body. In the first place he beheld the
Archangelic Beings who worked in his soul and en-
dowed him with his psychic potentialities, and the
greatest of these Archangels was Wotan or Odin. [See
Appendix.] He saw him at work upon his soul and he
saw how he worked into his soul. How did he perceive
Wotan or Odin? Who or what was he? In what form
did Nordic man learn to love Odin and above all to un-
derstand him? He learned to recognize him as one of
those Archangels who in the past had decided to re-
nounce their development to higher stages. He came to
know Odin as one of the abnormal Archangels, as one
of the great figures of renunciation in ancient times,
who had assumed the office of Archangel when they
took upon themselves the important task of working
into the souls of men. Nordic ma experienced the activ-
ity of Odin at a time when he was still in the process of
giving the gift of language to the incarnating soul of
man. The manner in which Odin himself worked upon
his peoples in order to endow them with language has
survived in a remarkable way. It was described as a Di-
vine Initiation. The means by which Odin acquired the
power to give the gift of language to the Teutonic peo-
ples is described as follows: before acquiring this ca-
pacity Odin had undergone Initiation by drinking at the
spring of Mimir the magic draught of the Gods, that
magic draught which once upon a time in the primeval
past had been the draught of the Giants. This draught
embodied not merely a generalized form of wisdom,
but represented the wisdom that lives directly in the
spoken sounds of speech. At his Initiation Odin won
power over that wisdom which lives in sound. He
learned how to make use of it when he underwent a
long Initiation which lasted nine days and from which
he was then released by Mimir, the ancient bearer of
wisdom. Thus Odin became Lord of the power of lan-
guage. This explains why the later saga traces the lan-
guage of the bards or skalds back to Odin. Runic lore
which in olden times was thought to be much more
closely related to language than later literature and let-
ters was also traced back to Odin. Therefore the man-
ner in which the soul, indirectly through the etheric
body, and interpenetrating the physical body, acquired
the power of speech through the appropriate Archangel
is expressed in the wonderful stories about Odin.
Similar Archangels are to be found amongst the com-
panions of Odin: Hnir who gave the power of thought
and Ldur who gave that which is intimately connected
with race, namely pigmentation and the character of
the blood. These two Beings, therefore, are Archangels
more in the normal line. In Vili and Ve, on the other
hand, we have Archangels of abnormal development.
They are Beings who work more in the inner life, in the
hidden recesses of the soul as I pointed out in the last
lecture. But an ego which is itself at an abnormal stage
of evolution when it witnesses the cultivation of the
subordinate forces of the human soul, feels itself to be
intimately related to an abnormal Archangel. Odin,
therefore, is not regarded as an abnormal Archangel,
but rather as the kind of Archangel whose renunciation
is akin to that of the Western peoples who arc more
aware that their inner development had been deferred,
whereas the Eastern peoples by-passed certain stages
of their psychic development until they awakened to
ego-consciousness. Hence there lives especially in the
soul of the Teutonic peoples all that is associated with
the Archangelic forces of Odin stirring in the primitive
depths of the human soul.
When we stated that the Angels are responsible for
transmitting to the individual human beings the
achievements of the Archangels, so also an I which
awakens at such an elementary level of soul-life is par-
ticularly concerned in seeing that the intentions of the
Archangels are communicated to that ego. Hence Ger-
manic-Nordic man has an interest in an Angel-being
who is endowed with special power, but who at the
same time is closely related to the single human being
and his individuality. And that Being is Thor. [See Ap-
pendix.] We can only recognize Thor when we see in
him a Being who could have risen to far higher rank
had he followed the normal course of evolution, but
who renounced advancement comparatively early and
remained at the stage of a Angel in order that, at the
time when man awoke to ego-consciousness in the
course of his soul's evolution, he could become the
guiding Spirit in the spiritual life of the Teutonic peo-
ples. What gives the immediate feeling that Thor is re-
lated to the individual human ego is that what was to
be transmitted to every individual I from the spiritual
world could, in fact, be transmitted. If we bear this in
mind we shall also understand more clearly the frag-
mentary information that has come down to us. It is
important to have a right understanding of these indi-
vidual Gods. Germanic-Nordic man perceived and him-
self experienced this imprinting of the soul in the body.
He witnessed the integration of the ego into the body
and the birth of ego-consciousness.
Now we know that the ego is incarnated in the pulsa-
tion of our blood and that everything within has its
counterpart without, that everything microcosmic has
its parallel in the macrocosmic. The work of Odin who
gave speech and runic wisdom, who worked indirectly
through the breathing, has its counterpart in the move-
ment of the wind in the macrocosm. The regular inhala-
tion of the air through our respiratory organs which
transform the air into words and speech corresponds to
the movements and currents of the wind in the macro-
cosm outside. Just as we feel within ourselves the
power of Odin in the transformation of air into words,
so too we must perceive his presence and activity in
the ambient winds. But those who still preserved a cer-
tain degree of clairvoyance really saw the presence of
Odin everywhere in the cosmic element of the air, saw
how he formed speech by means of his breath. This
Nordic man perceived as a unity. Just as that which
lives in us and organizes our speech that is to say, in
the form in which speech existed amongst the Nordic
peoples penetrates into the ego and sets the blood
pulsating so too the inner organization of speech in
man finds its parallel in the macrocosm in thunder and
lightning. The gift of speech precedes the birth of the
ego in man. Hence the I is everywhere felt to be the
son of Odin to whom we owe the gift of speech. Thor
plays an active part in the implanting of the individual
ego, and in the microcosm the pulsation of the blood
corresponds to the thunder and lightning in the macro-
cosm. Thus, in the macrocosm, the parallel to the pul-
sation of the blood in man is the thunder and lightning
in the sighing winds and the weaving clouds. Ger-
manic-Nordic man sees this clairvoyantly as a unity; he
perceives that the soughing of the wind and the flash-
ing of the lightning are intimately related to the breath-
ing. He sees how the air he inhales passes into the
blood stream and sets the I pulsating. Today this is
looked upon as a physical process, but to Germanic-
Nordic man it was an astral experience. He felt the kin-
ship of the inner fire of the blood and of outer light-
ning. He felt the pulse-beat in his blood and knew it to
be the pulse-beat of the I. He was aware of this inner
pulsation and knew that it would recur. But he paid no
heed to the external physical process. All this was seen
clairvoyantly. He felt that it was the deed of Thor which
caused the pulse to beat and made the blood return
again and again to the same source. He felt the Thor-
force in his I as the hammer of Thor returning ever
and again into his hand; he felt the power of one of the
mightiest Angels who had ever been honoured or
revered, because he was a mighty Being who was seen
to have remained behind at the Angel stage.
The way in which the spiritual force holds together
the physical body is described in the Teutonic mythol-
ogy where it says that the I is that which holds to-
gether the soul and body in the formative stage. Ger-
manic-Nordic man sees the weaving of the body and
soul from within, and in later years he still understands
how, originating in the astral, his inner life becomes in-
tegrated, how the inner answers, so to speak, to the
outer. He could still respond when he learned from the
Initiates that man was built out of the Cosmos. He was
able to look back to earlier stages, to what had been
told him about the events which reflected the relation-
ship between the Angels and the Archangels, to those
earlier stages when man was born out of the macro-
cosm in physical-spiritual form. He was able to per-
ceive how the individual was built up out of the macro-
cosm and how he was an integral part of it. He sought
in the macrocosm for those occurrences which are re-
flected in the microcosm. He could distinguish in the
human microcosm, the microcosmic North, the cool
realm where human thoughts are woven and whence
the body is supplied with the twelve cranial nerves. He
sees the weaving spirit in what he calls Nebelheim or
Niflheim; he sees the twelve rivers which converge to
form physically the twelve cranial nerves. He sees how
the forces that issue from the microcosmic South, from
the human heart, counteract the forces from above. He
looks for them outside in the macrocosm and under-
stands when he is told that they are called Muspel-
heim. Thus, even in the Christian era, it was still possi-
ble for him to comprehend the microcosm in terms of
the whole macrocosm. And one could go back further
still and show him how man gradually originated out of
the macrocosm as extract of the whole world. He was
able to look back into that time and he could under-
stand that these events have a long ancestry, which he
himself still sees as a working of the Angels and
Archangels into his soul. He realizes that these events
have a long ancestry and the conceptions he thus ac-
quires we encounter in the old Teutonic Genesis, as the
origin of mankind out of the entire macrocosm.
From Ginnungagap, the primeval abyss of Teutonic
mythology, a new Earth emerges after having passed
through the three earlier incarnations of Old Saturn,
Old Sun, and Old Moon. The emergent world without
form and void comes forth again out of Pralaya where
the kingdoms of nature are not yet differentiated and
men are still undivided and completely spiritual beings.
It was then clear to Nordic man how the later condi-
tions have developed out of this original abyss.
Now it is interesting to see how the events of those
times are portrayed in Teutonic mythology in the form
of imaginative pictures, events which we in our anthro-
posophical teachings describe in more sophisticated
terms, using concepts in place of images. In Anthropos-
ophy we are given a description of the events which
took place when the Sun and Moon were still united, of
the separation of the Moon and of the evolutionary
transition to the later Riesenheim. Everything which
existed during the Atlantean epoch is described as a
continuation of earlier epochs and as the particular
concern of the Teutonic or Germanic people.
Today I only wanted to give an idea of how the Ger-
manic peoples awakened to the ego while still at an el-
ementary stage of evolution and how Nordic man per-
ceived in full consciousness the Folk Soul, the soul of
Thor and so on. I wanted to show how, as an ego-be-
ing, he was able to respond immediately to the in-
weaving of still higher Beings who, however, come
from an entirely different realm from those we find
among the Eastern peoples.
Tomorrow we shall attempt to explore the lesser-
known branches of Teutonic mythology. We shall dis-
cover how they are harbingers of that which dwells in
the Folk Souls and we shall see what is the nature of
our Western Folk Souls.
 LECTURE NINE

