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Editor: Harry Collison

The Spiritual Guidance of Man and of Mankind

DR. RUDOLF STEINER

EDITED BY H. COLLISON

The copyright, the publishing rights, and the editorial responsibility for the translation of the works of Rudolf Steiner, Ph.D., with the exception of those already under the editorial supervision of Max Gysi, are now vested in Mr. Harry Collison, M.A., Oxon.

PREFACE In the following pages are reproduced the contents of some lectures delivered by me at Copenhagen in June last, in connection with the General Meeting of the Scandinavian Theosophical Society. What is here set forth was therefore spoken to an audience acquainted with occult science, or theosophy. A similar acquaintance is assumed in this work. It is throughout based on the foundations given in my books, "Theosophy" and "An Outline of Occult Science." To anyone taking up the present work who is unacquainted with these premises, it must needs appear the strange outpouring of mere fancy, but the above-named books point out the scientific basis of everything stated in this one.

I have completely re-written the shorthand report of the lectures; nevertheless it has been my intention on publishing them, to preserve the character given in oral delivery. This is specially mentioned because it is in general my opinion that the form of work intended for reading should be quite different from that used in speaking. I have expressed this principle of mine in all my earlier writings, as far as they were intended for the press. If in this instance I have worked out my subject in closer connection with the spoken word, it is because I have reasons for letting the work appear at this juncture, and an adaptation completely in accordance with the above rule would take a great deal of time.

RUDOLF STEINER.

The Spiritual Guidance of Man and of Mankind

A man reflecting on his own nature soon becomes conscious that there is within him a second and more powerful self than the one bounded by his thoughts, his feelings and the fully-conscious impulses of his will. He becomes aware that he is subject to that second self, as to a higher power. It is true that at first he will feel it to be a lower entity as compared with the one limited by his intelligent and fully-conscious soul, with its inclinations towards the Good and True. And at first he will strive to overcome that lower entity.

But closer self-examination may reveal something else about the second self. If we often, in the course of our lives, make a kind of survey of our acts and experiences, we make a singular discovery about ourselves. And the older we are, the more significant do we think that discovery. If we ask ourselves what we did or said at a particular period of our lives, it turns out that we have done very many things which are only really understood in later years. Seven or eight, or perhaps twenty years ago, we did certain things, and we know quite well that only now, long afterwards, is our intelligence ripe enough to understand what we did or said at that earlier period.

Many people do not make such discoveries about themselves, because they do not lay themselves out to do so. But it is extremely profitable to hold such communion frequently with one's own soul. For directly a man becomes aware that he has done things in former years which he is only now beginning to understand, that formerly his intelligence was not ripe enough to understand them,--at a moment such as this, something like the following feeling arises in the soul: The man feels himself protected by a good power, which rules in the depths of his own being; he begins to have more and more confidence in the fact that really, in the highest sense of the word, he is not alone in the world, and that everything which he understands, and is consciously able to do, is after all but a small part of what he really accomplished in the world.

If this observation is often made, it is possible to carry out in practical life something which is very easy to see theoretically. It is easy to see that we should not make much progress in life if we had to accomplish everything we have to do, in full consciousness, with our intelligence taking note of every circumstance affecting us. In order to see this theoretically, we have only to reflect as follows: In what section of his life does a human being perform those acts which are really most important as regards his own existence? When does he act most wisely for himself? He does this from about the time of his birth up to that period to which his memory goes back when in later life he surveys his earthly existence. If he recalls what he did three, four or five years ago, and then goes farther and farther back, he comes at last to a certain point in childhood, beyond which memory cannot go. What lies beyond it may be told by parents or others, but a man's own recollection only extends to a certain point in the past. That point is the moment at which the individual felt himself to be an ego. In the lives of people whose memory is limited to the normal, there must always be such a point, but previously to it, the human soul has worked in the wisest possible manner on the individual, and never afterwards, when man has gained consciousness, can he accomplish such vast and magnificent work on himself as he carries out, from subconscious motives, during the first years of childhood.

For we know that at birth man takes into the physical world what he has brought with him as the result of his former earthly lives. When he is born, his physical brain, for instance, is but a very imperfect instrument. The soul has to work a finer organization into that instrument, in order to make it the agent of everything which the soul is capable of performing. In point of fact the human soul, before it is fully conscious, works upon the brain so as to make it an instrument for exercising all the abilities, aptitudes, qualities, etc., which appertain to the soul as the result of its former earthly lives. This work on a man's own body is directed from points of view which are wiser than anything which he can subsequently do for himself when in possession of full consciousness.

