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An Outline of Occult Science by Rudolf Steiner

IV. THE EVOLUTION OF THE WORLD AND MAN

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As a result of the long-continued migrations which had taken place from west to east since the beginning of the Atlantean catastrophe, a group of people settled in western Asia whose posterity is known to history as the Persian race and the tribes related thereto. Here we look back to a much earlier period than the historical times of these peoples. Next after the Indian period, we have first to do with the very early ancestors of the later Persians, among whom arose the second great civilization of post-Atlantean evolution. The peoples of this second era had a different mission from that of the Indians. Their longings and inclinations were not fixed on the supersensible world alone; they were also directed toward the physical sense-world, and the earth became dear to them. They valued what man is able to acquire on it, and what he is able to win by means of its forces. Their achievements as a warlike people, and the methods which they discovered of acquiring the earth's treasures, are connected with this peculiarity of their nature. There was no danger of their turning their backs upon the "illusion" of the physical senses in their yearning after the supersensible, but rather of their entirely severing the connection of their souls with the supersensible world, through their appreciation for the physical world.

The oracle-sanctuaries, which had been transferred hither from the ancient Atlantean territory, also reflected, in their own way, the general character of the people. In them forces were present which it had formerly been possible to acquire through experiences in the supersensible world, and which could still be controlled in certain lower forms; these forces were used in the sanctuaries to direct the phenomena of nature in such a way as to make them subservient to man's personal interests. This ancient people still had a great mastery over those forces of nature which subsequently withdrew from the influence of the human will. The guardians of the oracles mastered certain inner forces connected with fire and other elements. They can be called magicians. What supersensible knowledge and force they had retained as a heritage from ancient times was certainly slight in comparison with man's powers in the remote past. But it nevertheless took all kinds of forms, from the noble arts, the only object of which was the welfare of humanity,--down to the most reprehensible transactions.

The Luciferian influence held sway over these people in a peculiar manner. It had brought them into connection with everything which diverts mankind from the purposes of those exalted beings who alone would have guided human evolution, had not the Luciferian influence interposed. Even those members of this race who were still gifted with some remnant of the old clairvoyant condition, described above as a state intermediate between sleeping and waking, felt themselves powerfully attracted by the lower beings of the spiritual world. In order to counteract these characteristic qualities it was necessary that a spiritual impulse should be given to this people. A leadership was established among them by the guardian of the Mysteries of the Sun oracle, from the same source from which the spiritual life of ancient India proceeded.

The leader of ancient Persian civilization, who was sent by the guardian of the Sun oracle to the people now under consideration, may be designated by the same name as the historical Zarathustra, or Zoroaster. Only the fact must be emphasized that the personality indicated belongs to a much earlier period than the historical possessor of the name. In this connection it is not a question of outer historical research, but of spiritual knowledge. And any one who instinctively thinks of a later time in connection with the bearer of the name Zarathustra may reconcile this idea with occult science on learning that the historical character represents himself as a successor of the first great Zarathustra, whose name he took, and in the spirit of whose teaching he worked.

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