Loki Hodur and Baldur Twilight of the Gods

Those members of the audience who wish to analyse

from a philosophical point of view my lecture of yester-
day might meet perhaps with difficulties, apparent diffi-
culties, because they will have heard in the course of
earlier talks on similar themes that the purpose of our
entire post-Atlantean epoch and even of the later stages
of Atlantean evolution was to develop gradually the hu-
man ego and bring it to fuller consciousness. In this
context I have indicated that the members of the an-
cient Indian civilization who had been able in Atlantis
to perceive the spiritual world by means of the old
clairvoyance still prevalent at that time were in some
respects the very first who experienced an immediate
transition from this clairvoyant state to a consciousness
of the physical world. Their reaction to this physical
world was such that the whole of this post-Atlantean
age was pervaded by the feeling that true reality was to
be found in the spiritual world, whilst the phenomenal
world was merely Maya or illusion. Now I pointed out
in our last lecture and the facts confirm this that
the members of this ancient Indian civilization had to
some extent undergone a rich soul-development and
that they had achieved this high level whilst their ego
was more or less asleep, that is to say, that they only
awoke to ego consciousness after they had already
reached maturity of soul development.
What, then, was the destiny of these Indian peoples
meanwhile? For the Indian peoples must have experi-
enced their entire soul-development in a wholly differ-
ent manner from the European and especially the Ger-
manic peoples who were ego-conscious whilst their ca-
pacities were gradually evolving and who were con-
scious of the divine-spiritual power working into their
souls. You may possibly find it difficult to reconcile my
statements in yesterday's lecture if you were to reflect
upon that lecture philosophically. For those who wish
to analyse that lecture, not from a disinterested point of
view, but from a philosophical angle, I must add some-
thing in parenthesis by way of explanation.
The apparent contradiction will resolve itself at once if
you recall that cognition of the ego is totally different
from other forms of cognition. If the ego knows any
other object or other human being distinct from itself,
then in the act of cognition one is really dealing with
two factors, with the knower, the cognizing agent, and
the known. In the formal act of cognition it is irrelevant
whether that which is known is human being, animal,
tree or stone. But it is a different matter when the ego
knows itself, for then the knower and the known are
one, subject and object of cognition are the same. It is
important to realize that in human evolution, in the de-
velopment of the individual, these two modes of cogni-
tion are distinct. Those who had developed the mature
Indian culture in the post-Atlantean epoch, developed
the I subjectively as the knower, a cognizing agent,
and this subjective enhancement of the I within the
human soul may exist for a long time before man ac-
quires the power to see the I objectively as an entity.
On the other hand, the European peoples developed
comparatively early, whilst they still preserved the old
clairvoyance, the power to see the I objectively, that is
to say, in their clairvoyant field of vision they perceived
the I as an entity amongst other entities. If you distin-
guish carefully between these modes of perception
your philosophical problems will be solved and those
of Spiritual Science too, if you approach them in the
right way. If you wish me to express it in philosophical
terms: the Indian culture exhibits a soul which reached
the full flowering of the subjective I long before the
objective I was developed. The Teutonic peoples de-
veloped the perception of the I long before they be-
came conscious of the real inner striving towards the
I. Clairvoyantly they saw the dawning of their ego in
an imaginative picture. In the astral world around them
they had long seen the I objectively amongst the other
beings whom they perceived clairvoyantly. Thus we
must conceive of this antithesis in a purely formal man-
ner; then we shall also comprehend why Europe in par-
ticular was destined to associate this I of man with the
other higher Beings, the Angels and Archangels, in the
way I pointed out yesterday in relation to mythology.
If you bear this in mind you will realize that Europe
was destined to relate the ego in a multiplicity of ways
to the world perceptible to the senses and that the ego,
the fundamental essence of the human being, can enter
into the most varied relationship with the external
world. Formerly, before man was aware of his ego, be-
fore he perceived it, these relationships were deter-
mined for him by the higher Beings and he himself re-
mained a passive instrument. His relationship to the ex-
ternal world was a purely instinctive one. The decisive
factor in the development of the ego is that it should
progressively determine its relationship to the external
world. Substantially it was the task of the European na-
tions to determine in some way or other this relation of
the I to the whole world, and the guiding Folk Soul
had, and still has the task of directing European man
how to bring his I into relation with the external
world, with other egos and with the world of spiritual
Beings, so that on the whole it was within European
civilization that one first began to speak of the relation-
ship of the human ego to the surrounding universe.
Hence the completely different atmosphere in the old
Indian cosmology from that prevailing in the mythologi-
cal culture of Europe. In the East everything is imper-
sonal, and, above all one is required to adopt a passive
attitude towards knowledge, to suppress the ego in or-
der to become merged in Brahma and to find Atman
within oneself. In the East, therefore, the primary ob-
jective is to lose one's identity and seek union with the
Absolute. In Europe this human I occupies a central
place in human life in accordance with its original in-
nate tendencies and with its progressive development
in the course of evolution. In Europe, therefore, partic-
ular attention is given to seeing everything in relation to
the I, to showing clairvoyantly the relationship of the
I to everything that had participated in the develop-
ment of the I in the course of earthly existence.
Now you all know that two opposing forces have par-
ticipated in the development of terrestrial man who
was destined gradually to acquire his I. Ever since the
Lemurian epoch Luciferic forces have imprinted them-
selves upon the inner being of man, upon his astral
body. You know that these forces made man's inner life
the focal point of attack by infiltrating into his desires,
impulses and passions. In consequence, man benefited
in two ways: he was able to become a free and inde-
pendent being, to be fired with enthusiasm for what he
thinks, feels and wills, whereas in relation to his own
affairs he was guided by divine spiritual Beings. But on
the other hand, through the Luciferic powers, man had
to accept the possibility of falling into evil through his
passions, emotions and desires. Lucifer, therefore, is
omnipresent in our Earth-existence and finds his point
of attack in the inner being of man, in the play of the
human astral. Where the astral has been integrated
with the ego, the ego too has been permeated by the
Luciferic power. When therefore we speak of Lucifer,
we are speaking of that which has thrust man down
deeper into material, sensory existence than would
have been the case without that influence. Thus to the
Luciferic powers we owe the most precious boon to
man, namely, freedom, and, at the same time a danger-
ous legacy, the possibility of evil.
But we also know that because these Luciferic powers
had intervened in the entire constitution of human na-
ture, other powers were able to enter later on, which
could not have done so had not Lucifer first invaded the
human organism. Man would see the world differently
if he had not fallen under the influence of Lucifer and
his followers, if he had not been obliged to submit to
the influence of another power after he had opened
himself to the invasion of a Luciferic power. Ahriman
approached from outside and penetrated into the vast
arena of the phenomenal world surrounding man, so
that the Ahrimanic influence is therefore a consequence
of the Luciferic influence. Lucifer, as it were, takes pos-
session of man from within and in consequence he is
the victim of Ahriman who works from without.
The spiritual science of all ages that is familiar with
the real facts, speaks of both Luciferic and Ahrimanic
powers. It will seem very remarkable to you that the
various peoples who express these views in the form of
mythology are not always aware of Lucifer and Ahriman
to the same extent. For instance, there is no clear
awareness of this in a religious conception built up out
of the whole Semitic tradition as embodied in the Old
Testament. Only a certain consciousness of the Lu-
ciferic influence can be found there. You will find evi-
dence for this in the Old Testament account of the Ser-
pent which is simply a picture of Lucifer. And this
shows that there was a clear realization that Lucifer
played a part in evolution, a realization that is undeni-
ably present in all traditions associated with the Bible.
But they do not betray an awareness of the Ahrimanic
influence to the same extent; that is only to be found
where spiritual science is taught. Therefore the Gospel
writers have taken this into account. You will find for
at the time when the Gospels were written the word
devil or daemon was borrowed from the Greek
that St. Mark's Gospel does not speak of the tempta-
tion of Jesus, but of a devil tempting Him; but in all ref-
erences to Ahriman the word Satan is used. But who
notices the important difference between these de-
scriptions in the Gospel of St. Mark and that of St.
Matthew? Exoterically these fine distinctions are not
heeded at all, nor is this difference noted in external
traditions.
This difference is very apparent in the contrast be-
tween India and Persia and is strikingly illustrated at a
certain moment in history. The Persians were less sub-
ject to the Luciferic influence than the Ahrimanic. It was
in Persia in particular that men wrestled with the pow-
ers which give us an external, false Picture of the world
and which surround us with the forces of darkness, i.e.
that which is concerned with man's relation to the ex-
ternal world. Ahriman is known chiefly as an opponent
of the Good and as an enemy of the Light. What is the
explanation of this? The explanation is that in the sec-
ond post-Atlantean epoch man developed his percep-
tion of the external world. Remember that the task of
Zoroaster was to reveal the Sun Spirit, the Spirit of
Light. He has first to show that this world is com-
pounded of Light and the Spirit of Darkness who dims
our consciousness of the external world. The Persian
aims primarily at the conquest of Ahriman and strives
to unite himself with the Children of Light, the Spirits
who are here the dominant Powers. He is organized for
activity in the external world; hence he has his Ahuras
or Asuras. It is, on the other hand, dangerous for the
followers of the Persian religion to look inwards, to fol-
low the inward path. Where the Luciferic powers are
lurking he will not allow himself to become aware of
the good powers which are present there: he senses
danger. He directs his gaze outwards and believes the
Asuras of Light to be in opposition to the Asuras of
Darkness.
At this time the Indians pursued exactly the opposite
course. They lived in a period when they endeavoured
to raise themselves into the higher spheres by inner
contemplation. They sought salvation by uniting them-
selves with the forces of inner vision. It was dangerous;
they felt, to look out into the external world where they
might have to wrestle with Ahriman. They feared the
external world and regarded it as dangerous. Whereas
the Persians eschewed the Devas, the Indians looked
up to them and wanted to work in their domain. But
the Persians turned away and avoided the region where
the battle against Lucifer had to be fought.
Search as you will through the many different
mythologies and conceptions of the world, in none of
them will you find such a clear and profound aware-
ness of the fact that there are two influences at work on
man as in Teutonic mythology. As Nordic man was still
clairvoyant, he really saw these two powers and took
up a position midway between them. He said to him-
self in the course of his evolution man has seen the ad-
vent of certain powers which penetrated into his inner
being and worked upon his astral body; they operated
from without. And because he was destined to develop
the I, to achieve independence, he sensed not merely
the possibility of evil, but, in these powers which per-
meated his astral body in order to bring freedom and
independence, he felt above all the aspiration to free-
dom. He felt, one might say, the rebellious element
manifesting itself in these forces. He felt the presence
of the Luciferic element in the power which in these
Scandinavian and Germanic regions even then still par-
ticipated in the creation of races, in that it gave man his
external form and pigmentation and made him an inde-
pendent, active being in the world. With his clairvoy-
ance Nordic man felt Lucifer to be primarily that which
makes man a free being, one who is not prepared to
submit passively to random external powers, but is
solid and reliant and is determined to act indepen-
dently. Nordic man felt this Luciferic influence to be
beneficial.
But he now realized that something else stemmed
from this influence. Lucifer conceals himself behind the
figure of Loki who has a remarkably iridescent form.
Because Nordic man could perceive the reality, he saw
that the thoughts of the freedom and independence of
man could be traced to Loki. Through the old clairvoy-
ance, however, he was also aware that that which re-
peatedly drags man down through his desires and ac-
tions and causes him to suffer a greater deterioration of
his whole being than would have befallen him had he
devoted himself to Odin and the Aesir, is to be attrib-
uted to the influence of Loki. And now he felt the awful
grandeur of this Teutonic mythology; he felt with pas-
sionate conviction that which will only return gradually
to the consciousness of man through Spiritual Science.
How, then, does the Luciferic influence act? It pene-
trates into the astral body and thus is able to work
upon all the three members of man, upon his astral,
etheric and physical bodies. At the present day one can
only give indications of this Luciferic influence outside
the Anthroposophical Society. What you will come to
understand more and more clearly is that the Luciferic
influence makes itself felt in three different ways: in the
astral body, in the etheric body, and in the physical
body of man.
 It begets in the etheric body the urge to falsehood and
lying. Lies and falsehood are not limited to the inner life
of man. In the astral body, the vehicle of man's inner
life, the self is permeated with a Luciferic influence
which takes the form of selfishness. The etheric body is
inwardly motivated by the impulse to be untruthful and
is thus disposed to lying. In the physical body the Lu-
ciferic influence begets sickness and death. Those who
were present at my last series of lectures will easily un-
derstand that. [ Manifestations of Karma. Eleven lec-
tures given in Hamburg, May 1910 (Rudolf Steiner
Press).] I should like to emphasize once again that the
signs and symptoms of physical death are karmically
connected with the Luciferic influence. To recapitulate
again briefly: Lucifer begets in the astral body selfish-
ness, in the etheric body lying and falsehood, and in
the physical body sickness and death.
Of course the materialists of the present day will be
greatly surprised to learn that Spiritual Science at-
tributes sickness and death to a Luciferic influence. But
this too is connected with Karma. But for the Luciferic
influence man would never have known sickness and
death. The karmic effect of this influence is that man is
more deeply immersed in corporeality and, on the
other hand, the penalty for this is sickness and death.
We may say that when the Luciferic influence entered
into man, the physical, etheric and astral bodies be-
came a prey to sickness and death, lying, falsehood and
selfishness. I should like to draw your attention to the
fact that the materialistic scientists of today assign
death in the human being or in the animal or plant to
the same cause. They fail to realize that one external
appearance may resemble another and yet may origi-
nate from totally different causes.
An external situation may arise from a variety of
causes. The death of an animal does not supervene
from the same cause as the death of a man, although
externally it gives the same impression.
It would take too long to provide an epistemological
proof of these things. I only wish to state here that the
scientific view of causality is sadly mistaken. We meet
with mistakes such as these, which arise from muddled
thinking, at almost every turn. Imagine the case of a
man, who climbs onto a roof, falls down, is mortally in-
jured and is picked up dead. What would be more nat-
ural than to say: The man fell down, was mortally in-
jured and died of his injuries. But there might have
been a totally different explanation. The man might
have had a stroke whilst on the roof and have fallen
down while already dead. The injuries might have been
caused by the fall, so that externally this case might ap-
pear the same as the one described before, but death
would have supervened from an entirely different
cause.
This is a very crude example, but scientists are very
frequently guilty of this kind of mistake. Externally the
real facts may often be exactly the same: the inner
causes may be completely different.
We claim, then, from the results of spiritual-scientific
investigation that the Luciferic influence begets in the
astral body selfishness, in the etheric body lying and
falsehood and in the physical body sickness and death.
Now what would the Teutonic mythology have had to
say if it had been obliged to ascribe this threefold influ-
ence to Loki, to Lucifer? It would have had to say that
Loki has three offspring. The first, the one who begets
selfishness, is the Midgard Snake through whom is ex-
pressed the influence of the Luciferic spirit on the astral
body. The second is that which falsifies human knowl-
edge. In man, on the physical plane, this consists in
those things of the mind which do not accord with the
external world. It is that which has no validity there. To
Nordic man who lived more on the astral plane, that
which to us is an illusion manifested itself at once as an
astral being and lived as such upon the astral plane.
The expression for everything that implied darkening of
the light of truth, false perspective, was some kind of
animal; and here in the North it was chiefly the Fenris
Wolf. This second animal is Loki's influence on the
etheric body to which man owes his inner inclination to
deceive himself, to think incorrectly about things; that
is to say, the objects in the external world do not ap-
pear to him in true perspective. This was generally ex-
pressed in the old Teutonic mythology in the form of a
wolf. That is the astral form for lying and falsehood
which proceeds from inner impulse.
Where man is related to the external world Lucifer
confronts Ahriman, so that the infiltration of error into
his knowledge even into his clairvoyant knowledge
all illusion and maya, is the consequence of the ten-
dency to falsehood which is active there. The Fenris
Wolf represents the configuration surrounding man be-
cause he does not see things in their true form. When-
ever the ancient Teutons experienced the darkening of
the light of truth, they spoke of a wolf. This permeates
the whole of Nordic consciousness and you will find
that this image is used in this sense even in relation to
external facts.
When the ancient Teutons wanted to explain what
they saw during an eclipse of the Sun in the epoch
of the old clairvoyance of course, man saw very differ-
ently from the man of today who uses a telescope
they chose the image of a wolf pursuing the Sun and
who, the moment he overtakes it, causes an eclipse.
This agrees perfectly with the facts. This terminology is
an integral part of the grandeur, that awful grandeur pe-
culiar to Teutonic mythology. I can only give indica-
tions here, but if it were possible to speak for weeks on
end upon this Teutonic mythology, you would then see
how this is universally applied in the representations of
Teutonic mythology. This is because Teutonic mythol-
ogy is a consequence of the old clairvoyance into which
the I plays everywhere.
Materialists of today will reply that this is pure super-
stition, that there is no wolf in pursuit of the Sun. The
old imaginative Nordic man sees these facts in the form
of pictures and I could perhaps enumerate many so-
called scientific truths which contain more Ahrimanic
influence, a greater degree of error, than the corre-
sponding astral perception which describes the wolf in
pursuit of the Sun. That an eclipse occurs because the
Moon interposes itself between the Earth and the Sun
seems to the occultist to betray a mind that is even
more superstitious. From the external point of view the
explanation of the eclipse is perfectly correct, just as
the case of the wolf is perfectly correct from the astral
point of view. In fact the astral view is more correct
than the one you will find in modern textbooks, which
is even more subject to error. If at some future time
man is prepared to accept the real facts instead of this
external explanation, he will find that the Teutonic
myth is correct. I am aware that I am saying something
which is ridiculously absurd in the eyes of contempo-
rary man, but I know too that in anthroposophical cir-
cles one is already sufficiently advanced to be in a posi-
tion to show in which respects the physical view of the
world is most influenced by maya, deception or illu-
sion.
Let us now turn to the influence of Loki on the physi-
cal body. His third offspring is Hel, who begets sick-
ness and death. Thus the figures Hel, the Fenris Wolf
and the Midgard Snake are wonderful representations
of the influence of Loki or Lucifer in the form in which
his influence was perceived by the old dreamlike clair-
voyance. If we were to follow out the whole history of
Loki we should everywhere find that these things throw
light upon the matter, down to the smallest details. But
we must clearly understand that what the clairvoyant
sees are not allegories, but real Beings.
 Diagram 5

