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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.

This speech was prompted in human souls by the inspiration of the superhuman beings, man's true predecessors, who had perfected their evolution on the Moon. From this it may be seen that if that evolution alone had taken place, the entire human race would practically have remained one great unity, and there would have been uniformity of speech and thought all over the earth. Individuality and diversity could not have been developed, nor at the same time could human freedom. In order that man might become individual, cleavages had to take place in humanity, and the difference of language in different parts of the world is due to the work of those teachers in whom a Luciferic spirit was incarnated. According as a particular angel-being, who had fallen short in his evolution, was incarnated in a particular race, was he able to instruct its people in a particular language. Thus the ability to speak a separate language is, in all races, traceable to the illuminating presence of these great beings, who were angels in a backward state and stood far above the people of their immediate environment. For instance, the beings described as the original heroes of the Greeks and other nations, and who worked in a human form, were those in whom an angel who had fallen short was incarnated. Therefore these beings must by no means be characterized as entirely "evil." On the contrary, they brought to man that which predestined him to be a free human being all over the globe, and they differentiated what otherwise would have constituted a uniform whole everywhere on earth. This is not only true of languages but of many other departments of life. Individualization, differentiation,--freedom, we may say, comes from the beings who fell short in their Moon-evolution. It is true that we might say that it was the purpose of the wise government of the cosmos to bring all beings in planetary evolution to their goal, but if this had been done in a direct way, certain things would not have been attained. Certain beings were therefore arrested in their development because they were to have a special mission in the progress of humanity. Since the beings who had fulfilled their mission on the Moon would only have been able to educate a uniform human race, beings who had fallen short on the Moon were set over against them, and it thereby became possible for these backward ones to turn into good what had been really a fault on their part.

This opens up the question, why do evil, wickedness, imperfection and disease exist in the world? This problem should be looked at from the point of view from which we have just considered the imperfect angel-beings. Everything which at any time exhibits imperfection or backwardness will nevertheless be turned into good in the course of evolution. It is of course unnecessary to mention that such a truth as this affords no justification for bad actions on man's part.

Thus we already have an answer to the question, why does a wise Providence allow certain beings to lag behind and not reach their goal? This happens just because there will be good reason for it at the time following upon the formation of such a purpose. For it was when nations were not yet able to guide and govern themselves that the teachers of particular periods and individuals arose. And all the different race-teachers, Cadmus, Cheops, Pelops, Theseus, etc., are, in one aspect, angel-beings in the depths of their souls. From this it appears that in this respect also, humanity is really subject to direction and guidance.

Hence there comes under our notice a category of beings who might have used their powers during the Egyptian period, but did not at that time use them fully. In the ensuing Graeco-Roman period they were not able to use them, because then they were replaced by other guiding spirits, and all the conditions of that time made their intervention impossible. But just as the beings who had not reached the angelic stage on the old Moon were afterwards allotted the task of once more actively interposing in human evolution during the earth-period, so also the beings who as guiding spirits in the Egypto-Chaldaeic civilization had stopped short in their development, afterwards received the mission, as beings who had lagged behind, of again intervening in civilization. Thus we shall be able to watch a later period of civilization in which beings sent to be guides are certainly there to direct the normal progress of evolution, but in which, at the same time, other beings are intervening who were left behind at an earlier stage, and more particularly those who fell behind during the ancient Egyptian period. The civilization to which we are referring is our own. We live at a time when, side by side with the normal directors of humanity, others are interposing who were left behind in the ancient Egyptian and Chaldaeic period.

Now we have to look upon the evolution of events and beings in such a way that occurrences in the physical world must be considered only as effects or manifestations, the true causes of which are to be sought in the spiritual world. On the one hand our civilization is in the main marked by an upward movement towards spirituality, and this tendency of certain people towards spirituality is the manifestation of the spiritual directors of our contemporary humanity, who have attained their own normal stage of development. In everything which tends to lead man up to the great spiritual wisdom-truths transmitted to us by theosophy, these normal guides of our evolution are manifested. But the beings out-distanced during the Egypto-Chaldaeic civilization are also affecting the tendencies of our age. They are manifested in much that is being thought and done at the present time, and will again be manifested in what lies in the near future. They are revealed in everything which gives a materialistic stamp to our civilization, and may often be seen even in aspirations after spiritual things. In our age we are virtually experiencing a revival of Egyptian civilization. The beings who are to be looked upon as the invisible directors of what takes place in the physical world, fall accordingly into two classes. The first includes those spiritual individualities who have passed through their own normal course of development up to the present time. Hence they were able to interpose in the guidance of our civilization, whilst the directors of the preceding Graeco-Roman period were gradually finishing their task of guiding civilization during the first thousand years of Christianity. The second class, who work simultaneously with the first class of beings, are spiritual individualities who did not complete their evolution during the Egypto-Chaldaeic civilization. They were obliged to remain inactive during the ensuing Graeco-Roman period, but are now able to resume their activity because our present age has points of resemblance to the Egypto-Chaldaeic period. It thus comes about that many things arise in contemporary humanity which look like a revival of ancient Egyptian forces, but there is also much which is like a materialistic resuscitation of forces which then worked spiritually. To illustrate this, we may point to an example of the way in which ancient Egyptian knowledge has been revived in our days.

