Self-Knowledge and God-Knowledge I

GA 90a — 1 November 1904, Berlin

LXV. On the Apocalypse V

You have seen that we can only understand the Apocalypse correctly if the fundamental essence of the Christian mystical fact is placed in the right light. We have taken up the saying “Blessed are they that have faith, even though they do not see” in order to present the fundamental essence.

What was seen by the initiates in the centuries before Christianity was founded, what took place in the depths of the mystery grottoes and temples, that became, as we have seen, a world-historical fact, that was carried over to the great plan of world history. The story of the suffering, the dying, the resurrection and the ascension, these phases of the mystical life, as the initiate saw them in the mystery temples after the proper preparation, could now be believed by the believer as an historical fact. Thus what had previously been a secret or mystery had become a matter of faith, proclaimed, had become the gospel. So in the gospel there is nothing given other than the content of the old mystery books. Before, the content of the Gospel of John, in particular, from the thirteenth chapter to the end, was proclaimed to the initiated in the hidden books of the mysteries. But now it was proclaimed to the whole world, even to those who could not be directly convinced of the mysteries by psychic, mystical evidence. Blessed were those who did not see and yet believed. Thus the ancient mystery was revealed by Christianity. The gospel had become the revelation of ancient mystery books.

But what was a mystery at one time and was revealed at another time, that is, if it were simultaneous, is the same in content. What was later revealed to the whole world was always proclaimed in the mysteries in the times before, when humanity was not yet ready for it. What had become a revealed mystery in the first centuries of Christianity, at the time of its proclamation, was hidden earlier. For the first times in Christianity, the mystery appears again as a revelation that is supposed to prepare for a very distant future. The record of the events of the very distant future is contained in the Apocalypse of the Theologian John. And now let us see how.

We all know the development of the fifth root race of humanity through the various sub-races. We know that the sub-race of the Aryan race in which Christianity was absorbed was the fourth sub-race, and that we ourselves now live in the fifth sub-race, and that this will be followed by the sixth. To understand what is written in the Apocalypse, let us take a look at the development as we have to imagine it according to our present theosophical apocalypse of the future of the next race and the rest of our own fifth cultural epoch.

Let us return once more to the sentence: “With Christianity, the preceding mysteries became apparent to a certain extent.” The fourth sub-race [the Greco-Latin cultural epoch] was initially concerned with this – and it was its task – to establish this belief in Christianity as a mystical fact, this belief in this great mystery unfolding on the stage of world history. Now the fifth sub-race, our own, has emerged; it is the sub-race of intellect that wants to understand everything. Comprehending, explaining and understanding is the task of our era. This task will have been fulfilled when everything that the intellect is capable of comprehending has been grasped. The leadership of this, our fifth sub-race, will have fulfilled its task when it has been led to the point where the intellect will grasp and understand what was previously believed, so that we can explain it. This apocalypse of our fifth sub-race is presented to us in such a way that we are told: “A time will come when the personality that founded Christianity, the mystical Lamb, will unseal the book with the seven seals. What was mere belief remained sealed. But little by little the seven seals will fall from the Book, which was previously merely a book of faith and therefore a book closed to the mind.

What is in this book? This book contains the secrets of successive developments, the seven secrets that are repeated over and over again in every development of rounds and races, and in all other cyclic developments – including that of man. Let us take a look at how these seven secrets present themselves in man. I will only need to shed a little light on a few of these secrets, and you will immediately see what they are.

Consider the human being as he presents himself to us in seven parts in the theosophical classification. First, the physical body into which he moves in order to fulfill his world career in it. This is the first, the move into the world. The second is the settling into the so-called life principle. In prana, in which beings come to life, they enter the realm of struggle, the realm of war of everyone against everyone, the realm in which particularity stands against particularity. In order for this struggle, this particularity against particularity, to be brought into outer harmony, it is necessary that the will of man brings justice into this realm of struggle. But justice is not the only creator of harmony in the outer world. What must be brought into it occurs on the fourth level, where man not only establishes justice outwardly, but where he permeates external justice with the principle of love, which shines down from above, from the higher principles.