Now Nordic man was not only aware of Loki, of the

Luciferic influence, but also of the influence of Ahriman
which was the polar opposite, and he knew too that in-
volvement in the Ahrimanic influence was a conse-
quence of the Luciferic influence. If you now look back
to the time when man did not apprehend the world
through sensory perception but contemplated it with
the old clairvoyance, you will find that this myth has
been developed in response to this clairvoyance. What
does the myth say? Man has succumbed to the influ-
ence of Loki, and this is expressed in the activity of the
Midgard Snake, the Fenris Wolf and Hel. The effect was
such that man's perception, his clear, luminous vision
into the spiritual world, became dimmed, because the
Luciferic influence increasingly asserted itself. At that
time, when this view developed, man alternated be-
tween a consciousness that was able to see into the
spiritual world and a consciousness that was directed
to the physical plane, just as we normally alternate be-
tween waking and sleeping. When he gazed into the
spiritual world he looked into the world out of which
he was born. The essential point is that the myth had
its source in the clairvoyant consciousness. But human
consciousness consisted in this alteration between in-
sight into, and loss of insight into the spiritual world.
When man lived in a condition of dreamlike conscious-
ness he saw into the spiritual world. When in a condi-
tion of waking consciousness, he was blind to it. Thus
he alternated between the conditions of blindness to,
and insight into, the spiritual world. His consciousness
alternated just as a certain Cosmic Being alternated be-
tween the blind Hdur and the clairvoyant Baldur, who
could see into the spiritual world. Thus man was pre-
disposed to receive Baldur's influence and he would
have developed in accordance with this influence if he
had not been subject to Loki's influence. It was Loki's
responsibility, however, that the Hodur nature over-
came the Baldur nature. This is expressed by Loki
bringing the mistletoe, with which the blind Hodur kills
Baldur, the one who sees.
Loki therefore is the destructive power, like Lucifer
who drove man into the arms of Ahriman. In so far as
man submits to the blind Hodur, the old clairvoyant vi-
sion is extinguished. That is the slaying of Baldur. This
is felt by Nordic man as the gradual extinction of the
Baldur power, the loss of the vision into the spiritual
world. Thus, in the loss of clairvoyance, Nordic man
felt that by the death of Baldur Loki had extinguished
clairvoyance and that henceforth he was powerless to
revive this erstwhile clairvoyance. Thus one of the
greatest historical events, the gradual loss of the old,
unclouded knowledge is expressed in the myth of Bal-
dur, Hdur and Loki. On the one hand, therefore, we
have Loki with his kinsmen, the three Beings, and on
the other, the tragic slaying of Baldur.
Thus, in Teutonic mythology, is reflected that which
we can derive from Spiritual Science: the twofold influ-
ence the Luciferic and the Ahrimanic. It is this which
Spiritual Science always seeks to present to you as an
illustration of the clairvoyant knowledge of ancient
times and as a development of the myth out of the old
clairvoyance which then gradually began to disappear.
It would take us too far if we were to pursue this sub-
ject further. But even in the broad outline I have pre-
sented to you, you can feel the awful grandeur of this
myth, which is unsurpassed, because no other mythol-
ogy adheres so closely to the old clairvoyant condition.
Greek mythology is only a memory of something expe-
rienced in former times, expressed in sculptural form.
Greek mythology has no longer that direct association
with the facts which one finds in Teutonic mythology. It
is more sophisticated, more mature, the figures show
more clearly defined, more finished contours, and
therefore appear markedly sculptural. They have lost
the primitive simplicity of the earliest impressions. The
old clairvoyance which had long vanished in the rest of
Europe still survived in the North. Only slowly, step by
step, has the perspective of man become limited to the
picture of the physical world alone. Thus, at the time
when Christianity began to spread abroad, that which
is expressed in the Baldur myth, in the death of Baldur,
had become true for the majority of men. There were,
however, still a few who were able to perceive directly
what Nordic man experienced clairvoyantly.
Thus for a long time there still existed the direct per-
ception of the spiritual world, and because it was still
so elemental and sprang so directly from clairvoyant
experience, there still survived, when Christianity be-
gan to spread abroad, this conscious awareness of the
spiritual world which was more developed in the Teu-
tonic peoples than in any other. Then they felt that their
erstwhile experiences of their original spiritual home
were vanishing. And these spiritual experiences were
lost when Nordic man received the consolations of
Christianity. But Christianity did not offer him any di-
rect vision. He had felt the fate of Baldur much too
deeply to be able to console himself for this loss by ex-
changing Baldur for a God who had descended to the
physical plane in order that the children of men who
could only perceive on the physical plane, may also be
allowed to rise to a consciousness of God. Unlike the
peoples of the Near East the Northern peoples were
unable to respond to the words: Change your mental
attitude, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand! In
Palestine where Christ was born, there existed only
long-lost memories of the fact that once upon a time
there had been an old clairvoyance. In the East, the Kali
Yuga, the Dark Age, had already lasted for three thou-
sand years, when men could no longer see into the
spiritual world. But they always yearned for that world
and have ever told of a world which man was once able
to perceive spiritually. But it was a world which had
now vanished from their sight. Hence they had experi-
enced the spiritual world in a much more distant past
than the men of the North, and they only knew from
memory that the spiritual world had once been within
reach. Hence the peoples of Asia Minor could well un-
derstand the words: Change your mental attitude for
the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand! They could under-
stand the words: The Kingdom of Heaven is nigh unto
you even here upon the physical plane. Seek ye there-
fore the unique figure who will appear in the land of
Palestine, seek ye the Messiah, the Incarnation of the
Godhead, through whom you too will be able to find
your relation to the Divine, even though you cannot
raise yourself above the physical plane. Recognize that
Figure in Palestine, know the Figure of Christ! Those
were the profound words of John the Baptist.
The Nordic man, of necessity, felt this differently; for
a longer period of time he had experienced much more
than the mere memory of a vision into the spiritual
world. Hence there arose in him a thought of far-reach-
ing importance, namely: this limitation to the outer
physical plane, this darkening of spiritual sight, can
only be an intermediate time. There must be a period
of probation and man will have to discover what the
physical world can teach him. This transition is neces-
sary and he must therefore withdraw from the spiritual
world. He must undergo the experience of the phe-
nomenal world as a necessary training. But through this
period of probation he will find his way back to that
world whence he came. The vision of Baldur will be
able to ensoul him again. In other words, the great
truth which dawned in the course of the evolution of
the Teutonic peoples that the world which was lost to
clairvoyant vision would again become visible, he owed
to the fact that man felt his sojourn on the physical
plane to be a time of transition.
The Initiates had taught Nordic man that a change
was taking place in the spiritual world during the inter-
mediate time when he had lost the vision of the spiri-
tual world and in consequence it would one day appear
transformed. They explained this to him somewhat as
follows: Formerly you looked into the spiritual world
and there you saw the Archangel of Speech, the
Archangel of the Runes, Odin, [See Appendix.] the
Archangel of Respiration, and Thor, the Angel of Ego-
hood. You were associated with them, and he who is
sufficiently prepared will be able to enter the spiritual
world again. But it will then appear different; other
powers will have been added to it, and the spheres of
power and the relationships of power of those old spiri-
tual leaders of the human race will have changed. You
will, it is true, see into this world, but you will find it
transformed.
What man will then see, the Initiates described to him
as a vision of the future the Vision that will one day
appear to man when he is able to see into the spiritual
world again, when he will see what has been the des-
tiny of the old Gods and what was their relation to
other powers. They described to him this vision of the
future as seen by the Initiates when the Luciferic influ-
ence will to some extent override that which comes
from the Gods and will, in its turn, be overcome. This
was their vision of Ragnarok, the Twilight of the Gods.
And again we shall see that all the events which were
portrayed as future events could not, even down to the
smallest details, be portrayed better or more aptly, nor
in more fitting terminology than in the wonderful pic-
ture of the Twilight of the Gods. That is the occult
background to the Saga of the Twilight of the Gods.
In what light, then, should man see himself? He
should see himself as one who has received all that
stems from earlier epochs as the origin and cause of his
evolution. He should thoughtfully assimilate what he
received as a gift from Odin, whilst feeling that he him-
self has undergone the ensuing evolution. He should
receive into himself the teaching implanted in him by
Odin. He should fight the good fight without delay. The
Initiate, the Leader of the Esoteric School, makes that
clear, particularly to Nordic man, by calling our atten-
tion to the divine-spiritual Being who appears to us so
mysteriously, who in fact first plays a definite part in
the Twilight of the Gods because he overcomes even
that power by which Odin is at first overcome. In the
Twilight of the Gods the role of Odin's avenger is a
special role. When we understand this role we shall
then perceive the wonderful connection between the
native talents of the Teutonic peoples and our concep-
tion of our vision of the future. All this is expressed in a
wonderful way, down to the smallest details in the
mighty vision of the Twilight of the Gods.
 LECTURE TEN