Let us think of Kepler. He was quite possessed by the feeling of the harmony of the cosmos, and this idea was expressed in his important mathematical laws of the mechanism of the heavens, the so-called laws of Kepler. These are outwardly very dry and abstruse, but in Kepler they were the outcome of an understanding of the harmony of the universe. We may read in Kepler's writings that in order to discover what he did, he was obliged to go to the sacred Egyptian mysteries, purloin their temple-vessels, and by this means bring knowledge into the world, the importance of which to humanity would only be known in later times.

This utterance of Kepler's is by no means an empty phrase, but contains a dim consciousness of a revival of what he had learned in the Egyptian period, during a former incarnation. We may certainly entertain the idea that Kepler assimilated the ancient Egyptian wisdom during one of his previous lives, and that it reappears in his soul in a new form, adapted to a later age. That a materialistic impulse should enter our civilization through the Egyptian spirit is quite intelligible, for Egyptian spirituality was wrapped in a vigorous materialism, which found expression, for instance, in their embalming the physical bodies of the dead. This meant that they attached value to the preservation of the physical body. This has come down to us from the Egyptian period in a different form, but in one corresponding to our time. The same forces which had not then run their course, affect our age, but in a different way. The temper of mind which embalmed dead bodies gave rise to that which idolizes the merely material. The Egyptian embalmed dead bodies and thereby preserved what he accounted valuable. He thought that the development of the soul after death was connected with the preservation of the physical, material body. The modern anatomist dissects what he sees, and thinks that in this way he understands the laws of the human organism. Thus in our modern science there are living the forces of the ancient Egyptian and Chaldaeic world, which then were progressive forces, but which now represent what has lagged behind, and which must be recognized for what they are, if a correct estimate is to be formed of the character of the present time. These forces will injure a man of the present day if he does not know their real significance. He will take no harm from them, but will turn them to good account, if he knows their effect and thereby brings himself into the right relation to them. They have their value, for without them we should not have the present great achievements in technique, industries, etc. They are forces belonging to Luciferic beings of the lowest stage, and the danger lies in the fact that if they are not recognized aright, the materialistic impulses of the present time are thought to be the only possible ones, and the other forces, which lead up to the spiritual world, are not seen. For this reason any clear diagnosis is certain to discern two currents of thought in the present age.

Now if a wise Providence had not allowed certain beings in the Egypto-Chaldaeic period to fall short in their evolution, our contemporary civilization would have been wanting in necessary weight. In that case only those forces would be operative which would bring man into the spiritual world by main force. People would be only too ready to yield themselves up to those forces, and would become dreamers. The only life they would wish to know about would be one which is being spiritualized as fast as possible, and their standard of action would be a view of life which showed a certain degree of contempt for what is physical and material. But the present epoch of civilization can only fulfill its mission if the forces of the material world are brought to the fullest perfection, and if thus by degrees their sphere too is won for spirituality. Just as the fairest things may become corrupters and tempters of mankind if pursued in a one-sided way, so if this one-sidedness took root, there would be great danger that all kinds of good efforts would come into manifestation as fanaticism. True though it is that humanity is helped forward by its noble impulses it is also true that wild and fanatical advocacy of the noblest impulses may bring about the worst of results as far as true evolution is concerned. Only when people strive after the highest modestly and sensibly, not out of wild fanaticism, can anything beneficial to the progress of humanity take place. In order that the work done on earth at the present day may have the necessary weight, and that material beings of the physical plane may be understood, the wisdom which directs the government of the world left those forces behind which would normally have completed their evolution during the Egyptian period; and it is they who are now directing man's attention to physical life.