If you compare this with the opening of the seven seals in the Apocalypse, you will see that we are dealing with exactly the same situation:

And I looked, and behold, a white horse; and he who sat on it had a bow; and a crown was given to him, and he went out conquering and to conquer.

First of all, there is the materialization of the going out.

And when he had opened the second seal, I heard the second beast say, Come and see. And another horse went out, red; and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword. [Rev 6,3-4]

Here the special fights against the special in the principle of life.

And when he had opened the third seal, I heard the third beast say, Come and see. And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand. [Rev 6,5]

— the scales of justice.

And I heard a voice among the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see that you do not harm the oil and the wine. [Rev 6,6] And when he opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see! And I looked, and behold, a pale horse; and his name that sat on him was called Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with the sword, and with hunger, and with death, and by the wild beasts of the earth. [Rev 6,7-8]

The lower nature is killed, the higher nature emerges. The lower dies so that the higher spiritual can be redeemed.

If we apply the image not to the individual human being, but to the fifth race, then it has set out to solve the mission, to redeem the second sub-race, which was the warlike one. We thus enter the time of the struggle of the individual peoples against each other. Then comes the Kingdom of Justice, the kingdom that, according to the biblical historian, is reckoned from Abraham. There you will find the gradual ascent of the third principle, that of justice. The fourth principle signifies the advent of Christianity itself. The conquest of death through love is a higher realm than that of mere justice.

Then will come the kingdom that corresponds to the fifth sub-race. This kingdom, when it comes to an end, will understand the whole task of the fifth root race. It will understand from within what previously could only be believed from without. Thus the seals that have closed the rest of the understanding of the world will also fall. The world will become an open book. When the fifth cultural epoch is complete, the world will lie before our minds like an open book.

After that, calm sets in. This is nothing other than the hour in which the sixth sub-race prepares itself. The seals have been broken, the truths lie open before the eyes of men. And that will be the characteristic of the men of the sixth sub-race, that the truths lie open before the eyes of men, that they no longer need to be believed or grasped by the intellect, but that they can be seen with the eyes, be seen with an intuitive spirit. This is how the truths will present themselves to people in the sixth cultural epoch. In this sixth cultural epoch, humanity will have reached a higher level.

On an even higher level, people will once again experience the unveiling, the revelation of the secrets. This renewed manifestation of the secrets is depicted in the Apocalypse as the trumpeting of the angels. How open the truths will be then, not just like in a book, but so that they speak to us from all sides. The truths will not be like a thought, but like a spoken language. That is what the trumpeting of the angels means. And it is like the mood of the sixth sub-race emerging when the trumpeting of the angels is described to us. We will follow this in more detail at another time.

From there, follow the whole development further, and you will see that the Apocalypse also touches on those important points that will arise in the course of the development of the sixth sub-race, including the most important point, which can be characterized by the fact that people will be enlightened about the nature of good and evil in a completely different way. Since the truths will be obvious, the character of good and evil will be obvious to people. They will learn to read in the account book of their karma. That is the important point in time that will occur for the people of the sixth cultural epoch, when the law of karma will take on flesh and blood and the realization of justice will occur. Those who absorb such an awareness will then live to continue the next root race.

