An Outline of Religious Ideas in post-Atlantean Times

And if we ask ourselves how it came about that the much more abstract esoteric pantheism developed into the many-sided Greek world of gods, we must recognize in it a deep fundamental need of humanity in general, a deep principle in the evolution of humanity. When we look at the transition from Egyptian to Greek, we have the most beautiful example of this principle in action. In the whole pre-Greek period there is something particularly powerful and symbolic. The Egyptian pyramids and sphinxes are magnificent, powerful creations of the human spirit, which point in a somewhat abstract form to a spiritual source that one does not yet dare to develop. How the Greek spirit has demonstrated the ability to impress the spiritual into the pictorial form! There is tremendous progress in this, which can be seen everywhere. You can see this transition most clearly when you follow the transition from Oriental to Greek architecture in your mind, when we grasp the architectural idea in its purity. Throughout the development of mankind, the architectural idea is best expressed in Greek architecture. Nowhere else do we find such a complete transformation of thought into external form as in Greek architecture. We see how everything is placed in space, how it corresponds to the great cosmic laws.