Spiritual Economy, Page 2

While vast earlier migrations had taken place to lands newly arising out of the sea, “toward the end of the Atlantean era a group of advanced human beings was formed in the vicinity of what is today Ireland.” Manu foresaw the impending catastrophe and set about to prepare for the preservation of the “Seed” that would go into the post-Atlantean Epoch. He “chose the best people in order to lead them into a special land. They were plain and simple people who were different from most other Atlanteans in that they had almost completely lost their clairvoyance. . . . The advanced people in Atlantis had begun to develop their intellect, yet they were simple people who possessed inner warmth and were deeply devoted to their leader. He took this select group east to the center of Asia, where he founded the center of the post-Atlantean culture” (SE, Lect. 1).

It is important to realize that this group was quite separate from those who had migrated earlier, before they had gathered up all that Atlantean culture was subsequently to develop. These earlier migrations to what is today the Far East were the ancestors of today’s Orientals. The origin of the differences between East and West can be seen from this, and is discussed at some length in The Evolution of the Earth and Man (EVEM), Lect. 5. But the group Manu led to central Asia was “kept in isolation from the human beings who were unsuited to the task.”

Manu accomplished the task of preserving the part of Atlantean culture that was to be carried over into the new epoch by a mysterious process of preserving the etheric bodies of the greatest leaders of the seven oracles. The process is described in the parallel accounts in SE, Lect. 1, and RPA, Lect. 2. While normally the etheric body dissipates into thegeneral etheric world upon the passage of a decedent from the etheric to the astral world between lives, the law of spiritual economy provides for the preservation of the etheric (or other) body of one who has rather fully perfected it. After Manu had preserved the etheric body of the greatest initiate of each of these seven oracles, he set about to develop “the seven most outstanding people from his group” who “had the best aptitude for present-day culture” and caused the preserved etheric bodies to be brought forward into these. In Lect. 3 Steiner tells us more about the preservation and transplantation of the etheric bodies:

While leading His small group of simple people to Asia, He carried the etheric bodies of the seven most significant initiates of Atlantis with Him. Such a thing is possible through the methods that had been developed in the mystery centers. You have to visualize this as purely a spiritual process and not in the way as if one could wrap up etheric bodies and put them into boxes for safekeeping. What is certain, however, is that etheric bodies can be preserved for later times. . . .

When a human being is descending to a new incarnation, he must envelop himself again with a new etheric body. Now, through the methods alluded to above, it is perfectly possible to weave into this new etheric body an old one that was preserved. And so after a diligent educational process, when the time had come, there were to emerge from the immigrants and their descendants seven individuals whose souls at their birth were sufficiently prepared to have the preserved etheric bodies of the seven greatest initiates of the Atlantean Oracles woven into their own etheric bodies. . . .

Thus we see not only that the ego but also that the second member of the supersensible constitution—the etheric body—is capable of reincarnation. The seven individuals from among the followers of the Great Initiate of the Sun Oracle were inspired human beings simply by the fact that they had received these etheric bodies containing the forces and powers of the Atlantean era. At certain times their etheric bodies were capable of letting the forces stream into themselves that unveiled the mysteries of the Sun, Mars, Saturn, and so forth. Hence they appeared to be inspired individuals, but their utterances certainly exceeded anything their astral bodies or egos were able to understand.

It was these seven who became the “seven holy rishis” of the Ancient Indian Cultural Age, and they were the seven Manu led over in the Genesis account of Noah. Manu himself was the greatest of the Sun Oracle leaders, over and above the seven. The seven were simple men, no one of whom understood the collective wisdom that came by revelation through them, but collectively they constituted what led the new Cultural Age. The one with the etheric body from the Sun Oracle leadership was always the preeminent one of the group, but none was equal to the great Manu. Even the collective seven could not grasp the exalted wisdom of the Sun Oracle as it came to him.