In this next root race, a great and significant event will occur. It is already prepared by the knowledge of good and evil, and it will be prepared to a higher degree during the sixth sub-race; for something quite different will occur then, and we must understand this if we want to understand the apocalypse. We remember that the way in which present-day humanity lives is not an absolute one, that it arose once, that it became sexual in the middle of the Lemurian race. It was only in the middle of the Lemurian period that this type of reproduction began in humanity, and also this type of living together, as it is in humanity now. What we now call birth and death only came into humanity then. Before that, the way life was lived was quite different. With birth and death, that individual karma came into being, as did reincarnation or re-embodiment. Everything we are now describing and recognizing as re-embodiment and karma and as the course of the individual human life between birth and death, only started in the middle of the Lemurian period. It was only then that people took on the form in which they currently embody themselves. Before that, they had other forms. This form, which once began, this passing through birth and death and this repeated embodiment, all this will also come to an end. Just as it began in the middle of the Lemurian period, so it will come to an end in the middle of the sixth root race. Then, in a part of humanity that will have already reached the corresponding level of development, in those who are called the firstfruits of humanity in the Apocalypse, the state that existed at a lower level before the Lemurian time will occur again. Then man was still asexual and not yet entangled in birth and death. This will come again after man has gone through his apprenticeship through the reincarnations. For him the time will come when he will again have, at a higher level, the spirituality that had previously been his at a lower level, but liberated from the physical form, the form that is directly present in the here and now.

Now, in Christian esotericism, one calls those entities, which weave and work in the evolution of the world, in the shaping of the world in the most diverse fields, angels. These entities are higher than the present human entities. Man works on earth, but higher entities have worked on man himself. That which must be accomplished in the evolution of the world by higher beings, that is, that which is of a higher nature, is assumed by Christian esotericism to have been brought about by beings it calls angels. In theosophical teachings, we speak of the Dhyanic nature, which in its power and wisdom lies above human development. Now, Christian esotericism calls those formers who are not on our level of consciousness and activity higher beings, angels, and the angel who formed the human form in the middle of the Lemurian period addresses them as the archangel Michael. Michael is the shaper of the human form as it is subject to birth and death, as it is subject to sexuality. Because man has entered birth and death and the angel of form, Michael, has given him precisely this form, the adversary of Michael has appeared on the other side, who always works in the course of evolution and who in Christian esotericism is called the dragon or the serpent. If we understand human evolution since the middle of the Lemurian period as the battle of the archangel Michael with the dragon, then this battle must enter a new phase in the middle of the sixth root race. The purest form must have been achieved in the human form, and the human being must have reached his goal in relation to the human form. Everything that was inhibiting must have been overcome. This battle, which takes place in the middle of the sixth root race, is described in the twelfth chapter of the Apocalypse.

And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; and he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were also thrown down with him. [Rev 12,7-9]

In the beginning, the human being had to enter into the human form and had to take upon itself what the form brings with it and overcome it in the time of development alone. The human being had to take upon itself sexuality, birth and death. As hermaphrodites, as asexual beings, human beings entered evolution and became bisexual, became man and woman. Again, asexuality will have to occur in the middle of the sixth root race.

If you read the Apocalypse further, you will find the whole thing described in more detail in the fourteenth chapter.

Then I heard a voice in heaven, like the sound of many waters and like the sound of a great thunder. The voice I heard was like the sound of harps playing. And they sang as it were a new song before the throne, and before the four beasts, and the elders: and no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand, which were redeemed from the earth. These are the ones who have not been defiled with women, for they are virgins and follow the Lamb wherever He goes. These have been redeemed from among men as the first fruits to God and to the Lamb.

This mystical fact of the return to the Godhead is expressed in this passage of the Apocalypse. Now you will find a description of everything that is necessarily connected with it: that birth and death have been overcome, and that the first new resurrection is celebrated. But the other dead will not come to life again.

In the twenty-first chapter, verse 4, it says:

And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall mourning nor outcry nor pain be anymore, for the first has passed away.

When man has developed to the highest flower, then - in these high states - he can no longer suffer. Man will then have reached the highest level of his seven-part division. The specialness that was achieved precisely through the form of matter, as it occurred in the middle of the Lemurian period, will have attained the most robust form. No longer will man be enclosed within this physical form, which can only gain knowledge of the environment through the gates of the senses. He will have other, new senses. You will find this depicted in the Apocalypse in that it is no longer necessary for the sun and moon to shine because a different kind of perception will come into being for people. Then it is further said that a new city will come to earth for people.