Moreover, man during this period not only elaborates his brain plastically, but has to learn three most important things for his earthly existence. The first is the equilibrium of his own body in space. The man of the present day entirely overlooks the meaning of this statement, which touches upon one of the most essential differences between man and animals. An animal is destined from the outset to develop its equilibrium in space in a certain way; one animal is destined to be a climber, another a swimmer, etc. An animal is so organized from the beginning as to be able to bear itself rightly in space, and this is the case with all animals up to and including the mammals most resembling man. If zoologists would ponder this fact, they would lay less emphasis on the number of similar bones and muscles in man and animals, etc., for this is of much less account than the fact that man is not endowed at the outset with the complete equipment for his conditions of equilibrium. He has first to form them out of the sum total of his being. It is significant that man should have to work upon himself, in order to make, out of a being that cannot walk at all, one that can walk erect. It is man himself who gives himself his vertical position, or his equilibrium in space. He brings himself into relation with the force of gravitation. It will obviously be easy for anyone taking a superficial view of the matter to question this statement, with apparently good reason. It may be said that man is just as much organized for his erect walk as, for instance, a climbing animal for climbing. But more accurate observation will show that it is the peculiarity of the animal's organization that causes its position in space. In man it is the soul which brings itself into relation with space and controls the organization.

The second thing which man teaches himself, and that by means of the entity which proceeds from one incarnation to another as the same being, is speech. Through speech he comes into relation with his fellow-men. This relation makes him the vehicle of that spiritual life which interpenetrates the world primarily through man. Emphasis has often been laid, with good reason, on the fact that a human being removed, before he could speak, to a desert island, and kept apart from his fellows, would not learn to talk. On the other hand, what we receive by inheritance, what is implanted in us for use in later years and is subject to the principles of heredity, does not depend on a man's dwelling with his fellows. For instance, his inherited conditions oblige him to change his teeth in his seventh year. If it were possible for him to grow up on a desert island, he would still change them then. But he only learns to talk, when his soul's inner being, i.e., that which is carried on from one life to another, is stimulated. The germ, however, for the development of the larynx must be formed during the period at which man has not yet acquired his ego-consciousness. Before the time to which his memory goes back, he must plant the germ for developing his larynx, in order that this may become the organ of speech.

And then there is a third thing: It is not so well known that man learns this of himself, from that part of his inner being which he carries on from one incarnation to another. It is the life within the world of thought itself. The elaboration of the brain is undertaken because the brain is the instrument of thought. At the beginning of life, this organ is still plastic, because the individual has to form it for himself as an instrument of thought, in accordance with the intention of the entity which is carried on from one life to another. The brain immediately after birth is, as it was bound to be, in accordance with the forces inherited from parents and other ancestors. But the individual has to express in his thought what he is as an individual being, in accordance with his former earthly lives. Therefore he must re-model the inherited peculiarities of his brain, after birth, when he has become physically independent of his parents and other ancestors.

Man works on himself by means of a wisdom which is not within him. That wisdom is mightier and more comprehensive than any conscious wisdom of later years. The higher wisdom becomes obscured in the human soul, which in exchange receives consciousness.

The higher wisdom works from out of the spiritual world deep into the bodily part of man, so that man is able by its means to form his brain out of spirit. It is rightly said that even the wisest may learn from a child, for in the child is working the wisdom which does not pass later into consciousness. Through that wisdom man has something like telephonic connection with the spiritual beings in whose world he lives between death and re-birth. From that world there is something still streaming into the aura of a child, which is, as an individual being, immediately under the guidance of the entire spiritual world to which it belongs. Spiritual forces from that world continue to flow into a child. They cease so to flow at the point of time to which memory goes back. It is these forces which enable a child to bring itself into a definite relation to gravitation. They form the larynx, and so mould the brain that it becomes a living instrument for the expression of thought, feeling and will.

What is present in childhood to a supreme degree, so that the individual is then working out of a self which is still in direct connection with higher worlds, continues to some extent even in later years, although the conditions change in the manner indicated above. If at a later stage of life we feel that we did something years before which we are only now able to understand, it is just because we previously let ourselves be guided by higher wisdom, and only after the lapse of years have we attained to an understanding of the reasons of our conduct.

