Lecture XI

What does development through the epochs of human evolution really mean? From elementary Anthroposophy we know of the different members of man's being: physical body, etheric body, astral body, sentient soul, intellectual or mind-soul, spiritual or consciousness-soul. The higher members still to be developed are Spirit-Self, Life-Spirit, Spirit-Man. Something quite definite is achieved for each of these members in the several epochs of post-Atlantean civilization. Thus in the first epoch, forces enhancing the capacities of the etheric body were instilled into man. Such forces had been implanted in his physical body during the last periods of the Atlantean era and the first gifts to be bestowed in the post-Atlantean era were those imparted to the etheric body during the epoch of ancient Indian culture. During the epoch of ancient Persia, forces were implanted in man's astral body, or sentient body; during the Egypto-Chaldean and Greco-Latin epochs in the sentient soul and intellectual or mind-soul respectively; and we are living now in the age when the forces connected with this line of progress are gradually to be instilled into the spiritual or consciousness-soul. No very great advance has yet been made in this respect. In the future sixth post-Atlantean epoch the forces of the Spirit-Self will be implanted in human nature, and in the seventh epoch those of the Life-Spirit. And then we glimpse a far, far distant future, when Spirit-Man, or Atma, is to be inculcated into normal human nature.