The Mission of individual Peoples and Cultures in

the Past, Present and Future
Solovieff

Before we enlarge upon what will emerge from any

further elaboration of the significant image of the Twi-
light of the Gods, it will be well to establish a firm foun-
dation from which to proceed. For we shall deal with
the nature of the Germanic and Scandinavian Folk Soul,
and from the results of our investigation describe it in
greater detail. We shall discover how the whole spiri-
tual life of Europe works in concert, how the activity of
the various Folk Spirits has furthered the development
of mankind in the remote past, in the present and will
continue to do so in the future. Every single people,
even isolated fragments of peoples, have their special
contribution to make to this great collective task. You
will realize from what has been said that, in certain re-
spects, the task, the mission of educating the I
through the evolutionary stages of the human being, of
shaping it and of gradually developing it, devolved
upon the Christian and post Christian cultures of Eu-
rope in particular. In primitive times, as we have shown
in the case of the Scandinavian and Germanic peoples,
the I was revealed clairvoyantly to man. According to
tradition this I was bestowed upon man by an Angelic
Being, Donar or Thor, who stands midway between
man and the Folk Soul. We have seen that the individ-
ual still felt himself to be ego-less, devoid of personal-
ity; he looked upon the I as a gift from the spiritual
world.
In the East, when the I really awoke, it was not of
course experienced in the same way. There man had al-
ready reached subjectively such a high degree of per-
fection that he did not feel the I as something extrane-
ous, but as his own property. At the time when man
became ego-conscious in the East, Eastern culture was
already so far advanced that it was capable of gradually
developing that finely-spun speculation, logic and wis-
dom which is reflected in Eastern wisdom. The East,
therefore, no longer experienced the whole process of
receiving the ego as if it were bestowed by a higher
spiritual world through the instrumentality of a divine-
spiritual Being such as Thor. That was the experience of
Europe; hence the European felt this gradual unfolding
of the individual I as the emergence out of the Group
Soul. The Germanic-Scandinavian man still felt himself
attached to a Group Soul, to be a member of a closely-
knit unit or family, that he belonged to an integrated
community. For this reason, nearly a hundred years af-
ter Christ, Tacitus could describe the Teutons of Cen-
tral Europe as apparently belonging to separate tribes
and yet as members of an organism, and belonging to
the unity of the organism. Thus each individual still felt
himself at that time to be a member of the tribal I. He
felt his individual I gradually emerging from the tribal
I and be recognized in the God Thor the bestower of
the I, the God who really endowed him with his indi-
vidual I. But at the same time he felt that this God was
still united with the collective spirit of the tribe with
that which lives in the Group Soul. To this Group Soul
was given the name Sif . This is the name of the
spouse of Thor. Sif is related linguistically to the word
Sippe, kinship, although the relationship is veiled or
concealed. Occultly, however, Sif signifies the Group
Soul of the individual community from which the indi-
vidual emerges. Sif is the Being who unites herself with
the God of the individual I, with Thor, the bestower of
the individual I. The individual perceives Sif and Thor
as the Beings who endowed him with his I. It was in
this way that Nordic man experienced them at a time
when the peoples in other regions of Europe had al-
ready been given other tasks in preparing man's ego-
development.
Each individual people had its appointed task; chief
amongst them was that homogeneous group of peo-
ples, that widely distributed folk community whom we
know by the name of Celts. It was the responsibility of
the ancient Celtic Folk Spirit, who, as we know from
earlier lectures, was later given quite different tasks, to
educate the still youthful I of the peoples of Europe.
To this end it was necessary that the Celts themselves
should receive an education and instruction which was
mediated directly from the higher world. Hence it was
entirely appropriate that through their Initiates, the
Druid priests, the Celts should transmit to other na-
tions instruction received from higher worlds and
which they could not have acquired of themselves.
The whole of European culture is a legacy of the Euro-
pean Mysteries. The progressive Folk Souls are always
the leaders of the collective culture of mankind as it un-
folds. But at the time when these European Folk Spirits
enjoined upon men to act more on their own initiative
it was necessary that the Mysteries should gradually
withdraw. Hence with the withdrawal of the Celtic ele-
ment there followed a gradual withdrawal of the Mys-
teries into more secret places. At the time of the an-
cient Celts the Mysteries established a much more di-
rect relationship between the spiritual Beings and the
people, because the I was still attached to the group-
soul-life and yet the Celtic element was to bring the gift
of the I to the other Germanic tribes. Thus in the pe-
riod preceding the evolution proper of the Northern
and Germanic peoples, the Mystery teachings could be
given to European civilization only by the ancient Celtic
Mysteries. These Mystery teachings allowed just so
much to be revealed as was necessary in order to es-
tablish a basis for the whole culture of Europe. Now the
most diverse Folk Souls and Folk Spirits were able to
draw nourishment from this old culture by mingling
with the widely diverse racial fragments, national com-
munities and folk elements, and they brought the I
into ever new situations in order to nurture it, the I
which was struggling to free itself from its attachment
to the group-soul.
After the old Greek culture had to a certain extent
reached its high point in the fulfillment of its special
mission, we see a totally different aspect of this same
mission in the spirit of ancient Rome and its various
stages of culture. We have already mentioned that the
several post-Atlantean civilizations follow upon one an-
other in strict sequence. If we wish to have an overall
picture of the successive stages of post-Atlantean civi-
lization we may summarize them as follows: the old In-
dian culture worked upon the human etheric body.
Hence the remarkable wisdom and clairvoyant insight
of the ancient Indian culture, because after the de-
velopment of special human capacities it was a cul-
ture reflected in the human etheric body. We may en-
visage the ancient Indian Culture somewhat as follows:

Diagram 6

Between the Atlantean epoch and the later post-At-

lantean epoch the Indian Folk Spirit developed to the
full his inner soul-forces without developing ego-con-
sciousness. He then returned to his activity in the
etheric body. The essential element in the ancient In-
dian culture is that the ancient Indian was able to re-
turn again to the etheric body with his highly devel-
oped, highly refined faculties of soul and within that
body he developed those marvelously delicate forces
the later reflection of which we can still see in the
Vedas, and in a still more refined form in the Vedanta
philosophy. This was only possible because the Indian
Folk Soul had achieved a high degree of development
before it was conscious of the I, and this again at a
time when man could perceive by means of the forces
of the etheric body.
The Persian Folk Soul had not developed so far; its or-
gan of perception was limited to the sentient body or
astral body. The Egypto-Babylonian-Chaldean culture
was again different. Here the organ of perception was
the Sentient Soul; and the characteristic of the Egypto-
Chaldean culture was the ability to work in the Sentient
Soul. The Graeco-Latin Folk Spirit was related to the In-
tellectual or Mind-Soul in which he was active. He him-
self was only able to work upon this Intellectual Soul
because the Intellectual Soul, in its turn, had a kind of
psychic counterpart in the etheric body. But the form of
cosmogony that now emerged in Greece was, to some
extent, less real, less clear-cut; it had less the stamp of
reality. Whilst the form of cognition in the ancient In-
dian culture was directly related to the activity of the
etheric body, the Greek culture presented a blurred,
pale, lifeless image of reality; as I have already said, it
was like the memory of what these people had once
experienced, like a memory reflected in their etheric
body.
In the other peoples who followed the Greeks we are
chiefly concerned with the use of the physical body for
the progressive development of the Spiritual Soul (or
Consciousness-Soul). Hence the Greek culture was a
culture that we can only understand from within, if we
realize that in this culture what is important in external
experience is that which springs from the inner life of
the Greeks. On the other hand, the peoples living more
towards the West and the North had, under the guid-
ance of their Folk Souls, to turn increasingly towards
the external world, towards the phenomena of the
physical plane, and to develop whatsoever has a part to
play on that plane. This was the special task of the
Northern and Germanic peoples which they alone
could fulfil, because they still enjoyed the gift, the
supremely important gift of the old clairvoyance which
enabled them to see into the spiritual world and to in-
corporate the primeval spiritual experiences which
were still vital in their souls into that which was to be
established upon the physical plane.
There was one people who, at its later stage, no
longer possessed this gift, who had not undergone
such preliminary evolution and who had incarnated
suddenly on the physical plane before the birth of the
human I and was only able therefore to attend to
whatsoever furthered the development of this I on the
physical plane, to whatsoever was necessary for its
well-being there under the guidance of its Folk Soul, its
Archangel. This was the Roman people. Everything that
the Roman people had to accomplish for the collective
mission of Europe under the guidance of its Folk Spirit
was directed to winning recognition for the I of man.
Hence the Roman people was able to develop human
and social relationships. They were the founders of civil
law and jurisprudence which are built up purely on the
I. The relation of human I to human I was the great
question in the mission of the Roman people. The
Western peoples whose civilizations grew out of the
Roman civilization already possessed more of that
which, coming from the Sentient Soul, Intellectual or
Mind-Soul and from the Spiritual or Consciousness-
Soul itself, fructifies the I in some way and projects it
outward into the world. Therefore all the mingling of
races which external history records and which is
found in the Italian and Iberian peninsulas, in France
and Great Britain today, was necessary in order to de-
velop the I on the physical plane in accordance with
the different nuances of the Sentient Soul, the Intellec-
tual Soul and the Spiritual Soul. Such was the great mis-
sion of those peoples who gradually developed in the
most diverse ways in Western Europe.
All the individual shades of culture, all the particular
missions of the peoples of Western Europe can finally
be explained by the fact that in the area of the Italian
and Iberian peninsulas was to be developed that which
could be formed in the I through the impulses of the
Sentient Soul. If you study the individual folk characters
in their positive and negative aspects you will find that
the peoples of the Italian and Iberian peninsulas reflect
a peculiar fusion of the I with the Sentient Soul. You
will be able to understand, however, the peculiar char-
acteristics of those peoples who, until recent times,
lived on the soil of France, if you study the growth and
fusion of the Intellectual Soul with the I. The great
worldwide achievements of a country such as Great
Britain can be attributed to the fact that the impulse of
the Spiritual Soul has penetrated into the human I.
With the world mission of the British Empire is also as-
sociated parliamentary forms of government and the
founding of constitutional rights. The union of the Spiri-
tual Soul with the human ego had not yet been realized
inwardly. If you recognize how this union between the
Spiritual Soul and the I that was oriented outwards
originated, you will find that the great historical con-
quests of the inhabitants of that island proceed from
this impulse. You will also find that the establishment
of parliamentary forms of government at once becomes
comprehensible if one realizes that, in consequence of
this, an impulse of the Spiritual Soul was to find expres-
sion on the plane of world-history.
Thus cultural diversities were a necessity, for the indi-
vidual peoples had to be guided through the many
stages of ego development. If we had sufficient time to
enlarge upon these matters we could find examples
from history which show the ramifications of these ba-
sic forces and how they manifest in the most diverse
ways. Thus the peculiar constitution of soul influenced
the Western peoples who had not preserved the direct,
original memory of the old clairvoyant insight into the
spiritual world of former times. In the Germanic and
Northern regions in later times, that which proceeded
directly from a gradual, continuous evolution of the
original clairvoyance with which the Sentient Soul had
already been imbued, had to develop in a wholly differ-
ent way. This accounts for that characteristic trait of in-
wardness which is only the after-effect of a clairvoyant
insight experienced in a former age. The task of the
Southern Germanic peoples lay primarily in the domain
of the Spiritual Soul. The Graeco-Latin age had to de-
velop the Intellectual Soul (or Mind-Soul). But not only
this; it had also to include a wonderful development
still working in from prehistoric times and imbued with
clairvoyant insight. All this was then poured into the
Spiritual Soul of the Central European and Scandinavian
peoples and its after-effects lived on as an inner dispo-
sition of soul. It was the task of the Southern Germanic
peoples to develop first of all what pertains to the in-
ward preparation of the Spiritual Soul, imbuing it with
spiritual substance of the old clairvoyance, transposed
now on to the physical plane.
The philosophies of Central Europe represented by
Fichte, Schelling and Hegel in the nineteenth century
seem far removed from the sphere of mythology. Nev-
ertheless they are simply the products of the highest
sublimation of the old clairvoyant insight, of the coop-
eration of the divine-spiritual Beings within the heart of
man. Otherwise it would not have been possible for a
Hegel to have looked upon his ideas as realities; it
would have been impossible for him to make the
strange remark, so characteristic of the man, when, in
answer to the question, What is the abstract? he
replied: The abstract is for instance an individual who
fulfils his daily duties the carpenter, for example.
What is concrete to the purely abstract theorist was
therefore abstract to Hegel. What to the purely abstract
theorist are mere thoughts, were to him great, mighty
architects of the world. Hegel's philosophy is the final,
the most highly sublimated expression of the Spiritual
Soul and embodies in the form of pure concepts that
which Nordic man still saw as sensible-super-sensible,
divine spiritual powers associated with the I. The I of
Fichte's philosophy was simply the precipitation of
what the God Thor had given to the human soul, only
viewed from the standpoint of the Spiritual Soul and
clothed seemingly in the barest of thoughts, the
thought of I am, which is the starting-point of
Fichte's philosophy. From the gift of the I by the God
Thor or Donar to the ancient Nordic peoples from the
spiritual world, down to this philosophy, evolution fol-
lows a straight line. Thor had to prepare this develop-
ment for the Spiritual Soul in order that this Soul might
have the content appropriate for its task which is to
turn towards the external world and to work within that
world. But this philosophy is aware not only of the ex-
ternal world of crude empiric experience, but finds in
the external world the content of the Spiritual Soul it-
self and regards nature simply as the idea in its other
aspect. The mission of the Nordic Germanic peoples in
Central Europe is to ensure that this impulse lives on.
Now since all evolution is a continuous process we
must ask ourselves what form it takes. When we look
back into ancient times we observe a remarkable phe-
nomenon. We have already said that the first manifes-
tations of ancient Indian culture were expressed
through the etheric body after the spiritual forces of
soul had been adequately developed. There are how-
ever other civilizations which have also preserved the
old Atlantean culture and carried it over into the post-
Atlantean epoch. Whilst, on the one hand, the ancient
Indian was able to return to the etheric body with
highly developed faculties of soul and out of the forces
of this body created his great civilization and lofty spiri-
tual life, we have, on the other hand, a culture which
originated in Atlantis and continued to work on in the
post-Atlantean epoch, a culture which owes its origin
and development to its emphasis upon the other aspect
of the consciousness of the etheric body. This is the
Chinese culture. If you bear this connection in mind
and remember that the Atlantean culture was directly
related to what in our earlier lectures we called the
Great Spirit; you will understand the peculiarities of
Chinese culture. This culture was directly connected
with the highest stages of world-evolution. But it still
works into the bodies of men today and from an en-
tirely different angle. It seems very likely, therefore,
that these two civilizations, the two great polarities of
the post-Atlantean epoch, will clash at some future
time the Indian which, within certain limits, is capa-
ble of development, and the Chinese that isolates itself
and remains static, repeating what existed in the old At-
lantean epoch. One literally receives an occult, scien-
tific, poetic impression if one follows the evolution of
the Chinese Empire, if one thinks of the Great Wall of
China which sought to exclude completely everything
which originated in primeval times and had been devel-
oped in the post-Atlantean epoch. Something like an
occult, poetic feeling steals over one if one compares
the Wall of China with what had once existed in former
times. I can give only the barest indications about these
matters. If you compare them with the existing findings
of science you will find how extraordinary illuminating
they are. Let us consider clairvoyantly the old continent
of Atlantis which will be found where the Atlantic
Ocean now lies, between Africa and Europe on the one
side and America on the other. This continent was en-
circled by a warm stream which, strange as it may
seem, was seen clairvoyantly to flow from the South
through Baffin Bay towards the North of Greenland, en-
circling it. Then, turning eastward, it gradually cooled
down. Long before the continents of Russia and Siberia
had emerged, it flowed past the Ural mountains,
changed course, skirted the Eastern Carpathians, de-
bauched into the region now occupied by the Sahara
and finally reached the Atlantic Ocean in the neigh-
bourhood of the Bay of Biscay. Thus it followed a
strictly delimited course. Only the last remaining traces
of this stream are still extant. This stream is the Gulf
Stream which at that time encircled the Atlantean conti-
nent. Now you will recall that in their psychic life the
Greeks experienced a memory of the spiritual worlds.
The picture of Oceanus which is a memory of that At-
lantean epoch arose within them. Their picture of the
world, their cosmogony, was very near the truth be-
cause it was derived from the old Atlantean epoch. The
stream that flowed southward via Spitzbergen as a
warm current and gradually cooled, etc. followed a
strictly delimited course. This circumscribed course
was unmistakably echoed in the Chinese culture, a cul-
ture circumscribed by the Great Wall and which had
been brought over from Atlantis. The Atlantean civiliza-
tion had as yet no history; hence the Chinese civiliza-
tion also has preserved an element of the unhistorical.
It preserves something of the pre Indian culture, some-
thing surviving from old Atlantis.
Let us now describe the further progress of the Ger-
manic and Nordic Folk Spirit. What consequences will
ensue when a Folk Spirit so directs his people that the
Spirit Self in particular can develop? Let us remember
that the etheric body was developed in the ancient In-
dian epoch, the sentient body in the Persian, the Sen-
tient Soul in the Egypto-Chaldean, the Intellectual Soul
(or Mind-Soul) in the Graeco-Latin, the Spiritual Soul
(or Consciousness-Soul) in our present epoch which is
not yet concluded. The next epoch will see the invasion
of the Spiritual Soul by the Spirit Self, so that the Spirit
Self shall irradiate the Spiritual Soul. This is the task of
the sixth post-Atlantean civilization and must be pre-
pared for gradually. This civilization which must be pre-
eminently a receptive one, for it must reverently await
the influx of the Spirit Self into the Spiritual Soul, is be-
ing prepared by the peoples of Western Asia and their
outposts in Eastern Europe, the Slavonic peoples. The
latter with their Folk Souls were the outposts of the
coming sixth post-Atlantean epoch for the very good
reason that future contingencies must to a certain ex-
tent be prepared beforehand, must already be antici-
pated in order to prepare the ground for future devel-
opment. It is extremely interesting to study these out-
posts of a Folk Soul who is preparing himself for future
epochs. This accounts for the peculiar character of the
Slavonic peoples who are our immediate Eastern neigh-
bours. In the eyes of the Western European their whole
culture gives the impression of being in a preparatory
stage and in a curious way, through the medium of
their outposts, they present that which in spirit is
wholly different from any other mythology. We should
give a false impression of these Eastern outposts as a
future civilization if we were to compare them with the
culture of the Western European peoples who enjoy a
continuous, unbroken tradition which is still rooted in,
and has its source in the old clairvoyance. The peculiar-
ity attaching to the souls of these Eastern European
peoples is reflected in the whole attitude they have al-
ways shown when the question of their relations to the
higher worlds arose. In comparison with our mythol-
ogy in Western Europe with its individual deities, their
(i.e. the Slavonic peoples) relation to the higher worlds
is totally different. What this Slavonic mythology
presents to us as the direct outpouring of the inner be-
ing of the people may be compared to the anthropo-
sophical conception of successive planes or worlds
through which we prepare ourselves to understand a
higher spiritual culture. We find in the East, for exam-
ple, the following conception: the West has been
moulded by the influence of successive and related cul-
tures. In the East we find, in the first place, a distinct
consciousness of a world of the Cosmic Father. Every-
thing that is creatively active in air and fire, in all the el-
ements in and above the Earth, is embodied in the con-
cept of the Heavenly Father, in one seemingly great, all-
embracing idea which is at the same time an all-em-
bracing feeling. Just as we think of the Devachanic
world as fructifying our Earth, so this Divine world, the
world of the Father, draws nigh from the East, fructify-
ing that which is experienced as the Mother, the Spirit
of the Earth. We have no other expression and can
think of no other way of picturing the whole Spirit of
the Earth than in the fertilization of Mother Earth. In-
stead of individual deities we have then two contrasting
worlds. And confronting these two worlds as a third
world is that which we feel to be the Blessed Child of
these two worlds. This Blessed Child is not an individ-
ual being, not an emotional feeling, but something that
is the creation of the Heavenly Father and the Earth
Mother. The relation of Devachan to the Earth is per-
ceived in this way from the spiritual world. The birth of
new life, the coming of springtime, and that which
grows and multiplies in the material body is felt as
something wholly spiritual; and that which grows and
multiplies in the soul is perceived as the world which at
the same time is felt to be the Blessed Child of the
Heavenly Father and the Earth Mother. Universal as
these conceptions are, we find them among the out-
posts of the Slavonic peoples who have advanced west-
wards. In no Western European mythology is this con-
ception so universal. In the West we find clearly de-
fined deities; but they are not the same as those which
we depict in our spiritual cosmogony; these are more
nearly represented by the Heavenly Father, the Earth
Mother and the Blessed Child of the East. In the con-
ception of the Blessed Child there is again a world
which permeates another world. It is a world that is en-
visaged as a separate world because it is associated
with the physical sun and its light. The Slavonic ele-
ment also recognizes this Being though different, of
course, in conception and feeling which we have so
often met with in Persian mythology; it recognizes the
Sun Being who sheds his blessings upon the other
three worlds, so that the destiny of man is woven into
creation, into the Earth, through the fertilization of the
Earth Mother by the Heavenly Father and through that
which the Sun Spirit weaves into both these worlds. A
fifth world is that which embraces everything spiritual.
The Eastern European feels the spiritual world underly-
ing all the forces of nature and all animate beings. We
must think of this as a wholly different sentient re-
sponse, as associated more perhaps with the phenom-
ena, creations and beings of nature.
We must think of this Slavonic soul as being able to
see entities in natural phenomena, to see not only the
physical and sensory aspects, but also the astral and
spiritual. Hence the Slavonic soul conceived of a vast
number of Beings in this strange spiritual world which
we can at best compare with the world of the Elves of
Light. The spiritual world which is looked upon in Spiri-
tual Science as the fifth world is approximately the
world which dawns in the hearts and minds of the peo-
ples of Eastern Europe. Whatever name we attach to it
is of no importance; what is of importance are the sub-
tle shades and gradations of feelings of the Slavonic
peoples and that the concepts which characterize this
fifth plane or spiritual world are to be found in Eastern
Europe. In this frame of mind this world of Eastern Eu-
rope was preparing for that Spirit which is to pour the
Spirit Self into man in anticipation of the epoch when
the Spiritual Soul shall be uplifted to receive the Spirit
Self in the sixth post Atlantean age which is to succeed
our own. We meet with this in a unique manner not
only in the creations of the Folk Souls who are as I have
just described them, but we find it remarkably antici-
pated in the diverse manifestations of Eastern Europe
and its culture.
It is most interesting to observe bow the Eastern Euro-
pean expresses his natural receptivity to pure Spirit by
assimilating Western European culture with great devo-
tion, thus looking forward prophetically to the time
when he will be able to unite something even greater
with his being. Hence also his limited interest in iso-
lated aspects of this Western European culture. He ab-
sorbs what is offered him more in broad outlines, ig-
noring the details, because he is preparing himself to
assimilate that which is to enter mankind as the Spirit
Self. It is particularly interesting to see how, under this
influence, it has been possible for Eastern Europe to de-
velop a much more advanced conception of the Christ
than Western Europe, except in those areas of the West
where the conception of the Christ has been intro-
duced by Spiritual Science. Amongst those who do not
accept the teachings of Spiritual Science the most ad-
vanced conception of Christ is that of the Russian
philosopher, Solovieff. His conception of Christ is such
that it can only be understood by students of Spiritual
Science because he lifts it to ever higher planes and re-
veals its infinite potentialities, showing that our under-
standing of Christ today is only a beginning, because
the Christ Impulse has only been able to reveal to
mankind a fraction of what it holds in store. But if we
look at the conception of Christ as presented by Hegel,
for example, we find that Hegel understood Him as
only the most refined, the most sublimated Spiritual
Soul could understand Him. But Solovieff's conception
of Christ is very different. He fully recognizes the dual
nature of this conception. He rejects the endless theo-
logical polemics which in reality rest upon deep misun-
derstandings, because ordinary conceptions are inade-
quate for an understanding of the dual nature of Christ,
and because they fail to develop in us any realization
that the two aspects, the Human and the Divine, must
be clearly distinguished. The concept of Christ rests
upon a clear realization of what took place when the
Christ Spirit entered into the man Jesus of Nazareth
who had already developed all the necessary attributes.
We must first of all understand the two natures of
Christ and the union of both at a higher stage. As long
as we have not grasped this duality, we have not un-
derstood the Christ in all His fullness. Only that philo-
sophical understanding can achieve this which foresees
that man himself will participate in a culture in which
his Spiritual Soul will be able to receive the Spirit Self,
so that in the sixth epoch of civilization man will feel
himself to be a duality in whom the higher nature will
curb the lower.
Solovieff carries this duality into his conception of
Christ and emphasizes that this conception can be
meaningful only if one accepts the existence of a divine
and human nature which can only be understood if one
recognizes that their cooperation is a reality, that they
form not an abstract, but an organic unity. Solovieff al-
ready recognizes that we must think of this Being as
possessing two centres of will. If you accept the teach-
ings of Spiritual Science concerning the true signifi-
cance of the Christ Being in their original form which
stemmed, not from an imaginary, but from a spiritually
real Indian influence, you will then have to think of
Christ as having developed in His three bodies the ca-
pacities of feeling, thinking and willing. It is a human
feeling, thinking and willing into which the Divine feel-
ing, thinking and willing descends. The European man
will only assimilate this completely when he has risen
to the sixth stage of civilization. This had been prophet-
ically expressed in Solovieff's anticipatory conception
of Christ which announces the dawn of a later civiliza-
tion. This philosophy of Eastern Europe therefore
reaches far beyond that of Hegel and Kant, and in the
presence of this philosophy one suddenly senses the
first stirrings of a later development. It is far in advance
because this conception of Christ is felt to be a
prophetic anticipation, the dawn of the sixth post-At-
lantean civilization. Consequently the whole Christ Be-
ing, the whole significance of Christ occupies a central
place in philosophy and thus becomes totally different
from the Western European conceptions of it. The con-
ception of Christ, in so far as it has been developed
outside Spiritual Science and is conceived as a living
substance, as a living spiritual entity which shall perme-
ate all social life and social institutions which is felt
as a Personality in whose service man finds himself as
man endowed with Spirit Self this Christ-Personal-
ity is portrayed in a wonderfully concrete manner in
Solovieff's various expositions of St. John's Gospel and
its opening words. Only if we stand upon the ground of
Spiritual Science can we comprehend Solovieff's pro-
found interpretation of the sentence, In the Beginning
was the Word or Logos, and how differently St. John's
Gospel is understood by a philosophy which in a re-
markable way anticipates the future.
If, on the one hand, Hegel's philosophy marks a high
point, something that is born out of the Spiritual Soul
as the highest philosophical achievement, this philoso-
phy of Solovieff, on the other hand, provides the seed
in the Spiritual Soul for the philosophy of the Spirit Self
which will be incorporated in the sixth cultural epoch.
There is perhaps no greater contrast than that emi-
nently Christian conception of the State which hovers
as a great ideal before Solovieff as a dream of the fu-
ture, that Christian conception of the social State which
takes everything implicit in that conception in order to
present it as an offering to the in-streaming Spirit Self,
in order to hold it up as an ideal of the future to be
Christianized by the powers of the future there is in-
deed no greater contrast than this idea of Solovieff's of
a Christian community in which the Christ conception
lies wholly in the future and the Divine State of St. Au-
gustine who accepts, it is true, the Christ idea, but
whose Divine State is simply the Roman State with
Christ incorporated in the Roman idea of the State.
What provides the knowledge for the emergent Chris-
tianity of the future is the decisive question. In Solovi-
eff's State Christ is the blood which circulates in the
body social, and the essential point is that the State is
envisaged as a concrete personality so that it will act as
a living spiritual entity, but at the same time will fulfil
its mission with all the idiosyncrasies of a personality.
No other philosophy is so deeply permeated by the
Christ idea the Christ idea which is anticipated in
Spiritual Science at a higher level and yet at the
same time has remained so long in the germinal stage.
Everything that we find in the East, from the make-up
of the people to its philosophy, appears to us as some-
thing which contains only the germinal beginning of a
future evolution and which, therefore, had also to sub-
mit to the special education of the Time Spirit of an-
cient Greece, the guiding Spirit of exoteric Christianity
who was entrusted with the mission of becoming later
on the Time Spirit for Europe. The make-up of this peo-
ple whose task will be to develop the seed of the sixth
culture-epoch had from the very beginning to be not
only educated, but nursed and nurtured by that Time
Spirit. And so we can literally say and here Father
concept and Mother concept lose their dual aspect
that the make-up of the Russian people which is des-
tined to evolve gradually into the Folk Soul, was not
only educated, but was nursed and nurtured by that
which as we have seen, had been developed out of the
old Greek Time Spirit and had then assumed externally
another rank.
Thus the various missions are distributed between
Western, Central, Northern and Eastern Europe. I
wished to give you an indication of these various mis-
sions. On the basis of these indications I propose to
add further observations and show what the Europe of
the future will be like, a future that will ensure that we
must form our ideals on the basis of such knowledge. I
propose to show how, through this influence, the Ger-
manic and Nordic Folk Spirit is gradually transformed
into a Time Spirit.
 LECTURE ELEVEN