It is obvious from the foregoing that evolution takes place under the influence both of normally progressive beings and of those who lag behind. Clairvoyant vision is able to trace the co-operation of both classes of beings in the supersensible world, and hence is able to comprehend the spiritual events of which the physical facts surrounding humanity are the manifestations.

A person who is able to look into the spiritual world is called esoterically a "clairvoyant," but merely to be clairvoyant is not enough, for such a man might be able to see well enough but not able to discriminate. He who has acquired the faculty of distinguishing one from another the beings and events of higher worlds, is called an "Initiate." Initiation brings with it the possibility of distinguishing between different kinds of beings. Thus it is possible to be clairvoyant in the higher worlds without being an Initiate. In ancient times distinguishing between spirits was not specially important, for when the ancient occult schools had brought a pupil so far as clairvoyance, there was no great danger of error. Now, however, this danger exists to a high degree. Therefore in all esoteric training, care should be taken that initiation should be acquired in condition to clairvoyance. In proportion to the extent of his clairvoyance must a man become capable of distinguishing between the various kinds of supersensible beings and events.

In modern times the powers guiding humanity are faced by the special task of bringing about a balance between the two principles of clairvoyance and initiation. Leaders of spiritual training had necessarily to pay attention to this at the beginning of the modern era. Therefore the esoteric spiritual movement which is adapted to present conditions, always makes a point of maintaining the right proportion between clairvoyance and initiation. This became necessary at the time when mankind was passing through a crisis with regard to its higher knowledge. That time was the thirteenth century. About the year 1250 was the point of time when mankind felt itself most shut out from the spiritual world. A clairvoyant looking back upon that period sees the following: The most eminent minds of that time who were striving after some kind of higher knowledge, could only say to themselves, "What our reason, our intellect, our spiritual knowledge are able to find out is limited to the physical world around us. With all our human endeavor and power of perception, we cannot reach a spiritual world. We only know of it by accepting the information concerning it which our forefathers bequeathed us." This was the time when direct view of the higher worlds was obscured. That this can be said of the era in which scholasticism flourished, is not without significance.

About the year 1250 was the time when men were compelled to fix a boundary between what they were able to apprehend for themselves, and what they had to believe from the impression made upon them by the traditions which had been handed down. What they could find out for themselves then became limited to the physical world of sense. Afterwards, however, came the time when there was more and more possibility of again winning a view of the spiritual world. But the new clairvoyance was of a different kind from the old, which virtually became extinct just about the year 1250. In the new form of clairvoyance, western esotericism was obliged strictly to uphold the principle that initiation must be the guide of spiritual sight and hearing. This was the special task assigned to an esoteric current which then entered the stream of European civilization. As the year 1250 drew near there arose a new kind of guidance into the supersensible worlds.

This guidance was prepared by the spirits then standing behind outer historical events, who centuries before had provided for the kind of esoteric training which would be rendered necessary by the conditions prevailing in 1250. If the term "modern esotericism" be not misused, it may be applied to the spiritual work of those very highly evolved personalities. External history knows nothing of them, but what they did is apparent in every form of civilization which has developed since the thirteenth century.

Between the accomplishment of the Mystery of Golgotha and the beginnings of modern esotericism, lies the first period of the working of the Christ-principle in human souls. During that period, people received Christ to a certain degree unconsciously as far as their higher spirit-forces were concerned, and this caused them afterwards, when they were obliged to receive them consciously, to make all kinds of mistakes, and to lose themselves in a maze instead of understanding Christ. In primitive Christian times we may trace the adoption of the Christ-principle by the lower soul-forces. Then came a new period, in which mankind of to-day is still living. Indeed, in a certain respect, people are only now beginning to understand the Christ principle with the higher faculties of their souls. In the further course of this work it will be shown that the decline of supersensible knowledge down to the thirteenth century, and on the other hand its slow revival since that time, coincide with the interposition of the Christ-impulse in human evolution.

We may therefore take modern esotericism to mean the raising of the Christ-impulse to be the motive power in the guidance of souls desiring to work their way to a knowledge of higher worlds, in accordance with the evolutionary conditions of modern times.