What is understood as a new city? People have developed in their present dwellings. There is an esoteric expression for the present dwellings of people. What are the present dwellings of people? It is the sum of all human bodies, and every human body is a house within this one great city of people, in which all live. In Christian esotericism, every body is seen as a house in which the soul dwells. Now the human community in the form in which it existed in the middle of the Lemurian period is called the oldest Jerusalem. The form in which this human city existed at the time when Christianity was founded is called the “middle Jerusalem,” and the form that will then be there in the middle of the sixth root race is called the “new Jerusalem.

The founding of this new Jerusalem is again described in the Apocalypse, and it describes it in such a way that even the most unbelieving must realize what is being described. What kind of answer will we get when we ask: What will the houses be like? The apocalyptic says:

And he that talked with me had a golden reed to measure the city, and the gates thereof, and the wall thereof. And the city lieth foursquare, and the length is as great as the breadth: and he measured the city with the reed, twelve thousand furlongs. The length and the breadth and the height of it are equal. And he measured the wall thereof, an hundred and forty and four cubits, according to the measure of a man, that is, of the angel. [Rev 21,15-17]

The city is found to have the measure of man. This is the measure that man will one day have; to this measure man will develop in the sixth root race.

Thus, you see, the Gospel was the revealed mystery of ancient times. The Apocalypse is the new mystery of the early Christian era. Just as the ancient mysteries contained the birth, suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension of man, and just as this mystical suffering, dying, and resurrection and ascension into heaven was the content of the ancient mysteries that was revealed in the Gospel, so the Apocalypse contains the new mystery of the future of humanity in the early Christian mysteries. The Apocalypse of the Theologian John is nothing other than that which was taught and interpreted in the first Christian mysteries.

Just as you would find in the Greek mysteries, when the pre-celebration of Christ's suffering, death and resurrection is celebrated in the form of the suffering Dionysus, who is dismembered and exalted, in the temple of the mystery, the mystery consists precisely in the fact that the secret is transferred to the initiates, so that they can prepare the time for it. Thus the first Christians, who experienced the great event as world-historical, were taught in the first Christian mysteries what was to be prepared through Christian education.

And this, in turn, is combined with the theosophical view of esoteric Christianity. We know that the description of what took place in Palestine is called the “gospel”, the “glad tidings” and is exoteric. But in addition, the following was also taught in the Christian mysteries: After the resurrection, Christ taught intimate disciples for years in the first Christian mysteries, and the teaching that was given there is contained in the Apocalypse. The interpretation was the one that we are only now able to give again through Theosophy. However, the Apocalypse was interpreted in our theosophical sense. This is the only thing meant by the introduction given by the theologian John himself. He says quite clearly who appears to him: it is he who was the first and the last, the Alpha and the Omega, he who alone is as pure as man was before he entered the life of development in the middle of the Lemurian time and as he will be again after he has left the process of development in the middle of the sixth root race: that is Christ, the first before the beginning of birth and death and the last after birth and death will be completed. The first and the last also reveal here at the center of development the Christian mystery, the secret of the sixth root race.

I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day and heard behind me a great voice like a trumpet. [Rev 1,10]

He, as an intimate disciple, has been granted the special grace to hear the trumpets already now. At this point in the establishment of Christianity, this is an anticipation. The voice spoke:

I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last. Write the things you see in a book and send it to the churches in Asia: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea. And I turned to see the voice that spoke with me. When I turned, I saw seven golden lampstands. And in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like the Son of Man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girded about on the chest with a golden girdle. His head and hair were white like white wool, like snow, and his eyes like a flame of fire. And his feet like unto brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters.

This description is the one the mystic seer draws, also of the first incarnation, of the first descent into matter, where matter is not yet so densely condensed, where the eyes are still glowing, still active, and not merely gates to the outside world; and then again, where solid matter of the whole body world passed into liquid matter, where it is liquid like glowing metal.