Nerthus, Freyja and Gerda

Twilight of the Gods
Vidar and the new Revelation of Christ

In beginning this our last lecture I can assure you that

much still remains to be discussed and that in this
course of lectures we have touched only the fringe of
this subject which covers a wide field. I can only hope
that it will not be the last time that we shall speak to-
gether here on kindred subjects, and it must suffice if I
have introduced this subject with only the briefest indi-
cations, since detailed discussion at this present mo-
ment would otherwise create further complications.
Like a golden thread running through the last few lec-
tures was the idea that Teutonic mythology contains
something which, in imaginative form, is connected in
a remarkable way with the knowledge derived from the
spiritual research of our time. Now this is also one of
the reasons why we may hope that the Folk Spirit, the
Archangel, who directs and guides this country (Nor-
way) will imbue modern philosophy and modern spiri-
tual research with the capacities he has developed over
the centuries and that henceforth modern spiritual re-
search will be fertilized by uniting with the life-forces of
the entire people.
The further we penetrate into the details of Teutonic
mythology, the more we shall realize and this ap-
plies to no other mythology how wonderfully the
deepest occult truths are expressed in the symbols of
this mythology. Perhaps some of you who have read
my Occult Science an Outline or have heard other
lectures which I was able to give here will recall that
once upon a time in the course of Earth-evolution an
event occurred which we may describe as the descent
of those human souls who, in primeval times before
the old Lemurian epoch, for very special reasons rose
to other planets, to Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus and
Mercury, and that these souls in the late Lemurian
epoch and throughout the Atlantean epoch, after the
hardening forces of the Moon had left the Earth en-
deavoured to incarnate in human bodies whose capaci-
ties had gradually been developed and perfected under
Earth conditions. These Saturn-, Jupiter-, Mars-, Venus-,
and Mercury-souls then descended upon Earth and this
descent can still be verified today in the Akashic
Records. During the Atlantean epoch the air of Atlantis
was permeated with watery mists and through these
mists those on Earth beheld with the old Atlantean
clairvoyance the descent of these souls out of the Cos-
mos. Whenever new beings descended from spiritual
heights into the still soft, plastic and pliant bodies of
that time, this was understood to be the external mani-
festation of souls descending out of the Cosmos, out of
the atmosphere, out of planetary spheres, in order to
incarnate in earthly bodies.
These earthly bodies were fructified by that which
poured down from spiritual heights. The memory of
this event has survived in the imaginative conceptions
of Teutonic mythology and has persisted so long that it
was still extant amongst the Southern Germanic peo-
ples at the time when Tacitus wrote his Germania.
No one will understand the account Tacitus gives of the
Goddess Nerthus unless he realizes that this event ac-
tually took place. [Chapter 40 of Germania. See also
the lecture given by Rudolf Steiner in Basle,
12.xii.1916, entitled Christmas at a Time of Grievous
Destiny. Lecture IV in The Festivals and their Meaning.
Vol. 1. Christmas. (Rudolf Steiner Press).] He relates
that the chariot of the Goddess Nerthus was driven
over the waters. Later on this survived as a solemn rit-
ual; formerly it had been a matter of actual vision. This
Goddess offered the human bodies that were suitable
to the human souls descending from the planetary
spheres. That is the mystery underlying the Nerthus
myth and it has survived in all that has come down to
us in the older sagas and legends which give intima-
tions of the birth of physical man. Njordr who is inti-
mately related to the Goddess Nerthus is her masculine
counterpart. He is said to represent the primeval mem-
ory of the descent of the psycho-spiritual beings who in
olden time had risen to planetary heights and who, dur-
ing the Atlantean epoch, had come back and incarnated
in human bodies.
In my pamphlet, The Occult Significance of Blood,
you can read how miscegenation and contact between
different peoples have played a significant role at cer-
tain periods. Now not only the mixture of peoples and
their interrelationships which led to the introduction of
foreign blood, but also the psychic and spiritual devel-
opment of the Folk Spirits have played a decisive part.
The vision of that descent has been preserved in the
greatest purity in those sagas which arose in former
times in these Northern regions. Hence in the Sagas of
the Vanir you can still find one of the oldest recollec-
tions of this descent. Especially here in the North, the
Finnish tradition still preserves a living memory of this
union of the soul-and-spirit which descended from
planetary spheres with that which springs out of the
body of the Earth and which Northern tradition knows
as Riesenheim (Home of the Giants). That which devel-
oped out of the body of the Earth belongs to Riesen-
heim. We realize, therefore, that Nordic man was al-
ways aware of spiritual impulses, that he felt within his
gradually evolving soul the workings of this old vision
of the Gods which was still natural to man here when,
in those ancient times, the watery mists of Atlantis still
covered the region. Nordic man felt within him some
spark of a God who was directly descended from those
divine-spiritual Beings, those Archangels who directed
the union of soul-and-spirit with the terrestrial and
physical. People believed and felt that the God Freyr
and his sister Freyja who were once upon a time spe-
cially favoured Gods of the North, had originally been
those angelic Beings who had poured into the human
soul all that this soul required in order to develop fur-
ther upon the physical plane those old forces which
they (the people) had received through their clairvoyant
capacities. Within the physical world, the world limited
to the external senses, Freyr was the continuer of all
that had hitherto been received in a clairvoyant form.
He was the living continuation of forces clairvoyantly
received. He had therefore to unite with the physical-
corporeal instruments existing in the human body itself
for the use of these soul-forces, which then transmit to
the physical plane what had been perceived in primeval
clairvoyance. This is reflected in the marriage of Freyr
with Gerda, the Giant's daughter. She is born out of the
physical forces of earthly evolution itself. The descent
of the divinespiritual into the physical is still mirrored
in these mythological symbols. The figure of Freyr por-
trays in a remarkable way how Freyr makes use of that
which enables man to manifest on the physical plane
that for which he has been prepared through his earlier
clairvoyance. The name of his horse is Bluthuf, indicat-
ing that the blood is an essential factor in the develop-
ment of the I. A remarkable magic ship is placed at his
disposal. It could span the sky or be folded up to fit
into a tiny box. What is this magic ship? If Freyr is the
power which transmits clairvoyant forces to the physi-
cal plane, then this magic ship is something peculiarly
his own: it symbolizes the alternation of the soul in day
and night. just as the human soul during sleep and until
the moment of waking spreads out over the Macro-
cosm, so too the magic ship spreads its sails and is
then folded up again into the cerebral folds to be
stowed away in that tiny box the human skull. You
will find all this portrayed in a wonderful way in the
mythological figures of Teutonic mythology.
Those of you who probe more deeply into these mat-
ters will be gradually convinced that what has been im-
planted, injected into the mind and soul of this North-
ern people by means of these symbols or pictures is no
flight of fancy, but actually stems from the Mystery
Schools. Thus in the guiding Archangel or Folk Spirit of
the North, much of the old education through clairvoy-
ant perception has survived, much of that which may
unfold in a soul which, in the course of its development
on the physical plane, is associated with clairvoyant de-
velopment.
Although not apparent from the external point of view
today, the Archangel of the Germanic North had within
him this tendency, and thanks to this tendency he is
particularly fitted to understand modern Spiritual Sci-
ence and to transform it in the appropriate manner to
satisfy the inherent potentialities of the people. You will
therefore appreciate why I have said that the soul of the
Germanic peoples in particular is best fitted to under-
stand what I could only indicate briefly in the public
lecture which I gave here on the Second Coming of
Christ.
Spiritual research today shows us that after Kali Yuga
has run its course (which lasted for 5,000 years, ap-
proximately from 3,100 BC to AD 1,899) new capaci-
ties will appear in the isolated few who are specially fit-
ted to receive them. A time will come when individuals
will be able, through the natural development of the
new clairvoyance, to perceive something of what is an-
nounced only by Spiritual Science or spiritual research.
We are told that in the course of the next centuries, in-
creasing numbers of people will be found in whom the
organs of the etheric body are so far developed that
they will attain to clairvoyance, which today can only
be acquired through training. How are we to account
for this? What will be the nature of the, etheric body in
those few who develop clairvoyance? There will be
some who will receive clairvoyant impressions, and I
should like to describe to you a typical example. A man
performs some act and at the same time feels himself
impelled to observe something. A sort of dream vision
arises in him which at first he does not understand. But
if he has heard of Karma, of how world-events conform
to law, he will then realize, little by little, that what he
has seen is the karmic counterpart of his present deeds
made visible in the etheric world. Thus the first ele-
ments of future capacities are gradually developed.
Those who are open to the stimulus of Spiritual Sci-
ence will, from the middle of the twentieth century on,
gradually experience a renewal of that which St. Paul
saw in etheric clairvoyance as a mystery to come, the
Mystery of the Living Christ. There will be a new man-
ifestation of Christ, a manifestation which must come
when human capacities develop naturally to the point
when the Christ can be seen in the world in which He
has always been present since the Mystery of Golgotha
and in which He can also be experienced by the Initi-
ate. Mankind is gradually growing into that world in or-
der to be able to perceive from the physical plane that
which formerly could be perceived only in the Mystery
Schools from the perspective of the higher planes.
Nevertheless, occult training is still a necessity. It al-
ways presents things in a different light to those who
have not undergone occult training. But occult training
will, by the transformation of the physical body, show
the Mystery of the Living Christ in a new way as it
will be able to be seen etherically from the perspective
of the physical plane by a few isolated individuals at
first, and later by increasing numbers of people in the
course of the next three thousand years. The Living
Christ perceived by St. Paul, the Christ who is to be
found in the etheric world since the Mystery of Golgo-
tha, will be seen by an ever-increasing number of peo-
ple.
The manifestations of the Christ will be experienced
by man at ever-higher levels. That is the mystery of the
evolution of Christ. At the time of the Mystery of Gol-
gotha it was intended that man should comprehend ev-
erything from the perspective of the physical plane. It
was therefore necessary that he should be able to see
Christ on the physical plane, to receive tidings of Him
and to bear witness to His dominion on that plane. But
mankind is designed to progress and to develop higher
powers. He who believes that the manifestation of
Christ will be repeated in the form which was valid
nineteen hundred years ago can have little understand-
ing of the development of mankind. The manifestation
of Christ took place on the physical plane because, at
that time, the forces of man were adapted to the physi-
cal plane. But those forces will evolve, and in the
course of the next three thousand years Christ will be
increasingly understood by the more highly developed
souls on Earth.
What I have just said is a truth which has long been
communicated to a select few from within the esoteric
schools and it is a truth that today must pervade the
teachings of Spiritual Science in particular, because
Spiritual Science is intended to be a preparation for that
which is to come. Mankind is now ready for freedom
and self-knowledge and it is highly probable that those
who proclaim themselves to be the pioneers of the
Christ-vision will be denounced as fools on account of
their message to mankind. It is possible for mankind to
sink still deeper into materialism and to spurn that
which could become a most valuable revelation for
mankind. Everything that may happen in the future is to
a certain extent subject to man's volition; consequently
he may miss what is intended for his salvation. It is ex-
tremely important to realize that Spiritual Science is a
preparation for the new Christ-revelation.
 Materialism holds a twofold danger. The one which
probably stems from the traditions of the West, is that
everything that the first pioneers of the new Christ-rev-
elation will announce in the twentieth century from out
of their own vision will be dismissed as a figment of the
imagination, as the height of folly. Today materialism
has invaded all spheres. It is not only ingrained in the
West, but has also invaded the East. There, however, it
assumes another form. One consequence of oriental
materialism might well be that mankind will fail to rec-
ognize the higher aspects of the Christ-revelation. And
then will follow what I have often spoken of here, and
which I must repeat again and again, namely, that ma-
terialistic thinking will have a purely materialistic con-
ception of the manifestation of Christ. It might well be
that, under the influence of spiritual-scientific truths,
people might venture to speak of a future manifestation
of Christ and yet believe that He will appear in a physi-
cal body. The result would simply be another form of
materialism, a continuation of what has already existed
for centuries.
People have always exploited this false materialism.
Indeed certain individuals declared themselves to be
the new Messiah. The last well-known case occurred in
the seventeenth century, when a man called Sabbatai
Zevi of Smyrna announced that he was the new Mes-
siah. He made a great stir. Not only those who lived in
his immediate environment made pilgrimages to visit
him, but also people from Hungary, Poland, Germany,
France, Italy and North Africa. Everywhere Sabbatai
Zevi was regarded as the physical incarnation of a Mes-
siah. I do not propose to relate the human tragedy that
befell the personality of Sabbatai. In the seventeenth
century no great harm was done. At that time man was
not really a free agent, although he could recognize in-
tuitively which was a kind of spiritual feeling
what was the truth. But in the twentieth century it
would be a great misfortune if, under the pressure of
materialism, the manifestation of Christ were to be
taken in a materialistic sense, implying that one must
look for His return in a physical body. This would only
prove that mankind had not acquired any perception
of, or insight into the real progress of human evolution
towards a higher spirituality.
False Messiahs will inevitably appear and, thanks to
the materialism of our time, they will find popular
favour like Sabbatai in the seventeenth century. It will
be a severe test for those who have been prepared by
Spiritual Science to recognize where the truth lies, to
know whether the spiritual theories are really perme-
ated by a living, spiritual feeling or whether they are
only a disguised form of materialism. It will be a test of
the further development of Spiritual Science whether
Spiritual Science will develop a sufficient number of
people who are able to understand that they must per-
ceive the spirit in the spirit, that they must seek the
new manifestation of Christ in the etheric world, or
whether they will refuse to look beyond the physical
plane and expect to see a manifestation of Christ in the
physical body. Spiritual Science has yet to undergo this
test. There is no doubt that nowhere has the ground
been better prepared to recognize the truth on this very
subject than in Scandinavia where the Northern
mythology flourished.
The twilight of the Gods embraces a significant vision
of the future, and I now come to a theme which I have
already touched upon. I have already told you that in a
folk community which has so recently left its clairvoy-
ant past behind it, a clairvoyant sense is also developed
in its guiding Folk Spirit in order that the newfound
clairvoyance can again be understood. Now if a people
experiences the new epoch with new human capacities
in the region where Teutonic mythology flourished,
then this people must realize that the old clairvoyance
must assume a different form after man has undergone
development on the physical plane. The old clairvoy-
ance was temporarily silenced; man lost for a while the
vision of the world of Odin and Thor, of Baldur and Ho-
dur, of Freyr and Freyja. But this world will return again
in an epoch when other forces meanwhile have been at
work upon the human soul. When man gazes out into
the new world with the new etheric clairvoyance he
will realize that the forces of the old Gods no longer
avail. If the old forces were to persist, then the counter-
forces would range themselves against that force
whose function in olden times was to develop man's
capacities to a certain level. Odin and Thor will be visi-
ble again, but now in a new form. All the forces op-
posed to Odin and Thor, everything which has devel-
oped as a counter-force will once again be visible in a
mighty tableau. But the human soul would not
progress; it would not be able to resist injurious influ-
ences if it were subject solely to the forces known to
the old clairvoyance. Once upon a time Thor endowed
man with an ego. This ego has been developed on the
physical plane, has evolved out of the Midgard Snake
which Loki, the Luciferic power, has left behind in the
astral body. That which Thor was once able to give and
which the human soul transcends, is in conflict with
that which proceeds from the Midgard Snake. This is
depicted in Nordic mythology as the conflict between
Thor and the Midgard Snake. They are evenly matched,
neither can prevail. In the same way Odin wrestles with
the Fenris Wolf and does not prevail. [On the day of
Ragnarok (the Twilight of the Gods) Odin is swallowed
up by the Fenris Wolf. For the relation between Odin
and the Fenris Wolf, see Appendix.] Freyr, who, for a
time, moulded the human soul-forces, had to succumb
to that which had been given from out of the Earth
forces themselves to the I, which meanwhile had been
developed on the physical plane. Freyr was overcome
by the flaming sword of Earth-born Surtur.
All these details which are set down in the Twilight of
the Gods will find their counterpart in a new etheric vi-
sion which in reality points to the future. But the Fen-
ris Wolf, symbol of the relics of the old clairvoyance,