From all this we can feel that, immediately after birth, we had not escaped so very far from the world in which we were before entering upon physical existence, and that we can never really escape from it wholly. Our share in higher spirituality enters our physical life and accompanies us throughout it. We often feel that what is within us is not only a higher self which is gradually being evolved, but is something higher which is there already, and is the motive cause of our so often developing beyond ourselves.

The question now suggests itself, why do the higher forces which have been described work upon human nature only during early childhood? One-half of the answer may be easily given as follows: If those higher forces went on working in the same way, man would be always a child. He would not attain the full ego-consciousness. From within his own being must proceed the motive power which previously worked on him from without. But there is a more important reason, which explains still more about the mysteries of human life than what has just been said, and that is the following:

There is something in what man brings into existence at birth, which is better than what he can make out of it in later life. This is so, because the Luciferic and Ahrimanic forces have but little influence over man during early childhood; they are virtually only operative in what man makes out of himself by his conscious life. If he were to retain in full force beyond early childhood that part of his being which is better than the rest, he would be unable to endure its influence, because his whole being is weakened by the opposite forces of Lucifer and Ahriman. Man's organism in the physical world is so constituted that it is only when he is, so to speak, as soft and pliable as a child, that he can endure within him those direct forces of the spiritual world which operate within him during early childhood. He would be shattered, if during his later life there were still directly working in him those forces which underlie the faculty of equilibrium in space, and the formation of the larynx and the brain. Those forces are so tremendous that, if they were to go on working, our organism would pine away under the influence of their holiness. Man must only have recourse to such forces for the purpose of that kind of activity which brings him into conscious connection with the supersensible world.

But out of this there arises a thought which is of great significance, if rightly understood. It is expressed in the New Testament in the words "Except ye become as little children, ye cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven." What then becomes manifest as man's highest ideal, if what has just been said be rightly received? Surely this,--the drawing ever nearer and nearer to what we may call a conscious relation to the forces which work in man unknown to him during early childhood. Only it must be borne in mind that man would collapse under the power of those forces, if they were at once to operate in his conscious life. For this reason, careful preparation is necessary for the attainment of those faculties which induce the perception of supersensible worlds. The object of such preparation is to qualify man to bear what he is unable to bear in ordinary life.

Now the passing of the individual through successive incarnations is of importance for the collective evolution of the human race. The latter has advanced through successive lives in the past, and is still advancing, and parallel with it the earth too is moving forwards in its evolution. The time will come when the earth will have reached the end of its career. Then the earthly planet will fall away as a physical entity from the sum-total of human souls, just as the human body falls away from the spirit at death, when, in order to continue living, the soul enters the spiritual realm which is adapted for it between death and re-birth. When once this is realized, it must appear as man's highest ideal to have progressed far enough at earthly death, to be able to reap all possible benefits which may be obtained from earthly life.

Now those forces which prevent man from being able to endure the forces working upon him during early childhood come out of the substance of the earth. When this has fallen away from a human being, the latter, if he has attained the aim of his life, must have advanced far enough to be able actually to give himself up, with his whole being, to the powers which at present are only active in man during childhood. Thus the object of evolution through successive earthly lives is gradually to make the whole individual, including therefore the conscious part, into an expression of the powers which are ruling in him under the influence of the spiritual world,--though he does not know it,--during the first years of his life. The thought which takes possession of the soul after such reflections as these, must fill it with humility, but also with a due consciousness of the dignity of man. The thought is this: man is not alone; there is something living within him which is constantly affording him proof that he can rise above himself to something which is already growing beyond him, and which will go on growing from one life to another. This thought can assume more and more definite form; and in that case it affords something supremely soothing and elevating, at the same time filling the soul with corresponding humility and modesty. What is it that man has within him in this way? Surely a higher, divine human being, by whom he is able to feel himself interpenetrated, saying to himself, "He is my guide within me."

From such a point of view, it is not long before we arrive at the thought that by all the means in our power we should strive to be in harmony with that within our being which is wiser than conscious intelligence. And we shall be referred on from the directly conscious self to an enlarged self, in the presence of which all false pride and presumption will be extinguished and subdued. This feeling develops into another, which opens the way to accurate understanding of the nature of present human imperfection; and the consciousness of this leads to the knowledge that man may become perfect, if once the larger spirituality ruling within him is allowed to bear the same relation to his consciousness which it bore to the unconscious life of the soul in early childhood.

