Creation and Apocalypse, Page Nine

Those who do not attain the twelvehood of the zodiacal state of consciousness during Earth evolution will gradually, through their allegiance to materiality, the "beast," take upon themselves, their "foreheads," the "mark of the beast."⁶⁰ Steiner tells us that in our time, the fifth Cultural Age of the post-Atlantean Epoch, the human being is able to deceive others by outward appearance and word. But the time will come, in the Age of Philadelphia (Rev 3,7-13; see I-25), when those who do not have the "name" of Christ, the "I Am," written upon their foreheads will commence to have the "mark of the beast" there. As human evolution progresses, the outward appearance will begin to reveal the inner character of the human being in the next Cultural Era, when deception will no longer be possible. It should be sobering to realize, however, that by failing to take into the self the knowledge offered by anthroposophy, including that of karma and reincarnation, something priceless is lost which will be detrimental in the individual's future evolutionary development (indicated by the parable of the talents). The failure to recognize these spiritual truths when presented is abetted by the influence of the beast of materiality, Ahriman. While Steiner characterizes the beast in Rev 13,18 (whose number is 666) as "Sorath," the "Sun-demon," it must be assumed, it would seem, that he is either one and the same as, or closely allied with, the Ahriman whom Zarathustra in Ancient Persia saw as the opponent of the then Sun-Spirit, Christ, the Ahura Mazdao or Ormuzd, or "Great Aura" of the Sun. (For Ahriman, see the "Overview" in The Burning Bush, as well as 12 Brit 934-936, "Zoroaster" and "Zoroastrianism.") Lucifer, the serpent in Genesis 3, was thrown down from heaven to tempt humans on Earth (Gen 3,14) at the time of the Fall. Through his deception about the real nature of creation, he plays into the hands of Ahriman, the beast of materiality or of those who see mineral-physical existence as reflecting that reality. Lucifer himself repented as Christ hung upon the Cross, but his legions continue to deceive. Nevertheless, because of Lucifer's conversion, it is not he who is referred to as the beast, but Ahriman, the "sun-demon." Lucifer was a fallen spiritual being, but Ahriman was also a spiritual being who had fallen from one higher hierarchical rank (see I-32), thus having much greater power. Michael, the prince of the Sun, fights against this beast. The account of Michael's battle against the dragon (Rev 12,7-17), as is typical of scripture, is applicable to various battles fought by Michael, the Sun-prince, in the heavens. It also applied to the battle with Lucifer when the latter was thrown down. More recently, it applied to the throwing down of the two-horned beast (Rev 13,11) in the nineteenth century in the decades just before Michael's reign on Earth began in 1879 (see The Archangel Michael [ARCHM], Lect. 7). Materiality began to rear its uniquely ugly head during such time in particular reference to the human Consciousness Soul.

However, the beast that the "Sun-demon" aggrandizes (Rev 13,12) and makes the Earth's inhabitants worship is the beast "with ten horns and seven heads" (Rev 13,1). In ASJ, Lects. 9 and 10, Steiner shows us how this "beast" is the human being who fails to take the higher "I Am," the "name" of Christ, into its being. In these excellent lectures Steiner indicates that in the language of the mysteries the term "head" refers to what is in the formative and creative etheric body while "horn" is what arises in the physical body that develops out of an etheric head. The human being's organs are "horns" that have arisen in the physical body because of the prior activity of the etheric heads. In other words, "physical organs . . . are really densified etheric organs" (Lect. 9). In Lect. 10, Steiner shows at considerable length how the "ten horns and seven heads" describes us as human beings today in our present physical-etheric constitution. Near the end of the lecture he summarizes as follows:

If we regard the outer human form as the condensed part of the etheric, we have in the fourth Atlantean age the four horns in addition to the four group soul heads [he has explained these four as being the four group souls described in Rev 4,7]. Now, however, in the last three ages of Atlantis something twofold begins to develop physically. [Obviously the etheric preceded the physical development in this regard; furthermore we need to remember that every human being is now both male and female, the etheric body of a male being female and that of the female being male.] At each stage where a group soul head was to develop, a double physical, male and female, was formed. In the first four stages you find man formed with four heads, the condensed etheric with four horns. We now have three more heads which are invisible because the external human form absorbs them. These three are only perceptible to clairvoyant vision, three etheric heads, the principal human heads, and in between them two others which are like shadows beside each, like double shadows. Thus when the Atlantean Flood burst, we have seven race or group soul heads, of which the last three always appear in such a way that they have their physical part in a double form, as male and female. From this you see that at the end of the Atlantean epoch the entire group soul nature of man-although the later portion remains invisible-has seven heads and ten horns. The horns of the first four heads are not separated into male and female, but only the last three.

The last paragraph of the lecture goes on to explain that the human being who is able to take the higher "I AM" into its being during Earth evolution will be able to overcome sexuality, whereas the hardened ones who have stressed the "flesh" or material aspects of existence will keep the full component of sexual nature and will appear, at the time of "666" (Rev 13,18) as the beast with the seven heads and ten horns. The 666 is actually the Sun-demon, but the "human number" refers to the hardened and still sexually divided human beings who are served by that "beast"; these are the humans who have the "mark of the beast."⁶¹

In the "Lord of Karma" essay, item 5 in the discussion of the "little apocalypse" (Mt 25,31-46; Mk 13,26-27; Lk 21,36) took special note of "the misfortune of being with child in those days" (Mt 24,19; Mk 13,17; Lk 21,23). That discussion is most enlightening on the necessity of humanity's evolution now moving to the state where the male and female elements again become one within the human being, as they were in the beginning (Gen 1,27; Mt 19,4; Mk 10,6), before their separation in Gen 2,18-24. The joinder together in marriage at our present stage is only symbolic of what must happen within each human being in times to come.

In this regard alone, that aspect of materiality reflected by our modern preoccupation with sex must surely be seen as an ominous development. One can even see the recognition of this in Paul's emphasis upon the celibate state, not to mention the imposition (prematurely?) upon the clergy in the Roman Catholic faith.

Rev 11,3 refers to "two witnesses," and what follows clearly identifies them as Elijah and Moses. We have already seen in the "Peter, James and John" essay the extent to which Lazarus/John carried the Elijah being within him down as far as his Consciousness Soul. It is hard, from an anthroposophical standpoint, not to extend something of the same character into the relationship between the Moses being and Paul. Moses gave Israel its law. Christ revised that so as to bring it in keeping with, and thus to fulfill (Mt 5,17-48), the higher karmic law, of which Paul says the law of Moses is but a "shadow" (Heb 10,1). Paul dwells with greatest emphasis upon the consequence of this, especially in Romans and Galatians, but then in a most exalted way in Hebrews. Some respected anthroposophists have previously come to the conclusion that the Individuality of Moses and Paul is one. Given the karmic law that "each individual who accomplishes something in the service of the Guiding Powers of the world must, after a certain time, perform a similar deed in consequence of it, but in such a way now that it appears like the opposite pole of the first," Paul would be the obvious personality of the Christian era to embody the Moses Individuality, a la the Steiner/Aristotle thread (see "Pillars on the Journey" in The Burning Bush). And given that the majority of the New Testament comes from these two "witnesses"⁶² who "stand before the Lord of the earth" (Rev 11,4) in their "written word," we may well ponder that it is so if we are to judge the trees by their fruit.

With no more than what has been attempted in this essay, one should begin to comprehend the majestic sweep of the Bible from Genesis 1 to Revelation 22—and more than that to see that even within it are indications, in the works of Christ's two special initiates, Lazarus/John and Paul, that the Alpha goes back further than Genesis 1 and the Omega stretches beyond Revelation 22&3151;and that those upon whose forehead his "name," the "I Am," is written shall become a part of that timelessness called eternity from which they came.