Reading the Pictures of the Apocalypse
GA 104a
9 May 1909, Kristiania
Lecture II-I
We have often said that Theosophy should not be regarded as something new. Other, external approaches of knowledge often want to see something new. But Theosophy wants to be, and should be, an expression of the striving for wisdom appropriate for our time, a manifestation of the striving that has existed through all time. Theosophy sees in all the temporal manifestations the various forms of a primal wisdom that has been flowing through all ages.
The Apocalypse, which belongs among the oldest ancient documents of Christianity, has been explained in the most various ways during every age of Christianity. These explanations always carry a subjective imprint of the understanding characteristic of different epochs.
On the whole, if we quickly survey the centuries of Christian development, we see, even in the earlier ages, a dawning materialistic interpretation brought to bear on this book. We find the mistake soon made of seeing in the pictures of the Apocalypse certain events in the evolution of the earth and humanity, for example, the descent of the Messiah who had been proclaimed, or even the establishment of a heavenly kingdom in the physical sense in this world. When the subsequent ages neither fulfilled nor revealed any of this, people in the various regions of the Occident believed that a mistake had been made in calculation; the date for the fulfillment of these prophesies was pushed more and more into the future. Around the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the Apocalypse began to be interpreted in a more inner way. At that time people began to see the kingdom of the Antichrist in the externalization of Christianity. For many, the Roman church itself became the expression of this kingdom of the Antichrist; the Roman church, on the other hand, saw the same thing in Protestantism.
In more recent times, times entirely permeated with a materialistic attitude, it has been said that, of course, the writer of the Apocalypse could not have known anything about the future; he was describing events that lie in the past. It was thought, for example, that he saw in the beast with two horns an opponent of Christianity as great as Nero. When the descriptions then went on to include earthquakes, swarms of locusts, and so forth, it was not hard to prove that such events did occur in those regions at that time. That is what is called “objective research”; nevertheless, it is wholly prejudiced by subjective understanding.
Theosophy should become an instrument for us to spiritually comprehend the Apocalypse again and thereby penetrate its meaning. One could also think that the explanation given by Theosophy is as subjectively colored as all the other explanations. In a certain sense it is, but there is a difference between it and the other explanations. Those who describe history externally want to be objective, but they can only be subjective. We, however, want to explain subjectively in the sense that we are aware, in all modesty, that the wisdom of the world is always in harmony with advancing evolution, with the advance of time. When we do what is right for our time it is a force that works into all of the future. Theosophy must not become a dogmatism. What we teach today as Theosophy will not change in its essence but in its form. When the souls of the present age are born again in future times, they will be mature enough to take up other, higher, future forms of the spiritual life. Our explanation of the Apocalypse will age; future ages will go beyond it. But the Apocalypse itself will not, therefore, age. It is much greater than our explanations and will find even higher, even loftier explanations.
Let us place before our souls the first lines of the Apocalypse as they are read in truth. We are told that the mystery of Jesus Christ is given to us in signs, that these signs are to be interpreted and that the writer is attempting to explain—to the best of his ability—as much of the signs as possible. The Apocalypse was written with a different intention than John's Gospel. We are dealing with a personal experience when the writer tells us that he is describing the revelation of Jesus Christ, the appearance of Christ. It is something similar to Paul's experience on the way to Damascus, similar to the mystery of Paul.
Paul is the one who did the most to proclaim and spread Christianity despite his not being one of the disciples who experienced the events in Palestine with Jesus. Neither did he experience the tragic ending of those events: the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Through the descriptions in the Gospels we know how all of this entered into the hearts of humankind at that time. Paul had heard about all that is described in the Gospels. Paul knew exactly what had happened in Palestine; nevertheless, he simply could not imagine that the one who had ended up on the cross was the promised Messiah, the redeemer. The Messiah, Paul said to himself, could not end up like a common criminal. Paul is not well understood unless we look deeply into his soul, unless we look at what lived in him as the knowledge of a Jewish initiate. He knew that the savior, the Messiah, had proclaimed himself ahead of time in the burning bush, in the fire of Mount Sinai. Christ points to this when he says, “But if you do not believe his [Moses'] writings, how will you believe my words?” (John 5:47) With these words Christ is saying that he had announced himself earlier through external means, through the power of the elements, and that he then, however, went on to reveal himself through life, suffering and dwelling in a human body—that he had descended, so to speak, from the fire of Sinai. Certainly the Jewish initiate, Paul, knew of the Christ who had been previously announced; for behind the mystery of Moses lay the following.
