1. Good and Evil

GA 92/1904-06-24/p013 ·1904-06-24 · English HighHigh alignmentThis translation's paragraph count matches the German original — the locus maps cleanly to the same paragraph in DE.
Record: listeners' notes. Written from listeners' notes, summaries, or memory rather than a shorthand transcript. The wording is the note-taker's as much as Steiner's: weigh a single striking phrase here far more cautiously than the same phrase in a stenographic volume, and do not rest an argument on one word. Evidence: «Sechzehn Vorträge, gehalten in Berlin, Köln und Nürnberg in den Jahren 1904, 1905 und 1907 (Hörernotizen)» (Sixteen lectures, given in Berlin, Cologne and Nuremberg in 1904, 1905 and 1907 (listeners' notes)). The volume's subtitle as given in the publisher's description, mirrored on AnthroWiki (GA 92); the 2022 catalogue's subtitle omits it. The translation is the maintainer's, not a published one.

This monotheism of the Atlanteans remained with those races that survived the great flood. From this form of religion, which was still spiritual, the fifth root race emerged. These old spiritual forms of religion, the worship of a unified God, gradually degenerated into polytheism. Monotheism only remained among the most highly developed priests. At the beginning of Christianity, the monks behaved cunningly: they said that Baldur had become a human being in Palestine. In the early centuries, one would have found Christianity colorfully mixed with paganism, even in Arian Christianity. This development took place at the same time as a particularly vivid glimmering of religious feeling in the old Mongolian races was being induced by highly developed shamans. We see, as a reaction to polytheism, on the one hand, the emergence of a new unified religion in Arabia through Mohammed. On the other hand, we see, somewhat earlier, an initiated shaman rising up in his Tao consciousness, taking revenge on those who had fallen away from the old monotheistic idea of God. Attila was called “The Scourge of God.” We see the princes he deposed living in splendor and pomp all around his kingdom, but he, the shaman, lived in the greatest simplicity. It is said of him that his eyes glowed and the earth trembled when he raised his sword. This great initiate would have been fully justified in the Atlantean era; in our time, he would look like a criminal. The same power that is an expression of the divine fire in its time appears as divine wrath in another period. Why does this happen? It is necessary in order to make further development possible. If development is to be continue, viewed from a higher plane, the individual threads must once again intertwine harmoniously.

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Cite: GA 92/1904-06-24/p013 · edition English