An Outline of Religious Ideas in post-Atlantean Times

GA 102/1908-05-13/p003 ·1908-05-13 · English HighHigh alignmentThis translation's paragraph count matches the German original — the locus maps cleanly to the same paragraph in DE.
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In doing so, we will recall what we have already mentioned here and there: that the concept of religion is actually something that only makes sense in the post-Atlantic era. Before the great Atlantic flood, there could be no such thing as what we call religion, because religion presupposes that the human being does not have direct perception or insight into the supersensible worlds, at least that the great mass of people do not have such perceptions. Religion is man's connection with the supersensible when, for the great mass of men, the supersensible is not perceptible, but can only be conveyed in various ways, through prophets, seers, sages, mysteries and so on, as has been the case in the last millennia. Before the great Atlantic flood, when our ancestors lived for the most part in the area of ancient Atlantis, people still had more or less direct experiences and perceptions of the supernatural. In a time when people lived in the spiritual world itself, when they had experiences at all times as today's humanity has them in the sensual world, no religion was needed. Toward the end of the Atlantean era, supersensible experience was extinguished for the vast majority. It was replaced by the pronounced sensory experience that humanity has today. What remains from the old Atlantean era?

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Cite: GA 102/1908-05-13/p003 · edition English