Self-Knowledge and God-Knowledge II

GA 90b — 6 March 1905, Berlin

IX. The Apocalypse and Theosophical Cosmology VI

Today I will continue the reflections of the last few hours in order to then continue the apocalypse, which can now be done very briefly if one approaches the document with the prior knowledge that we have gained in the last few hours. These are the ideals of the initiate, to look at everything with the impression that it will come true. But it must also be possible to shape, not just out of the blue.

Our round will conclude with an absorption of the mineral; then in the next, the plant kingdom as the lowest kingdom -—

Physical is everything that can be seen; mineral is subject to chemical and physical laws. Mineral beings are also all other beings in nature; the plant also has a chemical process.

All the kingdoms are mineral. Therefore, the fourth round is the mineral one.

The fifth round will have nothing mineral anymore, only the plant kingdom at the bottom. A moral world order will be established in the fifth round. The well-being of the individual will be no different from that of all other beings. Karma will be fulfilled. It will be fulfilled in the next race - the sixth - of the fourth round. It will be realized in the fifth round - no more crystal - everything will be one great garden in the manner of interlocking crystals.

Everything is transformed into growing beings.

In the fourth round, the mind is formed. As long as a person comprehends with the mind, [gap in the transcript]

The living is not grasped by the mind, only the pure spirit will understand this. One must learn to think without using one's senses. Both Goethe and Plato had such thinking. That is the process up to the fifth round. We are currently living in the fifth root race.

The Atlanteans did not yet have sober minds. Life was interspersed with dull clairvoyance.

The first root race, the polaric one, could only live as it did because the earth was of a finer substance and at a higher temperature. It was a fine, ethereal substance. The souls incarnated in this substance. They were people of a different kind – etheric people.

Reproduction was as follows: the people were elongated, hands had not yet developed – the beings divided, one being gave birth to the other. There was no death yet. Death did not occur until the second race. The first race lived in the area around the pole. The temperature conditions were different. Every being was filled with soul. There was no dying. The earth cooled more and more, and matter could no longer reproduce itself in the same way. The soul lost the ability to affect matter in the first way and created other organs for reproduction. The daughter beings were now smaller, and now the beings could absorb more substance to cause the division. But the daughter beings were very small at first; but then they grew very quickly. The chemical dies off. The beings now had to develop new organs. Because with the second race, sensation occurs. With the first race, only the sense of hearing was present. The whole environment was sound. The sound was perceived.

With the second race, the sense of touch was added. Man begins to make heat differences. That is the Hyperborean time. The second race were the Hyperboreans. The third race, the Lemurians, developed something very special. Before that, man was transported by external heat, but now the earth has become colder and colder, and a kind of reaction occurred. Man now had his own warmth, whereas before, beings could not have their own warmth.

So the third race had their own warmth.

The soul now became a place of independent life. Expression of Kama in the physical body. Through emotional life the beings could absorb the outer warmth. Therefore man now became a flame.

In those days, before man could generate inner warmth, the instincts, passions, were still undeveloped, in the sense of the outer world.

In the early days of the Lemurian race, the beings were bisexual, male-female, and hermaphroditic. Then the being split, and man and woman appeared.

Those selected by the Atlanteans were led to the Gobi Desert, and from these the fifth root race - our present root race - emerged, which had the particular task of developing the intellect. The first sub-race of this fifth was sent out from Gobi to various parts of the south, to India.

The first sub-race are the Indians; the high culture of this people can still be found in the echoes of the Vedas. The second sub-race are the Medo-Persians, the Near Easterners. The dual divinity appeared.

The third, the Near Eastern-Egyptian race.

The triad of goddesses appeared.

The fourth, the Greek-Latin, and also the Celtic, Southern Europe, Central Europe, Christian culture.

The fifth is our Aryan race, and this must preferably develop the intellect. — This race must descend completely to the physical plane. The following sixth sub-race will, it can only be hinted at in perspective, arise from none other than the Slavic race. There is no other for further sub-race than the Slavic one; in the East in the “oppressed” race.

This sub-race in its dull childishness today [gap in the transcript]

The mind will be taken up by the eastern peoples, and it will then be more spiritual sense. It may seem dreamy, but the sense is already prefigured.

The fifth root race will reach its end through destruction – the third root race perished through fire, the fourth root race through water – the fifth root race will perish through evil, through war, conflict, evil.

But we are approaching the moral root race, the sixth.