During the time of the Old Testament and in ancient Jewish occult teaching there were, as in all ages, mysteries and initiates. Let us bear in mind the fundamental principle, that initiation must adapt to the conditions prevailing during any given age. If we consider initiation according to that principle, then we must begin by thinking of the human being as the human being presented by Theosophy or spiritual science. We must think of the human as a four-fold being, a being with four members—as endowed with a physical body in common with the mineral world; an etheric body in common with the plant kingdom; an astral body in common with the animal kingdom; and finally with an I or I-bearer. Standing before us, the human being consists of these four members. During the day they are bound together with one another but at night the I and the astral body are in the spiritual world. During the night the present-day human being perceives nothing. When human beings develop to a higher spiritual vision, they must apply certain methods of inner development to themselves. Anyone wishing to ascend to higher worlds must allow meditations and concentration to work on their soul. They must immerse their souls in certain things; one example among hundreds is the Rose Cross.
When human beings of the present day are asleep what they experience during the day does not make a strong enough impression on their astral body for it to continue working at night. When a normal person of the present day falls asleep in the evening, day life is as if extinguished. With students of initiation it is different, even if they do not notice the transformation of their astral body for a long time. In a meditant who has begun and practices the exercises prescribed in occult schools, a clairvoyant sees entirely different streams, other forms and organs than those unorganized and chaotic forms seen in ordinary people. This shows itself as the results of the exercises even if the students themselves have not noticed any results for a long time. The astral body changes, it becomes a different being even if the meditation is very short. The astral body was chaotic before and everything the human being did was drowned out by the impressions of the day. Only the prescriptions from the occult school provide something that drowns out the impressions from everyday life. Therefore, this transformation of the soul is called purification or catharsis. The student is purified while the astral body continues to be chaotic and unordered in an ordinary person.
Now, the teacher must also make the student aware of the nature of the surrounding spiritual world. For what happens in the astral body to carry over into the etheric body, the following steps were undertaken with the student in earlier times. When the students were ready, at the peak of their initiation, so to speak, they had to spend some time, usually three and a half days, lying down, during which time the initiator brought them to a state of complete lethargy or torpor. The etheric body was then lifted out of the physical body and the astral body impressed into the etheric body all that had been prepared in the astral through occult exercises. Otherwise the physical body is a hindrance to bringing to consciousness what the person experiences in the spiritual world. In this moment, when the initiator led the etheric body out of the physical body, enlightenment occurred and the enlightened one experienced the spiritual world; after three and a half days the student was an initiate who could tell others about the spiritual world.
We can find the same process in the mysteries of various ancient peoples. But initiation was different with the initiates of the Old Testament, for they experienced yet again what Moses had experienced at Sinai. In this way they were able to tell the people that the Messiah would appear, that the Messiah would come forth from the nation itself, that he would incarnate the principles of development for all human evolution in a body of flesh. That was the supreme moment of the initiation—when the enlightened Hebrew was allowed to experience that the Christ would arise in the future. Paul, as a Jewish initiate, knew all of this; nevertheless, before the Damascus event he could never have believed that the one who died on the cross was the same one as the Messiah.
Paul said of himself that he was a “premature birth,” that is, an initiate through grace. He stresses that he did not receive initiation through a training that required a sequence of steps. But he stood closer to the spiritual world than those people who had descended deeper into matter. He was able to experience the “crown of life,” the last act in Old Testament initiation. This was the crowning through the appearance of Christ. What the Old Testament initiates always experienced appeared to them in a glorious light. What they had experienced as a future event, he now saw as a vision that told him this being was the same one who had lived and died in the body of Jesus of Nazareth. Now he knew that the Messiah, the Christ, is already here.
The greatest element of the old initiation had been the knowledge that the Messiah was to come, that he had died and yet still lived, now united with earthly existence—and continues to work in the evolution of humankind—this we see from all the letters Paul wrote. He saw this event as something that had already become present.
Let us put ourselves in the place of all the other initiates who were not ancient Hebrews and not Christian. They knew that in the ancient Atlantean times we come to a form of the human being entirely different from that of the present. The etheric body creates and forms the physical body, of course, and through initiation they could always see the etheric body that formed the basis for the physical body. In the spiritual world they had to do without a picture of the physical human body; they saw only the etheric body of the human being.
But the ancient Hebrew initiates always saw the physical human being spiritualized and placed in the spiritual world as its crowning, and such people understood the Christ to be the first real human form that could be seen in the spiritual world from the point of view provided by the physical world. In this way those receiving the Hebrew initiation saw how, in the distant future, the “Son of Man,” the Christ, would heal and purify the physical form. For this reason Paul knew that what appeared to him before Damascus in human form could be none other than the Christ.
