“When Paul spoke……., he was pointing to the mighty Event which made such a deep incision into the evolution of man on earth; and indeed, if we would understand history as it truly is, we must come back again and again to this Event. If we look back into pre-Christian times, and especially into those times which possess to a striking degree the characteristic qualities of pre-Christian life, we can feel how different was the whole outlook of men in those days. Not that a complete change took place in a single moment; nevertheless, the Event of Golgotha did bring about an absolute separation of one phase in the evolution of mankind from another. The Event of Golgotha came at the end of a period of evolution during which men beheld, together with the world of the senses, also the spiritual. Incredible as it may appear to modern man it is a fact that in pre-Christian times men saw, together with the sense-perceptible, a spiritual reality. They did not see merely trees, or merely plants, but together with the trees, and together with the plants they saw something spiritual. But as the time of the Event of Golgotha drew near, the civilisation that bore within it this power of vision was coming to an end. Something completely new was now to enter into the evolution of mankind. As long as man beholds the spiritual in the physical things all around him, he cannot have a consciousness which allows the impulse of freedom to quicken within it. The birth of the impulse of freedom is necessarily accompanied by a loss of this vision; man has to find himself deserted by the divine and spiritual when he looks out upon the external world. The impulse of freedom inevitably implies that, if man would again have vision of the spiritual, he must exert himself inwardly and draw it forth from the depths of his own soul.
This is what Paul wanted to reveal to men. He told them how in ancient times, when men were only the race of Adam, they had no need to draw forth an active experience from the depths of their own being before they could behold the divine and spiritual. The divine and spiritual came to them in elemental form, with everything that lived in the air and on earth. But mankind had gradually to lose this living communion with the divine and spiritual in all the phenomena of the world of sense. A time had to come when man must perforce lift himself up to the divine and spiritual by an active strengthening of his own inner life. He had to learn to understand the words: “My kingdom is not of this world.” He was not to be allowed to go on receiving a divine and spiritual reality that came forth to meet him from all sense-phenomena. He had to find the way to a divine and spiritual kingdom that could be reached only by inward struggle and inward development.”
Rudolf Steiner
By looking back through epochs of time dating back to about 7000 years, we can trace the gradual descent of humanity from a spiritual connectedness to the deep state of amnesia we see in our current world age. With each epoch there is a change in the inner nature of humanity. According to Rudolf Steiner and through the lifetime development of his innate super sensory perception, it has been confirmed that the ancient civilizations of both Lemuria and Atlantis were real civilizations.
According to the Akashic Records accessed by Steiner, the continent of Atlantis was destroyed because of humanities misuse of technological/spiritual powers. Those who were not initiated into the sanctity of the powers of creation, used these powers with devastating effect. Only some were spared this destruction, amongst whom were a handful of highly developed personalities or adepts. These adepts led chosen groups into what later became Europe and Asia and, it was these personalities who would be responsible for founding the cultures of the future. The story of Noah and the Arc is the Western version of the story of the great flood that sunk Atlantis. Ancient civilization abound with a culturally relevant equivalent to the story of The Great Flood. The most advanced of the leaders was Noah himself and he landed in central Asia, where a spiritual center was born. It was from this center that the following three post Atlantean periods of civilization were inspired: Ancient India, Ancient Persia and Ancient Egypt/Chaldea/Babylonia/Assyria. Following these three epochs was the epoch of Greece/Rome and the present or fifth post-Atlantean epoch.
Through these epochs human beings have moved from being at one with the spiritual impulse from which we come, to becoming more and more hardened and disconnected from it. This so-called separation or development of humanity as an autonomous being is what has been responsible for the move away from the power of God over man toward the power of man over nature. This move has been a necessary one because it is precisely from this place of autonomy that we are able to choose moral action. Humanity must now grapple with and self realise his spiritual nature, we no longer have direct spiritual vision, rather our spiritual vision must be forged out from within.