That, you see - we will hear more about the details - is what is embodied in the Apocalypse, in the way one speaks in mystery books. And at the same time, you can see from this the essence of the mystery, which consists in the fact that what is to be revealed to a majority only later is first proclaimed to individual initiates. There are no secrets, no secret truths that do not become a revealed secret, a revealed truth at some time. They can only be revealed when people are ready for them. And in order for them to become ready for them, there must be individuals to lead humanity. These are initiated into the secrets in which only later other people are initiated. Only those who know the goal can lead to it. Only those who knew the goal could prophesy Christianity as prophets. To proclaim the gospel from the mysteries is to prophesy. At the same time, that which can become common property for all in the distant future should be revealed to people.

This is the course of spiritual world history, this is the evolution in world history, shrouded by circumstances that we can no longer speak of today. Humanity's great laws of development were shrouded at first. Over time, they are revealed and evolved. Mystery after mystery is unveiled. What was only known and guarded by initiates will, in the course of time, be revealed. That which was first sealed will be unsealed; that which the eyes have read will later resound in the opened spiritual ear like a revelation from outside, from the outer world, as if through a trumpet.

From the question and answer session

[Mr. Schouten asks some questions about the fourth dimension]

I intend to give a lecture on the fourth dimension and would then like to try to bring about an understanding of this fourth dimension by following up Mr. Schouten's remarks. It will be better if I speak about the fourth dimension in connection with the direct experiment.

Is John the theologian the same as the author of the Gospel of John?

The writer of the Gospel of John is the most intimate disciple of Jesus. This also enabled him to give the deepest form to the teaching. Today it is impossible for most people to understand. In the nineteenth chapter it says:

Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside him, he said to his mother, “Woman, here is your son.” [John 19:25-26]

To love a disciple means to be an initiate. Then he says to the disciple:

Behold your mother! And from that hour the disciple took her into his home.

This is a significant passage. It tells us that the mother's name cannot have been Mary. John never refers to the mother of Jesus as Mary. There is another passage from the second chapter that deals with this.

And when the wine failed, Jesus' mother saith unto him, They have no wine. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come.

I would just like to note that this implies that the mother of Jesus is hinting at something very special. She is the spiritual substance from which he creates his work. The old Judaism, which was to become Christianity, referred to Jesus, when he had become a Christian, as his mother. This mission of his people calls him, calls him first when he is to turn the old water into wine. Then he says: Woman, my hour has not yet come. The Jewish people have been handed over to the son of the Jewish people with the words: Behold, this is your mother. It was this John who then also wrote the Gospel and the Apocalypse.

Can't the long time of development actually be shortened by people's brotherly cooperation?

The fraternal cooperation of people can indeed shorten the long time of development. The years are not the same length on the higher planes. Only on the physical plane are the years of equal length. Imagine whether you would have any measure of time at all if you no longer had physical events. Or imagine that the sun would move faster, then the years would become shorter.

Is the Theosophical Society also based on evolution?

The Theosophical Society was founded on the evolutionary point of view.

What do the words mean: What will happen shortly?

This is a passage that says as much as what you will achieve shortly.

What is meant by the “community of saints”?

The “community of saints” is the great brother lodge of the masters, the adepts. It is easy for those who know nothing about them to make mocking remarks, which has been done enough already. The higher individualities are united in brother lodges. These are the anticipation of what all humanity will achieve in the middle of the sixth root race. And it is this principle of fraternization that is to be achieved in the sixth root race. And what can only be achieved by the spiritual emerging from the physical-material. This community of saints is what is presented as the next stage of development. Spiritual evolution has two stages: becoming blessed and becoming holy. Blessed is derived from soul. The eight beatitudes are a guide to becoming blessed in oneself. But to find blessedness outside of oneself, one must become holy. The saints live in absolute community.