The writer of the Apocalypse describes the same thing to us when he speaks of the “Son of Man.” He calls the seven communities the “seven stars,” and he saw the “Son of Man” as the spiritualized, purified form of the physical body, not only the etheric body, but the spiritual-physical form of “Man,” the human being, now purified and sanctified.
In this way he places before us the same being that Paul beheld outside Damascus. Then he details what the impulse behind this Christ event should mean for all humanity. He speaks to us of the seven communities in seven letters to the communities. They are messages concerning the tasks of the seven post-Atlantean cultures. In the seven seals, he portrays the seven cultures following our fifth main epoch. [This fifth main epoch is called the post-Atlantean. It consists of seven cultures of which we are now in the fifth with two more to pass before the start of the next main epoch.] And in the seven trumpets, he portrays the seven cultures of the seventh great main epoch.
What takes place in our present-day culture we can see in the physical world. But what will take place in the sixth great main epoch can be seen ahead of time in the pictures of the astral world. The seventh great main epoch, on the other hand, can be experienced in the sounds heard in the harmony of the spheres, in the devachanic world. They are experienced as a result of an impulse given by Christ.
In this way, the Apocalypse is a portrayal of what the Christian initiate experienced. It is a description of Christian initiation, a picture of the experiences of a man initiated in the Christian sense who has understood what has come into the world through Christ.
Erster Vortrag
Wir haben oft davon gesprochen, daß man Theosophie nicht als etwas Neues zu betrachten hat. Andere, äußere Strömungen des Wissens wollen oft gerne etwas Neues sein; aber Theosophie will und soll der für unsere Zeit passende Ausdruck sein für das Weisheitsstreben, wie es durch alle Zeiten geht; Theosophie sieht in allen zeitlichen Offenbarungen verschiedene Formen einer Urweisheit, wie sie durch alle Zeiten strömt.
Die Apokalypse, die zu den ältesten Urkunden des Christentums gehört, wurde zu allen Zeiten des Christentums in der verschiedensten Weise erklärt; und diese verschiedenen Erklärungen trugen immer den Charakter des subjektiven Auffassens der verschiedenen Epochen. Im großen und ganzen, wenn wir rasch den Blick schweifen lassen über die Jahrhunderte christlicher Entwickelung, können wir aber schon in älteren Zeiten den aufkeimenden materialistischen Sinn an dieses Buch herantreten sehen. Da finden wir, wie schon bald der Fehler gemacht worden ist, in den Bildern der Apokalypse bestimmte Vorgänge der Erden- und Menschheitsentwickelung zu sehen, wie zum Beispiel das Herabsteigen des verkündeten Messias in die Welt oder gar die Errichtung eines himmlischen Reiches auf dieser Welt im physischen Sinne. Als nun darauffolgende Zeiten gar nichts von alledem erfüllten und enthüllten, glaubte man in den verschiedenen Gegenden des Abendlandes, daß man sich in der Zeitangabe geirrt hätte und schob die Erfüllung der Weissagung immer mehr hinaus. Um das 12., 13. Jahrhundert fing man dann wieder an, die Apokalypse mehr innerlich zu deuten. So fing man in jener Zeit an, in der Veräußerlichung des Christentums mehr und mehr das Reich des Antichrist zu sehen. Die römische Kirche selbst wurde vielen zum Ausdruck dieses Reiches des Antichrist; die römische Kirche dagegen sah wiederum dasselbe im Protestantismus.
In neueren Zeiten, die so ganz und gar erfüllt sind von materialistischer Gesinnung, sagte man dann, daß der Schreiber der Offenbarung natürlich nichts wissen konnte von der Zukunft, sondern daß er schon hinter ihm liegende Ereignisse beschrieben habe. So meinte man, daß er in dem Tiere mit den zwei Hörnern einen so großen Gegner des Christentums wie den Nero gesehen habe. Wenn weiter die Rede ist von Erschütterungen der Erde, von Heuschreckenschwärmen und so weiter, so läßt sich unschwer nachweisen, daß solche Dinge dazumal über jene Gegenden gekommen sind. Nun, so etwas nennt man dann «objektive Forschung», und doch ist sie ja ganz beeinträchtigt durch subjektive Auffassung.