Supposing a man now stood before us, and that some cosmic powers could cause his ordinary ego to be removed. And now suppose that an ego could then be introduced into the three bodies which is working in connection with spiritual worlds, what would happen to a person thus treated? At the end of three years his body would necessarily be shattered. Something would occur, through cosmic karma, which would prevent the spirit-being which would be in connection with higher worlds, from living more than three years in that body. Only at the end of all his earthly lives will man have that within him which will enable him to live more than three years with that spirit-being. But then, it is true, man will be able to say to himself, "Not I, but that Higher One within me, Who was always there, is now working in me." Till that time comes, he is not able to say this. The most he can say is that he feels that higher being, but has not yet progressed far enough with his real, actual human ego, to be able to bring the other to full life within him.

Supposing then that, at some time in the middle earth-period, a human organism were to come into the world, and later in life be freed from his ego by the action of certain cosmic powers, receiving in exchange the ego which usually only works in man during the first three years of life, and which would be in connection with the spiritual worlds in which man exists between death and re-birth: how long would such a person be able to live in an earthly body? About three years. For at the end of that time, something would arise through cosmic karma, which would destroy the human organism in question.

What is here supposed is, however, a historical fact. The human organism which stood in the river Jordan at John's baptism when the ego of Jesus of Nazareth left the three bodies, contained, after the baptism, in complete conscious development, that higher Self of humanity which usually works with cosmic wisdom on a child without its knowledge. At the same time, the necessity arose that this Self which was in connection with the higher spirit-world could only live for three years in the appropriate human organism. Events had then to take place which brought the earthly life of that being to a close. The outer events in the life of Christ Jesus are to be interpreted as absolutely conditioned by the inner causes just set forth, and present themselves as the outward expression of those causes.

We are now able to see the deeper connection existing between that which is man's guide in life, which streams in upon our childhood like the dawn and is always working below the surface of our consciousness as the best part of us, and that which once upon a time entered the whole of human evolution and was able to dwell for three years in a human frame.

What then is manifested in that "higher" ego, which is in connection with the spiritual hierarchies, and which in due time entered the body of Jesus of Nazareth? This entrance being symbolically represented by the sign of the Spirit descending in the form of a dove, and by the words, "This is my well-beloved Son, to-day have I begotten him" . If we fix our eyes upon this picture, we are contemplating the highest human ideal. For it means nothing else than that the history of Jesus of Nazareth is a statement of this fact: "The Christ can be discerned in every human being." And even if there were no Gospels and no tradition, to tell us that once a Christ lived on earth, we should yet learn through knowledge of human nature that the Christ is living in man.

This saying about the way, the truth and the life is capable of opening the doors of eternity. It sounds to man out of the depths of his soul, if his self-knowledge is true and real.

If we thus understand the suggestion of eternity in the words, "I am the way, the truth and the life," we cannot feel ourselves justified in asking, "Why does a person who has passed through many incarnations always re-enter life as a child?" For it becomes evident that this apparent imperfection is an ever-recurring reminder of the Highest that is in man. And we cannot be reminded often enough,--at any rate each time we enter earthly life is not too often to be reminded,--of the great fact of what man really is with reference to that Being who underlies all earthly existence, without being touched by its imperfections.

One who has grasped this, is able for the first time rightly to understand the Bible, for he finds expressed there in a marvellous way what he has previously observed in himself, and he says: It is not necessary to have been brought up with any special reverence for the Gospel; they need only be presented to me, a fully-conscious human being, to stand revealed in all their greatness, by means of what I have learnt through occult science.

It is indeed not too much to say that a time will come when it will be recognized by people who have learned through occult science rightly to appreciate the contents of the Gospels, that these are guides of the human race in a sense which is more just to those writings than people have hitherto been to them. It is only through knowledge of human nature itself that humanity will learn to see what is latent in those profound records. It will then be said: If there is to be found in the Gospels that which forms an integral part of human nature, it must have come from the people who wrote these documents on earth. Therefore what genuine reflection brings home to us about our own lives,--the more so the older we grow--must hold especially good with regard to those writers. We ourselves have done many things which we only understand years afterwards, and in the writers of the Gospels may be seen people who wrote out of the higher self which works in man during childhood, so that the Gospels are writings emanating from the wisdom which moulds human nature. Man through his body is a manifestation of spirit, and the Gospels are such a manifestation in writing.