When the sixth sub-race of our fifth root race is formed from the Slavic peoples, the seventh sub-race is formed from the Americans. The remnants of the latter will then look like the Chinese do today, who are remnants of the Mongolian, the seventh sub-race of the Atlantic, the fourth root race. But the spiritual, the sixth sub-race, will reach a different physical state, the substances will be finer, hardening of the solid, this will proceed in a conscious way, it will deliver the first sub-race of the sixth root race. In this sixth root race - in the middle - a separation will take place. Male and female will cease, a regression to earlier behavior. In the seventh root race, the mind will reach its highest perfection.

Then it is transition to the next globe, to the next round. Then a physical life / gap in the transcript]

But a new sense will be added, the moral sense. During our fourth round, a majority of people already have that sense; they are artificial fifth-rounders. Those who cannot reach this high level cannot develop further.

Those who are left behind have a very special task.

The physical materiality is no longer there, it will have cooled down in those who have not attained spirituality, who have remained at that level, this level of today's fifth race of the fourth round.

These now have a kind of inclination towards the physical, and they bring this inclination with them. The present round is the mineral one, the earth will lose this composition.

There would no longer be a physical state if it were not for these retarded ones [...] to develop a new kind of mineral kingdom. The earth will no longer come into a physical state. These retarded ones will represent what was represented in the Lemurian great entities incarnating in this race, mid-way through the third race, what is referred to in the Bible as the Fall of Man, good and evil arose; and the animals remained [gap in transcript]

And just when this heavy element is expressed, the earth becomes an appearing star, and man will approach his deification; this is how the planets were formed. The formation of planets happens by itself – this is how new planets are formed.

Just as some animals are soft on the inside and have a hard crust on the outside, these animals have already hardened before – moon animals – and have thus become a materially perceptible being. So people who have remained at this material level, who cannot develop further, will then be able to work materially in the fifth round.

There is still something else, a mystery. The time has come for revelation, and every normal person will make it that far. People will bring their karma with them into the fifth round. This karma, which they have acquired by the end of the fourth round, is then passed on.

A being whose karma is complete then appears.

The account book is closed, the balance on his karma is zero.

[Gap in the transcript]

so far only sub-balance Solar beings.

[Gap in the transcript]

The sum of karma is expressed in its outer form, on its face.

Today, people can hide, but in the fifth round, people can no longer be hypocrites – they will become what they have made themselves. In the sixth round, people will develop Budhi; spiritual perception, much higher, superphysical clairvoyance.

Man will have a relationship to the world - which will displease the being. The sense of self will be integrated and will experience a world that has a basis in feeling, as the inner man lives today.

He will express himself, man will have become word.

In the sixth round, what he feels will materialize, only he will no longer speak - the exterior will be separated, which is why Christ says: “And the Word became flesh.”

In the sixth round, the human being will become the word.

In the fifth round, the emotional life will take on a fixed form.

In the sixth round, his surroundings will be filled with his life.

In the seventh, he will be so far advanced that he is God-like.

All nature has ceased in him.

Today man says 'I'.

No one can say I to another, only to himself can man say I. The naming of all beings is the stage where his I awakens.

With the I, the deity is pronounced.

He then called his name Jehovah, which means “inexpressible”.

In the seventh round, he will be like a great ego-concept – a world complex with the ego.

In Genesis – the first four days are the first four rounds and the three following rounds are then on Jupiter, then Venus, then Vulcan. And the Mars stage would already be here. Jupiter should be the same as Venus. The next planet – the fifth round – will have the Mars stage, the seventh may not yet be named because one cannot imagine this state, it is called Vulcan for the time being.

Man will find the fifth planet at a stage that differs from today's because he is creatively active. Imaginary creator, creator, he is a creator himself. This is how he develops on the seven rounds of the earth.

But he will be more [gap in the transcript]

He will be a creator, magical images will be his, and the color images will be realities. Creating images separate from matter.

The third elementary realm emerges from the human being; it will be what Christian esotericism calls “glory”. The sixth planet will be like this in the fourth elementary realm.

The human being will be able to do more than just weave the imagination.

For while in the fifth round man is only capable of creating as an appearance, as our sun does today, on the other hand, in the sixth round, this created color image will be a productive being. On Venus, such a state of creating while alive has been achieved today; one can only imagine this state.

The seventh cannot yet be spoken of.

If man could see it – the sight is so harrowing that he cannot bear it. Only someone who can think without a physical brain can imagine such a thing.