Esoteric Lesson

5. How the development took place: After the initiates had already been prepared in Atlantis, the best were chosen during the destruction of the Atlantean continent to serve as the tribe for the formation of the new race. They were led to [Asia], to the Gobi Desert, where they received the training necessary to become the progenitors of the fifth race [post-Atlantean humanity]. However, they were still very similar to the Atlanteans in their view of the world and the outside world. They did not yet distinguish so much between the outside world and their own world. They still flowed together with the outside world; they lived even more with the gods. Only later did the distinction arise, and they began to differentiate in such a way that they perceived the outside world as Maya, as illusion. This duality then became particularly pronounced in Persia. They distinguished between good and evil, Ahura Mazdao and Ahriman. Then it continued through the Chaldean-Egyptian-Babylonian period, then through the Greek-Roman period and into our own time.