The idea thus gained of the guidance of humanity may be extended in many directions. Let us suppose that a man finds disciples,--a few people who follow him. Such an one will soon become aware, through genuine self-knowledge, that the very fact of his finding disciples gives him the feeling that what he has to say does not originate with himself. The case is rather this,--that spiritual powers in higher worlds wish to communicate with the disciples, and find in the Teacher the fitting instrument for their manifestation.

Here again we feel something of the spiritual guidance of the race, for nothing can be established in the world without preparation. Why was it that Paul found his best disciples in Greece? Because the ground had been prepared there by the teaching of Socrates and the state of feeling that has been described. That is to say, what happens in human evolution may be traced back to events which operated previously, and made people ripe for what was afterwards to be brought to bear upon them. Do we not feel here how far the guiding impulse passing through human evolution extends and how at the right moment it places people where they will be best used to further evolution? In such facts is manifested the guidance of the human race in a general way.

The vitality of the human organism is maintained at the transition from childhood to later life, because the organism is capable of change at that period. Later in life, it is no longer susceptible of change, and on this account cannot continue to exist with that other Self.

The man who thus answered the question of the Greek meant that if any one had gone back into the ancient times of the Egyptian nation, and had asked those people who felt something within them like a higher consciousness, or wisdom from higher worlds, "Who are really your teachers?" they would have answered, "If I wanted to tell you about my real teacher, I should not point to such and such a person and say, 'That is my teacher,' but I should first have to put myself into a clairvoyant state, and then I should find my real inspirer and teacher, who comes to me only when the eyes of my spirit are opened." For in ancient Egypt, beings who were not incarnated in a physical human body came down amongst men. In those remote ages, it was the gods who still ruled and taught the Egyptians, and by "gods" they understood beings who had preceded man in evolution.

According to occult science, the earth passed through an earlier planetary condition, called the "Moon-state," before it became "Earth." During this condition man was not yet human in the present sense of the word; but there were on the old Moon other beings, not possessed of the present human form and differently constituted, who nevertheless were then at the evolutionary stage which man has now attained on earth. We may therefore say, that on the ancient Moon-planet which has perished, and out of which the earth afterwards originated, there lived beings who were man's predecessors. In Christian esoteric language they are called Angel-beings and the beings immediately above them--Archangels . The latter were human at a still earlier period than the angels. What are called angels or Angeloi in Christian esotericism, and Dhyanic beings in Eastern mysticism, were "men" during the Moon-period. Now these beings, during the present earth-period, are a stage farther advanced than man,--those of them, that is to say, who completed their evolution on the Moon. Only at the end of the earth's evolution will man have arrived at the stage which those beings had reached at the end of the Moon-period.

When the earth-state of our planet began, and man appeared on earth, these beings were not able to appear in an external human form, for the human body of flesh and blood is essentially a product of earth, and is only adapted to the beings who are now human. The beings, who are a stage farther advanced than man, could not be incarnated in human bodies when the earth was beginning its evolution. They were only able to take a part in the government of the earth by illuminating and inspiring people in primeval times in the condition to which these attained when clairvoyant. Indirectly, then, through these clairvoyant people, the angels intervened to guide the destinies of earth.

Thus the ancient Egyptians still remembered a condition of things during which the leading personalities of the nation were clearly conscious of their connection with what are called gods, angels, or dhyanic beings. Now what sort of beings were these, who were not incarnated in a human form of flesh and blood, but influenced mankind in the way we have described? They were man's predecessors, who had progressed beyond the human stage.

There is in these days much misuse of a word which may in this connection be applied in its true meaning, the word "Superman." If we really wish to speak of "Supermen," it is these beings who may rightly be so called, who were human during the Moon-period, the planetary stage preceding our earth and who have now outgrown humanity. They were only able to appear in an etheric body to clairvoyants. It was thus that they came down to earth from spiritual worlds, and ruled there even as late as post-Atlantean times.

The clairvoyant guides of the human race were able to speak in such a manner that in their words people believed they were receiving exactly what came down from the spiritual world. In short, there was a direct current down from the higher spirit-hierarchies which were directing humanity. Thus what works on the individual in early childhood may be seen working on humanity at large in the form of the next world of spirit-hierarchies which hovers over human evolution as a whole. This is the next kingdom of the angels or superhuman beings, standing a step higher than man, and extending directly into spiritual spheres. They bring down to earth from those spheres what is worked into human civilization. In the child, it is on the formation of the body that the higher wisdom leaves its impress; in human evolution of past ages, it was civilization that was so matured.