Die Theosophie soll uns nun ein Instrument werden, die Apokalypse wieder spirituell aufzufassen und dadurch in ihren Sinn einzudringen. Nun könnte man meinen, diese Erklärung durch die Theosophie sei auch subjektiv gefärbt wie alle anderen Erklärungen. In einem gewissen Sinne ist sie es auch, doch ist ein Unterschied zwischen ihr und den anderen Erklärungen. Die äußeren Geschichtsschreiber wollen objektiv sein; sie können aber nur subjektiv sein. Wir aber wollen subjektiv in dem Sinne erklären, daß wir in aller Bescheidenheit uns bewußt sind: die Weisheit der Welt ist immer im Einklang mit der fortschreitenden Entwickelung, mit der fortschreitenden Zeit. Wenn wir für unsere Zeit das Richtige tun, so ist das eine in alle Zukunft hineinwirkende Kraft. Die Theosophie darf nicht zu einer Dogmatik werden. Das, was wir heute als Theosophie lehren, das ändert sich nicht seinem Wesen, aber seinen Formen nach. Wenn die Seelen der heutigen Zeit wiedergeboren werden, so werden sie in kommenden Zeiten ebenso reif sein, andere höhere, zukünftige Formen des Geisteslebens aufzunehmen. Unsere Erklärung der Apokalypse wird veralten; künftige Zeiten werden darüber hinausgehen. Aber die Apokalypse selbst wird darum nicht veralten. Sie ist weit größer als unsere Erklärungen und sie wird noch tiefere, noch höhere Erklärungen finden.
Rücken wir uns vor die Seele die ersten Zeilen der Offenbarung, wie sie in Wahrheit lauten. Es wird uns gesagt, daß das Geheimnis Jesu Christi uns gegeben wird in Zeichen, daß diese Zeichen zu deuten sind und daß der Schreiber nach Maßgabe seiner Kräfte so viel von den Zeichen zu deuten versucht als möglich. Die Apokalypse ist in anderer Absicht geschrieben worden als das Johannes-Evangelium. Es handelt sich um ein persönliches Erlebnis, wenn der Schreiber uns sagt, daß er die Offenbarung Jesu Christi, die Erscheinung des Christus beschreibt. Es handelt sich also um etwas ähnliches wie das Erlebnis des Paulus vor Damaskus, das Mysterium des Paulus. Paulus ist derjenige, der am allermeisten getan hat zur Verkündigung und Verbreitung des Christentums, trotzdem er nicht zu den Jüngern gehört, die miterlebt haben die Ereignisse von Palästina und auch nicht deren tragischen Ausgang: die Kreuzigung des Christus Jesus. Wir wissen, die Evangelien stellen die Art dar, wie dies alles in die Herzen der damaligen Menschheit eingedrungen ist. Paulus hatte von alledem auch gehört, was in den Evangelien steht. Paulus kannte die Ereignisse von Palästina genau, und trotzdem hatte er gar nicht denken können, daß der am Kreuz Geendete der verheißene Erlöser oder Messias sei. Wie ein gemeiner Verbrecher, so sagte sich der Paulus, kann der Messias nicht enden. Man versteht Paulus schlecht, wenn man nicht einen tieferen Blick in seine Seele tut und in das, was als Wissen in ihm als jüdischen Eingeweihten lebte. Er wußte: Der Erlöser, der Messias hatte sich vorausverkündet im brennenden Dornbusch, im Feuer des Sinai. Darauf weist der Christus Jesus hin, als er sagt: «Wenn ihr aber seinen» — des Moses — «Schriften nicht glaubet, wie werdet ihr meinen Worten glauben?» (Joh. 5, 47) Der Christus sagt damit, daß er sich früher mit äußeren Mitteln, durch die Gewalt der Elemente, verkündet hat, daß er sich aber dann offenbart hat durch das Leben, Leiden und Wohnen im menschlichen Leibe, sozusagen herniedergestiegen ist aus dem Feuer des Sinai. Paulus, der jüdische Eingeweihte, kannte durchaus den vorausverkündeten Christus; denn hinter dem Geheimnis des Moses verbirgt sich folgendes: In der Zeit des Alten Testamentes und in der alten jüdischen Geheimlehre gab es, wie zu allen Zeiten, Mysterien und Eingeweihte. Halten wir uns an den Grundsatz, daß die Einweihung sich auch den Zeitumständen anpassen muß. Betrachten wir sie demnach, so müssen wir damit anfangen, uns den Menschen vorzustellen, wie ihn die Theosophie oder Geisteswissenschaft hinstellt, als viergliedrige Wesenheit, als begabt mit dem physischen Leib, den der Mensch mit dem Mineral gemeinsam hat, mit dem Ätherleib, den er mit dem Pflanzenreich gemeinsam hat, einem astralischen Leib, den auch das Tierreich hat, und endlich dem Ich oder Ich-Träger. So, wie der Mensch da vor uns steht, besteht er aus diesen vier Gliedern. Am Tage sind sie miteinander verbunden, aber während der Nacht sind das Ich und der astralische Leib in der geistigen Welt. So nimmt der heutige Mensch während der Nacht nichts wahr. Wenn der Mensch sich nun zu höherem geistigen Schauen hinaufentwickelt, so muß er gewisse Methoden innerer Entwickelung auf sich anwenden. Wer in die höheren Welten aufsteigen will, muß auf seine Seele wirken lassen Meditation und Konzentration und sich versenken in bestimmte Dinge, von denen eins unter Hunderten zum Beispiel das Rosenkreuz ist.
