Self-Knowledge and God-Knowledge I

GA 90a — 14 November 1904, Berlin

LXX. On the Apocalypse VII

The Apocalypse must be regarded as a document by which one of the Christian initiates - who received their teaching after the proclamation by deed - said the most profound thing that was to be revealed only later as a secret. In this teaching, we encounter an agreement with ancient wisdom: the presentation of human development in the Apocalypse. We overlook this profound agreement with the other great wisdom religions in this document.

The other thing that emerges from it is that it has an esoteric and an exoteric content – a content for everyone; that it also offers to those who come to such a form through preparation.

The Apocalypse confirms the old teachings, written in the sense of the saying: “Blessed are those who believe”; but also for those who see. Only those who can penetrate deeper into themselves can understand the Apocalypse. It leads us out, solving the great riddles of the world, through which we can look back into our own inner selves. Although the eye looks out, if it wants to be informed about what is going on out there, it has to turn around and look inside. How is that?

The underlying reason for this is that the human being is a spirit of the general spirit of God, always creating from the past and also in distant years. But if the human spirit is a part of the spirit of God - it is in itself - then look within yourself - you are something related to all creation. “I and the Godhead are one.”

Man lives for himself, but he projects himself into the distant past and into the future. Whatever lives in me, I have been there. Not just to think abstractly with our thoughts, but to express our feelings with them; and when this thought lives in us, then we are also such a force, we must ignite our feelings.

The materialist says: The eye is touched by the light and the eye feels it; the mystic says: By perceiving the light, I know that it comes from outside; but how is it that my eye perceives it? We must say that man has developed organs in himself. In the embryonic state, man repeats everything he has gone through before. Animals that crawl into a dark cave lose their eye light, so that their offspring are born without eyes. So light has once worked that we have organs. Light is a power that creates the eye for us. Light is also from within - and creates the spiritual eye. “If the eye were not solar, how could we see the light?” The light is within us.

We can experience the creative light within us. Plato spoke of the light in us. To understand Plato, one must live deeply within him, one must not criticize him like a student. He says: The eye emits rays, as if the eye were the active one. Plato still knew it, it still lived, the bright light that formed the eye. This light, of which the mysteries speak, is an inner light. From here the light flows, the light of the aeons, the astral light in which we live; it only appears to us from the outside, we illuminate the world with it. We shine into the opaque [...]

Those who experience the creative light within themselves experience the mysteries; mystics experience from such a vision; they become visionaries, as John was – a reality that the materialist doubts.

When we grasp this reality, when we place ourselves in this way before the mystical, we enter into the mood to understand the Apocalypse. The letter kills, but the spirit gives life. But sparks fly from the letter when we read it through the spirit.

Now one understands what it means to “recognize the reality of the symbols.” The seven churches are named by seven chandeliers. Seven stars are the seven angels. Let us take a closer look at this concept.

But are we talking about seven communities in Asia? Everything in time has its representation. The seven sub-races are to be imagined in such a way that one continues while the other begins.

I - Sub-race Indian. This ancient Rishi culture still exists.
II - Persian race
III - Chaldeans, Babylonians
IV

There were already wisdom schools that preserved the secrets of the future.

The seven representatives of the seven sub-races already existed at that time. Such seven brother lodges are called the seven municipalities, they are the seven chandeliers of the seven sub-races, the seven leaders of the seven sub-races. They have nothing to do with the external, but with a realistic / gap in the transcript]

But what do such brotherly lodges mean? When a person presents himself to us, he has organs that together make him up, and in this person the soul can only lead its existence within them, it dwells in this temple – body. If the hand wanted to go its own way, personality would not be possible. A selfless devotion of each organ. Man must become as his organs show him.

The eye does not claim its own life, it gives itself away. The ear is more complicated than the piano. Man is not ready for it. As if the eye wants to experience color within itself, it gives itself away and places itself at the service of the other organs. The organs of man thus live much higher than he himself. [...] Man could not hear through the ear if it wanted to feel for itself. But he must become so. He must give himself to other people, give himself as an organ to yield a spiritual being.

Those who give themselves in this way are called a brother lodge. Just as the soul can sink into the organism, so a higher being can sink into a brother lodge. When people are so united that several of them are the organs, a higher being descends into them; so that a higher soul-being can embody itself. Because they – the people – have become like organs, a higher being can descend into the community in order to embody itself.

Pythagorean School also like that.

