Self-Knowledge and God-Knowledge II
GA 90b — 1 January 1905, Berlin
I. On the Root-Races of Atlantians and Aryans
The primary task of the fourth race was to develop the inner self. Before that, people had lived very generally. Human kama was very closely related to general kama. It had not yet become separate.
We understand what warm-blooded kama actually means when we look for the opposite pole, because in nature everything arises in polarity. While the Kama for the human being - in the middle of the Lemurian race - was separating, something else had to arise in the world; this other is the natural fire, the fire in the world. The two are therefore in an occult connection, and the misuse of Kama in man meant a disturbance in the fiery element of the earth. For the relationship was a much closer one than it is now, when the separation is complete. Just as people were still able to control fire through their Kama, to draw fire out of stone, they could misuse fire to destroy themselves. The downfall of Lemuria was caused by the misuse of fire in its connection with the kamic element. Sin meant much more then than it did later.
When the Kama had become more and more isolated, resulting in a soul that was more and more withdrawn into itself, the Atlantean race emerged. But the prana was still in the same context, and the Atlanteans were able to use this power, were able to apply the germinating power to industrial endeavors. The first races, the Rmoahals and the Tlavatlis, still possessed the magic word, the mantra-like sounds developed by the Lemurians, which had a direct effect on the forces of life. When language came more to the fore, knowledge of the magic word was gradually lost. During the Toltec race, it had less and less effect on the outside world. However, some retained it as an art.
In the past, people paid less attention to this control over life. Now some wanted to systematize this, and in a sense they also obtained mastery over death. The patriarchal age known to us from the Bible is based on the art of prolonging human life to an extraordinary degree. This thus became an art; and in the case of the fourth, the Turanian sub-race, it led to a terrible black magic, inasmuch as life has an occult connection with everything that is an aqueous element. It was this source material that the Atlanteans used to gain such high mastery over; they had the same power over it as the Lemurians had over fire, and in this way their downfall was also brought about by water. There is a deep macrocosmic connection between nature and man. Thus, the fauna and flora are also different depending on the root races and sub-races. For example, in the case of the fourth sub-race of the Aryans - in which the ideal, Romanesque Christianity arose - the fauna and flora that still remained corresponded to those countries. The materialistic Germanic race, in turn, has its own. Appearance depends on what a person develops within themselves. Today, people are not yet aware of this; they control nothing but what their minds control. During the sixth sub-race, however, they will learn again to control the power of life; during the seventh, they will learn to control fire, the inner fire, the kundalini fire, which only the adept now controls. During the fifth sub-race of the Atlanteans, the pre-Semitic one, the mind had been established, as we know, through the former branching of certain animals, the ungulates, the horse. The capacity for logic, for combination, for personal right-mindedness arises; personal conflict arises, arises, arising from the opposition of convictions and opinions; the special being that finds its external expression in the fifth, the Aryan root race. This is a necessary point of passage; but it is natural that this will also lead to the downfall of the fifth root race. Through the war of all against all, the Aryans will perish, as once the Atlanteans perished through water and the Lemurians through fire.
Man was not yet able to guide this intellect himself, so the leading Manu was still a supermundane one. The group that was led into the Gobi and Shamo deserts was now singled out, namely by the Ursemites. Above all, this group was to have pure bodies, so that a selected plant diet was ordered by the Manu. This is the origin of the decadent food laws that still remain. But the Manu's intention was, above all, to leave people free – to leave them to the influence of a luciferically educated priesthood. That is why only a small group remained faithful, while the others fell away. This is why the stages of development are so different. The Master differs from all other leading forces of humanity in that he reaches the highest development in the same way, only faster.
When the Masters are openly acknowledged as the leaders of humanity, the sixth sub-race will emerge. The seventh sub-race will actually perish. On the other hand, the small group of ‹Homines religioses› will be gathered into the sixth sub-race, which will have the necessary temperament in its blood. The small group that remained faithful was the foundation for the Aryan race; hence the wonderful, pure, brilliantly spiritual teaching of the Indian sub-race that moved south. The uniformly divine is recognized and worshipped. Through the mind, which reaches up to Devachan, the Devas were first recognized and worshiped. The Vedas are only later formations; they originated at the time when the third sub-race was already present. Of the original Rishi religion there are only traditions. It is a repetition of what the Lemurians still instinctively felt; the unified religion is here relived with the mind.
The dualistic [religion], with the separation into good and evil, was a repetition of what had been experienced by the Atlanteans and was relived in the consciousness of the Persians.
In the third sub-race, the result of the monistic and dualistic religions emerges: the Trinity - the service of Osiris and Mithras. It is only from the third race onwards that three Logoi are recognized. Under this influence, the Indian Trinity was also formed. The child is personified for the first time in Horus. The personal is now possible, in which Christ immerses himself. God appears under the mask of man. The Trinity becomes the three persons.
In the fifth sub-race, everyone wants to decide for themselves, the poly-personality asserts itself, the culmination of which takes place in the French Revolution. Liberty, equality, fraternity are the guiding abstract ideas that replace the gods.