will live on in the future. There is a very deep truth con-
cealed in the fact that the struggle between the Fenris
Wolf and Odin still persists. There will be no greater
danger than the tendency to cling to the old clairvoy-
ance which has not been permeated with the new
forces, a danger which might tempt man to remain
content with the manifestations of the old astral clair-
voyance of primeval times, such as the soul pictures of
the Fenris Wolf. It would again be a severe trial for the
future prospects of Spiritual Science, if, perhaps in the
domain of Spiritual Science itself, there should arise a
tendency to all sorts of confused, chaotic clairvoyance,
an inclination to value clairvoyance illuminated by rea-
son and spiritual knowledge less highly than the old,
chaotic clairvoyance which is denied this prerogative.
These dark and confusing relics of the old clairvoyance
would wreck a terrible vengeance. Such clairvoyance
cannot be challenged by that which itself stemmed
from the old clairvoyant gift, but only by that which,
during the period of Kali Yuga, has matured in a healthy
way in order to give birth to a new clairvoyance. The
power given by the old Archangel Odin, the old clair-
voyant powers, cannot save man; something very dif-
ferent must supplant them. These future powers how-
ever, are known to Teutonic mythology; it is fully aware
of their existence. It knows that the etheric form exists
in which shall be embodied what we are now to see
again Christ in etheric form. He alone will succeed
in banishing the dark and impure clairvoyant powers
which would confuse mankind if Odin should not suc-
ceed in overcoming the Fenris Wolf which symbolizes
the atavistic clairvoyance. Vidar who has been silent
until now will overcome the Fenris Wolf. We learn of
this too in the Twilight of the Gods.
Whoever recognizes the significance of Vidar and
feels him in his soul, will find that in the twentieth cen-
tury the power to see the Christ can be given to man
again. Vidar who is part of the heritage of Northern and
Central Europe will again be visible to man. He was
held secret in the Mysteries and occult schools the
God who should await his future mission. Only vague
intimations of his image have been given. This may be
seen from the fact that a picture has been found in the
vicinity of Cologne and no one knows whom it repre-
sents. But it is clearly a likeness of Vidar.
Throughout the period of Kali Yuga were acquired the
powers which shall enable the new men to see the new
manifestations of Christ. Those who are called upon to
interpret from the signs of the times what is to come
are aware that the new spiritual investigation will re-es-
tablish the power of Vidar who will banish from the
hearts and minds of men all the dark and confusing
relics of the old clairvoyance and will awaken in the hu-
man soul the new clairvoyance that is gradually unfold-
ing.
When the wondrous figure of Vidar shines forth to us
out of the Twilight of the Gods we realize that Teutonic
mythology gives promise of future hope. We feel our-
selves to be inwardly related to the figure of Vidar, the
deeper aspects of whose being we are now striving to
understand. We hope that those forces which the
Archangel of the Teutonic world can contribute to the
evolution of modern times will be able to provide the
core and living essence of Spiritual Science. One part
only of the development of mankind and the spirit
one part of a greater whole has been realized for the
fifth post-Atlantean epoch; another part has yet to be
accomplished. Those members of the Nordic peoples
who feel within them the elemental and vital energies
of a young people will best be able to contribute to this
development. This will to some extent be implanted in
the souls of men; but they themselves must be pre-
pared to make a conscious effort. In the twentieth cen-
tury one may fall by the wayside because man must to
a certain extent have free choice in determining his goal
which must not be pre-determined. It is therefore a
question of having a proper understanding of the goal
ahead. If, then, Spiritual Science reflects the knowledge
of the Christ Being, and if we start from a true under-
standing of this Being whom we look for in the very
core of the European peoples themselves, if we set our
future hopes on this understanding, then we shall not
be motivated by any kind of personal predilection or
temperamental predisposition.
It has sometimes been said that the name we give to
the greatest Being in the evolution of mankind is of no
consequence. He who recognizes the Christ Being will
not insist on retaining the name of Christ. If we under-
stand the Christ Impulse in the right way we would
never say: a Being plays a part in the evolution of
mankind, in the life of the peoples of the West and the
East and this Being must conform to man's predilec-
tions for a particular truth. Such an attitude is not com-
patible with the teachings of occultism. What is com-
patible with occult teachings is that the moment one
recognizes that this Being should be given the name of
Buddha, we should unhesitatingly abide by our deci-
sion irrespective of whether we agree with it or not.
Fundamentally it is not a question of sympathy or an-
tipathy, but of the factual truth.
The moment the facts are open to other interpreta-
tions we should be prepared to act differently. Facts
and facts alone must decide. We have no wish to intro-
duce Orientalism and Occidentalism into what we look
upon as the life-blood of Spiritual Science; if we should
discover in the realm of the Nordic and Germanic
Archangels a source of potential nourishment for true
Spiritual Science, then this will not be the prerogative
of a particular people or tribe in the Germanic coun-
tries, but of the whole of humanity. What is given to all
mankind must be given; it may, it is true, originate in a
particular region, but it must be given to the whole of
humanity. We do not differentiate between East and
West. We accept with deep gratitude the surpassing
grandeur of the primeval culture of the holy Rishis in its
true form. We accept with gratitude the Persian culture,
the Egypto-Chaldean and Graeco-Latin cultures, and
with the same objectivity we also accept the cultural
heritage of Europe. We are compelled by the needs of
the situation to present the facts as they really are.
If we incorporate the total contributions which each
religion has made to the civilizing process of mankind
into what we recognize to be the common property of
mankind, then the more we do this, the more we are
acting in accordance with the Christ principle. Since
this principle is capable of further development we
must abandon the dogmatic interpretation of the early
centuries and millennia when the initial stages of the
Christ principle were only imperfectly understood. We
do not look to the past for future guidance. We do not
seek to perpetuate the Christ of the past; we are chiefly
concerned with what can be investigated by means of
spiritual perception. To us the essential element in the
Christ-principle does not belong to the past however
much tradition may insist upon this but to the fu-
ture. We endeavour to ascertain what is to come. We
do not rely so much on historical tradition which was
fundamental to the Christ Impulse at the beginning of
the Christian era; we do not attach much importance to
the external and historical approach. After Christianity
has passed through its growing pains, it will develop
further. It has gone forth into foreign lands and sought
to convert the people to the particular Christian dog-
mas of the age. But we profess a Christianity which
proclaims that Christ was active in all ages and that we
shall find Him where so ever we go, that the Christ-
principle is the highest expression of Anthroposophy.
And if Buddhism acknowledges as Buddhists only those
who swear by Buddha, then Christianity will be the
faith that swears by no prophet because it is not sub-
ject to a religious Founder attached to a particular peo-
ple, but recognizes the God of all mankind.
Every Christian knows that the focal point of Chris-
tianity is a Mystery which became manifest on the
physical plane at Golgotha. It is the perception of this
Mystery which leads to the new vision I have de-
scribed. We may also be aware that the spiritual life at
the time of the Mystery of Golgotha was such that the
Mystery could only be experienced in the form it was
experienced at that time. We refuse to submit to dog-
mas, even those of a Christian past. If a dogma should
be imposed upon us, irrespective of its source, we
would reject it in the name of the true Christ-principle.
However many may try to force the historical Christ
into the Procrustean bed of a confessional creed, how-
ever many may declare that our vision of the future
Christ is mistaken, we shall not allow ourselves to be
led astray when they declare that He must be after this
or that fashion, even when it comes from the lips of
those who ought to know who Christ is. Equally, the
idea of the Christ Being should not be limited or cir-
cumscribed by Eastern traditions, nor be coloured by
the dogmas of Oriental dogmatism. What is taught out
of the true sources of occultism concerning the evolu-
tion of the future must be free and independent of all
tradition and authority.
It is a source of wonder to me how much agreement
there is amongst the people assembled here. Those,
not of Norse extraction, who have come here, have re-
peatedly said to me in the last few days how free they
feel in their relations with the people of the Scandina-
vian North. It is proof, if proof were needed, that we
are able, though some may not be conscious of it, to
understand each other at the deepest levels of spiritual
knowledge and that we shall understand each other,
especially in those matters I emphasized at the last
Theosophical Congress in Budapest and which I re-
peated during our own General Meeting in Berlin when
we had the great pleasure of seeing friends from Nor-
way amongst us. It would be disastrous for Spiritual
Science if he who cannot yet see into the spiritual
world were obliged to accept in blind faith what he is
told. I beg of you now, as I begged of you in Berlin,
never to accept on authority or on faith anything I have
said or shall say. Even before one has reached the stage
of clairvoyance it is possible to test the results of clair-
voyant vision. I beg of you not to accept as an article of
faith whatever I have said about Zarathustra and Jesus
of Nazareth, about Hermes and Moses, Odin and Thor,
and about Christ Jesus Himself, nor to accept my state-
ments as authoritative. I beseech you to abjure the
principle of authority, for that principle would be dele-
terious to our Movement.
I am sure, however, that when you begin to reflect
objectively, when you say, We have been told so and
so; let us investigate the records accessible to us, the
religious and mythological documents, let us check the
statements of the natural scientists, you will realize
how right I am. Avail yourselves of every means at your
disposal, the more the better. I have no qualms. All that
is given out of Rosicrucian sources can be tested in ev-
ery way. Armed with the most materialistic criticism of
the Gospels, verify what I have said about Christ Jesus;
verify it as thoroughly as possible by all the means at
your command on the physical plane. I am convinced
that the more thoroughly you test it, the more you will
find that what has been given out of the sources Of the
Rosicrucian Mystery will correspond to the truth.
I take it for granted that the communications given
out from Rosicrucian sources will be tested rather than
believed, tested not superficially by the superficial
methods of modern science, but ever more conscien-
tiously. Take the latest achievements of natural science
with its Most recent techniques, take the results of his-
torical and religious research, it is all one to me. The
more you test them, the more you will find them con-
firmed from this source. You must accept nothing on
authority. The best students of Spiritual Science are
those who take what is said as a stimulus in the first
place and test it by the facts of life itself. For in life too,
at every stage of life, you can test what is given out
from the sources of Rosicrucianism. It is far from my
intention in these lectures to lay down dogmas and
claim that the facts are such and such and must be be-
lieved. Verify them by an exchange of views with peo-
ple of able and active mind and you will find confirma-
tion of what has been said as a prophetic indication of
the future manifestation of Christ. You need only open
your eyes and verify it objectively; we make no appeal
to belief in authority. This need to test everything re-
ceived from Spiritual Science should become a kind of
basic attitude permeating our whole approach.
I should like to impress upon you, therefore, that it is
not anthroposophical to accept a statement as dogma
on the authority of this or that person; but it is truly an-
throposophical to allow oneself to be stimulated by
Spiritual Science and to verify what is communicated
by life itself. Then, whatever Might colour in any way a
truly anthroposophical view will cease to exist. Neither
Eastern nor Western predilections must be allowed to
colour our view. He who speaks from the point of view
of Rosicrucianism accepts neither Orientalism nor Oc-
cidentalism; both appeal to him equally. The inner na-
ture of the facts alone determine their truth. He must
bear this in mind, especially at such an important mo-
ment as this when we have indicated the Folk Spirit
who rules over the Northern lands. Here dwells the
Teutonic mythological Spirit; even though his presence
is not felt, his influence is more widely diffused in Eu-
rope than one imagines. If a conflict were to arise be-
tween the peoples of the North it could not arise be-
cause one people disputed the contributions to the
common weal. Each people must practice self-knowl-
edge and ask itself: how can I best contribute to the
common weal? Then, that which leads to the collective
progress of all, to the common welfare of mankind, will
be harvested. The sources of what we are able to con-
tribute lie in our individual characteristics. The Teutonic
Archangel will bring to the whole field of culture in the
future what he is most fitted for in accordance with the
capacities he has acquired which we have already out-
lined. By virtue of this inherent power he is able to en-
sure that what could not yet be presented in the first
half of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch may play its part
in the second half, namely, that spiritual element which
we were able to recognize in a germinal, prophetic
form in the Slav philosophy and in the national senti-
ment of the Slavonic peoples. This preparatory stage
lasted for the first half of the fifth post-Atlantean age. At
first, all that could be achieved by way of philosophy
was a highly sublimated spiritual perception. This must
then be grasped and permeated by the vital energies of
the people so that it may become the common prop-
erty of all mankind and may be realized in all aspects of
our earthly life. Let us try to come to an understanding
on this subject, for then this somewhat dangerous
theme will have caused no great harm if all who are as-
sembled here from the North, South, East, West and
Centre of Europe feel that this theme is really important
for the whole of humanity, that the larger nations no
less than the smaller isolated groups have each their
appointed mission and have to contribute their share to
the whole. Often the smallest national fragments have
most important contributions to make because it is
given to them to preserve and nurture old and new mo-
tifs in the soul-life. Thus, even though we have made
this dangerous topic the subject of our lectures, it will
serve to foster the basic sentiment of a community of
soul amongst all those who are united under the ban-
ner of Anthroposophical thought and feeling and of An-
throposophical ideals.
Only if we should still react out of sympathy and an-
tipathy, if we have no clear understanding of the
essence of our Anthroposophical Movement, could
misunderstandings arise from what has been said. But
if we have grasped the underlying spirit of these lec-
tures, then the ideas presented may also help us to
make the firm resolution to harbour the high ideal
each from his own standpoint and from his own back-
ground to contribute to the common goal that which
is inherent in our mission. We can best achieve this
through our individual initiative and our natural predis-
position. We can best serve mankind if we develop our
particular talents so as to offer them to the whole of
humanity as a sacrifice which we bring to the progres-
sive development of culture. We must learn to under-
stand this. We must learn to understand that it would
not redound to the credit of Spiritual Science, if it did
not contribute to the evolution of man, Angel and
Archangel, but were to support the convictions of one
people at the expense of another. It is no part of Spiri-
tual Science to assist in imposing the confessional be-
liefs of one continent upon another continent. If the re-
ligious teachings of the East were to prevail in the
West, or vice versa, that would be a complete denial of
Anthroposophical teaching. What alone accords with
Anthroposophical teaching is that we should unselfishly
dedicate the best that is in us, our sympathy and com-
passion, to the well being of all mankind. And if we are
self-contained, and live, not for ourselves but for all
men, then that is true Anthroposophical tolerance. I
had to add these words by way of explanation for this
somewhat delicate subject might otherwise offend na-
tional susceptibilities.
Spiritual Science, as we shall realize more and more
clearly, will bring an end to the divisions of mankind.
Therefore now is the right moment to learn to know
the Folk Souls, because the province of Spiritual Sci-
ence is not to promote antagonism between them, but
to call upon them to work in harmonious cooperation.
The better we understand this, the better students of
Spiritual Science we shall be. On this note we shall end
for the time being the course of lectures given here. For
the knowledge we gather must ultimately find an echo
in our feelings and our thinking and in the Anthropo-
sophical goal we set before us. The more we practice
this in our lives, the better Anthroposophists we are.
I have found that many of those who have accompa-
nied us to Oslo have received a most favourable im-
pression which they hasten to express in the words,
how much at home we feel here in the North! And if
higher spiritual forces are to be awakened in mankind,
which we shall certainly see realized in the future, then
to use the words of Vidar, the Aesir who has been
silent until now, he will become the active friend of co-
operative work, of cooperative endeavour, for which
purpose we have all assembled here. With this object
in view let us take leave of one another after having
been together for a few days, and let us always remain
together in spirit with this intention. Irrespective of
where we students of Spiritual Science come from,
whether from near or far, may we always meet to-
gether in harmony, even when we discuss amongst
ourselves the particular characteristics of the peoples
inhabiting the various countries of the Earth. We know
that these are only the several tongues of flame which
will mount together into the mighty flame upon the al-
tar the united progress of mankind through the
Anthroposophical view of life which lies so close to our
hearts and is so deeply rooted in our souls.
 APPENDIX by translator