Thus the Egyptians, who described themselves as being in connection with divinity, felt that the soul of humanity was open to the action of spirit hierarchies. Just as the soul of a child opens its aura to the hierarchies up to the time mentioned in the preceding pages, so, through its work, did the whole of humanity open its world to the hierarchies with which it was connected.

The ancient civilizations had their rise in this sounding through to mankind of the knowledge of the gods. Only by degrees in post-Atlantean times was the door, so to speak, closed into the divine spiritual world which in the Atlantean period had still been wide open for the human soul. And in the various countries and nations it was felt that man was thrown ever more and more on his own resources. What is revealed in the case of a child appears in humanity at large in a different way. The divine spiritual world is first diffused into the unconscious soul of a child, and the soul works upon the formation of the body. Then comes the moment at which the child learns to feel itself an "ego" and this is the moment to which its memory goes back in later life. This is what makes it possible to say that the wisest of men may still learn something from the soul of a child. From this point, however, the individual is left to himself. The ego-consciousness comes into being, and everything combines to make it possible for him to remember his experiences.

So, too, in the life of nations there came a time when they began to feel themselves more shut off from the divine inspiration of their early forefathers. Just as the child becomes gradually shut off from the aura that floats about its head in its earliest years, so in the life of nations did the divine ancestors withdraw themselves more and more, and mankind was left to its own research and to its own knowledge. When history speaks in this manner, the fact of the guidance of humanity is realized. "Menes" was the Egyptian name of him who inaugurated the first "human" civilization, and it is at the same time hinted that man thereby became liable to error, for thenceforward he was left to look for guidance to the instrument of his brain. That man was liable to fall into error is symbolically indicated by the fixing of the date of the construction of the labyrinth at the time when humanity was abandoned by the gods; for the labyrinth is an image of the convolutions of the brain as the instrument of man's own thoughts,--windings in which the thinker is able to lose himself. The Orientals called man as a thinking being "Manas" and Manu stands for the first great thinker. The Greeks called the first organizer of the human principle of thought Minos, and with him is associated the myth of the labyrinth, because it was felt that, since his time, mankind had gradually passed from the direct guidance of the gods to a guidance in which the "ego" feels the influence of the higher spirit-world in a different way.

Besides those predecessors of man, the true supermen, who had completed their humanity on the Moon and had become angels, there are, however, other beings who did not perfect their evolution on the Moon. The beings called dhyanic in Oriental mysticism and angelic in Christian esotericism, consummated their evolution on the ancient Moon, and when man began his earthly career were already a stage higher than he was. But there were other beings who had not finished their evolution on the ancient Moon, any more than the higher categories of Luciferic beings had finished theirs. When the earth-state of our planet began, man as we have described him was not the only being there. He felt also the inspiration of divinely-spiritual beings; otherwise, like a child, he would have been unable to progress. Accordingly, besides these childlike human beings, there must have been also present on the earth, acting through them, beings who had completed their evolution on the Moon. But between these and man there were yet other beings who had not finished their evolution on the Moon,--beings of a higher order than man, because, even as early as the ancient Moon-period, they might have become angels or dhyanic beings. At that time, however, they had not come to full maturity. They were angels in a backward state, yet they far out-distanced man as regards everything which man called his own. Generally speaking, they are beings occupying the lowest grade in the ranks of Luciferic spirits. They hold a middle position between men and angels, and with them begins the kingdom of Luciferic spirits.

Now it is extremely easy to get an erroneous idea about these spirits. We might ask why did the divine spirits, the vicegerents of good, allow them to fall short, and thereby admit the Luciferic principle into humanity? And it might further be objected on this ground, that surely the good gods turned everything to good. This question is obvious. And another misunderstanding which might arise, is expressed in the idea that these are "evil" spirits. Both ideas are merely misunderstandings: for these spirits are by no means purely "evil," although the origin of evil in human nature is due to them, but they stand midway between man and superman. In a certain way they are more perfect than men. In all the qualities which human beings have to acquire for themselves, these spirits have attained a high standard, and they only differ from man's predecessors described above in being able to incarnate in human bodies whilst man is being evolved on earth. This is because they did not consummate their humanity on the Moon.

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