Within the ranks of these different beings there are all possible gradations in regard to perfection. In the category of the Angels there are at the beginning of the present Earth-evolution, some standing high and others less developed. The former have progressed far beyond the minimum of their Moon-development. Between these and those who had just reached this minimum when the Moon-evolution had come to an end, and the Earth-evolution had begun, there are all possible gradations. Conformably with this gradation of rank, the beings in question entered during the Earth-period upon the leadership of human evolution. Thus the evolution of the Egyptian civilization was effected under the guidance of beings who had become more perfected on the Moon than those who were the leaders of the Graeco-Roman period, and these again were more perfect than those who have the leadership at the present time. In the Egyptian as also in the Greek Period, those who later on assumed the direction, were meanwhile developing, and making themselves ready to guide the civilization of later periods.

So, when we look back to the most ancient times of civilization, we then find evolution guided by beings who had accomplished their evolution as far as the human stage, in earlier planetary conditions. But the fourth post-Atlantean period of civilization was intended as a time when man should be put to the test as much as possible, and consequently was the time when the whole spiritual guidance of humanity had to be re-organized. We are now living in the fifth post-Atlantean period of civilization. The leading beings of this period belong to the same hierarchy as that which ruled the ancient Egyptians and Chaldaeans. In fact those beings who then took the lead, have again begun to be active in our times, for it has been stated that certain beings remained behind during the Egypto-Chaldaeic civilization, and that these are to be found manifested in the materialistic feelings and perceptions of our own period.

Now the progress made by the beings of each class of Angels or lower dhyanic beings--the class which leads mankind forward and the class which obstructs--consists in their being able to be leaders among the Egyptians and Chaldaeans by means of those qualities which they had acquired in primordial times, and which they had further developed by their work as leaders. Thus the progressive Angels are intervening to guide the fifth post-Atlantean civilization by means of capacities which they themselves had won during the third or Egypto-Chaldaeic civilization. Through the progress they make they are acquiring for themselves quite special capabilities, for they are qualifying themselves to receive the influx of forces emanating from the most important Being in the whole evolution of the Earth. The power of the Christ is working in them; for that power works not only on the physical world through Jesus of Nazareth--but also in the spiritual worlds upon the superhuman beings. The Christ exists not only for the earth but also for these other beings. The beings who guided the old Egypto-Chaldaeic civilization were not at that time under the direction of the Christ, but have only placed themselves under His guidance since. And their progress consists in their following Him in the higher worlds, so that they may guide our fifth post-Atlantean period of civilization in accordance with His influence. And the remaining behind of those beings of whom it has been said that they operate as obstructive powers, is due to their not having put themselves under the leadership of the Christ, and thus they continue to work independently of Him. Hence the following state of things will become more and more evident in human evolution: There will be a materialistic movement under the guidance of the backward Egypto-Chaldaeic spirits. It will have a materialistic character, and the greater part of what in all countries, may be called contemporary materialistic science is under this influence. There are, for example, people to-day who say that our earth in its primary origin consisted of atoms. Who instils this thought into men's minds? It is the superhuman angel beings who had remained behind during the Egypto-Chaldaeic period. But, side by side with this movement, there is another making itself felt, the one which has as its goal that man shall eventually find in all that he does, that which may be called the Christ-principle.

Now what will those beings teach who attained their goal in the old Egypto-Chaldaeic sphere of civilization, and who then learned to know the Christ? They will be able to instill into man other thoughts than that there are only material atoms; for they will be able to teach that, even to the minutest particle of the world, the substance is permeated with the Spirit of the Christ. And, strange as it may seem, there will be in the future, chemists and physicists who will not teach chemistry and physics as they are now taught under the influence of the backward Egypto-Chaldaeic spirits; but who will teach that "Matter is built up in the way in which the Christ gradually ordained it." The Christ will be found working even in the very laws of chemistry and physics. It is a spiritual chemistry, and spiritual physics that will come in the future. To-day such a statement appears certainly to many people as something fanciful or worse than that, but in many cases the sense of the future is folly to the past. The factors which in this sense enter into the evolution of human civilization are already there for the careful observer; but such an one will know quite well the objections which may, with apparent justice, be urged against such alleged folly from the modern scientific or philosophic point of view.

In the ancient Persian epoch, the leadership of humanity was apportioned to the Archangels. They put themselves under the direction of the Christ earlier than did the beings in the rank next below them. Of Zarathustra it can be said that pointing to the sun, he spoke to his followers and his people in some such words as these: "In the sun there lives the great Spirit Ahura Mazdao, who will one day come down to the earth." For the beings out of the region of the Archangels who guided Zarathustra, pointed to the great sun-leader, who had not at that time come down upon the earth, but had only begun his journey thither in order, later on, to enter directly into the earth evolution. And the guiding beings who directed the great teachers of the Indians, also pointed these to the Christ of the future; for it is a mistake to think that these teachers had no foreknowledge of the Christ. They said that He was "beyond their sphere" and that they "could not attain" unto Him.