(See Lectures Eight and Eleven)

Odin
Odin's sacrifice of higher rank becomes transformed
into a higher power he becomes lord of the runes,
the creator of language. In the language of the Myster-
ies this renunciation is described as the sacrifice of
Odin's eye at the fount of Mimir. This eye is the clair-
voyant eye which, as pineal gland, lost its function in
the course of evolution. At the same time this sacrifice
prepares the development of independence and free-
dom, for only by serving his intimate relationship with
the Gods is man able to stand foursquare upon the
Earth and become self-reliant.

Odin and the Fenris Wolf

(a) The prose Edda recounts the destiny of the three
children of Loki: the Midgard Snake, the Fenris Wolf
and Hel. Odin flung the Midgard Snake into the ocean,
consigned Hel to Niflheim and kept the Fenris Wolf to
himself. At the Twilight of the Gods the Wolf was des-
tined ultimately to destroy him. The Ahrimanic forces
which feed upon the living substance of the etheric
body are portrayed in the figure of the Fenris Wolf. And
because it threatened danger to the Aesir they bound it
with a silken ribbon to a rock. (They were unwilling to
kill the Wolf in order to avoid polluting the sanctuary
with blood.)
(b) The original language of Atlantis was a unity. It
was the creation of Odin with the formative forces of
the laryngeal organism. Through the alliance of Odin
and Loki, Ahrimanic forces entered into the etheric
body and the organism of speech. The power of Ahri-
man (present in the undivided, primal language of At-
lantis) perished after the Atlantean catastrophe this
is the Fenris Wolf of Nordic tradition. Wherever human
speech or language becomes a means of concealing the
spiritual world or denying its reality, we find the influ-
ence of the Fenris Wolf. Where the word describes
only sensible phenomena or physical facts to the exclu-
sion of supersensible or spiritual facts, Odin has suc-
cumbed to the Fenris Wolf. Ahrimanic influences grad-
ually blunt the response of the etheric body. It loses its
former receptivity to life processes: this is reflected in
the shifting of consonants in the Indo-European lan-
guages (Grimm's Law). On the one hand, new ele-
ments are added, on the other, articulation becomes
more indefinite, more insensitive; symptoms of paraly-
sis set in amalgamations, loss or disappearance of
certain vowels and consonants. The original language
which was a unity is split up into diverse tongues, into
dialects. Here is seen the influence of the Fenris Wolf.
Through the Fenris Wolf death enters into the organism
of language dead languages, e.g. Latin, have there-
fore become victims of the Fenris Wolf.

Odin and Thor

Thor is the son of Odin. Whilst the power of Odin is
present in respiration and language, Thor works in the
blood, in the rhythmic pulse-beat. Blood is the physical
expression of the ego in the metabolic system. Thor is
portrayed in the sagas as a choleric with red blood,
quick to anger, ever ready to wield his hammer Mjolnir
and endowed with a powerful will. Odin's sphere of ac-
tivity is the astral body, that of Thor the etheric body.
The alliterative verse of Old Norse (the poetic Edda),
Old English (Beowulf), Old Saxon (Heliand) and Old
High German (Hildebrandslied) is based on two rhyth-
mic laws the rhythm of respiration and the rhythm
of blood. A single breath corresponds to four pulse
beats (eighteen and seventy-two to the minute respec-
tively). This ratio of 1:4 is found in the long line which
consisted of two half verses separated by a caesura.
Each hemistich had two strongly accented syllables.
Thus in the form and law of alliterative verse is re-
flected the relationship of Odin and Thor. The Voluspa
was written in this metre known as Fornyrthislag.

This whole subject is treated in detail in Chapters IX

and X of Ernst Uehli's Nordisch-Germanische Mytholo-
gie als Mysteriengeschichte (Rudolf Geering Verlag,
Basel 1926) to which I am indebted for many of the
above suggestions.
 Relevant Literature

List of literature

By Rudolf Steiner
Occult Science an Outline (1962/3 edition)
Theosophy
Cosmic Memory: Prehistory of Earth and Man
Knowledge of the Higher Worlds. How is it
achieved?
Christianity as mystical Fact

Lecture Courses
Genesis: Secrets of the Bible Story of Creation
(10 lectures)
True and False Paths in Spiritual Investigation
(11 lectures)
Inner Realities of Evolution (5 lectures)
The Spiritual Hierarchies and their Reflection in
the physical World (10 lectures)
Supersensible Influences in the History of
Mankind (6 lectures)
Wonders of the World, Ordeals of the Soul, Rev-
elations of the Spirit (10 lectures)
Man in the Light of Occultism, Theosophy and
Philosophy (10 lectures)

Man as Symphony of the Creative Word (10 lec-
tures)
Occult History: Personalities and Events in
World History in the light of Spiritual Science (6 lec-
tures)
Macrocosm and Microcosm (11 lectures)
World History in the light of Anthroposophy (8
lectures)
The True Nature of the Second Coming (2 lec-
tures)