Wenn der heutige Mensch schläft, so kann das alles, was er tagsüber erlebt, keinen so starken Eindruck auf seinen astralischen Leib machen, daß dies in der Nacht weiterwirkt. Wenn der heutige normale Mensch abends einschläft, ist sein Tagesleben wie ausgelöscht. Beim Einweihungsschüler, wenn er auch lange nichts von der Umwandlung seines astralischen Leibes merkt, ist es aber anders. Wenn er anfängt Meditation zu üben und die in okkulten Schulen vorgeschriebenen Übungen auf sich wirken läßt, sieht der Hellseher, während beim gewöhnlichen Menschen etwas Unorganisiertes, Chaotisches zu schauen ist, beim Meditanten ganz andere Strömungen, andere Formen und Organe. Das zeigt sich als Wirkung der Übungen, wenn auch der Schüler selbst lange nichts davon merkt. Es wird sein astralischer Leib ein anderes Wesen, wenngleich auch die Meditation noch so kurz ist. Chaotisch war vorher der astralische Leib, und alles, was der Mensch tat, wurde übertönt durch die Tageseindrücke. Nur die Vorschriften der okkulten Schulung geben etwas, was alle Alltagseindrücke übertönt. Daher nannte man diese Wandlung der Seele: Reinigung oder Katharsis. Der Schüler wird ein Gereinigter, während beim gewöhnlichen Menschen der astralische Leib fortfährt, chaotisch, ungeordnet zu sein.
Nun muß aber auch durch den Lehrer dem Schüler zum Bewußtsein gebracht werden, was die geistige Welt um ihn herum ist. Damit nun das, was so im astralischen Leib geschah, sich in den Ätherleib fortpflanzen konnte, wurde in früheren Zeiten folgendes mit dem Schüler vorgenommen. Wenn der Schüler bereit war, sozusagen auf der Höhe der Einweihung stand, hatte er einige Zeit, meist dreieinhalb Tage, liegend zuzubringen, in denen ihn der Initiator in vollständige Lethargie oder Abgestorbenheit brachte. Da wurde dann der Ätherleib herausgehoben und der Astralleib drückte nun alles, was er in sich durch die okkulten Übungen vorbereitet hatte, in den Ätherleib ab. Sonst ist der physische Leib ein Hindernis, um das, was der Mensch in der geistigen Welt erfährt, ihm zum Bewußtsein zu bringen. In diesem Augenblicke nun, da der Initiator den Ätherleib aus dem physischen Leibe holte, trat also die Erleuchtung ein und der Erleuchtete erlebte jetzt die geistige Welt, und nach dreieinhalb Tagen war er eben ein Eiingeweihter, der von den geistigen Welten erzählen konnte.
Bei den Mysterien der verschiedenen Völker können wir denselben Vorgang finden. Aber bei den Eingeweihten des Alten Testaments war die Einweihung eine andere; denn sie erlebten das, was Moses auf dem Sinai erlebt hatte, noch einmal. So konnten sie dem Volke sagen, daß der Messias erscheinen würde, daß der Messias aus ihrem Volke selbst hervorgehen würde, daß er die Entwickelungsprinzipien aller Menschheitsentwickelung im fleischlichen Leibe selbst verkörpern würde. Das war der höchste Moment der Einweihung, wenn der erleuchtete Hebräer erleben durfte, daß in der Zukunft der Christus erstehen würde. Von alledem wußte der Paulus als jüdischer Eingeweihter; trotzdem konnte er aber vor dem Ereignis von Damaskus nimmermehr glauben, daß der am Kreuz Gestorbene derselbe sei.
