Esoteric Evolution 

Origin and Development of the Earth and Humanity

Introduction

In this part of my website you find in the form of chapters a series of articles that I originally wrote for the periodical Verwachting (Expectation). They are about the subject of Esoteric Evolution. In this introduction I will briefly describe what this means, so that you will get an impression of the breadth of the subjects that will be discussed in the various chapters.

What does "esoteric evolution" mean?

The word "evolution" indicates a process by which something alive develops in cycles to a higher level because something new is continually added to it. In this way progress, development takes place.

With the word "esoteric" is meant that this process originates in divine thought.

"Esoteric Evolution" can therefore be understood to be a cyclical development that originates in and is carried by creative divine thought, and whereby in the course of this development something essentially spiritual comes to manifestation step by step.

Everything has come forth from the Divine

Everything that lives and possesses an outer form we can observe with our physical senses has originally come forth from divine thoughts of creative beings and is maintained by them. This is true for the earth, human beings, animals, and nature, but also for the universe with its planets and solar systems.

If we are open to that idea, we can recognize this spiritual ground everywhere in the outer forms.

It can be seen in the way nature and the cosmos are ordered and formed and radiate wisdom and beauty; and in the fact that we humans are thinking, feeling, and willing beings who possess our own autonomous consciousness and can act with purpose and self-awareness. But we can also see it in the meaningful connection and interaction that exists among all living things, human beings, animals, nature, the cosmos and the spiritual world.

The first chapter shows a conversation from ancient times between the great initiate Hermes Trismegistus and his pupil Asclepius. One of the questions Asclepius asks is: "Is God also present in matter?" Hermes answered this: "Certainly! He is also in matter. What else would it be than a chaotic mass if it would not receive radiations? And if it is cultivated by radiations, then whose are those radiations?"

Ancient secret knowledge

In antiquity, thousands of years before Christ, knowledge of the divine ground of all existence was generally known, but its essence and deeper significance was secret. For that reason, it was kept hidden as esoteric knowledge within the mystery places. Besides initiates, only spiritual pupils on a path to initiation were permitted to absorb this hidden teaching.

Why was that? Because people at that time were in a different phase of development than people today. Evolution was in a process of descent from the spiritual world to an existence on earth—an existence that would lead people to a connection with the earth and to individual autonomy and self-awareness.

In our time, two thousand years after the creative Godhead, Christ, came to the earth and connected himself with humanity through the Mystery of Golgotha, this situation has totally changed.

We are no longer dependent on the divine world the way people in ancient times were.

We have become free and autonomous personalities in whom the Christ power has worked ever since Golgotha. This means that the first great purpose of human evolution has been fulfilled.

New connection with the world of the Spirit

But humanity still has a long way to go. For we are now asked to make another big step on our path of development, namely out of the autonomy and self-awareness we have achieved and with the aid of the inner Christ power, to connect again with the world of the spirit in a new way.

Expressed in different words, this means to develop wisdom and the power of love out of our inner spirit's strength of consciousness. For in the development of freedom and self-awareness lies the actual task of humanity.

In other words, in our time we have to learn to know the spiritual ground that was hidden in former times, and allow it to be.

This task is part of the fact that it is our human destiny to grow to ever higher levels of consciousness and existence, so that at some future time we become creative spiritual beings just like the angels.

Rudolf Steiner

Rudolf Steiner was one of the most important spiritual teachers of our time. In this series about esoteric evolution I am basing myself principally on his spiritual-scientific research.

He saw it as his task to point people to this new path to the spirit, which leads via Christ.

Besides being a natural scientist and philosopher, Rudolf Steiner was also a clairvoyant investigator of the spiritual world. With these capacities he was able to make the connection between the world of the spirit and the world of physical matter that is studied by natural science and that we see around us every day.

In our time, he says, we can learn to observe and know spiritual reality, which works in all that lives and is its source, just as well as the outer, physically observable world.

What is necessary, however, is that you take in what you see or read in an unprejudiced way, that you inwardly live into it and think it through, try to understand it in an inwardly feeling way.

When you do that, the inner sense of truth that lives in every human being shows you the way to truth and deeper insight.

Anthroposophy, spiritual science, and esoteric Christianity

Rudolf Steiner called his spiritual science "Anthroposophy," which means "Wisdom of the Human Being."

The central feature of this spiritual science is the esoteric aspect of Christianity. The connection Christ entered into with humanity and the earth forms the turning point in our human evolution.

From that moment it was possible for humanity to rise to the world of higher spiritual consciousness again.

Rudolf Steiner described the fundamentals of Anthroposophy in several basic books.

In later lectures - which were published in cycles - he often referred to these books. One of the most important and most encompassing works is his book An Outline of Esoteric Science. It contains a detailed sketch of the development process of the earth and humanity.

In addition, he also describes the relationship between humanity and the also developing cosmos.

He also wrote the books Theosophy and How to Know Higher Worlds in which, among other things, he indicates the way you can arrive at spiritual insight yourself.

Consciousness of origin and future

With his extensive spiritual knowledge Rudolf Steiner speaks about the spiritual origin of the world and about the spiritual forces that, through high spiritual beings, work in the development of humanity and the world even today.

He also looks into the future when the earth and humanity will develop again toward a more spiritual existence, after they have gone through the necessary sense-perceptible physical phase.

Human beings, all of us therefore, out of our original, spiritual existence in the spiritual world are on our way on the earth that was prepared for us. In this process, our physical corporeality comes to development, but also our soul life, our I, and our personality.

That is the phase we are in now.

But the way continues. The idea is that through conscious schooling we gradually also develop the higher, spiritual being that lives in us. This spiritual human being in us consists of several aspects that we can develop step by step. In oriental wisdom they are called "manas, buddhi, and atma."

Rudolf Steiner calls them mostly "spirit self, life spirit, and spirit man."

Path of development

In summary, we can say that spiritual evolution shows a gigantic path of development in which the earth, humanity, and nature, from an originally purely spiritual condition, via intermediate stages of warmth-, air-, light-, and watery conditions, descend step by step into the physical-material existence in which we now live.

In the physical-material world human beings learn to go their way in ever new incarnations, always growing to higher states of consciousness, morality, and humanness.

In brief, esoteric evolution shows where we come from, where we are heading, and what the point is of being human.

The task of Anthroposophy

Anthroposophy is the form of esoteric wisdom that, in my view, fits preeminently in our time.

It is its task to awaken our consciousness in a new way to the path of development on which we as humanity are engaged.

With this series about esoteric evolution, I want to contribute to this. Obviously, it cannot be more than a sketch.

In conclusion, it will strike you that there are many repetitions in the text. This was inevitable in the framework of a series of articles that appeared spread over a long period of time.

But perhaps it also helps to look at the often difficult content from different angles.

Margarete van den Brink