Where all feel the same, where each lays what he has on the altar of the community, there the higher being descends.

Those who have had experiences of such descent know that then such higher beings are candlesticks, then they have become guides who take from this community the substance to materialize themselves.

These are the seven angels: this is based on a Christian saying. He said: “I am with you all days until the end of the world.” - This also includes: “When two or three are united in my name.” —

Without community, no higher being can embody itself, individually we are nothing. “When two or three are united in my name, then I am in the midst of them.”

Throughout the ages, this activity was known only to initiates. John recounts that he was on the island of Patmos. This island is the school of mystery; “an angel announced” means: mystical representation of a fact; living reference to the root race. The hand of brotherhood is extended to all sub-races.

To the church at Ephesus:

To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: These things says He who holds the stars in His right hand, who walks in the midst of the seven golden lampstands: I know thy works, and thy labor, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil: and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars: And hast borne, and hast patience, and for my name's sake hast labored, and hast not fainted. But I have this against you: You have left your first love. (Rev 2:14)

To leave the first love - the Rishis are meant.

The second race, the Persian, had to lean more towards the practical: Be faithful unto death and so on. Here the devil is already mentioned, as are the devil's creations – the asuras. And to the angel of the church in Smyrna write: These things says the first and the last, who was dead and has come to life: I know your works and your tribulation and your poverty (but you are rich), and the blasphemy of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are of Satan's school. Do not be afraid of what you are about to suffer. I know your deeds, the tribulation you have undergone, the testing by Satan, and the persecution and suffering you have borne because you are a man. But I tell you, do not be afraid. I am the first and the last. I am he who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore, amen. Have courage, I tell you. Be faithful, even to death, and I will give you the crown of life. [Rev 2:8-10]

Justice is developed in the third race, the pre-Asian religion.

And to the angel of the church in Pergamum write; These things saith he which hath the sharp sword with two edges; I know thy works, and where thou dwellest, even where Satan's seat is: and thou holdest fast my name, and hast not denied my faith, even in those days wherein Antipas was my faithful martyr, who was slain among you, where Satan dwelleth. But I have a few things against you, because you have there those who hold the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to put up an obstacle before the children of Israel, to eat food sacrificed to idols and to commit fornication. So you also have those who hold the teaching of the Nicolaitans: I hate that. Repent; but if you do not, I will come to you quickly and will make war with them by the sword of my mouth. [Rev 2, 12-16]

Fourth race, the direct worship of Christianity:

And to the angel of the church in Thyatira write; These things saith the Son of God, who hath his eyes like unto a flame of fire, and his feet are like fine brass; I know thy works, and charity, and service, and faith, and thy patience, and thy works; and the last to be more than the first. But I have this against you: You let that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, teach and seduce my servants to commit sexual immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols. And I gave her time to repent of her immorality, and she did not repent. Behold, I will throw her into a bed, and those who commit adultery with her into great tribulation, unless they repent of their deeds; and I will kill her children with death; and all the churches shall know that I am he who searches the minds and hearts; and I will give to each one of you according to your works. But to the rest of you in Thyatira, who do not hold this teaching and who have not recognized the deep things of Satan (as they say), I say: I will not put on you any other burden; but what you have already hold fast until I come. [Rev 2,18-25]

Then the following in the future: [Church of Sardis, Church of Philadelphia, Church of Laodicea]. The leading entities can be understood when it is studied with the whole person, it cannot be grasped with the mind alone, then it is doubted, but they are real realities. One will now ask: Why was such not proclaimed immediately? Because the founders of Christianity experienced the truth [gap in the transcript]

The first way to read the Apocalypse is to accept the word in naive faith. The second way is to look for the allegorical sense in it; this is good because it leads to the third highest way of reading, which is to take everything literally.

We have to be confessors of the doctrine of reincarnation, we have to say: the person standing before me has been here and will come back; to accept the truth in him as the Samsara - the world in which we live, the world of eternal change, the cycle of rebirths. To believe in re-embodiment - I then experience re-embodiment. They taught it and lived in this spirit. It has been taught in all ages; what was taught many centuries ago, the community faith grows out of this faith. That is the deepest essence of theosophy. As we explain this, we feel what happened then. The one who was is sitting next to us, we feel united with the one who comes after us. Thus we rise, thus we can banish the higher spiritual. I wanted to show what community life is – something profound can be drawn from every line of the Apocalypse, the whole theosophical movement can be explained from it.