As now in our fifth period of civilization, it is the Angels who bring down the Christ into our spiritual evolution, so the sixth period of civilization will be directed by beings who belong to the ranks of the Archangels who guided the ancient Persian civilization. And spirits of Personality--the Primal Powers--or Archai--who guided humanity during the ancient Indian epoch will have to guide humanity in the seventh period of civilization. In the Graeco-Roman period, the Christ descended from the heights of the spirit-world and revealed Himself in the physical body of Jesus of Nazareth. He then came down as far as the physical world. It will be possible to find Him in the world immediately above ours when humanity shall have become sufficiently ripe. It will not be possible in the future to find Him in the physical world, but only in the world immediately above, for human beings will not always remain the same; they will become more mature, and will then find the Christ in the spiritual world, as Paul found Him in his experience before Damascus, which event prophetically foreshadowed the future means of finding the Christ. And since in our times the same great teachers who have already guided mankind through the Egyptian Civilization are working, so also in the twentieth century it will be these same teachers who will lead men out to behold the Christ as Paul beheld Him. They will show mankind how the Christ not only works upon the earth, but how He spiritualizes the whole solar system. And those who will be the reincarnated holy teachers of India in the seventh period of civilization will proclaim the Spirit Who was foreshadowed through the undivided Brahma, to whom however the right content and meaning could only be given through the Christ, as the great, the immense Spirit, of Whom they formerly said that He hovered above their sphere. Thus will humanity be led upwards from stage to stage into the spiritual world.

To speak in this way about the Christ--how He is the leader of the higher hierarchies also in the successive worlds, is to teach the science which, under the title of modern esotericism, has endured into our civilization since the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and which, as has been shown, had from that time become necessary. If from this aspect we observe more closely the Being Who lived in Palestine, and Who consummated the Mystery of Golgotha, then we find the following:

Up to the present time many ideas concerning the Christ have found expression. There was for instance the idea of certain Christian Gnostics in the first centuries, who said that the Christ Who lives in Palestine was not present in any physical body of flesh at all; that He had only an apparent body--an etheric body which had become physically visible; so that His death on the Cross had been no real death but only an apparent one, for the very reason that only an etheric body was present. Then we find the various disputes among those who professed Christianity, as for example, the well-known controversy between the Arians and Athenatians, etc., and the most varied explanations concerning what the Christ really was. And indeed right up to our own times people express and have expressed the most varied ideas concerning the Christ.

According to the way in which a man stands individually related to the cosmic system, so are the forces directed which lead him to this or that set of parents and to this or that locality. The impetus, the inclination to incarnate here or there, in this or that family, in this or that people, at this or that time, depends on how the person was organically connected with the cosmic before birth. In former times, in that territory where the German tongue was spoken, a specially apt expression was used whereby to indicate a person's entrance into the world through birth. When a person was born, people said that in such and such a place he had "become young" . Therein lies an unconscious reference to the fact that man in the time between death and a new birth continues at first to be subject to the powers which had made him old in a previous incarnation, but that before birth there come in their place such forces as again make him "young." Thus Goethe in "Faust" still uses the expression "to become young in Nebelland"--Nebelland being the old name for mediaeval Germany.

The truth underlying the casting of a horoscope is that those who know these things can read the forces which determine a person's physical existence. A certain horoscope is allotted to a person because, within it, those forces find expression which have led him into being. If, for example, in the horoscope, Mars stands over Aries that signifies that certain of the Aries forces are not allowed to pass through Mars--and are weakened. Thus is a man put into his place within physical existence, and it is in accordance with his horoscope that he guides himself before entering upon earthly existence. This subject, which in our times seems so much a thing of chance should not be touched upon without our attention being called to the fact that nearly everything practiced in this connection to-day is simply dilettantism--a pure superstition--and that for the external world the true science of these matters has been for the most part completely lost. Consequently, the principal things which have been said here are not to be judged according to that which nowadays frequently leads a questionable existence under the name of Astrology.