Nun erzählt Paulus von sich, er sei eine Frühgeburt, das heißt ein Eingeweihter aus Gnaden. Das hebt er hervor, daß er die Einweihung nicht erhielt durch stufenweise Schulung; aber er steht doch der geistigen Welt näher als diejenigen Menschen, die tiefer in die Materie hinabgestiegen sind. So konnte er erleben, was die «Krone des Lebens», der letzte Akt in der alttestamentlichen Einweihung, war: die Krönung durch das Erscheinen des Christus. Im Lichtesglanz erschien ihm das, was die alttestamentlichen Eingeweihten immer erlebten; was sie erlebt hatten als Zukunftsereignis, das sah er nun als Erscheinung, die ihm sagte, daß dieses Wesen dasselbe sei wie das, welches im Leibe des Jesus von Nazareth gelebt hatte und starb. Er wußte jetzt: der Messias, der Christus ist schon da.
Daß der Christus kommen sollte, das war das größte Ereignis der alten Einweihung gewesen. Daß Er gestorben war und doch lebte, verbunden mit dem irdischen Dasein und fortwirkend in der Menschheitsentwickelung, das sehen wir dann aus allen Briefen des Paulus. Er sah dieses Ereignis als etwas, das schon Gegenwart geworden war.
Versetzen wir uns einmal in alle anderen Finweihungen, die nicht althebräisch und nicht christlich waren. Da wußte man: In alten atlantischen Zeiten kommen wir zu einer Gestalt des Menschen, die noch ganz anders ist als die heutige. Der Ätherleib ist ja der Bildner des physischen Leibes; durch die Einweihung nun sah man immer das, was als Ätherleib dem physischen Leib zugrunde lag. Man mußte in der geistigen Welt verzichten auf das Bild des physischen Menschenleibes; man sah nur den Ätherleib des Menschen.
In der althebräischen Einweihung aber sah man immer als Krönung den physischen Menschen vergeistigt und in die geistige Welt versetzt. Und den Christus verstand man als solchen Menschen, als die erste wirkliche Menschengestalt, die überhaupt von der physischen Welt aus in der geistigen Welt zu sehen sein würde. So sah man in der hebräischen Einweihung, wie in ferner Zukunft durch den «Menschensohn», den Christus, die physische Form geheiligt und gereinigt werden würde. Deshalb wußte der Paulus, daß das, was ihm als Menschengestalt vor Damaskus erschien, kein anderer sein konnte als Christus.
Ein gleiches schildert uns auch der Apokalyptiker, wenn er von dem «Menschensohn» spricht. Er nennt die sieben Gemeinden die «sieben Sterne» und den «Menschensohn» die vergeistigte, gereinigte Form im physischen Leibe, nicht nur im Ätherleibe, sondern das physische Menschenbild verklärt und geheiligt.
So stellt er vor uns dasselbe hin, was Paulus vor Damaskus erblickt hatte, und er führt aus, was der Impuls dieses Christus-Ereignisses für die ganze Menschheit bedeuten sollte. Er spricht uns von den sieben Gemeinden in sieben Briefen oder Sendschreiben an die Gemeinden als von der Aufgabe der sieben nachatlantischen Kulturen; und die nach unserem fünften Hauptzeitalter kommenden, uns folgenden sieben Kulturen stellt er dar in den sieben Siegeln; die sieben Kulturen aber des siebenten großen Hauptzeitalters stellt er dar in den sieben Posaunen.
Was als heutige Kultur sich abspielt, können wir in der physischen Welt schauen. Aber das, was in der sechsten großen Hauptzeit sich abspielt, das kann man in den Bildern der astralen Welt voraus erleben. Das siebente große Hauptzeitalter hingegen kann man erleben in den Tönen der Sphärenharmonie, in der devachanischen Welt. Man erlebt sie als Folge des Christus-Impulses.
So ist die Apokalypse die Darstellung dessen, was der christliche Eingeweihte erlebte: die Schilderung der christlichen Einweihung, ein Bild der Erlebnisse eines im christlichen Sinne Eingeweihten, der verstanden hat, was durch den Christus in die Welt gekommen ist.
First lecture
We have often said that theosophy should not be regarded as something new. Other, external currents of knowledge often want to be something new; but theosophy wants and should be the expression appropriate to our time for the striving for wisdom that has existed throughout the ages. Theosophy sees in all temporal revelations different forms of a primordial wisdom that flows through all ages.
