4. The Prometheus Saga

This ‘Manas’ thinking of the fifth Root Race has one particular feature which we shall understand if we look back to the Atlantean epoch. At that time thinking was more instinctive and was still connected with the life forces. The people of Atlantean times were still able to transform the power inherent in seeds into a driving force. Just as man today has a kind of reservoir of power stored up in the coal seams, which can produce steam to drive locomotives and move loads, so Atlantean man had great storehouses of plant seeds containing a force which could be used to drive vehicles, as described by Scott-Elliot[^4] in his booklet about Atlantis. This art has been lost to mankind. The spiritual power of the Atlanteans could control living nature and make use of the latent power in seeds. The spiritual powers of the fifth Root Race are only sufficient to control the forces of the inorganic world of minerals. Thus the Manas of the fifth Great Epoch is bound up with the mineral forces in the same way as the man of Atlantean times was bound up with the life forces. All Promethean powers are chained to the rock, to the solid earth. For that reason, the apostle Peter is the ‘rock’ upon which Christ founded His Church. It is the same as the rock of the Caucasus. Man belonging to the fifth epoch has to seek his destiny on the physical plane alone. He is bound up with inorganic mineral forces.