Now it is the active forces of the stellar world that impel man into physical incarnation; and when clairvoyant consciousness observes a person, it can perceive in his organization how this has resulted from the co-operation of cosmic forces. We may now attempt to illustrate this hypothetically, but in a form corresponding entirely with clairvoyant observations: If a person's physical brain were extracted and its construction clairvoyantly examined, so that it might be seen how certain parts are situated in certain places, and send out appendages, it would be found that the brain of each individual is different. No two people have brains alike. Then let us imagine further that this brain could be photographed in its complete structure so that one would have a kind of half-sphere in which every detail was visible, then this would make a different picture in the case of each person. And if one were to photograph a person's brain at the moment of birth and then photograph also the heavens lying exactly over the person's birthplace, then this latter picture would be of exactly the same appearance as that of the human brain.

As certain centres were arranged in the latter, so would the stars be in the photograph of the heavens. Man has within himself a picture of the heavens, and every man has a different one, according to whether he was born in this place or that, and at this or that time. This is one indication that man is born from out of the whole cosmos.

The oriental tradition is correct which says that the Buddha was born as a "Bodhisatva," and only during his time on earth, in his twenty-ninth year, rose to the dignity of a Buddha. When the Gautama Buddha was a little child, the Indian sage Asita came weeping into the royal palace of his father, Suddhodana. He wept because, as a seer, he knew that this King's son would become the Buddha, and because as an old man, he felt that he would no longer be living to see that event take place. Now this sage was born again in the time of Jesus of Nazareth. It is he who is brought before us in the Gospel of St. Luke as the priest of the temple who saw the revelation of the Buddha in the Child Jesus descended from Nathan. And seeing this he was able to say: "Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace for I have seen my Master." What he had not been able to see previously in India, he saw through the astral body of the Boy Jesus, Who comes before us in St. Luke's Gospel, the Bodhisatva become a Buddha.

All this was necessary in order that that body might be produced which received the baptism of St. John in the Jordan. At that moment the individuality of Zarathustra left the threefold body, the physical, the etheric and the astral body of that Jesus Who had grown up in so complicated a manner, in order that the spirit of Zarathustra might be able to dwell in Him. Through two possibilities of development which were given in the two Jesus-Children, the reincarnated Zarathustra had to pass, and thus there stood before the Baptist the body of Jesus of Nazareth and in it from that time onwards there acted the cosmic individuality of the Christ. Now, as we have shown, in the case of any other human being, the cosmic spiritual laws work upon him only in so far that they give him a start in earth-life. Afterwards there appear in opposition to these laws, others which arise out of the conditions of the earth-evolution. In the case of the Christ Jesus, after the baptism of John the cosmic-spiritual forces alone remained effective without being influenced in any way through the laws of the earth evolution.

Thus in Palestine during the time that Jesus of Nazareth walked on earth as Christ-Jesus,--during the three last years of his life, from his thirtieth to his thirty-third year, the entire Being of the cosmic Christ was acting uninterruptedly upon Him, and was working into Him. The Christ stood always under the influence of the entire cosmos--He made no step without this working of the cosmic forces into and in Him. That which here took place in Jesus of Nazareth was a continual realization of the horoscope, for at every moment there occurred that which otherwise happens only at a person's birth. This could be so only because the whole body of Jesus descended from Nathan had remained open to the influence of the sum total of the forces of the cosmic spiritual hierarchies which direct our earth. If thus the whole spirit of the cosmos worked into the Christ Jesus, who was it that went, for example, to Capernaum or anywhere else? He who went about as a being upon the earth appeared quite like any other man. The forces active within Him, however, were the cosmic forces, coming from the sun and stars; and these directed His body. And it was always in accordance with the collective Being of the whole Universe with whom the earth is in harmony, that all which the Christ Jesus did took place. It is because of this that in the case of the acts of the Christ Jesus there is so often some slight hint given in the Gospels, about the relative grouping of the stars at the time. We read in St. John's Gospel how the Christ finds His first disciples. There we are told: "It was about the tenth hour," because in this fact the spirit of the whole cosmos found expression in conformity with the appointed moment of time. Such intimations are less clear in the other Gospel passages, but he who can truly read the Gospel finds them everywhere. From this point of view also the miracles are to be judged. Let us take one passage,--The one that runs thus: "When the sun was set, they brought the sick unto Him, and He healed them." What does that mean? The evangelist is drawing attention to the fact that this healing was connected with the whole position of the constellations, and that at the time in question, the constellations throughout the heavens stood in such a way as could only have happened when the sun had set. The meaning of that, at the time, the requisite healing forces could make themselves felt after sun-set, and the Christ Jesus is represented as the intermediary Who brought the sick into connection with the forces of the cosmos which, just at that time could work curatively. These forces were the same as those which worked as Christ in Jesus. It was through the presence of Christ that the healing took place, because in consequence of the same, the sick person was exposed to the healing forces of the Cosmos which could only work as they did when they were in the right relationship to time and space. Thus these forces worked on the sick person through their representative the Christ. But it was only just during the time of Christ on earth that they could so work. It was only then that such a connection existed between the cosmic constellations and the powers of the human organism, that for certain illnesses, healing could intervene when through the instrumentality of the Christ Jesus, the cosmic grouping of the same forces was able to work on men. A repetition of this relationship in the evolution of the cosmos and the earth is as little possible as is a second incarnation of the Christ in a human body. Regarded in this way, the life of the Christ Jesus appears as the earthly expression of a definite connection between the cosmos and the forces of man. The tarrying of a sick person by the side of Christ means that through the proximity of Christ, this sick person found himself in such a relation with the macrocosm that the latter could work upon him curatively.