The Apocalypse, which is one of the oldest documents of Christianity, has been explained in various ways throughout the Christian era, and these various explanations have always borne the character of the subjective views of the different epochs. On the whole, however, if we cast a quick glance over the centuries of Christian development, we can already see in earlier times the germinating materialistic sense approaching this book. We find that the mistake was soon made of seeing in the images of the Apocalypse certain events in the development of the earth and of humanity, such as the descent of the promised Messiah into the world or even the establishment of a heavenly kingdom on this world in the physical sense. When the following ages fulfilled and revealed nothing of all this, people in various parts of the West believed that they had been mistaken in their calculation of time and postponed the fulfillment of the prophecy further and further. Around the 12th and 13th centuries, people began again to interpret the Apocalypse more inwardly. Thus, at that time, people began to see more and more the kingdom of the Antichrist in the externalization of Christianity. The Roman Church itself became for many the expression of this kingdom of the Antichrist; the Roman Church, on the other hand, saw the same thing in Protestantism.
In more recent times, which are so completely filled with materialistic thinking, it was said that the writer of Revelation could not possibly have known anything about the future, but that he was describing events that had already taken place. Thus, it was believed that in the beast with two horns he saw a great enemy of Christianity, such as Nero. When there is further talk of earthquakes, swarms of locusts, and so on, it is easy to prove that such things happened in those regions at that time. Now, this is called “objective research,” and yet it is completely biased by subjective opinion.
Theosophy should now become an instrument for us to understand the Apocalypse spiritually again and thereby penetrate its meaning. Now one might think that this explanation by theosophy is also subjectively colored like all other explanations. In a certain sense it is, but there is a difference between it and the other explanations. The external historians want to be objective, but they can only be subjective. We, however, want to explain subjectively in the sense that we are conscious, in all modesty, that the wisdom of the world is always in harmony with progressive development, with the progress of time. If we do what is right for our time, this will be a force that will continue to have an effect in the future. Theosophy must not become dogmatic. What we teach today as Theosophy will not change in its essence, but only in its forms. When the souls of today are reborn, they will be just as ready in future times to take on other, higher, future forms of spiritual life. Our explanation of the Apocalypse will become outdated; future times will go beyond it. But the Apocalypse itself will not become outdated. It is far greater than our explanations and will find even deeper, even higher explanations.
Let us place before our souls the first lines of the Revelation as they truly are. We are told that the mystery of Jesus Christ is given to us in signs, that these signs are to be interpreted, and that the writer attempts to interpret as much of the signs as possible according to his abilities. The Apocalypse was written with a different intention than the Gospel of John. It is a personal experience when the writer tells us that he is describing the revelation of Jesus Christ, the appearance of Christ. It is therefore something similar to Paul's experience before Damascus, the mystery of Paul. Paul is the one who did the most to proclaim and spread Christianity, even though he was not one of the disciples who witnessed the events in Palestine or their tragic outcome: the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. We know that the Gospels describe how all this entered the hearts of the people of that time. Paul had also heard about everything that is written in the Gospels. Paul knew the events in Palestine well, and yet he could not have imagined that the man who died on the cross was the promised Savior or Messiah. The Messiah cannot end up like a common criminal, Paul said to himself. It is difficult to understand Paul unless one takes a deeper look into his soul and into what lived in him as a Jewish initiate. He knew that the Redeemer, the Messiah, had foretold himself in the burning bush, in the fire on Mount Sinai. Christ Jesus refers to this when he says: “But if you do not believe his” — Moses' — “writings, how will you believe my words?” (John 5:47) Christ is saying that he previously announced himself through external means, through the power of the elements, but that he then revealed himself through his life, suffering, and dwelling in the human body, descending, so to speak, from the fire of Sinai. Paul, the Jewish initiate, knew the Christ who had been foretold, for behind the mystery of Moses lies the following: in the time of the Old Testament and in the ancient Jewish secret teachings, as in all times, there were mysteries and initiates. Let us adhere to the principle that initiation must also adapt to the circumstances of the time. If we consider it in this light, we must begin by imagining human beings as presented by theosophy or spiritual science: as four-membered beings, endowed with the physical body, which humans share with minerals; with the etheric body, which they share with the plant kingdom; with the astral body, which the animal kingdom also has; and finally with the I or ego. As human beings stand before us, they consist of these four members. During the day they are connected with each other, but during the night the ego and the astral body are in the spiritual world. Thus, modern human beings perceive nothing during the night. If human beings now develop themselves to a higher spiritual level of perception, they must apply certain methods of inner development. Those who wish to ascend to the higher worlds must allow meditation and concentration to work on their souls and immerse themselves in certain things, one of which, among hundreds, is the Rosicrucians.
