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An Outline of Occult Science by Rudolf Steiner

IV. THE EVOLUTION OF THE WORLD AND MAN

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The impulse which Zarathustra had to give to his people was to show them that the physical world of sense is not merely the lifeless material, devoid of spirit, which it appears to a man who gives himself up exclusively to the influence of the Luciferian being. To this being man owes his personal independence and sense of freedom; but it should work within him in harmony with the opposite spiritual being. With the pre-historic Persians it was a question of keeping alive the sense of this last-named spiritual-being. Through their inclination toward the physical sense world they ran the risk of complete amalgamation with the Luciferian beings. Now Zarathustra, through the guardian of the Sun oracle, had received an Initiation that enabled him to receive the revelations of the great Sun-spirits. In particular states of consciousness, brought about by his training, he was able to see the Regent of the Sun-spirits, who, as described above, had taken under His protection the human etheric body.

Zarathustra knew that This Spirit directs the course of human evolution, but that He must first, at a certain time, descend to earth out of cosmic space. For this purpose it was necessary that He should be able to live in a human astral body, just as in man. He had worked in the etheric body since the entrance of the Luciferic nature. It was therefore necessary that a man should appear who had retransformed the astral body to the same level that it would have reached in the middle of the Atlantean evolution, had there been no Luciferian influence. Had Lucifer not appeared, mankind would certainly have attained this level before, but without personal independence or the possibility of freedom. Now, however, in spite of those qualities he should again arise to this height. Zarathustra, endowed with prophetic vision, could see that in the future it would be possible, within human evolution for a personality to exist, who would have a suitable astral body for that purpose. But he also knew that the great Sun-spirit could not appear on earth before that time, though He could be perceived by a seer in the spiritual part of the Sun. When as a seer he turned his attention to the Sun, Zarathustra was able to see This Spirit, whom he proclaimed to his people. He announced that the Sun-spirit was at first to be found only in the spiritual world, but that later He would descend to earth. This was the great Sun-spirit, or Spirit of Light (the Aura of the Sun, Ahura-mazdao, or Ormuzd). He was revealed to Zarathustra and his followers as the Spirit who, for the time being, was turning the light of His countenance on man from the spiritual world, and that it was He Who might be expected to appear in a human body amongst men in the future. It was the Christ, before his appearance on earth, whom Zarathustra proclaimed as the Spirit of Light. On the other hand he represented Ahriman (Angra mainju) as a power working injuriously on the life of the human soul, when it engrosses that soul completely. This power is none other than the one previously described, which had acquired special dominion over the earth since the betrayal of the Vulcan Mysteries. Together with the message concerning the Light God, Zarathustra proclaimed teachings about those spiritual beings who were revealed to the seer's purified perception as associates of the Spirit of Light. These were in strong contrast to the tempters who appeared to that unpurified clairvoyance which was left over from the Atlantean period. It had to be made clear to the ancient Persians that in man's soul, so far as it is engaged in work and endeavor in the physical sense world, a conflict is going on between the power of the Light God and his adversary. It had also to be shown them how man must act so as not to be engulfed by Ahriman, and how to turn his influence to good through the power of the Light God.