8. The Knowledge of the Spiritual Essence of the World

First of all, let us consider the view that existed in those older times regarding the most ancient teachers of humanity. These people believed that the very first teachers received their knowledge directly from divine teachers with whom they were in contact in a supersensible way at the very beginning of the earth's time. I can only point out this belief of older times here, because a discussion of the question would lead far afield from the subject today. I have only to point out that this question leads to the same regions as, for instance, the question concerning the origin of human language or the origin of human thought. In the past, people resorted to a transcendental explanation even for the transmission of the teaching of the transcendental to people, just as they sought the origin of language in the fact that divine influences themselves exerted an influence on people and humanity, and that in this way people directly acquired language from the transcendental. So it was also thought that the first teachers, the first gurus, received their knowledge through a supersensible intercourse with the first great teachers of mankind. But those who came later knew that they could only come to a true understanding of the spiritual, to a knowledge of the spiritual in the world, if they turned to such a teacher.