When modern human beings sleep, everything they experience during the day cannot make such a strong impression on their astral body that it continues to have an effect during the night. When modern normal human beings fall asleep in the evening, their daytime life is as if it had been erased. But it's different for the initiation student, even if they don't notice anything about the transformation of their astral body for a long time. When they start practicing meditation and let the exercises prescribed in occult schools work on them, the clairvoyant sees completely different currents, different forms and organs in the meditator, whereas in ordinary people there is something disorganized and chaotic. This shows itself as the effect of the exercises, even if the student himself does not notice it for a long time. His astral body becomes a different being, even if the meditation is still very short. Previously, the astral body was chaotic, and everything the person did was drowned out by the impressions of the day. Only the rules of occult training provide something that drowns out all everyday impressions. This is why this transformation of the soul was called purification or catharsis. The student becomes purified, while in ordinary people the astral body continues to be chaotic and disordered.
Now, however, the teacher must also make the student aware of what the spiritual world around him is. In order for what happened in the astral body to be transmitted to the etheric body, the following was done with the student in earlier times. When the student was ready, when he had reached the level of initiation, so to speak, he had to spend some time, usually three and a half days, lying down, during which the initiator brought him into a state of complete lethargy or death. The etheric body was then lifted out, and the astral body pressed everything it had prepared through the occult exercises into the etheric body. Otherwise, the physical body is an obstacle to bringing what a person experiences in the spiritual world into their consciousness. At this moment, when the initiator removed the etheric body from the physical body, enlightenment occurred and the enlightened person now experienced the spiritual world, and after three and a half days he was an initiate who could tell of the spiritual worlds.
We can find the same process in the mysteries of various peoples. But for the initiates of the Old Testament, the initiation was different, for they experienced once again what Moses had experienced on Mount Sinai. Thus they could tell the people that the Messiah would appear, that the Messiah would come forth from their own people, that he would embody in his own flesh the principles of the entire evolution of humanity. This was the highest moment of initiation, when the enlightened Hebrew was allowed to experience that Christ would arise in the future. Paul knew all this as a Jewish initiate; nevertheless, before the event at Damascus, he could never believe that the one who died on the cross was the same person.
Now Paul tells us that he was born prematurely, that is, he was an initiate by grace. He emphasizes that he did not receive his initiation through gradual training; but he is nevertheless closer to the spiritual world than those people who have descended deeper into matter. Thus he was able to experience what the “crown of life,” the last act in the Old Testament initiation, was: the coronation through the appearance of Christ. In a blaze of light, he saw what the Old Testament initiates had always experienced; what they had experienced as a future event, he now saw as an apparition that told him that this being was the same as the one who had lived and died in the body of Jesus of Nazareth. He now knew: the Messiah, the Christ, is already here.
That Christ was to come was the greatest event of the ancient initiation. That He had died and yet lived, connected with earthly existence and continuing to work in human evolution, we see in all of Paul's letters. He saw this event as something that had already become present.
Let us now consider all other initiations that were not ancient Hebrew or Christian. There it was known that in ancient Atlantean times, human beings had a form that was completely different from today's. The etheric body is the formative element of the physical body; through initiation, one could always see what lay at the foundation of the physical body as the etheric body. In the spiritual world, one had to renounce the image of the physical human body; one saw only the etheric body of the human being.
In ancient Hebrew initiation, however, the physical human being was always seen as crowned with spiritualization and transported into the spiritual world. And Christ was understood as such a human being, as the first real human form that would ever be seen from the physical world into the spiritual world. Thus, in the Hebrew initiation, it was seen how in the distant future, through the “Son of Man,” the Christ, the physical form would be sanctified and purified. That is why Paul knew that what appeared to him as a human form before Damascus could be none other than Christ.
The apocalyptic writer describes the same thing when he speaks of the “Son of Man.” He calls the seven churches the “seven stars” and the “Son of Man” the spiritualized, purified form in the physical body, not only in the etheric body, but the physical image of man transfigured and sanctified.
Thus he presents to us the same thing that Paul saw before Damascus, and he explains what the impulse of this Christ event was to mean for the whole of humanity. He speaks to us of the seven churches in seven letters or epistles to the churches as the task of the seven post-Atlantean cultures; and he depicts the seven cultures that will follow our fifth main age in the seven seals; but he depicts the seven cultures of the seventh great main age in the seven trumpets.
What is happening in today's culture can be seen in the physical world. But what is happening in the sixth great epoch can be experienced in advance in the images of the astral world. The seventh great epoch, on the other hand, can be experienced in the tones of the harmony of the spheres, in the devachanic world. It is experienced as a consequence of the Christ impulse.
Thus, the Apocalypse is the representation of what the Christian initiate experienced: the description of Christian initiation, a picture of the experiences of someone who is initiated in the Christian sense and who has understood what came into the world through Christ.