If a comparison were to be used, we might think of each human being as represented by a spherical mirror--which, if it were set up, would give pictures of all its surroundings. Let us suppose we were to trace with a pencil the outline of all that is shown from the surroundings. We could then take the mirror and carry the picture about with us wherever we went. Let this be a symbol for the fact that when a person is born, he brings with him a copy of the cosmos in himself, and afterwards carries about with him all through his life the effect of this one picture. The mirror might, however, be left untouched by the pencil, so that wherever the person carried it, it would depict the immediate surroundings. It then would always be giving a picture of the collective environment. This would be a symbol of the Christ from the baptism by St. John up to the mystery of Golgotha. That which, in the case of any other person, passes into his earthly existence at birth only flowed into the Christ-Jesus at every moment. And when the mystery of Golgotha was consummated, that which had been radiating from out the cosmos passed over into the spiritual substance of the earth, and has from that time forward been united with the spirit of the earth.

When St. Paul became clairvoyant before Damascus, he could recognize that That which had formerly been in the cosmos has passed over into the spirit of the earth. Of this every one can be convinced who can bring his soul into such a condition that he can have the same experience as had St. Paul. It is in the twentieth century that those people will first appear who will have St. Paul's experience of the Christ event in a spiritual way.

Whereas up to our times this event would be experienced only by such persons as had gained clairvoyant powers by means of an esoteric training, hereafter to look upon the Christ in the spiritual sphere surrounding the earth will be possible for the advanced powers of the soul in the course of the natural evolution of humanity. This--as a repeated experience of the event before Damascus--will be possible for some people from a certain point of time in the twentieth century. The number of such people will afterwards increase, until in the distant future, it will be a natural faculty of the human soul.

With the entrance of Christ into the evolution of the earth an entirely new impulse or direction was given to evolution. External facts of history also express this. In the early times of post-Atlantean evolution men knew very well that above them there was not merely a physical Mars, but that what they saw as Mars, Jupiter or Saturn was the expression for a spiritual being. In later times this perception was completely forgotten. The heavenly bodies became, according to human ideas, mere bodies to be estimated according to their physical condition. And in the Middle Ages people saw in connection with the stars only what the eyes can see--the sphere of Venus, the sphere of the Sun, the sphere of Mars, etc., up to the sphere of the fixed stars; and then came the eighth sphere like a solid blue wall behind. Then Copernicus appeared and broke down the idea that only that which is perceptible to the senses can be authoritative. The modern physical scientists may indeed say: "It is madness to declare that the world is Maya, or illusion, and that you must look into a spiritual world in order to see the truth, for in spite of all you say true science is that which relies on the senses and notifies what these senses tell." But when did astronomers rely only on the senses? Surely at the very time when that astronomical science was dominant which is attacked by the science of to-day! It was at that time when Copernicus began to think out what exists in the cosmic space beyond the evidence of the senses, that our modern astronomy as a science began. And so it is in every domain of science. Everywhere that science, in the most modern sense of the word, has arisen, it has done so in opposition to what had been apparent to the senses. When Copernicus declared "what you see is Maya--or deception, rely on what you cannot see," then the science came into being which is recognized as such to-day. It might thus be said to the representative of modern science "your science itself only became 'science' when it was no longer willing to depend upon the senses only."

