Introduction to the Basics of Theosophy

GA 111 — 27 September 1907, Hanover

VII. The Development of Humanity through the Cultural Epochs

In those days, when the earth and moon were still together, in the time of fiery gases, all water was still dissolved in steam, it was a smoke of all substances.

Those physical bodies into which the souls had moved were not like today's humans and animals. They would appear grotesque to us; the physical bodies were formed by the soul entering them. It is of great importance that the lungs form when the soul enters. Until then, the beings moved by floating and swimming in the air. During the cooling period, the swim bladder transforms into lungs; they formed when the soul entered.

This transformation enabled blood to be formed. The I was able to couple with the human being. These conditions do not occur quickly; millions of years are necessary for this. The ability to breathe through the lungs and the descent of the souls into the bodies is wonderfully expressed in the Bible: God breathed the breath of life into man, and he became a living soul.

Thus, through theosophy, the profound truths in the religions emerge, compelling people to respect the tremendous facts in the development of mankind. This worship of the supernatural remained until about the fourteenth century, until Christianity became materialistic. It is not at all Christian to understand the spiritual essence of Christianity in its spiritual form in an abstract, dry way through the research of theology, geology and so on. It is genuinely Christian to express the great events in cosmology as Moses did in the past: “Adam fell into a deep sleep!” This means: Adam saw clearly the development on the astral plane. It is presented as a symbol that he clairvoyantly perceived on the astral plane how the [gill-breathing] being was transformed into a lung-breathing being through the self.

The migratory instinct on the moon was related to the mating and rutting season. Reproduction took place on its sunny side, and the interim period was spent on the other side.

The animal-men, who were the highest lunar beings, had not yet attained a degree of love; love, which descends from the highest level to the plant world, had not yet gained any strength on the moon. Everything was strictly regulated by cosmic forces; wisdom was the guiding principle. With the advent of the astral body, humans descended to a lower level, and with that, love began. The moon is the planet of wisdom, the earth the planet of love.

The wisdom-filled structure of the body developed mainly on the moon; at the end of the earth, love will be the motto. When we see the wonderful plant formations and the wisdom-filled structure of the human being, we find everything permeated by love. In the human being, it first reveals itself in the blood relationship of the ancient Atlanteans, and then develops into the compassion of brotherly love. From the coarsest forms of sexuality to the finest soul bonds, all beings are entwined in the bond of love. The transition from wisdom to love is a great step forward.

Mankind owes the gradual infusion of love to the high solar beings, who already possessed all parts of the spirit and whose progress had reached its peak. Yahweh lowers the ego; he is the bringer and giver of love, through whom a unified bond is created; it is a mutual giving and taking that furthers the soul in love.

There were also beings between gods and humans, only a part reached the Atma level. Many remained at the Budha level, while humans developed the beginning of Manas.

The Atma gods, the sun beings, wanted to imprint love on people, while the moon gods wanted to imprint wisdom on them. The important role that blood love played at the beginning of the Lemurian period approached people. Because the Hebrews felt that they were related by blood, they were able to base their legislation on it.

Love brings people together. They form larger and more comprehensive communities. The moon gods create an important counteraction. Freedom, individuality would have disappeared, people would have merged into a general love mess, that is why the moon gods directed their strongest attack against the union, their leader was Lucifer. So there were two currents, that of Yahweh and that of Lucifer, that of love and freedom.

The Atlanteans already had their secret schools. In the post-Atlantean period, the most developed people moved under the great leader Manu to the Gobi Desert, from where colonizers went out to all cultures. Wisdom was spread by people, by initiates, not by books.

The Indian culture consisted of descendants of the Lemurians and Atlanteans. The Indians received the Vedanta wisdom from the emissaries from Gobi, who were the holy rishis, seven in number.

The first post-Atlantean culture, the Indian culture, preserved the memory of the clairvoyance of the Atlanteans, hence the deep longing of the Indians for this time when man still felt connected to the divine; they valued clairvoyance more than the vision of external objects. They said to themselves: What we see outside are mere shadows, illusions! That is why they aspired to transcend this world. Through the yoga training, they sought to achieve the extinction of physical reality in order to exchange it for clairvoyance.

The Indians have retained their appreciation of the supernatural, but also their underestimation of the sensual world. It is a great mistake if this culture must pass away irretrievably, that it should be brought back into the present.

Persian culture is a step forward in that it regards the earth as reality, as a field of labor. The Persians were aware that one must plant the spiritual in the sensual world. [The Persian] wanted to redeem the sensual world with the help of the spirit. The great Zarathustra saw the god of light in the solar aura, and opposite him stands Ahriman, the god of darkness.

This was followed by the Chaldean-Babylonian-Assyrian-Egyptian culture. It had powerful leaders who married spirit and science. The Egyptians tried to impress the spirit of reality. Their interpretation of the stars was based on astrology and was imbued with spiritual wisdom, as were their architectures and famous monuments.

In the fourth post-Atlantean period, the Greco-Latin period, something new was added. While the Indians longed for a dream world, the Persians progressed by thinking of the sensual world as a field of work, and the Egyptians were able to align their earthly existence with the orbits of the stars, it was left to the Greeks to see themselves as a form of spiritualization. Form and material became the means of a living immortalization of the spirit. The Greeks brought art down into earthly reality. Its social effectiveness was a real, social state structure.

Great states are founded on causes other than physical facts. The Romans were the first to develop the concept of the “citizen”. In Greece, people were like members of a state; with the Romans, the individual figure came into its own. They imbued their own being with spiritual concepts, which is why jurisprudence flourished among them. They were conquerors of the external reality of man.

Then came an event of fateful significance. From the Atlantean era until the Romans, the God of Love, Yahweh, and the God of Wisdom, Lucifer, fought within man. It was a matter of uniting and individualizing the two extremes. The close blood ties also diverged among the Hebrews. The time came when these associations were no longer sufficient. The peoples were thrown into confusion by the campaigns of Alexander the Great; the campaigns of the Romans formed a center of spiritual selfishness.

It was a tremendous advance when Christ Jesus transformed the bond of love from a natural into a spiritual bond. His words are to be understood in this way: “Whoever does not leave brother and sister, son and daughter, and so on, cannot be my disciple.

The beginning of love was sexuality. The soul relationships between people must become ever more refined until, at the end of the earth, brotherhood embraces all people.

The preliminary stage of brotherhood came through Yahweh; the Christ brought spiritual love into the world; only then can man completely abandon it when love is spiritualized. This love must increase more and more in the relationships between people; it must become so great that it will triumph over all resistance.

The Christ Jesus appeared at a time when people were drifting apart, to unite them in a great brotherhood. Therefore, the Christ Jesus is the true spirit of the sun and the earth, the ruler of the earth, who puts love at the center.

Through Christ's atonement and sacrificial death, the astral plan is transformed from love of blood relationship into universal brotherly love. The first act takes place in Palestine, where a great brotherly bond is formed around humanity, the bond to love correctly where no blood ties exist. Christ Jesus provided the impetus for a transforming love that overcomes all. Christ Jesus is the greatest marriage between God and Man.

The fifth epoch signifies a deep descent into matter; the spirit is held captive by it, it becomes its slave. Even religion has become materialistic, Christianity must be renewed through theosophy.

It is a descent of the spirit into matter, this is not meant to be a criticism [of our age], but it must also be understood as a necessity. It is through this that concepts and logic are developed; natural science becomes the ruler of natural forces. However, it is still an enslavement of the spirit when the gigantic achievements are used only to serve the basest needs that were previously satisfied in the simplest way, while the spirit was cultivated. It is a waste of spiritual strength when animal instincts are satisfied with it.