Ironically, Lucifer desired to bring knowledge to humanity to keep it from descending further and experiencing what was intended by the higher gods, rather like a hovering parent who tries to shield a child from the rough experiences necessary for its proper development. The net effect has been an overshoot in the opposite direction. By virtue of the Luciferic influence and premature experience, what humanity did experience came as maya, deception about its true spiritual nature. Because it has acted without knowledge of the true spiritual nature of things on Earth, the human being has descended into hardness (Adam, Gen 3,17) beyond that originally envisioned by the Elohim. The overshoot plays into the hands of Ahriman, originally perceived by Zarathustra in the prehistoric Ancient Persian Cultural Age. Esoterically, Lucifer is known as the "Devil" and Ahriman as "Satan," though our modern translations do not properly differentiate the polarity of their domains. We shall see a reflection of their respective natures in Luke's version of the two crucified thieves (Lk 23,39-43), for at Christ's crucifixion Lucifer himself repented (though many of his Luciferic spirits remain unconverted and still menace human beings to this day), while Ahriman did not. Chart I-32 is helpful in understanding the relationship between these two "fallen" spiritual beings and their "legions."⁴⁸ The words of the repentant thief are an earthly reflection of the higher spiritual reality seen by Paul's "beloved" physician, Luke.

One who studies Steiner's works extensively will come upon statements that can, to some extent, raise serious question. An example is the time periods involved in the creation account. The one thing he made clear, which must be obvious to any serious and realistic observer, is that vast periods of time and timelessness are covered in the six days of creation and their implementation into the mineral world, not to mention what came thereafter. Steiner made various and seemingly inconsistent statements about the time factor. Some exploration of these can be found in Dankmar Bosse's 1993 article "How Old is the Earth?" in the Journal of Anthroposophic Medicine, Vol. 11, No. 1, Spring 1994. Probably the best that can be said is that one should approach with caution any statement in terms of years that goes back beyond our post-Atlantean Epoch, or the end of the last great ice age.

For a while this bothered me. However, if one realizes that Steiner's insights were into the spiritual world where there is no element of time, then one can begin to sense its immateriality so long as the events are fairly described in reasonable sequence, though sequence too fades as unity approaches with the spiritualization of matter. To perceive the nature of timelessness or eternity, it may be helpful to look at Goethe's idea of the "archetypal plant." If one sets out to describe a rose, one will likely give a picture of it at a given point in its development. But that is no more a rose than the skin on one's face is the person. To even get close to a description of the rose, one would have to observe it in its complete life cycle from seed to sprout to stem to flower and back to seed again, and then one would only describe its manifestation. The rose is a being in lower devachan whose manifestation is simply "after its kind." In the spiritual world all stages are collapsed into the essence, just as one's life on Earth is later collapsed there in keeping with timelessness or eternity, which prevails.

And so, for now, I leave the reader with what is given above, suggesting that Steiner's original work stands knocking for the seeker who wills to open the door.

One who diligently searches all that eminent scholarship has previously offered in explanation of St. John's Apocalypse must come away feeling that its deep truths have surely eluded detection. To that seeker, Steiner's gift can be a verdant, self-revealing oasis of authenticity. In withdrawing the veil from the biblical mysteries, never did Steiner more forcefully confirm to me his spiritual authority than when he spoke on St. John's Apocalypse. In this, surely he came fully within the spirit of the ancient test of prophecy (Deut 18,22; 1 Cor 14). For the book of Revelation, he is for us the Pharoah's Joseph and Nebuchadnezzar's Daniel, a spiritual interpreter par excellence for our own time. Steiner's primary cycle on the Apocalypse is The Apocalypse of St. John (ASJ) comprising twelve lectures (June, 1908, Nuremberg). Other cycles on it include:

On Apocalyptic Writings, with special reference to the Apocalypse of St. John (AWASJ; 3 Lects., Oct. 1904, Berlin)
The Apocalypse (APOC; 2 Lects., Mar. 1905, Cologne)
Reading the Pictures of the Apocalypse (RPA; 4 Lects., Apr.-May 1907, Munich, and 12 Lects., May 1909, Kristiania)
Occult Seals and Columns (OSC; 1 Lect., May 1907, Munich)
The Book of Revelation and the work of the priest (REVP; 18 Lects., Sept. 5-22, 1924, Dornach)⁴⁹

Much has been written about Revelation. Aside from its baffling imagery, questions of authorship and purpose have been foremost. Whether or not Evangelist John, whoever he was, was its author has been widely debated without consensus. Substantively, it has generally been seen primarily as having had a contemporary, reassuring purpose in the face of persecution. Rome was seen as the chief villain it was directed against and consequently as a primary source of its inspiration.

Just as anthroposophy's explanation obviates the increasingly burdensome baggage of the documentary hypothesis of the creation account, so also does its explanation of the Apocalypse erase the probability that contemporary events prompted it or aid significantly in its interpretation.⁵⁰ And just as questions about the authorship of the John Gospel are cogently resolved in favor of Lazarus/John, so also is authorship of the Bible's concluding book clearly attributable to him. When the character of Lazarus/John's high vision is understood, as well as his activities, locale and longevity, the accuracy of the tradition of identical authorship can be seen to override the various critical analyses to the contrary. See The Disciple Whom Jesus Loved (DWJL), which is based in large part upon the essays "Peter, James and John" and "Egypt" in The Burning Bush. Evangelist John's Revelation can no more be attributed to persecution of himself or others than the "cup" that Christ prayed to have removed from himself in Gethsemane was his Crucifixion. On the latter, see the discussion about this "cup" in Appendix Two of DWJL.