From this it is apparent how the course of human evolution has been such that man started from an originally spiritual view of the cosmos and in the course of time lost it. In its place there came a mere sense-perception of the world. Then there came into evolution the Christ Impulse. Through this, mankind was led to stamp the spiritual view once more upon the materialistic. At that moment when Giordano Bruno burst the fetters of the sense illusion, the Christ evolution was so far advanced, that the soul power, which had been kindled by the Christ Impulse, could then be active within him. Therewith an indication is given of the whole significance of how the life of Christ penetrates all human evolution, an evolution only at the beginning of which humanity stands to-day.

To what then does spiritual science now aspire? It completes the work begun for external science by Giordano Bruno and others in that it says: that which external science is able to perceive is Maya, or illusion. Just as formerly one looked to the "eighth sphere" and thought that space was thereby bounded, so contemporary human thought believes that man is shut in or enclosed between birth and death. Spiritual science, however, expands man's vision by directing his attention out and beyond the limits of birth and death.

There is a continuous chain in human evolution which such ideas as these make us recognize. And in the true sense of the words, that which resulted in the conquest of sense illusion through Copernicus and Giordano Bruno, already proceeded from the inspiration due to that spiritual current which is now working in the modern spiritual science of theosophy. What one might call the newer esotericism worked in a mysterious manner on Copernicus, Bruno, Kepler and others. Those therefore who now stand, base their thought on foundations laid by Giordano Bruno and Copernicus and do not wish to accept theosophy, are unfaithful to their own traditions in desiring to hold fast by sense illusion. But spiritual science demonstrates that, as Giordano Bruno forced a way through the blue firmament of heaven, even so does this science break down the barriers of birth and death for man by showing how he originates from out of the macrocosm, lives in a physical existence, passes through death, and re-enters macrocosmic life. And what we see in a limited degree in each individual meets us unrestrictedly and in a larger sense in the representative of the spirit of the cosmos--in the Christ-Jesus. Once and once only could that impulse be given which the Christ gave. Once only could the whole cosmos be thus reflected, for the conjunction of the stars which then took place can never be repeated. In order to give an impulse to the earth, this conjunction was obliged to work through a human body. As it is true that this same grouping cannot occur a second time, so it is equally true that the Christ was only once incarnated. Only if one did not know that the Christ is the representative of the whole universe and only if it were impossible to win one's way to this Christ-Idea, the elements for which are given through spiritual science--only then would it be possible to maintain that Christ could appear more than once upon the earth.

Consequently we may say that in the future there will live in the hearts of men an idea of the Christ incomparable in greatness with anything which humanity has so far recognized. That which arose as a first impulse through the Christ, and has lived as an idea of Him up to the present time--even in the case of the best representatives of the Christ-principle--is only a preparation for the true understanding of the Christ. It would be strange indeed if, against those who in the West gave expression in such a way as this to the Christ-idea, it were brought as a reproach that they do not stand on the foundation of western Christian tradition, but it is quite possible, for this western tradition does not by any means suffice to help us to comprehend the Christ of the near future.

The spiritual influences which lead humanity need not work in such a way that man is always conscious of them. For example, they put Galileo in the cathedral of Pisa. Thousands had seen the old church lamp there, but they have not seen it as did Galileo. He saw the church lamp swinging; compared the time of its oscillation with the beat of his own pulse; found that the church lamp swung in a regular rhythm resembling his pulse-beat; and from this discovered the laws of the pendulum in the sense of modern physics. Anyone acquainted with contemporary physics knows that these would not be possible without Galileo's principle. In this way the force was then working which is now appearing as spiritual science; Galileo was placed in the cathedral of Pisa before the oscillating church lamp, and modern physics gained its principles. In such a mysterious way do the guiding spiritual forces of humanity perform their work.

We are now approaching the time when people are to become conscious of these guiding powers. We shall always come to a better and better understanding of what has to happen in the future if we rightly understand what is working inspirationally as the new esotericism, and which shows that the same spiritual beings, indicated by the ancient Egyptians when the Greeks asked them about their teachers, who then ruled as gods, are now again assuming control, through having placed themselves under the leadership of the Christ. Ever more and more will men feel how they can cause to reappear in a brighter lustre, in a nobler style and on a higher level, that which was pre-Christian. The consciousness necessary for the present time, which must be an intensified consciousness, ought to give us a feeling of our high duty and great responsibility in reference to the recognition of the spiritual world, and this can only penetrate into our soul when we have recognized in the sense indicated, what is the task of spiritual science.

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